Chapter 1: A Shooting Star

Well…I've started another story, what else can I say? Recently I randomly watched Ryuusei no Rockman (I'm pretty sure that's "Shooting Star Rockman" or something like that…don't quote me on that ok?) and let me tell you…it's really not very good. It's not the worst thing I've seen, that's for sure, but it's not a great anime either. It's like a spin-off of a spin-off's spin-off…So you can see how a LOT gets lost.

BUT what I did like was the concept. That's the only reason watched the whole thing, even if I just skimmed the fillers (that and the episodes were like 9 minutes each...so yeah). It was so underdeveloped and poorly delivered, but it's an interesting idea. And then the damn plot bunnies suddenly woke up after going into hibernation on my Ib story. The thing is, with such an underdeveloped plot yet such a good, and more importantly, vague and changeable idea, it's very easy to just change a few things at the start and watch it snowball. I guess I'll have to work on these stories like I do with other stuff, once I lose my muse for one story I'll have to start on a different story tell I regain it for the other story. Not sure if it'll work, but damn this chapter just flowed I had it done in one sitting with no real breaks. So yeah, hopefully this idea will work out and I can get both stories out more. We'll see.

Oh and like I said, didn't like the series all that much, I skimmed the episodes, so if I get anything wrong, sorry bout that but deal with it. A lot of times the anime is vague in some parts, either due to lack of time or just they never bothered to figure it out… But this IS an AU, even if it starts out almost the same; it'll go off on its own eventually. Axl has a way of doing that to things I've noticed, and that's not even counting in Zero. Oh and if anyone has a good name for Axl's Dempan Henkan form that would be great. I can always just name him "Axl", as that would fit the plot decently enough, but the reasoning is weak and crappy…

…and if you haven't noticed, the 'other FM life forms' are Zero and Axl…mostly I guess. OC's turned into them I guess. I really hope none of you have a problem with OC's as though I won't be like those people who throw in as many as they can, I need some other characters to make everything fit. Anyway I also figured throwing them in would throw a good number of events off a cliff and only leave me the barest of concepts to work with and morph to whatever I want. Turns out I was right, thank you vague and genericness~

Oh and only doing it once buuuuuut… Don't own anything here. Hell, I don't own the plot really, as the first few chapters will just be a rip from the anime.

In the depths of space, where only the faint shining of distant stars and the nearby planets broke up the infinite empty blackness, a massive white space station floated peacefully and silently, slowly turning on its axis. Constructed mainly of a large tube-like shape with an interconnected 'ring' at the top formed from various access tunnels and rooms, it was one of the greatest constructions of its time, having been in operation for a while now.

But what its goal was what was really and truly groundbreaking.

Contact, with other (hopefully) intelligent life forms. And not just the old-fashioned way of using radio waves to send an outdated wave length, taking years to ever send, much less receive anything, but faster, near real-time contact and communication were it would only take a few days, or even hours, to send and receive messages.

At least that's what 'The Peace' was supposed to do.

The 'Brother Band' as the single had been dubbed, had never made true contact. A blip here, a few seconds or so there, but nothing that could get more than the barest singles out and receive the faintest traces of info.

Of course, this was enough to get the needed funding so the project wasn't simply canceled like its predecessors.

And today it seems like it would finally get results.

Just not the ones anyone expected.

Suddenly the station began to spark, the energy that had been projecting the waves out into space and to the target they had finally, finally established a steady connection with, was backfired and overloaded the server in a matter of seconds as even more masses of energy and specifically, Denpa energy, forced its way through the connection despite the protection and firewalls. Even when the connection was cut as the failsafe tried to kick in and salvage as much as it could, the sending energy simple crushed said failsafe underfoot and powered the connect with its own energy.

In a matter of minutes firewalls and safety cautions were obliterated by the surge, the database and controls taken over and infected in a deadly-swift attack. The scientist were unable to do anything, as the attack was so swift no one was prepared for it, all of them were expecting a time delay of several days at the least so that within a few minutes they were attacked…

Nothing could be done against such a devastating and swift attack that had been delivered with deadly precision like who, or what they had contacted had simply been waiting for this moment to strike…

And thus, nothing could be done to stop or even delay what happened next.

For a moment the sparking stopped completely, giving the base a fake sense of calm and normality as though nothing was wrong.

And then it exploded in a huge display of light and fire as a shockwave of electric energy and air charged ripped outward, the normally deafening sound that would follow sucked into the void of space like a silent scream. Dust and scraped distorted metal floated out, ridding the current of the shockwave, some continuing into space for indefinably while others hurtled towards the innocent blue and green planet below that was blissfully unaware of what had happened, of the war they had entered of the fact that their destruction was being planned in that very moment…

Said pieces of metal and scrap were so small they burned up in the atmosphere in moments, never being reunited with were they had come from, all proof erased in that moment or escaping with the further scattering pieces.

When it 'ended' there was so little left, no one would be able to tell that such an amazing space station had ever existed there in the first place, or that hundreds of lives had been erased in that single moment, never to be seen by those they loved, never able to warn them of the true cause of the explosions, or that they were under attack, that they were at war.

It would be three days before Subaru Hoshikawa learned of his father's death.

It would be another five and a half months before he knew of the FM Life forms.

Subaru Hoshikawa simply laid on his back, staring aimlessly up at the stars with light brown eyes. For as long as he could remember, he had always loved to stargaze, he knew the constellations by heart and how they changed with the seasons, how to tell what time of the month it was by the moon, and as long as he could see the sky, he could never by truly lost, he had long ago memorized the map that was the night sky. It had taken years of simply staring up at the sky, counting and watching, yet without even know it, he had learned everything he could about the night sky he could from his position on the ground.

Of course, he no longer looked up at the sky as he once did, with such fascination and wonder, but now looked up at it with sadness and a faint longing.

He had always felt like there was…something…up there that need wanted to see, to meet. That feeling had only amplified with the death of his father, until it had turned into almost a need.

And for some reason he felt so...paranoid, like something bad was going to happen. And not just 'fail the 5th grade' or even 'his father died' bad, but somehow ever worse…

Like the whole friggen world was going to end or something.

Letting out a sigh, Subaru tried to wipe such thoughts from his mind. His father had died, and there was no way he could say that it didn't bother him in some way, heck he hadn't been to school since the event, and the only reason he acted anything near normal was due to that he had to be strong for his mother.

His mom had taken the loss hard, grieving for months and not going to work for as long as she could. She was just lucky that her employer had been friends with his father or else Subaru doubted that he would have let her take almost five straight months off. It was only very recently, heck it had only been little more than a week that his mother could smile again. Even if it was a sad small smile, it was still something, so Subaru had forced his own feelings aside in order to help his mother recover better, as even he could tell she was still close to falling into full blown depression, and next time she may not be able to pull herself out.

Of course no matter how much he acted like he was 'ok' he really wasn't, he just pushed his feelings down so as to not worry people. Yet they wouldn't not fade; only become more numb as time went on and he simply grew used to feeling like this. All except for the one feeling of fear, like he was in danger and so was everything else…like…a 6th sense or something. Like when you just knew someone was watching you but you couldn't see them or something. And over time it, like the pain over his father, hadn't faded at all, heck it had gotten stronger over the past few days.

And that feeling had for some reason led him here, in the middle of the night, on a rather cheap green bike he had all but outgrown, to a field overlooking the vast expanse of water that was the nearby bay.

He didn't know why, but here just felt…right. Yeah, like he needed to be here, for whatever reason. So he had flopped down onto the grass on his back, ignoring the potential grass stains he could get on his red coat, so he could look up at the stars for the first time in weeks. And actually really look up at the stars.

Shifting slightly, Subaru bought the green glasses that were the Visualizer over his eyes, brushing a few brown hairs out of the way.

And then the hidden world was reviled as faint, yet still there (and clearly visible only at night), various rainbow colored wave lengths moving across the sky. A rainbow of hues that shifted and rippled in various patterns and shapes, transmitting basic energy and information constantly in something that almost resembled an aurora, just smaller and several at once.

Allowing himself to fall into an almost trance-like state as he looked at the specular light show above him, Subaru finally felt at peace for the first time in months. It was only temporary, only something that could be brought on because of this moment, yet to Subaru it was much needed. With all the recent tension and stress, he was so close to just snapping he hadn't even realized it himself until those three from school had decided to try and drag him back to school…

Letting himself grimace a little at that memory, Subaru tried and simply clear his mind and force the tension and stress to lessen at least a little…

'She's been really worried about you!'

Trying to ignore thoughts in his head that were trying to surface again and ruin his peaceful moment, Subaru almost didn't notice the streak of light across the sky, or the one quickly following it.

But he most certainly noticed when the two lights clashed together, creating a small yet bright burst of light at the collision point.

Sitting up suddenly, Subaru adjusted the Visualizer slightly as if to make sure he had seen what he thought he had. But then were did those lights go…there!

Light a shooting star, a blue streak tore across the sky, before an equally bright streak shot after it, the two colliding for a second with a burst of power before breaking away from the short struggle, zooming off in separate directions only to curve sharply before colliding once more.

"It looks like they're fighting..?" Subaru asked to no one in particular after a few moments of watching the lights collide with each other, sometimes twirling around each other before clashing with a flash.

'But…why would they fight?' Subaru thought as he watched the obvious battle between the two streaks increase in intensity, the collisions becoming brighter and more frequent as more power was apparently used…

And then they stopped, the two apparently…looking at each other? At least that's what it seemed liked as the two lights stopped moving with both only a short distance apart, hovering far up into the sky.

And then it happened.

Both grew brighter suddenly before charging at one another, meeting one another halfway with an explosion of power and light…

But unlike the other times, this one didn't just fade and allowed the lights to move away a second before moving once more to attack. No, it expanded outwards rapidly in a mix of blue and green power growing larger each second…

No…not growing larger…

"I-It's heading this way!" Subaru exclaimed as he realized that the blue-green power wasn't growing so large but growing much closer alarmingly fast…

And it didn't take a genius to know that that much power and energy could not be good for a mere human to be hit by.

Subaru made a move to run…

…and found that he couldn't.

It was like his body had frozen, he couldn't even blink or so much as brace himself for the inevitable impact that would occur, the blast of sheer energy that would probably designate him or something on impact rocketing closer undeterred in anyway shape or form…

…So why did he not feel scared?

Subaru never got a chance to answer his own thought as the next second, the energy impacted with him, bubbling outwards as it hit the ground, and surrounding him completely in…warmth?

For some reason instead of the burning pain he had be expecting it was like he was submerged in a hot bath, the tension in his body forced out as he found himself realizing and sinking…? Sinking deeper into it, past a barrier that he knew was supposed to be strong yet parted for him as easy as air…

And then Subaru snapped open his eyes to a strange world of bright colors that mixed and melded like watercolors, constantly changing in tones and shades with streaks of golden energy gliding around freely in the air…

Of course before Subaru could marvel at how he was just floating there or at the world itself his eyes landed on what was easily the strangest creature he had ever seen.

Seeming to be made of a pulsing green energy, it held a beastlike shape, though lacking legs, it's thick arms surrounded by thick blue rings seemed to make up for that somehow. It's upper body was covered in blue armor with white lines and shoulder guards. But it's face…

It's face was most certainly not human like, more animal like with a thick muzzle covered in the same blue and white armor while what almost looked like a lion's mane coming out the back.

Subaru looked at the strange creature, trying to will himself to get closer somehow to the being…

And then it's red on red eyes opened, and instantly locked with Subaru's brown ones, the glare he was receiving making him suddenly very, very nervous.

And all the while as this was happening, yet another of the 'shooting stars' flew across the sky at rapid speed, ignoring several laws of physics as it did so. Tinted a bloody red color it bore extreme resemblance to a shot of fire lighting up the blackness of space with its heat and power. It had been following a signal it had located a while ago, boredom finally interrupted it had hoped to finally get to a planet with intelligent life that wasn't trying to kill it. And then the signal that it had been following like some trail of bread crumbs, had overloaded before it had cut off. But that wasn't what had peaked its interest.

No, it was the massive movement of Denpa energy, and more specifically, the movement of EM life forms. And with planted AM long gone, the only life forms that could produce such energy were the FM.

And FM life forms were never good news, especially with such an aggressive attack, for that was the only thing that it could be.

The streak of light which had been trying to stay uninvolved for the longest time was conflicted. If it continued onwards to the location of the planet, there was no way it could stay uninvolved. But this was the first break it had gotten in trying to locate a simi-intelligent planet, and if said planet was able to produce such a signal, then they had to have gotten to the age of electronics which would be perfect for it…

And there was considering that the planet was in far more danger than anyone there probably realized.

Its mind made up, it shot off towards the planet, consequences that were sure to follow be damned.

Aaaannnnnddd I'm gonna end it here. So, not much happened that wasn't cannon, which is why I didn't bother restating all the events that led up to Subaru being out on the grass star gazing, as that would be a waste of time and damn repetitive at best. I only wrote that scene because I didn't want to start at a completely random point, and in my mind that just made sense, because then it would be easy to add in the first 'extra' thing you see that'll eventually help throw this story into who knows were.

So if you forgot the events beforehand, just go re-watch episodes 1 and 2 I guess.

Anyway, I've already got chapter 2 started, about halfway done, and it's actually pretty long (for me anyway) because as I stated, here I didn't want to re-write the whole first episode, just what I needed as a starting point. If I had to guess, I think it'll be just under double this chapter in length.

Oh and feel free to ask questions if you have any.