Elise cut a smile once both Zim and Jason took the initiative. "Acknowledged. I'll send word to R&D to get you boys fitted up for the mission. Now, I feel like blasting some Cruxi scum. This ain't mandatory, but anyone willing to sharpen up their skills report for a space combat simulation session in 20 minutes. Code is A-E-3-0-X. Dismissed."

After Zim reported to Elise to volunteer for an assault pack, he went to the hanger to key in simulations. Zim was a little apprehensive about his choice. It made sense to arm him with something that would let him fire from a distance, it would give him a fighting chance against the automated turrets. But the truth was that he wasn't a very good aim on the fly, that was part of the reason he got put into a melee combatant role. So when he was pulling up the space simulation he took the time to page through the various configurations available in assault packs. It was intense the amount of weapons and armor and various other systems that could be added to a machine. It was no wonder they weren't optimized yet. 

Zim picked a few options and got rid of them and picked again. Then he picked an amount that would exceed his frames carry capacity, so he scrubbed it again and started over again. In the end, he chose to go with greater maneuverability, targeting assistance, additional shielding, and a modular long range rifle that would allow him to fire from a distance. 

Elise appeared to check on the weapon selection since she had the last word in approving weapon systems. "Good thinking on the rifle, Cadet. Unlike a planetside operation, space ops are a pain when you want to punch the alien bastards. Alright, I see no problems here."

Giving a short salute to Elise, Jason spun on his heel and began heading out to hanger to join the simulations and pick his load out. It wasn't terribly long before Jason stood there looking over his choices, then quickly chose what he thought best for the mission. Targeting assistance, monopropellant thrusters, shielding, and a directed EMP cannon. Sure, Jason briefly debated using the pack to make Ribasu and absolute monster, but he felt this to be better for the mission. With technology shielding, he could afford to draw more attention and give the infiltration team a better shot. The monopropellant would give him more maneuverability. The ATS, the ability to make more precise shots. The EMP cannon would work to disable Cruxi units. Maybe help in disabling the teleporting unit. 

With that done, he leaned against a wall and waited for the simulation pod to finish booting up. Once Elise appeared, he looked towards the sergeant with a small nod. A bit lost in his own thoughts at the moment as he peered up at Ribasu.
 
With approval from Elise, and Jason now being present and his pack selected, Zim took his place in the cockpit and loaded the simulation, waiting for the others to join him. As the simulation was already picked out by Elise, Zim didn't take the time to notice any information about it other than it being a space environment, so he was coming in blind- which was fine, because in real life you rarely knew what you were going to find in space.

Elise was happy to see that Jason also showed up. "Alright, I was hoping you both would try out your new gear. It's gonna be a new one for you rookies, so just follow me, kay?" She winked and then walked to the elevator that brought her up to reach the nape of her own Framewerk, Prometheus. Named after an ancient deity that gave the gift of fire to humanity in defiance of the other gods, the titan stood at an impressive height, under a Heavy-Class frame like Paladin, but still quite sizeable. The most prominent feature of the Framewerk was the face on its chest which was frozen in a scream. Most peculiarly, once the Framewerk's weapon systems are activated a fire, or a phenomenon similar to combustion appears in the center of the torso, and the fists of Prometheus glow intensely with a bright light. Elise has shown that she can use this form of energy as a weapon, either punching a Cruxi unit to smithereens or launch beams of fiery wrath using the same punching motions. "Prometheus systems green, ready to rock," the young sergeant informed over comms. "You boys take it easy now, but don't be afraid to test the weapons out."

Stepping off the elevator, Jason took a moment to look down over the rest of the hangar. He had a nice view over everything else, thanks to Ribasu's massive size, and it was peaceful up here. The Heavy-class frame towered over most other things in the hangar, and Jason didn't quite complain about it. Walking along the small catwalk to reach the cockpit, Jason reached out to run a hand along the frame's massive railgun. [color=0076a3][b]"Ready?"[/b][/color] Jason asked massive frame. Shortly after, he was booting up the simulation sequence and flipped the comms. [color=0076a3][b]"X-7, Ribasu no Hono, systems green. No need to worry about testing the weapons out, Sarge, fully intend to get familiar with the systems."[/b][/color] He responded as the simulation came online.

Elise activated the simulation, and the pilots were once again immersed in a virtual reality, floating in the middle of the void. An occasional asteroid could be seen flying in the distance, and countless stars shone faintly in distances too great to fathom.
Soon, the radars picked up three distinct groups of simulated CWMs: One squad was floating in a triangle formation some distance away, another was flying around them in a V-shape, and a third took position on top of an asteroid that slowly moved past them.
"I'll take the rock, Ribasu takes the floaters and Zim takes the birds. YEAAAHHHH!" Elise screamed her battle cry, and Prometheus's arms and torso burst aflame, seemingly activated by her hot-blooded temper she charged forth and launched a blast from the palms of her hands.

[color=0076a3][b]"Draw their attention for now if you can, I need time to charge a shot."[/b][/color] Jason said into the comms, still used to being a squad leader. With that being done, Jason's hands flew across controls as Ribasu loaded a bunker buster. As the frame began charging its shot, Jason fired up the ATS to give himself a shot to inflict maximum damage on the group he was tasked with taking down. [color=0076a3][b]"Do me a favor, make sure you're not close to my targets when I fire. Charging an HE round for maximum impact."[/b][/color] He said calmly into the comms, eyes fixed upon the trio he was tasked with eliminating.

"Understood," Zim said to the command. He reached over and activated the ATS and started charging the Wave Surger. They were still at a greater distance than Zim could fire on, so he activated the additional thrusters on his back and launched himself off into space. There was no take off, there was no ramping up of speed, just a sudden jump from 0-100% momentum and inertia. It shook Zim and it took the pilot a moment to get his barrings again and locate his targets. He pulled up the sniper rifle, the default loaded cartridge was the railgun. Now he could fire from the new location, he picked the unit closest to himself and took aim before firing. In space there is no sound, there is no recoil, just the flash of electrical discharge off the end of the long barrel and the gold-platinum cartridge falling off to the side. The shot went wide, Zim was in too great a hurry to try and line them up properly. But now he was away from the Elise and Jason, which should draw some opponents away from them, and if not, it would allow him to attack from the distance without being harassed

"Take this!" Elise screamed as she kept pummelling the void in front of her, sending bolts of shimmering light that struck her enemies silently; she has been on space missions before, but she still couldn't get used to the uneasiness of hearing only her own breath despite bracing against the rain of plasma, and so she was louder than usual to fill the dead air. "Bogey coming at 450!" She relayed the coming assault of a clawed CWM, heading straight for Ribasu, while two CWM's attempted to flank Black Star.

Zim turned and took aim at one of the units approaching him, he took an extra moment this time to focus and make sure that the sights aligned, he breathed in, he breathed out and he pull the trigger, the silent flash of light shot off into the distance, piercing the right shoulder of the target. Judging by the scale of the resulting explosion, a thruster or power pack was hit. Zim hit his own thrusters and jumped away, attempting to avoid the incoming volley of plasma fire. The 'pilot' of the opposing unit predicted correctly and lead the shot, Zim flew straight into it, disabling his added thrusters. He was far enough out now, too, that he couldn't expect support from the rest of the squad. "Stupid mistake," Zim said to himself inside the depth of silence inside the cockpit. 

Jason remained calm and collected towards the rear of the battlefield. He noticed the CWM tearing towards him and allowed a small grin to grow on his lips. [color=0076a3][b]"Oh, please. Come on over."[/b][/color] He said as Ribasu finished charging it's shot. [color=0076a3][b]"Firing."[/b][/color] He reported as the railgun unleashed its mighty payload. Jason's thrusters fired in a rapid sequence against the recoil of the massive weapon, keeping Ribasu still as a streak of light tore through the void. Like a bolt of lightning thrown from the Gods, the HE Round covered the distance before the CWM's could react. The round sheared through the shoulder of one of the trio he was assigned, it's armor being nothing for the fully charged shot. Then it exploded in a silent, brief ball of bright light. Appearing then blinking out of existence instantly, but swallowing all three CWMs. Two of the machines were instantly destroyed, while the other seemed alive; but heavily injured. Not to mention; it was pissed. The injured enemy unit seemed to go full power as it burned towards Ribasu, the plasma cannon getting ready to fire. 

Jason remembered the clawed unit at the last second and slammed the commands for the EMP cannon to get ready to fire. Hoping it wasn't too little, too late.

Elise was too busy with her own beatdown to pay a lot of attention to what Zim and Jason handled themselves, but from quick glances she gathered that they were holding out. With a mighty roundhouse kick she sent the cranial unit of the last Cruxi mech flying deep into space, and got a chance to see the EMP in action; one bright flash later the assaulting Cruxi were left helpless, their systems overloaded. Prometheus first dashed in to pick them off, but then, for some reason, it changed trajectory and went to help Zim, without any kind of verbal communication between the two. "Miss me?" Elise smugly asked as she blasted a sneaky Cruxi out to get Black Star. "No hesitation, Cadet!"

"Yes, Ma'am," Zim said in response. The indicator on wave surger flashed fully charged, Zim lowered the rifle and raised Black Stars left hand, a ball of light grew for just a moment before the beam of energy erupted from it. Zim made a slashing movement with the weapon sending the beam out in a prolonged arc. The cruxi unit turned to flee but the beam caught up to it and cut the unit clean in half. With ATS active Zim picked his rifle back up and took aim on the cruxi unit floating incapacitated and fired a round into it to put it to rest.

Frowning, Jason looked around the simulated battlefield. [color=0076a3][b]"Is it me, or is that all of them?"[/b][/color] He asked the other two as his hands danced across Ribasu's controls to ensure that he was seeing things correct. After all, the numbers of the groups who had been destroyed added up to the ones who had been there. If they had that easy a time, then these assault packs would be more than worth it in the upcoming battle.

"Looks like we handled the grunt stage, yeah." Not too long after Elise responded, a familiar warning message appeared, signaling a randomly generated extra challenge created by Lorenzo. "Alright, here we go again!" Suddenly, a Mist unit appeared in the distance, and from its core it shot out a giant laser that blew up a nearby asteroid, causing Ribasu to be sprayed with high-velocity rocks that banged against the armor plate as if in a hail. "Geez, it's a big one!" Elise shot out an energy blast, but the simulated enemy changed colors, turning red, and absorbed the energy shot. "And it's in Hard Mode too! Goddamn!" As the pilots were explained, Hard Mode enemies could change how they worked on the fly, with a long-range CWM drawing a huge sword, or a tentacle beast revealed it could spit highly corrosive acid.
These modifications were added by the special request of Lorenzo himself, saying it added more "realism" to the combat despite the actual realism.

"Seems to be immune to energy attacks," Zim said as he began evasive maneuvers to avoid the oncoming debris from the asteroid, "Should we attempt to disable it with an EMP? Wait, will an EMP even affect something immune to energy attacks?"

It would take some time before the wave surger was cooled down and starting to recharge, not that it would be much help if the mist was immune to energy based attacks. At this point, Zim could only stand back and take pop-shots at it, waiting for Ribasu to be able to use another HE round on it.

"Ma'am, if I may? We need to destroy the mist, ultimately, even if we disable it, we still need to kill it, right? Ribasu's HE round should do the trick nicely, but if it can keep changing its properties, we need to keep it focused on defending against energy based attacks until Ribasu is ready to fire. Jason, how long until you can have a shot ready? I'll provide cover with my shielding unit, but I think you need to lay down a bit of 'suppression' fire with Prometheus in order to keep it occupied."

[color=0076a3][b]"Doubtful an EMP would hit it. As for the HE, that's a no go. The HE rounds energy-based, for some stupid reason. I can try an armor piercer, physical attack that could go right up the middle. Though if this is like the normal mist, that'll make it fire. Alternate option is set off missiles all around it, see if the force of the blast does anything."[/b][/color] Jason reported back as the rocks slammed into his hull. Some help the stupid shield was, if these things got through. He hit the commands to start charging up an Armor Piercing round and used the Monopropellant to silently move Ribasu into the asteroid belt. Floating among the rocks, he hoped to be a less obvious target than out in the open. [center][color=0076a3][b]"Good Luck."[/b][/color][/center]

"Oh thanks, like luck is gonna help any," Elise jeered as she dodged a shot of the laser. She continued circling around the menacing orb, giving it an occasional shot just to keep it attacking. "You better get that shot in soon! I don't think I can-AAAAHHH!" The young pilot screamed in horrific pain as a laser pierced Prometheus right in the gaping torso, and the shock was enough to cause Elise to be disconnected from the simulation, resulting in Prometheus suddenly disappearing, as if the Framewerk wasn't really there. The orb continued glowing a red hue, seemingly confused by Elise's sudden disappearance.

"Shit, just you and me, Jason! I'll try to keep it busy for you while you get that armor piercer ready!" 

Zim activated his shield now and a large blue energy wall formed in front of him with plenty of room for two additional frames to take cover from. With the shield generator up Zim then put his active jammer on decoy mode and two more versions of black star appeared, each with their own shields, at least according to the sensors. Zim then set to flying around in a chaotic pattern, his decoys mimicking the motions as Zim performed them. As Blackstar danced with the illusions Zim made sure to keep outside of the radiation range of a normal mist. 

However, either the Mist was smarter than they anticipated and knew which one to target, or it got very lucky it fired of a laser blast that similarly knocked Zim out of the simulation, leaving only Jason in Ribasu to take down the Mist.

As the mist blew Zim away,  Ribasu was approaching the point of being ready to fire the railgun. However, Jason still had a few moments before he could fire. Dodging by drifting slowly through the debris. Using only his monopropellant in hopes of keeping the enemy distracted from his presence. Once notified he was ready to fire, Jason gunned the mech forward. Emerging from the field, Jason pulled the trigger to fire the railgun just half-seconds after the mist fired a laser towards him. Soon enough, half his mech was blown away and he was booted from the simulation, but not before his round had been fired. Silently zipping across the distance to hit the mist, though Jason never would get to see the result.

He slammed his fist against the inside of the cockpit. [color=0076a3][b]"Damnit. Did I get it?"[/b][/color] The boy asked the others over the comms as he began hitting commands to open the cockpit back up.

"Does it matter?" Zim called back, they had failed the simulator, if they had been in a real combat situation they would have all died, and probably everyone else if everyone else had been with him. It was true that the assault packs added quite a bit in combat power, but it wasn't enough for them to overcome a super mist. While it may have been a fabrication created by Lorenzo to push their ability to adapt, the truth was that they still didn't know enough about the enemy to know if such a thing was even possible to meet in the field. In fact, they knew for a fact that there were variants of the mist and we have zero knowledge of their abilities. 

Zim knew at that moment, that it didn't matter to defeat the Mist if the rest of the mission was a success. They had to get in, rescue Elora and anyone else they might find, and get out. If they encounter the teleporter, they were to capture it, or destroy it if unable to capture and get out. The rest was unimportant.


"Hrgh, that sucked!" Elise groaned as she clambered out, and punched the side of the machine, leaving her fist bruised. "How could I have been so stupid? I should have anticipated that! So what happened? Did we get it? Wait, I'll check..." Elise checked the monitor and smiled. "All targets eliminated. Well, at least we got the job done, even if we didn't survive. Now you boys should have a better understanding of how the assault packs work, so I expect results now, alright? Now prepare yourselves for the mission, I'll be off now. Dismissed." And with that said, the young sergeant left the two alone.
 
[color=0076a3][b]"I should remember to actually [i]use[/i] the shields, huh?"[/b][/color] The boy muttered as he climbed out of the cockpit and began heading out of the hangar himself. Pausing for a brief moment, he looked back at Zim, [color=0076a3][b]"Also, at least I got the fucker."[/b][/color] He said with a small smile before turning and heading out. With the intention of heading back to get changed and workout, help him think about what had happened in the sim and how to improve upon it.