So if any of you pay attention to the chapter titles (which I just figured out how to do) of the previous chapter and this one you may think they do not make sense. Well the thing I'm going for the chapter titles are from Ichika's point of view on why he does the things he does during that specific chapter.
"Ichika are you crazy!?" asked Houki, walking after Ichika as they headed back to their dorm.
"I have been referred to as such, yes." Said Ichika "But not this time."
"No one has been able to defeat an I.S. without another I.S., these things can take out entire armies! It's impossible for you to defeat one! Especially a third generation."
"Is that the ability of the machine or the ability of the pilot?" questioned Ichika, his face had look of confidence.
"It's the- wait what are you getting at?" asked Houki confused at the question.
"I have this belief that with the right tools and right amount of skill anything is possible" said Ichika taking out his phone "Skills I'm pretty confident in, and the tools…" he began dialing a number in. "Hey Ira." Said Ichika greeting his co-worker and friend.
"Ichika!" said Ira happy to hear from him "How are you doing at the I.S. Academy?"
"Pretty good." Responded Ichika "But hey listen, you know how the guys in the lab wanted to test out our gear against an I.S.?"
"*sigh* what did you do?"
"Oh come on! How come that's the first thing that comes to your mind!?" asked Ichika slightly offended.
"Because I know you!" Yelled Ira. Ichika pulled the phone away from his ear due to the volume.
Ichika sighed as he relented "Fine I may have provoked England's representative cadet to far which resulted in her challenging me to a duel." said Ichika "Then a few other things happened and I ended up getting provoked and claimed that I could defeat her without an I.S."
"For crying out loud Ichika! It's only your second day there!" scolded Ira before calming down "Fine what do you need?"
"That's what I was looking for." Said Ichika happily "Well I need the fold out shield, a Barrett M82 , with ten mags of explosive rounds, outfitted with an ACOG scope and front grip instead of a bipod…oh and can I also get the Arc blade?"
"Would you like a rocket launcher with that?" asked Ira rhetorically.
"Can I?" asked Ichika hopefully.
"No!" said Ira "and as for the other stuff it should arrive in three days."
"That was easy." Said Ichika surprised at how fast that went through.
"It helps when the detachment commander is listening in on this" said Ira "he thinks this is great way to field test the new gear, especially since we've received word that phantom task has successfully managed to steal at least two I.S. cores." Guardrail has people all over the world and usually operate autonomously of central command which only the detachment commander knows the location of. The detachment commander is the leader of the group of Guardrail operators in the country and has the final say on all decisions such as recruitment and missions.
"Shit, that's not good."
"No it's not" said Ira "Anyways like I said your gear should be there in three days. Don't do anything stupid."
"Oh come on it's me." Said Ichika.
"That's why I'm worried in the first place!" yelled Ira who then hung up.
"Well that problem is taken care of." said Ichika happily, as he put his phone away.
"Who's Ira?" asked Houki a bit tense.
"What, are you jealous or something?" said Ichika teasingly.
"A-as if!" stuttered Houki red faced. Ichika laughed.
"Ha, ha, ha. I'm just kidding, she's a person at the place I work." Said Ichika.
"Wait work, but you're here. How can you work while in this school?"
"Well they're still paying me, so I still work for them" said Ichika plainly.
"What are you, a mercenary?" asked Houki curious on how he phrased it.
"More of a hit man really." said Ichika plainly as he unlocked their door and walked inside.
"What!?" exclaimed Houki.
"Kidding." Sad Ichika "Geez lady you need to learn how to take a joke." In truth that is actually a pretty accurate description of his job.
"What kind of joke is that!?"
"My kind."
The night went on like this, with Houki questioning Ichika about his past and him making some sort of smartass joke. As the days passed leading up to the match Ichika had an easy going feel about him, this made the other girls curious of him. He didn't give any hints and instead sat in front of the class with a confident grin.
Ichika and Houki were back in their room, it was the night before the match, and there were two crates that look like they came out of military warehouse next to them "Alright it looks like my stuff got here!" said Ichika excitedly "let see what we got here" he first opened the long rectangular one "Niiiiiice" inside was the Barrett M82 a semi-automatic anti material rifle chambered for the .50(12.7x99mm) round. This one has been modified to go with other specifications.
He closed it and moved to the other crate which was in a more of a cubed shape, he opened it up and took out a sheathed knife around fourteen inches long. He slightly pulled out the 14 inch single edge Arc blade revealing a gray silvery blade. The knife is called and arc blade because it conducts an electrical current similar to an arc welder through a tungsten carbide blade, it is effective against both metal and can short circuit electronics if they are hit in the right spot. He also took out a rectangular object and attached it to his fore arm. He made gesture with his hand and a shield folded out. It was able to cover his whole body if he positioned himself correctly.
"CQC, check" he put it back in the box while observing the rest of the contents. Ichika picked up his phone and dialed a number with a grin on his face "Ira! You are awesome has anyone ever told you that!?"
"Not as much as people probably should." Said Ira with a hint of pride "I take it you got your gear."
"You know it!" said Ichika "Oh man I am actually looking forward to the match tomorrow." Ira laughed at his attitude, he was like a little kid on Christmas.
"Okay… easy boy" said Ira "You remember how to use all that equipment, right?"
"Of course."
"Alright call me after the fight to tell me how it goes."
"Will do." Said Ichika
"Good luck." With that Ira hung up, Houki was watching the whole thing with surprise and confusion but chose not to press the topic in case Ichika decided to crack another joke.
The Next day
The class was gathered in the bleachers, anxious to watch the fight between the representative cadet and the brave/stupid/crazy male student. The aforementioned student was currently in the launch bay. Chifuyu and Houki were watching Ichika put on his gear. "Ichika, where did you get all this stuff?" asked Chifuyu
"From my work place." He replied not looking away from his task.
"He called someone named Ira and then these things appeared in our dorm." Said Houki
"Did you say Ira?" asked Chifuyu with a hint of surprise.
"Yeah." Said Houki, kind of surprised at the normally stoic teachers reaction. "Do you know her?"
"Not personally." Said Chifuyu "but she was the one to convince Ichika to come here when he was hesitant at first." Both females wondered about the woman who had so much sway over Ichika.
"Alright" said Ichika as he finished putting on his ammo pouches There were five of them all attached to his belt, each one holding two magazines. He didn't look to much different aside from the military grade gear on him. He looked like he usually did with a loose black tank top and dark grey cargo pants "Alright let's do this thing!"
"Even if you have this gear your still out matched." said Chifuyu hiding her worry by instead berating him, which he took no heed to "You don't even know the capabilities of her I.S.."
"Ohhhh, yes I do." Said Ichika, in a confident manner
"What?" said Chifuyu as she and Houki looked at him in a confused manner. "How?"
Flashback
"There is no way you can beat me, do you understand?" said Cecilia to Ichika they were in the classroom during free period the day after the challenge was issued.
"Oh really, and why is that?" asked Ichika in a bored tone
"Because my I.S. the Blue Tears is third generation I.S. it far surpasses anything before it." She gloated.
"Oh really and tell me what makes your 'Blue Tears' so special?" Ichika was getting a bit irritated.
"Well for starters I have a Mk. III medium range laser rifle, which I am skilled at using it also has bits which I can control remotely to overwhelm and an opponent and if you were to get pass all that and think you've won there are two hidden heat seeking missile pods. And if that fails I have and interceptor combat knife to fight with."
"I see, you gave me a lot to think about." said Ichika sarcastically "how about I think over my choice to fight you and see where that leaves me."
"Well I'm glad someone as foolish as you can see reason." Said Cecilia with a satisfied smile and turned to leave.
"Hey Cecilia." called Ichika after she walked few steps
"Yes?" she asked expectantly as she turned
"I lied."
"Why you!" growled Cecilia.
Flashback end
Ichika snickered at the memory "She's such a friggin idiot!" and then he threw his head back and broke out laughing. "Well anyways time to knock the white witch down a few notches." Yes that was an attempted racial slur.
Ichika used an instructor/medical service entrance to get into the arena as he didn't have an I.S.
"I'm surprised you decided not to run away." Said Cecilia "Though if you surrender now I might just forgive you."
'I had my suspicions but…yep just another delusional girl' thought Ichika with deadpanned expression.
"Although I will admit the you do look like you mean to fight seriously however-" Ichika tuned her out and turn on his communicator.
"So when does the match start?" asked Ichika getting bored
"It actually started the moment you entered the arena" said Yamada from the control room that oversees the matches.
"Really? Alright then" Ichika took aim with his M82 now he wasn't aiming for the pilot, no he was doing something a bit more out of the box. He pulled the trigger three times as shots rang out going up towards Cecilia who apparently didn't take notice until it was too late. These were explosive rounds meaning they explode on impact causing more damage than a normal .50 caliber round would do which the normal round itself does a fair bit of damage. The first shot knocked the rifle out of her hand the second and third damaged and destroyed it.
Cecilia was stunned both at the accuracy of her opponent, her being a sniper herself knew that wasn't an easy shot to make and the fact that in the opening move of the match he already took out her primary weapon. However her face quickly contorted to anger. "How dare you destroy my rifle!" she shouted and sent her bits at Ichika who began firing he managed to nail two before the rest got to him and he needed to start moving to avoid laser beams. He wasn't avoiding the laser beams more that he used the angel that the bits were pointed in and used that to predict where they would shoot. One bit however got too close and in a single fluid movement drew his arc blade cutting from the sheathe on his thigh in two before it exploded luckily he moved far enough away from the blast. Seeing how half of her bits were down Cecilia recalled the remaining three.
During this time Ichika noticed that Cecilia didn't move at all nor did she engage with her knife, she also didn't shoot those missiles at him. So Ichika took this time to unloaded the rest of his clip which was extended to fourteen rounds at her it was an easy target despite the distance considering the significant size an I.S. gave a person. A total of five rounds hit her, one even managed to destroy another bit that was trying to attach itself back on to her wings.
"That is it! I have had enough of this." yelled Cecilia as two large barrels moved up from her legs. Two missiles shot out and came after him. "If you surrender then I'll stop the missiles."
'Like this isn't the first heat seeking rocket propelled explosive to come after me.' Thought Ichika with an annoyed look as he switched to his arc blade. 'Yeah this will probably stop the missiles.' Thought Ichika unsurely, as he prepared the knife.
The missiles closed in and Ichika used a dial on the hilt to turn up the power output making the blade course with so much electrical discharge it looked more like an energy sword and in one quick motion tapped both of the missiles with his sword, this was enough to short circuit their guidance system they fell to the ground undetonated. 'holy crap!' Ichika thought as he looked at what he did 'so Fred wasn't kidding when he said he stopped a long range missile strike with this thing…and now I owe him five bucks.' He then heard something hovering next to him, when he turned he saw the remaining two bits from Cecilia floating there "Well shit." both bits simultaneously shot at him however he managed to activate his fold out shield in time to block. The force pushed him away as the bits chased after him as he skidded to a halt keeping the shield up. The bits waiting for him to lower his shield he did but his speed was too great to anticipate and with one swipe from his Arc blade he managed to destroy the two and used his shield to protect from the resulting explosion.
Ichika smirked at the way the battle was going, he has taken out her primary, secondary and back up long range weaponry the only thing left was that knife she mentioned. "What's wrong Cecilia?" he taunted "I thought you said you would beat me, is this the best you got?"
"Shut up!" Cecilia yelled and she did bee-line toward him materializing some a rather large knife which could be considered a great sword by normal standards.
'It's an I.S., of course it would have over-sized weaponry even for its back up' thought Ichika with deadpanned Ichika as he prepared his own blade using a reverse grip style, he had his rifle and remaining ammo drop so as not to weigh him down.
Cecilia landed and they engage in close quarters combat. Ichika took great care not to meet her blows head on and instead redirected the massive 'knife', and then made several strikes when she was off balance the arc blade sparking as it affected her shield.
The spectators looked on in awe at what was happening, they spent their lives growing up being led to believe the I.S. was invincible, that women were stronger than men, yet here he was, a guy, going toe to toe with an I.S. and winning. It was inconceivable to them, yet it was happening before their very eyes.
In the control room the two teachers watched in amazement. "Wow, Orimura is incredible." Said Yamada as she watched him skillfully dodge and redirect Cecilia's attacks "for someone to even put an I.S. pilot in this position, is incredible on its own. Is this because you trained him?"
"No it's not" said Chifuyu also with a somewhat surprised look on her face "I didn't even know he was capable of this." She continued to watch it. 'I need to find out what he's been doing those years I was gone.'
Back in the arena the two were trading blows, Ichika seemed to be mostly dodging at this point, which suited him just fine, Cecilia however was getting irritated at how evasive the man in front of her was. 'He's a man, right?' thought Cecilia, as he evaded yet another strike. 'Men are suppose to weak, right? Then how has this man being able to fight me down to such a condition?'
'Lets, see here, I'm getting bored so might as well wrap this up' Decided Ichika as he sheathed his blade much to the confusion of everyone watching, Cecilia went for a stabbing motion however Ichika stepped to the side and kicked the blade as it passed, both surprising Cecilia and throwing her off balance. Ichika then delivered a punch to her gut. And to everyone's surprise she felt it as she bent over clutching the point of impact. Ichika however delivered the final blow via karate chop to the back of the neck knocking her out.
As Cecilia's vision faded into blackness she thought 'You are strong aren't you?'
Her I.S. dematerialized no longer feeling the feedback from its pilot, Ichika caught her as she fell and gently placed her on the ground and looked up to face the crowd. "Alright then I guess this throws out men being weaker than girls!" he said the audio receptors in the arena amplifying what he was saying "and the fact that no one has been able to defeat an I.S. before well I guess they just weren't trying hard enough!" the crowd just watched him shock as a medical team came down and put Cecilia on a stretcher and took her away "one last thing… I AM INVINCIBLE!" he shouted raising a fist in the air, normally you'd laugh at someone claiming this. But no one dared laughed, here was the guy who they didn't expect to last ten seconds into the fight, the guy just pulled off the previously thought impossible right in front of their eyes. The guy who just faced the prominent beliefs of the modern world and threw them out the window.
The only thing they could think of was 'This guy IS invincible.'
Ichika collected his gear began to walk out of the arena, as the announcement came over the speaker "Match Over: Winner Cecilia Alcott."
"Huh!?" asked Ichika surprised.
"What!?" asked Houki also surprised.
"WHAT!?" chorused the whole class on confusion.
Back in the launch bay
"So why did I lose?" Asked Ichika with an irked expression. Chifuyu and Yamada were there to meet him along with Houki who was by his side.
"In a I.S. battle it's illegal to use tactics that could bypass your opponents shields, as it could cause great harm to the pilot" said Chifuyu back to her stoic face "However what you did was nothing short of incredible, it just that the match was set up entirely against you even the rules."
"Got beaten by a freaking technicality…" Grumbled Ichika indignantly however he then perked up as he realized something "Hey wait this is actually great, I proved that I could beat an I.S. without one, and I also don't have to be class representative! Everybody wins, and I don't have to deal with that pain in the ass job for the school year. hahaha" he laughed "I feel like celebrating!"
"Glad you're over it." Said Chifuyu as both she and Yamada shared a perplexed look. "But where did you get all that gear in the first place?"
"Like I said from my job." Said Ichika still in happy tone.
"And what is that job exactly?" asked Chifuyu curious as to why he responds in vague answers. Ichika held out a fold out shield an deployed it for the first time everyone noticed there was an insignia on it. It had the outline of a shield with a hammer inside.
"I work for Guardian Arms Industries, it's a weapons manufacturer specializing in defense both personal and otherwise, along with few offensive weaponry. I started working there like a month after you left for Germany though right now I'm not much more than an errand boy they still pay well though, and they occasionally let me test out the new gear they made." Explained Ichika, Guardian arms is a real company it's the front Guardrail uses to get funding for operations and independently develop gear that their operators may need in the field.
"That explains your familiarity with weapons you used" said Chifuyu as Ichika retracted his shield.
"Yep, so I called them, and they delivered the stuff to me and you saw what happened after that." Said Ichika.
"Yes that was absolutely amazing Orimura!" praised Yamada "You are the first person to ever do this."
"Yeah I'm pretty awesome." Said Ichika a bit cocky, and who could blame him.
"So how did you know that hand to hand combat could get past the shields?" asked Houki as she played the battle over in her head.
"That's right, I didn't even know that." said Yamada
"Probably because he's the first idiot crazy enough to even attempt it." Said Chifuyu, aren't brother-sister relationships great?
"Well this goes back to the lessons in class" said Ichika totally ignoring the idiot comment, the three females looked at him expectantly. "When I heard you guys explaining the shield the description was 'protects against any life threatening injury' so when I was planning this fight out while I was getting my gear on I thought to myself 'punches and kicks aren't necessarily life threatening right?'"
"And you bet that whole fight on the 'what-if' of that theory?" asked Chifuyu incredulously.
"What? Oh hell no!" denied Ichika "I would've quickly pulled back and just keep on grinding down her shields with the arc blade if that failed. What do you think I am some sort of idiot?"
"You're the one who said you could take her without an I.S." put in Houki as the teachers nodded.
"And look how that turned out." Defended Ichika "well I'm done here, you people are ruining my joy and my shoulder his sore because a .50 caliber recoil is a bitch!" With that Ichika left, Houki followed soon after.
"Hey wait! get back here and pick up your gear!" Yelled Chifuyu a little annoyed that he just left the high grade military equipment right there. He came back and quickly put gear away as if he done the same task many times before leaving again with the crates
Later The Dormitory Halls
"Today wasn't such a bad day after all!" said Ichika in an easygoing manner with his hands behind his head, as they walked through dormitory hall. Ichika mailed the gear back to the Guardrail safe house so they wouldn't take up space in the dorm. And Now all he was looking forward to was nice relaxing evening.
"Yeah…" agreed Houki a little overwhelmed at what she saw today. They went into their dorm and sat down on their respective beds as Ichika called Ira.
"Hey Ira guess what?" said Ichika with a grin on his face.
"You somehow managed to beat the I.S.." said Ira in a bored tone as if it was more of a fact then a guess.
"Well that killed all the fun." Said Ichika "Yes, I did. How did you know."
"It's all over the even news, along with an audio recording of that little speech you did afterwards." Said Ira in a sly tone "Men everywhere are now calling you the 'Invincible Paragon of Manliness' you must be so proud. On the other hand extremist feminist groups are calling you a plague that needs to be put down."
"Okay That one…That one I'm proud of." Said Ichika, proud that he was able to piss someone off with his actions.
"Of course you are." Said Ira "Anyways the guys in the lab have started constructing your personal I.S."
"You guys are making me an I.S.?" asked Ichika a bit surprised at the news. This also caught Houki's attention.
"Yeah, at first this other company was going to make it, and they were excited to get publicity for making the I.S. that first ever male pilot will use. But we showed them that you were employed with Guardian Arms, and so the government handed over the project and core to us." Said Ira "The look on those guys faces as they handed over the core to us was priceless! I should have taken a picture!" Ira began laughing.
"Why didn't you?" asked Ichika.
"I was too busy laughing!" replied Ira and they both broke out laughing. To think that these are the 'good' guys in the world right now. "Alright I have to go an operation I'm suppose to supervise just started, so I'll talk to later." And with that she hung up.
"What was that all about?" asked Houki as she listened to Ichika talking.
"To make a long story short, I'm on the news for beating Cecilia for some reason, my company is making me a personal I.S., and my shoulder is as sore as hell." Said Ichika, before Houki could respond there was a knock on the door and Yuki walked in. "Hey Yuki." greeted Ichika casually. "What brings you here?"
"Over the past few days I have heard that some idiot first year was stupid enough to challenge a representative cadet without piloting an I.S. themselves." Said Yuki "I know only one idiot crazy enough to try that. Then I see on the news of how that turned out. What I'm wondering is how the hell you're still alive?"
"Because I'm Invincible." Said Ichika with a cocky smirk, with raising his right fist in the air, before clutching his right shoulder in pain because that was the arm that he used to fire the .50 caliber rifle.
"Oh You are obviously invincible." Said Yuki sarcastically, while rolling her eyes.
"Why don't you try firing a fifty caliber rifle and redirecting an I.S. sized combat knife with your own knife?" defended Ichika, Yuki sighed and began walking over to him.
"Move over." She ordered with a stoic face.
"What?" asked Ichika confused.
"Just move." Ichika did so and Yuki sat down behind him and put her hands on his shoulders, and began massaging him. Ichika instantly relaxed into it.
"That feels nice…" he said with pleased expression.
"Wha….wha….what are you doing!?" stuttered Houki her face flushing red. With either embarrassment or jealousy or both.
"A massage." Said Yuki plainly as small smile came to her lips "think of it as sort of congratulations for defeating an I.S.."
"There's still no reason for you to that!" she protested. But her protest went unheard.
Cecilia's Room
Cecilia was in the shower she woke up not too long ago in the infirmary as the nurse there told her that she did win, but she remembers being knocked unconscious. When the nurse elaborated she learned it was only due to a technicality that she won. But she did win…officially.
'If I did win then why do I feel so bad.' She thought to herself as the warm water washed over her. 'Ichika Orimura, what a strange man you are.' One of the strangest anyone would care to meet.
From this point on Cecilia decided that this man Ichika Orimura, has piqued her interest and would therefore try to get closer to him.
Happy thanksgiving everybody! So here's the fight scene, originally I was going to have it that Ichika had the sniper rifle modified to be automatic and he would have some sort of advanced combat armor, but then I decide that would be too much of a pain in the ass to describe due to it being complex. So I just decided to make Ichika seem crazier going into that fight with limited protection
Also this fight differs from my other Ichika defeats an I.S. without using one himself is that this time he willingly went into the fight and was somewhat prepared for it.
