Chapter 3: Give Us Liberty, Or Give Us Death

Navajo stared at Fredlin speaking with his subordinates. This was the third time he had been talking to them during the auction and it was clear to him that something was wrong. Perhaps Cedric was right. There was always opportunity in danger in the criminal underworld, but… well, there was opportunity in danger. Weighing his odds, Navajo sighed. Such an opportunity wasted. Navajo stood up and dusted himself off. "Come Blackstar, we are leaving."

Cedric raised an eyebrow at Navajo's change in behaviour. The little boss is a pretty stubborn person. He didn't expect him to change his mind like that.

Navy , on the other hand, was less surprised and more worried. "Wh-where are you going, valued Client?"

For his part, Navajo didn't even turn to look at him. "Perhaps you did not hear what I said? Then allow me to repeat myself. We. Are. Leaving."

"And miss out on tonight's special?" Navy asked, a hint of anxiousness in his voice.

"You always show your specialties in the third quarter of your auction. It is the last lap and I have yet to see it. So tell me, where is your special stock?"

"I… uhm,"

"Do not bother. I am leaving, and that is final."

Navajo continued to the exit, leaving a very distraught navy and a now skeptical audience behind him. He grabbed the door handle and opened it…

Only to have a blade and a wall of guns pointed at his face.

*line break cuz they don't have it in here*

A few minutes before

Looks like a guard's cowering behind a barricade and he's out of ammo. I motioned the other slaves to stop shooting, luring him into a false sense of security. At the same time, I snuck around the other side of the barricade. The guard peaks out, his arms still shaking. Just as he peaks out half his face, I tap him on the shoulder. Seizing up, he screams and turns around to face me, only to get a punch that knocks him out.

*sigh* I love doing this sort of thing, their faces are soooo funny.

Allright, back to business. I stand up, scanning for any more enemies. The other slaves (or should I say freedom fighters now?) approach me. "No more guards, boss, this room's clear."

Boss? That's new. I could have sworn they only called me "you" up until now. Is it because I'm the one that freed them? Or is it because I'm the one telling them where and how to attack?

"Uh, boss. You there?"

I quickly come back to the present, giving a nod to the freedom fighter who was speaking to me.

"This room's clear. The huntress's team also reported back all clear.

I gave another nod in response. Clearing this facility so far has proven to be really easy. Just drop a few guards, open some cages and distribute some weapons. But something about this stinks, like whoever's in charge is trying to keep this under wraps. The head honcho must be really desperate huh…

Anyways, I motioned for the rest of the freedom fighters to follow me and we proceeded to the agreed upon rendezvous point. There, we found the huntress, whose name I found was Sylvia, and her team of freedom fighters.

"Good, you're here. We're done with our end. All that's left is the auction rooms."

The same freedom fighter who called me boss then chose this time to speak up. "Sounds like this Mission's a piece of cake huh, huntress?"

"True but, this feels too easy. Almost as if these slavers are planning something for us."

I took this chance and changed my right arm into a sword. For some reason, I can't talk, so I've been carving into the ground to communicate with them.

Maybe it's a restriction ROB put on me? Either that, or I'm just an idiot.

The other looked at me with a serious look, expecting me to have some juicy intel. And in a manner of speaking, I did.

I proceeded to draw a stick figure shooting another, but the figure being shot at had a second layer of carving, depicting a shield protecting it. The others immediately knew what I was referring to, judging from their wide eyes and shocked (and some nervous) expressions.

"Oh shit, there's a huntsman in there?" Well that summarised everyone's thoughts very nicely.

"Why didn't you tell us this until now?" Sylvia was glaring at me with a pretty irritated expression on her face, the others following suit.

In response, I simply scratched out 2 things. Drawing a small vertical line with a circle around it, I then drew a depiction of me with a thought cloud that appeared to be rapidly dissipating. Then, I drew 2 small vertical lines with a surrounding circle and carved a depiction of 5 stick figures shooting the stick huntsman, making sure to depict his aura breaking and lots of bullets.

One of the freedom fighters, a young human - possibly late teens- anxiously asked. "Are you sure we have enough people for that? We still have the other AK-130s to deal with."

In response, I drew up a stick figure of me and 2 other freedom fighters shooting the botboys, while stick Sylvia and 3 freedom fighters fought the huntsman.

"Wait, just 3 of us against a huntsman? We're gonna die given those odds!" The young freedom fighter blurted out.

"Boss's drawing in proportion, dumbass." Yep, there's that freedom fighter calling me boss. Again, it feels weird. Almost as if I'm naked snake from me-

Ah, that's why it felt weird.

Not noticing my sudden realisation (I doubt anyone in the room could), the older freedom fighter took back control of the conversation. "Ok, how many people do we have? The huntsman's our main priority, but we still have personal guard details and the other bots to worry about."

Sylvia gave her input. "Well, a head on assault is out of the question. I'm thinking we…"

At this point, it was just a blur as we started crafting up a plan. Runners from the other pockets of freedom fighters came back reporting on their status'. We got them to stay and listen to the plan we were making.

The plan we cooked up was for me and half of the freedom fighters to go in through the front door and quickly surround the room. Another half would came in through the back entrance, where the (as of yet still caged up) slaves were carted up for auction. Sylvia and a team of former village militia will wait in the scaffolding above the auction room. When the signal is given, they'll attack the huntsman.

The walk to the auction room was a torturous one. Any part of the plan goes wrong and the blood of these people would be on my hands.

Talk about no pressure huh.

"Alright, this is it, everyone ready?" The elder freedom fighter called out.

The other freedom fighters checked their weapons while I pulled out my signature gun-blade dual wield.

"Ok, on 3. 1, 2,"

Before he could say 3, the doors swung open, revealing the very person I was most worried about.

*line break cuz they don't have it in here*

Navajo stared at the people pointing weapons at him, his eyes widened. He couldn't grab his holdout pistol, for fear of triggering the armed mob. Cedric on his part simply gave a sassy "I told you so." and pointed his weapon. The other auction goers, their security details and the botboys followed suit.

Still the sheer size of the mob was ridiculous, how could so many slaves have revolted and stolen so many weapons without a single alarm going off?

"You planned this, didn't you Navy." Navajo spat out. There was no other explanation, Navy had to have planned this from the start. Well, at least he could address Navy by name. He wouldn't last long anyways.

"Excuse me, valued client?"

'Do not feign ignorance when it is so obvious. How else could this happen? They even have one of your AK-130s with them"

"I, I.." Navy had no counter to what Navajo was saying. After all, even he was not sure how property like robots could rebel against their owners.

"Don't worry, he'll be joining you." A freedom fighter called out from the back entrance. The auction goers turned around in surprise, not expecting them to show up from there.

The elder freedom fighter called out to the auction goers. "You have one chance. Surrender now, and you will be treated fairly."

"And I am supposed to believe you will act as you say?" Navajo replied, sceptical that the freedom fighters could restrain themselves from tearing him and the other auction goers apart.

"Well, not like you have a choice, kid." The elder freedom fighter called out.

"On the contrary, I think I do. Blackstar." Navajo ordered.

The huntsman simply nodded and became a blur. And just like that, all hell broke loose.

One moment, I was pointing my weapons at the auction goers. The next, I found myself flying across the corridor and landing with a loud thud.

Damn, this is what huntsmen are like?

Picking myself back up, I turned to see the auction room. Or rather, the realm of chaos it's become. Security details and botboys are battling with freedom fighters, there's gunfire everywhere and the huntsman is already clashing with sylvia.

Welp, no time to stare.

I rush to the front and open fire on some of the bodyguards the auction goers have, taking out quite a few. At the same time, I close in on one of the botboys who just took out a freedom fighter with a punch. It turned to face me and charged head on. In response, I simply peppered it with bullets and stabbed it in the chest, destroying it.

"Oh man, hundreds of lien down the drain." I heard someone say, probably the one who owned the botb…

Wait, shit. I just realised. I can't recover from injuries because, well, I don't have a fleshy body anymore. The only way I can "heal" is by salvaging parts from other AK-130s. So I can't just destroy botboys willy nilly. I have to be careful with how much force I use and where I hit.

Goddamnit bot owner, why do your problems have to be my problems too?

Before I could do anything else, my damage sensors reported bullet hits from behind. Turning around, there were 3 guards and a botboy shooting at me. Acting quickly, I fired at the guards and closed the distance, making sure to change my sword limb back into a hand. Now in melee range, I punched the botboy, which got blocked. What followed was an intense fistfight between me and the botboy where we attacked and countered each other. After 15 strikes each from us, I feigned a high punch from the left, forcing the botboy to counter it. Quickly, I delivered a punch to the torso, taking the botboy out of the fight.

One down, don't know how many more to go.

*line break cuz they don't have it in here*

Slyvia dodged another strike, this time narrowly missing her neck. This rogue huntsman is very good, whoever he is. He'd already taken out the rest of her impromptu team and had kept her on the backpedal throughout the entire fight. He hadn't even used his semblance once. The huntsman mechashifted his scythe into a lever action rifle, spinning it rapidly at a 90 degree angle and fired a few shots, taking out some freedom fighters in the process.

Sylvia closed in and struck again with Verdant Embrace's whip. The huntsman simply sidestepped, that irritating smile stuck on his face.

"You know, you're pretty good for a huntress in training. How's the team at beacon?"

Sylvia took a step back at the mention of her team. How could he have possibly known?

The rogue huntsman seemed to pick up on her surprise. "Aw, forgot me already? I'm hurt."

Sylvia pressed for information. "Who are you? How do you know who I am?"

To his credit, the huntsman gave an amused look. "Here's a clue. Remember Virengrove?"

Virengrove was a village where Sylvia and her team went on a previous mission. They were supposed to use the village as a stopping point before clearing out some grimm. However, when they reached there, the village was deserted, with signs of battle. All that was left were dead bodies and an emblem of a black star. Before her team could leave though, a masked person appeared and thoroughly wiped the floor with them before leaving. The whole incident made headlines for a full week. If this huntsman knew about what happened in Virengrove, then…

"You're the blackstar huntsman, aren't you?"

"Heh, now you remember. Name's Cedric, by the way. Not that it'll help you." The blackstar huntsman replied. "Guess I should have finished what I started."

Slyvia didn't want to admit it. But she was scared out of her mind. She was facing down a huntsman who wiped out an entire village. What could she do?

"It was nice knowing you, greenie. But now you'll have to die."

The blackstar huntsman activated his semblance, becoming a cloud of black smoke. He rushed at Sylvia and engulfed her. Sylvia's nerves erupted with activity as she was paralysed with pain, unable to move an inch. Materialising behind Sylvia, Cedric twirled around and mechashifted his rifle into its scythe form and curved it in front of Sylvia before slashing her in the lower torso. In a moment's notice, the wound overflowed with red fluid as Sylvia collapsed, a look of pain and surprise on her face.

Cedric looked down at Sylvia with a creepy smile. "Don't worry greenie, I'll let you finish watching the show~" Cedric then turned and leapt at the rest of the freedom fighters.

More bodies would fall by the time the ordeal was over.