Outcasts and Outlaws
Volume 3, Chapter 26
The Leader of it All
Sorry for the delay. I had a hell of a time resetting my password coupled with the absolute worst writers block I've ever had. All that's sorted now though, so enjoy!
Opening Music: https/youtu.be/KSLG_oeD1yw [Attention Question- Tohka]
! Means a beat in the music
Music Starts
(Shows Daryl standing in Dust Valley, holding a gun. He raises his arm and points the gun whilst flashbacks of his team and his past appear behind him)
Music stops for about a split second then starts again
(Shows Connor standing in Dust Valley, looking at the ground with hair covering his eyes. He looks up as flashbacks of Team Kalos and the rest of his friends appear behind him)
(Connor runs at Daryl and aims a punch)
(Daryl fires his gun)
OUTCASTS AND OUTLAWS!
Are kore kakaekonde omoeba iranai mono made
(Shows Connor sitting with his head between his legs)
Umaku naru iiwake to myou
(Shows Ruby sitting inside of Connor's head with her legs drawn up to her chest)
na PURIADO!
(Shows Kalos sitting on top of the stone wall)
Jibun wo tana ni agete (Shows Jim, Yang, Kane, Irileth, Mars, and Stephane standing in Dust Valley, their hair and clothesflapping in the wind)
hito no koto aadakouda!
(Shows Murlough standing on the naval platform amongst the dead bodies of the generals)
Iu tsumori mo nai kedo!
(Zooms in on Murlough's face as he punches his hand and grins evilly)
Mukishitsuni
(Shows Daryl towards someone) Mawaru Tic and Tac!
(Shows Damien walking towards Daryl)
Ganbaru tte
(Connor and Kane approach Daryl from either side)
nandarou!
(Connor and Kane charge at Daryl) Attention! Question! Nantonaku nagasateru socchi no mizu wa (Shows Connor and Kane fighting Daryl with their semblances)
amai desuka!
(They hit Daryl's air current barrier with their golden light and black clouds)
YES/NO!
(Shows Isabella in tattered clothes with purple energy around her) YES/NO!
(Shows Mars with green energy around him)
Atari mimawashita totan ni!
(They shoot their energy blasts at each other)
Koko dake
(Connor goes into Dragon State and launches himself off a rock face)
toki ga tomaru
(He flies out and hits Daryl) COLOUR!
(Shows a massive light in Dust Valley)
(Shows Connor on the naval platform)
(Shows Murlough on the naval platform)
(Shows Murlough and Connor looking at each other from afar, Murlough with black clouds trailing from him, Connor with golden light trailing from one hand and black clouds trailing from the other) (They charge at each other)
END
Music: https/youtu.be/AbSUd9Kqp3w [Red Vs Blue OST- Terrify!]
Immediately upon entering the facility, the team of Kane, Connor, Jim and Damien were met with corridors full of soldiers in white armour. Reacting with hesitation, they moved quickly. Kane went left, slashing his scythes through the crowded corridors on his way to find a route to the reactor. Jim went straight forward, deciding to find a different way, cutting through enemy soldiers with his boomerang weapons and punching the ones that got too close. He noticed that his strength was lessened because the aura bank restricting his semblance, but he was still muscly enough on his on to knock someone out with one blow. Connor dashed to the left, Damien following him. Strangely, the soldiers went the other two ways and left them alone, but they didn't think on it. Instead they rushed to shut down the aura bank.
After a few minutes of running, Kane came into a large room full of military vehicles and weaponry, the soldiers surrounding him. He gave treated them with no remorse, expertly attacking them with his dual scythes as they charged him. They were no match for his prowess, he carried on thinning out the crowd until only a few remained. From across the room he spied a soldier climbing into a combat robot, one of the large, rocket equipped mechatronics they had faced a few times before, like the one Roman had used against them all that time ago at the docks.
Sticking his hand out in front of him, Kane tried to call upon his semblance, then cursed under his breath as he remembered it wouldn't work until Connor and Damien shut off the aura bank. Without his semblance to help him, even Kane would have trouble against a the mechanical opponent. He took the initiative however, jumping at the cockpit of the robot and hitting the window with his scythes, bouncing off ineffectively. As soon he landed the robot kicked out at him, forcing him to jump backwards to avoid it. As soon as he stopped, rockets were fired towards him from the robots shoulders and he skirted around the edge of the room to not get blown to bits.
Meanwhile, Jim was in a battle of his own. He threw one of his boomerangs forward, the blade sticking it the head of a soldier. As he pulled it out he fired a shot from it, taking out another enemy on it's way back to him. Feeling a presence behind him, he looked over his shoulder and saw one of the guards had snuck up behind him, a little closer than the rest. He struck first, elbowing backwards into the soldiers face. He then turned his body fully, swinging his bladed boomerangs around him as he went, taking out as many enemies as he could with one motion. When he had first fought alongside Connor, he had shown his abilities as a long range fighter and shortcomings as a close range fighter. Since then he's trained to be an expert at both.
Back in the other room, Kane was pinned to the wall by the robots fist, his scythes having been lost to him and his lack of a semblance not helping. He struggled to escape but failed, the robot aiming it's railgun directly towards his face.
At about the same time as all that was happening, Connor and Damien had reached the aura bank. Looking it over quickly in their haste, they saw it was a large glass tank full of aura being collected from those in the building to stop them from using their semblance. Acting on instinct rather that brains, Connor ripped a metal panel from the frame of the tank, revealing a mess of differently coloured wires. "What do you think Rubes? Punch it?" He asked Ruby, waiting for her to answer from his mind.
"Punch it." The amusing answer came, and Connor obeyed, thrusting his fist into the mangled electronics. They sparked slightly, stinging his hand as he removed it, but the tank then began to shut down, it's glow fading and the collected aura escaping.
At the same time, the others felt their power flowing back into them. Jim punched the ground with his metal fist, creating a shockwave forceful enough to knock down all the soldiers around him. Kane summoned up his dark clouds, surrounding the robot with them and ripping it to pieces before picking up his scythes and moving on.
[Stop Music]
"Come on, next step's the main reactor." Damien ordered Connor, both of them leaving the failing aura bank behind and rushing back into the corridors. After running for a while though, they came across a bit of a hitch, the reason they had come so far to this facility appeared before them.
Music: http/youtu.be/yUChBbTZIK0 [Red Vs Blue OST- Twins]
As Connor ran into the next room, a small one with couches along the walls like it was a waiting room of some sort, gunshots were fired at him. Panicking at the sudden gunfire, he ran back and hid behind the wall for a few seconds, poking his head out to see who was shooting at him. His eyes widened and his anger grew as he instantly recognised who it was pointing the gun at him, standing in a military uniform covered by a long brown coat with his beard trailing down his face, it was Daryl. "You!" Connor exclaimed, recklessly jumping out from behind cover and running at the leader of the Enforcers.
Ducking under another bullet, he threw a punch at the man without another word, his head moving out of way in a slick dodge. He angrily delivered a kick to Daryl's side next, only to be blocked by his arm. Daryl quickly lined up the shot and fired another bullet from his pistol, Connor only just being able to avoid being shot. Rushing forward, he then head butted Daryl, pushing him back ever so slightly as he put his hand to the spot on his forehead where he had been hit. He then grabbed the hilt of the sword at his belt, an expensive looking military grade one, and slashed it out towards Connor with the hand of an expert swordsman.
Just before it hit Connor's head, the distinct sound of gunshots were heard behind them. Connor took advantage of Daryl's confusing to back away from the blade, seeing Damien walking into the room with his flintlock pistol and katanas combo weapons in his hands, pointing them straight at Daryl. "Brother..." Daryl growled at his younger sibling, his voice just as gravelly as Connor remembered it from the video. "You dare destroy my facility?"
"Connor, you go on alone, I can hold him off." Damien said, keeping his eyes on Daryl but ignoring what he was saying.
"Listen to me when I'm talking to you, little brother!" Daryl snapped, visibly angry about being completely ignored.
"You sure you can take him?" Connor replied to Damien, suddenly finding himself caring for the former criminals well being.
"He's strong, I'll give him that, stronger than I've ever been." Damien admitted, scowling at his brother whilst getting scowled at right back. "Even if we all took him on it'd be a tough fight, but I'll do my best to delay him so you can get to the reactor."
Having Damien's assurance that he would be all right, Connor darted out of the room as quick as he could. He expected Daryl to chase after him, but to his surprise he just stood there, scowling his his younger brother Damien. Just as Connor left the room the two lunged at each other, their swords clashing.
Connor ran through the facility as fast as he could to reach the reactor after that, sprinting with all his might. The halls were empty, no soldiers to be seen, assumedly still fighting the others. He understood now why none of the guards had gone after him and Damien, Daryl had wanted them to himself.
After running for a little while he came to a set of doors marked with a radiation warning, or at least what had been left of them. Both doors had been smashed off their hinges and were laying on the floor of the room. Ignoring that for the time being, Connor ran in and found the reactor, an enormous tank full of green fuel that swirled around as it was processed into energy. Standing in front of the reactor was Jim, having gotten there early and presumedly smashed through the doors.
"Hey." Jim greeted somewhat nervously as he saw Connor enter the room and run over to him, the whirring of the reactor almost drowning him out. "I have no idea how to work this thing."
Looking around the main console, Connor saw a panel that was rapidly opening and closing, a button in a small compartment behind it. "That's the button Damien told us about, it overloads the nuclear core or something!" Connor pointed out, Jim nodding in agreement.
"All right, I'll take care of it!" Jim yelled over the growing noise. "Just watch my back!"
Connor did as his teammate said, turning around to face the door and watch for any guards or, in the worst case scenario, Daryl. In that moment, he started thinking about how long they'd have before the reactor exploded. Damien had left that detail out, he hopes they could get out fast enough.
"Connor?" He then heard Jim call from behind him in a nervous and shaky voice as the whirring of the reactor died down, a sign that it had begun it's shutdown sequence. Connor turned around to see what Jim wanted, shocked speechless as he saw the situation his friend had gotten himself into. "I'm stuck."
Jim was well and truly stuck, when he had pressed the button, the panel had clamped shut immediately. Even though he's managed to start the detonation, his metal arm was now trapped in the reactor console. Connor immediately panicked, rushing over and pulling on the arm, to no avail. As he did so, red lights started to blink on the reactor and throughout the room, bombs. They realised the explosion wasn't going to be caused by an overload, but an emergency self destruct system, probably in case of enemies taking control of the base.
"Leave me, you need to save yourself, before it explodes." Jim told Connor, looking right into his eyes with a very serious look on his face. "Leave me."
"I can't!" Connor yelled back, furious his friend would suggest such a thing. "I can't just leave you here, you'll be killed."
"I don't see any way I'm getting out." Jim replied, trying and failing to tug his metal arm out of the panel that had clamped around it. "You can at least save yourself and the others."
"Jim..." Connor weakly mumbled, feeling tears swell up in his eyes at the thought of leaving him there. He didn't want to let his friend die but he knew what he was saying was right. There wasn't a way they get his arm out of the trap and there wasn't any point in him dying too.
"Just go." He said one more time, feeling just as affected by it at Connor was. "Tell Yang I love her."
Connor still hesitated for a moment, unsure if he could tear himself away and know he let Jim die, but he knew the choice was clear. As the tears grew stronger, he held out his fist for Jim. He smiled slightly and bumped it with his own fist, a manly goodbye. After that, Connor bolted from the room, dashing out through the corridor and regrettably leaving Jim to his doom.
A few minutes later he came running out of the main doors of the facility, going so fast he almost tripped over. He immediately saw the Kane had made it out before him and was already with the others who had been waiting outside in case reinforcements arrived. Connor ran over to them as fast as he could whilst exhausted from running quite far already, seeing Yang rushing over to meet him in the middle.
"Where's Jim?" Yang asked immediately upon reaching Connor, obviously concerned for his safety.
"Yang..." Connor mumbled, unsure what to tell her. He expected she's probably be heart broken to hear he was stuck in a building about to blow up, but he was also worries she'd punch him harder than ever before. "He said he loves you."
Yang stared at him with desperation and confusing in her eyes upon hearing that, but she didn't have time to ask. The explosion happened before she could, tearing apart the entirety of the building and sending chunks of debris flying into the ocean as the platform itself shook, leaving nothing behind but a pile of rubble.
Ending Music: http/youtu.be/YRLW-llroVw [Fuyugyaku Replace]
! Means a beat in the music
Wake in loneliness! Loneliness!
(Shows Connor standing on the naval platform)
Falling inside your story!
(Shows Murlough standing opposite him)
Walking after you! After you! (Zooms in Connor's face)
I will share my time!
(Shows naval platform)
(Shows Connor in Dragon State) OUTCASTS AND OUTLAWS Maykoinda sekai de!
(Shows young Connor in front of his parents bodies)
Boku no kage to kasanatte
(Shows Murlough in Connor's hometown)
Ima! I can't go back!
(Shows Connor losing control of the dark clouds in his hometown) Ketteiteki no boku shoumei wa! (Shows Connor in his original outfit) Jidai wo ima koete monogataru! (Shows Ruby reach out in front of her)
I will be the brand new age!
(Shows Team Kalos and Allies) Yeah! From this day!
(Shows young Connor and Murlough walking)
I will save myself!
(Shows Connor with Kane's shadow behind him)
And the time is now!
(Connor opens his eyes, one is black, one is gold)
Kill my weakness!
(Shows Connor in his original outfit running towards volume 2 Murlough)
Weakness!
(They change to their volume 3 versions)
Kanarazu koete naite satte!
(Shows a flashback of the Murlough VS Connor fight from volume 2)
And I stay alive!
(Their semblances hit each other) Alive!
(Shows the naval base in a fiery explosion)
Saigo wo shinjitaku wa nakute! (Shows Connor's village being destroyed by black clouds)
Kill my weakness! Weakness! (Shows Murlough summoning dark clouds all around him)
Itsuka kidsuita to shita mo!
(Shows Connor going into Dragon State)
I will prove myself that I have lived today!
(Shows Connor and Murlough fighting in their most powerful states)
Starting now!
(They both hit each other's fists and let off their semblances)
END
