A/N: I've been lazy/learning for a long long time but I've decided to rewrite Dark Raven since I was too young and inexperienced at the time (I'm only 14 now). I'm really busy with other stuff in life so I will try to update this as much as I can. Anyways I've decided to give this story a much deeper plot and such. This story will have three parts, part one which starts at Lucy's childhood since my other one was kinda too plotless and anime-ish. Anyways this chapter just introduces Lucy and the NEXTs, the first part will be mainly told from Lucy's POV.
-Key
OOOOO Location/POV change
"Italics" flashbacks/misc.
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Chapter One: Lucy
"There's no time!"
"Be we have think of another way!"
"No way the Bugs will be all over us any minute! We've already lost all the MTs guarding this place and the perimeter guns are overheating."
"Mama, what's happening?"
"Honey, you have to go to sleep now."
"What? But I don't..."
"Don't worry, you'll wake up again."
"Will you be there mama?"
"I'll always be with you..."
OOOOO
"Will it hurt?"
"Of course not its just a flu shot."
Lucy winced as the needle penetrated her arm. For as long as she had been alive, Lucy remembered getting these "flu shots" every year. When she had asked her uncle why, he told her it was to keep her from getting sick. As far as she was concerned, the flu was the least of her worries.
"There!" the doctor said in a warm tone. "All better now isn't it? That didn't hurt one smiget."
What was a smiget, Lucy wondered. She wiped some blood form the spot on her arm softly where the needle had been inserted as the doctor turned around and looked through the opposite cupboard for a small bandage. After rummaging around for a few minutes, the doctor turned around with a light-blue bandage. Though Lucy was reluctant at first she allowed him to put it on her. She also noted that he smelled slightly of burnt leaves.
Lucy was a small girl, only nine years old, with silvery blond hair and innocent green eyes that were full of wonder and curiosity. She wore a jean skirt with white knee-length socks, a pair of boots and a dark blue shirt which she concealed under her jacket as the doctor let her go. Instantly she hid behind another man, he simply patted her on the head and thanked the doctor. She never liked the doctor, he didn't have the same aura about him as her uncle Sam did and it made her rather uncomfortable around the man.
"You're still scared of me I see." The doctor said with a playful frown.
"She'll grow to like you." The Sam replied with a friendly tone.
"I hope your right Sam." The doctor said with a laugh. "If she's anything like your sister then maybe she'll hit me with something at me next time you two visit."
Sam laughed. "Don't get your hopes up my friend."
The two left the office with Lucy sticking out her tongue at the doctor.
"That man is scary." Lucy said in a terrified tone. Her uncle simply laughed.
"Why are you so scared of him? He's a friend of ours," Lucy blinked a few times in astonishment, "don't you remember when he came over for Christmas dinner?"
"Ya!" Lucy piped up but then immediately turned sour-faced. "Then he asked me if I was eating my vegetables!"
Her uncle smiled and said, "Didn't u say you were hungry before this? Come on, I think we can still catch breakfast if we hurry!"
Lucy smiled and followed him. Her uncle Sam—for as long as she could remember—had always cared for her and above all, was always kind to her unless she did something terribly wrong like shaving their neighbor's cat. From what she heard from eavesdropping during family reunions her uncle had participated in the Great War from back then, though she highly doubted that anyone like him would have done something like that.
The "Rising Sun Café" was always the highlight of Lucy's day. Even though they only went there once or twice a year since Sam was always using his money to care for Lucy and himself. But today was different, he had saved up enough money to take them both. Usually he brought enough so that Lucy could get anything she wanted off the menu, of course she in turn always made sure to leave enough so that Sam could get whatever he wanted as well. That was usually nothing but a cup of bitter brown milk she had come to know as coffee. Lucy never understood why adults like Sam and the others in the restaurant liked to drink the stuff, it was not as good as milk and certainly not better than juice. Sam had simply told her, "it's our special milk", and patted her on the head. After that she gave up asking him.
Lucy skipped along happily ahead of Sam, running through the door and saying hi to their usual customers who had grown used to seeing them from time to time.
"Haven't seen you here in a while Samuel." An older woman said as the man walked in, "Business slower than usual?"
"Good morning Gina!" Lucy chimed as she walked up to sit at the counter.
Gina was a slightly larger than normal woman who was in her mid-forties. Lucy had come to like her a lot as she always gave her something special every time she and Sam came to eat. Gina was a very kind person who scolded Sam whenever Lucy was lectured by him.
"And how are we doing today princess?" Gina asked with a smile.
"I got my flu shot today!" Lucy said flashing the waitress her biggest smile, and showing off her bright bandage.
"Such a pretty smile! I think you deserve extra pancakes today!" the woman said. Sam laughed and ordered a coffee and the daily newspaper. Lucy sat on the barstools impatiently swinging her legs back and forth and spinning on the chair. Gina brought Sam his coffee and newspaper. The two began to exchange a few words and compliments, then began reminiscing with one another, talking of the things they did as children and the long faded war. Most of the time they laughed as they told the one another of the ridiculous things they did in their youth.
"Will you have the regular again Lucy?" Gina asked.
"Ya!" Lucy chimed. "With extra syrup."
"Well I'll see what George can cook up."
With that she disappeared behind a swinging door. Lucy then turned her attention to the window across from her. Outside she could see gray clouds beginning to form in the once blue, clear sky. She never liked it when it rained. Whenever it rained it made her think about all the things that saddened her, each raindrop she saw as a piece of her less-memorable experiences. To her rain was melancholy. The mere sight of it depressed her, and she didn't know why.
"Where's my food!?" Lucy whined as the thought of breakfast was suddenly dumped back into her mind. The cook brought it out from the back. What would have been a regular dish to any man or woman seemed like a feast to Lucy. She wasn't used to eating so much during breakfast, and she stared rather childishly in awe at the plate in front of her (of course she still was a kid). The plate had about 8 pancakes stacked on top of one another with syrup and various fruits running off the top and complete with a pat of butter in the middle. Accompanying it were brown, greasy sausages, eggs, bacon, and two hash browns. Lucy uttered a quick prayer of thanks to God and quickly dug into her dish.
Sam watched his niece as she the cook brought her a tall glass of milk. He had always tried to get Lucy to drink her milk, though it would always either end up on the floor or in his face. Fortunately for him Gina had come up with some otherworldly way to convince Lucy to drink the stuff, despite whatever she had said or done about it before.
Sam was a middle-aged man, around forty or fifty years. Despite his age he kept a clean face, only a few whiskers here or there on his chin, a mix of black and gray hairs once suggested that he had shiny jet black hair in his youth. He had a rather lean muscular build from his days back in the army, and wore an old army jacket with the name "Stanley" engraved on a patch on the left sleeve.
"So how does your life treat you Sam?" Gina said as she came back with a glass of iced tea.
"Oh, so and so you know." He replied as he took another sip of his coffee. "I think I'm getting too old these days" he took another sip "I can't keep up with Lucy like I used to."
"Don't worry about it." Gina said handing the glass to a customer. "She's just going through a stage, she'll calm down by the time she's fourteen."
"Are you sure about that?" The man replied giving Lucy a playfully worried look as she gobbled down her meal.
"Sorry." Lucy blushed, noticing her uncle's stare, and began to eat more slowly. Gina had once warned him that Lucy would grow up to be very unladylike-like, because of the absence of a mother.
I couldn't agree more, Sam decided.
Over the past few years that he had been raising her, Sam had begun to see a little of himself in her. Though Lucy still retained much of her mother's character, she didn't care about getting dirty as she spent most of her days after school in her uncle's shop. Sam's job repairing mobiles was rather time consuming as he still needed to get used to how the new models worked.
He scanned the papers until he got to the political section. Ever since a few months ago the section had become very heated. The main articles of discussion were about the fate of the gods of war, the ultimate weapons known as Armored Core.
A month ago the government of Mars had issued a ban on the machines. Saying that they were useless and only provoked warfare. As a result dozens of well-written discussions had been posted in the newspaper, expanding the political section to almost half of the news itself.
Apparently the idea of having the AC's banned and destroyed had sparked major controversy throughout both Earth and Mars, as many countries on the Earth had their main forces composed of ACs. While the colonies of Mars used advanced multi-treaded tanks and heavily armored walkers. Many nights the news channels showed hours of footages of debates among both worlds as politicians, governors, prime ministers and high military personnel argued among each other over the fate of the war machines.
In truth, Sam hated those things with all his heart. They had no humane value in them at all, as he recalled a man stating that the machines could be used for peace instead of war. They destroyed towns, killed people, they had weapons which could destroy several city blocks in one shot. He had seen many innocent people die at the hands of these machines and he was sure he wasn't the only one. He doubted with the Pax Economica order in effect, any bans on ACs and their advanced technology would take place.
He remembered first seeing them during the Nation Dismantlement War. He was only an MT pilot back then, but he was a damn good one. He had destroyed at least two ACs in combat, and he had been given the title "Ace". Unfortunately that didn't last long, as new ACs suddenly appeared on the horizon towards the end of the war. The NEXTs. They were near invincible, they completely decimated the world's armies; toppled the world's governments mere weeks; even the United States of America didn't stand a chance. Even though the Land of Liberty had over one thousand ACs, they were nothing when it came to those new models. Sam remembered believing that the US would never fall, would always stand tall. Now it was a mere relic of the past; nothing but words in a textbook.
Ravens as well suffered greatly. The once invincible masters of warfare fell to the NEXTs, their once godlike ACs now completely outclassed by their predecessors. He recalled the days when novice pilots would tremble in the cockpits of their inferior mechs whenever ravens were mentioned in their mission briefings.
The world was now run by six major individual corporate conglomerate factions: Global Armaments America, Rosenthal, Rayleonard, Bernard Felix Foundation, and Eqbal. When they took over the world, they evenly divided it into areas of separate control. They promised the people of the world food, clothing, shelter and protection as long as they served the corporations. The way Sam saw it, the factions simply forced people into colony-cities and essentially turned them into corporate slaves, working themselves in Kojima-laced factories where death rates were high due to the heavy contamination; simply for a few weeks-worth of food and power. It all seemed so ridiculous, but it was hard to refuse. The companies used the NEXTs to deal with those who would stand against them.
Now to make things worse, the military companies had begun integrating more Kojima technology into the NEXTs, making them even more formidable than ever before. When it had first been discovered, Kojima particles were a scientific breakthrough. The energy it supplied was thousands of times more than nuclear or solar energy and it created almost no excess waste. At first it was used to run cities and power the homes of the common citizens of the world. It helped solve the world's great energy crisis, as the Earth only had two percent of the fossil fuels it used to. Kojima energy on the other hand was cheap and easy to create, it produced half the amount of waste burning coal did while only requiring one-eighth of the material to synthesize. Unfortunately, it was discovered that Kojima technology damaged all life forms around it on the atomic level and was supposedly discontinued for public use. It was put into widespread military use towards the end of the Nation Dismantlement War which led to what many called the "Third Great Destruction".
"Readin about politics again?" Gina asked as she walked towards him. Sam nodded simply and turned the page.
"So any news on the military ban?"
"Apparently the radicals are suggesting that ACs be used for peace instead of war..." Sam said with a slight scowl. "The bastards' are crazy..."
"Yeah but apparently we can't do anything about it." Gina said with a sigh. "The ways of the world are out of our hands now."
"I can't see how you can get so much food from them at a time like this." Sam said changing the subject.
"Gotta go through a lotta trouble for it."
"Black market?"
"You bet." Gina said with a smirk. "Those guys are makin a fortune off of food clothes these days."
Sam spun around in the barstool so that he faced the window. The sunny sky before had grayed as raindrops peppered the windows and polished the streets and buildings.
Lucy whined as she saw the rain coming down. She stopped licking her fork and ran to press her face against the cold window. "Why did it have to rain today!?"
Lucy. She came into his life right after the Pax Economica order was put into effect. Lucy was only a crying infant when she was given to him by his sister. After that day he never heard of anything more from her or her husband. They had simply disappeared from the face of the earth; no city records; no social security numbers (not that money mattered much anymore in the colonies these days). They were just gone as if they hadn't even existed. From that day forward he promised to raise Lucy as best as he could, away from the war-torn world that he and everyone else lived in. He would protect her from the disgusting ways of this world. That he promised his sister.
"Come'on Lucy." Sam called as he got up from the stool. The people in the bar waved at them and said their goodbyes, as they would not see the two for a long time. "If we get home in time I think we can play a quick game of chess before I have to get back to work."
"Sam what's that?" Lucy said pointing at something on the street. Sam walked over and eyed the object with puzzlement.
"A silver cardinal?" Sam said with astonishment. Silver cardinals were extremely rare ever since Kojima particles began contaminating the world. Sam had once read that the sight of one signaled hope, though he doubted that any of that would have mattered anymore. The whole world had gone to hell.
You bastards can do whatever you want, Sam decided as he watched Lucy struggle to put on her coat that was, as she said, "twenty times too big", just stay away from my Lucy.
OOOOO
"I win right?" A boy's voice was heard in a lab room. Men and women in white overcoats were busy walking round form one piece of monitoring equipment to the next, examining the data and jotting it down on clipboards they were carrying.
The boy asked again. "Did I win? I beat them all, I win the game right?"
There was a large window towards the front end of the room that overlooked a massive desert field surrounded with destroyed metal corpses of MTs, Normals, and a few NEXTs. In the center of the field stood one lone NEXT. Energy flickered brilliantly around it as the pilot disengaged the AC's primal armor. The AC's crimson-painted armor shimmered as the downpour of rain attacked its dusty surface unshielded by the energy barrier. The unit had only slender laser blade emitters on both arms, they were smooth and alien-like while the AC retained a slightly more human-military look. It's orange -red visor glowed a warm blue in the now darkened arena.
"Very good." A voice replied softly but calmly. A slender-looking woman walked through the doors, she was also wearing a lab coat. She was also accompanied by a taller man, though he was wearing a suit rather than a lab coat, he looked more of a businessman than a scientist. "That was great! Did you have fun?"
"Well I'm kinda getting bored with these toys, they lose too fast."
"Did you like your new ones?" The man asked.
"Yeah!" The boy said happily. "They were really good at the game! I almost thought they would win."
"Lying?" The man asked.
"He's only speaking his mind." The woman said. "It's amazing isn't it? What you can do with an ignorant child and a NEXT."
"I feel bad for the kid." The man said with slight humor in his voice. "Do you think he'll ever realize that this is all a dream?"
The woman laughed softly to herself, she crossed her arms. "That's what makes him so perfect."
"The fact that he's living a lie?"
"No that's not what I'm talking about." The woman said, her red glossy lips losing their warm smile as she watched the NEXT walk to a dry dock. "It's the fact that he's so pure; untainted; uncontaminated with this world's evil. It makes him the perfect weapon."
"A Linx with abilities like that at such a young age only comes one-in-a-million." The man said glancing at his wristwatch. "Do you really want to corrupt him like this?"
The woman smiled again and wrote something quickly onto her clipboard. "As long as he believes this is his only world we can control him."
"Do you really believe he can surpass Berlioz?"
"In due time. You on the other hand better get working on modifications to his NEXT, I don't want him dying on his first skirmish."
"Yes ma'am." The man said flatly, and walked out the room.
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A/N: Okay so here's the first chapter of the rewritten Dark Raven story. I'll get to introducing more characters and big NEXT fights later. Just so you all don't flame me, I have not played armored core 4 yet so my explanation of Kojima technology may be off by a lot. Anyways I'll try to update this as much as I can.
I'd also appreciate it if someone could give me a quick personality description of the characters in Armored Core 4, it'd be appreciated if someone could do this for me.