Ready, pilot

Pre-chapter 1

-like a prologue, but it's longer, shorter than a chapter though-

_18 years before present day_

Simon Armstrong, that was the name of this beautiful baby boy, the man knew it, he felt it in his soul as he looked at the newborn in his arms, kissing him on the forehead gently, before giving him back to his wife, suggesting the name, to which she agreed that it was a good, and so he signed the birth certificate, wrote the newborn's name, and it was done.

_10 years before present day_

Pilot Armstrong sighed, his son wanted to be like his dad, so the father had to give him private lessons, it was just something he felt he needed to do for the kid.
It was simple, use a VR training machine to teach the kid the movements and how to use the Pilot Suit and gear, as well as the weapons used by pilots. The kid was a natural at only eight, and that worried Armstrong.
If Simon was this good, what was to stop Atlas from trying to have him join their academy instead of continuing Pilot Training.
It would certainly be an attractive prospect: early scholarship from one of the best academies in the world against mech training.

"I should stop worrying..." Armstrong said, still worried.

"Hey, remember the job, your kid's waiting for his Da' to come back," Mark said, more friendly than usual, for which Armstrong was grateful.

"Right, can't be distracted because of one of the few lights in my life as we go into a factory that uses faunas as expendable workers to tear apart Titans and then uses the parts for whatever."

Smith nodded, "That's why we gotta stop 'em, yeah!"

Josh looked back at them from the pilot's seat of the VTOL.

"Time to jump, our friend here's gonna come back and pick up the Titans, and us, we should prepare to drop," he said, walking from the cockpit.

The other pilots agreed, and Armstrong decided that he'd put thoughts of Simon in the back of his head.
The rest got ready to drop, and he walked to the front.

"Okay ramblers, let's get rambling!" He shouted, before diving off the airship, which then departed as three shapes fell to the front courtyard of the facility, each landing on their feet while the fourth set up on a ledge nearby to the disassembly facility.

Josh, Smith, and Armstrong burst through the doors and walked right by the AK-130s, seeing as the machines were meant to acknowledge their armor chain codes.

Smith looked at the machines with distrust in his posture and stride.

"Shouldn't they be attacking us?" He asked, stopping a little to speak quietly.

The others nodded, noticing the strange behavior of the Knights.

They made it to the queue room, where machines were set up for disassembly.
And there they were: four Titans, massive machines with sentient AIs.
(Think of the base colors for them)

The trio radioed their teammate and he soon joined them, each holding a data core for their Titan as Josh unlocked the hatches, each of the Pilots stepped into the Supreme Machines and inserted the Data Cores and other cards and boxes, like me upgrading my gaming setup, they hardly knew what to do, but they knew enough.

The first one to activate and be released from its containment was the Northstar: Mark's Titan.
Next was the Legion: Owned by, unsurprisingly: Smith.
Josh's was the Ion, and Armstrong had the Vanguard.

"Hey RZ, how's it going?" Armstrong says as he gets situated, the Titan attaching cables to the Pilot's spinal armor and clamping the arms and legs to servos that would respond to movements in the legs.
That combined with the spinal cables gave the pilots maximum control in pilot mode.

Several Atlesian Soldiers noticed the Titans moving, and called in their superiors, and then the AK-130s began to fire at the Titans, who were already fully shielded and powered up, each with all of their batteries, so the rounds did jack shit.

Finally, some action, thank. Fuck.

The Titans began to run, however slowly, through the halls, each of the Pilots keeping up as best they could with the others.
It looked like Armstrong had done this several times before, especially considering the timing as he went across and the others followed exactly how he needed them to for once(small reference to the Reaper production area in TitanF2)

The Pilots made their ways to the final stage, where they were confronted by a tank, to which their response was to jump out of the titans and charge the machine, Smith pulling ahead and, getting his fingers under it, he began to lift the ten-ton machine over his head, kneeling like he was Atlas himself bearing the sky, when suddenly, the Legion grabbed the big machine and threw it into another, creating a huge explosion, then, it picked up its tired pilot and they approached the ledge, where the others had been pushed to due to the fact that the man and his giant robot had just taken care of the biggest threats to the group.

The VTOL pilot told them all to jump, and, after a bit of consideration, RZ grabbed his pilot and they jumped down, followed by Mark's Northstar using flight Core to take out the only anti-air turret on the facility and then falling, with Smith and his Legion laughing in joy as they ran off, finally followed by Josh and his Ion.

The Mechs were caught by the VTOL's magnetic lifts and they were drawn in as the airship exited the valley it was hiding in, and the group began to celebrate, until Mark and Northstar were almost pulled out of their place by a magnetic harpoon, luckily, the others grabbed the Plasma Railgun -which Northstar was still holding- in order to keep them in place, but the hatch opened and Mark shook his head, the Northstar seeming to agree with its pilot, as Northstar wasn't in Manual Control, which meant that Mark wasn't moving its limbs.

"Sorry boys... this is the end of the line for us..." Mark says, "tell Simon that Uncle Mark isn't gonna be coming back from this one,"

He saluted as Northstar opens her hand, and the pair drop. Without enough fuel to resist the harpoon, they fell to the Facility, where Knights, tanks, soldiers, and heavy guns were fired at the Northstar, however, it did not eject its pilot, instead, they got close to the facility gates as possible, and the Titan's Core glowed white-hot.
And with a mushroom cloud and a deafening explosion... they were no more.
The facility had also been destroyed, but it was not gone. It no doubt would be abandoned soon.

All three pilots remaining held back tears with little success. As pessimistic as Mark was, he needed to sacrifice himself to save them, and so they couldn't just let his sacrifice go to waste.

That thought gave them the determination to continue and fight Atlas on every front possible, to use war as a business...

To end war as a business.

-a few weeks after-

Armstrong sighed, the Pilots had split up, with him going to Patch, which was risky, but his family would be safe, and that was the big thing for him.

Smith and Josh had gone to Mistral and Vale itself, respectively, and the group formed the Patriot: dedicated to ending war, especially as a business... by using war as a business. As a PMC, the three had gathered a group of soldiers and disgraced huntsmen and huntresses, forming a true PMC, and from there they took odd protection and defense jobs, if it was a figure of importance, they were most likely there, if it was an important supply transport of food and other essentials, they were there.

But then they knew: this couldn't continue, war would rage as a business unless someone did something.
And that someone would be Simon.
He was, again, a natural with Pilot and Titan matters. He was perfect.
So his training became more full, not basics, but real tactical and strategic matters and quizzes, but he was given time with his father, and that helped him immensely.

Eventually he was introduced to RZ-8824, and learned about piloting the Titan himself, with pointers and tips from his dad, he became an expert, but he wasn't allowed much time in VR to talk to the Titan, and he couldn't interact in real life with it because of the dangers of both.
He understood, but he didn't like it.

And it was like that for a few years.
Until STRQ came back for revenge.