Chapter 1: Daichi J. Mizukawa

I'm having a nice day after school here in Tokyo. Wait, no, not. I have to deal with a bunch of homework needed to be finished for tomorrow, and there's an exam coming. It's infuriating. The homework is a mountain; I'm just exhausted and probably a feeling a teen shouldn't feel right now. At least I'm getting finished with some time to spare. Some time. I can at least watch SSSS. Gridman streaming on my phone, and if I'm still lucky I have some time to spare after that, read my favorite robot fanfiction. My nay (mom) is cooking adobong manok for dinner, a nice reminder of home.

After a blood pumping two-episode marathon of the series finale and some reading, the adrenaline and excitement still in effect from that endeavor, we sat down with my family for a meal. My mother just finished cooking the meal, and my father has just recently come home from work. We started to eat with the television flashing the evening news. I didn't really pay much attention to it, but something about "power" is mentioned. "Geez, you wouldn't believe the day that I had when I was going back home here, you see," he said in a quite spritely, albeit annoyed, tone. "What's with that tone?" my mother asked. "I couldn't tell if you're happy or miffed. Just like always," she teased him. My mother Miranda never missed a beat on my dad, Hiroki's, quirky personality.

"As I was saying, I was on the usual train to home when it just stopped on its tracks midway," my father explained. "The stop caused several bumps in our heads. All the passengers bumped into each other but with no serious injuries." He concluded that part of his story.

My mother gasped at the news at first, worry, and then relief. So did I too. "Thank God you aren't hurt. A good thing you managed to come home on time," she said. "I took the taxi. Don't ask how much it cost. I think you would know." He quite grumbled at the fact. My mother then asked a question. "But isn't that strange. The trains here are not the MRT of the Philippines. I'm not trying to offend my country, but it's kind of a matter of fact there. It was quite a regular occurrence," she said in defense. She then tried to ask another question to him.

But before he answer the question as he looked at the television when suddenly the lights turned off. We were surprised by this and dropped out chopsticks in response. I took out my phone and turned on my flashlight. "Mom. Dad." I called. "This is what I would say the reason why the train stopped. It was also being mentioned in the news earlier." He put down his miso bowl and continued talking. "The part of the city where my train is at experienced a power outage."

"A power outage?" I asked of him. "You said that the part of the city where you lost power?" I asked in my questioning. "Yes." He answered before he got up and said this to me. "I'm going to get the flashlight, okay?" He politely asked. "Let me help you there." I volunteered to help him look in the dark with my phone. We returned back to the table with my dad having the flashlight, my mom still sitting on the table. "Apparently we're having the same blackout here. You know, I do hope that I have someone I know at the power plant," she sweetly said with a smile on her face before it suddenly takes a turn. "To slug my foot into their-" We gasped as we knew where it was headed. "Wow, wow, wow! Honey. Just calm down. It's just a blackout that happened twice. No need to huff yourself there." He calmed my mother with the usual peppy attitude of his with hints of sweetness in the mix. "Oh, you little cuddle cat. Give me here." She then reciprocated with a kiss on his cheek, them to his mouth.

I then followed up with some questions while getting a blush on the scene. "What's causing this? Some failure at the power plant? Could it be the whole city in the dark or just here?". Before we started to speculate on what was happening while getting our bearings up, the table started to shake. We noticed it and thought it might be an earthquake when suddenly a booming sound reverberated through the house. "What in the-" I said with shock and confusion. My mom saw light coming from the curtains, and she pulled the curtains out. What we saw is the start of our and humanity's nightmare. The city skyline. It's on fire. Seeing this would be a sight to behold if it's the only thing that we saw. Above the buildings are far worse: spaceships. Well, it looked like spaceships, but their designs seem not like the ones that we see in science fiction, but at the same time they do. It's like a mix of something that was elemental and futuristic. Those ships are spewing fire from what looks like their prows, blazing the buildings on fire. I didn't know at first what was happening by then, but from that point on, it would never be the same. The problems that I had this day and then now pale in comparison to this, and we would never get another at happiness like before. Because they've taken it away from us. All of it. Those devils from the skies.

It was the beginning of the invasion of Earth. Many ships arrived and attacked many cities in blazing fire around the world in the first few days, decimating anything in their path. The armies of the world tried to fight back, but only managed to inflict minor damages to their ships. This continued for several days, yielding no positive results for humanity, and that was just their ships. It was a different story when its occupants came down to the earth. And it was something we had never seen before: giants. Giants of steel, stone, and vines, the Magistoids. These "Magistoids", as soon as we learn, towering over several feet high compared to a normal human and have an otherworldly appearance to them. While some can be compared to giant robots or even armored knights in terms of appearance, others have the appearance of rock golems and gigantic plant elementals and some have beastial appearance, albeit in metal.While their sizes and appearance can put a human out of its misery in a blink of an eye, they have an ace with them that makes incomprehensibly formidable: magic.

They have magical powers that defy any logic known to man. They can expel huge amounts of energy to be used as a weapon against us; some of the earth and plant elemental magistoids can manipulate the elements around and within themselves as well, changing their integrity and properties as a means of attack and invulnerability against standard weapons of man, the same invulnerability of their ships. The robotic and knightly-looking Magistoids are capable of using the typical magic we can think of from fantasy, and some few using metallic wands to assist them in their chants. If my cousin have seen this in a very different circumstances, he might ended up stoked. He was a big fan. And finally the beastial Magistoids can expel an aura-like energy to envelope themselves to form more beastial forms made of energy. All of them used their magic for the subjugation of the world.

They've decimated everything and everyone in their path. Those who manage to survive either got enslaved or in hiding to survive or to fight. We fall on the latter, as me and my father, along with many survivors, banded together to fight the abyss in order to take back what once was ours: our happiness.

Five years have passed since the invasion, and the fight is still raging on. The year is 5 M.D. - Magistoid Dominatus, but to me, the year is 2023, and now we're veering off to the new year. It would be a miracle if we managed to celebrate Christmas and the New Year in their fullest. I do hope so. I hope. But it wasn't supposed to be. Even though we now live in underground caverns built under what once was the city of Tokyo, housing the resistance and many refugees, it is still not feasible to celebrate loudly as the Magistoids are always on the hunt for any survivors and us.

We've made rooms in the caverns for a range of different purposes, and one of them is my room. My personal space to let off my steam from the bleakness of our lives. I sat there in my chair, reading my favorite fanfiction I managed to jot down from my memory. I've managed to salvage many books from the missions we took and download many movies to my still functioning smartphone for escapism. But what I'm reading right now is my favorite. I sat there for a while when a knock was heard from the door. "Daichi? Are you there?" The voice asked. "Yeah," I responded in return. The voice stated his purpose in visiting. "I'm here to tell you that we are going to strategize our battle plan for our new mission." I put down my notebook then took a momento with me: a metallic badge that was in the shape of a robot's head. I looked at it, and the thing that I thought was "It's funny." Those monsters should have made me despise anything robotic, but for some reason I didn't hate this thing. I mean, I loved Gridman, so maybe that was a reason, but there was something particularly special about this thing. I picked up this thing on the road one day, but I feel something else happened back then. I snapped out of my short musing and met with my comrade who knocked at the door, Taki Mizukawa, a soldier of the same age and a former classmate of mine who experienced a lot during the invasion, as we walked to the command room.

We've arrived at the command room, its door opening revealing a huge cavern, so large that it can be considered a cave system on its own. It's adorned with many headlights, computers on many tables in the area, huge flat screens on the cave walls, power cables, and two tables in the center, one standard long table and another of the same type; only its proportions are in the huge margin. It would be a baffling sight for the uninitiated, but there's a reason for this. A reason I'm not in total agreement with, but it's for the resistance's sake.

Me and Taki walked to the command room, along with many members of the resistance, and met with the generals and the leader of the resistance convening at the table, strategizing their next plan. The generals included Goto Goda, a former member of the Yakuza and our weapons specialist; Makoto Abe, a former military radar specialist and now intelligence officer for the resistance; Shinzo Minamoto, a former robotocist and engineer serving as a tech expert; and Taku Hamada, a former police superintendent now second in command. In the center is the one who leads this resistance: My Father. He's spearheading this group for our fight against the Magistoids.

"Sergeant Daichi Mizukawa, reporting for duty, sir."

"Sergeant Taki Tachikawa, reporting for duty, sir."

We both saluted our leader. "At ease, soldiers," he sternly said. "We are now proceeding with the strategizing of our plans. All of us are here now, but let's wait a moment for our remaining comrades to come," he explained in a straight, commanding tone. As I heard that last bit, I started to grumble inside. I just... sigh .... I just can't.

Thuds then thundered from the huge cave near the cavern. It grows louder by the second until finally they come out. Magistoids. Magistoids that help the resistance, sharing the same goal as us, to liberate the whole planet. Apparently, there's something more to the Magistoids than we ever anticipated.

As regrettably as it is, just like humans, the Magistoids have their complexities within them, and some of them didn't agree to this invasion. They can't take the injustice being inflicted on us, and they decided to help. I'm... not complaining, though. We could use some help fighting those monsters, and they do mean well...

The magistoids entered the room and sat near their table. These are the Magistoid Defendatus, the counterpart to our human resistance being led by Ardugo, a hugely tall robotic Magistoid who's appearance has weathered features, signs of being subjected to a long path of war, wearing a tattered cloak matching these weathered features of his but paired with a pair of glowing blue eyes that exudes tranquility and peace, a contrast to his overall appearance and aura. "Forgive us for the delay, as we have something to deliberate privately. Shall we now start this meeting?" His voice exudes authority and power, but with a tinge of softness in it, it sometimes makes me a bit uncomfortable. "Yes. We are now proceeding. Everyone listen carefully because it's very imperative to pay attention if we wanted to succeed." My father started the meeting with his voice starting to exude some grim tone in them as he spoke that line. "Because this plan is unlike anything that we've conducted before. Because if we fail to do this, this might signal the end of humanity." This sets the tone and atmosphere of this meeting. Because it turns out, this would be our last mission of our lives.