#armande

Ash sighed to herself as she looked around the makeshift cell that had been built, she had absolutely seen this coming but her new help had not been so cautious and now they were stuck. Since then he hadn’t stopped apologizing and of course she’d accepted his apology but he just kept doing it, it was rather irritating at least he had stopped shooting at the forcefield.

Outside the cell the strange amalgamated droids crawled around the chamber, it truly was like someone had found two working droids and just shoved them together leading to some very strange designs. Ash was crouched down in the corner trying to mess with the emitter, it would be a lie to say she a slicer and was having a sufficient amount of trouble working out how this worked. 

She wasn’t 100% sure but this did seem like everything else shoddily put together so her confusion may have been warranted, she felt the distinct feeling of someone looking over her shoulder “uh so how’s it going” Guss was peering at what she was doing.

Ash sighed “I’m trying my best with what I got but I’m not really sure what to do with this emitter to get it to stop uh emitting” Guss nodded clearly not taking it in but trying to anyway.

He rubbed his chin or whatever counted for one on a Mon Cal “that does look like a pretty messy design” Ash nodded at least he wasn’t offering bad suggestions or anything, she turned back around and started trying to cause some form of surge. They had to hurry, Armande was going to be back soon and her last encounter with the scientist had been less than pleasant although not too challenging.

After a little more tinkering Ash managed to get an open wire and caused the emitter to surge as Ash stepped back, she’d hoped it would turn off but the forcefield just seemed to change colour “damn it I must’ve had the wrong wires” Guss walked up to it looking at it

He seemed to have an idea “well maybe it’s different now maybe we can walk through” Ash shook her head that sounded like a terrible idea, but before she could say anything Guss had rushed forward and Ash’s surprise he went right through and turned around with a massive smile

Ash sighed and followed him out “of course that worked, I forgot to account for the level of dumb repurposing this scientist has done, her sarcasm was seemingly lost on Guss as he looked like a proud animal that had just done something clever.

Ash let him have it and looked around the room “now for a way out of here” she scanned the room by her count she could see ten Amalgamated Droids in this room with all manner of weapons and each of them were slowly noticing their escape. Ash clicked her neck, it’d been far too long since she’d had a good fight

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First off three droids in front of her, one with a repurposed forklift, a buzzsaw from a tree felling robot and the last with a giant minigun in its chest. While formidable weapons, not one of these enemies seemed very maneuverable so she’d use her speed, take out their defences and avoid their weapons. Behind them were a group of four spider droids they had similar droids all fused to them from the looks of them they were once assembly line droids probably laser cutters and welders. This was more dangerous but the aim of the things seemed terrible so keep them moving and they won’t be able to get a clean shot, the last three were the most normal looking. They clearly were supposed to be bodyguard droids but each had something instead of an arm, one with a giant hammer, one with a vibroblade and the last with what looked like a laser cannon from a ship. The Laser cannon enemy was the one to watch out for, very dangerous but also could be damaging to its allies either way she’d need to be careful, with all the targets surveyed Ash dashed towards the first set.

She drew her blaster carbine and let out a barrage of blaster fire to get their attention and then began to jump and build up speed before flipping over them, just as she’d planned they didn’t have any time to react. Ash drew her sawn off slug thrower and shot it straight into the head of the minigun droid, its head exploded as the slugs made impact scattering metal to the ground and taking out the most dangerous of the three. 

Ash noticed Guss firing off blaster shots from a safe position but more importantly he’d caught the attention of the Buzzsaw droid, danger may be but a perfect distraction. Ash quickly drew her Vibroknife and threw it towards the legs of the droid slicing through, causing it to drop to the ground and begin shambling towards him instead of rushing. She knew she had the adequate time now to take out the remaining forklift droid which came rushing at her trying to knock her down but Ash managed to hold it back as it tried to push her over. She smiled realising she had the perfect solution she let it gain a little headway as she picked a thermal detonator from her belt, took off the safety and shoved it into the robot. 

She jumped out the way as the droid exploded from the inside out Ash turned to see the Buzzsaw droid but smiled when she saw it smoking on the floor, Guss had at least managed to take out the injured droid he gave her a thumbs up as she turned back around to the spider droids which were scuttling towards them. She drew her blaster rifle managing to take out two from long range before they caught up to her, the remaining two let off torrents from blowtorches causing Ash to have to duck to avoid them. She rolled her eyes, small droids had one fatal weakness, she grabbed one of the droids aiming the blowtorch away from her at the other droid it quickly burning up. With only the one in her hands left she threw it at the wall as hard as she could, hitting and falling to the ground with a crack deactivated, Guss caught up with her looking to the remaining three droids.

Ash braced herself here came the hard part, she got out her regular slugthrower as she walked towards them staggering the robots as she then switched into a dash. She jumped up and onto the robot with the laser cannon if anywhere was safe it was on top of this droid's head, it tried to throw her off but she made sure she was secure. She continued laying down slugthrower rounds onto the remaining droids but it quickly became clear these droids were stronger than that. She sighed getting her carbine back out shooting at each of them but still nothing these things were made of strong stuff, and they weren’t afraid to show it they started trying to hit her from atop the laser droid and Ash realised she had to do something. 

She drew her remaining Vibrodagger and stabbed it into the laser droid's arm hoping to cause some form of misfire, she cinched it in deep and after a bit the laser began to fire at the floor. She had to be careful about this and the other droids were getting dangerously close to hurting her, she jumped off of the droid and then kicked the arm forward causing it to fire into the other two droids taking out everything but their arms and legs. The laser wasn’t stopping though she had to take out the droid before it destroyed the place, she crawled below it as it flailed around and grabbed hold of the other droid’s Vibrosword arm, she thrust it up through the laser droid’s head and finally the laser turned off.

Ash let out a sigh of relief as Guss ran up to her “oh wow that was amazing you took them all out and there’s barely a scratch on you” Ash caught her breath she may have done that but she was beat now

She nodded “yeah but I am tired now we gotta get outta here now” Guss nodded and led her out of the chamber to the main one

As they arrived however they could see the doors were opening Armande was back, Ash rushed after Guss “Guss I may be good at fighting but I can’t take them all on and I certainly can’t compromise the mission Armande knows I’m related to Gacen” Guss nodded and looked around his eyes locking on the submersible

Guss smiled “follow me” he led her over and Ash swallowed hard as he began to climb in

She had a bad feeling about this “uh Guss are you sure taking one of his inventions is good they all kinda don’t work” she knew she didn’t have another option though and got in as Guss worked out the controls

He frowned “I don’t see another option and they don’t do their intended purpose this thing was supposed to drill right it still flies I think” as he said that he hit a button and they zoomed forward out of the base and into the fresh Dubrillion air. Ash’s eyes widened this thing piloted like a kids first podracer she held onto the side for dear life as they sped out towards the ocean.

She looked around and saw ships were in hot pursuit “does this thing have any weapons” Guss shook his head Ash swallowed hard this was going the least conspicuous it could without failing

Guss pointed to the front “just this drill thing I doubt it’ll be any use” Ash sighed what were they going to do the fighters were closing in

Ash cursed “then what do you suppose we do to outrun these fighters they are a lot faster than us” Guss had a grin on his face as he pushed the controls down

They suddenly entered a nose dive “the things called submersible for a reason Ash, how’s about we hide under the sea they can’t pursue us down there” Ash’s eyes widened as the ship broke the surface of the water

She had no idea if this was a good or terrible idea “are you sure Guss I mean what if this thing breaks you may be able to breath underwater but I can’t I don’t have a rebreather and I am a really bad swimmer” Guss did seemed to hear her concerns as blaster fire breached the waters around her

Guss nodded “that’s a pretty good point but it’s this or get caught I think and you were very adamant you didn’t want that” Ash nodded she supposed he was right this time no matter how uncomfortable she was

The ship slowly began to go deeper and deeper into the water and the blaster fire got less frequent but as it did they found themselves at a wall, Ash shook her head “what now then they still will be able to find us down here” Guss was looking at the console and frowning

He gestures “look at the wall it’s a bunch of small rocks covering something up it’s manmade see this console says there’s something not too far through” Ash had her head in her hands unsure if following Guss’ lead was the worst idea or not “and this thing has a drill so we could hide deeper” Ash let out a long sigh and nodded

Guss fired the ship forwards turning the drill on and soon they were burrowing through the wall “this better work Guss I am not drowning because of you” Guss nodded a little nervous as the ship continued

It took about five minutes but soon they pushed through to a deeper part of the ocean, Ash shuddered as she began to hear cracks “are you sure this thing is capable of going this deep” Guss frowned as he looked at the console

Ahead of them they could see for miles there was everything she’d ever heard about deep in the ocean and a glowing area far off in the distance, Guss looked to her “it should be able to but I can try and go higher to lower the pressure” Ash nodded that sounded like the best idea

But as they started to rise Ash could hear the cracks throughout the ship whatever damage they were doing was already done she looked around and a great panic came over her “Guss! This ship is going to break you have to do something I can’t breathe underwater” Guss seemed equally stressed as the consoles started to power down, he made a beeline for the cave wall seemingly with some sort of plan

He stammered “I’m gonna make sure you’re ok I’m gonna f-” before he could finish the glass of the cockpit finally snapped and water rushed in, Ash held her breath but knew it was probably futile.

She couldn’t die like this, she had so much she wanted to do she would not die in an accident from a scientist's shit invention, she looked to see Guss grab her hand and begin swimming towards the cave wall. Ash had never trained for this; she'd never needed to swim without a fully submersible vehicle or suit; she had no idea what to do and was definitely weighing the weaker Guss down. 

She tried to keep up as she felt herself running out of breath, what was she going to do? She had no answer for how to deal with this, all her training was useless. It wasn’t long before she couldn’t stop it anymore and water entered her mouth and filled her lungs, Guss held her tight trying to pull her along but she was clearly too heavy for him.