PROLOGUE

"Hey what are you doing here?" He asked smiling.

"Who is this? Whoever this is…. It looks like he is pretty well determined." Hiro thought.

"Do you need a name too?" asked Hiro.

"Well I already have one but I would be happy to have to just in case" The boy said smiling.

"Okay then, give me a second….. Hm…. I think…. Maybe…. Ketteha? For determination?" said Hiro, "What do you say?"

**Kettei in Japanese means determined**

"I love it!" said the boy, "by the way my given name is Hata-"

"Hey you two stop!" said a guard running toward them.

"No wait!" said the boy.

The guard took the boy's hand separating them away…..

Leaving a small cube in Hiro's hand….

What would you do if you had been given a choice?

A choice to choose between Immortality and a second life….. If you choose Immortality your life would become pointless and if you choose second life you would lose your identity…..

If you refuse to take any you will cease to exist…. That is what 'survival' has become to me now…

We all want to live but for what reason? Is there any use of these wars? Of this development?

Can't we live together? Peacefully?

Chapter 1: The Lost Bird

The Jian, also known as "The bird that shares wings….."

"Why?... Why do these word keep repeating in my mind?"

"I don't remember the rest of it… But it feels like I wanted to remember these lines…"

"Wait! Where am I? What happened to the battle…? Am I dead already?"

Hiro's eyes open up revealing himself to be inside of a small transparent tank full of a green coloured slimy liquid and an oxygen mask on his face. He could see through the tank a dark lab with a holographic computer emitting blue light on to a person or at least what you could call a person….

"Blue horns…"

Suddenly the buzzer near Hiro's tank started ringing, the person looking at the screen turned back revealing her face.

Blue eyes as of the colour of the sky with blue horns on her forehead illuminating and with glowing symbols on her face resembling something that Hiro had known for a long time….

"A Klaxosaur?!" He shouted shocked inside the tank.

The Klaxo sapiens (the person that Hiro thought to be a human) got up the desk and went running towards the door.

"I must escape!" thought Hiro anxiously.

"What happened? What should I do? All I Know is I must find Zero Two!" He exclaimed as he kicked the tank's transparent glass. But before he could finish, the fluid of the tank got flushed away and opened throwing Hiro out of it.

"My body feels weak, I just don't have the energy to get up…. Am I going to die here?"

Before he could do any other move a sound of footsteps of boots made of iron could be heard. As soon as he lifted his head up, he could see feet of a person standing in front of him. He lifted his head even high to see the person's face.

"Who is this? A person of my age with such a heavy coat and spectacles with such a proud grin on the face… well it is for sure I know this person is a human…. I'm saved…"

"How are you Hiro?" The person's dried lips asked. "Who are you?" asked Hiro whispering, and blacked out…

His eyes opened, this time revealing him to be on a bed of a well lit room.

"Who was that? No! No time to think about this! I must escape" Hiro whispered….

Travelling through what looked like a very large base that actually had no one inside and finally ending up at a space suit equipment centre, he rushed towards the spare space suit lying on the ground and pressed the Door Disengagement Button revealing a lonely white surface planet with a dark sky in front of him.

"Wherever I am, I am sure it isn't earth…"

He stepped outside into the airless environment of dull looking sand and a few pieces of what looked like metal but before he could investigate, a sudden splash from the sky went upon him making him fall on the ground, shocked at what he could see…..

"I have seen this somewhere but what is it? That dark purple colour upon crimson lines"

"Yes… I remember now….."

"That's a….. A….. VIRM unit!… But how? We destroyed all of them… Every single one! How?!"

The VIRM unit's hand rose to kill Hiro, Hiro raised his hand in defence but what could a hand of such a weak creature do? ... Suddenly a line ran from in between the VIRM unit which can be considered as running a knife in between a slice of bread…. Splitting the unit into two halves, revealing something much unexpected behind it….

"A Franxx? Here?!" He shouted lying on the ground with a giant Franxx standing in front of him holding a blue tinted sword with a shining sharp edge turned towards him…..

"Don't go fooling around all by yourself….. You might die you know?" Said a voice from inside the beautiful looking Franxx, the white colour and the blue lines with that serious looking expression on its face literally could make any person shout out 'Amazing!' right at the first look…..

"Come on in", said the voice as the back dispatch door disengaged revealing the inside of the Franxx. Inside was a small platform where Hiro was standing when suddenly the dispatch door went shut and the platform started moving up. A bright light could be seen in the middle of the Franxx which Hiro didn't bother to check out as the platform would not stop going up. The platform stopped finally placing him inside the head of the Franxx with glass panes all over the front giving a clear look of the dull planet and in the center of the room was sitting that person turned in the opposite direction of Hiro.

"The boots he's wearing….. I have seen those before….. You are that person from before!" Hiro exclaimed. He lifted his face to see the person's face, those blue rimmed specs with his hair falling over his eyes with those iron plating over his shoulders.

"You are a human?" asked Hiro. The person smiled looking at Hiro.

"It's been a while Hiro… I have been waiting for you to get up, come on we got to save humanity…."

"But who are you?" Asked Hiro.

"My my….. Where are my manners? I'm sorry, I'm Hatake …." Said the person pushing the middle of his glasses towards his eye with his index finger.

** Hatake is spelled Ha-ta-ke**

"Hatake?" Hiro asked "I have heard that name before but I can't remember where….."

"Anyways, we don't have time come on we got to get back to the base" said Hatake as he pushed a button bringing a passenger chair next to him.

"Come on sit down!" he said. "We are going to travel through 200 light years, we should reach the base by 3 earth days".

Hiro sat beside him, that's when a trembling noise occurred….. "Don't worry about that" said Hatake "The Franxx is just changing forms…."

At the blink of an eye, the Franxx that could be considered as a killing machine changed immediately to a space ship as if it just made, the energy boosters fired at full speed pushing the ship to go at hyper speed, at that speed nothing much could be scene except for the black space with white lines formed due to fast moving stars.

"I didn't notice it first but where is your…. Um….. Partner?" asked Hiro.

"Ha-ha…" said Hatake smiling, "well you see I am different from normal humans as is my Franxx is different from the one you used to ride, a stamen like me doesn't require a pistil to operate this special Franxx of mine… actually why am I even calling it a Franxx? I has a name obviously… This Franxx is named…. Meteorix! The only Franxx that is a pistil by itself!"

"Is that even possible?" asked Hiro.

"Yes Hiro, it is…. There is a seat for a pistil in this Franxx too though, and it is said that if an extra pistil is attached to Meteorix, then it shall reveal its true form turning it into an ultimate killing machine, that can never be defeated! Thought I never found a true partner…." Said Hatake with an expression of wry on his face, "Though Meteorix has till now fought many battles with me for like 5 earth years and we never are defeated, think what will happen after I get a partner" he said sarcastically.

"Do you know" said Hiro, "what happened to-"

"Zero Two?" interrupted Hatake.

"Yeah?" asked Hiro.

"That's why I'm taking you to the base, I have something to show you…. Sit tight!" Said Hatake as he pulled a lever pulling the ship out of its hyper speed revealing a planet full of light, which appeared to be a pretty happy civilisation. "This is Meteorix, ID 263210 requesting gateway access to commence landing sequence…." Radioed Hatake, a sweet voice from the other side replied, "ID confirmed, proceed through gate 16 B."

"Roger that!" said Hatake. "Hiro, behold the last existing planet of the creatures you all thought to be your true enemies from birth…. The Kalxo sapiens!" exclaimed Hatake as he gazed upon the blue coloured peaceful aura coming out of the planet, the planet could be considered as a clone of earth but with more well developed eco-system, a place where no one was unknown to the other, such happiness, such peace could be found nowhere else.

The ship landed on to a white strip, in a few minutes a gate could be seen attached to the Franxx.

"Come on, lets go!" said Hatake with a smile on his face. Hiro lifted up from his chair and stepped out of the Franxx in curiosity. Out of the gate he could see a girl with two horns on her fore head and cute blue eyes and blue skin standing on its exit with two guards (all of them Kalxo sapiens). One could easily tell by looking at the the outfit of the girl that she was in some serious rank in the military.

"Where were you?!" Asked the girl tensed, "I have been worrying sick!... Who is that-"

Before she could finish her sentence, Hatake grabbed her and kissed her right on the spot.

"I'm sorry Oniria, could that be taken as an apology?" Said Hatake smiling.

"I… I…. nothing" she said with a happy but embarrassed look on her face. "I'm just glad that you are back….." She looked behind him and asked, "Who is that? Is that a Klaxo sapien too? But what's with his skin colour?"

"He is Hiro, you know the phases I was talking to you about?" said Hatake frankly.

"I see, so you actually managed to bring him back to like huh?" asked Oniria.

"I had to, I promised dad after all… Anyways now we will need to start preparations for Phase 2 and 3…. The time has come, I just came here to rest for a bit I will be out by 24 hours"

"Good for us, anyways don't stress yourself too much!" said Oniria as she went away.

"Come on Hiro, we don't have time at all" said Hatake "We must train you for the calamities…"

"Calamities?" Asked Hiro.

"Yeah" replied Hatake, "We have to fight against VIRM or before this planet, Earth will be destroyed, so we are going to train to survive G-forces up to 10 times than that of Earth so it's easy to fight for you. After that we will be moving towards Phase 2 that is to bring Zero Two back to life"

"Zero Two…." Hiro whispered. "Don't worry we will get her back!" said Hatake keeping his hands on Hiro's shoulders.

They moved through a series of doors, Hiro could see through the glass panes, the happiness of the Klaxo sapiens there, the crowd enjoying in the light, parents playing with their children.

"Beautiful…" whispered Hiro.

"Isn't it? Earth used to be the same way I heard before VIRM came in…." said Hatake.

Going through the building they went inside a lab and finally a door with "Hatake" written beside it. Hatake pressed his hand over the biometric scanner beside the door making the door fling wide open. The other side of the door was a lab with a big cylindrical tank similar to the one in which Hiro was kept but instead of a person there was an energy core which is obtain when Klaxosaurs are killed residing in the green coloured fluid inside the tank.

"I don't know how many of those energy cores I have destroyed when we used to kill Klaxosaurs…. I never knew the Klaxo sapiens were inside it…." Said Hiro kneeling on the floor.

"Well, Klaxo sapiens didn't want to take immortality as a way to survive, whenever one would die, their brain would get converted into an energy core which we would embed inside a Klaxosaur, it was like a second life you know? Fortunately…. You and Zero Two both had a small but enough amount Klaxo sapien gene which made the brain develop into an energy core but because of your human part, your memories still reside in you and since your DNA was embedded inside your core, so it was pretty easy to build your body back, however, the energy core you are looking at right now is Zero Two and to bring her back I really need a sample of her DNA and that is what we are trying to do in Phase 2"

"And what is phase 3?" asked Hiro gazing at the energy core.

"Huh…. It's a surprise!" said Hatake smiling.

"So we can bring Zero Two back huh?" asked Hiro.

"Trust me, we will!" exclaimed Hatake.

The next day was a bright one, the sunlight shined just like on Earth however, with more life on this planet, Hiro was just enjoying the sunlight's happiness when a soft knock on his door could be heard.

"Enter!" Hiro said. The door opened and Hatake came in.

"How are you feeling Hiro?" he asked.

"Yesterday's training was hard I was feeling like I would faint, but I am all okay today…."said Hiro.

"Yeah the training is hard but it's just for one day, so don't worry!" said Hatake, "anyways, I must go now, the time has come, I'm going to find DNA samples of Zero Two….. You stay back and enjoy!"

"No!" shouted Hiro, "I want to come along too…please!"

"Don't stress it I promise to bring Zero Two back…."said Hatake calmly.

"Please… Let me at least be a part of saving her…. I'm begging you" said Hiro crying.

"Hm…. It can't be helped I guess?" said Hatake, "Alright then, come with me."

Going through the base they ended up in the same point through which they had entered. They went inside the big launch pad looking building, there were at least about 50 Franxx inside that place where they met Oniria waiting to say goodbye.

"What is he doing here?" she asked.

"He is going to fight too" said Hatake carelessly.

"What if he dies there? Do you know the circumstances? The whole plan will fail!" she said angrily.

"He won't…." said Hatake calmly, "He will live if he wants to see Zero two, I trust him"

"I see, you have already made your mind….." she said sadly.

"Don't feel sad….." he said "I swear both of us will come back alive…. I pro-"

"Stop!" she interrupted sobbing "enough with the fake promises!"

"I'm sorry… anyways, give him Phoenix-01" he said cheering back up.

"You want to give such a powerful Franxx to a kid!" she said refusing.

"I told you already I trust him with my full mind, I know he will make it!" he said.

"Understood..." she said, "Initiate launch sequence for Meteorix and Phoenix-01!" she radioed.

"You two better come back alive" she said leaving sadly.

Phoenix-01 a Franxx that Hiro didn't think to be much of a deal made him shocked, that red over golden color of it, Phoenix was its named but it looked more like a caged dragon totally ready to go for a kill.

"Phoenix-01 does require a pistil to function" said Hatake, "But fortunately it is fully charged and hence you can even defeat an S class VIRM unit with it, just remember this is a very devastating weapon, so only use its basic attacks otherwise you might end up destroying the whole thing we are looking for…."

A special carriage was attached to Meteorix to carry Phoenix-01 as it could fly but to take it at a hyper speed is only possible if Meteorix could pull it and hence a special carriage was attached.

Both of them stepped into Meteorix again to travel 500 light years, a trip of a week on hyper speed. The boosters fired at full speed making them take their leave.

"Don't worry even though it takes a week, due to hyper speed, it will feel like a few hours" said Hatake.

"Where are we going actually?" asked Hiro.

"We" said Hatake "are going to a very old forgotten place, the territory of VIRM where you and Zero Two died fighting against them, however it was abandoned by VIRM and still remains of Strelizia are there….. Our main target is to find traces of Zero Two's DNA anything will do, her hair, a piece of her horn, her dried blood, anything, but we must be prepared as VIRM might just be waiting for us to show up so they can attack! Oh and our second target is the core of Strelizia we need very much!"

"Hatake…" said Hiro, "It struck me just now, how do you know about all this? about me, zero two, about Earth?"

"I swear to explain that later, for now, I just know everything…" replied Hatake.

Both of them sat in silence there after….

"We are here!" said Hatake.

As they landed on that gloomy destroyed planet, nothing much can be seen, except for a giant hand raising out of sand a little far away.

"Come on" Hatake said.

Hiro stepped into Phoenix -01, he could see no controls but two pairs of footprints drawn on the floor, he stepped on one of them, as soon as he did, his feet got locked to the floor a pair of robotic hands came out from the side, equipping Hiro with a metallic suit and a small wrist band type holographic screen on to his wrist followed by wires getting fixed towards his back.

"I can feel it" He said to Hatake on the radio, "It's like as if the Franxx does not exist, it's like I'm the Franxx!"

"That's right" replied Hatake, "That is the backup plan of Phoenix in case the pistil is unable to work, the Franxx itself becomes the pistil letting you control him and remember the wrist band type of thing is called the Franxx key, with that in your hand, you can even control the Franxx when you are outside."

Both of them went together in their Franxx towards what remained in the name of Strelizia, both of them got down and open the head using glow torches. Hiro got shocked after what he saw inside…

"How… How is that possible?!" He shouted. Inside he could see his own dead body lying on the seat.

"I told you that I recreated your body…." Hatake said whispering "This is you before you died"

Hiro stood there in sadness, while Hatake entered the room looking desperately for traces, he found a small piece of Zero Two's horn lying below the seat. "Found it!" he shouted out loud. Hiro went near him seeing that small trace of Zero Two, Hiro sobbed kneeling on the ground, Hatake bent towards him and said, "Wipe those tears off Hiro, we are bringing her back!"

"You are right!" said Hiro rising up "Let's get out of here then!"

"Not yet" he said "We need to find Strelizia's core or you all won't have anything to fight with…"

"Come on!" he said.

They went cutting through Strelizia's inner metal to a place where they could finally see light, it was a small container emitting a white colored light.

Hatake used his key to control Meteorix which pulled the container out of it and put it in the carriage.

"Alright, let's go now" he said.

By the next 5 minutes they were inside Meteorix connected back to the carrier with Phoenix-01 inside it.

"Well I really expected them to attack us but it turns out that no one is even aware of us coming"

The Franxx again accelerated to hyper speed, and within one hour they were back to the Klaxo sapien planet. It was night time by then….

"We don't have time" said Hatake looking into his old analog watch which showed the time and year, 8:30 PM 2095.

They hurried back to the lab, Hatake inserted the horn of Zero Two into an extractor that digitally mapped the DNA signature and created the exact body of Zero Two on the holographic screen, the machine then triggered two small hand looking metal parts into the cylindrical tank, and the hands slowly started creating cells.

"She should be back alive by a few hours, let's go back sleep for today…." said Hatake yawning.

"Thank you!" said Hiro as he rushed toward him hugging him tight, crying.

"I had to help, I promised dad after all!" Hatake replied.

"I don't know what you mean by that but since you promised to explain it in front of Zero Two I won't ask anything further…" Hiro said.

"Thank you for understanding…." said Hatake

"Anyways, you go rest… I want to be the first face she sees as soon as comes back to life… Please!" Hiro said anxiously.

Hatake left nodding his head with a smile on his face.

"I never thought life would go this way, everything becomes unexpected as time goes….. Who is that Hatake?... Who is his father, and how did he end up here?" Hiro thought as he fell into deep sleep.

He then was suddenly woken up about a few hours ago by the sound of an alarm, he woke up to see that everything is fine.

"What is happening?" thought Hiro, when suddenly the computer lit up…

"Hiro!" said Hatake's voice, "Listen to me carefully! A S-class VIRM unit is heading with other units to attack us and I am going to fight them, Oniria will be there shortly and will take you and Zero Two to do the necessary, got it?"

The call got disconnected before Hiro could say anything, he could suddenly hear a sound of someone knocking over the glass, he turned back and whispered, "Zero Two…."

She was knocking on the tank's glass as to set free, Hiro slowly moved forward to be face to face with her, Zero two stopped the moment she saw him, She looked at him and whispered slowly, "Darling…." Their hands raised to as to hold them but then suddenly the liquid of the tank flushed out and the glass pane opened flinging her over Hiro.

"You came back!" she said crying.

She fell over her and kissed him

Hiro stayed still crying. The door of the lab opened and Oniria entered.

"At least wait to be alone you two…" she said blushing, "anyways we don't have time come with me fast, we must initiate phase 3 as soon as possible!"

Both of them got back up.

"What's happening?" asked Zero Two.

"There is no time to explain!" said Hiro.

They again went to the Franxx storage compartment but as soon as they entered, they were stunned at what they could see.

"Str…. Strelizia?!" said Zero Two as soon as she saw it, Hiro was still stunned by the sight

"But how?" Hiro asked finally.

"You see," said Oniria "Hatake is not just a fighter he is an scientist, builder, innovator and I don't know what else, everything you see here from the floors to the Franxx all of them are made by his ideas, he truly is great!"

"Who is this Hatake?" asked Zero Two.

"He is the person who save us, the only human." said Hiro as they entered the Franxx.

"It's been a while since our last battle Darling… do you think we can connect?" asked Zero Two while sitting on the seats.

"Do you trust me Zero Two?" asked Hiro.

"From the bottom of my heart" she replied.

"Then we will!" he shouted as he initiated the connect process by pressing the buttons on the handle.

After a few minutes the Franxx was ready moving.

"See? I told you we will connect even if had not for even thousands of years, we are destined to fight together!" Said Hiro.

"Let's do this!" said Zero Two as Hiro moved the right leg forward.

"Come on guys! We need backup defeating the VIRM units!" radioed Oniria.

"On it!" said Hiro as they flew outside through the gate.

They could see the lights flashing of the missiles in the fire fight between VIRM and Klaxo sapien ships…

"Just like old days Zero Two" said Hiro.

They dived towards the firefight in full speed with their spear out punching through at least hundreds of them, and in the middle of the battlefield they could see Meteorix fighting with what can be considered a true monster, it was there, that S-class VIRM unit with which Meteorix was fighting like it was no big deal. The S-class unit finally rushed towards Strelizia to attack them, his hand about to smash them before they could be ready.

"Is this the end?..." thought Hiro.

But before he could strike, Meteorix's sword sliced through the arm.

"Finish it with the spear and don't forget to press the button!" shouted Hatake through the radio

"Alright!" shouted Hiro. He pierced the spear through the center of the VIRM unit and finally pressed a button on the handle resulting in the big release of energy inside the VIRM unit making it blast into pieces.

"That voice!" thought Zero Two, "could it be…"

Both the Franxx landed safely on the Franxx storage containment area. Coming out of Strelizia, Zero Two could see Hatake's face.

"How are you…. Zero Two?" asked Hatake.

"Minus… Five…." Zero Two whispered shocked.

-end of chapter-

Next Chapter releasing on 20th October 12:00 PM IST