Arasaka black ops had been working overtime for days now, ever since Shaitan decided to put a bounty on all of it at the beginning of the week. Primarily, they were focused on locating and quietly eliminating all those who managed to kill Arasaka agents and try to flee the city to claim the bounty over in europe. Everyone who tried to book a flight out died within the next two hours at the latest, everyone who tried to bargain with the Nomads found themselves politely refused at gunpoint, which left only the third category.
Those that targeted Arasaka agents, and started bragging about it on the Pacifica regional NET. Not his little slice of NC Pacifica, but rather the wider Pacifica region, which encompassed the entire west coast of America. Those that claimed to have taken 'saka heads' but were just lying about it for clout were visited by men in uniforms and sunglasses with legal documents. Those that claimed 'saka heads' and were telling the truth were given different treatment.
They were not hunted down in the middle of the night, or in alleyways with no one watching. They were hunted down openly by Arasaka ninjas and executed in the streets. Then, Arasaka would pay all the legal fines for public disruption and damages to Night Corp, and ignore any backlash from mainstream news outright. A show of outright force and a demonstration for their current public support, which was at an all time high due to sympathy from the attack.
The news articles and coverage about the open murder of civilians in the street were not as popular as the vid clips of Arasaka ninjas doing acrobatics to chase down a target and executing them in an overly flashy and dramatic way. Everyone in the world already knew that Arasaka had agents to hunt down those that wronged them, that was no surprise. Getting to see those agents display their 'preemo' skills and butcher a few meatbags in the streets was entertaining for the wider public. Especially as evidence that the butchered meatbags killed Arasaka employees (and sometimes children) was publicly broadcasted.
Murder was fun, it was something he had known for nearly his entire life. The meatbags were finally catching the fuck up it seemed.
Regardless of all that, there was one target that was proving somewhat difficult to crack. A minor gang that made their home in the sewers and was giving the ninjas trouble. Being slowed down at all was a sign of weakness, so Yorinobu told him to take the brats and wipe the gang off the face of the earth in one quick, overwhelming show of force. It was exactly the kind of job he fucking loved, he was almost giddy thinking about it.
The only thing dragging his mood down was that his new frame hadn't come in from modifications and repairs yet, and that he had to take the kids. He grumbled and figured he should probably use the opportunity to give them another test, it had been a while since the last one. He sent them all a message to meet him in the main room, and walked off to switch to his old Dragoon frame.
Uriel took over the frame as his Gemini opened up to reveal the hardened case of organs that was his biopod. Uriel reached inside, pulled it out, and lowered the casing into 'his' head, which slid closed around the biopod securely. The Dragoon's optics lit up, and Adam could see and move once more.
He used to need a second person to switch frames, not anymore now that Uriel was here. It was always a good day when he could cut another useless meatbag out of his daily interactions.
He looked over his supply of weapons, consideringly. He stomped over to the Tsunami Arms Helix, disconnected his right arm, and connected the integrated weapon-arm in its place. He paused for a moment to let his 'fingers' regain feeling, and then moved on to the ammo rack to attach the belt-feed and put the ammo hopper on.
It had been a while since his last massacre, he was going to do it with his best gun. This and his backup weapons, a Desert Eagle, and four knives. The revolver was nice, but now that he didn't have to worry about ammo again he was going to use the Deagle. It was a classic handgun produced for a fifty-caliber bullet. It was big, heavy, and shot a big bullet, so big that it was impractical for meatbags, but just about right for the average borg. It used to be everywhere in action vids he watched back in his meat days, but now it was replaced with fancy gimmick 'compensated recoil' handguns or some other worthless shit.
It was a gun, it was supposed to kick in your hand, that's where half the fun came from. The other half came from watching a meatbag splatter across the walls.
Now geared up, he walked out of the armory and through the halls to the main room, arriving after a small walk.
Opening the door and seeing that all the brats were inside, he walked up to the main table and ignored their glances. As he walked up, Uriel pulled up the known location and the information about their target.
"We have been ordered to exterminate another gang. Our target is The Slaughterhouse. We are to make it as flashy and overwhelming as possible as a show of force. You all will decide the plan of attack. You have one hour."
With that, he walked over to the bench and sat down. He and Uriel started making their own plans to compare to later.
The Slaughterhouse used to be a much larger gang, but their applicants these days were usually scooped up by Maelstrom or the Tyger Claws. Of course, that simply made the few remaining members notably more deadly by comparison, otherwise they would have been wiped out completely already.
The Slaughterhouse was filled to the brim with meatbags and half-meats who only cared about picking up something sharp and cutting meatbags with it. Adam could agree with the sentiment, but they really should've expanded their portfolio to shooting and blasting meatbags apart too. He said 'should've', because they were all going to die today. Their leader bragged openly about taking some fifty heads during the power outage, only some of which were Arasaka-related. They weren't even hard targets like security agents, just a bus of Arasaka academy brats or some easy shit like that.
Of course, The Slaughterhouse was one of the few gangs that existed that could actually pose a threat to Arasaka ninjas on a personal level, rather than needing numbers to be a threat. This made the 'overwhelming show of force' part hard to accomplish for most. Most, but not him. They had loved the arena, and had raked in the eddies for him in the past.
Oh well, he was going to have fun butchering them.
The meatbeast came up and jumped onto his lap. He resisted the urge to rip it in half by Uriel reminding him of his upcoming assignment.
—
Gloria Martinez was feeling sick, and dreadfully nervous. She could barely pay attention to the rapid-pace exchange of ideas and plans that occurred earlier, and it was all she could do to make sure she knew what her own role was.
It was to stay firmly behind the cover of the riot-shield they gave her, and shoot Ms. Microwaver at whoever she saw at least once each. The riot-shield would have been trouble to lift beforehand, she was never the physically strongest woman around, but the bioware treatments had changed her life rather dramatically. 'Muscle and Bone Lace', 'Preparatory DNA Mapping and Body Therapy', all things she had read about in EMT training, but not something she had ever considered getting or even affording.
Each treatment was worth thousands of eddies, the fact that her son could afford something like that casually made her over-the-moon with joy. It also left her feeling a bit useless, to be relying on her son for things like this. She was the mother! He should be relying on her!
Her body was fitter and firmer than it had been in years. Barely enough for Lucy and Rebecca to convince her into the bodysuit they order for her. She was constantly fighting the urge to cover herself, surely no one wanted to see this? She was a grown woman! Past her prime! She couldn't be wearing clothes like this anymore.
It was protective, for sure. It and her 'Skinweave' implant layered to an amazing level. She had an old handgun for self-defense from before she…
…Died…
…It was just a little lady's purse gun, something that she could carry around easily and provide a little bit of fight against some gonk that wanted to try something. During a small test, Rebecca shot her in the torso with it (in a non-fatal area, of course) to see how the skinweave and bodysuit would hold up. She had been astonished to barely feel a thing from the bullet bouncing off of her. It made her feel like a superwoman.
Bullets bounced off of her! Granted, really small bullets from a really small gun, but still!
The bodysuit wasn't going to protect her head, of course, so she had to wear a helmet. This did little to help the sudden wave of nausea that came with the realization of what she was doing.
She was about to go into live combat, shoot people, and directly aid in the death of an entire gang. It was a gang of murderers, sure, but it was still a lot to take in for a woman who just wanted to save lives and help her son succeed in life. Well, she supposed she was still doing that second thing. She cast a glance over to her son talking in a rapid-fire serious manner to Chiri's boy.
She cast another glance over to the driver of the vehicle, his right arm replaced by a gun that probably weighed as much as she did, supported by his very strong arms…
She looked straight ahead again, and hid everything she was feeling. She was very good at that. Whatever she felt didn't matter, she needed to help her son.
"Neh, granny, make sure to at least try to aim. I can only do so much, yanno?" The smug and condescending voice of her Microwaver spoke up to her. It made her mad initially, but she was a mother and knew how to deal with brats like this. She looked down to the little screen on her gun to see the AI waving a hand dismissively. A very short and very young looking woman in an off-white form-fitting astronaut suit with a plexiglass visor. She had white hair with vibrant red highlights, and bright red eyes.
And because the underbarrel battery pack was attached, she had a slightly padded chest.
Gloria smiled. "I'll do my best, Ms. Microwaver. This old lady will be relying on you, okay?"
The little AI paused at that, before a vibrant flush filled her face. She grinned broadly and put her hands on her hips. "Heh, no need to worry with me around. I'll zap those gonks into a coma for ya!" She hesitated for a moment. "...And you're not an old lady, got it?" She muttered to the side.
Another success for Gloria Martinez, she smiled to herself behind her helmet and ignored the twisting in her gut. She hoped the shooting part would be over with fast, and that she wouldn't have to use the duffle bag of medical supplies she carried on a shoulder-strap. Not too much of it, at the very least.
—
The plan ended up being rather simple overall.
Lucy would tap into the security feeds of the surrounding area, and act as overwatch. Her primary job was to warn the rest of the them of threats, and of targets trying to escape the warehouse. She would quick-hack targets when she found some spare time, but overall her job was feeding info to the rest of them. Katsuo would be on guard duty next to her, and be on the lookout for those trying to sneak up on her. Mom would also be on standby with Lucy and Katsuo, medical supplies readied in case they needed a retreat and quick burst of first aid. Otherwise she'd be on lookout and hit anything that moved with a microwave shot or two.
He and Rebecca would flank around the side entrance and wait for the signal to enter and start wreaking havoc. Rebecca had since gotten those hip-guns removed, Kagekaze telling her they made her entirely too clumsy overall. She had gotten them replaced by a weapon mount on each cyberarm, and a four-shot micro-missile launcher for both.
Smasher had looked torn between his usual disdain and pride when she showed those off. David made sure to poke fun at him for that, the guy could do with more ribbing every now and then.
The micro-missiles made her shorter ranged and with less overall ammo, but her burst damage was much better now, and she was much more nimble with just those on. It was a good upgrade, and almost made him miss his own pop-up slugthrower. He might get something like that installed himself, although he would probably get a set of shotguns instead of missiles.
He found out that he really liked shotguns, they were fun to shoot.
He kept quiet as he waited for the signal, which Smasher had said 'he would know it when it happens'.
He flinched at the explosion of noise from the front end of the warehouse.
The sudden sound of a metallic roar shredding through the relatively quiet part of the city was certainly a signal. It only lasted about a second and his ears were already ringing from it. The yells of outrage and fury that came from the interior of the building was also a pretty good signal.
It wasn't time for them to move in yet, they were to wait for exactly one minute before coming in from the side and tearing up the frontline. Either one minute or as soon as they spotted anyone trying to run for it.
The warehouse was full of screams of fury and bullets flying. He tapped into one of Lucy's screens, the view of Smasher at the front.
His gun was spinning and ready to fire at any moment. Every few seconds he would see something that David couldn't in the holes of the warehouse leading in and fire a single slug inside. A sharp barking scream of metal that pitched up whenever he shot something, just like Smasher to have a gun just as overwhelming as he was.
Thirteen-hundred shotgun rounds per minute, what a ridiculous fucking gun.
"...fucking haughty, condescending, bitch…" The voice of Miss-Miss, his shotgun, muttered in his head. He had since changed the setting to be internal audio only, instead of open audio. He glanced down and responded, again doing it mentally to avoid any potential awkwardness.
"Who are you talking about?" He asked.
Miss-Miss growled and glared towards the front of the building. "That fucking arrogant bitch integrated into your bossman's right arm, bossman. Fucking bullshit high-standards, gluttonous, japansy turbo-bitch. Fucking hate her, can't think of a single shotgun that doesn't."
…He elected to ignore his gun for a while.
She continued to mutter. "...Goddamn loud materialistic better-than-thou nippopotomus whore. Just so happened to find one of the only people in the world that can actually use her with her retarded standards, lucky goddamn bitch…"
He waited for the minute to pass. His gun furiously muttering the entire time about how much she hated Smasher's gun.
The moment the minute passed, he jumped down and let his chrome legs absorb the impact. Rebecca jumped off his back, and they raced forwards.
He reared a fist back and punched the door, snapping the welds holding it closed and sending the door flying inwards. He activated his sandevistan.
The door froze midair. He jumped inside, careful to not let his feet touch the ground immediately in front of the door. There was a laser sensor, he shot it as he jumped, disabling it with a single slug.
Landing on the ground in the middle of the warehouse and facing deeper in, he took stock of the situation. There were twelve gangers behind cover to his front, loaded to the brim with blades, but their guns were pretty small by comparison.
"Right!" Miss-Miss shouted. He threw himself to the left to narrowly avoid a swipe from a massive set of wolvers mounted on a chrome arm. The swipe traveled through the air a bit slowly, but not quite as slow as everything else. A sandevistan, but not a Smasher-grade one like he had.
The ganger who had swiped at him was a massive guy with a really old face. He was wearing red and black leathers, and nearly everywhere you could fit a sharp edge on a person had some sort of blade on it. He snarled and started yelling, slowed to the point that David couldn't really understand what he was saying.
It did reveal that the guy had all bladed chrome teeth though. Idly he wondered how the guy ate with those, wouldn't it be a pain in the ass?
David raised his shotgun and fired. Subdermal armor and skinweave was usually pretty good at stopping bullets. It wasn't particularly good at stopping shotgun slugs fired point blank into someone's face. Gonk was in slow motion compared to him, what was he expecting here? The guy's head burst like a water balloon filled with watermelon flavored popsicles.
…What was a 'watermelon' anyway, thinking about it? They tasted good but he didn't know what they were. Certainly didn't taste like water.
He kicked off the ground again, moving to jump behind cover from deeper into the warehouse. His sandevistan deactivated.
Eight missiles shot from the doorway he had just entered and did their best to track to one of eight ganger positions They could only turn about 90 degrees or so, but that was enough to hit all of them here.
Eight explosions rang out in the warehouse and screams echoed them.
The heavy steel doors of the warehouse burst inwards as Smasher kicked them open. Lowering his right foot, he took aim with the rotary shotgun on his arm.
The metallic scream started up again as the gangers and their cover disintegrated under a rain of bullets. After about a minute of firing, Smasher stopped firing and lowered his arm.
Nothing on the far side of the warehouse was left intact enough to hide a case of beers, let alone a person.
"Fucking show-off bitch." Miss-Miss sniped at a gun that couldn't talk back.
The voice of Katsuo called over the radio. "No more hostiles detected. Phase three complete. Begin search of interior for hidden passageways to ensure elimination of target."
All in all, way easier than the Ironhands gang. He barely had to do anything this time around.