Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume5 Chapter 5 (section)

===Part 7===

Ramil Scofflaw’s guess was as follows:

Olympia Dome was shaped like a fried egg. Groups of buildings were lined up in the outer section. Therefore, Mariydi would travel along the edge of the central dome to circle around as long as needed within the outer section.

Once she left the buildings, Mariydi would no longer be able to escape the microwaves.

For that reason, she would travel in a circle rather than a straight line in order to never have a finish line.

It was good enough to resolve the immediate threat, but it meant Mariydi had to continue fleeing forever. She had no way to turn her fighter around and counterattack.

(Has she given in to fear and is doing nothing but evading me? …No. This is Ice Girl 1. Is she trying to use some acrobatic flying to get me to crash into one of the buildings?)

But that was not it either.

Mariydi Whitewitch had a set destination.

It was one of the sightseeing spots in the outer portion of Olympia Dome.

A waterway artificially dragged seawater into the giant artificial island. Several bridges spanned the waterway in a row.

Seven steel bridges existed in all.

When lit up, they glowed in seven different colors, forming a rainbow bridge.

She was headed for the Bifröst Arch.

In that instant, Mariydi unhesitatingly flew underneath the arching bridges. Not much space existed between the seawater and the steel constructions. Ramil gritted her teeth and forced down her fear. The Bifröst Arch was made up of seven parallel steel bridges. From a certain perspective, it was a bit like a tunnel.

[[Image:HO_v05_17.jpg|thumb]]

If she aimed from above, the microwaves would be reflected.

If she was to target Mariydi, she had to go below the bridges as well.

(I see. So you’re trying to trick me here!! If I panic and head above the bridges, my microwaves can’t hit you. And the bridges are over 200 meters long, so you can turn and change direction if you want to!!)

Until then, Mariydi had been in front and Ramil at the back while they continued in the same direction through the narrow gaps between buildings, so only Ramil could attack.

Mariydi planned to change her direction.

It only had to be 90 degrees off from Ramil’s direction. She would change her direction so that Ramil lost sight of her. Then Mariydi would cut through the buildings as a shortcut and find her way onto Ramil’s tail. Then it would be her turn to attack.

“But you underestimated me. If I know what you’re trying to do, you have no chance!! Did you really think the Rocket Icarus would be so easily tricked!?”

As she shouted out to encourage herself, Ramil lowered her already low altitude. She was now flying just above the surface of the water in the waterway jutting into the outer urban area.

She flew below the bridges.

She flew directly below the Bifröst Arch.

She flew into the darkness in her pursuit of Mariydi Whitewitch.

As expected, her enemy was moving slowly.

While beneath the Bifröst Arch, any rise or descent risked hitting the water or the bridges. Since she was planning to turn the fighter on its side and make a wide turn, she had no choice but to slow down first.

And she had no idea this made her fighter even easier to target with the microwave armament.

“It’s over, Ice Girl 1. Your death will help lay the foundation of the Olympics!!”

Just as she was about to fire that finishing shot, Ramil Scofflaw noticed something was off. She quickly realized the feeling came from an optical illusion. Mariydi’s fighter should have been decelerating to prepare for the dangerous turn, but the fighter looked too large even for that. Perspective was used to determine how far away an object looked, so some kind of optical illusion was making the fighter look bigger than it was which in turn made it look closer than it was. For example, when a white box and a black box were placed the same distance way, the white box would look closer. Some similar effect was at work here.

But it was still strange.

Nothing about Mariydi’s Harpuiai should have been causing such an optical illusion. And Ramil had never experienced it before. It was strange for the optical illusion to begin the instant she passed beneath the Bifröst Arch.

(No, wait.)

Doubt entered Ramil’s mind, but it was too late.

(This isn’t an optical illusion!! It really is getting closer!? Shit…no…shit!! She tricked me!?)

The fighter was stopped in midair.

Since Ramil was moving at faster than the speed of sound, it appeared to be approaching.

When she thought about it, it was simple, but Ramil’s senses were specially attuned to a world where time, distance, and speed were all relative to moving at several hundred km/s or even over 1000 km/s. The possibility had been completely outside of her expectations.

A fighter was a vehicle that had to be constantly moving forward to not crash.

And so her opponent would always be moving at high speed.

Mariydi Whitewitch had turned that basic thought process of fighter pilots on its head.

Or more accurately, her Harpuiai had.

That fighter had VTOL ability.

The direction of the air brake and thrust could be greatly changed. She had taken that thrust meant to allow vertical takeoffs and used to bring into the battlefield the possibility of stopping in midair like a helicopter.

(Not good!!)

Was a motionless target an easy target?

Was it an easier target than one constantly moving at supersonic speeds?

From the perspective of someone aiming from a stationary position on the ground, it was. However, the same could not be said when you were in a fighter moving at faster than the speed of sound. Due to relative velocity, the target would grow before one’s eyes in an instant. Fighters existed in a world where one could collide with an object 300 meters away after a single second. By the time Ramil realized what was happening, she could no longer keep up with the situation that was changing with dizzying speed.

She activated the microwave armament in desperation, but only the outer edge of the effects hit.

Mariydi’s fighter slightly altered the direction of its vertically-fired thrust to tilt slightly diagonally.

At tremendous speed, Ramil’s fighter shot through the gap this opened.

Yes.

She overshot her target.

For a fighter that had been targeted from behind, this was an opportunity to turn everything around. Front and back. The instantaneous reversal of that relationship gave the targeted fighter the chance to target its attacker.

Many special maneuvers had been developed for fighters such as Pugachev’s Cobra and the barrel roll. Many of those had been developed specifically to cause such an overshoot.

And…

Mariydi Whitewitch had succeeded.

She had succeeded in her special maneuver of stopping her fighter using the vertical thrust of the VTOL.

“Shit…”

If her radar had been usable, Ramil may have been able to tell the proper distances.

But it had been Ramil herself who had brought the microwave armament to the battlefield as her trump card.

And…

It turned out that trump card could be used by more than just Ramil.

“Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitttttttttttttttttttttttttt!!”