Story 1: The Life & Tragedies of DJ
Chapter 4
DJ is doing some training under the wings of the crew he has joined. He does laps with Kaede around the town in order to work on his cardio even though he does have a mod that help him with that.
In a gym, Lupis is having DJ work on building muscle and attack strength by punching a punching bag. DJ keeps on punching the bag with all his might with no mods on his arms.
"Come on!" Lupis orders, "You shouldn't lean that much when you make a punch!" He is acting like a drill sergeant. "You need to be more quick on the punch and attack the vital points!"
Surprisingly, DJ does a roundhouse kick that knock the punching bag off the chain and landed onto the ground. DJ takes a deep breath.
"Hey!" Lupis scolds, "I said we're working on punches, not kicks!"
Lupis picks up the bag with his transformed left arm.
"Your legs form a powerful foundation for all martial arts yet you need to make your arms just as strong as your legs!"
He throws the bag up in the air and use his right arm to transform and punch the bag across the gym with a big hole in it. When it hit the wall, the sand inside scatters.
Lupis grins and shows off his hairy, wolfen muscles, "You need to make your arms as strong as your legs in order to gain the upper-hand! But you can enhance them with biological mods if you have the cash."
"HEY!" says one of the coaches, "YOU'RE GONNA HAVE TO PAY FOR THAT!"
On another day, DJ and Cydina are on a hanging transport made by Unitsky String that is going from Freemont to San Jose in a crowded car. Cydina is working her netrunner skills on a Google employee with implants and having a suitcase. The man place the suitcase down as DJ uses his sandevistan to quickly get the case open and removed a sheet of glass in it and replace it with another he had hiding under his coat. The mission was a success as everyone exited at the station. Both of them then made their way to meet another Punker in an alleyway where they traded the glass sheet for a bag full of money.
"Thanks." the man says, "The data on this should give us an insight on what secrets are they keeping. And that one fake will allow us access to whatever data they are hiding when they read the glass."
"Just hope you guys find something about that asshole becoming senator." DJ says in a serious tone.
The man whistle as he is impressed, "Going after some big fish, eh?" He chuckles a little, "Don't worry, we'll e-mail Sanguina about what we could find."
Cydina finished counting the money, "All here and are authentic." She glares at the man, "Unlike last time when you gave us counterfeit bills."
The man just smiles and shrugs, "Hey, I was a newbie. Anyway, gotta leave."
At night, DJ is doing is best to keep up with Kaede during the jog. However, he notices that Kaede is moving a lot faster than he is. He struggles to keep up.
In the morning after eating breakfast, he starts doing push-up and sit-ups to get stronger and has been doing it since he joined. While doing so, he keep the memory of his father's death in his mind going as he angrily push himself while thinking about getting revenge.
DJ and Sanguina are at the back patio again as he gives a progress report.
"You doin' good, mon?" Sanguina asks.
"Exhausting." DJ replies, "But I'm not complaining."
"Good." Sanguina says in a surprise tone. "If you were gonna complain, I was gonna say, 'If you have the time to complain, you have the time to get better'. Guess I don't need to say that."
"Yeah. Complaining is a waste of time and a waste of training. I learned that from my gym teacher in middle school."
Sanguina laughs, "You're gym teacher must've been a hard-ass!"
Back at the gym, DJ is working on his kicks on the punching bag this time with Lupis.
"102. 103." he is keeping count, "104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110!"
"Good! Now use the other leg!"
"1. 2. 3. 4."
On the next job, Holo got captured by a gang of cyborgs wearing black leather jackets that look like cyberpunk greasers with sunglasses. Each of them have mechanical skulls on the back of their jackets with a stylized logo saying, 'Terminators'. Holo is tied up and his mouth duck-taped as he hangs over a flaming barrel. Instead of getting scared, he is just pissed off. Sanguina, Lupis, Cydina and Kaede have guns pointed at them while the Terminator gang have a mix of Cyberpunk 2077 weapons and Fallout 3 weapons.
"You are just in time, Sanguina." says one member of the Terminators with his face looking like THE Terminator. "We're just about to have brat BBQ. Now give us the glass data you stole, or he gets it."
Sanguina smirk, "Bad move."
In a flash, the Terminators' weapons suddenly disappeared from their grasp and Holo is gone.
"The fuck?" the supposed leader look at his empty hand.
"Where did my gun go?"
The gang is confused.
"Hey! Where did my Shirley go?!"
"Who. Stole. My. GUN?!"
"But where's the brat?" one of them noticed that Holo is gone.
With Holo out of the way, Sanguina's gang opened fire and eliminated the Terminator gang. Blood and mechanical pieces splatter all over the abandoned warehouse. Sanguina looks at DJ who unties Holo. She gives him a thumbs-up as DJ gives a thumbs-up back along with a big grin.
Over at a firing range, Holo fires a few rounds at a target with a Tsunami Nue. A pistol from Cyberpunk 2077 that fires heavy .45 caliber bullets and can ricochet bullets off of surfaces. Holo manage to get perfect bullseyes on the head and chest area of the target.
"A weapon can be your best friend in any situation." Holo explains as she hands him the gun, "All you have to do is aim at your target and squeeze the trigger. But be careful of the recoil. Hold it down nice and tight."
DJ aims the gun down range at his target.
"You may fire when ready."
However, DJ's hands are shaking as he remembers how his father died. He lowers the gun. Unable to fire it.
Holo sighs and says, "I know it ain't easy. But it is killed or be killed when you are in a life or death situation. And taking a life isn't easy. Speaking from experience here."
"How do you do it?" DJ asks. "You're younger than I am, but..."
"Like I said. It is not easy. Doing it in a simulation is one thing, I mean, you know the targets are fake along with the guns. But doing a real weapon on a target is something else. Especially when you are gonna use it on a real person."
Another night and another run. DJ is catching up to Kaede as he starts to sprint. Kaede smirk a little before she started to sprint.
"Still got room for improvement!" she says as she leaves him behind.
DJ stops and is hunched over and catching his breath.
In the next job, DJ managed to pickpocket a smartphone from one of the corpo employees and uploaded a program into the phone before putting it back while using his sandevistan. The target appears to be a high ranking official of the Musk Foundation. He takes a few steps forward on the sidewalk before looking up. He saw a man wearing a cape in white flying by.
"Ah shit."
He then calls Sanguina.
"Hey, Sanguina?" he says with a slight tone of fear, "We may have a problem."
{I saw the news. Google Man is here. Or one of the members of the Google Heroes.}
"Guess that glass plate wasn't as good as our client thought. If one of the Google Heroes are here, that means something major is gonna happen."
{You said it. Looks like we're gonna have to be on our toes from now on and do a few minor jobs until things calm down. Just hope our client doesn't sell us out.}
"Right. Luckily I managed to save some for a new upgrade."
Back at the Doc's place, DJ is getting his hands on a new mod for the upcoming battles that he will face. DJ shows one particular modification on the screen as Doc drinks from his tea cup.
"I want this kind of mod." DJ points out.
"The powers from Prototype?" Doc put his cup down and take a closer look. "Let me see here. Hardened biomass exoskeleton. Talon-like claws. Increase leg musculature for greater sprinting. A super powerful blade. Damn, mixing biopunk and cyberpunk."
"Can you do it?" DJ asks.
Doc looks at DJ, "Since you don't have any cybernetics in your arms and legs, it's a 100% possible to do so. But..."
"It's gonna be painful, isn't it?" DJ is feeling a bit uncomfortable and starting to have second thoughts.
"Yeah, you guess it."
"Fuck it. Let's do it."
"But do you have the cash?"
DJ presents a large black suitcase full of money that he has been saving since he joined. Doc pulls out one stack and test to see if there is enough. He checks the bills, scan it with his mask to see if they're counterfeit, and test the weight with his hands.
"Okay, let's do it!"
DJ is strapped into a table. The same table he was strapped into when he was getting cybernetics. Instead of surgery, he was given an injection with a tube full of a black and red biomass that pulsate in the glass. The Doc injected it into DJ until it is fully in. At first, DJ doesn't feel anything in the first five minutes.
"Hey, uh, how come you aren't using anesthetics this time?" DJ is starting to worry.
"Because the injection wouldn't be effective and would be a whole lot slower in order for it to take hold."
Before the conversation continues, DJ starts to feel his flesh being ripped apart from the inside out. His veins start to glow fiery red as if his blood is burning. DJ is holding his screams back the best he could while under a great deal of pain. His body burns and twist on the inside for a long time before he started to scream with black and red tendrils started to wrap around his arms and legs.
"Oh right." Doc realizes something. "I forgot to put the gag on."
"YOU WHAT?!" DJ screams out while in pain.
On the next nightly jog, Kaede is jogging as DJ pass right by her thanks to his new mod. Kaede tries to keep up as she starts to fall behind.
"Damn that new mod." she says while jogging and trying to catch her breath.
DJ appears right behind her and pass before saying, "Still got room for improvement!" and dashes off.
Kaede smiles and chuckles a little before stopping to catch her breath.
DJ is taken back at the gym and beats the hell out of the sandbag with his hammerfist.
"Way to go, DJ!" Lupis claps as hands, "Keep it up!"
One of the coaches next to Lupis shout out, "That's cheating!"
In a junkyard, DJ is able to lift two whole cars that have been jammed with the thickest rebar he could find before doing some more push ups. He stops as he notice that his arms were starting to bulge up a little. He keeps up his workout day by day and started to bear some fruit despite his new mod. DJ smiles and weight lift the cars effortlessly and at a very fast pace. Lupis watches over the young Punker and is completely stunned by DJ's new strength. Lupis transform his left arm and flex it until he realizes that he needs to get back into shape and get stronger himself.
One night, near the docks of San Francisco, the gang went out on a night stroll and chat as they enjoy the full moon above, the scent of the ocean, and the sounds of both city and sea with the buzz and noise made by humans alongside the sound of the tide. Yet on this walk, they noticed a strange man dressed like he is from the 1990's who is murmuring to himself while gazing a thousand yards into the ocean where blacken sky meets blacken waters with the stars being on both. The strange white man with shaven head that is talking to himself and barely audible is wearing a white Google cap with the colored 'G' on it and have it backwards. He wears a green and yellow striped t-shirt with blue stripes close to the ends of the sleeves that have the Nike check on the back. Around his neck is a thick, golden chain while a similar one is on his right wrist. He is wearing baggy jeans that are too big for his slim frame with a chain-like belt being hold by a padlock and wearing a pair of 1990's black and white Air Jordan Vs that are completely untied with some of the laces touching the waves.
"The hell?" DJ says as he notice this bizarre man.
"Who the hell is that guy?" Holo says, "A poser? I fucking hate posers."
In this world, there were those that betrayed their fellow Punkers and joined the corpos for wealth and fame along with what limited technology they can get which includes cybernetics along with a simple serum that was meant to make superheroes, such as Google Man. However, the mods are just limited to that superhero serum that can only grant one superpower (SH-1) while the Punkers made better versions of it and of course the cybernetics. The "False Punkers" are forced to wear corporate-brand clothing and forced to do the dirty work of the corpos for money and to be the next face of the brand.
Holo says to the man, "Hey, buddy! 1999 called and they want their shit back!"
The man on the dock completely ignore Holo's weak insult as continues to mumble and stare out into the ocean. Cydina tries to scan the stranger yet is unable to get anything. All she get is a bunch of 'ERROR' screens when scanning.
"The fuck?" she says, "Does this guy have a scan jammer?"
Kaede says to the others, "Something is not right." as she can sense something wrong with the mysterious stranger.
Cydina leans a little as her brother get closer. She lean towards the direction of the water to see the man's face. When she did, her eyes widen as she can see a familiar symptom. The man's eyes were twitching uncontrollably and completely unfocused as they keep looking in every direction rapidly.
"Holo!" Cydina screamed, "Get away from him!"
"Huh?" Holo looks back at his sister.
The man than jumped up and has mantis blades out and about to strike Holo. But Cydina tossed Holo out of the way before her skull was sliced diagonally by the stranger. Unknowingly, DJ triggered his sandevistan as he witnessed Cydina's murder and started to have flashbacks about his father's death. Time stands still as he just see the frozen scene of Cydina's death as he look at the scene with dread. After what felt like an eternity in frozen time, time resumes as Sanguina snaps him out of it.
"Snap out of it!" he says.
Lupis turns into his werewolf form as he growls, "We got a modpsycho here!"
After seeing his sister died, Holo furiously take his pistol and starts shooting and screaming.
"Take this you motherfucking modpsycho!"
The modpsycho manage to reflect all the bullets being fired upon him before Lupis tries to claw attack him. Yet the stranger parry the attack and it became a claw on blade fight between the two. The stranger may not have a sandevistan, but moves very quick that even Lupis is having a hard time keeping up. Sanguina produce bone spikes from her arms and tries to attack the modpsycho with a flurry of attacks before unleashing an ice blast from her hand that froze the spot where the modpsycho was at before he disappeared.
Kaede shouts, "ABOVE!"
Holo reloads his gun and tries to fire again at the modpsycho as he let loose a war cry. Sanguina uses theft of vitae on the man to steal his blood to heal herself and weaken whatever little red blood is left in the man. Lupis let loose a powerful howl at the modpsycho that crack the mantis blades and does some short circuit to the modpsycho's cyberware. Kaede uses her ability to force the man to sleep by firing a transparent arrow from the palm of her right hand before the finishing blow. However, the modpsycho sliced his body in half around the waist and throws his legs at the three below. The modpsycho then uses the lamp above to swing at Kaede to kill her. But in the last second, DJ fires an entire load of bullets from his Tsunami Nue with all the rounds aimed at the stranger's head and saved Kaede. Kaede is a bit shaken up and has some blood on her before she realized what just happened.
"Hey!" DJ drop his gun and runs on to her, "You okay!?"
"Y-Yeah." Kaede is still shaken, "Too close for comfort."
Holo fires his gun at the corpse of the modpsycho as he continues to shout, "Bastich!" He fires again, "Fucker!" And again, "Psycho!" And again, "Shitface!" He fires again, but ran out of ammo. "That's for killing my sister, asshole!" He spits to his left on a piece of flesh splattered on the ground.
Holo then walks on over to his sister's lifeless body and starts crying.
"Damn." Sanguina says as she look at the sad sight, "Never thought I see the day I witness a corpo rat turned into a modpsycho."
Lupis resumes his human form, "Fuck me. You hear about them, but I thought that they dispose of them before it happens."
"What are you talking about?" DJ asks.
Kaede explains, "Corpos and jarheads usually dispose any potential member that might go modpsycho."
Sanguina looks at the corpse of that said modpsycho, "This guy here must've noticed and ran away." She look at DJ, "You take Kaede home. Lupis and I will deal with Holo and the cops."
"Better get a move on." Lupis has his wolf-ears out, "That so-called, 'superhero', is on his way."
"Right."
DJ and Kaede ran-off and head back to Clairmont a minute before Google Man shows up. Google Man does a superhero landing close by. Google Man stands six feet tall with massive bulging muscles while wearing a tight white suit with a colored Google 'G' on his chest, wearing a white cape with a larger matching 'G' on it, and wearing a mask that look like Deadpool's but completely white.
"Never fear!" he says in a superhero tone, "I am- Oh my god!" he quickly drops the superhero act as he sees the scene before him. He look at Lupis and Sanguina and asks, "Modpsycho?"
The two just nod.
"Fuck it. I'm not getting paid for this mess." and Google Man flies off.
"Asshole." Sanguina says when Google Man is far enough for her to say it.
"Corpo superheroes are fuckers."
Kaede and DJ made it to Clairmont as Kaede takes a shower to get rid of the blood splattered on her. DJ is sitting in her room and was told to wait on her futon. DJ look around as he realizes this is the first time he has ever been in Kaede's room. The place is very Japanese with tatami mat floors, a futon, a small desk with a sit pillow, and a very high-end computer with maple leaves on it with two monitors. The computers seem normal but are actually more advance than first glance. However, he notices two posters on the bamboo green wall with both of them being, VShojo. The first poster shows the original members of VShojo while the second poster showed the new characters with three of the original members not present. DJ asks himself on why he is there and what does Kaede want to do. Does she want to talk about something? Perhaps it is the right time to ask about Kaede's past. But he is not sure if he should press any questions about it.
Kaede comes in while wearing a red bathrobe and drying a side of her head with a towel, "Sorry to have you wait in my room."
"Um, not at all." DJ is feeling very self-aware as he sees Kaede in the bathrobe. He look at the room again, "But this is the first time I've been in your room. Very weeb in here. But those two posters are a little out of place."
She look at the VShojo posters, "VShojo? I used to be a fan of those vtubers back then."
Kaede then sits next to DJ and he is feeling a bit more uncomfortable.
"Anyway, thanks for saving me back there."
"No problem." DJ tries to play it cool, "I can't believe there was a corpo modpsycho."
"Usually they were disposed of before going modpsycho."
"Sanguina did mentioned that. But that guy didn't seem like he had much in terms of mods and corpos only have control over cybernetics and the first generation superhero formula."
"Well, working for a corpo does have a lot of stress. In most cases, stress play a key factor when turning modpsycho and the sellouts have to keep up with the demands of their corpo masters. My guess is that that guy screwed up badly and had him disowned. But that's just a guess. You can get thrills from the videos and braindances but coming toe-to-toe with one is nothing to get excited about."
Kaede gets up and walks up towards her closet. She opens it and pulls out two braindance wreaths as she hands one to DJ.
"Use it." she smiles and put hers on, "I got something to show you."
DJ put it on and prepares for whatever Kaede has something to show. Once fully loaded, DJ is taken to a place where cherry-blossoms and red maple trees are abundance over the hills and mountain sides of a strange digital world with hobbit-like homes yet given a more Japanese flare to it with various anime yokai walking the streets of a strange town. The sky is blue yet the clouds are fluffy pink and from where he stands, he can see the Earth above.
"Schway." DJ says as he gawks.
"You like it?" Kaede spooks DJ from behind while smiling, "I programmed this place myself."
"Like it? I love it! This is totally schway!"
Kaede grabs DJ's hand and pulls him, "Come on! There's a lot to do here!"
While in this braindance, Kaede and DJ have fun doing all sorts of stuff she had created. They jump onto a pink trampoline cat as they are bounced high in the air while laughing and having a good time. They both later mount onto red unicorns as they travel into the forest of spring and autumn where they see phoenixes fly low in the trees and various Japanese birds with some being origami. DJ loses control of his mount and is taken for a wild ride to where the horse stopped at a river and he gets thrown off. Kaede checks on him but DJ is alright as he grin and laughs. In the village, DJ and Kaede eat some mochi with DJ nearly chocking on one as Kaede slaps him on the back to cough it up. They head on over to an amphitheater where they see kitsune yokai doing some tricks with their fox fire and shapeshifting powers followed by a noh theater act of the play, Hanagatami (Flower Basket). The two later take a break on a grassy hill where they both look at the sky and see Earth while laying down.
DJ asks, "So, why are you showing me this? I should've asked earlier, but this is so much fun."
Kaede gets up and lean towards DJ's face, "Because, this is my gratitude for you saving me. And this here is a little bonus." Kaede kisses DJ on the forehead before saying, "Thank you."
DJ feels a little flustered before saying, "Sure. I'm glad I did. I mean, I, um."
Kaede hugs him as she whispers in his right ear, "You don't have to say anything. Let's just enjoy the moment."
DJ has a nervous smile with his mind going, "Scoooooorrreeee!"
AN: Hey everyone! I hope you enjoy this new chapter of the first story of Punk'd Up. Also, Happy Holidays! I hope you enjoy this present. Now for some updates. First: My Food Wars first story is almost done and I will work on the second volume of The Rising of the Post Apocalyptic Shield Hero. Second: I am thinking about putting my Apocalypse of Humanity's Creation story on hold in favor of a World of Darkness story idea I have. The World of Darkness story will have stuff from 2e and not 5e since the newest editions suck (in my opinion). I...don't like the changes they made to it and many of you might agree. Third: I am gonna post the new chapter of Team Fortress 2 Arguments & Talks after this for those that are waiting for the next political argument, when its done. And I think that's it.
Later guys! And have a pleasant Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and New Years! Quick thing: can you guys leave a review to let me know that there are people reading this? Because the view count graph has been at zero for months now. For all my stories. I have no idea what is going on with this site, but that needs to be fix soon because I am starting to worry now. Leave a review so I know that people are still reading.
