In the previous thrilling episode, Marlon Brandroid took on the role of the great detective Cobumbo in the Case of the Missing Legs, a.k.a. The Hunt for Ping. Back at home base, he began planning his next role, considering both Doctor Quim, Medicine Man and Sean Connerdroid. However, another role was soon to fall into his lap.
With everyone finally recovered from the fight with the Bushido, the group tried to figure out their next move. Rolando wrote a truly exquisite script for the next radio broadcast as we attempted to continue framing the Bushido for the raid on Trinity, but unfortunately fluffed the actual execution.
Meanwhile, Requiem had turned the full force of her obsessive personality onto Ricky, who might or might not be regretting buying her a pretty face. Unlike Quinton Smith, who had left a trail of dead lovers behind him, Requiem had never even had a date before, let alone one with someone as stunningly handsome and charismatic as Ricky. He began planning to learn psychology, in the hope of being able to provide her with counseling and hopefully prevent the random murders of any woman who happened to talk to him.
But unhealthy relationships aside, we were a little worried. Our fight with the Bushido had been rather more conspicuous that we'd planned on, and word on the street was that the Bushido were out to get whoever it was who'd killed a bunch of their people. Ricky, as the least combat equipped member of the team, was particularly concerned. Requiem assured him that nobody was ever going to touch him again. Somehow he didn't find this particularly reassuring.
Finally, someone (it might have been Rolando) remembered why we'd ended up fighting the Bushido in the first place - to steal their gang colours. With the Bushido now gunning for us, we decided the best option was to start a gang war to keep them busy.
The plan was simple. Marlon would use his superb disguise skills to dress up as Shogun, the leader of the Bushido. We would drive the van to two of the Bushido's neighbouring gangs, the Orphans and the Gauntlet, Marlon would do a bit of trash talk, the gangs would fight each other and everything would be fine.
That's not what happened.
Marlon's Shogun disguise was impeccable. With the rest of the group dressed in Bushido clothes, we certainly looked the part. We drove the van along the edge of Orphans territory, until we spotted a group of gangers in an alley who were threatening a blonde curly haired woman.
Despite being on Orphans territory, they did not appear to be wearing Orphans gang colours. Any attempt to investigate further, however, became impossible when Marlon/Shogun decided heroics were in order, and jumped out of the van to attack.
With her enhanced combat sense, Requiem managed to beat Marlon to the fight that he'd instigated, letting loose with both Arnos into the toughest looking ganger, a man with a cyber arm and some kind of automatic weapon. While earlier lessons on the proper use of handguns such as 'don't point them at your friends' and 'don't point them at yourself' seemed to have been adequately covered, there was still an opportunity to learn a few more things about the art of shooting, such as 'point them at the enemies'.
The gangers returned fire, sending a hail of bullets into Requiem and a grenade at the others. Ricky and Rolando managed to throw themselves out of harm's way, but Marlon lost his other leg and didn't manage to remain standing this time. Nevertheless, along with the others he managed to take down several of the other gangers, and Rolando's realisation that none of them were wearing proper head protection allowed him to act a little more tactically.
But none of that was any use when the gang leader turned his SMG on Ricky Sixx, firing straight into his eye. Requiem could only watch in horror as Ricky's head exploded in front of her in a hail of brain matter and bone fragments.
Quinton, Rolando and Marlon all turned their guns on the gang leader, but he was still standing when Requiem sheathed her pistols and threw herself at him, mono wolvers drawn. He dodged her strikes, and turned the SMG on her.
With Ricky dead and Requiem stunned and bleeding, it was up to Quinton to finish things. He drew the enemy fire, bullets bouncing off the newly upgraded armour on his borg body, while Rolando and Marlon continued firing from what little cover was available in the alleyway. The gang leader was killed before he got a chance to injure anyone else, and Quinton went to attend to Requiem.
Her right arm had been destroyed and she was minutes from bleeding to death. Stabilising her would have proved near impossible for any lesser talent than Quinton, but he was not to be deterred. The cyber arm on one of the dead gangers was also a right arm, and he was not going to miss out on the opportunity to further upgrade a fleshy meatbag. He ignored her howls of grief and anguish when she regained consciousness, and with Rolando's help, loaded everyone, alive or dead, into the van.
Back at home, Quinton divided up the spoils. Spare body parts were sold to the usual clinic. The cyber arm was attached to Requiem. That just left the matter of the remains of Ricky Sixx.
Quinton briefly suggested installing a small cyber brain that could say Ricky's catchphrases, but decided against it, not wanting to get on the wrong side of Requiem. So what usable organs he had left were added to the spare parts pile, and they turned to his cyberware.
Quinton: "Who wants his Mr Studd implant?"
Requiem: "I'll take that."
Other players: horrified looks
Marlon had been complaining about the Asian leg that he'd had sewn on to replace the one he'd lost in the Bushido fight. Quinton took the opportunity to take it back and instead install Ricky's Speeding Bullet cyber legs.
What will the group do now, having lost the nearest thing they had to a sane frontman? How will they deal with Michael Weathers without their primary contact? How much grief counseling is Requiem going to need? How does Marlon feel about his new legs? Will Quinton succeed in his plan to turn the entire team into borgs? Who will they end up recruiting next? Find out (maybe) in the next thrilling episode of Ramos Reportage.
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