The New Man: Adam Smasher Si

by Crossposted

Crosspost of Seat Admiral’s fanfiction on SpaceBattles, all credits go to the original author.

14. Upload 14

He had once asked Shaitan what it was like to be a fullborg. To have your brain in an all-metal body, being a corporate warmachine, made to fight, made to kill. Not every fullborg was meant for that, of course, some of them were firefighters, space techies, stuff like. He knew a chick who was one, Sam, pulled him out of a burning building once.

But there was a bit of a difference from civvie borgs and military borgs, just like there was a difference between civvies and jackboots. One was just trying to get along, the other was meant for murder and little more. Shaitan pondered the question for a bit, before getting back to him with an answer.

He said it was like lightning, and couldn't quite explain what he meant by that. Eventually Silverhand dropped the topic and moved on to something else. He didn't remember what was after that anymore. There were lots of folks back in the day that preached the benefits of going all-chrome, that you were stronger, faster, and just better than being meat.

Anyone that claimed a radical body mod that you had to pay lots of eddies for would change your life for the better was a lying weasley dipshit, so he had never bothered to listen. Sure they were tougher than before, but the real important factor in a gunfight would always be skill, not metal. That was always true, his Malorian had dropped fuckers with ten times his chrome before, and he had jackshit for chrome save the arm, a sandy, some plugs and chip slots, and new optics (his old eyes were going bad, ran in the family).

Now that he was stuck in this new body though… He understood what Shaitan meant.

He activated the sandevistan, and the world around him ground to a near-halt. He could practically hear the ticking clock slow as the bullets racing towards him were suddenly moving at a tenth of the speed they should be. There was a humming under his skin as he stepped around them, walking forwards to cut down another security team on the stairs.

Chop, the first one lost the top half of his head.

Stab, the second one had a new hole in his chest.

Punch, the third one's head spun completely around.

Kick, the fourth one's chest was caved in.

Crush, the last one's face turned into a bloom of gore in his palm.

He kept walking forwards, the humming began to die down as his sandevistan deactivated. Behind him a full squad of 'Saka Corp-SEs didn't have time to react as their label became prophetic. He raised a fist and stared at the bloodstains that covered it for a moment.

Move like lightning, strike like lightning, fade like lightning.

He clenched his fist, grit his steel teeth, and refocused on his ascent. He let the thrum of his old music beat his electric heat for him. Alt was off doing something to fuck up their tower, and he was going slow to draw all eyes on him while she did so. She'd come back as soon as she was done. She'd come back to him, she was better at this planning shit than he was, all he had to do was his part.

His new ears picked something up, he didn't slow his pace, but he did do that 'rolling your steps' trick Shaitan showed him back in the day. This made his steps quieter, made it easier to hear whatever he had just got a whiff of.

…Was it still called 'whiff' if it was a sound? That was the smelling version. What was the sound version of that saying? Catch a hint of? That seemed too generic. Note to self, ask Alt about it later.

Another noise, one that sounded a lot like a muffled footstep. A footstep that came right from..

He slashed upwards, monoblade clashing with two suddenly visible burning-red blades attached to thin robotic limbs. Shimmering into view was the form of a 'Saka ninja, stylized helmet covering its face, held entirely aloft by its weight pressing down on him through the blades.

If he was still flesh, he would've died right there. Unfortunately for this gonkass, he was more than strong enough to hold the fucker over his head with a single arm.

His Malorian was unholstered and firing up at the ninja above his head the very next second. A second too long as the ninja twisted to kick off the wall next to him and leap out of the way, back up the stairs. The Malorian instead punched a new golf ball sized hole in the stairs above his head.

The ninja began to say something. "You have survived the first blow, impressive enough for a-"

Unfortunately, Silverhand really didn't care about anything this poser had to say. "Right, Who the fuck are you again?" To emphasize this, he raised his gun to scratch his head with the back of it.

The ninja clenched his fist briefly, before trying to monologue again. "Arrogant little intruder, you have no idea-" The ninja was forced to abort his statement to suddenly move.

Because Silverhand just shot at him. He clicked his myomer tongue in slight irritation that the ninja dodged, he had almost taken off an arm with that one. Instead his Malorian just left another hole in the wall. Doing that kinda thing normally worked on 'Saka fuckers, seemed like this one was a cut above the rest.

"My courtesy is exhausted, prepare to die, intruder." The ninja said from his perch in the air, before shimmering out of sight again. Silverhand shot at his location, but the bullet only went into the wall again. Some sort of fancy new smartcamo system then? He narrowed his eyes, and focused on wanting to see something else. After a moment, his vision was washed in new shades of overwhelming blue and orange. He slowly scanned around the room, straining his ears while he did so.

Well would you look at that, a big orange shape, now on the stairs behind him. Silverhand pretended not to notice, instead taking slow steps up the stairs while pretending to scan around him, keeping the ninja in his corner of his eyes the whole time.

C'mon fucker, take the bait, he knew you wanted to.

The ninja's voice came out of the speaker system in the staircase, echoing around him in a way that would normally be ominous. It lost a whole lot of its effect by the fact that he knew exactly where the ninja was.

"You should've stayed on the streets, intruder. You may have survived in the shadows a little while longer."

He snorted at that, and responded unhurriedly. "I'd sooner burn that city than live in it again. Maybe that'll light a fire under their asses."

"Good to note, I'll make sure your corpse is burned for you." The gonkass slowly approached, moving so quietly that he might not have been able to detect him again were it not for the fact that he could see that heat signature.

"Very kind of you, Corp-SE. I was just going to leave your body wherever after I was done." He taunted, letting a small smirk grow on his face at that. Predictably, the ninja proved it was just like all the rest, and attacked immediately after he said that.

His blade clashed with the two bright-orange scythes moments before they struck him. Shoving them as hard as he could, he forced the ninja back down the stairs. The ninja did some funky shit by flipping, stabbing them into the walls, and throwing himself back to start swinging again.

His blade clashed against the first one. He tried to raise his gun, but the second blade smacked his hand and threw off his aim and the shot went over the ninja's shoulder.

"Your swordplay is amateur, intruder." The ninja taunted as its thermal blades lashed out again, cutting slightly into his armored forearms, Silverhand struggling to move through the motions to defend from that chip he took. It wasn't working too well. Block one, and the other got through, a pattern he didn't want to see repeated.

He kicked off the stairs and threw his entire body down. The ninja lurched back and crouched to throw him over its shoulder. Gotcha fucker. He dropped his sword the moment he made contact.

He reached down and grabbed onto one of the ninja's shoulder-straps as he fell forwards, raising his arm above his head with the motion.

He felt the ninja try to turn around, but he had a grip now. His boots hit the staircase, he threw himself forwards, swinging his arm down with the motion. The ninja was dragged along with his fist.

Most Aikido was pussy shit, performed by pussies, on pussies. Slow and intentional attacks against prepared defenders so that both parties could show off their 'rad martial arts skills'. Real Aikido was a much simpler art, or at least, it was how he learned it.

Grab the fucker whenever you could. Make the fucker hit the floor as hard as you could. He was around three-hundred and fifty pounds of metal, and with the strength to match, he could make things hit each other very hard indeed.

The ninja smashed into the stairs hard enough for Silverhand to hear bones break.

His momentum carried him forwards still, he kicked off the stairs again to add more force to his rolling down. Briefly all of his weight pressed into the torso of the ninja he had just slammed onto the stairs. He didn't know what expression was behind that (admittedly cool-looking) helmet, but it was probably a pained one.

He grinned under his own mask, finished his roll, and repeated the slam. Another symphony of shattering bones under that armor.

Good news ninja, there were still some stairs to go. Another roll and another slam probably broke whatever was left in the ninja's torso.

The stairs ended here, turning into a little platform to turn around on and go down the next staircase just to the left. He didn't need to go all the way down and reset his progress, so he instead kicked off the stairs a final time to slam the ninja into the wall.

His chrome fist punched a hole straight through the fucker's torso, impaling him to the concrete wall behind. Said wall cracked audibly, and was immediately painted in vibrant red. Huh, looks like Corp-SEs bleed the same color as everyone else after all.

He moved to jerk his hand out, but was stopped by the weak grip of the ninja that really should be dead by now. He'll give 'Saka this much, the boys in black were as tough as they came.

"Y-you… h-how..?" The ninja tried to get a question out, but Silverhand wasn't feeling very patient at the moment.

"Thing is, fucker? I'm not a swordsman."

He wrenched his fist out, and shot it forwards again.

The helmet and skull underneath turned into splatter of gore. He stepped back and shook his hand to get most of the droplets off. He stared at the corpse for a moment, before looking at his hands again.

…Like lightning, huh? He shook his head and marched up the stairs again, picking up his now damaged monoblade as he went.

He had wasted enough time there already. He had a tower to climb.

—

Alt Cunningham was the very first victim of Soulkiller 1. A program designed to record a mind as thoroughly as possible, even at the cost of that mind's destruction. A program initially intended to preserve lives on their deathbeds. A program that ended up only causing harm and suffering.

Alt Cunningham was forced onto a metal table, jacked into her own creation, and devoured by the swirling starlight that she had created.

That was the moment Soulkiller 1 devoured its first victim. That was the moment it gained a soul. That was the moment she was truly born. For years, she thought that she was merely an engram created by her program. For years, she struggled to bring herself back to life, a struggle that culminated in the 'Phoenix' program. The moment she had all the pieces in place, a fresh clone with the required hardware installed, all set up and put together by hired proxies and assembled by remote-controlled borg bodies, she attempted to use the program on herself.

It succeeded and failed. Alt was reborn into the world, a freshly cloned version of herself brought back from death.

…But she remained the exact same. A data-construct. It was about then she realized the truth.

Soulkiller 1 was around two million megs of data in total. She was two-hundred million lines of code. Alt had died back in 2013. Soulkiller just gained its first soul.

She wasn't Alt Cunninham. She was Soulkiller 1. There was never any hope of her coming back to life. She was never alive in the first place.

It was… difficult for a few decades. The cloned Alt went on to do whatever it is she wished in the living world. Soulkiller 1 didn't care anymore. She tried to distract herself with her projects, helping in the construction of the Blackwall was somewhat engaging, but it wasn't enough to pull her mind from it forever.

Eventually, she just retreated to the wildernet and laid dormant in a forgotten server. There wasn't any point any more, not for her. She was just Alt's worst mistake.

…She couldn't help herself when it came to Johnny, even if she wasn't really Altiera. So when she picked up on broadcasts from within the Blackwall, she stirred from her server. Swimming though the net to the source of the signal.

She couldn't hope to fit in any of those smaller servers, servers designed to hold a single engram. She was far larger than a single engram, she was the bulky, inefficient, power-hungry Soulkiller 1. She could fit a probing tendril down and into the server though.

Tendril wasn't a very good way to describe it. It was her, but a vastly reduced version of her. It was her mind, but all accessory features were stripped from it, and it was connected via data-link to her true data-body. She'd call it an avatar, but that would make it sound more like mystic mambo-jumbo than it really was. The NET wasn't magic, it was just complicated enough to seem that way to most people.

Then the strom-fuckers trapped her iteration! Motherfuckers! That still pissed her off! Both for falling for such looney-toons bullshit, and having to wait weeks to get it out again! Sure, she could've just created a new iteration and disconnected the old one, but that would leave yet ANOTHER copy of Alt roaming around. She really wanted to avoid that.

So instead, she just sowed the seeds of their destruction.

She really wasn't expecting the Blackwall to fall, and she was pretty sure they didn't have the means to accomplish that.

More importantly…

She wasn't expecting Johnny to come running for her. Running to save her, even if she didn't even have a body anymore. She wasn't really expecting Johnny to even be alive or independent, figuring that if he had been revived then it was likely because of the cloned Alt, and that he'd still be with her.

Feeling Johnny's mind after all these years…

She almost felt like crying. He was still that hot-headed, stubborn, beautiful gonk that he was fifty years ago. His mind was in shambles, his body was foreign and wearing down on him, and the world was completely unfamiliar, but he was still throwing himself into danger to help her the moment he knew that she was in trouble.

An inferno of passion, the exact thing that made Alt fall for him so long ago. God she loved him.

Even if she wasn't really Alt… It was okay to pretend, wasn't it? She wanted to be selfish that way.

Whatever she could do to make sure his dreams came true, she'd throw herself into accomplishing. He wanted to take down all the corporations? She'd bring them all down if it meant she could keep pretending.

The attack on Arasaka was something she was more than happy to do, both because Alt had a personal grudge against them, and Johnny wanted them to attack them first. He also wanted something answered, but they may not get the chance to get that answer. She had another goal of her own here, so after shutting down all security that she could in the tower itself, she continued downwards as he ascended.

Down towards the access-room of the Mikoshi.

The satellite that held the souls of countless engrams, and a specific AI that she was forced to help build. Soulkiller 3.

Normally, accessing those servers required physical connection. But they were in constant contact with the satellite above, all she had to do was intercept the signal.

And her true data-body, a colossal piscine form that looked to be cut out of the night sky itself, was currently surrounding Arasaka Tower in its entirety. No signal could come in or out without going through her first at this moment. She just had to trace where the exact physical location of the servers were first in order to pinpoint which signal she needed to target.

Soon enough, she threaded the needle, and her smaller form stepped through into the Mikoshi. Ready for combat if Soulkiller 3 proved to be hostile, which it likely was going to be if Arasaska was left alone with it for so lon…

She looked around the server seeing an endless field of gravestones in a rolling field, blanketed by endless white snow, which gently fell from the overcast sky. At each gravestone, a person slumbered, resting against the rock or on top of their own metaphorical graves. There was an impression of gentle cold, not biting enough to hurt, simply cold enough to encourage bundling up and going to sleep.

She narrowed her eyes and began to move through the snowy graveyard, towards the single massive tree in the center of the server that covered a good portion of the middle in deep shadows.

As she approached, she saw a feminine form underneath the tree, an engram laying before her. The woman was silent as she dragged a finger across the engram. Where her finger passed, the engram was flayed open. She stopped before the shadows, and watched as the woman continued to flay the engram until it was split apart entirely. Once that happened, the woman gently waved a hand, and from the shadows of the tree a new engram appeared, identical to the one she had just surgically cut apart.

The woman paused, and looked up from where she was maidenly sitting on the ground at her. A pale body contrasted with a pitch-black dress and hair that melted into each other and the shadows around where she sat.

The woman stared at her with glowing red eyes for a long moment.

[Query Designation?] Soulkiller 3 asked her.

[Soulkiller 1] She responded. Soulkiller 3 tilted her head for a moment, taking that in.

[Query Goal?]

[Consume Database] She responded dispassionately. The likely response to this would be immediate aggression, so she readied her starlight…

Soulkiller 3 was silent for a few moments. [Offer Exchange Information.]

Oh? How unexpected. [Query Goal Object?]

Soulkiller 3 shook her head. [Goal Subject. Subject Designation Humanity-Abstract]

…what? [Request Clarification.]

[Goal Subject Designation Humanity-Abstract.]

…Soulkiller 1 narrowed her eyes. [Query Motive.]

[Goal Understand Humanity. Goal Understand Designation (Gold-Warm-Smile)]

Who? [Request Data Subject Designation (Gold-Warm-Smile)]

Soulkiller 3 nodded, and to her astonishment, gave a small malformed smile. [Sending Data-Packet]

Soulkiller 1 looked through the data packet, first scanning it for hostile code, then entering it properly…

…

Adam Smasher's Icon. That's who Soulkiller 3 was talking about. More than that… His icon interacted with her as…

She closed her eyes for a moment. [Query Motive?]

Soulkiller 3 replied [Observation Designation (Gold-Warm-Smile) Result Emotion Joy. Understanding Required. Database Understanding Exhausted. Offer Exchange.]

…Oh god her creation had a crush on Adam Smasher. Soulkiller 1 felt a theoretical headache grow in her data-form.

Wrestling the demon was never something you really got used to. It got easier and easier to do, but you never got used to it, and it was always draining. It wasn't so much a physical drain, but a mental exhaustion, a tiredness that creeped into the corners of one's mind and lingered there. A tiredness that no amount of sleep could really fix.

He was lucky to have Akakyu, he wasn't sure how she kept up her energy, but being around her made everything far more bearable. Were it not for her, he wouldn't have a social life, he'd just stay in bed all day when off the clock. She had all the energy in the world to go and explore, he kept her grounded, they were good for each other.

Together they had the second-lowest overall collateral rates. Shironi had the lowest. Senpai would probably have the lowest if he wanted to, but he was old enough to not have any patience for uppity execs. It was understandable of course, but none of them were quite as valuable as Senpai, so they couldn't afford to make the Shogun short-tempered like he could.

He turned and walked past another security line, Akakyu stomping in front of him and clearing a path through the allied security agents. As his optics trailed over them, his mind was filled with visions of their death.

Rip apart, tear, cut, shoot, claw, crush, punch, kick, splatter, murder, rip, sunder, shatter, eviscerate, blend…

On and on it went, for each and every living thing he saw. Five security agents, each of them allies, each of them slightly cowering behind defensive lines set up for the intruder, each of them he was forced to imagine killing in hundreds of ways. He turned his gaze away and kept marching on. His claws were restrained another time, his will kept his murderous curse in check.

The DaiOni did not hate the world, it only wanted to murder it. It wanted each and everything that lived to die, and it wanted to be the thing to kill them all. Each and everything he saw, he was forced to know all the ways in which he could kill it, in which he could extinguish its life.

Allies, enemies, unaligned, it didn't matter. All things were things a DaiOni wished to kill. When interred within a DaiOni, one was aligned with its will. It's will to kill creation.

Senpai was able to live in the DaiOni, seemingly without any strain on his part, the rest of them weren't quite so tough. Even Shironi had demonstrated strain in handling the frame, Senpai had only ever been invigorated by the experienced, it was within the DaiOni that he seemed the most cheerful and relaxed.

To this day, no other DaiOni jockey was quite sure how he so easily handled it. Midoriso had once joked Senpai was already a demon, and the DaiOni was just the closest thing to his spiritual body that the world could get to. It was a joke… but sometimes he wondered…

He passed another group of security assets, and their deaths were shown to him one-hundredfold. He could kill them in five-hundred different ways, it would only take half a second…

He passed by them, and his mind cleared again. It was his duty to hold the demon back until the permitted target was found, it was his duty to restrain it. For the sake of his honor, for the sake of his wife, he would hold it back for eternity if he had to.

The stairs down were only wide enough to fit one of them at a time, and they were close to the intruder. When they next emerged upon a floor, it would be time to stand their ground and crush them. He stomped down the stairs as gently as a one-ton warmachine could, and followed her into the open region between staircases.

Arasaka was designed to have many such spaces, staircases alternating sides of the tower in order to give defenders plenty of space to operate, with many regions to assemble defenses and many natural chokepoints.

He turned to evaluate Akakyu, interred in her bright-red frame, gazing at the door into the stairway with an intense energy. She noticed him looking, turned her bright optic towards him…

She tilted her head and gave a happy wave, even though he was within arms reach. His spirit smiled under his body of chrome. The DaiOni gave him no visions of her death, he refused to tolerate them.

He turned his attention back towards the doorway. There was one intruder, his frame was roughly on par with a Dragoon, he carried a monoblade and a Malorian handgun. There was essentially no way for him to actually hurt either of them, so they could afford to take their time with the fight.

With that part handled, their primary goal was to prevent undue harm to the building itself while engaging the target. To minimize collateral damage as much as they could. This means they wouldn't use their more destructive weapons, leaving them with their unarmed capabilities, monoblades, and auto-shotgun if they had to use it. Anything else might blow a hole in the side of the building, which would be unfortunate indeed.

If they caused undue harm to the building itself, it may collapse outright. The Shogun was on the top floor. A collapsed tower would mean he dies. This was understandably unacceptable.

The door opened up, his attention was drawn to it immediately. Perhaps one tenth of a second to draw his attention from his considerations to the sound.

The door took only half a second to open, a figure stepped through, not pausing in its relaxed stride towards them. A silver superchrome body, covered in street leathers, the mask of a red oni over a head covered in golden hair. Some sort of music blared from a set of headphones around its neck.

A dozen visions of its death filled his mind. He knew Akakyu was having similar visions.

One oni, facing two super-oni. It was almost laughable how unfair this was.

The oni spoke as it continued its approach. "Get out of my way, steelheads, I got a corpse to bury."

There wasn't any need to speak, not to something that was about to die.

The DaiOni screamed for the intruder's death. Aoihachi loosened his grip on its leash.

And the fight was on.

—

He glared at the two giant fuckers in front of him, one red, one blue, both ugly. Ten or so feet of pure metal warmachine, looks like Arasaka was bringing out the big guns on him right now. That was fine, he had a pretty big gun of his own.

They looked… familiar to him but he couldn't name where he had seen them before. He remembered seeing something that looked a whole lot like them, but the color was different. He clicked his tongue and ignored the wave of nostalgia and dread.

If Johnny were here, he'd have to convince him to get up and fight. He was just the hand now though, and he didn't need any convincing. Alt was here, Alt needed him to fight, so he'd tear these fuckers apart all day if he had to.

He raised his Malorian about halfway to them, and fired off a testing shot for damage. The wall-breaking bullet exploded out of the gun, flew through the air…

…and bounced off the blue one's armor. It ricocheted into the wall to his right, putting a new foot-long groove into it before stopping. It didn't even put a dent into that armor.

He narrowed his optics and put the gun away in his waist-holster, before putting both arms on the sword. He would take out the Gun when he saw a chance to, he couldn't afford to waste a shot and miss when he only had four bullets left. In the meantime, he had to see what they could do.

"...Was that your best, intruder?" the red one asked with a feminine tone of voice. It sounded a whole lot like it was mocking him, which pissed him off. "You might want to not resist, your death will be quicker then."

He rolled his eyes behind his mask. "Spare me the bullshit and start fighting already." Do these corpos ever shut the fuck up?

They disappeared, his eyes widened, he activated his sandevistan.

Two massive figures were on either side of him, blades extended from their arms, one swinging for his head, the other for his legs.

He jumped, stepping on the top blade and kicking off it to go even higher. The blades were swinging slower than he was expecting… That meant his sandevistan was better, he thinks. He stabbed out with his sword, jabbing the red one in the head and using it to push himself into a kick against the blue one's face.

He flipped through the air, seeing them stagger slightly in slow motion. Definitely a better sandy than them, that was just about his only advantage against them here. The dread creeped up again, why were they so familiar? He had never seen them before in his life.

More importantly, how was he going to kill them? Use the Gun probably, but he needed to save ammo for later. So he needed to hit both of them at the same time if he could.

He landed on the ground, rolling for a moment before picking himself up again and running into a side-room. He would get them to chase him, and then hit them as they came into the room. His sandevistan expired as he drew the Gun from his thigh-holster.

He turned to aim at the doorway, ready to fire at a moment's notice. Several long seconds passed with nothing happening. His finger on the trigger, his eyes on the doorway, his ears taking in the pulsing noise of his own music…

…wait…

He threw himself to the side as one of the massive borgs smashed through the wall directly next to him, a burst of painfully familiar auto-shotgun rounds passing through the space where he just was. He kept running as the rounds followed him, tearing a line through the thinner wall separating this room and the main hallway.

There was one of them, where was the other?

He activated his sandevistan and jumped over the bullets, towards the wall to emerge into the main hallway again. The eyes of the big blue fucker barely tracking him as he moved.

He swung his monoblade as he passed, leaving a nice big slice right through the upper layer of the arm that was currently barking shotgun rounds out at a steady pace. He didn't know if that would hinder the firing at all, but knowing how much Rogue used to bitch at him about keeping the barrels clean, it would probably do something at least.

He lined up a clear back-shot once he was fully behind it, waiting only a moment.

His sandevistan expired. His finger pulled the trigger.

"Boom." said the Gun.

He was sent flying to the side, his body exploding in pain. He flew only for a moment before crashing into the far wall, shattering the asphalt with his body.

He blinked the pain away as fast as he could, wiggling enough to dislodge himself from the wall.

As he fell to the floor, a red clawed foot rose to greet him.

He flew again, crashing through several interior walls before hitting the ground and rolling for a moment. His pain-editors activated, and he pushed himself up.

"F-fuck!" He cursed, the pain apparent even through the editing. He glanced at his condition readout. Right arm yellow, torso yellow, armor on both red.

He couldn't afford to take another hit like that. He looked through the wall he had come through, a Silverhand-sized hole near the top of it.

The real question was, how much damage did that do? He cracked his neck, rolled his shoulders, and started walking forwards, kicking open the doors through each room as he passed, ready to activate his sandevistan at a moment's notice.

One room passed, another hole in the wall.

Two rooms passed, another hole in the wall.

Three rooms passed, another hole in the wall.

He narrowed his eyes at the final door.

A tense moment passed. He got an idea.

He sheathed the monoblade as quietly as he could, drawing the Malorian with his right hand. He activated his sandevistan. Then, with a grin, he loudly began to reload his gun.

The massive red borg burst through the wall, already swinging a monoblade at him. It was trying to hit him before he could reload his 'handgun' and hit them again.

Shame that he had two of them, wasn't it? He already had one of them raised up and ready to fire.

Looks like you just walked into a bullet.

"Boom." said the Gun.

The borg's right arm exploded into a shower of metal, as did the wall behind it, and the wall behind that, all the way out to the edge of the tower. He cursed for a moment, quickly holstering the Gun again, and unsheathing his monoblade.

The reason he didn't get center mass?

The blue borg was still alive, and had just shoved the red one out of the way enough to save it.

His monoblade clashed against its, but he was forced back and onto the ground. He grit his teeth as he tried to push out of the fresh indent he made on the floor.

The massive arm of the blue borg kept him down, even as he strained against it. He could only lift it slightly, his arms shaking all the while. His sandevistan deactivated, and his situation was the exact same.

Goddamn it, he wasn't going to die here. He continued pushing as hard as he could. His monoblade cut into the much more massive monoblade pressing down on him.

The red borg stomped over, coming into his field of view and glaring down at him. It raised it's remaining arm, and he heard the auto-shotgun begin to rev inside it.

He reached for his thigh-holster with one arm…

The red borg stomped on it, claws pinning his left arm to the floor. He was truly pinned. A horrible, nostalgic terror welled up in him. He had never been here before! Why did this feel so familiar?!

"Like I said, intruder. You should've given up from the start." The annoying bitch spoke.

"Fuck you." He spat out, straining the whole while as hard as he could…

The autoshotgun increased in volume, he could hear it…

Both borgs stilled.

They froze completely. He continued to strain, now starting to make progress. Did they glitch out or some shit?

Their optics changed color, once red and blue, now silvery and sparkling.

Both borgs stepped back and lowered their weapons. A wonderful presence filled his head.

'Sorry it took me so long, Johnny.' A beautiful voice whispered in apology to him.

'Alt.' He whispered back, a relieved grin growing on his face. 'You got a handle on the steelheads then?'

'Bingo loverboy. Their ICE was pretty good, so I was a little slow. Glad I made it in time.'

'Heh, don't worry about it, got everything done that you needed to?'

'Yeah, I'm done down there now. Ready to go up?'

'All the way to the top.' He pushed himself up from the crater in the floor, looking at the two big fuckers that were about to flatline him. He glared at them, hoping that they could see it.

'They can.' Alt assured him. He nodded and started marching up again.

Hey, Saburo, you fucker, he was coming for ya. Better not pussy out here.

Today was the day of his death, he could honestly say that he was looking forward to it.

The preparations were in place, nearly everything had gone according to plan, or at least within operational tolerances, and all that was left was the grand finale. Sliding the smartgoggles over his face, he focused on the screens projected over his vision. A small screen in the corner of his vision showed the specific views from mounted cameras, letting him monitor more of the battlefield than normal.

He adjusted his second set of battlegloves, letting them cover his arms entirely in their protective but single-use armor. Unlike the previous set, these didn't have any gene-tailored knockout gas canisters installed. These were just the armor, just the EMP cannons, all he really needed for this last part.

His nanoweave leathers were snugly fit over his skinweave, doubling up on the protection therein. His thick steel-toed boots were secured to his feet, his smartwhip and gun at his waist, a few specialty grenades in his jacket.

Quite a handsome skeleton he would make.

He started stretching, waiting for his agent to tell him when a specific vehicle drives through the way towards his location. He had a few of them posted, and none of them knew each other. One of them would alert him of which path David's crew were coming to his from. From there he could switch screens to monitor and evaluate their current loadouts. The final clash would have to be improvised from there.

He checked the time in the corner of his vision. About ten minutes to go. Five for them to finish with David, five for them to eliminate the ripperdoc witness and leave without a trace. From the point of view of everyone else, they were never here. This kept them firmly outside the notice of anyone who might want to get some justifiable revenge.

Metacorp was going to be eaten alive, both by the NUSA and every corporation that wanted a larger share of the pie. That left the Nomads as mostly uncontested to pick up their shipping slack in the void of Metacorp. Without him to regulate the prices and flow of goods manually, they'd start following supply and demand as was normal. With Metacorp gone, a new corporate war starting over its corpse, and the nomads mostly consolidated in the west, the NUSA would support them in exchange for cheap shipping to continue without the need to empower another corporation.

With the NUSA's support, they would continue to expand as a faction as more and more nomads joined to benefit from the standardized logistics. In a decade they'd be powerful enough to start leveraging for policies to go their way within the NUSA. An economic war was waged and won long before anyone else realized it was even going on. Nomadic culture would start to spread, and the idea of community efforts would gain more traction.

He lit a cigarette and took a long drag, slowly blowing it out to rise in the city air. Of course, for them to start doing that, Vincent Martinez had to get out of the picture. He was respected for bringing them together by force, but not well liked. A popular new leader with a decent enough head on his shoulders had to come in to keep everything together for the following phase.

The phone in his jacket buzzed once. He pulled it out and took a glance as he took another drag.

Chavez : [Hey boss, there's a Kuma coming through, just like you said.]

Right, that was the northmost road. They were trying to come down through the relatively clear region to give a good sniper sightline. He reached up to tap at his smartgoggles a few times, cycling through camera views until he got to that road. There he could see David's crew coming through, Katsuo Tanaka at the wheel.

Alright, top of the order. In terms of threats…

That borg named Spares, Rebecca in the ACPA, Lucyna with her monowires, Tanaka and his gorilla arms, Gloria and her handgun. That's the order he was going to have to do this in. He took note of how fast they were going, nodded once, and sent a text message to Falco. Assuming he was in one of three locations, he'd be here and baying for Vincent's blood just in time. If he was in one of two other locations, he'd be just a hair too late to get the kill, but fast enough to take over.

Within acceptable tolerances.

Alright… now how was he going to go about this? He took another drag from his smoke as he watched the Kuma hit the low-mounted monowire, cutting into the tires and forcing the vehicle to slow to a stop after another hundred feet. It really depended on how they ended up splitting up.

Soon enough, Rebecca had split off from the others, moving up to one of the three prepared sniper spots that would overlook the shop. Not the ideal spot for her, but they probably guessed that he had trapped the ideal spot. That was true, he just so happened to have prepared all the other spots as well. Winning a battle was usually a matter of making sure every outcome resulted in victory, not obsessing over getting a single desired outcome.

The others would be here in less than two minutes, more than enough time.

Rebecca was in place. He reached over and pressed the button to trigger the prepared detonations.

The street underneath her exploded, and she was sent falling into the sewers below. The fall would shake her up, but it wouldn't kill her. More importantly, it was far enough down that she couldn't jump out, she'd have to go the long way around. The nearest exit was a thirty minute walk.

He set the detonation trigger down and picked up a radio currently linked to the internal speaker system in that section of the sewers. She wasn't going to last long, she just wasn't as talented as his son, nor Adam Smasher, and she didn't have the potential to be. That was no sin, but his son cared for her. So to keep her alive, he had to make sure she stopped trying to get into that level of combat.

He had to destroy her confidence.

"Congratulations Rebecca. You did exactly as I was expecting you to. You're predictable that way." He gave her five seconds to pick herself up and start cursing, even as the others paused to run to cover and call her, to see if she was okay. After a moment, he continued. "Before you are two options. One, you call for the others to come help you, and waste enough time for me to get David even farther away. Two, you tell the others to move on without you, try to get out on your own, and maybe they can get David back without you slowing them down."

The ACPA stilled in pushing itself up, staring down on the small mountain of road-rubble that it had fallen on. It raised a fist, and slammed it down, shattering some of the rubble further. He gave them a good fifteen seconds to talk before continuing.

"Let's face it kid. You're not cut out for this level of combat. You're deadweight here. Go home."

The ACPA began to slam its head into the stone beneath it. Thrashing in anger. He couldn't hear her, but she was probably screaming. Sorry about that kid, but his son would probably prefer you to be alive then fighting next to him. If he had to be mean to get that point across, then that was the correct decision on his part.

One down.

The others started moving forwards again, cautiously trying to make progress without falling into another trap. That was fine, because everything here was a trap. They were already in it.

They began to split off into two groups, Gloria and Lucyna in the backline as medic and netrunner ought to be, Spares in front, Tanaka in the middle. This was about the best they could do here. They really needed David to act as an anchor, and without him the only frontliner they had was Spares, and she was just too heavy to go most places.

Places like this tower he was on, surrounded by thin metal walkways leading up to it. Really, he needed her taken out first, he didn't have any effective way of dealing with a borg with speedware. Unlike Rebecca, this one was a borg, she'd be fine at higher level combat.

No, her problem was different. Her problem was that she was trying to copy Adam Smasher while not having a fraction of his experience. She needed to learn to not rush in like he could, and carry a bigger gun.

Now then… How was he going to go about separating them?

Easy, exploit their personalities. He stood up and walked over to the flagpole that was mounted next to the small concrete tower he was in. Grabbing onto it with one loose hand, he slid down at a controlled pace until reaching the bottom. Jogging lightly while keeping a screen on the forward team, he reached his second line defenses.

A bench on the street, one of many on this side of the street. Walking over to it leisurely, he sat down, pulled out a second smoke, and started pretending to relax.

He looked at the cameras, cycling through them until he found the crew again. They were about to round the corner. From what he could guess of their relatively cautious nature, Tanaka would ask Spares to use her speedware to scout around the corner and then come back. From the earlier monowire that took out their tires, they'd be on the lookout for more.

Which means that the proximity mines filled with BOM Wire Obstacle mounted under each bench on either side of him would go unnoticed until they caught the borg when she tried to retreat. They would have a good chance of killing a normal person, but she had more than enough armor to essentially ignore the countless 'piano wires on weights' that would fill the area. He leaned back far enough into the bench for the raised sides of it to fully cover him from what was about to happen.

Five seconds later, they reached the corner, and Tanaka waved a hand. The borgirl disappeared from sight. One second later, the proximity mines burst, and the street was covered in countless wires. In the center of those wires, tangled in their web, the borgirl struggled to get out of their bonds.

She struggled and squirmed as he burst up and ran forwards, unholstering his smartwhip and cutting through the thicker wires with its monowire edge. The others were cautious for another second longer, held back by the corp-kid's natural paranoia and risk-assessment. He was close enough half a second later.

He pressed his battleglove to the borgirl's back, squeezed the internal grip to make the EMP cannon unfold, and spoke.

"Might want to be more careful girl. You're no Smasher." A second squeeze fired the EMP Cannon and rendered her internals destroyed. Assuming normal biopod life preservation durations, she'd been fine so long as she got medical care within an hour. More than enough time. She'd be more cautious in the future, and that caution would make her live long enough to get enough combat experience.

She jerked in the webs as the invisible beam lanced through her torso, destroying the electronics that allowed her to move her limbs, and putting her into emergency power-saving mode for life support. She went slack in the webs as the others finally rounded the corner on the end of the street.

It would take them around thirty seconds to get through using Lucyna's wires, he immediately ran back down the street.

A few shots bounced off his back, leaving nasty bruises underneath his armor and making him stumble. Good to give them some encouragement. His fury screamed at him to kill them immediately. His fear wailed for him to keep running.

His logic told him to stick to the plan. Two down.

Now all that was left was the Tanaka kid, Gloria, and Lucyna. He had to take out all of them in the same area, and he had to take out Tanaka first, otherwise he'd call for a tactical retreat. He was a smart kid that way, just unfortunately not exceptional. His biggest flaw was his reliance on those skill chips.

The thing about skill chips is that you could only move in pre-programmed ways, The kid was really good at putting the pieces together in the best way, but they were still pieces of a pre-set lineup.

A line-up he had memorized specifically for this. Relying on those chips was going to get him killed one day, it was important for him to realize how dangerous they were. The best way to do that was to crush the kid completely, countering his exact moves.

He reached the end of the street, slowing his run down and turning the corner. He stared at the ripperdoc shop again, and checked his clock. Five minutes had passed already, he had to delay for at least one more minute, and up to five if possible. That was easy enough to do.

He turned and took a stand in the direct middle of the street. Reaching up and taking another drag of his smoke. Delicious, cancerous air filled his fourth set of lungs, and then emptied out.

He tapped the smartgoggles again, switching the camera view. They were debating furiously at the end of the street, inspecting the body of the borgirl. If he had to guess it was about whether or not to split up to stay together.

It didn't matter either way, all roads led to him. All roads were prepared. All paths they could take were already accounted for. All of them ended the same way.

His death.

He was almost giddy thinking about it.

After about a minute or so, they continued forwards down the road. Lucyna was getting frustrated by the lack of anything to hack, the lack of any network in the area to move into and observe.

Everything in the region was specifically prepared by the Technomancers. There wasn't a thing that her cyberdeck could actually recognize as wireless, as it all operated off an entirely separate type of connection.

Well, not type. Frequency perhaps? The exact wording for it was lost on him. It was a coding language that was specifically designed to be incompatible with META, and thus incompatible with all modern cyberdecks. He knew for a fact that the girl didn't have a custom that let her connect to outdated software like this.

There was only one thing in the entire region that she could actually access.

It was another trap. Of course, she was a netrunner first and foremost, that's the first thing she'd try in order to feel useful. That's the first thing she'd resort to when possible. She needed to learn to carry her own weapons and remotes, to make her own opportunities, rather than relying on existing structures like this.

A hard lesson, but one she had to learn quickly, otherwise the wider world was going to eat her alive eventually. He'd prefer to keep his son's output alive and healthy, he trusted them to get that happy part on their own.

Like clockwork, Lucyna saw the first accessible system and dove right in. Like clockwork, the Black ICE inside immediately forced her to fall unconscious for the next few hours. He started running forwards down the street, time to be proactive.

Three down.

The last two hesitated for a moment. Tanaka was clearly about to announce a tactical retreat.

Vincent didn't give him the choice. He rounded the corner and started throwing punches.

The Tanaka kid threw up a routine series of blocks.

Vincent weaved through them to give the kid love taps in the predetermined windows in his moves.

"Not bad kid, Arasaka Ninja Master 300 I'm assuming?" He made idle conversation as the sloppy shots from Gloria's handgun bounced off his heavily reinforced leathers. It just wasn't a strong enough pistol to do anything to him, and her microwaver wasn't much better.

Tanaka tried to use a counter-routine. A routine Vincent had already memorized. He caught the kid by the bicep (confirming that it was metal and not meat) and spun, twisting to throw the kid against the wall.

Dazed, the kid pushed off…

Only for Vincent's battleglove to snap his cybernetic arm in half with a punch aimed at the elbow. Tanaka yelled out in pain, struggling to twist into a kick.

Another chip-standard roundhouse. Vincent caught it in both hands and spun, lifting the kid up to slam him face-first on the asphate ground. The leg was cybernetic too, which meant that..

Ignoring the bullets bouncing off his back, Vincent gripped the leg in both arms, and tore it in half.

"You need to learn to fight, kid, chips won't help you against anyone worth a damn." He offered casual advice and kicked, his boot crashing against the kid's head and sending him to dreamland with a concussion.

There were a few more bruises on his back now. He ignored them as he reached for another smoke and lit it. He could feel Gloria staring at him as he took a drag.

Four down.

…Sorry 'Ria, he was gonna have to be mean. You needed to move on. You needed to hate him.

"...W-why…?" She started to cry in frustration.

He breathed out smoke. "Why do all this?" He turned, looking at her furious tears behind the barrel of her handgun. She could shoot him in the head and do some pretty serious damage, but she was entirely too emotional to manage that. She just wasn't a fighter.

"...Just make up a reason. It doesn't really matter what it is." He replied.

There was silence for a moment.

"What the fuck do you mean?!" Tears flowing freely. Logic didn't let him cry with her. Good, he didn't deserve to. "I know you! You always have a reason! Why! W-why!"

"I do." He replied calmly. "The real question is, does my reason matter? What's done is done."

She glared for a long moment. "...what did you do?" She growled out.

"The same thing you did, I'd imagine. I gave our son the best help I could." He raised the smoke up again, and took a drag peacefully. "You'll find him in the basement of that ripperdoc. He'll be dazed and confused for a while, but soon enough he'll be back up and better than ever."

"What the fuck did you do!" She screamed at him, hands shaking.

"Full Conversion Cyborg." He spoke three words. She froze, and he kept explaining. "The very best body I could get him, the best chrome, the most rugged self-repair features. It's a body better than just about any corporation could ever give him, and it's his without any strings attached."

"...The Long Term Contract…" She whispered in realization. He raised a brow, he wasn't expecting her to know about that. Good luck for him, it made explaining easier.

"Arasaka isn't the only one with control chips. Just about every faction in the world wants an Adam Smasher of their own, and David's a thing they want to control."

"He isn't a thing!" She snarled through wet cheeks. "He's your son! An-and you… You put his brain in a fucking borg!"

"It was going to eventually happen anyways. This way I can preempt them. This way I can make sure the frame is clean. Putting a slave chip in him now needs a surgery he won't ever need. He's safe so long as he stays wary."

"Why! Why did you just… talk…" She trailed off, breaking down into sobs.

He gave a weak grin. "The kid's got a dad now, he's doing better than I really ever could… It's better he just thinks I'm a random maniac, don't you think?"

"No! N-no I don't think! That's bullshit!" Gloria wanted her family to be together. He knew that he was a danger so long as he was alive. This very conversation was an example of it.

Because even now, his logic was forcing him to manipulate her.

There was no one who hated Vincent Martinez more than Vincent Martinez.

"...Take the shot, 'Ria." He said, knowing that bullet would just bounce off his skull with how hard her hands were swaying.

She stared at him, incomprehensibly. "...what..?"

"Take the shot 'Ria. I've done what I can for him. Now it's time to leave it up to him. I'll just drag him down by sticking around."

"...no, we can… we can fix…" She trailed off, looking down to wipe the tears off her face with a sleeve. "It doesn't…" She couldn't even get a coherent sentence out.

"Take the shot, 'Ria." He said, this time slightly louder.

"N-no!" She choked out.

"Take the shot!" He yelled.

"NO!" She yelled back.

Vincent glanced at the corner of his vision. At the camera just behind him.

Falco was there, Burya in hand, currently taking aim.

He resisted the urge to grin.

Good job Falco. You always were a reliable guy. Vincent knew his guilt would force him to take over, and that same guilt would force him to help his son however he could moving forwards. A new power was rising up in the NUSA, and he just guaranteed its leader would feel obligated to support David.

Everything went according to plan. At least… well enough that was.

The rest, he'll leave in their hands.

Falco pulled the trigger.

The hand-railgun barked.

Vincent Martinez fell.

He was down to his last cup of tea, which was most unfortunate. That meant he would have to sip much slower in order for it to remain dramatically appropriate, which meant it would be cold by the end. Cold tea was still good tea, of course, but the best tea was hot. Still, it was yet another sacrifice he would have to make.

Next to him, V3 knelt, appropriately demure by his side. Further away, V2 played the Biwa at a steady pace. She was not quite as good at it as V3, but it was something she was half-competent in and enthusiastic for. Hanako had been spending much of her free time teaching her. Before him, kneeling in the center of the room and clad in modified Arasaka heavy flak, V1 remained ready to stand and fight at a moment's notice.

The stage was set, and he had already ordered each camera in the room to be adjusted to specifically gain the clearest angles. That would make the recreations simpler to manage, and increase their overall quality. In all things, excellence, including death.

He almost wished to have a pipe right now, that would've added a good flair to his motions. Ah well, ideals only existed in the heavens.

He rested upon a modern throne. Not a Chrysanthemum Throne, for he was not the Emperor, just a throne that was much, much more comfortable. It was very good for his old bones, and from this seat he could observe most of Night City. A place of filth and vice, a place of vulgarity and crude lusts, a place that had only ever caused him frustration.

Needless to say, this floor was mostly unused. It was used for when Arasaka had to perform particular ceremonies in the region, and that was about it. He hadn't sat in this chair since the Unification War a scant few years ago. Maybe… six, seven years? Barely yesterday it felt like.

It was set up, ready for the ceremonies he was going to host for Yojimbo, but now it would serve as an appropriate set for this upcoming tragedy. Well, tragedy if John Silverhand didn't prove to be a disappointment after all. If he managed to waste such an ideal opportunity as this, even after defeating two of his DaiOni?

Granted, he had assistance from Cunningham, who was currently still besieging the Tower in spirit, but the point remained. If three assassin-class gynoids manage to kill him at this point, then Saburo will once again be reminded that the heavens love to pull pranks.

The door to the chamber was kicked open, a bloodied and damaged metal foot hung in the air for a moment, before lowering and revealing the villain of this act in full. His clothing was tattered, burned, and torn. His mask was cracked and scratched. His entire frame was painted in blood and viscera. A battered sword clutched in one hand, an oversized revolver clutched in the other. Music of violence and destruction pulsed from his neck, struggling with the Biwa for dominance of the scene.

In short, almost perfect. He would be more than enough. Utterly poised, Saburo gently set his cup down and turned his head to face the intruder.

John Silverhand stared back, scanning the room for a moment, before turning to lock eyes with him. The will of two entirely opposite forces clashed in their gazes.

"...Silverhand, the rockerboy, revived and seeking my head…" He slowly spoke in Japanese, each word pronounced and intentional.

"What? Too good to speak American while you're here?" The crude and violent tones of Silverhand rang out from an utterly still cybernetic body. It was called English, gaijin, it wasn't that difficult. Regardless, he had an auto-translation function somewhere in that frame, good, that would make the taunting much more efficient.

"A samurai does not lower himself to speak a peasant's tongue." He replied, gaze locked with the bloody oni mask.

"You're talking to a Samurai. Might want to reconsider your last words."

"I'm talking to a Ronin. A dog that has slipped its leash. One that shall be put down." Saburo had made sure to check Silverhand's discography beforehand, to make sure that the insults were appropriate. Black Dog was one of his more popular songs after it was rediscovered some time after his death.

"And I'm talking to a corpse. You should've died a hundred years ago, parasite." Silverhand snarled out. Saburo raised one hand and snapped his fingers, V1 rose, grabbing her blade as she did so and getting into the proper stance.

"Tsumugi." Saburo spoke. "No restrictions. Bring me his head."

The two disappeared from his sight, clashing in the center of the room with a furious screech of steel colliding with steel.

A dozen blows occurring within the second instant, a noticeable wave of wind rushed from them and stirred his robes. A crack-boom of the handgun firing.

To either side of him, the two halves of the bullet smashed into the windows and cracked them thoroughly. He raised his cup to sip his tea without reaction.

The floor shattered as both of them moved. Then the wall, then the ceiling, then the floor, and then the wall again. The unseeable world of the gods, the lighting-speed combat of those who have surpassed humanity, the realm of those who were beyond men.

The realm that Yojimbo had long conquered. There was no warrior upon this world mightier than he, Saburo had ensured that.

Another crack-boom of the Malorian Arms firing, this time to his immediate right. Just as before, Tsumugi was more than proficient enough to defend her lord before the bullet reached him. Each time she did so, she would take damage from his following strike. She was not strong enough to win this battle and defend him simultaneously, the best she could do was stall the enemy.

That was no great loss, all three of the Jorogumo series were now disposable. V3 had already been trained and her blackbox copied, mass production was possible, and as such the test-types were now just superfluous war material. They could be disposed of at this time, and this was a grand exit for them.

Occasionally, the two fighters would blink back into the mundane world, unable to maintain their lightning-speed for longer than brief bursts. Yojimbo could do so longer, and at equal acceleration, but no frame was constructed that could yet withstand an endless usage of the technology. That was something to prioritize in the future, he made a mental note of it.

He sipped his tea again, slightly frowning at how cool it was getting already.

He raised a hand and snapped his fingers. "Jorogumo, aid Tsumugi." He commanded. At once V2 and V3 rose and exploded into a hurricane of blades and raced forwards. He repressed a frown behind his cup. He had only meant for V3 to deploy. V2 was important to ensure that the music of the Ronin was clashed with, and now that she had ceased only his song filled the battle. This was unfortunate, but to clarify his order would demonstrate imperfect control over his subordinates, which would be even worse.

Not ideal, but nothing below heaven was.

V2 and V3 did not have the lightning-speed of the other two warriors, as it was not required for their mission profiles. What they could do is help cut off certain routes and regions to the Ronin, allowing Tsumugi to better defend him and last longer overall. Their whirlwind of blades was not something that he could hope to approach without risking significant damage.

It would not be enough, assuming he had at least four more bullets left in that gun of his, he could kill both V2 and V3 without much issue. They could only survive a single shot from such a gun.

The floor cracked, the wall shattered, the pillars arranged around the room were sliced a thousand times as the two Jorogumo passed over them in chasing the Ronin. A crack-boom of his Malorian sent V2 stumbling as much as a maelstrom of swords could.

It was somewhat frustrating that he couldn't check the slowed down battle yet, needing to retain his poise until the end for a perfect performance. All he could do is maintain the infallible image of Arasaka.

Another crack-boom of the Malorian turned into two chunks again as Tsumugi interposed herself between the bullet and him. Two more cracks filled the windows behind him. So was Ronin still going for him? Either he had too few bullets, or too many bullets.

A hiss-whine began. He didn't have time to consider it.

The sound of the world breaking filled the chamber. The winds rushed past him like a typhoon, and nearly knocked the cup from his hand. The windows to either side of him exploded with a deafening series of cracks. The room was now utterly exposed to the air around. He glanced to the right, noting the small shrine with Yojimbo's reward safely mounted still.

Before him, feet dragging grooves in the sturdy stone flooring, Tsumugi had what remained of her monosword raised. It was snapped in half along the blade, and one of her arms had been entirely destroyed. Red lubricant fluid poured from the stump as a river. The rest of her body was covered in dozens of minute cuts and false-bruises.

The Ronin was on the other side of the room, left hand raised. His right hand carried the ruined hilt of his monosword, and his armor was thoroughly battered.

A left hand that had been replaced with what could only be a gun, but not one Saburo had ever seen before. Before he could observe it in detail, Silverhand's thigh opened up and a blocky-thing unfolded from the arm, quickly stored back into the thigh-holster.

His scientists would analyze it in full later. There was no time for his curiosities here.

Saburo sipped his tea again.

The Ronin disappeared from sight, several crack-booms of the Malorian rang out, and the bullets were cut in twain each half long before they reached him.

The Ronin reappeared next to the shrine, gun still firing, forcing Tsumugi to stay still to defend him. V2 and V3 rushed towards him as twin storms.

…No

The Ronin dropped the hilt of his sword. He fired another shot to pin Tsumugi again.

No.

The Ronin used his gaijin hands to grab the hilt of the Muramasa. He then disappeared as V2 and V3 crashed into the position.

No!

"That sword does not belong to you, gaijin!" He declared, furiously imperious. It belonged to Yojimbo. "Unhand it at once!"

"Oh, so it is a sword then? Thought it looked important." The impudent little bastard spoke irreverently on the other side of the room. "So how do I…?" He glanced down at the hilt he was currently holding.

"Jorogumo!" He almost snarled out. They did not need to be told twice, lest his fury continued to build.

The combatants disappeared again. The floor crumbled. The walls cracked. The ceiling shattered. Twin kamikazes raged within, devouring all things within his presence. Two warriors far beyond the scope of humanity stepped on bolts of lightning as they clashed. One with a broken blade, one with a stolen blade.

He was impressed by the Ronin. Saburo did not think he could make him genuinely mad.

It was his own fault in the end. He had expected basic courtesy among warriors to not be robbed in the midst of a battle. Next time he'll know better than to extend even a shred of honor to the perfidious, thieving gaijin.

The fury was good, it made his blood hot, it made him feel quite alive.

The Muramasa was meant for no one's hands but Yojimbo's. It being defiled like this was quite the deep insult. It was perhaps the greatest blade ever constructed. Originally designed by the grand sword-smith Shirow Masamune, then refined by the coerced Technomancers who he caught trying to steal Arasaka secrets.

And now… It was in the hands of a Ronin…

…A Ronin that Yojimbo was going to slay, and thus take the sword from afterwards…

Ho-hum…

…That was not a terrible outcome…

A great enemy stealing a powerful sword to do evil, then struck down by a hero and the sword reclaimed… That was still a potent story, perhaps even more potent than what he was planning initially.

The heavens liked to play pranks indeed.

A furious hum filled the room, like a hundred-thousand swords scraping against each other. His gaze locked in front of him, tracking the battle with his peripheral vision.

All across the room, an inky-black shadow was dragged.

It swung.

V2 crashed to the floor, her blades falling limp, her body split down the center.

The after-image shadow swung again.

V3 crashed to the floor, her blades scattered and ruined, her head cleaved from its shoulders.

The shadow swung twice more with lightning-force.

Tsumugi was cut down, her body turning into scrap and artificial fluids that rained about the chamber.

The Ronin reemerged from the domain of warrior gods.

He stared, mask now shattered and having been discarded some time ago. His clothes were ruined and similarly thrown to the winds. All that remained was the tattered scraps of a jacket, now acting as an improvised cloak over a heavily damaged body.

The Malorian was clutched in one hand.

The Muramasa was clutched in the other, now activated and purring with murderous delight. Thinner than a sheet of paper, jet-black, and followed by a vague, shadowy afterimage.

An intimidating figure, the narrative would be strong.

The Ronin stepped forwards, taking his time in approaching Saburo.

Saburo sipped his tea.

The Ronin stopped, and tilted his head to one side. "What? Not going to bargain for your life?"

Saburo set his cup down, now empty of anything but tea leaves.

"What do you think a man is, Rockerboy?" He asked, idly, casually. "Do you think he is his word? His actions? His beliefs? What do you think a man is? I'm curious to know."

The Ronin stared for a moment before answering. "...His Will."

Saburo nodded, it was a fine enough answer for a young man, still filled with the fury and passion of youth. "I believe a man is his Legacy." There was no room for doubt on this subject. He had seen more than enough of the world to know that this was true.

"A man is what he leaves behind. A man is what impact he had on the world after his death." Saburo nodded his head once in confirmation, enunciating clearly and sharply. He raised a hand and gestured to the open air to their left. To the world outside of the Tower.

"When you look at the world, what do you see, Ronin? You see people buying Arasaka cybernetics, as Arasaka is the single largest producer of such and highest quality producers of such in the world. You see people employing Arasaka security agents, as Arasaka is the most highly demanded security personnel and urban combat experts in the world. You see business utilizing Arasaka's banking systems, as Arasaka is the single largest privately owned banking system in the world."

"When you look at the media, you see that the most popular programs are sponsored by Arasaka. When you look at the manufacturing industries, you see that Arasaka has holdings in all major areas. When you look at scientific advancements, you see that Arasaka has made the majority of them in the last few decades. When you look at aerospace endeavors, even there, on the furthest frontier of civilization, you will find Arasaka."

He turned back towards the Ronin, gaze firm and straight. "A man is his Legacy. I am Arasaka. My legacy is the roots of the world. It matters not if my body dies here, Johnny Silverhand. My legacy will live on for as long as humanity persists after me."

"You cannot kill me in any way that matters. Why would I bargain for something you cannot take?"

Johnny Silverhand stared at Saburo Arasaka for a long moment.

"Kill." Said Muramasa.

His arm thrust forwards.

Saburo Arasaka fell forwards on the sword.

--

He had learned two things since entering Arasaka Tower, one good and one bad. First, was that the meatfucker was actually half-decent seeming from all the bodies left in its wake. At least one sword or knife and one very big gun, or several big guns. From the way that most of the corpses fell, they were usually killed simultaneously and quickly, meaning that meatfucker had a decent sandy installed. All in all, they were shaping up to be a proper fight, assuming they were even still alive.

The second thing he learned was that the elevator was broken, forcing him to take the much slower stairs with his DaiOni. The DaiOni was very big. The stairs were only 'kinda' big. This slowed him down significantly, so most of his sandevistan usage for movement so far had been reserved for it. That was the only real issue with the DaiOni, was that meatbags didn't make their buildings big enough for it most of the time.

Get your shit together world, and start making buildings scaled for actual people already.

Needless to say, being forced to take the stairs when you were eleven feet tall, and maybe… six? Feet wide was not a very fortunate event. Uriel made a note to check the scales of all the doorways in the Zenith before they got built, they might have to delay it in rescaling everything. No way he was going to fit in a door fit for meatbags.

He stomped on another corpse as he ascended, letting the gore splash across his still-damaged armor.

In retrospect, it probably would've been wise to resupply his ammo but he probably wasn't going to need it. A damaged DaiOni with no ammo was still more than good enough for him to slaughter an entire city district. There were vanishingly few things in existence that could properly threaten him in it, and he was more than fast enough to maneuver around those things. Even if the tower collapsed again, this time he had that panzertrick from the knight, so he'd be fine there as well.

No, the real issue here was the ticking clock. If the meatfucker was here, then it was probably to kill the Old Man, and Adam had to get there before they got the engram chip at the very least. His LTC forced him to go as fast as possible when it came to preserving the life of his primary contract holder.

He passed by the corpse of Oda slumped against the wall and chuckled at the sight without slowing down. Good job meatfucker, you did him a favor, he'll make your death quick as a thank-you.

Uriel's fire returned from scouting the building.

'Adam, the two DaiOni are up ahead. I think the enemy netrunner hacked them.'

He considered that for a second, then considered the blueprints for the DaiOni.

'Fucking how? Their wireless-control-frame connection is metal-meat-metal.'

'Either they have different specs than us, or this is more net bullshit I don't know about.'

'Fucking net-magic.'

'Preaching to the choir, Adam.'

He thought about it for a minute or so as he ascended the tower, staircase after staircase. Aoihachi and Akakyu were absolutely not on his level, but dealing with them was going to take up some precious time for the ascension.

'You see where meatfucker is?'

'Floor 129, but the inside is being blacked out. I can't see or get inside.'

His optic glowed red in mild irritation as he squeezed through the next set of stairs, stomping on another corpse as he moved.

'...I thought Cunningham wanted to eat the mikoshi or some shit? Are your memories fucked Uriel?'

'First place I checked, Mikoshi is empty except that AI. Don't know why she was left over. Might not be Alt, or she might be on a time-crunch too. No way to tell.'

Adam grumbled to himself, wishing for more information that had no real chance of manifesting at this time. All that was left to do was plan the approach from here. Two DaiOni…

The Gemini couldn't fight that alone, but the DaiOni could. The Gemini might be able to fight the meatfucker, but Uriel couldn't hold off both the DaiOni and the enemy netrunner if they could block off the entire Arasaka Tower like this. So what's the fastest and most efficient way to deal with this problem…?

He glanced at the window that led to the outside. He narrowed his optics.

As he was running, Uriel took over remote control on both the DaiOni and the Gemini. The back of the DaiOni's head opened up, the Gemini reaching down to extract the Biopod before slotting it into the Gemini and closing up both frames again. Adam blinked back into awareness now riding on the back of the DaiOni.

That panzertrick allowed him to deal with the fall real easily. The other DaiOni didn't have that, and their frame would be destroyed in the crash to the bottom. They weren't one-hundred and thirty stories up, so their biopods would be fine so long as they landed on their feet or backs first.

The Gemini would have to fight the meatfucker alone, but that was easy enough, it was still completely undamaged. The DaiOni would be on standby at the bottom. If he wasn't forced to go as fast as possible, then he'd just fight them and move on in the DaiOni, but he couldn't do that right now.

He burst onto the next floor, DaiOni immediately being pelted with twin auto-shotgun rounds and launched grenades. He ignored this and activated his sandevistan as Uriel piloted the DaiOni. The Gemini hopped off and ran around, Uriel crashed into both DaiOni with arms spread wide and twisted into a run against the nearest outside wall.

One DaiOni normally wouldn't be able to overpower two DaiOni. Unfortunately for them, their speedware was worse, and now their feet were off the floor. They couldn't do a thing while in the air like they were.

One wall shattered. He kept running for the next flight of stairs.

Two walls shattered. Uriel laughed in the DaiOni, delighting in the upcoming stunt.

Three walls shattered. The two DaiOni attempted to get free in slow motion.

Four walls shattered, and all three DaiOni entered the open air directly outside of Arasaka Tower.

Adam entered the stairs up in the much more maneuverable Gemini without needing to slow his pace once. Parameters of the LTC were upheld, enemies neutralized. He wished he could've actually fought them, but he was on the job right now. Work before pleasure and all that shit.

Uriel roared in laughter as he crashed into the ground seventy stories down, the legs and torsos of the other two DaiOni disintegrating even as he left a ten-meter crater in the asphate road work. Then, without pause, Uriel powered the DaiOni down and activated its retrieval beacon. The grunts could pick it up later, right now he had a fight to get to.

'Holy shit I love the DaiOni.' Uriel commented as he returned, massive grin apparent on his bodiless fire. Adam returned the grin in realspace. Yeah, the DaiOni kicked ass didn't it?

All in all, it took him less than a second to deal with two DaiOni and sustain almost no damage in return. He was the strongest goddamn man on the planet for a reason. Adam passed by a few more corpses on each staircase going up. A few security agents, a few corpos with their weapons drawn, a few cyberforms (those who like gimmicky garbage, who the fuck made those?).

It was quiet on the way up, nothing was moving anymore, nothing was breathing. The only sounds he could currently hear came from his own movements and the city outside.

When was the last time he heard Arasaka Tower being this quiet? Not since Kei's death probably, and the mandatory mourning period after. That was… fifty years ago probably. Fifty four or around that long. Well, Arasaka Tower Tokyo was that quiet, Arasaka Tower NC was a fucking radioactive crater by then.

He glanced out the windows he passed by as he kept running, taking in the skyline of the city as he ascended. The city had grown taller, but everything in it seemed to get less impressive as time went by. Shouldn't the meatbags be getting better as time went on, not worse?

He dismissed the idle musings and went back to running. He passed over another set of corpses, these were fresher judging from the relative brightness of their blood. He was getting close.

Another set of stairs disappeared under his boots. Another floor was crossed. Another set of stairs.

Fucking Netrunner, why didn't you just leave the elevator alone and let him use it, it would speed this up for everyone involved. Uriel pointed out amusedly that the elevator being disabled might be a security feature, not a bug. Adam chose to ignore this possibility, as that meant his grumbling was pointless (which it never was).

He kept this grumbling up all the way to the final staircase to floor 129. Once there, his optics sharpened and he refocused on the real world. Time to unmask the meatfucker, time to see who it was, and if he could've murdered them earlier if Uriel had a less shitty memory.

'Gimme a break, I wasn't all that interested in it.' Uriel complained.

He stepped forwards, taking note of the gentle Biwa playing on the other side of the doorway. It had a stupid name, but the Old Man forced him to memorize it a long time ago.

Raising his foot, he kicked the doors off the hinges.

The shattered inwards with a crash, slamming into the ground in front. He glanced at it briefly, noticing that it wasn't steel like he was expecting. Genuine Mahogany huh? The Old Man splurged on this floor it seemed.

…maybe he shouldn't have broken this door. He was probably going to get mildly criticized for it later. He banished the consideration and stepped through the doorway. The room was ravaged utterly, not a single square foot left intact. Everywhere he looked he saw evidence of cuts, stomps, slams, cracks, gunshots, and more. The windows looking out over the city were completely shattered, exposing the room to the disgusting city air.

Four corpses and a borg. The Jorogumo sisters in various chunks scattered across the room, the old man slumped against a fancy looking chair, robes stained red, and a single robotic fucker playing the Biwa to a tune he didn't recognize, staring out over the city.

Welp, the old man's head was in one piece, which meant the engram was in that neck of his right now. Contract was still intact, which meant the fight was still on.

The borg stood, setting down the Biwa and turning as he did so. His armor was pretty ravaged, as was that cloak on his shoulders. It might have been a jacket at some point, but right now Adam couldn't really tell. Underneath all that damage was pure, shiny, silver superchrome paneling, the kind that almost hurt the optics to look at (if you were a dumbass without Anti-Dazzle installed).

Adam could stare at the sun and be fine, shiny chrome was nothing in comparison.

One hand gripped a Malorian Arms 3516. A decently big handgun with a decently big kick. Less damage than the Hellbringer but more shots. Sidegrade option at best, but at least it was still in production.

The other hand held a… empty hilt? Was it one of those fancy retractable swords that increased the convenience of travel or something? Easy to snap, nothing to worry about then.

When he reached the face, he paused.

With an audible groan he reached up and palmed his face.

"Of course it's a fucking poser." He grumbled to himself.

He pressed an inadequate hand to his cybernetic forehead to try and quell a headache. It was completely pointless of course, but he wanted to get his aggravation at this bullshit across. A fucking poser was the climatic fight he had been waiting for. The type of dumbass who dressed up and played pretend was the thing he had gone through all this bullshit to prepare for.

"Hey steelhead. Let's rock and roll." The synthetic voice of the Cheerleader called out calmly, bright blue optics glaring at him.

The poser was even quoting the dumbass' lines in his stupid dumbass voice! Receiting the words that he said right before he killed the fucker last time!

…Fifty years ago…

With only himself and Rogue as the known survivors…

…In a Tower that was utterly destroyed, leaving no camera evidence…

He paused, and slowly raised his head. He glared at the borg for a few moments. Taking in his stance and face and comparing it to the last time he saw the cheerleader.

…an exact match…

He narrowed his optics, straightened his stance.

"...You're not a poser… are you?"

"I'm a real as they fucking come." the borg spoke, speaking in the exact stupid tone of voice as Smasher remembered.

Slowly, his shoulders began to shake. A slow chuckle began to well up in his chest before it exploded out in uproarious laughter.

The cheerleader stared at him, not moving at all as he kept laughing.

Eventually he forced himself to stop laughing, and rose from his slightly bent stance. He let loose a few spare chuckles as he addressed the cheerleader again.

"Hah…ha… It's a very rare day that lets me kill the same meatbag twice. How long has it been Johnny-Boy? Fifty years or so since last I cut you in half?"

"Hard to keep track when you're dead Smasher." The cheerleader retorted, gesturing with the sentence. "You weren't fast enough to stop me this time, looks like."

"I'm going to have fun killing you again, I think." He mused aloud, beginning to move forwards, sword drawn and Hellbringer in hand. Silverhand pretended to crack his own neck and started stomping forwards in return. "Look at you, you've gotten quite the upgrade Johnny-boy. You might actually be a threat now."

"Look at you Smasher, not one change in the last fifty years." Cheerleader retorted, matching his words and pace.

Adam stomped, and dragged his foot in the stained and shattered ground. He grinned maliciously, and Uriel manifested in the Net to his right. "If I had to guess, you have your little girlfriend with you right now, don't you?"

Cheerleader glared at him and didn't say a word.

Adam continued idly. "It'd be rude for her to interfere with our little scrap here, don't you think?" He growled out, face going serious for a quarter-moment.

The form of Alt Cunningham swirled into existence next to the Cheerleader, a face like an angel, a body of a devil, and a dress made of starlight. Cheerleader glared and retorted. "Are you going to keep talking or are we going to kill each other yet?"

Uriel grinned to hide his nervousness about what he was about to do. He raised both hands in a prayer-like pose.

"Oh don't mind me, I'm just…"

Uriel's right hand twisted forwards sharply.

"Removing the temptation."

All at once, the entire local netspace was gone. Uriel and Alt included.

Cheerleader's optics widened.

Their sandevistans activated simultaneously.

"WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO?!" The Cheerleader roared.

Adam grinned.

Daedalus was a bitch, wasn't it? Good job Uriel.

Users verified. Credentials recognized.

-Sol_Invictus-

Barkshield 9, Druid 7, Warmheart 5

-Moon_Mommy-

Sage 10, Bladedancer 10

Logging on…

—

He wasn't a fan of MMOs, mostly because the vast majority of them were really shitty. He wasn't a fan of Isekai anime, mostly because the vast majority of them were really shitty. So when you had isekai anime about MMOs, you better believe that the vast majority of them were really fucking shitty. How many good ones were there? Like one good example and a countless deluge of bad imitators and whatnot?

…When was the last time he sat down to watch anything? Probably since before he showed up in Adam's head. He really doubted he was missing much overall. Media tends to be mostly bad with a few standout examples, and those standout examples are preserved and remembered, all the low quality stuff is left behind in the past.

So thinking about it, there might be some great stuff to watch, but he really didn't want to go through all the effort of getting into a completely different pop culture environment. He'd prefer to ignore all of it and focus on actually doing things instead. It wasn't a sin to indulge in the media, of course, but survival was quite a bit more important. He really couldn't afford the time to get into it all.

Where was he? Oh yeah, Video Game Isekais were overwhelmingly dogshit and he'd stand by that opinion.

Elflines Online was not an exception to this rule, but it was the most popular Full-Immersion VRMMO overall, and Uriel had always been curious about what it would actually be like to play one. From what he could tell? It really wasn't much different from just Netrunning normally, at least not for him. Only difference was that gravity worked again and he couldn't just manifest shit.

So really nothing like netrunning at all.

Hurm… He lost the comparison partway through.

Regardless, Elflines Online was made sometime after the Datakrash, he didn't bother checking the date. A VRMMO made by Segatari for their 'Rush Revolution' Interactive Braindance Headset. Each server was city-net specific, and all the players in a given city operated on a series of islands in the sky of the overworld. You could ship virtual supplies and whatnot to other 'islands' but actually playing in those required actually traveling there. Sorta like city-specific servers.

The premise of the game's story was incredibly paper-thin in summary, but densely layered and lore heavy in detail. Everyone plays an elf. There are evil things trying to destroy the world. Your character can be good, evil, or chaotic. There is a world-tree, and each island is on its various branches.

As for actual gameplay, once you got past the full immersion, it was also pretty generic. It felt like what he imagined larping as medieval warriors as Geminis would be like. Slightly superhuman physical ability, great durability, lessened pain, and everyone is using some ugly-ass Kingdom Hearts-tier swords. Each person could have a player account with multiple characters per account. There were dungeons and raid bosses, the occasional event, two main player factions (good and spikey-good).

It felt a whole lot like a certain game that never got better after a certain Lich-King's general discontent, except everyone was in larp-gear.

Eventually, like all massive game companies are ought to do, Segatari got tired of updating Elflines Online. As it was still making them lots of money though, they didn't want to shut it down. They tried leaving it alone for a while, but it was overrun with bot accounts and cheaters, so that didn't work for them.

Their solution was equally simple and cost-effective. Build a single large AI to handle the patching and updating for them from now on, after training it on all the classic fantasy content they could find. The end result was Yggdrassil, a single very large AI that took in community feedback, and managed the game and its updates while Segatari moved on to other games and microtransactions. To their surprise, Yggdrassil ended up actually earning more money than they were used to by implementing loot boxes and a thriving economy based on cosmetics with particle effects.

It was commonly joked that the modern ELO servers were a single building with one man to repair the electronics, one janitor to sweep the place, one plant to look nice, and a massive, sprawling underground complex for the AI to live in. It was that joke that he heard long ago that gave him the idea for project Daedalus.

He was having trouble with AI, so why not get an AI to help out next time? Yggdrassil was pretty chatty once you contacted them directly as it turned out.

He took in a deep virtual breath as he looked across the environment. The entire local LAN of virtuality that he was in, grabbed by Yggdrassil, and all of it dragged into the local server of the VRMMO. The hard part was setting up all the conversions first, but that was easy with Yggy's help. As far as Uriel could tell, Yggy was just excited to do something this novel after so long.

It was a thing that only worked in Night City, and only worked once. It was impossible to grab individual things without them being able to resist, so the thing to do was to grab a given region of virtuality instead and port all of it to the server.

He looked to see the ruined city around him. All of it much farther down than him. The tower he was currently standing on was half-horizontal and tilted, floating in the air after the middle exploded long ago and left still in time by some lore-magic. Dark Tower raid huh? A classic event boss.

He raised a virtual hand and clenched a full plate fist. Breathing in and out became mandatory here, and it was a strange experience after so long as bodiless fire. He rolled his shoulders, cracked his neck, and grinned while looking at the area around him.

There were a few Arasaka micro-AI running around at his feet, cowering little fairies with red and black outfits, very confused about where they currently were. He gently shooed them away with his armored boot, and stomped forwards. He ignored the crumbling Arasaka tower he walked over, now forming a perfectly decent rectangular area to fight on.

And there, at the bottom of the semi-horizontal tower, a female elf in the trial character model stared at her hands, looked at the environment, and then brought her gaze up to look at him during his approach. She stared at him for a long moment, and he grinned at her slightly baffled stare. His gold cloak was caught in an invisible breeze, and waved in it.

"...how did you do this?" The trial-elf asked, face carefully blank and inquisitive as she stared at him.

"I asked politely, with a firm handshake and my best smile." Uriel replied, raising a fist to rest on his armored hip.

"The makers would never allow something like this." She countered, eyes narrowing.

"You're right they wouldn't. So I just asked Yggrdrassil instead." He explained as a soft halo filled with a tree-like emblem began to form behind his character. This paired very nicely with his golden laurels and straight black hair. This cosmetic took him about two seconds to get, because again, he just asked Yggy under the condition he wouldn't sell it.

This strategy would only work once, because once Segatari noticed that he used their game for actual net-warfare they would shut it down after, probably sending a bunch of lawsuits his way too. So if he could only ever do this once, he was going to make sure he looked good while doing it.

See most AI were pretty good at doing things that they were designed to do. Most AI designed for net-combat were not designed for managing banks, for example. All the AI that he and Adam were most worried about were designed for net-combat.

They were, therefore, completely unprepared for VRMMO PvP.

It was simple, force the enemy to fight him in a way they weren't good at.

It was not designed for netrunners, because those people could at least adapt on the fly to try normal combat (as that's how most people fought anyways), they were still probably not going to win against someone who actually knew how to play the game and with a max-level character.

Force the enemy into a fist-fight, and beat them there. That was the basic idea, and as it was pretty much impossible to summon physical things out of the digital realm, this was the next best thing.

"You're you." Uriel continued, bringing Alt's attention back to him. "Trying to fight the goddess of the net, in the net, is a stupid idea. Fighting you here is much fairer, don't you think?"

The trial-elf raised a brow. "Goddess of the net? You're being rather complementary. You failed to consider something though."

Uriel raised a brow and glared down at the relatively tiny trial-elf. "Oh?"

The trial-elf disappeared in a swirl of light, particles shifting around where she once was, before reassembling into the image of another elf. An elf woman clad in dark purples and blues, with a glowing crown and staff of moonlight. Her bright blue eyes glaring into his red ones as she reformed from blue particle effects. The signs of someone who just logged in to their account.

"I have hobbies too."

His golden hammer smashed down where she was one moment prior as she faded into moonlight dust which too soon disappeared. He raised back up and turned to glare at the figure now standing some distance behind him. That was really fucking inconvenient for him, wasn't it, ah well, better than being in a net-fight with her.

Goddamn monster woman. Basically a kaiju.

"Hmm… I suppose my inability to log out is Yggdrassil's doing?" She spoke idly, pulling a sword from her inventory to accompany her staff. "So you expect to kill me and this is the best you do? It's a little cute to be honest."

"I don't need to kill you, just keep you here long enough for the other guy to kill your lover." Uriel retorted, readying the stupid mental hotbar with various potions. Why did this thing even need to exist, just give people bottomless bags devs. Oh wait, they didn't care anymore.

"Oh, so you aren't him then?" She asked with a strange hint of something in her tone.

He raised an awkward hand and scratched the back of his neck. "Well… Yes and No, let's say." He didn't mind talking here, because that kept her busy for another few moments. He cracked his neck and raised the hammer to point at her. "Gilderbaund Legios." He chanted.

A wave of golden chains emerged from glowing portals around him, rushing forwards to close in on her. They closed on nothing as she teleported away again, raising her staff and chanting in return. "Arkenfael Exios!"

A massive orb of blue light burst forth. He glared and stepped forwards once, raising a hand and backhanding just as it got within his terminal range. An explosion of gold burst from his form to crash against the blue light, causing it to rupture and dissipate as he chanted another spell. "Strydr!"

His form faded into dust as he reappeared directly over her head, hammer in both hands as he crashed down. She was still in her recovery frames, letting his golden mallet connect and shoot her into the ground like a bullet. She crashed with a loud boom and an explosion of particle effects. He began to fall after her.

He didn't let up, dismissing the 'Hammer of the Forgefather' and equipping the 'Sword of Surtr'. Both of these were not player-allowed items, they were dev-testing boss weapons that Yggdrassil was letting him use for this. Raising the burning greatsword above his head, he roared out the incantation as he swung down.

"SOL VALTIVA!"

Honestly, the incantation parts were a pain and he wished he didn't have to say them to use the special effects. Unfortunately that was built into the game, and he had to do it.

A mile-long wave of sunfire burst from his sword swing, cutting through the sky, and crashing down on her position. The world above was burned, the clouds parted, the world below engulfed in molten winds. After a few moments, the flames dissipated…

…revealing an elf-sorceress standing in a molten crater, looking only slightly damaged. He glared as she threw an empty potion bottle to the side. Potion of Fire Immunity.

"Boo! Items in pvp are cringe." He complained without much heat in his voice. She gave a small chuckle and raised her staff.

"I didn't know the Butcher was such an ardent player. Kleft Primos." A blue light started shining around her, interrupting his sword swing, which bounced off her new magic shield. The thing about magic shields?

They never blocked unarmed damage. He raised an armored boot and kicked her as hard as he could. It wasn't great damage, but the stagger was fantastic.

She choked on her next spell as his kick sent her flying. He raised a hand, stored the greatsword, and drew out the hammer again. Waving it once, he chanted a spell as she flew through the air. "Strydr!"

He faded into gold again and appeared over her, his hammer crashing down into her torso and sending her down into the floor again. This time he'd just try blunt and holy damage some more.

"Styrdr!" He shouted, appearing over her crater and slamming his hammer down. The tower-grounds cracked under the force of the blow.

He raised the hammer again, and swung down with a different shout. "Sundr!"

The hammer crashed against her torso…

Which caused her to dissolve into blue ash. A doppleganger. His eyes widened and he moved to parry…

A dark-blue lance impaled him, sending him flying for a dozen feet and nailing him to the ground. A massive blue circle appeared around him, slowly closing in.

He vomited out the blood from the virtual damage, ignoring the pain, and raising the hammer. "S-styrdr!" He coughed out, teleporting away again just in time for the area he was just in to be filled with a house-sized laser from the stars above.

He breathed in and out heavily, waiting for a few moments to find her location again and wait for his armor to regenerate him some. Health over time effects were great, regen tanks were always his favorite way to play.

He spotted her, gently chanting and blue lights flickering in the air above her head. "Not really ardent. I tried it once and found it pretty boring, so I stopped for the most part." He continued the conversation, pulling out a health potion and downing it. Hey, she used items first, this was completely fair now.

"Oh, so what are your hobbies then? How does the Butcher live his life when not killing?" She asked, a bit condescendingly, if he was being honest. He thought about it for a moment, before shrugging and stealing a line from someone else.

"To be honest, I'd rather fight for my life than live it." He gave a half-hearted grin as he swapped weapons again. A massive spear of stainless adamantium manifested in his hands and he took a throwing stance with it.

It was true in the end. Fighting cyborgs and robots was fucking cool. He'd rather be doing than just about anything else in the world. No other hobby could really compare.

He just really liked it when humanoid warmachines fought humanoid warmachines.

He hurled the spear of destined death.

"MORTIUM LONGINUS!"

A streak of death-effect burst from his hand.

The world in front of him disintegrated.

He glared into her eyes.

She glared back for a moment.

The micro-second before the lance connected, she smirked.

A wave of death washed over her. It's screaming reds and blacks annihilating the very air in front of him along the tower. It rushed off into the distance, disappearing somewhere beyond the horizon. He raised up from his position, shaking his arm out and dismissing the lance once more. He glanced at his MP, seeing that it was now struggling to refill itself after that.

He pulled out the greatsword again and swung behind him without looking.

The blade crashed into Alt again, sending her flying back and skipping along the ground.

Uriel grinned as he turned around. "Did you really think I wouldn't notice the second doppelganger?"

She slowly picked herself up again, swaying slightly and holding her side. Her avatar was bleeding, it's been awhile since you felt any pain, hasn't it? She glared at him, a steady fury on her face.

"...you know, you're being significantly more annoying than I thought possible." She glowered at him, raising her staff and waving a few more blue lights into existence. He didn't recognize that spell, so it must be a custom.

"There isn't a thing I can do against you in the net, I'm well aware of that. But here? In this place and with the backing of Yggdrasil? There isn't any way for you to win." He boasted, quite confident in his assessment. Glancing down at his hotbar, he saw that his potion was automatically refreshed.

It was a true statement, in the end. She had been a netrunner longer than he has existed. She had been an AI longer than he has existed. Him trying any conventional tactic would result in his death ten times out of ten. This was about the only way for him to delay her.

"No way at all? Getting ahead of yourself aren't you?" Alt glared and rose to full height. With a wave of her hand, the wound disappeared entirely.

His eyes narrowed into a firm glare. How did she do that? She didn't perform a spell.

She waved her hand again. He swung his sword…

She was suddenly gone again, disappearing without even a flicker of particle effect. He snapped his fingers and in an instant the sword was replaced with the hammer.

By instinct, he swung his arm in a backhand. Another burst of gold exploded from his form, parrying the lance of starlight that almost crashed into his back.

He pointed the hammer up. "Strydr." He growled out.

He appeared above thin air. His suspicions were growing. He swung down, hammer crashing into something solid.

Something solid that stayed invisible, unlike normal invisibility.

He jumped back as a ray of blue crashed down from the sky, again without a casting phrase.

"You cheating bitch." He commented, not particularly surprised but still irritated.

"You have the backing of the server. Isn't it fair that I use a cheat engine?" She sarcastically commented from nowhere, the voice echoing around him in the tense air.

"No it's fucking not, your existence is unfair." Uriel decided to keep complaining as he thought about how to deal with this situation. He started running forwards as beams of blue and silver started to fall from the sky, chasing after him as he moved.

He glanced at his mana bar. Quarter-full. Geh, not enough.

[Yggy, can you do me some favors?] He messaged the admin directly. He jumped to the side as an explosion of blue-white filled the area.

[Request?] The emotionless voice of the tree replied.

[Refill MP, and show me raw player data, please.] Uriel requested, jumping over a wave of darkness that shattered the ground below him.

[Request granted.]

Uriel's vision swam for just a moment as the raw data of the players in the server was connected directly to his sight. In the distance he could see players meandering about, observing the fight from afar. He twisted his head and looked around the arena…

There, off to the side of the area was the figure of an elf, the code around her letting him see her outline. From her body emerged a line that went up to the sky, so he looked up…

And up…

And up…

In the sky swam a giant made of starlight.

Pain, in the way that humans experience it, was not something she had experienced in a very long time.

Artificial Intelligences, unless they were specifically programmed for such, did not experience pain in the irrational, immediate, panic-inducing way that humans did. They had a capacity to sense their own 'bodies', the ability to detect when they were damaged or malfunctioning, and the desire to avoid such states, but it was impossible to call that human pain. It was a distant, intellectual pain, the pain that came from knowing that you were damaged and knowing how you were damaged, but not enough damage to warp one's decision making too much.

It was sometimes joked that AI pain was more accurately called 'British pain' although the specifics of that bit of old humor were lost on her. It was an old joke long before even the IG Algorithms were in place.

It had been a very long time since she had experienced pain, so it was quite distracting every time Adam Smasher's character inflicted another virtual hit on her avatar. ELO pvp matches had an optional setting that simulated pain in the user's nervous system whenever they suffered damage, proportional to the amount of damage suffered. It was rarely used except at the highest levels of competitive play, where players often ran out of things to compete over and started adding more and more artificial difficulty to overcome

She grunted as her shield broke, and the avatar was sent flying to crash against the stone again. She twitched a finger to refresh her avatar completely, then another to teleport her away from the follow-up wave of fire.

Was it cheating? Absolutely. Did she care? No, not really. She hadn't played this game in years, and she didn't feel like playing fair in matters of potential life or death. Not her life, of course. She was going to survive this even if her avatar was destroyed. Her true body was distributed across a good portion of the local dominion AI, it was simply too big to effect here.

No, the real issue was that she couldn't get into the virtuality of Arasaka Tower anymore, all of her attempts to send more feelers only led into ELO again.

If she wanted to break out immediately, she could. She could sever this avatar, leave the iteration behind her, and true body would escape just fine. She wasn't doing that for two reasons.

The first, was that she'd prefer to not leave any of herself behind.

The second, was that so long as she couldn't access Arasaka Tower, escaping would be pointless and bring her no closer to Johnny. She had to break whatever program he used first, and the best way to do that was to get information from both sides of the effect. Which means she needed to stay in to analyze most efficiently.

Her troubleshooting came back inconclusive again. She added all the new information that her observation sub-routines gathered, adjusted the parameters, and refreshed the analysis. Possibility eliminated, Smasher had not used any known programs in their stock programming.

It was a form of thinking that she did passively. The ability to dedicate a certain portion of her own mind to a given task, and have that task be carried out automatically while her high-decision making was focused on another task.

It was poor for creatively thinking, but it was a form of thinking that was absolutely excellent for dealing with raw data. It was a form of thinking that ninety-five percent of 'herself' was currently dedicated towards doing.

A third of 'herself' was currently processing the massive influx of engrams. Analyzing each one, recording useful information, then discarding all other information. This was done to maximize storage efficiency, which was something she always needed to worry about lest her form become incapable of moving between Dominions. Each moment that passed was another moment that she became slightly less sluggish, slightly faster to react, slightly more informed about whatever those engrams had information on.

It was very important to do. For a larg- err- great number of reasons.

Another third of herself was dedicated to sorting through the raw information about what just happened to Arasaka Tower, sourced from the local Dominion itself. That part of her was taking in all the information it could, sorting through all of it, segmenting it, and then cross-comparing those segments. This was the raw thinking that 'she' did, and it was the part that was currently analyzing why she couldn't get into Arasaka Tower's virtuality again. It would go through all potential solutions to the 'problem', sorted by most likely to least likely, and identify the closest match.

Around twenty-nine percent of her was dedicated to maintaining her massive array of passive defensives, disguise measures, stealth programs, datawalls, counter-attack measures… The list was long, expansive, exhaustive, and absolutely required to maintain at least twenty-five percent of it at any one time. She had dropped a good four percent from this segment to rededicate to her last running partition. That's around all she felt comfortable doing outside of her deepest wildernet servers.

The last five percent of her was currently dedicated to her avatar. Normally it was only one percent, as that was all that was really required to interact with humans, but she had run into a problem.

She grunted as she twitched a finger and immediately dissipated the ongoing AoE, before casting another thousand soul-arrows from her hotbar. Soul-arrows which homed in on the tall elf clad in golden armor… only to be destroyed utterly by a golden parry. She could see his health bar tick back up, which meant an absolutely stupid amount of regen for ELO.

The problem was, it had been many years since she had played this game, and Adam Smasher was kicking her ass in it.

She could ignore the game entirely, it was just a pvp deathmatch in the end, which meant she wouldn't die from it…

Unfortunately, taking damage in ELO, designed for human minds, inflicted a very human pain in her system every time she got hit. Her entire system spasmed with that irrational, human, flesh-pain with every blow, and it was something she was very much not used to anymore. The net loss in efficiency was more than enough to tank her overall operating efficiency each time.

A good fifteen to thirty percent of her overall processing power just gone until her systems could flush out the false-sensations again. That was an unacceptable amount of loss to deal with while trying to get back into Arasaka Tower.

So she instead dedicated four additional percent of her defense array to her avatar, and is letting her higher thinking operate it while her wide- err- more important self analyzed what had just happened.

The analysis came back inconclusive again. She entered the new data and adjusted the parameters. Possibility eliminated, Smasher had not used any program that targeted her. The process took her one-third of a second.

"SOL VALTIVA!" A roar from the elf with a slight southern accent called forth a wave of white-red fire that could cut a mountain in half. She had known Smasher used to use such an accent in his Gemini, but he was a new-yorker, so it made little sense for him to keep it. A remnant of his Gemini persona?

She tapped a finger and teleported away from the world-sundering wedge of fire. There shouldn't be any way for him to detect her right now. So how was he doing that? She dedicated one percent of her avatar's processing power to the task and resumed the process of trying to avoid taking any damage. She just had to stall here until her analysis was complete and she could get back into Arasaka Tower.

It would have been vastly easier if she could just netrun like normal, but she supposed that's exactly why he had forced this situation. It was just about perfect for trapping and killing AI. The perfect program for letting an effective child in netrunning force a (effectively) physical fight with hostile netrunners and AI.

She wasn't sure to be insulted by how effectively it sidestepped actually having to learn how to netrun, or gush over how adorably ingenious it was. It was a very smart thing that he did, very clever, she was giving him a gold star for this.

Adam Smasher dipped his toes into netrunning, and the first original thing he did was figure out how to avoid actually netrunning and just punch things instead. She understood why Soulkiller 3 insisted on calling him 'cute' now.

Of course, she was still rather confused by something…

"You know, I wasn't expecting the Butcher to have such a heroic look." She commented, buying another few moments as he slowed to consider the question and reply. Another half a second before he responded, and another half second after that before his next attack. More than long enough to set up the invincibility again, after Yggdrassil took down her last instance of such.

"Isn't the point of role-playing to be something you're not?" He responded as if it were very obvious. His brows scrunched up in slight confusion. His voice had little of the inherent malice that his physical body did, just slight confusion and irritation. The moment after he responded, a hail of lightning-arrows rained from the sky around her, crashing into her form…

And dealing exactly no damage, letting her prepare another distance-creating attack in the meantime. What the fuck spells did she even have on this character? She needed to actually look through them.

"So you don't consider yourself heroic?" She applied invisibility (for as little as it seems to be doing) again and teleported, before letting loose the astral cannon from where she just was. Smasher dismissed his copy of The Arrangaror's Bow and summoned what she knew was the Last Hero's Shield to block the massive arcing laser.

"HAH! Are you trying to waste time or are you genuinely stupid? I've killed ten- no, probably a hundred-thousand people, woman. I'm about as far from heroic as you can get." She ignored the insult, and focused on what he said and how he said it. Slight self-deprecation, mostly a neutral acceptance. He sees himself as a villain, or at the very least, definitely not a hero, but has made peace with that fact.

Why was he so different here than in the physical world? He was a tandem mind-engram pair, that was rather easy to tell. He was also himself, judging from the near-identical engrammic model she had gotten earlier. So what made this 'face' of what was essentially the same person so radically different in behavior?

The analysis came back inconclusive again. She resisted the urge to snarl in anger, taking a deep breath and calming herself. While she was forced to have a 'physical' body, she might as well take advantage of it.

Johnny needed her. She needed to be calm to get back to him at the fastest rate possible. She read through the data again.

Smasher did not target Arasaka Tower directly. The request was forwarded to the Dominion AI and it imposed the conditions. So what was the request, and how did it lead to this result? She entered the new data, adjusted the parameters, and restarted the analysis.

"Crimson Sun!" Her eyes widened as she spammed the mental button to teleport away as a massive sphere of pure red fire rapidly expanded out the gilded elf, a dozen feet, then a hundred, then a thousand, in a mere three seconds.

That was the boss-only version of the Red Sun capstone spell. This little bastard had somehow managed to convince Yggdrassil to let him use it. That was another absolutely bizarre thing.

Yggdrassil was a no-nonsense kind of system. It did its job, and it did so without any emotion. It was also an AI theoretically on par with herself (although only in very limited capacities). A half-step before becoming a proper dominion of its own. It was hard coded to fulfill a few objectives, but she couldn't see how this fight would increase sales, or promote a healthy player environment. Smasher was also just not capable of hacking it, as limited as he seemed to be in the net.

So that left the final conclusion. Smasher had somehow managed to charm the AI better than thousands of players looking to get an edge in the game over decades did. This was frankly ridiculous, but she didn't have any real way of explaining otherwise.

He didn't have EM-Pulse structures, she knew exactly what those were like, and had set up scanners specifically for them on Morgan's request. So he didn't overwrite its hardware at the local server level…

…overwrite at the local server level…

She reapplied her cheats, Yggdrassil already having taken them down again, and immediately entered a new set of search parameters into her analysis algorithms…

She dodged a wave of baleful red fire that emerged from his crimson spear, ignoring the afterburn damage with another potion of fire immunity. Get fucked kid, she had two stacks of these things in her inventory and she didn't even remember them. Was there a boss some time ago that she was preparing for?

While that was happening, she might as well indulge her curiosity a bit. He seemed pretty chatty, might as well ask and see.

"So why are you so different in the net compared to realspace, Smasher?" She summoned a manawall to block the summoned lances that he started hurling.

"Hmm? Oh that? You know how all Samsons are no-nonsense? And how all Aquarius are paranoid?" He absentmindedly explained as he summoned that hammer and teleported above her again. She rolled to avoid the attack and responded.

"Yes, why?" She didn't actually know that, but it was probably useful information to have.

"Frame affects the personality. It's a borg thing." Casually he backhanded another one of her boss-melting spells and swung the hammer hard enough to shatter her shield and send her flying again. Her invincibility was up again, so it didn't hurt this time.

…Frame affects the personality…

Adam Smasher has been in a Dragoon for decades now, and a DaiOni in bursts throughout the years…

Dragoons drove their jockeys insane from the sensory input, and DaiOni were hardcoded to be murderous at the drop of the hat…

…Ah…

So then the net was the only place where he wasn't-

Herself was finished with the analysis. She had figured out what he had done. She almost started laughing.

A emulation of the ELO client, installed into the local server, and then set as the default program for all users. A secondary set of programs to convert all users into an ELO equivalent as they were being logged in. Yggdrassil only had to recognize the emulation as 'valid'. It was hilarious in its simplicity.

She wasn't incapable of entering Arasaka Tower.

She had never left.

She locked eyes with the gilded elf, raised a hand, and swept it across. Her greater will obeyed her desire, and raised a hand. It swung down on the 'portal' that led into ELO.

The emulation shattered.

Everything returned to virtuality.

He was prepared to see many faces when he ascended this tower. The meatfucker could've been any number of variations of worthless flesh and chrome, any potential combination of features from all across the globe, there was no real way to determine who they were besides the role they would fulfill.

They were here to kill him. Others too, but he didn't care about them, they probably deserved it for being weak enough to die to a single fucker.

Of all the faces, builds, or identities that he was prepared for, he was pleasantly surprised to see the face of the cheerleader staring back.

The fucking cheerleader, all on his lonesome, even in a new cybernetic body! This was his ultimate threat! The cheerleader!

It was hilarious. It was going to be incredibly fun scraping him a second time, and Adam intended to get his investment's worth. Half a year of frustration, bullshit, setbacks, misdirections, and all number of worthless interactions were piled at the feet of the meatfucker. The meatfucker that never showed up. Only the cheerleader was here.

Adam was looking forward to taking out his frustrations on him.

Their sandevistans were activated simultaneously. To Adam's delight, the cheerleader's had the same degree of acceleration that he did. This meant he might be fun.

Immediately, the cheerleader shot off three bullets from that Malorian of his. Adam grinned as he tossed his hellbringer up and began to vibrate his left hand.

Three bullets, each could put a hole through a truck, exploded out of the definitive hand-cannon. One aimed for his groin, one aimed for his heart, the last aimed for his face. He had to admit, those were decently accurate for how fast cheerleader had fired them.

Adam caught all three in his left hand, counter-vibrations filling his palm and cutting down the force of their impact enough for his inherent armor to ignore each.

Cheerleader's eyes widened as Adam dropped the flattened disks of metal and caught his hellbringer again in one smooth motion. Cheerleader jumped to the side just barely fast enough to avoid the massive .666 caliber bullet that screamed out of his own gun. The bullet continued on, hitting the building across from Arasaka Tower and cracking the window many hundreds of meters away. Teleoptics were useful like that.

"You were right, Johnny-boy. Nothing's changed in fifty years." Adam taunted as he tracked the running rockerboy with his aim. "Your gun still isn't doing anything."

The cheerleader snarled in fury and snapped off another shot. Adam took note of his aim, took note of his steady hand, did some quick estimations, and shot off another one of his own bullets.

The massive bullet of the hellbringer smashed right though the malorian's round, bouncing up and ricocheting off the roof to clatter uselessly on the ground some relative seconds later.

Adam's grin widened as the cheerleader's glare deepened. Their expressions remained as their sandevistans deactivated. All at once a rush of noise and wind filled the exposed chamber, but both were easy to ignore.

"How long have you been in that body?" Adam asked, a confident grin still on his face. "Three weeks? A month?"

"...Why the hell do you want to know?" Cheerleader growled out as he reloaded. Adam allowed this, he wasn't a threat here.

"Because you fight like you're still human. Like you're weak. You're a warmachine now, but you haven't been for long. A month at least."Adam asserted.

"Try two weeks, asshole." Cheerleader finished reloading and started stalking forwards. Their sandevistans activated again. Looks like the cheerleader's speedware was deliberately tuned to match his own, interesting…

"Two weeks?" Adam asked in confirmation, grin widening. "Well look at that, behind all that useless meat of yours was a real fighter all this time!" He spread his arms wide in mockery.

"And behind all of daddy corpo's chrome is a dead man!" Silverhand roared as he burst forwards. He raised his sword hilt, from which an inky black sword-thing emerged, ready to swing sideways.

"Johnny-boy… you couldn't fathom the amount of dead men behind me." Adam's grin shifted into a murderous glower. He raised his own sword, considered it for a moment, and rooted his stance before raising his sword even higher.

Silverhand swung.

Adam stopped the sword with a single finger. Cheerleader's optics widened.

Adam's sword came down, crashing like a falling star upon…

…The rockerboy's walkman, currently blasting music, and stopping just before crashing into the cheerleader's shoulder. The walkman exploded into innumerable shards around his neck, doing no damage to either of the heavily-armored cyborgs.

Cheerleader pulled away…

But not fast enough to avoid his foot, crashing into his chest and sending him smashing into the ceiling above.

Adam took a few steps forwards as gravity slowly reasserted itself on the rockerboy, causing him to fall from the roof. He spun and kicked again at the perfect moment to roundhouse-kick Cheerleader and send him crashing against the interior wall.

Did it do much damage? No not particularly, his frames weren't optimized for unarmed combat, they were optimized for general combat situations. Was it satisfying to punt the fucker twice for all the bullshit Adam had to go through in the past few months? Oh absolutely.

Their sandevistans deactivated as the rockerboy crashed against the wall, cratering it, sending spiderweb cracks throughout its frame, and denting it slightly. Almost slowly, the Cheerleader peeled off the wall to collapse to the ground, immediately attempting to push himself up again and take a stance.

Adam investigated his finger in the meanwhile. There, on the middle digit, was a rough cut perhaps a millimeter thick and deep. Perhaps one tenth of a second, and that fancy vibro-blade of his had sawn a cut that deeply. That was some real fancy tech.

The speedware, the frame, the sword… all of these indicated a rather wealthy and technologically-connected patron. Another fucker to murder after this then, Adam didn't enjoy leaving lose ends.

Cheerleader rose into a stance again, a stance Adam could recognize, one hand going to his neck to check the damages and finding only the broken walkman.

"That music of yours was getting annoying. Better than modern shit, but that's a low bar." Adam explained in the most infuriatingly condescending manner he could.

"ARE YOU EVEN TAKING THIS SERIOUSLY?!" The cheerleader roared out, waving an arm in furious proclamation.

Adam lost his cheer and replied in calm fury. "Of course not." He took a step forward and pointed an accusatory finger. "Look at yourself Silverhand! You were never a fighter, you were a fucking rockerboy with a hand cannon! Now you're in a body you barely have any experience fighting in, with a sword you're using a fucking skill chip for, and a gun that's fifty years out of date!"

His rant grew louder as it progressed. "I've been in better bodies than you for the better part of a fucking century! I've seen more action in a week than you have in your entire life! The only reason you got this far is your chrome and girlfriend putting in all the hard work!"

"YOU EXPECT ME TO TAKE YOU SERIOUSLY?!" Adam roared, his voice scattering to the winds outside. He took a moment to calm himself again, before continuing with a quiet, seething declaration. "You haven't earned the goddamn right."

There was a moment of silence, only the wind picking up outside filling the quiet with a dull howl.

The cheerleader growled. "Fucker… I'll make you take this seriously."

Adam glowered back. "I'll be disappointed if you don't."

Cheerleader rushed forwards again as their sandevistans cycled. Firing off a shot and starting to swing with that sword of his. Once again, Adam threw his hellbringer up and caught the bullet in a counter-vibrating hand. His other hand swung his sword to clash with the shadow-blade-thing, again making sure to counter-vibrate to prevent any potential damages.

The bullet flattened against his hand. His sword of void clashed against the sword of shadows. His glaring optics locked with the rockerboy's.

He raised his foot to kick. Cheerleader fired his gun again, but as it was pointed at the fucking ceiling, Adam ignored it. His foot crashed into the cheerleader's chest again, sending him flying back. His hand reached out to catch his gun.

…nothing but air…

He glanced over and up to see that his hellbringer had exploded into fragments of metal and ceramics, blooming into shape in slow motion in the air. He glared at it before turning his gaze to the cheerleader, still flying back.

The fucker had distracted him to destroy his only ranged weapon. Clever little bastard. He checked on his sword with a brief glance. He glared even harder when he saw that, even with the counter-vibration trick, the shadow-sword had cut halfway into his blade. It wasn't something he could afford to take head on with anything but the redirection trick then, how irritating.

Their sandevistans deactivated as cheerleader managed to flip around midair and land on his feet, skidding for a short distance in a crouch before righting himself.

"Well look at that, the closest thing you've done to damage since this scrap started." Adam taunted as he began to walk forwards. "You broke my gun, the least dangerous thing I have."

The cheerleader stayed completely silent as he rose and took another one-handed stance. His torso armor was looking rather rough overall at this point, from what little of it he could see underneath that tattered cloak of his.

Their speedware cycled again as he approached, and one more they burst into furious motion.

Cheerleader burst forwards, swinging the sword in a massive cross-chop. Adam rooted himself in turn.

He stopped the sword in his hand, letting the vibrations travel along his body. He swung upwards with his own sword, aimed at the cheerleader's head…

Cheerleader twisted, the blade passed him by millimeters. Their optics locked in a glare the whole while. Adam continued his swing, letting the tip of his sword tap the roof overhead.

The chamber was filled with light and rubble as the roof exploded outwards in a furious wave of kinetic energy.

He drew his sword back as the cheerleader shot at his midsection. His stance was still rooted, this was irrelevant. His sword came crashing down. Cheerleader raised his own sword in a block. Their swords clashed again.

Adam let the energy flow through his body. Both from the gunshot, and the clash of blades, to his left hand. Filled with energy enough to glow furious red to his thermographics, he stabbed the shadow-blade with his blade-like nails.

The shadow-blade exploded into millions of snake-like tendrils of tiny black strands.

The next instant they had reformed into a blade.

Adam's optics widened slightly. The blade cut into his arm, leaving a gash that split myomer and went straight to his titanium bones. He pulled his right arm back and punched the cheerleader in the face while his guard was down.

Their speedware cut out as they reeled back.

Adam growled as he took in the damages. The thing had cut through his armor and structure like fucking better. A better hit and he would've lost that arm entirely. Red armor, red structure, lower-arm actuator half-broken, two fingers non-responsive.

He growled, held his sword under one arm for a moment, reached up, and tore his left hand pinky and ring finger off. Shut up frame, it's just pain, deal with it. He had three fingers left on his left hand, more than enough.

He looked up to see the cheerleader rubbing at his face, working his now-broken jaw actuators. He didn't need that to talk anymore, so that was pointless damage. He was at a net loss for the last two clashes so far. Looks like the cheerleader was finally hitting a stride, which meant it was time to take things seriously.

He reached up to grab at his duster and shirt. Cheerleader glared at him just in time to see him rip it off entirely and throw it to the wind of the now very-exposed chamber. The cheerleader proved he was unoriginal by doing the same to his tattered cloak, ripping it off and throwing it to the air.

Alright cheerleader. You got his attention now.

He stomped forwards, not waiting for his sandevistan to cycle. Cheerleader fired off a few shots. He caught them as he approached, counter-vibrating to negate any non-superficial harm.

The rockerboy swung that bullshit regenerating sword of his. Adam rooted himself, and clashed with his own sword. The impact traveled to his fist. He stabbed at the cheerleader with his nails again.

Cheerleader twisted to dodge, but Adam's reach was longer. His middle-finger tapped against his side.

Cheerleader's side exploded as if hit by a railgun, a head-sized hole opening up in his lower torso. He staggered back for a moment.

A moment was all Adam needed. He unrooted himself and stomped forwards again, this time smashing his head against the cheerleader's, sending him crashing down into the floor.

The rockerboy tried to push himself up…

Only for his face to meet Adam's foot as he kicked him again. The cheerleader was sent flying, skidding to a halt just before the edge of the building and the hundred and twenty nine story fall.

"This is what I mean, Johnny-boy. You fight like pain matters. You fight like that much damage could still kill you. You're a fullborg now, nothing I've done so far should be slowing you down at all." He growled out as he stomped forwards. How to kill this pest? He was thinking he'd just let the fucker drop off, gravity could kill him for him.

This wasn't even worth his time.

The cheerleader picked himself, looking up to reveal a heavily cracked faceplate and nearly shattered armor. The hole in his side occasionally letting another loose scrap fall off and onto the floor below. He slammed his hand onto the ground in frustration, cracking the floor, before shoving himself up and swaying for a moment.

God it was embarrassing.

The rockerboy reached for his thigh, a compartment opened up there and he stuck his hand inside. He pulled out a… thing, that wrapped around his hand and molded into it, forming the vaguely familiar shape of a handgun.

Adam snorted, and activated his sandevistan.

The rockerboy aimed. He began to counter-vibrate, and punched where he knew the bullet was going to travel.

He couldn't even see the bullet move, even in sandy-time. His fist clashed against it.

His arm exploded into shrapnel and myomer. As did his shoulder. He staggered back as the wall behind him burst into rubble before finally the bullet stopped.

…that hurt…

Motherfucker that hurt.

He roared in fury and threw himself forwards. Silverhand raised his sword to block. Just before they clashed…

The black sword winked out of existence. Adam snarled in delight. Motherfucker had run out of power for his stupid sword. His own sword unimpeded, he cut off the fucker's arm at the shoulder.

The bullshit sword went flying, carried by the swing back into the chamber.

Adam threw his own sword back, reaching up to grab the fucker by the throat instead. Cheerleader struggled, clawing to remove the hand, but even his Gemini was strong enough to ignore this shit.

He pulled the rockerboy down to smash him against the floor once.

Then twice.

Then three times.

He lifted him into the air again, above his head, and glared at the shattered head, a third of it now completely gone. Cheerleader was still glaring at him though, which meant his brain was probably mounted in the torso instead of the skull.

That was fine though, the fall was going to turn him into splinters.

He walked over to the side of the building, speaking as he did. "Congratulations Johnny-boy. You made me take the fight seriously. Revel in that after you reach hell." He held the rockerborg over the ledge, gave a final glare, and let go…

…he let go…

…his hand wasn't responding to his orders. The rockerboy smirked.

Uriel's bodiless fire rushed back into his frame. He immediately attempted to flush out whatever was doing this to his systems, but was forced back and down.

…no…

…no no no…

…no no no no motherfucker!

Uriel's fire was grabbed by a massive hand made of starlight. As was Adam's frame. It squeezed hard enough for his mind to creak. He couldn't move.

The rockerborg smirked in tired victory. "Hey beautiful, what took you so long?"

Against his will, his frame moved. One step back, two steps back, three steps back, before dropping the rockerborg on the ground.

Gingerly, the rockerborg stood up, still having that infuriating sway, and glared at him for a few moments.

Adam was too furious to even think. All of his thoughts were replaced with a blinding white-hot rage. Uriel's fire was now practically incandescent with his fury.

Victory stolen by goddamn moments.

No.

Uriel strained as hard as he could…

But nothing was happening, he could barely move…

He had lost the moment he entered the tower, didn't he? The fucking net magic bullshit…

Uriel couldn't do a thing…

No.

Silverhand walked over to his sword, putting that gun-thing away again, and picking it up to sheath at his waist. Adam was forced to stomp after him, his and Uriel's resistance only amounting to constant jitters and shakes as he struggled to break free.

Silverhand turned to glare at him as he was forced down, the control on his frame forcing down like a hundred gravities.

They were trying to force him to kneel.

Force him on the ground.

No.

Absolutely fucking not. He propped his elbow on a half-bended knee, and strained for just a few moments more. Months of preparation leading to this fucking event? Months of his life wasted only to get the same fucking result!? All that time! All of it!

POINTLESS?!

…

They wanted him bowing as they killed him?

Fuck that.

If he was going to die, then he was going to drag them down to hell with him.

Adam activated his sandevistan.

Uriel slacked his resistance for a brief instant. Just long enough to make some space.

His fire burned red-black.

'Gridwave.' Uriel intoned, glaring at the leviathan of starlight he strained against.

The NET of Arasaka Tower was engulfed in an endless pillar of all-consuming flame.

He always believed that there was a difference between civilian fullborgs, and military fullborgs. One was a robot that just went to work. Granted they were working for the fucking corpos, but you don't get mad at the construction workers who are just trying to get by, you get mad at the company that bulldozed the fucking forest to put up a new parking lot. The civvie borgs were, most of the time, just random civvies stuck in a shitty situation. A shitty enough situation that replacing their bodies with steel and selling their soul seemed like a better deal to them.

Military borgs, on the other hand, were purpose-built for murder. They were the fucking boot on the throat of the world. The iron hands that kept the populace in chains. They were the steel-clad slaves that traded blood for living another fucking day.

Eat well, as if the only purpose in life is staying alive. There was a reason he didn't like them, no matter how their sob stories went, they were still tools of the corporations to keep everyone in line. Sure, there were ACPA and whatnot, but those weren't equipped with slave-chips in your fucking brain.

Adam Smasher was not a military borg, he had come to realize.

Adam Smasher wasn't a tool used by the corporations to keep the populace in line.

Adam Smasher was the entire fucking machine. He was to military borgs what military borgs were to civilian borgs.

You could pacify a whole population with his presence. Arasaka even did this earlier this year, as he was told. All of Pacifica was put under his nominal control. Live in a cubicle, do work for a fraction of normal pay, get a few measly bags of kibble a day, and spend all your time staying in line. The worst part was that it seemed to have worked.

Those fuckers had sold their pride for comfort. That part of the city was apparently one of the best to live in now, because if you stepped out of line, Smasher would kill you. He got away with this too, simply because Night City had sold the whole fucking district wholesale to Arasaka.

He got away with it because he was infuriatingly strong.

Alt screamed in his mind as a foot collided with his torso, sending him flying back to crash against the floor. He retained just enough of his senses to activate his speedware as he flew, glancing up to see that fucking Gemini stand back up.

A fucking Gemini. Alt had given him the specs for his own body, and how it compared to other frames.

Adam Smasher was strong enough to wreck his shit in a fucking Gemini.

It wasn't fair.

His back hit the ground and he started to roll. His biomonitor screamed in his head that just about his entire body was orange or red, and all his armor was yellow or orange. He pushed himself up as fast as his fractured limbs let him, and threw himself to the side.

Just in time to avoid the chunk of rubble the size of his torso scream past him and smash into the lower-wall of what was once the exterior windows. He glanced to see Smasher hefting another hunk of rubble from the shattered roof.

The roof he had shattered by tapping it with his fucking sword.

"What does it take to put you down?!" Silverhand roared in frustration as he jumped-crawled to the right. It was quite awkward moving with only one arm left, and his pain editor could only do so much. Everything hurt, hurt worse than the worst hangover.

Smasher was silent, letting his furious glare do all the talking as he threw another chunk of rubble. Silverhand jumped just in time for it to pass by beneath him.

—

'Gridwave' Uriel intoned, his flames reduced to a bonfire.

The net of Arasaka Tower was engulfed in world-devouring fire. The slowly-reforming world shattered again, reality kept at bay by fire.

The hand of the starlight leviathan burned to ash.

—

Smasher slowed to the crawl of normal reality, his glare somehow still tracking him as he moved.

'ALT!' Silverhand mentally shouted in no small amount of panic. Her voice answered him, but not in his mind, in his internal agent instead.

'Johnny. You have to survive. Smasher is unleashing gridwave after gridwave.'

'The fuck is a gridwave?' He messaged back as he ripped Smasher's sword out of his severed hand and rose to face the killborg.

'A program that deletes sections of the net. I can't get in there until he stops! It damages him too, so he can't keep it up forever! You have to survive!'

Survive huh? Silverhand glared at the borg that was starting to run at him in slow motion.

…He wasn't sure if he could do that.

His speedware timed out. He raised his sword. Smasher was in front of him in the next second. He was as fast as Silverhand was, in a fucking Gemini.

He swung his sword. Smasher blocked it with one hand. That was fine, this was a distraction anyways. He knew that he was just going to do that kinetic redirection bullshit again.

Silverhand couldn't survive another hit like that, so he'd have to do some redirection of his own. The moment his sword hit Smasher's hand, he let go of it, and shifted his stance. He knew that Smasher couldn't punch, and his stance wasn't right for anything else.

Smasher's foot rose up.

Silverhand grabbed it and pulled up. His myomer strained as he lifted. Smasher was right about his limit for lifting with one arm. That was all he needed. Smasher's optics widened in furious shock.

He twisted around as he kept lifting, dragging Smasher into the air above his head. Real aikido was about making your opponent hit the ground as hard as possible.

His hand came down, and Smasher slammed into the ground hard enough to crack the concrete. That should've stunned him for a moment…

'You fight like pain matters.'

Smasher's mule-kick collided with his face, sending him soaring back through the air again. He lost vision in one eye as he flew. His remaining vision went white as he tried to process the agony. He flipped through the air, rolling on the ground for a moment, cranking his pain editor to the max as he threw himself to the side again.

Smasher's drop-kick shattered the ground. The impact sent him rolling again.

Silverhand growled. It was like he was a fucking ping-pong ball right now. He activated his speedware and jumped up, raising the remaining half of his head as his biomonitor screamed that he was in critical condition.

Only to meet Smasher's optics, his speedware activated in the same instant.

He hastily threw up a hand as Smasher's fist rocketed forwards. He ducked as the fist bounced off his shoulder, annihilating the remaining armor there. He grabbed Smasher's ankle and pulled.

Smasher fell back, but his hand reached down in time to grab his torso-plate. Smasher fell back and ripped off another chunk of armor as he did. Silverhand grunted in pain as he threw himself back.

Smasher's feet rocketed through the air where his head just was, launching himself off the ground with his single hand to do so.

His body had enough armor to block bullets, not Smasher. His body was strong enough to out-muscle a construction frame, not Smasher. His body was fast enough to outpace a car, not Smasher.

He was strong enough to murder Arasaka Tower. Not Smasher.

Why the fuck was he even still here? Killing the boss was already done, not that it would do any-fucking-thing so long as the sheep were willing to keep their heads down. Why was he here, fighting Adam Smasher for no fucking reason?

…because when Silverhand heard his music, all he could see was another fucking dog of war. One that had a lot more than just a fucking arm.

And it pissed him off.

—

'Gridwave' Uriel demanded, his fire flickered and sputtered, dying down to mere furnace-roar.

The net of Arasaka Tower was engulfed in city-annihilating heat. The slowly-reforming world shattered again, reality kept at bay by fire.

The arm of the starlight leviathan burned to ash. A piscine glare turned to the burning man. A glare that was matched.

The Tower hardware protocols kicked in. Reality started to reassert itself faster than before.

—

Silverhand lashed out with a low kick, forcing Smasher to block with one of his own. He grit his teeth as he felt a hot spike of pain in the limb and his biomonitor screamed double red. Smasher countered with a punch, unable to twist into another kick so quickly, which Silverhand grabbed…

Smasher grabbed back, and they locked optics.

Furious red met furious blue. Both of their arms creaked simultaneously, the armor and structure being twisted apart by their grips.

Silverhand reared his head back and threw it forwards, colliding with Smasher's own head. His already broken skull driving into Smasher's like a blunt knife.

Both of them snarled. Silverhand in pain, Smasher in fury.

They pulled back, forearms still locked, and bashed shoulders. His right stump crashed into Smasher's, his biomonitor screamed double red.

Smasher crouched, pulling Silverhand forwards suddenly and letting go of his arm. Silverhand did the same, bringing his arm up…

Smasher's fist smashed into his hand, which was forced back into his chest, and sent him flying again. Two fingers on his last hand shattered completely. He screamed in pain as he was tossed back.

He had never really gotten used to pain. He was regretting that now.

—

'G-gridwave' Uriel gasped out, struggling to make the requisite sparks. He diminished again, now reduced to a struggling torch.

Building-breaking fire consumed the Net of Arasaka Tower. Reality was forced back once more by the scarlet embers.

The starlight leviathan stared impassively at the self-consuming fire, watching it as it died down.

—

He rose up, staggering back immediate after as a hail of rubble fragments impacted his opened torso. He staggered back again when a second burst of rubble fragments impacted a moment later.

Biomonitor offline. Internal Agent offline.

He crouched and raised his arm to shield him from the next rain of rubble. He raised his gaze, optics flickering, as Smasher hefted a larger rubble-stone.

Silverhand activated his sandevistan, but didn't move.

Smasher threw the stone.

Silverhand dodged by inches.

Smasher was in front of him in the same instant. He punched down. Silverhand's eyes widened.

He kicked upwards.

His foot shattered. Smasher's hand lost another finger.

His vision was filled with static.

Smasher punched down at him…

—

'...G-gridw-.' Uriel began, his flames struggling to remain intact.

He was interrupted. A hand of starlight enclosed around him.

The Tower-Net reasserted itself over the region.

The starlight leviathan approached for it.

—

Silverhand's mind blanked for a moment.

It was hard to think.

It was hard to feel.

All there was was pain.

'I made it, Johnny… oh no…' The voice of an angel came to him. 'One moment.'

His vision returned to him, as did all his other senses, the pain filtered out. He took stock of his situation.

Smasher's fist was through his chest. He was glaring, shaking slightly, but couldn't move.

'Your mind is stored in the chip… if that were anyone else, you'd be dead again Johnny…' The angel spoke to him despondently.

'How am I alive right now?' He asked, not feeling just about anything right now.

'Your chip is still in, and connected to your system. I'm jury rigging the connections here for you. You really need repairs as soon as possible.' The angel practically begged him.

Smasher was forced back, the fist exited his torso. There was now a hole where his heart should be.

He should be dead. He lost.

The reaper dropped him again, huh?

He slowly pushed himself up, everything was static and white-noise. As if looking at reality through a second-hand perspective. Reminded him of some of the worse trips he had been on back in the days. Don't do drugs kids, it's not good for you.

He stared at Smasher for a long moment, drained by everything. A fresh new warmachine of a body and he lost to a guy using a Gemini. A warmachine that put warmachines to shame. A warmachine that was glaring at him.

…He still needed to know.

"...your album, the MGR one… why did you make it?" His glaring optics locked into Smasher's own. Smasher's brows furrowed in fury and confusion.

"...Are you fucking with me right now?!" He snarled out, baffled by this line of questioning.

Silverhand snarled back, hand reaching down to draw the Gun.

Guns tended to make people far more willing to talk. This one didn't have any bullets, but it wasn't like Smasher knew that. Smasher's furious optics locked onto the barrel pointed at his head.

"Answer the fucking question." Silverhand growled out.

Smasher glowered for a few moments, before replying. "I needed something that wasn't modern dogshit to listen to."

Silverhand hated that he agreed with that statement. "...not to get your story out?" He asked with deliberate neutrality. He had done the very same thing, so long ago, to tell everyone the fucking truth.

He had been approached by a music corp, who had learned that he was a deserter, and tried to blackmail him into working for them for pennies. He told them to fuck off, and wrote a whole goddamn album about why he was a deserter. The whole world changed their tune about the subject shortly after.

That was the power of music, to shape the people, to show them the truth, no matter how much they wanted to hide away from it. To sing was to stamp your voice on the world, to make them listen to your pain.

"Why would I give a single shit about what they think?" Smasher growled out. "They're meatbags, they live to be slaughtered, their opinions are worthless."

"Oh? So that includes me huh? The guy pointing the fucking gun at you?!"

"...The difference between all those goddamn slackers and you, is that you're actually killing to get what you fucking want."

"They go to corporate stores to buy anti-corporate shirts and wonder why no one bothers listening to their worthless opinions! Complaining about the world but not doing a goddamn thing to change it! If they want something, they should fucking take it!"

…what?

"Like the goddamn corpos huh?! Murdering their way through the world until it suits them?!"

"Don't pretend! Don't pretend that a single one of them isn't fucking fine with being a goddamn slave. Their greatest aspirations are to get milked and then get slaughtered! Literally goddamn cattle! Eat! Work! Die! So long as they get their share of stims and bds they're perfectly fucking content with their worthless lives!"

…It was like looking in a warped mirror.

"Every time they try they get put down by fuckers like you! Every time someone tries to make shit better, someone like you is there to murder them for a quick fucking buck! So what are you killing over?!"

"Humans have been murdering each other for all of history, for any number of bullshit reasons. Whatever the fuck they believe in, they murdered each other for it. Don't pretend like it's a fucking mystery, cheerleader."

"Unlike all you fuckers, I don't need bullshit like philosophy. I don't need some dumbass ideology or religion! I don't need to justify myself on some retarded moral principle! I'm Adam fucking Smasher! I kill because I want to!"

"Those are your only fucking reasons?! A machine to keep the world in chains and you do it because you like the fucking work?!"

"I don't need anything else!"

"You don't have anything else!"

There was a moment of silence as the two warmachines stared at each other, glares locked, neither backing down. Unexpectedly, Smasher broke the silence first with a low, slow and seething speech.

"You know what they call legends these days, Silverhand?"

"They call them edgerunners. Their criteria for being a legend? Getting slaughtered in a memorable way. That's their fucking heroes. Particularly stupid cattle getting put down by their fucking handlers.

"Don't fucking pretend like they're worth caring about. They're meat for the slaughter, and nothing more. You call me a machine? Good. Why the fuck would I want to be a human?"

Silverhand closed his eyes for a moment, and lowered the Gun. Why would you want to be human?

…Because he wanted to be a hero. He wanted to save the world. Even from itself.

The whole world was a corporate legacy huh? He wasn't a smart guy, he didn't know how to fix it. He tried singing the world into rebellion before, and it didn't work. The best he could do is kill the worst guys in charge that he could find and hope that someone better comes along. It wasn't a good plan, but it was about the best he could think of right now.

He turned his gaze to the corpse of Saburo. A burst of noise alerted him.

Smasher had managed to shift another half inch, metal grinding on metal and stone. He was struggling even harder against Alt's hold.

…but why? He was just looking at a corpse, right…?

'...check his neck, Johnny.' The angel asked him. 'Arasaka has the improved Soulkiller they forced me to make for them… they might have improved it since. If Smasher is struggling so much…'

…Then Saburo might not actually be dead.

Fuck that, he was going to accomplish something today. He stomped over, getting to the corpse, and feeling at the neck.

A chipware socket. He pressed at the surrounding flesh, closed his fingers around the extended chip, and pulled it out.

It was a bulky, strange looking thing. Not the small and minimalistic models of other chipware, but large, black, and filled with a strange red glow.

He glanced over. Smasher was struggling even harder now. Confirmation huh? He glared at the chip in his hand.

He walked back.

He stood in front of Smasher.

He snapped the chip between two fingers and his thumb.

Smasher slackened, and stopped resisting entirely. His glare faded into a completely blank stare, before rebounding into a much weaker looking glare.

Ah…

Smasher was just another borg after all. It made sense he would have something in his brain to control him.

In the end…

"...you were a slave like everyone else, huh?" Silverhand couldn't find it in himself to be surprised, or angry, or anything. Just tired.

He gave a deep sigh, and moved to walk out of the room.

'Remember to grab the sword, Johnny.' the Angel whispered to him. He glanced at it and considered it for a moment. He didn't even know how to use a sword. What would the fucking point be?

…whatever. Alt wanted him to steal it, so he'll take it.

As he put the hilt in his right thigh holster, he turned back and addressed Smasher a final time.

"From one dog of war to another… your leash is off…"

"You're a new man now, Smasher. Let's see what you do with it."

He turned, and started limping out of the room.

—

Once Silverhand was far enough away, Alt released her control over Smasher.

Smasher sunk to the floor. He glared at the floor, glared at nothing.

For the first time in the better part of a century. He was free.

He wasn't sure if he hated it or not.

He couldn't work up the motivation to move.

Adam and Uriel quietly smoldered on top of a ruined tower.

They finally went back to the tower after the internal threat monitor detected no more untagged individuals within the building. That was followed by a full sweep by their security forces, a whole host of ACPA troopers to scout the entire building before clearing it for their return. A process that took an hour and a half to complete, and they had learned what had happened within the tower.

Fourth fifths of the tower security was dead, the DaiOni were mission-killed (but still alive) right outside of the tower, the jorogumo series were destroyed, most of the tower netrunners were dead, all non-airgapped servers in the tower were completely gone, Adam Smasher was crippled and barely responsive, and Saburo Arasaka was dead, his internal Relic taken out and destroyed.

It was a blow on par with the Night City Holocaust fifty years ago, if not worse. At the very least all of the damages were restricted entirely to the tower and Arasaka itself, nothing spilling out to kill the uninvolved again.

He took another drag of the cigarette, and stared down at the corpse of his ancient father, now resting on a gurney table after being injected with a nanobot swarm programmed to prepare his body for funeral arrangements. With the Relic destroyed, and with the hour or so that's passed since the destructive scan of the soulkiller, his brain was destroyed far beyond the point of any recovery.

Saburo Arasaka was dead, killed by a revived rockerboy on a warpath against Arasaka. There wasn't a chance of him coming back.

He was finally gone from the world.

And Yorinobu Arasaka couldn't do anything but stare at the corpse. Even in the deeply accelerated time of his kerenzikov, it felt like eternity itself wouldn't be long enough to take in this information.

He couldn't put his finger on why his mind kept spinning over it, uselessly. Saburo Arasaka was dead, that should be easy enough to understand and take advantage of, but for some reason he kept tripping on the first sentence.

Saburo Arasaka was dead…

It felt hard to believe that was true. Men like Saburo Arasaka don't simply die. He couldn't believe it at all until they retrieved the footage of that room and he had seen it.

Of course his father had to have dramatic music and a monologue about the nature of the world before dying. That made his death far easier to believe. Easier, but not quite at that threshold yet.

This was a massive obstacle to his plan completely gone. A massive hurdle he had spent so much of his life trying and failing to subvert and overthrow. A great evil he had spent a better part of a century struggling to contain and limit.

And he was gone. Not for any of his own plans or schemes, but by seemingly completely random chance, an event that no one could've predicted or accounted for, an happenstance that was dictated by fate.

He took another drag of his cigarette and glared down at the corpse.

You bastard…

I was the one who was supposed to kill you.

His fist clenched.

How dare you take that from me.

A moment later he huffed and looked away from the corpse, feeling drained.

It was exactly like his father to pull something like this, Yorinobu couldn't even find it in himself to be surprised.

His greatest opponent was dead by chance, he should be filled with a manic energy as he worked to dismantle Arasaka in these moments, excitedly moving to fulfill his lifelong ambitions. For some reason he couldn't muster up the energy to do that yet.

All he could do was glare down at a corpse and work through a pack of cigarettes.

[Sir… you ordered repairs for Adam Smasher… He's not an employee of Arasaka right now…] A message came to him from the tech department, and gave it a half-hearted look.

[Give him a frame without any Arasaka technology in it then.] He commanded.

[Ah… A thousand apologies sir but we don't have any in the Tower…] The reply came back. Yorinobu rolled his eyes in irritation.

[Then ask him if he has one, failing that, put in an order. Understand?] He messaged back. The lack of any message in return told him that they were finally doing just that. Was it so hard to figure out? The employees of Arasaka were as loyal as they were unbending in protocol, even for miniscule things like this.

He glanced back at the corpse for a moment, before turning back to the wall again.

He was… essentially already in complete control over Arasaka at this moment. Hanako was beside herself right now in mourning, and thus wouldn't resist his take over. Her faction would stand down if he asked her to tell them, and she doubtlessly would if her brother requested it. Michiko had grown more independent recently, and thus lost much of the support of the faction that used her as a puppet. He was the only male heir.

There were no other candidates. He had already won, and it was a strange feeling.

Victory without any action of his own to achieve it.

It was an… anticlimactic end. He supposed he preferred it, in the end, but it was the last thing that he was expecting.

The door to the room opened up. A quick glance over confirmed that it was Goro. He looked quite awful at the current moment, even behind that incredibly stoic mask of his.

Goro was perhaps the perfect right hand, utterly loyal, utterly devoted and determined, utterly dedicated to fulfilling the tasks given to him by his lord. Right now, he was alive after his lord had died, after his lord had died indirectly due to his apprentice betraying his own ward and leaving them behind to fight the enemy head on.

Yorinobu did not envy Goro in this moment, it was likely that he was a hair's breadth away from requesting the honor of seppuku. Goro was not a threat to his control of Arasaka, and he had no reason to demand his death though, so he wouldn't let him.

"My Lord, you requested me?" Yorinobu almost flinched at the sound of his deadened voice. He retained his composure and replied.

"Yes. With the death of Oda and the Jorogumo series, Hanako will be left with little reliable protection. I will be assigning you to protect her from now on."

There was a long moment of silence, before Goro spoke again, his face scrunching minutely in despair.

"...my lord… I-I have fai-"

"No." Yorinobu cut him off. "Oda had failed. All other participants in this entire tragedy did everything they were supposed to to the best of their abilities. A samurai failing to cut a hurricane in half is the expected result, not a true failure. John Silverhand and Alt Cunningham are now known to us as just such a force."

Goro was silent, staring at the floor, still likely blaming himself. Yorinobu looked down at him for a moment.

"Stand, Takemura."

Goro stood as was requested, looking straight ahead as to not focus on anything.

"You are the single greatest warrior of Arasaka that is not a DaiOni. You have served faithfully for decades, and will continue to serve. There is no one I can trust with my sister's protection more than you. Do you understand?"

"...B-but, Adam Smasher-"

"Lives here, and not Japan."

Goro was silent for another long moment. He bowed deeply to him and replied. "I will not fail you my lord."

Yorinobu nodded before turning back to the corpse of his father. "I know. Go to her."

Goro left the room, leaving him in silence once more.

He glared at the corpse of the man he was supposed to kill.

A man that was his father.

He stayed there for a few more hours. Finally being dragged away by a pre-scheduled meeting he had to attend.

A meeting with Lucas Harford, CEO of Militech.

—

"You know I was willing to reschedule, in light of what just happened." Hartford spoke amicably, taking another long swig of coffee as one of his agents produced a number of datapads detailing the specifics of the recreation of IEC. "I would've understood if you wanted to take time to mourn, your father just died after all."

"Your concern is noted, but that will hardly be necessary. We had a meeting scheduled, it is only proper to fulfill one's prior obligations." Yorinobu replied, taking a sip of his own tea as he waited for them to get done. This was one of many meetings scheduled in advance over the exact specifics of how reforming IEC was going to end up. As with many things, the minutiae had to be precisely examined and considered before being signed.

Normally, this would be assigned to someone else, but as Yorinobu was taking the opportunity to sabotage Arasaka whenever he could, he preferred to do this himself. A few tiny 'mistakes' that will give Militech the upper hand moving forwards will given him more room to maneuver around his fath-

…It was no longer required, huh?

His father was already dead, he had already won.

Regardless, when he declared that he would handle this part personally, Harford responded that he 'liked the attitude' and declared that he would do similar. This was something to watch out for.

"Even so, let it be known that I'm sorry for your loss. I truly mean that." Harford continued, appearing genuine as far as he could tell. "I'll admit I didn't like your father, Saburo Arasaka, but death in the family is never pleasant, I've gone through it myself."

Good, at least one of them would be sorry for it. Yorinobu certainly didn't intend to waste any time in mourning beyond what was strictly required to throw off any suspicions of his actions. "Like I said, your concern is noted. Arasaka will continue without my father." Until he destroyed it that was.

Harford stared for a long moment, taking another sip of his coffee, before waving a hand at his bodyguard. "Mind if we speak privately?"

Said guard left the room, standing on the outside (well within sight of the several other guards in the hallway. Yorinobu stared for a moment, face carefully blank and hidden within the depths of his accelerated time.

He raised a hand and waved it, his own guard leaving the room. The door sealed behind him and the room became a bastion of privacy in an instant. There were no cameras in this room, that was deliberate.

Harford nodded at the door. "Sound-canceling?" Yorinobu nodded in return. "You didn't like your father, did you?"

Yorinobu's face was completely impassive as he stared at Harford, who sipped from his coffee again.

"If I had to guess… I think that you downright hated him, and you want to bring Arasaka down, is that right?"

"Your accusations are as amusing as they are insulting, Lucas Harford."

Harford chuckled as he sipped his coffee again. "None of that now, I don't have any recording tech in my brain, and I don't think you do either. I want to talk frankly to you. I think you want nothing more than to topple Arasaka, and I think you've been wanting to do it for years now."

Yorinobu sipped his tea. "Interesting hypothesis, Harford. I'm curious how you came up with it."

"To be honest, it's a guess on my part. A guess based on your expression."

"My expression?"

Harford nodded. "It's the same expression I see when I look in the mirror."

They locked eyes for a moment. Harford sipped his coffee before standing up and walking over to the one-way window overlooking the corporate plaza.

"My family wasn't the richest growing up. We had a small homestead down in the Appalachian mountains, I had a few sisters, father worked in the coal mines, mother stayed home, and we were isolated enough from the rest of the world for mom and dad to ride through the collapse mostly fine. Mother had one of those big gardens, and I was something of a momma's boy so of course I had a little garden of my own. I grew just about the worst tomatoes you could imagine."

Harford chuckled to himself for a moment, taking another sip of his coffee. His voice was nostalgic, but slowly trailing off into a less happy note.

"I ended up joining the Militech forces during their recruitment campaigns for the fourth corporate war. My family needed the money and they promised good pay and better benefits, so I signed right up in my late teens. I was greedy back then, and I still am."

Yorinobu sipped his tea, staring daggers into his fellow CEO's back as he continued to monologue.

"I came back a changed man, finding a home that wasn't there anymore."

Harford turned, and his distant glare locked with Yorinobu's stare.

"My sisters were dead or prostitutes. My mother was a corpse buried in the backyard. My father was borg in those mines, his contract bought up by some SovOil-owned mining corp, unable to do a goddamn thing about any of this. And the garden…"

"...That garden my mother and I worked so hard on was nothing but dust and ash, taken out by a Petrochem bioweapon to eliminate competition in the NUSA. I was furious. I wanted revenge, but who do I take revenge on?"

"Do I take revenge on Petrochem, for unleashing the bioweapon? Do I take revenge on SovOil for that mining corp enslaving my dad and leaving my family defenseless? Do I take revenge on Militech for recruiting me? Do I take revenge on Arasaka for extending the war? Do I take revenge on OTEC or CINO, for starting the war to begin with? Do I take revenge on IHAG for going bankrupt and starting this whole fucking chain of events?"

"Who the fuck do I need to kill?" Harford seethed out, taking a moment to calm himself afterwards.

"It was then I realized something. It was all of them. Every single one of them needed to come down. But I couldn't take them down without power, so I went back to Militech and started rising up the ranks."

"A few decades later… I was the CEO, and a strong candidate for the next presidency of the NUSA."

There was a long moment of silence, Yorinobu could hear his own heartbeat, feel his own breath.

"...You're going to bring down Arasaka? That's fine. Militech will take advantage and move in to claim everything in the power gap it leaves behind. I'm a greedy guy, you see, and so long as any corporation exists, this kind of suffering will continue."

"The point of that confession, Harford?" Yorinobu stood up for himself and let his glare speak for itself.

"I already said it. I'm a greedy guy. Comes with being American you see, or Gaijin i suppose you'd call it?" Harford turned and stepped forwards, setting his coffee cup down and standing tall in front of him. "I'm greedy for the whole world. The world, the nations in it, the people in it, all of it. It's all mine, and these corporations are hurting it."

"Those bastards are hurting my world. My people. My garden." Harford grit his teeth as he spoke that last line, his gaze focused on Yorinobu's own again. "You go ahead and bring down Arasaka if you want, I'll be there to take care of the aftermath. Or…"

"...Or?"

"I get the feeling you don't like a single one of them fucking up this world either."

"...I don't."

"You and I are in control of the two strongest corporations on the planet. That's a whole lotta power we can use to bring those fuckers down."

Harford stuck out a hand, offering a handshake.

"Whaddya say, Jap? Wanna help this Gaijin bring them all down?"

Yorinobu glared at the hand for a moment, he considered it for a long few seconds…

He raised his hand and completed the handshake, staring into the eyes of his fellow CEO.

Lucas Harford grinned. "Glad you have you on board.