Another Answer

Prelude

Outside Context Problem

Here's your mission briefing.

We want you to go through the Alaska Gate and support the other Earth's governments in their Abyssal War.

As far as we know from hacking into their databases and spies sent through the Gate, the Abyssals are alien entities that appeared two years ago in their world. Taking on the form of warped versions of World War II vessels and occasionally twisted humanoids, they are currently pushing back humanity on the other side of the Gate. We cannot allow this to happen, because if the other Earth falls, the Alaska Gate will be their springboard into our Earth.

You will be assigned a full support company for this mission. The Alaska Gate opens and closes every month, and you will be expected to stay there until the end of the War. The support company will be stocked with as much supplies for your NEXT as they can, and more supplies will come once the Gate opens again.

The League and ORCA will send other LYNX not tied up in anti-insurgent operations and hunting rogue LYNX through the Gate when it opens on our end. Do note that support may not come for quite some time, but when it does, they will be top LYNX much like yourself. The League and ORCA will spare no expense in combating the Abyssal threat.

Kojima pollution will not be a problem during this mission, as Omer and TORUS' recently invented Kojima Filter will reduce the environmental impact of your NEXT to non-negligible levels.

This is a very important task we are giving you, and you will be paid accordingly. We're counting on you.

The explosions threw up great gouts of sand as they rippled through the beach.

In an instant, the peace that had been present was shattered, chaos reigning as those who managed to survive the first round of shelling making their way back into the town, screaming all the way.

Coastal raids were not uncommon. In some parts of Japan, it was a fact of life. The shipgirls, the personifications the warships that had fought in the titanic clashes on the high seas during mankind's greatest conflict, could only defend so much of the nation's coastline with their limited numbers.

They were still a relatively new phenomenon – only appearing at the turn of this year. The JMSDF were still working out new doctrines, ways to work with such powerful women with their steel-hull vessels. It would be inevitable that things would slip through the cracks, and this was no different.

It didn't stop from Shido Shimada cursing his current situation, crouching in the ruins of a store.

Fuck! Of all the damn times-

The day was supposed to be a day out with his little sister and her friend – he was just a glorified chaperone while the girls hung around the beach and ogled other boys their age. He'd wandered off to get himself a drink because the weather was sweltering, leaving behind his two charges at the beach.

Then the Abyssals had to turn up.

His ears still ringing from the shell that had just detonated nearby, he forced himself to stand up and look around.

Smoke was beginning to rise in columns as the Abyssals fired on the town, the thunder of their guns hammering against his ears. Interspersed between detonations and the low drone of Abyssal aircraft were screams - no doubt from fleeing men and women.

The teenager ducked again when he saw one of the Abyssal aircraft soar over his position, before bringing himself up again and yelling out into the open;

"Mihari!? Natsuki!? Where are you?!"

Shido didn't expect a reply to come so soon.

"Shido-nii! We're here!"

His head whipped to the side, seeing the frames of his little sister and Natsuki, dirty but very, very much alive, just down the street, Mihari Shimada waving her arms. Relief washed over him; they weren't at the beach like he thought they were. That made it much easier.

He ignored the ugly coiling of his stomach at the thought of either of them being killed in the opening strike on the beach just minutes earlier.

"I'm coming over!" Shido yelled, eyes darting up to the sky and to the coastline, before running over to them. He cringed when he heard a scream cut short by another detonation, shutting his eyes and willing himself to run faster.

When Shido reached his two charges, Mihari crashed into him, sobbing into his chest.

"It- it was horrible…"

Shido pulled his little sister into a hug, turning his gaze to Natsuki.

"What happened?" he whispered.

The girl looked up, eyes red and sniffling. "One of the boys we were talking to in the store d-died. We heard the Abyssals start shooting and he just exploded-"

His sister seemed to cry even harder into his chest, and his grip on her tightened. He didn't know what it would be like to see someone get turned into bloody chunks right in front of you - but if they stayed any longer, he'd be forced to find out.

"It's okay, it's okay." he breathed, pulling the other girl close for a quick hug before pushing them away, hands on their shoulders and giving them a look. "We'll...we'll get through this. Okay? We just need to run."

Two shaky nods was what Shido received in reply. They'd stopped crying, though their expressions were still quaking with the slightest amount of fear.

He turned his gaze from his two charges to the beach not a scant few meters away, and shuddered.

The horizon had turned a horrid black, with the distinct shapes of Abyssal aircraft carriers and cruisers appearing and sailing towards the broken and battered town. The air was starting to be filled with more low droning than the sounds of panicked people trying to escape, and the sounds of Abyssal guns were growing closer and closer.

Shido gritted his teeth. This was starting to get out of hand. He turned his gaze back to Natsuki and Mihari, slipping on what was hopefully a confident expression. "We can't stay here. Let's g-"

The last part of his sentence was cut off by a shell landing close to them, the sudden roar enough to jolt him. His mouth opened, and he let out a single command. "Go!"

The girls turned and started running. He picked up the pace himself, willing his aching legs to carry him forward. They just needed to get to the hills, and they'd be out of range of the shelling-

Whatever Natsuki and Mihari were saying were indistinct to his hears, ringing as they were from how close the shell had landed near him. A part of Shido's mind that wasn't dazed noted that it was a stroke of luck that he hadn't been killed by the blast.

"-ou alright?! Shido-nii!"

"Y-yeah." he breathed shakily, "I'm fine."

He staggered as he stood up, but pain lanced through his right leg. The only reason that he didn't crash back down on the ground was because Mihari and Natsuki were supporting him.

"Ffffffffff..." Shido sucked in a breath through his teeth.

Today was not a good day. Not at all.

He stood in front of his two charges as a human shield, staring defiantly into the hate-filled blue eyes of the Ri-class cruiser before him.

I never thought I'd be doing something like this.

Out of concern for his leg wounded leg, the two girls had set him down in the open-air ruins of an apartment in a quiet section of the town, still too close to the shoreline for his liking, but he couldn't complain.

It was then that this particular Ri-class cruiser - something he recognised from memorizing the list of known Abyssals with humanoid forms - had popped up out of nowhere, savage grin only conveying one meaning.

Shido cursed himself for not remembering that the Abyssals resorting to using their humanoid versions as landing troops once the coastline had fallen. It was been on the news all the time, army units engaging them in fierce and utterly brutal urban combat that ended in massive casualties on both sides; all a part of the ongoing Abyssal War.

All it took for this to happen was a single slip of the mind, and now they were going to pay the price.

Well, him, mostly. Natsuki would drag Mihari out of here - behind that demure demeanor of hers lay a steely core. Silk hiding steel. This last stand of his was going to be a delaying action for his two charges to run from this place as fast as they could to live another day.

Shido sucked in a deep breath, trying his absolute hardest to ignore his sister's anguished cries.

The Abyssal screeched, rearing her arm back-

-and with only the sound of a high-pitched whine as a warning, the grotesque woman exploded.

Shido turned his body to shield the two from the explosion of gore with a yelp, feeling chunks of dead Abyssal slap against him and slide down his body. His ears rung once more, before everything seemed to still.

What the hell?

Shido cracked one eye open, looking up.

He expected many things. The air force was at the forefront of his thoughts and hopes; the knights of the sky, coming in from over the horizon as the cavalry to save the day. Just like in those American movies.

A giant robot floating in the air was most certainly not what he was expecting to be his saviour.

It was incredibly sleek. Lean, tall, and thin. Painted white with red highlights here and there. It was like staring at a masterpiece of engineering, what with all the curves that its frame showed. If he squinted enough, he could even see the shimmer of a round force field that encased it.

But what truly caught his attention was the gun it was holding in its' right grip, crackling with orange energy and aimed at the spot where the giant Abyssal was.

"What is that?" Mihari whispered, craning her head to look up at the sight above the trio.

"I…don't know."

The whole situation seemed so surreal - like he was only half awake and half dreaming. Shido expected to just wake up any moment now, and he would be in bed with an angry Mihari ready to scold him for sleeping in; but he knew that this was all too real.

The mech turned it's attention from them to the harbour, where the Abyssal fleet continued to bombard what was left of the town with impunity. Shadowy figures were beginning to rise from the blackened waters - more humanoid Abyssals.

Another high pitched whine scraped against Shido's ears, and it shot off towards the bay, propelled by a great gout of white coming from it's back.

His grip on Mihari and Natsuki slackened, before his arms fell to his sides, entirely limp. And against all of his instincts to run the other way, Shido turned on his heel and hobbled after it.

The two girls yelled at him to come back, but he paid them no heed, mind focused on one thought: what the hell was that? It just came out of nowhere!

He came to a stop at the shattered pavement overlooking the once-pristine beach, ignoring the throbbing pain of his leg, and looked on in awe, Mihari and Natsuki coming up short behind him and gasping for breath - though that quickly turned into stunned silence as they watched the sight before them.

The mech was jinking wildly from left to right, weaving between streams of gunfire as the massive guns of the Abyssal cruisers were slowly redirected from the ruined town to the incredibly fast machine. Not a single shot hit it; each and every shell sailed over into the horizon, wasted.

Shido felt like he was watching a dance; a deadly dance, admittedly, but it was eerie to watch but he could not force himself to look away. There was something about it that seemed off, like he was watching a real human perform those insane maneuvers.

He was also dimly aware of people crawling out from the ruins of the town to observe the spectacle, but he ignored them in favor of watching the battle.

The mech's hand shot out with it's gun arm, sending an orange beam crashing into a cruiser and splitting it in half. It dropped down to the waters next to a carrier, left hand lighting up in a blinding purple laser blade that slashed through it's hull with nigh-contemptuous ease, before it threw itself to the side to avoid being hit by a shell.

The scenes repeated, again and again. Aircraft were swatted out of the sky by it's back mounted machine gun. The rods mounted on the other side of the machine gun went ramrod straight and fanned out like an eagle spreading it's wings, sending missiles crashing into destroyers and cruisers, gutting them like fish. The laser blade would flare, sending a carrier to the bottom of the harbor. Even the mighty battleships that had shown up were nothing but chaff before it; the gun would plow through it's armor and render it useless.

And through it all, it did not get hit once.

With another swing of it's blade, the last destroyer's hull groaned, before it faded into darkness.

Shido didn't know who started the cheer. But soon the crowd of survivors gathered at the pavement is electrified, yelling praises towards the mech as it floated serenely, facing the sea. He himself, along with Mihari and Natsuki, are caught up in the moment as well, shouting at the top of their lungs and waving their fists in the air like the rest.

For it's part, the mech turned around to the crowd, giving the slightest bow of it's head in acknowledgement, sending another fresh wave of vigor to ripple through the crowd as they shouted more adulation.

It was supposed to be a normal day, Shido thought as the mech's eyes flared red before it turned it's gaze back to the ocean, but I think I'll remember this day for years to come.

By the time the shipgirls had arrived, their mysterious saviour in white had already shot off into the distance, leaving no sign that it was ever there.

COLLARED RANK 9/ORCA RANK 5

LYNX Name: ?

AC Name: Dissent

An enigmatic former Omer LYNX who joined ORCA and fought alongside them during the League-ORCA War that saw the success of the Closed Plan. She pilots a LAHIRE frame armed with an eclectic range of weaponry, and is considerably more powerful than her rank suggests. Known to have a brother/sister relationship with Collared's Rank 1 LYNX, Strayed.