Peeking his head above his paltry makeshift cover Wilde took rapid stock of the situation. Kenda was still crouching behind her sofa, her shotgun slung over her shoulder and her Aries Predator in her hands now. Her drab olive armoured jacket was torn and scraped in places but seemed to be protecting her upper body well enough. Her unprotected legs had taken some rounds, but from what Pedro was able to see, Kenda’s legs, while unprotected were not unarmoured. Sheets of some durable substance had been grafted onto them, and presumably her other limbs and torso as well. Wilde had seen some cybered up people in the barrens with similar dermal armour in the past, both on the streets and in Urban Brawl matches. Between the dermal armour, her natural durability from being a troll and her weathered but still holding armoured jacket Kenda seemed to be doing as well as could be expected for the situation.
The same could not be said for the Nitro Mizuchi before them.
Of the little more than half dozen that had been standing before him only three remained up, and of them two looked like a mild breeze would be too much for them. Wilde tried not to focus on the unmoving smouldering bodies on the ground. He had never killed anyone in his life before; now in the space of less than half an hour he killed several people in quick succession.
It didn’t come as much of a surprise to Pedro that the cyber armed ganger was the one who had taken the least damage for his attack. The man had been close to the epicentre of the ball lightning spell but remained almost untouched by the electricity that had killed so many of his comrades. Pedro suspected that the man possessed dermal plating of his own that had protected him from the worst of the spells harm, or some other form of cybernetic augment that he’d installed at the cost of his own flesh and essence. It felt fitting to him that that ganger be amongst the last standing in his way to Kay; Wilde had wanted to make sure that he didn’t get away, now it was clear that he wouldn’t be.
‘MAGE! GEEK THE MAGE!’.
‘Bossu, shuryudan o utte kuddasai!’.
‘Sore ga watashi no saigo no bakadeshita!’.
Pedro granted himself the minor luxury of a brief feeling of relief washing over him. It sounded like the cybered ganger had used his last grenade which gave him and Kenda a better shot of winning the fight.
BLAM! BLAM!
Two shots rang out and one of the gangers that had been barely standing finally collapsed to the floor clutching his chest. Kenda ran at superhuman speed around the remaining two gangers whilst reloading her pistol before stopping behind a pillar for cover. What had seemed like would be a rout for the would-be rescuers now appeared to be turning in their favour as the last of the Nitro Mizuchi were pincered between Kenda and Wilde.
‘SAITO! Kono kuso yaro! Shine!’.
RATATATATATA!
More bullets ripped out of the other charred gangers assault rifle as he riddled the pillar Kenda had positioned herself behind with holes. She returned fire in kind but couldn’t hit him as he ran behind a rusted metal crate that the gangers looked to have been using as a table, for cover. The cybered ganger meanwhile looked at Pedro with burning red eyes alight with hate as much as LEDs. It was only now that Pedro realised that this was the only ganger who didn’t have a gun in his hands, understandable as his right arm was probably the most dangerous firearm in the building when it was loaded. Instead of grabbing one of the guns off his fallen companions though the man slowly reached behind himself and drew a long katana of turquoise tinted metal.
BLAM!
Pedro shot the ganger in the head, just above his right eye. He knew how to handle himself in a sword fight, but he also had no intention of risking his life in one with a psychotic cybered up street samurai. Blood dripped down from the wound, but the ganger simply grinned a maniacal grin and walked in a slow measured pace towards him.
BLAM! BLAM!
Another two hits, one glanced the ganger’s neck, the other struck his left shoulder. Neither showed any sign of slowing the cybernetic monstrosity. The ganger didn’t even try to speed his approach to Pedro, he just kept walking in the same slow deliberate stride, each step somehow reverberating above the sound of gunfire mere meters away from him.
As the most cybered member of the Nitro Mizuchi approached Wilde hurriedly studied the man, searching for any weakness or vulnerability he could exploit. His approaching opponent was tall, with his hair shaved down to a dark stubble and his exposed skin covered with a latticework of faded scars. He was a fighter, an experienced one for sure. The ganger was muscled to an obscene degree and the musculature didn’t quite match up with how a normal persons should look. A sign of vat grown muscle replacements that he’d had crammed into his body. The odd bulges beneath the man’s tight-fitting clothes also confirmed to Wilde that Kenda wasn’t the only one with extensive dermal armour present. He was going to be able to hit hard and take very little damage in return.
Wilde had hoped that the man’s cyber arm would have been damaged from the electrical surge that it had just endured thanks to his spell, but other than some light marks of soot on it the arm seemed fine. It had a firm grip on the sword but didn’t appear too tight leaving the sword flexible. Pedro only understood the basics of sword fighting but from what he could tell the cybernetic ganger wasn’t some posser with a blade. He at least knew as much as him. Probably more.
A glint of metal caught Wilde’s eye; it came from the wound that he’d just inflicted on the ganger’s head. It took a moment for him to resister what it was; the ganger’s skull was metallic. Most likely his entire skeletal structure had been reinforced with metal. To Pedro willingly undergoing such an invasive procedure was insanity, from what little he understood such an enhancement would take months of painful surgeries. And for what? To be more durable? To hit that much harder? He was willing to go through all that, probably pay a small fortune for it as well, just to be a more capable fighter? The man was clearly disturbed.
Frustration grew within Pedro as he considered his opponent. The freak most likely had more metal in him than even Kenda did but smothering him with lightning had a negligible effect on him. Shouldn’t he have been more conductive with so much cybernetics in his body, in his skeleton!? He dampened his irritation and instead focused on the quite literal incoming threat.
Fighting him head on was suicide, that much Pedro was certain of. The ganger was more metal than flesh now, closer to an organic drone designed for melee combat than a real person. He didn’t know how he fought but seeing as how he had chosen to arm himself with a katana as opposed to a gun and seemed to shrug off bullets like they were bug bites Pedro felt that the ganger was only interested in finishing him off with his sword whether out of pride or personal preference he neither knew nor cared.
All that mattered was the small edge it gave him.
Standing tall and looking the ganger in the eye with far more confidence than he had Pedro gave him a crooked smirk which the cybered-up ganger responded with widening his manic rictus grin. With a fake relaxed confidence Pedro moved his hand towards his own katana, still sheathed as his side making the move clear to the ganger who in turn stopped, planted his feet firmly on the floor and took up a traditional Kendo stance. Pedro’s fingers gently caressed the hilt of his sword as he -.
BLAM! BLAM!
-fired another two rounds into the ganger’s head before dashing off as fast as he could darting between the many minor obstacles in the room and keeping his katana firmly sheathed.
‘RRRAAHHHHHHH!’.
Roaring out in unbridled fury the cybernetic ganger stomped after Wilde, slashing and smashing his way through anything in his way.
‘Oh what?! You were expecting me to just stand there and fight you?! They throw half your brain away to make room for more chrome when you went to the street doc?!’.
‘Koko ni modotte hite watashi to tatakette kudasai!’.
‘Baka! Doshite watashi ga kon’na koto ni!’.
BLAM! BLAM!
Even with both shots hitting their mark yet again the ganger showed no sign of slowing his pursuit of Pedro. The blood trickling down his chest only made him angrier as he sliced his blade through a sofa that was between them, but Pedro kept sprinting away at a frantic pace, always keeping distance between the two of them.
His understanding of cybernetic augmentations was limited beyond seeing in the astral the damage they did to a person’s body and holistic integrity. But one of the few things that Wilde did know was that there was a finite limit to the number of augmentations a person could have installed in themselves before their body could no longer handle them all and died. On its own that piece of information held no pertinence to his present situation but combined with what Pedro had managed to determine from the ganger’s visible augmentations it help paint him a picture.
Cybernetic eyes, a cybernetic arm with an inbuilt grenade launcher, artificial musculature, dermal plating across his body, metal infused to his skeleton. The ganger chasing after him had made himself into a human tank; durable and hard hitting. But he also moved like a tank. There was no way for a person to enhance every aspect of themselves before their body gave out, so while the gangers physical durability was unmatched, his speed and agility were still decidedly human. If it wasn’t for his enhanced muscles the man probably wouldn’t be able to move under his own weight.
It had been a gamble on Wilde’s part on whether the cybered-up Nitro Mizuchi member had some means of enhancing his speed, but it had paid off for him. The bullets Wilde was hitting the ganger with weren’t doing much harm to him, but they were doing a little. So long as he could keep his distance from him Pedro could whittle him down over time. It wasn’t the bravest or most dramatic strategy, but it could work, and it would keep Pedro alive.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t something he could keep up. Time was most decidedly not on his side, every second that he, Kay and Kenda remained in the Nitro Mizuchi’s den the greater the odds or reinforcements for them arriving were and the less time they would have to flee.
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
Three shots hit the cybered ganger in his back and although they didn’t seem to cause him any significant harm, they did grab his attention enough to make him look around to see what had happened. Kenda stood out from behind the pillar she had been using for cover, the ganger she had been firing at slumped over the crate he had been using as cover, dead.
Once again Pedro looked the now solo surviving ganger in the eye with confidence, this time real, and shot him another crooked smirk. He was never going to beat him on his own without a significant amount of magical firepower backing him up, but he didn’t need to. All had had needed to do was keep him occupied long enough for Kenda to finish off the other ganger and then they could both focus on him. As heavily augmented the ganger was it was clear that he was just as dumb as his brethren, too easily led by what he saw before him to consider the larger fight. Wilde thought back to the opening firefight they’d had when they first entered the old mall, the gangers had followed the adage of “geek the mage” to the exclusion of the threat of Kenda and the strategy had worked once again.
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However, the ganger, the last of the Nitro Mizuchi in the Redmond barrens now, wasn’t going down without a fight. A fight that was still firmly directed towards Wilde. In a burst of speed that he hadn’t expected from the lumbering musclebound ganger he sprung forwards whilst slashing his katana in a downwards motion.
Without the magically enhanced reflexes and agility that he’d cast upon himself earlier Pedro was sure he would have died. Instead, the blade sliced down through the barrel of his pistol with such force that it cut through it and knocked the ruined gun out of his hand. It took everything Wilde had to madly scramble away from the ganger, climbing over a fallen fridge and dashing away whilst feeling a rush of air behind him as the ganger’s sword came just shy of touching him.
BANG!
‘Chase ‘im all ‘y want! Makes shootin’ y’ all the easier!’.
Kenda had unslung her bolt action hunting rifle and had fired a round into the ganger’s lower torso. Blood flowed freely from the wound with the bullet having torn through the dermal plating that had been protecting him and avoiding all the metal enhanced skeleton. Wilde didn’t know if it was down to luck or if Kenda had made the same assessment of the ganger as he had and aimed accordingly, but regardless the shot was much more effective than anything either of them had hit him with so far.
Yet the ganger remained resolute in his pursuit of Pedro. He was running now, battering any obstacle in his path out of the way and leaving himself open to several more shots from the troll markswoman. Some were glancing, some hit, but none put the rabid beast of a man down. Instead, each hit seemed to push him closer and closer to Wilde, as if the pain and blood loss were only empowering him.
Heart pounding, blood roaring in his ears Wilde ran for everything that he had. He could feel sweat soaking his jeans and T-shirt though he didn’t know if the sweat came from over exertion or fear. Just a little longer, he just needed to hold off a little longer. He didn’t even dare draw one of his other guns and take a few pot-shots behind himself now so close was the ganger to him. Ever second was vital, he just needed to hold him off a little longer.
Then, Pedro tripped.
He didn’t see on what, all that he knew was that one moment he was in a dead sprint, the next he was on his back, his head in agony from his fall.
The cybered ganger stood above him, face reddened from exertion and his own blood, mad grin wide and wicked. He held his turquoise-coloured katana high above his head, his posture and form perfect for delivering a signal swift slash.
BANG!
Another shot from Kenda at the ganger, but it only glanced him. Wilde watched as the man’s left ear was sheared off his face from the force of the bullet. He never even reacted to it. The man simply stared with burning red mechanical eyes into Pedro’s own, his chest heaving with every breath.
So close.
Pedro had been so close to reaching Kay. She was only a few metres away from him now. She would be free soon anyway, he tried to take some solace in that. Even if the cybered-up psycho did kill him Kenda would most likely manage to finish him off. She’d rescue Kay and they’d run off into the sunset together, just like she’d had always dreamed. A part of him didn’t even mind that now. Better Kay be with someone who loved her than be lost in the world alone or trapped in a soulless existence in a megacorp.
As soon as he had gotten Kay’s call about being kidnapped Wilde had known that he would be willing to die for Kay’s sake. He’d been aware of it the entire time he’d been trying to find her; it had been in the back of his mind as he had been fighting his way to her. It didn’t bother him that it was to become a reality now so long as she would be safe. He just wished that he’d gotten the chance to apologise to her for being late.
Then, just on the cusp of him giving up Pedro thought back to what he’d declared to himself when he’d first entered the husk of a shopping complex he was now in. He was willing to die for Kay, but before that he was going to fight for her, with everything he had. There was so much he had left to say to her, so much he wanted to do, to experience with her. Wilde wanted to be by her side no matter what came next in their future together. He wanted to be with Kay. She was his world. So, with the last iota of will he could muster Pedro reached out to the mana around him and forced it into one final spell, one last defiant strike at the man who had tried to break his beloveds soul.
Miyahira Hotaka was born into the squalor of the Redmond barrens twenty-four years ago and he hated every second that he spent in the wrecked place. It wasn’t the poverty, the urban decay, or the unabating violence intrinsic to the area that he despised most though. It was the fact that he was a part of it. Hotaka knew that he was better than Redmond, that he deserved more than it could offer him, more than his junkie parents struggling to survive in their one room hovel. No, he deserved the bright lights and luxury of Downtown Seattle or Bellevue, the heart of the metroplex where people of power and worth lived and worked. He spent all his childhood reaching out to escape the barrens and thought he’d found it in the Nitro Mizuchi, a gang that had some minor stakes in the barrens but primarily operated out of Renton. It might not have been the shining prize of Downtown Seattle but compared to Redmond it was a delight. Roads that were maintained, streets not covered by litter, people who carried themselves with dignity, Hotaka found Renton to be a satisfactory trade up. He worked hard for the gang and quickly rose through the ranks until he was one of their main enforcers and lieutenants. While other gangers would spend the money their earned through the gang on frivolities and lavishness every single nuyen that Hotaka made went into purchasing new or upgrading existing cybernetics for himself. It was his aim to further add to his value by making himself more capable than any of the “ordinary” members of the Nitro Mizuchi. That wasn’t to say that he lived a spartan life; anytime anyone offered him a gift, a reward, or some kind of indulgence he took it without hesitation and enjoyed it to its fullest. It only made sense to accept an offering and for others to attempt to appease their betters after all.
Over time though Miyahira began to see that the Nitro Mizuchi would never provide him with what he truly deserved, they were too small time for him and would never grow into something more even with the benefit of his presence. He deserved to be part of something more, something greater, an organisation with more gravitas behind it. The Yakuza. The gang had some minor connections to the local Seattle syndicates through them using the Nitro Mizuchi as cheap, dispossible muscle when needed, but on the rare occasion they would deign to lift an especially promising member of the gang up into their own ranks. Hotaka made sure that the Yakuza groups of Seattle were aware of him and did everything he could to earn their favour. He’d killed, disposed of bodies, planted a bomb for them once, and even gone as far as to return to his hated place of birth, Redmond, taking over operations of the Nitro Mizuchi there to prove his ability to lead to the Yakuza.
For the last three years this had been Miyahira’s purpose in life, but the Yakuza remained reluctant to permit him to join their number. No doubt because some of their lesser members feared the competition that he would bring to them. But after his latest plan reached fruition they would grant him his rightful place amongst them, this he knew for certain.
Some mysterious person had contacted him and hired the gang to kidnap some girl, a mage of some kind, off the streets of Redmond. They’d given him her exact description, location, warned him about her commlink and boots, and even provided the means of preventing her from casting spells along with paying him ten thousand nuyen upfront for the job. But Miyahira was no fool, he’d had some of his men look up who the girl was on the matrix and discovered she was a corporate citizen of MCT, one of the biggest megacorporations in the world. He didn’t know who wanted the girl, but he was sure that she was worth more than the twenty thousand nuyen he had been offered to capture her. As soon as they had her, he had messaged one of his contacts in the Yakuza telling him about the girl, offering her to them. He was sure that for offering them such a prize he would be swiftly granted membership into one of the local syndicates and finally be able to leave the filth of Redmond behind him. The Nitro Mizuchi would simply have to learn to exist without him and be grateful that he had ever joined them in the first place. Perhaps he might put in a good word for them with the Yakuza if they showed him the proper respect.
Being intelligent enough to recognise that some of his fellow (for the time being) gangers would take umbrage over his passing over the gang’s payday to the Yakuza Hotaka had been unable to brag about his greatness to anyone. This bothered him somewhat as he enjoyed having others know of his superiority. That was why he had taken to letting the girl know that she was soon to be sold to the Yakuza, that her life would be the price for his own ascendance in station. It felt good to see the girl tremble in fear, to assert his dominance over his lesser, to revel in his own soon to be victory. The only thing that bothered him was how long it was taking for his Yakuza contact to get back to him.
Then the cloud monster came.
Perhaps the hood the one who hired him had failed in some way, but Hotaka doubted that as the girl had made no effort to escape the locked room she was imprisoned in, nor did the cloud thing try to free her. As he and the rest of his followers fought the monster, he had heard fighting from outside and he knew that someone was trying to steal his prize from him. It had cost him most of his grenades to finish off the cloud creature, but it vanished into thin air before he could use his final one.
All he had to do was kill these thieves who dared to defile the sanctity of his stronghold and take what was rightfully his. But the contemptable cretins refused to die. His last grenade had failed to kill them as he had expected, and they had killed off his remaining men. And when he had expected to be able to finish one of them off in a respectable sword duel, something he could have proudly told the Yakuza, the disgraceful coward instead ran away like a child, forcing him to enter a ridiculous chase as he yelled and screamed after him. What should have been the crowning moment of a lifetime of hard work was devolving into a farse.
He deserved his victory! He had earned it through a lifetime of hard work! And he wasn’t going to let some Redmond street-trash steal it from him!
Seeing the fool that he was chasing slip and fall on the corpse of one of his men brought elation to his heart. Even in death the Nitro Mizuchi had found a way to be of use to him. He would kill this troublesome spellcaster, then the troll with the rifle, then message his Yakuza contact again. Then at long last he would be free of the Redmond barrens and finally be in a place of quality suitable for a person such as himself.
Raising his sword above his head, ignoring the intence pain running through his body and the light-headedness brought about from blood loss, Hotaka looked down at the pathetic man below glaring up at him. That man knew nothing of resolve or dedication. He deserved to die in Redmond. Another rotting corpse amongst a thousand others.
Miyahira Hotaka began to bring his katana down as a powerful bolt of mana pierced his chest, undeterred by his extensive protective cybernetics. He never even knew what had happened. He just felt a burst of pain and then the sensation of himself falling as everything faded to darkness.
Why haven’t the Yakuza contacted me yet? Don’t they realise my worth?
Those were the last thoughts of Miyahira Hotaka, but all he could muster before he died was a:
‘…why…?’.
THUD!
He fell to the floor in a lifeless heap, like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
‘For her…’.
Pedro muttered in response to the cybered-up gangers dying question between deep gasping breaths of air. Had he been holding his breath? When had he done that? How long had he been holding it for? Pedro wasn’t sure. He was exhausted, utterly spent of all his inner reserves and would probably sleep for a full day once he finally got some rest.
No, he wouldn’t he reminded himself. Freeing Kay was only the first step in what he had to do. He needed to find some way to get her beyond the reach MCT and any other groups that would try and use her to curry favour with the megacorporation. Getting her a good quality fake SIN, finding a way to quietly slip out of Seattle with her, finding a place to go once they were out, setting up in a brand-new place. Pedro doubted that he’d have any time to rest for the next few days. He felt conflicted over his desire to keep moving and help Kay and his desperate need to recover.
He felt a dark shadow looming over him and opened his eyes. Kenda stood towering over him, her pistol now in her hand but she wasn’t holding it as if she was going to shoot. She was taking in deep breaths as well and for a moment Wilde felt glad to know that he wasn’t the only one to have been exhausted by the fight they’d just been through.
‘Y’all right? Y’ want t’ rest for a bit?’.
It was tempting, so tempting to just stay lying down and slip into sweet sleep. But he had more important things to do and Kay was still locked in the room next to them.
‘…No. Need, need to get moving… Don’t know when some more gangers will turn up’.
Kenda bent over and offered him a massive hand to help him get to his feet. A part of him wanted to get up on his own power if only to not grant her the minor “win”, but a much larger part of him didn’t care about any of that right now and readily accepted her help.
The room spun as he stood up and he had to lean against another rusted fridge to keep his balance. The smells of gunpowder, blood and burnt flesh mixed with that of stale body odour and pungent cologne that seemed to be coming from the dead cybered ganger, mixing in Wilde’s nose to make a stomach-churning scent. He held his head up high to better avoid looking at the faces of the people he had just killed and forced himself to focus on what was important.
Kay needed him.