Sunset was trying very, VERY hard to ignore the sounds of battle behind her and keep her hand steady. With Missy's help, she was using her saber to cut through the bomb's outer casing. The pain in her arm was getting worse, leeching away her focus and making her head pound. Her heart was pounding and each pulse felt like it was taking her pain to new heights.
"Just... about... got it!" Missy cheered. A large panel of metal fell off of the cylindrical device, its edges still glowing red-hot. The two of them peered inside, Missy gingerly holding onto Sunset's shoulder for support staying in the air. "So, uh... do they teach bomb defusal at Beacon?"
"No... they don't." Sunset reached inside, pushing aside some of the wires to try and get a better look. "Isn't there, I don't know, a timer in these things?"
"A bunch of wires hooked up to an alarm clock and a stick of dynamite?" Missy added. "Listen for ticking!"
"You know, I don't know what I expected. I just thought if we could get it open, then an answer would present itself!" Sunset sighed, stepping back. "This is incomprehensible! What are we supposed to do now? I could just start hacking away with my saber, but that could just set it off!"
"If I could summon Yuki-Onna, maybe we could freeze it so it wouldn't go off!" Missy reached up and grabbed at her hat, reaching inside. She had a frustrated look on her face as she reached further and further inside, eventually getting her entire arm somehow inside all the way up to her shoulder. Finally, she gave up with a shake of her head. "But... it looks like all of the Ghostricks are still pretty spent."
Sunset leaned in closer, making another attempt to make sense of the device. "Look, if it's a bomb, there has to be some kind of explosive charge, right? The bomb won't go boom if there's nothing to explode, right?" Sunset pressed her palm to her forehead. "Times like this, I really wish Twilight was here... She'd probably be able to take this thing completely apart in five minutes..."
"Perhaps so, but there is nothing to be gained from 'if only' at this juncture."Sunset and Missy both looked at one another, eyes wide. Sunset looked around them, trying to find the source of the voice.
"Isis? Where are you?"
"The communications array has been disabled. I am currently using it as an access point to Amity Colosseum's systems, but for the moment I have only control over the public address system and the security cameras. I can watch and speak with you, but that is all.""Can you help us stop this bomb?" Missy asked.
"Negative. There are no devices in the area with cameras able to get a proper scan for analysis. Without proper understanding of the make and model, I cannot instruct you on how to disable it.""Great... Okay, what DO we have going for us? Isis can't help us, you can't summon Yuki-Onna, I don't remember enough of Twilight's tech rambles to figure it out my... self..." Sunset blinked as a thought came to her. "Wait, Isis, can we use our phones now?"
"Affirmative."Sunset switched off her lightsaber and clipped it to her belt, reaching into her pocket for her phone. "I have an idea! Isis, I need you to make a call for me!"
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"HOW is that thing still standing? We blasted it with everything we've got!" Mercury groaned.
Cinder could tell how: the armored plating. It turned away heat, projectiles, and slashes alike. It seemed to be some kind of ceramic composite, and nothing they could do was breaking through it. When she struck with fire, it would shrug it off as if it didn't exist. Mercury's bullets and kicks couldn't seem to be able to crack it, being just pliable enough to not shatter under a piercing force. When she would swap from bow to swords, she couldn't so much as make a scratch in it, and her arrows simply bounced off. Even explosions couldn't budge it, its thick tail and wide stance giving it nearly-unbreakable balance.
The power of the Fall Maiden is so close, I can practically taste it! I can SEE it! Cinder notched another arrow, taking careful aim before letting it fly at the comatose girl at the other end of the room. There was no reinforcement on the stasis pod keeping her alive, one bolt reaching its mark was all that it would take to finish what she had started. The tail of the robot lashed out, batting the arrow out of the air. She could feel her stolen half of the power burning at her from the inside, yearning to be whole. If not for her domination over it, she wondered if it might gnaw straight through her chest and burst out. For now, it only intensified her need.
She glanced at Mercury, nodding to the left. He got the message, bolting to one side of the room while she took the opposite direction. The room was too wide for the robot to cover both sides at once.
"Fire suppression systems engaged."It turned sideways, opening its maw and pointing it at Cinder. On the other end, the tip of its tail flipped aside and revealed a wide nozzle. She leaped up onto the wall, melting herself footholds to run upwards and out of its reach, even if it did choose to pursue her. Cinder knew she had only fractions of a second to take her shot. She already had an arrow notched, bringing it up to take her aim...
And she was washed over by a wave of white foam. The sheer force of the impact blasted her backwards, pushing her spread-eagle against the same wall she had been running on. The foam hardened almost instantly, pinning her in place off of the ground. A glace to the other side revealed that Mercury had been unsuccessful, as well, a blast of liquid nitrogen having frozen his robotic legs in place. The tail extended outwards, shattering the weaponized prosthetics like glass with a merciless swipe. He cried out in pain, grabbing at the places where the metal met his skin and frantically disengaging them before the frost could spread over to his flesh. A second later, another panel in the tail opened and the tool inside jabbed into his side with a crackle of electricity. A second later, the cattle-prod-like device had done its work, reducing Mercury to a stunned heap on the floor.
"I warned you that there would be retaliation if you did not cease."The hulking robot turned back to Cinder, its glowing pink eyes unflinching as it stared her down. It was ridiculous, for them to be so challenged by a stupid machine! This TOY will NOT stand between me and what I've rightfully earned!
The robot leaned closer, looking her in the eyes with that same emotionless, calculating gaze. Cinder could see it more closely, and she took in every detail she could. In fact, she saw two distinct weaknesses.
"Surrender."Cinder concentrated, superheating the foam around her. It refused to burn away completely, but she could feel it weakening. She pushed back against the wall with her legs, flinging herself forward and bringing her hands together. She twisted her bow at the center, splitting it into a pair of long blades. Without hesitation, she plunged both blades into the only part of the creature that wasn't armored: the eyes. She planted her foot on its muzzle as it reared back, sparks and wiring protruding out as she ripped the swords back out again. She performed an expert backflip, gracefully landing on her feet. The robot reared back in a surprisingly animal-like motion for being disoriented and blinded.
She wasted no time, using the momentary distraction to rush in close. The robot spun around, whipping its tail in a circular motion and spraying more liquid nitrogen in an impromptu smokescreen. The attack came too late and too clearly telegraphed, however, and Cinder was already within striking distance before the smokescreen could have any effect. She smiled as her eyes confirmed what she thought she had seen earlier:
The ceramic plates were functionally impregnable, but they were just that: plates. Rigid, unmoving plates of which countless numbers were needed to cover a full range of motion. As the tail made its returning swipe, she stabbed downwards with both blades at once. As always, she hit her mark, wedging the tips into the gaps between the panels. With a brutal twist, she ripped both in opposite directions, severing it off completely at the base.
The loss seemed to throw the mechanical creature off-balance, making it stumble to the side as it tried to complete the swipe of its tail with no more tail left to swipe. As it lurched to the side, Cinder slipped past and under it, snapping her swords back into a bow and re-stringing it with a single practiced motion.
"You may be powerful, but a machine is still no match for- GUH!"
She stumbled as a large object struck her from behind at a high velocity. A glance to the side revealed a polished, egg-shaped canister laying beside her. The canister popped open with a pressurized hiss, revealing a miniature version of the robot, but without the armored plating and bearing a large pink crystal in its chest. It regarded her for a moment before spreading its wings and taking to the air.
"Visual feed reestab-"Cinder instantly notched and fired an arrow, shattering the pink crystal in the drone's chest before it could fly out of sight. It dropped to the ground, instantly lifeless. She satisfied smirk was cut off, however, by the sound of roaring flames. She turned around, seeing the larger, wingless drone hovering in the air as flames shot out of the bottoms of its four legs. It was jet-powered. It was jet-powered and pointed straight at her.
"You have GOT to be kidding."
The creature bowed its head and leaned forwards, the jets of flame propelling it forward. She was forced to duck and roll as it jetted forward, several tons of ceramic and metal flying just over her head as it blindly passed her by. The attempt to ram her was pitiful, a last-ditch effort of a beaten opponent.
It wasn't until Cinder looked up that she realized the true objective of the attack: the machine had wrapped itself around the Fall Maiden's stasis pod, trying to shield her body with its own. Cinder smirked as she walked forward, placing her hand against the surface and tracing one of the seams between the armor plates with her finger.
"You can't stop me now. Don't you see this is pointless?" She jammed the end of her bow into the seam, prying the panel off with a snap. She tilted her head to the side, easily avoiding a small arm crackling with electricity that popped out and swung at her face. She grabbed it near the base, reducing the metal to molten slag. "Ooh, not so fireproof on the inside, are you?" She popped off another panel with a smile, only to find herself staring down the barrel of another tool. This one was some kind of drill with an auger-like bit, and it had stopped just between her eyes, spinning wildly. She paused, watching it spin away at a rate that could easily put a new hole in her skull. However... no such thing happened. A glance showed that it clearly could, it was far from beyond its maximum reach. A theory began to form in her mind, one that only brought more enjoyment to her.
"Through this whole battle, the only real damage you did was to Mercury's legs, which weren't actually his legs. You tried to electrify us, lock us in expanding foam, stick us in place... but never anything lethal. You kept trying to make us walk away, to surrender. You can't actually hurt humans, can you?"
"Technically, Administrator Noir would have no objections in the case of harming humans. However, the use of lethal force on intelligent living creatures would go against my prime directive, yes."Cinder smirked, reaching up and touching her finger to the tip of the drill, reducing it to molten slag. "In that case, taking you apart piece by piece is going to be even more fun than I anticipated."
"I am afraid that will not occur."Cinder stepped back, watching carefully for any more panels opening on their own to reveal another non-lethal trick. "Oh? And why not? HURRK!"
Suddenly, she felt a piercing pain in her back as her entire body was jolted forward. Looking down, she saw a bloody staff protruding from her chest, impaling completely through her.
"Because my goal was only to distract and delay you. I did not enter this confrontation alone."Cinder turned as best she could as her body began to lose its strength. Her eyes widened as she saw what should have been impossible.
"Y-you..." she forced the word out even as the taste of blood filled her mouth.
The angry eyes of Amber, the Fall Maiden she had defeated, bore into her with fury and wrath. She ripped her crystal-tipped staff back out of Cinder's body, yanking her backwards and sending her falling to the floor. She didn't even have a single sign of the scar that Cinder had left across her face, it was as unblemished as it had been when they had first attacked her. As Cinder lay on her back in a pool of her own blood, only a single question managed to slip through her lips.
"How..."
Amber didn't grace her with an answer, simply glaring down at her as the life drained from her body. It was the mocking voice of the automaton that filled her final moments before she slipped away entirely.
"Fate can be changed. There is no such thing as destiny, Cinder Fall."
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There was a long period of silence. Isis attempted to boot up the hostile environment exploration drone's sound navigation ranging unit, but it appeared to have been badly damaged along with the optical units. She made a note to distribute sensory units throughout the body, rather than concentrating them in the head. As much as she preferred to emulate organic creatures, she now understood that particular choice to be impractical. It appeared that, for the moment, auditory data would be her best way of engaging with her cohort.
"Has your power been fully returned, Miss Amber?""Yes, I think so... She's dead, so it went back to its other half. But I don't understand... How am I here? Did you heal me?"
"Negative. While biology and medical studies are a personal hobby of mine-""You study medicine for a hobby?"
"-your body was beyond repair. Thankfully, I have provided a far superior replacement."She let the drone release its grip on the stasis pod. It had served its purpose, delaying Cinder just long enough for the procedure to be finalized. She heard Amber gasp in shock, which she supposed was a reasonable reaction to seeing her own dead body.
"That's... me!"
"Formerly. However, upon gaining access to top-secret Atlesian research, I discovered that they had been researching the transfer of aura and possible receptacles. While Ozpin's initial plan had been to pass your aura on to one of his students, I... happened upon a prototype robotic body capable of both holding and generating an aura. I recreated the design in your likeness and placed it into the transference machine prior to Cinder's arrival. From there, I needed only to delay her long enough to place your aura in an uncompromised vessel. Cinder's release of the Black Queen virus caused both the machine and your soon-to-be body to need a full reboot and system restore, tripling the projected time I needed to distract her until you were revived to either join the battle or escape. While the HENVEX unit was not designed for battle, it was immune to all forms of heat, radiation, electromagnetic interference, and blunt impact, making it a functional counter to Cinder's incomplete powers of the Fall Maiden. In the end, superior intelligence and tactics prevailed."
"Wait, does that mean... I'm a robot?" She sounded distressed, another entirely reasonable reaction given the circumstances.
"Affirmative. Granted, one with a genuine human soul, but a robot nonetheless."There was another long pause. Isis wondered if she might be having some form of existential crisis. According to her psychological profiles, it was one of the more likely projected reactions to finding out that the nature of one's bodily autonomy had fundamentally changed. Finally, Amber sighed.
"It's going to take time for me to come to terms with this, but I... suppose I owe you my thanks. Who are you?"
"I am the Integrated Superior Intelligence System, but you may call me ISIS."Isis registered a dull thud, one that would be produced by a boot forcefully colliding with a dead body and flinging it against the wall.
"Thank you, Isis. For saving my... life? Am I still alive? Anyway, thank you for that, and for helping me get payback on this bi-"
"Cinder Fall's death is a regrettable outcome. I failed in my goal to avoid any death today, whether "deserved" or not. However, it also means a powerful enemy has been neutralized. I will try to keep the majority of my attention on the positive aspects of this victory. If you find yourself in distress again, Amber, please do not hesitate to call upon me. For now, however, I would recommend you re-enter hiding before Salem's forces locate you again."
"Right. Um.. where am I?"
"Beneath Beacon Academy. You'll find an elevator at the opposite end of this hallway that should be able to take you up to ground level. Before you leave, however, I do have one inquiry.""What is it?"
"Do you know the location of Evernight Castle, Salem's base of operations? A friend of mine has been captured, and we have reason to believe he may have been taken there.""I'm sorry, but I don't. I usually try to keep away from any signs or rumors about Salem. The only thing I can tell you is that if your friend is there, he's either not going to survive for long, or he's going to wish he hadn't."
"Your input on the matter has been cataloged, thank you."-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Ian Quinn." Coulson stepped up for their debriefing, starting with a name everyone on the team knew too well. SHIELD agents weren't supposed to take things personally, but they all had good reasons to want him brought down.
"You found him?"
"No, but we think we know how we can. Skye tracked down an invoice from one of his shell companies, he made a big purchase recently..." Coulson turned back towards the display screen.
"'Ten million dollars' big," Skye added.
Their conversation was cut short as the screens all began to flicker at the same time, along with the Zephyr's lights. Everyone stopped, bracing themselves in case their travelling fortress was under attack. A few seconds later, everything seemed to return back to normal.
"Fitz... what just happened?" Coulson asked, giving him a wary look. Fitz had retrieved a small tablet, which he was furiously tapping away on.
"Someone, no, something has gotten into our systems, there's no way a human could work this fast! It started in our communications, but it's traveling all over the ship, like it's looking for something!"
"Well, do something!"
"I'm trying, sir! But it's moving too fast, and the encryption isn't going to be easy to break! It's like a whole other programming language just overwriting ours! It-"
Everyone stopped as the screen in front of them changed. Their mission briefing vanished, replaced by a simple black screen with pink lettering.
"Incoming call from Sunset Shimmer. Urgent. Will you accept?"Everyone on the team looked at each other, clearly unsure what to make of the situation. Skye was the first one to speak up.
"It's Sunset, so... Yeeees?"
The screen changed again, now to a bedragged-looking Sunset Shimmer.
"HEY! GUYS! Oh thank the stars, Isis managed to reach you! I'm in a bad spot and I need some help!"
"Sunset, what is this, what's going on?" Coulson stepped forward. "Did you just hack our systems?"
Sunset flinched as the not-very-distant sound of gunfire and clashing metal rang through the call. "I'll explain later, Coulson, I PROMISE, but for now I need to ask for a favor!" The camera turned, revealing that she was standing beside some kind of device she had sliced open.
"Do any of you guys know how to defuse a bomb?"