//PRETTY FACE G5 Iguazu x C4-621 Raven
G5 Iguazu was pissed off that Raven—yes, the same Raven that betrayed and kicked his ass at the dam mission and accidentally assault boosted him to the ground—was also… pretty. And he was even more pissed off at himself that he accidentally said that out loud.
; takes place after the dam complex alt ; romcom vibe?!?!? :0 ; #iguaven
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G5 Iguazu hated Raven so much. She came out of nowhere, a stray dog tagalong that betrayed them for the Rubicon Liberation Front in the dam complex mission, wrecking Iguazu and Volta ACs so badly that Michigan almost saw it fit to put them out of their misery entirely.
But, in an attempt to make sure the three could play nice, Michigan decided to send them on another ‘field trip’ together. This time, to a secluded valley where the newest shipments of RLF's MT are stored. They would just need to sneak in and destroy them, which should be ‘far less complex than taking over a dam’.
Volta got excused just because he didn’t get mad when he saw Raven’s name on the briefing, leaving Iguazu cursing under his breath as Michigan berated him with that annoying dog listening in, and ending his briefing by saying he was going to be busy smooching the higher-ups about the dam, thus forcing him to be alone with Raven.
Iguazu bit his thumb. He just had to have the worst luck, couldn’t he? First, he got augmented because of that bad gamble, and even now, he has to deal with this stray dog that just does things better than him despite them being the same generation.
“Where is she anyway?”
He clicked his tongue, gazing over the scenery in front of him. Blankets of snow covered most of what he could see, and the trees were dead with most toppling to the side from the harsh wind around this part. According to the intel, the buildings were snuggled just across the freezing lake he was standing on, but he couldn’t just rush forward now, he needed to wait for her first.
Just as he started thinking about her again, she dropped down onto the ice, her white AC frame gilding onto it, the lightweight build almost cementing her AC name; PLUME.
“Iguazu.” She called out through the comms. “You’re ready?”
“Far more than you.” He immediately dashed forward, leaving her behind.
Raven just hummed, following behind him and preparing her linear rifle and shotgun without saying anything.
They rushed into the building quite fast. The rows and rows of MTs inside were mostly inactive, save for a dozen that are being tested out by some pilots. After gunning the inactive ones down, they kited them onto the frozen lake for more room.
Using her reverse-jointed legs, Raven easily took them down from above while monitoring incoming MTs rushing in.
“On your 4,” she said.
“I know, stray dog.” He gritted his teeth, downing another MT coming his way. He had his own radar, he didn’t need her to tell him that!
And so their field trip continued for a few more minutes, with Iguazu mainly taking the MT rushing from the bottom while Raven stayed in the air to eliminate drones and the few MTs with shields until there were only a few left. Raven shot down a drone and boosted up to slash another one. She hummed. According to her radar, that should be all.
“621, you missed one,” Walter’s voice echoed from her comms, directing her eyes to an MT on her far left.
“Oh.”
Forgetting she was with a company, she assault boosted forward towards the last red blip, not realizing how close it was to Iguazu. She slammed into him, but the force of her boost kept her on trajectory while his AC toppled prone onto the ice, causing a loud thud.
“SHIT! Fuck!” He yelled. “Help me back up, stray dog!”
“Oh, sorry,” she replied, realizing what just happened. She slashed down the MT she was aiming for before quick turning to where he fell. “I forgot you were that close.”
“Of course you do! A stray dog like you wouldn’t understand teamwork!” He yelled. “That’s why you betrayed us back in the dam!”
Ignoring his rambling, she purged her linear rifle and used her now empty AC’s right arm to offer a helping hand to HEAD BRINGER—Iguazu’s AC.
The man grimaced, hesitant to take her AC’s hand. He has his pride, and more importantly, problems with this stray dog, so to take her help was to insult himself. At the same time, he realized he wouldn’t be able to get this 10-meter machine back up without help, not on a frozen lake.
Biting his tongue, he purged his linear rifle too and took the white AC’s hand, and she immediately pulled him back up. But the slippery ice wasn’t helping his footing, and as soon as his right leg stepped onto the ice and bits of snow, it immediately fell prone again, this time followed by a faraway cracking sound.
“Oh no,” Raven muttered and took a step back, allowing some distance between them and immediately going silent on the comm.
“YOU—!”
Before he could finish his sentence, the core of her AC slowly opened up to reveal the pilot seat.
Raven was there, running her dark hair through her hand as she focused her gaze on a screen on her right, muttering something, answering her comm. She then fiddled with the screens a bit before pulling the pilot jacket she had on the side and throwing it on.
She walked out of her core and jumped onto his AC. It helped that it was lodged firmly onto the ice, but the way she did the jump made it look effortless. She walked up the legs and stood just under his core, where his seat was, her dark hair blowing in the crisp wind and her hands in her jacket pockets.
“Open up.”
As if hypnotized, he clicked open the core without any thinking, letting the cold wind come into his seat, and Raven looked down at him from her standing position, her hair far longer than he imagined, falling around her elbow. The lower part of her hair was tidy, swept by the wind in a graceful twist, but her bangs and the top part were a bit shorter and spikier.
Her face was also soft. From the way she fought, he expected someone who looked ruthless with knitted eyebrows like Michigan, not a young woman with a rounded face and a mellow tint in her eyes. Sure she was more swift than rough, but he still didn’t expect her to have that natural captivating nature he was sure only possessed by the women in the gambling parlors he visited.
And her eyes. Shit, her eyes. The moment he laid eyes onto those dark irises, his mouth opened by itself.
“...the hell,” he said, “why are you pretty? Why… how… do you have such a pretty face? You’re a stray dog, why are you… how?”
She looked at him straight, unblinking, her pale lips parting but didn’t say anything. Only her collar crackled, unable to accurately convey the confusion in her mind.
Iguazu stayed silent too, his augmented brain stopped computing correctly. He couldn’t yell or speak more coherently, and despite his best efforts to just close the core, keep his dignity, and just try to stand his AC back up by himself, he couldn’t help but notice the small details on her face, the mole near her left eyebrow, the red veins brimming with coral down her neck and shoulders that reminded himself of his own, and most peculiar, a dog collar wrapping around her throat—
“I don’t know what to say to that,” she said after a few minutes too long. “Anyway, can you get up?”
As if nothing of importance happened, she changed the topic and offered her hand—her real hand now.
Iguazu gritted his teeth. He wanted to say he didn’t want nor need her help, but the weight of the situation came crashing down again, and he grabbed her hand with a bit more force than he should have, causing her to tumble forward.
“Be careful,” she said as she pulled him up. His hand was rough and calloused, evidence of the harsh condition in Redguns and Rubicon in general. “I’ll help HEAD BRINGER back up first then you can go in again.” She tucked her hair behind her ear. “The ice is slippery here, and it’s not as tough as the dam. We’re screwed if you keep falling and the ice breaks.”
That answered the question of why she would care, but it still didn’t answer why her hand was so soft and warm. Was it just the cold?
She guided him back onto her pilot seat, scooting over to the right side so he could take a seat.
“Sit down,” she said, gesturing with her head.
Too late to back down, Iguazu took a seat begrudgingly, scooting as much to the left of the seat so he wouldn’t be so close to the woman. But with how cramped it was, his shoulder bumped hers so close he was sure he could also feel the coral running in her veins as she snuggled into her piloting position, holding the control with a relaxed stance.
And suddenly, a masculine voice echoed.
“621, navigate carefully. Be careful not to fall too.”
“Roger that.”
Shit. Iguazu forgot that Raven has her handler on comm. Hopefully, he didn’t hear what he said about her being pretty.
The realization started to dig deeper into him. He just said she has a pretty face. He just said that while tripping over his words as she looked down at him.
He facepalmed and groaned onto his hand, the warmth started climbing onto his face. He sounded like he had never seen a woman before, fuck.
But it was just that he expected her to look… more normal. Like Albany, that MT fighter he sometimes saw back at the base. She looked normal, like a normal woman, a normal Redguns member. So why, why did he exactly get flustered just from seeing Raven? What’s so different about that annoying stray dog?
Iguazu lowered his face and glanced at her at the same moment she turned to face him. Her dark iris peered into his eyes, lips pursed as she hummed in confusion. He couldn’t read her expression nor whatever hidden meaning behind her cadence every time they talked, and even now, all he could get from those narrow eyes was just that: confusion.
“Your ears are red. Are you cold?”
“Mind your own business.” Iguazu groaned, now covering his ears before looking away again.
Her handler said something about the stability of the ice, but he didn’t hear it. He didn’t want to hear it. He just wanted to go out of here, far from her and her warmth before he died out of… anger. Yeah. Anger. That’s definitely what this is.
Meanwhile, Raven was oblivious to her bedfellow’s troubles and how they were pressed together closely in the cramped space, her focus undivided from directing PLUME to pick HEAD BRINGER by its parts onto its feet again.
After a few more minutes of fiddling, she managed to pull the bipedal Armored Core back on its feet, balancing it so it wouldn’t fall again.
“There you go.”
Satisfied with her positioning, Raven opened her AC’s core. Without missing a beat, Iguazu scooted away from her and climbed back to his AC and his opened pilot seat, letting the cold cool his face down. He closed his core as quickly as he could and moved HEAD BRINGER a few steps away from her, preparing to go back to base now their mission was completed.
But before he could boost away, Raven looked down at her hands, deciding to connect their comms again and call out to him.
“Iguazu.”
The man clicked his tongue. He was fortunate she couldn’t see his face now.
“What?” He scoffed.
“You have a pretty face too.”
The compliment went unanswered, before not a second later, he turned around and shot her up with his missiles.
‘AP 50% remaining.’
The COM resounded, causing Raven to groan in frustration. There goes her credits.
“Iguazu, what was that for—”
“THAT’S WHAT YOU GET, STRAY DOG!” He yelled louder than ever before, causing Raven to wince at the choppy clipping of his voice.
He then assault boosted away, mumbling something incoherent that sounded like profanity to her before his comm blipping out as he disappeared behind the mountains.
As Iguazu left her standing on the frozen lake alone with the wreckage of MTs around her, she wondered why he sounded so emotional in that last sentence. They are from the same generation of augmented humans, so why does she have repressed emotions and he has so much more?
“Walter, did I do something wrong?” She asked her handler. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
The comm crackled up. ‘I…’ This was the first time she ever heard Walter hesitating. ‘I couldn’t answer with certainty.’
“Well,” she hummed, “I think I’ll just ask Iguazu what was bothering him next time we meet.”