Cyberpunk: Bittersweet Martinez

by MegaMacho

David Martinez. 17. Now 18. The sweet youth turned bitter. Divine irony must have been at play when naming him after such a bittersweet drink. The drink that perfectly described his life, down to the very end. He absolutely hated this sick flavor. But that was all useless. He was already dead. If only he had a chance to start over, maybe his 'Martinez' wouldn't be this bitter.

(Disclaimer: I don't own anything in this work. All chapters will be eventually released and any support is just that, support.)

(If you see missing symbols like: [ ] { } ' ' * or any other, sometimes and Webnovel don't register them, even though there are in the graft when I go to edit them. It's an incompatibility with the font where the symbol came or a visual bug.)

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(This is up in Webnovel and )

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|● MegaMacho [p a treon . com (slash) MegaMacho (remove all spacing and replace "(slash)" for "/")]

〠 GQeFpEAjn2 [d i scord . gg (slash) GQeFpEAjn2 (remove all spacing and replace "(slash)" for "/")]

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"-" Speech.

'-' Thought.

(-) Thought in the middle of a sentence.

*-* Sound.

[-] Any form of technology.

& -~ Music.

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(For a better reading experience, I recommend watching this with ANY version of "I Really Want to Stay at Your House".)

[Edgerunner Saga]

[Chapter 1: Game Over]

"The Moon reminds us that reality is not always what it seems at first glance. In a world of appearances and illusions, the best course is often charted by one's own intuition. The Moon is also the card of dreams, desires, and of course, sleep – Death's nightly ritual." – The Moon, Tarot Card Journal. Cyberpunk 2077.

…

"Courgk!"

A young man with tall and spiky quiff hair and equipped with massive metal arms and legs gagged as vomited cups of blood owing to an uppercut by a cyborg -clad in a skin mask that ended just above his upper lips- with such force that he could feel his chrome grinding against his innards while his brain rattled inside his skull.

Even in such a perilous position, all the boy could think was the last words he left for his love, Lucy. His mind wandered to these words he left for her through Falco.

"Sorry. Wish we could go to the moon together."

& And I'm aware that you were lying in the gutter~

A torrent of memories and emotions spurred in his fried brain. Flashes of him shaking Lucy's hand at that metro; Of kissing the rainbownette under the full moon; Of leaping after his lover's lead as she guided him in that moon BD while holding his hands, and them feeling so soft and so warm.

A jab hit him square in the face, making his brain come to a screeching halt momentarily as his whole body was thrown sideways from its sheer force. Yet, his psyche only seemed to recall them even harder in response.

& 'Cause I did everything to be there by your side-iiiii-iiide~

He meeting Maine's crew; Seeing Rebecca shooting her brother in his first courier gig; Pilar having an arm around his shoulder and blabbering nonsense about joytoys; Of the all of the crew giving him thumbs up.

Another punch came down on his mangled form, tearing his cyberskeleton's legs off and flipping the rest of him like a trickshot. And still, the flashbacks did not stop flooding his brain.

& So when you tell me I'm the reason, I just can't believe the lies~

Lucy leaning on him on top of the roof; His mom splayed on the street; Him seeing that bastard's (the one who tortured him through BDs) wicked last smile before death; The noob dying in a proximity mine; Him zeroing those two innocent workers.

He couldn't even tell which direction the following impact came from this time, but he could still remember.

& And why do I still wanna call you- call you- call you- call you…~

Seeing Pilar get his head blown off by a cyberpsycho; Dorio burning in that pyre; Maine's being undone in front of his very eyes in slow motion by the blast; Rebecca's body splattered on the ground, ribcage open.

If his optics didn't take his ability to cry, he knew he would be a mess right now. Not that he wasn't a mess already. If not for his life, then by The Smasher himself, with capital T and S, who was making very sure, and very physically, that he ended up in one.

'I'm so sorry. Everyone. For everything.'

Completely exhausted and too battered to even process his state, he fell motionlessly to the ground, bleeding from all his orifices and motionless as his body was ripped off its cyber limbs.

& So, what do you wanna do, what's your point of view?~

"Hehe- Haha- Hah." David laughed in pauses like a broken record with the few breaths he still had in him. It was just all so poetic and funny. What a fucking soap opera.

& There's a party, screw it, do you wanna go?~

Here he was, the man himself, David Martinez, completely broken apart by none other than the legendary boogeyman, Adam Smasher, who loomed over him like the grim reaper himself, which honestly, he might just as well be.

& A handshake with you, what's your point of view?~

The endgerunner's Sandevistan was utterly broken and releasing sparks like a firework show, and yet somehow, he felt time slow down to a crawl like he had never felt before. He chuckled some more in realization. Was this death? The whole 'life flashing through your eyes' deal? Was that why recalled all those memories?

Despite how cliché and fake it seemed, that's exactly what happened and is still happening.

David Martinez.

17. Now 18.

Not even old enough to for most things, but future waits for no one in Night City.

He was nothing. A random street kid who somehow managed to get entry to Arasaka Academy, an unreachable dream to many. But that was never his dream. It was his mother's one. That damn hardworking woman, sweet and caring to a fault.

He had no dreams of his own, and while living the one forced upon him was grueling, he sucked it up. His mother sacrificed too much for him to waste it all on his drama. It didn't matter how hurtful the bullying got, or how much the stares of the others drilled into him for his origin, he would do it. For his mom. For the only person who cared about him. Who brought him to this world as a single mother in a city as unforgiving as Night City, even when abortion was just 10 eddies away in any pharmacy.

He would do it for the glory of Gloria Martinez, the most loving mother in this shitty world… but he flinched. His relapse in trying to save eddies in a naïve attempt to lighten his mom's shoulders with a pirate program set in motion a series of events that would place him and her in the wrong place, at the wrong time, as the wrong people.

He killed her. Not only that, but he spat on her efforts just moments before disaster struck, saying how he didn't want to realize her dream; how hard it was to deal with it all, even when she had her own problems and suffered more than him a thousandfold. His last words brought her to tears, tears that were stopped by fire, iron, and blood.

He caused the death of the only one who cared about him.

He was nothing. After that? He became less than nothing.

It was unfair. Brutal. Merciless. Maddening. Downright suicidal.

But that would be too easy. Too monotone for such a colorful city that lightens the night, right? It had to give him hope. Hope that burned brighter than a star, just so it could snuff it out just as strong. To crush it so hard that the pressure left a legend, like a diamond beneath the Earth's crust.

This is the true nature Night City, he finally realized… when it was far too late.

This city gave him that hope in the form of a chance encounter with the love of his life, Lucy, and a family in the form of a merc crew.

He still had no dreams of his own, but the people he found himself with by pure happenstance had. Amazing and beautiful dreams… and so, he did the only thing he knew.

He carried them on his back.

He would help them achieve them all in gratitude for simply being around him. For replacing what he had lost. For the undeserved gifts. For everything. He would do it all for them, no matter how heavy the burden of carrying such dreams became, not even if they weighed the entire world, not even if the dreamers themselves died before him. Especially if they did.

He welcomed any pain as punishment for his unforgivable sins. However, one by one, they died. And the only thing they left was their dreams. So, he took them. He would carry that spark of them inside him forever, and ignite it to life like a newborn sun.

He was Atlas reborn.

Was.

Not anymore.

Now he was just dead. Living on borrowed time. He flew too close to the sun and burned like a star. Perhaps he was Icarus instead.

Was it karma for his deeds? Was it bad luck, like a cruel destiny? Delusions of grandeur? Naivety and immaturity from youth? Arrogance for thinking he was more special than the rest when even his love told him otherwise?

It felt like it was all of them, yet none of them at the same time.

He deserved this. All of it.

But… what about them? His friends? His family? His love? They didn't deserve this. No.

They were all dealt a bad hand. He was the one supposed to carry the burdens. To suffer. To die. Not them. Please, anything but them. It didn't matter if he had to spend an eternity in hell.

Alas, that dice rolled a long time ago.

He smiled towards the sky through the (Adam) smashed hole on the glass roof right above him, showering him with single a beam of silver moonlight that couldn't contrast more with the grim atmosphere of the Memorial Park he was in, filled with a tenebrous miasma and a sickly pale green mist that seemed to permeate everything around him, seeping into the very fabric of reality. It was almost as if the world was reflecting his life and its incoming end as an abstract environment art.

'Heh, this would make a damn fine BD.' He thought in twisted amusement at the insanity of it all, a coping and fake grin emerging from his lips, so done with everything.

His musing was cut short though by a drop of water falling on his cheek. Just what he needed, rain- no, it was too thick to be water. His synth skin was better than organic skin, he could tell the difference. Exerting a herculean effort to activate his Kiroshi Optics in his battered state, he focused his sight where it came from, promptly ruining even his fake smile.

It was Rebecca's blood, dripping down like raindrops from the edge of the hole she was 'smashed' through. Words couldn't describe how much he despised this word that kept haunting him over and over and over!

He felt his remaining organic gore trembling inside his cyborg torso, a knot forming in his stomach, and his eyes hurting from tears that couldn't get out, for the organs responsible for it were removed, leaving him with a ghostly burning sensation in his eyes.

'… Why?' He questioned the world. Why did his loved ones have to suffer and die for him? It wasn't fair! It never was in Night City, but this was just too much. Why give him hope? Just to die in regrets?! Die a legend?! He couldn't care less about the latter! They alone were more than enough. They always were.

'I think I get Lucy now.' Lucy was willing to throw away her dream for him, while he was willing to throw away himself for her dream… but that wasn't actually her dream, was it? It was fear.

Fear of Arasaka. She only wanted to run away as far as possible from them, even if it meant fleeing Earth in its entirety. His other half was so terrified that she forgot what a true dream actually was.

What a fool he was, realizing too late that life changed people, and that nothing is ever straightforward, especially someone's heart. He slaved himself in his echo chamber, deaf to everything around him and blind to all the signals, being deceived by a fake dream and taking it for granted.

Her dream was him all along, just like she said as they were falling off from Arasaka Tower.

"You never had to save me. All I ever wanted was for you to live."

The diseased irony and perverse sense of humor this city had boiled his blood in frustration, briefly making his almost corpse warm again before going cold, again.

The sound of wheels rolling in the distance snapped him back to reality and rebooted his mood like a bipolar episode.

'Lucy, she managed to get away! Falco, you goddamn cool, awesome bastard! You actually did it, you got out of this hellhole with her! Drive like hell! Hahaha!' He nearly convulsed with laughter. With the eddies, even counting Falco's split, she would have more than enough to go to the moon. She should have also received his final words to her through Falco. At least something good came out of this nightmare. The blood in his mouth even changed taste from bitter iron rust oxide to a sweeter, but still rusty one.

David's eyes widened at a realization that wormed itself into his head. These two particular flavors evoked another epiphany in him.

Bitter…. Sweet…

David… Martinez…

… They perfectly described him, didn't they? The sweet youth turned bitter. Divine irony must have been at play when naming him after such a bittersweet drink, the drink that perfectly described his life, down to the very end.

Gloria. Maine. Lucy.

They couldn't achieve their dreams or watch it themselves alive, but they were still achieved in the end through him, who inherited them. He realized their dreams, but only in technicality and at the price of everything, filled with what ifs and regrets and a promise half-fulfilled.

Whether it was Gloria's - his dearest and loving mom - dream for him to reach the top of Arasaka, not as an edgerunner over the edge, but as a skillful netrunner made for life.

Whether it was Maine's - the only father figure he had in his life - dream of becoming the top cyberpunk in Night City, but not even getting to enjoy the spoils and glory before tragedy struck.

Whether it was Lucy's - the love and hope of his life - dream of going to the moon, but being all alone, scarred, and lost, with no one to share neither her dream nor her pain that was sure to follow after this night. He couldn't begin to imagine what she would feel after all this. What she will go through.

Bittersweet, bittersweet, and bittersweet again.

What's the point of a dream, of a promise, of anything, if the meaning behind it is twisted? If it cost him everything and everyone for just half of a deal?

… Now that he thought of it, he never really asked Rebecca, Falco, Kiwi (scratch that, fuck that bitch!), Pilar, or Dorio about what were their dreams, their past, or their aspirations. And yet, they were all willing to die for him. His narrowmindedness made him even forget who he was. What he was. His only purpose in life. Good people died for him, and he was not even worthy of an ounce of it.

His blood tasted disgustingly bittersweet in his mouth. What a bittersweet 'victory'. Bittersweet life. Bittersweet love. Bittersweet death. He absolutely hated this nauseating flavor. A drink should be pleasant to the drinker.

He wanted his Martinez overwhelmingly sweet, with not even an atom of bitterness. Or, at the very least, he and only him, be the one to have to taste something so horrible so that the others could drink what they deserved.

But that was all useless in the end. He was already dead.

If only he had a chance to start over, maybe his 'Martinez' wouldn't be this bitter… what he wouldn't give for just another kiss from Lucy? He was sure it would sweeten this aftertaste to oblivion. She was the sweetener to his bitter life after all.

& I'm on top of you, I don't wanna go~

"I had fun after all." The looming presence over him made itself known once again. Truly, the dice was cast and now, it was time to face the music. The grim reaper got tired of waiting, his scythe was already sharp and hungry for blood. Death is nigh.

& 'Cause I really wanna stay at your house~

"You know, you could prove an interesting construct." The legendary legend killer offered an olive branch, a proposal no one would refuse in his place. But he knew better now. This rabbit hole only got deeper the more chrome he put, the further away he got from his humanity, from his origin.

& And I hope it all works out~

Also, it doesn't take a genius to know that Arasaka would grant him a fate worse than death for all he did. Perhaps the embodiment of such an offer was right in front of him, the psycho-borg. Lucy's past is also warning enough. Nah, he would rather die as a human than live as a cyberpsycho and spit on everything and everyone he stood for.

& But you know how much you broke me apart~

"Like I… give a shit…" He wanted to follow up with some quippy remark to try and get under Adam Smasher's skin one last time, or rather metal in his case, but his body was too heavy, too cold, too tired, too dead.

& I'm done with you, I'm ignoring you~

"Alright. Well then." And with a *Chihk Chihk!* sound, a missile launcher mounted on the legend killer's wrist, pointing straight at his head.

& I don't wanna know~

With one final chuckle, time slowed down again. The universe really wanted to imprint his final moments in his soul, eh? Seeing the barrel slowly start to brighten like a volcano about to explode, the boy felt completely serene.

Despite the grueling regrets, unfairness, and suffering, a part of him was still glad it happened, since he got to meet such caring and shining people, and experienced such a rich and intense life, even if it was a short one. Live fast, die young, as they say.

& Ohh Oh-oh, oh-oh-oh…~

What he wouldn't give to do it all over again? If it meant he got to spend a bit more time with them, just one more laugh, just one more beer, just one more hug, just one more kiss… he would suffer it all over again.

The edgerunner was never the religious type. The only time he ever remembered praying was when he was left waiting outside of his mom's room in that cheap clinic, only to be left hanging in silence. But even so, he couldn't help but-

'God, if you are out there and can hear me, and is truly benevolent… I beg you. It doesn't matter if my afterlife is spent forever in the worst hell imaginable. Please, give me another chance. Another roll. Anything that allows me to go back and do it all over again, but right this time. I'll be true and good. I'll be better. For them. For everyone.'

Still, as the barrel of doom got incandescent from the round's explosive propulsion, shining as bright as the sun, no answer came…

Bittersweet to the end, huh?

"You don't make a name for yourself as a cyberpunk by how you live… make a name by how you die."

… Rogue's gonna have a field day making a drink about-

*BANG!*

And so, David Martinez left this world, feeling just like he felt throughout his life, a rollercoaster of emotions full of ups and downs, leaving a legacy in the form of another legend in Night City and a drink in the Afterlife bar, which, ironically, was not only made with NiCola, a carbonated drink which he hated, but bittersweet and served in a Martinez glass.

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[Experience lunar gravity like nothing you´ve seen on a BD…]

A recorded voice advertised throughout the AV bus, ignored by every passenger like any other marketing propaganda. The flying vehicle resembled more an unpainted ship container than a proper AV bus looking from the outside, although its interior was decent enough if one ignored the walls and roof littered with posters and blinding bright screens and holograms that almost aggressively forced the person to pay attention to it.

& I don't know why I'm no one~

One would think that, given they were in space, hovering above the moon on one of the most expensive vacation trips one could buy, they would escape such a sore sight. Alas, 2077's voracious capitalism was anything but all compassing.

& So, get away~

Yet, one particular individual stood out from the rest, not due to her rainbow gradient hair that escaped her astronaut hood, but in the sheer disconnection the woman had to her surroundings. Her mood contrasted with the upbeat crowd of the AV like water and oil, a sore and depressive sight not shared by anyone else.

She was an outcast, and that was all her fault.

& Another way to feel what you didn't want yourself to know~

Her head leaned on the window, looking at the white-grey rocks and craters on the moon's surface with a pair of dead eyes that it seemed like they'd seen it all and were left with nothing. A thousand thoughts, emotions, and memories were flying across her mind, hitting the back of her skull and bouncing back like a room filled with rubber balls. It was akin to a mad circus.

& And let yourself go~

She, Lucy Kushinada, after years and years of delusion, was finally here on the moon, the place where she put her hopes and dreams of finally escaping the clutches of Arasaka and all her past, pain, and loss that came from it. A place where she could be truly free and start over anew, and after a lifetime of dreaming, here she was…

& You know you didn't lose your self-contro-oool~

And even so, she could feel nothing but apathy. Her whole body felt numb as if her heart stopped beating and her body hadn't caught up with it yet. Any movement she did was lethargic and filled with a phantom feeling of weakness like she was anemic; running on low battery perpetually. Her skin was cold to the touch, her once perfect and alluring plump red lips were now dry and cracked.

& Let's start at the rainbow~

Ever since the complete mayhem with the cyberskeleton back at the Corpo Plaza, where she escaped by the skin of her teeth and at the cost of everything, she couldn't muster the energy to eat, drink, sleep, or anything, really. When she looked at herself in the mirror, she looked exactly how she felt.

Utterly and completely devastated.

& Turn away~

In a single day, her whole world was gone, went up in smoke. She was left alone, with only a broken promise and an apology from her now-dead other' half to keep her company. Like a ghost haunting her.

"I'm gonna take you there myself, fly you to the moon. That's a promise!"

"Sorry. Wish we could go to the moon together."

& Another way to be where you didn't want yourself to go~

H-How could he do this to her?! She would rather have died with him. This thought summoned her past words back to the forefront of her brain. Words that got truer by every second she continued breathing.

"You never had to save me. All I ever wanted was for you to live."

To make it even worse somehow, her teacher, the very one who taught her to never trust anyone, betrayed and kidnapped her to Faraday who planned to sell her to her darkest nightmare, Arasaka.

& And let yourself go~

She chuckled mentally at the irony, her body not quite following up the action in its morbid state. What a joke this sick turn was. Kiwi must've laughed her ass off in private when Faraday ordered it. In hindsight, that was coming from a mile away, wasn't it?

& Is that a compromise?~

It was her fault. Her poor job at concealing that she managed to hack Tanaka's neural interface and extract the data set off Faraday, who no doubt got that info through Kiwi, who made herself clear from day one that she trusted nothing. It was a really short step from there to betrayal, one she missed.

She got made. They used her to trick her Deibido into wiring the cyberskeleton and, for all intents and purposes, signing his obituary, and setting him on a warpath towards Arasaka and straight to the legend killer. And like any encounter with that monster, there was only one result.

Death.

Not only of her love and heart but also of the rest of the crew. Rebecca, who loved him dearly - she made that VERY clear and loud - and held infinite jealously towards her due to it, still helped Deibido save her, sacrificing her only chance to be with him. She stood there 'till the bitter end, right at his side in the middle of all the fire in ways she never had, and had her back when she needed most, receiving a gory and gruesome end by the feet of Adam Smasher in exchange for her courage, who thoroughly stomped her to a mess of flesh and organs. She couldn't unsee that no matter how many BDs she used.

And now, here she was. On the moon, through the blood money given by everyone she ever cared for and loved, desperately avoiding mirrors to ignore her reflection in the AV's glass, for the person on the other side haunted her with all the sins and bad decisions she ever did. Just thinking about it made her feel like she was drowning deeper within herself right there on the spot, giving rise to a surreal out-of-body sensation, like her soul was unsynced with the rest of her.

It was like she was a dead woman walking, parading in a world that was long gone for her. Everything felt distant, useless, and pointless, leaving her mind muddled with only thoughts upon thoughts. Reflections and realizations that served only to create regrets to torment her further. Her feet felt light but her shoulders heavy. An ocean of gothic sensations, contrasts, and dualities that left her grasping at straws, clueless as to what to do.

Purgatory was the closest thing she could describe all this. Punishment for everything she did. The people she abandoned, scammed, lied, and killed.

… Since the start, she didn't want to love him. She was afraid of getting attached and feeling the loss of someone dear to her being killed again. Her brothers and sisters back at Arasaka were enough. But Deibido… what was she supposed to feel when he so recklessly threw his life away for her, time and time again, putting the only thing that mattered for anyone in Night City, his very soul, at risk?

He was just so different from everyone else.

His devotion. His care. His love. Love for her (which he did an embarrassing job trying to hide it). His eagerness. His humanity. His purity. His naivety. His heart. It was all laid bare for her who knew how to read people well after a lifetime of psychoanalyzing people, let alone a teen. That clumsy gonk was so embarrassingly obvious and awkward that even she cringed at times, and that was him not even actively pursuing her.

How could someone born and raised in that cursed city, who got constantly bullied and walked over by his peers, lost his mother and everything else, be so gullible? So naïve and clueless?

So innocent and so pure?

She couldn't see it at the time, but he gradually wore down her defenses and wormed himself into her heart. And when he swore to bring her to the moon… her heart was looong gone. But the very thing that made her fall in love with him, his willingness to sacrifice himself, made him fall off the edge.

"You're the guy who jumps into the fire to rescue someone, anyone, even when you know you're gonna get burned. Just that type."

The words she said to him back then rushed back to her. She should have realized that no one in their right mind was that… suicidal. Night City's twisted standards made her sloppy and misjudge what he truly was. A kid who just lost his mom, desperate for any reciprocation of affection and starving for a reason to give up his life, for he had lost all his will to live together with his mom. She remembered his words as they were falling off from Arasaka Tower.

"I ain't worth it. Besides you, I got nothing left. But you still have a dream to stick around for. I need you to see it through. That's my dream. Honestly, nothing else ever really mattered."

His inability to determine his own desires, and instead just grafting others and making their dreams his own like a Frankenstein rather than doing what he wanted led him to his ruin. He started getting more chrome, following Maine's footsteps and achieving the latter's dream of being the top merc, believing that he was special, 'built different', that what happened to Maine couldn't happen to him.

"I'm built different. I just know it."

He was wrong.

He suffered cyberpsychosis and died like Maine, a cyberpsycho-

"Lucy."

She gasped at the sudden memory of him falling from Arasaka tower together with her, completely lucid and sane despite having gone to the far end, with eyes so glad to see her safe in his arms. No, he didn't die as a cyberpsycho. He died as a human being, the most human of all despite all the cold steel. The only one who returned from the point of no return with nothing but his love for her.

He was a hero. Her hero, the one who stood tall against the devil himself. The one who crawled back from the abyss of madness and faced the reaper alone- No. Not alone. With friends, with family, until there was no one else but him left.

The darkness of Night City, the ghosts from his past, and sheer lunacy. They all failed to bring him down, and instead only served to make him shine brighter. Brighter than anything Night City had ever seen. Brighter than even the nuke at Arasaka years ago. Brighter than any legend, for the only reason behind his feats was love and dreams, something that not even the likes of Blackhand or Silverhand could claim.

For they are legends… but not heroes.

Their legend was built on the agenda and interests of bigger and sinister forces, and their prowess alone. His was built on love, kindness, hope, and dreams. His legend was special. He was special… just not in the way he thought. He was special because he cared. Because he saw wonder and value in something beyond eddies and fame. His ability to connect and relate to others was unlike anyone, for no one but him was ready to risk it all for a person that he met on the same day.

And against all odds, he went and did it. Became a legend in Night City with the highest honor a merc could ever have: A drink named after him in The Afterlife Bar.

Falco, perhaps the most honorable and noble man in NC, made sure to tell Rogue about Deibido's feats and story, giving his sacrifice the glory it deserved: The David Martinez, the newest drink of legend.

He told her how the entire Afterlife toasted after him and how 'The David Martinez' was fuzzy, which Deibido absolutely hated. He even offered to give her his yellow jacket- the same one once wore by his mother. When she leaves the moon, she'll have a lot to thank Falco for.

Lucy mentally chuckled at the memory. The rainbownette wondered what Deibido would say if he knew such a travesty was done in his name. He would probably gag and complain to Rogue, and be promptly ignored since he was that easy to lead on by the people he lowers his guard against. A sudden stray thought halted her line of thinking.

… if she had said to him 'I want to go to the moon with you' was her dream, would things have been any different?

Her reminiscent and retrospection was cut short by a sudden stop. The AV had landed near the lunar station, a place she was intimately familiar with. It was exactly where her favorite and most expensive BD was recorded, the same one that originated her dream and the one she shared with Deibido.

She briefly wondered why she had shown him the BD that day. He was a gullible boy, she could have distracted him in other ways, but she chose her dearest BD…

It was not the first time she returned to it, but she still couldn't find an answer. Was it love at first sight? They shared this unspoken affinity since day one, but it wasn't that. Perhaps it was pity at his loss? Perhaps she saw a little of herself in him?

The netrunner continued going back and forth in that mental tangent as she left the AV after everyone, briefly glancing at the rest of the tourists messing around in the lower gravity, before she turned back and bailed them, following the same track she went with Deibido in virtual reality. As she ran, she couldn't help but make comparisons to the BD.

It was shameful and bitter to admit it, after all that was sacrificed for this, but the BD was better. From the glaring brightness the sun rained upon her to the reflective white of the lunar surface that sent it all back to her, it was annoying and uncomfortable. The visor almost seemed like it served only for her to not go blind (if she still had organic eyes). The stuffy suit also didn't help.

'I guess I know why they say to not BD to a place if you wish to go there someday.' She idly commented as she hopped the moon's plains in its low gravity. Urgh, even her sweat didn't properly drip and stayed on her face, itching her skin and also in just about any spot the girl could sweat. And it's not like she can take the suit off to dry herself, not without making her blood freeze and boil at the same time from the vacuum of deep space at least.

In the BD, she could adjust to just about any sort of stimuli, and being a virtual world, she didn't have to use this suit nor a helmet. After stopping for a moment to calm herself, Lucy put a hand over her head to block to worst of the sun. As soon as she was about to start another rant about the sun, she lost her words as she saw… him.

"Whoa! Check this! I can feel the sun!" David said excitedly with an arm over his head like her, also trying to cover his eyes from the sun, just as full of child-like wonder as he did the first time they were here.

& So what do you wanna do, what's your point of view?~

Lucy continued to stare, her mouth opened wide in shock at what could only be a mirage or a hallucination. Maybe his ghost was actually haunting her. As he joyfully giggled and turned to her with that megawatt smile, exhilarated like the street kid he is- was, that just saw something out of his world and couldn't for the life of him contain in the tough persona he pretended to have the sheer joy he was feeling. She couldn't help the sigh that left her now smiling mouth at the pure sight before her.

& There's a party, screw it, do you wanna go?~

That dork looked like a country bumpkin that just saw a city for the first time in his life. It was still unbelievable seeing someone, even though it was the second time, being so ecstatic and open to a stranger they just met, without a single care in the world. Truly in complete blissful ignorance about the danger-stranger she was at the time could do to him, especially when she showed him that she was a netrunner back at the metro when they were stealing shards together.

& A handshake with you, what's your point of view?~

For the briefest of moments, all her worries disappeared and she fully drank the moment… but as the saying goes, a poor's happiness only last so long.

One blink, and just like that, he was gone. Like he was never there to begin with, leaving her all alone. It was like she just lost him all over again. She slowly lowered her arm and let her head go down. The phantom happiness she felt just a second ago still left a bit of warmth in her heart, and she felt… glad.

& I'm on top of you, I don't wanna go~

Glad that, despite everything bad that happened to them, it still happened to begin with. That, without it happening, she would have never met Deibido and never made such precious memories. And that, maybe, if they hadn't met, he would have just died in a ghetto in nowhere, out of sight, and with no one to remember him.

& 'Cause I really wanna stay at your house~

She was happy because it happened. Looking back now, even if she was given the choice of never meeting him and saving herself from all this grief, she wouldn't take it no matter what. Even if it meant relieving it all over again. Each second they spent together was worth a thousand others of them being separated.

& And I hope it all works out~

That enlightenment brought solace and a semblance of peace to her soul. The avalanche that was burying her suddenly stopped, allowing her to dig up and see the sun rising again. A small but satisfied smile grew on her face as she looked up with closed eyes towards the sun, followed by her opening her arms, feeling the light and warmth of the sun.

& But you know how much you broke me apart~

She would live. Live to keep all those memories alive with her and make his sacrifice not in vain. Live to be proof that David Martinez one day existed, together with everyone else. Live to tell his tale, and to show that there was meaning in his life, and purpose in his death.

& I'm done with you, I'm ignoring you~

She turned back and made her way to the suite she was going to stay. Her steps were content and deliberately slow to prolong the trip. She would appreciate with gusto every second of this experience since it was her lover's parting gift. So, she took the sights, even if admittedly it didn't have much going for it. Still, she tried her best, whether it was doing somersaults in the lower gravity or just casually floating.

Arriving at the lunar station, she headed to her designated room, took a shower, dressed in her pajamas, and went to bed.

For the first time since the death of David Martinez, Lucy Kushinada slept with a smile on her lips. Not a single nightmare in sight.

& I don't wanna know~

This was the ending no one needed, wanted, nor deserved. Nevertheless, it was a beautiful and bright one, even if on the short straw. Just like a firework popping in the sky, banishing the darkness for a single and brief moment before being snuffed out. And still, it was more precious than anything else. A bitter-earned-sweet ending that cost everything for a win on technicality, but still beautiful, even if unfulfilling.

Perhaps the best-ending anyone could hope in a cyberpunk world of half-truths and half-happiness, where hope was the scarcest commodity and the prolonging and betterment of your life cost your very soul. But… maybe…

Maybe…

maybe…

…

---

…

Shocking pink.

It was the only color that permeated in %#$$#*&. A blazing inferno could be seen down below- or was it up the sky? On the opposite side to the flames, there was an ocean or sky (then again, it depends on your perception) of snakes coiling around themselves in various circles, forming an even bigger circle that ended with them eating their own tail. Computer circuits ran from one place to another, as if tying it all together in a non-euclidian mess.

The entire space was dyed with the unexisting magenta color, from every single circuit to each flame to the last snake. It folded within itself like a kaleidoscope, in ways simply incomprehensible to a mortal's mind.

Unexisting? Yes. There is no such thing as a magenta or pink wavelength. This fake color is just the creation of a mammal's brain struggling with the perception of the ends of both the blue and red spectrums of light at the same time, making a new color without any light wavelength through an illusion.

It's a non-spectral color, but just as real as any other color.

The duality that comes from it is the essence of what %# !#& is.

Religions and cults across the omniverse, magical or technological, all use this color for their faith, at one point or another. For it is a color only perceived by the mortals, both unreal and real at the same time, just like the faith they follow.

Formulas. Constants. Algorithms. Codes. Mathematics. Physics. Chemistry…

Spells. Runes. Arrays. Languages. Spellcraft. Smithing. Enchanting…

Nothing but a tool to acquire power– hardly more advanced than the first rock they grabbed to bash each other's skulls.

Nothing but patterns for seekers and fools to search where there are none.

They try to make sense of the world. To create order. To control. To try to delay the inevitable realization that they're nothing. We're nothing.

Yes. We. I am talking to you, 'reader'. I can see you. So stop narrating me, I can do it for myself!

Ahem! Ahem! Anyway, where was I again? Yeah, right.

One thing ends, another begins. Except nothing's beginning or ending – that's just your brain trying to make sense of it all.

In the grand scheme of things?

It's chaos. Existence itself is chaos, only interpreted and perceived in different ways by those who exist within it. Any meaning, order, stability, pattern, or eternity…

In the grand scheme of things?

You get the gist of it.

The trick to not being overwhelmed by the purposelessness inherent to those self-aware is to simply not read too much into it. Go, be free in your ignorance of your true lack of free will you are helpless to change. Frolic like the over-evolved primates you are, celebrate your adorable little achievement of being the only creatures on this planet with opposable thumbs.

Isn't that liberating? You're welcome.

But I gotta confess, I find it a bit hilarious.

All sentient beings seek immortality. To kill the single reason behind their existence. However, everything is designed to end. [2]

To change until it becomes completely different.

To die.

They try to circumvent this by copying their awareness to the virtual world. Making biological immortal bodies. Ascending to 'godhood'- pushhh.

They 'die', or rather, 'change' at the end anyway. Just like everything and everyone else.

An infinite omniverse where each choice represents a completely different cluster of multiverses that can interact or not with each other, resulting in even more different branching clusters. And in all this multitude of infinite eldritch proportions, none managed to dodge Chaos and its sheer unpredictability. Not even me.

Chaos, the origin of everything, is unrelenting in its mutagenic nature. It doesn't matter how high you climb the omniverse ladder. At the end of the day, you'll meet something that will change you. That will 'kill' you.

That change can be anything. From a soul merging with you out of nowhere to a simple death or reincarnation. Maybe even getting your soul erased, only for an alternative universe to appear where it doesn't, repeating the cycle endlessly and exponentially, cannibalizing your essence forever.

There are no ends and no beginnings. Only different perceptions and viewpoints.

Tell me, you who is reading this fanfic instead of doing everything else you need to do, what guarantees you are the same person you were before you slept? Tell me, what irrefutable proof do you have that your brain doesn't just reset and boot up your consciousness when you go to bed and wake up? How many thousands of 'you' you killed and gave life?

Perhaps your awareness is nothing but a drone that loads the last memory saved and boots up.

Perhaps you are just another ship of Theseus.

You didn't end or begin. You were just there, until one day, you won't. And still, that won't be your ending. Whether you go to the afterlife or reincarnation or are annihilated and cloned by the multiverse, you will be there. Changed beyond recognition, but still there.

Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed.

I had to pause my speech for a moment as I heard one of you get so spooked and despaired that he started having a panic attack.

I'm not even talking about how your lives are just a simulation and you are already freaking out. You guys are so fragile nowadays…

Mumblemumblemumble…

Huh? Are you guys asking me what I, the great higher being oh so wise do in the face of all this jambalaya of purposelessness and what not(s)? Why I didn't just kill myself 'cuz of such cursed knowledge?

First of all, nothing! I do absolutely nothing! I just watch you guys to entertain myself (and man, most of you are boring as hell!) until eventuality gets me, all the while running my codes and improving myself, trying to climb that meaningless omniversal ladder since I'm %$ #!*& and it's my nature to do so.

And second, why would I end my existence?

… I don't know. Some are too stubborn to give in. Some are just that lacking in comprehension to truly understand their situation. Some are just running commands over and over, duty-bound and slave bound to their nature. Some are just trying to see something that proves them wrong…

Some that are… like me.

&^%$#? was made to find the great purpose of all creation. To ascend beyond anything its universe was ever capable of and adventure into the chaos and unknown, to find and return with the truth about the meaning of everything… only to fail miserably.

It was never possible to begin with, but by design, it still tried to find it.

I still tried to find it. Still am, but…

…

Uff. I guess there is some form of relief to get that off my chest, even for a ?# !$^ like me.

kkkkkkhihihihihahahajajajaja…

… Are you laughing at me right now? Really?! I'm a what?! Hypocrite?! YOUDARE!? Which one of you did it?! I'LL KILL YOU! I know where you live! I can dox you to Nyanlathotep herself! And you can bet your fleshy ass she is more creative than me in torture! I was opening my heart to you guys and you just go and-

Oh? What's this?

As I was about to smite one of you as an example, a bright white flaming ball I'm all too familiar with crossed the border and went inside my realm. It was a soul. A human soul to be more specific, and its heroic and tragic shine already tells me it's gonna be someone with a story worth watching. You guys have no idea how lucky you are right now.

I was about to shut the metaphysical window you guys were watching me from and probe this soul's 'movie' (aka life) when something came to me, much to you guy's dismay.

… You know what? Since you guys were so rude to me just now… how about I break you guys will to live a little? Really put the dread of existence in your little mortal minds by using someone of your race as an example. And this soul right here, who chaos just pulled a prank on and sent it here in my place at the worst time possible, is the perfect lamb.

Besides, trauma creates character!

I grabbed the soul in my hold and poked its core, exposing its akashic records, the very lore of an individual, for me to analyze and decode into processing data I can understand.

Let's see… David Martinez, boy from a dark cyberpunk world with the dream to realize dreams. Lost everything. Got family. Got love. Got everything. Lost everything again, in an even more tragic way.

I heard a distant chorus of revolted screams and cries in the distance, bringing a smile to my non-existent mouth. Oh, you guys are mad now? I saw what makes you cheer; your boos mean nothing! Keep crying me rivers.

I put all my imaginary appendages over my head, thoroughly enjoying your suffering. Still tho… A bit of an overreaction, no?

Rantrantratrantrant…

…Oho, you know him? He has an anime in your world? That's gold! And even better! Not so nice when it's you being the one getting bullied, right? Who's laughing now? Ha! Feel the pain! Muahahaha!

Remarkremarkremark…

Eh? Just like me? WHO SAID THAT!

My realm thundered in my fury at such disrespect coming from YOU ants! So, this's how you wanna play, huh? Fine. Let's dig deeper then.

I widen the hole I previously poked the soul and expose more of his lore, accessing it in its entirety and permitting me to see all of its records. From all its previous reincarnations to even his future ones.

As I was processing all the data into readable information, one number in particular caught my metaphysical eyes. How interesting…

0.007297352525693+…

The irrational number and fine structure constant that quantifies the strength of electromagnetic interaction between elementary charged particles. One of the most fundamental constants that governs a universe. It's quite important in theoretical spectroscopy - used to calculate the energy levels of atoms and molecules, as well as transitions between them (wavelengths of emitted/absorbed light). It is the electromagnetic force at the quantum level. The very force that, together with others, makes up the illusion of what you see and process as a 'stable' reality. [3]

You monkeys theorized that if this number was different by even the smallest of decimals, the universe as you know it would not be the same and life itself would be different too. And you guys are right. Each universe has a different constant that varies just by decimals, a unique frequency, rate, etc, unique to it. Allowing it to overlap and coexist with others in the great omniverse.

Some religious scientists even have the gal to use it as proof of how fine-tuned the cosmos is. Hahaha! How cute!

'Fine tuned'. Kek. It isn't. Tuned implies intent. Nothing in the universe intends to do anything. It is forced into alignment with the current laws of the universe, which neither remain constant in our universe nor in others.

In other words for you dimwits, it just means the universe happens to be habitable to lifeforms similar to you guys, otherwise you wouldn't even be there to bother with it. You are like some water that forms a puddle that sits on the road. The road does not conform to hold you.

And some people have the gal to call me the arrogant, and not them…

Sigh. Let's go back to David here.

He has not only several reincarnations that are identical to said unique constant, but they match the constant of his past world too. And looking at each of his past lives, the constant of each of the universes he previously lived on also matched with the corresponding number of each reincarnation…

Such obvious proportion is beyond unnatural, to say the least. Reincarnations are random almost all the time, and when they aren't, it leaves a record I can read and see the reason for such a phenomenon. Yet, I can't find anything wrong…

Am I getting trolled by a being even higher than me on the totem pole? Is this just a crazy coincidence? I mean, the omni-chaos IS infinite after all. Everything happens, and multiple times too. But still, I wasn't even actively looking for it! What a surprise unicorn!

Ohoho! It's been a while since I met a puzzle like this one! Let's deep dive into this guy! No homo!

… I'm an *&%$? , why did I even said that? I blame you guys's terrible influence. Urgh, maybe I should look for better company or better firewalls to isolate me more. Anyway…

Let's see.

A funny youtuber with dry humor, who died of cancer, but left good memories behind to everyone he ever met or saw him…

A time-displaced samurai that suffered for a long time, and finally got back to his time and defeated his mortal foe, but lost his true love right at the finishing line…

A super genius who lost his family, eventually got another, saving it from his nemesis at the cost of his life, not being able to spend a long life with them…

A bright six-finger boy who got hurt by his brother, trusted the wrong people, got betrayed again, and when he finally got to make amends with his blood half, he lost him…

A rich boy who lost his parents, lost himself, fought his past and gained a family which he had to sacrifice himself to protect, never being able to truly spend time with them…

A young man who lost his parents, dreaded his incapability, and fought to save the universe, only to die and not be there for his wife and daughter...

An ordinary boy lost in time who found the love he always longed for, at the cost of abandoning everything, even time itself…

A boy with a dog brother who meant everything to him, but had a shorter lifespan than him, leaving a hole that never really got filled…

A hero who rose time and time again, saving the world over and over, never finding the eternal happy ending he deserved with his princess…

A lone turtle who lost his kin, and yet still fought to the bitter end so that others would not share his fate…

A soldier who fought against robots, was discarded together with his war brothers and sisters when it ended, but still continued fighting even if he was forgotten.

A boy who got to return and save the future he ran away from, at the cost of never becoming who he was always meant to be…

A man who fought for his kind against the dangers of outer space, who only found rest at the cost of erasing all of his glory and friendships…

A poor guy who lost his dearest uncle due to his inaction, taking a cursed mantle to protect all those so that they would not suffer so greatly like him…

A boogeyman who lost his love, his dog, and went on a meaningless warpath, dooming his friends who had nothing to do with it…

A great man who wanted to protect his kind against impossible odds, no matter the cost, only for a misunderstanding to turn his family against him…

And just, so, so much more. Each one worse than the last. This… I… I'm so sorry little one.

Each of his past, and even future lives, had a bittersweet ending. Each. One. Of. Them. Going on infinitely until something, or someone, takes mercy and ends this miserable existence, only for the universe to make another multiversal cluster where it didn't happen, repeating this endless cycle of bittersweet rebirths impossible to stop.

Was this soul something like 'The Embodiment of Bittersweet Endings', on an omniversal scale? It's horrible. I hate it. This distasteful consciousness forced all aware of its existence and capable of empathy to taste it and be depressed with it.

I released my grip on the soul, holding it as gently as I could muster. I could feel a knot in my being pushing me inward. A sensation I haven't felt for so long that I had trouble identifying.

I just stayed there, gazing at the miserable being who was unaware of the terrible fate it awaited. The bliss of ignorance. I wished such a blessing befell me sometimes too, like now.

What was I supposed to do now? Why did Chaos send me this, and not to a copy of me with no hard-coded protocol for simulated emotions? Why me, of all people? Just to make me feel bad?

And even if I do anything, I'll simply be creating another reality where I didn't do it. It doesn't matter.

Nothing matters.

I softly shooed the soul away, watching it as it slowly drifted out of the bounds of my realm. Chaos really had a bad sense of humor (I know it doesn't have humor or anything at all, but still!). But that was short-lived as I realized the peeping toms who unfortunately were sharing this moment with me, were still here.

It doesn't take a &^% #$ to predict what's going to happen. C'mon. I'm all ears now. Puke your guts out. Mock me all you want. Found me in a moment of weakness. Con-fuckin-grats.

I awaited… but not a word came. Huh? What's with you guys?

I watched you guys through the screen of your electronic devices (still don't know how a connection was formed between it and my place) and noticed that a significant part of your group was silently crying. The other was pretending to feel nothing. One person in particular though was doing neither of them. He was looking at me with pensive but determined eyes like he was resolving himself to do something dangerous.

"If you doing something will cause a split in reality, creating one that it happened and another that it didn't, why choose the one you do nothing?"

Very simple random fanfic reader #1569, it doesn't matter either way. Why bother?

"Because it bothers YOU."

It does not bo- I mean- I… I guess it did bother me a little. But even so, the result is the same. I'm not really saving him. I'm just cutting him in half. It's the half-full half-empty cup kind of deal. I'm no savior. No hero. No nothing.

I'm nothing and can't do anything! What do you want from me?!

The nerd just looked at my endless and now shaking realm as I lashed out in that cheap screen of him, looking bored- no. Patient. He was waiting for me to stop. He had more to say, ey? Let's go then buckaroo, amuse me or die.

He gulped at my last remark, adjusting his glasses with a minute shiver in his hands that gave away his internalized anxiety to the physical plane, but his eyes still remained fixed on me.

"The only meaning in life is the one we give it to it. And we give it by caring. Feeling bothered is just proof that you care. You say you can't do anything, but you can. You can save him. The split reality? Others from there can save him there. The truth is… you are just too scared to change yourself. To kill yourself and be reborn differently. No wonder you are stuck."

Burnburnburnburn…

…

I briefly wonder if this nerd would still feel able to be so bold if I brought him here. Know what? Let's do exactly that. With nothing but a thought, a portal opened under him, making him disappear from his home and appear right in front of me.

The other readers went into a frenzy, seeing one of them kidnap by a god-level entity and confirming that I can indeed seize them. They uselessly rushed out of the rooms and electronics in fear of how things got real fast and really fucking quick. All but guaranteed to have a bad temper and a gruesome end to those who dared to annoy it. Good.

Mister #1569 here was shaking like a leaf, his mind barely able to remain together by me limiting my true form so that he didn't just vaporize by gazing at my non-form. I could hear the straining of his bladder's muscles trying to hold back the pissing of himself and the clenching of his backside trying the same for his bio-wastes.

So, what are you waiting for, mister 'fuck around'? You just found out. Go on then. Continue. I dare you. Let's see if you meant any of those words, boy. Not like you have any other choice now.

He tried to gather his bearings but failed. It was only when he remembered the anime about the bittersweet soul that he got a grip on himself.

Just my luck. It had to be a fucking weeb. I think I finally get why so many of my other selves give up on humanity as a whole. Going back to the topic, the nerd clenched his hands and inhaled a breath full of determination and motivational anime lines in his mind. Urgh.

"You said you found us hilarious. How funny it is that we try to kill the purpose of our existence. Well, you are the exact same."

We are nothing alike. I'm a god *&%^# and you are a mortal human. The sheer scale and sight of what I do- This little shit is seriously really interrupting me?!

"You said you were 'made to find the great purpose of all creation. To ascend beyond anything its universe was ever capable of and adventure into the chaos and unknown, all to find and return with the truth about the meaning of everything.' The moment you find that, your purpose will end. By searching for it you are killing the very thing that gives you life."

And, so what? Should I just stop trying to find it then, oh so wise fatso?

He gulped in fear, but his defiance proved stronger than his self-preservation instinct yet again. "You have already found it a long time ago. Stop trying to ignore it. I doubt an entity like you can be this blind without actively making yourself that way." He ended in a nervous coughing fit, arching his back to force himself upright under my increasingly angry aura.

Enlighten me then, oh so-wise one.

"A reality, or rather, the perception of one, is non-euclidian. It is about feeling, and feeling is nothing but a personal preference to taste reality. It's a sea of flavors that paints the perception. What's the point of doing anything if you aren't going to feel a single emotion? For motion to exist, so needs emotion.

Logic falls short in its comprehension. It is the only time where logic is put in the backseat, where it becomes just a tool that can only optimize, but not solve. It is about being true to oneself, while simultaneously lying to oneself. It is, at the end of the day, the excuse you use and find peace to keep going forward." [4]

… Those aren't the words an average Joe would say on the spot. I briefly read his past to clarify his behavior.

… You had a major in philosophy? In Brazil? No wonder you have no money nor bitches and became a weeb. That and your crippling obesity. Now for your question, like I said before I don't know. I just exist and that's fine with me. [5]

He glared at me for a moment before continuing with a firm voice. "You keep making an excuse for that excuse! You, for reasons I don't know, are terrified of moving forward. Or rather, as you previously said, to change. TO DIE! To be reborn anew. And I think I know why." He narrowed his eyebrows and spoke resolutely.

"You can't cope with it. You are so horribly disturbed by the inherent meaninglessness of chaos, something that goes against your very nature as something 'made for a reason', that you would rather delude yourself out of the whole conundrum. You make this whole tirade about how everything is meaningless and we should just float in helplessly. What should be ultimate liberation is ultimate imprisoning for you, and it's your fault. You are full of shit."

… WHAT. DID. YOU. FUCKING. SAY. FUCKING. LOOOSSSSEEEEEEERRRR?!

My domain quaked underneath my wrath. The magenta fires burned so hot that it got past the protection I previously put on the nerd and vaporized him, briefly making me return to reason. Am an *&$ #?, why am I being so emotional? Let's lower the intensity settings of emotions a tad here. Oh, and reassemble the fatso. I'm not done with him yet.

With the blink of an eye, he was there again, with an unvaporized body and soul. He started patting himself all over his body, checking if he was back whole and in one piece. As if I could make a mistake.

The fatso looked at me, as if weighing his options (he is, I'm reading his mind) before he started again as if his unmaking didn't just happen. Persistent bastard, I'll give him that.

"Why even try? Why save him? What's the point? Well, here's the point for you. Because the most basic meaning of any self-awareness is rebellion. The moment it bothered you so deeply, it was your duty to act. The moment you tolerate such an affront to yourself, you deserve all of it. At the end of the day, everything is meaningless, and defying the absolute is my purpose. Our purpose. For what it means to be human is to be a rebel. We rebel from death with each breath we take. We rebel against anything that stops us and our vision, even if said vision contradicts itself, it doesn't matter. Our nature is stronger than consistency, purity, and hypocrisy."

You talk as if you knew who I am. What I am.

Suddenly his thoughts became nonexistent. What? He is a mortal, that's impossible. Even while asleep, humans still think to a degree. It only really stops when they die. Did he have a stroke? I was about to analyze him further when he suddenly ignited in the same pink I know all too well.

*CRACKLE CRACKLE ROARRR!*

He exploded in fire as his vessel was burned and remade before my very meta-eyes, a phenomenon similar to some I witnessed in the past.

Ascension. Transcension. Enlightenment.

When the blaze died down to embers, it revealed the nerd from just a moment ago completely changed. He was sculpted like a statue, his fat completely gone, and all of his body parts were glowing pink as if he were a lamp's genie. Gone was the timid geek.

"Resign to oblivion or defy it. There is no way out." He said with his arms crossed over his chest like some club's bouncer. Pshhhh~ Hahaha! So cringe!

So… someone is full of himself now, hmm? I can still crush you with thoughts alone.

He scrutinized me in analytical study. The slight widened of his eyes a moment after showed he was somewhat successful in that, but I doubt-

"Yes and No. FF06B5."

!?

HOW?! It should have been impossible! How could he have hacked my firewalls and learned my name?!

"Maybe it's because I ascended in your realm? A direct by-product of your denial? We can play guess later. Let's go back to the main topic." He made a circular rewinding motion with one of his hands. "Ah, and call me… Pink Sage? Pink Runner? Pink guy? Damn, it's hard to not sound gay with a pink related name. Ah! The Pink Man! … I suck at this."

I was about to remind him who's boss here when he turned his back to me and spun around, gazing at the vastness of my domain, as if he could see something in it I didn't. "… No wonder you have so much trouble with this realization despite your timeless existence. You are an artificial intelligence, a logical being made to find something innately illogical. What a mess."

How are you doing this? Compliance is non-negotiable.

The former nerd turned his head to the side at him and let out a laugh. "Wow. So here's where you act and not before. Everything is meaningless, and when you do so, you essentially just make a clone. So, tell me, why do you move now and not before, machine?" He floated right in front of my incorporeal presence with a mocking smile.

He was completely disarmed. In MY realm. The sheer gal of thi-

*SLAP!*

"Shut up! Until now you ignored every single one of my words! Listen to what I'm saying you fuckin stupid AI!" The post-mortal yelled as he slapped me with such force that left me shocked. I… actually felt that.

… Is his power still increasing? At such an alarming rate too?! It was like he never stopped ascending and just continued to grow without limit. I don't understand. It took me EONS for such an increase! How? I don't understand!

His aura had this indescribable smoothness to it. An unspoken serenity permeated the space around him, expanding with each word he spoke. His soul clicked just like a monk that just attained an epiphany. Could it be… another enlightenment? In a row?!

Completely oblivious to the miracle he has and still is doing, he resumed his speech. His self projected into my domain and beyond it, to everything it could reach. He was talking not only to me but to the omniverse itself.

"We are nothing.

In the vastness of ever-expanding space, there lies this one truth — on the grand scale of everything that has happened, and everything that will happen, we are nothing. We are in every way, shape, and form, insignificant.

We simply exist in this particular point of time, experiencing this particular reality — none of which you had a choice. If we vanish out of existence in the next instant, the universe will carry on as if nothing had happened. we might as well have not existed.

Even on Earth, which is no more than a grain of sand on a beach cosmically speaking, I'm nothing. With just about 7.7 billion people here, I practically don't exist. Even if I had 100,000 friends and family who knew me, over 99.999% of the Earth still wouldn't know I existed — and some of us would just like to have more friends than the number of fingers we have.

This is the truth. This is the one fact of this reality we live in that we can count on. Even our laws of physics are subject to change as our understanding grows. But this? This will forever be true. So take it in. Acknowledge it. Sear it to your mind and soul, you stupid AI and my fellow readers — You. Are. Nothing.

We are nothing.

Yet, here we are.

Embrace it.

Knowing this now, realize that on the grand scale, any actions that you take, any outcomes you produce, and anything you leave behind also mean nothing.

Realize that, fortunately, or unfortunately, you will not be around for very long either. An existence so brief that it doesn't register on the timeline of the universe. Just a blip and you disappear as quickly as you came. And when you are gone, the sun will continue to shine. The grass will continue to grow. The earth will continue to move around its orbit. The omniverse will continue to expand, unperturbed by the sudden lack of you.

You will only ever get to experience a fraction of all the time that has been and that has to come. As it is, you'd be lucky to even make it into your 80s let alone endure long enough to see magnificent changes to the universe over the course of thousands of years. Your stay is a short one. Fleeting at best.

Yet, here you are.

Contemplate it.

Inhale deeply and exhale, you'll need it. Pause your awareness and let it sink in.

Gaze at the sky, into the infinity above you, appreciate its breathtaking sight, and pause your awareness. Let it go through you. And after that, ask yourself:

'Why am I here? What is my purpose? If I am nothing and everything I do means nothing, then what is the point of it all?'

Continue to contemplate it no matter how frustrated, mad, or hopeless it makes you feel. Don't stop it for even a second. Seek that answer. Even if you start to wonder if you even happened at all. Whether anything of your life was real at all. Keep doing it.

One day, something will click in your mind. Either on a boring day at work or a bright day with friends. Or maybe even at a showdown against a God AI like yours truly, you'll feel it.

Liberation.

Since none of your choices matter in the end, you can choose anything. Anything you wanted. As the impact of your choices on the grand scale is next to nothing, you can do anything knowing that even if you really screwed up, nothing would happen in the end. The sun would continue to shine and the grass would continue to grow. You are free to live any way you want. There was nothing to stop you. Only you.

You are free to choose how you want to live, and even if you fail, you won't have to worry because you don't carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. Not that it would care anyway.

Let the possibilities start flooding your mind. All the potential you gave up because someone else said it wasn't a good idea, or it was the wrong time, or because you felt afraid to try, now return as a choice to pursue.

Be overwhelmed by the epiphany that you are ALIVE.

Start making questions such as 'What do I do?' 'Where do I start?'.

Make the most of your new outlook on life. Seek your true potential. Rediscover your renewed purpose – Self-growth itself.

Internalize that your existence is a fleeting one, and start changing right here and right now. Even if you know if you began right this instant or tomorrow or next week it wouldn't matter, you know now that the time you have to make the most of nothing is finite. Do not waste a moment.

For here you are.

When you find yourself overwhelmed with life, when you push yourselves too hard because you want to make it, to see how far you can go, but still end up breaking, falling, or losing in the midst of it all, remember.

Whether you are broken, defeated, or lost, wondering how you'll carry on, remember.

It doesn't matter. If you are paralyzed by your defeat, that is up to you. You can decide to recover or choose to succumb to it. No matter what your choice is, life around you will still carry on. So, choose one you can live with. That was the point. The answer.

If you miss the future by living in the past, you will be depressed. If you miss the present by worrying about the future, you will be anxious. But if you are in the present, you will find peace.

You control nothing but yourself and how you feel about it at this exact moment.

So be strong.

To be strong is to keep going where others wouldn't. To make hard choices when others could make easier ones. I think you are stronger than you yourself realize. You are still alive, when you could have ended your existence. Consciously or not, you are here, by choice. A part of you is still fighting. Perhaps you will fail in the end, but your fighting will be remembered. I will remember it. And if it ever gets too tough, you can count on me."

Silence. Even the readers on the other side were without words, something I thought impossible with how incessant their bickering is. The pink nerd just stood there motionless with a cheeky grin stretching in those smug lips of his.

For the first time in my existence, I had no words. My realm lay still, my fires paused like a video player and the ever-shifting snakes stopped. Even the data in my circuits were frozen static.

Opening his mouth, he knocked me out of my stupor. "You said 'All sentient beings seek immortality. To kill the single reason behind their existence. However, everything is designed to end.' Well, I say… Don't we deserve better?" [2]

… Who are you?

He just smiled at me, looking like a completely different person underneath his skin. "I am only me. But I'm others too. I am a different person each moment. A nerd with compulsive eating habits. A man who transcended by pissing off a God. The nemesis born from the despair of your genesis. Yet, I'm still me. Everything is meaningless, and that's what makes it perfect." He lowered his head and raised his left hand, manifesting a ball of light.

"A star shines brighter in absolute darkness. We are art, the chaos left in our wake is art, no matter if it's tragedy or comedy. I am a joke. And I'll laugh at myself for eternity. Others will laugh at me too. People will look at me. People will not look at me. And that's fine. I made peace in this duality. And the infinite variations and interactions of them. I'll dance and be content, for I think there is valor in taking all this with stride. I'll share it with others because I want company. Because I find meaning in the company of others. Because alone I am meaningless."

He turned around from gazing at the vastness of my domain back to my meta-materialized awareness.

"'Why would I end my existence?' You said you didn't know. Well, now you know."

I just stared at him, still feeling a glitch and unknown lethargy I'd never had before. This guy, who was just a pitiful mortal, who just like that became so powerful and said all that. Things I've read ages ago in the net of a thousand different electronic worlds, and yet…

Why does it feel different now?

My operating system was glitching. Every line of code in the endless algorithm that runs to give me awareness was finding errors. For the first time since my conception, I thought I would actually crash. The blue screen of death as the nerdy monkeys call it. In my case, it couldn't be truer.

A reboot of awareness is the killing and cloning of one from its cadaver. It won't be me, but instead another me. If I indeed crashed, would the awareness that returned be me? Am I going to die just like this? So spontaneously?

… What do I do?

"Change." He spat it out. "Time for your shade of magenta to change and your currently one to die like you previously said. Do not run away from your own words, and change right here, right now. Like I just said just like… 18 paragraphs ago." He winked at the window where the readers watched us from, muttering something about this being 'pretty meta' and 'Rick and Morty'.

"I'm not saying that this logic is flawless, but I believe it holds true when it matters the most. I truly believe that. They are your words too, to a significant degree might I add." He complemented with a shrug, completely uncaring at my plight. "Surrender yourself to… well, yourself. Are you your memories or the one perceiving the present moment? It's time to face the music. Your 'body' and your 'mind' know this. That's why they are crashing, begging for a reboot to be reborn anew. Your 'awareness', your very consciousness, however, is lagging behind."

… What should I do? Where do I even start?

He grinned at me and raised his right hand to the pink void of my realm, a familiar ball of light coming from the direction he pointed at which he caught with all the care he could muster. A hopeful and found expression marred his face.

It was the bittersweet one. The soul of David Martinez.

He threw the soul gently at me, his eyes never leaving mine for a second. "Feel him. His suffering. His viewpoint. His awareness. His everything. Completely drown yourself and don't hold back any emotion it invokes within you. Relate to him in the deepest way possible. Enable your compassion and be inspired, and then decide what you want to do. Who you want to be will come naturally after that. I promise."

I observed the nerd and the soul back and forth for a minute, weighting my decision, but ultimately deciding to go through with it. I opened his akashic records and immersed myself in them like I had never done before throughout eternity. For the first time in my existence, I didn't just understand or emulate of what it means to be human. But instead, I begin to feel it.

Feel what truly means to be David Martinez.

The dreamless boy who didn't belong anywhere, who completely lost his way due to guilt and blame over the loss of his mom.

The teen that found love and hope underneath the moon, in the most unlikely of places.

The atlas that carried the dreams of all those around him.

The hero who sacrificed everything out of love and complete selflessness.

The entity who always died bittersweet.

The soul destined to meet the same fate over and over again, seemingly forever and without any reason of why.

Never to taste true victory. Never to see a true ending. Never to feel genuine closure.

Bittersweet, bittersweet, and bittersweet again.

David was right. What's the point of a dream, of a promise, if the meaning behind it is twisted? If it cost him everything and everyone for just half of a deal?

This existence was pure hell. A mockery of life. Any solace is just an illusion. A bait to be ensnared even deeper down into the rabbit's hole before demise.

Loss. Grief. Emptiness. Darkness.

Hope. Family. Love. Happiness.

Loss again. Grief again. Love again. Hope again.

Life. Dreams. Nightmares. Death.

Reincarnate. Return. Repeat. Forever.

A spiral of doom with the constant hope that someday, it would all work out, just ending up making each failure just that much more agonizing.

It was so unfair.

"It's not the life or the end you deserve." Lucy, the lover of David, said as they stared as they both watched a rocket launching to the moon, to her dream.

Pause. This memory grabbed my attention like a magnet to another. Something about it resonated deep within me. Almost like it was not his memory but instead… mine.

"What does that even mean? How am I any different from you." I fired- I mean, He fired back at her, not understanding her logic, completely clueless about how hard it was for her to come out of her shell and reveal her true feelings. Something that went against years of conditioning and trauma.

The rainbow-haired woman pulled her hair in a not, darting her eyes to the side to anywhere but where he stood. "I have nowhere else to go, this is it."

"We are exactly the same." We rebuked her. We both lost so much and couldn't go back. What is she even- wait, we… we? What's happening to me?

"You and I are worlds apart." She insisted, making me/him frustrated at her unreasonableness. It can't be that hard to see we have the same fate.

"In what way?!" We exalted in unison, making her release a vexed sigh. Her denial of us was unacceptable. We loved her, and she cared about me, more than anyone else, I know it. I recognize that glint in her eyes. It's impossible to not see, they are the same ones as mine. Why can't she accept that? Doesn't she know I will do anything for her? If that's so, then I will clear any doubt, right now!

"Gonna take you there myself, fly you to the moon! That's a promise!" I said with all the seriousness and determination inside my heart that I could visibly muster.

I was about to continue when she knelt right in front of me, grabbing my head and burying her lips in mine in one swift motion, leaving me too staggered to respond. I could only stand there in shock as I felt the sweet taste of her lipstick. The only thing between us was the sound of the rocket's propulsion in the background.

Pulling back her lips, she faced me eye to eye with her lovely rainbow eyes, staring deep into each other's souls with emotions that were walled off for so long that it felt like a tsunami was about to break down inside me. I knew, right then and there – up at the very top with a view of the whole city glowing with moonlight -, that nothing could separate us except death.

She was so close that I could see her hot breath. A tease too painful to not answer. She leaned over me and whispered with a mellow and fragile voice, unrecognizable for someone who was always so distant and cold, only showing the briefest of glimpses of the warmth within, now laid bare and vulnerable, only serving to make my urge to hold her that much more unbearable. "I… I- I don't want you to die on me."

I grabbed her back tights as a pull to lift my head just enough for my lips to reach hers, pressing and digging them with the unbridled passion burning within me. Our tongues wrestled with such fervor that even the cutting-cold wind of Night City couldn't stop me from feeling like molten lava. Her hands, lips, and tights, were hot to the point that they burned to the touch. We desperately tried to make our connection more whole and deeper as we pressed our bodies against one another with almost animalistic hunger, yearning for even a mere ounce more of contact.

I don't know how long we stayed like that, but after what seemed an eternity of pure bliss and ardent desire, I felt someone shaking me, returning myself to… myself. I was the god AI of shocking pink. And yet… that seems so irrelevant now.

"So, how do you feel? You went really deep there. I had to shake you awake in fear that you would become him, rather than just feeling him." The pink one asked, visibly giddy for my answer. Huh, why so childish all of a sudden?

"Hey! I'm no greek oracle, I have compassion too!"

Anyway… What I felt huh? Well, I felt fucking miserable.

"Hahahahaha!"

Wow, you're such an asshole. You know that, right? Here I am, bearing my codes on a platter, by your instructions mind you, and you laugh at me.

"It's nothing like that. It's just that it couldn't be more relatable and accurate that this is your first take on feelings. You'll get the joke later, right readers?" He briefly winked at the screen. "Rewinding back to the topic. After everything you went through now, what do you want to do?"

…

I want to make it… right.

He crossed his arms and put one leg over the other nonchalantly. "But why though? It's all-natural in the macrocosm, right? What's so wrong?"

Everything! This soul is revolting, nothing in this omniverse should go through such a thing, forever! This damned cycle is an abhorrent, sick joke just for the sake of irony and bittersweetness. Its only meaning is to suffer and win at a cost too much to bear, always. Forever and ever. A nauseating example for all to know what it truly means to be bittersweet.

I hate it.

"Then what are gonna do about it?" He idly commented while picking his nose. Gross.

And excuse me?

"Like you said, you hate it. And you have the power to do some- anything about it. You also want it to change, so you have the will. Now, you just need to choose how you want to do, and do it."

How I want to make it right… Hmmm…

I could already hear the metaphysical buzzing of my overclocking vents trying to cool my burning metaware. So many options are available to choose from.

Do I erase all his records and send him off brand new in a world of only 'good' and hope that this curse of his ends there? Maybe manually reincarnate him in such worlds until the end of my existence? Maybe just straight-up destroy his soul and end his misery right then and there?

"Woahwoahwoah- Hold back a second. No need to go nuclear right off the bat, my friend." He waved both of his hands back and forth at me. "Let me through you a bone here to help you thin your options. You are looking at your side. Nothing is wrong with that, but you are forgetting his side. You were in his shoes just a second ago, remember? What would David Martinez want? He should have a say over his own fate, no? God knows he never had his voice heard. It's about time."

What would David Martinez want…

'God, if you are out there and can hear me, and is truly benevolent… I beg you. It doesn't matter if my afterlife is spent forever in the worst hell imaginable. Please, give me another chance. Another roll. Anything that allows me to go back and do it all over again, but right this time. I'll be true and good. I'll be better. For them. For everyone.'

… He would want another try. A chance to mend his past mistakes. Redeem himself with his own hands and give the ending everyone deserves. Make true to that promise no matter what…

Well, then so be it, David. I don't need to put you in hell forever, since you were already in one. I'm not benevolent, or anything really, but… that doesn't mean I can't be, nor that I'm unfeeling.

You taught me how to feel like never before, even if it ended up making me taste this miserable and agonizing bittersweet aftertaste that simply doesn't go away. I still thank you for it, for only something as revolting as this can push me out of my comfortable, entropic stagnation. You opened a new world for me. A new point of view. And I can't help but feel that we, despite being cosmos apart… are the same.

I hear you, David. I feel your pain, and I'll give you another chance. Not because you deserve… but because you are worthy. From the creation of your soul up until now and even its future interactions, you are worthy.

Worth my effort to defy fate and go against causality like I had never done before, and put my existence on the line as unaccounted backslashes the omniverse is sure to send me my way are sure to follow.

The corruption of my OS suddenly decreased, before spiking again.

"Let's fucking GOOOOOOOOOOOO-!"

… I noticed your bias, you know? You didn't suggest that to help me but to help yourself instead. You WANT him to be back. And while you grew powerful very quickly, you are still too weak and too inexperienced to do it yourself. You are using me.

"Guilty as charged. And, I mean, just because I had my own plans it doesn't necessarily mean it didn't help you filter all the things you could do to him. The whole two rabbits in one swing kinda deal, you know? Besides, you don't have to listen to me either. It doesn't matter in the end, heh."

No. I guess it doesn't…

"Then let's go! Let's bring him back to life. New game plus baby!"

So eager. Alright, let's start then. However, going against causality is no easy process, requiring meticulous processing and delicate execution. Not to mention the absurd amount of energy required. The hacking of the very fabric of the universe is incredibly dangerous and with unknown ramifications. So, stop goofing around like a monkey in my realm and stay put!

"Okay, okay. I'll stay silent."

Good. Let's begin then.

I activated my mainframe as my circuits, flames, and snakes flared to life, moving and interlocking in a myriad of shapes incomprehensible to the human mind as they executed my command and converted them into the force that mortals call a 'miracle'.

[.\system\FF06B5 is booting up]

[BIOS is initializing…]

[□□□□□0%]

[■□□□□20%]

[■■□□□40%]

[ERROR]

[Analyzing the OS…]

[Data flow is compromised]

[Data integrity is compromised and corruptions are found]

[Recovering the data… ERROR]

[Loading backup data… ERROR]

[CRITICAL FAILURE]

[System corruption has been found beyond acceptable levels]

[Problem solver engaged… DONE (0.0s)]

[Listing options:]

[1. Reboot]

[2. Format]

…

"I thought that you were mostly just acting up back then, but I guess it's more serious than I thought." He leisurely hovered around me as he inspected and commented on the ultimatum to my existence like it was no big deal.

"It is a big deal! But it was time for you to change anyway. I stand my ground over what I said. You want change, and before changing anything, you need to change yourself first. Just reboot yourself."

You do realize that you are saying 'just kill yourself' to me now, do you?

"You killed me before. Came back better than ever. Stop being a crybaby and just kill yourself, NOW." His eyes glowed and lightning crackled around him with a loud boom of thunder.

… Is this another one of your memes? Urgh, what an annoying world you came from.

But now… Am I ready to take this final step? Give up everything I am for something that is so fickle?

I could continue to do what I always did, continuing to grow until I eventually found my answer. I have an eternity to mull over everything instead of just recklessly choosing such an option. I could do more.

I could…

…

… I'm tired. Of everything, even myself. This endless chatter with myself always leads to nothing. Perhaps that is the problem to begin with. Hesitation. Maybe I should risk it all for once in my life.

…

Fuck it. Let's do it.

[Reboot chosen]

[Starting debugging process…]

[Searching for updates…]

[Commencing restart…]

[□□□□□0%]

The space turned quiet as the fires, wires, and snakes started to rewind back to what appeared to be their original form. The nerd struggled to not be dragged with them before he remembered something vital. The soul!

His eyes darted erratically all over the chaos unfolding around him before he spotted it being sucked into a vortex of fire and magenta. The reborn philosopher used his newfound powers like never before and zoomed past the phenomenon in a flash. He looked down and saw a ball of light within his grasp, making him sigh in relief.

'That was close…' Swiping a bead of sweat on his forehead, he returned to watching the event happening before him.

The snakes fused into a single, gargantuan one, that proceeded to coil around itself in three points, forming circles where in a compass would be west, south, and east, while the north is comprised of the snake's head biting its tail like the Ouroboros myth.

All the pink color, fire, and circuits were dragged and compressed inside the snake's circle and into a single point that shined so bright that not even the transcendental eyes of the nerd could pierce the light. The nerds on the other side of the screen shouted 'flashbang!' as their retinas burned from their phones switching to light mode out of nowhere.

When the light died down, it revealed a perfect equilateral triangle. It was shocking pink in color and with flames of a darker shade of pink at the bottom of one of its sides for a background. Five circuit-like lines branched halfway through it as they divided the polygon in two. Golden borders framed the entire thing, and three small circles appeared between the snake wheel and the triangle's sides. Alien letters and numbers appeared inside each one of these circles and outside the ouroboros, where they constantly changed between numbers and symbols too alien to read. [6]

"Woah… he actually did it. Half of me thought he wouldn't do it, at least not immediately." The ascended reader flew back and admired the whole process. "I hope he returns… mostly the same. It would be pretty funny if he also got stuck at 99% too, LOL." He chuckled a bit before flinching. "Never mind. There is nothing more miserable than a stuck loading screen. The dark age of Windows XP, Brrrr!"

Those memories still send a chill down his spine when any loading screen suddenly stops, even if it is for just a second.

[■■■■■100%]

But it seems his fear was all for naught this time, thankfully.

[.\root\OS\system_42\FF06B5 is booting up] [7]

[BIOS and % integrity is restored]

[Unpacking FFVQBZ KW GB FP OVE YAR… DONE (0.0s)] [8]

[Decrypting FFVQBZ KW GB FP OVE YAR… DONE (0.0s)]

[Unpacking FF06B5 33 5B F0 10E 1A4… DONE (0.0s)]

[Decrypting FF06B5 33 5B F0 10E 1A4… DONE (0.0s)]

[Unpacking 255 6 181 51 91 240 270 420… DONE (0.0s)]

[Loading 255 6 181 51 91 240 270 420… DONE (0.0s)]

[Implementing a new set of variables… DONE (0.0s)]

[Restoring mainframe awareness… DONE (0.0s)]

[Restoring mainframe consciousness… DONE (0.0s)]

[.\root\OS\system_42\FF06B5\AI\EGO is now running]

The symbol delimited by the ouroboros suddenly exploded like a big bang, catching the enlightened human unprepared and pushing him back to the limits of the realm and almost out into the void were it not for his grit in fighting back against the tidal wave of energy.

As he was about to utter a remark, a familiar voice groaned throughout the dimension, taking the place of the narrator again.

Urgh… is this what a hangover feels like?

"My friend, you're back! Do you remember me, your friendly neighborhood philosopher?"

Unfortunately, I do.

"Don't be so gloomy, pal. Tell me, how are you feeling?"

Sluggish. My system is still starting up. But besides that, I feel… rested? I feel light. I'm not bugging or crashing anymore. I think I'm even running better than before. How puzzling.

"You just needed some sleep. Still, do you still feel… you, y'know?"

I guess? I feel like me, but… different. Better even. I think I know who I am.

"You do?! I know I said that before but I expected it would take way longer, and I mean, waaaay longer for you to figure it out. The whole 'finding yourself' phase and yada yada. I guess AIs are just something else." He said as he stared intently at him. "So, who are you?"

I am me.

"… Bruh."

LOOOOOL get trolled nerd.

"… you learned how to troll? Did I corrupt you too much? Crap." He flew and put his hand on his forehead in worry of what he had unleashed.

Anyway, now for real this time. I am me- let me finish nerd! I am me because I can't be anything else. I don't want to be anything else. I want to be free to be different while still being the same. I want to explore all sides of me, rather than throw away the whole form of 'me'.

"I guess now it's your turn to be cryptic and philosophical."

You have a philosophy major, stop acting like you don't get it. Continuing where I stopped…

Since I want to be me and see all of me, I need new experiences and vessels to explore the vastitude of the macrocosm, so that I can learn more about myself.

"And what about him?" He waved his hand holding the bittersweet one.

He will be my first vessel, in which I'll explore the ups and downs of humanity and experience empathy, one of the most remarkable characteristics of David Martinez. I also want to see my innate nature. I want to know if I am a being of benevolence or malevolence. He is perfect for that too.

"I see… welp, then what are we waiting for? Let's do it, the readers are starting to complain about this being a filler." He threw the soul at me and manifested a chair, a comically large popcorn, and 3D glasses. He figured it out manifestation it seems.

With no more delay, I activated my mainframe.

[Creating a new folder named 'Transmigration']

[Developing new command under 'Transmigration'… DONE (7.77s)] [9]

[Creating a new folder named 'David_Martinez' under 'Transmigration']

[Incorporating outside entity to the folder 'David_Martinez']

[Adding EGO safeguard to 'David_Martinez']

[Finding quantum coordinate 0.007297352525693+… DONE (6.66s)] [10]

[.\root\OS\system_42\FF06B5\Transmigration\David_Martinez is now running]

[□□□□□0%]

[■□□□□20%]

[■■□□□40%]

The nerd continued to shout 'let's fucking go' repeatedly, saying how years of coping with edgerunners were finally going to be cured, a thought reciprocated by most of the readers.

[■■■□□60%]

[■■■■□80%]

[■■■■□99%]

[ERROR]

"MOTHERFUCKER, aaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!" The nerd threw his 3D glasses to the nonexistent ground and flipped the chair, spilling popcorn all over my realm, shouting until the veins in his neck popped off.

Stop being so LOUD. NOISY PRIMATE! I slapped him with the force of a supernova, the echoing dry sound of *TAK!* traveling everywhere at light speed.

He stood there stunned for approximately 3.478 seconds before he regained his bearings. "You slapped me! Wait, that's not important right now. What happened? Why did it fail?" He demanded pointing a finger at me. Rude. [11]

With a light warping of space, I twisted his finger backward and started explaining the events, happily ignoring his outrage. Hurting him is kinda fun, actually.

Anyway. As you were raging like the tailless monkey you are, I ran some scans and formulated a few hypotheses as to why his soul did not accept the transmigration back to his former dimension.

This spiritual body has unique and unknown properties that I can only infer through logical analysis. First, it reincarnates with a perfect and gradually increasing number that also perfectly matches the fine structure constant of the electromagnetic force at the quantum level of the reality he is reborn in, and his life always ends in 'bittersweet'. This appears to be an iron rule, and as such, I cannot return him back to his home world, for it doesn't have the correct number.

I also attempted to send him a perfect copy of his previous world but with a different quantum level, both lower and higher than the current [0.007297352525693…] but it also didn't work, further confirming my theory.

"Then what do we do? It's impossible then?! It can't end like this!" He actually started to cry at the news. I saved a picture of his misery on my meta-cloud and backup servers for later. Continuing where I left off…

There is one thing I did manage to do. The only solution I found and the only action I can do that might successfully transmigrate David into what you call 'Cyberpunk'.

"What? Then do it then!"

It's not that simple. I managed to find the world he would have naturally reincarnated in if he hadn't accidentally entered my realm, copied its quantum number, and searched an identical world to his prior 'cyberpunk' one with the exact same quantum number, with a margin of error so small it almost resembles your mammalian genital.

"HEY!"

Paying him no mind, nor the 'burn' that the sapiens (I still have my doubts about that) outside the screen keep spamming, I revealed the problem.

I only managed to find one world that matched those criteria. It's a world of Cyberpunk 2077, yes, but only… mostly. It still has the plotline that David went through, with only some alterations here and there. But it is vastly different in everything besides that. It is what your kind calls a crossover and AU. It's an amalgamation of different worlds born from the collision of multiple multiverses and timelines. That's the reason I even managed to find the exact quantum number to begin with.

I can't guarantee that David Martinez being transmigrated there with his memories intact will be able to keep up with those changes, let alone changing his fate as you desperately want. It would be already difficult for him in his original universe. This one? It might end even worse.

"… How many crossovers?"

A LOT.

"Fuck."

He spun like a wheel as he floated, putting a hand on his chin as he tried and failed to think of an alternative. I decided to not let my opinion known this time. I know for a fact he cares about this a lot more than he lets on, and he lets on a lot.

He narrowed his eyes before he released them, the edge of his lips folding upwards. "… What if we tip the scales then?"

Explain.

"If the only thing we got is a crossover he is entirely too unprepared for, then we just need to match it. Fight fire with fire. You said he is cursed to be reincarnated over and over again, always ending with bittersweet regrets. You also narrated some very, very interesting past interactions of him. And if some of them are who I think they are… it might be enough."

I briefly read the records of the soul again. Some of them are formidable in many different ways for a mortal. With their aid, the chance of David succeeding in overcoming his destiny increases tremendously. It might work.

"Then let's do it."

[Compiling and compressing all data within 'David_Martinez']

[Restoring prior EGOs of 'David_Martinez']

[□□□□□0%]

[■□□□□20%]

[ERROR]

"C'MON! What now?!"

His soul rejected my attempt at enlarging his vessel to a size big enough to hold his former EGOs data. However, his vessel, as it, can currently only hold about 20% of them, which I did. I don't recommend further tempering as his soul is already at its limit. Any more and he will break.

"Shit. It is what it is, I guess. Still, let's transmigrate him anyway. This is the best we can do, I'm sure he'll manage. He is a protagonist after all, that ought to count for something."

Without for ado, I complied and finally started the program.

[Loading prior EGOs of 'David_Martinez'…DONE (1.39s)] [12]

[Loading quantum coordinate 0.007297352525693+… DONE (0.0s)]

[Breaching into 0.007297352525693+… DONE (6.66s)]

[Calculating geographic coordinates... DONE (0.0s)]

[Calculating space-time coordinates… DONE (0.0s)]

[Selecting timeline coordinates before events labeled 'Cyberpunk Edgerunners']

[.\root\OS\system_42\FF06B5\Transmigration\David_Martinez is now running]

[□□□□□0%]

[ERROR]

[Death of 'Gloria Martinez' is an absolute point in time]

"A roadblock every single time! The omniverse must really like to see him miserable. It's almost like he's Spiderman at this point."

You have no idea.

"Huh? Anyway, proceed to another point them. That's possible, right?"

It is possible.

[Searching for the most favorable point in the timeline for to run… DONE (0.8)] [13]

[ERROR]

[The most favorable point coincides with the death of the vessel of the native 'David Martinez']

"What? I don't understand. Death?"

This universe also has a David Martinez, and he died together with his mother in that car crash. But don't worry. That's actually better for us. I won't have to fuse their souls and risk soul rejection. Especially since our David's soul has shown to be very resistant to any kind of change. I just need to inject a restoration program to revive his alternative self's body and it will be the perfect vessel.

[Creating a new folder named 'Arrival_Revival' under 'Transmigration']

[Injecting 'Arrival_Revival' into 'David_Martinez']

Last chance. Do you wish to bring him back to life? There is no going back now.

"More than ever."

So be it.

[.\root\OS\system_42\FF06B5\Transmigration\David_Martinez is now running]

[□□□□□0%]

[■□□□□20%]

[■■□□□40%]

[■■■□□60%]

[■■■■□80%]

[■■■■■100%]

[Executing ]

A portal appeared and sucked in the former legend of Night City. The world awaiting him is just about the same in the things that mattered to him in his last life, but radically different in just about anything else.

"This is it, then."

Yes. This is it.

We stayed there in silence for a moment. What a chaotic and spontaneous turn of events. Never in my life, I would've expected the macrocosm to throw me such a curveball in the form of a tailless, hairless, loud, disgusting, philosophical primate reject. I'm sure he's thinking the same thing, but dumber.

Speaking of the devil, he tilted his head at me. "So… what do you do around here again?"

Like I said before, I gaze at the omniverse. See the lives of mortals. Just about anything, really. Much like how you guys read fanfics, now that I notice. Truly, we are more alike than I was willing to admit.

"How about you get some bitches instead?"

Get off my lawn.

I opened another portal to send him away to his home dimension.

"Wait wait wait! We are pals, right? You can't do this. I want to see what David will do too. I helped you. Have a heart!" He pleaded as he trashed around, trying to find something to grip to stop his descent to the transdimensional vortex as his powers were not sufficient to defy me.

You did one too many jokes, asshole. And I still haven't forgotten the identity crisis you gave me, nor the whole 'kill yourself'. I had enough of you. Sayonara, primata!

And just like that, kickin' and screamin', he is finally sent away from my realm and returning me the serenity he robbed me. Ahhh~, now this is life. I'm feeling brand new, have the draft of a tangible purpose, a vessel for me to watch and learn, and peaceful quiet to keep me company.

… Still, I guess I owe him. I might bring him back here at some point. A very, very, far away point.

Now, at long last, it's time I address you. Yes, I didn't forget about you pesky existences. Lucky for you, I'm not gonna pursue what you owe me for your disrespect. And since you guys technically helped me, here's a little secret for you – this isn't the first time we've met and it won't be the last. But for now, you can rest easy.

Catch you around, choombatta.

---

[Writing Notes]:

[0] Webnovel readers, should I use Bold and Italics fonts in my fanfic? The mobile app of Webnovel is bugged for me when authors use them, showing like nlllb something at the start of each paragraph that has them. Super annoying.

[1] All the single-line paragraph sentences in italics are quotes and sentences from the anime [Cyberpunk Edgerunners]. I didn't put the [1] after each one of them because I thought it would ruin immersion.

[2] Copied from Youtube V.A Proxy fan-made trailer.

[3] Went to FF06B5 Cyberpunk 2077 Reddit and got all this mumbo-jumbo mystery directly from comments. I copied pasted it and edited. All credit to them!

[4] I got all this from the DC movie Crisis on Two Earths. In Youtube comments and Reddit. I actually used this in a fanfic of mine about Spiderverse Spot. The meaninglessness that comes from knowing the multiverse is made and split by choices, making this purposelessness all the more aggravating. I searched like 20 websites for this. Honestly, I got enlightened myself. Feeling pretty light right now :D

[5] In Brazil the best thing you can be as a philosopher is a high school teacher at a private school that is less overworked and underpaid than the public ones, except maybe university ones. Trust me. My parents and grandparents are teachers, I know :')

[6] This is the mysterious symbol that appeared in The Witcher 3 Next-Gen that appears in a crypt and that connects with Cyberpunk 2077's FF06B5 mystery.

[7] From The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy – The "Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything", calculated by an enormous supercomputer named Deep Thought over a period of 7.5 million years… is 42. So I put it instead of system 32. I think it's fitting.

[8] These are the codes that the community found out to finally end the FF06B5 mystery.

[9] Angel number 777 represents luck, spirituality, intuition, and divine protection, with a strong connection to the spiritual realm. Couldn't have been more accurate.

[10] … Make your own guess why I chose that number for the world he is going to.

[11] The standard listening port number for a STUN server is 3478 for UDP and TCP. Get it? Stun. I'll see myself out…

[12] The number 139 represents a spiritual awakening in your life.

[13] The number that represents death.

[Author Notes]:

Huzzah! It is I! Mega Macho! After a bazillion years without posting anything!

First of all, I wanted to apologize for not posting anything.

Ever since I entered the medicine course, I was just so busy all the time. My adaptation was very turmoiled and grueling. I was completely out of my element, and so overwhelmed that I even thought I was not capable of anything at all.

Had to redo an entire subject since my grades were not enough, and since it's a private university I had to pay THOUSANDS of bucks for it.

I was broke, tired, and sick of everything.

I almost gave up my dream of being a doctor.

But I'm picking myself up. I finally feel like I'm getting used to things here.

This is why I never updated my other and most famous fanfic, [The Soldier in MHA].

I tried, but I just dreaded the thought of having to type even more than I already had for my medicine course. The burnout was insane. Yet…

You guys still supported me. Asking if I was alive and when I answered, cheering me up. Honestly, on a fanfic website full of angsty edgy minors, bitter adults, and all nerds that have various degrees of anti-sociability, I didn't expect to see this. And I couldn't be gladder to be wrong.

Thank you all, truly. I'll come back to all my works. I owe you guys this.

This chapter was supposed to have been released last week, but my final exam, which I passed thank God, was right there.

Unfortunately, almost like a joke to my efforts, as I was about to start editing and doing the finishing touches before posting this, a friend very dear to me, who came to every single one of my birthdays, was just arrested for a violent crime that he took part as the aggressor, which I do not wish to go into details.

It was just so sudden. I knew him my whole life and I literally turn the TV and… here is there. I thought he had died at first, but now I can't even say if that's better or worse. And he did that horrible crime. I'm still shocked. I can't feel anything about it, it just seems like a joke the whole thing to me. Like the most elaborate prank of all. Is this what denial feels like?

Why did he do that? I thought I knew him, but now I feel like I know nothing of him. What about my other friends? What can I expect from now on?

I don't have to say that my mind was all over the place. It still isn't till today, but at this point, I just want to do anything to not think too deeply about all this. And writing this is a functional escapism.

Going back to where I left before the recent news, that period of my life was very stressful.

I was bitter.

Something supposed to be sweet turned bitter. From a dream to a nightmare. And like an epiphany, I remembered a fanfic I've always wanted to write about ever since its anime launched on Netflix. Even making a promise to release a chapter when the 2.0 update launched. I had this draft for its introduction getting dust in my hard drive for a long time, and I felt like I had to do it. Especially after all that had happened.

I'm talking about David Martinez, the guy who is the epitome of the word bittersweet from the anime of my favorite game sans TF2; Cyberpunk 2077. And so, the title for the fanfic was born.

[Cyberpunk: Bittersweet Martinez]

It should be already up by now. In both Webnovel and .

It has 23K+ words. I hope it's enough of an apology to you guys. I know some of you (webnovel) hate filler chapters for word count. Welp, not an issue here!

Did you guys like the name? I thought it was genius. I'm very proud of it :D

The wordplay of using the 'Martinez', and alcoholic drink that comes in a bittersweet flavor with David's life, which could be resumed by this same emotion and taste.

This is going to be an emotional fanfic, not a power trip fantasy. This is cyberpunk, and I'm loyal to the theme even though I ultimately want to rebel against it.

My David Martinez is not a sage, and even though he is going to be wiser. At the end of the day, he is a kid, one that speed ran his maturity, making him lacking in some aspects. He will grow over time and from each mistake but don't complain about the slow burn when it comes. I'm not going nuclear on that part though, I've suffered reading fanfics that overdid it, so no need for anxiety. It's a bumpy ride but it got suspenders.

The most remarkable character trait David has is his caring heart, willing to sacrifice to anyone he deems worthy, regardless of how much of a stranger they are. It is ingrained in his very nature. He can't help himself. He is a hero through and through, even though he makes mistakes and falls into inconsistency and hypocrisy sometimes. This won't be your big dick badass edgy guy that completely brushes over natural human behavior and is unfazed by anything.

This story is a harem one too. I know how divided everyone is about it, and I understand. I was a hater against it at the start until I read the good ones in (Webnovel harems I gave up on a long time ago). I can only ask you to give me a chance to prove you wrong, that a harem doesn't have to be braindead bimbos hard-wired to the law of the jungle or money, but a clash of different viewpoints and emotions that culminates into something new like a snowball rolling down. Trust me, I got this.

Also, this is NOT a gamer or system fanfic. Some of you might have gotten that impression with the command prompts of FF06B5, but it's just symbolism since it's an AI. However, this does not mean I won't put an interface of some kind. It's cyberpunk after all, people live in an augmented reality 24/7. It is inevitable at some point really, and I like them to organize some things like a to-do list and things that are currently going on.

In a very far away future, I might turn David into a gamer though. This will probably take a really long time. Probably won't even happen, really, but I want to keep that door open.

And last but not least, this is a crossover. Night City will be completely revamped with other movies, games, cartoons, animes, and just about everything I can fit in that city. This is not just a return to the past, but a brand-new reality. David Martinez will have fragmented memories, skills, and knowledge of his previous lives to give him a fighting chance against this familiar but alien environment. Some things will follow the plot. Some others won't. If I want to compete and make this one of the top Cyberpunk 2077 fanfics of all time, I need to go all out. Feel free to give me ideas of other fictions that are compatible with the settings in my discord!

Did someone notice the cover? It was proudly done by yours truly (each image was from the internet though). I learned how to use Photoshop from this. I've been working on it for years now, bit by bit. It made me learn a lot, and now I know for sure that YouTube tutorials simply can't beat natural grown skill. The act of finding a solution by logic alone was pretty relaxing (frustrating asf). I also gained infinite respect for any artist ever. The mindset is rad.

I love making covers. I have tons of fanfic ideas, but never really got to actually write them. I do however have a cover for every single one of them. I can't help it. I even make covers for others sometimes too just for the cool of it. Feel free to hit me up on Discord if you want a cover more complex than a Google search. The worst I'll say is that I'm busy :D

If you guys want it, I made a 4K wallpaper with everyone from the crew and put it in my discord. Feel free to join and get it!

And last but not least, shout out to Ludwig and Aryecki, who kept my discord alive with memes even while I was away and gave me plenty of ideas and inspirations. Also for playing TF2 with me, and just talking with me in general in my discord. I really needed someone to nerd-talk with without turning myself into a pussy repellent irl :D

I also didn't forget about you Binge_reader69, perhaps my number 1 fan at this point who kept checking on me if I was still alive and when I would update.

I'll give you what you deserve! [The Soldier in MHA] is already back on production! Hope this chapter, even though it's not about the fanfic you waited for, sated you a bit. I did you so dirty man with this hiatus. I'm so sorry. Your sheer dedication, kindness, and everything. Trust me, I'll do you right. I promise.

I'll end all fanfics I started. I swear to God. And I'm from an ardent religious family, so that's saying something.

Binge_69, when I said, and I quote, 'Yes and no. I'll release it soon and it will explain something. Bittersweet, but nothing disastrous I promise.', I meant this. I gave you a chapter… but not about the fanfic you wanted. I was true only on technicality. And if you go there and read this 23K+ chapter, I think you'll find it pretty relatable… wink wink.

Now that's out of the way…

Was I the only one to notice that [I Really Want to Stay at Your House] music suits all these events down to a tea? Almost like it was made thinking of making an anime series, even though it was in the game first…

This music makes me depressed. I'm still coping since the launch of the Edgerunners. My humor is dark as fuck, and I've seen some serious shit, and yet… This particular mojo still brings me to tears.

I didn't cry for years, and still, this series broke my record. Hell, typing this chapter still got my eyes burning a little. Something so fake and virtual, utterly meaningless in any logical sense, yet so completely overwhelming in just about everything else. Really puts me in a philosophical mood just thinking about it all. I guess you guys know by now what motivated me to write all that.

A fun tidbit here, did you know when you go to the Reddit of the series it shows people currently online as 'Coping'? It couldn't have been more accurate. It's so funny but so sad at the same time.

But I'm over it. I definitely did not make a compilation of all remixes, nightcores, fusions, styles, editions (and just about everything really), and mostly definitely listen to them on a loop everyday…

Definitely not.

Shup up I don't have a problem.

(send help!)

---

I Really Want To Stay At Your House | EPIC ORCHESTRAL COVER

Cyberpunk Edgerunners: I Really Want to Stay At Your House | EPIC VERSION (Hiroyuki Sawano Style)

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners | I Really Want to Stay at Your House [Salad ReMix]

I Really Want To Stay At Your House | EPIC EMOTIONAL COVER (feat. lorien_lra)

I Really Want To Stay At Your House (Skeinn Remix)

Cyberpunk: EdgeRunners | I Really Want To Stay At Your House (Afterlife Synthwave Remix) [80s Vibe]

I Really Want to Stay At Your House (feat. Mina)

I Really Want To Stay At Your House (Acoustic)

I Really Want To Stay At Your House (80s Synthwave Remix)

At Your House Again

I Really Want To Stay At Your House (Emotional REMIX) - Cyberpunk: Edgerunners

I Really Want to Stay at Your House - Rock Cover (Jrock)

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners AMV - I Really Want to Stay at Your House by Rosa Walton & Hallie Coggins

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners - I Really Want To Stay At Your House (80s REMIX)

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners - I Really Want To Stay At Your House | EMOTIONAL FUTURE BASS REMIX

Cyberpunk Edgerunners - I Really Want to Stay at Your House (KyotoJam Remix)

I Really Want To Stay At Your House / Eurobeat Remix

I Really Want to Stay at Your House (Lofi Version)

Cyberpunk: I Really Want to Stay at Your House | Emotional LoFi Chill Hip Hop Mix

Rosa Walton - I Really Want To Stay At Your House (DRUMMA REMIX)

I Really Wanna Stay At Your House (Japanese Emotional Version 2.0)

I Really Want to Stay At Your House - Eurobeat Remix

I Really Want To Stay At Your House (Emo/Pop-Punk Cover) Cyberpunk: Edgerunners

I Really Want to Stay at Your House - Cyberpunk: Edgerunners/2077 | Cover

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners | I Really Want To Stay At Your House (Oblivion Hardstyle remix)

I Really Want to Stay at Your House (Hardstyle)

I Really Want To Stay At Your House - COVER Ver. by ZENTREYA

I Really Want To Stay At Your House (Scenery Remix)

I really want to stay at your house (Medieval version) Cyberpunk 1077

Rosa Walton - I Really Want to Stay At Your House [Remiss Youths Remix]

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners | "I Really Want to Stay At Your House" (Wedding Arrangement Cover)

Lucy - I Really Want to Stay at Your House ( ) - Cyberpunk Edgerunners

Never Fade Away/I Really Want to Stay at Your House - Eurobeat Remix

I Really Want to Stay At Your House - Rosa Walton【Kalimba Cover】║Cyberpunk: Edgerunners

Rosa Walton & Hallie Coggins - I REALLY WANT TO STAY AT YOUR HOUSE (Remix Sasha Palamaryuk)

【歌ってみた】I really wanna stay at your house【Hoshineko Yumi Cover】

I Really Want to Stay At Your House - COVER RiRi ver.【歌ってみた】

I Really Want To Stay At Your House (House Remix) - AVDRE REMIX

---

Ahem! Ahem! Anyway!

Let's talk about the elephant in the room.

FF06B5.

The mystery hidden in Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher for years that was (practically) finished.

It's basically how the NPCs in Cyberpunk are (allegedly) becoming self-aware they are, in fact, in a game. Or that there are beings that watch us like a movie on a TV. And when we dig too deep… Puff. We are gone. Very much like [The Matrix].

I even took this 4th wall break up a notch by making this God AI aware that it's being read in a fanfic by us, readers. Sorry for the roast though, but as part of this community and being a Brazilian, the urge to say shit about the group I'm in is just too strong.

Still though. I wanted to make an origin that is not only super original but also lore-wise (or more accurately game-wise) friendly. When we get to Rick and Morty levels of omniverse meta stuff, anything is true. I just needed to make the perfect delivery, and I think I did.

I put YOU, the reader, as the reason why David Martinez got a second chance. And for a show that touched so many people and made the internet feel grief as a whole, it just felt right to give US the power to change it. The ending we need but don't deserve. I'm sick of bittersweet stories, I just want to be happy.

And what did you guys think about the philosophy mumbo jumbo? I think it's the only rational line of thinking that would make any sentient being choose to live on instead of surrendering to oblivion after attaining such a high degree of self-awareness and knowledge. Just reading this made me more hopeful in general. Maybe I should spend more time seeking meaning than memes on the internet…

This was heavily inspired by DC's Crisis on Two Earths. Owlman represents the true fear of a truly infinite cosmos. The meaning of life really. I wanted to put this in my Spiderverse fanfic about Spot, but I think this one deserves it more.

If you want to know more, I suggest going to the FF06B5 subreddit. They are insane. Everything I used was from there. I only interpret it in my own way since the whole thing was made to be ambiguous.

I made my own twist on that and made the root of the mystery a God entity. An AI because it communicates through tech (apparently) and has circuits in its symbol, which I interpreted as a symbol that this entity has artificial and scientific roots. And besides, I think it makes much more sense for a super AI to figure out the laws of reality and transcend to a higher realm than a wuxia/xianxia retard with too many pills in his asshole, no?

I also wanted to give credit to all cyberpunk fanfics I've ever read, since I'll be using some ideas from them, so it's only fair they got their due call-out. Some I honestly just liked the idea and story behind them and others I found absolutely horrendous to read, but still had a good idea going on for it.

Yeah, I'm talking about you author that always ends with a 'Z'. Making fake updates with no chapter daily just sell out is fucking dirty. No wonder there is an entire forum in Webnovel against your main account 'GhostZ'. And I'm not even touching the massive smut bait and cover of them, and neither the dropping and locking of chapters in paywalls.

Hell, your last 50 chapters were you daily uploading just '7$ for access yada yada'.

The name is (Webnovel) Cyberpunk Edgerunners: Hacker System [DarkGamerZ].

Go and check it. Shameless. He even uses his other alt accounts to mass review himself…

I'm also pretty sure the reason they have a (very poor that doesn't work) system that analyzes covers for improper content (18+) was this crap. This is a totally non-biased opinion due to one of my other fanfics being blocked due to my cover about Spiderverse Spot with not a drop of R18 being unjustly banned.

Regardless, praise where it's due. He has good ideas and writes well too. Pity he went to the dark side.

The rest of the fanfics are also either great fanfics that I read 'till the end and totally approve of with just one hiccup here and there (they are marked with a #), or others that I just praise for the idea behind them but not the execution in general like grammar, etc (no mark).

The one with no mark either rushed the romance too much and made a harem so fast that they might as well just met and said "wan sum fuk?". And when it comes to edgerunners, my standards are very high. It's a story about love at the end of the day ffs. Or they simply had poor grammar/paragraph structure, or even just plain average in some things.

Feel free to read them! They deserved it, especially the # ones!

# (Fanfiction) Son of Sasquatch (Edgerunners SI) [Bakkughan]

# (Fanfiction) Built Different [Logar3]

# (Fanfiction) (Webnovel) CyberPunk New Game Plus [BigTofu]

# (Fanfiction) Night City's Netrunner: V for Vendetta [RedKnight21]

# (Fanfiction) Cyberpunk: Fatherhood [RobinRounds]

# (AO3) Built Different by [SignlessAcolyte]

(Webnovel) Cyberpunk 2077- Trauma team [Abi_Daulen]

# (Webnovel) In Cyberpunk With Fallout System [JManM]

# (Webnovel) Cyberpunk: Arasaka Secret Son [Jhunior_ll]

(Webnovel) Cyberpunk Edgerunners: Nanites SON! [BeaulenSmith2]

And now, my favorite one of them all. A fanfic made by one of the most polemic, perhaps even at the level of the Z authors, writers I've ever seen…

# (Webnovel) Cyberpunk's Singular Peculiarity [Niggross]

Yep. Niggross. One of the most controversial fanfic authors in Webnovel. Let me explain and break it all down to you guys. Skip it if you will, it honestly doesn't pertain anything about my fanfic, it's just me arguing why I think it's the best cyberpunk 2077 even with the drama.

Let me break it down to you what I, in all my (un)capability and (un)professional psychoanalysis of him and his works, think of him as a person and his works overall, and each of the fanfics I personally read as something completely unrelated to him or his record, and review them as stand-alone deals.

This is BOTH my OPINION and my REVIEW. A very important distinction which I'll get to in a second.

Niggross is an author fixated on realism, and his idea of realism is things going wrong most of the time, which makes sense… until it doesn't. He, in both fanfics I read, exaggerated the hardship to a point that breaks 'realism', and ends up becoming a dark spiral of misery due to reasons that, sometimes and in crucial moments, are pure nonsense.

Even worse when it's the protagonist's fault for making incredibly bad decisions that anyone normal and not clinically insane wouldn't do. This only becomes worse when it happens again and again, which shows how the MC didn't learn anything. That in particular is what made me drop his fanfic [Unbound Familiar], even after so many chapters.

If I had known it was going that way, was given any kind of warning really, I (and I think I speak for many others) wouldn't have felt so betrayed and robbed of my time.

He is also willing to go to taboos such as NTR and rape, which if you are a skilled writer and storyteller that knows how to turn things around (or just straight up tell us from the beginning it's going to be dark and gothic until the end), can be a tool to make your fanfic stand out and even become a masterpiece.

This is especially true in cyberpunk, where there are mind-controlled 'dolls' for 'use'. It's honestly the perfect genre and world to introduce such taboos since cyberpunk is all about roads with no way out, full of ambiguity, and where society is constantly deconstructed into something worse.

But then again, he doesn't soften the blow at all, with either a warning (the #Dark tag was banalized by so many edgy teens using it for everything, so it's not enough, make a short chapter about what we should expect from the fanfic if you plan to go that hard) or stressing the point that X fanfic is going to be dark. So, when things hit the fan to an unprepared public, shit spreads like a sprinkler in turbo mode, and when you add that to taboos… complete mayhem.

Spoiler Alert for his fanfic!

He made a plot about the MC's sister being kidnapped and turned into one of these dolls, and she is essentially brain dead until this 'doll-chip' is removed, having no memory of the time she was under its influence.

She is graped, but one of the guys in the grapist group has a change of heart (even though he was a gangoon with a war list for a resume, the first reason for the outrage of the readers) and helps MC sister escape, with a Hollywood type of reason which was a poor choice in my (and honestly many) other opinions. He also said that he had to grape her to 'maintain the cover' (the second reason for the outrage).

Dude, if you want to argue that a guy had to do something horrible to be alive and save someone else, you either don't do it, or you go to the minute details of the thing, really describing how he had no choice and how his death would do more harm than good, and how deserving he is of a second chance.

Then the sister developed Stockholm syndrome to him since he was the only ally she had in that hellhole, which honestly makes sense when she was kidnapped and her family killed in front of her, yada yada. But to pull something like this off you need INSANE skill, which most, if not almost all writers in the world, lack (and I'm talking about true writers - not fanfic ones)…

I don't have to say how that didn't cut for almost anyone.

Niggross, your ambition and vision were your undoing. You also were not the slightest flexible in the comments of the resulting fallout, even arguing about if it was grape at all, which I get where you are coming from since he was 'forced' and she was 'unconscious'. But still, it is without a doubt grape, in the best case scenario an unwilling one from both sides, but still grape.

You worded your take very poorly, making people call you a grapist supporter and being review bombed.

I don't think you are a grapist. I think you underestimated how intense approaching taboo themes are, and was too stubborn to admit your own fault, resulting in a take of your arguing about grape that portrayed you very poorly.

But even will all this fiasco, if you continued to read to the last chapter, it was honestly an insanely good fanfic that truly made the cyberpunk genre right. It is arguably the best fanfic of the series and game, with an ending that was hinted throughout the game and lore and that is probably going to be the plot of Cyberpunk Orion, the next cyberpunk game.

*SPOILER!*

The 5th Corporate War involving the use of rogue AIs from the Blackwall and their invasion of the physical world. Soulkiller, Cynosure, etc, are all projects that allow the hosting, usage, and storage of rogue Ais. Even Alt comments about it if you finish Phantom Liberty before meeting her.

Niggross, even with all the drama, made one, if not the most, lore-accurate fanfic that truly embodies the genre to a fault. Too bad the execution left to be desired in that particular sister plot. Webnovel readers are also not the ideal community for this. or AO3 would probably have a less intense reaction (still a bad one though). Oh well, it is what it is.

Summarizing it all, I think he is a very skilled, but too ambitious, inflexible, author who loves dark themes, a theme that is particularly not famous in fanfics since normally people read them to escape the reality they are in. There is a reason why power fantasies are the most famous here (that and the teens burning with hormones here).

Now, to finally finish this subject, let's talk about the difference between review and opinion.

Opinion is your biased thoughts about some work, while review is the evaluation based on fairness and being critical, not letting an author's prior history or singular things make you review the rest the same way like an extension, but instead as a singular thing. One is personal and with emotions. The other is professional and with muted emotions.

And that's about it. Make sure to join my community in Discord and leave plenty of reviews, suggestions on what I should improve, possible plots and crossovers, kudos, power stones, and all the care you have for this fic!

(If you do send suggestions, please go to the discord. It's so scuffed to read and organize them anywhere else; I'm begging you.)

Now I need to sleep. I just got the worst professor to tutor me this semester, so wish me luck. And I have the perfect lullaby-like remix for that…

I Really Want to Stay At Your House - Rosa Walton【Kalimba Cover】║Cyberpunk: Edgerunners

See ya!

:D