Ch. 0 – Prequel to the Sequel
Author's Note: Since this is the first, no zeroth, chapter, this will be the only author's note that precedes the story.
Anyways, this is the story that I really wanted to write ever since my friend started me on Beyond the Black. Of course, I treated that as NaNoWriMo fodder, therefore I had absolutely no planning, no character sheets, no anything except an idea and a crap load of time.
Then I came up with this crossover and I was like, "I already started this story. How can I get here from there?"
Answer: Finish the first story, then do the second one properly. Of course, since it's basically NaNoWriMo fodder, I'm none too proud of it, especially the Mary Sue, yet I want people to get a feel for the background to this story. Hence, prequel summary. This one was written off the cuff like my last (ok, first ever) story, but the actual chapters should have some degree of planning.
The story takes place after Chifuyu defeats the winged black IS in my previous story, but I'll put in enough information so that you guys know what else happened in Beyond the Black. Underlined things are topics explored in the anime, feel free to skip them if you know it.
In a world where science has evolved in a single leap rather than a slow crawl, the entire planet's focus had shifted to the development of Infinite Stratos (IS), humanoid suits of mechanized armor straight out of the pages of science fiction. Piloted by the most skilled women in the world, they were the world's protectors against the incredible power of disaster and the world's best deterrent for war.
10 years ago, while the world struggled for power with nuclear weapons, a pure white IS emerged out of nowhere, a spectacle of glistening metal and mysterious power, nicknamed the White Knight by the media.
Simultaneously, over 1,000 conventional missiles from multiple countries launched, as if in response to this beautiful machine. Afterward, the countries affected would claim hacking to be the cause of firing, if they wanted to destroy their target they would use bigger guns. But this was simply an attempt for those countries to save face, for the pure white IS had destroyed every single missile with a weapon certainly meant for melee, detonating their warheads prematurely.
One would expect the explosions to still have some effect on the IS: whether it be singe marks from the heat, cracks from the pressure and shrapnel, or at the very least a layer of ash coating the machine. But alas, not even a speck of dust marred the perfect finish of this legendary machine. As abruptly as it appeared, it vanished. A woman named Shinonono Tabane of Japan (family name first), claimed responsibility for the creation of the IS. Claiming that the original purpose was for space exploration, she distributed IS cores around the world, asking for the world's help in future development. Afterwards she disappeared, just as abruptly as the pure white IS had.
With these cores in hand, countries began development of the IS, but soon the scientific purpose of exploration had been perverted by the world government's lust for power. With the display of the White Knight's power still fresh in their minds, a small arms race began. It was estimated to reach Cold War standards when the leaders of the countries, finally realizing what was about to happen, agreed to meet in the American state of Alaska to forge a treaty of equality and nonaggression to prevent such a tragedy from happening again.
With this Pact, the nations created a system to both limit the weapon development a country could pursue and create an academy to train new IS pilots. Known as the IS Academy, students enrolled and staff had no official affiliation to any countries nor organizations. They were treated as a sovereign city-state that any other country could call upon for help for events out of their ability to handle. Due to some unknown reason, only women were able to pilot IS. At least, until one fateful day when a boy name Orimura Ichika of Japan accidentally wandered into the cargo area were an IS was kept for the demonstration later that day. He reached out and touched the machine, activating its servos and accomplishing what no other man had done since the creation of the machine. Immediately, he was sent to the academy, his admission expedited by his sister who taught there. He was given a customized personal IS by the name of Byakushiki, trained hard and became one of the best IS pilots in his year. His story was tapped to be adapted into an anime series, with a second one hopefully to come. But the studio researching his story had found another one, buried deep within the archives of the Academy. Printed onto a stack of yellowed paper hidden behind a false book cover was the story of two other girls, ones that didn't stand out as much as Ichika had, but happened to be indirectly responsible for the bloodiest conflict in the world's history: the Holy Grail War.
Sever Panganiban and Natalia Fairs were half-sisters, both direct inheritors of the Fairs fortune after the Fairs family had careened off the side of a cliff. Natalia, protected by her mother's embrace, was the only one to survive the descent, but suffered multiple injuries. It wasn't until a lucky legal assistant discovered evidence of the existence of Natalia's half-sister Sever. Born to a woman who died in childbirth, Sever was whisked to America to be posthumously adopted by the Fairs family in order to uphold the words of the will. She immediately spent her time taking care of her long-lost half sister, creating a bond with Natalie that lasted for years, evolving into a love Sever couldn't comprehend and wouldn't notice. However, it was not her role to understand Natalia's love, but to use her position as an heir to the Fairs family to receive admission into the IS Academy.
The girl Natalia thought of as Sever Panganiban was actually an assassin for the terrorist cell Phantom Task. Usurping her identity, the assassin had murdered the real Sever. Trained from an early age to do everything well, her mission was to get enrolled into IS Academy and receive formal training and experience in IS piloting. The plan worked better than expected, the Academy even granting her a personal IS with an ability that could be considered omnipotent, if it hadn't had so many limitations. Once she had graduated, Phantom Task would have a professionally trained IS soldier and become more of a threat to the safety of the world. However, a certain wrench called love was thrown into the plan when Sever actively interrupted and caused the failure of a certain mission to infiltrate the Academy with an unmanned IS and abduct Natalia. Having created her own bond with Natalia and regretting her violent past, Sever rebelled against her former organization, seeking asylum within the Academy itself. With the infiltration a failure and an unviable repeat tactic, Phantom Task entrusted both Sever's fate and Natalia's purpose to one of their high-ranking officers: Codename X.
A man of great intellect and foresight, X was not only the man who had trained Sever as a child, but also masterminded the entire plot to replace the true Sever with the current Sever. Officially, he was the commander of Germany's Schwarzer Hase, the German IS team led by Laura Bodewig. With his authority and power, he was able to obtain via legal channels a late transfer for Laura into IS Academy and proceeded to lead Laura into battle against Sever. With weapons barely weak enough to pass under the terms of the Alaska Pact (and a rail gun that blew it into shards of paper), X planned for Sever to be either killed or severely injured in her battle with Laura. In order to ensure that the staff wouldn't be able to interfere, he crudely hacked the arena the two were in, trapping them within like some sort of private gladiator fight. Unfortunately, Sever proved to be too much for Laura, especially after slipping into the crazed berserker mode X had cultivated in her during her training. He sent another unmanned IS both rescue Laura and to eliminate the weakened Sever, but unbeknownst to him Sever had survived his deadly attack.
The next day, Sever launched her own preemptive attack against X, somehow tracking the man via traces from his earlier hacking. Unleashing the fury and anger that had been building up ever since she met Natalia, she soundly defeated both X and his two unmanned IS in a destructive first strike. She recovered both X and as much of the IS as possible, bringing them back to the Academy for them to interrogate the man and to research the IS. However, due to Sever's careless handling of X (due to the hate she had for him), interrogation proved impossible until he was well enough to talk.
However, even this was just part of the gambit X had devised. Knowing that the Academy's beach trip would be coming soon, he executed his real plan. Before Sever left for the beach trip, X activated a program within the nano-machines inside of Natalia, given to her by a Phantom Task infiltrator back when she was being treated for the car accident all those years program caused Natalia to exhibit symptoms similar to stomach flu, a serious but treatable disease that ensured she wouldn't be allowed to go.
With the rest of the first years (including Sever) gone, X escaped his confined recuperation and approached Natalia. Coincidentally, Natalia had discovered a record of Sever's experiences to this point, as well as her past. The truth about her sister had disturbed the girl to the point where X found it incredibly easy to control her, even able to convince the girl to infect herself with DG cells. Together, they built an IS out of the recovered IS parts the Academy had and goaded Sever to return prematurely by faking Natalia's kidnapping. X had the two sisters fight, using a system he called Valkyrie Upper to equalize the girl's difference in strength and battle experience.
Valkyrie Upper was a system that copied the battle experiences of a certain host and copied them into another using specific types of nano-machines: called Valkyrie Host and Valkyrie Parasite respectively. It turned out the X had implanted Valkyrie Host into Sever at the beginning of her term with Phantom Task and every battle she had only added to the wealth of experience X could endow on any person at the push of the button. It turned out that Valkyrie Parasite had a glitch that caused it to induce certain sicknesses when certain subroutines were program, evidence that the nano-machines planted in Natalia long ago were Valkyrie Parasite. It also inferred that Phantom had their hands around this girl for quite a long time, now finally ready to use her.
Under the effects of the machine, Natalia's DG cells also activated, automatically healing her from every injury but giving her the appearance of the robot used to pilot unmanned IS. This ability equalized the differences in specs between the two girls' machines: Sever's being a precision made instrument formatted to her exact needs while Natalia's was a mishmash of partially damaged parts. So X activated the next Level of the Valkyrie Upper, copying more of Sever into Natalia and forcing a 1st shift in her IS.
The 1st shift transformed Natalia's IS mishmash into a beautiful silver angel, formatted to fit Natalia's specific needs. With the balance now heavily tilted in her favor, Natalia effortlessly defeated Sever and retreated away to the Phantom Task base in Hawaii, in reality Natalia's villa overtaken by Phantom Task troops.
Sever was still alive, however, and without official permission to do so, flew to Hawaii to try to rescue Natalia. However, X had sent Natalia out to fight against the other personal IS users, under the pretense of a wild AI that took over their IS and needing the Academy's involvement to control the situation. After raising hell and causing mass chaos that reduced the number of combat-capable troops on the base to 2, Sever was captured and used to complete the Valkyrie Upper.
Natalia was intercepted by Ichika and the other personal IS users of the first year: Cecilia Alcott of England, Ling Yin Huang of China, Charlotte Dunois of France, Shinonono Houki of Japan (also Shinonono Tabane's little sister), and Laura Bodewig, whom Ichika gained the loyalty of after saving her. The team had driven Natalia into a corner, so X responded by activating the completed Valkyrie Upper. This effectively replaced Natalia's mind with one modeled after Sever's berserker mode but with an AI directing the chaos. It also forced Natalia's IS to evolve to 2nd shift, growing a pair of wings of energy. Now a mindless drone, Natalia ruthlessly cut down Ichika and his team, until Ichika finally impaled the silver IS with his sword, deactivating the IS when its energy hit zero. Unknowingly, he had also severely injured Natalia within her robotic shell, her blood instantly cauterizing due to the heat from his energy blade, then healing once he retracted it.
At this time, X had confirmed the deactivation of the silver IS. Under the guise of an official US communique, he took responsibility for the IS and sent all of his active men to recover the IS disguised as US forces, heavily armed in case of Natalia's IS was unable to differentiate friend from foe.
However, Ichika's sister and instructor, Orimura Chifuyu had received a message from a trusted individual in the US doubting the officialism of the request in the first place. Aware of Sever's past as a terrorist, Chifuyu unofficially ordered both the recovery of the silver IS Ichika and his team had taken down, as well as the interception of the "US recovery" team.
Ichika, Houki, and Chifuyu herself went to intercept the recovery team while the other personal IS users recovered the silver IS. While the recovery was accomplished safely, Natalia's IS still without energy to even move, Ichika's team encountered the recovery team and obliterated them with an untested attack.
Luckily, the pilot survived the attack, and from him got the location of the Phantom Task base on Hawaii. They travelled there and arrived just in time to rescue a fleeing boy who from a massive black IS, armed to the teeth with massive optical weaponry. Using the same obliterating attack they had used before, they destroyed the black IS and allowed it to fall into the water.
However, the black IS had repaired itself, injuring Ichika with a surprise attack. Now with a pair of purple wings, similar to Natalia's silver IS, the black IS overpowered the remaining Houki, who protected the disabled Ichika. Finally, calling forth her own IS, Chifuyu destroyed the black IS completely by first cutting the black IS into small chunks of metal, then vaporizing them with a wave of energy from Houki's most powerful weapon.
With Ichika treated and the boy safe, Ichika's group got their first good look at him. To Ichika and Chifuyu, even though very similar in looks to her, they were distinctly aware that this was not the same Sever they had gotten to know. But Houki thought differently, seeing the boy as the same exact Sever, even if her Sever was a girl. To prove his identity (and gender), the boy exposed himself to the group, causing Houki to faint in prudish shock.
With Houki unconscious, Kail proceeded to explain that the completion of the Valkyrie Upper had cost Sever her life. He had then used the last embers of her existence to intrude upon their world. When asked for what purpose, he simply answered "To fight a war."