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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