They Breed Them Differently In Ostania (Cyberpunk / Spy Family) (Crack)

[Guardian Box]

A bit of a re-write / upgrade upon an older idea. Don't take it too seriously.

------

It was a beautiful Morning in Night City.

The sun was shining brightly, the sky was cloudless, the air didn't smell too awful, there had been no acts of wanton murder in hours.

Sadly for Anya, it seemed if some divine power had seen such a state of being and was just about to push their fat and greasy fingers down the scales of karma.

Anya stared at Bond. Her big and fluffy dog looked back from under his white mop of fur.

Bond was thinking of Hamburger.

"No go back!" she demanded, shaking the massive slab of dog meat that was Bond.

"Borf?" Bond replied uncertainly, but still thought back to the vision of the future he had previously.

------

"You sure about this, Andrei?" Miro asked his comrade.

"Yeah" Andrei replied.

"She doesn't look like she has much chrome on her" Miro sounded doubtful.

"That's because she's clearly a corpo kid" Andrei continued "Her chrome must be preem shit to be this unnoticeable"

"If you say so" the scav replied, not entirely convinced.

He still charged forward from behind a dumpster, with a pipe held tightly in his hands, and brained the pink-haired brat.

Her little corpse fell down on the earth, his strength too much for her little body to handle.

------

Anya couldn't watch anymore.

With tears in her eyes she left the future-seeing dog and went up to her adopted mother.

"Ma- hic- mama" she said, weakly, while pulling on her mom's dress.

"What- what is it miss Anya!? Are you hurt!? Did something happen!?" Yor fired out in full mommy-panic mode.

"Mama" Anya tried again, tears streaming down her chubby little cheeks "Can mama walk me to school today?"

"Of course!" Yor immediately knelled down to hug her precious little adopted daughter "So stop crying and tell me what got you so upset!" she said, cooing gently and rubbing her daughters head.

"Anya- Anya just-" 'just saw a vision of the future from reading Bond's mind that she was going to be killed today' "Anya just wanted to spend some time with her mama today" she said, clenching onto her mom's skirt.

"O-oh. Okay then!" Yor replied, heart melted into sludge in an instant "Let me just call work I'll be a little late today and we'll be on our way!" she said with a wide, beautiful mommy smile.

Bond just had a new vision of the future, and Anya had just red it straight from his mind.

She couldn't help it, she smirked.

"Heh."

------

"You sure about this, Andrei?" Miro asked his comrade.

"Yeah" Andrei replied.

"She doesn't look like she has much chrome on her" Miro sounded doubtful.

"That's because she's clearly a corpo kid" Andrei continued "Her chrome must be preem shit to be this unnoticeable"

"If you say so" the scav replied, not entirely convinced.

He still charged forward from behind a dumpster, with a pipe held tightly in his hands, and tried to brain the pink-haired brat.

Anya pretended not to notice when her mom drop-kicked the scav bastard straight into the ground, cracking the pavement with his broken body. Nor when the corpse rebounded into the air, only for Yor to kick it away, the dead piece of meat and chrome slamming through a nearby window and out of sight of her innocent, impressionable daughter.

"Ah, mama! There you are!" Anya turned towards her at the noise, cried out happily as she hugged her mother "I thought you got lost!"

"Nothing of the sort, miss Anya!" she cooed gently "Now why don't you run ahead to school and all your friends?" she patted her daughter's head, hoping she wouldn't notice the red stains on her jacked that definitely wasn't ketchup this time "I just remembered I have some business to take care of around here"

"Okay mama!" Anya replied, and after a moment of mustering her courage, she kissed her mom on the cheek "Bye!" she said as she scampered off towards school.

"Ahh~" Yor squeed. The other scav appeared out of nowhere and tried uselessly to stab her with a piece of sharpened rebar, Yor's instinctual movements helping her avoid the attacks as if by some supernatural instinct "Miss Anya is soo cute~" she giggled to herself as she finally parried an attack with one of her thorns. A few stabs later, the whoever was down on the ground, bleeding all over from various destroyed vital points and irreparably damaged organs.

The scavenger chose the better part of valor and tied to flee away from the crazy woman who kept hugging herself and prancing around, praising her daughter's cuteness all the while. All he could do was crawl away to the relative safety of their scav den.

Little did he know Yor would get a hold of her motherly love a few minutes later, remember the rude man that tried to do unspeakable things to her precious little daughter, track him down to his safe-house and paint the walls crimson red with the blood of everyone inside.

------

"Oh, Anya! Welcome home!" Loid Forger said to his adopted daughter as she returned home "You are a little late. What happened?" various scenarios ran through his head, each one more worrying and outlandish than the next

"Ah! Sorry I'm late papa!" the pink-haired girl said with a smile, walking closer to her papa, baiting out the-

-and there it was.

The head-pat.

Heh.

 

[Guardian Box]

"You are not Smith" the NCPD recruitment officer stated as he looked at the young man before him.

"I'm afraid mister Smith had an accident and couldn't make it to this interview" the young man replied with a wide and innocent on his ketchup-stained face "Thought he was kind enough to give up his spot to me when I happened upon him." he tilted his head to side questioningly "I hope this won't be a problem?" he asked.

The recruiter checked his schedule - all potential employees have apparently bailed out of the interview at the last moment.

"Fine, might as well give you a chance" he relented. He had a quota to meet, and getting one sucker to apply to becoming a trooper was better than none "Show me your resume-"

"Here you go sir!" the man showed a folder full of papers to him. The recruiter expected a wireless data transfer, not... this. Just how old-fashioned is this guy?

"Right" he eyed the man evilly before opening up the folder and starting reading "Okay mister... Yuri Briar? Recently immigrated from... what the fuck is an Ostania anyway?" he wondered out loud "Never mind that, what brings you to Night City and what made you choose the Night City Police Department as your place of employment?" he started asking from the standard questionnaire. Reading his resume, if everything checked out, the boy wouldn't be all too bad to have. The redacted stint in the military was exactly the thing that got you looked as someone worthwhile as long as no one asked about it in detail.

"To serve and protect the good people of Night City of course!" Yuri lied shamelessly. He couldn't give a crap about the filth inhabiting this rotten hive of crime and depravity.

All he cared for was keeping his beloved, defenseless sister safe!

------

Yor sneezed, almost dropping the stacks of data shards she was carrying.

She got a good job here at Arasaka Tower. The pay was fine, the hours flexible, and all she had to do was to help manage the archives. There was lots of precious and important information stored here that her bosses didn't want anyone unapproved to get. The nice recruiting lady said they were looking for someone with 'inoffensive and nonthreatening presence', 'ideally without cybernetic enhancements to minimize the risk of data theft' and, uh, Yor didn't remember the final requirement. Something about lacking the metal culpability?

Whatever it was, the job sounded like a perfect cover for her nightly work! No one would expect the nice archivist lady to be involved in any kind of murders of the stabby kind!

"Hey Yor, how are you doing today?" the person making all that racket trying to sneak in quietly finally spoke, and Yor pretended to act surprised as she turned around.

"Ah! Miss Nice Recruiter Lady! What brings you here today?" she asked with a smile.

"Just trying to relax for a moment without all the snakes, vipers and sycophants constantly hovering around me" the woman replied "It's always about wanting something or trying to stab me in the back" Yor visibly startled at that. Were some assassins trying to murder her friend? If so, she could shadow her for a while and pick them off one by one, the corpse disposal would be troublesome in a heavily monitored area like the Tower, true, but maybe if she- or what if they knew she was an assassin by night, and this was a subtle threat that- "Metaphorically, of course." the woman continued when she noticed Yor's visible alarm "No one is actually trying to kill me, don't you worry your pretty little head"

"Ah, that's good to know" Yor visibly exhaled in relief "You should still do something about the snakes and vipers though" she continued with her brows furrowed "Though how did they get inside the building? Did someone bring and release them? But why would anyone do that, Miss Nice Recruiter Lady?" Couldn't be an assassination attempt, snakes and vipers were a very imprecise indirect weapon, not efficient in killing at all.

"You are just too precious." the woman replied with a low purr in her voice and a half-lidded gaze "And please, I told you to call me Hanako."

"Sorry about that, I will try." Yor bashfully replied, before seemingly suddenly remembering something "That's right! My break will start soon! Want to join me and have some tea?"

"I would love to" Hanako replied.

Hanako Arasaka had very few places and people she felt she could truly relax around, and the reinforced bunker hosting the archives staffed primarily by this lone and ditzy archivist was one of them. She slowly unwound and relaxed, sipping tea, eating cookies the woman's husband (a doctor of some sort) had made just for her, and listening to the archivists prattle inanely about her simple daily life was like a balm to hear weary soul.

The was no deceit coming from the simple woman, no hidden blade waiting in the dark, no poisoned barb at the tip of her tongue. Just a married woman, concerned for her family, and absolutely in love with her family. Completely unlike her own twisted family and the cutthroat corpo lifestyle. Hanako could freely admit, she was kinda jealous of Yor Forger. Just a little bit.

"What do you mean by 'unsavory types'? Hanako interrupted Yor's pleasant chatter.

"Ah, ehrm, not like I've seen them or something like that, you know?" the married woman awkwardly replied "It's just that I've heard some things that some nasty individuals have been seen around the route I take my daughter to school sometimes, you know?"

"Huh. I'll ask around, see what's going on" Hanako promised herself to do just that. If someone happened to little Anya, Yor's heart would break completely. And while there was that insidious corpo part of her that encouraged her to do just that and then heal the woman's broken soul and fill that emptiness inside of her with herself, she murdered that part of her without mercy. That was the corpo inside of her talking. She didn't visit Yor to enable her inner corpo.

Besides, with how enthusiastic Yor was when talking about her precocious little daughter, and how often she did so, Hanako felt almost-halfway like the little girl's aunt anyways.

Now, wait a minute, wasn't her cousin's ex due to arrive in the city in a few weeks? She could probably get him to clean up the area from any unsavory criminal elements that would threaten little Anya's life.

Then her secret soul-cleansing chats with Yor could continue without any interruptions.

 

[Guardian Box]

Adam seethed.

'Increased criminal activity around critical zones', his handler said.

'Unacceptable levels of risk to Arasaka interests in the area', he said. The order apparently came from around the very top, with Arasaka familial connections being pulled to get him to cooperate.

He'd be fine with the orders for the most part. Wanton slaughter of undesirables was something he was an expert at, and proud of his craft. The problem was that whoever pulled his strings this time demanded he exercise control, restrain, subtlety and limit civilian casualties to the minimum.

Useless meat. Does he tell them how to run a corporation? No, he doesn't. Then they shouldn't be telling a butcher like him how to work the cleaver.

------

Adam arrived at the latest anomaly site late in the evening. The seemingly abandoned building had shown signs of recent habitation.

A Scav den, Adam decided as he stepped in, with the chrome thieves living there previously entirely slaughtered. He approached one of the corpses and hummed in approval. Efficient work, he judged the handiwork with an expert's eye, efficient but brutal. The stab wounds were usually aimed at various vital organs, the slashes clearly aimed at tendons or larger blood vessels and nerve clusters, with the aim to incapacitate temporarily if he had to guess, and setup the target for a killing blow later. Though the fellow murdered didn't shy from just stabbing through the skull or breaking a few limbs with sheer brute force.

Adam was suppossed to be pacifying the area, yet the few last scav dens and gang hideouts were nothing more than charnel houses of blood and butchery.

He walked deeper into the charnel house, looking for clues as to the identity of the mysterious butcher. Call it a professional courtesy, but he wanted see how the new blood would act in a real fight, something only someone like him could provide. Adam was more of a fan of heavy machine guns and rocket launchers, though he wasn't averse to just smashing someone with a heavy cybernetic fists if the situation called for it. He had to do his name justice every now and again after all.

The corpses and the way the meat died told the usual story he knew by heart now. The assassin took a cautious approach as they moved in from the outside, quietly and efficiently killing everyone in their path, until eventually the targets wizened up to something being wrong, or there were simply some meatbags in a too large group someone managed to squeeze the trigger and alert the rest as their comrades died. A few spent bullet casings confirmed his theory, though there was no blood splatter on any surface that would indicate the gangers ever hit anything.

Optic camo, perhaps? Or some other piece of tech? A netrunner running over-watch, messing with the gangers eyes and spoiling their aim? Could be sheer luck, but with how consistently splendid the butchery was, he'd rather chalk it up to skill, or being as borged out and bulletproof as he was.

Curious. Why did the higher ups send him to cleanse this are from criminal activity? Was this just a cover up for something? The mysterious assassin, why were they here, what were their goals? Did his handler count on him running into the assassin, and disposing of them? Making this some kind of internal Arasaka power play? 'I kill your butcher with one of mine'?

He hated getting involved in office politics.

------

Thomas Wright served in the NCPD for years now, ever since they way before times when it was an actual police force, instead of being yet another corporation. Still, the pay was good enough, and Thomas has served without distinction long enough he managed to avoid all the downsizing that wrecked the department. He also made sure not to make any enemies, so he avoided all the shitty postings that would shorten his employment and see him transferred to the morgue.

He was wracking his brains trying to figure out if he offended someone anyways somehow. Thankfully securing the scene of a recent carnage was still on the lower end of being on someone's shit list. The cyberpsycho who did this could always return to kill some more or lurk around buried under the trash or something after all.

"What do have for me, trooper?" Thomas turned to the sound of the voice, noticing the chevrons on the uniform.

"Sir, we've got, uh, around seventeen bodies on the premises, thirteen of them suspected scavs and four of their victims, no survivors Sergeant, uh-" Wright fumbled around questioningly.

"Briar, trooper. Sergeant Yuri Briar" the now identified young police sergeant in a somewhat ketchup-stained and ill-fitting uniform answered "Something wrong?" he asked when Thomas eyes strayed towards the name tag sewn to his uniform, how the old stitches were still visible under the hastily affixed patch with his name on it.

"Uh, nothing sure." Wright replied with a shake of his head, dispelling the errant thoughts "Just surprised a little, it's usually McClusky who responds to these kinds of calls"

"Ah yes, good old Sergeant McClusky" Yuri affirmed with a nod "Sadly, he had a sudden family emergency, had to take care of his ailing grandmother. You know how it is, family comes first, right?" he finished with a genial smile.

"If you say so, sir" Thomas agreed unconvincingly. Still, he continued his report, and Sergeant Briar seemed like a pleasant and friendly individual who took his job seriously.

He could have sworn McClusky's grandma had died fifteen years ago though.

 

[Guardian Box]

Near the apartments on the higher levels of the mega building, a curious scene was taking place.

A young girl and a scruffy-looking man were playing dress up.

"Googlies?" Anya asked with her hand to her side, palm pointing upwards.

"Check" the man said with a long suffering but indulging tone of voice, even as he placed a pair of child-sized goggles in the little girls hands. She immediately placed it over her eyes.

"Glovesies?" Anya asked again, and Franky indulged her with the requested item once more.

"Check" he said, and Anya put a pair of child-sized leather gloves over her hands.

"Emergency rations?" Anya asked once more.

"Check" the man replied, placing a bag of peanuts into the girls waiting hands. The food item quickly disappeared in one of her pockets, which ere already full almost to bursting with other bags of peanuts.

"Super cool pistol with a silencer?" Anya asked again.

"Refused" Franky replied without hesitation "Lid would kill me if I gave you a weapon of any kind"

"Gah! You are ruining this, scruffy-head!" Anya stomped a tiny little foot onto the ground and pouted with full force at the man, who stalwartly ignored the heart-melting attack "How am I suppossed to play being a super-spy without a pistol with a silencer?"

"A real super-spy would figure something out" Franky replied, before adding 'like Twilight would' in his thoughts.

Anya, of course, has heard those thoughts perfectly clear. Not that it helped, since she knew perfectly well that her papa did in fact have several silenced pistols.

"Come then, agent Scruffy-head!" she called out to her minder for the afternoon "Lets go and accomplish our super secret spy mission!"

"Yes yes" Franky replied with a roll of his eyes as he followed the precocious child.

------

Anya snuck around the mega building in plain sight of everyone who cared to look, when she heard an errant thought of someone- someone thinking about a package and a drop-off point!

Her heart raced like crazy in excitement! A real spy mission!

She ran forwards to the place she overheard in someone's thoughts, finding herself in front an out of the way broken vending machine. She looked it over from all sides.

"Agent Scruffy-head! Move that vending machine" she ordered imperiously. "There's a hidden spy package behind it!"

"What, look how heavy it is!" Franky denied "No way I'm breaking my back over whatever you want from there."

"Agent Scruffy-head!" Anya yelled out "Obey your orders or I'm telling mama you left me alone and went to talk to that lady over-"

"Leave it to me! Watch and be amazed as your best spy agent Scruffy-head moves this vending machine with- hngh-" he huffed and puffed and tried to push the thing, to no avail"-zero- huff- effort- puff- whatsoever" he finished collapsed to the ground, exhausted with nothing to show for his efforts whatsoever.

'Mama could've moved it' Tanya thought to herself.

"Huh, what's this?" Franky suddenly said as he noticed something on the side of the machine "A switch?" he flipped it, activating a hidden mechanism which moved the entire contraption, revealing a hidden compartment.

"Ooh! Treasure!" Anya exclaimed and reached inside the hidden place, pulling out a small packet full of a suspiciously colorful powder "Aww, it's weird sand again" she pouted, but still put the package inside one of her pockets. Or, at least tried to, before Franky grabbed it out of her hand.

"Oi gimme that, if your parents catch you me with you having this I'll be in trouble!" he asked, before he caught himself "-wait, what do you mean by 'again'?"

"Anya has been scooping out all the hiding places in the building" the little girl replied while rummaging through her pockets "Bond helped. He sniffed a lot of them out" she fished out a few unopened packages of peanuts and, with heavy heart, placed them in the hidey hole, before switching the machine back so the place was truly as hidden as it was before.

"...how much other stuff have you found?" Franky asked, dreading the answer.

"Lots and lots!" Anya cheerfully replied "Most of it is useless stuff, but Anya's work must continue!"

"Your work? You mean stealing dru-, uh, things from hidden places and placing packets of peanuts inside instead?" he asked, bewildered.

"There are dark days looming ahead, agent Scruffy-head." Anya said and nodded sagely "Anya must prepare and ready supplies in all the hidden places for the sad future ahead."

"I don't even want to know" Franky sighed.

"November is coming" Anya finished ominously as if that explained everything.

"I didn't ask."