I make little effort to understand it, I just post it. Seriously, Raven lost me a long time ago at "Hauteclere."
SRWQG-BSR Chapter 4: Flight of the Massacre
Alex shot upright as he woke up, his heart beating and lungs labouring, his scream echoing throughout the building he had woken up in as his mind tried to return to reality, not noticing that the door to the room had opened. Jil ran over to Alex and cuddled him in a comforting manner, her voice helping to ease his shaky, muted body:
"Shh... it's okay. It was just a nightmare." Alex's breathing slowed back down to a normal rate whilst he returned the hug, breathing a sigh of relief when his breath returned to normal.
"Thanks Jil. I don't know what I'd do without you sometimes." Alex's comment was rewarded with a slap across the cheek.
"I only gave you the hug so you didn't stay up all night freaking out. I don't like you that much!"
Sunrise brought no further comfort to Alex, having been unable to sleep for the past five hours after the dream he had had was haunting him, he decided to get up, getting dressed into a t-shirt and jeans, Alex sighed and looked outside.
"Glad to see you got back to sleep. You had me worried for a while last night you know." Jil smiled at Alex from the entrance to his room. Normally she'd leave him alone for a while, but the past few weeks had been anything but normal, and she had to keep an eye on him after the incident with Giru that had eaten two weeks of his life from under his nose. "Coop says he's got the schematics for a new power supply for Hauteclere." A blush came across Jil's face as Alex hugged her.
"Thanks... For earlier, I mean." Words refused to leave Jil's mouth as she took in exactly what'd just happened, as Alex playfully stuck his tongue out at her. "You're welcome."
The hangar was unusually full, all things considered. Four smaller mechs were docked in one of the DIVER bays, each of them seeming to be unique, yet they were all amalgamations of mass-produced parts. On the far left of the four mechs was a black and white mech, bearing quite a resemblence to Dual Face from Alex's first sortie in Hauteclere, having a matching head, torso, and one of Dual Face's grenade launchers. The voice that came from behind Alex was young, and probably from one of the Colcore countries:
"I see you're admirin' Chihiro. My dad used that AC until the Navis Incident. Haven't seen the old bugger since." Alex turned to face the pilot. He looked pretty similar to some of Alex's old friends he hadn't seen in years, his black hair tipped off with steely gray ends, his blue eye and red eye clashing against each other, and he was wearing, of all things, a tuxedo without the tie.
"Navis Incident? Mind filling me in? Also, why a tux?"
"One, tuxedos are cool. Two, the Navis Incident was the end result of a war between two factions in my old world, Vertex and Alliance. During this war, a small corporation named Navis uncovered a weapons factory from The Old Times, and invited Alliance to investigate it with their superior resources. Kisaragi, the member of Alliance sent out to investigate, activated the factory, sending self-propelled bombs all across the world... about 80% of the world's population disappeared that day. The rest of us were confined to Circ-City. The only good thing to come out of the Incident is that Alliance and Vertex brokered a peace, as our main problem now is survival. What about your world?" Alex sighed and shook his head.
"It'll sound petty in comparison."
"Tell me anyway. I'm a mercenary, I'm used to petty squabbles."
"...Alright. My world was at war with aliens for some reason or another, and the big guy over there was designed to destroy their weapons, and there were 9 others made, each containing the prototype to a new technology, such as how this one here uses nanomachines to keep it from falling apart when it's taken serious damage in-battle. Anyway, the war ended as suddenly as it began, after this island you're on now was just walled off from everything else." The younger of the two smiled as he looked at Alex.
"You were right. It did sound petty in comparison, but that's always how war is. Never did catch your name, by the way." A pale hand went forward, inviting a handshake, which Alex promptly accepted.
"Alex. Alex Lukles." A smile formed on both Alex and his new friend's faces.
"Normally I'd say to call me XIII... But you're not a client, so I'll tell you that my name is Minak Sudanski." Minak turned to face Hauteclere and began to say something before being cut off by another, thicker Colcorian voice:
"Сколько раз я должен рассказать вам, прежде она погружается в XIII, вы не должны дружить, если вы не знали, что они заслуживают доверия." The owner of the voice was physically imposing, having army-cut hair, a large frame, and an evil look on his face all the time. His outburst caused the younger man to bow his head in shame, saying little more than a little apology in a slightly meek voice:
"Извините сэр!" The older Raven shook his head in disappointment, the rookie that was supposed to replace him was being very naive about everything he saw.
"Один из этих дней, вы будете получать сами убили, ты, дерьмо. Если ваши друзья на тот момент?" With that, the older Raven left, leaving Alex very confused.
"So... Who's Grumpy?" Minak's face was a mixture of relief and fear at the same time as he turned to face Alex.
"My teacher-stroke-guardian, Evangel. He's an all-work-no-play type, and I work best when I have room to take my own approach to AC piloting... He's not exactly appreciative of i--" Minak was cut off in mid-sentence as an alarm blared.
"Well, that's my c-- Coop, what the fuck are you doing?" The mega madman practically threw himself into his Huckebein, the eyes lighting up as the duct-taped mech came to life, running outside at quite a pace.
"What am I doing? I'm gonna wreck some chumps!"
A black creature looked at the puny island below it as it circled the island it was hunting for food from. Random passers-by looked up, only to see too late the jaws of that which would be their destroyer, as it landed to search for food. On its third feeding run, its landing was interrupted by a punch in the stomach from a blue Huckebein with flame decals, sending the creature crashing into a large residential district.
"Oh no ya don't pal. Only I'm allowed to wreck this place." The creature lunged at the Huckebein, getting a boot to the face for its effort, sending it spiralling into another densely-populated area. Alex's facepalm could be heard over the radio channel, his frustration building at Coop's collateral damage:
"Coop, use less smash! You're gonna wreck the entire goddamn country at this rate! Maybe, you know, pull a tactical retreat to the quarry or something?"
"Who cares about tactics, I just want to smash things! That's what I do best, because I like smash!" a claw scratched the paint and some of the armour off of the Huckebein before a kick sent it back into its natural high ground of the air. "That's it. You ate some perfectly innocent people, trashed half the town..." The eyes of the Huckebein turned red as Coop's voice turned from mostly enjoying himself to downright furious. "And... you scratched the paintjob. Now, I'm mad." The blue mech's thrusters activated, propelling it into the sky. The creature took advantage of the pilot's rage and its natural domination of the sky, swatting the mech in the torso with its tail, sending the blue mech into a crash landing so fierce the quarry it landed in became another 250m deep.
"Coop, break off. I'm coming out in Hauteclere!" Alex immediately slammed the headset down on the seat and scrambled over to his white giant, not even bothering to put on his Synchrosuit.
"Alex, That's Hauteclere Massacre. It handles a little differently from regular Hauteclere, so be careful out there. Also, all of your old weaponry's been repaired." The white giant's visor glowed a bright white as the combustion engine inside it revved into life.
"Gotcha! Hauteclere Massacre, launching!" The doors outside opened, and with a thunderous roar of the engine, Hauteclere rocketed out of the hangar, kicking up dust everywhere, causing Jil to have to shield her eyes from the debris and smoke being kicked up.
"What an idiot..."
A white mech soared into the skies above it, the six wings on its back helping to stabilise its flight as it soared at a ridiculous speed for its size.
"Fuuuuuuuuck this is fast!" Alex suddenly found his mech slowing down, giving him a sigh of relief. "Coop, what did you do?"
"Tesla Drive. Makes any mech act like it's half its own weight. Pretty sweet eh?"
"I'll say. Anyway, monster to kill, you get yourself back to base." Hauteclere threw 'the horns' at the Huckebein lying down in the quarry, which was promptly returned, before the white mech turned to face the creature. "Okay, giant flying monster vs. fast DIVER with a lot of weapons. Should be a cakewalk." The sight of several black mechs moving in to assist the monster caused Alex to pause for a moment. "Ah. Not a cakewalk anymo-- Ooh, that looks good."
"Whatcha found buddy?" Coop's curiousity was rewarded by hearing Alex breathing in deep, as if he'd been wanting to yell this for weeks:
"MASSACRE! STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
"You... White Destroyer. You destroyed our boss. Made us useless to the world."
"...What?"
"Do you not understand? You destroyed our leader and comrade. We cannot let that go unpunished. Malice... Consume me." The black creature turned around and complied, ingesting the black mech. Around the outside of the creature, crimson armour covered over the fleshy skin.
"Well shit. Hyper Burst!" Hauteclere's right hand glew orange, and once again Alex threw his vocal cords into maximum drive:
"IMPAAAAAAAAAAAACT! PUUUUUUUUUUUNCH!" The glowing fist crashed into the armour, shattering through and even leaving a considerably nasty burn on the fleshy layer. "Oh fuck ye-- Wait, what?" Alex's victory cry was short lived, as the burn and the armour damage were repaired within seconds.
"Hah. You cannot comprehend the power of Mecha Malice. Your rage towards me does nothing but make it stronger!" The creature's regeneration crushed Hauteclere's right fist, leaving the electronics exposed to the elements, and also causing precious fuel to leak everywhere, as well as cracks to form further up the arm.
"ShitshitshitshitSHIT! Olivier!" The sword was removed from its sheath mounted vertically against the wings, Hauteclere's left arm taking the entire strain. "This... Is going to cause Carl a headache." Hauteclere struggled to heft the 70m longsword over its shoulder.
"Oh? What do you hope to accomplish with just one arm? You will fall to Mecha Malice, like Dual Face did to you!" The biomech's claws began crushing Hauteclere's torso as its 'pilot' laughed manaically. "You cannot get out of here alive! You won't return to your home, like Dual Face before you!" Alex's face tensed in anger.
"Like hell I won't!" Hauteclere repositioned itself to be above the beast whilst still in its grip.
"Resisting until the end will just make your death that much gorier! Giga Crush!" The biomech's claws sank into Hauteclere's torso even more so, piercing the cockpit and revealing to Alex the sheer size of the claws. Alex's mind focused on one thing, and one thing only: Victory.
"Did you forget something? I'm Alex Lukles. The White Sword of Justice." Alex's vocal cords braced themselves for the next vicious assault of hot-blooded shouting: "ROUGH..." Hauteclere's left arm shakily raised Olivier to a position where a downward slash would be doable without damaging the mech any more than it already was. "DIIIIIIIIIII-
A slap from Jil was all that greeted Alex as he returned, the Ravens watching the spectacle quietly, as if assessing his ability to defuse a woman scorned.
"Don't be so eager to get yourself killed! You told me I couldn't pilot Hauteclere for some stupid reason, but now you're almost asking to be killed!" Alex took the slap surprisingly gracefully, knowing full well that Jil was worried about him as a friend. "...And if you do plan on dying, at least warn me in advance."
"Alright, it's a deal." Alex looked over to the Ravens, surprised to see that Minak wasn't getting into his AC. "Hey, uh, you gonna explain what's going on here?" The pale youth walked over to Alex and smiled.
"You wouldn't happen to need another mech, would you? Just that I quit being a Raven. I hate being a mercenary, and I'd rather work for someone I trust entirely, even if the pay is terrible."
"Well, the more the merrier I guess." Alex's expression turned from confused to outright baffled as Minak saluted at him.
"In that case... Minak Sudanski, reporting for duty!" Coop laughed as he walked into the hangar and saw the newcomer.
"Sup guys. We have new technology to play with, courtesy of the Ravens. No more gasoline for you Alex. Did some calculations, and if I can rig two of these Plasma Drives to work together in parallel... You're looking at 115% of Hauteclere's original performance. It'll take a little while to get two of them working like that though." Jil tapped on Coop's shoulder.
"Hey... Think you could make me a mech that lets me use martial arts, the power of hot blood and electricity to kill stuff? If Alex wants to fight, I'll let him... On the condition that I fight with him."
"Uh... Sure. I'll have to do some tweaks to the Plasma Drive design, mind. It'll be about 4 days before I even have a prototype together." Jil clapped her hands together and grinned, in the 'showing-too-many-teeth' manner that she usually grinned with, poking Minak's chest and flicking upwards in a playful manner.
"Excellent. Well, it's been a long day. We'd better get our newbie shown around."
(END)
OMAKE:
"GODDAMN GOAT PEOPLE, DIE ALREADY! DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DI-- FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUCK!" Raven threw the controller at the door, accidently hitting Alex in the chest with it as the latter walked into the room. "Oh shit... Sorry. Uncharted 2 has been frustrating me for the best part of a week."
"...Yeah, but didn't you start writing this chapter about two months ago?"
"Er... Yeah. No excuse for that, my exams ended three weeks ago."
"...You're still drafting up homebrew rules for that again, aren't you?" A nod was all Alex needed before a small window appeared underneath him, before arrows, rectangles and letters began to appear in it.
"Oh... Hell no." Knuckledusters appeared in Alex's hands as the code flashed as if accepted, the dusters themselves crackling with electricity. "You're not supposed to have those yet!"
"Obligatory Omake Debut. Now..." A grin formed on Alex's face as all the colour faded from Raven's. "Raimei." A single electrified punch sent Raven to the floor. "Hyakaretsu." Ninety-eight more punches of thundering pain and suffering kept him on the floor, before the last word "Ken." was matched with another electrified punch, this one setting Raven on fire, and magically banishing him to a strange new dimension.
"I swear to god, if he's sent me back to the Patchwork again..." A voice from behind Raven was all he needed to know where he was:
"Heeee~ey."
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