I sat in the backseat of the car as it zoomed through the city.

I was the furthest thing from happy right now.

I was angry, I was upset, I was bamboozled!

Almost losing to a fucker that didn't even know what the fuck he was doing. A fucker that was technically fighting at a handicap-

It sickened me.

"Cheer up back there." Jackie smiled, looking back from his place in the front seat. "The job is finished, and I can already smell the eddies!"

"Yeah…I know." I sighed. Silence descended within the car once more. The only noises we could hear were the bumps of the car moving along the road and Norio's bike ahead of us.

Speaking of Norio, the guy was a beast.
Beyond being a Haki-man, he was fast. He handled the first fodder group relatively easily, got the information from one of them, and then destroyed the reinforcements alone.

And then, we made our way over to Faraday's little hideout. With my injuries, I wasn't capable of fighting much. Not with the amount of blood I was losing. So, Norio, Jackie, and Gustavo went in without me while I licked my wounds.

They all ended up cutting down Faraday's guards, and Norio came out with the man himself, slung over his shoulder, unconscious.

He was the MVP of this job.

While I was useless.

I needed to train more and get stronger.

We ended up stopping at Meredith Stout's meetup spot to drop off Faraday, and without saying much, they left, and we headed out as well.

The car ride continued until we arrived at our destination, the Coyote Cojo. We all hopped out of the car and followed Norio into the bar.

We had already dropped Faraday off to Stout, but I didn't want to head inside this time. I had too much shit to think about.

As we approached Padre's booth, some people greeted Jackie, Gustavo, and me. The Ex-Priest was sitting with a woman, taking sips of his drink. We caught his eye, and he focused his full attention on us.

"Job's done," Norio said simply, likely looking to get this over with and get his pay.

"Indeed, you four did well." The older man reached beside himself and slid four shards toward us—cash shards.

Well, don't mind if I do.

Norio was the first to pick his up and stick it in his neck without hesitation. He stayed there for a moment before walking away.

"He's not a people person, huh?" Jackie laughed, picking up a cash shard of his own and putting it in his neck. "Ehehe! This is what we live for!"

Both Gustavo and I picked up our cash shards, and I blinked at the amount of money that was given.
It was more than I expected.

55,000 eddies.

A damn good payday. I felt undeserving, but still, I wouldn't turn down anything that could help me grow stronger.

"Thanks, Padre," I said, nodding to the man, which he returned before making my way out of the bar.

I quickly turned to the right once I left, heading to my second safehouse. It was time to up my training and more than that, it was time to get my Nen ability-

"Oho, hold up, ese!"
I paused in my step and closed my eyes tiredly. I really didn't want to deal with any extra shit right now.

"What?" I turned around to see Jackie slowly approaching me.

"Are you gonna be cool? That's a nasty wound you got."

"I'll be fine." I shrugged, patting my gut where I still felt pain. "I'm better than fine."

Jackie raised an eyebrow, clearly not believing me. "Well, if you need anything, take my contact info. You're a beast, taking down a vet like Maine. That deserves some respect."

I blinked at him and gave him a slight frown. "Yeah…Thanks." It felt bittersweet to be praised for that fight. After all, I didn't really win.
The fucker just lost.

"Well, just call me, or if you're up to it, I'll give you one. " Jackie crossed his arms with a grin. "In Night City, you need someone watching your back. Remember that."

With those final words, Jackie walked back into the bar.

I turned around and made my way to my second safe house.

He was right. In Night City, you needed people you could trust. Hell, even Adam Smasher, the strongest fucker in the city, had Arasaka. Even if they likely didn't have the best relationship, Smasher had rules to follow, and Arasaka would back him.

I opened the door and stepped into my house, instantly making my way up to the bedroom to sit.

I needed to think.

There were plenty of ways to get stronger, from getting more chrome to expanding on my Haki abilities, to learning more about my Nen.

I already did the Water Divination a few months ago, and unsurprisingly, I was a Specialist.
But from there, I didn't have any abilities. I didn't think I'd need them this early on-

And that arrogance had nearly killed me.

I couldn't make such a stupid fucking mistake again. I had enough money to last me a while. So I could go without taking a job for a while—a few months, at least.

Even though I've been training Armament Haki and refining it to the best of my abilities, without training my Nen, I was halving my maximum potential, and more than that, the Higher Calling perk that I possessed boosted my potential in one of my systems.

And I chose Nen.

What a fucking idiot I had been!

I shook my head and crossed my legs on the bed. I closed my eyes to meditate. It was time to do what needed to be done.
It was time to refine my Nen as much as I could.

I didn't care how long it took; I wouldn't stop training my Nen until I was sure I could use it to dominate this city.

— A Week Later —

I stood on the roof of my second safehouse and hardened my arms with Armament Haki. Then I activated my Ren. White aura blazed around me. I closed my eyes and focused as much of the aura around me into my arms. Upon opening my eyes, I could see the aura shining around my forearms. Then, I put my hands together in prayer and rubbed them together.

The blackish red of the haki slowly started to become more and more orange. Eventually, both forearms were covered entirely in the orange color.

I reached out and touched a metal pole-

*SIZZLE*

A shit-eating grin tugged at my lips. After all of the grinding to create my first ability, I had finally managed to make something not only functional-

But fucking badass!

I held my arms in the air and looked at them. Burning orange arms that could burn the skin off of someone with a single touch. Such a thing would be incredibly useful in my line of work, and though it wouldn't have helped against Maine, this is just the base of the ability.

In time, I should be able to expand on this. From creating and controlling flames to becoming a living nuke.

And so much beyond.

My potential in Nen was vast, and I'm seeing that firsthand for the first time since coming to this world.

This was just the beginning of my journey to the top. Sure it would take a while to perfect my abilities, but in time-

There would be nobody strong enough to get in my way.

— Jackie Welles —

"So how's work?"

"It fucking sucks, it always fucking sucks, you know that Jackie." His friend groaned, throwing back her glass.

"Could always quit." He shrugged, knowing she would never do such a thing.

"I'll quit when I'm dead." She stared off into space.

"Keep it up like this, and you'll be putting in your 2 week notice sooner than you'd like." Jackie frowned. "You need to take some time off, V."

V snapped her head at him, a scowl tugging at her lips. "Quitting isn't an option! I've finally made it into Arasaka, the big leagues! Quitting now would be the height of stupidity !"

Jackie let out a sigh, taking a small sip of his glass. "Whatever you say, V."

The woman's eyes softened at him, but instead of apologizing or anything like that, she turned away and they drank in silence.

He didn't expect her to do anything like apologizing anyway. It wasn't her style, nor was it his.

He just…wanted her to be safe.
She was basically family at this point, hell his mom had practically adopted V. No one wanted to see her suffer.

And Corpos were a place of suffering.

Sure, you think you're making good money and doing good work, but to remain in a corp is to grow, to rise the ranks until you're near the top.
But attempting to do something like that will get you killed.

And V was no exception.

"Look…Jackie. I got a job..."

Of course, she did.

Jackie let out a sigh and met her brown eyes with his own. "I got you V, always. What do you need done?"

"Scavs. Some have stolen some tech off one of our guys. The tech is useless, we shut it down, but it's still valuable. I need it back."

"And I assume your job is on the line?" Jackie asked, earning a small hesitant nod from her. "What's the time limit?"

"A week…after that, they'd assume the tech is long gone."

"And fire you." Jackie finished his glass and turned his full attention to her. "I'll see what I can do."

"That's not enough, Jackie!" She shot up, slamming her hands on the table. Quickly V realized the scene she had made and sat back down, rubbing her hand over her forehead. "I need this done, I need you to promise me."

"Give me a location."

V slid the data shard to Jackie and he pushed it into his neck. Information shined in Jackie's vision, and once he got everything he needed to know, he took the shard and pocketed it.

"Here's the deal." He started, getting her undivided attention. "That's a lot of scavs, even if they seem like gonks, I'll need a team. What's the pay looking like?"

"...Jackie."

"No pay?" Jackie blinked, surprised V would ask for his help without any compensation.

"Please, Jackie. You know I'll pay you back."

Jackie remained silent for a few minutes before sighing and standing up. "Alright."

"You'll do it?"

"Yeah, leave it to me."

"Preem! Thanks, Jackie! I'll get you back as soon as I can!"

"You better, V."

Jackie left the bar after that and made his way into the streets. He looked down the street to where Maliketh had gone last time and ran his hand over his face.

Now how would he convince that bastardo to help him?

— Maliketh Aeneas —

I was damn proud of myself. So proud in fact that I spoiled myself by going out to eat at a nice place.

By myself.

God, I'm alone.

Just like that, my night was ruined and I had to walk down the shit-smelling streets by myself.

I could probably find some friends, some people to trust. Jackie is a good start to be honest.

With what I know from Cyberpunk 2077, Jackie was a loyal friend. Even in the pathways where he didn't know V early on like the Nomad or Streetkid pathways, he would still end up growing close with V pretty early on.

That train of thought caused me to narrow my eyes.

V. I still hadn't met them. Hadn't even heard of them, not that I'd been asking around.

I don't know which pathway V would be on Even if I did know, asking around for someone specific in Night City was a good way of building suspicion, and doing it to the wrong person could end up with a target on your back.

Which is why I kept my curiosity to myself. I'd find out one day, sooner or later.

As I continued walking the streets of Night City, I quickly realized that I had been stumbling in a random direction as I went about. I didn't even know where the fuck I was.

I quickly turned around to see that the buildings were rather far away. Which means I was probably on the outskirts of the city.

Hell, I had never been out here before. No harm in looking around a bit. If I run into trouble, I can always just fuck them up and move on with my life.

I sped up into a jog, curious as to what was over here. Eventually, I saw a massive pile of trash, scraps, and junk.

The landfill. I forgot about this place to be honest.

It was getting pretty late…but I was curious to see if I could find anything interesting. I doubted I would find any useful cyberware or anything like that, but if I could find some decorations for my safehouses, that would be pretty cool.
Seriously, those places were still pretty bare, only having the necessities. I could use some shit to spice them up.

Fingers crossed I find something!

— Later —

I looked around the landfill for a few hours. I found a great deal of nothing. Scraps of shit everywhere, straight junk in other places. Fecal matter cause why not?
Oh, and the various unlucky fuckers who got a one-way trip off this planet, courtesy of a bullet to the head-

If they were lucky.

In conclusion, I didn't find anything interesting, nor useful. Just a bunch of nasty, useless, or dead shit.
Honestly, I was incredibly disappointed.

Waste of my fucking Sunday.

I activated my Ren and jumped over the trash, starting to make my way back to my place-

*BANG*

I landed and paused, turning around. The way my foot crashed against something…it felt solid, unlike the loose scraps I had come across.

It's probably some ripped-off door or some shit, maybe a thick metal sheet. I shouldn't get my hopes up.

I made my way over to the spot and blinked at what looked like a metal roof having a dent in it where my foot collided.
I was curious now. I hadn't seen nor shortage of cars since I'd come here, some worse than others, but it didn't hurt to see how this one looked.

I got to work, quickly clearing away the scraps around enough to the point where I could pull the car out of the pile. I grabbed the roof and pulled, straining myself until I got the car out and-

Holy shit!

I dragged it a bit further out just to make sure that it was actually what I thought it was, and lo and behold-

A Pontiac GTO!

No fucking way I found this gem sitting in a dump!

It looked decently aged, and the wheels were gone. I lifted the hood and though I was no car techie or anything like that, I could tell it was missing a few parts.

I closed the hood and crouched. I grabbed just underneath the bumper and started to pull.

I was taking this fucker home with me, I'd clean it up, make it spiffy, and have a new badass ride.

I could see it all now.

Maliketh Mother-Fucking Aeneas is about to have the hottest fucking wheels in Night City!

— Chapter End —