Type: Gen

Cast: Goro - Ichigo - Ikuno - Futoshi - Hachi - Zorome - Miku - Original Characters

Tags: Hard Science Fiction - Romance - Military - Survival - Psychological - Drama - Mystery - Mecha - Adulthood themes - Society building - Longfic

Warnings: Violence - Mental hardships - Disturbing imagery.

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Prologue

Dream with me

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The late afternoon warm breeze caresses the verdant city park, bathed by the dim neon lights of the great metropolis.

Countless green meadows sprawl free before the watchful eyes of the skyscrapers' windows, painted over by orderly low hedges, trees, and bushes, shimmering like emeralds half-illuminated by a full moon now overpowering the dying sunset. Stone-tiled walking paths cross through the park like vessels, crowded by couples sitting on benches, children playing, families resting and lonely silence-seeking strollers, all running away from the oppressive city life to enjoy the end of the day in peace and quiet. All paths lead to the same place, the center of the park, where stands tall a millenarian cherry tree in full flower.

The silent and majestic guardian. Old as the city itself, its wide and knobby bark is engraved by the old crevices of time and is washed by humid, mellow-scented moss. Petal-laden branches shoot towards the colorful evening sky and slowly, in an endless dance, streams of falling petals color the ground, yanked off by the afternoon's calm wind currents and painted red by the last light of the dying sun. It's the end of a warm day, blessed by the boons of Spring's coming, far from the frigid gales of winter.

Inside such serene sanctuary, enclosed by the tree's downward tops like in a timeless bubble, a black shorted hair child lies against the bark of the old guardian among his big, sprawling roots delving deep into the earth. The boy reading a fable book, completely absorbed by those beautifully colored pages, determined to reach the story's end despite his encroaching drowsiness.

Then, suddenly, a pink-haired girl comes running around the tree, ignoring her mother's warnings, and disappears among its big roots, wanting to explore that beautiful world made of fluttering flowers colored like her long hair. Not paying attention to the ground, she trips on a protruding root and slides in front of the surprised boy, pulling him out from his intense reading. The girl aches and the boy hurries to offer a hand to her, who looks at him and smiles, unscratched by the fall before lifting herself up. They briefly greet, then she notices her purse spilled all her candies on the ground. She recoils in surprise and hurriedly starts picking them up to not let her treasure get dirty any further. With the last one in her hand, she turns to the boy and offers it to him. The black-haired boy, surprised, shines at her with a happy smile and accepts it, then asks her if she wants to read his book with him. Noticing its beautiful cover, she happily agrees and sits close to him, shoulder to shoulder, with the book held between the two.

Page after page they lose themselves, unaware of the contents of the story but nonetheless captured by the prettiness of its images. Then, slowly but surely, the fatigue of a day spent playing gets the better of them and they fall asleep, lying their head onto one another with their backs slouched on the accommodating bark of the cherry tree. Their day ends there, resting in that beautiful corner of the world.

That fable book is about a story from time immemorial, crystallizing the sacrifice of the same couple of a boy and a girl whose love had no limits in space and time and loved themselves until the very end. Now, for them awaits the beginning of a new story, a new adventure in time without suffering or pain, in a world that doesn't refuse them or drives them apart...

...a world now fading slowly into pure white…

...

SIMULATION TERMINATED

REM PHASE TRANSITION

WARNING: DO NOT DISCONNECT SUBJECT

Hr: 83 Bp: 115-81 C02: 20 mEq / L

MONITORING...

...

The deep orange dialog box's contours eerily vibrate ever so slightly as it appears fluttering at the center of vision, marking the end of the inducted dream. A deep sigh followed by both hands gripping the side of a virtual reality set. Goro slowly and carefully takes it off his face, trying not to drag his glasses off his nose.

Darkness welcomes him as his maladjusted eyes try to adapt to the dim surrounding light, still dazzled from the bright white he just witnessed. In a matter of seconds, a small and almost empty room comes into vision. Dark walls with no windows greet him, decorated only by the faintly illuminated silhouette of a steel sliding double door. At his feet, a sterile white tiled floor, onto which was placed a big steel structure shaped like a sarcophagus, connected with steel tubes to an industrial wall dispenser inset into the front wall.

Back slouched, Goro is sitting on a chair placed in front of the structure still holding onto the visor with both hands, where he passed most of the night on watch. He groggily pulls his back upright as his gaze slowly ascends and settles on the sarcophagus, fixating on the feeble azure light coming from its top porthole window, shining on the specks of dust fluttering in the room's heavy air.

A moment of hesitation, after which Goro slowly lifts himself up on his feet to walk towards the front of the apparatus, careful not to pull the wires connecting to the visor. Finding a grated small object tray affixed to the side of it, he slides the goggles in it, then his attention shifts on the wide glass window of the metal structure as he slowly leans over to peek the inside.

A girl is lying on her back on the internal bed of the metal coffin, dressed in a white hospital gown, with an IV on her arm. She wears on her head a visored helmet covered by sensors, connected to the bed by countless orange tubes and BUS wires and, protruding from the metal lid of the round helmet, a white hairpin shaped like a bird holding onto her bluish hair, falling helplessly onto the cushion.

Her thin mouth is shaped in a beautiful, wide smile.

Goro's stomach instantly closes as his throat lumps. He diverts his gaze and instinctively forces himself to swallow in an inscrutable frown as he stands there, impotent. Looking into the glass beneath him, the face of a young adolescent straight on the road into adulthood with pointy sun-blond hair appears and exchanges with him a droopy look, complete with baggy eyes under sports glasses on top of an upturned nose, accompanied by an expression deserving nothing less than a moment of silence.

It's the fourth time that the same dream repeats.

He places his forehead onto the cold glass to wake himself up to the best he can. Eventually, comes to him the instinct of emptying his burdened mind.

"Are you still there, Ichigo?" he asks the girl in a low voice. Those words fall unheard, replied only by the deaf buzz of the vents of the metal structure. "You're still wishing their happiness, huh? Even if you're like this..." he still wanders with his soft voice, showing a forlorn smile. "You know, I'd like to have your hope... The hope that the future will give us a place to be happy, no matter where or when..."

Eventually, he shifts off the glass stained by his breath and grabs the metal chair to his back. He pulls it closer and lets himself fall onto it, in front of the encased girl. Complying with his weariness, Goro puts his arms crossed on the rim of the sarcophagus as a cushion, on which he drops his heavy loaded head.

"Everything started from there. Two months ago, when Papa abandoned us..."

"It was 'The battle for a peaceful future', he told us before sending us to death. For us Plantation 13, it was the battle after which we were told we would become free..."

He just can't muster the strength to say how that was... so incredibly wrong.

In slow, rhythmic breaths, his train of thoughts sinks into the darkness, backtracking for the dream he lost on the way there...

…

Prologue - End

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Q) What's Learn to Fly?

A) It's, in a sense, a straight up sequel to Darling in the FranXX. It takes place after episode 21, after Star Entity's awakening.

Q) What is it about?

A) It's about Plantation 13 and the reduces of the Second Battle of Gran Crevasse, finding a place to be in the unforgiving and barren world the Adults left behind. The lonely Children will discover what it means to grow up, to take life by their hands and to live a life without regrets, while finding comfort in one another.

Q) Is it really a longfic?

A) Definitely yes but progressing one chapter at a time. At May 2019, I have material for 3 proper books' worth. No kidding.

Q) What's the release schedule?

A) One chapter of 8000 to 15000 every three to four weeks. This schedule may be unstable because of my occupation, but you will be warned beforehand.

Q) Do you have stable or predetermined ships in the fic?

A) No. It's a surprise! Don't come for the slash, come for the plot. But be ready to be slashed anytime. And in very creative ways :^)

Q) Smut?

A) This is gen. GEN. G-E-N.

Q) Ow. No sexy time?

A) Not on FFN, since I don't want to be banned, but in AO3? Hell yes. Actually, I'd prefer you to search and bookmark Learn to Fly on AO3, since there the site is better, allows incredibly neat graphical stuff that works well with the theme of the story, doesn't have security issues and, more importantly, doesn't delete stories outright. DitF ficdom is in FFN, but I'm of the opinion that starting to migrate towards those places might be extremely healthy. Just drop your email onto the invite request form, forget it for a couple of weeks, then get the ticket to make your account. Easy-peasy.

Q) Will there be Original Characters?

A) Yes, a lot of them. They will be supporting characters with full background aligned to my headcanon. The focus will remain on the main cast and they will not take the main role, reserved to squad 13.

Q) Wait... do you follow the established canon?

A) A lot of canon things are not set in stone and mostly left undeveloped like a gigantic McGuffin, so for narration's sake, I will fill in the blanks with my headcanon. Yup. Oh, I was about to forget, for me the canon ends in episode 21 included. After that point, no thanks- it becomes Ichigo-tier wish fulfillment. Refer to this chapter and the endnotes.

Q) ...Where is Hiro and Zero Two? Those are the most important characters in DitF! Why are they not the protagonists? What are you going to do with them?

A) *smiles* Well... DitF was the story of Hiro and Zero Two. If you want to see more of the same, rehash the same events over and over with some details changed, like the majority of the other fics written so far, or want to see the pairing in the proper spotlight in a happy smutty sequel, this is not your fic. This is Learn to Fly, and this story carries its name and becomes a beast of its own. They will be present in the story and will have prominent roles in it, but they won't the main characters. If you want to leave the main series behind and to get into something new with a different main character roster, a story approach that develops in unforeseen ways topped with mystery, adrenaline and good themes, then this is the story for you.

That's all for now. In the hope I've piqued your interest, have a good reading.

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- A little rant from the author -

Hello everyone, I'm FlightInstructor, author of this Darling in the FranXX fanfiction, one among other many.

Back in April through July I watched the anime series like everyone else, not really taken at first because of its strange premise:

1) Doggystyle controls?

2) Sexual undertones?

3) -ahem-Pegging?

Man, my sides were already in orbit!

Coming from Houseki no Kuni I just couldn't take this seriously, so thinking it was the usual ecchi action romp I just followed it shallowly while and lurking in the awesome /a/ threads while not watching the episodes... not being interested in everything else (VEG? It felt so pretentious, it didn't poke me the right way).

After some time, the threads became more and more interesting around episode 5, and was in that time that I decided to pick it back up. Then, going forward, the first cour grew up on me faster than I could imagine, despite all of its relative flaws. Then, when the awwi happened, for me it was already AOTY and I didn't regret it.

Until the second cour.

It failed spectacularly in pacing, world building, narration, out of place characterization... the ending could be handled better too, just... it became a miserable pile of unfulfilled potential. Yeah, I'm looking at you too, SAO, although you were that from start to finish.

So, what happened then? I didn't really cry or became mad for the ending, sure it was thematically consistent, but there was a point where the story credibility went out of the window. Logical story progression started to crumble down as themes like the 'Priest King' and it's concepts about fertility, alteration of the generational replacement and the failure of a loveless society started hijacking the story in a... deus-ex-machina way. There was a moment in the series where the setting collapsed on itself and stopped being about a bunch of growing soldier-kids discovering what is love (baby don't hurt me) in a dystopian society and more towards a make-believe fantasy child story/lucid dream where things happen just because the plot demands it.

But wait, it failed even in the child story department.

"And everyone lived happily ever after!"

"Are you suuuuure, Nishigori?"

It even tried to convey some kind of... moral? Yeah, "Long live natural society"! Praise Abe-sama!

And why going for continuity, weight or consequence in your story? Well... you know you can't bring the story in any direction without conflict? And I know what's up with that, because that requires drama, an external or internal "something" that makes the characters to move accordingly in a direction, each in their own way. But what if drama affects in-story the chance of a character being hurt seriously, or derails the attention away? What do we do? We have to chicken out of course, because the status quo of the cast must remain stable until the end of the story.

But of course, we want significant drama avoided, so why don't we enforce an inconsistent and flimsy support character roster? The Hir02 drama, inside or outside the FranXX, was what carried the show, but having no real character depth from the side cast lacked the fuel for further personal struggle... so, after episode 15, personal drama was thrown out of the window. It was beautiful knowing about 02 and Hiro and their story... but what happens when their story stops developing? Filler mode, activate.

Ah, and let's kick Futoshi in the butt too, he's clearly made for that, being a mindless FAT stereotype.

And Ikuno is kinda cool, except she's a perfect nobody that stalks Ichigo because she turned a character of her nickname around, solving a very nasty naming problem! That's how you backstory, boys!

And way to go, Goro! You are a perfect saint that places everything above yourself! Right into your element being constantly refused, eh?

MitsuKoko was literally willed by the writer, so let's ask Hiro what should I do about this!

And the poor, cute, nonexistent ZoroMiku...

Yeah I'm sperging out a literal review right now, but this is the passion that has driven me in writing this. A mix of my unbridled fantasy applied in world building and lore while still keeping in mind most of the established canon, real world science explaining story elements and mechanics, fleshed out backstory and character progression for every each one of the characters and... oh, just to drive the point home, there are lots of OCs that have that too.

How about that? Wanna follow my story?

I took a liking to writing, so I'll be around for sure.

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