Armoured Core One-Shot – Death of Hades
This is a side story to my large story rivals for life… it is sort of a prequel to rivals for life.
Summary – prequel to rivals for life. With a new MT been produced, 2 test pilots are chosen from the Mars academy to test pilot the new MT's. All seem fine until the 2 receive a distress call…
Disclaimer as always
I do not own AC
I do own Chaos, Hades and Dusk. And I own the designs for AC God of War and AC Death Stalker (I was recruited to help my friend create the AC's during the time of there construction. He had never played AC before and I had been playing AC2 from the day it was released, he got it more than a year later. But the designs I planned out for him never failed once.)
Death of Hades
Chapter 1 – The Choice
Hundreds of Pilots are lining up in the MT Hanger of the Mars Academy, all the pilots are wearing black overalls, the official uniform of the Mars Academy. There is a group of official looking men walking up and down the line inspecting the pilots. After a few minutes they stop and walk to the centre where a podium has been set up. Behind the podium, there are 2 MT's, both of them are exactly the same, both duel legged with double beam swords. On the back is an experimental energy system/booster, the system will allow up to 10 time's normal speed and up to 50 times normal energy output.
"I am glad to see so many pilots have turned up to witness the first proper test of the new MT technology. It has been decided that 2 pilots from this academy will be the test pilots. Any of you present here is a potential candidate to be the test pilot, the pilots will be chosen through grades, skills and potential ability."
The leader of the group steps down and walks over to a group of teachers and takes a pile of papers. He quickly flips through the papers and takes 2 papers out. He walks back up to the podium and speaks again
"The choice has been made. The pilots when I call your name shall walk forward and join me up on this podium. Ok First pilot, Codename 'Hades'… second pilot, Codename 'Chaos'"
No one moves forward at first. The guy shouts again
"PILOT HADES AND PILOT CHAOS STEP FORWARD AND JOIN ME ON THIS PODIUM!"
A guy with short white hair steps forward. He is not wearing the overalls everyone else is wearing. He is just wearing a black shirt and a pair of black jeans. The guy has a smirk on his face as he walks up to the podium.
"Please tell me which of the two pilots are you?"
"I'm pilot Hades. And trust me you have made the correct choice in choosing me for this mission."
"That's good to know… PILOT CHAOS THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE… STEP FORWARD OR A DIFFERENT PILOT WILL BE CHOOSEN."
They wait a bit longer and the guy is just about to speak when he is stopped by the sound of a door been flung open hitting a wall. They all look over to the door and see a Young looking boy. He has long black hair, which reaches, about half down his back, he is wearing sunglasses to cover his eyes, and wearing a bandanna around his neck pulled up over his mouth and lower part of his face. For his clothes he is wearing a pair of black jeans with chains hanging off them, he has a black sleeveless shirt on and a long black leather coat without any sleeves, on his arm there is a tattoo, which looks like the biohazard symbol upside down.
"I'm here… No need to worry… Like I would miss this chance…"
He walks up to the podium and stands next to Hades. From looking at the two pilots', anyone would say they were twins. Apart from their hair been different there is no obvious difference in their looks. The official looks at the two and turns to the crowd of pilots
"These two pilots shall represent this academy with the tests of the new MT." He turns back to Pilot Chaos and Pilot Hades and says
"The tests will start in one hour. I hope you two will be on time for that"
He walks down and all the pilots are dismissed.
"Damn this guy is an ass"
"Give him a chance Chaos, he only acted like an ass towards us because we were late."
"No been late for me later then. I'm staying right here."
"I have no reason to go anywhere… I might as well stay here as well"
Chaos smirks and sits down on the podium. Hades throws a pack of cards down in front of Chaos
"You up for a game?"
"Why not… usual bet?"
"Sure"
Hades opens his wallet and finds nothing apart from a picture in there. He takes it out and looks at it for a few seconds before putting it back
"Looks like we going to have to go for a friendly no betting game"
"I saw you looking at the picture… there is no need to hide it… you were in love with the girl. And from the looks of her it was easy to see why"
"I'm going to go back see her one day… I shouldn't have left it how I did. Maybe I should have told her how I felt."
"From the sound how you left, it is obvious that she still had feeling for you"
"Forget about it… make the game a loan and then after I win you will be down double…"
"No way… last time that actually happened and I was out double."
"Come on"
"We play no bet or not at all"
"No bet then"
Chaos deals out the cards and they start playing. After a number of hands have been dealt and won by either player. Chaos says
"This is boring me with out any cash on the line"
"You are addicted to gambling aren't you?"
"Not entirely… but I guess to an outside viewer it is easy to see why one would think that"
"Yeah right… if you're not addicted to gambling then I am not in love with Dusk."
"Well looks like your not in love with Dusk because I am not addicted to gambling."
"Yeah right… she never knew this but I told her sister that I was leaving before I told her. We worked out a plan since they weren't on good terms as it was we ran a story that I had been told that Dusk didn't care about me and I left to go with her sister. Of course we were never really together we just made it seem like we were. It may have hurt her but I just loved Dusk to much to leave her."
"Damn man that sounds like you put her through hell. It would have been easier to just have broken it off."
"I couldn't I tried more than 100 times to just tell her that I was leaving and that we would have to break up. But every time I couldn't do it. In the end I gave up and let her sister deal with it. I hated myself so much."
"Sounds like you had it bad."
"It could have been worse…"
"Yeah like how?"
"I could have left without getting to say goodbye to her."
"That must have been so hard to leave… her been there and all"
"It was hard anyway. But her presence just made it harder"
Hades takes out his wallet and takes the picture of Dusk out of it. He looks at the young girl in the picture, she has long black hair which goes off the bottom of the picture, she is wearing a red dress and has a red rose placed in her hair. Hades remembers that was basically there first date, it was the academy dance. He had used up every bit of confidence he had just to ask her to be his date. She of course had said yes, she was one of the few younger students to get asked to the dance. Hades had been nervous beyond compare the entire night. But they had talked, laughed at people, danced through out the night. It was only the end of the night which had brought about them becoming a couple. Hades had walked her to her dorm room, as they were saying there goodbyes Hades had gotten a bust of confidence and had kissed her. He hadn't known what had come over him and pulled away apologising to her only to have her kiss him in mid sentence.
"Hades, WAKE UP… QUIT DAY DREAMING"
Hades looks up quickly realising he had been staring at the picture for a prolonged length of time.
"Chaos, if you ever meet Dusk don't tell her about this."
"Seriously man what are the odds I will ever even go to earth"
"Who knows… for all you know you could get a mission on earth. And just happen to meet her"
"Seriously… if I do go to earth on a mission the odd are a billion to one I will actually even catch a glimpse of her"
"Yeah your right. I wonder how she is"
Hades returns to his sort of day dream like state and Chaos starts to get annoyed
"Ok you going in to dream states all the time is getting annoying… the moment the holidays start we going to hitch a ride to Earth and I going to drag you to go see this girl you are so obviously in love with"
"Give me a break Chaos… at least I had a girlfriend. Unlike you"
"I resent that… I did have a girlfriend and I got rid of her as quickly as possible. She was intolerable and needy and I just couldn't deal with her obsession with money"
"her obsession with money should have been nothing to you… I mean you have an endless bank account."
"that means nothing in this day and age… it was the fact that as a gift she would want jewellery which costs nearly 100,000 credits."
Hades just starts laughing at the reaction from Chaos before showing his winning hand of a royal flush. Chaos sighs and just show his very bad bluff. Hades collects up the cards and the 2 play a couple more games trying to stay off the subject of each others passed love lives.
Finally the alarm on Hades watch goes off informing the two pilots that the hour is nearly up. They quickly collect up the cards and quickly get up on to the podium awaiting the arrival of the officials to give them permission to begin the testing.
They don't have to wait long, as less than a minute after they get up on the podium the officials enter the garage along with the Academy commander and the leading members of the teaching staff.
End of Chapter 1
This is going to be 3 chapters
This first chapter was them getting choosen
The next will be the actual test
The final one is the aftermath