Patience of a saint, 14 times over

Mia flashed a smile back at Jaz, glad to see her being a little upbeat for the two of them. She was a little surprised to hear she’d been seeing the school counsellor but… pleasantly so to say the least. Mia wasn’t exactly the best person to always be coming to for advice on emotional issues and crap, and while she personally never felt she’d need a counsellor or nothing like that she was never gonna knock people who felt they needed that either. Was kinda admirable in it’s own right aftertall to admit you needed that kinda help… didn’t mean she couldn’t tease Jaz about it though. “Oooo. Fancy little Jasmine getting’ a therapist eh?~” She’d hold a warm grin to show she was clearly just messing with the ashen blonde, ruffling up her silver hair and turning her eyes back forward. “Nah in all seriousness it’s good to hear you’re gettin’ help where ya need it, and hey, if this turns out to be action or procrastination, glad I could help, for sure.~”

She glanced back over the girl working with her and the costume she was wearing. Honestly it was a pretty sweet get up, kinda stylish without being much more than ‘fancy civilian gear’. The visor probably being the only real stand out of the whole ensemble that didn’t come off on any way as just something you’d find at some high end sports store or something. Of course, hearing what it was made of Mia was no less impressed, if anything the way it could probably blend in easily with a crowd meant that Jaz had an advantage Mia didn’t at the end of the day. The simple ability to blend in if she needed to. “Honestly it looks pretty good. Better than mine but, that ain’t a hard bar to rise above.~” She smirked cheekily as she gestured over herself, bandages over her forearms and her chest and some roomy japanese pants she never remembered the name of with a rope belt. A pretty simple get up to stick to her Oni theme and not much more than that. “You can still go boom through the gloves right?” She assumed so, Jasmine of all people wouldn’t be that stupid, but it was worth an ask. Didn’t wanna go in there with nerfed back up.

When they got up to the bunker there was a hefty door blocking their way. No clear hinges and seemed to be sealed with weights pressuring it to slam into the ground. Not an easy thing to open without some sort of passcode and wouldn’t ya know it, the old on the higher ups gave her had been dis-continued, failing as she typed it into the pin-reader. “I don’t think entirely quiet is gonna be an option here… but we’ll try.” She dipped her head to the door. “Think you can give us a controlled explosion? I just need to get a finger hold and I should be able to get us in without alerting the whole place.”

Assuming Jaz could give her what she needed, Mia would slam her fingers into any hole created, grunting, veins pulsing on her forearms and biceps as she tore the metal in either direction, unable to create a clearing the size of the whole passageway, but, given they were breaking through a few inches of steel, they were, RELATIVELY, pretty quiet, Mia holding the metal apart so it didn’t snap or recoil in some way as Jaz climbed through, following in behind her as they trudged down the stairs into the darkness, a few old lightbulbs flickering here and there as the automated lighting reacted to their arrival… but far from enough to give them a clear view of things.

“Well I tell ya what, it definitely screams ‘evil scientist’…” Reaching the bottom floor, a fair few more lights filled the darkness, Mia’s eyes going wide as they arrived in what should have probably been the food storage area for the bunker… instead lines of differing mechanical frames were lined up on old rusted shelving systems, Mia a little thrown by the find.

“… Okay… we either got something here… or Japan was trying to make a robot army like 80+ years ago. I’m almost hoping for the second cause this is pretty cool…” Mia stepped idly forward, running a hand over one of the frame’s ‘head’. No dust clung to her fingers. “…Nah… they’re recent… whatever they are.” She shifted her gaze, the place for the most part was indeed dusty, but there were indications of footprints in the mess. “Head low… look around, see if you can find anythin’.” Mia herself idly began to examine the lines and lines of frames. Some seemed brand new while others looked hella fucked up, suffering what looked like bullet wounds or even scorched like they’d seen the rough end of a flamethrower.

Mia chuckled as the two talked about their costumes, looking over herself briefly and flexing her arms as she stretched them behind her head, feeling a little more confident thanks to those compliments about her look. “Yeeeeah I guess if I oversold it I’d just end up covering up more of this beastly physique huh?~” She teased back with a cheeky smile, starting to stretch her arms across her torso, a few cracks coming from their neck as they rolled it across their shoulders. “Definitely not my style… to be fair its still more than my vigilante days though. I just wore hoodies and shit and they got torn to fucking shreds every fight!~”

Mia’s brow quirked up a bit as she rested beside the door, kinda impressed with how precise Jaz could be with her quirk. Sure she used it as a way to fucking fly so Mia shouldn’t really be surprised but… damn. Mia didn’t think she’d ever be able to manage that level of precision with all of her brute force. Someone had tried to teach her proper martial art styles once and she ended up just breaking half the shit, and half the people they put infront of her without even doing it right. This level of precision was definitely not something they saw themselves achieving, making them even more glad that Jaz was here with her to help. “Nice work kid…~”

Down in the belly of the beast Mia was feeling bad she didn’t think to bring a flashlight but in an emergency they could probably get Jaz to… er… blow something up to.. make light? Okay they definitely needed a flashlight but the point stood that this was definitely one hell of a cool place. Villain or no this was only the sort of thing you thought you’d see in comic books. A real life set of robots. No idea if they worked or if they were models or what but the damage they were all enduring told her they’d been through the ringer. Probably in tests or something.

Mia remained on the upper railings, running her hand across the odd dome like head of one of the droids. The designs varied so much it was almost kinda ridiculous… then again, she doubted that making functional weapons of war was an exact science, Mia sighing in frustration through flared nostrils as she weighed into one of the railings. “Mostly just droids on the upper levels… here lemme see-“

Mia walked off into one of the side rooms, something close to an observation room over the warehouse flood, when a hard CLUNK sounded the steel door shutting behind her. The normal lights of the bunker shut off all at once, replaced with dimmer, red lights lining the points where the walls met the floors and ceiling, lighting the place while also seeming to shroud it deeper in shadow. Mia pounded her elbow into the sealed door behind her, but even as she seemed to dent the metal the sound was muffled to the point she didn’t see herself getting through this easy, growling through her teeth as she rounded up to the thick, dense viewing screen lingering above the warehouse space. “HEY!” She yelled out, but her voice was muffled to the point Jaz could barely hear her. “YOU GOOD DOWN THERE!? I’LL GET THIS JUST-!” Her fist met the screen but it barely even wobbled, a second fist managing to create a fracture, but it wasn’t even deep enough to make it all the way through the screen. “GIMME A MINUTE!”

On Jaz’s level… she may realized the red lights filling the warehouse space weren’t just coming from the emergency lighting fixtures….

Axel had been somewhat glad for the chance to work on his projects more privately since the prison outbreak. Seeing all that carnage in person had certainly made him question what he was doing. As much as he felt he had a plan when he got into all of this eventually… it had just become a job pretty much. The ideals he’d had when first talking to Ishtar, trying to figure out what they could do for one another, those ideals had long since faded into the aether, leaving him questioning if what he was doing was really right… and in all honesty, questioning if he’d survive if he tried to leave.

Still… at least with some space from Ishtar he’d be able to clear his head on the matter. If he’d just stuck behind his screen he’d be fine afterall. It was just… seeing all that carnage first hand that threw him, left him realing, wondering. He just had to bury himself in his work for a bit and maybe he’d find the right flow, the right way to do what he needed to do… he already had a good, strong contact with the most popular vigilante in Japan so… that had to count for something right?

Arriving at his bunker den, a good long trek from where he’d parked his car, Axel pulled out what was effectively a car-beeper, tapping the unlock icon. The mound of dirt atop the bunker parted in four directions as a circular opening presented itself. He wasn’t exactly gonna keep using the main entrances for anyone to spot him afterall. He made his own way in once this had become his more permanent lab away from lab.

Sadly… today this was also a disadvantage. If he’d taken the main entrance he’d know ahead of time that somebody had beat him to the punch getting here, but he was as oblivious to this little fact as he could be as he started to climb down the ladder into his little den, mildly surprised that the flickering lights were already on… eh. Probably a rat setting off the motion sensors or some-

Axel paused the moment his ‘eyes’ turned to his monitors. That was no rat. That was a very big, known to be very angry hero and… FUCKING HELL WAS THAT THE BITCH THAT MADE EXPLOSIONS!? Oh fuck oh fuck oh FUCK how did they even find this place! O-okay just… if he climbs out the ladder things should be fine they… they’ll find the robots and… NO. They could use his servers to figure out more he had to do a total system wipe, but that’d take time… if he could hyperventilate that’d probably be on the menu right now as he heard hefty steps in the next room. Red horn seemed to be getting close to his office.

Okay. He needed time. How did he buy time…!?

… Army of robots could probably help with that.

Sliding into his chair his fingers began clacking away at the keyboard at near impossible speeds, a heavy clunk as he set up the bunker’s defense systems and a soft hum of his servers as they began to connect to all the frames left in the warehouse. A lot of them would basically fall over the moment they were activated, but he set them up with one simple directive. Incapacitate Organic Life.

He hoped they were smart enough to follow that. They better be. Their AI was based on his quirk afterall…!

---

Back on the warehouse flaw, frames began to drag themselves out of the warehouse fixtures and shelves. As Axel predicted many would slump and fall over, be it due to damages from previous test runs or just the fact their design had never managed to balance them enough to walk in the first place. Still, amongst the failures many still were able to rise upright, a specifically bronze-ish line of droids, with a single red eye and weaponry attatched to their right arm. Their beam like gaze zoning in on the thermal signatures coming from behind a nearby pillar, turning to take aim as their less-complete brothers dragged their frames along the ground like wire-filled zombies of mechanical design.

With a brief hum as the first of the guns charges, before long the pillar was being bombarded with repeated fire of some energy like substance. Perhaps heated plasma or just some condensed form of electricity. Something deep from the Asta labs whatever it was, not that Jaz would know that. The robots at least seemed to be a little stupid, continuing to pelt the pillar even as it’s reinforced structure seemed not to give, chunks of rock flying off here and there, but it could take them a full hour of bombardment to even try and graze Jaz with one of their shots. All the while the only sound louder than their shots was Mia repeatedly, more wildly with each attempt, trying to slam her fists, her feet, or her shoulder or heck even her horn through the thick glass. Progress was being made… too fast for Axel’s liking. Maybe he should break out the omega project…

Mia pulled back her attempts to break the seemingly foot thick bullet proof glass as Jasmine told her she could handle her own ass. Now of course Mia knew that she of all people was gonna come out of this alive but the idea of leaving her there to take on that all alone when the robots started to claw out of their shelvings was FAR from something she just wanted to sit back and watch. She got a strong start on the first lot of robots, wrenching parts from chasis to get a make shift shield going, but still Mia pounded, slamming the blunt end of her own into the wall at one point in a frantic attempt to break apart the dividing wall between them, flecks of red starting to form in her neck as her veins began to bulge and she pushed herself harder and harder against this wall, starting to see it crack.

“You don’t gotta hold out for long just keep your mind set on staying alive down there! My record’s fucked enough without having a dead kid screwing it up any more!” She tried to joke, but she was clearly more on the rage end of things than the levity side, continuing to pound and slam against the glass.

Axel wasn’t too eager to let that happen. In his secluded den watching the security monitors he tapped and clacked away at his devices. Mia’s attention soon grabbed by an in-pour of light from the back end of the room she’d found herself in, turning about with a frustrated growl to see what was going on, watching as the entire wall seemed to ascend to reveal… the mother of all fucking prototypes.

“… Of course I get the big one.” She mumbled through her teeth, winding her neck back and lowering her stance. The robot didn’t even seem badly balanced like you’d expect from something so big. It wasn’t quite the iron giant but it was something she’ll give it back… big obvious weak point in the center of the chest though? Check? One good punch there would probably make the whole thing break down and that was all she could ask for. “Jaz you better have that handled in there cause I got my own problems now! I’ll get back to smashing that wall the moment I’m done so just stay alive ya hear!?~”

Feeling a little more jovial now that she had this big nasty to distract herself with, Mia rushed in low and quick, feeling the searing heat of the plasma shots running past her shoulders. She tried to go in for a slam low against the legs of the robot, thinking the thing would topple over as she shoulder barged it about it’s knee… but the screeching metal made Mia’s eyes go wide, grunting as she tried to dig in her own feet, feeling it halt her advance. The thing was heavy, and knew how to hold it’s ground. The cold sting of metal struck Mia’s side, sending her flying into some nearby storage crates, groaning in frustration as she worked the way up to her feet, narrowly ducking to the side of another plasma blast from the robot.

“Fine… let’s do this the hardway!”

Not good not good not good…!

Axel was helping along his droids the best he could, but while they used his own structure as a sort of ‘guideline’ for their own AI it was nearly impossible to get it working properly, they were far more machine than soul like Axel himself was, able to adapt but not to truly improvise. He could see the quick, harsh motions of this girl really starting to burn at their inefficient processing coding. Most of these droids were failures because trying to run them through virtual simulations had them eat out their battery like it was nothing! Lines and lines of codes they made trying to predict an enemies movements only to burn it and start all over again! He could see all of their displays on his screens, batteries depleting and diverting their weapons back towards the CPU systems controlling them… he needed to hurry up the file burn and get out of here. He set up the robots to improvised weapon protocols and got to work. Some of the servers had already been deleted, so Axel was furiously ripping them out of their sockets, slamming his metal heal down into them and tossing the remains into a pile to be set alight once he was done. He just had to hope the robots could do enough to hold these crazy bitches off.

Back in the main floor the adapting robots looked to their attatched weapons, many of which stopped firing as they focused on trying to keep track of the speedy wolf. A lot of them realized on their own quickly enough that they couldn’t keep shooting, while others became easy targets as they continued to fire guns that lacked ammunition and energy to fire.

Those who had the improvised weaponry protocols got to work though, tearing chunks of metal structure out of the shelves they’d once been housed on, or ripping off chunks of their fallen comrades, cannibalizing other robots to use their own weapons or batteries to keep fighting, firing a little more wildly as they started to give up predicting Jaz, but their motions still stiff and robotic. Behind the shelves, one of the robots slammed it’s head through a glass display case. A weapon, paradoxically elegant yet fearsome in it’s designs dragged from the display and into the robots hands. It rushed to the front of the group, catching Jaz infront of their line of motion, aiming the shotgun barrel directly in their face.

As the wound be titan in the room behind her was having the 'time of her life', fighting for it while finding one hell of a shotgun to aid her efforts, Mia was gritting her teeth through a destructive attack from the titanic droid in her face. A thick red stream of energy burning against the backs of her crossed guard against it, growling deeply through her tusks, her harsh red gaze trying to catch the view of the enemy beyond the attack so she could plan her next move... but this beam didn't feel like it was letting up any time soon, and she could only dig her heels in so deep on a rough, metalic flouring like this without shredded metal piercing the souls of her feet.

"The fuck is your battery...!?" She could tell she wasn't gonna be able to hold against this forever and she didn't favor her arms lasting longer than this fuck's battery. She dipped to the side, giving up her guard and flowing with the momentum it forced into her, turning about as she moved to the side, catching a loose bit of metal scrap off the floor from the earlier combat and chucking it like a frizbee, a blade like PHWIP as it cut through the air meeting her ears with such satisfaction, and a wide grin on her maw as she watched it cut through the red visor of the humongous droid, pumping her well burned arm in the air ahead of her with a cheer of victory. "HOORAH! TAKE THAT YOU BRONZE FACED FUCK!"

Of course, she wouldn't be so lucky as to have finished it with just that. The metalic... 'creature', had clearly been blinded but that just seemed to kick in some emergency defense protocol, Mia ducking as a shot flew overhead, then one to the side. It was still aiming in her general direction but it was like it couldn't get a clear image of her. And it wasn't just aiming entirely blind either. It could probably still see, or was making a visual based on the sound she was making, but whatever the case it could absolutely follow her around the room.

Well... at least it's aim was fucked, and if the sound of shifting glass behind her meant anything this was her chance. Ducking under another shot she burst forward, shifting harshly right and left to avoid the next shot, and the next, and the next, feeling the burn of one grazing her shoulder before leaping into the gun toting arm, dragging it to the floor and knocking the robot down onto it's side in the process. It didn't stop firing, and now Mia assured every last one was aimed at the reinforced glass that seperated her and Jaz. Each one delivering a hefty THUNK as it dissipated against the slowly breaking surface, until finally, in a burst of thick chunks, it was destroyed.

Without hesitation, knowing her partner was down there fighting for her life, Mia wrenched the  gun arm away from the robot entirely, rapping her forearm into it's base and rushing out into the main storage room again, leaping down into the midst of the chaos and roaring out.

"DUCK BITCH!"

She landed hard and heavy on the corpses of many robots. Her fingers found something akin to a trigger within the mechanism, and using the last of the energy stored up in the canon, with a massive roar as her shoulder felt that recoil, she spun about, burning down half the room's worth of robots with a short but continuous beam of energy cutting through them like a really thick knife through butter., leaving chunks of them missing about the torso, Mia panting harshly, her shoulder Red skinned from how much recoil she had to endure.

"Hey... you been holdin out okay!?~"