The Edgerunners
Sasha Yakovleva cried out in pain as she felt her ICON nearly splatter at the merest touch of the mech's BlackICE.
The pain was so great and sudden she lost her footing despite not moving at all, and the corpo troopers immediately smelled blood in the water, raining suppressive fire on their position with reckless abandon and beginning to advance again.
"Sasha! You alive?" Maine roared over the cacophony of rounds.
She winced as she felt Pilar lightly kick her side without looking, and while she was silenced by the nauseating agony in her mind, the lanky man took her cry as an answer "She's breathing!"
"Thank fuck." Maine grunted back, returning disciplined bursts of fire with his spare assault rifle without flinching once.
But his relief wouldn't last long as he saw movement in the distance and immediately yelled "Everyone, back to the elevator room! Now!"
He stayed behind just long enough for everyone to retreat and the corpo's smoke grenades and flashbangs to detonate, ducking under the counter and lobbing his final frag into their most likely advance path before rushing back to rejoin his crew.
The sudden boom and cries of pain were music to his ears.
But he couldn't allow himself to relax for even a moment and the next thirty or so seconds were spent riddling the hallway with enough holes to convince the corpo rats to stop their chase.
They only stopped after a dozen dead.
"Becca!" He called "When is your help coming?"
Before any of them could answer, the big cyborg heard Sasha make noise of horrified awe as every single one of them heard static in their Agents before a connection was established on its own.
[Is this Maine?]
A distinctly synthetic and almost eerily calm voice asked over the distant roar of an engine.
Maine snapped his eyes to Rebecca who was now grinning widely and giving him a big thumbs up.
The cyborg grunted in irritation and answered.
[This is Maine.]
The answer was clipped and precise.
[Good. Exfil is two minutes away. Create distraction if able.]
Just as Maine was about to start barking out orders, his Agent rang out again.
[BattlePing.exe uploaded]
He felt his Optics buzz for a second before half of his sightline was filled with dozens of red outlines.
And of course that was the exact moment an loud boom slammed into his ears.
He rounded on the origin only to see Rebecca still grinning, her mini canon pointed at a freshly ruined vent and in the direction of five outlines, three of which rapidly winked out of existence.
"Flatline the fuckers!" He didn't hesitate to give the order and an instant later the ruined vent was riddled with bullets, and the two contacts winked out.
He almost cursed himself for his own idiocy as he looked back at the main hallway, only to find Dorio had already gunned down the squad rushing them while they were distracted, his partner giving him a smug little smirk before turning serious again.
He allowed himself a short grin and looked to Rebecca "Your choom reliable enough to get us out of this shit?"
"Not like we have much of a choice." She shrugged, a surprising amount of steel in her tone "Either we help him save our asses or we flatline."
"God I love it when things are so simple." Maine couldn't help a dark chuckle "If he wants a distraction, then lets give him a fucking distraction!"
Sasha was still too shaken to join the cheer following Maine's declaration but not shaken enough to let the friends who risked everything for her fight alone.
She ran after them and blinked away the flash of Maine's PLS, gunning down the disoriented Biotechnica soldiers wherever she could, allowing her cold fury at the corporation back to the surface as she shot a crawling man in the back of the head.
A fury that managed to blind her despite her literally being able to see the enemy through the walls as she ignored Maine's order to scatter after they rushed outside the building, netting her a solitary moment of staring into the Minotaur's Optics before she was nearly gutted by a burst of heavy machinegun fire.
Her friends cried out but were too busy surviving the combined fire of the entire Biotechnica blockade and trying to blind the Minotaur to rush to her rescue, and once more the cold hatred was drowned in guilty bitterness.
No help would save them from this.
She was the reason they would all die.
The instant the thought occurred she felt a surge of spiteful determination, and without a care for what remained of her life, she activated her already stiflingly warm Cyberdeck and connected directly to the net.
Only to stop at what she saw.
The eerie silence that came with Rebecca's contact was still there but now instead of the localnet being dominated by the labyrinthine fortress-like ICON of the Minotaur, a different figure had taken center stage.
A faceless and featureless void stood where the face should be, interrupted only by two golden dots. The figure wore an old crimson robe and its legs and arms were made up of bulky old chrome.
The frustratingly familiar figure she couldn't quite place hovered over the mech and its AV transport, its right arm extended and what looked to be crimson strings of code falling from its fingers.
Strings that to both her amazement and horror turned out to be daemons far beyond her skill, daemons that were currently cutting through the AI's defenses without it even noticing.
She began thinking about how to press the situation to her crew's advantage only for the figure's eyes to suddenly snap in her direction.
For a moment she felt incredibly small, and in what was less than a blink, her connection cut off with near-perfect smoothness and she was ejected from her Cyberdeck into the real world.
Immediately, she was assaulted by a wall of pain, and looked up to see a wincing Rebecca dragging her behind a ruined concrete wall with a bloody limp in her step.
"Your choom better hurry the fuck up!" Maine growled at the suicidal shortstack, hiding his relief and ducking behind the same wall.
He wanted to cheer when he heard a loud click from the minotaur, and went up to return fire only to immediately throw himself on his ass as three machineguns click-fired at him.
'Of course they wouldn't reload all at once you fucking gonk.' He cursed inwardly and looked at the pinged outlines "The rats are trying to flank us!"
As if to punctuate his words, the two squads currently charging out of the blockade of Biotechnica vans and APCs were accompanied by a loud stomp from the previously immobile mech, followed by a roar of the AV's engines as it seemed the pilot had finally gotten sick of Pilar's suppressive fire stopping his gunner from just wiping them out.
The footsoldiers rushed in front of the much more valuable mech and as Maine prepared to make his last stand worthy of a Legend, something shifted.
The mech's movements momentarily stilled, and before the Biotechnica goons could realize what was going on, the war machine's torso swung from pointing at Maine's crew to the corpo's backs.
A silent moment passed as both sides realized what was happening, and then everything was drowned out in a roar of gunfire.
No longer did the mech try and conserve its ammo and keep up the pressure, and as if its targeting software had been rebooted it started gunning down the corpo soldiers with almost unerring precision.
And the corpos were unable to do a thing.
Even if they survived, damaging the mech would get them killed anyway. Or worse.
All this only served to have Maine start laughing his ass off, though he did not stop gunning down as many as he could despite it. Each and every kill was another notch to carve into his Legend, even if he didn't survive.
Another contact appeared in his Optics, this time outlined in blue, and a mere second later, the aerodyne that was trying to corral the mech away from the corpo soldiers was blanketed by what looked to be repeated EMP round hits.
The flying vehicle's engines sputtered on and off, and it looked like the barrage wouldn't be enough to take it down.
Except then, just barely, he managed to catch a distinct charging sound.
Michael 'Magos' Sobronov
"Chingada madre!" Jackie cursed at the Biotechnica goons from the driver's seat as he unloaded his Nue into their backs, making the entire scrapheap I liked to call a vehicle shake as he slammed into one of their officers.
Thankfully, my van's new suspensions stopped the van from throwing me around too much and I unloaded my overcharged Burya directly into the AV engine I had just rammed an entire mag of EMPs into.
The already damaged engine sputtered and this time didn't end up reactivating, and the whole thing began spinning in the air.
But it was still not quite enough.
My eyes narrowed as I saw the pilot begin to regain control of the hovercar.
'Oh no.' I glared "Not on my watch."
I stopped uploading daemons to the mech, blasting it with one final wave of forced reloads and optic resets and focused my practically steaming Cyberdeck on the aerodyne, forcefully overdriving his left side engines while shutting off the remaining one on the right.
It was almost comical, how the poor fucker began spinning in the air before the vertigo knocked him out in seconds and he was falling directly towards the Biotechnica barricade.
"Ramming speed Jackie!" I yelled over my Copperhead's report.
"Are you fucking insane, compadre?!" The man almost squeaked.
"You wanted to make a name in this fucking city?" I yelled back "Then shut up and make one already!"
Jackie began muttering prayers mixed in with questions aimed at my sanity or lackthereof.
But he didn't stop driving.
Maine
"Fucking nova." Rebecca muttered with wide eyes as the AV crashed into the most concentrated Biotechnica position.
"Mech is reactivating!" Dorio warned and Maine cursed.
The cyborg looked back to the outline of their reinforcements and very nearly gaped like a street kid as he saw them not slowing down.
Time seemed to slow down at what followed, a cacophonous crash followed by non too little meaty crunches, as two of the Biotechnica APCs were thrown aside by a... fucking Mahir Supron of all things.
The van didn't slow down one bit and just as the mech finished reactivating the van passed by one of its legs, and a flash of red blurred from the van's side door, moving too quickly for a normal eye to follow.
But his eyes were not normal and this time he did gape as he saw a flash of a man even more cyberized than he was swinging out a fucking thermal katana, and some fucking how managing to cut through the armored leg, making the mech fall forward, most of its weight pressing directly onto its guns.
Maine was already moving to the evac vehicle, Sasha slung over his shoulder and the rest of his crew following after him while still suppressing any gonk too stupid to peek out from behind the barricade.
As impressed as he was he knew they were still in the shitter, surrounded and outgunned-
Before he could even finish the thought, the loud report of a Crusher rang out, and the other end of the barricade effectively crumpled under a barrage of heavy shells.
He passed the smoking and buzzing mech and came face to face with his reinforcements.
And whatever he had been expecting, he realized this was definitely not it.
"Get the fuck in, you can gawk later." The familiar synthetic voice cut him from his thoughts and as pissed as he was, he wasn't a gonk.
Maine scrambled into the van, laid Sasha down on an old mattress that was inside for whatever reason and turned to the help only to find himself staring into a proffered Crusher "Suppressive fire." The fucking armored fullborg said, pointing near the side door "Heavy slugs in the sling over there."
He still didn't look at them as Rebecca scrambled in last, and simply yoinked her shotgun from her hands, ignored her outraged 'Hey!' and shouted "Get us moving Jack!"
A latino man Maine had somehow managed to miss in all the excitement responded with a Valentino battle cry and floored the gas.
The van jerked forward and Pilar very nearly stumbled back out of the side door if not for Dorio's quick hands.
Maine shook himself back into the game, and peaked out above the fullborg, just in time for the tin man to start unloading Guts directly into the vehicles in their path, barely even twitching at the recoil.
Maine wasn't going to be outdone by some discarded corpo rat.
Their salvo of heavy munitions cut through the barricade like so much plastic, whatever poor fucker was too slow to throw himself away was then promptly crunched by the modified Supron and just like that...
They were home free.
"Don't relax just yet." The borg warned him "They are already starting pursuit."
"Fuck." Maine cursed in agreement and looked back.
"Use any weapons here. You, big woman." He looked to Dorio and tossed her Guts "Open the rear door when I tell you, we'll need to cut them off if they get too closed."
Rebecca's outraged "Hey!" Didn't go ignored this time.
"Sit the fuck down 'Becca, your leg is mangled." The borg deadpanned.
And of course, Pilar snorted.
Michael 'Magos' Sobronov
The noise in the van almost died as I slowly turned my head to the gangly asshole, purposefully reducing the space between my neck servos to make a creaking noise "You say something?"
Pilar gulped and rapidly shook his head.
And this was enough to satisfy Rebecca who, now aware of her wounds, was now hissing and lolling herself back and forth.
I ignored the rest and focused on the critically wounded of the lot 'Heavy bleeding, multiple broken bones, ripped gut, concussion, Cyberdeck overuse...'
My fellow chrome appreciator (low ranked, and lacking in taste as he was) was busy throwing shells down the road, and Jackie was driving as if all our lives depended on it (they did) but the rest were now staring at me.
"Did I start listing aloud?" I asked, not looking up as I jammed the netrunner with a painkiller.
"Yup." Rebecca gave me a thumbs up, a teasing glint in her eyes despite the pain.
Jackie snorted, and if I wasn't already digging into the 'runner's guts I would have flipped him off.
Instead I took a moment to jam Rebecca with another painkiller.
"Ouch!" She snapped "That fucking hurt you gonk!"
"Shut." My Optics flashed and miraculously, she listened.
Grumbling to myself at seeing her so shot up (non-critically thankfully), I began stitching the netrunner's gut together as best as I could with all the shaking "How the fuck did you all end up in that shitfest?" I couldn't help but ask, somewhat foolishly allowing myself to talk despite the task in front of me.
"Alarm got tripped." The big woman, whose name I couldn't be arsed to hack out of her head, answered "They were on us before we could get out."
"And your vehicle?" I asked, absently nodding at seeing her reload the small canon in her hands.
"Zeroed." She shrugged, wincing as the van shook under fire and she hit her head slightly "Motherfu-" She grunted "The car was the first thing they scrapped."
"Sensible." I nodded, sewing the netrunner's biggest wound together "I've secured a safehouse with Regina Jones, it should last us long enough for your runner's fuckup to pass you over."
The woman narrowed her eyes "How did you-"
Rebecca's slurred reply cut her off "He is my magic man!" She grinned, throwing her a thumbs up, her eyes rapidly losing focus as the painkiller kicked in fully "He can do aaaanythin-!"
Stamping down on the rush that threatened to blank my brain at the worst moment possible, I shook my head and forced a chuckle "Secure her to the van, things are about to get rowdy."
The woman didn't react immediately but did ultimately grab Rebecca and tie her down with a bunch of multipurpose cables I had around just in case.
Just in time for our pursuers to close in and force Jackie into evasive maneuvers.
Every moment that passed meant we were moving deeper into Watson, and since Regina happily threw some cannon fodder- cough fresh and eager mercs to serve as distractions and roadblocks for a reasonable payment we would be able to lose them soon enough.
Of course that did not mean we were safe now.
The van shook as a rocket detonated next to us, and I felt it slow down slightly as one of the tires began losing air.
"Now you bring out the rockets?!" I growled "Motherfuckers!"
"Dorio!" So that was her name! "Now!" Maine roared.
Dorio didn't waste a single moment and kicked the back doors open-
'Fucking asshole! Kick your own damn door!'
-And promptly unloaded on the APC, hitting the driver's seat repeatedly with the artillery shell-adjacent monsters Guts fired.
The APC swerved, and smacked directly into the car trailing after it, and we quickly zoomed past a bunch of mercs waiting in ambush.
I sent them all a quick blip over the net and received an affirmative mere seconds later, and just like that we were safe.
"Close the doors, the danger has passed." I said, tossing the four bullets I dug out of the netrunner into a plastic bottle.
The mercs all made relieved noises and did as I asked, Dorio simply letting herself fall on her back and breathing heavily while Maine slumped against the now secured side door.
Pilar was, of course, already digging into my supply of Broseph.
'Eh, whatever.'
I quickly scanned Rebecca just in case, and found she wasn't anywhere near critical, and then turned to the expectant cyborg, whose eyes were flitting between the netrunner and Rebecca with barely noticeable relief.
"So." Maine spoke up seriously but not forcefully "Who the fuck are you?"
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