Chapter 4: After the Time
Silver walked out of the cell, a demonic stare plastered on his face as he slowly shut the door behind him. He was not holding the device he had brought in, but had left it inside as a reminder for Hinsa when he returned for more information.
Dimian rounded the corner and caught a glance at Silver as he quickly passed her, going in the opposite direction back to the center of the building.
"Hey… Silver? What's going on?" She asked, but got no response. Silver was moving quickly down the halls, hell-bent on reaching the core of the building.
Silver's eyes were fixated in front of him, so much so that when Salire walked out of her room, he nearly bumped into her. Without saying a word, he continued on. Salire scowled at him, running after him and grabbing his shoulder roughly.
"Hey, what the hell was that?" She snarled at him, turning him around.
"Get your hands off of me. I need to get to the main intelligence office. There's an attack coming towards this base, and we need to get ready. Tell everyone to go to the hangar and get in their NEXTs, fully repaired or not." He ordered.
"Don't tell me—"
"Now, unless you want to die!" Silver interrupted her, continuing on his path. Salire gritted her teeth, but turned around to the rec room, telling everyone what Silver had said.
Silver nearly rammed the door off its hinges as he burst into the main Intel room. "All hands to battle stations, NOW!" He yelled, his voice booming throughout the room. The whole room paused for a second; and then was a flurry of movement as the defense systems were activated. "Now, ready the NEXT bay. We're all moving out for coverage." A man nodded far across the room, flipping a switch quickly.
The group quickly climbed the ladders leading to the entrance to their hydro-chambers. They rapidly hopped in, hooking on the breather as soon as the water engulfed them.
Silver's voice echoed throughout the bay as he ran in, climbing up to his NEXT.
"Radar shows three enemy NEXTs, and a ton of MTs and Normals. Take them all out." He barked, climbing into his own NEXT's hydro-chamber, applying his breather as well. "Leave no survivors this time."
With that, the bay doors slowly split open, light pouring in from the rising sun. Silver was the first out of the door, his energy rifle raised as he looked around the runway. Noblesse Oblige followed right behind him, the three-pronged energy cannons gleaming in the sunlight as he gripped the handle controlling his energy sword and kept his finger over the trigger of his assault rifle.
"What direction were they coming from, Silver?" Gerald asked, facing Silver and then looking around.
"The radar indicated north… so…" He pointed his rifle north. "There." But nothing was in sight. Silver tilted his head in confusion. "There aren't cloaking NEXTs now, are there?"
"Doubtful. They'd still appear on the… Wait! There's a signature nearing us… Oh god, everyone eyes on the sky!" Gerald aimed upward as two heavy tank NEXTs plummeted downward onto the runway, sending small tremors through the concrete. The third NEXT landed in between them, his camouflage colored armor clashing with the grey and blue tank NEXTs next to him.
"So here they are. The remaining Collared… eh?" The middle pilot scoffed. "Looks like rag-tag team of weaklings if you ask me." He laughed, and the deep voiced tank pilots laughed along with him, their NEXTs moving as if they were laughing as well. "Looks like this will be a piece of cake." He laughed once more as his NEXT unfolded its heavy sniper cannon in its back, aiming directly at Gerald. He swiftly pressed the trigger and a gleaming cannon shell was launched directly at Noblesse Oblige's core.
The shell was shot down swiftly by another equally large shell. Judicium slid in front of Noblesse Oblige, its cannon also unfolded and going through the reloading sequence. "Gerald. Go take out the others. I'll handle this guy." Salire smirked, causing the cocky NEXT pilot to laugh once again.
"Not only is this one young, she's full of herself! HA!"
Salire's smirked quickly melted away, replaced by a scowl. "Don't underestimate me." With that, her cannon cocked backwards at the base, and she fired a second shot directly at the NEXT's core. It swiftly dodged left and then moved back in its place, boosting towards Judicium, cannon still pointed directly at her. Salire flinched at the NEXT was in her face within seconds.
"Time to die, girly." He grinned, pressing the trigger. Judicium quickly leaned backwards, the cannon shell missing by inchers, digging into the Primal Armor. Salire leaned backwards in her seat and pulled her controls back with her, swinging her foot upward. Judicium then did a backflip, smashing its foot into the jawline of the opposing NEXT, sending it stumbling backwards. Judicium quickly boosted backwards, gaining stability and landing a few meters away.
The enemy growled and raised his laser rifle, firing off rapid shots at Judicium, who glided to the side, starting to circle her prey. The enemy NEXT did the same, so the two pilots were in a dance of destruction, firing off bullets at each other, missing every shot from their rifles. Eventually, Judicium kicked off the ground and took to the skies, aiming downward with its cannon. Salire fired in front of the enemy, the shell striking dead on into the NEXT's right arm, blowing it clean off.
"Fucking hell!" He yelled, being knocked backwards from the impact. He aimed his other gun, a heavy bazooka at Salire. At the same time, the tank NEXTs aimed their weapons at her from behind.
Two white flashes greeted the tanks roughly as Gerald and Silver leapt onto the front of their tank tracks.
"Why hello, fool." Grinning, Silver, raised his energy sword, and then slashed it downward into the tank NEXT's core, disabling the entire NEXT. Silver followed up with a quick blast from his energy rifle into the open core of the tank, causing the machine to explode in flames.
Gerald, on the other hand, ran into problems as the enemy tank tried to slam a ramming blade into his core, forcing him to back off. Silver turned to face Gerald, only to see him engulfed in a grenade explosion.
Aozora leapt into the fight at this time, unfolding her energy cannons on her back and firing directly into the core of the tank. The tank took the brunt of the attack, a huge scorch mark in the front of its thick core. Suddenly, the NEXT was hit by a series of missiles from above. Neo had shot a set of missiles from his four-pronged launcher to support from a distance. Qwerty and Mark had joined into Salire's battle, trying to distract the obviously skilled NEXT pilot, who could fend off three enemies with only one functioning arm.
"Cursed Collared! Die!" The pilot yelled, switching to his manual rocket launcher. He fired off the rockets at Qwerty, who quickly shot them down with his assault rifle, the remaining shots reaching the sniper and blasting into its body in random areas.
The pilot snarled audibly, quick boosting at Salire, his cannon aimed directly at her core again. He clicked the trigger at point blank.
The shell never reached Salire. Instead, it was shot down the second it left the barrel, blowing the front off of the cannon. The NEXT staggered backwards, looking around for what fired the blast that shot down his shell. Off in the distance, a good kilometer away, he could spot a blur on the horizon. The colors began to sharpen as the mech drew near. The NEXT had strange three-pronged shoulder pieces, and a heavy rail gun in its left arm.
"Someone need some support?" A voice rung out over the intercom as the red NEXT over boosted onto the runway.
"Holy crap… Is that one of my NEXTs?" Silver asked, staring at the highly complicated mech standing at the edge of the runway.
"Yeah, it is. Glad you remember me. It's been ye-"
"Yeah yeah yeah, enough with your bullshit reunion. I want to kick all of your asses to hell already and get my reward!" The enraged pilot growled, aiming his rocket launcher at the newcomer. The NEXT quickly dodge and fired off another shot from the rail gun, blasting to rocket launcher off.
"Why you little shit!" He yelled, aiming his bazooka at the red NEXT. A humming sound resonated behind the sniper NEXT, and a short purple blade ran through his core. Salire grinned as she yanked the blade out, the enemy exploding into a bright flame.
Zhanshi lazily slumped down onto the rec room's couch, letting out a wide yawn as everyone else sat down in his or her usual spots. Salire was off in her corner, Tomari next to her, Salire reading, and Tomari drawing. Neo and Aozora were cuddled up on the top tier of the room, while Qwerty was off to the side resting on the bar. Dimian was off near Neo and Aozora, sleeping on the nearby couch. Mark sat on the bottom tier, near the entrance, listening to his music. Saol was on her computer, which in that day and age was one of the more outdated electronic devices. Silver was nowhere to be found in the rec room. He was off in the hangar bay, tinkering with everyone's NEXTs, trying to improve all the NEXTs.
Each of the group members had their own reasons for entering the battle scene.
Mark volunteered because he had heard what Silver was doing for Collared, and decided to join the cause because he thought the ideals of the League were sound and justified.
Neo joined the war because he saw an entire family of civilians killed by what he assumed was an ORCA member, because the NEXT had an evil looking emblem on its left shoulder. Aozora joined because she saw Neo fight one day in the Richland plantation and take out an Arms Fort, but nearly got defeated, so she forever stays by his side, always willing to assist him in missions.
Salire enlisted in the war as a Normal pilot, but one day nearly lost her life to an opposing company's NEXT in a confrontation at Line Ark, so she decided to join Collared to find and kill that pilot who had nearly taken her life.
The only real reason Qwerty joined the confrontation was that he wanted to explore the world, and at the time, the only relatively safe way to do so was to become a pilot of some sort, and being a Lynx was the most effective was of seeing most of the world.
Zhanshi joined the war long ago as one of the original unranked Lynx pilots from the National Dismantlement War, just like Silver, but continued a separate path3
Tomari, Dimian and Saol all were thrown into the war by chance, having been saved by Gerald, the Rosenthal White Knight and pilot of Noblesse Oblige.
Silver wiped his brow as he finished placing in the final touches on the second NEXT he had made that night, on top of repairing and fine-tuning all of the other NEXTs, including the Retribution MKII.
"Jeez. I hate the fact these damn robotic arms help you put parts on from a distance, but actually take effort to move because some dipshit made them sensitive to part weight." He mumbled, scowling to himself. He moved the arms over to the rack of parts the League had set up for engineers and pilots who wanted to alter their NEXTs.
He sighed and started building a third NEXT for Saol. This time he was going to try something radical with her NEXT. He grinned wickedly as he began to spin the rack with parts on it until he reached the lightweight parts, placing a pair of Judith legs down, then a Lahire core, and Soluh arms. He stopped for a second, calculating the total weight so far, and then went on with fixing an X-Sobrero head on the neck piece. "This is going to be amazing!" He laughed, his lone voice echoing in the hangar bay as he spun the weapon rack, pulling off two parts; one heavy duty carrying device for the left shoulder, and one extremely long folded cannon. "Light weight Oigami NEXT? I think so!" He grinned, attaching the parts carefully. He then moved over to the tuning station, adding full load capacity upgrades to the legs. He then moved back to the weapons arms, attaching a laser blade and an Aspina machine gun.
Silver stepped back, looking at his masterpiece of a NEXT. He had finally created a high-speed lightweight machine with a heavy cannon, capable of massive destruction. "This is definitely Saol's NEXT." He smirked, walking back towards the rec room.
Silver burst into the rec room with great enthusiasm, making everyone jump to his or her feet.
"Everyone! To the hangar bay! Santa came early this year!" He laughed, running towards the bay again.
Perplexed, everyone slowly followed the hyper Silver to the hangar bay. When they reached the large expanse of a room, they looked around. Before them stood ten polished, rebuilt, and retuned NEXTs with some having new core parts, or weapons, some with both.
"Saol, this is yours…" He pointed to the NEXT he crowned a massive success with a large grenade launcher. "Tomari, this is yours." He pointed to the blue, black and red speckled NEXT with a heavy laser cannon on its back. "…And Dimian, this is yours." He pointed to the reverse-legged NEXT with the diamond shaped energy blade and a triangular shaped assault rifle and with a plasma cannon and wing-shaped radar on the back.
Each pilot walked over to their respective NEXTs, admiring the work done for repair and refurbishing, along with upgrades. Salire, however, looked slightly disappointed.
"Uh, Silver?" She asked, turning to face him with a look of wonder and confusion. "Why does my NEXT only have a different head piece and core, and not weapons?"
"Oh, that's because the main tuning was with the boosters. Neo did not receive a single upgrade besides boosters and changed tuning so don't worry." He grinned back at them, proud of his work as Salire admired the work of repairs, the only thing completely visible from outside her NEXT.
Zhanshi tilted his head as he studied his mech, wondering why his once heavy rail gun was replaced with a lighter rail gun. "Silver…" He started.
"Ah, yes. Your NEXT had issues with flight time and energy regeneration, and since you were using a weapon that drained energy, along with the Assault Armor add-ons, you needed a different generator and heavier Overboost engine, so changing the weapon was a weight issue." He quickly replied, answering Zhanshi's question before it left his mouth. Zhanshi nodded in response, admiring also the change in arms on his mech.
The rest had no other questions, so he sat back and took a look at his work. They all seemed quite satisfied with the changes, and all eventually came back up to the landing a few meters higher than the bay floor.
"So…" Mark started. "Why this sudden change in our mechs?" He asked, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow slightly. Silver smirked and went over to a monitor behind them.
"Watch this. Mark, you don't have to worry. All I did with your NEXT was a weapon addition in the storage, since you were running low on ammo in simulations." Silver spoke before pointing back to the screen. Currently, Judicium was flying around, shooting enemy MTs with its long-range missile launcher. "See, if you watch here, where the energy gauge is, you'll notice Judicium is losing energy far slower than before. That's due to the correct tuning, and booster and generator combinations. Neo, your NEXT was greatly improved in that area, but I wouldn't suggest fighting in water, which constantly uses energy." Silver leaned back as everyone began to see the screen fade to Velvet Blues, Mark's NEXT, fighting an Ordered Match against Ostdarva, the former rank 1 Lynx.
Everyone was fixated on the screen as Silver sat down, yawning. Salire looked over, and smirked. "Get some rest, boy. You've done a lot of work for all of us tonight." She walked over to him and patted him on the head. "Thank you for this. We won't let you down, like we did last time."
Silver nodded sleepily, yawning once again. "Yeah… you're welcome," he mumbled. Salire looked back at her NEXT, then back at Silver. She smiled faintly as she say his eyes closed and his head already to one side.
"I think we should go. Let's let Silver get some sleep." Salire whispered to everyone. They all looked at the sleeping pilot, then they nodded silently, slowly leaving the hangar bay and letting the exhausted Lynx dream.
Now's the time for me to annoy the hell out of you guys with my author's note!
Okay, so this chapter was basically a "Slow down" kind of chapter, because the past three were very action packed and fast-paced. The next chapter will be a mission, so the story will pick up with more bulk and meaningful information, as Silver and the others go on a mission to seek out a tip Hinsa gave Silver… but is she telling the truth? Will they actually find what they are looking for? Or does the enemy have another plan in mind?
All will be revealed next chapter! Remember, reviews and views keep this story going! Tell your friends if they like Armored Core or big fighting machines, so this story will still have a pulse.