The Shards of Freedom [Cyberpunk/Worm]

[InfinityReads999]

Author's note: So, this is the opening chapter. I will write it every time I need a break of CA, which, like I said in the messages, won't be that common, or at least I hope. Next chapter is CA, without a doubt, but I might play with this idea for a bit too, depending on my muse. At the cost of repeating myself, I will say again that I don't plan, nor want, to drop CA, so don't fear that. I still love that story, but I will use some breaks to plan properly the plot.

Hope you like the chap! Tell me what you think! This fic will start before edgerunners, go into 2077 and beyond. The second season of the anime was announced, and I really hope it's about the unification war after hinted in the game around 2080, which, even if I wrong, will be what I will touch the most!

The MC is Chris, Kid Win, Vanguard. But, Missy, or Vista as you know her, will be important too. But my main focus is Chris. As you all can see, ages had been moved a bit to fit more with Cyberpunk universe, with Chris being 22-23, and Vista 18-19. Won't touch ward plot until REALLY late into the fic, if I ever reach that part. There won't be any more worm impact in this story up to that point.

Also, for the ones in the know, I want your opinion in something. As some might know, Cyberpunk mixes Spanish with English a lot, as well as specific slang for the universe. Spanish is my mother tongue, so I can mix it up really well, as for the slang, I can use it, a bit, I think. I will write the first couple of chapters with both things, but if many people say that they prefer I don't, tell me in the comments!

The Shards of Freedom.

Chapter 1: The Weight of Chance.

Taylor Hebert.

Earth Gimel.

Nothing I could do helped in any way; all the ideas that came to mind would not affect the end result, no matter what. Not that I expected it, in truth. I had always been told by Lisa and the rest of the undersiders or the heroes that my power was used the best way away from direct combat… There was not much more I could do but watch as the golden Bastard massacred his way through everyone that was in his way.

There wasn't much I could do; we were only humans, after all.

We are the soft, helpless things.

Watching Lung flail around uselessly, even as he was bigger than the first time we met, was horrifying as well as fascinating. The dust itself hissed like boiling water around the almost Endbringer-sized villain. The Simurgh was also battered, her wings clipped by Scion's golden beams as he, once again, destroyed something she was building.

And in the middle of all, there he was. Scion. The first hero of the world, taking every single power from everyone here, and looking mostly indifferent.

"Dose didn't take," Rachel said worriedly as I tried to keep Bastard alive. He had been one of the first to get clipped by the honest to god Godlike being when he began his massacre, and knowing Bitch's feelings for her pack, I was doing the best I could to help.

Even when I feared that he wouldn't make it. But I hoped I was wrong.

"Try the manual," I said absentmindedly. The words felt wrong in my mouth. I kept my swarm active, but the sheer heat coming out of Lung's body was giving me trouble.

I hated feeling useless.

"On it," Rachel grunted, which meant she was going to force it if it didn't open. Which meant the matchbox might break, and we might die either way.

The Simurgh moved while Scion just watched silently. Not to say he talked or gloated, something I would prefer… because that would give us time. No. He was simply destroying us at his own pace, slower than what he could realistically do.

For one moment, I hoped for the best.

Then I laughed, feeling something close to despair as nothing the Endbringer did caused anything of note.

Crane the Harmonious shouted something, and a bead rolled into place before blinking brightly just below Scion. The Villain power was strange, but it worked, and that was all that mattered.

Every bullet, every laser, every power hit Scion's body. No matter how off their aim was, the physics of the world tore themselves and guided the attacks against her target.

For a moment, the carnage stops as Scion drops into the ground, and I take the chance to take a deep breath and move my swarm somewhere else to avoid the backlash.

And backlash there was. Using the lul of the battle, Lung jumped like a meteor as the heat warped the air around him and impacted Scion's body. The sand went glassy almost instantly. Everyone who could do something did, throwing all kinds of attacks in the bead direction and waiting with bated breath.

Then Scion's beams unraveled our hope, chewed it up, and spat it like something unimportant.

The first attack was blocked by the Simurgh as the fight continued for a bit, with more and more heroes and villains dying under the golden monster.

It was too soon when Scion was free enough to focus again on Vista's group.

The not so little ward anymore, a full member of the Protectorate now.

Not that time helped her grow, at least in height. But in my personal opinion, she had nothing to be angry about. She was barely 4'9, but she was bigger than me where it really mattered.

She was warping space a bit behind me, using it to move Crane and Vanguard around, but even she was not fast enough.

A line thinner than my own strands of hair flew by. Past my shoulder, I shuddered, feeling the heat on skin that never gets a chance to be scorched because it's already gone. It blew Crane's head off, with Vista showing her quick wit as she made the distance between Vanguard and the beam large enough for him to move.

Crane dropped like a puppet with its strings cut. Vanguard, or someone I knew back then in my youth as Kid Win, wobbled after a bad drop, moving as fast as he could. But he wasn't fast enough.

Or maybe he was, since the beam didn't hit him anywhere dangerous, or so I thought.

Something inside his armor blinked, and it seemed like it decided that it can't coexist with the rest of the universe and detonated in miniature, a bloom of white that's all light and no heat.

"Shit," I cursed, because my brain refuses to promote the feeling to a better word. He was next to the portal, but the white light felt burned into my retina like something I had never felt before. Not even Scion's beams were as bright, or Legend's.

Vista was already moving. She was small, and age didn't seem to help her with that, but for once, I believed she was grateful for it as she threaded her way through bodies and debris, as if her life depended on it.

She reached Vanguard fast, thanks to her power making distance something of a footnote as he looked over his body in confusion. Or so I believed; his helmet blocked any expression from showing. She caught him in her slender arms with a blank expression. There was no anguish on her face, not a single tear. Not even a grimace.

The space around them was already warped beyond recognition, but Scion wasn't done. Ignoring the heroes and villains attacking, he sent another beam towards them, and I wondered why he wanted to get rid of them so much.

Vista was obvious; her power was… insane, but she could not use it to attack him. As for Vanguard, I couldn't deny that he had grown a lot ever since he helped capture me. Having found out his specialization did wonders for him, as well as the lessened restrictions now that he was outside of the wards. But even then, I doubted that he could build something fast to really do something in the midst of the chaos.

Vista moved erratically as she did her best to move with Vanguard, trusting her power to complicate the beam hitting them. And for anyone else, it might have worked, but Scion was no ordinary foe.

The path the beam crossed, and her arm was there for a moment, and then it wasn't.

No red spray, no chunked meat. Just nothingness. She didn't even scream as she stumbled. The wound closed on its own as the mere heat from it cauterized the wound.

Vanguard's behemoth of armor takes the remainder, grunting in pain, and I suspected that he was missing at least a pound of flesh since he began bleeding from a clear hole from both sides of his body.

If that wasn't enough, his power armor began blinking. Bright white flashes came out every couple of seconds as I saw him look at his chest.

"Missy!" he shouted in alarm. "Go! Get away from me!"

She didn't. Of course, she didn't. She pivoted and braced herself, then the world between her hand and his chest shortened to nothing. Fingers tried to dive into the plate, but as small as her hands were, they weren't strong enough.

Realizing something, or so I believed, she shortened the space between them as she clung to his back. She tapped twice around the right side of his helmet and nodded when it broke down. Looking at the pieces on the floor, she quickly tried to grab something, only to realize that her arm wasn't there anymore.

Huffing, she knelt down and grabbed it with her remaining arm and pulled a wire. Plunging it into his chest plate, she pulled something. A battery, I thought, because one never knew tinkers, and considering his specialization, one thing could work like hundreds of different things with a single touch.

But she wasn't fast enough, and the object shone white before the light grew even brighter.

Keeping an eye on the battlefield in front of me, I tilted my ears in the mess Vista found herself in. There was not much I could do as the space around the portal warped beyond recognition. I could barely watch with my own eyes, but my insects could feel something was wrong in a way I had never felt before. A few of the insects I had near them just ceased to exist, or perhaps the distance was too much; I didn't know why, but my connection with them broke.

"Missy, run the fuck away. NOW!" Vanguard shouted again, firmly. With the helmet off, I could see how much he had grown in these past years. He was no longer the weird kid who took that blasted cannon to a simple robbery. His face was set in stone as he tried to pry Vista away from him, with the newest protectorate member ignoring him and moving every time he got too close.

She kept her hand where it was, clinging to him with her jaw clenched. The plate deformed without bending around the weird spatial effects happening around the portal.

They were the only ones there; even Lisa ran away as soon as she could without a second thought. Her eyes were wide, and she looked at them in confusion.

The portal behind them was open and twisting on its own. Through my swarm on the far side, I got flashes that weren't mine. Neon buildings, too bright, too much noise. The particular quality of light when someone tried to look different and went too far.

A skyline I didn't know. Voices I could understand, but didn't recognize the accent. Words that I had never heard before, police sirens blaring at all times.

I blinked. The images didn't stop when I closed my eyes. They blossomed against the dark like afterimages, stacked and stuttered. Whatever thing that was in Vanguard's armor caused such a weird effect that probably no one understood. It was affecting the portal. Or the portal was doing something to it.

"Taylor!" Lisa's sharp voice came through. Her hand closed on my shoulder like an anchor. "Back…"

I hadn't even noticed she was already here. My eyes and attention were grabbed by the weird images flashing around the portal.

"Working on it," I said, which was generous. Rachel was stuffing dirt into Bastard's mouth and leg stumps, but I didn't have the space to tell her that was insane, and I also didn't have the chance to tell her it might work. The Simurgh was down, and Glaistig Uaine was carving diagrams in the air with her shades. Scion looked at them impassively, sending a glance at the portal as he tilted his face.

Vista's expression didn't change. She twisted her body a fraction, and the world twisted to accommodate her. She was doing something, her power affecting the space around them, and in return, the weird effect was affecting the space at the same time.

Just looking at it was making my head hurt, worse than Labyrinth's power in her worst moments.

I watched Kid Win's eyes hardening as his hands clenched around something, "Missy, leave me. My armor is failing, and I can feel something pulling me somewhere,"

"I'm not fucking leaving you, Chris," she said flatly, but even I could hear the heat of her voice. The very first word she had said to him since losing her arm.

The portal blinked. Vanguar's armor groaned as he spat blood. He was paling rapidly, probably thanks to the blood loss.

Even from a distance, I could see that whatever was going to happen would happen soon.

I took a step without thinking, and the step took me too far. My foot landed where my foot shouldn't have, and my knee wanted to go in a direction knees didn't go. I stopped, swallowed, and reoriented myself the best I could. The air smelled like piss and smog. And it was coming directly from the portal.

"Move!" I shouted, because even if they couldn't hear me under everything else, saying it made me feel like I had done something.

Vanguard shook his head minutely. He saw something I didn't or he felt something I couldn't.

The light trapped in his armor crawled under his skin, through the seams of him. It wasn't contained anymore. Vista's hand jerked as if burned as she bit back a curse. The world around her rippled.

"Lisa," I said quietly.

"I know," she said, too quickly. She probably didn't, but I let it go.

"Down," Rachel barked, and I just threw myself and hid under Bastard's monstrous body.

It wasn't a bang. It was the absence of everything that came before a bang, and then all of it at once. The portal blossomed into some weird shape and slammed shut like a door.

The shock front lifted us, an invisible shovel under a pile of dolls. My bugs lost track of themselves, a million threads snapped. The sky tilted ninety degrees, and the ground was somewhere else and then here again, hard enough to knock my teeth together.

Sand and blood filled my mouth as I stood up and looked at where the two heroes used to be. The portal back to Bet returned as if nothing had happened. But the heroes? They were gone.

I pushed up on shaking arms. My head rang, an alarm I couldn't locate to turn off. Crane's body was sent flying as his cadaver hit somewhere near us. Bastard was growling, somehow.

Rachel, with both hands sunk in his scruff, like he was a raft. Glaistig Uaine was mid-gesture, three spirits at once, her mouth a flat line. The Simurgh was a smear on the bay before she returned with vengeance in her normal apathetic eyes.

As for Vista and Vanguard? I had no idea if they were alive, and as curious as I was, I had better things to focus on.

Somewhere, on the other side of a door we couldn't open again, there was a city made of light that smelled like shit. Somewhere, two heroes had just fallen into it, one with no arm and one dying with a hole in his stomach, and who knew if the portal closing did something more.

I didn't have room to hope. I didn't have room to mourn.

I could only hope for the best for them and hope we could save the world.

Third Person Pov.

Night City, 2074

Night City nightlife was not something one could face without risks. That was true for everyone in the city; it didn't matter if you were a lowlife, a corporate worker, a high-ranking corporate, or even a solo. If you weren't careful, Night City would eat you alive and spit your remains.

The same was true for Misty Olszewski. A proud daughter of Heywood, but she just hummed as she watched a late-night visitor standing up from his seat. It wasn't as if she faulted him, as being a new age spiritualist meant that nothing was rigid, and she adapted to what her customers needed the most.

Even if that meant staying so late.

She loved it, and it was an effort she was happy to put forth as long as she helped someone.

That's what made her happy, after all. Helping.

Misty was late in her shop. She was waiting for her dear friend Viktor to take her home, as he had offered when she told him she would stay for a bit longer. Viktor had decided to watch some fights in his office while she dealt with her customer.

As the customer finally left, looking calmer and at peace, she began to turn off the incense, put the tarot cards back on their shelves, and tidy the space. That's when she heard a muffled, strange sound from the back door, followed by flashes of light that vanished so quickly she wasn't sure if she'd imagined them.

Two heavy thumps reached her ears. Then a scream that sounded like Carlos, the homeless person who usually stayed in the alley. Against her better judgment, Misty walked over and cracked open the door.

The alley greeted her with shadows and grime. Carlos drunkenly stumbled past the door, muttering and shaking his head in confusion. Misty wondered why he was running. Still, as she stepped outside, she understood.

There were two figures on the ground. One, a man who at first looked like a Borg, but something was off.

His pale face was slick with blood at the lips, and his chrome seemed to be melting, steaming with residual heat.

Beside him, a woman lay mangled, one arm gone at the shoulder with the wound brutally cauterized. Her skin was red as though she'd been burned from within.

Misty's chest clenched with pity. Common sense told her to go back inside, lock the door, call Viktor, and maybe even the NCPD. Instead, her feet carried her forward. She felt the heat radiating off them, so strong it made her eyes sting and her breath falter, but she pressed on.

Her hands gripped the woman's shoulders, dragging her away from the searing warmth. The weight nearly pulled her down, but she refused to let go.

"Misty!" Viktor's voice cut through the night. He rushed up from his clinic, pistol in hand. His cyberoptic flicked to the glowing man and then to Misty, and for a second, he cursed under his breath.

"I've got her!" Misty wheezed, waving him off before he fired. Misty had a coughing fit right there, but she calmed herself as soon as she could.

Viktor's jaw tightened, but he didn't argue. He bent low, hauling the woman up with practiced ease. As he did, his eyes flicked back to the male figure. The armor sloughed away in rivulets of molten plating, revealing not a borg, but a man encased in something they had not seen in a long while.

"Shit…" Viktor spat out harshly. He ran towards his clinic in a hurry and returned with a canister, yanked the pin, and hurled it at the stranger. A burst of chemical coolant sprayed across the armor, hissing on contact. The meltdown at least came to a halt.

Without another word, he grabbed the man by the shoulders and began dragging him. "Inside, Misty. Before anyone sees."

Together, they dragged the pair toward his clinic, the acrid scent of scorched metal trailing after them.

Viktor took the blonde from Misty's arms and laid her carefully on the table. His fingers moved at a speed that showed his years of practice as he pulled away what was left of her scorched helmet. A hiss of metal and plastic came apart under his cutter, and he peeled the fragments aside until her face was revealed.

Young. Too young to be a merc. At least in a better world. Eighteen, maybe nineteen at most. A petite frame, features set in a grim line, even in unconsciousness.

"Damn…" Viktor muttered, his eyes narrowing as he sliced open her burned clothing to survey the damage. Her entire front was marred with deep, angry burns. Her skin blistered and seared as if she'd been shielding the other one with her body.

Without hesitation, he prepped a syringe and injected a cocktail into her neck.

Misty looked at him in curiosity, to which Viktor smirked, "Sedative. We don't know who they are; it's better to keep her away while I work."

But as he checked her vitals, something else caught his eye. His gaze lingered. He swept his scanner over her again, slower this time, his brow furrowing.

"... She has nothing."

Misty tilted her head in curiosity. "Nothing?"

"Not a single goddamn implant," Viktor said slowly and full of disbelief. "She's clean. Completely ganic."

Misty blinked, stunned. In Night City, that was rarer than a day without violence.

And that was saying something, since they had a lottery to count how many died daily.

Viktor sighed, but once he confirmed her vitals had steadied, he turned toward the second body.

The armor was still half-melted onto him, fused to burned flesh. Viktor gestured for Misty, and together they wrestled the plates free piece by piece. The stink of scorched polymer and cooked metal filled the clinic.

Misty's nose wrinkled when the smell of cooked meat became more apparent.

When the final chunk came loose, Viktor whistled under his breath.

"What is it?" Misty asked, eyes wide.

Viktor shook his head, "Don't know. Never seen tech like this. But whatever it is, this choom's packing serious power."

The man's face was clearer now, early twenties, maybe. Stress lines carved across his expression, making him look older and hardened.

Without knowing them, Misty could say with absolute certainty that they had lived a very harsh life.

Misty had seen her fair bit of mercs coming and going to Vik's clinic, and while none of them showed these signs, she believed it was thanks to their chrome.

Viktor's expression darkened as he saw the full extent of the injuries. Burns stretched across his chest and arms, patches where metal had eaten into his skin. A ragged hole punched through his shoulder, bleeding sluggishly.

Some places even had charred skin.

"Shit. He's worse off than the girl," Viktor muttered, easing the blonde onto a chair for the moment. He leaned closer, scanning the man's vitals. Then he froze. "…Another ganic. Not a single implant on him either. I don't understand how he is still alive."

Misty's hands hovered near her mouth. "Can you do something? Please, Vik?"

Viktor scowled, frustration clear in his tone. "I don't know if it'll be worth it. The damage is brutal. I've got the parts, yeah, but if I burn through my stash I won't have stock left for paying customers later."

Misty's frown deepened as she always did, and Viktor had to bite back a sigh.

Her eyes flicked from the unconscious girl to the battered man, her breath catching as something stirred inside her. Her eyes went glassy as she bit her lower lip.

"We can do something, Vik," she said softly, conviction bleeding into her tone. "I can feel it, Vik. There's something about them… they'll pay you back. More than just eddies. I have a feeling about them."

Viktor's jaw tightened, already knowing that the girl had a bleeding heart, "Misty, this isn't just about money. That armor, whatever the hell it was, isn't cheap. People with toys like that don't just end up in Heywood alleys for no reason. Helping them could drag us into something ugly."

"Also, we don't even know how they appeared here. They might have been dropped by an AV or something. They could be corpos, and we could be putting our necks on the line for this."

Misty stepped closer, her voice almost pleading. "Maybe so. But if we let them die here, it'll be uglier. You know it. If they are really corpos and they find out we left them to die? Or maybe they aren't. That armor doesn't look like anything else I've seen. He could be a good solo, and will be grateful for fixing him."

For a long moment, only the hum of the med-scanners filled the clinic. Viktor's shoulders slumped as he exhaled a curse.

"…Fine." He grabbed his tools, snapping on fresh gloves. "But don't say I didn't warn you. If some gonks come knocking, it's your fault."

Misty's lips curved into a faint, relieved smile as Viktor leaned over the table, his hands already moving. The clinic filled with the harsh glow of surgical lamps as the ripperdoc began the long, grueling work of keeping two strangers alive.

Viktor set his tools down with a clang, jaw tight as he leaned over the man. "Alright, choom. Let's see what's keeping you alive."

Almost gingerly, the doctor lifted the man from the less charred parts of his body, and Viktor hissed through his teeth.

Misty almost threw up, realizing it was worse than they had believed. The skin was so severely burned that it was flaking in some places, and in others, the burns had gone all the way to the very bone.

"Doughboy is lucky," he muttered, opening the chest cavity with deliberate cuts. Wincing at what he saw. Inside wasn't much better. One Lung collapsed, leaking sluggishly. The heart was visibly struggling against the damage caused by heat stress. Liver scorched along the edge.

Misty didn't know medicine as Vik did, but even she understood that the man was lucky to be alive.

He reached for his kit and injected something into himself. "We'll need stabilizers, basic biomonitors, and a replacement lung if I don't want him drowning in his own fluids."

Misty grabbed what Vik was pointing at and passed it to the doctor, hoping that she was fast enough.

The thoughts running in her mind were that she didn't understand solos. The mere risk of something like this happening should deter anyone from undertaking this work.

Piece by piece, Viktor installed the lifesavers. Explaining that it was a cheap but reliable cardiac support implant to keep the heart in rhythm. A synthetic lung graft was carefully slotted into place. An auto-stitch mesh for shredded arteries. Muscle fiber patches covering the worst tears. He swapped in a skeletal brace for the shattered shoulder, screwing it down until it locked in place.

The monitors flared to life. A holographic readout bled red warnings across his view. Oxygenation in a critical state, blood with high toxicity, and unstable nerve pathways, according to the biometrics.

"Choom will have a big debt to pay," Viktor grumbled irritably as he tightened a hose, "I can't say for sure if he will make it, Misty."

Then something on the scanner caught his eye. And Misty took a peek before frowning. A cluster deep in the brain, flickering oddly on the display. It didn't look like it belonged. And Vik murmured something like it wasn't like any implant he recognized, either.

His brow furrowed. "What the hell is that…?"

Misty leaned closer. "Is it not usually there, Vik?"

"Never seen something like that," He shook his head, forcing himself to pull the scan away. "Not that I'm a brain surgeon, but I won't be touching it tonight. The kid's got enough wrong with him."

He worked on him for over two hours before dropping his instruments into a box that began emitting steam and a mixture of liquid as he sat down in front of his screen, unpausing a fight Misty believed he was watching, before he ran outside.

Misty took a moment to watch him and then ran towards her store, grabbing some clean towels and a bottle of real water before returning to the clinic. With a thankful expression, she gave them both to Vik, who smiled gratefully.

He rested for ten minutes before he turned to the blonde.

Her burns were cleaner, but cruel in their own way. Her front was a patchwork of blistered flesh and scorched lines, the cauterized stump of her missing arm already infected at the edges. He opened her up just enough to make sure there was no internal collapse and found heat damage threading along the ribs and diaphragm.

"Same story. Another ganic," he muttered, checking her readings. "Not a single implant to her name."

Basic lifesaving cyberware went in first. A biomonitor to track vitals. An auto-inject node to push sedatives or painkillers. He grafted skin patches over the worst burns, layer by layer, until the angry red was replaced by the glossy pale of synth-skin. He set a skeletal cap on the shoulder stump to keep it from tearing further. He injected a spool of nanofibers to begin knitting her diaphragm.

Then the scan beeped. Viktor blinked, leaned closer.

"…No way."

There it was again. The same strange clump buried deep in her brain, in almost the exact same place as the man's, just a little bigger. But the similarities were there.

"That's impossible," he whispered. His face tightened as he glanced at Misty. "Two ganics, left behind, both half-dead, and both with… whatever the hell that is, in their heads. No way that's a coincidence."

Misty's eyes widened, but she said nothing.

Viktor scrubbed sweat from his brow and bent back to work. He had more grafts to lay, more skin to replace, more stabilizers to connect. There would be time for questions later. For now, he did what he always did. Keep the patients breathing, keep them alive, no matter what they'd dragged into his clinic.

And hope they will pay later on. That was also important.