Chapter 31: Rebecca Reborn

A/N: Here's the new Chapter! Which also means the next four chapters are up on my for early access as well as the chance to vote on the direction of the story!

Rebecca is a lot more complete now... but at what cost?

-x-X-x-

“FUCK!”

Rebecca wakes up limbless and with an expletive on her lips once more. This time around however, she understands a whole lot more of what the fuck is actually happening… and she hates it, to say the least.

Unfortunately, she also got it. She wants to be mad, but she can’t really be too angry with the people around her. They’re just trying to help, each in their own way. Shit, they’d gone and gotten Lucy of all people to help her figure herself out. The Netrunner in question is standing at the end of the table, hands clenched into tight fists at her sides as she watches Rebecca carefully.

Staring back at her, Rebecca grimaces as she acknowledges the truth.

“Bastard killed me, didn’t he?”

Wordlessly, Lucy nods. Rebecca bites her lower lip.

“… Killed David too, didn’t he?”

At that, Lucy looks down, her countenance growing dark. Ultimately though, she nods to that as well.

Without limbs, it’s hard for Rebecca to stay particularly tense forever to be honest. Not like she can do much of anything anyways, which is kind of the point isn’t it? With an explosive sigh, she relaxes back on the metal table, eyes fixed on the ceiling for a long moment. Shit… and they’d been so close too. So close to saving Lucy. So close to being the Big Damn Heroes.

And now David was gone. That… hurt. Rebecca knew she wasn’t completely together even now, but she also knew she’d had feelings for David. Affection… love, maybe. It was hard to accept he was dead, despite how quick and easy life could be spent in Night City.

Sasha, Pilar, Dorio, Maine… one after another, her precious people had been ripped from her, sometimes by the most nonsensical shit possible. That was just how things went in Night City, or so everyone would tell you. You either toughened up and got over it, or you let it drag you down until you were next.

Rebecca had thought herself the former. Losing people had sucked, but she’d gotten over it, right? She’d kept going. She’d kept fighting. Only… if she were really capable of just hardening her heart to Night City’s bullshit like she’d thought she was, Rebecca never would have let David convince her and Falco to save Lucy. She would have done everything in her power to get David to see reason, that Lucy was a lost cause. And failing that, she would have walked away.

That would have been the ‘smart’ thing to do. That would have let her keep on living a while longer. The fact was though, Rebecca wasn’t tough. She wasn’t hard. She was one great big bruise pretending at being all calcified and impervious to harm. It was only now that she could accept that… fuck, she wasn’t even the original Rebecca, was she?

“… We’re going to kill Smasher.”

Rebecca blinks at Lucy’s quiet tone and lifts her head off of the table again, looking at the Netrunner as she gestures between herself and the others in the room. Offering the faintest beginnings of a hesitant smile, Lucy shrugs her shoulders.

“Thought you might want in.”

It’s obvious that Lucy thinks Rebecca’s answer should be an immediate and unequivocal ‘hell yeah!’. And fuck, maybe it should be. Maybe that’s was the real Rebecca would say. But… laying there, processing the idea, Rebecca…

“Pass.”

She can tell she shocks Lucy to her core. She’s never seen the white-haired woman look so flabbergasted. And given half of her new mind has the tang of Lucy’s memories to it, she’s pretty sure Lucy has never been so surprised either.

“Isn’t it enough that David died to the bastard? That I died to the bastard? Getting another crew together just to feed them to the meat grinder isn’t worth it, Lucy.”

Even if some of them were apparently immortal. Rebecca still didn’t understand how Sasha was alive. Hell, she didn’t understand how she was alive, not really. She sort of knew on an instinctive level that she was a copy of the original, and not even a very good one… but beyond that it was a whole bunch of science bullshit that Rebecca wasn’t even going to pretend she could figure out.

“I…”

Lucy seems at a loss for words in the face of Rebecca’s rejection. Ultimately, another has to step in… the man from before. The man named V. He steps forward all of a sudden, and despite her refusal to help Lucy and them with their little crusade, he grabs a leg and starts connecting her limbs again, one by one.

Rebecca shivers at his touch. She’s not sure why, but there’s just something… well. It doesn’t matter. As V carefully affixes her limbs, clearly having judged that she’s not a danger to herself or any of them, he glances up and looks at her with a raised brow.

“You certainly seemed eager to kill him during our first conversation.”

Rebecca presses her lips tightly together at that. Yeah, she remembers that. The indignation. The righteous fury that had burned in her heart. And she remembers V’s words too, his response to her declaring that she would kill Adam Smasher dead for killing her.

“Stick around and you’ll almost certainly get your shot.”

So it probably wasn’t Lucy who had put them onto the idea of going after Smasher, at least. They were always going to do that shit; Lucy was just along for the ride now. And Rebecca would have been too, except…

There was a big difference between the Rebecca who had first ‘woken up’ in this room and the Rebecca now. That Rebecca was born of Sasha’s memories and some other fragments of thought and emotion. Lucy’s ‘help’ has done a lot to fill in the gaps… as well as allow Rebecca to remember just how much she’s lost.

As V checks to make sure her toes are working, Rebecca tries to find the words. It’s not until he’s moved onto her arms that she finally bites the bullet and accepts that she’s going to sound like a pussy.

“… I’m tired of losing people.”

Despite her quiet tone, everyone in the room clearly hears her. Lucy jolts and looks guilty, while V pauses and stares into Rebecca’s eyes for a long moment before nodding.

“I get it.”

And to his credit, she really thinks he does. Rebecca gets the feeling that V understands her perfectly. As his fingers brush along her suddenly connected arms, Rebecca shivers from the touch. But then her thoughts turn to David and her heart aches with grief.

“Night City ain’t a nice place. Never has been, never will be.”

Just from the look in V’s eyes, she can tell he’s lost people too. To Smasher, or Arasaka, or just Night City in general. She wishes she had his strength though, because he doesn’t seem to let it keep him down.

The final arm goes on her left shoulder, slotting into place after just a few moments. V gives her a smile, even as he pats her shoulder. Then, he offers her his hand and once Rebecca takes it, he helps her down off of the table.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. So let me ask you, plain and simple… what do you want to do now?”

Rebecca opens her mouth and then closes it a moment later to really knuckle down and think about it. What did she want to do now? She… well, it felt rather hypocritical of her, given she’d just nixed the idea of helping with Smasher. And yet…

“… I wanna shoot something.”

That gets a dry snort from Lucy, who suddenly reaches down to a duffle bag she hadn’t been able to see before. A moment later and the Netrunner pulls out a familiar green and pink shotgun that has Rebecca’s eyes widening in recognition.

“You know, I thought you might, so I brought-!”

“Guts!”

Hopping over, Rebecca all but tears the modified Carnage, originally manufactured by Budget Arms, right out of Lucy’s grasp. Not that the other woman holds onto it very hard. The nicknamed shotgun feels right at home in Rebecca’s hands, even as she checks it over for a second. All looks to be in order, though to be fair… Rebecca had never been one for weapon maintenance back in the day.

“Got something for you, if you’re up for it. Has nothing to do with Arasaka or Smasher either.”

Turning to V, Rebecca hesitates at the offer. She knows it’s uncharacteristic of her, but she can’t help feeling self-conscious.

“… You really don’t mind that I want nothing to do with killing Smasher?”

Smiling down at her, V shakes his head in amusement.

“I really don’t, no. He’ll die with or without your help, choom.”

Rebecca bites her lower lip, hearing the certainty in V’s voice. His confidence… it reminds her of Maine or David on their best days. However, as much as she’d loved those men… and in David’s case, really loved him, Rebecca could admit that she knew when they were both putting on an act. When their displays of confidence were for the benefit of the crew instead of real, bonafide surety in themselves and their capabilities.

V's confidence seems different. She can tell he means everything he says.

“Besides… even if I did mind… do you really want nothing to do with killing Smasher, Rebecca?”

Flinching, Rebecca doesn’t have an answer to that question. She shot down Lucy before, and yet… a part of her does still want revenge. Not just for herself, but for David as well. She’s just not sure if it’s worth the risk. And yet… something in her wants to believe. Some part of Rebecca wants them to be capable of what seems impossible.

Fortunately, V doesn’t wait for an answer. He chuckles and reaches out, ruffling her hair. Rebecca scowls and pushes his hand away… but they really had become chooms in short order, because if a stranger had done that to her, she definitely would have shot them with the temperamental shotgun right there on the spot.

“Like I said though, you want to shoot something? There’s a group of Voodoo Boys who need to be dealt with over in Pacifica. I have it on good authority that their leadership has recently screwed the pooch and run afoul of NetWatch, so it should be the perfect time to go in and wreck their shit.”

Once upon a time, Rebecca would have cocked Guts, thrown on a cheery grin, and asked when they left. But after everything… she hesitates in spite of her professed desire to shoot something.

“What’d they do? Why’re we going after them?”

She just needed a reason. V’s smile becomes sharp around the edges, his eyes glittering.

“They fucked with my people. Tried to kill one. Tried to capture another. Got some others killed with their shit. And maybe I could let bygones be bygones, but they’re not going to stop trying, Rebecca. So it falls to me to make them stop.”

Rebecca isn’t sure she needs to breathe anymore, given she’s pretty sure she’s in a cyborg body now. And yet, her breath hitches all the same before she finally nods and cocks Guts.

“… When do we leave?”

No cheery grin, but hey… two out of three ain’t bad right?

-x-X-x-

Things were not going well, though obviously a man like Placide could not allow his worry or concern to show on his face. As the second-in-command to Maman Brigitte, his role was to always project strength, no matter what the circumstances were currently.

… That said, these were pretty rough circumstances. Both Brigitte and Ti Neptune, their best Netrunners, were currently trapped on the Net and out of contact. Their bodies were safe in the depths of the Voodoo Boys’ stronghold at least, but that meant little when their minds were lost at the moment.

Placide himself knew a thing or two about Netrunning, but not nearly as much as the Maman or Ti. He could do a few Quickhacks here and there, and had several toys to be used in the event that it was necessary, but he couldn’t very well throw himself onto the Net and risk winding up trapped just like the others.

On top of that, the Animals had decided to get cute. Pacifica belonged to the Voodoo Boys, plain and simple. Originally, Pacifica was envisioned as a tourist resort for the wealthy and elite. However, the Unification War had ultimately ended such plans in their tracks, resulting in the entire district being abandoned by the rest of Night City.

And the icing on the cake was Militech, led by Kurt Hansen, taking control of parts of the district when the war finally reached Night City. Even after the war ended and NUSA tried to pull Hansen back, he ignored their orders and stuck around, carving out his own chunk of the place.

But none of that mattered because Pacifica, ALL of Pacifica, belonged to the Voodoo Boys. It was they who had stepped up when Night City originally began abandoning the district. It was they who had stuck it out the longest and built a true home for their kind in the ruins. Hansen could have his little fiefdom… his time would come eventually all the same.

But before that could happen, Placide needed to get Brigitte and Neptune off the damn Net. And he was beginning to suspect that the Animals who had moved into the Grand Imperial Mall nearby were somehow involved in things. It was a bit of a leap in logic considering the Animals were rarely what one would call ‘techie’, but Placide was running out of leads and they seemed all too content to just bunker down over there and defend the abandoned mall like it was their castle and they it’s knights.

He would need to-

Placide’s eyes widen as an explosion suddenly rocks the building, causing him to stumble briefly. Then… the sounds of gunfire. Immediately, he snarls as he places a call.

“What is happening?!”

“Sir, we’re under attack!”

“By who?! The Animals?!”

“I don’t-urk!”

Over the end of the call, as the other Voodoo Boy expires, the last thing Placide hears is the sound of a shotgun being discharged and feminine cackling. His eyes narrow before flashing blue as he hooks into the building’s systems to try and take control of the security cameras… only to be violently ejected a moment later by an enemy Netrunner.

What… what the hell was going on?!

-x-X-x-

A/N: listens to that gremlin cackle oh, she's going to be fine.

Switch to V's POV - 12%

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