Chapter 1: Welcome to Night City
> "Good evening, Night City! Yesterday's Death Lotto hit forty-three — but four NCPD officers bit it on Taiping Island, so you bastards better pay double!"
The voice blared from a cracked speaker somewhere outside.
It dragged Xeno up from a foggy haze into a throbbing headache that felt like his skull was being sanded from the inside.
His first thought?
Probably just a new Cyberpunk 2077 trailer. Please don't be spoilers.
He groaned, rubbing his temples.
The last thing he remembered was sparring with his buddy — and taking a clean right hook to the nose. Amateur boxer, occasional idiot, known around the gym as "Xen." That was him.
"That bastard's buying me Pocari Sweat for a month," he muttered, sitting up.
But when he opened his eyes… the world wasn't right.
The locker room he knew was gone.
This one looked like it had survived a war.
Rust-eaten lockers leaned like dying trees. Some were pried open, others missing doors entirely. Posters of chrome-skinned men and neon-haired women clung to the crumbling wall, selling everything from synthetic desire to endurance pills.
> GANG CANNON — MAKE YOUR NIGHTS LAST FOREVER.
GENTING — FULFILL YOUR DARKEST FANTASIES.
Their eyes followed him, cold and artificial under flickering neon.
The air reeked of sweat, oil, and something burnt. Cigarette butts, used syringes, even a few broken prosthetic fingers littered the ground. The hum of old lights and the buzz of cheap VR rigs echoed through the walls.
"This… is not my gym," Xeno whispered.
He stood, wearing only his boxing shorts. No gloves, no phone. Just his bruised knuckles and the faint hum of electricity crawling through the walls.
"Alright. If this is a prank, you guys went all out."
He stumbled toward a cracked mirror.
And froze.
The reflection staring back wasn't the tired twenty-something boxer he knew.
Gone was the stubble, the soft belly, the exhaustion in his eyes.
Instead — smooth skin, razor-sharp jawline, and an eight-pack straight out of a combat sim.
"What the hell…?"
He reached out to touch his reflection. The mirror was cold. The person staring back wasn't a dream — it was him. Younger. Stronger. Rebuilt.
That's when it hit him.
No VR headset. No HUD disconnect. No dream blur.
This wasn't Earth.
He was inside Night City.
And as someone who'd played Cyberpunk 2077 to death, he knew this wasn't a victory.
This city didn't forgive. It didn't care.
Here, you either adapted — or ended up as scrap metal in an alley.
---
"Okay, Xeno. Think. First—figure out where you are. Then—don't die."
He headed for the door and grabbed the handle.
> [Electronic lock detected. Blueprint scan complete. 10 R&D points obtained. Recycle materials?]
The robotic voice echoed inside his skull.
"What the…?"
Images flooded his mind — blueprints, circuits, assembly lines. He knew how this door worked. The model, the material, even the manufacturer.
Ye Group Industries. Model 2066. Mid-tier industrial grade.
He crouched, popped the lock apart with his bare hands, following instincts that shouldn't exist. Within minutes, the entire mechanism lay disassembled on the floor.
> [Recycle raw materials?]
He thought the word — Recycle — and the metal shimmered, dissolving into dust that vanished into the air.
> [Recycling complete. R&D System unlocked.]
A timeline unspooled in his mind, stretching from year 0 to 2025 — his time.
Empty. Except for one bright point in 2066, labeled Smart Electronic Lock Blueprint.
He selected it.
The parts reassembled in his palm, gleaming and flawless.
Xeno stared at it, laughing breathlessly.
"What am I, an industrial god? A one-man R&D department?"
No electricity, no tools, no resources — just thought.
He could create from nothing.
It wasn't much, but it was survival.
In Night City, that was all that mattered.
---
He stepped out of the locker room into a vast underground gym. Sweat, metal, and blood filled the air. Dozens of fighters stood around the ring — men and women built like tanks, some more chrome than flesh.
"Yo, new face," someone called out.
A massive man with dreadlocks approached, boxing gloves slung over his shoulders.
"First time here?"
"Yeah," Xeno replied carefully. "You know where the exit is?"
"Exit?" The man grinned, flashing silver teeth. "You don't wanna miss this, choom. Champion Victor's here today. If he picks you, you're set for life."
The name hit Xeno like a punch.
Victor. The ripperdoc from the game — the one who patched up V, the player character.
But in 2077, he was already retired.
So this meant…
"What year is it?" Xeno asked, voice low. "And where the hell am I?"
The man gave him a strange look, then shrugged.
"Night City, kid. Year 2070."
Xeno's heart skipped.
He looked around at the sweat, the smoke, the neon lights flickering above the ring.
2070.
Seven years before the story he knew.
And in a city like this… every choice could rewrite the future.