Hello, everyone. I am Mazinkaiser and this is a feature story about a young man and his fearsome fighting machine.
Unlike most other characters (OCs), this one is a complete newbie in nearly everything related to combat (including strategy and tactics) and he will really be in need of assistance to coach him on how to become a good pilot as well as a well-rounded warrior.
So if you rudely call him a Gary-Stu, I will gladly send a Turbo Smasher Punch to your face immediately.
(Takes deep simulated breaths to calm himself down) This is by no means an epic story like so many others in this site, but merely an attempt of a newcomer writer to learn the ropes of writing a good story.
Now, let us start this little tale of friendship, teamwork, fate, and acceptance with...
Chapter 1 – Why am I here?
Light Rail Transit – Central Station, Manila – 7:35 AM, November 26, 1994
"Dammit, I'm late."
A black haired young man of eighteen years was just getting out (more like he was pushing his way out of) the elevated rail transit car that he had ridden on his way to his 7:30 AM Analytic Geometry class in MIT.
The said college is located in nearby Intramuros, a good thirty minute trek from the station.
The young man had either snaked past or roughly shoved his fellow riders out of his path on his way towards the concrete steps on the right side of the elevated station's through platform that was heading down.
After running down the stairs, his quickened steps had startled the other people going the same way as he, the said young man had also snaked past the aluminium bar type revolving door exit, twisting his large body frame to fit the narrow space between bars separating the spaces where people enter and exit of.
All of this was done because the young man was trying to make it to his first class in only fifteen minutes.
As fate would have it, a sudden earthquake registering an eight in the Richter scale had rocked the whole city.
Nearby buildings were shaken with some windows being broken through while nearby trees shook their leafy covers.
A crack, big enough for a full grown man to fall through, had opened up in the concrete sidewalk, just meters away from the LRT. It was just his bad luck that our hero had skidded to a halt right at the edge of the yawning void right after exiting the aforementioned station.
Our hero had vainly tried to hang onto anything strong enough to keep him upright and in one place to no avail. The sudden vibrations of the earth beneath his shoes had pushed the young man into the hole and he disappeared in the darkness of the abyss.
-oOo-
"Are you functional?" A cold mechanical voice had just reached the young man's ears as he tried to open his brown eyes and regain his bearings. "Answer me, human. Are you functional?"
"Y-yeah, I'm…ok?" The brunet had to blink twice since he was sprawled in a cockpit of some sort. The young man had studied his cramped surroundings as he added. "Where am I?"
His right hand was actually clutching on the back of the leather seat where he was lying on while his left hand was leaning on one of the strange control levers.
As for his left foot, it was lying on the other control lever. The remaining limb was stuck in between the back rest and elbow guard of the said seat.
The only lights that our hero could see were those from the various instrument panels and a low intensity overhead light.
His head was lying on the lower edge of the seat and his right shoe was touching the side of the cockpit where some buttons and displays lie.
"You are inside my cockpit, human." The voice had answered with nary a hint of emotion. "I am Wing Gundum Zero and my model number is XXXG-00W0. I am considered to be the ultimate fighting machine among my fellow mobile suits until my destruction, more than a year later. So what is your name, human?"
"Huh?!"
The young man was completely confused with the given explanation but he had figured that he could at least learn as much as he can while still inside this strange machine, umm gundum.
Thus, when the young man had opened his mouth, he said with a flick of his tousled hair.
"Oh, I'm just William Zapanta, an engineering student from Mapua Institute of Technology."
After pausing to study where the voice was coming from, Willam added. "So what are ya exactly?"
"I am a mobile suit designed by five Colonial scientists to fight other mobile suits built by the Romafeller Foundation and later the Barton Foundation."
"It was a blond young man who gave me my physical form before using me to commit widespread destruction in his mentally unstable state at the time." Zero had continued its introduction, hoping that his new pilot could understand it better.
Seeing the bewildered look on his pilot's face, the Artificial Intelligence continued. "I take it that you are not familiar with some terminologies that I had just spoken of, Hu-Zapanta."
"I guess so; I mean there aren't any Romafeller Foundations where I come from. Same for the Bartons, but there is a Rockefeller foundation though." The Filipino answered before he had paused to think for a few seconds.
"Maybe even a Carnegie foundation too but no Romafeller or Barton foundations, that's for sure." William then continued to babble when he had abruptly made a delayed double take. "What the heck is a mobile suit anyway?"
Zero was about to answer with an audible snort when various sounds had filled the cockpit.
The half-spherical three-dimensional radar and the viewing screen above it in front of the human had lit up, bathing the Filipino in blue light as he had strapped himself in his seat.
Within the smaller LCD screen, a blocky battle wagon bristling with weaponry was seen approaching the stationary gundum with reckless abandon.
The aforementioned radar had pinpointed the warship's location among the other blips as was seen by its confused soon to be user in the translucent and glowing hemisphere.
"It would seem that there are a lot of enemy craft in this sector of space," The AI's voice had remained unchanged when he told his observation to his passenger and pilot. "Since I cannot pilot myself, you will have to do everything that I say. Otherwise, we will both perish."
"Jeez, at least have some faith in me." William had replied with a slight pout that hid his glee since he has always wanted to be a pilot since he was young. "Even then, I'm all ears."
"Good."
The shakedown within Taraak's local space has just begun.
-oOo-
The giant red, blue and white robot had shot up on its rear thrusters as it had evaded the first shells being fired upon it.
The winged gundum had turned right, and then left before diving as more shells were being fired upon it.
Even then, it was hit a few times with little to no damage to its superstructure but the hits themselves were enough to rattle the novice pilot within it.
"Jeez, these guys can actually fire cannons in space?!" William said as he was already feeling the fatigue from twisting, pulling, or pushing the control levers which were housing a new form of HOTAS (Hands on Throttle and Stick) while depressing on both foot pedals, all of which were done at nearly the same time. "How the hell can they even do that in zero gravity and in vacuum no less?"
"Maybe we have come to a planet where the inhabitants are advanced enough to overcome such technicalities and figured out that projectiles can move faster in vacuum," Zero replied in between instructions.
"Whose side are ya on anyway?"
"Yours of course, unless you have become a liability in piloting my physical self." came the reply from the AI.
It was by this time that William had kept quiet and slowly moved the large machine to a blind spot in the ship's targeting systems and shakily aimed the twin buster rifle.
He had pulled the triggers once, blistering the ship's aft side and incinerating a lot of the ship's cannons in its wake.
After doing the deed, William had guided Zero to another vector before pushing the HOTAS levers forward as hard as he could.
The back-mounted thrusters had responded by igniting its escaping gasses even more as the super-heated gases had pushed the giant machine out of the firing range of the battleship's remaining guns and later its visual and sensor range as well.
-oOo-
"Sir, we have engaged the strange craft our sensors had picked up earlier." The commander of the disabled ship had told the general of the Taraak space forces as the latter had asked them to report the reason for their absence in earlier maneuvers.
"It was a humanoid robot that is even bigger than our vanguard units," He said after his superior had granted him permission to continue. "It was also fast enough to evade most of our fire and it had also fired some sort of beam on us, disabling most of our ship's weapons."
"Prepare for immediate retreat," was the immediate reply. "Women pirates are already assaulting our positions and are already boarding the Ikazuchi even as we speak. We do not have enough time and manpower to deal with a single robot."
The crew of the Todoroki was shocked with the news. The captain through the communication officer then asked what could be done with the attacking women.
The Ikazuchi had replied that they were now preparing for separation following the defeat of most of their vanguard fighters and would direct their own section for a torpedo attack once they themselves were out of the coming explosion's reach.
It was then that the captain remarked. "By Grandpa, the women will pay for their crimes."
-oOo-
"Nice work, Zapanta." The AI's voice rang out from its interior speakers. "I am surprised that you managed to evade all the shells fired at us and even fire the twin buster rifle without screwing up. It is a pity that you did not destroy them as well."
"Thanks, I think." William replied with his voice unsure and his hands were still shaking from the pent up anxiety. "I don't like to kill people, Zero. But I will, when I have no other choice."
After a beat, he continued. "Besides, this control system sure takes a lot of getting used to. I still don't know all of the basics of actually using the HOTAS or foot pedals correctly even with all you had told me. More than that, I'm still confused as to how to even activate the weaponries even now."
The Filipino had shakily drawn his light green handkerchief with some intricate design from his right Canadian Club blue jeans pocket while he was still speaking.
His light blue polo shirt was already drenched with sweat just below the collar area.
An audible snort was heard in the speakers before Zero said. "It is imperative that you learn how to pilot me efficiently since it is the only thing that will keep us alive much long- Watch Out!"
The Filipino teen had twisted the right lever while giving it a slight push forward as he had let out a grunt of his own.
His right foot was also depressing the left foot pedal to steer the gundum to the relative left.
A flight of missiles had gone past the now mobile giant machine's feet.
On the screen in front and above the hemispherical radar screen, a space fighter was shown to the puzzled pilot as the craft had followed its spent ordnance past the winged gundum before going back for a second run.
This time, Wing Zero was waiting for it. When the alien craft was near enough to fire its second flight of missiles with lesser chances of missing the target, the gundum had shot upward with help from its twin boosters on its back.
After reaching a certain height, the two machine cannons had swiveled up from their hiding places in the mobile suit's shoulders and destroyed the chasing missiles in seconds.
The dread's pilot, seeing that her target was much more dangerous than she initially thought, had herded her ship back to its squadron.
She had never even thought that her enemy had actually managed to pull off the successful counter attack through sheer luck alone and nothing else.
"Thanks for the advice, Zero. I'm beginning to see what you meant earlier." William was already easing his grip on the right HOTAS handle while his brown eyes were locked on the screen before him, alert to any incoming attack.
"Still, can we go a little faster than this? I admit I'm still a newbie to mobile suit piloting or even piloting in general so I'd rather run away to fight another day, y'know what I mean?" The Filipino added quickly after leading the gundum on another vector.
"Humph, you humans are such queer creatures." The deep bass voice had rang out. "Some of my former pilots fought to the death without even blinking an eyelash. Although you do have a point so I will train you until you can actually pilot me as it should be."
"If you would push the lever, the one just above your left hand, 125 centimeters forward then I can change into my alternate mode or what is called as Neo Bird mode. In that mode, we can move much faster and probably escape." Zero added after a beat.
"Here goes nothin'," William was saying as he did exactly Zero had said.
In minutes, the whole gundum has transformed into a giant metal bird with its shield serving as the bird's faceless head and its twin buster rifles as its retracted claws.
The wing binders had elongated and moved slightly to allow its shell-like wings to unfold as well.
Its upper torso did a 180 degree turn in its axis while the shield had connected itself at the head and its hands had attached itself to each side of the torso.
Only the machine's legs had remained relatively unchanged in their positions as it had bent slightly forward, just enough to let the foot thrusters emerge from its metal soles.
After the transformation was done, the gundum had flown towards the desert planet below with increased speed.
It had shot past vanguards, dreads, and even blocky battleships while dodging lasers, missiles, cannon fire, and even some sword slashes or spear thrusts from the said machines with a few hits to its exterior armor.
Both its pilot and artificial intelligence were hoping to re-stock, re-arm, and even refuel in the planet below.
But the most important thing they were after was information on where in the universe they are as well as when.
After bypassing a giant space fortress where most of the battles had taken place, something puzzling had happened. The fortress had suddenly broken apart into three sections.
It then lit up like a star after two huge missiles from one of its detached sections were fired in its direction, nearly blinding the novice pilot.
In response, William had steered Wing Zero to the right both to avoid the glare and to escape the coming explosion.
But the light had somehow enveloped the escaping gundum near it before disappearing with everything within a ten mile radius like the pirate's returning dread squadrons.
-oOo-
By the time William had again opened his eyes with a groan, a different voice was heard from the speakers.
The voice seemed to be feminine and was speaking in a somehow familiar language.
It had taken a while but our hero had finally figured out that the words were spoken in Japanese.
It was by this time that the voice had gotten angry with his non-existent reply and simply stopped transmitting altogether.
With some help from Zero, who had translated the earlier message to William, the Filipino then replied that he could not speak in Japanese and to give him a minute to think about it.
The given reply was quick and in English to boot. "Do not underestimate us, the women pirates of Mejeera. I suggest that you either surrender peacefully right now or regret it in the afterlife."
"Sorry, Zero. We'll make a break for it when we get that chance," William had told the AI while he had released the talk button.
To the dread pilots, he said. "Alright, I will surrender myself and my machine so long as no harm comes to either of us."
"You have some gall, telling us such things, filthy male. We will be giving the rules here and I say that you will be locked up with the rest of your kind in the dungeon." The voice, who seemed to be the leader of the squadron simply due to her sheer audacity to stand up to a giant mecha that could crush herself and her ship with its massive hands in minutes, had replied with seethed teeth.
"My apologies then, Miss. I will do as you say."
"Good, now follow us."
The four-dread fighter squadron led the gundum towards the useable flight decks in a strangely shaped ship's right dorsal side.
'Oh boy, taken hostage by four space age amazons. What the heck am I getting into?' William had thought with a grimace as Wing Zero was entering the massive and strangely shaped ship.
I congratulate you on reaching this part of the chapter, which means you have either skimmed the whole story or had ended up here by finishing it. Either way, congratulations.
The second chapter will then follow the ups and downs of our hero as he meets with fellow incarcerated males and even more females while getting used to the universe that he had gotten into.
Before I forget, the only thing I do own is William Zapanta as Wing Zero belongs to Bandai and the others belong to Gonzo and Media Factory.
So much for being a famous world saving super robot that cannot even own its favorite mecha and anime that it watches secretly from the Internet.
Now if you would excuse me, I have to take care of a Mycene that is threatening my current residence. Farewell for now.