With the closure of their last class on Friday, Jango had taken the initiative in their pursuit of Torchwick. His team had followed suit, meeting him in their dorm room with all their combat equipment already on their persons. Wordlessly, Jango pulled out a map of Vale, laying it out across his desk while his team crowded around to see what he was marking, and get a general read of the plan.
"Our quarry is somewhere within this grid square, at Vale's Eastern Docks. We know that he operates at either day or night, making it somewhat difficult to pin down a proper time for pursuit." He used a red marker to highlight the grid square they'd be operating within, before pulling out a green marker and marking an X just outside the grid. "Ruby, there's a large crane used for offloading cargo from ships here. It should give you an unobstructed sight line of most of the grid. Climb to the top and wait for the operation to begin, you'll be providing sniper support."
"What will Yaeger and I be doing, Boss?" Nero questioned, looking him in the visor before following his finger down towards the map, where he marked an X on the opposite side of the grid with a yellow marker.
"Yaeger will post up on this other crane, act as containment. If our prey tries to run, he'll have a clear view on all Ruby's blind spots. Nero, I'll need you to go below, patrol the sewers beneath the grid. If they try to go underground, you'll be there to intercept them. I'll handle the initial pursuit since I'm the most experienced." He explained briefly, before stepping back and crossing his arms. All three nodded as they understood their roles, taking a step back and looking over all their gear. After about a minute, all of JRNY reported ready to their lead, and following Jango's lead, all left the dormitories, and made for the Slave 1...
They all seemed amazed by his ship and how well he flew it, with Ruby remarking that he may well be the best pooled she's ever seen. It was only natural, given being able to fight with a star ship was just as important as being able to fight on the ground in his line of work. Nevertheless, after attaching his Amban Phase-Pulse Disruptor rifle to his back via its sling, just beside his jetpack, Jango, Ruby, Nero and Yaeger all set off for their respective positions. They were waiting for midnight to roll around before they'd begin in earnest, but it only took about ten minutes for everyone to get in position.
"Jango Fett here, all parties give me a sit-rep." He ordered into his closed communications within his helmet as the clock struck midnight. He was already within the grid square, pressed up against a wall in the shadows to avoid premature detection.
"Ruby here, I've confirmed your position Jango. I'm ready to provide long range support." Ruby replied first, drawing a thumbs-up from the veteran bounty hunter.
"This is Nero, I'm under the grid now, beginning my patrol." He simply nodded in affirmation to Nero's update, before creeping up along the wall and halting at the corner.
"Yaeger here, these NVGs are holding up just fine. Got a good visual on the area, I'll keep ya posted, boss." Jango pulled up an IR laser and began flashing Yeager's location to give an update on his own position, before doing the same to Ruby's to confirm that the operation was beginning. "I got your position boss. There's a group of thugs in Ruby's blind spot, shouldn't see you if you cross."
"Glad I got this digital scope. Jango, you're posted up against Warehouse A, and you got a patrol of 4 on the rooftop of Warehouse B. If you stick to the shadows, they shouldn't see you." Ruby alerted him, prompting him to crouch low to minimize his silhouette. "Keep low and keep in cover for the moment, you got one approaching the corner and he'll see you if you're in the open, shadows or not."
Heeding her advice, Jango ducked behind a dumpster, waiting for Ruby's cue to move. It didn't take too long, as not a moment too soon, Ruby flashed him with an IR laser, the signal that he was clear to move and where. Swiftly and silently, Jango stalked across the exposed crossroad between warehouses, moving into the shadows beside a power unit where Ruby had marked with the laser. Looking back over his shoulder, Jango heard some approaching footfalls, indicating that the ground team was in motion.
"Switch sides on that power box, Jango, that patrol is coming your way. Ladder on Warehouse C is the only one in shadows, should be around the next corner. Path will be clear during the next rotation from the roof guards." Swapping sides on the box, Jango listened as the footsteps reached a height in noise before beginning to fade away again, growing softer and softer until they could no longer be heard. "Path is clear, move."
Jango silently crept down the alleyway, keeping close to the wall and peeking around the corner to ensure it was all clear. A singular guard was posted by the ladder, but they didn't seem particularly aware of his presence. Deciding to act boldly and aggressively, Jango made a lightning fast yet silent dash into his quarry, tackling them and keeping a hand grasped right around their throat. The moment he hit the ground, Jango slammed his fist across his head, knocking him out without a sound before dragging him over to an adjacent dumpster and tossing him inside. Still cloaked in shadows and seemingly with no alarms raised, Jango pressed himself back against the wall and waited for confirmation from his team.
"Looks like the others are still all unaware. Guards are currently rotating, you're clear to scale the ladder." Acting without hesitation, Jango climbed up the ladder and crawled up onto the roof of Warehouse Charlie, his low profile helping him avoid detection from the guards. "Crawl closer to the gap, you can cross when the guards are all posted at a corner, you'll be able to exploit the blind spot. You'll have to take them all out before they rotate again, or they'll spot you. I'd rather not kill anyone, but if not killing one or two of them will put you in danger, then I have a suppressor and subsonic munitions loaded already."
"I'm not gonna be able to take down all four of them silently before they rotate again on my own. Take the two on the far end of the warehouse from me." Jango ordered, before halting at the lip of the roof, and crawling a few meters down the warehouse rooftop before halting about a quarter of the way.
"You're clear to move, targeting hostiles." Ruby alerted him, kicking him into high gear as he pushed himself up and lunged across the alley, tucking and rolling as he touched down on the opposite rooftop and raising his right gauntlet to the closest guard that would've heard the faint clatter of his armor against the steel platform. He fired his dart gun as they were partway through looking his way, striking them in the neck and causing them to drop nigh instantly without a sound, dead in a heartbeat. Looking back towards the other closest guard, Jango made a silent dash up behind him, cupped a hand over his mouth and chin, and one across the back of his skull, before snapping the man's head around, dropping them without a sound.
Looking back, he was done just in time to watch the second guard's furthest from him head jerk to the side before they collapsed. With no notable sounds raised from elsewhere, Jango crouched down and activated the night vision functionality on his visor and scanned the warehouse through the glass skylight. The empty state of it tipped him off to this one not being his target, only a diversion so one might target this one while he slipped away from another.
"Yaeger, have you spotted anyone making a break for it?" Jango inquired, looking over towards Yeager's position on the crane.
"No, there's been no escape attempts so far. You're still undetected." He liked that answer, and so remained at a crouch to ensure he wasn't spotted from the ground.
"Patrol is passing between B and A. If Roman isn't in Alpha, then he's in Charlie or Delta. Nero, are the sewers clear?" Ruby pressed the question, receiving swift confirmation from the girl beneath the grid.
"All clear down here, Ruby. There's two patrols down here, but dodging them has been pretty easy so far." Nero updated the team, allowing Jango to focus on the warehouses since all other angles were covered. Doubling back, Jango leapt over the gap between Bravo and Charlie, and began scanning the inside. He didn't need his night vision for this warehouse, as the lights were all on. About twenty more guards, all of them seemingly at ease, but a quick scan with his rangefinder revealed Torchwick to not be among them, and in his place.
"Ruby, Yaeger, keep this warehouse in mind, it has around twenty four or more hostiles inside. Nero, continue your patrol, don't get spotted. If need be, try to wipe out the patrols as quickly and silently as possible." He turned his attention over to Delta, just across the far side of this building from his own location. As soon as he was at the edge, he went prone again, and waited for the cue to move.
"Patrol is between B and C right now, but there's no way you're crossing that gap without your jetpack, and the noise would give away your position. You'll have to go back on the ground and use the ladder to get up." The update was appreciated, and after taking a few once-overs of the area, Jango hopped down, crouching down as he landed and immediately making for the shadows on the side of Delta. There was another guard by the ladder up, but he was seemingly preoccupied with a game on his scroll, making simply walking up and snapping their neck a trivial matter. After scaling the ladder but a moment later, he got low and approached the skylight, scanning the area for Torchwick and rather quickly locating his quarry.
"Target identified. He has a single henchman with him, some maps, and a manila folder, looks like there's some documents stowed inside." It was relatively easy to identify everything, what with his rangefinder allowing him to not only scan things but zoom in as well. It only took a moment for him to scan Roman's face, pull him up on the database and find the bounty on his head. The second figure also had a price on their head, making him loose a small chuckle. Two bounties for the price of one. He was glad he'd brought an extra whipcord and had swapped out the Whistling Birds for the concussion missile, as with a direct hit he could knock out one of them when accompanied by the blast, and said blast would severely disorient the other, allowing him an easy capture of both parties. "This is about to get loud. Ready up."
"Ruby ready." His partner reported after unloading her subsonic munitions with supersonic ones.
"Yaeger ready." It only took a single glance his way to see him stow his nods and extend his blades, digging them into the platform beneath himself -/ he entered a runner's stance.
"Nero ready. How are we handling exfiltration?" Nero's question was understandable, given that as soon as the guns started firing, alarms would be raised and any forces outside the grid would swarm to their location.
"I'll be leaving Roman and his henchman with you three, move to the edge of the dock and hold your ground. I'm the only one who knows how to pilot the Slave 1, so I'll be breaking off to retrieve it for an extraction under fire. Think you three can handle a small army of thugs for a few minutes without me?" Jango questioned, drawing a chuckle from all parties.
"Easily. Just don't leave us waiting too long." Ruby's response oozed the kind of confidence that Jango just loved in a subordinate, drawing a small smirk to his face. With everyone reporting ready, Jango silently opened up a panel on the skylight, before aligning his wrist rocket with the multi-colored girl's back..
The only thing he'd heard before being flung far back against one of the crates of dust was the roar of a missile, followed by a blast of concussive force that nearly knocked him out. For a moment, Roman tenderly rubbed the back of his head, before looking around for Neo, eventually settling on her unconscious form not too many meters from himself. Groaning as he painfully picked himself back up, he'd only taken a single step towards his partner when some sort of metallic cable shot down from above, wrapping around him and pinning his arms against his waist.
He growled in annoyance as he tried to force his way out of the binds. However, his annoyance quickly turned into panic as the binding cables refused to give way for him, and a familiar figure dropped down from through the skylight not a moment too soon. The same armored guy with the jetpack he'd run into at Dust Til Dawn, now approaching with an aggressive, purposeful stride.
"H-hey now, easy kid. What do you want? Money? Assets? You know, I could probably-" Jango cut the criminal off with a heavy strike across the head, knocking him out with ease. Turning back towards the other, he dragged Torchwick over to his unconscious partner and picked up the manila folder along the way, before propping the multi-colored girl upright and binding her with his whipcord launcher after taking a moment to reload it. Keeping alert, Jango swung his wrist back in the direction of encroaching footsteps, bathing the doorway just as it opened in a column of flames.
A cacophony of horrified and agonizing screams reached his ears, as the alley patrol from earlier were engulfed in an all-consuming conflagration. Knowing well his time was short, Jango shouldered the two bound and unconscious bodies laying across the floor, and blasted up through the skylight with his jetpack. He swept down low in his flight, avoiding the gunfire as the thugs that had begun converging on the area raised their guns to the sky in a vain attempt to blast him out of it. Dropping down completely, he made off in a dead sprint towards what most others would've considered a dead end, before throwing the bodies forward just as he passed a manhole lid, the two of them falling behind a handful of smaller crates.
Just after he'd passed over the cover, it burst open, with Nero's lithe figure bounding up and out of it with pistols already drawn. The small army of thugs, while normally little threat to ones of their skill class, had grown substantially, and had even brought out some more high-powered armaments with intent to use on them. The growing numbers coupled with the presence of heavy weapons made this group a considerable threat, and a threat that would continue to grow the longer they went uncontested.
His predictions were proven correct in that there'd be too many thugs to simply run away with the bounties in tow. However, he only needed wait until Ruby and Yaeger were present here with Nero before he could make a break for the Slave 1. Alone, slipping away would be child's play at the most difficult, and while he could just shoot his way through the army of thugs without too much effort, he knew that his team was at a much more considerable risk in that they wouldn't be able to hold out, even if he was present. The Slave 1 was their only out, not his.
Flying up high, Jango fired his twin Westar-34s upon the growing mass of criminals with icy precision, taking lives and dealing death with every bolt loosed from the barrel of his guns while he veered off to the side. Rising diagonally, he made sure to draw fire to himself so Ruby would have a moment to break from her position, an opportunity she needed no heads-up to act upon as she leapt down from the crane and fired her scythe off to launch herself over to Nero's position. With her angle covered just as she dropped into cover beside Nero, who'd pressed herself up behind a shipping container, Jango turned his focus over to the last teammate before chuckling as he watched him swat aside maybe half a dozen thugs with ease. The boy opened up with his twin MGs, temporarily suppressing the criminals that were finally beginning to space themselves out while he made his dash for cover with the girls.
"Seems he won't need my help getting out of dodge in a pinch. Now I just have to get to the Slave 1." Jango mused internally, before dropping down onto a rooftop about a kilometer and a half away from his team, tucking and rolling as he touched down, already aware of the gunmen present on this roof as well. Coming up in a kneeling position out of his roll, Jango fired off his left two knee-missiles, detonating against the heads of two gunmen as they rounded the corner while he raised his right Westar-34 and gunned the other three down in a heartbeat.
Kicking of from his kneeling position, Jango drew his left blaster back out and maintained a steady sprint off towards the Slave 1. The sound of a bullhead incoming from his leftmost blond spot gave away the approach of quite possibly even more hostiles, and a swift glance left revealed his assumption correct as the open doors revealed more gunmen armed with rifles, some of them even lining up shots on him. Scoffing indignantly, Jango slid forward and pivoted his body weight, turning on a dime on all four, locking onto the gunship and firing off his jetpack missile. The criminals didn't have even a second to scream before their aircraft was blown out of the sky in a dramatic ball of flames and the deafening roar that accompanied it.
A cry of exertion rang out from behind him, and acting on instinct, Jango tucked one arm in and rolled over his shoulder, pivoting his body as he came upright to face the new threat. Five more thugs, these one's armed with melee weapons a little too close for comfort, blocked his path to the Slave 1. He wasn't concerned, firing off his last two knee missiles and instantly killing the furthest two thugs while he focused down the closer three. The closest slashed diagonally at him, finding their mistake a Jango effortlessly caught them by the wrist early on, grasping them by the opposite shoulder with his other hand and slamming the crown of his helmet against their nose. Shoving them down and aside, he ducked down low to avoid a horizontal slash from the second while sweeping his leg out up high, striking them in the stomach and throwing them off to the side while he reached back and pulled his Amban Phase-Pulse Rifle from his back, deflecting away the next strike with the two prongs on the end of the weapon. Following through with the attack, Jango rose upright, smashing the end of his disruptor's stock into their face before slashing downward, electrocuting the fool with his weapon and launching him back as he fell.
Pivoting the weapon around, he jabbed back with murderous intent, impaling the first warrior through the eyes as he charged at Jango from behind, killing him in an instant. Ripping the weapon out as he swung it round, the twin prongs slashed across the second thug's face, knocking him right back down as he shifted his hold on the weapon and stabbed downward, puncturing the man's heart. Yanking his weapon free, he aligned it with a single hand on the last criminal he'd electrocuted, firing off the cartridge and not bothering to give him a second glance as he was disintegrated in an instant.
Having dropped his Westar-34s in favor of the disruptor for this fight, Jango quickly returned his rifle back to its proper position before using the devices in his gloves to pull his blasters back into his hands. Holstering both blasters, Jango pulled a single thermal detonators out and threw it high, catching inside another approaching transport's engine and blowing it out of the sky with ease, the criminal occupants that hadn't been disintegrated by the blast tumbling out, their lifeless bodies blackened and charred by the flames.
With all threats on his end handled so summarily, Jango resumed his sprint to the Slave 1, hoping to finish this off as quickly and effectively as possible...
Ruby could only whistle in admiration as she watched Jango take down all his opponents with such practices ease before he'd taken off again. She was glad that he'd handled it so easily, because the longer he took, the hairier this situation would get. Herself, Nero and Yaeger couldn't fight how they normally would, the enemy was just too numerous and too spaced out to effectively close the distance safely. Forced into a traditional firefight, a situation most hunters considered one of the worst situations for a warrior of their caliber to get caught in.
Still, they had Nero, who was a walking arsenal, Yaeger, a man who dual wielded twin-barreled MGs with ease, and herself, who was by all means considered an excellent sniper. Their situation could definitely be worse, all things considered. Nero's explosive arsenal, Yeager's suppressive fire, and Ruby's ability to pick off significant threats with ease all combined into a very dangerous fireteam to battle. All they needed do now was wait for Jango to return... under fire, of course.
"Crap, I'm red on ammo!" Nero called, ducking back behind cover as a wall of lead shredded her position not a moment later. Aura or not, that much firepower would've instantly killed her had she not taken cover.
"I'm down to 60 rounds left, suppressive fire capability is compromised!" Yaeger alerted the team, pulling himself back behind a shipping container just in time to avoid his head being blown off by an anti material rifle. Ruby groaned in annoyance as a maelstrom of suppressive fire began riddling her position, forcing her to low-crawl backwards to avoid getting hit.
"RUBY, MOVE!" She heard Nero scream, albeit a little too late as she felt her body leave the ground. A pain unlike she'd ever felt before rapped her body as she was thrown up and back, and the feeling of weightlessness didn't last long enough, as she only had a microsecond feeling of pain across her back, before everything blackened out.
"Damnit! Nero, cover me, I'm gonna pull her out from the open!" Yaeger ordered, sprinting out of cover as soon as Nero began shooting back and diving for Ruby's unconscious form. A simple look back up revealed Crescent Rose had shattered in the blast, with most of it flying back into the sea behind them while a shard of the blade had buried itself in her abdomen. A gnarly wound, to be sure, and one that would certainly be fatal if she didn't receive treatment, and soon.
Nevertheless, he managed to drag her away from the firestorm and back to safety, trailing blood behind her as they moved. Growling angrily, he tore the cloth along her abdomen in a straight line, taking the loose strap of fabric and stuffing it against the shrapnel that had lodged itself in her, minimizing the blood loss to the best of his ability. He chanced a look back over cover, noticing that these criminals had brought in trucks with mounted Heavy Machine Guns... something that would tear their cover to shreds in short order. He cursed their luck, now fully understanding why this was rated to be above their caliber when it had seemed like such an easy mission initially. It would be easy to make a break for it on their own weight, but while trying to pull two Bounties out at the same time? If they so much as lifted either of the two out of cover and tried to make a break for it, they'd get shot up.
Just when he'd about given up hope, an odd, almost whirling sound rapidly descended upon the docks, and a single look back revealed a sight he was more than happy to see. Above all else, he assumed it was meant for combat, so both he and Nero, as well as Ruby, who'd regained a semblance of consciousness to view their leader's return, were all excited to see just what it could do...
Jango couldn't help but grin slightly as he broke through the clouds, his massive ship casting a shadow over the docks as the Slave 1 blocked out the moonlight, covering both his allies and enemies in darkness. His expression leveled out to a more neutral one as he aligned the twin rotating blaster cannons with the massed thugs and squeezed down the trigger on his control stick, bathing the entire area in a menacing crimson glow. The roar of the cannons drowned out all else, as neither cover nor concealment protected the massed criminals from his explosive firepower, spraying the docks back and forth, slowly raising the guns to spray down everyone trying to flee. He kept the trigger depressed, unbothered by his rapidly rising kill count as the entire area ahead of his team was engulfed in flames and explosions, with debris flying all around.
Turning his eyes upwards, he watched the four approaching bullheads start veering off, and after seeing the occupants were armed and dressed the same as the thugs he'd just blasted into the afterlife didn't hesitate to let off the trigger to realign his guns. After a split second, he resumed firing, blowing three of the four ships up before they could fully turn around, and after noticing the last was flying low enough that he'd risk hitting civilian buildings if they managed to evade. Snickering at the futile attempt, Jango simply had the systems lock onto the bullhead as it tried to flee, and fired off a homing missile from one of the concealed projectile launchers just as it deployed, blasting the rear end of the ship and sending it into a downward spiral as a flaming wreck.
One last once over grew a cheeky grin from him, as there wasn't a single hostile soul left in sight. With the only thing left to do being collect his team and bring home the bounties, Jango lowered his ship down, shifting the ship to rest horizontally as it was designed, and the gyros inside leveling the interior cabin out so his team could enter just as he opened up the doors. With the push of a single button, he nodded as he heard his team pile in, before looking down at a camera of the hold and raising a brow at the sight of Ruby clutching her abdomen and wincing, with her belly exposed and a bunch of blood splattered all over her. Nevertheless, before they could take off, he needed to ensure that the prisoners were safely secured in a place where they couldn't cause trouble. Especially since both were seemingly conscious at that moment.
"Beat those two unconscious if you don't have any sedatives, and stuff them in the cells, they should look like lockers." He spoke into the intercom, pressing a button to open up the admittedly inhumanely cramped prisoner cells not too far away from the passenger seats. Surprisingly enough, he watched Ruby, the one he thought to be the most squeamish of the team, stand up and begin wailing on Torchwick with her fist, a look of pure rage across her face as she kept striking him over and over again, until finally he slumped back, more than unconscious enough for his liking. The other girl that he'd taken with Torchwick was knocked out with just one good punch from Yaeger, allowing the two of them to stuff the two in the cells before returning to their seats. He chuckled through the intercom slightly, before pressing the button to close the doors, and giving his warning to strap in. "Loved what I saw from you there, Ruby. Now, strap in, it's only a comfortable ride once you've gotten used to the... unique, feeling."
To their credit, they all acted appropriately, finding a seat and strapping in before bracing themselves as the ship began to rise again, turning to its normal vertical positioning, before realigning with Beacon, and blasting off faster than any other aircraft on the planet could ever dream of. Even despite being on the farthest end of the city from Beacon, it likely wouldn't even take a minute for them to return, with their first big-time bounties bagged and dragged with in his opinion, very little issue...
A/N: Before there's any discrepancies, assume that Nero and Yaeger used what aura they had left to heal Ruby's wound when she regained conscious.