Rejoice, menials! For the Cult welcomes Hyper to the ranks of the most sacred priesthood on this day.
Don't mind the screams.
Reminder: Fridays have been reserved for something else you may or may not see at some point in the near or distant future.
This shall be the only chapter this week as last week was less than pleasant for writing.
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Adam 'Fucking' Smasher
With deliberate slowness, he looked away from the other fullborg and back down at the cheerleader "Who the fuck are you?"
Eurodyne choked for a moment before glaring back "You know damn well who I am you mass murdering piece of shit!" He was quickly tugged back by his bodyguard.
"Step away." The other borg commanded but Adam just ignored him.
"Really?" He mocked "Killed some buttbuddies of yours, did I?"
"Stop fucking pretending!" The cheerleader was sending spittle flying everywhere at this point "Filth like you shouldn't be allowed to walk free!"
"Ah, I remember now. That little bitch Silverhand, the meat kept begging for his life while I ripped him apart." He pretended to remember as he leaned back slightly before letting out a dark chuckle "Good times."
'So fucking easy.'
The cheerleader's face went red and he reached for his gun.
'Finally.' Smasher snarled and his Sandevistan snapped into action 'Lets see if the frame is worth its chrome.'
The bodyguard went to press the trigger "Too slow!"
His left fist blurred into motion, slapping the toygun away into tiny pieces, while his right was already blurring towards the bodyguard's face.
The other frame's golden eyes twitched with the telltale motion of a Keren being active as he just barely twisted aside, deflecting Adam's strike with too much surface contact like a complete fucking amateur.
He blurred the deflected arm back against the newbie, smashing against his retreating limb and pushing the newest source of his boredom away from the cheerleader.
But Adam's building disappointment evaporated almost immediately as the scrappy little fucker failed to use the chance to run away like a little bitch and instead used the momentum to twist on his foot and move in for a reinforced-joint burst lunge.
He barely even bothered acknowledging his BlackICE deflecting a cheap netfuckery attack, while his armor bounced off the meat guard's supporting fire, allowing him to focus fully on the cyborg.
He laughed as he rushed to meet the fucker, the floor under him ripping and cracking as he reached over to rip one of his arms off.
His internal grin only widened when he saw the other borg's eyes flash with a burst of will, the limb twisting just under his grapple and snaking under his arm, cutting into some of the exposed wiring before he could fully pull back and temporarily crippling the cyberarm.
'Thermal knives for fingers?' He realized in professional disgust.
He would have been insulted by the fucking gimmick weapon if it didn't actually catch him off guard, and he quickly brought his other arm forward as the follow up strike came, the limb twitching as he felt a fucking saw blade bite into the plating before following up with an EMP stream.
"Another fucking gimmick!" He snarled and pushed back, twisting the arm and letting it bite even deeper before throwing it backwards, alongside its wielder.
Deciding he'd played around long enough he began positioning himself for a rotational kick to the head only to cease and step back as he heard an irritated "Smasher. Cease."
Michael 'Magos' Sobronov
'Logos, wait!' I said the moment the Arasaka spoke, the entire reception hall going deathly silent.
My brain was stuck in the closest thing I had to an adrenaline rush as it kept entering and leaving a semi-zone state every other moment without any help from my Kerenzikov, my Optics frantically moving in each and every direction without any input from myself as I tried and failed to bring myself back under some semblance of control.
[So this is what fear feels like...] Logos muttered digitally as he kept his net assault at the ready but didn't activate it.
In the next moment, my eyes landed on Sharpe and Kerry only to find the two being held at Mantis Blade point by a pair of Arasaka cyber ninjas.
A quick mental ping showed a duo of them already doing the same to Kimigawa in her small nook upstairs.
'All of that, in just two fucking seconds...' A small part of me was consumed by fear, the much larger one was simply... awed.
I could almost taste Smasher's frustration despite his skull-like faceplate's inability to emote, his feet seeming to grind the cracked flooring beneath us further despite the fact he was standing completely and utterly still.
"Eurodyne-san." Yorinobu Arasaka spoke up after a moment "I trust your attempt on my bodyguard is nothing but an unfortunate misunderstanding. Are you content with ending hostilities here?"
Some fucking how, the offer of mercy (because that is exactly what this was) surprised me more than the fact I was still actually alive.
Kerry went to snap back but then his eyes found the two of us and he grunted a short and clipped "Fine."
"Good." The corpo offered a small smile in return "It wouldn't do to kill one of my favorite artists over something so minor."
Said artist's resulting scowl of disgust only seemed to amuse him for some reason.
"Ms. Price." He addressed V, who was standing in front of him and just a bit off to the side "Anything you can provide us on the guard detail?"
My cybernetic heartbeat picked up and my brain hyperfocused on her expression.
She kept it completely blank as she answered "One of Rogue's crack teams. She sends them out when she needs discretion."
"Discretion." Arasaka's eyebrows rose as he looked at me questioningly.
Almost mechanically I droned out a "Nothing happened."
"Excellent." He nodded and stopped caring that I existed.
My eyes found Smasher again, and for whatever reason his own were focused on my weapon "Where did you get that?" He asks bluntly.
"The gimmick store." I deadpan.
He lets out a dark chuckle and tilts his head to his boss "I want one."
"I'm sure that can be arranged Smasher-san." Arasaka says with the slightest touch of exasperation "Now let us move, we've wasted enough time already."
We didn't so much as twitch as the Arasaka bodyguard detail withdrew from us, Smasher giving me a glare that practically screamed 'We'll meet again' as he slowly retreated away.
The other corpos seemed content with that, at least for now, but I knew their caution would not last.
A small cynical voice in the back of my head told me Kerry was going to be buying a lot of marble in the near future, but I found I didn't really give a single fuck about that right now.
[K: Hooooly shit we are alive!] Kimigawa's message came a second later.
But Sharpe and I paid it no attention, sharing a curt nod between ourselves before I grabbed Kerry by the neck, and dragged him in front of me while ignoring all of his panicked sputtering.
A flash of the blueprint quickly directed me to a good secluded spot 'The toilet will do.'
We quickly left the reception hall, passed a quartet of temporarily blinded droid guards, slinked away into a less used worker's passage, and promptly shoved the toilet doors open, Sharpe closing them behind me as I slammed Kerry against the wall.
"Wha- What the fuck?" He choked out in pain, and before he could get another word out my still heated clawed fingers clutched the front of his face, drawing small lines of blood on contact.
At least the limb had stopped twitching by now, even deflecting Smasher's blow seemed to rearrange my internals slightly with whatever the fuck he'd done with his limbs. Thank fuck for nanites.
But I could piss myself about the recording later. This needed addressing first.
I leaned in towards Eurodyne's face, a low hissing growl leaving my Vocalizer "Starting fights is fine, behaving like a wreck is fine, hell even getting us shot is fine as I can fix that."
Sharpe grunted.
"But dragging us with you into certain fucking death?!" I snarled pushing him further against the wall "You think you're worth our lives?!"
"I still-" He let out a pained cough and glared at me "Still saved us all."
"From a situation you put us in in the first place you dickless fucking retard!" I snapped before leaning in and lowering my voice "Listen to to me Eurodyne, and listen to me well. The only reason I am not planning on feeding you your own guts when we get back to Night City is the fact I still need Rogue's contacts." He shivers as my voice turns into a whisper "But If you even think of shooting us in the back like that again I will not kill you."
His pained gaze flashes with confusion.
"Oh no." I say darkly "I will drag you off to my most secure location and commit upon you such atrocities even the fucking corpos will declare me a monster." He pales as I go on, my strained mental state making my voice come out cheerfully deranged "And the best part? I will keep you alive for decades."
Sharpe says nothing but I barely catch him exhaling in satisfaction.
I ignore the smell of urine under me "Well?"
He sucks in a deep breath, too terrified to look away "I- I- I-..."
My eyes narrow.
"I- It won't h-happen agg-gain." He finally stutters out.
"See to it that it fucking doesn't." I hiss and shove him back against the wall one final time before letting him slide down like a puppet with its strings cut.
My drill Mechadendrite slithers out from below my weapon case, injecting him with a dose of stimulants while I pull out a pack of wet wipes and drop them on his face "Clean yourself up. You look pathetic."
I wave for Sharpe to follow me and we step out of the toilet room, taking positions on the sides of the entrance.
"We should have waited to leave the hall before grabbing him." Sharpe says after a moment, his voice under careful control "Ms. Rogue might protest our visible manhandling of the VIP."
"The job is to get him back alive." I grunt "And I'm sorely tempted to stop interpreting the spirit of that wording."
"I share your disappointment." Sharpe nods "But you are still a young man, don't let-"
My raised hand stops him "Don't. Not right now."
He closes his eyes and nods, leaning back against the wall "Very well."
[K: Are you two fuckers going to finally answer me?!]
[M: Sorry, everything is fine.]
[K: Where even are you? I've been running around the maintenance room like an idiot trying to find you.]
I flick her the location.
[S: We were merely... informing the VIP of new security standards.]
[K: Did you rip his balls off?]
[M: Unfortunately not.]
[K: Shame.]
[K: We still on?]
[M: Depends on the VIP. Reposition to the concert hall for now.]
[K: Got it, more waiting. Good thing I brought my energy drinks.]
"I must admit, a can would be wonderful right now." Sharpe chuckles lightly.
"Doubt the high society types have those on offer." I shake my head.
"You'd be surprised." He says but doesn't elaborate.
A few minutes pass as I observe Kerry bringing himself back into a semblance of order through the wall.
Finally he pushes the door open with what he must think is a confident gait but immediately flinches as my eyes find him and lowers his head, passing us by without a word.
At least he was walking in the right direction.
Soon, we reached the artists section of the concert room and music was already blasting outside. Kerry stopped in front of the door between it and the service hallway we were using.
He looked tempted to look back but instead squared his jaw, brought something out of his pocket, and took a long snort.
'Of fucking course.' I wasn't even surprised anymore.
Letting out a sharp exhale, the musician briefly shuddered and then confidently shoved his way inside, glaring his waiting manager's questioning look into submission "Where is my stuff, Donny?"
"This way." The fat man quickly said.
The following hour passed at a crawl as Sharpe and I did our best to scare any of the others from coming too close while Kerry seemed to be in a world of his own, still not looking in our direction even once.
Tempted as I was to wander off, send a thank you message to V for covering for me, or do anything other than be in the glittered out little shitstain's presence, I remained standing just a step back away from him at all times.
Logos had completely retreated to his Persona Core at this point, and I could feel him frantically going through the recording of everything that happened in the fight only to come back with answers each more terrifying than the last.
Needless to say, Smasher was fucking playing with me, and I was not sure what to think about that.
Even quickhacking, my usual tie breaker, simply bounced off his defenses without even heating his Black ICE.
Ultimately I decided I was just happy to still be alive.
There was that one old adage about fearing old men in professions where men die young. And Smasher was already an old man over half a century ago.
The chrome fiend could have cracked me like a ripe melon, and the only reason he didn't was his owner's whim...
I looked down on my clutched hand, now mostly repaired even if imperfectly.
'Next time I'll be ready.'
Finally the time came, and the VIP slowly stood up, momentarily looking like he wanted to speak up before shaking his head and walking up the staircase leading to the stage.
Sharpe and I shared another nod, Kimigawa re-confirming she had a perfect view of the entire room.
The moment Eurodyne walked out on the stage the entire hall went wild, the younger corpos who managed to wriggle their way into an invitation looking genuinely enthusiastic about their presence here from my hidden perch behind the stage.
For a brief moment, I caught Kerry's eyes turning completely dead, before they disappeared and he grinned at his audience, rising his guitar to a roaring cheer.
"Got chrome in my bloodstream!"
The familiar solo segment of his version of Chipping In started and I found myself shaking my head at the fact I was ever a fan of this.
"Got a hardwired metal soul!"
Ignoring the tiny part of me that sympathized with the rocker, I tuned the music out and began doing my job properly, scanning everything in sight and then on the net only to pause as I saw a flicker of... something disappear behind a stacked data wall in the relative distance.
Mentally frowning I decided I wasn't going to chance a shitty day turning even shittier and immediately informed my two teammates to be on high alert.
Twenty tense minutes passed and I saw another flicker, and the moment I saw it explode through the palatial hall's defenses I lunged at Kerry, appearing in front of him just as he finished his latest encore.
Just in time to catch a salvo of SMG rounds on my chest and shoulder armor, and to see the droid guard detail spread out to across the hall begin mercilessly gunning down the screaming audience, their previously soft blue optics replaced with a crackling, blaring red.
"Of fucking course." I cursed to myself, and raised my gun.
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My greed for stone grows ever deeper!
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