The Overclocker smiled a fake, jagged smile. "Wow. What a wonderful day. A Steam Walker shows up just as the crows snatch the continental property."
"Sorry for the late," the officer replied.
The Overclocker raised a hand, conjuring a massive sludge of toxin in the air. "You want to play? Take this: Corrosive Mist!"
The officer didn't flinch. "Electric Whip: Rensa!"
The whip cracked, hitting the toxic sludge and turning it into a cloud of poisonous smoke that filled the entire section.
Two miles away, Jax lay in the dirt, gasping for air. His legs felt like they had been detached from his body after the jump. A buggy roared up, kicking up dust. Rick and Yuna jumped out.
"Jax! Stand up! Are you okay?" Yuna cried, her voice thick with worry.
"I... I got the pathetic box," Jax wheezed, holding it up.
"I... I got the pathetic box," Jax wheezed, holding it up.
"I thought you were a goner," Rick said, helping him into the buggy with a relaxed, relieved smile. "At last, the mission is a success."
As the buggy sped away, Jax looked at the box in his hand. How did he see me? he wondered. Dallas said not even an Overclocker could sense me while invisible.
He didn't notice the faint yellow dust still clinging to his skin. His body temperature began to rise. The metallic poison was already working its way through his system, bending his very cells from the inside out.
The heist was over, but the nightmare was just beginning.The battle inside the train section descended into a toxic nightmare. The Steam Walker officer's electric whip, Rensa, collided with the Overclocker's corrosive sludge, triggering a violent reaction that filled the cabin with a thick, metallic fog. Other officers rushed toward the center of the fray to assist their captain, but the mist was so dense it obscured everything.
"Don't worry about me! Secure the cargo!" the Captain barked between fits of coughing.
Two officers sprinted toward the magnetic pedestals, only to find the specialized crate missing. Panic surged through them. "Sir, it's gone! The property of the Kusanagi Clan... we lost it".
The Captain's face, usually a mask of stoic authority, went pale as a wax doll. He collapsed to his knees, his brown eyes wide with shock and fury. "Use the Antitoxin!" one of the subordinates yelled, seeing their leader succumb to the poison. An officer with glasses quickly shaped a ball of pure electricity and shattered it against the Captain's chest, sending a soothing, yellowish pulse through his body to neutralize the corrosive air.
"Damn it," the Captain hissed, slamming his fist into the metal floor. "We lost the major component. What do we even report back to the Clan?". He stood up and stared at the empty space where crate 2A-716 had once floated. "Investigate the entire train. If those bastards only wanted the blueprint, why did they take 2A-716 as well?".