Cyberpunk: Ultimate Cyborg System-Chapter 478: Barrier.
[WOOOHOOOOO!!! TALK ABOUT AN ENTRANCE!!!]
Jake leapt into the air, flailing his arms in excitement. Henry watched from a distance, the look on his face lacking the snarkiness from before.
"Hey, little shit!" Dante walked over to the white and blue mech. "The fuck did you keep us waiting for!?"
yeah, about that...] The mech shifted its by, as if turning to look at him. [Wait, did you get new bionics!? What happened to your arms?!]
"Don’t change the goddamn subject!"
[Piss off, Tomato Head! We’ve been working on this for months now!]
Finn winced inside the Stribog-01.
"Oh yeah?" Dante glanced at the yellow tin can then turned to the mech. "Then why is this the first time I’m hearing about this?"
"Hey! Don’t let your guard down!" Henry shouted from a distance. "The bastard isn’t dead!"
As if to hammer in that point, the road quaked once more, drawing their attention to the point of the impact. There, a second mech stood, surrounded by a cloud of fading cloud of dust. It was roughly the same shape and size as the one Finn operated, though it s shell seemed much sharper, with the red and black coating giving it a more sinister vibe.
As it hunched down, its chest area opened up, revealing a what appeared to be a cramped cockpit.
"Hey, little shit," Dante said. "Don’t tell me you left the second machine active."
White light flooded their vision, obscuring the new machine. When it finally faded, they saw the plating on its front come together. Crimson light filled the seams between the dark plating, and the machine’s eyes flashed with the same brilliance. A moment later, it rose up like a beast waking from its slumber, the road cracking further under its Anisodactyl feet.
BANG!
Something slammed into the dark mech, sending it flying into a nearby building before it could fully rise. Bringing his mech to a halt, Finn fired a bunch of commands and shifted its form, removing the massive fist at the end of its right arm and bringing back the giant cannon. Without hesitation, he directed it at the collapsing building.
The air hummed, and a beam shot out like water exploding from a compact pipe. In an instant, the building and everything in it was disintegrated like sand blown by powerful wind. The stream of bluish white light split at one point, as if an unmoving bolder rose at its center. That boulder was the black machine pushing against the beam with a single energy shield.
[You...] It took a step forward. [...Little...] and Another. [Shit!!!]
The force cast by the beam seemed to weaken, and the dark machine gained momentum, soon breaking into a run. The white mech seemed to freeze, the indecisiveness of its pilot wasting a crucial second and leaving him with no time to evade. Just as the dark one was about to crash into him, it came to a sudden halt an whipped its left arm, trying to swat a fly. A human sized fly with glowing green arms and red hair.
"You fucker..." tapping the machine’s swinging arm, Dante launched himself in the air then spun. "Only I can call him that!!!"
He Arched his body with his arms raised high above his head, and as he fell on the dark machine, he brought them down in a single hammer strike. Though he had been aiming for the head, the machine shifted at the last instant, leaving him to strike its right shoulder.
The blow reverberated like an explosion, and the massive machine seemed to bend to the force of a single mosquito. The sight seemed to knock some sense into Finn, But rather than distancing himself, he twisted the upper half of his mech and shot its left fist into his opponents wide open torso.
The fist connected with tremendous force, but it was nothing like the dropkick from before. Instead of pulling it away, Finn transformed the arm while it was still connected. The plats popped out, and several contraptions jutted out, coiling around the limb and forming a spiral that glowed with vibrant blue energy.
As soon as Dante vanished from atop the dark mech, a trigger was pulled, and a powerful pulse exploded, warping the space around it as it crashed into the dark mech, blasting it away as if it was a piece of cardboard. Finn wasn’t safe from the impact. He had used the weapon without realizing that it wasn’t meant for close targets, and because of that, the backlash ended up knocking him back as well.
The dark mech crashed into something, which didn’t sound right when it was blasted down an empty road. The invisible wall barred its path, leaving it to fall, and once it hit the ground, it struggled to get up.
hey,] Managing to bring his mech to a halt, Finn turned to his red haired companion. [What was that!?]
"Heck if I know!" Dante replied.
Of course, he did know. The invisible box they were in was an application of Type 6-6’s Barrier Creation ability. Before even stepping into that nightclub earlier, he had set it up for one reason and one reason only.
~[ ]~
The world turned white as lightning flashed above New City. Raising his head, Dante stared at the sky above, a grin slowly spreading over his face.
Though it wasn’t apparent from inside the barrier, Neo-Vatra was currently enveloped in a rain storm. For someone floating above it, the rain would appear to be hitting a glass roof completely invisible to the naked eye. Even after being struck with millions of Jules of lightning, the glass ceiling was left without a scratch.
Someone set foot on the invisible surface soon after, clad in a blue armor straight out of fantasy world. Kneeling down, they tapped the glass the floor a few times then looked up.
"The hell is this!!?"
The voice was undoubtedly female, though it sounded rough after it bounced inside the helmet covering the head of its owner.
"Can’t you tell? It’s a barrier!"
The answer came from a human shaped bolt of lightning, which slowly reverted to flesh and blood.
"I know that much, goddamn it! I’m asking what’s it doing here!!?"
"To keep us out, what else?"
"Motherfu-"
The cursing started, but the wind at such an elevation swallowed it. From the aerial vehicle floating nearby, a woman dressed in green hooded cloak jumped out, landing on the invisible surface. Reaching behind her, she drew elaborately designed knife, knelt down, and stabbed with a reverse grip. The knife shattered on impact, and the shard scattered, washed away by the rain.
"The hell did you think would happen?"
Ignoring the armored woman, the green one turned to the man of lightning.
"Strike, this thing won’t budge even if you drop a nuke on it." She said. "We aren’t getting through it without Paragon."
"HAH! As if we need that stuck up asshole!" The armored woman, Libertystar, shot up to her feet and rotated her arm. "Just watch me, I will break it right away!"
Watching her for a moment, Thunder Strike turned to his other teammate.
"Still can’t get to Erebus?"
"No," Huntress shook her head.
"Damn it... it’s almost as if they were waiting for this..."
Once again, the city’s leading superhero team was left incapable of intervening when it matter. They arrived early this time around only to find out that they had been locked out of the site of the incident, forced to watch what was happening from a distance.
There couldn’t have been a worst time for this to happen. Paragon, Flame Guards’s new leader, was away on a classified mission, while he on person that can’t be stopped by walls and barriers decided to disappear.
Libertystar folded her body then shot up like a spring, rising dozens of meters into the sky. Seconds later, she came down falling like a meteor, her fist pulled back. The collision that followed was heard from all over the city, but in the end, it accomplished nothing other than bending the gauntlet of the hero’s armor.
"Fucking hell!"
"We might have to wait until the barrier is down." Said Huntress. "I will call for other teams. We need to put this place under lockdown."
"No, I will do that." Strike said and turned away. "I will also look for any gaps w can slip through. You focus on what’s happening down there, see if you can spot any faces." He glanced at Libertystar. "You keep banging that thing. I might not go down with one strike, but-"
"Yeah yeah, I get it already." The armored woman waved him away dismissively. "Just go do what your thing and leave me to mine."
The situation was as bizarre as it was hopeless. The barrier came out of nowhere, and though it seemed impenetrable, it was unlikely to be something meant to last for a long time. Their enemy must have known that much, which is why they were likely prepared to run as soon as the barrier was down. The heroes needed to figure out their escape route before then, and the time to do so was quickly running out.
