The Sixth Son
Captain Isamu 'Jugo' Okada of the Tyger Claws took another long sip of his calming tea as his guest left the room, slowly breathing out the light waft of steam as he regained his cool.
His mental countdown finished, his eyes snapped open "Report."
All four of his personal bodyguards dropped from above, and immediately fell on their knees, crying out as one ""Forgive our incompetence, Jugo-sama!""
He grunted, annoyed, and waved for them to get on with it.
"Hai, Jugo-sama." His second got up immediately "Kentoki reports all viruses he can see have already been retracted, he says he will accept any punishment for his incompetence."
Once more, the American-born Tyger Claw Captain found himself grunting in annoyance "I am the one who provoked the sleeping tiger, should I punish myself?"
Immediately, his second bowed his head "Of course not, Jugo-sama!"
Isamu closed his eyes, and leaned back into his seat "What were our chances if a fight broke out?"
The cyberized guard hesitated for a second, and that was most telling of all "Preliminary report is Magos-dono would be the epicenter, targeting us, and then Zack on the outside, before blinding our men in the lobby at random."
Jugo considered that, chuckling lightly as he appraised the strategy. Remove all cyborgs from play, then the sniper, and then create chaos for a potential escape... It was "Magnificent." His chuckle turned to laughter "How magnificent!"
His four guards stood perfectly still but he could feel their coiled agitation, they were offended for him, and as flattering as that was they were blind to the opportunity he saw beyond the 'insult'.
He shook his head, letting his smile drop "Shinobu-sama ordered us to take control of this area, I will not cut myself off from a useful ally because of some well earned youthful bluster."
His eyes flashed with a cruel glint "We have bigger fish to fry."
Knowing who he was referring to, his guards nodded firmly.
"Good." Isamu said, waving for them to leave "Catch some rest and center yourselves, we have work to do later." Remembering something he added "And send the five soldiers that made contact up here, I want to hear their thoughts."
"Hai!" The four bowed and left him.
The moment he was left alone, Isamu allowed his true emotions to surface, the roiling terror and adrenaline quickly giving way to true excitement much deeper than the persona he cultivated, his blood boiling at the thought of the inhuman beast's challenge...
Truly, his mother made the best recommendations!
Now what to share about the boy's other offer...
---
Michael 'Magos' Sobronov
When I returned home I just wanted to curl up and not think for a while.
Standing off against an entire venue of Tyger Claws may have felt preem as fuck at the time but dear God was I terrified the entire way through...
I was thankful I made sure to hard-filter everything damaging I consumed because otherwise I'd be chainsmoking and drinking myself into unconsciousness right about now out of sheer anxiety.
Or so the movies say, at least...
Thankfully, I was presented with a much more healthy option as I returned home, welcomed once more by the Motherly Stare of Judgement™ but only for a short while as mom's annoyed front crumbled instantly and she practically dragged me inside, questioning me about everything that happened and letting me process it all without spiraling.
I didn't realize how much the day had stressed me out until at one point I just leaned against a wall and simply fell asleep.
Naturally, that found me waking up under yet another unimpressed stare, one half-hidden by rays of morning light piercing the shoddy window shutters.
"What?" I mumbled as I got myself up.
"You slept on the floor." Mom nagged at me "Again."
I paused my movement halfway, looking up at her blankly "I don't have a bed."
She stilled completely, a mixture of emotions flashing on her face before it settled on decision "Get up, we are getting you a bed."
"But-"
"Now." She said sternly.
And that was that.
We grabbed a quick bite at Old Chu's and spent a good chunk of the morning just shopping around for household items.
Because of course the instant one gave an inch an entire mile was bound to disappear and since we were already getting a bed we might as well get some new pillows, and a new coffee machine, and some fancy looking posters, and...
You get the point.
We couldn't even find a bed that would hold my weight, and so I had to settle for a chunky monstrosity of a mattress I could just shove into the back of my workshop and forget about.
Sprawling on it felt almost like floating in the net, which made me oddly content with the thing.
Naturally, this earned me grumbling galore but such was life.
The last hour of the morning we spent strolling about on the floor seemingly aimlessly. Our neighbors were hesitant and even standoffish in most cases but none were quite so idiotic as to tell us to fuck off so while the walk was a bit tense it wasn't completely ruined by the atmosphere.
Not that the walk was its own goal as we spent most of it looking over the few larger appartements for sale, though 'sale' might be a bit of a misnomer in this case.
One did not own their home in a Megabuilding, one rented it from Night Corp.
But everyone and their mother knew how valuable owning the contract to the larger ones that could hold a business was.
And so why just give it away when moving out when you can just 'sell' it to those interested?
The Night Corp landlords didn't give a shit of course, so long as they got their cut.
It was almost honest, in a disgusting soulless kind of way...
Our return home was mostly silent, save for mom's satisfied humming with all the useless junk she bought.
My own mind was preoccupied with plans and calculations. My initial goal of just gunning for half a million and working my way up from there was unreasonable.
People didn't just switch to specialized custom gear on a whim, and that kind of reputation needed time to grow before it could be turned to profit.
And all the while I would have to pay rent, and bribe any overly ambitious Night Corp scopsucker to fuck off and not bother me when I disabled their surveillance equipment.
No, my 'initial' goal was looking more and more like it would need 2mil for even the most modest of plans to work without overly risky moves and things that would come to bite me later.
These were going to be a long few months...
Oddly enough, I didn't find myself too annoyed by the prospect.
----
The hyperactivity of my brain inevitably led me to run off to my workshop before I could overthink myself into apathy, if such a thing were even possible.
I considered following up on the Werner clue, but those particular smears of filth lived in the City Center, and trying to ghost my way through the net there was about a hundred times more difficult than doing it in Watson.
And best not even mention trying to go through Nicholas, as the fucking mouthbreather was currently attending Arasaka Academy directly inside their tower.
That place was locked down almost as tight as the Blackwall and only retards and cultists liked those odds.
That only left more mundane ways of infiltration... which was incredibly fucking stupid.
Suicidal revenge was for gonks.
Real revenge was done cold, when you are untouchable and can enjoy every. single. moment.
Until then, I turned my mind to more productive pursuits.
I sat down in my modified life-support chair, now turned mostly to a gutted computer and Servo-Arm interface, and connected my Personal Link to it, combining the fragments of code recorded on my Cyberdeck and the computer itself to reveal my list of ideas and schematics.
It was a simple defense, but quite unbreakable.
I began tapping the fingers of my right arm on the welded metal armrest and let my mind wonder.
My recent fights had shown quite plainly that while powerful, my Homo Ferrus frame was still lacking in many ways, and while I could in theory just never change it and still be fine, I knew for a fact my current job would simply keep demanding more of me until I surrendered and 'dried out' as the street rats would say, or I went face to face with something I couldn't power through, ending with my death or worse.
Probably the latter considering how resilient my Biopod was.
All of me shivered at that.
Despite all of my worries and ideas immediately snapping to my mind, simply redesigning my entire body would be beyond stupid, as it still took adaptation and resources, and so an incremental improvement was needed.
My tapping increased as I thought about my options.
A targeting assistant was the simplest and most straight forward, a relatively rudimentary software update that would take a lot of getting used to for a while but increase my accuracy considerably.
...I found the idea confusingly distasteful.
Though my confusion did not last long, as I realized that using processing power on a skill I could just learn was incredibly wasteful.
And I miiight have let my disdain for smartguns seep just a bit too deep by now, and an aim assistant was worryingly close to one of them.
The other option I came up with was even simpler, just throw on more armor, enough that even the Burya could barely scrape it, become as immortal as my little adrenaline filled moment made me feel!
I scrapped the 'idea' as fast as it came.
More armor would just be another crutch.
Resisting small arms was well and good but it was speed that won battles, not bulk, and the memory of leaping through the air, up the side of an entire building was still thoroughly stuck with me.
My gleeful smile formed before I even finished formulating the thought, and it was decided.
A cross between a Lynx Paw for speed and silence, and a Reinforced Joint for leaping power.
And all of it reinforced beyond a care for fleshy limits!
My excited chuckling didn't stop until I annoyed mom to the point she shoved the door open and tossed a spoon at my face.
Jokes on her the dent would repair itself in moments!
...wait.
---
"Mikey!"
I ignored the distraction as I kept typing away, shifting the parameters of the weight compensators so I didn't have to repair microfractures at all times unless overloaded.
At this point I might have to change materia-
"Mikey!" The distraction reared its ugly head again, and just as I was about to ignore it once again, I felt an odd weight in the air and looked up to see mom holding that same deadly weapon in her hand.
"Hey mom." I gave her a nonchalant wave "Need something?"
She gave a wry smile at that "I called Misty over, what would you like me to make for lunch?"
The decision was made instantly as I got up "I'll go for a walk, leave you two to your girl talk."
She crossed her arms at that, expression souring.
I immediately raised my hands placatingly "I'm not saying anything but you probably have things to get out that I don't need to hear, right?"
She frowned and then smiled, shaking her head "I don't deserve such a bright son."
Rolling my eyes I stood up and gave her a quick hug "True, you deserve better."
She immediately gave me a threatening look, to which I just stared back.
She huffed "Alright." She waved "Get going then, we don't need smartasses in this house."
I just chuckled and walked out, though not without grabbing my weapons.
---
The moment I stepped out of the Megabuilding I noticed a familiar Tyger Claw woman with only two of her goons this time, the leader pacing anxiously around while the two others did their best to chill out despite their visible tension.
Of course, their behavior shifted considerably as they saw me and they turned thoroughly unnerved, the microexpressions and movements growing increasingly erratic with each step I took toward them.
"You were waiting for me." I said more than asked "Why?"
The two goons were well and truly unable to speak, but 'Senko' was a bit less cowardly than that "Jugo-sama ordered to keep an eye out for you."
Or she was just more scared of her boss than she was of me.
Fair enough.
"I've been ordered to serve as a li-" The half-spoken word came out closer to 'ri' than anything "Lie-" She frowned again.
"Liaison?" I asked boredly 'Fancy word for a gangoon, but he did introduce himself as an Okada...'
"Yes!" She pointed at me in frustration, momentarily forgetting our previous interactions.
I just looked down at her with all the disappointment I could gather "You do realize you could have just called me... right?"
She choked on air and looked away "I uh... Got out of the room before Jugo-sama could give me your number." Even her goons looked down in shame.
I on the other hand placed a hand in front of my face and pretended to clear my throat to hide my growing laughter "How... snrk... bold."
The poor woman was shaking by now.
And I knew for a fact the maimed madman upstairs was laughing his ass off.
Probably made it happen by implying she could leave too...
"Nevermind that." I decided against poking that wound further "How did your boss plan on making this work?"
It took her a whole minute to calm down but once she did she thankfully didn't waste more of my time "Since you are not a part of the Tygers proper you can't be seen as visiting the boss directly too much."
'He is also too busy to meet with every goon he hires' went unsaid.
"-And transferring important requests through the net is too risky." She went on "So I, or one of my people will need to be around to contact you when you are needed for a job."
I considered that for a moment and nodded "Got it. And is this the part where you ask to be given access to my floor despite all my rules?"
She fidgeted "Y-yes?"
"Of course." I sighed, looking up into the sky "You know what, I am too tired for these games. You can hang around the place, alone, in case you need to be on standby or bring me something."
Before she could respond I raised a finger "But. If you are ever indisposed and have to send someone else, make sure they know to behave, because whatever they do will be on your head."
I could practically hear the 'Why me?' coming off her entire posture but I found I didn't particularly care at the moment.
"That fair?" I asked flatly.
She bit down whatever immediate retort she had and simply nodded in defeat "Of course, Magos-san."
"Good." I said and turned to leave "Try not to make me go all terminator on your asses while I am away, yeah?"
The trio nodded rapidly.
"And here is my number." I flicked the data to the Tyger "You forgot again."
All the poor woman could do at that point was crumble under the commiserating looks of her underlings.
How sad.
-----
Stone man need stone, simple as.
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