Counter Attack (Conti.)

I was already moving, alerted by Sense Danger, Crocea Mors, and Common Sense. I Lunged to the side, landed, and Lunged again with barely a moment's pause to determine my destination. Bullets flew past me, flickers of steel and light I could just barely make out as they flashed through the air.

It was easy to see Penny's plan—it was pretty much my plan turned against me, in a way. In the same way that I'd been able to dodge the swords when they'd moved faster than me simply by gauging where they were going and moving shorter distances, faced with my suddenly increased speed she had chosen to respond with an attack that required less movement. From this range, a small turn in her floating weapons could result in a vast change in the direction of bullets. Added to the speed of bullets…

It was a good plan. As far as Penny knew, I was a primarily close range fighter, after all, and she'd basically shrugged off my Dust attack like it wasn't even there. I'd proven that I could advance even against a tide of her blades so she was choosing a form of attack that she thought had a better chance of hitting me, changing her strategy from forcing me into melee to keeping me at a distance. Whether it was because she was a robot or very skilled or a combination of both, I knew that Penny could track my movements and plot out forms of attack with tremendous speed. There seemed to be limits, possibly because her body couldn't keep up and maybe also because calculating every possibility on a battlefield is pretty much impossible—but even as fast as I'd been suddenly moving, she'd been able to make slight adjustments to individual blades to try and get me.

A pair of guns aided by that same ability…minute adjustments made literally in-between shots as she guided the weapons towards me…I couldn't deny that it was a pretty frightening combination, not just to be the target of but even to bear witness to. In moments, what seemed like a hundred bullets cut through the air, each drawing closer than the last as she calculated and compensated. As I dashed and dove, bobbed and weaved, complete evasions became near misses. What started as almost random fire turned into something more controlled as she learned from success and failure both. The shots of one gun began leading into those of its partner, bullets started guiding my dodges towards other threats…

I suppose it shouldn't have been surprising, but Penny was a fast learner. All told, those weapons under her control…it was a good plan.

But not perfect. There was no such thing as a perfect plan, not truly, and this one had a flaw. And it wasn't the person shooting as it might have been for someone else—it anything, Penny was the strongest link in this combination.

It was her weapons.

That might have been a bit surprising for most people. There was a reason guns were such a common choice of weapon, after all; they were generally incorporated into pretty much all Hunter armaments in one form or another, even. And there were a lot of good reasons for that. Weak or strong, small or large, man or woman, anyone who could pull the trigger could fire a bullet. How well it was aimed could vary great, as well as a number of other factors such as rate of fire and reloading—but at its most basic level, anyone who pulled that trigger could fire that bullet. It might hit for one person and miss for another, fire rapidly for someone skilled and slowly for someone inexperienced, but given the same ammunition, the same weapon, and told to fire once, the result would be roughly the same no matter who you had firing. It wasn't dependent on strength or speed and, though it definitely had its place, even skill wasn't as big a concern as with earlier weaponry.

And in many ways, that was a virtue. If you gathered a thousand normal men, gave them guns, and trained them for a week or two, you could get a far greater result then if you did so with, say, bows. With the introduction of dust rounds especially, that was invaluable and had played a large role in much of Remnant's recent history, in the rise of the Kingdoms and the defense of Mankind. For the average man, there was no question that guns were by far the best choice of weapon.

But things got a bit murkier when Hunters got involved. It wasn't uncommon to see a Hunter parry bullets or evade them. While the adage of bringing a sword to a gun fight held true generally, if the swordsman was a trained Huntsman…well, I'd seen enough robots shredded to know how that went. Though there were many advantages to guns—hence why they carried them and incorporated them into everything under the sun—the same held true even between Hunters, in many ways. There were a lot of reasons for it, but in the end it boiled down to this: It didn't matter who held a gun. How fast you are, smart you are, strong you are had no effect on the bullet once it was in flight. With the possible exception of me, I guess, depending on how the appropriate skills worked.

And while that was definitely an advantage for the majority of the planet, when you got into the outright insanity that defined most Hunters…

Penny's bullets were shot well, fired with inhuman accuracy and precision. She attacked carefully, a point to every bullet, a strategy unravelling. But though Penny was ungodly strong…that didn't make her bullets hit any harder than if she'd been anyone else in the world. Though a solid hit from her swords could send me flying and sheer away half my health…that didn't mean the same was true of these bullets.

So I did something that would have been insane for anyone without the abilities of a Hunter.

I advanced through the bullets.

Not in a straight line, of course; there was no point to making it easy for her. I flickered between points, zigging and zagging with the Tiger's Lunge, my reenergized Air Aura bolstering my speed even more. There were two sources of the bullets—her two guns—and I kept a set of eyes on each even as I monitored them with my Elemental senses. With two lines of fire, it was hard to dodge them all.

So I didn't. I outpaced what I could, staying ahead by sensing the danger and noting where the bullets were aimed. Of the bullets that made it through, I blocked what I could with my left gauntlets; when that wasn't possible, I chose what hits to take and tried to minimize the damage. I was grazed a few times, bullets brushing the skin of my upper arms, shoulders, and legs. Other times, I was shot outright, not entirely physical bullets driving into my chest.

But I didn't go down. My defenses held, minimizing the damage, the Tiger's Hide even withstanding a pair of solid shots before breaking, and I closed the distance with speed that amazed even me. I leaned to the side to escape a bullet's path, bobbed my head once to evade another, leapt over a third, lowered my arm and then brought it back up to deflect a fourth and fifth, and Lunged forward, taking a sixth to the shoulder.

Penny brought her arms up defensively the moment she saw me closing in, crossing them over her face, but I went under her guard at first, driving a hand into a chest with Double and Power Strike aiding the blow to lift her just off her feet. Her Guns rotated in midair to point at me, opening fire again in an attempt to drive me off and push me back.

I ignored them completely. As my Hide broke under the first set of bullets, I drove Penny back with another set blows, pushing her higher and further. Crocea Mors sent flashes through my mind, images born from each stroke, and I sent a single thought back in return without letting up. I felt shots connecting, striking my Aura next, but still didn't break away. I rained blow after blow down on Penny, pushing her back through the air, across the street, into the wall of a building, and, because it seemed fair to return the favor, continued my assault to drive her straight into it.

I kept an eye on my MP bar as it steadily drained, each blow biting into it swiftly even as I activated the Tiger Hide again and again to block a few extra shots—and then, once it reached the halfway mark, I turned my Aura off. The pain of the blows sharpened in an instant as the damage switched over to my HP bar, but I didn't let either fact stop me from smashing Penny out the other side of the building and into the streets once more. Grabbing her with my left hand, I drove firm blows into solar plexus, throat, and stomach even as I halted her flight with main strength and then grabbed her fully by the head and flipped her over onto the ground once more, turning my body into her chest to serve as a pivot.

She hit the concreate with a crash that drove her shoulders into the ground and sent cracks running out even further than before. I didn't stop, though, but came down astride her and began pounding down on her crossed arms with steady, lightning fast blows. While her bullets chewed through my health, I drove her deeper and deeper into the ground with resounding, metallic clangs, the images from Crocea Mors coming in quickening flashes with each hit. I beat her down until her entire upper body was below the concrete around her and still didn't stop.

I only hesitated when the bullets stopped coming—and it wasn't out of any worry for Penny. A glance revealed gun barrels glowing a bright green and my various skills—aided by my functioning brain—told me that was bad.

I leapt into the air a moment before they fired and green lasers drove large fissures into the ground on either side of Penny. A moment later, the android uncrossed her arms and placed them on either side of the hole I'd put her in. She rose from the ground as I landed, standing with the sound of breaking concrete and smiled at me.

"Well, that didn't work," She said, brushing off her arms and shoulders. Her sleeves had torn when she used her arms to defend herself and so had the false skin beneath, revealing now somewhat dirtied steel. I gave her a moment as she stood from the hole, mainly to take the chance to draw out and consuming another round of Dust crystals to heal the damage I'd received and restore my MP. "Maybe, hm…no, but…oh, but…I have another idea!"

"Oh?" I asked, bracing myself on the logical assumption that it wasn't good for me.

Penny grabbed the handle of one of her guns and it unfolded back into a sword again a moment before she leapt into the air. I saw bullets race down at me from her remaining gun, but it was the sword she threw that I dodged, dancing a step backwards as it slammed to the hilt into the ground. A moment later, I had to dance back another step as she reeled herself back to earth and slammed her free arm up to her elbow into the concrete even as the other grasped her sword and pulled it loose easily.

Without showing any sign of discomfort at the landing, she rose fully to her feet and ran towards me, sword in on hand, the other covered in powdered concrete, and a gun floating behind here.

It was the type of image a smart man probably would have run away from.

It probably said something about me that I returned Penny's smile, reactivated my Aura, and ran towards her instead.

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