The sun began to set upon the horizon, leaving a lingering shadow cast from the two opposed mecha. "I have you now," Everett declared with venom. Determined not to repeat the mistakes of his former squad-mates, Everett set his weapons on burst fire, hoping to help control his ammo consumption. He wasn't about to blindly leap into this, Querent had already proven to be a cunning foe, she could be up to something. No, it would be best to be wary, Everett thought to himself.
"If your prepared for me," Everett mused as he took aim to the side of Querent's mecha. "Then let's try this." A quick buzz of gunfire erupted from his rifle and shoulder mounted guns to strike at Querent as he anticipated her attempt to dodge it. Certain he would catch her by leading the target, Everett's mind swam instantly as he tried to rationalize what was happening.
His mind struggled to play-back what happened, fighting to understand. As he had reached for his controls, locked in his target and pulled the trigger, the target had already reacted. "There is no way!" Everett screamed with fury. Squeezing the trigger again; the same thing. "Impossible!" Every time he fired, his target had already dodged. No pilot has that kind of reaction speed he thought to himself. Even with leading his target he had missed.
"It's true, you are some kind of freak. There is no natural way to possess reflexes like that." His ego torn asunder, all calm sucked into the vortex of realizing his own true skill in comparison. Bernard Everett, all aspirations of promotion or pay now gone, commits himself to a single strategy. Charging headlong and enraged he races forward trying to match Querent's moves.
In the slow motion dance, she now found herself in, Querent flitted about, while her adversary fought his own frustration. Every click of his controls a crude echo of her own natural and impulsive responses. With fluid form she pranced about as his own mecha crudely stomped about in pursuit. She pitied in her own way Everett's limited controls, his own mecha was simply responding to him as best as it could. Perhaps if she merely crippled him, maybe then he could come to understand.
Taking aim with her ARM Lancer's, Querent readied herself to perform a surgical strike to disable her opponent. Unfortunately for the last of her former squad, a mad cackle sprang from his lips as his mind shattered completely. Every weapon system roared to life, and every weapon fired in random different arcs before him. The sudden explosion of heat immediately triggered the Imp VI mines attached, devastating both him and the landscape.
Confusion gripped Querent like a rampant plague. In the heat of battle she had never had any trouble reacting or applying strategic theory. But now, in the aftermath of her entire squads' destruction by her own hand she was left adrift. She wasn't even fully aware what this myriad of emotions were, much less how to deal with them. There would be answers to be made, explanations to be given. And yet, standing here, lost in her mecha-form, feeling the faint breeze play about it's exterior, she herself was at a loss for any answers. Could they really have hated her so much, only because of her heritage? How can anyone believe so...
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