[center][h1][color=silver]Lucius[/color][/h1][/center]

Returning to the simulation being visualized before them once more, Lucius' eyes scanned over the action in silent contemplation. He was just in time to see Mema-Ka outside of his unit in the simulation, trying to make his way over to a Team Mango unit that had been stealthed and hidden away. Clever, and yet....he would watch as the Guinevere zapped him, frying the maser-using, exposed pilot like a bug zapper back home. As if he was some pest insect lingering during the summer months, cut short in life by virtue of being an annoyance. Perhaps the Guinevere hadn't intended to seem like such to the others, but even so it brought the old nostalgic memories of happier summers to mind in a more gruesome light than before.

It was but a simulation, and yet had that just been real then they-....he....no. This wasn't the time to imagine it. [s]He didn't want to, not even in his worst nightmares.[/s]
 
[quote]"You must be the pilot of the 'Obscure'. Good to see you made up your mind quick regardless of what followed. Well done. Good to have you aboard. I shall look forwards to getting to know more about you." Mema-Ka said in a soft manner, holding out his hand towards Lucius in a polite manner, offering a handshake then turning to Elora.[/quote]

Lucius accepted the offered handshake, nodding to the man whose voice was familiar to his ears from the simulation. The one who had given him the offer and orders, though he'd lost contact with him after Logic Driver had mostly gone down. Likely due to whatever was jamming up the frequencies at the time perhaps? Ah. That would be something to look at later if he could find some public enough things to get a rough idea of his new team members here. Well, unless he got a chance to talk to them each first, he supposed. 

The other man even so proceeded to talk to Logic Driver's pilot and the so-designated 'Mr. Pink', whose voice was that of the Team Mango member who had spoken to him with an offer before. Hmm. Even then, casting his eyes about seemed to tell well enough where the old man's attention was actually at after what had happened with Logic Driver's pilot in the simulation. Thinking on the matter still left a sense of familiarity, a vague one, lingering like an aftertaste in Lucius' mind. Even so, he seemed much less attentive to people than the data at hand....and with that came some things into his mind that left a sour taste in his mouth. 

[quote]“R-Really?” Elora reminisced on the battle, and remembered the frightening sight that befell her once she was down on the ground, crawling with her Framewerk.
“That drone then…It was yours, um, Lucius?” She asked, starting to gradually regain her composure, as she was distracted by the technical topic. “I didn’t see any drones like that when I read through the profiles…Thank you,” she spoke, and a slight blush emerged on her cheeks.
“For helping me there…I appreciate it.”[/quote]

The younger man was snapped back to reality by the girl near him at the time, and he rubbed the back of his head somewhat sheepishly. Even if it wasn't the time for a full technical disclosure necessarily at the moment she did seem genuinely curious about his drones at least, though upon her giving him thanks Lucius simply smiled back softly in turn. If there was one thing he knew-

[color=silver]"Do you-...oh! Yes that was mine. Experimental type Attack Drone actually, has a medium particle beam instead of a small laser.

And...it's no problem. I'm happy to help."[/color]

...it was that he'd take the same action again under those same circumstances. He knew it. Part of him didn't reget it one bit and held firm in that, and yet something in the pit of his stomach also sank at the thought simultaneously. His recklessness had gotten him killed. Saved Elora for a bit longer, but even then she'd eventually succumbed in turn. Staving off the seemingly inevitable just a moment longer. Something about it spoke to him in a way that felt most...human. Yet it also spoke to him in a way that felt like it wanted to crawl down his spine in a much more unpleasant fashion. 

[i][s]Had this been a real battle-[/s][/i] 

Looking back to the simulation after he'd spoken to the girl, Lucius' warm smile turned into a gaze of focus upon the ensuing turns of the battle back and forth once more.

[i][s]-he and all of Team Apple would all be dead. Them and most of Mango.[/s][/i]

This was soon followed with a greater clash of blows, his killer and Team Apple's last hope diving into a melee that had two conclusive results. One was that a shining hand pierced through the cockpit of his killer, ending her outright in much more quick and simplistic fashion than had the other Team Apple pilot prior. Yet even then, the winner was cut in half....sitting there, just as Logic Driver had, defenseless and a sitting duck. 

[i][s]A man would have been roasted alive before his very eyes reduced to dush and charred carbon right there and then.[/s][/i]

It was then only a matter of one more Arklight Thunder being fired at the downed Horst before the end came in kind, leaving the Guinevere and its pilot the sole surviving victor of the simulation battle. 

...At least the pilot of Logic Driver seemed well enough to go thank the pilot of the Horst for helping, before Ritsu addressed them and he snapped to attention and gave a salute in turn out of pure drilled habit. Still, he felt some tension release from his shoulders at the thought that the other girl seemed more ok now than she had been. She'd almost been the first casualty of it all, save for the actions of her teammates being the deciding factor. Albeit a few too many of them all had perhaps jumped in from the looks of it, and yet some part of him felt okay with that. Almost a bit reassured. 

[i][s]She did overextend, you know? Ruined the approach for her team. Was a distraction to save her. Would have been better to leave her for dead and-[/s][/i]

[b]Shut. Up.[/b]

The younger man's right hand suddenly flinched in a spasm, though he paid it no mind himself or looked down at it. To him it was as if nothhing had happend, at least externally speaking, but internally he felt something spit out of his thoughts. Blasted thoughts. Uncomfortable, but still important. Unpleasant, and yet bearing some truth perhaps. He still didn't want it all to linger like it was. The silence that followed from it all, however, felt more stilling and welcome than a lot of things at the moment. 

At least the muscle man who had been complaining was staying entertaining enough with his ourbursts watching the end of the sim, and even afterwards to boot. The blue haired girl stuck out her tongue and jotted off. Aurora, the one name he'd really gotten thus far among his new teammates for sure, walked over to speak to the readheaded man who had piloted Horst and still sat inside of his simulation chair at the moment. The blue-haired man who had emerged from the simulation after winning, he assumed, was the Guinevere's pilot then. The red haired woman who had emerged was his killer, then, and pilot of the Argent Wings that Horst had taken down in the end. A skilled pilot to be sure. 

From here, not much registered too much to him for some seconds. The man who had shaken his and and Horst, then Horst's pilot and Mr Pink, spoke. The doting Lilim, he [u]really[/u] still needed to confirm if she was some daycare-type model for that matter, moving over to the Logic Driver's pilot. He then began to make his way toward the breifing room, or at least what he could gather was the proper direction, his breaths becoming more controlled for a moment as he went along. Even so, Lucius felt once again drawn outside of himself from his thoughts as he barely managed to parse a set of four words as he passed a conversing Mr. Pink and Argo's pilot. 

[quote]”I will never break.”[/quote]

...Lucius kept on walking without pause. He needed to get to the breifing room, or so he told himself that was his imperative at least, and as he was so new it was unlikely he'd be further approached for the time being perhaps. Maybe. But for a moment, the younger man would be forced to again take a pause as something flashed into his mind, touching his senses and leaving a-...a....o-oh. 

[center][i]The flash of an image of a blackened exterior with cracks of seared red and pink he shouldn't be seeing like this. A face, indiscernible now, broken off from the explosive heat of what had happened. A body, sitting in his arms. The open air, arid and almost desert-like in nature. Twisted, burnt metal right next to him. The poignantly vivid smell of flash fried-[/i][/center]

Without warning, and a little distance from most of the others, Lucius leaned on the wall with his left arm and grabbed his stomach with a clenched right hand. He silently heaved, even as he was fighting against every fiber of his body to not draw attention. His eyes darted to see from the corners of his vision. He held his breath for a few moments. He tried to push his mind off to other things. 

It was [u]nothing[/u]....not for now at least. Yeah. He hoped so. [s]Please, please let it be far, far away from now. Not soon. Not here. Please, I'd give almost anything to-[/s] 

If left uninterrupted, the new pilot would work to compose himself again and pretend as if nothing had happened. From there, he would finish his path to the breifing room without skipping a beat or making a sound.