『Felix Karl Grimm』
Giffany and I walked into the building with a calm stride. The automatic doors parted before us and the first thing we were met with were scanners at the entrance of the building. And two bodyguards dressed in the classic Arasaka edgy red and black. I pulled a bottle of Deadshot Daiquiri from my pocket and started chugging the strong alcohol as they watched.
One of the bodyguards' eyes scanned over me briefly. His features tightened and I could see hints of his narrowed eyes behind his visor.
"Leave, this is private Arasaka Corporation properly. Anything other than immediate vacation of the premises will be met with violence."
I cracked my neck and Giffany turned to me with an innocent smile, suddenly all of the people in a 30-meter radius lit up in red, the combatants at least. It was the reason why Giffany personally installed Kiroshi Oracle specs into my glasses. Her pinging me was a silent message that told me what I needed to know.
We were ready to bring this joint down.
With a single flex of a mental trigger, the large lobby that looked like a futuristic prison with its featureless dark metal walls and harsh lights went from empty save for a few bodyguards to being filled with 30 figure standing a full head and a half over the average man with dark sturdy metal armors covering their frames. Brutal weapons all slung over their shoulders. No tell, one moment, they were not there, the next moment they were.
"What!? Intruders!"
To their credit, they responded to the completely unbelievable scenario with incredible discipline despite their utter disbelief, all reaching for their fancy katana's and their guns. But enhanced as they were, they were no legendary dragon slayers. One of the bodyguards moved forward with unprecedented speed, likely thanks to augmented legs, but his sword was met with a shield that gave absolutely zero yield against their blade. And they were met with the Darksouls Special as while they tried to attack that Black Knight, the other one hit them with a Greataxe so hard they were launched into the ceiling with a sickening crunch.
The Black Knight began their slaughter of the entrance, whatever bullets do find their mark do not leave more than a dent in their armor, 5 of them formed a circle around me as I finished my bottle of Deadshot Daiquiri and felt my senses expand.
I started walking, and the lobby cleared into something more humane looking, a wide, clinically clean lobby with a few suit corpses littering the ground.
Crash!
"Intruders detected! Leave the premises at once!"
A small mech crashed through the ceiling, and immediately the Black Knight's parted to make room, like a procession for a king, and I moved forward.
Ratatatat!
The hail of gunfire that erupted from the attached machine-guns drowned out all sound in the lobby, but my body moved like a cat on steroids and cocaine. I didn't even need to use Precognition, my eyes stayed on the trajectories of the machineguns and weaved around them and approached the mech, at the same time, its weak point was highlighted by Giffany who hacked and retrieved the specs of the Militech Minatour for me.
I moved with unnatural grace fueled by my Dexterity traits and Superhuman thrumming in my veins. I fetched a grenade from my trench coat's pocket and rolled under the mech's legs before shoving the grenade into a gap and leaping away.
BOOM!
The strong high grade explosive grenade did its job, it didn't completely demolish the mech but the impact and heat being delivered into the cockpit sure did turn its driver into soup, judging by the fact that it stopped dead right after detonation.
I dusted my hands and looked at the rubble with some, if I couldn't deal with one mech, I had no hope of making it out of here, so this was basically a benchmark test to see if I really belonged here or not. Safe to say, yes I did.
"Alright, everyone, time to kill, remember, no touching non-combatants. If they surrender and don't have a gun to hide, they are free to live. Other than that, kill everyone."
The Black Knights nodded, and I nodded back before stuffing them back into Familiar Space and walking up the stairs in the building, one floor up with Giffany following behind me without a word like an adorable shadow.
Floor by floor. That was the plan. Prove Arasaka was truly not shit by demolishing every floor and not leaving an inch of this place, as Rebecca would put it, unfucked.
"Intruders! Stop them!" "You made the wrong mistake to come here!" "Stop right there!"
I re-summoned my entourage of Black Knights that came into existence around me and charged forth, at the same time, Giffany and I burst into action as well. I retrieved a pair of Overtures, and she unraveled a pair of mantis blades from her forearms. We both rushed forward, I delivered death from a distance while she moved forward with a blender attached to a cheetah. I had no problem wielding both guns thanks to my ambidexterity which made me exceptionally lethal as I landed headshot after headshot with ease and fluid grace.
Bang! Bang! Slash! Spurrt!
The bodyguards and security of Arasaka Tower were definitely several tiers above the average goons I saw elsewhere. Sandevistan users zipped by, railgun bullets went through doors, turrets came to life from the ceilings only to inexplicably jam, Gorilla Arms and strength enhancement augments users clashed against Black Knights.
It looked like an actual war. Even the Black Knights were being pushed around, but they had the advantage, that advantage being me and Giffany. The Black Knights were not fast enough to content with sandevistans or cut bullets out of the air, but they were walking walls, and they provided more than enough room for Giffany and I to dance around them and execute the opponents.
It was a dance of danger, dangerous even for me, bullets whizzed by, at any moment if I was unlucky I'd be doing a tango with a dozen danger lines indicated by precognition. It was almost thrilling. Yet, despite all of that, I didn't get hit yet, I was performing at my absolute peak performance and Giffany was working triple overtime quickhacking anyone we came across. Not so badly that they died instantly but enough to hinder them. Just to make sure they didn't prepare big anti quickhack measures.
The security was thick, and there would no doubt be hundreds of Trauma Team teams coming here if Giffany were not blocking the signals from reaching. There was no way I wouldn't be fighting Max Tac here, but I could stall their arrival until I thinned out the numbers here considerably.
What I didn't want was Max Tac and Smasher coming down at once, on the off chance that happens, and they hurt each other, that may decrease the value of the tickets I could get. Which would be absolutely unacceptable.
We cleared room after room, some of the Arasaka goons were wearing heavier armor now, and the clamor had spread throughout the entire building, the Elevators and most of the electronics were cut off thanks to Giffany. No one was escaping. I only spared some of the snivelling corpo suits on the ground when we burst into the corridors and cubicles. By the time we reached 60% of the way up, Giffany turned to me with an almost sing-song tone.
"Problem Children are about to arrive."
Giffany jumped on the balls of her feet and said nonchalantly as I sat on a pile of Arasaka grunt corpses. I threw my half smoked cigarette onto the ground and stomped it out and turned my head towards her. In the distance, I could hear sounds of a large flying vehicle approaching.
"Max Tac?"
She nodded.
"Max Tac."
I stood up and cracked my shoulders before reloading my overtures. Max Tac weren't as much of a threat if you were fighting them on your own terms. They were not gods, they were overly augmented psychopaths acting cohesively as a team.
Boom! Crash!
The alarm blaring through the city suddenly became very loud when the wall before me was blown apart by a missile launcher Floating in front of us through the breached wall was a large flying black AV with the Max Tac logo, its side was open, revealing several operatives in the exact same eerie hyper tactical gear.
"Terrorist spotted, engaging."
There was nothing else, no taunting, no exchange, they just started moving, with incredible practiced precision, I saw a flicker of surprise pass by the Netrunner's face as their nose started leaking blood profusely. But I didn't focus on them, instead I focused on the man leaping at me like a cannonball with his mantis blades poised, ready to butcher me.
"Fast boy aren't you?"
His face twisted almost imperceptibly as my waist bent 70 degrees and dodged his wild lunge, my hand shot out and clamped down on his wrist with unnatural strength. The thing under my grip was not flesh but solid steel. But I did not care, in this position I had enough leverage that flesh or steel may as well have been the same thing, I pulled them in before driving my fist into their stomach while putting the amperage of Superhuman on max for a moment.
"Koff!!!"
The man spat blood and guts as his body hit the ceiling, but I did not linger, Precognition flared, telling me to dodge the shotgun blast that was about to hit my chest, from the agent inside the flying vehicle. Instead of sidestepping the blast, I summoned one of my Black Knight's in front of me with their shield already raised.
Bang!
The Black Knight took the blast like it was nothing, and I on the other hand weaved around the knight and pulled out both Overtures and started blasting.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
My modified overtures were too much, they made my wrists sore even with Superhuman active, and the effect was apparent. The bullets ripped holes through the shotgunner and the netrunner. And the remaining two Max Tac agents were currently getting their insides turned into outsides by Giffany after she jumped into the vehicle.
"Gaaah!" "Fu-!"
"Hihi~! Victory~!"
Giffany casually jumped back into the building and stomped the unresponsive Max Tac agent I had dispatched. She was covered in blood but not a drop of it was hers. I smiled with some exasperation and patted her head as her eyes glowed a malevolent pink light, locking onto the still flying vehicle.
"Let's send a... message!"
Crash! Boom!
As if taking a toy from a child, Giffany took control of the Max Tac deployment ship and made it drive itself into several floors above us in a casual nonchalant display with hand motions that looked like a conductor conducting a symphony. The entire building shook from the display. The power of hacking in a world of technology could not be underestimated.
...Every day I spend with Giffany, my decision to not 'chrome up' gets validated more and more.
But just as I was about to keep ascending floors as we were basically halfway there, Giffany suddenly smiled with an almost feral expression. One that unnerved even me.
"Well well well, looks like the big fish is here~."
I tilted my head, but I understood her words almost immediately, I reloaded my overtures at impossible speeds and looked around but saw no one. Of course that was until...
Crash!
The other wall leading to this floor was blown apart, not by a rocket, but by a projectile of raw metal mass crashing through it at the speed of a racing bullet. And that projectile just barely stopped in front of us with it's feet dragging through the floor like it was foam. As the dust settled, the figure stood up to their full height, the red lights visible even before the dust cleared.
A fully sleek and robust cybernetic body made of black metal with red lights shimmering across his body. Kitted to hell and back with armor. The only thing that showed this was a human(?) was the fact that the head was covered by synthskin to an extent. Several red dots on black metal eyes pierced into our very souls. He stood a full shoulder and a half over me. I admit, the sight made even me feel apprehensive.
"You have made it far, meat bags, farther than you should have. But this is the end of the line, you have stepped into my slaughterhouse, and you won't leave alive!"
Adam Smasher has arrived.
A/N: Arasaka Tower is dangerous, but not so dangerous to the bag of bullshit that is Felix and Giffany. Words greatest Netrunner running with a body that is basically Smasher-lite and a guy with future reading abilities, near aimbot and an army of superhumans that can be summoned at will. The tower itself was never going to be a problem. But I hope you guys liked how Felix handled it.
Oh boy, Adam Smasher is here, and he is here to smash some Adams, unfortunately, Felix is not named Adam so he is at a disadvantage. How do you guys think this showdown will go? I'd love to know.
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