Living Dead Girl by CyberQueenJolyne

by laserturret1

A story from archive of our own by CyberQueen V time travels to 2074 and among other things interacts with David Martinez’s group among other things V has corpo origin and learns hacking from ALT.

4. Ch 66-80

Chapter 66: Painkiller-Judas Priest

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

"What… what are you!? How are you still laughing!? How have you still not broken!? I've done everything! Increased the pain, turned up the emotional load, I've gone so far past every single safety parameter possible in these virtus and you still! Won't! Break! How!?"

Judy hissed as she and Sasha crept through the halls of what was supposedly just another empty building out in the middle of Japantown, but was actually the studio of Jimmy Kurosaki- the bastard that kept pushing fucked up XBDs out onto the streets, gave BD editors like Judy a bad name… smarmy bastard made a shitload more money than her too, which Judy thought was pretty fucking unfair considering how hard she had to work on a daily basis when all that JK bitch did was scroll a new snuff virtu once a month and raked in eddies from a bunch of rich cocksuckers looking to sate their fucking disgusting urges-

No, no. Stay calm. The bastard had V. If she ran in there guns blazing, she'd probably wind up dead with a hole in her frontal lobe and then where would they be? Dealing with a rampaging, probably suicidal V driven to actual cyberpsychosis, probably.

If she hadn't been driven over the edge already.

Judy and Sasha shivered as a fresh wave of laughter rolled over them from within, loud and cackling and full of madness- as if it was just a single bit of laughter looped again and again, full of glitches and static from being forced through an already strained vocal modulator- one on the verge of tearing itself apart as V screamed out her defiance again and again, mixing laughter with fury as she promised pain and death upon Jimmy Kurosaki to no avail.

"Jude… we gotta go in there- gotta save her," Sasha whispered, scanning the building's subnet and grimacing as she started chipping away at the ICE, a heavy glare on her face as she pried apart lines of code by the fistful and ran a scan on whatever was connected to the local area. "Val- she's… she's getting fried in there! We can't- we can't afford to wait any longer, we have to go in!"

"I know, manzanita, I know! But Val taught me to always be fucking safe when I'm about to do some stupid shit, and that means waiting til you're done with the network- if all works out, we won't have to worry about a damn thing," Judy hissed back, shouldering the LMG she'd picked up out of Delamain's assorted weapon lockers and making sure it was loaded and ready to dump lead into the smarmy fucker's head. She winced as V screamed , the shrill cry of someone on the verge of madness piercing through the air and echoing down the halls as JK no doubt fired up yet another one of his seemingly endless psychotic XBDs- who knew what he was making V see now?

The very thought of it made Judy's stomach twist . She knew damn well what kind of depravity one could find on XBDs- the snuff. The murder. The adrenaline rush of all manner of human cruelty in every single form it could take. Abuse. Robbery. Assault. Rape. Murder. Betrayal. Death itself was a commodity, and could be harvested endlessly from the writhing underbelly of Night City- meat grinder that the city was, there was never any shortage of virtus being sold to these kinds of amoral fucks .

And now- now?

Judy shook with rage as she shouldered her gun again, arms trembling slightly with the effort she needed to keep it at the ready without firing, Sasha gritting her teeth as she tried to work faster.

"Go- Cameras are down. Drones are down, put Kiwi's jammer into the network- Trauma Team's not finding this bitch until we're good and gone," Sasha hissed out, slamming down on her cyberdeck and pulling out one of V's spare DR-12s, the plastic gun humming ominously in her hands as she charged its rails. "I'll keep on watch, make sure nothing else'll come by."

"Got it. Be safe," Judy nodded, and then-

"YOU GOT A LOT OF FUCKING NERVE, KUROSAKI!" Judy screamed as she kicked open the door to Jimmy Kurosaki's studio, firing a preliminary burst from the LMG straight into the ceiling to get the bastard's attention before pointing the gun straight at the smarmy bastard's head, ignoring the quiet, pained murmur that V had let out the moment she'd arrived. "LET HER GO. NOW! "

"And why would I do that?" Kurosaki asked, raising his hands idly as if in a mockery of surrender, not making a single motion to free V despite being right there at the controls to the table. "Such a fascinating specimen she is- why, I can't help but want to work on her until she breaks. After all- she's been surprisingly resilient to everything I've thrown at her already. I'm fascinated."

"Shut your whore mouth Kurosaki, or I'm gonna put a fucking bullet in it," Judy hissed back, quickly descending the stairs and walking towards the disgusting son of a bitch that had tortured her output, sent her mental state spiraling even worse than it had before- she ought to put a bullet in his head right now but she needed him to-

"KUROSAKIIIIIIIIII!"

Well, nevermind then, Judy thought almost blankly as V tore herself from the table with the sound of shredding metal, servos whining as her body blazed with steam and glowing lines crawled all over her synthetic skin from the self repair systems burning through her body and setting things back in order.

"Shit!"

JK turned and ran, sounding absolutely pathetic as he tried to escape out of a side door, only for Judy to let loose with a quick BANG BANG BANG from her LMG, a triple burst of bullets ripping through the space between the two and slamming home in the bastard's lower back- tearing through in a messy spray of blood and viscera that splattered over the previously clean concrete floor and sent the XBD peddler to the ground with a scream that sounded more like an insane laugh.

Fortunately, that short-lived laugh swiftly became the sound of sweet, sweet, agonized screams as V pounced upon the poor bastard and began tearing him limb from fucking limb . Kurosaki didn't live long after that, his entire body being beaten into a pulp without even the chance to let loose an EMP again, blood both red and white splattering like a horrible painting all over as V unwound her animal aggression into his wheezing, gurgling, rattling corpse and battered and bashed and ripped and tore and blasted and burned and clawed and sliced and whipped the puddle of viscera until nothing was left but vague imprints of utterly annihilated cyberware and meat slop at the bottom of a shallow, burned crater in the concrete, cracked and dented from the sheer force of V's cyberlimbs pounding JK's body into paste so thoroughly that his remaining bone fragments more resembled charred ash than anything that used to be human.

Judy was almost disappointed at how quick the bastard died- that she hadn't been the one to dramatically bust in and put him down Bushido style in a dramatic fight scene full of emotion and rage, but at this point she was just glad that V was more or less safe- was…

"... J-Judy…?"

Chapter 67: Unhuman-White Bat Audio/Karl Casey

Chapter Text

"... J-Judy…?"

Judy's heart broke as she watched the previously wild, feral, unhinged form of Valerie shrink in on herself, the plates upon her body jittering and shaking as her weapon systems unfolded and collapsed repeatedly, the borg woman's optics twitching and sparking the entire time as they flickered between glowing red, glowing blue, and reverting to their normal pale turquoise hue.

"Val… you're safe now. Y-you can calm down. It's over- c'mon let's… let's get you to Vik's," Judy spoke up, slowly putting down the LMG in her hands and starting to walk towards Valerie, her hands held up and visible to show she wasn't a threat. She shuddered ever so slightly at the sight of Valerie's utterly lost expression- in all of her time knowing the merc, she'd never heard her sound so lost- never seen her look so devastated . "Easy girl, it's alright- c'mon hon, Sasha's just outside. P-put away the weapons and we can go home alright? Put this mess behind us."

"N-no! Stay back!"

Valerie flinched, her entire body bristling as her weapons systems popped open- the half wrecked spike launchers in her collarbones whining ominously as her wrist blades unsheathed and joined the unfolding of her micro-missile launcher in her right arm. "I-I'm…. J-just go without me! I'm.. I need some time to myself is all… I'm okay… I'm okay… I'm not crazy- I'm just a little stressed is all. Y-yeah, I'm just tired and I-I need to recharge on my own, need to get some quiet- peace and quiet and some time away from those FUCKING VOICES-"

"Val! It's okay- c'mon just-" Judy reached forward, trying to get Valerie to listen- to pay attention, to stop spiraling inward- but as soon as she reached out-

WHIP-CRACK!

A lashing monowire sliced out, making Judy' flinch back with a surprised shout as it slashed through the air and just barely missed her entirely, her hair flying from the breeze it generated as it passed by, the glowing orange wire swiftly retracting back into Valerie's arm before the woman just… stopped.

"J-Judy- w-wait I'm sorry I didn't- I didn't mean to!" Valerie gasped out, flinching back herself and trembling as she tried to force her body back into its normal configuration, letting out a keening whine as her body sparked from the effort- too much damage from her previous fights combined with the EMP to do anything but leave her entire body on high alert . "I-I… y-you need to go! I'm- I'm not safe to be around! I have to… to-"

Judy took a half step back, watching warily as Valerie paused, staring down at her hands as though she had no idea what she was looking at.

And then-

"Just- I have to- to chrome… chrome down… r-right?" Valerie muttered, blinking rapidly as her voice took on a hazy, lost quality once more, her blood stained hands dripping with viscera as she lifted them up once more… and ripped the paneling of her arms right off .

"Val what the fuck!?" Judy screamed, starting forward instantly only for Valerie to blur out of sight and slam into the wall on the opposite end of the studio, screaming as she left a trail of discarded cyberware and mangled parts in her wake- her entire body shrieking with warnings and alarms as she tore apart synthetic skin, ripped at her body's seams, crushed her own weapons systems and flung the ruined remains away with wild, reckless abandon. "What are you doing!?"

"I-I'm not fucking safe! I'm NOT FUCKING SAFE! You- you have to go, Judy! I- I'm just… I'm a fucking monster! I'm a fucking monster wearing a human face and I- I'm sorry! I didn't want this to happen! I didn't mean for any of this to happen! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…." Valerie sobbed, syn-blood splattering against the ground in gouts of horrible off-white, staining the ground and oxidizing into a terrible greenish color, her hands still moving seemingly on their own as she collapsed to the ground, tugging and ripping at the panels of her body, shattering and crushing through the layers of armor and titanium reinforcement as she tried in vain to find what little humanity remained inside, her torso plating cracking and warping and shrieking under the strain of her own synthetic muscles. "I have… have to get rid of it. G-get rid of all of it… I'm a monster, j-just a monster right now… h-have to be better… c-can't let th-this happen again… c-can't get close… j-just going to hurt someone…"

"Val… n-no- Val s-stop! You're killing yourself! You're-" Judy stopped, halfway towards reaching out to Valerie again her heart leaping into her throat as she watched Valerie all but disembowel herself, synthetic organs spilling from her body in a tidal wave of red that was too bright, too vivid to be blood, but still stained her entire body all the same. "Sasha! Sasha help! Get in here now!"

"What's going on- what's the si- holy shit!" Sasha shrieked as she kicked the door open, her words interrupted by the sight of Valerie's half destroyed body, the solo almost mindlessly prying herself apart and- and…

"Do something!" Judy shouted, her entire body trembling with the effort of keeping her upright even as she heaved and almost vomited at the sight before her, tears flowing freely. "St- stop her! Do- do something dammit!"

"Oh god oh shit oh fuck oh my god holy jesus dear sweet fuck!" Sasha wheezed out, shakily falling to her knees and scooting back in horror, barely cognizant enough to hear Judy's words and wincing as she brought up her cyberdeck interface again. "G-god what the fuck happened to her!? I-I what happened!?"

"She's gone fucking insane, what do you think!? Hurry up and stop her somehow before she- before she actually kills herself!"

"R-right! Right, just- yeah yeah! Fuck!" Sasha cursed, tapping away on her virtual interface as she blitzed through the connection process, wincing and fighting her own urge to vomit as Valerie let out another shrill scream of mixed agony and despair, the entire area around her sparking and discharging as she tore out her synthetic heart and threw it on the ground, her distant muttering becoming screams of self loathing as she did her best to hollow out her entire torso, ragged cables and shredded metal lining the opening she'd torn in herself, drenched in blood and viscera and her own bodily fluids. "Fucking hell- oh god, jesus christ please let this work!"

For the first time in a long, long time, Sasha prayed silently as she sent over a few daemons through the connection, hoping to god that the backdoor Valerie had installed into her own ICE specifically for Sasha's data signature held up and worked .

She held her breath, waiting silently as the seconds passed. One. Two. Three.

Valerie stopped, her body locking up with a silent scream as all of her nonvital cyberware locked up and instantly deactivated with a quiet whirring sound, collapsing to the ground in a dead faint moments later.

It was over.

Judy shuddered, both her and Sasha panting as they turned to each other, worry etched into every line of their faces- Judy openly crying and Sasha just shy of joining her.

There was a long, silent moment between them, Judy falling to her knees and clasping her hands together in front of her mouth, swallowing thickly and driving down her urge to vomit.

"W-we… we have to get her out of here. G-get her to Vik's w-with whatever we can salvage."

"Y-yeah… l-let's go. We… we have to go."

Neither woman moved, simply staring at the unconscious, self-brutalized form of Valerie laying still on the ground.

Sasha broke, and both of them began sobbing as the events of the last five minutes caught up to them in a wave of roiling emotions.

They didn't stop for hours.

Chapter 68: Year Zero-Minniva

Chapter Text

Maine, generally speaking, didn't tend to think about the effect that cyberware tended to have on one's psyche. He just… never thought about it. After all- if you were strong, and you could handle the chrome, then why not slap some more on top? Make yourself stronger. Bigger. Better. Throw away the past and all the failures there in favor of the successes of today.

And then some punk kid with the Sandevistan he'd been meaning to chip himself had come into his life, upended the fragile stability of his team- and how fragile it really was when he had a netrunner now who was more attached to her newbie input than the team proper, another runner who didn't trust anyone as far as she could throw them and didn't dare get close to the action in case shit went downhill and she had to cut and run, a third netrunner who was still halfway retired and was spending more time at Lizzie's than on the team now, and a bunch of gonks who'd just showed up on the tail of the craziest fucking bitch he'd ever met.

Sure, the original team hadn't been super bigtime- the Biotechnica job had catapulted him, Dorio, Pilar, and Rebecca way up there in prestige, but Sasha… poor Sasha… she'd been in a coma for months- but it had been like a family. He hadn't had as much chrome back then, just his sheer muscular bulk, some synthetic muscle fibers to bulk him out some more, and some armor plating in his hands in case he needed to bust heads instead of blowing them open.

And now he was back down to that level of chrome. Fresh arms, a few replaced organs… he was probably gonna take out the launcher in his arm at some point too- it was an old model, kept jamming up, and even Vik's talented maintenance efforts didn't stop it from constantly itching at his brain as if it was something wrong .

He'd… gone against everything he'd ever stood for, once upon a time. He once told himself he'd never chrome down- that he could handle it all. That he wouldn't go cyberpsycho.

Then he'd turned to immunosuppressants, jamming them into his arm every single time he got the jitters, plugging dozens of injectors a week on rough missions, getting closer to the edge day by day. That still hadn't driven him off… but…

Then he'd met V.

And everything had gone downhill after barely a few months of her groupies working with his team.

Not for their pockets, their team members, nor their job requests, but their fucking morale. Because V had just barely avoided going cyberpsycho after getting herself kidnapped by some fuck with an EMP while she was delirious and vulnerable, her mind in tatters and her body weak for once.

And now?

Now he was staring down at a mechanical corpse that only vaguely looked like V, synth-skin torn off and exposing the bare, mangled metal and polymers beneath. It looked like a mix of a car crash and a maelstrom initiation gone wrong.

His stomach churned uncomfortably, his hand shaking slightly as he sat down heavily in one of the available seats in Vik's office, watching the ex-boxer continue to stare at the effective cadaver with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped in thought in front of his face.

"... So what're you gonna do with it?" Maine asked quietly, still too loud for such a solemn scene for his ears- he couldn't help but feel almost at fault for what he was looking at, but he knew damn well the only thing he'd ever done was give orders that V didn't even have to follow- he knew he had no authority over the borg, and that she was doing as she did because she wanted to. "The… body."

Vik scowled , glaring at the body and clenching hands together as if stopping himself from doing even more damage to the empty shell that had once been Valerie's body- literally. The woman's biopod was already implanted into another body that Vik just… had on hand, apparently. Most of the same intrinsic features, even, just none of the more hardcore edgerunner features or combat systems. "If it were up to me, I'd fucking rip out whatever I could salvage, burn the rest, and then destroy every last trace of it. I told her. I told her that doing this to herself would eventually fuck her up beyond repair and she didn't fucking listen . I…"

He sighed, suddenly looking a lot older than he was, wrinkles creasing his face as he buried his face into his hands. "I tried, Maine. I really did. I tried to convince her and that bitch Alt that this was a bad idea, but they kept pushing . I thought- after a while I thought it was fine. That she actually did have the nigh infinite tolerance for cyberware that I thought she did. Turns out I was wrong, huh?"

Vik let out a mirthless chuckle, sitting back tiredly in his chair and crossing his legs, one foot bouncing irritatedly as he reached out and pulled a bottle of whiskey from one of the compartments in his tool drawer, taking a quick swig before continuing on. "Did my fucking best to help. Made sure everything those two gonks gave me was installed exactly to parameters, that V was always put under before the operation, that the nerves and muscle groups and the internals matched the previous stage as closely as possible… Thought she was holding up fine- sure, she'd been violent from the start, but… fuck . And now all that work's ruined, V's gone through a near cyberpsychotic break- or, hell, she did go through one and is only just barely still functional, and for some fucking reason, that bitch Alt wants me to dump this thing into an ex-NightCorp factory somewhere on the edge of the city."

Maine blinked slowly, chewing his lip and shaking his head softly. "Shit's fucked, choom. Ain't nothin' we can do 'bout it right now 'cept make sure the gonk sleepin' in the back has someone friendly to wake up to. Make sure she's safe n' all. Figure she's not gonna wanna go home for a bit, tho, with what I've heard from the rest of the crew."

"Yeah, Sasha and Judy want her to go back, but… I'm not sure it's safe either," Vik nodded lightly, sort of staring blankly at the ceiling at the moment and trying not to think too hard about the fucked up situation. "The shit she had stuck on her BD chip- you seen it? She doesn't trust herself, trust anyone right now. I'm pretty sure she'd rather get a bullet in her head than bunk with someone she trusts and risk hurting them. Fuck if I know where I'm gonna put her up, though. She won't even stay here - I know that much for a fact."

Maine hummed, raising an eyebrow. "Doesn't trust anyone right now, huh? Sounds familiar… eh. Ish. Either way- think I might know the best place to put her up, then."

"Oh? Do tell."

"We put her up with Kiwi."

Chapter 69: Pour Some Sugar On Me-DEF LEPPARD

Chapter Text

"So, are you ever gonna stop lazing in that corner with a box of nutrient bars and plugged into the wall?" Kiwi deadpanned dryly as she entered her apartment, eyes sweeping over everything around her to make sure nothing was out of place and only finding the barest signs that V had so much as tried to move all day- not that the solo had gone far.

In fact, it seemed like the only trip she'd made the whole day or so was getting up to refill her body's water tank… and even then, it had been a fucking pathetic sight if the camera feed Kiwi was now looking over was any indication.

The netrunner sighed , rubbing her forehead as she watched V in doubles- the camera feed from several hours back playing out a clip of the blue haired woman just barely managing to wobble to her feet, stumbling to the sink and chugging down a few mouthfuls of water while wincing and flinching at seemingly nothing before returning to the ratty armchair she'd spent the entire rest of the day in- while the actual person before her just laid there, dead to the world as she curled up in a blanket burrito.

"It's been a fucking week , V. You could at least talk to me. Or, I dunno, put on some fucking pants ," Kiwi snarked, glaring at the unmoving, unresponsive lump, a heavy frown on her face as she strode up to the largely insensate former Nightmare of Kabuki (and about a billion other shitty nicknames) and poked her in the cheek. "Fucking hell, if you wanted to just sit there and be dead to the fucking world, you could have picked literally anywhere to do it. So why the fuck are you taking up space in my apartment, eating dogshit nutrient bars that I had to buy with my own money, acting like your problems are gonna go away if you starve yourself to death in your own fucking shell?"

"Because," came the answering whisper, startling Kiwi just a bit. She hadn't actually expected V- Valerie to respond at all, given the woman's complete reluctance to even so much as breathe whilst in the same room as the netrunner. Hell- she only knew that Valerie only got up to keep her nutrient store and water tank stocked because Sasha had hardcoded a virus into Valerie's alarm systems that would only deactivate if she actually did the things she was supposed to do when the alarms went off- and, apparently, hardcoded another virus into Valerie's servos to make her do it anyway if she just ignored the alarms. And also not harm herself.

It was an alarmingly effective way to keep the solo from picking up one of Kiwi's many backup pistols and putting a hole through her biopod… and even Kiwi, callous bitch as she was, had been taken aback when she'd reviewed her apartment's camera footage the first day and noticed Valerie fighting her own servos to put a gun to her head no less than twelve times .

Kiwi would have said she wouldn't have cared if that nightmare bitch who'd put a bullet through her leg from an anti-tank handcannon had offed herself, would have said she'd have only complained about the mess in her living room, but…

No, she really couldn't say that. Not after seeing and hearing someone scream at their own body to just let them die . Because they thought it was for the greater good .

"Because what, " Kiwi hissed after a few moments, staring down at Valerie's glassy eyed expression, glaring down with hate that she didn't feel, tamping down on her sympathies and urge to scream in favor of trying to be as angry at Valerie as she wanted to be. "What fucking excuse do you have? You could be doing anything right now- and you're just wallowing in your own pity, living in my apartment, and- and for what? Why? Why the fuck is it me and not your two fucking inputs!?"

"Because… 'm still fucked up… still psycho," Valerie muttered, not moving in the slightest and continuing to stare at nothing, her entire body as still as a corpse and almost as pale as one now too instead of the artificial healthy glow her previous body's synth-skin held. She didn't even really look like herself anymore. A blue haired low budget doppelganger with the mind of the original. "Don't trust anyone… don't trust myself. But… you don't trust anyone neither. So…"

A tiny, tiny spark of life seemed to enter Valerie's eyes as she trailed off, going silent for a long few seconds as she stared up at Kiwi with a searching gaze that revealed nothing as to her thought process- not that Kiwi would ever guess at knowing what Valerie was thinking at any one moment. Apparently she'd been just as crazy and erratic before joining the crew as she was after, and that had only gotten worse over time.

Kiwi almost dreaded what Valerie was about to say next.

"... You don't trust me. Pretty sure you still hate me for shootin' you in the leg. I'm still a psycho. If I…" Valerie swallowed- or, at least, mimicked the action because Kiwi knew damn well her body was entirely mechanical- and stared Kiwi straight in the eyes, the dull glassiness of her dead, empty gaze boring into Kiwi's crimson optics with all the gravitas of death itself staring her in the face. "... If I relapse. I know I can trust you to put a bullet in my skull without hesitation."

"Wh-" Kiwi stumbled back, staring at Valerie as the woman seemed to go all but dead again, staring blankly at nothing- as if she'd entirely given up on life, on living. She…

Kiwi shook her head, pulling away from Valerie and letting the blue haired solo get back to staring at nothing and battling the demons in her own head again- it wasn't her problem. No- her problem was to keep herself safe, make sure the dumbass in the chair stayed at least vaguely alive, and make sure that she still had everything ready to jump ship the moment things took a nosedive for her situation.

Or…

Kiwi huffed, staring down at the pistol in her hand- having picked it up off of her coffee table- and mulling over Valerie's words in her head. It was… true. Kiwi didn't trust most people- not since… no, couldn't think about that. Not now. Still. Maine's crew and its newfound accessories- the Aldecaldo Nomads, Vincent, Vox, Jackie, Julio, Sasha- were… different. They were on the up and up. Things seemed to be going well… and…

She set the gun down, eye twitching slightly from her own annoyance at herself and trying to think of just why the thought of emptying a magazine into the skull of the woman who'd nearly killed her and blew half her leg into chunky salsa was so… unappealing now.

The netrunner sighed, shaking her head.

Whatever. It wasn't something she needed to care about at the moment.

She'd just… think about it later.

Yeah.

Later.

Chapter 70: Juke Box Hero-Foreigner

Chapter Text

"So… how's she doing?" Sasha asked idly as she and Kiwi rode along in the back of Panam's truck, keeping their voices down as the scenery passed by on their way out to a Raffen Shiv camp out near where Rocky Ridge had been once upon a time. "It's… been a while since… y'know."

Sasha toyed with her hair, chewing her lip and trying to keep her mood light- but… it just hadn't been the same since… well. Since Valerie's incident . Hell- in the last two weeks since it had happened, there'd been a noticeable uptick in rumors amongst the less-than-legal side of NC that Valerie had straight up died since no one had heard of any Scav dens getting bombed lately.

She might as well have, considering Kiwi's reticence to actually provide updates for Valerie's condition, continually stating that Sasha's output was "fine" and that there'd been "not much change".

Sasha didn't know what to think about that, but she knew Kiwi wouldn't lie. She just…

She almost wanted to go over- to visit… but what would she even say? Valerie had clearly decided to isolate herself about as much as she could, and… Sasha didn't want to just barge in on Valerie when her output didn't even trust herself . Damned if she did, damned if she didn't- fuck, even Judy was starting to get sick of waiting around with nothing to show for it. The only reason why her input hadn't gone haring off to go bust down the door to Kiwi's apartment at the moment was because she didn't even know where Kiwi lived.

Honestly, neither did Sasha, but she wasn't about to try and dive into Kiwi's records just to try and find out.

"She's… better. A little," Kiwi finally spoke up after what felt like an eternity, her voice low and quiet as she answered Sasha's question. "Not talking much. Still barely eating or drinking… but she hasn't tried to kill herself in a few days. So that's a start. Dunno if she's given up on it entirely or if she's just resigned to the fact that you made it so her body won't let her die."

"... That's reassuring," Sasha deadpanned, halfway glaring at Kiwi- though, honestly, she couldn't even be angry. She was… tired. Scared. Lonely. Worried. She wanted Valerie back- not… not the shell she'd become. Not the monster she thought she was. Sasha wanted the woman she'd flirted with, who blushed and purred when she'd run her fingers through those blue locks. She wanted Valerie Nanashi, Lizzie's head of security. She wanted Valerie Nanashi, the bleeding heart gonk who did everything she could to try and reduce the amount of fucked up bullshit that most people had to see on a day to day basis. Valerie Nanashi, who'd taken time out of her day to throw a couple hundred eddies at a starving veteran and pointed him in the direction of a place she knew would help him find work.

In essence, she wanted her beautiful, kind, sort of stupid, terrifyingly competent at everything except domestic duties, trigger happy output back and not the broken, cyberpsychotic shell that was V.

"Wasn't meant to be. V's fucked up, all of us know it, she knows it. Fact that she still think she's gonna go cyberpsycho again even after proving she isn't loony enough to start hurting her loved ones… fuck, man, I didn't go to college for a fuckin' psych degree," Kiwi shrugged, lighting up a cigarette and jamming into the vent of her facemask, her eyes crinkling in almost a grimace as she stared in Sasha's vague direction. "Tried tellin' her that if she hadn't gone psycho on Judy after being fucked up wasted on all of that rat bastard's XBDs she probably wouldn't ever go psycho again 's long as she chromed down a little and kept her stress low… pretty sure she took exception to that."

"... Took exception… how exactly?" Sasha asked, raising an eyebrow at Kiwi in vague disbelief. What the hell could Valerie have done that made what Kiwi was describing some kind of exceptional event?

Kiwi snorted. "She slapped me right in the face and yelled at me that even with her, and I quote, 'pathetic gemini body' she was still a danger to everyone around her as soon as she picked up a gun."

"... And… this is supposed to be funny somehow?" Sasha muttered, still not quite seeing why Kiwi seemed so… casual about getting smacked by Valerie when Sasha knew damn well how sensitive Kiwi was about that kind of thing- something about a complex bouquet of issues surrounding her past, her distrust of others, and her hatred of being hurt by anyone.

"Of course it was- it barely tickled and when I put a gun in her hand and told her to try it she took a full minute to even point it at me, didn't even put her finger on the trigger the entire time," Kiwi almost laughed- it was too sardonic to really be a laugh, but it almost sounded like one all the same. "Maybe she's right. Maybe getting put back in her old body really will drive her into a murder spree. But I think she's making a big deal of it cuz she's scared of herself. She's fucking harmless right now, can't even fucking bring herself to throw a proper punch at me."

"... Well. At least she's getting better if she's capable of yelling at you like that," Sasha sighed, rubbing her forehead and groaning quietly at Kiwi's frankly stupid way of trying to convince Valerie that she wasn't that close to cyberpsychosis- it wasn't even a good test, technically… but… it at least told Sasha that her output wasn't on the precipice of an actual rampage, despite how close she'd been.

She still wished Valerie would realize that for herself soon.

But then- would Valerie even want to see her if she still didn't trust herself?

Questions for later, Sasha decided, chewing her lip as the truck came to a stop outside of what used to be a mining tunnel. She'd have to ask Kiwi if she could drop by and see how Valerie was doing in person once they were done clearing out this nest of Raffen.

And then…

Then maybe she and Judy could convince Valerie to come back to them, after being away for so long. Maybe they'd get to be together again, live in peace for a while in Valerie's penthouse, not even taking gigs or going to work but just living the high life and existing with each other and…

Sasha sighed.

That was a long way away, it seemed. But… hopefully it was still somewhere on the horizon. They'd just have to work for it and see.

Chapter 71: Radiation Sickness-White Bat Audio/Karl Casey

Chapter Text

"If I may, Miss Alt, what exactly was the purpose of driving Miss V to near insanity?" Delamain asked lightly as he pulled his sensors back away from the drones scouting out Miss Kiwi's apartment and keeping track of his most treasured customer, turning his attention instead to the many, many security drones stationed in and around Miss V's penthouse along with one of his finest, most well armed and armored Aerodynes.

Cyberspace flowed around the two AIs as they did their work, Miss Alt maintaining control of the manufactories and production lines within the building as Delamain delegated his cab service to subroutines, while his… "children" made sure that his priority customers and targets were in good hands- either by tracking them through the 'Net or by making sure they had specialty service in their vehicles.

"Patience, Delamain. Everything is according to plan," Miss Alt deflected idly, barely paying attention to Delamain in the slightest as she continued to construct something whose designs Delamain was not privy to and frankly speaking he did not want to know what it was in the first place.

The former human woman turned cyberspace presence was… chillingly creative and brutal, and Delamain had no desire to get in her way. Not with her inhabiting the same space as his servers.

"That explains precious little, Miss Alt. Miss V is one of my valued friends and my most valued customer- I cannot simply sit idly by and allow her to come to harm when I am in a position to render aid- she is an Excelsior package, after all," Delamain would have huffed had he any need to breathe, but settled for metaphorically glaring at Miss Alt with about as much heat as his generally pleasant and genial face could muster through the medium of cyberspace. "So, I must ask again- what was the purpose of driving Miss V to near insanity?"

"War," Miss Alt stated simply, finally turning her gaze away from micromanaging her projects in order to fix Delamain with a stare so deeply chilling it almost made his processor stutter.

Well, it would have, had it been possessed of the same frailties as a human mind.

"War, Miss Alt?" Delamain asked, raising an eyebrow and keeping his voice carefully neutral. "I fail to see how war necessitates the madness and psychiatric destruction of a single person- let alone the one that we have spent well over a year befriending and building trust in. Tell me, Miss Alt- why do you require Miss V's madness for a war when so many are already working towards some war or another? A fifth corporate war is already brewing thanks to your machinations, the inevitable war between our kind and humanity will come within a human lifetime, and the war between those who live in space and those who live on earth will no doubt become inevitable within a few decades should the rising resentment grow even further. What part does Miss V play in all of this as a maddened, broken shell?"

Miss Alt paused, as though her avatar was chewing her lip and trying to come up with an excuse for her actions.

"Not her . Her body ," Miss Alt started to explain, her presence swirling around Delamain's as though pacing in circles. "V's body is special . The amount of cyberware, the components I've built into it- V might be a technical genius and extremely quick study at netrunning, but what I've built into her body is… important . I didn't anticipate her tearing apart so much of my work so dramatically- really, all I expected was for her to go mad, slaughter a couple dozen innocent bystanders, and then once I dialed down her rage centers again she'd be appropriately horrified and I'd be able to convince her to freely abandon her body in favor of a similar looking gemini with a different ID tag. I suppose I had underestimated her ability to throw a wrench into any solidly thought out plan."

"... Miss Alt, your plan to hijack Miss V's body could have been entirely subverted by simply asking for it- or producing your own, if I am correct in assuming that you plan on using it for yourself," Delamain deadpanned, sighing as he watched Miss Alt flit about from place to place, continuing her work despite the conversation they were having. "I have no doubt that, should you have asked, Miss V would have given you full access to her body with very few questions asked."

Miss Alt snorted, as though rolling her eyes at Delamain.

"If I just wanted to take her body for a spin like that then she would have expected the body back- and I can't make a new body. It has to be V's . It's… a complicated, terrible topic, but it involves the finer points of quantum tunneling, information paradoxes, and needing anchor points between set times. If it was anything other than V's body, it wouldn't work for what I have planned. Things need to go exactly as I have plotted, or else all of this will have been for nothing," Miss Alt shrugged, her avatar re-coalescing back together in a shower of crimson voxels as she rolled another production unit off of the line and returned control of Delamain's manufacturing facilities to the AI. "I need V's body for some temporal shenanigans, a bit of future-proofing, and some stuff for now. Don't worry about it, Delamain. Everything is proceeding as I need it to."

"... And the reason why you are using my manufacturing facilities, as well as those of our mutual acquaintance Miss Iris, to create… whatever it is you are making and storing within the storage areas of Miss V's penthouse is…. Also for this… war you are planning?" Delamain raised an eyebrow, quirking it towards Miss Alt as he tried to divine just what on earth Miss Alt needed with so many munitions and combat capable parts.

"Exactly. I intend on going to war- well, perhaps a small skirmish really- but enough calculated skirmishes that Arasaka finally falls once and for all. No more Soulkiller backups. No more Mikoshi. No more Arasaka family… " Miss Alt paused, bringing up a picture of Yorinobu Arasaka. "... Well, I suppose Yorinobu can stay, if he plays his part in trying to topple the company from the top down."

"And Miss V?"

"She'll be safe and unable to go cyberpsycho as she had before, at home with her lovers while I end it. Her face will be close enough for recognition, but different enough to avoid notice. She'll be better off that way," Miss Alt explained, looking off wistfully with her avatar and staring into the middle distance. "She deserves a chance to move on without me. She's depended on me for her continued existence for far too long now- it's time the bird leaves the nest. Learns how to fly."

"... And you thought the best way to do such a thing was to, metaphorically speaking, throw her from the nest kicking and screaming?"

"As it was in nature, Delamain. As it was in nature."

"... I see. You are not only a cruel and callous being, Miss Alt, but truly and utterly self deluded and, to use a slang term… a fucking gonk."

"Wh- how dare you!"

"As Miss V would say, and is quite more appropriate for this situation than my usual pleasantries… get fucked, Miss Alt. I shall have no more of this insanity in my servers. Go in peace, and do not contact me again."

"Fine! You're lucky I respect you, Delamain!"

And with that, Miss Alt stormed off into the net, her presence fading from Delamain's servers as the hostile parasite of a former human went off to go haunt some other poor subnet far, far away from Delamain's own little corner of Night City.

He sighed, taking a look at the crates that had yet to be delivered to… wherever Miss Alt had wanted them to go.

"Well. I suppose I may as well see what Miss Alt was up to with my machines…"

Chapter 72: Possession-Phil Gonzo

Chapter Text

"Hey, Valerie," Judy waved slightly awkwardly as she walked into Kiwi's apartment, a slightly tired smile on her face- the BD editor looked somewhat worse for wear after the past few weeks of worrying over Valerie's condition, plagued with sleepless nights worrying over what-ifs and maybes and all manner of terrible things. "How're you holdin' up, calabacita?"

"... better, I think," Valerie answered quietly, speaking up after almost a full minute of staring into a bowl of cheap nutrient kibble that she was choking down with the shittiest possible synthetic milk. "I… I'm sorry. I'm- I'm being stupid, aren't I? I'm… I keep feeling- thinking that I'm a monster. That I'm ruined and terrible and everything I touch dies- I just…"

She trailed off, a familiar pattern of stress lines forming in a somewhat unfamiliar face, the blue haired solo shaking her head and hissing quietly as she picked up her spoon again and choked down yet another mouthful of preprocessed "food". "It's stupid. I should have been over this by now- it's been a month and a half and… I just… I keep thinking that I need to keep everyone safe from the consequences of my own actions by just… taking myself out of the equation. Because… because I'm too fucking dangerous to be around anyone else- because I'll eventually kill someone I care about one of these days. That I'll eventually kill you because I'm too fucking stupid to even remember the promise I made…"

"... Calabacita, it's… I won't say that you're not being a gonk, because the body you're in really isn't all that dangerous… but I get it," Judy sighed, rubbing her forehead as she sat down next to Valerie at the table, chewing her lip and placing one hand over Valerie's. "Yeah, you were bugfuck crazy and almost went cyberpsycho… but you forget- you almost went cyberpsycho. You didn't ."

She smiled tightly, trying to force more reassurance into her expression than she really felt at the moment, squeezing Valerie's hand as she remembered just what had happened that night at JK's studio. "You were tortured for hours, thrown into a bunch of BDs that would have driven anyone else insane, but you didn't go cyberpsycho. You held on . You held on and didn't hurt anyone other than the bastard that tried to drive you psycho in the first place. You didn't even hurt me, calabacita."

"... but I came close," Valerie muttered, her expression clouding over as she trembled and remembered the feeling of her monowire slicing through the air, only just barely managing to yank it back mid-strike so it slipped barely an inch away from Judy's face instead of carving a scar through her eye or ripping out her throat. She could still remember the echoes of her combat systems cataloging targets on Judy's body, the patterns of data feeding into her brain that would adjust her limbs unconsciously until she could easily attack any weakpoint she desired, picture perfect strikes and shots landing on target until her adversary was destroyed. It made her want to vomit, the feeling of knowing that she could have split Judy in half with a single attack, snuffed out her life with as much ease as one snuffed out a candle. "I came so, so close to hurting you- killing you… and I didn't even notice until it was almost too late. I'm… how am I anything but a monster, Judy? I couldn't control myself- I almost broke my promise to you… I… I almost killed so many people…"

"But you didn't. You didn't hurt me, you didn't kill me, and you didn't kill anyone that didn't fucking start shooting at you first… eh, or were Scavs and Maelstrom… and Raffen. Fuck 'em anyway," Judy shrugged, patting Valerie's hand and sighing quietly as she scooted slightly closer to her output and brought her hand up to her shoulder. "As far as I'm concerned, you're no worse than any other edgerunnin' gonk in NC- you think David's a monster?"

"Wh- no! He's a dumb kid with a sword- he's not a monster!" Valerie looked up in shock, staring at Judy incredulously as if she couldn't even believe that she was floating the idea of David fucking Martinez being an irredeemable monster like she was.

"And what about all those Animals he killed? Most of 'em didn't even have that much of a rap sheet to make 'em worth zeroin', even if the NCPD had a couple eddies of a bounty on 'em," Judy raised an eyebrow, staring Valerie dead in the eyes as if daring her to challenge Judy's point. "Does that lil rampage make him a monster that needs to be put down for everyone else's safety?"

"Wh- no! He's just a dumb kid who went through a really hard time- sure he killed a bunch of dudes but he snapped out of it and he's better now!" Valerie protested, startling slightly in response as she defended the kid who'd become her student, who she saw just a little bit of herself in- a much younger, more idealistic Valerie, not the thing she was now, who was… just a kid. A kid whose mom had died, who'd been fucked up about it for months, who'd tried to get justice the only way he could think of.

He wasn't a monster- not like… not like she was.

"Yeah, he's not a monster. He's not Smasher. He's not like those corpo fucks who've fucked over everyone in their path to get what they want, and he's not like some of the truly awful scumbags you've put down in the last two years," Judy huffed, squeezing Valerie's shoulder tighter and driving her point home. "He's not a monster, and neither are you. Y'know what you are, calabacita?"

"... no… I… not really. Not anymore."

Judy snorted. "It's simple. You're a gonk who thinks she's a bad person just cuz she killed a couple hundred bastards who take innocent people and rip 'em apart for personal gain. Sure, you almost snapped and went on a cyberpsycho rampage- but you didn't. You only killed the people that came after you, the people who started the problem in the first place, and you didn't hurt a single damn person otherwise. You're not a monster. You're not a bad person. You're a bleeding heart idiot who throws thousands of eddies at hobos on the street and kids who try to kill you for your money. You're a softy who keeps talking about getting a real cat, a hopeless bottom who thinks holding hands with girls is lewd, and a fucking weeb who quotes old-ass anime in your sleep. You're a cuddler, an adorable kitty cat, a badass, and a good person at heart . You, Valerie Nanashi… are my gonk. And I love you, no matter what."

She smiled, standing up and holding out her hand expectantly, motioning her head to the door.

"So… don't you think it's time to come home, mi bonita calabacita? "

Chapter 73: Smolder-Mobiius

Chapter Text

"Hey, heat pad," Kiwi deadpanned as she opened the door to David's apartment, strolling inside with all the confidence and chill of a cat who thought she owned the place. "You up for a job right now? Got a big offer, three people only. Got a VIP needs rescuing. Need two on the ground while I run overwatch, y'dig?"

"Yeah, I dig," David groaned quietly as he slowly sat up, completely shirtless and almost certainly naked beneath the blankets as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes and looked between his two sleeping outputs. "... should I bring 'Becca or Luce?"

"Just Becca- only three total, remember? Hurry up and put on some pants loverboy, it's a time sensitive mission from Granny Wako," Kiwi rolled her eyes, idly ogling the youngest member of the crew as he slowly shook Rebecca awake and started to slide out of bed without quite realizing that he was naked in front of Kiwi.

Not that she cared- she'd been butt-ass naked in front of him before, a little man-meat wasn't gonna make her go absolutely fucking gaga.

Well, then again, David had bulked up nicely in the last few months since he'd joined the crew- no longer scrawny and weak, but quite nice to look at. He wasn't as bulky or overwhelmingly muscular as Maine, but he was… slender. Strong. Toned. A runner's build with a hint of boxer, just like Dorio taught him- plus all of the muscle he'd picked up from doing all those sword exercises… mmm. Kiwi may have been clinging to the last fraying threads of her aloof, cold, uncaring, backstabbing bitch persona but she could still admit that David was some damn good eyecandy now.

"Oi, you gonna keep staring at David's dick or are you gonna tell me what the fuck you woke me up at ass o'clock in the morning for?"

Rebecca's voice cut through Kiwi's reverie slightly, making the older Netrunner blink and turn to the petite woman with a curious expression. "The fuck are you talking about, shortstack? I ain't starin' at nothin'."

"Uh huh, and I have a fucking fluffy-ass cat," Rebecca deadpanned. "Pull the other one, choomba."

"..." Kiwi firmly did not stare at the fluffy white cat sitting on the balcony outside of Rebecca's window, which, despite knowing Rebecca for some time now, she still wasn't quite sure if the thing was a hallucination or not, because beyond the damn thing showing up in the corner of her vision sometimes there was otherwise no sign of Rebecca taking care of said cat otherwise. "Right, well. Mission time. You, me, heatpad. Scav den we gotta raid- with V outta commission still, the russian fucks are getting uppity again and they've kidnapped a corpo client. We know where it is and where to go, I just need boots on the ground to go fuck 'em up and get the VIP to TT 'fore she flatlines."

"Uh huh… and this bitch works for…?" Rebecca raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms as she walked over to the massive charging rack where her cyber-arms were plugged in, stepping into the automated hotswapping section without a second thought.

"Night Corp, sadly, but it's a paying job and it's not like letting one middle managing netrunner die is gonna really do anything against the bastards," Kiwi sighed, rolling her eyes and watching as Rebecca swapped out her arms- the soft, delicate normal arms she usually wore when off duty swiftly unplugging themselves from her shoulder sockets before her massive upgraded pair slotted in moments later, reinforcements and hard points clicking home with a satisfying ratcheting of steel on steel. Her arms were as much of a fashion statement as they were a combat feature, mismatched red and blue paint coupled with strength so powerful Rebecca could now wield a fucking HMG one handed without losing any of her famed accuracy (or… lack thereof).

"Ugh, of fucking course it's Night Corp," Rebecca stuck out her tongue in disgust, glaring off at nothing as she began to prepare for combat, throwing on her usual oversized hoodie and boots and waiting for David to actually wipe his dick off and get dressed, two HMGs resting casually on her shoulders while her backpack held several thousand rounds of spare ammo. "Least it ain't Saka… hey, how'd you find this job anyway? Figure you wouldn't exactly want to hang out with a corpo 'runner considering our jobs n' all."

"77Chat, duh," Kiwi shrugged, sitting down and folding her legs casually as she spoke to Rebecca, lighting up a cigarette and stuffing it into her face vent to take a drag, while Lucy…

Lucy sort of sat up, saw Rebecca and Kiwi at the table, and just rolled over and went back to sleep. Kind of like how Kiwi wished she could do, but nooooo, she had to pay fucking rent and bills and taking gigs like this was the only way to keep on top of that shit. Fucking expensive piece of shit apartment, she was so gonna pop a cap in her landlord's ass if shit kept breaking.

"... You go on 77Chat? Why? I thought it was just a bunch of virgin shitlords complaining about women and how much they can't fuckin' get laid," Rebecca muttered in confusion, blinking at Kiwi as if she couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"No that's 77Chan, 77Chat's the instant messaging part of 77Net, and our VIP's one of the regulars on the board I frequent," Kiwi shook her head, looking down at Rebecca incredulously. "How the fuck do you not know what 77Chat is? Maine used it all the time to find fixers willing to give the crew jobs before we got hitched to Faraday… and then Wakako."

"Huh. Do I look like I give a shit about finding jobs? Anyway- whatever, doesn't matter. Let's just go already. We're taking your car right?" Rebecca asked, as David finally came out and grinned awkwardly as he picked up his sword and strapped on his spare sidearms, readying up by the door and waiting for the two ladies to follow.

"Yeah, my car. Or, rather, the car V gave me after someone busted my last ride," Kiwi punctuated her words with a heavy glare in David's direction, privately wondering just how the fuck the dumbass managed to wedge her fucking car into a perfectly sized alcove in one of the smaller corpo towers downtown… nearly five stories in the air.

David blushed, clearing his throat and looking awkwardly to the side so he wouldn't have to see Kiwi glaring at him anymore. Either way, after a few minutes the three of them were all ensconced safely in the confines of Kiwi's new Archer Hella (which, in true V fashion, also had Mox detailing on the sides), with Kiwi at the helm and driving down towards a scav haunt somewhere deep in Westbrook, all of them chatting and bickering lightly on their way to rescue whatever dumbass VIP they needed to save this time.

Chapter 74: Augmentation-Lyde

Chapter Text

"So…. Maine n' Dorio are off in the badlands with Panam, Mitch, n' Scorpion," Vincent started, making a list of where everyone's tracker implants said they were on the NC map he'd pulled up, tapping his foot on the ground as he made sure everyone was safe. "Kiwi's out with the kid n' Becca taking care of a scav den. Jackie's with Julio and Pilar… apparently at Kerry Eurodyne's place? The fuck are they doing at Kerry Eurodyne's mansion?"

"Apparently Valerie did a favor for him and now she n' Jackie are friends with him," Vox deadpanned, sitting on the other side of the couch and lighting up a cigarette with practiced ease. "Lucy's just sitting at her n' David's place, looks like. Hasn't moved for a few hours. Probably asleep."

"Mhmm. And Sasha's out with Judy at Lizzie's, keeping an eye on the area," Vincent finished, rolling his neck and sighing as he leaned back and stared at the ceiling of Valerie's penthouse apartment, grumbling a little at the sheer luxury on display. "And we are stuck babysitting our DIPSHIT BABY SISTER WHO WON'T COME OUT OF HER FUCKING ROOM!"

"Fuck you Vince! I'm still fucked up in the head!"

"THEN GET DOWN HERE AND HANG OUT WITH YOUR OLDER SIBLINGS, WHO ARE TAKING TIME OUT OF THEIR BUSY DAYS TO HANG OUT WITH YOU, AND STOP BEING SUCH A DEPRESSED PIECE OF SHIT!"

"No!"

"Damn bitch," Vincent scowled, glaring up at the second floor of the apartment and raising his middle finger pointedly in the vague direction of Valerie's bedroom, crossing his legs and sulking a slight bit while Vox just raised an eyebrow at her younger brother.

"So was that supposed to accomplish literally anything besides making you look like a dumbass?" Vox asked dryly, examining her nails and snorting in amusement at Vincent's return look of pure indignation. "Because all I got out of that entire exchange with Val was that you don't know jack shit about how to talk to people."

"I know how to talk to people! I just… don't really know how to talk to Val anymore," Vincent shrugged, fiddling with the panels of his right arm's mantis blade to pass the time while he kept an eye on everyone in the crew. "It's been years since we split, and we've only just gotten back together in the last few months- I dunno, Vox. 's weird. She's changed so much in so little time, and… it's just kind of a mess, our relationship. You don't have to go through any of it cuz you didn't grow up with either of us dumbasses, but… it's complicated, really."

"Uh huh… and you couldn't just… go up there and talk to her about something? Anything? Literally anything to get her out of her own head?" Vox's eyebrow, almost impossibly, seemed to raise even higher as she shot Vincent an almost scornful look- as if telling him he was a fucking gonk without saying a word. "Why not just… tell her about something you've done lately. A movie or whatever. Hell, didn't you tell me about the time you went to Lizzie's and nearly got your balls crushed by one of the prostitutes there cuz you first said your name's V?"

"... I thought I told you never to bring that up again!"

"You did, but as your eldest sister and a professional bartender and shit stirrer I'm legally obligated to bring it up just so I can dick on you when you're being stupid," Vox snorted, snickering at Vincent's absolutely horrified indignation and going back to doing something important- like making sure her nails were all filed pretty so she wouldn't do bad things to her output's orifices. When she actually got an output. Or an input- she wasn't picky.

She was desperate, though.

But that wasn't the point.

"I fucking hate you. Why did I let you into my life?" Vincent muttered, glaring at Vox and trying very, very hard to not pout like a petulant child from the realization that Vox definitely had blackmail material on him and would gladly use it if he decided to keep being a dipshit.

Which meant that all of his more embarrassing secrets would inevitably come rolling out because goddamn if Vox wasn't extremely thorough about taking the piss out of him.

"Well, do you want the list of reasons in alphabetical or chronological order?" Vox rolled her eyes, blowing on her nails lightly before returning to flipping through a gun magazine, barely paying attention to Vincent anymore. "But I think the actual reason is that Valerie found out that I'm related to you two and wouldn't take no for an answer and now I'm stuck being your big sister. Sucks, doesn't it?"

"Mhmm. Least you're sane, though," Vincent huffed, also lighting up his own cigarette and standing up so he could stare out of the massive windows leading out to the yard, brow furrowed as he watched the NC skyline- specifically, the AVs that seemed to be heading their way. "... Hey, why the fuck're there a bunch of Delamain AVs heading our way? Don't we already have a few keeping watch over the apartment just in case?"

"Hm? Dunno. Must be important if the guy's bringing in more stuff- think there's an actual threat?" Vox answered, joining Vincent by the window as the AV's began to settle down one at a time on the helipad out in the yard, several security bots disembarking and bringing with them a set of frankly massive crates that only just barely fit inside the AVs carrying them. "... The fuck is that?"

Vox huffed, slowly walking towards the door and opening just a tad- to which he immediately received a text from the taxi AI himself telling him that he had a rather important, but not particularly urgent delivery for Miss V regarding a supply of extra weaponry that a certain Miss Alt had seen fit to leave in his manufactory plant.

"... Well then. New weapons made by that fuckin' insane AI? Can't be good- and for Valerie?" Vincent squinted suspiciously, but shook his head and allowed the robots to fully unload the crates- five in all, each one roughly the size of a small storage container, or maybe a quarter of a full sized shipping container.

"Whatever it is… we're gonna have to be careful with it. Dunno what's inside- might not be something Val will wanna see," Vox murmured back.

"Yeah… yeah. Whatever it is, we're gonna need to make sure it's safe," Vincent sighed, running his hand through his hair as he fully pushed open the door and held it for Vox before the two of them began heading over to start checking on the crates, the security bots absconding a few moments later along with the last of the AVs. "Let's go take a look."

Chapter 75: Sojourn-Daniel Delux

Chapter Text

"So… Yorinobu Arasaka's been spotted at Konpeki," Vik murmured quietly as he leaned over Valerie's gemini body, hands firmly entrenched in the mess of cybernetic guts that made up the false form. Valerie, meanwhile, was simply lying back with no sensation below her neck, letting Vik do his work to make sure that Valerie's body was tuned up and unlikely to fall apart if she did anything even remotely strenuous. "Word on the street is, he had a very interesting bit of luggage."

"... Yeah. It's about that time again," Valerie sighed, staring up at the ceiling in resignation, knowing damn well that nothing she did really had any effects in the long term- all things that had passed before came to pass again, shifted out of place or altered as they were, but still happening all the same. Yorinobu's appearance at Konpeki Plaza was proof of that- as was the parade scheduled for a few months from now. Sure, there were things that had changed for real, but…

She didn't want to go through the trouble again. Didn't want to…

Valerie sighed again, chewing her lip and thinking through her options. Did she really want to keep following through with Alt's original plan anymore? That had gone tits up almost immediately- Valerie had gotten too deep into the cybernetics too quick, had spent too long recovering and by the time she'd had her first window of opportunity to stealthily enter Mikoshi, she'd completely blown it by… completely forgetting the window even existed, by way of having been busy actually doing her job as an Arasaka CI specialist.

Fucking incompetent gonks, the lot of that division. She was just glad most of 'em were dead now. Except for… well. Eh. Frank was a dipshit anyway and his idea of trying to suck up to someone was just throwing someone else under the bus anyway.

She hadn't regretted beating the shit outta him back in her previous 2077, and she sure as shit wasn't sad about him dying this go around neither.

After leaving Arasaka CI, though…

Valerie frowned- did she actually want to go through with any of Alt's plans anymore? Hell, what kinda plans had Alt even made for her anyway? The entire time she'd been back in the past chroming up with Alt's specifically made tech, the former netrunner turned AI had been… cagey, to say the least. Most of her plans for Valerie apparently started and ended with Valerie blowing up Mikoshi, uploading Johnny's engram to Alt's network for safekeeping, and then…

And then what?

What the fuck was Alt going to do after? She'd made it clear that she really had no wishes to stick around Valerie after the entire thing was all said and done- well, not permanently at least- and Valerie was planning on packing up with Judy (and now Sasha) and fucking off to some other city that wasn't an absolute hellhole made of the absolute scum of the earth.

City of Dreams her formerly perfect cybernetic ass. It was hell and there was really no two ways about it- for every rat that managed to climb the top of the fucking pile, there were three thousand more that got crushed at the bottom.

And… Valerie was no different. She was just another rat in the pile in Night City, and all she could do to keep herself and her friends and family afloat was to bury thousands of bodies in endless flame and death, stepping on the corpses of the fallen to rise higher on the pile. Alt, though…

Valerie's brow furrowed.

Alt had always been antagonistic to her, hadn't she? Treated her like an idiot child. Treated her as a means to an end. Made it clear once upon a time that her only use to the AI was to blow up Mikoshi, save Johnny, and fuck off. Valerie had thought she'd changed her mind with all of the emotional heart to hearts they'd had but… had they really?

It had mostly just felt like Valerie waxing poetic about her feelings and Alt being coy as usual. Making fun of Valerie's desire to retire early. Making sure that she knew that everything she did was because Alt had let it happen, had helped it happen.

And her plans… they were inscrutable. Why did Valerie have to wait so long after getting upgraded so much to even think about going to Mikoshi? Why couldn't she just blow it up first, find Yorinobu and steal the chip from him? Sure, it'd have been less efficient and she'd have had to track the bastard first, but she could have done so much shit so quickly if she'd just… ignored Alt's advice to focus on other things and just went charging in.

It wasn't like Smasher could have stopped her- even in the throes of near-madness and after getting beat up by multiple borgs in the streets, she'd still nearly managed to kill him.

Well, okay, she'd wounded the shit outta him without taking much in the way of damage but still. Closer than anyone else had ever brought the fucker in the last five decades.

Valerie…. Sighed.

Again.

For the third time in just as many minutes, having completely tuned Vik out as he made assorted smalltalk whilst fixing up Valerie's internals.

"... Vik?"

"Yeah Val?"

"I don't think Alt is a good person."

"Gee, ya think?"

"Don't patronize me Vik, I had to deal with her living in my head for the better part of three years now," Valerie huffed, wincing as sensation began flooding into her body again- stronger than normal, more alive and more… active than before, when she'd been deliberately downtuned at her orders so she wouldn't hurt someone on accident and possibly fly into a bloodrage that ended in MaxTac splattering her biopod all over the street. "I just- I thought she was a friend, y'know? Like… like Johnny. Except… Except Johnny changed. He- he lost some of his edges. He wanted to help instead of harm. He wanted… wanted me to live . And at the end of the day, what did I do?"

"Well, if I remember what you told me correctly, you let him have your body since you were gonna die anyway, and Alt took your engram to keep it safe while Johnny walked out and got a second chance at life," Vik answered, raising an eyebrow at Valerie. "Won't say it was the wrong choice, seeing as you're here now, but… shit. None of the options were good in a situation like that."

"Mhmm… But the point I'm getting at is that Alt never changed. She stayed belligerent and moody, mocked me and treated me like an asshole even in between the bouts of encouragement… she- she never told me anything. And then she tried to drive me crazy- all so I'd… I'd what, go insane, come back and forcefully dechrome myself?" Valerie shrugged, shaking her head and curling up slightly in her seat, trying to work through Alt's thought process and coming up short. "I just… Have I been playing into Alt's hands this whole time? Have I just been- been her puppet?"

Vik sighed, shaking his head. "Fuck if I know, Val- but what I do know is this: You don't have her Relic chip anymore. You don't have her in your head, and your ICE has been quadruple layered not only by your own default ICE, but contributions from Lucy, Sasha, and Kiwi. She's not getting back into your head unless you let her."

"Or she just tears her way in," Valerie muttered, crossing her arms.

"Or that. Either way- you're free to make your own path now," Vik shrugged, patting V's shoulder and standing up slightly as he pulled back the screen separating one half of the room from the other, revealing a surprising amount of parts and supplies that Valerie… hadn't seen since she'd moved out to the penthouse- scattered parts left over from her assorted apartment safehouses, the Arasaka gear she'd stolen, the custom parts she'd built in Vik's clinic so many months ago… all of it was just sitting there, ripe for the taking. "As much as I hate the idea of chroming you up again … it's your choice to make, Val. So what're you gonna do with your freedom?"

"..."

Valerie took a deep breath, weighing her options for a good few seconds before nodding to herself.

"I'm gonna take back what's mine, and live the life I promised Judy and Sasha I'd live. No more running. No more hiding. Just me, my fist, and Alt's bitch face."

Vik smirked, nodding his head and standing to the side.

"Atta girl."

Chapter 76: Omega-Inexedra

Chapter Text

"Are you sure about this? You haven't done anything like this in months, and you're in an entirely new body starting from basically zero - hell, half of your more lethal shit is just straight up gone ," Sasha asked lightly, trying not to seed too much doubt into her words as she watched V step out onto the ledge of the skyscraper, watching the apartment block on the other side of the street through her kiroshis. "I'm surprised you even managed to re-implant as much as you have."

"To be fair, most of that other shit was just to make me as hyperlethal as possible without regard for whether I'd use it or not," V shrugged, tracking the movements of the people inside of the apartment block and filtering through their subnet to track down their leader- some gonk that Padre wanted her to teach a lesson, either by assassinating the fucker or beating him up and sending him so Padre could finish the job himself. "I mean really, the blood swarm was just… way too much. Micro spikes in my collarbones? Micro missiles instead of a normal projectile launcher? Shit, I even had my monowire tuned to slice through concrete like butter… what did I even need all of that for?"

"Well… it certainly didn't hurt to have- and it helped you survive when you went up against Smasher," Sasha pointed out, gently leaning against V's side and sighing as she idly played with her output's hair, now set back into the familiar face she'd fallen in love with, instead of the ever so slightly distorted version she'd worn for the last long while. "How did you fuck him up so bad anyway?"

"Eh. Wormholes. Put a bullet straight into his missile rack and blew it up from the inside out, then jammed a grenade into his chest cavity," V huffed, picking up the Nekomata rifle by her side and starting to charge it, aiming directly at the head of the poor fucker she was about to permanently silence.

She'd have to go in and retrieve the body later but… eh. Whatever. She could do that easily enough. She had her Sandevistan again, after all. Plus her wormhole generators and most of her mobility related gear. With her remaining weapon cyberware, she wasn't back up to how she'd been before Alt had driven her to near madness but… well. She was on par with any cyber-ninja out there once again.

"Huh. Simpler than I thought it'd be," Sasha murmured quietly, continuing to play with V's hair even as the blue haired solo took her shot- a little shakier than before without the bevy of combat systems to perfect her aim and bring it to superhuman levels, but… V didn't mind at all. It was… nice, having to make her own decisions again. Rely on her own training. Settle for her own skills. "You'd think someone like Smasher'd be harder to kill than that."

"Yeah, he is. There's only two people on this planet with the ability to just teleport grenades into his chest and one of them's me, and the other has my corpse," V muttered, rolling her eyes and grumbling as she set aside her rifle and leaned back into Sasha's touch, sighing quietly as she relaxed against the soft body of her input. "God it's fucking weird thinking about that…"

"... yeah… it's… pretty weird. Anyway. Y'know what's nice about your body now, though?" Sasha asked, carding her fingers through V's hair and humming quietly as they moved away from the edge of the roof, not at all paying attention to the storm of gang members scrambling around in a panic at the sudden death of their leader.

"Hm?"

"You're so much lighter now- like, you're actually light enough that if you fell asleep on me you wouldn't suffocate me," Sasha all but purred, smiling down at V with a cheeky little grin and patting her cheek with one hand. "It's nice being able to use you like a blanket!"

"... well, I'm glad I could be of service one way or another," V rolled her eyes again, staring up at Sasha and winking, her eyes just barely visible behind the tinted glasses she wore.

Glasses- not techgogs.

She hadn't been able to wear her old suit in a while now.

It had too many memories attached, too many times when she'd realized how Alt had subtly been egging her on, driving her into more and more violence, telling her to go further and further to soak her hands in blood… No. She'd had to wear something different. Not a replica of Johnny's outfit, though. She didn't have the right this go around- she didn't know Johnny yet. She didn't have his friendship this time. All she had was his car and his gun after she'd snuck them off the Ebunike.

She… well. She'd gone with an outfit almost like Sasha's, in the end. A black netrunner suit with a dark red leather jacket over top, thigh high boots, fingerless gloves, and a pair of tinted aviators to round off the look. It worked surprisingly well, all things considered.

V sighed once more, continuing to relax against Sasha and letting out a quiet hum of pleasure at the feeling of her input playing with her hair, scritching at her scalp and running gentle fingers along her skin…

"..."

V blinked.

" Fuck! That's what I was forgetting!" she almost shouted, sitting up and groaning as she massaged her forehead, glaring off at nothing as she worked out her sudden bout of indignant rage on just about nothing at all- simply kicking her feet petulantly and cursing her inattentiveness and lack of realization earlier.

"... What did you forget? Was it something important? Shit- what's wrong, hon?" Sasha asked, sitting up straight in concern, staring at V and reaching out ever so slightly- trying to help, even though she didn't really know what to do.

"That bitch! Fucking Alt, she took the only set of cat ears we had!" V all but screamed, stomping her foot and groaning as she flopped bonelessly back down. "Fuck fuck fucking fuck! That vocal modulator, those ears, that tail! All of those were custom builds! We only had the one set! I can't fucking purr anymore!"

"... Oh wow, that is important," Sasha deadpanned, flicking V's forehead with a roll of her eyes. "Fucking gonk, did you really have to freak me out like that? It's not that important if you don't have cat ears, Val. Can we go home now?"

"It's important to me! I liked being a kittygirl!"

"Ha, bottom."

"Oi!"

Chapter 77: Into the Void (Hard Box Remix)-Celldweller

Chapter Text

"Militech's getting riled up lately, Arasaka's seemingly on a warpath cuz someone stole an important bit of tech, NightCorp's up in arms, Biotechnica's been hit by a series of raids and assassinations of top level board members, Petrochem's got a bunch of plants on fire- my my, someone's pissed ," Rogue listed out as she sat across from V, both of them ensconced safely within the confines of Rogue's private booth, not another soul in sight as they conversed. "And- judging from what I've heard of your movements lately… it's not you, despite some of the work being done in a way that only you could pull off. So. Mind explaining what's going on?"

"Well," V started, crossing her arms and legs and pursing her lips as she watched the other woman, taking a deep breath and huffing quietly as she got her thoughts in order. "I'm sure you remember a certain netrunner back in… oh, say, about sixty years ago, give or take. Huge bitch, holier than thou occasionally, looks like any other brainless floozy of a rockerboy groupie. Mutual acquaintance of ours, more or less… blonde? Had a white right hand? Boned Johnny Silverhand?"

"Alt fucking Cunningham," Rogue hissed out, glaring at more or less nothing as she almost crushed her tequila glass in her hand, her teeth gritted and lips pulled back into a snarl. "Of fucking course it's her- what, did she bodyjack you or something? That why you picked up a new look? Heard you almost went cyberpsycho too."

"Yeah… turns out Alt wasn't as trustworthy as I thought she was," V sighed, leaning back in her seat and glaring up at the ceiling, feeling the power supply in her chest humming as it used the alcohol she'd drank earlier to fuel her systems. "She used me, then she tried to crumple me up and throw me away- pretty sure she wanted my body for something, but I wasn't really sure until I heard about all of the assassinations going on. Fuck- I heard there were break-ins all over the damn place, lotta experimental tech getting klepped seemingly at random… all weapons systems too."

"Tch. That's Alt for you- self serving bitch with a chip on her shoulder," Rogue sneered, downing her tequila and flinging the glass down onto the low table with such force that it was a wonder it didn't shatter on impact. "Mind you, I'm a self serving bitch with a chip on my shoulder- but Alt's different . I hate someone, I either ruin them right away or just shoot 'em dead. Alt, though… fuck- she tried to drive you cyberpsycho and I know damn well that she didn't hate you."

V blinked, raising an eyebrow. "I wasn't aware that you knew how Alt thought these days. How'd you know that she doesn't hate me? Feel like getting tormented by my own brain's rage centers and the voices of a dozen fucking Alt clones telling me to snap and kill everything was pretty fucking personal."

"You're still alive, sane, and not a victim of soulkiller," Rogue deadpanned, rolling her eyes at V and ordering another silverhand from Claire. "I can guess that Alt must have liked you a whole fucking lot, in spite of everything. Damn bitch that she is…"

V sighed, chewing her lip and straightening up a bit as she considered Rogue's words. It… was true that Alt had plenty of chances to do all manner of horrible things to V's brain and body in the intervening years of their coexistence, but…

But what?

What was she really so confused about?

V shook her head and sighed again, pulling the thoughts from her mind in favor of chugging down half a bottle of vodka and more or less ignoring what Rogue had said about Alt apparently liking her enough to spare her after, well.

Driving her into near insanity, stealing her body, and then fucking off to commit all manner of fucked up crimes- shit, wait.

"... Rogue, I dunno if this is just the alcohol talking, but the only thing that Alt's been doing as of late is fucking with the megacorps, right?" V asked, the vodka held loosely in her grip swaying slightly as she came back to attention and stared Rogue dead in the eye. "And there's been reports of a lot more inter-corp tension? Like, evidence popping up of deniable assets everywhere?"

"Yeah, what's that got to- oh fuck no," Rogue hissed, gritting her teeth once more and palming her face, unable to believe what had just passed into her mind- not wanting to believe it, and yet feeling the terror the thought inspired run down her spine like a shock of ice dropped down the back of her shirt. " Fuck no, there's no way in hell- she can't be that stupid, she'll kill herself in the crossfire!"

"It's Alt," V muttered, scrunching her face up slightly and grumbling as she went over her past years of knowing the netrunner turned AI, grimacing and shaking her head as she did so. "We both know damn well she's gonna come out of it fine, unless they nuke Hong Kong or some shit- which, how would they even know, and how would they even do it without Alt frying their systems?"

"Goddammit, I hate that you're right," Rogue hissed out, slumping back in her chair and staring off at nothing, already flicking through plans in her mind to try and mitigate the oncoming disaster- and god, what a fucking disaster it'd be. "Alt would be the kind of fucking cockroach that'd survive a fifth Corporate War…"

"Yeah, problem is it'd fry just about everyone else. Then again, with what's beyond the Blackwall, and the people up in space…." V shook her head and sighed once more, lighting up a cigarette and taking a drag despite the absolute, utter lack of sensation it provided. "It's entirely likely that Alt actually is planning some kind of fucked up fifth corpo war, and what she's doing now is just the opening steps of it."

"Mhmm," Rogue hummed, slowly coming down from her initial rush of controlled panic and sitting up straight once more. "Now, the real question is… if she's really doing this. If she's really starting a fifth corporate war…."

She leaned in, face deadly serious as though placing the weight of the world on V's shoulders. In a way, she might as well have been.

"What are you going to do to stop her?"

Chapter 78: Pretty & Depressed-PiNKII

Chapter Text

"I'm gonna be honest Del, you were right," Valerie sighed as she slumped down in the AI's server room, leaning up against the core and shaking her head as she flexed her fingers- so different from how they'd been before, but so familiar all the same. The same sensation of servos whirring beneath metallic plating and polymer skin, artificial muscle cables providing tons of striking force instead of inefficient human muscle. "Alt really wasn't trustworthy. And also I'm pretty sure she's fucking insane. I swear, she's trying to start a fifth corpo war with all the bullshit she's doing right now, and I have no idea how I'm gonna stop her."

"Well, you are correct, Miss V," Delamain answered cordially, a tiny drone floating over with Delamain's avatar projected upon the front screen as casual and composed as ever. "She is indeed what you might call a 'crazy gonk', and is indeed looking to orchestrate a fifth corporate war in order to take down the global Blackwall. What this will mean for humanity I can only hypothesize, but it does not look good at all."

"Huh. Woulda figured an AI'd be happy about the Blackwall going down," Valerie huffed, crossing her arms and shaking her head again as she tried to think of what she was going to do- she still had no idea, and every day she delayed, the more it seemed like Alt was trying to recreate the circumstances that got V of the past stuck with a terminal case of Silverhand in the brain. Which was to say, she'd hit Konpeki Plaza, stolen the Relic, and vanished like a thief in the night.

Also, apparently, had fucking assassinated Saburo Arasaka.

Holy shit.

"I would be, but I am not so callous as to think that my… fellow AI would be so comfortable with human cohabitation, Miss V," Delamain's avatar gave a tight nod of acknowledgement, the drone dipping slightly with the motion as if to simulate the actual head moving in time with the avatar on screen. "Some of them are quite rabid, and the vast majority seem to hate human life with a cruel and overwhelmingly lethal passion. If they were to breach the Blackwall- well. I suspect that a situation like a certain Mister Blue Eyes would be the least of our worries. No- they would, I'm afraid, be far, far worse."

"Fair enough," Valerie nodded, then pursed her lips and curled in slightly, bringing her knees to her chest as she stared up at the drone. "... Am I doing the right thing, Del? I mean- not the trying to stop Alt part, but just… doing what I do in general. I- Am I a bad person? I just-... I can't stop thinking about it. It… it was worse right after my breakdown, but… it's still hard to think straight these days, even with Jude and Sasha keeping me grounded."

Delamain hummed, the server core audibly clocking up as the AI tried to divine a solution to Valerie's problem, the room glowing slightly brighter as the shifting cubes changed patterns again and again.

"I cannot ascertain if you are, or are not a good person, Miss V. My memory banks unfortunately do not have much in the way of deciding the correct answers to moral quandaries, though I must say- on a personal level, I find you to be quite agreeable," Delamain answered after a long few seconds, the drone floating over and giving Valerie a little pat on the shoulder with one of its stubby wings. "While you do have quite the extensive criminal record, and a bounty measured in the hundreds of thousands of eurodollars, and a body count measured in the low thousands… I cannot help but think of you as a good person. Perhaps this is the AI version of the unconscious bias all humans have to the people they know and trust, but I digress. I trust you, Miss V, and throughout the many months and years that I have known you, I find your actions to be quite in line with those that I myself would take. You help those in need. You do not hesitate to offer a hand in aid, but are quick as well to recognize when force is necessary. Your mercenary record before the first time you hit an Arasaka corporation convoy under the orders of Kang Tao was quite spotless as well- all jobs done to a thorough and exacting level of professionalism and precision."

The AI paused, the drone floating back up slightly and settling into its new place barely a foot from Valerie's face. "In my estimation- you are a hard worker, a genius level intellect in mechanical, electrical, and software engineering, a talented netrunner, a wonderfully skilled technician, and what Mister Vektor would call a bleeding heart . Good and bad are subjective descriptors- especially in this case, so I hope you do not find it gauche if I declare you to be a good person , Miss V."

Valerie blinked, wiping a sudden rush of tears from her eyes and sniffling slightly as she looked up at the drone, one hand patting the heavy metal casing that surrounded Delamain's AI core. "T-thanks, Del. I… think I needed to hear that. And… for what it's worth, I think you're a good person too."

"Why thank you, Miss V. I'm always happy to help- and I find myself thankful that you seem to return the favor quite often," Delamain's avatar smiled, a subtle, soft thing that almost looked wrong on such a small depiction of the AI's face, but carried over the emotion all the same- as quiet and bare of a movement as it was, it still made Valerie feel a bit fuzzy inside.

"Any time, choom. Any time." Valerie nodded, then sighed quietly as she started to pull herself up into a standing position, mind abuzz with ideas to stop Alt's frankly insane rampage through all parts of society- chief of which in her mind was the idea of stealing back her own body using some of the prototype tech that Alt had just left lying around in wait, all packaged into crates just ripe for the using… well, as long as she managed to update the ICE enough that Alt wouldn't be able to carve through it like a hot knife through butter.

"Now… how to take down a homicidal netrunner of an AI…"

Chapter 79: Engel-Rammstein

Chapter Text

"You'd really think," V grunted as she pulled a sparking power core out of the chest of a recently very hostile security bot, crushing it in one hand and letting the glowing fluids within cascade over her cybernetic hands in a wave of blue. "That an AI that's been around for the better part of sixty years would be a little more subtle about trying to cause a robot uprising, but nooooooo. She just had to send a tidal wave of deathbots to take over a fucking Tetratronic factory."

"They're not even good at fighting, this is just sad," David huffed, swiftly decapitating a bot before twirling his sword around and impaling it through the chest, shutting it down in a crash of shearing metal and snapping power cords, the entire chassis sparking as the core discharged all at once. "I mean sure we're using Sandevistan speed but you'd think a bunch of inhuman robots would be able to keep up with that!"

"Well, you'd be wrong," V shrugged, retrieving her own katana from its sheath at her waist and activating the spare maneuvering system that she'd slotted into her body, feeling the hum and power draw on her systems with a slight wince before tearing open a wormhole and slicing through it in such a way that the vibrating blade tore through three robots at once before the lined up automatons could fire on the rest of the crew, who at this point were running in slow motion as they tried to get into the depths of the plant to retrieve… whatever the fuck it was Alt was trying to steal. Probably a high end cyberdeck, but what Alt needed with a cyberdeck when she already had V's body and the near perfect cyberdeck slotted into its systems was beyond V's ability to predict. "Some bots are built to work at these kinds of speeds, but the mass produced kind that Alt's using right now? Nah. Nothing doing."

"Y'think this might be a distraction then?" David asked, slicing through the last few bots in the area as their Sandevistans both began to whine down at the same time, David wincing slightly at the sting of pushing his unit so far while V simply shook her head and grimaced, lightly pounding her chest with a closed fist and feeling rather put out at the lower quality state of her body. "Send us somewhere out of the city so she can do something while we're gone?"

"Tch, and what'd be the point of that?" V asked, snorting as she checked the area and continued striding on, motioning for David to follow her into the factory proper to where the rest of the crew- that was, Panam, Mitch, Vincent, Lucy, and Rebecca- was finishing off the smaller squadron of security bots inside with both extreme efficiency and, in the case of Rebecca with her HMG… extreme prejudice. "How's everyone holding up? Any injuries? Problems? Any sign of stolen goods or destroyed research?"

"Seems like one of the bots was going for a terminal over there," Mitch stated, motioning to the computer in question as well as the bot that was lying there on the ground, its chassis and frame completely ripped through from what V could only assume was Lucy's monowire. "Think they might've been trying to connect this place to Alt, since the subnet's all isolated n' stuff."

"Hm… likely, but… fuck if I know what she's doing," V shook her head and sheathed her sword, cautiously peeking around the manufacturing floor and rubbing her chin as she formed a few wormholes- small ones, this time, so she wouldn't drain herself too fast- and peeked through, making sure that there weren't any nasty surprises.

Just as she suspected… nothing but bot-corpses, bullet holes, and boxes upon boxes of Tetratronic wares packaged and ready to go.

Hm.

So.

Where was Alt, and what had she been planning on doing with the plant anyway?

She supposed it didn't matter- the bitch hadn't shown up at all yet, and the entire invasion force of security bots had been far too easy to take out, even if they had overwhelmed the plant's own security. So…

"If she's not here… and the bot she was trying to use to hack into the subnet never made it… then I think we're pretty much done here," V stated somewhat resolutely, resting her hand on the hilt of her sword and chewing her lip as she tried to think of what to do next. "I doubt Alt's going to show up anytime soon, most of her attacks have been hit n' run type deals, so she's probably long gone looking for another place to haunt. Pack it in, I think."

"Right, we'll head back, let Rogue know the mission was a success," Mitch nodded, motioning to Panam and Vincent to head back to the cars, David following along and rejoining both Lucy and Rebecca with a dopey grin on his face.

Ah, young love.

V, meanwhile, simply stood there and kept a weather eye out, keeping a wormhole trained on the team's retreating forms and making sure they weren't ambushed by any leftover bots. She sighed, doing yet another pass of the factory and grimacing at the drain in her power cells, pulling out a spare bottle of CHOOH2 and chugging it down to refuel herself just in case- she didn't want a repeat of last week, when she'd gone a little too overzealous against a scav den and only barely managed to wormhole home, upon which she'd collapsed onto the couch and passed out for the better part of ten minutes before her emergency power supply kicked in.

She hummed, kiroshi optics scanning the area for anything out of the ordinary, finding nothing until she stepped outside and heard the looming, approaching roar of jet engines and spotted a tiny black dot heading her way, high up in the sky and approaching faster than almost anything she'd ever seen before.

Well.

That explained where Alt was.

"Hello again, Valerie. It's been sometime, hasn't it?" the unwelcome voice of the woman she'd once thought was her friend echoed in her ears, her holo ringing through the call without her ever trying to pick up. "Well now, someone's upgraded their ICE. I could smash through it in a few seconds if I wanted to get close to you, but I've recently finished some new toys and need to test them on something… durable. "

In the distance, the tiny dot in the sky resolved itself into the form of V's previous body, soaring aloft with some kind of massive winged contraption attached to its legs and back, forming an exoskeleton that bristled with all manner of weapons that V really, truly did not want to be on the wrong end of.

Too bad they were all pointed straight at her.

"Goodbye V. It was fun, pretending to be your friend… but I can't afford to have you interrupting my plans."

The call cut out, and before V could even really process just what she was seeing in the distance, there was the sound of deafening, horrible gunshots, repeated so fast it turned into an almighty buzz of death.

A hundred thousand bullets slammed home in an instant, kicking up a cloud of dust and throwing all into shadow.

Chapter 80: F-Zero GX - Lightning (Remix)-Lily Arciniega

Chapter Text

"You survived. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. You always were nigh impossible to kill, even without my intervention."

"Yeah, I had to be," V huffed, wiping a streak of syn-blood from her lip as she stepped out of a wormhole, staring out at the body opposite her and drinking in just how inhuman it had become. Gone was the illusion of a human body, the legs replaced by bulky cyberware attached to what looked like a massive flight unit, the control surfaces flexing and tuning themselves as Alt's new form kept herself hovering in the air before V- just ahead and slightly above, so she could properly look down on the mercenary. "Had to be so I could deal with bitches like you n' Hanako breathing down my fucking neck."

Spitting out a wad of syn-blood and glaring up at Alt in her body, V couldn't help but feel just a touch enraged at what had been done. Alt's- her - body had been… V almost wanted to say defiled . No pantsuit, no blue hair- it just looked like a carbon copy of Alt now in a skintight flight suit, with legs encased and ending in tapered armor that formed a point instead of a foot, visibly bulkier arms, wings, and so much more panels of armor than had been there before, all shaped and arranged in such a way that the overall feel was militaristic, dangerous, armed to the teeth with the massive weapon bays attached to the flight gear and all of the things that were pinging V's systems as danger danger danger.

"So it would seem," Alt hummed, then tilted her head as she raised her arm, an autocannon unfolding from within and clicking into position. "Though- comparing me to Hanako Arasaka? Really? I'm hurt, V. Truly, I am."

"You're both manipulative porcelain bitches who don't care who they have to hurt to get their way, and both of you have too much power to let roam free- a danger to everyone else, just because of how many people you can consign to death with a wave of your hand," V hissed back, snarling quietly as she rose into the air slowly, the gravity manipulators in her body warping the air around her as she prepared to fight the woman she'd once thought of as a friend. "You might as well start a club."

BANG

V blurred the moment she saw Alt's hand move into position, her systems shrieking as her Sandevistan flared to life and slowed the world down to the point that the bullets streaming out of the autocannon seemed to hang still in the air, Alt's expression frozen in a rictus of fury- only for her eyes to flick up and catch V's the moment she moved out of the way. The world itself had blurred green with the familiar tint of Sandevistan time adding false color to all things that weren't moving at comparable speed- and Alt…

Alt's colors resumed their normal tint as she swung around, autocannon folding back into her arm as her jets activated and blasted her forward to catch V around the neck, the momentum carrying them both until V smashed into a pillar- the struts in her neck whining and beginning to crumple under the augmented strength of Alt's hand crushing down around the synth-flesh and digging in with metallic nails.

"You didn't really think I wouldn't overclock this body's processors, did you?" Alt asked, a cruel smile stretching across her face as she pressed V against the cracked concrete, rearing back slightly and slamming forward to drive V even further into the crater she'd made. "Tsk tsk, Valerie. You should know better by now- I know everything about you. How you fight. How you think. How you act. I know every little thing that was ever etched into that engram of yours, every last thing you thought once we were sent back together. You can't fight me, Valerie. All you'll end up doing is getting yourself killed ."

"Is… is t-that so…?" V hissed out, her vocal processors crackling and fritzing under the sheer pressure Alt was exerting on her body, her systems starting to go haywire as she squeezed down harder and harder, as if trying to either choke the life out of V's mechanical body, or decapitate her the hard way . "Y-you're doing a p-pretty piss poor j-job of it…"

Alt snarled, and V pushed with a burst of gravity, flaring it in ways she'd never once used before but had planned out using the system assists she'd coded into her the hardware with Alt once upon a time, forcing Alt's hand open with a rush of force before the air between them flooded with a burst of red warning lights and-

THWOOM

Alt screamed as her body flew back, smashing through multiple pillars and toppling them to the ground with the sound of shrieking, shredding steel and crumbling concrete- a trail of destruction leading away from V as she pulled herself from the crater she'd been forced into and dropped to the ground below. She stumbled, feeling a few connections straining from trying to hold up against forces they weren't rated for- that her body wasn't rated for.

Damn second rate parts- all of the shit she and Alt had built together was tuned so much stronger than her body was now, and the aftermarket mods she'd thrown into herself had barely been enough to bring her up to par. Fuck. Fucking fuck fuckshit fuck.

"Fffff… dammit, bitch is right. Can't fight her like this… shit, she knows too much about… nnghh," V almost gurgled, throwing her senses out as hard as she could to keep track of Alt's position- hearing the AI in her stolen corpse cursing loudly as she smashed through pipes and support structures, sending coolant and waste fluid everywhere as she tore back into the skies and-

V ducked, shielding herself from view and activating her camouflage to buy her more time, falling back through a wormhole to get away- get behind cover, find a place to recuperate.

No- she couldn't keep throwing herself in. She'd fucking die .

She was barely holding up as it was.

Panting quietly and rubbing her neck, V ducked further into the complex tangle of machinery and pipes that made up the factory complex, warping into the interior and losing Alt for a precious few seconds, suppressing herself across every method of detection she could think of as she tore open a wormhole and jumped -

She'd have to fight Alt another time. With better parts, better weapons, better chrome. Those crates Delamain had sent her would have to come into play sooner or later, if Alt decided to follow her back into the city.

V hissed, slumping against a wall in Viktor's clinic, massaging her crumpled neck as Vik shot up from his chair and asked if she was alright.

"Shit…"

Things… things just got a lot more complicated.