Ambush! Part-2

{Alley outside Misty's Esoterica, Watson, Night City}

...

I barely had 5 to 6 seconds before the ones following me entered the alley behind me. There was not much I could do except set up an ambush myself. My eyes scanned the alleyway, zooming across potential divets in lighting that I could use. I slipped past the corner and held the knife in my hand. The barebones of knowledge I had about sneaking guided me through the small space as I concealed myself to the best of my ability. The iron gate swung behind me, telling me that my pursuers were there.

"The fuck is that Gonk doing? I don't wanna give chase across the city, boss. Should I finish him and close this sitch up fo-" The one in the lead could barely finish his sentence before I dashed at him; I wasn't far, and with a simple lunge that I had practiced multiple times, I was upon him. He didn't have a sandy or anything on him because there were no sudden movements. He brought his hands up, but with a level 3 skill in {Knives}, my hands maneuvered around his guard and plunged straight through his neck.

I felt the knife hit something hard as I pushed through. In the meantime, the other two had backed away and pulled out their own handguns. The fear made me freeze for a moment, and thankfully, the idiots across me were fresh into the life of violence as well as they didn't capitalize. A couple of notifications appeared before me, which I ignored as a sense of forced calm brought my heightened senses into focus. I brought the limp body in front of me, but it was too heavy for me to use as a cover. 

'I don't think I can hold on for long,' I thought as I pushed past the notifications that appeared in front of me. Pulling my knife out of the man's neck, a spray of his warm blood splashed onto my hands and clothes as I pushed his body against his friends. They both awkwardly dodged to the side, probably not used to the body, but the leader's cold eyes were already turning to me.

'Not good...' I thought.

I pulled the Lexington out of my inventory with a thought; the surprise on the long samurai-haired man was palpable as I aimed it straight at his head. The bullets tore through his head and the wall behind him, and his body, now sans the head, slumped against the wall. 

"Fuck-" I screamed as I felt something tear into me; my eyes swirled around as a blinding pain forced me to fold into myself as the woman whom I hadn't focused on was firing another handgun straight at me. Thankfully, her aim wasn't that good, and I held the trigger down from my earlier spray and turned the barrel of my gun toward her. My spray control wasn't pristine, but the spray of bullets in her direction was enough distraction that she dived away. 

"Gah-" I gasped in pain as the woman started screaming. I don't know what she hoped for, but I didn't want a visit from the NCPD so soon. The pain was getting to me, but at the same time, I was calm, calmer than ever before. The tension and paranoia were pushed past the breaking point as I turned the barrel toward the screaming woman's head and pulled the trigger.

*Bang*

...

The last shot echoed throughout the alley as the woman was now sprawled on the ground. I let go of the gun and looked down at my abdomen. Warm liquid stained my fingers, telling me I hadn't come through this little ambush unscathed. My arms flopped to the side as I felt the loss of adrenaline kicking the wind out of my body. I was beginning to feel a little woozy, but then I remembered.

My hand grasped in the air awkwardly before an inhaler appeared in my hand. I don't know if Vik's drug would help me through a bullet wound, but it was better than doing nothing. I put it against my lips and pressed onto the top. The rush of cold drugs was familiar, and it made me a little woozy. 

My eyes blacked out for a second before the pain started fading away. 

'It worked?' I questioned in disbelief as I leaned up. My abdomen screamed at me to stop moving, and I listened to it. My eyes were looking at the red lantern hanging on the ceiling as I let the medicine do its job. Soon, the pain started fading. I don't know how long it had been and how much time I had.

I checked my injury, and although the pain wasn't the prominent factor anymore, a sense of soreness remained. I didn't want to prod a bullet wound, but it was the only thing jeopardizing my senses for now. With it now gone, I could focus on other things, which consisted of getting the hell out of there.

I'm still not in the mood to navigate a game-like interface and all the notifications that appeared earlier when I practically just survived by the skin of my teeth. Right now, I'm focused on something else.

The eerie silence that was surrounding me. From personal experience, I knew what that meant, and I realized that I didn't have much time before the police arrived. I looked at the discarded bodies in front of me. They each looked very much dead, with one of them missing the top part of their head- the forehead was gone, leaving behind the white gore that was dripping down the neck and was splattered across the wall.

I turned away from the grim display of a busted open head as I leaned upward. The pain returned, even if it was a lot more muted. I looked down, and once I made sure I wasn't going to bleed out, I tried to stand up. I scrunched my eyes, expecting the blinding pain to return, but the pain was like a weak imitation of the earlier shock. My hands grasped the ground as I slowly stood up to my knees and then hoisted myself up.

'Huh... I need to buy more of these inhalers, probably in bulk,' I thought as I looked at the carnage that had happened. Pushing aside the regrets for now, I leaned down and grabbed onto my knife, which I had let go of when I was pulling the pistol from my inventory. It disappeared into my inventory with a thought, but then I looked at the bodies strewn around the alley.

'What if I do this?' I thought as I grabbed weakly onto the man's sliced open neck and thought about putting him away into my inventory as well. His body did vanish, but I still got a warning. And there was an added pressure of resistance against my movements that felt unnatural.

...

[Item weight greater than carrying capacity, applying slow debuff]

...

'So corpses are items to the inventory. And his weight is too much, maybe because of the metal leg...' The thought itself was dehumanizing, but I didn't ponder on it too much. Instead, I grabbed onto the hostler of the one with the severed neck and stored his gun.

Maybe it was my gamer instinct kicking in, but 4 guns were better than 1, so I took a few steps toward all of them before storing all of them and their guns in my inventory. The thought of being a body trafficker was appalling, but I had no choice. Plus, the loophole of the inventory was that there was no additional debuff, no matter how much stuff you put into it once you were over the weight limit. I had seen in the game how NCPD could recreate the scene from the evidence found on the camera, so the only way for me not to leave many traces was to do this.

'Plus, even if I'm not slow if the NCPD suspects me, I won't be able to run anyway, not with this shit stealth I have plus, although my abdomen isn't pulsating with pain right now. I'm pretty sure a chase wouldn't do it any good.'

After I had done my share of the work, I pulled over my jacket and T-shirt. Before pulling my jacket on, I used my T-shirt to wipe my jacket, my face, and even my arms and hands. Its material made it easy to clean, and I stored the T-shirt in my inventory, not particularly interested in leaving it behind as evidence. 

'I can't do anything about the pool of blood though.' I thought as I looked at the blood that was pooled on the ground. I know I can't wipe all of my traces from the crime scene, but hopefully, if the NCPD doesn't find any bodies, I hope that they won't investigate too much. I wiped my feet off the ground a couple of steps away and then walked over to the garbage and repeated the process over some sheets and paper to clean them a little. 

'Alright, I wasted enough time here. Time to dip.'

With everything that I could do done. I walked back, retracing my steps. The warmth of the fire that was lit in the alley helped me get rid of the weird, forced calm I was under as I walked up the steps and appeared outside. A quick glance at the map showed that I wasn't under any encirclement, so I quickly turned to the right and started walking away from the scene.

...

The roads were as busy as ever. Even if most of the pedestrians had vanished close to the shops, I could still see some people hurrying away. After moving for a while and crossing another street. I saw a couple of blue dots walking towards me from the other end, and I focused on them on the other side of the road.

"-heard gunshots. Set up a parameter around block D and close down the Urmland Street in 5." I heard the NCPD officer speak into his intercom as we crossed paths. They didn't look at me weirdly, so I must have done an okay job cleaning. I was far away from the shooting location, so they didn't stop me. I slowly walked across the main road. My minimap still showed a clear way forward. I found more and more blue dots walking toward Vik's shop.

'I hope Misty and Vik won't be harassed too much for what happened.' I thought as I took the stairs up and arrived beneath the Megabuilding. A rush of relief flooded through me as I walked into it. The sounds of people talking entered my ears. Apparently, if the shooting is far from you, you don't need to be worried about it as everyone seems to ignore the police rushing in one direction after hearing gunshots. 

'Life in Night City huh...'

I walked up to the elevators and punched open the door. The ride back to my floor was uneventful, and I slowly hobbled my way through the hallways. The earlier paranoia about walking out of my apartment was long gone, so I kept my minimap in sight as I walked into my apartment. The sight of my boring old pad was quite welcoming as I stumbled in, punching the door to close before I hobbled over to my bed slowly and collapsed onto it.

As the icy feeling faded, I couldn't help but think, '...That was a mess. Who the fuck was that, and why was I targeted.'

...

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AN - Regarding the first fight scene, I kept it short because the way Nooa is now, he wouldn't have lasted in a longer fight scene as magically dodging all the bullets seemed unreasonable. Taking advantage of the minimap and ambush seemed like the best way, as everyone pretty much seemed opposed to joining the Claws. I might have to bring Panam into the picture sooner as he needs some company, and coping in his room doesn't make for a good story.