Tis the end of October once more, and the thread slumbers.
For my first post this thread I bring a humble offering.
A short tale of valkyrie cadets, and sliced cucumbers. Your name is Anna Sanchez, and you are in a pickle. N-not literally, of course! It's a figure of speech! Though your sensors do detect a fair number of them nearby, next to the other sandwich additives. The cafeteria is relatively empty this early in the morning, so the offerings of today's breakfast selection are rather full. Actually, with a proper application of industrial grade food synthesizers, five hundred kilograms of feedstock, and an impeller field partition to direct the output, it wouldn't be too hard to assemble the fruit, inundate with acetic acid solution, flash freeze—
No, stay focused!
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Inhale.
Exhale.
You open your eyes (when did you close them?) and look up into the expectant faces of two of your fellow cadets. Judging from their uniforms, both appear to be first years like yourself, with features marking them to be of East Asian descent. The shorter girl with pigtails is looking pointedly at you, while the taller one with straight hair shifts in anticipation. They seem to be awaiting a response.
Right. Well.
You suppress a fidget as you review Durga's recording of their approach.
> Accessing Sensor Log Transcript
>>"Don't be so pushy, Yuka-chan! You'll scare her off with your Yukari-ness."
>>FROM: Unidentified Valkyrie
>>"You're the pushy one Setsu!"
>>FROM: Unidentified Valkyrie - Temporary Designation: Yuka-chan
>>"You already drove the last one off! Let me try this time."
>>FROM: Unidentified Valkyrie - Temporary Designation: Yuka-chan
>>"Hmmph... fine. Let's just go before my udon gets cold."
>>FROM: Unidentified Valkyrie - Temporary Designation: Setsu
>>"Hey, you're in our year, right? What's your name? I'm Rokusabe Yukari, and that's Masaya Setsuna. Want to sit with us?"
>>FROM: Cadet Rokusabe Yukari
You resist the urge to wring your fingers—that would drop your breakfast tray—and wait you can just use your impeller to hold it in place so you do just that and blink.
Um.
Right. The matter at hand.
Do you want to sit with them?
Well... you are supposed to be making friends here. Even though you haven't quite worked up the nerve to approach anybody yet...
You were planning on doing it! Honest!
"Ooh, that's a neat trick you're doing with your impeller. Why don't you just put it into storage? Oh, are you practicing with it?" bubbles the one called Yukari.
You hastily dump your victuals into Durga for storage.
"Anna Sanchez," you mumble. "Pleased to meet you."
You learn over icebreakers and pancakes that though you share a year, you do not share any classes with your impromptu breakfast partners. In retrospect, that does make a certain amount of sense. You are, after all, taking the Accelerated course, academic only. That you are doing so is obviously a sign that the UN recognizes your superlative building skills and not at all an attempt to shirk away from your maternally mandated duty of... socializing with your yearmates.
You have friends. It's not your fault that they're all thousands of miles away!
Mostly.
Well, you were kind of curious about going to a real Valkyrie Academy... And what a mess that's been...
A ping from Durga has you perk up from your internal stewing and refocus your attention back onto the part of you following the conversation on autopilot. Yukari is enthusiastically demonstrating her plans for the day with the remnants of her melonpan, apparently representing a target, by stabbing it with her chopsticks, representing her halberd, as Setsuna nods along. Something about a brother, and the upcoming Squadron Vanguard tournament?
A quick search for one 'Rokusabe, Koujirou' on the Arcology network reveals a number of 'morale-boosting photo-ops' according to the metadata, which you promptly filter out. Ahem. Goodness, you almost choked on your juice.
More relevantly, you discover a fairly impressive, if brief, service record—making Elite Valkyrie in less than three months, going on to participate in two major battles and on track for making Ace in under a year—before a mysteriously redacted incident put him on indefinite leave. Interestingly, it seems that he's also enrolled at Perth as a first year.
You dismiss the connection as Yukari concludes her rant.
"...so if Big Bro's busy with 'secret badass business' as he calls it, then that just gives us time to catch up in the simulators!"
"He's probably just slacking off, but Yuka's right. I won't be left behind any more!" declares Setsuna.
Gosh, that's some confidence. You weren't planning on participating at all in that event.
"I'm sure you'll both do well," you say.
"About that, Anna." Yukari begins. "We were wondering if you'd like to join us for some practice rounds? There's only so much you can gain from fighting the same people over and over, and Setsu and I already know all of each other's tricks."
"They don't let just anybody into the accelerated classes, so you must be pretty strong." Setsuna agrees. "Even if you don't plan on joining the tourney it'd be cool to see what you've got."
Pancakes.
You look down at your plate. Your sensors inform you that you've already finished your food.
You're flattered, really, that they've come to you for help.
Koujirou and Yukari's positions would basically reverse. He's coming out of forced retirement after somehow recovering his Valkyrie compatibility after losing it in the backstory. Yukari, now younger by a few months rather than older by more than a year, would tag along cause she's worried for him and thinks he might push too hard and get hurt again.
Shuri and the Ojou would bascally have the same relationship as I detailed above except the Design Child would like the Golden Ace as a friend and worries about her in a sorta motherly way ("No Shuri, that's not how it will happen, people aren't nice." "Says you, I like to assume the best." "mfw if this works" etc)
Anna would be happier and spend a lot of time voice chatting to her friends from the Canadian town, but super shy around people she doesn't know. She'd probably phone home every night complaining about how scary and strange the culture in Perth is and lament her lack of ability to find friends, to which all those canadians would naturally reply "Ganbatte Anna-chan!"
Oh, and the Ginungagap project wouldn't exist as Anna can't reproduce Wave Force on demand, she can only use it when the density of plot reaches a certain critical mass.
Tony gets a Message; or... Anna lifts Tony's Tech and feels Guilty.
Tony was, for possibly the first time since coming back, actually feeling rather good about things. Said good feeling lasted precisely as long as it took him to don his newly-made Suit.
*Bing*
"Sir, message for you" prompted Jarvis.
"What's it say?" Tony prompted back.
"'Dear Mr. Stark,
My Grandpa Rick is a dimensional travelling inventor with enemies of his own, so when I asked for him to help advance my people in our Earth's war against the Antagonists, he had me copy your tech instead of leaving signs of his presence. Sorry. He also never said I couldn't give you something back, so.....
...Regards,
Anna Sanchez'", Jarvis finished dictating.
"Christ," Tony swore. "You said it came with a picture? Show me."
"Bringing it up on your HUD now-" Jarvis announced before Tony cut him off.
"-She's just a girl!" He protested.
"Accompanying data places her as the foremost combatant on her Earth, alongside the data provided on the history of her Earth and these 'Antagonists'" Jarvis near-quoted.
"..Is it self-consistent..?" Tony asked cautiously.
"Yes" Jarvis affirmed.
"Shit.. Anything else then?" He asked, not wanting to dwell on another Earth's use of child soldiers.
"Just notes on a new element your Father theorized for the sake of powering an Arc Reactor, and that she, having copied said information for her own use, would prefer you name it something like 'Starkanium' rather than 'Badassium', alongside notes on how she pre-assessed you for Valkyrie Core attunement" Jarvis informed him.
"Heh- Oh boy" Tony swiftly corrected himself, instantly detecting how the Core was somehow bonded with him instead of his armor.
"Perfectly normal, Sir," Jarvis assured him, reading his spike in heart-rate.
*Physiology Damages detected - shrapnel. Effective Repair Time -16.82 hours*
"Repair Time? How do I know that?" Tony asked himself, beginning to panic. It was only on Jarvis saying so that Tony realised his 'Core' had eaten his watch.
Ali al-Saachez snatched his gun from where it was floating and whirled around, ready to blast a hole in that stupid Gundam Meister's head—
—?
This… This wasn't where Ali was just a second ago. A moment ago, he was in one of the Celestial Being's many corridors, on the far side of the Moon. Instead, the view he saw was completely different. He was back in Arche Gundam's cockpit? And back on Earth too, if the images on his viewscreens were any indication. What the hell had just happened? The landscape outside his cockpit didn't make any sense either – Ali had never seen a warzone quite as devastated as the one around him, which was impressive considering he had set foot on most warzones in the past 20 years, not even to mention how the rise of A-Laws had virtually eradicated large-scale armed conflict around the globe. A lot of things just weren't adding up.
But pondering about where, what and why could wait. Ali was in an unfamiliar location, so the first thing to do would be to take inventory. Checking around him, Ali couldn't identify any enemies in range, so, with some practised movements on his cockpit controls, he brought up Arche Gundam's diagnostics. Just a few minutes ago, Arche Gundam was a wreck – blown to pieces by the enemy Gundam and a particularly poorly-timed system failure. None of that was the case anymore – Arche Gundam was fully operational. Batteries at capacity, frame fully intact, weapons armed, and even the GN Fangs were all present in their containers. The only issue was… No Veda connection? Ali scoffed. He didn't need that overgrown calculator anyway. Nevertheless, it was good to know his Gundam was at full capacity. Next step, finding out where the hell he was.
As it turned out, that was a much harder task than he thought. In addition to lacking a Veda transmission, it seemed that Arche Gundam wasn't able to pick up any external signals whatsoever. He couldn't even receive a GPS signal from the Solar Power Network, despite the fact that the Network should have comprehensive coverage over the entire Earth. If navigation based on external aids wasn't possible, that left manual navigation. Ali wasn't familiar with the area, so he couldn't navigate by landmarks. Arche Gundam's logs didn't show any indication as to how he had gotten here, so that was out too. Maybe he could navigate by the stars? Arche Gundam was equipped with star charts, so it was possible. Or maybe he could find the Solar Power Network visually and navigate based off of that. Either way, he'd have to wait until night. Ali sighed and sent his GN Drives into repose, resigned to wait out the hours until night in boring silence.
Before night could properly fall, Ali noticed something. It was faint, but there were flashing lights coming from somewhere over the horizon. Several minutes later, the sound from those flashes became audible too. Explosions. Ali grinned. It looked like whatever war had devastated the area around him was still going. He had no idea who was fighting, but it was a lead. Besides, Ali al-Saachez was never one to pass up a battle, even if he didn't even know who was fighting. He powered Arche back up and shot into the sky, flying right towards that distant battle.
Even as Ali neared the site of the battle, the conflict seemed to show no signs of abating, with the sights and sounds of battle growing ever more detectable as he got closer. But while the battle definitely was still happening, there still wasn't any sign of actual combatants on Arche's E-Sensor. In the age of GN-powered mobile suits, even small-scale conflict could be expected to be conducted at a respectable altitude. Whatever battle was going on, it must have been conducted purely on the ground. Ali kept his eyes peeled, and sure enough, after a few more minutes of flying, the mysterious combatants finally came into view.
Tanks. Lots of tanks, as well as a number of other types of armoured vehicles. What looked like mobile anti-air, IFVs and a couple of others that Ali couldn't quite identify. No mobile suits or mobile armours. That alone was very strange, but the whole thing just seemed… off. The visual design of the vehicles below him was just subtly alien, not adhering to the design philosophies of any faction, even before Celestial Being showed up, and there weren't any identifying markings. They didn't appeared to have detected Arche Gundam hovering above them either, which meant they were probably still using radar as their primary means of detection, easily blocked by the GN particles in the air. Even stranger, all the vehicles he could see appeared to be fighting for the same faction. Just who was their enemy?
It took a good few more minutes before Ali finally managed to spot who was clearly the other faction in this battle. Just one combatant, by all appearances an armoured human according to Arche's sensors, but moving at speeds more akin to a mobile suit than a person in power armour. Whoever this was, they didn't have any identifying marks on them either, so Ali had no idea whose side he should be fighting for. With nothing else to do, he descended closer to the ground, and–
–went evasive, as the larger faction, having finally detected him visually, immediately opened fire with everything that wasn't already actively engaged with that other combatant. Ali grinned. That simplified things. And it was going to be a lot of fun taking out all those defenceless tanks. He picked out a random group of enemy vehicles and sent Arche Gundam crashing down on them, crushing two outright and knocking the rest over. But before he could finish them off with his GN Buster Sword, a volley of shots from another group of tanks slammed into Arche's side. "Fuck!" Ali cursed. That caused way more damage than he expected. Taking enemy fire on his armour was clearly not an option, then. Ali pushed Arche back into the air, switching the Buster Sword into rifle mode to finish off the group he'd just landed on. He left himself just enough time to once again go evasive, flying a weaving pattern through the air, avoiding most enemy fire and blocking whatever shots he couldn't dodge with his shield. This wasn't the cakewalk Ali was expecting, but there was no problem with that. With the volume of incoming fire, Arche couldn't effectively retaliate with any of its onboard weapons, but Ali had one more trick up his sleeve.
"Fly, my–"
Before Ali could launch his GN Fangs, a huge volley of missiles appeared out of nowhere headed… all across the battlefield. Of course. Caught up in his own battle, Ali had forgotten about the other person fighting this mysterious enemy. Clearly, Arche Gundam had given them enough breathing room to set up a large-scale attack, wiping out what must have been over two thirds of the enemy force in one go. Ali whistled. That was an impressive attack. Whatever armour that person was wearing, Ali definitely wanted a go at it. But Ali wasn't about to be outdone. With the volume of enemy fire drastically decreased, Ali now had the opportunity to return to close combat. Igniting the beam sabres in Arche's feet, Ali flew close to the ground, slashing apart the remaining enemies without even slowing down. The battle was over. Now, to do what he actually came here to do. Ali activated Arche's speaker systems.
"Hey, you down there! Mind giving a friend some help?"
Clearly whoever it was understood him, because they slowly rose up into the air to fly alongside him, and then, in the unmistakable voice of a child, spoke.
"Um, I don't know who you are, but maybe. I'm supposed to bring anyone from outside the town back to the boss, she's the one who decides everything."
That was excellent. Ali got what he wanted without even having to ask, but more importantly, the girl herself. A child soldier, huh? Things were looking up. Keying Arche's speakers again, Ali replied,
"Call me Ali al-Saachez. What should I call you?"
"Uh, I'm Anna. Anna Sanchez."
Ali al-Saachez. Anna Sanchez. Coincidence? Yeah, coincidence. Not gonna stop me from writing about these two characters just because of it though.
But yeah, I wrote a thing. No clue if I got anything about Anna's past battles remotely right but here it is. Part 2 will probably happen. Maybe.
Omake - Linkstore - Principality of Destruction, Part 2
After the introductions, Anna started leading Ali back to… wherever she was from. That gave Ali a chance to get a closer look at the girl with the strange exosuit. Now that he had some time to think, it was clear that Anna was beyond anything he'd seen before. The overall design of the suit, although at first glance more familiar than the other side's tanks, wasn't really any less alien in design. There was no sign of any guns or launchers that could have delivered the barrage of missiles he'd seen earlier, and, most notably, there weren't any visible thrusters that could explain the flight. While GN-powered mobile weapons didn't need verniers to stay aloft, there wasn't any known way to miniaturise the tech for human-scale use, and even if someone did manage it, there weren't any GN particles coming from Anna's suit either. The girl herself also seemed out of the ordinary. If Ali's judgement was right, she seemed way taller than she should be for her age. She had to have been enhanced in some way, but Ali didn't know of any program or group that could do anything like that.
Just another entry on the long list of things Ali had no idea about since he'd found himself here, wherever here was. This was probably still Earth, but…
…Actually, Ali had a ready source of information flying right next to him. He keyed Arche's speakers again.
"Hey, girlie, I got a question for you. This is Earth, right?"
"…? Yes, this is Earth. Um, was there a reason you thought this might not be Earth?"
"Just checking. I do have a few other questions for you, though."
"It's uh, probably best to save any questions for once we actually get back. The adults know more than I do."
Well, that was that line of inquiry shut down. It wasn't a big deal to wait a little longer, but it did leave Ali still wondering about what the heck had happened. But this was Earth. Good to have that established. Now to figure out why it was so different from the Earth he knew. Most likely, it really was the best idea to just leave questions for later, so Ali couldn't just ask what year it was yet, but even if time travel was involved, this was still too much of a difference just to have been caused by time travel. So at least something else had to have been involved. So… maybe this was another universe entirely? Ali knew many of the so-called literary "classics" involved plot lines exactly like that, and it very neatly explained all the weirdness he'd been seeing, but it still seemed just a little too fantastical for his tastes. Ali shook his head. It was clear this line of inquiry wasn't getting anywhere. Ali briefly did a check of Arche's systems, just to make sure nothing had been damaged in the battle and to make sure the batteries still held enough power, but it would be a few more boring minutes until Ali and Anna finally arrived at their destination.
As it turns out, the place Anna was from was a small-ish town with precisely nothing around it. The town itself appeared fairly fortified, and after parking Arche Gundam, the two of them descended into the town's underground, which clearly made up the majority of the town's volume.
"So, does this place have a name?"
"…No."
Finally, Anna and Ali reached the office of the town's mayor. Anna went in first, apparently to give a report on the events that had just occurred, before ushering Ali to make introductions. Apparently, the mayor was the same person that Anna had earlier referred to as "the boss": a middle-aged woman by the name of Mary Lizeroux. Anna left the room after showing Ali in, leaving the two of them alone in the room.
"So, Ali… al-Sajis, is it? Anna just finished telling me a very interesting story. I'd like to ask a few questions about that, if you don't mind."
"It's Ali al-Saachez. I'm alright with answering a few questions, but in return, I've got a few questions of my own to ask. And if my instincts are right, I doubt I have any good answers anyway."
Despite Ali's words, the conversation that followed was still enlightening for both sides. Ali finally learned some concrete details about the place he had found himself in. The main points were: The year was 2064 going by the AD calendar, but many people knew it as 52 PI, or Past Impact. Impact was some kind of global catastrophe that fucked up the world and caused, in Mary's words, "tornadoes or something that had weird shit inside them". And the two biggest things: First, mysterious orbs which could be used by certain people (mostly women), giving them a variety of powerful abilities. This was what Anna's exosuit was. And the second, aliens. A hostile extraterrestrial force that were apparently named "Antagonists" by the UN, shortly before the people of this town lost contact with the wider world. That confirmed it for Ali. This really was, as the literary classics knew it, an "isekai".
In return, Ali gave a brief summary of his own timeline. The year was A.D. 2312. Five years prior, in 2307, a private military organisation known as Celestial Being had revealed themselves to the world, bearing powerful mobile suits called Gundams. These Gundams were equipped with revolutionary technology based around the GN Particle, which allowed Celestial Being to challenge the whole world at once, and win. Eventually, the United Nations got their own GN tech and defeated Celestial Being, before reforming into the Earth Sphere Federation. Then, back in 2312, Celestial Being returned. It was in the climactic battle of that second conflict that Ali's last memories of that timeline occurred. Of course, Ali did leave out the fact that he was an international terrorist during and prior to all these events, instead simply referring to himself as a mercenary.
After all the exposition was done with, it was time to move to more practical concerns.
"Based on what both you and Anna have told me, you could really be an asset to this town. I'd like you to work with Anna to help defend us from the Antagonists.
Ali raised an eyebrow. That was a pretty big demand to ask right out of the gate.
"You know I'm a mercenary. I don't work for free. Unless you've got some incentive?"
Mary sighed.
"We don't have anything to give you. Money basically isn't a thing around here, we have no real way to get valuable minerals, we barely even produce enough food for the whole town.
She paused.
"But, there really isn't anywhere else for you to go. There's nothing around. Anna's looked. Wherever the rest of humanity is, if there even is a rest of humanity, it's not anywhere close to here. If you help us, I can provide you with a place to sleep, enough to eat, and maybe a little bit of support for that mobile suit of yours. If not, I don't think this town can afford to keep you here.
It was Ali's turn to sigh. This whole situation was seriously lame. First he finds out that they're only using a child soldier out of sheer necessity, and now he's been basically forced to work for free. This really wasn't his style. But Mary's point had been made. Trying to strike it out alone would be tantamount to suicide. And as much as Ali al-Saachez loved to spread pain and misery, he preferred to be alive while doing it. Still, there was one thing he could probably get away with asking for…
"…Fine. I'll help protect you or whatever. But give me some time with Anna. That Valkyrie Core she has might be pretty useful, but I can tell she hasn't been trained. And I'll need access to power for my mobile suit."
"Yes, I can arrange that. In that case, welcome to our humble little town, Ali al-Saachez."
Big ol' exposition dump but I think it needs to be here. Also the inevitable start of Ali's path to making Anna worse. But maybe she can make him better in return?
