It's Just a Misunderstanding [Sora/Ai]

"Right then, what've we got here?" Sora grinned as she slid into cover behind one of the shelving units. Her eyes shifted across the display of equipment in front of her with a look of amusement, almost as if she'd completely blocked out the fact that bullets were still flying everywhere. As annoying as it was for business to go south, there was always a sense of enjoyment in the actual execution that couldn't really be explained. She slung the shield onto her back, casually tossed her sidearm aside, and got to work. "Lets see... Two a' these, one a' them, one a' those, two more a' that..." Like a kid in her own personal candy store she darted through the aisles, plucking whatever caught her fancy off of the shelves and stowing it away. Two stun grenades, one smoke, one frag, a machine pistol, a cutlass, a pair of tanto, and her favorite shotgun. That would probably be more than enough for the- wait a minute. As she moved the aisles something caught Sora's eye and she doubled back, a massive smirk on her face. "Oh ho ho, I forgot 'bout you. 'Ello beautiful..." She ran her hand across the rough metal surface but didn't take it with her, simply letting her quirk do it's job before moving on.

By now the gunfire had stopped and Sora could hear a whole lot of shouting from the other side of the warehouse. The guy in charge was yelling at his men to finish loading the shipment while he sent a handful of them in after the arms dealer. They really just weren't satisfied with stealing her shit, were they? Bad move on their part; this was her territory. She started back towards the front, making her way steadily through the maze until she heard one of them approaching. Ducking back, she focused on the sounds of the footsteps and waited out of sight until there were right.... there. The first man's eyes widened in surprise as an arm shot out from around the corner and buried a knife in his shoulder. Before he even had a chance to shout from the sudden pain, the gun in his hand was ripped away and two bullets went into his leg.

Feeling the satisfaction of a clean take down, Sora wasted no time in moving on to the next. The man behind her first prey opened fire, but his rounds only found his friend's back. That was a shame, he probably could have survived otherwise. Oh well. Pushing the corpse aside, she sprayed down the corridor with her machine pistol and the second man went down. From the sound of clattering just around the next bend she could tell that there was a third as well, but evidently he wasn't stupid enough to walk right into the line of fire. Good for him, probably figured that waiting to get the first shot off gave him a better chance. He wasn't entirely wrong, but it was a powerful assumption to think that she was going to just waltz around the corner. No, she had a better idea.

Grabbing onto one of the shelves above her head, Sora sprang up, deftly scaling the metal structure within a matter of moments. Upon flipping up onto the top, she was rewarded with a decent view of the rest of the warehouse for a brief moment before dropping down on the other side. Looked like the thugs out there were certainly scrambling about... Why were most of them pointing their guns outside though? Thoughts for later. Below her, her target was looking up to see what the noise above him had been, but his gun wasn't rising as fast as his head. There was a gleam as one of the tanto came out of its sheath, and as Sora's weight came crashing down on the man the blade dug into the arm that held the gun. His hand clenched and the gun fired a few rounds that found their way to the ceiling before she bashed his head into the concrete. When she was sure he wouldn't be getting back up, she continued down the path, back towards the central area. That was three down, at least one more wounded... how many were outside again? She honestly didn't know the real number, not that it mattered at all. They came into her turf, threatened her, and were trying to steal from her. She didn't give a damn about the numbers.

Alright, that takes care of her immediate pursuers, Sora thought as the shelf in front of her shook, its heavy frame impacted with a man's face before he slowly slumped to the floor. Now to deal with the rest of these idiots before they got away with the goods... They hadn't paid yet, after all. Slipping back over to the entrance to the maze of corridors, she was surprised to see muzzle flashes from the outside, while everyone in the interior was ducking for cover and bullets pinged off the insides of the warehouse. What the hell were they shooting at? It wasn't her, or at least she hoped it wasn't. As little respect as she had for this bunch, they couldn't be that bad, could they? Well, whatever. Something was distracting them, which meant now was as good a time as any to make an entrance... How to go about it though? They did have a lot of guns... She glanced around at her surroundings for a few moments before a grin crept across her face.

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Back out on the floor, the leader was busy shouting orders to his men from behind cover, trying to get control of a situation that he didn't quite grasp. That bitch of an arms dealer had run further into the warehouse, but now his men were shouting about a contact behind, all the while he kept hearing the sounds of struggle from within. The job was supposed to be as easy as could be, just one woman, and even if she didn't play ball, they had more than enough manpower to deal with it.... how could they possibly be having this much trouble wrapping things up? Even as he yelled to his men to cease fire, they continued to insist that there was a target in front of them, which was absurd. There was nothing in their line of fire but allies and the girl was back over... He glanced toward the back of the warehouse just in time to see a red shape vanish and a blue flash.



The crack of a shotgun blast echoed throughout the structure, and an instant later a large crate came sailing from the back half of the room and slammed right into one of the gang members' back. As he fell from the sudden impact, the crate rebounded and a knife shot out from the same direction, digging into the side of the crate and riding it back into the air. At the top of the crate's arc, the knife twisted and expanded outward into a humanoid shape, an emerald gaze surrounded by a mane of red staring down at the group's leader with a wicked smile.

Sora Shifted her weight and kicked off, sending the crate crashing down into the man as she back flipped and touched her feet to the ceiling. Some quick mental work swapped out the blueprints for her quirk, and her form shifted. The top layer of her skin expanded, taking on the properties of the riot shield and effectively covering her body in armor, while barrel shaped protrusions extended from her hands, feet, back, and elbows. When the last piece shifted into place, her gaze locked onto the closest person she could find and there was another shotgun blast from her feet accompanied by a large blue shockwave. She tackled the surprised thug to the ground and threw a punch into his gut, another blast smashing his form into the concrete while flipping her back up onto her feet.

She reached the next one less than a second later and gave him a hard elbow to the face before her other hand slipped the machine pistol from his side and sprayed a few rounds into his legs. As he cried out in pain, the rest of the men inside finally snapped out of their stupor and reacted, leveling their firearms and opening up. Sora could feel the impact of several shots against her, but it just made her grin widen. The pistols most of them carried weren't high enough caliber and with the modern shielding material, she might as well have been totally bullet proof. The redhead drew the cutlass from her side and another blast from her feet propelled her toward her next prey. A slash across the arm forced him to drop his gun and Sora bashed his solar-plexus with the hilt before tossing the blade into the air. Pulling a stun grenade from her belt, she yanked the pin out with her teeth and deposited in the man's hands as he struggled to remain standing.

Another blue flare sent the arms dealer into the air and she kicked at the blade as she rose up to land on the ceiling again. The cutlass shot down and speared through one of the thugs' legs, and Sora leapt down at the man beside him. This one had taken a rifle from the shipment, which would have been an actually danger if he had just been able to load it a little faster. Sora slipped her gun away and snatched the man's weapon by the barrel, giving it a tug to extend his arms before she swung her fist. The shotgun barrel on her hand fired another concussion blast and the man's limb bent backward. Surprisingly enough he didn't cry out in agony and instead bit down, releasing his hold on the rifle and throwing a punch at her with his other hand. Sora just stepped to the side and reached toward his partner, grabbing hold of the cutlass and slashing the man across the chest as she ripped it out. Both went down.

Sora swiped the blade to the side to flick off the blood, and as she did she felt a notably heavy impact against her back. She staggered forward slightly and swung around to see another of the men had actually managed get one of the rifles up. A second round hit her shoulder and she flinched visibly as it left a small crack in her armored coating. On instinct she blasted herself to the side and reached for her gun again, unleashing a spray as she rolled into cover behind an overturned table. Most of the burst was on point and the man hunched over but... he was still standing. As she replaced the spent clip with another from her pack, she could see the man smile slightly and he stood back up to full height, a metallic sheen spreading over his body.

"Oh ho, where were they hidin' you then?" Sora chuckled and finished reloading before stepping back out from behind her cover. She met the man's grin with an amused look of her own, and as the stun grenade went off a few meters back, both of them opened fire again.

Even as the ringing of the stun grenade died down, the inside of the warehouse was once again filled with a flurry of gunfire. Though there were only two distinct sources now, that suited Sora just fine. She had no idea how many of these bastards were still hanging around outside, but it seemed like they were content to let her and her new friend brawl in peace. So, they were either being notably considerate, intent on following their leader's orders to the letter, or just too dumbstruck to be of any use. The reason didn't matter to her too much, as long as they didn't plan on going anywhere before it was their turn to play.

Darting to the side, Sora fired off another burst and then used a concussion shell to rapidly change directions, leaving her opponent's own shots to go wide and bounce off the concrete floor. Again, her rounds were on point and impacted the man center mass, but they just seemed to harmlessly ping off. At first glance, it seemed like her attacks were utterly ineffective, but you could never tell with these sorts of abilities. Cracking them was usually just a matter of going through enough experimentation. She hit him with another spray and then kicked over one of her tables, ducking down just in time to hear the assault rifle's bullets dig into the metal frame. She smiled, the durable bastards were always fun, weren't they?

There was a loud crack accompanied by a blue flare as Sora launched herself straight up again and landed on the ceiling, letting loose a stream of lead as she rose. More pings. The guy wasn't even trying to dodge anymore, just slowly advancing as he fed a new clip into the rifle and brought it to bear. So that obviously wasn't working. With a click of her tongue, she launched herself back onto the floor and tossed the now-spent weapon aside. Something a bit more personal maybe? She took her cutlass in one hand and a tanto in the other, blasting off again as the man started another sustained burst. Dodging bullets wasn't a thing that most people could pull off, there were exceptions when superpowers were involved of course, but for most people it was more of a matter of dodging the barrel of the gun. And so Sora rapidly shot from side to side as she approached, throwing in an occasional trip back to the ceiling just to mix things up. This guy wasn't exactly a bad shot though, so she still caught a few hits on the way in and earned a few more fractures in her protective coating by the time she was face to face with the metal man.

Ducking beneath the front of her foe's assault rifle, Sora's blade flashed out wide and came down toward his more exposed shoulder. She could see him try to raise an arm to block, but it seemed his transformation put him a bit on the sluggish side, too bad that. There was a loud clang as the blade slammed into his upper arm, and although there was a notable flinch in his stance, there was no cut left behind. Well, what about the back? She pulled back and swung at the rifle to bat it away, then quickly slipped around behind the man while he was still recovering. Her tanto lashed out and drew sparks as it carved through his shirt and into his back but... again, nothing but a flinch from the impact. So, she was getting results from the force rather than the edge... made sense, armor didn't usually do shit against blunt trauma after all. The thug threw an elbow as he spun around and Sora ducked beneath it, dropping her cutlass in lue of her tried and true method of choice. An uppercut stopped just short of the guy's jaw and a blue flash shot out from her wrist. His head immediately jerked back and he just barely stopped himself from stumbling over. Of course that would work.

Her grin widening, Sora stepped in closer and another blast hit the man's shoulder, loosening his grip on the rifle before a third blow to the elbow freed the weapon from his grasp and sent it clattering across the floor. And now the fight was as good as over, wasn't it? She planted her foot on his shin and a shell swept it out from under him, bringing him down to one knee as she pulled back for the finishing blow.

'C'mon Sora, we can handle this lot, eh?'

She stopped dead in her tracks. A faintly sweet smell hung in the air for the briefest of moments. Perfume, she realized immediately. A familiar, yet forgotten fragrance from what felt like a lifetime ago... It was like a shock to the system, a stimulus of memories so powerful that it caused a momentary lapse in the redhead's mind. Her vision blurred and a silhouette seemed to form in front of her; a slender figure with short, messy hair, and a posture that seemed to overflow with self-confidence. "....Izzy?"

Slam.

Sora reeled back as a metal fist smashed into her cheek with a strong hook. She caught herself just before she would have went face first into the floor, falling to one knee instead. The metal quirk user was standing in front of her, reversing the position they were in just a moment ago. The scent was gone, taking with it the memory that had risen to the surface, and leaving behind an anger that Sora didn't quite know the cause of. All she knew was that there was an outlet in front of her.

Pushing herself back up onto her feet, Sora glared at the man with an intensity that actually gave pause to his advance, but only for a moment before he started up another swing. As he threw his fist forward, she simply raised a hand and blasted it away. He staggered back a few steps but Sora wasn't in any sort of defensive stance to he immediately tried again. This time she struck first, hitting the oncoming arm, then following up with another shot to his torso, and a third at his leg. Again, he went down to a crouch, and immediately went for an uppercut that was interrupted by another shockwave. It seemed to Sora that although the blows were knocking the man back, they still weren't really causing much damage... which meant that she'd just have to hit him with something harder, wouldn't she?

Bracing one arm with the other, the entirety of her limb below the elbow shifted, taking on a roughly cylindrical shape with multiple barrels that immediately started to spin. The man's eyes went wide as he heard the whirring noise and instinctively stopped whatever attack he was planning to instead bring his arms up to cover his face. So at least he wasn't dumb. It was a rather distinctive sound, and to those that knew it, there was no mistaking it for anything else. It was almost like a buzzing noise, but louder than anything most people have ever heard, and in an instant the whole warehouse was filled with the deafening roar. The streaking of tracers drew a solid line between Sora and the man as hundreds of bullets rained down on him, lighting up his metallic skin with countless sparks as they hammered into his body and rebounded. Apparently he was made of some pretty sturdy stuff, since the high-caliber rounds weren't punching right through him, but in less than a second his defenses started to give way. The shear force of the rounds pushed him back, his arms curling up tightly to keep from being flung aside as he first was forced into a kneel, and then flat on his back.

Sora sustained the solid stream of metal for about 4 seconds before the roar cut off and the spinning barrels started to slow to a stop. No longer being forced down under the weight of the assault, her opponent's arms collapsed out to the sides and he started gasping for air as the silver coating faded away. As she strode toward him, Sora could see that his clothes were in tatters, and almost all of the exposed skin was raw and already bruising. She wouldn't have been surprised if there were a bunch of broken bones too, but either way he was almost definitely out of the fray... But as irritated as she was now, Sora wasn't content with just being reasonably sure. Showing no remorse what so ever, she planted her foot on the man's stomach and let loose one last shotgun blast, cracking the floor beneath him as the shockwave pulsed out.

Sora looked down at the man beneath her boot with a scowl. She had felt a few ribs give way, but he was still breathing for the moment. As long as he got some medical attention he would probably be fine, and the authorities' arrival at the scene was all but inevitable now that she'd made a bit of noise. 'A bit', right. They'd probably heard the roar of the gun all the way down at the station and were already scrambling. Either way, the guy wasn't going to be getting up on his own, which meant she could finish dealing with her guests and clean up.

The inside of the warehouse was now devoid of any gang members that weren't collapsed on the floor. Before she could worry about the ones outside however, there seemed to be a minor annoyance to deal with. Disregarding the command to not move, Sora turned around to face the newcomer with an irritated expression. "Ya kiddin' me, right?" Her emerald eyes locked onto the stranger; it was a woman with animalistic features in a pink kimono, her face covered by a hood and a mask stylized to look like a wolf. Obviously not part of the 'friendly' group she was conducting business with, just didn't look the part. From the shout of disapproval a moment ago, that painted her as a self-righteous type too, and since heroes didn't have a reason to hide there features, that really only left one option. An interloper.

Sora's eyes scanned down to the weapons that the woman carried, she could recognize her own handwork in an instant. Mk 22 Mod 0 pistols, two of them, heavily modified from the base design to load tranquilizer rounds. Those things couldn't even pierce conventional armor, let alone the defenses she had right now... Not that the chemical cocktail would be particularly effective on her 'unique' physiology anyway. Next she followed the wolf's gaze over to where her apparent back up was perched atop the gang's truck. Same clothing, same general appearance... just matching costumes, or some kind of cloning quirk? It was impossible to tell for now. This one was aiming at her with something that had a bit more bite to it though. A SCAR-H battle rifle, one of the two from the shipment it seemed.

Raising an eyebrow, the redhead turned back to the pistol wielder as her face shifted to one that was decidedly unamused with the development. "Lass, have ye seen even a bit a' what's been goin' on here? What makes ya think yer lil' peashooters scare me at all?" She casually raised her right arm and pointed it sideways out toward the truck, the barrels starting to spin up again as she kept her gaze locked onto the person on front of her. "I'm not th' type ya threaten idly, miss, just ask the arseholes that were tryin' t' steal from me." She gestured to the thugs scattered across the floor with her free hand. The motion was only partially a bluff; That rifle would hurt if it hit her, but the arms dealer bet she could take it out faster than it could take her out.

"Ha, looks like this one's actually got some sense in 'em." Sora snorted as her guest quickly changed her tone, practically wilting under the pressure of her gaze. That was probably the most respect she'd commanded all night, which already made this interloper leagues better than the rest of the idiots around. It also helped to blunt her newly sour mood ever so slightly, and that was a good thing for everyone involved. That being said, her disposition still wasn't exactly cheery, and so she kept the minigun trained on the one over by the truck until well after they had both lowered their weapons. "I hope yer plannin' on puttin' all those back where ya found them. I think I've already shown ya how I deal with thieves." She grumbled as the woman by the truck vanished from sight.

She still held her aim on the truck for several seconds before finally lowering her arm with an irritated click of her tongue. She could feel the joints in her arm almost grinding together as she moved and quickly shifted it back to normal. A moment later, the armor and shotguns followed suit, dissolving into dust as Sora continued to stare down the one that called herself Dreamer. She was nearly at her limit for a continuous projection and was rather glad that she didn't have to deal with that particular side effect, not that anyone else needed to know that. As the ballistic coating faded however, bruises and cuts immediately started to form around the areas where the armor had fractured. Nothing particularly serious, but anyone paying enough attention would notice that she had actually taken some damage during the rampage.

After rolling her shoulder a few times to try to work out the stiff feeling, Sora folded her arms and cocked her head slightly to the side. The fact that someone was demanding answers after sneaking into her property was still pretty annoying, her body language was making that well apparent, but the quick yield meant that she was slightly more patient with this one. "Well ya see it's quite simple, miss Dreamer. I'm tryin' t' conduct a perfectly legitimate exchange of goods an' services, an' every now an' then a couple of right tossers that don't know better decide t' try an' make the exchange a bit less legitimate." She gave a half-hearted shrug and rolled her eyes, as if she simply couldn't understand how they could come to such a decision. "What ya see before you, is merely th' aftermath of such an altercation. If I recall, these lot are a sub branch of th' local Yakuza. Really ought t' know better, honestly. The tone that she delivered the response in had a notable amount of snark to it, but she wasn't being openly aggressive anymore. "Is that answer t' yer satisfaction, miss Dreamer?"

Sora raised an eyebrow as Dreamer insisted that only one of the weapons was taken from her stocks. Funny, they sure looked like they were her work, but the clear nervousness that the woman displayed seemed to suggest that she wasn't lying... She better hope she wasn't at least, because the redhead was more than capable of tracking someone down when she need to. Supposedly she had only done it to offer the arms dealer some assistance, which painted her as some kind of 'concerned citizen', who was startled when she came across a maniac with a very large gun. It wasn't the most far fetched tale in the world. "Fine, I'll be takin' yer word on that for now." She watched carefully as the intruder walked the firearm and ammunition back across the floor to one of the shelves. Along the way Dreamer delivered a blow to one of the thugs that was starting to stir again, but other than that it didn't look like she was trying to pull anything. She started to give a nod of approval but didn't quite complete the gesture... something about the scene seemed off for some reason... but it wasn't the woman.

Before Sora could piece it together, Dreamer started speaking again and pulled her attention away. It was interesting, how politely she was behaving after she'd been threatened. The apology drew another amused snort and she gave a shrug at the request for a name. "I s'pose that's fair. Most people call me..." She trailed off for a moment as if searching for the right name. Several came to mind at the moment, which was an odd enough sensation, and it took a second to pick out the right one. "...Arsenal. Yeah, that's the one. Honestly, though, I don't really care what ya call me." She'd accrued a number of nicknames lately, and adding another one to the pile wouldn't make much of a difference.

Sora considered asking her guest if meddling was her usual line of work, but before that a sound from out front made her eyes instantly sharpen again. Ignition, specifically that of a truck's engine. Her head snapped to the side just in time to see the door slam on the truck sitting in front of the warehouse. Ah, that's what was bothering her about the field of collapsed idiots, one of them was missing. Through the window of the vehicle she could see the face of the group's leader, far less smug than it had been just a few minutes before as he frantically worked the gears. She wasn't sure how, but the bastard had snuck out while she was preoccupied by her newest acquaintance. Maybe some kind of quirk? However he'd done it, the truck still had a little over half of the shipment loaded into it.

"Oi!" She shouted as she strode over to one of the downed goons and gave a stomp to knock his pistol up into the air. By the time she snatched the firearm and leveled it at the truck, the vehicle was already starting to pull away. She squeezed off a few rounds, but the man hunkered down and none of them found purchase before the truck began to turn away and she lost her target. "Oi, what the bloody hell is yer partner doing? Sleepin' on th' job?" She barked at Dreamer as she started off after the fleeing vehicle, referring to the woman she'd seen duck down behind the thing a minute before. Self-important asshole or not, the guy had a hell of a lot of hardware in tow, and she wasn't about to let him get away with that many of her guns.