Chapter 1

My sister and I, We always would look to the stars, in hopes of either aliens contacting us, or us contacting them. We never really did have such big hopes for it, though, as our nation, Britannia was a very aggressive one, even at the mere age of three, I was capable of understanding the amount of blood shed under my father's reign, I always was clever for my age.

If they accepted us, and spared us, rather than putting our empire down, like the warmongering dog it was, it was still unlikely that father would agree with them, and would likely cause our planet's destruction. For such a powerful man, he always was arrogant, not to mention narcissistic.

Either way, we were looking in the wrong direction.

The sea, it turned out, was where the beasts came from, and I remember the event as if it was yesterday.

San Francisco, a busy town, with plenty of attractions, was levelled in less than a day, by probably the largest, most scary thing I'd ever laid eyes on.

Of course, since it landed on the North American continent, made it Britannia's problem.

By the time Jets, helicopters, and even the first generation of knightmares took it down, six days had passed, with over four major cities having been destroyed in the beasts wake, Tens of thousands of lives had been lost.

The news, of course, had been constantly updating the entire nation, if not the world, and what I'd seen, was something I wouldn't want anyone to experience, especially my little sister, Nunnally.

At the tender age of four, she didn't really under stand what was happening, as she was far more soft-hearted than myself, and although her intelligence was high for a girl of her age, it was nowhere near my own.

Most people had thought that the attack was a one-time thing, that whoever had sent the beast, if it even had masters, had sent the mightiest warrior on their planet, and would soon retreat, since it had been defeated.

My brain, suited for strategy, tactics, and quick thinking, had quickly ruled that out as a possibility, as anyone with more than half a brain would send scouts to recon the area before sending so much as a tactical-team.

Nunnally had realised this as well, and, right then and there, she'd sworn that, together, we'd take down these beasts, that we'd defend the world from whoever was sending these monsters, and that we'd either fight to the bitter end, or we'd take back what we'd lost, and obliterate the enemy.

That's why we were standing here, The Jaeger Pilot selection program, along with veterans and youths alike, waiting for the final selection of pilots to be announced.

The Marshal, Stacker Pentecost quietly walked into the room, silently agreeing with the discipline we all showed, following him, was the young Japanese beauty, Mako Mori, His adoptive daughter, a tablet in her hand.

"At ease," He spoke, his tone clear and to the point, though he never had to raise his voice.

"Fighting Kaiju is a dangerous business, people, and I will not have this operation compromised by mediocre pilots, therefore, only three jaeger teams will be established today." He said, gesturing to Mako, who flicked an image of the chosen pilots onto the screen behind the pair.

"You've all been through basic training, but it's time that we introduce you to the real thing, the Drift, the intimate connection between both the pilots, and the Jaeger. I ask that those who's names are on the board behind me please follow, while those who are not, Please follow mister Choi to the debriefing centre, where you'll be given further instructions and career paths. Dismissed"

The graphic on the wall behind him was simple, nothing added other than a simple set of three boxes, In the box closest to the bottom, there it stood, plain and simple for all to see, Lelouch Vi Britannia. Many people often thought that my sister and I simply bought my way into the Jaeger program for glory, like my older sister Guinevere had attempted, though that was later proven wrong when I was proven to be the best in class at both strategy, and tactics, with the not so disappointing 6th place in terms of physical. A lot of people shut up after I either beat them in chess, or in the training arena. Of course, compared to the five names ahead of mine, I had nothing on them physically, even my gentle little sister, Nunnally, had easily wiped the floor with me, despite being a measly 16.

I silently looked at the other two Jaeger teams to the right of me.

Naoto Kōzuki Stadtfeld, a decent fighter with skills on par with my own, an excellent tactician with quite the amount of charisma, though his strategic skills were lacking compared to my own. That being said, he was excellent at thinking on his feet, and adapting to situations far faster than any normal person, which brings me to his sister.

Kallen Kōzuki Stadtfeld. A brawler through and through, though not lacking in intelligence, She was a quick as her brother in terms of reacting to certain situations, and though she wasn't as good at tactics and strategy as Naoto and myself, she easily made up for it in natural fighting talent, only matched by our next subject.

The two would make for a fast and efficient Jaeger-team, both covering each other's weaknesses; their trust in each other would easily make up for any disagreements in battle.

Suzaku Kururugi. Inexperienced and Naïve for sure, but without a doubt the man with the most physical potential of everyone here, his reaction time was unparalleled, and his fighting was matched only by his Sensei, who was only superior because of height, weight and experience.

Kyoshiro Tohdoh. Honourable and disciplined above all else, and likely the best teacher one could ask for, if Suzaku was any example. He had a natural knack for strategy and tactics, and where he lacked, he made up in raw fighting power. He knew exactly where to hit you, where it hurt the most, and he could to it just right without issue.

Likely the team with most potential, though their teamwork would likely not be that good for a while, since their beliefs wavered quite a large amount.

Then there of course was Nunnally and myself.

The two of us were perfect together: Trust? Unwavering. Skill? My strategies and tactics paired with her fighting capabilities made us virtually unstoppable if we worked together, just like we always had.

The marshal, who'd simply been observing the six of us, finally spoke up. "I simply brought you here, to wish you good luck," He exclaimed, which, while not shocking us, did surprise us, until he continued.

"It's something the marshal before me did, and it has become tradition ever since. So, Good luck."

And with that, we were quietly shunned off to our Jaegers.

Gawain, ours was called, lacking the standard two-word name, for what reason I simply didn't know, but what I did know, was that it was beautiful:

Its Hull was an almost black purple with gold highlights, and it was easily the largest Jaeger in the entire hanger, standing at a height of 103 metres, easily over fifteen metres taller than any other Machine in the world. Its shoulders were massive, each encasing and extremely powerful weapon, that I'd likely be briefed on at a later date. To the untrained eye, the forearms looked heavily armoured, with nothing else to show, but I could clearly see the workings of a much more sinister purpose, most likely some form of bladed weapon, as they were becoming ever more popular with time. Finally, the fingers of the machine looked like they could do some serious damage if used right, I'd recognise a slash harken anywhere, as my mother was one of the best Knightmare pilots in the world.

I instantly saw the strategic capabilities of the Machine, as it was clearly built for support, with its larger size and clearly large amount of long-range firepower.

The Guren Nishiki, on the other hand, was both much smaller, and much more close quarters optimised, with its menacing right arm, and fork knife that was mounted on the back of the torso, right beside the left thruster. It also possessed what I could only assume was some sort of cannon, on the left arm, along with two extremely large slash harkens mounted on the shoulders, easily designed to spin out of the way, when beating the snot out of a Kaiju. I could also see the slight seam on the pod mounted on the back, but what the possible opening contained, I could only dream of.

I looked over to Suzaku and Tohdoh's machine, The Lancelot Conquista, and quickly scanned over the design:

It was fast and elegant, no doubt about that, as it would need to posses enough speed and strength to swing the two giant swords on it's back, or it'd be completely useless. It had four slash harkens, as far as I could tell, and it's forearms clearly did something nasty, as they were way too bulky to just be armour, though what they did, I, again, couldn't tell.

I couldn't see any more of the other two machines, however, as I was quickly pulled into the head of the Gawain, by none other than my little sister.

'I guess this would be the first time I get to be in someone else's head.' We thought in sync, guessing that the other two teams were thinking that exact same thing we were.

The two of us expected the drift to be more… intimate, to learn of the things we don't mention to each other, like what we do when we're away from each other, but it really wasn't that different than just knowing that my sister was beside me, thinking the exact same things as me, and, of course, that we'd always be there for each other, just like we vowed to do, so many years ago.

While the official age for entering the Jaeger program was 18, they let Nunnally and myself in, not because of our ties to the imperial family, but, rather, the fact that no matter whom they asked, the two of us had always been inseparable; be it as children, or how we are now. They'd seen exceptional talent, and right now, that is what they needed, to hell with the age limitation, as more and more jaeger teams were falling. I still doubt they'd let a ten year old pilot a machine of this calibre, but it wouldn't be too far off, if the so-called ten year old was skilled enough, and had a partner equally so.

We both blinked for a second, then looked seriously at the screen in front of us, "Drop us," We both said, and immediately, Tendo, Chief of the Jaeger command, dropped us down into the body of our jaeger, the Gawain.

The same could be said about the Lancelot Conquista, but the Guren Nishiki's head simply lifted up from its torso, attaching with nary a hiss.

As the screen before us deactivated, and the holographic technology around it lit up, we landed, the head quickly connecting with the rest of the jaeger, allowing the beast to roar to live with a deafening scream as the thermo-nuclear reactor began to spin, the cooling rods no doubt being inserted as the head finished connecting.

Instantly, as if the Gawain was an extension to our very bodies, lifted its hands, just like its two pilots, and took a fighting stance.

"Upper body motion control looking good, commander," I said, silently thinking to my sister that I'd take this one, whenever there was a task that could only be completed by a single person, we either took turns, or delegated said task to the best suited.

"Roger that Gawain," Came the ever-jovial sounding voice of Tendo Choi. "Check the lower motion control, then proceed to weapons and defensive checks."

"Understood, commander," I replied, looking towards Nunnally, as we both agreed that a little show off was in order. The jaeger was large and rather slow, compared to the two units opposite us, but I'm fairly sure that, between the two of us, at least one of us had the skills to make it dance, and thanks to the drift, now we both did.

Responding to our commands with nary a sound, as the well-oiled pistons would attest to, the jaeger immediately jumped off its platform and landed in a roll, standing up as quick as the large body would allow, and activating literally ever single weapons system on the jaeger.

The hadron cannons opened their shells, and charged, being prepared to fire within less than two seconds.

The Finger based slash harkens extended slightly, showing their status as: Ready to fire.

As I had guessed, the extending blade on the forearm, well, extended, showing off a vicious shape that, if it didn't cut you in two, it'd latch on and tear whatever it was stuck in wide open.

And finally, the finally known to me Chest-mounted Diffusion Structure Phase Transition Cannon showed itself, as the various parts of chest armour slid out of the way, it was a massive weapon, dwarfed only by the two hadron cannons it had been developed from, though unlike its predecessor, firing a beam of superheated magnetically guided plasma, this was a straight up laser, capable of sheering through absolutely anything. This definitely was a range-based frame, and that suited us just fine.

The marshal wasn't too happy about out display, but quickly cooled once he saw the other two groups show off as well, the Lancelot drawing its swords and activating them, and the Guren readying its claw, with its fork knife in the other hand.

Then the alarm went off.

It turned out that, since the only other Jaeger in the Tokyo Launch bay, Gipsy Danger, was being repaired after taking a fair amount of damage to it's radiation shielding, after a battle with an unknown Kaiju, it was fast and strong, and that's all they'd known at the time, and because our Jaegers were already ready, and completely checked out, we decided to ask the marshal if the three of us were to take on the threat, as any other experienced pilots were either held down because of their jaeger, or were simply to far away to help.

Thankfully, accepting out logic, the marshal grudgingly allowed us to go, under the pretends that we were new to this, and that we needed to be careful. He even authorised us to use everything we had, something usually only allowed after a certain amount of hours logged in one's Jaeger.

We quickly turned to our partners for this mission, The Guren Nishiki and Lancelot Conquista, who I silently noted had a large blue device mounted on its back, I'd likely be informed of what it did on the way there, as we needed teamwork to take down the latest threat. It seemed that, yet again, the Kaiju was fast and strong, though it also seemed to have an unusual looking back structure, a likely defence mechanism, as they seemed to only grow stronger and stronger the more Kaiju emerge from the breach.

"Look out guys, this looks like a tough one," I reported, "Its structure is like nothing seen yet, and its back looks pretty well defended, don't get cocky."

"I still doubt it'll be able to hold off against our new weaponry, as they only seem to be able to defend effectively against weapons they've already encountered," Tohdoh replied, confident yet calm, and without arrogance.

"Yeah, besides, we'll have each other's backs on this op, so we should be fine," Kallen added, a grunt of agreement coming from her brother.

"Still, stay alert, we've lost enough friends to these damned creatures already, I don't want to lose any more," Nunnally spoke, her sympathetic tone getting to the other pilots far faster than I could ever do with my logic and charisma.

"Stay sharp, here he comes!" Suzaku yelled, himself and Tohdoh easily dodging the attack, retaliating with a punch to the ribs of the mysterious Kaiju, shelled cretin was its name, Dave, it would seem, was at it again.

The creature quickly dived into the thigh-deep water again, and seemed to burrow into the ground, hiding itself from our scanning instruments, all save from the Guren's, it's advanced vibration scanner, capable of finding and avoiding unnecessary flash-boiling of underground water reservoirs.

It quickly transmitted its relative data to us, and we instantly knew where the beast was.

It seemed to pick up on this, however, as it lunged out of the water, attempting to bite down on the Gawain's arm, which, thanks to Nunnally's amazing reflexes, and my amazing knowledge of fighting techniques, thanks to my eidetic memory, managed to dodge out of the way fast enough for our right arm to launch its slash harken fingers, piercing the skin of the Kaiju, allowing the retractable tethers to be pulled in, forcing the now clenched fist of the right hand straight into the jaw of the Kaiju, sending it flying almost 100 metres, the consequential force of the Gawain's punch ripping the slash harkens from the body of the alien, causing further damage.

Our frame may have been ill equipped for close range, but the extra size allowed it almost unparalleled strength, matched only by the Kaiju that might emerge in the future.

The aforementioned beast slammed into the ocean, its now dislocated jaw hanging loosely at its side, as it tried to burrow under ground, before its tail was grabbed by the menacing right arm of the Guren. It seemed to struggle for a second, before a dull red and black distortion surrounded it, it thrashed wildly for a second, until the entire lower half of its body simply popped, glowing blue chunks and giblets flying everywhere.

The fight wasn't over yet, as the beast was still alive, though barely enough to fight, as was proved when the rest of the body was severed into three pieces, by the Lancelot's experimental swords.

"Sir, Gawain reporting," I spoke after a second of inactivity, "Mission success, Kaiju is down, nothing lost on our side, though I can tell that we're quite fatigued from our battle, mentally, that is."

"Roger that, Gawain, RTB, We'll begin diagnostics," Tendo replied, "Guren, we registered a Radiant Wave discharge, how does the weapon perform against live Kaiju?"

"Excellently, sir," I heard Kallen's excited voice say, 'glad to see she's still herself after the rigorous training we were put through' I thought, as I continued listening, "Please, thank whoever designed this thing, for me."

The rest of the 'walk' back was mostly silent, as we hadn't much to do, other than get more used to our machines.

'While we're still new at this, I've no doubt that we'll be taking back our world soon enough.'

So yeah, I had this idea, and drew a couple drawings to get me into it before I decided to write the first chapter.

And before you ask, Yes, there are some differences in the timeline, and even the knightmares (now jaegers), for example, the Gawain, as previously mentioned, possesses two arm mounted blades, and the laser cannon from the Shinkirō, though the prism isn't available, as it'd be completely useless when fighting Kaiju, since they're slow. The ADF is, again, also not going to feature either, since it'd be way too overpowered, and I simply don't want them to have that advantage.

The Guren is a cross between the Nishiki the flight-enabled version, and the Seiten. It has the slash harkens of the Seiten, the missile pod of the FEV, and the arm from the Nishiki, the reason why it hasn't got a better arm will likely be explained in time.

The Lancelot is basically just a bigger Conquista, but it can't fly, the hadron will be replaced by a larger VARIS rifle, as I want them to differentiate quite a bit from the show. The movie never showed any handheld weapons either, so the swords and the fork knife will have to be the only ones, since they're kind of iconic.

The Jaegers are also invented by the same people that originally created them in canon, A.E. Rakshata, Lloyd, Cecile, and whoever the fuck designed the Gawain.

The Siegfried might make an appearance, piloted, of course, by Jeremiah, if I actually decide to put it in.

You'll see a few more Knightmare-based Jaegers in the future, and also the main ones from the film, and whatever I could scrounge up from the wiki.

Anyway, Walking the path will likely be re-written, a big job, I know, but I just don't like the way it started, since I've gone in a completely different direction to the original idea.