[center][h3]Vandelay Campus - Production[/h3]
[b]Location:[/b] Midgar Sector 06, the City of Glass
Roland’s [@Archmage MC], Partitio’s [@Dark Cloud], Goldlewis Dickinson
[b]Word Count:[/b] 3060 (+4)

Roland didn’t really care too much who he went with in this group. But from the sound of things, Goldlewis seemed to know the most so he decided to go with him. He really wasn’t sure exactly what was going on with the whole DespoRHado fighting Vandelay, but perhaps he could get two birds with one stone. As he’d be working with these people, he explained how his distortion mask worked as he put it on. [color=d7d7d7]”With this mask on, people don’t pay much attention to me, with only vague memories of what they saw and nothing concrete. But if you guys know what this is, you can overcome some of its effects. At least enough that we can fight together and know that you're fighting with a masked man. Maybe someday you’ll even remember my name.”[/color] Roland said, putting his mask on in front of everyone and doing his whole thing. He also explained those with high enough perception could actually fully remember who he was even with the mask on as long as he explained things, stating a couple librarians he knew could do just that.


After a flurry of hastily-made decisions on who would be going where, the five teams bid one another a hasty farewell, then hurried on their separate ways. As Goldlewis took off, quickly picking up speed as he barreled toward his chosen destination, he sized up his two teammates. From the beginning he knew that splitting up the Seekers would be a risky proposition, only possible in the first place because they had quite a few people when out in full force. Split five ways, however, that roster started to look a little thin. Goldlewis hadn’t gotten the chance to work with either Partitio or Roland so far, and with both of them new recruits as of yesterday, he didn’t even really know them. Their demeanors, level of competence, and capabilities were complete mysteries to him. Every crew needed people to fill certain essential roles, from functional ones like offense, defense, and healing to tactical ones like leadership and support. Right now, Goldlewis couldn’t be going in any more blind, and he hated it.

Luckily for the hardened vet the latter of the two quickly showed his true colors, not having been up to much over the past bit since their meeting with Sandalphon. Partitio had spent some of his time the other day going to see how the folk back in the slums were, a bit of a trip in itself or so he told Goldlewis.

Helped a few folk with some heavy lifting, even chipped in at the bar much to Tifa's vehement and many polite attempts to decline his assistance but he wouldn't take no for an answer and went to washing dishes, serving drinks and making quite a few fast friends. He didn't pay for his drink a couple nights back after all and a merchant always pays for the things he gets.

At the very least, it seemed like this trio -without any fliers, speedsters, or teleporters- formed one of the lower-mobility teams, so it was a good thing that the Production division of Vandelay Campus seemed relatively close by. He, Roland, and Partitio ran along the scorched-earth trail left by the invading DespoRHado force until they made it to a breach in the division wall. They jumped through and found themselves in a walled courtyard, surrounded by factory buildings on its other sides and home to a large, showy statue depicting the Head of Production with Amazonian proportions. Trashed SBR units and the remains of a few DespoRHado troops lay in pieces, strewn around all over the place, with some of cyborg corpses messy enough that Goldlewis averted his gaze. 

By looking elsewhere, however, he noticed a couple interesting things. One was a curious snail by the statue-adjacent water feature, the pigmentation of its skin jet-black. More importantly, he saw that while the big doors were sealed shut, with ‘LOCKOUT’ flashing on screens above them, there lay a conspicuous access passage marked ‘DO NOT ENTER’ in a mostly fenced-off lot nearby. Cargo containers lay stacked in front of it as a convenient means to climb up, and the heavily-perforated wreck of a four-legged HGOG unit suggested that the invaders had indeed gone this way. He did notice one other thing: a small, blue shape cowering beneath a bench, trembling in fear. It looked like a dog, and even if it didn’t remind him of that poor Meowstic back in Sector 05, he couldn’t ignore the poor thing. He knelt down for a better look, and saw a four-legged [url=https://i.imgur.com/D48Uko1.png]robot[/url] with floppy ear-flaps and big, shiny, yellow eyes. “Aw, don’t be scared, li’l feller,” he cooed, reaching out his hand. The KUT-WAN tentatively poked out from its hiding spot, then rubbed up against the veteran’s massive mitt, wagging its tailpipe. “Aww, wouldja look at that. What a cute li’l sucker.” As endearing as it was, however, it wasn’t mission critical. He picked himself up and headed toward the way in he spotted earlier to get the mission started.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPUgqRtKWhA&list=PLliR819cR9yqVvMO1ln6NSKCsfWZ3bzSj&index=6&ab_channel=CaseTech279[/youtube][/center]

As he and the others climbed up and into the corridor, he brought up his communication glyph and dialed in on his newest contact. “Sandalphon, come in. You read me? Over.”

“Reading you loud and clear.” Through the medium of magic, the angel’s voice possessed no static distortion, only a slight ethereal reverb. “For the course of this operation, please refer to me with callsign Halo. I will meanwhile hail you with callsign Mustang. Acknowledge?”

“Roger.” Picked due the southern dialect shared between himself and Partitio, Goldlewis supposed. A few moments later, past a couple destructible crates and jerky lifts, the trio reached the end of the hall, and a door slid open to reveal an open-air [url=https://i.imgur.com/erBufJe.png]loading bay[/url], with shuttered garage doors on each side. The trio arrived just in time to see a gang of DespoRHado cyborgs finish off the last SBR unit standing.

Then they turned toward the newcomers, their weapons at the ready. “Hey! Who the hell’re you?”

“They’re not with us,” the heavily-armored unit leader snarled, slamming his heavy [url=https://i.imgur.com/uTSe7S5.png]axe and shield[/url] together for intimidation. “Take ‘em out!” His squadmates, armed with a mixture of swords, hi-tech crossbows, and grenade launchers, obeyed without question.

Roland could only roll his eyes and sigh. [color=d7d7d7]”I’m not surprised these guys want to fight.”[/color]. His allies and the enemies, if they paid enough attention, could hear that Roland didn’t make any noise as he moved, nor made any noise as he drew his weapon, a [url=https://i.imgur.com/11XuJnH.png]large two handed sword[/url] and moved with quickness that his frame or demeanor wouldn’t suggest. 

When a slash connected, almost no sound could be heard. It almost sounded like the impact was underwater, with how muffled it sounded. But the damage could clearly be seen as he swiped at an approaching cyborg. Seeing this guy moving way faster than he probably should, one of the cyborgs with a crossbow shot as Roland turned to look at him. With dexterity of a master, Roland used his sword to bash the projectile away from himself before moving in to land his blow. It was a clean cut, but not enough to fell the cyborg outright, and as he used his heavy crossbow to block the swordsman Roland hit earlier came back for round two.

Goldlewis followed Roland into the fray, his coffin held up in front of him as a makeshift shield. A triple shot of crossbow bolts, custom-designed to puncture solid metal and tear through circuitry like muscle fiber, slammed into it as his advanced. Despite the alarmingly loud impacts, the bolts snapped instead of the reinforced lid. When another trooper lobbed a grenade with a punchy [i]FOOM[/i], it exploded against the veteran’s coffin in a burst of flame, only for Goldlewis to burst from the flames and scatter the duo with a mighty Behemoth Typhoon. The bowman leaped back, but the grenadier got clobbered, and as he tumbled away the squad leader surged into fill the gap. He hurled his heavy shield at Goldlewis, landing a painful blow on his shoulder, then caught the shield as it bounced off in order to come down with a leaping cleave from his axe. Unfortunately for him, his attack speed was slow enough that Goldlewis could step back and catch the axe with his coffin’s chain, then turn it aside. He battered the squad leader’s armor with a shoulder barge, then pragmatically [url=https://i.imgur.com/srgWhY3.png]brought his foot down[/url] on his foe’s strong enough to crack the ground. As the cyborg reeled, a back-down-forward [url=https://i.imgur.com/nF9of0K.png]Behomoth Typhoon[/url] knocked him away, and Goldlewis followed up with a Thunderbird heligrenade to chase him down.

By that time, of course, the other cyborgs had rallied. One with his sword decided to head after Roland, who had almost ignored him to go after his crossbow ally. He’d soon find this was Roland’s plan, as Roland skillfully parried the cyborg’s sword, before counter attacking himself. It was being shown why he was part of Shinra’s guard at the debate pretty clearly, even if he looked unassuming. That made a couple clean hits for Roland, even if he had yet to decide the fight. When the grenadier started lobbing explosives into the middle of Roland's fight, however, that complicated things.

At the same time, the Thunderbird gave the squad leader a chance to show off a new trick. When he picked himself up, he blocked the heligrenade's blast with his shield, which in turn transferred fire damage to his axe. Clearly the brutish weapon was more technical than it looked. He moved in with the other crossbowman and swordman, all three challenging Goldlewis together. Rather than let rip with a Behemoth Typhoon when he could be easily punished, the veteran put up his defense, waiting for an opportunity.

[color=d7d7d7]”Crap crap crap.”[/color] Roland said, almost a bit comedically as he hopped away from the thrown grenades, trying to defend himself with his greatsword. Still, he took some damage from the explosive nature of the grenades. Through the smoke of the grenades however, Roland dashed out again, swapping his weapon to a [url=https://i.imgur.com/1w3nVXO.png]
pair of swords[/url] that he used to slash up the grenadier cyborg who had attacked him in a flurry of blows. Unprepared for the deadly flurry, the cyborg went down, but all the extra attention Roland paid to the grenadier left him open to the crossbowman, who took aim with gritted teeth at the agent’s back to nail him with a black steel bolt, of which Roland deflected with his reflexive counter.

Thankfully or rather embarrassingly for the merchant his throwing of hands were initially in the air rather than at the face of these fellas so he went largely unnoticed when he had dove for cover from the hail of crossbow bolts and explosives "[color=DECF4C]Could've been easier-[/color]" the crossbowman hadn't even turned in time as the succinct sound of a high pressure nail as it fired into the back of his skull, Partitio having been the one to fire it yet he looked as though he would have preferred to not have "[color=DECF4C]If we just talked partner.[/color]" he sighed holstering the unconventional weapon at his side.

Partitio was surprisingly quite a capable fighter as when he dropped the crossbowman he switched up hands and brandished a nasty looking spear made of a sort of mish-mash of robotic scrap, a hand still on his hip ready to draw the nailgun once more.

With the damage already dealt to the cyborg by Roland, a nail to his unarmored head provided enough physical and mental shock to take him down. Since Partitio entered the battle by helping the Turk with his enemies, though, that left Goldlewis with the three that remained. The swordsman and squad leader attacked together while the crossbowman kept his weapon trained on the target, locking Goldlewis down on defense since any action in his part would result in a quick triple-shot and getting combo'd by the other two. When the two melee fighters got tired of chip damage and split up to attack him on either side, the veteran knew he had to move fast.

"Try this on!" He bellowed, swinging his coffin around on its chain in a heavy metal whirlwind to batter both aggressors in quick succession. The crossbowman timed his shot and let loose, only for Goldlewis to Roman Cancel his attack and instantly switch to blocking again, wasting the cyborg's triple shot. As the man grunted in frustration, Goldlewis took his chance to met the squad leader head-on, coffin versus axe. Sparks flew, and the crossbowman hurried to reload.

Unfortunately for him, a sudden gout of flames engulfed him in a fiery blast with a little extra oomph, with a bit of a BP boost Ember lit the ranged fighter aflame dealing a good portion of damage to the cyborg. Partitio had snapped his fingers, causing a spark to ignite that turned into the fire as he stood at a safe distance from the actual fighting. He wasn't no stranger to a good old brawl but he knew when not to bite off more than he could chew.

With the shooter partially consumed, Goldlewis could give the squad leader his full attention. He blocked as his foe chopped away with his flame-infused axe, then challenged with an elbow strike to interrupt his offense. When his opponent blocked on reflex to stop further jab checks, Goldlewis immediately went low, first with a kick while basically sitting on the ground and then a stronger [url=https://i.imgur.com/Ye2pCtJ.png]low mule kick[/url] to sweep the leg. The cyborg went down, and Goldlewis knocked him away with a down-forward-up Behemoth Typhoon. As his foe recovered he jumped, airdashed, and came down with a [url=https://i.imgur.com/1FTUsj3.png]windmill[/url] of alien arms. The cyborg took it head-on and quickly ate the veteran’s [url=https://i.imgur.com/BB7yOOc.png]dust[/url], an upward punch from the UMA that knocked his block -or more accurately his mask- right off. Fearless, he still swung on Goldlewis’ followup, cutting another Behemoth Typhoon short with a couple hacks of his axe. He ended with a big kick straight to the big man’s gut, but all his strength only moved the big man back about a foot. Goldlewis shook his head, clicking his tongue, and kicked back, bowling the cyborg over. A deluge of Thunderbird bullets forced his opponent to block on wakeup, though the chip still hurt, and when Goldlewis jumped to airdash at him again he kept his guard up. This time, however, the veteran landed without attacking and grabbed him. “You damn-!” he growled, seizing the cyborg by the chest to deliver three massive headbutts. “FOOL!” When the last one crashed right into his dome, the squad leader’s muscles went slack, and he pivoted away before falling right on his face.

Of course, the other swordsman was still a problem. Or it seemed like it would be, until Roland finished off the Swordsman he had been dueling with with a few precise slices to cut up the poor lad, before swapping out his two swords for [url=https://i.imgur.com/HVVgcD4.png]
a fancy looking shotgun[/url] and shot the swordsman that was advancing on Goldlewis in the back with three precise shots, using that opener to advance on the Swordsman with an [url=https://i.imgur.com/TLx1eaM.png]
oppressively big sword[/url] that seemed to be made more for crushing than slashing. The swordsman tried to block the massive sword, but found his sword being crushed by Rolands attack, and it didn’t take much more than that to topple him.

With that the skirmish was over, furious but brief. While the Seekers wielded greater firepower and more varied skills in general, the cyborgs’ number advantage and solid weaponry still turned out to be a threat. As his heartbeat slowed back down, Goldlewis stopped his wristwatch as he straightened his tie. Team Mustang’s performance left something to be desired. “Chances are we’re gonna be outnumbered even more goin’ forward. We’re all gonna need to fight toe to toe and coordinate crowd control to keep from bein’ overwhelmed. These ain’t toys these guys are packin’.”

His feedback came to a stop when he noticed a certain four-legged robot headed his way. “You again?” He said in disbelief, his brows raised at the KUT-WAN that somehow managed to follow him from the earlier courtyard. Goldlewis kneeled down and patted it on the head before pushing it away. “I’m sorry, li’l guy, but it’s dangerous out here. If you tag along you’re sure to get scrapped. Go on now, git.”

When he stood back up, he looked between the two shuttered doors leading out from the loading bay, put his hand to the glyph beside his head. “Sa…uh, Halo, you read me? Which way should we go?”

“I would recommend the high road,” the archangel replied. “There’s a button on the barrier wall behind you that should open it. If you use the teal pipes to reach the 04 Plant, there’s a good chance you can reach the facility rooftops. That would allow you to skip more fights inside Production’s factories.”

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/mTKcnTk.png[/img][/center]

Goldlewis nodded. “Copy.” He jumped up and hammered the button with a backfist, causing the barrier to recede downward and expose the loading bay to the open air. Then he took a deep breath. It would be a lot of jumping and climbing, but it would be better than a slog through more time-consuming punch-ups. [i]We got this.[/i] he told himself. “Let’s move, y’all.”

Roland sighed, but followed. This was such a pain, but a job is a job.