Last Time: Ichika and Lingyin battle in the class league match, but they are interrupted when a mysterious IS attacks the arena.

Next Time: Zora enters the fray and the three friends battle the enemy together

(Opening Theme: Back - On)

https://youtu.be/4FwfrXDAFyA

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Rin fired shot after shot at the unknown IS which was flying low along the ground but managed to finally land a hit on it, destabilizing its flight.

"Ichika, now's your chance to attack!"

Ichika swooped towards the IS and lashed out with a descending slash, however the IS twirled out of the way and responded with a punch. Ichika ducked under the attack and tried aiming for the chest but could only inflict glancing blows due to the IS' reflexes before it flew away from him.

"Darn it Ichika, that's the fourth time you missed, aim properly!" said Rin.

"I am aiming, whoever is piloting the IS must be good or I wouldn't ha-Rin watch out!" Ichika called out in warning.

"Eh?" Rin was confused for a moment but that's what gave the IS the opportunity to fire a shot from its arm cannon which hit Rin's shoulder, causing her to lose control of flight for a few moments.

The IS flew towards her with a fist reared back ready to punch when a greeb beam of energy from out of nowhere flew towards it, the IS stopped in its tracks and was blasted away before it crashed into the ground and raised a massive cloud of debris.

"What was that?" said Rin, looking at where the IS crashed.

"Wait," Ichika said as realization hit him. "Was that...?"

https://youtu.be/kyRK2GI_T7I

"Yo, looks I made it in time!" the duo turned to the voice and were surprised to see Zora hovering a few distance away with his "Hyakurai" Beam Rifle pointed outwards.

"Zora, what are you doing here?" asked Rin, surprised by the orangette's appearance.

"Oh, you know...coming into battle and looking good doing it!" The orangette spoke in a teasing voice, before looking over at where he blasted the IS.

The black machine shot up from the dust cloud like a bullet and floated into the air as it kept it's gaze on the newcomer.

"Wow, you are one tough bastard," Zora said, summoning the Akatsuki's Beam Guarder Shield on its left forearm. "You want some more? I'm game!"

"Wait, don't you think that IS's strange? Like it's moving a bit too mechanical." Ichika noted, the three turned towards the black IS that stood there motionlessly.

"What's do you mean? It is a machine after all." Rin commented.

"I guess..." Zora narrowed his eyes in concentration, when Arthias' face appeared in his view. "Cuz?"

"Zor, what Ichika has noted is correct, I've checked in with my IS and detected no signs of life within that machine whatsoever." The older man explained. "My guess is it could be on auto-pilot."

"Really? In that case..."

"Watch out! Here it comes!" The IS charged towards the airborne teenagers, forcing them to scatter in various directions. Zora took aim and fired at the enemy, which did little to no effect on the target. The intruder then proceeded to fill the air full of beams, raining down on the trio as they weaved through the air attempting to dodge it.

"It looks like she's ready to do this!" Rin panted; exhaustion can be heard from her tone.

"Not a she. It, Rin." Zora supplied.

"What? What do you mean by that?"

"I've received some new from Arthias on that IS, there's no one in there! We've been fighting an unmanned unit all this time!" Zora told the two pilots.

"What!? That's impossible! An IS needed a pilot in order to function! That's just how it is!" Rin shouted through the channel, as she dodged another charge from the unit.

"If what you say is true, then that means we don't need to hold back and can go full force," said Ichika.

"Seems so," Zora said, switching out his "Hyakurai" Beam Rifle for his "Ultima" Beam Saber. "Ich, how much shield energy do you have left?"

"Only enough to use the barrier void attack one more time."

"Then conserve it until we give you the opportunity to land a lethal blow, Rin and I will try to wear it down for that," 

"Right, that's a plan. So, what're we waiting for? Let's go!" Rin was raring to go. No sooner she said that did the IS aim at Zora and fired.

Zora dashed to the side to evade the shot before dashing forward to engage as his helmet closed back on his face "Let's dust this bitch!"

The IS fired a round at Zora, the orangette weaved left and right to evade while holding Ultima before him and used the shield to deflect and block any shots that would have hit. Once close he performed a horizontal slash aiming for the drone's torso but it was dodged and he had to dash backwards a punch in retaliation.

"Substitute "Hyakurai" Beam Rifle!" the Ultima Saber disappeared and in its place, said rifle appeared in his hand. Zora took aim and fired at the drone, pelting it with beam blasts. The drone took aim at him and was about to open fire when yellow projectiles approached from above courtesy of Ling.

"You're not getting anywhere close to him!" shouted Rin before quickly moving out of the way.

"Locked on and fire!" Zora shot a red blast as it moved towards its target at high-speed and slammed into the drone before unleashing an explosion, sending it flying backwards towards the ground, and it could be seen that damage was inflicted judging from the dents and electricity sparking from it "Substitute Ultima!" then the beam bladed beam reappeared. Zora performed a barrel roll to the left then dashed to the right to evade the salvo before raising the Beam Guarder to deflect any shots which could not be avoided.

"En garde!" Zora exclaimed as he lunged at the drone with a high-speed slash. Drone had detected the incoming attack and dashed to the side for Zora to pass by harmlessly "Where the hell are you going!?" he stabbed the saber into the ground and swung around before using the momentum to launch a dropkick which impacted with the drone's torso, knocking it back "Rin, tag in!"

"Okay!"

Rin dove in with her blades at the ready as she hacked and slashed rapidly with the unmanned IS darting left and right, she connected the hilts of both scimitars together to form a double bladed staff which she twirled around before launching a forward thrust and missed again with the drone backing away once more. The shoulder cannons charged up unleash a round on Rin when a red streak pierced through one of the cannons causing it to explode and another red streak followed to destroy the second cannon.

Rin traced the red streaks to look behind her to see Zora standing a short distance away holding his beam rifle with smoke coming out if the muzzle.

"Sorry tin man, but those shoulder cannons had to go. You could have blown someone's eye out with those," Zora snorted.

"You've really got its attention now, Zor" said Ichika.

"Meh, I've always been good at that," said Zora as the 'Locked On' appeared on the HUD.

The unmanned IS quickly darted away from Ling and headed straight towards Zora as it proceeded to throw punches at the golden IS but he darted left and right to dodge them while backpedalling to maintain a certain distance although he refused to switch out the rifle as he formulated a plan.

"Wait for it...wait for it..." his eyes widened as he saw the drone launched a haymaker punch at his head "Now! Got'cha, bitch! Snipe Shot!" Zora rolled to the side to dodge the punch before he took aim at the drone and pulled the trigger, a blue green shot out of the muzzle and sped through the air and pierced through its left leg joint, severely hindering its mobility.

The drone stumbled backwards from the unexpected strike and Zora didn't let up as he called back his rife. He summoned his Utima saber that suddenly detached into two individual beam sabers, before launching himself at the drone.

"Leroy Jenkins!" Zora slammed the weapon into its chest and watched as it grinded into the metal before the downard force sent the drone hurtling away from him.

"Take this!" Rin stood at the ready as her Impact Cannons charged up before firing in much higher power settings which slammed into the drone, juggling it in midair "Ichika, now's your chance and get it right this time!"

"I got it!" yelled Ichika diving in from above with the Yukihira Nigata reared backwards, then he unleashed a diagonal slash that successfully on the drone starting from the left shoulder and continued all the way down to the waist before falling into two clean pieces with the red lights on the optic lens fading away.

Music End

"Nice one with the coup de grâce Ichika," Akatsuki's helmet opened up to show Zora smirking as he floated over to him.

"Thanks guys, I'm just glad that it's all over with. But the question is what was it doing here and why it came after me and then Zora when he appeared?" said Ichika confusedly.

"Who knows, but we should..." Zora noticed something from the corner of his sight before quickly moving towards Ichika and Ling and shoving them away much to their confusion.

"Hey! What was that for!?" yelled Rin.

*BOOOM!*

A purple beam slammed into Zora and exploded before their very eyes much to their horror.

"ZORA!" Ichika exclaimed.

"Zora! But how?!" said Rin in shock, they turned to see the supposedly destroyed drone's upper body propped up on one arm while the other had pointed its arm cannon at where Zora was.

"It was still active?! That's impossible!" said Ichika.

The unmanned IS set its sights on them and proceeded to charge up for another attack...

"Next time you shoot to kill, add an extra shot to make sure. Attack Function: Chou Plasma Burst!"

The smoke cloud was suddenly blown away unknown winds to reveal Zora equipped with his Beam Guarder and double -bladed Ultima above his head. He leapt into the air a bit above the drone before thrusting Ultima through the unmanned IS chest completely obliterating it leaving behind a large trench.

He then slashed upwards, slicing the drone in half before it fell to the ground, umoving.

"Next time you shoot to kill, add an extra shot to make sure." Zora spoke after putting aways his weapons. Ichika and Rin watched with relief at the sight of their unharmed friend.

"Simba, I'm so glad you're okay. I thought it got you with that attack," said Rin.

"Not really, after I got you guys out of the way I managed to use Beam Guarder in time to block the beam," Zora said proudly.

"We're just glad that you didn't get hurt Zora," said Ichika.

Then a screen appeared on their HUD to display Maya who looked very worried.

"Is everyone okay? You're not hurt are you?" asked Maya.

"It's alright Ms. Maya, we're all a-okay,"

"Thank goodness, I was so worried," Maya let out a sigh of relief.

Another screen appeared to display Cecelia "That was very dangerous Zora! You could have been seriously hurt!"

"Sorry Cece, I just moved on instanct," Zora sheepishly rubbed the back of his head.

"Ce-Cece?" Ceceilia stuttered out at the name.

"She's right Zora, you should be more careful next time," Rin told him.

"Okay but no promises, if I see anyone close to me in danger. I'll definitely protect no matter what," Zora said. "Anyway I suddenly mad hungry right now, anyone wants to join me after reporting to Ms. Orimura?"

"You already know my answer," Rin grinned.

"I think I'll pass, I've had enough excitement for one day," said Ichika.

"Aww, you poor sport!"

"Okay more for us!"

With that said, the three IS pilots took to the air and made their back to the maintenance area before reporting to the observation room.

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Later on...

Deep in the bowels of the IS Academy, there is a laboratory used only for the most secret of projects. It was there that the Obsidian IS lay on a table, half a dozen electrodes attached to its head and each of its limbs.

On an observation deck above, Arthias Yamato and Chifuyu Orimura stood just behind Maya Yamada, who was sitting before a console, tapping away at keys and reading the diagnostic data.

"So it really is unmanned," Maya muttered, "And it seems that the Core is unregistered?"

"I see...," Chifuyu acknowledged.

Arthias hummed as he looked at the data "There are only 4670 IS Cores worldwide, and yet this IS was equipped with a Core we know nothing about. I wonder..."

Chifuyu had no answer for her. She just stared over the console's monitor, almost like she was just waiting for the IS to get back up and start firing again. There was no mistaking that it had been trying to attack Sten, which, for some reason, worried her more than she would ever care to admit.

It seemed that, no matter how safe the ISA liked to believe it was, a storm was brewing.

And it seemed that they were standing in it's eye.

(Ending Theme - Fly Away)

https://youtu.be/l0W8aAoVjME

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Welp, there you guys have it! Another chapter done...even though this was probably the shortest chapter by far. Bah, who cares? Next chapter, we finally get to the part I've been dying to get to...the debut of Inifinte Stratos best girl! 

Anyway, leave a review or PM me your thoughts on the story so far.

See ya!!!