01000011 01111001 01100010 01100101 01110010
Night City Legends
Act 2: Running along the Edge
Chapter Seventeen: Suits Run When I Come Undone
01000011 01111001 01100010 01100101 01110010
-xXx-
A couple hours later…
-xXx-
Sitting at the terminal in their apartment, Gloria busied herself with making sure the bills were covered, checking her messages to ensure building management sent her a confirmation so that the greedy gonks couldn't try to pull a fast one. Most of it she could do with her eyes closed, having done this for years so when nothing looked off she let her mind wander. Usually about work or her newest 'acquisition' while on the job but none of that came to mind at the moment, the only thing she caught herself thinking about was her strange new neighbor…
Uzumaki Naruto.
He was… different, not just with his clothing choice but the way he treated people. David mentioned that he helped folks, that he was the one changing things around the mega building for the better, but seeing him earlier today just put it all into perspective.
Their 'date' had been pretty awkward for her at first, having been out of that particular scene for years and she really didn't know how to go about it but she had to admit that even though it was just a early dinner and a few drinks, she had a pretty good time and could see herself going out with him again.
Clicking through her messages again, she double checked to make sure that David's school hadn't sent anything and switched over to her 'other' banking account and did some mental calculations. It was enough to be comfortable for a couple months or so until she ran across some new chrome on the streets.
Her mind drifted again…
She figured that Naruto had a reputation around the building due to what he'd been up to but she didn't know that he was known around the city too. When he confronted those two guys she was sure that it was going to come to blows and that someone was going to end up hurt but amazingly they backed down. She hadn't heard everything that was said but they apologized to the vendor and ran off pretty quickly.
The blond had looked pretty embarrassed when he came back over, stopping to speak with a few local vendors that met him before he got too far. She'd been able to hear a bit more of that convo, apparently the two gonks he chased off had been causing issues around the building and they were glad someone stood up to them.
"Hey mom!" She was so absorbed in her thoughts she had missed the door to her left opening up, only snapping out of it after hearing her baby's voice.
"Hey Mijo," she greeted with a smile, turning to look at the teen as he walked in, "How was your day?" The woman blinked at what he was wearing.
"It was pretty good mom," he was wearing a pair of black shorts with an orange stripe down the side along with an orange tee-shirt that was wet and darkened with sweat. "I didn't see you when I got home, you have to work late?"
"No, I got home a few hours ago," she admitted while trying to remember if she'd bought those clothes for him sometime a while back. "When did you get those?"
Looking down at his sweat soaked shirt, he gave her a sheepish look, "Ah, I got them to work out in." the teen admitted, "Got them from the lady selling clothes at the Manufactory a while back, they weren't much and I had some eddies saved up from…"
Seeing him trail off with an embarrassed look on his face, Gloria shook her head, "Dee, what did I tell you about skipping meals at school?" she wondered when they'd have to have this conversation about him trying to save some eddies by not using what she gave him. Yeah things were tough from time to time but they were in a good spot financially for now and he was a growing young man. "You promised me mijo,"
He frowned at the look she gave him, feeling like a little shit. He couldn't tell her that he had a side gig at school selling XBDs at school to those uppity corpo gonks, that definitely wouldn't go over too well. She would wear out her slipper whooping him if she found out he was doing something like that which could get him in a ton of trouble with both the school and law, "I'm sorry mom," both for lying and making her worry.
Standing up from the desk, she gave him a quick hug and ruffled his hair, much to his annoyance, "Just don't do it anymore ok?" it was a request she'd made every time but he always seemed to break later, but as annoying as it was, she knew where his mind was and felt a little proud that he was trying to help. "Why don't you go and take a shower?" Gloria made a face as he pulled away, "Before you start smelling,"
Sniffing himself, David shrugged, "I don't smell anything,"
"Boys," his mother muttered, rolling her eyes, "You will if you don't go shower, now move it Dee. I re-upped the shower already so we got plenty of hot water,"
"Ok mom,"
"Toss your clothes out here and I'll throw them in the wash," she returned to the terminal and logged off as he went into the small bathroom they shared, leaning around the corner a minute later to toss his clothes out to her before hopping in the shower. "By the way, when did you start working out?"
"Ah not too long ago." he called back over the sound of the shower running, "Naruto's been helping me out,"
'He has?' looking down at the shorts and shirt, she could definitely see the blond's influence and gave a little smile at the thought. David definitely didn't have a good male role model growing up and there were definitely worse guys for him to look up to so she wouldn't pry. Then she smiled and shook her head as she carried the bundle over to the washing machine, 'I wonder what he would say if he knew his new choom took me out on a date today?'
*BEEP*
'Hmm?' tossing his clothes into the machine with a few others and starting it for a small wash, the redhead accessed her holo and pulled up her messages, 'speak of the devil,' she mused with a little smile while seeing the blonds name.
[N: Sorry about the mess during dinner,] she shook her head and snorted, he'd apologized twice already but like he'd said before, he'd done the right thing by helping that man so she didn't hold it against him. [N: I had a good time though, maybe we can do it again sometime?] Heading back into the main area of their one room apartment, she laid another set of clothing down on the bathroom sink for David then sat on the couch as a sense of girlish giddiness washed over her.
'He wants to go out again!' she grinned to herself at the thought, feeling a bit more self confident. Sure she'd been catcalled a few times on the job and propositioned more than she'd ever care to remember but the blond was definitely a cut above the gonks that tried getting into her pants before. [G: I think I'd like that] She sent back after a minute, shaking her head at herself as she retyped it out a couple times when the previous ones didn't seem right.
By that time, David came out of the bathroom, wearing one of his plain white tee shirts and a pair of gray sweatpants with his towel hanging over his neck, "Whatcha up to mom?" he called over, seeing her eyes lit up as she was connected to the holo.
"Oh nothing Mijo, just returning a message from a choom."
-xXx-
Pacing along the floor in one of the cities many rundown piss stained apartments that littered the city, Meredith Stout idly looked around at the squalor some worthless gonk lived in while smoking a cigarette. Something crunched with each step she took, be it food, a roach, or a buck-a-slice box and she just couldn't understand how someone chose to live like this.
"AHHHH!"
Ignoring the scream coming from the other room, the corpo thumped the ashes onto the floor without care and glanced around at the other occupants in the room. Standing next to the door and looking like he'd rather be anywhere but here, her assistant Julien tried to ignore the screaming coming from the other room but couldn't hide the nervous twitches he got with every fresh cry of pain.
On the other side of the door one of her bodyguards, a ten year vet with Militechs own private armed forces, stood at ease with his weapon holstered at his side. He was a tank of a man with plenty of combat chrome and soft packed into his body which bulged with an impressive amount of synthmuscle giving him an unreal amount of bulk and strength compared to what a regular soldier boasted.
"Stout, I keep telling you that you're barking up the wrong tree! I don't have anything to do with that missing shipment!" Glancing down, she glared coldly at the final occupant of the room. Looking worse for wear, Anthony Gilchrist was laying on the floor with his hands cuffed behind his back, a swollen eye and a busted lip.
"AHH PLEASE, THAT'S ALL I KNOW!" They all glanced over to the door where the scream came from before she turned back to the restrained corpo who was staring at the closed, graffiti-covered door with wide eyes as the smell of melting plastic reached his nose.
"You keep saying that but you have nothing to prove your innocence," she replied while looking down at him like he was one of the roaches that skittered across the floor, "You had access to the deets, routes, security personal, dates, and times… and lets not forget that recent deposit that went into your accounts,"
"You pulled my banking information?" he spat out, glaring at her with his one open eye, "That's against protocol! You can't just do whatever you want because you can't do your job and keep track of your shipments!"
She blew a cloud of smoke down at him, "I'm cleared to use whatever means I see fit to find that missing convoy," the woman mused, looking down at him with a raised eyebrow, "Not only that but-"
"AHHH!"
Meredith closed her eyes and let out a breath at being interrupted, "Not only that, but I'm also cleared to liquidate you as soon as I find the last bit of proof I need." the look on his face as she said that made her smirk. "That's right Gilchrist, I don't know who covered for your last fuck up but that isn't happening this time."
*BEEP*
"Hm?" checking her holo, she found an unknown number trying to contact her, the profile icon and number both being restricted. She could figure out who it was pretty easy back at the office if she had to later if they didn't identify themselves. Connecting, she accepted the call and waited for the vid feed to connect, "Stout here, start by telling me how-" As the feed popped in, her eyes widened.
Blond hair, blue eyes, and three whisker-like marks on each cheek, it was him. Naruto Uzumaki, the gonk she'd been hunting down for the past few months.
[Hey there Stout] the blond greeted with a gonk ass grin on his face as he waved at her through the holos vid feed, [I hear that you're looking for a few things around the city.]
"Uzumaki Naruto," she muttered, managing to hide her shock that the man she'd been tracking down contacted her out of the blue by taking a drag off her smoke, "How did you get this number?"
He shrugged, [Let's just say I know a guy,] he answered with a little grin and a wink that made her roll her eyes and cross her arms, [But as I was saying, I hear you're missing something pretty important… or maybe I should say three somethings?]
"And what do you know about that?" She questioned, fixing him with a coldest glare she could manage.
[How about we meet up, just you and me? We can chat and see about how we could help each other out. You know, make a deal.]
"A deal?" She scoffed, shaking her head again with a huff. Closing her eyes for a moment, the woman looked thoughtful before nodding "Fine… there's an exit heading off Skyline towards the NID, storm channel under the overpass. We can meet there."
Ending the call, she took a minute to think and process what just happened. The guy she'd been looking into just up and contacts her out of the blue offering to make some sort of deal? The chances of that were far too low, did he have something to do with it? After that clusterfuck at the old power corp building she knew he had what it took to pull it off.
"Ma'am, is everything alright?"
Glancing over to Julien she grunted, "You're authorized and cleared to operate company assets correct?"
"Ah, not everything ma'am," he answered with a confused look on his face.
"Drones?"
"I've operated a Militech Wyvern before but I haven't been authorized for the Griffin."
The Militech Wyvern was a small combat drone developed to be small and compact enough to fit inside a briefcase or under a vehicle's seat until it was needed and equipped with a mid caliber submachine gun for whenever the occasion called for. The Griffin could be called the Wyverns aggressive bigger brother, armed with three to four guns depending on what was ordered and armored.
"When we return to the trucks get synced with the drones, you'll be covering those feeds." Turning to the door where her other prisoner was stout called out, "Wrap it up, we have another lead!"
A muffled "Yes ma'am" came from the room as she looked to her other bodyguard, "Get Gilchrist loaded up, we're moving out." The man nodded once and stepped over to the bound corpo, hoisting him up with ease before carrying him out the door. Muffled crying was heard followed by a single gunshot as she followed him out the door
-xXx-
'Meet alone in a storm drain… does she think I'm stupid or something? That's got to be number one on the list of dumb moves to make so you get ambushed,' Naruto mused while cutting the call and straddling his bike. Even though he said for them to meet alone he had a sneaking suspicion that she would show up with backup either way and honestly he was counting on it. If she wasn't alone then it would just prove to him that she wasn't to be trusted.
Not that it matters though. If they tried anything stupid then he'd take care of it.
Cranking his bike, Naruto pulled out of his parking spot and maneuvered around to the exit and out onto the street. It was getting close to rush hour and while he could easily run to the Northside industrial District the roar of his bike's engine and the wind on his face was calling to him.
'If I ever see Sid again I gotta get him something for the bike,' he thought while raising his head in greeting to Aiko who was cooking away at his stall in the late afternoon sun.
Naruto revved the engine, drawing the attention of several passersby and felt the grin spreading across his face as he started to speed down the street. He loved the thrill he felt while driving his motorcycle through the busy streets, weaving in and out of traffic, dodging cars and pedestrians. He felt even more alive and free, like nothing could stop him.
Hitting the bridge out of Santo and into Heywood, a flash of lights caught the blonds attention and made him glance at his mirror. A police car pulled in behind him on the street, flashing its lights while the sound of his engine drowned out the siren. The side panel of the cop's car flashed an angry red when he didn't stop and kept going.
Hitting his brakes and leaning hard into a turn, Naruto quickly let off and pulled back on the throttle as he shot off down the road, the cops cruiser struggling to round the corner suddenly but managing to keep him in sight.
Up ahead, a group of Valentinos noticed him and saw the cops a little ways behind him. They cheered him on as he passed by, one even jumping on the hood of their car to get a better look, throwing insults at the cops as they passed by.
'Alright time to lose 'em,' he thought after a bit, having had his fun leading the NCPD cruiser on a merry chase around a few blocks. Spotting a busy intersection up the road, Naruto saw a gap between two trucks and decided to take it, hoping to save some time and lose his pursuer. He leaned forward and squeezed his bike through the narrow space, barely avoiding a collision and feeling a rush of exhilaration as he made it to the other side.
Laughing, the ninja glanced back to see the squad car slam on breaks behind the two trucks, honking their horn as he got further away. He thought about yelling something back at them but settled for raising his arm and giving them the finger.
He'd been pulled over once before not too long ago, finding out firsthand just how corrupt the cops were. Since he didn't have a license, the officer threatened to impound his bike and took the chance to extort the blond, offering to look the other way in return for 'the proper paperwork'. A few hundred Eddie's later, the cop left him alone with a smirk that made him want to knock the pigs teeth out.
The burnt orange bike growled as he quickly left Heywood and crossed over into the City Center, or Corpo Plaza to be exact on his way towards Watson, passing by Reconciliation park as he did so. He did his best not to attract too much attention through the plaza, not only were there a few more cops here but corpo security also kept a presence here to protect their corporate interests.
As he drove towards the bridge, Naruto let his mind wander a bit and cursed, he'd promised Misty that he'd call Jackie and almost completely forgot. Pulling up at a stop light, he quickly found his chooms contact and gave him a call while waiting for the light to change, he didn't have to wait too long as Jackie picked up just as the light changed.
[Naruto, 'mano it's good to hear from you.] Jackie had a grin on his face over the small vid feed when he picked up, [Heard Kirk tried to stiff you for a job.]
"Hey Jackie, yeah I think I'm gonna avoid any gigs from Kirk for a while, that's the second time he's tried that." he grumbled before passing a slow moving MaiMai on the road that honked its horn at him.
[You'd think he'd learn after what you did to him last time.] the man chuckled, leaning back and crossing his arms, [Pepe said he's been looking a little nervous around the bar. Thinks you might be coming to fuck with him sometime,]
"Why's he think that?" the blond asked, raising an eyebrow at the shit eating grin Jackie had on his face.
[Well…] the man paused for a moment to laugh a little, [Me and Pepe's been fucking with him about it, told him you were still pissed and thinking about teaching him a lesson. Gonk actually missed a meeting with a client the first day cause he thought you were after him.]
That made Naruto laugh, "Dude that's awful… keep fucking with him."
[Hehe, will do] he gave the blond a thumbs up, [So what's up 'mano?]
"I went by Viks earlier today and talked to Misty… oh and when were you gonna tell me you two were together by the way?" he questioned, getting a bit sidetracked and making Jackie rub the back of his head with a sheepish grin. "Anyway, I was talking to Misty and she said you rushed out in a hurry. I just wanted to make sure you were ok."
Jackie blinked and looked touched for a moment before chuckling, [Yeah Holmes, I'm nova. Choom of mine is having some trouble with her corpo gig though…] he looked around for a moment and continued with a lower tone, [You know that 'Saka bigwig that got zeroed a couple days back?] that made the blond blink as he came up to another stoplight and stopped, [Well her and a bunch of her corpo colleagues are being investigated now. I won't go into it over the holo but she was freaking out]
That made Naruto's eyes widen, he actually missed the light turning green and was jolted out of it when the car behind him, the same MaiMai he'd passed earlier blew its horn at him, "She gonna be ok?" he asked, twisting the throttle and waving to the guy behind him apologetically. He was pretty sure that the guy Jackie mentioned was the same one he'd killed a few days back, Amelia's father Francis Bennett and if that got Jackie's friend in trouble he'd have to do something to make things right.
[Not too sure honestly, she's nervous but doesn't think she'll be in trouble… unless someone tries to frame her that is.]
"But she didn't have anything to do with the guy being killed,"
The man nodded on the other end of the holo, not even questioning how he knew that, [Yeah, but the corpo world's fucking vicious like that] he huffed, [Tried getting her to leave that soulless corpo hell and join us on the edge but she's sticking with it,] Knowing that his actions had put one of Jackie's friends in a bad spot, Naruto felt like an ass and decided that if she ever needed any help with something he'd try and pay her back. She was a friend of Jackies so she couldn't be a bad person right? [Anyway, what're you up to 'mano? Why not come over to the bar and chill? We can make Kirk shit himself hehehe,]
"Eh, I'd like to," he grumbled again in return, nearing the bridge over the river that would take him into Watson, "Got some stuff to take care of though."
[Damn Holmes, you working a gig or something?]
"Something like that,"
[Want some help?]
Thinking about it, Naruto almost agreed before shaking his head, "Nah, I appreciate it but I got it handled," he didn't want Jackie getting tangled up with this. This situation he was in was all his doing so he'd be the one to clean it up. No need to drag his friend into it and risk his life, "I'm actually on the way to meet with someone about it,"
[Alright 'mano, I won't hold you up but listen, seriously let me know if you need anything ok?]
"You got it Jackie,"
[Later choom,]
"Later choom,"
-xXx-
Looking over at his mainline as she sat on the ragged couch in the middle of their garage hideout, Maine stepped over and leaned across the back to peer over her shoulder, "You know… it might be some time before Sasha and Kiwi locate that bike," he whispered lowly into her ear, his arm snaking around her shoulder and lightly caressing her cheek.
"Mmm?" Dorio hummed with a little laugh as she slowly turned her head towards him and saw him wiggle his eyebrows suggestively which made her laugh. "And what do you suggest we do then?" She questioned playfully before he leaned in and captured her lips with his, getting another hum from her as they kissed.
His hand left her cheek and slid its way over the purple collar of her black coat, slipping underneath to grope her chest, earning a little moan from her as they broke apart. "I got a few ideas," he smirked before leaning down again to kiss her neck.
"Hey Becca stop fuckin with my shit!"
"Your shit!" There was a clatter and both glanced over to, "You gonked on glitter again? I brought this shit with me!"
"Yeah, I put it in with your shit so I wouldn't have to carry it myself!"
The two of them stared at each other for a moment as several loud bangs and curses came from the other room, "should we-" Maine cut her off before she could continue with another kiss.
"Becca hasn't started shooting yet, let's just ignore the kids babe," he grinned while climbing over the couch and on top of her, their combined weight making the furniture groan and creak as she smirked back at him, the thrill of screwing around with people in the other room making her blush.
"Hey what the fuck Becca! Don't throw that!" There was a loud clatter and the sound of something breaking.
"Wanna take this somewhere a little more private?" he asked after a few seconds of hearing more and more stuff being thrown, getting a nod from the woman. The thrill of screwing around with their team close by instantly wearing off as the two siblings continued to argue in the other room. Both climbed off of eachother and fixed their disheveled clothing, Maine readjusting a certain part of his anatomy and smacking her on the ass with a grin as they headed towards the door.
"Just wait till I get you alone," the woman smirked at him, giving the man a smirk that he mirrored.
"Oh I can't wait,"
-xXx-
While hacking Night City's municipal subnets was considered a crime, the city only cared about certain parts of it enough to give it more than the most basic ICE with Netwatch being paid to provide overwatch and security. Try to hack into the Mayor's office or personal subnet? You better be fucking good or have a good team in place, more than one nosy overconfident Netrunner has found themselves shortcirced by a Daemon sent by netwatch. But try to hack the live feed to the city's traffic and CCTV servers? Any half trained gonk could bypass that ICE.
Break the ICE, inject a little custom tailored soft made by yours truly then sit back and chill, all without having to deepdive and submerged yourself in ice to keep from overheating. Sasha gave the screen a catty little grin and stretched from her setup, sipping from her cold can of Nicola Sakura while watching her cyberdeck.
Her custom search program was combing through the feeds much faster than any human ever could. It was far from perfect and any results would have to be double checked but it was a start.
[S: Hey, how's it looking on your end:-p]
[K: Cracked through NCPDs internal database via their SubCon servers, getting a peek through their traffic dep. Their system is a mess, could crack this ICE with last gen software.]
[S: Workin that magic! Looking through the traffic cams myself, got my babies running through the feeds with a custom recognition algorithm. Scrolling and snaggin screen grabs of any older model bike.]
[K: It's a Harlon-Dawson Cruiser, a 2030s model… I think. ]
[S: Didn't know you knew your bikes like that. :0]
[K: ARCH is more my thing but you gotta love the classic style. Got my eye on a Nazare, pretty good deal too.]
[S: Still think we shoulda asked around and called up a infobro. Gotta be easier than this.]
[K: Yeah, but clients paying for us not to put the word out on the streets. Bikes pretty rare, be pretty suspicious if word hit the streets that he was looking for one just before it got stolen. Gotta do our own legwork this time.]
[S: How's the cutie btw? 3 Haven't seen her the last couple times the crew got together]
[K: She's been messing with her SlotPicking soft. Apparently one of the gonks she tried had some new code, stopped the eject and alerted the guy.]
[S: Warned her to stay up-to-date on soft updates and news. She get pinged?]
[K: No, but… hey I'm forwarding a report I found, references a traffic stop describing a 'old orange motorcycle' check if there's any cameras in that area.]
[S: Kay! Hey this is from over a week ago!]
[K: Hey it's better than what we got right now. If this is the right one use it as a reference for your algorithm, could narrow the search.]
[S: Ooooh :-0 ]
[K: … there's a weird amount of porn on the NCPD subnet, like creepy amounts.]
[S: Eww :| … go on :3]
[K: Pretty softcore actually, half expected to find it full of deviant shit or homemade prison porn.]
[S: pfft, funding so low they can't even afford good porn! Ooh looks like a cam caught something from that day, scrolling the data now and linking you in.]
-xXx-
The sun was low on the horizon, turning it his favorite mix of orange and purple in Night City's polluted skyline by the time he made it to his destination and pulled into a service tunnel, avoiding several half ripped bags of trash piled near the turn off as he drove. The winding tunnel partly illuminated by harsh pale red lights below the graffiti covered walls.
If there were ever a place that could be compared to his mindscape, this was it. Especially once he got a little ways down the tunnel and spotted several pipes that followed the walls. As he got to the end of the tunnel, he looked around and pulled out onto the long open concrete tunnel where a large Chevillon Ragnar SUV was parked ahead of him facing away from him.
The blond shook his head and chuckled at himself, he'd been right, she hadn't shown up alone but then again neither did he. A couple of his clones had scouted while he took his time cruising to the next tunnel, they surveyed the area and gave him a full layout within minutes. He'd skipped the exit off of Skyline that she pointed him towards and went to the next one further down just for this reason. Aside from knowing that she wasn't alone, the clones alerted him to the fact that a pair of armed drones were flying around too.
Sitting back on the seat, he watched the drones flying around and noticed one of them stop mid flight, giving it a cheery wave as it noticed him sitting on his bike behind them. It wasn't long before the vehicle quickly turned around and approached him, the drones covering and orbiting from a distance.
"Hey guys!" He called out as the doors swung open and out stepped a pair of large, heavily muscled men with cybernetic arms, each wearing dark sunglasses and wearing corpo branded tactical armor, followed by Meredith Stout smoking a cigarette and looking rather annoyed. "Hope I didn't keep you waiting,"
Stout couldn't believe he just rolled up on a fucking motorcycle like he was on some evening cruise. This guy that was supposed to be some kind of merc boogieman was sitting there waving and grinning kind a fucking gonk, like he wasnt responsible for a massacre a few months back.
Stepping off of his bike, Naruto saw one of the men starting to approach him probably to try and disarm him or something. The blond woman stayed next to her vehicle with the other guard close by standing with his hands clasped in front of him, "and here I was thinking we'd have a nice one on one chat," he called out while looking at the approaching man and meeting him halfway, surprisingly enough the man looked him up and down but didn't even try to take the pistol holstered on his thigh.
"If you think I'd come here alone then you're a goddamn fool." She grumbled, not knowing he could hear her as her guard sent a message that the blond wasn't packing anything other than his sidearm according to his scan. Walking towards him after getting the message, she looked him up and down as well before stopping a few feet ahead of him with one arm under her chest and her other holding her smoke to her lips, "So you him huh…" The thought of having her men hold him at gunpoint had crossed her mind, not only did he do some unexplainable things but he had information on her missing shipments as well but with the few guards she had… she couldn't risk it for now. "Well you said you had information on my trucks, get to it. Where are they?"
Naruto looked at her with a raised eyebrow, and laughed "Come on now, do you really think I'll just up and tell you?" He questioned "I may not be the brightest but I'm not that stupid."
She hummed, frowning at him, "Can't blame me for trying… fine you said you wanted to deal then let's deal. What do you want?"
"Meredith we both have a problem and I think we can help each other out. You're missing some trucks and don't know where they are or who has them. Not only do I know the who and where and I can even secure them as well for you."
The Corpo woman hummed at his words again, blowing smoke towards him with a raised eyebrow, "and in return you want what?"
"Well I have a problem and I think you can help me. You see, recently some Militech people have been looking into me and I kinda like my privacy." He explained making her eyes widen momentarily, "So in return for taking care of your problem-"
"I put a stop to the investigation on you. That what you want?" She questioned, cutting him off while standing in the headlights as the storm channel got darker around them with the setting sun. He nodded, making her smirk at him, "Fine, you secure my trucks and I'll make sure the investigation and search for one Naruto Uzumaki ends."
Grinning, Naruto stepped forward and held out his hand only for the guard behind him to quickly place a hand on his sidearm, ready to draw in less than a second. "Feeling jumpy dude?" He chuckled, looking over at the man while still holding out his hand to the woman. He turned back to her and looked her in the eye. "Deal?"
Stout looked at the offered hand for a moment and stuck the cigarette between her lips before grabbing the offered hand, shaking it once, "Deal."
-xXx-
From what little he knew about the Northside, it used to be a pretty well off factory sub district until some odd earthquakes took place, damaging a lot of equipment and infrastructure. After a quick cost analysis, many corporate interests decided that it was simply cheaper to abandon their factories than to pay for its repairs.
As he got closer to the factory, less than a few blocks away from his knowledge, a flash of color drew his attention causing him to double take upon seeing two men in orange monk robes sitting on a bench beside an old bus stop. There weren't too many people around the area so seeing them caught his interest and made him slow down and turn back.
As he pulled over next to the curb and killed the engine, Naruto took a moment to look at the pair. The first looked to be crying and clutching his arm which looked to be a mess of tangled wires and blood crusted metal plates to his chest. His shaved head was covered in pointed metal spikes and one eye was a glowing red optic twice as big as his actual organic eye.
The blond looked down for a moment, about to push the kickstand out with his foot when a familiar voice called out to him, "Benefactor?" Making him look up quickly to see that another monk had turned to face him, looking at him through a pair of round glasses with yellow lenses.
"You?!" He was shocked, he hadn't seen the mysterious monk since he'd returned to Night City all those months ago. Looking between the two monks, he went ahead and kicked out the kickstand and climbed off, "You guys ok?"
The other monk raised his head with a miserable look on his face, his jaw covered in jagged metal plates.
"Forgive my companion dear benefactor, he and his brother crossed paths with some rather… cruel men on their own travels." The monk told him sadly from beside his companion. "These misguided men forced cybernetics upon him-"
"Mmm," the other monk grimaced and tried to speak, the jagged plates making it hard for him to speak as poorly installed chrome not only caused him pain but physically made it hard to move his jaw, "My… brother… he… still," Seeing the pain the man was in, the joints between the poorly installed chrome wet with the monk's own blood, Naruto felt a surge of icy rage well up in his chest.
A few people passed by them, looking over at the three of them curiously before shrugging and going about their own business. Some even made offhanded comments about the chromed monk, calling him the 'Metal Monk' which made the man in question hunch over and pull his robes tighter over himself.
"Dear Benefactor, his brother is still being held by these men," the other finished for his companion sitting next to him on the bench, "I fear that he may share the same fate soon enough."
"Where are they?" The blond questioned, a dark look on his face as he looked between the two.
"These men took them to a plant a few blocks from here," Naruto's eyes widened a bit, "the former All Foods Protein Processing Plant, these men are members of Maelstrom and-"
"I think I know exactly where you're talking about," Naruto said, cutting him off with narrowed eyes. "I'm headed that way myself," that made the 'metal monk's look up at him, his one remaining 'ganic eye widening as they met his, "I'll try my best to save him and make sure they never hurt anyone else like this again."
That got a small sob out of the man, "Please," he choked out. "... don't…"
That caught the blond by surprise, he actually jerked his head back as if he'd been slapped, "You don't want me to save your brother," he questioned in shock as the man shook his head.
"No… please do…just… don't… kill"
"I believe he is asking you not to kill these men," the other man stayed, getting a grateful nod from the other and upon seeing the shocked look of confusion on the blonds face, he continued, "Yes these men have forced my companion to go against our teachings and perverted his body with chrome against his will, but to end their lives will not change what has already been done. Taking their lives will only burden his soul with guilt."
Looking at the teary eye of the monk who nodded, Naruto took a breath and nodded as well, "Fine… I'll try my best," he turned and hopped back on his bike and got ready to kickstart it again, "But if it comes down to it…"
The blond trailed off, if he had to make a choice between the monk and some Maelstrom gangoons life he would do what was needed.
The younger monk looked down but both men nodded, "All that he asks is for you to try, dear Benefactor." The monk stated calmly, lowering his head in gratitude with the other quickly following suit.
"You two gonna wait here for a while?" The area wasn't safe, he'd have a clone watch over them when he left. This area was mainly 'claimed' by Maelstrom but the lines were blurry with Tygerclaw thugs roaming around. When the older of the two monks nodded once, he knew what he needed to do.
The bike roared to life once again, the rumble of the engine echoing around the abandoned buildings as he turned and took off towards the All Foods factory once again. Leaving the two at the bus stop behind him to go and not only find the missing Militech convoy to uphold his end of the bargain with Stout but rescue the monk's brother as well.
From their seat at the bus stop, both men watched him leave for a few moments before the brutalized monk turned to the other, "Teacher… was he… the… one… you-"
"Yes dear student, he is the weary traveler I spoke of,"
-xXx-
"Jackie that's awful," Misty tried to say but couldn't hide the giggle that slipped moments prior. Whenever he was free, Jackie had made it a point to come by and hang out with her around closing time, even giving her a ride home every now and then.
The bull of a man gave her a grin from his seat on her 'chakra harmonization' chair while she sat sideways in his lap, resting her head against his while he wrapped his arms around her. "Eh Kirk deserves it," Not long after talking to Naruto, he'd come back to see her just to let her know everything was nova. That and spending time with her too…
*BEEP*
"Huh?" Connecting to his holo, Jackie's eyes lit up while Misty gave him a questioning look, "Naruto' calling."
"Want me to give you a minute?" She asked, starting to slide off his lap only for him to hold on to her.
He grinned at her and shook his head, "Nah, Just gonna see what's up…" he turned his attention back to the holo and answered it, smirking at the blonds icon. He had to wonder why Naruto left it as something that embarrassing for the world to see but to each his own, "Hey Holmes what's up?"
The blonds vid feed loaded in, showing the blonds face as he drove, [Hey Jackie, I catch you at a bad time?]
The tone of his voice told Jackie that something was up, "Nah choom, just chilling with Misty at the shop. Why what's up?"
[Need a favor, the thing I'm taking care of just got a little more complicated.]
"Need some backup?"
[Not exactly, going after some Maelstrom gonks and ran into one of their victims. A monk they kidnapped and chipped against his will.]
That made the man grimace and Misty gave him a concerned look when she saw the look her inputs face, "Holy shit choom that's fucked up,"
[The guy's brother is still there, gonna try and get to him before they do the same to him. I'll handle that but the other guy needs to see a Ripper, could you pick them up and get Vik to give him a look? I'll cover the cost.]
"Yeah Holmes I can get 'em to Vik, wait you said them?" Naruto took a moment to explain and Jackie nodded, "alright I got you… gonna have to borrow a car though, no room on my bike." Misty patted his arm, motioning for him to let her go and he did, where she slid off his lap and headed towards her counter. "Got a location?"
[I'll send it to you. Thanks Jackie]
Ending the call, he looked over to tell Misty that he had to cut their time short only to find her holding the card to her little four-door Thorton Galena hatchback with a little smile on her face, "Babe?"
Handing the card over to him, Misty gave him a peck on the lips and smiled while patting his shoulder, "Drive careful ok? I'll go help Vik get ready."
-xXx-
Just outside of Kabuki on the Northside of Watson, Naruto looked down at the All Foods factory from the rooftop of the apartment building next door. The building was just as neglected as the rest of the neighborhood with bullet riddled cars left to rust in the parking lot with battered cargo containers scattered around with Maelstrom graffiti all over the walls. He had to admit that if he hadn't known better, he'd have thought that the building was actually abandoned with the lack of lights and movement in the area. The few people brave enough to be on the streets crossed the road when they passed the building. There was no telling how many innocent people these gangoons have hurt just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, like the monk and his brother.
Another influx of memories surged through his mind as another clone dispelled, alerting him to a broken exhaust vent on the roof he could use to infiltrate the factory. Several others had been found by his other clones, all spread out around the building as both look outs and scouts gathering information.
He could storm the place with relative ease, overrun the gangoons with pure numbers but that could lead to the brother being hurt in the confusion, especially if he was opened up by whatever they have passing as a Ripperdoc. 'Gonna have to be stealthy with this one,' he mused, while crossing his arms and crouching down as he looked out over the building. 'At least until I find the monk and get him out of there.'
More memories came flooding in, one clone found a service entrance that was held shut with a simple chain and padlock, nothing he couldn't get through though. But oddly enough he hadn't seen any of the gangoons themselves. A few cameras and an auto turret here and there but no borged out gangers which struck him as odd. The other gangs in Night City made their presence known around their hideouts, did Maelstrom only use tech for their security?
'Lets see… got vents and an access hatch on the roof, some broken windows and a loading bay door up front, and that service entrance in the back…' he continued while squinting his eyes in concentration, he didn't have a ton of time to plan but then again, flying by the seat of his pants was his specialty right?
Gone were his orange pants and vest, the clothes he loved so much and in their place was what remained of his Shino gear. The old NUSA military vest was history, no telling where it ended up after he left it at Cami's Ofrenda, he knew Jackie was holding on to the broken mask so maybe he grabbed that too? Instead of a plate carrier he just wore a long sleeved black shirt with reinforced material over the elbows with Cami's mask sitting atop his head.
-xXx-
Kneeling on the harsh concrete floor, head bowed in prayer, Ishibashi repeated his teacher's mantra softly over and over again while awaiting to share in his brother's fate. These men, more chrome than flesh, found humor in what they were doing and took delight in showing him what they'd done to his newfound brother Bhikkhu. Laughing at their anguish and tears.
"Don't worry choom!" the monk couldn't stop himself from trembling as he looked up to see one of the leaders grinning at him through the glass security door keeping him trapped, "After we're done chipping in some new chrome we'll decide on what to give you, hehehe, no sense in letting out old chrome go to waste now is it?" The man was much bigger than the others, the upper part of his face removed and replaced with a harsh glowing optic glaring at him through the glass.
"Hey Royce, Brick wants ya!" someone called from further away, making the beast of a man growl and groan.
"Ugh, course he fuckin does." he snarled under his breath before turning back to the monk, "Don't go anywhere, I'll be back soon enough. Hehehe," Ishibashi shuddered as the beastly man left and pulled his robes a bit tighter as he listened to the footsteps fade away into the distance.
-xXx-
"Hey Dum Dum, hear we scored pretty fucking big with that last truck."
Walking down a hallway a pair of heavily chromed men made their way through the upstairs administration offices used as a place to crash or get gonked out of their minds on whatever they had on hand. The place was falling a part thanks to Hisler losing his shit a while back, fucker went cyberpsycho and set half the damn floor on fire before setting off a bunch of grenades.
"Fuck yeah we did," Dum Dum chuckled, his voice crackling a bit which made him curse, "Fucking squawk box," he poked at the wires and tech attached to his throat, "But yeah, Kaisers got his in a fuckin knot over all the cyber we klepped from that convoy. NUSA Military grade chrome worth millions,"
The other gangoon grinned, his synthflesh looking pale and leathery compared to most peoples. "I got my eye on that targeting chip, yeah it's for a one of the autoguns but fuck it, I can make it work."
"..."
"Dum Dum?" the man turned and looked back down the wartorn hallway they'd been walking down, "The fuck you go choom?" He stepped forward towards a nearby doorway, the remaining pieces of what used to be the door laying against the opposite wall. "If your trying to scare me you fucker then it ain't gonna work."
Each step he took seemed to echo and the hall seemed a lot more quite than he remembered, "Hey I aint fucking playing you gonk! Dum Dum!" Something moved in the room and he groaned, "You better not be pissing in there you jack off!" Something grabbed him by the shoulder and he squealed. The grip on his shoulder slung him around mid squeal and just before he could curse at what he thought was his choom, a fist shattered his optics and sent him to the floor in a pile.
The last thing he saw through his broken optics was a man with a strange long eared mask figure looming over him just before being knocked out via a kick to the head.
"This floor's clear," the man huffed, blowing a raspberry behind the mask while lacing his finger behind his head just as another identical masked man stepped out of the room, dropping an unconscious Dum Dum on the floor as he did, "Was that guy called Dum Dum?"
"Yep," the other clone snorted, "Kinda wanna know why."
"Eh oh well, let's head down to the next floor and secure it too. You wanna take the lead?" They looked at each other for a moment and squared up.
"One, two, three, shoot! FUCK!"
"Ha, paper covers rock bitch, get moving!
The other clone grumbled and kicked an empty airhypo left on the floor, walking towards the stairs while ignoring the chuckling clone trailing behind.
-xXx-
Naruto had to admit that out of all the gangs in Night City, Maelstrom was probably the scariest looking of the lot. 6th Street had the militaristic soldier look, the Valentino's dressed to impress, the Tyger Claws were a mix of motorcycle racing leather and tacky suits, he hadn't actually seen a Voodoo boy yet so he'd skip them for now, and the Mox… well there was some odd feelings there. Scary hot? Fear boner inducing maybe? Those girls were tiny in number but they fought a lot harder than the other gangs to defend their people.
Maelstrom on the other hand took cybernetic implants way too far, to a psychotic level in fact as they danced on the ever blurry edge of sanity and cyberpsychosis. Many of them didn't even get chipped by a real ripper with massive chunks of their skin replaced with synthskin crudely covering wires and tubes all over their body.
A dozen or so squads of clones were crawling all over the factory by now, each taking different paths and clearing out the factory. While he himself had joined the groups heading in through the back service entrance and split off to go his own way.
Ending up utterly fucking lost…
It was hard to believe that this place was supposed to be a factory with the amount of hallways and random rooms this place seemed to have, maybe it had offices and administration workers too at one time? Each hall seemed to be the same, partially blocked by trash and crates bearing various different company logos, most likely stolen from previous heists and hijackings these guys pulled.
"You catch that shit between Royce and the Boss. You know what it's about?"
"Choom I don't fuckin know, you know I don't like having to listen to that gonk shit,"
Hearing the two voices getting closer, he looked around and stepped into the space beside a pile of haphazardly stacked crates held by a struggling pair of frayed straps.
Eh… Royce keeps running his mouth like he is and Bricks gonna bitchslap his ass down just like last time." Spoke one as he turned the corner. Their heavy boots with metal strips clunking against the floor as they walked right passed the blonds hiding place just out of view.
Holding his breath as the first passed, Naruto grimaced at the up close view of the sight of the guys patchwork synthetic skin bulging and bunched up around the edges of whatever chrome he had chipped into his over chromed body.
Moments after the first passed, his choom followed behind at a leisurely pace, a handheld cyberdeck with a half dozen or so stickers on it under his arm. "I'm staying outta it and you should too," he grumbled, his voice buzzing electronically, "ain't shit good gonna come outta them butting heads,"
Like a shadow, Naruto slipped out from his cover and behind the unaware ganger following after his choom, waiting for him to finish speaking. Like lightning, he kicked the gangoon in the back of his knee, knocking him off balance and using his stumble backwards to trip him and toss him head first into the ground.
"Huh?" The other one grunted, hearing the clatter as his chooms cyberdeck clattered to the floor and turned around. He caught sight of the blond and opened his mouth to yell and Naruto did the first thing that came to mind to keep it from happening.
He kicked him in the balls.
Catching the man by his bloodstained Militech branded tactical vest as he started to fall, Naruto looped his arm around the gangers neck and squeezed, "The Monk, where is he?"
Already struggling to breathe from the kick to his crotch, the man wheezed and coughed out his answer, "Fuck… you," while gripping the blonds wrist and attempting to pull himself free.
"Hey!" Glancing back, Naruto spotted another maelstrom member come around the same corner as these two, a shocked expression on what remained of his face as he took in the scene before him and started reaching for his gun. But thinking quickly, the blond turned back to his captured ganger and snatched the knife attached to the gonks chest rig. Not exactly a kunai but it would do. Swinging back around he sent the knife spinning down the hallway and into one of the straps holding back the leaning stack of crates. The other soon snapped as well at the extra weight and the whole thing toppled.
"Ugh!" They hit the ganger like a ton of bricks, knocking him into the adjacent wall with a shocking amount of force and pinning him there which made Naruto wince. Those cases and crates were a lot heavier than he thought it seemed.
With that taken care of, he turned back to the one in his grasp, "Now, where is the-" he started only to trail off as he noticed the over chromed gonk was limp, "Oi," Slapping him a few times with his free hand, Naruto released him when he barely reacted, huffing as the man sank to his knees and fell face first onto the ground.
"God damnit," he muttered, nudging the unconscious gangoon with his foot while scratching the back of his head, "...well maybe the next one will know…"
-xXx-
[S: Sooooooooooo bored :-| ]
[K: …]
[S: Ooooh Kiwi! :-3 Whatcha doing?]
[K: Well I sent Maine the deets on what we found… might be a bit before he gets back to us.]
[S: Why?]
[K: …]
[S: °o°]
[K: … yeah.]
[S: lol. You caught him with his 8==D out! ]
[K: Ugh kill me now. ]
[S: Don't worry girl! Not the first time it's happened.]
[K: At least we managed to find this damn bike. You still tracking it? ]
[S: Getting close, lost it in the Storm Channel in Watson. Taking a peek through nearby feeds to see if it went another way… ooh but guess what I did see!]
[K: …]
[S: spoilsport :-p Spotted a truck leaving, peeped the regs and it's got Militech written all over it… oh found it! Gonks heading towards the NID. This is from a while ago, gonna comb the feeds some more and try to find where he's gone.]
[K: Guys heading there? You get his face?]
[S: Nope, got a disruptor blurring his face. *-*]
[K: Must be a solo then, working a gig for Militech maybe? We'll have to be careful then.]
[S: And you'll have to pass the deets to Maine! Gonna sneak another peek? ;3]
-xXx-
Situated above the facilities main factory floor was what the rest of the gang called the 'control room' a collection of servers, terminals, and data links all spliced together in a crude yet effective runners suite connected to the building's security. Inside, a woman spun around in a ragged office chair with a cyberdeck in her lap with her arms crossed and pouting. 'Gonks can go out and jack a buncha trucks but cant even take the time to get me a fucking runners chair?' she thought angrily with a huff while looking at one of the camera feeds showing some of her chooms messing with the stolen Militech trucks.
She'd been asking for weeks to get one, she knew right where it was and all they had to do was shoot the fat fucker that owned it and drag it back but nooo, she had to hop into a fridge full of ice when she had to deep dive and sit around panties as she dried off…
Her eyes lit up with a message, [Bo$$man Bric: Hey Zaria. Unlock the elevator, I'm heading out.] With a sigh, she rolled her chair over to a terminal and tapped a few buttons without looking then went back to pouting.
Her name was Zaria Hughes, Brick's top Netrunner in the gang… not that the title meant anything though. Out of the 1,200 gonks that called themselves maelstrom, less than a maybe a hundred or so of them had the smarts or interest in tech outside of chrome.
Zaria was a young woman, the top half of her face removed and replaced with the gang's signature glowing red optical plate while the rest of her head sported the maximum amount of smartlink connections, slots and a custom dive port. Both arms were replaced at the elbow with bare metal cyberarm, not exactly her choice but they were good enough for now. Once she got a hold of the legs she wanted them she'd look into who had a set of arms she'd like.
'Stupid Royce, I could do a lot fuckin more with that chair, just gotta run all the feeds through it and I could handle the entire hideout from one spot.' The asshole had talked Brick outta the idea somehow and now she was stuck watching multiple vid feeds on this janky ass set up.
Speaking of which… tapping away at the keys, she pulled up the elevator feed so she could lock it back down once the boss left. Security precautions and all that since they had all this stolen Militech shit, at least that's what the boss man said.
Flipping through some of the other feeds in her boredom, she spotted something odd on a feed and hummed while bringing it up, never noticing a vent in the ceiling wiggle free and nearly fall, only for a hand to jolt forward and catch it before it could go too far.
'Somethings wrong, need to look at this again,' Zarias glowing red optics focused on the terminal screen for a moment before she cursed and decided to jack in her personal and get an even better look by having it feed directly into her neuralware. Once again not seeing a shadowy figure peep over the edge and look around the room.
The figure slowly slid out from the vent, holding himself up on the edge as he lowered himself without a sound and landed softly on the floor, barely missing several buck a slice boxes as he did.
Still occupied with the cams, Zaria scrolled the feed she wanted and looked at it closely. It showed part of the old factory floor below them and she pulled up the previous few minutes to check out the weird movement she'd seen.
'Here we go…' the footage showed three of her chooms sitting around on the machinery below her, 'assholes are drinking beer and didn't bring me one!' she hissed planning payback in the back of her head. But all thoughts of such a thing left her mind as each one was suddenly yanked backwards out of sight which made her jump, heart pounding. "Holy shit!" She gasped, quickly scrambling to disconnect from her personal link and have someone come check it out. 'Gotta call the guys!'
But not even a moment after her vision returned after jacking out of the terminal, she felt something grab her head and slam it down on the desk, her face pressing half the keys at once.
"Don't move," a voice told her, "Do as I say and you get to live. You understand?" She nodded, pressing more keys as she did and felt the hand gripping her hair be replaced with what she suspected was the barrel of a pistol, "Good. Now sit up." She did so and was dismayed at the sight of the old and now broken keyboard, one of the keys was even stuck to her temple.
But all worries about the tech vanished as she got a good look at the one who was now holding a pistol at her brainpan. Her repro black market medtech biomonitor flashing an alert at the sudden surge in her blood pressure. "Oh God your-" she flinched when he raised his other hand and brought it up to his masked face, placing a single finger over the mouth of the animal mask in a shushing motion.
'What the fuck is the Shino doing here!? Oh God we're fucked. He's gonna zero the whole fucking gang! Oh God oh fuck!' she screamed in her mind.
"The monk." Spoke the Shino after a moment, turning her chair around fully to face him while lowering his Overture slightly, it wasn't aimed at her face anymore but at the center of her chest now.
She was so distracted by the fact that she was face to face with this boogie man that she nearly missed the question, his voice hitting her like a jolt that made her flinch, "T-the what?"
"Your gang snatched two monks off the street, forced one to get chipped as a joke against his religion and tossed him out to fend for himself ." The masked man explained slowly as if speaking to a child, but his voice was full of icy cold anger and that made her tremble, "his brother is still here, waiting for the same treatment." He leaned forward, placing a hand on the back of her chair as he got closer and closer to her face letting her see a glowing red slitted eye through the eye of the mask.
All she could do was stare at the slitted eye as she was leaned back in the chair, the old worn out chair itself creaking as it did so. A moment passed and she opened her mouth to speak, "Please… don't kill me." She whispered, pleading.
"That's the thing," he gave a humorless chuckle, "how many people have you and your chooms murdered that begged the same thing?" The gunbarrel pressed into her ribcage painfully as he spoke, "How many did you let live hmm… or better yet, how many did you let go without hurting them?" If she had the ability, tears would be streaming down her cheeks. "But you know what? I'm not going to kill you,"
That threw the girl for a loop and all she could do was look at him in shock and confusion.
"Yeah that's right… I'm not going to kill you," the Shino repeated before raising the Gunn and pressing it beneath her chin harshly, "Even though you deserve it… and you know why?" She shook her head slowly as best as she could. "That monk, the one you assholes hurt so much, he asked me not to. All he wants is for his brother to be saved."
The gun left her chin and she found herself looking back down at the Shino, "I… I know where he is." Her voice was a lot smaller than before as she processed what she just heard, she remembered the laughing and jokes everyone made as they watched the monk be ripped apart and chipped back together without anything for the pain, they even pumped him full of drugs to keep him from passing out. Now that same man asked the Shino to save his brother but not get payback for what they did?
"Where?"
-xXx-
"Ma'am the team is ready for you,"
"Good," Flicking the ash from the end of her smoke, Meredith turned to look at her assistant for a moment and raised an eyebrow at him. "Julian, what are you doing with that?" The young man was wearing a standard issue Militech ballistic vest over his white office shirt and had a M221 Saratoga submachine gun hanging across his chest from the sling over the back of his neck.
The young man looked down at the gun and gave her a nervous grimace, "Well I thought I might need this if any shooting started,"
She started to open her mouth but stopped, only shaking her head slowly, "Did one of the men give that to you or did you take it upon yourself to grab that?"
"Ah…" he trailed off nervously.
"Nevermind… the only reason I ask is because if you plan on using it, you might want to actually have a magazine in the damn thing," she gave him a exasperated look and motioned towards the gun itself, making the young tech slowly look down again and rotate the weapon to see the empty slot where the magazine was supposed to go.
"..." He didn't speak but the reddening of his face said it all.
"If you want to carry it just go load the damn thing," Stout sighed while waving him off, "But just so you know, I'm not planning on tossing you into a fight. I'm only expecting you to verify the cargo when we get to the trucks.
"Y-yes ma'am,"
Watching him leave, she snorted and took another drag from her cigarette. He was a good kid but just that, a fucking kid. He was an administrative assistant and a technician not a soldier so the only things he should really be armed with was a sidearm and drones at the most.
'Anyway, let's go brief the team.' she huffed, turning and heading towards the team's briefing room here in one of the company's safe houses scattered around the city.
With her position as senior operations manager, she had the authority to use many company assets to ensure that Militech corporate interests were protected. So long as she produced results, actions such as holding Gilchrist against his will and subjecting him to enhanced interrogation would be ignored or even quietly applauded depending on the results…
'but then again…' thoughts of what would happen if she failed to locate the missing convoy flashed through her mind, giving her a brief surge of anxiety. Most of the evidence against Gilchrist was circumstantial at best and if she failed he would take her place… and considering the last few days…
If there was such a thing as the Corpo gods that the rank and file gonks went on about, then as luck would have it they smiled upon her and brought not only her missing convoys but her POI, the mysterious Shino, Naruto Uzumaki directly into her grasp.
And the best part? He was going to do all the hard work himself, all she had to do was secure the trucks and take him down.
-xXx-
Despite reciting the mantra over and over to try and help calm himself Ishibashi couldn't help but feel the sense of impending doom that washed over him every time a figure or shadow passed the security door keeping him trapped. Why were these people doing this? What had he and his brother done to deserve what they did? God's he could still hear Bhikkhu screaming, them laughing like old demons. How they mocked that he'd be next once the ripperdoc was ready again.
The worst though… was the look Bhikkhu gave him as they showed him off. That sad look in his remaining eye, as if he blamed himself for getting them in this situation.
A sudden beating on the glass made him flinch and look up to see, to his horror, that the bearded beast had returned.
"Time to wake up, meat!" The man chuckled, beating on the door a few more times before it slid open, "old Kaisers ready to get his hooks on ya, hehehe."
The name made a shudder surge through the monk, barely anything human remained within that… monster. He was more machine than man, not even hiding it under the synthetic flesh like many of the gangoons in maelstrom and proud of what he did, happily telling them about how he lost his license and how he was wanted for murder for how he went 'above and beyond' what his patients wanted while poking and prodding them.
As the beastly man stomped towards him, the harsh red optic glaring down at him with a cruel smirk on his bearded face, Ishibashi closed his eyes. "Tayata Om Bekanze Bekanze Maha Bekanze Radza Samudgate Soha" he chanted softly earning another harsh laugh from the man who brushed off his spiked synth leather jacket.
"Prey all you want to your weird gods monk, ain't shit gonna change what's about to happen to ya though, now on your feet." Royce barked. When he didn't immediately move to stand, he growled and kicked the monk in his chest with his metal studded boot, knocking him roughly against the panel of servers behind him.
"Tay-ata O-om Bekanze," Ishibashi continued, the feeling a sharp burning pain in the back of his head and tears fall from his eyes as he coughed once, "Bekanze Maha," another kick, this time to his side followed by a laugh interrupted him, and knocked him to the side holding what felt like a cracked rib as breathing hurt. "B-bekanze… Radza, *cough* Sa-samudgate Soha"
Kneeling down next to him, Royce rested his elbows on his knees and looked the monk over, " Hmm tough one huh?" He snorted with a little laugh, "your pal was tough too, right up until the cutting started."
The gangoon reached out and clenched the front of his orange robes and snatched him closer, his bare arm getting cut and scratched by the various pieces of plastic and some broken glass. "He tried that little prayer too you know… stopped pretty quick once the doc popped his eye outta socket… then again it could've been the shit we pumped him full of," Ishibashi trembled again in the mans grip which got yet another dark chuckle from the man as he let go and stood up to tower over him.
"Hey gonks, come grab this meatbag and get him to Kaiser!" When no one walked in, Royce growled and kicked the monk once again in the stomach, knocking the air out of him, "Wait here, I'll be right back. Kurt, Larz what the fucks taking you so long?"
Ishibashi wheezed and gasped for breath, each inhale sending agony through what he suspected were broken ribs. But all he could do was lay there in a broken pile and watch as his tormentor angrily stopped towards the door and slid it open while growling under his breath.
"Hey you gonk fucks where the hell are you!" He roared as he stepped out into what used to be the factory's protein lab, where they used to grow and cultivate the Single Cell Organic Protein used in the food they packaged. Now it was the best place for the Kaiser to play Ripperdoc.
"Hey where'd those two fuckers go!?" He yelled out. Several others scattered around the floor turned towards him and looked confused. Seeing how useless they were, the beast of a gangoon growled and slammed the door to the old server room shut, "God fucking damn it why can't anyone fuckin do as their told!"
All at once, the factory went dark. The hum of the lights and some of the remaining machines that still drew power all went completely silent all at the same time, getting dozens of groans and even what sounded like a teenage girl's squeal.
"Who squealed like a bitch?" Someone yelled out into the darkness, earning chuckles.
"Yeah who's the pussy?"
Listening to the gonks across the pitch black room start arguing and though accusations, Royce growled and brought up his holo, contacting that Zaria bitch who was connected to the places subnet. "Hey what's the fucking issue with the power," he snapped, knowing Brick had left a while ago after their argument and taking control while he was gone.
[I'm sorry]
That message caught him off guard, "Sorry? The fuck you mean sorry? Bitch did you have something to do with this?" He snapped back to back as he fumbled through the pitch black room and, "You the reason the emergency lights are out too?" she didn't answer but he could see that she hadn't cut the connection. "Answer me!"
[I'm sorry… he made me do it.]
"Who!"
Several screams echoed in the darkness all around him, flashes of deafening gunfire momentarily lit up the room and he was able to catch glimpses of his figures dressed in black wearing white masks taking down his people. Royce felt his pulse quicken and drew his pistol, his newly installed reflex tuner activating as he aimed and took a shot into where he thought he spotted a white mask.
"Goddamn you Zaria, who is this!" He roared, firing into the chaos before him. After a few shots were fired blindly he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as a voice whispered in his ear
"It's me!"
What felt like a sledgehammer hit him in the back, knocking him forward where another blow to his chest made him stumble back with a wheeze, "Who," he stopped to cough a few times and held his chest as he quickly raised his pistol and spun around "Who the fuck are you!" He could still hear gunshots and the sounds of a struggle further off but couldn't see anything in the darkness around him, "Show yourself pussy!"
"Why?" Came another whisper, so close he felt the breath on his ear and turned, firing wildly in that direction. In the muzzle flash, he saw one of his gang members fall to his own bullets but didn't care and started turning, frantically aiming in all directions.
Another blow to his side struck him, knocking him off balance and into a piece of old factory equipment that he didn't know the name of. The only thing he knew for certain was that the glass screen attached to it shattered when his shoulder went through it. Royce staggered to his feet, holding onto the equipment as he fired a few more rounds into the dark.
"Are you scared Royce?" The voice sounded further away, almost like an echo from another room. "That pistol's shaking pretty hard."
"Fuck you!" Another shot then a click, making him curse and fumble through his coat pocket for a spare. The empty one clattered to the floor and he struggled to slide in the new one, "why don't you stop hiding and face me!" He screamed into the silence only then noticing just how quiet it had gotten.
There were no more yells, no more gunshots, no sounds of things being broken or thrown, just the pounding in his ears as his heart raced accompanied by his own panicked breathing. "Where are-"
"Over here," he turned and fired as soon as the whispered voice came from beside him, only to feel another sledgehammer blow to his back that nearly took him off his feet and sent him staggering away from the now broken piece of equipment.
"How does it feel Royce? To be so weak that you can't even defend yourself?" There was a whooshing sound and the man cried out as the front of his synthleather coat was slashed, just barely slicing his chest open where there wasn't any chrome. "No wonder you torment monks, your too much of a pussy to be in a real fight."
"Ugh fuck you - AH!" The ganger nearly dropped his pistol as a blade was suddenly stabbed into his left arm just below the shoulder, cutting several of the lines and wires he had running down his coat sleeve for his smartlink, which started giving error messages to his soft.
He could still move his injured arm so he switched his gun over to the left one and reached over to hold the badly bleeding appendage with his right, "You call this a real fight?" He spat, holding the gun to his side while slowly moving around to try and put his back against the wall. He had some black lace in his pocket that should help, he just needed to get somewhere and-
"OVER HERE!" Shirking away from the sudden scream right next to his ear, Royce raised his gun only for something to grab his wrist and pull his arm forward.
*Shing*
The burning pain in his left hand was excruciating as if someone lit it on fire. The grip on his arm vanished and the man grasped at his hand instinctively to quell the pain only to find a wet stump where his hand used to be with several wires and tubes jutting out.
"Ahh my hand! He cried out, sinking to one knee as he gripped what was left, "you fucking pussy! You cut off my hand!"
"Consider it a small mercy," the voice hissed in his ear, making him freeze as he felt the flat end of a cold blade touch his cheek, still slick and wet with his own blood, "I could do a lot worse to you." With that the blade was flicked up, severing part of his ear and getting another grunt of pain as it fell down to the floor below him.
Gritting his teeth, the man could only freeze as the tip of a weird knife appeared from the darkness, his optics scrambling to adjust to the complete darkness of the windowless factory floor. It touched the bottom of his chin and prodded it upwards until he looked up into the darkness in front of him.
"Royce do you have any idea just how… lucky you are?" The voice questioned ahead of him, sounding both angry and amused at the same time. The gangoon made a little angrily noise but didn't open his mouth to speak with the blade still jabbed into his chin. "The monks you kidnapped… the one you tortured both body and soul? After all you inflicted on him, do you know what he did?"
When he didn't answer, he felt the tip of the knife dig into his face, "N-no what?"
"He saved your lives." This time the voice came from behind him but the knife never moved, "I was already planning on visiting you tonight and when I met him and found out what you did… I planned on this going a lot different."
If he could just get the right leverage, he could take the guy in front of him down. The one behind him would have to come next but Royce was confident he'd have the advantage despite everything that had happened. He just needed to wait for the right time… just let him run his mouth some more…
"But you know what? He could barely speak due to whatever kind of shit you chipped him with and he asked me not to kill you. Your lives were worth more to them than all the pain and suffering you caused… that is a good person,"
Suddenly they heard a deep humming sound and the large industrial lights above them flashed to life. The familiar hum of the various machines still looked into the grid returned as his optics adjusted once again but was a much smoother process than before.
"The fuck are you?" Royce whispered, looking up at the blond man staring down at him, his left eye slitted and partially red while the other was blue. He didn't wear any armor or gear, just a pistol strapped to his thigh and a pouch on his leg with a simple black shirt and pants. He didn't look like any gonk he'd ever dealt with before. Movement to his side caught his attention and carefully, Royce turned his head slightly to see what it was, hoping it was one of his boys about to lend a hand.
Instead his heart sank, all around the factory floor his boys were laid out cold, many of them battered and broken but still alive but what broke him was the number of masked men standing around, sitting on top of the machinery, all wearing the same clothing and all wearing a weird animal mask with long ears… and flowers… painted… 'oh shit,'
"Unlike them… I'm not a good man." The blade flashed and all Royce could do was scream as his face was sliced open by the man. No by the Shino.
"Fuckin… FUCK!" He bit out, the fucker nicked a linkup in his optics and caused a feedback spike in between his soft and wetware. What the fuck is the Shino doing here? 'Why the fuck is he fucking with us?'
"I want you to remember this Royce… you're only alive now because of that man" through the feedback affecting his optics vision, Royce could easily see the tip of the Shinos blade pointed straight at the center of his optical implant, "But the next time I run into you…" The Shino trailed off but Royce understood the threat that was left lingering in his mind as the blade was put away.
"Lets just hope for your sake we never run into each other again eh?" the blond man intoned before a blow to the back of his head sent the bearded ganger slumping to the floor.
-xXx-
Still laying on his side in a fetal position, Ishibashi slowly inhaled as he managed to catch his breath and fought off the urge to cough which would send jolts of pain through his ribs. When everything went dark and the sounds of gunfire erupted, he wasn't sure what was going on but a tiny shameful part of himself hoped that they were killing each other. For a moment, he'd even thought that maybe this was his chance to try and escape but a bullet struck the door moments later and put a stop to those thoughts.
"Tayata Om Bekanze Bekanze Maha Bekanze Radza Samudgate Soha," he whispered as everything got quiet again. But his heart started racing once again as the door to his prison opened again. The battered monk clinched his eyes shut and braced himself, expecting another brutal kick or to be ruthlessly manhandled again by his tormentors.
The steps got closer and Ishibashi curled into himself as much as his broken ribs would allow, awaiting more pain, he heard the sound of something moving and flinched as a hand touched his shoulder.
"Hey, can you hear me?" The voice was soft and kind unlike before, making him open his eyes cautiously to see a blond man looking down at him with concerned blue eyes, "Can you move?"
Painfully but yeah he could, they hadn't broken anything else despite threats and taunts that they would do so, "Y-yes," he answered, staring up at the man who smiled at him, "Who are you?"
"I'm Naruto, your brother sent me," he replied while slowly reaching out and offering the man his hand, "Come on, let's get you back to them ok?" As he said that, Naruto moved and slipped his arm around the monk to help him stand, making his ribs protest the movement, "Are you hurt?"
Hearing the genuine concern from this stranger, Ishibashi felt tears welling up in his eyes and wrapped his arms around him, "It's just my ribs," he sniffed as Naruto awkwardly patted the sniffling man on his upper back, avoiding his ribs. "Thank you,"
Naruto took a breath and gave the monk a moment, "Come on, don't thank me yet." he said softly, pulling away from the man who wiped his face with his robes, "Thank me once I get you outta here ok?" Once the monk was ready, he led him out of the server room that was his prison and out onto the factory floor where his tormentors were laid out in various places on the floor.
"A-are they… dead?"
Turning back to the monk, Naruto saw that he was looking at Royce who was lying in a small pool of his own blood from the gash across his face. "No, your brother said you wouldn't want that."
"Yeah," he barely heard the monk's soft voice as he turned away, still holding his injured chest with one arm and looking at the various gangoons lying on the ground around them, "But… I'm not so certain about that anymore."
-xXx-
With a clone taking care of getting the man to safety, Naruto and the rest of his clones made short work of the rest of any Maelstrom gangoons that were still hanging around the factory. Now that he didn't have to worry about the prisoner, they tore through the chromed up booster gang like a raging fire. By the time they got to where they stored the missing Militech trucks and cargo, most of the remaining gonks had run away upon realizing just who they were up against.
"Areas clear Boss!" One clone called out as they checked around to make sure there were no hidden surprises left behind by the gangoons. "Looks like they've gotten into the cargo though." Several other clones were spread out around the trucks, looking them over and being nosy while he huffed and sat down on a small black crate with 'Militech' printed on the sides.
"Hey what's so special about this stuff anyway?" another clone questioned as he searched a larger crate and came up holding a dark green ballistic vest that kinda reminded him of a chunin vest and a bulky green helmet over his head "Half the gangs in Night City have this stuff don't they,"
"Some have better gear," another laughed before something slammed into the back of his head, "Ow hey you fucker that hurt! You nearly destroyed me!" Looking down, the clone's eyes went wide, "Is that a grenade!"
The guilty clone chuckled, holding a crate about the size of a toolbox under one arm and another grenade in the other, "Sure is!" he laughed, "Payback for stealing my takedown earlier," he then rared back and threw another.
"You took too long!" the clone shot back, ducking the incoming grenade which struck an unlucky clone behind him in the eye. It's head snapped back before he vanished in a cloud of smoke. The box he'd been carrying fell to the ground and hundreds of bullets spilled out across the floor with a clatter.
"You wanna fight punk!"
"Bring it on, ya bastard!"
Naruto looked at his clones and sighed as they charged into each other with a battlecry only to vanish in a plume of smoke as he dispelled them. Even his other clones sweatdropped at the influx of memories before getting back to the task at hand. The trucks were hidden away here out of sight inside the All Foods Shipping Warehouse, the most obvious place to hide them now that he thought about it but before he called Stout, he wanted to know what was so special about this shipment.
Well… that and see if there was anything here that he might want for himself…
"Ah, hey Boss!" he turned towards the voice and spotted the one who called him, hanging out the back of one and waving at him, "I think you should get a look at this."
-xXx-
The massive garage doors started rolling up, he could see several shadows below the door and hopped up on a stack of Militech crates to wait for them. As the opening got high enough, the corpo soldiers rushed in, guns at the ready and fully armored in their black and yellow gear. "Area clear ma'am!" One of the men called out. Naruto had to admit that they were covering each other pretty well, Militech really put some training into these guys. "
"Here's your convoy," he yelled out as the woman walked in, flanked by a young man who looked like she should be in an office instead of being surrounded by… well this. "Mostly accounted for anyway,"
"So it is…" she hummed, walking closer with her arms crossed as she scanned the area around them. Thinking about it, Maelstrom should've been her first thought when it came to who could've managed this, a known booster gang chipped with millions worth of blackmarket military grade chrome? Standard convoy security wouldn't have stood a chance. Turning to Julien, she motioned towards the trucks parked haphazardly around the warehouse, "Check the trucks and crates, I want a full account of the remaining inventory,"
The young man nodded and started typing on his dataslate, walking past the corpo as he pulled his personal jack from a slot in his arm and connected it to the slate before scanning the nearby boxes.
As this was happening, Naruto noticed the corpos spreading out around the room, seemingly checking crates but never turning away from him. He kept looking towards Stout, who seemed to be taking a moment to look at one of the nearby gangoons while her own thugs positioned themselves around him. "Stout," he called out, slipping down from crate and onto the floor, "you got your convoy back, how about your side of our deal huh?" He really had the feeling that he knew what she was about to do and hoped he was wrong.
"Oh don't worry Naruto Uzumaki," she replied to him, a self satisfied little grin on her normally serious face, "I'll keep my end of the deal and end our operations hunting for you."
He raised an eyebrow and grinned, "Hh good," he gave a little laugh, "I thought you might do something like try to stab me in the back or something," the blond chuckled again only to see several lasers pointing at him from the soldiers surrounding him.
"Yeah, about that,"
Narrowing his eyes, Naruto fixed the corpo with a stare, "Stout…" he growled out in warning only for her to give him a look down her nose.
"I said I'd stop hunting you Naruto and I intend to keep my side of the deal." She stalked over to him, hands on her hips, "But the Shino?" Seeing the look he had when she said that, Meredith smirked, "You should always read the fine print when making deals Merc, any gonk worth their chrome knows that,"
"I'll keep that in mind." He grumbled out, frowning at her, "But before you do something stupid, I suggest you think twice."
"Oh?"
He nodded slowly, "I have a feeling that something pretty important is missing from that truck," the blond told her slowly, almost mockingly as she looked between him and the indicated truck.
Humoring him, she contacted her tech over here holo [Go scan the truck he mentioned]
[Yes ma'am] ending his scan early, the tech hurried over to the next truck and entered into the trailer.
"So… " he trailed off, placing his hand in the way of one of the lasers and watching the tip of his ginger glow slightly as he slowly made his way towards her, "whatcha want to do while we wait?"
She crossed her arms, "How about we talk about your body doubles?" He blinked, "yeah, that's what really got my attention, we got footage of you and your little 'squad' at the old power corp building. The little disappearing soldier trick, that is something else but I ran some tests with a vi and every single one of them were exactly the same. Height, shape, movements, gear, weapons, and everything down to your voices were exactly the same." She mused, looking at him like he was the most interesting subject she'd ever seen and not in a fun way.
Naruto didn't know exactly what to say and had to admit that he was a little stunned that shed went so far in her investigation, when he didn't immediately respond she snorted, "It's fine, our techs will figure out how that works after they get a change to look through your chrome,"
"Not a good idea, Stout," Naruto warned again.
"And why's that?"
He only grinned and looked pointedly at the truck where Julien was quickly climbing out, nearly tripping as he almost dropped the dataslate he was balancing on the climb down. "That looks important," he loudly whispered as the tech all but sprinited towards her. "I'll be right over here, when you're done ok?"
She narrowed her eyes at the man and signaled for her team to keep him in sight as he sauntered over to the crates he'd been sitting on before and turned to the techie as he came up next to her, "What did you find?"
"Ma'am the Prototype Harpoon weapon systems, all of its technical data is missing!" He reported quietly to her eyes wide and looking nervous.
The Harpoon was a supersonic missile made to knock out heavily armored vehicles, ripping through a basilisk's armor like it was plastic. A targeting soft controlled the missile and was programmed with a targeting bias for the cockpit. Meaning they blatantly were made to kill the pilots and ensure they had no chance to eject which was technically a war crime. The technical data that was missing would contain damn near every bit of information on the system, it's soft, ICE… almost everything needed to build one or hack one.
"The data," she snapped, turning to stare him down with ice cold gray-blue eyes. "What did you do with it?"
Naruto was back to sitting on top of the crates, innocently swinging his foot as she started towards him, "Oh don't worry about it, I made sure it's in a safe place." she stalked even closer to him as he grinned, "all ready to find its way onto the NET just like that," he snapped his fingers to drive home his point.
"And I can have you shot and put an end to this farce," she snapped her own fingers in return, "Just like that," around them, her men kept the blond in their sights ready to open fire at the first sign of trouble.
"I guess you could," he hummed, looking down at the multiple red dots moving around his torso, "Not that it would do you any good…"
"That so?"
Raising his finger, Naruto placed his finger on one of the many lasers pointed at his body. As he slowly pulled away, the glowing dot followed his fingertip as he pointed towards the high rooftops above them.
Bringing it towards her, Meredith had to hide a twitch of nervousness as he aimed his fingertip towards her like a pistol, "Bang," he grinned as he said that, miming a gunshot in slow motion. The lasers on his finger vanished, it only took her to hear her assistant gasp to know and look down. There, bouncing around on her chest was the laser.
"Cute trick," she sniffed, keeping a calm demeanor while the twitch of her lips betrayed her nervousness. Her shoulders and legs visibility tensed as well, her bodies flight or fight kicking in.
"That's not the half of it," he nodded his head towards the roof and she narrowed her eyes. Looking up, she spotted one of the familiar masked men, one of the stolen Militech rifles in his arms aimed right at her. Glancing around, her heart dropped as she started to notice more and more of them hidden around above them all. Stout stared him down for a few moments, raising a disbelieving eyebrow when he suddenly winked.
Her men must've glanced up as well and noticed them as well "Contact!" She was startled out of her stunned confusion as one of her men cried out and fired at the men above them and instinctively ducked for cover.
"Ambush!" Another cried out, sending a burst of gunfire at one of the new attackers taking down his squadmate across the garage. His weapon was suddenly knocked upwards, sending another spray of gunfire into the rafters about them and punching holes through the sheet metal roof with ease. Within less than a second, the corpos legs were swept out from underneath him and he only got another split second to register the masked man above him before a single strike knocked him out.
Looking around towards each of her men, Stout felt a surge of adrenalin flow through her as she grabbed her sidearm, a sleek but standard Militech issue Lexington pistol. "Call 'em off!" She barked at him, leveling the weapon at the blond's head.
He shook his head slowly, "Don't worry, they won't kill 'em,"
The woman growling, most of her men now laying on the ground with only one or two struggling against the attackers but we're clearly vastly outmatched. If anything they were toying with the soldiers. "I said, call your men off!" She snapped again, lowering her aim slightly and pulling the trigger, intending on putting a few rounds through his leg.
Just as the weapon went off, Julien appeared next to her, hand clasping around her wrist like a vice as he forced her aim away from the blond. The bullets from her pistol ricocheted off the floor and into a wall pretty close to another one of the masked men who ducked out of the way with a yelp.
"Julian?" She exclaimed, her shock rapidly turning to anger as her assistant betrayed her. Moving to strike him with her free arm, aiming for his throat for a quick and brutal takedown, she was in no way prepared for her young, fresh faced techie to counter each and every one of her blows as if she were a recruit fresh into training.
He reacted to each strike with shocking speed, disarming her of her weapon with alarming speed and countering everything she threw at him with a blow to her torso or back. Militech armor could withstand most calibers found on the streets of NC and had decent enough shock absorption when it came to physical blows but each strike from the techie felt like a hammer blow.
"Enough already!" Naruto yelled.
Meredith let out a heavy, shaking breath as her treacherous asistaint disengaged and shoved her back, taking a moment to kick her pistol away from her and towards the blond, "Julian what the fuck are you doing?" She growled out, one arm reflexively covering her stomach which had taken a couple blows in the struggle.
The man stayed silent but a chuckle from the blond Merc made her glare in his direction, "how the hell did you plant him in my team?" She demanded, glancing around and feeling her heart drop as she realized all her hustle was down and standing over them were the Shinos masked soldiers.
"About that…" Naruto mused, walking towards her with a finger in his ear. The earlier gunshots had made ears start ringing and that shit was annoying. "Julien was it?" He questioned only to roll his eyes when she glared at him before reaching down and scooping up her pistol that had been kicked towards him, "well he didn't turn on you if it makes you feel any better."
She looked at him like he'd grown a second head, cutting her eyes to the techie a few steps away from her then looking back at him with a deadpan stare, "if this isn't a betrayal then what is it?"
Looking over to the techie, Naruto nodded, still playing with her Lexington pistol.
Eyes still narrowed, stout looked between them for a moment before flinching as the man was engulfed in a plume of smoke, "What the fu…" she trailed off, eyes going wide as another masked man walked out of the rapidly dispersing smoke, "how the… what… how?"
How was this possible? That was… had been Julian but… he sounded like him, looked just like him how in the hell did he do that. "What the hell was that?" What kind of chrome did that?
"The main question you should be asking now is what happens now Stout," The ninja told her calmly while stepping towards her with her own pistol in his hand, she wanted to step back in fear but her own corpo pride forced her to stand tall, still clutching her stomach. If he was going to flatline her she'd face it with her head held high if nothing else.
"You can spin it however you want but I held my end of our deal, I found your missing trucks, secured them, and not once did I plan on turning on you." He stated while coming to a stop just out of arms reach in front of her, "But… I had a feeling that you would try something even though I honestly hoped that you would have some honor about all this, you know the whole 'I scratch your back, you scratch mine' thing?" She fought back a gulp as he stared at her with an almost cool yet oddly pitying gaze, "guess it's my own fault for thinking that you wouldn't plant a knife there instead,"
"So… what happens now?" She bit out after a moment, making him give a little grin at her repeating his words.
He crossed his arms and looked a bit thoughtful, "Well I see one of two things happening, one;, you report all you know about me and I spread this data as far as I possibly can. I don't see either of us really enjoying that though."
"And the other one?"
"You find a way to end that investigation about me, I will make sure the world doesn't get a sneak peek at the entirety of Militechs cutting edge war crime and you don't end up the center of a corporate clusterfuck…" He put his hands behind his head and chuckled, "I won't act like I know how you corpos do things but I do have an idea about what happens to those that leak information and this would be pretty career ending wouldn't it?"
She didn't answer but the look on her face said it all. Not only would classified data getting out be a career killer for her but it would most definitely end with her taking an 'indefinite leave of absence', something she's done to multiple gonks who tried to sell company data without clearance to do so. "What's stopping you from releasing the data anyway?"
"The same thing stopping you from forwarding the data you gathered on me." he replied, pressing the button to release the magazine from the gun and ejecting the bullet loaded in the chamber before smirking, "and who knows… maybe we'll even come to an even better agreement in the future,"
"Like what?" she raised a disbelieving eye then said, "You scratch my back?" almost mockingly only for him to nod.
"And you scratch mine," Naruto finished, offering her the pistol back.
-xXx-
To be continued…
-xXx-
Hey guys I'm back! Hope I did ok with this chapter, had a little trouble with it sadly but I made it through and I really hope you enjoy it. Might take a little longer for chapters due to work but I'm still planning on seeing this through to the end one way or another, not only that but there may even be a 'Act 4' depending on the dlc so there's that.
I love you guys and for anyone who still hasn't caught on to the pairing, here's a sneak peek at of a future chapter…
-xXx-
"David, didn't you already leave for class?"
Looking over to the bathroom doorway, David winced and gave her a sheepish look, "Sorry mom, forgot my wreath for class," he leaned over to the desk with their data terminal and plucked his school wreath from its port.
Looking over, he saw her leaning in the doorway to the shower looking at him with a raised eyebrow, looking away as he realized she was covering herself with a large towel while the water ran behind her, "oh sorry mom, didn't know you were in the shower," of course she would be annoyed, obviously not expecting someone to walk in when she was in the shower. "Anyway, I gotta run or I'll miss the NCART."
Shaking her head with a little laugh, the redhead gave him a little wave, "Stay safe mijo, be careful on the way to the station," the teen gave her a quick thumbs up, "I love you Dee!"
"Love you too mom!"
Feeling a warm breath on the nape of her neck, the redhead shivered as a pair of hands slowly slid up her thighs, fingers lightly brushing her skin before pulling her back, "Naruto!" She giggled, wiggling into his embrace as he kissed the back of her neck, "That tickles!"
"I know," she could feel the smirk he wore, grinning at the low whisper he spoke next to her ear, "can I have my gun back?" He loosened his embrace and she spun around in his arms, dropping the towel covering her bare chest from one hand and holding his Overture in her other.
"I thought some gonk had broken in," she grumbled, wiggling closer as he squeezed her rear with a little grin on his face, "here,"
He smiled at her and took the offered pistol, placing it back into its holster laying on his pants on the nearby sink., "haven't seen that side of you before," Naruto chuckled.
"You haven't seen me pull out La Chancla yet." She whispered back, taking the chance to loop her arms around his neck to pull him close, pressing her breasts against his chest and catching his lips with hers.
"Mmm…" he couldn't wipe the stupid grin off his face if he tried as he pulled back but couldn't help but ask, "I've heard of that before, what's La Chancla?" Jackie apparently lived in fear of it…
Gloria pecked him on the lips again, "Prey you never find out," she laughed and gave him a little wink before pushing away. Reaching down she wiggled out of her panties and dropped them the floor next to his shirt, "come on, let's hope in the shower before the water runs out,"
His own underwear joined hers soon after and he followed her into the small steaming stall, there was barely enough room for them both to move around but neither of them cared to complain. "We should really tell David about us."
She nodded, "Yeah… I know, I don't like hiding it from him but he's got so much going on now with school…" she let the water run across her body and sighed, rubbing her hands along his arm as they both enjoyed the hot water, "I just don't want to put any stress on him right now by telling him that his mom is banging his idol."
-xXx-