Armored Core: Overboost Destiny
Chapter 3: Scrap Metal Jacket
You have Mail-
The Alliance has been in and out of the city for the past week. Seems they've had some business in the warehouse east of block S. I hear a certain syndicate operates there, one that has potential to become a world known corporation. They are making deals at a quick pace. The syndicate has hired them to attack supply depots and transports for the parts on board. What are they getting in return? I want your help to figure that out. Head to the warehouse and I'll make contact with you there. Don't be noticed.
[Anonymous]
Lynn read the mail over and over. "It could be a trap." She said.
Van looked at the mail as well. He sat in his chair as usual, but with his feet kicked up and back leaned back. He rubbed his fingers through his black roots, and pulled them up into the red ends, brushing them down over his face. "That is what I thought, but the whoever wrote it put it down seems familiar."
"They say that they will be at the warehouse, how do they know when you will be there?" Lynn noted, pointing her finger at sentences of the mail.
"Maybe he is waiting." Van replied. "He must have been hanging around there for quite awhile unnoticed, he knows a lot."
Lynn nodded, holding her earphone closer to her ear. "Just take it easy, and don't be noticed like they said."
The Einherjar, with its back against a wall, slowly turned around the corner of an arms depot, looking at the corner of the warehouse. A line of windows was at the middle of the building, lit with a yellow light. Van looked into it, blending the Einherjar's dark gray scheme with a large shadow cast by the arms depot. The city was a lot darker than he remembered at night.
"Raven…I see you decided to join me." A female voice said.
Van jumped when he heard it. He narrowed his eyes. "A Lady?"
The woman laughed. "Yeah that is what I'm called lately."
Van looked at the transmission box noticing this wasn't a normal transmission. "You are using a cellular phone?"
"Yes, kind of. Head behind the arms depot." She commanded. The Einherjar shifted around and walked behind the depot. Van looked around, waiting for her to continue. "You just take orders like that from anybody?"
Van groaned. "Only from someone that could be leading me into a trap. I seem to fight better when I have a lot of problems."
"Good…because we have plenty. First off, switch to your thermal scope and look about six meters to your right." She said.
Van flipped a few switches and turned the head of the Einherjar toward a large red and yellow spectrum on his radar. It was an armored core. "You are a Raven?"
"Indeed, well known to. The name is Valkyrie." Valkyrie said, introducing herself.
Van switched off the thermal scope and noticed her Ac's sniper rifle slightly extended from a crack in the wall of another warehouse. "I'm Van."
"I know, but it is nice to finally meet you. I've been waiting to meet someone of your mission standard. I've spent a lot of time in the Arena." Valkyrie had this sort of confidence a lot of people don't have. She was confident in her skills, but she knew what her weaknesses were. She considered knowing her weaknesses strength to strengthen. Van has seen her fight. It has always been fair, and has always been executed with perfect shots.
"You're fights are a sight to see." Van complimented.
"Well thank you, your mission outcomes are a sight to see as well. It'll be an experience working with you, if you would like to that is." She asked.
Van nodded. "I would."
"Thanks. As you know, the Alliance has been meeting in that warehouse directly in front of me. I've been positioned here for the last eight days watching them." She explained. Eight days was a long time to watch a building, Van thought. "In a half of an hour, the Alliance will show up. At this point, I'll use a new little item of mine to put us in stealth mode so they won't pick us up, regardless of their radar equipment. I want you to infiltrate the warehouse and get closer inside. I have trouble against two opponents, three of the Alliance members have come each time. I'm using a cell phone so they won't pick up the transmission by the way."
"Alright…so I have to get in there and find out what these guys are really doing. Then what?" Van asked.
"After you hear their main objective, I want you to plant a bomb I want you to carry in somewhere where I can hit it. Get out of there and tell me when. That is that." She finished.
Van knew there would have to be complications inside. "What if something goes wrong? What if I get trapped?"
"Then our little act of heroism is over…there is a stronger force than any Raven you've ever heard of or seen being conceived here, I can feel it. The entrance is in the back. Take the parts under that tarp by your feet." Valkyrie said, watching the Einherjar tossing the tarp off the parts.
Van Held the small bomb in his left hand, slipping it into his inside part slots behind the head of Einherjar on its core. The other part was a pair of stealth wing extensions. Van dropped his turn boosters by dropping them into his hands, and quietly setting them down. He equipped the wings and turned them on, they shifted open and started glowing with purple energy.
The Einherjar stood against a wall inside the warehouse. A small window looked inside the biggest room in the warehouse. People stood around carts, assembly lines and crates. Three cores stood motionless, their pilots standing with one of the people. The people all crowded around a large crate, the size of an Ac part. Turns out, it was. Van watched as the syndicate members showed the pilots these new parts one by one. A new type of core with an operation different than the overboost, laser swords, solid shields, boosters, extensions, then a complete Ac prototype. It was fitted with a laser sword held in the hand and used like a normal sword, a solid shield, pursuit missile extensions, stealth wings with built in boosters, boosters that resembles an overboost booster. It was uncanny. Van could barely believe the extent these people went to in their research.
"So the Alliance is taking part in the production of black market armored core parts. Time to burn these matches." Van said. Just then, the stealth wings on his Ac shorted out. Something happened, the wings failed to continue to work as Van repeatedly pressed the extension switch. He had to get them working before someone noticed his presence. Or did he.
The members started to run all over the place and the three pilots ran back to their cores. It was too late. Too late to run, too late to hide. "Oh well." Van said, opening the doors to go inside the warehouse room.
Van knew the Ac's well. The first one, a red heavyweight bipedal was Iron-Heart. The second, a reverse jointed green Ac called Lich. Lastly, a lightweight bipedal blader known as Dust. They were nothing.
The Einherjar dashed above the warehouse floor, firing a hail of rifle shots onto Iron-Heart, canceling him from firing his bazooka. The Einherjar fell in front of Lich. Van slashed the core of Lich, pushing it back into a wall, then slashed it again, taking off the bottom of its legs.
Dust's machinegun fire hit the Einherjar's stealth extensions, shooting them off to the floor. Van lifted his rifle, firing back at Dust and kneeling at the same time. The grenade launcher fell forward and blasted the head of the green Ac off completely, leaving its pilot incapacitated.
The rifle shots stunned Dust. Dust roared frustratingly and strafed across the room. Van boosted back, turning to both of his remaining opponents. A bazooka round fired off to where Van had previously been.
"Well, took you long enough to join the fight again!" Van yelled, charging his way through the bazooka fire that continuously missed the Einherjar. Van released his blade, hit the inside part ignition for the AURA and stabbed his energy blade through the shield of Iron-Heart, causing a chain reaction of explosions that tore the arm right off and shot the Ac to its right, causing it to collide with the wall.
As pieces of the wall fell, the prototype Ac stood slowly. Dust stood between the Einherjar and the prototype, but only before the Ac slashed its way through him. Van dashed back, firing his rifle at the prototype. No use, it blocked the shots with its shield. Van roared, hitting the AURA switch again and hitting his overboost. Einherjar lit up with a red aura and charged itself into the Ac. The Ac lifted its shield toward the Einherjar, sheathing its sword in its leg before to use both arms. Energy clashed and pieces of the warehouse fell apart as the Ac's boosters started to grow and grow.
Outside, Valkyrie started to head into the warehouse. She stopped, watching as the roof of the warehouse jumped out and the Einherjar was being pushed into the air by the prototype. They flew through the air, the Ac's multiple overboost easily overpowering the EIP-X/AURA part's ability. Valkyrie dropped her stealth wings, equipped Einherjar's turn boosters and overboosted into the sky after them.
The Einherjar struggled to holds it ground against the prototypes quick and abundant series of slashes and attacks. Van had fought him in the air, and now he was struggling to stand on the edge of the Colnart coast. They had traveled quite a ways away. Van was confused and hopeless. He couldn't do anything to overpower this thing. It was a monster.
Van noticed the parts were still shaky on the prototype. It was weak still. The frame looked like some of the cheapest versions of parts he'd ever seen. The pilot must be extremely experienced. Sniper shots hit the back of the Ac's head. Valkyrie boosted down to the ground, charging toward the back of the Ac. The Ac pushed its shield into Einherjar and slashed a projectile energy wave with its sword at Valkyrie. Valkyrie strafed, still getting the left leg of her Ac gashed open.
Valkyrie fell to the ground, still firing rounds into the Ac's back as it turned towards Van. Van watched his sensors. He was fighting back…and he realized the Einherjar was as well. He needed his turn boosters, that way he could make the prototype lose its balance. Van noticed his turn boosters equipped to Valkyrie's Ac. She slowly stood, but her leg crumbled as she did.
Van boosted up, causing the Ac to stumble. The Einherjar's leg rose and stomped the laser sword into the ground, along with the Ac's right hand. Van pushed the end of his rifle into the Ac's left shoulder joint, lifting the Einherjar up higher. It now stood on the prototype core, forcing it down onto the ground. Van had disabled its sword, but its pursuit missiles were still there. Van hit his inside switch and dropped the bomb the Valkyrie had given him onto the Ac's core as it activated its missiles. He then hit the AURA switch and turned, overboosting toward the cliff between them and the ocean as the pursuit missiles followed him close behind. Van had lured all of the missiles towards him away from the Valkyrie, dancing about the area.
Valkyrie boosted into the sky, her broken leg part dropping onto the ground as she got into the air. She aimed her sniper rifle and fired, replacing where the Ac was with a large smoking crater of metal, dirt and fire. Valkyrie's Ac fell to the ground shortly after, completely motionless. Valkyrie looked at the Einherjar boosting towards the ocean. A single missile hazed its shoulder and sent Van tumbling down the cliff's edge. The rest of the missiles followed. The last thing Valkyrie saw as she started to go unconscious was an explosion rising from the edge of the cliff. The missiles hit their target…