Adam walked into the private medical facility maintained by the Trauma Team assigned to Arasaka Tower, following him were the three hanger-ons. They had received news that the boy had woken up, so they were going to visit. It had been two weeks since Adam had returned from France, missing an arm, to find that everything had gone all to hell in his absence.
He had heard reports, countless reports, of what had happened. He wanted to hear it from the boy though, get a proper perspective.
Those fuckers that were trying to kill him? All's fair in his optics. Plenty had tried to kill him in the past, plenty in the future will also try. They had gone and made it personal though, by attacking the shit that belonged to him while he was away. Uriel's flames turned from their gold-white to red-black when they learned of what all had gone down, they haven't changed back since.
THEY TOOK HIS FUCKING DAIONI. THAT WAS HIS! YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!
He fully intended to turn the next bot into scrap as fast as he could next time. Not that he wasn't already trying to do that, but now he was going to carry a full-loadout everywhere he went. Uriel had told him to buy a cyberdeck for him to use, and Adam agreed fully, the extra processing power should help him against future bot ICONs. Best part was that they didn't even need to open the thing up, just carry it on his belt and let Uriel work his digital magic through it.
Uriel burned a cheerful red-black at the thought.
Adam was going to get his new frame by the end of the month, something the both of them were excited for. It was technically incomplete, the new frame was designed to interface with custom ACPA for higher performance, but it was still a frame that represented close to 57 years of tech development. They didn't build frames better than the Dragoon because almost no one could use one, they were doing so now because he requested one.
Hijikata died before he could come up with any ACPA for him to use. The project was being handled by a new guy coming in from Japan with a specialty in just that sort of thing.
Adam was no stranger to having people die on him, that sort of thing defined the first twenty five years of his life. His fellow street-rats, his first gang, his fellow recruits, his second gang… Adam had lost a few hundred allies before he was a full grown man. He called them allies, because people who had friends die on them cried or some other bullshit like that. Adam didn't do that, so they couldn't be called friends.
Uriel didn't really get the whole 'mourning' thing either, even having lost a few family members and friends himself, but he understood the socially correct things to do when such things happened. Adam learned a few things himself reviewing the memories. He also learned that funerals were long, drawn out, and boring affairs with lots of 'emotions' and other touchy-feely-huggy shit that neither of them cared for.
Still, he liked fucking Chiri (Uriel told him he liked her too, Adam responded with a grumble). Uriel told him going to the funeral was the 'correct' thing to do, so he would do it. Uriel knew this social shit better than him, so he would do it. Adam handled murdering fuckers, Uriel handled the boring shit, and together they were going to put the meatfucker and the cheerleader into the ground. Hell, with all these fucking bots coming out of the woodwork, Uriel was still going to stick around even if the meatfucker never showed up, they had long since decided that neither wanted to die and they got along well enough outside of that.
At least his annoying handler with the trash hair died too, thank fuck that he never had to see her ever again.
They were at the boy's door, he paused and held up a hand, stopping the three from moving in.
"I will talk with him alone. You all are next."
They wanted to argue that point, but his antipathic expression dissuaded them. They settled back, taking seats on the hallway chairs or leaning against the wall. He glowered at them for a bit, before opening the door and walking in.
The kid was fucked all up. Adam had read the reports, he was impressed that the boy was able to last long enough to get put back together. It wasn't quite his old record of being turned into hamburger and stuffed in a backpack, but it was way closer than most. Credit where credit was due, most half-meats would never last that long.
All of the kid's hardware had to be replaced, all of his wetware needed emergency nanobot repair-swarms to stabilize and then most of it also replaced with cloned tissue, most of his organs suffered tier 2 damage, and his face was half-torn off.
But he won. He won against a bot that had peers capable of killing Adam Smasher if he fucked up more than once or twice against them. He had been fighting for hours before, then got into another scrap, then fought a bot that probably would have given Adam trouble in a head-on duel. He won with a single ex-SWAT and support from one anti-material railgun. He won without even being a full-borg, he was still a half meat.
Adam was fucking proud of the boy, no 'almost' or 'barely' or 'somewhat' about it. Pride in someone else was a strange and unfamiliar sensation to Adam, and he intended to revel in it for a while. Pride, Wrath, and Lust were the emotions that Adam was most familiar with, and feeling the first on behalf of another was an interesting thing to experience.
The boy scrapped the bot that had the audacity to break Adam's shit, The bot that by all rights should have fucking killed him in an instant. Adam could always appreciate a good subordinate like that, once again he praised Uriel's choice of backup, boy was proving that all the fucking hassle was worth it.
The boy looked at him, and gave a weak wave in greeting. Adam nodded and walked forwards to sit on the bedside chair. Very carefully so as to not break the fragile-shit chairs they always used, he lowered his weight into it. It still groaned in protest under him. You motherfucker, you trying to call him fat? His bench kicks your ass any day.
The boy looked amused at that exchange, you're lucky he was proud of you boy, otherwise he'd be mad. The boy's expression began to fall off shortly afterwards as Adam stared at him. Adam was about to speak, but the boy cut him off.
"I need more chrome."
Adam paused a bit, staring at the kid. The boy continued, talking fast.
"I'll pay you back, but I need more to handle gonkbots like that guy in the future. If he had any backup at all I would be flatlined right now, if he wasn't a fucking dumbass who threw away his nades I'd be flatlined right now, if he…"
The boy trailed off, before continuing, looking away from him.
"I need more chrome."
Goddamn it kid, he didn't need you crazy. Uriel, you handle this, Adam didn't feel like it.
"You already forgot."
The kid looked confused at that, looking back at him. Good, start with confusion, that will get him to pay attention to what he'll say next.
"You already forgot the first two things I told you."
Looks like the kid really didn't remember, judging by his still confused expression. Fucker, you were going to listen when he speaks to you in the future.
"I told you I need you sane to be worth anything to me. You lost it last time because of martyring bullshit like this. You'll get chrome when I let you, not when you feel like you need more."
"But-"
"No. The second thing I told you? You aren't responsible for jackshit while you work for me. Whenever something goes wrong? Whenever someone gets fucked up? You are not responsible for any of that. That's my fault. You're going to blame me, for not teaching you well enough, for not giving you enough backup."
"You need more chrome? You feel guilty? Fuck both of those things. You need to get stronger, you need to feel mad. I'm going to tell you what the fuck you're going to do, because last I checked you still work for me."
"You're going to stop with this sad sack routine. You're going to get pissed off that someone fucked you up. You're going to demand I teach you more. You're going to brutalize the next fucker that thinks they're lucky."
"You got that boy?"
Adam growled at him, voice kept low and even the whole while. As his monologue progressed, he could see the boy's expression starting to change. By the end, the boy was glaring right back at him, eyes locked. Good, Adam always did like a good facedown.
"Got it." He growled back. Adam grinned in response, it was not a nice grin. The boy continued with a proper demand this time.
"Hey Smasher, I need to get stronger."
"That's more fucking like it."
Adam stood, and walked to the door.
"Rest up boy, we'll start again when you're good for it."
To the inhabitants of the hallway, as he opened the door all the way from where it had been cracked from his improper closing, he called out as he walked away.
"Boy's all yours now."
Adam had work to do, his territory wasn't going to fix itself. He had a few gangers to talk to.
They helped protect his Arena, he had an offer for them in mind.
—
It was later that day that the gremlin approached him, before he was about to leave the HQ. She was standing in front of the doorway that led to the exterior fortress, and was clearly waiting for him. He grunted questioningly at her, and she explained.
"I need better gear, and training, and more chrome and…"
She trailed off, face twisting in on itself before relaxing into a downright miserable expression. Oi, is everyone going to be a fucking mess today? You were all alive weren't you?
"I need to be more helpful. I wasn't good enough against the pirate-guy."
Adam grunted thoughtfully, leaning against the wall.
"Where were you deficient?"
This was a question he had asked them many times before, in the initial training, so they were all used to what he meant. What did you mess up on, what could you have done better, what would you have done differently.
"My firing wasn't fast enough, he could dodge everything I shot at him. My ACPA wasn't fast enough, I wouldn't be able to catch up in time to help in close range. My armor isn't enough to survive in close range. I.."
She punched the wall. Careful now, blueberry, that might hurt his wall.
"I wasn't good enough."
Adam considered her, her hair hanging over her eyes as she glared at the floor. A full-scope upgrade huh? It wouldn't do to load her up on chrome too and have two junkies to manage, but she could handle a little bit more now… Or, if he wanted to burn the eddies, he could get her some bioware.
Eh, he'd have Uriel release another album of music or something, that always raked in eddies. He'd use that to fund her upgrades. Nothing that would change her outward appearance too much, just a general package.
That, and an ACPA upgrade. He'd get her a Linear Frame and some MetalGear Armor as a stopgap, the current Kyudoka wasn't enough it seemed. Hijikata knew frames, but ACPAs were not something he was the best at. The new guy was apparently, so he'd give him the task of upgrading the Kyudoka's design. Faster and more guns.
Hmm, Faster and more guns? How was he going to get the girl to hold more guns with her tiny arms? Uriel had an idea. Hip-mounted guns for stability when firing and two things to fire, ACPA-grade skaters for speed, and a decent package of bioware to make her an actual threat. That sounded about right to him, more gun, more speed, similar armor, better body. Everything that she asked for.
Uriel laughed at the image.
"Two things." She looked expectantly at him.
"One, how do you feel about bioware?"
She paused at that.
"Okay I suppose, I haven't really thought about that stuff ever."
Too many meatbags don't. The one thing that can make them a half-decent fight and they fucking ignore it. Fucking meatbags.
"It's less taxing on the meat, more expensive but it doesn't drive you psychotic as fast. You can handle a lot more of that than you can chrome."
"And tell the girl that too, before she approaches me later about this same shit, I'll get her some bioware if she wants an upgrade."
"Two, how do you feel about having extra arms?"
—
It was late by the time Adam finally got back to the HQ, walking past the security and into the personal chambers area. He was going to spend the next few hours reviewing training plans for the kids and Uriel was going to keep up the active management of the region while he was doing so. It had been rough for the first couple of days when they got back, but the fuckers very quickly learned that the boss was back. Still, that added a few hundred more to the death toll as Uriel turned off their cyberware and burned out their neuralware. An alert to security to haul off the corpse to the ripperdocs, and the problem became a not-problem very quick.
Uriel wasn't any faster at doing it with his new cyberdeck, but he could do it and other things now. He used it to burn more of them out simultaneously fairly often.
Incidents stopped happening again after a few days of that. It was back to pre-france levels, and he doubted the bossman was going to send him out again after the attack on the tower. No, he just got his funding for Pacifica doubled and was told to get to work as the tower got itself back together.
He heard that Kagekaze was here now, a real polite and serious guy, easy to get along with from what he remembered. Even if most of their interaction was him raving about murder and Kagekaze politely nodding along. Hey, this extra perspective isn't appreciated Uriel, you need to stop that. Anyways, he was head of security for the tower now, and was training up the grunts to his decent standards.
Hell, maybe they'd be worth something in a fight now.
…probably not, he was too much for any of them and even ol' Kaze couldn't turn scrap into steel. Maybe iron or something instead.
That and they shipped over a full squad of ACPA, including two DaiOni (fucking bastards took his baby, that was his favorite thing and they fucking took it, he'll kill them) jockeys. Aoichimaru and Akaniko or some stupid sounding names like that. That certainly wasn't their actual names, but some sort of code name he imagined. He didn't want to bother dedicating any energy to figuring it out though, so he ignored it.
Adam walked through the doors to the central chamber, and saw the woman sitting at the main table. She was holding a cup of coffee and his old clothes. She looked up when he walked in, and spoke before he could say anything.
"Adam, may I talk with you?"
He grunted, before closing the door. He walked over and sat on his bench at the head of the central table. He was glad he moved this out before he left, fuckers would have probably taken it too otherwise. He looked at the woman on the couch. He was pleasantly surprised to find that she didn't have a pitiful look on her face, she was determined instead. Good, at least that was two people who knew how to act, himself and the freeloader.
The meatbeast rubbed against his leg, he resisted the urge to kick it.
"I need to help."
Adam raised a brow, it seems like today everyone in his house decided to get their acts together and actually try to get better, surprised to see it.
"My son was… he was almost…" She trailed off, glaring at herself for being unable to finish and taking a loud gulp of the coffee. She locked eyes with him again.
"My son almost died, and I wasn't there for him."
Adam considered her, maybe the freeloader isn't going to be a freeloader anymore? She was asking for it, so the kid couldn't complain to him about it.
"What are you going to do about it?" He asked, challenging her. Let's see if she disappoints with her response.
"I'm going to kill the next son of a bitch that thinks they can hurt my boy." She did not disappoint. Adam grinned at her.
"What are you going to need?" He asked, growling out in a pleased manner.
"I need equipment, chrome, bioware, and you."
A pause. Adam raised a brow. Her face flushed as she replayed what she said mentally.
"I-I need you to train me! N-not anything else." She was downright cute, looking all embarrassed like that. He wanted to be mean to her.
He stood and stalked forwards a bit in order to loom over her. Her eyes were wide as she all but retreated back into the couch. He placed a hand on the reinforced metal frame next to her head, and another on her chin, forcing her to look at him. She flinched minutely at every movement, but didn't run or call out. Her eyes were wide, face was flushed, and she was beginning to spill the coffee on herself.
He leaned in and spoke, letting his fusion-power warmed breath splash against her face as he asked. His eyes were narrowed.
"Nothing else?"
Her breath was heavy and came out in bursts. She eventually gasped out :
"N-nope! N-nothing at all, T-That's all I need!"
Heh. This never got old. She'd come asking for it eventually now, the bait was set. If she asked for it, the kid couldn't complain.
He withdrew and shrugged.
"Well, if that's all you need…"
He walked away from the woman looking like she was recovering from a heart attack. Looking at him like a baby deer that was just let out of a tiger's jaws, knees wobbling.
He called out behind him as he walked away.
"You spilled your coffee."
A yelp and a spanish curse as she realized she was in pain. Adam grinned. She was a fun one to bully, huh? He had to do it more often.