Brian and Zaunya carry a brisk pace... weaving through heavy foot traffic and a shouting match over a fender bender. The hustle and bustle of Heywood amongst the chaos echoes the get down you'll find in Santo Domingo... however, to the natives? To Brian?... This is where the lucky chooms are born... at least their daily life or death struggle comes with a chance to rub shoulders with the ruling elite... grass is always greener n' all that. Closer you are to the city center... the more fertile the ground.
The pair enter a stacked apartment complex with endless floors. They make their way through the unkempt front lobby past residents and blue collar building mechanics going about their day... giving them subtle glances as these two towering solos pass by packing gear like they mean business. No matter how well you might try to blend-in in this town, if you're not from there... people know it.
A light breeze flows through the long hallways as Brian and Zaunya exit an elevator onto the top floor. They walk down the long tattered hallway with stray trash and stained carpet.. noticing multiple cameras throughout. Some were completely busted... however the cameras that were functional followed them directly as they walked past each one. Brian notices and abruptly stops walking.. causing Zaunya to do the same, looking over at him.
The cameras follow suit and stop as well... locked in on the pair.
Zaunya picks up on it.. glancing directly at Brian returning the look.
They continue walking as the cameras follow.
They arrive at the apartment door matching Mama Welles' deets. As Brian takes a knee and begins to run his fingers along the edges of the doorframe, it abruptly slides open causing Zaunya to snap draw her Nue and point it inside. He stands up and slowly pulls his Nue... exchanging a look with each other before entering with iron drawn.
The apartment catches them by surprise... they look to see the massive size of the living area. The next three apartments over have had the walls removed allowing for a huge open and cascading living space. The opulence on display was waning but still clear. An all white and red theme was visible throughout... white leather couches, red furniture with white and red cushions... chandeliers hung from the ceilings as they walked on white marbled floors. It was as if the rat had cracked open his piggybank and sunk whatever he had left into this place... doing his best to look like the biggest fish in the smallest pond of Heywood.
"What the fuck..?" Zaunya whispers confused as the pair make their way through the place clearing rooms and checking out the opulence on display. Zaunya uses her Kiroshis to scan the area, temporarily turning her eyes a golden yellow... offering her enhanced sight and detection.
"Definitely not a temporary stay for this one. A stealth place like this..? Choom had the mind to plant roots here no doubt." He mutters.
"Where do you want to set up-" She asks glancing over.
She suddenly sees Brian's entire body begin to tense and seize up as several static sparks fly out of some of his neuro ports. He squeals in pain briefly stumbling to one knee.
"Brian!?" She shouts rushing over.
"I'm... i'm alright... the fuck was that?" He grits, taking deep breaths trying to gather himself and slowly stagger to his feet.
The pair of them raise their iron as they continue to scan around the apartment on alert. Zaunya then hears the sound of Brian's Nue clack to the white marble floor with a loud thud.. cracking a piece of the marble on impact.
She looks over and sees him with hands on his head... he shrieks in pain, collapsing to the floor. His vision starts to black out... seeing yellow static and particles flickering.. making it nearly impossible for him to see.
"BRIAN!!" She runs back over to him; He blinks, rolling back and forth... rubbing his eyes trying to clear his vision, withstanding the pain. Feeling as if someone is twisting the very nerves in his brain... like a migraine at the end of a police taser.
Zaunya looks up to see someone stood at the far end of the apartment nearly fifty yards away looking over at them.
They stand still with arms rested at their sides... they sported a sleeveless Cyberpunk yellow hoodie with black jeans and boots... their hood was up... leaving her only able to see a black digital mask covering their entire face. The mask has yellow LED lights... illuminating what looked like digitally pixelated eyes staring directly at the two of them ominously. The pixel nature of the face made it look emotionless... creepy... as if it were designed to evoke a particular neural response.
She quickly points her Nue up at the person causing them to take off... sprinting through a door they were stood next to at the far end of the connected apartments. Zaunya triggers her Sandevistan... Brian laying nearly blind watches her flash after them out the door on the far end.
Brian groaning, rolls over on his side and begins to immediately feel relief... his vision and body abruptly return to normal as the neurological tension in his body releases. He takes deep labored breaths as his eyes open wide in shock as he slowly stumbles back up to his feet. He hears the sound of Zaunya scream in pain louder than he thought possible causing him to jolt... turning to race out the door they came in from.
He looks down the hallway's stretch and sees Zaunya collapsed on the floor... twitching and contorting her body as she rolls around in pain... the yellow hoodie standing over her with their back toward Brian.
Zaunya screams even louder as her eyes open wide from unbearable pain... surging through her back and limbs as she helplessly rolls on the ground. Her eyes close tight.
Brian suddenly yanks them down by their hoodie from behind causing their mask to fly off down the hallway... snatching the hood off of their head. Zaunya immediately feels instant relief as she lays rolling back and forth whimpering in deep, fleeting pain... her entire body throbbing uncontrollably. Brian points the Nue directly at the person's forehead, clicking the safety off.
His eyes open wide at the sight... his finger curled around the trigger a twitch away from firing.
In complete disbelief, he whispers to himself gritting his teeth.
"Its a kid.... Its only a FUCKIN' kid..."
The expression on the kid's face is of complete fear and surrender. With his eyes open wide he puts his hand up in front of Brian's blood red, crimson Nue.
"P-please.. i- i didn't-"
Brian slaps his hand away and presses the barrel directly to his forehead.
"What the FUCK did you to her!!!" He shouts wide eyed, baring teeth.
"She- s-she's ok! i- i let go! i didn't-"
Brian shoves him down further into the floor before quickly getting up and rushing to Zaunya's aid.
He gently rolls her over... hearing her deep labored breathing as he cradles her in his arms... she wraps her arms around him, wincing in pain as he slowly helps her to her feet. She falls back onto the wall of the hallway with a thud and head hung down, completely out of it as Brian gently grabs her face checking on her. The power of this kid's quickhack having taken a serious toll on her.
While doing this, they hear the sound of the elevator ding as it casually slides open down the hall... causing all three of them to look over.
As the elevator casually slides open, sure enough they see their target... three huscle of differing sizes on escort.
The corpo sees the three of them as his eyebrows lower and his eyes open wide. "HEY!!!!!!!!" He roars at the top of his lungs. The kid quickly rolls over on his stomach to see who it is.
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING ON MY!-" The corpo's screaming is cut by one of his huscle quickly yanking him back deeper into the elevator.
"GO!!" He yells to the biggest of their group who confidently steps out of the elevator into the hallway. He's huge... sporting traditional black corpo security wear with shoulders the size of football pads. A towering size with formal implants earned over the course of a steady career. He steps forward while the other two huscle quickly step in front of the corpo and the elevator casually closes.
Without hesitation, the huscle charges down the hallway at break-neck speed... the sounds of his weighted boots thump hard... shaking the walls and withered floor underneath them giving way.
"Oh SHIT!" The kid shouts as he quickly rolls out of the way of the charging bull, barely avoiding getting trampled.
The huscle crashes into Brian at full speed.. the impact knocks Zaunya off of her feet as she falls to the ground still completely out of it. Brian catches the charge energy... sprawling before attempting to twist his body and throw him using his own momentum to no avail. He grabs Brian by his waist and uses all of his strength to lift and fling him at the wall of the hallway with a labored roar of a grunt. Brian hits the wall hard to a loud crack as a massive chunk of it caves in kicking up drywall dust and debris into the hall. The force of the impact doesn't faze Brian at all... he lands on his feet, grabbing the corpo by the back of the head and throwing an elbow directly at his face. The impact of his new titanium vanadium bones powered by his new bionic joints combine with his refined technique... delivering a crushing blow with booming impact as chrome meets chrome... staggering the ganger back stunned. He throws another elbow... chrome cracks chrome meeting flesh this time... effortlessly sending blood and teeth flying... gashing open skin and leaving a dent in his face. Brian then steps forward, putting his leg behind the ganger stumbling backward to trip him. He clutches Brian's jacket and the back of his neck on the fall down, causing them both to tumble to the ground.
He uses his momentum to roll on top of Brian, grabbing one of his wrists and using his other forearm to pin him down by his neck choking him. As Brian reaches up to claw at his face, he feels their physical strength near equal.. even if their skeletal structures aren't. The air compression.. the working mechanics engage in the huscles forearm servos and gorilla arms as he begins to apply immense pressure to Brian's neck and wrist. As the strength of the overclocking cyberware begins to slowly overwhelm Brian, sparks begin to shoot out of the arms. The pressure suddenly begins to let up around his neck as the gorilla armed squeeze release. The huscle sits up and looks at his arms with wide eyed confusion. As sparks continue to fly out of them, he quickly grabs his own throat with both hands strangling himself. The force of the strangulation making him fall to his back off of Brian.
Brian looks over to see the kid stood about ten yards away... seeing the red glow in his eyes with a serious look of focus on his face as he quickhacks the corp slave.
Brian takes the opportunity to jump on top of the huscle... punching him in the face repeatedly with rapid force. The pace and strength of his strikes and breathing gradually increase as blood begins to fly up to the ceiling. As his punches increase in power... the corpos face starts to cave in... blood spraying violently onto Brian's face as he doesn't let up. The kid slowly backs off in fear at the level of brutality. Feeling and hearing that level of weight and chrome clashing at that speed and impact up close... was unlike anything he'd ever experienced. The raw speed and power on display was whiplashingly deafening.
"BRIAN!" Zaunya yells as she stumbles over to him. "STOP!! BRIAN!! Stop!-" She grits, struggling to grab him from behind and pull him off. The force of her pulling causing him to fall backward on top of her. The kid takes another step back.