Night City after dark.
Beneath the kaleidoscope of neon and sin, there was always another kind of light — the kind born from muzzle flashes and explosions.
Every morning, the city's news feeds would start with the same question:
"Where did the fighting break out last night?"
District. Street. Gangs involved. Casualties.
Betting terminals even ran pools on it — how many would die before dawn, how many would make it out breathing.
Because in Night City, even death was a form of entertainment.
…
Among millions who lived and died unnoticed, David Martinez and his mother, Gloria, were just two more nameless souls.
They weren't gang soldiers, living and dying over turf, bleeding for pride and chrome.
They weren't corpo hounds, serving faceless masters and crushing the poor beneath profit margins.
They weren't trauma team medics who saved only those who could afford the subscription tier.
Nor were they scavengers, harvesting flesh for coin.
They were ordinary.
So ordinary, they were invisible.
Gloria worked herself to the bone, juggling multiple jobs, skipping meals, saving every eddie she could — all to keep David in Arasaka Academy, to give him a chance at a life better than this.
And for that, the city rewarded her like it always did — with tragedy.
…
David sat beside her in their battered secondhand car, the faint hum of the engine the only rhythm between them.
"I told you to go for a proper upgrade," Gloria's voice trembled, equal parts anger and exhaustion.
"I know. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have gone to that ripper," David said quietly.
"Because you did," she snapped, "we owe ten times the repair cost now! Ten times, David! That's more than our rent for a year!"
He lowered his head. "I'm sorry, Mom."
"If you were really sorry," she said, her voice cracking, "you wouldn't have done it in the first place."
Silence.
David tapped his leg nervously, eyes drifting to the blur of the city outside the window — towers wrapped in neon, alive and dead at once.
"Mom," he said finally, "maybe… maybe I should just drop out. Find work. We can't even afford a system upgrade, let alone repairs. I don't fit in there anyway."
Gloria's hands tightened on the wheel.
"I'm just saying," David continued bitterly, "no one at that school gives a damn about people like us. The rich kids look at me like trash. No matter how hard I study, I'll never be like them. And I don't want to be."
For a moment, Gloria said nothing. When she spoke again, her voice was trembling.
"Then what am I working for, David? All those nights… all those hours… What's the point, if not for you?"
Her eyes blurred with tears.
David turned, panic flooding him. "Mom… I'm sorry. Don't cry, please."
And then — chaos.
A deafening burst of gunfire rolled through the night, echoing from up ahead.
Through the windshield, the road split into hell.
At the intersection, a black stretch corpo limo was under siege — riddled with bullet holes, armor peeling off in molten sheets.
"Woohoo!" someone screamed over the gunfire. "Paint those corpo bastards red!"
"Ha! Look at 'em run!"
A convoy of Beast Gang muscle cars roared behind the limo, their engines growling like predators.
The gang was aptly named — beasts with guns and implants, pumped full of cyberpsychotic fury. They tore through traffic, spraying lead like confetti.
Stray bullets punched through civilian cars. Screams. Explosions. Tires shrieking.
Each crash, each death, was met with whistles and laughter.
"Almost done playing!" one of them howled. "Time to send these corpo pigs to hell! Gimme the launcher!"
From the back seat, a gang member handed him a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher.
He aimed.
He fired.
BOOM!
The missile screamed across the intersection, slamming into the corpo limo's undercarriage. The explosion flipped the entire vehicle, twisting metal and flame into a tumbling inferno.
The burning wreckage spun in the air—
—straight toward Gloria's car.
"Mom! BRAKES! NOW!" David screamed.
But there was no time.
The shattered limo came crashing down — a mountain of molten steel descending upon them.
And then — a sound.
SHING!
A single, clear note of steel cutting air.
From somewhere beyond the smoke, a streak of pale-green light flashed across the night sky.
In an instant, the falling wreck split in two, both halves spinning away, crashing harmlessly to either side of Gloria's car.
David's breath caught. "What… what was that?"
SHING!
The sound came again.
This time, the blade's arc carved through the Beast Gang's lead muscle car — the very one carrying the man who'd fired the rocket.
The blade struck deep, right through the fuel line.
BOOM!
The explosion turned the car — and everyone in it — into a fiery cloud of red mist and molten chrome.
"FUCK!"
"Who the hell—!?"
The remaining Beast Gang cars skidded to a halt. The surviving members leapt out, guns drawn, fury in their bloodshot cyber-eyes.
"Who the fuck did that?!" one roared.
They didn't have to look long.
Down the street, walking toward them through the drifting smoke, was a tall figure.
Green hair. Three blades at his waist.
Each step echoed like a drumbeat.
"It's him!" someone yelled. "Some freak with a sword!"
"Kill that bastard!"
The barrels of their guns lifted in unison. Muzzles flared, fire painting the street red.
Bullets screamed toward him like angry hornets.
Neo just kept walking.
The night howled. The neon reflected off his blade.
And the city, the city that feasted on death, was about to see what true killing looked like.