Chapter 1: Dragon Dive
The skies rumbled restlessly as a group of figures flew towards a lone island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Not long after the capture of Arteria Carpals and the defeat of the once prestigious Collared establishment, a large amount of Kojima particles were spread over the already uninhabitable lands of Earth. The cause of such an outbreak of these deadly particles could have only meant one thing; more NEXTs were in production. NEXTs themselves not only function on Kojima particles for their Primal Armor, but also use the energy from the particles, when forced through fission, to fly through the skies. This massive outbreak of particles, which are believed to be a direct link to solar rays, can not only cause the terrain to be reduced to rubble and dust, but can solidify water into a solid when concentrated enough.
That was why these pilots were approaching this island in the middle of the ocean. Not because Kojima particles created it, but because Kojima particles do not concentrate naturally. Someone had to have forced the particles to concentrate for a reason, and these new pilots were about to find out why irradiated land had been created in the dead center of an ocean.
"About 5 miles from the target landing zone." Silver's voice echoed over the intercom. "Prepare to disengage V.O.B., crew." Silver himself did not join the exploration of the new island, but returning from his own mission off in the demolished Russian territory. "Good luck on your mission, guys. I will be joining you five soon enough, if the mission turns out successful."
And with that, the long-range intercom cut off with a fizzling sound, and the squad of pilots shut off the long-range connection.
Qwerty leaned back in his hydro-chamber, letting the water around him stop stirring for a second. Then he reached above his head, flipping a series of switches, then stopped before flipping the final switch. "Hey, guys, you all ready to disengage?"
"All systems are okay over here." A deep voice sounded as Mark Kixanho's emblem image appeared on the right side of Qwerty's HUD.
Seconds later, two more emblems popped up. Neo and Aozora's voices sounded simultaneously. "Ready!" They chimed.
"Let's just finish this mission already. Should be an easy check in and leave." Salire sighed as her emblem appeared as well. "Although… having this be more exciting could be good for us. We're new to piloting these machines, so a bit of excitement may be good practice."
"Don't jinx us. If we're ambushed by NEXTs, we're done for." Mark responded quickly. "Let's just hope if there are enemies waiting for us, they're Normals, or drones. Not actual human pilots with skill under their belt." And with that, he flipped the final switch, breaking off the large extending rocket pack on his back, greatly reducing his speed. Taking the cue, the others flipped the final switch on the roof of their cockpit.
All five NEXTs engaged their Overboost as soon as the V.O.B. disengaged. The five machines soared across the skies; Salire's NEXT, Judicium, taking the lead with her Rayleonard-designed Overboost engine, shortly followed by Aozora's lightweight NEXT. Mark trailed behind with his medium weight NEXT, shortly behind Qwerty's medium-light Algebra-designed NEXT. Neo stayed evenly paced in the middle, keeping his eyes open over the approaching shoreline of irradiated water.
"All clear on the radar," Salire called out, checking her extended radar on her HUD. "However, stay on your guard. They could have jammers out here, if it is a trap." They all nodded. Steph quickly unfolded her three-pronged energy cannons, her arms lowering as the power was diverted to aiming the cannons. Judicium's 063AN sniper cannon unfolded slowly as Qwerty activated his rail cannon. Mark and Neo switched to their missile launchers as the squad's Primal Armor started to wear down from Overboosting.
"Everyone, brace for landing on the island. Keep your landing boosters on automatic as to not disturb the land. Our combined weight alone will not cause any harm, but landing heavily could cause the island to collapse, releasing Kojima particles into the atmosphere." Neo warned as he flipped the switch by his feet.
As they landed as softly as couple dozen-ton machine could, they halted their boosting; slowly walking towards the center of the island, or where they assumed it was from their aerial view before landing.
Qwerty turned to Salire. "No one's here. Problem, Salire?" His NEXT waggled its arms and Salire quickly smacked his NEXT upside it's head.
"Dumbass, they have jamming. Look at your radar." She growled, bonking him on the head once more. Surely enough, there was a faint trace of ECM jamming in the proximity, which meant that not only was this island inhabited by some form of machine, but they were expecting them.
"Oh, shit. Now what?" Qwerty looked around frantically, making sure to eye every hill on the island for signs of whatever was jamming them, or any enemies. "Wait… couldn't this be a trap of a trap?"
The others remained silent, unsure of what he meant.
"I'm saying, what if they predicted we would come, and placed unmanned jammers, so we'd waste our time while they attacked something else?" Qwerty suggested.
Mark's NEXT crossed its arms, and nodded. "That's probably the smartest idea you've had for quite some time…" He mumbled, and then looked around. "But we were sent here for a reason, Qwerty. Silver's been piloting longer than us. He's been in the Collared War, so he knows his way around a battlefield. He wouldn't send us into a mission where we stand around twiddling our thumbs while scouring an irradiated chunk of water." Mark started to walk forward slowly, passing Qwerty as he looked around. "If there is someone here, and we're within their jamming radius, they know we're here. Be on your guard."
This made them all feel paranoid, and they began to check around the perimeter. "Still no readings through the jamming. I need to change my radar when we get back to ECM resistance." Salire groaned as she tapped on her radar furiously, hoping a blip of red would appear.
Neo started to venture outward, Aozora walking behind him slowly, with her back facing his to cover behind him. "Aozora… I want you to stay near by if something happens, but if I get close to defeat, save yourself." Neo told her, making Aozora wriggle in her cockpit.
"D'aww… so chivalrous." She cheered in her cockpit, attempting to hug Neo, but the awkward shapes of the NEXTs prevented it. "Okay… When we're back at headquarters, you're getting the crap hugged out of you!" She proclaimed loud enough for an echo to sound on the intercom.
The entire squad started to spread out in a five-way fan across the island, fingers on the triggers of their weapons as they slowly trotted down the expanse of land.
"Hey guys, I think I see something dark on the horizon over here!" Qwerty called out. He looked back and then frantically looked back at them. "Whatever it was, it heard me, and moved!" This alarmed all of them, but what alarmed them the most were the sounds they could hear in the distance. A good mile away, they could hear a high-pitched charging sound, followed by a blast of something breaking the sound barrier.
"Everyone, get ready!" Salire steadied her NEXT as an aperture appeared over her right eye on her HUD. She surveyed the top of the hills, as the sound rapidly grew louder. Then suddenly the sound stopped entirely. No more whirr of an Overboosting engine, not even the wind. Then the entire hill Salire was surveying erupted with a flurry of Kojima particles and fire, blinding the squad as the particles hung in the air, as if in stasis.
"Everyone, take to the skies!" Mark yelled, kicking off the ground with a combination of his NEXT's legs and main boosters. He launched into the air, scanning the nearby area for whatever blew up the mound of irradiated water. Shortly after, all other NEXTs but Headhunter, Qwerty's NEXT, were in the skies.
"Fuck this." Qwerty scoffed. "I suck in the air. I'm charging in." He Quick boosted into the cloudy crater, only to be sent flying backwards in seconds, an enormous dent in the core of his NEXT. "F…. fuck… That's close." He panted as water leaked out of his cockpit, the dent in the core caving in only inches from his face. "If I had moved any later, I would have been dead right now. Guys, I can't move Headhunter. I'm down…" Qwerty groaned as he slumped in his seat.
"Damn. That must've been a ramming blade of some sort." Mark thought out loud. "Everyone, increase altitude. He can't hit us if we're too high."
Everyone complied as they increased thrust on the main boosters, ascending into the skies.
Then the intercom began to static. A deep voice rumbled over the static ominously. "Get down here before I have to kill every one of you the hard way." His voice was cold and emotionless, as if he had no intent of letting them live to tell the tale of the island.
Another, more raspy voice, sounded over the intercom as well, sending chills down the squad's spines. "Can I kill one of them and hang their skull in my room?" The laugh this monster made was sickening, almost ghoulish and demonic.
A female's voice sounded as well seemingly annoyed. "You can't make a clean kill, can you Damon?"
As these three spoke, the Kojima cloud faded to reveal their opponents. Below them stood three NEXTs, one golden in color, with a long flat energy cannon on her back. She held a triangular weapon on her left arm and a thin rifle on her right. An arced contraption also was fixed upon her back. The black NEXT in the middle stood firm and tall, his heavy armor now coated in glistening Kojima energy. Upon his back were a heavy grenade launcher, and a set of missile launchers. In his hands were a dual barrel rifle and a bazooka. The third NEXT was as grey as the land around them. His right arm had a bulky dual barreled contraption that was, presumably, the weapon that had dented Qwerty's NEXT and defeated him. His left arm sported a heavy-duty shotgun with a thick rectangular nose. His back had two spiraling and spiked pieces of equipment that resembled radars, obviously tuned for ECM resistance.
In a flash, the grey and golden NEXT were level with the four squad members. The golden NEXT charged at Mark rapidly, pulling back her left arm across her NEXT's torso. Mark quickly pulled backwards, quick boosting backwards, then to the right, effectively dodging the blade slash. However, the skilled enemy predicted this move, and pulled a 180-degree spin, firing a blast from her rail gun at Mark's main boosters, engulfing them in blue flames. Mark quickly gripped the handles of his NEXT inside the cockpit, bracing for an unassisted landing. With much noise and pain, Mark's NEXT slammed deep into the solidified water, the NEXT's feet stuck in the solid particles. The black NEXT strode over to him, pointing the barrel of his rifle at the NEXT's head.
The grey NEXT pilot laughed evilly as Mark fell to the ground with a thud, all the while circling the other three in the air, not letting them escape formation or fire any weapons effectively at him. "Eenie meanie, minie… MOE!" He quick boosted at Steph, thrusting his blade at her torso. Neo quickly quick boosted in front of the blade, activating his energy blade to quickly disintegrate the convulsing blade. The pilot lurched backwards, howling with rage.
"You dare to break my masterpiece's weapons? I'll tear you apart, bit by bit, you pathetic whelp!" The man yelled furiously, charging at the couple once again, dropping his useless blade and pulling out a storage energy blade from his leg. He slashed like the madman he quite obviously was, but even with his blind rage, the speed at which he swung prevented Neo from successfully blocking all attacks, causing the orange energy blade to dig into his NEXT's arms, slowly forcing his system to overheat due to damage.
"Crap… Aozora, run!" Neo groaned as his NEXT fell to the ground, immobile like Mark's now was. The dark NEXT walked in between the two, one now with a bazooka pointed at his head, the other with the rifle aimed into the eyepiece.
Now only Aozora and Salire were left in the air. Aozora gritted her teeth as Salire folded up her sniper cannon, useless at point blank. She quickly boosted at the enemy, swinging her short energy blade at the grey NEXT's core. Only a blur was left when Salire looked around, just before her ears were greeted by a loud sizzling sound, and a bright orange light entering her cockpit blinded her eyes, barely missing her head by feet as the energy blade rendered her NEXT useless and leaking water.
Aozora began to worry this was their end, here and now. She quickly turned around and engaged the Overboost sequence. The whine of the charging energy was interrupted by a creaking noise as the grey NEXT's hand clasped down on the now open flaps near her boosters.
"Oh, you're not escaping us, girly." He cackled, throwing her NEXT towards Mark, Salire, Neo, and Qwerty. Aozora's NEXT slammed face first into the earth, smashing the optics into shards of glass and metal.
"Now, now… what have we here? Silver's little lackeys?" The woman scoffed, stepping on the black and white winged sword decal on Headhunter's right shoulder. "I'm going to enjoy killing you five." She cackled evilly.
A loud boom interrupted her laughter over the ocean. The three brutal NEXTs turned to face the noise. The woman let out a growl from deep in her throat.
"Look who decided to join us, Wynne," The dark NEXT pilot laughed, removing the barrels of his guns from the downed NEXTs' heads.
A few kilometers before them approached a white and blue NEXT equipped with the standard V.O.B. add-on. In its left hand was a long, double barreled energy rifle. In the right hand, a diamond shaped energy blade gleamed in the faded light through the clouds. As soon as the V.O.B. broke apart from the NEXT's back, the Overboost started to charge. When the Kojima particles formed around the boosters, the angelic pattern of energy erupted backwards, launching the NEXT forward with tremendous force.
When the NEXT neared the shoreline, it did not disengage the Overboost. The bright NEXT continue its charge forward, rapidly nearly the enemies and the fallen pilots.
"Wynne, Damon, get ready for-" He was cut off as the NEXT disengaged the Overboost right in front of the black NEXT. Its arm lowered, gripping the palm tight as the white energy blade extended. The NEXT slashed upward into the chest of the black NEXT, then spinning around with a side boost, stiffly swinging the still extended sword horizontally, splitting the humanoid machine in half from the waist. Not losing momentum from the over 2000 km/h Overboost, the white mech aimed it's rifle at the golden and grey NEXT sideways, and pulled the trigger. Both beams of light fired directly into the heads of the enemy NEXTs.
The skilled pilot tapped on his back boosters to slow down, then stood in the middle of the graveyard of machines.
"Seems like I was a bit too late. Now I gotta rebuild all five of your NEXTs." Silver sighed, dialing his intercom linked to headquarters. "We need VTOL for five pilots here. None are dead, but the machines sure are in bad condition. Also, get me a repair set for each of the squadron sent out today. They're going to need it. Finally, get the rec room set up. These pilots went through hell today." Silver radioed in to base before starting to help his fallen comrades to safety, far from the defeated, but alive, enemies.