235. Explosions aren’t always better.
“So what’s the plan?” Finally Hinata decided to steer the two complaining girls into a more useful conversation. Sure, she had complained her fair bit about the sand, the sand and lets not forget the fucking sand. Course, rough and it gets everywhere!
“I don’t got much for the time being. Having my thoughts go so slow is putting quite the hitch in my planning capabilities. So far all I got is: go to pacifica… profit.” Really, besides that she hadn’t had many other ideas. Maybe go ask for charity from Vik but she doubted that would work no matter how nice the old man is.
“Pacifica?” Nozomi asked while turning her head with an eyebrow raised.
“Yup.”
“The most violent part of the city.”
“Yheup”
“A city that is violent as it is.”
“Yheeup”
“Fair enough I guess.” Not bothering with it, Nozomi just accepted the idea. After all, it did make some sense.
“Nozomi!?” Hinata expected as much from Tomoka. What she didn’t expect was for Nozomi to just accept it like that. Currently they are weak, very, very weak. A bullet could very well kill any of them. Sure, Tomoka had assured them that they wouldn’t die die, or rather, they wouldn’t stay dead. Even so, she didn’t feel all that comfortable with the idea.
“I mean, it makes sense. We need eddies, the fastest and easiest way to make some is to do something illegal, like robbery-” As Nozomi explained Tomoka butted in with a single word.
“Or murder.” Both girls turned to look at Tomoka who just shrugged in response. Sighing they just accepted it. Afterall, when in Rome do as the romans. So when in Night city, do as its citizens.
“-Or murder. Pacifica being as lawless as it is would be the perfect place to start. We go in, kill some idiots-” Again Nozomi was interrupted by Tomoka.
“Gonks.” Once again both turned to look at her, once again she just shrugged. Being in Night city Tomoka would use every opportunity she got to use its slang. She found it funny.
“Right, as I was saying. We kill some Idio- Ahem, gonks steal their shit sell it somewhere somehow to make enough eddies to get started.”
“Yup-yup” Tomoka added with a happy voice as she began skipping forward. Hinata could see the reasoning behind the idea. That didn’t mean that she liked it. Not like she could do much about it. She didn’t have any better ideas herself anyway.
“Aight, with that out of the way. We should review what we have available. I’ll got first. I packed a few hundred kunai and shuriken as well as three katanas. A bottle soldier pills, a shit ton of hard rations. And even more paper bombs. Right, almost forgot, I also brought some insta-heals.” Of course she didn’t feel like mentioning her egg or clothes since those were a bit obvious.
“Uh… Tomoka, I just thought about this but… How will we get our stuff out of the scrolls without chakra?” Silence fell once Hinata voiced her worry.
“...”
“...”
“...”
“Oops?” What else was she supposed to say? Tomoka had completely forgotten about that little fact. It hadn’t even crossed her mind after the fact because it was working so SLOW!
“Uh… Oracle will take care of it?” Her next answer earned her relieved sighs from her girls and an amused snort from Oracle. After that she received a small info download from Oracle explaining how that would work.
“Alright so this is how it's gonna work. We can take our stuff out of the scrolls by just thinking about it. We can’t put anything back in though, so let's not take out anything we aren’t going to use right away.” Nodding along to the explanation the girls continued walking towards the city. Idly, Tomoka wondered through which zone they would be entering.
“Well, I brought about the same stuff, except for the paper bombs… those also need chakra now that I think about it. Anyway, I have crescent rose with me and brough ten clips of ammo. One of PB(Propulsion-blanks), three of normal copper ammo, two of HE(High-explosive), two of AP(Armor-piercing) and two of FS(fragmentation-shrapnel).” Tomoka nodded along hearing of Nozomi’s selection. In total it would be around a hundred shots since each clip holds ten rounds.
“Nice, very nice. How about you Hinata?” The Hyuga girl just shrugged before listing her own stuff.
“About the same, as for ammo I brought twelve belts. Two of PB, four of BS(Birdshot), two of HE-S(HE-slugs), two of AP-S, and two FS-S.” Now knowing what each of them had at hand they could plan on how to do this. Tomoka did feel a bit sheepish being the only one without a firearm.
“Our best bet is to flank a group of gangsters during a firefight. Waiting for night time will only be disadvantageous since most optics have night vision anyway and we don’t. Nozomi will get to a high place and start sniping. I guess I will go with throwing pointy things at people until I get my hands on a gun. Hinata will work to flank alongside me. Any questions.” Hearing none, Tomoka just shrugged.
It was a while later when the group finally entered night city. Unfortunately, they didn’t do so right through pacifica. Or at least, Tomoka guessed they didn’t. Afterall, the streets looked a bit too well taken care of to be the pacifica from the game. That and the lack of gunshots as background noise.
“So, any idea where we are?” The unamused Glares she received made Tomoka smile sheepishly. Of course they didn’t know either, that didn’t mean they had to glare at her like that.
“How about we ask around?” After a moment Nozomi decided to offer Tomoka an olive branch. There were some people walking around in their cyberpunk style. One that none of them really liked to tell the truth. All the neon colors hurt their ganic eyes a bit.
“Sure.” Shrugging Tomoka walked forward looking around to try and figure out who to ask for directions. Most people look reserved and not talkative at all. Fortunately there was this old lady working at a little food cart at the side of the street. Having found her target Tomoka approached.
“Excuse me, Could you help us with some directions? We just arrived and are kinda lost.” The old lady looked towards them, seeing a trio of young girls, perhaps no older than sixteen. With a eyebrow raised the old woman asked somewhat skeptical
“Don’t you girls have a map?” Afterall, pretty much everybody had at least optical implants in this day and age. Even for those that didn’t they would still carry around one of those old phones or something.
“No, we are completely ganic so no internal agent and our phones got damaged during our travels.” Tomoka quickly weaved a simple half-lie. Sure, it would be very weird for them to not have any cybernetics but even in Night city where those monks refused any modifications.
“Huh, well where do you girls want to know?” The woman just shrugged she had heard about those monks, she had thought those were just made up but chances were the girls in front of her were part of them or something like that.
“Right, first of all, in what district are we and second how do we get to pacifica?” The old lady’s expresion instantly turned crooked. Her eyes which had moved away from the girls to her grill instantly shot back up towards them.
“Why on this cursed earth would you ever want to go to that place? Night city is a hell hole as it is. Pacifica is this hell hole’s hell hole! Heed my advice and do not go there, ever.” Hearing the woman’s words Tomoka could just smile Wryly. She knew that, and it was precisely because of that that they needed to go there.
“Uh, we know that already. Could you please just give us directions?” Tomoka was feeling a bit awkward at the situation. What was she supposed to say? “Oh, yes, we want to go there since its a lawless land so we can go genocide the gonks there for their guns and eddies.”? Hell no, the woman would think her crazy, not that she would be wrong but still. With a loud huff the woman turned back to her grill, staying silent for a while before speaking again.
“Whatever, none of my biz. I already warned you so if you want to go die a useless death it's not my problem. Right now we are in Santo Domingo, more specifically the north part of Rancho Coronado. If you girls want to get to pacifica you will need to move south west of Arroyo which is west of here. No get lost.”
Thanking the now grumpy woman the trio began walking through the streets of night city. Every so often they saw a policeman patrolling while blatantly ignoring the armed gangers that would appear just as often. From the looks of it, they would only act if there was an active shooting going on, and even then, they would keep their distance most of the time if the shooting didn’t involve civilians.
It took them the better part of an hour to get to pacifica. Funnily enough it was super easy to tell when you entered the region. The streets became littered with trash, potholes everywhere and not a cop in sight.
“First order of bussines, get eddies, second, get a fucking gas mask this entire city stinks to the high heavens!” Tomoka could barely contain her disgust in the rest of the city but in Pacifica the stench reached a whole new level.
“Agreed. And would you look at that, it seems we have our first target.” Hinata could only sigh hearing the hidden glee in Nozomi's voice. It just so happens that a pair of cars with people half out of the windows shooting at each other raced by before crashing into a nearby building.
“Let’sa GO!” Before another word could be said Tomoka began running full speed towards the crash site. Nozomi for her part just shrugged before running towards a nearby advertisement tower, a perfect sniping spot. With another sigh, Hinata decided to just let go of her restraints as a wild grin appeared on her face.
“The one to get the most kills gets first picks for chrome!” Shouting that Hinata quickly rushed to catch up to Tomoka who was currently throwing a kunai towards one of the disoriented gangers.
The poor guy didn’t even manage to shake off the dizziness of the crash before he found a pointy knife piercing his throat. To the side, his choom’s head became a donut as a ten millimeter sniper round impacted at match two against it.
Seeing the other two taking the lead Hinata opted for cheating a little. Loading a belt of HE she blasted two shots at the engine and gas tank of the other car. A moment later said care exploded taking with it the four unfortunate bastards trying to dismount the vehicle. With this, her victory had been secured.
“CHEATER!” Tomoka shouted indignantly as she threw a set of three shurikens towards another ganger. Each landing at a spot more deadly than the last. The first hitting the left eye, the second accurately heating the poor bastard's neck. Finally, the third, the third landed on the guy’s nuts.
Hinata for her part just shrugged while the last ganger’s chest turned into a donut by a shot from Nozomi. They hadn’t agreed on any sort of rules so anything they could do short of sabotage counted.
“You snooze, you lose.” Tomoka just sighed dramatically, fighting off the smile trying to creep onto her face.
“Well, time to pick up the loot, each one picks up from your respective kills.” Tomoka’s smile turned devious as she began picking up the guns from the guys she killed. By this point Nozomi had finished jogging to where they were and heard Tomokas words. It didn’t take long for a mocking grin to settle on the Uchiha’s face as well.
“Really Tomoka, really?” With a sigh Hinata turned around to look at the very exploded, very on fire car and corpses. She really didn’t want to go anywhere near there. The smell of cooking human flesh is nauseating.
“Heh, who told you to blow them up like that.” By this point Tomoka had finished picking up the guns and was instead bussy rummaging through their pockets for any spare change they might have.
“I hate you sometimes.” Hinata grumbled as she began walking towards her spoiled spoils. Unfortunately, she didn’t manage to salvage much. The guns had suffered damage from the explosion becoming scrap. Any eddies the corpses might have had, had gone in flames as well.
“What did we learn?” Tomoka asked with a cheeky grin. Earning herself a punch for her troubles. Ever since she gave Hinata Ember Celica the girl had become a little more punchy.
“Whatever, I won’t blow up the next one. That doesn’t mean I didn’t win though.” Like that the girls continued bantering for a while until.
“So, how are we carrying all this stuff, and who are we selling it to?” Nozomi suddenly asked, looking towards Tomoka.
“...”
“...”
“...”
“Uh, I hadn’t thought that far to be honest.” Sighing, the other two decided to just let it go. Their time and effort would be better spent thinking of a solution instead.
“I mean, there is a perfectly fine car right here so we could use that. As for selling, we could just go to a random gun shop and see if they are up to buy them. If all else fails we could just sell them to a recycling facility or something.” Looking towards the very crashed car the duo had their doubts about the idea. In the end, they decided to roll with it anyway.
Once inside the car Tomoka in the driver seat the trio began going around pacifica looking for more people to loot from. It’s not robbing if they are dead, it's looting. It does not change even if the people were alive a moment before.
“We shall become legends! The three musketeers-” Instantly Tomoka was interrupted by the other two’s shouts.
“NO!” There was no way in hell they would call themselves that, it simply sounded too silly.
“Hehe, alright but we still need merc names. Not only that but we also need to decide what each of us specialize in.” It didn’t take long for Nozomi to give her answer.
“Well, I already have Crescent rose, and I will get a kerenzikov so snipping and cutting I guess.” That made sense, in other worlds, Nozomi would be their long range fighter, mostly. Should they need to fight in an enclosed space then she would go cutting people up, nice.
“How about you Hinata?” What came next was something that Tomoka didn’t expect.
“I have Ember Celica which is a mid to short range weapon. So I am thinking of getting a sandy. I had thought of going net runner but I am not that good with tech stuff. So Tomoka, you will be the netrunner of the group.” Made sense but there was something she didn’t like about how it was said. She needed to make sure so she went ahead and asked.
“You know this is the real world right? we could get both a cyberdeck and a sandy.” Hinata's devious smile made Tomoka worry.
“Nope, you get the deck, I get the sandy.”
“But-”
“Nope, you deck, me sandy.”
“I-”
“deck, sandy.” This time Hinata said it in a somewhat condescending tone like talking to a two year old while pointing first at Tomoka and then at herself.
“You’re mean!” No, Tomoka did not pout, that is slander and there is no evidence nor witnesses of the event.
“Fine! You can keep your sandy then, I will just become the bestest netrunner ever! I will make Bartmoss look like a toddler compared to me! MUAHAHAH, gufha” Tomoka's evil laughter was interrupted by a smack to the back of the head. Turning around Tomoka sent an offended glare to Nozomi who just shrugged.