Ichirou regained awareness slowly, the shaking slowly fading away, the pain beginning to go with it. He breathed in and out, and tried to see through staticy vision. He was on the ground, had he fallen?
He had been fighting, he could feel a bullet in his leg. What had he been fighting?
He was a disgraced member of the Tyger Claws, given a chance to redeem himself in a raid. It was a raid against the Animals. It was coming back to him. He was fighting the Animals, shooting at them with his fellow disgraced. Why had they stopped?
He blinked, in his vision was a message. It was a bounty for every Arasaka employee in Night City. Each of the disgraced received it, and got behind cover in astonishment. Then… everything went black.
It was still dark, he blinked and looked around. He was laying on the floor. He was about to push himself up. A massive steel-clawed boot stomped down in front of him, cracking the stone floor.
He flinched back, and looked up.
A lipless, snarling and crocodile face glared down at him. A dragon loomed above him, hateful eyes glaring. It crouched in front of him. He looked around worriedly. His fellow disgraced were all around him on the concrete floor, each with a hulking figure in front of them, their weapons all removed or bound.
He swallowed, they had been captured. Why did they all fall like that? The lights in the building were all out, but the glare of various optics and screens lit it just enough to see.
He looked again to the snarling dragon. His eyes adjusted enough to the darkness to see the figure more clearly. The snarling visage was a steel helmet, the dragon's snarl not changing in expression. The helmet was set upon the armored frame of a truly massive man, somewhere between seven and eight feet tall. He was clad entirely in plated metalgear armor that was then covered again in ballistic plating. His arms were covered instead in battlegloves, upon which wolvers were mounted and currently extended.
It was Beast, de facto leader of the Animals.
He was a dead man already.
"The message." A voice like a rumbling thunderstorm rolled out from the armored dragon. It was punctuated by an actual boom of thunder from outside the building.
Ichirou wasn't sure what he was talking about, so he asked. "T-the message we all received b-before?" The steel dragon nodded at him, so he was quick to pull it up and send it over. The eyes of the steel dragon glowed as it read the message.
It paused for a long moment. So Ichirou took his chance, the other Tyger Claws listening in from their places.
"P-please let us go, some of us have families in Arasaka. We need to go help them!" He desperately cried out. It was a long shot, but anything to survive, they could get their honor back later. "We can get back to gang war later, this is more important!" This was met by grumbling from his fellow disgraced, and laughter from the surrounding Animals.
The laughter was cut off by Beast raising a gauntlet. They all stopped immediately. Beast stared him down, and he did his best to meet the stare of the massive figure, more than seven feet tall.
"...Why the attacks?" The steel dragon asked. He gulped.
He would be dead if word of him leaking info went back to Tyger Claw leadership, but he would be dead if he didn't answer. His resolve hardened, he had a little brother in Arasaka Academy. Ichirou was fine with dying, but not tonight.
"Someone in Arasaka Tower hired the Tyger Claws to make attacks against the Pacifica defenses."
The steel dragon was silent. A feminine scoff from the side drew his attention. He looked over to see a muscular woman-beast, armorweave clearly visible within her skin, a thick layer of fur over her limbs, and a similarly fluffed armored tail swishing behind her. Atop her head were two curled horns, and her eyes were slitted and narrowed. Her hands ended in massive black claws sprouting from furred paws.
Her breasts were barely contained behind a grease-stained white wife-beater shirt. She did not have a bra on. He struggled to look away from the shameless woman. She had purple eyes, a clear indicator of optics.
"You're not believing this prey, are yah boss?"
"Quiet." The steel dragon responded, her mouth immediately snapped close. Her teeth ground against each other. The steel dragon rose from the crouch and looked around for a moment.
"...One night." The dragon glared down at him again. "One night of truce. Tell Tigerking we talk after this." This was met with rumbles and growls from the Animals. These growls were silenced with the steel dragon's own growl, which echoed loudly through the room.
"We work for Smasher. Smasher is Arasaka. We are being hunted by humans."
The steel dragon stepped forwards and shattered concrete. Steel claws dug into the stone.
"We are the Animals. We gore the hunters tonight."
A pause from him was met with snarls and nods. He looked down at the bound and injured Tyger Claws.
"Give them their small guns. We keep big guns."
Ichirou supposed that was fair.
—
Eren Shepard strode into the office of the chief, who was currently shouting over the radio to get the emergency power supply for the station online again. His shoulder-mounted headlights allowed him to walk through the panicked station without trouble, and his night-vision visor let him see in the dark regardless.
The chief huffed and leaned back in his chair after a minute of yelling at various employees to get them moving. It was busy for a hot minute, and with the imminent chaos the city was sure to erupt into, the NCPD was about to be incredibly busy for days afterwards processing as much of the criminal activity as they could.
Or at least, they would be, but no orders to muster stations had been called. He had questions for the chief.
"Ah, good old reliable 'Iron Shepard', whaddya need? Make it quick, we're in an emergency right now."
"Why have you recalled all officers in the field?" A mere 2,500 officers of the NCPD. Even assuming a mere one percent of the city takes the bait, that would be a riot of 60,000. It was more important than ever that they quickly move to suppress and engage roving groups before they grew to unmanageable sizes.
"Why? You're normally faster on the draw than this Shepard. You received the message too, right? Everyone with a hope for moving out of this shithole or a grudge against the boys in black are going to be out in force. We don't have enough men for that, I'm calling everyone in to weather the storm."
Eren listened to the chief. He took in what he was saying, he processed the logic and calculated the pros and cons.
It was absolutely unacceptable.
He pulled his gun, a Desert Eagle, and pointed it at the chief.
The chief flinched back and raised his hands. "What the hell Shepard! The fuck are you doing?!"
"You are under arrest for negligence of duty and obstruction of justice. You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law."
The chief grew thunderous at that, and almost started yelling. A vein popping in his neck. "Shepard. You're going to put that gun down right now and hope to god I don't have your badge for this bullshit."
Eren did not drop his gun. The door to the office opened and two of his fellow officers almost entered. They saw the scene and their hands went to their guns, although they did not draw them yet. The chief yelled at them, hands still in the air.
"Jenkins! Pattersby! Get Shepard out of my office and into a cell! He's lost it!"
Jenkins narrowed his eyes at Eren. Eren did not move a centimeter, gun still aimed at the chief, finger still on the trigger. "Shepard… So, wanna tell us why you're pointing that Deagle at Chief Fawlter?"
"I am placing Fawlter under arrest. He has decided to recall all officers and has no plans on deploying them for the duration of this night."
Jenkins and Pattersby realized the implications immediately. Fawlter rushed to explain.
"Of fucking course I am! We don't have the manpower to cover any of the shitstorm that's about to blow through. We send any squads out tonight and we're losing them!"
"Negligence of duty and obstruction of justice."
Pattersby nodded slowly, and hesitantly spoke. "He's got a point there Shepard. If we lose too many men tonight, we're not going to have them for the future. It might be better to pull everyone out for tonight."
Eren turned his visor just enough to look at Pattersby from the corner of his optics. Pattersby, a mostly good officer, but entirely driven by pragmatism over doing the most long term good. Normally effective, unacceptable here.
There were other officers lining up in the hall outside, checking on the situation, listening in.
"Are you an idiot, Pattersby?"
Pattersby got mad. "Of course not! That's why I'm-"
"You're not thinking."
Turning his optics back towards the chief completely, he raised the volume of his voice so that those listening in the hall could hear clearly.
"We are officers of Night City. The most dangerous city in North America. The city with the most heavily armed gangs in North America. The city with the highest officer fatality rate in North America."
"Each and every year we lose no less than a full five squads of officers. We cannot predict what weapons the gangs will or will not bring. At any point, any one of us can die in the line of duty. You think tonight is any different from every other night?"
"We are the officers of the Night City Police Department. We are the hand of the Law and bringers of Justice to the criminals of this city. Those criminals are out in force tonight. Those criminals are practically walking towards our lines of fire tonight."
"A full mobilization and decisive action in this night can dramatically lower crime in the city for years to come. Tonight is the night of action, the night in which the Law can achieve a decisive victory over crime."
"You would let the status quo of a shrinking budget and increasingly stretched patrols continue over fear from a mass of creeps roaming the streets. You want to put your head in the sand and let those bastards win?"
"I'll arrest you too, and do this myself if I have to."
There was a stretch of silence.
Jenkins slowly pulled his handgun out.
He aimed it at Chief Fawlter.
"Chief Fawlter, you are under arrest."
—
Meredith Stout groaned as she poured a few tylenoxol into her hand and swallowed them, washing them down with a bottle of water. Shaking her head, she stumbled out of her office and into the hall. The pain killer was preemptive, as she was sure tonight was going to be a huge fucking headache.
Shaitan… that name was familiar. She thinks he showed up in a few after reports she's read through before. He was an Eclipse borg, right? Militech gave the guy missions sometimes. She shook her head, didn't matter, the fucking bastard had just riled up the city and place a hit on all of Arasaka.
If someone could do that to Arasaka, then they could do that to any other corp. That was an unacceptable precedent to allow.
She walked into the mess hall, filled to the brim with the private security officers of Militech stationed here in Night City. She raised her announcing pistol and shot a blank in the air.
The dumbasses jumped and half of them drew weapons before seeing it was her. That was pissing her off, it should have been all of them that drew their irons. She'd yell at them later for that, right now she had business to do.
"Oi! Full mobilization people! Get your ACPAs on and get patrolling!" The room burst into mumbles for a second.
One cheeky brat spoke up. "Wait, we hunting 'Saka heads?"
"Who the fuck said that!" She yelled out. The brat in question was pushed up by his fellows. It was that Sharp kid, the dumbass with the grapple hand. She'd discipline him later with scrubbing the fucking toilets, but right now she needed everyone out and about.
"Private Sharp! You're a dumbass shit-licker! If we let this happen, the fuck do you think happens when some cheeky fucker decides to call a hit in on Militech?!" She had to be mean to the boys and girls, otherwise they'd try to cozy up to her. She only fucks on her time, she wasn't about to waste time on a horny private.
Unless they were a cute one that was. This wasn't the time for it anyway, she was a professional.
"...Oh."
"You're damn right 'Oh'! You incompetent fuck-weasel!" She shouted at him. She turned her gaze around the room. "Everyone up and out, we're suppressing the fucking riots as best we can! Go ahead and field test all those fancy new guns that HQ sent over." She grinned at the sudden cheers.
Now… to yell at the techies to fix the fucking generators. The emergency supply only lasted so long and it was best to be on top of things.
She groaned internally. She wasn't going to get any fucking rest for a while, just her luck.
—
Jun groaned, and grabbed his head. It was throbbing in pain.
The room was dark for a while, but the emergency generators were beginning to kick back on. The power was coming back online. What was that, everything went out, and he was on the floor.
He pushed himself up, and looked around. He was in his office, there were black-clad Arasaka guards looking in the door to him. It felt familiar. Everything went out…
The HQ had been hit with an EMP attack. Everything was coming back online slowly. He was on the floor. His cyberware was shielded, why was he on the floor? He pushed himself up, and brought up his desk-screen to check on the conditions of the stock and provisions of the Island.
Militech were finally making their attack, having started with an EMP. Their counter-measures beforehand made sure they weren't about to be followed by an ECM from blimp. The burning artillery had struck true.
The Island was under attack. He looked at the state of their forces. They were more than he remembered, had they gotten reinforcements? They must have, the HQ had sent word back to the Mainland some time ago about the imminent attack. He grimaced, Militech had struck earlier than they were anticipating.
Communications were finally back online, quickly he contacted the chief of security.
"Agent, the Island is under attack. Deploy our heavy assets to defensive positions at the entrance of the HQ, and organize the fulfillment of the bunker protocols!"
The chief of security replied with affirmation, and he finished the call.
…Where was heavy asset Kuroichi? He wasn't in the HQ.
He groaned and grabbed at his head. His headache was tremendous. He was starting to remember.
He had deployed Kuroichi to raid a Militech research facility. They were testing an upgraded form of ACPA down in the Nevada desert. Kuroichi was the only asset both heavily armored and stealthy enough to reliably take it down. He wasn't here, and wouldn't be here for days even if recalled immediately.
He cursed, the facility was likely bait to draw out their strongest asset. They didn't have anything of the same effectiveness. He looked up, and Arasaka ACPA was in front of him. It couldn't be a DaiOni, those were all on the Mainland, back in primary HQ.
His vision started to stabilize. Why was it spinning? It was one of their Arasaka Standard-B jockeys. Good, he needed one around him to fend off any Militech Eclipse borgs. If he died, then the warriors would not have the equipment they needed with them when they deployed. He had to make sure they had their equipment, otherwise Arasaka interests in Gaijin lands would all collapse.
He was Provisions Manager Jugemu Jun. He would not let Militech achieve victory on this night. Quickly, he began rapid-fire calls to organize a defense.