Infinite Stratos: Our Darkest Days
is an ongoing Slice of Life / Speculative Fiction set in the Infinite Stratos universe one year prior to the main canon story.
The story tells of the trials and tribulations of a group of friends at the I.S. Academy as they struggle to fight their way through the elitism of their peers, the machinations of their rivals, and their own inner demons in the hopes of one day achieving their goals.
Follow main protagonist Josephine Williams as she adjusts to living with her new roommates Maria Cross and McKenna Tremblay who then go on to befriend fellow students Jennifer Hawkins, Tatenashi Sarashiki, and first time teacher, Maya Yamada.
This story contains examples of:
- Academy of Adventure: More like an academy of misadventure.
- Action Prologue: The story shows the main cast fighting a battle against, as yet, unknown enemies.
- Always in Class One: The main three characters are in class 1-1.
- Ascended Extra: Kaoruko Mayuzumi, and Maya Yamada.
- Axes at School: The story is about girls training to pilot an Infinite Stratos. Some of them have personal units armed with very dangerous weaponry.
- Berserk Button: Almost every character has one, which makes Josephine feel like she must always be on guard in case something goes wrong. It almost always does.
- The Cameo: So far the story has had cameos from Ichika Orimura, and Dan Gotanda. There has also been a mention of Lingyin Huang by Meiying Zhāng and a conversation with her by phone with Jennifer Hawkins. There has also been a mention of Cecilia Alcott in one of Josephine's flashbacks.
- Cluster F-Bomb: Maria and McKenna are prone to these. The former because she's just rude, and the latter whenever something triggers her to drop her Canadian Nice Girl persona and go on a rampage.
- Crapsack World: The world outside of I.S. Academy is alluded to largely be this.
- Josephine's flashbacks to her hometown of Leeds shows it to be a dilapidated ghetto post Brexit. It isn't clear if the whole city has become rundown and disorderly, or if she's just from the Wrong Side of the Tracks.
- McKenna discusses hunting with her father and big brother because it was necessary to encourage the culling of deer in the Yukon because of the mass migration of wildlife from Alaska after fracking and drilling increased across the state.
- While digging into Maria's past, McKenna discovers that Anchorage, Alaska has become a crime infested dump and called it the part of Canada nobody wants. Ironic considering her Great-Grandfather made his fortune illegally selling Canadian whiskey in Alaska during prohibition.
- World powers are said to be fighting a war in West Africa which, according to news reports, has claimed millions of lives.
- There are tensions along the U.S./Canada border which has seen military assets being deployed.
- Americans are said to be illegally migrating to Canada.
- Deconstruction: The story takes elements of the original work and picks them apart.
- The story touches on elements of how difficult it really is to become a Representative Contender/Cadet and how far some will go to attain it, even at the cost of their sanity.
- A spotlight is shone on Representative Contenders/Cadets being the equivalent of first-world child soldiers.
- Drama Bomb: At I.S. Academy they call this Tuesday.
- Gang of Bullies: A few of them. Behind every successful Representative Candidate/Cadet is a pack of haters.
- Girl Posse: It's an all girl's school. Naturally, these groups will form and compete.
- Lethal Eatery: Nobody ever has anything good to say about the cafeteria."Itadakimasu," said a grumpy Tatenashi before taking up her chopsticks."I’ve heard you say that before. What does it mean?" asked Josephine."It's an expression of gratitude for the food and everyone who worked to make it possible.""I rather like that, how do you say it? Ita-daki-ma-su?""Exactly right," replied the blunette."Now if only there were anything on these trays to actually be grateful for," muttered Maria while moving some of her food around in her plate.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: Inexperienced young people itching to prove themselves can lead to disaster.
- Multinational Team: Characters from the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, and Japan make up the main cast.
- Slice of Life: The story is about the day to day lives and misadventures of the characters.
- Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: The story goes to different extremes depending on the point of view of the character.
- The Idealist Josephine believes that Humans Are Good and that a better future can be achieved. The Cynic Maria believes Humans Are the Real Monsters and that Human nature mandates them to live in the Crapsack World because that is their natural environment. McKenna is caught somewhere between the two and being tugged back and forth.
- Stronger Than They Look: Everyone in one way or another.
- Josephine Williams is a busty, elegant, and refined beauty who can always be found with a book in her hand. But she also trains in Historical European Martial Arts and is capable of restraining a certain Pint Sized Power House when she needs to.
- Maria Cross is a cute and petite girl who is ripped and appears to have some kind of martial arts training of her own. Though what exactly isn't stated yet.
- McKenna Tremblay is a tall (relatively speaking) athletic girl who trains in kickboxing.
- Tatenashi Sarashiki is a cute and sexy girl with a black belt in Judo.
- Jennifer Hawkins is a blonde Australian bombshell who free climbs just about everything she can and trains in Muay Thai and Karate.
- With Friends Like These...: The main characters are a team assembled ad-hoc, and each of them is their own ticking time bomb threatening to blast them all apart.
