47 Merlot's Island Pt. 4

Another shell ripped through the now decaying mutants that Merlot released. Most, if not all, of his facilities, were just housing grimm and experimenting on them. Merlot was acting crazed by releasing every single one of them. He didn't stop there, robots were also fielded to fight Hanns but they couldn't pierce through the armor. The robots that he had were numerous but were still outnumbered by the sheer amount of grimm he had in storage.

Robotics departments did exist but Merlot was just plain obsessive with the idea that somehow mutant grimm was able to take Hanns down. He had even released his unfinished projects just to try and destroy Hanns.

Merlot had noticed long ago that the machine Hanns was could absorb hits, struck hard, create illusions and heal the metal around the vehicle and even change its shape. It was a great combination of semblances that would make even the most powerful of his grimm struggle, Merlot thought.

This wasn't actually the real reason for the vehicles near invincibility. Merlot didn't know that the 'visitors' he had was just a single person and a sentient evolving tank. There were no multiple people using their semblances, it was just Hanns himself who was able to do all the things he had observed.

Pairs of battle droids were left to crash onto the floor as Hanns had pelted them with machine gun rounds and crushed them under his tracks. He trudged forward flattening the parts that lay on the ground. As Hanns finished up the last vestige of Grimm in the area he finally spots the final generator in the distance.

"Neo, you ready for the last one?" Neo replied by shooting the gun.

Hanns traveled most of the way towards the final generator that held hard light dust. The site he'd arrived at was suspicious. It was empty and peaceful, too peaceful for Hanns.

'Something is definitely up with this.'

The generator was just right in front of Hanns, a few hundred meters and he could take it back to Vale and upgrade himself with everything Remnant has to offer. What stopped him was just an empty space with metal flooring covering the entire surface towards the generator.

Meanwhile…

Merlot was in his room staring through one of the live feeds. He still kept calm, it didn't matter that Hanns was eliminating more of what was left of his island. Hanns could've already killed him by going to the central tower but he didn't.

Merlot was thoroughly confused as well until it clicked. He reviewed footage from earlier, looking at multiple cameras until he found it. The clip of when they broke into the first two generators.

'It's absorbing the dust.'

Merlot theorized that the person inside the tank must be powering their intense protection with hard light. He thought that somehow the armor Hanns had was infused with the hard light dust by someone that could modify the tank with their semblance.

Merlot had something perfect to match what he thought was the equivalent to the tank. He looked through the cameras and saw Hanns hesitating to cross.

"Good, it looks like they're just at the place." Merlot looked through his computer, the hologram emitted as he phoned one of the departments still operational. The scroll picks up and screams and gunfire were being heard.

A man breathing heavily picked up the call and felt disbelief as he talked to Merlot. "You called Dr. Merlot! The subject grimm have somehow escaped and are breaching the facilities! Block 3-A through 9-B are all overrun! We can't go any longer!" another man screams loud enough for the communications to pick it up.

"I have made another senior researcher do that, for now, there must be something else for you to do." Merlot didn't say more. The man on the other side stares at the revelation but didn't get the chance to protest Merlot's decision to release very single grimm.

"You are to activate protocol Janus." The man behind the screen stares and nods. It was a serious order and it was a dire situation so it made sense for them to activate Merlot's other pet project. "Are we to receive aid and relocate to the upper floors?" Merlot denies the request which confused the researcher.

"I am afraid none of you are going to survive this." Merlot eyes the self-destruct protocol option at the corner of his screen. He closes his eyes and ends the call. Merlot stands up and looks from his tower to see the destruction that the island sustained.

"I'll have to end this with you, my perfect creation." He looks down at his personal scroll. It displayed the unknown symbol from before with a deathstalker's silhouette behind it. He closes it back up and stares at the window, his singular cybernetic eye reflecting its red glow back at him.

Back to Hanns…

Hanns carefully treaded over the various metal plates, his metal tracks met the same material below him. He looked around to see what kind of trickery Merlot would have done to the area. The sound of gears and robotics churning only made Hanns sigh.

'I knew it.' The metal plates behind and around him suddenly whirred to life. It started to form a mech right behind him while he tried to turn around as fast as he could to shoot it before it was completed.

'Hold on that doesn't look like the mechs in the show. It looks a bit bulkier.'

His turret reached the mech and he shot out DI-APCBC. It exploded in a blaze of elements as it pushes out spalling and material all around the impact. When the obstruction settled, a surprise introduced itself.

'Hard-light shields.'

Unlike any other material Hanns shot at before, Hardlight created a problem. It would shatter but it would completely stop his shell. It wasn't tough but it could hold up enough kinetic energy in a single second that you would need to destroy it over and over to get at whatever was behind.

The mech shot at him with the same cannons that littered the entire facility. It didn't do much to Hanns. He could definitely kill the mech but there was another priority that Hanns held.

'I want that shield it has.' Hanns was full of greed.

He wanted to steal the technology. Hanns didn't want to destroy it so he just needed to incapacitate it but it having a shield prevented him from shooting off the legs since he would need to reload and by the time he does so it would have restored the shield.

Hanns was confident that it will end with him winning but he wanted to maximize how much he would win.

"Neo, use your semblance and use dust to blow out its leg after I shoot. The shield should be down for a second so be quick." Hanns popped smoke towards his front. Neo quickly got out of the tank and sped off towards the mech.

Hanns takes aim and shoots, Hanns had broken the hard light shield it was generating. Neo quickly went inside and tossed multiple dust crystals. The mech was focusing on Hanns by firing its cannon but the shots get absorbed by him.

Neo retreats and uses her semblance to get back to Hanns. The hard light shield flickered as Hanns shot at the mech before using his machine guns to shoot at the bottom of the bulky mech.

The bullet hits the highly reactive red dust present underneath the mech and explodes. The robot falls to the ground with its legs in tatters. It was still being powered by the core it had. Hanns took a look closer at the mech struggling to get upright.

'So that's why it's so bulky, the core of it is almost the size of the generator.'

With a final shot, Hanns directed the normal APCBC to its head. The mech finally dies out with the electronics shutting down while the core still pumped out dust energy to a now inoperable giant mech.

Hanns touched the core and saw his storage limit reaching critical levels. It could only hold 10 tons and the core itself weighed almost 8 tons. He could still fit in dust but anything more than that and the storage wouldn't be able to store anymore.

After Hanns had dealt with the odd-looking mech, he proceeded to the third generator and shut it down with the help of Neo's semblance. They took the dust inside before leaving for the central tower.

It stood once proud and tall but was now a shadow of its former self. Grimm had overtaken the building once Merlot released all of the grimm in the hopes that one of them would be able to kill Hanns. Merlot had been so overconfident that it led to his own staff being killed in the process.

'Death by their own creations. How ironic.'

Hanns, now full of the hard light dust he stole entered the first floor. It was filled with the dead bodies of multiple scientists laying on the ground or being eaten. Hanns killed them all pretty easily and began to slowly move through the first floor which was much wider in area than the next succeeding floors.

Hanns saw another room that strangely didn't have any grimm or damage to it, only dust crystal glowing brightly, powering the machines nearby. Neo was suspicious as she looked through the gunner's view. She tried to warn Hanns by knocking on the walls.

Another static sounded around Hanns and he looked at the source, a speaker in the ceiling. Merlot's voice came from the intercom. "Visitors, I'll admit that your level of preparation and usage of that machine of yours is commendable. I assure you though that there will always be a solution to a problem."

The ominous message didn't make Hanns concerned and tried to reverse out. Blast doors closed around Hanns who followed went inside the room. A hiss escaped from the walls and gas started pouring into the room. Neo inside tries to close her mouth and not breathe in while it leaked inside Hanns.

'Shit! Neo!'

Merlot's voice came again, "I'm sorry to leave my visitors without a finale in your tour of this island. So let me unveil my greatest creation yet!" One of the blast doors opens to reveal a massive mutant deathstalker ready to break out.

Merlot begins to talk again, "This is perfection, you know, I had many juveniles back at my old lab but this one was the most promising. Nature couldn't make these grimm the perfect specimen but now I have perfected its structure!" Hanns stared at the deathstalker while groaning inwards as Merlot once again started monologuing.

'I'll have to make this quick!'

"Neo! If you can hear me wiggle the gun!"

The gun wiggles confirming Neo still being conscious.

"You know what to do!" Hanns calls to her telepathically. Neo shoots the legs like before. They had done this many times when she fought one back at Mountain Glenn.

The legs of the mutant deathstalker get obliterated, to the surprise of Merlot who was watching the fight. "What! How! It's supposed to be my greatest creation!" Hanns didn't stop as he reloaded another shot for Neo to wire.

The mutant deathstalker whips back as its left side get shot. It tried using what's left of its right set of legs to charge while using its tail. A cannon shot sounded again as the deathstalkers only remaining legs get torn out by the DI-APCBC. Merlot at this point cracked his calm behavior "Impossible!".

With the deathstalker incapacitated, Hanns simply goes around to the side of it as the deathstalker tried to attack him. Hanns was out of reach, he stopped moving and let the gun settle on the side of the deathstalker and he shoots.

The final gunshot rings out and the deathstalker decays slowly as its life ended quite anti-climatically for Merlot. He rages and complains as his creation gets easily destroyed like the other minor grimm he noted as being weaker than his greatest creation.

Merlot without any options left pulses out his scroll and unlocks the safety, he turns to the computer and places his ID and scroll inside a slot. He opens the computer and activates the self-destruct sequence and presses it.

The announcement blares all around the island. "Self-destruct activated. T-minus 5 minutes until detonation."

Hanns breaks out of the room by blasting the walls and gets out of the gas-filled room. Neo barely holds on as she finally breathes in. She gets out of the tank after Hanns traveled a good distance out.

"Neo, find Merlot. I can't go up with a tank so I'll clear out an area to make into a runway."

Neo nods and stares at the elevator going up. She prepares her parasol as she uses her semblance and enters.