The first thing Valoris learned about piloting was that walking, the simple unconscious movement performed without thought since age two became impossibly complex when your body was forty feet tall and weighed thirty-seven tons.
She sat harnessed in Paragon's cockpit on the training grounds, connected for the fourth time, consciousness synchronized with the mech's vast awareness through the neural pathways that had been drilled into her nervous system. The connection had become familiar over the past week, that sensation of existing in two bodies simultaneously, of awareness stretched between flesh and dimensional substrate.
Familiar didn't mean easy.
They were piloting dry for now, learning basic coordination with normal breathing, normal sensory input. The liquid breathing system would come later, once they could manage simple locomotion while their consciousness was scattered across forty feet of metal. One overwhelming challenge at a time.
"Basic locomotion," Instructor Davis's voice came through her headset, reaching her consciousness that currently existed as both pilot and mech. "Walking. It sounds simple. Everyone assumes they know how to walk. You've been doing it for most of your lives. But your balance is its balance. Your movement is its movement. And there's lag."
Valoris felt what he meant. She thought about moving Paragon's right, the command clear and precise in her consciousness, and the mech responded, but not instantly. There was processing time. Neural signals traveling from her biological brain through ports to mech systems, dimensional resonance adjusting to accommodate pilot intent, massive mechanical and semi-organic systems coordinating to execute simple movement.
It took microseconds, barely noticeable in isolation. But there was enough delay that instinct became unreliable, automatic reflexes failed.
"The lag is neural processing," Davis continued. "Your consciousness interfaces with the mech through dimensional substrate. There will always be a slight delay between intent and action. You learn to anticipate it. To think fractionally ahead of movement and account for processing time in every decision."
Fractionally ahead. Right. Simple.
Except her brain had spent fifteen years learning to move a five-foot-seven biological body without conscious thought. Now she needed to retrain every reflex for something seven times taller, operating under different physical laws, responding with that slight but constant delay.
"And then there's feedback," Davis added. "You feel the mech. Its weight. Its mass. Mechs don't experience pain the way biological bodies do but there’s an awareness that doesn't map to human sensation. Like when you're sick with fever and your whole body aches without you being able to pinpoint exactly where or why. Wrong in ways you can't quite describe."
Valoris understood immediately. Even standing still, she felt it through the connection: a pervasive sense of wrongness radiating through Paragon's frame. No specific pain she could locate and address, instead a diffuse awareness that something about existing in this form wasn't quite right. Aches that weren't aches. Discomfort that didn't correlate to actual damage. The sensation of being slightly wrong in every structural component simultaneously.
"Kade. Attempt basic forward movement," Davis instructed. "One step. Just shift weight and move your right leg forward."
As though anything about this was simple.
Valoris focused on Paragon's right leg, awareness spreading into the limb through the connection that made it simultaneously hers and foreign. She could feel the weight distribution through the mech's massive frame, could sense how forty-foot height changed center of gravity, recognize intellectually that moving required different calculations than biological movement.
Understanding didn't make execution easier.
She thought the command: shift weight left, prepare to move right leg forward.
Paragon swayed slightly as weight redistributed, enough that Valoris felt the movement through her entire connected consciousness, that massive body adjusting balance in ways her biological form never had to consider. The fever-ache wrongness intensified with the movement, diffuse discomfort spreading through structural components as they bore load differently.
Then she gave the actual command: move.
The right leg lifted. Paragon’s enormous limb rose from the ground with power that would have shattered concrete or could crush vehicles. It represented more force than Valoris had ever controlled. It moved forward through space with the lag she was supposed to anticipate but couldn't quite time correctly yet.
And Paragon's left leg, supporting the full weight, couldn't maintain balance she hadn't properly established.
The mech tilted. Slowly at first. Then faster as forty-foot height and thirty-seven tons of mass responded to gravity with inevitable progression.
Valoris panicked. She tried to correct, overcorrected, made everything worse. Paragon crashed into the training ground with a shuddering impact that registered through every sensor in the connection. That fever-wrong sensation spiked with the crash, awareness flooding through her consciousness that something about the impact was incorrect even though nothing was actually damaged. Pervasively, indefinably wrong.
She lay there for a moment, consciousness spread across forty feet of fallen metal, trying to process how she'd failed at something as simple as walking. Her biological body remained safely strapped into the cockpit, physically fine despite her awareness insisting everything hurt in ways she couldn't pinpoint.
"Fall one," Davis announced calmly. "Zavaretti. Your turn."
Through Paragon's sensors, Valoris watched Reaver attempt the same basic step. Zee moved with characteristic aggression. She thought clearly and executed precisely and maintained better balance than Valoris had managed.
But the lag caught her too. She'd moved with instinct rather than anticipation, hadn't accounted for processing delay, and Reaver stumbled forward with momentum that couldn't be stopped. The mech crashed face-first into the training ground with an impact that sent vibrations through Paragon's prone form.
"Fall two," Davis said. "Renn."
Milo's Jinx attempted movement next. His approach was different. Tentative where Zee had been aggressive, overthinking where Valoris had relied on untrained instinct. Jinx moved its right leg forward with exaggerated care, asymmetric gait somehow functional despite looking wrong, balance maintained through what appeared to be luck rather than skill.
Three steps. Then Jinx's left leg caught on uneven ground and the mech tumbled sideways, crashing with the particular chaos that characterized everything Milo did.
"Fall three. Maddox."
Saren's Meridian rose to attempt the exercise. Her approach carried that same methodical precision she brought to everything. Careful analysis, measured execution.
Consciousness synchronization wasn't pure calculation. It was feeling, intuition, awareness that transcended technical knowledge. Saren moved Meridian with mechanical correctness that lacked organic flow, and the mech's steps came out stiff and hesitant, unbalanced despite technically correct positioning.
Meridian made it five steps before the accumulated wrongness of movement caught up and the mech's left foot came down at the wrong angle. Saren crashed backward, and through the connection Valoris heard her soft growl of frustration. Precision in her head not matching precision in execution, fever-wrong sensation making everything feel incorrect even when positioning was technically accurate.
"Fall four. Sterling."
Quinn's Specter approached walking with careful deliberation. Their movements were exact, executed with discipline that should have translated to success, but something about Quinn's synchronization remained fundamentally disconnected. Specter moved like it was being puppeteered rather than synchronized with, every action technically correct but missing organic flow. The fever-wrong sensation that all of them felt seemed amplified in Quinn's connection. Awareness that solid form was incorrect somehow, that existing as a physical entity introduced wrongness.
Two steps. Three. Then Specter's legs tangled with each other, coordination failing despite technical execution, and the mech crashed forward.
"Fall five," Davis announced. "Round one complete. Everyone fell. This is expected. You've been walking in biological bodies your entire lives. Now you're learning to walk in mechanical forms operating under different physical laws through neural connections that introduce processing delay and feedback that doesn't map to human sensation. Failure is part of the learning process."
Valoris struggled to get Paragon upright. The mech's arms pushed against the ground, massive limbs that had to coordinate carefully to avoid making the situation worse. She managed it eventually, got Paragon back to a standing position through trial and error and several more near-falls, each movement accompanied by that pervasive ache-that-wasn't-quite-ache spreading through the mech's structure.
Around her, the rest of Chimera Squad did the same. Five mechs climbing awkwardly back to their feet, pilots learning basic motor control through a crash course in humility while fever-wrong sensations reminded them constantly that existing in these forms introduced sensations that baseline humans never experienced.
"Adaptation speeds vary," Davis continued. "Some pilots develop mech coordination quickly. Others require months to achieve basic proficiency. There's no shame in either progression. But you have eight months to master these mechs well enough that you're combat-ready. People die if you're not ready. Civilians die. Other pilots die. You die."
The weight of that statement settled across the training grounds.
Eight months to go from barely capable of walking to deployment-ready. To transform from candidates who'd just learned to connect with their mechs into functional combat pilots capable of protecting sectors, responding to threats, operating as coordinated units.
Valoris looked across the training grounds where upper-year squads practiced. Fourth-years who'd summoned last year, who'd spent eight months mastering what Chimera Squad was just beginning to attempt. Their mechs moved with fluid coordination that looked effortless. Their weapons were extensions of themselves, their movement natural and precise, formations maintained with unconscious awareness.
That was the goal. That level of capability, that integration of pilot and mech.
It seemed impossibly distant.
"Watch," Davis said, and directed their attention to the advanced training area where a fourth-year squad ran sparring drills.
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Two mechs circled each other with fluid grace, practicing close-quarters combat sequences that required split-second timing and perfect spatial awareness. One feinted left, the other responded instantly, no hesitation, no overcorrection. They moved like dancers who'd been partnered for years, each anticipating the other's movements through practiced coordination.
Three years of training visible in every smooth step, every maintained distance, every executed maneuver.
Flawless. That's what eight months of intensive practice produced. That's what they needed to achieve.
"Back to basics," Davis ordered. "Attempt forward movement. You'll fall repeatedly. Accept it. Learn from it. Again."
Valoris focused on Paragon once more. Shifted her/their weight carefully. She anticipated the lag fractionally better this time, moved the right leg forward with slightly improved balance.
Two steps before falling.
Progress. Microscopic, but present.
Around her, Chimera Squad attempted the same exercise. Falling, rising, falling again, learning through repetition and failure how to coordinate consciousness stretched across dimensional space with mechanical bodies that operated under unfamiliar rules.
"Zee adapts fastest," Milo observed through squad comm after his seventh fall. His voice carried frustration mixed with admiration. "She's already managing four or five steps consistently."
It was true. Zee's combat instincts were translating to mech operation more naturally than careful precision or overthinking. Reaver moved with an aggressive certainty that accepted the lag rather than fighting it, that adapted to scale through intuition rather than calculation. Somehow she processed the fever-wrong feedback as natural rather than alarming, her body remembering how to move before her mind could interfere. Years of sparring and street fighting had taught her to trust momentum, to let muscle memory handle the details. That training carried over in ways none of them had anticipated.
"I'm not thinking about it," Zee said when Saren asked her approach. "Thinking makes it worse. I just move like I'm fighting and let Reaver translate that intent into mechanical action."
"Walking isn't fighting," Saren protested.
"Everything's fighting if you're doing it right."
Valoris attempted another step sequence. She was overthinking everything. She could feel it, could recognize that her analytical mind was getting in the way of instinctive movement. She kept calculating angles, anticipating problems, second-guessing commands before they fully executed.
Paragon responded to her hesitation with hesitation. The mech's movements came out tentative, unsteady, mechanically correct but lacking confidence. And the fever-wrong sensation intensified with her uncertainty, that pervasive ache suggesting something about her approach was fundamentally incorrect even though she couldn't identify what specifically needed changing.
Three steps. Four. Then overthought correction made her stumble and Paragon crashed forward again.
"You're in your head too much," Davis said, voice buzzing into her skull through the bone induction headset. "Stop calculating every movement. Trust your connection. Trust the mech to translate your intent into action without micromanaging the process."
Easy to say. Harder to execute when any wrong movement meant tons of metal crashing into the ground and her/their consciousness flooded with that diffuse wrongness that made everything feel slightly feverish and incorrect.
She tried. The next attempt, she focused less on technical execution and more on intent. Simply wanting to move forward, trusting the connection to handle mechanical details.
Five steps. Six. Seven.
Then she thought about her success, started analyzing what was working, and immediately fell again.
"Progress," Davis said dryly. "Continue."
The morning progressed in endless cycles of falling and rising. Valoris lost count of how many times Paragon hit the ground, how many times she had to coordinate the mech's arms to push back up. Every time she thought she understood coordination, only to fail on the next attempt.
Her biological body remained safe in the cockpit. Her consciousness, spread across the mech through neural connection, experienced every fall, every impact, every moment of discoordination as though it was happening to her. And underneath everything, constant companion to every movement: that fever-wrong sensation suggesting her entire existence in this form was somehow incorrect in ways she couldn't pinpoint or correct.
By midday, most of Chimera Squad could manage basic walking. Not well, but at least functionally. They made it ten or fifteen steps before inevitably falling or stumbling.
Except Quinn. They moved Specter with mechanical precision that should have worked, but something about their approach remained fundamentally disconnected, Specter’s movements jerky and uncoordinated.
"I don't understand," Quinn said after their twentieth fall. Their flat voice carried frustration that wouldn't show in their expression. "I'm executing movements correctly. Balance calculations are accurate. Why doesn't it work?"
"Because you're treating it like a mechanical problem," Davis said. "Mech piloting isn't pure calculation. It's consciousness synchronization. You need to feel the connection instead of just executing it."
"How do I feel what I don't understand?"
Davis didn't have an answer for that. Neither did Valoris. Quinn's approach to everything involved analysis and calculation. It was how they understood the world, how they made sense of experience. Asking them to abandon that for pure feeling was like asking them to stop being themselves.
Maybe that was part of becoming a pilot. Learning to exist as something other than pure biological consciousness. Learning to extend awareness into dimensional space where logic operated differently and sensations were just permanent background noise to be accepted rather than solved.
They broke for lunch, disconnecting from mechs after four hours of connection that left everyone exhausted in ways that had nothing to do with physical exertion.
Valoris emerged from Paragon's cockpit shaking. The disconnection hit harder than it had during shorter practice sessions. Four hours versus twenty minutes made a significant difference in how difficult it was to compress consciousness back into biological limitations.
She stumbled down the access ladder, legs forgetting how to support her tiny frame after hours existing as a forty-foot entity. The ground felt too close. Her legs felt too short. Her arms wouldn't move right, kept trying to reach distances they couldn't possibly achieve.
And underneath everything: residual sensation bleeding through from the mech, making her biological body feel vaguely incorrect in ways she couldn't quite articulate. It wasn’t like pain or illness, just an indefinable wrongness radiating through her nervous system, making her aware that something about her existence had become fundamentally altered.
Connection fluid leaked from her ports, soaking her collar, dripping down her spine. The ports never fully stopped weeping now. Medical said that was normal. Active connection produced fluid that needed drainage and they kept saying that levels would reduce over time as her nervous system acclimatized. But it made her feel perpetually wet, perpetually marked as modified.
"This is fine," Milo said, stumbling into her as he came down from Jinx's cockpit. He sounded like he was trying to convince himself. "Totally fine. Just forgot which body is mine. Happens to everyone. Completely normal."
It wasn't fine.
Valoris understood why he needed to say it. Why they all needed to maintain the pretense that this was manageable, that this wasn't slowly unraveling their sense of self through repeated consciousness extension and compression accompanied by constant feedback that suggested transformation had introduced permanent wrongness to their existence.
Zee half-carried Valoris toward the mess hall. Milo leaned heavily on Quinn, who despite their own disconnection difficulty somehow maintained enough coordination to support someone else. Saren moved with rigid precision that suggested she was using pure discipline to override her body's confusion about its own dimensions, though after thirty seconds she accepted Zee's offered other arm without comment.
"How long until we're as good as those fourth-years?" Zee asked, frustration evident despite her attempt at a casual tone. Her hair had escaped from its usual tight arrangement, falling in all directions, making her look younger and more vulnerable than usual.
"Depends," Davis said, appearing beside them with the unsettling ability instructors had to materialize exactly when you hoped they wouldn't. "Some pilots never get there. Some achieve combat-ready status within six months. Most take eight to twelve months for basic deployment capability."
"We have eight months," Saren said.
"You have eight months until your first possible deployment window over the summer. That doesn't mean you'll deploy. You won't deploy unless you're actually ready." Davis studied them with expression that suggested he was calculating their odds. "Right now? You can't walk reliably. You crash into each other. You can't maintain consciousness synchronization for more than four hours. You're nowhere near combat-ready."
"Encouraging," Zee muttered.
"You want encouragement, join a different program. You want honesty that might keep you alive? This is it. You're nowhere near ready. You won't be for months. But you might get there if you stop falling on your faces."
He left them at the mess hall entrance, returning to the training grounds where other squads were attempting the same basic exercises.
They collapsed at Chimera's usual table. Food appeared in front of them. Valoris didn't remember getting it, couldn't recall going through the line. Her consciousness still felt stretched thin, awareness not quite fully compressed back into biological limitations.
"Afternoon session is squad movement drills," Quinn said, consulting their tablet with obsessive focus despite obvious exhaustion. "Coordinated walking. Maintaining formation. Not crashing into each other."
"Can't wait," Zee said flatly. "We can barely walk individually. I'm sure coordinating five mechs will go great."
It did not go great.
The afternoon session proved that walking individually was simple compared to coordinated movement at scale. They couldn't judge distances properly, couldn't maintain formation when every pilot processed lag differently.
Reaver clipped Paragon's shoulder during a formation exercise. Both mechs stumbled, struggled for balance, crashed in different directions with impacts that registered through every sensor in both connections. Pain that wasn’t pain spiked with the collision.
She lay there in Paragon's fallen form, consciousness spread across dimensional space, trying to process how she'd failed at something as simple as walking beside another mech without collision.
"This is impossible," she heard Saren say through squad comm.
"It's difficult," Davis corrected. "Impossible would mean previous pilots hadn't achieved it. They have. You will. Eventually. With practice."
"How much practice?" Milo asked.
"More than you want. Less than you fear. Keep trying."
They tried. Fell. Tried again. Crashed into each other repeatedly. Five massive mechs that couldn't coordinate basic movement, pilots who couldn't translate human-scale spatial awareness to forty-foot entities operating through neural lag.
Humbling didn't begin to describe it. They'd spent two years at the academy proving themselves capable, achieving high rankings, demonstrating competence. And now they couldn't walk in formation without crashing into each other like toddlers learning basic motor control.
By the time Davis called the training session to end, Valoris had fallen twenty-three times. She'd crashed into Zee four times, Saren twice, Quinn once. She'd managed to maintain formation for maybe thirty seconds before inevitably stumbling or misjudging distance or overcorrecting balance.
Eight months to deployment-ready capability seemed impossibly optimistic.
She disconnected from Paragon with hands shaking, consciousness compressing back into biological limitations that felt crushing after eight hours existing as something larger. The world tilted wrong. Distances made no sense. Her legs buckled immediately and she sat hard on the cockpit floor, unable to stand, unable to coordinate limbs that suddenly felt foreign.
Connection fluid soaked through her pilot suit. Her ports throbbed with residual resonance. Her head felt like it contained too much awareness compressed into inadequate space.
"Help," she said into squad comm, voice barely functioning.
"Copy," Zee responded immediately. "On my way."
They helped each other back to the barracks, literally supporting each other. Zee's arm around Valoris's shoulders, keeping her upright. Milo leaning heavily on Quinn, both of them stumbling together, Saren moving with determined precision that couldn't quite hide how difficult every step was.
"This is fine," Milo said again, and this time it sounded like prayer or mantra or desperate attempt to convince himself. "Just need to remember which body is mine. Simple. Easy. Totally manageable."
It wasn't any of those things.
They'd survived. First day of actual mech operation complete. They'd done it together. All five of them falling, rising, falling again. Supporting each other through disconnection difficulty. Making it back to the barracks as squad.
"Same time tomorrow," Zee said once they reached the barracks.
"More falling," Milo confirmed.
"More learning," Saren corrected.
"More proof we have no idea what we're doing," Quinn added.
"Together," Valoris said, and the word came out stronger than she felt. "We do this together."
"Together," they confirmed.
And collapsed into their bunks, too exhausted for anything else, connection fluid still weeping from ports that marked them as changed, bodies confused about which form was real, consciousness slowly learning to compress and extend through cycles that would define their training for the next eight months while accepting that wrongness was just a permanent feature of their existence now.
