30/08/2077
Konpeki Plaza Hotel, Watson District
Night City, California
V
-
In what felt like an hour, V had seen his life go down even further than what it had already done since he had made his great escape from Militech.

Falling stories away from the penthouse building, impacted by a hail of rain as he fell, thrown around by a missile as well as having sections of the hotel fallen off and onto him. The two sudden thuds as soon as he landed, the explosive sequel to V's fall from grace. As his head rang about violently, alarms buzzed and blared as V attempted to get up, and failed at doing so spectacularly.

His right arm, up to the triceps was clamped down underneath a heavy pile of concrete and rubble from the explosion. Slabs of neo-mix, hardened and unbreakable by six years of being set and ready for weathering any kind of sandstorm of hurricane. From what he could feel as he tried to move his arm, the entire side of his forearm was not responsive, not even the Mantis Blade that had saved his life. He could only assume the entire arm was just crushed in a savage mess of blood, titanium bone and synthetic skin.

It only meant that V could get rid of the arm much easier if his entire arm was crushed into mush.

The small case that contained the biochip was scattered away, fallen out of his coat pocket on the fall down into the trench. Come to think of it, how V had even survived the fall in spite of everything was baffling. He shouldn't have been alive, and yet, he was still breathing normally, able to move and think and consider that cutting off his arm was his best chance of living through the job.

He scrapped, stretching his remaining arm out to recover the case with the chip. His fingers managed to barely clip the casing of the chip. Sliding it around as to get a better grip, V finally managed to get the chip-case and open it. V took the chip from it's inner casing, scanning it quickly to determine the damage it had undergone in the fall. His arm shot out in pain, causing him to drop the chip against his chest, as the rubble from the explosion shifted suddenly, revealing some of the damage.

Granted, his arm wasn't entirely a loss he would have to cut down. His hand and wrist, they were completely lost under the concrete and rebar that kept him pinned to the floor. As more of the debris began to crumble, the casing for the chip was soon crushed underneath falling bricks and wreckage. Panicking, V took the chip from his chest and quickly slipped into the slot behind his ear. Almost immediately, his head buzzed loudly, a large data transfer indicator on his HUD sliding across the screen. As the data was transferred, V attempted to pull himself up, but failed as his arm refused to budge due to it being stuck.

"Fuck…." V muttered, desperately using his remaining arm to hopelessly try and lift the slab of concrete on his own, with little effect. "Fuck, grr, come on you piece of fucking shit, just fucking move! FUCK!"

Wolf's gotta bite of it's own leg to survive if it gets caught in a trap, Virgil. You want to survive in the NUSA, learn that if it ever happens, you gotta be ready to sacrifice whatever it takes to get out alive…

His left arm was still free, still able to slice through whatever it needed to if need be. As the battered, bruised and torn down V lay down in the muck, he could imagine what Jackie would have been saying. How Jackie would have picked him up then and there and walked him or drove him home, or if he was really fucked up how he would take V to Vik's ripperdoc clinic to make sure he was good for the next day. Jesus, V could still see the image ingrained in his head, Jackie hanging over the drop with the blade shoved right through his chest. How he fell and was left where V had no chance of bringing him back.

How V had fucked up. How he couldn't reverse what he'd done.

Almost immediately, he'd unleashed his left Mantis Blade from its sheath in his forearm and twisted himself to his right side. Angling the blade, V aimed for just below the elbow, where he could at least guarantee that he'd be cutting through neural wiring and pseudo-muscle. Digging the blade in, V screamed loud as the impulses fed from his arm to his brain. One downside, was that the neural wiring made the arm feel like it was just regular flesh and blood. It reminded V of how cutting through flesh and bone was really meant to feel, deep inside he was having to slice through the metal infused bone to break free of his concrete prison.

He screamed, he cried, he growled and shouted and swore that he would not die that day. Memories of years past where he knew he had something to live for flew back to him, persuading him to do whatever it took to keep on living. Old McCall holding him like a father would hold his son, the days on rooftops with Jackie where they would talk for hours about living the high life sooner or later, he refused to fucking die to some borged-out asshole and an old man.

He could feel a rage, one almost alien and foreign to him as he gritted his teeth and sliced and slashed through the wires, growling before he finally cut through the last shreds of synth-skin. Free, V immediately sheathed his Mantis Blade and loosened his tie with his single hand. Ripping off his suit jacket and ripping through his destroyed shirt, V took his tie and wrapped it around his dismembered arm tightly, tying away with assistance from his mouth as he held the tie still to keep it from sliding off. With a struggle, V managed to get up from the floor and stumble out of the maintenance trench.

Jackie, I'm so fucking sorry. This was my fault goddamnit…

Swaying from side to side, he soon found himself in the lower sections of the main hotel. An alarm had soon gone off as he wandered the corridors, warning that the hotel would soon be in lockdown due to the catastrophe in the penthouse and that all guests were to remain inside their apartments. V managed to slink through the halls, hiding in whatever cubbyhole or storage cupboard he could find when a gathering of Arasaka bodyguards would come charging past, ignorant of his position as they immediately charged for the maintenance trench where he fell.

The walls were almost a crimson red glow, the paint almost reminiscent of a thick coat of blood used as paint. The floors, a fine wooden laminate that changed to marble when entering an apartment or hideaway. V took a few deep breaths as he hid away, looking down at what remained of his arm as wires dangled from the location of his amputation, blood and black fluid mixing together in light, spotty trails that danced across the laminated floor.

The events flashed before his eyes, his optical arrays playing tricks on him as he left his hidey-hole. The corridors felt like they were changing, the blood red paint changing to a stellar, spotless marble white, the floors twisting from light brown wood to black marble. Paintings and depictions of events and people were swapped with reminders of the ruin that Japan was when the bombs were dropped back in World War Two.

In his vivid visions, a sole Arasaka guard turned the corner just as V had done, bumping into the one-armed mercenary, too late to retort. V's remaining Gorilla Hand had grabbed the man by the throat and crushed it in a second flat. As the body fell, V immediately ripped the man's DR12 Heavy Revolver from his holster. Visions of flying in an AV, right over the Night City skyline as they went in on the approach. Fighting in a closed off corridor, laying a bomb in an elevator shaft and planting the manifesto on the net for people to realise his intent. Running out as fast his legs could carry him, only to be blown away and then continue running.

Pushing his friend, someone who he was proud to call a friend inside the AV as it flew away. Turning around to see a mountain of a man, wielding a HMG and fitted inside a power armour suit. Fighting valiantly to save his friends, only to be ripped and torn apart brutally. V was struggling, what the fuck was in that chip?

As painful as it was, the jagged remains of his right Mantis Blade fittings started short-circuiting as he walked through the winding corridors. That, as well as the changing environments started hurting his head more and more as he finally made his way to the elevator.

"Ground floor, and then Delamain." V muttered to himself. "Delamain, you still there?"

"Ready and waiting sir, would you like to be picked up at the entrance?" The robotic cab-driver had asked.

"As soon…" V mumbled. "As possible, Del."

"If I may inquire, do you require medical assistance? When you linked to my systems on the way to Konpeki Plaza, I scanned your vitals. It appears Mr. Welles, is deceased."

"Yeah, I fucking know, I saw him die with my own two fucking eyes!" V screamed as he entered the doors to the elevator, closing them promptly. "Fuck, fucking Jackie, shit! What the fuck do I tell Misty? Oh, I'm so fucking sorry, Mama…"

V pressed the buttons on the elevators, quickly smacking the button for the ground floor as he leant across the wall of the elevator for support. He flicked out the chamber for his revolver, counting at least eight bullets in the heavy revolver before flicking the chamber back inside. As he waited for the elevator to close, he checked his holo and immediately called Evelyn. It took a while before she actually answered, but those few moments made V feel even more light-headed.

"V? What the fuck is going on?" Evelyn asked, desperately. "Arasaka AVs are swarming the entire hotel. Did you?"

"No…" V trailed. "We, I got the chip. Yorinobu is dead."

"What?"

"Saburo Arasaka killed him. Smasher, he gutted Jackie and I lost an arm. We need to meet." V demanded, leaning up again, only to slide down against the metal walls of the elevator.

Evelyn shook her head. "So, you're cutting off Dex? Look, it's too dangerous…"

"I don't give a fuck if it's too dangerous! I just lost my one friend I had here, and you still might not get the chip!" V shouted, standing straight as he used his momentum to push away from the wall. "Misty's Esoterica, in two hours. Ask for Vik. Be there, or you can say goodbye to taking this fucking chip."

V had already cut off the call as the elevator approached the final ten floors, and he could feel his ears and eyes taking in more sound and light than they usually did. The lucidity was coming back, oversensitivity in his head, the aches and pains, they all struck at the same time. The voices, he wasn't used to hearing the voices before.
-
"What's next Johnny? Gonna grab some corpo-rat, drag him on stage and make him kneel, douse him in gas and light 'im up?"

"I'm the only one with a vision! So, unless you got a better one, Go. Fuck. Yourself!"

"We're done, Johnny, I just, I couldn't leave you without saying, something…"

"You are just another charismatic, narcissistic, douchebag running around after a dream with your head up your ass! You, Samurai, the concerts, it's a fucking fiction!"

"You are not a rockerboy anymore, Johnny, as much as you like to say you are. You, Rogue, Boa-Boa, Blackhand, you're the same people. Solos out for an adventure, taking down the big corps! Face it Johnny, with all the drink and drugs, you might as well join the skiffed-out wackos shouting death to Arasaka!"

"Oh, so this didn't mean something? I thought we were close, Alt, but maybe it was close enough for you to give me shit, about every fucking thing I do!"
-
V shook his head desperately, clutching the revolver tightly in his hand as he managed to walk right out of the elevator. Security measures were activated, but the guard details had raced up the other elevators to make sure that Saburo Arasaka was still safe and was far away from the danger. They would no doubt be scanning Yorinobu's body, looking for whatever method Saburo had used to get rid of his rebellious son. V had heard of certain cyberdecks harbouring tech that could kill a person outright, but to fake it and make it look like it was a completely natural death?

The merc had heard tales of Saburo Arasaka, the psychopathic, near emotionless CEO of Arasaka Security that ruled his company with an iron fist. The man who would have deemed anything Western as sub-par, if not absolute trash that wasn't worthy of his time. V wasn't stupid, he'd learnt about the corporate wars, hell, every day in Militech was a cold war with every other security firm in the world. He'd encountered his fair share of Arasaka goons, murdered more than a dozen too for the company. It just came naturally in that life, it was kill or be killed, and V was still in that mindset.

Pressing himself against the walls, he willed himself to keep slinking past the tripwires and cameras that his cyberdeck couldn't deactivate. His HUD was still going ape-shit, blacking out sections of his vision before re-appearing. Music that sounded familiar, voices he'd never heard, they rebounded around his eardrums, talking to somebody that sounded like a grade-A fuckstick if V had a say.

Just as he slinked past the final cameras, V could see the Delamain taxi park right outside the front, the rainfall still slamming down heavily on the concrete outside. He lumbered forward, heavy-footed before he felt the sensation of cold steel slice down right across his back, ripping through the fabric of his shirt as he fell down, screaming in pain. Stabs of pain reverberated around his chest and stump, and as V fell to the floor, he could see the posh, black suited bodyguard with tied up hair from the penthouse.

The one that barely missed finding V and Jackie in the room itself. The guy that arrived with Saburo, something like the Arasaka family advisor.

His thoughts didn't matter, the cold, rigid steel readied itself on the shoulder blade of V's right side. It was already beginning to dig in, and V was not ashamed to have began to cry tears of pure pain as the blade began to slowly pierce what was left of his skin. V growled, almost foaming at the mouth with spit and saliva, vile words in his mouth that he lacked the energy to throw at the man.

"Your employer, who are they?" The Japanese man growled; his hands wrapped tight around the handle of his blade. "Answer truthfully, and I will kill you with no suffering involved. I will show mercy."

V almost roared. "Think I give a fuck about mercy, when you had that borged fuck murder my friend? Fuck you, you corpo piece of shit!"

The blade immediately went through his shoulder, blood dripping out of the open wound when the man ripped the blade out. "Listen to me, boy. Tell me how you got the chip, and this will be much easier. I do not wish to cause you unnecessary harm, you have done enough damage to the Arasaka family, I do not wish to damage them by not being their to console them in their time of need."

V smiled, a sadistic, almost sociopathic grin. "Guess you're gonna be here a long fuckin' while then, eh, you little rat?"

The man did not reply, instead, grabbing V by the hair, lifting his head up and placing his wakizashi right under his throat. "My name, is Goro Takemura. I am one of the most important assets to my employer and I am no vermin. The only vermin I see here, is you. Now, tell me, who gave you the information to get into the hotel?"

"Hiro-fucking-hito!"

Wordlessly, the Japanese-forged knife did not slide across V's throat. Instead, Takemura placed the knife over the top of V's eye. With one clean slice, V screamed in agony as he lost all sight in his left eye.

His natural eye, his last, natural blue eye.

Enraged, V's Mantis Blade shot out, regardless of the energy reserve or the pain he was in. Slicing away madly, the disfigured merc could feel the sensation of the cybernetic blade slice across the calf of his torturer. Taking his chance, V picked himself up, crawling and limping in pain and agony before he managed to climb into the Delamain. Everything in his body, his veins, his bones, screamed at him to just give up. Climb into the back seat, he screamed something at the auto-car, and the cab had already sped off, as fast as it could go when its client crawled into the back to nurse his wounds.

"Where to, sir?"

"Misty's…" V murmured weakly, coughs and cries as he tried to stop himself from moving. He wanted to die. "…Esoterica."

He'd remained conscious, the fear of death placed directly into his soul keeping him awake before he arrived in front of the store. He didn't knock, he slammed through the door with little tact or guile, shocking Misty out of her bored reverie. She looked around, her eyes darting around to look for her man before she stopped, running to V before he had even knew he fainted on the cold tile floor.