22.6

January 16, 2070, at 2331

Santo Domingo, Kendachi Headquarters

Crystal's vampiric eyes scanned Kendachi's stronghold, the fruit of days of surveillance. The tight security mesh, comprising guard rotations, surveillance cameras, turret placements, and drones, moved in what seemed like erratic patterns. But she discerned the methodology behind the madness. Unlike Biotechnica, where guards strayed so far from one another they wouldn't notice a colleague getting jammed under a stealth net, Kendachi's guards almost always remained in each other's field of vision.

"Feels like Kendachi's crib is on par with that Arasaka joint on the horizon," Crystal remarked, her voice edged with begrudging admiration.

Her feathery cyber-drake, Fluffyfeathers—or F.F. as she fondly called her—hooted. "Mad paranoid."

"Can't blame them," Crystal smirked, her gaze never wavering from the fortress-like structure in front of her. "If I were hijacking promising young Netrunners for some Old Net-tech treasure hunt, probably twisting their arms to do it, I'd be paranoid too."

Slipping out from her hidey-hole under the small highway gap between concrete and dirt, she inched towards the chain-link and razor wire fence. A narrow gap divided Kendachi's domain from an adjacent business property. The two fences stared each other down like age-old rivals, with just a smattering of shrubbery between them. But with her Misty Vision tech, Crystal could make the scrubby brush seem denser. And really, who's would eyeball some bushes for a headcount, especially under the cover of night? No one with sanity, that’s for sure.

Dealing with the electric fence was more science than art. Though one misstep could fry her synapses, electricity was predictable. Offer it a more enticing route, and it’d bite. This little trick ensured the current's flow remained uninterrupted, keeping the alarms silent.

As she approached the facility, she noted the placement of the cameras. "Most of these peepers seem more interested in the competition than anything else," she telepathically transmitted to F.F.

"Peeping Tims," F.F. shot back, as Crystal sliced a neat slit in the chain link, making her entrance.

Inside, Kendachi's empire stretched out in a formidable two-story square. Shipping docks commanded the front, while maintenance and packaging zones occupied the rear. Taking cover behind a maintenance bot that guzzled energy from a CHOOH2 conversion station, she assessed the area, mentally mapping out her next moves.

Little did Kendachi's corporate head, Tessho Yokoi, know that his final hour was about to chime.

Her vampire senses picked up the low hum of activity from the building. Crystal's eyes, shimmering with crimson behind her shades, mapped heat signatures and detected electronic encrypted communications turning them to plain text with Rune Eyes. F.F. took over the drones seamlessly cutting them out of the network with the encryption keys. Only shadows with no substance were left behind reporting all-clear like robotic mice. The drones were now Crystal’s eyes in the sky.

"Alright, F.F., you got the sky. I need eyes everywhere. If Yokoi even so much as sneezes, I want to know," she whispered, her voice carrying a hint of seriousness.

"Copy, go." F.F. quipped, soaring upwards, her darkened form and ebony wings casting no reflections from the overhead lights.

Crystal snickered, "From one word to two, moving up." Shaking her head, she made her way to a service entrance, her silenced shoes muffling her footsteps.

She reached the door right as she was interrupted by a random patrolling guard, his voice laced with suspicion. "Hey, who are you? What are you doing here?" She flicked her jammer on moving with vampiric speed. Crystal smirked, her darkened two-handed sword phasing into her right hand. "Taking a tour. Don’t lose your head over it." Before he could react, a slice from her blade spun his head into the air. She quickly hacked into his comms device sending the all-clear. "Too late," she grinned. It was the work of a moment to send the body away and use the Clean cantrip. Flicking the door’s switch with the On/Off cantrip she entered. The dead guard would alert them there was a problem, but it wouldn’t be fast enough to stop her.

As she ventured deeper into Kendachi's fortress, F.F.'s voice echoed in her mind, "Top floor."

Her eyebrows arched. "Now, isn't that a juicy bit? He must be meeting with Arasaka, I suppose. Let's crash their little party."

Navigating the labyrinthine corridors, she encountered more guards, but with her tech skills and F.F. feeding her real-time info, they posed little challenge. Clean up too longer than execution in any world. She reached the elevator and F.F. bypassed its security with ease. As it whisked her to the security station’s floor below ground level, she prepped herself for the confrontation.

Exiting out the guard room she sprinted forward using the On/Off cantrip to pop the security room open. The guards inside were stiff for a moment as they tried to process her entrance. Her sword whipped around in an ark separating the confused sardine security mook heads from life.

“Hook it.” F.F. said and Crystal opened a wireless connection on the switchboard below the cameras. Within seconds the entire facility was under the draconic chicken’s sway. Harvesting plans commenced moments later. Each of the guards was told to report to the security room one by one with slight time variances.

Crystal dumped the bodies away into the dungeon where predators would remove them. As each guard unsuspectingly arrived, they were silenced and dealt with in the same manner. She had no patience for those that aided in oppressing children. Life was hard enough without that sort of garbage breathing.

When the final member of Kendachi was fed to the dungeon, Crystal nodded in appreciation. She’d emptied the entire facility out with time to spare. “Tell the contact in here we are good to go.”

“Tell yourself.” F.F. said opening a channel up as she took over the automatic defenses one by one. There wouldn’t be any chance of backup being called.

As minutes ticked by, Crystal’s spiritual cyberdeck beeped, signaling an incoming transmission. An encrypted line buzzed to life, "I’m here. We're inside. Location?"

A small girl whispered, her voice barely audible, "Block C, Level 4."

"Stay put, little egg. I’m hunting Tessho Yokoi at the moment.” Crystal replied before turning to F.F. and saying, “Kill it.” Moments later the power cut out to select portions of the facility. She left the elevator on though so she could enter and use it. Hitting a switch she rode up to her main targets.

The elevator doors slid open to reveal the opulent boardroom. Tessho Yokoi, an imposing figure in a sharp suit, sat at the head of the table. His eyes widened in surprise, and the Arasaka executive beside him reached for a concealed weapon.

Crystal acted swiftly. With a flick of her wrist, she activated a Dark World, momentarily blinding everyone in the room. She darted forward, leaping over the table grabbing Yokoi’s kimono by the collar.

"Remember the Netrunners you used and discarded? Today, they get their justice," she hissed, her sword turned dagger pressed against his throat.

But before she could slice the Kendachi CEO’s throat, a sudden blow from behind made her stumble. The Arasaka drone had recovered faster than she'd anticipated. A brief fight ensued, but the Arasaka corpo had barely enough chrome to last a second.

She turned from the corpse and moved to finish the Kendachi head off pausing as her eyes narrowed. Tessho Yokoi's pleas echoed through the opulent boardroom, yet a distinct shift in his demeanor betrayed his intentions. Swiftly, he kicked back his chair and unsheathed his monoblade katana—a marvel of precision engineering, with a blade so thin it almost disappeared in the ambient light.

Crystal, with her supernatural reflexes, was already in motion. She shifted her weapon into a two-handed sword of eldritch darkness. Its appearance was a stark contrast to the technological marvel of Yokoi's blade. And while it looked heavy enough to require two hands, her vampiric strength allowed her to wield it effortlessly with one.

The room transformed into a battlefield. Yokoi, a sword master, danced forward with his katana, striking with rapid, precise blows. Furniture, paintings, and chairs parted in front of the monofilament blade. Each movement was a testament to years of disciplined training. But Crystal had a unique advantage: she could analyze and adapt to her opponent's fighting style in real-time with Demonic Memory and her Sword Dance skill. As Yokoi's blade sliced through the air, she responded with uncanny precision, her sword a fluid extension of herself, countering each of Yokoi's moves. Buying time. Time to grow and exceed.

Their blades clashed, producing sparks that seemed to momentarily outshine the neon glow of Night City outside. Yokoi, finding himself pressed, began integrating traditional Samurai techniques, using swift feints and redirections. For a moment, it looked as though Crystal might be overwhelmed.

But with each passing second, her innate vampiric skill’s abilities to learn from her enemy's art became evident. With a blindingly fast movement, she mirrored one of Yokoi's signature strikes, turning it against him. This move caught the sword master off guard, forcing him to retreat a step. Realizing the tide was turning, Yokoi infused his strikes with more aggression, hoping to overpower Crystal with sheer force.

Yet, the more he unveiled, the better Crystal's counters became. Her blade of eldritch darkness seemed to absorb the very essence of Yokoi's techniques, leaving him increasingly frustrated. In one fateful exchange, she baited him into overextending, using his own momentum against him.

With a swift twist, Crystal's blade found its mark, piercing through Yokoi's defenses. As he collapsed, the room's atmosphere was thick with tension, finally broken by the echo of Crystal's blade disintegrating and returning to its otherworldly sheath.

Outside, the neon lights of Night City continued to shimmer, oblivious to the drama that had just unfolded high above.

As the adrenaline rush started to fade, Crystal's sensors picked up a faint signal. It was a weak distress call, like the distant chirp of a trapped bird. She quickly honed in on the source—two floors below, behind a secured vault door.

"Guess the night's not over, F.F. We've got innocents to save," she murmured, determination burning in her eyes.

F.F., having arrived after the intense battle, responded with a steely resolve, "Save eggs."

“I will, but first, time to use the Level that old samurai gave.” Crystal said as she moved through the Net to buy. "In the age of the chrome, why's an old-world metal so damn pricey?" Crystal griped, committing to a forty-pound silver order. Watching her account shrink from over 231k to chump change in short  time frame stung more than a Maelstrom's blade in the gut.

Fluffyfeather, her dragon-feather scaled companion, bumped her with a cold snout, offering a reptilian kind of comfort. From her wish list, she’d nabbed four items—all in sync with her wicked magic needs. The Alchemy Jug, Robe of Useful Items, Eversmoking Bottle, and Winged Boots. The Eldritch Tattoo and Brooch of Shielding were tempting but didn’t vibe with her edge-runner aesthetic. She was also too broke to afford them now.

A drone's hum signaled its arrival dropping off the Silver on Kendachi’s delivery pad just outside the executive suite. She had placed herself in the blind spot of the room. It was something Kendachi created for guarding their headquarters privacy. This wasn’t the discreet delivery she hoped for, but speed was of the essence now. Ordering pure silver would've lit her up on every corpo radar, but having it delivered to Kendachi wouldn’t lift any eyebrows. Eventually someone would check the flight path, but she would be long gone by then.

Guided by her Patron’s will, and Nota's whispers, she carved a Blood Pentagram with her dagger's blade into the remains of the wooden table of the executive suite. Her ability to use the Clean cantrip would wipe all traces of her presence, but she didn’t have time to make things neat. Let the pursuers puzzle over it on their own dime.

"Silver Exchange," she commanded, bending the very fabric of reality, funneling its power back to her omnipotent Patron. A sentient cloud of silver materialized within the pentagram, its presence resonating with raw, untapped energy. Though invisible in the mortal realm, its brilliance in the arcane spectrum was like the blazing sun. Crystal’s crimson eyes narrowed as she watched reality unwind.

Sometimes, she forgot she was a servant of a higher power.

The mystic silver dust that arrived from thin air eddied around her silver bar stash within the pentagram, culminating in a blinding, ruby-red flash in the spectrum she could see as a vampire. As the luminosity receded, laid before her were her chosen items. Blinking her eyes, she moved to look down at them.

"Real magic in a world of tech," she murmured, gathering her new acquisitions. A touch of her will, a dash of blood magic, and three artifacts vanished into the Robe of Useful Items. With a vampiric flair only she could muster, she doused the pentagram with more blood, invoking her Patron’s favor with a promise of future payment. The robe metamorphosed into a crimson pouch, which she discreetly pocketed inside her Jinguji jacket. "Cyberpunk chic," she smirked.

Crystal made her way to the sub-level vault door, encountering no resistance along the way. The lack of obstacles was a testament to her prowess and F.F.'s Netrunner support.

Standing in front of the reinforced door, Crystal quickly assessed its complex locking mechanism. With a grin she looked at the keypad on the side and used her On/Off cantrip. Magic was just broken some days. Time seemed to stretch, but within moments, the vault door hissed and groaned as it swung open, revealing a dimly lit set of corridors.

Moving through the corridors she checked the rooms feeling her anger grow. Inside many rooms, a chilling sight awaited her. Rows of containment pods, each one imprisoning a child, their eyes filled with terror and confusion. They were all jacked into a digital interface, tendrils snaking from the back of their necks into the pods. Crystal recognized the set-up: it was a makeshift Netrunner farm. These children, forcibly plugged into the net, were being used to mine and retrieve valuable data for Kendachi.

"Edgerunners in training," F.F. whispered, horror evident in her voice.

Crystal approached one of the pods, carefully disconnecting a young girl from the interface. The young one’s name was listed on a slide nearby as ‘Lucy Kushinada’. The child blinked in confusion, her eyes slowly focusing on Crystal.

"Who... are you?" the child whispered; her voice shaky.

"Solo," Crystal replied softly, brushing a strand of hair from the child's face. "I'm here to get you out."

With F.F.'s help, they began the process of disconnecting the children, ensuring that their neural interfaces were safely detached. As each child awoke, they were met with gentle words of comfort and reassurance.

As the last child was freed, an alarm began to blare throughout the building. Reinforcements were on their way. F.F. could fool them for only so long.

Crystal swiftly assessed the situation. "We need to get out, and fast."

Stumbling along the group made their way to the facility's docking bay. Crystal watched F.F. wipe a transport truck clean frying the tracking devices with a glitch. The children were quickly ushered aboard following the lead of Lucy.

Moments later the silhouette of Kendachi headquarters receded into the background. Crystal banked her anger chilling it for the future, the fight was far from over. She turned the truck towards Mama Welles bar the wheels spinning in her mind.