Each night, Motoko patrolled the city, her augmented eyes scanning the crowds for signs of trouble. Cyberpsychos, individuals who's pursuit for power through cybernetics had driven them to madness, were becoming more common and dangerous. Their distorted desires and fractured minds often wreaked havoc upon the city, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake.
Motoko's true mission was to save them, to find a way to mend the shattered fragments of their psyches. Some called her naive for believing such a task was possible, but Motoko had seen firsthand the wonders of technology, the miracles of mending minds and rekindling souls. Motoko's empathy was both her strength and her vulnerability. When Reggie reached out to her, asking for her to help cyberpsychos, she accepted, in spite of the danger posed by people with so much chrome. Most of them responded to help with violence, after all.
Her friend, Hiromi, had always been by her side. Hiromi was a young Arasaka corporate manager in training and a fledgling fixer, skilled in manipulating the city's sprawling networks of intrigue and information. While Motoko saw redemption in the cyberpsychos, Hiromi secretly saw only competition, dangerous, unacceptable competition.
And so, at night, in Hiromi's bedroom, you could hear her muttering (psychotically). "WHY ARE THEY GIRLS... WHY ARE THERE SO MANY GIRLS... Soon you'll only think of me, hehehe~. Soon you'll see that I am the only one you need! Nobody else can have you Motoko, my beloved." And in the darkness, hidden from Motoko's gaze, Hiromi nursed a secret crush that had grown into an obsession.
After saving Natalie, or GearSlot, from the Scavs during one of her pest control runs, they'd become fast friends, in spite of Motoko's traumatic experiences with Maelstrom. Natalie was a fan of her BD's and the genuine excitement she had shown after meeting Motoko had triggered Motoko's impulses. Again, she had found a crazy borg girl, and found herself wanting to help her, to get her away from Maelstrom, help her recover from latent cyberpsychosis and maybe gain a new friend. "I CAN FIX HER." she kept thinking.
One night, when Motoko and Hiromi were planning a movie night, Motoko got a half crazed call for "help" from Natalie.
"The shadows Motoko. The shadows are dancing. They call to me. My chrome is singing, I must go Motoko, to the shrine Motoko. I can feel it in my cyberdeck, beyond the Blackwall... Lilith is coming, the dark mother is coming and the shadows are dancing Motoko! Rejoice! Come meet me, we... we have to prepare. The dark mother needs sacrifices Motoko, come quickly, come join me..."
"Well, that's some psycho Maelstrom shit if I've ever heard any." Motoko thought. Natalie really needed a bonk on the head and a forcible dechroming. Motoko had been too lenient, thinking she could just fix her with the power of friendship.
"Sorry Hiromi, we can have movie night next weekend, okay? Natalie needs help or she's dead, I have to run."
Motoko grabbed her ballistic vest and if the worst came to pass, her Burya, and ran to save her new friend.
Hiromi watched her go in silence. If Motoko looked back as Hiromi's bedroom door closed, she'd have seen her crazed look and her shaking hands...
"THIS... THIS FUCKING BITCH RUINED MOVIE NIGHT! Stupid fucking slut. I'll kill her, I'll kill her... Fucking GearSlut, you dare look at her, you dare speak to my beloved... I'm gonna kill you, hehe, KILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILL HAHAHAHAHAH!"
As Motoko confronted Natalie between abandoned warehouses in Northside, she could see that Natalie had gone off the deep end. She was drawing a fucking pentagram with red paint around a fridge in an alleyway in Northside, while cackling like an evil witch from a children's fairytale. Real psycho shit.
But just as Motoko reached Natalie and slammed an airhypo into her shoulder, there was an electric, cracling sound, echoing through the alleyway. Hiromi, having followed her, had snuck up to her Quadra, grabbed Motoko's Nekomata and was charging it up, trying to splatter Natalie's brains all over Northside.
In her psychotic rage though, her hands were shaking. And instead of Natalie's brains, she splattered Northside with the remains of Motoko's left cybernetic arm. As Motoko turned around and took aim with her Burya, instead of some borged out Stormer or a Scav, she saw a hyperventilating Hiromi at the other end of the alley, eyes wide open and cybernetic pupils dilated.
"WHAT THE FUCK! Why, Hiromi?" Motoko's voice trembled with a mixture of pain and betrayal. "I thought we were friends."
At that Hiromi grinned, far too widely.
"Friends... Always friends Motoko, of course, hehe~. Don't you see? This is why she has to die. This is why they ALL HAVE TO DIE. I was hoping you'd understand one day. All the strays you keep dragging in, all of them ARE OBSTACLES TO MY LOVE MOTOKO! They have to die Motoko. She has to die too Motoko. Then we can have our movie night back Motoko... Like always, Motoko..."
And then her non-augmented body couldn't take it anymore, her eyes went blank and she passed out on the spot in a puddle of acid rain and motor oil.
By this point Natalie had come to stand next to Motoko, looking surprisingly sane. "Thanks for the save choom. You know, cyberpsychosis is pretty wild. You should try it some time, it's like the preemest acid trip you'll ever have. You'll see shit you wouldn't believe. What the fuck was in that airhypo anyway? Hits like a ton of bricks. I was drawing a pentagram in a Northside alleyway, trying to summon a cyber demon less than 2 minutes ago."
"Immunosuppresants, antipsychotics, pain relievers, anti-seisure medication, sedatives and probably some other shit but you'll have to ask Vik once we get there. He concocted that mix after I put him in touch with Reggie and they got me on board with the whole "save the psychos" initiative. We call it SaneJuice."
"Preem as hell, Motoko." Natalie walked up to Hiromi's trembling, passed out body and tapped her with the toe of her boot. "So who's this piece of work. Another one of your projects?"
"Nah, that's my friend Hiromi. She's got Saka parents, she gets corp cyberware and stuff and she doesn't do mercwork, so I don't think she's cyberpsycho, she's just psycho. I'll call someone once we're at Vik's. There are zip ties in the trunk of my Quadra, come give me a hand and help me tie her up and load her in the trunk." Motoko said while wiggling the stump of her left arm, dripping some hydraulic fluid into the puddle Hiromi was passed out in.
"Give you a hand Motoko? GIVE YOU A HAND MOTOKO!?" Natalie was staring at Motoko's wiggling cyberstump. "I'm about to go from cyberpsycho straight to psycho, I swear."
After they got to Vik's, Motoko got Natalie to finally chrome the fuck down. Sitting down at Misty's for some chakra alignment while she waited for her turn in Vik's chair, she called Hiromi's parents to come pick up their little psycho baby corpo.
As Motoko was watching Hiromi being loaded into the back of a Saka van like a bag of psychotic girly potatoes, Motoko couldn't help but lay back in Misty's comfy chair and think, "I CAN FIX THEM BOTH."