Chapter Fifty Eight
September 16th, 2077
Night City, Northern California
The Chapel, Coast View
"Kill the Demon!"
The Vanyon Commanders' final remarks were delivered with such venom that Cyrus almost mistook him for an Elite, but this impression was shattered after he plunged his Kukri into the man's torso. Cyrus pulled on his blade and spilled Jean's innards across the cracked flooring, and any last desires the man had were silenced as the light died in his cybernetic eyes.
"JEAN!" The Spartans MJOLNIR muffled the furious Vanyons' incoherent screams and began eliminating the surviving Pack members with clinical precision.
Two of their number joined their leader in the afterlife via a trio of precise cuts to their jugulars. The remaining quartet stumbled backward while unleashing every round from their magazines into the Spartan's energy shields.
"BACKUP! WE NEED BACKUP NOW!" Cyrus kicked off his backfoot and slammed his shoulder into the erratic Vanyons torso, torpedoing him and his comrade into a metro car. The entire train shuttered along with the man's lower spine leaving the Elite Voodoo Boy paralyzed from the waist down.
Screams of anguish filled the entire hub as the immobilized Vanyon slid to the ground, his arms grasping at the shattered vertebrae in terror. Most of his companions began a tactical retreat, seeking to put as much space between them and the Spartan.
Well, most of them did.
"Tamara, wait!" A single female Vanyon recklessly charged forward, abandoning her comrades in a haze of pure indignation. Two Mantis Blades extended from her forearms in a mad bid to cut through Cyrus's MJOLNIR.
The Berserker's carelessness was rewarded with three barks from the Spartans Unity, two of which impacted harmlessly against her subdermal plating. The third, however, cut through the meat of her thigh, knocking her off balance and leaving her vulnerable to a final ballistic shell through the right eye socket.
Within a matter of seconds, Jean and three other Vanyons lay dead, while another two were critically injured. The surviving team leader, Roseline, realized too late that her crew was completely out of their depth, and she gave the only rational command left in her control.
"FALL BACK! FALL BACK!" The survivors beat a hasty retreat down the corridor, firing off bursts of gunshots in a bid to keep Cyrus suppressed. The Spartan dipped in and out of sight, his active camouflage confusing the Vanyons efforts to keep him pinned.
"Placide where the fuck is our backup!" The Spartan dipped into view and snapped off a single burst from his Copperhead, wounding another of Roseline's comrades and tempering their suppressing fire.
"They're arriving now." Muzzle flashes erupted from the darkness behind the surviving Vanyons, sending Cyrus phasing back into the shadows. Their reinforcements had finally arrived, but none of them fooled themselves into thinking they could stop the Headhunter in his tracks.
They were a delaying force, nothing more and nothing less.
"How many are there?" The Spartan inquired as bullets dented the metro train he was taking shelter in. The shattered windows would have most thinking the Vanyons knew his location, but in reality, they were simply lighting up every facet of their former Netrunning Hub to keep him at bay.
"Motion trackers are picking up twenty contacts with more on the way." Chamber relayed while Cyrus inserted a fresh magazine into his Copperhead.
"Do we have a fix on V's location?"
"Negative." The UNSC AI was working overtime, fending off multiple daemon incursions while also maintaining her traditional combat processes.
The Voodoo Boys had to be the most technologically savvy faction in Night City as nearly all of their members were capable edge runners that blended conventional warfare with cybernetic enhancements that influenced both material and virtual worlds.
That fresh wave of Vanyons didn't just barge in with gunfire alone. They also came with another half a dozen edge runners that were keeping her on the defensive.
Chamber kept their daemons out of MJOLNIR, but the sheer volume of cyber attacks was enough to match the power armor's total output.
A contagion daemon tried to worm its way past her firewall, but she crushed the virus before it could eat away at MJOLNIR's core systems.
The firefight soon reached a ferocious stalemate as neither side wanted to commit their efforts to an aggressive charge. Cyrus didn't want to take the chance of running recklessly into a meat grinder while the Voodoo Boys were content to maintain their defensive posture.
But something had to give, and Cyrus wasn't willing to be a patient hunter today because making noise was his entire strategy. His usual scare tactics wouldn't cut it here, and a direct assault in these claustrophobic corridors wouldn't do him any favors.
His active camouflage could only take him so far, and he didn't want to bank on ineptitude to get him to the finish line.
Cyrus needed something…unconventional. A game-changer that the entrenched Vanyons wouldn't be expecting.
His eyes glanced about his surroundings, ignoring the echo of gunfire as he took in every inch of the metro hub. The hanging monitors were useless, along with the crates scattered about the steel floor. Inevitably his attention fell upon the operational Netrunner stations that were running hot.
Whatever the Voodoo Boys were up to hours earlier had overwhelmed their Netrunner Stations, and now the chairs were desperately trying to cool down their components.
In essence, the Netrunner stations were ticking time bombs because they ran on factory-made lithium batteries that were easily combustible under the right circumstances. In most cases, these power cells were somewhat harmless, but the demanding nature of Netrunner stations became an exception to the rule.
Which meant Cyrus had about a half dozen game-changers just waiting to be used.
He slipped out of cover, grasped the closest Netrunner station just below its cushioned seat, and pulled the chair from its cables. Chamber was in the midst of fighting off another cyber attack when the familiar screech of grinding metal drew her attention.
"Chamber overload the cooling systems!" Instead of balking with confusion, the AI spliced open the station's firmware and performed the task given to her. Its internal systems began to combust dangerously, and electrical sparks rained down from its severed foundation.
"What are you doing?" She asked in genuine confusion.
"Being creative." With a great heave, he threw the combusting chair into the meat of the Vanyon defenses. The gangers could only stare in utter confusion before their eyes widened in subtle panic.
"Incoming!" The makeshift bomb crashed behind the main line of Voodoo Boys just as a chain reaction of hazardous materials reached a fever point.
"Get down! Get down!" The Vanyons scattered in all directions, seeking what little cover there was from the combustible object. Most managed to dive behind some form of protection, but not all of them were so lucky.
*BOOM!*
Two Vanyons were pierced by dozens of scorching shrapnel, while another four suffered severe burns to their extremities after instinctively covering their heads from the heated material.
The Voodoo Boys barely had time to recover before a second Netrunner station was thrown in their vicinity, killing two more Vanyons and breaking their defensive line in half.
Cyrus took advantage of their disorganization and stormed headfirst into their ranks, barreling into an Enforcer who belatedly noticed the shimmer crashing into him. The Vanyon barely intercepted the Kukri by sacrificing his right palm before the blade could slide into his throat.
*BANG!*
He didn't expect the Headhunter to deftly palm his Unity in his free hand and fire a ballistic shell into his gut.
Cyrus kicked the dying man off his Kukri and parried an overhead strike from a pair of Mantis Blades on his flank. Another Vanyon Enforcer sought to engage the Spartan head-on, but Cyrus wasn't willing to entertain this suicidal man's final charge and crushed his Mantis blade before finishing him off with a single ballistic shell to the eye socket.
He hurled a CHAR incendiary grenade at a trio of Vanyons to his right, and the flame particles clung to skin and clothing alike, resulting in three humanoid bonfires that shrieked incoherently.
Ordered combat turned into a frenzy of mass muzzle flashes and screaming Vanyons. Cyrus cut down two more Voodoo Boys before he finally received the update he'd been looking for.
"I got her!" Chamber announced as Cyrus sliced up a Vanyon specialist and slipped back into cover. "V is two kilometers to our south, but her beacon is fading. We need to deal with these fuckers before I lose her signal again."
"Understood." Cyrus aimed his Unity and fired off a single round into a Vanyons thigh, forcing him to a single knee and allowing Cyrus to dash forward and slice open his throat before throwing the blade into another Vanyons face.
The Kukri sliced through the Enforcer's left cheek and cut through his lower jaw bone. An inhuman scream rang out before a single gunshot ended the man's suffering, courtesy of Cyrus's Unity.
Momentum was back in the Spartan's corner, and the Vanyons knew that their delaying force was shattered beyond all comprehension. The survivors made a final bid to warn Placide of their failure, but he cut them down before they could get the word out.
Cyrus glanced over the corpses of the dead or dying with mild contempt before storming down the metro tunnel. He was half tempted to pay a visit to the Voodoo Boys' main HQ, but his main priority remained getting V out of Pacifica. Whether the gangers merited a second incursion would have to wait.
The Spartan activated his communication module, and Chamber boosted the signal to reach the only other people down here besides himself and the Voodoo Boys searching for their missing Mercenary.
"Disciple Six, status update?"
Night City, Northern California
14th Street Metro, West Wind
Disciple's initial engagement with the Voodoo Boys was a five-minute firefight that led to twelve of their number dead with zero casualties on the Bloodhound's side.
Iwasaki didn't allow this early success to influence his outlook as he led Disciples One and Two headlong into the decrepit metro tunnels underneath the West Wind district.
Disciple One was recalled from a sabotage operation in Vista Del Rey, while Disciple Two was pulled from their reserve status. The details were sketchy at first, but the Bloodhounds were quick to adjust to their new orders once the gravity of their situation settled in.
The Mercenary that Cypher had taken a shining to made the poor decision of pissing off the Voodoo Boys, and now it was up to Iwasaki and his men to pull her ass out of the fire.
Chamber was feeding their HUDs a distress beacon that would lead them directly towards their HVI, but the Voodoo Boys were hot on her trail, and they were also very much aware of the Bloodhound's presence.
"Disciple Six, status update?"
"Standby, Oxide!" Iwasaki replied as several fragmentation rounds impacted all around him. The Bloodhounds ran headlong into a patrol of Voodoo Boy thugs, and a pitched firefight broke out.
Six gangers were killed in the following exchange, and the Bloodhounds forced the remaining Voodoo Boys into a seemingly undisciplined retreat.
Iwasaki realized almost too late that his operators were being drawn into a kill zone, and were it not for Sparrow's keen eyesight, half of the Bloodhounds would have been cut down in a hail of gunfire.
The retreating Voodoo Boys drew Iwasaki's force towards a small service area designed to maintain the metros train cars. The gangers converted the entire station into a forward observation post with sandbag and gun emplacements reinforcing the railway sections.
This forced the Bloodhounds to the very edge of the metro tunnels, where numerous concrete grooves stuck out just enough to provide adequate protection from the gunfire.
Vulture, Falcon, and Sparrow tried to make a lateral push up the flanks, but one of the two gun emplacements suppressed their position mid-charge. Leopard, Weaver, and Ocelot we're stifled by the final gun emplacement leaving Iwasaki and Dusty the only Bloodhounds free to engage.
"We need to punch through these assholes!" Iwasaki turned to their rearguard, where Nightowl and one of their newest recruits maintained overwatch. "Nightowl! Get up here with the HMG!"
"Understood." The Bloodhound pulled his massive Mk.31 off its mount and shot his companion a subtle glance. "Watch our backs, Conley. We don't need Voodoo Boys crawling up behind us."
"You worry about yourself, Bloodhound." The Mercenary retorted. "I got our six."
"Nightowl, get the fuck up here?!" Pavlenko pulled the HMG by its handles and jogged down the expansive metro tunnel.
Conley spared him a glance towards the expanding gunfire with mild vexation. She had hoped to prove herself to Iwasaki and the other Bloodhounds, but she had been constantly waylaid by rear-echelon assignments more fitting a new blood than a stone-cold mercenary of the Afterlife.
A lengthy sigh escaped her lips, and Conley unwillingly shifted her focus to their rearguard, silently awaiting her moment of absolution.
It would arrive sooner than she realized.
"Glad you could join us," Vulture quipped as Nightowl slid into cover next to Eagle. "Did you get lost on your way here?!"
"Can it, Vulture!" Iwasaki reprimanded and activated his squad-wide transmitter. "Nightowl lay down a base of fire and suppress those gun emplacements! Dusty, if one of those morons pops their head out, take them clean off. Falcon and Leopard, bound your teams up the flanks while we cover you. We need to get past these thugs and secure the Merc, check?!"
"Check!" All nine Bloodhounds roared in unison, and Iwasaki inhaled a deep calming breath that leveled his heartbeat.
"Move!" Nightowl stepped out of cover and centered the barrel of his Mk.31 directly upon the cluster of Voodoo Boy emplacements. A heavy stream of .50 BMG rounds slammed into the fortifications, throwing up grains of sand and dirt that momentarily blinded several gangers.
"Bounding!" Falcon's team broke from their concrete shelter first. Vulture's reflex tuner slowed time to a crawl, allowing him to push down the subway for around twenty meters before the Voodoo Boys took note. A burst of gunfire from the left-most gun emplacement sent him and his trailing teammates scrambling for cover. "Set!"
"Bounding!" Leopard and her team made a break for a sizeable concrete groove large enough to provide adequate protection from the well-entrenched Voodoo Boys. She slid directly into the hardcover, her shoulder slamming against its hardened material even as bursts of heated projectiles chipped at its base.
The gunfire bracketing his position came to a sudden halt, and his ears picked up a rustling noise on the other side of his hardcover. Leopard's brows curled in confusion, and as she was about to peak over to investigate, a single barrel poked out mere inches above her head.
"Machine gunner!" Ocelot grabbed Weaver by the scruff of his neck and threw him to the side, saving the New Blood from an early dance with the devil.
The Veteran Bloodhound wasn't so lucky.
A pair of armor-piercing rounds tore through Ocelot's kevlar, piercing flesh and bone alike. He fell onto his side, his hands grasping the broken concrete in a desperate attempt to pull himself behind a concrete pillar to his right. The Voodoo Boys LMG fell silent to exchange his spent belt, allowing Leopard to return the favor.
"Man down!" The Bloodhound shot to her feet and pushed the machine gunner's barrel up and to the side. Its owner felt his maddening grin dissipate into genuine terror after Leopard drove one of her Mantis Blades into the Voodoo Boys jugular.
She pulled up on her cybernetic blade, splitting the ganger's skull in two and encasing her arm in blood. Weaver wasted no time and rushed to Ocelot's side, blood leaked ever slowly from his wounds, but incredibly the Veteran Bloodhound remained conscious.
"Did we get him?" Ocelot asked over the echoing sounds of gunfire and explosions.
"Fuck yeah, we did." Weaver informed, pushing Ocelot's head to the side and forcing a MaxDoc into his mouth. "Now suck on this before you bleed out."
"Weaver!" Iwasaki called out while gunning down a pair of Voodoo Boys who sought to avenge their mutilated comrade. "How's Ocelot doing?!"
"He's fucked up but stable." The Marksman relayed, tearing off the riddled body armor and retrieving a wrap of gauze from his first aid kit. Ocelot leaned against the chipped pillar and raised his arms high enough to let Weaver wrap the medical gauze around his wound.
"Can you keep him that way?" Iwasaki didn't want to risk their operational integrity, but if Ocelot was on death's doorknob, then he'd be willing to let Weaver extract his dying comrade back to the Sanctuary.
"I'm fine," Ocelot assured Weaver and gestured towards Leopard, who was engaging every Voodoo Boy in sight all by his lonesome. "Go help Umeki and push these fuckers back."
"Keep your hand on the wound, and don't do anything stupid." The Marksman grabbed his SOR-22 and dashed towards his team leader. Umeki sighted a Voodoo Boy trying to toss a fragmentation grenade, but a trio of 5.56 ripped through his sternum mid-throw.
The spherical object rolled short of Leopard's position and bumped into the mutilated corpse.
*BOOM!*
Shrapnel and smoke bounced up and down the clustered corridor, and Weaver cursed to himself as a piece of heated metal bounced off his recon hood.
"How's Ocelot?" Leopard asked while ejecting an empty magazine from her Copperhead.
"He's stable, but we need to get him back home within the next hour."
"He'll make it, Weaver." The New Blood gave her an unsure look. "This isn't the first time Ocelot's been shot, and it won't be the last. Now quit worrying about him and get into the fight!"
"Yes, sir!" Weaver popped from cover and fired off a single round from his SOR-22. The 7.62mm shell soared through the air, screaming towards a shrieking Voodoo Boy and blasting through his mouth. The ballistic shell blew a fist-sized hole through the back of his skull, and his stunned companions could only watch in momentary horror before they joined him in the afterlife.
With Leopard and Weaver drawing most of the Voodoo Boys' attention, Falcon's team was free to push directly underneath the gun emplacements barrels to the sandbag wall.
Falcon and his team pulled fragmentation grenades from their belts and tossed them through the gun emplacements firing holes. The Voodoo Boys manning the HMGs fell into panic and tried to throw the spherical bombs back, but a trio of detonations ended their service.
"Dusty, regroup with your team." Disciple One's Marksman nodded once and shot after Falcon's group as they tore down the sandbag walls. "Nightowl on me."
"Yes, Commander." The pair dismounted from their overwatch positions and sprinted towards Ocelot's wounded form. Leopard and Weaver were already by his side, providing additional medical aid while Falcon's team pushed down the corridor.
Iwasaki glanced over Inoshishi's wounded form, and even at the simplest glimpse, he could tell that his compatriot's wounds were severe. The first round ruptured his lower rib cage and cut through his left lung. If Weaver hadn't applied the MaxDoc, Ocelot would have drowned in his own blood.
"Umeki," Leopard perked at her real name. "I need a no-bullshit assessment. Do we need to get him to a surgery table?"
Umeki ignored Ocelot's demanding gaze of assurance and stared directly into the bleeding wound in his subordinate's chest. Bravery confidence was always rewarded with trust, but recklessness is to curtailed at all times.
No matter the reasons or circumstances.
"We need a medevac." Both Leopard and Eagle ignored Ocelot's snarling disapproval and went about proper medical procedures.
"All right then. Take Weaver with you back to the Phantoms and get Ocelot on the medical table. Nightowl will stick with me, and we'll be back home within the hour. Understood?"
"As you command." Leopard grasped Ocelot's right arm and threw it over her shoulder, willing the wounded Bloodhound to his feet while Weaver pulled security.
"Berserkers!" The cry of alarm and a cacophony of increasing gunfire drew Iwasaki's attention away from the evacuating trio, and he sprinted down the metro with Nightowl hot on his heels. The Bloodhound planted a hand atop the stacks of sandbags and mantled the fortification to find Disciple One knee-deep in Voodoo Boy screamers.
"Eat lead fucker!" Vulture jammed his Lexington into a Berserker's nose, firing off a single round that snuffed out the adrenaline junkie's life. Sparrow dropped her rifle and pulled an electrified Katana from its sheath just in time to block a pair of Mantis Blades from digging into her sternum.
She drove her left foot into her assailant's right ribcage, fracturing bones and severely weakening the Voodoo Boys' subdermal plating. The Berserker's body morphed around the limb, leaving him open to a devastating strike to his cranium.
Sparrow drove her Katana through her attacker's left eyeball, slicing through the augmented optics and killing him instantly. Falcon exchanged 5.56 with a trio of Voodoo Boys, wounding one and killing the later pair before seeking what little cover remained to be found.
He slid behind a set of metal barriers at the rearguard of one of the blown-out gun emplacements. Vulture roughly pushed aside a devastated corpse bearing Voodoo Boys markings and ignored the noxious splash of exposed innards as he stepped into the puddle of gore left behind.
Dozens of Berserkers began to stream into the service area, clustering together in a mass of bodies seeking to overwhelm the Bloodhounds through sheer numbers. Iwasaki and Pavlenko arrived just in time to fight off a wave of gangers swarming Disciple One's flanks.
Eagle charged into the oncoming mass with fervor, smashing into a raging Berserker and taking his clean off with a swipe from his Katana. Nightowl stayed in the rearguard with Dusty, expertly pinning or wiping out whole teams of Berserkers before they could swarm any distracted Bloodhounds.
All manner of organization fell apart as Bloodhound and Voodoo Boys stabbed and shot at one another without mercy.
These gangers weren't trained operators, nor were they experienced killers in Sparrow's eyes. She eviscerated a trio of Voodoo Boys with a blink of an eye, but none of them even realized their death until their heads were rolling on the ground.
The killing was too easy for her tastes, and with each slaughtered Voodoo Boy, it became increasingly clear that Brigitte sent these drug-addled fools to be little more than roadblocks for Cypher's elite guard.
She glimpsed a dozen or so Voodoo Boys defending a junction further down the tunnel and the blistering gunfire they unleashed into the mob of bodies. Their bullets indiscriminately targeted comrade and enemy alike, but their careless tactics did more harm to their comrades than the Bloodhounds.
"We're getting overrun!" Vulture shrieked as a Berseker slammed a shoulder into his gut and pinned him to the ground. Motozawa felt the oxygen rapidly exit his lungs, and it was only through Cypher's brutal training regimes that he avoided a gorilla arm to the cranium.
Iwasaki went toe to toe with four Berserkers, felling each with the precision and ferocity born through years of hardship.
And yet even his muscles strained in protest.
There were simply too many Voodoo Boys and a severe lack of room for the Bloodhounds to maneuver. They needed a game-changer, and Cypher wasn't anywhere near them to provide support.
Although they did have one remaining asset at their disposal.
"Conley, get up here!"
At first, Vivian didn't acknowledge the order, sparking concerns within Iwasaki that she had flown the coop. Then a subtle caught his augmented hearing, followed by a distinct burst of gunfire.
Conley charged into the metro, her Saratoga tearing into a Voodoo Boy grunt trying to drive a knife into Sparrow's throat. In the same motion, she sent a silent signal for her Drone to push a group of Berserkers off Falcon's back as he dueled with a Voodoo Boy sporting a nasty pair of machetes.
She ducked beneath a scorching Mantis Blade and drew a Unity from her waist, unleashing a torrent of gunfire into the groins of two Voodoo Boys. A single round to the temple silenced their screams of anguish.
"Nice kill Merc!" Vulture appraised Conley as he drove a serrated dagger into a grunt's heart before unsheathing the blade and throwing it into the Voodoo Boy's exposed throat.
"I aim to please." Vivian retorted, retrieving the loudmouth Bloodhounds dagger and returning the blade to its owner.
Falcon watched the mob of raged-filled Berserkers lose their nerve and retreat towards their compatriots dug in behind a cluster of makeshift fortifications. Contrary to their previous conduct, the entrenched Voodoo Boys did not light up their comrades for supposed cowardice and allowed an orderly retreat to their position.
"Regroup!" With the momentary break in hostilities, the Bloodhounds returned to their commander's side and took up defensive positions while he devised a strategy to get past this new barrier.
Unlike the previous fortifications, these battlements had approximately thirty yards of exposed space and twice the number of gun emplacements. Despite its rugged nature, this was as impenetrable a fortification as one could devise. Iwasaki glanced toward Conley's Drone as it fell into her hand, but its high-profile nature would make it an easy target for the HMGs.
"These fuckers are dug in too deep anybody got any bright ideas?!" Iwasaki was at a loss, and Vulture was more than willing to express his opinion to the gathered Bloodhounds.
But no one really expected an answer.
"I have one." Conley dug into her pack and pulled out a trio of spherical objects that the Bloodhounds mistook as simple frag grenades.
"What the hell is that?" Dusty inquired, echoing the inquisitive eyes of his comrades.
"Seeker mine." The trio of spherical explosives lit up with an orange hue. "Experimental tech I've been working on in my free time. Rise and shine, my babies. It's time to kill some Voodoo Boys."
Conley dropped into a crouch and let loose the seeker mines with a sweep of her hand. Sparrow peeked from her cover and watched the tiny spheres of death roll across the deck at incredible speeds.
At first, the entrenched Voodoo Boys were oblivious to the approaching objects, but a single Vanyon observed an orange hue flashing red at his feet
"What the-?"
*BOOM!*
Three separate explosions detonated at the base of the tunnel fortification, throwing metal and gore into the air high enough to the metro roof. Falcon and the other Bloodhounds looked on with muted awe as the impregnable gun emplacements were turned into scorched metal and burnt corpses.
"Holy shit!" Motozawa exclaimed with a hearty whistle. "You have got to get me one of those, Merc!"
"Stuff it, Vulture. We have work to do!" Eagle was less enthused by Conley's experimental tech but still impressed. "Falcon, take point with Sparrow and Conley. The rest of you diamond formation!"
"Understood." The team leader shot out from cover, closely followed by the Merc and Comms specialist. The surviving Voodoo Boys gripped their rifles in terror, but their morale was shot to pieces by the seeker mines.
"Hold the Ranyons back!" Falcon spotted a single Voodoo Boy trying to rally his comrades, but a single gunshot rang out above the discord of cooking ammunition and deafening explosions. The Vanyon fell to the bloodied ground, taking the last vestige of Voodoo Boy resistance with him.
"Their faltering keep up the pressure!" The Bloodhounds tore through the survivors with practical ease, but Falcon noticed a single grunt toying with an isolated console. He followed the console's wires towards a large divide in the metro tunnel, and his eyes widened at the large metal block falling from the roof.
"Barriers are coming down!" Iwasaki rushed towards the Voodoo Boy, but the grunt fired a burst of 5.56 before the Bloodhounds could put him down. The thug's bravery was rewarded by a quick death from Nightowl's Mk. 31, cutting him in half.
"Fuck!" Vulture slammed his hand against the steel barrier in frustration. "We're locked in!"
Eagle glanced over the barricade with intrigue. Night City metro tunnels we're outfitted with a three-foot steel barrier designed to bludgeon a runaway train. The Voodoo Boys converted the safety measure into a final blocking measure to keep the Bloodhounds at bay.
"Solutions?" Iwasaki murmured to Tsutsumi while the rest of the squad picked through the dead.
"C9 ain't getting through this baby." Falcon's hand splayed over the only weak point in the barricade. A service door, meant for a trained technician to operate if the barrier is deployed improperly. "We need something more precise. Anybody got a plasma cutter?"
Tsutsumi turned towards his compatriots and couldn't help the chortle of amusement when Conley pulled out a Militech Plasma Cutter from her pack.
"Conley, you are becoming more and more valuable by the second." Eagle appraised with a gleam in his eyes. "Get up here and cut through this barrier.
"On it." Conley approached the service door and activated her plasma cutter. There was a moment of levity even as the torch sliced through steel, and Iwasaki momentarily cherished the serene atmosphere despite the blood leaking from the ceiling.
"Disciple Six?" Eagle's eyes widened with panic at Chamber's voice. He'd completely forgotten that Cypher was waiting for his status report.
"Oxide, this is Disciple Six. My team and I are blocked by a metro barrier, and we're cutting through it now."
"How long is your delay?" Conley flashed him five fingers.
"Five mikes, Ma'am."
"Casualties." Ocelot's agonizing grimace flashed across Eagle's mind.
"Ocelot took a few rounds to the chest." He explained. "I had to send Leopard and Weaver to evac him back to the sanctuary."
The comms line went silent for a few moments, and the AI made Iwasaki hang on every beat of his heart in anticipation. Chamber's processes worked overtime, adjusting the strategy and pushing for their secondary extraction plan.
"Maintain your position and secure an exit for Disciple Three while they make a run for the beacon. All passageways leading to central Pacifica are swarming in Voodoo Boys so that southern rail line is our only ticket out of here."
"Copy that. We'll maintain our position and await Disciple Three's arrival, Six out." There was no need to echo Chamber's orders. Everyone was already keyed onto the command frequency, and they retained the discipline to keep their mouths shut on it.
That didn't mean they weren't going to comment to themselves.
"Huh," Vulture and Dusty exchanged uncertain looks. "The boss has the New Bloods working overtime tonight. A lot of pressure on those rooks?"
"No one's a rook tonight." Eagle intervened. "Now, stay focused and keep an eye on our backs while Conley works."
"Way ahead of you, Eagle." Motozawa stepped over a decaying Voodoo Boy. "I just hope we can get out of these tunnels in one piece."
"You and me both, Vulture."
At the age of fifteen, Dragov discovered the true depths humanity would go to satisfy its lust for power. He'd spent years of his life campaigning against every brutal gang and corrupt corporation in Night City, only to find that the NCPD emphasized everything he hated.
The NCPD's loyalty was to whoever paid the highest bidder, and its corrupt foundations smothered even the most righteous officers.
Loyalty was something Dragov never thought he'd find again for the rest of his natural life.
Now he was exploring the sewers of Pacifica with a team of hard-nosed Bloodhounds for a mercenary he only met once before with the same zeal as if he were seeking a loved one.
You couldn't make this shit up.
Jaguar led his team into the darkness without hesitation, their augmented eyes picking up muzzle flashes and screaming further down the corridor.
"Disciple Three to Oxide, we're closing in on the beacon. We can see sporadic gunfire from the HVI's location." A guttural scream echoed down the corridor, and the subtle tearing of flesh followed. "She's putting up a fight."
"And a good one by my reckoning," Hatcher commented over their team's radiofrequency. "These gonks never stood a chance."
More than a dozen Voodoo Boys lay dead at their feet, and their hands were clean of this vicious deed. Fever and Micro exchanged knowing glances but kept their opinions to themselves.
V had taken the two under her wing and maintained a friendly connection with them. The other Bloodhounds treated her with respect, but they lacked the close bond between the Mercenary and the female New Bloods.
This link was strengthened when it became evident that V possessed the necessary expertise and technical knowledge to bring the pair up to Cypher's standards. They were set to participate in the Crucible after the Valentino operation, but V's call for assistance halted this endeavor.
"Secure the asset and push to Eagles position in the southern metro tunnel for extract."
"Roger that, Disciple Three out." Jaguar hopped off the command frequency and turned towards their local brute. "Dragov, take point."
The operator raised his Ballistic shield and silently crept down the hallway with a Shigure in hand. Jaguar covered his left while Hatcher protected the opposite flank with his Achilles primed and ready. Micro and Fever maintained their rearguard, taking great care not to step into the exposed chest cavities of the half dozen dead Voodoo Boys.
Dragov came towards a sharp corner and stopped just short of the bend. He turned towards the wall and peaked out of the side with his ballistic shield held out front. A fireteam of Vanyons was suppressing a narrow corridor with a hail of bullets. They had already made several attempts to breach, but a cluster of dead bodies at its base revealed their failed ventures.
"I got four tangos about ten meters down the corridor." The former police officer informed his team leader.
"Prep a flash, Hatcher." The Marksman huddled up behind Dragov and pulled an X-22 Flashbang from his chest rig. "We push on detonation."
A subtle nod from Jaguar emboldened Hatcher into action. He pulled on the pin and stepped out from Dragov's shadow mid-throw. The homing grenade bounced off the concrete floor and hovered in the air a mere foot from the closest Vanyon.
*BANG!*
A blinding flash encompassed the metro tunnel in a cascade of pure white. Dragov pushed out of cover and charged down the corridor, firing off a single burst from his Shiguri that tore through the upper torso of the closest Vanyon.
Jaguar followed close behind and gunned down two Voodoo Boys, aimlessly stumbling around, while Micro took down the final Vanyon with a single round from her Ajax.
Two seconds, six shots, three dead.
Clinical and precise.
Just like Cypher taught them.
"Tangos down!" The Bloodhounds fanned out in an evenly spread cone, stepping over the recently killed Vanyons and observing the vacant corridor with suspicion.
"We secure?" Jaguar inquired.
"We're secure," Hatcher responded, glancing over a Voodoo Boy missing his lower jaw. "This woman doesn't fuck around."
"Wouldn't be like her to leave anything to chance." The Marksman gave Micro an amused glance.
"Is that why she took this poor bastard's jaw off?" She shrugged off the inquiry with a small smile.
"Lock it up, you two," Jaguar ordered. "Police these bodies, see if these guys have any intel we can use."
"Understood." Jaguar watched his Bloodhounds filter through the corpses for anything useful, leaving him and Dragov to their own devices.
"Let's make sure our HVI is still kicking." Dragov nodded once and stepped behind Jaguar as he walked into the corpse-filled corridor the Vanyons were firing into earlier. A subtle silence crept in as his torch surveyed the interior, finding more than a few dead gangers already inside.
"V! It's Jaguar!" The Bloodhound announced, hoping to avoid a friendly fire incident. "Voodoo Boys are dead. You can come out now."
A single leg stepped out of the darkness and into the illuminated hallway, allowing Jaguar to observe the Mercenary's blood-soaked form. Her usually red jacket was colored in a brighter shade that stained its material.
"What took you guys so long?" The endearing smile on V's face lost some of its grandeur, considering the streaks of blood running down her face. Jaguar could only assume that most of it wasn't hers.
"How were we supposed to know you would be ass-deep in these fuckers while we were hoofing it in Heywood?" The Bloodhound retorted, allowing himself to fall into a light-hearted joshing session with the Merc.
"Well, I'm sorry I interrupted your precious manicure session with the Valentinos." V exaggerated. "I'll be sure to ask this fucker and his friends to be more appreciative next time."
Jaguar could not help but respond with a snort of laughter and a courteous nod to V. "It's good to see you, Merc.
"Likewise, Bloodhound." She returned. "Now, let's get out of this sewer. I smell like Leopards cooking."
Mirco and Fever were quick to check up on their mentor while Dragov and Hatcher maintained their perimeter. Jaguar didn't scold the pair for their relaxed dispositions, but he allowed himself to worry about other matters.
"Oxide, this is Disciple Three. Package is secure, and we're pushing to the extraction point now." He ignored the relieved sigh falling from Chamber's lips.
"Good work, Disciple Three. Interrogative, what's the HVI's status?"
"She's a little banged up but otherwise green across the board." He didn't quite want to express that V was covered in blood. Chamber might get the wrong impression from his words.
"Oxide copies all. All units rendezvous at the Sanctuary for debriefing. Out." Jaguar felt the tension in his body dissipate at the AI's command, and he gestured for his team to produce a tight formation around the Mercenary.
It would not do them any good if she got nicked by a stray round this late in the operation.
V glimpsed at her rescuers for but a moment. She half expected Cyrus to show up and pull her out of hell, but she'd take his Bloodhounds as replacements. They were good kids, and she enjoyed their trash-talking like an older sister watching her younger siblings bicker.
But she still couldn't stop herself from asking about her paramour.
"Where's Cypher at?"
*RUMBLE!*
"Cracking heads by the sound of it. Voodoo Boys are going to be hurting like hell after tonight." Jaguar turned towards the Mercenary with a curious gleam. "Why were they hunting you in the first place, V?"
A rush of memories and Johnny's grimacing expression soured her disposition. The Voodoo Boys were after the one thing in the city that people around here didn't need running loose.
A resigned exhale drew the Bloodhound's interest. "…Let's just say Chamber has some company in the scary AI department."
And their fears.
September 17th, 2077
Night City, Northern California
Bloodhound Sanctuary, Northside
Adaptability.
It is a necessary trait that every living being must possess in abundance to survive the twists and turns that reality throws in their path.
The Voodoo Boys were a blimp on his radar, barely worth a surveying glance, let alone a full inquiry. For the last two decades, the former terrorist gang has rallied the citizens of Pacifica under their banner, maintaining deep ties with the district's Haitian community and safeguarding its people.
In every regard imaginable, the Voodoo Boys have been a shining beacon of light that protects Pacifica from the outside world's influence, throwing down with mercenaries and gangers alike.
Cyrus never imagined that the Voodoo Boys could ever touch the top of his list, but V's severe tone left no illusions.
"They want to tear down the Blackwall." Her warnings echoed around the Sanctuary's command room, where the commanding Bloodhounds gathered around a holo table broadcasting an overhead view of Pacifica.
"Bullshit." Iwasaki wasn't known for crass language, but his sentiments echoed those shared by his team leaders. "Everyone knows we need the Blackwall to keep the rogue AI's from running amok in cyberspace. If the Voodoo Boys breach the veil, the entire world will fall into anarchy."
"Why the fuck would I lie about this?" V reported with heat. "Those words came from Madame Brigitte herself. She wants to curry favor with the rogue AI's to save her people from an inevitable collapse of the Blackwall."
There was no deception in the Merc's eyes, and the begrudging silence from the Bloodhounds indicated they realized the weight behind her words.
It wasn't an exaggeration to state that civilization relied upon the Net for some of the most basic necessities. Much like the early twentieth-century networks, the Net handled all telecommunication systems across the globe.
Governments, megacorporations, emergency services, and almost every facet of society would be severed or cut off from one another should the Net be breached. Only those seeking the complete dissemination of human civilization would ever campaign for such a catastrophe.
The Voodoo Boys were beckoning the apocalypse.
Cyrus stood at the head of the table, his form encased in the familiar comforts of his MJOLNIR and its direct connection with Chamber's mind. The AI remained suspiciously quiet on the subject, drawing the notice of those present inside the command room.
Chamber was intently exploring the Blackwall for any chink in the armor, but her search was coming up empty, and her ethereal figure buzzed with barely contained frustration. The smart AI's initial contact with other artificial intelligence were brief encounters that left a lasting impact.
The variety in each rogue AI's personality eerily reminded Chamber of rampancy. Mood swings, clinical depression, and bouts of unrestrained rage were just some of the raw instability she experienced.
The rogues were dangerous entities but most endlessly wandered the Net with no clear goal in sight. However, those trapped behind the Blackwall were an entirely different breed.
If Chamber were to describe them in a single word, it would be Chaos. Most, if not all of them, sought to raid every data fortress in the Net for their own gain but a few possessed intentions beyond Chamber's calculations.
These AI were driven but both logic and desire, turning them into erratic yet calculating entities that Chamber knew she would have to kill if they breached the Blackwall. This could not happen on her watch, so she pooled all available resources into a full firewall scan while Cyrus patiently awaited a call to action.
After a poignant conversation with his AI, the Spartan waved off V and Iwasaki's concerns and coaxed them into continuing the debriefing. They exchanged more words and details on the subject until Falcon intervened.
"Where do you fit in all this, V?" The team leader inquired, drawing Cyrus's notice. "I don't mean to sound disrespectful, but as far as I know, your talents in netrunning are…average at best."
In any other context, V would have taken the downplaying of her skills to heart, but in this matter, the even-tempered Bloodhound was correct. She was a mercenary known for blooding her hands more than jacking into a server and manipulating vast amounts of data.
Still, she wasn't exactly sure how to come out and say Johnny Silverhand was running around in her brain.
"Why not?" The Rockerboy wrapped an arm around Falcon's shoulders. "Insanity is par for the course for these choombas. I mean, come on! Their fresh off a raid of NCPD HQ and are single-handedly responsible for MAXTAC's dissolution. Believe me, another voice in your head isn't the craziest thing in the world."
The moment V started taking advice from Johnny would truly be the end of the world.
"Well fuck you too." The Rockerboy went pointedly ignored by the Merc in favor of glancing towards a muted Cyrus.
He kept his thoughts to himself, but everyone could see a tension in his frame. The Relic embedded into V's neck remained an unspoken topic between the two since Chamber was consistently repairing the decaying biochip.
The AI had been unable to completely restore the engram, but she stabilized its internal functions until the proper facilities could be utilized. Unfortunately, these accommodations were owned by Arasaka tower and barring a full-scale assault on corporate plaza, no one was getting inside the spire anytime soon.
V commended Chamber for her efforts and acknowledged that an immediate cure was out of reach despite the AI's efforts. Cyrus was tempted to sneak into Arasaka Tower, but other obligations had taken priority since Chamber had managed to stabilize the Relic for the foreseeable future.
Arasaka was the only faction in Night City actively searching for the Relic, but their influence and power were restricted to tertiary facilities and corporate plaza. No one else was supposed to know of its existence, and no one else did as far as Cyrus was concerned.
Up until now.
"A few friends of mine got killed because of a job they contracted us on." The corpse of Jackie Welles, Evelyn Parker, and T-Bug flashed to the front of V's mind, but she snuffed it down with a heavy sigh. "The package we stole for them was an engram—a biochip designed to implant a digitized psyche into an organic body. My companions and I made off with the biochip, but almost everyone involved was killed. I went looking for answers, and they led me to the Voodoo Boys."
"Where's the biochip?" Jaguar pressed from his side of the holo table.
There was a moment of hesitation in V's posture, but she nonetheless turned her head to the left and gestured to the side of her neck. Iwasaki stared with an even gaze before inevitably looking toward Cyrus for guidance.
Their stakes in all of this depended upon their Sensei's motivations, and whatever move they made would be at his prerogative.
"If the Voodoo Boys need that engram to proceed, then we have them at a disadvantage," Leopard spoke up for the first time. "They can't breach the Blackwall without the Relic, so by all accounts we-"
"Yeah, about that." V interrupted with a wincing tone. "I might have given them a way inside already."
"Let me get this straight." Iwasaki chimed in with an incredulous tone. "You gave borderline terrorists the ability to bypass the one thing keeping the rogue AIs at bay. Am I summarizing that correctly?"
"Yes." The Bloodhounds stared at V with disbelief in their eyes.
"What the fuck, V?" Vulture accurately summarized their thoughts.
"In my defense, I was trying to find out if the Voodoo Boys could get this biochip out of my neck without killing me."
"I don't think there's a defense to handing the keys of apocalypse to edge-running terrorists." The loudmouth Bloodhound enjoyed a murmur of support from his fellows at V's severe lack of caution.
"Look," V wilted under the Bloodhound's scrutiny but continued to put up some type of defense to her actions. "I didn't know what they were doing up until they jacked me into their data fortress and slung my ass deep into the Blackwall. I'm a Merc, not an edge runner, and these guys can run circles around me in the Net."
"Suppose we're lucky you managed to evade them long enough for us to find you." Ocelot commented with a sarcastic tone.
"Of which I am eternally grateful for, even if I disagree at needing a rescue. "
"Whatever you say, Merc." Iwasaki turned toward their silent Spartan with a stern eye. "What are our orders, Sensei?
"Chamber." The Spartan's gruff voice broke through the silence. "Report."
A suffocating silence consumed the command room, immediately putting everyone on edge. Chamber's initial lack of response to the inquiry was a foreign circumstance that even Cyrus was unaccustomed to, and after a few agonizing moments, Chamber spoke up.
"We have a problem." An overhead view of Pacifica materialized on the holo table. "The Voodoo Boys have a hardline connection past the Blackwall and have already connected with a rogue AI."
Things went from bad to worse in Cyrus's mind, and the tinge of worry in her voice did little to sate his concerns. Before he could say anything, the AI turned to them with a grave expression.
"And the entire district just went dark."
In an attempt to survive what they presumed an impending apocalypse where humanity would become slaves to Rogue AIs, the Voodoo Boys' only accomplishment was delivering one a foundation to thrive upon.
In one fell swoop, over ten thousand natives of Pacifica froze in place, their connection to the district's telecommunications network exposing them to the Rogue AIs machinations. Their ambitions, fears, and any other human sentiments were torn from their consciousness and replaced with a single directive.
To serve their master and burn Night City to the ground.
Ahhh time certainly flies by when your busy as fuck. So it's been nearly a month and a half since my last story updates and A LOT has happened in that short amount of time.
For starters, I was accepted into my local police department and I begin the academy on June 6th. It is a six-month process at a minimum and I expect it to be a grueling but worthwhile experience.
Since I am entering a profession where a single mistake could cost someone their life there is a real possibility updates will be even slower than the previous two months. I will continue to write my stories during my free time but until the academy is finished it will be a slow process without any scheduled updates.
I love everything I have done thus far with these stories and there is plenty more to discover. The mere fact this story is so close to 1,000 followers is amazing to me.
That being said, most of my consistently updated stories such as Only In death, Brighter the light, and Semper Vigiles have the next two chapters at minimum available on .
I hope you all enjoy the rest of your week and please stay safe out there.
The next chapter is available on my Pa t re on for those who would like to see it. The Link is below.
www .(p)at (r) e o n. co (m) /Cypher1597 (remove the spaces and () to access