This story continues immediately after Arasaka Tower in Night City is assaulted by V, Panam and her Aldecaldo family and associates. With Alt Cunningham's help it is decided that an engram of V's soul will be taken before it is too late. With the eventual goal of putting V into a new recently available body.

Johnny Silverhand will return in V's body and eventually erase all connection to V. But this can't happen in Night City or anywhere that Arasaka has a strong presence. The whole procedure could take months to get right and V has only three months maximum before Johnny fully takes over. It is decided that V will be taken to Arizona where the Aldecaldo Tribal Nation can be found and provide both protection and technologies unavailable to V's companions at present.

With Arasaka now on the warpath vowing to bring all perpetrators to justice for the great wrong that has been inflicted upon them. All of Night City and its millions of citizens are in a state of total bloody chaos. The threat of corporate war looms as many of the big corporations see this as a chance to exert their dominance over Night City and to shape it into a corporate city to be proud of and rid the world of the cesspit of humanity that it has become.

A variety of stories tell of a young nomad solo who along with a 'massive' army of fellow nomads assaulted the corporations and somehow brought Arasaka to its knees. The name V quickly becomes urban legend within a matter of weeks and only continues to grow over the following months.

V cuts all ties with Night City but the people of Night City are not about to let her go without a kiss goodbye. It soon becomes apparent that Arasaka and their corporate allies and enemies are after not just V but all those she had dealings with and any close friends and relatives. As well as work associates and basically anyone she had come into contact with.

With several unpleasant encounters between the corporate troops and the fixers of Night City it soon became apparent that anyone who had so much as a conversation with V was a target in their gunsights. Rogue the best fixer in Night City and possibly anywhere else on the planet was first to contact V and arrange to evacuate all those that she had ties to. Around this time the corporations were fighting a bloody insurrection on the streets of Night City against the gangs, the mercs, the ordinary people of the city. Thousands were slaughtered in a bloody orgy of destruction that put into place a mass exodus from the city of its own citizens.

Rogue along with a dozen other fixers from all across the city arranged for escape routes through which people could leave in their thousands. Gang affiliation and recruitment skyrocketed with tens of thousands joining the fight against the corporations. Many of the oldest and youngest gang members agreed to follow the well known fixers into exile and act as their bodyguards and hired muscle.

All of this time was spent with V and her closest allies in preparation for a vast exodus across the Badlands into Arizona. They had thought they needed to get about three hundred Aldecaldos across the border but their task now seemed impossible. Hundreds of camps had sprung up almost overnight deep into the Badlands desert. All had one word on their lips 'V'. Who was this mystical legendary folk hero. Her legend grew in a matter of months and it soon became apparent that even with all the greatest fixers in Night City now in exile and leading the mass exodus that she and they were now responsible for the lives of so many.

At first the corporations just thought the camps had sprung up temporarily until the fighting and violence eased in the city. But with no new information on V and her allies the corps became suspicious. Then the unthinkable happened and took Arasaka and it's allies by complete surprise. Militech and an army of newly hired mercenaries attacked Arasaka and joined the onslaught into Night City.

V and her allies see an opening and now all they have to do is take a rag tag mass of people across the Badlands into Arizona before the corporations figure out what is happening. By this time V doesn't have long left and only the thought that one day she will occupy another body was of any brief comfort to her. Her time in this world was coming to an end, for now. And the rise of the 'Phoenix' Johnny Silverhand will soon become a legend to surpass all others even V's.

ARASAKA RISING:

APOCALYPSE NOW

PROLOGUE

V tried her best to hold things together. The last few weeks had been a whirlwind of none stop action. She had helped to get all of those out of Night City that she cared for and even those only close enough to call friends, colleagues and associates. Rogue Amendaries had proven to be the Queen of Fixers and united all the best fixers in Night City into a formidable force against the corporations.

There was no doubt that all shared some ill will towards V for landing them in this predicament. But that wasn't going to help them now and all knew the corporations were out for blood and clearing house of all undesirables. They wanted Night City for themselves and the fate of ordinary people didn't matter in the slightest. V would be the first to go with Panam's Aldecaldo Family of about three hundred Nomads plus all of V's associates for a total of about five hundred people. But the word was out among the exiled refugees of the Badlands that she would lead them out of this nightmare to somewhere new.

The expectation placed on her slender shoulders felt like a colossal weight she had been chosen to bear.

Without Rogue, the other fixers, Panam and her new family of Aldecaldos and perhaps even more importantly Judy Alvarez her partner in crime and lover whom she now relied on during her transition to Johnny Silverhand.

But there were others among them, too many to mention. Mamma Welles and her loyal Valentino bodyguards. Victor and Misty had been among the first to escape the city along with Nibbles, Misty's cat. River Ward and his family leading a small army of retired cops, disgruntled workmates, private investigators and small time media crews who had all seen too much death over the last few weeks thanks to those Arasaka bastards.

Kerry Eurodyne and his old bandmates and new friends were among those first to leave the city. All now knew about the return of Johnny Silverhand and though they wished V well in the future it would be good to have their old Samurai bandmate back among them. They all felt like they were in their twenties again.

The Mox gang of Night City joined the Aldecaldos in their thousands. |It was by far the largest gang presence among all the new camps that had sprung up. Judy had not been able to leave them to a terrible fate and insisted V and Rogue got them out of the city first.

Other gangs were represented mostly those who had seen too many wars already and those too young to have seen any wars. They were greeted with caution and a little fear but they new they had to behave for now.

Many of the people here were those she had met during her time in Night City. V had gone through a long list of contacts she knew and warned them and their families to leave and offered them a place with the Nomads. She had tried hard to contact everyone but she wasn't certain she had remembered everyone.

There were massive convoys they had arranged to meet up with once they were on the road again. In all honesty it had grown into a monstrous task which the fixers seemed to take in their stride and to whom V would be forever grateful. Once it would have been a challenge to be beaten but she was very ill and getting worse all the time. Johnny was increasingly making his presence felt. If not for Judy and the final months they had together she could never have coped with everything that was happening to her.

But even Judy had other commitments. Evelyn Parker was saved by her Trauma Team Platinum Card courtesy of Yorinobu Arasaka. They reached her just before she would have died after Judy removed a shard from her that was blocking her current location and present state of health. It's been a tough few weeks for them both since she returned to Judy's place. Judy never leaves her side and when she sleeps Evelyn is restrained and heavily sedated until they reach Arizona and can get help for her there.

The time had come for them to leave. Now starts the rise of Johnny Silverhand as he takes on a natural role as rabble rouser leading an army of exiles from Night City and the Badlands to Arizona and a new life for all of them.

His personality and presence begin to show over the following weeks and months his body reverts to that of the twenty something rockerboy as V fades from existence only kept as a soul that Alt has promised to protect and eventually bring back to life once a suitable body donor is found.

Along a twenty mile stretch of border. Teams of solos loyal to Rogue begin their demolition of corporate border defences. Hundreds of thousands drive through during the chaos as the sandstorms approach.

Tomorrow their adventures begin.