I own nothing, not the characters, the space where this story exists, or even the eyes that you are using to read it. This is for entertainment purposes only, no money involved.
Chifuyu stood in the control center of the IS Academy, a grim, determined look edged onto her face as she awaited the reports of the several individuals who had been tasked with investigating the current situation.
Only Yamada, who knew her better than almost anyone else in the world, could tell that Chifuyu was anything but focused on the task at hand. Not that she could blame her. She was forced to be here to help deal with the emergency situation that had cropped up, when she really wanted to be down at the local hospital to check on her little brother.
Ichika had received some damage to his body through his IS's shields, but Chifuyu was called away to deal with the world governments before she could be told if her little brother would be alright or not.
Perhaps the whole thing would have been less frustrating to her if it wasn't for that all she had to tell the stupid blood sucking insects was that they were currently looking into events.
They had absolutely no idea what the hell was going on, and the only person who might know was in a stage two coma in the emergency medical center.
It had been a shock to all of them when they had gone to pick up the boy's dead body to bring it in for identification only to have him cough up a mouthful of blood whenever they tried to move him. They had rushed him to the emergency center as fast as they could, and now Chifuyu was having to wait for the doctors to give her word on his condition as well.
Hopefully he would wake up soon and they would be able to interrogate him as to what that thing was.
They had also recovered the remains of the boy's IS and it too was being analyzed for any meaningful data. In the mean time they were asking each and every government agency whether or not they knew what that thing that had attacked the city was. Not that any of them would have admitted to knowing even if they did. Sometimes Chifuyu wanted to just give up on the human race. They were all such pains in the butt to deal with.
Chifuyu's eyes shot to the sliding door of the room as it opened and the check engineer that the IS Academy entered the room. "Ms. Yuri, I want your report now." Chifuyu demanded, not caring how cold she was taken for being, she was not in the mood for any amount of small talk.
Ms. Yuri was in her mid thirties making her one of the older staff members, her dark green hair was cut longer than Yamada's and her body time was less of a supermodels and more of a mechanic's.
She nodded and lifted up a clip board with the results, handing it to Chifuyu as she started to talk. "I don't know whether to call that thing a work of genius or the biggest piece of garbage to ever enter my hanger." Ms. Yuri said in her rough voice. "Several of the parts are unique, like nothing I've ever seen. The engine and interface and both going to take weeks before we will have a good idea about how they work, but the main components are all fairly similar to your standard IS units. That is, if you are using a first generation model."
"It's a modified first generation model?" Chifuyu asked, her eyes scanning over the sheet.
"No." Ms. Yuri replied with a shake of the head. "The main thing that confuses me is not what is there, but what isn't. The unit has no stabilizers, no shielding, no life support or even safety measures or communication equipment and the core is bazaar, as if they actually tried to make one rather than using one of Tabane's. Even if this is some kind of prototype, you would think that they would hold onto the standard equipment. Not to mention a lot of this stuff has the tell tale signs of a rush job. It's missing the finishing touches to the wiring and the chips have all hardly been used. The thing is a death trap if you ask me."
"Agreed, this machine seems to be meant to be a purely offensive unit, and not meant for IS battles. It breaks so many of the Alaska Treaty's regulatory rules that I doubt anyone will come forward to claim it." Chifuyu said. "Do you have any hints on who might have made it?"
"We got a symbol placed on it by the makers, but we have no idea where it is from. I've got people doing a search as we speak, but it will take time. Hopefully the pilot will wake up first." Ms. Yuri said as she scratched her head. "Speaking of which, is it true that the pilot was a boy?" Chifuyu just nodded. "That might explain the massive change in the interface. They modified it so that a male could pilot it." She said looking up into space. "I have never seen such a strange IS in my life."
"I assure you, the IS is completely ordinary compared to that boy you dropped off in my hospital." Ms. Emma entered the room dressing in her usual doctor's coat. She adjusted her glasses as she moved closer. "I have never seen anything like him in my life. I'm not even sure if we can call him human."
The women in the room blinked in surprise at those words. "Explain." Chifuyu ordered.
"His wounds have all closed, his broken bones have repaired themselves, his blood count has returned to normal and his heartbeat and breathing are both stable. He recovered from critical condition to near perfect health after just a few hours and an IV. Inhuman is all I can think to call it." The doctor said, adjusting her glasses again. "The only thing that seems to not have recovered is his spinal cord. He will remain paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of his life."
"How can that be?" Ms. Yuri asked in shock.
"I have no idea. We are trying to figure out what he is, but all of our sensors are finding it difficult to get any readings on him. He is giving off some kind of radiation that interferes with our instruments. We tried to get a blood sample, but it was so deviant to what we are used to dealing with that the machine returned an error. I have no idea what to do about it." Ms. Emma said with a sigh. "He will live though, and hopefully we can get some answers when he wakes up. Though all this isn't even the strangest part we have found."
"What could possibly be stranger than this?" Ms. Yamada asked.
"We found ID on him. He had a wallet." Ms. Emma explained.
"Who is he then?" Chifuyu asked, glad that she was finally getting answers.
"His name is Daniel Fenton. He had both a school ID and a learners permit saying as much. He's an American." Ms. Emma said.
"What is so strange about that?" Ms. Yuri asked.
"Both were dated to fifty seven years ago." Ms. Emma stated bluntly. Both Yamada and Yuri's jaws dropped open.
"Tha... that's insane." Yuri managed to spit out. "Are you telling me this kid is some kind of time traveler? That can't be. The IS was only invented ten years ago."
"But that isn't like other IS." Chifuyu reminded. "Have you found anyone who can confirm his identity?"
"There is one person, and she just so happens to live in Japan." Ms. Emma said looking at the group. "Jasmine Shinonono."
"Shinonono!" Yamada shouted in surprise.
"That's right, Tabane Shinonono's grandmother was the boy's older sister." Ms. Emma said looking like she was having a hard time believing it herself.
Chifuyu sighed. "Great, we finally have something we can tell the world government, but none of them are going to believe it." She turned around and started to leave the room.
"Where are you going?" Yamada asked.
"To check on my idiot brother. Call me if anything new comes up. And don't stop try to figure out that IS unit. For now we will refer to it as the 'Zero Model'. Maybe if we're lucky I can get into contact with Tabane and she can explain what the hell is going on here." Chifuyu asked as she left them all standing there, wondering how the world could get any weirder.
So Danny is going to be a cripple for the rest of this story. I think it would be good for having a change of character. He tried to be a hero and lost and ended up a cripple. That kind of thing would change a man.
I'm having this all take place just before Charlotte shows up at the academy so that she will end up there at the same time Danny starts.
Danny will wake up next chapter and most of that will be him being brought up to speed and thinking about his failure. After that, Pariah will come back for round two.
