Wednesday, March 24, 2004

Aahhhhh!!

Today's OCRemix: "TheAtomizer" Final Fantasy 3(6) Remix by Mustin. Were terra still around, I wuold reccomend this to her in a heartbeat. Not neccessarily because I think she'd like it, but because she just has to hear it. This remix is Atma Weapon's theme song from FF3(6), and it is driven to new, insane heights. It captures the sense of desperation, insanity, and chaos that the original failed to capture, and I have a few steps for all you listeners out there to get the full effect of the song. 1: Wait till it gets dark, then play FF3 a lot, fighting Atma Weapon as much as you can. Make sure you die a few times, and listen to the "game over" music a bit before you turn off your SNES or emulator. 2: Make sure there are no immediate distractions to take care of, because once you listen to this song, you should not pause for any reason. Put on a pair of headphones, then download and play this song. I guarantee that it will drive you insane, or at least prevent you from sleeping, for a long time. These are just suggestions, by the way, and I'm serious, this song can freak you out if you aren't careful. There is a part at the end which is just plain sinister, but I'll leave you to listen to it yourselves. Well, today, I thought I would share wit you my piece of writing for ACO's montly writing contest, and I think it turned out quite well. The only thing is, this month's writers were insane, so I had almost no chance of winning. Despite that, I think this is one of my better pieces of AC work, and if you have any questions, drop em in the comment box. Oh, and before I forget, one of the lines may confuse you. At one point, a guy shouts out "extra mustard", it's just part of the contest, so now a guy at ACO owes me a cookie. Enjoy. -Meteorain Maybe it's not the best idea in the world to work in the Raven's fold at a time like this, what with Silent Line attacks becoming more and more vicious every day. Naturally, that means higher pay, but just what is the price of one Raven these days? I mean, the cores cost an arm and a leg...and maybe the rest of the body too, but people rarely pay for the PILOTS like they used to... Then again, this whole automated AI thing is getting just a touch out of hand, and people never seem to value the use of pilots like they should. Well, we'll just see who's in control after this whole little episode is over. I mean, who is supposed to be superior here? Us, or the machines? ...Than again, I have a little theory about the Silent Line, but really, what are the chances that it's really just the same as last time? Ulysses leaned back in the seat of his core, and absentmindedly began chewing on his sunglasses, which was a typical nervous habit of his. It would have seemed to be an otherwise normal day for him, except, of course, for the fact that his core, or rather, what was left of it, was hidden inside a huge crater strewn with pieces of molten metal of AC's and other MT's. There was still quite a bit of smouldering metal lying around, and Ulysses looked casually around this twisted wreckage that was his home for the past few hours. Despite the bitter hopelessness of the situation, Ulysses smiled and looked around the barren landscape from the seat of his core, which had been completely ripped in half. Lucky for him, he had sustained no damage whatsoever. Ulysses looked out into the distance, as multiple plasma bolts rained from the sky like lightning, like some kind of bizarre picture show. Lost in these thoughts, Ulysses didn't hear the noise of the helicopter right away, but the sensation of cold wind on his face, and the searchlight sweeping the inside of the crater caught his attention. He stepped out of the ruined core, and took a gamble, sticking his head out to see what was going on, and he winced at the glare of the searchlight right in his face. He lifted up a hand, and heard, over the roar of the chopper's blades, the shouts of people inside, asking if he was okay, or if he was an enemy, or something Ulysses couldn't understand for the life of him. Nevertheless, he was very relieved to hear voices...that is...human voices, for the first time in a while... "So, will you take this job?" The man asked impatiently, watching Ulysses flip a coin absently in the air, one end of his sunglasses hanging out of the corner of his mouth. The two were sitting in an oddly furnished bar in what was now called the Raven's District, or the District for short. Ulysses' feet were on the table in front of him, and his eyes seemed oddly glazed over, more interested in the movement of his coin then the man in the expensive suit offering him the job. "Heads..." Ulysses mumbled inaudibly, tracking his record of wins and losses against himself. The man cleared his throat. "Do you accept the offer?" "Mm?..." Ulysses grunted, the man, slightly annoyed, asked again. "Will you take on this job?" "That's the thing, will I?" Ulysses responded, with a definite tone of apathy in his voice, the man glared at him. "Excuse me?" "Well, Crest Industries is working on an all-out refurbishment of their weapons facility, right? The machines are now being operated by...more machines, maintenance is becoming fully automated, You are, to put it simple, replacing people with AI's. Am I right?" "...That is correct...to a point, you see..." "Well, then why bother with us anymore? Ravens are soon going to become inferior pilots to machines, so what is the point of asking me to do your dirty work anymore?" The Crest man loosened his tie slightly, and stared at Ulysses disapprovingly, who just smiled coolly in return. "Crest still values the hardworking man over the emotionless machine. People are still able to best mechanical response in live combat. Our AI units are still not fully tuned to best a human on the battlefield." "And yet, your total automization procedure has left out just enough to give the Ravens a last ditch effort at living to help you breach the Silent Line before your machines kill us all?" The Crest man got up, Ulysses knew he had won. "I'm wasting my time here..." "Call it." Ulysses interrupted, holding his coin out on his thumb. The man just stared at it, then answered: "Tails." Ulysses flipped it, and caught it in his outstretched palm. a large, black, menacing looking bird, the Raven, revealed itself on the one side of the coin. "You win, I'll take your job." Ulysses replied, uncaring as usual, the man just stared. "Wh...why?" Ulysses clapped a hand on his shoulder. "I am, at the very least, appreciative of Crest sending a real person to ask me for the job, instead of just sending me an email." The dumbstruck man simply stared and watched as Ulysses headed off towards the Garage area. Naturally, one would assume that it would be a much more plausible prospect to accept more money for a mission in which the risk of death is far greater than under normal circumstances. The only thing is, what kind of money is good to you after you die? Yeah, it never really makes sense to me, why corporations do something like that, try and bother paying more for stupid missions. Somehow, it doesn’t make sense to me, why we would want more money if it was more certain that we would die. That’s why I left it up to the flip of the coin to decide wether or not to take this mission. He said that it would definitely result in an estimated 80% casualty rate...in a best-case scenario, and he did hire quite a team, this time. Unfortunately for me, I just happened to be one of them. F***ing machines, who wants to live under them forever? That’s another reason why I left it up to the coin in the first place. They don’t care about me, they just want my AC, so someday they can fit it with a machine that will pilot it better than me. This is just a game of f***ing chess to them, figuring out what their opponent has up their sleeve, and having to lose pieces to win more. Damn machines and their calculations. Everybody has to be a f***ing machine these days. OPERATION CODE: Meteorain CLIENT NAME: Crest Ind. LOCATION: Ellis Residential District, Archive Area MISSION START TIME: 6:49 ESTIMATED SUCCESS RATE: 22% RECOMMEND RAVEN RANK: S Ulysses sneaked a look out of the side of his bright white core, Rave, to catch a glimpse of the sunset through the back of the leaving transport plane, he looked around at the ragtag band of cores around him, each one ranging in colours from pale green to dark crimson to midnight blue, and even a large, pale lavender one. He glimpsed at a sea-blue biped core next to him, and turned on his com. “So, just what do you think of this plan?” He asked the pilot of this core. He heard a snort over the line. “Since when do you care? I just know that I’m getting a nice piece of pie for this job.” The pilot replied with a laugh. “Maybe it doesn’t really matter, since we probably know that not to many of us will really make it out of this alive.” replied a, oddly melancholy voice, coming from a red, white and green core, a light biped. “We may be paid well for it, but what do we really gain if we will not live to see what happens?” Ulysses smirked, and caught a glimpse of the two Raven profiles of the two men speaking. The one in the blue core was Sonic, piloting Atlantis, and the white core was Kabuki, piloted by Soulless. A third man interjected, it was a red core, Stasis, piloted by a man named Ion: “Ok, maybe we will not get out of this one alive, but that’s no reason to sound so hopeless about it, we’re Ravens, and we can always make it out if we show no mercy.” “Now wait a minute, that’s no reason for you to try and avoid the inevitable.” A large, off-white biped stepped forward, Waterwalk, AC Missionary, read Ulysses in silence, Waterwalk also seemed to be a much older man. Ion replied. “So? We’re not going to die here today if I have anything to say about it!” “We could all die someday, what difference would it make to you if it was today or some other day?” Soulless asked, Ion snorted. “And lose this much money? You’ve gotta be kidding.” “There’s always the chance that you’ll lose it someday.” Waterwalk replied, “No reason you should be so blind to the idea...” “Don’t be an idiot, we’re all here, so what can go wrong?” Sonic shouted at the much older Waterwalk, and another voice interrupted him. “A lot of things can go wrong.” The midnight blue reverse-biped replied, with an unusually dark undertone to his voice. Ulysses stared at Cross Mirai, piloted by Kaze. “You people just aren’t aware of it yet.” “And what’s that supposed to mean, smart guy?” Ion snorted, Sonic began again. “You people are all out of your minds, just because they said that there is a small chance of casualties doesn’t make it true!” “You must be awfully small-minded if you believe a thing like that.” Waterwalk replied. Ion stepped forward, but the last core, the bright lavender heavy, interrupted. “Now hold on, guys, we have no reason to fight now, so why don’t y’all just cool it and save it for the battlefield?” The core was Imago, piloted by Jira. Ion stepped back, and another core, a pale green quad, answered in turn. “He’s right, we can conserve our energy for the upcoming fight, if we want to leave it alive.” The voice was female, and the pilot was Crystal, piloting Sarraia. The last two statements shut everyone up, and none too soon, as a voice from the inside of the core’s com systems came through: “Good evening, Ravens. My name is Dana Strong, and I will be acting as your operations coordinator from Global Cortex today, is everyone all right?” No one replied. “Good, now, this mission is highly dangerous, and has an extremely low rate of success, should our sources be correct. If any of you require evacuation, then it will not be supplied for you, so if you have any second thoughts as to this mission, you may stay onboard the plane and return to base before the mission begins.” Ulysses looked around the interior, it looked like no one planned on staying. “Now, this operation is taking place within Ellis Residential District, on the edge of Archive Area space. The machines from the Silent Line region are staging an attack from northern Lawdas down towards Old Layered, in an attempt to disrupt Global Cortex operations there, this cannot be allowed to happen. You will be stationed in Ellis with the local forces from Crest, and reinforcements from Kisaragi should arrive soon. During the course of this mission, a simultaneous mission is being launched to the satellite cannon in orbit, to attempt to disable it. The Silent Line forces are aware of this, and are sending the bulk of their forces in an attempt to stop us.” Ulysses looked around at the group of tense-looking Ravens around him, and he took the opportunity to pull a small sandwich out of his pocket, as he had skipped lunch earlier. “Now, again, if anyone does not wish to go through with this mission, please remain onboard the plane as it passes over the area of operations.” Ulysses took a small bite of his sandwich, and he heard a small voice over the line. “Yes?” Dana asked. “How long...until the Kisaragi reinforcements get here?” Sonic asked. “I do no know, so I advise you to stay on the alert throughout this mission. Oh, and lastly, Ellis has been evacuated, so there should be no concern of civilian casualties.” “What a relief.” Ion muttered sarcastically. Ulysses ignored him, and kept his undivided attention on his sandwich. “Anymore questions? No? Good, we are passing over the target now.” The bay doors opened to reveal the silent city of Ellis, completely abandoned, and the desert far off in the distance. Ulysses finished his sandwich in one bite, and he looked like he was about to say something, when, suddenly, a bright yellow core jumped out in front of him. Ulysses looked at the core profile, it read “Extra Mustard.” “I’ve got Extra Mustard!” The pilot, Venomous, yelled as he jumped out of the plane. “Bring it on!” Ulysses and the rest of the group stared in confusion at this sudden display, then all boosted forward and jumped out of the plane... “Ok, team, the group should be arriving shortly.” The Crest Industries agent reported over the com, and Ulysses watched as the tanks and reinforcements from Kisaragi arrived just in time. “Commander! We are in position!” The Kisaragi commando reported, and Crest confirmed the same. “Ravens, are you all in position?” The multiple Ravens replied affirmative. “Ok, they should be arriving soon...” Ulysses looked off into the distance, and saw an AC marching on the edge of the horizon. He looked over to his side, and saw multiple MT groups coming in from the sides as well. Among them were some of the large, white, AC like units marching alongside them, “Big Whites”, as a famous pilot had once dubbed them. “Ok! Let’s go!” Venomous yelled. Extra Mustard proceeded to break formation and head towards the front, when suddenly a white bolt of plasma came thundering down from the sky and vaporized the foolhardy pilot and his AC in an instant, a smouldering crater leaving the only testament of Extra Mustard and Venomous’ existence. “It’s the satellite! It’s aiming at us!” A Kisaragi agent yelled suddenly. Ulysses cocked his head to the side, this was getting more interesting by the minute... “Attack!” The Crest officer yelled, and the three groups charged forward, doing their best to avoid being vaporized by blasts from the sky... Rave raced down the city streets as he separated from the rest of his group. Sarraia was lagging behind somewhat, and Missionary was covering them both from nearby buildings with sniper support fire. The three were racing towards a group of separated ACs, heading towards them from behind. Rave jumped once and fired a salvo of missiles at the oncoming units, and dealt a nice amount of damage, as they were a bit slow to dodge. When Rave landed back on the ground, a burst of spread bazooka fire told him that Missionary was nearby, and Sarraia leapt in close, taking potshots with a shotgun. Within a few moments, the opposing AC’s were cooked. Sarria dashed to the side, and Ulysses spotted an all too familiar ray of red light next to her AC. “Sarraia! Look out!” Too late, the massive plasma say slammed down on the side of her AC, and it ripped off her entire right arm, but left the quadrupedal legs only slightly damaged. “It’s ok, I’ll do fine, keep going!” Crystal shouted. Rave overboosted around the corner, and come face to face with four or five Big White units, who fired their plasma shots in unison. Rave hopped madly from side to side, able to dodge with some ease, and released a multi-warhead missile upon the unsuspecting units. They only saw one missile at first, but did not calculate the fact that they would have to contend with eight. The missiles streaked high into the sky before coming back down and assaulting their targets. Rave fired a few more shots out of its arms before Missionary came in with a few large rockets to finish the job. “I’ll hold this area, you go help the others.” The aged Waterwalk told Ulysses, who complied and overboosted in the other direction to help his teammates on the other side... “Sir! They are far more than we calculated! How do we...” The reporting trooper was vaporized by a blast from space before he could finish, and the Crest officer cursed loudly. He drove the command artillery out towards the direction where the most forces seemed to be coming from, and he fired a large shot. In a moment, the oncoming forces were vaporized by the massive energy shell, and the Crest commander began to load another shot, when a strange red light caught his eye... “Oh...” Rave rounded the corner just in time to hear the deafening roar of the space cannon, and just in time to see one of the larger tanks be destroyed by a deadly accurate cannon shot. Cross Mirai was standing a little distance away, and doing his best to fend off enemy fire with his large plasma launcher. “The high officer has been defeated! Retreat!” A Crest trooper yelled, and Kaze watched as the Crest units began to pull away from the combat zone. Sonic’s voice came through the line next. “Damn cowards! I’ll take them all out myself!” Ulysses watched as the light blue AC dashed out of the front lines and headed towards the oncoming units, dodging fire from space all the while. Rave took a step forward, when Kaze’s voice crackled through the com. “I’ll handle this.” Kaze took careful aim at the enemy’s front line, where Atlantis was firing wildly, and Sonic was shouting and screaming obscenities at the oncoming forces...Kaze fired a single shot from his launcher, and it vaporized Atlantis’ right leg. Sonic cursed and looked up in the sky, as the red beam fixed on his immobile AC. “You little!...” He screamed at Kaze before the wave of plasma vaporized his AC. Kaze looked triumphantly at the blast, as his plan worked. The other enemies who were in close proximity were also vaporized by the blast of plasma. Ulysses looked at Kaze. “Hey...” He began, but Kaze boosted off before he could finish. Ulysses looked back at the smouldering wreckage of the AC Atlantis, and thought it better, from now on, to stay out of the way of Cross Mirai... Kabuki, meanwhile, was doing a much better job, sneaking up on unsuspecting enemy cores, and finishing them with a couple of effective swipes with his laser blades, and he turned on his Crow and escaped inside an empty building. Soulless was slightly short of breath, and he immediately dashed back out into the fold to deal with the remainder of units. He ducked around the corner of a building, and let a decoy drop out. He then boosted around the other side of the building in an attempt to distract the laser from space. He rounded the corner, and came face to face with the most amazing sight... ACs and Big Whites, legions of them, coming at him from the horizon...Enough to end the city and the entire world, if need be. Kabuki backed up against the wall, and saw what was left of the AC Stasis...and Ion...as these monstrous machines all began to bear down on him... “Valiantly fighting...in the field of battle...” Soulless said slowly as he took a step forward. His AC began charging overboost... “That..is the only way...to die!” “All Ravens, Kabuki and Stasis are down...” Dana told the group softly. Ulysses looked ahead at the continuing oncoming forces, and noted that Kisaragi was faltering since Crest’s departure, the shots from space were relentless, and even massive apartment and office buildings were falling as doom continued to rain from the sky. “This is Missionary, Sarraia and I are trapped inside the old factory on the edge, trying to hold off the enemy units. Requesting backup!” Ulysses looked in the direction of the factory, and did see multiple large shots emanating from the factory at the edge of the city. Ulysses immediately turned on Overboost, and caught a glimpse of Imago next to him doing the same. The two ACs began bearing off in the direction of the devastation, and saw a red light poised right over the factory... “Above you!” Jira cried, but it was too late, as the shot came down and vaporized the whole factory in one brilliant explosion. The AC’s stopped and watched as chunks of debris rained from the sky, including pieces of the two cores... “I’ll hold them here! You try and save the other side while Kaze takes the middle!” Jira shouted. Ulysses obliged and Rave overboosted back the way they came. Jira looked at the oncoming onslaught of Big Whites and ACs. “Well, gotta end sometime...” He said as he walked forward, and fired a few missile blasts. The units, more annoyed then defensive, swatted the missiles out of the sky, and turned their attention to Jira, firing huge waves of plasma, which Imago didn’t even try to dodge... “I have a plan...” Kaze said confidentially to Ulysses, while Cross Mirai and Rave danced around madly trying to dodge fire from space. “Don’t blow me up,” was all Ulysses replied. “Don’t be stupid, what we have to do is destroy the main residential blocks from the lower streets down to here. If we can do it just right, we can cause enough carnage and debris to stop them getting to us.” “And then we are trapped in and we just wait until the space cannon vaporizes us.” “You have a better plan?” “No, let’s do it.” The two AC units both dashed off in opposite directions, firing what was left of their weapons at the key buildings, and the two watched in satisfaction as they crumbled to the streets, successfully blocking the Big Whites’ paths. Rave turned around, and saw Kaze struggling with a particularly tough building, then watched in horror as he got in close and began slashing it with his blade. “Don’t do that! I can...” Too late again, the building had already begun to crumble, and Kaze was trapped between two wrecked buildings, waiting for the red light to shine on him. “You’re left, good luck...” Kaze said finally, almost sounding as bored as ever, even when the bright light consumed what was left of his AC... Rave began moving around more madly than ever, trying to dodge more and more onslaughts, of fire from space, now that he was the only target left. “Machines...machines...” Ulysses muttered madly to himself, as the shots slammed around him, four or five at a time. “I hate these machines...” Ulysses stopped dead as he watched the red lights surround him, he was trapped., beams of white light slammed in all around his AC, and he could feel everything around him disintegrating, as everything grew unbearably bright...then dark... The AC unit looked at the destroyed white core, and scanned it quickly...it was completely inoperative. It looked at the core, as it was still partially intact, and saw a human figure inside it. It was not identified as a threat, as it now had no method of defence available to it. Ulysses watched as the core stomped off. “F***ing...machines...” “So, how were you able to survive?” the officer asked, and Ulysses replied: “I don’t know, the shots just hit my core, but it remained intact enough to prevent me from destruction.” “Then why didn’t the cores attack?” “They did not recognize me as a threat anymore, I didn’t have my own AC, and could not do anything, the must have thought I wasn’t worth it...” Ulysses looked at the ground from the chopper, as the ruined Ellis City receded into the background. The sun began to rise again, and Ulysses recognized the glint of metal from the ruined cores, and took a look ahead to the Old Layered city... “Those...F***ing...machines...” -Won-daa-shot

Comments (0)