I've had a few weird ideas in the past, but this probably takes the cake due to what it is based on. So, who here knows about Darling in the FRANXX? You know, the anime that's a hypothetical answer to if Studio Trigger made Eva. Admittedly, this anime is weird, but I love it.
So, what makes it so weird? Well, I love Guardians of the Galaxy, and I think a lot of people do too, especially the character of Starlord. Well, this isn't a crossover between GotG and FRANXX, sorry to disappoint you. Factually, you should have read the header there and you would have found that out almost immediately. Well, it's a Star Wars crossover, but not in the same vein.
To elaborate, this is a FRANXX/SW crossover with a Guardians of the Galaxy inspired scene; particularly that of the first initial scene and Starlord. To set the setting, in FRANXX this will take place during the episode where they all go to the beach and see a settlement that's been long since abandoned; in Star Wars this will take place long after Return of the Jedi so I don't have to worry about crossing canons, but as many may know I do have a preference for Legends rather than current Disney canon post-ROTJ.
That being said, let's get this show on the road!
Title: Treasure Hunt
Rating: T
Summary: An encounter with a "foreign" treasure hunter during their short vacation brings up some interesting questions for Squad 13. Questions of the existential kind.
NOTE: Please note that this idea was started long before episodes 20 and 21 came out for our enjoyment and subsequent confusion at how they went from 0-100 in less than one scene.
Disclaimer: I own nothing except my copy of MS Word and my laptop. Star Wars belongs to Disney, Darling in the FRANXX belongs to Studio Trigger and A-1 Pictures. See the full foreword for the full disclaimer.
XxXxXxX
On a little blue marble in the middle of a long-forgotten system in the galaxy, a vessel shaped similarly to a bird of prey flew towards it. If one were able to listen in the vacuum of space, it would sound like said vessel sounded like an old muscle car. The craft quickly zipped through the atmosphere, leaving no atmospheric trail behind. The vessel's entry flew past the stationary orbiting space station currently sitting in high orbit. In fact, it was at the perfect orbit for a space elevator, something that it had.
Ignoring the impressive, primitive, architecture the vessel flew down towards the planet's surface-skimming past the cloud layer. It followed its guidance system which took it to the side of the planet that was currently shrouded in darkness. Night. The moon was large this night. Such a scene on many an inhabited world would be cause for romantic rendezvous for lovers. The pilot looked down at the dying planet and was unimpressed. This wouldn't be the first world that he came across where the civilization was dead before it could leave its cradle.
Down on the surface below on a small beach somehow spared the desertification and perilous waters that made up a majority of the planet. A small gaggle of teenagers on the cusp of adulthood celebrated their most recent victory against a foe much larger and more powerful than them. They had just finished having a cookout provided by their caretakers after exploring a small remnant of the Old World. A remnant who was both similar and different from them. It was eerie just how similar to each other they were. Their celebration was starting to wind down to the point at which they were all looking at the stars, wondering all about that. You know, if there's life out there or if we're the only things alive in the universe on this dying ball of dirt.
"You ever wonder what's up there?" Zero Two asked.
"Like what?" Hiro asked in return.
"Maybe someone up there is wondering what it's like here."
"I guess… do you think we'll ever meet them?" Hiro asked again, looking at the girl that called him 'Darling' on a regular basis.
"I hope so, don't you?" she looked at her 'Darling' in return with a smile.
There was a rumbling in the distance but the children on the beach wrote it off as a transport headed towards the Plantation. But there was something… different about it. The engine sounded off. It was less of a high-pitched whine, but more of a guttural growl. Actually, it seems to be getting closer. This piqued the interest of all the children and they started to sit up and turn towards where that guttural growl was coming from. They stood up and turned around, almost in unison, and were immediately fell on their backs as something passed extremely fast overhead, that guttural roaring intense as it passed over. Well, it wasn't that loud, but in comparison to the very quiet night, it was loud. It flew over the village that they visited earlier in the day and turned around, only to hover over it for a few short moments before landing.
The children looked at each other as the whine of engines started to wind down in the distance.
"What was that?" Kokoro asked.
"That was definitely not an APE aircraft," Ichigo remarked.
"What makes you say that?" Futoshi asked with a slight head tilt.
"APE transports are much slower and much bulkier. That was extremely fast and slim," Ichigo pointed out.
"Agreed," Zero Two chimed in, "that was definitely not one of ours."
"So, if it wasn't ours, whose is it?" Zorome asked the now silent crowd of children.
"We go check it out!" Zero Two said with gusto, grabbing Hiro's arm. She dragged him along towards the path that led towards the village.
"Wait up!" Ichigo shouted in return, both out of annoyance as well as jealousy that her crush was taken by the newbie.
While the children were rushing back to the village, the adults in charge of them were starting to get worried. All of their surveillance equipment started having noticeable loops in their feed. Their equipment was top of the line quality granted to them via both Doctor Franxx as well as Papa to monitor Zero Two's progress as well as the enigma that was Hiro, in terms of biology that was. For all intents and purposes, he should be very, very dead right now if Code 02's records were anything to go by with her previous partners. Papa and the APE council were very interested in his progress and condition. They said that it would have an impact on future Parasite development if proven useful.
While the adults were freaking the fresh hell out, there was something going on in the vessel itself. The circular doors open letting lose a hissing noise as the outside air and the pressurized cabin equalized their pressure to each other. The pilot steps out landing several feet below the hovering craft with the gracefulness of a feline without bending down into the 'superhero landing' pose. The skeletal-looking mask gave him the look of a red, glowing-eyed skull with a rebreather over the mouth. He straightened out his leather trenchcoat made from some animal on some far away world and started to walk towards the village he had scanned.
There was a mist slowly rolling in from the sea that was slowly coating the little village in an eerie white, translucent sheet. There was a buzzing hum as something floated behind his head. It moved towards his shoulder and perched itself on it like some kind of trained raptor. He pulled out a boxy device and turned it on with a button press. It sputtered and sparked and in return, he slapped the side of it. It finally started to work and projected a hologram which started to map the surrounding buildings. As it did, it seemed to calculate where once standing structures stood with people, humans, walking the streets. Eventually, the road he was standing on lit up red and he started to follow it. The silent streets filled with the hum of a holographic projector and the sound of boots on the street.
Meanwhile, the children had entered the now dark, foggy, deserted village. It was much creepier now than earlier during the day. Every little sound echoed a hundred-fold making even the sound of a nail hitting the concrete feel like a tree being felled in volume. As they walked further into the village they noticed that they weren't alone. They heard the sound of boots hitting the asphalt in a slow walk. In fact, it was moving towards them.
"Quick, hide!" Ichigo commanded. The children searched for open storefronts and alleyways to hide in. They scampered into them and flattened themselves against the walls just in time to hear boot footfalls. They were slow and loud in the silent village.
The footfalls approached them and stopped. They heard a humming and saw what looked like ghosts wandering the streets, buying merchandise, and so on. What they found that was interesting from these 'ghosts' was that there were children next to adults and even adults holding children fondly. There appeared to be some kind of square beam as it swept in another direction the ghosts disappeared and returned when the beam came back.
The only silent thought that went through their minds was, 'What is that?'
The footfalls started again and continued towards them. It didn't take long until the figure passed them. The figure was definitely male and an adult based on the build and was wearing something odd in comparison to what they've seen adults wear. It was a long coat, longer than anything that looked feasible. If Zorome was correct, it looked like a trenchcoat from out of the images from Old World fashion. The only reason he remembered it was because it looked 'cool'.
As for the rest of the attire, it looked fairly normal. Shirt (but it no collar or tie), pants (but they were long and had many pockets and objects hanging off the hips), and boots. There wasn't anything abnormal about the boots. The two most bizarre things that the male had on him were the following. The first was a mask, a mask that looked like it had a rebreather as well as glowing red eyes. The second was some kind of spindly-legged, circular, floating construct with a single eye perched on his shoulder like some kind of parrot that would have once been seen in pictures of a pirate captain. He did seem to notice them as he continued to walk past them. They noticed that he was following the red dotted line towards a fallen building. Once he was a few dozen meters ahead of them, they started to follow; his footfalls drowning out the pitter-patter of their sandaled feet.
He stopped outside a long-destroyed shrine and watched as it glowed red. He turned off the device and placed it back in one of the pockets on his person and continued to walk towards the building in the center. The children continued to follow him and his in the shadows of discarded ground cars and parts of a destroyed building. He lifted a hand and the construct on his shoulder lefts its perch and hovered in front of the double doors. It extended a metallic probe and stuck it in the door lock. There was the sound of tumblers knocking around until the door swung inward slowly. The construct set itself back on top of the figure's shoulders awaiting its master's next command.
The man then reached up to where his ear would be and touched something. Slowly the helmet that he had been wearing shrunk back until it stopped at what looked like an earpiece on his right ear. The man underneath the helmet had sharp features. Angled chin, high cheekbones, blue-green eyes, slightly tanned skin, and short-cropped brown hair. He seemed to be chewing on something and blew a pink bubble before it popped. He pulled out a metal band which had fluffy orange things on the inside and it was connected with a cord to some type of boxy device on his belt. He placed the band on his head so that the orange muffs covered his ears. He then reached down to his belt and pressed something, something that made an audible click. Then he started moving in the oddest of fashions. It was rhythmic in the way he moved. If one was observant enough they would have heard the music.
Meanwhile, the man was lost in his little world. Slowly dancing over the floor of the once used temple's hidden chamber. A large mutated rat tried to jump out at him, but he grabbed it and started to use it as a microphone for his lip-syncing as he walked along the stone floor. He tossed it aside and used a slick of water to slide towards a crevasse in the floor a few meters wide. He saw a roughhewn bridge connecting the two-part, but he was in a hurry. He pressed a button on his gauntlet and rockets initiated from his boots and he flew over the gap, cutting the power as he crossed over. He hurriedly made his way to the top of the stairs to the beat of the music he was listening to until he reached another locked door.
He pulled out a small device and started to rotate it in the lock at the door. After much fiddling with it, it started to unlock in a very elaborate fashion. As the doors opened, dirt and dust falling off of it showing the age since it was last done, he pulled out an orb from the bag around him and shook it, the light emanating from within blinding those looking right at it. He walked right inside and stood in front of some kind of metallic pillar with a large gap between the top and bottom portions, which would more make it like a stand, but the gap had a kind of shield emanating around it, one inside and one at the edge. In the inner shield was a box that looked way too ornate and otherworldly. Even the Klaxosaurs looked more otherworldly than the box.
The man took off the band and let it settle along his neck. He looked to the construct and said in plain English, "Ideas?"
The construct hopped off his shoulder and floated around the pillar-stand, a beam of light coalescing over it, scanning it. It looked back to him and warbled in the negative. The children eavesdropping on him might not have understood the chirp-warble, but the tone suggested negative.
"No access ports, huh?" he asked, the construct warbled in the negative again. "Options?" It chirped and warbled several suggestions off. "Will any of them set off any security systems?" The construct chirped in the affirmative. "When you say it like that it's almost like you want me to die," he commented. He walked closer and examined it. He pulled a discarded metal rod and pushed it into the shield, it sizzled and sparked to the point where the end was now slag. "So, we have a disintegration-ray shield." He looked to the construct again, "Any way we can get it out without destroying it?" The construct warbled in the negative. He looked at the box again. "Well, it really looks like someone didn't want anyone getting their hands on this," he commented.
He pulled out two three-pronged devices and threw them at the doorway which stuck to the frame as if they were magnetic because they were. He drew a long-barreled pistol and pointed it at the base of the pillar. "Well, here goes nothing," he muttered right before pulling the trigger. There was a loud gunshot, but it was different from anything that any of the children had heard before. It was a sharp crack followed by a throbbing, electronic bass. And the latter made sense when they saw it for. It didn't fire a bullet comprising of Magma energy, but a dark red bolt of pure energy. It buried itself in the pedestal and the shield buckled. He fired several more times until both shields fluctuated and failed. He reached inside and pulled the floating cube out of the pedestal, to which the doors shook and started to close. He tapped a button on his gauntlet and the three-pronged jacks opened and emitted a strange field which caused the doors to stop where they were.
From the formerly patterned ceiling, double-barreled turrets lowered from all four corners of the room. They leveled on the man. Without thinking he fired on two of the turrets, turning the targeting systems to slag, said turrets deactivated and the barrels pointed towards the floor. The other two opened up on the man, seeing the red bolts coming towards him he rolled through the barely holding doors and tapped the button on his gauntlet. The jacks deactivated and the doors closed with a thudding slam. He stood up not noticing the children and brushed himself off from the dust he accumulated from his roll.
He placed the heavy pistol in the holster on his hip. Being as close as they were, the children could see it in its entirety. It was an older looking gun not dissimilar from old, heavy caliber revolvers. But there was something unique about this one, it looked as though the cylinder was replaced with something else, something that didn't hold bullets. It was black and octagonal and had markings that looked like some kind of warning. He held the cube that was on the pedestal and tossed it up like one would do to a ball and caught it, examined it closely with a critical eye before putting it in a pocket.
The children froze in fear as he started to turn towards them, but luck was on their side as a door opened to the side, the attention of the armed man pointing that way. His head cocked to the side in curiosity and walked towards the door. As he walked closer he shone the light from the light source he had into the door's chamber. It was small, maybe big enough for four or five people to fit inside with relatively comfortable amounts of room for personal space. More if you squeezed them in. He, for whatever reason, walked inside of the chamber, to which the door slid close with frightening speed. All the children could really do was look at the now empty room which was once occupied by the mysterious man.
"So… now what?" Kokoro asked.
Zorome's smile widened as he got an idea. "I know, follow me!" he shouted as he left the ancient site and headed towards the doors that brought them there in the first place. The rest of the children looked to each other for but a moment, before joining their comrade.
The children ran through the streets towards where the mysterious man came from. The most had slowly disappeared over the time they were inside the ancient temple. All that was left of the fog was a small amount of mist on the streets. At the end of where one of the streets ended in a sudden cliff, add if it was shorn off, the crumbled remains of a concrete foundation seemed to support that theory. At the end of the cliff was a floating craft. Floating as in midair, not on the water. There was a circular portal in the frame where there appeared to be a closed door into the craft.
"Ok, now what?" Miku asked, clearly annoyed by all this running around. "We found that man's aircraft but it's all closed up."
"Well, the door has to open somehow for him to get inside," Zorome matter-of-factly stated, a cocky smile on his face.
"Where, there aren't any buttons?" Miku asked, clearly annoyed.
"Well, he has to get inside somehow, right?" he asked as he started to pick at the opening, trying to search for some kind of purchase on the airtight door.
After a full two minutes of Zorome banging against the door, he turned around dejected at his attempts. "Now that that's over," Ichigo started, "we should head back. We have no idea who this guy is and what he wants."
Hiro walked forward and stood by Ichigo's side. "I agree," he said. "We should just head back."
"But where's your sense of adventure?" Zorome prodded. Before Hiro could reply, the door behind them hissed open. In the center of the circular door, it split open in two long rectangles leaving the other two parts as semi-circles. The entire frame rotated ninety degrees before opening revealing the insides of the craft. "See? I told you it would open," he said before jumping the gap and heading inside.
"Wait!" Ichigo called out and was ignored as Zero Two and Hiro went inside. More like Zero Two dragged Hiro inside. The rest of the children followed and she went as well.
Inside was a veritable 'other world'. There were things that were familiar such as books, couches, electronics, and so on. But they were so much different than they had ever seen before. It was definitely a boy's room, it was messy as one's. Before they could speculate further, the door suddenly shut. It was then the children realized their mistake and went from curious children adventuring into the unknown, to stowaways.
Meanwhile, with the mysterious man. He looked down at his gauntlet and his finger depressing a button that said 'remote unlock: door sealed'. He removed his finger and settled down again from what had just happened. The turbolift that was in this place was OLD. Really old. Old Republic, pre-Rusaan Reformation old. The now worn out emergency brakes had failed and the car had slammed into the pit below him. Luckily for him, he had rocket boots and a heavy blaster to shoot off the emergency hatch and jet out before an untimely demise.
He was currently 'standing' in front of the turbolift door attempting to force it open to little avail. He pulled his blaster out yet again and shot several holes in the long-buried metal. Molten punctures showed where the bolt had cleanly cut through the older metal. One of the bolts must have hit the locking mechanism, as it became much easier to move. He pulled it open and hopped inside before the fuel cells his boots were equipped with burned out. He stood on the deck of a warship. How could he tell? The solidness of the deck meant to withstand many blows without compromising the rest of the structure. Although that didn't really explain the shoddiness of the turbolift door though.
He walked down a hallway, each of his steps echoed as he moved forward. The further that he got in, the more chills ran down his spine. There was something that just wasn't right about this place. As he kept walking towards an open door, the air felt like it was getting colder and colder the closer to the door he walked. When he walked through the door, the room felt like a freezer. Said room though was a three-story expanse where a single crystal sat from floor to ceiling. Against his better judgement, he marched forward towards the monolithic crystal.
He walked to the base of it and tried to see where the top of it was. The lighting was so terrible that he couldn't tell. As he looked at it, he could feel this… buzzing in the back of his mind. There was something about it that was just… alluring. He couldn't look away. It wasn't until he heard the erratic beeping of B0B1, otherwise known as Bob, that he turned away.
"What?" he asked. Bob beeped and blatted at him, mechanical arm-probes waving erratically. "What do you mean 'an hour'?" he asked with confusion. He turned to look at Bob and then the spire. "So, you're telling me that I was staring at that for almost a half-hour?" There as a beep in the affirmative. "What the hell?" he asked. There was a long and loud beep, but it wasn't one that Bob made. The man whipped around with his blaster drawn to see what looked like a console, but this console had a data stick sticking out of it.
He approached carefully and took it in one hand. It was old, really old. Well, it looked brand new from a materials perspective; but from a design perspective, it looked like old Old Republic tech. Before the Ruusan Reformation old if not older. From what the history volumes told, that era had a mass regression in tech to a point of almost Stone Age levels of warfare, tactics, and technology. It took centuries to rebuild the basic infrastructure that the galaxy depended on for communications and commerce. A few more and the galaxy was almost at the point at which it was before the Sith Brotherhood and the Jedi Lords of Light decided to battle each other to extinction.
This could be worth a lot of money. But the data could be worth even more. Who knows what kind of juicy, delicious information was on this data drive? It could put him on the map as the first person in almost a thousand years to discover long lost data from that era. He placed the data stick into the internal pocket on his trenchcoat.
As soon as it slipped into his pocket the temperature of the room seemed to change. That being the once unnaturally cold feeling room became more like a dank basement that had been left alone for years. There was something going on, and he didn't like it. Therefore, his decision to leg it out of there on the double was understandable and rational. It didn't take him long to retrace his steps and leave the odd chamber. The most difficult part, if it could even be called that, was managing the power cell on his jet boots so it never reached the 'danger zone', or that which the power cell couldn't recharge itself. The door that sealed off the turbolift seemed to be much sturdier as it took several shots in succession in the exact same place to burn a hole through enough of the durasteel or whatever metal was used as akin to a vault.
When he reached the surface again, that being outside of the odd temple, something felt off. He looked around and felt that the town that had long since been abandoned felt, less silent than normal. There sounded like there was scuffling of boots against the pavement. Not just any boots, combat boots. He drew his heavy blaster pistol and held it at his side and slowly moved forward towards the cover of the building across the street. Bob extended a probe and reached around the corner; he opened the link on his gauntlet and it showed several black-clad enemies wielding rifles that had orange glowing canisters. If the man was to guess, he'd say that was the power cell or primary source of ammunition.
The soldier (or thug) turned around and started to walk towards the corner in which he was currently hiding behind. He waited patiently for the armed man to round the corner. When he did, the man gave out a sharp, low whistle. The armed man turned around with his rifle raised, but it was too late. The man closed the distance and landed a solid punch right in the armed man's face, causing him to go down. He didn't know if the gunman had nearby friends, so he pulled the limp and unconscious gunman behind the corner and set up against a wall.
"Zap him," he instructed Bob, the droid obliged and pumped the gunman with enough juice to take down a Wookie. He then noticed the gun laying on the ground. He pointed to it, "Scan it, send all data back to the ship." Once again Bob obliged and scanned the foreign weapon. Once he was sure Bob was done, he moved towards the next building for cover. He was hearing mumbling near where he parked his ship. It didn't take him long to find out why. He dodged several patrols that were going around until he saw the crowd around his ship. They were attempting fruitlessly to get inside it. As for why, well, it didn't matter as it was really pissing him off. No one touched his ship without his permission (or were trusted technicians or engineers). They were using saws that shattered as they attempted to get in and those that tried to fire on it got shocked by the active defenses.
Seeing red, he drew his blaster up and pulled another weapon out into his other hand. It looked like a double-barreled pistol where the two barrels were vertically separated by a magazine of what looked like metal flechettes. He activated his helmet and made sure the targeting reticles were ready. He pointed the flechette gun and fired. A soundless puff of metal sliding out of a barrel shot forward and impacted one of the soldiers in the neck. He emitted a grunt which alerted his comrades. They turned to look and see a man holding weapons bearing down on them. One stepped in front of the downed soldier. Bad move, he pulled another trigger and the thrown flechette returned to the bottom barrel of the pistol, piercing the stomach of the soldier on the way back.
Shouts of "What the-?" and "Fire!" were shouted by a commanding officer. They did, in fact, start to fire on him. But their shots were erratic, it was like they had never been in a firefight before. That was... unfortunate for them. Their shots went wide or came up short, none landed a hit. The man raised his blaster and fired, the particle blast landing square in the chest of a man who was lining up his sights on him. The impact of the blast sending him back into another of his comrades. But the onslaught didn't stop. He continued to fire shot after shot, killing or disabling those that stood before him. Eventually, all that stood before him were a pile of bodies of the dead, soon to be dead, or completely disarmed and disabled that were unable to fight.
He heard shouts coming from behind him and there, seemingly out of nowhere, was a platoon of the same armor and rifle-wielding enemies that had been trying to get inside his ship. Seeing as these new contacts looked to be much more battle hardened, he decided to make his escape. He pressed a button on his gauntlet and a portion of the viewport on the cockpit slide side. He activated his jet boots and boosted himself into the cockpit and once he cleared it, pressed the button again sealing the viewport shut once more.
Meanwhile, with the children, it had been a very trying half hour or so. They spent the first ten minutes feebly beating against the door that kept them from freedom. Once that had passed they had decided to just wait and see if the owner of the plane would allow them to leave before they went... wherever they were wanting to leave to. So, they started to look around the strange ship. It had three decks. The lowest seems to be a sort of engineering deck. They didn't go too deep into it as the only way onto that deck was a ladder and all that was down there was a bunch of machinery. The second, or main deck, seemed to be the deck where what looked like a conference table and living quarters were given the furniture there. The final deck was the upper deck connected by a ladder to the main deck, which had a set of seats; one of which had controls in front of it designating it as the pilot's seat. This was the cockpit.
They had already tried to look for any way to get out, but all of the consoles were dark and any messing with the flight stick did nothing. So, they settled with sitting around. Their little tour ended in less than twenty minutes. Then came the pounding from the outside as well as the shouting. It was the guards of the Plantation sent to retrieve them. Whatever they were shouting was muffled by the vessel's bulkhead. There were sounds of them attempting to get in, but inside the lights flashed and sounds of yelping pain would be heard shortly thereafter. This had continued on for the last half-hour, but then, everything seemed to change.
One of the main displays sitting on the conference table lit up and a holographic image of a commonly used rifle that the Plantation guards used appeared. The display seemed to be taking it apart virtually and put it back together. The children had never seen the inside of one of these rifles before, there were so many parts working together to make the rifle work. There was some kind of script going down on another display labeling whatever part showed up. The most time was spent on the canister that powered the Magma Energy cell.
"Guys, why is one of those rifles up there?" Kokoro asked worriedly.
"A better question is why it would turn on now?" Ichigo commented.
Those questions would be answered by the sounds of gunfire as well as the sound of the mystery man's weapon. The gunfire went silent and what sounded like a powered window slid open in the cockpit and a thud was heard before the window sound was heard again. There was the scrambling of boots until it sounded like he sat down in the pilot's chair.
Meanwhile, with the man, he was flipping various switches getting the engine primed to get the hell out of there. "Sweetheart, I need you to wake up," he said into a voice activated prompt system. Almost immediately the ship started to 'wake up'. Power started to flow from the main power plant to each of the ship's primary systems. The children, scared of getting discovered, hid in any nook or cranny they could.
A cold, female, robotic voice said, "Captain, several dozen foot-mobiles approaching with heavy ordinance."
"I know," he said in reply, his hands flying over consoles and displays. There was one in particular that he stopped at. He tapped a button and then dragged it over several boxes that showed as deactivated. Once he slid over them, they switched to 'activated, deployed'. There was the sound of metal doors opening on the hull and the sounds of whirring electrical motors and servos.
The children looked at one of the primary screens that showed what looked to be an eight-barreled gun with two rectangular protrusions on it. But there was a single three-letter acronym above it. "Guys, what does 'PDC' mean?" Miku asked with a whisper.
"Point defense cannons activated," the woman's voice chimed from the cockpit. The status of the 'deployed' point defense cannons changed to 'standby'. There was more electrical whirring and the 'standby' message changed to 'acquiring target'. Before the children could ask or wonder what it was targeting, the PDC status changed from 'acquiring target' to 'firing'. The ship was filled with the muffled sound of rapid-fire cannons firing on an unseen target. If they were to take a guess though, given who was there, it had to be the Plantation guards. They were horrified, there were guards that protected them when they weren't in their Franxx dying outside.
"We have to do something!" Zorome whisper shouted.
"And what, end up like them!?" Miku whisper shouted back. "He obviously killed everyone out there and who's to say he won't do the same to us?"
Meanwhile, in the cockpit, the now pilot was still flipping various switches and buttons in sequence until the ship roared to life. The engines kicking up dirt and loose rocks. The ship continued to rumble and what sounded like engine whining as the engines reached optimum levels of power.
"Warning: incoming projectile," the ship stated.
The pilot looked out the starboard viewport to see a soldier wielding a hefty looking rocket launcher. Not knowing the payload nor the yield and not wanting to take a risk. He pulled back hard so that the ship was at an unheard of eighty-degree angle in the blink of an eye. The hidden children in the back tumbled back towards the stern of the ship in an unorganized heap. The pilot saw as the unguided rocket sailed past him and exploded mostly harmlessly against a cliff face. The pilot maneuvered a much smaller joystick on his chair and targeted the shooter. He fired a burst of concentrated PDC fire at him. The soldier didn't stand a chance against rounds designed to shoot down TIE fighters. One moment he was there, the next there was only a pink mist.
Not wanting to test anything else on this once lush world, he initiated the throttle and the ship took off at unimaginable speeds. Or at least to this planet, this was considered quite average for ships of this class. It only took a minute to get into high orbit and things were already starting to float. This was something that the children discovered quickly as hair was floating like in water and loose objects were starting to lift off their surfaces, like the children.
"Activating artificial gravity," the ship said. Immediately, all things that were floating immediately dropped to the deck.
"Sweetheart, chart the fastest course to our rendezvous," the pilot commanded.
"Acknowledged." On the table, a hologram appeared of what looked to be a galaxy. A circle appeared near the mid-center of what would be considered south-east of the galaxy and a red line started to be drawn from that point, out south towards the edge, and then sharply banked towards north towards the center. "Course charted. Proceed to the waypoint outside the planet's gravity well."
"I know that," he groaned. This wasn't the first time when the computer core had stated the obvious.
During that ordeal in which they had been subjected to tremendous G-Forces for the first time in their short lives, they had managed to put everything together. A galaxy map, a craft that could fly in space? This man was an alien. The displays that showed the PDC statuses returned to 'deactivated' and the green color that had surrounded the boxes returned to red. Diagnostics started to run on them in a language that they didn't understand. They stood up shakily. It was then Hiro got one of his worse ideas, if this was a spaceship, then he needed to get the pilot to land now or else they would be stuck here. He started to climb towards the ladder that led to the cockpit. As he did he saw the moon fly past the glass display above him. A few more second and the pilot was a few more meters in front of him. But then, something happened.
"Gravity well cleared," the ship reported.
"Initiating hyperspace jump," the man said to himself.
What Hiro saw would be one of the few things that would stay with him for the rest of his life. The stars, now unshrouded from Earth's long polluted atmosphere revealing their true beauty, elongated into long lines before they were shot forward as if out of a cannon. Hiro fell back and down the ladder, but he could see what looked like a blue swirling tunnel now. It was then Hiro realized his mistake and heard the draw of metal on leather.
"Goddamn it, we have a stowaway," the man angrily shouted as he pointed his blaster at Hiro. "Tach, run a life sign scan, make sure we're not the only ones here."
"Acknowledged: running a vessel-wide scan for additional life forms," the ship, now called Tach, obeyed. The rest of the children still unseen in the hold held their breath in horror, they were about to be discovered. "Nine additional contacts detected, locations updated to your HUD," it reported.
The man charged his blaster pistol and made sure that the sound of it charging was heard over the sounds of computers and ship machinery. He pointed it at Hiro and activated the laser sight so that it was pointing visibly at his chest. "Unless you want your friend here to become Swiss cheese, show yourselves," he commanded. He turned off the safety which sounded like a clicking followed by a hum. "You have until the count of three." There was no response, but Hiro got up and leaned against the holographic table. "One..." nothing "two..." he pointed the blaster at Hiro's head "thr-!"
"Ok, we're coming out," a girl's voice, Ichigo announced. Slowly, nine other children, barely teenage, came slinking out of the shadows.
"Sweetheart, why didn't you tell me sooner that we had stowaways?"
"Because we were being fired upon and self-preservation protocols state that the life of the pilot comes first," the ship replied.
"And if they were armed?" he asked, clearly annoyed, as the children gathered in front of him.
"Then the decks would have been electrified."
"And if I was here?"
"You would have been fine; your insulated boots would have protected you from the shock." He started to grumble as he gestured the blaster towards under the ladder and to the right. At the forwardmost section of the ship below the cockpit was a small loading bay for cargo.
One of the children mumbled as they were being led away at gunpoint, "Why don't we just take him? There's ten of us and one of him." It was Zorome.
"Because I have a helmet and can depressurize this entire cabin either until you're all unconscious or dead while I would be perfectly fine," the pilot replied nonchalantly. Once they were underneath in the bay, the pilot stood on the other side of a threshold. "Activate ray shields," he commanded. Immediately, a translucent energy field appeared over both doorframes that led back onto the main deck. He pulled up a chair as Zero Two started to charge the shield. "I wouldn't-," there was the sound of flesh being electrocuted and thrown back onto the deck. It was a security shield meant for prisoners, so stun settings only. He knew there were some shields that could outright disintegrate those that ran into them. "-do that," he finished. The one girl that had red horns coming out of her skull was smoking from the shock. He set the chair in front of the door, holstered his gun, and straddled the chair backward. "Tell me why I shouldn't just space you for trespassing on my property."
"We didn't mean to trespass," Hiro said in an attempt to diffuse the situation. "We just wandered upon your ship and got stuck inside it."
"Oh? And how did you get inside?"
"The doors opened and we came inside, then they closed again," Hachi replied.
"Oh, yeah right," he said in disbelief. Clearly skeptical of this.
"Captain, logs show that a remote signal from your gauntlet was sent were you were at the artifact site," Tach reported. "There was one sent a few minutes later that closed the primary boarding hatch." The ship had shown the logs on one of the displays near him.
He still stared them down but looked at the text logs. Sure enough, he was the cause of these kids being aboard his ship. "Fine, it's my fault you're on my ship. But I can't take you back," he said still clearly annoyed. "I'll drop you on some planet and you can start over there."
The children stared at him in disbelief. Earth was their home. Their duty was to kill and defeat the Klaxosaurs. "But, we have to go back," Futoshi said.
"Yeah," Zorome echoed, "our Plantations are depending on us!"
The pilot rounded on them. "You don't know how expensive it is to travel out here, do you?" he asked. He brought up the map of the galaxy and flipped a setting. Immediately boundaries started to form on the map. "You see here?" He pointed to their dot which was slowly moving towards the first waypoint. "This is Wild Space, essentially on the edge of the Unknown Regions. No one comes out here unless they're looking for a huge payday to offset their costs or are some government funded exploration group. You see, this," he showed the box that they saw him grab back at that ancient temple, "is going to be my payday which will pay for what I needed to get out here as well as the next few years' expenses."
"It doesn't look like much," Miku said in disbelief and dismissal.
"Yeah, it wouldn't look like much to you, but some things are worth more than pure elemental resources and there are those that are willing to part with a lot of Credits for it. You should be thanking me for getting you off that rock for free," he said pointing to a new image of Earth, it's sickly image marring the screen. "That planet? It's dying. It's got maybe a few centuries left before it's nothing more than a barren rock. I've got a couple of contacts, you'll be fine."
"But we have to get back!" Hiro shouted desperately. "If we don't our Plantation will be exposed and able to be easily attacked by the Klaxosaurs!"
"I'm sorry, the what?" the pilot said in disbelief. He remembered the Latin words that his grandfather used to shoot around, but the only thing he could get out of it from basic word construction was 'loud lizards'.
"Klaxosaurs," Mitsuru replied, confused as to why this Adult didn't know what Humanity's enemy was.
"Yeah, you lost me. What the fuck is a Klaxosaur?"
"Giant biomechanical enemies that have been attacking humanity for a hundred years," Zero Two replied. It had been a while since she had said anything. Probably because there wasn't much to say until now.
"Yeah, not ringing a bell. Last I was on Earth Bush senior was finishing up his first term in office." He started to get looks from the kids. "What?"
"The United States of America joined APE almost a hundred years ago," Ikuno stated.
"Yeah, and?"
"You don't look to be over a hundred years old."
"That's what getting slingshot around a celestial body a relativistic speed gets you," he shrugged off.
"You're taking this rather well," Ichigo commented.
"Well, when you've been kidnapped by pirates when you were eight-years-old and the ship you're hitching an involuntary ride on gets attacked by the Ascendancy for 'trespassing'-," he had to make sure to include air quotes, "-and your escape pod you steal in the chaos gets slung around a star, you tend to get over being thrown over a hundred years in the future quite quickly as survival becomes paramount." He looked at the now browned planet. "Looks like you did a bang-up job of destroying her."
"Who are you?" Hiro asked.
The man paused, he contemplated telling them nothing. But he figured as fellow Terrans it wouldn't hurt. "Name's John Kazden, pilot for hire. You need something found or transported and you got the Credits, I'm your man."
Probably to be continued in a part 2...
XxXxXxX
Well, there's another story done. And at around 7.6k words. Not bad for a pilot. This was one of those interesting stories that as a pilot could end here without issue, but I think I'll expand on this one in either a part 2 or 3 here in the same repository as a short set of stories. Probably not big enough to be their own thing, but small enough to still store here.
So, in this one, we did have a few interesting things show up. For example, the guns John uses are the NEMEX pistol from Altered Carbon that obviously fires blaster rounds. The second one he used was the flechette railgun which allows for unlimited ammo if you return the round. The top barrel fires, the bottom returns allowing for multiple casualties if they're not careful. The ship that was used was the visual representation of Star-Lord's Milano which is named the Tachi in this story. And finally, the PDCs are from The Expanse. There is also a scene that echoes Halo 3's trailer, can you find which one that is?
Without spoiling a lot, there's a lot of things that I would like to explore in this. Especially since after this story had been created and sat upon for a few weeks FRANXX decided to go a bit off the deep end and go full Gurren Lagaan in the final few episodes. Basically, it would be how the kids would react if there was an interstellar civilization out there that don't want to assimilate them (VIRM). Even if this makes it out of the repository, it wouldn't be very long. Maybe a total of 5 chapters? Less? I don't know.
Another interesting thing about this fic was the complete exclusion of "x POV" when swapping perspectives. See peeps, it can be done! Seriously, that's one of my biggest pet peeves that I've run into on almost every fanfic site, thought I'd shake it up a bit.
But anyway, what did you think of this story? Good? Bad? At least interesting? Let me know.
Also, I can't believe I have to reiterate to not ask me to write other stories that I don't currently want to work on. You guys don't pay me, therefore, I think I'm well within my rights to do whatever I please. And no, I'm not going to start a or so that you can donate so you can tell me what to do.
But regardless, see you guys all next time in whatever I do next.
