Crash and Burn
Chapter One: The Senator's Son

Bearit's Notes: Hi, I'm back, and with the first chapter in hand, the first of Eagle's flashbacks. The structure of this fanfic will be alternating between Eagle's memories and the present time every three chapter; that is, after every three chapters, there will be an interlude to describe the present. If that makes no sense, just stay with me, it'll make sense soon enough. And I do apologize for the depressing prologue, hopefully that didn't deter anyone from the rest of the fic.

So, here's the first chapter, the first of Eagle's memories, beginning with his childhood, carrying through to his relationship with his father, and ending with Eagle's natural born talent. Please enjoy, and please review!


At an early age, Eagle kept to himself. Being the son of a senator had its disadvantages, especially since the school he attended during his childhood had the most stuck-up, horrible, spoiled little girl across the Four Countries, who was consequently the daughter of the governor of Lexcen, a smaller city on the outer borders of the great capital city of Integra. The other students, despite any exceptions, therefore treated all children of politicians from then on with scorn.

As soon as Chrysler Vision, a man of medium height with trim and slim features from the details of his face to the overall build of his body, with his floppy hair pale and his kind eyes shimmering a bright brown to his otherwise stern face, won the elections to enter Parliament when Eagle was seven years old, the Vision family moved out of the city Eagle had been born in and moved to Lexcen, which was only a half hour transit to the political center of Autozam. His parents wanted Eagle to grow up as normally as possible, so they refused to glamorize their reputation as an aristocratic family by living in a huge apartment in Integra. To have normal friends who couldn't buy their way out of trouble with the law, to have normal friends who had to work for all they ever wanted, to have normal friends with less than perfect family lives was the ideal. To them, having Eagle's father travel that distance to get to work in order to give their son the ideal middle-class life was a sacrifice worth jumping for.

Unfortunately, Eagle could not connect with anyone. It did not take long before the students learned that the senator's son was attending their school; with previous knowledge of the daughter of the governor who ordered everyone within a five-foot radius of her to run ridiculous chores, many of these children felt that Eagle would be the same and kept their distance, never trying to be his friend or learning more about him.

It didn't matter to Eagle; he really could have cared less. He still smiled politely and talked politely and showed consideration for those around him, but because he liked to read texts during lunch and because he preferred to nap during recess, many still put forth gigantic efforts to avoid him, even after the bully incident.

Because of the 'weird' factor accompanying Eagle throughout his childhood and his nonexistent attempts to become friends with all around him, no wonder it did not take long before he was to become the target of a particular bully who turned out not to be anything impressive. Eagle came out of the incident much disappointed.

That morning started off with a practical joke to humiliate the poor, little son of the senator boy who really needed to learn his place in his life. It was childish, really; one of the boys found a carefully constructed inflatable rubber bag that made quite the interesting noise when pressure was pressed on it. Eagle pretended not to notice it, and when the loud noise, brash noise exploded in the room many of the boys and girls giggled. Eagle stood up, picked up the cushion, and asked the boy sitting across from him:

"Is this the time when I run to the bathroom, ready to never show my face in this school again?"

The boy, a round, plump little boy with untamed black hair and pudgy cheeks, stared at him. "Um, yeah. That's what I always did last year."

Eagle frowned. "And if I don't want to?"

The boy gaped and said in a hoarse whisper, "You're not embarrassed?" He was always picked on for being smarter than even Eagle; rumor had it that he had been offered to skip ahead during the beginning of the next term.

Eagle shrugged and sat back down, tossing the rubber cushion behind him and hearing a thud when it hit the bottom of a trash dispenser. Shortly after the teacher walked in and the laughter ended, though lunchtime would prove an interesting treat.

Eagle's mother, Avella Vision, beautiful, petite, her long blonde hair always tied neatly in a bun on the back of her head and her golden eyes brilliant with naïve hopes and dreams, never sent Eagle to school with a packed lunch; it was another one of those "be like other children, sweetheart!" things, so everyday, he had to wait in line with everyone else.

On this particular day, the same day as the cushion, the beginning was mild. This one kid in his class with bright red hair and somewhere between muscular and chubby brought a couple of his lackeys waltzed right up to where Eagle stood in line and pushed in front of him. Eagle blinked at this sudden intrusion, and politely tapped on their shoulders and smiled when they turned around, doing their best to hide their smug faces beneath irritated glances. He squirmed past them just as the line moved forward, close enough to where the old lunch lady could see Eagle and the thugs behind him with just a simple glance up from the register if any commotion were to be made. The boy with the red hair grabbed Eagle's shoulder roughly and snarled.

"Hey, kid, I was here first."

"No," said Eagle, still grinning. "I was."

"Why you—" The boy moved forward with a balled hand raised up in the air, but before Eagle could possibly even think about maybe he should pretend to be afraid and cringe, the red headed boy's two friends pulled him back, shaking their heads. The boy glared at Eagle. "This isn't over yet."

Eagle shrugged as the line moved again. Well, it looked like he would not be able to sleep during recess.

In the gray, domed gymnasium where the children were permitted to run around and play, there was always a corner Eagle preferred to curl up and fall asleep until the teacher had to force him to his feet so he could go back to class. It was quieter, it was private, and it was at just the perfect temperature; despite the cold that froze the gymnasium so that the sweat of the children running and screaming and jumping and racing would not be unbearable, this little corner never received any of the cold or any of the hot. Nobody ever went over to that corner because there was nothing interesting in that corner except for the sleeping body of a senator's son.

When Eagle went there that noontime, the boys from the lunch line had already beaten him there. He frowned and approached them, which caught the attention of many little pairs of eyes and the urgent hushes of others' jokes and talks. The redhead boy saw him and turned around so that his full body was facing Eagle. He crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows; if Eagle wasn't already convinced that this boy was stupid—his oral answers in class and his scores on tests were enough to tell him this—he might have been intimidated. Maybe.

… No, definitely not.

"Punk, what do you want?" the boy demanded. His lackeys quickly stood on either side of the chubby kid, mimicking his movements in quite the comical fashion.

"I just wanted to get to my corner, that's all," said Eagle, putting on his best smile, knowing full well how much that would infuriate the redhead boy.

It worked. The redhead boy glowered. "Well, we were here first, so there's nothing you can do about it." His lackeys behind him smirked, believing it enough to win.

"Yes, but what do you plan to do here? There's nothing fun. You'll be really bored."

The redhead boy snorted. "So why do you come over here everyday? Because no one will play with you?" he sneered.

"Because there's nothing to do here. That's why I come here everyday."

"You're so weird." Eagle shrugged. At that point in the school year, he was used to hearing that. "I don't like that you're so weird."

"Yeah!" said one of the lackeys, which earned him a glare from the redhead boy.

"Well," Eagle chose his words carefully, "I don't like that you're intruding into my space. It's really rude, actually."

"What's rude is how you keep hogging this place for yourself!" the redhead boy growled, raising his fist again. "Just because Senator Chrysler Vision, oh, so scary, is your daddy, doesn't mean that you can get everything you want. It's not like you're the son of the president."

"Maybe someday," said Eagle, still grinning ear to ear, "I will be."

The redhead kid laughed menacingly. "Oh, man, and now the whole school knows. You're more stuck up than the governor's daughter! You need to learn a little lesson about life at Lexcen!"

With that last word, he swung, but Eagle easily stepped aside. The redhead kid looked at him, surprised, and then glared and swung at him again with more force, but again Eagle moved smoothly to the other side. He kept right on smiling.

"Wow," said Eagle, "I'm glad I dodged that one. I think it would have hurt."

"I hate you!" said the redhead kid, and he threw himself at Eagle, but Eagle was able to dodge it with a large stride backwards, leaving the redhead kid flailing onto the cold, hard metal floor of the gymnasium, his face and fat working as a cushion for his spine.

The onlookers first giggled and chuckled, then laughed, and then rose in an uproar, pointing at the redhead kid as he picked himself up from the floor. The teacher had finally entered the gymnasium and was pushing her way through the crowd of children, just as the redhead kid was preparing to strike again. Her face could have scared away a whole fleet of Autozam's best crew of battleships.

"HEY!" she shouted, shoving aside two onlookers to stand in-between Eagle and the redhead kid. "What is going on here? You!" She pointed at the redhead kid. "Are you beating up new kids again? I thought we had a discussion with your parents about this!"

She tugged on the ear of the redhead boy and pushed through the crowd towards her office, dragging him behind her. "I swear, Hillman—" Her ramblings were cut off by the increasing distance and finally with the slamming of her door.

The children surrounding Eagle cheered.

Ever since then, the redhead boy glared at Eagle every time they were in the same room, but he never tried anything again. The rest of the students at the school, however, though they had immense respect for him, never tried to approach him, for that incident not only tamed a bully but instilled fear into the others that maybe Eagle would turn out to be the same as the redhead kid. Perhaps that was his own fault for not saying some speech about how unfair and mean it was to pick on other people, but Eagle wasn't hurt by the incident at all. In fact, he wished that it lasted longer. He had so much fun that he walked out of the incident quite disappointed.

He was still the weird kid after that. No friends, for everyone was afraid of him, so he continued not to have the normal life his parents dreamed of him having. When they asked about how his day went, he simply told them the general idea of the day:

"It was fun."

"Did you make any friends?" That was the infamous question of his first couple weeks of school. Eagle's only response to that was a shrug and shoving some pieces of candy into his mouth.

"Eagle?" his father asked if he was home on that particular afternoon.

Eagle would look at him, put more candy into his mouth, chewed it, swallowed it, and then smiled and replied, "Yes, Dad, I did."

That was an answer enough to satisfy his mother, at least for the rest of the day. His father was too perceptive and after dinner wandered into Eagle's room to talk to him. Always something like, "I know you probably don't like the other kids as much but…" or "You could give it some effort" and then finally, the conversation just before Eagle reached the end of his days as a true child. His last few weeks before reaching the age of thirteen. This was five years after his first day at the Lexcen schools.

"Eagle?" his father asked as he walked inside the room. Eagle was sitting on his bed, reading up on the cultures of the Four Countries, but every night, when Chrysler walked in, Eagle would immediately set the flat computer aside so he could give his father the complete, undivided attention he deserved.

"Hi, Dad," said Eagle.

"I take it today is the same as always," said Chrysler, taking a seat on Eagle's bed. "No new friends, nothing interesting going on at school? That one kid hasn't started bothering you again, has he?"

Eagle shook his head. "No. I haven't seen him around in a couple of years now."

"Good, good. No one's been talking to you?"

"They've been trying. They never have anything interesting to talk about, though."

Chrysler frowned. "What do they talk about? Non-academic things?" He smirked, and Eagle hid a laugh. It was a frequent banter between father and son; Eagle liked to read up on so many little things that it was rare for him to want to talk about anything else. "Really, Eagle, how much effort have you put into it? No one wants to be friends with someone who doesn't want to be friends with them. It doesn't matter whether or not you're the son of someone important."

"It'd be different if I was the son of the president, don't you think?" Chrysler laughed.

"Nah, I think President Laguna's in for a while yet. The only thing she's not doing is putting more of an effort into this pollution crisis."

"It's getting worse every day now, isn't that what the scientists are saying?"

"It is, but until Laguna's own brother starts speaking against her, no one will think of impeachment, but politics isn't our topic of discussion here, Eagle," said Chrysler, ruffling his hair a little. "Come on, now. We moved to Lexcen so that you could make some legitimate friends. You need to bring someone home so your mother can get off your back about this. Or at least make up a name, a family, a history, something."

"Like an imaginary friend?"

"Yeah, like an imaginary friend! Even though it would be nice if you made a friend. Not in your mind. Someone who actually exists. It's not healthy."

Eagle shrugged. "I prefer to be alone sometimes."

"You won't have that feeling forever." Chrysler's face brightened. "Hey, you know, I just had an interesting idea. Are you doing anything important tomorrow?" Eagle opened his mouth to respond, but Chrysler quickly overrode him. "Of course not, you have no promises to keep to anyone but your texts. How about we go to the arena?"

Eagle blinked. "The arena?"

Chrysler nodded. "Yes, yes, the arena! Down at Integra, at the Academy! It'll get you out of the house, for sure. Besides, there's these mecha combat competitions they're holding tomorrow, and politicians get a pretty awesome deal, just for the day. We get in for free, and we can go to the practice arenas where the pilots train, and they're letting kids of politicians try them out."

"Isn't that favoritism? The kind Mom doesn't like and that's why she has us living in Lexcen?" Eagle asked with a slyly arched eyebrow.

Chrysler winked. "That's why we're keeping this a secret from your mother. What she doesn't know won't kill her." He stood up from the bed and headed for the door. "Well, I'd better let you go back to your text. And as much as your mother and I keep harping you on this 'make friends' thing, don't make friends for the sake of making friends. Just be yourself, and the right friends will come along."

Eagle smiled. "Thanks, Dad."


The next morning, Chrysler told his wife that he and Eagle were going to the recreation center, where Chrysler would be meeting with a few friends and they were bringing their sons, too, which Avella believed and allowed the two to go off on their own ways. On the hover car towards Integra, as soon as the apartment complex was well out of sight and the huge domes and spiky towers of Integra hovering foreboding in the distance, Eagle turned to his father with a furtive smile.

"Recreation center?"

Chrysler chuckled. "For some people, the arena is a recreation center. So I wasn't lying. Just manipulating the truth. You get good at it once you become a statesman."

"I thought lying was a requirement for politicians."

"Exactly."

Eagle laughed and shook his head and slipped on a heavy gas mask around his nose and mouth as the hover car exited the domes of Lexcen and into Autozam's wilderness of black clouds and charred soil. For added safety his father tapped a button that covered the hover car with a thin glass curved plate; the thicker glass had to be used for battleships and residential areas and schools and hospitals and the workplace, and for privately owned vehicles the option of the glass covering was either nonexistent or very, very thin. It was the sign of a rich man to have a hover car or a hover bike with complete glass covering, the thicker the richer.

They raced through the gates to the huge metropolis of Integra, where the hustle and bustle of the city required Chrysler to slow the velocity of the hover car to a more manageable speed where he would not have to worry to and fro about oncoming traffic. Eventually they came to a stop in a corner of the city, where several green skyscrapers surrounded a huge, wide, dark blue dome with speckled lights dotting the surface. Chrysler parked the car in one of the front rows of the vast lot and disconnected his headband wires from the car's central processing unit.

Eagle hopped out of the car and stared with a small smile at the dome before him. He read about mecha combats before and always wanted to seat himself in the leather seats of one of the huge robots and touch the cold panels, everything controlled by his intelligence and his mental power alone. Now he could see a combat live for the first time, and he knew that that was merely the first step towards becoming a wonderful, brilliant fighter.

"Come on, son," said Chrysler, and the father-son duo walked inside the domes along with the crowds that had already amassed by the entrance.

After a few minutes of pushing and shoving and showing ID cards so they didn't have to pay for tickets and seating and locating the level at where they would be seating for the matches, an exhausted Eagle and Chrysler fell into the comfortable, cushy chairs at the mid-line, mid-level, the perfect view.

It didn't take too much longer afterwards before the combats were to start, and the stadium darkened and just the center ring of the arena were lit with a blinding white light. As each fighter and mecha were taken out one by one, Eagle studied the different moves, the different tactics each used to their advantage or even disadvantage. Sometimes it was effectively psyching out the opponent; other times it was making too obvious of a false movement that ended in the fighter's failure. There were times when a mecha was just obviously stronger than another, but there were times when an older robot would turn around and beat one of the newer, state-of-the-art machines. There were bad match-ups where one opponent would stand no chance against another; there were wonderful match-ups where the two would battle for lengths of time.

Near the end, Eagle saw his father's floppy white hair obscuring his eyes as his head drooped, his arms crossed, sometimes sharply bringing his head back up in order to pay more attention. Eagle smiled to himself, and once the competitions were over and the stadium lights turned on so that the spectators could get out without tripping over themselves, Eagle shook his father awake.

"Oh, what, what?" Chrysler started and then looked around. He frowned. "It's over?"

Eagle nodded. "Yeah, it was pretty amazing, and it went by so fast."

"Who won?"

"I think one of the new GXE models," said Eagle. "Even though I didn't think that those models were anything impressive."

Chrysler chuckled, shrugged, stood up, and stretched. "You never know, they may end up being some of the best of the best our army has to offer. Just wait and see. It just takes time, that's all. Time, and a good mechanic." Eagle grinned, and the two made their way out of the audience seating of the battle arenas. "Did you enjoy yourself?"

"Yes, Dad, I did. Thank you," Eagle answered. "Can we go down to the practice arenas now?"

"You really want to go?" Eagle nodded. Chrysler's lips curled satisfactorily. "All right, let's go! Just so you know, a lot of people will be down there, and some of them may be students of the academy, so just be careful, all right?"

"Dad, when have I ever had to worry about being careful?"

Chrysler shook his head. "You need to be more careful than you give yourself credit for. I think you're too reckless sometimes."

"When have I ever been reckless?" asked Eagle with a smile.

Chrysler sighed, and before long they found themselves in the basement of the battle dome, where a swarm of people gazed at some of the models or tried out the stations of virtual simulators along the outer perimeter of the basement practice arenas. In the center, of course, were two robots tied to the walls and ceiling; these were real, ready for combat mechas, Eagle knew. Just detach the cords and they were perfect. They were the real things, just used for mere practice. He could not tear his eyes away.

"Hey! Chrysler!"

The older man turned towards the source of the voice, and a young man with dark brown hair waved his hand, ushering him over. Chrysler indicated to Eagle to follow, so he did.

"Maverick, hi," said Chrysler as the two shook hands. "I haven't seen you in a while. Your fiancée doesn't talk about you much to me anymore."

The man laughed and nodded. "She wouldn't. From what I've heard things have been pretty stressful in the Senate, so much so that I often end up stuck watching her son overnight. At least he and my boy get along fine."

"Always a good thing, they'll be brothers soon."

"Yeah, hey, how's Avella?"

Already bored, Eagle's eyes wandered towards the two mecha again, and he crouched behind his father and was able to run into the flow of the many already circling the central arena. As soon as he lost sight of his father, he pulled himself away from the crowd and found an immobile spot near the surrounding fences. He glanced between the two mechas, and then dashed along the fences towards one of them, he didn't care which, and as soon as he got there he climbed the platforms that led to the cockpit of one of the mechas.

He went to the open hatch of the cockpit and peered inside to make sure no one was in it; after noticing an empty seat in front of the controls, Eagle glanced over his shoulder. If anybody had noticed him climb the ladders nobody cared enough to stop him, so he slyly grinned and slipped inside, hopping comfortably into the dark blue leather chair.

Off to the side he noticed a pair of black shades with two wires at the top attached to the upper console of the view screen, and he attached the jutted input devices at the edges of the lens to his jeweled headband. The lens beeped, and the wires from both sides of Eagle's headband popped out. He grabbed one pair and attached it to the most logical holes at the bottom console and repeated the same action for the other pair. The lens beeped wildly as displays with letters and numbers appeared before him, and the view screen transformed from a blank slate to a view of the other mecha in front of him.

"So that's how it works," said Eagle, and he tapped on a couple of the buttons on the console, and the mecha moved in a motion of starting up and configuring with Eagle's mind. The lens beeped again, twice, as a conclusion, and the robot moved accordingly to what he wished for it to do. He smiled; what was all the fuss about training for, other than perhaps tactical training? This was simple!

Just as soon as Eagle allowed the robot to step forward in a rather choppy manner—it attributed it to the many cables on the outside—the mecha's eyes straight ahead glowed bright yellow and moved as well. Eagle smiled. A battle already? The cadets of the Academy certainly were quick for a challenge.

The other mecha soon charged, and Eagle quickly blocked and counterattacked. He landed an easy hit to the mid torso of the robot's body, although the thick cables stopped the motion short, and a large thud resounded through the earpiece of the headset Eagle wore.

Direct hit, the lens read, restart simulation. TVR, one, NSU, zero.

The other mecha, apparently the NSU, retreated, and Eagle pulled his mecha, the TVR, back likewise. Best of three? Eagle wondered, ready to attack again. Or maybe he would face a new opponent. The latter would not be true, since quickly afterward and without much of a pause, the NSU attacked again. Eagle managed to dodge, but this time when Eagle tried to counter, the NSU blocked and took another shot. Eagle dodged this one, as well, and a crackling voice over the speaker in his headset demanded:

"Pilot in simulator TVR, state your name. Repeat, pilot in simulator TVR, your identification code does not show up in our database. Please state your name…"

Eagle attacked again, briefly wondering if this was pure hand-to-hand combat (in the competitions some had used weapons, but it didn't seem like the simulators were equipped), and he found a couple of seconds for a breather in the middle of the battle so that he could look for the mute button. Before he could press it, he glanced up in enough time to see the NSU attack again, and he jumped above the mecha and thrust the TVR's arm in the back of the NSU. The simulation ended with the blinking words TVR wins and the two robots being automatically moved back to the original positions.

Eagle pulled off the headset, pleased with his victory, and as the hatch of the cockpit opened he climbed out, just to peer down the edge of the top platform and see everyone staring. Closest to the platform was his father, whose jaw dropped at the sight of Eagle exiting the simulator. Chrysler, however, quickly smiled and gave Eagle a thumb up, which Eagle smiled down and waved at his father. He climbed down to the bottom, where a red-faced, well-built officer with chestnut hair and red eyes glared at him.

"What on Autozam do you think you were doing!" he demanded. He pointed at a poorly constructed sign attached to the far pole of the platform racks. "'No citizens allowed,' how could you have not seen it?"

Eagle shrugged. "Well, it's not conspicuous enough."

"You…"

Just then a young boy, tanned and slightly muscular with spiky black hair, rounded the corner and stopped just behind the officer. He swallowed his panting and grinned a lopsided grin.

"Hey, I was the pilot of the NSU over there—"

The officer rounded on his heel and put both fists onto his hips. "And you! You should have known better! I don't care if you're just a freshman…"

Chrysler came by Eagle's side and put a finger over his lips and grabbed Eagle's upper arm and pulled Eagle through the crowd, and the two ran out of the training area, Chrysler laughing all the way.

"If I wasn't already lying to your mother," he said through chuckles as soon as they were out of the training room, "I'd say let's never, ever say what just happened in there. Eagle, you were brilliant! I heard you fought the strongest fighter in the freshman class of the Academy, whose a whole year older than you, and you never even seen a mecha live before today. Brilliance, Eagle. Absolute, sheer brilliance!"

Eagle smiled. "Thanks, Dad."

Chrysler slung an arm around Eagle's shoulders and led him upstairs. "Let's get out of here before the headmaster finds out about this. I hear that he's a real stickler on details like this."

As the two made their way up the long stairs towards the ground level, Eagle looked up at the window ceilings of the glass dome, now open due to the conclusion of the competitions from earlier in the day. Between the cracks of the black clouds he saw a few streams of white light piercing through, and Eagle had to narrow his eyes due to the brightness of the light. He paused in the middle of the stairway, which caused his father to pause, and just kept staring up towards the sky.

"That's Cephiro, isn't it, Dad?"

Chrysler looked up too and smiled. "Yeah, that's Cephiro all right. The place where your will determines everything, the most peaceful country in the whole world, the most perfect country in the whole world. Autozam strives for that, you know."

Eagle nodded. "Yeah, I know."

"As soon as the pollution clears, you know we'll be there, right? We aren't so different, our two countries."

Eagle nodded in vague agreement, and the two continued upstairs. Integra was the only place in the whole of Autozam where Cephiro could be seen with the naked eye, and Eagle knew that this was only just the beginning of the rest of his life.