The metallic monstrosity descended from the night sky above. Knifing sharply downward to deliver the killing blow to what was left of David's crew.
Rebecca glared upward at the beast, defiantly sending a barrage of bullets upward to meet it. She knew it wouldn't kill him, but she didn't care. All that mattered to her was buying David just a little more time in any way she could.
Adam Smasher's bullets were chipping the pavement around her. One of them grazed her right arm.
He was close enough for her to see his face now.
"FUCK YOU!" she roared.
His massive black frame was filling her vision now. This was her last moment alive. She knew that with certainty.
She turned for one last glance at David. Their gazes met for just a millisecond. She smiled. 'You made it to the top, big guy,' she thought as the shadow above rapidly grew in size,' Might not have been with me, but I don't care. Being next to you now is enough.'
The last thing she heard before her vision went black was the ear-splitting reports of her gun and then a colossal boom right above her head.
The inky black remained for a while. But somehow Rebecca could still think.
'So this is what being dead feels like. Laaaaaaame.'
"You alright?" a deep voice asked from above. A voice she didn't recognize.
"God? You're fuckin' real?! Oh shit, oh shit. Look, I know I didn't lead the best life but maybe we can work something out!" she pleaded. She had lived her life in Night City like everyone else did: godless and pleasure-seeking, killing whomever she pleased. She didn't even know what a cross was until she met David and asked him about his necklace. Now it seemed it was time to pay the piper.
"God?" the voice let out a booming laugh," You're still alive and kicking, son. Open your eyes!"
And she did. Light exploded back into her vision. Her cybernetic vision quickly adjusted and began scanning her surroundings.
There was a hulking figure standing directly over her. But it wasn't the cybernetic death machine she saw just moments earlier. This guy had neatly combed hair, nerdy glasses, and a full suit and tie on. He'd be indistinguishable from an Arasaka suit, if he wasn't over seven feet tall and covered in muscles that looked like they'd rip through his shirt any second.
"Try Senator Steven Armstrong," he said. The man brushed dust and debris from her shoulders and then offered his oven mitt of a hand for a shake.
Rebecca took his hand in her metallic one and shook it awkwardly. She looked over at Lucy, David, and Falco, who were all just as dumbfounded as her.
'Who the fuck is this?' she mouthed at them.
David just shrugged his gigantic robotic arms.
"You made America proud today, little girl," Armstrong said proudly," Most of your generation is too busy staring into screens, drooling over degenerate shit like anime. I'd bet over ninety percent of those baboons don't know we're in an arms race with Uzbekistan right now. Too busy fighting over which fictional girl would make the better fictional wife! Everywhere you go in DC it's 'Zero Two' this and 'Komi-san' that. Most successful psychological operation the Chinese ever pulled on us. I swear, when I get my hands on the candyass who brought anime into my great country I'll...nevermind. But not you, you chose to defend these beautiful red, white, and blue streets from a psychotic terrorist. Maybe there is hope for this new generation."
Rebecca's eye twitched. "Little girl?" she growled, choosing to ignore the other random nonsense the man had said, raising her shotgun to the man's face.
"Ha! There's the spirit! Now run home to your mother and father," he said, nodding his head in the direction of Lucy and David," I got a feeling that waste of taxpayer money isn't down for the count."
Rebecca tilted her head in confusion before she stood there and realized who he was referring to. "Oh yeah, where is Adam Smasher anyway?" she asked.
"Adam Smasher?" the man returned her intial look of confusion before having a revelation of his own," Oh, you mean Jack? He's over there." Armstrong pointed to the Arasaka tower.
There was a massive crater in the building's wall near its front entrance. So big that several tanks could drive through it without a problem. Glass and bits of metal were still raining down on the street below.
Rebecca's eyes widened. This man just sent the most dangerous man on this side of the planet flying a football field's length away and into a building and didn't even have a scuff on his suit. Her shotgun quickly lowered.
"But he won't be there for long. So run along now," he patted her lightly on the back.
She nodded quickly before darting off to go join her team.
"Oh and remember, always fight for what you believe in. Not for money or the good graces of limp-dicked bureaucrats. Carve your own path!" he shouted after her.
He smiled as David gave him a thumbs up.
"Just when I'd given up all hope on this country, I see something like this. A child, exercising her Second Amendment right and defending her family by shooting a cybernetic terrorist in the face with a shotgun," Armstrong wiped a tear from his eye," It really has all been worth it."
Something began poking Armstrong in the chest. He looked down and realized he was being shot. The storm of bullets flattened harmlessly against his shirt and dropped to the slick pavement below. Armstrong looked back up and found the source.
"Well, if it isn't saucy Jack. Pretty cheap tricks back there, attacking an innocent family to draw my attention. Didn't think you had it in you."
The black cyborg threw his useless machine gun aside. The massive dent in his chest noticeably slowed his movement. "WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU!?" he roared.
"Come now, you know exactly who I am Jack."
"My name is not fucking Jack! It's Adam Smasher! And I'll carve it into your meat bag corpse so you'll never forget it again!"
"Fine," Armstrong chuckled and tossed his suit jacket aside, "Let's go!"
Adam Smasher dissipated into a cloud of copies of himself. Dozens of after-images, all rushing for Armstrong in a snake-like path.
Armstrong smiled. The idiot probably thought he was moving too fast to be seen. The Senator could've stopped him right there with a well-placed punch, but he decided to throw him a bone instead.
The first blow of Smasher's metal hand smashed into his face. A blow that would reduce a regular human to paste.
Armstrong's head turned rigid and black for a moment then returned to normal. He barely even moved from the impact.
Adam Smasher looked back and forth between his hand and Armstrong in shock.
"Holy fuck," David said from the sidelines.
"That all?" Armstrong asked.
Adam Smasher growled in fury. This time he created hundreds of after images, each one aiming for a different part of his body. The midsection, head, arms, chest, back, legs. Thousands and thousands of punches rained down across the Senator's body. Smasher's fists began moving so fast that small blasts of lightning sprayed outward each time a blow connected.
David and his crew couldn't even keep track of where either of the two were as the ball of lightning grew larger and larger under the barrage of punches until both figures were totally obscured by it.
"Get down!" David shouted as he dove over Lucy, Rebecca, and Falco. Shielding their bodies with his own metallic one as the ball of electricity exploded outward. Buildings shook and windows shattered across a multiple-block radius. David growled with agony as the electricity coursed through his body.
"DAVID!" Lucy and Rebecca screamed in unison.
Once the arcs of electricity died down they both reached up for the suspended body of the man they loved.
Falco just kinda sat there awkwardly.
"I'm okay," he smiled down at them," I think the suit is fried though. Can't move it. How's the Senator guy doing?"
They both looked around the inert metallic suit to answer his question.
Adam Smasher swayed back and forth unsteadily. His arms sparked and twitched at his sides. His hunched shoulders and twitching frame almost made it look like he was panting for breath.
Meanwhile, Armstrong still stood in the exact same spot. In the exact same position, chest puffed out and everything. Not a hair was out of place on his head. "Is that really all you got, you little fuck?" he brushed invisible dust from his shirt.
"WHY WON'T YOU FLATLINE!?" Smasher screamed.
Armstrong laughed and reached his hands up. In one swift motion he tore his shirt off, revealing a musclebound physique, diced six-pack, and a massive throbbing vascular...wound over where his heart. The veins leading to and from it looked like gigantic worms slithering under his skin.
Rebecca whistled, "Looks like you got competition, David."
"Wait, his shirt's off? Hurry grab a mirror, I can't turn my head to look!"
Armstrong slowly trailed his hands over the wound," Nanomachines, son!" a cluster of the same black rigid mass his head had transformed into earlier moved across his chest and to his right hand.
"Nanomachines?" Lucy pondered, "What the hell do those do?"
"They harden in response to physical trauma," Armstrong replied.
"Oh, okay."
"You can't hurt me, Jack!"
"MY NAME'S! NOT! JAAAAACK!" Smasher raised his left hand to Armstrong. It split open revealing a missile launcher. An enormous fireball engulfed Armstrong's body as the missile shot forth and detonated.
Armstrong burst from the flames not a moment after, untouched except for his glasses, which were now missing. "Those were my nano prescriptions, son," he growled,"You're going to pay for that Jack!"
A blade burst from Adam Smasher's other arm and swiped for Armstrong.
The Senator caught it. " Nice knife," he snapped it in half and jammed it into an eye of the borg. Not deep enough to kill. He just wanted to get payback for his glasses.
The cyborg charged Armstrong with his rockets on full blast. The Senator stopped him midflight with ease, gripping the metal pieces that covered his jaw. With casual ease he tore them off, sending the monster reeling back.
"I bet you think you're special, huh?" Armstrong laughed.
Adam Smasher tried to activate his missile launcher again, and it failed to emerge. The shrieking and whirring of gears made it obvious it was down for the count.
"You aren't," Armstrong then followed up with an uppercut that sent Smasher flipping through the air and landing in a heap on the ground several yards away.
"You're a fucking tin man. Built to be used like a child's plaything then thrown out when something superior comes along."
Smasher tried struggling to his feet but Armstrong was already on top of him. Planting a single foot on his robotic chest, he kicked the massive figure down.
"That something superior being me. Even if I were to let you live, your masters would just mince you up and turn you into scrap after your performance tonight. You should be ashamed."
"SHUT UP!" Adam Smasher flailed under the Senator's strength, going nowhere.
Armstrong reached down and gripped both of his arms. "Who the fuck do you think you are challenging me? You're a child's action figure, and I'm the goddamn Senator of the great state of Colorado, idiot! Check the Internet lately?" He wrenched both of the cyborg's arms off and tossed them aside like they weighed nothing. Smasher writhed like a slug covered in salt.
"I thought he said he was from Texas?" Falco asked.
"I'm working off the same information you are," Lucy replied.
Lifting the cyborg into the air like a grown man would a toddler."You want to know the difference between me and you?"
Adam Smasher waited for a reply. After thirty seconds of futile struggling in Armstrong's grip, he realized the Senator wasn't going to continue until he responded," And what would that be?"
"I played college ball."
"What?"
"Try University of Texas. Could've gone pro if I hadn't joined the Navy."
"Texas was blown up thirty years ago in the Finno-Mexican Hyperwar," Smasher responded in confusion.
"That something they teach you at your cushy Beltway school? Fucking liberal. "
"Please, just give me a moment to-"
Without warning, Armstrong threw Smasher into the air. The cyborg spun over and over again, screaming as he rapidly ascended multiple stories into the air. When he fell back towards the ground, Armstrong kicked him like one would a soccer ball.
"Don't fuck with this Senator!" he shouted.
The force of the kick was so powerful it tore the broken remains of Smasher apart, all the pieces flew into a nearby oil tanker truck that was parked nearby for an unspecified reason and exploded on impact.
An unseen crowd cheered as Amstrong triumphantly smiled at the burning wreckage. Rebecca joined them, whooping and hollering like she was at a ball game. David whooped as well, watching the mirror Lucy was holding up.
Armstrong turned to look back at them with a wide smile," Why'd ya stay? Wanted to watch a good show?"
"Yeah," Rebecca replied enthusiastically.
"Well, not exactly," Lucy said," David is trapped in that metal suit back there."
"Trapped you say?" he looked David up and down and gave an approving nod, "I'm impressed that you can handle all that hardware being attached to your body. And all just for the sake of your country."
"Uh, not exact..."
"No need to explain to me, son," Armstrong surveyed the small crowd of cyberpunks, "Tell ya what, I think I might know the perfect place for young up-and-coming patriot cyborgs and one old guy. Somewhere far away from this dumpy shithole."
They all perked up at that.
"A beautiful place where nanomachines and college ball can solve all your problems."
"Texas?" Rebecca asked.
"No."
"The Navy?"
"Good guess but no."
"Then where?" Lucy asked,"The Moon?"
"The Moon? Don't be ridiculous. They're making that into a giant Metal Gear."
"Told you, Lucy," David said matter-of-factly.
"You never fucking said that! You don't even know what a Metal Gear is!"
"But you will. If you decide to sign up with Desperado Enforcement LLC!"
The group exchanged a few looks before David finally spoke," Uh by any chance is wherever this Desperado place based out of accepting of polyamorous marriages?"
Everyone present exchanged awkward glances.
"For a friend," David hastily added.
Armstrong had no idea what he was talking about but decided to roll with it to seal the deal, "Sure, as long as none of you are fans of anime, you're in the clear."
"All good on that front boss man, we don't even know what that is," Rebecca cheerily replied.
"Perfect, it seems my messages have finally gotten through to the youths!"
"So, what's this Desperado all about?" Lucy asked.
"I'm glad you asked...It all started with a DREAM!"