[StratoSpear]

Originally Posted by DarkJak2050

Looks to me that there's a whole lot of conflict developing, considering what you've been posting here.

In a manner of speaking, Athena isn't entirely a mech-on-mech slugfest like it used to be.

Spoiler for New Testing Grounds (Edit):

Never actually thought we would be heading 'there' of all places. All of us never thought about it to be exact.

Particularly Ratchet, he froze up when Tezla said the location of the move in that emergency session.

Sideswipe and I decided to do some shooting practice, so that we can blow off some steam. As we're getting the weapons we're going to practice with, Sideswipe asked me something.

“You know that there’s only one guy in that whole school, right?”

“I know...”

I pulled a Shockburst off the rack and checked its condition while Sideswipe continued.

“Look, man, its hostile territory. I mean, it's bad enough when we have to put up with the women out in public, in broad daylight. But IS Academy—an all-girls school—“

“Yeah, could be bad...”

As if dealing with the women out in public these days wasn’t bad enough; mainly treating all guys out there like that they’re servants, even those who don’t personally know them. And because of that, we have a strong distrust with women. Even more so with IS Pilots, with what happened last November.

If they’re like that, then the IS Academy students ought to be a lot worse. Considering that they are IS Pilots in training.

And that’s only part of the problem.

Another part is Ratchet freezing up earlier; which was very odd of him. Now that I’m thinking about it, he was kind of like that too when we had that skirmish at Ishiyama.

But this time, he really froze up. More like that he was in a state of shock. Did he have some trouble with girls when he was younger?

Maybe that’s not the case, because he’s not like that when we’re out in public.

There’s only way to find out; and that’s when we actually go to IS Academy…

I loaded a shock core in the Shockburst I’m going to practice with, before telling Sideswipe.

“But hey, don't remind Ratchet of that. He could be scared shitless as it is.”

Heading to IS Academy to do proper tests… Tezla mentioned that it’s so that we won’t be disturbed from other countries.

He also mentioned that IS Academy’s virtually a neutral country on its own, with no other country influencing it and it has its own laws separate from other countries.

“Ha…”

Both Sideswipe and I went up to the firing range and lights began to illuminate the room.

Raising our weapons up, holographic targets appeared at the far end.

“Going hot!”

Any thoughts, guys?

Seems one of the guys appears to have a history to share. Granted, he has no idea what kind of girls to expect from a place such as the Academy but I suppose it is understandable to have a recoiling reaction.

Any idea where Mondo Grosso is held? If not stated, would it be too far-fetched to assume that the Academy has a special arena to host it?