Adam and Rogue eventually moved their argument over to one of the corners of Afterlife, in a place where Adam could still watch the kids as they had fun, and Rogue could growl at him out of sight from most of the rest of the bar. Adam was leaned against the wall, arms crossed, for even the reinforced seats of Rogue's bar were not enough to support his weight. Rogue was in the seat next to him, still angry but with a drink in hand as they looked over to the rest of Afterlife.
They proceeded to do what any two experienced mercs did at bars, grumble about the younger generations. She was still mad at him for insulting her state of dress in front of all her cronies, but as she didn't back down from arguing with the Butcher of Arasaka she was able to save face. Neither backed down, but the outcome of the argument changed from violence to cosmetics, so it didn't matter who won.
This was part of the careful posturing that Rogue had to do in order to maintain her position of powerful neutrality among the NC underworld. Adam was already pissed off about it, and this was the first time he bothered participating. There was still bad blood between them of course, but they were old mercs. Professionalism takes priority when not on the job. You don't pick fights you can't afford the consequences of.
For Rogue, this was her life and everything she's ever worked for. For Adam, this was the lives of the kids he had spent a month training up. This was not equal of course, but all she could do is accept it. One does not pick a fight with Adam Smasher and expect to win without an army at your back, and even that was an unlikely outcome.
So, postured conflict and show of force out of their way, they retired to a far corner to grumble about anything that came to mind. Rogue had zero desire to fight Smasher if she could avoid it, and that made sense. Adam wouldn't want to fight him either.
…Or would he? It'd be a good fight.
"So what changed this time, Smasher? You haven't been this talkative in decades now. One might think you're finally figuring out how to be a fucking human now."
Adam snorted at the implied insult.
"I'm better than you meatbags and we both know it." He stoically growled out, and nodded at the kids. "Got tired of the shitty backup bossman always gave me, thought I would train up my own."
"Kid slaughtered his way to 'Saka tower and let him live?"
"Job was to scrap the Ex-APCA he was in. It was scrapped. Boy was handling lots of chrome, has potential."
Rogue grunted unhappily at that, and took another drink from her glass. She continued her line of questioning.
"The others?"
"Boy likes them, so I got Arasaka to back off."
"By letting PR sink their claws into you."
Adam snarled at that. The implication of anyone except the long-term contract holder having 'their claws in him' was fucking insulting and they both knew it. Rogue glared a bit back, before conceding that point, leaning back in the seat again. She didn't apologize, that would show weakness, and neither of them did 'weak' anymore.
"You're on vacation, huh?"
"Until noon tomorrow."
Rogue cursed to herself. "If I had known that I would have been more bold. You fucker. I was paranoid at whatever the fuck 'Saka had you doing clearing out scav territory, but you were just doing that shit for fun."
Adam corrected her. "Not only fun, training the kid."
She considered this for a moment, taking another sip. "You trained the kid by roaming scav territory and killing everything that came at you for a month?"
"Three weeks."
"You're still the same bloodthirsty maniac underneath all that new stoicism."
Adam grunted in reply. Rogue gave an insincere chuckle at that. Her voice took on a mocking tone as she continued.
"What is it you used to rant about? 'Meat is inferior, get upgraded or get wiped out!'? What happened to that, huh?"
"I tired myself of evangelism." In a way, that was true. Adam was an old killer, and old killers don't see much point in talking anymore most of the time. All he needed was violence.
Rogue stopped for a minute as she processed the fact that he just made a joke. When she had, she gave a bitter laugh before quieting down for a few minutes. She finished off her drink in this time, Adam kept his focus on the kids as they were doing some sort of party trick involving bullets.
"PR knew what they were doing with you. You're downright charming with your new face now that you've mellowed out."
Adam grunted. "Bitch, I was always charming."
Rogue gave a bark of laughter. "Sure, tell yourself that Smasher."
Another silence, this one a bit more comfortable than the last. Rogue tapped the table and got one of her grunts to bring her another drink. The grunt was noticeably nervous around Adam, but managed to hand off the drink and get out of there before making a mistake due to it. Rogue sipped on it a bit more before speaking up again.
"...Smasher, earlier what you said about my style. How much of that was just you trying to piss me off and how much of it was true?"
Adam glanced over at her, to see a hint of red on her cheeks. Ah, she was tipsy, no wonder she's bothering with this question. All women get touchy when the topic of their beauty is brought up. If Adam wanted to be a gentleman, he'd call her beautiful still and say everything before was just to get her mad.
"All of it was to piss you off, all of it was true. Lying is for meatbags, I'm above it."
She growled at him for that.
"You motherfucker, you're lying right now. My fashion is fucking great and you know it."
"You gotten senile if you think that's true. You used to be charming, now you're just embarrassing."
She paused at that, and took another drink. She grunted after a moment more. "You fucker, just you wait, I'll blow you away next time."
"Next time?"
"You're the only fucker I can talk to that isn't intimidated by me, you're coming back here every now and again." It was a command, she didn't even bother to look at him while saying it. He didn't have to listen of course, the Reaper is a fair bit more important than the Queen of the Afterlife. He could kill all of them right now and there would be nothing they could do about it.
Adam snorted. He was only here because the kids asked to be here, and he wasn't about to ruin their night out.
"I'll make sure to bring the kids."
—
It was about twelve thirty the next day when the first job came in. The kids were rested and on standby, currently busying themselves with another one of his old vids. Adam was in the armory again, making sure everything was up to par for when they would deploy. Dragoon frame, one shoulder-mounted micro-missile launcher with 4 missiles, two arm mounted micro-missile launchers with six missiles each, four backup knives mounted on his arms and legs, two backup pistols mounted at his waist, An assault rifle in hands, and three additional clips on his belt for it.
The assault rifle he had was just another Arasaka HJSH-18 Masamune. It wasn't his favorite gun, but it would serve him well enough.
It should be enough for most jobs. If the job was a bit bigger than usual, he can grab more.
Unfortunately, the job he was sent was not one of the fun ones. Arasaka and Petrochem were entering renegotiations for the sale of fuel on the large scales that megacorporations operate on, and this was another bodyguard mission. He was to go and protect the Arasaka assets that ended up being selected for traveling to enter the negotiation table, so to speak.
This would include a representative team of finances, and the PR team that was going to coordinate with Petrochem's own PR team on the best way to break the 'happy news' of their cooperation to the public. It would be a delegation of five and Adam's own team to protect them. The probable reason why he and his new team were being sent on this was as a public unveiling of Arasaka's main attack dog's new aesthetics and his new team.
The representative of finances, his own lackeys, the PR representative, and a promising PR intern that was coming along for the job experience.
Adam had no idea why they didn't just do this over voice call or something, but who knows maybe daemons would eat them or some shit if they did that. All he knew is that at best this job would include conflict with nomads along the way.
Or punks that want to strike at corpo assets…
Or rival corpos that want to disrupt the meeting…
…Huh, maybe this job would be fun after all.
"We have a job, get geared up!" Adam yelled out to the main room.
"What?! Already?"
"Yes."
"Alright, alright, we're coming big guy!"
Damn brats, you should have already been doing that.
His new chrome matched up with the kid's own, who was clad in his body armor and iconic jacket (apparently PR had to pay royalties to Trauma Team in order to let him use it, but cashing in on the look was going to be worth it Chiri told him). He carried a shotgun (A VST-37 Pozhar, it seems), his pistol, and two knives.
The gremlin was in her new ACPA and holding her very big railgun with two backup shotguns strapped to her waist and a backup assault rifle on her back. She looked downright giddy, bouncing in place as she was.
The girl was now in a black leotard, with a flak jacket and armored gloves and boots, hair partially hidden under her new visored helmet. The girls gloves, boots, and helmet matched with the kids. She carried a submachine gun (An Arasaka Shigure), pistol, and her monowires in her arms. On a strap from her shoulder to her back was a duffle bag with all of her required comms equipment.
Each of them had an Arasaka marketing logo on their right breast. They looked downright cute, kids playing dress up to look like killers. Marketing was going to have a field day with them. Uriel wondered how they felt, now in service to a corporation they probably hated and still probably hate. Adam didn't actually care, so long as they did their jobs well.
"Come on."
Adam started walking to the vehicle meeting point. They would all be loading up into some transport and then be flying to the destination. For the day or so that the meetings would be held, it would be their duty to make sure no Arasaka employee died. There was nothing in the contract about preserving anyone else's lives, but it would be nice if they could ensure that the negotiations go through suitably by chipping in to protect Petrochem's employees too.
Adam relayed this to his team, but made sure they knew to not bother attempting to save someone at the cost of their own lives. They were carry-on soldiers on his behalf for this mission, and not bound by the long-term contract to protect Arasaka employees. He'd be damned before he lets his investment go to waste from one of them being stupid. If worst comes to worst, do what you can to help but don't stick your necks out for them.
This seemingly made them much happier to work for Arasaka, the knowledge that they didn't have to give up their lives for anyone in the company if worse came to worst. Adam wasn't in any danger himself either, he was Adam fucking Smasher, there wasn't a fucker alive who could kill him.
Not even Blackhand managed that, and he had a fucking nuke when he tried.
Adam and Uriel pointedly ignored the meatfucker to come for now. They were already taking steps to counter them.
Ah, he almost forgot.
"Boy, if you do well on this job, I will allow you a single chrome upgrade."
He didn't bother looking back to see how the kid reacted.
Eventually, they had reached the transport to see that the employees were already waiting for them, the only one who wasn't there was the finances representative himself. Adam grunted, another fucking corpo power play, to make the rest of them wait for the meat to show up. He was on a job right now, so unfortunately he couldn't kill him for the insult. In front of them were the two financial cronies, both of which were talking with each other about some numbers or whatever, and the PR delegation.
It was some guy who worked under Chiri, but in another area of specialization, Adam didn't know which. The intern was some brat about the kid's age, in a professional looking suit and with a weird blue bowl cut. He had some sort of screen-glasses on and he was reading over something.
The PR rep walked up to him and offered a hand. Adam begrudgingly took it and shook.
"Ah, Mr. Smasher, a pleasure to have you with us today. I'm Douglas Brown, and this is my intern, Katsuo Tanaka." Ah, this was Chiri's kid, wasn't it? Uriel then remembered that this kid used to bully the kid, and Adam frowned mentally. Ah, well this would be a decent test of his professionalism he supposed.
Chiri's kid looked up from his screen, and did a proper greeting to him. "A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Smasher." Huh, actual respect from a corpo brat felt strange.
The two then were about to introduce themselves to the kids, but were stopped when Chiri's kid caught sight of the kid and all but recoiled in shock.
"M-Martinez?"
The kid hummed a bit, he wasn't happy about meeting this kid again. The PR rep spoke up at this, looking between his intern and the kid briefly. "Oh, do you two know each other?"
The kid looked at Adam, before looking back at the intern and rep. "We went to school together, but that's about it." Huh, seems like he wasn't going to let his feelings get in the way of the job. Good, that's going to be required on jobs for corpos and their bullshit.
The intern coughed into his hand and spoke up at that. "Ah, yes, I was simply surprised to see him again, it's been about a year now."
The PR rep gave both of them a long and searching look, before finishing his introductions with the kids and walking over to the transport proper. The intern followed, looking a bit awkward at the whole affair.
Adam couldn't wait for the fucking finaces representative to stop with his bullshit and show up. The sooner he did the sooner Adam could have a chance at shooting something.
Eventually the Finances Rep showed up, strutting in like they were the most important person in the room. Adam was already pissed off, the bitch had trashy yellow hair. She opened her mouth to probably say something infuriating, but Adam cut her off.
"I am contractually obligated to keep you alive for the duration of the job. Piss me off like that again and I nail you to the wall with your own spine as soon as it's over." He said it loud enough for everyone present to hear. She was not the top dog here, she was the shitty lapdog that yapped and yapped. Adam was the goddamn wolfhound that was starting to get growly.
She stumbled midstep, and all the confidence she had before was completely gone. She swallowed, and attempted to excuse her actions.
"A-ah, Mr. Smasher, I was unfortunately delaye…" trying to lie her way out of this one. Unfortunately for her, Uriel hated lies.
"No, you weren't."
The bitch certainly quieted down at that. Adam turned and gave a commanding line to those present. The job hadn't even started and it already pissed him off. Fucking meatbags and their shitty power plays delaying his violence.
"Everyone load up, we're leaving." He had no actual authority to do this, he was just the contracted protection for this job. They were under no obligation to listen to him.
But most folks don't try to argue with Adam Smasher nowadays.
—
The ride in the (Plane? Helicopter? What the fuck are these things called?) would take them at least three hours to arrive. It was a somewhat awkward affair. The financial division was dead quiet, probably communicating with each other via messages. The intern and the kid kept giving each other awkward looks, like they didn't quite know how to interact around one another at this point. The other kids were pretty quiet, looking like they were still getting used to the idea of working for Arasaka.
In fact, the only one who wasn't quiet was Douglas Brown, who kept trying to chat with Adam in the transport. Adam was somewhat annoyed by this, but the meatbag was polite all the way throughout and didn't mind his grunts and growls as replies, so he couldn't complain too much. Like so many others in the PR department, it seems like he was a fairly social sort. Adam stepped back and let Uriel handle the conversation, he'd rather watch his compilations again.
"...With all the high-quality footage we've gotten of you and your new team this past month, the reveal trailer of your new image is certain to come out splendidly." The PR rep leaned forwards at this,smiling and conspiratorial. "Personally I think they focused on your rear a bit too much, but the female focus groups certainly seem to appreciate it."
Adam grunted exasperatedly.
"I know right? But the clips of you using the sword are excellent, and were my personal favorite overall. The slow-mo we have of you cutting the rail-gun shot was pure kino. Is there any way I can convince you to carry the sword around still?"
"It's not enough against high-tier targets."
"Well that's just unfortunate, ah well, it was a long shot regardless.The clips we have of your apprentice are rock-solid as well, lots of quick movements and lots of expression on his face. He also scored highly among female focus groups for it, they like his boyish charm."
The girl gave a small panicked noise at that, and the PR rep took that as his chance to include her in the conversation.
"Ah, and I have to say your own attire does a fantastic job of both coordinating with the team as well as demonstrating your own appeal. Did Mr. Smasher come up with it or was it something you came up with?"
The girl hesitantly replied. "Ah, we came up with it as a group, Mr. Smasher stayed out of it…"
"Well let me give you my compliments, it's a very good blend of both professionalism as well as charm. Do you have any prior experience in design or is this your first time?"
"...I, uh, made my old street clothes, but this is the first group thing…"
"Well you have nothing to worry about young lady! It looks quite good and conveys itself well to observers! If you three ever decide that combat is not something you want to do, then you'll have my recommendations for the PR team, because this as your first major work speaks well of your capabilities…"
"Ah I let myself get distracted. Mr. Smasher, there is a clip that I wanted to ask you about, we're having trouble filling in the scene from the footage angle, also, what's your opinion on wearing a coat on your jobs? Also I wanted to ask you about your music, to see if we could get something that we can incorporate into certain clips of your work."
And so on it went. The PR rep was fast-talking and wouldn't stop talking either. Fortunately he was polite, otherwise Adam would have another person to kill after this job was over. Or unfortunately he supposed, as tearing meat in half with his bare hands never got old.
Eventually, the constant chatter from the PR representative loosened the tension in the carrier, and the meats started socializing properly among themselves. The intern and the kid seemingly exchanged some private words via message, and they relaxed a bit around each other. They resolved to ignore each other unless they had to, it seemed, and that was a perfectly fine compromise for whatever issues they had before.
One was going to be a corpo, the other a merc. Personal grudges had no place on the job. Uriel refrained from pointing out all the times Adam let that exact thing happen, and Adam was thankful for it.
Eventually, the PR rep suggested playing the "Smash hits soundtrack" and Adam wanted to strangle him. Fucking PR, snatching those files from the netrunner and publishing them. No, he didn't want the whole world to heard him fucking sing.
'Uriel you fucker, this is your fault.'
'Sorry about that Adam, didn't know they would grab it like that.'
Adam grumbled as he heard his own voice start to play in the transport speakers, and the group quieted down to listen. He knew it wasn't really Uriel's fault. If he found the PR fucker that was responsible for it he was going to practice his painting with their vital fluids. Now he just had to tolerate this bullshit until they got bored of hearing him sing songs from eighty or more years ago.
"Build a fire a thousand miles away
To light my long way home
I ride a comet, my trail is long to stay
Silence is a heavy stone."
"I fight the world and take all they can give
There are times my heart hangs low
Born to walk against the wind
Born to hear my name
No matter where I stand I'm alone."
"Stand and fight
Live by your sword
Always one more try
I'm not afraid to die
Stand and fight
Say what you feel
Born with a heart of steel."
Adam wanted this trip to be fucking done already. He leaned completely back in his seat, ignored the way it groaned under his weight, and stared at the ceiling until it was over. Goddamn it Uriel, god fucking damn it.
He could feel the kids staring at him. He made sure to make a note to kill the next meatbag he found in the most brutal way he could to compensate.