Avant même que Takeo ait eu le temps d'affronter les sons du carnage qui a éclaté à proximité, un Framewerk à l'aspect canin est descendu dans une tempête de balles et de plasma. Il a entendu la voix de Ian sur les communications, et a identifié la machine comme les Anubis, sorti du combat dans une attaque à trois volets. Le XO a confirmé ses pensées. Merde, Takeo a réfléchi. Comment puis-je prouver quelque chose si je ne peux même pas protéger mes camarades d'un massacre?
Quelque chose au sujet de la formation des autres unités l'a dérangé. Travail d'équipe? Takeo pensait qu'il avait entendu Ian dire autant. Ça aurait pu être une coïncidence, mais on aurait dit qu'ils travaillaient ensemble. Il se sentait en colère.
"Tactiques de cheap", a dit Takeo sur le canal principal. Mais tu ne peux pas m'enlever aussi facilement!
Une explosion féroce a soudainement noyé ses pensées, vaporisant plusieurs drones à proximité de l'un des Framewerks. L'ordonnance impliquait de mettre Takeo à transpirer. Je peux gérer des balles, peut-être, mais ce genre de coup blesserait n'importe qui. Il a trouvé que l'attention des deux autres unités se concentrait maintenant sur le nouveau venu. Peut-être que je peux même les chances, former une alliance et gérer ce pouvoir plus tard. Il s'est hurlé, souriant. Il était temps de s'engager.
"Hé, le gars de l'explosion!" Takeo a parlé sur le canal principal, espérant attirer l'attention du pilote. "Iron Sparrow ici. Sortons cette équipe d'abord, et faisons-nous un combat équitable! » Il poussa ses propulseurs à plein rendement, se chargeant à travers le terrain vers le Framewerk avec un fusil long. Il espérait que son futur coéquipier verrait son soutien et accepterait de l'aider.
Voyons comment tu te débrouilles, sniper! Takeo a tenu sa lame à travers son corps, s'avançant vers sa cible alors qu'il a commencé une fracture horizontale dévastatrice au torse de la Frame.
Name: Iskander Paradise
Appearance: "All you see before you, and still so much more."
Age: 16
Personality: Iskander has been forcibly warped into a warrior by the environment he grew up in, and as such he is unnaturally cold and pragmatic. While intelligent, he grapples with the delusions left behind by years of dogma and brainwashing. While he makes deliberate, pained efforts to be sociable, he doesn't find much value in other people (after all, what good is a warrior that cares too much to kill).
Motive to live: Iskander cares about the Cruxi about as much as he cares about the rest of humanity; not especially much. Hyperborea was on the opposite side of the galaxy from the Cruxi incursion, and Iskander was only vaguely aware of them when he was inducted into the program. But they're another enemy for him to fight, relieving Iskander of the need to be anything other than the warrior he was raised to be.
Background: Born and raised on Hyperborea, a colony world far from Earth, Iskander was brought up as a member of the Sons of Lemuria, a strange militant cult that developed on Hyperborea over the last century. As a warrior of the Lemurians, Iskander was raised as a child soldier, destined to fight the heretics that populated the rest of Hyperborea and bring them under the law of Lemuria. Iskander trained his body and mind, and by the age of fourteen was both a capable warrior and scholar; a Lemurian paragon.
The Sons of Lemuria were wiped out by the Hyperborean military well before Iskander ever went to war, and he was well as the other Lemurian children were taken in as wards of the state. There have been some rehabilitation efforts for Iskander and his peers, unlearning the seditious ideology ingrained in them by the Lemurian cult. Iskander's perception of the world was a very skewed one; even though the Lemurians had access to state-of-the-art technology, which he was perfectly proficient in using, he saw this as magic and sorcery rather than technology. Iskander has had more difficulty readjusting to society than most, and his rehabilitation has been cut short by his recruitment as a Framewerk pilot.
Notable Deaths: Iskander's parents, teachers, mentors and spiritual leaders have all been killed by the Hyperborean state for sedition against the government, as well as acts of terrorism.
Other things: Iskander is highly versed in a distorted version of Hyperborean history, Lemurian mythology, plasmic engineering ("pyromancy," as he knows it), and fighting in the twin-sword "Czar" style.
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Framewerk Code Name: Atlantis Mk. III Omnidynamic Neutralizer, or A3ON
Appearance: Thou art the innocent blade.
Signature Weapon System: The A3ON is powered by a unique joint-fusion core, utilizing hot and cold fusion simultaneously to power its systems, weapons in particular. A3ON generates plasma that can either approach a theoretical point of infinite heat or infinite cold, which is then magnetized and fired at the enemy through its twin plasma cannons, code-named CTHUGHA and ITHAQUA, respectively. Though the plasma cools/heats greatly away from the extremes reached in A3ON's core by the time it is fired, it is still extremely damaging to enemy units, and when the two substances meet, they produce explosions with enough force to sublimate foes. As A3ON's battlefield role is that of an adaptable and unpredictable skirmisher, CTHUGHA and ITHAQUA possess a variety of firing modes and are extremely flexible, multifunctional armaments.
Secondary Weapon System: A3ON's backup weapons are a pair of swords, codenamed BARZAI, the filaments of which can be vibrated intensely to superheat them and give them extreme cutting power.
Flight-Capability/Thrusters: Folded within A3ON's leg-shields are its SHANTAK flight system, a pair of bladelike wings that use the A3ON's exhaust runoff as a propulsion system. Clumsy and only truly efficient in short bursts, A3ON has very little maneuverability in flight, and cannot hover in-atmosphere.
Special Ability: ???