Jaune and the Real Girl.

Chapter 38

Jaune stared at the glass doors for the botanical garden. It looked dark and abandoned and the ominous feeling the building gave him made his heart hammer in his chest with feat. But somehow his nerves held and he kept walking closer and closer.

"Can you hear me?" Pietro asked, his voice coming in clearly from his earpiece.

"I can," Jaune said, feeling comforted to know that he wasn't walking into this fight completely alone or unprepared. "How are things going on your end?" he asked.

"Slowly I'm sorry to tell you," he answered him, "that woman has created some impressive defenses on her systems, I'm afraid of what will happen if I don't approach this carefully, if I'm detected she might detonate the bombs."

"Take whatever time you have too," Jaune told him, "I'll try to drag this out as long as possible."

He reached the door and grabbed the steel handle pulling it as the sign instructed. Sure enough it opened for him. Stepping inside the dark building Jaune grabbed the black rifle that hung from a sling and held it at the ready.

Pietro had called it a PX11 plasma rifle. He had also listed off various statistics that had mostly gone over Jaune's head. But a few minutes practicing with it had made Jaune agree that it was probably one of the better options he had available, he only wished he had more range time before deciding to come to a fight. And the compact bullpup was light and easy to carry along with the other weapons he had procured.

A whirr of machinery shattered the silence and Jaune raised the weapon. From a dark corner a turret balanced on a tripod opened fire on him. A blue hardlight shield glowed to life at the end of the weapon blocking the hail of gunfire. Jaune moved the glowing green reticle over the machine and squeezed the trigger, a three round burst of blue plasma bolts erupted from the barrel and struck it burning holes right through it making it erupt with sparks.

Before Jaune could admire his handiwork he spotted another turret moving in the opposite corner. Thinking fast he snapped Crocea Mors scabbard onto his gauntlet and deployed the shield with his sword still sheathed. The turret opened fire and clattered against the white surface as he turned the rifle on the turret and fired another three round burst silencing it.

"I see you came with some new weapons," Vasily's voice said from all around them.

Jaune spun around trying to locate his voice only to see that his voice was from an intercom. Jaune figured he would let his machines do most of the fighting, bastard.

"Come here and I'll let you get a closer look!" Jaune taunted him moving away from the lobby and through the doors. The atrium looked like a jungle with concrete pathways winding through patches of exotic plants and trees with plaques explaining each and every plant, for a moment Jaune thought that under different circumstances this would be a decent place to take Penny on a date.

"I think I'll sit back and watch a demonstration," Vasily said over the intercom.

A bush rustles and Jaune turned to see a pack of those mechanical dogs charging through the brush. He leveled the rifle and fired sending bolts downrange at them cutting through their steel bodies and burning through the various plants.

The guns mounted on their backs fired back only for the rounds to shatter on the hardlight shield as it deployed protecting him.

Gunfire erupted from another patch of trees, bullets tore through the brush and at him. Jaune ducked away taking cover behind one of the concrete barriers for the plants. The concrete did little to block the rounds as they tore through turning the concrete into rubble. Several rounds struck Jaune striking the armor plates Pietro had helped outfit him with. It felt like he was being pelted with rocks but the armor held.