Author Note:
It's been a while since I wrote my last fan fiction. I haven't write in english for so long that my grammar got really rusty.
This supposed to be a collection of one shots, each put in a different setting with different main characters at each chapters. But I might visit a setting again once in a while.
Disclaimer: Usual stuff about how this is just a fanfiction.
Chapter 1: The One Year Madness
Base doctor cum psychological counselor Chie Arai sighed as the automatic door slid open and a man in pilot suit entered. The beautiful doctor put down her cookies and leaned on her chair. And she thought this would be a peaceful afternoon.
Chie looked at her computer. What would it be today? The number of dead soldier for this week? How the war had dragged for too long? How they turned the fifth city into ruins this year?
Or how he just realized that he killed people inside those mechs? That was popular around new guys.
The man stopped for a dramatic pause.
"They installed an automatic coffee dispenser."
And Chie closed her eyes. Oh yes, this guy is different. Is it that time of the day already?
"I'm in despair! The way human easily substituted the art of coffee making for automated, mechanized coffee machine has left me in despair!" he said in a dramatic tone.
"And it tasted awful."
One of the white lamps that lights the squeaky white room flickered. The LCD monitor on Chie's desk hummed silently.
"You don't have to drink from that machine." Chie said as the man pulled his sidearm and pointed it to his head. "You could always ask for coffee from the cafeteria."
Itoshiki Nozomu put his gun back to its holster and looked at the ceiling with enlightened expression. "Thank you, Chie. I always felt better after talking to you."
The door slid back as he left the room. Chie sighed and picked up another cookie. If only that man isn't suicidally good at piloting.
…
War. Mankind never changes.
It was for resource. For religion. For land. And for what nonsense was this war start?
Although mankind had reached the stars, they never learned.
The Federation. The Rebels. What are those if not the different side of the same coin?
Captain Itoshiki Nozomu sat in his office and brood. Dark aura surrounded him, the kind of aura that could do him great things if he's an evil magnificent bastard in an animated flick. The way he dimmed the lamps and let the window lit him with light from the stars also helped.
His glasses reflected the light, hid his eyes from anyone that might observe him. His hands clasped under his chin while his mind wandered.
Mankind is hopeless. Why did we have to fight? Why my mech can't move three times faster than normal mechs although he painted it red? He sipped his coffee. It was good, but not that good. It's not a good enough reason to stay alive. He took a rope from his desk.
As he put the noose on his neck, someone shouted.
"Don't do that!"
A girl jumped and pulled him down. He flailed his arm, trying to say something but he can only grunt. After some agonizing moment, the rope snapped.
They can make humanoid mechs, but they can't make snap-proof rope, he thought as he crashed onto the girl. He put his hand on his neck, gasped, and shouted.
"ARE YOU INSANE? I COULD HAVE DIED!"
Awkward silence.
"Anyway…" Itoshiki said to break the silence. "Who are you anyway? How you dare to interrupt my suicide?"
The girl chuckled.
"Silly," the girl smiled as they stood up. "You couldn't be killing yourself."
"So, what did I just do?" said Itoshiki as he straightened his clothes.
"You just trained yourself for high-G maneuver!"
Itoshiki Nozomu's jaw dropped as the girl spun, made gestures with her hand, and basically, lost in her own world.
"Mecha battle is hard for our body. High gravity maneuver left our brain depraved for oxygen. You just trained yourself to be used for blood depraved brain and not having a black out!"
The girl is young, at least ten years younger than Itoshiki Nozomu. She wore the usual blue-on-white navy uniform, short hair, and a cute hair ornament was put on her bang.
"…and I remember…" she said, still cheerily lost in a daydream.
"Silence!" said Itoshiki Nozomu as he smashed his desk.
"What are you doing here? And who are you?" said the captain.
The girl straightened herself, and replied with a smile. "My name is Lieutenant Kafuka Fuura. And I'm sent here by the command to look for someone named… Captain Zetsubou.
"IT'S ITOSHIKI NOZOMU!" cried the so called captain Zetsubou as he pried a note from Fuura's hand. Oh those cruel high commands, why did they have to torture him like this. It's true that he always brood and suicidal. But why did they had to write his name horizontally and nicknamed him Zetsubou? Despair? It's one of the reasons why he despaired in the first place!
Itoshiki Nozomu still slumped at the corner of his room when Kafuka Fuura's head appeared above his shoulder. "Would it be better if I asked them for another note, Captain Zetsubou?"
"No it wouldn't…" say Nozomu sadly as he stood up. "And stop calling me Captain Zetsubou."
"Okay, Zetsubou Sensei."
He crashed his head against a wall. It's too late, as always.
"Anyway, what did they send you here?"
Fuura cocked her head and smiled. "I was sent here to fight under your wing, Zetsubou Sensei. Don't you get the notice?"
"Eh…" he said as he remembered how he almost never read memos from the commands because usually it's just bad news.
"Don't tell me… you're a newly graduate and this is your first assignment?" Nozomu said carefully.
"Yes? Why is it?"
Nozomu lean against a wall and tears slowly slide on his cheek. "It finally happen, doesn't it?"
"Now that I'm an Ace, they put a potential yet inexperienced greenhorn under my wing. I'll act as either a cool big brother or a harsh trainer with a heart of gold, until inevitably I got shot by an enemy after I taught everything to you. I'll be lucky enough if I can spout some wisdom-y quote as my last words…"
"I'm in despair… The life of mech pilot has left me in despair…."
"But… then I'd get my long awaited final rest…" said the self-titled Ace pilot. "It's funny, how difficult to get you killed in a mech."
He heard a giggle.
"Sensei, being a mech pilot in a war torn world isn't bad," said Fuura in an uncanny cheeriness. "If we're in peace and we're not a mech pilot, we'll just end up as student and teacher in a bland world."
She clasped her hand and continued. "Being a mech pilot isn't that bad. We can see a lot of cool mech and space ships and we can see the stars as much as we want. Even if our mech destroyed, we'll get our body part blasted apart and fly for eternity in this vast, beautiful outer space, The worse that can happen is we slowly die, floating inside our space suit while staring at the beautiful sea of stars until we use up our oxygen and die hallucinating."
Fuuka turned her face onto the window, facing her reflection that set against the vast space military base outside the window.
"I lived at a farm with my parents before the war. Nobody thought we could fly to outer space or pilot our own mech. Then the Rebels attacked and burned our farm. They blasted my father onto bloody bits and decapitated my mother. I was saved because the rebel's squad leader had a liking for me. Just as he started his advances by knocking me to the ground to lie beside me, federation army came and slaughtered that squad of rebels. I was taken into the academy and learned how to fly. Now I'm here, in outer space, and having my own mech."
She turned back onto Nozomu and chuckled. "All's well ends well, right?" Said the girl in the cheekiest tone mankind can ever produced.
"Eh… that's not exactly well, but suit yourself…" said Itoshiki Nozomu without looking at Fuura's eyes. This girl isn't normal.
"The point is! Mankind is doomed! We're fighting each other! The federation is losing, our manpower is getting thin, our technology is outdated, and even the commands said our chances are low!"
"Sensei… Mankind is advancing! By fighting each other we're getting stronger. And our federation isn't losing. Our technology isn't outdated, we're just using well proven technologies! And our manpower is low, but that's just because everyone are veteran! Our commands only said that chances are low just because they want to misdirect the rebels…"
Suddenly they realized that they're engulfed in awkward silence once again. They faced each other without word, eyes accidentally gazed at each other. And the large window bathed them with light from countless stars.
A man that can only see things in the most negative light.
A girl that can only see things in the most positive light.
A meeting that isn't supposed to happen.
"You're an ace…" said the girl as she walked closer. "You can deal with high G maneuver without problems. You don't need to train like that…"
The dim light projected their silhouette onto the window.
"As I said, I'm trying to kill myself!" replied the man.
Their face got closer and closer when suddenly the alarm sound broke the awkward silence.
"Enemy patrols sighted at point 253" Said the reverberating female voice again and again. "Squadron 2A, 2D, and 2H scramble at once!"
2H? They never heard that squadron before. Until Nozomu read the note once again and found that he's supposed to lead Squadron 2H.
In a moment they're already running into the hangar, in the midst of red alarm lights and people scrambling here and there. They found their giant humanoid robots booted up and ready for launch in the same hangar.
"Don't matter whether we win or lose. We'll all die either way." Said the captain from the comm.
"No need to try to lift the burden from me, Sensei. I believe in you who believe in me, that's all that matter. If we believe in our self and each other, we can pierce even the heaven with our will…"
And the suicidal despaired pilot and the suicidal happy pilot launched toward the cosmos, blazing into the explosions far away in the ocean of stars.