\+/ Tales From Night City \+/ Chapter 55 - Hostile Area
The sound of heavy weighted boots walking in tandem echoes throughout the long dark halls of the Hotel Pistis Sophia.
In Night City, trust can be hard to come by... However... strangers uniting behind a common enemy or cause can sometimes be an everyday occurrence. The violence and tyranny at play all but calls for it by the people its inflicted on... However... when the threat has been eliminated or sent packing. What's left..? What CAN be left..?
A big, heavyset merc wanders out into the hall from a room to see Brian and Carter walking towards him.
"HEY!" The merc roars in rage at the top of his lungs-
*BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!* Brian and Carter unload a series of shots simultaneously into the Merc dropping him instantly to his knees lifeless as they continue to walk forward at the same pace. Brian front kicks the dead merc in his chest slamming him onto his back causing dust to kick up in the dirty hallway as the pair step over him. The crack of the gunfire puts them on a timer... Carter breaks left while Brian breaks right, each engaging various enemies:
Brian enters a room and sees a merc in the middle of raising his copperhead assault rifle toward the door. Brian grabs the barrel of the rifle and pushes it upward toward the ceiling while shoving the merc up against a wall. The copperhead lets out a loud burst, blasting holes into the ceiling as Brian unloads 2 shots into the merc's gut and a final one to the head. He then quickly spins around with both hands clasping his iron to see a second merc firing at him who he drops with a single headshot. Carter enters a separate room and is immediately hit in the head with a metal bat by a merc hiding up against the wall, stunning him slightly. The second swing of the bat comes down as Carter instinctually raises his arm to block it, he meets it in the middle and dents the bat in half on impact against his forearm. He raises his Liberty up to the mercs chin and pulls the trigger, sending blood and brains shooting up to the ceiling of the room. He turns around to see another unarmed merc trying to flee and take cover behind a couch. Carter raises the Liberty with one hand while exiting the room and takes a no-look shot, hitting the merc in the back of the head and sending him tumbling over the couch.
Brian and Carter meet each other back in the hallway, continuing up the stairs and reloading. A merc at the top of the staircase aims down and sends a series of shots from his iron down at the pair causing them to quickly duck and return fire. The merc comes tumbling down the stairs past them full of bullet holes with blood streaking underneath him. They quickly step past the tumbling body, race up the stairs and are met by a huge chromed out merc looking nearly full borg carrying a Militech Mk. 31 HMG at the far end of the hallway.
"HOLLLLD STILLLL MOTHERFUCKERSSS! HAHAHAHA!" The merc roars down the hallway as he unloads the Mk 31. The concussive shockwaves of the rounds vibrate the thin narrow halls as giant flaming rounds go flying down it. Brian and Carter again split in opposite directions into separate rooms as several mercs come racing down the hall past the borg. Carter busts into a room with his shoulder smashing the door and flying in hitting the floor. He looks up to see 8 women in it as they all shriek in fear huddled up in a corner as he quickly returns to his feet. They appear to be dolls and joytoys brought here for a client who never allowed them to leave. He looks at the women and raises his eyebrows with a smirk on his face.
"Ladies." He says in a greeting tone like a gentleman before we cut over to Brian who is in a dead lock with a merc nearly equal his size. Brian uses his footwork to shift the merc's weight and momentum off balance, tripping him. The merc reaches for Brian's gun hand and swats his Nue away, sending it flying across the room and hitting a wall with a heavy impact. As the 2 fall to the floor Brian reaches for an empty glass bottle, pins the merc down with his forearm and smashes the bottle over his face sending glass shards and blood flying. He then uses a sharpened edge to stab the merc multiple times in the face and neck. Another merc blasts in through a door to the room with a shotgun and points it toward Brian. Brian grabs the bloody dead merc hes on top of and rolls the corpse nearly on top of himself as the live merc sends a shotgun blast at him. The dead merc's corpse catches the shell putting a huge hole in its back sending a glob of yellow synthblood spraying into the air. Brian then grabs the dead merc's gun out of his belt waist and raises up past the corpse shooting the shotgun merc twice in the face dropping him.
The ladies are next seen screaming and scattering wildly down the hall in fear toward several mercs headed for Carter's room. As the mercs hesitant to shoot the ladies try to aim past them, several of them are knocked off balance while some are pushed to the ground in the chaos. One of the mercs shoves one of the ladies out of the way; "MOVE!" he screams. As he shoves her to the ground he sees Carter with his Liberty pointed directly at him; he shoots him in the face dropping him instantly. Carter then shoots past several of the other women with ruthless and efficient accuracy dropping several more mercs as gunsmoke and bullets continue to fly. He grabs one of the fleeing ladies by the back of her hair causing her to scream and lose her balance as he yanks her back towards him. He pulls her into his chest and turns his back toward a merc firing at the two of them as a couple slugs hit him in the back. Carter then turns to face the merc while still holding the woman down and fires several rounds hitting him multiple times in the chest and dropping him. The woman hes holding onto slaps him in the face and wrestles free from his grip before stumbling and continuing to run away.
At this point, the entire crew as well as backup has been called to the location as over a dozen more mercs are seen entering the hotel and making their way through the halls with iron drawn. Brian and Carter are next seen in the same room back to back.
"Good?!" Brian asks while glancing back at Carter.
"Good!" Carter confirms in an exhausted tone as the pair scramble to reload and check their weapons. They hear the strays sounds of mercs scrambling throughout the various floors and halls of the building while yelling and trying to coordinate. The darkened, hard to see in atmosphere of the place that once served as a tool of psychological intimidation has now become one of their biggest combat disadvantages. As smoke and debris continues to scatter and settle within the area, the pair gather themselves.
"Eyes 360! There's more comin!" Brian says as a flashbang comes flying in through one of the doors causing the pair to scramble for cover at the explosion. An animal then comes charging into the room and attempts to tackle Brian. Brian tries to catch the Animals momentum but instead gets lifted into the air and rammed through several walls. As the animal goes running through the walls and various rooms holding Brian, he eventually loses his balance and falls on top of him as the two begin to wrestle on the ground. Carter is next seen pinned by his throat up against one of the walls of the original room by another big merc nearly the same size as him. The merc's partner tries to get a clean angle on Carter to shoot but can't due to his partner's massive frame wrestling with Carter. Carter then uses all of his strength struggling to raise up the liberty to the side of the mercs head and pulls the trigger dropping him and releasing his grip. Carter is then shot twice by the backup before he returns fire dropping him with a single headshot and falling down to one knee. Before he can gather himself, he scrambles up to the door they came in from and slams his body up against it in attempt to barricade it. As soon as he does this, a flurry of more bullets along with the giant rounds of the MK. 31 come piercing through the door and walls causing him to duck down and cover his head with his arms overwhelmed by the suppressive fire. The heavy stomping boots of the borged out merc and his backup are heard closing in on Carter's cornered position.
As Brian wrestles with The Animal, he's near exhaustion from the entire engagement... The non-stop run through the hotel has pushed him and Carter's bodies to their limits. The animal pulls a knife and attempts to drive it into Brian's face. Brian catches the Animals wrist and re-directs the energy of the stab to his side but is then quickly punched by the animals other fist stunning him. The Animal raises the knife and drives it down a second time but Brian catches the tip of the blade with the palm of his hand as it pierces right through causing Brian to let out a roar of pain. The Animal then uses both hands to push down with the knife.. shoving it deeper through the palm of his hand as Brian struggles to resist the force, gradually losing the deadlock as you hear the two of them grunting and straining with all of their strength.
Suddenly, the high pitched hissing of something hot gradually cutting through metal is heard. The animal on top of Brian shrieks and squeals in pain as he sits up straight after being yanked back by the neck with force. The hot, piercing cord of pink monowire slowly but surely begins cutting through the neck of the animal like a hot knife through butter as blood comes spraying out of it and he hopelessly reaches for it. The monowire finishes cutting through him, severing his head as it lands directly on Brian's chest completely covering him in blood. As excessive amounts of blood continues spraying out of his neck, his body falls to the side off of Brian revealing BugBear standing there with the monowire.
The suppressive fire raining down on Carter's decaying position abruptly stops as various screams of pain and electric static shock are heard on the other side of the wall. The various mercs are seen dropping like flies as smoke and static sparks shoot out of their bodies and heads to the sounds of screaming in pain. As the full borg holding the MK.13 turns to face down the dark hallway he sees nothing but a small pair of red eyes towards the far end of it. This is the last thing he sees before his vision blurs and his implants begin to short circ. The borg does his best to resist the quickhack only for the pain to sink in even deeper as he lets out an even louder scream of pain while dropping to his knees. The sheer amount of chrome present provides a landscape of weakpoints to be picked apart with ruthless precision. The inside of the borg's head explodes as the chrome casing housing his brain cushions the muffled explosion and he drops to the floor lifeless with an extremely heavy, weighted thud on wooden floor.
As Netty slowly approaches out of the darkness with his eyes still red, he stands over the huge borg and speaks in a dead tone.
"All that chrome and no ice... hm... typical." Netty says as blood begins to run out of the lifeless now hallow headed borg's ears, mouth and nose. You hear the subtle pops and cracklings of cooking wires and melting chrome.
"Bad move... choom."
