DISCLAIMER:
I don't own Armored Core or any canon material related to it. I do, however, own any original characters that appear in this story.
Armored Core: Recurrence
by Mr. Inertia
Prologue
Thud.
Such a word could hardly describe the immense, overpowering sound of the Armored Core's fall. The massive, bipedal machine, burnt out from the inside like a seed husk, managed to inflict deep cracks in the rocky ground which it fell upon, its jutting shoulder impacting first before it rolled lifelessly onto its stomach, causing another chain-reaction of structural damage to the plateau. Its chassis, once a vivid orange, now resembled something of a burnt pumpkin as black smoke escaped and billowed from wherever it could. The column of acrid smoke was like a beacon to the dead pilot's partner. That particular partner had very well seen exactly what had happened, though…
The remaining two ACs on the dusk-dimmed plateau remained completely still, as both Ravens waited for the other to make a move. The bipedal one, sheathed in an odd paintjob of browns, greys and black, still stood by the destroyed AC's remains, the glinting muzzle of its rifle still smoking quietly.
The silence was broken moments later by the crackle of the bipedal AC's external speakers coming online. The voice that boomed across the plateau afterwards had an unnervingly calm tone to it. "Well…? You came here to kill me, didn't you? Finish what your friend here failed to do."
The silhouette of the other, quadruped Armored Core lunged out of the shadows as soon as the words had been said, back-boosters illuminating its dark-gold body. With a warble of energy, an angel-blue shaft of light sprung from the laserblade affixed to its left arm, its glow washing over one side of the spider-like AC and tinting it an eerie green. The pilot said nothing, but every movement of his machine spoke the words 'blinding rage'.
The brown-and-grey remained still as its opponent tore up the ground between them, watching absently with its pale-green optic lens. As the distance between the two became mere meters, the biped sprung into lightning-fast, fluid action, driving its left arm forward and contracting at the elbow. At the very last moment, the virulent green of its own laserblade hummed to life in a course of interception, meeting the quadruped's swinging blade with a violent crackle. The biped's boosters screamed into action as well, matching the four-legged machine's boost power as both tried to force the other backwards.
As the two stood in the dark, pushing against each other with their shimmering, crackling weapons, the pilot of the dark-gold machine suddenly remembered the weapon mounted on its shoulder. Before he could level it at his nemesis, however, the barrel of a certain rifle was thrust in his AC's face. That certain rifle was the rifle that had killed his partner.
"I'd have corrected you on some primal errors that you made, but I didn't think it would really help,"The bipedal AC's pilot spoke again. The rifle primed with a grim click. "…Seeing as you won't have a chance to right those errors."
The Raven in the Quadruped still said nothing.
Somehow, the bipedal AC managed to shrug, before pulling the trigger.
