『Felix Karl Grimm』
Although Adam Smasher himself stood in front of me, I did not feel fear, I felt apprehension yes, I recognized the threat he posed, that's why instead of panicking and falling into fear, I primed Precognition to the max. If he so much as breathed too hard I'd know it. Even if he did not breathe, my point still stood.
Tap tap tap
"Who the hell are you, fuck meat?"
Adam Smasher tilted his head as Giffany took a few steps forward, completely unbothered by his presence. Of course, Smasher himself too looked unbothered by her, holding his oversized gun in his hands and glaring her down like she was a bag of trash. Giffany held his glare with unnerving calm, walking forward with her hands behind her back.
It was a surreal sight, I was ready to pull up my guns and start blasting Smasher, but before I did. Giffany spoke up, her tone was eerily even, like someone completely in control of the situation.
"Fuck meat? You don't get to call me that, Mr. Smasher. I think you need a little..."
"What the fuck-!?"
"-Discipline!"
Bzzt! Crack! Creak!
Although his expression physically couldn't change, I could swear Adam Smasher looked actually freaked out as his robotic body started making some scary noises and let out sparks of lightning as he fell to his knees. His gun clattering to the ground out of reach.
Giffany's smile expanded wider just a little.
Unfortunately for Adam Smasher, no matter how thick his firewalls were, Giffany's cyber guns were far bigger than his. She had been training for this moment for her entire few months of lifetime.
"How the fuck!? How is some pink glitter fucking upstart-! RAHHH!!!"
Bzzt!
Smasher roared in a mix of fury and pain as Giffany gave him a controlled shock. I couldn't help but watch the sight with equal parts bewilderment and bafflement. Here was Adam Smasher, the man who you told about to your kits to get them to eat their nutrislop and now he was on his knees crackling like a faulty figurine.
Sure, we had talked about the strategy of her hacking him before. But seeing the Boogeyman of Night City get brought down like this was a bit... underwhelming.
"Unfortunately for you, Mr. Smasher, you encountered the Wrong Person in the Wrong City."
"YOU FUCKING BITCH!"
Smasher screamed in impotent fury as Giffany exerted her control over his frame and his arm inched closer to his very own face. Unraveling to reveal his Ballistics Launcher, pointed right at his very own face. The same weapon he used to kill David Martinez in canon.
"Bye bye mister Smasher!"
"FU-!"
Bang!
With that, the most feared mercenary in Night City, and perhaps the entire world, went out, not with a massive grand showdown, but on his knees without dealing a scratch of damage without me even having to lift a finger.
I looked down at the unmoving metal body of Adam Smasher with his brain now splattered all over the wall of the building and turned to Giffany.
A fitting end for someone who embodied Night City I suppose. All it takes is meeting the wrong person once. One gig gone wrong and you are gone.
I saw a Feat Notification pop up, but I dismissed it and spoke up.
"Alright, let's not lose pace and clear the rest of these floor before it's midnight."
Giffany bounced on her heels with palpable excitement as if she hadn't just annihilated the Night City Legend Boogeymen.
"Yes~! Let's advance!"
With that, we continued our advance, Adam Smasher not ending up as the climax of our climb, but a mere footnote.
He really was the wrong person in the wrong city.
✧―✧―✧―✧「」✧―✧―✧―✧
"P-please don't kill me! I'll give you anything! Please don't!!!"
A Japanese man in an incredibly luxurious suit cowered behind his chair with his pants soaked in piss as I aimed Overture at him. He was Night City's Arasaka branch leader. I had already killed all the shareholders that attended the meeting that was going on today and he was the most valuable person left in the tower.
"You're no Saburo, but you'll do."
"Y-You! You think you can just do this!? Who do you think you are-!"
Bang!
With one pull of the trigger, the man's head went splat, dyeing the floor to ceiling glass overlooking Night City behind him in crimson blood and viscera.
It's done.
"...So, it's done now?"
Giffany asked me the same statement in my head as a question and I nodded my head while pulling out a cigarette and walking away as she followed me.
"It is, this is even worse than bringing the entire building down. A nuke tells you that it needs a nuke to bring the entire tower down and it leaves ruins to rebuild. We killed every force Arasaka had here, even Adam Smasher, the floors, ceilings and walls are dyed with blood."
I walked up the stairs and broke the lock that prevented access to the rooftop of the building.
"The tower is ruined now, they can't just rebuild it. It is a statement, they were not safe inside their own building, it didn't need to get nuked. All of their security was destroyed in a day. They can't bear the shame of mopping up the blood and moving back in. It is clear as day, Arasaka is not safe in Night City. If someone unknown did this, they can do it again. This hit will hurt their stocks a lot and kill their dominance in the city."
Giffany nodded as we walked onto the rooftop of Arasaka tower, it overlooked all of Night City from here. I walked to the very edge with her following shortly behind me. This far up, the noise of the police freaking out below couldn't be heard.
Only the sight of the millions of lights glittering below, half of it reflecting off of the water. It was a sight that I would have never dreamed of seeing with my very own eyes in my past life.
It looked... beautiful.
I sat down at the edge of the building and gestured for Giffany to sit next to me, which she did, softly and without asking a single question. Up here, the air felt less dirty and smelly. The sounds of cars, ads and people shouting did not reach all the way up here. It was... quiet.
"You know, from here, Night City almost looks beautiful in a way."
Watching this sight and feeling the smoke of my cigarette filling my lungs I couldn't help but sigh.
The only other time I ever felt like this was on my first day here, and now that I am about to leave. I feel the same way.
Despite being so fucked up, so shitty, so depraved, so decayed... it had its charm.
I saw humanity among its lowest dozens of times. But even then... I saw even in those conditions it survived, how even then people wouldn't all be the worst. How even they can joke around and have fun with each other.
I had learned a lot here, saw a lot, hated a lot, but loved a lot of it too.
Giffany's hand inched towards mine before capturing it in a rather chaste handhold. Her hand was warm, thanks to me I supposed.
"Well, with you, all sights look like the most beautiful sight in the world, my boyfriend."
My lips curled into a wry smile and a chuckle escaped them.
"Just call me Felix, Giffany."
A smile so bright that it up even the darkened roof of this building graced her face as she turned to me.
"Felix. You have a lovely name. It does sound much more pleasant than boyfriend."
We watched the sight of Night City below for a while in silence. It felt somewhat melancholic. I knew I'd be leaving, I was prepared for it. I thought I wanted to leave as fast as humanely possible but now that I'm finally at the crossroads I actually felt a bit melancholic.
It has been months since I came here, despite it being shitty, unpleasant, uncomfortable, unsafe, and definitely unsanitary... this place had become a sort of home to me. More so than Earth had ever felt like it. In this place I had gathered an actual family to return to and carved out a piece of it for myself.
But also... I suppose the entire Multiverse was my home now. This exit was not forever. It was a temporary leave.
"I'll come back."
I didn't know if I was saying that to myself or Giffany, but she smiled and leaned her head on my shoulder regardless.
"You will. And I will be waiting. And I will make sure that you come back to somewhere that you can smile at when you return, Felix."
I gave Giffany a side eye.
"That's not you subtly trying to imply you would take over the world after becoming a supreme AI overlord and me coming back to find this place even more of a dystopia than I left it. Right?"
Giffany raised an eyebrow.
"Felix, did you watch too many movies before we left?"
Darn, I got read like a book.
"You caught me."
She smirked and nudged me in the ribs.
"Trust me Felix, I know what you like. I've been with you this long and watched you sleep all this time, I should know that at least that."
A proper chuckle fought its way out of me, I stood up and took a deep breath.
"Whelp, it's time, take care of the others, Giffany."
"Don't worry Felix, I will. Now, beginning shutdown!"
Snap!
With that Giffany snapped her fingers, and hundreds, thousands, millions of daemons she implanted within the mainframe of Arasaka Tower received her command and scoured the entire network, annihilating every bit of data so thoroughly even Alt wouldn't be able to recover them. Including Mikoshi and every single backup of every Data inside the tower while sending viruses to anything connected.
Cementing the destruction of Arasaka Tower.
[Mission: TitanFell] Complete!
Congratulations on finishing your first mission, Gambler!
I looked at the screen before my eyes with a slight smile, and I felt a wave of weightlessness start washing over my body. The same one I felt when I came to Night City, not a transfer of the mind, but of the body.
When I opened my eyes back up, I was no longer at the top of the world, at the roof of Arasaka Headquarters but in the Inventory once more. The rustic smell of a high end bar filled my nose, I came back here occasionally in my dreams, but being here again for real felt different.
It felt right.
I took a moment to take a deep breath and feel the clean air of the Inventory rush into my lungs, infinitely cleaner than that of Night City, to the point where I actually started coughing after taking a deep breath.
"Seems like you have finally finished your mission Mr. Felix. It seems like you have been through quite a lot."
From behind the bar, a melodious, somewhat teasing voice sounded out. I opened my eyes to see the Dealer still behind the bar, looking unchanged, standing a head over me with her impeccably sharp bartender attire still hugging her body wonderfully. She seemed to have been wiping the table before I came to as she stopped and leaned forward, watching me with her crimson unnerving eyes.
In response, I simply sighed and sat at the bar and sunk into my seat.
"You have no idea."
She chuckled.
"I'm afraid I have quite a lot of ideas about what went down, but I'd like to hear it from you myself. Chocolate milk?"
"Yes please."
Goodbye Night City.
A/N: It is finally the end of Cyberpunk, it's been a wild and unpredictable ride that there my plans for a loop several times but I am quite satisfied with how it turned out. What did you guys think about the Smasher showdown by the way? I originally planned a big showdown but realized that did not fit Cyberpunk, I felt like this was way more thematic and fitting end for Smasher.
One door closes, and one door opens. Time to say goodbye to Night City and watch the sunrise. And for those of you who are worried, don't worry, the next chapter will have all of the rewards Felix has collected thus far, including the feats he should have gotten from Arasaka Tower, so look forward to it. What did you guys think about the Cyberpunk arc and its conclusion? I'd love to know.
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