A/N: The second Mighty No 9 one-shot, this one involving the Vermillion Destroyer herself: Raychel. As usual I own nothing whatsoever; everything belongs to their respective owners.
September 21st 20XX
As the rain pounded on the cement coverings of the earth above, the powerful strikes of lightning torched tree tops and cut power lines, and the roars of thunder travelled across the air. The decrepit robots residing in the equally decrepit and abandoned sewer system all hid in the darkest corners, murkiest of waters, and most obscuring of structures to preserve their existence. Many calculated that the storm would end in three hours, while others contemplated the action of going into the open and attempting to get lightning to strike them. They may have been old, abandoned, and limited in terms of their AI, but they knew not to be out and about during a time like this.
Because the Vermillion Destroyer would inevitably be on the prowl for their Xels.
The footsteps of a lone entity could be heard reverberating across the sewers, somehow becoming louder than the muffled thunder. The orange-red cloak of the entity, while noticeably deteriorating into Xels, was fluttering behind them as they gazed around the sewers. A series of bubbles entered the peripheral vision of the entity to their left, and they swiftly grabbed the submerged robot from the water before using their right arm to absorb the Xels of the robot in their entirety.
All of the robots stiffened, not desiring to meet the same fate of their sort-of comrade. The entity gazed around the area once again before turning back the way they came. Not a single robot moved, even when they sensed that the entity was no longer amongst their area. They didn't dare move that often; only really doing so when the Ivory Purifier travelled the sewers.
Unfortunately, that wouldn't be happening for a long while at least.
Feeling nourished from the robot she just devoured, Ray returned to the lab which she made her residence. The screens still a blaring orange-ish red, with the vast majority of them showing blueprints of the other predator, the one Bill referred to as Beck. While she knew that she was waterproof, Ray did not want to take any chances with this storm; from what she could tell from her hacks of the news broadcast, this was the most powerful storm in decades. She resting in the upper walkways of the lab, gazing at the blueprints. When she had realized that the blueprints were of the other predator, her confusion and desire for answers grew even more.
Why were those blueprints there; had they been a base template for her, before Bill continued from scratch with Beck? Or had she been made at a different time? The Sanda Xels were riddled with Bill's codes, the same could be said for the Xels of her younger siblings the Mighty Numbers, Beck, and Trinity. Her Xels had codes made by Bill ingrained into them, but a key factor was missing, and her encounters with Beck helped her realize what it was: her core. Beck could survive without devouring others- with the exception of the prey with less than a million Xels -because he had his core. Because she did not have hers, she was falling apart at a microscopic level.
This made her a bit jealous of her newfound younger brother. While she now knew why she had this emptiness inside herself, who her creator was, and the discovery of her younger siblings; she did not know everything about herself. Why she was abandoned, why she was missing her core, and why Bill had just left her to rot. He knew his creator, his family, his powers, and why he was what he was.
Maybe if they could talk, things would be answered and get better between them. She had not made the best of first impressions after all; appearing out of nowhere via a hacking attempt, battling Beck three consecutive times in a row, trampling the other eight Mighty Numbers in battle, and reappearing in the Battle Coliseum after Trinity had been reformed. Granted, she was thankful for Beck healing her, and purifying her Xels from the same virus plaguing CherryDyn's Xels- though if you asked her those Xels were horrid, regardless if a machine affliction was corrupting them or not -she did not appreciate being in that transport vehicle like an animal.
Maybe she overreacted, but honestly they should've thought better. But then again, she did absorb a large chunk of Xels from the Mighty Numbers, allowing her access to very destructive capabilities- even if some were useless in her opinion; for Blackwell's sake, she got a useless camouflage ability from Countershade, while Beck got ricochet bullets that could rebound of any surface with a three bullet limit. Aviators weapon was only good for attacking multiple enemies, and don't even get her started on Battalions weapon; she would've like the bomb too you know.
Sighing in frustration at the linear capabilities of her Variation Codes of the Mighty Numbers, Ray closed her eyes to try and calm herself down.
It took Ray a few moments to realize that the sound of thunder had stopped, the constant noise of hailing rain had vanished, and that the electrical discrepancies of the lightning had ceased. She leapt from her post and headed back to the sewers, taking the Xels of any robot she saw. Soon enough, she was atop the very building she gazed from during the time of the human crisis early hours. Her cloak fluttered through the air as her heeled boots were planted firmly onto the roof, regardless of the puddle beneath them. She could sense prey with low levels of Xels that had gotten trapped by the storm within alleyways, and similar locations.
Maybe she could have a snack before meeting her brother.