Ancients Away, Cutters Do Play
| Ancients Away, Cutters Do Play | |||||||||
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| Factions Involved | |||||||||
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ShadowHaven Ancients | Cutters | ||||||||
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Cherry Bomb Gremlin Six of Hearts Voltage |
Cutters Gangers Abuelita | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| A squad of at least 6 dead, one additional Cutter dead, one severely wounded. | |||||||||
Summary
The Cutters decide that the chaos caused by a giant magic space laser Downtown is the perfect cover to allow them to start shit in Tarislar, but they find out pretty quick that the Ancients do not let their guard down.
Background
Babylon is off battling a Shedim infestation in Montreal, and has left Voltage in charge of the squad until she returns--because she's somehow the most responsible one. While the truth of that statement is rather dubious, Voltage is nothing if not eager to please and tries her best to maintain order while the sprawl has been plunged into chaos.
The Meet
When Voltage meets with Ether at the Daisy Chain to debrief after a patrol, Ether tells her that a group of Cutters has been sighted destroying property in Tarislar and are headed toward Deireadh An Tuartheil. Voltage clearly understands that time is of the essence and is ready to gather up the squad, but before she does, Ether informs her that she's hired a Haven runner who's a former Ancient, and says that Voltage should wait for her arrival before attacking.
Voltage says she will, then goes to gather Cherry from the bar and get Gremlin from the clubhouse. They gather their gear, and Gremlin shuts BunBun in Voltage's bathroom, hoping that 1) the rabbit won't chew anything up, and 2) that it will be safe from Babylon's hellhound puppy, which Voltage is currently taking care of as well.
Battle in the Streets
The crew posts up at a safe vantage point to wait for the Cutters, and send their location to Six of Hearts. Voltage smokes some betameth while Cherry Bomb keeps watch on the Matrix for any icons that might belong to Cutters. Six joins them promptly, and just in time; it's about right now that both Cherry and Voltage spot the approaching group of Cutters, and immediately spring into action.
Voltage huffs on the Kamikaze inhaler she's been fidgeting with, jumping down from the ledge where she's been perched and hopping onto Caroline (her Harley-Davidson Nightmare) to speed off towards the incoming Cutters squad. Rather than doing the smart thing and launching a grenade at them, she decides to flex by singling out their mage, pushing Caroline to her top speed, and ramming him with an extended spur, pretty much obliterating his entire ribcage and leaving him dead on the pavement before the Cutters even realize they're being attacked. The fight doesn't last long; Cherry bricks the leader's cybereyes, Six skewers one with her collapsible spear, and Gremlin snipes their decker with a headshot. Just as Voltage is about to loop back around and kill their leader, he calls out that he surrenders. Luckily for him, Voltage hears and processes the statement in time to realize that she maybe shouldn't kill him.
Caroline grinds to a stop, and Voltage jumps off to grab him by the front of his shirt, snarling in his face and asking him where the rest of his crew is. He gives her a smug grin, saying that they must be at the hospital by now. As Voltage stares at him in shock and anger, he opens a biofiber pocket in his jacket to reveal a live grenade and tells Voltage, "Abuelita sends her regards." Before Voltage can react, Six dives on the grenade with her briefcase shield, taking the brunt of the blast to protect the rest of the crew.
Once Voltage processes what happens, she urges the rest of the group to get to Deireadh An Tuartheil as fast as possible.
The Hospital
Upon their arrival, the Ancients (and former Ancient) see six wounded pledges lying on the ground outside the doors. Six's radar sensor shows that the doors have been barricaded from the inside and will not open, so the squad immediately gets to work applying stimpatches or trauma patches and hooking them up to medkits. Voltage kneels down next to the most conscious-looking one and asks her to tell her what happened and where the Cutters went. She doesn't know, but says that there were only two of them.
Knowing that they have to work fast, Voltage and Six charge the doors with enough speed and force to shove them open and knock down the barricade on the other side while Cherry and Gremlin (who are big fans of strong and dangerous women) fan themselves. Once inside, Cherry ducks into a patient's room to look for Cutters on the Matrix, and eventually finds a pair of commlinks on the third floor. She hacks them and rifles through their messages to find orders from an "Abuelita" to abduct Dr. Isabel Wirth. She leaves VR and relays her findings to the team who race off to catch up with them.
On the third floor, they find the two Cutters holding a nurse hostage with a knife to her throat. Voltage races forward on her skimmers to hopefully get past the first Cutter, but he engages her in melee. Six runs past to engage the other, wrenching the knife out of his hand. Cherry, being a little less combat-capable than the other two, compiles her machine sprite to run Diagnostics on Gremlin's sniper rifle. She takes aim at the nurse's captor and shoots him in the head--at which point Voltage realizes she needs to take down the other Cutter nonlethally. She kicks his legs out from under him, pins him to the ground with a spur to his throat, and demands that he tell her everything or she'll kill him. In no position to resist, he tells Voltage that Abuelita is out for Ancients blood, and sent him and his companion along with the now-murdered squad to kill them and to capture Dr. Wirth.
Voltage looks up to ask the nurse if she's alright--aside from being obviously shaken up by the fact that she just witnessed a man's head being blown up--and asks if she knows where Dr. Wirth is now. She does, in fact; Dr. Wirth crashed on Long Haul a few hours ago, and another one of the nurses drove her home. Voltage then tells her about the injured pledges outside, asks if hospital staff would be able to care for them, and volunteers to cover any necessary payment. The nurse agrees, Voltage thanks her, then stabs the Cutter in the gut and unceremoniously drags him outside.
Aftermath
Outside the hospital, Voltage throws the injured Cutter to the ground, commanding him to run home and to tell Abuelita how the Ancients crushed his squad. He's not really any in shape to run, but he limps off as fast as he can go, looking back in terror over his shoulder. When he's out of sight, the squad (and Six) meet Ether at the Daisy Chain to get paid.
BunBun chews up Voltage's towels and bath mat, but does not escape and remains safe from Babylon's hellhound. The pledges recover from their wounds after some time in the hospital.
Rewards
- 8k Nuyen (4 RVP)
- 4 Karma (4 RVP)
- 10 CDP (2 from base, 8 from 4 RVP)
- +10 Ancients Rep
For Six:
- Optional Contact: Ether (Ancients Fixer) 5/2 (6 RVP from Karma or Nuyen or 12 CDP)
Game Quotes
"I think you said the quiet part out loud." -Orion |
Player After Action Reports (AARs)
Voltage
So at first, when Babs asked me if I thought I could handle bein' in charge for a while, I was like "Oh hell yeah, I can totally do this!" Like, I've been workin' my hoop off to impress her and Ether (mostly her, though, if I'm being honest) and figured that clearly this means they trust me, right?
And I mean, obviously I'm gonna do everything I can for the Ancients because they're important to me, but I really didn't realize how hard it was gonna be. It's not all just "Hey, Volts, go here and beat these people up;" I gotta really think about stuff and make the right choices. Even though we ran those Cutters off our turf and Ether said I did a good job, I... kinda don't know if I really did or not, 'cause if I'd a' moved faster and made the right choices, I could probably have kept all those pledges from getting hurt.