Post by Admin on Aug 24, 2023 0:10:40 GMT
Abandoned Town
Rocky Ridge, Badlands
October 7th, 2077 (alternate dimension)
“Why are we meeting her out here?”
Ronnie looks at the holo display on the passenger side of her windshield that is her sister, Vee. Vee looks back at her paired with a shrug.
“Mom is paranoid they are on to her.”
Ronnie looks out ahead down the road, seeing her exit.
“You realize she’s not our mother right, but just a digital copy?”
“I know, but it’s nice to know a piece of mom is still with me, and I just can’t call her Megz like the rest of you do.”
“Well, whatever it is we have been dragged into, I was almost killed by Militech gonks, we are in fuckin’ deep, Vee.”
Vee is silent for a moment and Ronnie picks up on it.
“Spill it, Vee. You know more than you are letting on.”
“We’ll talk when you get to Rocky Ridge. How far out are you?”
Ronnie lights a tobacco flavoured Biotecnika, exhaling with her response.
“A few minutes. I just took the exit.”
The sisters end the call and Ronnie sighs loudly.
“If I had known when she brought mom here, she was going to have an Engram made of her. Vee really needs to come to terms with mom being gone. Until then, might as well risk my life for a digital fuckin’ clone.”
She rolls down the window to ash her cigarette and sees the Rocky Ridge sign.
“There she is.”
Ronnie pulls into the Chooh2 Station (fuel station of this dimension) and parks her green Quadra S-Type 640s beside Vee’s baby blue Quadra V-Turbo. Ronnie luckily knows a woman named Claire in the Heywood Suburb of Night City who does vehicle restoration after she was attacked by the Militech mercenaries.
“You gonna tell your sister about me?”
Ronnie looks into the rearview, not surprised at all to see the soul of Scott Nash Strader looking at her with the icy blues.
“Haven’t seen you in a while. Had more important things to do than bother me?”
“Hah, cute. Thought I’d leave you be for a bit.”
If looks could kill, but he’s already dead.
“So as I am about to meet up with the granddaughter who’s heart you broke, tagging her ex-girlfriend and the digital clone of your firstborn, you thought, ‘hey, I should bother the granddaughter that is cursed with my soul’?”
“You know me, master of timing.”
Ronnie throws Scott the family sneer.
“Please zip it. I have enough on my plate.”
Instead of verbally agreeing, SNS vanishes from the reflective surface, but she knows he’s never too far. Ronnie parks beside the empty fuel pump. At least she hopes they are. A glance across the street shows an empty bar with an electronic billboard for “Mr. Stud” hardware add-on. Use your imagination on what it is for. Ronnie lights a new cigarette off her old one.
“Sign of chain smoking right there.”
“That happens when I get run off the road and almost have my skull caved in.”
“I know, I am sorry.”
Ronnie is looking at the nearby reflections to see if her grandfather was actually going to listen to her wishes and, to her surprise, so far he is. She takes a drag, looking to Vee, and opens up her scanner to look around at her surroundings to make sure no one else was in the vicinity. Vee nudges her, and motions forward with her head toward the bar across the street.
“I think mom, er, ahem, she is here.”
The former OCW TransAtlantic Champion looks in the direction Vee had motioned towards, seeing that the electronic billboard has now changed from what it was earlier to:
Ronnie can’t help but laugh.
“Experienced Cowgirls looking for stallions. Well, she definitely has our mom’s sense of humour.”
“That she does. You should know, the body that my contact found for her doesn’t look like our mom.”
“That’s not a bad thing, Vee.”
The mercenary sisters cross the road and head into the bar where they see a blonde woman, her back to the entrance, looking up at the screen to the side of the bar, with two buildings being displayed on it. The cowboy hat and boots give her identity away to anyone that would know the late Meghan Strader.
“Megz.”
She turned around and Vee wasn’t lying. She doesn’t look like their mom at all. Like Ronnie said, she really wasn’t their mother, and it seemed apparent the Engram of Meghan Strader understood that since she chose not to look like her.
“Victoria, Veronica… please, call me Liz.”
Ronnie smiled to herself. Liz. Like Meghan’s mother. Liz moved toward them, hugging them both, and while Vee was all in, Ronnie still hesitated.
“I know you are wondering why I had you come out all this way.”
Vee took a seat at the bar, while Ronnie leaned against it, nodding her head to the obvious statement but couldn’t help herself.
“I’m also wondering about whatever it is you did that had three gonks try to kill me on the side of the road.”
Even though Liz wasn’t the real Meghan, she had all of her memories and feelings. While still adjusting to a brand new life, those thoughts, feelings and memories still influenced her.
“While you have been back in your home dimension, your sister has been helping me adjust to life here in Night City. Vee has brought me into the mercenary world to take her place when she and Brooklyn leave to settle back home. I took a job with her, and I have been tasked with uncovering a Quadra Motor Vehicle Heist set up by Militech to fund the destabilizing of the other corporations without it being on their financial records.”
Vee looks at her sister with a nod. Ronnie walks towards the screens, pointing at the buildings on it.
“I saw these on my way out here. They are new buildings.”
Liz nods.
“Building 06 is a fortress. There is no way to break through the ICE firewalls, even with the finest Netrunners. But - - -”
“Building 06 is newer, and the security isn’t as tight. But Militech caught Vee snooping around and when they saw me, they assumed it was her.”
Liz can’t help but smile. The daughters of the Cowgirl and the Raven were just as clever as their parents. Ronnie sits down beside Vee and catches the silhouette of her grandfather in the reflection on the screen. Liz lays the plan out.
“We can get under ‘Building 07’ through the sewer system.”
“Then if we get to the top, we can get to the top of the other building.”
“And hack into the system’s mainframe, getting the evidence needed to out Millitech.”
“Precisely.”
Ronnie lights another cigarette, and stares up at the screen.
“I’m guessing Rogue is the one that gave the gig?”
“Yep. What other fixer in the city has a hard on for Millitech like her?”
“Well,” Ronnie takes a deep drag, “we better not keep the Queen of Fixers waiting.”
“Sometimes we don’t always get what we want, but we get what we need. Last Fury I showed Luchadore Blade that even when I’m not at 100% I am still one of the most dangerous competitors in the sport today. Two days later, I didn’t get what I wanted: a win over SEB.”
“No, instead I got what I needed in a time limit draw. I needed to step into that ring, and go toe to toe with a future Hall of Fame Wrestler and not only prove to myself that I could hang with the likes of him, but show him I wasn’t a pushover either. It was a match mat based wrestling, striking, and absolute ring awareness. It wasn’t a match of a hundred and one false finishes, it was two extremely talented wrestlers showing they were more than just pretty faces. Which is sad considering all that we have accomplished in our brief careers.
“Now I move on from Sebastian Everett-Bryce III and look toward giving the Thunderites a preview of what their future Claim to Fame winner is capable of. It’s unfortunate for Khloe Cox and Cy Riddle that instead of getting bounce back matches, they get me, The Scorpion, standing across the ring from them this Friday Night.”
“Khloe, Khloe, Khloe… How times have changed for you, haven’t they? I remember your first run because of the money Terry had spent on you (which was way too much) and, of course, that ‘Kartoon’ nickname. It allowed me to take 49% of the TPW ownership but like most of the things he spent too much money on, you floundered under the pressure that is TPW. This promotion, even though it has many shows under its belt, is still relatively new. Just like this ‘newer’ version of yourself. From your qualifier match against Rose to your erratic little speech in the ring on the 11th of August, I can see you are frantically looking to make yourself stand out from the rest of the locker room.”
“I get that. When I was running wild all over OCW (and you were a flaming ball of failure), I stood out from the rest because I haven’t relied on cheesy gimmicks and personas. I have always just been myself. I will always just be myself. And you should be grateful that this is only a preview of the Claim to Fame because at the end, when your name is announced as the winner by the silky voice of the one and only Steve Cotton, at least you will still be in the tournament. For your sake, you better not draw my name in the next round.”
“From the inexperienced to the experienced, we get the veteran of this match, Cyrus Riddle. While you and I have never really crossed paths, we share someone in common: PWV World Heavyweight Champion Jason Cashe. To you, a little brother in a lot of ways. Someone you have had to keep on task in your career as a tag team with one another. But now, Cashe has shown that he can do great things when he focuses and that leaves you with more time to focus on your own in-ring career, and games of tag backstage.”
“I’m not gonna stand here and discredit your career. From my count, you have had twenty-one different championships. Some multiple times, others you didn’t even get the chance to lose, like the OCW Tag Team Championships. I’m just trying to figure out exactly what it is you have done since those OCW Tag Team titles to your time here in TPW? From what I can tell, it isn't a whole hell of a lot.”
“Like you, I didn’t fare as well as I had hoped in the Bohemian Bash. I made the mistake of trying to return a favour in helping my old man, and it cost me. That is the thing about me, Cy, is that I only need to be taught a lesson once. But to go back to what you have done lately besides having Kat Jones show up, pump your tires for the world to see and not move forward. How many promotions have you been a part of since being Purged from the Marcus Welsh era of OCW? Myself? This is my third promotion. After OCW I went to CU:LT, put my body through absolute hell, was their SNUFF Champion defeating their longest reigning champion in Chester Roosevelt, took down the legend that is The Comedian Allen Chaney before it all caught up on me. Now I am here in TPW, with only one goal in mind: becoming the International Champion, and bringing a world title home to the Strader family.”
“While I will go on and make my mark in this fantastic company, you’ll tuck your tail like you have the last couple of years and try it all over again somewhere else. There is no question you were a legendary competitor for many years, but not everyone is Matthew Knox or Chronic Chris Page. Just like Khloe Kox, you are stepping into the ring with the daughter of the Cowgirl and the Raven, and you will feel the Scorpion’s sting. Because you would do well to remember these four simple words….”
“God Forgives.”
“I don’t.”
Rocky Ridge, Badlands
October 7th, 2077 (alternate dimension)
“Why are we meeting her out here?”
Ronnie looks at the holo display on the passenger side of her windshield that is her sister, Vee. Vee looks back at her paired with a shrug.
“Mom is paranoid they are on to her.”
Ronnie looks out ahead down the road, seeing her exit.
“You realize she’s not our mother right, but just a digital copy?”
“I know, but it’s nice to know a piece of mom is still with me, and I just can’t call her Megz like the rest of you do.”
“Well, whatever it is we have been dragged into, I was almost killed by Militech gonks, we are in fuckin’ deep, Vee.”
Vee is silent for a moment and Ronnie picks up on it.
“Spill it, Vee. You know more than you are letting on.”
“We’ll talk when you get to Rocky Ridge. How far out are you?”
Ronnie lights a tobacco flavoured Biotecnika, exhaling with her response.
“A few minutes. I just took the exit.”
The sisters end the call and Ronnie sighs loudly.
“If I had known when she brought mom here, she was going to have an Engram made of her. Vee really needs to come to terms with mom being gone. Until then, might as well risk my life for a digital fuckin’ clone.”
She rolls down the window to ash her cigarette and sees the Rocky Ridge sign.
“There she is.”
Ronnie pulls into the Chooh2 Station (fuel station of this dimension) and parks her green Quadra S-Type 640s beside Vee’s baby blue Quadra V-Turbo. Ronnie luckily knows a woman named Claire in the Heywood Suburb of Night City who does vehicle restoration after she was attacked by the Militech mercenaries.
“You gonna tell your sister about me?”
Ronnie looks into the rearview, not surprised at all to see the soul of Scott Nash Strader looking at her with the icy blues.
“Haven’t seen you in a while. Had more important things to do than bother me?”
“Hah, cute. Thought I’d leave you be for a bit.”
If looks could kill, but he’s already dead.
“So as I am about to meet up with the granddaughter who’s heart you broke, tagging her ex-girlfriend and the digital clone of your firstborn, you thought, ‘hey, I should bother the granddaughter that is cursed with my soul’?”
“You know me, master of timing.”
Ronnie throws Scott the family sneer.
“Please zip it. I have enough on my plate.”
Instead of verbally agreeing, SNS vanishes from the reflective surface, but she knows he’s never too far. Ronnie parks beside the empty fuel pump. At least she hopes they are. A glance across the street shows an empty bar with an electronic billboard for “Mr. Stud” hardware add-on. Use your imagination on what it is for. Ronnie lights a new cigarette off her old one.
“Sign of chain smoking right there.”
“That happens when I get run off the road and almost have my skull caved in.”
“I know, I am sorry.”
Ronnie is looking at the nearby reflections to see if her grandfather was actually going to listen to her wishes and, to her surprise, so far he is. She takes a drag, looking to Vee, and opens up her scanner to look around at her surroundings to make sure no one else was in the vicinity. Vee nudges her, and motions forward with her head toward the bar across the street.
“I think mom, er, ahem, she is here.”
The former OCW TransAtlantic Champion looks in the direction Vee had motioned towards, seeing that the electronic billboard has now changed from what it was earlier to:
Ronnie can’t help but laugh.
“Experienced Cowgirls looking for stallions. Well, she definitely has our mom’s sense of humour.”
“That she does. You should know, the body that my contact found for her doesn’t look like our mom.”
“That’s not a bad thing, Vee.”
The mercenary sisters cross the road and head into the bar where they see a blonde woman, her back to the entrance, looking up at the screen to the side of the bar, with two buildings being displayed on it. The cowboy hat and boots give her identity away to anyone that would know the late Meghan Strader.
“Megz.”
She turned around and Vee wasn’t lying. She doesn’t look like their mom at all. Like Ronnie said, she really wasn’t their mother, and it seemed apparent the Engram of Meghan Strader understood that since she chose not to look like her.
“Victoria, Veronica… please, call me Liz.”
Ronnie smiled to herself. Liz. Like Meghan’s mother. Liz moved toward them, hugging them both, and while Vee was all in, Ronnie still hesitated.
“I know you are wondering why I had you come out all this way.”
Vee took a seat at the bar, while Ronnie leaned against it, nodding her head to the obvious statement but couldn’t help herself.
“I’m also wondering about whatever it is you did that had three gonks try to kill me on the side of the road.”
Even though Liz wasn’t the real Meghan, she had all of her memories and feelings. While still adjusting to a brand new life, those thoughts, feelings and memories still influenced her.
“While you have been back in your home dimension, your sister has been helping me adjust to life here in Night City. Vee has brought me into the mercenary world to take her place when she and Brooklyn leave to settle back home. I took a job with her, and I have been tasked with uncovering a Quadra Motor Vehicle Heist set up by Militech to fund the destabilizing of the other corporations without it being on their financial records.”
Vee looks at her sister with a nod. Ronnie walks towards the screens, pointing at the buildings on it.
“I saw these on my way out here. They are new buildings.”
Liz nods.
“Building 06 is a fortress. There is no way to break through the ICE firewalls, even with the finest Netrunners. But - - -”
“Building 06 is newer, and the security isn’t as tight. But Militech caught Vee snooping around and when they saw me, they assumed it was her.”
Liz can’t help but smile. The daughters of the Cowgirl and the Raven were just as clever as their parents. Ronnie sits down beside Vee and catches the silhouette of her grandfather in the reflection on the screen. Liz lays the plan out.
“We can get under ‘Building 07’ through the sewer system.”
“Then if we get to the top, we can get to the top of the other building.”
“And hack into the system’s mainframe, getting the evidence needed to out Millitech.”
“Precisely.”
Ronnie lights another cigarette, and stares up at the screen.
“I’m guessing Rogue is the one that gave the gig?”
“Yep. What other fixer in the city has a hard on for Millitech like her?”
“Well,” Ronnie takes a deep drag, “we better not keep the Queen of Fixers waiting.”
“Sometimes we don’t always get what we want, but we get what we need. Last Fury I showed Luchadore Blade that even when I’m not at 100% I am still one of the most dangerous competitors in the sport today. Two days later, I didn’t get what I wanted: a win over SEB.”
“No, instead I got what I needed in a time limit draw. I needed to step into that ring, and go toe to toe with a future Hall of Fame Wrestler and not only prove to myself that I could hang with the likes of him, but show him I wasn’t a pushover either. It was a match mat based wrestling, striking, and absolute ring awareness. It wasn’t a match of a hundred and one false finishes, it was two extremely talented wrestlers showing they were more than just pretty faces. Which is sad considering all that we have accomplished in our brief careers.
“Now I move on from Sebastian Everett-Bryce III and look toward giving the Thunderites a preview of what their future Claim to Fame winner is capable of. It’s unfortunate for Khloe Cox and Cy Riddle that instead of getting bounce back matches, they get me, The Scorpion, standing across the ring from them this Friday Night.”
“Khloe, Khloe, Khloe… How times have changed for you, haven’t they? I remember your first run because of the money Terry had spent on you (which was way too much) and, of course, that ‘Kartoon’ nickname. It allowed me to take 49% of the TPW ownership but like most of the things he spent too much money on, you floundered under the pressure that is TPW. This promotion, even though it has many shows under its belt, is still relatively new. Just like this ‘newer’ version of yourself. From your qualifier match against Rose to your erratic little speech in the ring on the 11th of August, I can see you are frantically looking to make yourself stand out from the rest of the locker room.”
“I get that. When I was running wild all over OCW (and you were a flaming ball of failure), I stood out from the rest because I haven’t relied on cheesy gimmicks and personas. I have always just been myself. I will always just be myself. And you should be grateful that this is only a preview of the Claim to Fame because at the end, when your name is announced as the winner by the silky voice of the one and only Steve Cotton, at least you will still be in the tournament. For your sake, you better not draw my name in the next round.”
“From the inexperienced to the experienced, we get the veteran of this match, Cyrus Riddle. While you and I have never really crossed paths, we share someone in common: PWV World Heavyweight Champion Jason Cashe. To you, a little brother in a lot of ways. Someone you have had to keep on task in your career as a tag team with one another. But now, Cashe has shown that he can do great things when he focuses and that leaves you with more time to focus on your own in-ring career, and games of tag backstage.”
“I’m not gonna stand here and discredit your career. From my count, you have had twenty-one different championships. Some multiple times, others you didn’t even get the chance to lose, like the OCW Tag Team Championships. I’m just trying to figure out exactly what it is you have done since those OCW Tag Team titles to your time here in TPW? From what I can tell, it isn't a whole hell of a lot.”
“Like you, I didn’t fare as well as I had hoped in the Bohemian Bash. I made the mistake of trying to return a favour in helping my old man, and it cost me. That is the thing about me, Cy, is that I only need to be taught a lesson once. But to go back to what you have done lately besides having Kat Jones show up, pump your tires for the world to see and not move forward. How many promotions have you been a part of since being Purged from the Marcus Welsh era of OCW? Myself? This is my third promotion. After OCW I went to CU:LT, put my body through absolute hell, was their SNUFF Champion defeating their longest reigning champion in Chester Roosevelt, took down the legend that is The Comedian Allen Chaney before it all caught up on me. Now I am here in TPW, with only one goal in mind: becoming the International Champion, and bringing a world title home to the Strader family.”
“While I will go on and make my mark in this fantastic company, you’ll tuck your tail like you have the last couple of years and try it all over again somewhere else. There is no question you were a legendary competitor for many years, but not everyone is Matthew Knox or Chronic Chris Page. Just like Khloe Kox, you are stepping into the ring with the daughter of the Cowgirl and the Raven, and you will feel the Scorpion’s sting. Because you would do well to remember these four simple words….”
“God Forgives.”
“I don’t.”
