The roaring low knock of the engine, for a moment, distracted Ruby more than anything else. The way the whole bike vibrated did not help either. She doesn't feel uncomfortable, but the sensation of sitting on Jaune's unique bike certainly a whole new one for her.
"Really loud, and strange, I like it." Ruby said as her short, yet solidly built arm curl around Jaune's stomach. "What kind of engine is that?"
"Really? I got myself a ticket because it violated the vehicle noise and emission regulation. Had to buy new muffler and filter as soon as I came here." Jaune laughed, "It's called Diesel, the obese old men of automotive engine. They yell and kick hard at low throttle, but as soon as you speed up they cry like babies. I don't know if I'm fast enough to catch up with them."
"We wouldn't know unless you try." Ruby assured him.
Jaune chuckled as he pulled the throttle and switched the gear. The bike lurched forward with immense acceleration, and yet, its front wheel never left the ground like any other bike would. Ruby was extremely surprised, and thrilled with the new discovery.
"We'll catch up with them in no time, Jaune." Ruby yelled as she pulled her Carbine and aim, Jaune balked and scolded her, "Ruby! You're going to fall!"
"Oh I got this! Just keep the bike steady okay?" Ruby yelled carelessly.
"You're much more daring than you appear." Jaune grumbled and then revved his bike even harder.
By the time Jaune reached full speed, he recognized there are several police bike and at least one armored car in the pursuit of White Fang, however, they seems to be wary of necessary aggression, and keep their distance from the swarm of White Fang vehicles.
The terrorist group expected pursuer, but they certainly didn't expect this one. As the dark green diesel bike howled and rattled like an angry mechanical bull, they began to shoot at its direction in panic. The front side of Jaune's bike handily deflects the smaller bullets, but Jaune knew well they won't last as he gritted his teeth and brace.
And when he saw these masked jerks stood on top of the pickup truck, aiming what looks like shoulder carried launchers; he knew he had to get out of their line of sight.
"Lean left!" Jaune said and Ruby followed his action, and the road exploded as a rocket launched from White Fang's cars hits the road surface, throwing chunks of concrete everywhere.
"You okay?" Jaune asked, his aura managed to protect him from stray shrapnel that dent most of his bike's body. "This is perfect!" Ruby grinned and fired. Fifty caliber explosive bullets split the air in fraction of seconds and slam right into one of motorcycle's battery; cascading damage triggered the dust stored within compartment and detonated it. Intense painful scream briefly followed as the White Fang members on top of said bike engulfed by high voltage plasma cloud.
"...aren't you a little bit vicious?" Jaune said as he guide his bike around and then made it jumped off a ramp, high enough that the White Fang no longer able to aim his position. Ruby cocked the bolt of her carbine and destroyed another bike with flawless precision shot before the gravity began to take over and pulled the bike down, back to the road.
"Its okay, their aura should hold." Ruby smiled serenely, in contrast to the carnage she just inflicted, it was kind of frightening for Jaune, but maybe he's really the odd one out. He never liked fighting people after all.
Ruby's bullets however failed to pierce the body of the pickup car in front of her; instead, the explosion from the bullet took chunks of its body part. None of her shot penetrated, at all. It does however, prevented White Fang from launching another rocket salvo, which is good.
"...I don't have AP bullets with me." Ruby sighed.
"Well, let's see if you like mine." Jaune let the throttle sit on it's position while his right arm pulled and unfolded his recoiless rifle. He locked the handlebar with almost suicidal confidence and then, with both free hands, loaded the recoiless rifle and put it on his shoulder. "You got them on sight?"
"I got them!" Ruby charged her aura into the huge caliber rifle and flinched, she didn't expect it would take much more aura than her carbine did. "Clear back! Shoot!" Jaune signaled, and Ruby pulled the trigger. Deafening blast erupted behind the rifle while twenty millimeter armor piercing incendiary rounds tore through the car's body like paper and blew fist sized burning hole on it.
"Whoops, I didn't hit the engine." Ruby squeaked.
The car slowed down to a crawl as Ruby still managed to hit something important on accident, judging from how the engine still working, Jaune bet it's the gearbox. Four white Fang members jumped off the car and tried to escape, and with the way Atlas infrastructure works, it wouldn't take much for them to accomplish. The inner city is so densely packed that aircraft would have a hard time maneuvering around skyscrapers, one more problem for Atlesian police.
However, black light circle appeared under their feet and somehow pulled them to the ground, crushing them with invisible force.
"What was that?" Ruby wondered.
"I don't know, but we should keep going." Jaune shrugged.
This moment gave the police time to catch up, and Jaune continued his pursuit.
It would be a lie if he said he didn't wonder about it too. But before he could finish his train of thoughts, something else came. High speed wind bolts flew over their head and smashed yet another bike into pieces without triggering an explosion, the destruction of the bike left the rider and passenger tumbling around on the road before knocked unconscious. High pitched whine of a horse echoed before something white and big landed nearby, and still running. The mysterious mist that covered it it made it had to discern, but it DOES resemble some kind of four legged animal.
"A horse?!" Ruby blinked.
Rapid sounds of galloping horse reverberated on the road as the mist began to dissipate, and indeed, it was a horse.
A mechanical horse.
Sitting on the back of the horse was silver-haired girl in snow white longcoat, twelve pointed snowflake emblem emblazoned her narrow back with pride. Her right hand holding the reins while her left hand wield a long rapier-no, a cavalry blade with revolving dust canister.
However, more than the fact that there's a girl on a mechanical horse, Ruby is more interested with the fact that the relatively small horse can keep up... no, it's faster than the bike she and Jaune ride on.
"FAST!"
The silver haired girl shouted and her horse responded in kind, jumped over as another rocket was launched at their direction. "Why were you daydreaming there?! Shoot them!" She said as her robot horse touch the ground again.
"Well I know about that." Jaune grumbled and cocked the bolt, a small bottle sized empty shell came out and he loaded fresh one. Ruby fired her carbine twice and blew the tires of a truck, slowing it down. This gave Jaune the opening as he pointed his rifle sideways and fired.
The cannon shell cored through the side of the truck, right to the engine. Small explosions were triggered and the truck began to lose its torque.
However, Whiter Fang members refused to give up as they keep firing their weapon toward the direction of Jaune and the girl with robot horse.
Ruby dashed into a red blur and left rose petals in her wake. In the blink of an eye, she's already standing on the truck's roof, and she faced at least half a dozen masked assailants alone.
"RUBY! WHAT THE HELL!"
"Don't worry about me!" Ruby said as she spun her carbine, which unfold and extend itself into longer rifle with curved bayonet... no, not a bayonet. A war scythe head, right near the muzzle brake. The total length is longer than Jaune is tall, making the size difference almost ridiculous. Jaune knows the carbine was huge and heavy as soon as she sat on the backseat, now he knows WHY.
The truck's boxy rear compartment split open much to Ruby's surprise; she jumped and landed to be greeted by almost a dozen people dressed in White Fang uniform.
And half of them began to aim at Jaune's direction.
"OH SNAP!"
Jaune hits the front brake hard and spun his bike in place to avoid the subsequent barrage of gunfire, and took the chance to reload shortly before throttled his bike again to catch up.
What he saw next was amazing.
With speed he never seen before, Ruby sliced and diced through the mass of White Fang group and disable them with the blunt side of her scythe. Her silver eyes gleamed with confidence as she slipped through hail of bullets and smack aside the white fang members away from the truck, and they dropped with resounding thuds on the road.
All in the time span of half a minute.
"How was that?" Ruby twirled her scythe and then posed with pride.
"CAREFUL!"
What Ruby didn't see was a massive arm swung and smashed her with thousand pounds of force; her tiny body flew aside with velocity that would splatter lesser beings on the pavement. Jaune reached for her hands but failed, his heart stopped for a moment as he saw Ruby's figure passed through the highway barrier-
Green aftereffects draw the night road with colorful lights, a girl with jet-propelled backpack caught Ruby before she fell down.
And then Jaune finally recognize her. "GOOD JOB PENNY!"
"Be careful, Jaune. The machine is possessed." Penny warned as she put the unhinged Ruby on the backseat again. "I'll try to fight it."
The machine stood at least four or five meters tall, shaped like a knight, it's platinum white plating gleamed under the road lights. And yet, Jaune can only feel a sense of terror from it's very presence.
It's a familiar presence indeed. The presence of a Grimm...
The girl on the horse pointed, "HOW COULD BE THAT THING IS HERE?!"
"Brrrrah... Huh, you know?" Ruby shook her head and regained her consciousness. Then she opened her scroll. "Whoa, my Aura took a solid hit."
"SDC property." The girl growled, "Don't be fooled, it's old, but it's stronger than average Hunter academy student. It's an automated killing machine of highest quality, and the Grimm inside it grants it three times as much output as normally."
"How we can stop THAT?!" Jaune pointed quite logically.
"If it's just me... I wouldn't be able to win." The girl smirked arrogantly, "But there are four of us."
"OH GOD MY BABY ISN'T HERE!" Ruby shrieked as she found her weapon missing, "WHERE IT IS! PICK IT UP PLEASE!"
"Can you use a bike, Ruby?"
Ruby nodded furiously as she shook Jaune's shoulders in tears, "Yes, yes I can, just pick my baby first, please!"
"Well, feel free to do just that."
Jaune locked the handle again and jumped across, landed on the back of the truck with firm resolution. Even though his legs rattled in terror, his face showed nothing of such. Ruby unlocked the handle and took over the bike, and made a one hundred eighty turn to retrieve her fallen scythe.
[SHINE IN MEDIOCRITY]
The Story of Atlas Hunter Academy
By
ZeroXSEED
Chapter 03 - Courage and Fear
The Knight grabbed what looks like a massive cannon-blade hybrid, with two straight edge and thirty millimeter cannon in the center. Even against aura user, such level of firepower could be dangerous. Furthermore, Jaune could see at least two pair of micro missile launchers on its shoulders.
The girl on the horse jumped and stood aside Jaune, seemingly undisturbed. More than anything else though, she looked at the possessed machine with utter disgust and contempt.
"Looks like it got a couple of new toys." The girl widened her stance and raised her cavalry blade, its revolving chamber slowly rotate and then locked in position as electricity crackled through the surface of its blade. "It'll be even harder fight than expected."
The Knight raised its missile pods and delivered a salvo of quadruple missiles toward Penny. Penny stopped midair and made a dive toward the road before she made a sharp recovery. Even so, only one of the missiles failed to follow and explode as it made contact with the road surface.
Three missiles that survived the hard turn chased Penny despite her tremendous flight speed.
Penny pulled a pair of swords and bent their handle, revealed gun barrels hidden on the flat, blunt edge. With pinpoint accuracy, she shot down the missiles with a single beam.
However she failed to see four more missiles and only managed to intercept two more. Two missiles struck her dead on, burning the cloth of her sleeves and Penny's smoking body fell with a clatter.
"PENNY!" Jaune screamed in rage, before switching his attention to the murderous machine, "YOU BASTARD!"
"She'll survive, but we need to take this monster down before anyone else got hurt." The girl hissed.
The knight raised its blade cannon and fired, but Jaune already anticipated and fired his own fully charged recoiless Rifle. Armor piercing round from his weapon tore through the larger shell with only slight change of trajectory and hit the left shoulder of the knight, detonated one pair of the missile pods and took the left arm with it.
The girl slide with elegance and ferocity that almost equals that of what Ruby displayed before, her excess aura formed a trail of white and yellow as her electrically charged blade struck the machine's joints dead on, and it fell on its knees.
The knight swung its massive blade but the girl simply jumped and stood on the blade without care before sliding down the blade and slashed the knight with high voltage strike in the effort to stun it.
However, the girl didn't see a head-sized metal fist aimed toward her head.
She clenched her eyes in anticipation and raised her weapon trying to block, but the fist never made contact.
Instead, Jaune crossed his gauntlet and took the full force of the punch, the whole truck shook from the released momentum but Jaune stood there unmoving. The knight came down with its blade, but again, Jaune held his ground and caught it, despite the truck's chassis already bent from the second impact.
The knight tried to pull its blade, but June held into it like his life depended on it. Cold sweat fell down his chin, and yet, he's grinning. His fingers gripped the blade tightly, and his aura flared to prevent injury.
The girl already flew behind the giant knight and came down at a quarter of speed of sounds, her kinetic energy concentrated on the tip of her cavalry blade, already reinforced by aura to increase durability and penetration power.
"Checkmate." Jaune whispered.
The thin, rigid blade of the weapon pierced through the back of the knight, and the possessed machine was burnt from inside from the unleashed torrent of fire. Black smoke bleeds form the gaps of its joints and the leftover husk fell down without grace.
Jaune took a deep breath and sat on the floor, his aura flickered as it's on the verge of running out.
"That was careless of you!" The girl shouted, "The punch from that knight caused this if you must know!" The girl pointed the small but ugly scar that covered the area around her left eyes.
"It's okay; people always said I have a lot of Aura." Jaune laughed between gasp, his breath has yet to recover. "But we need to stop this truck."
"Leave it to me!"
The girl grit her teeth and stabbed the engine compartment, before she unleashed full power of light blue dust and encase the whole truck in thick layer of ice. She grabbed Jaune's weakened body and jumped. She and Jaune managed to land on the back of her mechanical horse.
"It's going to fall!" Jaune shouted. "There are civilians down there!"
"We must stop it!"
The roar of the diesel engine marked Ruby's magnanimous return, Penny on the backseat. And yet, her frightened expression betrayed her. "WHOAAAA!"
The truck fell on its side, slowing down thanks to the friction of the road. However, the distance was too great for it to stop on its own, and had it not stopped, it would break through the highway and possibly fell on the traffic underneath.
Penny jumped again, this time around; she landed on the road with arms outstretched. The loud crash that happen made Ruby wince, but the truck slowed down quickly.
Their feet dug to the highway as the momentum from the truck transferred through their legs. However, the truck's frozen body that made contact with her hands began to cave in from the sheer force involved, and then, dropped with a road-busting thud.
With a loud skid, Ruby stopped Jaune's bike near Penny. Ruby dropped down and panted loudly, clearly shaken by the experience.
The white haired girl scolded Penny as she jumped off her horse, "You could be hurt!"
"It's better than letting the truck fall." Penny monotonously answered and nudged her head toward the traffic underneath.
Jaune shook his head in exasperation and turned to Ruby and Penny. "You two okay?"
"I'm okay; just... give me a minute." Ruby waved weakly, her legs still shaky. "I'm unhurt." Penny said... while hiding her hands suspiciously, and then hiccuped.
Jaune of course noticed it. "Penny, your hand."
"I'm okay-HIC!" Penny hiccuped again.
"Penny, we're friends, friends don't keep minor secrets like being hurt in action." Jaune stressed and grabbed her wrist, "Show me."
Penny looked left and right, clearly worried. Thankfully the white haired girl seems preoccupied with the girl in red, and penny felt safe enough to show it. Gleaming dark metal surface on her palms were exposed, as the fake skin above it were torn. Jaune's eyes widened in shock, no wonder Penny hides it. He gulped in terror as he slowly let her hand go.
Moreover, his action probably hurt Penny more than her own wound. Even though Penny's eyes always look lifeless, he could see the disappointment reflected from her expression.
"I'm sorry, Jaune, I'm not actually-"
"It's alright." Jaune told her and handed her his pair of wool gloves, "We all have secrets we don't want to share, I'm sorry I forced you to show it. It must be embarrassing."
"...Pardon? But wouldn't you need these?" Penny looked at these gloves with curious expression. "It's like Sir Ironwood right? I mean, prosthetic. I mean, I've seen some of my friends wear one too, but I'm still kind of shocked." Jaune cut her off again, "They're kinda worn out and dirty, but for now it should suffice."
Penny opened her mouth to correct his one-sided conclusion, but then the spider-bot crawled from her backpack and beeped.
"...Okay father." Penny sighed, and then, sent a clearly forced smile at him. "And you… thank you, Jaune, my friend."
Penny looked down to notice something fell from Jaune's coat pockets when he pulled his gloves out of it. "Jaune." She said as she pointed at it.
"Ah, my scarf."
Jaune picked up the object and let it hang on his grip. It was old, and certainly show, with how badly worn the fabric is. Its dark blue dye almost washed out replaced by ugly white color of an old cotton. Even now, he's held to it and brought it everywhere as some sort of charm.
"Only half?" Ruby asked, "Was it torn off or cut on purpose?"
Indeed, the scarf was neatly cut in half in the middle.
"It was a silly story." Jaune chuckled. But before he can say further, the other girl hurriedly joined them. For unknown reason she pulled the half-scarf from Jaune's hands. Much to his protest, "Hey!"
"You..." the silver haired girl muttered, "You still have it?"
"Of course I did- wait, what is the problem?" Jaune asked, somewhat concerned and somewhat bothered. "Can I have it back? It's really important to me."
The silver hair laughed a little as she pulled something out of her own pocket. An identical half-scarf, though it's less worn out, its color was as pale and as unsightly. The silver haired girl handed back the one Jaune owned. "You still remember about me?" The girl said bitter, "Because I didn't remember you."
"No I didn't, this is really awkward." Jaune scratched his head as he eyed the scarf in her hand.
"Well I don't know about your romantic reunion or whatever but I think we're having some guest to greet over there." Ruby winced and presented the rows upon rows of Atlesian Police, with Ironwood leading in the front. And they neither look pleased nor congratulating.
"...We're screwed huh." Jaune whined.
"Oops." Penny covered her mouth with her gloved hands.
つづく