Chapter 19: Mech Battle

Location: Kingdom of Vale Year: Unknown

Yang, Neptune, and I were heading to a nightclub of sort, which I never heard of, to meet up with Yang's old friend of hers. We arrived there and it looked like a weird, secret casino, since it does have a neon sign, but well hidden.

"C'mon guys, my friend's right in there." Yang said as she gets off her bike.

Neptune seemed a little dazed and only replied, "Cool..."

I dismount my bike and turned off the engine, then followed Yang with Neptune following behind.

Then Yang whispered to me, "Alright Eddie, just let me do the talking. Also, Blake told me, Ruby, and Weiss that you go by your codename, Courier, to hide your identity from your enemies, when present to them."

I replied with a chuckle, "Heh, I was about to tell you that, but I guess that saves me the trouble."

Yang nodded and turned to Neptune, "Neptune, when you're with Eddie here and your around suspicious people, refer to him as the Courier, alright?"

Neptune nodded and replies, "Yeah, got it."

Then Neptune asks, "Also, where exactly is... here?"

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'3rd POV...'

Jr. was just relaxing at the bar while his club was active until...

"Hurry, close the door! She's coming!" one of the two henchmen yelled.

Then the two henchmen ran in and immiedietly closed the door, while Jr. walks up and asks, "What are you two idiots doing!?"

But the henchmen were talking over each other, making it difficult to understand them and the door exploded open. Then out of the smoke, three figures came out, but one was familiar, Yang. But the other two, one was a guy with blue hair while the other was also a guy, but wore a brown duster, armor chestplate, and a gasmask/helmet combo with red, glowing eyes.

"Guess who's back!" Yang shouted.

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'Edward's POV...'

"Guess who's back!" Yang shouted, only to recieve a bunch of guns aiming at us by the familiar henchmen from the store and the club music cutting out.

I pulled out my Ranger Sequoia and readied myself, and leaned over to Yang and asked, "Are you sure you're friends with them, Yang?"

"Of course, 'Courier'." She answered while giving me a wink at 'Courier'.

Then Neptune asks, "Yeah, so could you define 'friend' for us?"

Then a voice came out, "Stop, stop! Nobody shoot."

Then came in a guy in a formal outfit and having black hair and beard. Then he said, "Blondie! You're here. Why?"

Yang answered, "YOU still owe me a drink."

Then Yang began to drag him over while his henchmen stepped aside. I holstered my gun, and heard Neptune, "Whoa, what a woman."

I leaned over and said, "Yeah, don't get any bright ideas, Neptune. She's... well... let's just say she punched an Ursa to death over about losing one, small strand of hair of hers."

Neptune looked at me in a shocked expression and said, "Yikes."

Then Neptune looked past me and I followed his gaze, and saw a pair of girls, who are twins, but one wearing white while the other, red. Then Neptune said to them, "'Sup."

I then proceeded to slap the back of his head and I replied, "Save yourself for Weiss, Neptune, alright? Remember that Weiss actually likes you."

Then I heard one of the girls began, "So... uh..."

I turned back to them and the one in white asks, "Why the name, Courier?"

Then the one in red followed up, "Yeah, why Courier?"

I proceeded to answer, "Well, one; it used to be a job of mine until I was knocked out and taken hostage, then I woke up and recieved a bullet to the head, which I survived, obviously, over a goddamn poker chip made out of platinum, which actually turned out to be some advance data chip, which made sense why those guys tried to kill me over it. And two; well... think of it like this: For I am both the messenger and the message. To my enemies, I am the Angel of Death, but to my friends and allies, I am the Messiah. I carry the message of justice for the innocent and death to my foes."

The twins proceeded to stare at me in awe and fear, then the one in white, "I... guess that makes sense."

I nodded and replied, "Don't worry, though. You're not my enemies, as long as we are not attacked out of hatred by any of you. But I still need to hide my identity, either way."

They both nodded and walked away from us. Then Neptune asked me, "Is that true? That someone put a round into your head and survived?"

I nodded and answered, "Yeah, and at point-blank range, too. But before and after that, I recieved thousands of them and easily survived, but mostly I wore a helmet at the time. That moment though, I wasn't. I was also burned, blown up, stabbed, and other ways a thousand times and survived. You could say that I am a one-man army."

Neptune was almost speechless and all he could say was, "Wow."

Then we proceeded towards Yang and the guy at the bar.

After we explained to the guy, Jr., and asked him questions, he replied, "I don't know!"

"How can you not know?" Yang asked.

"I haven't talked to him. I haven't seen him since the night you first came in here. He paid upfront, I lent him my men, and none of them came back." Jr. answered.

As I chuckled nervously, Jr., Yang, and Neptune looked at me, and I replied, "Yeah... uh... about that. I was at the Dust store with her *points at Yang* sister, Ruby, when Torchwick with your men came in to robb the place. Let's just say we beat the shit out of them afterward. Though Torchwick did escaped afterward, but... yeah. I guess it's me and Ruby's fault."

Jr. sighed and asked Yang, "Uh, who is this spook, Blonie? He's giving me the creeps. But what he said does explain about what happen to my men, though."

"Don't worry about him *points to me* or him *points to Neptune*, worry about me if I don't find what I want!" Yang answered.

"I already told you everything! Torchwick hired my boys and I guess he wasn't happy with them!" Jr. replied and then glares at his men, who are slacking, then continued, "Which is something I can relate to!"

Then some of his men stopped at his comment and the Yang said, "C'mon, Neptune, Courier. Let's go."

I gave Jr. a two-finger salute and said, "See ya around, sir, and have a good night."

Jr. nodded and I proceeded to follow Yang and Neptune. Neptune asks, "We get what we need?"

"Well, we got everything we can. Hopefully the rest of the team is having better luck." Yang replied.

We arrived outside and mounted on our bikes, until we recieved a call from our Scrolls. It was Sun, calling for backup and that Torchwick was chasing him and Blake in a mech suit known as the Atlesian Paladin. We immeidietly revved up our motorcycles and hurried to the area, and I thought, 'I guess it's time for me to introduce Torchwick, fully, to my mech suit. It's time for some payback.'

XXXXXX

The rest of Team RWBY arrived to aid Blake and Sun and I was seperated from Yang and Neptune and drove on the bridge above them. The entire team tried to defeat Torchwick, but failed. Even Yang failed to destroy it, since he was able to counter-attack.

I thought to myself, 'So, that's the Atlesian Paladin, huh? This should be fun.'

There was a gap between the team and Torchwick and I switched to my Winterized T-51b Power Armor and equiped myself with my 'CZ57 Avenger' Minigun and yelled out down below, "Death from above!"

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'3rd POV...'

Moments before, team RWBY failed to take down Torchwick, who was in the Atlesian Paladin, and they stood there, gasping.

Torchwick laughed and asked, "Hah! Where's your Courier now, girls?!"

Ruby asked Yang, "Where is he, Yang?!"

"I-I don't know! We got seperated and-" Yang answered but was interrupted by a voice, screaming, "Death from above!"

Then Edward fell from above off one of the bridges within his power armor, weilding... a chaingun?!

Edward stood between the team and Torchwick and he said to him, "Hey, Torchwick! Ya miss me?"

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'Edward's POV...'

"Hey, Torchwick! Ya miss me?" I yelled at him.

I then heard him starting to curse to himself and then replied back, yelling, "I swear, where ever those girls are at, you're always there!"

"It's because I'm their mentor, dumbass!" I yelled back.

I heard him growled and said, "This time, you can't stop me! Especially with your pathetic armor, Courier!"

I grinned, chuckled out a laugh, and replied, "Let's see about that!"

I then turned to the girls and said, "Don't worry, I got this! Take a breather, alright?"

They all nodded, still gasping for air in exhaustion, and proceeded to ready myself for one hell of a battle.

I made my first move and charged full ahead at him, catching him off-guard. I rammed into him, causing him to violently stagger backward and proceeded to revved up my Avenger, showering a bullet storm upon him. He tried to swing at me, but I countered him and switched from my 'Avenger' to my 'Tesla Beaton Prototype' and blasted him, causing some damage to his systems.

But this was not enough, since he was still in full operation and started to fire some rockets at me. I took it head-on and afterward, heard Torchwick laugh. I switched from my Tesla Cannon to my Protonic Inversal Axe in one hand and the other, a pulse grenade. As I walked out of the smoke, Torchwick saw that I was still standing, and asked in shock, "Wha-! How did you survive that?!"

I chuckled deeply and replied, "This Power Armor is the Winterized T-51b. This thing is completely invincible and plus, this is not the first time I've been blown up."

Again, I heard him growled and then charged at my in rage. I grinned and used my jet pack to fly up, then slammed back down to the ground, causing a shockwave from the explosive vent, making Torchwick stagger back and took the opportunity to use my axe and cut off his left arm. I then stucked the Pulse Grenade onto him and jumped back. The grenade exploded and emitted a pulse, causing the suit to perminatly short-circuited. Then I looked back at the girls, who are rested up, and yelled at them, "Alright, finish this, once and for all!"

Then Yang charged, in full rage, and completely annilating the mech suit into pieces, with Torchwick unharmed.

I overheard him, yelling, "I just got this thing cleaned!"

Then Yang fire a round at him from her Ember Celica, only to be blocked by someone.

Her shot, which was an explosive round and is from her shotgun gauntlet, was blocked... by a girl's elegant umbrella... AN UMBRELLA, GODDAMNIT!

Yang stepped back as I stepped up, as we watched a girl with pink and brown hair, like the ice cream from the shop that the girls took me to one time, and same thing goes with her eyes. She was wearing an elegant outfit, but might I say, she's kinda short. But I can tell she's a lot older than she looks. She was silent, and figured either she chose to be silent or she's a mute.

Torchwick then said, "Ladies. Courier. Ice Queen."

I heard Weiss, "Hey!"

"Neo, if you will?" Torchwick said.

Then 'Neo' proceeded to bow to us and... winked at me? I thought to myself, 'She's a cocky one, ain't she?'

But then, I realized that neither of them attempted to escape and proceeded to stand there. Yang was about to charge, until I stopped her, saying, "Wait, hold up, Yang! This doens't seem right. They're just standing there when they could've already try to escape right about now."

Yang nodded and the Neo seemed to frown at us, as if trying to figure out why I stopped Yang. But then, I sensed something to my left and immediately switched from my Protonic Inversal Axe to my Automatic Rifle, or BAR that I found while at the Sierra Madre Casino adventure, immediately fire at the direction, revealing a VTOL with Torchwick and Neo on it, flying off. I also saw that Neo was quite shocked that I was able to sense them. I also noticed that the illusion shattered to pieces after I shot at the VTOL.

I said out loud, "It appears that it was an illusion; a mind trick. Quite clever, but not clever enough."

Then the VTOL flew off into the distance and out of sight.

Then Ruby, Blake, and Weiss ran up to me and Yang, and Yang asks, "How did you know that it was a mind trick, Eddie?"

"I... really don't know, to be honest. I guess that my perception is far too great for any illusion to fool me." I answered.

I then turned towards the same direction where the VTOL went, and concluded, "So... I guess he's gotten himself an new henchman. I caught her name, though. Neo."

Then Weiss replies, "Yeah, I guess she really made our plans... fall apart?"

I sighed as she said that, along with the others sighing as well. I simply said, "No... just... no, Weiss..."

Then Yang followed up, "Yeah, Weiss. Never do that again."

Then Weiss shouted, "What?! But you do it, Yang!"

"There's a time and place for jokes." Yang explained.

"Was this not it?" Weiss asked.

"No, it's just wasn't very good." Yang said as she walked away.

Then Weiss followed, "Well, at least I'm trying."

I sighed again before I flew back up to the same bridge I jumped off, switched back to my NCR Veteran Ranger Combat Armor and the Ranger Sequoia, and mounted on my bike and rode off, heading back to Beacon.

I then thought, 'Well, another eventful night. These girls seem to get into these troubling situation as I do.' as I ended with a chuckle.

To be Continued...