by Lee, TD
“How is the new pilot so good already?” I hear a whisper behind me. They have a point, Hiro is scarily good at piloting already.
The Alpha breathes out a laser that hits the launch site and destroys some of the facility. Some Mobile Knights dodge in time, while one colored in yellow was hit at the foot. The yellow Mobile Knight doesn’t lose momentum and continues to attack. The betarots surround the yellow Mobile Knight and lunge towards it. The yellow Mobile Knight shoots a laser at all of the incoming betarots while also swinging its giant lightning induced mace. The laser nicks the Alpha’s tail, causing it screech in pain. Could the weak point of the Alpha be the tail?
Hiro seems to have noticed the Alpha freaking out about being hit. He cuts down a couple of the betarots and jets towards the Alpha. The Alpha launches several of its legs to attack Hiro, but Hiro deflects the attacks. With a quick slice, Hiro makes a large slash on the Alpha’s tail. Squirming in pain, the Alpha starts to ascend into the air. Is it retreating? The betarots continue to attack the Mobile Knights, so maybe it’s trying to leave by itself. However, Hiro is being relentless with the Alpha and continues to slice and dice at the Alpha’s tail. The Alpha’s legs wrap around Hiro, doing their best to constrict his movements. The deformed Alpha’s head opens its mouth preparing to make a direct shot at Hiro. Hiro uses the armor spikes to get him access to Lancelot’s arms. The Alpha launches its laser, Hiro uses one of Lancelot’s arms to block some of the attack. The laser continues and I think Lancelot’s arm is slowly getting destroyed. Hiro maneuvers Lancelot’s other hand to cleave its sword into the Alpha’s tail and completely severing the head off.
A white explosion blows at the space where the Alpha’s severed head and its tail once met. The explosion hits Hiro. Lancelot starts falling rapidly to the ground while still being held by the dead Alpha’s legs. Shit! Is Hiro okay? No way he could be down from just that explosion. He defeated the Alpha, but he can’t be done with this. It’s his first battle, he has so much potential!
The lesser Sefirots begin retreating into the sky. As Lancelot falls, the other Mobile Knights fly high into the air giving chase to the Sefirots. But who cares about chasing a retreating enemy? Hiro’s down! Lancelot crashes into the ground. Some smaller Mobile Knights fly over to Lancelot and carry the mech back to the launch site and underground.
“Hiro!” I yell instinctively. I run for the door, but a couple of guards stop me from moving.
“I’m sorry, but we cannot let you leave until we get orders to let civilians move,” a guard says.
“What!? No, my best friend was in that mech! I have to go see if he’s okay!” I yell, trying to fight my way through the door only to have the guard push me to the ground.
“Resist and we will detain you,” the guard warns.
“Oh yeah? What’re you gonna do, write me a citation?” I argue.
The other guard chimes in, “We will kick you off of the premise and ban you from ever entering again. So, if you want to see your friend, you sit and wait like everyone else.”
I grit my teeth. Shit! Shit, shit, shit! What is this? I can’t even go see if my friend is okay? C’mon, c’mon, c’mon! Whoever is going to make this announcement for things to be clear better do it quick. My body is moving up and down in anticipation. Hiro better be okay. He can’t die already, it’s his first day! He just made that oath, this can’t already be the end.
What felt like an hour passes by, the guards announce, “We have just received word that it is clear for you all to leave this room. However, please allow a Mobile Knight of the Round Table guard escort you.”
I run back to the guards, even shoving a guy out of the way. “Please take me to where Hiro is!”
“I apologize, but we have very strict orders to-”
“Are you Ridley Law?” one of the guards chime in, interrupting their partner. I nod as my answer. “Please follow me, I will take you to your desired location.”
“Good!”
I follow the guard out of the room and down unfamiliar hallways and stairs. We enter a busy area, people in lab coats are running about frantically. This isn’t a good sign. I’m getting nervous, what if these people running frantically about are making me wonder if Hiro is okay. Was there anyone else that may have gotten injured? The only person that could’ve gotten injured was Hiro though.
The guard leads me into a room where I’m greeted with a relieving sight of Hiro sitting up in a bed eating a sandwich. He’s connected to a couple of IVs, but he looks pretty good for someone who was just in a fight against some aliens. He looks over at me and smiles. “Yo!”
I run over to Hiro shaking his shoulder as I say, “You scared me shitless! Don’t scare me like that again!”
“Ow, ow, ow—okay, okay! Sorry for scaring you!” he says, his eyes wincing in pain.
“Oh shit, my bad, you were injured after all,” I remark, calming down immediately. I pull up a chair and sit next to the bed. “So, Hiro of the day, how was it like in that mech? What are your injuries?”
“It was pretty awesome! Didn’t think all of that time playing in the arcade would help me so much when it comes to piloting,” he explains casually.
“Arcade!?” I question.
Hiro rubs the back of his neck as he chews. “Uh, yeah, you know those games where you have two joysticks and stuff? I play those all the time at the arcade and I guess it helped with being inside Lancelot. And don’t worry about my injuries too much. I can’t quite feel my legs right now because they were getting crushed a bit by that Alpha, but they should be fine.”
“Wait what? You can’t feel your legs?” I don’t understand anything that he’s trying to tell me.
“Well, once you’re in the Mobile Knight you’re connected to it, so anything they feel, you would feel too. So because the legs of Lancelot were getting crushed, mine felt like that too. It’s a nerve thing, but I just need a bit of rest and my legs should be working fine. It was my first time piloting after all, so I’m sure it’s just my body getting used to it,” he explains as he keeps eating.
“That sounds painful.”
“It was,” he chuckles. He’s chuckling!?
The door opens and a familiar face comes running in, shouting, “Hiro, are you okay!?” Sadie dashes to Hiro’s bed and immediately embraces him. She’s holding him so tight that he almost drops his sandwich.
His free arm embraces her as he speaks into her shoulder, “Yeah I’m okay, sorry for worrying you.”
They release each other. With a closer look at Sadie, you can tell that her eyes were watering a little bit. She lightly slaps Hiro’s arm as she says, “Wear your helmet next time and obey your orders! I know it’s your ceremony and you really wanted to show what you can do, but you can’t go doing risky things like that!” She continues to lightly slap Hiro’s arm, although it looks more playful than anything else.
“Alright, alright!” he laughs quietly. “I can’t help it, I really wanted to see what I could do while piloting.”
Sadie stops her playful slapping to crack a smile. “Well, you did really good for your first time.”
“Thanks.”
“Um, hi,” I say.
Sadie turns to me, replying, “Oh, I didn’t know someone else was in here.”
Didn’t know someone else was in here? How could she ignore a whole human body in a room? Well, I guess she was really fixated on making sure Hiro’s okay, so I’ll let this one slide. “Well, surprise, I guess.”
Sadie shoots me a dirty stare, as she sasses, “Not a pleasant surprise, obviously.”
Rude.
I wonder if know is a good time to ask Sadie if she knows Mariana, I’m just curious to find out who Mariana knows here considering she was here. I also wonder if Mariana is alright, I didn’t really pay attention to her after watching the fight against the Sefirots. “Hey, Sadie, would you happen to know someone named Mariana? She said she was here because her friend is a pilot, but she wouldn’t tell me who.”
�
��Never heard of a Mariana, but it’s not uncommon for pilots to not disclose who their friends are to people. Just in case, pilots, or heroes in general, like to keep their friends and family secret so they’ll have a better chance of being safe and not targeted,” Sadie stares up at the ceiling as she explains.
“All she gave me was that her friend is a female pilot and that they pilot a Mobile Knight that starts with the letter G,” I add.
“That’s weird, I’m-”
“Sadie!” a loud voice barges into the room. The very presence of this guy changes the atmosphere into a tense one. A guy dressed in a blue and white jumpsuit stomps his way in. Without even acknowledging Hiro or myself, he stomps his way to Sadie. “What are you doing here!?”
“O-oh, Arthur,” Sadie speaks timidly. She looks down, avoiding any sort of eye contact with the guy.
“Get over here!” Arthur yells, his hand reaches for Sadie’s wrist as he forcefully pulls her towards him.
“Hey, lay off her already,” Hiro orders. He tries to move off of his bed, but he’s in so much pain that even moving causes his eyes to twitch.
Arthur focuses on Hiro and barks, “Shut up you Mary Sue! You think you’re hot stuff just because you had a good first day? It’s going to take more than just good piloting to survive around here!” He tugs on Sadie even more.
Hiro keeps trying to move off of his bed, even though he’s attached to some IVs. “I don’t care, you can’t just grab Sadie like that!”
“Hiro it’s okay,” Sadie speaks nervously, “I’ll go with you Arthur, just be nice to Hiro.”
“Yeah, whatever! We have to go now!” Arthur says, forcibly dragging Sadie out of the door before she could even say anything.
I’m completely stunned. Petrified. I have no idea what to even do or say. What just happened in front of me?
Hiro grips the bedding at his hips tightly, his teeth gritting with anger. “Damn, I wish she could see that he’s not a threat to her,” he murmurs, “that she can stand up to him.” Hiro must really care about Sadie if this is affecting him so much. Then again, it seems like the two of them are spending a lot of time together.
“Is this something that happens often?” I ask.
“I don’t know if it happened at all before I came along, but it has been often that whenever Arthur shows up around me, he’s in an angry mood. It’s usually just when Sadie and I are together that I see the guy,” he explains, his eyes angrily focused on the sheets in front of him. “And I can’t do anything because Arthur is too highly regarded here.”
“What? That’s some bullshit,” I chime in, “you’re Hiro, you can definitely do something.”
Hiro shakes his head, an angry sigh escapes his throat. “I can’t, if I even try to do anything I would immediately be kicked out. Arthur is the only pilot they have been able to find to pilot the Mobile Knight Arthur, so he has more importance than the rest of us. Because he’s the special one, he gets away with almost anything. It’s not like I haven’t tried reporting his behavior towards Sadie to someone, but they just ignored it.”
My brows furrow hard as I try to comprehend what Hiro’s telling me. “What? That’s a lot of bullshit man, what kinda place is this that they let one guy slide just because he’s special somehow?”
“Believe it or not, a lot of places are like this. You get that one special guy, everyone else just generally follows and bows down to. It’s pretty common, but it’s okay. Maybe he’s just going through a phase though,” Hiro responds. I can tell he’s trying to see things optimistically, but it’s not flying with me.
“Still doesn’t make sense, but if you’re okay,” I remark.
“I’ll be fine, I’m a hero after all,” he says with a wide smile.
“So, you holding out on me?” I ask to change the subject to a better one. I nudge his arm with my elbow.
“Holding out on what?”
“You and Sadie, you two are together right?”
Immediately, Hiro’s face flushes red, his eyes go wide. His hand goes to the back of his neck. Why is he getting all nervous? The words stammer out of his mouth, “W-well, uh, it’s not that s-simple y’know.”
“It’s either a yes or n, sounds pretty simple to me.” I don’t know what it is about this guy and his relationship with Sadie that he’s trying to hide. “It’s pretty obvious at this point that not only are you two super into each other, but there’s more feelings involved than just being teammates or friends.”
Hiro takes a deep breath and smiles. “Yeah, we’re together. It hasn’t been that long though, just a couple of days,” his tone his happier, very different from when Arthur barged just a bit ago.
Even though Sadie hasn’t been quite the friendly person towards me, maybe just because I’m friends with Hiro, there’s no denying that Hiro definitely likes her. “What do you like about her? I don’t know her very well so I’m just curious.”
“She’s really thoughtful, but straightforward. She might be a little rough around the edges when it comes to talking, but she always has good intentions. Even though she may not seem like it to you, but she’s incredibly sincere about everything she does.” There’s a sparkle in his eyes as he’s talking about Sadie. He must really like her to have this genuine look of awe. “Did you know? Her family owns a bakery. We went there last night and everything was pretty good. Oh! And Sadie is an incredible cook too! You know what they say, the best way to a person’s heart is their stomach! But she made this really good pasta dish last night and…”
Looks like I’m in this conversation for the long haul.
Chapter 7
Man, I thought Hiro could talk forever about superheroes, he talked forever about Sadie. I left the Mobile Knights facility when I basically got kicked out due to the medical team checking on Hiro. Part of me is really grateful for the medical team coming in to interrupt Hiro because he just kept going on and on. Well, at least I understand how he feels about Sadie. The guy really likes her, so I guess I’ll be seeing and hearing more of her around Hiro now.
Weeks have passed since the ceremony. While my life is the usual, Hiro’s has been eventful. He’s doing his superhero pilot thing where he’s fighting aliens, meanwhile I’m being rescues for the millionth time by a hero. While I still don’t care too much for superhero stuff, I’m paying a little more attention to the Mobile Knights solely because of Hiro. He’s been interviewed and has appeared on TV which greatly bolstered his popularity. Most people know him not just from being the newest pilot of Lancelot, but also his skills in operating the mech. It’s funny though, even with Hiro’s dream of becoming a hero coming true, he’s really nervous and doesn’t know how to respond to interviews. He’s really shy about everything, but does his best. When it comes to TV interviews, he has to get carried by the host or any other pilot that’s being interviewed with him. Hopefully he gets used to it and can carry himself.
Hiro’s a pretty hot topic now at school, being the newest hero and all. Any time we hang out at school he’s always being followed or surrounded by a bunch of people. People who never talked to Hiro are trying to talk to him and I really think it’s because he’s a hero now. Are people really that shallow? Even heroes that ignored Hiro before are talking to him as if they’re childhood friends. It’s really weird and I didn’t really mind since it’s mostly Hiro that’s the focal point of it all. Hiro’s reactions are all positive and nice, but you can definitely tell the guy doesn’t know what to do or say to these kinds of people. It doesn’t help when Sadie is around either because even more people will crowd around them. It’s so weird how a simple title just draws people towards them. Normally, I wouldn’t be bothered by these people just hording around Hiro. But this one day, just this one day, it really got under my skin.
It’s my favorite time during school, lunchtime. All I do is eat and I’m okay with that. The school food isn’t the best, but it’s definitely more than edible. Today is Thursday so that means the really good chicken tenders are on the me
nu today. It’s a known thing among the students that the chicken tenders are good, so students will literally race to the cafeteria just to get some. We lost some good men in the chicken tender race of last week…
There’s a really nice outdoor courtyard where I like to sit for lunch. It’s away from other students, relatively quiet, and the rare moment that I’m willing to be outside. I luckily got some chicken tenders, now I’m just waiting for Hiro. We normally sit out here for lunch together. With how big he is now though, it takes him way longer to get out here because of the people that crowd around him. Sometimes Sadie will sit with us, but she normally hangs out with her own group of friends instead. She still looks at me with antagonizing eyes, even though I have no idea why.
“Looks like we both got lucky with the good chicken tenders today Ridley,” Hiro’s voice joyfully speaks out behind me. He sits next to me with his tray on his lap. A blissful smile curls on his face as he takes a bite of his lunch.
A quiet chuckle comes from my mouth. “Yeah, you usually miss out on these don’t you?”
He nods. “Being a hero even has its perks at school. They apparently set aside some of the goodies of lunch for the heroes that want them.” I’ve noticed all of the freebies and special treatment Hiro has gotten since becoming a pilot. Free dessert at restaurants, discounts at certain stores and places, gifts from fans, just free whatever from wherever. It’s pretty cool, especially if I’m with him at restaurants because free food is always fantastic.
“So anything special you’re doing today? Any alien encounters, missions, things of the sort?” I ask. A part of me is pretty jealous that Hiro gets to leave school whenever he’s called up to get in his mech.
His eyes point to the sky for a brief moment in thought. “Maybe, but I do have to do my monthly exams today or tomorrow. Sadie has to do her exams too, I’ll text her to see if she wants to do it today.” He pulls out his phone and carefully touches the screen.