The music thumped around us like the beat of a war-drum, the lights flashed, blindingly stroboscopic. I had just enough sense to see a cybernetic arm reaching out to me and I slapped it away hard. Too hard, too fast, there was a horrible screech, followed by the owner pulling their deformed limb back, sparks flying off from the torn metal. I grit my teeth when someone punched my ribs. It was hard enough to lift my legs off the floor, and yet it barely even hurt, my knee meeting the guy's shoulder with another horrible grinding sound.

Don't kill.

Avoid faces and chests, aim for the limbs. My mind scrambled to catch-up with the chaos unfolding around me, Isia was practically dancing circles around the cyborgs. She had some sort of stroboscopic effect going off of her clothes that was accompanied by ear-splitting chirping sounds coming off of something in her hands. The fact that she'd led the bouncers towards the crowd made it even harder for them to surround her.

My concerns turned to more immediate things when a guy with glowing chrome arms reached out from behind and under my armpits, lifting me off the ground. My most immediate reaction was to headbutt my assailant, but the image of their head turning into paste flashed across my eyes and I froze.

Don't kill.

"Fuck you!" I heard Isia scream from across the dance-floor, and heard something smash against my assailant's head. The remainder of the beer-bottle shattering and splashing us both with stale alcohol.

Shocked out of my hesitation, I kicked with my heel against my assailant's shins.

CRUNCH

The man screamed and collapsed, letting me go as he crumbled on the ground, clutching at his not-cybernetic legs.

I grimaced, but kept going.

Moving fast, I hurried in Isia's direction. The likelihood of firearms becoming part of the engagement was rising, especially if someone thought they might get a clean shot at us. There was no time to stick around. She was still trying to hide in the crowd of people rushing to leave the VIP lounge, but several of the bouncers were cutting off the flow to prevent our escape.

I spared a glance at the Banker, the hologram not having moved an inch from his seat, visor fixed on us, lips twisted in what I could only assume was confusion. My gaze shifted from him to his trophy… the bioweapon being used to sound-proof part of the room. Briefly, I considered going straight for the thing, but quickly dismissed the idea. It was an active bioweapon, and tinkering with it could potentially have it go off and kill everyone here.

Hurrying into the crowded people, I let out a sigh of relief as soon as the pressure from the bouncers relented. I didn't waste a single second to pull off my shirt and wrap it around my face.

Next time, I'd make sure to come with the caveman mask from the get-go.

"Got a plan?" Isia's harsh whisper on my ear nearly made me jump, I turned, glancing at her. She was wielding a pair of knuckle-dusters I'd not seen her bring in… or any of the other weapons she'd been wielding.

"You ok?" As I watched, she'd taken the cue from me and pulled out a scarf from her jacket, wrapping it around her head as well.

"Oh, me? Doing fucking great. Not my first disco brawl." There was a savage glee in her voice, tempered, but still excited enough she was practically vibrating on the spot. "Don't think we'll get a chance to play nice for much longer. Heard one of the bouncers talking about the upstairs."

I swore internally, glancing at the entrance leading back upstairs. "We'll have to shove our way through."

"Yeah, about that."

As she pulled me through the crowd, deftly avoiding the bouncers trying to get to us, we came to a stop near the open space leading to the stairs. There was one bouncer there, keeping everyone far and away from the door.

Someone big.

I gawked at the guy that was easily seven feet tall and with massive silver robotic arms. At a glance, there was not an ounce of flesh to be seen on him, the arms in particular were large enough that Isia could've easily fit inside the chassis of either one. The man lumbered towards us, eyes hidden behind sunglasses and a shit-eating grin as he locked on to me.

"The instant you get the chance, run for it," I told Isia. "I'll be right behind."

She gave me an eyeful. "You think I'd let you take this guy alone?"

"I can't be sure I won't hurt you by accident." It was all the warning I could give, stepping forward and raising both my arms and meeting his gaze firmly. The other bouncers made amused sounds, the patrons moved back, but I could tell everyone was booting up their recording devices.

In a sharp hiss of servos and pistons, the borg swung his column-sized arm like one gigantic bat. I ducked and closed the distance, but his other arm suddenly came at me in a punch from the opposite side. Unable to dodge in time, I dug my heels and threw as hard of a punch as I could to meet the borg's attack. My feet dragged back as I couldn't match the inertia of his attack, but the borg had failed to knock me over.

There was a slight pause as the man blinked in genuine surprise that he hadn't tossed me across the room.

No time for gawking, I threw myself straight at him again, picking up on the increased hissing sound. His next punch came faster, harder, but I hadn't been planning to meet him a second time. Instead, I leapt to the side, then threw everything I had behind a low kick directly at his right knee.

CRUNCH

The metallic limb broke, knocking the borg off balance, yet he lashed out at me without even flinching. I jumped out of the way before he snatched me, slapping his thick metal fingers away and reaching the entrance as the massive cyborg lost his balance. A part of me wished I could step right back and keep the fight going, but Isia was already running up the stairs two by two.

And now that I was far from the crowd, the other guards were reaching for their firearms.

Slamming the door shut and twisting the handle, I followed Isia up the stairs towards the main nightclub dance floor. I kept glancing back, expecting the guards to break down the door, but it remained firmly shut, not even rattling. Which was either very good for us, or very bad.

I stopped Isia before we reached the door.

"Stand back." I warned as I moved to stand behind the wall rather than the door, and carefully used my foot to nudge the door open.

The deafening music was interrupted by a dozen 'THUNK' sounds, each one creating a pencil-sized hole on the door at knee level. Isia and I both swore, jumping away from the door and back down the stairs where we couldn't potentially get shot at.

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"Well shit." Isia hissed through gritted teeth. "At least they're aiming for the legs."

That explained why the people downstairs weren't trying to follow. That way there would be no chance of one side accidentally shooting the people on the other. "Can't go back without risking the same treatment," I said, mentally scrambling for a way out. "I hadn't even thought they'd go for extreme violence right away. It's not like we've done anything to them."

"I should've known better." Isia hissed, punching the wall. "I was so caught up in the gang potentially…" She rubbed her face. "Not the time, I guess."

"We can play the blame game later. Think they'd let us walk out if we surrender?" The look she gave me was all the answer I needed. "I'm drawing blanks here."

"Yeah, same." She muttered. "That awesome shield would've come in handy if you hadn't lost it."

My temper flared. "It wouldn't have mattered, they'd-" I stopped my words as soon as I noticed the way Isia had coiled up into herself, gripping the edges of her sweater and fidgeting. "Sorry, just give me a moment. I need to think."

AP

21 / 200

The system offered the prompt that'd been sitting quietly in the corner of my eye, pulling it closer and forward. The message was loud and clear.

I could transform, and nothing would get in my way.

Though I wished to discard the idea, I couldn't.

If I were on my own, I would've readily taken the risk of just jumping out the door and making a run for it. I was fairly sure I could potentially tank those bullets, at least enough to make it out of this place. Worst came to worst, I could find somewhere to transform and patch myself back up. With Isia here though? That definitely wasn't an option. If only I had some way to protect…

"Wait." There was an alternative. "I think I got something."

"Yeah?" Isia's face lit up. "A stupid one?"

"Risky." I replied. "Can't think of a better option right now."

"Anything's better than 'might be spared but get our limbs turned to burger meat'." She replied. "What's the plan?"

"I charge them." Maybe it was the adrenaline, but I couldn't help but laugh nervously. "It's not as stupid as it sounds."

"Dunno, that sounds pretty damn stupid. I'm all up for dying in a blaze of glory, but this is not it."

"Yeah? Same." I quickly unbuckled the stupid RBG-flashlight belt-buckle and placed it on the floor, turning the light on in a stroboscope effect while keeping the light pressed directly against the door. "Get that strobe light of yours ready, but stand back. If this works… make a run for it on my signal."

"And if it doesn't?"

"Then we're screwed anyway." I grimaced, hurrying several steps down the stairs. I was going to need as much speed as I could muster for this. "Just stay out of the way, and if anyone comes through, it's not me. Ready?"

She raised her brass knuckles, and shrugged.

Deep breath.

I bolted up the stairs and straight towards the door, raising my arms and mentally preparing myself for two things to happen at the same time. The first was that I would jump, crashing through the door.

For a fraction of a second, it was as if the world had frozen in place. The dance-floor had not been emptied out, merely shoved away from the door. Between the door and the patrons were three bouncers, each armed and pointing smart-pistols in my direction. Their faces were wide-eyed, mouth agape, pupils shrunk to pin-pricks under the blinding flash of light from the strobe behind me.

In that instant, I triggered Slip.

The world turned to blackness, everything vanishing around me, my mind processing the exact actions I'd take the moment I reappeared.

A blink of an eye later, and I heard the 'THUNK' of smart-gunfire behind me, right as I crashed into the crowd. Everyone around me, myself included, tumbled in a mess of limbs, the music and lights blaring and blinking on and off alongside the RBG strobe. I scrambled up to my feet as two of the bouncers turned in my direction in confusion, eyes searching for anything.

I got to the first guard before he could react. Yanked the gun out of his hand and shoved him back, taking aim at the second's knee.

Click

The gun refused to fire, and I swore, throwing it at the guy's gun-wielding arm.

There was a distinct 'crack' of bones breaking and he screamed. It was by this point that the third had caught on, but it'd been too late, I'd reached bouncer #2 and shoved him at his companion, punching after them both while they tumbled. My hands were fast and their fingers felt like wet cardboard under my grip.

It had taken all of two seconds to disarm all three of them.

"GET OUT!" I shouted at Isia the moment I'd secured the third gun, stomping on the leg of the guy that'd been trying to get back up. The metallic limb crunched in a very satisfying way. Not missing a beat, and ignoring the screams of pain, I pointed down at them. "Any of you move, and it's going to be more than just one limb." I snarled coldly.

The trio shared looks before quickly showing open palms and laying very still.

"Good."

Isia peeked her head out, and after confirming she wasn't about to get shot, ran out of the stairway and in my direction. We both rushed through the crowd towards the exit, shoving out way into the stream of patrons that had heard gunfire and were wanting (very wisely) to get out of there.

We slipped into the crowd, both of us removing our "disguises" as we made a quick stop at the lockers for our gear. Isia made sure to switch the RGB in our clothes off to at least make it harder for someone to profile us.

The instant we reached the street, Isia took point as our guide since she was the one with the map inside her skull. We didn't stop, keeping an eye over our shoulder and our mouths shut as we hurriedly put as much distance between ourselves and the BlingBling club as we could.

It would be a good long hour of running through the maze-like interior of the lower second-district, taking as few breaks as Isia needed to be able to catch her breath. We'd avoid elevators like the plague, instead opting for stairs at every turn to avoid our pursuers potentially trapping us in the metal boxes.

We only let up once we reached the upper levels.

The cold, dry night air was like a breeze of salvation.

"That was close. Too close." Isia's legs were shaking from exhaustion and adrenaline, leaning into me for support. She weakly gestured at one of the roads. "Car's coming in from that way."

"Good call not having it try to go down the lower-levels." I nodded. Fortunately, I had strength to spare for the both of us. Keeping pace with Isia had been easy, giving me ample room to stay more aware of potential tails or ambushes while she navigated us forward. "They could've caught the signal or something. Impossible to tell when they had a netrunner."

"My neura's off, probably breached." She groaned. "Will give it a purge and a factory reboot when we get back to base." She jumped into the car, slamming the doors shut and activating the autopilot. "God dammit! We should've killed that cunt."

I remained quiet for a moment.

"He didn't want to kill us, but he was willing to make an enemy out of the Saints and the Paws." I muttered, trying to imagine where things had gone wrong. Was it doomed from the moment we'd stepped in? It didn't feel right.

No, not even that. The Banker had been willing to potentially piss off a mysterious guest sporting potentially high-end gear that he couldn't hack into. Sure, I wasn't "augmented" like a cyborg, but he couldn't have known that.

"Who cares? I'm blowing his brains out if I ever get the chance." Isia huffed.

"I think it means the Banker has backing from some high-name corporation." I replied, but shook my head. "Something to consider later. For now, I think we should avoid the second district," I said. "Jack's loan buys us some time to regroup and reconsider our options. Maybe see if we can find some alternative. At least we're now sure this Banker guy has what we're looking for."

Unfortunately, that would also mean the Banker would have time to look into me. The strobe light-show had hopefully obscured the Slip-jump from any recording devices, but I'd still fought hard. It would be easy for him to connect me to the "Caveman". Not great, but potentially useful… maybe. Something to think about.

"Yeah… yeah… God, I'm going to owe you my kidneys by the time we're done with this shit." Her forehead thunked against the head-rest. "Oh right, tomorrow Vespi wanted the monster streaming… oh crap."

"What?" I asked.

"We're going to get caught up in the shift-change traffic jams all the way from here to fourth." She groaned. "It'll be five in the morning by the time we get there. If we're lucky."

"Then better get some shut-eye." I replied as I reclined my seat, hoping I'd get some rest as well. Though really, the silence quickly led my thoughts to reviewing everything that had happened. Could there have been a better option? Something that would've avoided the fight from breaking out in the first place? It was hard to tell.

"Hey, Axel?" Isia pipped up after what felt like an hour or so into the ride.

"Hm?"

"Would you say the RGB lights were useful in the fight?"

"What? I… ugh." I stared intently at the cabin's roof. "This one time."

"It's good to know you were wrong." She chuckled. "Also, we forgot the belt-buckle back at the club, that thing's worth three hundred credits. Don't think we'll be able to cash the refund on that one."

"...yeah." I closed my eyes and turned to my side. "It's good to know it's coming out of your pocket and not mine."

"You motherfuc-"

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