Chapter 28: Road Rage Part One

Setting: Desert

The freelancers were on another one of their jobs, working for Sterling. The elderly Vantablack was thinking of retiring from his position as the proprietor of Moneta, but he still had a job to uphold and he asked for the freelancers' assistance on one of them. He needed them to check a trade route Fortuna uses for importing and exporting goods. One of the traders entered Fortuna saying him cargo transport was attacked by Grimm, forcing him to abandon the vehicle to save his life. Sterling handled trading for Clair to relieve some of the workload off his favorite niece, but he still had to stay in Moneta to make sure none of the bounty hunters or mercenaries cause a scene. In order to deal with the matter, he called his favorite team of freelancers to take over for him.

The members of VRSZ that were driving through the desert right now were Remus and Silver. It was such an easy task that the team didn't have to come out at full force. They had to find any intact goods, bring them back to Fortuna, and dispatch of any Grimm along the way. Silver was more than pumped to get out the city-town and rip through the sands with the Fantasia, however Remus was sitting in the passenger's seat slumped over with a rather pessimistic look on his face as he watched the sand dunes. It was so unlike him to have such an expression, so much so that Silver questioned him about it as they drove.

"What's wrong with you? I thought you'd be excited to go out on a mission?"

Remus grumbled as he turned his head to his friend before saying, "This isn't a real mission. It's a fetch quest. Nobody likes a fetch quest." Remus pouted and it made Silver chuckle a little.

"Okay, yeah it is, but Sterling will pay us well for a good well done. Put on a happy face," Silver said jokingly. "Look! We got these new seat coolers. Huh? Now we can drive through the desert with nice cold butts!"

Remus eventually stopped pouting, but he was still slumped over in his seat. Silver talking to fill the void did lighten the mood for him, so he was more relaxed for the rest of the ride there. The seat coolers did make him feel better all the way to their destination.

It was like the trader said, the truck carrying the supplies was toppled over and there were Grimm walking around, stepping and tearing through the parcels containing whatever was supposed to reach Fortuna. The Grimm rummaging through were all Cockatrices, the weird rooster-like Grimm that could shock victims with its tails or encase them in a layer of stone with their eyes. Silver kept Fantasia at a far distance away to remain undetected by the large birds. Since he was in the car, Silver rubbed his finger against the missile button, but he decided against it because if the missiles missed, then they would probably blow up the merchandise and end the mission there.

Lucky for him, Remus was itching for any kind of fight. He used Checkpoint to teleport in front of one of the Grimm and jabbed the bottom of its head with Romulus in staff form. Before the Cockatrice and its friends could react, Remus twisted the handle and the blade shot out, piercing through the head of the Grimm, quickly killing it. There were seven Cockatrices left and they swiftly tried to strike back against Remus. Two of them swung their tails at him, but Remus ran out of the circle of Grimm before they reached him. The two roosters couldn't stop their momentum and their electrically charged tails wrapped around one of the other Cockatrice that was behind Remus and it was shocked to death by both of its allies. It turned to ash while giving the atmosphere the smell of fried poultry.

Deciding to take a part in the battle, Silver had Fenrir in sniper mode and shot a random Cockatrice in the head, killing it and doing the same thing with two more. In less than a minute, the eight Cockatrices were reduced to three. Remus ran toward one of the large birds and slashed its legs off before it noticed or even register the pain. It fell to the ground and flailed around while Remus continued to run around so he wouldn't be caught. He pulled out a fire dust crystal and placed it into his arm bracer. The other two Grimm decided to give chase, but were nowhere near fast enough to keep Remus in their sights, let alone catch him.

Silver decided to take a more physical role in the fight as he approached the one-legged Cockatrice. It was too busy flailing around to notice Silver and he separated Fenrir into its escrima sticks.

"I don't even know if you Grimm have bones, but that doesn't really matter now. Get ready for a symphony," Silver said to the Grimm that couldn't respond even if it wanted to.

He started bashing, slamming, and striking the large bird with his sticks like he was beating a drum till it broke. He mercilessly beat down on the Cockatrice that could do nothing to defend itself from the onslaught. Silver began to hear something crack and break in the Grimm, but it didn't deter him from continuing his one-sided beatdown. Once he stopped, the Cockatrice's body was quite disfigured. Its wings were broken along with its face and the only leg it had was bent in a very unnatural and painful way. Silver decided to put it out of its misery by curb stomping its head into the sand using Gravity to increase the falling force of his foot. The poor Grimm's body finally vanished as Silver walked to the car with a satisfied feeling.

Remus was still playing an unwinnable game of tag with the last two Cockatrices that were on the verge of giving up the chase. Seeing that his enemies were exhausted, Remus ran to one of them and held on tight before activating Checkpoint. With the fire dust crystal, the usual smoke that came after he teleports is replaced with a powerful burst of fire and Remus, being able to control how much smoke he produces, decided to see what would happen if he applied it with dust. He used Checkpoint to teleport away and the burst of fire that came afterwards quickly expanded throughout the area, consuming both Grimm with his Will-O-Wisp. Remus teleported to a random area near the large fire and noticed the dust crystal suddenly shatter into nothingness.

"Doing one of that size is only good for one shot huh?" he thought.

The Cockatrice he attacked point-blank was burned to cinders, but the other one ran out of the flames with fire burning its body. It ran to Remus in a mad dash to take him down with it, but it never touched him when Silver drove down in the Fantasia and hit the large bird. He ran over it then back up to do it again for good measure. The last Cockatrice was roadkill.

"That was easy," Silver said.

"Made this fetch quest a little more interesting," Remus said before teleporting to the turned over cargo truck.

He walked to the back of the vehicle to see that there was a large hole in trunk, showing something or someone got in. Remus crawled inside while Silver got out of the Fantasia to see if he needed help. When he walked over to the back of the truck, Remus opened what remained of the door from the inside. "There's not a lot here. Maybe someone raided this place."

"Great, sucks for that trader guy, but it kinda works out for us," Silver said to Remus, who didn't understand what he meant by that.

"What do mean? We failed our mission. Most of the stuff is taken," Remus countered, only to see Silver wag his finger back and forth.

"Our mission is to retrieve any goods that were still here. Now that most of the stuff is gone, it'll mean we have less stuff to put in the Fantasia. Mission accomplished," Silver answered with his own spin.

The lack of goods was bad for Fortuna, but easy for them which Remus didn't like. In his mind, he felt like not having all the goods in the truck meant they failed. He knew Silver was saying this to be lazy, but thought some of the goods were better than none of them. It was a pseudo-victory.

The two of them drove back to Fortuna with the remaining crates of cargo in the back. The ride back was nice after a battle and Remus enjoyed Silver's continued commentary about the new seat coolers. He thought it was funny how the gunman compared the seat coolers to the frosty winds of Atlas caressing his groin. It was a nice easy day for them, until something unexpected happened. Because they thought the mission was over, Silver and Remus were completely unaware of two large vehicles driving in their blind sides. The vehicles were large jeeps made from random scrap metal, giving the vehicles an unappealing appearance, but it made up for it with durability.

One of the vehicles rammed into the back of the Fantasia. The unexpected hit knocked the car off its course and Silver had a hard time trying to stop the car from losing control, but that was a hard thing to while driving on sand. The second vehicle hit the Fantasia in the side, causing the car to finally topple over and crash into the sand. Before the Fantasia crashed, Remus quickly took hold of Silver's shoulder and used Checkpoint to teleport both of them out of the car. They landed in the sand near the crash site. The Fantasia had a couple dents and the scratches, but still seemed usable. The crates full of trade goods flung out of car and were scattered all over the ground. One of the vehicles drove up to the two freelancers on the ground. A small window opened up on the side with a machine gun coming out. Remus watched the armored jeep pull out the heavy artillery and widened his eyes when he realized the situation they were in.

"Silver!" he shouted as he grabbed his friend and used Checkpoint to teleport far away from there.

The machine gun fired an endless barrage of bullets in the area Remus and Silver occupied, with the rapid-fire kicking up the sand and making a cloud of sand. Once it finished firing, the truck drove around in search of the freelancers while the other one was parked near the scattered goods. Remus and Silver were ducking behind a sand dune to stay out of sight until they figure out their next move.

"This is crazy! What the hell is going on?!" Silver quietly shouted to Remus so he wouldn't give away their position.

"Perhaps they're desert raiders. Here to take the trading goods from us and it's working. The other truck is probably taking it now," Remus responded in a calm tone so he could think of what to do next.

He realized that if they want to secure the goods, then eliminating the truck attacking them came first. He split Romulus into its dual swords and Silver transformed Fenrir from dual handguns to its sniper rifle form. Silver moved first by coming over the sand dune and firing a shot at the back tire of the armored vehicle that was firing on them earlier, blowing out the tire. Immediately after, Remus used Checkpoint to teleport in front of the truck with his blades glowing blue from the dust flowing through them. When the truck almost hit him, Remus twisted his body to the right to dodge then slashed the truck several times before landing on the ground. The truck's back, machine gun, hood, and the engine were cut to pieces, causing the truck to fall apart with several people falling out.

With the enemies' offense out of commission, Silver moved from the sand dune to take out the other vehicle, but it was already gone. He looked around to find it, but to no avail. Whoever was in that jeep got the trading goods quickly and left without any regard for his or her allies in the other truck. Silver couldn't find the truck in the distance thanks to sudden winds kicking up and covering as a natural smokescreen.

"Perfect," he groaned in annoyance.

He decided to meet up with Remus at the other jeep. If they interrogated the people who were driving the destroyed truck, then they could get a good idea who attacked them. His plan was sound until he saw Remus slitting the people's throats. Silver ran straight to Remus shouting, "What the hell are you doing!?"

He ran up to Remus, ready to knock some sense into him, but stopped when he got a better look at the people on the ground. Silver saw that the ones operating the truck were actually humanoid robots made from scrap metal and spare parts. They looked like the rejected models of the Atlesian sentry bots.

"Oh," was Silver could say. He felt bad for doubting his friend.

"I really, really don't like robots," Remus said in a monotone voice.

"Still?" Silver joked. "Hehehe. At least I know who I'm following when the robots take over. Chill, when we get back home, I'll let you listen to Evergreen's new song."

Silver guessed Remus wasn't happy with such a simple mission being a failure, especially after losing to an unknown enemy. He didn't like it either, but there was nothing they could do, but give Sterling the bad news.

"Wait a minute," Silver thought in his head.

"Sterling doesn't know about this. If we tell him- scratch that, if I tell him we found nothing, then we'll still get paid… Is it wrong to deceive an old man to take some money from him? Will this weigh on my conscious? …Nah, I'm cool with it," Silver deduced.

"Remus, let me take you back to base. I'll give Sterling the bad news," Silver said feigning sadness.

"…Actually, there's somewhere else I need to go before heading home. Let me grab something first." Remus dragged one of the scrap metal robots he destroyed. Silver wasn't sure what he could do with that except use it for target practice.

Setting: Team VRSZ Base

Silver returned home with some Lien in his hand. He had no problem telling Sterling everything was gone instead of telling him the truth, showing he was still a rogue despite being with his team. When he entered the base, he saw Violet sitting on the couch with a comic book in her hand and Zelts on his scroll, probably messaging Lily. Seeing as how he left with Remus and came back on his own, Silver knew what was coming up next.

"Silver, where's Remus?" Violet asked like he knew she would. Just like him still being a rogue, Violet was always skeptical of him whenever he left Remus on his own.

"He asked to be dropped off at Onyx's workshop. Said there's something he needed to ask him," Silver answered. He was being partially truthful with his answer. Remus did go see Onyx, but Silver never asked why since Remus said he'll tell him later.

"Hm. All right," Violet said while Silver felt like a teen who just avoided punishment.

"How'd the mission go?" Zelts asked now that his attention was on his team instead of his scroll.

"We got Lien. Enough said," Silver said as he dropped the Lien on the coffee table.

He sat on the living room sofa, turned to his friends, and asked, "What did you guys do today?"

Setting: Onyx Workshop

After Silver dropped Remus off at Onyx's Workshop, Remus dragged the robot's lifeless husk with him into the building. The young faunus wasn't at the front desk, meaning he was in the back room where he loved to tinker. Remus let himself in as he dragged the bucket of bolts. Onyx heard the sound of metal scraping against his metal floor, so he peeked out his door of his tinkering room to see Remus with the robot corpse. In any other context, people would be screaming and running from the sight, but Onyx only said one thing.

"Uh, hey Remus. What's… this?" Onyx asked in slight confusion.

"We were attacked by someone who used some of these robots to drive around and attack us," Remus answered with a serious tone.

"That's… unique," was all the faunus could say.

"I was wondering if you could examine this thing and tell me what you find. Anything helps," Remus requested.

"Sure. Give me a day or two and I'll find out. Why?"

"Just need to find out who's been doing this. I think we might run into them again," Remus answered with a little concern.

Setting: Desert Scrapyard

In a random area in the desert where there were rocks scattered around, there were also tons of scrap metal and junk littering the ground. In the middle of the area was a large stone with several armored vehicles like the ones that attacked Silver and Remus surrounding it. The vehicles were trucks and jeeps created the same way, but each one had a different type of weapon attached. One had large rocket launcher on top while another had flame throwers on the side and that was just two out of a dozen. The only vehicle that was moving was the one entering the rocky scrapyard, the same vehicle that attacked Remus and Silver.

On top of one of the rocks was someone who dropped down to see the contents of the vehicle. The robot driving the armored truck got out and stood there, awaiting orders from the person that approached it. The person that walked up to the machine was the four-armed man, Buff. He didn't respond to the robot as he made his way to the back of the truck to see what it found.

"Alright," Buff said with a grin as he saw the crates full goods that Remus and Silver were supposed to retrieve for Sterling.

"Wait a minute…" Buff looked around for something that was missing, but didn't see it. "Where's the other truck? Don't tell me… Hey Plati, the other truck is missing!"

There was another person on top of one of the rocks and they dropped down to see for themselves. The person was a young woman with scruffy, long, brown hair on her right side that reached to her shoulders and on her left side was some kind of cybernetic metal plate. She wore a brown shirt with the sleeves ripped off and dark green, baggy pants. She had a holster sash wrapped around her chest and she had a robotic right arm that looked similar to the three arms Buff had. She also had metal boots.

"Oh really? That's rare. Think my toys ran into some trouble?" the woman asked.

"Probably. It takes something strong to destroy one of your inventions Platinum," Buff said while curious about what could've happened.

Platinum put her thumb to her mouth and softly bit her nail. She was trying to calm her nerves because she was excited. The idea of someone or something thrashing her own machines was exhilarating. Her heart was pounding and she was starting to sweat from her body temperature rising. Buff saw this and just sighed. This was a usual thing with Platinum and he didn't mind at all. Her passionate side was one of the things he loved about her.

"I want to know," Platinum spoke while breathless. "I want to know what did this and face it myself! I have to! The chance of facing something so strong is making me feel like I'm about to burst!"

"...Once you set your mind on something, you see it through till the end. Fine, I'll help find out what destroyed your car," Buff answered.

Platinum wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. It lasted for a brief moment before they parted lips. She smiled at Buff warmly.

"Thank you so much, but I want to be there to see with my own eyes! I have to!" her wild appearance didn't match her cheery demeanor, but Buff didn't mind at all. She was always like this when she wanted something.

"Alright, but where did you send your robots?" Buff asked.

"To a well-known trade route. Maybe if I send my toys to more of trade routes and steal their stuff, then whatever stopped them will come straight to us. This is gonna be hella crazy," Platinum answered with vigor.

"Definitely, but have you built enough robots to do all that?" Buff questioned, which made Platinum snickered.

"Who do think you're talking to?" Platinum said then whistled.

More than two dozen scrap metal robots answered her call and stood before the couple. They all entered each vehicle in groups of two or three. All the vehicles were reeved up except for one that was exclusively for Platinum. It was just like the other vehicles, but it had gun torrents on the side with spikes on the wheels and it had the word 'Platinum' spray painted on the right side.

"Come on Buffy, let's blaze some trails," Platinum said as she entered her truck and Buff happily followed suit.


Platinum is a 25 year old woman with a great fascination for machinery. She enjoys inventing things, specifically weapons, and loves testing them against anything that could destroy them because it challenges her to invent better things. She is both an insane person and a genius and it's very hard to tell the difference.

Buff's three robotic arms were actually created by Platinum when he paid her money for a replacement. However, the original design was just one arm and Platinum wanted to do a little extra out of curiosity. The two have been seeing each other for some time and have some form of a relationship, but neither want to put any labels on it.