"You deaf? I said—answer me!"
At Lizzie's entrance, a dozen punk girls pointed weapons at Arnold, blocking his way.
"Say something!"
A leader-type punk woman in a spiked jacket shoved a shotgun against Arnold's forehead.
"12-gauge kinetic shotgun. M-2038 Tactical. Budget civilian defense model." Arnold recited coldly.
"…What?"
Before she could react, Arnold lunged—snatching the shotgun clean from her hands and pointing it right back at her stomach.
"Shit!"
"Careful!"
Weapons cocked around him—rifles, pistols, shotguns—all aimed at Arnold.
He didn't flinch. He pressed the shotgun muzzle to the leader's bare midriff, signaling her to speak.
"…Let him go."
The cold metal chilled her skin; sweat dripped down her forehead.
The others hesitated, then opened a path.
Arnold didn't move.
Instead, he extended a hand toward the leader.
She thought he wanted a hostage—biting her teeth in fury.
He reached toward her chest—
—girls around them turned red with rage—
But Arnold simply grabbed the sunglasses clipped to her jacket pocket.
He snapped them open, put them on, and strode out with the shotgun.
The Mox girls were so stunned they forgot to stop him.
"Fuck!!"
Only when he was gone did the leader explode.
"Chase him?" one girl asked nervously.
"Forget it. Just bad luck today." The leader wiped sweat.
"Besides—Lauren's idiots brought guns in first. Let the freak go this time."
Suddenly, alarms blared.
A dyed-hair girl rushed in.
"Boss! Bad news! That tall guy—he stole your bike!"
"FUCK!!"
The leader ran outside—only to see Arnold already roaring off on her heavy motorcycle, leaving only exhaust behind
"I'm gonna fucking murder a thousand fucking fucks!"
A few streets away, V's beat-up red car screeched to a halt at an alley entrance.
"Goddamn it, Jackie, let's show those bastards what for!" V, who had been lovesick just moments ago, was now a purely explosive mercenary. She violently flung open the trunk and tossed a gun to Jackie.
"That's right, V, let's give 'em a taste of the good stuff!" Jackie caught the gun, grabbed a few magazines, and clipped them to his waist.
V cursed a blue streak as she unholstered the modified Saratoga assault rifle she'd gotten from Berry that morning, switching off the safety.
"Same drill—Big Boom leads the way!" She handed a string of grenades to Jackie, then stuffed her own pockets full of melon-sized fragmentation grenades. It looked like the two were ready to get serious.
"The fuck are you guys!?" Hearing the noise, a few 6th Street gang lowlifes in the alley came out with their guns raised, only to run smack into the fully-armed duo.
"Dak-dak-dak~!!!" Without a word, Jackie mowed down two or three of the gangers.
"Incoming!" Inside the alley, several hurried shouts rang out. The sounds of gun bolts being racked and people running instantly turned the place into a chaotic uproar. Facing the entrance, Jackie and V exchanged a smile, raised their weapons, and charged into the alley.
Ten minutes later, Arnold parked his motorcycle behind V's red car and put down the kickstand. Berry sighed; those two charged so fast, she barely managed to catch up. The rat-tat-tat of gunfire mixed with the sound of exploding grenades echoed from the alley. A black line appeared on Berry's forehead (a sign of distress/unhappiness). So, they were here to participate in the daily routine of "Free America, Gunfight Every Day." She thought they had some kind of emergency.
It was probably a job or a vendetta—but shooting up things was just part of a mercenary's daily life, with reasons ranging far and wide. However, Berry decided to give them a hand. Taking a shotgun off the motorcycle, Arnold, wearing sunglasses and all in black like a ruthless killer, walked into the alley.
Two corners into the alley was a small clearing with a few derelict cars and weeds. The 6th Street crew had planned a transaction here, but V and Jackie, those two killing machines, showed up and caught them completely off guard. "R-r-r-r-r~!!!"
"Die, you motherfuckers, all of you!" V poked her head out from behind a broken wall, her Saratoga submachine gun spitting fire, keeping the 6th Street gang opposite them pinned down.
"Shit, where did this psycho woman come from!"
"Bastard, we can't even fight back!"
Bullets rained down on the surrounding ground, kicking up dirt, and the entire group of 6th Street gangers, despite their various long guns and short guns, was being completely suppressed by just V.
"I'm reloading!" Even with the extended magazines modified by Berry, a submachine gun wasn't a belt-fed machine gun, and V quickly emptied the clip.
"Hot dog time!" Jackie and V always worked well together. The moment V spoke, Jackie hurled three or four fragmentation grenades that rolled right to the feet of the gangers hiding behind the wrecks.
"F-ck!" The 6th Street members saw the grenades land behind the car and didn't even get half of the curse word out before a series of explosions followed. The explosive flashes ripped through the air, flipping over the derelict cars and the gangers themselves.
"Let's go!"
"Wait, V!"
"Dak-dak-dak-dak-dak~!"
V was just about to kick off the broken wall and charge out, but a frantic Jackie pulled her back. The next second, the dull roar of a machine gun erupted, and a literal curtain of bullets poured in. The broken wall and the few concrete pillars serving as cover rapidly shed chunks and were full of holes in no time.
"Come out, you slut! Let me tear you to shreds!" Behind the flames of the recent grenade explosions, a hulking 6th Street brute emerged, clad in body armor. He held a thirty-pound machine gun with its ammo belt, shredding everything in sight like a howling demon.
"Damn it, V, this isn't working! The wall's about to be shot through!" In the gloom, Jackie hugged the wall, sweating profusely.
"Fuck!" The ground and pillars were being hit, sending fragments and dust flying. V, hunkered down next to the wall with her gun, was also frantic.
"They're reloading, fire!" The ammo belt ran out, and the crisp sound of the gun's action clicking echoed. V was overjoyed. She immediately rolled out, crouched next to a pillar, and squeezed the trigger toward the 6th Street brute.
"Tut-tut-tut~!" The sound of the submachine gun, like steel pellets colliding, rang out, and sparks flew off the big guy's body.
"Ahahaha, useless, it's useless!" The brute laughed wildly, completely ignoring the bullets. As they struck him, they only made a dull thud sound, all stopped by the armor plates beneath his clothes, none penetrating his body. During this, the brute fitted a new ammo belt.
"Shit!" V only managed to yell a single curse before ducking back behind the pillar. The next moment, a deluge of ammunition struck, making the pillar rattle violently and send fragments flying, exposing the steel rebar inside.
"Hold on, V! I'm coming to save you!" Seeing V pinned down at the pillar, Jackie panicked and prepared to open fire to draw pressure away from her.
"Boss Cole, the autocannons are ready!" On an exposed platform on the second floor of the building behind the brute, several 6th Street gunners holding control pads shouted in surprise. Immediately after, two autocannons, one on the left and one on the right, activated simultaneously, their barrels pointed toward Jackie's position.
"Dak-dak-dak-dak-dak-dak~!" The autocannons' firepower was even more intense, tearing up everything in their path. Jackie, who was about to peek out, was forced back by the fierce barrage and couldn't raise his head again.
"Fuck!" Jackie was burning with anxiety but had no way out. At this point, the two of them were completely pinned down by three machine guns. If they couldn't find a solution, they would just have to wait to die. The cover walls and pillars were being hammered until the rebar was exposed. Without a doubt, the bullets would punch through the cover and turn them into bloody pulp in less than half a minute. Their situation was dire to the extreme.
"Huh?" On the second-floor platform, the 6th Street shooters, excited to watch their enemies be shredded, heard footsteps behind them. "Is th—" Before the word "there" was even out, a muffled shot rang out, and a huge hole blew through his skull. "We got company!" Seeing this, the remaining shooters' souls jumped out of their bodies, and they spun around, sweeping their guns toward the sound. But the newcomer was faster.
"Bang, bang, bang, bang~!!!" Flash after flash of muzzle fire illuminated Arnold's cold face beneath his sunglasses. He stood at the stairwell like an iron tower, his shotgun firing rhythmically, blasting the gangers to the ground one by one. The shotgun ran out of ammo just as the last shooter fell.
Arnold dropped the gun without looking back and walked over to the autocannons. Automated turrets were cheap and effective self-defense weapons for homes and businesses. They had some anti-hacking capability, but that was irrelevant to Arnold, as Berry hadn't installed a netrunner chip in him.
However, he had a more direct method. He punched through the control panel, pulling out a handful of sparking wires. The autocannon instantly went silent. He did the same to the second one, and in less than ten seconds, both autocannons were completely disabled.
"Fuck, these wastes! Why did the cannons stop?" The absence of the autocannon fire behind him made the 6th Street brute suspicious, and Jackie and V, hiding behind cover, were equally confused. Did the enemy's cannons short-circuit? They could only guess. It couldn't be that the 6th Street crew turned them off themselves, especially at the moment they were about to wipe them out, could it? Regardless, the opportunity to counterattack had arrived. Jackie and V were relieved to have survived. They gripped their guns, ready to deal with the machine-gun-wielding brute.
The machine gun ran out of ammo again. The 6th Street brute cursed his useless teammates while feeding a new belt, assuming the turret must have jammed and those wastes were fixing it. But he couldn't help but wonder, could two cannons really jam at the exact same time? He would never get the chance to question it again.
Arnold stood at the edge of the second-floor platform, looking down at the idiot still reloading. A suppressed impulse suddenly surged within him. After all, who could refuse a spectacular drop-kill after a hard day's work? Without further thought, Arnold leaped. His three-hundred-plus-pound body, acted upon by gravity, plunged down like a cannonball, leaving a trail of motion blur.
In the silence of the cease-fire, the machine gun brute was still replacing his ammo belt when he felt a sudden danger over his head. He instinctively looked up, only to see a mass of black hurtling directly down, its landing spot precisely his own body.
Stunned, he tried to raise his gun. A deafening BOOM sounded, a flash of explosion, and the ground seemed to shake, forcing the just-peeking Jackie and V to instantly retreat behind the wall. As the explosion dust settled, the two cautiously peered out. In the spot where the machine gun brute had been, only a tall man in a black leather jacket stood. As for the brute, he was nowhere to be found—or rather, he was everywhere.
"I'll be back." Arnold's face was splattered with blood. To the confused stares of Jackie and V, the smoking cannon barrel in his arm retracted, and he spoke the cryptic phrase in a thick, growling voice. Jackie and V exchanged glances, completely baffled by what the strange man meant. Watching their bewildered expressions, Berry, who was observing from the shadows, thought to herself, You two just don't understand the romance of the era.