Home coming (WIP)

The industrial district shudders under distant blasts. Chiaki Kaname reaches the maintenance route as warning lights strobe over wet metal and broken pavement.

His Starlight receives a hard sensor lock. A hostile unit steps out from the containers, low and armored, its optics burning red through the haze.

Chiaki's combat readout flickers, then drops a bar. The failing systems in his frame catch up with him at the worst moment.

Inside the house, the bunker door stays open on the console display. That lock is the family’s only clean exit, and the fight is already at their doorstep.

Chiaki shifts between the unit and the access lane, forcing the confrontation away from the house as the machine raises its weapon first.

Chiaki tilts his head toward the red optics and asks the only thing that matters right now. "What model are you? Your no Armored Core that's for sure."

Its weapon arm shifts, and the unit’s outer plates split just enough to reveal mismatched industrial actuators, scavenged frame joints, and a payload rack where a cockpit should be.

Chiaki gets the answer cleanly. This thing is built to hunt, not duel, a patched-together perimeter machine wearing a threat package.

Behind the red haze, the open bunker route still glows on the family console feed, waiting on Chiaki’s next move.