Preface (Recently Added)
The purpose of was twofold. To write, and finish, a book about Armored Core. And to provide a benchmark, to see where I am with my writing. Immediately after I finished and uploaded this, I went to work learning more about how to improve my writing. Looking at this now, it's bad but not lost. I plan on coming back and revising the book later on before moving on to the second. But it will be a while before I do that since I'm working on another non-fanfiction book. I'll probably revise this as I work on that.
Prologue
The flames danced in the air as if celebrating the destruction that had created them. Broken metal lay scattered across the ground. Voices of men and women echoed through the air. It was dark but the light from the false moon illuminated the ruined city beneath the dome.
Men and women dressed in uniforms scurried from one place to another. They were panicking. Something like this had never happened before. Vehicles came on to the battlefield, unloading crews and their equipment. The crew managers were shouting orders to their workers as they frantically attempted to do... something.
One of the crews had gathered at a large piece of metal. They used blowtorches to create openings in the metal. After a few minutes, they had created a large hole and from that hole they pulled out a young man. He wore a half a helmet and a form-fitted black pilot's suit. At least, it would have been black if it were not stained dark red with blood. The crew pulled him out and signaled another crew, a medical crew, to assist them. The medical crew put the injured pilot on a stretcher. The kept him on his stomach due to the large piece of metal protruding from his lower back. The medical crew moved very slowly, not daring to remove or even touch the metal without the proper equipment.
Similar scenes played out in four other locations nearby. One crew pulled another bloody pilot out from flaming wreckage and found that his arm had been mangled beyond recognition. A second crew carried a screaming woman whose bloody eyes were being bandaged as she was moved. From a third wreck, a crew pulled out an unconscious man who had many broken and shattered bones. A woman had pulled herself from her machine in the last wreck. She sat on the ground in a fetal position, crying as she held herself tight.
Further from the scene, three machines, Armored Cores, stood. Their shadows were cast on the ground thanks to the flames from the wrecks of the other five ACs. The three machines had not a single scratch on them and no one would ever suspect that they had caused the destruction whose aftermath was being witnessed by people across the world. The ACs stood still but their shadows danced on the ground, like demons celebrating their triumph.
Around the world, people watched their television screens on the edge of their seats and listened to their radios with their ears close to the speakers. They were waiting for the silence to break. Eventually it did. "The battle has ended," said a voice filled with awe and disbelief, "team Dread Scythe... has defeated the champs...".