Running and Gunning

"BEGIN!" a female voice said to both Gray and Geoff. Immediately both Gray and Geoff aimed their laser rifles at each other and opened fire.

"Suck laser butthead!" said Gray menacingly.

"What are you? Twelve?" said Geoff expressionlessly.

"Heck yeah! Twelve inches!" said Gray with a huge grin on his face. He was genuinely enjoying this!

"The 'mm' on the ruler is millimeters, not inches."

Both Gray and Geoff exchanged shots, and the heat could be seen radiating off of their laser rifles. Initially, they expected to run around, dodge, and take potshots at each other, but this was their first time, and they could barely walk and shoot simultaneously. Instead, they opted to stand in place and fire at each other. Their aim was so bad that Major Valen would probably cry if he saw this.

Finally, both rifles stopped firing after the same time as they looked at their own guns curiously.

"What gives? I was getting ready to make my move!" said Gray. He noticed a little indicator blinking on his HUD that was blinking and saying 'OVERHEAT' in red glowing letters. The same was seen on Geoff's HUD as well.

"All part of my plan," said Geoff plainly.

"Plan my ass! You were just firing like I was!"

Finally, both mech's rifles finished cooling at the same time and could be fired again. They noticed that the HUD would display a temperature gauge for their weapons, so one could consider it a learning process for them.

Gray and Geoff eventually started to get the hang of the rifles and were able to hit each other's mechs. The laser rifle is highly accurate, so once they could coordinate the mech better with their thoughts and imagined actions, it became much easier to use the mech.

For twenty minutes or so, both Gray and Geoff continued to dance around and take shots at each other. Neither of them was accurate enough to score any critical damage. A laser rifle required you to hit the same area multiple times before punching through the mech's armor.

"Can't I adjust the power on this thing?" said Gray as he started fiddling with the weapon settings on his HUD. He discovered that he could adjust it and immediately cranked up the power as far as the slider would go. A bright yellow warning symbol flashed with a message: "WARNING: Exceeding maximum power can lead to critically damaging your weapon."

"Eh, no guts no glory!" Gray confirmed the override and saw the temperature gauge rise on the laser rifle before even firing it. "This might've been a bad idea, better make the most of it!"

Gray had stopped firing while adjusting his laser rifle and made his way to some cover while pretending that his rifle overheated again. Geoff thought that Gray probably overheated his laser rifle again, so he chased after Gray.

Gray was hoping for this as he knelt next to the wall hiding and waiting for Geoff to come charging over. He wasn't disappointed as Geoff did indeed chase him. Realizing his mistake, Geoff's first instinct was to use his own rifle to block and brace himself. Gray smiled victoriously as he held steady and pulled the trigger. A bright almost-golden light shot out of the gun. It burst through Geoff's rifle and into his simulated cockpit in the torso of his mech.

Red emergency lights flashed on Gray's HUD as his laser rifle turned to slag in his mech's hand after holding the trigger too long. His mech's hand became damaged from the heat, causing some of the joints in the mech's hand to melt and seize up.

"Simulation over, winner Gray," said the same female voice from the start of the match.

"Yeah! How'd you like 'dem apples!" said Gray victoriously.

Geoff glumly replied, "Yeah yeah, I admit you tricked me."

Gray and Geoff both exited the simulator pods simultaneously, and Major Valen walked up to both of them.

"Ensign Gray! Ensign Geoff! That was the most sorry duel I've ever witnessed, you two were strutting around like peacocks while being unable to shoot the broadside of a barn and wasting your energy goofing off like grade schoolers!"

"Sir, it was our first time ever in a mech even though it was just a simulation..." Gray countered Major Valen.

"... a simulation inside a game... I'm never going to get used to thinking about it like that." Gray thought to himself as he didn't want to incur the wrath of this hardass.

"Indeed it is your first time! That is why you normally go through a basic course introducing you to controlling mechs instead of just giving them to you! Those sorry sacks that left are probably finding out right about now that controlling them properly isn't as easy as they thought and will make their way back here crying for Big Daddy Valen to take them back in because they walked like a toddler wearing high heels!"

Gray was impressed that Major Valen could keep up his loud voice and say everything without taking a single breath.

"Sorry sir, then where can we get a course?" said Geoff.

"You two sad sacks missed the start of it already when you went to go off on your own, but the second part will be in one hour. Take this material to brush up on it and I expect to see you two in the classroom at the Pilot's barracks in one hour!"

Major Valen tossed them each a data chip containing the raw content of the first class. Luckily, since it was just the first class, most of the content was just familiarizing ourselves with each other and going over the schedule for future courses and training.

An hour later, Gray and Geoff followed instructions and made their way to the classroom. Nine other classmates were at their desks when Gray and Geoff entered. All but one of the players that had left right away were in the classroom, and Gray wondered where the last one was.

Gray got acquainted with everyone else while waiting for the Major to start his course. Only 3 others seemed noteworthy to Gray. The rest were not interested in making friends as they had come with a premade group from other games.

The three others were Caleb Waldowski, Yurika Winchester, and Stacia Oldland.

Caleb came across as a bit of a dork, but he seemed to really know his stuff. Relatively short for his age, his hair was long and messy while his face could be said to be above average, but Gray really couldn't tell as he couldn't judge male faces... Nor was he interested in doing so...

Yurika was very interesting to Gray. She reminded him of those old vocaloids from the early 21st century. She had long teal hair, spoke very energetically, smiled a lot, and her body proportions were a little too perfect. She probably spent a lot of time getting it right in the changing room.

Stacia stood out to Gray because she seemed the most normal. Gray mused that she would also be fun to tease. Stacia was very cute and seemed to keep her avatar the same as herself since it didn't look exceedingly perfect. She was pretty short with a cute face. Her hair was short and light brown as she had opted to keep it natural looking for the game. Her body proportions were also average. When she sat next to Yurika, it felt like Stacia was real and Yurika was a character from a novel or something similar.

Major Valen burst into the classroom exactly when the class was designated to start and walked up to the podium.

"Glad we are all here this time!" Major Valen said while looking at Gray and Geoff, causing them to sink slightly in their chairs to try and hide.

"Now, we are going to assign you to a trainer. They will instruct you in the simulator about how to interface with a mech. You can't just stick the neural link helmet on and expect it to work perfectly or the way you want it to."

"Sir, why not just stick us in our game mechs?" said one of the other players Gray didn't get to know.

"Those mechs are worth more than your puny lives and take much longer to replace than you greenhorns. We do not want them getting damaged!"

"But sir, this is only a game. Just respawn the mechs if they get damaged..." said another student who seemed annoyed with the lack of freedom.

Major Valen was about to yell at him, then calmed down and stated, "Yes, this is only a game. Still, as a true simulation, repairs are not handled by the system and instead by technicians and 3D printers."

The other players nodded in agreement as they understood that this game aimed to achieve extreme realism.

Major Valen looked down solemnly before looking back up and getting into the lesson. Gray swore he heard the Major say to himself, "...just a game to you all."