Chapter 68

Lily and Erica also got themselves tested and the results displayed that they too, were at the Strong Control level.

"Hey, you sure your matching ain't broken or something? Ajax is much stronger than us, not to mention that he is able to pilot a Warlock-Level mech for longer than we can pilot our Rakshasa-Level mechs. There's no way that he is still at the Strong Control level." Erica questioned Al. Lily had also only been piloting a mech for about a month or so, yet she too was at the Strong Control Level.

It must be known that the rank promotion of a pilot progresses very slowly, requiring a high accumulation of piloting hours and combat experience. It's not like one day you can be at the Strong Control level and the next day be a higher rank. It just didn't work that way, so something wasn't adding up...

"Something doesn't add up," Ajax stated. He too, was confused by the results. If the equipment was not broken, then Ajax and Lily were one in a couple of billion pilots. It was outrageous and unthinkable for a Strong Control level pilot to be able to pilot a Warlock-Level mech and for a nine-year-old to be a pilot at the Strong Control level.

***

Ajax and the others ended up settling down at the construction site as some of the bodyguards escorted Erica to go get their mechs and transport them there overnight. Al also spent most of his time there, after all, his parents were the ones in charge of the business leaving him with a lot of free time and nothing to do. Compared to other second-generation rich snobs, Al preferred to tinker with jets and mechs, delving into the field of mechanics and engineering as a way to pass the time.

Once the morning sun had risen and everyone had awoken, they learned to fly the jets. First, they went over the manual and learned about buttons, keys, and switches that were needed to be memorized in order to fly a jet. They then spent some time in simulators that perfectly replicated their jets and physics with extreme realism. In them they put into practice what they had learned, doing takeoffs and landings and even pulling various maneuvers, familiarizing themselves with the jets.

In the afternoon, they piloted their mechs and participated in 1v1 or 2v2 mech fights with live ammunition, increasing the danger levels but also helping them hone their skills more as one tends to grow in the face of danger. Ajax didn't mind damaging the mechs, there were more than enough replacement pieces here to repair any damage done to the mechs, plus safety cabins were installed to ensure that they wouldn't be injured or killed. In just a day, the relatively flat construction site had been filled with craters everywhere and some of the building foundations of the construction had been destroyed as well.

They repeated this for the next 10 days, having had 30 1v1 matches each, of which Ajax won 26 of them and only lost 4. The 4 matches he had lost were because Erica had managed to take advantage of Ajax stepping in the craters and losing his balance for a second which left him open to a tackle from her and a defeat for him.

Erica won 20 of her matches and lost 10 of them. She lost to Ajax six times as his aim was too precise, shooting her mech's leg joints from afar and after losing to her 4 times in a row because of her speed. She lost 3 times to Al, who enjoyed piloting a Trailblazer-type mech, and only lost one match to Lily after making a simple mistake.

Lily won 14 matches and lost 16 of them, having lost all of her matches against Ajax to his long-range attacks, since her long-range ability was nowhere near as good as Ajax's. She also lost 6 matches to Lily and lost 3 times to Al.

Al's record was by far the worst, having won only 4 times and lost 26 of his matches, he wasn't even able to scratch the paint on Ajax's mech. After her first 3 defeats and observing Al's fighting style, Lily was also able to crush Al.

Al had grown up in a protected environment and had attended the Apollo Academy which only taught him how to pilot a mech, but never how to fight or even kill the enemy. However, Lily and the others had lived on the border for quite a while and also had some sort of fighting experience. They had seen blood, and their fighting style had evolved into a vicious and effective set of attacks that were aimed at killing the enemy as soon as possible.

The results of the 2v2 matches were pretty obvious, whoever was to team up with Ajax would end up victorious, after all, he had fought off an entire mech team with over a dozen mechs by himself, killing over half of them before receiving help from Lily.

During their evenings, everyone went on about their day and did as they pleased. At night, they mostly slept, but Al stayed up and drank almost every night, and now he wanted to invite Ajax and the others over to drink with him. Now he also wants to take Ajax and others there. But no one entertained him.

Ajax and Alana also maintained contact and would often meet up as well. The two would talk every day, but no one knew what they talked about. Lily was forced to study by Ajax and Erica. Ajax didn't want her to grow up being someone who only knew how to fight and kill, so they gave her a lot of homework every night.

Erica was obsessed with a virtual game that was popular throughout the interstellar web, it was called "Super Mechanical Arena", and every single match had hundreds of players on each team. Maps would generate randomly and the spawns would also be random. The players would then have to scavenge for parts to repair the integrity of their mechs and find some weapons for them. The winning team was the one who completely eliminated the other first.

There were also tournaments for this game that held a large amount of prize money and were broadcasted on the net, something that was much more hectic and exciting to watch than a normal confrontation between two mechs. In order to play this game, Erica asked to borrow 200,000 eddies from Al to buy a VR pod.

When Al asked her why she needed so much money Erica made up the excuse that she needed it to buy books and other study materials so that she could finally get a chance to learn things she never did since she grew up in the border.

Al felt very moved when he heard Erica's bullshit excuse since having been a student as well, he knew how expensive things were and could only imagine how much harder it must be for someone from the border to obtain an education. He believed that no matter how poor you were, you should still get a good quality education and that education was a right reserved for everyone...

So as the days passed, Al started to feel lonely in this environment and started drinking heavily every night. The more time Ajax and the others spent here, the more their skills improved. Al was able to keep up with them at first, but things gradually changed once they had gotten used to flying the jets. 

In the beginning, Al had taught Ajax and the others how to fly the jets, but soon Ajax and Erica, who had shown an incredible learning ability and adaptability to fly the jets, improved extremely fast, leaving Al and his skills in the dust. What Al refused to accept was Lily's flying ability. She demonstrated a higher learning ability while piloting the jet than she did while piloting her mech. One day she managed to pull off an impressive maneuver.

The prowess that Ajax and the others displayed left Al feeling down and doubting himself. Lily was only 9 years old, Ajax was 18, Erica was 19, and he was 20. He was the oldest and had grown up under great conditions, receiving tutelage to become a mech pilot since he was young, yet he was nowhere near as good as these 3. He was mediocre at best in comparison to them.

But this also sparked something in Al, who was now determined to not be left behind. Al's character did a 180 from the lack of discipline, no effort, and drunkard that he was. And just like that, another 10 days went by, with Al's skills gradually increasing and now being able to contend against Erica, though he still couldn't put up much of a fight against Ajax.

The relationship between Ajax and Alana continues to bloom, Lily's studying is starting to bear fruits as she has now familiarized herself with the alphabet, and Erica was able to get on the top 100,000 players of the billions that played "Super Mechanical Arena."

The relationship of Ajax, Erica, and Lily was also changing as they went from thinking of themselves as individuals to thinking of themselves as a team, treating each other more like family.

(Insert Fast & Furious family meme)

During their training period, a small mercenary team that had been hired by Leonard had finally arrived on the planet. The team was composed of 12 people, all of them mech pilots. They were part of a bigger mercenary group called the "Star Chapter" who were ranked at the C-Level by the Interstellar Mercenary Association.

The Star Chapter has been contracted by the Ashlin Group multiple times now. So when they received the request followed up by the eddies they requested from Leonard, they sent over one of their squadrons. The first thing they did when they arrived on the planet was make their way to the border in search of Ajax, yet they couldn't find any traces of him.

With no traces of Ajax, Leonard started wondering if the rumors he'd heard of Ajax being killed and overthrown held some truth to them or if he had just fled the border. The issue was starting to become a major headache for him. Trying to find someone on Bedrichi but not having the clues necessary to find them was like looking for a needle in a haystack while having your eyes covered and using gauntlets to search for it.

To add onto that, William, the eldest son of Mark, was on his way with his fleet. He only had until William's arrival to find and capture Ajax. So he scoured all of his resources to look for Ajax, even placing some of his people at the Space Ports and the traveling stations on land. In the meantime, he recalled the mercenaries from their search and had them come up with a plan to deal with Qianling Heavy Industries in an effort to get some use out of the money he had spent hiring them.

If he can't find Ajax, then he should take advantage of things and use the mercenaries to get rid of Qianling Heavy Industries before William arrives. That way he would be able to completely take over the market of Bedrichi and have something to show for himself. This way Mark and the other higher-ups will be able to see his ability and reconsider offing him. Otherwise, if he had nothing to plead his case with, it would truly be over for him...