This had been our cleanest deployment to date. I'm surprised they had let me deploy.

The Dreads were scrambled on time.

I got into my Vanguard and managed not to completely embarrass myself upon launch.

Bart had gotten the shields up before the ship could sustain major damage.

Still, we're currently in a very bad position.

"To the left."

I adjust my controls ever so slightly, Meia slamming the pedal down as we dodge around asteroids in pursuit of our enemy. I'm even more surprised Meia had decided to let me combine my Vanguard with her Dread. I suspect she's trying to keep an eye on me.

Today, the enemy is these pink spears with and "X" shape cross section. They dart around much too fast for any of the normal Dreads to lock onto them.

That's not true for Meia and my Vandread, though. We approach one of the enemy craft from right behind it's main thrusters and shoot a lance of energy through the craft.

"Squad A, return to formation." Meia says over the comms. "Squads B and C move to intercept."

I rapidly search out a new target. There's several of them bunched together, so I select the one in the middle as the next target and Meia skillfully maneuvers down that way.

I have to say, this is nice. Meia barely grumbled when I suggested we team up to take these things down, a vast improvement.

We swoop down on another of the pink craft, and I neatly stab it with another beam. A grin comes to my face, unbidden. I could get used to this! Precision, speed, and a no-nonsense partner-

Hell, even the Paksis was leaving me alone today!

I designate the next target as the comms come alive again. "Mister Alien! There's one on your tail!"

Meia immediately takes evasive action, weaving around and around to try and shake the enemy unit.

It sticks with us, and I curse the lack of rearward facing weapons.

Meia sounds strained as she starts to plan. "Hibiki, we need to get around behind them, prepare to fire the beam on a moment's noti-"

Suddenly, the ship rocks as something hits us hard. I smack my forehead into the console in front of me, and the Vandread starts to slow down. "Ahg... Are you alright, Meia?" I turn around in my seat.

Meia's eyes are open, but she's unfocused. There's a lot of blood coming out of her skull.

Oh, crap.

"Meia is down, I repeat, Meia is down." I say into the comms. "Dita, Jura, status?"

"Meia is down? What do you mean by that?" Demands Jura.

"She's been knocked out, and she needs urgent medical attention. I'm heading back to the Nirvana with her."

"I'll come too!" Dita's voice comes to a panic.

"No, I need you to guard us as we head back." I say.

"O-Okay!"

The comms are starting to devolve into chaos even before I land in the hanger, Duelo already there with several members of security and a stretcher. I haul the unconscious girl out of the hatch and set her on the stretcher, and then immediately see about disentangling my Vanguard from Meia's Dread.

I'm surprised they had stayed linked, honestly, given one of the users had fallen unconscious-

As I think that, the front of Meia's Dread pops open and my armor is spat out unceremoniously.

Right. I climb into the Vanguard and make sure it's all in working order. Might as well double check the systems before I head out there and find I don't have any weapons, right?

The chill comes back. Apparently, the reprieve was only temporary. "Look here, Paksis." I mutter after making sure the comms were off. "I know what you're doing with Meia, forcing her to confront her past. Have fun doing that, but if she doesn't survive or ends up brain dead because of you, you and I are going to have words. And believe me, I bet I can find a way to torment a sentient mass of energy."

The chill grows deeper, but at least I know the damned thing is listening.

I flick the comms back on. A torrent of voices crash through the speakers, resulting in a completely undecipherable mess.

"I need to contact Dita." I say to the Paksis, and all of the channels but hers is stripped out.

"I'm hit! I'm heading back to the ship for repairs!"

...Crap.

I remember how the original Hibiki had handled this situation, but it involved Dita to be alright. Vandread Dita fired it's cannons at the allies' shields, reflecting the beams in unpredictable patterns and destroying the enemy. It also wasn't very chaotic, somehow, but I blame that on the animation budget.

If only I had recognized them before Meia had gotten hurt.

Wait, maybe not. Meia became a much better person after the experience, due to confronting her past. If I messed that up, she might not become the person she needs to be in the future...

In any case, Dita's ship comes into the hanger and sets down.

Parfet and several of the other engineers scramble to work on the thing. Dita runs past me and back towards the medical wing.

"Dita, hold up." I say through the external speakers.

She pokes her head back around the corner. "Yes?"

"Come back as soon as you can. I have idea on how to end this."

She disappears around the corner again, her footsteps quickly being drowned out by the sounds of the engineering team working to repair her fighter. I climb back into my Vanguard to take a small break.

Well... I know what to do, but since I can't... I find myself with some time to kill. It might be worth it to go over the plans for the future while I wait. Since Meia just got injured and is going to go through her revelation, next is... next is... Wait, Meia got injured, specifically in combat with these pink cross things, just like what happened in canon. However, it was never shown how she got damaged in canon, just that it happened against these enemies.

Yet, she got damaged in the exact. Same. Manner.

My hand starts to shake, making the Vanguard twitch accordingly. I've always thought that destiny was a stupid concept, one that people with minds too weak to tolerate reality use to excuse themselves for their actions. Predestination can and is used to justify lots of things, but in the end, it's just a silly way of absolving oneself of responsibility.

Or is it?

I don't act like Hibiki, yet all of my past encounters have gone roughly the same way they did in canon, fighting and winning, rescuing Gascogne in the nick of time, ending up in Reg for all of one battle. Could predetermination actually be true?

The shaking stops as I go over the situation again. I've always been the kind of person who accepts reality as it is, without clinging to beliefs. If destiny is real, then so be it. I'll just have to revise all my plans to accommodate that fact. Of course, given that fate could be real, it may not matter what my plans are.

Honestly? Leaving it to fate would be amazing. The world of Vandread has a happy end, with very few if any crew deaths, Earth defeated, and relations between Mejare, Tarak and the rest of the planets all looking up. With the complications arising from my... issues with the Paksis, I was worried I could screw it all up. If destiny forces a good ending, that would be a lot off my shoulders.

I'm so wrapped up in my thoughts that the hatch opening is completely lost to me. When a hand clamps around my right arm, it startles me out of my stupor.

Without conscious decision, my body reverts back to my old karate classes, immediately lashing out to break the grab, throwing the grabbed arm's elbow straight forward at full force, where most grabbers would have their faces. I barely have time to recognize that it was Dita grabbing me and that she's off to my side, not directly in front of me, before my elbow impacts the screen in front of me. Something makes a loud cracking sound.

The Vanguard is perfectly okay, whatever screens are made out of in this era are a lot tougher than the glass we use at home. Thus, I come to the conclusion that it must be my arm. The blinding pain that hits me a second later confirms this.

"H-Hibiki?" Dita asks frantically. "Are you alright?"

I grit my teeth. I will not scream. I refuse. "I'm fine. How's you're Dread doing?"

"It's done with repairs, and you said you had an idea?"

I nod. "Let's go. No point in keeping the rest waiting."

I close the hatch behind me once Dita leaves. "Paksis, let's go." I say, waiting for the familiar chill.

It doesn't come. I move the controls around, and this time it doesn't respond. It worked even when I wasn't thinking about it earlier...

"Paksis? Hello? I need to go out there and save everyone. You know, spread that hope thing you love so much?" Man, this thing is way too picky. "If you want your sibling sphere to win that badly, then I can abandon them to their fate, ensuring the entire galaxy gets eaten by Earth for the sake of another hundred years of survival." I comment. "Or, maybe everything will work out without me. Is that a chance you're willing to take?"

The Vanguard lights up, even as the chill grows, much larger than last time I had activated it this battle, encompassing my entire spine.

I let my face contort into a feral smirk. Time to go kill some things. Too bad they're robotic though.

I could do with some bleeding to get out my frustrations.

Unlike canon, Meia didn't wake up as Dita and I finished off the enemy. Instead, she remained unconscious for another few hours, something that called into question my new idea that this entire world is governed by destiny. Thus, the hospital wing is current filled with all of the Dread pilots, though only maybe ten percent of them need to be here due to injuries. Meia wakes up to a lot of crying from relief, surrounded by all her fellow pilots. I din't participate, but watched from the sidelines. She solemnly takes her over-the-eye thing and puts it on. Duelo eventually usher everyone out so he can do some follow up checks.

I kept my broken arm from Duelo. It's not impeding my movement, it just hurts if I prod my bicep. My guess is that it's not a complete break, but something definitely cracked. This isn't the first time I've broken a bone or three. It's not hindering my movement too much, so I don't feel like I need to bother Duelo with it until after things calm down a bit.

Dita and Jura start saying something about a party, and before I know it, I've been dragged to the cafeteria with the others. The cafeteria staff cheerfully serves out massive quantities of food. Somehow, I had been dragged to the table where Barnette, Jura, and Dita are eating, and Zan comes by soon after. It seems that some of the pilots are starting to warm up to me a bit, at least enough to talk to me. I introduced myself to a lot of them, far more than I could actually remember off the top of my head.

Then the alcohol was brought out, and my night steadily got worse. I've had plenty of bad experiences with the stuff.

I don't care for any type of alcohol I've ever had, and given the way the rest of my family consumes all varieties of the stuff like it's water, I've tried a lot. It's not like I feel some sort of moral high ground over people who drink, I just don't like the taste. That is why when the rest of the ship was staggering around, laughing at some really stupid things, I was still sober and watching the proceedings with something between amusement and trepidation. Because of my family and a few of my old friends, I'm used to dealing with people in all states of drunk from buzzed to passed out blackout level.

"Ahhhhm jus' sayin'" Jura hiccups. "that MY Vandread is OBVIOUSLY the most beautiful of the lot!"

We've yet to combine, and it's a crab. You're not going to like it.

"Nuuuh uhhh! Mine's the best!" Dita says. Oddly enough, she's looking at me as if for confirmation. I shrug at her and go back to eating the cake that had been made. It's devil's food cake, one of my favorites.

"Is not! Ahm th' most beautiful, so it means my Dread is too!" Jura takes another swig from her bottle and points dramatically at Dita, which almost backfires when she throws her own center of balance. She barely recovers her footing in time to keep herself from falling down.

"Is too!" Dita counters, with all the wit and thought put into her argument of a two-year-old.

As they continue to shout back and forth, I scan the rest of the room. Since the fighting force of these pirates are all relatively young, not a lot of them have a high tolerance for alcohol. Several are asleep at their tables. In one corner, four of the pilots are 'whispering' to each other loudly enough to be overheard by me, detailing plans to get Dita to switch Dreads with them for a day. In the middle of the room, the head chef is currently singing completely off key because someone had dragged out a karaoke machine. The kitchen had basically shut down by this point, due to the inebriation of the entire food department of the Nirvana. Sometime earlier, Bart had joined the party and was sulking by himself in the corner, hugging a bottle of rum and muttering.

"Hey, Hibiki." Zan says, her eyes half-lidded. She's not really looking at me, more looking at my hands. "Let's go sing!"

"No thanks." I point to my cake. "I'm still eating."

She frowns and pins my left hand against the table with both of hers. "But I want to!"

Given this was the third time she'd asked, I already have an excuse ready. "I don't know any any Mejare songs." I repeat myself, calmly attempting to free my hand from her grasp. The excuse is a lie of course. Disturbingly, I've recognized every single song played so far. Mejare, or at least these pirates, seem to have a massive library of music consisting mostly of tracks from the sixties through about two-thousand ten. Given My dad's taste in music, whenever Boston come up, or the Cars, I instantly recognized the tracks. They're all covers made by females, but I guess that's understandable.

"But you have all that music on your phone!" She complains. "Sing that one song with me! The closer one!"

The last two times, she just dropped it once I gave that excuse. "I'm not really in the mood, but you can go ahead if you want to." I say politely.

Her frown deepens, then she gets an idea. Her face develops a mischievous grin. "If you don't sing with me, I'm going to spill your secret!"

Dita stops her argument with Jura after a few seconds, once Zan's words pierce her drunk haze. "You know one of his secrets?" Dita says with wide eyes. "No fair! Tell me!"

Zan looks all proud of herself. "Ha! It seems I'm doing better than you!"

I sigh. Another glance around the room reaffirms the fact that almost everyone is stoned out of their mind. In all likelihood, not a soul aside from me would remember anything that happens tonight, so even if Zan says anything, I'll probably be safe. After another moment's thought, I realize that I didn't want to risk it, and it's not like I haven't sung in public before.

And wasn't that a travesty? I think to myself idly. No, shut up.

"You know what? Sure." I say. Zan cheers, and Dita looks between me and Zan with a confused expression. Zan drags me over to the Karaoke box.

The box is relatively high tech looking, despite clearly being designed with the sharp, late 90's early 2000's vibe. It's got a panel on the front that displays a track list. I turn to Zan. "What song do you want to sing?"

She blinks at me a few times. "The one you played for me!"

"Yes, that would be fun to duet, but it's not on the track list." I point out.

"Oh, that's no problem!" Says the head cook, still leaning on the device after her song ended. "Just plug in your device and it will get the song, remove the vocals, and display the lyrics on screen."

I stare at her for a second, then back to the device. Okay, aside from FTL drives, laser rings and power sources that make lithium-ion pack look like potato batteries, this is the most advanced piece of technology I've come across.

Okay, that sounds stupid, but it's true. To automatically generate lyrics, it has to be able to identify them from the track, which has lots of extra sound (I. E. the instruments) and then figure out which language they're from... I realize that most of these girls speak Japanese yet sing English songs, but I'm going to pretend I didn't for sanity's sake. Anyway, it has to get the lyrics, identify language, and actually get the word out. I remember that YouTube back home had auto generation, but even on relatively clean sources it was gibberish. Then the program has to remove only the voice component, which has to be a mind-boggling, super-complex program.

"Hellooooooo?" Zan leans in front of me, drunkenly swaying back and forth. "Is there anyone home?"

I snap out of my thoughts and look at the connector. It's... not anything I've ever seen. Hey, maybe I won't have to sing after all. Obviously, standards change when jumping through time and/or space-

Wait, is that the Bluetooth symbol?

I go to the settings and search for Bluetooth devices, and find "BLTH-SPK-KL25Z-2474G".

A little bit of me crumbles and dies, and I cry inward tears for the loss. It's not fair for the world to work this way.

The connection works, miraculously, and it starts grabbing some songs from my phone. I queue up "Closer" and accept the microphone from the head chef. As the opening bars of the song start, Zan sidles up to my left and grabs my arm again pinning my to her.

Zan and I sing the song, and it feels like the entire ship is watching. I know the song well enough that I sing it on autopilot, instead looking down at the girl at my side.

No use beating around the bush. She has a crush on me. I get it, I'm the novelty in town. Maybe in the future she'll encounter a wider variety of men, and either she'll back to her planet's enforced lesbianism, or find a better guy. Either way, I really need to get her to not target me. I can't return her feelings.

A face pops into my head, and I repress the image as well as I can. It's over. I'm never going to see her again. She hates me, and it's all my fault.

The song comes to a close.

"Wow! You can really sing!"

"Are you a professional?"

I hold my hands up. I don't know either of these girls, but I can practically see the stars in their eyes. "Er, no. I just like to sing in my spare time." And I'm actually not that good, they just don't have the massive amount of musicians to reference me against.

"Encore!" Shouts Dita. A few more of the drunks start cheering me on as well.

I glance down at the playlist. The next song is "We Don't Talk Anymore" by Charlie Puth. Talk about ironic. Don't think about her.

I cue it up and plaster a smile back on my face. I wonder if I can get away any time soon?

The answer was no. At some point, Zan and Dita took my phone and started queue up songs one after another. I just kept singing, since nobody seemed to want to take the microphone from me. I think most of the crew is treating this like an impromptu concert. Hey, I'm not complaining. At least, not anymore. It's actually really gratifying to have a crowd that's cheering you on, even if it is a bunch of drunks. And that said crowd was starting to pass out. The entire place smells like booze by now, and I'm starting to wonder if you can actually get drunk off the fumes in this environment.

"Hey! Let's sing that one that you and Zan sang!" Dita says.

Zan is currently lying across our table, fast asleep.

"Sure, why not?" I say. She comes right up to me-

"OW! HOLY-" I bite my tongue. She had grabbed my right arm, still broken.

Dita leaps away from me, and once my eyes stop watering I can see that she looks really sad.

"I'm sorry, Dita, my arm-"

She turns and runs away before I have a chance to say anything more.

The few people left standing sober up slightly and hurriedly start trying to leave the room. Looks like I ended the party. Whoops. Once the room is cleared, I head over to the wall to turn off the lights. Once off, everything is enveloped in darkness, the only light coming from a star distant enough not to light up the room, but light enough for me to navigate by.

Instead of leaving, I head to the center of the room, surveying all of those around me. Most of them have smiles on their faces, which surprises me. I don't know most of these people. They're background characters. They're not even real, they're the product of someone writing up a script for a show.

Then why do they look so happy? Why are they allowed to be so happy, if they aren't real?

They've been thrown far away from their home, put through weekly battles, and are on the run from a force that barely considers them more than a nuisance by this point. Yet, when I poke one of the pirates, she murmurs about victory. As if we were already back on Mejare.

I don't understand. This must be part of what I'm missing.

I sit down on a bench next to a sleeping girl, one with drool dripping out of her mouth. I think she's one of the pilots, but it's hard to tell features and colors in this light. It's nice when none of them are glaring at me, or whispering as I walk past, or blushing profusely. It's nice to have some peace and quiet.

I quash that little bit of my mind that starts gleefully telling me to take advantage of some of them. It's not like they'd know, rig- STOP IT STOP IT.

Forcing myself to think of something else, that tune from last night enters my head.

I start humming it. I'm sure there was lyrics to this song, but I can't recall them.

My thoughts drift back to home. It's odd. When protagonist get warped places, they generally want to want to go back. I don't seem to mind much though. It's not like I wasn't happy back there, at least, not all of the time. I had a fun career, and I got to watch all the anime I wanted. I could indulge myself however I wanted. Here, I have to fight and put my life on the line.

Maybe it's because I have a concrete purpose? Get the pirates home safe, save the good parts of humanity... And then what? Work as an engineer on Tarak? I wonder if I can go home. I'll have to ask the Paksis.

Speaking of the Paksis, maybe I can get it to bring the proper Hibiki back, and I can go home. Then I don't have to bother with this whole ordeal. I can back to staying up to all hours, watching anime. Maybe I can even get a reset out of this whole mess. The Paksis can manipulate space and time... after... all...

Suddenly, A big blue sphere jumps to the top of my shit list.

I realize that I'm no longer humming, but singing.

"And I say to myself, what a wonderful world." I finish. Huh, I forgot that song.

Something from behind me crashes. I spin around in my seat, reaching for something to use as a weapon.

Standing there is Meia, who is staring at me wide-eyed. Unbidden, a whole flood of new information reaches my brain. Of course I recognized it; It's Meia's favorite tune after all.

Meia's face turns a slight shade of red, only visible due to her very pale complexion, and bolts from the room.

Great, now I have to go fix Dita AND figure out how to deal with Meia. Can I just pretend none of this happened? It mostly worked for Hibiki.

Another figure arrives, shuffling along with her cane. The captain, Magno.

I stand up and throw a salute. Might as well. She allowed me To continue fighting after all ...Allowed?

"I see you're still standing." Magno observes, a note of amusement in her voice. "You didn't join in the festivities?"

"More that Alcohol and I don't mix." I release the salute and look back over to Zan, who will be in a compromising position if she continues to slide like that-

"I think you could benefit from some liquid relaxant." She smirks.

"Trust me. You don't want to see me drunk." I don't want to see me drunk. I don't want to see next morning's newspaper after getting drunk either.

"Suit yourself. Still, I think you should find a way to unwind. Keeping everything inside can't be good for you."

"Who are you, my therapist?" I stick my tongue at her. "And as long as I don't lose control, I'm good."

"Why did you lose control, boy who is not Hibiki? What happened to you on that planet?"

I debate answering her. Why should I? It's not like she's a real therapist. Of course, there probably aren't any here, or else I'd have been dragged off to one already. Magno's also the most reasonable person in this entire galaxy as far as I can tell. I take a deep breath. "Well, everyone else was in trouble. I had a plan to resolve the situation, and when it fell apart... I forgot to make a backup plan. I had to revert to yelling to just make the situation better as fast as I could." I let my face revert to its default, blank. "I'm not a very good leader, for all the times I've been told I am."

"So, you needed to have more plans was it? Why would that have helped?"

Yeah, she's shrewd. "If I had a plan, then I could have brought that to everyone's attention, instead of taking charge. I'm not supposed to be in charge."

Magno turns to face the window. "But you saved everyone's lives."

"And if it wasn't me, they would all have been fine anyway." I grumble. "The original Hibiki did something very close to what ended up happening, but he figured out the cooling towers instead of relying on... whoever launched those missiles at those towers. Despite his idiocy, he actually did better than me. He even got Meia to defrost a little."

"Are you saying you didn't?"

"I... Maybe. I hadn't considered it seriously. Still, there's something like fate driving all these events forwards, and I'm not so sure why everything's still going so smoothly."

"How is getting attacked and almost losing our best pilot 'going smoothly'?" She asks.

I open my mouth, but I notice her eyes are once again focused on me, sharp like daggers. My initial response dies in my throat as I think over what I was about to say.

"It may not be obvious to the others." Magno say genially. "The only other person who could probably connect the dots is BC. So far, I've had you refer to us as characters, you know who Hibiki is supposed to be, and you seem to think everything is going according to plan. I'm guessing that you think of us as a story of sorts. Tell me, did you come from the future? Are we some sort of fairy tale to you, acting out our parts according to some grand script?"

"No, that's not it." Very close, but not it.

"Well, if you ever need help with your plans, my door is always open." She turns and heads for the door. "I'd rather not lose any of our crew to your lack of plans."

I would like to thank whoever figured out "therapist" is spelled "the rapist." I can consistently spell the former because of it.

My mind is a healthy place, I swear. I'm exaggerating this self insert.

I think.