Chapter 231: Underground Happenings
*CRAAASH!*
The impact is huge, Ori had misjudged the sheer speed they were coming down with, and once they hit the road the AV simply came apart, the wings detaching and most of the body warping. The only thing stopping everyone from being crushed inside was the extra support keeping the cabin affixed.
With the wings gone the AV turns and begins rolling, throwing everyone around like a pachinko machine. Ori barely spots Pilar's head bouncing off of the roof as the rolling stops, somehow placing the AV directly over the abandoned underground Maglev entrance.
"Am I dead...? Because I want to be..." Pilar groans, placing a hand over the bleeding gash on his forehead.
"Everyone alright?" Ori hurriedly asks, knowing Militech was still on their tail. He gets answers from almost everyone, except Rebecca, who was slumped against the former roof-now wall unconscious.
"Maine, help David, I got 'Becca." he states, urging the large main to help David with his still bleeding leg. And once he has Rebecca in his arms he kicks the upturned side door off and ducks down the stairs to the underground with the others following.
Just in time too as once they reached the bottom of the steps the ruined AV burst into flames, courtesy of a volley of missiles from the remaining Militech AVs.
The group runs down into the marketplace and through the crowd which'd been panicked by the abrupt explosion. Since it'd occurred at the entrance, everyone was running around like morons. Some tried to exit the underground via another passage, while others went deeper into the tunnels.
This, of course, provided the group with an insurmountable distraction against the horde of Militech soldiers that'd charged down. They'd been ordered not to harm civilians, but some took their presence as an attack alone, prompting them to open fire in self-defence.
This killed hundreds, most of which hadn't even tried to attack the soldiers and simply got caught in the crossfire. By the time the market was cleared, Ori had led the group deep enough that Militech would have to face the numerous underground factions to get a hint of them.
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"I think we're good..." Ori mutters as the crew steps through one of the original Las Vegas tunnels that'd been shifted ever deeper from other constructions, earthquakes, and other natural disasters. He clambers into a suspiciously good-condition Blue Bird TC/2000 school bus.
Sure, the material of the seats had all but rotted away over the seventy or so years it'd been down here, but the rest of it was fine if you ignored the few broken windows. Shaking his head, he lays Rebecca across the back seats and rests her head on his thighs before beginning to tend to her hair, undoing the knots, picking up wood and metal shrapnel, and brushing it roughly with his fingers.
"We actually made it... One of you remind me to grab a lottery chip, I'm never gonna be this lucky again." Falco utters, tiredly falling into one of the chairs in front of Ori.
"Wouldn't that mean you spent all your luck already?" Ori wonders aloud while wiping a smudge of CHOOH2 off of his lover's cheek... Or was it blood? He honestly couldn't tell at this point, his sense of smell had been out of whack ever since those pyros tried to burn him.
"Can both of you shut it? No one cares about luck, and if it exists it exists to fuck us." Maine drawls in a disgruntled tone as he drops David in a seat.
Falco scowls and fixes his moustache with a twirl of his fingers, "You wanna start on luck with me? How about we get to what the hell you were doin' attackin' that girl! Forget that we were in the center of the god damned Strip, that blast alone could've killed someone!"
Maine growls under his breath and drags a large hand through his filthy blonde hair, "Shit didn't work out as we expected, whaddya want me to do? Get on my knees and beg like some dog!?"
"Maybe talking to one of us before you go 'ballistic', I'd like a fuckin' heads up next time you wanna blow something up near me!" Pilar states.
"You on my jock too? Makes me wonder why I'm even stickin' around for this shit." Maine grouses.
"There's nothing personal about this Maine, but we need to talk about this... We're not just your crew, we're your friends. Most of us have put our lives in your hands more times than I can remember, so when I say this, I mean it... You need help." Ori states, dead serious.
"Help? Fuck d'you mean?" he says with squinted, almost hostile eyes.
Ori simply points at him, specifically, above him. "Your hand."
Maine and everyone else look over, the large merc only now noticing his trembling that was located solely in his left hand. Indeed, he'd unconsciously been gripping his hair to stifle it. He holds his hand in front of him and grips it tightly, wetting his lips. "S'nothing wrong with me."
"Cyberpsychosis, feelings of incongruity with your body, impulsive outbursts of random acts of violence, changes in personality-" Falco starts to list the symptoms. He and Ori had been keeping a close eye on Maine ever since they'd fled Night City, and so he was well versed in the current literature of it.
"Shut it!" Maine abruptly cuts him off, "I ain't one of those fuckin' whack-jobs! I'm not! I'm still me, and none of you ass holes is gonna tell me otherwise!" he slams a fist onto the seat next to him, collapsing it.
"Choom, you've been losing it ever since Dorio got-" Ori pauses as Maine points his arm cannon at his face.
"Don't you fuckin' talk about her! YOU DON'T KNOW SHIT!" he shouts, locking eyes with him.
...
"M-Maine, calm down..." David ceases trying to bandage his leg and interjects, "I don't know zilch about any of this, but you've been different ever since we left Night City..."
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