44 Beginning to Feel like a Melee God, Melee God

"Why?" Ciri asked while sitting on a chair at the private reveal of Ser Juan D. Welles the Knight of the Beef.

I'd made my entrance atop Ferdinand, a cloned and engineered bull designed to be an absolute specimen before I subjected him to a similar augmentation process as myself. Yes, I spent 50 million eddies developing cyberware and biotech of a bovine variety. And it was money I'd spend again in a heartbeat.

The pair of us donned an impressive and elegant set of gilded platemail over blood red gambeson and silver chainmail. Additional layers of golden metal created a beautiful artistic sprawl of complex images of the sun, moon, stars, birds, flowers, and skulls that also played out upon my glittering great shield and up the fuller of my saturnite great sword.

"She doesn't like it, Dad! What do we do?" Ferdinand lamented in the voice of John Cena as he reeled back from the lack of applause at our entrance.

"By the gods! It talks!" Ciri shouted in shock at my bull's question.

"And he feels, Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon. Show some care. Ferdinand is a sensitive soul." I declared while I patted the armored neck of my mount.

"Why does he talk? And why do you think it's a good idea to go adventuring in enough gold to buy the Northern Realms?" Ciri crossed her arms and waited for my response.

"Ferdinand can talk because I made him smarter than most anyone you'd ever meet. Leaving him incapable of advanced communication would be cruel." I answered the first question, "And we are clad as we are because we are dope as fuck and for this, Ferdinand's first introduction, only the best will do."

"First impressions are critical." Ferdinand added that peice of wisdom I'd revealed previously to him.

"Then consider me well impressed, Ferdinand. You are the most spectacular bull I have ever met." Ciri sighed then put her chin in her hand as my bovine mount flexed and posed up on the reveal stage, "Did you at least put together something for when we return to my world at least?"

"Of course, mamacita. Who do you think I am?" I scoffed at the thought of failure, "Ferdinand and I have boring adventuring garb and tack ready to go once this war is over."

"Good. There is too much I've left undone back home. It'll be nice to finally stop running from my problems and face them head on." she announced and stood to come pet my bull on the snout.

In the half year since she'd come to the Cyberpunk, the Cintran Princess had thiccened up to tantalizing levels, no longer looking like a strung out runway model but a proper warrior princess ready to end rightly any fool in her way. The implants done her rightly that's for damn sure. Schwing.

"This is the best day ever!" Ferdinand shouted after Ciri pulled her hand back from him, "Don't worry, Princess, nothing is ever going to harm you when Ferdinand is on the scene. I'm too fast for anything to get by me."

"That is wonderful to hear, Ferdinand. I feel safer already." Ciri nodded to the bull and I slid out of the saddle to land like the hammer of God upon the stage, shaking the ground under my armored weight.

"Alright buddy let's get out of all this stuff and get it stored away." I patted the bull on his armored flank and he quickly retreated to the corridor of automated arms that stripped him out of his armor and revealed his shiny dark chocolate coat and rippling musculature.

Ferdinand's eyes, horns, and hooves remained a glittering gold and he happily trotted away on those ultra valuable feet as I entered the corridor as well, giving Ciri a show of my ultra awesome man bod before the arms clothed me in a black pinstripe business suit with a red shirt and white satin tie. I took a pair of sunglasses that covered the golden irises in my eyes, not the color, the material. Even after transitioning away from the mostly metal construction of my body back to meat, I still liked keeping just a hint of that inhumanity visible.

As my bull returned to his underground pen, Ciri and I exited the building and my truck arrived to meet us out front. At this point no one is quite sure what to put on the title for this vehicle as it looks like a Thorton Macinaw if you squint your eyes and look at it sideways, and none of the parts actually come from Thorton, and in my latest revisions to my truck got rid of the wheels and put in custom AV engines.

Aerodynamics were not considered in the making of this vehicle, and I like it like that.

My air-tank took off into the sky, getting us well over the traffic and drone like streetwalkers moving about the city. The airspace wasn't entirely free of congestion and my truck is fucking slow in the air, but cut about an hour of bullshit by flying between the Welles Arms Industrial Park and our City Center destination, Gold Beach Street. In the luxury dock slips floated a plethora of gorgeous yachts. I could build a handful of Scorpitrons for the eddies spent on even the cheapest boat in the water, not that I'd ever tell anyone how much they actually cost to make. Still, a handful of Scorpitrons can currently delay the might of Militech an entire week so that should tell you exactly how fucking expensive these things are.

We were unfortunately not going onto the water atop those bastions of monetary might. Instead, we made our way into a restaurant on the waterfront, the kind of place you could easily drop a hundred spot per person back in the nineties. Now you could easily drop a hundred times that for a meal here.

Despite the prices, the place was busy, not packed, but busy.

"Arasaka." I told the hostess who nodded and had a server lead us to our table with our menus in hand.

The woman in black and white took us to a corner table near the windows overlooking the pacific where Takamura waited with Sota Saito and Takehiro Chiba - the leader of the Tyger Claws and one of the senior members. The pair bristled at the sight of Ciri, and I smirked that the insult came through properly.

Even to this day, women are not welcome in the Japanese business world, only tolerated. Even more so in the underworld organization where women can join the gang, but will never make it into the upper levels without marrying a high ranking man. Bringing Ciri and showing up last without the presence of an older member like Boss Campo was a three shot combo rubbing dirt in their eye.

"Thank you for coming to this meeting, Welles-san." Takemura greeted with a stonelike expression that hid any agitation he might feel.

I nodded to him and began going through the menu. Genuine seafood and produce prepared for the price of a car. Arisaka would rue the day they took Big Juan out on their dime. I flagged the server to stay then smiled at her.

"The seared scallop and crab risotto and the shellfish platter, two lobster tails. Then two orders of the surf and turf followed by the swordfish. Start things off with the oysters and two Long Islands, please. What do you want, mamacita?" I turned to Ciri, the only one not looking shocked at the order.

"Crab cakes and the salmon." she kept a light smile on her face as she ordered, "And I will have one Long Island at a time, please. Keep them coming."

"I will have that as well, but just water, please." Takemura ordered and gave the server a brief smile with just his lips.

The boss of the Tyger Claws just crossed his arms over his chest and snorted, his subordinate not saying a word.

"Saito-dono…" Takemura addressed the grumpy OG, "Bitterness will not undo the past, and will only prevent future prosperity."

"Oh God. These really are as good as I heard." I exclaimed at the first taste of my exquisite cocktail.

All three of the Japanese men fixed me with withering glares that slid right off me like I was coated in Teflon. I gave them more fuel for their hate fire when my oysters came out and I enjoyed the creamy and slightly sweet flavor that came from the environment the oysters were raised in.

"Delightful." I commented then went for the next half shell.

"This meeting was a waste of time." Saito declared and moved to get up.

"Sit down." Takemura growled and the older man transferred his glare to him.

"Only a waste if you aren't eating that Arasaka money for all its worth." I gave my opinion and went to finish my plate.

"How…" Takemura mused while looking at my cleared stack of shells.

"Were you not here back when I was fat?" I asked the man who I was sure saw me before my Herculean body transformation.

"Regardless, the Tyger Claws and Welles Arms are both valued associates of The Arasaka Corporation. Hostilities must come to an end for the greater good of all parties." Takemura put forth Arasaka's position in this peace summit.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Takemura-san." I shrugged while I waited for the next course to arrive and started my second beverage, "If I was hostile to these two worthless wannabe yakuza cunts they'd be dead, not refusing dinner at a fancy restaurant."

Goro's hands shot out to restrain the pair of Tyger Claws who attempted to leap at me from their seats. His top of the line Arasaka cyberarms kept them in their place as they struggled against him and cursed my name.

"Jesus Christ." I muttered, "Did you assholes think you were important to me? Militech has over two million employees and they still haven't figured out a way to defeat one of my startup company's products without uping this war into something they don't want to fight. You two jagoffs sling sex and drugs and you think that you fucking matter? You're barely above street level."

"HOOOOOOOOO!" Saito screamed like it was tearing his soul from his body with every word and even Takemura shivered from my ice cold dis.

"As far as I'm concerned Arasaka has set up dinner for me, my girl, my associate, and two strangers. Game recognizes game, and you two are completely unfamiliar." I delivered as my next two plates were delivered and I pointed to my empty glasses, "Two more, please."

My Street Cred grinded up and up with each harsh word I spoke to one of the top players in Night City. His despair fueled my assent to level 48 and the maxing out of my Agility. Unstoppable Force joined Stonewall which I gained just from grinding my villainous deeds the last few months, and together they forged me into the perfect melee combatant.

"Are you guys retarded?" I asked bluntly, "It feels bad if I'm pouring out all this vitriol onto the heads of the mentally challenged. All signs point to it, but I try not to just assume that sort of thing about someone. You'd think with the hundreds of Tyger Claws I've killed at this point that a competent person would have figured out the nature of things and stopped sticking their hand into the meat grinder, but you guys are up to the elbow and apparently want to see if it feels any different up to the shoulder. I assure you it does not. So sit the fuck down, order some food, and tell Takamura-san that you aren't going to be a problem anymore."

"I will see everything you care about burn!" Saito shouted as he bashed his hand against Goro's metal arm.

"Cool story, bro." I shrugged as my fork brought a seared scallop to my mouth.

The briny, buttery, sweet flavor of the tender white flesh with its crunchy brown crust caused me to exhale in satisfaction at the simple and satisfying dish.

"Perfection."

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This chapter feels perfect.

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