Darling in the FranXX: The Reaper Squadron
Chapter 4: Testing and Apologies
A/N: As I did not have internet over the past day and a half and I did not have school or work, I was able to get another chapter done, so you guys get two new chapters this week. Also, since I forgot to put this in my first chapter,
Disclaimer: I do not own Darling in the FranXX. I only own Reaper and his squad, they're mine. Enjoy!
...
In the medical facility of Plantation 13, the Reaper Squadron lay on hospital beds. Just then a nurse walks in. She goes to each of the reapers and checks their vitals and the EEG machine monitoring their brainwaves. She then huffs and mumbles to herself.
"What is with you guys? You have no YBC to speak of, yet you can easily take out several Conrad class and Moho class Klaxosaurs by yourselves and to top it off you have black blood! What are you?!"
She did not receive an answer from the sleeping squad and promptly left. The nurse walked down the hall to Dr. FranXX's office. She knocked on his door.
"Enter" he said.
She entered and reported to the doctor,
"Sir, I just went in and took their vitals and their brainwaves are being to rise to normal levels. They should wake up in a few hours."
"Excellent." He said. "What about their YBC?"
"Exactly like you predicted, none"
"Fascinating. To be able to kill a Klaxosaur with no assistance at all."
"Indeed sir."
...
Soft. That was the first thing that Reaper had felt upon returning to consciousness, this was strange as Reaper hardly slept. Being a natural night owl, he didn't sleep at night and with killing Klaxosaurs during the day, he didn't really sleep, not without much coaxing from his squad, or his body collapsing from exhaustion. So, to experience the softness of a mattress without him remembering lying on one was strange. He was almost content to lay there for a while, until his memories of the previous day returned to him. He groaned out loud. Captured, they, the best Reaper squad in the world, had been captured. If his commander was still alive, he would have his ass for this.
Opening his eyes, he looked around and saw that they were in a medical facility. This was strange. Why would their enemy bother to waste resources to heal them? It made no sense. Looking down he saw that they had removed his cloak and put him in a hospital gown. Removing the sensors that were placed on him, he began to look around in a panic trying to find his cloak. He looked to his left and saw his squadmates, each on a bed in the same hospital gown as he, looking to his right he saw their communicators but again, no cloak, this was a problem.
"Screw it." He said and summoned his cloak to his body. He quickly patted his cloak down until he found the Hackers and Eden disks still hidden inside and sighed in relief, such things could be very dangerous in the wrong hands. As he went get up he found he couldn't, looking back down again he realized that he was bound to the bed by a set of padded leather restraints. He chuckled lightly and jerked his arm up snapping the leather, he then proceeded to release the other restraints. As he was going about releasing his fellow squadmates they began to wake up and look about in confusion.
"Reaper, where are we?" Raven asked being the first to awaken.
"Beyond being in a medical facility, I don't know." He replied.
"Why would they waste supplies on healing us? We are the enemy." Crow asked himself as he sat up and stretched, summoning his cloak in the process. A shrug was Reapers only reply as he undid the last restraints on Owl, helping her up.
Just then the door opened and in came the nurse from earlier and a man with half his face covered in metal making him look like some kind of android, Dr. Franxx.
"Who are you?" Reaper asked getting into a defensive stance.
"And, where are we?" Crow asked.
"No need to be so hostile, we mean you no harm." Dr. Franxx said. "I am Doctor Franxx, creator of the FranXX. As for where you are, you are in Plantation 13."
Cypress opened her mouth to ask another question before Dr. Franxx raised a hand to silence her.
"I'm sure you have many questions and they will be answered in due time. However, right now, Papa, the commander of our organization would like to speak with you. Come." He said walking out of the room.
The Reapers looked at each other and shrugged. Grabbing their communicators, they followed the Doctor. They traveled down a series of hallways that eventually led to a big empty room with a one-way window.
"Tch, could use a splash of color, so much white." Owl commented.
"I prefer the uniformity of white." A voice said. "Less maintenance, and nobody can really complain about the color. Is this them Doctor?"
"Yes, Papa." the Doctor replied.
"Excellent. It is good to see you all in good health. You were asleep for 3 days. I apologize for using such…drastic measures, but it was fairly obvious that you would not come willingly, and we needed to get you out of there." Papa said.
"After a quick examination," Papa continued, "it seems that you all are lacking in certain areas of nutrition, no doubt from the rations you were forced to eat while you were on your own. You also seem to lack Yellow Blood Cells, that is a dangerous thing to have in our plantations as it can make others extremely aggressive toward you. We have machines that can remedy this, however, giving you YBC injections can cause some strange side effects so we would like to give you a physical examination before we do so."
"He treats us like children." Cypress thought as Reaper turned to look at his squad for their approval to go forward with this. Everyone shrugged before nodding. Reaper turned back toward the window.
"Sure, why not"
"Excellent" Papa said and clapped his hands. To the right a door opened and in walked six children wearing the standard parasite uniform.
"We have seen what you can do against a fairly new squad, let's see how you do against a squad with much more experience. You will fight one on one, no assistance. Begin!" Papa said.
The parasite facing off against Reaper threw a punch at Reaper's face which he took, knocking it to the side. Reaper held the position for a moment before asking,
"Was that supposed to hurt?"
He then hit the parasite in the chest with his palm, sending the unfortunate parasite flying into a wall before he dropped like a sack of potatoes. The rest of Reaper Squad's fight was much the same, the parasites would get one, maybe two hits in before being sent flying into a wall and collapsing.
"Well done." Papa said. "I will have Dr. Franxx take you to the injection machines immediately. One thing to note however, due to the number of parasites we have in our care we generally call them by codes you will be..."
"We already have codes" Reaper interrupted.
"Oh"
"Indeed. I am R-01, to my left is R-02 and to his left is R-03. To my right is R-06 to her right is R-05 and to her right is R-04." Reaper said pointing to each Reaper in turn.
"Very well, you may continue to use those code names, they will be what we call you from this day forth." Papa said.
"If you will follow me I will take you to get your injections." Dr. Franxx said.
"Since the YBC injections are extremely painful we will have to sedate you, you will be asleep for no more than an hour or two." Dr. Franxx said as they entered room with six beds laying side by side.
"Very well." Reaper said and nodded to the others.
As each Reaper lied down on a bed the Doctor gave each of them the sedative and they were all quickly asleep. Dr. Franxx then opened his communicator and asked,
"What do you want me to do to them?"
"The usual, suppress any irrelevant memories and indoctrinate them." Papa said.
"Understood sir."
As the indoctrination process was going on Dr. Franxx gave each Reaper the YBC injection. A few minutes later the Doctor noticed something interesting, each of the Reaper's bodies tensed up. It seemed as if their bodies were rejecting the YBC injection. He watched in fascination as the Yellow Blood Cells were forced back out of their bodies at the injection site.
"Fascinating." He muttered. He decided not to try injecting them again as to see what would happen when they tried to pilot a FranXX. He also decided not to tell Papa either.
Time skip: 1 hour
As the Reapers awoke Dr. Franxx asked,
"So how are you feeling."
They said nothing for a minute as they got up but then Reaper said,
"You didn't seriously think that would work, did you?"
"What?"
Reaper quickly walked toward the Doctor backing him into a wall before slamming a hand next to his head, his eyes glowing red.
"The indoctrination, such things don't work on us. Try that shit again you will meet the bad end of my scythe, are we clear?" Reaper threatened.
The Doctor nodded mutely and Reaper back away from him.
"S-s-since the injection was successful," the doctor stuttered before composing himself. "We are going to move on to testing your connections to pistils and stamen."
"What are those?" Cypress asked.
"Pistils are female pilots while stamen are male pilots. The FranXX are piloted in boy-girl pairs." Dr. Franxx said.
"And what the hell are FranXX?" Snake asked.
"Come and I will show you" the Doctor replied.
They made their way down to the hanger where they saw six combat mechs being loaded into storage bays.
"These are FranXX, they are what we use to fight the Klaxosaurs that plague this world. The six you see before you will be yours, should you be compatible. These are the models that most parasites use."
"Most?" Owl asked.
"Most." Dr. Franxx said. He then pointed to the five empty bays off to the right. "Squad 13, which was the group you fought a few days ago, are exceptions to this rule and have custom FranXX."
Reaper and his squad turned to the FranXX that they were going to use and gave them a once over. The standard FranXX model is black and slender with yellow goggles. It wields a spear which can shoot orange harpoons made out of magma-energy. Reaper glanced at his squad and they all nodded in silent agreement, when they got the time, these FranXX were going to be given an overhaul.
"Come, we need to go to the testing chambers. I will explain the piloting process along the way." the Doctor said, and the Reapers walked behind him.
"As I said before, the FranXX are piloted in boy-girl pairs. The Pistil takes over the FranXX while the Stamen takes over the controls. When connecting in a FranXX... the best description I can give you is that you are searching for your partner's mind. If you find it, you should easily be able to connect. If you don't, you fail and try again with someone new."
They entered a room with several mockups of the FranXX controls. Also in the room, were a little over 2 dozen parasites.
"These will be the parasites that you will try to connect to." Dr. FranXX said.
Some of the parasites within the room looked intimidated by the Reaper Squadron's appearances while others scoffed at them.
"Please pick a chamber and we will send in your requisite pistil or stamen."
Each Reaper entered a chamber and a few moments later their partner entered the chamber and began the tests. After a few rounds of tests, the doctor noticed something. When the connection commenced, the Reapers paracapacity, without fail, shot up to 90-100 percent, while their partners could barely get out of the 30's, even with those who had previously had consistent 80's. He also noticed that the parasites, almost immediately, began to sweat and shake while the Reapers were unaffected.
"Enough." The Doctor said. "You parasites may go."
The parasites filed out of the room and the Reapers got out of the chambers to find out what was going on.
"All of you are unable to connect to a parasite. The reason being is that you are overwhelming your partners. This is not necessarily a bad thing, it just means that we need to try with stronger parasites, although it will take a few days to get them here." The doctor began mumbling to himself.
While Dr. FranXX was distracted, Owl and Reaper decided to try connecting with each other to see if that would work. They quickly ducked into a chamber, at the same time Dr. FranXX looked up.
"Alright, we are going to... where did R-01 and R-06 go?" the Doctor asked.
He quickly got his answer as he heard the sound of a successful connection occurring in one of the chambers. Walking over to the chamber to see who was inside, he failed to notice the other Reapers doing the same thing as Reaper and Owl. With Crow paring with Raven and Cypress with Snake. Dr. Franxx looked in shock at Reaper and Owl in the chamber and quickly looked at their paracapacity scores. He then noticed that the other Reapers had gone into a chamber with another Reaper and had successfully connected. He was only slightly surprised at the results though, R-05 and R-06 were sitting at 100, R-02 and R-03 were at 110 and R-01 and R-06 were hovering just below the max at 119.
"As easy as breathing." Crow commented.
The Reapers disconnected and got out of the chambers and walked over to where Dr. Franxx was.
"Very well then, we will have the three spare FranXX put back into storage. You will receive orders from Hachi, Plantation 13's defense commander, tomorrow for a mock battle with Squad 13. With your scores however, I don't think piloting a FranXX will be too difficult for you." Dr. FranXX said.
"Let me make one thing absolutely clear." Reaper said sending him a glare. "We follow your organization's orders only because they align with our goals."
"And those are?" Dr. Franxx asked.
"Complete elimination of the Klaxosaur threat." Owl answered in a cold voice.
"Don't think, for even a moment, that you own us. We hold no allegiance to you and we can just as easily walk out of this plantation and leave you to die. Is that understood?" Reaper asked. Dr. Franxx nodded.
"Good. Now with that out of the way, where would we find Squad 13?" Reaper asked.
"13? They got back from a sortie about an hour ago, they should be up in Mistilteinn."
"And where is that?" Snake asked.
Dr. Franxx gave them the directions to Mistilteinn and the squad left. They soon arrived at an elevator that took them to Mistilteinn which they noted on the elevator panel was called the Birdcage. When they arrived Reaper suddenly got the sneaking suspicion as to why they had found Eden disks in the cache. Mistilteinn looked like what an area would look like if an Eden disk was detonated. Fertile soil and lush plant life in every direction, Reaper could hear a river flowing nearby and there were birds the distance, they could see a Victorian era style manor.
"Now that I think about it," Owl said, "we weren't given any quarters, where are we going to stay?"
"We can always stay in the forest." Raven said. "Besides, have you seen the number of cameras in this place? If we were given quarters I would be worried about being constantly watched."
Reaper let out a low growl, causing Owl to put a hand on his arm to calm him down.
"All those favor of staying in the forest?" Snake asked, looking around. Every head in the squad nodded.
"All opposed?" Not a soul moved.
"It's settled, we will stay in the forest." Crow said. He liked the idea of cameras in their rooms as much as Reaper did.
Walking up to the manor, Crow knocked on the door but received no answer. He then tried the door and it opened. The group looked at each other before progressing inside. They heard voices coming from the second floor and headed toward them. They found squad 13 in the living room/common area talking about their latest sortie.
"Are you guys sure Mitsuru is going to be alright? A girl with long ashen-blond hair asked.
"Nana said he would be fine." A man with loose spiked hair said. "I'm more worried about Hiro. He has been having headaches off and on since our fight with that squad we retrieved a few days ago. It was the reason that Mitsuru was sent with Zero Two instead of Hiro."
"Do you mean us?" Raven asked, prompting Squad 13 to jump before getting in defensive stances.
"At ease, we are not here for a fight." Reaper said holding up a hand. "Who among you is your squad leader?" He asked.
"I am." A bluenette said, standing.
Reaper and his squad walked up to her before kneeling to her, heads bowed.
"We wish to apologize for our behavior when we first met. We acted irrationally, and attacked your squad without gathering more intelligence and realizing that you were not an enemy. For that we apologize."
Ichigo turned an interesting shade of red before saying,
"A-a-apology accepted. Please stop kneeling."
"Thank you, squad leader." Reaper said before he and his squad stood up. "May we have your and your squad's names?" He asked.
"Only if you give us yours." the boy with unruly light brown hair asked.
"Fair enough." Reaper said.
"Starting with myself, I am R-01, you may call me Reaper. I am my squad's leader. To my right is Snake, R-04," Snake inclined his head.
"To his right is Raven, R-02," she waved at the group.
"To my left is Cypress, R-05," she nodded a hello to the group.
"To her left is Crow, R-03," he bowed to the group.
Reaper smiled lightly, "And finally the one hiding just behind me is Owl, R-06," she shyly waved to the group.
"Don't mind her, she is very shy when it comes to meeting new people." He gave Owl a fond smile. "That's all of us."
"Well, I'm Ichigo, the blond boy over there is Goro, he is my stamen and we pilot Delphinium." Ichigo said.
"I'm Miku, Argentea's pistil and that goofball over there is Zorome, my stamen." Miku stated before she and Zorome started to get in an argument. Reaper's squad raised an eyebrow, but all Squad 13 did was roll their eyes, apparently this was a regular occurrence.
"I'm Futoshi and that lovely blond over there is Kokoro, my pistil, and we pilot Genista." A rather overweight boy stated nodding to the ashen-blond from earlier.
"I'm Ikuno, and my partner, although he is not here right now, is Mitsuru. We pilot Chlorophytum." A girl with deep purple hair stated.
"There is one more person missing from our group." Ichigo said.
"Two." Goro corrected.
"Fine two." Ichigo huffed. "The first is Hiro, a stamen, while the other is Zero Two the pistil for Strelitzia."
"Would Zero Two happen to be a girl with cherry blossom pink hair and two red horns?" Reaper asked.
"Yes" Miku answered, apparently having won their argument as Zorome was silently fuming.
"Ah, noted." Reaper said.
"Are you guys staying here?" Kokoro asked.
"At the plantation? I would assume so, as we have yet to receive orders to go elsewhere." Snake replied.
"Where are you staying at then?" Ikuno asked, as they did not have any spare rooms.
"I do not know as we were not given any quarters. When we saw this place we planned on staying in the surrounding forest, unless this is an inconvenience." Reaper said.
"It's not an inconvenience, but wouldn't that be uncomfortable for you guys?" Ichigo asked in shock.
Cypress laughed, "Not at all, this isn't the first time we've done this, and it certainly won't be the last.
Then an adult woman with long, wavy brownish-red hair and teal-green eyes burst in the room.
"Alright children you've got, oh your already here." She started to say before noticing Reaper squadron.
"And who are you ma'am?" Reaper asked politely.
"Oh! My apologies, I'm Nana, the caretaker of the parasites here in Plantation 13." She said before bowing.
"A pleasure to make your acquaintance Nana." Reaper said bowing back to her.
Nana continued with a light blush on her face from Reaper's words. "Since you are already here I assume that you have already introduced each other, in which case, Squad 13, you will have a mock battle with Reaper 1 at 0930 hours tomorrow."
"Reaper 1?" Futoshi asked.
"That's right, command has decided to give that name to their squadron." Nana said, gesturing toward Reaper and his squad.
"Depending on how they do in the mock battle, Reaper 1 will most likely be used as an auxiliary squad for Plantation 13." Nana said before turning to Reaper. "We have some provisional quarters made for you until we make an expansion on the boarding house for your rooms."
"No thanks, we have already found some place to stay." Reaper said.
Nana looked at him with a confused look before continuing. "Very well then, you are dismissed." And she left. Reaper looked at his squad out of the corner of his eyes.
"Well you heard her, dismissed." All his squad immediately disappeared. Reaper chuckled and said,
"Like children freed from class."
"Where did they all go?" Ikuno asked.
"To search for areas to do their favorite things. Snake, he's probably gone to find your library. I swear that man can smell a book from a mile away. Owl, she has probably gone to find someplace quiet to setup camp and rest, she likes her solitude. Cypress, she has gone to find a gym, she loves to work out. Raven and Crow are most likely off exploring and doing recon of the area. Now if you will excuse me, I will take my leave." Reaper said. He bowed to them once more before walking out the door.
"They definitely are different aren't they." Reaper heard Zorome say before he was out of earshot.
...
Sunset found Reaper meditating by the lake in Mistilteinn. Ever since thawing out, he hasn't been able to take time to get away and sort out his thoughts. After finding Owl and where she had decided to set up camp, he had told the others where the camp was and left them to their activities. The hours of silence had done wonders for his sanity and focus. The peaceful environment was soon broken by the sound of footsteps approaching. Reaper did not bother moving, if they were here to speak to him they would, otherwise he did not care what they did. He opened his eyes and looked over and saw that it was the two parasites that were missing from the meeting earlier, Hiro and Zero Two.
"How are you feeling Darling?" Zero Two asked.
"Better, but by no means perfect. I wish these headaches would go away, then I could have ridden with you again to save the others." Hiro said.
"Don't worry Darling, I'm sure the headaches will go away soon." Zero Two said, rubbing his temples in an effort to stave off the pain.
"The effects from striking the horseshoe nerve cluster should have worn off by now." Reaper thought. "This is clearly something else. I wonder…" He trailed off thinking of the machine they used to try and suppress their memories. It worked a lot like amnesia, where certain triggers or a hard-enough hit can cause the neural pathways to reform causing the memories to return. If he had the same type of thing done to him when he was younger, the hit to the temples could have easily caused the memories to start to return. The headaches being caused by the pathways reforming and the false memories being forced out. He closed his eyes again.
"If the one that hurt you shows up again I will make sure to beat him up for you, no one hurts Darling." Zero Two said vehemently.
"Zero Two that's not…" Hiro started to say before he was interrupted.
"If you wish to hit me, go right ahead. I deserve it." Reaper called, causing the two to jump. They must have not realized that he was there.
Reaper heard the sound of footsteps running toward him, but he did not move, expecting a blow that never came. When he opened his eyes once more to see why he had not been hit, he saw that Zero Two had stopped just before hitting him.
"You would have actually taken the hit." Zero Two said in shock.
"We acted out of line when we first meet." Reaper said closing his eyes. "We acted without gathering the proper amount of intel to make a decision as to whether you were a threat or not. As such, the failure to do so falls on my head as the squad leader, so, yes, I would have taken the hit as well as any other form of punishment you would have decided to dish out."
Reaper heard Hiro's footsteps approaching.
"What are you doing here?" Hiro asked.
"Pending the results of the mock battle between my squad and yours, we will be assigned as an auxiliary squad for Plantation 13. Most of the time we will probably be assigned to assist your squad when you need it as we have more experience in fighting Klaxosaurs than you, barring Zero Two that is."
"Where are you staying at then?" Zero Two asked.
"Until such time that the new quarters are built in your manor for us, we will be staying out here in the forest. Do not concern yourselves about us, we chose to live out here until they are complete. We will be joining you for your daily meals, so we'll be around. You will need to ask your squad leader, I believe her name was Ichigo, who the others are and what they look like." Reaper said. He then opened his eyes and stood up.
"I will however, introduce myself." Reaper said. "I am R-01, the squad leader of Reaper 1, which is the name your commanding officers have given my squad. You may call me Reaper." He bowed to the both of them.
"If you need us, we are camped out to the east of the lake." He said as he pointed to the camp. "We have already eaten for the night, so you need not wait for us to start dinner. Have a good evening you two." He said before walking off.
Hiro and Zero Two watched him walk away until he disappeared into the tree line. Zero Two was about to make a comment before Hiro got a notification on his communicator from Ichigo calling them to dinner. They promptly left.
…
Later that night at the Reaper camp, most of Reaper 1 was asleep except for Owl and Reaper. They had made a smokeless fire to keep themselves warm and Owl was trying her best to get Reaper to go to sleep.
"Reaper, you need to sleep. It's not healthy going until you collapse. You know that." Owl pleaded with him.
"I know Owl, but I can't sleep, I've slept too much, and something might happen. Someone needs to be awake." He replied.
"Reaper, we are in the safest place we can possibly be in right now. Nothing is going to happen." She retorted.
"I know Owl, but old habits die hard. I've pulled night watch ever since we became a squad, it's not something I can stop doing instantaneously." He said.
"Reaper," Owl said softly, "what would she think if she saw you like this."
His eyes softened "Sigh, alright, alright, give me five more minutes, then I will bank the fire and try to sleep. You go ahead and go to bed we have to get up early tomorrow." He said.
She gave him a small smile and gave him a hug.
"Goodnight Reaper." she said before climbing a tree to join the others.
"Goodnight Owl." He said.
He stood and looked at the heart of the fire for 5 minutes before dousing it and climbing a tree and ending up on a branch higher than the others. He did not sleep that night, instead he watched over his squad, as he always had and as he always would.
A/N: And end scene. Well that was a nice chapter don't you think? We had Reaper threatening people, Squad 13 and the newly name Reaper 1 making up and ending with a nice bit of fluff. As always criticism and reviews are greatly appreciated, and flames will be used to roast marshmallows. Ciao!