Author's Notes

Hey guys, here's the new chapter for Iron Stratos. Apologies for the long update, had a curve ball thrown into my life, and I had to deal with the problems that came after.

Without further ado, let's start the chapter!

=Chapter Start=

Part 1

"What are we to do now, sir?" The soldier asked as he set down the radio transmitter he was holding a minute ago on the dashboard. General Gregor could only sigh as he leaned back to rest his head on the neck rest, grateful for the slight jolt of electricity emitting from the electric chair that helped to ease tensed nerves.

He and his subordinate were currently at the Okinawa airport, hidden in their getaway vehicle disguised as one of the airport's security trucks. They were stationed there in the event that something had gone wrong with the operation and that the plane was redirected back to Okinawa. It was just a precaution, but it seemed it was a good thing they followed it.

Gregor sighed again as he mentally thought through what Fenix had told him about the recent events that had transpired. There was so much to think about and so much to strategize.

On the good side, it seemed that Fenix was fairly lucky in handling the negotiations with the IS pilots. There was that slight hiccup that involved the pilot sending an SOS when they were hijacking the plane, but Fenix was able to take it in stride and use it as a means to open up negotiations, even if it was a little earlier than expected. Not to mention his use of the jammer was well-timed, given his report that several pilots tried to approach the plane undetected.

Thanks to Fenix, the governments now had to follow several of their demands, such as the release of several imprisoned individuals, and the forced return of the soldiers from other war zones. Granted he used the jammer a lot sooner than expected, but it played well into his hands.

On the bad side, Sanchez screwed the entire operation up by trying to attack Anita Anderson, and then tried to attack her female guard. Gregor was seriously regretting his choice in letting Sanchez board the plane with them; he knew he had issues, but this was seriously a first for Sanchez. Because of that, they may have lost an edge to the pilots by losing the jammer.

But that was not all; from what Fenix had just told him, it seemed that contrary to his thoughts, the mysterious machines that had not appeared since the Dakota Incident had decided to crash the party, so to speak. At least two were confirmed, one being the one that took out most of the group apart from Fenix and taking back the plane, the second was apparently with the other IS teams after saving the female security guard. There was supposedly a third that was engaging Benson, but they could not be sure, since it disappeared shortly after engaging it in combat.

'This is really bad' Gregor groaned mentally while going through backup plans in his head. He had planned for situations if somehow the hijacking was not a success, or said plane experienced any mechanical failures that required them to land earlier, but none of them included the appearance of machines that had the strength to go against top notch IS Representatives, let alone an army. Furthermore, there was the high chance of the jammer not working on them.

"Sir?" Gregor got dragged back to reality by the soldier's question. He would have to worry about the implications later, for now he had to concentrate on making the best of the situation.

"For now, we will monitor the situation." Gregor told the guy as he sat up straight on his seat. "Considering the plane has been retaken, we would have to assume that they would be arriving here on schedule. Of course, that's assuming the plane hasn't run out of fuel."

That was another part he was worried. It seemed that the plane used up more fuel than they had expected, probably due to them trying to get some distance from the main island before they got into any confrontation. Originally they had planned for an aerial refueling before they reached their destination, but Sanchez's stupidity and the appearance of the machine had thrown all their planning out of the window.

Gregor frowned as he took out his weapon temporarily to check its condition while the soldier started to move the vehicle into a different spot for cover. This was going to be a major hassle to deal with, but if he played his cards right, he could still get something out of it.

That much he had to do for his men who may be dead for all he know.

"ARRGH! Won't this damn machine respond to anything we are saying?!" Cecilia's frustrated voice made Ichika wince at the intensity of her irritation. The thing that made it even more uncomfortable was the fact that everyone else near him was feeling the same irritation towards the mysterious red unit that was currently flying a little ahead of him.

Currently, they were flying closer to the plane to monitor the situation and ensure the plane was able to get back to Japan safely. They were still wary of the weapon the terrorists had to disable their units, given what had happened earlier, but the red machine had told them that the source of the disruption wave was gone, so they could get closer if they wanted to. So they were now flying behind it with Ellen's team coming along as support should the machine tried anything against them.

Earlier, after Ellen, Houki and the others caught up to Ichika, he explained to them what the machine had told him and done. It took a fair bit of convincing on his part as they were clearly not as swayed about the machine's claims as he was, Ellen being the most skeptical and thinking that the unit may be a ploy used by the terrorists to trick them.

Then later, after they caught up with the red unit (not an easy task considering the speed it was travelling at), they had attempted some form of communication with it to assess the situation, but they did not get much out of it. The one time it responded to Ellen's questioning, the message given was enough to drive everyone else's temperaments up the wall.

[M17: The woman is safe, the plane has been retaken, one terrorist has been eliminated and we are wasting time, so shut up and follow it back to Okinawa.]

Honestly, if not for the fact that everyone's expressions were looking really murderous, Ichika would have most certainly laughed very loudly. He was not sure why that was the case, but he felt the sudden need to laugh each time the machine replied back in such a manner.

That said, it seemed that Ichika was the only one who could more or less communicate with it, if by communicating meant that he could only exchange small messages in short intervals, much of it replied in a somewhat deadpanned manner. Still, it was something that could be used to establish some form of communication. So through him repeating verbally the message sent to him, they were able to get some answers from it.

This much was confirmed: the unit had managed to save the passenger that fell out of the plane, while another unit had supposedly gone and regained control of the plane, while rescuing the hostages and taking out the terrorists. This was more or less verified by Chifuyu, who called in to check on the situation. Apparently, a message had been sent out to them and the authorities in charge of the situation control that the plane was retaken, so they were currently following the plane to make sure it stayed the course. From what was given in the message, the plane was starting to run low on fuel, so they had to consider getting to another airport closer to their location, or at least somewhere with enough room for it to land.

There were other thoughts that Ichika kept to himself as he looked at the unit. Clearly, this was what Chifuyu had spoken about during their strategy meeting. And unless he was much mistaken, this unit may have something to do with the unit that was featured in the photo. But he had to wonder who would build these machines, and for what purpose. And for that matter, why did it only appear now and not earlier when they were attacked?

[M17: Is there a problem?] A soft "Ping!" and lit up message brought Ichika out of his thoughts, as he twisted his head slightly to see the unit staring at him on his left. Apparently the unit decided to hold back on its speed and fly alongside the rest of the group. Judging from the expressions on the others' faces, it seemed it was a rather sudden move on its part.

"Err…" Ichika stammered at seeing the machine staring at him so intensely. He could not be sure, but for a supposedly autonomous unit, it seemed to have a bit of personality that seemed "human", yet there was also an odd chill in seeing a machine studying him in such a manner.

"I'm just wondering, how did you find out about the hostage situation?" Ichika blurt out the first question that came to his head as he tried to clear his head of any doubts of the machine. Not quite the right thing to ask, but it was better than nothing. It seemed that the machine did not mind him asking, as a "Ping-Po!" prompted him to open a direct channel to speak.

In regards to their form of communication, the machine had managed to tap through the coms-system on Byakushiki, so they were able to reply in real time, without the hassle of Ichika having to manually open the messages like before, with occasional messages sent to the others if it was something that could be shared. In a way, it was scary how the machine effortlessly hacked their units just to open a communication channel.

[M17: Master had predicted something would happen in light of our movements. Master found out through the distress call originating from the plane that the representatives were captured, so Master sent me and my brothers out.]

Ichika nodded as he relayed the message to Ellen and the others. He was not sure, but given what the machine said and the look on Ellen's face the few times it wrote the words 'our movements' and 'engaging in places of conflict around the world', he guessed that she knew something that she could not say. If anything, the more he read the machine's replies, the more he started to better understand why some of the representatives were coming to Japan, and for that matter, why pilots like Ellen were deployed to save them.

"Then how about this 'Master'?" Ellen put up a question as she watched it carefully. "What can you tell us about that person?"

[M17: No comment.] The machine replied back immediately.

Ichika sympathized with the others who sighed loudly. Although it was willing to talk to them, it would clammed up whenever someone ask something that could potentially lead to the identity of its owner. They have been at it for quite a while and so far they had gotten no information on it.

"How about a name?" Ellen asked again, determined to get a proper response.

[M17: No comment.]

"Gender?"

[M17: No comment.]

"Where you were deployed?"

[M17: No comment.]

"How about the others? Are there other pilots with them, or are they autonomous as well?"

[M17: No comment.]

"Is there anything that you can 'comment' on?" Cecilia said sarcastically as she glared at the machine with a bit of irritation.

[M17: Yes. My Master does not like busy bodies]. The machine replied back without hesitation.

Ichika was not sure what just happened, but he suddenly felt the temperature drop drastically. Definitely not a good thing.

Maybe he should learn to think before reading out the words automatically.

"ARGH! Can I please shoot this guy down?!" Rin threw up her arms before pointing her cannons at the machine, her eyes flashing rather dangerously with murderous intent. Everyone else seemed to agree with her, Charlotte's 'angel of death' smile being particularly disturbing.

"Whoa, Rin! Hold on there! Don't forget there is a passenger in there!" Ichika put up his hands to try and appease her anger. He paused as he thought of what he just said, before turning to the machine and asked, "Speaking of which, how is the lady inside?"

For that question, the machine prompted him to open another communication channel, an audio feed this time, with the added message:

[M17: You might want to reduce the volume before opening this channel.]

Ichika arched an eyebrow as he read it. 'Reduce the volume?' Ichika thought with a look of puzzlement, but followed the instructions anyway. If the machine said to do so, he better followed it. He made the volume setting very low, then with a gesture from his finger, opened the audio channel.

In a way, he was thankful he followed the machine's instructions.

"LET ME OUT OF HERE, YOU DAMN TIN CAN!" The woman's voice blared through the audio channel, temporarily deafening Ichika's ears as he winced and proceeded to lower the volume even further. He shook his head to try and get the ringing out of his head.

[M17: As you can see, she is fine, though she is being…] The machine paused before continuing. [… Difficult].

"You don't say." Ichika said meekly while toning the volume down further to try and block out the woman's shouting. She must be fine considering the amount of shouting she was doing.

"She sounds pissed off." Houki paused before continuing, "Like really pissed off." The others nodded their head to show their agreements.

"That's an understatement." Ichika winced again as he listened to the woman's ranting. It's not like he had anything against her, but he had to wonder, where the Hell did she learn such words? Not even some of the old men he knew back home cursed this much, and she was seriously THIS vocal with language!

[M17: She has recovered enough to regain motor movements and speech.] The machine continued while completely ignoring the shouting that woman was giving. [However she is interfering with my ability to handle flight controls. I might potentially harm her if I had to forcefully move my body to engage any enemies and she were resisting.]

"That would be bad." Ichika frowned as he thought about the negative prospect of breaking the woman's limbs in the process of protecting her. For that matter, he really hoped that they don't get into any fights any time soon!

[M17: Agreed, and that is why I am going to do this. Please excuse me.]

With that, the machine flew a little further away from Ichika, then to his slight amusement and surprise, started to spin a few times, picking up speed as it goes. That action definitely riled up the lady inside.

"Whoa! Stop, Stop! I give, I give!" The woman wailed through the intercom, panic definitely evident in her words. The machine continued a couple more times before slowly down and righting itself mid-flight. As the machine came closer to Ichika, he could hear on the intercom the groans emitted by the woman.

[M17: No Problem now.] The machine replied back in that manner.

Despite the cool temperature, everyone could not help but sweat at the manner the machine handled its charge. "Err, maybe we should get that person onto one of our transport planes?" Charlotte asked while giving an uneasy smile, which the others also expressed while giving the machine weird looks. Even Ellen lost her strict expression and looked at it with a wary eye.

[M17: That would be ideal. Please ask for additional clothing; it would seem her clothes have been damaged.] The machine gave its reply while adding that last part.

Ichika continued looking at the machine while Ellen called for permission to let it board one of the planes to let the hostage out. He mused at the apparent ease and somewhat direct method of handling the woman's restlessness. He wondered who the person responsible was making the operating system for that machine.

Maybe he could ask for a copy to put inside his machine for his troubles?

[M17: Any more questions?] The message interrupted Ichika's thoughts of having an operating system handle his issues with Chifuyu, as he looked at the machine again.

"Just one more if you don't mind." Ichika mentally kicked himself in the head as the others turned to him with expressions of puzzlement on their faces. He did not mean to say that out loud. Now he had to think of a suitable question fast!

[M17: Name it.] The machine replied back immediately. Ichika kept a thoughtful expression while mentally clutching his head at the stupidity he displayed. What type of question could he afford to ask without screwing it up?!

Wait, 'name it'? That's it!

"What's your real name?" Ichika asked a little tentatively. That definitely took it by surprise as the machine slowed down before stopping completely, and hovered in the air as it looked at him.

"I mean, I'm guessing 'M17' may be your login name of sorts, but what do we address you by, in case we need to call you properly?" Ichika asked while hovering near it. He was not really expecting an answer, but the fact that the machine actually stopped to consider proved it to be a worthy choice.

Everyone else turned to look at the machine, who was steadily staring back, as if to contemplate answering that question. The, as if it came to a decision, it started to twist it head left and right to all of them. A soft "Ping!" on everyone's systems showed that they had the option to open an audio channel. After seeing everyone gesturing to open the channel, the machine turned back to face Ichika.

"Mark 17, [JetStream]. Pleasure to meet you, Orimura Ichika"

"W-What?!" Rin stammered out unconsciously, and for good reason. This was the first time the machine actually spoke in person to anyone. It was a low monotonous voice that was decidedly male, but it was also rather high pitched that made it difficult to tell if it was truly a person talking or it was a voice recording.

"Ellen, do you copy?" A voice blared through the intercom, startling everyone in the vincity. Blushing slightly from embarrassment, Ellen opened the com-link. "Ellen here, is my request done?"

"All clear, tell it to go to Delta's side, they are open." The operator replied back. Ellen closed the com-link before turning to the red unit. "You are to head to the plane marked with a yellow stripe with 4 stars on it, the team will take over from there." She pointed to one of the planes as she gave her instructions.

"Thank you for your assistance" The machine gave its thanks in the same monotonous voice as it turned its body towards the plane. "See you later, JetStream" Ichika waved his hand at it.

"We will meet again." It replied back quickly before gently flying off to the designated plane.

"BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!" Everyone's expressions started changing at the sound of their alarms blaring in the open air. This was unusual; this alarm meant that someone was targeting them but who?

That question got answered when a black fighter jet flew out of a nearby cloud and started firing off rounds at them.

"Scatter!" Ellen's voice spurred everyone to activate their boosters in time to get away from the shots aimed at them. That however did not help much in getting blasted by the wind when the jet flew past them at high speeds.

"Who the hell is shooting at us?!" Laura pointed her railgun cannon in anticipation of getting attacked again.

"That I would like to know!" Ellen growled as she opened the audio channel. "Unknown Aircraft, identify yourself now!" The only response was static on the channel. "Pilot of Unknown Aircraft, identify yourself now or we will open fire!"

The response to her second reply was a few shots fired at them as the jet circled around to them.

Ichika clicked his tongue in frustration as he directed his sights at the plane to try and get a reading. All the units came equipped with a database that allowed the user to know what plane model and known organizations tied to it. All he had to do was scan the plane and it would come back with a reply quickly.

[Plane Type: Unknown; Weapons Equipped: Unknown; Known Associations/Groups: Unknown; Threat Level: 80%]

'No known type or association?!' Ichika thought as he gathered power into Setsura. This was bad news; that would mean some other party was involved in this situation, and considering that the jet was attacking them and the red unit, it was safe to say the pilot of the jet was not their ally.

"Open fire on it!" Ellen brought out her minigun and let loose some rounds. The others did not require more prompting; Cecilia let loose her Bits and fired her rifle right at jet, followed shortly by Rin firing her cannons and Laura firing her rail-gun. But just as their shots were about to hit the jet, a small beam appeared in front of it and formed a small membrane around it, thus deflecting the shots.

"A Protective Barrier! Are you kidding me?!" Houki growled as she raised Amatsuki and brought it down with a yell, unleashing a large number of energy shots at the jet. But just as before, her shots bounced off the barrier. This time however, the enemy decided to return the favor by firing a missile straight at her.

"Houki, watch out!" Ichika tried to fire a shot at the missile, but a red blinking light from Setsura indicated that the weapon did not have enough power to fire properly. Cursing, he tried to speed up to catch the missile, but that was evidently not required, as JetStream being closest to Houki raised its arms, and with a loud "PII… POOM!" fired off a bright beam at the missile and destroyed it.

"Thanks!" Ichika let out a relief sigh. "Please be careful" JetStream replied back monotonously while aiming its palm cannons at the enemy and firing. Arguably it was doing a better job than the rest of them; some of the shots actually pieced through the barrier, barely missing the plane's body as it kept moving to avoid the shots. However, even Ichika could tell that its movements were a little stiffer when moving at certain angles, likely to avoid hurting its passenger.

"Everyone regroup at my side!" Ellen started giving orders to them and her teammates. "You, get that hostage to the plane NOW!" She shouted at the red machine a lot louder than needed, but it did not comment on it. JetStream let out one more shot at the enemy before spinning around and blasting off.

The enemy however did not let up on its attack; even as Ichika and the others got together to defend themselves, the fighter jet launched another missile, only this time it was aimed right at the retreating red unit.

"INCOMING!" Ichika shouted at JetStream a little too late, as the missile flew past him and headed straight at the machine. It barely had time to turn around and deploy its shields that opened up from its arms before the missile hit it.

"BOOM!"

"Well, at least I got one." Benson frowned as he looked through the window at the cloud of smoke that came from the explosion. It took longer than he liked to deal with the machine, but he could not be too picky about the situation he was in.

He got his orders to hunt down the machines that got past him, and if necessary, to take down the IS pilots if they were to get in the way. It took him a while to find them, since he had to lay low undetected. The plane he was using was a heavily modified F-18 fighter jet equipped with some of the latest stealth and combat technologies that was stolen from various military corporations, but he knew it would take more than that to handle the IS units that were in front of him.

Despite the disadvantages that were in front of him, he was not bothered too much about them, mostly because he was meant to delay them for Fenix to try and take back the plane. Also, if needed, he could use the smaller version of [Corruption Overload] installed on his plane to take them down.

There were other things to consider, mainly the other two units that appeared with the red one. Excluding the one he just shot, there were two more units unaccounted for. One was presumably at the super-sonic plane taking out their men and regaining control of the situation, the other one was still missing. The last one was the one that concerned him the most, because unless he was much mistaken, that one would be the most problematic.

After all, that last unit bared a strong resemblance to the grayish unit that appeared at South Dakota.

Part 2

Floris let her mind wander as she absentmindedly walked around, her limbs having recovered enough to move about quickly. There was so much to take in.

After they had been freed, some of the representatives and crew members set about rounding up the terrorists that were knocked out by the machine and locked them in one of the conference rooms. Genaro took particular pleasure in handling the terrorist that got to them earlier; from the loud crashes and the groans that followed, Floris could guess that he used several of his wrestling moves on him. Annie apparently helped a little as well to relieve her stress and anger; considering the screams that came from the other room, the nervous twitching from the soldiers and Annie smiling very widely as she came back to the room, Floris could only imagine the scene.

Right now though, she had other things to consider.

"Fascinating." Those words brought her back from her thoughts as she turned to see one of the representatives studying the machine that was still interfacing with the computer for some time now. He wasn't the only one; when the others found out about their rescuer, many seemed to have forgotten that they were in the middle of a hostage situation, their professional curiosity having overridden their fears. Currently those people were closely scrutinizing every visible aspect that made up the machine, some taking notes with paper found in the room, others took out their phones to snap a photo of the machine, much to the indignation of the stewardess that was in the room with them.

For Floris, she too was somewhat intrigued at the machine. Being one of the departmental heads of the company back home, she was always on the lookout for designs and ideas that could help in their frame development. With the news about some mysterious units popping up at certain parts of the world, with the supposed firepower to match some of the strongest IS pilots around, she would have to be a fool to not study the unit in front of her.

From what she could see, the machine in front of her displayed some elements of IS infrastructure, but the overall design seemed to resemble more of an exoskeleton suit to handle heavy loads. The general look of it and reports on the other units suggested that the machines were designed primarily for flight, before they got altered to suit the different situations of combat. For this particular case, the unit was designed for general warfare.

She had to guess that the material used for its creation had to be of a type of alloy to handle the extreme pressures and temperatures that come about from flight and fighting. It was certainly durable enough to withstand the firepower those soldiers had, and there were no visible markings from where the bullets hit it. Also, rather than seeing, she felt a certain energy radiating from the machine as she stood closer to it. She theorized that it has a mini force field that guards it from energy attacks.

The rifle stocked to the waist of the machine was also interesting to say the least; its resemblance to the FAMAS bullpup rifle from France was uncanny, the targeting scope being the only difference from the standard equipment. Based on the small clamps barely visible at the stock, Floris hazard a guess that the machine could grab its weapon quickly and attack at high speeds without worrying of dropping the rifle.

But perhaps the thing that may be the most interesting to her and the others were the particles that were issuing out of the vents on its back. They were thought to be the source of the Disruption Wave that affected any electronics in the area, something that was quickly proven with everyone's devices unable to make any connection with the outside world. So they were currently relying on the machine to communicate with the authorities and IS pilots outside. To say the least, Floris was a little impressed at the specs and intimidated at the machine's handling of the matter.

That, and the small amount of satisfaction of seeing one of her least favorite person getting slightly electrocuted with electricity when he attempted to touch the machine.

For the machine itself, it seemed to be concentrating mostly on correcting the flight path and ensuring that the terrorists don't get a second chance in regaining control of the plane. Any questions to it were replied through the small TV screen, and they were usually short messages. One notable part about its method of communication was it bringing up files of the people on board every time someone tried talking to it and it matches the person's photo, before replying back to the speaker using the small screen.

The one bit of good news was that Cynthia had apparently been rescued and was being carried by supposedly another one of the units (that alone brought a sparkle to some of the representatives' eyes). It was at least heartening to see Villian smiling after getting that bit of news. Floris too was very happy about Cynthia having survived her encounter with Sanchez.

There was however one small part that worried the others; earlier when the soldiers were moving them to the different conference rooms, they sorted through their belongings to see if there was any valuable information they could take as a bargaining chip, so they attached the various USB devices and other external devices to the mainframe to view the information.

So when the machine was pulling up their files to check if everyone was on board, it also pulled a document pertaining to the nature of their travels, mainly the part of them discussing on whether to communicate or capture the units by force and bring to the lab for disassemble.

There was a tensed pause as the unit turned its head slightly to look at them steadily, its unrelenting stare seemingly unsettling some of the representatives with its green eyes temporarily flashing red, before it turned its head back to the screen to continue whatever it was doing.

For now, the machine seemed to be ignoring them in favor of monitoring the situation with the plane. There was a bit of panic when it told them that they were running out of fuel, so they needed to land soon. There was also the issue of the one soldier on the loose, Sergeant Fenix based on the head count and the faces of those they recognized. But considering the machine was monitoring the cameras on the plane, they should be safe for now, especially now that all the guards were freed and currently keeping watch at the entrances.

"Erm?" Floris turned to see her youngest sister standing nervously next to the machine, who merely twisted its neck slightly to get her in view. "T- Thank you for saving us and Cynthia." Villian stammered as she bowed her head.

[No Problem, miss] The machine replied immediately before turning its head back to the screen. But it seemed Villian was not done yet.

"Erm, may I ask why are you doing this?" The machine turned back its head to look back at her. If it could show an expression, it would probably arched an eyebrow.

[Doing this, meaning saving the plane and you?] The machine asked.

"Not just that." Villian shook her head. "What I mean is why are you and the others going around the world to deal with those incidents?"

The machine twisted it body slightly without interrupting the connection on its left arm. At this point, the representatives stopped their observation of the machine to focus on their conversation. It was evident that her question could lead to the answer they themselves were seeking.

[Master wishes to handle them because the governments involved did not do so. Several individuals present in the governments' chain of command had intercepted and ignored Master's warnings. Master suspected unknown parties involved.]

"Wait a minute!" Genaro interrupted the machine's explanation. "Are you saying we have moles in the governments?"

[Phantom Task, to be exact.] The machine replied without looking at him. [They have been in your governments for a long time now. They are ever present in military research groups, even in IS corporations.]

Everyone's faces apart from the sisters paled at that bombshell the machine just dropped. This was seriously bad news! Everyone knew the shadow group that attacked various installations, but for the machine to say that they were spying within their own corporations was something that could not be ignored.

"But…" Villian hesitated before continuing, not as affected by the news as the others. "Why doesn't your master tell us about them? Why does your master feel he must handle all by himself?"

[Master tried to warn people, but no one listened. Master decided that the IS and their respective pilots cannot be trusted in the event Phantom Task could have sabotaged them, or have taken the pilots into their payroll.]

[As for why Master wanted to stop the incidents alone, it is because Master has seen things that many have missed. Master felt that the rules would restrict the nations from handling the situations properly.] The machine continued its explanation while lightly tilting its head. [Furthermore, Master does not trust the authorities enough to handle the problems properly.]

"Okay, I understand if Phantom Task is involved. But that does not give your master the right to just intervene into any conflicts out there." Genaro frowned as he looked at the machine.

[Perhaps that is the case. However, your logic is limited in your thinking and morals.] The machine replied back while turning its head towards him. [Question: would you be able to scramble a team willing to get rid of terrorists and conflicts without fear of repercussions? And would you believe that someone would not find some opportunity to take advantage of those situations?]

A deafening silence was the reply to the machine's words. Floris recalled reading from the papers that Carissa showed to her that several companies were involved with the Border Wars and the South Dakota Incident, mostly to see how their designs would fare in certain situations. Needless to say, with the appearance of these units, the companies have started to try and improve their work in order to beat and capture them, seemingly ignoring the people affected the most from the incident.

[There is one more reason why Master does not trust the usage of IS so easily. Master had found something … unusual in the core.]

"What do you mean by that?" Annie whispered as she considered the words that was conveyed. At least something was finally clarified: the machines were not created by Tabane after all if the machine implied that its master had found something.

Before the machine could reply back to her, a loud explosion could be heard, followed by the plane shaking violently, making everyone apart from the machine to lose their balance and falling on top of one another.

"What just happened?!" One of the representatives demanded while glaring at the machine, as though it was to blame. It did not bother to correct his suggestion, only to answer his question.

[We are under attack.]

"JetStream, do you copy?!" Ellen glared at the cloud of smoke as she tried to contact the machine. "Shit, it is not picking up!"

"What about the hostage?" Ichika asked nervously while gazing at the cloud. The explosion from the missile was a lot bigger than usual; clearly the missile was not standard issue for the jet, as with the rest of the weaponry on it. He hoped that the hostage inside did not get injured from the blast.

"We can't do anything for now, watch out for the shots!" Ellen flew out of the way as the enemy started firing off more missiles and turret rounds at them.

"Damn that plane, it's getting on my nerves!" Laura activated her AIC in time to stop the shots and missiles at her, thus allowing Charlotte to destroy them with her twin pistols. Cecilia and Rin took this opportunity to fire off a few shots at it, but the barrier deployed by the plane stopped all in their tracks.

"Darn it that barrier is really annoying!" Cecilia dodged a few rounds and used her bits to shoot down any stray shots. 'She ain't kidding, that's one stubborn barrier!' Ichika thought as he dodged and slash at the rounds aimed at him. If only it could be brought down…

Just then, the jet shot forward towards him, steadfastly ignoring Ellen's team shooting with their rifles and Gatling guns. Ichika hastily moved to one side to avoid a collision, and automatically swung Yukihira at the plane. For a moment, the blade made contact with the barrier and stuck there. Then, with a sound resembling paper cut with a blunt blade, the beam blade sliced through the barrier, temporarily showing a glimmer of light before breaking apart with a loud crash. With nothing to restrict it, Yukihira struck the side of the plane and started to cut the joint connecting the wing to the body, and would have continued if the sudden blast of air did not knock him away from it.

"Hey, I can hit it!" Ichika whooped as he turned while adjusting his position. That was really good news; if he could take down the barrier, the others can take it out!

"Good job, Ichika!" Ellen gave him a small praise while turning to her teammates. "Okay girls, you know what to do then. Help him get to the plane so that he can take out that shield!"

"YES MADAM!" Her team brought out their blasters and started to take down any stray missiles head their way, making a small pathway for Ichika to get closer to the jet. The enemy seemed to have caught on with their idea, as it started to use evasive maneuvers to get away from them. It seemed that the earlier attack took out most of the barrier, so now the enemy was evading their attacks while waiting for the barrier to recover.

But that did not work for long, as Cecilia and Laura took this opportunity to come from behind and start raining down shots on it, finally getting their first shots at it. Ellen's team also managed to take down most of its missiles and laid a few shots at it, eventually forcing it to be stuck in one area.

"Do it now!" Ellen shouted.

"AHHHHHH!" Ichika roared as he activated Ignition Boost to put him on a straight path with the plane. He just need to give it one good slash and they would be done with it!

"RRIIIIINNNNNGGGGG!"

"ARRRRGGGHHH!" Ichika let out a pained scream as he tried to cover his ears from the piercing shrieking through his system. He recognized it as the same attack from earlier, only this time it seemed to be much stronger and it was wrecking his IS even more.

'Damn it, are you kidding me?! Another one!' Ichika winced as the familiar blaring of his unit's alarms started going off and his thrusters started to fire off randomly, sending him tumbling in the air. For a few brief moments, he could spot the others having the same issues, but unless he was mistaken, his seemed to be the worst of the lot.

"Come on, not again!" Ichika cursed as he tried to do the manual reboot again. However it did not work this time round, and to Ichika's horror, the armor on his limbs started to display the same red rust that appeared on the seniors' units as well.

'CRAP! CRAP! CRAP! CRAP! CRAP!' Ichika panicked as he futilely tried to reengage his unit, all the while watching his unit starting to change its shape to a form he recognized was its standby form as the red rust increased its progress on his armor.

What else could go wrong?!

That question got answered when he managed to stop his spinning temporarily to reach the controls. As he tried to reset it, another enemy alert drew his attention to his side, and with a sinking heart, saw the fighter jet coming straight for him, with its gun aimed right at him.

This was bad, his unit was pretty much screwed from the Disruption Wave, and he had lost the AIC that was protecting him from attacks. There was no chance for him to run away or defend in his current state!

"Oh man, I'm really going to die…"

'Damn that was a little close for comfort!' Benson thought grimly as he slowed the jet to hover in the air with the male pilot in his sights. He had heard about the boy's IS being a little different from the rest, but to cut an energy shield was plain insanity! That had to be a bloody game-breaker if he took part in competitions against pilots with energy weapons. He thought the red unit was the only one he had to worry about since it too could penetrate his shield easily.

So he had no choice but to activate "Corruption Overload" to stop the male pilot and the other IS pilots in their tracks while he recovered the power for the barrier. The one he used was different from the one with Fenix in their size and power, but it still got the job done.

Now he had to decide on what to do with the male pilot. The situation has changed greatly now that he found out about the boy's capabilities. If he let him go, he could very well take Benson down and go after Fenix. However he himself only had a bit of time left before the damage done to the wing joint and the frame became too much for the jet to handle and fall apart completely.

There wasn't much choice to begin with.

"No offence kid" Benson took aim, and got ready to pull the trigger. "But this is war, and think of this as me relieving you of the crap that the government would put you through later."

Benson squeezed the trigger lightly as he watched the male pilot panicking and trying to make his unit functional. Just a bit more and …

"Corporal James Benson. Miss me?"

"Ooooohhhhh!"
"Shoot to thrill, play to kill"
"Too many women, with too many pills
I said, shoot to thrill, play to kill"
"I got my gun at the ready, gonna fire at will!"

"What the heck?!" Benson winced as he lost his concentration and let go of the handle, causing the plane to tilt to one side. He barely grabbed the handle to get the jet under control and take a glimpse at the dashboard, to see the words "PA SYSTEMS HACKED", before he suddenly got hit by something hard.

Ichika could not help but gaped stupidly as he watched the jet fly sideways and dropping altitude, one side blackened and giving off a lot of smoke and sparks. One moment he was literally seeing his life flashed before his eyes, the next a bright beam of light appeared and hit the jet at its side.

"Ichika, are you alright!" Ellen's voice blared through the intercom as she and the others came into view. "Yeah, I'm alright." He replied back while taking a few deep breaths to calm his rapidly beating heart. Whoever was the one that attacked the plane, Ichika would like to shake their hand, because the beam knocked the plane away and seemingly destroyed the jammer that interfered with his system. It seemed that he could still hover for now, but he would need to revisit the support plane for major repairs.

That's it, he was so going to ask Chifuyu for a break when this mission was over. He did not care if he had to endure Chifuyu's death glare for it. It's not everyday one stares at death in the face that much!

"Ichika!" Houki came forward and hugged him tightly, nearly making him gasp for air. "Are you sure you are okay?! I mean, you got hit earlier by the attack and got this red rust on your armor, and…"

"Houki, I'm fine!" Ichika gasped loudly as he tried to pry her off of him. He forgot from time to time that Houki's strength was seriously intense when she gets worried. But at the rate she was going, he was going to be breathing through a straw soon!

"Houki, you might want to ease off a little, I think he's about to suffocate right now." Ellen put her hand on Houki's shoulder while fruitlessly holding back a smile at the scene in front of her.

"That's right, let go of him!" Cecilia and Rin grabbed Houki's arms and pry them off Ichika, giving him momentary relief. That did not last long as Laura and Charlotte took this chance to hug him at both his front and back, cutting off his oxygen supply again.

'Oh great, just great! I'm about to die in such a lame way, getting hugged to death?!' Ichika thought as he tried to mentally distance himself from the feeling on his chest and back. Is there anyone out there to help him?!

"BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!"

"Another enemy?!" Rin gripped her weapon tightly and looked around frantically. Ichika was wondering the same as well, when a loud "Beep!" drew his attention to his screen, showing another unopened message, but this time with the ID 'M23'.

'Who would be contacting me this time?' Unconsciously, Ichika moved to open the message and stared.

[M23: Incoming.]

'Incoming?'

"BOOM!"

Everyone got startled at the sonic boom that reverberated loudly in the sky. Before anyone could react, a blur flew past them, sending them tumbling slightly from the gust of wind that came after. It took a few seconds for them to regain their bearings and steady themselves, before they turned to see their latest party-crasher.

Hovering in front of them was an IS unit that none had ever seen before, with its back faced to them. It was a grey-colored unit that had a camouflage paint-job on parts of its body and chrome joints at its legs and arms. The frame was similar to JetStream, by which it was completely streamlined with smooth metal plating, but without thrusters at its legs, thus making it more refined. The jetpack on its back was also unusual; it was as if somebody took a small jet, stripped off everything but the engines, and placed it on the unit's back, before adding the wings to the sides as an afterthought. The unit carried a black beam rifle in its right arm, and a small shield was mounted on its left. Finally, there were vents at its sides that spewed out the same white particles as the red unit earlier.

Everyone near it were staring with a bit of anticipation and suspicion, no doubt wondering if it would attack them next. But Ichika was the only one who took one look at it and realized that this unit looked really familiar to him. If he was not mistaken, this unit was…

"Raptor?"

At that word, the grey unit turned around to face them, displaying the bright circle shining in the center of its chest plate, and the smooth faceplate with gold antennas that made up its face as it stared back at him coolly with glowing green eyes. Another "Ping!" prompted Ichika to open another message.

[M23: A pleasure to finally meet you face to face, Orimura Ichika.]

=====Author's Notes=====

Here's Part three of the Rescue Arc.

As for "Raptor", here's the inspiration:

Mark 23

Iron Man: Mark 2

Gundam: ZGMF-X12A Testament Gundam, Divine Striker Pack from GSD Astray

Hope you enjoy this chapter! I will try to upload another soon!