An Engineer In Night City - ch 10.3 (Patreon)

Race for Arasaka Tower (3)

Ahead of the crew, the kidnappers run through the streets and back alleys of Night City with ease, jumping over obstacles without slowing down. One of their numbers even finds time to perform parkour tricks during their escape.

“How can they run so fast?”

Rebecca’s scream of frustration still rings in Maine’s ears, but he has to admit he should have paid more attention to that aspect of their training. He vows to rectify that deficiency once they have the time, but for now, they need to deal with the issue.

Maine gruffily answers the short solo. “They probably have a similar setup as ours.” Clearing his throat, Maine gives his next order. “Engage the exoskeleton in bursts, team. I will set up a timer, and whenever it hits zero you keep it active. I doubt their energy can outlast ours. On your marks!”

As the crew prepares to catch up with Faraday’s crew, they receive a message from Mark.

“One of their numbers will target civilians to cause a ruckus ahead, someone needs to stay behind and protect the population.”

Dorio interjects promptly. “I will stay, the medical kits I loaded should be useful for this."

Despite the worry, Maine grimly agrees with his output. “Stay safe, Dorio.”

The crew’s second-in-command smiles behind her helmet. “You’re not going to get rid of me so easy, you big oaf.”

Dorio splits off from the group and follows the directions towards the kidnapper until she returns to the main road.

The woman is standing in the middle of the road, with some cars stopped while others try to run around her form. “Welcome, meatbags! It’s time for me to show Wube Inc.'s true colors!”

Several mechanical arms extend from the back of the kidnapper, each holding a grenade, or a firearm. With a flick of her wrist, the grenades fly towards the civilian population.

Bracing for impact, Dorio takes her grappling hook and shoots toward the civilians, grabbing the protesting people before shooting away from the explosion.

Suppressing a cry of pain from using the grappling hook, the Solo rushes towards another group of civilians that are in the line of fire from the psycho.

For now, Dorio prioritizes saving the civilians and treating injuries waiting for the opportunity to take down the psycho merc.

“Look who we got here chooms, one of Wube Inc.'s mercenaries. Take a good look at her, acting like a hero, working for the new best company in the city, who made their fortune stepping over the bones of my family!”

The mercenary tone shifts, gaining a mechanical, static-filled tone. Her extra arms continue to threaten the nearby population by throwing explosives and firing their weapons. Cars start to crash and pile up from the attack of the psychotic woman.

Dorio ignores the woman’s rambling for the moment, focusing on taking the uninvolved people away to safety, however, she feels a sharp pain on her side as she staggers.

One of the multiarmed women's weapons pierced Dorio’s side, and the shooter approached Dorio with a widening smile.

The mercenary takes off her mask to reveal her sculpted face, before repeating her action, but this time, several locks on the side of her skull open allowing the mercenary to reveal the hidden chrome beneath.

Her eyes were replaced by spider-eyes-like optics, her nose was replaced by a filter without cartilage to show off the natural bone structure of her metallic skull. Her lips are gone, leaving only the metallic skull and steel teeth beneath it to remind others of the beauty she once had.

Dorio recognizes the chrome replacing the kidnapper’s face. “Maelstroms”

“Thank you for recognizing me, Animal whore. Oh, I know everything about you.”

Glad for the pause in the carnage, Dorio doesn’t respond to the ex-ganger threats, staying in place to determine how to best take down the menace.

The Maeltro gang continues her tirade, “a fucking sellout that joined the MONSTER who killed my brothers and sisters! Ah, I remember like it was yesterday.”

As the woman rambles, she resumes throwing explosives at the civilians.

Forced to act, Dorio uses the grappling hooks to move around the battlefield, this time forming a ring of upturned cars to create a wide space between the psycho and the pedestrians.

The ex-Maelstrom doesn’t show signs of being bothered, continuing her rambling without pause.

“Before, I  lived a life of empty luxury. I had a fake father, a spineless mother, and a useless younger brother. I lived deluded into thinking I was happy. Then my new family brought me to their inner sanctum, and through the sacred lash and blessed scalpel, they tore away at the false flesh that imprisoned me, whispering me loving words of encouragement as I accepted the real me, and found my calling as the blessed of machine!”

Relived after securing a rudimentary perimeter, Dorio shoots at the grenades thrown by the psycho, blowing them up in mid-air.

The psycho still goes on with her tirade.

“I was enlightened, while you are nothing but an Animal! I once respected the gang, as they accepted their real selves, but you ran away from them, a mere animal pretending to be a human being! You’re worse than scum, a traitor who -ouf!”

The Solo tackles the psycho, struggling against the various mechanical arms for a moment, but with a mental switch, she activates her exoskeleton to full power. “You talk too much, bitch.”

The pair roll on the ground until the Solo grabs one of the psycho mechanical arms and rips it off from her back. Having a new point of leverage, she tears off the extra limps with ease, keeping one of them as an improvised club.

With the woman mostly pinned to the ground, Dorio realizes something.“I don’t care about the Animals anymore.”

“We both got our lives ruined by gangs, but you embraced their bullshit I hated the Animals. Maelstrom got decimated, and the Animals now are a shadow of their former selves.”

The ex-ganger tries to escape Dorio’s hold by activating all of her chrome to force herself away, but the Crew second in command is more skilled than her opponent.

“The difference between you and me? Somewhere along the way, I let go of that hatred, that weight, that burden, while you got drunk in it and sank deeper into the abyss.”

The venue fell silent for a second as if the screams and sirens outside didn’t exist, but then the Maelstrom remnant started to laugh. It starts deep and slow, quickly growing in deep and volume as the voice distorts into an inhuman noise.

An abnormal heat comes from the woman making Dorio's eyes widen in realization. Pushing her chrome and the power armor capacity to the maximum, the Crew second in command jumps high into the air before launching the Maelstrom even higher.

When the body reaches the apex of its height, the hidden bomb explodes, the air pressure of the explosive breaking glasses and launching Dorio back into the ground. Had the bomb gone off on the ground, however, it would have caused far more destruction and casualties.

The Solo lands on the ground with the famous “superhero landing,” cracking the road beneath her feet, but otherwise, she isn’t further harmed by the explosion.

Unfortunately, the Maelstrom last surprise has just arrived.

“NCPD, freeze!”

Tentatively, Dorio raises her hands. ‘Shit! The police are here! What do I do, should I run? Do I fight back?’

“Dorio, what happened, we hear a large explosion coming your way!”

Relieved, she answers her fiance. “The NCPD arrived right after the bitch blew up! The pigs haven’t tackled me to the ground yet, what do I do?”

“One second.”

Three heartbeats later, Mark is on the line.

“Dorio, listen carefully. Follow the cops' instructions. Don’t fight back under any circumstances. Tell them that your armor has a lock if they tell you to show your face. I activated my lawyers and they will deal with this issue. Understand?”

She resists the urge to nod and then answers. “Alright, got it.”

“On your knees, scum!”

She gets on her knees, and a braver officer slams her face to the ground before cuffing her with a pair of handcuffs she can easily break. ‘This is going to be a long night. I hope the others are doing better than this.’

“I said on your knees!”

…

Back with the rest of Maine’s crew, they finally caught up with the kidnappers and both Maine and Rebecca started to fire at them, aiming for their ankles and other non-lethal areas. They responded by throwing more smoke grenades at the Crew, creating a white curtain.

Maine isn’t worried, as the tracker on David still works normally, however, from the curtain of smoke a pair of mercenaries come out to intercept the crew.

Their armor almost looks like a second skin while leaving their faces exposed, showing their familiar connection. One of the solos has red hair, shaved on the left, while the other twin has blue hair shaved on the right, mirroring each other like twins. They both have slender figures with narrow shoulders and wide hips, with the red twin having larger breasts than the blue twin.

“Hey sister, look what we got here,” the red twin says while taking out a sword.

“I can see them clearly, brother,” the blue twin answers while unholstering a rifle.

Rebecca immediately recognizes the pair. “I know who they are, they’re the Red Blue twins. Former Moxies with a bad reputation of brutalizing even good clients, until the leadership kicked them out.”

Unimpressed, Maine raises his rifle to the pair, “whatever. We outnumber you two, either step aside or start praying.”

The twins' smile turns feral, and then between one blink and the next they disappear.

Maine's hairs stand up and he raises his rifle to block the blow on reflex, however, Rebecca intercepts the strike with her sword.

The self-styled “Jack the Ripper” parries the blow aimed at her leader, then using her blade she deflects the bullets coming from the blue twin.

With a heavy heart, Maine picks up his Netrunner and starts running. “Sasha, let’s go, let Rebecca deal with them!”

“Yeah, let me take care of those two sluts! I will be back to you guys in no time!”

The Red Blue Twins allow Maine and Sasha to resume their chase, while their gazes lock down on Rebecca.

“Look what we got here little sister,” the Blue Twin says, “a little girl who thinks she’s brave.”

“Indeed older brother,” the Red Twin answers, “a little girl who doesn’t know her place.”

“Okay, seriously, are we going to do this the whole fight? Because I already got sick of it!”

The pair ignores Rebecca's outburst, turning around to almost look at each other, striking an inviting pose to their opponent. 

“Hey little brother, do you remember what our favorite game is?” the Blue Twin asks.

“Of course, older sister, how could I forget?” the red Twin replies.

Between one heartbeat and the next the Red Twin disappears in a blink as she circles her opponent who appears to stand still, giving the sword-wielding twin plenty of time to align the blade for a decapitating blow.

Rebecca’s eye follows the movements of the former Moxi, and she bends her body to narrowly evade the lethal blow. With a flick of her wrist, she strikes back where her enemy should be.

The Red Twin is elsewhere, already back to the initial pose the Twins started, as if they had never moved in the first place. This time it is the Blue Twin that disappeared, taking distance to fire at the the small Solo with her submachine gun.

Once more, Rebecca accompanied the movements of the Blue Twin with her eyes, flicking her wrist to deflect each bullet fired with her sword until the Blue Twin was also back at the starting position.

“Oh my! Little sister, did you see what the little girl just did?”

“Yes, I saw! Big brother, isn’t she cute? It makes me want to gobble her up!”

Rebecca calms her breathing, getting into a ready stance to face off against her two opponents.

“First off, bitch, I’m adorable. Secondly…”

A red hot crimson blade stabs through the air, forcing the Red Twin to dodge left, taking distance from the Blue Twin. The gunner twin tries to raise the submachine gun at Rebecca, but the tip of the weapon falls on the ground by the follow-up cut from their enemy.

The pair manages to retreat from the threat, and the Red Twin snarls at Rebecca. “Bitch.”

Rebecca snorts and once more takes her stance. “If that’s enough to make you break character then I’m going to be disappointed. Come on, gals, try to motivate me!”

Post Chapter Notes

I'm sorry, but after taking so long I just got one update for today. After taking a look at the story and the outline, I realized that I was taking too long because each section doesn't have a definite size. I will fix that issue coming the next arc on Chapter 11. Not only that, but the first section kicked my ass, and I'm not as happy with it as I could. Still, I hope you guys enjoy this arc since it is roughly going according to my design.