Chapter 36
He beat me.
I was still staring ahead, speechless, dumbfounded, lost, as the darkness of a broken visual unit was replaced by the inside of my VR cockpit. I blinked in utter disbelief, and I couldn’t seem to make myself do anything else.
How…
He chose the objective over the fight. That was why he won.
It was the correct strategy. I’d let my own desire to test him win out over my dedication to the mission, and he came out the victor because of it.
He remained focused, while I’d refused to use all of the weapons at my disposal in order to make the fight more fun.
Fun?
Was I having fun in a war game?
This wasn’t fun. This was life or death, villains and heroes, black and white.
I placed my hand over my mouth, and I felt my own living warmth through my rapid breaths, grounding myself back to something that resembled sanity.
I never would have done that in a real battle.
But… Vann wouldn’t have been on the other side in a real battle. He would have been my ally, and we could have used our combined ability to rationalize and react to the changing conditions together.
That wasn’t the right way of looking at this.
As much as I wanted to pretend I was proud to have been the one to train him, and to see someone who I might have to count on one day showing he’s trustworthy as a fighter, what would I do if I encountered someone like him on the other side?
I couldn’t afford to be beaten by anyone. I couldn’t be less than another person.
I was rank one, because I had to be rank one. There was no other option for someone like me.
Either I was the best, or I was dead.
Today, I was dead.
But was it his skill? Did he outclass me? Out fight me? Outperform me?
No.
I’d been the singular machine on the other side of this mission before. All of the enemy units had been in the upper ranks then, too. I’d done it faster. I’d taken less damage. I’d completed the mission flawlessly, and they sung my praise.
What Vann had was more desperation. He didn’t operate like everyone else did.
He had his own style of movement, and he thought things through in a completely different way that wasn’t like me, like Elio, like Breaker, like anyone I’d ever known.
He completed that mission in a way that was truly willing to give whatever it took.
And at the end of the day, whether he finished with nothing but his core intact, he succeeded. In a suicide mission, what difference did it make, after all, if you pulled the fuse while standing or while wrapped in an enemy, on the floor, with no arms, and a half broken unit.
The amount of physical pain he’d endured from his Shinka’s damage wasn’t even enough to slow him down. He pressed on without even flinching, fueled by drive and adrenaline.
I didn’t know if I should be horrified, impressed, or pleased.
I just knew I lost, and he’d won, and I couldn’t reconcile that fact as we went forward in our roles. How could he still respect me as the head of a squadron, if he’d outsmarted me in a Shinka?
My whole world came crashing down on me in that instant. My rank was unmoved by the display, but the number meant nothing if I could be put on the floor by a new recruit. How could I have let him so deep in my head?
I’d not been thinking clearly lately. There had been so much weight on my shoulders, I couldn’t even figure out what direction was up anymore.
So I didn’t. I just remained in my pod, and I stared forward, replaying the entire battle on my cockpit screens, over and over and over again.