Beginning Notes: Curriculum 11 (y'know, where Ikhny gets a case of the crazy and sabotages Zero's Pro-Ing?) and then some.

We're strange allies
With warring hearts
What a wild-eyed beast you'd be
--Dave Matthews Band's The Space Between

Kitto Itsuka Issho ni Kagayaku

(Surely, Someday We'll Shine Together)

Chapter 1: Inertia

The stars were dancing around him in the most unpleasant way possible. They snuck forward then skipped away in a dazzling array of dotted whites that twirled and twirled amongst the smooth, endless black. Zero tried not to look at them, but they were everywhere and breeding by the millions, each speck plucking at his attention and demanding he follow.

"Come on…come on…"

He squeezed his eyes shut and with one hand, reached out to the buttons that controlled the left side boosters and pressed as hard as he could, but to no avail. Pro-Ing 88 tilted even more downward against its pilot's will, diving ever deeper into the open mouth of the galactic abyss. A feeling of sickness spread spider-like from Zero's stomach and crept to the base of his throat. Now that he was practically overturned, all the blood was rushing to his head and heightening his sense of disorientation.

He slammed down on the buttons again.

"COME ON!"

For a few seconds there was a burst of acceleration, just barely enough to allow the Pro-Ing to revert back to an almost vertical position. However, the sudden shift in his center of balance caused Zero to lurch forward a little too quickly and some vomit rose through his esophagus and into his mouth, leaving traces of bitter bile in its wake. His nausea was worsening, almost to a point where it was becoming overwhelming, but Zero focused and bore the pain, clenching his teeth together as he swallowed everything back down, all the lumps and acid in unison, and coughed to clear his burning throat when he was finished.

"Ki…Kizna!"

Only static responded.

"Kizna! Can you hear me! The boosters aren't working! Kizna!"

He couldn't hear her, but he could hear the turnings of metal gears from the boosters, could even hear some varied clickings and clackings that reverberated throughout the cockpit. And then, before he could even mentally place what it was, he heard the engines give a dull wheezing sigh, a sound that sounded like someone spitting against tin, and then he heard it all finally sputter and then die out.

A red warning sign popped up and flashed on the bottom-left panel indicating the malfunction and Zero punched the monitor in front of him, thoroughly frustrated.

"Damn it! Kizna! Kizna!"

He paused for a few seconds and then a wave of optimism flooded his chest.

"..Ze…Zero…!"

During this entire time the intercom had been filled with nothing but static, static that hissed and fizzled like a troupe of waning fireworks, but now Zero strained his ears to listen for what he believed was an anxious, female voice that lay underneath all the noise.

"I don't kno……..Zero….ters…….but… orkin…….fa………………"

"Kizna!"

"…I…….…I can but…pos.…..ecked.. …ever………laun…n…….no-----"

Kizna's broken words were cut off by a sharp and annoyingly persistent beep. Grinding his teeth, Zero switched that particular channel off and grew angry at how the situation was panning itself out.

Communication was nonexistent, he was stuck adrift and alone, and even more pressing was the fact that mass attracted mass, which meant that he was bound to get pulled in by the gravity of something—particularly Zion—and crash into it unless someone or something stopped him.

It was all too hopeless.

Zero lowered his head and gave a dry laugh.

"I don't believe this…"

Sighing, he turned his eyes towards Zion, blue and paradisiacal, and he watched it wearily, watched as it appeared ever closer, growing larger and larger and laughing at him, this Last Star of Mankind that they were all meant to protect.

---

From a far distance, the pilot of Pro-Ing 87 watched Pro-Ing 88 spin clumsily in circles, watched as the latter go well beyond the borders of Azuma's instruction, first towards the planet Zion, but then suddenly changing course, floating smoothly towards a congregation of twinkling explosions, where a battle involving the Ingrids must have been taking place.

But then suddenly—

"THERE IS VICTIM APPROACHING!"

"What do we do!"

"It's coming closer!"

It definitely was. His radar scanners had detected a single unit speeding across space to where Zion was, its velocity rapidly increasing.

"It's…it's right over there!"

Large dark green shells plated a body about twenty times the size of a Pro-Ing, strips of gray and black streaked its sides, and hundreds of viscous, seaweedy tentacles, stretching for meters on end like eyeless eels, oscillated around the Victim's body in an unduly rhythm. But that was about all Hiead could see for everything else became a blur when the Victim flew right passed them. He gritted his teeth, repulsed.

Does it find us not worthy enough to fight!

Coming in such close proximity with the enemy rendered the other Pro-Ings fearful and thus, obsolete, but Hiead quickly whirled his Pro-Ing around—aimed—and fired. A thin beam of red light streamed from the laser hole in the gun, pierced though the greenish pleats and struck the very center of the Victim. Satisfaction lit up Hiead's face and his lips curled as he watched the Victim freeze, shudder, and shake, tentacles rippling up and down in a frenzy, before the whole thing completely incinerated.

The other candidates collectively sighed in relief.

All was silent until Yamagi piped up.

"What should we do about Zero?"

"Well, we can't leave this post. Azuma forbids it!"

"He seems to be going where the Ingrids are, though…isn't that dangerous?"

"Nah, don't worry. Zero can take care of himself…"

Just then, without warning, Pro-Ing 87 broke free from the line and floated away from them.

"Wa…Wait! Where are you going!"

"Hiead! You mustn't…!"

Ignoring the voices from all his communication lines, he kept going, his pulse quickening in excitement and his fingers quivering as they longily traced the trigger to his Pro-Ing gun.

---

It was too strange.

He should have been floating towards Zion but he found himself steadily, but at a rather frightening speed, being drawn towards the edge of a melee between Victim and Goddess.

And after thirty seconds or so had passed, Zero had entered an area in which he was able to get a good visual on all five of the Ingrids as well as all the Victim.

"WHAT IS A CANDIDATE DOING HERE?"

Apparently the auditory channels connecting him to other GOA or GIS machinery were working properly. But before he could finish wondering why his repairer line was damaged, a huge orange Ingrid—presumably the one whose pilot had questioned why he was here—flew up right next to him, brandishing a pair of two huge white and orange-checkered rectangular shields on either side of its towering body. Zero gazed up at the titan and noted how Victim were now coming at them in a somewhat organized effort to surround the two.

"How did you get in here! You need to leave!"

"I didn't mean to, I—"

A sigh from the pilot interrupted him.

"Well, I guess it can't be helped. The Victim are swarming this area—get behind me!"

Shields unlocked and expanded across and Agui Keimeia got into a defensive position, legs apart and knees slightly bent with arms outstretched as wide as possible, all with the intent on forming what could essentially be considered a sizeable armored square. Zero followed suit by swinging his Pro-Ing around to be at the Goddess' backside and lifting his gun in a readied position to provide backup for the Ingrid if the case need be.

But as Agui Keimeia's high-intensity laser canons started firing away at the hordes, picking off the ones closest to them, Zero lost concentration and he began clutching at his chest, where an expanse of warmth erupted and filled him. It was getting hotter and hotter but not the way a fever felt. Flashes of white flickered across his brain. Soon he was surrounded by voices, all female in sound, and they were swimming through, past, and around his ears, sultry mermaids with voices mounting onto tones so high and electrifying that he could feel the ends of his hair start to stir. And then…

---

Zero was touching him. Physically touching him. He had never felt anything like it. It wasn't a punch to the face or a mocking pat on the head, it was something gentle, something that initially emerged as a tingling centered around his chest, which then flowed its way down into a rivulet of energy, all the while begging for perpetuity. Searching through the shadows of his mind, a place where confessions were sins, Hiead knew it. He felt Zero. And even before he saw the Victim, the Ingrids, that lone grey mecha marked with an 88, he knew exactly where Zero was and the dangers of his locale.

---

Zero gazed at how Hiead's Pro-Ing soared past the stars and straight into a pack of frozen Victim. Without even realizing it, he whispered the other boy's name as he zipped by and cut through alien parts deftly. Moments faded and then there was a splinter of light, as the leader of the Victim was exposed. Hiead then retreated, floating a few meters in front of Zero and Agui Keimeia.

Then a spirit showered upon them both, and it was the sweetest fragrance either had ever felt, flying into their minds like clear water filling jars. It smelled like the light that reflected off of Zion, a symphony of a spectrum, and in it, there was both power and respite.

They could feel it approaching and when it finally did, all three of them touched, mingling and melting into a medley of seraphim song.

Ernn Laties.

She materialized and rose beyond the black emptiness like Aphrodite from Poseidon's murky depths, all radiance and resplendence. A soft, sapphire glow surrounded her as she raised her arms in offering to the surrounding darkness. Between her palms, a tiny ball of white light was birthed, consuming energy rapidly, growing, and growing, and within seconds, everything went white.

Startled, Zero cried out half-baked syllables and felt everything coming out of his mouth being sucked out before he was even able to exhale. Here, there was no space, no Pro-Ings, no Ingrids, not even the sensation of connecting with Hiead that he had felt so strongly only moments before. In here, there wasn't even nothingness.

Zero wasn't even sure if his body was still in existence but he was unable to check since the whiteness was too bright. It was the purest form of light that grazed his eyes and his sight, but he couldn't understand this. Again, he cried out, but this time, formulating words:

"HIEAD! HIEAD!"

---

Somewhere else, suspended in the whiteness, Hiead heard him call. In this phantom world where the only tangible thing was that voice incessantly shaking his soul, Hiead struggled not to panic, but instead unleashed his spirit in response. Their essences stretched and reached for each other across the vastness like thirsty swans arching their necks for drink.

But as soon as they touched, the white faded and the two found themselves back in space, back to the location of the battle that had taken place in what felt like eternities ago.

Hiead was wide-eyed and his mind was foggy. When everything came back into focus, he saw his machine facing Zero's and nothing but clear space – the Victim had vanished along with a whisk of the whiteness. Near the two Pro-Ings was Agui Keimeia, floating stationary.

Not a word was exchanged among the three. And high above, watching them all like a magnificent bending butterfly, was the Goddess of Goddesses.

Ending Notes: It's been like, what, two years? Trying to get back on track here…Oh yeah, and I wrote most of this while listening to Two-Mix's Just Communication. Pretty crazy.