We stopped at the garage and as I grumpily made my way out of the car Jun grabbed me stopping me from stomping off to the apartment.

“Stop being grumpy. You’re like a cat. C’mon, after action meeting.” He told me as he waited for me to stop resisting before I sighed and followed after.

“Fine.” I grump at him, but followed after as we went out the window to the Dojo.

We headed straight downstairs from the side entrance and into the server room, there arrayed around the TV on old couches Kamikaze were waiting as Fujimura stood in front of the TV looming over the gathering.

Unfortunately there was no more space on the couches so Jun and I waited behind, while Akari just slipped into the lap of one of the borgs.

Not that it seemed to be welcome as he grumbled and tried to shove her off only to earn a sharp foot curling up and nearly skewering his throat. The two of them fought for a moment. A bladed foot, and a chromed out hand practically sparking off eachother, before Fujimura growled a low noise that seemed to vibrate the room and cut out the attempted homicide.

“Failure. We took a wound from a basic op. I’m disappointed.” He said and I realized he was basically giving us a score on how well we had all done.

Rude. He was the one in charge. If we failed, it was his fault… If they failed. I wasn’t really a part of this. Why was I even here?

“He’ll live! It was just a 9mm, went under his subdermals. Doc is already checking him out.” Akari called out but was silenced with a look.

“We are the Kamikaze, we shouldn’t be taking wounds from chaff. I expect all of you to receive a session with Ozeki Sensei.” He demanded and all the hardened killers and murders, the somewhat emotionless borgs all groaned.

“Kusanagi! You got distracted. If you can’t keep your focus, put down your mask.” He demanded suddenly singling out… Jun. Thankfully. As he was staring at Jun and not me.

“I will not fail again Fujimura-Sama.”

“Your sister fighting beside you had better not distract you again. Girl. You killed two with that hand cannon of yours. You should have killed at least three.”

“Yeah I know. I’m super annoyed! I only killed two you know? I was gonna stay behind and murder some of their reinforcements too, but Jun pulled me away.”

“A common Maelstrom assault group is more than forty borgs girl.”

“Really?! So many? Aww man… Now I’m really disappointed.” I grumbled as I purposefully turned away from Jun. So much XP! Ruined! Seriously I could have just snuck into their cars while they were distracted, then they would take me back to their headquarters. I would just slowly ghost them one by one, until they were all dead! It would have worked!

I mean sure, so many could make it hard… But I could do it!

The room was silent for a while as I grumbled staring at the wall before Fujimura finally seemed to continue.

“Right. We will have another job tomorrow. Prepare.” He demanded and then stomped out of the room.

“Ack!” I cried out instantly as Jun grabbed the top of my head with his stupid chrome hand.

“You aren’t going to fight forty borgs!” He hissed as he pushed me out of the room back towards the apartment.

Shows what he knows.

—--

I wasn’t tired. Honestly I didn’t even feel the need to sleep, normally I would have just grabbed some tech and started working.

But I wanted blood.

Jun had gone to sleep and I went ahead and napped for an hour. Which is the reason Jun had no idea that I had gotten up afterwards and suited back up.

I left.

I loved Jun cause he was such a dumb older brother, but I wasn’t going to live my life his way. I couldn’t.

So I slipped out of the apartment, out onto the street and then headed a few blocks away to get out from the jammer, and to make sure what I did next wouldn’t lead back to the Dojo.

I called my car.

It was something that still took me by surprise. Self driving cars were still kinda wild. I waited for about ten minutes for my Quadra to turn the corner and stop in front of me, with a beep of its horn letting me know it had arrived.

I slipped into the driver's seat with a grin.

I was only 250 XP away from a level up. My foot touched the gas pedal and I was off. Driving into the city actually feeling alone for the first time in almost a week. I felt free. No Tyger Claws hovering around, no Jun almost smothering me in protectiveness.

I was actually relieved to just be away.

I drove north. Up into Watson. Towards Maelstrom turf. I had no idea where I could find them, but I bet just driving around would find me a few targets to prey upon. The city was in an active war right now.

Unfortunately for the first long while, I didn’t find much. The streets were quiet, broken only by gunshots blocks away that by the time I came anywhere near, I couldn’t find the source.

Annoying to say the least.

I drove around. Only finding the tail ends of skirmishes. I guess even in a gang war there wasn’t constant mass fighting going on.

Shame.

Finally though, action found me. I turned a corner only to come across a road block. Three cars on fire and burning as a squad of Maelstrom gonks hung around them guns out.

I only had a second to react, because the goons were already raising their guns.

Cool dropped over me. Everything became clear.

I hit the accelerator. The fact I turned their little trap immediately back on them is why I didn’t get absolutely destroyed, and why some of them jumped out of the way instead of shooting up my ride.

Not that they didn’t try. A few bullets ricocheted off my Quadra’s armor.

So I accelerated towards the road block, the four sets of spider optics all reacting in different ways.

I flipped the steering wheel at the last second. My Quadra’s back end slipped out at the sudden adjustment, as the car spun.

A loud *Thunk thunk* echoing out from behind me, as my wheels ran over a prone maelstrom gonk who had thought jumping away from where I had been aiming would save him.

Then my driver's door opened with a flip of the handle, and before the car had even come to a complete stop I was stepping out.

Burya already raised and aiming. My Kiroshi kept track of all of them.

The thunderous retort of my handcannon smashed into the first Borg, the fucker that had started shooting at my car with his Lexington in a spray of bullets. I was lucky, despite my Quick draw aim being off, the second of adjustment I had to make as I stepped out of the Quadra let me adjust.

My one bullet did the trick.

I turned to the next one. And again my Burya barked into the night and the screams of Maelstrom being sent straight to their digital gods cut out.

Of course my assault wasn’t perfect. I hadn’t exactly expected a road block ambush. I winced as a round from one of the goons on the other side of the barrier slammed into my chest. His panicked fire wasn’t accurate, but it was unfortunately painful.

The SMG skittered bullets across the pavement as I moved, rushing him. I could feel another round pound into my chest, but I ignored it. Even if it knocked the air out of me, I could still move.

I slid over the back of one of the burning cars and then I was right next to him. His red eyes were unable to widen in terror, but I could see the look on his face.

It warmed my frozen heart for a moment.

Then my Katana blurred a superheated red line through the darkness.

And his arms fell with a splat onto the ground. White blood splashing over my boots.

“Fuuuck!” he screamed, falling to the ground and rolling around after I disarmed him. Instinctually he screamed curses at the pain as I watched on.

I took a moment to catch my breath, each gasp was coming out a little painfully. I checked my side and winced as I pulled out a bullet from the side of my leotard.

At least the armor was working. Still hurt though. Felt like I had gotten punched in the ribs. The armless gonk was still screaming which was annoying though. I walked over and without a word smashed my boot into his side. Katana held point down towards his stupid throat.

His screams turned into, wheezing cries of pain but that was all I needed. “You are only alive because I need something from you. You want to stay alive? Answer my question. Where can I find the Spider Ripper doc?”

The Maelstrom gonk was still whining in pain but he seemed to hear me.

“Fuck you!” He finally said, as he tried to spit at me.

His head rolled away a moment later.

“Should have left two of them alive. That way I can kill one in front of the other and get my answers.” I muttered to myself as I sheathed the Katana.

I like Katana. Katana is good.

I sighed, rubbing my ribs, bullets hurt. Stupid Maelstrom. Looking around at the dead bodies and the burned out wrecks, I realized I should probably do something. Normally I would call the NCPD, but that wasn’t really… a thing right now.

So instead I got looting. Checking the bodies, grabbing weapons and throwing them in the trunk of my Quadra before dragging the bodies off the street. With the Quadra I nudged the burning wrecks out of the road opening it back up.

Satisfied I jumped back into my ride and floored it through the former roadblock.

All the while I smiled. I had leveled up!

*500 XP Gained.*

*500 XP Gained.*

*500 XP Gained.*

*500 XP Gained.*

*Level up achieved!*

*One Stat Point Gained.*

*One Skill Point Gained.*

Level 6! I had also leveled up driving and Handguns!

*Driving skill level up!*

*1 Perk Point Gained.*

*Handguns skill level up!*

*1 Perk Point Gained.*

With my awesome driving attack I had hit Driving 5, and Handguns 5. Two perks!

Both were easy picks.

Since I was driving a high end car I wanted something to make sure I could handle it as best as I could when I needed to really move.

Plus I just thought it was cool.

Drifting: Never spill a drop of Tofu water. You have a prescient knowledge of how to go into, and pull out of a drift.

The second perk was just as easy. Considering I now knew some perks could carry over to other weapons and guns, a perk I had considered okay was now super needed.

Rapid Reload: Never drop a mag, or fumble a reload. Reloading your gun will never slow down your rate of fire.

That would work for all of my guns.

I shook the instincts and muscle memory out of my head for a moment after I picked both back to back.

I was ready to continue my hunt.

Now if only my arms weren’t so… Weird. My eyes wandered to adaptation…

Not yet. I could fight like this, and I didn’t know what adaptation would do. Best to try new things when I am at home safe.

So I simply kept going. This was opening up to be a good night!

—--

This was not a good night fuckers, dented my car!

I had found more Maelstrom.

Or rather they had found me. Again. I think driving a jet black Quadra wasn’t a good idea for stealth.

I had stopped at a light. Driving safe was important after all. When a van full of Maelstrom had turned a corner ahead veering left and right down the road, van doors opened and the gonks cheering and roaring as they smashed cars and anything they could reach with pipes or tire irons.

They were driving on the wrong side of the road aiming straight for me.

I realized it just in time to flip my Quadra into reverse and hit the gas, just managing to turn the car so the van didn’t hit me full on. Instead they scraped past my Quadra before stopping not far away. A bunch of the gonks jumping out brandishing melee weapons, or hand guns.

I growled even as Cool flowed over me. Angry, very angry, but a cold furious rage.

Those fuckers dented my car!

So as the Maelstrom fucks approached, I did something they probably weren’t expecting. I hit the gas straight at them.

They never seemed to expect the aggressive acceleration.

The first Gonk was smashed into my hood, his stupid red eyes looking up at me in horror as I drove him down the street. He was hanging on for dear life trying to stay on as I accelerated much faster than he probably expected.

I drove for a moment longer, long enough for the Maelstroms gunfire behind me to fall silent before I opened my driver's door. Burya peeked out to say hello. The poor gonks face stilled in terror as he came face to face with my hand cannon.

I was really thankful that the Quadra didn’t have a windshield, but instead an armored chassis and a digital screen, because the blood splatter would have taken minutes to get rid of with windshield wipers.

*500 XP Gained.*

I looked back, the other Maelstrom had rushed to their van and were chasing me.

I hummed a little as I hit the accelerator. My hands danced over the steering wheel, as I took a turn in a drift. I looked into my rear view mirror expecting to see them chasing me, Only to realize a problem.

They were fucking slow.

Just that drift, and my acceleration alone meant they were already losing me.

I couldn’t accept that.

These fuckers had tried to kill me! They had scratched and dented my car! I just spent thousand of eddies fixing that! And killing people was my job!

These gonks were so slow. I accelerated again. Drifting into an alley between two parked cars I raced to the next street, and then took a left, and another left.

I slowed down around the next corner. Lights off. Turning down the street and seeing the stupid Maelstrom Van slow rolling past the alley I had raced down. But they realized I had lost them. I grinned as I turned the engine off, and slipped into a parking space. Waiting as I watched the gonks pile out of the van to pick up their poor friend off the road. Eventually they grabbed him and dragged him into the van, a trail of blood running across the blacktop.

Once they all piled in, they started driving off.

I started up my engine keeping the lights off and did the same.

That’s right, you gonks. Lead me to some more XP.