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Neon Hearts in Derelict Futures [Briar & AlrunaRose]

Therrye had no desire to be impatient with her. She'd already given what seemed like so much outside of what she felt comfortable with to be in this moment with her. Chastising her felt wrong. Still, the outcomes and weights that she balanced weren't what drove the bruiser's decision.

That she said it was more than Aolieon ever had was rather heartbreaking, though, and helped her calm all of the thoughts and feelings replying from within her. Her outside arm shifted to gently touch her arm and lightly stroke it with her thumb. She lifted her other arm to brush tears from her cheek. It took no time at all for her to pull her closer to embrace her. "I won't pretend I know the truths you speak of. But I've already made my choice to put my life on the line." There was plenty of her own struggle with that which she didn't put into words. At least, not yet. "Too many suffer while I remain free, and none of them are being given the chance to live like I have. Even if I wasn't doing this out of hatred, it's worth the risk."

A small smile appeared on her lips. "If the truth brings more of the same, that's just my luck, isn't it?" She chuffed, then looked more solemn. "I doubt that'd change how I feel toward you. If you don't know what you want, well, you don't need to decide now." She half frowned, half smiled, a great weight filling up her chest. "I'm going to keep moving forward. I have to. For however long you want to walk with me," she gave a shaky bit of exhale, knowing that this might very deeply cost her, "you are welcome to."
 
After everything that she said, Aolieon couldnt help but scowl. You gonk-brain, she couldnt help but think. She found herself shaking her head with a sorrowful frown... but it subsided after a little bit. Aolieon was no stranger to the abolitionist narrative, one of the philosophies that was the cornerstone of Fallen doctrine -- much of their original mission as an organized militia saw them making their names and seizing assets from gangers, smugglers and even Syndicate personnel who invested into the human or alien trafficking businesses. The predatory law of the jungle saw them become skilled enough to be considered an occupying force in Night City -- however, their vigilantism set them apart from typical Edgerunners which for a decent amount of time saw factors such as the NCPD and Trauma Team look the other way for a time... It's part of what made them soldiers, not mercenaries and to hear it coming from Therrye -- it made her sound like more of the same, but it was altogether understandable; because of Aolieon's involvement and her escapades working for the Fallen in the past (to often a fanatical extent at times) gave her little room to dispute, let alone condemn, the bruiser's reasoning and rhetoric.

Aolieon sighed and bitterly held her tongue, settling into Therrye's embrace after she brushed her tears away, resigning herself to not argue with her in this moment. Knowing what happened and why might not change how Therrye felt about Aolieon... but that was far from the point. The point could be argued for much later... As things stood in the present, Aolieon was quietly melting into the bruiser's grasp, and while her conflicting thoughts of knowing what she knew now made her particularly restless when it came to Therrye -- that knowledge didn't invalidate her reasoning, per se. So, Aolieon let it be, for now.
She curled up in Therrye's embrace, muttering under her breath, "You don't get it..." but otherwise letting this moment be. She breathed free and simply curled up in her arms, wriggling in her grasp, trying to get closer to that warmth that kept calling her. She didn't want to think about how easy that choice was to make for everyone; she didn't want to think about the cost it made everyone pay, and how in her mind -- there were undoubtedly so many who might not pay it gladly, if given the chance to do it all over again. She just wanted to bury her face in this rimbo's chest and forget it all -- that was the crux of all this thinking, was that Aolieon had put so much work into not thinking about this sort of thing. She was the architect of such a hedonistic haze, under which many things lay buried, but this... this and all things associated with it constituted the lion's share of a myriad of mysteries which the dancer, without malice or meaning, simply wished to stay dead... So, she just let the bruiser have this one -- thinking back to the designs upon treating Therrye as a worthwhile Warrior and still held steadfast in a cloaked desire which eclipsed all others; she finally replied in the most neutral manner, which might allow her to keep her own designs while not ruining this precious moment, where the bruiser was so close and trying so hard to be understanding...

"...We'll see."
 
It was, well, something. Compared to what she felt like she had with her a day ago, far more possibility lingered there for Therrye to actually act on her feelings... at least for a little while. Bubbles of giddy eagerness floated with ones of fervent desire in such a space, ready to pop on her skin and drive her forward. The samurai, however, had said certain things of her history and shed tears over some of what had been expressed. Reassuring that she'd do whatever, care however, didn't seem like it'd rouse anything but ire.

Considering what she thought she might know of her, she cast out for options that might bring more truth. On these topics, she more or less stated that the bruiser needed to figure it out without her help. That she could do, but what about the rest? The Liandri seemed to wear so much loss and deprivation, and rather than address that by trying to live, she'd sunk deeper into any distraction from living. Except that didn't quite explain her freeing the fighters. Meanwhile, she did nothing to stop the dancer from wriggling against her; circular and twisting motions would tug at the simple knot and folds of the bathrobe alike, and if she was persistent, they'd hardly hold in place between them.

Accepting the answers given to her, she nevertheless pressed on after some moments to simply hold Aolieon and let her words sit. "Whatever you've given to become the weapon you are today, whatever your past has cost you... I don't judge you for choosing to live as you have. You do know that you can change that choice though, right?" That half-smile, half-frown returned. "I almost lost myself twice after deciding I wanted to live beyond hatred. No one saved me from it, but people were around to offer shoulders so I could limp forward until I could choose life again." She didn't like feeling like she was proselytizing, but the context and message felt important. "It doesn't have to be with me. Just, leaning on others is our best chance to make it out when we're alone in the dark." Therrye gently pressed her cheek into the woman's, wanting this to feel closer to an embrace than a lesson. "And if you're truly thinking you have no one to lean on, I call bullshit." Though the words may have stung, they were said with a tone of gentle teasing. She might aim to expose the rotten spots in her perspective, but she wasn't going to drag her into living a different life. The bruiser respected her autonomy too much for that.

At that, she finally looked away and let her gaze unfocus. There was plenty she wanted to ask and even more she wanted to know, yet the dancer had put up walls. Trying to forcibly tear such down wasn't her style.
 
Aolieon found enough conscientious consideration to allow Therrye to speak; even though each word past her own resolution of kindly kamikaze grated on Aolieon's grim rationale like nails on a chalkboard, Aolieon begrudgingly accepted the caress of Therrye's cheek against her own. There was something about this gentle warmth that had kept Aolieon pliable enough to let Therrye have this moment... and then came what sounded like the idle musing, or dare she say, questioning of Aolieon's life choices.
Aolieon sighed exasperatedly, assertively pulling away from Therrye's cheek; like a restless phantom, the snark returned in Aolieon. "You were an independently licensed therapist before you took up running the Edge, weren't you?" she finally replied sarcastically, her intonation rising in an almost sardonic manner before ending her question with a droll tone. She turned her head to look up at the bruiser, staring at her lips for a moment with lazy eyelids as she licked her own before she stole a peck on her cheek -- she wanted those lips on hers, but she had been decently off-put by the bruiser's brief tirade that she found herself able to stuff it down momentarily. "... I get what you're trying to do, bruiser. It's not entirely lost on me, but... Don't. Just don't." A beat. "There's no one alive who retains the right to judge me for how I live."

She clicked her tongue and puckered her lips. "The way I see it; if God wanted me to live well or get therapy -- then this city would have burned when it should have." Aolieon's expression got dark; her eyes sharpened in icy rejection, and her tone had become particularly bitter, and she pulled out of the cuddle long enough to stand up, walk over to where her stuff was and bend over facing away from Therrye, rifling through her pouches to acquire her Airbudder. "Televangelists proselytize better -- don't quit your day job," and with that, Aolieon would take two huffs off of the inhaler, holding her breath as she slowly rose up; dropping the inhaler and exhaling with a ragged breath as vapor left her lips in a swirling cloud, dulling the emotions and sweeping all the other grimdark thoughts of her mind underneath the rug. She'd turn around, looking at the bruiser and managing an airy smile. "... you're sweet, though; I'll give you that." She took two steps and half flumped on the bed beside her, snuggling into the covers as thoughts returned of what she had right in front of her and the many desires that remained entangled within her -- most importantly, the desire to stay here for awhile... see where things go, and if she could possibly get another piece of that Femme who ravished her. She sighed plainly, worming her way back over to where Therrye might still have laid, and keeping herself open to the idea of that same warm embrace that she had abandoned for only a brief moment. "I would have offered you some, but... you don't seem the type." she gestured back to where her stuff was, and she smiled sultrily as she lazily pawed at the air where the bruiser was. "C'mere; it's cold without you..." she playfully pleaded, trying to work her way towards something else that in Aolieon's mind, would have made all the negativity of the last few moments worth it.
 
Therrye chuff-snorted at the supposition from the dancer. She wasn't surprised she'd touched a nerve; it was clearly delicate territory to trod in, and really, probably territory she never truly wanted to visit again. Her half-smile, half-frown faded into just the smile. Despite how grating and galling it could be at times, Aolieon's venomous tongue was at least familiar. Expecting her to actually receive words gentle and firm was a gonk path, so this response from her made sense. It could be calculated much more readily than all of the sweet caring and consideration that had been poured into the bruiser so far this past morning and night. The peck on her cheek was more surprising, really, given how much skewing between emotions was involved in it.

That did seem to fit her at this point, though.

Watching the other Liandri get up, her gaze tracked her transit to finding chemical respite from her feelings. It was hard to blame her when she'd spent plenty of time avoiding confronting the realities of certain feelings, yet it also struck her as different. Therrye coped with her darkness without retreating from life while Aolieon drowned herself in response and avoiding coming back out of the water however, whenever she could. Nodding to the dancer, she accepted her accepted her back into her arms and held her close. She didn't feel as if she needed the comfort now, even as those still-wounded parts of her continued to bleed in front of her. Something had shifted that she struggled to describe and it'd made it less painful to be close to her. Though she did not anticipate any sort of 'happily ever after' with the woman, there was still life to enjoy here, for however long it lasted. "I prefer more natural highs," she said softly, more statement than tease. Despite the seismic change in her emotional landscape, there were still elements of distance between them, and it would be whiplash-inducing to invite her right back in to where she'd unintentionally spun hooks like swords into her.

Maybe I can leave happy ghosts here, this time.
 
In the moments that followed -- half propelled by the ignorant yet powerful bliss brought on by concentrated,
synth-cannabinoids manufactured in raw forms and then ran through a complex inhaler which superheated the compound; half driven by the desire to at last mentally address the elephant in the room -- Aolieon took a few moments standing there to look inwards and ask the question which had been gently beckoned towards gradually by the bruiser and outright neglected by the dancer.
It was few and far between that someone so full of worldly hatred and cultivated to Aolieon's level of skill found a merc that could hold their own -- much less one of a certain disposition and dogma that showed promise of being worthwhile in one's circles of trust, enough that they might be worth the bonding to emotionally. Setting aside the overwhelming inner truth of their inevitable passing -- you could just ask the likes of Kaede about how few and far between mercs who had served as bona fide soldiers or Samurai were. Questions of camaraderie, dedication to duty or cause, adaptability, lethality; the concerns were endless, and the opportunities to bring light to them even fewer... that's why it was simpler for mercs of higher quality to sell their services and walk the path as Solos than ever risk bonding with others, much less making chooms with someone who might serve as a liability, or worse -- a traitor.

And yet, the bruiser was different, in contrast to every other merc that may have once obliviously carried that potential. Sure, she wasn't some old blood of any recent wartime incursions and didn't seem to possess any major depths of combat expertise -- yet what little Aolieon had been able to witness pointed the compass in a favorable direction, when it came to the streetkid Liandri.

So, she decided once more to lighten up and throw her tactical sensibilities aside again -- warming up to the bruiser's light demeanor and general amicability. When she commented on her pursuit of natural highs, Aolieon couldnt help but smirk over a softened facial expression; finding at last a tempting subject. "Ohh, yeah?" she teased as she curled up back into Therrye's arms, interlacing her legs with her own to really settle and lock herself into this embrace. "... can't imagine what those might be..." she added with soft undertones of fluttering velvet, snaking her arm underneath her side and wrapping her other arm 'round the waist, freeing Therrye to rest or move her arms/hands wherever she saw fit -- now merely inches away from her face again, she let out a soft exhale of hot breath brush past her neck as she finished snuggling into the hold, before she looked up into those eyes and licked her lips in anticipation. "...care to indulge me?"
 
The bruiser returned a partial smirk of a smile toward the sultry teasing of the dancer. Given how she tended to act, how she'd quested for a kiss recently already, and her chosen state of undress, it was hardly a strange turn. Aolieon seemed to lean into hedonism much more readily than she did, though it had that essence of diversion or death wish to it, she thought. One of her hands slowly slid up the soft skin of her back, from the dip near the bottom of her spine all the way up to her shoulder blade. Therrye'd be lying if she denied carnal interest in the woman, yet it felt awfully messy. Even in their bit of parley and détente, the nest of emotions and impulses still held some tension and conflict. It felt like the wrong tone to try to engage from, and that was ignoring everything else that had preceded this morning.

"Are you always so insatiable?" she asked in a mirthful tease, the fingers on her shoulder blade sweeping up to her neck. They did not wrap or hold, instead just resting fingertips there while her palm remained on her shoulder; she'd seemed more than a little touchy about pressure there, even if nothing unpleasant had come of it yet between them. "Worrying about me all night and then sliding into bed with me barely dressed." Chuffing, her gaze was a little lidded while it held hers. "Or maybe you just loved how I brought you to sleep last time," she mused before bringing her hand into her hair, just barely short of grazing her horns, and started tugging at her scalp.

Despite all of the emotions in her chest, her need to act had been largely sated. Lust was easier to subdue than her more insistent wishes, and though it was enormously potent toward the Liandri, it needed to synch more strongly with the rest of her to push hard at her restraint. Her eyes shut for a few moments as she just relished in the presence of her against her body. Those bleeding parts of her had already given up on having this again with the samurai, and yet here she was once more, and clearly wanting more of her. The nerves at the back of her neck and across her upper back crackled and shivered; there was plenty to thrill at with her, as she had been so recently educated.

Opening her eyes again, she searched Aolieon's expression before drawing her mouth to hers by the hand behind her head, letting herself give in just a little to the font of passion she carried. Teeth grazed over her plush lips between pulls on them. She drew her tongue over her lower lip, remembering the taste of so much else there before, and spirals of heat blossomed inside of her. Her kisses pulled between insistent presses and tugs, and achingly slow drags of mouth across mouth. The hold of her head was not so strong or restrictive that the dancer could not readily escape it, yet her fingers applied pressure and tension, making the ache in her muscles known through the force there that wasn't coming through in bites. Only after wrapping her tongue around Aolieon's and reveling a moment in her did she finally relent and draw back, that drunk-like haze of hunger slow to begin fading. A rather languid and sated smile appeared after, and unhurried blinks began beating back some of the dilation in her eyes. "Can you imagine now?"
 
At the use of the word 'insatiable', Aolieon couldn't help but return a shameless low-toned chuckle. Her fingers found a few tufts of Therrye's hair, and she lightly brushed at them with her fingertips in a place just behind one of her ears. From the outside looking in, one could equate the inverse of a Streetkid proverb to Aolieon's salacious appetites -- give a beggar a single Eddie, and he will buy a scop burrito to eat for a day; give a beggar a million eddies and he will buy scop and eat until he's full... then he will soon realize that scop isn't the only thing for sale.
There was no denying that if life had gone a different way -- Aolieon most likely would have relapsed into becoming a joytoy, just to make ends meet. But the realization that intimacy could be good; that it could be enjoyable, after everything she had been through... it was a revelation that shouldn't have been, but came with the emergence of emotional and moral undertones of a certain person willing to believe in good... and Therrye seemed to be able to tap into that with uncanny intuition -- it made her quite hard to resist...

Everything suddenly subsided with reverent pause, the moment Therrye once again began to touch Aolieon. Her eyes lidded themselves, her jagged mirth softened into sensual attentiveness held comfortably within an inevitably eager reception of the bruiser's warmth. Her back quietly arched at her touch, not pulling itself away but making her skin available; her eyes shut momentarily as the hand swept up her back and nestled itself delicately upon her shoulder. "Game recognizes game, bruiser -- some might prefer a pillow princess, not me..." she tilted her head, opening up her neck to invite her hand to slide itself up into more sensitive crevices upon her body. "But even I can't deny it -- you really know how to artfully serenade a woman... I might even say that you have great taste," she chuckled mmelodicaly, savoring her moment to toot her own horn while being held so lovingly in Therrye's arms.

A small gasp occurred as her hand grazed past her horns. Her eyes slowly shut, and she held her breath, exhaling shakily as she opened her eyes and simply sat within this moment, watching closely as Therrye took her moment to savor her presence. The bruiser herself might have been more grounded in morals and principles of being when it came to the ways she wielded her lust with wisdom, but the dancer made few such reservations, and the fact that Therrye was unwittingly make her work for it was starting to seriously wear her down. Aolieon slowly licked her lips, parting them and breathing carefully as she gazed up and down her body -- her breath grazed the bruiser's lips as she hovered in front of her face, trying so hard to be honorable towards the circumstances under which she had found herself in her embrace once more. Despite all of this, the urge to let loose her desires upon her was palpable.

The touch of a moan escaped Aolieon's lips when Therrye at last went to claim them -- immediately betraying the existence of her own lascivious hunger amidst the carousel of strong emotions and feelings she had been drawn through in the past hour. A low groan followed, carrying with it a note of loving starvation for this feeling which she had quietly been obsessing over for the past 10 days. Aolieon leaned into it, hungrily tasting her lips again and again when she went to lavish them with tongue and teeth. Her hand gently curled up behind Therryes head as her fingers smoothed into the scalp at the back of her head -- the two fingers with filed down nails rubbing up and down to provide extra stimulating reward and quietly beckon for an encore. She nibbled, she licked, she snagged with a need that undressed itself and made itself available in any way it could. Her lips parted to let her tongue in; her body pressed gently against hers in a bid to bury itself underneath Therrye's skin. Her tongue twirled and locked itself with a pressing handshake that threatened to intertwine itself with more fibers of Therrye's being, even at great risk to herself -- she felt the emotional pull and intent to pull away beneath the folds of her mind, and a jilted whine fluttered from her throat as her eyebrows furrowed atop closed eyes which cloaked a fierce desire to abandon all reason... Her breath seemed to lose all sound as her chest rose and fell, having been effectively snatched away from her by the bruiser.

"Can you imagine now?"
"... you make it so hard not to be disrespectful," came the reply from between her teeth.
Aolieon's eyes opened and through amber rings her own lust bared it's teeth, grinding them with a longing sexual frustration. She pulled her head away, shutting her eyes and arcing her chin upwards to try and find a moment of space to stuff her lust into an overfilled trunk which secured intrusive thoughts, dark secrets and dead bodies. Her breath tremored in her throat; the pause between warranted restraint and diving headfirst into feral gratification of one's needs. After a handful of moments, she took a deep breath and exhaled with a shuddering sigh, her hands falling from Therrye's hair and finding convenient places on her back or shoulders to sit. Her eyes had not abated themselves in their betrayal of want; however, everything else had appeared to calm itself. She huffed, and placed her hand on Therrye's chest between the folds of her robe, biting her lip and looking down at where her hand rested like it was the latest in top-of-the-line iron that couldn't be currently afforded. There were things she really wanted to do right now -- hug her, hold her close, steal more kisses, tie her to the bed, dive between her legs until her jaw needed a replacement -- all of those things threatened to rip the last tie-down free, and so Aolieon sat there for several moments, filtering for a rhyme and reason not to. Setting aside all of that, there was no shortage of loving, lustful praise to be found... In Aolieon's words, her body or her mind... and it was high praise to be sure.
 
"I've had plenty of practice... and good teachers." Therrye smiled modestly at the compliments. She'd been called a natural before, yet she never let that go to her head, lest she lose the plot of what made for a good lover: attention. No one body was exactly like another and even within the same day someone could respond differently to the same touches. Communication and words were helpful, but people often said plenty without ever opening their mouths. Relevantly, Aolieon's desire for her was plenty apparent in her hands, her responses, her breath, her placement, and her gaze.

It hadn't been at any point that the bruiser didn't hold similar feelings for her. She'd just been caught on several others that prevented her from acceding to them fully. This felt dangerous enough as it was; sliding back into that vortex of ribbons seemed perilously likely, and that only escalated with the sounds of the woman's pleasure reverberating in her ears. For all the surprise she might have had at Therrye's confession, she supposed that the sheer level of hedonistic intoxication she inspired could have been enough for any gonk to fall for the Liandri... but then it wasn't quite clear yet how unique of an experience she'd gotten.

Her nerves shivered needfully at the reciprocal want in Aolieon and practically demanded that she take everything offered to its deepest extent and make another lustful mess of her bed from their entangling.

"I applaud your restraint," she murmured in response, never mind how much of her own she was currently wearing. Her violet rings mirrored the amber ones staring into hers, offering clarity into her own level of arousal. As much as she wanted the hand on her chest to show her all of its owner's heady desire, she'd rather the moment came from healthier roots. Exhaling so much hunger, she gently drew Aolieon to rest her head on the bruiser's neck so she wouldn't have to face the source of those hooks and she might actually get to rest.

"You'll have plenty of time to snark me tomorrow," she promised, and hoped that her staying up all night would mean she'd fall asleep first. There was plenty to do before the job tomorrow.



A day and change later, Therrye stood next to her bike alongside a deserted stretch of channel a dozen blocks away from the job site where they'd agree to meet beforehand.
 
Aolieon huffed, accepting the closeness of the moment for now... In spite of how this whole situation transpired -- a dubious fling, a caring administration of first aid, a meaningful conversation turned into tender touch and snuggle -- something about it echoed of something greater; as if there were designs that the bruiser had upon this moment and how it had been carefully steered... and yet there felt like an absence of planning altogether. Aolieon couldn't put her finger on it, but as she wrestled her ardor back down to manageable levels, recalling the words that had been plucked from her mind so delicately from the dancer by the bruiser's tact, and the decision Therrye had made to swim against the current that would otherwise end in her retaining everything she had worked so hard to build from nothing... Aolieon found herself awash with mixed emotions. Commisseration. Resentment... Concern. Why is she doing this...? Came the thought. She's been free for so long; she's lived her life to an intermittent, enriching fulfillment; of course someone of her background and ethics would fight for this -- question is, why now, and not before? ...
That last thought disturbed Aolieon beneath her own skin. More than eight years ago, she had been lucky enough to have been plucked from a less-than-human living by humans who carried core anti-government, anti-corp and abolitionist values. Blessed as Aolieon had been that their strongest Edgerunner, their binding truth and fearless leader, had chosen to adopt her, teach her right from wrong and grant her the strength to wield a sword with wisdom within her own hands; Aolieon never thought highly of herself enough to foolishly believe that she might have been the cause for more radicalized movement which heralded the coming of the Fallen Uprising. While she was wise in not thinking this way back then, as her unselfish intuitions were correct -- she would not allow herself to think that way, now. When it came to Therrye's sudden call to action, whether or not Aolieon's own actions had anything to do with it; this sudden commitment to a cause without reward or preservation spat in the face of typical mercenary logic, and while Therrye had proven herself to be anything but typical... Both her choice to risk her life against an immovable grimdark truth of reality and her enigmatic yet impassioned approach to Aolieon stirred much puzzling within the dancer.
What was it that bothered her so...?
Why was she dedicating herself to this cause now?
... what's her play; why does she hold back...?

... Aolieon exhaled through her nose and closed her eyes, trying her best to drift off to sleep within the bruiser's arms.
If she had done so earlier, she'd likely be dead, having been one of us -- linger not on supposed apathy, or ulterior motives -- it changes not the fact that she is here, now...
... dreams seldom came to her this time; echoes of brighter days and lower lows, where ethos and heart were tested... and gifted the benefit of the doubt. None all too vivid or traumatic to carry over into the waking world... which would not come to Aolieon before it came to Therrye.

🎶 Tyler Bates -- "La Vendetta" 🎶
Aolieon walked up to the rendezvous point; this time seemingly clad in her original synth-leather black and lavender jumpsuit that she had worn to the Geraldi black site -- having been repaired by a tailor and refitted with some new linings in certain places. A new addition to the entire get-up was an aramid vest which nestled itself snugly around the jumpsuit and somehow allowed Aolieon the capacity to pack even more artillery than she already normally brought with her. Her face was adorned with the purple AR shades she had used on the Champion Heist; her datapad now glowed with a red interface instead of the traditional blue one -- a careful eye would spot the tail linings of an Arasaka Cyberdeck sticking out the side of it, wristblade in tow, but with no other attachments. Her dual shoto-katanas were this time removed, replaced with a single katana with a more traditional daito length mounted upon the back -- the off-hand katana was replaced with an M221 Saratoga of refined quality, suppressed. Her tactical straps were harnessed over the aramid vest, each shoulder strap carrying three tactical knives each; the grenades had been moved to the back of the harness for some reason. On the outsides of her thighs were two particularly new introductions to her arsenal -- a scoped & silenced Nue pistol, and a scoped Overture -- her two designated irons that she rarely brought out with her unless she wanted to be prepared for anything; a firearm with tact, and a hand-cannon with brash stopping power... Her own "Fox & the Hound", as she quietly liked to dub them.
One thing's for sure; while not entirely invested all the way into her own styles and Edgerunning mannerisms -- Aolieon seemed to have traded up for a more, quite possibly overdressed approach to a gig -- going so far as to bring some more versatile and deadly toys.
Strangely as well, it would be unusually difficult to hear the dancer strutting her way down the sidewalk... Little did anyone know, Aolieon had made a trip to Jinguji and paid extensively for something sought after by only a niche crowd of particularly wealthy individuals -- high heel caps and authentic rubber sole pad sets, these were primarily used by actors on high-end film sets for dulling the footfalls of actors in live reality television scenes, where it was more important for the sound crew to be able to pick up on the actors' dialogue exchange than it was to modify the ambient sounds of Night City. Aolieon could have gone cheap and settled for some bulk pieces of synth-felt furniture stoppers, cut to custom fit her heels, but she decided not to skimp on it this time -- likewise, she didn't want to go all-out and equip the actual sound booties used by catburglars, as not only did they feel unnecessary for this job; they were downright ugly... On top of that, Aolieon had adjusted her gait; gone was the super-confident sashay where she held her head high and clacked her heels to the ground -- she instead maneuvered toe-first, softly padding her feet along the sidewalk with a cat's grace as she dulled her own swaying movements and instead pretended like she was on a fashion designer's promenade, presenting herself on the runway -- this actually sharpened Aolieon's stealth capabilities to an impressive degree; almost enough that the dancer might not have been noticed by the bruiser until she was right on top of her.

"Heyyy,"
Aolieon gently introduced herself to the scene, placing her hands on her hips and smiling sultrily at the bruiser. "I see you've kitted differently; can't shake the feeling you might be a bit underdressed for an operation of this kind," she teased, brushing a free hand past Therrye's shoulder. "Or am I the one that's overdressed, hm? You tell me..." She halfway grinned, looking around at the meeting place that she had designated -- uncouth as it was for being a manufactured part of the city, what really caught her eye was the fact that there was no one else here... She had shown up fashionably late once more, as she was known to be... "And what's this? No new strangers to make smalltalk with, this time! Not sure if I should chalk that up as progress, or counterintuition..." She raised an eyebrow, hiding a genuine concern that there were few other people working on this operation -- however, that gnawed concern didn't last long.
"This op seems a decent bit more tight-wound than that other one we were on -- what gives, bruiser? Your fixer shorting you on fodder, or something?"
 
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With her more stealthy approach, the dancer indeed had the drop on the bruiser by intentionally coming from an oblique direction. She glanced over at enough distance to avoid a garroting, but not a silenced shot to the head. "You've upped your stealth game," she noted with a mild start, diminished largely by the familiar color of her jumpsuit. Shaking her head at the highly armed samurai, she swiped her access to the bikes storage, which proceeded to fold out to the side. "Don't need to keep an armory strapped to me when I got a ride." Reaching in, she withdrew her Kolac, which she swung behind her and let go against her jacket; a magnetic insert and attachment to the gun held it in place. Opening her armored covering, she withdrew eight grenades and pinned six onto onto one side of the interior lining and two onto the other. A large parcel of plastic explosive followed, which was attached to the side with just two.

Her two breaker fists followed, and she closed the storage before sliding her hands into them and twisting their bars into place to shoot the connection rods into her arms to anchor to her reinforced bones. Even now, the process remained jarring.

"Is that a hint of fear I'm hearing in all of your sass, old lady?" Therrye half-snorted, half-chuffed. "And here I thought you preferred to go it with as few extra hands as possible. I'd wonder if you'd gone soft on me after yesterday, but I know better," she said dryly. Even though the woman hadn't vanished between the time they fell asleep and woke up, she'd made it clear that whatever her feelings were toward her, she still wasn't a fuzzy enjoyer of life and love. That made her briefly think of Sid, who she hoped was looking more afield for someone choosing less danger than herself.

From there, she took a couple steps over to a derelict looking heap of scrap and yanked off a tarp. At the top was what looked like a massively oversized riot shield, curved in shape, a couple times as thick and almost three bodies wide. Hefting it handily with one arm, she rested it against the ground in front of her. "Ready for damn near anything with this," she grinned, clearly confident in its specs. She scraped a shoe against the pavement, then, "Plus I went with full rubberized-grounding shoes, just in case."

With her own kit shown off, she got a little more serious. "Aside from the few guards, who are still on payroll for another two weeks, there's seven hallways leading to the core. Because they're randomized, we won't know what to expect, but I'll be keeping each door from sealing behind us." Tapping together her fists, she seemed more brazenly confident than her usual. "Think you can handle that, or should I find another genius femme fatale for the job?"
 
Aolieon let out a note of amusement as she beamed salaciously at the bruiser, prideful in the fact she was able to sneak up on her. "My stealth game has always been good," she replied tastefully, walking around to get close to invading her space but not too much that Therrye couldn't step away. "When you get to be doing this as long as I have, you get a feel for what people will be looking or listening for," she chuffed, biting her lip as she quietly brushed her hair back behind her. She looked offended and lightly punched the bruiser in the arm at her next comment. "Don't call me old!" she scoffed, appalled at the nerve of the bruiser. "I'm preem; I age like fine wine -- that's more than most of these city-swingers can say..." she clicked her tongue, shaking her head and managing a giggle at Therrye's mirth, shrugging at her comments about her wanting less hands and going soft. "Well, I guess gonks are low in supply as a commodity... Fine; I'll take this one seriously, then," Aolieon then took a step back, performing her signature warm-up of high-kicking knee hugs and a hip roll. She followed it up with a couple of quadricep stretches and even some cross-body arm tugs.

She did take a moment to admire the bruiser's selection as she geared up. "Mm, Rostovic, hu? Adaptability of a tungsten cube, for a fraction of the price. A solid choice... for you. I'm more of a Tsunami gal, myself,," Aolieon smirked, clearly doing little in the way of hiding her mild disdain for a company more widely known for their craftsmanship of shotguns. Of course, for anyone who knew their irons; Aolieon's preference of Tsunami over most others was particularly telling. Between the production of the Rasetsu, the Kyubi & the Nue alone; several factors made themselves of a glowing appeal to the dancer -- disproportionately expensive, cutting-edge technology that comes in multitudes of eccentric colors; all the while providing competent and more-often-than-not devastating firepower that can be wielded expertly, even by 'ganics -- clearly a hallmark company that suits Aolieon as well as purple synth-silk. Regardless, Aolieon did make a mental note of the bruiser's choice in the Kolac, and what that entailed in its usage... For Aolieon, it meant that if pushed to the brink in the more long-term; there would be certain weapons and munitions choices that Therrye could make use of, which were secretly manufactured by the Fallen to engage the likes of Max-Tac -- an intrusive yet tactical thought which would pose hardly any significance at this rate and juncture...
The grenades and plastic explosives that followed hardly received the batting of an eyelash from the dancer, as they were par for the course when it came to a gig like this. When Therrye installed her breakers, Aolieon winced and visibly cringed. "No matter how many times I see it happen or I see what you chromers do to your arms; I still can't seem to get used to all you guys do for the sake of melee. I just don't get it..." she scoffed, shaking her head mildly to perish the thoughts that came from the whole exchange. This wasn't entirely the case; in her life experience of combat, she had seen what great muscular strength and arm breakers could actually do in a battlefield situation, but it remained an altogether diamond-honed perfection at the cost of great risk to oneself. She wasn't one much to be talking, but at least Samurai outsourced such necessary superhuman abilities through their swords and had perfected their arts through training, discipline and centuries of warfare... Something Aolieon didn't think could be said for someone who used breakers or even gorilla arms. Still, to each their own, and from her recollection -- there were certain situations in which Therrye's breakers might come in handy for this gig...
When the riot shield came out, Aolieon couldn't help but laugh and roll her eyes. "Ohh yeah; I'm sure the pigs would agree with you, there... Ya know why it is they use those? Because of course pigs would gladly neglect the risks of being a sitting duck on the battlefield -- especially when they've never, ever in history, been good at running or agility," she chuffed, chuckling but wiping the derision off her face shortly thereafter. "Still, I suppose its a worthwhile adaptation to this job; I'd still suggest leaving that somewhere nearby where you're actually gonna need it -- most people move like they have cement shoes when they have to carry something like that, you know," Aolieon shot her a wink, and then did a full accountability of all her items. Eventually, she started walking towards where they needed to be, and she consolidated all of her quickhacks one more time, reshuffling her cyberdeck as they moved towards the job site.

"Well, bruiser; this is your gig, so lead the way -- if you wanna go over everything one last time before we get to work, you can. Otherwise, let's get cracking -- you still owe me a dinner date!"
 
"You've been doing this awhile, right?" Therrye grinned toothily at the dancer. "You can't expect to pull the 'grizzled vet' card and not get called old," she chuckled, testing the weight of the shield in both arms. "Never said you weren't preem, though. In fact I do recall describing you as 'nova'." Smirking modestly, she reached back into her storage to grab one last item -- a gas mask. It was pretty key to handling one of the trap rooms, even if it was otherwise fairly useless. She carefully pulled it over her head and hair, managing the feat with quite a bit of delicacy despite already having her breakers equipped.

"Tungsten cubes get the job done based on mass, not astronomical price tags and packing the works into a gun that you just need to aim and trigger to zero obstacles." The bruiser clearly wasn't reigning it in this time, and had no issue implying that Aolieon needed to rely on fancy tech to get the job done -- even if she didn't say it outright. "Besides, it's hilarious destroying things 1000 times the value of what I'm shooting with." She winked, even.

A snort came at the mention of melee and she gestured pointedly at her swords. "Gonks don't have to train for years to not cut their own arms off using swords, so really, which of the two of us is doing all that for the sake of melee?" Of course, Therrye absolutely respected melee. Tight quarters were common in urban areas, melee never ran out of ammo, melee trumped guns up close, and most armor was designed for ballistics and explosives, to boot. How do you design a turret to resist massive incoming force focused in on tiny impact points without making it a literal tank? How do you make tactical armor that resists immense punches as well as it turns aside bullets and blade? Logistical nightmare for arms manufacturers and a harsh price tag for Corpos, all told. She'd also spent her entire life honing her skills in close combat; despite her lack of breadth and depth in martial arts, her prowess in fisticuffs was terrifying, and she rightly knew it.

"Pigs have too much confidence in themselves. But there's something to be said for indefatigable defense and overwhelming strength." Grasping the shield in one arm and the tarp with something else in the other, she lifted the large semicircular defense overhead and raised a brow at her before turning and hustling toward the job site. "I wouldn't have expected you to need a refresher on the detes, and you don't seem drunk yet today," she offered with another smirk.

There wasn't entirely clear detail on all the surveillance the job site had at its disposal. Presumably, the break in the chain of cooperation and ownership surrounding the group and the data crypt meant that it was vulnerable for infiltration and assault. That said, the hired guards were essentially a separate contracted entity, and all of the crypt's autonomous defense systems remained in place, while they had none of the keys for easy bypassing. Therrye estimated a 3 block radius max for vigilant detection, and that might have been pushing it, but she drew in to a slowed approach around the edge of 5 blocks from the site. Laying down the tarp and shifting it so it overlapped itself, she carefully slid the shield in between the folds to hide it and mask its sound. She then equipped the ratty hoody she'd been holding with it, which wouldn't hold up to close scrutiny, yet passed plenty enough for routine visual inspection; it helped that the color of her shoes blended in more with sidewalk and asphalt than anything else. Hood drawn, and hands tucked beneath the tarp she carried over her shoulder, she began dragging the tarp along a circuitous route toward the destination.

She rattled off details with a low voice while they approached. "Seven traps order unknown, eight self-sealing doors, half a dozen guards inside the building, nothing on the exterior. I'll have the shield up at the front of every hallway, so you'll have a safer spot to retreat if you get in over your head." Casting her a teasing glance, she then sombered up a little. "Do make use of it. Your fancy acrobatics will be hard to pull off if a laser bisects you." Letting that fade, she resumed her full attention to the task at hand. "You're up next, dancer."

Taking the long way down the walk that led beside the half-derelict seeming warehouse that housed the data crypt, she unhurriedly made her way alongside it, taking up all the visual attention of cameras and guards inside the building to give Aolieon an opening for infiltration.
 
"Mm," came the pleasurable 'nova' acknowledgement of her compliment, rolling her eyes at what else came before and after. Something was beginning to quietly fade in the presence and energy Aolieon brought to the air around her; the mirth and risqué attitude about her still seemed present, although more tamed. She adjusted her stuff and seemed to be ticking and pulling up programs on her datapad. "Tungsten cubes don't HAVE jobs, Ther," she scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Engineering and design is just as much an artform as martial arts is; that's why we have so many kinds and features. Never send a hammer to do a scalpel's job -- or did you bring me along, just because I look pretty, hm?" She acknowledged the wink by letting her tongue lull briefly from between her teeth. She then looked down, beginning the process of reprogramming it for the job in question. Pulling an earpiece from her pouch and pulling an extendable mouthpiece down to where it could just hang aloft by the corner of her mouth, she tapped it twice, as the call marker for Aolieon popped up on Therrye's feed.
"Training is a worthwhile investment into the mind, body and soul -- drilling locking points into one's very bones to attach glorified clubs to one's hands is a gonk's shortcut in favor of not putting the time in, as an old friend of mine used to say," she paused a moment as her AR glasses lit up and started showing red lines of code on them, running their boot-up sequence; she shrugged and managed a velvety smile. "You appear to be an exception to that rule, sweet thing... Still. I guess it's just far from my thing."

When Therrye made her comments about defense and strength, Aolieon puckered her lips, giving Therrye a skeptical look. "Okay, Adam Smasher. Get that brainpower in gear on something other than using some fancy words, how bout that?" Aolieon's reply came sarcastically, her eyelids lowered at the snark of her alcoholism. "You want me to be? Crushing this gauntlet of doom while plastered might be a worthwhile challenge -- don't want me to take this seriously, just say the word!" She chuffed, licking her lips in a taunting manner. Somehow, that was still a tad off-putting. Clearly this was an attempt at adaptation to her initial mannerisms; if she hadn't been conscientiously giving a little more to her own endeavors in light of trying to take the bruiser seriously, it would have been easy deflects and colorful banter -- at the current moment, it seemed off-putting. Still, the dancer mused that she kind of deserved this and was going to have to 'socially adjust fire' in order to sweep the play underneath the rug.

She pulled out her Nue, twirling it a couple of times in her hand and performing a one-handed chamber check, pulling the slide back with two fingers to ensure a round had been chambered and off-safety instead of merely loading a magazine, as she had quietly caught herself doing with the last two missions where she didn't rely too heavily on firearms. She listened intently to Therrye's rebriefing of the sitch, without giving eye contact or anything serious to the situation unlike she intended to. Still, hearing her go over the detes was comforting, as she checked the gravity lock on her sword and the easy flipping access for the sling on her Saratoga. Finally, she retightened the straps on her aramid vest, and simply rolled her shoulders and cracked her neck, eyelids lowered as she let out a huff of determination and formed a puckered smile with her lips. "Ohh, don't act like you wouldn't love two pieces of me just as much, if not more than one. Do take your time; first piece of ELSUR you see, wait at least a minute after you're sure I've spotted it... stay occupied while I make this place sing to me," She added onto all the bruiser's plans. If one didn't know any better, it might have seemed like the dancer didn't trust any information given. Seems like she was planning on simply taking a peek -- however, it had yet to be noticed what Aolieon could do with just a camera...

Naturally, Aolieon took to some connexes and scaled them to get a better or easier acrobatic vantage point for insertion. Whenever the first camera would show into view; Aolieon would slip into cover after administering a Camera Control quickhack. She'd then kneel down and focus entirely on her datapad, using her ring finger to control a custom camera swivel function while she marked the presence of guards, body disposal locations and computers. If there were death trap rooms present on certain cameras, she would mark access control points and then pause, using two fingers to zoom and study certain rooms more carefully -- even going so far as to note micro-features in the environment, such as hollow imperfections in tiled floors (pressure plates), open recesses in walls (darts), circular plates in ceilings or floors (turrets), and more...

When finished with her little schtick, she'd come out of the interface, turning the corner to administer the quickhack to turn the camera off, and tap a button on the side of her glasses twice. When that happened, lines of code would appear on her glasses, reading "UPLOADING DATA..." and once finished, the control interface would appear -- however, instead of manifesting glowing, moving apparitions through walls, simple color coded markers would show, designated with one letter and four numbers next to each, all tiny and minimalistic. H for "hostile", D for "dump" and C for "control point"; the first number being the order in which it was marked, and the last three representing its distance from Aolieon in meters.

"Mm, yes, this place sings to me such sweet music. Throw me a digital handshake, if ya want more detes, bruiser."
Aolieon murmured underneath her breath in a low tone, but loud enough that it'd come through clearly on comms.
 
Therrye accepted the call from her without hesitation. "I've been training since I was a few feet tall, dancer. Augments enhance what's already there. Or are you going to say those Tsunamis are making up for your lack of skill?" Focused in as she was, she didn't turn to give her a wink, but it was plenty present in her voice. The lack of similar coming back made her ponder the subtle shifts in Aolieon's demeanor. Was she, perhaps, taking things a little more seriously? "Already seems like you're approaching this with more intent. May be you're getting tired of receiving all that derisive sass you like laying out so thickly? Either way, you can call me pleasantly surprised."

"Will do,"
she responded simply to the request for time to get into the systems. The plan, in her mind, already entailed her getting past the warehouse and then seeming to dig through some trash before doubling back to make her entry. Ideally, the samurai would already have made an entry or deadened security alarms within that time frame. If not, well, she had a couple tricks in mind beyond just smashing in the door, despite the middling esteem sent her direction.

Inside the fairly nondescript warehouse exterior was a barely lit circle of walkways and empty space surrounding the 'death cube'. Not all of it was aboveground, either, as the hallways doubled back and went both up and down in their pathing. Truly, it was a nested snake of varying types of death -- utter overkill, truly, but then who knew how valuable the data crypt actually was? If it actually led to a full crack of Techtronika's patented designs, it'd be worth a tidy fortune.

A single entry point led into the death cube, marked by a red-lit rectangle where the door was. Touch pads were the only interfaces inside of the cube and only present at the doors. Every section of the cube was air-gapped from the rest of it and the exterior touch pad was dark to everything but the exterior door, making it a deep headache for any netrunner approach. The warehouse interior, however, was a pretty simple job. These guards were more of a mild deterrent than an actual threat to infiltration. Calling for backup was the worst they could do. Really, the main defensive advantage of the interior was that there was so little inside besides the death cube, so sight lines were not at all favorable to the stealthy runner.

That didn't mean it was entirely bereft of opportunity, though, and the samurai well marked blind spots and camera angles, along with the second floor access point to the alarm and camera systems.

"Dancing and singing? You're a whirlwind of talent," she grinned with the quiet words, connecting as requested to get the visuals. The bruiser still didn't turn around to look at the warehouse, though, lest she alert them pre-emptively. "Ready for entry on your mark."
 
"A good iron in gonk hands can make up for a lack in tact, but a good iron in great hands can do just about anything," came the monotone reply of Aolieon, only punctuated in any change in pitch or tone by a pause, followed by the groan of sentence continuation -- the result? Aolieon vaulting across the gap and delicately landing into a dodge roll atop the warehouse. Any other noted sass would be met with half-assed or melodic, mildly amused grunts. She'd strut over to the edge and ping her Cyberdeck several times, commanding a pane of industrial shutters to open and slam closed several times before leaving themselves open. Eventually, a guard, seriously perturbed by the whole observation of one of the warehouse windows going berserk would walk up to it to investigate. After a handful of seconds, he'd poke his head out to see if anyone was interfering directly from the outside -- the biggest mistake of his life. With a piece of carbon fiber wire strung between two black handles, Aolieon dove partially down to lash it around the guards neck with one hand; catching the other handle in her other hand while she dug her knees in to effectively  lynch the guard in a horrendous display, pulling him up and out the window as she planted feet against the ledge and pulled the gurgling, bleeding mess up onto the rooftop. Aolieon then huffed, pulling her Nue and putting the bloodied writhing mess beneath her out of his misery like some stray dog. She huffed, brushing her hair out of her face, winking in Therrye's direction.

"Ohh yeah? You should catch me at some karaoke. "On my mark", hu? Affirmative, Sargeant Muscle Mommy, or whatever. Hey, ya like fireworks?"
Aolieon tapped back into the exterior camera, switching devices and found a poor soul cooking Ramen in a microwave, staring at it with clear hunger and boredom
Initiating an Overload of the machine, the man's improvised dinner would immediately detonate in his face, causing him to cry out and be sent flying mildly from his chair. The whole display would get the attention of the other guards, seeing their only microwave blown to smithereens... and consequently, pulling all eyes off of Therrye's selected entry door.
 
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Sergeant Muscle Mommy? Therrye cracked up, doing her best to keep it low and not arouse any notice. "I didn't know you were the type to want a muscle mommy, but should I be surprised?" she quipped with mirth. Rapidly pulling up the tarp, she eyeballed the windows and then hurled it, covering a wide section of visuals while she booked it to the door. The paranoid hackers who owned the joint put a minimal amount of electronic effort into their locks on the exterior, and instead of heavily reinforced doors, it was all very middle-of-the-road security. Angling her thumb perpendicular to the locks and door knob, she did a micro-punch into each one, tearing, chonking, or plunging them in quick succession to render the entire notion of a 'locked door' a memory. Gently nudging it open with her foot, and having already sized up the opposition based on Aolieon's data feed, she took a swift hustle to the stairs, bridging soft footfalls and speed. At the base, she took hold the railing near as far as her arm could reach and then threw herself up the entire length, plunging feet-first into a guard's chest just as he was opening the door.

Landing into the kitchen, she stomped into the guard's neck with enough force to incapacitate him for a spell while she threw herself into the next three guards, the third of which was still dealing with explosive Ramen syndrome. Grabbing a gun barrel and twisting it up, she then pushed it into the second guard's chest, sending them toppling over into the line of fire of the third guard. Coming in behind him, she smacked the third guard's gun hand clear into a sprained-if-not-snapped wrist, eliciting a scream of pain. Her second arm followed with a grip around his mouth, bottling up the sound swiftly and then crunching flesh and bone until she felt him go limp. Throwing that body back into the second guard, she picked up the fourth guard and slammed him headfirst into the first guard, half-braining the two of them in one go. Keeping him in hand by his armor, she proceeded to bludgeon the second and first guard to death using the fourth as a weapon, stopping once she could no longer hear rattling breaths or see expanding and contracting lungs.

It was pretty short work, all told, and the last bit of it took the longest. By the time she'd exited, she could already see the sixth guard flatlined thanks to Aolieon's handiwork. Sliding down the railing and vaulting readily back onto the warehouse floor, she did a roll and came up into an only-slightly-hurried jaunt out the door to retrieve her hemi-dome 'riot shield'. Carefully angling it, she drew back into the interior with it in tow and walked to the exterior door of the death cube. Glancing over to her companion, she smiled some, though she'd grown more serious. "Ready?"

With that, she pushed the touch pad, causing the door to separate horizontally and slide into the floor and ceiling. "Follow right behind me," she stated, stepping onto the threshold and planting the shield before bracing for the door to seal itself seconds later, as was protocol without an entered security code. Already ready, her breakers gripped the top and bottom halves of the door, a line created between the two of her arms, with the rest of her body putting its weight into the effort of cessation. The fists gripped into the door parts until they dented handholds into them, and then she pushed her weight upward while twisting until the upper half of the door was a smoking, whirring wreck of metal. Taking hold of the door frame, she began doing the same to the bottom half.

While all of this was going on, though, Aolieon was left to fend with the turrets sprouting from the floor, walls and ceiling beyond the hemi-dome shield. It'd keep her safe from ballistics as long as she remained behind it, and though it drew focused fire, the samurai would add herself as a second target the second she left its line of defense.
 
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"What can I say? I have great taste," Aolieon teased back, her reply cut off by the wayward and fleeting sound of a door being punched on, echoing through Therrye's feed. She held her breath for a moment, still hovering over the open industrial shutters and trying to figure out the best play to this whole situation, but it would depend entirely on how the bruiser intended to go about this -- she knew that Therrye had some capacity for stealth, even in blind rage; however, the allowance of Aolieon to approach this infiltration with techniques of her own methods allowed for some creative expression, and the intrusive thought that came forward held Aolieon in suspense for a second as she assessed the targets on her AR glasses, and took a peek to see what was going on...
Turns out as fate would have it, the semi-paranoid and seemingly decent-paid guards had all rushed up to the kitchen to bear witness to the resulting culinary mishap, and were putting out a mild electrical fire, in addition to assuaging a very stunned compatriot -- the one closest to where Aolieon resided was clearly an asshole, because he was dying of laughter right where he stood "I guess that scop REALLY had plenty of iron in it, didn't--" his unnecessary punchline was cut short by the shocking visage of a lilac blur delivering some trademark wrestling bravado in the form of a dropkick that stuck the landing in a rather brutal way. Aolieon was hanging upside down over the ledge, hands lightly gripping the top of the shutter frames as her head observed with her nose just barely nestled against the window frame. Darting her eyes off to the far end of the room, dispensing a hands-free quickhack to turn the camera off just as Therrye burst through the door, before settling back into her weird pose. She saw the whole thing; metal twisting, bludgeoning, grappling, the beating of motherfuckers with another motherfucker... Aolieon's eyes widened, blinking a couple of times in flabbergasted amazement at the over-the-top nature of it all. Brutal AND efficient in a way, came the thought. The last guy's rifle jammed, and when his sidearm refused to relieve itself of its holster -- he began fumbling for a radio. Without another word, Aolieon pulled into her chest with her hands, causing her upper body to slide down with the majority of her body slipping off the ledge. Catching the outcropping of the ledge she was once on with her feet and now hanging upside down like a bat, she unholstered her Nue, putting two straight in the back of his body armor to stun him, causing him to drop his radio. Seeing the options and pathways fan out before her lightning-fast mind, she opted to waste zero effort, putting one in the back of his head where the brain stem was, causing him to crumple to the floor like something that could only dream of being liquid. She turned her head to the bruiser, who was undoubtedly now huffing from all of that brief exertion. Aolieon smiled as she holstered her pistol, then letting go of the ledge with her ankles to plant her hands upon the windowsill, curling her knees in and flipping to upright with the grace of a cat.
"That'll teach those guys to take on a decent payroll from paranoid people," she said with a snort, chuffing as she marveled at the mess she made. "When all doors open, you really go for it loud and proud, hu?" Aolieon shook her head and strutted down the stairs with nonchalant confidence after running their pockets for eurodollars and ammo, and sampling a Chromanticore from their refridgerator -- because of Aolieon's sure-fire breach of the outer defenses and Therrye's gusto in dispatching the human elements of this gig; things had gone smoothly quite quicker than the dancer had anticipated, and so she quietly rewarded herself for trusting the bruiser with some petty income and something tasty to drink.

Coming down the stairs with an aramid vest stuffed half full of eurodollars and sipping a Chromanticore in one hand, she sighed obnoxiously at the taste of her favorite flavor, before giving Therrye a look. "...What? You turned thirty minutes into five, and no alarms were raised. That defense system isn't just gonna grow legs and run away..." she turned her head, guzzling the remaining half of the Chromanticore down, and sighing gruffly, straightening her fit and giving her a mirthy smile. At the bruiser's super-serious command, Aolieon snorted lightly with a tone of sweetened derision. "Such a gentlewoman..." came the affirmation as she strutted up, her expression deadening into something of a bored glare as they approached the main event of this heist. Beyond her nonchalant candor from before and her replies, Aolieon complied with the bruiser's intentions both verbal and nonverbal, filing into place like she was a polymer magazine meant for this situation. As Therrye had immediately be let known with her texts, the door tried to seal itself and she had immediately set herself upon tearing it wide open -- just as a multitude of turrets extended from their placements and began to unload upon them from the start.
Aolieon clicked her tongue, the reality of the situation settling in... and getting her annoyed. She puckered her lips, thinking for only a millisecond before mildly dialing some keys on her keypad. "How quaint; enough turrets to confidently emplace in a chokepoint and turn a bounding battalion into swiss cheese -- THAT makes sense," Aolieon bickered loudly enough over the hail of gunfire to have her spite be heard by Therrye with minimal effort. Not even two seconds had passed after that moment, and already a mild explosion could be heard from one turret overloading, and then another. She continued to idly muse as she punched in keys on her datapad. "I couldn't even see inside of this thing, except for the access control nodes -- they must've air-gapped everything." A beat; two turrets started opening fire on each other. "You realize how completely ridiculous it is to have to hard-code seven floors of cyberspace, just for one defense system? 110 degrees of separation, like fuck these guys. I'd say I'd hunt them down for free, but i don't even know..." Another beat, and another explosion. Aolieon pulled out her Overture, removing an empty speed loader from her pouch and performing an unorthodox technique where she unhinged the cylinder, shook the bullets into the speed loader and clipped it shut. "Been awhile since I used these so..." She pulled out another speed loader with some gnarly looking polymer-and-copper rounds with weird compounds in them. Once speed-loaded into the chamber, she shunted the revolver closed and pointed it out from the cover of the shield. "Fuck you!" she called out, shooting the last turret -- A minor explosion occurred on impact, shredding and spalling metal minorly, but otherwise disabling the turret outright. "...Heh. I haven't used these since..." Aolieon paused for a minute, before flipping her revolver and blowing smoke off the barrel. "... another time. Anyways, let's see what other surprises they've left us."
 
"You don't like to have fun with it?" she grinned, wiping a spatter of blood from her face. "And you're right. Controlled mess saves time. Especially when a smart 'runner disables the alarms." She waggled some brows before slipping into the more focused side of the job. Though it still happened in a fairly controlled manner, Edgerunning was a time to cut loose and let one's savage bloodlust truly enjoy some freedom. It was hard to tell whether Aolieon got some of the same enjoyment from it, though.

Therrye grunted with some amusement while the samurai-netrunner went on her tirade. "Why do they even design turrets to be explodable with hacks?" she mused aloud, just audible enough to hear over everything. "No, can't say I know enough of your techno inklings to get it, though this is clearly overkill. Or not," she added more quietly, given the uncertain nature of the payout. This could be tremendous... or not. Figuring that out wasn't really in her skillset, regardless. The bruiser wasn't an empty-headed gonk, yet she'd readily admit the deep end of tech was completely out of her knowledge base. Turns out you aren't taught much about such things when you're a fight slave for decades.

Not that it especially appealed to her anyhow. What satisfaction in it could match that of the physical activities she preferred?

With the door pried open and no longer able to operate itself, despite the complaining noises of its internal machinery, Therrye picked the shield back up. "Nice work," she complimented her companion simply, and began pushing forward through the corridor. Unsurprisingly, the shield took up the vast majority of the hallway's space; the death box wasn't designed to let many people through at a time, and two side-by-side was already stretching it. At a guess, she suspected Ares wouldn't even fit into the hall just on his own. "I wouldn't be against tracking them down, but would it be worth the trouble?" A half-smile before focusing in on the next door, which was up several steps, making it about a half-hall's height above where they entered. Therrye pulled on her gas mask, then, not sure when it'd yet come in handy. "Here goes," came the muffled sound of her voice. Pressing the pad, she executed a similar maneuver as the first time, placing the shield before bracing for the door and attacking it with a determined ferocity. With how it squealed and whined, one might very well have felt bad for it if it looked like some cute robot. As it was, this was designed to trap and murder them with great efficiency.

While she did so, a faint hum rose into a crescendo as the entirety of the hallway electrified with a fantastic amount of voltage. Barely visible strands of filament, not especially long but extending the reach of the trap's juice, were placed throughout its interior. Though their amplitude would be minor on their own, a shock that led to one falling onto the floor would be extremely lethal. "Got something for this, dancer?" she muttered, still straining with the door. Unlike the last room, there was no connected network access to the electrical system in this hallway; it was entirely triggered by a mechanical array attached to the data pad. That perhaps left a vulnerability, however...
 
Aolieon gave Therrye a bit of a side-eye at the comment of enjoying the bloodshed; sure, she wasn't one to be able to talk much when it came to rampantly shedding blood and enjoying it, but seeing it come from the bruiser so abruptly on a dime was mildly concerning. She managed a leer though, quietly affirming with subtlety the answer to her question. When she posed her question about the turrets, Aolieon was still typing on her datapad, and working her magic. "Ohh, they don't inherently design them to do that, dear; a great deal of R&D goes into leaning towards the opposite, in fact -- unfortunately for such turrets to be competent on their own, they need their own power sources and ammo racks; thus like with all tanks/Mechs, their biggest weakness becomes themselves," Aolieon finished up the turrets, just as intended. Once all was said and done, she came out of the crouch behind cover and passed off an affirmative smile.
"As for hunting them down -- some gonks just need to be put out of everyone else's misery. Having money is one thing; being willing to burn it so frivolously on something like this? Ugh. Worse than psycho gonk mercs who don't know the meaning of the word 'tact'," By the time she spoke those words in a lowly and spiteful tone, Aolieon was already holstering her Overture. When Therrye put on her gas mask, she curled her lip and gave her the side-eye. "Ugh, remind me to craft you a rebreather and some goggles -- that thing just takes so much away from your good looks," she scorned sardonically. Part of her wanted to place another lip-print on the mask, but she didn't want to overtly obscure the bruiser's vision when she might need her at her best. When she immediately emplaced the shield and got to work on ripping this door open, Aolieon looked around and studied the environment carefully. When the faint hum sounded out and the hallway became electrified, Aolieon stepped back before thing could get ugly, and witnessed all the guy wires and the live shocking arcs crackle across the floor, with some even licking the surface of the riot shield. When Therrye questioned if she had something for it, Aolieon couldn't help but laugh derisively.
"Well, scratch what I said earlier -- these 'security masterminds' are fucking idiots!" Aolieon laughed loudly, pinching the bridge of her nose and following it up with a seemingly derailed sigh. "Yeah, I got something for this. You're gonna wanna probably get some distance though -- finish with the door, then let's take a walk." Aolieon crossed her arms and waited patiently for the bruiser to rend the door into an ugly shape; after that, she'd take a free hand and interlace her fingers as she walked the bruiser out of the deathtrap room and even back into the warehouse section -- a playful skip entered her gait as Aolieon seemed to be guiding her into throwing in the towel, but that wasn't the case. "I could totally hack that datapad and sever the circuit, but that's no fun; our malefactors, in their haste to spare no expense against netrunners, has turned one of their deathtraps into such a glaring vulnerability, that I finally get to do something it usually takes a netrunning crew to do," Aolieon grinned maliciously, turning towards the bruiser and taking a moment to invade her personal space, one hand caressing her shoulders and chest while another pulled out a unique looking (and altogether easily identified) grenade from off of her belt. With her free hand, she leaned in and blew a fog of hot breath against her visor, writing an " ;* " smiley in the fog on it. "Can those Kiroshis see in the dark, sweetie?" -- and without another word, Aolieon pulled the ripcord from the Chaff Grenade with her teeth, turning her head just long enough to lob it over her head and swish it through the torn door opening.

An ancient Soviet design of the 1960's, altogether abandoned in lieu of budget cuts aimed at maintaining momentum in the nuclear arms race as well as advancements in cyberware -- Chaff is an aerosolized compound consisting of small aluminum strips and fragments specifically designed to confuse radar frequencies; in later years of corporate warfare, Chaff was dispensed via aircraft to fool missile defense radar. The individual strips are cut in such a way that they wreak havoc on radar-transmitted frequencies. The Chaff Grenade is dual-purpose device that serves as a wide-dispersal system for these aerosolized aluminum strips, but it also comes with a short-range electronic jamming system similar in effect to an electromagnetic pulse. Despite the advancements in technology, the usage of Chaff became rather niche over the last century and as a result, the aerosolized compound working in tandem with the shortwave jammer fools most electronic devices, to include ELSUR and in properly used cases, Kiroshi Optics.
Unfortunately for the designers of this anti-espionage deathtrap -- aluminum also happens to be a good conductor of electricity, ranked highest after copper -- which is the true purpose for why Aolieon was utilizing this grenade; with the emergence of this deathtrap room, Aolieon now had a uncanny hypothesis to field-test, and it would turn out to have a much greater effect than even she had surmised...


The grenade body was immediately caught on a guy wire and zapped which caused a premature and boosted detonation -- the EMP went off and sent the room crackling with vibrant light. As Chaff was spit out all around, the aluminum strips were consequently fried in midair, but not before allowing a blinding kaleidoscope of supercharged electrical arcs to cascade violently throughout the room. The resulting overload of excessive voltage, despite being halted from further rooms inwards by air-gapped spaces in between, traveled to more vulnerable systems outwards, seeking connection with anything it could find -- an explosion could be heard outside the warehouse as an outside generator went the way of the dumpster fire and the last errant spirals of electrical arcs found their way along power lines, causing a local blackout in the region. Just before all of this mayhem had ensued, Aolieon got "lovingly aggressive", shoving the bruiser's back against a concrete wall and ensuring she stood on something other than metal while she pressed her chest to hers -- effectively and hastily grounding them in the moment to ensure they were not also enraptured in the ensuing chaos that erupted. Aolieon's eyes widened with a quaint smile, more impressed with the fact that the best possible outcome had been achieved and she had effectively poked a hole in Night City's power grid with a single grenade -- a shame that only Therrye was the only one alive to tell the tale besides her; it'd make for quite the crazy story at the Afterlife...
The smell of overcooked circuits and burnt plastic & sugar filled the air (as a result of the aerosolized compound that she still had stored in the Chaff Grenade). Aolieon took a whiff of the air and immediately wrinkled her nose with a perturbed sneer. "... Okay, maybe you're onto something." Removing a black triangular device the size of a hard drive from her pouches, she placed it over her lips and nose, fixating it into place, as a vox crackled to life and air hisses followed with a tiny whir. "Grab your stuff, bruiser -- I sincerely doubt anyone is going to be able to equate this rinky-dink warehouse with the power outage, but we should probably get a hustle going before the IEC drives through this part of town," Having seen Therrye open the next room by simply interacting with a touch pad before quickly turning about to prevent the door from sealing itself, Aolieon now proceeded to do this instead, pausing just long enough for Therrye to come up behind her and immediately set herself reprising her chosen role in this heist.

Just as Therrye was getting the hang of the door-sealing problems, several shoe-box sized panels in the walls, ceiling and floor opened up to release various drones, the majority of them aerial with some crawling or rolling on little wheels, the most iconic among them being several jerry-rigged and highly modified Zetatech Bombuses and Militech Wyverns, some of which had revolvers, SMGs and even grenade launchers strapped to their chassis. Aolieon immediately looked behind her to see if Therrye was finished ripping the door open, and then immediately pulled her down by the shoulders into cover before everything began to mildly explode and hail them with suppressing fire. "Ugh, am I walking through a death gauntlet or a shitty security consultant advertisement? Just keeps getting better and better... ugh, out!" Aolieon gestured for them to run back the way they came as she pulled the ripcord on another Chaff grenade, dropping it on the floor and rolling to get out the way before flipping up into a sprint of her own. "No time like the present to see if lightning can strike twice..." she mused. As the Chaff Grenade went off and certain drones immediately began to let out distorted whines and struggle in their flight path of pursuit not to drop like flies, she pulled another grenade from her belt -- this one the size of an extra-large energy can, with the shape of what appeared to be a black militarized fire hydrant. Twisting the silver top, an obnoxious loud electrical whine crescendoed into a sub-sonic pitch peak, and she tossed it behind her, making sure to see that it rolled roughly into the epicenter of the cloud of Chaff. The prototype "Magnova Grenade" then detonated, generating an EMP and then sending violent electrical arcs through the air, all of which found their hunger for metallic conductors immediately sated in the presence of the drones, as well as all the shrapnel and caltrops they had exploded into all over the place. What resulted was a similar effect to what had happened in the Electrified Room, albeit it was less glorious than seeing supercharged lethal voltage be dispersed and it was far more punctuated by a staccato of small explosions and incendiary fires from the Pyro grenades some of the drones had been stashed in. The third deathtrap room had undoubtedly been reduced to the messiest of shambles thus far, with wall panels ripped out of their emplacements, holes in the floor where the drones had once lived remaining open, and an all-out dumpster fire of caltrops, grenade shrapnel, broken weapons and drone carcasses littered all over the place while small electrical fires brewed -- all effectively making the two-persons wide room look like the "world's tiniest warzone".

Aolieon brushed her hair out of the way, assessing to make sure the bruiser hadn't been messed up or wounded in the process -- she pulled a random chunk of shrapnel out of her vesr and appraised a torn strap that had found its way into her tactical ensemble by means of a stray bullet. She huffed, seeing that the vest had still held together largely, and that no significant damage had been leveled against her. She groaned in mild frustration however, seeing her own getup now starting to get disheveled with all the minimal blood and now item damage from before. She rolled her eyes, making a mental note and chalking this bad luck up to her original jumpsuit. "Well, that was interesting. Need to shorten the detonation fuze on that thing, possibly up the amperage or range on it. That thing has promise in the right situations -- needs some serious work though; cant be waiting ten seconds for an electrical burst; thats not tactically ideal... How ya holding up, bruiser? You gonna get in on some of this action, any time soon?" She gave her a wink, sticking her tongue out and brushing her hair out of her face and back behind her. "I sure hope so -- this keeps up, Im gonna run out of Chaff; think i only got one left..."
 
"I'll add 'tact' to the list of things you care about," she chuckled before approaching the door. The dancer certainly had quite a few opinions, and it was entertaining getting acquainted with them. She chuffed and shook her head before getting to work, though she didn't sound bothered in the slightest. "You would care about aesthetic while bisecting Corpos." There was something to be said about priorities, but her companion seemed to have no trouble balancing it all and with top-of-the-line gear to boot. Might be why she's as concerned about eddies as she is, she noted.

After wrenching the door apart, Therrye was surprised by the feeling of the Liandri's fingers between the encapsulated ones of her breaker fists, which she minded rather carefully, given their ability to decimate flesh with metal. Her playfulness about all of this was certainly something, making her suspect she had something truly ominous in her sleeve for this particular hazard. "And what something is that?" Regardless of how her eyes responded to the woman's touch and proximity, she was uncertain whether she should be rather concerned at what what was about to happen. Still, she laughed at the smiley added to the mask. Then, "No, actually --"

The bruiser turned toward the sparks and then the explosion, wide-eyed at the ensuing chaos and destruction. Given her grounding shoes, she wasn't in much danger about it all, and provided a 'safe platform' for Aolieon to stand on. She wasn't expecting the push into the wall and nestling closeness, but she wouldn't have said she minded it, either. "You really are something, dancer." Shorting out power in the vicinity was quite a feat on the best of days, and managing it with a single grenade? Even though she wasn't a techhead, she knew that was an accomplishment... or a testament to a really gonk-headed notion of danger and death traps. She'd settle on 'both'.

Nodding to her, she made the mental note, glanced at the time, and jogged to the next door. Who doesn't need layered deadlines? She chuffed to herself as she tore into the entrance/exit to the third hall. When she was pulled down, the door hadn't been torn open yet, leaving it gapped but difficult to traverse. Having seen what the first grenade's work, Therrye booked it after her, carrying the shield with her to soak up any bullets that chased after them. The shape of the 'new' grenade made her raise a brow, yet she watched silently as she did her thing. A chain of explosions followed, and she was once again glad to have brought such a defensive item to this death box heist. She didn't want to imagine the sorts of wounds they'd be walking away from it with without it.

Stepping back toward the door, she swung the shield like it was a fraction of its size, smashing a few straggler drones into a wall and following that up with a crushing blow of the shield. As she turned, she barely caught sight of a suicide drone, and ducked under the shield right before it went off, flame rolling around its hemispherical shape before vanishing. Glancing back at the dancer, she gave a wry smile, then walked back to the door to tear it open. "Swords, dancing, guns, hacking, weapon fabrication -- what don't you do, Aolieon?" Grunts as she bent and wrecked internal and external components. "Other than punch things," she chuffed.

Exhaling after it was fully pushed open, she flexed and stretched her hands. "Leave me something to tackle, and I absolutely will," she winked back. Walking through the detritus of the ruined drone corridor with the shield set flush to the ground to sweep aside the caltrops, while taking care not to step into the one of the holes in the floor, she approached the fourth hallway. Her knuckles would be getting cracked, yet she was wearing the breakers, so she settled for a thud of metaled fist against fist. Once her companion opened the door, she placed the shield inside and braced for the closure, once again getting to work dismantling another perfectly overpriced slab of a portal. As she did so, the room came alive with volleys of thin metal darts thunking into the shield while long, thicker spikes shot out of walls and floor at erratic patterns. It was quickly clear that there were no targeting optics or programmed systems for this trap hallway; the only thing to hack was the door, and that didn't connect to the hallway in an 'on/off' switch sort of way -- only an 'on' switch. Mechanical timers, pressure plates and angled trajectories determined the continued assault, which did not let up even after Therrye had finished ruining the door and stepping up to the shield. Some of the darts were sticking into it, while many had fallen to the floor and rolled about in a growing pile.

She didn't know how many were hiding in the walls of the hallway, but given what they'd endured, she wouldn't be surprised if it could last an hour of continuous operation before running dry, and that was before she'd even set off any of the pressure plates.

"I know you're an agile ninja, but this looks like the poison trap hallway, so let me give this a go, okay?" Checking for assent, she focused in on the patterns of the passively-ordered traps. While there were gaps between all of the traps, they were kept small and intermittent, making it more of a baited plunge toward death to try and avoid them in a hurtling rush forward. With such a layered defense, Therrye's preference would have been absolute destruction; unfortunately, they were on a couple of timers now, and she didn't have the luxury of systematically dismantling this entire room. The hemisphere design of the shield gave her a particular advantage in completely blocking nearly 70% of the incoming field of assault on her, so as long as she wasn't getting nettled from above, below or behind, she'd be fine.

To her, this meant prioritizing the wall darts and the floor spikes.

Each 'battery' of spikes (it wasn't entirely accurate to use that term, as they were more spread out, but sectional 'chunks' emerged in her pattern analysis) included a variety of different materials and lengths -- some were ideal for piercing organs, while others were made to puncture armor. She wouldn't have been surprised if some of them injected venom as well, given the overwrought nature of the death box, so that was also a concern. All of this meant that while the spikes were being turned away from the shield, some were actually doing bits of damage to its outer layers, beyond all of the cosmetic scuffing that was making it less transparent with each passing minute.

Her approach decided, she got to work. First in each section came the floor: using all of these pressure plates and hollowed areas to house spikes meant it was far easier to tear off the surface layers of the flooring and reach right into to destroy entire banks of menacing trapwork with her breakers. Holding the shield upright over herself like a turtle shell, she stepped a little forward, used her other arm to rend the floor, and then advanced further. With the shield's defenses, she gave nearly zero fucks to any notion of incoming attacks, and bulldozed her way down feet of hall in quick succession.

With a section of floor down, she backtracked a couple of steps, stood upright with her shield, and took turns with each arm and each wall -- having noted all of the sections where darts did or could be coming out, a smash of the fist crushed the underlying mechanisms and contorted the exit ports badly enough to foul the traps entirely. This took notably longer then destroying the floor, but having no concrete clue for how deadly any of the poison darts might be, she wasn't interested in taking chances.

By the time the first two sections were down, she'd entered a rhythmic flow, and was a flurry of ruination upon the most dangerous elements of the hall. It took several minutes, but by the end of it, the dancer could practically turn sideways and cartwheel her way down the corridor without a drop of concern. Therrye was plenty sweaty for her part in it, but nowhere near tapped on her stamina. She did take a breather at the end, though. "Yeah, okay. I fucking hate these guys."
 
Aolieon grinned teasingly, "Gotta style on the haters," was all she said to her comments on aesthetic. When money could be invested into high-quality gear that also served a multitude of purposes, it made perfect sense to go all-out, especially when you could emphasize looks that could kill, while killing. It was one of Aolieon's more finite joys that she partook of. She also wholeheartedly enjoyed Therrye's reactions to the overloading of the grid -- the fact that the whole thing had happened to where the electricity could arc outside of the air-gapped rooms was a testimony to how much their malefactors had been overdoing it when it came to defense, and the errant arcs that transfered hundreds of volts all around was crazy enough -- Aolieon had simply taken the moment to be snarky back to them quietly, leaving a mess that was equally overdone, but to no effects of her own. The opportunity presented itself, and she relished using it against them. "I thought you liked going loud, bruiser," she mused, sticking her elegant tongue out with a tease before checking her peripherals to make sure everything was clear and then proceeding back into the death box.

When asking her about all that she did, she sighed, smiling with nostalgia. "I told you; I was lucky enough to have known some good teachers," she began. Brushing her hair out the way while they walked up to engage the fourth room, she brushed her hair back and lightly shrugged. "On a whim, my chains were broken by mercs; although, they were more what you'd call 'soldiers without borders', rather than mercs," Aolieon adjusted her equipment, chamber-checking her guns and making sure nothing was lost in all of her previous acrobatics. "Sometimes I wonder what life would have been like, if I hadn't taken every chance to learn all that I could from them, and instead chose to just be..." Remembering an old principle, she pulled a hairtie off her wrist and wrapped her hair up in a ponytail which she hastily braided and managed to tie off messy-like. She grinned, brushing off the hasty allusion to her past. "But then I get to do something crazy like that, and I have no regrets," she giggled, readying herself for the next room.

Watching the room come to life, Aolieon carefully regarded the various shabby bits being thrown and protruded to an fro across the little room -- Aolieon couldn't help but roll her eyes and gruffly sigh. "Now, we're just pulling ideas from shitty old movies and BDs. Seriously, what were these guys smoking when designing all this?" after a handful of seconds of her eyes darting all around and recognizing a pattern, she turned to Therrye, raising her eyebrows and then frowning complacently with a shrug, "All right; go ahead, lets see what you can do..." she let off a smug smile, hanging back and letting the bruiser set herself upon dismantling all the traps systematically. Watching her exert herself and destroy the traps one by one was quite a sight, and Aolieon placed a half-clutched fist up to her mouth, holding back a chuckle but altogether somehow finding time to enjoy the view in a twisted sort of way. She made a play of tinkering with her datapad, trying to scan the room for vulnerabilities, and found minimal. She smirked; such a primitive design allowed one to build it with almost no hacking vulnerabilities, but the fact that they didn't account for practical approaches was something she found mildly amusing. Aside from the Electrified Room, Aolieon realized that thus far, there was little that Therrye couldn't smash through on her own -- which proved a monument to how hyperfixated and yet thoughtless these gonks who designed this defense system were. After the handful of minutes passed, Aolieon crossed her arms and postured on one leg, mildly impressed with Therrye's conviction in dealing with all of this. "Has anyone ever told you to 'work smarter, not harder'?? I hope you got plenty of stamina for the rest of all this," She leered at the muscle-bound merc, huffing and puffing in the middle of all the mess. Aolieon chewed on her lip, seeing her all sweaty like -- Wonder if I can wear her out like that... of course came the natural intrusive thought afterwards... a thought that lingered long enough to let her be caught staring with her arms still crossed. Meeting Therrye's eyes for a second, she looked her up and down and smirked, "I'm not complaining, though; you put on hell of a show," she just had to add. Hearing Therrye huff about finally coming around to hate these guys who made all these traps in the first place. "...Uh-huh. Extra for no reason -- we see more than this, I think these guys wouldn't break even, even if we weren't trying to klep what they have... it better be worth my time," Aolieon snarked Mildly upset smirk being what it was; on a dime she casually started flipping and springing through what was left going on in the room. Huffing to release air, she swiped a hand to brush past Therrye's blue locks. Words could not describe how much she wanted to slap her ass right then and there, but she didn't want to completely derail the bruiser's train of thought -- they reportedly still had three rooms to go, with extraction on top of it all before they could possibly consider themselves home safe.
 
When Aolieon spoke more about her past, and those who rescued her, it caught her attention -- particularly her wondering about the life she might have had. There were glints of heartbreak in the feelings that rose up from that. Therrye had been raised a fighter, and for what she wanted to achieve, she knew there was no escape from violence and death. The dancer, though... with a mind like that, what couldn't she have been if she'd had the encouragement and training? She could have been in orbit now, working on tech that made all of this look phenomenally dated. Nevermind the Corpo influence there, but the stars were a dream to Streetkids. A certified genius like her was instead honed into another weapon. Beyond the heartbreak, a fresh wave of hatred was added toward those who'd cut her future off by enslaving her in the first place. There were so many to kill, and too many enmeshed in structures of power.

How can a fist become a bomb?

Before advancing into her path of total destruction, she gave a chiding look toward her. "Have you never seen Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon? One poisoned nick can be enough to kill either of us. Not risking it, no matter how skilled you are," she stated flatly.

The sweaty bruiser chuffed at the end of the hallway about her remarks on stamina. "Clearly you've never seen me in 16 hour training days." She swept her tongue through her mouth, swallowed, then shifted her gaze forward. It wasn't the expenditure of effort that had bothered her; despite how lightly Aolieon seemed to consider this hallway trap, to Therrye, she saw an exceptionally lethal corridor. How easy would it have been for the samurai to make it to the end of it with a flurry of acrobatics, complete the rest of the job, only then realize she'd been nicked by a barely-there needle, and die in her arms on the way to Kara? Furious was an understatement for her state of mood.

A glance turned back toward the hand moving through her hair. Therrye offered a conflicted smile before locking in again.

This time, she grabbed the upper half of the doorway as it tried to whoosh into the ceiling, not waiting for it to fully retract. Once she'd bent sides enough to create handholds, she shoved the shield through and placed it down before tearing into the metal in earnest. The bottom half of the door came rushing up soon after while the top half shifted direction to push back down, but she tore its mechanisms shortly thereafter, leaving a small gap between the two halves. From there, she threw a barrage of punches into the top of the bottom half, bending it away from a vertical position, and then twisted it to the side with a two-handed grip. Overall, it was less elegant than her previous door-handlings by a mile, but it took half the time.

Meanwhile, the corridor ahead of them was filling with gas, barely detectable by most indicators. The bruiser dropped another slam into the bottom door half to wedge it against the floor and then stepped in, scanning the terrain for where the hidden nozzles would be. This deep in, she suspected there'd be little chance of anything important lying above them. Flipping the shield around and dropping it to the ground, she stepped on top of it and carefully balanced her stance before shooting a hit into the ceiling. Using deformed metal as a gripping point, she tore down some metal panelling to create a gap. Reaching into her jacket, she withdrew the large plastic explosive. A moment of wiring attachments later, she pushed the slab into the gap and pushed metal back up so it wouldn't fall out. Reclaiming her shield, she hoofed back out of corridor and practically swept up Aolieon with her not-shield-holding arm. "Let's get some more distance again." Wire spooled through fingers of the hand holding the shield from a belt pouch, connected to a detonator right next to it. Back through the spike and poison trap and electrified trap corridors, she estimated they were safe enough, planted the shield, and then hit the detonator.

Shrapnel of exploded ceiling blasted through the interior of the warehouse, and gas that hadn't been thoroughly immolated was now venting throughout the building instead of getting concentrated enough to put any potentially corrosive stress on their gas filters. Wearing them was still important, of course. "There's never enough boom," she chuckled while holding an expression similar to one avidly watching a raging fire. "Well, enough dilly-dallying. We're still on the clock, aren't we?"

With three corridors in a row now in ruins, there were now only two corridors left. Therrye changed tack again upon entering this next one, placing the shield and then dropping into a single-fisted slam into the floor's doorway, gripping at metal to tear open some of the housing for the bottom half of the door and then punching and digging around in it until she destroyed mechanisms and wiring surrounding it, leaving it only partially extended. While the upper half was fully extended now, she could simply crouch in and out of the threshold -- which was a blessing, as a grid of laser cutters had formed from ceiling to floor in the hallway and was now rapidly hurtling down its length. "Shit," she called out, rolling through the opening as lasers swept past the shield, cutting notches into it but still only causing modest damage, and came to a halt at the end of the emitter range, which was right in front of the door. "That's fucking nasty," she seethed a little, pushing down the image of a cubed Liandri sealed inside a corridor. It wouldn't take long for Aolieon to discover that this one was similarly resistant to hacks, and even if they spent five minutes watching it, no clear pattern would emerge; the grid was total in stretching from wall to wall, and operated off of double-randomized timers and motion-sections. Sometimes it would hang in place for 10 seconds, then rapidly swivel forward and back, other times it would languidly move down half the corridor before doubling back for just a second, before shooting forward... Therrye tore up the rest of the door and pulled the shield back out of the corridor, not wanting to see it get progressively munched into shards while they decided on how to deal with the trap. "Any thoughts other than 'grenade the shit out of it'?"
 
Aolieon chuffed at the spice starting to emanate from the bruiser after all of that lovely display of power. She turned her head to give her a sideways leer, and clicked her tongue. "... can't say I've seen that one. What, you haven't been around the block long enough to carry an antitoxin cocktail airhypo in your kit?" The cat-like strut carried her across the now decimated room full of holes in the walls, floor and ceiling, brushing her free hand lackadaisically across the bruiser's front. "Figured you would; clearly, you've been watching enough chop saki movies to warrant such caution. Or do you not keep a tactical savings account enough to afford such drugs? Hmm..." she seemed to pout pitifully and playfully at Therrye, before lending her a wink and a light giggle. "Life's a game, and we play it harder than most. That being said, it's good to hear you still got a lot of fight in ya. Hopefully that can be put into perspective for me, in due time..."

She did love the sight of the bruiser getting more efficient and serious with her door ripping, and how she seemed to be cutting the corners with calculated consideration. This was more of a quality she professionally appreciated; of course, Therrye had proven her adaptability quite well in the recent past, but to see her moving upon action as easy as breath was refreshing for once. Despite not working well with others, there were plenty of times Aolieon had to be inconvenienced with the plain fact that Fixers tended to cut in the extra hands of gonks that could work for the lowest bid -- and consequently were not fully attuned to situations to gain a read in their upstart paths to blazing glory... It made for some humorous situations, but more than often it presented needless complications to the mission. When Aolieoj began to hear a subtle hiss upon the ambience of their environment, Aolieon's eyes narrowed, cutting around the seemingly empty room. She lightly pressed her palm to her rebreather to resume its compression with a light hiss, and was fumbling with her pouches to consider her options -- that train of thought was interrupted by the slamming of the riot shield on the floor, which made the dancer wince briefly at its sound. Clearly, Therrye had set herself to work upon the room, which almost made Aolieon smile widely; were it not for her consciously suckling on her rebreather, she might have done so. Watching her tear a hole in the ceiling and plant a plastic explosive illicited a nod. "I hope we don't need another one of those anytime soon... Whup!" Aolieon commented, smirking in a way it couldnt be seen behind the triangular device upon her face, but was caught off-guard by the bruiser sweeping her up and carrying her out of the room. She giggled a little bit, wrapping her arms around her neck and letting Therrye do her thing more or less hands-free while she ran out, trailing det-cord behind her. As she blew a hole in the ceiling, Aolieon couldn't help but smile at her enthusiasm for big booms, which was a tad endearing to the dancer. Aolieon waited a handful of seconds before tapping her rebreather to analyze the air; it beeped three times go indicate remaining air toxicity, ar which huffed. "I've got a couple of C4 bricks in my ramshackle, but I always keep that thing prepped in the hopes i dont have to call it in," She swept her hair back, and planted her feet on the ground, pulling out of Therrye's arms and refreshing herself for a moment. At her conjecture about being on the clock, Aolieon shrugged one shoulder and rolled her eyes. "IEC will likely care about replacing power lines, and they're efficient. Their chance of close proximity to this job site is low; it's just not zero," she concluded. "Theyre also much more fixated on netrunner shenanigans these days, than they are typical electrician work; might take them a minute to even realize the grid issue is hard-faulted -- my best guess says that when it comes to IEC, we probably have a spot more time than we're assuming," and with that she tilted her head and gave Therrye another gander before she began calmly strutting her way back further into the death cube.

When the bruiser began work on the next door and then promptly rolled back out the way she came, Aolieon tilted her head in curiosity. Smoothing her hands down her legs to bend into a crouch and then slowly splitting down into prone to get a better look at what was going on in the 6th room from where she was, she sat in this precarious position, watching what was going on within, especially better after the bruiser removed her shield from view.
When the bruiser cursed and then asked her question, Aolieon did not answer, as she was spaced out and watching, analyzing the room and processing information. Of course in short order, she quickly discovered her Cyberdeck didnt have the range necessary to initiate an overload or disable the system -- she'd have to get in close. After a minute of detecting no clear pattern, she cued her attention not on the lasers or their emitters, but instead on the grooves in the walls -- Narrowing her eyes, she began to trace possible pathways into the whole thing, discovering that all of the pathways were squared; despite their being a vast multitude of lines all across the walls, ceiling and floor, there were only various intervals where the pathways ran parallel to the door, with a million and one of them running perpendicular to the door. Aolieon blinked a couple of times, squinting for a spell. That means that while the emitters can effectively be anywhere they want and they can zip from end to end as much as they like -- they can only rearrange the grid's formation in certain spots, came the calculating thought. Her eyes widened and she began to lowly giggle, as she stood up and started pressing keys on her datapad to call (one of) her ramshackle drones. While she waited, she began to elaborate on her acrobatic stretches -- doing split lunges, curling her legs back behind her as far as they could go, bending over backwards, rolling her torso around at her hips, stretching her arms; the whole kit and kaboodle, in addition to the high kicks and hip rolls, knee rolls, ankle rolls, you name it -- she knocked them out in a couple of minutes. "I fucking finally found a practical use for that huffer stuff!" Aolieon clenched her fists and brought them close to her face, grinning from ear to ear and practically squeeing just as the drone rolled in. Aolieon immediately began stripping off all of her gear, save for her datapad, AR glasses and Cyberdeck -- this included her aramid vest, letting it all fall to the ground. When it floated near her, she opened a compartment that needed some percussive maintenance in order to open, but eventually she procured a mean looking airhypo from it (epinephrine) -- immediately placing it over her heart and pressing the button to administer the crazy drug. She then procured inhaler from it, blowing the dirt and dust off of it. "Eat your heart out, Maddie... hahaha, you think you've seen me dance, bruiser?" Aolieon tied her hair up in the tightest knotted bun she could, somehow managing to spiral a quick braid tightly around it's epicenter and pin it in place with some chopsticks, which she also procured from the ramshackle -- at last, she removed her rebreather, stowed it and brought the huffer close to her face, beaming at the bruiser with a sinful leer. "... You ain't seen nothing yet..." and with that, she took a few steps back to the beginning of the 5th room, inhaled some aerosolized, caramel colored liquid before tossing the inhaler and exhaling a thick cloud of smoke -- her eyes rolled back in her head for a split second as she before she came back into focus, and time seemed to stop.

... "Slo-Mo" -- the bane of the Eastern Seaboard, when compared to the West. It didn't really catch on too much with the Night City crowd, as while it brought on a euphoric feeling and extended feelings of pain and pleasure ad infinitum, there wasn't much to get from it on its own. To make matters worse, the only way people could get what they thought were worthwhile highs off of Slo-Mo was to use it in conjunction with other drugs. Colors were brighter, senses were hyper-sensitized, and it was generally a benevolent time on its own. What was important was that while Slo-Mo granted no unique abilities on its own, it decreased one's perception of time down to 1% it's natural speed while doing nothing of interest to anything else. This made it particularly difficult and frustrating for Dorphheads, because typical movements of existing required a monumental amount of commitment for the user; even speaking coherent sentences or hearing words was a tedious effort under the effects of Slo-Mo, but damn if you were having an orgasm... Fortunately, Aolieon's escapades of using drugs had allowed her to build a tolerance, and with her keen mind and Samurai training -- Aolieon could commit to her movements and actually make use of the micro-adjustments made possible by it... That being said, Slo-Mo wasn't anything like a Sandevistan; it did not augment Aolieon's own ability to move through time, and so every errant twitch or movement had to be made to count... Aolieon's mind locked in, and she consolidated the information of the present into one simple goal to keep track of in this miasma of sensations -- knowing that if she experienced any negative pains, even the slightest of burns; it was likely to be an error she would never come back from...
Eyes on the grid at all times; there may likely be only a second or less to adjust oneself to the pattern of the grid, but you can ride this out. You've got about two minutes to make this work, and when you get a moment to interact with the control panel; you'll likely have milliseconds to overload the grid and cause it to melt...


Aolieon began to work at a running start, diving down and sliding through the door at a time when the grid was at the back of the room. She stood up as it charge forwards, dolphin diving through the cracks; eyes fixated on the grid as it changed formations, she didn't even take time to follow through with a dodge roll. Pushing back on her hands, her feet came together and swept to the side as she rolled her hips as hard as she could, swinging her legs together in an arc to gain some bodily momentum -- following through with the momentum, she began to twirl sideways in midair, floating a foot to the left as the grid came back with barely an opening big enough for her body to go back through. Landing on her hands and toes before her stomach could touch the ground, she sprung up to her feet; noticing a few seconds pause, she took a careful step forwards. The grid fanned out into horizontal, tight-knit lines; Aolieon immediately flung her body to the side as the grid began to charge forwards again -- breaking into a run and managing a few large steps up the wall, Aolieon gained enough momentum to carry her body to the ceiling, flinging one leg forwards as she slightly rotated and vaulted over the whole laser grid. She landed quickly, taking another step before watching the grid change erratically once more. She stood on one leg, curling the other into her body as the grid began to violently swivel back and forth with its new pattern -- each time it came to cross her body, she hopped on the leg like a pogo-stick, curling up into a ball small enough to flit through the opening; this occurred a whole three times, and it appeared Aolieon had enough momentum to keep moving across the room.
🎶 LXNGVX -- "DNA" (Slowed) 🎶
It was an elegant yet absolutely maddening pandemonium, watching Aolieon commit herself to a dead-locked dance with death like this. There were no illusions or errant speed; no glitches in vision to indicate any Sandevistan or Kerenzikov were being used, and the laser grid had maintained its over-the-top menace without a split second of minimized danger -- it was like watching a Master challenge his disciples to attempt laying a finger on him, just to make a point and seeing it all come undone before one's very eyes; the dancer seemed to be navigating a hailstorm of bullets and explosions with her movements, as lasers time and time again came within inches of grazing her skin somewhere and somehow. Little pieces of errant eurodollars flew free of her aramid vest here and there, causing a mild shower of wasteful money being burned up and scorched by the laser grid... The grid must have effectively attempted crossing her body well over a dozen times, but each time Aolieon edged a little closer to the opposite end of the room, with the distance of a single step taking several seconds and yet progressing nonetheless. Her movements appeared to be a combination of several things she had shown herself capable of; aerial gymnastics, erotic splitting poses and contortionist gestures; even one-handed Capoiera recovery movements -- all aimed at the setup and recovery of clearing small gaps and holes in the laser grid, sometimes in completely different locations entirely -- this wasn't the display of someone who had learned an uncanny martial art, or who had honed their parkour and ninjutsu skills to perfection; this was the display of someone who had been dancing for nearly their entire life, and simply honed their body into making available all nuances of movement within the multitude of expressions of agility -- and she was swishing her own life through the air like a feline's favorite charm on a string...

As the laser grid passed over her yet another time, she only took a split second to look away from the grid and lock onto the door panel with her Cyberdeck. Initiating the quickhack to overload the grid within this floor, the effects were immediate. The lasers seemed to amplify themselves to wider lasers, and electrical sparks began to mildly arc along the walls, floors and ceilings. The once tight panel of lasers became staggered, glitching in their formation erratically in place as the emitters began to melt one another. The grid charged back at Aolieon one last time, and Aolieon's face got super serious. She twirled to turn her back to it after identifying the pattern, jumping into a backflip and landing into a split, swirling her body around to kick underneath another laser and arch her back to narrowly dodge another that threatened to take her head off, coming mere inches from kissing her chin... getting her legs underneath her, she kipped up to vault over a laser nearly kissing the ground, before pulling her body up for just a split second and jumping high before kicking behind her to initiate an improvised frontflip over the last laser. Sticking the landing, she twirled around, watching as the grid nearly kissed the wall sharing the 7th door. She watched as the lasers finally shorted out, having damaged their emitters beyond repair -- after which she turned back around and struck a victory pose with her fists in the air. Aolieon was now sweating profusely, panting and looking altogether worked up to a serious degree herself, now.
"... Hah wuzzat?" came the slurred words out of Aolieon's mouth, as her eyes rolled back in her head for a moment. Blinking twice with widened eyes to bring things back into focus, she leaned a bit forwards drunkenly, daintily offering a finger as if to nonverbally ask for a minute. She pointed back to her datapad, turning her arm thus that Therrye could read it -- apparently in also inputting the codes to unlock certain compartments on her drone, she had setup a timer on her AR glasses for an uncertain reason. Without another word or gesture, Aolieon plopped on the ground right on her ass, sitting down with legs splayed as if she were a child playing in a sandbox. She then giggled deliriously for a good few moments, as she brazenly watched the bruiser finally enter the room -- secretly, there were tiny features and imperfections she was noticing in the bruiser's appearance which she had several mixed feelings about; however in this moment of fleeting euphoric drug use, all she could do was giggle and snort. Her lips looked mildly freezer burnt from the inhaler, but this would fade after several minutes; it didn't stop her from licking her lips and coughing because her mouth was drier than a nuclear fallout desert. Eventually, her datapad started beeping at her -- several seconds later, the dilation in Aolieon's eyes returned to normal and a look of utter shock and overwhelming overstimulation set itself upon her face. Aolieon slapped her hands over her face, leaning back and laying on the ground as she groaned loudly from the throes of a hammering headache. "Ahh, fuck-fuck-fuck; I forgot why I quit this one--URGH!" she moaned in what seemed to be forlorn misery, but then she huffed and her arms fell flat to the ground. "I'm okay; I just... I need a minute... We'll get right back to things... once my head stops lagging," she grumbled, still heaving in breath from all of that frame-perfect exertion.
"Still... what do ya... what do ya think?" she managed a smile, turning a look at the bruiser. "I'm just glad all those bright burning lights melted out..."
 
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Therrye clucked her tongue. "And you assume they wouldn't aim for a toxin not covered by your cocktail hypo?" She gave her a look, partially obscured through the gas mask. "Lots of gadgets and toys helps, but you can't rely on them to save you from reckless decisions." The bruiser gave a light-hearted snort in her direction. "You were the one chiding me for being reckless, last I recalled."

"'Huffer stuff'?"
Excitement seemed to fill the samurai as she doffed gear, did warm-ups, injected herself over her heart, and got another inhaler. Whatever she had in mind, it was clear enough to her that she was going into that death field, leaving her to sigh in concern. "Just come back in one piece, alright?"

Having given her space, she approached the door and bent it open further while she watched the dancer go to work. It was a difficult thing, seeing how close those lasers came to shaving off parts of her body repeatedly, and knowing that uncoordinated support might throw her off in some way that could get her killed. All she could do was tense and try not to imagine her dying a dozen times over.

Aolieon's incredible dance with death ended, and the laser emitters fried beyond usefulness, the woman plopped down like a drunken mess. After all she'd done, it was an odd sight, like a wind-up toy finally running out of tension to do its little dance. Passing through the door threshold, she eyed the walls without trust and went to her with the shield. Crouching down in front of her, she saw the timer nearly run out, and didn't crowd her as she came down from what she'd got herself high on. With all of the coughing, she raised a brow, stood back up, gave the room another look, then walked back toward the entrance without the shield. "I'll be right back."

Not much later, she came back into view holding a cold Chromanticore, which she opened and then set down near the dancer's head; somehow, she suspected she'd take issue to being fed anything. "That was quite a performance. Long fucking minute and a half to watch you play with lasers." She chuffed and shook her head. "You've got moves to spare. If our paranoid hackers were watching, I'm sure one would be in an absolute fit seeing their pet death trap get summarily demolished." Therrye offered her a hand to help her sit up. "Not gonna be a good time for anyone who underestimates you."
 
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