Earth Wind & Fire

*Ding* the elevator opened up as music was pumping loud not far away as I walked on out, but it wasn't just me but the entire gang was here, excluding Falco who was down in the car waiting for us.

"The Totentans…. Keep your iron close guys, who knows what these Maelstrom assholes will do." Maine says through our Holos as we walk on in to the club.

"Borg assholes, these fuckers keep on shooting up the place around my apartment! Can't even get any fuckin sleep!" Pilar said with a grumble through our holos as we began to head on up.

"Calm you skinny ass down Pilar, we got a gig to do here and the Maelstrom are paying top dollar to get this done." Dorio said over the holo as she slammed a fist upside the lanky man's head as he hissed while grabbing his head.

"Looks like he's waiting for us." I mutter out loud, getting the others attention as we began to walk to the upper area of the Totentans where the leader of the Maelstrom, Brick, was waiting for all of us along with his second in command Royce and a selection of there other higher ups.

They already hand guns in there hands and were waiting for shit to hit the fan as Maine, Dorio, Kiwi and Pilar took one couch where me, Rebecca and Briar sat down on the other.

Brick was sitting in the center with his second Royce and his third being a woman by the name of Patricia sitting as well but from there Borged up faces both Royce and Patricia were not happy.

"Brick, why the fuck are we bringing some Mercs in on our own personal business Huh?! Just say the word and we will match in on those fucks and rip them to shreads!" Royce said egging Brick on while agitating the others but Brick held up his hand to shut up the nearby members before leaning back and looking at Brick.

"Royce if you want to get most of our crew wiped out to take down those assholes then be my guest, but then that leaves us open to the Claws, Valentinos, 6th Street or even the Animals to take the north side for themselves, so if you want to be the dumbass that goes down for destroying the Maelstrom and earn the remaining ones hatred for all time then go on and do just that." He says as his several red optic eyes narrow while looking at Royce which gets him to grumble a bit before shutting up.

"Now I know your probably want to know why I'm doing this you idiots and the simple part is I don't want my crew to be wiped out as the Inquisitors are made to fight Borgs like us, the hatred between our gangs goes way back to the founding of this gang as a whole, so if I can find another way to take them out without putting you assholes on the line then I'll do it." Brick said to all of them before taking a huff from a inhaler filled with BlackLace as his red eyes went blue momentarily before going back to red before tossing it away as he went back to look at us proper.

"With that said we got one of the best crews in NC for this gig, you already know who your up against but let me pass the detes on the details we got and where they are." His eyes glowed as the rest of our eyes glowed as well with us getting the info on the Inquisitors.

The Inquisitors themselves originated around the 2020's in NC as a gang that had an extreme hatred for all Cyberware using gangs and in return all the gangs hated them and did everything to hunt them down but the gang with the most beef they had with was Maelstrom.

It got even worse after the 2023 nuking of the old Arasaka Tower as they went dark for a bit but quickly returned and nearly wiped out the Maelstrom if not for the intervention of the other Booster gangs of the time saving them though unintentionally.

It went on with a back and forth for years with the gangs getting the upper hand on the other until in 2055 the former, former boss of Maelstrom by the name of Deadman was able to set up and ambush and supposedly wiping the Inquisitors out completely, but now we know that isn't true and after 20 years to recover they have returned to NC with a vengeance.

"And with my connections there somewhere out here in the northern oilfields." Brick says as a map of NC and the surrounding areas as it zooms into the northern limits of the map and having it circled as we all look at it through our linked optics.

"How many are we looking at here to deal with?" Maine asked as he leaned forward.

"We don't have any numbers but from what I can say is that they wouldn't be coming back unless they have over 100 of them at the minimum and it seems they most likely took control of an old abandoned military outpost here." Brick says as it zooms on the only real building up in that area one could stay at with a large group.

"So let me get this straight you expect a crew of 8 to storm your old rival gangs base and absolutely wipe them out and there's probably over 100 of those guys there, Maine do you smell that? Because it smells like shit to me." I say as I reach for some BlackLace on the table and look the inhaler over as I side eye Brick.

"I agree with the kid, this smells like hot shit Maine, Regina didn't set up the gig and only passed on the message about this meet up." Pilar says before pulling out a cig and lighting it while the rest were nodding in agreement which irritated everyone but Brick on the Maelstrom side of things.

"…. How much." He said as he looked around at all of us while I scratch my chin before lifting my free hand and holding up five fingers.

"50k?" Royce says a bit surprised but I shake my head.

"500k, only way this will be worth our time to do your gangs dirty work." I say but as soon as I finished, everyone but Brick had there guns drawn on us with Royce having his gun pointed at my head which made everyone except me pull out their guns and aim back while Briar began to get bloodthirsty but I just patted her cap as I held the BlackLace and put it up against my mouth.

"Brick, there ain't no fuckin way we're paying these shit head mercs 500k to do this shit we can easily do ourselves! So I say we just take out the trash ourselves and go deal with those fucks on our own!" Royce said as he began to rally the other Maelstrom members.

"Kid, I think we should show them why we're the best." Maine mutters as he looks at me as I press down the top of the inhaler and take a deep puff of BlackLace as my eyes turned a deep blue as a result.

"Huuuu….." I exhaled before tossing the canister into the air and then-

*KRRRRRRRRZZZZZZZZTTTTTT*

'Huh, I guess BlackLace slows things even more' I think to myself as everything seems much slower going to 95% slower instead of its usual 80% I think before getting up as I disarm Royce, then Patrica and rapidly going around and ripping the assult rifles out of everyone's hands before tossing the guns into the air and pulling out my Mantis blades as I cut the guns all apart.

Then I spun around smashing my heavy fists into everyone's face with several knock out punches before coming up behind Royce and sitting his ass down as I cross my arms with my right hand on his left shoulder and my left hand on his right as I stood behind the couch as the Mantis Blades extended and pressed up against the sides of his neck with me ready to lip off his head with my Mantis blades in a scissor formation as time went back to normal.

*KRRRRRRZZZZZZZZZTTTTTT*

"Wha-" Royce was about to cry out but son shut the hell up as he realized what just happened as he felt two blades against his neck.

As for the rest they all fell over to the ground leaving only the big three conscious with guns pointed at them all, well not Brick who was sitting there grabbing his face in disappointment with his crew.

"Well now with your nice little second in command pulling this stunt I think we will have to bump up the price a bit for this gig, how's 600k for us to do this job, after all and aditional 100k is a small price to pay for 'emotional' damage on our end right?" I say as I tighten my grip on Royceand having the blades dig into his neck a bit to make him bleed.

"….. Fine, you Mercs have a deal, I'll send Regina the money to hold onto and give you it all when the jobs done." He said after lifting his head before his eyes glowed for us to go out and do the gig for them.

I smile a bit before putting my blades away as the others stood up and began to walk away, "A Pleasure doing business with you gonks." I say as I'm the last one to leave and head out of the Totentans to stop our job.

Though the same couldn't be said to pour Royce as he was getting beat the shit out of by Brick and being forced to give him the extra 100k for his stupidity, but that's not my problem.

Now it's time to take down the Inquistors.

*****

Oh you guys should look at the paragraph comments of the last chapter as at the end of that chap I uploaded what Shie and Hifumi look like while in this world or at least using the 3d model from Cyberpunk 2077 of V at least but hey you'll have a good idea of how they look at least for the most part.