Chapter 21: Uprising

V awoke in his apartment. It was early morning. Hildegarde wasn't standing over him menacingly and the morning sunlight peeked through his blinds. Nothing had happened. He wasn't dead. Johnny was also missing, not appearing like his usual dreams signfied.

"Johnny?"

"Yeah, V?"

"Am I dreaming?"

"Yeah, you're dreaming about being Night City's dumbest Merc. Oh wait, that's just who you are. Nevermind."

V just shook his head and jumped in the shower, washing up before dressing in his regular outfit, the Samurai Jacket along with Johnny's pants, boots and shirt. He grabbed his two firearms, the Malorian 3516 and Dying Night before heading out the door. He shut the lights off in his apartment, not that it mattered, and began to make his way back to where the Horus was parked. It had been a few days and Jericho's Revolution would being soon. The end of everything as he knew it unless he stepped in at the most crucial moment. He knew what he had to do and he knew that if he did, then he would die. Panam would mourn his death, but he'd be remembered as a hero that had saved the world. Another DataKrash would signal the end of all things to come and the world that followed afterwards would be just a remnant of what had been before.

V made his way down to the garage of the Mega-building he lived in. He glanced at the Rattler before eyeing the classic Porsche 911. Instead of taking his own car, he jumped into Johnny's ride, a fitting vehicle for what was about to come and sped off out of the building towards the Badlands. This was it, the Revolution.

"They will not control us! We will be victorious!", V sang in the driver's seat as the old car sped down the freeway. "Rise up and take the power back... It's time the fat cats had a heart-attack..."

V's impromptu song seemed to reverberate though the landscape as he sang. A song about what was to come. A song about freedom. But a false freedom was what he knew it to be. Night City would never be free. He just drove on, headed out of Night City and towards the Aldecados' campsite. As he approached, a massive battleship hovered overhead, its nameplate designating it as Hyperion. Jericho's allies were here. This was the end of all things to come. The Cyborg was ready. There was no stopping this right now. He braced himself for what was to come, no matter the cost.

Jericho stood in the center of the nomad camp. He addressed everyone that was present in a speech to herald the dawn of a new age. V had just arrived and had missed a bit of it.

"...Ex Machina, focus your firepower on Arasaka. Bells of Hellfire, you will take on SovOil and cripple them. Relentless Nine, Militech will come for defense of the city, take them down and keep the fire off of us. Hyperion will offer aerial support from their battleship as well as boots on the ground as needed...", Jericho announced, the Mercs nodding in agreement.

"What's going on?", V asked to nobody in particular.

"Oh, you're here! Jericho's just going over our plans...", Asher noted.

"Myself, Hildegarde and V will infiltrate Arasaka and breach its Network Access Point, Izanagi. If and when the heat becomes too hot for all of you, run and save yourselves. Do not die for a pointless endeavor! I will call upon you if this fails!"

The Mercs just nodded in agreement. The Uprising was to begin shortly. Several dozen Mercenary Clans along with Nomads agreed to what was about to happen. A siege on the Corporate Center, destroy as many as they could before Militech responded with deadly force. Run if they had to and regroup when needed. This was the beginning of a War not a Revolution. And as bloody as it started, as bloody as it ended. This was fate. The Mercs began to disperse with their orders, heading to their own AV's and flying towards Night City's Corporate Center. Downfall.

"Ah, V. You're here. I hope you're ready for a fight.", Jericho noted.

"I am. Whatever comes, I'm with you in this."

"Good. We're aiming for Mikoshi inside Arasaka. You've been there before and made a mess of the place, however Mikoshi itself means nothing to us. Only the Net uplink matters."

"Alright... I can do that. I can show you how to get in. Asher, we'll need ICE to get in."

"Already got it, V. You've got clearance!", Asher exclaimed.

"Then come on, V. This is the Endgame.", Jericho stated as he walked back to the Horus. He motioned to Scotch to fire up the engines and before long, they were in the skies headed towards Night City's Corporate Center. It was time to put an end to this, once and for all. V just sighed and thought of what he was going to do. He had to stop this. Janus must never be released.

Despite it being early morning, the skies over the Corpo Plaza were darkened by smoke and flame. Jericho's mercenary friends already laying waste to the zone, some of them had already jumped down to the Memorial Gardens in the middle of the plaza and had begun to fire on the street level entrances to each of the Corporations. The massive battleship, Hyperion, was firing some kind of massive laser cannon at the streets that ran through the Corpo Plaza, any vehicles in its line of fire were instantly blown apart or set on fire. Militech was already streaming out of their own corporate offices in droves to fight off the army of mercenaries.

"Scotch, land this thing in the gardens! The two nomads, take the guns and give us some suppressing fire!", Jerich shouted, he didn't wait for the AV to land, instead jumping out of the open rear hatch and using his Icarus Landing to slow his descent.

V just held onto a grab handle as Scotch brought the AV low enough for a moving jump from it. He landed and rolled a few times before coming to a stop next to some other mercs. Another AV, oddly named Sphere Swallower, dropped its own crew off right next to him. Out of all of the other Mercs near him, two stood out in particular. A blue-skinned woman with animalistic biomodded horns stood next to a a man wearing some kind of long robe. The man's robes had glowing orange piping criss-crossing over its exterior before winding up around his arms and hands. His face was stern, and dirty looking, an unkempt orange-haired beard adorned his face.

"Light them up, pretty...", the blue-skinned woman whispered.

The unkempt man in robes just looked towards SovOil's corporate building before flexing his hands and stretching out his arms. V jumped back as a spiral of raging fire erupted from his hands sending napalm-like fireballs soaring through the air, exploding on contact with the front doors of the corporation. Hapless SovOil workers flailed around as they were immolated alive.

The man's face was wrought with sadness and horror at what he'd just done. V just looked up at him, slightly worried that yet another merc had been roped into a battle that he didn't want. Slowly, the man's expression changed from abject horror to a toothy snarling smile. His eyes narrowed and another blast of flame soaked some of the SovOil corpo security that came running.

"Burn! Burn! Burn them all! Burn them all!", the robed man cackled taking sudden and psychotic joy in watching the bodies burn. "Fire! Fire freely! Burn! Let the world Burrrn!"

V just got up and ran away from the maniac. Jericho's allies were insane. This was just pure cyberpsychosis he saw the sadness in that man's eyes turn to sudden erotic joy as his enemies burned alive. The blue-skinned woman turned to him.

"Oh hello, there. My name is Jokester! Who are you?", a thick slavic accent dotted her words.

"V." said V somewhat reluctantly.

"Nice to meet you, V.", Jokester noted waving her hand up and down as if shaking his hand. "That's Kale. Stay away from him when he's burning stuff."

"Yeah. Okay.", V added as he continued to back away from the the insanity that surrounded him. He needed to get to Arasaka, but its direction was difficult to determine due to the rampant chaos that was unfolding around him.

V just ran towards what he assumed was Arasaka Tower, not that he could see through the flames, before he ran into another quirky merc that was throwing knives into the skulls of Militech soldiers.

"Dagger... Dagger... Dagger... Done...", the Merc noted. He was dressed purely in black with a large ruffled and feathered cloak adorning his shoulders. He had long black hair and pointed facial features.

"Hey, you! Don't run away!", the feathered man called to V.

"I'm on your side! Tryin' to get to Arasaka!", V shouted.

"Oh. Well... It's over there!", the man stated as he pointed to a large explosion in the background.

A similarly dressed woman approached the two of them after firing off several shots from a modified rail-gun. Her gun resembled a crossbow and fired long penetrating bolts towards the Militech soldiers and pierced multiple gonks in one shot. "Are you making friends, Vareks?"

"Not at all, Vereks!"

"Who? What?", V asked as he looked at the two of them.

"I'm Vareks, she's Vereks!"

"Preem. Nice to meet you, I'm V."

"Great another V name...", the two Mercs sighed simultaneously.

V just ignored the two of them for now and kept running towards the multiple explosions that continued in the distance. He ran towards what he thought was Arasaka Tower until it was instantly revealed that it wasn't. It was Biotechnica. A heavily armored and full-borg man in stony green armor ran towards the oncoming corpo security wielding some kind of hammer. He slammed the hammer into the ground and caused a small shockwave to knock the opposition off of their feet. A massive golden-colored robot with a single massive tread rolled forwards, shooting a grappling cannon at the front doors of the corporation, the doors were pulled backwards impacting more corpo security as it was pulled free.

"Thanks for the entrance, Fresh Killed Carcass!", the stony armored man added as he ran into the building.

"No problemo, Disasteron!", the robot added with a heavy southern drawl.

V just ran around them and doubled back, nearly running into Kale's onslaught of napalm-like projectiles. He turned abruptly and sprinted towards what he hoped was Arasaka Tower, only to be discouraged as he'd found Kang-Tao under siege by a small girl in a red and black outfit. She wielded dual scythe-like arm-mounted cyberware and spun up like a turbine before launching herself into the horde of corpo security, freshly severed limbs flying everywhere. A similar looking girl in yellow dress assaulted the front doors of the corporation with all four of her cybernetic arms, each arm equipped with a wrist-mounted shotgun that shot flechettes into the crowd of Kang Tao workers that tried to escape. Blood flowed through the streets as she did so. V just kept running.

Another man, taller and older, also wielded arm-scythes and spun up similarly to the red-dressed girl and shot into a group of Militech soldiers. There were no survivors. He kept running. Arasaka Tower, it should me unmistakable, but it was hard to see over the roaring fires that had broken out due to Kale's relentless firebombs. He just kept going before running into a red-haired woman dressed minimally in a small leather bodice, gauntlets, and boots. She just stared at him.

"Get off!", she yelled.

"Sorry!", V shouted as he ran from her.

The red-haired woman just shot a small blue-blackish projectile into the squad of Militech soldiers that had arrived with MaxTac support. She flexed her hand a bit, the object she'd thrown suddenly pulling all the soldiers and vehicles into a single point. She just clenched her hand shut and pulled downwards and crushed the Militech squadron and MaxTac unit into a solid cube with some sort of magnetic singularity.

"Woo! Go Pyrha! You got this, girl!", a voice shouted from above. It was Handsome Jaune. V just looked towards the disembodied voice in confusion. More fun mercs. Preeem... As V looked upwards, he just saw a massive metal hand reach down and grab him. He was suddenly and unexpectedly hoisted into the air.

"Vee! You are needed at Arazaka! Come vith me!", the distinct German voice announced. Gunter had found him. "Pleaze hold on."

V just held on for dear life, grabbing at the cyborg's arm and hand as the massive metal man ran towards their destination. He was suddenly hurled backwards and Gunter just charged through the wall and into the main lobby of the Arasaka Tower. He unceremoniously dropped V on his ass and began to launch a volley of rockets towards anyone and everything that opposed them.

"V! There you are! Here I was thinking you'd finally gotten yourself killed!", Hildegarde shouted. Jericho was already inside the Arasaka Tower.

"I'm good, Hildegarde.", V noted.

"About time. Izanagi is close. We only need to go down.", Jericho stated.

"I know. Elevator is our best bet, but it's out of order... Gunter blew it up.", V added staring towards the smoking elevators.

"A shame. I suppose we'll take the path less traveled. The Stairs.", Jericho noted.

"The stairs only go down so far... It's locked from above, the only way down is the elevator."

"Then, I suppose, we'll have to make our own entrance."

Jericho didn't hesitate and pulled Hildegarde away from V and towards the staircase. V was going back to Mikoshi one way or another. The Revolution would be a success. Jericho's plan would come to fruition, whatever had been planned. V just followed the two of them. He'd get his chance to take them down, he knew it. It was only a matter of time. And time was not on his side. He needed to end this now, before Janus was uploaded to the net. Before the world ended. His hands just hovered over his own firearms. Time to end this.

Chapter End.

A/N: V's got some choices to make. The end comes soon.