New Roosts For Old Ravens

RagnaMail · Sep 14, 2021

Ah, the dream again.

The surface of the fourth world in the Sol System vanishing beneath the light-speed flashes of detonations. A haze of particulates racing through the skies of his homeworld, obscuring the wanly lit soil in a cacophony of warring greens and Cherenkov blue. The orb spun between the stars of the Heavens in a tainted death spiral, returned to stillness and gaining once more a grave's silence.

Gideon Clements seemed to move and stir to whatever cruel and mirthful God would observe this child of Mars. It was an impossibility that he'd actually moved bound as he was in the icy embrace of an induced biomort slumber, ensconced in the cryogenic chamber where he was awaiting the outside world at the edge of the border between life and death. For the first time in a long while, he'd found peace.

Wait. Why did he think that? Why was he thinking about thinking?! Despite the icy embrace he was in the man's heart stirred to life. With each thmp-thmp of the mass of muscles his blood warmed and so did his flesh. As he approached the brink of awareness after so long in his slumber, Gideon's fading memory of the dreamscape shifted the planet he watched die in the distance into a new one of greens and blues. A quaint nostalgia dripped from his marrow and hastened his pulse to rise from his dance with the great inner dark.

His eyes opened.

It had been an unusual and unexpected haul for the residents of New Prospect City in the L1 Lagrange Point. The vessel was a design that hadn't been in service for decades, and what caught the attention of those who'd brought it in due to it being a navigation hazard were in for several surprises. It probably also helped that there were of all things faded MIrage corporation marking across strategic places of the hull.

First, the escape vessel still had power. It had clearly been drifting for a while without maintenance but still its heart beat. A second discovery was that there was an occupant on board, alongside their currently-still Armored Core in the hangar section. The third surprise was that the occupant seemed to be stirring from his cryogenic slumber.

"..Holy shit; the pod's thawing out! Who triggered the wakeup sequence?!" One of the overalls-suited technicians was shouting at the others nearby as he whirled this way and that at the cryogenic chamber's sudden and inexplicable whirring to life. The other technicians and maintenance workers all shook their heads and watched in worried stances as the pod continued on it's merry way to waking the occupant to the world of the living once more. A few were subtly picking up heavy tools to use as potential weapons as they all stood there; helpless to stop the process they hadn't started.

Grips tightened on spanners, circular saws, and prybars as the pod finished it's countdown. At zero the chamber's hermetic seal popped with a whining hiss to sweep the room with an arctic wind from inside the device. Not a few people shivered at the cold and all of them flinched at the high-pitched hiss before the coffin-like chamber lid swung upwards on silent hinges. The bed tilted up from the flat orientation to a fifty-five degree angle to reveal the occupant to those who were watching with rapt attention. The sound of not a few tools clattering to the metal floor of the vessel were intertwined with gasps of horror-filled awe; as though the poor souls gazed upon the form of their destroyer.

Gideon opened his rime-encrusted eyes slowly. Damnit, the cryo bay was supposed to be dark when people were waking up! A half-growl came from his mouth as his damp mauve hair dropped into his face to further irritate his eyes. A metal-enshrined arm lifted stiffly to his face to shield his eyes from the glare only for the growl to intensify as he found the hard substance bone-chillingly cold still. It took him a few moments to come fully back to his faculties and he was greeted by the sight of a gaggle of workers staring at him as if he were the Devil. His hunter green eyes dropped to his form so as to inspect that everything was still there. Thankfully it was.

He started to speak, only for a reverberating cough to sound as his vocal chords decided to rebel for the moment. He turned and loudly hacked up a deep blue-purple wad of phlegm and cryogenic refrigerant onto the floor beside the chamber. Once he recovered, he brought his gaze back to the workers. "Sure," his slightly reverb-laden voice echoed into the stillness. "Just leave a man to climb out of the chambers himself... Not like I haven't earned my keep for Mirage enough to get basic treatment around here..." He managed to rouse his stiff body and climbed out of the bed himself. The rest of the tools clanged loudly to the ground once he was fully free of the confines and the people could see that all the machinery hadn't been part of the pod but was a part of him.

The nightmare of flesh and chromed steel and titanium alloys glared at the cacophony and stood up to his full height. He saw that not a few people had growing stains down the legs of their overalls that were giving slight steam off in the freezing-cold room. His human eyes flicked up to the face of the nearest person and he spoke in an authoritative tone. "Once you lot are done pissing yourself at the sight of a cyborg, I would appreciate some clothes and to speak to Mirage's command structure."

RagnaMail · Sep 21, 2021

A few hours later saw Gideon still nestled within the shuttle's dimly-lit confines, now clad in simple billowing synthetic fibers in the style of a Kaftan that hung loose to reveal a similarly-loose billowing white undershirt and a long-legged Sirwal style of pants. He wasn't a follower of the teachings of the old religion of Islam but he found the style to be convenient for concealing his cybernetic augmentations. He wasn't ashamed of them at all; it was that other people saw his body that looked like nightmarish metallic growths were prying from his pale flesh like a scrapyard gone mad and were largely frozen into horror. The workers that had swarmed the interior were still here, though they'd excused themselves for a time to change their clothes much to Gideon's amusement.

They were moving to and fro, largely giving him a respectful distance and keeping his in their peripheral vision whenever possible. Gideon gave the ones he could see a knowing green-eyed look and purposely chuckled loud enough to be heard in the slowly-loudening space. The slight reverb his voice had set them to their tasks with a visible shudder. He smiled to himself as he stepped forward across the small hangar to observe his machine. Mavors - as he'd named his Armored Core - looked to be in surprisingly good condition for being adrift in space for thirty-ish years. The bay had been free of air as was procedure for the time, so there wasn't really any reactive wear on the frame or it's components as far as he could tell.

The neural connection ports that flanked his third thoracic vertebrae ached for a moment, that caused his to roll his shoulders uncomfortably. Mavors was a special beast among the highly-modular Armored Core style of mechanized battle platform. It - like Gideon himself - was a living relic that was the official founding of an era. The first AC to be fitted with the Allegorical Movement System, this giant of metal and circuitry had special cables and hookup points inside the cockpit that slotted into the corresponding ports on his spinal column. There was a long and technical explanation of how it worked that would make a man's eyes bleed out of boredom at the gritty details, but it sufficed to say that the AMS gave him the same level of control over the machine that he had over his own body; arguably a finer level at that. It gave him the ability to push what would be a normally overweight and slower AC into a blindingly-fast whirlwind of death and carnage on a battlefield.

He had paid dearly for this power. The cybernetics that let him use this at full strength, the installation of the ports at his spine, selling what was left of his soul. As he approached the Mavors and began to scale the scant gantry towards the point he knew the cockpit's entrance lay, without words one of his lesser mechanical parts bleeped a signal to the locks in place. The hatch swung open with a hiss that drew the immediate attention of the mortals below.

"Hey! What're you doing?! You're not cleared for launch!"

Gideon paused partway through the hatch to stare at the voice, mauve hair drifting across his gaze as he swung his head visibly so that everyone would know he was seeing the man he spoke to. "I don't recall requiring your permission to verify the condition of my Armored Core, good sir. There are things about this machine that only I can verify the status of. If you don't like that then you're out of luck."

The man sputtered in something between anger at being challenged and frustration that he knew he didn't have a prayer of stopping Gideon from doing whatever he wanted. Gideon didn't give him a chance to try, either. The cockpit hissed shut behind him as he shrugged out of his Kaftan and undid the undershirt's front buttons to lower it in a loose bundle at his waist. Now bare-chested he leaned back into the seat and felt the shaking sensation of the ports meeting their cable counterparts and linking together as one. The sensation was always a harsh one; it felt like a surge of electrified metal scraped through every scrap of marrow in his body. The sensation faded as it always did and the machine hummed to life around him.

"..And he just boarded the AC. He's been in there for like four minutes. The readings from the diagnostics panels that are talking to it are saying he's running some crazy-long systems check. I haven't heard of an Armored Core having this long of a check since the fourth-gens! But there's no Kojima from this frame; not so much as a twitch on the meters!"

Sam Smith was nearly at his wit's end from this whole day. First he'd helped them bring in this shuttle, then the cryopod had spewed forth some madness-inducing vision of metal-tumored flesh that talked like a man, and now they had failed to catch him from boarding a weapons platform on board the colony! The League was gonna have his job for this. He'd just put in a report to the headquarters like he'd been asked to and was waiting for a response on how to approach this nightmare scenario.

He looked back from his communicator to the dark-hued AC as he heard the machine give off a worrying series of noises. He could see panels and valves and hinges and pistons flexing as the machine seemed to shrug itself. It wriggled like it was alive in the confines of the gantry that loosely secured it as though it was a sleeper who was shaking off the slumber that had also held it's cyborg master. The movements ceased soon enough, only for the head to tilt towards him. It had to.

"..Oh, fuck me running..."

The camera banks had lit up as one, their high-pitched vWNN echoing through the hangar as the gantry clicked in response and the hinged design swung apart to free the metal giant from its moorings.

Nemesis · Sep 21, 2021

Global Armaments America
Annex Four Armory
December 1st AD 2088
8:28 AM

A warm morning sun. The scent of fresh coffee. Brilliant light spilling over his desk like a luxurious curtain. Yes, there were days when being demoted down the corporate ladder to a comfortable, yet dead-end position managing a subsidy of a subsidy of a subsidy wasn't quite so bad. Most of your time was spent managing a staff of equally unfortunate, yet talented outcasts whose only disqualifications for leadership were, among other things, ordering the wrong drink at the company cocktail party, or wearing the wrong tie with the wrong shoes. It was numbing, yet well-compensated work, a kind of plush, gilded cage for those who had talent - but too much in the ways of independent thinking for Omer's tastes.

"We're being approached by who?"

And then there were days like this.

Carter Lewis, President of Annex Four, rubbed his temples at his desk in a vain attempt to discharge the stress mounting on his person. It wasn't wholly unprecedented, he thought. On occasion, something surfaced in the records that needed to be quietly hushed up or dealt with. He never inquired as to how these things were resolved, as the unspoken agreement seemed to be that he was in his position exactly because he knew that selective memory was an asset to the company - when deployed in their favor.

"What do they want?" He asked, the voice of his secretary piping in over the intercom as he rose from his desk.

"Apparently it's one of ours. The report was a little... rushed, but some sort of cyborg who was thawed out recently. Seems he thinks he's owed some sort of back pay from the Mirage days."

"We're just a subcontractor! We dont have any money!" He insisted under his breath, cursing the unfairness of the situation.

He paced back and forth before the window, looking - and feeling - much like a caged animal as sweat trickled down his forehead. You heard the rumors of course - of ghost Ravens, of rebels, Irregulars from Mars rising to seek revenge for the wrongs committed against them. After all, hadn't he been there when the knives were thrust in to Rayleonard's back? He didn't believe in karma, but the distinct sense of it hovering over his person thrust him suddenly towards a hurried decision.

"We can't just sit here and let him point a gun at our heads. Send out the Normals! Who's on hand to deal with this? Feedback? Raiden?"

There was a pregnant pause on the other end of the line. Doubtlessly this question had been anticipated, but the hesitance in the young woman's voice was clear:

"Just Wonderful Body, sir, but the Lynx's conditioning-"

Carter waved a hand dismissively, despite there being no-one to point it at.

"He'll do. It's just an antique, after all."

"I'll send the order along then."

There was a dry, mechanical click, and Carter sighed, looking out onto the sprawling cityscape.

"If some has-been thinks he can punch his way into GA America's stronghold..." He said to himself, perhaps seeking to calm his nerves;

"He's sorely mistaken..."

Annex Four Exterior

Gnnsshhh...

The hiss of escaping steam greeted the Normals as they slowed. Their dull hulls and utilitarian, boxy exteriors were the clear hallmarks of GA America and its various subsidies. To the veteran Raven, they would have bore a slight resemblance to the machines of his heyday - albeit in the form of stripped down, soulless production models.

It was perhaps fortunate that the Armory was located on the fringes of the Colony, where arms testing took place - a section of which had been set aside for mock urban combat. It was here that the Normals trod, making their way through artificial streets pockmarked with craters, casings from long discarded weapons tests clinking against their metallic feet as they scanned the surroundings, looking for any sign of the target that had been assured was en route...

RagnaMail · Sep 21, 2021

As Gideon moved out of the shuttle's hangar section into the environment of the colony proper, Mavors tilted it's head a bit this way and that to take in the view. This was his first time inside a space colony and the sight was truly impressive. The massive cylinder had three land and three sky sections running it's length; a blending of dirt and city and landscapes foreign to him with all the green. Despite himself, the cyborg smiled at the images in his mind's link between him and the machine.

From here he could just make out that his path was leading through a half-wrecked cityscape that struck him as a proving grounds. That was fine. He lit the thrusters and skimmed forward into the ruins at the crest of a wash of blue-white comet tail.

Once the Normals had deployed and began looking around for him, each power signature pinged on his sensors. The blocky RADAR construct in his connection and the screens before him mirrored them as contacts. A few electrical impulses later and Gideon marked them as HOSTILE; bathing the benign light gray blobs in a neon red faster than he could blink. His smile widened despite himself.

There was no doubt that he'd pinged on their RADAR as well, but Gideon was already into the movements that had won him an era. Starting and stopping with seeming erratic movements, walking for a few moments before blasting away in a totally different direction. Those among them that had fought a LYNX would almost immediately recognize the movement pattern, random though it intentionally was.

The internal lists scrolled by his brain and he smiled as the right arm lifted into attack position. They thought this was to stop him? This was just a warmup. He'd fought worse odds before and prevailed.

The muzzle of the KARASAWA erupted in a bright lilac-white as a bolt of energy lanced out towards the SOLARWIND he had in his sights as he boosted across an intersection at full tilt. It had taken him less than an instant to lock on and even less to fire the single piercing shot as an opening attack.

Nemesis · Sep 21, 2021

Gideon's surprise attack caught his slower prey completely unaware. The Karasawa's radiant blast lanced out - and cored the chest of the closest SOLARWIND, the Normal sputtering flame for a brief second before its powerless body crumpled in a sparking heap. The AC's reward for the effectiveness of its strategy was the remaining four drawing a bead on him, a fusillade of bazooka rounds smashing out, aimed to smash him into pieces - but his deft maneuvering seemed to shock them even further, the rounds hitting nothing but air.

"Holy-! That thing... It moves like a NEXT!" Exclaimed one as it reloaded its weapon.

"Horseshit!" Spat the leader of the group, drawing a machinegun from his Normal's weapon rack. Fat lot of good the heavy rounds were going to do them against something like this. And where was their NEXT?

"Fan out and fry 'im, boys!"

The group began to split up, two going left and two right at Gideon. The two to his left's missile-packs flared, sending a cascade of detonations through the city aimed vaguely in his direction, the homing rounds finding little purchase in the urban environment, even as a handful slipped through - perhaps the quality of training had slipped since the old days?

The two on the right were a far more immediate threat. One raised its machinegun, barrel chattering out a metallic staccatto as it unloaded in his direction as its fellow closed in, bringing its bazooka to bear. The muzzle flared, sending a single explosive round into the path of the AC that, despite the clumsiness of its wielders, was enough to even give a NEXT pause.

RagnaMail · Sep 21, 2021

Mavors tilted it's head this way and that. The response thus far was within tolerances. Gideon watched as the four remaining contacts split into teams of two and moved to flank him into a crossfire. A wise decision on their part, but wisdom tended to fail in the heat of battle. His speed had maintained as he continued past where he'd shot from before and the missiles rammed harmlessly into obstacles behind his wake.

The two he was approaching were the machinegunner and bazooka unit. He stopped dead in his tracks and for an instant stared the two of them down even as the machinegun's bullets splanged off his armor in a small shower of sparks, leaving at the moment easily ignorable. The bazooka was the bigger concern as he was lined up on. As the shell fired Gideon's thrusters triggered again and he hopped to the right a dozen or so meters. The shell's smoky wake twisted past Mavors' shoulder with perhaps a couple of feet to spare. It wasn't quite as graceful as a NEXT's Quick Boost would have been; relying on simple lateral thrusters instead of a fast little puff of propellant force.

But for Gideon and his AMS, it had been minutes of time in his perception to move out of the way. The dark machine skidded to a halt on the battered road and left enough of itself exposed that the left shoulder was visible to the two gunners. A single neuron jiggled in his mind and his mount responded beautifully. The left shoulder's weapon flipped up and forward, locking into the long barrel of the CWC-GNL-15 Grenade Launcher towards the bazooka-wielding Normal.

A belch of fire from the barrel came twice as Gideon elected to focus the narrow-and-deep target lock on the midsection of his chosen victim; aiming to blow the core from the legs at their connection point. He didn't wait to see the results of his handiwork as the thrusters flared again as he turned and blasted further down the street, turning forward again even as the barrel retracted to it's original folded storage position.

Nemesis · Sep 21, 2021

Pi pi pi...

The Normal's HUD beeped away as its AMS searched for the target, the smoke and heat from the bazooka round having momentarily blinded the Mavors would-be hunters. It peered anxiously through its visor, scanning, but as the Lock-on finally beeped an alert, it was already too late. The twin grenade launcher rounds punched through the gloom, not only blasting apart the target, but the machinegun-bearing unit that had been brining up the rear, shattering its head unit into a thousand pieces that pinged and clattered to the asphalt below in flaming chunks.

It was only a second or two more before the missiles on the Normal's back caught flame as it tumbled back, collapsing in a cacophany of explosions that sent faux-concrete crashing down in all directions. The remaining two SOLARWINDS repositioned themselves within Gideon's sight, shoulder-to shoulder in the open, between himself and his target. Both opened up full bore, emptying the remainder of their missile silos, bazookas blazing fiercely as they sent a rain of fury onto the Mavors general location that could have drowned an inferior machine.

But, would it be enough to stave off the black monster?

RagnaMail · Sep 21, 2021

"A poor decision," Gideon murmured to himself as the two SOLARWINDs squared up to him. His approach vector intensified as Mavors tilted the nozzles skywards and the machine seemed to ascend on a curtain of fire. A few of the missiles impacted here and there; scouring the machine's metallic hide with dents, sputtering flame damage, and a not-insignificant armor stability decrease though it wasn't enough for Gideon to be worried about it. The bazooka shells had gone completely wide when he'd gone skywards.

The thrusters deliberately cut off. The retained momentum brought the hammerheaded AC closer to the two remaining opponents, but before he landed Gideon fired another KARASAWA shot at the on on his right; aimed to core it from clavicle area to groin. The machine finally landed with a violent crash and skidded to a halt a dozen of so meters from what was hopefully the remaining SOLARWIND. With an almost casual gesture, the Mavors' left arm came up and across it's chest before violently swinging in the direction of the hopefully final opponent.

The infamous MOONLIGHT laser blade flared to life and sent a green-white sparking wave of energy the distance between them to slash far beyond the weapon's normal range. If it wasn't obvious until now, it was bound to be crystal clear that this was a machine with power to spare.. One might even say it was able to Intensify any assault it made into an artistic depiction of black-vested carnage.

Nemesis · Sep 21, 2021

The hapless SOLARWIND pilot could only watch in horror as the AC seemed to leap into the air, in a fashion that seemed to far defy its specifications. A bolt from the blue sent its ally tumbling to the floor, nothing but a smoldering pile of junk. The bazooka tried to track the Mavors through the air, but as it landed, and the Normal spun to meet it, weapon raised like a cudgel-

A flash of blue, and it froze in place. The Solarwind loomed over the Mavors for a moment, eye flickering as its internal computers began to realize what happened. A static-flecked, gurgling invective erupted from its speakers:

"God damn... Irregular...!"

With that final, spat curse the top half of the Solarwind groaned... and slid partly off the chassis, perfectly cut in two, exposing white-hot internals and crackling fuel cells before it too joined its brothers in the scrapyard in the sky, reactor detonating with a riproaring explosion as the last of GA's defense force fell. Gideon was left alone with his thoughts for the moment, an artificial breeze flowing about his AC's legs, carrying with it the flaming remains of the Normals.

For a corporation that prided itself on security and reliability, none of its aces had showed their faces. Why?

It wasn't long before the answer seemed to reveal itself.

There was a distant boom... and smoke began to rise in the direction of Armory Four. Flames now licked the sides of the building, and it wasn't long before another thundering explosion joined it - the reverberations of which could be felt even at the Mavors feet. Black smoke now filled the sky, and on the horizon he could see some aerial forms dancing frantically, being picked off one by one with incredible precision - though by what exactly, none could say.

A broadcast flickered to life on the AC's communications network on emergency channels. Looked like those, at least, hadn't been changed since the old days - a middle aged man's voice, full of terror.

RagnaMail · Sep 21, 2021

"Irregular? An odd way to speak to your betters. It seems things have changed more than I had initially anticipated."

The sound reached him from the direction of Armory Four, the ground beneath him shuddering a moment out of sync. That immediately got Gideon's attention. Something big enough to cause that hard a vibration in a structure this massive? It couldn't be good.

The five ruby eyes swiveled and wiggled in their mountings as he looked towards where the sensors originated the detonation from and saw carnage; carnage he hadn't caused. His mouth twisted into a frown before he started moving towards the disturbance. If that was where Mirage was, then them being destroyed would put a damper on his ability to get his owed recompense. And no one messed with what was rightfully his.

The broadband transmission came to him as he was already boosting towards the disturbance, having abandoned the jerking movements designed to break missile locks in favor of following the streets with full booster power. The black-and-blue-purple Armored Core screamed down a main thoroughfare in the direction of Armory Four, an electronic eye towards the sky to try and identify the attackers being shot at.

No one would deny him what was his, and perhaps he could get it without further losses to the people who had to pay him. Hell; there was probably an emergency commision to claim after this, too! His repairs were coming out of their pocket, however.

Nemesis · Sep 21, 2021

The scent of flames, of burning earth and flesh, greeted Gideon as he neared Armory Four. Buildings and support structures lay in ruin, as though a cyclone had torn through its front gate and guards as easily as if they were paper-mâché . The bodies of a dozen SOLARWINDs were underfoot, their surfaces blackened and punctured, as though something of incredible force and precision had cleanly, meticulously speared through their hearts, not even leaving a splatter of blood. As he reached the main headquarters, the proud heart of the complex as it opened up into a wide, circular corporate park, the devastation seemed to thin - and the cause was immediately apparent.

Slouched against a building, its surface riddled with puncture wounds, was the New Sunshine NEXT, Wonderful Body. Its once proud features mangled, its face viciously gouged out, so that its innards spilled in a glossy, melted sheet of metal and plastic across its chest. The trace amounts of Kojima Particles in the air indicated it hadn't been holding back, either, its Primal Armor still faintly flickering on the air around it like a heat haze.

At length, the radio crackled to life once more. It was the same man, his words frantic:

He asked, desperately.

From the opposite side of the complex, there was a low, rhythmic grinding, like the clattering of a thousand tiny gears all gnashing together in perfect harmony. The thing in question loomed into view... and it was like nothing ever before seen.

Veins of electric azure power, almost like that of an Orbital Frame, pulsated across a smooth, rust-colored chest, into the rest of its bizarre body. A pair of long, glowing spikes protrude from its shoulders almost as if they were cannons, tapering down into slender arms and wider forerams that terminated in yet another pair of long, blade-like appendages that dragged along the floor as it moved, leaving a bright-white trail in its wake.

Its "legs" if they could be so charitably called were more like a hovercraft or some sort of bulky vehicle, yet it gripped the earth tenaciously as it ground forward with ponderous, deliberate slowness - an unstoppable advance, like lava, as a pointed, nigh-featureless face swiveled to look directly at Gideon.

Not his AC.

Him.

As if it were staring somehow past all the armored layers, directly at his person, making some kind of uncertain calculation in its alien mind. Then, without any warning whatsoever, the Pulverizer's shoulders lit up - and a pair of bright, shining white beams speared out in his direction, aimed to instantly snap his AC in two as if it were nothing but an ant under a magnifying glass, helpless before the rays of the sun. Already its body was starting to swivel in his direction, doubtless to bring more of its deadly weapons to bear - but what?

RagnaMail · Sep 21, 2021

Gideon would have spoken to the man on the other side of the radio, but many things happened at once. He arrived on scene and took in his surroundings with a practiced eye. He'd seen this level of destruction countless times in his career as a Raven - hell, he'd caused it a lot of the time - but the precision with which each machine had been taken out was a new vision to him. He spotted the unique unit flickering with a green-white that he didn't need Mavors' sensor suite to identify as Kojima Particles. Using that inside an enclosed habitat? That was insane! That shit had helped kill a planet!

The second thing was that the machine that seemed to be the only other living thing in this place came into view and stared at him. He could easily tell it from a stirring in his heart. It wasn't apprehension, it wasn't terror: what concerned him was that the feeling was excitement. This was a strong opponent. It would be a worthy display of his full power.

As it squared up towards him with those blade-arms and overslung spikes, the booster's energy reserves beeped in the back of his head as refilled from his raging charge to this place. He knew better than to stand in front of any mecha for more than an instant. As he boosted along the ground to his right aiming to curve along towards the ruins of another building a metallic klink sounded as his Exceed Orbit deployed alongside his KARASAWA leveling at the machine that had sent a massive blast of energy at his previous position. The rifle roared three times even as the EO piece sprayed the target's area down with a hail of rapid-fire energy bolts.

The assault finished as he came to where the building was and shifted his flight to keep the structure between them so as to interfere with the ability to target him with those cannons.

xekuzwei · Sep 22, 2021

"...iam. Liam. LIAM!"

The hunched figure of a man shot bolt upright in the chair it occupied, and he winced as a cacophony of cracking sensations rattled their way up his spine. Ouch. That had not been a good position to doze off in. And now that, that...harpy was bitching in his ear. Fucksake. Straightening his glasses - because he was just that cool, wearing those trademark shades even within the confines of the spacebound vessel - and swiping a hand across his jaw to ensure that he hadn't managed to drool on himself in his sleep, Liam Meyer triggered the wireless receiver nestled in his ear.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm here. What?"

"You tried looking out the goddamn window, or you too busy admiring your reflection?," the voice bit back, "I don't know what's going on, but it looks like a warzone down there." And true enough, gazing past the hazy reflection of the room's interior and to the rapidly-approaching colony beyond, the unmistakable flashes of gunfire and the haze of missile trails were indistinct but visible through its transparent sun-panels.

"You know what to do. Standard loadout but avoid the Kojima weaponry. It's too confined for that." Unfolding his frame from the seat, he was already jogging down a corridor in the direction of the vessel's hangars. "Oh? How uncharacteristically thoughtful of you." He grimaced in response despite the fact that it would be invisible to the woman. No matter how efficient she was as an operator, her needling would be the death of him one day.

Even as Gideon's barrage roared in there would be another sound echoing through the colony's interior, though likely unheard in the chaos of battle: the solid whump-whump-whump of missile launches. A cluster of projectiles on smokey ropes would come careening around a nearby structure, and unlike the clumsy fire by the Normals the high-speed rockets zeroed unneringly in toward the profile of the Pulverizer.

Their source would become immediately apparent as the NEXT ARGYROS came skimming around the corner, VERMILLION01 pod summarily spitting flame in the form of another octet of missiles toward their mutual foe.

He'd recognized what the MAVORS was seeing it from on high as they descended to dock with the colony, but being on the same field made it really sink in. That was one seriously old-school machine.

An Armored Core in the flesh, huh? I'll be damned. It's nothing like a modern Normal.

"Well if that isn't just a sight," Liam's voice crackled across the comms to address Gideon, "Nice museum piece, old man. Try not to get shot before I can get a better look at it, would you?"

Nemesis · Sep 22, 2021

"...!"

The Pulverizer's tank-like lower body hummed to life in response to the older AC's movements. The exceed Orbit rounds plinked harmlessly off its armored frame, but it seemed to sense danger from the Karasawa, as the "flaps" about its hoof-like lower half flared brightly in conjunction with its back, shunting it unceremoniously - yet swiftly in one direction, letting the powerful laser bolts surge past it.

All the while it was watching. Calculating, with a cold, unfeeling intellect that nevertheless was as oppressive as any Newtype. What was it they had called them, on Mars? Those revolutionaries?

Dominant.

Its shoulder cannons swung low, crackling with energy. This time, there would be no escape-

Or so it thought. Its head twitched momentarily, jerking to one side, as the missile volley from the NEXT slammed home into its body, rocking it where it stood perilously. For a few precious moments, the unstoppable force halted, as if it had been rattled somehow. Slowly, blue lights shone in the dusk - and the counter-assault began in earnest. Pivoting its upper body, the Pulverizer's shoulder cannons fired at the distant ARGYROS. The particles snapped through the air with uncharacteristic swiftness and certainty for lasers - and the NEXT pilot would find, if they were to tempt fate, that the force contained in them would have been enough to puncture a less advanced Primal Armor as easily as if it were a balloon.

For the older AC, the main guns - the forearm-mounted "blades" pointed up - and began a rapid flurry of blasts that rained down in his direction, not unlike artillery fire, each blast detonating on point of impact or after a certain distance, turning the air into a veritable minefield of crackling plasma. It almost seemed to have depthless energy reserves - all the while it advanced ponderously upon him, narrowing the distance, as if it were eager to sink its pointed limbs into his warm flesh.

RagnaMail · Sep 22, 2021

His connection to his dark ride alerted him as the ARGYROS came screaming in with a barrage of rockets and missiles heralding it's arrival. A neuron flick pinged it as an ally, and another sent a registration code so that the machine would ping him as friendly as well; for the time being at least. His boosting along the line he'd been ground to a halt as he killed the thrusters again to once more grind to a halt into the rubble-strewn ground.

The reaction the Pulverizer had shown to the Karasawa and the way it clearly saw ARGYROS a threat worthy of those shoulder cannons gave Gideon a plan of attack. The grenade launcher on the right shoulder flicked up and forward to lock into position. The KARASAWA lined up a shot as his thruster gauge refilled and slammed back into motion amidst the hail of explosive plasma bursts. Many thought that he'd be blinded by such a tactic but it would take far more than that to blind Mavors.

The AC tilted backwards and slid back as it pumped a trio of grenades at the Pulverizer's tank-skirt, and the plasma rifle roared twice as it aimed for the likely path of the Pulverizer's chest he'd calculated the enemy to take to avoid the solid munitions and still keep distance from the incoming NEXT.

"I've survived worse. Keep at the flank; go for the crossfire!"

xekuzwei · Sep 22, 2021

"Roger that. Try to coordinate with my timing."

This guy had a head on his shoulders, at least. Better him as an ally than that smoking wreck that used to be Wonderful Body.

The ARGYROS' pilot observed with satisfaction as his flurry of missiles landed true, pounding the thing into a momentary stupor. That pause as it halted to recalculate stuck out at Liam, though; despite appearing to be based on a similar technology to the Armored Core or his own NEXT, it was reacting far too sluggishly for AMS. Was this some kind of...drone weapon?

Such ruminations were cut short as the Pulverizer's torso swiveled his way, shoulder cannons leveled. A fusion of fire and Kojima particles belched from the NEXT's side as it quickboosted, jerking hard to the right and allowing the potent lasers to stream past. He didn't doubt the efficacy of the ARGYROS' primal armor, yet it was still a poor policy to take hits that could be avoided. He saw that the AC was met with a dissimilar attack of spattered plasma bolts in an attempt to trap it.

Wide-angle attacks? Two can play at that game.

The pod that adorned his other shoulder flipped up into an active state as the machine slipped further right, attempting to circle around its target much as Gideon had suggested. The sheer bulk of the frame belied the agility with which it moved, a fact that had worked to his advantage many a time in the past.

A press of the trigger and thirty-two dumbfire rockets leapt from their tubes in concert, a wide swathe of explosives flying as a solid wall to saturate the Pulverizer's silhouette and the immediate area. The right arm rose in conjunction, CANOPUS spitting two rounds of high-intensity laser-fire. With luck the machine would be either confused into pausing by the barrage of explosives or stunned enough by their impact for the follow-up to land a solid hit.

Nemesis · Sep 22, 2021

"...!!"

Repeat. Retract. Retrace.

Data danced before it, and the Pulverizer soaked all of it in. Did it know what was coming? Did it fear the inevitable outcome of this engagement? There were no answers - only silence as it fought on. Once again, its flank thrusters flared - but this time, the other two were ready for it. The Mavors' grenades smashed apart the terrain beneath the quasi-AC's footing, causing it to tilt perilously as it slid into a newly-formed crater, the grenade explosions ripping at its exposed underside - and silencing the chattering tracks forever. Even in that moment, it managed the impossible - one arm swung out at chest height, deflecting the incoming plasma bolt in a shock of electricity that sent reverberations up its arm, visible cracks now appearing on its right as the bolt exploded into a building, sending a cascade of glass across its features.

Its drive controls now mortally damaged, its shoulder cannons flared once more - this time in a scattering burst of fire in anticipation of the dumbfire rockets, evidently somehow familiar with at least that type of weapon - but the large overhanging weapons lacked the precision needed to clear away the swarm, and its upper body was swallowed by a cloud of flames, joined by the Canopus, scoring dark, heavy marks, tearing at its smooth, oval-like contours, leaving it ragged, like a tattered doll jutting out of a broken potted plant.

For a moment, it seemed as though it were dead... but after a second or two, the lines of power surged back across its body. The Pulverizer stared at the two of them... and then, did the unexpected. There was no further retaliation.

Its body swiveled back in the direction of the Mirage tower, and its one remaining shoulder cannon began to light up, even as the effort caused sparks and flames to spread across the rest of its body. There were only seconds to react before Gideon's precious meal ticket would be lost for good-

RagnaMail · Sep 22, 2021

The mauve-haired man smiled to himself as the coordinated barrage smashed destruction down the Pulverizer's throat. The machine tilted into a crater from the grenades exploding at it's treads and for a few seconds it seemed to die down. The revival of the sparking and mortally wounded enemy caused to Gideon to react in the way he'd learned over a career of being a Raven. He saw it in machine-speed as it began to turn to the tower he needed to protect; Mavors calmly projecting a firing arc over his mental image of the Pulverizer as the sole cannon remaining began it's final turn.

Thanks to his cybernetic nature, his connection to Mavors, and the third-generation Armored Core's prototype-grade Allegorical Maneuver System Gideon's mind raced to the calculations. The KARASAWA was still in line and began pouring bolt after bolt into the meat of the weapon, joined instantly by four more grenades from the already-extended shoulder launcher even as the left shoulder's launcher began to fold out to join the fusillade. The problem with his perceptions through the eyes of his cybernetic link to the Armored Core was his whiplash-inducing flickering between perception speeds.

The shots were all almost painfully slow; the left grenade launcher taking forever to deploy as he tried to break or at least divert the aim of the cannon barrel. He was watching it unfold at two speeds: to his connection the shots were taking far too long to catch up to the dying enemy, but to his mortal senses the shots were ringing out with a clearly inhuman speed and machine-precise accuracy.

"NO!"

Click to expand...

The Raven roared even as the attacks launched, his flesh-voice and the communications line in perfect synchronization with the sound mixed with rage, fear, and duelling sensory shock...

xekuzwei · Sep 22, 2021

The oh-so-mighty Pulverizer crumpled like a tin can under their combined assault, missile fire combined with lasers and grenades ripping free great chunks and sheets of armor plate. The machine's difficulties were further complicated by the great furrow carved out by the explosions, and Liam would have been lying to say that it didn't amuse him to see the powerful war-machine so poignantly undone by a simple hole in the ground.

Yet it seemed as though the thing had some fight in it yet; it continued to move after a moment, attempting to turn its guns not on them but rather the distant tower that had been both of their destinations. Tch, of course. The ARGYROS' multitude of thrusters cut out and dropped the heavyset machine to the ground, peeling up a great swathe of pavement as it slid to a halt. The NEXT's right arm jerked up and over as the FCS zeroed in on the Pulverizer. The additional stability granted by being stationary and earth-bound would be more than enough...one, two, three, four consecutive shots sizzled out from the CANOPUS, aimed to track a line of molten impacts across the joint that married cannon to shoulder.

Removing the thing's final weapon, stuck as it was, should be child's play.

Nemesis · Sep 23, 2021

The sound of gunfire rang out across the battlefield. A cascade of dazzling lights - the Pulverizer's cannon flared-

...and went wide, the beam punching through the space next to the building, courtesy of the weapon itself being nearly tore free. The machine's body lingered for just a moment longer as it reactor melted down, still glowing bright, its insect-like, inscrutable features illuminated by the blaze of its own body as it seemed to at last give in. Only a moment later, its body detonated in a howling explosion that shattered whatever glass panes had survived the onslaught.

The unknown had been vanquished... and a career, resurrected.

Earth, Tower One Interior
Hangar / Recovery Bay Eight

"That's it?"

Few had ever tread the interior of a Tower and lived to tell the tale. The baleful howls of its mechanical prisoners occasionally ripped through the halls, more than a few of them sounding distinctly... human. A large display had been set up in the hangar, filling almost a whole wall. Overhead, rows of AC transport helicopters jostled with the folded, silvery, avian forms of Scavengers, more than few of which prowled the floor beneath, their red visors perpetually searching for even the smallest piece of scrap they could return to their masters.

As the transmission from the spy camera cut out, Angie's incredulous voice rose in irritation through an unseen speaker.

"That's your "ultimate weapon"? It's performance was middling at best, even with every possible environmental advant-"

Only the third member of this little get-together was visible to the passing party, standing atop the catwalk beside the squat AC and a blood-red Arm Slave with a long, intimidating looking rifle. The ears and tail that twitched in exasperation, gave her away instantly as a Beastman, if the sharpened nails and teeth weren't already a dead giveaway. Her tawny hair and worn, rough looking clothing suggested she had lived far from a life of hardship, and the cigarette in her mouth dipped and bobbed as she spoke across the other woman:

"Shut it." She instructed, the undercurrent of a growl in her voice.

"Watch."

The remote in her hand clicked, changing to a different scene. Somewhere else, a static-flecked camera feed of an underground chamber of some kind. Lines of power pulsed through its interior rhythmically, like the beating of a heart, all of it illuminated by five blinding pillars of light. There was a sharp hiss, and the camera shook, as though the entire apparatus were experiencing a quake.

As the movement subsided, a figure emerged from the light. The very same one that had just been felled, not even five minutes prior. The new Pulverizer extended its four legs, clambering over the threshold, its whole body steaming from the rapid assembly process as it came to life. It wasted no time - and just as quickly, disappeared from view.

"It's regenerated? Already?" Said Angie, astonishment dripping into her voice like poison; "No... It's different, now. It changed that fast? Grete, what is this?"

Grete Samassa, the beast-woman, didn't look smug. She looked tired as she explained it.

"Ya get it now?"

Her finger flicked the top of a scratched, ancient lighter up and down as she spoke, the light reflected in her eyes. There was nobody to make eye contact with here, she mused, so she might as well amuse herself.

"Th' Internicine collects data during battle n' processes it on the spot. Th' secon' a Pulverizer goes down, a new one's already rollin' out."

Her eyes went to the image on screen, the quadruped Pulverizer frozen in a still... and smirked.

"It'll never stop. It'll keep fightin', evolvin', growin'... Until it has produced th' ultimate fightin' machine... Just you wait. My word's good as gold - tell that to your boss."

There was a momentary, heavy silence... until, eventually-

"Haahahahahahaha!"

A burst of static flecked, tinny laughter erupted from the hulking AC with the rounded edges. Dozens of smaller Scavengers darted about it, hurrying to get out of its way as it stomped forwards and back with excitement, the logo on its shoulder indicative of its name: Hanged Man.

"Chief?"

The AC's camera eyes clicked, focusing on Grete below and the helicopters above, as the always energetic voice of the Foundation's mailed right fist made itself known, echoing with such force it could doubtlessly be heard all across the Tower.

"Oh sorry Angie!" He exclaimed, voice dripping with honeyed faux-sympathy,

"I wasn't really paying attention - See, I couldn't care less about your little toy! But those two! Did you see the way they instantly started working together! Boy that gets me RILED UP!"

He gave a cackle, as Grete narrowed her eyes, and the footage wound back to display the two ACs - the NEXT and the Irregular - unleashing their payloads at the Pulverizer. The Beast woman was already walking away, her thoughts on her own, as Chief's voice boomed behind her, echoing into the dusk.

"Human beings are just so damned INTERESTING!"

New Roosts For Old Ravens

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