Chapter One: The Taste Of Defeat
Chapter One
Earth
July 3, 3029
++Abandoned City++
++Operation: Marche Au Supplice++
"You seem so persistent even though you know you'll die in this desert!" Said a slightly annoyed Red Cap as the back gun on his quadruped armored core fired again at the Omer Science armored core, Null, No.30.
As the massive round flew at Null, he quick-dashed to the right. Hilarios was on top of a sunken building charging the duel kojima rifles mounted to his arms to fire at Null.
"Red Cap, keep him in one place will ya?!" Said Hilarios as the rifles reached full charge.
"Shut up! I've got this!" Shouted back Red Cap.
"Focus Red Cap, don't get overconfident." Said Berlioz.
Red Cap grunted in response as he activated over boost and rammed Null directly, sending him flying into the side of a nearby building, where he stuck to the side.
"Hilarios, he's stuck! Fire, FIRE NOW!!" Yelled Red Cap.
Hilarious smirked inside her armored core.
"I see him, firing!" She stated.
Red Cap watched as two electric blue bolts of concentrated kojima flew past him and struck Null, destroying her armored core. They heard Null's pilot yell over the comms.
"NOOOO!!!! It's no use, I'm grounded here. Noblesse Oblige, it's up to you now!"
Noblesse Oblige shot over to Hilarios at a blistering speed and hit him with the long-range laser blade on the armored cores right wrist.
"Too slow..." Said Noblesse Oblige as he flew high into the air.
Hilarios' armored core was paralyzed by the powerful blow. He regained control, too late... Noblesse Oblige had already engaged his signature wing-laser canons and was aiming straight for Hilarios.
"Gotcha..." He said as the lasers all fired at once and completely shredded the vulnerable Hilarious.
"This is war, I've made my peace..." Said the pilot of Hilarios.
Berlioz saw her get vaporized and told the rest.
"All units, Hilarios is down. We're down to three against one." He announced as he flew in Nobles Obliges direction.
A few seconds later, Roughcut gave the last news any LINX wants to hear.
"Enemy reinforcements confirmed, it's Anatolia's merc." He said in a dark tone.
"Anatolia? Oh right, it's that fossle." Said Red Cap in a smug voice.
"Don't get cocky, I hear he's a skilled solider." Berlioz assured them.
"Let's burry him." Replied Red Cap.
The mercenary shot straight for Red Cap, who, caught off guard by this action, was delt a heavy hit by the 07-MOONLIGHT attached to his left wrist.
"Hmm, perhaps I underestimated you." Said Red Cap in a cold voice as his armored core restablized itself on the quadruped platform.
"I doubt it." Said Roughcut as he seemed to fly out of nowhere and unload on the mercenary with both his weapons at once.
The mercenary lost balance for a split second but quick-dashed out of the proximity immediately. Noblesse Oblige came gliding on the sand covered ground and shot up as he went after Roughcut. He and Roughcut both battled it out in the air until Roughcut's thruster energy reserve was depleted, Noblesse Obliges power level not much better. The two free fell to the ground, Noblesse Oblige pulled the trigger on his rifle only to see he was out of ammo.
"Shit!" He shouted.
"Should I ease up and give you some breathing room?" Asked Roughcut in a terrible joking voice.
Roughcut, unfortunately, didn't see the next move coming. Noblesse Oblige used the last of his thruster power to launch him self at Roughcut. He activated his laser blade and sliced one of his armored core's arms clean off. The two slammed into the ground and Roughcut was crushed by Noblesse Oblige landing on top of him. Roughcut was able to say his last words before kojima entered his cabin and killed him.
"You are strong..."
Noblesse Oblige, with no Primal Armor or P.A., was then hit directly in the back by the rear sniper rifle mounted to Red Cap, and his armored core fell over with a large hole in the back of it from where the round hit.
Red Cap jumped from the building he was stationed on and used his thrusters to cushion his landing.
"You're next." He said in a grim voice.
"Enemy Next destroyed, one left." Said Berlioz.
The mercenary shot around a building with Berlioz and Red Cap right behind him. He spun around and staring firing at Red Cap with his 01-HITMAN, while still sliding along the ground backwards. Red Cap's armored core shook violently as he was showered by massive machine gun rounds, and with low Primal Armor levels, it was only a matter of time...
"Ha ha ha! You think you can beat both of us?!" He chortled.
"Red Cap! Focus and take the left flank!" Yelled an agitated Berlioz.
Red Cap complied and dashed to Berlioz's left around a building. The mercenary, unfortunately, saw the movement and launched himself at incredible speed around the building just as Berlioz's OGOTO high-explosive shell whizzed by. But Berlioz wasn't a match for the mercenary's light-weight Eqbal (A large company in the game) style armored cores speed, and all he could do was get to the other side of the building as fast as he could and help his companion.
"Red Cap, LOOK OUT!!" He shouted, but too late...
"NO!!!! You walking junk heap!! Is this my fault?!" He shouted his last words at the mercenary.
Berlioz knew a man like the pilot of Red Cap would never say anything like that, and he assumed it signified his death. The mercenary flew over the building at Berlioz with his 07-MOONLIGHT blade at the ready.
"It's just you and me now..." Said the mercenary.
Berlioz was slightly taken aback at the sudden speech.
"So, the mercenary of Anatolia speaks? Hm, it's a shame they will be you're last words..." Replied Berlioz in a smug tone as his OGOTO cannon unfolded over his armored core's right shoulder.
The mercenary, for once, didn't see the shell as it was fired from Berlioz's gun, as it cut through the air towards his armored core. The round hit his armored core and blew it's head clean off without exploding. Literally, where the armored core's head should've been, there was nothing. Berlioz wasted no time in taking this chance to end the fight. He activated over boost and propelled himself at the other armored core, which was paralyzed from the deadly attack. What happed next was the most shocking thing Berlioz had ever seen in his lifetime of armored core warfare; the mercenary quick-dashed just bearly out of the way so Berlioz missed the stab he was going to do with the pointed front on his 04-MARVE.
"What the hell?" He thought.
While his armored core was still recovering from the overpowered lunge, and with his Primal Armor drained from using over boost, he was attacked by the mercenary from behind. Even with no FCS central processing chip (which is installed in the now non-existent head of the mercenary's armored core), he was able to half-blindly swing his laser blade and stab the side of Berlioz's armored core, slicing his generator in half and almost puncturing his cockpit.
After countless decades of being a peerless warrior, Berlioz had to process the fact that he'd just been defeated. To his and most likely the mercenary's surprize, instead of throwing some nasty insult or anything angry, he said in a calm voice,
"You're a fine warrior. Call me sentimental, but I wish we had met under different circumstances..."
A moment of silence passed before a reply came.
"Indeed." Said the mercenary.
And without another word, the headless armored core of the mercenary flew into the air and disappeared from sight, leaving Berlioz in his destroyed armored core.
"He truly was a warrior even I would call great. I hope he fairs well..." He thought as he sat inside the cabin of the Supplice with nothing to do but wait for any kojima in the area to eventualy kill him.
Berlioz played with a few of the Supplice's controlls to find that the head and eyesight was still operational. He slowly turned the muiltiple-eyed head to the right about fourty degrees. What he saw made Berlioz sigh in anoyance. A massive sandstorm was headed straght for the sunken city he was stranded at.
"It's problably going to be a while before anything comes here, especaily with that sandstrom... In the mean time, I guess I'll get some shut-eye..." Berlioz thought as he rested his head and closed his eyes.
The howling winds that could be heard outside were soothing to him, so he smiled faintly as sleep started to overcome him.
~~~~~~~~~~
Berlioz slowly woke due to a faint humming sound that was mixing with the raging sandstorms winds. He got upright and activated the head and eyesight and turned the armored cores head from the right, to about thirty degrees to the left. There he spotted what looked like a large, glowing, ball of lavender purple colored light. Not believing what he was seeing, looked away from the light and rested his head. Just as he did, the humming started to get noticably louder. Berlioz, a little anoyed now, looked back at the light to see it had gotten a lot bigger, and was starting to suck in surounding sand. A few seconds later, he could feel the Supplice starting to get pulled into the lights pull. For the first time in decades, Berlioz panicked.
"What the hell is going on?! What is that?! Am I going to die this way?! FUCKING!!!" A hundred questions rang through his head as the Supplice was draged completly into the purple light.
"What, the, FUUUCK?!?!" Berlioz shouted at he covered his eyes with his arms and the light engulfed him completly.
Chapter Two
Equestria
June 3, 3023
Spike yelped as a large text book easily the size of his head, almost took his head off.
"Twilight, will you calm down?" He said in a calm voice as the book hit the wall behind him with a loud 'bang'.
Whenever Twilight was literally throwing books around it usually meant something important was bound to happen. That was true in this case.
"I can't calm down spike! Luna will be here in less than an hour and I need to find this one Celestia forsaken book before she gets here!!" Replied Twilight as yet another book soared almost knocked Spike out cold.
Spike sighed heavily--due to this being the same reaction to something important by Twilight every time--and walked into the next room. He sat at one of the tables and pulled a book from one of the many bookshelves lining the walls, as the constant banging of book getting tossed continued in the neighboring room. He opened it up and noticed it was full of spells. Spike grunted irritably.
"Ug, I don't need this." He grumbled as he set the book down and closed it.
Something caught his eye as the cover of the book became visible. The title read: Advanced Teleportation Spells & Terminology: Book 2. This defiantly wasn't Spike's kind of book, but he wondered if Twilight was maybe looking for the very book that rested on the wood table in front of him. He picked it up and walked into the room Twilight was in to see dozens of books, large and small, littering the floor.
"Um... Twilight?" He asked slowly.
Twilight snapped her focus on the baby dragon with a stare that could melt glass.
"I um, found this... book..." He continued in a concerned tone. "...and I thought it was maybe the one you were looking for...?"
Twilight's expression softened at the news.
"Really? Let me have a look..." She said calmly.
Spike brought it over to the unicorn who took it with her magic and looked at the front cover. Spike breathed a hefty sigh of relief when Twilight's face suddenly beamed with joy.
"YES!!! Spike, this is it! Yay!!" She shouted as she hugged spike.
"Finally..." Thought Spike as he was suffocated by a hug that could've crushed a timber wolf.
When she let go, she immediately opened it up and started flipping through pages. She stopped when she found the spell she was looking for and her horn glowed. With a noticeably loud 'pop', she dissapered, leaving a very confused little dragon by himself in the room.
"Uh, Twili-AHH!!!" He started to say as Twilight reappeared in the room just as fast as she had left.
As Spike clutched his chest and breathed heavily, the lavender unicorn across from him stood with a smile on her face.
"Sorry Spike, I didn't mean to scare you." She said with a giggle.
Spike released his once heaving chest.
"Twilight?! Why have you been teleporting all week?" He asked forcefully.
"Because, Spike. Me and Luna are going to be attempting an extremely powerful teleportation spell that requires more magic than any one pony has! And I've been needing to practice teleporting for it. It's so awesome!" She gushed.
"Why?" He asked.
Before Twilight could respond, there was a knock on the door and Twilight was at it in the blink of an eye. Literally, she teleported to he door. She happily opened up the door to she a black alicorn with a flowing dark blue mane and tail looking down at her.
"Good evening Miss Sparkle." She started. " Shall we begin?"
Twilight put the book in her saddlebag and nodded to the night princess. The two casualy walked into the small town of Ponyville, leaving Spike to clean up all the books... As usual...
"I apologize that my sister could not be here, I understand she can be a little... nicer..." Said Luna, breaking the silence that once consumed the two.
"That's not a problem Luna. Where is Celestia anyway?" Replied Twilight.
"She had some business to attend to in Fillydelphia. She'll be back in about another day she said."
The two continued to the area where they were going to execute the spell. After about another five minutes of walking, they found their destination: a large hill just outside of Ponyville that overlooked a large field.
Twilight took out the book and gave it to Luna, who took it with her magic and flipped to the last page, it was blank. She spoke an enchantment that Twilight was unfamiliar with and a single spell, written in red ink, made itself visible in the middle of the blank page.
"This is the spell." Spoke Luna.
Twilight studied the spell on the page.
"And if this works, it will open a portal to an entire other world?" Asked Twilight with a hint of pure excitement.
"If it works... and only few have ever completed the spell..." Replied Luna in a dark tone.
She set the book down so both the ponies could see the spell.
"Oh my god this is so exciting!!! Who knows what kind of wonders lay beyond this spell...!!" Twilight thought as she almost started hopping with glee.
"Are you ready?" Asked Luna.
Twilight nodded frantically.
"Okay, we need to perform this spell at the exact same time in order for it to work. Got it?" Luna assured.
Twilight nodded again. Both their horns started to glow, the light from them slowly getting brighter.
"Ready? NOW!!" Shouted Luna.
Both lights got to a blinding point as they both performed the spell. As Twilight thought she was going to pass out from exhaustion, the light exploded sending the two flying in opposite directions. As Twilight looked up, she gassed at the large dark lavender sphere that was slowly spinning with a pure black inside, and a black aura was floating around it.
"Success!" Cheered Luna as they both got up.
"So... what do we do now?" Asked a flabbergasted Twilight.
Luna studded it for a moment before a loud crack, like wood breaking, emitted from the portal and they both staggered away from the sphere.
"Get back Twilight!" Shouted Luna.
The sphere started to wobble, like something was trying to break out of it, before finally collapsing completely, disappearing.
Luna and Twilight both stood without moving a muscle. Finally, Twilight broke the silence.
"Uh... what just happened?" She asked slowly.
Luna jumped slightly but recomposed herself.
"Well... nothing... the portal was unstable and it fell in on itself. It didn't work..." She replied softly.
Twilight was frustrated. She had been practicing all week only to get a portal that could've brought her and Luna to another world, not work. She was about to talk when Luna closed her eyes and her horn glowed. When she opened her eyes and her horn no longer glowed, she looked at Twilight with a look Twilight had never seen before on her face. Concern.
"Luna... What's wrong?" Twilight asked in a worried voice.
Luna waited before responding.
"Well... long story-short: instead of the portal bringing us to another world..." She paused. "It brought something from another world, here..."
~~~~~~~~~~
Berlioz slowly awoke from a blank sleep. He looked around his surroundings to see and remember he was still in the piloting cockpit of the Supplice. When he went to yawn, his ears popped when h opened his mouth.
"Odd, that would mean high air pressure..." The thought triggered curiosity to get the best of him.
He turned on the head of the Supplice and looked around. The head looked down at Berlioz's command and what he saw actually gave him a bit of a chill. He was what he thought to be about 4,000 feet above the ground and falling at a heart-attack speed. The main thing that Berlioz was really pondering was why--and how--there was a massive grassland to the left, and a huge dark green forest to the right.
"Okay... Considering the National Dismantelent war wiped out every forest on the planet and most of the wildlife, how the hellis there even this patch of green left?" This, out of all the war-related questions Berlioz had been asked, was one equation he couldn't full off.
As the ground rapidly approached him, he thought about any opposition that could be down there, and re-enabled all the other systems.
Generator Beginning Activation<<
Database Unlink Now Online<<
R. Arm Online<<
L. Arm Online<<
Legs Operational<<
F.C.S. Data Card Successfully Processing<<
Schematic Checkout Complete<<
System Start-up Initiated<<
Berlioz smiled as the heads-up-display showed the shown stats and he began to hear the low hum of a working armored core. However, his smile faded when a thought occurred to him.
"Wait a minute... Didn't my generator get like cut in half during Operation: Marche Au Supplice? How is everything working?! Oh well, I might as well go with it.."
Berlioz watched the altitude meter decrease rapidly. 3,000m., 2,000m., 1,000m., CRASH! The armored core impacted with the ground so hard that the Earth below him actually coned in at the Supplice's feet and cracks spread in all directions. The ground shook violently as countless groups of birds took to the air from the treetops. No damage was done to the Supplice though due to its ability to fall from the tip of Earth's atmosphere without thrusters and no damage what so ever. Berlioz peeked at the radar in the bottom-right corner of his heads-up-display and saw nothing living. Anything living would be indicated by a red dot and a green line coming out of the top or bottom of it depending on weather the target was above of below him. As the Supplice regained its stance, he started to walk forward, every step making the ground shake slightly and leaving massive Supplice footprints planted in the Earth. He slowly walked on for what must of been about twenty to thirty minutes into the forest he towered over, checking his radar frequently. Berlioz decided not to engage primal armor unless he came across a target signature on his radar.
"Man, this is one big forest... I wonder how much bigger it could-" Berlioz's thought was wiped immediately when there was a red dot that appeared on his radar. No line connected to the dot indicated it was on the same ground as him, and the size of the dot showed it was large in size.
Primal Armor Rectifier Engaged<<
About skimming the top of the trees, that were up to about just below the Supplice's knees, he predicted because there was nothing visible with the naked eye. Inside the cockpit, Berlioz looked down and the Supplice mimicked his movement. Sure enough, there were some trees rustling below him. He raised his 04-MARVE in the direction. He activated scan mode (basically supper advanced I.R. imaging) and saw the most shocking thing he'd ever seen,--well, other than when he saw Exavil for the first time--a reasonably large (though there wasn't another to compare it it) hydra. The two middle heads were sniffing, or just looking at, the left foot of the Supplice while the two outside heads kept watch. A pretty clever defense tactic.
"Hm... A hydra? From what I remember from mythology, those things are a myth. Unless... I wonder if I'm not on Earth... First there was the forest which I'm knee-deep in, now there's the hydra inspecting my left foot... Maybe..." He thought as he disabled scan mode.
Berlioz had to cut the mental chatter when a second red dot appeared on his radar. Only this time, a short green line below it indicated it was above him. Was it a bird? No, a simple bird wouldn't pick up on radar. Keeping primal armor engaged, he raised his right arm rifle, the 051ANNR, in the direction while still keeping his 04-MARVE trained on the hydra just encase, and saw the next most bizarre sight he's ever seen. A midnight-black horse-no wait, he focused in as the red lights on the side of the Supplice's head that were the eyes dimmed and the ones in front brightened, and saw wings and a horn the same color as the body coming out of its forehead. What were those ones called? He couldn't remember. All that mattered at the moment was that it was flying and cruising in his direction. A few seconds later, a light thumping was heard at the Supplice's left foot. Using the special camera Berlioz had specially built into his 04-MARVE, he saw that the hydra was moving behind his leg and lowering its stance as it also must've seen the dark figure approaching. After about twenty seconds, the pitch-black...pony... was maybe one hundred meters away and was hovering in place, and with the enhanced zoom/focus on the Supplice's head, Berlioz was astonished to see an actual facial expression plastered on it. It was gawking at him with a plane open-mouth, wide eyed stare. After a short staring contest between the ten-story tall killing machine, and the black-as-night flying horse, what happened next caught Berlioz so off guard, that a normal person would've passed out. The pegasus closed its mussel for a second before opening it again slowly this time.
"Hel...Hello?"
~~~~~~~~~~
"Wait, so you're saying we just brought an alien into our world? But how is that even possible?!" Demanded Twilight.
Luna hesitated before responding with a dark look on her face.
"The only possible way this could've happened... is if somepony else tampered with the spell before we used it..." Luna replied coldly.
"Well, we have to find whatever it was and make sure that-" She was cut off by Luna.
"I, will go and search for the being in the direction of the Everfree forest. You write a letter to my sister telling her of this matter. Afterwards you may aid in setting up for the Running of the Leaves." Said Luna firmly.
Twilight sighed before nodding and running back to her library, leaving Luna at the top of the hill.
Luna watched as Twilight diapered from view into the bustling town of Ponyville before turning towards the awaiting Everfree forest.
"This will be quite a journey..." She thought before stretching her wings and taking to the air.
As she gracefully flew over the Everfree, she began to wonder what kind of wonder could've been brought to the land of Equestria. An E.T.? A space ship? Oh how she wanted to travel to space her whole life. Luna would do anything to get to space. She smiled at the thought, but her smile slowly faded the further she got into the Everfree. What if she never found it? Oh no! That would not make Luna the happiest pony. However, her smile returned as she spotted something in the distance. Something that stood out against the mountains in the background. It was dark, black, and... Luna started to get slightly scared as the last detail registered in her mind... huge...
To say it was huge was actually an understatement. This thing was massive! Ten stories tall at least! Luna had never seen such a magnificently frightening sight in her life. She looked closely and saw it was a biped, with points and angles jutting out in every direction. She also noticed that the large--she now just noticed--metal machine was holding some sort of angular, pointed object and pointing it at the ground just by its left foot. As she hovered in place, she decided to get a closer look, I mean, how harmful could a machine like this be? A huge mistake. As she inched closer, the thing raised its right arm and pointed a more boxy looking object with amazing speed for something of the size and pointed it right at her head.
"How did that thing see me coming?!
She almost physically panicked as she watched a red dot on the front of a part on the object spin and shrink and grow until stopping, and a chill ran down her spine as all the red dots on the side of the head of this...thing... dimmed and the one in front brightened. It was looking at her. If she made a mad dash who knows what this thing could do? Luna thought the only way to get out of this, was talk. She slowly closed her open mouth, hesitated, and very slowly opened it again and spoke in a soft voice.
"Hel...Hello?
~~~~~~~~~~
"Of fucking course... A flying horse with wings and a horn... that can talk...... I need to get out of this thing at some point to breath real air and not recycled CO2, it's messing me up..." Berlioz sighed as he lowered his right arm and the Supplice did the same. He took his hand out of the console for the Supplices right arm and reached up to a large compartment above him. He popped it open and pulled out a silver, flat package; an MRE.
"Ah, good ol' MRE's. Existant since a thousand years ago..." He thought as he opened up the small food packet.
Just before he could take a bite out of the buttered rice, the--gah, this is going to take some getting used to--pony spoke again.
"Um, is somepony there?"
"Pony... yeah it's official: I'm not on Earth anymore..." The thought irritated Berlioz slightly even though he could easily dominate the species here.
He slipped his right hand into the console and turned the Supplice to walk away. He took only two steps before the same pony spoke out to him in a more aggressive manner.
"Hey, stop!" The mare shouted.
Suprized that someone (or pony in this case) had the guts to try to order Berlioz to do anything. He didn't stop walking and didn't even look back. A few seconds later, the same command came again, this time followed by a something reflecting of his primal armor. At this, Berlioz's lifetime battle-trained reflexes and unusually flexible thinking kicked into gear. The Supplice spun around with unbelievable speed and Berlioz raised his 051ANNR in the pony's direction, who had a blue aura around its horn and now a stunned look on its face, and fired a round.
The massive armor-piercing, hollow-point bullet cut through the air in the pony's direction so fast you couldn't even see it, and struck its right wing--just where Berlioz planned. As blood sprayed from the pony's side, the tremendous force of the bullet sent the poor pony soaring through the air into the thick vegetation, a dislodged wing followed afterwards.
"It's a shame I had to do that, but she asked for it." Berlioz said to himself as he turned towards his previous direction and continued walking.
Little did he know he was heading straight for the large track that the Running of the Leaves would take place on within the hour...
