A his feet leave the ground as his Guiding Light escort literally threw him into a dark room. “Stay there, and keep quiet. The boss wants you alive, but I doubt she’ll care if we have th you up a little.” The monster of a man threw a b onto the floor, before closing and log the heavy metal door behind him.
“Fug assholes,” An muttered. Not loud enough for them to hear, of course, but he still felt the o let it out. The room he’d been thrown into had probably been a secure ste room decades ago. Now all that it tained iles of rotten boards and rusty metal. It was quite obvious that the b was less to give him a little bit of fort and more to prevent him from gettianus or some other disease if he tried to sit down.
He shoved enough of the junk aside to sit on the floor. The single lightbulb in the room flickered occasionally, threatening to pluhe room into darkness. Thankfully it didn’t, instead it provided just enough light to leave everything in a state of perpetual gloom. “I really fucked up this time. Jane and Evelyn are going to kill me.”
Even through the walls, he could tell his jailers were having a great time. He couldn’t make out everything they said, but he could make out the occasional word. Things like samurai, bitch, and failure. It didn’t take a genius to realize they were probably making fun of Evelyn, which made him feel even worse.
The merry-making seemed to carry on for hours, even though it robably only a couple of minutes, before something ged. There was a horrific crash, followed by shouting and guhen silence. A momehe door was wrenched open. No, not opehe ehing, frame and all, had been pulled right out of the crete wall and a massive bear stuck its head through the hole. “Hello An, I am sorry for the dey, but I am here to protect you!” it decred.
An sat there, stunned, for a moment. Not only did the bear speak, but it sounded like an upbeat gameshow, or sp announcer. “You’re one of Evelyn’s bears,” he said dumbly, “How did you get here?”
“I’m Bob! I came in through the roof,” it replied. “It took a while to find a pce that wouldn’t cause the entire building to colpse. Thankfully, the beavers were able to determine a location with suffit stability.”
“Right…”
“We should be going. There are several samurai assaulting the premises, but my orders are to get you to safety,” the bear said.
An scrambled to his feet and approached the door. The bear beyond was… different from what he remembered. Where Evelyn’s personal bears wore some variety of modern bat armor, this one had some sort of futuristic carapace armor chest piece, pants, and some massive gaus.
“Stay close to me, and I’ll get you out of here,” Bob said, with a slight nod. “We are currently in an abandoned manufacturing building, and must gh the main assembly floor to exit. We expect resistance from both Guiding Light supporters, and defensive drones.”
“Is that safe?”
“I’ll protect you, and they ’t stop me,” the bear decred dismissively.
“Right…” An replied suspiciously. The bear was obviously one of Teddy’s, but he’d never seen one so fident, or vocal. This was something new.
As An stepped into the main room, he saw what happeo his captors. Four men, all wearing light armor and carrying ons, were strewn about the room. Eae had a series of sptters across their face or chest. Less than two feet from their makeshift poker table was a massive hole, which extehrough both the sed floor and roof.
“Fuck me,” An muttered.
“Time to go. Our reinforts are on the way, and the boss doesn’t want to risk you getting caught up in the crossfire,” Bob decred. The bear didn’t attempt to open the wooden door to the area, he just walked through it, taking a rge k of the wall with it. It didn’t even slow him down. Beyond the doorway were half a dozen Guiding Light followers that seemed to be ing to iigate the otion. As soon as Bob came through the door they almost instantly opened fire.
An crouched down, c his ears, as the bullets smashed into the giant bear. Bob, however, seemed pletely uned. He deployed a massive shield out of one arm, making sure that no bullets could actally hit his charge. A double-barrelled SMG popped out of his other arm, which he used to pletely hose down the room. Between the high rate of fire and unnerving accuracy, it only took seds for Bob to ralize the entire room. “e o's get a move on!” he decred as his shield and on folded bato his arm.
“Are… Are they dead?” An asked as he jogged to catch up to his massive protector.
“The boss doesn’t like unnecessary killing, so I’m armed with tranqs for this mission. The little ones will hand this lot over to the authorities when this is all over.”
“You think the police will take them?” An asked, half out of curiosity, half to keep his mind off the situation.
“The boss seems to think so. This lot pissed off a whole lot of samurai, which apparently entitles them to special treatment.” The bear strolled past the bodies, and up to a sed door on the far side of the room, but paused just before passing through. “The situation’s ged,” Bob said, turning slightly. “The foxes tell me a security bot has been activated, I o ralize it before we leave. Wait here until I call for you.”
“Wait…” An called out, but the bear had already stepped through the wall and into the assembly floor. He stared out the gap, into the darkness, after the massive bear. Bob didn’t walk around things, he just went through. veyor belts, ste boxes, and even assembly maes were casually pushed aside as he strode across the area.
In the darkness, something rose to meet him.
An couldn’t see exactly what it was, it was just a faint shape in the darkness, that was until the guns opened up. A pair of heavy mae guns opened up, illuminating a massive, fifteen-foot monstrosity that looked more like a tank than a robot. Even though its guns focused on Bob, it was still causing immense colteral damage. Maes exploded, belts were ripped to shreds, even the floor ulverized. The bear didn’t care; he just kept walking.
When he was about six feet away from the bot, it stopped firing, and instead just smashed him with one of its massive legs. The tree-trunk-sized limb smashed into the side of Bob, resulting in a massive ch. When the dust cleared, Bob was still there, in the exact same position, and the bot’s arm artially crumpled against his head. “I have spatial anch, and I’m made of Css III materials. If you want to hurt me, you’ll o hit me with something a lot strohan that,” Bob said, almost smugly.
The bear took a couple more steps forward, and then threunch at the security bot. When the bear’s retively small and slow-moving fist ected, the security bot just exploded backwards. Three quarters of the core disied into a spray of shattered parts. The remainder cartwheeled backwards, ripping through all sorts of maery, before crashing through the outer wall. An just stared in shock.
“You e out now,” Bob called, slowly making his way back across the factory. “I might have made the structure slightly more unstable… so we’d better get out of here while we .”
“How did you do that?” An asked, scrambling through the wreckage. “I knew Evie’s bears were tough, but… that was insane.”
“Got an upgrade before I came—AI, resiliehe whole nine yards. Apparently the boss was inspired by something she fought ile and spent almost her entire bao get me going.” The bear turned, ae not having any facial expressions, seemed to give An a look. “You better tell her you appreciate the effort and apologize for running off whe back.” The bear wasly trying to intimidate him, but Aainly felt a certain… pressure. He swallowed and nodded in agreement.
“Alright the's get you out of here.” One of Evelyn’s IFVs nded outside the factory; it was visible through the hole Bob knocked in the wall. An took about two steps forward before he was stopped by the big bear. “Let’s take the front doors. I may have a habit of knog holes in things, but sidering how rundown this pce is, it’s probably better if we take the front door,” Bob said. As if to emphasize his words, the broken wall crumbled, taking a small se of the roof with it.
An just nodded in agreement.
