Armored Core, Armored Core 2, Armored Core 2 Another Age are owned by
Agetec and From Software. I do not own them
A high stakes game prologue: Take it or leave it
Over a high sand dune on edge of the Zearm Desert, a meeting amongst a Raven and a representative from the terrorist group, the Indies is being rapped up.
The Raven, who goes by the name Maki, is a bald and rather tall man of Japanese origins. He was dressed in a flight suit that was typical of many of the earth ravens although his suit is brown with green trim, which matches the colors of his Armored Core. It also contained a patch of his emblem across on the left side of his chest, which was comprised of a katana sword and a machine gun crossing each other and a human skull in the middle. His facial features were fairly soft and virtually unscarred for a man in his profession. He had his youth to credit that to.
The colonel, Maki had arranged the meeting with, was not as tall but was in fact a much more stout man than Maki. He carried himself like a stereotypical guerilla commander, walking around the camp shooting off enough machismo to equal a thermonuclear bomb. He was a scruffy face man, who didn't seem to shave to often and judging by his smell, bathe often either. The man also seemed to walk everywhere has if he had been there before. He wore a gray tank top and large camouflage pants along with a camouflage hat with a tiny, gold, metallic leaf on his head signifying he was Colonel.
The meeting was taking place inside of a tent, part of a much larger terrorist camp. They had just begun negotiating the price.
"I couldn't give you the information that I've offered to you for anything less than 100,000 credits, Colonel Hills." Maki spoke, grinning slyly.
Maki knew that the Indies we're looking for any information that could help them in their fight to topple the government. With the dozen or so missions he had done defending their facilities, he had managed to find some opportunities to rob them of crucial information. He would then use this ability to his further funds.
"From what you have told me, I believe it's worth 80,000,the most we're willing to pay any informant. " the scruffy-haired Colonel replied as cigar smoke billowed out of his mouth.
A angered Maki beat his fist against the steel table the two men sat at.
"You have to be kidding me, Colonel, the 80,000 is nice, but what about compensation for all of the danger I took in finding this information. It is surely worth 20,000 more credits." He replied trying to calm himself down.
"If danger is your concern what about all the danger I'm putting my people through for this sale to even take place. For all I know the Earth Government could have followed you out here. Your lucky I've even offered to pay you 80,000. So it's either take it or leave it kid." Hills growled.
Maki was against the wall. He could tell that in this particular situation the ball wasn't in his court. He knew how expensive the cost of operating an AC was getting. So he folded.
"80,000 it is then" he sighed.
The two men extended their hands to each other and shook them confirming the deal.
"It's good that we reached an understanding, I'll get a kid from my technical staff to confirm that the information is accurate at which that point we'll transfer the 80,000 to your account with Concord Corporation." The colonel said proudly. He took his cigar case from what Maki gather and motioned for him to take one. Maki shook his head.
"You young folk now a days you don't have to relax anymore." He preached
Suddenly a young Indies soldier ran in to the tent. He saluted the Colonel as calmly as he could and then spoke.
"Sir, we've just reached contact with a high heat signature approaching the perimeter from the north. It's shaping is common to that of an AC." He replied trembling at the mouth. The Colonel's eyes raised as he turned to cocked his head around at the solider behind him in disbelief
" Order the men to get their MT's immediately, Sergeant" he yelled.
"Yes, Colonel." The man replied, he then darted out of the tent and could already be heard yelling commands at the other men.
"I knew it, you're here to disrupt our operations." The colonel shrieked, rising from his seat.
Maki rose from his seat, bumping into the chair when he moved backwards, while shaking his head in denial.
"I'm not I have no idea how anyone could have possibly found me out here." He argued.
"Well, then you were bugged either way the deal's off. So is your life." The Colonel yelled.
As the Colonel reached for his side arm, a loud, rattling explosion erupted near the tent causing the man to fall to his feet. He scrambled around the sand searching for his sidearm that managed to fall from its holster. A moment later he found it all right, pointed directly at his face and in the hand of Maki.
"No one has ever tried to draw a gun on me and lived Colonel." Maki laughed.
"Same here, Raven" he spoke.
Just has the colonel's words left his mouth, Maki pulled the pistol trigger, which erupted a loud bang, silencing the colonel permanently. He wiped some of the blood that had flown up to his chin with his hand and darted out of Colonel's tent.
Hailing gunfire, and explosions rang off in the east part of the camp signifying the intense fight the colonel's men desperately fought against the attacking AC. Luckily for Maki, his AC wasn't too far west of the Colonel's tent. He ran in the desert night gasping for every breath he could manage as his ran towards his AC. Minutes later, he reached his kneeled down unit, the Bone-Destroyer.
His Armored Core was of a humanoid emerade build, mostly boxy except for its legs of course whose metal muscles were open due to suction cup looking auxiliary boosters, and it's redeye head which was rounded like helmet with an open visor that covered it single "redeye". It's right arm held a small fast firing machine gun while it's right arm boasted a beam wave device on top of its wrist. Over it's shoulders it carried a Napalm missile launcher that had become increasingly popular amongst many of the younger pilots and a an external radar, which was shaped like two wings, one pointed straight into the sky and one pointing into the ground diagonally. His Armored Core was the most comforting sight to see amongst all the violence.
Maki climbed up his unit via small climbing bars along it's side and entered via a small port on its side. The second his butt touched the core's leather seat, he donned the helmet laying to the chair's side and started up all of its systems. Not even bothering to go through his checklist, he sent the unit into combat mode and his right arm locked into attack mode. "I've got to get the hell out of this place while the core's still occupied with those MTs". Maki said without looking at his radar. His core's external camera finally came on and he was greeted with the site of the camp he was just escaped from burning to the ground with pieces of metal from all it's defending MT's scattered across the landscape. After several scans by his radar it had yet picked up a heat signature of any target, which was very eerie to Maki. "I guess the bastard was here for the Indies only and not me." He said. Relieved he spun his AC around and began boosting westward towards his rendezvous point. He laughed with himself about how he had been lucky once again breezing by death.
Suddenly easily a dozen blips appeared on his radar screen. He gasped trying to out turn the supposed missiles but as he strafed and tried to boost turn out of the arch of the missiles it was to no avail. He clenched his teeth when a dozen or so explosions struck the back and right side of his core.
"What the hell was that?" he yelled.
His question was quickly answered when he spotted a fast moving blip on his radar. The highly detailed sensor tagged the target as red triangle, indicating to Maki that it was at the same elevation as him and indeed hostile.
"The AC" he gasped.
Through his view port he could see a small AC, it's silver and blue colors glinting in the moonlight and it's boosters flickering their red flames. It was a beautiful piece of machinery but it was indeed deadly and could only be admired from far away, or Maki thought. Quickly, The raven's perspective changed when two solid shots assaulted his ac's front chest. It took a moment of shock for Maki to even make sense of the situation he was in and he retreated by taking up into the air backwards. Trying to take the attack to the enemy core, Maki lowered his aim down toward the enemy core and let loose before his unit even got a solid lock. While he was aiming down, the enemy core had been initiating over boost and by the time his shots rained toward the desert sands the enemy core was well behind him.
"Holy shit, it's like he knows what I'm going to do before I even freaking do it. " Maki yelled as turned his core in a circle as quickly as he could.
In doing this maneuver he had completely lost sight of his attacker. His radar gave little more indication but could only tell him that they were close. Suddenly, a realization popped in to his head.
"In circling, I've opened myself up to another missile barrage. He should be bearing down on me soon unless…" Maki frantically thought.
He immediately engaged his AC's overboost system, which in turn opened up two exhaust ports on the back of his core that exploded into a great flame emerging out of his core. This blast of neon white-hot green propelled his AC at nearly a thousand kilometers a second across the desert landscape, and away from imminent danger. Due to quick acceleration that his AC was under going, Maki gritted his teeth at the excruciating pain of his heart pounding hastily, and at disorienting inertia that battled his body's nerves. Despite how much pain he was going through, and how much energy his core was using, Maki wasn't going disengage from over-boosting until his energy was almost gone.
With his energy levels severally dropping he disengaged his over boost system, his core automatically engaging its brakes, but because he was boosting across soft ground his AC simply continued to slide across the sand, forcing him to counter the moment he had worked so hard to gain.
Getting his bearings again, the pilot noticed in the upper left corner of his electronic display that his missile warning had been going off during the entire escape maneuver and that three missiles were dead on his tail. Reflexively, Maki leapt the Bone- Destroyer into air, twisting it to the right, while retreating in the same direction he was heading for before. Meanwhile, the missiles came within fifty meters of him. Maki bit his lip.
The first missile, which was directly in front of him by now, was destroyed by his Emerade core's very own laser missile interception system, safely exploding it in front of him. Even though Maki had pushed his core to the left, the second and third missiles careened in to the destroyer's sides, their pure force throwing the mech aside, weakening his armor as well as exploding metal shrapnel outward. To make matters worse, a siren had been sounding off on his core, his core's cooling unit had reached its limit. Maki knew gravely well that his core's armor was weakening to the building heat pressure inside. A few well-placed shots would go right through the core.
"If I get through this I'm taking my mechanic's advice and getting a more efficient radiator. Maki yelled, as he prepared himself for further onslaught." If I get though this alive."
While his AC had taken damage his silver-blue aggressor had taken into a pursuit after him. The blip neared closer and closer in range of the bone destroyer napalm missile launcher. Maki knew he would need to send a blow equally as brutal, so he switched over to his and missile launcher waiting for it to lock on.
His opponent had shown that they were highly capable and deadly persistent in their pursuit to kill him. They didn't really seem like they were going to let up anytime soon.
The mecha of blue and white cut ahead t. Shooting rounds wildly from its sniper rifle, the unit pressed ahead towards it's prey, knowingly within the range of a deadly weapon.
Maki, who was waiting for the core, grinned like a bastard when he saw that he locked on two missiles at the unit. He jinked to his left as the first shot came, barely squeezing by the round, and then to the right instantly just before the second shot could hit him. "Take this you son of a bitch" Maki yelled, his adrenaline pumping.
A moment later, he fired them at his target and hoped for them to hit. As they shot ahead, he meanwhile switched back to his trusty machine gun while he flew the bone destroyer toward his enemy. In the distance, he saw his enemy, in its lighter core lure his missiles to the right, and take to the left at the last moment, effectively dodging the missile barrage. Undaunted by the miss, Maki slowly came into gun range and when his targeting indicator went red, sprayed bullets from the pistol like machine gun with impunity. His white and blue opponent danced around his targeting screen, boosting to his right, leaping into the air as it gained holes into its armored legs. Maki leapt into the air and circled left attempting to keep the attacker in sights. He looked at his radar for guidance but instead was startled to see that the enemy had found it's way behind him once again. He had given his pursuer all he had and there was barely fight left in Maki. He had to run.
Instinctively, he set the destroyer to overboost like before, gritting his teeth, hoping he would survive for seconds or more. He sensed it might be a moment too late as the booster ignited and shot the unit at the same screaming speed it did before. While enduring the pain of being thrown across the desert at close to the speed of mach one, Maki looked up at his radar again and noticed that the pilot had followed him during over boost at the same speed.
"There's no winning with you is there." Maki snapped at the raven sarcastically over a communication link.
"As if winning was ever an option for you anyways." A soft calm voice of a woman said.
Knowing that he would probably get thrown against the side of core, Maki strafed left during the boost in an attempt to shake the aggressor. Suddenly though, his core pulled out of over boost abruptly and the core screeched to a halt. His energy indicator was empty, a problem that usually resulted in the death of pilots moment later. Maki cursed himself as he heard the sounds of a flaming engine behind him and a screeching halt. A moment later, the pilot felt a rush of white heat from the relatively large energy blade from his opponent, just before the darkness of oblivion gripped him. Explosions rippled, resulting in the death of the unit known as the Bone-Destroyer. The night became silent once again, with its only victor departing towards a safe haven, as well as a hefty payment to look forward.
Chapter One:
"Alright we're giving him just five more minutes." An uneasy Lieutenant Chaltu yelled to his subordinates around him. The lieutenant along with his small military force of light walker assault MT's from the Neo Isaac bureau waited anxiously near a small manufacturing plant on the edge of the massive city. A terrorist group had taken over the building just five hours ago, asking for release of one of their main leaders, Edwin Paulson. Negotiations have slowly deteriorated and in the previous hour the group stated they would kill one of their hostages every hour. By Chaltu's account. There were only about ten minutes until they would kill the first.
"Hold on you got to give the raven some more time, maybe he's just making sure he's chosen the right plan of action." One of his veteran female sergeants pleaded.
"Side tracked my foot if that bastard, what's his name?" The lieutenant started.
"Edge, sir" the sergeant replied
"Right, Edge is probably smoking a god-damned cigarette again. McHale, Get on his com and tell him to move in now, or he could forget about his thirty- thousand." The lieutenant shrieked.
The middle-aged sergeant snapped to attention and punched in some commands into her MT and was quickly able to establish communications with the mercenary.
"Edge, this Sergeant McHale, do you copy?" she called into her head mounted microphone.
"Edge here, go ahead." A grizzly voice replied back.
"You've been ordered by the lieutenant to move in immediately, the terrorists will execute the hostage in just a few minutes and there's no way we're giving into their demands. Make short work of the terrorist and try not to kill any of the hostages." McHale ordered. "I think that's simple enough for an old bastard like your self eh, Edge.?
"Let just say this, if I don't clean them out in five minutes I owe you dinner and a movie, if I can, you owe me a new pack of cigs and a forty ounce of beer."
"Wait but I lose either way, I hate wimpy dates, and I'd have to give you something I love myself." The sergeant laughed.
In an region where the ground is constantly shifting and sand is always concealing what is before you, dark individuals can easily do their business. This is where people like terrorist, criminals, and wanderers thrive to
A high stakes game prologue: Take it or leave it
Over a high sand dune on edge of the Zearm Desert, a meeting amongst a Raven and a representative from the terrorist group, the Indies is being rapped up.
The Raven, who goes by the name Maki, is a bald and rather tall man of Japanese origins. He was dressed in a flight suit that was typical of many of the earth ravens although his suit is brown with green trim, which matches the colors of his Armored Core. It also contained a patch of his emblem across on the left side of his chest, which was comprised of a katana sword and a machine gun crossing each other and a human skull in the middle. His facial features were fairly soft and virtually unscarred for a man in his profession. He had his youth to credit that to.
The colonel, Maki had arranged the meeting with, was not as tall but was in fact a much more stout man than Maki. He carried himself like a stereotypical guerilla commander, walking around the camp shooting off enough machismo to equal a thermonuclear bomb. He was a scruffy face man, who didn't seem to shave to often and judging by his smell, bathe often either. The man also seemed to walk everywhere has if he had been there before. He wore a gray tank top and large camouflage pants along with a camouflage hat with a tiny, gold, metallic leaf on his head signifying he was Colonel.
The meeting was taking place inside of a tent, part of a much larger terrorist camp. They had just begun negotiating the price.
"I couldn't give you the information that I've offered to you for anything less than 100,000 credits, Colonel Hills." Maki spoke, grinning slyly.
Maki knew that the Indies we're looking for any information that could help them in their fight to topple the government. With the dozen or so missions he had done defending their facilities, he had managed to find some opportunities to rob them of crucial information. He would then use this ability to his further funds.
"From what you have told me, I believe it's worth 80,000,the most we're willing to pay any informant. " the scruffy-haired Colonel replied as cigar smoke billowed out of his mouth.
A angered Maki beat his fist against the steel table the two men sat at.
"You have to be kidding me, Colonel, the 80,000 is nice, but what about compensation for all of the danger I took in finding this information. It is surely worth 20,000 more credits." He replied trying to calm himself down.
"If danger is your concern what about all the danger I'm putting my people through for this sale to even take place. For all I know the Earth Government could have followed you out here. Your lucky I've even offered to pay you 80,000. So it's either take it or leave it kid." Hills growled.
Maki was against the wall. He could tell that in this particular situation the ball wasn't in his court. He knew how expensive the cost of operating an AC was getting. So he folded.
"80,000 it is then" he sighed.
The two men extended their hands to each other and shook them confirming the deal.
"It's good that we reached an understanding, I'll get a kid from my technical staff to confirm that the information is accurate at which that point we'll transfer the 80,000 to your account with Concord Corporation." The colonel said proudly. He took his cigar case from what Maki gather and motioned for him to take one. Maki shook his head.
"You young folk now a days you don't have to relax anymore." He preached
Suddenly a young Indies soldier ran in to the tent. He saluted the Colonel as calmly as he could and then spoke.
"Sir, we've just reached contact with a high heat signature approaching the perimeter from the north. It's shaping is common to that of an AC." He replied trembling at the mouth. The Colonel's eyes raised as he turned to cocked his head around at the solider behind him in disbelief
" Order the men to get their MT's immediately, Sergeant" he yelled.
"Yes, Colonel." The man replied, he then darted out of the tent and could already be heard yelling commands at the other men.
"I knew it, you're here to disrupt our operations." The colonel shrieked, rising from his seat.
Maki rose from his seat, bumping into the chair when he moved backwards, while shaking his head in denial.
"I'm not I have no idea how anyone could have possibly found me out here." He argued.
"Well, then you were bugged either way the deal's off. So is your life." The Colonel yelled.
As the Colonel reached for his side arm, a loud, rattling explosion erupted near the tent causing the man to fall to his feet. He scrambled around the sand searching for his sidearm that managed to fall from its holster. A moment later he found it all right, pointed directly at his face and in the hand of Maki.
"No one has ever tried to draw a gun on me and lived Colonel." Maki laughed.
"Same here, Raven" he spoke.
Just has the colonel's words left his mouth, Maki pulled the pistol trigger, which erupted a loud bang, silencing the colonel permanently. He wiped some of the blood that had flown up to his chin with his hand and darted out of Colonel's tent.
Hailing gunfire, and explosions rang off in the east part of the camp signifying the intense fight the colonel's men desperately fought against the attacking AC. Luckily for Maki, his AC wasn't too far west of the Colonel's tent. He ran in the desert night gasping for every breath he could manage as his ran towards his AC. Minutes later, he reached his kneeled down unit, the Bone-Destroyer.
His Armored Core was of a humanoid emerade build, mostly boxy except for its legs of course whose metal muscles were open due to suction cup looking auxiliary boosters, and it's redeye head which was rounded like helmet with an open visor that covered it single "redeye". It's right arm held a small fast firing machine gun while it's right arm boasted a beam wave device on top of its wrist. Over it's shoulders it carried a Napalm missile launcher that had become increasingly popular amongst many of the younger pilots and a an external radar, which was shaped like two wings, one pointed straight into the sky and one pointing into the ground diagonally. His Armored Core was the most comforting sight to see amongst all the violence.
Maki climbed up his unit via small climbing bars along it's side and entered via a small port on its side. The second his butt touched the core's leather seat, he donned the helmet laying to the chair's side and started up all of its systems. Not even bothering to go through his checklist, he sent the unit into combat mode and his right arm locked into attack mode. "I've got to get the hell out of this place while the core's still occupied with those MTs". Maki said without looking at his radar. His core's external camera finally came on and he was greeted with the site of the camp he was just escaped from burning to the ground with pieces of metal from all it's defending MT's scattered across the landscape. After several scans by his radar it had yet picked up a heat signature of any target, which was very eerie to Maki. "I guess the bastard was here for the Indies only and not me." He said. Relieved he spun his AC around and began boosting westward towards his rendezvous point. He laughed with himself about how he had been lucky once again breezing by death.
Suddenly easily a dozen blips appeared on his radar screen. He gasped trying to out turn the supposed missiles but as he strafed and tried to boost turn out of the arch of the missiles it was to no avail. He clenched his teeth when a dozen or so explosions struck the back and right side of his core.
"What the hell was that?" he yelled.
His question was quickly answered when he spotted a fast moving blip on his radar. The highly detailed sensor tagged the target as red triangle, indicating to Maki that it was at the same elevation as him and indeed hostile.
"The AC" he gasped.
Through his view port he could see a small AC, it's silver and blue colors glinting in the moonlight and it's boosters flickering their red flames. It was a beautiful piece of machinery but it was indeed deadly and could only be admired from far away, or Maki thought. Quickly, The raven's perspective changed when two solid shots assaulted his ac's front chest. It took a moment of shock for Maki to even make sense of the situation he was in and he retreated by taking up into the air backwards. Trying to take the attack to the enemy core, Maki lowered his aim down toward the enemy core and let loose before his unit even got a solid lock. While he was aiming down, the enemy core had been initiating over boost and by the time his shots rained toward the desert sands the enemy core was well behind him.
"Holy shit, it's like he knows what I'm going to do before I even freaking do it. " Maki yelled as turned his core in a circle as quickly as he could.
In doing this maneuver he had completely lost sight of his attacker. His radar gave little more indication but could only tell him that they were close. Suddenly, a realization popped in to his head.
"In circling, I've opened myself up to another missile barrage. He should be bearing down on me soon unless…" Maki frantically thought.
He immediately engaged his AC's overboost system, which in turn opened up two exhaust ports on the back of his core that exploded into a great flame emerging out of his core. This blast of neon white-hot green propelled his AC at nearly a thousand kilometers a second across the desert landscape, and away from imminent danger. Due to quick acceleration that his AC was under going, Maki gritted his teeth at the excruciating pain of his heart pounding hastily, and at disorienting inertia that battled his body's nerves. Despite how much pain he was going through, and how much energy his core was using, Maki wasn't going disengage from over-boosting until his energy was almost gone.
With his energy levels severally dropping he disengaged his over boost system, his core automatically engaging its brakes, but because he was boosting across soft ground his AC simply continued to slide across the sand, forcing him to counter the moment he had worked so hard to gain.
Getting his bearings again, the pilot noticed in the upper left corner of his electronic display that his missile warning had been going off during the entire escape maneuver and that three missiles were dead on his tail. Reflexively, Maki leapt the Bone- Destroyer into air, twisting it to the right, while retreating in the same direction he was heading for before. Meanwhile, the missiles came within fifty meters of him. Maki bit his lip.
The first missile, which was directly in front of him by now, was destroyed by his Emerade core's very own laser missile interception system, safely exploding it in front of him. Even though Maki had pushed his core to the left, the second and third missiles careened in to the destroyer's sides, their pure force throwing the mech aside, weakening his armor as well as exploding metal shrapnel outward. To make matters worse, a siren had been sounding off on his core, his core's cooling unit had reached its limit. Maki knew gravely well that his core's armor was weakening to the building heat pressure inside. A few well-placed shots would go right through the core.
"If I get through this I'm taking my mechanic's advice and getting a more efficient radiator. Maki yelled, as he prepared himself for further onslaught." If I get though this alive."
While his AC had taken damage his silver-blue aggressor had taken into a pursuit after him. The blip neared closer and closer in range of the bone destroyer napalm missile launcher. Maki knew he would need to send a blow equally as brutal, so he switched over to his and missile launcher waiting for it to lock on.
His opponent had shown that they were highly capable and deadly persistent in their pursuit to kill him. They didn't really seem like they were going to let up anytime soon.
The mecha of blue and white cut ahead t. Shooting rounds wildly from its sniper rifle, the unit pressed ahead towards it's prey, knowingly within the range of a deadly weapon.
Maki, who was waiting for the core, grinned like a bastard when he saw that he locked on two missiles at the unit. He jinked to his left as the first shot came, barely squeezing by the round, and then to the right instantly just before the second shot could hit him. "Take this you son of a bitch" Maki yelled, his adrenaline pumping.
A moment later, he fired them at his target and hoped for them to hit. As they shot ahead, he meanwhile switched back to his trusty machine gun while he flew the bone destroyer toward his enemy. In the distance, he saw his enemy, in its lighter core lure his missiles to the right, and take to the left at the last moment, effectively dodging the missile barrage. Undaunted by the miss, Maki slowly came into gun range and when his targeting indicator went red, sprayed bullets from the pistol like machine gun with impunity. His white and blue opponent danced around his targeting screen, boosting to his right, leaping into the air as it gained holes into its armored legs. Maki leapt into the air and circled left attempting to keep the attacker in sights. He looked at his radar for guidance but instead was startled to see that the enemy had found it's way behind him once again. He had given his pursuer all he had and there was barely fight left in Maki. He had to run.
Instinctively, he set the destroyer to overboost like before, gritting his teeth, hoping he would survive for seconds or more. He sensed it might be a moment too late as the booster ignited and shot the unit at the same screaming speed it did before. While enduring the pain of being thrown across the desert at close to the speed of mach one, Maki looked up at his radar again and noticed that the pilot had followed him during over boost at the same speed.
"There's no winning with you is there." Maki snapped at the raven sarcastically over a communication link.
"As if winning was ever an option for you anyways." A soft calm voice of a woman said.
Knowing that he would probably get thrown against the side of core, Maki strafed left during the boost in an attempt to shake the aggressor. Suddenly though, his core pulled out of over boost abruptly and the core screeched to a halt. His energy indicator was empty, a problem that usually resulted in the death of pilots moment later. Maki cursed himself as he heard the sounds of a flaming engine behind him and a screeching halt. A moment later, the pilot felt a rush of white heat from the relatively large energy blade from his opponent, just before the darkness of oblivion gripped him. Explosions rippled, resulting in the death of the unit known as the Bone-Destroyer. The night became silent once again, with its only victor departing towards a safe haven, as well as a hefty payment to look forward.
Chapter One:
"Alright we're giving him just five more minutes." An uneasy Lieutenant Chaltu yelled to his subordinates around him. The lieutenant along with his small military force of light walker assault MT's from the Neo Isaac bureau waited anxiously near a small manufacturing plant on the edge of the massive city. A terrorist group had taken over the building just five hours ago, asking for release of one of their main leaders, Edwin Paulson. Negotiations have slowly deteriorated and in the previous hour the group stated they would kill one of their hostages every hour. By Chaltu's account. There were only about ten minutes until they would kill the first.
"Hold on you got to give the raven some more time, maybe he's just making sure he's chosen the right plan of action." One of his veteran female sergeants pleaded.
"Side tracked my foot if that bastard, what's his name?" The lieutenant started.
"Edge, sir" the sergeant replied
"Right, Edge is probably smoking a god-damned cigarette again. McHale, Get on his com and tell him to move in now, or he could forget about his thirty- thousand." The lieutenant shrieked.
The middle-aged sergeant snapped to attention and punched in some commands into her MT and was quickly able to establish communications with the mercenary.
"Edge, this Sergeant McHale, do you copy?" she called into her head mounted microphone.
"Edge here, go ahead." A grizzly voice replied back.
"You've been ordered by the lieutenant to move in immediately, the terrorists will execute the hostage in just a few minutes and there's no way we're giving into their demands. Make short work of the terrorist and try not to kill any of the hostages." McHale ordered. "I think that's simple enough for an old bastard like your self eh, Edge.?
"Let just say this, if I don't clean them out in five minutes I owe you dinner and a movie, if I can, you owe me a new pack of cigs and a forty ounce of beer."
"Wait but I lose either way, I hate wimpy dates, and I'd have to give you something I love myself." The sergeant laughed.
In an region where the ground is constantly shifting and sand is always concealing what is before you, dark individuals can easily do their business. This is where people like terrorist, criminals, and wanderers thrive to