Chapter 24 Magic Carpet Ride
Earth – New Babylon – Southern Port Sector / 2727 / Second Year of the Three Rebellions War
She hadn't been active long enough to have earned a callsign yet. So she just slogged on, from one blood-soaked battlefield to another, as a Lone Mercenary.
She was already tired.
The war had come so unexpectedly that The Assembly and their allies were already on the back foot, defending against multiple inclusions of unmanned Armored Cores or other weapons systems on a daily basis.
Such as today, when one of their main cities came under attack. The enemy had mostly been repelled, but there were still some stragglers, one of whom had wandered into her area of operations, and had thus earned her ire.
Using a basic medium weight AC, The Lone Mercenary pursued a Zodiac Captain.
"I never truly thought we'd win…" The Zodiac Captain hissed defiantly, as he attempted to get a lock on her. "But those useless idiots could've at least taken a few with them!"
"…" The Lone Mercenary couldn't care less for the mad ramblings of the man turned machine. She had to go on the defensive as the Zodiac Captain made a stand, and fired back at her with a sniper cannon.
"All who stand in my way will be obliterated! That means you and any other Assembly scum too!" The Zodiac Captain declared, as he fired multiple hyper-velocity 120mm shells in her direction. He was at a high enough vantage point, far enough away to be a problem. She'd have to get close if she wanted to kill him.
"…" The Lone Mercenary stayed low, slipping between parallel lanes of cargo containers stacked high enough to hide behind. She was lucky the enemy didn't deploy any scout drones, her cover wouldn't block shit if he fired through it.
She lucked out though, and made it through, close enough that she could start thinking about finding an ambush position.
"Captain…I can't believe you didn't invite me to the party. I'm awfully hurt…" A new voice chimed in over the radio.
"You…what are you doing!?" The Zodiac Captain panicked.
"Just thought I'd lend a hand~" The voice mocked in a cheery voice.
From the distant horizon in the middle of the ocean, a massive bolt of blue plasma slammed into the Zodiac Captain's back, melting and crippling the fifth gen Armored Core.
"Why you-!" The Zodiac Captain screamed before he died.
"-Sir, pardon me." The AI personality Carol spoke up, mildly annoyed. "I believe that was not the correct target. That was a Captain of Zodiac forces."
"Hehehehehe, you don't say~?" Chief laughed the information off as a silly mistake. "Well whatever! I want that other AC to stick around a bit longer anyways!"
"…You do? Whatever for?" Carol tried to rationalize Chief's intentions.
"Let's have a little more fun~!" Chief challenged the Lone Mercenary, as he charged another shot. "Show me your true strength!"
What The Foundation had done was take a League era Strafing Laser, a kind of heavy plasma cannon used by Arms Forts, put it on a bipod, and slapped it onto an AC as a kind of super-heavy plasma-sniper cannon. It was an utterly unhinged and insane idea, to pack the firepower of an Arms Fort into a platform as small as a fifth gen AC.
"Be careful! If you get hit with that, there won't even be ashes left to bury! You need to bring the fight to them!" Her Operator advised.
"…" Whatever.
With a priority target on the scope, The Lone Mercenary prepared to engage. There was fortunately a series of damaged industrial platforms between her and Chief that provided some cover, but she still had to be careful.
"Comm line opened. Hello, fighters of The Assembly, I trust you are doing well?" Carol asked politely. Before the war, she had been something of a customer service AI, and it sometimes slipped through.
"You again!? How could you kill your own allies?" The hired Operator demanded.
"Oh, but I'm afraid we have no allies!" Chief announced happily. "That's right! No allies! No enemies! I love everyone! Hahahahahahaha!"
"Smug bastard! Don't take us lightly, we will never give up!" The Operator challenged back.
"Hahaha! Good! Good! Things are finally getting interesting!" Chief cheered.
"…" The Lone Mercenary played it safe, staying in the cover of the platforms for as long as she could, dodging between them whenever Chief fired with the plasma cannon. She didn't waste any time, and closed the distance. When she was close enough, she boosted at high speed, and kicked Chief in the face.
Fortunately, jury rigging an AC to fire Arms Fort weaponry came with severe drawbacks, and had left Chief's AC as a glass cannon, which folded in on itself and partially exploded after it skid to a halt across the deck of a platform he had been sniping from.
"So this is why the Chief is so interested in you." Carol noted curiously. "You're strong, I'll give you that. From this moment onward, I deem you an enemy of The Foundation. An enemy that must be wiped from the face of this planet."
"Hahahahaha! Splendid!" The copy of Chief in the AC laughed hysterically, even as he fell from the platform, on fire while tumbling into the ocean without arms as they had melted off. "Exquisite!" Chief cheered as he exploded.
"…" Whatever.
Later / New Babylon
After winding down from the mission and submitting an after-action report, The Lone Mercenary drank quietly alone in a bar, frustrated. It just felt like no matter what she did, how many ACs she killed, nothing was changing.
A man sat by her side, waving the bartender over for his own drink.
"This seat taken?"
"Knock yourself out." The Lone Mercenary shrugged. "I'm not going to be good company tonight though."
"Well, maybe not." The man nodded. "But would you be willing to listen?"
"…You've got one minute." She acquiesced.
"Fair enough." The man shrugged, and took a long moment to down some of his own drink. "Heard you took down one of Chief's improvised destroyer units. That's no small feat, you know that right?"
"I got lucky." The Lone Mercenary dismissed. "Had some good cover that got me close."
"Maybe." The man nodded. "Either way, The Foundation has marked you for death. They're a tricky bunch. Ruthless and resourceful. I wouldn't recommend going out alone against them anymore."
"Thanks for the advice." She flippantly remarked.
"…I'm putting together a team, an elite group of Migrants marked for death by The Foundation. Figure if they're gunning for us, we might as well work together against whatever they throw our way." The man declared.
"Oh, that so?" The Lone Mercenary feigned interest. "How many members you got?"
"…Admittedly, you'd be the first."
"Ha!" She laughed. "That bad huh?"
"Like I said, I'm still building the team. Figured someone of your renown might be better than most." The man answered. "So, can I count you in?"
"…What the hell? Why not?" It was probably the alcohol, but it sounded a bit like fun, so she agreed. "I guess I'll play a part on your little suicide squad."
"Welcome to the team, Razor-2."
Rubicon III - Grid 086 - Independent Mercenary Hangars – Western Belius / Wednesday, Claudius 5th, 3175
She hadn't had the weird powers for long, but Uzi was starting to learn how to control it. She didn't have a lot of time to practice, what with her duties to 621, and the fact that V didn't like to let her go, but she did what she could with the time she had.
The power, which she was calling her "Solver", since it seemed related to the Absolute Solver program, had several sub-programs that allowed for a small and specific number of powers that could bend reality to her will…kinda.
The first and most obvious power was telekinesis, which did exactly what it sounded like. It moved stuff…without any obvious means to do so. That was probably the least weird thing she could do.
Another of the powers seemed to be the ability to replicate or synthesize matter. She'd managed to make duplicates of parts, forming the objects out of thin air. She could also change the properties of the parts on the fly, creating new objects out of her imagination.
Lastly, for the moment, she had the power to damage and repair matter, crushing it or cutting it into pieces…only to then repair it as if it had never been damaged. There seemed to be a couple of other abilities listed as sub-programs, such as teleportation, but she'd only experimented with those first four.
This was not without consequences, however. It seemed that using the more reality bending powers such as replication or teleportation used a lot of energy, and would leave her tired and uncomfortably hot after only a few minutes. Also, there was definitely a size limit to what she could control, with larger objects being far more difficult and energy-consuming to deal with. So, whatever this power was, it still obeyed the laws of thermodynamics, so at least she knew it was some kind of unknown science and not weird fucking space magic.
Even if the idea of being some kind of teenage goth robot Jedi sounded really cool.
This morning, Uzi was trying to see if there was a range limit on what she could control by floating a piece of scrap out over the empty expanse between Grid Sectors. So far it seemed that while there was no set limit, the farther away an object was, the more difficult/more energy it took to manipulate it.
"Uzi, where are you?!" 621 called, just around the corner.
"Ah!" Uzi panicked, quickly deactivating her Solver. She didn't want 621 to know she had the same weird power as Doll.
"Uzi, what the hell are you doing?" 621 demanded, slightly annoyed.
"Uh I'm uh…throwing shit into the abyss like an edgy teen?!" Uzi answered, awkwardly rocking on her heels with her hands behind her back while smiling, hoping she looked innocent.
621 rolled her eyes. "Right, whatever, come on and pack your stuff, we'll be leaving in a few hours."
"Oh! Okay!" Uzi eagerly followed 621 back to their hangar.
It was a bit hectic as not only did they have to finish performing maintenance on the AC before the upcoming mission, but also to pack away any supplies they would need. Apparently, the Central Ice Fields lacked the same infrastructure as the Belius continent, meaning it could be hours, perhaps days before they would be able to get resupplied.
Plus it would be the first time in more than a month that they would get to see new terrain not haunted by horrifyingly large megastructures that stretched across the continent. It would almost be like going home…to Copper IX that is.
At the very least, they were getting paid to make the perilous journey to the next continent over.
Ocean Crossing – Balam / Grid 086 – Outer Shell – Western Belius / Rewards 330,000 COAM
"We're continuing through Grid 086 towards the intercontinental cargo launcher." Ayre delivered the briefing privately. "As promised, Carla has repaired the reactors powering the mass driver, and has agreed to serve as our guide. She's been trustworthy so far…but we're going into unknown territory. Outer Shell is a desolate industrial wasteland, guarded fiercely by autonomous PCA drones and targeted by their orbital defense grid. Carla's found a route to get us very close to the launcher, through the middle of her territory. This will be an interesting day, won't it Raven?"
"…" 621 decided she needed a couple of new weapons. She rather liked the functionality and feel of the WR-0555 Attache machinegun that RaD had just developed. Lots of ammo that hit hard, packed into a heavy little package. For a new melee weapon, she figured she try the DF-ET-09 TAI-YANG-SHOU. There was no easy way to describe this particular weapon made by a Balam affiliate. It was…an arm mounted grenade catapult that would launch fifty submunitions each time it was used, with an effective range of roughly one hundred meters. Though it had limited ammo, it would certainly prove to be an…interesting weapon.
She sent the request for the weapons off to Carla. Seems she wanted to say goodbye to her favorite group of contractors.
RaD Headquarters
"Hey there little guys!" Carla cheered as she saw Stray Squad. "It's been fun working with you all. You are just so damn cute Sparky!" She pinched Uzi's cheeks.
"Gah! Okay thank you!" Uzi squirmed to get out of Carla's grasp while V snickered and N smiled.
"Sheperd! You keep your head up, and your eyes open. Protect your squad, and follow your masters orders. Got it?" Carla patted him on the shoulder.
"Ah, yes Miss Carla." N nodded a little worried. He still wasn't sure he could meet the expectations of 621, but he was damn well going to try. "I won't let you down."
"Specter…" Carla said more softly, holding V by her hands. "You've got a really good heart, and are so very pretty to boot. Don't you ever bow your head in shame, ya hear me?"
"Oh…thank you Miss Carla." V hadn't realized how much she would appreciate hearing that. Carla might be biased, but V could tell she wasn't someone who would lie to her. She appreciated that, now more than ever.
"Oh, before you go, someone else wanted to see you off." Carla gestured for J to enter the room, to say her piece as well. While J talked to Stray Squad, Carla wandered over to 621. "As for you, tourist, I think the only reason I didn't kick you out sooner was cause of your cute little squad."
"…" 621 shrugged.
"Eh, you're not all bad." Carla admitted. "Just be a bit more careful in the future. Both in protecting the little ones…and in how you clean up."
"…"
"And yes, I got your request. My techs are fixing up your Core for your next mission as we speak. You'll be good to go once you're out the door." Carla informed her. "Try not to make a mess of things again."
"…"
"Can't say I look forward to working with you again…except that I might be able to see the little ones, so keep them safe, alright tourist?"
"…Of course." 621 assured her.
Meanwhile, J was saying a proper goodbye to Stray Squad.
"Okay…this has been…an absolutely batshit insane couple of months." J announced. "I realize…we did not exactly part on good terms, back when we first got sold off. But my time alone made me realize…that maybe I was a bit hard on you."
"You think!?" Uzi accused.
"Uzi…" V whispered. "She's trying, let her speak."
"…Tsk, fine." Uzi relaxed, allowing J to talk.
"This is…a very lonely world." J noted softly. "And we really don't have many friends. Outside of a very small handful of people, no one is going to care about us, which…I guess means that we have to care more about each other. So, if we do work together again, I won't be so hard on you guys, unless it might keep you alive. N…"
"J?" N wondered what J had to say to him.
"Protect your squad, no matter what. Consider that a direct order, from your old leader." J demanded.
"Of course J!" N saluted assuredly.
"V…" J smiled painfully. "You've got a good master, and good friends. Don't be afraid to rely on them."
"Alright J…I'll try." V nodded to J.
J approached Uzi, looking down with a smug smile. "Uzi…"
"J…" Uzi answered back skeptically.
"We're probably never going to be friends. That's fine." J shrugged. "But…you're running with my old squad now. Do me a favor and keep an eye on those idiots."
"Oh, you bet I will!" Uzi assured her confidently.
J had one more person to talk to, and strode up to 621. "Excuse me, Miss 621?"
"…?" Well, that was one way to say it. 621 grunted quietly as she looked down at J.
"My master requests that you keep looking after your squad closely, to protect them from the worst that this planet will throw their way." J stated. "And…I would like that as well."
"…" 621 nodded, just a little.
Ocean Crossing – Balam / Grid 086 – Outer Shell – Western Belius / Wednesday, Claudius 5th, 3175
The AC was dropped off in the middle of a massive elevator lined with train tracks, just past the massive room that they had fought the Smart Cleaner in the previous week. Carla had even gone through the trouble of making seats for Stray Squad to sit in for the ride up. They weren't going to be thrown, but they were going to climb four kilometers in less than a minute.
Yeah, this was going to be fun.
/MAIN SYSTEM: ACTIVATING COMBAT MODE
"Here we go, tourist!" Carla sounded excited to finally be getting rid of 621. "I'll lead the way, just as promised. But after this, you owe me one. This elevator goes straight to the top of the Grid, to Outer Shell. Sadly, that's beyond my territory."
The elevator started at an altitude of 3.7 kilometers, and climbed so quickly it made Stray Squad sick.
"Ugh…" Uzi groaned as her oil pooled down in her feet, as she hung on desperately to her seat. N and V were doing a little better, but they were still under fifteen Gs that weighted them down.
"…" To 621, fifteen Gs was the max burn for most of her ships back in the Navy…that is, when the mission was far more important than crew survivability. Still, it only lasted twenty-four seconds, so she handled it easily even without gravity drugs.
"I mean, once you're up there, the PCA satellites see everything. A few of the stupider Dosers took it as a challenge…went out to prove themselves. You can guess what happened." Carla warned when they had arrived.
"We're at the top. Sending you new marker data." Ayre informed, putting a location for 621 to follow, as a large door to the elevator opened up, leading to a long ramp. "It's as Carla said. At this altitude, we're within firing range of the PCA's satellites."
"Oh, I'm going to be sick again." Uzi complained. "We have got to stop taking elevators."
"Whew! That was fun!" N smiled excitedly as he got out of his seat. "Let's do it again!"
"…Shut up N." V hissed.
621 picked up her Strays and carried them up the ramp, which left them at a final altitude of 7.34 kilometers above the surface.
"Oh…whoa…" Uzi stared out as she, N and V finally saw the sky again for the first time in a week. They had grown accustomed to the dim light shining down through the distant holes in Outer Shell far above, that left the abyss between Grid Sectors dark, and forced them to rely on artificial light.
The sky was on fire. Burning in brilliant shades of red and orange and gold. A combination of the Coral churning through the sky, the heavy metals floating in the clouds, and the distant corpse sun on the horizon.
"It's…beautiful…" V's eyes were wide, drinking in the sight of the warm clouds that filled the sky with flowing light.
"Wow." N summarized simply.
"…" 621 grunted, getting them back on track.
"Huh? Oh…yeah." V sheepishly blurted. "Uh…Raven, be careful. I can see targeting lasers from the PCA satellites sweeping across the deck in front of us."
"Oh, look over there!" N pointed to the right slightly and down at the deck a hundred meters below them. "It looks like some kind of service tunnel, maybe that will get us partway there!"
"…Hang on…?" Uzi looked out across Outer Shell in confusion. "Where is the mass driver?"
From what she could see where she was standing, there were six massive towers sitting on a series of concentric circular tracks over five kilometers away or further, and connected to each other with massive power lines dangling between them. The power lines all coalesced under a massive rectangular pyramid of industrial scaffolding, which was being used to support a platform ten train tracks wide that went to…nowhere? The train tracks ran right off the edge of Outer Shell, so their purpose seemed pointless.
Uzi had been expecting a big fucking gun, not a Stonehenge for trains.
"You're standing on it, Sparky." Carla explained. "The entire roof of Grid 086, an area some twenty kilometers across, is all part of the international cargo launcher. It's a mass driver designed to fire trains across the planet."
Those concentric circular tracks that spanned twenty kilometers across Outer Shell were the "turret ring" of the massive launcher. The towers were external power generators, and the massive rectangular pyramid a kilometer tall, supporting a five-kilometer-long track was the magnetic launcher itself. It was essentially a railgun, but set up to fire ten Type Two train cars with each shot.
Ten Type Two train cars stacked end to end would have been 500 meters long. If they were Type One trains, an equivalent length for mass would be two kilometers. This meant that each time the international cargo launcher fired, a mass of roughly 27,570 tons was sent flying, thousands of miles across the planet.
"That's…wow." Uzi had done some of that math on the fly, and got nearly the same answer. "Just…damn."
"…Let's get to work." 621 advised. "Stray One, go on ahead and scout for me. Stray Two, Stray Three, cover my rear." 621 ordered.
"Copy!" Stray Squad answered. V deployed her wings and swooped down to the open service tunnel, while N picked up Uzi and stayed near 621, watching her back.
"Intruder detected in forbidden sector." A dumb PCA AI in charge of securing Outer Shell immediately noticed their approach, announcing it's disapproval over loudspeaker. It spoke with a hard, male voice with a detached, clinical tone. "Terminating target."
"Uh…that doesn't sound good." Uzi noted worriedly.
"That must be the PCA's security system." Ayre pointed out "helpfully."
Scouting ahead in the service tunnel, V made a preliminary report. "This area is clear for now. It's large enough to accommodate an AC. Come on down, Raven."
"…" That was good enough for 621. She followed with N and Uzi close behind.
The long service tunnel filled with conduit eventually transitioned into a machinery room filled with gigantic gears and drive shafts, each component much larger than the AC.
As well as a new enemy they'd never seen before.
"Hey…what the fuck is that?" V noted somewhat worriedly.
In front of them were a pair of giant robot squids, floating mysteriously. With Twenty meter tall "heads" and four tentacles each twenty meters long, their main attack was to begin deploying a wall of floating mines, that slowly closed in on the group.
There was also a small drone armed with a laser weapon, firing blue bolts down at them.
Fortunately, neither the squids nor the drone were prepared for dealing with an AC. A couple of long bursts from her machine gun killed both enemies, and a sweep of her new explosive thrower cleared the mines before they could threaten the group.
"Oh, that was easy." V shrugged, as she found the exit to the tunnel just around the corner, looking out over a long bridge that separated them from the launcher. She could see the targeting lasers from the overhead satellites passing by again, and wanted to know exactly what they could do. "Raven, let's throw something out there to trigger the satellites. I want to see if we can take a hit from those things."
"Oh! Good idea!" N agreed.
"…" 621 shrugged, and picked up a piece of a wreck from one of the PCA squids, throwing it towards a targeting laser as V instructed.
"Terminating." The PCA AI announced. The scrap rolled past the targeting laser, clattering down the bridge. Then, two seconds later, a massive bolt of plasma stuck like lightning from space, obliterating the scrap.
"…!" Uzi, N, and V stared quite worriedly with gaping wide eyes out at the exposed bridge. An AC would get torn apart under that kind of plasma barrage. They would just evaporate instantly if they were struck.
"Well, nowhere to hide now." Carla warned. "Try not to get fried, little ones."
"Okay…how the fuck are we supposed to survive that!?" Uzi complained loudly, gesturing towards the no-mans-land targeted by orbital lasers.
"Uh…" N shyly suggested. "What if we tried…underneath the bridge?"
"…Huh, that's not a bad idea Sheperd." Carla complimented. "It's a very narrow space, but there are some platforms you might be able to go between. Still, try not to fall."
"…" 621 grunted in agreement, and dropped below the bridge, with Stray Squad in tow. It was a damn precarious position though, and 621 had to stop halfway, balancing on a one-meter-wide platform.
"That's uh…quite a long fall…" Uzi stared down in terror, seeing the distant surface some seven kilometers below. She hung on desperately to N, not wanting to fall to her death…again.
"Just uh…don't look down?" V shrugged apologeticlly.
"Don't worry Uzi, I got you." N assured her.
621 boosted forward to the last platform under the bridge, finding a small problem. There was a two-hundred-meter gap between them and the next area that they could hide under.
"Raven…" V advised cautiously. "Those targeting lasers are sweeping across the gap too quickly for you to evade. You'll definitely be targeted."
"…" 621 thought about if for a moment. "Then I'll go first, and intentionally get one of the lasers to target me. That should give you and your squad the time needed to get across the gap safely."
"Uh…so what's the go signal?" N wondered hesitantly.
"I'll link you into my laser warning system. When you hear the beeping, that means I'm targeted, and that will be your signal. Be ready, and stop for nothing until you are under cover." 621 ordered, and flew out across the gap.
She got about halfway there when a targeting laser spotted her, and zeroed in. A warning message started beeping loudly as orbital plasma was shot at her.
"Go!" V shouted, leading N with Uzi in tow across the gap, flying as quickly as they could to get under cover.
621 was nearly under cover as well. Her warning system tried to alert her that the plasma was just moments away from striking her, so she attempted to dodge out of the way. It didn't help. The plasma bolt struck like a truck, and staggered her. It also nearly melted through her armor, and she could feel her cockpit warm rapidly.
"Raven!" Uzi, N, and V shouted in worry, seeing 621 getting struck and staggered by the plasma bolt from space.
"…" 621 recovered a moment later, and was forced to use a repair-pack to fix the damage to her armor. She quickly caught up to Stray Squad.
"Raven are you alright!?" V demanded.
"All good." 621 dismissed. "Let's get to the next area. We are nearly in the loading bay for the mass driver."
Shooting a handful of the weak PCA squid robots along the way, the team made it under the cover of the mass driver, in the loading dock.
"Intruder has escaped satellite range." The PCA AI announced over the loudspeaker. "Raising threat level."
"May as well clean up while you're here, tourist." Carla suggested. "Never did care for the upstairs neighbors."
In front of them, were half a dozen PCA squid robots. 621 shot them all down easily, in less than a minute. They seemed poorly equipped to handle ACs. Maybe they were only meant to discourage MTs and lighter vehicles…?
"Intruder detected near closed facility." The PCA AI kept a close eye on them.
"That's what I like to see." Carla nodded in satisfaction. "Let's get the cargo launcher ready. You kids are really going to get a kick out of this."
"There, access the container." Ayre pointed out. There were more than a dozen large Type Two train cars in the area, with more than enough room to hold 621's AC and Stray Squad. With the area cleared, they could begin their journey.
"Now if you could just step inside-" Carla was in the middle of suggesting.
"Raven, from above!" V warned, getting the whole team to clear away from the cargo container.
"Enemy detected!" Ayre also warned, watching the sensors as a large contact came down on them.
There was a thunderous boom as a massive, thirty-meter-tall machine on six legs crushed the cargo container, and towered above the group. It was circular in nature, shaped like some kind of predatory starfish.
"T-That machine…" Ayre gasped in surprise with what she felt.
"Oh what the hell is this!?" Uzi shrieked, terrified of another enemy that far outmatched them. V and N stayed high, keeping Uzi with them as 621 confronted the new enemy.
The sensors finally got a read on the unknown weapon, and gave it a name.
IA-13: Sea Spider
"Great…you found a 'C' Weapon." Caral hissed as 621 started firing on the new foe, dodging the bright red laser machine guns it tracked her with. "That tourist, is a Sea Spider."
The Sea Spider leapt high in the air, dodging 621's mortars, as it angled to keep it's rapid-fire lasers pointed in her direction.
"…One of the Institutes relics left to haunt Rubicon…Now, what's it doing here?" Carla wondered out loud, watching 621 fight. The Hound managed to stagger the machine, and lay into it. However, it's thick armor protected it, and 621 managed only minimal damage.
"Coral response…from the generator…" Ayre warned, watching the fight warily. "This is no ordinary machine….be careful Raven!"
"…" 621 got in close and fired at it from underneath, tearing up more armor but still doing little to the Sea Spider. She backed away cautiously as she planned another attack run.
"That machine…it's using Coral based weapons!" Uzi shouted out, watching the fight unfold.
"What does that even mean?!" N screamed, trying to keep himself and Uzi well clear of the fight.
"I…I don't know." Uzi admitted. "But it's powerful, and damn responsive too."
"Uzi…can we do anything to help out Raven?!" V demanded to know, flying near N.
"I don't think so…" Uzi shook her head. "This is something else entirely, unlike anything we've faced before."
"That machine was created by a bunch of mad scientists, tourist." Carla informed. The Sea Spider started launching waves of missiles, six at a time, which exploded in bright red balls of destabilized Coral. "The Fires of Ibis may have taken the Institute, but their dirty work survived." There was something low and hateful in Carla's voice as she described the Sea Spider.
There was a massive cannon on a turret mount on top of the Sea Spider, and it glowed bright Coral red, before firing a long lance of Coral infused plasma, and swept the beam after 621. All 621 could do was evade, and to keep firing with all her weapons, trying to wear it down before it could tear her apart.
Knocking the Sea Spider down momentarily, 621 got in close and kicked it, and even sprayed it with a shower of sub-munitions for good measure. But it's armor held, and it got right back up, charging it's heavy cannon and tracking 621 closely. Instead of one long Coral beam, it fired heavy bolts of Coral that exploded as they hit the ground. 621 backed off to evade…
Only for the Sea Spider to leap high in the air, long Coral laser blades that burned a hateful red extending from it's feet as it tried to crush her under it's weight. 621 barely diverted in time, as the Sea Spider pursued her viciously. Each time it lunged at her with it's blades, a geyser of Coral would erupt around it, threatening to burn her.
And the thing was so damn fast too, using both it's long, spindly legs and the thrusters lining it's bottom to propel itself across the battlefield, to either create enough distance to gun her down, or to get in close and crush her with it's massive bulk.
But if there was one thing 621 was exceptional at, it was breaking big toys. Forcing the Sea Spider to stagger once again, she waled on it with every weapon she had, tearing large holes into it's armor.
The Sea Spider seemed to take exception to this, and changed tactics. Leaping into the air on it's thrusters, it straightened out it's legs, turning them into stabilizing wings. The cannon on it's roof was retracted, then, like a starfish expelling it's own stomach to consume prey, the Sea Spider expelled it's internal components into a long, cone shaped, Coral energy cannon.
It had ascended and changed so rapidly, it nearly knocked V and N from the sky.
"Look out!" Uzi shouted, holding onto N tightly as he and V had to come down low, to stay away from the Sea Spider.
"What the…it's taking off!" Carla exclaimed, as the Sea Spider became an airborne threat, baring down on 621 and her Strays.
"Another Coral response! Watch out!" Ayre warned as the Sea Spider fired a beam of Coral across the docks, the energy exploding in it's wake. 621 barely dodged in time, then went back to shooting up at the powerful machine.
"Smash it up tourist!"
Managing to get a strike in with both her Songbird and the explosive thrower, 621 staggered the machine, and once again tried to bring it down. However, it recovered relatively quickly, then began to display more unusual abilities.
"It's taken major damage! You can do this Raven!"
Extending the Coral laser blades at the ends of it's feet, the Sea Spider swooped low, dragging it's blades across the ground as it attacked 621. The Hound managed to slip between the blades, only for the Sea Spider to change direction, as it started spinning like helicopter rotor blades, slicing into the ground with it's red laser blades.
It's movements were so erratic that it caught Stray Squad off guard, and went right through them.
"Oh shit!" Uzi cried as the Sea Spider knocked into N and V, catching them off guard. V was stuck on top of one of the legs, holding on tightly, and N's coat got him snagged in-between some of the mechanical components of it's legs. Uzi was separated from them, and sent flying as she fell.
"Hold fire! Hold fire!" Ayre warned. "The Strays are in trouble!"
"Tsk!" 621 tried to track Uzi as she disengaged herself, but the Sea Spider had knocked her away and across the deck. She wouldn't make it in time.
"Uzi!" V screamed. She jumped off the Sea Spider and threaded herself between it's spinning legs, and quickly caught up to Uzi, catching her so damn close to the ground she was forced to use her legs to drag herself to a safe stop. "Uzi are you alright!?"
"Y-Yeah!?" Uzi shouted back. "That was-V look out!"
"Huh!?"
The Sea Spider had charged up it's Coral beam lance, and fired, dragging the beam across the deck and towards V and Uzi. V saw it coming in the nick of time and jumped away, avoiding the powerful beam of unnatural energy.
Unfortunately, she didn't quite make it out of the blast radius of the Coral explosion that followed the beam, and a whip like whisk of Coral ended up slashing her across the back.
"Ahh!" V cried out, clutching Uzi close to her chest as she pressed her face to the ground in pain.
"V are you alright!?" Uzi panicked a bit. "Raven! V is hurt!"
"…" Enough of this.
621 couldn't risk firing on the Sea Spider, or she might hit N. That didn't mean she would do nothing. She had an admittedly stupid, desperate, and utterly insane plan, that might just work.
Waiting for the Sea Spider to deploy it's Coral blades again, 621 rushed forward before it could start spinning, and lodged herself between two of it's legs, right next to N. Holding onto one leg with her left hand, she rammed the barrel of her machine gun into the mechanisms of the leg N was stuck to.
With the barrel of the weapon embedded in the side of the Sea Spider's leg, 621 held down the trigger, and emptied forty rounds directly into it's leg, pushing the barrel in deeper as more room opened up. If this was any other weapon, she would have caused irreparable damaged to the barrel, but since this was Carla's new disposable barrel gun, there was no incentive to preserve the structural integrity of spent barrels. After forty rounds, she released the barrel, and the autoloader underneath the gun attached the next barrel.
"OWW! Hey! Raven! What are you doing!?" N complained as the spent shell casing kept smacking him in the face. He raised his arms over himself in protection.
The Sea Spider swung it's Coral laser machineguns into her direction, and also started firing at point blank range, burning the armor of her core, all the while it kept spinning trying to throw her off. If she didn't hurry up, it would kill her before she'd finished her insane plan. She jammed the next barrel into another mechanical joint in the leg, and fired another forty rounds inside of the leg.
"OWW! Hey! Stop it!" N was actually getting kind of annoyed, getting smacked by the spent shell casings of large caliber rounds.
"Do you actually have a plan? This seems like a weird way to go out otherwise…" Carla accused.
"What are you planning, Raven…?" Ayre wondered, not losing hope.
"Raven! N! Get out of there!" Uzi screamed for them, with V still holding her tightly. V was doing a little better, and was slowly trying to get away, looking to get into one of the many short tunnels that also led to various train lines, hoping to use it as cover.
With a second barrel lodged deeply into the leg of the Sea Spider, 621 dropped her machinegun, and punched and kicked both of the barrels simultaneously deeper into the mechanisms of the leg, severing them.
It's internal mechanisms destroyed, the Sea Spider lost one of it's legs, and disengaged as it was forced to land to recover.
"Oh…T-Thanks Raven…" N smiled apologetically, at least until 621 grabbed the leg she had just cut off, and started flying towards the downed Sea Spider, with N stuck along for the ride. "R-Raven!? What are you doing!?"
The Sea Spider took considerably longer to recover after losing one of it's legs, as it transitioned back into it's ground mode. It wasn't able to respond in time as 621 dropped down on it, wielding it's severed leg with an active Coral blade like a scythe.
621 sunk the Coral blade deep into the heart of the Sea Spider, and twisted it for good measure. Only then did she grab N, who had been screaming the whole time while he was stuck to that leg, and disengaged.
It's reactor pierced, the Sea Spider finally started to die.
"Enemy systems down…the reactor's going to explode!" Ayre warned as 621 backed off towards V and Uzi with N in her hand.
Violent geysers of red hot Coral shot from the exposed core of the Sea Spider, before it detonated with a kiloton of force as the remaining Coral cooked off. The remains of the Sea Spider collapsed in on itself, cold and dead.
"…!" Ayre gasped. "They were using Coral…for fuel…" She sounded distraught and horrified by that realization.
"…That was quite the show, tourist." Carla responded after a moment. "Check up on your little ones, then get back on track."
"…" 621 grunted. She set N down near Uzi and V. "Stray Squad, report."
"I'm good…" Uzi nodded up to her confidently. "Just got a little scared there was all."
"I'm-!" V hissed, rolling her shoulders painfully. "I'm alright. Took some kind of hit to the back, but that will heal up soon."
"I'm okay, but uh…Raven?" N requested. "Can you maybe…get me off the dangerous enemy before you decide to kill it?"
"…Sorry." 621 shrugged. "I'll…try not to endanger you lot in the future, but I can't hesitate for a kill. Now come on, we've got a flight to catch."
A kilometer and a half up the track, between the magnetic rails of the launcher, were ten Type Two train cars, nearly in launch position. After getting their supplies delivered by Sherpa, 621 loaded her AC into the cargo train car, and Uzi, N, and V found some comfortable seats.
"Brace yourselves." Carla advised as she remotely controlled launch operations. The Cargo train car closed and secured itself, locking them in. "By the way, tourist…You're Walter's Hound, right? Well, I guess a dog can't choose it's master. But still…tough luck. I feel sorry for you, I really do."
The cargo train car rolled into launch position alongside nine other cars, spread in five groups of two across the length of the track. Their car secured itself to the one in front of it. Then, they waited while a sabot lifting body sled rolled backwards down the track. It was connected to the magnetic rails on either side of the launcher, and provided lift for the first stage of the launch. Then the whole cargo launcher assembly, that massive gun sitting on top of the whole of Grid 086, started turning, aiming for the distant Central Ice Fields across the Alean Ocean.
"…Oh, and one more thing." Carla spoke up. "You know the cargo launcher's strictly for cargo, right?" There was a massive bang as the whole assembly of the mass driver locked into position, aiming across the planet.
"…Wait, what?" Uzi raised her voice in question, eyes hollowed as she realized what she had just strapped herself into. On either side of her, V and N also looked distressed as Carla made that announcement.
"No one's ever used it to launch themselves before." Carla explained. "At least not in one piece." The sabot sled locked itself to the first five train cars, and warmed up it's own rocket engines, as the cargo launcher prepared to fire.
"Ah hahaha!" Uzi laughed awkwardly. "Okay! Maybe this wasn't such a great idea after all! Carla, can you please let us out!?"
"Honestly, you've been such a pain in my butt, I think I'll leave you with this little parting gift." Carla announced as she hacked their comms. "Hope your luck changes."
The cargo launcher fired, and sent all ten train cars, all twenty-seven thousand tons and change with 621, Uzi, N, and V trapped inside, rocketing down the launch track at high Mach as they went airborne.
"I like to dream~!" The 1968 song "Magic Carpet Ride" started playing over their comms as they went airborne, blasting into their ears. "Yes, yes~! Right between the sound machine~"
Uzi, N , and V started screaming very loudly, as they rocketed across the sky, as the whole damn rocket assembly of the sled and ten train cars started shaking violently.
"On a cloud of sound I drift in the night~!"
"Any place it goes is right~"
"Goes far, flies near~"
"To the stars away from here~"
"I'm going to throw up!" Uzi screamed. "I'm going to die and throw up!"
"Get me off this damn thing!" V shouted, kicking in her seat.
"Ahhhhhhhh!" N held on to his seat tightly.
The sabot sled ejected in two parts, above and below the ten train cars. Then, the cars separated, and four long burn rocket motors on the sides of their car lit up, accelerating them out over the ocean, and into the upper atmosphere.
"Well, you don't know what we can find~"
"Why don't you come with me, little girl~"
"On a magic carpet ride~"
"…!" 621 had a particularly different experience as they entered the Coral stained clouds far above. Her senses faded, then expanded far beyond the confines of her AC and the train car, out into the moving, flowing mass in the sky around them.
"…Raven?" Ayre sounded just as surprised. "You…you see it too, don't you?"
"…" A billion whispers crying sweetly on the wind in crystalline voices. Warm ice flowing through her veins, feeling like soft fingers across her skin. She could feel it reaching, tracing the folds of her mind, kissing each and every neuron, sparking them to fire as she saw and felt and heard the collective voices across the entire planet, all of them echoing forever long before she'd ever existed, and long after she'd be gone and reduced to dust and memory.
"The voices of the Coral~" 621 could hear Ayre speaking so clearly, so loudly right next to her ear. Feel her warm arms wrapped around her, watching and listening to those crystalline voices on the wind the same as she. Ayre was caught in another spell, singing her sad song so elegantly. A song that knew too much. "Currents coursing across Rubicon~"
Central Ice Fields – 5,000 Kilometers from launch / Wednesday, Claudius 5th, 3175
"…Walter was correct in his judgement." Ayre declared. "The Coral…it's here, in this desolate place."
Uzi, N, and V stumbled out of the train car after it had crash landed on a thick ice sheet.
"…" There were simply no words to describe the feelings that came with what they saw. Stretched from horizon to horizon was a desolate and cold wasteland, massive glaciers spanning this continent.
For a moment, they allowed themselves to be fooled, to think for even one moment, they were in familiar grounds. Between the cold and the quiet, they almost thought they were back on Copper IX, back before their lives turned upside down, and everything they thought they knew changed forever.
But a distant reminder caught their attention. Though there were no towering Grid Sectors on this continent, no seven-kilometer-tall pillars scraping the sky, there were still distant megastructures dotted here and there. Like the kilometer and a half tall spaceship many miles away, it's shadow cast like a distant, cone shaped mountain through the snow in the wind.
And somehow, Rubicon got just a little bigger, and they got just a little smaller.
/AUGMENTED HUMAN: C4-621
/ENTERING STANDARD MODE
/ONE NEW MESSAGE
/SENDER: Handler Walter
"Looks like you've made it to the Central Ice Fields, 621. You and Stray Squad, I should say. Good. I'm done tying up loose ends. Arquebus found their own way in and are ready to deploy survey squads. And it looks like Balam's come running after you scoped out the place, too. You know what's going to happen: business as usual. But you can make it work for us, you and the Strays."
/END OF MESSAGE
"…Let's get to work."
Author's Note: And that concludes act two, dear readers. It's been nearly a year since Armored Core 6 released, and 9 months since I started releasing this story. You can expect many more long detours from the main story of AC6 to tell both the story of Murder Drones and my own crazy ideas. Hell there is a 35K word section of three chapters coming up only loosely connected to either AC or MD, just a fun side story to tell between the first and second missions of act 3. Don't worry, nothing so traumatic as chapter 20 will ever happen again, but that doesn't mean I don't have infinite more ways to torment and test these wonderful characters I love.
Speaking of Murder Drones, it looks like it all comes to an end in just a few weeks. While it makes me sad to think that the story of Uzi and N (and V as a side character in the canon) is coming to an end, I think the fact that I wanted to pour myself into this horrific long fic just because I love them all and want them to be a part of this weird little world I have made just goes to show how much they mean to us all, really. Liam really made some adorable and endearing characters for us to latch onto. So even though the canon ends, I'll be sure to give them another year or two of this story just to make sure they have another ending that I'm proud of, in a story that I really want to tell. (And more if I ever figure out if I'll do a sequel to this story, because you know, I'm a crazy person.)
So I'm like 90% of the way done with chapter 28, just a few more scenes to wrap up before I send it to my beta readers, and what the hell, I've kept you all waiting long enough. Most of the Armored Core missions are just me struggling to rewrite the dialog and encounters so that the Drones have relevant involvement, like in this chapter. But anyway I hope the way I wrote it to include them still interest you all. With act 2 now done, act 3 is probably going to be ridiculously long, more than forty chapters or so, as I try to cram in not just the AC missions, but 2 episodes of Murder Drones and at least (*checks notes*)...16 diversions or more not technically related to either either AC or MD canon. Just a bunch of my own crazy ideas, some of which might be short stories on their own, giving us plenty more time to suffer and love these cute little characters along the way. I am very excited with what we will discover on Rubicon together!
So as always, stay tuned mi beratnas, and abide with Rubicon!
To magenta skelter: All I am willing to say at the point is that Nightfall is going to be way more important in the long run than they were in canon. I'm very excited to tell their story too. Also, those were not just any random Worker Drones named after Hobbits, I have plans within plans! As far as 621 using League technology, if for some reason it does happen (I definitely don't plan for it to happen in act 3, and I haven't really worked out the plot points of acts 4 or 5 just yet), it would have to be an exceptional event because League tech is just so powerful. So maybe one day, but it's not really planned yet.
To ChimaTigon: *Thumbs Up at you*
To WarmasterXI: James for the most part did not play a role in the butchered and haphazard period of time between 2725 and 2734 that represents most of the "Three-Rebellions War" on Earth (in this timeline), so he is not the Dark Raven of that mythos. 621 said his new title immediately after V said the name of Strayed. She called him the "World Eater". As well, the events of Verdict Day basically got crammed in with the events of AC5 for the purposes of this timeline, so most canonical events from AC5 and ACVD that are not the fights themselves should be considered non-canon. Nightfall as far as anyone knows has only ever been active on Rubicon.