Man & Machine (Infinite Stratos x Male Reader)

Enrolled

Disclaimer: The following story is based on the Infinite Stratos IP, and thus I do not own anything. Infinite Stratos belongs to the respective author and media.

(Author's Note: I took the liberty of diving into the wiki. Evidently the story goes much deeper than expected. That said, there are some tweaks I've made.)

"Did.... did that just happen?"

"Wait, it worked? There is another male compatible?!"

Well this was definitely a day of firsts. Then again, that was not a bad thing. There was a chance of this happening, but it had to be an incredible stroke of luck on the genetic dice.

Ten years ago, the country of Japan developed a multi form suit meant for astronauts in space. Such research had not presently made it to that goal despite the remarkable technology. The initial introduction did not get much public attention, but the next event involving the new vehicle did.

Not long after the public unveiling of the IS, an unknown hacker managed to break into multiple military networks and around 200 ICBMs and cruise missiles had been launched against Japan. An IS dubbed the White Knight managed to intercept and destroy every single one with a combination of melee and ranged weapons. The unit had even achieved orbital velocity to take out MIRV missiles.

Such an incident led to amazement and uproar. Tensions in the region escalated. Fingers were pointed, but it became obvious by the timing that the hacker and the IS were likely associated, and the event was means of getting attention. A joint military operation was formed to hunt the White Knight down and apprehend both the pilot and the creator of the IS, Tabane Shinonono. When all was said and done, multiple aircraft had been shot down, ships systems disabled and a scant few hits on the IS to show for it.

Such was the potential destructive power that was demonstrated in the White Knight incident that a summit was held leading to the Alaska Treaty. The Infinite Stratos was officially forbidden for military use. Due to lack of evidence of her involvement, Tabane Shinonono was on slightly better terms in order to acquire IS's, but still remained at large in other countries.

Instead, development thus far had centered it as a sporting event between pilots. Yes, logically it would make more sense to use this technology for more utilitarian purposes, but the IS technology was still too rare and advanced to start entering mass production owing to the creator's limitations.

And the more interesting catch was that for some reason, only females could pilot the suits. Perhaps that drawback is what stunted further research.

Nonetheless, that did not stop the various nations from seeing if there was a male capable of operating a unit. There were billions of males on the planet. There was bound to be someone that could at least be the exception to the rule.

Who would have thought it would be you?

You had gone to one of those high school college fairs seeing if there was something more viable than your current plans. As a soon to be graduated senior at eighteen years old, the best path thus far had been community college. Of course, the major was more of the technical type.

You were quite found of aviation and aerospace in general. But the sad truth was that you and your family lacked the means to afford sending you to a campus for four years, let alone a pilot program. Not without quite a bit of debt anyway. So a technical community college was the best bet. You could at least work to obtain an Airframe and Powerplant Mechanic Certification from the FAA in two years with the right program.  Whether or not that applied to an IS was a matter of debate.

(Author's Note: Once you have an aforementioned A&P License, that certification is for life. Well worth the time and effort.)

Still, the IS Academy had also been present at this fair. Because reputation alone was not enough, they had a functional generic IS with a few pilots to entice prospective students. Yes, most of them were female. But it was not unusual for males to look over the IS, or perhaps have a go at it.