As the trio waited for the processing of their ticket into the underworld, Jon has finally gotten the time to address the little pest that has been following him ever since he tried to step foot in the cameraman business of S Prime city. Everywhere he went, there has always been some robot from the United Network following him. They were there during the very first outing of Jon as a Paparazzi and during the grand opening of Imogen's Gallery and EVERYTHING in between.
They have finally decided to make their move towards the end of that day, and they have given Jon an invitation towards their headquarters, saying something about getting what he sought if he came alone.
And came alone he did.
The coordinates lead Jon directly towards the outskirts of S Prime city in between the edges of Zone 4and Zone 5 high up in the endless mountains surrounding the city. Jon's 'Journalist's license' grants him access to various zones as long as he applied for entry days prior, so he found himself waddling through the empty suburbs alone early in the morning.
Though he wasn't truly alone.
The same sensation that he has felt during every single outing of his returned almost as soon as he got off the transit at the edge of Zone 4 and 5. Though instead of having actual robots watching over his movements, it is more likely that he was being watched through a combination of CCTV cameras and other hidden recording devices positioned all throughout the area.
The actual coordinates pointed towards a location high up in the mountain, and an office with railings and it's own shuttles located at the base of the mountain towards the edge of S Prime city is where Jon needed to get to first.
The suburbs are way behind him now, and he is simply dashing along a country road before he came across the signs pointing towards United Networks.
The robots were clearly expecting him as a single shuttle awaits by the entrance. The gates opened as he approaches, and he swiftly moves through it.
'Welcome-Cameraman.' The robot said dryly, 'please-hop-on.'
Jon did as instructed, and he sat at the front of the empty shuttle which lifted off. There are funnily enough two other robots sitting in the seats of the shuttle and they appeared to be in the middle of charging.
Is there like a robot working class system or something...Jon wondered before looking forward again as the mountain-scape underneath him started to move by at ever-increasing speeds.
'Welcome-to-United-Networks. The-future-of-robotic-services.' A promotional video played out in the shuttle as the wind whooshes by the window and slightly muffles the audio quality, 'We-are-currently-heading-towards-the-headquarters-located-fifteen-minutes-flying-away. Please-enjoy-the-onboard-entertainment-of-a-compilation-of-company-advertisements.'
Jon lets out an audible sigh, and he can feel the fellow robotic passengers glaring at the back of his head.
Listening to fifteen minutes of advertisement certainly isn't something on his bucket list, so instead he pulled out of his camera and snapped a few landscape shots before checking the setting of his analog electric camera today.
Everything looked beautiful even through the shuttle window as the buildings of S Prime city filled the top half of the frame while the endless natural mountain-scape filled the bottom half. The mountain is barren with nothing but rocks and dried up creeks, though there is enough greenery built into zone 4 to make up for the imbalance of colors.
'....a-reminder-to-remain-seated-during-the-flight....' The audio playback has already been relegated into the background as Jon is going through his camera, then he sensed movement behind him and ducked to the side.
A metallic hand chopped through the seat he was sitting on and cut it in half as the soft material sagged to the side. Jon rolled sideways along his shoulder into the aisle while holding onto his camera still and avoided the follow up strikes from one of his fellow robotic passengers.
'Fight-back.' The robot ordered, proceeding with a barrages of quicker and quicker strikes starting with stabs towards Jon's torso, chest, neck and eyes. However, Jon expertly avoided all of those attacks with just enough of a margin without moving from his spot.
The attacking robot was one of the two seated in the shuttle and charging, and it appeared to have been completed in its charging process.
'Please-remain-seated-during-the-flight-and-fasten-your-seatbelts...' The on board audio played again before the advertisements continued to play as the background of the robots furious attacks.
Realizing that the small scale attacks of consecutive precise strikes are useless, the robot changed up his tactic as he completely shifted up his style of combat as he swung his metallic fist in big horizontal and diagonal swings.
These maintained the same speed as before and covered an even larger area. With a few strikes, the robot has tore up nearly a third of the seats in the shuttle, and it doesn't appeared bothered by its act of vandalism one bit. As Jon avoided a diagonal slash from top right to bottom left, he stepped through the opening created by the attack and grabbed onto one of the seatbelts of the destroyed seats.
Then, a follow up attack came as the robots continued on his previous momentum, dislocated at the pelvis and swung from top right to bottom left again with his other hand! Jon caught it right on with the seat belt before he quickly tied a loop around it. The safety mechanisms kicked in and locked the robot in place as the metal screamed and the motors roared.
Freeing up the other arm, the robot simply utilized the camera located at his backside and chopped down on Jon, when he looped around yet another seat belt around it's arms and legs.
'Please stay seated.' Jon said, raising one hand overhead and forming it into a a chop before he cleanly cuts through the shoulder girdles of the robot. Then, he formed his fingers into a claw and broke through the outer shell easily and tore out the hip socket.
Without the critical joints supporting the humanoid robot, it fell to the ground as the torso started smoking and the exposed mechanisms underneath tried to figure out what the traumatic damage has done to its body. The sound of struggling machinery filled the entire shuttle.
Then, Jon caught the sight of a few snaking extension cables through from underneath the seats. He moved back just as those cables came to life and attached themselves onto the various broken parts of the first robot before they were dragged towards the second one.
What he fought appeared to have been a mini-boss. Jon thought, putting his camera out of harms way before he leaned against the seat next to him and waited for the second fellow passenger to get ready. He had already brutally murdered the first and dismembered it with cold blood, so he doesn't expect the second one to be too happy.
Compared to the standardized mechanical design of the first robot, which is around the same level of technology to the majority of the cameraman robots that Jon had encountered before, the design of the second robot appeared far more fluid and complex, as the outer layer is made up of a metallic shell that can freely deform similar to how Ally can control her body freely. The broken compartments are then absorbed into the body of the second robot, which lead to it increasing in size.
'I-am-MB-1.'
So the fancier robots even have a sense of identity.
'You have a name too?' Jon joked.
'A-designation. A-purpose.' The robot said, bringing one hand up into a heroic pose which Jon quickly took a picture of, 'I-am-MINI-BOSS-1!'
Then, he shot out all of the cables and grasped onto all of the remaining seats in the room before they were crushed and thrown against the window of the shuttle. Jon almost lost his balance as the chair he was leaning on was also moved to the side.
Taking advantage of the human's mistake, MB-1 took a single step forward and filled the entire room with countless cables. At the end of each of the table are these tiny sharp claws which are designed to claw away all the flesh attached to Jon's bones, and he wasn't about to let his clothes or his camera get damaged like that.
'Footwork as quick as shooting stars....' Jon murmured, as his image disappeared as the cables rammed against the wall behind him. Reappearing behind MB-1, Jon formed his hand into a claw once again before he tried to tear through the back armor of the robot. However, instead of his fingers tearing through the shell like it's some sort of plastic film, the shell formed around his hand like a viscous fluid before catching his hand.
From the joints surrounding the robot, many more countless cables are shot out, and Jon had to rip his hand out of MB-1's back before kicking him forward, sending the cables wildly swinging like flying octopus.
'Fingers as accurate as entangled quantums.' Jon murmured as energy is channeled through his finger tips. Then, he reached down onto the floor and pressed against the critical points of the flooring as the nails and screws came flying out like bullets. Picking up a gigantic piece of metal and forming it into a stick, he launched it towards MB-1 like a javelin.
The robot immediately recognized Jon's means of attack and tried to parry it with its cables, though the as the cables rushed to fill up the room, the javelin had already impaled the body of MB-1 against the the wall.
'...be-it-security-services, special-operations, personal-kinks, health-care, patient-care, sexual-care, United-Networks-is-your-one-stop-shop-for-robotic-shopping! Call-us-at-1800-UNITED-today! Shop-for-quality, shop-for-the-future.'
The advertisement continued as MB-1 pulled out the javelin and snapped it in half with the cables inside of it before approaching Jon again.
Then, the shuttle shook violently before it dived down through the air, throwing both MB-1 and Jon into the ceiling. Tensing his entire body and turning it around, he landed feet first on the ceiling as MB-1 locked himself against the floor with a few of his cables.
'Please-stay-seated-amidst-the-unexpected-turbulence~'
'Unexpected my ass.' Jon cursed as MB-1 attacked relentlessly at him again, 'This is getting repetitive now...let's move on with the story now...'