Neon Hearts in Derelict Futures [Briar & AlrunaRose]

[AlrunaRose]

Aolieon groaned for a second, and then it turned into a sultry laugh as she took Therrye's hand in assistance towards sitting upright. "Ohh, you don't know the half of it, baby," she commented at all of Therrye's known praise for her stunts. She pulled the chopsticks out of her hair, lettinf the hasty braid fall loose as she brushed a few loose bangs out of the way of her gaze, looking up at her with a leer. "Something tells me you'd do well to remember that, in more ways than one..." she lowly muttered, turning a slow blink on the bruiser as she wiped some sweat from her brow, just finishing up on catching her breath. She plucked the Chromanticore off the ground and placed it to her lips hungrily, chugging it as if she had been parched for days and letting a gasping sigh as she finished the tasty drink. Wiping her lips, she bit her lip for a second, working valiantly to regain her composure as the euphoria subsided; eventually she stood up and dusted herself off -- frowning at the crumpled and crispy burnt bits of eurodollars on the ground. She went into the room prior and re-equipped all of her gear, doing her best to straighten everything out and get it all back into place.
She then approached the door to the next room, turning to give Therrye an ambitious leer. "One more room to go, yes? After all weve been through thus far; i swear the pay better be good. Well, bruiser... let's finish this." She gestured to the door, allowing Therrye to work her magic at what she had managed to turn into a destructive art. She then crouched preemptively, expecting a practical firestorm to come at them, after all they had been through...

Norihiko Hibino -- "Dead Crew"

Whenever Therrye finished rending the door to this room however, what Aolieon furrowed her eyebrows at, was that this room appeared to be more illuminated than the rest, with the edges of the walls and ceiling lit up with a calm blue light, with even the floor tiles illuminated in this same color. The wall and ceiling panels were blackened out, with blue scrolling digi-code in various wall panels, scrolling past; beyond this, there appeared to be no other details, not even another door -- what's more is that oddly whenever they stepped in, the door would not even attempt to seal behind them despite not receiving a proper door code... In the middle of the room was a black pedestal, upon it appearing to be none other than their prize -- the datacube in question, with various cables spindled from the back wall and plugged into it.
"Hmm... guess their budget must have been exhausted," Aolieon commented, stepping into the room and looking about the room, trying to discern if there was any other traps or defenses for this -- she narrowed her eyes; this all seemed too easy, compared to the rest of what they had been through... "Ugh," Aolieon groaned, squinting her eyes shut and placing a hand over her forehead and eyes -- her headache had seemed to return with a vengeance. Withdrawal? Overexhaustion, Stress? She couldnt tell for a moment, but then she steeled herself still looking about the room. She found herself squinting, feeling as if something was mildly burning her eyes -- although she hadn't exactly been looking at many bright lights today, save the laser grid. Eye strain, came the thought... almost feels like when I catch a BD. She rubbed her forehead and eyebrows, fingers parting enough to briefly let light upon her eyelids -- it was all so surreal; the lighting of this room seemed ambient, albeit blue, but it seemed as if the light was in front of her face... Aolieon paused, the sound of her breath seizing very audible -- there was no sound of data transfer, no cooling fans... no sound at all. "Wait," Aolieon called out with a low and icy tone; opening her eyes and glaring seriously at the datacube, she narrowed her eyes but locked her gaze onto the ominous box, no matter how much it seemed to hurt, just to look at. Just as her bruiser companion entered and got close, she saw it; a tiny portion of one of the datacube's faces ever so silently bristled into net-code static for but a few milliseconds... Before anything could be done, let alone allow Therrye to lay a finger on the "datacube" -- Aolieon quick-drew her pistol and fired a shot directly at the ominous box without a second thought. The paranoia had peaked instantaneously and so fast within Aolieon, that she reached forwards with her free hand, grabbing Therrye by the hair and pulling her a couple of steps back.

Norihiko Hibino -- "Countdown to Disaster"

And just like that -- the holographic illusion faded. A small wall of bullets flew from the side walls, blinking into the walls around them in various directions -- all aimed at an attempt to kill whoever had just instantly touched the datacube. The blue lights in the room all turned a glowering red; visible lasers crossed the room, coming from Militech Mines that had not been witnessed before... and the door appeared in the back, full black and reinforced, with a single data panel on it now showing a red bar that was slowly filling up...

"Ohh, NOW they decide to get serious??!" Aolieon immediately started curling and maneuvering herself through the direct center of the room, meandering around the various lasers so she could get a closer look at the data panel. "Stupid fucking Ghost Protocol; Corpo anti-espionage bait-and-switch fuckery... Therrye, do something about these mines!" Aolieon eventually crouched underneath the last laser line, and read the data panel. "Shit... 'Logic Failsafe Primed; Copying for Upload' -- they're backing up the Cube's files!" Aolieon turned around, her eyes sharpened to vibrant amber seas, almost without pupils -- her AR glasses spun with netcode, and lasers started coming offline, one by one. "Scratch my last, bruiser; rip this door open -- Get it open NOW!"

 

[Blood Briar]

"I'd say I've learned my lesson, but then I'm here, aren't I?" she smirked slightly then looked toward the door while Aolieon refreshed herself and recovered from the Slo-Mo. While she waited for her companion to gear back up and return, she eyed the door, thinking over the traps they'd already encountered. There should only be one left at this point, she mused, but the intel hadn't been clear on what might be in it. Having run through the ones she was familiar with, she quietly sighed and stretched her neck, back, arms and shoulders, reading herself for what came next. "That's the hope," she replied with a larger smirk before getting back into the headspace of work. This time she went back to her first technique, wanting to take more care in preparing for whatever lay in wait for them. When the door didn't come down immediately, she set to destroying the mechanisms above and below her to make it impossible for it to do so, taking the time to thoroughly demolish and disable the door from ever closing again.

"There should still be one more room after this one," the bruiser murmured, considering how... plain this room seemed. She tapped on the walls, perused things, narrowed her eyes, perused them again, then shrugged after a beat and carefully approached the data crypt. "Intel might have been wrong?" she voiced out loud, unsure of it herself. Her eyes widened at the grip on her hair and she started to cry out when the bullets blasted the space around and near to where she'd just been. Digging into more of a crouch with the illusion dispelled, she grit her teeth, the anger of defiance welling up. Fingers rolling in consideration, she moved to one side of the room, twisted her arm, and then did a swift jab into a mine's center, ruining it utterly before it could detonate on her. "Hn." It seemed too easy, and yet... she'd destroyed another two mines by the time Aolieon called for her. "Ah, fuck. Of course it wouldn't be that easy." Dashing forward, she smashed her shield into a couple mines on her way to the door, then used it as a turtle shield in a dive to the front of the door, weathering a hail of laser fire and explosive discharge. The shield wasn't entirely fragged yet, but it'd definitely seen better days, and was losing its defensive coherence. Clear from more boom-booms on one side, she planted the shield toward the other and then got to work on the final door.

Rapidly pummeling into the bottom half, she got an indent to grip from and tear the lower half forward, twisting as she went until it rent free from the floor entirely with a heave of exertion. Tossing it aside, she started doing the same to the top, while getting a look through it toward what lay ahead. "Data crypt's in the next room unless it's another fucking mirage!"

 

[AlrunaRose]

Aolieon ducked and huddled in front of the door the moment mines started going off behind her -- undoubtedly due to Therrye's rushing to the door. Quite a gonk maneuver, but altogether demanded of the situation. She huffed, clicking her tongue at the gesture, but stepping aside to let Therrye wrench the door open. She started quickly targeting other mines, disarming them with her Cyberdeck in order to ensure every second they utilized was a worthwhile usage of their time -- there were still a few proximity mines, but other than that a path had been cleared through the 7th room thanks to their efforts.

When they got into the 8th room (the room that was supposed to contain their prize), it appeared to be more of the same -- striking differences included that it was already red, and in the back of the room looked like a very nasty structural bomb, designed for leveling industrial compounds. The transmitter was blinking and upon its display was a red bar of similar progress and appearance as to the one on the door. Aolieon chuffed with aggression; it was fortunate that Therrye was as strong and now talented as she was at ripping doors open -- no doubt the 8th door had sealed itself upon the triggering of the Ghost Protocol, so the fact that the bruiser was strong enough to rend the door in the way she did wasn't lost on her -- one might have considered it a blessing in disguise, in fact. Aolieon scanned the apparati attached to the datacube; cautiously pulling her sword and giving the cube a light bonk (making sure to release grip on the sword when it made contact) confirmed the datacube was real. She started trying to scan for ICE and other measures and found it to be thick... too thick to warrant an actual defogging and counterhacking of the device. If they wanted to harvest the datacube and still have it retain its original value -- they would have to unplug it by force.

There were no words, no sardonic quips or anything of the sort -- just sharpened bright yellow eyes, entirely locked in and focused in a measure of pinpoint anxiety. Grimacing, she donned some gloves and started looking at the cables; there were too many to cut all at once, which mean a systematic pull was going to be needed. She analyzed which ones were active in the data transfer, and which ones powered the cube. She took a quick inventory, then started pulling cables as hard as she could. "Help me; leave this one for last," -- she pointed to the largest cable and then pointed at the bomb, indicating that it was likely responsible for the Logic Bomb counter progression. After working as best as she could around the bruiser, she huffed, jamming her sword in between them and ripping out the last bundle of cables, doing well to heave and snarl as she chose to cut the last one -- hoping the physical hard-fault of the damaged cable would cause a different sequence of errors, compared to potentially ripping it out.

When the droning sound of de-powering the datacube went off, Aolieon attempted a sigh of relief -- but then, a big error message popped up on the bomb, which then populated a 20-second counter which began funneling away at its time. "Sunuvabitch!" came the errant cursing of Aolieon, sounding indicative of someone else's mannerisms, and Aolieon dropped everything. She looked at Therrye, shoving the cube over and letting it fall into her arms, saying one final word before she shoved Therrye out the door and started booking it herself. "Just fucking RUN!"
As they gained momentum, she let Therrye pick up speed as best she could; when she was certain there would be enough room to pass through the door, she cartwheeled into a handful of somersaulting springs past her. She'd pause enough to run, vaulting over desks and kicking the final door open, making sure to usher Therrye out the door. "Cmon, go-go-go, like your life depends on it! MOVE!"

 

[Blood Briar]

The inside of the final room looked even more dangerous despite the lack of mines -- probably because of the massive bomb in the back. At this point, she'd left the shield behind, having more important things to do with her hands. Looking to the dancer with a tense expression, she nodded at the directive and began crush-snapping cables apart. While normally resistant to that sort of thing, cables weren't designed with the applied force in mind of breaker fists, and some crush, rub and twist tore them apart in her grip. She kept as clear as she could of Aolieon's sword arm so she had plenty of space to work as they raced against the clock. Toward the end, she took up a handful of cables and twist-tore them all at once with a quiet shout.

Handed the data crypt, Therrye would have protested except that she wasn't lingering behind. Putting all of her running training to use, she broke into a hard sprint with the payload, leaping through the more mangled doorways and jumping over eviscerated flooring in running bounds. With her free hand, she caught turns and pushed herself into new directions to keep up her momentum.

Hurtling out of the death cube and then straight out the building, the bruiser caught sight of approaching lights as she hoofed it across the street and into an opposite alleyway, diving as the whole warehouse was nuked in a spectacularly unsafe explosion that blew out windows and triggered alarms in the surrounding area. Fairly certain nothing nearby could hear anything at the moment, she set a homing command on her motorcycle as she regained her footing. Meanwhile, two transports were barreling down toward the wreckage of the warehouse, looking to intercept them for their hard-earned victory. Therrye visually located Aolieon and then gestured toward the incoming threat from the alleyway's walls and for her to back out of sight.

Without her hearing to inform her about the vehicles' speed, she had to time it visually, which would leave her exposed. Standing in the middle of the alley, she quick-dropped her breakers, set down the data-cube, and then angled a throw toward the opposite side of the street, lighting it up with a pyro grenade. Stepping out immediately after to take advantage of the diverted attention, with two grenades already in hand, she bounced them on the asphalt to create slowed landing arcs and windshield-height explosions for when their timers went off. The bruiser then spun back toward the alley and just behind the wall before the two frags went off. In their wake, she pulled her Kolac off of its back mount, crouched, then popped out to fire off three shots in quick succession, silencing the two most alert gunners with head and chest shots that punched through armor.

One vehicle drove past and spun around to stop while the other crashed into the building next to the warehouse. Therrye hurled a second incendiary grenade toward the 'parked' one, hitting the roof's side just above the opening door to make it fly out and down before it detonated and blew flames into the vehicle's cabin. That dealt with, she shot out feet, then legs and torsos of those emerging from the crashed vehicle, leaving a mess of dead and dying, reloading half way through. Turning back toward the enflamed car, she took another shot at a sign of movement, but nothing stirred in the next few moments. Re-mounting the Kolac, she picked the cube and breakers back up, then hurried across the street, glancing over as her bike approached. "Ready to leave this shit-cube in the dust?" she asked as she stowed everything.

 

[AlrunaRose]

Aolieon's reactions might have been seen as something that was appropriate for the situation, or at most uncharacteristically alruistic for someone who had gotten this far, displayed some expertise in dealing with this sort of counter-espionage measures. She could have taken the payload and ran, or done something even wilder, but that wasn't exactly the king kicker in this situation -- truth was, seeing the carefully curated holograms, using cutting-edge tech and the whole insistence on backing up the data files had mildly triggered a headspace that hadn't exactly been used in a long time. Gone was a certain honeyed warmth in the eyes; absent from view was any pretenses of unhinged chartreuse -- now came a vibrant neon yellow, sharpened in its glower by the absence of pupil and flared by iris detail while seething it its own fluorescence that no shadows could darken it. When she ran through that building, a hitherto unknown agility showcased itself within Aolieon, as a lowered sprint seemed to overpower her movements as she leapt and bounded through the doors and out of the warehouse. Fortunately, just as they had emerged from the entrance door to the warehouse, the timer reached zero, causing a violent explosion perfectly designed to level the compound and even eviscerate some of the nearby architecture. Aolieon luckily hit the deck just as the explosion hit, allowing most of the infrastructural shrapnel to simply glide over her form -- what was left of the death cube and the warehouse was naught but a disheveled crater; the perfect site for another trash heap which had no place in the middle of the city.

Aolieon slowly stood up and dusted herself off; her expression dulled and icy in almost a catatonic state -- she confirmed that Therrye had made it out and still had the payload, but once that had happened; she seemed to simply stand there zoned out for a minute while she processed all that had transpired. She was shaken out of her desolate trance by the explosion of the first of Therrye's incendiary grenades; Aolieon flinched and took a knee to shorten her profile behind some cover, pulling her revolver and grimacing with a hate-filled reluctance to be dealing with or tolerating any other enemies... however, she found herself halted in her movements to dispatch the armored transports in seeing Therrye already handling the situation as if she were a professional cybersoldier.
Watching her work was almost surreal; seeing the grenades bounced with keen precision and then hose down the transports with a glorified 20mm precision rifle presented a calculated and clean disposal of what was essentially a Corpo hit squad -- something Aolieon hadn't expected to see out of an upstart Edgerunner, and altogether a comforting sight. There wasn't just potential there, there was more than that... Aolieon chuffed, huffing with a sigh of complicit relief as she approached.

"Had I not known better, I'd say you were a veteran Nomad, what with how quickly you dispatched that transport," Aolieon began untying the improvised braid in her hair, shaking it out and trying with difficulty to shake off her battle-hardened and icy grimdark demeanor. "Where'd you learn to pull that off?" She asked, trying her best to make light of all that had transpired. She was definitely not in a nominal mood after all of that, but she had more angst directed at the fact that she was practically demanded to lock in on such a level, rather than having to do so in a practical sense at all. Of course, Therrye's quick destruction of any potential third-party reinforcements bought a lot back, but it was gonna take a lot to settle back down after such an engagement -- gone were the days where this was commonplace and easier to drop out of seriousness with... as was the people who made it easier to hunt joy and brighter moments after the fact... but maybe...

It  had been awhile since someone had swung their weight around on a mission far more competently than would be merely required to save their own skin. Aolieon decided to play into that and try to distract herself -- still she glowered with icy hatred. "I'm definitely gonna kill those engineers, whenever I come into the detes..." Aolieon rallied her senses and then managed a fake smile, which turned into a light chuckle. "But I suppose we made our point when we completely turned their designs inside out," she huffed and then readjusted all of her gear one last time. "Sure; let's blow this scopmuncher's stand -- I need a drink..."