Chapter 1: Alea Iacta Est - Coral Release
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...It had felt like one grueling battle, after three different runs through Rubicon. In the first, he followed his Handler’s wishes and dismissed the voice in his head. The Xylem was rammed into the Vascular Plant, and the stars ignited once more, bearing his name this time – The Fires of Raven. In the second, he turned against Overseer, vowing to protect the planet and his friends – his buddy named him the Liberator of Rubicon.
Now, atop LOC Station 31... the end was in sight. He had cast the die, like Dolmayan feared. C4-621... no, Raven, was finally going to finish this. He fired the last shell his HALDEMAN shotgun had, and every pellet struck the modified SOL-644 Iguazu had wrested control of from ALLMIND’s gestalt AI, knocking it into ACS overload. He couldn’t risk giving the Institute machine a chance to recover, and Assault Boosted forward. DUSKFLY drew its arm back, and with a small thunk readied the ASHMEAD’s charged attack.
Raven threw his AC’s arm forward in an explosive uppercut, and the massive steel pile cored the enemy, damaging its generator with a burst of green flames. The IBIS series drifts back, and Iguazu speaks for the last time, his voice faltering. “I always... envied you.” The machine springs back to life, light wave claws igniting for one last attack. But it’s too much for the generator to handle, rupturing it completely and sending it careening back. “The freelancer... who had it all...”
ALLMIND speaks now, its synthetic voice approximating something close to lament. “O-Our...plan... Humanity... Creation's potential...” At this, Ayre chimes in. Always by his side, in his head, and there to comfort him. “We have the trigger. And we'll pull it ourselves.” ALLMIND’s mechanical form finally shuts down completely, as the Coral in the Vascular Plant collapses into something like a black hole before exploding out. “It's beginning... Coral Release. Isn't it...beautiful?” Raven had to agree, there was a strange beauty to it. His vision slowly turned white as he let the Coral consume him, Ayre’s voice ringing in his ears one last time. “Thank you, Raven...”
Meanwhile, on a world with a shattered moon fighting against monsters of bone and shadow, 10 crimson stars fell from the sky...
Chapter 2: A Raven's Landing
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The first thing Raven felt upon waking up was a splitting headache. As he became more aware, he noticed that his entire body was rather sore, actually. A gentle ringing in his ears told him that Ayre was still with him, and trying to speak. Her words slowly became clearer in his mind, and he never felt happier. “-aven…? Raven, are you there? Can you hear me?”
He assured the Coral Wave Mutation that yes, he was here, and yes, their Contact hadn’t been broken. “Oh, you’re awake now. Thank goodness… I, I thought that maybe… I had lost you…” Raven noted the fear and sadness tinging her sweet voice, and assured her it’d take more than that to get rid of him. They both shared a chuckle before he noticed light peeking into the cockpit. Not just light, but fresh air too, fresher than any he had ever known before.
Raven ran a quick diagnostic on his AC’s status, and it wasn’t looking good. No repair kits with barely a thousand AP left meant one good hit would pop him like a grape. Limb-wise, everything was practically junk now – the SHADE EYE’s flipping visor had been torn off completely, the armor plating on the BASHO arms was sheared to metal confetti, the left leg of the MIND BETA reverse joints was about to buckle under its own weight, and the hole in the ALBA core could let any number of things in, from the shrapnel and blast wave of an explosive to a stray arcing current from a plasma blast.
Weapons-wise, he wasn’t much better off there. The HALDEMAN in the right arm was empty, as was the SHAO-WEI gatling cannon on the right shoulder. Half of the ASHMEAD was melted to slag after Iguazu’s generator burst, and the ML-REDSHIFT coral oscillator in the weapon bay had its secondary blade broken off after one too many kicks he tried to block.
Internal systems didn’t seem too promising, either. The FLUEGEL boosters were burnt out, the ABBOT fire control system had been knocked loose (probably around the same time the SHADE EYE’s visor was ripped off, he had to imagine), the NGI coral generator was only outputting about a third of its usual, and to top it all off, he was out of ASSAULT ARMOR expansion uses.
All in all, Raven’s pride and joy was a couple seconds from becoming his new coffin if he was lucky, and a smoking crater if he wasn’t. He let out an exasperated sigh, but made no move to escape the big metal deathtrap when Ayre spoke up. “Raven…? I, I know things seem… pretty bad, at the moment… e-especially with the state of your AC…” Bad didn’t even begin to cover how he felt about DUSKFLY’s condition, but he kept that thought to himself. “But, I hope you’ll be glad to know that... well, I boosted the scan range of your AC, and I think I found a small settlement nearby. Maybe we could head over there and ask for help with repairs?”
Raven mulled that idea over for a bit, slightly apprehensive about letting others mess with his life’s work. Ayre chimed in again, sensing his hesitation. “You know... we ARE on an island, Raven. There’s nothing stopping us from just… taking some time for ourselves and finally getting to relax after…” She lets out a quiet sigh that tingles his brain. “Everything… also, drowning is a horrible way to go.” He lets out another chuckle at the dark joke, finally bidding his AC to move northwards in a slow, awkward limp. This was gonna be a looooong walk…