Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Armored Core series. That belongs to Agetec and From Software. I only own the original characters. Thank you.
In TALON's Grasp
by: T.R. Fanatic
Chapter 14: Nomad
BOOM!
Kaze, slowly shaking off a deep slumber, weakly opened his eyes and scanned his room from the comfort of his bed. ...Just dreaming... he thought as he fell back asleep.
BOOM!
He quickly jumped out of bed and frantically put a new set of clothes on. Not dreaming... Not dreaming... he thought as he tied the shoelaces on his boots before running out the door.
"Kaze, you hear that, too?" a voice asked as he entered the hallway. It was Lazy-Eye, equally shocked by the loud noises that the two had heard.
"Yeah, I'm sure you can hear it all throughout the ba-" Kaze stopped as soon as he saw that Lazy-Eye didn't put her eye patch on. "what the hell is wrong with your eye?"
"Long story short?" she asked as she pulled out the patch and covered her demonic-like eye. "Freak accident. A friend of mine made an artificial eye for me. It works just as fine as my old eye, but I gotta cover it so no one gets spooked and passes out..."
BOOM!
"Talk later, 'kay?" Kaze said as he made a head start down the hallway.
"Wait!" Lazy-Eye called as Kaze stepped forward, then did a quick one-eighty on one foot.
"What?" he asked.
She pointed at his bare hands. "You forgot your gloves..."
Kaze pointed back at Lazy's hands. "So did you..."
They both gave a quick glance at their hands before uttering a simultaneous "Dammit!" Quickly, they ran back to their rooms, retrieved their gloves and ran out to the meeting room.
...No one... When the two arrived at the meeting room, there was no one else around. Not even Tsubasa was sitting in his usual spot, reading his book.
Everyone's gone... Kaze thought to himself as the two ran to the AC garage.
The eight AC's, now including Lazy-Eye's AC: Sinner, had not budged from their seperate platforms since the end of yesterday's mission.
The AC's are still here. Kaze thought. The rest of the team must be around here somewhere...
"You poor thing..." Lazy-Eye said, gazing at Sinner with a tear in her eye. "Look at what they've done to you..."
"Your AC looks fine..." a confused Kaze noted. "There's nothing wrong with it."
"If ya look real close, ya can see that the eye-beam cannon is gone..."
Kaze looked carefully at the red eye of the AC.
"...As well as the vulcan cannons above it; the hidden shoulder-mounted mini-missile launcher; the right arm laser blade; the hidden leg-mounted missile launcher..."
"I guess that's the down side of switching over to our team..." Kaze noted. "Getting rid of illegal weaponry."
"Yeah... It's possibly for the best..."
"Hey!" the voice of Pyro called from a balcony above the two. "What are you guys doing down there?"
"Looking for everybody." Kaze replied. "What are you doing up there?"
"Enjoying the view!"
"The view of what?" Lazy-Eye asked. "The city?"
"No, the fields!"
The two pilots fell into confusion. Stunned looks sculpted their faces.
"When did Isaac City get fields?" Kaze asked.
Pyro rose one of his thin eyebrows. "I guess Chief didn't tell you..." he turned and looked behind him. "Hey, Chief. You forgot to tell Kaze and Laze-Eye that this is a moving base!"
"A what?" Lazy-Eye asked.
Chief appeared from the balcony and looked down at the confused pilots. "Ah, good morning!" he said with a friendly wave. "Well, come on up. We got another mission to tackle, and this one looks pretty urgent."
After a climb up a couple flights of stairs, Kaze and Lazy-Eye finally met up with the entire team in what appeared to be the control center of a giant spaceship.
"Sorry for not tellin' you guys earilier..." Chief said. "This base was once a giant land crusier that barely survived the Great Destruction. I found it while I was on recon, many years back, and decided to remodel it to what it is today - the Nomad: part-hovercraft and part-catapillar moving base. Nice, huh?"
Kaze nodded, looking out towards the fields, painted by the early morning sun. "It's very nice." he commented.
It was Kaze's second time going to the above-ground world. The first time was two years ago, when he and his brother were given a tour around Murakumo HQ by their father...
"We should be at the mission point very soon, sir." Bug announced, looking at the Nomad's radar.
"Good." Chief said with a nod. "Then, I should tell you guys about this mission and what we're up against." He cleared his throat. "We're going to a Chrome base that's fifty kilometers north of Isaac City. They sent out a distress signal early this morning saying that they're under attack by an AC, the likes of which they have never seen.
"Chrome is willing to pay us thirty-thousand Credits for the removal of this AC, more if the AC has reinforcements coming."
"Have you decided on the pilots who would be best suited for this mission?" Tsubasa asked.
"Of course! Three AC's are going to come with me: Silent Blade, Mecha and Sinner. Is that all right with you three?"
"Yes, sir!" Kaze and Lazy-Eye replied with a salute.
"Would I ever say 'no,' sir?" Tsubasa asked.
"As for the rest of you," Chief added, looking at Rebel, Pyro, Bug and Hyper. "if things go wrong, I want you guys to come in and help us out, okay?"
"You got it!" Bug replied with a salute.
"We'll be ready!" Hyper added.
Chief nodded. "All right. Team, let's move out!"
To be continued...