AN

Story contains some timeline shenanigans, and some events have been moved around chronologically. If you wanna see the full list of changes, check out chapter two.

November 24, 1978

Five months. It had been exactly five months since the BETA set up their first hive on Japanese soil. It had been five months since Takeru had gone underground into the massive underground shelter Sumika's for amily had reserved. Five months since he'd seen the sun, let alone walked to school. It had been five months of isolation, spent with Sumika and her family- the few of them that managed to reach the place before BETA overran the mainland.

Despite being an underground complex several hundred meters below the earth, the shelter was comfortable. Extremely so. Sumika's family had been wealthy, if not exactly influential, and had cut no corners when it came to their own safety. There was plenty of food to spare, and there was no shortage of variety. The furnishings were lavish and beautiful; far more luxurious than anything he'd ever had before. And all the concrete was hidden behind tastefully decorated walls of paneled wood and lacquered ornaments.

A better life, a more comfortable life, far surpassing his old one before the BETA. A happier life.

But, it was also an empty life.

Ayamine, Sakaki, Yoroi, Tamase, hell, even Marimo-chan, they'd all been drafted into the war. Sumika was his best friend, his closest friend, and that would never change. But all the same, he couldn't tell himself with absolute certainty that his staying here was for the best. Knowing that his friends were fighting and he wasn't, knowing that they were in danger and he was here, behind the thickest of walls, it bothered him.

Takeru's nights were restless, his days monotonous. His mind was always on the outside, on the BETA, on his friends. He knew that Sumika was bothered by it, that she was worried, and he knew that he should put on a tougher face for her sake. It wasn't as if he wanted her to worry about him, dammit, but no matter how he tried to square away his concerns, they would always show on his face.

When he looked in the mirror, he noticed that he'd developed a crease in his forehead. Something his mother might have called a worry wrinkle.

He tried to bury the thoughts beneath distraction. First through games, and then through literature, and finally, when all that failed, through relentless and brutal physical training. But, even if he managed to put his thoughts to something other than his friends and family, something in his subconscious refused to let go.

"I have to do something." He told himself as he awoke the next morning, almost an hour before Sumika usually came by. "If I don't get out of here soon, I think I'll go insane."

Those words were not far from the truth, he realized. Very soon, his worry would turn to fear, and fear to paranoia. He simply couldn't stand by doing nothing, because that would have been even worse than fighting.

I have to get out of here.

"Something has to happen." He said to no one in particular.

Unbeknownst to him, exactly a week later, his wish would be answered.

Pounding alarms. Flashing lights. These things snuck into his dreams just before Takeru awoke to the sound of a panicky voice shouting over the intercom.

"BETA! Oh my god, oh my god! BETA are attacking the shelter! Everyone, get to the panic room, before they burrow into the complex!" The voice shouted, it's owner sounding just inches from a breakdown.

His bedroom door slid open and Sumika came tearing through, tears in her eyes and pupils wide with terror.

"Takeru-chan! We have to go, now!" Before he'd so much as got to his feet, she grabbed him by the arm and wrenched him out of his bed.

He was very much undressed, only a pair of boxer shorts and a t-shirt protecting his modesty, but neither he nor she registered that as Sumika pulled him forward and ran him out the door, sprinting down the hallways and corridors like a woman possessed.

"Sumika! Sumika, slow down!" Takeru protested, still in a daze.

She shook her head vehemently. "I can't Takeru-chan! The BETA are gonna get into the shelter any minute!"

The grip on his arm was like iron, and Sumika was running at an incredible pace, but all the same, he broke free with ease. Shaking out of her grasp and digging into the wooden floor, he turned and ran in the other direction.

Sumika turned and stared after him, her widened eyes reflecting something akin to betrayal. "Takeru-chan?! Where are you going?! The panic room is this way!" Her voice was high and uneven, watery.

Takeru met her gaze from the corner of his eye. "I'm going to the armory. I have to get armed."

Sumika's jaw dropped, not in amazement, but in sheer terror. "You can't be serious?! You're not going to fight, are you?!"

He stopped and turned, looking her right in the eye with a steely glare. "This complex has exactly one TSF designated for internal defense. I'm the only one here with experience in the simulator. No one else can do this, Sumika."

"You don't have to, Takeru-chan! What if you die out there?!"

The resolution in his gaze was hot and powerful as the sun, and Sumika couldn't help but avert her gaze. "If I don't do something, we're going to die anyway."

"But-" She began.

Takeru shook his head. "We're wasting time right now, Sumika. Get to the panic room."

She bit back a protest and reluctantly turned in the other direction. "Okay, Takeru-chan. Just... if you die, I won't forgive you."

He flashed her a reassuring grin. "Wouldn't dream of it, Sumika." With that, he dug his feet into the floor, tensed his legs, and exploded back into movement, sprinting with the pace and stride of an Olympic runner.

The armory was a straight shot down one long-ass hallway. He'd reach it in time, that was certain, but his chances of reaching the hangar in time to board the TSF was a fifty fifty toss up. If a Tank-class managed to bite it's way into the corridor, there would undoubtedly be several dozen just behind it; he'd be swamped and murdered, and no amount of 7.62 rounds would prevent that.

Blast doors opened to a swipe of his clearance card, and Takeru entered the armory. Rows and rows of light machine guns, being the only weapons capable of reliably killing infantry-type BETA, adorned the shelves. Several armored suits, draped onto mannequins, looked ripe for the taking as well.

I don't have time to put one on. He realized. Dammit!

Takeru bit back his anger and panic and reached for a machine gun. The feeling of a shooting iron in his hand was surprisingly comfortable, a lot like reading an old book or putting on a worn glove. He loaded the chamber with speed and dexterity and ran back into the hallway, sprinting full speed toward the hangar.

The air in his lungs was burning, his legs were aching terribly, but no matter how his vision blurred or his heart pounded, he refused to slow down.

An electrical explosion shook the entire complex. The overhead lighting flickered and dimmed for a moment, threatening to go dark. The BETA had bitten into one of the secondary power reactors, it seemed.

"Don't you dare die on me. If the base goes dark..." He didn't want to finish the thought. If the electricity died now, they'd suffocate from lack of oxygen alone within a week, and that was if the BETA didn't get them first. Not to mention the fact that he wouldn't be able to get his TSF to start without power in the terminal.

Finally, the lighting stabilized and Takeru breathed a mental sigh of relief. It didn't last long, however, as he realized something incredibly worrying.

That digging sound was getting loud. Incredibly loud.

Gritting his teeth, Takeru redoubled his speed and hurried down the hall, knowing that if he gave into his nerves and panicked, he'd die in an instant. He turned into the left hall just as the digging turned to crunching.

Concrete. They're eating into the concrete. He thought, knowing it to be certain.

A wall on his right caved outward, exploding into the corridor in a spray of splintered metal and wood. A Soldier-class, lumbering and wide, stepped into the hallway. Takeru's heart pounded, his breath shortened, and his eyes widened. Panic, delirious panic, ran through his nerves in shuddering waves.

His heartbeat was impossibly loud in his ears, even louder than it had been when he was running. The BETA turned to face him, and though it's beady eyes were black as night, Takeru could have sworn there was amusement in that expression. He nearly screamed; he wanted to scream. But, somewhere deep inside him, he found that his resolve was stronger than that.

Just before it ripped his head off with it's jaws, he dove back and leveled his machine gun on it's body. His eyes were wild and his aim was shit, but it's body was huge and missing at this range was damn near impossible.

"DIE!" Takeru shouted, pulling back the trigger and spraying a deadly wave of lead. The bullets ripped through it's body with ease, pulverizing the disturbingly-human shaped body into a crimson pulp.

There was no time to celebrate. Takeru could hear the rebar in the concrete walls wrenching; BETA were just about to break into the corridor, and he could be damn sure there'd be more than just one. He was just glad that Sumika's panic room was made of tougher stuff.

Not bothering to reload his gun, he broke into another dead-sprint, tearing down the hall at a breakneck pace. The hangar was close, so damn close, and if he could just clear these last twenty meters, he'd be free and clear. But it wouldn't be that easy; massive, disturbingly wet footfalls were just behind him. The BETA would overtake him at any moment now.

He came to the code-locked blast doors and cursed internally. He fumbled for his pass-card, but just before he could pull it from his pocket, the first of the BETA turned down the hall and faced him. A Warrior-class. It came running down the hall in an erratic zigzag, clearing ground in leaps and bounds.

Takeru's nerves ran hot with adrenaline, and even as his mind threatened to collapse to the rising wave of panic, the expression on his face was almost ecstatic. He brought up his machine gun and dug in, holding his ground with the rock-steady form of an experienced gunslinger. His left grabbed onto the upper stabilizing handle and his right pulled back the trigger. Lead, another deadly wave of the stuff, tore through the BETA's body despite it's evasive maneuvers.

There was an entire wave of the bastards just behind it though, and it seemed to be an endless one. Machine gun blazing, eyes squeezed shut, Takeru let loose a ceaseless barrage of bullets. He cursed mentally, again and again, as they piled into the hallway, their eviscerated corpses only serving to absorb his limited supply of rounds.

Heat bit into his hand as the gun barrel began to glow red. It would only be a matter of time before the weapon melted, or even worse, exploded.

I can't keep this up much longer.

Realizing this, Takeru turned his aim upward, aiming for the light fixtures. His rounds cut through with ease, and so he turned his aim to hit the structural beams in the ceiling. His lead met with the wall's steel, and after the briefest of deadlocks, the steel splintered and shattered. The wall trembled, shook, and collapsed, completely obstructing the hallway with rubble. All the same however, a single BETA, a Warrior-class, nearly completely avoided the slide of concrete and came sprinting for him.

"Shit!" Was all Takeru had time to say before the thing was on him.

He dodged to the side, avoiding it's narrow charge and brought up his gun. But when he pulled the trigger, there was not a roar of death and lead, but a dry, traitorous click instead. Undeterred by an empty gun, the Warrior-class turned and swiped, it's misshapen arm flying straight for his head.

"Those arms can rip a human head clear off, if given the opportunity." Strangely, the virtual lessons he read popped up in his head at that exact moment.

He ducked low and dived to the right, throwing his machine gun into the BETA's face and pulling his access card instead. With a speedy flourish, he swiped the card through the port and opened the blast door.

Panicking and grounded, he had no other choice but to somersault into the hangar bay just before the Warrior-class' trunk-like arm could break his spine in two. But he had no time to relax as the BETA charged him again, trying to follow him into the hangar. Takeru jumped to his feet and hit the door's emergency shutdown switch, instantly bringing the steel slabs to a close, with the monster caught in the middle. With a crunch of bone, the splattered remains of the BETA's flesh covered him head to toe. The crushed arm lay on the ground, twitching and grabbing at empty air.

Takeru breathed a sigh of relief, wiping the blood off his face with trembling hands. He turned and walked down the platform, making his way to the Shiranui that had been stationed here. The dull gray paint was almost beautiful to his eyes, and the heavy steel frame was more than a sight for sore eyes.

"Thank god. I made it." He told himself as he ran a hand over the control terminal.

Obviously, time was still of the essence, and the longer he dithered, the more likely the BETA would start digging into the hangar's walls and doors. In spite of that, he took his time to unwind his nerves as he ran the release programs and switches, opening the TSF's cockpit one button at a time.

Normally, it took an experienced mechanic to decipher the streams of code, requests, and windows opening up all at once on the terminal, but for whatever reason, Takeru navigated the release system with practiced ease. For every prompt brought on screen, he had a command and override code drummed up quickly and precisely from the depths of his mind. And it wasn't as if he'd practiced or done this before, it just came naturally for him.

With a final flurry of keys, he hit the enter key. With a mechanical hum and wrench of rust-locked iron, the cockpit door opened. He stepped into the Shiranui and settled in, feeling something incredibly nostalgic about the action. Takeru's feet settled over the pedals, the metal first detecting his bodily dimensions and then clamping over them. His hands slid into the handles, and his head leaned forward, his gaze directed onto the frontal camera display.

With a climactic thud, the door closed behind him. For a few panicky moments, the cockpit was dark and dusty, silent and empty. Like a tomb. But, one by one, the devices began to light up. The overhead lamp, dimmed so as not to glare onto the holographic camera display, hummed to life. His handles loosened and opened up as the servos began to warm up after what had probably been ages of inactivity. Finally, the frontal camera lit up and he was given a view of the hangar bay.

An electronic beep caught his attention, and Takeru looked to the right to see an incoming transmission. Frowning, he touched the respond button on his control keyboard, immediately bringing up a view of Sumika's face. A face that was tear-stained and simultaneously worried and relieved.

"Takeru-chan!" She cried, a surge of happiness in her voice. "Thank god you're still alive!"

Takeru was having similar thoughts. "Of course I am. Do you honestly think a couple dozen BETA could bring me down?" He said with false arrogance, hoping more to reassure her than inflate his ego.

She smiled back sheepishly, but more than anything, he could see just how heavy the expression looked on her face. "Takeru-chan, we were tracking you on camera..." Her voice trailed, as if to let the implication sink. "And there were those monsters, and there were just so many..."

"Sumika..."

"And then you got stuck in that hallway, with the locked door, and I thought, no, I just knew you were going to die." She bit back a sob. "And then you shot out the camera, and I thought you were trying to spare me the sight of you dying, trying to be kind to me again in your last moments, like you always are..."

"Sumika, you know I wouldn't-"

She cried, long and solemnly. "I thought you died!" Sumika buried her head into her hands, her tears coming back at an unbidden pace. "I doubted you, Takeru-chan, even though I said I would never ever doubt you again!"

Takeru fell silent.

"But... but then, the TSF light came on, and you opened the channel, and you weren't dead. I just, I..." Her voice trailed into silence as she struggled to speak.

"I'm just so glad you're okay." She finished.

If he had been there to hold her, he would have hugged her tight and stroked her head. But he wasn't, and all he could do was be strong, try his best to make it so she wouldn't have to worry.

"Yeah, I am too. But we're not done yet." He fired up the TSF's engines, enjoying the dull roar of noise that filled the cockpit. "I need you to open up the launch doors from your terminal."

Sumika trembled, biting back her sadness. "You have to fight again?"

Takeru looked down, not willing to look her in the eye. "There's a whole swarm of BETA up there, not to mention three Fort-classes. If I don't kill them now, too many of them are going to get into the base for the auto-guns to handle."

She squeezed her eyes shut, not saying anything for a long while. But eventually, she did open her mouth, and when she did, her voice sounded so incredibly tired.

"I... just wish this war would end. So you wouldn't have to put yourself in danger... so our friends wouldn't have to fight."

Takeru nodded solemnly. "You and me both, Sumika."

"Tou-san's gonna open up the launch bay. Get ready to fly up as soon as possible, Takeru-chan."

"Yeah."

"Do a good job out there."

"Yeah."

"And... and come back to me safely, okay?"

Takeru was silent for a moment. He'd heard the saying, never make a promise you can't keep. He knew the situation he was going into, and realistically, he couldn't be expected to survive. However, after some time, he nodded. "...Yeah, you got it Sumika."

Bright red lights, flashing and pulsing wildly, lit up and spun, the classic sign of an alarm. The launch bay, two massive slabs of motorized super-carbon blocking access to a large empty shaft, began to pull into the earth, opening up a ray of sunlight that Takeru was more than glad to see. He fired up his jump jets and began to lift, extremely glad to see that the on-board fuel and ammo reserves were completely full.

The Shiranui lifted into the air, and after hovering for all of a moment, went blazing high into the air. Takeru soared into the air, maneuvering past the still-opening launch doors and missing them by mere inches, and flew high into the sky. Looking down, he noticed what could only be described as a horde of BETA, swarming and tunneling into the mountain the base had been constructed under.

Takeru took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and breathed out, calming his nerves as best he could. He reaffirmed the grasp on his assault rifle, a Type-84 Assault Cannon to be exact, and went charging down to the ground, letting loose as many bullets as he could into the horde below. He twisted and banked hard to the left, and instead of trying to land feet first, he continued to dive at a break-neck pace toward the ground.

He released his right stabilizer and rolled his TSF, sending him into an insanely fast spin. Takeru's stomach lurched, and he nearly puked up bile, but he held tight and dug his feet tighter into the pedals. Grabbing his sword and holstering his rifle, he landed head-first into the mid-section of a lumbering Fort-class, tearing a path through it's flesh with the massive blade.

He flipped his TSF over mid-flight, capitalizing on the auto-correction algorithm to boost his acceleration, and landed hard into a Destroyer-class' rear end, crushing it entirely.

In the center of the hoard no escape no turning back no choice but to fight Takeru buried a wave of ceaseless thoughts and panic under an overpowering surge of determination.

"It's fight or die." He told himself as he surged forward, into the waiting jaws of innumerable BETA.

He charged down the center, carving through the ceaseless horde with naught but a blade and a fiery determination to simply kill. The fiery blaze of his jet engines intermixed with his own cries of murderous resolve into one loud, dull roar of noise. He slid low, boosting forward with a pulse of his afterburners, ripping through the soft underbellies of a half-dozen Grappler-class BETA. Flesh parted violently, accompanied by gouts of blood and sprays of viscera.

Takeru reversed his afterburners and brought his acceleration to a jarring halt. He activated the elbow booster in his right arm, normally reserved for flight maneuvers, and used it to send his blade positively flying up, bisecting a Grappler straight up the middle. Just as he prepared to fly up through the opening he'd carved, his TSF began an automated heat-vent procedure.

"Engage rockets, dammit!" He cursed as his machine locked up, the strain on the machine becoming almost unbearable. "Activate override code IJ-56-FY! Faster, goddammit!" Obediently, the TSF halted the emergency protocols and lifted into the air at an impossibly fast speed, all safety limiters disengaged.

After reaching the sky, the TSF dashed to the right, flying quickly toward a Fort-class. Takeru gripped his sword hard and brought it high into the air with one hand, and just as he entered the BETA's kill zone, just as the metal ligaments of his Shiranui began to bend under the stress, he launched the blade ahead like a javelin. It tore through the creature's body like a knife through butter, ripping down through the midsection and burying itself into the soil below.

With a final, guttering sound that almost sounded like gasp, the Fort-class collapsed to the ground. Takeru had no time to even register the fact, however, as he pulled out his rifle and reversed his stance. He landed feet first and started to sprint ahead, opening fire into the horde he'd managed to flank.

Before the BETA could so much as turn to face him, he'd dropped well over two dozen of them with the 36mm alone. Takeru spared no time in pulling back to grab his sword from the earth, noting with clinical disengagement that it was on the verge of breaking in two. All the same, he took the blade in his left and his gun in the right, and charged ahead toward the final Fort-class.

"I have to take these bastards down-" He paused to cut his way through a Grappler. "-This fight can't end until I do!"

Takeru could feel his insides protesting with every move he made, and he knew that the longer this fight dragged on the higher his chances of falling unconscious, or worse still, suffering some kind of internal rupture. He could feel his eyes pressing into their sockets, pushed back from the sheer G-force, and his entire body, particularly his bones, was aching terribly. He didn't have the time to put on an armored suit earlier, and his body was paying for it in dividends.

His TSF dodged left, engaging every single rocket thruster to do so, narrowly missing an impalement on the Fort-class' tentacle. Takeru sprinted as fast as he possibly could, outflanking the BETA and exposing it's midsection. He opened fire, spraying as much depleted uranium as he possibly could, and in doing so cut the thing right down the middle. Exposed to the cold air prematurely, the massive numbers of Tank-class carried inside the BETA's body died en masse.

Takeru turned and jumped, soaring high over an incoming charge of Destroyers. He landed just behind them and opened fire, tearing them open with remarkable ease, even as his head pulsed and his eyes blurred.

Still, despite the victory, his situation was damn near hopeless. Even with the Forts done and dealt with, there was only so much one TSF could do against a swarm this size. His ammo was running low, his blade was blunted, and the rocket boosters were overheated and fuel-depleted. Worse still was the incredible strain being put on his machine. There was only so much he could do if his TSF decided to drop an arm, or in the worst case scenario, a leg.

"Goddammit!" He cursed. BETA were closing in, and though he wasn't surrounded and thus could easily get away, there was no way he could just abandon Sumika to die. And if he fled now, she most certainly would have.

He had no other options.

"Alright then, you bastards, I'm going to send you straight to hell." Takeru tensed his shoulders. "This is it, then. One last all-or-nothing play."

Takeru leveled his gun on the horde and opened fire, not at the front which posed the most danger, but at the rear guard. He held a tight stance, maximizing his accuracy at the cost of mobility, and let fly as many projectiles as his gun could reasonably fire.

"Come at me, you bastards! I'm right here!" He screamed into the TSF's microphone, his voice resonating loudly through the external speaker.

And surely enough, they did just that. The entirety of their forces, from the tiniest Soldier to the heaviest Destroyer, turned to face him. They charged, almost simultaneously, and Takeru could have sworn that, in that moment, all he could see was death flying straight toward him.

"Tasty, tasty meat, right here dammit!" His magazine emptied. Takeru auto-ejected it and loaded another, all in one fluid movement.

The Destroyers were on him in less than a few seconds, but he abandoned his stance and rocket-jumped high into the air, firing down at their vulnerable backsides as they passed. He banked left, bent both his arms backward, and ejected his elbow-boosters, letting them fly like improvised missiles into the swarm. Using another emergency override code, Takeru cut the fuel to his leg-boosters and dropped back to the ground.

With the entirety of the horde's attention on him, Takeru began to run back, firing rounds over his head to draw as much of their attention as he possibly could. Finally, he reached the beginning of a massive and dense forest. With the BETA still mindlessly charging for him, he figured this was far enough to not cause too much harm to Sumika's shelter.

It was at this point that he barely had a grasp on his consciousness, let alone the plan he'd formed before he got this far. His insides were a mess, a painful, so very painful mess, and every movement he made brought a new wave of pain. Still, with what little of his strength remained, Takeru willed the mech to grab the S-11 explosive mounted at the skirt armor.

"Wish I had a cool one-liner at the moment..." Takeru muttered. "But I guess a big explosion's gonna have to do."

Takeru engaged the leg-rockets one last time, using his arms as stabilizing fins in lieu of his ejected elbow-boosters, and climbed as high as he could into the air. He took the S-11 in both hands, staring down at the shifting sea of BETA, and dropped it.

Don't feel like sticking around, gotta admit. He thought as he began to fly away. I'd rather not die a fiery death, after all.

The mech tore through the air as fast as Takeru could will it to, and though the rockets were just on the verge of exploding, he spared no time in making his getaway.

Just moments after he left the immediate blast radius, the S-11 hit the ground. An explosion, deafening even inside the cockpit, engulfed the forest, instantly evaporating the entirety of the BETA vanguard. The ensuing shockwave was massive, fast and powerful enough to disrupt Takeru's leg-rockets, and more than strong enough to wipe away whatever straggling creatures remained.

"Plan successful." He muttered, his voice low and weak.

He lowered his altitude, but not quickly enough, as his left rocket exploded in a flurry of shrapnel. Without an accompanying stabilizer on his right leg, his TSF spun out like a rifled bullet, flying toward the ground at a deadly velocity.

The ground was approaching at a rapid speed, and Takeru was certain that he would die from the impact. He was only barely aware of the world around him, the majority of his consciousness failing from a mixture of pain and bodily shock.

"Can...cel... override code... IJ-56... FY." He groaned.

Immediately, the TSF's emergency protocols came back to life, and in a desperate attempt to stabilize his descent, sent him careening towards the surface with his body splayed out to spread the impact as much as possible. Takeru closed his eyes and smiled, seeing his death in that expanse of grass and soil. He opened a comm link with Sumika, wanting to at least say one last goodbye.

Immediately, the request was accepted and Sumika's face appeared on the HUD. The joy and relief in her eyes turned to fear as soon as she saw his face.

"!" She didn't so much as say a word, instead making an indecipherable sound of surprise. "Takeru-chan!"

He smiled at her, but the expression was hollow. "Hey, Sumika. I think I'm going to die."

"But- but all the BETA are gone! The sensors aren't picking up anything else-"

He cut her off with by pushing a finger in front of his camera. "I'm three hundred meters in the air, my stabilizer's out, and I haven't got so much as a parachute to slow me down. I'm done for, Sumika."

"Takeru-chan! You... you can't die! You promised!"

He laughed dryly. "I've never broken... never broken a promise with you before, right Sumika?"

She nodded her head violently. "So you can't break this one either! You got that! You... you have to come back, or, o-or I'll hit you really hard!"

Takeru forged on, heedless of her protests. "I've always kept my word to you, Sumika, so..." His voice lapsed, partly from weakness and partly from the crushing wave of force buffeting his body. "So I think I've earned this one. Just this once, I'm gonna have to break a promise. I'm... sorry."

"Takeru-chan! Don't die, Take-" The video feed cut out as the signal receptors burned out.

The cameras were soon to follow, and then the external microphones, and then the lighting circuitry. Takeru found himself crashing to his death in a black, soundless coffin.

His last thoughts were of home.

When Yuuko received reports of a massive horde of BETA piling over the side of a mountain, she'd been concerned but made no immediate plans to attack. She had been curious to see what they were up to, and if they were creating a new hive, whether or not they could kill them and take the newly made reactor for themselves.

When the reports began to speak of an unaffiliated TSF engaging the horde, she became interested. According to the reports, the machine had fought the four-hundred strong force alone, and instead of harrying or distracting the BETA, it charged head on into the heart of the swarm. It emerged not only alive but with the advantage as well.

It was at that point that she mobilized a part of her team to the site, mainly to scout the TSF and it's movements. The action did little more than indulge her curiosity, but if there truly was a pilot that could pull off such a daring assault without getting killed, then she could easily find a use for them.

The Valkyries arrived quickly, and not only did they report a few interesting tidbits about the BETA's behavior on-site, but also recorded every one of the TSF's movements and maneuvers.

It was like nothing they'd ever seen before, Isumi had said. And that gave Yuuko a feeling almost akin to excitement. She ordered the Valkyrie squadron to hold position and continue observation, but, if the pilot ever seemed to be in danger of dying, they would intervene at their own discretion.

Then, after another ten minutes, her squad reported the TSF's success in killing all four hundred of the BETA, including the innumerable infantry-types that had also been dispatched. Isumi told her everything she saw, including a few things she didn't.

"As far as I could see, the pilot disengaged nearly ever automated system, from the auto-cooling to the stabilizers. He ditched his parts to gain speed and maneuverability, sometimes just to pull off single-use stunts, but every time he did so to gain a tactical advantage. He outflanked, out maneuvered, and outsmarted the BETA at every turn, and maybe that doesn't sound so impressive, but when you can bring down six dozen of them, solo, and with just a blade and a rifle, that deserves some praise." As far as Yuuko read, Isumi had nothing but praise for the pilot. And while she was always quick to encourage her soldiers with kind words, it was still unusual for her to be so impressed with any one thing.

All told, Yuuko was intrigued. Yokohama base was not at all understaffed, but the introduction of such a skilled pilot into the roster could do nothing but good. Not to mention it would be... interesting to find out why he or she had access to a fully functional Shiranui, as well as what appeared to be a secluded mountain headquarters.

"Alright, Pilot, you've piqued my interest. Let's hope you do nothing to squander it." Yuuko took a sip from her coffee mug, grimacing at the taste of the synthetic brew.

She received an incoming video-feed from Isumi. Yuuko brought it up and maximized the window, leaning into her desk and looking her in the eye.

"Have a report for me, First Lieutenant?"

"The TSF, ma'am. It, uh, crashed."

Yuuko frowned. "Crashed?"

Isumi nodded. "Yeah. It detonated an S-11 to deal with the last of the BETA, and flew into the air to escape. During the get away, one of the thrusters overheated and exploded; sent the whole mess flying into the ground."

"Is there any chance of recovering the pilot?" She asked, rapidly losing interest. A dead pilot was of no use to her, after all.

The red-haired captain was silent for a moment. "Possibly, ma'am. It was a hard landing, but the cockpit wasn't vaporized and the emergency air-brakes were activated just long enough to slow it's descent. I've got Mitsuki heading down to investigate, and Misae and I are going to check out the mountain they were trying to burrow into."

The scientist nodded. "Understood. Make your report as detailed as you can."

"Ma'am." Isumi saluted, and then cut the transmission.

Yuuko sighed and got up from her chair. She reached up and rubbed shoulders with her fingers, moving them in lazy circles. Her muscles were tensed and coiled, had been like that for awhile now, and recently the sensation was becoming something akin to pain. The stress was getting to her, she realized, and it did not surprise her in the slightest. Just a year ago, she was a schoolteacher; had been teaching a class full of youthful and innocent kids, not commanding battalions of battle-hardened soldiers. She should have been in this building not as a scientist but as a simple chemistry teacher.

And whether or not she showed it, she was terribly worried about her former students. Nearly all of them had been drafted into this war, and those that hadn't were either dead or missing. She'd seen good kids get killed for seemingly no reason, and though she'd never made it a point to get especially close to her students, it still hurt to see their names appear on the KIA list time after time. Yuuko wasn't sure how many of them were still fighting, but she knew with utter certainty how many of them had died.

"I just want this war to end." She said, talking to no one in particular.

The doors to her office opened, and a man in a gray trench-coat walked into the room. "Well, Kouzuki-san, I may just have a way to arrange that." He dropped a manila folder on her desk.

Yuuko grabbed at the folder and read the title aloud.

"The Alternative plan?" She directed a sharp, inquisitive glare on to the trench-coat man. "Explain."

He smiled. "With pleasure, doctor." The man opened the folder and pulled from it's depths an average-sized sheet of paper filled to the absolute brim with small-font text. "After a year of active engagement with the BETA, we've yet to come close to pushing them off of Earth. The Alternative Plan is, put simply, a plot to open communications with the extra terrestrials, and if possible, negotiate a peace treaty."

Yuuko nodded, leaning in another inch and putting her hands thoughtfully over her mouth. "And how do you propose we do such a thing?"

"Direct analysis. Simply put, the plan is to assault one of their Phase-Three hives in Russia and place within the depths an audio-capture device. Hopefully the data we capture will be enough to get a grasp on their communication."

"I see. And why have you come to me with this, and not the UN council?" Yuuko asked, narrowing her eyes with suspicion.

The trench-coat man was decidedly nonplussed. "We have yet to find a more capable scientist than yourself. Building a device durable enough to withstand months, perhaps years inside a BETA hive, while also possessing a power storage that can last just as long is no easy feat. A device small enough to go unnoticed, and with an extensive array of microphones to record as much as possible, but also taking no extraneous time to install."

Smiling, the man pulled another sheet of paper from the folder. An extensive profile on Yuuko's character and commendations. "All of these conditions must be met, and the device must be made within six months. With all other minds engaged on the war, you are the only one who could undertake such a task."

Yuuko paused for a moment, reading through the documents in the folder. "Very well. I'll agree to it; you'll have that device in six months."

"Very good." With that, the Trench-coat man turned to walk out the door.

"Wait a moment." Yuuko called. "What's your name?"

At that moment, the smile on the man's face looked downright dangerous. "My name? I suppose it couldn't hurt to tell you..."

He paused, as if for dramatic effect. "It's Yoroi. Yoroi Sakon."

AN

As you can see, I'm taking some liberties with the TSF designs and structures. Also, I know the drama is stupid and cuts in too abruptly, but it exists for a reason. A reason which, in typical douchebag fashion, I will not reveal.