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Serena Prince: Love of Magic - chapter 173
🕑 Added 2025-10-18 00:58:12 +0000 UTCAuthor's Notes: Chapter edited and corrected by Scott Fellman.
I was sitting in Rebecca's Maimai once again, in the end she couldn't resist and ended up following me, or well, she ordered me to get into her Maimai and started driving to the Landfill.
The amusing thing is, I could see Maine's vehicle following us, along with the rest of the crew. Or rather, it wasn't Maine's car, but a vehicle they'd grabbed, large enough to comfortably carry the remaining five.
After all, it was Bartmoss, even after the Datacrash in the 20s, he was still really famous. Everyone knew his name, and to say that his corpse was still out there? Especially at the Landfill? Yeah, anyone would want to see if it's true.
The good thing is that I won't have to search completely at random. After stealing Hansen and the BARGHEST, I made a quick stop at Revere Courier Services Facility in Northside. While the shard containing information about the freezer Bartmoss was hidden in wasn't conveniently placed on the desk, it was still in the main office.
I had to search the entire office, but I finally found the shard, then GLaDOS removed the location from the freezer and sent it to my cyberdeck.
It's a shame I couldn't, nor can I go check out the places after GLaDOS asked me to, at least not for now. Maine really insisted on doing the procedure now, after searching for Bartmoss's body, we would go straight to my penthouse.
I'm sure GLaDOS would be able to finish in no time and would be done by noon; it was still pretty early. She'd have more than enough time in the afternoon to go check out the warehouses GLaDOS wanted.
"You're an idiot, you knew that, right? " Rebecca suddenly growled. I laughed lightly.
"So I've been told, yes," I said simply as I looked out the window.
"I'll choose the crew over you. I've known you for less than a day." Rebecca tightened her hands on the wheel, and I nodded.
"I never told you you had to choose," I said simply. Rebecca glared at me.
"Why the hell did you do that shitty trick!? You could have told him you didn't have access to any Sandy! Spot! It would have helped you get Maine to stop insisting! In exchange, you insulted the entire crew, Maine! To Sasha! Your wife attacked Lucy and Kiwi! " Rebecca growled, hyperventilating.
"And then what?" I asked dryly. "I wasn't lying when I said he'd become a cyberpsychopath, and I don't think I'll ever forget the look on everyone's face when I asked about Sandy. You all noticed, but none of you could make Maine see reason."
"That-" Rebecca tried to say before biting her tongue; she was looking straight ahead as they tightened their grip on the handlebars.
"I heard how you talked about the crew yesterday, they're your family, or the closest thing you have to it, like I said, I liked you enough to help Maine, even if he's against it." I said honestly.
"Nobody asked you to," Rebecca said bitterly.
"Maybe not, but if I did nothing, in a few months they'd be blowing Maine off the ground after MaxTac finished him off, if Maine doesn't kill you by going psycho in the wrong place," I said dryly. Rebecca visibly shuddered and fell silent, breathing a little more calmly.
"...still...did you have to be such a...bitch?" Rebecca growled after a few seconds. I sighed.
"Yes… and no. Was it necessary? Not really, I could have gone the long way, taken weeks to get to know him, months for him to trust me, let my wife build a reputation, and then I'd give him the solution." I began to hum lightly.
"So why -"
"Because we don't have time." I interrupted Rebecca. "Again, I meant it when I said Maine didn't have much time left. If it is really bad, it would be weeks, hopefully months. And if more cyberware were implanted without your knowledge, then it would be even worse."
"The more time passes, the more difficult it would be to apply preventative treatment for cyberpsychosis. Cyberpsychosis consumes the person, the more time… the less Maine would have to rescue from his brain."
"And lastly... I don't know how long I'll be in Night City. I'll be busy; sometimes I'll have to leave the city for days or weeks. I'm here for some jobs, unfortunately, I don't have that much time to invest in Maine to gain his trust."
"So, the easiest way was to create cognitive dissonance, to annoy and anger him enough to create psychological pressure on Maine not to think clearly, and then give him an extreme solution and hope at a level calculated to make him easy to manipulate into accepting my terms." I said simply.
"Wait, you psychologically manipulated him into agreeing to the treatment? You planned the whole thing!? " Rebecca asked incredulously, though her eyes seemed to sparkle slightly. I snorted.
"Of course not. I'm not that good. I was just winging it the whole time. My wife just pointed out that what I just did actually has a name." I said with a carefree smile. Rebecca groaned as she banged her forehead against the handlebars.
"Stupid gonk," Rebecca grunted as her gaze returned to the road. I laughed lightly.
We both remained silent for a few seconds as we finally entered the dump.
"I'm still upset," Rebecca said simply, and I nodded.
"You have every right to be," I said simply. Rebecca snarled.
"Still, if your wife can help Maine… thank you." Rebecca said with a grimace on her face, and I chuckled.
"Don't worry, she'll do her best." I said honestly, and I could feel it, GLaDOS was more than happy to have someone to test her theory on so quickly, so I was already preparing everything necessary.
"Fine," Rebecca said with finality. "But I still want to finish our date," Rebecca added immediately, and I smiled through my teeth.
"I didn't think you'd want to do it," I said honestly with a slight smile. Rebecca snorted.
"No one got killed, and Maine agreed to visit a Ripperdoc. You were a total bitch, but nothing special," Rebecca shrugged. "But if you pull a shitty trick like that again, I'll fill you with holes. Got it, Gonkhead?" Rebecca threatened, narrowing her eyes.
"Of course." I said, amusedly.
"Now, tell me where I have to go, you damn Gonk." Rebecca growled. I snorted.
"Just go to the end of the road." I said simply as we entered the expanse of garbage that was the Municipal Landfill, wrinkling my nose at the foul smell before placing a small magic on my head to remove all the horrible smells.
Actually, vacuuming up the shit that should be in here wasn't in my plans. I just wanted to see if there was anything actually interesting in Bartmoss's cyberdeck. The mission never revealed whether there was anything beneficial inside, aside from the malware.
"Here we are." Rebecca said as she braked at the end of the driveway. I nodded as I got out. I could see Maine's car pulling up behind us. Now let's see... I took out my cyberdeck and opened it. "Is that a cyberdeck?" Rebecca asked incredulously, almost in horror.
"Any problems?" I asked, confused. While looking at the Company Cyberdeck.
"Various, like the color and that heart, it doesn't seem like your style," Rebecca said.
"I believe my wife. She was so distraught that she wouldn't join me on most of the errands, that she created this companion cyberdeck just for me so that I wouldn't miss her." I said with a soft, affectionate smile.
"I'm really impressed by the level of self-deception you manage," GLaDOS said dryly. I chuckled.
"Ripperdoc, netrunners, and now techie? It seems your wife has several talents," Kiwi said dryly as she approached with the rest of the crew.
"She's good at what she does," I said with a shrug.
"Oh? Is she that good with Netrunner? " Pilar asked, interested. I just smiled broadly at him.
"Aperture OS?" Lucy asked, looking next to me as she looked at my Cyberdeck screen with curiosity.
"Her creation." I checked the location one last time before passing the Cyberdeck to Lucy. Lucy looked surprised, but took it immediately. I could see Kiwi approaching quickly.
I could see Lucy quickly moving her fingers on the Cyberdeck before stopping, as if they were one. Kiwi and Lucy frowned, moving closer to the screen. After a few more taps, they both seemed to be staring intensely at the Cyberdeck. I just smiled mockingly.
"What the hell?" Lucy muttered incredulously. "This thing... where the hell did she get this thing?" Lucy asked incredulously, unable to believe what she was seeing. I laughed and snatched the cyberdeck out of her hands. "No!" Lucy shrieked, almost desperate.
"So good, is it?" Maine asked with a frown.
"Well? That's an understatement." Kiwi grunted as she stared intently at the cyberdeck. "That thing could be called a damn supercomputer for its capabilities. It has more processing power than I've ever seen and an unholy amount of RAM. I don't think any Corpo would be capable of creating something like that."
Pilar whistled, impressed.
"I want one. How much does it cost? " Lucy asked intensely. I raised an eyebrow.
"You'd have to sell yourself." I said distractedly. Really, there was no way I was going to bring this cyberdeck to market, especially since it had magical components attached to it, and then there was its capacity. A competent netrunner could wreak havoc with it.
I could see the group shudder violently; Lucy looked like she'd just kicked a puppy. I rolled my eyes as I started walking.
"Come on, we have a body to find," I said tersely. To my relief, no one complained; they followed me quickly. Luckily, there wasn't far to go before I finally found the freezer where Bartmoss was.
I crouched down in front of the refrigerator, placed my hands on the door, and flexed a little, breaking the door completely.
"Fuck me sideways, it really is the damn Bartmoss." Pilar muttered incredulously as he looked at the corpse inside.
"50 years later, and his corpse is still intact," Kiwi muttered as she stared at the legend in front of her. My gaze focused elsewhere, and I reached out and grabbed Bartmoss's cyberdeck.
"Cyberdeck Elysia, just what I was looking for." I said as I grabbed my prize.
"Bartmoss's cyberdeck?! What the hell is inside it? " Rebecca asked incredulously, I shrugged.
"Who knows, they just told me to get this back," I said simply as I stood up and started walking.
"Wait! That's it! Are you going to leave the body here? " Pilar asked incredulously. I looked at him while raising an eyebrow.
"And do what exactly? Give him a burial? A funeral? Bartmoss died over 50 years ago; anyone who knew him must be dead by now. Perhaps I could auction his body off; I'm sure many would want it."
"A lot of people are angry with him, or some weird collector who would stuff the body and make some strange taxidermy work and display it in some glass case." I said dryly. Pilar opened his mouth, but closed it as he thought about it.
"It's not a bad idea," Pilar said with a shrug. I rolled my eyes.
"If you want, you can take him. I'm not interested in Bartmoss's corpse. All I need is this cyberdeck. You can sell it or auction it off." I said simply. Maine frowned as he made a few frowns at Pilar, and he gave him a thumbs-up as he closed the freezer door.
Then he welded the door shut with his fingers, since I'd broken the lock entirely. Finally, Maine loaded the freezer into his already fully loaded vehicle. I rolled my eyes.
After a few minutes, we were finally back on the road, and I threw the cyberdeck into Pocket Space for GLaDOS to check later.
"That woman and her son you wanted me to keep an eye on just walked into a meeting at Arasaka Academy with the principal." GLaDOS said mentally, I stood stiffly for a few seconds before frowning.
Gloria and David are talking to the director. That means David had already asked Doc to modify his BD crown before I visited him yesterday. That was bad.
It meant that Gloria was still in danger; if she wanted to accomplish the mission's secondary objective, she had to intervene and stop the vehicle fight before Gloria's car was damaged as collateral.
"Rebecca, I need you to go to this place immediately, and fast." I said as I sent the location to Rebecca through my cyberdeck. I could see Rebecca's eyes light up, and she looked at me in disbelief.
"In the middle of a highway?!" Rebecca asked incredulously, and I nodded.
"Yes, and go as fast as you can." I said simply. Rebecca grunted for a few seconds.
"You better have a damn good reason for this, gonk," Rebecca snarled as she swerved. I could see Maine following us in the rearview mirror. "Maine's calling about the detour. What the hell do I tell him?" Rebecca asked.
"A small, important, and very urgent job came up. It shouldn't take too long. You can follow us or go ahead to my apartment and wait there," I said simply. Rebecca nodded and fell silent.
"He's following us, he doesn't want to lose sight of us," Rebecca said dryly, and I rolled my eyes.
"Of course not." I rolled my eyes. After a quick 15-minute drive, we weren't that far from the scene. From what I remembered, Gloria and David had been in the accident on the highway above the boardwalk near Doc's clinic.
"They're getting closer to you." GLaDOS said mentally, and I finally opened my briefcase and began to assemble my bow.
"Do you have a damn bow there?" Rebecca asked incredulously.
"Yes? Is there a problem? " I asked, confused by Rebecca's tone, she just grunted.
"You're talking about military technology from Militech and modified Sandys, you're leading us to Bartmoss's corpse with information you got from who knows where, you're showing off a cyberdeck that got Lucy and Kiwi wet, you have so much money it's just ridiculous, and you're using a bow?" Rebecca asked incredulously, and I burst out laughing.
"I assure you, my bow is no less than any weapon you've ever seen." I said, amusedly, Rebecca snorted.
"Yeah, sure, what's the maximum range of that thing? 100 meters?" I ask dryly.
"Try 4 kilometers, that was the distance the last time I seriously tried it," I said playfully. Rebecca looked at me incredulously.
"You're fucking kidding me, it's impossible that you shot that thing at more than 4 kilometers?! What the hell was the target? A static test target? " Rebecca asked incredulously.
"A person." I said, simply sounding amused. I finished arming my bow and fusing it completely. I stretched the string several times and smiled slightly. I grabbed some arrows from the case and began to open Maimai's window.
"What are you doing? You better not jump off that damn Maimai again! " Rebecca growled incredulously. I burst out laughing.
"Don't worry, I won't, but you'll have to keep the vehicle as still as possible," I said playfully.
"Oh no, we're not having a chase on my Maimai! It'll end up wrecked! " Rebecca exclaimed in denial.
"Don't worry, I'll pay for any damage your dear Maimai suffers." I said playfully.
"You better be, you damn Gonk, what the hell are we dealing with?" Rebecca growled.
"Hmm, if the information is correct, an Animals vehicle is following an Arasaka limo." I said simply. As I stuck half my body out the window, I adjusted myself slightly in the air with a bit of magic.
"In front choom! And you better check your data! There's a whole group of Animals!" Rebecca growled over the noise. I hummed as I watched what Rebecca was saying.
I was definitely right. There were about five Animal vehicles following a limo, how odd. Didn't the Edgerunners show the rest of the Animals? Or maybe it was my fault. The fun we had with Rebecca the day before might have ruffled their feathers.
Even so, they weren't a problem, but if there was one, we were coming in the opposite direction.
"Turn around! Get in the right lane! " I yelled to Rebecca.
"Fucking lunatic! Grab a hold of it! " Rebecca snarled as she shot through the small open section that divided the two lanes and turned sharply. I grabbed one of the metal bars and drew my bow. "Are you really going to shoot this thing!? At this speed and in motion!? " Rebecca squealed in disbelief.
"I've taken shots in worse conditions," I said playfully. I took a deep breath. I could see Arasaka's limo pulling up next to a battered vehicle, and I could quickly see Gloria and David oblivious to the danger as the Animals lined up on the other side.
I smiled slightly when one of the Animals finally showed its head as it pulled out a heavy weapon. I released my bowstring, and the arrow flew at high speed. As expected, the arrow easily pierced its head.
"Fuck, you really got him!" Rebecca said incredulously, and I burst out laughing as I grabbed more arrows. The death of their companion didn't go unnoticed; three of the Animals' vehicles slowed down to meet us.
Two of them followed Arasaka's limousine. I could see Gloria finally start to make evasive maneuvers with her car, trying to get out of the confrontation.
"Is that Gloria?! Damn it!! Save the damned, ramshackle Thorton Galena from the front! " Rebecca shouted. I smiled slightly, the doors and windows of the Animals' vehicles flew open, and fully armed men stepped out, pointing in my direction.
My hand moved quickly, shooting six arrows in an instant. I barely paid attention when they all hit their target. All the visible heads were pierced. Those that weren't? The arrows pierced the vehicles and their heads as well.
I fired three more, aiming at the drivers even though I couldn't see them directly. The arrows tore through metal and glass with such ease, killing the drivers instantly. Two cars slammed on their brakes while skidding, and the third swerved and crashed into the highway guardrail.
"What the fuck." I heard Rebecca mutter in disbelief. I just pointed at the remaining two vehicles. They had positioned themselves in front of Gloria's vehicle, the limo in the middle and in front, and the two remaining Animals vehicles quickly following behind.
It seems there was a small exchange that was of no use in stopping or destroying the limo. Finally, I could see someone take out a rocket launcher. I shot an arrow that pierced his heart, causing him to fall dead in the middle of the road.
Gloria and Rebecca had to dodge the Animal's corpse, but it was no problem. Grab more arrows and fire them all at once. Just like the previous group, fire several arrows at the same time, piercing all the Animals, visible or hidden.
I fired two more arrows, which were aimed at the Arasaka limousine. The arrows pierced the armor with ease, killing the two people I could sense inside the vehicle. I didn't know who they were, nor did I care. I definitely didn't have much love for Arasaka.
The three vehicles were in front of the other car and slammed on the brakes when their drivers suddenly died, forcing Gloria and Rebecca to brake.
Once both cars stopped, and well, a third one, I hadn't realized that Maine had also joined the fray, I could see Pilar get his body out just like me, but he looked incredulously at the whole situation with the gun hanging in his hand. I just smiled sarcastically as I got out of Rebecca's vehicle.
Rebecca rushed out too and ran toward Gloria's car.
"Gloria! Everything okay, choom?! I hope I didn't scare you too much!" Rebecca said with a smile as she approached.
"Rebecca!? Oh, thank God." Gloria sighed in relief. I could see that she was completely pale as she held onto the handlebars, slightly trembling.
"Gloria?! Fuck, were you involved in all this?! " Maine asked as she approached.
"Are they Edgerunners?" David asked incredulously. He still seemed a little shocked, but was much more animated than his mother.
"Maine!? Involved!? No! That group of Animals started shooting at the damn limo, entirely out of nowhere! Thank you so much for saving us! " Gloria said in relief, ignoring her son.
"Don't thank us, she did all the work." Maine said, pointing in my direction, 'I just hummed' as I approached Arasaka's limo with my bow in hand, ripped the door off the vehicle, and got in.
I quickly scanned the dead bodies and fiddled with their ports until I found a shard, tore it off, and exited the vehicle. I really needed an excuse for following the car, other than to save Gloria mysteriously.
"Got it." I said, holding up the shard. "Now… we should leave immediately. That idiot had a platinum subscription with Trauma Team. They should arrive in… less than two minutes." I said absentmindedly. Everyone started cursing. "Now, let's go to the megabuilding H8 quickly." I added playfully.
"All right, everyone, Delta!!" Maine exclaimed as he returned to his vehicle, along with the rest of them.
Rebecca ran to her Maimai, and I did the same. I could see Gloria's car take off and shoot away from the vehicles. Rebecca did precisely the same, just in time to hear an SUV approaching quickly.
I laughed lightly as I disassembled the bow, which was too big for a Maimai. I glanced distractedly at Rebecca, who was giving me the same look as yesterday. I rolled my eyes. If killing a few idiots was all it took to turn her on, it was too easy.
Author's Notes : I have nothing to say about the chapters, I just wanted to say that I'm happy that Akogarete's manga is back. :D
Comments
AFlyOnTheWall
Damn another week 😔 TFTC!
TATTERWING
Thanks for the chapter 🍪
