Remnant: Angel of Death
Chapter 10: Heist (II)
The night had fallen in the city of Vale. Most citizens had went to their homes, others had went for a drink or a party and some more were attending to their stores.
As someone that was the owner of a Dust shop, it was important to have a 24/7 service for the huntsmen or people that happened to need the mineral. Shane was ready for another eventless night, his favorite song was blasting in the radio, his hands and eyes were busy with an adult magazine and a soda can was near him.
"Wyvern Industries has raised in the list with the union with Obsidian Mining Company. The people of the southern districts of the city of Vale is happy for the company which was on the verge of bankruptcy but miraculously managed to survive, the CEO of Wyvern Industries, Burgundy Ebony had announced a new firearm although the type, name, and development state are unknown."
The bell above the main door rang announcing someone's presence, Shane raised his gaze to look at the potential customer. It probably was someone that was lost, wanted something to drink or buy a magazine; even if the main thing that the shop sold was Dust, it was good to have others things to sell since night customers usually didn't want Dust.
The customer was a woman wearing a black biker jacket with spikes, leather pants, biker boots and biker gloves. He was dumbfounded when the customer pointed a gun at his face and summing the fact that the woman used the mask of an Ursa it was instantly understood by him that it was a robbery.
"W-Wait! I got money here in the counter and-"
"I don't care about your money, I want your Dust. Where is it?" said she with a distorted voice.
"W-What?"
The barrel of the powerful-looking handgun was pressed against his chest. "Where is it?"
"In the back, just grab a container and open th-the pipes and s-serve yourself!"
"Go home."
Shane nodded almost violently and ran for his life and nearly having a death attack when he saw the obscure figures with white faces.
"FUCK THIS CITY!"
The five obscure figures got in revealing that they were five men wearing the same outfit that the woman. They quickly move to the back of the shop to take all the Dust they could, the woman seemed to be on charge since she stopped them from taking anything else that was not Dust. Unlike the rest who had masks, she used an entire helmet with the face of an Ursa with a dragon symbol and the rest was totally black, it was like she was wearing the head of an Ursa.
"Ma'am, we are ready," informed one of the men.
"Come on then. Take everything to the trucks."
The five men put the Dust containers in their backpacks and exited the shop, the woman aimed at the security cameras and pulled the trigger.
. . .
At another zone of the city, the same thing happened to the owner of a Dust shop who was trembling in fear. Unlike before, the ones committing the crime wore black robes and opera masks with smiling faces; the leader used a golden mask with one half smiling and the another one crying.
The few customers and the owner himself were knelt on the floor facing the wall and none of them dared to move since they knew that they were being pointed at with rifles. None of the five robbers said anything and talked through signs with their leader. Keeping the same modus operandi, they took all the Dust they could and put them in bags usually used to carry musical instruments.
...
The same crime happened in another shop, this time the culprits wore suits and tie with masks that covered the entire face. The leader wore gray and white and used a fedora hat.
The five men menaced the elderly man running the shop but their leader quickly ordered them to lower their weapons, casualties were not in the plan.
With calm, the leader got closer to the counter and spoke to the elder man. "Do you have any idea how hard is to find a Dust shop open this late?"
The synthetic voice made the situation even more intimidating; scared for his life, the elder man tried to give them his money but was stopped.
"Calm down, we're not here for your money," the leader looked at his men and with his head pointed at the Dust pipes. "Grab the Dust."
The men moved swiftly knowing that time was money and were scared to screw up and receive the anger of the Angel of Death, most of them were alive because he wanted to. One of the men looked among the shelves, it was tempting to at least grab some chips but it was strictly forbidden to do so; he stopped when he noticed a hooded person reading magazines. Was just that the person hadn't paid attention or simply ignored?
The robber walked to the person and touched their shoulder; the red-cloaked person turned around and removed the hood revealing a young lady with silver eyes. The robber indicated her to take her headphones off, he was not going to use violence against a girl just like that even criminals had standards.
"Are you robbing me?" she asked with genuine confusion and...innocence.
"Yes."
The rest of the men had already bags full of Dust containers and were about to exit the building when they saw how the one who was supposed to look for any civilian or worker flew through the window along with a red blur. The leader quickly pointed with his gun at the red-cloaked girl and gave a simple order to his men.
"Okay...get her."
Just as was planned for such a case, two of them handed over their bags to their teammates and engaged the girl and just as was planned, they used their guns. The ones with the bags quickly ran out of the building and headed towards the hidden truck that would get them out of there. The leader stayed behind since he was the strongest and could defeat the little red riding hood or entertain her in the worst case; not liking the unexpected event, he took his Scroll and called. Why taking the risk of getting arrested when someone else could take it for him?
"Goldilocks is the one closest to me," he thought. The girl began to dash to the sides dodging the bullets and leaving a trail of red petals behind her. "Looks like I'm gonna need some backup."
"Everything's done here. Are you done there, Loki?"
"Ursa, I need backup, a brat is making a scene."
"Give me two minutes."
Loki grunted and readied to fight unfolding a retractable cane. As a man that didn't like taking risks, he would rather to avoid a battle but all he could do now was keeping little red entertained...he spotted a Fire Dust crystal in the counter and an idea came to his mind.
The red cloaked girl spun her massive sniper-scythe as if it was made of cardboard and hit one of the men with the blunt part after using her semblance to dash towards him. Using her momentum, she jumped over her scythe using it as a handhold to rotate her lower body and kick the last thug straight in the chest sending him flying and crashing his body against a trashcan.
"You were worth every cent, you truly were," commented Loki sarcastically after witnessing the ease with which his men were taken care of. He shot at the girl, out of his three shots just one was successful and hit her shoulder but the bullet crushed after touching her aura and caused no harm at all.
Instead of keep shooting, he discarded his gun and engaged in melee combat since he had better odds with that. Given the girl's type of weapon it was clear that he was at disadvantage, the girl had more range and mobility than him. Upon exchanging few blows with the girl he noticed that she had an enormous force even for someone with aura, he was forced to use both hands to wield his cane. He rolled forward dodging a hit by scarce centimeters and took enough distance to at least think on his retreat.
He was already out of the shop and could run away, he had put a few Dust crystals in his pockets those probably were going to be useful.
"Get outta the way!"
The man did what he was instructed. The red-cloaked girl moved around to dodge the bullets that were coming towards her, rather, she was moving faster than the finger that pulled the trigger although she could tell that the shots were slow on purpose but she was not going to stay still to get shot.
"Last chance to give up!" she shouted.
Ursa, the leader of the group of robbers dressed as bikers had arrived and couldn't believe what she was seeing.
"Ruby, what in the world are you doing here?!"
The woman under the mask was no one but Yang, the man with the cane that she had just helped was Roman and the leader of the team dressed as creepy members of an opera was Neopolitan of course. Out all the things that could happen, no one would have ever think about Yang's little sister interfering with the robberies. Damn, Azrael had no plan for that.
"We better take the plan B," she said.
"Can't you defeat this brat?"
"We-"
Yang quickly got Roman out of the way as soon as she noticed Ruby using the sniper form of her scythe. Roman dropped a Fire Dust crystal and Yang took the hint, she kicked it at Ruby who dodged it and then she shot at it. Yang was more than sure that Ruby could tank the explosion without major problems.
Ruby reacted quickly and jumped backwards with her scythe raised unconsciously concentrating her aura to create a small shield, it was not visible but was there. The force of the explosion was distributed through her entire aura, it absorbed most the the kinetic energy and heat from the detonation. She lost balance for a minute, his arms felt stiff and the world was spinning around her. She recovered enough to ask the owner of the shop if it was okay to follow the criminals which was answered positively.
She shot her scythe to propel herself to the roofs and chase the criminals. She didn't have to run for too long, both criminals were standing on the border of one of the roofs.
"Why are they there?"
Her question was answered when the sound of a certain aircraft was caught by her ears, she turned her gaze towards the direction of the sound and watched a Bullhead getting closer. They were going to escape!
She used her semblance to turn into a bunch of petals and close the distance between them.
"Persistent, aren't we?" commented Roman.
"She sure is."
Yang didn't want to fight her sister but it was not like she was going to beat her up too badly, all she had to do was entertaining her enough to escape in the bullhead. Yang analyzed the situation, without Ember Celica all she had was her aura to shield her arms and she knew that her strength was superior to her sister's but with a weapon that could be used at close, middle and long ranges and a semblance that allowed her to move around really fast, Ruby had the upper hand.
The bullhead stopped behind them with its doors opened.
"As much as I would like to stick around, I'm afraid that this is where we part ways, little red," said Roman jumping into the bullhead.
Yang said nothing and got into the bullhead too. Ruby changed Crescent Rose to its sniper form and took aim, Yang acted quickly and shot near her as a distraction which worked. It was not like Yang was good with firearms but she had practiced last night and her superhuman strength helped her to not feel the recoil of the powerful handgun she used.
Ruby reacted and shot and moved around to take cover behind a chimney, her aura was spent and needed time to replenish. Just when the bad guys had her cornered something happened.
A stream of water at high speed hit Roman in the chest smashing him against the another door of the Bullhead making a bent with his form. Yang jumped aside out of the line of fire.
"What is going on?" asked the one piloting the Bullhead, a woman dressing a red dress wit orange sew lines and heels. She turned around and seemed to stare into Yang's soul with her bright orange eyes.
"We got a huntress," Roman answered while assuming the woman's place in the controls.
The woman walked to the door of the bullhead. Yang was not sure what happened, she saw a blonde woman of middle age with a riding crop saving Ruby from getting fried by a pillar of fire that came out from below her.
Glynda Goodwitch adjusted her glasses and with a move from her riding crop the remnants of the chimney that worked as Ruby's cover were thrown by an invisible force at the Bullhead. The woman shot fire from her hand destroying the debris and counterattacking by making a pillar of fire rise from the floor below Glynda. The huntress reacted and frontflipped to dodge, her body was surrounded by purple energy. She unleashed the energy with a movement of her riding crop shooting it in the form of several energy rays that hit the aircraft.
The woman grunted and shot a fireball from her hand at Glynda who simply created a kind of glyph or magic circle in front of them that shielded them from the attack. Ruby stopped admiring Glynda and began to shoot. The woman blocked the bullets creating a fire shield in front of her, meanwhile, the huntress extended her riding crop and conjured a glyph above the airship. Seemingly magically, stormclouds formed and began to pour solid ice at high speed onto the Bullhead, Roman managed to dodge a shard that pierced the windshield and almost hit his face.
"Close call," he thought.
The elaborated designs on her arms and chest of her dress glowed and she proceeded to shoot a fire burst at Glynda who created a glyph to shield herself but the fire splattered behind her like a liquid. With a gesture from the woman, it glowed and exploded; fortunately, Glynda had done a backflip to evade the detonation, she moved her hands and the debris of the destroyed floor lifted and gathered forming a huge arrow of rotating debris that was launched at the Bullhead.
Roman reacted and tilted the airship, its strong carcass resisted the debris without major damage. The debris separated after entering contact but then formed three pillars that attacked the airship from all sides.
The woman grunted and focused her energy, the elaborated designs on her dress glowed with more intensity. Rings of fire formed around her and she freed them in the form of an expansive wave that destroyed the debris. Tired of the interruption, the woman created more "pools of fire" below the huntress and the girl.
Glynda performed a pirouette forwards after getting Ruby to move away from the explosion. Another one appeared below Glynda who had to backflip to dodge it.
More pools of fire appeared under them who had to avoid them. Roman took the chance and left the area.
Glynda scowled, she was going to return to Ozpin empty-handed and the Council was going to complain for the amount of property damage, at least no one got injured. However, that last comfort was useless and she could not help herself and glared at the young lady that did her best to help but ruined everything by accident.
"Are you a huntress?" Ruby asked really excited. "Can I have your autograph?"
Forever Fall Forest
Blake Belladonna was sat on a rock admiring the beauty of the red leaves. Forever Fall was a forest famous for the red that dominated most of the vegetation, everything at least had a palette of red, the only exception was the water, rocks, some flowers, soil, and beautiful light of the shattered moon gave the forest an even more magical appearance.
The cat faunus was thinking about her life choices, she had left her parents one week ago and after calling her father a coward. What a foolish and immature child she was. When she joined the White Fang after her father decided to give Sienna the title of High Leader, she believed in the cause since it was noble but the amount of damage and death caused during the last five months struck her idealized view of the organization and the cause with the force of a mad Goliath. She hadn't abandoned the organization only because of two reasons: She believed in peaceful coexistence and Adam.
Adam was a friend that had been for her since she was 14 and voiced her desire to become a huntress, but he had changed, his ideals of coexistence and justice were slowly being replaced by bloodlust and spite; Blake dreaded the day in which someone as close as him would commit atrocities and become a monster. Blake knew that her heart would be broken if that happened regardless it that someone was her father or Adam. With recent events, it seemed that her fear was becoming a reality, Adam killed more often and always excused himself saying that it was a reflex or something like that.
She knew that accidents could occur and even more when you had people actively trying to kill you so she could understand that Adam and other members of the White Fang just acted out of instinct and defended themselves but after a second, third and fourth time, that had no excuse. It was good that the violent behavior and terrorism were drastically reduced and that was what gave her hope that the White Fang will remain loyal to the ideals with which it was founded on instead of turning into an organization led by hatred.
"Blake, it's time."
She heard Adam's announcement, turning her face to him she answered. "Okay."
Both faunus ran through the forest and stopped on a cliff, their target was getting closer. The cargo train of the SDC was visible in the distance.
Adam and Blake jumped off the cliff to land on the machine, they reduced their speed by stabbing the cliff behind them and sliding instead of freefalling. Once they were close enough, their brains automatically calculated the right moment to jump onto the train.
They hit the train with force and rolled due to its speed, Adam sunk his sword trespassing the metal carcass which was copied by Blake. Both of them stood up and ran towards the back of the train as fast as they could. Their time were limited, only ten minutes before getting into the radars of a SDC outpost that monitored the train if it detected a single android that didn't emit a signal or the radar failed to detect the train the alarms will be activated; communications were checked as well, the ones in charge of the train had a window of ten seconds to answer or the alarms would be fired.
Adam stopped near the last car and cut the lock of a hatch to open it. He and Blake jumped into it and as soon as they touched the metallic floor, the hatch sealed by itself blocking the moonlight and submerging the duo into pure darkness.
Blake was a cat faunus and just like a common cat she had a limited degree of night vision but in such a place where there was scarce light to reflect inside her eyes it was impossible to see anything. Adam who was a bull faunus had an even harder time seeing anything, at least Blake was able to see her own nose with enough effort but him...all he could do was trusting on his hearing and that just disoriented him more.
"Not even a minute delay."
The slightly distorted, metallic voice triggered their combat reflexes and attacked without thinking. Blake's hand was pushed downwards and Adam's sheath was kicked making him lose the impulse for quick drawing.
"It is me," said the attacker. "Spectre."
The neutral tone of voice and brief words convinced the two but just in case...
"When the fire's hot and the wind is slow," Blake said and waited for his answer.
"The vulture waits to see what's rots."
Both members of the White Fang relaxed and took distance clumsily due to the lack of light, speaking of which, dim red lights illuminated the cart. The illumination was poor but enough for Blake to see clearly and for Adam to fight although the latter would not be needed at the moment, several destroyed androids were laying on the ground none of them wanted to ask.
Azrael wore a military uniform with red woodland camouflage pattern and black gloves and boots of military use. He had changed his futuristic helmet that covered his entire head for one that covered the usual space that a military helmet would, his face was covered by a skull shaped gas mask with red lenses. His torso was covered by a bulletproof vest with two magazines for his main gun, another two for his sidearm, two grenades and a combat knife.
He had a rope on the back of his belt, more magazines for both firearms he carried and a bag wrapped on his thigh.
His firearms were, according to his words, a Designated Marksman Rifle that he referred to simply as 417. It shared the same camouflage pattern and had a red dot sight and a suppressor. His sidearm that was holstered on his combat belt was an a pistol he referred to as Glock 18 with a extended magazine.
Azrael upped his night vision googles and forced the door of the car open.
"You two remember the plan?" he asked.
"Secure the Dust, avoid casualties and be as fast as possible," Blake answered, her eyes struggled a moment to get use to the illumination.
"Go ahead to the next cart, I will provide cover fire," Azrael handed Blake one of the masks worn by members of the White Fang. She put it on and nodded.
Both faunus did as instructed and walked across the flatcar to the next car with ease despite of the deactivated androids in the floor. Adam reinforced his chokuto sword with his aura and cut the door of the car, Blake opened it completely and got in after not locating enemies at all.
"Intruder, identify yourself."
Several robotic and frankly scary voices talked in total sync. AK-130 type atlesian androids dropped from the ceiling to the floor ambushing the intruders. Their hands turned into three-barreled machine guns, the black and red carcass of the robots was intimidating but Adam and Blake were ready to fight.
All of sudden, the head of the robot in front of Blake was frozen solid after getting hit by something, that was the signal. Adam shot his katana from its shotgun-sheath hitting another robot, he caught his weapon and attacked another robot cutting it in half. At the same time, the cat faunus began to dual wield Gamble Shroud using its sword transformation and the sheath to hit the robots with elegance and speed.
Blake's sword turned into a small scythe and she threw it at the head of another automaton piercing it, she pulled the ribbon that attached the handle to her arm and decapitated the robot, taking advantage of the momentum, she jumped into the air and spun her body making the robot's head hit the one that was just behind her; as she landed, she pulled her arms making the scythe to sink into another android's carcass. She pulled with both arms to attract it to her, she spun in the air and kicked it in the chest sending it flying against a group that got ready to shoot.
Adam moved swiftly shooting his shotgun-scabbard and amputating the robots with his swords. He blocked the bullets that came straight to him and eliminated two robots with a quickdraw that freed an aura slash of particular cutting power. The red-haired swordsman beheaded another android, ducked to avoid a blade that certainly would have pierced his aura and sliced his attacker's arm, torso and head just to kick it away and shot against one of the atlesian robots that tried to unload its bullets on him.
Azrael was outside the freight car taking cover behind a heavy and big metal box doing what he said he would. He could not tear androids apart with a punch and he was slow in comparison to the faunus that were fighting close and personal against the robots, to not be a burden and possibly jeopardize the entire operation, he decided to stay behind and shoot from there. Two headshots, the robots' circuits and vital pieces to function were frozen solid causing an instant malfunction that shut them down. He expected the automatons to target the aura users since they were the ones decimating them but surprisingly two of them took the liberty to aim at Azrael.
Azrael hid behind the box and moved to one side, despite of having a big caliber, most bullets in Remnant were mostly used to deal concussive damage instead of piercing but even with the slow velocity of the bullets, if he happened to get hit then broken bones would be the most likely outcome. Fortunately, the bullets were not traditional ones, the androids were shooting pellets infused by Hard-Light Dust so his cover and armor could take more damage.
He shot at the floor using his bullets of Ice Dust to create a barrier that covered him from the beams.
Blake had noticed what happened and rushed to help Azrael. She used her sword's scythe mode and threw it with force piercing the head of one of the robots, she pulled it towards her and sent it flying with a kick at the another one that had shot at her.
"Spectre!" she called waiting an answer but nothing happened. "Azrael!"
Adam kicked another robot in the chest at the same time he sliced off the leg of another one; he looked at Blake for a moment and noticed how she was upset. The hatch on the ceiling of the freight car opened, the robots detected it and looked upwards to shoot but found nothing, the same happened with the door behind them that opened too.
Using the distraction, Adam cut two of them in half and decapitated the last one. Blake had also taken advantage of the distraction and pierced the head of the last two.
"Critical damage."
A robot dropped from the ceiling with a burning red slice in its chest. When they looked up, Azrael dropped to one of the boxes and then to the floor.
"There are more in the flatcar ahead."
Blake looked around for a moment to try to find the moment and place in which he managed to sneak in, Adam did the same but in a more subtle manner.
"I created a pillar and climbed from the sides of the car," Azrael explained. "I can deactivate the security and communication systems but I need to get to the next car."
The three of them exited that car and got into the flatcar that separated the freight cars from each other. Adam and Blake blocked the projectiles that were shot at them while Azrael reacted by rolling over his shoulder and jumping aside to take cover behind a metal box; still parrying projectiles, the faunus took cover as well. Numerous androids had formed a line and were shooting at them taking turns to avoid wasting ammo.
"Any suggestions?" asked Adam.
"Break their formation."
With those words, Azrael shot at the floor again to create an ice wall at a moderated distance. Blake advanced first and took cover behind it, the wall began to crumble before the numerous impacts it was receiving. Adam ran and jumped the wall, Blake did the same.
The red-haired swordsman parried a few bullets with his sword but most impacts were absorbed by his aura, Blake used her semblance to create a shadow clone that pushed her downwards and then another one that pushed her forward shortening the distance between her and the androids. Adam used his aura to create an "aura shockwave" that destroyed the projectiles, Blake used shadow clones to move in zigzag and finally land a hit.
Her flying kick sent the android backwards and bent the metallic door of the freight car behind, she used her semblance again to gain height and then to propel herself down to tackle them. The robots lost balance for a moment, moment that was taken advantage of by Adam who cut the three remaining ones in half.
Azrael simply walked to them and pointed at the door with his head. Adam and Blake kicked the door and got in followed by the mercenary.
"Taurus, check the boxes. Miss, break the control panel."
Blake and Azrael walked to one of the walls, there was something that looked like a fuse box. She broke it with her weapon and let Azrael do his thing, he got closer and carefully examined the wires and circuits, she guessed that it was pretty delica...
Azrael punched the "fuse box" twice and pulled the wires until tearing them.
"..." Blake had no words to describe her confusion.
"The communication system is atlesian, outdated to save money. It has an important flaw, if you destroy a single key piece the entire system is rendered useless."
They walked to Adam who had confirmed that the shipment was indeed Dust, they were sure to begin with but it was always good to double check.
"I'll set the charges," Adam said.
"What about the crew," asked Blake.
"What about them?"
Azrael was about to remind Adam that casualties were not acceptable when he spotted movement on the ceiling, he lowered his night vision goggles and didn't like what he saw.
"We got company."
As if it had understood that its presence was noticed, what was stalking them from the shadows dropped to the floor making the entire freight car tremble under its weight.
It was pretty tall maybe being five times the size of a person. It had a humanoid torso and head with laser cannons for arms and another two coming out of its shoulders, it stood in four spider legs; the black and red carcass just gave it an even more intimidating presence. Azrael clicked his tongue, that was a special type of robot, one destined to war and fight off trained huntsmen, this robot was the Spider Droid.
"Damn."
Azrael raised his 417 and began to think about a strategy to follow.
"Your intrusion and destruction of property are not acceptable, surrender now or be destroyed."
Adam and Blake exchanged looks and readied to fight, Azrael had silently hid in the shadows realizing how useless he was in that battle as someone without supernatural abilities. Both faunus looked for Azrael but there was nowhere to be found, he had the tendency of disappearing from a moment to another and the combat robot was more important.
Adam attacked first aiming to the head since it had proven truly effective, however, this robot really honored its classification and hit the swordsman mid-air as if he was a mere fly. Blake managed to fool it briefly thanks to her semblance but it didn't last, the cat girl was bitchslapped and crashed against some Dust containers as consequence. Azrael watched in silence how both of them tried to best the robot but all of their attempts were futile, their blades didn't even scratch the carcass, punches and kicks were totally useless and bullets were the same.
If he used his Dust-infused bullets then it might give them a slight advantage but if didn't work then Azrael would have revealed his position and become another target for the war machine. Rachel could hack a big number of androids in the train but that one managed to avoid getting its systems messed with.
Adam and Blake were doing their best to fight the machine but regardless of their flashy and stylish movements and aura, the robot was just too resilient. The Spider Droid had enough and charged his cannon up, Azrael upped his night vision goggles and appreciated the energy blast that was about to be unleashed. Maybe getting rid of one cannon was not enough but it was better than having a fully functional war machine.
Azrael shot at the cannon directly in the point where the energy came from, the reaction of bullets infused with Ice Dust and raw Light Dust was quite violent generating an explosion that even with its small size ripped the air and created a wind current that was accompanied by snowflakes. As he expected, the arm cannon stopped working just that not for as long as he would have liked.
The Spider Droid now pissed off targeted him and shot with its four cannons, Azrael had already moved from his position the very moment the robot turned. Naturally, he knew that after the first missed shot he was going to get hit so he shot at the floor to create an ice wall.
Fortunately for him, Blake attacked its face and Adam its legs with no effect but was enough for Azrael to disappear again.
It was such a fortune that the combat robot was programmed to avoid as much property damage as possible or the faunus would have been killed already. The door behind Adam and Blake opened giving the chance to take the fight to an ampler space, chance that they took.
The Spider Droid destroyed the car and jumped onto the flatcar to neutralize the intruders.
"We got no time, use your semblance," said Azrael through the earbud used by Adam. "You can take a lot of damage."
"Blake, Adam needs time, distract it."
From there, Azrael watched how Adam said something to Blake.
The red-haired swordsman purposely let the Spider Droid to shoot just to block the beams with his sword absorbing the energy, Blake helped to fool the robot to shoot at Adam instead of her. She moved with a superhuman speed, grace and agility that had nothing to envy to an elf's or vampire's. Eventually, the robot managed to hit her and even take her down. From there, on top of the destroyed freight car, Azrael had a clear shot at the robot's leg which he took to save Blake.
The Spider Droid shook its leg to shatter the ice which was done easily. The car girl jumped onto its face and landed a punch with enough aura to bent the carcass, she looked up for a second to check Azrael but he was not there anymore.
The combat robot had located him fairly quickly and had decided to kick Blake with one of its four legs at the same time it unleashed all of the power of one of his cannons in Azrael's direction. He managed to jump inside the freight car just in time to avoid getting melted, when he raised his gaze the ceiling was not there anymore.
Blake wrapped her weapon around one of the cannons and pulled with all of her might distracting it, Adam went ahead to engage into melee combat with the automaton. The cat faunus took a few steps back to have a better view of the battle, she could see Azrael taking aim at the robot and pulling the trigger unloaded the magazine in automatic fire.
The robot's head was frozen solid and although it was not enough to take it out, it was enough for Adam to land several attacks before taking a safe distance. The robot heated its cannons melting the ice that trapped its head and in a matter of milliseconds evaluated the situation; it went to its own protocol and decided that the intruders were going to make more property damage if they managed to escape.
Azrael had been witness of the fantasy-like transformation that a weapon could have, the modular configuration that changed a weapon from a sword to a shotgun was just way too cool and impressive but he could say that what the Spider Droid did was one of the coolest he had seen in Remnant.
The automaton unified its four cannons into a single one changing its humanoid torso to a giant cannon, the robot now was a giant laser turret!
"What the fuck?" uttered Azrael forgetting his manners for a second.
He looked at Adam who nodded, the mercenary reloaded his firearm and readied to assist how he could.
The giant cannon charged incredibly quickly for the amount of energy it required, not wasting a second, it opened fire. Blake hid behind Adam, the swordsman raised his chokuto to block the enormous laser beam that was going towards them.
For a moment, Adam 's feet slid before the strength his legs were applying to not fly. The sword glowed turning its red into a bright scarlet as it absorbed the energy and then it turned living red and began to shake, Adam knew that his weapon was at its limit but couldn't do anything else but resist the laser beam.
Azrael opened fire against the base of the cannon but that was useless as the ice melted instantly. It was clear that his weapons were useless.
He picked one of the grenades on his vest and activated it, a tornado grenade.
A tornado came out from the grenade lifting the Spider Droid off the floor, its weight prevent the tornado from lifting it completely but that slight change of angle was noticed by the robot which acted accordingly canceling the offensive and changing to its previous form. Adam sheathed his sword and readied to use his semblance.
Azrael dropped to the floor and lowered his head to try to increase the space between him and what was coming. Blake took a few steps back just fir security.
Adam drew his sword freeing all of the energy that was absorbed in the form of a thin aura slice of unbeatable cutting power. The robot's structure was not designed to endure so much power in a such small area, the energy of the slice spread through its body destabilizing the very molecular structure of the robot due to the sudden high input of energy. It happened in less than three seconds.
The red-haired swordsman fell to his knees completely exhausted, his chokuto was cracked and threatened to crumble with the wind. A big part of the Spider Droid was erased, the only thing remaining were two of its legs, most of the chest to the head were partially intact.
"Adam!" shouted Blake who helped him to get back to his feet. "Are you alright?"
All the bull faunus could do was nodding while recovering his breath. To the date, that was the most powerful liberation of power he had ever done.
Azrael had walked to the faunus and examined the robot, it seemed to have shut down. "With that being taken care of, we can separate the cars now. I will go to convince the operator."
Without them noticing, the Spider Droid booted. With the analysis showing a massive damage, the artificial intelligence checked its priorities, the intrudes had to be annihilated or Dust would be stolen.
"So I will just cut the..." Blake tried to find the word but failed. "Things that keep the cars together."
"Yes, this half of the train is the only one that contains Dust. The rest contains supplies, equipment, and technology for the facilities and mines, it is a fortune that everything is so automatized."
"You told me that we were going to steal Dust only," Blake complained.
Azrael shrugged. "Adam was on board with the plan. Half of the Dust will be delivered to the ones who hired me while the another half will be taken by you as well as the technology."
"What?"
"I, naturally, will take a 10% of what we rob today."
A glowing blur passed by them and hit the floor next to them, Adam and Blake stabbed the floor and barely avoided getting threw off the train. Azrael was not that lucky, he was sent into the air. He reacted quickly, as soon as he saw the distance, he touched his chest activating something that had saved his life in many occasions in the past at the same time he pronounced magical words.
A shield of Hard-Light Dust covered his front body and an energy filed covered his posterior side of the body. He frankly didn't know what was worse, the impact or the dizziness that came with the amount of times he rolled like a practice dummy used in the tests that checked how safe a car could be. Maybe out of reflex, he stood up despite of how dizzy and sore he was.
The train disappeared in the distance before he could think straight.
"Damn."
I have to admit, trying to write Adam's fighting style was...draining, I think that it is one of those things in which the said "An image says more than 1000 words" applies.
I know that the Spider Droid was not so strong in the Black trailer but I think that Atlas would invest in making robots with enough strength and defense to fight people with aura.
In case you ask, the robberies were sucessful.
Until the next chapter. If you like it please leave a comment I would love to read what you think (just no toxicism)
Wish you all a nice day!
