I cracked my fingers as I just finished restraining all of the dudes and dudettes here. There was rope nearby, and fortunately, I had enough to restrain everybody here after destroying all their weapons and armour. All of their arms and legs are tied, so they won't be able to move or hurt each other. It was nighttime, which made the rainforest look eerie. Even with Mind's Eye on my side, I couldn't help but get creeped out.
I shake my head. Come on, Red Justice, no more distractions. We wasted enough time tying up everybody here. I looked at the ominous tall building, I clenched my fist and took a step forward-
BOOM!
"What the f…"
The roof of the building suddenly exploded. Chunks of debris fly out everywhere as smoke starts to appear. Not long after what came out was a figure that flew up, being propelled by fire being shot out of his shoes. He had a thick wire connected to something to view. It was a large metallic sphere.
From what I could see, the metal was made from bronze. From its center, there was a circle showing what was contained inside. I don't know what it was, it was blue, and it was glowing.
"It's the core!" Jason exclaimed.
"Contained in that object is a large amount of nuclear, electrical and radiant energy. Enough to power the whole city of New York for thousands of years nonstop!"
Incredible. All that power to power up one machine? And it takes about three to make it function? I looked up to the core and into the person whose wire is attached to it. The figurine turned to me, and the red eyes of its helmet seemed to glare at me.
"Arc…" I said venomously.
He wasn't alone, as another figure popped out, with the same flying boots as Arc. Their long trench coats fluttered out in the wind. They glanced at me before they darted, flying away.
"Yeah, no!"
I jumped high in the air before soaring after them. I was far faster; despite their head start, I was catching up to them. As I chased them, one of them turned around, facing me. It was a man with a gruff beard with a mechanical blue eye in his left socket. Black hair tied in a man bun, with clothes that make you think that he was a homeless man.
He pulled out something; it was a pistol. I scoffed internally. What is that going to do to me?
"Red dodge it!"
"What?"
Then a white laser shot out, hitting me in the face, which hurt. It made me lose control and crash hard into the grass. I moaned in pain as I got back up. Just what was that?
"That gun, it's a railgun similar to the SV3 possessed. It's not as powerful, but judging by what happened, it still hurts."
"Yup." I was about to launch myself up to chase them again, only for the other guy to drop down, a few feet away from me.
The drudge got a mechanical arm, and underneath his rugged clothes was armour. On his robotic arm was that damned gun, something I needed to avoid.
"Okay, homeless cyborg dude. The shelter is that way." I pointed in a random direction to get a rise out of the guy, but instead, he remained quiet, staring at me cooly.
"Be careful, Red. I told you about him before, he's called the Silver Marksman, real name Leon Conners. He's not a super soldier, but he has tricks up his sleeve; be careful. Arc is way too far for you to catch up, best you beat his general instead."
The Silver Marksman slowly took a step back, as in the forest, multiple large spheres similar to Jason's drone were only bigger and more dangerous. Then SM vanished, no, he turned invisible. I can feel his silhouette running around as his drones charge at me. The drones fired machine guns, rockets and tasers, none of them affected me. My visor popped open, and just in a few seconds, the drones had been vaporized.
I chuckled, "Is that the best-"
I cut myself off as I had to jump out of the way as the white laser nearly took my head off. I glared at his silhouette before charging in, trying to punch him, only for a green force-field to stop my punch, though the barrier had big cracks on it. His silhouette jumped in the sky, throwing a smoke bomb at my face. It clouded my eyes but not my Mind's Eye. I could still track him as he moved to the side to escape to the shadows.
I didn't let him, I pushed past the smoke and appeared behind him before I raised my fist in the sky before bringing it down like a hammer, destroying his barrier and launching his body to the ground. It formed a small crater as his body appeared visible once more. I had to give him props for standing back up and glaring at me in the sky. For a non-Super Soldier, he was tough. He snapped his fingers, which echoed throughout the forest. I raised a brow.
"Was that supposed to do something?"
SM smirked, then suddenly I had to dodge as something fast nearly hit me. The object flew around before stopping. It was a jet, but what's weird is that there is no one piloting that machine. I know thanks to my Mind's Eye. Soon after, several military futuristic jets appeared beside it, and like the first one, there wasn't any pilot.
"That must be one of his implants in his brain. It gives him Technopathy abilities!" Explained Jason.
"Can I get that in English?" I growled, tightening my fist.
"It means he can control technology with his mind. He could control and hack all forms of tech without having to use a PC. The only reason your SEE Goggles haven't exploded is because Jason and I are countering him."
I see, so this won't be a physical challenge that Atlas gave; rather, the Silver Marksman will use technology and weapons to take me on. I'm not used to this kind of opponent; regardless, I'm not going to just lie over. The jets flew, aiming heavy artillery at me. They shot bullets, the size of a human child, my size. I ran around, using the trees as cover.
While I'm unsure if they were actually going to hurt, I'm going to play around and find out. The jets were relentless, though; they were matching my speed somewhat and were tracking my movements. I jumped high in the air and turned around to face the speeding jets.
"Cleave Breaker!" I swung my arms down, creating invisible, sharp shockwaves.
I can see them with my Mind's Eye. They travelled into the air, and one of them sliced off a wing and cut it in half. The other jets immediately started to fly up, evading the rest of the invisible air slicers. I chased after them. It didn't take me long to get close, and I was about to fire my laser eyes at one of them, the Silver Marksman, who was gripping one of the jet's wings, when he turned around and fired a shot with his railgun pistol. I was too fast to stop and had no choice but to raise my arms to shield my face from the white laser, which hit me directly. The explosion sent me falling to the air, my teeth gritted from the pain.
"Dang!" I say as I forced my body to levitate before I crashed hard to the ground.
I glared at barrel-rolling flying machines, taunting me to get them. I growled and was about to chase them.
"Red, relax. He's baiting you so he can get another shot at you. Focus, you have one move that is a kryptonite to any flying machine."
"What, when?" I asked, but a second later it hit me.
I took a deep breath and began to spin my body around at high speeds.
"Cyclone Breaker!"
A large tornado formed from me spinning around at such an insane speed, and almost instantly, trees and other smaller objects started to get sucked in. I could feel pretty much all of the jets got sucked in, all except one, and it's the jet that SM was clinging to. It managed to get away from my cyclone's pull and got some distance away before SM fired his railgun pistol at me again. I immediately stopped and flew away just in front of the white laser, which was just one arm away from hitting me.
The spinning vortex faded, letting the broken jets crash to the floor. Dust covered the area, but once it was cleared, I was just standing still in the sky with crossed arms as I faced the jet and SM. He looked frustrated, obviously not expecting Cyclone Breaker. And honestly, I wasn't expecting it to be this effective. I guess that means I have him by the balls.
Okay, you know I'm never saying that again, ugh.
"Okay, buddy, you might as well-oh, why do I even bother?"
I said as I watched his jet descend at high speed. I groaned before flying after him. The jet did an impressive number of maneuvers to get me off its back, but I was way too fast. It also helps that I have really great control maneuvering when it comes to flying. I fired my optic blast at them, but they pulled up at the last second.
Drat, I'm not used to fighting in the sky! I kept on spamming my optic blasts or Cleave Breaker.
"Red, you're just wasting your CE. You need to slow down and figure it out for him."
I did what I was told, slowing down instead of watching the jet tear through the sky. It turned around and started firing those large bullets again. While SM shot another white beam, which I barely dodged. Now it was he chasing me. What should I do? I don't think I can use Cyclone Breaker again, he would expect it and fly away.
He could even maybe even shoot me with his railgun while I'm spinning. As I thought of multiple plans, one stuck out. It might not work, but it's worth a shot. I grimaced as I saw my CE lowered nearly to thirty percent. I vibrated my body intensely, and then I was invisible again. Almost immediately, the jet stopped firing and flew away. I slowly moved away, flying above the speeding jet.
I stopped vibrating, and as I did, I launched my Optic blasts and brought both of my arms down to perform Cleave Breaker. As I thought, the jet moved to one side to avoid my laser beam, but the wing was compromised when my Cleave Breaker sliced it off, and it was the wing that the Silver Marksman was grabbing onto. He started to fall but quickly regained his balance by activating his rocket boots. But now, he could look in fright as I charge at him.
His barrier quickly popped, wrapping around form, but my head shattered the shield, and I tackled him, causing both of us to crash to the ground. This resulted in a shockwave along with dust covering the area. I took a deep breath, wiping the sweat from my face as I got off Silver Marksman, who groaned. He reached his fork railgun next to him weakly, but I quickly retrieved it and threw it into space, never to meet his owner again.
I looked at him with a smirk. "That's just too bad, isn't it?"
My grin dropped seeing him get up despite his injuries, with one glance with my SEE Goggles, it showed me that I broke more than half of his bones. Not only did I clearly damage his cyborg parts, but he stood tall, ready to fight without his gun. I have to give it to him, he's tough for a Non-Super Soldier.
"I won't fall that easily…" Said the Silver Marksman.