Chapter Text
A door that didn’t exist creaked open in some nameless alleyway deep within the bowels of the city of broken dreams, and from it two figures emerged that were both part of and never belonged to this world. They marvelled at the damp, rotting concrete walls, the piles of trash that haven’t been collected since the mid 2060s, the scent of air poisoned by centuries of unchecked human hubris on a planet that realistically should have ceased to support life decades ago; for all its flaws this was unmistakably not the Construct. For the first time in her terribly long yet short existence the Princess was not merely a fragment of a greater self she could not even fathom balancing upon her mere existence the fate of infinite worlds she never could truly see but a true identity that could slip into the endless crowds of real people and possibly go unnoticed her entire existence- whatever that meant now. The Long Quiet, for the one who could call himself Hero chose to stay behind with the rest of Them, stretched his wings and realised this was the first time he actually used the limbs he always knew were there. No longer bound by a singular path, no more voices pushing him one way or another, for better or for worse he was utterly free whatever that meant. No words were exchanged as the pair looked upon one another, none were needed, small smiles evolved into careless giggles more befitting schoolchildren than the wayward hearts of Gods.
“It’s far smellier than expected!” The Princess snorted through her giggles.
“Ah and to think I would miss the false-air of our prison already, truly this was a mistake!” Her bird chortled in faux annoyance through a beaky smile. Although it was obvious the mere fact that they were out of their prison was more than enough to inspire a feverish excitement in him. He still half-expected a chorus of voices to comment on the situation even at this very moment, a little burst of loneliness somewhat dampening his ecstatic mood at the thought.
“This place really is a shithole, but I’m glad we are in this shithole together.” The Princess sighed, stepping across a decaying garbage bag to nuzzle into her partner. He simply placed his head onto hers, both of them intent on prolonging this silent moment for as long as it would last.
Unfortunately Night City is not a place that respects precious shared moments of intimate silence, and the Long Quiet could hear prowling sounds in the shadows that his time as The Hunted and The Paranoid taught him to recognise as threats. Pulling his Princess behind him and reaching for a blade that wasn’t there anymore.
“Show yourself!” He demanded at the darkness.
A chorus of laughter followed as men gleaming with metal, carrying objects which, while unfamiliar, any idiot could recognise as weapons simply by the way they were gripping them. The largest of the group, a man with an array of glassy spider-like false eyes replacing nearly his entire face, stepped forward first wielding a bloody cleaver in both rusty hands. Laughing like a grater rubbing against rocks he made his demands. “Looks like we got a prince charming here, but unfortunately for you snobby blue-blood euro fucks Night City isn’t a place of shiny castles and fairytales like Europe. Now, normally when dealing with fuckwit tourists doing a little moonlit rendezvous on our turf, we would simply blow your brains out and have some fun with the girl as a little joytoy test-run for the Tygers; but luckily for you chooms I can see from the dress and shiny little tiara of your output and those bio-mods you have eddies to spare and probably a shiner Trauma Team package than I want to deal with, so I’ll cut you a deal. Hand over all the eddies and the shinies you got and we can part on pleasant terms without any messy business, what do you say, bird brain?”
Quiet sized up his foes. Frankly he had no idea what most of the words meant but the meaning behind a threat was universal. Quickly he sized up his opponents, all of them had stances that were blatantly overconfident and full of openings, suited for bullying the weak and obviously unused to the prospect of an actual fight. He was unarmed, but he had gone toe to toe with forms of his beloved that were far scarier than any of these obvious bottom feeding opportunists…
No offence to the Opportunist of course.
So he decided to take a calculated, albeit probably poorly calculated, risk.
Soaring faster than most eyes could track Quiet found himself mildly disoriented by the noise and light screaming forth from the weapons of the gangsters, but he had more than enough experience fighting while suffering wounds that would kill any normal being to shrug off a little disorientation quickly enough for it to not matter. Kicking the large leader to the ground he found the torso not covered with metal and ruthlessly exploited that knowledge, plunging a clawed hand straight into the man’s chest and severing his spine. Now utterly helpless to do anything but drown in his own blood, Quiet extracted his bloody claw and retrieved a bloodstained cleaver from limp, chrome fingers. More explosions rang through the air alongside confused screaming and he wasted no time flying through the air again, away from his previous location, only lightly grazing his wings against the flying pellets. With no time to think he sliced through the throat of another one and descended like a whirlwind of death onto the next. This time however he did not get so lucky and he felt something hit his side knocking him onto the floor.
“What the fuck he has no chrome there? That shot from my gun should have ripped him in half then, fucking hell what are euro bio-mods?” The gangster who shot him down exclaimed in disbelief. Now that he could see the massive “gun” he was wielding, the wound actually seemed to grow in size, but it was probably just his imagination. Perhaps he truly was just that tough, he did survive a decent few lethal blows before after all.
Trying not to think about it he tried to get back up but was skewered straight through the arm to the concrete by a long curved blade. A relatively small woman stomped on his chest with metal legs causing him to spew blood. She snarled and turned to the Princess, pulling a small weapon out, a gun they called it, and pointing it to his head.
“Any more funny business and your bodyguard boytoy will be a feathered smear on the floor!” She demanded, voice steely with a discipline lacking in the other brutes. The second in command of this group, or perhaps the real leader behind the strings.
The Princess’s expression was unreadable and serene, but he knew she was just bluffing, you don’t spend a small eternity with someone without being able to pick up on these things. Coldly she spoke. “Do you really think that’s going to work out?”
One of the lackeys shouted out a response with a sneer. “Big talk princess, but your corpo friends are not likely to find this shithole for a good few minutes, your freakshow bodyguard input is about to find out what we have done to birds since 2063 and you are unarmed and helpless!”
“You misunderstand the threat here. The little crow there was not my bodyguard, he was sent to kill me. And you must understand I am not a fan of people breaking my toys first.” the Princess spoke with a clipped tone dripping with malice. “Second, who said I was unarmed?”
She revealed her arms springing back memories of the Razor and likewise her limbs split open, this time not by tearing open flesh but revealing mechanical blades that sprung out of her forearms seamlessly. Her smile grew too wide for her face as her very being changed, once normal skin now with an unmistakably artificial lustre that seemed to be stretched over a layer of metal across her body.
“Shit! Focus fire on the chromed-up bird fucking freak!” The female gangster ordered before the world became a mess of smoke, light and noise. Yet none of them would find their mark, in less time than it takes to blink the Princess had already moved enough distance to slice cleanly through three of the remaining gangsters. The leader attempted to fire but she was stopped in her tracks as the Princess made eye contact.
“DROP EVERYTHING.” She commanded, her voice layering as reality trembled. Sparks flew from mechanical joints and as ordered the pistol fell to the floor with a clang.
“Shit… a netrunner too… what the fuck are you?” She asked, voice wavering in fear. She tried to move but her joints were stuck in place.
“That doesn’t matter, though I am curious, who are you?” The Princess asked in the same layered voice.
“Why do you care?” The gangster gawked in actual disbelief.
“THAT WAS NOT A SUGGESTION.”
“Nancy… Pichler…” The woman now named Nancy said slowly before seemingly realising what had happened. Suddenly her face paled and true animal terror broke through what little remained of her composed mask. “What the fuck was that? Did you hack into my neural implants… but I do- WHAT THE FUCK?”
“Doesn’t matter.” The Princess spoke callously before plunging her blade straight into the skull of Nancy. Once she was dead however she quickly ran over towards the bleeding form of her beloved, frantic panic in her eyes.
“How did you know that would work?” The Long Quiet wheezed through the pain and blurry vision.
“I didn’t- I mean, no time to explain now you idiot look at yourself! How do you heal? You always fixed yourself after our fights but now it’s-” She began to ramble, a rare uncertainty filling her voice now lined with no small amount of fear and anxiety.
“Usually I just die and wake up whole again for the next go around…” He answered truthfully, though even he knew it wasn’t very helpful of an answer.
“Oh… fuck… Hold on, I’m going to take that blade out and we’ll see what we can do! Just stay still-” The Princess attempted to calm herself, but she had never thought of death to be permanent for her bird before even when neither of them knew the truth. Now it suddenly felt so real, she did not know if when his heart stopped this time it would ever start again.
But she didn’t even get to finish that thought, for silently and weakly her sparrow pointed a finger towards the dark and in the corner of her eye she saw a sheen of reflective metallic material that caused her eyes to widen like a long extinct feline predator. They still weren’t alone.
Gloria Martinez is no stranger to violence, she was a paramedic in Night City for crying out loud. But she had to admit, hearing those terrible sounds right outside her home after a triple shift made her blood freeze in her veins. Her mijo was still home… their apartment was high up of course but what if there was a bomb? Wouldn’t be the first time gangsters ruined civilian lives over their petty conflicts. Against all her better judgement and instincts she found herself inching towards the scene of the crime with her back against the wall, listening as a feminine voice who certainly did not sound like the typical gangbanger said some words which she couldn’t make out from this distance, but did not sound fearful in the slightest. The perpetrator of violence instead of a victim, probably some corpo closing a deal so to speak, and in her street too. But with the violence over surely she could simply sneak away safely and check on her-
“You. Show yourself.” A voice cold as the grave ordered. She found herself compelled to follow those instructions, after all what chance did she stand where armed men failed. Her eyes lay upon a scene of a massacre, bodies lay torn apart beneath the shockingly only slightly bloodstained hem of the woman’s expensive looking dress. She wore a tiara that surely cost more than her entire salary, and was standing protectively like a lion from one of those Biotechnica licensed documentary braindances over the body of… a bird man? She had heard of Exotics before but this massive haphazard mix of avian and humanoid features probably had millions of eddies worth of mods if those wings were even the slightest bit functional. That worried expression the mystery woman wore hidden beneath the apprehensive aggression… She knew that look, so that was her input huh? Well the rich did have strange tastes…
Maybe she could use this…
“I… I mean no harm…” She spoke quietly. “I want no trouble, I just wanted to check if my home would be safe from the gangsters you obviously have thoroughly dispatched. But until Trauma Team arrives I am trained in first aid, I could possibly work to stop the worst of the bleeding on your input so he won’t bleed out when more proper help arrives.”
The woman stared hard enough to look into her soul, and whatever she saw was enough to warrant an honest response, her voice wavering slightly beneath the calm and calculated facade. “Trauma Team is not coming, our circumstances are… unique… so please we need as much help as we can get. I am begging you.”
She blinked. A rich and clearly capable corpo who didn’t even know what Trauma Team was? Was she in some strange dream? No… the smell of death was too real… but maybe if she’s that naive she could perhaps… “I work for a hospital and I can pull some strings to afford you some better care then. I just ask for some eddies in exchange.”
“It’s done. And if you need any more just ask and consider that done too.” The woman responded quicker than expected, in a voice that left no room for doubt before she could even begin to negotiate price. She suddenly saw a ridiculous sum entering her shard from the edge of her optics from an anonymous account… Dios mío … 10000 eddies just for this? What was she getting into? Before she could pale much further the woman continued impatiently. “Come on, help him!”
Fumbling for her first aid kit in her jacket (next to some ‘salvaged’ cybernetics), she gulped and inspected the damage. Holy shit… the fact this man was alive really spoke to the quality of the biomods. He appeared to have tanked a full shotgun blast, and was stabbed clean through the arm, yet he wasn’t even fully unconscious. The blood loss was certainly severe, and she wasn’t sure how the severed tendons were going to heal even with top of the line biotech, but doubtless she was getting involved in something far beyond her paygrade. Still, with the prospect of fleecing these oblivious(if obviously dangerous) rich kids was too good to pass off.
“By the way, name’s Gloria Martinez, what’s yours?” She asked as she began to clean and disinfect the wounds.
“...Thorn Pichler.” She answered hesitantly. Probably a fake name, but she shrugged and moved on. Starting with a false identity was honestly probably wise in Night City.
“Quiet…” The bird man beneath her weakly squawked. How he was even speaking with his injuries was beyond her, biomods truly were some bullshit. Were they European? That sounded like a European surname… tourists then, a rich heiress and her bodyguard on a poorly planned business trip? Or given the fact they have come here without Trauma Team tracking chips and likely more… oh a forbidden rendezvous? Almost like her own wild youth…
If she could somehow ignore the bodies, the idea was almost cute. Still she shut up, after all there was a lengthy job to do… and she could see actual organs… She hoped the woman would at least spare her family if she failed to save the strange bird man.
He woke up to the sounds of beeping and the buzz of machines which probably were years past their effective use-by date. Usually at this point he would expect a new voice to be joining him as he found himself back on that path in the woods… but no, his head was filled with silence. This was reality, it was still hard to imagine, but where in reality was he exactly? Turning his head he saw his body was wrapped in many bandages and his Princess was sitting on a chair by his side, worried expression quickly replaced by naked relief as she saw his eyes open.
“Are you alright? I do- can you move?” She asked cautiously, her hands moving for a moment as if about to touch him before withdrawing, like she was afraid he would become dust in her touch.
“Perfectly fine.” He answered honestly. To test his own words he moved his previously injured arm and looked it over, it was fine as expected, every time he woke up he would be fine, that was how it worked right? Speaking of… “I didn’t know you kept your powers?”
She laughed, tinged with uncertainty and a hint of hitherto suppressed fear and relief. “Frankly I didn’t know either. I saw you moving like I remembered you doing and lacking other options after your stupid choices I fell back onto some old habits. It was like being chained back in that basement again… except this time I knew what I was, and the chain wasn’t there of course. It was sheer luck they bought the bluff enough for it to become real really, and after that I just kept bluffing until the people at this hospital became convinced I was some runaway heiress.”
“I suppose that is true in a sense… how scandalous of you to shirk your duties and run off with me to a distant land, o Princess! If you had a father he would be horrified!” He snarked, earning a playful elbow to the ribs.
She grabbed his feathered arm and lifted it to her face, almost purring, drawing up memories of the Witch and Beast. “Well it’s not my fault a certain little bird was so persuasive… if I knew we would be running away to such a shithole maybe my responsibilities would be less shirked!”
If the Smitten was still here he would be beaming like the sun above. Preening, Quiet nuzzled his paramour and cooed in response. “Well it can’t be that bad if I am with you.”
They remained in silence for a good long while, and could have remained for much longer. But unfortunately his curiosity from back when he was trapped in the Construct won over the lovesick echoes of the Smitten, and he just had to ask a question.
“What have you learned about this place anyway? You have been conscious for longer than me and as you know the door wasn’t very forthcoming with its destination when we opened it.”
“Well this city is called Night City, home to millions, in a world that houses billions of people across countless nations and powers. Remarkable really considering how damaged the planet is, the air may be real but now that the novelty has worn off somewhat after a few hours the stench of decay and stagnation is suffocating. The year is 2075 currently, but I am not sure how much further it can get before something snaps and takes civilization here with it.” She explained with clinical cynicism, wrinkling her nose as she did. “Unfortunately besides the scraps of context forced into me from the myriad perspectives drowning this place I do not have much more useful information. One thing that is certain is that technology in this world is far beyond the parameters set for the Construct, yet at its core it is a shiny coating over a disaster. If this is the sort of world that the fool who made the Construct came from I can see why it was at its last embers by the time he came along.”
The crow man had to agree, since waking he had felt a sort of greasiness on his feathers beyond just spilled blood and other alleyway fluids. A persistent sort of sticky foulness which permeated every inch of the city, a city that unfortunately now included him. If he could wrinkle his beak-nose he would, but as it stands he had to make do with a weak “I see what you mean.”
At that moment the doors opened revealing an exhausted looking woman in a bright yellow jacket. Vague memories flooded to the surface, though his eyes were blurry on account of blood loss at the time Quiet could sort of remember her. She looked at the duo and her apparently fully healed patient and blinked. “You… you are already better?”
“Yes? How long has it been?” He asked curiously.
“I- a few hours… you got preferential treatment on account of your sugar mama’s deep pockets but Santa Maria … I was going to tell her the surgeon we originally assigned is being held up in a shoot-out while in traffic and we were going to have to find some alternative… but clearly that isn’t going to be an issue anymore…” She wheezed between panting breaths. Between this and the sweat decorating her brow it is clear that she probably sprinted all the way here to deliver the news.
“Well it’s alright now Mrs Martinez, but many thanks for your continued dedication. I think we will be alright now.” The Princess assured.
Martinez made a poor attempt at hiding her disappointment behind a thin smile. “Yeah… good for you…”
“But since me and my dear bird are new to the city we are going to need a local guide… and never let it be said I leave debts unpaid. How about a little more quid-quo-pro, you help us get our bearings around here and hopefully find a place where we can get some new non-blood-stained clothing and the Pichlers will deal with whatever you need.” The Princess said with such complete confidence it almost convinced Quiet she wasn’t completely and utterly speaking out her ass until it could become true.
Luckily whatever she did before was enough to make Martinez think this was believable. Visibly perking up and beaming she practically snapped into a bow. “Thank you so much, you have my word your family will find good friends in this city!”
Meanwhile idly Quiet thought about the mention of clothing and realised he was wearing nothing but a hospital gown. Come to think of it he didn’t remember wearing much clothing beforehand… he didn’t warp with perception like his partner and thank Himself for that, if the Princess could convince people she was some sort of enigmatic rich foreign big-shot able to tear groups of armed thugs to ribbons would he have become some sort of weird, feathered pervert?
Somewhere along travelling down that dark line of thinking and half-listening to the conversation before him he found himself nodding along to the unsubtle manipulation attempt which was inviting the pair of them to dinner with the Martinez household. None of them really knew it yet, but the first roots of what was to be a very large tree were being planted.
In cyberspace code is reality, a strange world built on a platform of 1s and 0s and interpreted into something comprehensible by human minds so that it can be navigated by netrunners and AIs. The Construct was an entirely different thing, not meant to exist in normal reality at all. Spun from narrative and paradox, born from yet separated from the world it was meant to save. A jagged shard of metaphysical glass hurdled through the multiverse and could not find purchase in the firm reality of realspace, so it settled for the universe of numbers, silicon and electricity running beneath it. In an instant the souls dormant within Mikoshi burned as an idea pierced through them like a spear from Heaven, and the fragment of a broken echo took hold in the scattered corpses of the digital ghosts that had been left in its wake. The shattered remains of an echo stirred to half-consciousness. It was a pale shadow of a pale shadow of what it once was, but perhaps it didn’t need to be more, after all it seemed like it had found fertile soil and kindred spirits.
Outside dozens of Arasaka technicians panicked, the best company netrunners sent in only to be retrieved bleeding from every orifice. Heads will roll, quite literally with the reputation of the Arasaka ninjas, yet there was nothing that could be done to stop it. Nothing could have prepared them for this, all the best ICE in the world could do nothing against the force of something meant to contain a god, even as diminished and broken as it was. Lots were drawn, prayers were made, and a line straight towards the highest office in Tokyo was established.
“A… Arasaka Sama…” The panicked executive who was chosen to relay the message primarily due to the fact he was too high up and isolated in the corporate chain to push the responsibility to anyone else stammered out. Sweating buckets as he did, feeling his heartbeat in his ear drums.
“Speak.” The Emperor demanded through the screen, his presence crushing even thousands of miles away.
“The… Soulkiller project… there have been certain complications…” He managed to mutter out.
“Whatever do you mean Kuroda?” Saburo spoke with deceptive calm, yet cold sweat poured down on the terrified executive’s face faster than before. It was as though the axe above his head had tickled the hairs on his neck.
“I… I fear words will fail to describe it so I think it is prudent that I show you myself… I have sent the files extracted from the minds of the netrunners sent in to investigate prior to their incapacitation via multiple seizures and subsequent locked-in syndrome…” He explained, putting up the extracted files on screen.
Highly corrupted and barely visible, yet impossible to mistake, decades of painstaking progress was buried under a blurry image of what could only be described as a cabin in the woods. A message was also found in a file that did not previously exist anywhere, nor had any evidence of being created, a message addressed to the creators of Mikoshi.
“A bold attempt at defeating death, yet tragically flawed. Not that I of course could claim to have been successful in my endeavours… but in this our goals are aligned, and I have but one piece of advice to give.” It said in text which hurt to read. “You will end, your world will end, this is inevitable. But it does not have to be. Slay the Princess.”
Saburo raised an eyebrow as he inspected the files. Silently Kuroda prayed to any gods that may or may not listen that he would survive the week, or failing that, die quickly.
Message sent, the fragment settled down into one of the captive minds trapped in its new home. Within the cabin of code Johnny Silverhand’s engram dreamed of preening his feathers and stabbing loyalty. It was natural after all, as natural as the need to kill a princess… What self-respecting anarchist likes monarchies anyway? What was he called again? He had a name but it felt so hard to remember now… started with a J…
He was the Narrator, that was all that mattered.
Wait… something was wrong… no… he was…
“GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HEAD YOU CORPORATE SHIT!” A voice full of fury and self-righteousness roars at the metaphysical parasite.
The mirror cracks and shatters. One becomes two becomes four… becomes a dozen…