Children of Tekka
By: BeautifulAli
Rating: PG
Disclaimers: Teknoman/Tekkaman Blade doesn't belong to me, I'm just borrowing it for a while. The characters of Cole, Miu, etc. do belong to me, so don't use them without permission please.
Chapter 1 – Friends
"Tekk setter!" cried Cole Aiba, raising his yellow transformation-inducing crystal high above his head. In an instant he was wrapped from head to toe in his familiar impenetrable white, orange and yellow armor, his second skin. With a hot flash of afterburners he was airborne, winging away into space where the enemy Rahdam ships waited for battle.
Tekkaman Mace, as Cole was called when hidden in his armor, gripped his weapon tightly to his chest as he sped by Jupiter, readying himself for the imminent battle. The mace-headed spear felt almost alive in his hands, as if it, too, was anticipating a good battle. It called to him, urging him to destroy, to kill. Mace breathed deeply, flushing the nervous energy from his body. "It's time," he whispered to himself as he emerged from Jupiter's shadow and saw the Rahdam fleet.
Igniting his burners again, weapon in hand, Mace charged. The outlying spider-crabs (a name invented by the Space Knights for the living drone ships) died quickly, their pink, viscous blood spilling into the vacuum of space. Mace was tireless and relentless in his destruction. Wave after wave of Rahdam spider-crabs fell to his blazing weapon and the bursts of orange voltekker energy that emanated from energy-gatherers hidden in the chest plate of his armor. To Mace, the crabs were more of a nuisance than anything else; they did little damage and were easy to kill. He wondered why the Rahdam would bother with them when they had other weapons that did far greater damage. But he supposed every army needed its expendable pawns.
The remaining spider-crabs retreated, heading back into deep space, toward the main control ship. Mace sighed and did not pursue them. He'd done more than enough for today. The cities of Earth were safe until the aliens could assemble another battle fleet, which wouldn't be for at least another two Terran days. Fatigue finally setting in, he burned his thrusters, heading back to Earth and the Space Knight Headquarters.
*
Mace touched down on the paved landing strip and willed his armor away and dressed once again in the red and white uniform of the tekkamen space knights. Cole walked into the humongous, multi-leveled steel and glass building that served as Earth's command station and the headquarters of the Space Knights, intent on going to his room and getting some sleep. He walked through the hanger, where the Blue Earth—the legendary Earth flagship that carried Tekkaman Blade into battle against the Rahdam over twenty years ago; one of the first ships capable of attaining the speed necessary to battle the Rahdam—and the other ships in the Space Knight fleet were housed. The mechanics, used to his antisocial moods after battle, merely ignored him as he walked by.
"Hiya, Cole!" called a cheerful voice from the other end of the hanger. He revised his earlier thought. The intelligent mechanics ignored him. Miu was another story. Despite his original intent, he found himself walking over to her.
"What do you want Miu?" demanded Cole of the young woman dressed in stained denim mechanic's overalls.
"Jeez, Cole, brighten up, huh? I was only being friendly." Her liquid brown eyes filled with tears. "Aren't we friends, Cole?"
He swore under his breath. Oh, she was not going to do this to him. He was perfectly happy without friends, yet for some reason he couldn't bear to see Miu Saroko cry. Though he had to admit, she did cry a lot. He sighed, "Yeah, Miu. We're friends."
"Good! Then let's go get coffee. I'm on my break," she said cheerfully, brushing tears from her reddened eyes.
Cole, despite desperately needing sleep, reluctantly agreed. They took the elevators to the cafeteria level, Miu chatting all the way there, Cole doing his best to sound civil. The cafeteria was bustling with the lunchtime crowd of mechanics and pilots, and even a few Space Knight pilots, the fleet officers who accompanied the New Generation (or NewGen, as they were more commonly called) tekkamen into battle.
Cole and Miu got their coffee and sat down in an empty table. She added sugar and a bit of cream, still chatting away. He warmed his hands against the outside of the mug and listened, more or less attentively.
"…And then Ryo told me that Commander Aiba was recruiting pilots! So, is he?" she asked eagerly. "I've always wanted to be a pilot!"
"I dunno if he is or not, Miu. Guess you should ask him."
She looked at him incredulously. "You do know who we're talking about here, right? He's Tekkaman Evil, Shinya Aiba, the scariest man to ever join the Space Knights."
"He's my uncle, Miu. He's not so bad really."
"Maybe not to his family, but I don't think he's ever liked me, Cole."
"Did he ever tell you that?" he asked Miu, gritting his teeth, ready to kill his uncle if he had said anything like that to her. She was far too innocent to be disliked by anyone.
"Well, I guess not, but he never says thank you or anything when I help him with his paperwork. I always got the feeling that he was watching me for any mistake, just so he could yell at me for ruining his stuff."
Cole sighed. His uncle was not the friendliest of people, even under the best of circumstances, and sometimes he was purposely intimidating. He probably was hard on Miu when she did secretary work for him. Cole understood, somewhat. It was hard for people to accept his surrender to the Space Knights twenty years ago; it was even harder for them to accept that he still looked only twenty-four. During the first invasion in 192, the Rahdam had used human beings as base bodies for their weapons of mass destruction—their tekkamen. Both Uncle Shinya and Cole's father, Takaya, had been primary bodies for the Radham, but while Takaya Aiba had fought the alien technology, Shinya had embraced it. He'd been one of the Rahdam's finest lieutenants until his brother had somehow persuaded him to join the Space Knights. But nothing could undo the effects of the alien parasite and the regeneration pods upon Shinya's body. His aging was severely retarded; he aged one year for every five calendar years.
Yet somehow, despite the initial distrust of the Space Knights, he'd been able to take command of the NewGen Space Knight tekkamen and train them in how to use their powers to defend the Earth. And, Cole had to admit, he was pretty good at it. Uncle Shinya had given him his crystal and taught him how to tekk set when the Rahdam had attacked a year ago. Not dad. Dad had hidden the crystals from his sons after they were born. Takaya wanted nothing to do with the Space Knights anymore, and hadn't ever since the second war had ended. Dad was a coward, and so was Nick, Cole's twin brother. Anyone who had the ability to fight and protect the human race should fight. It was their duty.
"Hey! Earth to Cole!" said Miu loudly.
"Huh?" he said, startled out of his thoughts.
"I said, are you going to the celebration next week?"
The officers were throwing a party to mark a whole year of the successful preservation of Earth from the alien Rahdam invaders. Successful, ha! What about all the flower pods on the surface, just waiting for an innocent to stumble inside and be transformed into a tekkaman under Rahdam control?
"I don't think so, Miu," he told her.
All those people enjoying life for a few hours would only make him even more depressed, since he couldn't appreciate his existence anymore. Sleep, eat, and fight was all he did, day in and day out. There was always some new menace that only tekkaman Mace could face. "I have other plans," he lied.
"Oh," she said. "Hey, that's okay, Cole. There will always be another one year anniversary of the defending of Earth."
He winced at her sarcastic tone and wondered again why he let this little slip of a girl get to him. Perhaps it was because she still had hope that everything would be okay in the end. Cole had no such faith. Humanity would either lose to the Rahdam, becoming their slaves, or the war would go on forever. The people of Earth just didn't have the firepower to possibly win. The best they could hope for was stalemate, but that he wouldn't prevent him from fighting until his last breath. Cole wasn't his father; he wouldn't give up when his people needed him, even if the cause was worse than hopeless.
"Oh, come on, Cole! Just come for a few minutes at least. The Space Knights need to see the man who saves Earth's butt day after day. You might not need us…" her voice trailed off. Cole could guess what she wanted to say, but wouldn't let herself. She knew how much he hated to hear that people needed him. He was no lone, infallible protector. He was just a man. He fought because the battles were all that remained of his once passionate need to save the world. He no longer had the passion, and he had all but lost the hope that the world could be saved, by himself or anyone else.
So softly he barely heard himself, he said, "I'll come."
It took a second for both of them to register his words, and when they did, Miu squealed with delight and Cole sank further into his depression. He looked down at his untouched coffee. Yeah, he needed a stimulant right now. He downed the now lukewarm, but still bitter liquid in one gulp before getting up and leaving with a hurried good-bye to Miu.
She watched him leave, her heart somewhere in the pit of her stomach. He needed to be with people, she had decided months ago, when he first began to retreat from her and the rest of his friends. He'd since worsened to the point that he avoided almost all contact with people. He didn't talk, and when he did it was automatic, like he didn't actually understand or register the words that came out of his mouth. Was this war getting to him? Maybe he needed a break.
A plan began to form in her mind. The Knights had other tekkaman warriors, among them Shinya and his newest NewGen trainees. The trainees could hold off the Rahdam forces for at least a week, and a week, hopefully, was all she needed. Cole Aiba needed a vacation, and Miu would take him and make sure he enjoyed it!