Dragon of Rochester
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AFS 2: Strange Flame Strangeness - Part 2 - The Set Up
🕑 Added 2025-03-30 17:37:59 +0000 UTCAuthor’s Note:
BTW, the chapters for this story are a little shorter than normal.
Also, sorry about there being so many pictures in this chapter... It's just because this is the set up.
Part 2
We stood in the middle of a massive military complex on an alien world. This planet was one of the many that needed to be protected from the star crabs since it still had native flora and fauna that was close to earth standard, though far larger and dangerous.
The plants and creatures could even be eaten, though that probably had more to do with the enhanced biology of the interstellar humans. But, because we could search for food here, it was one of the main places the SS-rank survival challenge took place. Hell, even the air was breathable as long as we took the right vaccines ahead of time, which we did.
“This day arrived way too fast.” It was almost like the writer was short on time, so she skipped over days of intense prep work and travel to get to this point. Meanwhile, since I went through it, I felt drained as fuck. At least at Golden Core, I didn’t have to sleep much.
Spring nodded and looked around at the stage and audience that had gathered to watch the opening ceremony. He pulled at the long sleeves of his black mech pilot uniform.
Behind us was our military’s standard two-seater white scouting mech with almost no flight capability. It had a damn ironic color choice, but the other schools had to use bright red and neon blue ones so it wasn’t that much worse.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t use our own mechs for this tournament since it was supposed to be a purely skill-based challenge for both the pilot and engineer. It helped show us students and the audience watching the livestream the hardships of the regular planet-based pilots.
I pulled at the tight neckline of the standard uniform for female mech pilots our school chose. It was black, shiny, and uncomfortable—a trait almost all uniforms shared.
“Ugh. I hate this thing. It feels like it’s a size too small.”
“They’re supposed to be tight for this model of mech due to the internal sensor issue.” Spring briefly glanced at me, then directed his eyes to face the gathering crowd of military officers and camera bots with a serious face. “It looks good on you.”
“Let’s be realistic. I make this suit look good. I’m stunningly beautiful in this life and the last.”
“You’re also very modest.”
“Damn straight, I am.”
"Those bangs are out-of-style though."
I scowled. "They're how you can tell I'm a changed person. The original didn't have them."
“...” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Maybe you should just change into the mech engineer uniform instead, like my sister.” He gestured toward the other white scouting mech where Chad stood with Liu YaoYao. She wore a shiny black uniform with many pockets and tool holsters. “It looks more comfortable.”
“Hah! What makes me comfortable is being in a pilot’s uniform, so I can easily take control of the mech if something happens to you. Without it, I’d have to spend ten minutes reconfiguring the mech for me. With this uniform, even though it’s the shitty school standard one—“
He winced. “Again, I’m sorry you didn’t have enough time to order one specifically tailored for you.”
“... it still connects with the mech and allows it to reconfigure into the preferences I set.” Something that happened in the novel that I was trying to avoid.
“I had originally asked someone else to join me since I knew you were busy. But he backed out at the last minute.”
“Yeah, you should have asked me first, doofus.”
“I’ll remember to ask you first next time.”
I leaned against the leg of our mech. This shit was taking too long. The military always had that fucking ‘hurry up and wait’ bullshit. Even us students had to experience it.
The seats finally finished filling. The spy bots were released. One of them flew right up to me to get a closeup. I noticed a familiar dent on it.
“Hey, it’s Steve!” Glad to see that the bot survived to be used again. Though, it still liked me for some reason.
The commander of the base stepped onto the stage along with the principles of the three military schools that happened to have SS-rank pilots able to participate in this challenge.
He said the normal bullshit where he called us brave for participating and explained the safety measures, which weren’t much. Then he got to the meat of the announcement.
“Each team will be given a map to their flag hidden somewhere in the jungle. They’ll need to retrieve it and return to the base within a week with a usable mech. If they encounter an enemy team, they can steal their flag for extra points.”
The two Blue Team pilots, who all had dark skin and hair, stared at Spring and me as if that was their plan. I recognized the only other female pilot as Maya Chen.
“Of course, another way to earn points is to kill the massive beasts that roam the jungle. Those who keep their flag and earn the points will be allowed to redeem them for prizes, which include designer mech parts, tools, and mech weapons.”
Liu YaoYao’s gaze sharpened on the announcer when he said this. She tensed with determination.
“Of course, they’ll only be able to win the challenge if they return with a usable mech, so it may be that if they encounter a beast, it would be better to avoid a fight to prevent damage and loss of energy, than to earn extra points.”
The Red team, who were a group of tall and pale young men and women, whispered to each other while staring at Chad’s mech. One pilot with long white hair casually leaned against the leg of his mech. He eyed our mechs like he planned to find a way to sabotage them sometime during the next week. If I remembered correctly, his name was James Gu, and he was distantly related to Chad, which was why he was so damn pretty.
In the original story, the Red Team had found a way to sabotage YaoYao’s mech early in the challenge, which ended up causing a lot of trouble but brought the male and female leads closer together.
Of course, there was also a certain incident with an aphrodisiac that caused a lot of drama and was something I’d try to interrupt if I noticed it happening. Who knew, maybe just me and Spring being here would alter the storyline so that it didn’t occur at all, and I’d have two less fuckers I had to punch in the face.
“This will be hard on the mech engineers who will have to upkeep the mech while out in the harsh jungle environment. Which is why every mech engineer will be given a space button with tools and supplies to repair their mech. There will also be hidden caches throughout the jungle along with random airdrops of necessary supplies. Each team should watch out for those. A single collection of an air drop might just mean the difference of winning and losing.”
Our school’s principal walked over to us and handed me and Liu YaoYao a circular spatial device, along with a bag of military rations that was supposed to last us two days. If we took longer we were supposed to forage for food.
Sadly, Spring couldn’t practice grain liberation since he wasn’t a cultivator yet.
“That’s everything. Now, go and survive. Bring honor to your schools and to yourselves.”
I leaned over to the Spring. “It’s just a big game of survival mode, capture the flag. No need to be so dramatic about it.”
He coughed and covered his mouth, but I noticed the corners of his lips turned up. Then he stepped onto the leg of the mech before climbing onto the cockpit.
I really just wanted to use my divine sense to step on air and reach it. It would look so much cooler than climbing this thing. Well, I could still look badass. I clasped my hands behind my back, stepped onto the foothold and jumped onto the leg then I practically floated into the cockpit.
Spring strapped himself into the pilot seat while I squeezed into the tiny seat prepared for the mech engineer. There wasn’t a lot of room in the small mech. If I casually reached forward I could touch the young man’s shoulder and he could backhand me in the face if he wasn’t careful with how he moved.
He pulled a lever and closed the large armored door. There was a brief moment where we sat in complete darkness and silence before a red light turned on, and a loud beep rang through the enclosed space. The walls of the standardized mech began to light up as the external cameras turned on showing us the surrounding area.
A small video popped open with our team members, Prince Chad and Liu YaoYao.
“Are you ready Pilot Wang?” Chad said over the comms.
“Yes, Prince Chad.”
“Follow my lead. Keep up and watch our six.”
“Affirmative.”
Damn it. I wanted to pilot! Being a passenger was so damn boring.
Author’s Note: Here is the alternate version of Lin’s image for this chapter:
Comments
Pete
" It was almost like the writer was short on time, so she skipped over days of intense prep work and travel to get to this point. Meanwhile, since I went through it, I felt drained as fuck" See, no reason for her to worry that fade to black affects her^^
