The Plan
"Alright people, this is the mission." I announced to the Brotherhood of Steel, to the members that survived the near year of special forces combat to get to this point.
Men and women made of steel and determination, not humanity and weakness. The program created a number of well tuned borgs like Maine, top tier operatives, but even they looked scared when I pulled up the footage of The Spirit of Motherwill destroying Albuquerque and the New Mexico State Army. The megacrawler was taller than the Empire State Building and 25 city blocks long, multiple landing decks allowed it to carry nearly the entire Texas Air Force and house hundreds of mass smart missile launchers.
"Earlier today the Northern California government called me asking for a solution to this Mobile Arms Fort that isn't 'try nuking it again'." I shook my head and grasped my hands behind my back, "The long range sensors on this beast are enough to completely monitor continental America, and even out into the ocean. It knows when any ballistic missile gets launched and has targeting solutions for the main guns ready by the time they enter its range, which is far longer than the effective blast radius of any nuclear devices available in the Free States. Any attempt to arc a WMD over its firing angles would shoot the bomb into orbit, and pissing off even one of the Highrider Tribes will result in more raining hell in an hour than this beast of a machine can put out in weeks. And yes, the Highriders have already refused to blast that thing from orbit. Stingy bastards."
I pulled up the next part of the presentation, "The solution I've offered is this. An experimental HALO Insertion Craft, the Vanguard. It seats up to 5 borgs, a pilot, and Kenworth if we stuff him into the storage space rather than extra ammo. 7 people in total against the projected thousands of crewmembers and whatever other defenses they have built into that beast."
"They should have brought more for me to play with." The giant pile of metal and pain that is Kenworth growled.
"Damn straight." I nodded, but Kenworth's excitement hadn't radiated out to the rest for the most part, "I'll be the pilot, ostensibly on a mission to personally beg the Highriders for help, but on the way the ship will sputter out and we will 'crash land' on the mega crawler."
The animation on the screen showed the ship flying through the hundreds of oncoming smart missiles to crash land on the mega crawler where little chibi soldiers climbed out and started firing all their weapons.
"Then we either find a way to shut the mobile fortress down or we kill enough of the crew that they can't operate it anymore." I declared to a room full of very judgy and skeptical faces.
"Fuck that!" a man in the crowd shouted and nobody countered his proposition.
"Sooo… is that a no on volunteers?" I asked as I scanned the crowd.
"Juan." Ciri frowned from her place in the crowd, "That plan was absolute shit."
"Chica's got a point, hermano." Jackie sighed with his arms crossed over his chest.
"All you gonks are cowards!" Rebecca shouted as she wrestled her way to the front of the crowd, "Alright Juan, let's go. To the top of the world."
"That's a good attitude to have, kid. I'm in, Big Guy." V stated with a wide smile on her face.
"I'm not a kid, you old hag!" Rebecca shouted at Queen of Steel, the unofficial and undisputed number 2 in the Brotherhood.
"Fuck!" Pilar shouted as he rubbed his long cyber hands over his pointy beard, "I can't not go if my little sister is going!"
"Denied." I refused the man, "If I take you I'll feel obligated to stop you from walking into obvious death traps face first. That's too much focus on a mission like this."
"Oh fuck you! I'm not that bad." the slenderman knock off shouted.
"Yes, you are!" shouted the same guy in the crowd from earlier and once again, no one countered his announcement.
"So… anybody else want to run this really cool op with me?" I asked and nobody stepped forward except Pilar, "Anyone with more tactical sense than a preschooler? Anyone at all? Anyone not named Pilar? Fine, fuck. I'll run the op without you losers. By the way, the payout is 5 million eddies each and anyone that goes on the mission never has to pay taxes again. Ever. Jokes on you assholes."
"You have to be alive to give a shit about taxes!" the guy shouted once more.
Honestly, I should hire that guy. He has balls of steel and common sense.
"Whatever, choom." I dismissed him and the rest of the non hackers leaving me with V, Rebecca, and a very excited Kenworth, "I'll have briefs for you three by the end of the day."
Now I just have to build a spaceship that can survive a crash landing from orbit.
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"Um… this one doesn't look like the one from the presentation," Rebecca noted as the team for the mission approached the polished chrome spaceship.
"Working prototype." I informed her as the pods on the vertical revolver style craft opened.
"Alright chooms, load up. Back to the inside of the pods, your suits will handle the rest." I told everyone scheduled to come with me on this wild ride.
Everyone who thinks this mission is suicidal is right, and good people for trying to stop me from doing this. Jackie, Ciri, Mom, they just don't get it. I'm on the cusp of turning this bleak world around, but my comfy stay in Cyberpunk is under threat of crossover bullshit and I'm going to come down like the hammer of God on these people to figure out what the fuck is going on. I'm all for Mecha, so long as I'm the one doing it to everyone else. I cannot abide this turnabout fair play nonsense.
I do appreciate Jackie and Ciri putting their misgivings aside to suit up for this one though. I put everyone in custom Mk IV armor and any likeness to the Spartan Noble Team is purely coincidental.
"Fuck yeah, choom! It's about time we got in on this soldier of fortune action. It felt for a while like we were forgotten side characters." Pedro yelled as he climbed into his pod looking hyper lethal and clipped his laser rifle to his chest using mag lock tech.
"The cush Welles Arms job is nice. And the money is nova. But sometimes a guy has an itch to kill, and nothing to scratch it with." Small Juan declared and admired the edge on his kukri before sheathing it on his pauldron, "Then Texas builds a pair of walking military bases full of thousands of people needing to die and everything makes sense again. The world is a chaotic shithole in need of me to clean things up."
I clapped a hand across Juanie's metal clad back and laughed, "This is just like when we used to roll up on Six Street gonks… except for the unlimited budget, the cutting edge tech, and the fate of the world on our shoulders."
"God bless, hermano, it's like you raise my blood pressure with every word you speak." Jackie sighed under his helmet which looks remarkably like a fully enclosed Spartan Commando's.
"Chill, Jackie. This is going to either be really awesome or really short. No reason to worry about either of those things." I assured the big man.
Big by normal standards at least. The man's Jaquito to me.
"I'm pretty sure people expect either me or my child to save the multiverse from the White Frost, so aim for really awesome, Juan. Maximum effort." Ciri said as she prepared to climb into her pod.
"Stop!" a masked intruder shouted and found himself greeted with many drawn laser weapons though he seemed completely unphased by it.
Likely due to him being an illusion.
"Cirilla you must leave this world, you are in danger. Can you not see for yourself the voracious appetite these humans have for self destruction? This is not a world that even a drop of the Elder Blood should be spilled for." Avallac'h's avatar pleaded with the woman.
"Ayo, you damn knife eared fuck." I called out to the man, but if I got his attention he didn't react, "How much of this situation is your fault?"
When Avallac'h didn't respond to me Ciri shouted, "Answer him."
"Very little." the elf lied.
"Bullshit." I stated and Ciri nodded in agreement causing the illusion to twitch.
"I weaved only enchantments that cause more grandiose dreams in a select few and they caused this current crisis. That is how precarious this world is, and why it is unworthy of your presence, Cirilla." Avallac'h once more cast aspersions on my planet of residence.
I know Avallac'h doesn't have the power to move the Spirit of Motherwill from Armored Core to Cyberpunk. If he did Eridin wouldn't need Ciri and the Elder Blood for his plans. I'd put money on his multidimensional elf magic caused those 'grandiose dreams' to have multiverse bleedover, filling the heads of people in our universe with ideas from other universes. Like building giant Arms Forts.
"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men." I announced, finally getting the attention of the illusory elf, "Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children."
"What are you blathering on about, human?" The elf finally addressed me.
"And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers," I declared in a rising tone, "And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee!"
The firing of my Laspistol enhanced by Chernobog Runestones dispelled the illusion.
"I know where you live, mother fucker!" I yelled, "You fuck with my world! I'll fuck yours!"
And I'll be getting my hands on whatever enchantments he used. Dream me some mecha dreams.
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I had planned for using the MCU Helicarrier for this Texas offensive, but the announcement of Armored Core 6 got me to change the plans. Originally the Helicarrier would deploy hundreds of Dragoons to attack Juan and the Brotherhood of Steel at Hoover Dam and Juan would use the downed body of one and his maxed Driving Skill to jet-surf onto the helicarrier and solo it.
Now we have Juan and the main cast going together on a rocket ship to invade the Spirit of Motherwill. Thanks Miyazaki.
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