\+/ PRESENT \+/
A beautiful sunny day shines in through Graves' apartment window. The thin grey whisps of cigarette smoke calmly twist and spin amongst the sun's rays undisturbed. The clouds of smoke disperse as Zaunya slowly walks through it past the window... iron in hand... proximity mine in the other. Brian walks past her in the opposite direction, opening Graves' weapon locker with the passcode. He pulls Graves' M2038 Tactician with a custom finish... Cyberpunk yellow... the quote engraved in black along the barrel read 'Negotiator'. Brian raises the tool up over his head admiring the work... reminiscing to himself on times past... memories buried in time... he racks it hard.
He turns around to the sound of Zaunya's heavy booted steps. Standing before him, a sharp look into each other's eyes, she hands over a combat knife... he grabs it stepping past her. She continues past him, back over to the window looking out to the street... she lights a cigarette before glancing back to see Brian on the other side of the apartment messing with the proximity mine.
Yet again... it is clear that the pair have had several conversations before now. The calmness in preparation is palpable... the air holds a feeling of inevitability that the two of them look to have accepted... together. Anticipation of the unknown is often filled with any number of emotional anomalies. This combined with the countless series of events leading up to this point have the two of them in complete flow state.. remaining expressionless... sharing no words with each other.
Zaunya glances at him pass by, taking another drag of her smoke before checking the streets. He walks over to a dresser and stands before it... picking up and staring at a small framed picture... him and graves in front of the Colby Butte when he first got it.
Zaunya sees him... she places her lit cig onto the windowsill... putting her facemask back on before heading toward him.
Her heavy footsteps, once again grab his attention... glancing back at her, he notices shes looking up past him at the CCTV. He glances back forward at the screen above the dresser... they see two sixth street Chevillons rolling up the street toward the apartment entrance.
They both stand before each other... another look deep in the eyes... Nue's clutched in their right hands mirroring.
Brian holsters his Nue, cradling Graves' shotgun in the left... they break... she turns and walks toward the other side of the apartment... taking her position on the far end. She stares at Brian with focus, at the ready.
He hugs the shotgun... patiently watching the screen.
The gangers pile out of the two cars.
He slowly looks over at Zaunya... with a count, he holds up four fingers.
He glances back at the screen again to see a final person leave the backseat of the first ride... Angela, still sporting Rick's white cowboy hat. The crew packing enough iron for a proper street war.
Brian glances back at Zaunya again... five fingers.
He watches them enter the building... making their way to the top of the staircase just outside the apartment. He slowly walks away... taking his own position.
The heavy metal thump of a prybar trying to find its spot to wedge builds the tension... the scraping creaks of bending metal being yanked over and over shortens their breaths. Zaunya's crouch lowers... Brian's iron grip tightens... shoulders tense.
The gangers quickly flood in... first through the door looks left in Zaunya's direction seeing her crouched waiting... before he can even react, he's pushed from behind by the second. Brian blasts the second one in the head, ripping a chunk of his skull... sending it flying upward, slamming to the ceiling. The concussive sound of the blast sends the first and third goons instinctually falling away from... right into the proximity mine, triggering it instantly. The explosion sends fire, smoke and debris pluming through the apartment, muting and ringing everyone's ears... knocking everyone off balance. With the explosion, the final two rushing in fall onto Brian in his direction... one grabbing the barrel of his shotgun and pushing it up toward the ceiling. Brian wrestles with the big bastard, struggling to see through the smoke and debris. Brian takes a hand off of the deadlock attempting to draw his Nue as the guy tackles him... sending the two the floor with a heavy weighted slam.
While this is happening during the explosion, Zaunya triggers her Sandevistan... sprinting through the black and grey smoke clouds... metal shrapnel and apartment debris floats through the air like zero gravity in space. Raising her Nue, she executes two with point blank headshots as their bodies fly through the air from the momentum of the explosion. Continuing forward, she sees Angela at the top of the stairs still in the process of drawing her revolver. Without hesitation, Zaunya dives through the yanked open apartment door... flying toward Angela raising the Nue up to her face. Angela triggers her own sandevistan... snatching Zaunya's gunhand upward while finishing her draw... her revolver pointing at Zaunya's gut. With Zaunya's wrist held, she uses her momentum flying through the air to throw her knee at the barrel of Angela's revolver as it fires... knocking it out of her hand as she lands on top of her. The finishing momentum of the explosion sends the two of them flying down the staircase... tumbling in each other's grasp, yanking and throwing strikes with untrackable speed.
Brian with the shotgun pinned up against his throat throws a headbutt, snapping the booster ganger's head back slightly. With his chrome plating, the impact splits Brian's forehead open, gashing blood. The ganger throws a headbutt back at Brian... stunning him and splitting the deep cut in his forehead even further. Brian then throws an elbow at his face... the ganger using the moment of the strike quickly tosses Brian to the ground, winning the grapple for the shotgun; He cocks it... aiming at Brian directly on the ground. Brian quickly throws his leg up... kicking the barrel away and sending a blast through the tiled floor of the apartment... shrapnel and blinding explosion smoke flys. Brian scrambles up and charges at him... blasting a double leg, he picks him up and slams him to the ground on the back of his head stunning him. Brian shoves his forearm down onto the gangers throat pinning him in place while finally drawing his Nue. As he raises it to the sixth streeter's face, he pulls a knife... plunging it into Brian's ribcage. The shock of the deep stab causes Brian's entire body to jolt, making him squeeze the trigger... sending a bullet from his Nue directly into the gangers face. His lifeless hand still clutching the knife gets effortlessly pushed away leaving it stuck deep in Brian's side as he unloads five more shots into his face... sending blood splattering all over his own.
Before he can even gather himself... covered in blood, sat atop a lifeless booster ganger, he hears the sound of footsteps at the destroyed front door. He raises his Nue... pointing it at the sound while still clutching lifeless sixth streeter.
He sees Zaunya stagger back towards him... she falls to the door frame in pain, leaving thick blood streaked.
He instinctually tries to get up and rush to her aid... only to be reminded of the knife stuck deep in his ribs. His grunting gasps for air are painful as he struggles to get off the corpse and stagger to his feet. Gravity takes his blood... a steady drip pooling under thick clothing as he scrambles over to her. She slowly slides down the side of the doorframe... covering it in blood and falling to her knees.
He yanks the blade out of his side... a sharp shriek of pain filled with humanity before tossing it to the floor next to Graves' shotgun.
With blood seeping from his ears, he staggers over to Zaunya to help her up... taking her by the same hand she's clutching her Nue in... helping bring her to her feet.
Their matching, bloody red right hands... separated by only the gun... as they both unknowingly, embrace that first personal contact with each other.
Still stunned, she falls into his chest with her forearms as he places both hands on her face looking over her bloody cuts and injuries. He gently looks her over as her bottom lip streams blood from a cut inside her mouth down her chin past her scar.
He slowly helps her down the stairs past Angela's mangled corpse... identifiable only by that bloodied, white cowboy hat.
The pair leave behind nothing more than a bloody spattering of dead booster gangers... and an ashing lit cigarette on the far-side windowsill.