Chapter 1 That Wasn't There Before

"Beautiful weather we're having today, eh miss?"

"…?" Chifuyu Orimura stared down at the man in utter disbelief. Words could not describe the incredulous confusion at the situation she was subject to in that moment. Incomprehensible world changing events were happening and this man stared up at her without the slightest care.

He was obviously a military man in his late thirties, wearing a black trench coat baring the word ORCA defiantly in bold white letters. Short dark hair and bright blue eyes on a European face, standing alone with hands held behind his back.

Looking to her friend and colleague, Maya Yamada, the green haired woman held an equally confused face, frowning in abject confusion, lips parted with more questions than she had words to ask.

Sighing angrily, Chifuyu decided to be as amiable as the man. Even as baffling as it was, at least he was being polite.

"Lovely." Her eyes widened, struggling not to sneer out the word. "I…believe introductions are in order. Who might you be, sir?"

The man smiled with unusual confidence, looking up at the two women. He was not a short man, standing at six foot two inches, and neither were they tall women, with Chifuyu herself being only five foot four inches. But circumstances were so bizarre that the man was forced to look up to hold a conversation.

"Maximilian Thermidor, Lynx of ORCA, at your service."


Thirty Minutes Before / Infinite Stratos Academy - Japan / 5:30 AM – June 3rd, 2030

The first instance that something might be wrong was waking up to the sound of her bedside alarm. Normally, she was light enough of a sleeper that the sun shining through her dormitory window would have woken her a minute or two ago. It was a small enough issue though that she pushed it from her mind, rising from bed to begin readying for the day.

Being the homeroom teacher of Class One of the IS Academy was a massive responsibility. It would be her job to beat young women from around the world into shape, to be able to utilize the highly advanced Infinite Stratos suits, highly mobile exosuits utilizing quantum technology.

The unusual thing, hopefully the only unusual thing, was that her younger brother would be attending this year. The IS had been specifically made and marketed as being exclusively used by women. How her brother had managed to activate a unit was not currently known, but she had her suspicions.

While undoubtedly happy to have her brother close, she could foresee a lot of issues and shenanigans with having a boy in a girls-only high school. That she was not looking forward to at all.

The rapid knocking of knuckles at her door brought her out of her musings. Whoever it was, they'd have to wait a minute while she finished getting dressed.

"Orimura-sensei!" Called the voice of her friend and colleague, Maya. Even knowing that the woman didn't have the best confidence at times didn't quite explain her sudden loss of it this early in the morning.

"Orimura-sensei!" Those were several voices of her first-year students, yelling her name in fearful desperation. Chifuyu sighed loudly as she finished getting ready.

"Nee-san!" And that would be her brother. She loved him to death but dammit he was too easy going, informal, and oblivious all rolled up into one. Annoyance boiling over into a single spike of anger, she opened the door quickly, spotted her brother, and delivered a quick chop to the top of his head, just hard enough to elicit a response as he bowed his head against the contact and winced.

"That's 'Orimura-sensei' to you." Chifuyu stated firmly but calmly. Just as quickly she noticed the frightened faces of roughly a dozen girls and her friend Maya in front of her door. "Now, what's the problem that's got you all worked up this early?"

None of them spoke, just continued staring at her in frightened shock, uncertain hope resting on her. Then, almost synchronized, they all raised their hands, pointed at her…no…pointed behind her…

Following where they were pointed, towards her window with it's blinds still closed, she did not yet see the object of their distress. She did, however, notice the distinct lack of sunlight. Not so much that the sun was gone, but that it was clearly entirely obstructed. Striding towards her window with confidence fading fast, she opened the blinds to see…

It took her several moments to understand what she was looking at, then longer still to accept that it was real. Even with that knowledge, what she was looking at couldn't be real, because for one thing, it wasn't there before.

The only way she could describe it was a massive, black, monolith. Sat in the middle of the ocean a dozen or two kilometers away, it completely blocked out the rising sun behind it. Judging by the distant cargo ships at roughly the same distance, it must have been an impossible two kilometers tall, and roughly three kilometers wide.

It was not alone either, with two…no three buildings nearly as tall but less than a kilometer across in close proximity to the primary megastructure. All four of these utterly leviathan buildings had the clearly defined barrels of massive cannons lining their roofs, pointed in every direction.

There was nothing that could be said to address the unusual situation in a seemingly meaningful way. Even so, it was clearly an issue that needed to be addressed. Bowing her head and sighingly loudly, Chifuyu decided to do something about it.

. . .

Utilizing a pair of the many spare IS suits used for training to approach the megastructure at sub-sonic speeds, Chifuyu and Maya arrived in a matter of minutes.

Close up, the megastructure was no less impressive, the massive segments of metal that made up its outer hull broken up only by seams of their construction, and several thousand small windows in isolated blocks. Analysis of the three main gun turrets lining the roof of the main structure revealed them to be a concerning ten meters across.

The only good news that could be discerned was that it was clearly a human structure, with large white letters under one of the guns spelled out as "GA Big Box Fortress" in English. So, at least aliens were not invading or anything incomprehensible like that.

"Ah…Chifuyu..." Maya muttered, still in a state of shock.

"Yeah…?"

"I've analyzed this structure as best I could." Maya grimaced. "The depth of the ocean here is half a kilometer, so it's at least two and a half kilometers tall, and three kilometers wide on each of it's three sides. Assuming military material construction, it weighs somewhere between thirty and fifty billion tons."

"…" Chifuyu hissed a sigh once again. "How does a fifty-billion-ton fortress appear overnight?"

"Yeah…oh!?" Maya looked up in realization. "I'm getting an active radar ping from the structure. Someone's home."

"Then let's try knocking." Chifuyu suggested, leading them close while they flew. Approaching from above, the distinctive shapes of aircraft runways and hangars ran to each corner of the triangular megastructure. As well as the distinctive signs of recent battle.

Spent cannon shells and scorched metal dotted the surface of the roof, all of it from large caliber ordnance. Chifuyu expected the damage to be relatively recent, judging by thermal scans.

How they were going to contact the inhabitants of the fortress was still in consideration, when she noticed the lone figure standing near the center of the roof.

A man in a black trench coat, marked by the word ORCA.


A World Ruined by War / One Hour Before – August 9th, 2450

The League of Ruling Corporations carefully planned everything for the ORCA Rebellion against themselves. From July 31st, they would spend the next two and a half months attacking specific League facilities in a specific order, fulfilling objectives that would ultimately benefit The League, by which point ORCA would be spent and finally put down.

All of their carefully laid plans were upended by one question.

"What if we won?"

Accelerating their time table from two months to two weeks, ORCA caught The League off guard, their thirteen Lynx super soldiers striking as many targets simultaneously as they could, bringing The League to their knees.

With all of their initial objectives completed, ORCA still fought, and still with three Lynx to stand against The League. Maximillian Thermidor, the uncompromising leader of ORCA; Malzel, the Grand Strategist of ORCA; and finally, El error del Dios himself, Strayed.

Their blitzkrieg strategy against The League had worked brilliantly. ORCA Lynx had assaulted League facilities day by day, not week by week as The League had planned, while Strayed alone had hunted their Lynx, reducing a force of hundreds down to three.

The League had made a critical lapse when forming ORCA. They had put together the largest army of rebels and terrorists, radicals and dissidents ever seen, and gave them thirteen Lynx to follow to their deaths. What came out was not the refuse of a world long dead, but the most driven fanatics ever united under a banner, a black flag called ORCA.

Reduced to a three on three, The League had counterattacked, and it was not a force to be taken lightly. Lilium Wolcott, Rank Two. Wynne D. Fanchon, Rank Three. May Greenfield, Rank Eighteen.

All combatants utilized a similar technology to wage war, The Armored Core. For four hundred years, Armored Cores had laid waste to battlefields far and wide, slaughtering armies and burning worlds. The League had perfected upon this with the Fourth Generation Armored Core, the NEXT. Like any Armored Core, NEXT came in many models and could be equipped with a massive array of weaponry. What made NEXT unique was their height, power output, and speed.

Ten meters tall and equipped with powerful cold-fusion Kojima reactors, NEXT were protected by an energy shield that made anything less than a direct hit by nuclear weapons absolutely negligible. Combined with maneuverability that would have reduced augmented humans into a fine red mist, NEXT were the perfect weapons of total war.

The Big Box mega fortress that served as ORCA's primary base of operations was where the last battle of their war would take place. Thermidor, Malzel, and Strayed against Wolcott, Fanchon, and Greenfield.

It was a death clash that none of them really expected to walk away from, but be damned if they didn't try.

Baring down on him with rifle and laser fire, Thermidor evaded Wolcott, her silver NEXT Ambient pursuing his own pitch black NEXT Unsung. At another corner of the megafortress, Malzel and Greenfield traded artillery, both their NEXT being heavy GA America models, Malzel in black and Greenfield in green. Lastly, Strayed and Fanchon crossed laser blades, daring to tear the other apart.

Everyone was evenly matched, a step away from victory or death, a chance The League would not gamble on. Looking to salvage the situation and complete one other objective, The League fired off an experimental weapon, a bomb designed to crack planets. Detonating the bomb on the surface of Big Box, it removed the entire structure and it's secondary buildings from the East coast of North America, leaving only a smoldering crater a thousand miles across.

There was nothing more to say for this world. It was truly condemned. As for another world…


A World That Would Know Their War

From the perspective of the Lynx of ORCA and The League, there was a bright flash and not much else. The enemy stood before them, and they needed to be wiped out.

Still, even as Thermidor charged, guns blazing as he tried to put Wolcott down, there was something off…

Sparing a glance over the edge of the megafortress, Thermidor noticed the ocean at the foot of the structure, half a kilometer up it's height.

Extremely confused, Thermidor tried to voice his observation.

"Hey guys…?"

Still locked in their deadly dances, the other Lynx found it difficult to break away and give him any notice. Wolcott at least was still trying to kill him, forcing him to dodge, quick-boosters exploding with a jet of plasma that violently moved his NEXT out of harms way.

"Guys."

Thermidor was starting to get annoyed, being unable to get his fellow Lynx to pay attention to the obvious change in scenery; their hunger for battle overriding any priority. Hissing in annoyance, Thermidor decided to say something absolutely outrageous, in order to get their attention.

"Who wants to see Old King's Sex Tape!?"

The other five Lynx stopped performing combat maneuvers, weapons raised in reluctant disgust.

"What the fuck Thermy?"

"Oh no no no."

"That's so wrong!"

"No one wants to see that!"

"Ahhhhhuuuu!"

"Sorry sorry I'm so fucking sorry for putting that image in your heads, but guys." Thermidor gestured to the side of the megafortress, "There's a fucking ocean there! That wasn't there five minutes ago!"

Each of the other Armored Core NEXT, enemy and allied, made a show of dramatically looking over the edge of the fortress to observe their environment, panning their heads to allow sensor suites a full sweep.

"Huh. That's the Pacific." Greenfield noted. "We were closer to the Atlantic a few minutes ago."

"I'm not picking up any connection to League channels." Wolcott realized.

"There is a lot of chatter though. Unencrypted civilian transports." Fanchon added.

Then Strayed said the most damning thing.

"No Kojima detected. Radiation is minimal. What's there is background, nothing more."

That information was most surprising, since there was no way fifty thousand rads could simply disappear. Thermidor thought hard about the news, the unbelievable circumstances to befall the six of them, as well as the occupants of the megafortress. Even knowing the risk of what he would be suggesting, there was no denying that it was the right thing to do.

"Wolcott, stand down, at least until we can ascertain the situation." Thermidor demanded, hoping she would accept the offer.

"…Assuming situation normal, will you assure us that combat operations will resume with original objectives in mind?" Wolcott demanded. For Lynx, the only thing that mattered was the war, the battle, the very next kill.

"You have my word."


Big Box – ORCA Headquarters

Dismounting their NEXT at opposite ends of the fortress, the Lynx of ORCA made it towards the command center first. To his left, Malzel, an olive skinned man with dark hair and grey eyes with origins in the Eastern Mediterranean. To his right, Strayed, a very young man, with darker skin and burning orange eyes, and ancestors somewhere in the Middle East.

"What do you have?" Thermidor requested.

"I've plotted our position to the Eastern Pacific, just off Arisawa territory." One of the command officers announced.

"That's over ten thousand kilometers away." Malzel noted. "How did we get moved so far from our original position?"

"How indeed?"

Entering the command center, were the Lynx of Collared. Dangerous combinations of beauty and violence, the three Lynx women walked side by side. At the center, Lilium Wolcott, Rank 2; a corporate princess with long dark hair and vibrant violet eyes, wearing an elegant, slim white dress that was certainly hiding enough ordnance to arm a platoon. To her right, May Greenfield, Rank 18; green haired with neon green eyes, young and eternally cheerful, contrasted by her favor of high explosive weapons, wearing a short, punkish skirt that did nothing to hide her prosthetic legs. At the right, Wynne D Fanchon, Rank 3, short hair and bright golden eyes, while wearing a style of light armor that emulated functions both new and ancient; she was the embodiment of a word thought lost to time: a knight.

Just entering the room nearly brought Fanchon and Strayed to blows, as they stood chest to chest, baring teeth openly.

"James 'Strayed' Klein." Fanchon hissed, her hatred of the ORCA Lynx having been made legend.

"D." James spat.

"James, stand down." Thermidor ordered.

"Fanchon, you too." Wolcott advised, more curious to their current situation.

"Come on Wynne D, it's not worth it now." May raised her eyebrow, gently placing her hands on the woman's arm, urging her back.

"irregular." Not before Fanchon spat on James's face.

"As much fun as killing you all sounds, I'm still wondering how we got displaced half a planet away." Thermidor spoke up.

"Oh it gets so much worse than that." Serena Haze announced. A retired Lynx, formerly Rank 16, her single good eye going over pertinent information. Technically not part of ORCA, she was Strayed's Operator, assisting in combat with remote control of sensors and subsystems, while also advising from a distance. "I ran an infrared scan of known star clusters and fed the results to an old program that follows their path. If this is right, the current year is roughly 2030."

"So not just half a planet, almost half a millennium backwards in time?" Malzel poised it as a question, even as he reluctantly accepted the information.

"It's not exactly possible, but it's what we have." Serena confirmed. "We detected an unknown weapon detonate near the fortress before 'the event'."

"The League is always designing some new weapon or toy that they usually mess around with too much, I'm honestly not that surprised." Thermidor added.

"Yes, so it seems." Lilium reluctantly agreed.

"Okay…so…what now?" May questioned.

"Last I recall there was a war going on during this time." James announced. "The Thirty-Years War."

"I'm not too sure, I've been reading fairly minimal radio traffic on all channels, nothing to indicate any major military operations." Serena noted. "Though I suspect our presence here might change that a bit."

"Yeah…that could be a problem." Thermidor realized. "Radar?! What's our status?"

"Two inbound contacts, from the mainland, identified as…uh…" The Radar operator hesitated.

"Well, spit it out." Thermidor demanded.

"I-uh I don't know. I'm pulling up visuals now."

One of the screens in the command center changed to view the inbound contacts that radar had noticed, displaying them for the Lynx to see.

"…What the fuck…?" James questioned.

On the screen were two semi-mechanized units three meters tall, being worn on two women.

"That's not any design I've ever seen, it doesn't even make sense." Fanchon noticed.

"Thermals picking up lighter than necessary thrusters, and radar has them inbound at five hundred kph. Their method of transportation is unknown, but I'm guessing it has to be gravity manipulation."

"I thought gravity manipulation was only recently invented by Omar?" Lilium realized.

"The only logical conclusion is that this world has developed on a wildly different technological path." Malzel realized.

"…" Thermidor bowed his head, deep in thought. It had been so simple, fighting The League, fighting to survive. However, if this was a world unbroken, untormented by man, then it would do them no good to sit in their fortress and question it.

"I'm going up to make contact. See what's what." Thermidor announced.

"Sure that's a good idea?" Malzel questioned.

"No, but we don't have much choice."

"Hang on. What are we supposed to do?" Lilium demanded, still being the enemy.

Thermidor thought about it for a second. "I think it would be best if you joined ORCA."

"Fuck no." Fanchon cursed.

"I'll write up a fair contract for you three, to be treated no less than your rank demands, and with the clause that should we somehow make contact with The League, then you will be freely released to resume combat operations against ORCA. Is that fair?" Thermidor offered, meaning every word of it.

Lilium looked to May, who shrugged dismissively. Turning towards Fanchon, she bared her teeth, bowing her head in defeat.

"Very well, Thermidor. However, I want me and mine to be given appropriate command authority, worthy of our station." Lilium demanded.

"Done." Thermidor and Lilium shook hands, technically ending their war. "Now if you excuse me, I need to figure out what's going on here."


Getting a better look at the two contacts didn't exactly explain anything. A semi-mechanized exosuit consisting of leg and arm extensions, with wings on their backs, but leaving the torso and head of the pilot exposed. Thermidor hoped they at least had energy shielding, lest they be the dumbest combat units ever conceived.

The two human women had landed in front of him minutes ago, standing above him with their exosuits extending their height to three meters. One of the women wore a black business suit with a short plain skirt; she had shoulder-length black hair with a waist-length pony-tail, and reddish-brown eyes. The other woman was wearing what his hard drive called a "swimsuit" though there were some differences; otherwise, she could have been May's Japanese twin with short green hair and green eyes under her wide brim glasses.

After giving his name, the business suit woman narrowed her eyes, curious and still confused.

"Lynx? ORCA? Forgive me, but I do not understand?" The woman questioned.

"Well, fair enough, it's a long story though. What are those units called? I've never seen such an odd unit." Thermidor countered, careful on what information he gave away.

"Oh? These are Infinite Stratos, an advanced combat exosuit." The green haired woman explained casually. Business suit woman turned and glared at her.

"Never heard of it." Thermidor bluntly answered back. "If I may, what are your names?"

"Orimura Chifuyu." Chifuyu answered, waiting a short moment to see if the man reacted in any meaningful way. He did not. "This is my colleague, Yamada Maya."

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance." Thermidor bowed somewhat overdramatically, left arm crossed in front and right arm extended backwards.

"Okay…I really have to ask now, what are your intentions?" Chifuyu demanded.

"Intentions?" Thermidor questioned back. "In order to have intentions I have to know what I'm doing, and quite frankly, I have no idea what's going on."

"…?" It was something, and Chifuyu silently urged Thermidor to continue speaking.

"ORCA is a military unit, currently occupying the Big Box megafortress." Thermidor partly lied. "In the last battle, our enemy, The League of Ruling Corporations launched an unknown weapon at our position. Based on radiological levels, radio traffic, and stellar positioning, we believe that we are a few centuries and half a planet misplaced of our previous location."

"So…you're from the future?" Chifuyu questioned, not having a reason to doubt him.

"Yes…but not your future." Thermidor clarified. "Certain details are off, such as those Infinite Stratos units. They never existed where we come from."

"'We'?" Chifuyu questioned. "How many more are you?"

Thermidor smiled, suddenly overcome with ambitious zest.

"Enough to build a nation."


Author's Note: Hey hey there. If you've read my previous work, then you know what you're in for. If not, then let me spell it plainly: nightmare train wreck.

This story came about from the request of a random guest reader. I thought it would be a good/bad idea so I ran with it, and, unfortunately for you lot, you get to experience it.

As a side note, it is not necessary to read "OTK" to understand what's going on here, even though I reused my OC. This story is a separate plot from "OTK". Like that Superman movie where he was Soviet.

Unfortunately, I am a little rushed to get this story done. AC6 was announced right as I started working on this story and I have another story in development that is both the sequel to "OTK" and just as ambitious and insane. I can't work on it much more yet at the time of this posting, but I've already written the first two chapters. It will be called "Under Dead Light."

As for this story, I've actually already finished half of it. It's going to be a very short story compared to "OTK", but for what I have planned it will be worth it. I do "copy" a fuck ton of material from another source to my shame, but I'll be sure to cite it properly when it comes up.

Admittedly, this story is not as well thought out as it could have been. I've started rushing things and the premise is nearly an elaborate shitpost, except with my usual blend of wit and malice. If you're looking for an AC/IS crossover that actually cares about it's lore, I recommend Shattered Wings by HorizionsOverMoonlitSkies. It's posted slowly but every chapter is worth the wait.

Anyhow, welcome all to the insane and unhinged journey that I call "Deceived By Belief". Please enjoy!

EDIT: Wrong Japanese honorific used.