"So far the project has entered its next phase splendidly," Lorenzo suddenly spoke, as if he wasn't talking to anyone in the room, despite Ritsu being present, holding her arms in a worried fashion. "And there are plenty of promising subjects in this batch. Though there are also many rotten examples. I could create an AI with better handling than some of them."

"That remains to be seen, professor." Ritsu said in a stern tone to the scientist. She looked at the screen, and saw how various pilots appeared in the hangars with their plugsuits on, and how they entered their given Framewerks. "After all, that is one of the purposes of this exercise, to test their Synchro Rates and tactical capability."

Lorenzo checked that he had visual feed recorded of every pilot's face while they were sitting inside the machines, and then activated the comand channel. "Now then, we will shortly begin the mock battle. As the lieutenant informed you, it will be held among Cadets. However, this does not mean it will only consist of your group. Shame on anyone who thought so. Your bloodlust is commendable though, and it will be useful when you channel it against the Cruxi, hee hee! No, it will be a fight between two teams of Cadets:






Team Sigma versus Team Irina."

A moment passed by as dead air lingered in the command channel, before the husky voice of another woman could be heard from it. "That's right, you fucking maggots! I'm Irina Spanova, and I'm gonna smash your Frames like tincans! Don't you bastards hold back, you hear me!"
Ritsu then suddenly spoke once she cut off Irina's comms: "Anyway, the objectives will be the same, regardless of the targets. Defeat as many enemies as you can by any means possible. You will be fighting superior numbers, so give it all you got, Cadets."

The hangar doors were then opened, revealing the landscape of zone A, which was the Open Fields, a vast stretch of empty land. You could see a tower soaring to the sky in the distance, which the map file designated as zone G, or the Tower of Power. The sky was filled with gray clouds, making for a dour scene to look at.
Lieutenant Ritsu's voice could be heard. "The objectives stay the same as previously. Cadets, commence Operation: Mock Battle!" As soon as the words left her mouth, the air filled with the grinding of metal and the roaring of thrusters as every Framewerk launched out of the hangar and into the fields in a thunderous fashion. The battle that would soon unfold on an astounding scale, with titans clashing against each other in a monumental brawl.

"Are you sure this is necessary, professor?" Ritsu returned back to discussing privately with Lorenzo. "This couldn't have been done as a virtual simulation, I mean?"
"No," Lorenzo said with a stern face. "You'll see. To defeat the Cruxi, they need to prepare to kill each other without hesitation should the situation call for it, and without any inhibitions, virtual or real. Besides, this can be classified as euthanasia when it comes to the Homunculus pilots."

Elora was still shocked from what she heard when she launched out of the hangar, and her fingers slipped on the interface as she tried to type her trained Combat Analyzer commands in. She had difficulty believing what she heard, and hated herself for assuming it was going to be a free-for-all. Only a madman would arrange something like that. This made a lot more sense, but even then it still seemed cruel to fight against other Cadets, even if she didn't know them. Still, she had a mission to fulfill. She was part of a team now, and she couldn't let her comrades down. "Initiate cloaking and terrain scan protocol," she vocally confirmed the command, and shot high into the air as the air electrified around her egg-shaped Frame before it seemed to disappear with a crackle. She lingered in the upper atmosphere long enough to get a rough estimate of what the arena's geography was, and uploaded it to herself and Ariin. "Here you go, you should now have a 3D-display of the map data with hostile activity marked as red dots and allies as green."

Then she realized: she forgot that it wasn't a battle royal, but a team effort, and switched to the command channel as she uploaded the map data to all Framewerks on team Sigma. "Uhh, I-I set up a map outline, but I need more time before I get all the sectors down." She bit her lip as she tried to emotionally soldier through the mistake she made, and resisted apologizing for it, as it was pointless chatter, and that was one of the biggest mistakes an information specialist like her could make. She hoped that Ariin wouldn't reveal her mess up to the other pilots, though at the same time she expected to be scolded for that by her superiors anyway. All in all, it was a terrible start for her. However, she at least she got the map uploaded, so she was contributing. At least, that's what she told herself.

There wasn't any indication where the enemy was coming from, though the team could barely see far in the horizon how several shades resembling humanoid shapes advanced upon them from various directions such as the lake in the east, the forest of pillars in the west, and from behind the central tower. But one thing was clear: there were many machines, and all of them were unique models with unique qualities. If team Sigma had any chance of winning, they had to put their teamwork to its limits, and give every fiber of their being to destroying them...even if they were Cadets just like them.