Once the world was ruled by desire, by greed and by survival, now it's ruled the burning sun, those who cling to life and those who fight carelessly.
Those rulers rule over nothing of value now, for once the world was lush and alive, but commanded by greed took everything and fought with reasons, just and unjust, leading to everything being crushed and ground into a fine dust, creating a frozen over hell of sand, ash, dust and possibility.
But those rulers who cling to life forced themselves and the world to remain alive, at least superficially, and crafted peace. There are small communities of few people and many intellectuals who overwork themselves to make their little bio-spheres stay running, encasing plants and animals in glass and working systems to allow them make a ecosystem and trapping people underground so that they can just only pass through life, if they want safety that is. The rulers who cling followed a path that had been cleared by the rulers who fought purposelessly, who by themselves were created by the death of those fought with the survival of the many.
Once, many many years ago there were companies and enterprises, they ruled the populace out of greed, and they had spotted a problem, the fuel for their hunger was running out, all materials were being drained and, in their greed and inflated egos, decided to fight over these materials, instead of looking at survival or allowing humanity to finally die off. To fight each other, those with power and money invested in a way to make fighting as cheap as possible and from this was born the "Suit" a suit of armor that will become a extension of any wearers own movements. Anyone who wished to contribute to the greed that was killing everyone could, just as the rulers by greed wanted. With new futuristic materials comprised of easy to acquire elements the Suits became the gateway to the life of a mercenary, several companies shifted into Suit and Suit Weaponry development and made warfare a simple game to those who could pay to win, a exciting challenge to those who would risk their lives for the sake of the risk and a hell to fools thinking that war was now a way to get a quick buck.
Unfortunately involving every idiot possible ended up with this little war over resources becoming so big it started getting innocent people involved as the war areas spread and spread and spread. The cheapening of warfare and dumb thoughtless greed led to someone making Suits extra available to the masses causing a group of people who were deeply affected by the war and truly furious by the amount of damage to the planet it was causing to get ahold of Suits and begin a attack on the building of the greedy rulers. These attacks made waves in the minds of the people waring over resources, some woke up, in a sense, and also turned on the companies hiring them, while others saw a opportunity to increase their revenue given that there would be much more fighting. As the war to stop the war raged on and wrought even more destruction on society and the world the birth of one of current history's most important figures emerged, mostly known as "The Angel". He was a fighting prodigy, as he fought for the destruction of the greedy rulers and easily carved through defense forces he may of even been the one that convinced the big enterprises to unleash such powerful and unknown weapons as they did, out of a fear that they would be forced to redistribute all the wealth supposedly gained from the fighting to fix the world they destroyed, besides from that not much is recorded about how we all got here.
"And that's about it for this sermon everyone" said a droopy eyed man "Please return to your quarters, tomorrow there will be tests for the soon to be mercenaries in our class" He pulled a bang of his long, dark scraggly away from his eyes and we placed a hand over his heart and bowed, thus dismissing his class. As the young adult rushed out of the metallic and sterile classroom into the even more sterile and metallic corridors one of the students stayed in his seat staring at the floor, grasping the mercenary trainee badge that was on his uniform, the teacher walked up to him, adjusting his glasses, looking at the student in a disinterested fashion "Stressed out Marcus?" Marcus snapped back into reality and scratched his frizzy brown hair "U-uh! No, not at all Mr. Leo! I'm just thinking how I'll want to approach the test." Mr. Leo look slightly confused "I never took you for a suit fanatic...From the simulations you always take something in the middle ground so I thought you didn't care all that much about the Suit…" "Huh?" Marcus replied. That short moment of confusion totally destroyed Marcus's facade "Nevermind that then...If you are going to have a stress attack, at least do it in your quarters, then I don't have to feel bad about you." Mr. Leo walks out of the classroom as well leaving Marcus completely by himself with his thoughts.
A while after mentally preparing himself Marcus finally left the classroom and headed for his quarter. Luckily for Marcus he was born in a Government owned Shelter Sphere so he had his own fully furnished large quarters with a comfortable queen-sized bed, which he went to immediately after entering his quarters and began to ponder whether being a mercenary was what he really wanted. The thing that was holding him back from fully embracing this lifestyle was his value for life, his life especially, as it was something he had to fight for. The night was spent with Marcus remembering this he didn't want to remember and questioning his skills, and not resting as it should have been.
In the early morning there was knock at Marcus's door, impeding him from finally dozing off. As he got out of his bed and opened the sliding steel door there was a tall person with a powerful gaze and a thin frame, everything aside from this person's eyes was difficult in Marcus's sleepy haze as their fierceness and intensity were difficult to ignore. After a moment of staring back at this person and investigating this gaze Marcus just might've uncovered something horrifying about this person as he could no longer look into their eyes and jumped back immediately taking in everything about this woman to avoid her eyes. "H-hello!? Wh-who are you!?" Marcus stood shakily awaiting an answer. The mysterious woman changed her posture to appear more friendly and let her eyelids droop and let a sly smile creep onto her face "I'm going to be your mercenary test examiner, and since you're late the higher ups told me to come pick you up" once she closed her lips she made a face showing that she seemed to know exactly why that young adult before her was shaking like a small child about to get beat by a abusive parent "My name's Engel, spelt E-N-G-E-L. Nice to meet you Mr. Marcus"she said in a cheery tone. At first it seemed as if Engel was reaching her hand out to greet Marcus but instead she grabbed his arm and brisky pulled him along to the training grounds.
As they walked through the halls Engel noticed was rather quiet so she piped up "What, no 'Hey, don't be so rough! I'm coming'?" Marcus was still shaken from the part of her that he found deep within her blue-ish green eyes. Once they reached the training grounds, a small, comparatively at least, far away section of the Shelter Sphere Engel released Marcus and let him line up besides the other trainees as she walk off to the hangars. A somewhat short, black haired fellow walked up from line of strangers, presumably more test examiners, and puffed his chest out and began to speak "So, you all chose to become people who will work to keep the balance of our new world?" Mr. Leo rolled his eyes and the other examiners looked off to the floor or the sky knowing how out of proportion Choong would blow his speech out. Mercs aren't here to keep any balance, they're, for the most part, entertainment and idols for the people to keep on living and possibly fixed the wrongs of the past, but in very rare occasions, mercs will be given jobs similar to that of a police officer or any other law enforcement job, to stop merc groups from the Outer Rim from claiming land or getting away with a raid, those Outer Rim mercs commonly being referred to as pirates or even savages. All the students knew of this, even the non-mercenary trainees, but all the trainees kept silent as they should have.
Choong kept up his speech about justice and honor, somewhat incoherently even, as he also adjusted his bright yellow Adapter-Wear clinging tightly to his girthier frame. "And that about sums up the role of the prestigious and honorable mercenary in these chaotic time" Choong began to return to the examiner line up, but before he could fully turn around, another examiner exclaimed "How do they get paid?" which led to choong sheepishly turning back around "Ah yes, the ever important mercenary offices system and the mercenary factions to organise us" he chuckled nervously and pulled at his adapter-wears collar "The mercenary offices are runned by the government to support and keep track of it's mercenaries and to help with that, it's encouraged for mercenaries to form groups or factions to make it simpler for the government. Which leads me to the point of this test, Group leaders are chosen to watch over the trainees in a combat simulation to determine to which group trainees should go, but do not worry, the examiners can interfere with the test in anyway they deem necessary, so in most cases there shouldn't be anything to worry about" this last part left most of the trainees with a sense of unease as Choong was looking over to the lineup of examiners with a rather worried expression himself.
Once truly finishing the introduction of the mercenary test the examiners went over to their respective trainee and introduced themselves, with some notable names being Oliver Nehn, Kuro Ohabari and Arthur Klein with those being the leaders of the Destr0y Group, Shin Nobunaga Group and the Central Armored Corps respectively. Every trainee was able to introduce themselves and some even managed to strike up casual conversation with their examiners, except Marcus, since he had to lead him to his Suit, Engel was nowhere to be seen.
All the the trainees were led to their own Suits, constructed to be with similar outputs to the Suits they chose in their simulations, though a lot of the trainees were indecisive with their Suit loadout, so they were left with basic, almost generic Suits. Marcus's suit came equipped with basic model armor, long duration thrusters on the back, a medium machine gun in one hand, a auxiliary laser blade over the hand wielding a revolver, over its shoulder was a gatling gun, with two entire reserve drums and on the chest and legs were extra short duration thrusters made for creating space between the pilot and a adversarie. Out of the other more specialised Suits, Marcus's had the most balanced speed to defense ratio, as the Suit's armor was identical to the other generic Suits while being the only one within that armor category with different thrusters on the back. Marcus began to feel at ease while looking at this 20 meter tall stack of dangerous weapons, all covered in a tan and grey paint job. gave him a small tablet for handling his suit while he was out of it, normally known only as "tablet" but those wanting more naming cohesion call it a Tie, and told him to start the docking procedure, which was just a button push away. Pushing the button labeled as "wear" on the Tie's screen opened a hatch on the chest of the Suit and let a carbon fiber and glass bar ladder fall out daintily, looking rather inviting to Marcus. As he climbed the ladder he looked to his sides to see the other trainees opening their Suits and climbing their ladders, some looked stressed, others look excited and some looked very calm especially Roger, the trainee that got lucky enough to get Arthur Klein allotted to him, maybe because his Suit was so heavily armored or maybe it was because Klein is know to let anyone into his group, making Roger's passing almost certain.
Once everyone had entered their suits and all of them had started up properly spoke up through a microphone with his monotone and uninterested voice "So, everybody will ride out of the training grounds where there will be Suit's being piloted from a distance, so don't worry too much if you trash them, oh yeah, that's the point of the test...Trash the Suits with a red target painted on them, preferably with your guns instead of your fists and based on how you perform you can get recruited into your examiners group or some other one, who knows? You might be too good for your examiner…"
Once Marcus had made it out of the training grounds he noticed that Engel still hadn't show herself, but before he could really worry about that, he had one of the practice Suits fire at him, immediately drawing his attention onto it and it began to hover away, just a bit faster than Marcus's Suit. Without the practice suit firing on him he could go back to worrying why Engels wasn't there with him, while he was worrying he began to look around and see all the other trainees chasing after their own practice Suits with their examiners, all of them being lead far away from the Shelter Sphere. Once far enough from the Sphere the practice Suits began to slow down and aim, but before any shots could be fired the loud boom of a engine could be heard from the Shelter Sphere and then the explosion of one of the practice Suits, right in front of Marcus. Marcus had just turned around to notice the waves of sand spilling from a dent in the ground and then the explosion, as he scrambled to understand what was going on all of the communications lines erupted with trainees panicking and the examiners making snide remarks about Engel, all while Marcus's suit was blaring overheating alarms. Once Marcus laid eyes on what had to be Engel's Suit all of his anxiety and panic had melted into awe, as her Suit glowed a pure white with gleaming lavender details, flickering as if on fire. He could once more feel Engel's fierce and intense glare as she quickly hovered away and Engel spoke to Marcus calmly, hiding excitement "Ready? you'll be much more prepared for the outside world this way". Marcus's suit stopped blaring it's alarm once Engel had hovered far away enough and with the sudden appearance of silence Marcus snapped back to the reality that he would have to fight a suit so well fine-tuned that it speeding could scar the earth and cause even Suit's to panic. Although, that fact didn't scare Marcus, not at all, Marcus was more scared of hesitating, Marcus was afraid that if he didn't comply something worse than the challenge of keeping up with that beast of a Suit would come his way, straight from Engel herself, that stare of hers, a stare that could go through a Suit's visor directly into your soul, was challenging Marcus's to disobey Engel, and he was too afraid to do so, and thus began firing all of his weapons onto Engel, which she promptly flew out of the of and continuing to fly out of the way just slightly faster than Marcus's suit could turn itself around. Marcus stopped his "onslaught" and read the energy readouts for her Suit, they were dropping rapidly! That suit could last only about 5 more minutes, so Marcus charged at Engel as he fired his machinegun to attempt a surprise energy blade attack, this sudden change in tactics elicited a giggle from Engel as she drew a rather unorthodox weapon from the armguard of her Suit, a sword with two blades, but it was empty down the middle allowing for the catching of other Suit weapons, and she quickly swiped at Marcus, which he swiftly dodge using his extra thrusters, Marcus immediately activated his energy blade and slashed, only for his attack to be countered with the initial flash of Engel turning on the laser blade embedded in her sword. As Marcus's attack was swatted away he instinctively tried to get as much distance between him and Engel and as she was preparing a sword thrust Marcus stopped hsi thruster, hunkered down and prepared to parry it with his own energy blade, while revving up the gatling gun over his shoulder. Her Suit's thruster flared up and launched her at Marcus at a blinding speed, too fast for marcus to possibly parry, but Engel turned off her energy blade and shoulder rammed Marcus's suit knocking him down and then pointing her sword at Marcus's cockpit. Marcus could feel her stare again, pinning him down emotionally, as her Suit was pinning his down physically, there was silence between Marcus and Engel as the other trainees had their own difficulties facing off the practice suits.
While everyone else took their sweet time defeating the practice suits Marcus was accepting the fact that we couldn't become a mercenary now, at least this year. Whether that was fair or not didn't really matter, the examiner is allowed to intervene in any way after all. Marcus opened up a personal comm link to Engel, but while he was waiting for it to connect, he noticed that Engel's Suit had been regenerating energy and now was full and prepared to fight again, making him feel dumb about trying to wear down her energy reserves. The comm link opens "So Mr. Marcus, what did you want to talk about?" said Engels seemingly unfazed about the fight "I wanted to get out of my suit and watch everyone else's fights" said Marcus meekly, Engel chuckled softly "There isn't much to look at, the trainees that look like good fighters are already done with their targets and most of the rest are swingin the butt of their guns at the target, they ran out of ammo a long while ago" Marcus cocked his head slightly "A long while ago? It could've only been two minutes by now…"Engel sighed annoyed "That sparring match of ous lasted almost half an hour, it certainly didn't seem so, put you put up quite a fight for a rookie" "Huh?" Marcus screamed out "N-No way! You just wrecked the practice Suit the second you left the hangar but I kept up with you for half an hour?! You're shitting me aren't you!? Why are you making a mockery of me?!" Marcus had become enraged at the prospect that Engel made his feel so weak then pities him, catching Engel completely off guard "Woah there kid! What's this all about? Sorry I guess? I'm being honest with you, I'm... kinda proud even" Marcus was still mad at Engel but he decided to look at the clock in his Tie and it had been exactly forty three minutes since the mercenary exam had begun.