Ch.75
Like Ron expected, it hurt.
Although he moved and managed to barely avoid attacks to his vitals, Ron felt like a pin cushion, as various swords pierced through him. Not having the luxury to second guess his choice, Ron moved in a clockwise motion even as the blades were still pushing into him, kunai aiming to cut off the necks of all within reach.
His attackers seemed surprised that Ron avoided death and was retaliating as two of the five left their weapons behind as they avoided Ron's counter.
With some distance between them, Ron pulled the swords out but only one hit the floor as he held onto the other in his left hand. Channeling some Ki throughout his body Ron stomped on the sword at the floor breaking it.
As his opponents seemed content with waiting, Ron examined the sword in his hand and noticed that it was coated in what he guessed to be poison. 'Great, just what I needed.'
Ron looked at his opponents and from their clothing he guessed they were from one of the ninja clans. Ron vaguely remembered Master Sensei mentioning to be wary of them as not all followed the same path as Yamanouchi.
So switching to Japanese, Ron asked. "Which clan do you belong to?"
To his knowledge, Ron remembered there were supposed to be nine other clans besides Yamanouchi though he didn't have time to try and remember their names.
Thankfully his opponents pride allowed him a clue. "Don't put us in the same category as those weaklings."
'So there are other forces hidden in the shadows.' Ron realized, deciding to file that for later.
Blinking, Ron's brown eyes turned blue. It was time to bring an end to this. Unleashing the full scope of his heaven grade senses, Ron attacked the one who seemed to be ready to move Drakken. It was a vertical slash aiming to cut off the outstretched hand forcing him to pull back. Ron didn't waste time and followed up with a spin kick into Drakken's abdomen. The kick proved effective, as, after Drakken hit the wall with a thud, he seemed to have passed out.
'No more commands for now.' Ron thought.
Putting Drakken out of the fight cost Ron another wound, as one of them cut his thigh.
Readying his stance, Ron held the kunai at his back to hide it from view of some of his opponents and had the sword horizontally in front of himself. With a breath Ron tried to anticipate their reactions as he moved to attack.
Then ninja were spread out around Ron, covering the whole area in front of him, so Ron attacked the one closest to him on the left, one of the two who abandoned his sword. He shortened the distance between them with a quick rush and swung the sword aiming for the left leg that was forward. The opponent intercepted with one of the two kunai he held, his left hand stopping Ron's sword and his right aiming for Ron's neck.
Ron slid the blade along the kunai and used his elbow to deviate the blow, then brought his kunai to cut off the left hand of his opponent. Sadly a blow from his right forced Ron to block with the kunai. Now holding a sword off with his kunai, right hand and a kunai with his sword, left hand, left Ron's back and chest exposed.
One of the three remaining ninja, this one holding a sword, aimed to cleave Ron in two at the waist. The other two seemed to think better of approaching as one of them simply threw a couple shuriken at Ron's vitals and the other waited. Ron didn't hesitate and pushed into the shuriken that were coming. Moving just enough to avoid vitals, he suffered a light cut on his abdomen from the last remaining ninja that would have disemboweled him had he hesitated.
Ron started to sweat. These weren't opponents that he could incapacitate while aiming not to kill. Unlike the synthodrones that Ron didn't have to worry for their safety and Drakken's henchmen that had low abilities, these were well trained men and were aiming for the kill.
'Can I shoulder the price to take their lives?' Ron asked himself as the exchanges continued.
Ron was at a disadvantage and he started to feel the effects of the poison, his body numbing.
Disengaging briefly, Ron noticed the henchmen had fled and one of the terminals showed that the world's military started using bombs on the robots. If it keeps going like this they'll bomb Bueno Nacho headquarters once they find it's the source but if the signal isn't properly handled the robots could be set to go on a rampage.
'I guess it's time to step up.' Ron thought with a sigh. Just as the decision was made, Ron's attack pattern changed, like a blade leaving the sheath.
The series of following attacks held a surreal beauty. The lethality was mesmerizing. The technique refined to a high level. And the result, five dead without a chance to scream.
Even as the bodies hit the ground and blood finally started to flow, Ron replayed his actions in his mind.
Ron had dropped his guard as he switched the sword to his right hand and put away the kunai. The ninja saw the opening and though it was obviously intentional, they were confident in exploiting it. This proved to be their last mistake.
Sucking in a breath of air Ron moved, channeling Ki into the sword and throughout his being. 'Like a gentle breeze.' Ron thought. To him the surroundings seemed to slow to a halt and he moved. The steps were simple yet complicated as Ron went forward, pulled back, and seemed to spin once towards the right, slipping by his opponents. During the motions, Ron's sword seemed to dissapear as it neared the ninja's bodies and cleanly cut through both body and weapon.
There were two swings of Ron's sword, a vertical slash followed by a horizontal one. The ninja directly across from Ron was cut in two and then all five were decapitated.
As Ron accepted it, taking lives with the conviction to protect those who couldn't protect themselves, the weight of his actions settled on his shoulders. Gripping the sword tightly, Ron focused on what he still had to do.
He first checked on Drakken, to see if he was conscious but with the man still out cold, Ron went to a terminal to try and stop the robots. Sadly the terminals seemed to only relay progress reports and Ron couldn't figure out how the Little Diablo recieve their orders. No better ideas, Ron systematically destroyed the terminals and then the camara before heading to the roof to see how Rufus was doing.
Ron noticed that at some point it must have started raining as he stepped into the rain on the roof. The antenna was maybe thirty feet in front of him but was guarded by eight robots covering both ground and air. Ron didn't see an opening as they searched their surroundings.
"Distract them." Rufus voice instructed inside Ron's mind and felt that his buddy's voice was strained.
"Got it." Ron answered.
~~~~~
Rufus had an easy time traversing the vents. Like always, they were unguarded so he easily moved around, though it took him time.
After finally making it to the roof, he spotted the antenna and excitedly made his way over. That was a mistake. The antenna was guarded by six synthodrones in camouflage.
To the surprised Rufus it was a neigh upon fatal moment as he received a cut across his back, a stab into his tail and a crushed right front paw.
Still, he managed to pull away from the encounter with the electro magnetic scrambler intact.
Going into stealth mode alleviated some of the pressure but the injuries countered the benefit. Adding to that, in stealth mode Rufus couldn't hide the electro magnetic scrambler. After some thought, Rufus hid the electro magnetic scrambler in a corner and gathered his Ki. Like Ron, he would have to fight and like him, loosing was not an option.
After one or two minutes gathering his Ki, Rufus struck. In stealth mode, he sensed the positions of the six synthodrones and attacked the closest one with teeth and claws coated in Ki.
The attack went smoothly as Rufus managed to jump onto the synthodrone and bite through it's outer layer. Still, to Rufus dismay, as he was taking down the synthodrone, the others attacked when it started to melt nearly causing more injuries.
Seeing as he had to be careful of a counter attack, did not help the already injured Rufus' confidence. Little by little he continued his efforts and with only a few more injuries he took the last synthodrone down.
As Rufus was limping back to the electro magnetic scrambler the Little Diablo's went active and eight of them started to guard the antenna.
His efforts reduced to nothing in an instant, Rufus cursed for a moment, thinking of what he had to do to get through them.
Just as he was about to try his luck he noticed Ron step onto the roof. With some thought he instructed telepathically. "Distract them."
"Got it." Ron replied shortly but to Rufus the words contained a wealth of emotions.
Feeling briefly worried for Ron, Rufus filed the info for later and focused on the task at hand.
Ron for his part didn't hesitate. He was asked to be a distraction and he did so in grand fashion. Ron rushed a robot and used a sword Rufus didn't recognize to cut its leg off. Before the robot responded Ron had already cut the leg off of another.
Rufus watched proudly as Ron momentarily had the attention of all the robots. Eight deadly and giant robots.
Seeing this, Rufus didn't let his thoughts linger on the danger and focused on trying to expand his stealth to the electro magnetic scrambler with little success. He had to give up when he noticed his consumption of Ki would exhaust him before the antenna was taken down.
Rufus momentarily looked at the situation before starting to move as quickly as his injured body let him. The last robot had just been attracted by Ron as Rufus started to move towards the antenna.
According to Wade, the electro magnetic scrambler had to hit the source of the signal which was the antenna. Sadly, it couldn't be just anywhere, it had to be the transmitter near the top. Arriving under the antenna Rufus left stealth mode to attempt to levitate towards the transmitter.
Why did Rufus become visible to attempt this? Simple really, he hadn't reached a level where he could do both at the same time. The amount of concentration both techniques required were not easy for a novice like he and Ron.
Almost at the same time as Rufus started levitating three Little Diablos disengaged from Ron and turned to deal with him but Rufus didn't waver. And, as if to answer his faith Ron appeared between Rufus and the robots.
Even as Rufus watched, Ron sliced and parried attacks aimed at the two of them. As Rufus went higher Ron seemed to follow the increase in elevation with air steps. As the name implies he steps on the air. Is was a more advance for of the levitation technique Rufus was doing. If one were observing closely they would be able to tell that Ron could only successfully do air steps for a split second before he was dragged down by gravity. Taking that into account, you can guess the situation, Ron had no choice but to be in constant motion.
It looked like a Monkey jumping between trees in a jungle. Ron flipped and jumped in front of Rufus, making sure to keep him behind him at all times. He fended off attack after attack that were increasingly more difficult and dangerous to stop. The robots had surrounded Rufus and Ron from both sides and Ron's stamina was taking a massive hit to the already depleted reserves. Add to that the poison, and you'd have to wonder how Ron was still on his feet.
Halfway up to the signal transmitter, Ron seemed unable to keep up with the barrage of attacks and one robot's chainsaw arm aimed at Rufus behind him. Ron responded by taking out his kunai and throwing it behind him accurately hitting and deviating the chainsaw. To Rufus' surprise, the kunai was both imbued with Ki and was being telekineticaly controlled as when Ron turned it followed his back at a certain distance.
To Rufus it looked like the tip of a monkey's tail. A dangerous one at that.
Two thirds of the way up, the robots where still intensifying their attacks seeming to follow a complicated programming as they changed various weapons. To both Rufus and Ron it looked like they had orders to protect the antenna and seeing as they were increasing the damage output of their weapons, take both the antenna and assailant out if need be. In other words, they had orders to give up a region if it threatened the network they operated on.
When Ron and Rufus reached this thought, they noticed one of the robots aim at the antenna with an energy cannon.
Seeing that, Ron's tail seemed to launch the kunai directly into the charging energy cannon, causing an explosion.
One by one the other robots seemed to reach a consensus, as they switched to the energy cannon.
From an outside perspective, one had to admit that Ron was fighting with everything he had. No Little Diablo was in one piece as he had slashed and cut various limbs from the machines. Still, they had no fear as they carried out their orders. Ron was running on steam and the robots had made the choice to abandon the antenna.
Ron and Rufus exchanged a glance before Ron suddenly kicked out. Rufus as if having planned it with Ron, used the kick to accelerate to the transmitter. Reaching it with it thud, Rufus stuck on the electro magnetic scrambler and let gravity pull him down.
Niether Rufus nor Ron knew if they had enough time to stop Drakken's plot or the robots would blast the antenna before their network was compromised.