No one in the garage moves. The four bandits stare at the nine students, all of them daring the others to move. After a minute passes, Junkrat speaks again. "I said, where do you think you're going?" Out of all of the students, Brawnz was the first to move. He took a step forward and pointed his finger at the bandits, causing Eric to ready his revolver and the bartender to get in a fighting stance.
"We're getting out of here," Brawnz said. "And there's nothing―" He is cut off by Eric shooting at him with the pistol. It is then followed by a gust of wind and something hitting Brawnz sending him flying into Jaune. The impact caused Brawnz and Jaune to be launched off the car. Replacing where Brawnz stood, was the bartender with an outstretched arm. Nolan, angry at the bartender for launching his leader and friend, took out his baton and charged him, as do May and Roy. Meanwhile, Nebula and Gwen check up on Brawnz and Jaune, and Octavia and Dew attack Roadhog and Junkrat.
Nolan tried to get in a few swipes at the bartender but he expertly dodges Nolan's attacks. Nolan sends a surge of electricity through his baton and tries to jab the bartender but he sidesteps out of the way and grabs his wrist and the back of his neck. He slams Nolan to the ground face first and tightens his grip, causing the red head to groan in pain.
May aims her sniper rifle at the bartender but before she pulls the trigger there is the sound of five gunshots, and May feels two slight stings to her left shoulder. She looks over to reveal Eric reloading his revolver. She then aims her sniper at Eric and fires, only for him to dodge out of the way. He finished reloading as he rolled and began to fire at May, causing her to take cover. The two engage in a fire fight that causes them to go from cover to cover in the garage.
Roy jumps in the air and spins his sawblades and is about to slam down on the bartender. However the bartender heard Roy and let go of Nolan's arm and placed his hand on the concrete ground. He concentrates his aura through his arm and activates his semblance. The color of the concrete hastily crawls up the bartender's arm, and then the arm hardens into the concrete.
The bartender lifts his arm and blocks Roy with his concrete arm, causing him to feel no damage from Roy's sawblades. He then uses his strength, combined with the strength of the concrete to blow Roy back away. Nolan took this opportunity and elbowed the bartender in the nether region. The bartender lets out a groan and grips his crotch as Nolan swiftly gains distance from him. The bartender recovers from the crotch shot and gets up. He notices that Nolan and Roy are closing in from both side. So he presses his left hand down on the concrete and turns it into concrete so it matches his right arm. He pounds his fist together and waits for Nolan and Roy to make a move. They both charge at the bartender, hoping that the two of them can beat him with the handicap.
Junkrat was laughing manically as he watched the student fight his lieutenants. However he wasn't looking out for Octavia and Dew, but Roadhog was. He saw the girls charging for them and also saw Octavia swipe her blade at them, with a wave fire coming out. He grbbed Junkrat and dragged him out of the way, as well as himself. Junkrat pushes Roadhog off of him and glared at the girls.
"Don't you know it's rude to shoot flames at people?!" Junkrat yelled at the girls. They ignored him and tried to attack him again. However Roadhog takes a giant looking pistol and fires it at the girls. A bunch of burning metal is fired with a shotgun spray, hitting Octavia and Dew. They both stop and take a step back as their aura absorbs the burning metal. With them backing up gave Junkrat enough time to pull a mine from nowhere, along with a remote. "This bomb's for you!" he screamed. He threw the bomb at Dew and Octavia and once it was close enough he blew it up with the remote, sending the girls flying back.
Roadhog then throws a hook from his left hand and hooks Dew's leg. He uses his immense strength to drag her back to them as Octavia hits a wall. Dew twirls her spear and points it at Roadhog as she was dragged back. Roadhog stops dragging her and both he and Junkrat jump out of the way of the spear. The spear stabs and sticks to a wall and Dew lands. She then takes it out and turns to Junkrat and is about to stab down on him. Fear enters Junkrat's eyes but it is soon replaced with relief as Roadhog grabbed Dew by her hair and lifted her up. Octavia had recovered and was charging at them again. However Roadhog tossed Dew into Octavia causing the two of them crash into the ground again.
As the three different battles went on, Nebula and Gwen checked on Jaune and Brawnz. The two guys were scrambling to get off each other. With the help of the girls they were able to recover a lot more quickly. "What do we do?" Nebula asked the two of them. "Do we stay and fight or just try and leave?"
Jaune looked around for a clue as to what they would do. He took in account as many details as he could about the fight. He quickly came up with a solution. "Which one of you knows how to operate a turret?"
Meanwhile the three separate battles were slowly turning into one giant one. Roy was just launched back from the bartender's concretearmas into the back of Roadhog. When road hog felt the body hit him he turned around to find Roy but before Roy could get up Road hog made a fist and pounded Roy down into the ground. He then grabbed Roy's head, which was basically the size of a walnut in the obese man's hand, and was about to lam down on it. May shot at Roadhog's arm, which was blocked by his aura, but it had enough force to cause him to drop Roy.
Roy spun his blades and then slashes at Roadhog, causing him to make some distance between the two. It also caused May to get another clean shot. However before she could, Junkrat fired two bombs from his custom made grenade launcher. She heard the bombs bounce and roll behind her which caused her to vault over her cover. She ducked just in time to escape the shrapnel as it exploded. She wasn't safe from Eric's shooting however.
She got hit twice in the stomach but her aura blocked the two bullets. Eric was about to fire a third time but Nolan ran up and shocked him with his shock baton. Eric recovered from the shock and shot Nolan, causing him to recoil. Roadhog then hooked Nolan and then swung his chain around with Nolan in it and hit Octavia as she tried to charge Roadhog. Dew tried attacking Junkrat from behind but she yelled as she charged him getting rid the element of surprise. Junkrat turned around just in time to block the spear with his metal hand. He then gripped his flesh hand over Dew's throat. "You want to know what death tastes like?!" he said with a psychotic smile.
Dew screamed in horror as she felt the hot sensation burn her aura away. Junkrat's hand then exploded sending Dew flying. Dew gripped her face as she felt the burn marks on her mouth and Junkrat let out a psychotic laugh. Yet, no one was prepared for what happened next, except for Jaune Brawnz, Gwen and Nebula of course.
"Fire!" Jaune yelled. The sound of a turret spinning up along with a vehicle starting and the garage door opening caught the attention of everyone in the garage. Everyone turns to see the truck has started, with Brawnz in the driver seat, Jaune outside it with the rear driver side door open, Nebula in the front passenger seat, and Gwen aiming the gun at the bandits. She fires off a barrage of bullets, causing the bandits to take cover. The bartender covered his entire body with his arms as he moved to a safe cover, while Roadhog grabbed Junkrat and dove into cover and Eric ran for his life.
"Move move!" Jaune yelled. He motioned for them to get over to the car and all of them did. Dew entered the rear of the truck and slammed the door behind her and Roy entered through the open door that Jaune was holding. "Nolan! Take Octavia and Gwen and take the buggy!" he tossed the keys to Nolan who nodded.
"Come on girls!" he said. they followed him with no questions asked. At that moment, Gwen ran out of ammo in the magazine.
"No!" She yelled. Nebula saw this and dug in the bag for another turret magazine, but she would be too late. Roadhog peaked from his cover and his eyes landed on May. He threw his hook and was hoping to hook her. However Jaune also saw Roadhog's eyes. The Next thing he knew he was pushing May out of the way and felt a sharp pain in his arm. Roadhog drags Jaune over to him and is shot in the chest with Roadhogs scrap gun, causing a small burning sensation. However the others decided to make sure that at least one of the Shade students would suffer.
Once Jaune recovered from the scrap gun he was then met two fists from Eric and the bartender entering his stomach causing him to spit out blood and lose a lot of aura. He is then grabbed by the throat from the bartender's concrete arm and is thrown to Junkrat. He feels his stomach hit a palm and also feels like he is going to throw up.
"Boom!" Junkrat screamed. There is a large explosion that emits from Junkrats hand. It sends Jaune flying with him letting out a pain-filled scream and also grabbing his torso. His back hits the truck and he hits the floor. He doesn't move and is grunting in pain. The bandits were about to attack him again but Gwen was able to load another magazine of ammo into the turret and forced them to move to cover. Also May began firing at them. Roy grabbed Jaune and dragged him into the truck, causing him much displeasure and pain.
"Drive!" Roy yelled as he slammed the door shut. Brawnz shifted the truck into gear and sped out the garage, with Nolan and the two girls behind him in the buggy.
With the Shade students gone, Junkrat got out of cover and yelled in anger. "I'm going to skin them alive! After them!" Junkrat was going to run to his custom made vehicle, Roadhog grabbed him and stared him down. Junkrat growled. "I am not letting them go!" Again, Roadhog just stared him down. He then pointed to the bandit base. Junkrat followed Roadhogs finger and then got the message. He turns to Eric and the bartender.
"You two!" he said as he pointed at them. Both of them flinch, scared because they think Junkrat will blame them for the students escape. "Gather every men here and be ready to turn this place into a scrap heap, got it?!"
"W-why boss?" Eric asked.
"They know we're here, and they'll send real huntsmen our way," Junkrat started. "So, we gather as many men as we can find and relocate and recruit." Junkrat gets a wicked smile. "And when we get enough men, we'll burn Shade to the ground."
Line Break:
Roy was trying to find something to help Jaune's burn. Roy wasn't expecting anything that big, so imagine his surprise to see what looked to be a third degree burn. "How's Jaune?" Brawnz asked.
"Not good," Roy said. "That explosion Junkrat gave Jaune seems to be causing third degree burns."
"This isn't good," Nebula mumbled. "At least we still have some of the gear we stole."
"Question remains how long can we last?" Brawnz asked. He shook that dark thought out of his head. "Gwen, you see anyone following us?"
"Negative!" Gwen said. She looked behind them with the turret to see the buggy that carried Nolan, Octavia and May following them. The Bandit camp was nothing more than a speck in the horizon now. "Only ones following us are Nolan and the rest."
"All right we're pulling over to take care of Jaune." Brawnz slowly began to slow down, hoping that Nolan would do the same. The red haired student saw that Brawnz was slowing down and did the same. Soon all of them came to a halt, and they got out of the vehicles. Octavia held her hands out in a confused manner.
"Why have we stopped?" She asked.
"We need to check up on Jaune," Dew said as she hopped out of the back of the truck. Everyone runs over to Roy who carried Jaune out of the truck.
"How is he? Is it bad?" May asked with a concerned voice. Despite how much May rebelled against Jaune, the fact that he took a bullet, well, more like a beating, for her, she couldn't help but to ask. May took a look at Jaune and nearly threw up from the giant burn mark on him. Everyone could see how much pain Jaune was in as he whimpered in pain. They realized something as they looked at his bare chest. When Roadhog hooked Jaune, Jaune had ran out of aura. Or, at the very least, he didn't use any to protect himself.
Jaune's torso had the hand burn scar obviously, but they also saw various forms of bruising and cuts on him as well. If he was this bad on the outside, the internal bleeding must be worse. The fact that Jaune was still conscious was an amazing feat in itself. "Dew, you can heal this right?" Nebula asked.
"I can work on one maybe two serious wounds," Dew said, a slightly panicked look on her face. "These wounds are too severe for me to do any real healing."
"Help… me… please," Jaune moaned out. Hearing those words from the incredibly wounded blonde, it tugged at everyone's heart strings. It was at that moment where everyone realized how much Jaune had to do to get them to this point. Leading all of them through the desert, despite half of them not wanting to listen to him, pushing Dew out of the way of the charger, killing for the first time, taking the blow instead of May, Jaune sacrificed so much to try and get into Shade. Now, here he was, in great pain, with all of them standing around doing nothing. May growled.
"What can we do to help him?" May asked Dew. The blonde healer looked at May a mix of surprise on her face, along with a little bit of relief.
"Well, right now we need a rag with cool water to hopefully make the burn wound less painful," Dew said. "Other than that, I can tend to Jaune as we drive around for another settlement. He needs a professional medic and fast."
"What about the rest of us?" Brawnz asked. 'What can we do?"
"Just make sure the drive is smooth. Also, did anyone happen to grab a map from the camp?"
Octavia lets out a tiny chuckle and pulls out a little piece of paper. She begins to unfold it and the tiny paper turns into a bigger piece. Once it was fully unfolded, everyone sans Dew gathered around it to see where they were.
The map had the bandit camp in the middle, with dotted lines that traveled to bigger dots and X's on the map. Each one had the name of the settlement that was nearby. However they also noticed something. They were able to locate Picaro and noticed that the dotted line was scribbled out with red markers, as were about half of the other settlements.
"The bastards have been busy," Nolan muttered.
"Guess everyone was too focused on the festival…" Gwen mumbled. Nebula and Brawnz both let out angry yells. Now, they weren't exactly like the Vale and Atlas Huntsmen. They don't do jobs for free just because it was for the greater good. At the same time, to see that the festival made the settlements into bigger targets was partially their fault. They could've gone on any of the missions to help protect the settlements, yet they wanted to go to the festival and wanted to practice more instead of taking a mission.
"Look, no use dwelling on the past," Roy said. "Right now let's just find out where we are."
"It will probably help if we had a compass," Nolan reminded everyone. "I think there was an extra one in the buggy."
"I'll get it," May said. She ran back to the buggy as the others tried to think of a plan. Obviously they were going to go to the nearest settlement. The question was what to do once they got there. Some wanted to stay there until Shade came to find them. Others wanted to get directions to Shade and others wanted to see if they could contact Shade. Nolan returned and told them what direction they were heading.
They looked at the map and noticed that the nearest settlement that didn't have the red markings was a medium sized one called Yano. However it was going north, and they saw that Shade was to the south west of the bandit camp. There was no real way to tell how far away they were from each other. they could be somewhere between fifteen to fifteen thousand miles away.
While they agreed to go to Yano, they were all still arguing what to do, that was until Octavia stepped in and made a decision. "All right look, arguing isn't going to get us anywhere," She said. "So right now let's just get over to Yano and make sure we are safe from the bandits and that Jaune is okay, once we know that, then we'll decide on what to do, got it!?"
No one said a word and agreed with what she said. Right now all they needed to do was find civilization. Nebula pulled Octavia to the side and quipped about her plan. "Maybe you should've been leader," The two share a laugh but Octavia grabs Nebula's shoulder.
"You're a great leader Neb," She said. "I just had a moment of brilliance." Again, the two share a laugh. With everyone agreeing with the plan, they all get back in the vehicles and drive to Yano, hoping it's still there.
Derw was still tending to Jaune as they rode in the truck. He let out the occasional moan or groan to signal that he was still conscious, but stil in a lot of pain. However, a few minutes into the trip, Jaune wasn't feeling too good. His neck began to swallow down a lot and he seemed to be staring off into space. Dew noticed this and was wondering what was happen.
"Jaune, are you okay?" She asked. Jaune didn't respond. He just looked into space. However, Brawnz remember something that Jaune told him.
"Dew lean him on his side!" Brawnz said as he continued driving. Dew looked at Brawnz with confusion.
"Why?"
"He has motion sickness!"
When those words came out, Dew realized why jaune wasn't talking. He turns him on his side. Another minute passes by making all of them think it was just a false alarm. That was until Jaune threw up on the ground, since he was on his side, it didn't get on Dew but the truck's floor wasn't as lucky.
"Oh god!" Nebula said plugging her noise. Gwen thanked her lucky stars that she couldn't see or smell the puke since she was the gunner, and Roy was also lucky as he was in the back, but that didn't mean he couldn't hear what was going on.
Dew inspected the puke, despite hating the fact that she had to, and saw how bad Jaune's insides were. Half of the puke was saliva, while the other half was blood. She looked over to Jaune to see him closing his eyes, which wasn't the best of sign. She tried shaking him awak but to no avail.
"Jaune come on! Stay with us!" she said. Jaune respond with breathing very shallow and his eyes closing. "Brawnz, step on it!" Dew said. The student revved the engine and then sped up to get to Yano as fast as they could. Who knew how much time they had left?
To be continued.