Chapter 1: Raw Material

"Unfortunately progress on the new Endlave, codenamed Spectre, has fallen behind by eight months. It is my regret to report that we have been unable to find a pilot capable of manipulating the vehicle, though the engineers believe it should be possible. If we do not find a pilot soon, it is likely we will have to resort to manual control should we need to deploy a unit to the Ural Mountains. Boots on the ground, sir."

"I'm afraid we can't wait, colonel. War is coming. It isn't here yet, but by God it will be. If we can't find a pilot, boots on the ground it may have to be."

-GC-

Daryl Yan sat sideways on a hard metal bench, arms resting on the windowsill, staring outside at the GHQ military base in the 24th Ward. He imagined that most of his classmates were doing something fun. Maybe traveling abroad, seeing their families.

The middle school on base for the stationed soldiers' families had wrapped up for the summer and his eighth grade year was done. Next year would be high school, with the same bunch of army brats he'd been going to school with for the past three and a half years. Most of them spoke varying levels of English and Japanese, English because that was the language of the UN and Japanese because that was the language of the country their parents were stationed in.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see base personnel buzzing around the waiting room. Other kids were the children of lower ranked officers and enlisted. Other kids had two parents, so they could go home even if their mom or dad was working.

But Daryl's father was the general, the man in charge of the GHQ, and since the death of Daryl's mother, General Yan had become a single parent. When he did not wish to leave Daryl alone at home, that meant Daryl had to come with, and since Daryl was still a kid, that also meant that he would be left in a less restricted area where he could be monitored by the general's staff.

He was thirteen, and probably could be left at home alone, but his father wanted him to be industrious, and to get off those games he had been wasting his time on. It never mattered if he had already finished his homework. It never mattered how good his grades were. He was always... deficient in some manner.

"Daryl, would you rather be doing something?"

He looked up to see the round face of Lieutenant Priori. His assigned babysitter. She came from Italy. He could hear the accent in her Japanese.

"School's out," he said. "I don't have homework today."

And he wouldn't for a while. He'd play on his phone, except that if his father caught him he'd probably restrict his access. It didn't look good, apparently, for the son of a general to be goofing off. But it was fine for him to be bored and staring out the window.

"Your father's going to be in meetings for another two hours at least. Perhaps you would like to pass the time in the simulator?"

"The simulator?"

"The Endlave simulator. We have a non-restricted version that the soldiers use for additional training or to pass the time. It's not a true recreation of the Endlave experience since the soldiers can program in some unrealistic parameters if they choose, some of them even custom design their own Endlaves, but it allows them to practice engagements as they wish."

"Is it like a game?" asked Daryl.

"I suppose it could be," said Priori, "but there will be other people in there with you and they'll probably be doing their own exercises. Pilots will use it for fun, but it's also practice for them."

"So this is what the Endlave pilots do. It's part of their job. It's okay for them to do this."

She looked at him, puzzled, and said, "Yes, it's completely sanctioned."

Then his father the general shouldn't have reason to get mad at him. He would be constructive.

"I'll go," said Daryl.

-GC-

Daryl settled into a training pod, which would be completely enclosed as soon as the hatch above him came down, rather like some of the more extreme virtual reality simulators. He was surprised to find there was little in the way of controls. Just grips for his hands, and he looked at Priori questioningly.

She handed him a helmet. "Put this on," she said. "Though there are manual controls to an Endlave, most pilots use a neural connection. Since you haven't the training, neural is really the only way to go. The connection won't be as strong without a suit to go along with it, but I don't think we have one small enough for you."

He had only just started his growth spurt. His pants were a little short, but not by much. It would still take him a few years to catch up with his father. He hadn't been that tall as a kid, but given General Yan's height he imagined that he would eventually be taller than average once he finished growing.

Daryl slipped the helmet over his head. It wasn't a good fit, so Priori quickly came back with another one. This one was snug, and it made him feel just bit claustrophobic, but it wasn't painful, which to Priori meant that it was just right.

He shifted uncomfortably as she brought the canopy down over him. The interior was dark for a moment, and then a screen lit up before him, asking him to select his Endlave.

"You'll have a screen in front of you," said Priori. "In a real Endlave you would not have one and everything would be processed through the neural link, including everything you see, but this is just a simulation. Also, because it's a simulation, you will not be hurt if you're shot at."

Daryl reached out to the screen, and swiped through his options. The machines all looked awkward and clunky to him, almost like toys grown to a larger scale.

He did have a question though. "If you have the tech to allow people to mentally control the simulated Endlave, why not use the same tech for a real one?"

"It's not quite the same thing. The simulation will not give you the same feedback as a real machine. A real machine will strain if you ask too much of it. It will overheat. In a real machine you will become so attuned to it that you will notice maintenance work needed long before it ever shows up on a test. While we can simulate these things to some degree, the primary purpose of this device is to allow our pilots to practice without getting hurt.

"Also," she added brightly, "some of them fancy themselves engineers and they like to build their dream Endlaves and upload them for other people to try out."

"Is that why some of these look so weird?" said Daryl.

He knew that Endlaves had wheeled feet, to reduce the amount of energy needed for movement when speeding along city streets, but one of them looked like it was wearing a pair of tank treads, and it was no model he'd seen before.

"Exactly," said Priori. "For you though, since it's your first time, I think a standard Bellman trainer would be best. It's the simplest to operate. Movements are slow, but balance is good. The cannons are built right into the arms where the hands should be, so you won't have to worry about hand manipulation. Just put one foot in front of the other."

Daryl found the Bellman, which was appropriately bell-shaped, and frowned. It reminded him of robots from old science fiction movies. The Bellman had a wide base, barely separate enough to be called legs, and Priori was right in that it did not have hands. The wrists ended in firing barrels. A pilot would have to work to tip over in this thing, and maybe that was the point.

He selected it and the screen changed to a wrap around view. He was in some sort of container, with an opening to a cityscape.

"You're in the exercise field now," said Priori. He couldn't see her through the darkened canopy, but she must be monitoring him. "It's already in use, so you'll likely run into other pilots in training. Free exercise is what's currently on the schedule, so you can try walking your Endlave around outside and not worry about disrupting anything."

"How do I do that?" asked Daryl.

"Think your way through it. The Bellman is a trainer so it's a little stiff, but you shouldn't fall. Pretend you're roller skating, but your legs have a few kilos of weight around them."

He shuffled his feet inside the pod, sliding one leg forward and then the other, and feeling kind of silly at the same time, but the Bellman started a slow, bobbing glide. That wasn't so hard.

"Practiced pilots don't need to do the movements physically anymore," said Priori. "The signal is picked up by the neural sync between pilot and Endlave, and the vehicle will move in place of the pilot's own body. A pilot doesn't even see through a screen like you are now. Most of them close their eyes, because their visuals are sent directly to the brain."

That was crazy. Piloting with their eyes closed?

Daryl rolled a little further out into the streets, turning his head from side to side. As he did, the view on the wrap around screen changed, mimicking his movements. Another Endlave leaned out from behind a building to his left. He barely noticed it before his display lit up, flashing red, and then he found himself in darkness again with only the Endlave selection screen.

"Looks like someone got you," said Priori, her voice light.

"That wasn't fair!" he said. "I barely walked outside."

"This is free for all training." He could hear the shrug in her voice. "No one knows you're a kid in the simulator. But if you're wondering what combat's like, it's a lot like this. No one's going to cut you any slack."

"Is he going to be waiting for me if I go back in?"

"Maybe, but you can select a different spawn point. If you were practicing evading ambushes you'd probably want to keep spawning into the same location while your partner tries to catch you. If you want to go somewhere else..."

Daryl didn't wait for her to finish. He found the spawn point changer, and selected a tight location in in the cityscape, one where there was little place to hide. Enemies would only be able to come at him from one of two directions.

He lasted perhaps thirty seconds this time, though he did figure out how to fire his cannons without being prompted.

"This isn't fair," he grumbled, flipping through the Endlave selection screen.

"This is your first time in the simulator. You can't expect to do well against practiced pilots."

He tried a different Endlave, one that looked sleek and light, like it balanced on a pair of razors.

Daryl fell over on his first step. He probably only lasted the two minutes that he did because his Endlave was face down on the ground where no one expected to find a combatant.

By his fourth attempt, the other pilots seemed to have realized they had a complete novice on their hands and were mostly leaving alone any awkward Endlave that stumbled into view. Mostly.

There was one jerk still taking potshots at him.

"You can quit if you want," said Priori. "I can tell you're getting frustrated, and I just wanted you to have something to do. I don't want the general to think his son has been getting picked on all afternoon."

His father wouldn't care.

Daryl swiped through the Endlaves, looking for something, anything that he might be able to use to stand up against the other pilots. It couldn't be top heavy. He didn't have the balance yet. But it couldn't be so so slow that he was walking with cement blocks around his feet. None of the other pilots used the Bellman, and with good reason. Real pilots didn't fight in trainers.

Then his eyes fell on an unusual Endlave in that it did not have wheels. Rather, it had four legs and a pair of arms. Daryl latched on to it immediately. He wouldn't have to worry about balancing on a pair of skates. He would not have to worry about being top heavy, with a torso planted on top of so many lower limbs.

Daryl selected it and plunged back into the cityscape. This Endlave was a struggle. He flailed a leg, and one of the four moved, and that's when he realized there was a problem with his mental imaging. He only had two legs, but the base had four. With the arms that gave the Endlave a total of six limbs.

Well, he could fix that... After all, Lieutenant Priori had said that real pilots didn't move their limbs when they moved their vehicles, so he should be able to move a limb he didn't have. He just needed to think his way through it.

He forced his own legs into the rear set and reached forward with an arm. The front legs wouldn't move at first, but he tried picturing them linked with his own arms, moving in sync together. He'd seen animals move like that; cats, horses. Both legs on one side of the body moved as one.

The Endlave took a step, then another. He could see a cluster of the other Endlaves ahead, mostly ignoring him, but there was still that one punk. That one Endlave was turning to look at him.

Daryl took a step forward, then he realized he could not fire if he was swinging his arms and his front legs at the same time. But he did not fall over. Even with one leg in midair, the other three were planted safely on the ground. He was right in that he would not have balance problems in this.

But he needed to desync his arms from the front legs. If he wanted to fight, he needed to move the four legs independent of his arms.

Pretend, he told himself. Pretend you have another set of legs. Make them move.

And he shifted a step, shaky.

Now the other Endlaves were turning to look at him. One of them held up a hand. The rowdy Endlave looked at the one with the signal and then turned back to Daryl. It did not raise its weapon.

Daryl tried to raise his own, but his Endlave sagged in place. It was so hard to move six limbs. He found himself tired, very tired.

A voice called out through a speaker. "Lieutenant Priori. Who's in that training pod?"

A/N: Welcome to my second Guilty Crown fanfic. When I wrote Little Heart I brainstormed a lot of Daryl's background and how he turned into the kind of person he was in Guilty Crown. There is a lot of backstory I created that ended up having little to no place in the story, particularly involving his military training.

Though this is a prequel, you will not need to read the earlier fic since this is as much a prequel to the anime series as it is my fanfic and is much different in nature. Little Heart is a romance with zero action scenes, whereas Imperfectly Forged is more of a drama.

I realize the Daryl that starts this story might not be the Daryl you know in that he's rather timid, but he will be quite familiar by the end. If you are a new reader to my work, I typically post new chapters once a week on Saturday nights/Sunday mornings depending on your time zone.