TokyoPewPew
Lemons
Archmage MC
AlternateMan
Eviledd1984
ctrlsaltdel
Ariamis
Double
Lord ZeeChaos Aligned
Juri and Edward
Words: 4508 (+5)
Edward surveyed the Locusts as they closed in on the massive six wheeled vehicle with only mild concern. He’d known they were there, and also that they were none too friendly thanks to them shooting the pair of scouts (that he’d sent their way to work out their intentions) on sight.
Thanks to his portal power, he could have simply bypassed them, but marauders, as he thought of them, were also, again in his opinion, free game. To an extent, his empires had run on the salvage of slain enemies, and so while some might have seen simply an obstacle to be removed, the dreadnaught, leader of a culture of reavers, saw here resources to be claimed.
Not that he intended to put himself on the line for them, his towering form was, he well knew, something of an easy target, but then that was what disposable assets were for.
One such asset had spotted the erupting battle and slowed her motorcycle to a halt, presumably considering whether to get involved or not. All she needed was a little push, one he was more than willing to provide.
Juri came out here looking for a fight, but not some crazy desert battle on an unarmed motorcycle. Especially since there was no obvious reward for diving into the fray, but if she lost her bike she could kiss her chances of finding any loot goodbye. She set a hand on her hip and stood up on her back as the fight moved away from her.
As a few of his scout drones closed in, their master opened a portal and stepped through, exiting a respectable distance for Jur. The now three people tall, hunched-backed, finger-covered winged Edward removed his helmet to reveal his mostly unchanged face as he exited, and then greeted her with a cordial ”Good afternoon Juri”
”Ewww!” Juri yelled in response. ”What the hell happened to you?! Did you fuse with the mold under the fridge?”
”A powerful demoness actually, one that gives me the ability to offer what you desire” he replied, before waving a hand and opening a portal. On the other end, they briefly caught sight of a confused locust as it drove past the hole in reality, before the beastial humanoid andit’s machine exited stage left, revealing the rest of the battle beyond. Before any stay or intentional shots could come their way however, the Dreadnought closed the portal, and concluded his offered devil’s bargain: ”Plunder acquired through violence”
Juri narrowed her eyes under her helmet at the new magical ability. That would make things a lot easier. She wouldn’t have to risk her bike, and wouldn’t have to worry about getting trapped on a vehicle. ”Humph.” She crossed her arms. ”Might be a good time. If you want a share of the loot, better make sure me or my bike don’t go splat.” She said.
”Can you keep up?” She asked.
Edward simply flicked a hand, a flurry of portals opening and closing, to demonstrate that he could indeed keep up. He then offered ”I can even send that back to the armory, to be retrieved once you need it again” because he’d rather not keep guarding it, and then asking as an afterthought ”Or would you like to ride it into battle?” because to him fistycuffs did not exactly seem like a fighting style suited to be used from (mechanical) horseback.
”Hell no, you had it right the first time. Drop me right onto that big sucker! If those guys are chasing it, it might have good loot onboard. I could nab it first.” Juri said, rubbing her hands together. She took off her helmet and rolled her neck, then sent her helmet on her bike for safe keeping. She rubbed her hands together.
”Ready when you are, Fingers.”
The man might have objected before, but he had come here for loot had he not? So instead he simply replied ”As you wish” before snapping his fingers for dramatic effect, and opening a portal directly under the streetfighter. The other end of it opened directly above the giant cannon the six wheeled base on wheels sported, very literally dropping her onto it.
”Kyaha-!” Her shrill laugh was interrupted as the noise was taken by the wind above the vehicle she was dropped onto.
Then with her on her way, the man turned a brief moment of focus to the bike she’d left behind, taking a few moments to initiate the armory recall sequence. As he did this, a squad of his scout drones zoomed closer to the battle, skimming around the periphery and doing their best to kite any attention they got so that Edward could keep track of what Juri was doing.
As both marauding seekers now saw, the owners of the vehicle turned out to be armored human soldiers called Gears, armed with bayoneted lancer rifles, Gnasher Shotguns and snub pistols. Not that either of them would care to find out any of these names.
A dozen of these Gears were in the midst of attempting to repel boarders, namely the flying Reaver squid monsters and their pairs of locust riders, several of whom leaped off the back of the beasts to engage their foes on foot. Armed with hammerbursters, or combat knives boltok pistols, these locusts where exchanging fire with or coming to blows with the Gears who had been firing from the banisters of their vehicle.
Things seemed to be going rather poorly for the Gears, one of whom went down right as Juri arrived as a bullet struck his chest. He did not turn to ash however, as his durable armor took most of the blow and gave a medic among the Gears enough time to toss a stim gas grenade to revive him.
By contrast the locust’s armor was far less advanced, one of them being turned to dust by a near identical bullet to the chest that had failed to take down the Gear, but they were big and tough, and glancing hits were not taking them down. And that was before the fling cannon mounted warbeasts got involved.
It was, all in all, an absolute mess of a situation, and Edward had put her right in the middle of it.
Juri landed and pounced up to the wall, clambering up it to get the top of the vehicle. Her eyes flitted about as she surveyed the situation, and concluded these Gears were losing up here. If she wanted the most amount of time to herself, she would nudge the battle so that neither side got the advantage too quickly. If there was any loot, it was going to be in some kind of cargo area inside, she guessed.
Juri sprinted along the top of the massive vehicle, leaping up to promptly snatch a passing Reaver pilot and kick it right in the face, sending the vehicle off course and over the side. ”Haha!” She cackled. Pissed off, the Reaver turned around to take another pass at her. Juri shifted from side to side, avoiding the bullets coming her way before sprinting to catch it, leaping up with a spinning cleave of her Ghoulsaw. A huge chunk taken out of it, both locusts moved to abandon ship before it crashed and burned, but they would find Juri waiting for her, and with a swipe and two kicks both locusts turned to ash. Juri snatched up one of their handguns and holstered her Ghoulsaw, moving along the top again. A green streak dragged behind her as she got to the other end with a burst of speed, sliding and dropping cleanly. The speed made it difficult for any participants in the pitched battle to lock their attention on her.
She parkoured over the side and went a layer down to where the doors led into the control room. The locked doors weren’t electronic, but that was no concern to Juri. She hefted her Ghoulsaw and brought it down hard on the handle with a spray of sparks, but it didn’t take long for the nasty weapon to start rending metal and digging into the locking mechanism. ”Open Sesame!” She cried out gleefully. This loud entrance wouldn’t go unnoticed by the Gear squad inside the control room, or the circling aerial Locusts. A streak of bullets came in towards Juri, who raised her arm and her shoulder as a bullet glanced off her body. A Reaver was coming in hot, but this one wasn’t going to get too close, and while she was on this balcony-like outcropping of the Mammoth she didn’t have much maneuverability to reach it.
Juri side-stepped the next few shots and then crouched behind cover as the bullets came raining in, the Reaver flying alongside the Mammoth from a safe distance. This was hardly Juri’s specialty, but her extreme hand-eye coordination went a long way in making it possible. She peaked over the edge and returned fire. ”How’s this?” She shouted, her boltok pistol firing off heavy rounds that stuck into the Reavers thick skin or sailed past the Locust riders. Still, they drew back and away as they returned suppressing fire, not wanting to let Juri get a bead on them. They stayed there long enough for another Reaver to show up. The squid beast itself and its two riders descended to meet Juri, apparently having figured out she was going to bust her way in, or maybe just going after a lone target.
”Oh, I’ve got time for all’a you handsome baldies.” Juri said, dropping her pistol and letting her Ghoulsaw hang at her side as she beckoned with her free hand.
As she was saying that, however, a portal opened above the reaver, and a massive armored fist smashed out of it and into the side of the Reaver, sending it careening to one side. As its pilot tried to stabilize it, he flew right into the grasp of another hand that reached out of a portal, grabbed the pilot, and then pulled it back through the portal, leaving the other locust one scrambling to grab the controls of the panicking warbeast.
It did not get the time, as the missing pilot then reappeared, coming hurtling at high speed straight into him, sending both locusts crashing down to the dust below.
”Haha!” Juri laughed.
Deprived of its intelligent riders, the Reaver lashed out wildly at the air with its tendrils, but by then the presence that had taken them had moved on to to other prey, as down below a string of hands reached down trying to grab a locust off of a chopper, before then opening and letting the riderless vehicle roll through once they succeeded.
Juri glanced at a nearby scout drone that flew in, knowing it belonged to Edward. ”C’mon! Need your portals to get outta there with the loot. ” Juri said. She turned away from the chaos and hacked into the door with her Ghoulsaw. As she split the door open, she was met with a shotgun blast to the chest that knocked her far back and clear over the railing. ”Oogh! She vanished from sight.
The Gear inside pumped his shotgun and stayed behind cover, but was surprised when Juri came in through the top of the doorframe like some kind of horrible spider and leapt clean over his shot and kicked him in the chest. A few more kicks lifted him off the ground and launched him clear across the room. He landed with a heavy thud, winded but not out. There were some shouts of alarm. ”Hello boys and girls!” Juri said, looking for an exit deeper into the Mammoth. She spotted a couple different doors, and fortunately the inside of this place was big enough to need to be labelled. Juri could see the driver and the rest of the squad responsible for protecting the interior and manning the turrets.
The driver had to stay concentrated, trusting her team to keep her safe while she kept them all from crashing. Two more Gears opened up, but Juri wasn’t interested in fighting. She dashed to the side, staying ahead of the bullets, and hacked open an electronic door. She waited for the scout drone to follow her and slammed the door shut behind her, locking it.
”You can open a portal inside here, right?” Juri asked the drone. And by extension Sandalphon who could also relay the message, but that would take a bit longer than the drone just ‘nodding’.
Unfortunately for her, the remaining drone (one had been destroyed by stray fire) looked her right in the eye and then glanced left and right several times in quick succession. The specific explanation that he had to see where he was opening portals would come later, but for now the message was clear enough. She’d need to get out herself.
”Good for nothin’ scrap heap.” Juri frowned.
As to where she’d found herself, it looked to be the bay that the little wheel tanks had deployed out of. Now sealed shut to prevent boarding through it, it was now mostly empty, and entirely uncrewed, except for a half dozen crates with the Ficsit logos on them. Four were fairly normal looking cargo crates, but two were a distinctive red hued design and sealed with a hefty padlock. Not the sort of thing you’d store common commercial goods, that was for sure.
Just as she was taking it in, a message relayed via Sandalphon arrived, one that had been sent to her when she’d first mentioned using Edward’s portals to evacuate the loot. It informed her that Edward would like to remind her that he's demonstrated how to send and receive things to and from the ship's armory, and offered to remind her how to make use of said ability to requisition the crates if needed.
Juri was rubbing her hands together, looking at the good stuff. ”Haaah? What the hell is he talking about?” Juri picked up one of the Ficsit crates and shook it around. She knew this was the area with the vehicles in it.
”I’m gonna hack open the bay doors. Could you portal all the loot out then? I can’t carry all these crates outta here. I’d have to stick around and clear the entire damn vehicle if we wanted all of ‘em.” Juri surmised.
The drone, which had just finished rolling its eye 360 degrees in response to the comment she’d made to its controller’s relayed message (which Sandalphon had taken all of the snippyness out of), paused for a moment, and then nodded twice.
Juri targeted the bay door control panel with her hacking ability and disabled the ‘close’ function, causing the bay doors to slowly begin to shift downwards. Immediately she was greeted with the sound of gunfire from the frantic battle outside. Not just that, but another door into the bay opened, four Gears coming to stop her from making off with the loot and opening up the bay door. If they were trying to maintain a defensive position, they stopped when they realized the bay door was opening. ”Finally got some nerve?” Juri taunted.
Three came in with shotguns, while one, a medic, stayed in the door frame to shoot his assault rifle. They spread out and began firing at Juri from three different angles. For the first three shots, she used Drive Parry to swat all three blasts aside with her leading foot, and then dashed to the side. She cracked into one Gears knee to send him toppling to the floor, and then jumped over another blast to bring her heel down on the next Gears head, before grabbing her to throw her to the side and to the far door where the medic was. The third Gear rushed Juri, and smacked the butt of his gun against her face, interrupting her grinning attempt to keep up her own offense. He kicked her to the ground, where the medic blasted her with a spray of bullets. Juri hissed as she took a few painful shots before she rolled out of the way.
By this point both tossed Gears had stood backup, but Juri pounced upon the nearest one and disarmed him with a furious few kicks followed by a chop towards his gun. Wrenching his arm out of his socket she turned him to face the others and used him as a human shield, two bullets smacking into his chest piece before the medic raised his gun with a swear. Juri launched this Gear towards the other one, downing him for the count and knocking the one that hit her earlier over.
The female gear and the medic opened fire, but Drive Parry made Juri prove impossible to hit, though it did lock her in place on the defensive. ”This is actually pretty fun!” Juri crowed.
By this point the bay doors had opened. Juri could see Zenkichi doing battle against the Locust bandits. The medic tossed a stim grenade to the two downed troops, and the standing Gear made a dash to the bay doors control panel. Juri interrupted her run with a slashing projectile that the Gear jumped over, but before she could find her footing Juri slammed into her with a running spin kick. Juri once again used her has a human projectile, wrapping her foot around her head, dragging her around, and launching her at the others with a kick. This time they managed to dodge, but the medic’s magazine had ran dry so he couldn’t return fire, instead dropping his spent mag to the floor and reaching for a fresh one.
The marauders outside had noticed the opened bay doors and were now trying to force their way past the battling LAVs to get inside. Juri glanced over her shoulder at the loot, expecting to see an escape portal or something better.
What she found was a portal opening underneath the loot, and for it to all tumble down into it. They had already crashed out of the sky after all, anything fragile was already done for. Then another opened, human height and ready for her to escape through and onto the patch of land beyond. Unfortunately, while the portal was static, the vehicle she was on was not, given its attempt to escape its attackers, and so from her perspective the portal began to run away from her and towards the incoming foes.
It also moved towards their fire, a bolt of which smashed into and annihilated the remaining scout drone, while the Gears behind her all scrambled to take cover from it.
”Better hurry” Edward casually called from the other side.
And hurry she did. Juri Drive Rushed forward, headlong sprinting into the trailing portal. ”See ya chumps!” She cried out before vanishing into it, reappearing with Edward. She dove through and landed on her back.
Juri clutched her stomach and guffawed, kicking her legs with impish delight. ”Ahahahahaha!” She laughed. ”Not bad, not bad!” She rose to her feet belly first, her head and arms dragging behind her as she settled bizarrely into a standing position.
”You’re not such a stiff after all, Edward!” She said. ”I like you better like this! With those portals and my skills there’s nothin’ we can’t steal.”
Juri excitedly made her way over to the boxes. ”We can keep the Ficsit boxes closed if we want for the reward, but I’m popping these two bad boys open for sure.” Juri pointed at the red crates. ”There’s one for each of us.”
”In just a few moments. I can only open portals where I can see with my own eyes, you see, and well…” the sound of approaching engines made it clear why that was an issue.
”So if you will follow me” he then added, and property solved the problem by opening a portal and stepping through, while the loot crates were simply dropped again. A few steps and a bit of weaving put them past the battlefield entirely, and in a nice secluded spot where they could inspect their spoils without fear of interruption.
”If you're amenable to a continued 50/50 split, then I can certainly see this being a fruitful partnership as well” He agreed as they walked, while being privately amused about the additional spoils of a handful of locusts spirits, a reaver spirit, and an undamage chopper that where currently sitting on his side of the scales, which he’d acquired and sent to the armory while she’d been busy doing the majority of this smash and grab.
A moment later, they were home free, Edward putting terrain in between them and any pursuers, and putting them closer to the high tower to boot, the scouts drones that had not run into the battle having already looped round and mapped out the terrain on the other side of it.
”Now then, let's see what spoils we have reaved, shall we?” the man who had already been no stranger to the idea of looting and pillaging for a higher cause before the demon’s curse said, gesturing to the two red weapon crates.
”More like 60/40. It was my ass on the line, after all. ”Juri said. ”But we can split the red ones.
”And what the hell were you talkin’ about back there? The armory?” She asked.
”I’d note that you’d have been unable to get away with the prizes without me, and would be stuck physically dragging through this wasteland. You performed your end perfectly, but this operation would have never been without my new power” Edward replied smoothly, before opening a portal and putting a hand through it, causing it to repeat on the other side of him, and then joking ”besides, I did risk life and limb, did I not?”
To actually strengthen his case, he then deigned to answered her question:
”With just a simple combination of gesture and will, you can do this” Edward explained as he flicking a hand and summoning a hovering menu suspended within a magic circle that listed the content’s of the ships armory, which he then showed her ”and retrieve objects from both the armory and the vehicle bay of the avenger”
He then stepped over to the other crates, and made a slightly more complex gesture, forming another hovering circle, explaining ”you can also do this, to send things back” before he then drew a line around the 4 regular cargo crates till it formed a ring. This ring flashed, and then formed a magic circle on the ground beneath the crates, a circle around which another ring started to form, which turned out to functionally be a loading bar, as once the ring was complete, there was a pulse of magic and the crates were gone. Or rather, as he showed her on the armory screen, now within the armory.
”It’s how I stored your bike” he then added, flicking the screen to scroll it to where her personal transport was listed, alongside one of the choppers sat next to it.
”Huh.” Juri mimicked the gestures to confirm they worked. To test, she picked her bike out from either.
”Not bad. I like that a lot. Make sure not to croak like that Princess did.” She said, impressed.
Then, flatly: ”60/40. Let’s just say I get one more crate than you. I couldn’t have done it without you, you couldn’t have done it with me. Difference being if something goes wrong, I’m the one who’s in danger while you’re safe on the backline running support. It’s hazard pay. If you wanna run any more ops like this with me, or anyone like me, I’d recommend getting used to that concept. Fixers and operators.” Juri said. Maybe it was the Sombra in her finally coming to surface, but she sounded reasonable and emotionally unaffected. ”Think about it. You know it makes sense. You can run a ton of heists like this without breaking a sweat. Meanwhile, I’ve still got some yummy little aches from where those goons blasted me around.” She set a hand on her hip.
”Either way, I saw that Chopper. That counts.” Juri said with a nod. ”We can do 50/50 this time if you insist, but don’t expect me to put my ass on the line for you again. It’ll be a one and done arrangement. But give me that extra 10 percent and I’ll accept the greater risk for greater reward.” Juri said.
”Then we’d best aim even higher next time. Here” Edward said as he summoned his feather staff striker and had it heal her of her ”We can hardly have you anything less than 100% for your next mission” implicitly agreeing to the deal, before saying ”Now how about we find out what we’ve acquired” and turning their attention back to the still unopened red chests.
Juri grinned, happy she and Edward could come to an agreement. ”Hell yeah.”
