Chapter 8: Rescue mission

We had cut down a lot of these things now, “we” as in mostly Alice, her training and power gave her more of an edge over the robots, the only handicap on her was that she needed to make sure not to overheat herself using the alchemical rune, that and the fact that she needed to get close enough to cut it without getting shot at, which she was surprisingly good at. Akira on the other hand wasn’t, he was barely getting by thanks to Cleo’s alert sense, whatever it was. They barely made it past the entrance when the reinforcements arrived, which they had just got done clearing, the buildings interior looked a lot like the one he found Cleo in, except this one was more pristine, new. They continued to push through the building as they searched every room, so far nothing. After traversing a series of corridors they finally found what they were looking for, the two crouched beside the door, carefully peeking in trying not to be seen by the droids, the Seraph unit and Lily sat on the floor cuffed surrounded by four droids, three more droids lined the walls and two more sat guarding the far exit, “ I’ll go in first and draw their attention,” Akira says, getting up before Alice could say anything else. Much like last time he strode in with full confidence, but this time he didn’t get to say anything as the guards immediately raised their guns, Akira broke into a sprint running towards the droids guarding his friend, he drew his blade and dashes, allowing him to close distance quick, he tried his best to mimic Alice's swordplay, which worked out decently well, Alice provided cover by firing at the other droids allowing him to free Lilies hands as well as the others, “ Give me your blade,” She demands, which he doesn’t argue against. Akira would find himself relying on his dagger again, he had forgotten he got it back after he threw it at Alice back above ground, but he was more comfortable with it so it worked in his favor. Since he had Cleo the cooldown on his boots were gone, he wasn’t sure why but he wasn’t complaining. The three of them quickly dispatched the remaining droids, Alice regrouped with her unit while Akira made his way to Lily, she handed him his blade back. “ Thank you,” Lily mutters, clearly embarrassed. Akira heard her and he chose not to push her, he was afraid of what would happen if he did. With that settled the group moved forward to find a larger room, at the end sat a large platform, that clearly was the elevator up. Akira led the group from the front, which he regretted. It was quick, whatever it was. The droid appeared in the corner of his vision, and then he was launched into the wall, his side burst with pain. Nothing seemed broken, once his vision cleared he could see that a droid had kicked him, but this one looked different. It was more tactical? It seemed to be the upgraded version of the ones from before, was the heart learning from the encounter they had and improving its defense? If so that would be bad, Akira had dubbed this one his archenemy, he shall be named “Jerry”. Lily dragged him back the way they came, Alice had erected a wall of fire to keep the thing back, which wasn’t all that helpful as it kinda just walked through the flame, but it seemed to have boundaries. Once everyone had passed back into the previous room Jerry stopped following, it backed off and went to stand in front of the elevator. Akira rubbed his left arm, it wasn’t broken it just hurt a lot. Cleo reappeared on top of Alice's head, she sat cross-legged, drawing everyone's attention, which seemed to be the goal. “ I interfaced myself within the system again, the weapons they took are being held not far from here, the seraph unit is to go and get them while Alice and Akira focus on beating the elite droid, while these two keep the things attention,” She continues patting Alice's head, “ Lily will access the elevator, have it ready to go, sound good?” she finishes, nobody seemed to be opposed to the idea, so they went with it, “ I can augment your strength and speed for around 5 minutes in our current states, but with Alice's help it should be enough,” Cleo informs him, he nods in acknowledgement. Cleo relays the route to the room with their weapons in, while Alice and Akira reenter the boss room. Akira had his blade drawn and dagger, he decided to duel wield, he also decided to be the one to start the fight, getting in the first hit this time. He lunged forward thrusting his dagger at Jerry, it managed to block the attack in time. Akira could feel the augmentation that Cleo was talking about, the two of them were able to contest Jerry, Akira's swings were slow, he wasn’t used to fighting people on this level. Normally it’d be your average Union soldier, not some super-powerful robot. From the corner of his vision, he could see Lily carefully making her way around to the elevator, but Jerry saw her as well. In order to keep it from switching targets Akira quickly dropped his sword and put as much strength as he could into a punch, knocking Jerry further away from Lily but also Akira, Alice fortunately stepped in. Her heated blade shaved off a chunk of its right forearm, it seemed unfazed by the damage as it kept going. It managed to put distance between the two again, it held its injured arm up as it began to repair itself. How great, from this distance, Akira can only assume its nanotech that was fixing it, with that discovery settled he sprinted back into the fight, he continued to go back and forth with Jerry, exchanging a series of blows. They had been locked in battle for like 5 minutes now and there seemed to be no progress. Alice applies the flame to her fist and attempts to smash Jerry's head, he counters by weaving under and throwing a barrage of punches before going back up and landing a hit directly to her face launching her back again, Jerry jerks his head back just as Akiras sword slams into the ground, he had thrown it as a distraction allowing him to cut through Jerry’s face, leaving a deep gash. Jerry stumbles back, he touches the cut as if he felt it, it runs from just above his eye and down to his chin, Akira knew this would go on forever, so he would use his trump card. Before the fight began he found out that his secret weapon could be stored within the sword's metal sheath, so wouldn’t have to carry around his bag with him. Akira would draw a really old golden-age blaster. It was pretty compact, it was more like a revolver? He wasn’t sure since he never really used it, Alice was probably gonna yell at him for having this since all golden age weapons were supposed to be turned in to the Union but oh well. Akira applied pressure to the trigger, the barrel of the gun glowing a light blue, the sound of energy firing filled the room. A hole was shot through Jerry’s chest, where his heart would be. He falls to the floor with a solid thud, Akira felt exhausted. Alice, on the other hand, seemed fine, I guess it makes sense though, as she is a Seraphim. He sat there, looking up at her as she looked down at him, she took a seat next to him. “ You fought well,” Alice commended him, “ you did great too,” He smiles at her, she sheepishly smiles back, “ You can uh, keep the gun. The union doesn’t really care about that anymore,” she adds, The 4th Seraph unit joined them, they had retrieved their weapons a good while ago but followed orders and stayed away, all that was left was for Lily to finish with the elevator. “ Akira, come here, now,” Lily calls out demandingly. He lets out an annoyed sigh as he achingly gets up, it's not like he just finished fighting a superrobot or anything. One of the guards gave him his bag so he was able to put the gun back in and the sword in the sheath, “what's up?” Lily was standing next to the control console, without really saying anything she pressed a button on the screen and the whole platform shook, and then they began moving up. He takes one last look down at the Seraph unit, Alice stares back…disappointed? He wasn’t sure, but he felt awful. “ We need to stay ahead of the Union, theres no saying what they’d do with the Heart,” Lily explains. Makes sense, the elevator reaches the top, they manage to find the exit. The entrance to the Sanctuary was higher up, a set of stairs led to it, The door was rather large, almost as big as Jeremy's, sat off to the side was a pedestal with a device sat on top. “ All I have to do is access this and the heart is as good as ours,” Cleo says excitingly, she hops down from his head onto the screen, it flashes briefly before going all red, in bright red uppercase letters it hits us with the worst possible sentence, -ACCESS DENIED HIGHER AUTHORITY REQUIRED-