*Screeeeeeeeetch!!*
The metal monstrousity leapt off the ground and swung its hardlight dust claws at Yin and Qrow. Qrow moved back but Yin blocked, feeling the concrete shatter beneath her. She grinned in surprise as the mech pressed forward, trying to flatten her.
If it had hit anyone else? It would have. But all it succeeded in doing was damaging the floor and the surrounding warehouse.
"Not bad.. heavier attacks than Adam Smasher but you can do better, right?" Yin asked, looking into the mecha's eyes with a grin.
*BRATATATATATATATATATATATATA!!*
It's only response was to fire its dust shrapnel cannon at her. The shrapnel spewed at Yin and successfully turned the spot she stood into a burning pit of napalm. She had moved away just before the shrapnel would have torn her clothing up and leapt next to Qrow with an impressed smile.
"Still wanna go solo that thing? I just finished wiping the floor with the rest of these jobbers." Qrow asked while moving away from the cannon's line of sight with Yin.
"Of course I do! I don't wanna damage it too much either. I bet I could mod it and make Hajime squeal like the overenthusiastic otaku he..-why are the female goons fine?" Yin asked as they both dove under the Mech's fire dust laser.
Seeing the group of moderately attractive women all tied up in a neat corner nearby and comparing them to the men Qrow had beat ruthlessly with her, they got off really easy. For obvious reasons, of course.
"I hate messing up faces that pretty. Or bodies that curvy.."
Yin nodded, "Respect-"
*CRAAAASH!!*
The mech's arm burst through the steel shelves they dove behind and swatted them both over a dozen meters away. Both Huntsman and Huntress quickly recovered as the Mech slowly moved toward them, its goal clear in trying to drive them both out of the warehouse.
"Hate to break it to ya but I don't think the pilot's gonna step out and let ya take it for a spin. And I don't see any EMPs we could use to disable it." Qrow said while mechashifting Harbinger into its sythe form.
Yin put her katana back in her inventory and punched her palm.
"Well I can probably put it back together. Let's just stress test the metal first. You handle the reinforcements." Yin replied before sprinting at the mech.
"Huh? Reinforcements?"
*BANG!* *BANG!!*
Qrow spun around and spun Harbinger, deflecting two high-calibur sniper shots aimed at his torso and head. Then, he realized they had been quietly surrounded. Not by goons and thugs, but by men dressed in black tactical gear. Spec-ops agents, they looked like.
"Heh.. well I guess I don't mind a workout."
Qrow twirled Harbinger and batted away a few stealthy blade strikes aimed at his neck, kidney and stomach by three different people and took an unorthodox combat stance while facing over a dozen spec-ops geared elites.
"For shame.. ganging up against an old man. This isn't fair at all, ya know?" Qrow complained with a toothy grin that showed his true feelings.
He was excited.
-Reid-
It took a while to get used to the controls but they were quite intuitive. He could confidently take out an Atlas battalion in this beast.
*Huff*
So why was he having issues with just one woman?
*Creaaaaak!*
The mech's claws raked down at her going about eighty kilometers an hour, up close and she still dodged. And if she didn't dodge? She blocked. With her bare hands, she actually blocked over a hundred tons of force coming down at her.
"What kind of fucking Huntress... no, it must be a strength semblance." Reid grit his teeth and felt the enhanced metal creak under the strain of Yin's hands.
*VRRRRR!!*
So he decided to fire the laser. If crushing, impaling and slashing hadn't worked, then a fast as light laser beam surely would. And he was right... sort of.
Yin felt the laser doing its best to try and incinerate her. Her aura was staving it off but for some reason Reid couldn't understand, she wasn't that affected by the heat. He knew the laser would much turn any regular schmuck into ash with one hit. Even a huntsman would need to get away before it overwhelmed their aura.
But not her. It was more a nuisance, it seemed like.
"I refuse to believe.. No, she's a fucking GOD! Everything! Use EVERYTHING!!" Reid growled and shot the shrapnel cannon as well, trying to overwhelm Yin while he pushed the Mech's weight and hydrolics to their limit.
*BRATATATATATATATATATATATATA!!*
Reid fired, seeing Yin's aura light up bright as the laser, hardlight claws and the shrapnel cannon did their best to turn her into molten slag. He saw her grit her teeth before forcing the mech back and punching it in the chest, caving in some of its metal shell and pushing it back over five meters.
Stumbling back in the mech, Reid gaped in shock. It was one thing to hold against the mech. But to punch it back?
Then, he saw blue flames ignite over her body and hair as she stood straight and punched her fists together. Her crimson eyes turning a light shade of purple.
"Round two, bitch. Show me what that mech's capable of or I'm gonna 'Brazen Bull' you in it!" Reid felt himself shiver at that strange threat he didn't understand before he saw her body blur.
He then felt himself go weightless as the Mech was launched straight out the back of the warehouse and ramming through the steel wall.
*Cough!*
Despite not taking the hit directly, that punch had rattled his internal organs and made him smack his head into the cockpit's seat.
"This bitch is a monster.." Reid muttered as he piloted the mech to get up.
*Kzzzt* "Reid? Do you hear me? My men see you in the mech. They just said you flew out of the warehouse. What happened?" The calm voice of William Gelle called out to him from the communications device within the mech.
Reid hit the button to answer as the mech stood up and prepared to fight again.
"We're getting fucked here, William. The female Huntsman is a fucking monster and I have no idea where the male Huntsman is!" Reid yelled as he made the mech jump up onto a shipping container and fire at Yin with the cannon and laser.
"I have more Mechs.. How bad is it?" William replied, his voice not betraying the stress he felt underneath.
"She PUNCHED ME through a steel wall! Do I need to tell you how much this thing weighs!?" Reid yelled back, quickly losing his cool as he saw Yin dash to the side and avoid the hail of bullets and the sweeping laser.
"...I have two extra available. Just don't die on me until they get there. I'll have my people support you." William hung up, leaving Reid in slightly more at ease.
As long as he could keep the long range pressure up, he could keep Yin away long enough for more mechs to arrive and overwhelm her together with them. And the covert snipers raining fire on Yin from the darkness certainly helped.
*BANG!*
Silenced sniper rifles shot at Yin from all over the back of the warehouse, forcing her back inside. Reid took a breath, relieved. But he couldn't shake the strange unease he felt when seeing her head move in different directions, as if she spotted the near-invisible snipers set up around him.
But that couldn't be, right?
-Yin-
"Playing long range huh.. I have guns.... buuuut wouldn't it be more fun to go at it with just my fists..?" She muttered to herself as she moved back into the warehouse.
Earlier, she spotted around seven snipers moving into key areas in the shadows to hit her. Like a game of keep-away, they and the mech kept shooting at her to retain the distance.
Too bad for them, her eyes could spot them easily in the dark. The first one she knew to be on the roof.
*Creaaaak!* "Wh-!? AAAAUGH!!!" Yin leapt up to the roof and pierced through with ease before dragging the terrified sniper down and slamming him into the concrete below with a corkscrew divebomb, shattering his aura and likely breaking a few bones.
Yin grinned and went on to the next sniper. Leaping up to the roof, she ran and leapt up high, crashing into an open shipping container where a sniper had gone prone.
*BAAANG!*
But the impact was loud enough to alert everyone. All they saw before hearing a terrified scream was the sound of metal bending violently and a loud impact.
"Fire on the container! She just took out another one!" Reid yelled as he made the mech leap down and aimed the cannon at the container before lighting it up with the laser and cannon, while the rest of the snipers shot a moving, glowing blue silhouette within.
As soon as the smoke cleared, they saw one eviscerated body and nearly relaxed.
*BOOOOM!!*
Until a blue fireball struck two snipers set up in the corner and turned them to ash. Reid looked up and saw Yin about fifty feet in the air with a nearly manic smile, descending on him while three more blue fireballs shot down from beside her like mortar shells, killing the snipers that had been sent to back him up.
"Who the fuck are you!?" Reid screamed in panic as he activated the emergency Dust overload into the hardlight claws.
Reid swung the mech's claw, glowing bright with now unstable high grade hardlight dust at Yin. While Yin reared her hand back and activated a skill.
[Blazing mana claws: Active]
*RIIIIIIIIING!!*
The resulting clash was as if metal was scraping against a harder, denser metal. The hardlight dust withstood her magic for over six seconds before faltering. Yin's claw pushed through and carved a deep gash across the faceplate and back of the beast mech before she landed.
*VrrrrRrrrRr!*
The mech groaned as it was pushed back, then creaked violently as Yin followed up with a punch to its faceplate that pushed it over a dozen meters back. Then sparking as she leapt up and delivered an axe kick straight into its back, making its belly violently smash into the ground and rocking the cockpit.
"Fuck!! Aagh!!" Reid cursed as he smashed his head into the controls and seat, hard enough to give him a concussion.
Feeling a throbbing pain in his head, he looked at the screen and saw Yin straddle the mech, as if she were a cowgirl. The smooth expanse of her thighs were exposed, but he had no time to think about that before feeling the cockpit get hotter. Seeing the blue light radiating from her hands, he knew her intention.
"Wait! Wait!! I'll get out! Just not this!" Reid panicked, scrambling to find the release.
As soon as he pulled it, he felt himself get pulled up before he was face to face with Yin. Looking into her eyes, he felt himself tremble.
"I.. I'll tell-" *Crack!* He was cut off by Yin via a headbutt that knocked him out cold.
"Mech, get! Unc! Wait where's that bum..?" Yin called out as she tossed Reid away like he was trash.
She ran out to the front of the warehouse and saw Qrow, standing over two dozen unconscious spec ops men while taking a drag of a cigarette.
"Hey, kiddo. Finished up? These guys gave me a good warm up but the real work begins now.. paperwork!" Qrow smirked, seeing the dramatic frown on his niece's face.
"Aw don't sweat it too much. You'll get used to the reports. And hey, you get to keep the mech. That's something, right?"
Yin shook her head, "Nah can I just dump that on you and Ozpin? I wanna take my new toy home."
"Ha! You ruthless little shit.. Nah, we gotta call Vale PD. We've got like a hundred or so people to arrest now. Buckle up, the report's gonna suck.."
-Mercury, Mountain Glenn-
To say he hated this place was both redundant and overstating it. He loathed this place. The Grimm? Swarms of them were all over the ruined city expansion. The skeletons? Littered all over the place from when the city was attacked. It was a ghost town. A reminder that the Grimm are an ever present, insidious threat to human and faunus life.
And then there was him.
Carmilla greeted the man warmly as they stepped into the deep cave within the mountain. No Grimm loitered here. Because he was there.
A man sitting on an old couch, picking his teeth with what Mercury assumed was a toothpick filed from a human bone. The man was big. About six-foot-six and absolutely jacked. He wore an open fur coat, loose cotton pants and nothing else. His wild black hair flowed down from his head like beast fur and his crimson, half-lidded eyes grazed over them all, as if he was bored.
"Hello, Niece. You want something from me again. So get on with it. I don't like playing politics like you and my brother do." The man stated, his rough, deep voice sounding tired already.
"Aw.. Uncle don't be like that. This'll be interesting, promise~!" Carmilla clasped her hands together and winked before looking at Baldur with a meaningful expression.
"So you want me to do that huh? And here I thought you had worthy prey for me. The grey haired one seems more competent than this one. Beaten like this. But I do like that fire in his eyes.." The man grinned, flashing his sharp canines as Baldur stared at him, unafraid.
"Trust me. He can withstand it. And who knows.. if he fails, you very well may have worthy prey." Carmilla smiled as the man stood up and walked straight toward Baldur.
"Keh.. ehehehe! You think anyone could withstand him after my gift? I'd like to see that! Now, are you prepared for strength beyond your wildest dreams, little human?" The man asked, looking down at Baldur as white wolf ears sprang forth from the top of his head.
"I don't care what you do.. As long as I have my revenge." Baldur retorted, the fiery look in his eyes strengthening.
Mercury backed up and turned away as the sound of howling, flesh tearing and a scream of agony filled the cave. It wasn't the first time he saw something like this but it only affirmed his fears.
His mistress and her family were fucking monsters..