An Off Day Pt 10

They started to make their way from the hotsprings and down the path. What had been a quiet night is suddenly filled with the sound of gunfire.

(("Hostile targets located. Commencing elimination."))

First one...

Then two more...

Then intermittent bursts...

Some of them here noises being made. Creatures and people crying out. There's also a buzzing sound as something approaches their location.

(("Drones 101 and 102 are approaching your present location. I advise a change of strategy and that you follow them to the nearest safe location. I'll guide you."))

"Thank you, Friday. Is the house secure?" Penny asks.

The girls flinch as theres the sound of one explosion and then another.

(("I'm afraid the grounds maybe a bit messy in the morning. None of the buildings are in any immediate danger. However some of the flowerbeds on the far southern corner have taken losses. Walter will be upset, I'm afraid. They were a gift from dear friends."))

The girls chuckle at that as the absurdity of the statement releases some tension. They start following the path Friday and the drones indicate.

"Ahnassi is relieved home is alright." She says.

Lifts-Her-Tail nods, "Were very fortunate Friday is exceptional."

The others agree.

(("Hostiles are spreading out. Recommend staying on high alert."))

Their tension increases again. They start trying to hurry to the safe location.

Drone 102 turns behind them and starts moving away.

(("Hostiles detected. Engaging."))

It opens a withering hail of fire behind them from a gun port. The tracers zip through the night. They here the sounds of trees being hit and the bullets hitting something soft that makes an angry noise.

Blake and Sienna face that direction. It's quiet... Too quiet. Then there's a roaring sound and crunching metal.

(("Drone 102 under attack and taking critcal damage from hostile. Employing self destruct now."))

There's a loud explosion as 102 detonates and an awful cry goes up from some creature. It almost sounds like a Grimm.

Eyes start gleaming in the darkness. A slavering beast of a wolf creature leaps upon drone 101.

Pyrrha springs to attack. Swinging her blade, Miló, into the creature. It howls like a beowolf! It even looks a bit like one but without the usual Grimm markings.

It swings a claw filled hand at her and she blocks it with her shield, Akoúo̱. She remebered something Walter had said about the legends of beasts related to Grimm. A werewolf.

Pyrrha keeps exchanging blows with it cautiously, remembering Walt said something about a cursed bite. The creature mainly keeps trying to disable the drone though.

From the darkness to the rear comes a man. He's taken a lot of damage but it's slowly regenerating from a blue, floating, jellyfish looking thing with a smiling face. Blake and Sienna ready to attack but he reaches down to his belt and starts throwing ball like objects. Where each lands a new figure appears. Two dark haired woman. They're wearing collars. They're characters!

They frown and they both ask, "Orders?"

"Serana, Lydia. Protect me while Aela deals with the other drone. Lets soften them up a bit first."

"Yes, my Thane." One draws a bow and the other a sword and shield but they don't attack.

From out of the darkness comes a hopping blue teardrop shaped creature also with a smiling face. It hops towards Blake and she shoots it dispatching it easily.

Then a brown mushroom shaped creature with a frowning face and two short tusks and tiny feet approaches Sienna from out of the dark. She quickly dispatches it with her chain whip.

"Well that was easy," Blake said.

Then two, five, twenty and many, many more appear.

"Spoke too soon. They're going to try to swarm us." Sienna starts sweeping Cerberus Whip in broad arcs trying to take down multiples of the easily dispatched opponents. Blake nods and starts using Gambol Shroud in the same way.

Penny quickly realizes the problem. "They're going to deplete our Dust supply before making their real move. Friday, update please?"

(("I concur with your analysis, Penny. My defenses can hold out indefinitely but "home" and I aren't their objective, it's you six. 3S forces have arrived and the enemy is trapped and being pushed into "kill zones". Teams are headed in your direction. Drone 101 nearing critical. Self terminating to damage hostile. Please take cover, Pyrrha. "))

She nods. "Understood, Friday." She watches as Pyrrha ducks behind her shield. The werewolf takes massive damage and collapses reverting into the form of a redhead woman. Pyrrha checks her and starts ripping wiring out of the drone to secure her with.

The sounds of battle are drawing closer to them. Theres gunshots and blasts lighting up the Forrest. She even thinks she can see a few glowing blades like hers and master Kenobi's.

Sienna and Blake have taken out tons of the slimes and mushrooms but also turtles, skeletons, rock spitting octopi and more. Each enemy type just a little more difficult and varied then the last. They've used a lot of Dust though. Then Sienna gets shot in the leg with an arrow from the archer. It seems to pulse with a strange light and saps her strength. She removes it while Blake tries to cover her.

The man frowns now as the sounds of battle draw closer but appears recovered. "Surrender the artificial humanoid called "Penny" to us and we'll let the rest live. Only offer."

Penny, being who she is, starts to consider for her friends saftey but everyone else replies loudly. "Never!"

The man nods. "I thought as much. Some damages are acceptable." He throws his head back and what looks like cables and wires reupt from his skin. He starts to change growing in size and mass and becoming metalic. He appears to be changing into some kind of machine creature.

Meanwhile Penny's touched. She has such good friends... and even if she's not ready... they need her help now!

"I'm sorry, Master." She whispers with her eyes closed. She pulls her blade out listening to it hum. "I'm not "combat ready"... but my friends, my family need me! I hope you can forgive me, Walter."

She thinks "do" and reaches out for the magic opening her eyes. There's small flickering green flames in them as she materializes a floating sword and rushes toward the enemy.

She hears her friends yell and charge with her. Phyrra engaging the warrior and using her semblance against her. Blake engages the archer who draws a blade and bears her fangs at her. Sienna, Ahnassi and Lita holding off the swarms of lower level enemies.

The man has changed into some metalic wolf creature like the werewolf only machine like. "Maiden!" It growls in a synthetic sounding voice then howls as they clash.

She was only a beginner with her new weapon and she could only summon one blade and she's not certain for how long... but Penny was no novice to combat. She had used a lot of whatever magical **** she had to propel herself. She needed to conserve and draw the fight out until help arrived.

Penny focused on evasion and distraction. The machine-wolf was bigger than she was and fast but she was faster and smaller. She ducked under swings, making small attacks against openings. She'd use her "flight" like abilty to propel small jumps, keeping her just out of reach. She used the single floating blade to distract and harass her opponent.

She felt the power flutter as she tried to evade and didn't get enough lift to propel her clear. She felt her aura take the hit as she flew through the air.

Pyrrha had defeated the swordswoman easily enough and after assisted Blake with her opponent. The fanged lady had tricks but the two of them together now had the upper hand.

Sienna was slowed by her injury but Ahnassi and Lita were working hard to support her. They'd finish off the opponents that Sienna would injure.

She saw all this as she tumbled through the air and hit a tree. Her aura shattered. She watched as the mechanical monstrosity approached her.

"You're done..." It tells her. Wire like tentacles srout from it to grab her.

It stops as Pyrrha grabs it with her semblance. She and Blake had just managed to defeat opponent trapping her in a ice Dust filled Blake clone. Blake was securing her while Pyrrha uses her semblance... this time to save Penny! She looks angry. "Get away from my friend!" She slams him against a tree.

Sienna stalks over to the growling pinned machine beast. She's limping on her injured leg, but all the minor enemies are defeated. Seeing all the damage Penny and Pyrrha have done to it she grins. "I was having a nice evening with my friends. Now I've got a bone to pick with you..." she activates her semblance "grudge", raining a flurry of extra vicious blows on the battered creature! Even Ahnassi and Lita join in attacking and defeating the blue healing creature.

They hear a whistle, clapping and loud foot steps. They see Joy slight smile and a large man with green skin covering his eyes walking their way. A bunch of 3S operatives, prime's and characters, are securing the area.

"That's some nice work ladies." Joy said as she takes a bundle of clothing from the big man. "Here, put these on for now."

The girls blush how inappropriately dressed they are at the moment and glady take the clothes. They quickly put them on as they watch the enemies be secured and medics checking them over.

"Thank you," Penny says slipping on the clothes passed to her a t-shirt and sweat pants and what looks like a familiar robe. She spots master Kenobi in the trees. It's too big but a nice gesture. "Friday?"

(("Area secured. All hostiles eliminated or secure. Only minor injuries outside of you six. Damage to "home" extremily negligible though a bit messy."))

The six of them sigh with relief.

"What am I looking at here, Banner?" Joy asks.

The big man uncovers his eyes now that everyone's decent and slips on a pair of glasses. "That's Dr Banner, Joy." He looks at a massive tablet while a team of people are scanning the captured. "Looks like a whole host of low level videogame mob characters. Pretty cheap on the open market. Three characters from a Skyrim instance and... huh, this guys a Prime but he's been infected with something called "Wirewolf"? Not familiar with that one. Learn something new everyday. Oh, I see..." He looks around. "Friday can I get a spectrum scan on the area with drones looking for this substance and bring me what they find, please?"

(("Of course, Dr Banner."))

The drones swoop around scanning everything then stop. One of them picks up something. (("Substance found.")) And brings him a green rock.

Dr. Banner takes it and peers at it through his glasses. "Thank you Friday... yep, this is it fragment of moon rock from a Canis Lunis from a Buzz Lightyear instance. That's how he can transform. It has an interesting radiation signature... I'd like to study it and him some more in the lab..."

A young woman with blue hair comes over and looks at it and then Dr. Banner shaking her head with her hands on her hips. "It's mildly interesting, I'll give you that. But do you really want to take that and him to a lab full of machines, tech and robots to feed on, Bruce? Not anywhere near my lab your not! Nor any of the other Bulmas labs, I can tell you that! Not so you can indulge your little hobby!"

Bruce sighs and nods his head. "You're right of course, Bulma! It's not nearly that interesting..." he crushes the rock to powder between his fingers. The effect on the Wirewolf is immediate as he transforms back and people tranquilize and drag him away.

There's some snickering and quiet chuckles as Bulma and Bruce walk off too as she continues to give him a stern talking too. "Really Bruce. You should know better! You're far too reckless about the oddest things! And that really means something coming from me! Why I once..."

One the way home Pyrrha asks, "How did they bypass security temporarily?"

(("As I said I generally don't track animal data and locations closely. By the time I recognized the paterns as unusal they'd already entered the vacinity of the mountain. It seems they took advantage to infiltrate by causing a disturbance with the protestors and then shape changed into animals. Through use of the "Character Balls" they were able to store and transport large numbers of characters easily on the infiltrators."

Friday showed them a few Character Ball commercials. "A simple but clever tactic." Joy tells them."3S operatives have used the Character Balls similarly before, but not in conjunction with shape shifting. That was a clever, but sloppy, move."

"Indeed and in doing so they reveal more about themselves." Obi-Wan says joining them.

"Yes," said Penny. "They're targeting me for some reason... Walt already knew, didn't he? That is why he hasn't taken me out since we have arrived home."

The others look surprised as Joy and Obi-Wan nod their heads and Friday responds, (("You are correct. You're a target. Walter has been trying to keep you safe. There was an incident before on the way to Rein Corp that he handled. Then when nothing happened on Neo's outing and then Pyrrha's he theorized there was someone specifically after you, Penny. We've been gathering information while trying to protect you... I apologize for tonights failure. It won't happen again."))

Penny shook her head. "You were wonderful, Friday." She looks around at her friends and everyone from 3S running about busy doing various things in the aftermath. "You've all been just wonderful! I'm very happy to know just how much everyone is supporting and helping me. Thank you all very much!"

There's a lot of smiles and people telling her she's welcome.

Penny nods her head determinedly. "Friday, how many cookies can we make with the ingredients on hand? I need to at least show everyone my appreciation and Ruby says there's no better thanks than cookies!"

Lita and the others laugh but tell her they'll assist her with making cookies. And they do... all night long Penny is handing out cookies to each and every 3S member she can find.

There's a lot of laughs and smiles. One big muscle bound guy with a Mohawk sniffles and wipes away a tear. Everyone agrees. Penny is a very sweet girl.

[Walter Stark Penny Polendina F.R.I.D.A.Y Neopolitan Pyrrha Nikos Blake Belladonna Kali Belladonna Sienna Khan Willow Schnee Glynda Goodwitch Ahnassi Lifts-Her-Tail also with Sayoko Shinozaki Roberta Cisneros Ilulu Raven Senko Sasha Blouse Minami Aiba Tsuyu Asui Baroness Demona Pirotess Mystique Haruhime Sanjouno and Haruna

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