Follow the Leader
World of Riders: Titanus
Titanus is the strongest and largest of the Guardians. He stands at one kilometer tall, which about two thirds of a mile. Titanus semblance is Gravity Manipulation allowing him to fly and control his weapon, ten giant scimitar blades. Titanus usually positions them as wings to make the enemy believe targeting the "wings" will knock Titanus out of the sky. Titanus also can transform into the Temple of the Riders due to adjustment given to his chassis during the Shadow War. His semblance allows him to change form without ruining anything that's inside of his temple form.
Onyx enters Amas' study. Amas is sitting at his desk in the center of the room. Amas, had an average build, not in shape, yet not out of shape. He had the same ashen white hair as Anna, going down to his shoulders and crimson red eyes. Amas wears a simple sage green dress shirt over his black pants. He wears black dress shoes. Over his simple attire is a silver cuirass, gauntlets, and greaves. A large book is resting on the desk.
"Old man's fast asleep..." Onyx observes, "Anna's disappeared somewhere, of course."
Onyx walks to the opened door in front of Amas' desk, leading to a balcony. Onyx looks down to see a seven-year-old Anna. She is training using a wooden katana, small wooden cylinders sticking out of the ground and a pendulum. The weight is cylindrical and serves as a training dummy. Anna stands on the cylinders as she strikes the pendulum.
"Guess she prefers practice rather than study." Onyx says to himself.
"What?" Amas asks, Onyx's talking woke him up.
"Time to wake up." Onyx says, "These lessons so boring they put you to sleep, too?"
"Dammit..." Amas groans, "Had her taking notes on the different types of Beowolves... Wanted to rest my eyes a bit."
Onyx scoffs.
"No wonder she took off." Onyx says.
"The book lacks flair, true, but it's reliable." Amas argues, "She's tackling the pendulum, right?"
Amas approaches Onyx, who leans his back on the railing of the balcony.
"How many times do I have to tell her?" Amas says, "Don't train alone, it only embeds your errors. Bring our young Rider to the courtyard. She wants to practice? She'll get to practice."
"This is our fault." Onyx comments, "We've spoiled her."
"I suppose your partly to blame." Amas counters, "But this has to end. Now. Killing monsters is not something to be taken lightly. Anna must understand that if she's to become one of us. I'll see you below."
Present Day
Onyx and Anna enters the reactor room of the Temple of the Riders, it is location of Titanus' power cluster.
"Titanus," Onyx calls, "have you seen anything suspicious as of late?"
"No." Titanus answers.
"We're missing a large amount of our equipment." Anna adds, "We were hoping you had any ideas of who would be taking it."
"We will have to discuss this later." Titanus says, "Umbra's army is approaching."
Multiple portals open, both Deus' blood red portals and the Shadow Zone's crimson red portals. Multiple Atlesian airships fly out of the portals. They begin opening fire on Titanus.
"Titanus, keep moving." Onyx orders, "Put some distance between us and them so you can safely teleport away."
Onyx turns to Anna.
"We will delay the enemy." Onyx says.
The ceiling opens up, allowing the two Riders to take to the skies. Onyx runs and jumps out of the hole with Anna following. The two active level two of their Vertos and take flight.
Onyx creates a construct of a massive sword and uses it to cut one of the airship in two, the pieces exploding afterwards. Onyx then punches the front of an approaching airship, causing it to spontaneously combust and explode.
Anna swings her blade launching an aura slash into the engines of an airship, causing it to fall out of the sky. Anna then slashes upwards, sending another aura slash to split a different airship in two.
Onyx creates his custom gauntlets and launches his kunais into two different airship. Onyx pulls them together while flying upwards, causing the ships to crash into one another and explode.
"What is all that noise?!" Weiss asks, awoken by an explosion.
"Umbra forces have found us." Winter answer.
"Again?" Ruby asks, "How do they keep doing that?"
Onyx looks at Anna and nods.
They fly back to back so that their auras merge into one. Both hold one hand into the air.
"Crushing Fireworks!" They call together.
A single blast is fired from their hands. Like Max Fire, the beam splits in hundreds of blasts. Each blast shoots out aura spikes that explode on impact, destroying many of the airships.
Out of aura, Anna fades out of her Verto and begins falling towards the ground. Anna sees that Titanus is directly below her and focuses on landing in the still opened hole leading to the reactor room.
"Please let this work." Anna pleads.
Anna punches Titanus' power cluster with the Ring of the Riders, channeling some of his power into the Ring and converting that power into aura. Even with the fraction of a percentage that Anna absorbed, it was more than enough to replenish her aura. Anna takes aim and fires all of the power she has just gained, destroying Umbra's entire airship squadron. Once again out of aura, Anna passes out.
"We're clear." Silicon says through the COMs.
Onyx opens a portal and rushes inside, closing it before anything can follow.
Anna wakes up on a bed in the room that is designated as their infirmary.
"Easy." Onyx warns, "Think your pretty clever recharging your ring of Titanus like that? I'd say your lucky you didn't blow your arm off."
Anna groans as she holds her head, then her side.
"Feels like I did." Anna says.
"That's the third time today." Weiss comments, exhausted from a lack of sleep.
Everyone was exhausted except for Penny, the Ghosts, Winter, Ironwood, and some of his more disciplined soldiers. Onyx sits on the throne.
"Until we know how Umbra is tracking us, we can't risk sleep." Onyx states, "We'll have to be ready at all times."
"It could be Titanus." Weiss suggests.
"If I wanted to kill you, we would not be speaking right now." Titanus states.
"Is that a threat?" Ironwood asks.
"Consider it a warning." Titanus answers, "Do not question my loyalty to the Last of the Riders."
"Maybe Prodromus is tracking you without your knowledge." Winter suggests.
"Unlikely, if that were the case, I would never have become the Temple of the Riders." Titanus states.
"What do you mean?" Ruby asks.
"That is a story for another time." Titanus says.
"I have an idea." Penny says.
Everyone turns to unknown enemy.
"Umbra is currently possessing Night's bodies." Penny explains, "Night had the ability to sense the other Ghosts' aura from anywhere on Remnant or the Shadow Zone. What if Umbra retained that ability."
"Ghosts, gear up." Onyx orders.
"Where are you going?" Ruby asks.
"We have to test Penny's theory." Onyx says, "If Umbra finds us, she's probably right. If Umbra finds you, he's using something else to find us."
The Ghosts exit in the remnants of a destroyed village.
"Where are we?" Silicon asks.
"Dera." Onyx answers.
Anna struggles to keep her eyes open as she looks out of a window towards the dark skies.
"You okay?" Someone asks.
Anna turns to see Ruby, not fairing that much better at staying awake.
"No." Anna admits, "I just can't get through to Onyx."
"We've tried everything." Ruby says, "Maybe he won't forgive himself. Maybe we can't get through to him."
An explosion interrupts the two girls' conversation.
"Guess Penny was wrong." Anna comments.
The two rush to throne room, where Ironwood is giving orders.
"We can't make contact with the Ghosts." Winter states.
"The COM satellite was damaged with that last blast." Titanus says.
Ironwood turns to one of his soldiers.
"See if you can repair the satellite." Ironwood orders,"We need to hold off Umbra's forcing until we can get one of the Ghosts here."
As Ironwood assigns people individual tasks, Ruby notices Penny. More specifically, she notices the yellowy orangs eyes of Prodromus. Penny sees Ruby and smirks before backing away and leaving for what everyone else believes is her post. Ruby chases after her.
"Ruby!" Ironwood calls, "Where are you going!"
An explosion brings Ironwood's attention back to the task at hand.
"Yang, go after your sister." Ironwood orders, "Team JNPR go to the port tower. SSSN, starboard tower..."
Ironwood continues to give orders without the knowledge that Prodromus now plans to take Titanus out of the sky, permanently.
