08-16-2012, 12:59 AM
(This post was last modified: 01-11-2013, 01:39 PM by gomezcreative01.)
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Armored Core: Silent Calamity
Chapter 5
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Vivify
“District 5 has reported multiple terrorist attacks by a band of MT pilots. Crest corporation is seeking to expand into this sector and hired these MTs to scare off the residents in the area” The operator briefed in an irritatingly calm voice over the computer’s communication channel. “You’re mission is to remove this pest. Zam’s government is still new and it’s eager to build trust and gather support, so they are paying us a small amount for this mission. Complete the mission and you will be registered as ravens. Fail and you’ll die. Good luck.” With these final words Victor’s already tense stomach flipped at the uncomfortable sensation of free fall. Two Armored cores had been dropped from a large cargo helicopter. Inside one of those ACs was Victor, inside the other was a woman by the name of Sylvia. She was an MT pilot that was finally getting her chance to upgrade to piloting an AC. She was tall and had short spiky blonde hair. She was very good looking in Victor’s opinion. They didn’t formerly meet but had crossed each other when they boarded their ACs in the hangar. He disliked her right now though, for his only memory of her had her looking surprisingly calm.
Victor was scared. He was approaching the battle field. He had never been in a battlefield in his AC. He had only piloted his AC once and that was simply to understand how to operate it. Finally, his only other experience was that he had witnessed an AC battle. Sinister had taken him to an AC arena match since he was going to check his competition. He, however, felt Victor could benefit from witnessing a real raven ‘get down and dirty’, as he described it. The battle was imprinted in Victor’s mind. Those pilots were amazing. Their AC’s seemed to move as fluently as people. The two metal alloy giants gracefully slid and glided across the arena. They also exchanged heavy fire quickly and with great accuracy. They were colored extravagantly and beautifully, this of course was strange to Victor, seeing as how these beautiful ACs deal in battlefields where they inevitably will be tarnished and ruined. On the other hand, this confidence was inspiring; it demonstrated the raven’s unfaltering spirits in the face of doom. Victor awoke from his daydream with a heavy thump and a hydraulic click. His AC had landed. His main screen showed a normal residential sector with not much going on.
“Combat system engaged.” The computer said in a robotic male voice. Before Victor could calm his anxiety the second pledge in her AC set forward into a flight powered by a booster mounted on its back. Her AC was a dull metallic grey and was armed with a box, undoubtedly a missile pack, on her left shoulder, and a rifle on her right arm. Her left arm didn’t hold anything but had mounted on it a cylindrical device on its forearm. Victor knew this was a laser blade. Not content with being outdone Victor in his operating cockpit moved the left joystick forward. The AC began to run forward. Victor ran through what Sinister had taught him in his mind once again. ‘Left stick is movement, right stick lock on, petal-boost… and above all, this is your new best friend: the radar’. Victor looked up to a screen on the upper right hand corner of his cockpit. The screen showed a dark circle intersected through the center with orange lines and further sectioned into a series of smaller circles. He saw a lone blue-red dot to the upper end of the radar screen: this belonged to his partner’s AC. But what he saw next brought back all of his anxiety. He saw in the radar six other dots further up than the lone blip produced by the other initiate. This, he knew, was his opposition.
Victor took a deep breath and stomped on the petal. His AC dropped the jog and crouched lightly as he began moving rapidly forward in a boost. He could see the buildings to his sides begin blurring slightly across his main screen. The dots moved closer on his radar screen and to his surprise there were more dots behind them; in total ten enemies.
Victor was far behind Sylvia, and suddenly he saw her AC begin making evasive maneuvers in the distance. Victor didn’t comprehend until three missiles flew past her and exploded on contact with the floor. Debris flew up in a tower of dust. A fourth missile had hit its mark, but after the dark smoke cleared Sylvia’s AC seemed fine. Only a small dent and soot mark could be seen on her core. Victor’s turn was coming, and he knew it. As he brazed himself he caught sight of the enemies, there were three of them together. They were green bipedal humanoid looking MTs, about three fourths the size of an AC. They had two missile boxes on their shoulders and guns for arms. Suddenly the first of those MTs blew up. Sylvia had taken out her mark with a blade attack. As her AC remained in a position with its left arm held to its side she was retaliated with machine gun fire by the surrounding MT units. She moved out of way with a boost.
Victor suddenly was startled by a red light that turned on in his cockpit. His AC began shaking violently and rattling with loud pings outside his cockpit. Victor realized he was being hit by machine gun fire, as his partner had, and he strafed to his left while he looked for the possible source of the attack on his radar and on his main screen. He found the culprit in his radar. Two additional volleys shook his AC, these were much larger than those from before. The sounds of explosions from the outside confirmed them as missiles.
“Shafters, kid. That’s what those MT models are called. They carry machine guns and missile launchers. Be careful and don’t die, we need to pull through; if we fail the raven’s initiation test we will be executed. Don’t die on me; I’m counting on your back up.” Sylvia informed him over the communication channel.
“Shafters, got it.” Unnerved by the execution bit, Victor’s voice cracked as he answered. Embarrassed he cleared his throat and repeated, “Got it.”
Victor finally found the one responsible for the attack in his main screen. The shafter had sneaked up behind him as he was mesmerized by the battle scenes earlier. Victor focused and centered his lock box, outlined on his main screen, around the MT with his right joystick. A red circle immediately superimposed over the enemy, this was the Firing Computer System (FCS) locking on automatically to an enemy inside the box. Not knowing exactly what to expect Victor pulled on the trigger under his right index finger. He had never fired his weapon before. A muffled gun shot was heard from outside the cockpit. The main screen showed the enemy jerk hard. The hit was good. A strange series of spasms on the MT confirmed the strength of Victor’s war machine. The sight shattered Victor’s uneasiness, he was beginning to understand the power he wielded. He continued to shoot multiple times until he saw the grafter explode internally and drop motionless on the floor.
“Got it.” Victor grinned proud. Victor looked up at the radar screen and saw only eight blips including that of his ally. She had already taken out another one! He was behind and he didn’t like it. Victor kicked the petal and his AC jumped high in the air and with a second stomp the boosters turned on and he began flying forward as Sinister had taught him. This triggered a second memory in his head, one he thought might be valuable now:
After Victor had asked him how the arena combatants avoided the gunfire so well Sinister answered: ‘Bullets are teh fast ta see. The only way ta dodge them is ta avoid the dark o’ the gun barrel’ then he made a gun gesture with his hand and waved it in front of Victor’s face as if steadying the aim on it. With this in mind Victor then thought of the double machine guns on the grafters.
From the air he spotted a second MT beginning to steady his aim on him from the ground. He locked on to the grafter quickly but with a steady hand and beat the MT to the shot and caused the enemy to stall for half a second, a half a second he used to land to the MT’s side, safe from its firepower. Victor then used his laser blade trigger in his left hand joystick. The AC pulled its hand to its chest and boosted forward as it slashed outward in a diagonal motion that cut the MT in two. Almost immediately both pieces exploded in conjunction. The debris hit Victor’s AC and structures nearby. Most of the glass from a nearby small building shattered from the explosion’s force alone. The smoke and debris temporarily blinded Victor’s AC screen.
Ping ping ping! The red light was on again. Victor was under fire. As the smoke cleared Victor tried to boost out of the way but a loud series of beeps let him know he had exhausted his energy supply. A message reading ‘Charging’ was printed near a blue bar outline in a black screen labeled: ENERGY. He looked up at the radar and saw a bleep to his 5 o’ clock. He tried to turn while standing still but the alarming sound of the machine gun on his AC pressured him to move. The movement was effective in lessening the amount of direct damage he was taking if only a little bit. He finally caught a glance of the grafter at the edge of his screen as he slowly pivoted. The MTs firepower skipped a beat oddly, and before Victor could steady his lock on the enemy he realized Sylvia was shooting at that same MT and destroyed it.
“Be more careful and manage your energy, kid.” Sylvia reprimanded as she flew past him.
“Thanks.” Victor blushed. The AC was done charging. He discovered another MT sneaking in from behind a row of tall buildings. Victor shot him down quickly but not before the MT could shoot a pair of missiles at Victor. Victor reacted and avoided one but the second hit his AC’s core near the head. Victor unburdened moved on and turned around following his radar to the nearest blip. Unfortunately as he found it, Sylvia was just done thrashing the source. Disappointed he moved toward the next MT boosting to make sure he beat her to it. As he spotted and closed in on the next target a stranger’s voice came through over the intercom-
“Ravens turn back. We have requested back up.”
“Bring it.” Sylvia laughed smugly feeling the worst was over.
“You were warned.”
“Reinforcements confirmed to the east. Estimated arrival in 2 minute.” Victor’s AC computer interjected with its mechanical voice.
“Lets finish cleaning up and prepare for the second wave, kid.” Sylvia ordered.
“Right.” Victor agreed, “And stop calling me kid.” He heard a snicker over the intercom.
“Alright. Gimme a name to work with.”
“Victor.”
“Sylvia.”
They both separated and took out a final unit each without too much trouble. This cleared the battlefield. They both came a long way from the beginning of the battle and had become accustomed to their ACs. Both pilots felt impervious to harm in their almighty ACs. Unfortunately their ACs wore many scars that told a different story. Dented plates, scratches, and the occasional crack in the armor decorated the ACs of both pilots. Victor caught wind of this when he checked on a number given in one of his screens next to a vague schematic of his AC. It read AP 4003. This was a numerical estimate of the vitality of their machines according to Sinister. Victor was sure that when he first boarded his AC the number was above 8000. As he reflected on this a beep signaled a new development.
“Reinforcements detected” Victor turned around to catch sight of the reinforcements as they arrived. What he saw scared the color out of his face. He gasped.
“An AC!” Sylvia shouted losing her cool for the first time in the whole ordeal. Panic overtook them. In the sky a yellow and brown colored four legged AC flew through the sky at high speeds with what seemed to be a huge boost supplied by its core. He led 4 jet fighters in the young pilots’ direction. His arms were different than those of Sylvia’s or Victor’s AC. They resembled more those of the grafters they defeated. On his back it carried two gatling guns. Both Victor and Sylvia’s stomach’s began twisting as if trying to escape out of their place.
“We are not ready for this. We took out several MTs; that should be enough to pass the test. Get us out of here” Sylvia pleaded to the operator over the communication channel.
“Although you are right, our hands are tied. To venture into a live battlefield in an unarmed transport helicopter would be suicide. We can’t pick you up unless you remove all the hazards. The client must have underestimated Crest’s interest in this sector, in fact, we did too. This is unfortunate.” The operator apologized.
“Can’t you call him off?” Victor demanded.
“I’m sorry, we can’t control what raven’s do. The truth is that ravens are our clients. Global Cortex works for them offering different services, but we aren’t the boss of them.” The operator explained this in a detached and assertive voice.
“Lets run-“ as Sylvia suggested this the warning light turned on in Victor’s cockpit and it began shaking furiously. PING, PING, PING, PING! Victor was under attack already. Victor tried frantically to boost out of the stream of fire but his AC’s response was sluggish. Finally he got out of it and the stream of bullets stopped. AP 2712.
“Greetings from my Maggot. This is pilot Pestilence.” A wicked voice jeered over the intercom.
“We don’t want to fight. We’ll go peacefully.” Victor tried to mediate after seeing his opportunity in the opened communication channel.
“Well, orders were to chase you off.” Pestilence replied.
“Great.” Victor sighed with intense relief, but this was short lived.
“Those were my orders, but you did piss off Crest. So they offered a nice little incentive. I’ll get a bonus for destroying you both. And from your awkward movements, cheap parts, and pathetic plea for your life, I can tell you are new to the game.” He cackled manically, “This’ll be an easy buck.” The communication channel closed and the Maggot opened fire on Victor again. In his fearful adrenaline rush Victor reacted immediately and boosted away from the attack, but the barrage wouldn’t stop. Maggot followed him with a steady stream of bullets. The stray bullets lay waste to buildings in its wake. The bullets tore through building walls like if they were made of butter, and in some cases the buildings collapsed from the damage to their structure. Victor saw the destruction and was further motivated to avoid being the attack’s target.
A missile hit Victor’s AC from behind unexpectedly and machine gun fire rained from above him. Victor was confused, since Maggot still hadn’t licked him.
“The jet fighters, they aren’t very strong but their support will ensure our defeat. I got them, keep Maggot occupied. I hate to do this, but it should only take a second.” Sylvia shot down one of four jet fighters with a single bullet and moved in to hunt the rest.
Victor felt he could count on her, but as he glanced at his AP 2106 he wondered if he’d survive long enough to fight alongside her against this death merchant. Out of choices he took a deep breath and readied his rocket launcher. His main screen changed, his lock box disappeared and a series of red horizontal lines lined up to make the figure of a small trapezoid in the middle of his screen indicating the rockets intended trajectory path with the smallest line being the forward direction. This was a manual targeting system for the rockets. Sinister had warned him that rockets were harder to use, but they packed a heavy punch. Victor felt that he better pull out his best weapon, he wouldn’t want to die knowing he didn’t use every possible resource. Victor had not been given a moments rest, and he was actively running away from Maggot’s line of fire while making this decision.
He tried to aim his difficult manual lock from the air, as he flew away from the fire, and took a shot. He missed by about 6 meters. It was hard to steady his aim in his state of panic. He grunted, and took a second deep breath and focused completely. He couldn’t die; his friends were expecting him to return with money. He had survived a pitiful life in the slums, and fought to survive every day for the past 9 years in the slums. Fight to survive! He wasn’t doing anything now he hadn’t done before, he was fighting to live. As long as he lived he had a chance. His enemy could be beat. As he thought this the damn red light came on again. Ping, ping, ping, ping. He got careless. It was only for a moment though and he escaped the attack once again. AP 1834. He had to keep moving, or he’d be grinded down by the enemy’s fire. As he thought this, something occurred to him: Maggot, unlike him, was fairly stationary, and even when he moved it was a slow tread across the ground. Victor’s AC was definitely more mobile and faster.
“Two more, Victor, hold on.” Sylvia announced over the intercom.
“Ok.”
Victor felt his spirits increase. Maybe he had just figured out how to beat Pestilence. He changed his trajectory, he stopped running away from the line of fire and surprisingly he dived toward Maggot in a boost. He did, however, focus on staying away from the “black o’ the gun barrel” by making circular lariats. With his experience, however, he didn’t manage to avoid all the damage and as he approached Maggot the damage he was taking increased more and more. AP 910. A siren began reverberating inside Victors cockpit and two red warning lights began rotating. His AC’s damage was critical. Close to Maggot now. Victor shot his rocket. It was a direct hit and the impact shock caused Maggot’s fire to cease for moment, and as he did with the MT Victor broke his dash to the right to enter Maggot’s blind spot and began slashing Maggot with his blade and bombarded with point blank rocket shots desperately like a wild man.
Pestilence tried to tread away but was too slow, and Victor didn’t give him a moments rest. He knew he was doing lots of damage, since Maggot’s protective armor had began warping and cracking open. He focused his attack on the weakened spots to ensure that the damage leak through. If he kept going he would win for sure, unfortunately Pestilence turned the tables. Maggot took a huge leap similar to that of a spider and landed directly behind Victor, as indicated by his radar.
“Fuck!” Victor cursed. But in his deep focus he reacted quickly and strafed right in a boost and began turning slowly left but the sounds of the machine gun on his back and side had already begun. He saw his AP start dropping rapidly and all he had left was the hope that he’d straighten his AC fast enough to take a final blind shot. AP: 250! And there it was! The trapezoid in his screen was about to intersect with Maggot, now about thirty meters away. Victor took his shot, and miraculously it hit Maggot, but in his inertia Victor continued to turn past his mark. The bullets stopped. Victor sighed in relief. He survived. Then his relief was shattered. The bullet onslaught resumed. AP 78. With his mark unaligned again he panicked. He wouldn’t have time to realign his mark to take another shot! Still he violently crossed his lock on joystick right. AP 28! Before he could align his mark again a missile hit Maggot in the left side of its core and the firing stopped. Fire broke out from the collision site and Maggot began spazzing and jerking unpredictably. Finally it exploded and disappeared behind a ball of fire and thick black smoke. Sylvia had finally joined the fight. Victor let out a gasp. He realized that his face was distorted from the ordeal. His eyes were opened exaggeratedly, and he felt them burn lightly from not blinking. He was also breathing hard and fast.
“You alright, Victor?” Sylvia asked in a quick and alarmed voice. All she heard was hard breathing over the intercom. “Victor?!”
“Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I’m alright.” The incoherent response came as a relief to Sylvia.
“Guess you really aren’t a kid. You practically took him out single handedly!”
“You saved me, I was about to have it.”
“I’ll say, your AC looks like swiss cheese.” They both laughed nervously but with intense joy.
“Transport helicopter is on its way, ravens. Congratulations, you passed.” The operator said with a surprised tone. The comment at that point didn’t so much anger the two pilots as much as it annoyed them. The operator then added: “Personally, I can’t believe you guys pulled it off. It’s nothing short of a miracle. You two did exceptionally. I look forward to working with you.”
The helicopter arrived, strapped their AC’s with thick steel ropes, and carried them back to the hangar. The hangar was huge and stored many ACs. Many vehicles, assembly and maintenance machines, and staff were located there too. There they un-boarded their 10 meter tall giants from the core and stepped out onto a high steel bridge. After going through such a close call both pilots felt the need to meet each other. They felt like if they had formed an intimate bond through the shared near death experience. They ran towards each other excited to meet the voice behind the intercom.
When they met on top of the steel bridge their exited demeanor changed. It was awkward. They examined each other’s unfamiliar faces and realized they were strangers. She was a tall pale Amazonian beauty. He was a dark man with bald spots behind his head. He was also missing half of his right ear. Red-brown wrinkles and discolored splotches on his skin patched part of his left cheek, his neck, and even deeper into his shirt. His accident had left him with a gimp on his left leg too. An uncomfortable silence followed. Then the ice was broken by a simple “Hi”, and with it all the feelings came fleeting back. They recognized each others voices.
“We’re ravens.” Sylvia smiled comfortably at Victor.
“The power of that machine is incredible!” Victor replied
“I know! I actually piloted MTs for the Mirage company before this. But I worked hard to earn my chance here today. MT’s are strong, but nothing like Armored Cores. I’m just lucky that in my years as an MT pilot I didn’t run into an AC, I probably wouldn’t be here today.”
“Pilot, the MT?” Victor lost his grin. With all the joy over surviving, and the power trip in his AC he had forgotten that there were people inside each one of those lifeless machines he shot down. Sylvia was confused by the change in his demeanor.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. You were lucky.” He smiled trying to mask his guilt.
“Ugh, yeah.” Sylvia smiled uncomfortably feeling the tension. “They are waiting for us downstairs. They’ll want to ID us.” She tried to steer the conversation in a different direction.
Catching on, Victor nodded. Downstairs he found a small jeep waiting for them. They got on and they drove away at a slow speed. As he passed his AC, being moved around in a platform trailer, he noticed a man looking up at it. He yelled at the man driving the trailer in an irritated voice:
“Get that piece of crap outta my hangar, it’s useless. Just build a replicate.”
Sylvia and Victor exchanged a look and giggled. They finally arrived at a small office outside the hangar.
“Here you go. Go inside and ID yourselves for records, I’ll wait here for you.” The driver directed them.
Inside they found a clerk behind a computer and a counter. He seemed to be waiting for them. He waved them closer and smiled.
“So you are the newly inducted ravens. Congratulations. I’ll just be registering you into our database. This won’t take long. Pilot name?” he asked Sylvia.
“Cupid.” She replied. Victor looked at her with a teasing confused look. She blushed. “It was my MT pilot name, I think it’s cute.” Victor rolled his eyes.
“AC name?” the clerk continued.
“Sharpshot.”
“And you young man? Pilot name?”
Victor hadn’t given this much thought before, but it was probably wise to use an alias too. He thought hard, but only one word came to mind. It haunted him. Victor lost his playful expression once again.
“Apathy.”
Sylvia looked at Victor without expressing judgment, but she was really reading hard into Victor now.
“AC name?”
Trying to shake his somber mood, Victor thought about the recent events aboard his amored core, his fight for survival, and why it mattered. His AC was his link to a new promising world that could bring hope to those he loved. It was the whole reason he was there. His AC was a harbinger of death, and a weapon for destruction, but there was something more it could offer: It would help deliver the life his friends deserved and give them a shot at happiness. It would give them a real life.
“Ahem, AC name?”
“Vivify.”
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Armored Core: Silent Calamity
Chapter 6
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Father's Curse
A young nubile brunette in a yellow sundress walked from the end of her garden towards her home along a stone path that intersected a lush grass landscape. The bright splendor of the white-yellow sun reflected off the mildew on the newly cut blades of grass. Her neat landscape was decorated by two small pine saplings. The street was lined with many modest but neat houses like her own. Rose bushes lined the front of her house, and vibrant red blooms peeked out through the thorny intertwining bush branches. The girl slowed her walk with a slight frown as if trying to remember something important. Nothing came to mind, so she followed her path with an up-beat step and a smile. As she came near the entrance to her home she turned towards the roses and caught sight of an especially large and colorful one.
She approached the rose and knelt down to get closer. Slowly and carefully she took the rose by the stalk and brought it near her nose. Closing her eyes she sniffed the feeble soothing smell. A petite prick from a thorn caused the woman to twitch slightly. She let go of the stalk and searched her snowy white hands. A small red bead was forming on her right index finger. The sight of the blood made her cringe, and her face became distorted by a look of despair and recognition. She was overwhelmed by terror. Trembling she looked around and discovered the sun shine was gone and replaced only by a thick darkness. She began to scream at the top of her lungs but as if the scene was muted no sound followed. She remembered it all now.
The girl squirmed backwards as if trying to run away from the garden. She retreated in a crawl until her path was blocked by an obstacle from behind. She knew she was going to hate what came next even if she was unsure of what it might be. She turned around slowly, dreading the moment her fear would be confirmed. She turned around mechanically and as if by habit alone. Behind her lay the putrid corpse of a mangled man. The corpse was charred and lifeless but still fresh enough to be flowing with juices. The expression of the cadaver was one of terror. Although his eyeballs were gone, as was most of his flesh, the scorched cadaver’s piercing stare unhinged a thousand different torments on the woman. She howled and sobbed. A second look around her home revealed that the garden was now littered with dozens of similar dead bodies. Some were charred remains, other mutilated fleshy corpses, and most terrifying of all, there were bodies that seemed to still live and breath, horribly disfigured as they were. They groaned and moaned at her, pawing as if to try and reach her.
In a painful cry the woman buried her face into her hands as if to un-see what afflicted her. But this led to a horrible discovery. Her face met the warm and wet texture of something lining her hands. The metallic taste on her lips confirmed further fears. She knew this feeling all to well. Before she even examined her hands she knew they, and now her face too, were drenched in blood.
She removed her hands from her face and opened her eyes. She was behind the familiar layout of her AC’s cockpit. Her hands dripped with a never ending supply of blood. Her face too was dropping orbs of blood onto her controls. And slowly her cockpit’s walls began oozing blood to her distress. In an un-illuminated part of her already dark cockpit she saw what she knew was the final act to her torment: the dark face of a man. The man was responsible for this torment. She feared him, she hated him, and she knew him. He fooled everyone she loved. But he couldn’t fool her. His penetrating macabre stare hurt her. She tried to scream for help once again, but again found no comfort in the silence that followed. This ugly abomination of a man was deformed to match his rotten core. He had burn scars across his back, neck and partially on his face. Discolored blotches of pale skin contrasted with his dark tan complexion. His right ear was severed. As if a silent scream in her head grew louder, she felt the tension rise and the scene grow more terrifying with every passing moment. She was in hell!
The girl woke up in a violent toss. She was facing her bed, and noticed that her pillow was moist from a little drool, and unsurprisingly further up from the drool pool she noticed her tears also moistened her pillow. She turned around and sat pensively at the side of her bed. She cleaned tears and then a little drool on her lip. She was wearing a frilly white gown, a very feminine piece considering her tomboyish personality. Her room was completely empty save for her small bed, two portraits hanging above it, and a small dresser next to her bed resting a loaded semi-automatic hand gun. One of the portraits above her bed was a picture of her, her mother, and uncle. They were smiling and were at a small natural reservoir. They went to visit it two summers ago. The other picture was way older. In it was the man from her dreams holding a baby. He was smiling warmly and wide, with what seemed like tears in his eyes. He and the baby seemed so happy. The man was obviously a burn victim and was deformed in a significant way, but the picture was heavy with emotion and happiness.
She looked at her snowy white hands and sighed as if she could still feel the blood dripping from them. The relief that the night was over was great, but the fear of the next night burned in the back of her head. She got up and slapped her face with both hands softly as if to prepare for the day ahead. She had a date with Whirlwind today. She went to her closet and took out her pilot uniform. The uniform wore a vibrant emblem on its left shoulder of a small green sprout growing in dry cracked dirt housing two other dead withered trees. The words “Fight to live” lined the bottom of the emblem. She put on the one piece and Velcro-ed it shut. It was a little heavy, but it was a fair price to pay for her safety inside the AC. She walked over to the dresser and took her gun, put its safety on, and hid it in a back pocket. She then opened the mostly empty dresser and took out her PCD and another small electronic with a wide screen. In it she checked her mail.
From: Whirlwind
‘I hope you’re ready for today. You’ll remember this day for the rest of your life.’
“Asshole.” She muttered.
Back at a Global Cortex hallway, two pilots spoke in front of the arena ranking list, on a computer screen on the wall.
“Apathy is going to fight Whirlwind today at noon. I feel bad for him, even if he is a smug bastard.” The first pilot commented as he fingered the list.
“I hear the last pilot Apathy faced is still in the hospital.” The second gossiped.
“Are you kidding me? He’s lucky to be alive! She’s a beast. Which is odd, because she is so mild outside of her AC. I mean she talks tough but she’s fairly tame. Aboard her Revivify, though, she turns into a lunatic. I seriously think Global Cortex might have just picked out a mental case from one of the local infirmaries.”
“You met her? I hear she’s a real babe.”
“Maybe so, but who’d be crazy enough to ask that head case out?”
“I guess you’re right. But she’s climbing the ranks fast. In fact,” he laughed, “she’ll be facing you soon.”
The first pilot checked the list scared. His friend was right, Apathy was 3 spaces below his name.
“Yeah laugh it up asshole, she’s five spots away from you.” The second pilot glanced at the list and sighed. “I guess, but I’m a real raven, I’m not scared.” He said this mostly to himself, as if trying to reassure himself.
Back in the room: the girl, Apathy, turned to her portraits and stared as if she was looking at the people reflected in them.
“Mom, I promise after my match I’ll go visit you at home. And dad,” she stalled as she looked at the man with the baby. Her nightmare was fresh in her mind. Feeling guilty about the way she felt she continued louder: “Dad, grant me strength today and keep me safe.”
The to her room opened automatically in a sliding motion and she disappeared through it. She walked down Global Cortex dormitories’ hallways and reached a door hiding the stair well. She didn’t like the confining space of the elevator. She walked down several flights of stairs and finally got out in the bottom floor into a white hallway. She walked toward an office and addressed a familiar face.
“Yo, Joe. I have a date today. Just checking in.”
“Of course you do. What rank are you now? 37? Kid, you gotta slow down. I mean, Global Cortex is pleased. You have a big following and they pay a lot to see your fights, but as a friend, I gotta recommend you take break. This is your second arena match this week.” Joe mettled.
“You’re right, I know. Sheesh, nag much. I’m fine, I’m young and full of life, nothing can slow me down. But if it makes you feel better, I plan on going out after the match to take a well deserved break. But first, I gotta earn it right?”
“One other thing: be careful. Don’t tear into your opponent like you did with poor Conan.” Joe scolded. Apathy lost her smug smile, and began screaming mentally. She remembered Conan. She blasted his Barbarian beyond recognition well after the match was over in a panic fueled frenzy. Conan survived but was still recovering from shell shock. Indignant Apathy slammed her fist on the desk.
“Just mind your own business and sign me in!” Apathy in a fit stomped out of the office. Joe the registrar, was shocked at the display, but after a moment he composed himself and simply shook his head in worry as he typed into his computer.
Apathy left the building and caught a ride from a nearby military jeep that she whistled to. Global Cortex was immense. Many soldiers, cars, and facilities could be seen almost endlessly. The jeep took her toward one of many hangars at Global Cortex, each as massive as the last one. Near her destination she caught glimpse of her Revivify near the front of the hangar and easily visible from the outside- it was ready to be deployed. The AC was colored a bright white with black ridges along the edges of its alloy armor. It’s face was vacant and dead. The cameras that generally give the AC the illusion of eyes were shut behind eyelid-like steel shutters. Lots of engineers and mechanics made some finishing touches on the AC atop large scaffolds. The AC was bipedal, and had large black protruding plates extending over the knee joints giving it the appearance of wearing large black knightly boots. In a similar manner his shoulders also protruded over past the arms like shoulder pads. Its core was rounded and had two mysterious spherical cylinders in the back. Two metal tassles hung from each hip. Revivify was only fitted with two weapons, each held by a hand. The left hand held a small gun, this was a howitzer-it shot a powerful explosive. The right arm held a large cylindrical bazooka with a handle similar to a gun.
The jeep stopped near the entrance and Apathy jumped off. She thanked the driver as he drove off. She then went into the building and turned immediately to her right where she flashed the emblem on her uniform at another officer guarding a stair case with an automatic rifle. The emblem matched the one on Revivify’s left shoulder. The officer stepped aside. She climbed the staircase and finally arrived at the high steel bridge, where she walked toward the core of the AC. Facing the core she took out the small computer she used earlier to read her email and typed in a code that opened a hatch in the back of the core. She looked into the darkness that lay past the hatch and sighed gloomily. She made her way in. Inside she sat in her seat, and buckled herself in. She flipped a single switch by reflex in the dashboard. A beep followed and her many screens turned on sequentially starting with the main screen. The AC opened his light blue eyes. The engineers and mechanics finished their last adjustments and then signaled a crew at the bottom to remove their scaffolds. Inside the cockpit a voice was heard over the intercom:
“Revivify is ready, and the crew is a safe distance. Pilot Apathy, you are ready to deploy.”
Apathy flipped a series of switches and with each additional switch a new sound responded. The whirring of the generator warming up, and the hiss of multiple hoses letting go of the armored core were among the many sounds that echoed through the cockpit. Apathy reached for her helmet in the bottom of her seat and strapped it on.
“Raven, your opponent is waiting in the parking lot.” The operator directed over the intercom.
“The parking lot? That’s gutsy of him, I would have pegged him as an open arena kind of guy.” Apathy talked to herself.
“Combat system engage.” The robotic male voice greeted.
“Let’s party.” Apathy said smugly, however, she transpired fear.
Apathy boosted in a direction familiar to her. The parking lot was an arena lined with multiple concrete columns and was fairly crowded for ACs. Not a lot of flight could be achieved in there. The parking lot arena was also on Global Cortex grounds so no transport plane was needed. Apathy simply piloted to the arena ground. She finally arrived to the front door of a large building encased by a protective energy shield powered by large generators and machines- this was a safety precaution. In front of the entrance she keyed into the computer in her dashboard a code to open the huge door. Revivify entered the dormant battlefield. The door shut behind her. She was in a single floored cramped arena. Her radar displayed a red bleep nearby out of sight past what seemed like endless rows of square concrete columns.
“Pilots ready?” The operator asked over the intercom.
“Ready!” The overlapping responses of the pilots over the intercom attested for their familiarity with the setup.
“Remember, ravens, this is friendly contest to determine the best. When we signal the end of combat, the combat is over. It is not a battle to the death, and a reward is reserved only for the winner along with the 36th rank in the arena. The count down will begin now.”
Both pilot’s main screen displayed the following large words in sequence:
‘Ready.’
‘Go!’
_____________________________________________________
Armored Core: Silent Calamity
Chapter 5
___________
Vivify
“District 5 has reported multiple terrorist attacks by a band of MT pilots. Crest corporation is seeking to expand into this sector and hired these MTs to scare off the residents in the area” The operator briefed in an irritatingly calm voice over the computer’s communication channel. “You’re mission is to remove this pest. Zam’s government is still new and it’s eager to build trust and gather support, so they are paying us a small amount for this mission. Complete the mission and you will be registered as ravens. Fail and you’ll die. Good luck.” With these final words Victor’s already tense stomach flipped at the uncomfortable sensation of free fall. Two Armored cores had been dropped from a large cargo helicopter. Inside one of those ACs was Victor, inside the other was a woman by the name of Sylvia. She was an MT pilot that was finally getting her chance to upgrade to piloting an AC. She was tall and had short spiky blonde hair. She was very good looking in Victor’s opinion. They didn’t formerly meet but had crossed each other when they boarded their ACs in the hangar. He disliked her right now though, for his only memory of her had her looking surprisingly calm.
Victor was scared. He was approaching the battle field. He had never been in a battlefield in his AC. He had only piloted his AC once and that was simply to understand how to operate it. Finally, his only other experience was that he had witnessed an AC battle. Sinister had taken him to an AC arena match since he was going to check his competition. He, however, felt Victor could benefit from witnessing a real raven ‘get down and dirty’, as he described it. The battle was imprinted in Victor’s mind. Those pilots were amazing. Their AC’s seemed to move as fluently as people. The two metal alloy giants gracefully slid and glided across the arena. They also exchanged heavy fire quickly and with great accuracy. They were colored extravagantly and beautifully, this of course was strange to Victor, seeing as how these beautiful ACs deal in battlefields where they inevitably will be tarnished and ruined. On the other hand, this confidence was inspiring; it demonstrated the raven’s unfaltering spirits in the face of doom. Victor awoke from his daydream with a heavy thump and a hydraulic click. His AC had landed. His main screen showed a normal residential sector with not much going on.
“Combat system engaged.” The computer said in a robotic male voice. Before Victor could calm his anxiety the second pledge in her AC set forward into a flight powered by a booster mounted on its back. Her AC was a dull metallic grey and was armed with a box, undoubtedly a missile pack, on her left shoulder, and a rifle on her right arm. Her left arm didn’t hold anything but had mounted on it a cylindrical device on its forearm. Victor knew this was a laser blade. Not content with being outdone Victor in his operating cockpit moved the left joystick forward. The AC began to run forward. Victor ran through what Sinister had taught him in his mind once again. ‘Left stick is movement, right stick lock on, petal-boost… and above all, this is your new best friend: the radar’. Victor looked up to a screen on the upper right hand corner of his cockpit. The screen showed a dark circle intersected through the center with orange lines and further sectioned into a series of smaller circles. He saw a lone blue-red dot to the upper end of the radar screen: this belonged to his partner’s AC. But what he saw next brought back all of his anxiety. He saw in the radar six other dots further up than the lone blip produced by the other initiate. This, he knew, was his opposition.
Victor took a deep breath and stomped on the petal. His AC dropped the jog and crouched lightly as he began moving rapidly forward in a boost. He could see the buildings to his sides begin blurring slightly across his main screen. The dots moved closer on his radar screen and to his surprise there were more dots behind them; in total ten enemies.
Victor was far behind Sylvia, and suddenly he saw her AC begin making evasive maneuvers in the distance. Victor didn’t comprehend until three missiles flew past her and exploded on contact with the floor. Debris flew up in a tower of dust. A fourth missile had hit its mark, but after the dark smoke cleared Sylvia’s AC seemed fine. Only a small dent and soot mark could be seen on her core. Victor’s turn was coming, and he knew it. As he brazed himself he caught sight of the enemies, there were three of them together. They were green bipedal humanoid looking MTs, about three fourths the size of an AC. They had two missile boxes on their shoulders and guns for arms. Suddenly the first of those MTs blew up. Sylvia had taken out her mark with a blade attack. As her AC remained in a position with its left arm held to its side she was retaliated with machine gun fire by the surrounding MT units. She moved out of way with a boost.
Victor suddenly was startled by a red light that turned on in his cockpit. His AC began shaking violently and rattling with loud pings outside his cockpit. Victor realized he was being hit by machine gun fire, as his partner had, and he strafed to his left while he looked for the possible source of the attack on his radar and on his main screen. He found the culprit in his radar. Two additional volleys shook his AC, these were much larger than those from before. The sounds of explosions from the outside confirmed them as missiles.
“Shafters, kid. That’s what those MT models are called. They carry machine guns and missile launchers. Be careful and don’t die, we need to pull through; if we fail the raven’s initiation test we will be executed. Don’t die on me; I’m counting on your back up.” Sylvia informed him over the communication channel.
“Shafters, got it.” Unnerved by the execution bit, Victor’s voice cracked as he answered. Embarrassed he cleared his throat and repeated, “Got it.”
Victor finally found the one responsible for the attack in his main screen. The shafter had sneaked up behind him as he was mesmerized by the battle scenes earlier. Victor focused and centered his lock box, outlined on his main screen, around the MT with his right joystick. A red circle immediately superimposed over the enemy, this was the Firing Computer System (FCS) locking on automatically to an enemy inside the box. Not knowing exactly what to expect Victor pulled on the trigger under his right index finger. He had never fired his weapon before. A muffled gun shot was heard from outside the cockpit. The main screen showed the enemy jerk hard. The hit was good. A strange series of spasms on the MT confirmed the strength of Victor’s war machine. The sight shattered Victor’s uneasiness, he was beginning to understand the power he wielded. He continued to shoot multiple times until he saw the grafter explode internally and drop motionless on the floor.
“Got it.” Victor grinned proud. Victor looked up at the radar screen and saw only eight blips including that of his ally. She had already taken out another one! He was behind and he didn’t like it. Victor kicked the petal and his AC jumped high in the air and with a second stomp the boosters turned on and he began flying forward as Sinister had taught him. This triggered a second memory in his head, one he thought might be valuable now:
After Victor had asked him how the arena combatants avoided the gunfire so well Sinister answered: ‘Bullets are teh fast ta see. The only way ta dodge them is ta avoid the dark o’ the gun barrel’ then he made a gun gesture with his hand and waved it in front of Victor’s face as if steadying the aim on it. With this in mind Victor then thought of the double machine guns on the grafters.
From the air he spotted a second MT beginning to steady his aim on him from the ground. He locked on to the grafter quickly but with a steady hand and beat the MT to the shot and caused the enemy to stall for half a second, a half a second he used to land to the MT’s side, safe from its firepower. Victor then used his laser blade trigger in his left hand joystick. The AC pulled its hand to its chest and boosted forward as it slashed outward in a diagonal motion that cut the MT in two. Almost immediately both pieces exploded in conjunction. The debris hit Victor’s AC and structures nearby. Most of the glass from a nearby small building shattered from the explosion’s force alone. The smoke and debris temporarily blinded Victor’s AC screen.
Ping ping ping! The red light was on again. Victor was under fire. As the smoke cleared Victor tried to boost out of the way but a loud series of beeps let him know he had exhausted his energy supply. A message reading ‘Charging’ was printed near a blue bar outline in a black screen labeled: ENERGY. He looked up at the radar and saw a bleep to his 5 o’ clock. He tried to turn while standing still but the alarming sound of the machine gun on his AC pressured him to move. The movement was effective in lessening the amount of direct damage he was taking if only a little bit. He finally caught a glance of the grafter at the edge of his screen as he slowly pivoted. The MTs firepower skipped a beat oddly, and before Victor could steady his lock on the enemy he realized Sylvia was shooting at that same MT and destroyed it.
“Be more careful and manage your energy, kid.” Sylvia reprimanded as she flew past him.
“Thanks.” Victor blushed. The AC was done charging. He discovered another MT sneaking in from behind a row of tall buildings. Victor shot him down quickly but not before the MT could shoot a pair of missiles at Victor. Victor reacted and avoided one but the second hit his AC’s core near the head. Victor unburdened moved on and turned around following his radar to the nearest blip. Unfortunately as he found it, Sylvia was just done thrashing the source. Disappointed he moved toward the next MT boosting to make sure he beat her to it. As he spotted and closed in on the next target a stranger’s voice came through over the intercom-
“Ravens turn back. We have requested back up.”
“Bring it.” Sylvia laughed smugly feeling the worst was over.
“You were warned.”
“Reinforcements confirmed to the east. Estimated arrival in 2 minute.” Victor’s AC computer interjected with its mechanical voice.
“Lets finish cleaning up and prepare for the second wave, kid.” Sylvia ordered.
“Right.” Victor agreed, “And stop calling me kid.” He heard a snicker over the intercom.
“Alright. Gimme a name to work with.”
“Victor.”
“Sylvia.”
They both separated and took out a final unit each without too much trouble. This cleared the battlefield. They both came a long way from the beginning of the battle and had become accustomed to their ACs. Both pilots felt impervious to harm in their almighty ACs. Unfortunately their ACs wore many scars that told a different story. Dented plates, scratches, and the occasional crack in the armor decorated the ACs of both pilots. Victor caught wind of this when he checked on a number given in one of his screens next to a vague schematic of his AC. It read AP 4003. This was a numerical estimate of the vitality of their machines according to Sinister. Victor was sure that when he first boarded his AC the number was above 8000. As he reflected on this a beep signaled a new development.
“Reinforcements detected” Victor turned around to catch sight of the reinforcements as they arrived. What he saw scared the color out of his face. He gasped.
“An AC!” Sylvia shouted losing her cool for the first time in the whole ordeal. Panic overtook them. In the sky a yellow and brown colored four legged AC flew through the sky at high speeds with what seemed to be a huge boost supplied by its core. He led 4 jet fighters in the young pilots’ direction. His arms were different than those of Sylvia’s or Victor’s AC. They resembled more those of the grafters they defeated. On his back it carried two gatling guns. Both Victor and Sylvia’s stomach’s began twisting as if trying to escape out of their place.
“We are not ready for this. We took out several MTs; that should be enough to pass the test. Get us out of here” Sylvia pleaded to the operator over the communication channel.
“Although you are right, our hands are tied. To venture into a live battlefield in an unarmed transport helicopter would be suicide. We can’t pick you up unless you remove all the hazards. The client must have underestimated Crest’s interest in this sector, in fact, we did too. This is unfortunate.” The operator apologized.
“Can’t you call him off?” Victor demanded.
“I’m sorry, we can’t control what raven’s do. The truth is that ravens are our clients. Global Cortex works for them offering different services, but we aren’t the boss of them.” The operator explained this in a detached and assertive voice.
“Lets run-“ as Sylvia suggested this the warning light turned on in Victor’s cockpit and it began shaking furiously. PING, PING, PING, PING! Victor was under attack already. Victor tried frantically to boost out of the stream of fire but his AC’s response was sluggish. Finally he got out of it and the stream of bullets stopped. AP 2712.
“Greetings from my Maggot. This is pilot Pestilence.” A wicked voice jeered over the intercom.
“We don’t want to fight. We’ll go peacefully.” Victor tried to mediate after seeing his opportunity in the opened communication channel.
“Well, orders were to chase you off.” Pestilence replied.
“Great.” Victor sighed with intense relief, but this was short lived.
“Those were my orders, but you did piss off Crest. So they offered a nice little incentive. I’ll get a bonus for destroying you both. And from your awkward movements, cheap parts, and pathetic plea for your life, I can tell you are new to the game.” He cackled manically, “This’ll be an easy buck.” The communication channel closed and the Maggot opened fire on Victor again. In his fearful adrenaline rush Victor reacted immediately and boosted away from the attack, but the barrage wouldn’t stop. Maggot followed him with a steady stream of bullets. The stray bullets lay waste to buildings in its wake. The bullets tore through building walls like if they were made of butter, and in some cases the buildings collapsed from the damage to their structure. Victor saw the destruction and was further motivated to avoid being the attack’s target.
A missile hit Victor’s AC from behind unexpectedly and machine gun fire rained from above him. Victor was confused, since Maggot still hadn’t licked him.
“The jet fighters, they aren’t very strong but their support will ensure our defeat. I got them, keep Maggot occupied. I hate to do this, but it should only take a second.” Sylvia shot down one of four jet fighters with a single bullet and moved in to hunt the rest.
Victor felt he could count on her, but as he glanced at his AP 2106 he wondered if he’d survive long enough to fight alongside her against this death merchant. Out of choices he took a deep breath and readied his rocket launcher. His main screen changed, his lock box disappeared and a series of red horizontal lines lined up to make the figure of a small trapezoid in the middle of his screen indicating the rockets intended trajectory path with the smallest line being the forward direction. This was a manual targeting system for the rockets. Sinister had warned him that rockets were harder to use, but they packed a heavy punch. Victor felt that he better pull out his best weapon, he wouldn’t want to die knowing he didn’t use every possible resource. Victor had not been given a moments rest, and he was actively running away from Maggot’s line of fire while making this decision.
He tried to aim his difficult manual lock from the air, as he flew away from the fire, and took a shot. He missed by about 6 meters. It was hard to steady his aim in his state of panic. He grunted, and took a second deep breath and focused completely. He couldn’t die; his friends were expecting him to return with money. He had survived a pitiful life in the slums, and fought to survive every day for the past 9 years in the slums. Fight to survive! He wasn’t doing anything now he hadn’t done before, he was fighting to live. As long as he lived he had a chance. His enemy could be beat. As he thought this the damn red light came on again. Ping, ping, ping, ping. He got careless. It was only for a moment though and he escaped the attack once again. AP 1834. He had to keep moving, or he’d be grinded down by the enemy’s fire. As he thought this, something occurred to him: Maggot, unlike him, was fairly stationary, and even when he moved it was a slow tread across the ground. Victor’s AC was definitely more mobile and faster.
“Two more, Victor, hold on.” Sylvia announced over the intercom.
“Ok.”
Victor felt his spirits increase. Maybe he had just figured out how to beat Pestilence. He changed his trajectory, he stopped running away from the line of fire and surprisingly he dived toward Maggot in a boost. He did, however, focus on staying away from the “black o’ the gun barrel” by making circular lariats. With his experience, however, he didn’t manage to avoid all the damage and as he approached Maggot the damage he was taking increased more and more. AP 910. A siren began reverberating inside Victors cockpit and two red warning lights began rotating. His AC’s damage was critical. Close to Maggot now. Victor shot his rocket. It was a direct hit and the impact shock caused Maggot’s fire to cease for moment, and as he did with the MT Victor broke his dash to the right to enter Maggot’s blind spot and began slashing Maggot with his blade and bombarded with point blank rocket shots desperately like a wild man.
Pestilence tried to tread away but was too slow, and Victor didn’t give him a moments rest. He knew he was doing lots of damage, since Maggot’s protective armor had began warping and cracking open. He focused his attack on the weakened spots to ensure that the damage leak through. If he kept going he would win for sure, unfortunately Pestilence turned the tables. Maggot took a huge leap similar to that of a spider and landed directly behind Victor, as indicated by his radar.
“Fuck!” Victor cursed. But in his deep focus he reacted quickly and strafed right in a boost and began turning slowly left but the sounds of the machine gun on his back and side had already begun. He saw his AP start dropping rapidly and all he had left was the hope that he’d straighten his AC fast enough to take a final blind shot. AP: 250! And there it was! The trapezoid in his screen was about to intersect with Maggot, now about thirty meters away. Victor took his shot, and miraculously it hit Maggot, but in his inertia Victor continued to turn past his mark. The bullets stopped. Victor sighed in relief. He survived. Then his relief was shattered. The bullet onslaught resumed. AP 78. With his mark unaligned again he panicked. He wouldn’t have time to realign his mark to take another shot! Still he violently crossed his lock on joystick right. AP 28! Before he could align his mark again a missile hit Maggot in the left side of its core and the firing stopped. Fire broke out from the collision site and Maggot began spazzing and jerking unpredictably. Finally it exploded and disappeared behind a ball of fire and thick black smoke. Sylvia had finally joined the fight. Victor let out a gasp. He realized that his face was distorted from the ordeal. His eyes were opened exaggeratedly, and he felt them burn lightly from not blinking. He was also breathing hard and fast.
“You alright, Victor?” Sylvia asked in a quick and alarmed voice. All she heard was hard breathing over the intercom. “Victor?!”
“Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I’m alright.” The incoherent response came as a relief to Sylvia.
“Guess you really aren’t a kid. You practically took him out single handedly!”
“You saved me, I was about to have it.”
“I’ll say, your AC looks like swiss cheese.” They both laughed nervously but with intense joy.
“Transport helicopter is on its way, ravens. Congratulations, you passed.” The operator said with a surprised tone. The comment at that point didn’t so much anger the two pilots as much as it annoyed them. The operator then added: “Personally, I can’t believe you guys pulled it off. It’s nothing short of a miracle. You two did exceptionally. I look forward to working with you.”
The helicopter arrived, strapped their AC’s with thick steel ropes, and carried them back to the hangar. The hangar was huge and stored many ACs. Many vehicles, assembly and maintenance machines, and staff were located there too. There they un-boarded their 10 meter tall giants from the core and stepped out onto a high steel bridge. After going through such a close call both pilots felt the need to meet each other. They felt like if they had formed an intimate bond through the shared near death experience. They ran towards each other excited to meet the voice behind the intercom.
When they met on top of the steel bridge their exited demeanor changed. It was awkward. They examined each other’s unfamiliar faces and realized they were strangers. She was a tall pale Amazonian beauty. He was a dark man with bald spots behind his head. He was also missing half of his right ear. Red-brown wrinkles and discolored splotches on his skin patched part of his left cheek, his neck, and even deeper into his shirt. His accident had left him with a gimp on his left leg too. An uncomfortable silence followed. Then the ice was broken by a simple “Hi”, and with it all the feelings came fleeting back. They recognized each others voices.
“We’re ravens.” Sylvia smiled comfortably at Victor.
“The power of that machine is incredible!” Victor replied
“I know! I actually piloted MTs for the Mirage company before this. But I worked hard to earn my chance here today. MT’s are strong, but nothing like Armored Cores. I’m just lucky that in my years as an MT pilot I didn’t run into an AC, I probably wouldn’t be here today.”
“Pilot, the MT?” Victor lost his grin. With all the joy over surviving, and the power trip in his AC he had forgotten that there were people inside each one of those lifeless machines he shot down. Sylvia was confused by the change in his demeanor.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. You were lucky.” He smiled trying to mask his guilt.
“Ugh, yeah.” Sylvia smiled uncomfortably feeling the tension. “They are waiting for us downstairs. They’ll want to ID us.” She tried to steer the conversation in a different direction.
Catching on, Victor nodded. Downstairs he found a small jeep waiting for them. They got on and they drove away at a slow speed. As he passed his AC, being moved around in a platform trailer, he noticed a man looking up at it. He yelled at the man driving the trailer in an irritated voice:
“Get that piece of crap outta my hangar, it’s useless. Just build a replicate.”
Sylvia and Victor exchanged a look and giggled. They finally arrived at a small office outside the hangar.
“Here you go. Go inside and ID yourselves for records, I’ll wait here for you.” The driver directed them.
Inside they found a clerk behind a computer and a counter. He seemed to be waiting for them. He waved them closer and smiled.
“So you are the newly inducted ravens. Congratulations. I’ll just be registering you into our database. This won’t take long. Pilot name?” he asked Sylvia.
“Cupid.” She replied. Victor looked at her with a teasing confused look. She blushed. “It was my MT pilot name, I think it’s cute.” Victor rolled his eyes.
“AC name?” the clerk continued.
“Sharpshot.”
“And you young man? Pilot name?”
Victor hadn’t given this much thought before, but it was probably wise to use an alias too. He thought hard, but only one word came to mind. It haunted him. Victor lost his playful expression once again.
“Apathy.”
Sylvia looked at Victor without expressing judgment, but she was really reading hard into Victor now.
“AC name?”
Trying to shake his somber mood, Victor thought about the recent events aboard his amored core, his fight for survival, and why it mattered. His AC was his link to a new promising world that could bring hope to those he loved. It was the whole reason he was there. His AC was a harbinger of death, and a weapon for destruction, but there was something more it could offer: It would help deliver the life his friends deserved and give them a shot at happiness. It would give them a real life.
“Ahem, AC name?”
“Vivify.”
_____________________________________________________
Armored Core: Silent Calamity
Chapter 6
___________
Father's Curse
A young nubile brunette in a yellow sundress walked from the end of her garden towards her home along a stone path that intersected a lush grass landscape. The bright splendor of the white-yellow sun reflected off the mildew on the newly cut blades of grass. Her neat landscape was decorated by two small pine saplings. The street was lined with many modest but neat houses like her own. Rose bushes lined the front of her house, and vibrant red blooms peeked out through the thorny intertwining bush branches. The girl slowed her walk with a slight frown as if trying to remember something important. Nothing came to mind, so she followed her path with an up-beat step and a smile. As she came near the entrance to her home she turned towards the roses and caught sight of an especially large and colorful one.
She approached the rose and knelt down to get closer. Slowly and carefully she took the rose by the stalk and brought it near her nose. Closing her eyes she sniffed the feeble soothing smell. A petite prick from a thorn caused the woman to twitch slightly. She let go of the stalk and searched her snowy white hands. A small red bead was forming on her right index finger. The sight of the blood made her cringe, and her face became distorted by a look of despair and recognition. She was overwhelmed by terror. Trembling she looked around and discovered the sun shine was gone and replaced only by a thick darkness. She began to scream at the top of her lungs but as if the scene was muted no sound followed. She remembered it all now.
The girl squirmed backwards as if trying to run away from the garden. She retreated in a crawl until her path was blocked by an obstacle from behind. She knew she was going to hate what came next even if she was unsure of what it might be. She turned around slowly, dreading the moment her fear would be confirmed. She turned around mechanically and as if by habit alone. Behind her lay the putrid corpse of a mangled man. The corpse was charred and lifeless but still fresh enough to be flowing with juices. The expression of the cadaver was one of terror. Although his eyeballs were gone, as was most of his flesh, the scorched cadaver’s piercing stare unhinged a thousand different torments on the woman. She howled and sobbed. A second look around her home revealed that the garden was now littered with dozens of similar dead bodies. Some were charred remains, other mutilated fleshy corpses, and most terrifying of all, there were bodies that seemed to still live and breath, horribly disfigured as they were. They groaned and moaned at her, pawing as if to try and reach her.
In a painful cry the woman buried her face into her hands as if to un-see what afflicted her. But this led to a horrible discovery. Her face met the warm and wet texture of something lining her hands. The metallic taste on her lips confirmed further fears. She knew this feeling all to well. Before she even examined her hands she knew they, and now her face too, were drenched in blood.
She removed her hands from her face and opened her eyes. She was behind the familiar layout of her AC’s cockpit. Her hands dripped with a never ending supply of blood. Her face too was dropping orbs of blood onto her controls. And slowly her cockpit’s walls began oozing blood to her distress. In an un-illuminated part of her already dark cockpit she saw what she knew was the final act to her torment: the dark face of a man. The man was responsible for this torment. She feared him, she hated him, and she knew him. He fooled everyone she loved. But he couldn’t fool her. His penetrating macabre stare hurt her. She tried to scream for help once again, but again found no comfort in the silence that followed. This ugly abomination of a man was deformed to match his rotten core. He had burn scars across his back, neck and partially on his face. Discolored blotches of pale skin contrasted with his dark tan complexion. His right ear was severed. As if a silent scream in her head grew louder, she felt the tension rise and the scene grow more terrifying with every passing moment. She was in hell!
The girl woke up in a violent toss. She was facing her bed, and noticed that her pillow was moist from a little drool, and unsurprisingly further up from the drool pool she noticed her tears also moistened her pillow. She turned around and sat pensively at the side of her bed. She cleaned tears and then a little drool on her lip. She was wearing a frilly white gown, a very feminine piece considering her tomboyish personality. Her room was completely empty save for her small bed, two portraits hanging above it, and a small dresser next to her bed resting a loaded semi-automatic hand gun. One of the portraits above her bed was a picture of her, her mother, and uncle. They were smiling and were at a small natural reservoir. They went to visit it two summers ago. The other picture was way older. In it was the man from her dreams holding a baby. He was smiling warmly and wide, with what seemed like tears in his eyes. He and the baby seemed so happy. The man was obviously a burn victim and was deformed in a significant way, but the picture was heavy with emotion and happiness.
She looked at her snowy white hands and sighed as if she could still feel the blood dripping from them. The relief that the night was over was great, but the fear of the next night burned in the back of her head. She got up and slapped her face with both hands softly as if to prepare for the day ahead. She had a date with Whirlwind today. She went to her closet and took out her pilot uniform. The uniform wore a vibrant emblem on its left shoulder of a small green sprout growing in dry cracked dirt housing two other dead withered trees. The words “Fight to live” lined the bottom of the emblem. She put on the one piece and Velcro-ed it shut. It was a little heavy, but it was a fair price to pay for her safety inside the AC. She walked over to the dresser and took her gun, put its safety on, and hid it in a back pocket. She then opened the mostly empty dresser and took out her PCD and another small electronic with a wide screen. In it she checked her mail.
From: Whirlwind
‘I hope you’re ready for today. You’ll remember this day for the rest of your life.’
“Asshole.” She muttered.
Back at a Global Cortex hallway, two pilots spoke in front of the arena ranking list, on a computer screen on the wall.
“Apathy is going to fight Whirlwind today at noon. I feel bad for him, even if he is a smug bastard.” The first pilot commented as he fingered the list.
“I hear the last pilot Apathy faced is still in the hospital.” The second gossiped.
“Are you kidding me? He’s lucky to be alive! She’s a beast. Which is odd, because she is so mild outside of her AC. I mean she talks tough but she’s fairly tame. Aboard her Revivify, though, she turns into a lunatic. I seriously think Global Cortex might have just picked out a mental case from one of the local infirmaries.”
“You met her? I hear she’s a real babe.”
“Maybe so, but who’d be crazy enough to ask that head case out?”
“I guess you’re right. But she’s climbing the ranks fast. In fact,” he laughed, “she’ll be facing you soon.”
The first pilot checked the list scared. His friend was right, Apathy was 3 spaces below his name.
“Yeah laugh it up asshole, she’s five spots away from you.” The second pilot glanced at the list and sighed. “I guess, but I’m a real raven, I’m not scared.” He said this mostly to himself, as if trying to reassure himself.
Back in the room: the girl, Apathy, turned to her portraits and stared as if she was looking at the people reflected in them.
“Mom, I promise after my match I’ll go visit you at home. And dad,” she stalled as she looked at the man with the baby. Her nightmare was fresh in her mind. Feeling guilty about the way she felt she continued louder: “Dad, grant me strength today and keep me safe.”
The to her room opened automatically in a sliding motion and she disappeared through it. She walked down Global Cortex dormitories’ hallways and reached a door hiding the stair well. She didn’t like the confining space of the elevator. She walked down several flights of stairs and finally got out in the bottom floor into a white hallway. She walked toward an office and addressed a familiar face.
“Yo, Joe. I have a date today. Just checking in.”
“Of course you do. What rank are you now? 37? Kid, you gotta slow down. I mean, Global Cortex is pleased. You have a big following and they pay a lot to see your fights, but as a friend, I gotta recommend you take break. This is your second arena match this week.” Joe mettled.
“You’re right, I know. Sheesh, nag much. I’m fine, I’m young and full of life, nothing can slow me down. But if it makes you feel better, I plan on going out after the match to take a well deserved break. But first, I gotta earn it right?”
“One other thing: be careful. Don’t tear into your opponent like you did with poor Conan.” Joe scolded. Apathy lost her smug smile, and began screaming mentally. She remembered Conan. She blasted his Barbarian beyond recognition well after the match was over in a panic fueled frenzy. Conan survived but was still recovering from shell shock. Indignant Apathy slammed her fist on the desk.
“Just mind your own business and sign me in!” Apathy in a fit stomped out of the office. Joe the registrar, was shocked at the display, but after a moment he composed himself and simply shook his head in worry as he typed into his computer.
Apathy left the building and caught a ride from a nearby military jeep that she whistled to. Global Cortex was immense. Many soldiers, cars, and facilities could be seen almost endlessly. The jeep took her toward one of many hangars at Global Cortex, each as massive as the last one. Near her destination she caught glimpse of her Revivify near the front of the hangar and easily visible from the outside- it was ready to be deployed. The AC was colored a bright white with black ridges along the edges of its alloy armor. It’s face was vacant and dead. The cameras that generally give the AC the illusion of eyes were shut behind eyelid-like steel shutters. Lots of engineers and mechanics made some finishing touches on the AC atop large scaffolds. The AC was bipedal, and had large black protruding plates extending over the knee joints giving it the appearance of wearing large black knightly boots. In a similar manner his shoulders also protruded over past the arms like shoulder pads. Its core was rounded and had two mysterious spherical cylinders in the back. Two metal tassles hung from each hip. Revivify was only fitted with two weapons, each held by a hand. The left hand held a small gun, this was a howitzer-it shot a powerful explosive. The right arm held a large cylindrical bazooka with a handle similar to a gun.
The jeep stopped near the entrance and Apathy jumped off. She thanked the driver as he drove off. She then went into the building and turned immediately to her right where she flashed the emblem on her uniform at another officer guarding a stair case with an automatic rifle. The emblem matched the one on Revivify’s left shoulder. The officer stepped aside. She climbed the staircase and finally arrived at the high steel bridge, where she walked toward the core of the AC. Facing the core she took out the small computer she used earlier to read her email and typed in a code that opened a hatch in the back of the core. She looked into the darkness that lay past the hatch and sighed gloomily. She made her way in. Inside she sat in her seat, and buckled herself in. She flipped a single switch by reflex in the dashboard. A beep followed and her many screens turned on sequentially starting with the main screen. The AC opened his light blue eyes. The engineers and mechanics finished their last adjustments and then signaled a crew at the bottom to remove their scaffolds. Inside the cockpit a voice was heard over the intercom:
“Revivify is ready, and the crew is a safe distance. Pilot Apathy, you are ready to deploy.”
Apathy flipped a series of switches and with each additional switch a new sound responded. The whirring of the generator warming up, and the hiss of multiple hoses letting go of the armored core were among the many sounds that echoed through the cockpit. Apathy reached for her helmet in the bottom of her seat and strapped it on.
“Raven, your opponent is waiting in the parking lot.” The operator directed over the intercom.
“The parking lot? That’s gutsy of him, I would have pegged him as an open arena kind of guy.” Apathy talked to herself.
“Combat system engage.” The robotic male voice greeted.
“Let’s party.” Apathy said smugly, however, she transpired fear.
Apathy boosted in a direction familiar to her. The parking lot was an arena lined with multiple concrete columns and was fairly crowded for ACs. Not a lot of flight could be achieved in there. The parking lot arena was also on Global Cortex grounds so no transport plane was needed. Apathy simply piloted to the arena ground. She finally arrived to the front door of a large building encased by a protective energy shield powered by large generators and machines- this was a safety precaution. In front of the entrance she keyed into the computer in her dashboard a code to open the huge door. Revivify entered the dormant battlefield. The door shut behind her. She was in a single floored cramped arena. Her radar displayed a red bleep nearby out of sight past what seemed like endless rows of square concrete columns.
“Pilots ready?” The operator asked over the intercom.
“Ready!” The overlapping responses of the pilots over the intercom attested for their familiarity with the setup.
“Remember, ravens, this is friendly contest to determine the best. When we signal the end of combat, the combat is over. It is not a battle to the death, and a reward is reserved only for the winner along with the 36th rank in the arena. The count down will begin now.”
Both pilot’s main screen displayed the following large words in sequence:
‘Ready.’
‘Go!’
_____________________________________________________
Buffy Anne Summers
1981- 2001
Beloved Sister
Devoted Friend
She saved the world
A LOT
1981- 2001
Beloved Sister
Devoted Friend
She saved the world
A LOT
