Disclaimer: I don't own Freedom Wars, which was developed by SCE Japan Studio and published by Sony Computer Entertainment.
Introduction: I recently played FW on a friend's Vita, reached CODE 8, and began fantasizing like crazy. When I saw only four FW pieces uploaded on this site, I suddenly felt I HAD to write. My story runs parallel to the game's plot, but is primarily my own work, with my own cast and plot. Don't get your hopes up, but please, enjoy.
Warning: This story might need serious editing at times, and may also be abandoned at any time. I apologize in advance.
Chapter 1: The Team
There's something about facing down a giant robot of war that threatens to stop one's heart every time. Maybe it's the appearance that gets people.
"Contact! Look sharp!" shouted the team leader, a woman named Sheena.
The Abductor, as it was called, was a hulking frame of alabaster alloy lined with a network of Will'O cables running all across it, like glowing golden veins on the skeleton of a monstrous titan. The horned head, the glowing spines protruding from its back, and each fist about as big as myself, all of it made the Abductor that much more terrifying.
"It's an all-purpose biped type, gattling guns on the arms!"
Maybe it's the weapons. Oftentimes, there's no telling what it's packing until it's visible, and this one had a pair of massive multi-barreled machine guns, one strapped to each arm. Seeing both aimed right at me, hearing them rev up, was nothing short of nightmare fuel.
I thrust my arm out, activating the barbed grappling tool there, my Thorn. It caught a wall, and I pulled myself to a section on the machine's side. While clinging to the wall with one hand, I glanced back at my allies.
There was the leader, cautious Sheena, who had opted to launch herself up instead of forward, and was now dangling from a broken window on the fifth floor of a ruined building. William was as usual, lazily sliding into a crater in the ground, completely nonchalant about the bullets pelting the ground around him. Mae, a low-ranking CODE 2 like William and myself, had... somehow avoided gunfire by recklessly charging straight at the Abductor.
I clicked my tongue and tapped one of the two enormous black boxes on my hip, materializing a submachine gun in my free hand. I opened fire, hoping to draw its attention. It worked, until Mae whipped out her grenade launcher. The Abductor looked at me, took a grenade each to the leg and head, and decided it wanted to stomp Mae instead. She narrowly avoided its foot, but the impact's shockwave was enough to knock her to the ground.
No choice. I fired my Thorn at the Abductor's shoulder, and leapt once it hooked. I clambered up onto its shoulder and reached my weapon down to my other black box, my second Will'O Alternator. The submachine gun disappeared, replaced by a large glaive. I adjusted my precarious balance atop the moving giant and began swinging, tearing away at the armor around its face, the glowing shoulder joint beneath my feet, and the horned head whenever it turned in my direction.
"Move, Mae!" I yelled, not letting my twirling blade relent for even a moment.
She obliged, using her own Thorn to pull herself to another nearby wall. She continued firing with her grenade launcher, but more slowly and deliberately to avoid hitting me, instead aiming for the shining pod in the beast's core. One foot wasn't pressed to the wall, normally a necessity to avoid swaying while firing on a vertical surface. Did she hurt her leg?
The Abductor jerked its upper body back, throwing me off easily. It warmed up its guns again as it turned to face me, but I simply launched the Thorn again mid-drop and climbed onto its other shoulder, immediately continuing my little blade dance from before.
I saw a green glow out of the corner of my eye, and turned my head slightly to see Sheena patching Mae up with the power of her Thorn variant, a Healing Thorn. As she hefted up her enormous double missile launcher, I also heard her hissing over the radio.
"You don't really have amnesia, do you, Rhom? No CODE 2 Sinner fights like that."
"It's the everyday stuff that disappeared!" I answered back in a loud voice. It wasn't easy speaking calmly while shifting around on a swaying war robot. "Faces, names, using the toilet, that kind of stuff. Looks like my battle instincts are still around 'cuz I'm running on pure intuition here!"
"I don't believe this shaz. I've never had intuition like that," Sheena said as her missiles homed in on the Abductor's other arm, tearing it off with a tremendous explosion.
Would it make her happier if I stopped showing off? Maybe I should. She may look look young, but everyone in the 'Con knows that spiky but stylish red-and-black head as the "Matriarch." It wouldn't do to rouse her fans. After all, there's not much else in a Panopticon to rouse its denizens.
Halfway through another slicing technique, my eardrums suddenly exploded. The Abductor had roared a deafening howl that was akin to grinding steel, reminding all that the creature was mad beast as well as killing machine. I tumbled, all equilibrium gone as I struggled to figure out which way was up. A Thorn shot from a distance latched onto my arm, slowing my descent and helping me land properly. I looked up to see that Mae had moved into the gaping hole of another mostly destroyed building. I gave her a nod as she retracted her Thorn.
Suddenly, a burst of three well-aimed rounds pelleted the Abductor right in its shining core. An audible crack sounded as the Abductor fell to its knees. It wasn't down, not really, but this was our chance. I ran around its arm to reposition myself.
"About time you joined us, William," muttered Sheena.
"Waiting for mah chance," he said in his usual sluggish manner. "Dun much like wasting bullets."
"So you made us use up our munitions instead?!" Mae shouted over the radio.
I completely agreed with Mae's annoyance, but at the same time, I was a little impressed. Breaking the pod with his assault rifle would take maybe a hundred rounds. How did he know the exact timing to finish it with a single burst?
I fired my Thorn again, this time at the cracked pod. I landed, positioned my feet, and reached in.
"Ah," came a timid voice.
Spooked round eyes looked up at me beneath the soft fringe of wavy bob-cut white hair. She was tiny, as all Citizens were genetically engineered to be, in the standard white uniform with its excessive red array of giant pockets trailing from the waist. I grabbed her hand and pulled herself into my arms, cradling her as I hopped down from the Abductor.
"The RRU has landed," Sheena said curtly. "Get moving."
She had switched to her massive Kannagi-model sword, and was holding a power stance in front of the Abductor, which was beginning to get up. The moment I stepped past, she cut loose with a great swing, following up with a number of devastating blows to the Abductor's legs. Mae and William had each moved to an arm, and were busy sawing and prying off the huge machine gun-mounted bracers with their curved Murasame Mk. 9 swords.
"Guide me," I said to the Citizen as I took off.
Her Personal Responsibility Portal was synched to mine because of our proximity, so she could check the map while I did the running. She was a bit flustered, but she quickly pulled out her portal and relayed directions.
Once she did, she looked up at me again with those round dark eyes. And her eyes stayed on me.
Fortunately, I didn't have to deal with her stare for too long. Familiar faces came into view.
"Base defense successful," one such face said in a feminine, but entirely robotic voice. "Twenty-two small-type Abductors eliminated. Please hurry to RRU."
These faces looked completely human, but they weren't human. They were Eudaemonic Facilitation Units, or Accessories as everyone called them. My team left them here to guard our exit route, and it was my personal Accessory who had just addressed me.
I rounded a corner and a rocket-equipped pod came into sight. A Resource Reclamation Unit, or RRU for short. It always felt a little strange to call Citizens "resources," but that's what skilled workers were to Panopticons, and our home was no different.
I set the Citizen down and spoke into my headset, telling them the Citizen was secured and that we were done here. But when I looked back, she was still there, still not inside the RRU.
"What is it?" I asked. "This RRU will take you back to the transport while we secure our withdrawal."
"Umm!" she said. "My name is Marisa Jehen! Thank you for saving me!"
I was taken aback. For one thing, Citizens generally didn't introduce themselves. They kept getting kidnapped and forced to work for other 'Cons, after all. For another thing, Citizens generally didn't thank Sinners. It was usually, "What took you so long, you piece of garbage?!" or, "About time, you waste of resources!" or my personal favorite, "Where do you think you're touching, you disgusting leech on society?! Learn to carry a lady without touching her, you disposable bottom feeder!"
...Anyway, I decided to introduce myself as well.
"Rhom Atwater, CODE 2 Sinner. My callsign is 'Forgetful.'"
"Why 'Forgetful'?" she asked innocently, tilting her head.
"Apparently, this is my second time coming down with amnesia," I answered, starting to get impatient. The faster she got in the pod, the faster we could go home to the Typhon Panopticon.
"How did you get amnesia twice?"
"I don't remember," I said irritably.
"Oh, come on, I'm sure someone told you what-"
"I'm not listening to this," I said as I stuffed her in the RRU. "Go home. Bother me later. Actually, don't bother me at all."
"Wait! I-" The pod closed, and the rockets heated up.
Suddenly, from my radio came, "Sentence extended by twenty years for the crime of: Non-Compliance. Failure to comply with the wishes of any Panopticon representative constitutes a violation of the State Directive on Obedience for the Purposes of Joy and Prosperity."
It was my Accessory. Following that was Sheena's voice.
"Rhom! What did you do?!"
"I did nothing, I swear. Accessory, we are on a battlefield. Don't my words take precedence over a Citizen's idle curiosity?"
"Please direct all complaints to the Office of Peace and Stability."
Chapter Endnote: It got a little silly there at the end, but here's my first chapter; hopefully, later chapters will be longer. As you may have noticed with the RRU, I'll be taking a few liberties with how technology and society works, mostly because I don't know how they're supposed to be. Hope you liked it.