Author's note: Just taking a moment to address ages of characters where I feel as though I should probably put some confirmation on.

V: 23 - 24

Kyle Vega: 26 - 27

Rachel Ikeda: 26 - 27

Valerie Ashton: 20 - 21

David Martinez: 17 - 18

Might come back and update this list later on, but in the meantime let's jump back into the story shall we?

Santo Domingo, January 2077

V had stepped out of his car over by the underside of the bridge where Regina asked him and Jackie to check out. From what the details said there was something said to be going bump in the night around here, and signs were pointing to a potential cyberpsycho situation. She had mentioned she offered gigs to bring in any sighted psychos (with a little extra if they could be brought in alive) but she's already got people on the job for her main list and they were occupied with another sighting at the time. So being familiar with the reputation of the two up-and-comers she decided to pass this off to them under the same terms, and if they could pull it off well then she'd open the main set of jobs to the two of them as well.

So now they were here, at a little slum camp for anyone in Santo with nowhere to go, keeping a sharp eye out for signs of anyone, which would be rare given that people were afraid to be here with the rumors flying around. As they looked around Jackie had said in a quieter tone to avoid alerting anybody "Got a bad feeling 'bout this V. Hunting cyberpsychos… you sure about this?" To which V responded quietly as well "Risky as hell, I know, but handling something like this is gonna get some attention Jack. And even then, if we leave this hangin' then people are gonna die. If not to whoever's hiding down here, then to anyone who might be here at the same time as Maxtac." Not trusting the NCPD's designated cyberpsycho hunters to not fire off a stray bullet that might get some bystander zeroed. Jackie just nodded and muttered "Guess that's fair." Before they resumed their search, pistols in hand.

V never really knew much about cyberpsychos, all he knew was that they often turned out to be people who went all-in with their chrome and came out insane, and often got associated with the term "Edgerunners", a designation street-side for mercenaries. V never really had much of a problem with the term himself, it's not like he ever complained when David started calling himself that, but he always stuck to calling himself a "merc" so that he was seen as a professional, not a soon-to-be maniac, as much as it stung to feel like he was denying the actual meaning behind it. Right around then Jackie whispered to his partner "Hold up, you hear somethin'?" Which prompted V to just let his head go quiet and listen around, and after a few seconds he caught the sound of someone muttering and nodded, both of them moving towards the noises slowly.

It was around then that they saw someone up near the wall under the bridge where it came off onto the roadside. A dark-skinned man wearing a shirt and pair of pants which were both torn up, worn shoes and a dirty coat that stopped just behind his elbows. And while it took a few seconds to notice, V could see vague traces of metallic lines that marked the cyberarms he had implanted on him.

V and Jackie both look at each other in silence, both silently asking through their glances if they were ready, to which V only nodded in response. But just as the younger man of the duo began to take a step forward, the presumed cyberpsycho turned towards them with a provoked look in his eye. Jackie shouted "¡Mierda! Get 'im!" And the psycho unsheathed a pair of Mantis Blades before the two mercs fired a couple potshots while attempting to get some ground from him.

The strategy didn't work for long however as he was gone in almost a blink before lunging onto V, nearly impaling him in the gut if not for the mercenary's grip via the Gorilla Arms barely managing to keep them from meeting their mark. With a straining tone in his voice V shouted "Jackie, a little help?!" Which prompted Jackie to charge at the psycho with his machete, who quickly turned only to take a blow from the ex-Valentino's weapon cutting into his shoulder, leaving an opening for V to force the Mantis Blades away from his torso before kicking the psycho back and preparing to send in a quickhack through his cyberdeck. He had fired off a Short Circuit which caused the cyberarms to electrocute and the man to stumble a little from the sensation, V using the newfound opening to quickly move in and send a left hook into the psycho's face, leading the man to end up against the wall, his shoulder hitting it first. He then started to get up and start muttering with a panicked and erratic tone "No blades… 'runner… no claw… not claws?" Which prompted Jackie to speak to V "The hell is goin' on with him?"

But before V could respond, the psycho screamed out and got into an attack stance, about to rush them. But just as he was about to move his leg got shot by a high-caliber bullet, causing him to scream "AGGGGH!" And just afterwards a woman with a prosthetic left arm and a katana on her back leapt in from behind the psycho and knocked him out with a punch to the face, leaving him out cold on the pavement. Jackie then proceeded to say "Oye, what gives?! This is our gig!" To which the woman responded "And in 5 seconds it was going to get you killed… guessing that makes you two the mercs Regina already sent over." And as Jackie huffed, a man with slicked back white hair and facial cyberware marks who was armed with a Tsunami Ashura sniper rifle came over from the road. V then said as he looked to them "Which makes you two the ones runnin' down her list of cyberpsycho sightings." Prompting the girl to nod and say "I'm Rachel, my choom here is Kyle." Before the man addressed as Kyle holstered the rifle and then said "Not a bad fight to put up, but if that's all you two have you should probably leave these sorts of gigs be."

Jackie was then looking like he was going to tell them off but Rachel then said "That being said, you two get points for not getting each other killed. And skills aside you two did still get the job, so how 'bout we split the cut between the 4 of us and call this even?"

Jackie just huffed while V crossed his arms, a moment of silence passing before he said "Well according to Regina, part of the job is seeing if there's anything to find on these people and send the detes her way. So how about the two of us look around and see what we can find, once we're done we contact Regina." To which Rachel responded "Sounds like a plan."

V and Jackie returned to the refuge to look around, having found some datashards lying around that apparently had some information on him. Jackie found one on some of the other residents in the camp noticing the psycho, who was identified in the messages as "Luther", starting to mutter in his sleep from what they suspected were nightmares. Meanwhile V found another one that he slotted in to read, his eyes lighting up as he did. From how it was written it looked like a journal entry or something of the sort.

"Why am I wasting my time here now? I finally got the blades, I know where those Tyger bastards are hiding, why do I still think I need to wait?! My own goddamn sister... damn it, I need to get a grip... I know you wouldn't want me to get like this Josie, I just... I hate that you let yourself go with those Claws to pay off that stupid debt after our folks died. Just please don't get yourself killed."

V just sighed to himself after he closed it. Figures, another victim of this city... he then pulled it out before noticing another shard.

Epilogue: "Just got something back on our man. Turns out Luther's sister Josie offered her services to the Tyger Claws to pay off a family debt, ended up working as a doll over at the Clouds building... best guess is he found out and it left him wanting to settle the score. Thank God you found him before he went after them, would've gotten himself killed. Hopefully he won't throw himself into the fire any time soon." And after V saw the eddies transfer into his account he sighed while sitting in his car, Jackie having taken his old beat up bike out already, mostly to sell it cause it was starting to give out. V couldn't get what was on that other shard out of his head, a fired researcher with one last confession about Cyberpsychosis not being an affliction from too many implants, but rather something that can happen from so much as just one and a ton of mental stress. Moments like this V couldn't stop himself from wondering why so many people in this city were forced to suffer... but he just shook his head and began driving off. Night City thinks people like V, the ones who give a shit, are the ones most likely to die out... (Maybe that's what it means to be an Edgerunner,) V thought to himself, (To do what no one else will... alright then, bring it on.)

Author's note: Yep, you're seeing this right. I pretty much swapped out the whole chapter, the segment with Valerie was nice and it's not going anywhere, but honestly after a couple days the story just felt less well-transitioned with that in place. That being said, I may pull back on this for a bit, let myself figure things out a little more before we start diving into scenes that could get a little intense. But that doesn't mean I'm pulling out fully, just expect something all-new from my end next time I post.