Chapter 5 - Test Drive to War
#5 of Two Worlds One Heart
Author's note: Any reference to actual events, people, or places are just coincidental. I hold no ownership to the Gundams or any of the Mobile Suit Gundam series.
"Liek" is pronounced as "leek"
"Li'thel" is pronounced as "lee-thel"
Chapter 5 â€" This Isn't a Game! It's War!
Location â€" Li'thel's World: The Facility
"You can't be serious, right?!" exclaimed Liek as he stared at the Gundam in disbelief.
"Nope. It's a similar replica to the Freedom in Gundam Seed but we changed a few changes to the interior. Our finest model yet," said Namna proudly.
"Why can't you find other testers?" asked Li'thel plainly.
"They're afraid that it'll blow up like the other machines we designed," smiled Namna as Liek looked at Namna with wide eyes.
"You're telling me to risk my life just to test THAT machine?!" shouted Liek.
"That's what I'm saying. The worst that will happen is no one will go to your funeral should it blow up," said Namna with a pleased look on her face.
"Don't creep the kid out with the words of death!" scolded Li'thel.
"I'm only pointing out the truth in the matter," responded Namna.
Great, now I got myself into a situation where I could get blown up to smithereens and never see the light of day in MY world ever again. What kind of people copies another person's creations and fails miserably?! This is completely insane! And yet I'm excited at the insanity! I just realized that Namna is a fat brown bear so how does she fit into small areas?
"Unless you have a better idea of testing that thing out, that kid's gonna go through with it," said Namna seriously.
"What happened to the batch of testers I sent you?" asked Li'thel annoyed.
"That was four months ago! They're all dead because of explosions," said Namna.
"Jeez, you blow through testers way too fast," said Li'thel discreetly.
"Anyways, you up for it? I'm 99% sure that the Gundam won't explode so you'll be fine," grinned Namna.
"There's absolutely no way I'm going in that thing just to die! You can't make me!" shouted Liek.
"There's no need to shout at people. We can hear you just fine," said Li'thel but no one really paid any attention to him.
"You're getting into that thing whether you like it or not and that's final," said Namna with a hostile look in her eyes.
"Using force like always," muttered Li'thel as he started to sneak away.
"And don't you dare run away!" shouted Namna without moving her head.
Li'thel stopped where he was and made a long sigh before considering what his options were. It took some time but Liek submitted to Namna's hostile eyes and reluctantly entered the control center of the Gundam. Namna pointed to each portion of the control center and told Liek what each of them did. All of this information was too much for Liek to handle.
"Now these two half circles at the end of the arm rests are what makes the Gundam move around on the battle field. The one on the left controls movement. The one on the right controls the arms. The most you'd have to do with the right one is just think of what you want the arms to do," explained Namna.
"Did you get all that kid?" asked Li'thel from the base of the Gundam.
"I'm sure he understands," shouted Namna to Li'thel who is actually really far away.
Too much information...my brain is going to melt at this rate.
"Let's begin the test kiddo," said Namna as she backed away from the control center to let the entrance close and seal Liek within the Gundam.
Li'thel and Namna quickly moved away from the Gundam as Liek began pushing random buttons in hopes of finding the on switch.
"Which one was it?" panicked Liek desperately pressing many buttons at the same time.
"What's the kid doing?" thought Li'thel staring at the inactive Gundam.
"Don't tell me he forgot how to turn it on," muttered Namna under her breath.
"God damn it! Why won't you turn on?! Turn on Gundam!" shouted Liek.
The Gundam's twinkled for a moment before all of the screens around Liek turned on to allow him to see outside of the Gundam clearly. There is a large circle before Liek that posted the initials "A.I.F" before changing into a navigation screen. Slight shocks passed through his body as the Gundam aligned its system with the nerve pulses that flowed from his brain.
"I wish this was all a dream," muttered Liek trying to withstand the constant miniature shocks.
"How's it going in there?" asked Namna through a radio transmission.
"Not very well," said Liek through his teeth.
"What did you do to the Gundam?" asked Li'thel when he heard the response.
"He's just going through a nerve up link. It'll help move the arms at a more instantaneous rate. It also links to the legs if he wants to walk, run, kick, and so forth," answered Namna. "No pain no gain."
"It seems like you want him to die," said Li'thel looking at the Gundam.
"If I did, then you'd know," smiled Namna.
"I'm sure I would," replied Li'thel pathetically.
The miniature shocks finally came to an end after 5 minutes and Liek thought about taking a swing at Namna after all of this was over. He forgot about the neural hook up and the right arm of the Gundam made a heavy thrust before him.
"FUCK! That scared the shit out of me!" jumped Liek as he tried to calm down from the sudden movement.
"Neural up link is working perfectly fine," said Namna. "How about a foot or two?"
"Stepping on her is a lot better than punching her," fumed Liek as the Gundam started to take a step.
"That's perfect! The Gundam is working perfectly fine!" shouted Namna with joy.
"Isn't it called Valint," said Li'thel.
"That name is fucking retarded! I've decided to make the codename Gundam now!" shouted Namna with a bright sense of determination in her eyes.
Li'thel started to walk away from the hyper Namna as she started to jump up and down and throw out random swings and kicks into the air. It didn't take long for Li'thel to make his full escape since hyper Namna has a less sense of awareness. He made his way to the upper portion of the Facility and watched from the catwalks.
"Every thing's going fine so far," muttered Liek.
Okay, so I'd have to admit that this is actually pretty cool and that my friends won't ever believe that I am actually riding a Gundam. I'm just lucky so far that there are no signs of an explosion but I'm bound to die from all of these buttons and levers. More buttons than levers though. It took some time before I got the hang of this neural stuff since it basically correlates to what I do on a normal physical basis.
"Let's try the weapons now!" shouted Namna.
"WHAT?!" exclaimed Li'thel. "You're going to get the enemies attention if you do that!"
"Try out the missiles! Then the beams! Don't forget your head guns and light saber!" ignored Namna as she continued to dance around.
Liek did as he was told and tested out the missiles, beams, head guns, and light saber. The missiles worked flawlessly and didn't leave a dent on the wall. The beams worked well as well but it ran a risk of being detected by enemy radar. The guns and light saber worked perfectly fine which deemed that the Gundam was perfectly safe so far.
"For such a destructive thing, this is really getting me pumped for war now," said Liek looking at the energy screen to his lower right.
"I just realized something," said Namna standing on one foot at an odd angle.
"What is it? Don't tell me that the Gundam will explode in the end," said Li'thel slightly worried.
"Not that. I just realized that he might get attracted to the idea of war," said Namna standing correctly and thinking hard about the current situation.
"It's your fault, not mine. All I did was bring him here," said Li'thel trying not to be the guilty.
"I'd say it's both of our faults if he gets addicted to war. He is innocent so..." began Namna before she started mumbling to herself.
"This will take some time," said Li'thel scratching hid head. "Kid, why don't you come out of that thing for now? Namna is lost in her head right now."
"Roger that," replied Liek as he unstrapped himself from his seat and got out of the Gundam.
I've never felt anything like this before. The adrenaline is still pumping in my veins and the thought of killing people actually seems entertaining right now even though I'm against violence and stuff like that. What's the worst thing that can happen anyways? I wonder if this is how everyone feels before the beginning of a major battle or even before enlisting in the first place.
Liek made it to the ground floor safely and made his way over to Li'thel with a silly grin on his face as he continued to think about the idea of battle and rewards that war could offer. He was too distracted by his thoughts to even notice Li'thel's glare since Li'thel could tell right away that Liek had the urge to go to war and start killing.
"I guess there's no real way to get around this situation," said Namna clearly.
"You'd better hope so or else things are going to get really ugly between you and me," said Li'thel seriously with a threatening look in his eyes.
"Your name's Liek right? Never mind about that right now, I just want to say that you're young and you shouldn't be going into war at your age. It's just not a good thing for you to do," said Namna.
"Namna?" questioned Li'thel taken by complete surprise.
"I'm serious about this one Li'thel. Usually I wouldn't reject new recruits but Liek is an entirely different story. I doubt he even know the consequences if he was to die in this world. Besides, I don't want humans getting involved in our war," said Namna with a straight face.
"What?! You encouraged me to try out that Gundam and I love it! You can't expect me just to sit and watch a war! I want to get out to where the action is and kill for myself," exclaimed Liek. "Come on Li'thel, don't you agree with me?! You are me after all!"
"I don't know what to really think but I'd rather not have you here anymore than you are supposed to. My world is a very dangerous place and you're what 16 or 17 years old? You can't expect someone like yourself go into a war as dangerous as this. I don't care if you have the urge or passion or what ever the hell it is you have of a reason to go and kill. It's not the same as killing a virtual monster or person," said Li'thel.
"It's so the same, it's just more dangerous but thrilling at the same time!" countered Liek.
"No it isn't! You wouldn't understand what it's like to kill people in real life. You wouldn't even understand what it's like to lose somebody in the middle of a fight! You don't know squat about what it's like to take another person's life! You can't comprehend the amount of pressure that the experienced soldiers have to go through everyday! This is a fucking war not some game you can start over if you die! This is real life for crying out loud!" shouted Li'thel.
"It's the same thing! You're just killing somebody so what's the big deal?! It's not like something super bad is going to happen in my world at all," said Liek standing firm.
"That's the thing! You don't know what happens in your world! Do you even know how that guy died in the first place?! Well, do ya?!" shouted Li'thel in a half begging and desperate tone.
"Uh..." mustered Liek.
"That person that died in your world died in this world first! Don't you see the parallelism yet? That mangled body in the middle of your school campus also died in this world first! Can't you understand what the hell I'm trying to get at?! What if the person you killed here is your best friend in your world?! What then?! What the fucking hell will you do then?! God damn it! What the fucking hell will you do?!" shouted Li'thel grabbing Liek's collar with tears in his eyes.
"Li'thel, calm down before you choke him death. It won't do any of us good if you killed him now," said Namna in a soothing voice.
"Forget it," said Li'thel letting go of Liek and walking away from Liek and Namna blinded by tears.
"What happened to him?" asked Liek.
"Don't ask me. Ask him yourself," said Namna.
Just as Namna said that line, there was a large explosion on the surface directly above the Facility. A bombardment of explosions followed and soon the ground parted to expose the metal roof. A final explosion opened the roof wide and a different Gundam peered in before pointing a large black rifle at an angle that is aimed at the Gundam Liek just tested.
"What the hell is that?!" exclaimed Liek trying to regain his balance.
"That's an enemy unit. Grengar is what it's called," answered Namna in shock. "Hurry up and get outta here fast!"
"But what about the Gundam?!" shouted Liek.
"Forget the Gundam! Just go! We'll all die if we stay here any longer!" shouted Namna.
"But...!" started Liek.
"But nothing! Just -!" began Namna before a green beam landed directly above her and sent Liek flying towards the inactive Gundam.