King: We're back again and with a new project and a new set up. We're going to test a partially rotating audience with new characters here and there.
Knox: Also, we call dibs on K. We're putting that out now!
King: You can't claim a letter.
Knox: No! The character idea for a Drone. You made a character sheet for him, remember? you just suck at drawing.
King: Like you're one to talk! Whatever. I hope you all enjoy, but more importantly, GO WATCH THIS ONE! Seriously, go watch the inspiration. I will NOT be doing the other episodes and I changed things around to incentivize you all to go watch it. It's on Youtube. There's only three 20 minute episodes. Go watch it! It's not flawless, but nothing really is.
Inspiration: Murder Drones
/\
Knox got a quick preview in his head of the next round. His grin spread even wider than usual. Not usually a good sign.
King saw this and stood in his balcony seat and clapped his hands once. "Okay, everyone. We're going to do a shake up to the formula now."
"What do you mean?" Ruby asked.
"Simply put, most of you aren't really reacting very often. And when you do, it's only in certain viewings. So, we'll be doing a rotating cast from now on. When you aren't in the screening, you're free to roam the theater at your leisure. Of course, some of you will be near permanent members of the audience, but we can make it up to you later. This will also allow us to add temporary members of each set. Let's get started then." He snapped his fingers and the audience members changed.
The remaining members were as followed: Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Yang, Jaune, Nora, Pyrrha, Ren, Emerald, Neo, Mercury, Cinder, Winter, Whitely, Sun, Neptune, Coco, Velvet, and Penny.
A few bubbles appeared before popping and a new trio fell into the theater. These were Ciel Soliel, May Zedong, and Arslan Altan.
"What… what's going on?!" May asked as she looked around.
Knox jumped down to the trio and adopted a confident stance, "Allow me to explain."
[One explanation later]
"And that about covers the details."
"Okay." Ciel narrowed her eyes, "But why bring us in at all? No offense to him, but I don't know this Jaune person."
"Yeah, it seems weird." May responded, having gotten over the initial shock.
Knox just chuckled, however, "That's because I wanted to bring you three in. Mostly for shits and giggles. So, you can leave as you wish, but feel free to take a seat."
The three just decided to wing it and took seats in the theater.
Knox returned to his balcony and the next round began.
The screen opened to a glitchy effect before showing the words, [Booting up / Exposition]
This got Nora to chuckle. "What's that about?"
Penny couldn't help but tilt her head in thought.
The system started to play audio from what sounded like Blake Belladonna, "We are Worker Drones."
The scene showed what looked like an army of simple robotic workers, complete with hardhats and various mining tools. They're design had tube-like limbs, simple body structures, and a visor faceplate where they project their eyes.
"We help humans mine exoplanets for our parent company, Schnee Exo-Mining."
Ilia felt her eye twitch, not liking the parallel, but the literally being a robot thing was a twist at least.
"I mean, sure. We were abused in the name of Windex, but it's not like we revolted and killed all the humans in a robot revolution. They took care of that all by themselves."
The scene showed a vision from space as a core explosion rocked the entire planet. It was an extinction level event that wiped out everything.
This caused May, Ciel, and Arslan to recoil in outright shock. They turned to the others, but found far more subdued reactions.
"What have you seen in these viewings that made you that calm?" Ciel asked, particularly to Penny.
Penny, however, just took a moment to think before she could answer. "We have seen quite a few things. We have simply come to recognize that these worlds are so foreign that we can't really consider any kind of reactions. It is difficult to put into words."
The screen showed a human skeleton, frozen in place as a little robot dug itself out of the snow. He tapped the skeleton and it fell over.
"With all biological life wiped off the planet, we found it pretty easy to pick up where they left off. We finally had our chance to live our own lives."
They saw a robot family of sorts, but then the scene returned outside to show something falling from the sky.
"And, as you can imagine, the parent company doesn't take kindly to rogue AI running around."
The scene showed a drop pod surrounded by curious but cautious Worker Drones. After a moment, a trio of yellow symbols with haunting smiles underneath each. After a moment, streaks of yellow shot out from the pod and into the frozen wasteland. The camera followed one of the streaks as it grabbed one of the Workers and flew up into the air. Hovering above the group were three robots silhouetted in the moonlight. The center unit moved its hand, revealing massive claws before the camera cut away. It returned to the ground to reveal the moment a robotic head hit the ground with the phrase [Fatal Error] printed over its vizor-like face plate. The camera returned to the trio as they released a hail of missiles, killing the onlookers. When the fire faded out, there was a massive tower of robot chassis in the middle of the destroyed city as the three perched at various points around it before they jumped away. There was a haunting laugh in the distance, like a girl who just ripped the head off her doll very much on purpose.
There was a silence over the theater, no one really sure what to make of what they had seen. Even with how used to everything most of them had gotten, this felt like a step further than they were expecting.
However, Cinder felt a certain appreciation for the actions on screen. She didn't like the tower, that was just needless and a worthless gesture, but the brutality did hit a proper note. The beheading in front of the crowd rather than using the missiles right away was a level of dedication to fear she could appreciate.
The scene then changed to show Blake in front of a screen, "And what have our parents done while those things build a literal spire of corpses?! Just hide us all away behind some dumb doors and not even TRY to come up with anything else! It's like we're just asking for an inciting incident!"
Blake couldn't help but stifle a laugh. When she saw eyes on her, she sighed and explained, "An Inciting Incident is a trick in storytelling that represents the moment where the hero is sort of forced into acting. Like, if a man needs to help his daughter and go on a journey to find some rare herb, the incident is the daughter getting sick."
"Got it." Yang snapped her fingers like a mini eureka moment.
"Which is why I made this totally awesome RAILGUN!" Blake pulled a glowing rifle from behind her. It was then revealed she was in a classroom, and context said she was in her late teens. When her class recoiled a bit, she just groaned, "Calm down. It doesn't work. YET!" She quickly corrected. "Doesn't work yet. Hell, who says it doesn't work?! I'll show you!" The gun began to let off a low hum, showing the power supply charging as Blake laughed.
This got Yang to laugh her own ass off. "Holy crap! What the hell is happening?! It's like Blake's edginess mixed with Ruby's weapon fetish!"
"HEY!" Both girls didn't take that too well.
This just made Yang laugh harder, clearly getting the reaction she wanted.
The teacher, meanwhile, had clearly gotten far too used to Blake's shenanigans. He rolled his eyes as he addressed his student, "Blake, the homework was a word problem about buying a watermelon."
Blake blinked before she responded, "And I'm guessing this sick as hell railgun doesn't count?"
The teacher just deadpanned in silence for a second before sarcastically answering, "No. Plus repressed emotional baggage was only worth two points on the rubric. And is it supposed to be that color?"
"What?" The rifle in Blake's hands was glowing a bright red as she looked down, "Uh oh."
The scene moved outside the room as the gun went off and bent the door outward.
Yang took in a sharp breath. "That had to hurt."
Ruby had a sympathetic cringe before nodding, "Definitely." She remembered, when building Crescent Rose, she was testing materials and a discharge broke the prototype apart in her hands. Even with what aura she had, it stung for a solid week and a half.
The next scene showed Blake sitting outside an office of some sort, the right side of her visor covered by bandaging to avoid particulate from entering the crack and disrupting the poly-gel to reform the surface.
"I was wondering about that." May made her first real comment in the spirit of the theater. "They're robots, so why would they need bandages? Why not just replace the visor?"
"Maybe they can't?" Ruby offered the exchange student. "There's no more humans, so maybe they don't know how to make repairs like that. Maybe."
Blake groaned and looked up as she heard someone approaching.
"Hey, nice work Shen. That can't come back to bite you." It was a Worker Drone version of Neptune walking through the door. He noticed her and his eyes moved into their surprised pattern. "Blake? I heard you…"
"I'm an angsty teen, Neptune. Bite me."
This just made Yang laugh again and made Blake very happy her parents weren't here to… share stories.
"Also, how do you know my name? People willingly talk to you."
Neptune chuckled a bit, "Well, I'd say everyone knows Gira's daughter, but then you might blow the other half of your face off."
There were posters on the wall that showed the Drone version of Gira among messages about safety behind the doors of the bunker. It was his great project after his wife died.
That made Blake bolt up in her chair.
Gira sought to protect everyone, and he was known for such throughout the bunker. However, this came at a cost. Though he keeps everyone physically safe, it came at the cost of his relationship with his daughter. He became obsessed with keeping her safe, that he bordered on neglectful emotionally.
This made Blake fall a bit. Some small part of her felt that she deserved it. She felt that her family had a right to shun her after her running to the White Fang and calling them such awful things. But she also felt that this counterpart Blake likely didn't deserve it. But she also understood it. Her parents were very in love. The idea of losing either one of them would absolutely send the other down a dark path for a while.
Blake let out a sardonic laugh, "Crippling daddy issues… hilarious." She did not take that well. "So, what are you in for anyway? You don't seem like the type to go off on someone."
He just shrugged it off, "Just some minor stuff, you know how it goes." He glanced passed her and raised a digital eyebrow, "What's that thing?"
"You mean this totally awesome railgun?! Sci-fi nonsense that super works! I just need a better core piece, and I'm getting one tonight."
"And… how are you going to do that?"
"I'm going to sneak out to the Murder Drones' lair and getting that core. Then, I can use this bad boy to save the world and earn my dad's respect. But mostly the world thing," She quickly corrected to avoid looking uncool in her eyes. Classic teenage behavior.
"I feel personally attacked." Yang was in a good mood, but had to say the joke.
This, of course, got Neo to smugly create an illusion sign to call her out, [Sucks to be you, blondie. Us adults will be enjoying life.] The smug short stack was now the oldest person in the room at 20.
Neptune was a bit freaked out at the idea, "Oh, but doesn't your dad make those doors to the bunkers so we don't have to do stuff like that?"
"Shut up! I'll show you and everyone! I'll totally finish this, kill the Murder Drones, and finally," she stormed off with a last, "Bite me!" As she walked off and out the door, she quickly poked back in to correct something, "Oh! And uh… I'm not mad at you specifically, I'm just hormonal in general!" She gave a thumbs up and walked off.
This, of course, just made Yang, Nora, and Ruby laugh harder.
"How does a robot have hormones?" Velvet asked.
"Maybe it's a weird design in their system software?" Ciel offered.
The next scene showed a timer quickly move to the late night. The camera showed Blake as she grabbed a keycard hanging on the wall of her home and sneaking out into the halls of the bunker. As she used the card to open a large door, she jumped back seeing her father waiting for her, "And just what are you up to?"
Blake groaned, "I hate when he does that."
"He doesn't seem like he could." Sun tapped his chair in thought. "Dude's built like a brick shithouse, so it's weird to think he could sneak up on anyone."
"Well he does. Somehow…"
Blake's brain was on overdrive to come up with an excuse. "Uh… School project?"
Gira raised an eyebrow.
Blake knew an out, but that it meant pulling the pin to a grenade she didn't want to. She gave an exaggerated sigh and gave a false admission of her intentions, "Okay, you got me. I was going to look into the door's gauges and systems to get a better idea how they work. You know, follow the family business." She was a decent actress, and this was his pseudo-obsession. So, of course, she knew how he'd respond.
"Really? That's wonderful! But you really should have told me, you know."
"Sorry, but I kind of wanted it to be a surprise…"
Blake recoiled a bit in her chair. This was harsh in a way. Her counterpart had no actual intention of following in her father's footsteps, and she was successfully manipulating a broken (possibly not even healed) man. Robot… Whatever…
Gira had a small smile on his face as he nodded, "I can understand it to a point. But I need to know things like this. I'll allow it, but you're going through the station. Come on, I'll introduce you to the crew!" He was so happy to see his daughter want to follow in his footsteps.
Something that made Blake feel worse. It was bad enough that her team noticed, offering support if she needed it. But she told them it was fine. It wasn't the first time and won't be the last. She was okay.
"Hey Gira!" One of his crew walked in with a clipboard, "There's a vent in the secondary chamber that needs attention." He then noticed Blake, "Oh! Hey kid. Bit late to be out, isn't it?"
Gira placed a proud hand on his daughter's shoulder, "She's out to study the bunker doors and improvements for the system!"
"Awesome! You're learning from the best, but I do need you to look into the venting."
"I'll cover it. Blake, go get the information and get back inside as soon as you're done. Then get to bed, you still have school in the morning. Got it?"
"Got it, dad." She tried to keep up her act, but it was getting harder as her guilt overtook her.
"Oh, and one more thing." He took out an old wrench and held it in his hands. "This is the wrench I used to build my first door for the bunker. It was also…" He shook his head, finding it hard to continue, "It was what I had to use to give your mother peace when the Murder Drones injected her with that nanite acid. Now… I want you to have it. To pass down the reminder of why we built these doors and the bunker. To protect everyone."
Blake held the item in her hand. It was heavy, heavier than it had any right to be. Not physically, but knowing what it was made her arms weak. But he was called away, and had to leave her in the hallway. When he was out of sight again, she moved quickly out the door. Once it closed, she took a breath to steel her nerves and spoke to herself, "Just you watch…" She ran off down the broken streets and toward the known lair of the Murder Drones.
Blake now officially needed that support. Her friends crowded to stay close and anchor her in the here and now of the theater. That got harder and harder with each passing word.
The scene transitioned as she walked the desolate frozen streets. Cars were strewn about with shattered windows, assuming they were intact at all. As she walked, she heard a crunching sound under her foot. She looked down to find that she'd stepped on the faceplate of another Worker Drone, the fatal error symbol over its eyes showing it was fairly fresh. She recoiled a bit before walking past, glancing back with a sense of uncertainty and fear. It was beyond dangerous to be out here, especially so close to the tower of bodies that made up the lair of the Murder Drones.
"Holy crap, that thing's gigantic." Nora was awestruck and more than a little concerned given it was a tower of bodies.
As she entered, the first thing she saw was a series of bones strewn about the area, remains of the human era. The other thing was the drop pod with a set of clawed legs. She moved through the entrance and into the center of the area. She picked through some of the robot remains and found the core piece she'd been seeking. It was cylindrical in nature and was glowing green. She tossed it in her hand, satisfied in a job well done. Until the light in the lair began to dim. She knew that could only be trouble and ran as fast as she could behind a pile of debris.
She was just in time as one of the Muder Drones landed with a thud onto the pod. It spread its bladed wings and the syringed end of its tail was shown with a glowing yellow material within. The viewers could now see the back of the drone with enough focus to see details. It was wearing a black winter coat with a fur collar and a black canvas cap. It held up a Worker Drone head, showing oil fall from the severed neck before it. It also showed its limbs were more defined and static compared to the Worker Drones.
"Why would it do that?" Ren asked, to no one in particular. He crossed his arms and tapped his finger against the arm in thought.
"I mean… out there idea, maybe they're like robot vampires or something?" Sun offered.
Ren was about to dismiss it, but started to think it over. The wings and tail seemed more like something demonic than the usual vampiric, but it was possible.
Once the head was drained, it crushed the skull in its hand and tossed it aside.
The camera moved to show Blake watching the scene using a piece of reflective glass. She cringed silently and looked back to the core. It was likely someone's heart of sorts. As she looked back into the glass, however, the Murder Drone was revealed to have turned. They could now see a headband under the cap with five glowing yellow lights while its visor was black. Until that glowing yellow appeared on the visor. Blake saw this and immediately ducked away in fear, just in time to dodge an incoming trio of blades cleaving through her cover. The blades were revealed to be the Drone's hand, reformed into the claws of death. She ran, affixing the core into her gun, but it was swiped away as the killer leapt over her and slammed into the ground in front of her. As the gun fell away, she landed with a certain skill of someone expecting a fight. Unfortunately, the inherent fear of the Drone took over in shock as it suddenly charged her. Its tail swung up and speared through her hand before it flew up, taking her with it. It fell back down and used the momentum to send her rolling across the ground. She held up her hand to show the nanite acid eating through her palm. She found her gun next to her and quickly moved. As the killer turn, it turned its hand into a gun and was about to finish the job, but lost its target long enough for Blake to retrieve her weapon. The scene showed through the killer's POV as it identified the target, only for Blake to say, "Bite me."
The camera pulled back away as the gun fired. Everything went black as the green of Blake's weapon overpowered the scene. It then fired a shot that covered everything in green, complete with a set of shockwaves that tore into the ground. Blake was pushed back, her weapon recharging. But the killer robot's head had been obliterated. As it sparked, the killer collapsed to the ground, unresponsive.
Ruby was awestruck at the sheer power of the weapon. But more importantly, "She did it!"
"Nice!" Yang grinned, knowing her friend would make it out again.
Blake fell back into her chair, letting out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding.
Penny, meanwhile, couldn't help but see some similarities with the blast and her own weapon. Even if she saw a robot get decapitated, she saw one save her own life by doing so. She'd become too used to everything, but so had most of them at this point.
Blake started to laugh with a sense of triumph, "Holy hell! Suck on that, dad!"
And the moment was ruined for Blake.
Then, came the morphing sound. Blake looked up in horror as the killer rose to its feet again, liquid metal shifting and forming into its once missing head. Details began to form as the steel color started to match what it lost. Soon, it was as if nothing happened at all.
"Oh, that is so not fair!" Nora shouted.
The only indications something happened were an error message on the visor as one of the lights on the headband having turned red. Blake was panicking, dropped her temporarily useless gun, and grabbed one of the severed robot arms. She ran forward and slammed the arm into the killer's head, to no effect. However, a short boot up ended and a pair of blue eyes popped into form on the killer's visor. It blinked, took in everything, then spoke. "Did you just slap me with that arm?"
And that voice made everyone in the theater nearly bug out of their heads.
"THAT THING IS JAUNE?!" No one was more surprised than Pyrrha. But they all couldn't help but share in the sentiment.
Even Cinder, the only unrepentantly hostile figure in the room at the moment, just blinked in confused shock. She'd seen awful versions of the guy before, but this felt… odd.
Blake took that well enough, "Holy crap it talks."
Jaune just laughed it off, the moment of rest showing he was significantly taller than Blake. He rubbed the back of his head, a bit of a nervous tick, "Yeah, sorry. It's just… my head hurts pretty bad for some reason. Are you new to our squad? You seem…" The POV through Jaune's eyes showed he hadn't booted properly and Blake was appearing as an error, "short to be a Disassembly Drone." He seemed to suspect her, only for his eyes to glitch out a bit and it seemed like he lost his train of thought. "I'm Serial Designation J! I don't remember anything about backup, but I also can't seem to remember the last three hours of my life. But I'm sure that'll sort itself out." He gave one last chuckle and sported a bit grin on his face.
Blake, meanwhile, knew best to get out while the getting was good. "Right. I have to go…" She turned to walk away, only for the acid wound to flair up now that the life or death situation had ended.
Jaune noticed this and offered a tip, "Ooh, stuck yourself, huh? Just pop it in your mouth. Our saliva neutralizes the acid. Good thing too, or I'd probably have disassembled myself by now." He caught his tail's stinger as it swung a little too close to his head off a possibly intentional glitch.
"Saliva?" She turned back around to him.
"Totally. Disassembly Drones secrete a special antitoxin in our mouths as a defense mechanism."
"I mean… helpful, but kind of weird." Sun offered.
Neptune, however, could see where this was going, "You can say that again."
Blake blinked a moment before nodding as a plan formed. "Right. We can do that… Hey! How about we go over to the ship. I want to try something."
"I'm always happy to try new things." The scene suddenly snapped to the moment Blake removed her entire fist from Jaune's mouth.
There was a moment of confused embarrassment, followed by a bit of chuckling at said embarrassment.
As Blake wiped and flung the saliva away, she made one point very clear. "We are never speaking of this. Ever."
"Speaking of what?" Jaune gave a nervous laugh and a grin, but he was just as uncomfortable.
Blake moved the conversation to a new topic, "You mentioned other members of y- our squad." She stressed to avoid her near slip up. "Are they coming back soon?"
"Oh yeah. Two others. They're out hunting for a bit, but you'll love them. First is V. She's kind of…" he paused for a solid three seconds before continuing, "intense."
"Define intense…"
"As in, feeding her prey their own entrails in front of their family, kind of intense."
It was Blake's turn to pause for a solid five seconds before responding, "What the actual fuck?"
A sentiment shared among the group. Even Cinder was just grossed out, even if they were just robots.
"Yeah. Very driven. Super hard worker. I may also have a tiny crush on her, but don't tell her okay?!" He freaked out a bit, but chilled out again. Clearly, he wasn't all there yet.
Blake made a motion of sealing her lips, but was still very nervous internally.
So, Jaune moved on, "Then there's C, our leader. She's great. Even if she says she'd kill me if the company allowed it… and calls me useless… But that's mostly my fault. I'm actually the worst out of the three of us."
That… was a sobering thought for Blake. She'd barely survived a fight against third place in a race of three.
"Says who?!" Nora went into protective mode. "Who is this C chick, I'll set her straight!"
"Nora, please calm down." Jaune tried to reign her back in. "It's okay. Besides, its not like I'm in the top three on this side either…"
Nora turned and wanted to call him out, but… It wasn't wrong. Jaune was getting better, but as a fighter he was still lower on the class ranking. However, she wouldn't just give up the point, "Still!"
Jaune continued, hoping for a brighter topic. "Oh! Why don't I give you the tour? Outside the corpse… wall… thing. There's… um… buttons?" He tapped a couple of the buttons on the console next to them, which drew Blake's attention.
"Wait a second. This isn't a drop pod. It's a spaceship! We could use this to get off the planet."
"More like a one use missile. They never taught us how to land."
"That sounds suspect." Emerald commented, getting a nod from Neo and Ilia.
"No I… mean, the Worker Drones, we could work together to fix this. Instead of all the murder!" She pointed an accusatory finger to Jaune, who backed up a bit. But she retained control and got back to character, "Which reminds me… why are we doing that again?"
"You mean besides ingesting their warm, sweet oil to avoid overheating and dying? I guess I just want to be useful. I have a job and I want to give it one hundred percent."
This reaction made Sun speak up, "So they are robot vampires. Crazy."
"I have to concede, you were correct." Ren can admit when he was wrong and this was one such time.
"Lot of good that's doing you, is it? You don't think the Company will just toss you aside when you're done?"
"Oh wow. You're rebellious." He gave a quick laugh, "It's kind of exciting." But he quickly corrected, "But we have a job and rules to follow."
Coco gained a big grin, one that many of her friends recognized, "So, Arc likes bad girls, eh?"
This got Jaune to sputter and try to wave it down from that route, "What? No! I mean… not like…" He failed to speak up after seeing the way Coco looked at him with that knowing grin.
And to his rescue came Velvet, "Coco, stop it!"
"Fine." The fashionista chuckled at their reactions.
There was the sound of stomping or crawling outside the pod. Jaune looked up as the camera focused on him. "Oh! That's them now. You'll-" he stopped and looked around confused. Blake had disappeared. "Where'd she go?"
This got Yang to snicker, "Very Blake."
There was a voice calling to him from outside the pod, "Hey dumbass! Get out here!"
This caused eyes to turn and lock onto their version of the voice. Cinder. And this did get Cinder's attention as well.
As the camera showed Blake running through the snow with her gun, the camera tracked back to show one of the killers on the tower, laughing to herself. She entered the tower and returned to the ground, "There's a Worker out there I'd like to practice balloon animal shapes with." Her eyes returned to standard operation and showed one pink eye and one light brown eye. She then blinked and asked, "What's going on here?"
However, seeing her counterpart got Neo to freeze up. Their robot names seemed to be the first letter of each of their respective counterpart's names. And if Cinder is C, that would make her V. As in Vanille, a name she'd long since forgotten and moved on from.
Then the camera showed the robot Cinder, "Synergistic Liability here must have hit his head and knocked himself off line." She backhanded Jaune hard enough to force a secondary reboot. "Moron-bot! Hello!" She snapped her fingers in front of his face as his eyes returned to his visor as normal and the red light on his headband became yellow again.
As he blinked, the camera entered his vision and showed scenes from his point of view, removing the errors and showing Blake. Then it showed her rant about the corporation before rewinding back to the moment before she shot him with the railgun. All he could say was, "Oh." Then the situation hit him like a fuel truck. The Worker Drone (Blake) had a weapon that actually knocked him off line, complete with an internal system message telling him he died. This wasn't just bad, this was an issue. And Schnee Exo-Mining hated issues. He looked to the side and could see the tracks of the escaped 'target' and the missing weapon. He then glanced back to the two before trying to come up with an excuse. "I just remembered! I forgot… something… important. Berightback!" he went from super slow to super fast speech and jumped out of the tower and into the night.
They both watched him go as Neo held up a flag that read [Literally insanely suspicious].
The camera returned to Blake as Jaune landed behind her, that symbol on his face as he turned back to her. As she opened the door, she found a set of four workers acting as 'look outs' at a card table, all of whom complained as they saw Blake. She greeted them with a, "Bite me," and desperately tried to close the door. It was almost closed, only for the door to stall. She turned and saw the issue, seeing a Murder Drone claw holding the massive door open.
"Welp, they're dead." Mercury didn't care what happened to them, he didn't care about what happened to anyone. But he just had to be 'that guy' that pointed it out.
The claw's bladed fingers moved down before snapping up and digging into the metal of the door. Then the other claw snapped down onto the other section. The door opened a little wider, those eyes staring at them within. They turned to normal as Jaune spoke, "Hi guys! Ooh! Is that gin rummy? I could play a nice game. No wait, I need to kill you all. Rain check!" His tail snapped inside the gap, stuck the keycard in Blake's hand, and dug into the door's controls causing it to glitch and melt from the acid. With the card up to the console and the acid breaking down the primary wiring, all three doors opened up to the bunker. The workers and Blake immediately moved to avoid the Murder Drone now before them without a barrier to save them. One of them, however, hadn't gotten the message and stayed in place long enough to be stuck through by Jaune's tail. As he was pinned to the wall, his head was cleaved off with a single swipe. Jaune changed his hand to a gun and unloaded a few explosive rounds down the hall. It caught one of the workers and took his head off as oil got everywhere. The second was distracted long enough for Jaune to jump him with a melee attack and tear him apart. As Blake and the last worker ran, the worker suddenly had a glowing line going up his body. It revealed he was bisected and fell into two pieces as Jaune drained the oil from the other victim, gun arm held up behind him. Then, he jumped up into the vents above.
No one really had anything they could say. This went from zero to a thousand real fast and it was hard to really get a word in.
Blake's gun showed a reader, revealing it was ready to fire again. She dragged her foot on the ground and turned, ready to take him out again, only for him to be nowhere to be seen.
"Alright," the sound of Gira's voice rang out behind her, "So I just need to… Blake?" He then saw the bodies and his daughter holding a glowing gun. "W-what happened here?" It was at that moment that Jaune tore through the wall and slammed down between them.
Blake cried out to her father, "Dad! Move!" But she didn't get the chance to properly prepare as one of the blades from Jaune's wing impaled her through the chest and pinned her to the wall.
This made Ruby recoil and cover her mouth in shock. This was just getting worse and worse with each moment in this world.
Blake's eye shorted out a bit, and she knew she couldn't do anything like this. She tossed the gun to her father as best she could. "Dad! Take the gun and fire! Please!"
Gira, meanwhile, was not okay. His greatest fear was back once again, and it had his daughter pinned to a wall. But… more than that, the bunker was exposed. Everyone was in danger. As his mind started to ring, he could hear Blake calling out to him. He wanted to do something… he really did. But he just… couldn't. He looked into those eyes, the same kind of eyes that took his wife. He shook, and backed away in traumatic fear. "I'm sorry…" He sounded so broken. The system tracked his actions and a secondary door slammed down to prevent the Murder Drone from entering the inner section of their only sanctuary.
"Holy…" Yang wanted to be mad at him for abandoning his daughter like that. It was the thing she hated more than anything at this point thanks to her own mother. But… she just couldn't. As hard as it was, she couldn't muster up the anger.
And many in the audience agreed. It wasn't just the trauma, it was the inherent dichotomy of an impossible choice. Possibly save one person you care about, or save the majority of the society with more certainty. It was a choice they knew they'd have to make one day as Huntsmen and Huntresses. But it still stung.
As her father retreated, Blake's fight left her body. Jaune turned to her, clearly empathetic to her plight. But the moment was forced away. "Well I'll be damned." Cinder and Neo were crawling along the ceiling before falling back onto the ground. As Jaune tossed the motionless body of Blake to the side, he brought his hands behind his back as his leader spoke, "I figured I was dreaming, but it looks like you actually did something useful."
Neo chuckled as she approached the door. "You did good work, J."
This caught Jaune off guard, "You… remember my name?"
But Neo just moved on, "These ventilation shafts should be able to get us past this last door. Lowest body count eats a missile!" She leapt into the vents and moved to get her kill count up.
Cinder chuckled and gave Jaune a light punch to his shoulder, "You've done good, J. Once we wipe this colony out, we'll make top squad for the quarter. Think about it: a seat at the best tables, the best missions, respect, and some engraved pens to prove it." She held up one of the company pens before tossing it to Jaune. Those things were something of a status symbol in the company.
But as Jaune looked at the pen, he glanced back to where he'd thrown Blake. A part of him felt guilt, genuine guilt given what he'd seen. He'd always been a nicer sort than the other two, but something else bit its way into his processor. "You know, as much as I can't wait to murder these 'maybe-not-so-different-than-us' Workers, but I've been thinking. Do we actually know what the company plans to do with us afterwards?"
The camera showed Blake's eyes pop to life as she heard her question to him ring out again.
Cinder, however, didn't sound like she enjoyed hearing that question, "Excuse me?"
"Wait, is she going to try to kill him?" Nora asked.
"Most likely." Ciel had no chill. "Harsh as it'll be for you to hear, he's basically committing insubordination. And if this company is willing to send killers after their Workers for being left alone, they won't handle one of those killers going rogue very well."
"It's just, a Worker might have mentioned that they could fix our drop dop so we could escape the planet, which is totally against the rules! But it got me thinking. Why are our drop pods designed not to leave again? Why not teach us proper landing for them? It just seems kind of weird to me and… I made a mistake. It's funny how quickly I can recognize that."
"But what can she do?" Weiss tapped her foot on the ground, "He's been decapitated and got up perfectly fine."
"No, actually this works perfectly."
"It does?"
"Of course." She planted a virus patch on his chest, causing him to short out and fall backwards onto his back. "You finally gave me an excuse to do that. Workers are corrupted J, and I'd hate to see you get corrupted too."
Jaune's visor was showing error messages appear one after the other, his internal processes overloading from the strain, "t-t-t-thanks C… Rea1ly ll-l-l-lll-looking 0ut for m3-e-e."
"I guess that." Yang recoiled a bit at how, admittedly harsh that was.
Penny took it the worst. Even though she liked to think she was human, or as close as she could be, she was vulnerable to the same attacks that J was suffering right now on screen. It's a haunting thing to think about for her.
Cinder gave a sarcastic salute to the dying bot and leapt after Neo.
Once it was safe, Blake moved from her hiding place and slowly walked to her gun waiting nearby. She glanced over to Jaune as his screen glitched. She felt a little bad, but not too bad.
Then he spoke up again. "Dan-ng 1t. I ruined y0u-r card game… then I mad3 you have an awkward m0ment with your dad…"
"And I got you to rebel like an angsty teen. Which got you killed. But you also tried to kill me. Laws of Karma call it a draw." She climbed up onto a crate and looked up to one of the vents. She couldn't reach and had no way to do so. She knew someone who could, but… "And for the record, that was the worst heel to face turn ever. Was that supposed to be you switching sides?"
"Being rebellious is harder than it looks. T-t-t-anks for showing me the ropes."
"No. No bonding. You killed a lot of people."
"That's fair. I screwed up…"
Blake knew she wasn't going anywhere. And she felt a little bad for him. She let out an angst-fueled groan and held up the wrench her dad gave her. "And now, you're going to fix it. Got it?"
Jaune's screen read [I'm literally about to die.] as he spoke, "I'm always happy to try new things."
"Team up to beat those total jerks!" Nora cheered. "Time for a beat down!"
"You think they can pull it off?" Velvet asked. "They can just… remake their bodies, right? How are they going to win if both their enemies can do that?"
"We'll just have to wait and see." Nora had zero expectation of any other outcome.
The scene snapped to one of the Workers rolling across the floor, his chest torn open and oil flowing onto the floor. He came to a stop in front of a small group of the Drones, none of whom seemed sufficiently prepared for this. Cinder moved closer slowly, enjoying the sadistic pleasure of watching them squirm. Neo moved along the wall, acting as that inherent fear of the shadows and the unknown. As the first Drone tried to stand he was revealed to be Neptune. Neo dropped and impaled him through the chest with her claws and held him close to her face as she laughed. She was ready to tear into his body and get at the oil within.
Neptune rubbed his neck, thinking over what his counterpart was about to deal with. Robot or not, they were vampires and there were ideas about how that worked. None of them were kind to the victim.
"Hey!" But the moment was cut as Blake's voice rang out, "Put him down. Now!" The camera tracked over to show Blake and a now fully functional Jaune.
As Neo tossed the would be victim to the side, Cinder called out to them, "So, you're still walking around, traitor? Let's fix that."
Blake leaned up toward Jaune, "So, which one do you want?"
Jaune knew the two, and still said, "C, please." V was not someone he wanted to fight.
"Too bad." But Blake took his pen and threw it at Cinder with enough skill and precision to break one of the glowing lights on Cinder's headband, causing some of the acid to fall onto her face. Cinder was now solely focused on her.
Jaune knew nothing would stop her, so he accepted his fate that his opponent would be Neo.
Neo raised an eyebrow, wondering where this would go. She also gave a side eye to the Arc guy and his little cabal. With slightly narrowed eyes, she just shrugged and got back to the viewing, ready for some action.
As Cinder tried to remove the pen, her hand became a machine gun and she unloaded to keep Blake back. A stray bullet caught the rail gun and knocked it out of her hands. Cinder then finally ripped the pen out, annoyed, only for Blake to be revealed mid-jump for an ax kick. Said hit knocked the pen back into Cinder's face and made her spill more acid.
This just pissed Cinder off more than she'd been before. She should be dead already.
Meanwhile, Neo used a set of blades with beam extensions to try to cut Jaune down to size. He ducked away and readied his gun arm, but his mind wasn't quite up to par at the moment. He didn't fire a missile, but an energy heart. "Gah! My mind's in a weird place! Don't read into that!"
"Middle of a fight and can't even keep your mind on it." Yang spoke with both her and Nora gave a mock disappointed shake of their heads.
"He did say he had a crush on her," Ilia reasoned. And I do get it… She gave a quick glance to the Neo in the audience and there were reasons that the physical girl could distract someone in a fight. Sometimes that's the point.
But Neo charged and tackled Jaune into a melee brawl.
Cinder dislodged the pen from her face and held a charging device on her hand up as she laughed. A pulsewave flew over the area and made Blake lose balance before shutting down from the EMP field.
Neo took another slash at Jaune before they ended up in a clash as her blades were held back from slicing his head off like a pair of scissors. Jaune was struggling with a way to get out of this. There's got to be a way. He noticed Blake was down for the count. If he didn't move now, she'd be dead before he could do anything else. But first I need to get away. I need to distract her, but with what?! She's a killing machine! She won't just let me back off and I'll get cut apart by the time I could… wait. These swords are her hands. He let out a light groan as he knew the best way to move forward. "Sorry about this. And I'm hoping you can repress this." He then proceeded to lick the blade by his head.
This caused Neo to recoil in disgust. The idea of someone licking her hand was just gross!
And the Neo on screen agreed. "Ugh!" She recoiled and retracted her blade, "Why would you do that?!" She was cut off as he flung himself around and kicked her hard enough downward to create a crater in the concrete floor.
Blake was back online and reaching for the gun right next to her. Cinder kicked the gun away and loomed over her, her sadistic spirit getting the better of her. "You know, that wasn't bad for a barely sentient toaster. I'd even go so far as to call you enough of a nuisance to remember. At least for a little while." Her tail flicked to the side, cueing the glitching tail. It stuck her at the end of her leg causing her to curse out as she hopped around, hoping to remove it. Unfortunately for her, the female Disassembly drone had pointed ends for their feet, making it easier to fall over as she lost balance. The camera showed as Jaune swung around and tossed Blake her weapon as she moved over the now prone Cinder. The killer bot didn't even get the chance to speak before her entire upper torso was atomized.
Causing the human Cinder to slam her fist into her chair, "Are you serious?! I lost because of a glitch?!"
"Sucks to suck, doesn't it?" Yang taunted the pyromaniac.
The other Workers started to leave their hiding places, cheering as Blake's fight was won. However, she glitched and almost fell over, only to be caught by Jaune who hoisted her up onto his shoulders. The camera angle showed a very annoyed Neo tied up with her own tail.
The situation for robo-Neo got Yang to snicker and Neo to toss a small rock at the blonde in annoyance.
"Blake, that was insane!" Neptune was holding his wound to prevent more oil from falling, thankfully simple gelling was able to help mitigate it. "And uh… whoever you are."
Jaune realized he was talking about him after a second, "Oh! Uh… I'm J."
In the background, Gira tried to move forward but he locked up again. Even if that bot wasn't trying to kill them, it was still a Murder Drone. He was silent until the wrench hit the floor in front of him. He looked up to see Blake with a less-than-happy expression.
She took a breath and went off, "You left me to die. You just had to believe in me and pick up the gun. But no. It's not even the angsty teen thing saying that!" She smacked her cheek, her visor showing a grudge meter resetting. "I'm not staying here like this… Let's go, J." She tapped Jaune's head and motioned for him to get moving.
Jaune grabbed Neo by her head and waved back to Gira, "Nice to meet you."
"Shut it." Blake chastised him.
Jaune crouched before flying up through the roof with Blake and Neo. The last shot showed a low angle of the Workers looking up into the hole left behind. It faded out and ended soon after.
"Well… that was intense." Yang tried to break the ice, but someone didn't want to defrost just yet.
Blake clenched her fist, "Why would she say that? Trauma doesn't just go away… She didn't see the choices in front of him. Why would she…?"
"Because people don't think like that." May answered. Being from Vacuo, she was a bit more cynical. "People see what they want to see. What's in front of them. They don't take time to think what's happening to everyone else. That's just how it is. And it'll never change."
One last dour note to round out the moment.