Vandread Fan Fiction ❯ The Biggest Dreamer: Vandread the Alternate Stage ❯ Prologue ( Prologue )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: shadowD 
Anime/Manga: Vandread Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Adventure / Action | Type: Self Insertion | Uploaded On: 03.26.2003 | Updated On: 03.26.2003 | Pages: 3 | Words: 4.2K | Visits: 561 | Status: Work In Progress
Anime/Manga: Vandread Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Adventure / Action | Type: Self Insertion | Uploaded On: 03.26.2003 | Updated On: 03.26.2003 | Pages: 3 | Words: 4.2K | Visits: 561 | Status: Work In Progress
There's something only you can do
So that this blue planet doesn't lose its light
There's no map of how to live, that's why we're free
You can go anywhere
Run faster than the wind!
Aim farther than the skies!
You can meet a new you
Unknown courage sleeps in your heart, and when you realize
The downpour in your heart
Will surely stop... show me your brave heart
- "Brave Heart," Digimon 01
Vandread: The Alternate Stage
Part of the "Biggest Dreamer" storyline
Prologue
With a final scream, the final surreal layer of the quantum universe faded away, and in one dizzying flash the multiple, partitioned worlds merged back together, fusing itself one once more.
The warp jump was complete.
The boy found himself sitting on a cold, hard -- and most important of all, solid -- surface, indicating the completion of his transit past the Fourth Wall, and into yet another dimension. His head throbbed painfully, blood pounding at his temples. The residue effects of the warp jump aside, it was a few moments before he could gather himself from the horrible images that kept flashing past his mind involuntarily.
Syun Ukiya. Ruriko Ikusawa. Kaoru Konoe. Reiji Kageyama.
Yukino Houjou.
And most importantly, a cybernetic soldier known only as Tekkaman Razor. He had battled against and nearly lost his life to the Tekkaman warrior no more than five minutes ago, and through his adversary he had learned that he was not the only Avatar in the anime worlds. He had learned the meaning of defeat and destruction -- the Tekkaman had been terrifyingly powerful, and for the slightest fraction of a second he had stared into the eyes of Death, confronted with his own mortality for the first time in his life. He had learned the true nature of the enemy, as well as the significance of the Nine Essences, and the insignificance of it all.
But I've won, he uttered, his voice a listless whisper. AEGIS was not destroyed. The GateKeepers live, and the Fourth Wall remains intact.
Tekkaman Razor's mocking laughter echoed in his ears. You will become one of us, the Avatar had rasped in his final moments before his death. You already have.
With a deep breath the boy calmed himself. Regardless of what logical thought told him, the wrenching feeling in his gut didn't make him feel like he'd won at all. Heck, he wasn't sure if there was even a winner at all. The meaning of the Tekkaman's words needed pondering over, but he'd best focus on here and now for the time being.
He wasn't surprised to find that his clothes had changed once more. His PET and backpack remained, as they always did, but his garb had shifted from the Tategami high school uniform to something that could be best described as a dull orange hybrid between a coat and a shirt, two buttons fastening it shut across his body on his right ribcage with sleeves that ran to his shoulders. A black, single-piece bodysuit was worn underneath, and a pair of faded green baggy pants concealed his lower body, tapering off at the ankles where a leather boots covered his feet. A steel dogtag that hung from his neck via a piece of coarse rope which, along with a piece of peach-colored cloth, tied around his waist in a knot that served as a belt, completed his ensemble. Somewhat too dull and unconventional for his tastes, but it was clean and comfortable, and it was all he had right now.
It would have to do.
He didn't like what he saw. Rust-colored structures of steel rose all around him in dizzying towers like half-completed skyscrapers, exposed walkways and girders weaving themselves into a complex maze. It took him several moments for him to realize that this steel abomination was not just a mere building -- it stretched out almost as far as he could see from his vantage point, forming vast complexes of paths and smaller sub-structures, with giant monitors suspended almost everywhere, displaying either programmes, advertisements or government propaganda in endless loops. All in all, the landscape before him was apparently man-made, yet struck him as uncannily alien.
The realization that the vast network that laid out before him was, in fact, a metropolitan city came to him with a frown. With a flick of his wrist his PET flipped open, revealing a small keyboard and rectangular LCD screen. It had been a keepsake from Celia when he had first breached the Fourth Wall into the anime multiverse, a small, portable multi-purpose computer, a digital assistant of sorts that he had quickly found to be invaluable. In addition to acting as the initializer for his warp jumps, his PET -- or PErsonal Terminal -- was crucial for identifying the manner of the paradigm shifts he had experienced, and was no less than James Bondian in its various other functions. For a while he had puzzled over how the small machine Velcro-ed to his left forearm was capable of the functions and processing power that it was, but as time passed, he had simply chosen to accept it as an odd law of the anime worlds, one that he could neither understand nor deny.
"Hayashi Ichiro," he read out aloud, repeating it several times under his breath to accustomize himself to it. It would serve as his identity for as long as he remained in this universe. The next few lines of displayed data told him enough for him to deduce the nature of the strangely alien world he found himself in now. He stifled back a yawn as a wave of fatigue washed over him. His wounds had recovered as he warp jumped, but not his vitality, and the fight against Tekkaman Razor had taken a lot of that out of him.
With an effort, he conquered his weariness, locking it away into a corner of his mind. Lethargy was a mere illusion, and one's true strength lay not in the body, but in the mind. Besides, he would have plenty of time to rest later.
It was time to look for Hibiki Tokai.
~*~
"Look at this, everyone!!"
"Every day we put our hearts and souls into polishing parts like this one, parts that will be carted off to be assembled into a complete Vanguard. Being third-class citizens ourselves, we can never hope to see the complete fruit of our work. But do you guys know that somebody in this room came to me that other day and claimed that he could bring back a complete Vanguard, with this very part on it, for everyone to see?!"
Hibiki Tokai, mechanic and third-class citizen of Taraak, sat alone in his apartment. The blinds were drawn, allowing only a few shafts of light from outside to spear into the room that provided him with his sole illumination. Tools, equipment and various other items were strewn haphazardly across the floor, which Hibiki sat at the very middle of, his hands clenched into fists as he attended to himself and his thoughts in the darkness.
He was really, REALLY beginning to wish that he hadn't said what he had said.
"And the guy who's going to pull this off is... the one and only!! Hibiki Tokai!"
"That's what you said, right Hibiki?! You're going to steal one of the Vanguards from the Ikazuchi, and show the rest of us third-class citizens the ultimate fighting machine of the Taraak Empire that we've never had the chance to see!!"
"Doshtano, Hibiki? Why the silence now? Don't you have anything to say today because everything you told me before were just a big pack of lies?"
"After all, we all know that you say stupid things from time to time, and there's no chance..."
That was when his patience had finally snapped, and his male pride gained the upper hand in the struggle against his logical thinking. True, all he had said before were no more than a pack of lies, a boast to make himself appear to be more than he was. Wistful dreaming had made him say it the first time, but it was utter foolishness that had driven him to repeat it again. In other words, he had been a idiot, and an unforgivably big one too, at that.
"I wasn't lying about that, damn it!! And if you really want to see one that badly, you're going to get one!"
"Everyone!! Did you hear what he just said?!?"
The resounding cheers had been deafening. For a while he had actually believed that he had said the right thing... after all, nobody had ever cheered him like this before in his life. But the euphoria had quickly faded after he left the dining hall, leaving him to face the near-unthinkable consequences his pride and words had left him with. For a third-class citizen to even show his face anywhere near the upper castes of the Taraak society usually meant punishment at the hands of the notoriously sadistic jailers, a fact that he could personally attest to. Daring to sneak aboard a battleship -- the most important and prized battleship of the Taraak empire at that -- and steal from it a Vanguard unit was almost guaranteed to warrant nothing less than death at a public execution, in the most humiliating fashion possible, should he be caught.
"I'm really stupid, aren't I? Never thinking before I speak... why'd I have to get so carried away? Stupid..."
But... what if he wasn't caught?
Was his pride worth risking his life for?
What life? he barked inwardly at himself. The 'life' he forced himself through, day after day, slaving his measly self out for a day's worth of rations to keep himself alive just enough to repeat the process the next day, was hardly a life. Pride was all he had, to live through every day with his head held high. They all looked down on him, but he wasn't going to give them the pleasure of seeing him suffer just because of it. He was sick of it all, and before him lay the chance to make something out of himself, no matter how outrageous or absurd it sounded.
But still...
It wasn't like as if he still had a choice anyway. Hibiki scratched at his head furiously in exasperation. "Damn it all," he swore. "I don't care how dumb I am... I'm still a man!! And Hibiki, the man, never breaks his word!"
"... I hope," he muttered dejectedly to himself at the end of his sentence.
~*~
"Women are monsters! And men were once their playthings. They ate our forefather's innards, sucking them dry of all life."
DESTRUCTION.
"Over the centuries they have plundered our cities."
OPPRESSION.
"They have cruelly oppressed our people with forced labor. And that unspeakable horror is about to strike at our Empire once again. This is the shape of our most bloodthirsty enemy, the symbol of our sacrifice. Even those fortunate enough to live are left horribly scarred after their encounters with women. But the time has come to erase the memories of those unbearable years of humiliation and degradation."
"The time has come... for our Empire to regain its prestige!"
"My comrades! My brothers! We now go into battle to prove the manhood of the glorious Taraak Empire! Our great forefather, Grand Pa, guided us here! But we will now leave this holy land that we have cultivated with our own hands, in order to regain the pride of men! For today, we have a new power in our possession which will change our very history! In other words, we have now reached the point where we shall clench our collective fist of justice and crush our horrible nemesis, WOMEN!!"
And thus went the speech of the Prime Minister of the Taraak Empire. The gathered audience, standing on a large steel platform before the open-air podium, gave their voices to a collective cheer in response, an audience that consisted only of men, and every one of them dressed in the light green uniform of military cadet graduates. There were no women among the crowd, or anywhere else on the planet, for that matter. The contempt, disdain and hatred both sides of the gender had for each other aside, there was this matter of not setting foot on the planets dominated by the opposite sex. Not unless one had either a death wish, or a fleet of space warships to back one up.
In short, with the twin planets of Taraak and Mejerr locked in war for the past three generations, saying that men and women didn't get along together very well was probably an understatement. Isolated from each other for almost ten decades, the Taraak version of the propaganda sprung from and was driven by factors unknown, but held to the general belief that women were cruel, reptilian humanoids, endowed with superhuman strength, speed and reflexes and a sadistic taste for brutality... as well as well-roasted men's livers.
And today, the Taraak Imperial Army had plans to put an end to the status quo, utilizing the simple, tried-and-true formula of bombing the women off the face of Mejerr. At least, that was the general idea.
Hibiki Tokai, meanwhile, had other ideas.
"We will destroy the vile women of Mejerr, and the strength of men will triumph! The power that each of you hold will help us rebuild the future of our great Empire! The ship that led us to this fatherland, the Ikazuchi, has been revived! And our young men have boarded the ship as its officers! You are the future of Taraak!"
The Ikazuchi was, simply put, a space carrier ship. The space carrier ship, in fact. It was the very first ship that had landed on Taraak three generations ago, carrying aboard it the very first ancestors that had built the male society to what it was today. And whilst the said society wasn't exactly a crowning accomplishment by any standard, it was still a remarkably impressive feat, given Taraak's unforgiving natural climates and the time frame within which it had been achieved -- from absolutely zero to a fairly advanced civilization that had colonized the barren wastelands of the planet within a century.
The said space carrier ship was also currently undergoing its final launch preparations at that moment. It was a fitting testament to the ship's significance to Taraak heritage -- restored to its former glory, rebuilt to a virtual flying fortress and selected as the command ship of the military expeditionary force, scheduled for launch a mere two hours later, with directives to pacify female activity within the space sector by any and all means necessary.
It was also aboard the Ikazuchi that the Vanguards were now docked, the latest fighting machines developed by the Taraak Imperial Army ready to do battle against the women. The very Vanguards that Hibiki was trying to steal in order to impress his buddies back at the parts-manufacturing plant.
And it was thusly did Hibiki find himself sneaking aboard and running through the passageways of the Ikazuchi, attempting to find his way to the Vanguard docking bays while trying his best not to dwell on the consequences should he be discovered and caught.
"There is no force in the universe that we need fear with our manly strength! To repay the great First Generation that began with Grand Pa, we must now combine the strength of the Second and Third Generations! And when the moment they become one arrives, our long awaited dream will come true!"
Two hours, Hibiki thought to himself as he ran, making his way stealthily from gangplank to platform to stairway to ventilation duct. I can handle this. No problem.
Amplified by loudspeakers positioned at strategic locations through the city, the words of the Prime Minister's speech reverberated even here, deep within the innards of the Ikazuchi. "We all feel it in our hearts, the new breath of life coming from the Ikazuchi! Look upon it! Praise it! This is the flagship of the Taraak Imperial Army!"
Confusing maze-like passageways were navigated, surveillance cameras disabled (Hibiki was, after all, a qualified mechanic), personnel and patrol guards slipped past and security locks overridden. He hadn't just barged in here foolishly; he had done his research too. Prior to the takeoff of the rebuilt capital ship, all the new cadets were to be summoned for the Prime Minister's speech, leaving the coast relatively clear, and a few favors had supplied him with all the necessary authorization codes to get past the doors he needed to. Granted, having the Ikazuchi completely unguarded would be a bit too much to ask for. A few workers and captains would be left to oversee the takeoff preparations, but this was as good a chance as he would get, and he had made excellent use of his opportunity thus far.
A thunderous cheer resounded, muffled by both the distance and the walls of the Ikazuchi, dying down abruptly as the Prime Minister motioned for silence, continuing to address the new cadets. "You are the Third Generation of Taraak, the first graduates of the military academy trained to board the new Ikazuchi! Congratulations! You have the blood of the First Generation flowing through your veins, and you are all legitimate brothers of those original eight men, including our forefather, Grand Pa!"
Found it, Hibiki's pulse quickened as he stared at the doors to the Vanguard docking bays. The third-class citizen worked rapidly, drawing a plastic glove and an aerosol spray can from his backpack. Within seconds he had donned and adjusted the glove, coated it with a quick spray from his aerosol can, then, with a deep breath, pressed his hand against the DNA verification scanner set into the wall next to the doors.
"As most of you already know, the main objective of our mission is to end the piracy that has been plaguing our borders by the women circling our realm recently. But never forget that you are on the battlefield, fighting for the proud honor of your forefather, Grand Pa, and your homeworld, Taraak! Work diligently and never allow yourselves to be caught off-guard!"
The doors slid open in response as the 'palmprint' was verified. Hibiki gazed into the ominous darkness beyond, taking his first step into the poorly-illuminated chamber. "Heh," Hibiki chuckled to himself. "That was a piece of cake!"
"Enough time wasted!" the Prime Minister roared. "Why wait for the designated hour to arrive?! Wouldn't you agree with me, men?"
The words were met by howls of approvement. Technicians in the Ikazuchi's engine rooms bolted up in astonishment as the televised speech of the Prime Minister reached their ears. "What the... He's commencing launch two hours early?!"
"He's crazy!"
"Get back to your stations! C'mon, move it!"
While Hibiki Tokai had never seen a Vanguard unit before, the dimensions, measurements and specifications of the parts that his engineering section had been ordered to produce had gave him a vague idea. The mechanic quickly found his suspicions verified as he cast his first gaze on the Vanguards. Lined in their individual launch bays along both sides of the gargantuan docking hangar, the Vanguard were, as opposed to conventional starfighters, massive humanoid-shaped all-purpose fighting machines, designed for supreme maneuverability, adaptability and devastating close quarters combat rather than overwhelming firepower.
Hibiki felt his jaw go slack as he set his eyes on the revamped, scaled-up mechanical combat space suits, their physical appearance far more magnificent than he had ever imagined them to be. "Unbelievable..." he breathed, the doors sliding shut behind him. "The buddies back home are going to get a kick out of this..."
"If I'd wanted to kill you, Hibiki, you'd be dead by now."
Hibiki whirled around at the unexpected voice behind him. A human figure leaned against the doorway, his voice slightly blurred, as if he had just awakened from a nap. The dark gloom prevented him from making out any more features, but Hibiki could see enough to tell that he wasn't carrying weapons of any sort. "I don't, so be glad," the voice continued. "But some do, and I'd suggest you do a better job of watching out for your own back."
"Who are you?" Hibiki demanded nervously as he backed away, his grip closing around the handle of the monkey wrench he carried in his backpack.
It was then did a cold, furry sensation slink past the nape of his neck, and the shock alone was almost enough to paralyze him. Hibiki yelled, groping wildly for the... thing that was now running circles around his throat. His hands closed around it, but it slipped out of his grasp easily, then perched itself on top of his left shoulder.
I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna die it's gonna kill me...
"Hisame!" the stranger cried, aghast. "What're you doing here?"
Hibiki opened one eye. It took him several seconds to realize that the cold object standing on his shoulder was some sort of animal. This did nothing to alleviate his fear -- as a general rule, the few animal species indigenous to Taraak possessed either armor-piercing teeth and talons, sacs of virulent venom, or both. The stranger stepped forward, his stunned gaze fixed on the creature, and Hibiki tried his best to not make any abrupt movements.
"What..." the stranger started, spluttering in disbelief. "Hisame... why... how..."
The snow-white ermine cast its beady stare back on the stranger, giving off a slight chittering cry in return. The stranger facepalmed himself.
Hibiki sweatdropped.
~*~
"Ikazuchi!" Crowds of Taraak citizens gathered on the streets, screaming a collective chant in unison with their fists upraised. "Ikazuchi! Ikazuchi!"
The Prime Minister surveyed the scene from his vantage point above the city. The crowd grew by the moment as more men poured into the streets from their homes, joining in with their fellow comrades, and an insane smile twisted the edges of the Prime Minister's lips. "Your voices have been heard!" the man roared jubilantly. "Now allow me to answer your demands with this!!"
"LAUNCH THE IKAZUCHI!"
Engines and mechanisms began to roar into life as the massive flagship began to prep itself for takeoff. Outside the Ikazuchi, ground technicians cleared the blastoff site immediately as every monitor in the city quickly switched to a display of ship as the pride of Taraak readied itself to deploy, and citizens of the city gave voice to a rousing cheer. Then the Ikazuchi finally blasted off, its primary thrusters overcoming the gravitational pull of the planet, and slowly, but surely, the flagship gained altitude into the upper levels of the Taraak atmosphere.
~*~
"Wait a minute!" Hibiki protested. "What's going on-- auuUUGGHH!!"
The entire hangar tilted itself over at an angle, and both humans lost their footing instantly on the polished steel deck as loosely secured objects came tumbling after them. Thrown completely off his orientation, Hibiki reached out, scrabbling desperately for any handholds and finding none, then crashed against the left leg of a Vanguard an instant later.
Briefly he could hear the stranger cursing in a language he couldn't recognize. "Hisame!" he yelled.
The ermine responded to the call, zigzagging the floor with a wonderful fleetness of feet as it dodged the various bits of falling debris. Hibiki opened his mouth to speak, only to have a boxful of stained, oily cloth flop over his head. He ripped it off in an instant. "What's happening here?!" he yelled.
"We're taking off!" the stranger yelled back frantically. "Find someplace to secure yourself!"
"No way! It's still two hours early!"
"Well, I've got news for you, we're launching anyway! And don't talk; you'll bite your tongue!"
The ermine skittered agilely across the slanted floorboards, performing a jumping dive to land neatly on the stranger's shoulder. Hibiki shielded himself as a second crate bounded towards him, fending it aside, and amidst the chaos the third-class citizen spared an instant to peek out from a nearby porthole. The sight of the planet's surface receding rapidly from below him could only mean one thing.
Then the full enormity of the situation hit him.
He was a stowaway.
He would be killed outright if anyone caught him.
He was trapped aboard a flagship bound for the reaches of outer space, to challenge the worst enemy of his race to war.
"Oh no..." Hibiki's voice quivered in despair. "We really are flying..."
~*~
"Tekkaman Razor," the boy demanded sternly. "Report."
There was no response.
The boy frowned. Had there been any onlookers, they would have found the loose strands of hair that dangled over his features concealed his expression in a rather roguishly handsome way. The Avatar had been late for his report, and it had never happened before.
For him, unexpected surprises seldom came as good news. A brief check on his PET confirmed this. Tekkaman Razor's vital life signs were flatlined, his quantum signature erased from the anime dimension.
The boy stared at his PET for several seconds, masking his stunned shock behind a perfectly unreadable facade. It was theoretically impossible -- the Tekkaman's powers far exceeded those of any GateKeeper at that point in the plot timeline, and he had personally made sure of that.
Unless...
The PET device snapped shut with a flick of his wrist. "Congratulations, Celia," the boy murmured under his breath, a predatory grin spreading across his face. "You've made the hunt that much more interesting for me."
He was looking forward to the next challenge.
End Prologue
So that this blue planet doesn't lose its light
There's no map of how to live, that's why we're free
You can go anywhere
Run faster than the wind!
Aim farther than the skies!
You can meet a new you
Unknown courage sleeps in your heart, and when you realize
The downpour in your heart
Will surely stop... show me your brave heart
- "Brave Heart," Digimon 01
Vandread: The Alternate Stage
Part of the "Biggest Dreamer" storyline
Prologue
With a final scream, the final surreal layer of the quantum universe faded away, and in one dizzying flash the multiple, partitioned worlds merged back together, fusing itself one once more.
The warp jump was complete.
The boy found himself sitting on a cold, hard -- and most important of all, solid -- surface, indicating the completion of his transit past the Fourth Wall, and into yet another dimension. His head throbbed painfully, blood pounding at his temples. The residue effects of the warp jump aside, it was a few moments before he could gather himself from the horrible images that kept flashing past his mind involuntarily.
Syun Ukiya. Ruriko Ikusawa. Kaoru Konoe. Reiji Kageyama.
Yukino Houjou.
And most importantly, a cybernetic soldier known only as Tekkaman Razor. He had battled against and nearly lost his life to the Tekkaman warrior no more than five minutes ago, and through his adversary he had learned that he was not the only Avatar in the anime worlds. He had learned the meaning of defeat and destruction -- the Tekkaman had been terrifyingly powerful, and for the slightest fraction of a second he had stared into the eyes of Death, confronted with his own mortality for the first time in his life. He had learned the true nature of the enemy, as well as the significance of the Nine Essences, and the insignificance of it all.
But I've won, he uttered, his voice a listless whisper. AEGIS was not destroyed. The GateKeepers live, and the Fourth Wall remains intact.
Tekkaman Razor's mocking laughter echoed in his ears. You will become one of us, the Avatar had rasped in his final moments before his death. You already have.
With a deep breath the boy calmed himself. Regardless of what logical thought told him, the wrenching feeling in his gut didn't make him feel like he'd won at all. Heck, he wasn't sure if there was even a winner at all. The meaning of the Tekkaman's words needed pondering over, but he'd best focus on here and now for the time being.
He wasn't surprised to find that his clothes had changed once more. His PET and backpack remained, as they always did, but his garb had shifted from the Tategami high school uniform to something that could be best described as a dull orange hybrid between a coat and a shirt, two buttons fastening it shut across his body on his right ribcage with sleeves that ran to his shoulders. A black, single-piece bodysuit was worn underneath, and a pair of faded green baggy pants concealed his lower body, tapering off at the ankles where a leather boots covered his feet. A steel dogtag that hung from his neck via a piece of coarse rope which, along with a piece of peach-colored cloth, tied around his waist in a knot that served as a belt, completed his ensemble. Somewhat too dull and unconventional for his tastes, but it was clean and comfortable, and it was all he had right now.
It would have to do.
He didn't like what he saw. Rust-colored structures of steel rose all around him in dizzying towers like half-completed skyscrapers, exposed walkways and girders weaving themselves into a complex maze. It took him several moments for him to realize that this steel abomination was not just a mere building -- it stretched out almost as far as he could see from his vantage point, forming vast complexes of paths and smaller sub-structures, with giant monitors suspended almost everywhere, displaying either programmes, advertisements or government propaganda in endless loops. All in all, the landscape before him was apparently man-made, yet struck him as uncannily alien.
The realization that the vast network that laid out before him was, in fact, a metropolitan city came to him with a frown. With a flick of his wrist his PET flipped open, revealing a small keyboard and rectangular LCD screen. It had been a keepsake from Celia when he had first breached the Fourth Wall into the anime multiverse, a small, portable multi-purpose computer, a digital assistant of sorts that he had quickly found to be invaluable. In addition to acting as the initializer for his warp jumps, his PET -- or PErsonal Terminal -- was crucial for identifying the manner of the paradigm shifts he had experienced, and was no less than James Bondian in its various other functions. For a while he had puzzled over how the small machine Velcro-ed to his left forearm was capable of the functions and processing power that it was, but as time passed, he had simply chosen to accept it as an odd law of the anime worlds, one that he could neither understand nor deny.
"Hayashi Ichiro," he read out aloud, repeating it several times under his breath to accustomize himself to it. It would serve as his identity for as long as he remained in this universe. The next few lines of displayed data told him enough for him to deduce the nature of the strangely alien world he found himself in now. He stifled back a yawn as a wave of fatigue washed over him. His wounds had recovered as he warp jumped, but not his vitality, and the fight against Tekkaman Razor had taken a lot of that out of him.
With an effort, he conquered his weariness, locking it away into a corner of his mind. Lethargy was a mere illusion, and one's true strength lay not in the body, but in the mind. Besides, he would have plenty of time to rest later.
It was time to look for Hibiki Tokai.
~*~
"Look at this, everyone!!"
"Every day we put our hearts and souls into polishing parts like this one, parts that will be carted off to be assembled into a complete Vanguard. Being third-class citizens ourselves, we can never hope to see the complete fruit of our work. But do you guys know that somebody in this room came to me that other day and claimed that he could bring back a complete Vanguard, with this very part on it, for everyone to see?!"
Hibiki Tokai, mechanic and third-class citizen of Taraak, sat alone in his apartment. The blinds were drawn, allowing only a few shafts of light from outside to spear into the room that provided him with his sole illumination. Tools, equipment and various other items were strewn haphazardly across the floor, which Hibiki sat at the very middle of, his hands clenched into fists as he attended to himself and his thoughts in the darkness.
He was really, REALLY beginning to wish that he hadn't said what he had said.
"And the guy who's going to pull this off is... the one and only!! Hibiki Tokai!"
"That's what you said, right Hibiki?! You're going to steal one of the Vanguards from the Ikazuchi, and show the rest of us third-class citizens the ultimate fighting machine of the Taraak Empire that we've never had the chance to see!!"
"Doshtano, Hibiki? Why the silence now? Don't you have anything to say today because everything you told me before were just a big pack of lies?"
"After all, we all know that you say stupid things from time to time, and there's no chance..."
That was when his patience had finally snapped, and his male pride gained the upper hand in the struggle against his logical thinking. True, all he had said before were no more than a pack of lies, a boast to make himself appear to be more than he was. Wistful dreaming had made him say it the first time, but it was utter foolishness that had driven him to repeat it again. In other words, he had been a idiot, and an unforgivably big one too, at that.
"I wasn't lying about that, damn it!! And if you really want to see one that badly, you're going to get one!"
"Everyone!! Did you hear what he just said?!?"
The resounding cheers had been deafening. For a while he had actually believed that he had said the right thing... after all, nobody had ever cheered him like this before in his life. But the euphoria had quickly faded after he left the dining hall, leaving him to face the near-unthinkable consequences his pride and words had left him with. For a third-class citizen to even show his face anywhere near the upper castes of the Taraak society usually meant punishment at the hands of the notoriously sadistic jailers, a fact that he could personally attest to. Daring to sneak aboard a battleship -- the most important and prized battleship of the Taraak empire at that -- and steal from it a Vanguard unit was almost guaranteed to warrant nothing less than death at a public execution, in the most humiliating fashion possible, should he be caught.
"I'm really stupid, aren't I? Never thinking before I speak... why'd I have to get so carried away? Stupid..."
But... what if he wasn't caught?
Was his pride worth risking his life for?
What life? he barked inwardly at himself. The 'life' he forced himself through, day after day, slaving his measly self out for a day's worth of rations to keep himself alive just enough to repeat the process the next day, was hardly a life. Pride was all he had, to live through every day with his head held high. They all looked down on him, but he wasn't going to give them the pleasure of seeing him suffer just because of it. He was sick of it all, and before him lay the chance to make something out of himself, no matter how outrageous or absurd it sounded.
But still...
It wasn't like as if he still had a choice anyway. Hibiki scratched at his head furiously in exasperation. "Damn it all," he swore. "I don't care how dumb I am... I'm still a man!! And Hibiki, the man, never breaks his word!"
"... I hope," he muttered dejectedly to himself at the end of his sentence.
~*~
"Women are monsters! And men were once their playthings. They ate our forefather's innards, sucking them dry of all life."
DESTRUCTION.
"Over the centuries they have plundered our cities."
OPPRESSION.
"They have cruelly oppressed our people with forced labor. And that unspeakable horror is about to strike at our Empire once again. This is the shape of our most bloodthirsty enemy, the symbol of our sacrifice. Even those fortunate enough to live are left horribly scarred after their encounters with women. But the time has come to erase the memories of those unbearable years of humiliation and degradation."
"The time has come... for our Empire to regain its prestige!"
"My comrades! My brothers! We now go into battle to prove the manhood of the glorious Taraak Empire! Our great forefather, Grand Pa, guided us here! But we will now leave this holy land that we have cultivated with our own hands, in order to regain the pride of men! For today, we have a new power in our possession which will change our very history! In other words, we have now reached the point where we shall clench our collective fist of justice and crush our horrible nemesis, WOMEN!!"
And thus went the speech of the Prime Minister of the Taraak Empire. The gathered audience, standing on a large steel platform before the open-air podium, gave their voices to a collective cheer in response, an audience that consisted only of men, and every one of them dressed in the light green uniform of military cadet graduates. There were no women among the crowd, or anywhere else on the planet, for that matter. The contempt, disdain and hatred both sides of the gender had for each other aside, there was this matter of not setting foot on the planets dominated by the opposite sex. Not unless one had either a death wish, or a fleet of space warships to back one up.
In short, with the twin planets of Taraak and Mejerr locked in war for the past three generations, saying that men and women didn't get along together very well was probably an understatement. Isolated from each other for almost ten decades, the Taraak version of the propaganda sprung from and was driven by factors unknown, but held to the general belief that women were cruel, reptilian humanoids, endowed with superhuman strength, speed and reflexes and a sadistic taste for brutality... as well as well-roasted men's livers.
And today, the Taraak Imperial Army had plans to put an end to the status quo, utilizing the simple, tried-and-true formula of bombing the women off the face of Mejerr. At least, that was the general idea.
Hibiki Tokai, meanwhile, had other ideas.
"We will destroy the vile women of Mejerr, and the strength of men will triumph! The power that each of you hold will help us rebuild the future of our great Empire! The ship that led us to this fatherland, the Ikazuchi, has been revived! And our young men have boarded the ship as its officers! You are the future of Taraak!"
The Ikazuchi was, simply put, a space carrier ship. The space carrier ship, in fact. It was the very first ship that had landed on Taraak three generations ago, carrying aboard it the very first ancestors that had built the male society to what it was today. And whilst the said society wasn't exactly a crowning accomplishment by any standard, it was still a remarkably impressive feat, given Taraak's unforgiving natural climates and the time frame within which it had been achieved -- from absolutely zero to a fairly advanced civilization that had colonized the barren wastelands of the planet within a century.
The said space carrier ship was also currently undergoing its final launch preparations at that moment. It was a fitting testament to the ship's significance to Taraak heritage -- restored to its former glory, rebuilt to a virtual flying fortress and selected as the command ship of the military expeditionary force, scheduled for launch a mere two hours later, with directives to pacify female activity within the space sector by any and all means necessary.
It was also aboard the Ikazuchi that the Vanguards were now docked, the latest fighting machines developed by the Taraak Imperial Army ready to do battle against the women. The very Vanguards that Hibiki was trying to steal in order to impress his buddies back at the parts-manufacturing plant.
And it was thusly did Hibiki find himself sneaking aboard and running through the passageways of the Ikazuchi, attempting to find his way to the Vanguard docking bays while trying his best not to dwell on the consequences should he be discovered and caught.
"There is no force in the universe that we need fear with our manly strength! To repay the great First Generation that began with Grand Pa, we must now combine the strength of the Second and Third Generations! And when the moment they become one arrives, our long awaited dream will come true!"
Two hours, Hibiki thought to himself as he ran, making his way stealthily from gangplank to platform to stairway to ventilation duct. I can handle this. No problem.
Amplified by loudspeakers positioned at strategic locations through the city, the words of the Prime Minister's speech reverberated even here, deep within the innards of the Ikazuchi. "We all feel it in our hearts, the new breath of life coming from the Ikazuchi! Look upon it! Praise it! This is the flagship of the Taraak Imperial Army!"
Confusing maze-like passageways were navigated, surveillance cameras disabled (Hibiki was, after all, a qualified mechanic), personnel and patrol guards slipped past and security locks overridden. He hadn't just barged in here foolishly; he had done his research too. Prior to the takeoff of the rebuilt capital ship, all the new cadets were to be summoned for the Prime Minister's speech, leaving the coast relatively clear, and a few favors had supplied him with all the necessary authorization codes to get past the doors he needed to. Granted, having the Ikazuchi completely unguarded would be a bit too much to ask for. A few workers and captains would be left to oversee the takeoff preparations, but this was as good a chance as he would get, and he had made excellent use of his opportunity thus far.
A thunderous cheer resounded, muffled by both the distance and the walls of the Ikazuchi, dying down abruptly as the Prime Minister motioned for silence, continuing to address the new cadets. "You are the Third Generation of Taraak, the first graduates of the military academy trained to board the new Ikazuchi! Congratulations! You have the blood of the First Generation flowing through your veins, and you are all legitimate brothers of those original eight men, including our forefather, Grand Pa!"
Found it, Hibiki's pulse quickened as he stared at the doors to the Vanguard docking bays. The third-class citizen worked rapidly, drawing a plastic glove and an aerosol spray can from his backpack. Within seconds he had donned and adjusted the glove, coated it with a quick spray from his aerosol can, then, with a deep breath, pressed his hand against the DNA verification scanner set into the wall next to the doors.
"As most of you already know, the main objective of our mission is to end the piracy that has been plaguing our borders by the women circling our realm recently. But never forget that you are on the battlefield, fighting for the proud honor of your forefather, Grand Pa, and your homeworld, Taraak! Work diligently and never allow yourselves to be caught off-guard!"
The doors slid open in response as the 'palmprint' was verified. Hibiki gazed into the ominous darkness beyond, taking his first step into the poorly-illuminated chamber. "Heh," Hibiki chuckled to himself. "That was a piece of cake!"
"Enough time wasted!" the Prime Minister roared. "Why wait for the designated hour to arrive?! Wouldn't you agree with me, men?"
The words were met by howls of approvement. Technicians in the Ikazuchi's engine rooms bolted up in astonishment as the televised speech of the Prime Minister reached their ears. "What the... He's commencing launch two hours early?!"
"He's crazy!"
"Get back to your stations! C'mon, move it!"
While Hibiki Tokai had never seen a Vanguard unit before, the dimensions, measurements and specifications of the parts that his engineering section had been ordered to produce had gave him a vague idea. The mechanic quickly found his suspicions verified as he cast his first gaze on the Vanguards. Lined in their individual launch bays along both sides of the gargantuan docking hangar, the Vanguard were, as opposed to conventional starfighters, massive humanoid-shaped all-purpose fighting machines, designed for supreme maneuverability, adaptability and devastating close quarters combat rather than overwhelming firepower.
Hibiki felt his jaw go slack as he set his eyes on the revamped, scaled-up mechanical combat space suits, their physical appearance far more magnificent than he had ever imagined them to be. "Unbelievable..." he breathed, the doors sliding shut behind him. "The buddies back home are going to get a kick out of this..."
"If I'd wanted to kill you, Hibiki, you'd be dead by now."
Hibiki whirled around at the unexpected voice behind him. A human figure leaned against the doorway, his voice slightly blurred, as if he had just awakened from a nap. The dark gloom prevented him from making out any more features, but Hibiki could see enough to tell that he wasn't carrying weapons of any sort. "I don't, so be glad," the voice continued. "But some do, and I'd suggest you do a better job of watching out for your own back."
"Who are you?" Hibiki demanded nervously as he backed away, his grip closing around the handle of the monkey wrench he carried in his backpack.
It was then did a cold, furry sensation slink past the nape of his neck, and the shock alone was almost enough to paralyze him. Hibiki yelled, groping wildly for the... thing that was now running circles around his throat. His hands closed around it, but it slipped out of his grasp easily, then perched itself on top of his left shoulder.
I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna die it's gonna kill me...
"Hisame!" the stranger cried, aghast. "What're you doing here?"
Hibiki opened one eye. It took him several seconds to realize that the cold object standing on his shoulder was some sort of animal. This did nothing to alleviate his fear -- as a general rule, the few animal species indigenous to Taraak possessed either armor-piercing teeth and talons, sacs of virulent venom, or both. The stranger stepped forward, his stunned gaze fixed on the creature, and Hibiki tried his best to not make any abrupt movements.
"What..." the stranger started, spluttering in disbelief. "Hisame... why... how..."
The snow-white ermine cast its beady stare back on the stranger, giving off a slight chittering cry in return. The stranger facepalmed himself.
Hibiki sweatdropped.
~*~
"Ikazuchi!" Crowds of Taraak citizens gathered on the streets, screaming a collective chant in unison with their fists upraised. "Ikazuchi! Ikazuchi!"
The Prime Minister surveyed the scene from his vantage point above the city. The crowd grew by the moment as more men poured into the streets from their homes, joining in with their fellow comrades, and an insane smile twisted the edges of the Prime Minister's lips. "Your voices have been heard!" the man roared jubilantly. "Now allow me to answer your demands with this!!"
"LAUNCH THE IKAZUCHI!"
Engines and mechanisms began to roar into life as the massive flagship began to prep itself for takeoff. Outside the Ikazuchi, ground technicians cleared the blastoff site immediately as every monitor in the city quickly switched to a display of ship as the pride of Taraak readied itself to deploy, and citizens of the city gave voice to a rousing cheer. Then the Ikazuchi finally blasted off, its primary thrusters overcoming the gravitational pull of the planet, and slowly, but surely, the flagship gained altitude into the upper levels of the Taraak atmosphere.
~*~
"Wait a minute!" Hibiki protested. "What's going on-- auuUUGGHH!!"
The entire hangar tilted itself over at an angle, and both humans lost their footing instantly on the polished steel deck as loosely secured objects came tumbling after them. Thrown completely off his orientation, Hibiki reached out, scrabbling desperately for any handholds and finding none, then crashed against the left leg of a Vanguard an instant later.
Briefly he could hear the stranger cursing in a language he couldn't recognize. "Hisame!" he yelled.
The ermine responded to the call, zigzagging the floor with a wonderful fleetness of feet as it dodged the various bits of falling debris. Hibiki opened his mouth to speak, only to have a boxful of stained, oily cloth flop over his head. He ripped it off in an instant. "What's happening here?!" he yelled.
"We're taking off!" the stranger yelled back frantically. "Find someplace to secure yourself!"
"No way! It's still two hours early!"
"Well, I've got news for you, we're launching anyway! And don't talk; you'll bite your tongue!"
The ermine skittered agilely across the slanted floorboards, performing a jumping dive to land neatly on the stranger's shoulder. Hibiki shielded himself as a second crate bounded towards him, fending it aside, and amidst the chaos the third-class citizen spared an instant to peek out from a nearby porthole. The sight of the planet's surface receding rapidly from below him could only mean one thing.
Then the full enormity of the situation hit him.
He was a stowaway.
He would be killed outright if anyone caught him.
He was trapped aboard a flagship bound for the reaches of outer space, to challenge the worst enemy of his race to war.
"Oh no..." Hibiki's voice quivered in despair. "We really are flying..."
~*~
"Tekkaman Razor," the boy demanded sternly. "Report."
There was no response.
The boy frowned. Had there been any onlookers, they would have found the loose strands of hair that dangled over his features concealed his expression in a rather roguishly handsome way. The Avatar had been late for his report, and it had never happened before.
For him, unexpected surprises seldom came as good news. A brief check on his PET confirmed this. Tekkaman Razor's vital life signs were flatlined, his quantum signature erased from the anime dimension.
The boy stared at his PET for several seconds, masking his stunned shock behind a perfectly unreadable facade. It was theoretically impossible -- the Tekkaman's powers far exceeded those of any GateKeeper at that point in the plot timeline, and he had personally made sure of that.
Unless...
The PET device snapped shut with a flick of his wrist. "Congratulations, Celia," the boy murmured under his breath, a predatory grin spreading across his face. "You've made the hunt that much more interesting for me."
He was looking forward to the next challenge.
End Prologue