Purple it is!
Update 6:
Paintshop 3
Chapter 5/6 Part 1/2: BFFs Never Say Die
Chapter 5/6 Part 2/2: makes me cry every time
Chapter 5/6 Hard Mode AC Fights
Chapter 5/6 Hard Mode Trash Mission Supercut
wait what the fuck
Ok yeah FromSoft really could have done us a favor and added character names to text boxes so you weren’t trying to figure out who that guy in the giant AC was based on voice recognition. I mean, not that it would have helped answer anything, but hey. Here’s what happened: all of the Chapter 5 and 6 Hard Mode missions are the canon ones, where Mido Auriel and Leonhardt die but you roll in and singlehandedly murder every active BFF and Rayleonard LINX over the course of a few days. Then you blow up Rayleonard’s HQ. Every single person and company, including Emil, is terrified of you.
Fiona falls in love with the mercenary and gets them a vacation. Omer raids most of Rayleonard’s assets, gets their hands on the 00-ARETHA, gives it to Joshua O’Brien, and threatens/blackmails/hires/whatever him to go blow up Anatolia thinking that they can just assassinate the mercenary while they’re at home. But it turns out the mercenary wasn’t there? Or the NEXT? Who brings their redeployable nuke on vacation with them? Did they get back just in time or was this some sort of weird staycation a few miles away? In any case it turns out the person who just ended a war by themselves is always strapped. Always.
Omer sends Celo to kill one or both of the combatants, but he dies. The mercenary gets real sad about killing Joshua O’Brien and decides to take up the mantle of White Glint to continue fighting for friends and homeland and against the establishment. This is the White Glint that appears in For Answer. Fiona and the mercenary run off together and start their own colony out in the ocean called Outer Heaven Line Ark. Nobody bothers them because the mercenary is the scariest person on the planet and their spite knows no bounds.
Kasumi Sumika does the sensible thing after surviving and retires to become an independent coach and an operator. She changes her callsign to Serene Haze and picks up a talented young LINX by the name of Strayed.
So much Kojima contamination was released by the war that the surface is becoming less habitable. The corporations start housing people in giant flying cities called Cradles so they can stay out of the contamination. Welcome to the post-post-apocalypse. Concerned that NEXT technology is getting out of their control, the corporations build super massive mobile structures called Arms Forts to fend off those wily LINX.
Anatolia’s mercenary has some sort of vendetta against BFF and tries to take out their Arms Fort, the Spirit of Motherwill. They’re getting old and can’t quite handle it, though:
Armored Core 4: For Answer Opening
Don’t worry, Strayed is much better than them.