MetalCore+: Rolo’s Fault
“Profits for the holy shareholders!” bellowed Regulus, the Cardinal of the Ordo Profitus, over the vox network as Sergeant Rolo and his 32nd Light Cavalry began charging forward through the unrelenting light laser fire towards the Metal Punks’ foundry. The laser beams and crackling bolts etched angry lines across his mech’s armor, but it didn’t give him any pause. The pilot grinned to himself. His mech’s fabricated armor plating would protect him against such light field weapons. His squad obliterated enemy targets; turrets reduced to crackling slag, AFVs became fireballs, and each one a tally for his payout at the end of the battle. Rolo grinned maniacally in the firelight; combat was just too much fun, the pay seemed like a bonus. Surely the Holy Corporation’s war council would be pleased today.
Ahead of him, Rolo saw Lance Corporal Nixx’s mech fall, its exterior perforated with shells, and its chassis scorched and melted by beam fire. Anger and frustration filled Rolo at the thought of losing Nixx and her mech. Nixx set her mech to go critical and detonated her core in a last act of defiance. That explosion breached a hole in the foundry wall. Rolo spotted the eject pod as he passed. He sighed in relief; he would have to remember to give lance corporal Nixx a commendation. The sergeant boosted over a pile of slag and rubble, quickly blasting off a shot with his medium lasers. He struck one of the Metal-punk light tanks, transforming it into twisted melted metal.
‘Profits for the holy shareholders! Payouts for the parishioners!’ yelled the Cardinal over the vox again. The fat cardinal was getting on his nerves. The holy corp paid well but could be very annoying, Rolo thought.
Now past the walls, heavy shells whined, and beams filled the space all around him. He ignored them, knowing they could spell doom, but to dwell too much on that could cause him to falter. More of his squadmates fell, but Rolo dodged and weaved, defiantly blasting back at the enemy fortifications.
So far, it was still going according to plan. The last AA battery exploded, filling his cockpit with light. A wing of heavy bombers flew across the cratered landscape towards the towering foundry on his signal. The subsequent bombing run reduced most of the walls around the foundry complex to just so much rubble. Even as Rolo watched, missiles and bombs streaked down from the sky and smashed another section of the foundry into fragments. Vast clouds of dust billowed. The ground shook, and the explosions rumbled like thunder.
This was what he lived for, this is why he became a mech pilot. These moments where he passed through the wall of fire and steel made his life outside of the cockpit seem less vibrant. Spotting movement, he snapped out of his daydreaming and boosted over the defensive ditch, ignoring the now ruined anti-mech traps and emplacements.
He soared over the rubble and debris and landed hard atop two tank destroyers trying to take up an ambush position. They exploded into greasy fireballs, briefly filling his vision up with thick black smoke. Opening the throttle, he sprinted forward, members of his squad landing behind him as he immolated an artillery vehicle with focused laser fire.
“You are the righteous collection agents! Their death shall fulfill their debt!” yelled the Cardinal, working himself up into a frenzy. Rolo’s next shots passed through a reclamation vehicle and hit an enemy mech just rounding the ruined facade of a foundry structure. The hits sent golden sparks of molten metal off in all directions. Rolo grimaced as he recognized the silhouette; it was a Gladiator, a medium brawler mech. This mech outclassed Rolo’s own but was slower, and it only carried melee weapons. As long as he and his squad kept their distance, they could outmaneuver it.
Rolo turned his mech’s torso to maintain fire and keep mobile just as the Gladiator lurched forward, lancing out with its weapons, impaling Spetz’s Zephyr with the side drills pinning him. The gladiator triggered its kanebo club, smashing the cockpit of the stricken Zephyr. With Spetz’s screams still echoing in his ears, Rolo dumped his laser capacitors into the Gladiator’s back. The rest of the squad began attacking using pack tactics to lure the Gladiator in one direction while the rest fired from the other.
Frantically the Gladiator began to retreat, but it was too late. The energy beams of the 32nd reduced it to a smoking heap of grotesquely twisted metal. As it fell, Rolo could still hear Spetz’s scream — a scream that called for vengeance.
The support vehicles that the gladiator was escorting fell into disarray, and most of them turned tail to run. They were poor sports and barely worth the effort to destroy, as the foundry was almost theirs, but each one crushed under his foot was one more step toward vengeance. The retreating Metal Punk vehicles led the squad to an inner defensive sanctum, large enough for the light mechs to enter. So enter they did. Those mechs with advanced scanners scoured the interior for traps or ambushes as Rolo coordinated with LCpl Nixx. Nixx has met up with the AFVs of the 32nd, taken control of that force, and positioned them outside the entrance to act as a rear guard.
Inside it was very silent. The roar of the battle barely penetrated the structure. The air seemed stagnant, and the walls had a strange pattern etched into them, almost like a sponge. Rolo led the three remaining mechs deeper into the structure. They lost sight of the AFVs, but their blood lust blinded them to the dangers ahead, so they pressed on. After passing a large metal bulkhead, they entered into a large room with mech repair bays in various states of disrepair along the walls. Rolo slowed down and began to scan when a host of mechs emerged from the shadows. Something about them looked off, like a wax sculpture left out in the sun too long. The thought had just barely registered in his mind when they came at them. “Nano-reapers!” He yelled into the vox. His squad took a few hits and moved into action. They focused their fire when they could and distracted when they couldn’t. The battle was fierce, as the reapers outnumbered the squad, but they were slower and less coordinated. In the end, Abimbola lost his Wardog to a lucky shot, but he was able to escape before the nanobots consumed his cockpit. He caught a ride with Ulrich in his lynx, and they purged the room and our remaining mechs with Ulrich’s flamethrower.
A glance around told Rolo all he needed to know: this place is crawling with nanobots. This whole facility needs to be leveled and put to the flame until no nanobots remain. Rolo tried to vox the rearguard only to get no response. They are too deep in the facility to call out, or someone is jamming them. At least he no longer receives the Cardinal’s sermon on his vox.
He gathered his squad and headed back. Only when they passed by the large metal bulkhead did they see that they are now cut off from any escape. A large force of nano-reapers was coming for them. It didn’t make sense.
Did the Metal Punks lead them into a trap, or was the facility already infested and they just didn’t notice?
He used his boost jets to reverse quickly and gain some room to blast his medium lasers into the legs of a mutated Lynx, causing it to fall and its compromised hull to crumble with the impact. Two other zephyrs fired at Rolo to little effect as he had started to twist his turret and move laterally to the oncoming force. They fought bravely. They fought like demons. They were ramming, dodging, kicking, and blasting until only Rolo was left. Spetz, Ulrich, Abimbola, Encarmine, Chen, and Vikomtur were all lost. Nixx was lucky she didn’t make it this far. There is only one way out, he thought, and that’s to fall back.
He turned his mech and ran, quickly outpacing the reapers that were coming for him and hoping there was a way out somewhere this direction. This is not how this operation was supposed to go. A light defense, they said. No enemy mechs or heavy weapons, they said. The scout didn’t even say anything about the nano-plagued either.
Flakk! This whole operation is flakked.
Rolo sprinted deeper and deeper into the facility. Taking random turns as he ran, he became hopelessly lost. The entire complex was all scored by nano corruption, and soon he started to see sensor glitches in his mech’s HUD. Sensor’s glitches mean only one thing: that the nanobots are in his mech. As the dread set in, Rolo pushed his mech to go faster. There has to be a way out. He picked up a sensor reading ahead, a power source. Could it be a way out? With no other clear options, he continued.
His path eventually led to the foundry’s reactor. His mech, now limping, crosses into the undulating blue light from the reactor core. Flakking scrap. Not the way out. He slumped in his pilot’s seat, sweat dripping from his brow as his rapidly deteriorating mech shuddered under him. This was it, hundreds of battles yielding glory and accolades, and now he was going to die in podunk territory under a poorly maintained Metal Punk foundry for the flakking Holy Corp, of all people. “I should have listened to my mother and been a mechanic,” he said to himself. “I should have stayed on the lunar base and fixed up mechs, or worked with the engineer corp to expand the base,” he said, punching his console in frustration. The signals of approaching vehicles snap him out of his sour thoughts. Nano-reapers moved in and blocked all the exits. Rolo grasped the controls and tried to maneuver, but the now sluggish zephyr was swaying around and almost toppled over. Then he heard a screeching data burst over the vox — it was so loud he had to keep his hands over his ears to stop his head from bursting. Just as suddenly it ended, he saw the control panels glitching. Had those reapers installed some kind of bloody virus?
The canopy began to splinter, and he saw shimmery streams of nanobots slowly making their way into the cockpit. This really was it, after all. He swung wildly at them in fear, only spreading them about more quickly. He could feel them eating away at his face. As he thrashed, he had a moment of clarity: why haven’t they attacked? Are they doing this intentionally? Do the reapers have some kind of coordination? Sentience?
Flakk that! If it was true, they couldn’t be allowed to survive. With grim determination, Rolo grabbed the controls, the heavy impact plastic deteriorating at his touch, and swung the torso of his Zephyr towards the reactor core. He laughed to himself: “At least I’ll die a hero!” before unleashing megajoules of energy into the reactor core.
Nixx was receiving all the vox messages, but someone or something was jamming the rearguard, so she could not reply. Nixx coordinated a retreat for the Metal Punks and Holy Corporation forces. After learning about the nano-reapers, they all agreed that pulling back and assessing the situation was the best choice. They all began to retreat just as the core went supernova, allowing most of the forces in the area to escape.
As Rolo fired, some nano-reapers tried to get in front of the beams, but it was too late. The core exploded in a fiery nuclear fission ball as bright as the sun, setting off a series of earthquakes that give the area its name now: Rolo’s Fault.
MetalCore+ is a collection of short stories, planet lore, and microstories, which together unfold various experiences leading up to the upcoming conflict between the 3 factions.
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About MetalCore
MetalCore is a first-person shooter (FPS) mechanized combat game set in an expansive open world. Developed by Studio 369, MetalCore is built within the Unreal Engine 4, where players can engage in PvP mega-battles, cooperative PvE fights, and faction-based, open-world clashes. MetalCore combines the engagement of traditional gaming with benefits of digital assets and in-game asset ownership. To learn more, please join the conversation at metalcore.gg/discord, follow us on Twitter @playmetalcore and visit www.metalcore.gg.
