Hello everyone, this fic is actually a story-only work of my quest "Tell me, do you bleed?". The quest is currently running on Space Battle and Sufficient Velocity forums. I would be grateful if you guys drop by and join in with the quest. The fic here translates the second point of view (quest) into the first point of view, I plan to add more emotion, thinking and reasoning in this incarnation of my work.

My synopsis is simple: An OC who is opposite to the protagonist (Orimura Ichika). While both male IS pilots approach and activate IS suits on accidents, Ichika does that in peace time while my OC does so on the battlefield. While Ichika is a peace-loving dude, my OC has no problem throwing himself in the thick of the actions. While Ichika lacks the conviction to fight, my OC just laughs in the face of death. After all, he has already earned that right.

Infinite Stratos, abbreviated as IS, was a wunderwaffe, or wonder weapon. However, unlike the original (Nazi) German ones, it worked – in the utmost horrifying way possible. Not the military application though, humanity had always dreamt of better and more efficient ways to kill others. No, it was most horrifying in the social aspect. For some reasons, only women could pilot them.

According to an interview by the inventor of the suit, Shinonono Tabane, it came as an accident, she did not plan to make it women-only possession. However, she had neither plan nor desire to fix that. The result was as shit as one could expect. The feminazis had a banner to flock to, and the sex equality quickly became women supremacy.

Heh, it came as a price though. In many places, boys and men fought tooth and nail to protect the last dignity they had, never accepting bowing down for some pieces of scraps. A full regiment of Chinese PLA dared to stand in line, blocking the march of some women elitist. In Vietnam, a country-wide brawl took place in schools within a single day, showing the defiance of the male students when asked to "step down". In USA, well, at least the casualty of the mass shooting series was very low – less than ten deaths in total for fifty incidents. To think that all ten deaths were actually criminals, drug dealers and terrorists, God must be rolling on the heaven's floor laughing.

Things calmed down with a series of social policies and Alaska Treaty – limiting the usage of IS to sports (dafug?), self-defense and space exploration. The last two had not progressed much in the last ten years of the IS's existence. If this was a year prior, I would not even care about it. Too bad, with my situation, I HAD TO care about it.

Why? Because the fokker babbling for the last two minute, a.k.a. me, was a male, seventeen of age, and he was capable of piloting an IS suit with one confirmed IS kill and one more assist.

My name was Nguyen Quang Anh, and I was a Vietnamese Commando, an IS Pilot, and well, my life was as fucked up as ever.

It began in the most terrible way possible. Vietnam was invaded and attacked by foreign military again. Not intentionally though, they were the ones planning a coup in a nearby country and failed to gain power. They were chased out of their homeland and in their fright, they decided to attack my country. Invading a country spending over a hundred years in modern time to expel the invaders? No one said those people were in their right mind, obviously.

However, they were able to gain initiative, punching a hole on our border and going in. Their most successful achievement was to capture a city, MY home city. I should had been able to evacuate with my families, but shit happened, my family was killed along with the convoy right in front of my eyes. I was… in a daze, a blood rage, afterwards. I still remembered what I did and why I did those, but… those were not exactly "me" doing it. It was more like the hidden demon inside me taking control of my limbs and just did the job. Luckily, it only took place for less than a week. By the time I came to, I had already joined in with a rag-tag band of militia and had a few solid kills (and executions) under my belt. My team, eight male students, did not know the name of each other, we simply called ourselves by nicknames. It sounded strange, but that bunch of idiots was responsible for over two hundred kills, traitors and invaders alike, after just three weeks, that was even before we were trained by our special force operators – the ones infiltrating into the war zone to wreck chaos.

It went well for another two weeks, we scored kills after kills. Heck, we got our own nicknames from our enemies. I was called Grey Coat. Wonder why and how, really. Anyway, after five weeks, the news arrived, a counter-attack was on the way to liberate my city. To do that, however, we need to control a hill overlooking the approach route. My rag-tag team volunteered for that mission, along with virtually all other militia teams still fighting.

The battle went as one could expect at first. The hill was pampered with all kinds of guns. Mechanised assault, heli-drop, artillery barrage… Those were terrible, but we had seen worse with urban warfare already. We were still able to hold the line. We were still able to hold for long enough until reinforcement came. Then…

Two IS suits appeared.

Before we were able to calm down, our positions had been wrecked, blood and body parts flew in the air, throwing up the iconic stench smell of war into the air. One of them landed near my team's position, planning to take us out by hands. It was terrible, especially when we watched her laughed at our hail of fire with her sadistic smile. Despite being hit by all kind of guns, she still lazily waved her blood-soaked blade in her hands.

By then, my team had run out of ammunition, we only had a bunch of plastic explosive blocks on our rigs. So, we did what every sensible man would do – we charged. On our lips were the curses and battle cries, we had already dropped our sanity by then, victory or death, nothing else mattered.

Heavy and Rocket were the first to die. The blade cut them through in half. Boomer, Blitz and Glatz quickly followed, disappearing in a mist of blood. Yet, the remainders, Kapkan, Wrex and me (Shorty) were able to get close to her. All eight blocks of explosive were planted. The other two were displaced quickly, but they were able to buy me the critical time to hit the detonator. I did not know how and why – but we were able to kill her. The IS pilot stopped death in her tracks, blood oozed out from her ears, mouths and eyes, then she collapsed on the ground. Yet, in the final moment, she was still able to cut deep on my chest.

The pain… it was overwhelming… But, for some reason, I was still able to see the second IS approaching… I dragged myself toward the first IS suit, pulling out the dead meat inside, and somehow, three seconds later, I was in the air, gunning toward the second one. I must have blanked out for quite a while then, because when I wake up again, I was standing on that second IS suit in the commandeered suit from the dead one. The second pilot was also dead. A dry and maniac laugh escape my throat, right before I realized that my entire body was numbed and the entire world started to tainted with blood red, then I lost my consciousness again.

This time, I did not wake up until three months after that, and it took me… a few more months to recover. As it turned out, my injury was… extensive. Very extensive. As in "I should be fucking dead". Let me spell it out, first, I lost both of my eyes due to rapid pressure change, I could only see normally thanks to a pair of bionic eyes. In addition, my left arm was cut off during combat with the second IS suit, most likely, cut off completely. It was lost somewhere on the battlefield, forcing a fake arm to be crafted for me. At least it came with an integrated computer, sufficient for entertainment and communication, and it was not connected to my nerve system, so no control from afar. Last and definitely not least, well, I lost both of my heart and lung, courtesy of a sword going through the bare-chest armour of the IS… At least I have a bionic heart and lung to replace them, so my stamina and resistant to poison gas would be very high. The ghost pain sometimes still lingered around, though.

It sounded short, but for six months straight, my life was bounded to the hospital. First for surgery, then to get used to the replacement and to re-socialize with the world at large. The PTSD was just… to strong. It took three busy months for me to get out of that hell. Three LONG months, I could say so. Nightmares still plagued my sleeps, but not as often as they used to, and I could drop my painkillers as well as my sleeping pill. It began my re-socialisation. A long and slow progress, but it was a progress nonetheless.

It went for a full week, then I could safely said that I had returned to a relative normal life. Of course, it went wrong as soon as one could expect it. My phone rang up at eight in the morning, and from the name logged on, it seemed that the General was calling. He was the one commanding the counter-attack, and with the fact that I had killed two IS suits, he considered that he should repay the debt incurred by my service and sacrifice. In addition, I was probably politically important, considering my ability to control an IS. Hitting the answer button, you bring the phone to your ears:

"Good morning sir."

"Morning kid. I suppose you had a good sleep?"

"Well, I couldn't sleep until three. But at least I didn't use sleeping pill or sat up screaming last night... So yeah, it was quite a good sleep."

"... You should visit the doctor, really. Staying like that is bad for your health."

"I'm still alive and able to kick arse, that's all I care. But anyway, why do you call me sir?"

"Well... you're the first male IS pilot. The news had yet to be leaked to the mass media, but... the high echelon wanted to... study you. By cutting you apart, or keeping you away for a very long, long time."

"Which could lead to potential terrible outcome. Intelligence leak, unstable mental of the subject or the mystery could not be found. Not to mention that a certain insane scientist may not want us to find the answer."

"... Damm kid, you are sharp."

"I aim to please sir. But you have yet to answer my question. Why do you call?"

"Hmm, I have been able to pull some strings. If you agree, you'd become a Cadet Officer, a Junior Cadet Officer to be precise. You'd start studying here for... eight months, the course also includes military training. Next school year you'd take a transfer to IS Academy and restart the high school program."

"... You want to throw me, a male teenager into a school full of female teenagers? For f***'s sake, I hate drama."

"But it beats being a lab rat."

"... Point."

"So, what do you think?"

"Any more details sir?"

"So, you have eight months left until the next school year in ISA, you'd spend the first two doing basic training. After that, you can pick a branch for further study. Army, Navy, Air force, Border Guard and Commando instructors had already told me that they agree to train you should you accept. Each branch had their own benefits for your future... adventure in ISA so choose carefully... [mumbling, talking to someone else] Oh, right, kid. I forgot. Some bloody egg-heads and spook also show... readiness to train you. But to be frank, take their offer with a grain of salt."

"How about our IS Cadet Representative?"

"You haven't heard? Her title was stripped due to unbecoming behaviours"

It meant she may or may not be related to some shadow and unsanctioned activities. Potentially a traitor. But it was not my problem. The higher up will take care of it, and probably make the whole fiasco looked like the drama (as usual)

"Oh, and one more thing kid. Are you free today?"

"... Yes, I'm free. Why do you ask sir?"

"We will give you an IS suit, your own IS suit. Come to my office in... three hours. Then I'll show you more in details."

"IS suit?"

"Yes. Personal IS suit... and don't swear. So, interested?"

"Yes... I'll be there. 1000 at your office right?"

"Correct."

That day went very well. My body was check once over again, confirming that all parts were working normally. It was just some paperwork and research stuff. All of the bionic parts were experimental and prototype, none had entered world-wide introduction, let alone mass production. I was freaked out at first, but with the fact that they had saved my life… well, I let it pass.

The next part was the IS suit selection. IS suits, originally, were designed for female. As a results, some (if not all) IS suits were blatantly designed to show off the pilot's figure and face - not like that it was a terrible idea. The pilots were dammed sexy, and as a perfectly fine male (yes, my gun was still in working condition after the whole debacle), I always enjoyed watching their body parts surging in the air – assuming they were not planning to kill me, of course.

However, from a tactical and engineering standpoint, reduction in armour was more harm than good, it reduced the overall protection power of the suit. Sure, the suit came along with a barrier, an energy shield, so to speak, but it was better to have the armour as back up for the shield rather than having the latter only. In addition, not having armour in certain areas meant that the sense of weight would be heavily screwed up, making the whole complex imbalance. A good pilot could calibrate that, but it took time and effort. It was probably much more cost-efficient to make armour in the first place.

The General nudged on my shoulder while pointing toward a mid-50 male wearing a lab coat in the room:

"Kid, that is Doctor Thanh, he is responsible for the IS program in our country. He is, or rather, was, the head of the maintenance and upgrade crew of our cadet representative. Until..."

"Until that pompous bitch was apprehended in a drug trade. Good riddance I'd say."

The Doctor quickly cut off the line of the General. Well, seemed like things were more intense than I thought. But seriously? Drug trade? Someone gonna get shot within this month... Yeah, right, good riddance. No tears for the wicked then.

"Well, I won't say that with such... emotion. But..."

"Yes, I mean it. She was a spoiled brat, a queen bee, or a queen bitch, depending on who you ask. The entire technical team merely tolerated her. The drug trade was simply the exploding point... Or so I thought. We have suspicion that she was trading drugs, but no solid proof. She must have pissed someone off seriously."

"Aye... Anyhow, Doc. Anyway, this is the pilot I told you about. A male IS pilot."

The General slapped my shoulder, making me winced slightly. He just forgot that I was just a bunch of meat six months ago right? Dang. That old man must be hoping to push you to the edge. But, he had just introduced me, and it would be impolite to disregard the elder:

"Good morning doc. My name is Quang Anh, 16, active Militia, battered, bruised, but still standing. Nice to meet you."

The doctor just laughed:

"Hah, I like this kid already. Polite... and deadly. Yes, kid, I read your file. Standard procedure, hope you don't mind. But anyway, we have some suits, three of them, for you to choose from. And in case you are wondering, yes, we put them together in four months. Two of them, anyway."

He began to introduce the three IS suits... One was the suit that the former IS Cadet Representative used, a Rafael IS suit, Revive-V variant. It was customised suit from the mass-production 2nd generation IS Rafale Revive Basic, the "V" variant retains the customisation ability of the original model. The armed forces had colourfully described this suit as the "Moar Dakka" option. It is quite apt with a lot of guns attached. However, the close quarter combat ability is limited with only a single beam blade. With a moderate flexibility, it made up its weakness of being light and weak. This suit was quickly disregarded however, I had no plan to use the suit of a criminal or a failure, not to mention that the stigma would be strong. Besides, the suit was too light-weight for my liking, I preferred something more… solid.

The doctor, upon hearing the answer, quickly showed me the second suit, an Uchigane . Interesting enough, this was also the suit I "recovered" from the battlefield, my spoil of war, so to speak. Durable, firm and unyielding, practically what people think about a bland suit. They were right. This suit was easy to use by newbie and still a verify threat in the hands of aces. Use this, and I would send a (not-so) subtle message to the band of rouges, that I was coming for them, and they better not let me found them wanting. However, this suit was useless in ranged combat, being strictly a melee type unit. The suit itself was not modded either, making controlling it… hard. Therefore, you have no option but to turn it down.

Hope the last one was better. Luckily, you did not have to disappoint. The last one was actually another prototype, numbered GAT-X105 and code-named "Flying Dragon". It was the first (and probably only) IS suit built in and by my country. Well, not precisely, the suit was the child coming from multiple countries, including Russia and Vietnam. Just like other 2nd gen suits, this suit functioned as a well-rounded machine. But, as a prototype for the 2.5th gen, this machine can do more than that. Highly modular, this suit pushed the idea for customisation to the next level. The amount of add-on for the suit was staggering, to say the least. In addition, the GAT was also designed as a highly flexible combatant, fighting both in close- and long-range.

I liked it right from the beginning. The suit's appearance was not menacing, but it was not friendly too, it just screamed out "business" with the grey skin and full-on armour. Seemed that the brass also put the ability to withstand CBRN threats in the design requirement. And after looking through the list of add-ons and upgrades, I instantly picked the "Flying Dragon".

The suit was then upgraded with a few programs, increasing the manoeuvrability on both ground and aerial, giving a better synch between me and the suit as well as a package of electronic warfare. The last part was for war, obviously. Just in case some IS pilots had the bright idea to shut me up, they would be in for a surprise when unable to lock me down or to call reinforcement. Wonder what their faces would look like…

The last part of the day, however, was to pick a military service. Like it or not, I was told I was too important to lose, and because I did not want to become a lab rat, my only option was to enrol in the Infinite Stratos Academy, or ISA. In there, my profile would attract a lot of attention, and with those attention came hostile intent. Better to prevent than to cure, and with that idea, it was better for me to have some training to self-defense, and gather intelligence if needed.

The list was quite extensive, from the bulwark Ground force, the steel Navy to the speedy Air force. Of course, the Intelligence Department and R&D Group also joined in, inviting me to their services. Too bad for them, I preferred the Commando, Special force and Elite light infantry. With general purpose training, I could have a solid training background with stamina, better strength, stamina, reflex… not to mention some moral boost or specialist skill. After that, I can pick further training, may be Ranger Commando for urban warfare, or Airborne with rapid response formation, or may be Ground Commando with infiltration purposes, heck, even Naval Commando, which is roughly on par with US Navy SEAL in terms of dedication and training.

Too bad, with less than a year off to the enrolment of the ISA, I could only pick the general training, but it was enough already.

The training began less than a week later. I was shipped toward a camp in the middle of nowhere. It was a bland camp, but no less threatening. The atmosphere there could make the hearts of newbies like me dead in the track. Unlike others, however, I knew what I wanted. It was simple – for however complicated and painful the war was.

I just wanted to protect them. My friends. My family. My comrades. My home.

When Ishot down enemy after enemy, staining the streets of your homeland with their blood, that was what I thought. When I dragged your dismembered allies into cover, tears streaming down your face, that was what I thought. When I dived over top your comrades, protecting them from the artillery shrapnel with my body, that was what I thought. When I flew through the sky, pushing the commandeered IS far faster than it was ever meant to fly, tearing my body apart, I still kept fighting. I had merely wanted to protect them.

And there, I stood at attention, ten years younger than all the men to my side during the Commando training, I knew you would not fail. Because, even if I had lost your arms, had lost my heart, and my lungs, I yet still wanted to protect them.

Still, the part where I had to graduate was… pretty traumatising. A full SERE exam – Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape. It certainly was not an easy piece of cake, it was a bitter experience… I was captured and put through an interrogation course, then the torture simulation. Even though it was just "a test", it was very real, too real for my liking in fact. The pain of my loss was still fresh in my mind, numbing my sense and my judgment. In that state, I felt like he could take on everything the world had to throw at me while laughing maniacally. Sure, it would hurt, tremendously in all likelihood, but I would weather it easily.

I thought I had been broken down before. No, this was what it felt like to be broken, or near it. Left alone in the darkness, in the rancid musk of his bamboo cage. I did not recall how long I had been there by that time. Well, more than a month, probably. It had been the second day of November, and the beatings would continue, strapped to chairs or tables, among the pounding rain and deafening thunder. My teachers were starting to get 'creative' with their methods. Kudos for them, at least.

On that final day, I made up my mind with a snorted, partly to get rid of the stench in my nose, partly in derision at their constant tortures. But if those Americans could take it, then so could I. I would not spill, or shatter. But hey, I did want to reform, to be molded into something more, so I could not afford to be snapped there.

Then, I shuffled over to the bamboo 'wall' with my feet were caked in mud, the 'floor' nothing more than a pig's stye. I was pretty sure it was a pig stye that had been repurposed during the war. From the crevices between the sticks, I caught glimpses of guard patrols, their shadows passing routinely, blocking the commandant's office lamp from across the compound. By my cage, just near the northern corner around the outhouses and the supply stash, there was one guy with the Kalash who came by from the mess hall every 10 minutes. That was the one I gotta to nail to get out.

Digging my grimy fingers into the mud, I made a hole, a hole that had already progressed to a point where a small dog could squirm through, and continued ripping out the wet earth. A mirthless smirk crept on my face, thinking about it. I was a dog, then. A dirt ridden dog. Rabid. Dangerous. Lethal.

It had been large enough that I could force my way through, the slick mud lubricating my escape, but not before I ripped some of my skin across the dried plant matter. It did not matter. My fingers bled from all the work they had done, a few more drops was not going to fucking matter.

I could hear the footsteps coming around the corner, the shadow growing longer and longer among the dim light. Breathing was the key. In, hold and out. I calmed, then readied. The moment the muzzle popped past the wall, it was game over for the prick. A sudden chop to the neck took the bastard's voice. Quick and sharp blows to the chest and abdomen leave the guard down on all fours. A final punch in the face knocks him out. All took less than three seconds, there was no sound or any flicker of light. My coat of stealth remained.

I fished the Kalashnikov from the mud. It, too, was coated in mud and blood. Kind of like me there, a bizarre mix of brown and red. Fortunately, I had nature to thank for washing it off of me, but the cold shivers in his spine did not agree with it too much. At least it gave me a small boost of adrenaline, waking me up from the dizzy of the cold.

In that weather, in that time of day, in the mud, I would be unseen. No fence or wall was going to stop me. Still, there was only one last thing to do to complete the scenario. Well, maybe two. I grin feral after that while approaching the command post from the shadow – it was time for some payback.

The poor commander of the camp was hit from the back and knocked out. I simply removed all of his clothes and tied him to a chair afterwards. Of course I put a small blanket over his body – I was cynical and slightly sadistic, but I was not heartless. I was then able to got out of there undetected. Mission accomplished

Needless to say, I passed with flying colours, being one of the latest to be captured, really. The experience of urban warfare helped me greatly there. For the poor commander of the camp, he had the "pay back", as in having me reprimanded by the superiors. It was nothing much, just some light cleaning duty for a week – just in time for my recovery after the SERE.

That was my story. The story of a highly deadly IS pilot trainee. Sure, my experience with a suit was minimum – I could make it move and shoot only – but my non-IS combat was top-notch. Among the five hundred-ish students at the Academy, I thought that there would be less than twenty could challenge me in that field. Add in the fact that I was (probably) the only verified IS killer, the number of girls who dared to cross my path would be even lower. After all, speaking to a killer was always a nerve-wrecking experience, not many pompous princesses had enough guts, let alone skills, to do so.

Still, even then, my order was simple: I was not allowed to instigate any hostile relationship. Even if I had already refused the position of a Cadet Representative (too much paperwork, too much diplomatic and politics, and too much boob-flashing), my reputation would consider me as one. Therefore, my actions would be judged in that mental, they would believe that I was representing my home country as a Cadet Rep, not a normal IS pilot trainee. A single mis-step and things would go ka-boom in my face. That was assuming that excrement had not hit the electrical rotating devices earlier.

At least I was not alone in the adventure. As it turned out, I was the second male IS pilot. Of course, chronically, I was the first, but my country decided to hide the issue, making me the second one. The dude was Orimura Ichika, Japanese, sixteen year old, high-school student, nothing too… abnormal. May be he had some talent in sword fighting or kendo, but that was all. Intelligence operatives also put a word of "wuss" in the notes, suggesting his... inability to fight seriously - as in fight where one's life was at stake. His family, however, was another issue. His elder sister was Orimura Chifuyu, the Brunhilde, one of the best IS pilots on the world, champion of Mondo Grosso three times in a row. Her retirement was a mystery, but words said that it was a payment to have her brother rescued in a kidnap attempt of sort. Even then, her profile was impressive enough, definitely someone I did NOT want to mess up with.

Unless I had her in my sight from 500m away, of course. At this range, unless she was wearing an IS suit, I had all they key components to win.

I absorbed all kind of information I could on the flight from Vietnam to Japan, trying to plot a general modus operandi while living there. When the plane landed, I knew, it was the time for my adventure to begin. Heh, I had enough training, I had enough lethality, and I had my IS suit.

What could possibly go wrong? I was attacked before reaching the Academy? I was involved in some world-wide conspiracy? I made myself a harem out of traumatized girls? Heh, I did not think those were possible. After all, what was the chance for them to happen?

Actually, if you have joined my quest, you will know the answer: All three of them took place.