Chapter 5: Hostile Contact

Kelas and Roman emerged in a forest outside of an AIC military base. Roman, clearly a little bit on edge, spoke up quietly. "I will never get used to that little trick of yours." this earned a slight grin from Kelas as his scythe vanished. "Scythes and I don't exactly have a spotless history either." he continued, before the pair crouched behind a bush just within the treeline. The two could see a pair of guards in front of the gate to the compound.

Privates Jimson and Henries' jobs were to stand watch over the front gate to a top secret AIC compound. They were the night shift, and as such didn't have a lot to do. This led to Pvt. Jimson asking a fairly unusual question one evening of his guard duty.

"You ever wonder why we're here?" Jimson asked his compatriot of gate protection.

"Well, this is a top secret compound. The brass doesn't want any unauthorised personnel getting in, so they have people guarding the gate. We were the unlucky bastards that got stuck on the night shift." Henries replied.

"Well yea, but I mean why are we here on Remnant? What is our ultimate purpose? Are we actually going to be part of anything important, or are we just a plot device in some grand story-" Jimson's vocalised contemplation was interrupted by his comrade readying his weapon.

"You there, this is a restricted area! Explain yourself or I will fire!" Henries shouted at a man with orange hair in a black suit and bowler hat.

"Now now gentlemen," the suited man started, "I'm simply here on business for General… uhhh…"

Roman's faltering ruse was interrupted by Kelas appearing in front of Jimson. He delivered a swift uppercut with his left hand under the rib cage from a crouched position, audibly shattering the guard's lower ribs, before spikes shot out of his arm into the man's chest, shredding his vital organs. He lifted the now lifeless soldier with his fist, shooting the spikes at the other guard while simultaneously using the first as a bullet sponge for the incoming gunfire. The spikes hit Henries in the forehead, chest, and abdomen, branching out upon penetrating the flesh and killing the guard instantly before dissolving and leaving gaping wounds in the corpse.

"Let's go." Kelas said to Roman before ripping a hole in the steel grated gate and entering.

"I could've salvaged the situation…" Roman mumbled under his breath before following the taller man.

Walking further into the compound, Kelas and Roman found the vehicle they were looking for. Three guards were gathered around the craft, either sitting or leaning on supply crates. The area was lit by a single lantern. Kelas melted into the shadows before appearing in the middle of the group, grabbing the face of the man closest to the VTOL with his left hand, before drawing his sword, cutting the throat of the man standing to his right, switching to a backhanded grip, and impaling the face of the man sitting behind him all in one swift motion, then proceeded to crush the head of the guard whose face he had grabbed and sheathing his sword.

"You really don't waste any time taking care of the resistance, do you?" Roman said, putting his handgun back under his suit jacket, just in case things had gotten out of hand, while carefully eyeing the disintegrating corpses of the two men who had been killed by the tall man's blade.

"I'm assuming you know how to pilot this vehicle?" Kelas asked, looking back over his shoulder at his suited minion.

"Assuming that the controls, like the body seems to be, are based off of your standard Bullhead, I shouldn't have a problem flying it." Roman said, moving to enter the flying vehicle.

"Good, because we've got company." Kelas shot back, looking at six figures gathered a couple dozen yards away.

"Is that him?" Ikari asked, crouched and ready to strike with the Zweihänder sheathed on her back.

"Yea, it looks like it." Blake replied, scanning the scene with her faunus night vision before locking with the glowing red eyes glaring back at her from a couple dozen yards away. "Definitely him."

"Then let's drop them before they get away with the stealth prototype." Drake said dropping to a crouch, lining up a shot with the opposition's head, and firing in an instant with his railgun only to see the tracer fly off into the distance behind his target. "How did that miss? I had the shot lined up perfectly!"

"You sure about that? It looks like you missed by a mile there, deadshot." Yang taunted, deploying Ember Celica and getting ready to rush into combat.

"Doesn't matter now!" Ruby shouted. "Ikari, Yang, you two rush in and set him off balance! Blake, Weiss, you follow them in and strike him while he's open! Drake and I can lay support fire down from here!" Ruby crouched into a firing position next to Drake as Ikari and Yang shot off towards the tall man at full speed, followed shortly by Blake and Weiss.

Kelas hadn't expected this universe to have any projectile weapons capable of such a high velocity, but avoiding the electrically charged slugs was still a simple matter for him. What he needed to focus on now were the four fighters headed his way, and the doubled long range firepower now bearing down on him.

He lifted his left arm in front of himself, fist pointed towards the sky, and from the same material he had killed the two guards at the gate with he formed a towering shield in front of himself, woven together from black tendrils emerging from his arm. The blonde brawler was the first to reach him, propelled forward by the weapons attached to her fists. Her right fist slammed into the black shield, releasing an explosion, while shots fired from the two snipers impacted the shield at full speed. The combined force of the attack didn't phase Kelas, however the concrete beneath him began to crack from the force.

The dark haired woman with the bastard sword was next to strike, bringing her sword down from above the moment her blonde comrade jumped away. Kelas swiftly turned to his left and took a step back, grabbing the woman's wrists with his right hand and using her own momentum to throw her a few dozen yards down the airfield.

The white haired woman closing in with a blazing short sword was next in line, whom Kelas met with a backhanded strike with his shield, continuing his spin and sending her hurtling into a nearby stack of crates. He tilted his head to his left to avoid another pair of projectiles from the twin snipers, drawing his sword with his right hand to counter the black haired faunus girl coming his way.

She flickered from sight, reappearing behind him and readying a spinning blow with her twin blades only to feel the bite of a blade across her back. Realizing that her attack had been predicted, she blinked back at a high angle attempting to get in the tall man's blind spot as Yang came back in for a combo, only to find her opponent had kept spinning and parried Yang's punch out of the way with his sword, his now unshielded left hand hammering into her side, shattering a few ribs and causing her to slam into the vehicle next to them.

Ikari began to close in from behind Kelas, her zweihänder now split into two energised swords, as Ruby transformed her weapon into a scythe and propelling herself towards the dark figure with it's recoil. Drake, following suit, holstered his railgun on his back and detached the rails as electrified rapiers and shooting off towards their opponent.

Yang, being the only one close enough to fight at the moment, was blasting away at Kelas with her fists, only to have every single attack blocked, dodged, or parried flawlessly. She kept stepping up the pace and varying the attack pattern, but her opponent adapted his defense just as swiftly, until Yang heard a click when she punched. Realising she needed to reload, and that Weiss was ready to step in, she backflipped out of the fight, avoiding a horizontal slash in the process.

Weiss stepped in, clashing her silver dust infused sword with Kelas' jet black blade repeatedly, working in quick shots with the dust revolver in her right hand only to have each one skillfully dodged each time. Ikari, being the first to close back in after having been thrown, readied a scissoring slash with her twin blades. Weiss fired a shot from her revolver, intending to force her opponent to dodge into her teammate's attack, only to have him do a backflip over Ikari's swords, sheathing his sword and slamming the two girls' heads together before throwing them both away from himself.

By this point, Ruby had closed in. She used the recoil of her weapon to perform a spinning sweep towards Kelas, which was avoided with a jump. Following through behind Ruby came Drake, slashing horizontally at Kelas whom avoided the attack by ducking under it, only to find the electricity arcing off the blade had singed his head in the process. Drake continued his dual bladed assault rapidly, Kelas only narrowly avoiding each strike resulting in cuts along his duster, numerous superficial burns, and a few lost hairs.

Ruby rejoined the assault, Kelas finding the flurry of blades and gunshots harder to avoid than before. Kelas grabbed Ruby's scythe and threw the girl and her weapon towards Drake, Ruby recovering by digging the blade into the ground as Drake dodged and thrust one of his rapiers in Kelas' face, narrowly missing an eye. Yang, seeing that her two comrades had their opponent occupied, grabbed the unconscious forms of Ikari and Weiss and moved them over by the stealth prototype, where Blake sat holding her side in agony.

Drake and Ruby's endless high speed assault continued on, each attack coming closer and closer to being a hit. As Kelas went in for a jab at Drake's face, he noticed a slight distortion around his target before Drake juked out of the way and slashed towards Kelas' abdomen. Noticing this, Kelas caught Drake's blade as he swung, ducking another slash from Ruby's scythe before pulling Drake in and kneeing him in the chest, following it up with a roundhouse kick to the head that sent Drake flying to the side. Ruby tried to follow up with a downward strike before Kelas could turn towards her, only for him to dodge to the side and force her scythe's blade deep into the concrete followed by a punch straight to the face that caused her to do a backflip.

As Yang watched Ruby's now unconscious body hit the pavement, the engines of the VTOL roared to life, forcing Yang to move herself and her three friends out of the way. Drake, somehow still conscious, signaled towards Yang to attack, readying his own blades once more. Yang walked up next to Drake, readying her twin gauntlets for one last assault.

"I'm going to attack first. The moment I break off, you move in and give him everything you've got!" Drake shouted at the blonde over the roar of the engines, receiving a nod in confirmation. With that, Drake rushed in, swinging his blades in a wild combo, narrowly missing each strike before blocking a kick and focusing as Yang rushed in. Kelas' eyes widened as everything except for his two opponents slowed down. Unable to block or avoid, he took a direct 20 hit combo from Yang's gauntlets before time returned to normal and he was sent rocketing backwards across the airfield. He recovered, digging into the pavement in a kneel with the black tendrils digging in from his left arm and leaving a sizeable gash about 20 feet long in the concrete.

Recovering from the beating that had just been dished out to him, Kelas stood and focused his energy, the black material encasing his left arm and hardening around it. He shot forward at blinding speed, leaving a crater in his wake and stopped between Drake and Yang with equal force before slamming his left fist into the ground below him. The impact sent out a shockwave that knocked the pair of Hunters off their feet and caused the ground below them to collapse entirely. Kelas jumped away from the carnage he had created, landing in the hull of the VTOL that was now taking off, as Yang and Drake fell into a ten foot pit of dirt and rubble.

"You put on quite a show there." Roman shouted from the cockpit of the craft.

"You took your sweet time getting this thing off the ground." Kelas shot back, entering the cockpit and sitting in the co-pilot's seat.

"This shit's more complicated than it looks, alright? From what I've seen though, you could've taken all of them out quickly and quietly, so why drag it out and leave them alive on top of that?" Roman looked at the man sitting next to him, who seemed to barely fit in the cockpit.

"It's more interesting this way." the tall man said, leaning back and closing his eyes.

"You have a strange idea of interesting, my friend." Roman muttered under his breath, returning his focus to flying the prototype aircraft.