章 235: Listless
*Crack!*
Maine's head whips upwards as a fierce uppercut strikes him in the chin. He grits his teeth and forcefully looks down at Ori before slamming his pistol's barrel forwards, trying to jam the thing into Ori's throat to put an end to this. "I'LL END YOU!"
Ori receives it with the back of his hand, jabbing forwards and hitting the carpel tunnel, causing Maine to lose grip on his weapon which flings to the side and under a nearby body. He follows it up with a short punch to the solar plexus which completely knocks the wind out of the large merc. "We could have avoided-"
"FUCK YOU!" Rebecca suddenly shouts, running out from Behind Maine and blasting the back of his knees, forcing him on all fours, or all threes given his missing arm.
Ori sighs and kicks him onto his back before stomping on his arm, keeping it locked in place as Falco makes his way over. Maine struggled to get free, screaming and shouting about traitors and such, but he wasn't able to do anything but squirm.
Rebecca tries to shoot him in the face but Ori moves her hand away, drawing a furious glare from her. "He killed my brother! This is mine! It belongs to me!"
"You think killing him is gonna make you feel better?" Ori quietly asks, "Go, let me handle it..."
She scowls at him, "No."
*BANG!*
A gunshot goes off from her other gun, nailing Maine straight in the eye and putting him out of his misery, the man going limp after expelling his final breath.
"It ain't Maine. It's just a sick dog that needed to be put down." she states before walking away, grabbing Pilar's body and returning to the hideout.
...
Ori and Falco stand there for a couple minutes, staring down at Maine's body in a mixture of grief, anguish, disappointment, disgust, and despondency. Both had tried to prevent this, yet they'd failed spectacularly, even losing Pilar in the process.
The fact that it was somewhat Ori's fault wasn't forgotten either, he'd been the one to ask Pilar to collect him which got him killed in the end.
Falco audibly breathes and pats Ori on the shoulder, "You gonna be alright?"
He shrugs, "Yeah... Go make sure Rebecca's alright. I'll clean up here."
"You sure? This ain't only on you, you understand that?"
"I know that, but my hands aren't clean either." he sighs, "Just another name on the list. Go, we'll bury him with Dorio on our way back to NC."
"He'd like that..." Falco throws one last glance at Maine before departing, leaving Ori alone with Maine and the pile of mole-man bodies.
"Well... Time to get to work." his NMN Injector shoot out from under his wrist. He'd absorb Maine and burn what's left, bury the ashes with Dorio. No point leaving the other corpses too... His eyes catch the glint of Maine's Cybernetic arm, "No point on Maine renegading his deal with David either..."
----------------------
It's been five days since Maine and Pilar's death. Plans continued at a far more subdued pace and the crew's morale had hit rock bottom. Ori had become the de facto leader of the crew in the meantime, before he and Maine had divvied up responsibilities, but with him gone it was up to Ori to keep everything together.
Rebecca was obviously distraught, she and her brother were never that close, mostly due to Pilar's casual and dismissive attitude towards, well, everything. He'd all but left her to fend for herself when she was young, and only took her back in after she'd joined the Mox, leaving their relationship friendly but strained.
That didn't mean they hated one another. And as the saying goes, 'You only know what you have when you lose it', for Rebecca, she'd lost the last of her family... She'd blamed him for a day, then sobbed into his chest for two. He couldn't be upset with her, he wouldn't. He understood how she felt.
David was similarly affected, the man had acted as a sort of father figure to him. To hear that he'd killed Pilar and gotten shot in the head by one of his close friends? Ori wasn't sure it was possible for him to look more confused when he'd handed the boy Maine's arm. After that passed all that was left was a look of determination.
Even with how shitty everything felt, Ori wasn't going to let them sit around and mope. Lucy had awoken three days in, though, she was still pretty groggy and disoriented. Christy had secured supplies and transportation, so all that was left was collecting the gold and getting out of Las Vegas unseen.
--------------------------
"Gooooooo..." Ori rasps as the straps from the many bags on his back dig into his shoulders. With Maine and Pilar gone he'd had to almost quadruple his carrying weight, leaving him a sweating, swearing mess who could barely walk.
Unfortunately they couldn't bring the gold in two trips since as soon as they left the underground they needed to delta asap. Everyone who entered or exited the tunnels got scanned by the cameras and tracking equipment set up by Militech and other Corps, no one wanted them to leave with four billion Eddies worth of gold after all.
Thankfully Lucy was available to disable the machines, allowing them all to hop into Christy's new caravan and start making their way to the border.
Ori carefully drops the bags on the floor of the caravan, causing the suspension systems to groan under the stress, after that he drops into a seat and lets out a tired groan as the discs in his back recenter themselves.
*Ping!*
[21 Messages Received...]
[15 Missed Calls...]
Hm, finally got reception back... He checks the messages and finds that most of them were from Sasha and Kiwi. One was from Quentin who wanted to know how things went with Aliya, they'd be having a talk about that... He had some from Bats and Cat, she'd given birth...
*Beep!*
[Recieving Call: Sasha...]
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章 236: NC ReRun
[Recieving Call: Sasha...]
Ori accepts it and opens the Holocall, finding a tired-looking Sasha with her legs kicked up on a desk. Once she realises the call went through she almost falls out of her chair however, "Ori!?"
"Yo..."
"Where are you right now, and is everyone alright!? You're on the news everywhere!"
Ori quietly exhales through his nose, "We're on our way out now, we gotta get out through the border crossing and after that we'll be on our way to you... As for if everyone's safe...?" he shakes his head, "We had trouble, Maine ran outta Immunosuppressants and finally lost it, went completely Cyberpsycho and crushed Pilar's head, had to put him out of his misery..."
"My god... I-Is Rebecca okay?"
Ori shrugs and glances over at the small room where the cots lay, Rebecca hadn't slept in a while and she'd finally dropped now. Not the best timing given they might be under fire soon, but hey, anything is something. "She'll be fine..."
...
"Ah, something actually came up. Someone you and Wakako know inside Arasaka wanted to set up a meeting, I'm not sure if you want to but from what I heard it's important."
'Them' huh, they'd warned him about the Arasaka attack back in NC but that hadn't meant shit since they were all shit-faced. Might as well do it, they'd helped enough to deserve a meeting. Jury's out after that.
"Don't tell 'em shit until we're back in the city, that's just asking for an ambush..." Ori trails off as he spots something weird down the road, halfway between the city and the Las Vegas border crossing was small blockade of heavily armed vehicles. "Uh, I'll need to call you back."
*Beep!*
Maybe they should've gone the long way around? These bastards really want their gold back! "Slow the car! Christy take the wheel, Falco and David, get in the bathroom. Lucy, try keep up from getting obliterated!" he hurriedly orders, making his way to the bedroom and stuffing the half-asleep Rebecca in a cabinet.
To be honest, he wasn't entirely sure what to do with himself... "Fuck it." he grumbles, fitting himself into the bathroom with the other two. Lucy should be able to scramble any scanners they have, but a manual search would reveal everything. The only comforting thing was the fact the guy who found them would undoubtedly die.
The caravan stops before the blockade and the Militech soldiers get to work scanning while the captain steps to Christy's window. "Miss, this is an unlicensed vehicle."
"R-really!?" Christy squeaks, "I-I thought my daddy took care of it!"
The soldier shrugs, "Sorry, but it don't look it. You might not need a licence to drive the highway, but it's a requirement in and around the city. I'm gonna need to ask you for your full name, address-, your father's name too if he was supposed to be responsible for it."
"C-choom, your knee is ridin' on my jock...!" David growls under his breath as the trio hear footsteps outside.
"Fuckin' deal with it...!"
Lucy's eyes flash with data as she quickly sends Christy all the falsified data they'd had made in preparation for the main crossing, all while interfering with the four guys outside with scanners.
"Christy D'Marco, huh...? Daughter to a 'Gilberto D'Marco'... Mexican?" he questions while accessing the system.
"Spanish, we used to run a large local patisserie but got pressured to sell off the property... We're living on savings now." she sighs, "Hence the simple living," she gestures at the caravan, doing a fantastic job at acting like a depressed, disgraced princess... Well, not that she needed that much of a push.
The soldier slowly nods and sends a look over at his squadmates who shake their heads as they walk by, "Well, everything looks up to date-, ah before you go..." Christy and everyone else in the car tense, "Is there any chance I could get your number...? I wouldn't mind taking you around the casinos next time you're in town."
...
"Uh, sorry, I have a boyfriend... That's where I'm going now actually, it's a long-distance thing," she casually plays off.
The guy sighs, "Eh, okay... Move on then." he slaps the truck, prompting Christy to drive past the blockade.
"Now get the hell off'a me!" David exclaims when they're out of sight, pushing Ori out of the bathroom and almost falling over.
"You need to chill kid, I ever tell you about this one gig? We all got sprayed when some gonk opened a chip-bag which sprayed us with nanite tracking shit. Had to drive outta there with my johnny hangin' out!" Falco dryly remarks.
David turns and squints at him, "Too much information..."
The next crossing wasn't hard to get passed either, leaving a city is always easier than entering one. After that, it was the long journey through the interstate... Hopefully they wouldn't run into that many Nomads on the way.
---------------
"Home sweet home..." Falco utters as he and the rest of the crew spot the Holographic ad-space lights shooting up into the night sky.
The road had been fairly clear, with only one Raffen group that tried to catch them. The only real thing of note was the short funeral held for Maine, Pilar, and Dorio. Rebecca hadn't wanted Pilar to be buried near Maine, but they'd managed to convince her after a day or two of arguing.
"Honestly... If everyone else wasn't a giant shit-hole I'd never come back." Ori adds.
"Yeah, well, tough luck. This pile of garbage and vultures is home for us." Rebecca snarks.
"You lot think we can stop off somewhere? There's this burger joint I've been itchin' to get back to."
"Christy'll have to go in for us. Doing anything in public right now is impossible, we need to sort our shit out first." Ori sighs, "Speaking of, I need to call Rogue. We've got some gold to pawn."
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Hope you bois liked the chap, if I missed anything please let me know. Thanks!
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