Lucy was grateful for everything that Adam Smasher did for her, did for David, did for Rebecca. That did nothing to alleviate her fear of him. Their first impression would ensure that, even if he never harmed them, she would have nightmares for years to come.

A behemoth of metal, standing taller than even David while he was entombed in the Cyberskeleton, moving just as fast, and far far stronger. A relentless force that approached them with dread inevitability, every titanic leap away by David only temporary relief from his ever present assault. Then, that same relentless titan falling from the sky like a falling star, shattering the very ground beneath them and sending them all to the underworld.

Tearing apart her friends so systematically, avoiding David's attacks like he knew they would come far in advance, even when she desperately tried to disable something, anything in the body she thought for certainly was almost all cybernetic…

A demonic visage, grinning in dread symmetry to the violence it inflicted. A man of golden-white fire smiling within. A casual clawed gauntlet physically grasping her assault of pure signal and crushing it.

…The back of her head exploded in pain, and she collapsed. Later she would learn that his firewalls detected the assault and made a scripted counter-assault to short-circuit her implants. At the time, all she knew was that the monster in front of her almost rendered her unconscious with a glance. Through a haze of pain, she tried to pay attention, they were going to die and it was her fault. She at least owed it to everyone to make sure she remembered it before her end.

Then, the demon stopped killing the only person she couldn't live without, leaving him a mere torso in a pile of wreckage. Then the demon started talking. Then the demon offered them a chance they couldn't refuse.

It has been like a dream since then. They were rushed to a private medical facility, their wounds were treated, and their street-level chrome was replaced with corporate standard. Falco was fine, Rebecca was fine.

Adam Smasher even did the impossible, and dragged David back from the deep throes of cyberpsychosis. He wasn't cured, he probably would never be, but she wouldn't let him get that bad again, she couldn't lose him again. She couldn't. The demon even swore to free them in a year, if they wished for it.

Then he brought them back to Arasaka tower, and she thought for sure that the dream would end. They were going to be experiments, and she couldn't do anything about it so long as the demon was there. The demon brought them back to his empty lair, and told them to make it theirs.

The demon started teaching David, then got others to teach her, then got arms and armor and chrome for Rebecca. The demon kept his promise, Arasaka didn't touch them, David wasn't losing himself, all their needs were met.

Lucy had been struggling to survive for years now, they all were, and suddenly they weren't anymore. She… She was very thankful for all of this, she couldn't possibly repay him at this point.

That didn't change how frightened she was of him. She was just getting better at ignoring it. She had seen the recordings of David's training, she had seen how he was able to move and kill, she knew that at any point the demon could kill them all. She would be powerless to stop him, just like she was last time.

Still, the dream had yet to end. Rebecca was overjoyed to find someone who understood her references and to have an animal in the home. She herself was learning to cook, and discovered that David liked her new apron and was very eager to show her that…

David was probably the happiest he had been in months, Adam was, for all of his fearsome exterior, someone who David looked up too quite a bit at this point. He had known Adam for almost as long as he had known Maine at this point, and his experience with Adam was probably more positive overall.

Maine only spent time with David on jobs and for a few hours at a time during after-job celebrations, and David all but idolized the man. Adam spent many hours a day, not focused on a job, but focused directly on David and teaching him. David grew up without a father, was it really any wonder that he grew so attached so fast?

To her surprise, the Butcher of Arasaka was performing that role impressively well, probably completely without awareness of it too. He was dutiful, made sure all their needs were met, made sure they didn't do anything that could harm them in the long term. He was gruff and mostly humorless, he was threatening and callous, he growled everytime the cat rubbed against his leg. But he was there, and he was supporting David's growth in ways no one had ever done before.

David reiterated his promise to take her to the moon recently, and she buried her face in his chest. Silly boy, you're going to break your heart like that. She didn't care about the moon more than she cared about you. You were her moon.

"It's the only way I can keep you safe from this damn city."

It came to her one day, after she had thought that, after she recalled the line he gave to David as he stood over his torso so long ago (but only a month, not long at all really).

"That's the difference between you and me, kid. You have things to lose. I never had anything to lose in the first place."

That really was the only difference, wasn't it? David was born into the world with a loving mother, found friends, found a crew, found a foolish cowardly girl to love, and even found a father in the form of a fiery man entombed in an iron demon.

Adam Smasher was born on the streets with nothing and no one, and was bound by a body of chrome before he could find anyone. Leashed to the iron grip of Arasaka, forced to kill over and over again for decades until he was emptied out of everything except the burning rage. An empty home, containing weapons and old bodies and a single bench to sit upon.

David was the Moon. Gentle, sweet, calming. He accepted her weakness, her cowardice, her wretched perversions. He embraced her in the night, and loved her beyond all measure. His light was not hardened by the world.

Adam was the Sun. Burning, harsh, furious. He refused to accept dishonesty, hiding, and lies. He forced her to be better, because he knew she could be. His was the light that burned away that which could threaten her. She hated Arasaka a little bit more.

Both were light, in the end. No wonder they could handle so much more chrome than anyone else. No wonder Adam was so well suited as a role model to her output. She wanted to cry, like the coward she was. The thought of her David ever becoming like Adam was heart-wrenching, so she wouldn't let it happen. So long as he would have her, David would have at least one thing to lose, at least one thing to come back to.

So she had to survive, one battle at a time. She had to help them survive, even as weak as she was, one battle at a time.

"Beta, flying armor, three o'clock."

"Gotcha!"

A thunderous boom in the distance as a Valgus containing another squad of men fell from the sky.

"Alpha, six units ahead, nine o'clock!

"Got it!"

Six dots highlighted on her smart scanner screen suddenly winked out of existence.

"Sigma, heavy armor, six o'clock!"

"Affirmative."

The seismograph suddenly registered a heavy vibration and then nothing. A few moments later she felt the vibration rumble through the earth herself.

She was in a defensible location, a large number of sensors and screens that connected to a small drone fleet set up around the battlefield in out of the way locations.

She didn't know why this particular job had provoked such a huge response. They were just supposed to be guarding an economic negotiation, weren't they? Why was there an entire military division here attacking them?!

She clamped down on the desire to run away again. She was a coward at heart. But she feared living in a world without David more than she feared dying. So she stayed.

She stayed and called out enemies as they came in waves at their location. The corpos of both Petrochem and Arasaka were behind cover to her side, each one holding a gun they probably only ever used at a practice range, if that. She didn't care if any of them survived, if David got into trouble, she'd direct Adam to go get him before running out herself. She wasn't going to lose him again.

This had started about an hour after they had all arrived, and had been going on for nearly an hour more by this point. Arasaka and Petrochem military forces were on their way in priority transports to extract them. All they had to do was endure this onslaught.

She saw a footprint appear in the soft ground in front of her, in her peripheral vision. She was already pointing her submachine gun and firing until the soldier fell out of stealth and onto the ground, cloak failing now that he was a corpse. The new corpse joined the other two. She didn't stop calling out targets all this time.

She had to keep them alive, all of them.

"Beta, flying armor, four o'clock!"

"Gotcha!"

Another Valgus fell out of the sky.

"Sigma, heavy armor, seven o'clock!"

"Affirmative."

Another rumble on the seismograph.

"Alpha, infantry squad, eight o'clock!"

"Got it!"

Another few dots blinked out of existence.

And so on it went. She had to keep them alive. Until they could go home together. So she kept calling out targets, and strangled the urge to run away until it stopped speaking up.

Eventually, it was over. Corporate forces arrived en masse and surrounded the bunker they were in, forming a perimeter and relieving them. Now they were to wait until anything that could potentially shoot down a helicopter taking off was cleared out of the area, and head home. It had taken an hour and twelve minutes for their relief forces to arrive.

She felt exhausted, tired in a way she never had before. It wasn't really a physical exhaustion, but a mental one caused by having to focus so much for so long. A tremendous headache curled up and resting right behind her eyebrows.

So when David got back, banged up but otherwise unharmed, the first thing she did was force him to sit down and then cuddled into his side. Normally she'd be far too embarrassed to do this openly, but she was entirely too tired to care at this point. She just buried her face into his side and stayed there until they were going to leave. David just chuckled and started running his fingers through her hair, she loves this boy more than anything else in the world.

She heard Rebecca stomp around the corner in her new ACPA, before probably stopping to look at them. "Bleh, I didn't need to see that."

Heh, too bad Rebecca. She didn't know why, but this one chose her, and she was never letting go of him. She buried her face deeper into his jacket interior and made a noise that sounded like "mhn nhm."

Did he always smell this good? Was he always this warm? She wasn't sure, but she wanted to stay here forever.

A step of footsteps came up, even heavier than Rebecca's was. Lucy tilted her head just enough and opened a single eye.

The demon was glaring down at them, black frame covered in ash and blood, hair matted with much of the same. He was frowning, then again that was always true. He looked at the both of them, before looking over to the corpos behind their cover.

"Area secured, we're leaving." He growled out.

…On second thought, cuddling with David back home (when had she started thinking of it as home?) sounded much more appealing.

—

The trip back was much less stressful than the trip there, she found. The bulk of the danger was over, and they were going back to the safety of Arasaka tower (what a disgusting sentence, she should have never thought it). She was leaning against David, and inspecting his mother's jacket.

There is a house in Night City

There was a tear in it, probably from a stray bullet or similar. That was unacceptable, so she resolved to ask Adam to buy her a data-packet on how to repair fabric. She would learn how to keep one of his four treasures in top condition.

They call the rising sun

In the room that she and David shared, there was a shelf to the side. On the shelf were three items. A vase of his mothers ashes, the cybernetic arm of Maine, and a relatively new mono-katana. She didn't particularly understand the idea of keeping things that remind one of painful memories, but David put value into them, as well as value into his jacket, so she would too.

And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy

They were in the transport back, and listening to one of Adam's songs again. Adam certainly didn't seem like the kind of guy to make music, but then again the music he made was… old. It sounded like music that was popular seventy years ago or more. Which made sense she supposed, that was probably the last time Adam actively listened to music from her impression of him. Before he was bound in his steel body.

And god I know I'm one

David spoke up after a while on the transport. "What was with that entire job?"

My mother was a tailor

Adam grunted in response, so David elaborated. "Why was a financial negotiation held in a bunker in the relative middle of nowhere?"

She sewed my new blue jeans

Rebecca spoke up at that, chiming in with a "Yeah, that was kinda weird, wasn't it big guy?" Lucy envied her ability to be so casual with the demon they shared a home with.

My father was a gambling man

"It was." Adam confirmed their suspicions. "There was either a delivery we weren't informed of, or the job was to draw attention from elsewhere."

Way down in Night City

That was just like the fucking corpos, to try and use their hired labor as a diversion. To try and use her David as a diversion. She hated them a little bit more. The Finances rep pointedly didn't look at any of them.

Now the only thing a gambler needs

The PR rep, Douglas Brown, spoke up at that. "There is a third reason, actually."

Is a suitcase and a gun

Adam paused at that, and turned to the PR rep with a look that demanded immediate explanation lest he begins turning them into street-food and selling them at competitive market prices.

And the only time he'll be satisfied

It was a very complex look.

Is when he's on the run

Douglas Brown quickly spoke at that, explaining. "It was ordered from above the PR department, someone with an executive level signature. The location was chosen to lure a nearby Militech division with a notice that a few representatives from Arasaka and Petrochem would be meeting near to them with only four bodyguards."

Oh mother, tell your children

"Apparently it was supposed to be something of a test as well as a final hurrah to gather marketing material. I was told to explain it after it was over. I'm just the messenger here."

Not to do as I have done

The demon growled audibly at that, leaning back in the seat. The seat groaned in pain as it bore the weight that it was really not designed for.

Spend your lives in sin and misery

Lucy was hoping that the executive who ordered this was mid-level or lower, Adam has proven both willing and unafraid of threatening them numerous times before in the past. From their reactions, she was almost certain that he could back up the threat of violence as well.

In the House of the Rising Sun

She wasn't sure why he was allowed to kill nearly everyone who pissed him off in the company. She was certain that Arasaka wouldn't allow one of their mercenaries to be so cavalier with inflicting harm upon their employees like this. Perhaps it was because he didn't threaten high level employees? She hasn't seen him get angry at the few of those she's seen him interact with thus far.

Well I got one foot on the platform

Perhaps it was a natural filter method they employed. Those stupid enough to make the Butcher mad enough for murder were clearly unfit for continued work at Arasaka, and if he killed them then they didn't have to file as many forms out for their dismissal.

The other foot on the train

The idea of Arasaka using Adam's murderous rage as a screening process was an amusing one, she made a mental note to tell David later.

I'm going back to Night City

Speaking of which…

To make another bloodstain

She buried her face into his shoulder. She had missed enough time around him murdering the Arasaka agents sent after him from before, she didn't intend to ever miss another moment if she could.

Well there is a house in Night City

She felt Rebecca's pout. It wasn't as severe as it used to be. Living together for a month even after life changing circumstances had caused the shorter girl to slowly give up hope at being with her David. Lucy felt bad for her in some ways, but she didn't intend to let go.

They call the Rising Sun

She didn't want to lose him again.

And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy

So she held a little tighter.

And god I know I'm one

—

She couldn't believe the sum of money they got when they got back and Adam transferred the money over. One million, one-hundred and twenty-five thousand eddies.

That was more than she had ever had in her life, and it was the result of a single job and a mere portion of the payout. No wonder Adam had never seemed concerned with money, he used to do jobs like these alone.

Literal decades of earning money like this, and not needing to spend it on much of anything. Adam Smasher might be the single richest mercenary in the world.

Although, she wasn't quite sure. The best mercenaries in the world are often the ones you never hear about. Adam was the exception in that regard, everyone who was informed in the mercenary world knew that Adam Smasher was a real individual, and that fighting him head on was bad business sense. It was best to treat him like a hurricane, from what she had heard, do your best to get out of the way, and leave whatever suckers in the warpath behind.

She was still frightened of Adam Smasher, but she was getting better at hiding it.

Of course, David had fought him head on and ended up getting them all a life they couldn't dream of before, so maybe conventional wisdom was only true until a Legend showed up. She knew David was a legend already among the NC underworld, and with Adam teaching him directly, he would be a legend the world round before he finally died.

Lucy was going to make sure he died many many years from now, possibly never if she could manage it. Each and every day medical science lengthened the lives of the wealthy beyond human norms, and if these paychecks were any indication they were going to become wealthy before their youth expired.

An eternity with David… That sounds very good, she wanted it. Now, how much did a rejuvenation treatment cost again?

"Holy shit big guy, no wonder you were so chilled with the mill you handed us for furniture. Your account must be fucking cosmic." Rebecca called out, seeing the number. She was propped up on the table, hands on the face of it as she all but stood out of her seat to try and look at Adam on eye level.

She wasn't quite successful.

Adam reached over and pushed her by the head back down into her seat. It was big enough to fully cover the top half of her skull and a bit of the sides. "Don't get on the table."

He kept his hand there to make sure that she didn't get up again. When he saw that she wasn't making a move to get up, he removed his hand and put it back at his side. Lucy saw that Rebecca's face was a bit red from the interaction…

I'm cheering for you Rebecca! You can do it! Go for it!

David then spoke up. "With this many eddies, I could probably buy basically anything I want, huh?" He was still a little bit shell shocked. This was probably the most money he's ever had at one point, even as the leader of the crew a month prior.

Adam replied. "And buy what?"

"Well I could buy… uh… huh. I guess I don't really have anything to spend this on." That was true, Adam was still paying for basically everything, and David couldn't buy new chrome due to his agreement with Adam. All the eddies in the world, and nothing to really spend it on.

"The first million makes you rich, the second million is irrelevant."

At this point, Adam stopped suddenly. He started reading a message that only he could see, and his frown got slightly worse. Rebecca and David noticed the sudden change in mood, and got a little nervous. They were polite enough to wait for him to finish reading though.

Adam growled slowly, his brows furrowing just a tad as he leaned back in his seat. He looked considering in the most gruff manner possible. Suddenly he stood and gestured for them to follow.

"We're getting you three Japanese lang-chips and fitted kimonos."

That was incredibly random, what was this about? Rebecca voiced the question on all three of their minds. Adam spoke perhaps the most terrifying words she had ever heard.

"Saburo Arasaka has invited me to tea, he told me to bring you all with me."