If there was one thing Dean was feeling right now, it was confusion.
The group had stayed on the outer edge of the town to draw out the enemy. There was no complication on that part as a large pile of bodies were laid out in front of them, all dead or unable to move due to heavy injuries. And behind them was open field with the student housing area far off behind them now.
So now, why was there a large group of security drones behind the group now?
Unless...
'Illusion or stealth related esper then the drones were in sleep mode.'
Dean quickly came up with the reason why and lamented himself for not including that factor in their plan. He then sprinted towards their backline with the remaining javelins and sent them straight into the drones, taking out at least a dozen but it wasn't enough as the robotic drones were more resilient than their fleshy counterparts.
[$tudEnt sUrr3nd3r n0w s0 w3 c@n k1ll y0u eaSiLy]
The headless drones' monotone voices were glitching and their 'faces' on their chests were all replaced with a certain paxian maid smiling devilishly at the group who were now surrounded from both sides. Dean pulled out his sword as he got in front of Bob who was holding Mary while she was still connected to the turrets. Mary was deathly pale from overexertion as she was sweating and now started bleeding profusely from her nose yet she refuses to let go until the end.
Dean was ready to face the metallic horde alone until...
[Dean let me deal with them and...Rae.]
He looked to his right where Kat was standing holographically wearing an intense look as she stared right at a peculiar drone in the far back of the mob where the maid on its chest monitor was waving intimately at Kat.
"Are you sure?"
[Not really but we have no choice since Ha-eun just showed up from the town's center. So just bring me to the closest drone and I'll take care of them. Also...]
Kat then looked over at where Mary and Bob were.
[...Mary, the turrets are at 5 percent ammo capacity and counting. So the moment they run out disconnect immediately, any longer then there'll be permanent damage to your body. Bob knock her out if you have to.]
"Yes m'am"
Bob smirked in reply.
Dean exhaled then ran over to the nearest drone.
Once he was close, the drone was ready to hit him with its electric baton set to the maximum setting for lethal hits, but it soon shut off with smoke coming out from inside when Kat 'hop' in its body and destroyed its internal systems. She could've tried reprogramming them, but knowing Rae, it would've been too time consuming so destroying their internal systems was a far simpler solution.
Then the nearby drones started dying off too. It started from one at a time, to a few, then a dozen. It was like a domino seeing the drones falling down one after another.
Dean then turned around to face Ha-eun, but he needed a little helping hand with her armor, so he went over to Bob. He trusted Kat to win in the end, but he was still worried for her wellbeing. Despite knowing her for a few hours, she was the only friend he had in a long time, aside from Melanie of course. Though he still wasn't sure if he could label themselves as friends, but it was mostly his fault for that matter now that Dean had time to think about it when the group was preparing.
But now though, he needed to take out Ha-eun and hopefully find more survivors.
"Bob, give me your cryo gun."
He went up to Bob to request the cryo weapon since Bob was preoccupied with keeping Mary safe.
"Alright here, but just to let you know, there's about two shots left. So make them count."
His gruff voice resounded out to Dean as he handed him the glowing blue gun. Dean then headed to where Freddie and Mercury were.
So far, they were doing fine minus Mercury being nearly exhausted given how he was pale and his nose was starting to bleed. At least the majority of the enemies up front were destroyed, but the few that survived were stronger and more resilient than the husks or fiends. These number in a dozen at most, but their appearances were far different than normal.
They looked like 8 foot tall brutes with bones and metal pieces fused onto their skins. Their empty eye sockets and twisted flesh suggested they were clearly undead but forcefully transformed into monstrosities. The turrets finally ran out of ammo, but not even the .50 caliber rounds could penetrate their makeshift armor leaving only dents and cracks on the bone and metal parts, at least the flesh part was vulnerable upon seeing the wounds.
Seeing this and Freddie's frustrated expression, Dean had an idea what went down while he was away. Then he looked at the center of those brutes to see Ha-eun in her metal form...and with a replacement for her missing left arm.
Luckily it couldn't be affected by her power so its still in flesh form, but it was a large grotesque blade made of bone and metal. Then her metal form itself had spikes all over, their appearance was much like the spikes on a morningstar. Overall her new appearance seems to compensate for her destroyed speed given how Bob shot her back where the boosters were, but her base speed was still faster than when she was still human.
Dean had his sword out and the cryo gun floating above him as he stood next to Freddie and Mercury. The young men were staring at Ha-eun and the brutes accompanying her.
"You like these new toys? They just finished morphing an hour ago so they needed a test run. So why don't you boys be the test dummies."
The same arrogant tone resounded from Ha-eun, the same demonic voice shamelessly ignored the fact she had retreated after being cornered. But now, she had a group of bodyguards to protect this time.