Hey, JaphetSkie here. This is my first crossover fanfic, so constructive criticism is allowed, as I don't have enough experience in writing stories. You better watch or have knowledge about Xionic Madness and Infinite Stratos or else you would have a hard time understanding this fanfic. Anyway, have fun reading!

Disclaimer: I do not own Xionic Madness and Infinite Stratos.

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Author's Notes – Bold and Underlined

CHAPTER 1: This Is Definitely Not Hell

Somewhere in the Void…

"Well, I died. What a drag."

This is the first thought of one man floating in the vast nothingness. His clothes were worn out, merely consisting of pants, combat boots, a shirt and a black coat that saw better days. A scar adorned his old and wrinkled face, and his greying hair reaching his back tied in a ponytail.

This is Xero, the last member of Bolverk Squad, a 4-man special operations unit created by the organization called MBORF. He is the CQB specialist, while his team leader Omega is the ranged weapon expert. Askad is the demolition expert, while Askad's creation, an android named Kary-08 is the most powerful member, having the ability to control energy. With the exception of Kary, they're all cyborgs.

Their last mission together involved destroying a living weapon called XV created by a company named Bio Int. They succeeded in destroying XV, but Askad was killed in the mission, and he along with Omega were betrayed by MBORF.

They escaped and fought against entire armies of soldiers and automatons which lead to the destruction of the entire city they were in. But then, Kary joined the fray. She then killed the Overseer, explained her intentions to the two and expressed her hatred towards humans. As her core recharges when she kills a living being, she is planning to kill everyone so that she could live forever.

With the help of Omicron Squad, Omega's former comrades, and the robotic version of Askad, they fought her off, but her power was simply too much that Omicron Squad and the Robot Askad sacrificed their lives (not like Robo Askad is alive, LOL)to help them defeat the deranged android.

Despite their efforts, Omega was killed by Kary. Xero then resolved to fight her to his last breath, but as Kary was about to kill him, the XV-infected Omega intervened, forcing Kary to self-destruct, killing her. Omega somehow managed to regain control of himself and pleaded to Xero to kill him, or else XV will take over Omega again and kill them both. Reluctantly, Xero executed his friend. He thought freedom is within his reach after all he have been through.

He was wrong.

For the rest of his life, Xero remained on the run from the one who pulled the strings the whole time. He then realized that the death of his friends are all orchestrated and thoroughly planned out by someone behind the scenes.

He is an unwanted variable, as he managed to survive when he shouldn't, and he was hunted down ever since. He knew that he doesn't have all the time in the world, and so he left a legacy behind: His student, Enid. He entrusted to her the responsibility of taking down the manipulator behind all of this, just before they went on to his final battle.

"I'm still worried about her. She will be fighting alone and without my guidance at this point. I really hope she can overcome the challenges ahead of her. "

He breathed deeply. "She can put an end to that so-called New World Order. I know she can. She is my student, after all."

He then pondered on what to do next. "Well, I'm still here, floating. How am I getting out of here? I really want to see my friends again, wherever they are. Kary however," he paused, knowing that he won't be seeing the android anymore, even in the afterlife.

"She is synthetic. No matter how human she acted, she still doesn't have a soul. There's no afterlife for someone like her".

As he kept on in his internal rambling, he did not notice that a faint light is appearing near him, pulling him toward it. He only noticed it when the light went brighter as he was being drawn closer to it. "Looks like this is it, huh? Omega, Askad, I'll be seeing you guys soon."

Oh how wrong he was.

Somewhere in ISverse…

He opened his eyes, and he was seeing green. Lots of it. "Great, I woke up in a forest. This place seems familiar though". After a few seconds, he realized that this is not just a forest. The trees are tall, very tall that they rival buildings. There is one place in the world that he knew with such trees.

"Am I in California? Unless Hell have large trees in them, I must be in some National or State Parks somewhere in California". He is not sure if his guess is right, but he is damn sure he is lost. Then he realized something.

"Wait, why is my voice much lighter, and why do I feel like I'm not as weak as before?" Fearing that something bad happened to his appearance, he rushed to the nearby stream. What he saw in the water's reflection shocked him.

His physique somehow reverted back to his teenage years. The scar on his face was gone too, and his hair is no longer gray and was the way it did when he was young. If he were calm enough, he could estimate that his current appearance was when he was 17.

"What in the hell's going on? Why am I a kid again? How come my scar is gone? What could have done this?" His mind is in turmoil, trying to comprehend what or how it happened.

He tried to calm down by breathing deeply. "Panicking won't do me any good. Whatever happened to me is already done. I got to worry about other matters, like what I'm going to do next, or if I'm actually in Hell or in another universe".

Truth be told, while he is not much of a religious person, he knows about the concept of an afterlife. He also read about these theories about a person's soul being transferred to another universe once they die which seemed plausible due to evidences. He is not sure what to believe in right now, but he is sure that he's going to Hell if the afterlife truly exists. But the question is, is he really dead?

"Afterlife and theories aside, I wonder if my armor's still there" he hummed to himself. It was supposedly damaged badly, but it wouldn't hurt to try, right? He then proceeded and willed his armor to appear.

Then, like magic, his Cervical Armor appeared, covering his whole body save for some parts of his head and a 6-eyed visor and a scarf covering his face. When he was on the run, he heavily modified his armor as it was heavily damaged after the battle against Kary. He also added some of the components from his Vertebral Armor to it.

By now, it now fly, cloak, and teleport as well aside from the Mach 3 burst and Petrol Silhouettes. Lightweight but strong materials were used to replace the old material his armor was made of, making at least as tough as Omega's, yet as fast and mobile as his older armor.

The deployment seemed off, though. Instead of the usual mechashifting to his person, it just gradually materialized out of blue particles. He didn't give a second thought. As long as he can use his armor, nothing else matters.

"So it's still there, huh? Logically, I shouldn't have this armor with me at all, because I remember that it was heavily damaged on my last battle. Next up, weapons". He then proceeded to manifest his weapons.

Unlike before, instead of warping the weapons from a place they were stored, the weapons were now within the Digital Storage within his armor. He incorporated the tech in his armor when he found the schematics in a government base that he raided 5 years after the battle against Kary.

Surprisingly, all of his weapon in his inventory are still there, along with a lot of spare ammunition and spare parts that he swore that were not there before. "Alright, this is weird, but I'm not complaining about this one. But still, these are basically enough to last me in a month-long siege".

He also noted that it's not just his weapons are in the storage, but also Askad's and Omega's. "Oookayyy. I'm gonna have to train in my gun skills, then. I've gotten rusty in that field". He haven't used guns for nearly a decade. Heck, Enid was even better than him in shooting with guns.

"But wait. Why are their stuff in here, anyway? Did some entity decided to give me a starter pack of sorts?" No one answered him.

1 Hour Later…

After an hour of checking in his gear and inventory, Xero finally went on to scout around. Using Mach 3 Burst and his thrusters, he managed to get to the highest point of the forest in speeds of Mach 4, reaching towards his destination within mere seconds.

While he flew around, he quickly activated his stealth cloak as he noticed a few hikers in the designated pathways in the forest. "Hmmm... they're not in any form of suffering, so I'm sure I'm not in Hell" he muttered.

Reaching his destination, he decided to take a look in his surroundings and lo and behold, the Golden Gate Bridge can be seen from his location. The view is quite good, but he ignored it as his mind in in overdrive.

"Me waking up here in California, me turning into a teen again, Askad and Omega's weapons that showed up in my inventory for some reason, and a crap-ton of ammo and parts for my current weapons that weren't there before, and my armor's weird deployment method. It is already clear that I'm not dead. Obviously someone revived me and just dumped me here in a bloody forest, but why would they do that?"

It absolutely bogged his mind that it's starting to irritate him more than Kary messing with his gaming computer when Bolverk Squad was still there.

"Arrghh… I'm gonna need answers but where?!" He suddenly perked up and looked at the city, "Of course! I can simply go there and gather some info. I might get something if I did ".

He then went down the tree he was standing on, dematerialized his armor, and took a look onto himself. He's still wearing his worn-out clothes, but he noticed that the rips and tears are gone, and they look as good as new. He raised an eyebrow, but said nothing as he had enough of questioning the weird things that happened today. He walked towards the designated pathways without anyone noticing him and went on to his next destination - San Francisco City.

And that's the first chapter! And about 1.7K words according to MS Word. Some people who knows XM might say that Xero is a bit out of character, as he is very hotheaded and would curse out a lot, but considering that he died an old man and was a teacher and the behavior he displayed in the end of XM 4-3, he surely would be somewhat calm, patient, wise, etc., and his habit of swearing surely diminished. About his appearance, refer to the cover art in XM 4-3 (Xero is the blue one in the middle). Anyway, remember that constructive criticism is allowed, and no insults or flames please. This is JaphetSkie, Signing out.