Staring up at the creature, in awe of it's pure size, the four soldiers felt the unfamiliar ice cold hands of fear grip their hearts, momentarily paralyzing them. A loud roar from the creature jerked the Jaxon back out of his daze. Quickly taking charge, he decided that the creature needed to be brought down. And fast.
"Open fire!" That got the rest of the soldiers moving, and the noise from their guns could be heard throughout the forest. What they didn't take into account, however, was that this wolf's hide and mask were considerably tougher than the other wolves they had fought. Their bullets still punched through the hide, but they stopped after going about an inch in. The wolf just stood there, taking it, looking for an opening.
Eric was the first one who had to stop and reload, and the wolf saw this and took advantage of it, leaping at Eric with startling speed, jaws prepared to snap him up in one bite. With his fingers fumbling with a mag stuck in his belt, Eric was unaware that he was just seconds away from death.
But, in it's haste, the wolf disregarded the other three peppering it with bullets, and as a result was unprepared for the infamously powerful MAX charge that Kade used, which sent it sprawling off to the group's right. Staring wide eyed at where at the space that the wolf had occupied seconds ago, Eric couldn't believe that he hadn't seen the wolf and had nearly been it's late-night snack.
Kade stood facing the wolf and unloaded his three barreled machine gun into the wolf's stomach, hoping that the hide was weaker there. And it was, but the wolf still fought on, dragging itself up, blood pouring from its wounds.
And then Kade punched it. The wolf was sent flying back farther, before it was stopped by slamming into a rather large oak tree nearby. Jaxon shook his head in amazement, even after fighting with and against them for so long, the strength of MAXs still left him wowed.
The group surrounded the wolf in a semicircle, wondering if it was dead. Seeing it wasn't as it's flank still rose and fell, the group readied their weapons, waiting for it to leap up and attack them. But it didn't. The wolf just laid there, chest heaving, blood leaking from it's numerous wounds.
"Maybe it's unconscious?"
"Possibly, or it could just be playing dead, waiting for us to leave so it can ambush us from behind" Was Oberon's answer to Kade's suggestion
"Well either way, it's still alive and I think we can all agree that this thing needs to be put down" The group agreed with Jaxon's proposal, but Eric, having recovered from his shock of nearly dying, pointed out a problem.
"That's true but… how do we kill it? You've seen for yourselves that bullets hardly hurt this animal"
"I wouldn't say hardly, I mean, Kade's minigun got some good hits on it's stomach" Oberon said, gesturing to the bullet holes leaking blood that covered it's stomach. Jaxon, meanwhile, had been staring at the creature, pondering how to kill. Suddenly, an idea struck him.
"Hey Oberon, could you hold it's mouth open for me?" The group turned looked at Jaxon, no doubt wondering what the hell he was thinking.
"Yeah, um okay, uh first, let me ask you something. Why?" In response, Jaxon spoke in a rather nonchalant tone.
"Well, I was thinking of putting a frag grenade down it's throat" After staring at him for a couple seconds, Oberon chuckled and nodded in agreement. As the two walked over, Eric and Kade start shuffling backwards, away from the beast.
The brothers approached the giant wolf carefully, eyeing it for any sort of movement or twitch. Once, the creature's nose twitched, and the two jumped back almost two feet, weapons trained on the beast. When no other movements followed it, the two relaxed, and released breaths they hadn't realised they were holding.
As soon as they reached the creature's head, Oberon went and grabbed it's jaw and pulled it back far enough so that Jaxon could get his arm in it's mouth. It's breath stank so much that Jaxon had to cover his nose. Taking a grenade that had been clipped to the side of his waist, Jaxon carefully placed it in the back of the creature's mouth, pressed the detonation button, and ran like hell, with Oberon a couple yards behind him.
Reaching Kade and Eric, who were now a good 20 yards away from the beast, the panting siblings turned around just in time to see the wolf's head and neck explode in a rain of blood, flesh and shrapnel. If there was one thing all the soldiers on Auraxis shared, something that joined them all together regardless of their factions. Terran Republic, New Conglomerate, Vanu Sovereignty, it doesn't matter. The one thing they all shared was a love of explosions.
This lead to eerily similar, slightly psychotic grins adorning the faces of the four soldiers as they watched with great pleasure while the wolf's head exploded, raining flesh and blood on them. Jaxon was the only one who tried wipe the blood off, as it was rather difficult to be invisible when blood spatters don't cloak with the rest of your weapons and suit.
"That was awesome"
Nodding at Oberon's comment, the other three now turned their attention to the impossibly high cliffs bathed in the glow of the rising morning sun.
"How is it that we ran nearly half a mile to get here, and not once did we think about how we were actually going to get up these goddamn cliffs?!" The momentary silence was punctured by Kade's outburst.
"I don't suppose you could jetpack up the cliff, Eric?"
Shaking his head in response to Jaxon's question, Eric replied, "No, my Jetpack's charge doesn't last that long, I wouldn't even get halfway up"
"Yeah, and what about Kade? His MAX suit wasn't exactly made for climbing"
Kade was rather surprised that the Terran Republic Heavy Assault would think of him. After all, the New Conglomerate and Terran Republic were mortal enemies and he and Oberon had only known each other for a couple hours.
"True. There are enough ledges and hand holds that we could climb up the cliff relatively safely, but I don't think it could handle the weight Kade's MAX suit"
"I can collapse it" This silenced the three as they looked at Kade like he had grown a second head. Well, except for Eric, who was facepalming at his own stupidity and forgetfulness.
"I can't believe I forgot about that! I'm such an idiot" The two brothers looked at Eric due to his outburst. Then at Kade. Then back at Eric. It was Jaxon who asked the big question that was hanging in the air.
"Um… what?"
"I'm not surprised you haven't heard, we've kept the testing hidden, and only deployed it the day before we crashed here" Jaxon and Oberon looking at him, even more confused than before. Eric then told them exactly what he meant.
"We just finished modifying our MAX suits so that they collapse into greaves, gauntlets, a chestplate, and the helmet. That way, we could deploy them quicker, and allow them to escape combat faster so they didn't rebirth too soon"
"Well… that's cool and all, but can Kade collapse his?"
"Of course I can, I'm on of the best MAXs on Esamir, they'd have to be crazy not to let me have the first go at it, just gimme a sec" With three pairs of eyes watching him, Kade seemed to stand very still for a moment, before a great whirring of gears and other machinery was heard as the thick armor plating Kade possessed seemed to be… moving. They watched in awe as the armor covering his shoulders to the bottom of his upper arm retracted, going down and stopping at the beginning of his lower arm, giving him a nice set of blue gauntlets with yellow highlights, the thick armor on his hands remaining where it was.
The same happened to his leg armor, adorning Kade with similarly color greaves that stopped just before reaching his knees. His chest armor remained much the same, with slight retractions where his limbs jutted out and a generally shrinking of the armor, it was colored just the same and Kade seemed to be lighter than before.
The helmet stayed where it was on his head, orange visor glaring at the trio. His tri-barreled machine gun at collapsed into an assault rifle just like Eric's, while the cannon on Kade's right arm collapsed into a rocket launcher just like Oberon's with the exception of the blue and yellow that now covered it.
The transformation also brought Kade's height down to 6'5, although it still taller than his actual height, was no doubt due to the over sized and over armored boots that he wore of his feet. After he finished changing into the his less armored MAX form, Kade took one look at the trio… and promptly burst out laughing.
"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh my god you guys should see your faces! AHAHAHAHAHA" Wondering what exactly had sent his best friend into his laughing fit, Eric looked at the other two members of their little group… then joined his friend in a laughing fit. For the two TR brothers were currently slouched over, undoubtedly staring slack jawed and wide eyed at the transformed Kade.
After a couple seconds the two shook themselves out of their daze and glowered at the other two who were currently rolling on the floor, hands holding their guts. Taking almost a minute before they regained control of themselves, the NC soldiers pushed themselves up off the forest floor, still chuckling.
"Well now that Kade can, in fact, climb the cliffs we should get going" Nodding in assent, the NC soldiers decided to ignore Jaxon's blatantly obvious subject change. The quartet made their way to the bottom the cliff, found the nearest hand or foot hold, and began the long ascent to the top. About 15 minutes after beginning their climb, Jaxon pulled himself up to the top of the cliff, arms feeling a little worse for wear. Looking up at the sky Jaxon estimated that it was around 6 O'clock in the morning, given that the sun was almost out from behind the mountains. Ignoring the self asked question as to how he missed this, Jaxon decided to check his friend's progress.
Looking down, Jaxon saw that Eric was nearing the top, he'd reach it a couple minutes. Oberon wasn't that far behind him, and Kade was just as close thanks to his MAX suit's strength. Just as Jaxon was about to call out to them, he heard a even toned voice coming from behind him.
"Hello there" Whipping around, fast as lighting, Jaxon yanked his pistol out of it's holster and pointed it at the new arrival, laser sight immediately centering on the man's heart. Taking in his appearance, Jaxon was a bit… puzzled to say the least. The person who stood before him wore a strange fashion of clothing that Jaxon had never seen before. Further more, he seemed completely at ease, like encountering futuristic soldiers from a different dimension was completely normal.
The person who stood before him was a middle-aged man untidy gray hair, pale skin, and brown eyes, along with spectacles that sat low on his nose. A green scarf wrapped around the man's neck several times, and a small, purple, cross shaped emblem was pinned to it. He wore an unzipped black suit over a dark green, buttoned, vest. He had a green shirt under these two articles of clothing.
On his legs were dark green, long, pants and trouser shoes. The man held a cane dark grey cane with a gold handle, featuring an emerald seemed to be embedded where the body of the cane met the handle. Despite this, there was no noticeable limp in his leg in his leg when he took a couple more steps towards Jaxon before stopping, and speaking once more in that same calm, even toned voice, ignoring the fact that there was a laser sight centered directly on his heart.
"My name is Ozpin, and who, may I ask, are you?"