Uriel didn't know how the familiar elephant knew his name, and it was a little bit concerning. However, right now really wasn't the time to question things like that. Right now he had the priority of holding back a RABID until people with better equipment and better understanding of the net could come and actually kill it.
More importantly, he really wanted to punch this thing until it stopped moving. So in the meantime, he would wing it. He almost smirked at his almost-joke. It was very amusing.
'Metatron.' He growled back in greeting, keeping his gaze focused on the RABID. 'Come to help me out with this?'
Correct. The mechanically-jointed quadruped statue boomed back, voice coming from it but mouth not moving. This iteration will not be sufficient to contain the RABID for more than seven minutes at a time. Our mission demands we hold for another hour and twenty minutes.
'Geh.' Uriel grunted, manifesting another burning greatsword as the RABID defensively observed them, still humming that stupid song. It was clearly waiting for that big scar on its chest to heal over. He flushed his Data-Walls out with another wave of internal flame, resetting Adam's ICE and preventing a breach. It would probably be pretty bad if he let that happen. 'Let's hope the rest of them carry their weight then.'
Agreement. This iteration has a plan, it will require you busy the RABID for at least one and a half minutes as I organize allied Netrunners.
Uriel glared at the RABID for a moment.
Leave all the fucking hard work for him, huh?
'I'll give you two.' He said, and raced forwards on wings of coded fire. The RABID, seeing this, started screaming immediately.
He could maintain three active programs at a time, and ready two programs on his 'back' for immediate deployment. One 'back' program was reserved for his chain to Adam, as he really didn't want to see what being scattered again would do without that link.
One program was his weapon, he needed that to do anything to the thing. A greatsword was chosen because summoning a shield was more effective than just holding one out all the time.
One program was his wings, he quickly learned that the RABID was much faster than its size would indicate, and thus he needed the additional movement speed to keep up.
The last program was left open, for him to summon up one of his back-row shields or to flush out his systems again. He needed the immediate versatility in order to make sure he could be prepared for whatever it threw at him.
Namely, as he sped forwards, he raised a hand and swiped it in front of his form. A wave of fire washed over him as his systems were cleansed of the Icepick chipping away at Adam's datawalls. Beat that fucker, fire was cleansing or something.
The RABID swiped at him, but an immediate flap of his wings sent him above it, and a second flap sent him crashing down against its indescribable face again. It hurt his head to look at, and therefore he wanted to kill it, it was a pretty simple concept overall.
His sword crashed into its stupid face and the RABID lurched back. It's humming cut out for a moment.
It swiped as it lurched, but unlike last time, he was ready for it. Bracing his sword on his arm and ducking slightly mid-air, he burst up at just the right time to send the hand of gross-smelling mud up and over him. That fucking hand was almost as big as he was, distorted creepy shit.
He flapped his wings, and rocketed down, kicking off the 'ground' underneath the titan of mud to swing his sword around like a club against the pillar of shifting mud that the thing used as legs. Sometimes it was two pillars, sometimes it was only one.
It felt like a sonic boom in his hands, sword smashing against the pillar and tripping the off-balance giant.
Unfortunately for him, the falling giant of clay shifted. Its entire body warped and spasmed, and in an instant his world was pain once more. He tumbled through the air for a moment, before his wings stabilized his path so he could look at where he had just flown from.
The RABID was in a sort of crouching posture, with a leg extended…
That fucker had just twisted into a crouching spin-kick! Motherfucker! Be slower! Stop humming!
His wings flapped once, halting his momentum in the air. He dismissed his greatsword, and summoned a longbow. Kiting tactics usually worked against slower forces.
His wings flapped, rocketing him forwards and above the RABID. As he flew, he summoned Arrow Daemons and fired them at it.
It screamed, and the hail of arrows were shattered midair, before they could reach it. That was fine, he would just keep firing them until it decided to go do something else. Right now, his only job was keeping it busy, that was easy enough to do.
The proper method to shoot arrows the fastest involved nocking one, while carrying the others in the fingers of your string-hand, pointed down to the ground. This gave you a very quick reload time compared to back or waist-mounted quivers, at the cost of firing the arrows in bursts.
As a creature of the NET, he wasn't really constrained by things like 'needing to move the arrows around' He could skip the 'grabbing a new arrow' part entirely by just summoning it whenever he pulled the bowstring back. This greatly accelerated the rate at which he could fire.
Flying over and to the side, the RABID was forced to watch him and keep screaming up at the sky, preventing it from attacking anyone else. He grit his teeth after a moment, and stopped to wash fire through his systems again. That fucking screaming was getting through too fast for his liking.
The RABID's face flashed a color he couldn't understand. He flapped his wings to move-
Gravity suddenly started applying. He dropped like a truck was suddenly on top of him. He braced himself for impact.
Only to be met by the RABID's knee coming up to smash into him.
His sensors went white as he bounced for a moment. He struggled to ready a program. They came back online just in time to see another mass of brown-black mud.
His sensors went white again. Adam's datawalls cracked. Motherfucker had just played hacky-sack with him. He let the improvised program loose.
The server they were in exploded into a pillar of all-consuming fire. He was sent flying back, tumbling through the air as he struggled to recover. His vision was blurry and his sensors returned some substantial pain.
He focused on his need. He needed to recover, he needed to recover right fucking now. What healed fast? What was the word for it? Birds. Fire. Fire Birds? Pheasants? Peasants? Phoenix Arizona?
Phoenixes.
He snapped his fingers, ignoring the pain, and another wave of fire washed over him. A moment later the fire faded and he stood as fast as he could, swaying, off-balance, but his body was back together again.
He looked to see a massive pillar of fire blazing in the center of the region.
Grid Wave was an anti-system program developed back in the 2020 days. Originally as a company-only tool developed by a sub-developer of the original I/G algorithms to test system integrity. It was eventually stolen by (or sold to) independent Netrunners, and the rest was history.
What it did was simple, it attacked the sub-routines that made up the I/G Algorithms itself, destroying everything in a given area of cyberspace. The pillar of fire stretched up to the sky above, and all the way down to the most base layer of the Net. His improvised program probably wasn't the same thing, probably wasn't as effective, but it was all he could think of at that moment.
Gridwave was also pretty illegal from what he remembered, and could be detected by all Netwatch agents within the same city as you. That was fine though, because he was currently operating in the open, and it would be really fucking nice if some more backup arrived.
It also fucked him up something fierce, because goddamn this was a whole lot of pain even after that heal. While he was doing this, he scanned for the RABID…
There it was, it wasn't looking too happy at him for that one either.
It's left arm was just gone, and the stump was turned into a baked, charred crater. It was staring at him, face flashing a number of colors that hurt his brain. He unfortunately noticed that the scar on its chest was completely gone now, meaning that it could indeed recover given enough time.
Regenerators were a pain in the ass. He ignored the brief irony in that statement.
The pillar of fire to their left slowly expanded as they stared at each other. A stare down was fine, it wasted more time, and that was his goal here. Eventually the pillar of Gridwave-fire expanded to its maximum size, and then faded away.
The server that they were in was completely gone, a perfectly circular hole in the region's virtuality that went down into inky blackness. That might have been a really massive issue were it not for the fact that the Blackwall was already down in this region, and thus couldn't get down-er.
He flapped his wings and immediately staggered, flinching from the pain in his systems. He grunted, and tried to summon another program…
Everything was fuzzy, his program failed to manifest.
How much longer did he have to last? Gridwave might have fucked him up too much.
The RABID stood all the way upright, back straightened out. Its face flashed innumerable colors at him, none of which he could definitively say the names of. He grit his teeth, and raised his fists.
He needed to be faster. He forced another set of wings through his systems. Four wings now, he thought about his current state for a moment.
It wouldn't be enough. He audibly growled as the RABID took one massive step forwards. He started to summon another set of wings-
It almost sparked out on him. He clenched his fists and focused.
Another set of fiery wings burst from his back. He almost yelled at the pain.
This was bullshit. He was an AI or something now, why the fuck was he feeling pain? Goddamnit Pondsmith, this was your fault somehow, he just knew it. 'Ooohh, what if the AI can feel pain? Isn't that a cool idea, sugoi cyberpunk?'
It fucking isn't.
The RABID took another set forwards. It started humming again. He decided to finally dedicate a measure of hatred for it. It swiped at him-
His fist crashed against its face. It staggered back, swiping at him again.
His fist crashed against its hand, throwing it back. It shifted to kick at him again.
His fist crashed against its face, bouncing it off the fucking ground. It screamed, gravity suddenly applied again.
His fist crashed against its fist, throwing the arm back to the ground again. He screamed inarticulately at the thing as he continued descending, readying a punch against its mid-section.
His ICE was breached by the humming.
His mind blanked.
—
Her fingers plucked at her instrument, each note of the song summoning another program into being. This was a song of protection, of being safe behind strong walls and away from the storm. Each note she played erected another Flak program to suffer the brunt of the RABID's horrible gaze and song, protecting an ally even as it writhed.
This was her duty, her ability to quickly deploy so many programs and her chosen loadout for this breach making her ideal for a defensive role. It was fine by her, even as she struggled to keep up with the incredible speed of the landslide-ogre. It turned to glare at the ICON of a young elfin woman with dark brown skin who had been summoning Dragons this entire fight.
A Flak-doll appeared before it and her, and promptly turned to dust as the dreaded gaze destroyed it entirely. The young woman had just enough time to move away before it could turn its gaze.
The White-elephant crashed into it again, forcing it back and starting its droning again. It lashed out with a punch, forcing the elephant back with a tremendous boom. The landslide-ogre muttered a word she couldn't understand, and a Balron of mud tore its way through reality in front of it, tackling the elephant and sending it back for a moment.
Its gaze tore across to another ICON, her fingers played another note, and a Flak-doll once more valiantly sacrificed itself to keep the young man with the ICON of a skeleton behind it safe.
The ICON was somewhat tasteless, a literal bleeding skeleton, but that was about what she was expecting from Gaijin.
The landslide-ogre turned its gaze to her, and her heart skipped a beat…
The attack passed over her, the illusion set in place by her bodyguard held strong, and threw off the ogre's aim. The dummy-program above her head turned into rubble as its scrap-code collapsed into nothing.
A message appeared in the corner of her vision, and she readied a different song.
The landslide-ogre suddenly staggered, its ICE forced down by the woman with the Jorogumo ICON. Her fingers quickly played a note of disharmony, and the scream of the ogre was met with a counter-scream from her instrument, rendering it ineffective for an instant.
An instant was all her allies needed, as ICONs descended upon the ogre with attacks a plenty. Attacks not to damage it, but to disable and slow it.
Chains made from a thousand linked golden hands issued forth to wrap around its body. A dozen Torii crashed down from the sky above to nail it to the ground. Wolves of ice and snow leapt upon its ankles and feet to savage them fiercely. Warriors of east and west impaled their swords into its face.
About a dozen more things from a dozen more netrunners crashed into it to freeze it and hold down its systems, to lock it down with as much as possible.
Even under the weight of perhaps three dozen programs from expert netrunners, it managed to shift and writhe. It kept moving and slowly forced its way up and through the programs…
Fall. A voice boomed.
The landslide-ogre was forced to the ground, as if its limbs had lost all strength. Its face was forced into the earth and it furiously hummed through a dozen muffles.
'RABID contained again! Roll call, did we lose anyone this time?!' The voice of that apparent Netwatch retiree called out, sounding quite tired of this whole affair already. She bit her porcelain lip and looked up to the sky.
A bone-white rainbow arced across it. She furrowed her brow at the sight.
Adam Smasher… wasn't a good man, but he had been improving so much recently and…!
…and now her father's favored warrior was a smear of code across a virtual sky, his body was probably collapsed somewhere in realspace right now.
It was just…
It was just a waste. The heavens were cruel that way.
She announced her name as the roll call got to her, checking the list of names in the corner of her vision, she saw that they hadn't lost anyone this time. This was the third time they had managed to pin the RABID, and it was getting faster at breaking out each time.
But, they were also losing less allies as the fight progressed, so victory was still within their reach.
—
…
Where… what had happened…?
He could… he was…
…
There were things all around him, over him, on him. Little dancing things that he couldn't quite seem to recall the names of…
…
Everything was muted… Like he didn't have enough feeling anywhere in his body…
…
It was hard to think… Everything was fuzzy and static…
…
Was he dea…?
…
No.
…
No the fuck he wasn't.
He was Adam Fucking Smasher.
He wasn't going to die to fucking anything.
He is alive.
The mile-long streak of bone-white fire in the sky of Watson's virtuality rushed back together like a star collapsing.
The flame coalesced into a man made of fire, furious frown and glare on his handsome face. His eyes burned red in their sockets. Around him the flame accumulated, and melted like wax. It settled around him like bone-white armor, clawed gauntlets and raised gorget, a visor shaped like a grinning demon's face.
Uriel decided that the RABID was now worthy of a personal grudge against it, because that fucking hurt.
He looked down, scanning for the titan of mud, soon finding it being gored by a marble elephant, and being bombarded by all manner of flashing lights. Had he held it off long enough?
…How long was he out? He grunted. Questions for later.
He summoned three wing programs. Aiming himself down, he kicked off the invisible air.
A falling star descended.
—
His vision returned to him, and he pushed himself up off the concrete to the sound of gunfire. He activated his sandevistan to get a look at his surroundings.
Motherfucking Uriel, he told you to handle this net-shit, that didn't mean 'get turned into a smear for a while'. He was never going to let him live this down.
He was on the ground, he pushed himself up entirely, seeing the road beneath him was cracked and broken from his fall. There were strommers shooting at…
The brat, the blueberry, and the bowlcut?
He raised an absentminded arm and fired an ATGM at the ground of strommers, turning them and the street they were on into a new crater in glorious slow motion. He let his speedware deactivate.
"BIG GUY!" "SMASHER!" "BOSS!" The three voices of the kids announced all at once as he shook off the dust from his faceplant.
"Brats, what are you doing here?" He grumbled out through the massive black frame of his DaiOni.
"Protecting your gonk ass! That's what! Why the fuck were you on the ground?!" The brat decided to be insulting as he yelled, and the blueberry nodded in a matter-of-fact manner.
He flicked the brat in the forehead, sending him staggering back with a yell and clutching his head in pain.
"I got hacked. Should be obvious brat." He growled out.
"Geh, shows me right for being concerned, asshole." The brat growled back as he rubbed his head.
…hmm, how long was he out? He supposed it was good the brat was here, otherwise he might have had one of his weapons klept by the fucking gangers, and that would have been embarrassing.
"Good job." He spoke absentmindedly, stomping over to the next biggest concentration of strommers. He paused for a moment when the brats didn't follow. He growled audibly, "Brats, I don't hear your footsteps."
There was a burst of running as they caught up with him. "We're just being quiet you see, maybe you need new ears old timer?"
"Don't sass me you little shit."