I was panicking at the fact that Amber was facing off against the guy who single handedly took down an entire group of armed guards without breaking a sweat.
It's not like I think she's too weak to fight him but isn't this unnecessary?
Just give him the box and we wouldn't even need to fight at all!
The thief raised an eyebrow at Amber, as though silently asking if she was seriously trying to stop him.
He was going to take another step forward when he stopped as soon as Mara stood up to stand beside Amber to face him.
Wait, you too, Mara?! Why?!
I think the thief also remembered that Amber and Mara were the ones who caught him and forced him to cut off his arm in our earlier encounter because he took a step back.
Surprisingly, he sheathed his blades and nodded at the box, "You can have that."
Oh… He gave up on that surprisingly easily.
He then turned back to the lift and Amber growled at him, "You're not touching those either. We're eating those."
The thief wasn't that happy to hear that and turned back around with a frown plastered on his face, "Don't push your luck. I only decided to let you keep that box because it would waste my time to fight you both for that small box of it. But if you were to put that on the line, I will not back down."
"Then we'll just kill you? Makes no difference to us," Amber shot back.
What are you doing, Amber?! We don't even have any weapons! The only equipment we have are our personal shields! How are we supposed to… Oh.
My gaze wandered until it landed on the dead guard beside me and the rifle he had dropped on the ground beside him.
I guess… That could work?
The thief reached for his sword and pulled out one of his blades, only for something to fly towards him with blinding speed and hit him in the wrist, causing him to lose his grip on his weapon.
The thing turned out to be a metal tray that was thrown towards him, presumably by either Amber of Mara.
The thief narrowed his eyes even more, "I knew it. Do you think I'll be intimidated by that? You will not hit me again."
I looked back at the two girls and I saw that they each had frying pans in their hands. When the hell did they pick those up?
"You wanna bet? Because I can tell you you're gonna lose," Amber growled.
The thief said nothing before he suddenly disappeared from view.
I did not stay down and simply rolled towards the dead guard's body to snatch up the gun before continuing my roll into a crouch beside his corpse.
When I looked up, I found Amber blocking an overhead slash from the thief with the frying pan before smacking him across the face with the other one.
The thief recoiled back in surprise, looking at the frying pan in her hands with wide eyes.
Amber smirked, "These are industrial grade pans designed to withstand plasma fire. Your little plasma blade isn't going to cut through it, idiot."
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The thief furrowed his brow but simply raised his sword again to face against Amber and Mara. His gaze then shifted to me who he realised had also joined the fight with a gun before looking on the opposite end of where I was.
I followed his gaze and I realised Lea had also picked up one of the dropped rifles and had settled in a crouch to point her weapon at the thief.
On the other hand, Ries was still sprawled on the ground and gave all of us a look like we were crazy.
Honestly, I would be in the same position as her if there hadn't been a weapon near me and the person being threatened was somebody whom I did not care about.
But since both of these conditions aligned, I do want to help Amber and Mara and no stupid fucker is going to threaten them like that.
His figure disappeared again and I went straight to relying on that weird feeling I usually get when facing these guys.
That did not fail me as I felt something coming down from the ceiling so that's why I responded to that.
I leapt backwards and fired a few shots upwards, feeling a sense of satisfaction when I heard a cry of pain coming from above.
The thief fell onto the ground with a bullet wound on his shoulder, rolling to a knee before another gunshot rang out from the side.
This time, he was shot in the side which sent him falling back on the ground.
He tried to push himself up but Mara and Amber rushed forward and smashed both their frying pans on his face, knocking him out.
Ok… That was easier than I thought…
Steiner recovered from where he had been laying and growled at the other chefs, "What are you idiots still laying around for?! Get security!"
Several of them looked at the dead guards on the floor.
The head chef bristled, "Get me more security, idiots! And get the power back on too!!"
Two of them quickly leapt on their feet before rushing out of the kitchen.
God damn… And here I thought we would actually be having a nice vacation… I at least had fun with the cook off but definitely not this.
I tossed the gun I had acquired back on top of the corpse I took from, "How did this guy get inside anyway?"
Steiner seemed quite pissed as well, "We'll find out, don't worry about that."
Amber came up beside me and peered inside the lift that still had its doors open, "I don't get it? What was his plan though? Did he think he could just walk out through the front door through the kitchen?"
Steiner shook his head, "I believe he did not expect the lift to stop on this floor. We have a security measure in place that locks down the lifts for the food storage area when an intruder is detected. He must have been expecting the lift to go up to the top floor instead and escape from there. Too bad for them, the computer automatically locks it down when the alarm has been triggered."
Lea then joined us while wondering aloud, "Are we going to be compensated for this?"
Steiner groaned, "I don't know. That's outside of my jurisdiction. You're gonna need to find someone else for that. Fuck… As if my day couldn't get any worse… Maybe I should just quit and go back to the inner colonies…"
Damn it, I thought he had already recovered by now or at least shook himself out of it after what just happened. Seems like he's still hung up about it…
At least we dealt with the problem so--
A sudden cloud of smoke exploded from where the thief was laying, hiding him from view.
I saw the vague outline of a shadow running towards the door before that disappeared and by the time the smoke cloud had dispersed, the thief was gone.
What the fuck, he got shot twice and smashed in the face with a frying pan and he could still run away? What even is he made of?!
I turned to look at the lift and… Oh, one of the boxes seemed to be missing too. I guess he knew he could not take everything with him but he didn't want to leave empty handed either so he took one with him.
Seriously though, I'd think if you were shot up and beaten like that, the last thing on your mind should be how to get out with your stolen stuff and just think about how to escape instead.
Steiner also realised what happened straight away and pointed an angry finger at the door, "That fucker!! Someone chase him!! He took one of the boxes!! Arrrgghhh!!"
The head chef actually picked up another frying pan and ran out of the kitchen after him, prompting a few of the remaining chefs to chase him as well.
Can this day get any weirder?
Ah fuck it… I don't even care anymore… I just want the organic food that I earned from the cook off…
As I started gathering the packages that fell out of the box from when I dropped it, Mara approached me with furrowed brows and gave me a strange look.
"Tera… Can I ask you something?"
I paused and nodded at her.
"How did you know that the idiot was coming at you from above earlier?"
"Ah… Umm… I don't really know how to explain but I just get this weird feeling that something is coming at me from that direction. I've fought a few people who can do that before so I got used to trusting that feeling to locate people like that."
Mara's frown deepened before turning to Amber, both of them seemed to share a look before the doctor pulled her away to whisper conspiratorially in a corner.
What? What's going on?