Chapter 237: March 7th - My Eyes Are Refusing to Let This Knowledge Enter My Brain
Rekka stood before the towering metallic behemoth, a smug grin plastered across his face. He gestured grandly at the gleaming chassis. "Behold! As the esteemed Acting Principal of Origami University, I have prepared the ultimate, highest-level extracurricular practical teaching aid for our dear students." He arched an eyebrow at his companions. "Well? Do you think this bad boy is adequate for the Dreambuild Academy?"
Stelle didn't even blink. Her golden eyes were practically sparkling as she stared up at the mechanical titan. "It's magnificent," she declared, shooting him an immediate, deadpan thumbs-up. "It's too magnificent."
Deep down, every engineering student harbored a secret, burning desire that their grueling major would eventually result in building a giant, city-destroying mecha. Rekka was simply turning that dream into a reality.
Stelle scrambled into the pilot's seat, her hands hovering over the glowing console. "How do I start this thing? Do I need to shout a transformation slogan?"
Rekka waved a hand dismissively, leaning against the co-pilot chair. "No need for all that hassle. We're in a dreamscape, so I bypassed the boring physics and simplified the operation logic. Just grip the control lever and visualize where you want to go. The power system automatically syncs with your neural wavelengths. Basically, you push the stick forward, and the giant robot handles the rest."
March 7th eyed the glowing console skeptically. "Is it really that simple?"
"Try it and find out," Rekka challenged.
Without a second of hesitation, Stelle slammed the control lever all the way forward.
A deep, resonant hum vibrated through the floorboards, traveling straight up their legs. The sheer, oppressive weight of the colossal machine shifting into gear sent a phantom tingle across their scalps. Even insulated inside the cockpit, the raw kinetic feedback displayed on the holographic screens was staggering.
Dan Heng pinched the bridge of his nose. He glanced at the holographic readout flashing [Output: 5%], then at Stelle, who was currently hunched over the controls like a supervillain preparing to annihilate a planet. "...Be careful, Stelle," he warned, his voice laced with long-suffering exhaustion. "To the front-left is the Dreambuild Academy's main teaching building. To the front-right is Fountain Square. Please try not to level the campus."
Thud. Thud. The deafening footsteps of the Trailblaze King echoed across the university grounds. Down below, students froze in their tracks, dropping their books and coffees as they stared up at the sky-scraping mecha emblazoned with the Astral Express insignia. Gasps and startled screams rippled through the courtyards.
"Well," Rekka mused, watching the chaos below, "I'd say the Dreambuild Academy students are about to become highly motivated to study."
With a deafening roar, the mecha launched into the air. It moved with a terrifying agility that completely defied its massive bulk, twin thrusters igniting into blinding crimson plumes. The grand architecture of Origami University rapidly shrank away beneath them, the sprawling Fountain Square reducing to a coin-sized speck of light in seconds. Massive wings of solid blue hard-light unfurled from the chassis, tearing across the Penacony dreamscape sky like a reverse meteor.
"Waaaaah—this is incredible!" Stelle cheered, completely unrepentant as the G-forces pressed them into their seats. Her knuckles were white as she gripped the throttle, her golden eyes shining like freshly charged lightbulbs. A manic, ear-to-ear grin split her face.
The student body of Origami University would likely remember this day for the rest of their natural lives. It wasn't every day you got an Acting Principal who canceled all morning classes on his first day, only to joyride a weapon of mass destruction over the quad on his second.
"I told you!" Rekka yelled over the roar of the thrusters. "Mecha is the ultimate romance!"
"Take a picture! Quick, get the camera!" March shrieked, fumbling for her phone despite being pinned to her seat.
As the Trailblaze King leveled out into a supersonic cruise, March 7th finally caught her breath and realized a glaring flaw in this setup. "Wait a second, Rekka. You said this thing is a highest-level extracurricular practical teaching aid—so what exactly is it supposed to teach? You can't just let the students take turns joyriding in a giant robot, right?"
"Of course it's not just for joyriding," Rekka scoffed, adjusting his collar. "I've smoothly integrated core components of the Dreambuild Academy's curriculum into the operating system." He reached over and tapped a glowing icon on the secondary holographic display. "See that blue folder? Open it."
March leaned forward and swiped the screen. Instantly, a monstrously complex course syllabus exploded across the display. The text was densely packed with horrifyingly advanced technical modules: 'Foundations of Dreamweaving Mechanical Engineering', 'Principles and Applications of Neural Linkage', 'Memoria Materials Science', 'Power Transmission Dynamics for Super-Heavy Mecha'...
March stared at the wall of text. Her brain immediately initiated emergency lockdown procedures, her eyes flat-out refusing to let a single drop of this knowledge enter her memory banks.
"Rekka," she said, her voice entirely flat.
"Yeah?"
"I don't understand a single word of this." She aggressively swiped the screen twice, banishing the folder of hardcore engineering torture back into the digital void.
Rekka chuckled, a smug, knowing smile on his lips. "I figured you'd get a headache after two seconds. Don't worry, that wasn't meant for you anyway. The curriculum is essentially bait. Once those engineering students get their hands on this machine, their curiosity will go into overdrive. They'll desperately want to figure out how the thing they're piloting actually works. Interest is the greatest teacher of all. Once they're hooked, the professors will know exactly how to guide them."
March blinked. "Wait, so the Dreambuild Academy can actually teach you how to build a mecha?"
"Uh..." Rekka rubbed his chin. "Honestly? Probably not."
Though with Penacony's dreamscape physics, it was hard to say for sure.
"What if some poor student actually gets completely fooled by this giant hunk of iron?" Dan Heng sighed, crossing his arms.
Down below, the campus was in absolute pandemonium. Flocks of Origami Birds scattered in a panic as the Trailblaze King roared overhead. Students flooded Fountain Square, craning their necks and pointing wildly at the sky. Hundreds of smart terminals were held aloft, camera flashes strobing like a ground-level meteor shower.
"Let's fly a little lower..." Stelle muttered, her eyes locking onto the crowd.
Before anyone could stop her, she shoved the lever forward again. The almighty lever push. When in doubt, just push the lever harder.
Ten minutes later, the Trailblaze King was parked back on solid ground.
Three out of the four Astral Express crew members were currently hunched over the grass, violently vomiting rainbows.
Because they were in the Dreamscape, the physical manifestation of their intense motion sickness was a shimmering, iridescent stream of liquid light. If one focused hard enough, they could probably turn it into a pile of Skittles. But right now, none of them had the mental fortitude for reality-bending. Stelle's driving skills were nothing short of apocalyptic. She hadn't crashed into any buildings, but the endless barrel rolls and supersonic nosedives had left Rekka, March 7th, and even the usually unflappable Dan Heng dizzy, nauseous, and questioning their life choices.
Stelle poked her head out of the cockpit hatch, looking thoroughly unsatisfied. Her gray hair was sticking up in wild, chaotic tufts from the aggressive G-forces, making her look like she had just lost a fight with a static electricity generator.
"Why are you all lying on the ground?" she asked, tilting her head.
"What do you think?!" March groaned, clutching her stomach.
"I am never letting you drive the big robot again," Rekka wheezed. "Absolutely not. Banned. Revoked."
"Aw, don't be like that—"
"Stelle, I feel like my internal organs have been homogenized," Rekka shot back. He was slumped heavily against a nearby tree, his face a sickly shade of pale, a puddle of sparkling multicolored rainbows pooled at his boots.
"How can you all be so delicate?" Stelle huffed, crossing her arms in perfect, self-righteous indignation. "This is romance! This is the power of dreams! If we don't fly with a little excitement, how can we truly demonstrate the worth of this mecha? I saw those students taking pictures down there. We looked incredibly cool!"
"I can't take it," March whimpered, burying her face in her hands. "I need to go eat something to settle my stomach..." She leaned over and dry-heaved another stream of sparkling light.
Watching her friend suffer, Stelle crouched down. With the idle curiosity of a true trash panda, she reached out and swiped a finger through the leftover rainbow residue at the corner of March's mouth.
March just stared at her with a helpless, entirely accustomed gaze as Stelle popped the finger into her mouth.
A second later, Stelle frowned in deep disappointment.
"I thought it would taste like Skittles..."
It did not, in fact, taste like Skittles.
"Stelle," March groaned, wiping her mouth with a tissue. "When you drive a robot, it's simply a disaster waiting to happen. You're a menace to—"
"March," Dan Heng interrupted, his voice perfectly calm despite his pale complexion. "Do I need to remind you about how the Express's last snowmobile broke down?"
March froze. A faint blush crept over her cheeks. "Uh... that was then! This is now!"
Rekka slowly pushed himself off the tree, patting Dan Heng on the shoulder. "From now on, Dan Heng, it's just you and me taking turns in the pilot's seat."
"Agreed," Dan Heng muttered, closing his eyes.
It was an absolute fact of the universe: the girls of the Astral Express were pure vehicle killers. The only difference was that one of them killed the vehicles, and the other killed the passengers while driving them.
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