American Memory

Template:FlagIconLoose Sexkiller
Template:FlagIconRetribution

> History is a set of lies agreed upon.
>
> Napoleon Bonaparte

Armor Corps recovers a copy of the Library of Congress from the ruins of Washington DC.

## Summary

After a long barge ride, the team deploys into the AOR from the banks of the Anacostia river and into the Naval Yard district. After a quick look around visually to check for any obvious signs of enemy activity, the suits begin pinging the area with various sensors, starting a chain reaction of tech failures one after the other, starting with Blitzpferd's hawkeye shorting out, Retribution's radar exploding violently, Loose's sonar picking up white noise, Yuki's hawkeye exploding in her face, Loose's second sonar ping temporarily deafening him.

With everyone on the team either deaf or blind, they collectively decide scouting is a waste of time and begin moving into the city towards their target. Seeing as its more or less a straight line up the road from the team's location, Blitzpferd,the lightning steed, blazes ahead of the rest of the group, making it almost all the way to Capitol Hill before triggering the local defenses, as a clutch of wire-rope like tentacles lash out at her. She dodges the first two strikes, but at third causes her to stumble a bit. Yuki and Loose both react to try and take the drone down quickly, but their haste throws their aim off. Retribution is able to take the drone down with its autocannon. Although this kills the drone rather easily, the rise in noise throughout the city is a clear indication that there are many more of the drones about and headed in their direction.

Yuki, having taken to the air earlier, has a good vantage of just how many of the drones are converging on them. Her attempts to hit the machines as they approach are slightly off, and a pair of them launch themselves after her. The tank-like Retribution continues to plow through the streets of DC, autocannons blazing through drones as they come, until they swarm him all at once. Loose opts to push ahead and catch up with Blitzpferd, and the two break into the library's ground floor level.

Yuki attempts to evade the drones attacking her, cleanly avoiding the first attack, but drones' follow-up attacks overwhelm her, causing her to lose control of her flight systems. Loose leaves Blitzpferd and takes to the air to try and help Yuki, missing horribly with his Ultra Greatsword attack but managing to land a kick through one of the drones as he sails by it. Blitpzerd, lacking flight or ranged weapons, lends a hand in the form of deploying a courier drone to supercharge her rifle. Retribution meanwhile fights the bulk of the drone tide on his own, sustaining relatively heavy damage, but gradually chewing through the mechanical squids. At this point, he deploys drones of his own, including a couple of scavengers to try and get some field repairs started. The additional firepower is enough to keep the enemy drones at bay, allowing him to reach the library without taking further damage.

Loose continues the battle he took over for Yuki, making another swing with his Ultra Greatsword at the remaining drone in the air. As before, he grossly miscalculates his attack, over-committing to the swing and wrenching out his shoulder. Luckily, Yuki is able to correct her flight and, with her supercharged rifle, lands an expert shot on the remaining drone before it can capitalize on Loose's mistake.

Having earned a brief respite, the group reconvenes at the library. Retribution siege modes outside the library and shoots down drones as they approach while the rest of the group moves in to search for the basement where the library servers would be located. Luckily, it is easy to find and non at all defended, and Yuki is able to deploy the TE server tower she had been carrying with her, which begins quickly downloading the library's contents.

Outside, the rain that had been coming down all the while suddenly turns freezing cold, then turns to hail, then to blades of ice. The ice blades falling from the sky are of little concern for Retribution, but they do manage to destroy half of his drones. Sensing weakness, the squid drones that had been circling capitol hill up to this point surge in, and an elite  Puppet suit descends from the clouds. Retribution calls to the others for assistance with the suddenly renewed enemy force. Loose recommends that Retribution fall back to the inside of the library, but he isn't able to unsiege and begin moving away before the drones are all over him again. Retribution's own surviving drones do a good job of cutting back at the squids, but the Puppet remains unaddressed, opting to watch the drones attack the cathedral tank for a bit before freezing it in place with a grenade.

Retribution makes another request for assistance, prompting Loose to bolt upstairs and outside. The Frost suit notices him immediately and springs into action against him. Loose reacts in kind, throwing his systems into overdrive and engaging in an epic half-minute melee with the elite Puppet that sees Loose bloodied within an inch of his life, and the Frost suit little better off. Retribution is able to finish off the Puppet with an autocannon salvo, while his own drones finish off the last of the squid drones.

Yuki and Blitzpferd pack up the data tower once its finished downloading the library's contents and head back upstairs to assist Loose and Retribution, only to find the fight over and both combatants more or less dead. Blitzpferd attempts to glue what bits of Loose she can scoop off the ground back together while Retribution's scavenger drones do what they can to repair the suit, but its clear time is of the essence if Loose is going to survive. With that in mind, the team quickly loads Loose into Retribution and leave the area.

## Aftermath

Armor Corps now safely holds a copy of a substantial portion of human history. Loose survived, but required a  cyberbrain and replacement of an arm and most of his internal organs. In addition, his suit was completely totaled, requiring he build a new one, which he would go on the christen 'Reach Heaven Through Violence'.