The sound of heavy weighted boots walking side by side echoes throughout the long dark halls of the Hotel Pistis Sophia.
In Night City, trust can be hard to come by... however... strangers uniting behind a common enemy or cause can sometimes be an everyday occurrence. The violence and tyranny at play all but calls for it by the people its inflicted on... but when the threat has been eliminated or sent packing... What's left..? What CAN be left..?
A big, heavyset booster ganger casually walks out into the hall from a room to see Brian and Carter walking towards him.
"HEY!!!!!!!!" The goon roars in rage at the top of his lungs.
*BOOM!! BOOM!! BOOM!! BOOM!! BOOM!! BOOM!!* Brian and Carter unload a series of shots simultaneously into the ganger as they continue to walk forward at the same pace... dropping him to his knees lifeless. Brian front kicks the dead goon in his chest slamming him to his back causing dust to kick up in the dirty hallway as the pair step over him. The crack of the gunfire puts them on a timer... Carter breaks left while Brian breaks right... each engaging various enemies.
Brian enters a room and sees a scav in the middle of raising his copperhead assault rifle toward the door. He grabs the barrel of the rifle and pushes it upward toward the ceiling while shoving the scav up against a wall. The copperhead lets out a loud burst, blasting holes into the ceiling as Brian unloads 2 shots into the goons's gut and a final to the head. He then quickly spins around with both hands clasping his iron toward a second scav firing at him... dropping him with a single headshot. Carter enters a separate room and is immediately hit in the head with a metal bat by a scav hiding up against the wall, stunning him slightly. The second swing of the bat comes down as Carter instinctually raises his arm to block it... meeting it in the middle and denting the bat in half on impact against his forearm. He quickly raises his Liberty up to the scavs chin and pulls the trigger, sending blood and brains shooting up to the ceiling. He turns around to see another unarmed goon trying to flee and take cover diving behind a couch. Carter raises the iron with one hand while exiting the room... taking a no-look shot, hitting the scav in the back of the head, sending him tumbling over the couch.
Brian and Carter meet back in the hallway, continuing up the stairs and reloading. A ganger at the top of the staircase aims down and sends a series of shots at the pair causing them to quickly duck and return fire with a flood of rounds. The merc hits a wall, smearing it with blood as he comes tumbling down the stairs past them full of bullet holes and blood blotching underneath him. They quickly step past the tumbling body, race up the stairs and are met by a huge chromed out merc.. looking near full borg. He uses the iron grip of his freshly chipped Vicentennial cyber fingers to tightly clutch his Militech Mk. 31 HMG at the far end of the hallway. A quick glimpse at the branding reads 'Vicentennial - CENTURIES of quality guaranteed!'
"HOLLLLD STILLLL MOTHERFUCKERSSS!!!! HAHAHAHAAAAA!!!!!!" The borg roars down the hallway.. his cybernetically augmented voice shakes the walls as he unloads the Mk 31. The concussive shockwaves of the rounds vibrate the thin narrow halls as giant flaming rounds come flying down it. Brian and Carter again split in opposite directions into separate rooms as several gangers come racing down the hall past the borg.
Carter busts into a room with his shoulder denting the door and flying in hitting the floor. He looks up to see 8 women tightly huddled up in a corner shriek as he quickly returns to his feet. They appear to be dolls and joytoys... very recently brought here for a client and never allowed to leave. He looks at the women and raises his eyebrows with a smirk on his face.
"Ladies." He says in a greeting tone like a gentleman before we cut over to Brian in a dead lock with a scav nearly equal his size. Brian uses his footwork to shift the scav's weight and momentum off balance, tripping him. The scav reaches for Brian's gun hand and yanks his Nue away, sending it flying across the room, hitting a wall with heavy impact and letting off a stray shot. As the 2 fall to the floor Brian reaches for an empty glass bottle, pins the scav down with his forearm and smashes the bottle over his face sending glass shards and blood flying. He then uses a sharpened edge to stab the scav multiple times in the face and neck. Another scav blasts in through a door to the room with a shotgun and points it toward Brian. Brian grabs the dead scav hes on top of and rolls the corpse over, nearly on top of himself as the scav sends a shotgun blast his way. The dead scav's corpse catches the shell chunking a huge hole in its back sending a glob of yellow synthblood spraying into the air. Brian grabs the dead scav's gun out of his belt waist and raises up past the corpse, narrowly missing a second round... shooting the scav twice in the face dropping him.
The ladies are next seen screaming in fear, scattering wildly down the hall in different directions.. some toward several mercs headed for Carter's room. As the mercs hesitant to shoot the ladies try to aim past them, several are knocked off balance while some get pushed to the ground in the chaos.
One of the mercs shoves one of the ladies out of the way; "MOVE!!!" he screams.
As he shoves her to the ground he looks up and sees Carter with his Liberty pointed directly at him; he's shot in the face... dropping him instantly. Carter then shoots past several of the other women with ruthless and efficient accuracy dropping several more mercs in threat level order as gunsmoke and bullets continue to fly. He grabs one of the fleeing ladies by the back of her hair causing her to scream and lose her balance as he yanks her back towards him. He pulls her into his chest and turns his back toward a merc firing at the two of them as a couple slugs hit him in the back. Carter then turns to face the merc, still holding the woman down and fires several rounds hitting him multiple times in the neck dropping him. The woman hes held onto slaps him in the face and wrestles free from his grip.. she stumbles continuing to run away.
At this point, the entire crew as well as backup has been called to the location as over a dozen more mercs are seen entering the hotel and making their way through the halls with iron drawn.
Brian and Carter are next seen in the same room back to back.
"Good?!" Brian shouts over the chaos, glancing back at Carter.
"Good!" Carter confirms.. his tone exhausted as the pair scramble to reload and check their weapons. They hear the strays sounds of mercs scrambling throughout the various floors and halls of the building while yelling and trying to coordinate. The darkened, hard to see in atmosphere of the place that once served as a tool of psychological intimidation has now become one of their biggest combat disadvantages. As smoke and debris continues to scatter and settle within the area, the pair gather themselves.
"Eyes 360! There's more comin!" Brian says as a flashbang comes flying in through one of the doors causing the pair to scramble for cover at the smoky pop. An unarmed animal ganger comes charging into the room, attempting to tackle Brian. Brian tries to catch the Animals momentum but instead gets lifted into the air and rammed through several walls one after the other.. crushing through dusty layer after layer of drywall. As the animal ganger charges through the drywall and rooms holding Brian, he eventually loses his balance, tripping and falling on top of him as the two begin to wrestle on the ground. Carter is next seen pinned by his throat up against one of the walls by another animal ganger nearly the same size as him. The ganger's scav partner tries to get a clean angle on Carter to shoot but can't due to the animal's massive frame wrestling with Carter. Carter uses all of his strength struggling to raise up the liberty to the side of the mercs head and pulls the trigger at the same time hes punched in the face with full force.. dropping him and releasing his grip. Carter stunned by the blow is then shot twice in the chest by the backup before returning fire dropping him with a single headshot... he falls to one knee. Before he can even register the pain, he scrambles up to the door they came in from and slams his body up against it in attempt to barricade it. As soon as he does, a flurry of more bullets mixed with the giant rounds of the MK. 31 come effortlessly piercing through the door and walls causing him to lay down, covering his head with his arms, overwhelmed by the suppressive fire. The heavy stomping boots of the borged out merc and his backup are heard closing in on Carter's suppressed position.
As Brian wrestles with The Animal.. he's near exhaustion from the entire engagement... the non-stop edgerun through the hotel has pushed him and Carter's bodies past their limits.. now carried by pure adrenaline and survival instinct. The animal pulls a knife and attempts to drive it into Brian's face... he catches the Animals wrist and re-directs the energy of the thrust to his side but is then quickly punched by the animals other fist stunning him and breaking his grip. The Animal raises the knife and drives it down a second time... Brian catches the tip of the blade with the palm of his hand as it pierces right through and Brian roars in pain. The Animal uses both hands to push down with the knife.. shoving it deeper through the palm of his hand as Brian struggles to resist the force, gradually losing the deadlock as two of them grunt... straining with gritted teeth and all of their strength.
Suddenly, the high pitched hissing of something blazing hot gradually cutting through metal is heard. The animal on top of Brian shrieks... squealing in pain as he's yanked back by the neck with force. The hot, piercing length of pink monowire slowly but surely begins cutting through the neck of the animal like a hot knife through butter as blood comes spraying out of it while he hopelessly reaches back for it. The monowire finishes cutting through him... severing his head as it lands directly on Brian's chest completely covering him in blood. As excessive amounts of blood continues spraying out of his neck, his body falls to the side off of Brian revealing BugBear standing there with her monowire clasped.
The suppressive fire raining down on Carter's decaying position abruptly stops as various screams of pain and electric static shock are heard on the other side of the wall. The various mercs are seen dropping like flies as smoke and static sparks shoot out of their bodies and heads to the sounds of screaming in pain. As the full borg holding the MK.13 turns to face down the dark hallway, he sees nothing but a small pair of red eyes towards the far end of it. This is the last thing he sees before his vision blurs and his implants begin to short circ. The borg does his best to resist the quickhack only for the pain to sink in even deeper... he lets out an even louder scream of pain while dropping to his knees with a heavy thud, shaking the floor beneath him. The sheer amount of chrome present provides a landscape of weakpoints... to be picked apart with ruthless precision. As the intensity of the hack peaks, the inside of the borg's head explodes... the chrome casing housing his brain cushions the muffled explosion and he drops to the floor lifeless with an extremely heavy, weighted thud on wooden floor
As Netty slowly approaches out of the darkness... eyes still red... he stands over the huge borg... speaking in a dead monotone.
"All that chrome and no ice... hm... typical." He mutters as blood and brains slowly leak out of the holes of his chrome dome onto the dirty carpet... gentle black smoke wafting into the air. The subtle pops and cracklings of cooking wires and melting chrome.
"Bad move... choom."