No Traitor In Me (Armoured Core 6/RWBY)

YoungColonial27 · 2024-03-23T01:10:18+00:00

No Traitor In Me •|• 621 tossed and turned on his medical bed. The man was covered in tubes with his whole bed enveloped by a grey plastic bag. For all that he looked like a dying man, he was anything but. The scars of his augmentation, burns across every part of his body, warping and bending his bones and flesh were as blades cutting into him. He looked as if he had walked out of hell. Even so, he was healthy, the augmentation had granted him inhuman vitality, letting him survive even the horrific organ damage. His mind and senses pushed far beyond human limits. His body was stronger than any mere man, yet it mattered little as he could barely walk. Without his life support, a simple fall might kill him. So vulnerable, yet however slight this young and ill man of only 5 feet appeared, his capability belied that deceptive visage. The most deadly pilot on Rubicon, if not the deadliest pilot the human race had ever seen. A genius unparalleled, he regularly smote foes better equipped, with better augmentations and greater numbers. Yet, for all his skills, for all his experience, this pilot was left at a loss. "Please say something, 621!" A voice echoed inside his head, and he grimaced, not from the pain running through his limbs and breast, but from the dilemma threating to tear his heart in two. He stayed silent, shame gripping him like a vice. Aboard the Xylem, Carla's doctors were tending to him. Doctors he would have to kill, if he wanted to save Ayre, he reminded himself. He ignored the thought. He had killed innocents before, such was the nature of war. Yet as he gazed upon the nurse fretting over his broken body, he found that thought hard to repeat. These were his allies. Carla was his friend. This was Walters last wish. However could he possibly betray that? "I can't do it." Shame filled his whisper, his voice rasping out like sandpaper. "621..." The melancholy in Ayres voice cut into him like a laser knife piercing his skin. "I can't do it." He repeated louder. The nurse looked at him befuddled. "I can't betray them. Not Carla, not Chatty, and definitely not Walter. I'm sorry Ayre, I don't know what to do." "I... I want my siblings to live. I don't want to go again. Please 621, please save them." His heart was stricken. If he didn't stop the Xylem, every single one of Ayre's siblings would die, the Coral burning. Not only that, but the Rubicon Liberation Front and the Corporations would probably not survive the Fires. Rusty... If he didn't protect the Xylem, then the Coral would reach a critical mass under the shortsighted greed of Arquebus. What would happen then? Walter and Carla had spent their whole lives trying to stop it. What horror did it mean if they would risk a repeat of the Fires of Ibis, not setting an entire star system ablaze? He decided then. He had to know. His limbs moved. Slowly, wincing with every twitch. He grabbed the sides of the bed, struggling to find a grip inside the plastic body bag. The Nurse panicked, and begged him to stop, but he ignored her. His health no longer mattered. He would die one way or another here. All that mattered was saving his friends. Slowly, he unzipped the bag, his breath coming out in pained pants. One by one, he unclipped each strap holding him down to the Infirmary bed. As he swing his legs over the bed, pulling tubes out of his body like a Mech finished with maintenance, the Nurse relented. His sight no longer blocked, he saw a nametag on her jacket as she brought over a wheelchair. 'Lizabeth.' He'd remember it. At least until he died. Ayre remained unsettling silent as if she was waiting. As Lizabeth helped him into the wheelchair, he breathed out a quiet "Thank you." Minutes later, his elevator reached the ships bridge, where Carla and Chatty were preparing the ship to reach orbit. The control was massive, and he could see Carla working in her AC FULL COURSE a distance away. He cynically wondered if he would soon kill her in this very room? As Lizabeth brought pushed his wheelchair towards the RaD leader he thought. There had to be another way. A third option. There always was. Maybe, maybe they could ask the Rubicon Liberation Front for help? But Carla, would she accept that? This has been their goal for decades now. It was Walters last wish that they do this. Could he even accept that? Carla was old, very old, but with her top of line augmentations you wouldn't know from looking at just her appearance. It was in her old fashioned jumpsuit, her demeanour, her body language that screamed of wisdom and experience. "621? What's with the sudden visit?" She looked at him with ab expression of concern. He breathed in weakly, his body was already faltering without life support to keep him stable. "I.. I had a.. a question." She nodded patiently. "Coral Collapse... Is there.. really no other way..." He trailed off. The old lady smiled painfully. "If there was, we failed to find it. I'm afraid this our only option left." "The..n... what happens.. if we f..-" A nasty cough leaves his mouth, and he doubled over in pain. "If we fail?" Carla smiled wistfully. "The researchers discovered that coral holds a surprising similarity to human brainwaves. While small amounts of it can be used for augmentation, the amounts produced by a collapse..." "Every man, woman and child would be consumed, like rain falling into an ocean. We have no idea what that would actually entail, what it would mean. Every person alive could very well lose their identity or worse." "If at anytime after that, Coral was set aflame once more..." 621 finished the thought. "All o..f.. humanity, would.. perish..." "So I'm sorry 621, but there's no way out of this. We'll do what's needed, buy time with lives, maybe even burn all the Coral once and for all. But it ends there." She seemed to age before him, her shoulders slumping in visibly weariness. "Libera..tion.. Fron..t..." She shook her end. "Corporations hit them hard after Arquebus found the institute. They probably won't even notice the Xylem until we hit the plant. They can't help us here." "For what it's worth 621, I'm sorry you had to be brought in like this. I know losing Walter hit hard, and you're not alone in that, but we'll see this through. I promise." She looked at him with eyes hardened by steel. Then... There was no third option. As he was wheeled back to the infirmary, 621 felt a blaze of fury. No matter what he chose, he'd betray his friends. "I.. refuse.. Yo..u basta..rds won't.. find.. a tr..aitor.. in me.." "621... I'm sorry." Even as Ayre tried to reassure him, his heart burned with anger. Yet he felt impotent. Useless. All the skill in the world, and there was nought he could do with it but a slip a dagger into his friends heart's. Either from the front or the back? Carla or Ayre? Walter or Rusty? Laughter sputtered out of his lips. Cold, empty and gut wrenching. "Ha...h..a..ha..he..he- ACK, UHEGH!" He started coughing violently. His raised heart rate was affecting his vitals. "Please calm down, if you really want to do this, then that's your choice. I'll... I'll.. accept it..." Ayre's voice came out pitiful and weak. He shook his head. "No." "But... I... Why?" "No man left behind." He uttered solemnly. He looked at the cold metal above his head. If there was something he could do... 'Can a Raven fly on borrowed wings indeed?' What nonsense, this Raven had never left it's cage. But he didn't care. He wouldn't betray his friends. He'd wait, until he found opportunity. He'd find a way out of this trap. Just like he always had. As if responding to thoughts, his prayers and hopes, red alarms suddenly blared, klaxons sounding off. Emergency maneuvers? The ship was under attack? But they hadn't left orbit. With a sudden jolt, he felt himself slip sideways as the ships inertial dampers very quickly found themselves unable to meet the forces required by the ships evasive maneuver. As he leaned on the straps tying him to his bed, he met eyes with the Nurse hanging for dear life onto an empty bed. The fear in her eyes might be the last thing he ever saw. "621! I can feel something coming!" Ayre screamed in warning. Then the world shifted, as if reality itself was being torn asunder. Pain struck his body, and as he screamed in unquenchable agony, he slowly registered his vision fading to black. •|•

Thread starter YoungColonial27
Start date Mar 23, 2024
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armored core mecha military rwby scifi

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YoungColonial27

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Mar 23, 2024

The threads of fate
The paths we take

They make a muse
To dash our ruse

They give a shake
To leave our wake

How inordinate
How droll

A fate not chosen
A fate not fell

I could not see
I could not tell

I would indeed make a path for thee well