By the time Neo arrived at the intersection, the world was already on fire.
The Beasts — one of the most violent street gangs in Night City — had just loosed a shoulder-mounted rocket toward a black stretch limo marked with a corpo insignia.
Neo slammed the brakes, his car screeching to a stop at the curb.
In a single motion, he grabbed his nameless blade from the passenger seat, stepped out, and shut the door behind him.
The air was trembling with noise — gunfire, explosions, and the feral laughter of men who thought chaos was freedom.
Neo's blade sang twice.
Once — to cleave the burning car frame hurtling toward Gloria and David Martinez, frozen in terror inside their secondhand vehicle.
The metal split in two clean halves, sparks scattering like dying stars.
The second slash — for the Beast who'd fired that rocket.
His muscle car erupted in a thunderous bloom of flame, his scream lost to the explosion.
When Neo saw the terrified mother and son alive, he exhaled, sheathing his blade with a soft click.
Then he started walking — straight toward the rest of the gang.
"DA-DA-DA-DA!"
Bullets flooded the air, sparks and tracer rounds turning the street into daylight.
Five cars, ten guns — each one unloading as if ammo cost nothing.
Even a heavily chromed solo couldn't have survived that barrage.
Neo, though, wasn't "chromed."
He was something else.
"No-Blade Style — Great Tornado!"
He clenched his left fist and struck forward.
The punch detonated the air itself.
BOOM!
Invisible blades of compressed force spun out from his strike, shredding the bulletstorm mid-flight.
Rounds ricocheted, bent, and veered away as the wind around him howled like a dragon's roar.
The gunmen blinked — the man was walking through their gunfire, each step pushing the storm aside.
"Holy shit!" one shouted.
"What kind of monster punches bullets off course?!"
"That can't be a human arm! What corpo built this guy's chrome?"
"Are you blind?! He's got no cyberware at all!"
"Shut it and grab the launchers!"
Five rocket tubes rose. Five trembling fingers squeezed their triggers.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Five rockets screamed across the night sky, their trails blazing orange.
Neo lifted his gaze, his eyes briefly catching the glint of signal lights above — NCPD and Trauma Team dropships closing in.
He had seconds, maybe less.
Time to end this.
"One-Sword Style — Lion Song!"
SHING!
A single arc of light cut across the black sky, pure white against neon.
Five vehicles froze mid-motion, as if the world had stopped just to admire the blade's path.
Then came the aftermath.
BOOM!!!
A chain of explosions ripped through the street, lighting up the skyline, painting the clouds crimson.
By the time the flames reached the rooftops, the Beasts were gone — nothing left but chrome husks and silence.
…
Neo exhaled. He'd held back, just barely.
A few delicate adjustments in his swing meant that though the Beasts were dead, their cyberware remained intact — valuable salvage for whoever came next.
He sheathed his blade once more, the faint click swallowed by the crackling of fires around him.
Then he crouched, pulling a few of the best-quality implants from the wreckage — high-end optics, a neural link interface, a couple of advanced cyber-arms.
His car didn't have infinite space, and he didn't carry a four-dimensional pocket.
He left the rest behind — scrap, scattered across the road like glittering bones.
"Consider it charity," he muttered. "Let the kid pick up the rest."
With NCPD and Trauma Team sirens echoing closer, Neo slipped back into his car and vanished down a side street before the authorities arrived.
…
Minutes later, Gloria and David climbed out of their wrecked car, trembling but alive.
The smoke still lingered. The street was a graveyard of burning metal.
David looked around, then spotted what Neo had left behind — a small pile of untouched cyberware gleaming in the light.
"Mom," he whispered, "help me grab these."
They loaded the parts into their car, hands shaking as the rumble of hovering engines filled the air.
"This is NCPD! All civilians, clear the area immediately!"
"Trauma Team on site! Priority Alpha! Non-members, please vacate the perimeter!"
Both vehicles descended like vultures, floodlights slicing through smoke.
The Martinez family, poor and invisible, didn't warrant even a second glance.
No one asked them for ID.
No one checked if they were okay.
They simply… didn't exist.
…
Later, as they drove away from the sealed-off intersection, Gloria noticed David staring out the window, lost in thought.
"What's wrong?" she asked softly.
David blinked, pulling himself back. "Mom… I think I've seen that car before."
"What?"
"That guy — the one who saved us. His car. I swear I've seen it somewhere."
Gloria turned to him sharply. "You're sure?"
"I think so," he said. "A few days ago, in Watson. Same model, same scratches on the fender. I remember it because it was parked near a black-market dealer I know."
"David," Gloria sighed, "I thought you stopped running with those people."
David winced. "I did. Mostly."
"Mostly?"
She frowned, then her voice softened. "I should be angry. I am angry. But… not tonight."
She took a long breath. "That man saved us, David. If you really saw that car, find out who he is. Talk to him."
She reached into her pocket. "I'll transfer you two thousand eurodollars. It's not much, but it's what we can spare. Give it to him. Tell him it's… a thank-you."
"Mom, we can't afford that," David protested.
"We can't afford not to," she replied firmly. "He didn't just save me — he saved you. My life doesn't matter. But yours—"
"Mom!" David cut her off, voice cracking. "Don't say that. Ever again. You're all I've got. I'm gonna make it big one day, make us rich, and you're gonna see it. So don't— don't talk like that."
Gloria smiled weakly. "Alright, alright. No more sad talk."
She glanced back at him. "But promise me, you'll find that man tomorrow. Ask around. And when you do, tell me. We'll pay him back, properly."
David nodded, his eyes fixed once more on the glowing skyline.
He didn't answer.
Because deep down, he'd already decided — even if his mother said nothing, he would track that man down.
He needed to know.
How could someone with no cyberware — no implants, no augmentations — possess that kind of power?
The kind that could slice rockets out of the air. The kind that could rewrite destiny.
Gloria's voice broke his thoughts again. "David, are you listening?"
He turned, smiling faintly. "Yeah, Mom. I heard you."