Blood and Bytes (Revna x Delryth)

[Revna]

Bella kept her smirk to herself, resisting the urge to snap back as she followed Derrick toward the building. He was already enough of a pain to deal with without adding fuel to the fire. Instead, she focused on the task ahead, letting the cool air clear her head as her boots moved silently across the pavement.

Her visor flickered to life again as they reached the base of the staircase. She slid her deck from its compartment, fingers already dancing over the interface. The stairwell door loomed above them, its locks active but nothing she couldn't handle.

The soft hum of her deck was the only sound as she worked, her visor projecting a digital overlay of the lock's security system. Layers of code unraveled before her, and she picked through them with ease, her focus narrowing to the singular task. "Basic corporate crap," she muttered under her breath. "They never learn."

Seconds later, there was a quiet click. Bella pushed the door open just far enough to peek inside before sliding back against the wall. Her voice was low but firm as she gave the status update. "Clear for now. Hall's empty, but that won't last once we're inside." She pocketed her deck and adjusted the strap of her bag, her hands ready to draw if things went south.

She glanced over her shoulder briefly, her tone laced with dry humor. "Try to keep up. Wouldn't want to lose you in there."

With that, she slipped into the stairwell, her movements smooth and deliberate. The soft thud of her boots echoed faintly as she ascended, her mind locked on the next phase. Every step brought them closer to the mark, and her adrenaline began to build—a steady pulse that sharpened her focus. What she noticed however, was he was right along with her. Again, they worked together as if they have been doing this for years.

They reached the second floor and paused, crouching just out of view of the door. Her visor scanned the area beyond, picking up faint heat signatures through the walls. "Two guards, stationary," she murmured, keeping her voice barely audible. "One's pacing near the northwest corner. The other's at the door."

Her hand hovered over her deck again, a plan already forming. "I can drop their comms and blind the cams around the room. We'll need to be quick once they're cut—give me the word when you're ready."

 

[Delryth]

While the combat medic turned merc waited for her to pop the lock he drew out his handgun and checked it over. He made sure that the suppressor was properly screwed into place having a feeling that he was going to need it. The street was quiet enough, the location wasn’t near any real points of interest and so nobody had much of a reason to be walking by, the street didn’t lead anywhere and he was convinced that it was part of the reason that the gangoons used this location.


He followed her inside the building. He moved quickly along with her, while he listened to the info she was giving him. He appreciated having an up-to-date feed for a gig, it made a change from simply being cautious and having to mark enemies the old-fashioned way.


“You wish you could lose me.”


He leaned against the wall and habitually gave his pistol another once over despite already being confident it was in perfect condition. “Let’s do it,” he ordered and waited a second before springing into action. Adrenaline spiked through his body and he could feel his cyberware taught and read to react. He used his enhanced muscles to set him off towards the door quicker than a normal man would have moved.


He emerged into the corridor and kicked open the door, thankful that it was only flimsy sheet metal that was barely held in place. He burst into the room and levelled his handgun on the first guard’s chest. He fired three successive shots that clustered around where his heart was situated. His optics assessed the damage as it happened and he knew that the shots were fatal. The right atrium, right ventricle and the aorta all ruptured. The second guard fell less than a second after three shots aimed straight at his throat. One shot that his feed told him caught the goon in the larynx, the other two in the internal jugular causing a spray of blood.


His weapon found their mark then, aiming square at their torso. He gave them a slow shake of the head to advise against any ill-conceived plans. He remained in place, a serious look on his face while he waited for Bella to head on in and check for what they needed. He was happy to keep the gang boss in place for now with the threat of a bullet through their heart.

 

[Revna]

Bella's lips twitched faintly at Derrick's comment—you wish you could lose me—but she didn't dignify it with a response. Instead, she focused on her visor's data feed, letting the sarcastic quip settle into the back of her mind. It wasn't worth engaging, even if the thought of losing him—or him losing her—was a fleeting curiosity.

The fight ahead demanded her attention, and that was where her energy went.

She followed in his wake, entering the room with her pistol drawn and already trained on the nearest target. Derrick's shots had been clean, his precision unnerving in its efficiency. The blood spray hadn't even settled before she dropped into a crouch, taking stock of the surroundings while he held the gang boss at gunpoint. Her visor highlighted two additional heat signatures approaching from a connecting room, her lips thinning into a grim line. Great. Reinforcements. She marked their positions and relayed it with a curt whisper. "Two coming in from the left."

They didn't need to discuss who would handle what. Derrick kept his weapon trained on the boss while she shifted her aim toward the adjacent door. It opened a moment later, and two more goons spilled out. Bella fired without hesitation, the sharp crack of her suppressed rounds blending with the low hum of Derrick's optics cycling through their scans. The first went down with a shot to the chest, his momentum sending him sprawling backward. The second hesitated, but Bella's second shot tore through his knee, dropping him with a scream. She moved forward in a fluid motion, kicking his weapon out of reach before crouching over him. A swift jab of her mechanical hand to the side of his head silenced him for good.

It was too seamless—too easy. The way they moved in tandem, like they'd done this a hundred times before, annoyed her more than she cared to admit. This shouldn't work this well, she thought bitterly as she rose, her gaze darting toward Derrick. He was still standing near the boss, weapon steady, while her hands moved deftly to search the downed bodies for anything useful.

"Boss is spooked," she muttered, nodding toward their mark. "And reinforcements are thinning, but we've got more heat in the next room." Her visor highlighted the faint sound waves of hurried footsteps and muffled shouts—gang goons scrambling to form a defense.

She straightened, flicking a strand of hair out of her face with an irritated huff. The adrenaline buzz made her stomach twist, but her focus remained sharp.

"Guess it's your turn to open the door," she said dryly, her mechanical fingers flexing around the grip of her pistol. She hated how natural this felt, but she couldn't deny the satisfaction of their efficiency.

 

[Delryth]

He kept his iron aimed at the boss, she was a tough-looking fucker and he didn’t put it past her to try something the second she got a chance. You didn’t get to the position she did within a group like this without being ruthless and getting your hands dirty. With that in mind, he relied on Bella to do what she needed when the next two came their way. This was already becoming a hot situation, more so than he was hoping but nothing compared to what he was prepared to face down.

The edgerunner watched as Bella dispatched the first of the new arrivals with a shot clean through the chest. Collapsed lung, broken ribs, internal haemorrhaging: Deceased. He was surprised by the placement of her next shot as it dropped him to the ground and caused her to need to close the distance and get her hands dirty. Was it intentional to have a reason to get close or sloppy? He wasn’t sure. Soon his optics informed him that he was flatlined too.

He knew the Phantoms would love it if either her or his partner fell. The chrome that they were sporting would be the kind of thing booster groups went loco for. He knew that she’d blocked signals and he hoped that they didn’t have time to get reinforcements. There were much bigger fish in the gang than the bitch he was aiming his barrel at. He wasn’t as convinced as she was that the boss was out of this. He closed in on her, ready to fire at a leg if she reacted and snapped some cuffs onto her wrists.

“We need to find out where she has that BD and then we can delta. That’s all that matters here. I can hold out, and get the deets we need. I’ll stay close and just try to buy time more than push.” He stashed the handgun and instead went to his other weapon, a DS1-Pulsar. He rushed at the door, opened it and dived behind the nearest crates he could find, firing rounds from the SMG to cover his advance. He moved remarkably quickly and felt his shoulder slam up against the cold metal in a split second. He glanced out from his cover to get ready for his optics and then leaned out with his submachine gun. The muzzle flash lit up the corridor and he dropped two of the goons who, thanks to a lack of experience, stood out in the open. He withdrew again as return fire clattered from the crate. A bullet ricocheted off the wall near him and clipped his shoulder but the subdermal implants stopped it doing anything more than nicking his skin.

“Hurry the fuck up.” he barked through their internal comms.

 

[Revna]

Bella crouched behind a crate near the opposite side of the room, her breathing steady as she pulled up her deck and scanned for the location of the BD. The encrypted signal was faint but traceable, buried in a secure terminal two floors down. Gotcha.

"BD's on the second sublevel," she murmured through the comms, her voice clipped and professional. "I'm heading there now. Keep them off me."

The gunfire outside the room provided just enough cover for her to slip past unnoticed. She moved with practiced efficiency, her mechanical limbs giving her steps an almost soundless quality. The hallway was dimly lit, the occasional flicker of a faulty neon light casting erratic shadows.

Her visor lit up with a single hostile approaching, highlighted in red as he rounded the corner ahead. Bella didn't break stride, her pistol snapping up to fire two clean shots—one to the chest, one to the head. The man crumpled to the floor, his body sliding awkwardly against the wall.

One less obstacle.

Reaching the secure terminal, she plugged in her deck and began the decryption process. Her fingers danced across the interface, lines of code flashing rapidly as she bypassed the firewalls. The BD's data core appeared on her feed, and she extracted it with a satisfying beep.

"Got it," she said through the comms, a hint of triumph slipping into her tone.

Moving back to Derrick was the easy part, at least, it was supposed to be. The gonk she already killed was on the floor with a pool of blood collecting under him. However, just as she was about to make it back to Derrick, a red flare almost blinded her through her deck. Just as she was rejoining Everyone, the mini boss stepped just to her left. She didn't have time to react, her body tightened and tried to move fast enough but she just knew she wasn't going to get too far quickly. "Detox," the fear plain in her tone as she felt her legs push against the floor in attempts to get out of the way fast enough.

 

[Delryth]

Derrick continued to hold, he could afford to play it safe and take his time here. The goons that were coming as reinforcements clearly had no training. They were just gonks with guns that used them for show rather than out of any professionalism. He just waited for their shots to dry up and popped out to drop another. He dropped the first three with relative ease and then waited for the next round of backup. They fared little better. He managed to feign the need to reload to force them to pop out from the cover they had finally decided to use. As they peeked around they found the combat medic waiting for them with several bullets.

There was one waiting out behind the cover seemingly too cautious to be gunned down like his companions had been, that was until Derrick was ambushed. The gang boss who he handcuffed rushed up behind him and charged at him with her shoulder. He’d half expected Bella to have taken her along with her or get the BD location from her. It seemed that he was wrong. He groaned as he got rushed between the woman and the crate. He dropped his smg and fought quickly as he heard the second now leave cover and start running down the corridor. He was able to bring his fist up and punch the woman’s throat and followed up with a headbutt. He was able to unsheath the combat knife in a pouch on his belt and jam it up under her ribcage just as her minion made it around the crate. He tucked his head in and was fortunate that the first two bullets fired by him hit his dying boss in the back. He yanked free the knife and threw it at his throat before any more shots could come his way.

He shoved the dead woman off of him and took a deep breath to recover as his optics informed him that he was the only living person in the corridor now. That had been too close. He could feel the adrenaline running through him and he remained in his battle high. He picked up his smg, reloaded it and waited for the next wave if it were to come.

The tone she used to call his name had him immediately on edge, something was wrong. The fear in her voice was undeniable. He spun on the spot and turned back into the room knowing that she was close. His eyes found her and then went straight towards the unit aiming at her. He wasn’t going to be fast enough, not to stop him. He moved anyway knowing that he wouldn’t get the first shot in.