Hikari Daishi woke up in a drowsy state, blearily looking over to his alarm clock before bolting up in realization.
"Crap! I'm gonna be late"
He rushed into his bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. A clean-shaven, angled face with spiky black hair and brown eyes looked backed at him. His cheeks were shallow, and his chin was smooth and unassuming. At 5 feet 10 inches tall, his reflection barely fit in the mirror when he stood up straight. Hikari quickly splashed cold water on his face before quickly brushing his teeth and putting on his work clothes, which consisted of an orange coverall over boxers and a white undershirt. He rushed out of the door of his apartment, a pretzel roll in his mouth and a bottle of water in his left hand.
"I should still be able to catch the bus!" Hikari thought to himself as he charged out his apartment building. Hikari was 19 years old and an engineering student at Tokyo University, and had been able to pick up a part-time job at Morgenroete Inc on the weekends. It was currently Saturday, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he barely made it onto the bus. On the way to the Tokyo branch of Morgenroete, his bus passed Jindai High School, and he chuckled when he saw a female student clocking a male student over the head with a paper fan in the courtyard, though he could only guess why.
"Things have certainly gotten crazier there since I graduated…" Hikaru thought fondly to himself, "Maybe I should go back and visit when I have the time."
Hikari barely made it to work on time before diving into the project he was assigned to. It was a mecha code-named the Fortune, at exactly 11.4 meters tall (he'd measured it himself) with cyan plating and concrete gray accents. They had finished the operating system and were putting the final touches on the head, which was not unlike an Arm Slave's head, but more geometric and blocky. The main selling point was the railgun mounted on its left shoulder. Hikaru was double-checking the wiring in the cockpit when the alarm sounded.
"What's going on?"
"Dr. Hell's mechabeasts are attacking! They must be after the prototype!"
"What do we do?"
"You pilot that thing until Mazinger Z gets here!"
Hikaru almost choked on air at that.
"What? Me, pilot this thing?" He sputtered out, " You're joking, right?"
"We don't have a test pilot yet, and you're the only one with any experience in that!"
"That was a proof-of-concept simulator!" Hikari retorted. However, he knew it was futile to try and resist his superior's logic, so he closed the panel that he had been checking and booted up the Fortune. After the boot-up was complete, he made the Fortune stand up…
...only to fall flat on its face after taking the first step. His supervisors frantically darted around and contacted him on the radio.
"Are you all right?"
"I'm fine, how the hell do I move this thing?"
The next 2 minutes consisted of the Fortune crashing into walls while Hikari familiarized himself with the actual controls. He then grabbed a 25 mm rifle off the rack and set out to see Mazinger Z, Aphrodite A, and Boss Borot fighting the mechabeasts. He opened fire on the nearest mechabeast, A Garada Mk 7, a machine that resembled a skeleton somewhat, with bladed boomerangs for horns. It immediately responded by trying to smash the fortune with one of its blades. Hikari was easily able to dodge due to the considerable size difference, and emptied the rest of his rifle's clip into the back of the mechabeast. Hikari realized he must have hit something vital, because it then seemed to relax before collapsing on the ground. He reloaded, then turned to another mechabeast, a two-headed Doublas, and fired his railgun, decapitating one of the heads before charging forward and destroying the other with a sustained burst from his rifle. He suddenly felt the ground tremor, and turned to see another Garada was charging him. Hikari quickly engaged the Fortune's ground thrusters, dashing to the side in order to avoid a swipe from the mechabeast's blade…
...only to trip the Fortune over a wrecked car. The Fortune landed face-down on the street, and Hikari promptly flipped it onto its back before firing the railgun, which had finished reloading, at the Garada's head. Hikari made the Fortune stand up, only now aware that his heart was hammering in his chest. He engaged the Fortune's flight mode and jumped onto the Garada's damaged head, drawing a knife that was stored in the Fortune's left thigh, he stabbed the mechabeast's brain before jumping back down to the street in a perfect three-point landing with the Fortune.
Suddenly, Hikari heard a mad cackling, and turned to see a cloaked individual on the roof of a nearby building. The figure's face was half male, half female, and was brandishing a scepter of some kind. The figure yelled out to Hikari and the Mazinger group, "Curse you, teal gadfly! Curse you, Kouji Kabuto! Mark my words, the both of you shall meet your end at my hands!" Before fleeing in an aerial fortress.
He turned to see if there were any other targets, only to see that the Mazinger Z was in the process of destroying the last mechabeast with a rocket punch. Hikari noticed that the pilot of Mazinger Z was hailing him over the radio.
"This is Kouji Kabuto of Mazinger Z. I don't know who you are, but thanks for helping out back there!"
"No problem," Hikari paused, and was about to say something else, but was interrupted by another voice over the radio.
"This is Professor Yumi of the Photon Power Labs. Hikari Daishi, pilot of the Fortune, will you please accompany Kouji and the others back to the labs?"
"Uh...what? I don't know if…" too stunned to say anything else, Hikari was again interrupted by Professor Yumi.
"I've already talked to your superiors at Morgenroete, and they've agreed to hand over the Fortune and you, its pilot to the Photon Power labs."
"Oh, okay…" Hikari did not know whether to be excited or terrified. On the one hand, he was being allowed to go to the famed Photon Power Labs. On the other, he had no idea why he was being called there. He sighed before engaging the Fortune's flight mode, accompanying the Mazinger group back to the Labs.
"Go with you to Mars?! Why?!" Hikari exclaimed, at first not willing to believe the professor's line of reasoning.
Professor Yumi sighed and adjusted his glasses. "There is no doubt that the Federation saw your display. At best they'll conscript you to fight for them. At worst they'll lock you in a cell and interrogate you for everything you know about the Fortune, which I take is quite a bit. Would you want that to happen?"
"No…" Hikari looked down at the floor.
"Then I suggest you start packing your things. I've made arrangements with the University and your parents already. And if you're wondering, Great Mazinger can handle Dr. Hell's forces until Mazinger Z gets back, so there's no harm done there. Also, aside from Mazinger Z and Aphrodite A, you'll be joined by a ship from the Outer Space Development Group."
"Hey Professor," Kouji asked, "How are we actually getting to Mars?" Hikari mentally kicked himself for not asking that sooner.
"Nergal Heavy Industries has constructed a new warship, the Nadesico. They're sending it to Mars to check on the colony there, which they lost contact with some time ago. I've arranged for all of you to accompany it to Mars."
Hikari sighed in resignation, covering his face with his hands, before allowing himself to see by parting his fingers.
"Okay, when do we leave?"