After many decades of setbacks, scientists have managed to find a way to fold space and time. … Deep space explorers have discovered a dense zone of habitable planets, and everyone's calling it a new Frontier. … Doctor Hammond, now as I understand it the IMCs refueling facility here at Demeter is vital for travel between the core and the Frontier. … Decades long tensions exploded into an all-out war on the Frontier today. … The group calling themselves the Militia have conducted numerous raids on IMC garrisons. … Vice Admiral Graves, you and Captain MacAllan have a long history of successful operations against the Milita. What do you think made him turn, Admiral? Why did MacAllan betray you? … Short on fuel and supplies, the 1st Militia Fleet is unlikely to survive their next encounter with the IMC battle group in pursuit.
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"Run!"
That word, screamed out by a grunt as he stumbled backwards in an attempt to get away from the mass of explosions before him, was the exact thing that was tearing through Michael 'Archer' Keenan's mind. And frankly, the pilot had to agree.
Explosions rocked the earth around him, a deafening cocophony that all but drowned out the gunfire that roared in every direction. Dirt was thrown up against his visor, small pieces of dirt and other debris raining down as the building he was hiding behind was hammered from enemy fire. "Team, give me a sitrep!" he shouted, praying that someone from his squad would give him a response.
"I'm pinned at site Bravo!" There, a response. From the sound of it, that was Lara 'Angel' Grier, his second in command. "There's enemy titans out there and my charge rifle is out of juice!"
"Copy that, is anyone else up?" Michael asked. A moment later came another response.
"Hang in there, Angel, my titan just dropped." That was James 'Finnick' Marshton, the team's heavy weapons specialist. "Give me two clicks and I'll be there."
"Copy that," Lara said, clearly in relief. "My titan's still being rebuilt, if you can just buy me some time that'll be great."
"Hey Fin," Michael said. "You have to rush past Alpha, I've got an enemy squad here who has me pinned. Mind picking me up?"
"Not a problem," James said. Michael could almost see the grin on his face, and before long a thunderous boom of several dozen tons of metal stomping its way towards his location could be heard. There was the sound of rockets firing, followed swiftly after by screams from across the street as the enemies suppressing him were blasted away. "Hey Archer, ride's here," James said.
The pilot turned the corner and sprinted for the silver-gray foot that stood in the middle of the road. Once he reached the base, without so much as looking up, Michael jumped and leaned back, the thruster pack attached to his waist activating and sending him further upwards, until he could grab onto the back of the friendly titan. "Thanks for the help, now let's go help Angel."
"Roger that," James said, just before the titan began moving on. A series of gunfire erupted from ahead, making Michael duck reflexively. Thankfully, however, the massive Ogre chasis of his teammates' titan was bulky enough to block the small arms fire, not to mention the shielding system which automatically repelled the majority. "Mind taking out the little guys for me?"
Without a word, Michael pushed himself back up and leveled his Hemlock BF-R with one hand, letting out a grunt of irritation as he struggled to aim at the grunts that were firing at them. "Would be a lot better if you held still," he hissed.
"You wanna be red paste?" James shot back. "Didn't think so."
Rolling his eyes, Michael slowly kept his aim to where he assumed the enemy grunts were. Movement caught his eye – a clean white against the brown and green of shrubbery. With the pull of a trigger, the gun spat out a three-round burst, and his target let out a cry – one down. Shifting his aim to the other targets who were less hidden, Michael began to give the trigger a squeeze for each one – a single cry from every target letting him know that, despite the rough ride, he had managed to hit every grunt.
"Alright Angel, backup has arrived," James said, rounding the corner of a small shop-like building. Immediately, the Ogre titan began to fire its quad rocket launcher, the four missiles spiraling downrange towards the other two titans that were firing away at Angel's location.
Michael slung his Hemlock and pulled out his Archer anti-titan missile launcher. Briefly freeing his other hand and, after being thankful for the magnetic connection his boots gave him to the titan for balance, he unfolded the small folding screen attached to his weapon and took aim. Down the street, the enemy titan he had chosen – an Atlas class titan wielding a 40mm cannon – and watched as a large yellow circle began to form around it. As soon as the circle shrank down over his target and turned orange, accompanied by a small beeping sound, he fired, sending the rocket speeding towards his foe. He kept the sights trained on the Atlas titan to ensure the lock-on held until the rocket crashed into it with enough power to take down the shields and cause clear damage, before lowering the weapon to cycle in a new rocket.
With a sigh of relief, he began to bring up the sights of his anti-titan weapon again, until a scream sounded in his ear – Angel. Michael turned his head to look at Bravo site, cursing as he saw a second titan rounding the corner: Another Atlas class with an XO-16 Chaingun. "Angel?" he asked, hoping against hope for a response – cringing at finding none. "Fin, we need to pull out of here, we're outnumbered!"
"You think I don't know that?" James spat back, turning to face the newcomer. There was a rush as the titan beneath Michael's feet dashed backwards, and a wall of blue formed ahead of them just in time to block the chaingun titan's fire. James kept firing his titan's weapon as Michael took careful aim with his rocket launcher, waiting until the lock-on had completed before firing again. As he lowered the weapon to load in another shot, he felt his heart sink. The Atlas titan had its off-hand outstreched with a faintly blue, ever-changing circle forming around its hand. He knew what it was – a vortex shield, designed to catch and repel incoming projectiles. It currently held nine objects – four of James' rockets, and one of Michael's anti-titan rockets.
And to make matters worse, the particle wall that was keeping the two safe was turning yellow, a sign of it failing at any moment.
"Fin, get us out of here!" Michael shouted.
"I'm trying!" James shouted back, his titan backpedaling as quickly as it was able. It wasn't fast enough, however, as the particle wall fell before the friendly titan could turn the corner to relative safety. At that same moment, the chaingun titan's vortex shield dropped, firing back the set of rockets straight at James and his titan.
Left with no other option, Michael pushed himself off the titan and towards the nearest building, grabbing onto the roof's edge and pulling himself up. James let out a loud, spiteful groan as he continued to fire his rockets down the street at the enemy, but the roar of the enemy titan's chaingun and 40mm cannon were his response.
"Good luck, Archer," James, said, letting out a laugh that was quickly drowned out by the sound of his titan exploding, and him with it. Pieces of metal fell from the sky as Michael scrambled up onto the roof and sprinted further down the street. He needed a new plan, and fast – his entire team was down, gone, and he had a mission to complete. Still, there was only so much one could do against two enemy titans with so few rockets left.
Then, his salvation appeared – a small indicator in the bottom right of his helmet's HUD that pinged, notifying him that his titan was ready. Immediately and without hesitation, he tapped one of the buttons on the forearm of his suit, signaling to call it in. The usual confirmation of his giant metal backup was drowned out as a single 40mm round blasted over his head, slamming into the wall ahead of him and showering him in rubble.
Michael barely stumbled, however, instead focusing on his objective: The indicator of where his titan would land, just beyond the building at the far end of the street. All he had to do was get to that, and he would be golden, that was it. He just had to keep running, and-
The ground beneath Michael erupted in a deafening boom, sending him skyward. He spun end over end in the air before beginning a descent back to earth, the street quickly rising up to meet him. The moment he made contact with the uncaring pavement, his breath was knocked out of him, leading the pilot to gasp for air as he tried in vain to force himself to his feet. The ominous booming of giant metal feet behind was not a good sign, and if he wanted to make it out of this he needed to move fast.
Another explosion threw him back into the air, sending him further along the street and onto his back. Michael fumbled around for his weapons, dismayed to find that both his anti-titan and primary weapons were where he had last landed. He stared further up the street, eyes widening under his helmet at seeing the chaingun-wielding Atlas titan thundering towards him. In a panic, Michael scrambled for the only weapon he had left – his Hammond P2011, a simple pistol he knew would do next to nothing to the metal behemoth storming towards him.
Yet, still desperate to fight, he opened fire – dumping all twelve of his shots into the titan before trying to reload. By this time, however, it was too late, and the titan was too close. The last thing he saw was the underside of a metal foot twice his size bearing down on him from above.
( )
Michael coughed and sat forward, eyes held firmly shut as he steadied his breathing. The pod door before him opened up slowly, revealing beyond a circular room lined with similar pods to his own. A group of people waited before him – including Finnick and Angel, both of whom gave him an apologetic look. He just shook his head and slowly pried himself from the pod, groaning as his stiff limbs protested at the sudden movement.
"At least you tried, right?" Lara asked, nudging Michael with her elbow, brown eyes warm as she tried to find a silver lining to their defeat.
"If you call getting blown up twice, then stepped on 'trying', yeah," Michael muttered bitterly. He didn't see the disappointment in Lara's eyes as he turned to James, reaching up and ruffling what little bit of a 'fro he had grown. "As for you, you need to work on your titan loadouts. Big and bulky works as a pilot, but sometimes we need more mobility when were forty-foot tall mechs, yeah?"
"Yes, Mooom," James snickered, batting away Michael's hand. The three let out a chuckle, before turning to see two of the other pods open up, the rest of his squad members emerging. There was Stuart 'Hunter' Fisher, the team's sniper and sabatoge expert, as well as the squad leader: Allison 'Ceres' Wilde.
Everyone gave some form of greeting to the two, offering a 'congrats' on their win and reviewing mistakes made by each team. Finally, Michael asked: "Alright, so which one of you decided it would be funny to run all over me?"
Stu held up his hands in innocence. "Hey, you know that's not my style."
Michael turned to Allison, placing his hands on his hips. "So I'm assuming it was you?" Allison just grinned in response, making Michael shake his head. "You're such a jerk," he muttered.
"Correction," she chuckled. "I'm a winner."
The group let out a small laugh at that. Lara leaned over to Michael, muttering "She seems really happy. I haven't heard her even try to crack a joke since our old CO went AWOL."
Michael nodded and was about to respond, when the doors to the room slid open, letting in Admiral Graves and two pilots hidden away behind their helmets. Immediately, all five squad members stood at attention, backs straight and eyes ahead as they shouted a single greeting.
Graves didn't pay even acknowledge their greeting, instead looking over the five pilots before walking up to Allison. "Pilot, I want you up to the briefing room in five. We'll be planetside in less than twenty minutes and I need all available pilots on the ground as soon as possible. Have the rest of your squad suit up and prepare to drop. Understood?"
"Sir, yes sir!" Allison nearly shouted.
"Good." Admiral Graves turned on his heels and began to walk from the room, leaving the five pilots in silence. It was a bit strange for the Admiral to come give this order himself – but then again, he was always a sort of wild card in the IMC. He had a tendency to command soldiers from the ground, rather than in the safety of an orbiting ship.
"You heard the man, move it, pilots! He said we have twenty minutes, get suited up in ten! Move it!" Allison spoke loudly and with clear authority, every member of her squad shouting an affirmative before heading out of the room and towards their destination – the changing rooms.
Today was going to be a crazy day, Michael could already tell.
[ ( ) ]
There is is, the first part of my (currently) only non-Zootopia story. I do apologize if it seems rushed or a bit of a mess... It's the result of a sleep-deprived me feeling the need to write before I could sleep. For the record, this story is set somewhere between Titanfall and Titanfall 2, but is closer to the first game.