As I stood here, I felt the rage of endless combat, as I stood here, with this one barrier left before myself, I wanted the blood of my enemies� hearts on my hands. As I stood here I felt the demise of every last enemy I ripped the power out of in my fight with these automated enemies. As I stood here atop this fortress in the sky, atop this hellish floating contraption, with my final prize left inside of this blasted infernal machine I knew of the risk that awaited myself, yet with no remorse I approached the entrance���
It had been weeks since they had taken him away from me, my AC Epsilon� in battle we had become as one, and our power rivaled all assassins they sent to destroy us, up until that day, a grim day indeed. A blasted ambush sent me into a spiral of confusion, I was hit too hard. When I had awoken I found that I was without my weapon, my partner was gone, they took away the AC that had gotten me through so much, my crimson AC which has shown me the way to victory so many times. It had been weeks now, weeks that I�ve been searching and finding so many broken links to the thing I seeked. After a while I came upon a clue. An old pilot told me of a fortress in the sky he has once heard of, a fortress which floated above the clouds, such a stronghold that none dare enter and expect to survive. This was quite farfetched, yet I could not refuse pursuit of it for the small possibility of my goal being there. Thus I searched for this fortress, and a long and grueling search it was. After weeks of exploration, with the aid of two close allies, I found where this gigantic fortress was, and I would not stop until I could find Epsilon, until I could punish those who had attacked myself and my allies so many times for reasons still not quite known to us.
I stood there, at the helm of my strong reverse jointed Armored Core the Azure Knight, and with me were my two closest allies, behind me was Vulcan, who had been my ally from times long past. He piloted a powerful heavyweight silver and red AC designated Heavy Metal. At my right was the female pilot codename Fox, a sniper who I saved from death long ago on a mission that went wrong. Piloting her lightweight black and violet AC, the Black Rose she would often pick off unsuspecting enemies before they knew what hit them. I expected many enemies, and they knew it would be a tough fight yet they stood by me and were ready to fight to the death if necessary.
The storm, it seemed to be violently growing over the horizon, loud clasps of thunder could be heard, preceded by the strike of the brilliant lightning. This atmosphere seemed somewhat appropriate for a predictably intense battle, and it all seemed to be portentous. Perhaps all of this was an omen of our eminent demise, perhaps we were in over our heads I thought, yet still I couldn�t turn back. We stood our ground, and as the last few drops of rain hit the ground there it was, the target I had seeked so desperately over this spanned period of time. Our previously unseen enemy finally shows it�s real face.
The clouds seemed to part ways with the advent of this gigantic fortress, and as we all gazed upon it for the first time, we were shocked, it�s sheer size was enough to drive any realist into madness. As it�s huge shadow covered the barren desert ground where we stood, it stopped movement and hovered there. There in plain view we saw this hellish contrivance for the first time. Fox gasped in disbelief, I got a message from Vulcan... �Dammit� this is huge, what do you think we should do?� I replied in a low tone, �You know� you could always turn and leave, no one is holding you back. Just remember that from this point onward, there is no turning back.� With these words I began to walk my AC forward towards the floating fortress, and as I drew away from them I heard her voice.
�Crimson, you don�t really think I�m scared of that thing do you? Even if we can�t defeat this enemy then, at least I�ll know I went down fighting. Fighting an enemy who�s been terrorizing so many different Ravens for such a long time. Didn�t I once tell you I�d never leave your side unless I repay my debt to you?� I never expected Fox to be so open with her feelings, to actually admit that this would be challenging. These must be severe circumstances to change her stubborn attitude. I then turned towards her AC, a moment later Vulcan came across on my monitor �Hey partner, what do you take me for? You know I�ll never back away from a chance to cause a little destruction against some annoying enemies, whatever the risk may be. Remember we are Ravens and at heart we all have to fight, meaning we should stand together especially against enemies like this, right?� He seemed more optimistic than usual, could it be that he was in grim denial, or did he genuinely believe we had a chance. The three of us, could we have a chance against something so seemingly powerful?
With those words said we looked up to the fortress, something seemed to now be moving atop it. A large gathering seemed to be forming atop the platform, and moments later came our adversaries. Hordes and multitudes of enemy machines, they seemed to be a new type of MT, a type of variant of the former standard humanoid model. Much bigger and seemingly much more armored. Large arms atop heavily armored legs many appeared to hold what seemed to be specialized bazookas, others with types of machine guns and energy weapons. There we stood, ready to face all those who would come to oppose us. As they fell to the ground, the numbers seemed to never stop, they just kept coming , moments later with no hesitation I said, �Okay then� it�s now or never� LETS GO!!� and with a flare of our boosters we were off towards the enemies head on. Vulcan stopped mid-range and started to unload shots from his Karasawa laser rifle into the flocks of the large MTs as they landed, while Fox took air born and targeted only the most vital parts of their frameworks with her sniper rifle.
I boosted forward directly into the hoards of enemies, letting off shots of the durable 1000 roun machine gun I had just recently equipped for this battle. The battle seemed to be going fairly in our favor, but with every wave of enemies, the battle seemed to intensify, and the enemies seemed to grow more intelligent. Were these new types of MTs able to learn from real time battle data? As I nearly ran out of shots with the gun I let middle missles fly as I tried desperately to dodge the more accurate by the second energy machine gun fire, and rifle shots of the many MTs. Vulcan managed to take out a good bulk of their main frontline forces up to the point where he ran out of missles, he then had to resort back to the Karasawa to take out the enemies, who were quickly charging him. Fox was steadily backing both of us up with the superbly accurate use of her sniper rifle, hitting only the cameras and sensors of the MTs, as well as any vital area revealed due to slight armor damage, and weakly armored areas.
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