And as if hearing the Sky's thoughts about horror movies, killer robots suddenly jumped down from where they were hidden on the roof of the bus. And yes, they really were killer robots; not as bulky as Spanner's Mosca seemed to be given the size of its crate, but the blades and guns built on them were pretty telling.
There were four of them. In the split second before they rushed towards the five boys, Tsuna noticed that the robots looked very top-of-the-line. They were shaped like humans, their edges were smooth, and all the 'insides' were protected by metal panes that didn't hinder their moves.
And god did they move fast! Tsuna and Byakuran barely had enough time to pull Spanner and Shoichi respectively out of the way before two bladed arms fell exactly were they had been standing. Hayato was quick to use one of his smokescreens (one of the few non-lethal weapons that the more peaceful members of Caeruleus had managed to convince the silveret to carry, although they still had no idea where he stored them) to hide them all from the two robots that had remained behind and were taking aim, and the five teens rushed to take cover behind the trees.
"What the hell is happening?!" Shoichi whispered loudly while holding his stomach. His stress-related pains had become much less regular these days -Kyoya's random surprise attacks to keep them sharp and trained did wonders, for all that they were terrifying; or rather, because they were terrifying- but they had all been high-strung since the conference, and this was just the straw that broke the camel's back.
"Fighting robots." Stated Spanner with his deadpan face, although his eyes were shining with awe when he looked at the smokescreen. Hayato seemed to have caught it too, because Tsuna could feel him at his right building up his indignant rant about useless answers and misplaced feelings of admiration.
"We need to destroy them." Cut in the Sky before his Storm could explode. "They're too fast to outrun, and we don't even know where we are anyway. Any ideas how to take them out?"
"Can't we just blow them up?" Asked an impatient Hayato, who already had plenty of dynamite in his hands.
"They look a bit too advanced and synchronized for that." Shot down Byakuran whose infuriating smile was still there, but had dimmed. "You saw how they moved, they aimed straight at the two weakest members. They know enough about us to decide on a strategy, and if we just rush in without one, we're going to get turned into mincemeat."
"And they're waiting for us." Added Shoichi, who was still bent over with his stomachache. "They have had all the time in the world to get out of that smoke by now, or to shoot in the direction they saw us leave. They're waiting to see what we're going to do, and you can bet that they're prepared for whatever we're going to throw at them." He analyzed. The red-head had always been very good at making a strategy. "We need to do something that they are not expecting, or we're in trouble. Those robots look too complex to fall for a straight on attack."
Hayato nodded his agreement. Now that he had time to cool down, his smarts were back and he could look at the situation clearly; his friends' assessment was correct : these robots were after them specifically and were likely to know how they usually fought. They would have to figure out who had sent them later, once they were safely back home.
The silveret looked at the only boy that wasn't part of their group hesitantly. "With Spanner here, can we still..." He trailed off.
Thankfully, his wonderful Boss (although he wasn't allowed to call him that) understood what he meant. "It's not like he hasn't seen our Flames before; and we were going to tell him about them anyway after what happened during the lecture. There's no need to hold back now, but I think the robots will be expecting this. There's no reason for anyone to attack us if they don't at least know that we're Flame-active."
Chapter 24: That doesn't have public transportation
Start from the beginning
