Chapter One: First Contact

The wind was blowing harshly through the Martian surface as the tanks of the Euro-Asia Pact, EAP treaded through. The past year was anything less than memorable; the war escalated to Earth, unlike two years ago when the war was held in the shadows from the public this war is very media friendly. However, deceptions still find their way into the war. Most believe the war is about revenge for the weapon that was supposedly unleashed by the EAP in New York City. But that is far from truth, the politicians are fully aware of the importance of the South Western territory on Mars and of the powerful energy substance that is said to dwell with in. Once again, this is a war based on human greed. The EAP was in full swing, almost every MF unit was sent directly to the South Western front to engage the TA in battle. The battle wasn’t going well for the EAP, with each passing minute their MFs were swatted down. The higher ups in the EAP decided it was time to send in their prize possession, the Omega unit. It was a team consisting of five of the most skilled pilots the EAP had to offer. Unfortunately, it had been whittled down to one after the previous encounter with the TA. The remaining member of the Omega unit was the most powerful of them all, and yet he was nothing more than a young boy, 16 years old.

The boy sat restrained in his cockpit, his dirty blonde hair flapping in the wind as he slept. He always liked to have his cockpit open during transportation.

“Omega Diabolus we have arrived.” The operator said forcing the young pilot to awaken from his slumber. He half opened his right eye revealing a clear blue iris, as deep as the sea on Earth.

“How many times do I have to…*yawn* tell you, call me Zach.” The young pilot replied.

“Oh…sorry, yes, of course sir.”

“ZACH!”

“Yes…sorry, Zach.”

“That’s’ better. So what do we have here today? Just another unit of TA garbage?” Zach question. It could be said that he was arrogant, but he thought himself to be overly aware of his own skill.

“I’m not sure. But reports say that it’s a single TA unit.”

“A single unit?! How the hell can one unit easily disable all of the Prometheus BXTs?” Zach screamed outraged at the insinuation that the BXTs were so weak that they could be toppled by a single team of pilots.

“BXT’s?”

“You know, Bipedal Exoskeleton Tanks. Wow, you really are just a driver huh?”

“That’s all I’m paid for…” The driver’s foot slammed on the break causing Zack to almost fall out of his cockpit.

“HEY!”

“Sorry, but we’re here and I don’t want to get caught up in the middle of that.”

Zach glanced out from his cockpit to see small blinding explosions lighting up the sky. He smirked.

“Heh, this shouldn’t take long. There looks to be at least two BXT’s left. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.” Zach quickly closed the cockpit of his MF, Hades and turned on the generator. His MF held onto extremely powerful equipment, in one hand was a dual plasma rifle, able to fire two beams of concentrated energy. On the left arm was a metallic blade attached to the armor. The blade was also able to fire discs of energy outwards that could hit a target 1000 meters away. But Zach’s prime weapon, a weapon that was able to take them hundreds of TA MFs was his scythe. It was solid, no energy whatsoever, light gleamed off the edge of the finely polished blade. His MF was painted solid orange with stripes of black and purple highlighting the main paintjob. He was extremely fond of his machine, he was confident of his skills. Without giving the driver time to dislodge the MF Zach boosted into the sky. The force of the launch caused the transport to topple.

Two massive BXTs roamed the ground just in front of the energy barrier keeping everyone out of the South Western territory. As their name suggested they were massive tanks fully wrapped in layers upon layers of armor. There were no arm units, just massive cylindrical grenade launchers as well as a dual grenade launcher resting on the back of the core. These massive tanks were about the size of three MFs and held onto the fire power of about ten of them. And yet they were falling faster than showed up.

“NOVUS!”

The pilot smirked as he glanced to his side watching the ivory MF he left behind turn to nothing more than a dot amongst the sand. He forgot about his speed at times and would from time to time end up showboating. The BXT tried to follow the movements of the extremely agile blue MF but found itself losing its balance while trying. Suddenly both grenade launchers on the back of the core exploded into thousands of pieces. Out from the smoke soared a crimson MF with two jet-like wings extended outwards on the side from between the shoulders. Then the flat jet wings detached from the top of the core and flew through the sky. The crimson MF soon flew over the wing attachment and began to descend. Just as it came in contact with the smooth surface of the wing two iron restraints wrapped around the mechanical feet. The crimson MF took off once again heading straight for the BXT firing its energy rifles. The beams of energy bounced off the armor plating of the BXT.

“MOVE!” A feminine voice echoed from the distance forcing the crimson MF to strafe to the left allowing an extremely powerful beam of energy through. The energy tore through the right cylindrical grenade launcher. The following explosion caused the BXT to become unbalanced. At that instant the ivory MF began to fly around the leg units of the beast while wrapping its whips around the joint where the ankles would be. With each lap around the legs the whips tightened causing the BXT to have limited amount of movement.

            “You’re turn hot shot!”

            Suddenly a blur of cerulean light surged past the remaining grenade barrel, a delayed reaction occurred as the barrel exploded leaving the BXT without any offensive capabilities.

            Zach gazed from his cockpit in awe over the team work that was being displayed before his very eyes. He began to wonder if he would be able to defeat the unit, but the he began to laugh.

“Heh, I shouldn’t doubt myself, no one has even come close to touching Hades. Once I get rid of them I’m sure I’ll get that promotion! Let’s go!” Zach screamed. Zach wasted little time making his presence known he began to fire his dual plasma rifle immediately. It didn’t take him long to pin point the sniper, he knew that it could cause problems later on and that it was best to deal with it now. The beams of energy tore through the elongated cannon resting on the back of the blue and pink MF causing it the MF to collapse to the ground. The pilot screamed, cursing under her breath.

“Damn it. Hey guys we got another one!”

The three MFs all turned around to see Hades.

“So you guys are the ones taking out all the BXTs! Care to try your luck with me?” Zach screamed.

The three MFs stood there hovering.

“Adam who took out the last lead unit?” Mario asked glancing over to Blue Dragon. Adam shrugged his shoulders.

“I don’t know, I think Stephen did.” Both Mario and Adam glanced over to Stephen.

“Nope, I could have sworn that was you Mario.”

“Really? Who was it? I’ve lost track.”

“Umm I think it was Fafner.” Adam interrupted.

“Are you sure? I could have sworn it was Gail...” Mario replied.

“No you’re both wrong, it was Phantom.” Stephen replied.

Both Adam and Mario let out a big “oh”.

“Yeah you’re right, I did take him out. And Stephen took out Fafner before that. So that means it’s your turn Adam.” Mario replied.

“Nice… been a while since I had a good work out.” Adam replied. Blue Dragon slowly boosted in front of both Alpha and Anima.

“You can handle him right?” Stephen asked sarcastically.

“Yeah, you guys just worry about the remaining BXT.” Adam replied.

“Got it. Don’t have too much fun.” Mario remarked.

Zach just sat there wide eyed, never before in his career had he ever see three pilots choose over who got to fight the head MF.

“Are you sure you don’t want their help. You might need it. I am the Whisper of Death you know.” Zach replied. He had always used that as a way of intimidating his foes, usually they all had heard of the Whisper of Death and trembled at the very mention of his name.

“Whisper of Death huh….sorry, never heard of you.” Adam replied grinning. His hands were already firmly placed on the throttles.

“WHAT?!” Zach was insulted. In his opinion everyone should have heard of him.

“You’re bluffing.” Zach replied. “Is it possible that I get the name of the fool who thought he could best me?”

“If it means that much to you, I’m the Azure Knight.” Adam replied.

Zach suddenly found himself quiet in his cockpit. He had heard stories of the Azure Knight, how it bested Fenrir two years ago and then destroyed the Chimera unit that wiped out a countless number of EAP soldiers.

“So you’re him then. I’ve been waiting for this moment my entire life inside the cockpit!” Zach screamed.

Hades burst out speeding towards Blue Dragon while firing the dual plasma rifle. Adam sighed and easily avoided the attack. The wings on Blue Dragon retracted as the blue MF zoomed past Hades slashing with the two energy sabers at the last critical second and continued to head into the distance. Zach appeared to be confused and insulted.

“What the? He didn’t even consider me to be a threat! That ASSHOLE!” Zach screamed as he stepped on the accelerator. Just as Hades began to move the arms and the legs of the core fell off. There was no mess, no needless exposure of wires or jagged edges. It was a clean slice.

“Damn…” Zach mumbled under his breath.