The sizzling heat of a laser beam created a sound not unlike thunder when it passed close to one's head. Probably due to the super-heating of the air around it. Thankfully, noise dampening systems in the Exeter suit prevented that loud clap from deafening Church as he barely avoided a blue beam of energy fired at him by one Cecilia Alcott.
It was one of the few shots he had actually managed to avoid thus far, though it was more accurate to say that Cerberus was doing it. With lasers being nigh instantaneous attacks, a mere human like Church, augmented with technology though he may have been, lacked the reflexes to properly avoid them. Having learned that quite quickly after eating some shots at the start of this test, he had handed the role of evasion off to Cerberus, whose thought processes were fast enough to predict the next incoming shot rather than dodge it after it had been fired. It was working pretty well so far.
Still, as Church felt his body yanked around by the Exeter suit a second time for another dodge, he couldn't help but find the whole thing unsettling. It wasn't that Cerberus was controlling his body, so much as a shell around his body. It was like being pulled around by puppet strings, having his body moved with such force despite there being no input from himself. Still, considering how useful it was, Church would definitely just have to get used to it.
Church aimed a gauntlet mounted machine gun at one of Cecilia's BITS as it flew by, unleashing a hail of bullets in its path to intercept it. The barrage clipped the tail end of the flying drone, sending it spiraling into the ground before exploding. Another BIT had suffered such a fate already, so Cecilia only had two left to harass him with. Once that was out of the way, she'd be hard-pressed to win a one on one fight against the Exeter suit.
Frankly, Church couldn't help but wonder what he was even needed for at this point. He was manually operating the weapons right now, but what was stopping Cerberus from handling that as well? Was a human pilot even needed for combat? Church liked to think there was some appreciation for the human element over at Umbra Stratum, but that was just a thought on his part. Maybe the issue was that Cerberus couldn't act autonomously, and the people in charge hadn't programmed it to develop such autonomy. It was understandable why people wouldn't want self-functioning AI, considering the Gospel incident.
Cerberus forced the suit to flip over another laser beam from Cecilia's rifle, which prompted an annoyed comment from the blonde over open comms. "I think I underestimated just how much of an annoying gnat you are..."
Not terribly long ago, Church would have believed that Cecilia was actually equating him to a bug in all seriousness. But now, he believed that she only partially meant such insults. It had been a week since the group shopping trip in the city, in which he had gotten Cecilia to tone down her disdain significantly. They definitely still didn't exist on particularly friendly terms, but the handful of times they had talked this past week, she had been less blatantly hostile.
Of course, that didn't stop her from trying to poke holes in his body with that rifle of hers, as a miscalculation on Cerberus' part resulted in a glancing hit to the shoulder that did not entirely negligible shield damage.
Cerberus, could you not let that happen? Evading fire is your job!
Being a computer does not mean I can guarantee perfect evasion every time. Besides, you should keep in mind that I.S. units also have computers. All calculations are merely best estimates, not infallible.
Since he couldn't quite refute any of that, Church simply stayed silent as he returned fire at Blue Tears with a few missiles. She was hanging far above him in the sky, that being the best vantage point for a sniper like her. Ordinarily, it wouldn't be that difficult to pressure a dedicated long range fighter and close the distance, but unfortunately, as long as her BITS were around to act as a screen, the whole process became a lot more complicated. In any one on one scenario with Blue Tears, the name of the game was destroying the BITS before you were knocked out by long range fire.
With that in mind, Church rocketed after one of the BITS that had just made a pass on him, though its laser fire had been deftly evaded. Unlike Blue Tears itself, the BITS were actually quite fast, not to mention incredibly maneuverable. But they were also very fragile, with almost no shielding to speak of, and being far too small to possess significant armor. A fragile speedster like that was easily handled by certain types of weapons, namely the flak canister gun pods that manifested on Exeter's shoulders.
Firing rapid salvos of shells that detonated when near targets meant that Church didn't have to aim precisely. He just had to get the shells somewhat close to the target, which was fairly easy to do. And considering the fragile nature of Cecilia's BITS, even small area of effect attacks like this one were pretty effective, resulting in another shot down BIT in a few moments.
He wondered how much it costed to replace these things every time they were destroyed.
Cerberus forced the suit into another spiraling maneuver, but this time, it was to dodge a missile from the skirt of Blue Tears itself, the blast of which was greatly dampened by protective systems. However, Cecilia had clearly not intended for this missile to hit him, judging by the direct hit to his back by her beam rifle in the middle of Church's evasive maneuver, which launched him into the dirt.
This was what made Cecilia such a good sniper: she was predictive, rather than reactive. She didn't just take shots based on what the enemy did, she also forced her opponent into a position in which she could land a good shot. That sounded simple, but it was not easy to force the opponent into a maneuver, accurately predict that maneuver, and fire into it with precision. Her BITS weren't actually intended to do much damage on their own: they were supposed to force the enemy into situations where her main weapon could go to work.
And go to work it did. A concentrated beam weapon was very powerful, especially against shields. Church's shields were already at 27%, and he had only sustained a few glancing hits and a single direct hit. It was nothing to sneeze at.
That said, Cecilia only had one BIT left, so instead of even maneuvering again, Church put as much power into the thrusters as he could and rocketed from the ground and directly towards his opponent. With enhanced vision due to the suit, he could see the look of panic on her face as she recognized almost instantly that he would be too fast for her to maintain distance from if he was going full throttle.
This was the big flaw with Blue Tears. On the surface, the tactic made a lot of sense: keep the enemy at bay with a fighter screen while a big gun in the back took them out. And while Cecilia's big gun was certainly up to snuff, her fighter screen was not. Her BITS were nimble and had decent firepower, but there were just too few of them, and they didn't have enough durability. Not only could they be destroyed relatively easily, but it was like a football team at half size trying to defend a quarterback: there were too many gaps in the defense for an opponent to exploit, and once that opponent was close to Cecilia, her main weapon lost much of its viability, as did her whole machine.
This was made obvious by less accurate fire from her once Church was extremely close: the long barrel of her rifle was more difficult to maneuver quickly when the range of her enemy required large shifts in degrees. Soon enough, Church had sliced the barrel of that rifle in twain with Chrysaor, rendering it inoperable. There wasn't much Cecilia could do about it.
"D-damn it!"
Withdrawing as much as she could, which wasn't much since Church was faster than her, Cecilia clearly scrambled for some sort of solution to her problem. It would take some time for her rifle to be repaired even if she digitized it again, and she literally only had one BIT left, along with the missile pods on her skirt. None of that was going to be very effective at the range she was forced to fight in right now.
Frankly, Church felt that Cecilia was kind of being forced into an unfair situation in all of these organized matches. Sparring like this required her to abide by a particular airspace designated by the match organizer. The arbitrary limitation of airspace was a huge hindrance for a sniper like Cecilia, whose ideal battle strategy would have been to hang out miles away from the target and snipe them from complete safety. It seemed to Church that Blue Tears had been designed with actual combat in mind, and not the arbitrary limits of arena matches for sport.
Unfortunately, that put Cecilia in a very bad place more often than not. It was honestly a testament to how good she really was, considering how well she performed even in a combat environment that was practically never in her favor. Probably had something to do with how she refused to accept defeat even when faced with poor odds, which was why she launched two more missiles at Church from her close range.
But missiles really weren't a close range weapon. Even the best turning missiles would have a hard time following a target in such close quarters, which was why Church was able to speed past them before they could converge, closing the distance faster than Blue Tears could reverse away from him. To her credit, Cecilia ignored her total lack of melee options when Church got close, opting to try and simply smash him away with the limbs of her I.S., but it was obvious that she had next to no experience in that kind of fighting, and on top of that, Exeter was a very small and nimble target.
That was why it was easy for Church to land three hits with Chrysaor after dodging a clumsy metal fist, which were the first strikes he had managed to land on Cecilia directly thus far, not including a few glancing blows from earlier munitions. That was all the time he had before he was forced to twist away from Blue Tears for a moment in order to evade fire from her last remaining BIT. Naturally, Cecilia tried to use this opportunity to get some distance, but Church was quick to follow her, since CQC was his best advantage.
It was pretty obvious that the match was going to come to a close soon if Cecilia didn't do something to turn the tide, but even so, Church was surprised when he closed in again, only to find one of her missile barrels pointed directly at him at point blank range. With scarcely a meter between them, the blast would definitely catch Cecilia as well, but there was also no chance that it would miss. It was pretty metal, honestly.
But before the blonde could pull the mental trigger, the klaxon that signaled the end of a match blared throughout the stadium. Church had managed to connect with one more stab from Chrysaor before Cecilia could fire, dropping her shields to zero. It had only taken a few hits, but a plasma blade did a lot of damage to shields.
Well aware of what had happened after a moment of consideration, Cecilia expressed her displeasure. "Bollocks! Ugh..."
With the test over, the two of them descended to the ground, at which point they both allowed their machines to dissipate into motes of light. This left Church in regular clothes, but Cecilia in the skin-tight blue suit that she favored. Church had no complains about the disparity.
"So, I seem to recall that beating you in a fight was something you were really looking for in a guy when it comes to respect, right?"
Her arms crossed in annoyance, Cecilia made it clear how she felt about that. "Oh no, I've moved past such a low standard. It's not that easy for you."
"Hold on, you "moved past" that standard in a week?"
"You have no one to blame but yourself. After all, you're the one who made it sound so ridiculous."
Church sighed at this, finding it hard to tell how much progress he was making with this girl. He still felt like things were better than they were a week ago, but it also still felt like he had to claw for every inch of acceptance from her. Granted, it wasn't like that acceptance was really that important in the grand scheme of things, but he would have liked to have it regardless.
Soon after their brief exchange, some light clapping erupted from the nearby stands. This came from Rin, who "finally" had both of her arms available to her. It sounded weird to say that, considering that she had broken that arm very recently. Whatever crazy medical shit Tabane had accidentally created had worked wonders over the past week or so, even though Rin's arm was still very feeble by her own admittance.
Unlike Cecilia or any of the other girls really, Church's relationship with Rin had gone very well thus far. He supposed it had already been going pretty well considering that she had let him sleep in her room and cooked for him, but Church had initially considered those mere favors beholden to him because of particular circumstances. Over the past week though, Rin had made pretty good effort to at least speak to him every day, even if it was only through text once or twice. It really did seem like she was actually invested in being friends, though sometimes Church wondered if she was just rebounding off of him following some mishap with Ichika.
She was the only one in the stands right now. Even though her arm was no longer outright broken, the brunette still wasn't cleared for I.S. operation. As for the other girls, Cecilia was only here because Chifuyu had told her to be. Charlotte had seemingly been avoiding Church this past week, no doubt due to the awkward air between them from a certain encounter. Laura had actually been relatively friendly during this time, never going out of her way to find Church but willingly engaging in conversation with him whenever they ran into each other. Even so, she had other matters more pressing than observing a test.
Then there was Houki... unfortunately for the mission, Church had very little opportunity to push their relationship any further over the past week. Not for lack of trying: he tried to initiate some sort of contact with her whenever it was appropriate, but the Japanese girl clearly treated such encounters as polite formalities. She entertained him because it was the nice thing to do, but she wasn't interested in actually making anything of them, as best as Church could tell. She was too laser focused on Ichika, most of the time.
All of that being said, Church's position wasn't noticeably better now than it was a week ago, but he was just shy of two weeks into the operation, so he wasn't that disappointed. This type of deep cover stuff usually didn't go particularly quickly. Cerberus had complained about that reality a number of times, but there wasn't a whole lot to be done about it.
Rin's sarcastic clapping was obviously meant for Cecilia. "Pretty sad, Cecilia. Getting shown up by the new guy and all that."
The blonde grit her teeth while no doubt thinking of some sort of ideal retort, but Church was a little quicker to speak. "I think Cecilia did very well considering the inherent disadvantages she has to face as a long range fighter in an arbitrarily confined space. And the willingness to blow us both up at the end was pretty cool. Not to mention, aren't you also insulting me if you're implying that being beaten by me is demeaning...?"
There was a slight blush on Cecilia's cheeks as she backed up Church's statement. "I-indeed, I have to work much harder for my success, all things considered. And... it would be rude to imply that losing to Church is worth mocking. He's quite adept."
For his part, Church was utterly flabbergasted by something from Cecilia that could have been interpreted as a compliment. But maybe it was just quid pro quo, since he had complimented her first. Either way, Rin didn't seem to find anything about the exchange noteworthy.
"I'll be the judge of that when I fight him. So far, I haven't really been impressed. I'm the queen of close combat: Houki doesn't count, she's got some unfair gimmicks."
Church had come to accept already that Rin was the type to brag even to people she was friendly with, but if Cecilia had concluded the same by now, she didn't accept it nearly as graciously.
"Says the girl that was destroyed by Laura in close quarters..."
"Hey, last time I checked, you got throttled just as hard! Actually, you were totally stomped in that fight, I actually managed to hang on pretty well."
"Oh please, sounds like you should go back to the infirmary to get your head checked out, because you still seem to have a concussion!"
It had come to light in the past week that some sort of lingering head injury had been the cause of Rin falling out of a window on the day of Church's arrival. That knowledge had been used at her expense many times lately. Naturally, Rin was quick to defend herself.
"Hey, I told you that the physician cleared me on that! My head is fine now!"
Church got the feeling that this spat could go on indefinitely, but before it progressed further at all, they were interrupted by the arrival of Chifuyu, who had stepped out of the control room and moved into the stands to address them.
"That's enough, you two. Don't you ever get tired of this same song and dance?"
The look on both girls' faces screamed 'no' but they clearly didn't have the gumption to say that to Chifuyu's face. At this point, Church was convinced that he was one of the few people that saw a side of her that wasn't terrifying. One way or another, it wasn't like Chifuyu waited for either of them to respond in the first place.
"This is all the practical testing we plan on doing today, Alcott. You're free to go about the rest of your day as you see fit. Huang... I hope you've kept up with your studies despite being unable to physically pilot an I.S. during this time?"
Rin glanced off to the side, which was answer enough. To be fair, Church saw her as someone who probably engaged more with practical on-hands learning than theory. But he also understood that the I.S. Academy was not all about flying giant mecha around all day. After all, the students here were attending the Academy in place of typical high school, so they still had to learn a lot of subjects that were totally unrelated to Infinite Stratos at all. They had to study such things, since less than 1% of them would ultimately make careers out of being I.S. pilots.
Either way, Rin felt the scrutiny of Chifuyu's gaze quite intensely, which likely contributed to her desire to make a rapid escape. "Y-you know, I think it's about time for lunch! I'll just be going now..."
Church didn't think such blatant evasion would actually work on Chifuyu, but the elder Orimura didn't seem to care that Rin was doing it, or that she was leaving. Since she had already been dismissed as well, Cecilia wasted no time in establishing her own excuse to leave.
"I'm going to the showers. I... suppose I might see you later, Church."
Taking that farewell as a good sign, Church waved the blonde off, glad that he was getting some positive recognition from her at last. Maybe she really did like the fact that he had beaten her? Some women were the type to prefer men that were stronger than them, though for reasons Church had already determined, he didn't think the outcome of this battle was an accurate indicator of skill between the two of them.
This left Church at the foot of the stands, with Chifuyu a few feet above him actually standing in them. The wall meant he only saw her top half, but seeing an impressive bust from below wasn't exactly a bad experience. Honestly though, he felt that her shapely legs were the sexiest thing about her, so being unable to see them at this angle was a bit of a letdown.
Thankfully, Church was very good at keeping lewd thoughts from being expressed on his face, so Chifuyu was none the wiser to the way he was thinking about her body at the moment. Contrary to the belief of many students, she was not actually psychic and she definitely couldn't read anyone's mind.
"I could try to scrounge up another pilot to pit you against if you'd like to continue the practical tests today. But we could also just stop now, if you'd prefer."
"I think I'm fine for now. Most of the other people I could spar against all seem busy, anyway."
After Chifuyu had specified about a week ago that testing could happen at Church's own pace, they hadn't done it every single day, since there were many times Church felt bad about putting more work on the woman's shoulders. Of course, from a mission point of view, less testing was very desirable, since it meant Cerberus had to spend less time dealing with the consequences of all this data being recorded. Church still wasn't sure what the AI was doing to address it: was it falsifying the data? Simply intercepting transmissions to make sure the data never left this place? Church had never asked, since Cerberus had simply assured him that the situation was under control.
But even though he hadn't been reporting to Chifuyu every day for testing, Church had still gone out of his way to see her almost every morning. Considering that the mildly older beauty actually didn't seem to mind his presence, Church had not been willing to let that possibility just pass him up. Even though they had never explicitly agreed to it, Chifuyu had picked up on his desire to have such meetings in the morning after the first time he had shown up just to deliver the coffee he had bought to her. She didn't quite get why he was willing to get up that early just to talk, but she didn't mind the conversation in the morning, mostly because it provided her with a brief period in the day in which she didn't have to think about anything particularly annoying or stressful.
It was kind of nice to be able to talk about something besides her job for once. "I'm sure their definitions of 'busy' wouldn't quite align with my own. Still, it's up to you. I won't complain, since I have plenty of work to do today..."
Church refrained from mentioning that Chifuyu seemingly always had a lot of work to do. Since he had gotten here, he had yet to see her actually take a day off. He assumed she just couldn't afford to, because she didn't actually strike him as a workaholic. Chifuyu definitely seemed like someone who wanted to rest, but just wasn't able to.
"Sorry to hear that. Does the music actually help any?"
After promising to share some music with her last week to see if it would help her relax a bit, Church had provided the raven haired beauty with a few options that he considered tranquil or serene. He'd yet to directly ask her how she felt about them, however. Until now, of course.
Thankfully, Chifuyu seemed fairly pleased as she offered him a response. "Yes, actually. Listening to something relaxing does make tedious work somewhat more bearable. I'm particularly fond of the 'Balamb Garden' theme. I'd appreciate more music like that if you know of any."
"I think I know a few. I'll send them to you later."
Talking about it, Church was reminded that he not only had Rin's personal number, but also Chifuyu's. Granted, the only reason he had it was because they had needed some way for Church to send her things like the music in question, but even though he knew it wasn't something he deserved to feel any pride in, he still did. Church honestly doubted that any man other than Ichika actually had Chifuyu's number. Well, maybe her boss did, whoever that was. Then again, it was very possible that her boss wasn't a man.
For a moment, Chifuyu sported the slightest of smiles, but it was soon replaced by a grimace as she acknowledged that she would be leaving to work, likely all day if her usual schedule was anything to go by.
"Then I suppose I'll see you tomorrow. Goodbye for now."
Church felt a surge of pride in knowing that someone like Chifuyu expected to see him the following day as the woman made her exit. Cerberus was quick to remind him that it was not in any light worth being proud over.
Operator, do you honestly think this situation is similar to a girl being eager to see you for reasons of affection?
Of course not, I'm not delusional. But if a hot woman like her considers meeting with me every morning to be an acceptable use of her time, that's more than enough for me. Ulrich would kill to be in this situation, even if Yumi would kill him for enjoying it...
Operator, I have no data on these people you have mentioned.
Church was taken aback for a moment as he acknowledged that Cerberus wasn't privy to the personal aspects of his past life. The AI likely didn't know anything more than what Umbra Stratum itself knew.
Oh, they were just some friends I had back in Bethesda. I kind of had to drop off the map for them after signing up with a shadow organization and all. Kind of sucks though. Ulrich was the only guy I knew who played Triple Triad. I miss beating him all the time.
Deciding that this tangent was not worth pursuing, Cerberus elected to ignore it rather than continue.
I see. Now that we have free time, Operator, what shall we do? Your attempts to gradually get closer to Houki Shinonono in the past week have borne no fruit whatsoever. Will you still pursue such a strategy?
Church honestly felt that his AI companion was a bit too impatient, but he supposed Cerberus found him to have too little urgency. It just seemed too risky to take a course of action that could ruin the whole mission, from Church's point of view. Anything that would be drastic enough to get their hands on Akatsubaki right away would also be serious enough to screw everything if it went wrong.
So really, Church didn't know what to do other than continue with the mission in the manner he had been thus far. Admittedly, it was hard to wiggle his way into a natural relationship with Houki, the main target of the operation, but he had literally only been introduced to her a week ago. At this point, he was fairly certain he would have to rely more on his proximity to Houki's friends than the girl herself to complete his objective.
He didn't get to vocalize this to Cerberus, since a buzzing from his pocket caught his attention. Withdrawing his phone and checking his messages, Church quickly discovered that it was from Rin, though this was no surprise, considering the limited number of people that would be calling him on a cell. Besides, he had heard from Doctor Warner again yesterday, with an update that nothing had changed thus far and nothing was expected to for some time. Seeing as how he and Chifuyu had just spoken, there was no one else other than Rin that could have been texting him.
'If you're done kissing up to Chifuyu, come to the cafeteria and eat lunch with me. Laura's bad company."
Church didn't quite agree with Rin's assessment of Laura's company, at least not as far as the last week was concerned, but he wasn't going to frown on an excuse to go and eat lunch with the girls regardless. He was more than happy to get invited to stuff, even if it was only ever Rin who did it. To be fair, she was the only one of the girls who had his number, so it wasn't like there were any alternatives.
Under normal circumstances, Church would have preferred the notion of flying from his current location to the main building, but Chifuyu had expressed a desire for him to refrain from such things: operation of Infinite Stratos on school grounds without the authorization of faculty was prohibited. Of course, Church was not a student here, nor did he posses an I.S. That said, he could see why Chifuyu would want him to follow a similar rule. They didn't want students getting the idea that he was getting special treatment for unscrupulous reasons.
That being the case, he had no choice but to walk across campus. By now, he didn't get as much attention from random students as he had in the days following his arrival. Sure, he still got plenty of fascinated or intrigued looks from girls from each of the grades, but such looks had gone from an actual desire to approach him to mere interest or acknowledgement that he was a rarity on campus.
Frankly, Church was surprised that things had settled down on this front so quickly. He had hardly expected to lose the vested interest of the general student body so quickly, being one of only two males. Naturally, he wondered what the explanation was, but the best he could do was hazard a guess. He supposed it was possible that the faculty (or maybe Tatenashi) had made it abundantly clear that everyone should avoid bothering him, but as best as he could tell, that wasn't the case. After all, he got the feeling that Rin would have told him if such a thing had been expressed to the student body as a whole.
Then again, maybe that had nothing to do with it. Church supposed that he may have just been perceived as unavailable by all of these girls. He wasn't part of the student body, meaning that most of them didn't see or interact with him very often. He was also here in a special capacity that most of them were not privy to, which probably made him seem a tad more unapproachable than someone like Ichika, whom they knew a fair deal about.
A few of the students still spoke to him occasionally, like that Honne girl, but Church was mostly limited to interaction with the Representative Candidates. That was fine with him of course, since those girls were the focal point of this infiltration.
All things considered, he managed to get to the cafeteria in good time, thanks to being unmolested by any strangers. Of course, part of that was due to him taking the stairs, when most of the students took elevators. He was sure he wouldn't be able to avoid attention if he had to ride in a packed elevator with a bunch of girls.
Because it was around lunch time, the cafeteria was fairly busy, but it wasn't hard to spot the people Church was looking for. After all, one of them had silver hair, and that did kind of stick out. Upon spotting the table Laura and Rin were sitting at, Church acknowledged that the size of their party had grown beyond what Rin had initially stated. She was eating lunch with Laura, but it seemed she was also eating lunch with everyone else at this point, save Cecilia for obvious reasons.
It wasn't really that much of a surprise really. This group of friends seemed to congregate around one another whenever possible, though Church did honestly have to wonder how much of that was them all trying to block each others' advances on Ichika. He was sure they were all actually friends that liked to hang out to some extent, but he didn't doubt that they were all scheming against one another at the same time.
Either way, he found himself greeting a full table instead of just Rin and Laura, interrupting their banter as he approached. "Hey, everybody. You were so kind to invite everyone, Rin."
The brunette didn't seem enthused with the notion. "As if. Everyone here introduced themselves to my peaceful lunch."
Glancing around the table, Church saw various reactions to this statement. Houki merely shrugged, while Ichika laughed off the sarcastic remark. Church made eye contact with Charlotte for a moment, but she was quick to avert her gaze, so he did the same. He didn't want to make her unnecessarily uncomfortable. It was a shame that there was still a bit of awkward air between them, but Church couldn't blame the girl for feeling that way. After all, she must have been acutely aware of the fact that she'd been seen naked by a near stranger.
Laura, on the other hand, did something quite unforeseen. Noting that there wasn't really enough room for Church to sit down at the table with the rest of them, she scooted to the side a bit, making room a little tighter for everyone else, but also giving him space next to her. She didn't say anything, but it was pretty obvious that she expected him to take the space she had provided.
Church had acknowledged already that Laura's opinion of him had improved over their initial meeting, but he was still caught off guard by how nonchalantly she did this. She didn't seem particularly bothered by the notion of him sitting right next to her. Maybe she just didn't view it as anything noteworthy: just the polite thing to do.
Either way, Church took his spot sheepishly. "Sorry for making less room, everyone..."
Ever willing to accept new company, Ichika dismissed his apology. "Don't worry about it, the more the merrier! Besides, these tables have tons of space. We could probably still fit one more, honestly."
Church wondered if the real reason Ichika always had so many people around him was just because he couldn't find it in him to say no to them. Surely the guy wanted to be alone sometimes, right? He didn't ask him this, naturally. Rin was speaking again before he could anyway.
"Don't say that, you'll summon Cecilia out of nowhere. We're definitely at capacity!"
Houki didn't seem to agree with the sentiment, though she muttered her comment somewhat quietly. "Don't see why'd you complain, the two of you are so alike..."
Of course, Rin heard these words considering the close proximity of the group. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"You're just both so loud and obnoxious, is all."
While the comment was a bit scathing, Church got the feeling this was the kind of ire that friends threw around. At the least, it didn't sound to him like Houki actually hated Rin or Cecilia. Just good-natured complaining and all of that. Still, Rin didn't seem particularly happy with the comparison.
"I am not obnoxious! I mean, not Cecilia obnoxious anyway. She's on a totally different level! Church, back me up on this."
Unsure of why he was being called in for support instead of any of the other people that had likely known Rin longer (maybe that was actually the reason), Church decided it would be a good idea to simply play it safe. No need to irritate the person who had been the friendliest with him since getting here.
"Well, my perspective is kind of limited, but based on what I do know from early impressions and all, Cecilia does strike me as more, uh... disagreeable, between the two of you."
"Ha! See?"
Houki didn't look convinced, and Church felt a little bad about speaking ill of Cecilia when she wasn't even here to defend herself, so he modified his statement a bit to give her a little leeway.
"That said, I think it could just be that she doesn't like me, so it's not really an objective opinion coming from me..."
Rin merely shrugged. "Nah, she's just like that. According to Houki she was a super bitch to Ichika when they first met, and look at her now: complete one-eighty."
Ichika looked a little put off by the statement. "Come on, that's a little harsh. I think it was just a misunderstanding between us. Besides, Houki was pretty mean to me when I first got here too..."
The Japanese girl was quick to defend herself. "This and that are not the same! You deserved the treatment you got from me because you were an idiot!"
From the perspective of an outsider like Church, it felt like maybe this and that were more similar than Houki admitted, though he had no way of knowing. Presumably, Cecilia had changed her tune with Ichika after being impressed by his noble manliness or something, a notion that made him wonder why he was perceived differently by the blonde even though he had done similar feats thus far. Ichika hadn't even managed to beat her, while Church had, but she didn't seem to accept him as much as the prior.
Maybe she didn't actually want to be beaten? He wouldn't have been surprised if there was some complex there where Cecilia was only interested in strong men, but not ones that were actually stronger than her. 'Be good enough to impress me but not good enough to surpass me,' or something. Of course, that was all just speculation on his part.
As for why Houki may have been aggressive towards Ichika at first, only to switch it up later, Church had no idea. Rin had mentioned that those two had been childhood friends, so maybe it was some deep-seated resentment over something weird.
Next to him, Laura seemed to find something interesting about the exchange Church had briefly shared with Rin. "I must admit, I'm a little curious, now that you've spoken your impressions of Cecilia after a brief time with her. Surely you have overall impressions of all of us by now, yes?"
"Oh, well... I mean, I would have to, right? But, uh...you don't really care about them, right?"
Really, Church was just trying to avoid being put on the spot, but it didn't work very well. Laura was weirdly persistent. "I think it would be interesting to hear what someone looking in from the outside thinks. It's easy to lose objective perception of yourself when you are only appraised by people you are close to every day."
It was Rin who responded to this comment as she gently folded her arms. "Really? His impression of Cecilia was that she was 'disagreeable.' I think we all knew that already."
Since Church didn't want it to sound like he really thought that the blonde's entire character boiled down to that, he admitted to the group that he had condensed his initial answer.
"I mean, I was just speaking on that one aspect of her personality. It's not like that's all I think of her. I just didn't want to go all 'behavioral analysis unit' on you guys because of a simple question..."
"Yeah, you forget to mention that she's conceited, vain, and arrogant. That was probably the rest of your impression."
"Rin, those were pretty much all just synonyms for the same thing. And you're kind of conceited yourself, you know..."
The brunette was clearly appalled by the notion. "Excuse me? Well now I do want to hear what you think, because that better not be it!"
There was a look in her emerald eyes that implied he better have nicer things to say, though Church supposed that was fair, after she had cooked for him, let him stay in her room and invited him to watch the tournament with her.
"I-I mean, you are a little full of yourself... but you're also very considerate and amicable. It's just the kind of friendliness that's thinly disguised by faked reluctance and sarcasm, is all."
Ichika seemed to agree with his opinion, though not in a very subtle way. "Yeah, that sounds accurate. Very tsundere."
Naturally, Rin was not happy with this notion. "That is not true! Tsundere people are rude and hostile to disguise their feelings! It's not the same as sarcasm and faked reluctance!"
The younger Orimura narrowed his gaze at the girl, specifically at her twin-tails. "Tsundere-lite, I guess?"
This response left the brunette fuming, leaving Charlotte with an opening to speak up. It occurred to Church that this was the first time she had spoken since he had gotten here, which kind of worried him. Maybe he really was making her uncomfortable?"
"I think we could all fit that bill sometimes..."
Laura cocked an eyebrow in Church's direction at this. "Perhaps. Have you gotten such an impression from everyone thus far?"
Seeing that he wasn't going to get out of this conversation, Church figured he would just have to be honest: and careful. Carefully honest, starting with Laura. Then again, he wasn't even sure what he was going to say. His impression of her was kind of skewed thanks to recent developments.
"Well, not exactly... but I haven't talked to any of the rest of you as much as Rin, so I can't say for sure. I mean, I thought you were harsh and standoffish at first, but I think that may have just been because we got off on the wrong foot. You seem a lot more approachable now."
Drawn out of her annoyance with Ichika's earlier statement by a particular question that had formed, Rin went ahead and asked it. "Wait, when did the two of you meet to get off on the wrong foot anyway?"
Church didn't know how to respond to that right away, but as Laura opened her mouth to speak, he got the distinct feeling that she was going to outright tell everyone something along the lines of 'he was spying on me.' He could foresee why that would be a problem, so he beat her to the punch and simply chose to skip the story by moving on with the topic they'd been discussing. Hopefully it didn't come across as too suspicious.
"We just passed each other in the hallway on one of those first days... a-anyway, Charlotte is, uh... really peachy-"
Immediately recognizing why that wording may have been a problem, made obvious by a creeping blush on Charlotte's face, Church inwardly berated himself, but figured it was just better to keep going and avoid drawing attention to the faux pas.
"I mean, we haven't talked that much, but I've really gotten the feeling that you're very generous and passionate... and your knowledge of technology is super cool, I won't lie."
While she was obviously still embarrassed by a particular memory, Charlotte did seem pleased with his assessment, donning a sheepish smile. "O-oh, merci..."
Ichika made sure that Church didn't get a chance to skip the last girl at the table. "Looks like you're next, Houki."
Surprisingly, Houki did seem like she was actually interested in what Church had to say, even though she barely knew him. Then again, Church was of the mind that girls generally wanted people to have good opinions of them, even if those people didn't matter much to them.
"Well, I think we've probably talked the least, unfortunately... but you strike me as the strong, silent type?"
Apparently, Ichika didn't think this was necessarily a good thing. "Yeah, you could stand to be a bit more relaxed and carefree, Houki."
"And what's wrong with being the way I am?!"
Seeing an opportunity to score a few points, Church decided to take Houki's side. "I don't think it's bad. It really gives you that 'serious, honorable warrior' vibe."
As expected, this comment was definitely more to Houki's liking, though she didn't blush the way Charlotte had with her praise. "Yes, well, that is the spirit I must embody whenever I am participating in kendo. I do like to think of myself as that type of warrior."
Now that he had finally gotten Houki to engage with him to a moderate extent, Church had every intent to take it as far as he could go. "Right, you're a renowned champion, aren't you? It's pretty amazing that you have the talent for both that and I.S. piloting."
Considering that this was an I.S. school, Church got the feeling that Houki probably didn't get recognized for her kendo accomplishments very often, since it didn't have much weight around here. As best as he had been able to discern thus far, Houki's fame around here was almost entirely connected to her sister Tabane and her possession of a Gen 4 I.S., which was also due to Tabane. At any rate, she seemed very happy to have someone consider her kendo feats in a light that wasn't totally overshadowed by everything else.
"I'm so glad you recognize it! Being an I.S. pilot is difficult of course, but that doesn't mean kendo is some lackluster talent that takes no effort or dedication. These days, it's almost like a girl's talents don't matter unless they're I.S. related..."
Church would have mentioned how her kendo skills had probably translated well to I.S. anyway, but talk of other talents had somehow turned into a contest, at least in Rin's eyes. She was quick to mention that she had other notable skills as well.
"Hey, I'm a good enough chef that I could probably run my own restaurant. Why didn't you mention that as being impressive alongside being a pilot?"
"I'm pretty sure I've already praised your cooking before..."
While she clearly wasn't in it for the competitive spirit, Charlotte was clearly pondering what she could add to her repertoire. "I suppose it's still I.S. related, but I made nearly all of the modifications to my Rafale Revive II myself. Not to brag, but I think I'm pretty knowledgeable about machines! Well, I.S. machines, at any rate."
Laura folded her arms as a somewhat haughty look overtook her features. "Impressive, admittedly. You may know a lot about machines, but can you operate them? If I.S. didn't exist in this world, I am still qualified for operation of a Eurofighter Typhoon and as tank commander of a Leopard 2."
While Church of course knew that Laura had been intended to be some sort of super soldier prior to I.S. dominating the military industrial complex, he was still surprised to hear this.
Damn, she can pilot a jet and drive a tank? That's hot.
Cerberus, who had been quiet for most of this, spoke up at the strange thought.
Your criteria for what makes a human attractive seems to be quite odd, Operator.
Maybe feeling like he had to say something since everyone else had, Ichika thought pretty hard about his other skills. "I'm really good at cleaning, I think. Chifuyu said so once, at least."
This statement, said with an unusual amount of pride, earned either sighs or looks of pity from most of the girls. As for Church, he just hoped they forgot to ask him, because he honestly wasn't sure what he would be able to say if discussion of his other skills was raised. Thankfully, it seemed that the question went unasked, as the occupants of the table carried on with other topics of conversation. Church was glad to be ignored on that front, while being included in everything else. It seemed his standing here really had improved significantly.
---
In an Umbra Stratum base in far east Russia, Jordan Kates, security personnel, leaned against a crate as he watched over the hangar, AK-74 in his hands. His job here wasn't very exciting; these bases were top secret as it was, and that was to say nothing about the ones located in foreign countries. This arm of Umbra Stratum existed solely to extend their operational reach, and it wasn't like a single Russian citizen even knew it was here. Well, Jordan was certain that a few citizens must have known about it; after all, how else did Umbra Stratum get their hands on all these Russian aircraft?
The hangar carried no planes of American or European design. With about a dozen aircraft to speak of, there were six SU-30s, two SU-34 Fullbacks, two MiG-31 Foxhounds, an SU-47 Berkut, and even a MiG-21 Fishbed. None of these planes ever saw any action. They just sat around in the hangar, displaying Russian air history for a few decades.
That didn't stop the engineering team from moving forward with today's agenda though. There was one other aircraft available to the members of this particular base; a recently acquired SU-60, an experimental upgraded version of an Su-57. Supposedly, the platform was supposed to be able to utilize weapons previously regarded as being limited to Infinite Stratos units. How Umbra Stratum had gotten their hands on the cutting edge aircraft was beyond someone of Jordan's pay grade, but he could only assume that this organization had connections in very high places. For an ex-soldier like himself, asking those types of questions out loud sounded like career suicide.
Either way, the eggheads had been playing around with the SU-60's internal weapons bay. They'd been trying to find a a good way to fit the new C-RXB missile onto it without compromising the rest of its standard missile capacity. Jordan didn't know what any of that really meant, nor did he care. His only job was to stand around and look scary in his gas mask and his helmet. All he knew was that the engineers hadn't succeeded today, simply leaving the SU-60 with the aptly named 'Crucible' missile stored within its bay by its lonesome.
Wondering how he would spend his next paycheck when there was hardly a thing to do within fifty miles of this place, the Umbra Stratum guard was drawn out of his musings when he heard the gradually building roar of engines coming to life. Glancing towards the source of the disturbance, he was startled to see the black painted SU-60 moving forward out of its niche of the hangar, its nose turning towards the slowly opening hangar bay doors. This was the first time Jordan had ever seen one of the aircraft here start its engines: hell, it was the first time he'd ever seen the hangar doors opened.
Getting the feeling that something might have been wrong, he prepared to call his superiors for insight, but he didn't even get to make it that far. A panicked voice shouted over the hangar intercom before he could.
"Hangar personnel, stop that plane!"
Lost in confusion for a moment, Jordan fumbled with his weapon, wondering just what he was supposed to do. The Ak-74 had an under barrel grenade launcher, but surely they didn't want him to blow up the most advanced craft in the hangar?
"It's taking off, somebody shoot it, God damn it!"
Well, that answered that question. Aiming his weapon as best he could, Jordan fired the one round from his available grenade launcher, watching as it soared towards the rapidly accelerating rogue aircraft. Unfortunately, said aircraft gunned the engines, rocketing forward just fast enough to outpace the explosive, which landed behind it in a cloud of concrete and shrapnel. As the smoke cleared, Jordan could only watch as the Su-60 soared off into the snowy sky, and hope that he wouldn't be explicitly blamed for this when the report was made to High Command.