After waking, he noticed his left arm was gone, replaced by a robotic arm with XIO etched on its side. Ross was confused about how he got a prosthetic limb when he was not conscious and didn't undergo a limb replacer. It was a mystery to him.
'Wait, what happened to my limb?!'
Before he could answer his question, two more came to his mind: 'How am I still alive? Why didn't it kill me?'
The monster answered James's question about why it was alive, then dashed toward him, smashing into an invisible barrier and making a loud noise. When hitting the shield, an outline rushes from bottom to top. However, it was damaged so severely that one more strike would shatter it. So, a second later, it went inside the barrier.
Ross thought of a way to find Samuel and the exit, but his thoughts were interrupted immediately when the Iron Jaw destroyed the barrier. It jumped toward Ross, almost about to bite his head off if he didn't block the attack. The XI0 was inside the Iron Jaw Monster's mouth.
James hit the monster's side with his other hand, making it fly back. After the beast hit the wall, sparks of dust flew.
Nothing happened to his left arm when it was inside the strong monster's maw. It was strong.
'Wow, my new hand is strong!' He didn't care how it happened; he liked his new arm.
The monster gets up, and flashes of light come from its eyes, followed by it dashing at James.
The Iron Jaw Monster jumped over Ross, surprising him when it went behind him, so James clapped his hands. Shock waves from clapping threw him and the monster backward.
***
From the XI0, nanobots dashed toward his back, forming a protective black armor inside his body, protecting him.
The Iron Jaw Monster kept it from being injured by pinning it to the wall with its jaw. However, it forced its jaw free of the wall by consuming a great deal of drywall to free itself. After escaping, it rushed toward James once again.
Diamond saw shockwaves, and she threw her lunch to the ground in the security room, wasting well-done steak and gravy on top.
"James, you are a cheater. Whatever that shadow was, it gave you that arm, then placed a barrier to protect you from my master's design." She was wandering around, talking to herself.
"Should I call him?"
A man appeared behind the darkness and said, "Who are you trying to call, Diamond?" He was always there waiting for Diamond to stop talking to herself.
"Holy shit! You sacred daylight of me, Horse?!" She jumped up after he suddenly talked.
He asked again, "Who are you talking about, Diamond?"
She replied to Horse, "I was talking about your brother, Shoe. Happy now!"
"Why?"
Diamond was getting angrier with Horse bit by bit, so she was about to snap if Horse didn't decide to summon his brother, Shoe.
He didn't want to deal with her anger, so Horse cut the flesh from his hand with his bare hands without feeling pain, tossing it in the air, wobbling and wobbling until it glowed green. It took a human shape with a mouth, eyes, ears, brain, heart, limbs, and other essential organs and features that enable humans to function. Horse's skin formed the body of Shoe, his younger brother, who had crashed into the ground from the air.
'Talk about a flashy entrance!' She was impressed.
"Diamond? What do you want from me?"
"I wasn't expecting your brother to summon you." She continued, "Anyway, you're here now. Here's the order."
Diamond shared her thoughts about Ross's situation with the brothers. They listened and left after hearing her.
Horse and Shoe are twin conjoined brothers with a single body, sharing it most of the time. However, the key difference between them and common conjoined twins is that they are not stuck together. They are both within a single body and usually operate. If they want to separate, they need to cut one of their skin and toss it.
The twins have different personalities, with Shoe, the younger brother, being talkative. He will talk for days and nights if nobody stops him. Diamond and Shoe get along very well, even if she sometimes annoys him.
Horse, unlike his younger brother, is very quiet. Dimond is the only one he talks to way more, not even with his brother or the boss. No one in the White Clan knows why he's not as calm and silent toward Diamond. Is he trying to annoy her with his question, or does he genuinely like her? Who knows how his mind works? Only Shoe knows. They have the same mind, after all. But he keeps quiet about his older brother's secrets.
The twins, Horse and Shoe, constantly shift control of the body they share. For example, one brother might walk and speak, while the other might see, think, or smell. They mastered it by constantly doing it for the rest of their lives!
The shared body's appearance is different from that of their separate bodies. They have gorgeous red wine-colored eyes, beautiful black hair shining, and a top hat. Armor patches on their elbows and kneecaps protect and boost their attacks, while a white hood covers their faces. In this state, their allies called them HorseShoe.
Shoe's speed is slightly faster than his older brother, Horse, when he's in a different body. He would be dangerous with his primary weapon of choice, his hands! His speed is so fast that people get stabbed by Shoe without even realizing it!
If Horse used his Flow more efficiently than he does, he would be quicker than his younger brother Shoe. However, his ancient dagger helps him when he stabs his enemy with it. Not only does it injure them, but it also drains people's Flow, which gets penetrated. Only the Horse could use it.
***
James was riding the monster back without letting it go, punching it constantly with a robotic fist and right fist with his brass knuckles.
"Die, you, ungodly creature!"
James and the beast were tired of fighting each other and wanted to finish it off quickly, so the beast violently shook Ross off its back to throw Ross off.
That plan failed, so it ran around like a hooligan, breaking a couple of pillars along the way, making Ross fall off its back, and hitting many supports. Ross felt no pain when Model XI0's powers were active, as the suit formed steel around his body to protect its user from injury.
The Iron Jaw Monster finally got freed from Ross. It grew tired of doing the same thing, so it opened its mouth, a railgun emerging from its stomach and charging toward its mouth. Without warning, it fires a boiling-temperature beam of light from the railgun toward Ross, which hits his left arm without anything happening.
James and Diamond were surprised that Model XI0 did not melt under the attack, prompting Diamond to recall what her boss had said.
"The boss said that the railgun from the Iron Jaw only melts human skin and human-made technology! It is reassuring to know the stupid shadow wasn't a human. You might as well have plot armor, Mr. James Ross, or should I call it plot arm?"
The monster wasn't smart enough to avoid doing the same thing again, so it fired another hot temperature beam at James, which Ross blocked with his left hand, reflecting it at the monster. The laser's intense heat stabbed into the monster's skin, causing a small molten pimple to grow rapidly until it turned Iron Jaw to ashes and fell to the ground.
"Do I remember what he told me, right?" Diamond questioned whether Iron Jaw died by the same beam."
"I need to copy that overkill power into my attacks." Ross loudly spoke to himself.
Clap!
Clap-clap!
Clapping sounds from two directions were coming closer to Ross. When the cheering ended, a person from the shadows started talking.
"We are impressed that you killed our boss's creation without effort."
James was on edge when he felt two strong auras around him. He looked around at the two entrances leading into the area and yelled, "Show yourselves!"
"As you wish!"
Their voices faded, and they appeared in front of his ears and whispered into his ears, "Your sentence is death!"
Before getting stabbed by him, he grabs his hand and throws the person to the ground, blood pouring out of the enemy's mouth from the impact.
"Your Sight[1] is impressive." They clapped their hands.
"However, can your Sight detect yourself from two people? Horse, it's time to attack!"
From behind, Ross gets stabbed, but his armor protects him, so he sees the twin brothers, Horse and Shoe, retreat into darkness.
"Diamond was right about him having plot armor, right, Horse?" These brothers have telepathic abilities when they are separated.
It doesn't matter if he has the most powerful armor. Together, we can still kill him," Horse said.
They lose track of time as they discuss Ross's weaknesses and how to prevent armor from forming when attacking him.
"Who are you, two?!" Ross said.
Shoe responded cockily, "HorseShoe... Now you know our name. It's time to say goodbye!"
Ross cracked his fingers, not the robot ones, and answered,
"Let's see if you guys can!"
To be Continued.
[1] One of the Basic Flow Techniques - an individual who can feel the presence of danger before it happens.