James Ironwood was on a mission. A mission upon which hung the lives of every citizen in one of the last four kingdoms on the face of remnant. A mission he had no intention of failing.
He was currently at the controls of his personal bullhead flying through a sky filled with flack and Grimm. His personal bullhead was heavily modified, more armored, more powerful, and larger to boot than even other military models. It was everything he felt normal bullheads should have been for decades if anyone not living in a fantasy world had been designing them. Right now he was pushing the engines up against redline, burning hard and pointing the ship's nose straight for his command ship. Somehow, through a chain of events he was going to be shortly dissecting with a razor, control of his flagship's bridge had been wrestled away from the crew and been taken over by hostile parties. James had a pretty good idea which hostile parties had done it too. He had a pretty developed plan of what he was going to do to him once he got up there. It involved figuring out a landing strategy once all your ball joints had been liquefied by point blank high caliber pistol rounds.
The control stick of the bullhead groaned under the impressive strength of the general's cybernetic hand, trigger finger clenching in anticipation. Though being in a good mood was something not often associated with the general of Atlas those who knew him well might have mistaken the particular gleam in his eyes at this thought as one of enjoyment. The kind of enjoyment a monk who has just spent twenty four hours in the same position meditating experiences secreting an Advil. A guilty pleasure from someone who knows better, and who will also not be hesitating at all. Ironwood was going to enjoy seeing the look on that absurd drama queen's face as he went over the edge and he wasn't going to bat an eyelid as he gave him the helping kick to start his journey.
A griffon swooped down to obstruct his path, looking to shred his engines or control surfaces, to force him to the ground for a kill. James didn't spare a moments thought ramming the armored leading edge of the bullhead's wing into the griffons midriff. He noted in the corner of his eye as the griffon's back met Atlas armor and broke with a thunderous crack. The Grimm feebly still struck at the craft, still trying to kill him even mortally wounded. Then the kicking forelimbs came just a millimeter too close to the leading edge of the heavy ducted turbo jets of the bullhead. The griffon was grabbed by the furiously roaring engine and wrenched inwards, its already disintegrating body breaking in half at the wing leaving two trails of black pouring out behind the bullhead, one albeit far more sooty than the other.
James shook his head. Aiming for the engines, normally the weak point on bullheads showed that it wasn't the late griffon's first time trying to down an aircraft. He couldn't help the intrusive thought about the need to press more strongly for changes in construction standards when he returned to Atlas. That particular train of thought was derailed by his scroll buzzing.
Ironwood knew now was not the time to be taking his eyes of the road, but on the off chance it was one of the half dozen or so people he desperately needed to get an update from he commenced with the blind fumbling known to all sentients who have tried to extract a phone from their pants pocket under a seat belt while driving. This was, of course, made more difficult as he was flying a military aircraft through a war-zone at the same time. In the back of the bullhead his drone soldiers were treated to a fluid and verbose stream of vulgarity as he struggled for the device. They weren't capable of processing vulgarity, instead reading it into algorithms meant to give an indication of the mental status of humanoids. Their programs classified the general as "high threat of imminent violence" based on his chosen diction. With an explosion of stitching a robotic hand emerged victorious from its struggle with his pants pocket, and presented at last the offending phone for its superiors inspection.
"An unknown user is attempting to access your battleship, is this you? Y/N", Ironwood mumbled to himself as he hurriedly read the text with one eye while at the same time threading the bullhead between two nevermore intent on crashing into it. With the sound of two nevermore skulls crashing into each other ringing in the background ironwood thumbed N in response and sent it back to his battleship main computer. Then he kinked the bullhead into a sharp climb, rolling over the swirling cloud of juvenile nevermore that had been aiming to bludgeon through his windshield before power diving back down on top of them to roast them in the jet exhaust. He cringed at the sound of a few tons of combat droid slamming back into the reenforced deck as he recovered the dive and looked back over hunched shoulders at the mound of tangled limbs and scuffed face plates.
"Note to self, get a turbulent flight update out to the combat droids", Ironwood mumbled as the pile of droids began to unentangle themselves, and make their stumbling way back into formation in the back of the ship. James then turned his eyes back to flying, pausing to give a long haul on the triggers as the earlier pair of nevermore made another run oh his bullhead, to even greater personal discomfort than before, before looking once again at his phone.
The battleship computer responded to his previous N, locking out the system from the unknown device, and was now presenting him with a fisheye camera view of the offending party at the consul. He was treated to a high magnification view of a heavily mascaraed eye squinting into the tiny camera. Ironwood chuckled. It was not a chuckle meant for a human. In fact it was physically impossible for someone who did not have roughly a third of their chest cavity made from dust steel. It was deep like the tolling of a particularly sadistic bell. "Oum above I'm going to enjoy this", Ironwood breathed as he fingered the countermeasures button on his scroll.
Semblance, and the absolutely maddening diversity that came with it made designing essentially any "fool proof" system impossible. And this was before you considered the superhuman aspects of a trained Aura user. However Atlesian engineers didn't see this as a reason to abandon such pursuits. No they saw it as a challenge, one to be attacked with their fullest capabilities and imagination.
Ironwood watched, trying to restrain his cackling as his screen exploded in a maelstrom of roaring, screams and violence as the myriad countermeasures went to work. Technicolor hell lashed out from all directions as Torchwick was treated to the sadistic best Atlas had to offer. Ironwood didn't manage to restrain a cruel snort when a rogue spasm in a heavily twitching and burned leg made contact with the computer control console triggering the second level of countermeasures and kicking off the whole process again, with twice the ingenious violence. The droids in the back though incapable of feeling nervous, did elevate the projected threat level of the only organic occupant of the bullhead as his cackling reached a new peak and transformed into full blow maniacal laughter.
Ironwood calmed down. Eventually. Enough to send another command to his ship to send droids to restrain the captured duo who had so arrogantly tried to take over his ship. With a satisfied sigh normally associate with finishing a fine meal or stretching out after a long day Ironwood snapped his scroll closed and smiled as he drove the armored nose of his craft straight through another flock of griffons crushing and maiming on his way past.
Honestly Ironwood thought to himself, how much stubborn bloodyminded arrogance does it take to think you can just walk into the bridge of the flagship of the most advanced nation on Remnant and plug in a new operating system. A nation that prided itself on its technological and computational excellence no less? Ironwood wiped away a single joy filled tear with his gloved hand as he brought his vessel into land, trigger finger already itching. Oum above he was going to enjoy this.