Proper story content after so long, the quality might drop a lot because it's been a long time since I wrote anything for this fic, good to be back hopefully I can find some gap in my schedule to work on it again.
God, I missed this fic a lot.
As per usual I don't own anything.
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The childhood friends stared at the intruder who was crawling out from the hole it had just made in the wall after Zina kicked it with all her might, or rather they stared at Fascinator and its pilot who landed beside them.
"Zina! You could have killed them!" Rin shouted as she pointed at the intruder's IS with her weapon before turning to the others. "And how could you people look nonchalant?! We could be dealing with the PCA coming after us!"
Rin's panic was justified to some degree because any misuse of IS regardless of nationality or status would land the person in some boiling water with the PCA, Ichika shuddered at the thought.
There is a reason why the PCA is feared.
"It's firing!" Ichika shouted as the five of them quickly dispersed avoiding the rapid high-powered beams seared through the surrounding smoke. Those armed with ranged weapons quickly returned fire, yet the intruder remained unfazed under the barrage.
They didn't even make any effort to dodge even the heaviest and most armored IS needed to dodge to minimize damage, dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence after all.
Another thing that Ichika notices is how….odd the design is, even in the current age standard the intruder is weirder than the tetrapod IS he saw, It was dark, mostly black or gray, with unnaturally long arms that were longer than its legs. And it had no head; the shoulders and the head were fused into one.
It's almost like a mechanical gorilla that can shoot lasers.
"H-Hey! Idiot! Let me go!" Rin shouted as she started to wiggle out from Ichika's arms, he picked her up during the initial laser barrage
"H-Hey, stop struggling. Don't punch me!"
"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"
He ignored Rin's complaints as he dodged another barrage of lasers. "Does anyone have a plan?!"
Ichika shouted desperately to which his reply was a chorus of railgun and linear rifle firing at the same time followed by another barrage of missiles.
"Yeah! Stop flirting!" Evangel shouted as he ducked under the arm of the intruder who tried to swat him away and ignited the WL-MOONLIGHT and attempted to skewer the enemy only to find the laser blade being diffused. "You got to be-"
The pilot of Oracle didn't finish his word as the enemy unnaturally twisted their body and slammed their oversized arm onto Evangel which sent him flying, his ACS overloaded as he was unable to land properly beside Ichika.
Okay, that is NOT how a human moves!
"Evan!" Noa shouted while Zina tsked before the two regrouped with the others.
"Orimura! Huang! Kirimoto! Nemain! Zinovie! Leave the arena at once! The teachers will subdue the unit!"
Ms. Yamada popped up on their com. She sounded a lot more dignified than usual.
"No, we'll stop it before you're all here, but we need you to coordinate everyone with a personal IS to fire at that thing!"
Surprisingly it was Noa who said that. Honestly, it's a solid plan as Ichika notices that everyone who has a personal IS has deployed theirs including the senior upperclassmen.
That makes sense because Ichika doubted their firepower(and his complete lack of one) would be enough to crack the shielding the intruder had, it diffused a Moonlight laser blade! That's not normal in the slightest.
Still, even if they outnumber the intruders a hundred to one there is a chance of it escaping and hurting the civilians outside, if it can get in naturally it can get out. He saw Noa helping Evan get up…feel like he was forgetting something-
"H-Hey! L-Let me go! I can't move!" Rin finally protested.
"Oh, sorry." As he let go of her, she wrapped her arms around her body protectively. "So Noa what's the plan?"
"D-Don't do that! We can't have anything happen to the stud—" Ms. Yamada tried to say before she was cut off as the five dodged another overcharged beam coming from the intruder.
"We either need to buy enough time for the shield to get down or we deal with it here and now…also isn't your one-off ability negate shield?"
Ichika started at Yukihira for a second.
"Oh."
Ichika and his childhood friends were hovering side by side and observing their enemy, the plan was so simple it might as well be non-existent, albeit reminded him of that game he used to play with the others when he was a kid.
Dark Souls was it? Ah right, Gank Squad.
"Ichika, I'll back you up with ranged fire with the others. You go and attack it. You only have that weapon, right?" Rin said with a grin alongside the others who are reloading their weapons making sure they have enough ammunition for the next round.
"Yeah. Okay, I'll do it," he replied, despite the situation, Ichika could not help but feel a little giddy, to think he would do the Gank Squad in real life.
They tapped their weapons together, then they went in. The improvised childhood team. The IS Academy Gank Squad.
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"Hey! Are you listening?! Orimura! Huang! Kirimoto! Nemain! Zinovie! Are you listening?!"
There was no reason to yell at the IS com systems, but Yamada was too nervous to realize that. Meanwhile, Chifuyu, looking at this from a few meters away, was calmer, at least that's what appeared on the surface.
"They said they will do it. Let them." Chifuyu said as she talked to the nearby table and started making coffee, hoping that it would at least help calm her nerves.
"M-M-Ms. Orimura! You can't be serious about that!" her green-haired coworker protested as she looked outside to see the many personal IS deployed, some of them tried to break the barrier but it was no use because the intruder somehow hacked into the system and the isolation shield was set to level four alongside the gates are locked.
"Yamada. This is Engineering." the comm suddenly came to life with an emotionless voice. "The gate will be unlocked in three minutes and control of the shield will follow soon. That is all. Chatty out."
"W-wait Chatty!"
"Calm down. Drink some coffee. The lack of sugar is making you nervous." Chifuyu offered the steaming hot cup to her coworker, who stared at it before taking it, and with one sip her face contorted from panic to borderline disgust as she coughed.
"Um...why there's salt?"
"..."
"Oh! You must be worried about your brother after all! So you mistook it for-"
"..."
There was an uncomfortable silence. Chifuyu then took another spoonful of salt and poured it into Yamada's cup before stirring it.
"Yamada, I forgot you liked sugar so I'm giving you extra."
"Um…thank you…" She drank some of the coffee. It was a little salty. Tears stood in her eyes as she continued sipping the horrid dark liquid.
"Give me permission to pilot my IS! I will attack immediately!" Cecilia pleaded.
"I would like to let you, but look at this."
She touched the terminal a few times, and the information on it changed. Now it displayed status values about the second arena alongside several progress bars showing the engineering of the IS academy working their best to undo the hacks.
"They can't escape, and we can't support them," Chifuyu said matter of fact hiding her irritation. "The only thing we can do is wait for Chatty and the rest to take back control from the attacker."
"Th-Then we need to request immediate assistance from the government!"
"We are doing that but considering the situation there is a higher chance for the PCA or LCC to be involved, we are following Nemain's plan instead."
"Which is?"
"The moment we regain control of the shield, all students with personal IS will open fire on the intruder followed by the rescue squad."
Chifuyu's eyebrows were twitching. Her growing irritation was showing. Cecilia interpreted this as a sign of the danger they were in and sat down, but there was a chance for her to at least do something….
"B-but wait I can help the firing-"
"Out of the question Alcott, that thing shield can disperse a Moonlight laser blade, what do you think your laser-based weapon would do?"
"That's not true! I-" The representative cadet of England tried to protest but was shut down by Chifuyu's next words.
"Your sister also asked me to keep you safe, would you like to break that promise?"
"I…F-Fine! I get it!" her shoulder slumped down in defeat.
"Hmph. Good." Chifuyu returned her attention at the terminal trying to reorganize the rescue effort, sending out White Glint would be overkill not to mention he is their ace in the hole in this kind of situation.
Cecilia felt exhausted and sighed a little deeper than before.
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"Of course, it has pulse armor!"
"This is bullshit!"
"Blyat!"
"Tch...!"
Ichika was in range for his ultimate attack, but his strike was dodged by the enemy. That was the fourth time he missed, he only managed to hit it a few times and in that short window, Noa alongside Ichika managed to cut off the intruder's left arm revealing circuitry inside the mannequin-like pilot.
And now they are faced with the fact the enemy has deployed a pulse armor, without any pulse weapon it would take ages for them to get through.
"Ichika! You idiot! Do it properly!" Rin and Zina shouted at the same time.
"I'm trying!"
Their plan slowly but certainly backfired, to think this would turn into a battle of attrition and it's one that they are losing, no matter how much Rin or the others distracted the enemy, it always managed to dodge Byakushiki's attacks in time.
As expected from an unmanned unit, AI-controlled IS sure is scary. To think of Ichika's first experience with the greatest technological innovation in the IS world is trying its best to hurt him and his friends.
"Ichika, break away!"
Honestly, it is ridiculous how much power it can output to its remaining arm while flailing its long arm, like a spooked horse, all the while still shooting beams from said arm.
"This damn thing is so annoying!" Rin opened her impact cannons and fired, followed by a fully charged railgun shot from Noa's Cascade Range.
"The barrel is burnt out. That was my last shot."
True to his word both combined impact cannon and railgun managed to soften the pulse armor enough to let the high-velocity round get past and make impact piercing the unmanned IS larger thrusters causing it to explode.
That's one less problem and another ninety-nine.
"How's everyone's ammunition?" Ichika asked as they regrouped yet again.
"I got a few good shots left in my CR-WR93RL," Evan said raising the weapon, he already purged both back weapons earlier in the fight the punch from the intruder IS broke both the CR-WB91LGL and MAGORAGA and the last thing they needed was misfire.
"I only have the WR07M-PIXIE3, damned pulse armor." she spit on the ground, Zina's fascinator was a bad match against the intruders because most of her shots kept ricocheting off. "I could use my One-Off…."
"Out of the question, if you do that it would take a long time for your generator to cool down."
"Well, do you have any better idea bird brain?!" Zina half shouted as the group scattered once again to avoid another beam attack. "You do not have any missiles left beside that laster blade of yours! And don't you dare think about using Daemon!"
"I'm not that desperate!"
"I give up. We've basically run out of options." Rin threw her arms up in the air as she saw her friends start to bicker. "When faced with something you don't understand, you take the safe and boring way out like some old man. But really, you like to gamble, don't you Noa?"
"Oh shut up, my gacha habit isn't yours to comment about."
Ah right, he liked to collect shiny and interesting things like a raven or crow, Ichika remembered how he hoarded marbles during elementary school way back when it seemed it had expanded to gacha game. Besides Ichika Orimura doesn't gamble, that stuff was addictive for him. Betting on dumb crap with Gotanda and Noa in middle school had cost him a lot of soft drinks.
He hoped Noa would break free from his addiction soon.
"So what now?" asked Rin before anyone could answer the isolation shield suddenly shimmered away at the same time but then she remembered the plan as she saw her seniors and classmates aiming their weapon at the intruder as voice blared out over the arena's speakers.
"FIRE!"
It was….a firework as a myriad of missiles of all shapes and kinds descended on the intruder alongside grenade launchers and a hail of explosives fell around the unmanned machine by the time everything was over the intruder's IS fell to its knees covered in burns and chunks of it's body was missing.
Guess nothing beats pure unadulterated raw explosive firepower.
But it wasn't enough as it raised its right arm attempting to get one last attack off at Ichika. It was firing its beam weapon.
"ICHIKA!" Everyone he knew yelled.
"I won't miss."
The enemy IS was suddenly thrown to the ground by the laser hits for without its fancy shield it was vulnerable to laser weaponry. the enemy IS took the shot without any time to react leaving a perfect hole in its head.
"That was close." he sighed as he collapsed on the floor followed by some of his friends, Noa looked like he was about to burst into tears mumbling something about 'Final Pulverizers' and 'not wanting to fight it again.' must be from the stress.
"Hmph. At least it's over now." Zina commented as she offered a hand to Ichika who took it and she pulled him back up. "Good work mister wannabe samurai."
"Well, that's new."
"Get used to it." he heard Evan say as he picked up his broken weapon. "This going to take a while to repair."
"Wha-" Suddenly Ichika felt something behind him and saw whatever was left of the enemy's right-arm cannon change into high-output burst mode and were aimed straight at him and the others. Ichika could see the gathering light in its cannons. he dove straight towards the brightness without hesitation.
Everything was bright but he could feel his sword striking heavy armor and piercing through.
-0-
"And that end's my report on this incident."
Original Fantastique is a quaint and peaceful place where one can let go of worldly burdens for a moment.
It couldn't be truer for Alfred Totto O'Keeffe better known as of the Vespers who breathed a sigh as he sent yet another report to his superiors before closing the email and putting the laptop in sleep mode and leaning back, from a glance he is conventionally good-looking with dark hair and onyx eyes but the dour and somber look on his face tends to push people away.
To think the incident regarding the attack has already been leaked by ALLMIND. Information is the backbone of their business after all.
He hated it.
Oh, how he hates working for ALLMIND.
Not just the attack on the academy a week ago, many events have already happened such as the Branch being attacked by an unknown assailant, of course, he had a good guess on who the assailant was, there is only one person in the world who is skilled enough to fight all three branch pilots who are top-ranked, not to mention taking the Nightfall IS and the Raven name.
C4-621 ranked 1/S in the database.
He could feel another headache forming already, at least the coffee here tasted far better than the sludge they served back in the Vesper office. It should help soothe him a little.
"I trust the coffee is good enough for a Vesper?"
"it's better than the caffeine-flavored sludge back home."
The pessimist looked over his laptop and saw the owner of the cafe sitting across from him dressed sharply as usual in his all-black suit with the sleeves rolled up.
"It's been a while, Berlioz."
"The same could be said to you, O'Keeffe."
O'Keeffe knows who is the man sitting before him, the former number one of France and Reyleonard's ace. Louise Berlioz who sits at the rank of 5/S despite his semi-retired status is still considered a highly skilled and dangerous individual.
He really doesn't want to fight him.
"How's your daughter?"
"Oh, she just left for the academy today," Berlioz said with a smile on his face, a proud fatherly one in fact. "I do hope she won't cause too many problems for Chifuyu..."
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"Berlioz. Laura Berlioz." she introduces herself. "My father is the owner of Original Fantastique and the number one pilot of French."
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I am actually surprised I managed to make something this long despite my now super-packed and busy schedule Other than that this chapter is named after AC VI's OST of the same name.