[Ren's POV]
Grasping the control sticks, I felt a faint vibration run through the frame as the monitors surrounding me flickered to life. A calm, mechanical voice flowed into my ears, reciting status reports I barely registered.
When I opened my eyes, I was met with the vastness of space.
A scatter of distant stars glimmered against the darkness, their pale light outlining the edges of the cockpit and grounding me in my surroundings. Beyond the rear monitors, Earth loomed, its presence making my own feel impossibly small.
I hesitated before moving again. Carefully nudging the controls, I scanned through the system readouts, my eyes tracing each line.
The EB-06 Graze.
It was the standard-issue Mobile Suit deployed by soldiers of Gjallarhorn. Even so, it was something I had only ever known through scattered stories and quiet gossip, most of them passed down from my father.
The Graze's greatest strength lay in its adaptability. Designed to operate across a wide range of environments, it remained the backbone of Gjallarhorn's forces.
This unit differed from the familiar green ground variants. Its armour was a muted light purple, the surface broken into clean, geometric plates. The head was round and austere, marked only by a single vertical slit running down the centre of its face. Its limbs were slender, almost skeletal in appearance, though each joint was thickly reinforced with nanolaminate armour, hinting at durability beneath the frame's lean build.
Mounted on its back was a compact jetpack, integrated neatly into the suit's silhouette, granting it steady maneuverability in the vacuum of space.
In Graze's right hand rested a standard-issue rifle with two magazines mounted along its sides and feeding directly into the weapon. Secured at the waist was a large one-handed battle axe, a close-combat tool that looked heavy even at rest.
As I continued familiarising myself with the controls, the cockpit suddenly filled with warning tones. The monitors flashed, their calm displays replaced by urgent alerts. I frowned and turned my attention to the radar, where a single signal was closing in from a distance.
A faint blue light emerged from the darkness of space, growing steadily brighter as it approached. Moments later, the silhouette resolved itself into another EB-06 Graze. The unit slowed, then came to a complete stop directly ahead of me...
"She's here," I muttered under my breath.
The opposing Graze remained motionless, its silhouette steady against the distant glow of space. For a brief moment, neither of us moved, as if the battlefield itself was holding its breath.
[3rd POV]
Flying toward the idle Graze, Carta slowed and observed her opponent. She had expected many things, but not this. The pilot responsible for the violent disturbance was little more than a student, young and visibly inexperienced.
The revelation gave her pause, but only briefly. Circumstances did not absolve wrongdoing. Violence on academy grounds demanded consequence, regardless of intent or origin. That was justice, and justice was impartial.
Shaking her head, she activated the intercoms and declared loudly, "I am Carta Issue, heir of the Issue family. May the Goddess of Victory stand on the side of righteousness, and...."
BOOOOOM.
Carta's Graze was violently thrown backward, its frame shuddering as alarms blared through her cockpit. Before she could fully register what had happened, her warning system shrieked once more.
Carta reacted instinctively. Thrusters flared as she jerked the Mobile Suite aside. The blade of a battle axe swept past where her head had been a moment earlier.
"What… what do you think you're doing?!" she shrieked, her voice breaking as panic bled through the comms.
"The moment we entered the simulation, the duel already started," Ren replied, genuine confusion threading his tone.
Inside her cockpit, Carta's expression twisted in sharp displeasure.
"To begin a duel, one must first introduce oneself. Have you no sense of etiquette?" she argued, only to bite her lip as Ren calmly raised his rifle.
"What an absurd rule," Ren replied, his tone flat and unimpressed. Carta clicked her tongue, fury flashing across her face.
"To insult the very foundation of a duel… You truly are evil!" she snapped.
Her thrusters ignited in a sharp burst, and Carta's Graze surged forward at blinding speed. In one fluid motion, she seized the battle axe at her waist and brought it down in a brutal vertical arc. The blade split only empty space as Ren dodged at the last instant.
Again and again, Carta pressed the attack, yet every strike failed to connect. Ren evaded each blow by the narrowest of margins, his movements precise and restrained. With every missed strike, the strain in Carta's motions grew more pronounced, her frustration building with each futile attack.
"Coward. Stop running away!" Carta shouted, her voice thick with rage.
Ren boosted backward, stabilising his Mobile Suit as he brought his rifle up and fired. Carta grunted and twisted her Graze midflight, thrusters flaring as the rounds streaked past her. She raised her own weapon and returned fire, forcing Ren to pull back even farther.
The exchange intensified, shots cutting through the darkness in rapid succession. Then one round struck true. Ren's Graze jolted violently as a bullet clipped its shoulder, knocking him off course.
Seeing the opening, Carta surged forward with everything she had. "This is the end!" she yelled, swinging her axe in a decisive arc.
The screech of shattering machinery tore through her cockpit. Carta's eyes widened as Ren's rifle exploded into countless fragments, scattering like sparks across space. "He blocked it with his gun?" she breathed in disbelief.
Before she could react, a hand emerged from the drifting cloud of debris and reached straight for her.
Ren seized Carta's Graze by the head, his grip locking in place as he raised the axe with his other hand.
"Get off me!" Carta screamed.
She swung her right arm wildly, the barrel of her rifle crashing into Ren's face. The impact tore away the front armour plate, shards scattering as the casing peeled back to reveal the large yellow mono-eye beneath.
Releasing his axe, Ren shifted his full strength into his grip. His fingers dug into the armour as he tightened his hold around Carta's head. Metal shrieked in protest, servos whining as the structure fought against the crushing force. The resistance gave way in an instant. The Graze's head caved inward, and Carta's monitors snapped to black.
She yanked at the controls in a panic, forcing distance between herself and her opponent. Holding her breath, Carta's fingers flew across the side console as she rerouted the feed from the shattered main sensors to the Graze's chest-mounted backup.
The monitor flickered back to life. Carta's breath caught as she scanned the display, searching frantically for Ren.
Before she could locate him, a violent impact slammed into her back, hurling her forward in her seat. Instinct took over. She spun and swung her axe in a wide arc, the blade crashing into Ren's left shoulder. Armour split cleanly apart as the arm was severed and sent tumbling into space.
Ren twisted away from the follow-up strike and countered immediately. His kick struck her chest with brutal force, and Carta's Graze was sent flying even farther into the void.
"Come back…" Carta groaned as she struggled to steady herself, her hands moving instinctively over the controls.
[WARNING WARNING]
Alarms blared throughout the cockpit, their harsh tones cutting through her thoughts. She snapped her gaze to the status display, her breath catching as the damage report filled the screen. The thrusters on her back were critically compromised, systems flickering in and out as power levels dropped.
Gritting her teeth, Carta reached back and wrenched the battle axe free from where it had embedded itself deep into the damaged thruster assembly, and the weapon tore loose with a violent jolt.
Unable to maneuver properly in the weightlessness of space, she shifted into a defensive posture and opened fire with her rifle, forcing a curtain of shots between herself and her opponent.
Ren weaved through the incoming rounds with unsettling precision. Inside his cockpit, his brow furrowed as his Graze clenched its fist, the servos in its remaining arm whining under the strain. Then, without warning, he snapped the suit into a sharp ninety-degree turn and dove straight at her.
Alarms screamed as bullets tore into his armour, puncturing plates and shredding systems, but he did not slow. He drove forward through the fire and slammed his foot down into Carta's midsection. The impact crushed through her defences, and the two mobile suits were dragged together as they plummeted downward, spiralling helplessly in space.
BOOOOOOOOOOM.
The two mobile suits slammed into the surface of the moon, the impact carving a massive crater into the pale rock. Shockwaves rippled outward as debris scattered in every direction.
When Carta's vision finally cleared, she realised she could not move. The crash had completely destroyed the mechanism on her back, thrusters twisted and crushed beyond function. Her Graze lay half-buried in fractured stone, powerless.
She cursed under her breath and hastily reached for the emergency systems, fingers flying as she attempted to recover. Then she stopped. A harsh, dragging sound echoed through the cockpit.
From the corner of her eye, Carta saw Ren approaching at a measured pace. In his hand was her battle axe, the one she had lost in the fall, its blade scraping against the ground as he advanced.
Before she could bring her rifle up, the axe flashed. Steel churned as her limb was cleaved cleanly in half. The severed arm of her mobile suit dropped lifelessly to the surface, kicking up dust as it hit.
"I concede…" Carta said weakly. Ren stopped.
Relief flickered through her, only to shatter an instant later. Her eyes widened as the axe swung down, severing her remaining arm."Wait! The duel is over, you're still attacking me!" she cried.
He didn't respond.
The axe rose and fell again. Her other arm was torn away. Then her legs. One strike after another, methodical and merciless, until her Graze could no longer move at all.
"S… stop…" Her voice trembled, the word barely audible. Somewhere in her panic, she had forgotten this was only a simulation.
When Ren raised the axe one final time, Carta could do nothing but tremble, frozen in place as the fear of death closed in on her.
Under Carta's fearful eyes, the axe came down...
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EB-06 Graze