Careful Not To Break Reality

Rydel felt foolish, yet he does not know where things went wrong. From his point of view, the women in front of him is beautiful, calm, strategic, maybe even dangerous. From her previous non-chalant behavior and the fact that she issued a challenge towards him for the sake of proving her strength, he should have known something was up. But the many days around normal training has dulled his senses rather than strengthen them when it comes to perception of strengths.

Back when he was surrounded by artifact users, he simply can not underestimate anybody, as each and everyone of those people have the power to rip him in half without much thought, then in both the special forces and in the first few weeks at the academy, most of the people around are near peak fitness and performance, though no one is as dangerous as before, and that is to be expected.

However, none of those knowledge accounted for how and why Rydel is getting overpowered in this very scenario by someone he perceived to be just a normal human female. He didn't skip his strength training for sure, as strength as a major part of combat especially once everybody is on the similar skill levels, and he just enjoyed the training to begin with.

But if Rydel's one that never skips strength, the blonde in front of him is one that doubles up on it. Knowing that he lost this battle, and that there is no way he can disarm and defeat her through shear strength, Rydel gave her one last shove before guiding both her arms to his side, taking one step forward across her body and spinning into a body slam.

But before Rydel actually created enough of an momentum to fully lift her up, the blonde simply stepped around his foot and kneed him hard in the back. The pain exploded from the point of impact and radiates outwards, causing him to fall forward while releasing his grip on the blonde.

Rydel gasped for air as the pain echoed within him, and the protecting mechanism of his suit began to kick in. He turned around, limping, and saw the blonde standing ready with a smirk on her face.

She is strong, and she knew it.

'This is too easy, what's the point of this?' The brunette commented as she gave Roloni another scare as he tried to sneak away towards the vehicle that contains the data core of their own target. Now that the drivers are being taken care of, maybe they can even drive off in the capture vehicle. That should count as a successful run, since the objective is to obtain the data core of the target?

'I heard that these two are the ones that did the best against Gold, so I want to see what they are like.' the blonde turned and explained to her sister, 'though those rumors might have just been rumors.'

'Well that's not fair.' Rydel shrugged and appeared not affected despite the tingling now travelling into his h.i.p.s, 'those are different scenarios, we have guns and teamwork AND you caught me by surprise.'

As he continued to taunt her, he is also working quickly to formulate a plan of attack. She is strong, fast and agile. She is quite light, however, as even Rydel couldn't quite land his attack, he did lift her up briefly before she breaks lose. This might be something he can use, though he still haven't figured out what exactly to do.

To flip the battle, he also needs to surprise her.

Create an opening, invite her in and then perform the take down? Rydel thought back to his brief yet long and strenuous training with Dolon up in the War Game custom-made room, and one thing she constantly stressed about is how actual battles are not drawn out, and the fact that most are decided way before actual contacts are made. That is true until a certain point, as the reaction speed of the combatants are increased to superhuman levels by various enhancements, spontaneous reaction and counterattack will become more available compared to the conventional pre-planned sequences doing most of the work.

Despite this, Rydel knew that the blonde isn't at this level, because if she had, he would have already been taken down. She is fast, but not that fast. The speed he was thinking of is about how Gold reacted to a point blank attack at him while being surprised by Roloni switching off his shield generator. The activation of his artifact was instantaneous.

'You are very strong, how do you get to this level?' Rydel is genuinely curious, and he also hoped that the stalling would allow his body to heal even by the slightest bit. Though all he felt is the tightening of his back and the stiffness that made him felt like he had just been stuffed into a crowded space craft for two days.

'I train, I fight, and I evolve.' Surprisingly, she provided the answer, though her attitude made it clear that she hated having the source of her power misunderstood, 'the physiological enhancements was part of it, but don't you dare take away from what I have done.'

'Strength is nothing without control, movements and timing.' Rydel agreed wholeheartedly. He has read about the actual change caused by the enhancements, and the surface level improvements have to be carefully controlled and reintegrated into one's set of movements, or one will simply get thrown off balance with all of the extra strength and power. The effects is even more prevalent after nanotechnology enhancements, which is why Gold spent all that time to get everything back under control.

'Ah, so you do know it. Enough talking, show me your strength!' The blonde is pleasantly surprised by Rydel's response, though the smile went away as quickly as it appeared. She cautiously approached Rydel, then attacked furiously with two quick jabs. Rydel barely had time to react to it and stepped back quickly out of the range of the attack. He still haven't figured out how to truly catch her by surprise, so now he just have to make sure he doesn't get cut down too quickly.

Then, he knew what to do. Something out of the ordinary, something crazy.

Liking driving into a trap at seventy miles an hour.

Like jumping out of a car at that speed.

Like trusting a crazy Aquarian when it comes to battle decisions.

Rydel looked at Roloni, who's also looking at him.

He smiled. It's time for a homage.

'You are wide open!' The blonded yelled as she send in a lightning quick stab towards his left shoulder, and in a fashion similar to when Naruto reactivated his sage mode and broke away the impending chakra rod with his b.a.r.e palms, which is also the inspiration as to why Rydel named his glove the glove of summoning to begin with, Rydel kept his fingers stretched, palms open and simply gently sends his left hand forward.

The soft, silver metallic glove of summation kissed the blunted tip of the blade, and shattered it into countless pieces that ejected materials in all directions. The blonde's eyes opened up as she looked at Rydel as he grabbed onto her still extended wrist, planted his feet hard and slammed her into the ground!

She didn't have time to react in time like before, when they fought for control for a good few seconds. All of this happened in the blink of an eye, and before she could realise what's happening, Rydel twisted her arms behind her back and kicked away the other blade.

With the opening he created with his glove, Rydel managed the take down. He then made a shape of a pistol with his right hand, pressed against the back of her head and mouthed the sound of a pistol firing.

'Pew. I win.'

The blonde conceded after tyring to fight for control, though Rydel made sure to pin her body down with his heavy frame at the key locations so that she wouldn't have any leverage to use and flip him off. After that, Rydel leapt off her and took one of the blade from the ground.

She rolled around, her beautiful face all dusted up, though she looked at Rydel with a brand new attitude, her eyes showed a mixture of anger, shame, respect and a hint of admiration, though Rydel is fairly certain he just made up the last one.

'What the hell was that?' She asked, though the hint of anger became ever bigger with each word she spit out. She pointed at Rydel's left hand.

'Ah, that's just a augmentation, for spiritual purposes.' Rydel lied through his teeth, and it became so natural that he doesn't even feel uncomfortable anymore. He can feel Roloni staring at him, but he didn't say anything.

'You cheated!' A sharp voice came from behind, and Rydel turned only to see the brunette marching angrily towards him with an accusing finger stuck in his face, Rydel couldn't really dispute that, though he did start with a two to zero weapons disadvantage.

'Quiet!' The blonde stopped the rampage of her sister as she brought herself up, Rydel turned around yet again and saw she approaching him, her voice now calmer as she become more composed, 'I saw the glove the begin with. I just didn't know what it can actually do.'

'Hmph!' The brunette turned her head away, and refused to acknowledge Rydel, though he didn't really care. In contrast, the blonde leaned in closer and lowered her voice.

'You may have won this time, but if you are seeking Gold's artifact, you'd better prepare yourself for defeat. I will not allow our plans to be trampled by some outsider.'

The anger was tangible, and the threat was real.

'Don't worry, I am not interested in Gold.' Rydel said quietly, 'I can't say the same for others, but perhaps you should direct your anger towards the older years.'

She was rather surprised by what Rydel said, though she nodded appreciatedly and stepped back, reaching a hand out.

'My name is Valerie. You have won, so you may proceed.'

'Rold.' Rydel nodded a thanks and started walking towards Roloni and the last vehicle around, ignoring the glare from Valerie's sister. She is trouble, Rydel noted to himself, I need to be wary.

'What the hell happened?' Roloni asked curiously as they walked at an ever increasing pace towards the vehicle, scanned in the data core of their target and drove off.

'They are here for revenge, and they wanted to target all of us who had a potential to getting the artifacts.' Rydel explaiend, though Roloni hopped over to the back of the vehicle to check for weapons and ammo, 'they have a personal beef with one who took the artifact from their father, apparently, so anyone who might be a threat to that is a threat to them. At least that's what I understood.'

'Right.' Roloni sat up straight, thought about it, then returned to his work, 'well let's pierce that glacier when we get there.'

When the pair drove to the finishing point of the land based pilotmania, to their surprise there are only ten vehicle bays being prepared, meaning there are only at most twenty people left. The forest of death really swallowed up most of the contestants, and they didn't see anyone familiar within the list of names of survivors. Most of the parking bays are already empty, meaning that the other survivors have gotten a head start in the second stage. Rydel just hope the delay by Valerie wasn't too costly, or all of the effort would have been for naught.

So apparently driving off your opponent's vehicle is allowed, seeing how few people actually survived to this stage, and the umpire simply waved his hand and let Rydel and Roloni be. When they boarded the water vehicle, the second stage of the pilotmania brief was shown.

'Good job for making to the second stage. The aim of this goal is to get to the one of the airfields on the far side of the ocean as quickly as possible and take off.'

The instruction was even simpler than before, and Rydel had an even worse feeling.

'So, do you want to drive?' He asked the Aquarian, who can barely hide his excitement. After diving into the driver's seat, he fluently switched on the controls, and lead the vehicle onward towards the seemingly endless ocean.

The ocean water here isn't actually water, but a different kind of natural inert chemical that maintains a liquid form. If humans and Aquarians stayed in it for too long, their skins will begin to complain, but overall it's not the worst pool to be in in this galaxy. Rydel opened the map from the watercraft's computer, and looked at it.

From twenty kilometers onwards, there are about eight different airfields located one kilometers from each other. They are spread out in a circular pattern and Rydel imagined that the name of the game would be to get to an unoccupied airfield first and quickly take control of one of the aircrafts.

Now, this is a race.

'Roloni, let's go to the closest one, and see what's happening.' Rydel plotted a course, which is just a straight line, onto the front screen, and Roloni drove the boat in a blaze of glory and speed towards their destination.

It didn't take too long before the wind and waves began to take their toll on the speed of the boat, as the watercraft bounces up and down as it crashes through the intense waves, Roloni didn't even hesitate to being it underwater, despite the human conventional wisdom of keeping it above. Rydel didn't say anything, but rather let the Aquarian do what he is best at. As the storm brews overhead and clouds began to gather, the visibility on the surface isn't going to be much help to them.

The actual journey was only supposed to take half an hour, but the delay pushed things back so that it took a good fifty minute for them to arrive at their destination. As they emerged from the depths towards the surface, the airfield turns out to just be a floating platform in the middle of the raging water. The nearest one is already empty, most likely being snatched off by the one that finished the first round first. Rydel looked up through the top window and saw a flicker of light from straight above. They have taken off, but they are not that far off.

'Should we loop around, or go straight to the other side?' Rydel remember Roloni asking this question before them even got close to the loop, and Rydel thought about the question carefully. There was enough time before they actually arrived at the circle of platforms to plan about what's going to happen if the first few platforms are already being taken. The instinct would be to turn to the side and go to the closest platform they could get to, but if that is also taken, then there is a rather high risk of them simply chasing around the circ.u.mference of the circle until they get to one that's empty.

That's leaving way too much up to chance and everyone else. It would be the best to cross the circle as fast as they can to get to the other side.

Roloni didn't hesitate to drive off, and they charged through the waters like the spear of Poseidon. Behind them, some of the platforms to the sides also have aircrafts launching off one by one, the exhaust from the rockies leaving a track of particles behind before the storms swallowed it whole.

As they got closer and closer to the platform on the opposite side, Rydel looked to his side, and saw another watercraft also going in the same direction. He can barely see them through the peaks and troughs of the waves, though the beams of light was a dead giveaway.

They are also going for the platform that's the furthest from the starting point.

'Um, Roloni, it's time for you to shine.' Rydel poked the pilot gently in one of his hands, and he turned to look at the victims of his next maneuver. An evil laugh came from underneath his exoskeleton, and the madness that is Pilotmania continues.

With a quick turn and dive, their craft disappeared from the surface and cut across as quickly as they can towards their unsuspecting foe. Those people are obviously not doing too well in this waters and it is shown clearly through the zigzagging path they are taken. Aquarians are adept at piloting in horrible waters, so it does not nearly impact them as much.

'Human pilots.' Roloni said in a disappointing tone, though he was joking, some of the jokes felt real, 'no offense to you, just that you guys can't drive water crafts.'

'Oh come on now, give me a break.' Rydel punched him as they showed up from underneath that craft, and straight ran into it! They tried to evade to the side as the radar screamed, but it was all a useless gesture as Roloni perfectly predicted where they are dodging towards, and easily bumped and tilted their water craft upside down.

There seemed to be a mad scramble within that watercraft, and Roloni used this opportunity to get an insurmountable lead in this part of the race and took them to the platform, where an empty aircraft is locked in place.

With that, the last of the aircrafts are taken, and only eight pairs remains in the game.