[Oh yeah, I never did explicitly mention V's age in these backstories <or ever> lmao. So she was 14/15 when she left Atlanta for N.C., 17/18 when her friends were Soulkilled and present day she's 26 for reference. Now back to the story]
[TW/CW: Abuse, Drug & Alcohol Usage/Mentions, Implied Sexual Assault, Idealization of Suicide.]
"Everyone who passes you, who you meet in your life, they all will sucumb to a dire fate. All will perish because of you."
"WAKE UP!" I jolt awake in a world unlike the one I perished in. A world made entirely of binary coding surrounding an endless void. I stared into the palms of my hands, seeing dozens of "0"s and "1"s.
"Where....where am I?"
"Hell? Heaven- no. This isn't an afterlife. Just digi-hell." Scar growled as they appeared besides me. "Shit. Never thought I would despise death this much....not like I'm even dead. It's just....weird...."
"Scar, where are the others? What-"
"I don't know and I don't give a shit. Our fates are sealed, V. We are just fuckin stuck here, all because of that FUCKING DRUG ADDICT!!!"
"I didn't ask to be rescued." Raine spoke up. Scar was taken back by her sudden arrival.
"Raine, I didn't mean-"
"You're a tiresome prick. I knew I was gonna die when I was taken. You all risking your lives for me was the dumbest thing you could've done but ya'll dug your graves. NOW LAY IN IT!" Just as Raine was about to struck me, she fazed through me. "Wha-?"
I felt a tingling sensation as I looked down at my fingers. The coding began to disappear as my body became transparent as I felt weightless. "WHAT'S GOIN ON?!"
"V?!"
"I'll, I'll rescue yall! I promise!" The coding began to vanish faster and faster as my being felt light.
"V, PLEASE!" Scar cried out as they reached for me. "DON'T LEAVE US-"
Everything went silent.
Everything went black.
________________
V.
V?
V.....wake up.
The beeping of life supporting machines became the first thing to hit my ears as I awaken in a brightly lit room, laying on a stretcher.
"Where....am...I....?" I weakly spoke.
"The procedure worked?!" A manly voice spoke in excitement. I shook my drowziness away as I looked at the doctor. "V?" I nodded my head. "You were Soulkilled and I brought you back! Not in the same body, unfortunately."
"Wha....what happened? Who are you?"
"The name is Max Lexus, I work for Arasaka. The boss asked me to, how you say, "reinstall" your soul-"
"Wait....where's my body? You said this wasn't my own skin....."
"Yes, unfortunately returning you to your prior body is impossible. Soulkilling destroys all the neurons and synapses in your brain, making the body dead in a literal and metaphorical sense." I was silent for a moment as I sat up, looking Max in the eyes. Emerald green eyes stared back at me in a body made of metal with flesh attatched. "You're in the body of a droid, V. I'm sorry I couldn't save your body but you must leave."
"Huh?"
"Boss man wants to use you, to experiment on you. You...you have to run, V. Save yourself."
"What about my friends?"
"What about them?"
"Can you bring them back?"
"As long as I have a droid or some kind of vessel, reversing the Soulkilling process is possible." He held up a green usb drive. "Souls are merely data, data is stored in ones' brain or hard drive replacing a brain." I nodded. "Doesn't means it's easy. The soul could become corrupted in the coding and your mates could expire. The technique is still very much in dev-" Three thunderous knocks echoed on the door. "That's the boss man," he whispered. "You need to escape." The doc handed me the small usb stick and rushed me to a nearby window. "May your survival be worth it. Take care, V." I climbed out of the window and sprinted down the dimly lit alleyway as three gunshots sounded off from the office.
Was my life worth this....? How many will die because of me?
____________
3 years later....
Staring down at the streets below me, I take another puff of a cigarette, dabbing the ashes. Three years, three fucking awful years without my found family. Three years since I costed them their young lives and three years I've been plotting for revenge. Cracking my neck, I took another drag before flicking the cigarette to the concrete some 15 stories below. My phone buzzed as I recieved a gig from my fixer, Dino. He has the vibe of a stoner uncle but he is very professional with the gigs and taking care of his mercs.
D Boss
Gig on 5th and Central. Male, Caucasian, in mid to late 40s wearing a black suede suit with a blue tie will walkdown an alley way around 4:40 pm, on his way to make a deal with Saka agents. Flatline target and steal his briefcase. Bring wears to 41st and Bravo before sundown. You in?
Me
In.
D Boss
Good choice. Meet me at the Afterlife when you're done.
_____________
Aiming the sniper rifle from atops an abbandoned cloth factory, 4:35 pm illuminated on my watch as I grew impatient waiting for the attack. Sundown was in a mere few hours and I couldn't disappoint Dino again with a failed gig. And financially, I can't afford another fuck up. I shook my head and looked through the scope once more. A man in a black suit holding a briefcase walked down the alleyway. "Rest in pieces." I smirked as I fired off the rifle. A single bullet pierced his skull and he fell crashing to the cement. Climbing down the building, I casually walked towards his corpse and grabbed the briefcase. It felt heavier than I expected but who am I to ask questions that'll get me flatlined. Hauling a taxi, I met a woman in her mid twenties with grey eyes and deep scars across her face. She wore casual street attire and looked impressed at me as I exited the cab.
"I suppose your the one called 'V'?" She spoke in a mature and calm tone.
"Yes ma'am. I understand that I must surrendure this to you?" She nodded.
"Dino did say you were quite professional. Well done." She sent me a payment of 10,000 eddies as I handed over the luggage. "Maybe we'll meet again. Take care, kid." We parted ways and I sighed with a bit of relief. Ten thousand eddies would hold me over for the next few weeks but I knew I needed to find more income if I wanted to survive and thrive in Night City. At least this month's rent could be paid.
______
"V! Glad to see you in one piece, kid." Dino greeted me as I sat besides him at the bar. "2 long islands please." The bartender nodded. "Siren spoke praises of you. Seems you've impressed her."
"Just doing a gig, 'tis all."
"You don't give yourself enough credit. Mercwork is challenging and any success shouldn't be taken lightly." I shrugged my shoulders.
"I think I'm ready for actual merc work, Dino. Klepping cars, offing people with snipers from the safety of rooftops, I wanna get into the meat and bones of it all. I wanna see the good, the bad, the ugly, the bloody-" Dino raised his hand to interrupt me.
"I know. I know you desire the more, er, darker sides of work but you simply aren't ready. Remember when I sent you to Animal Turf? How did that go?" I looked down at my cybernetic arms, remembering how the Animals came after me and tore my limbs off, leaving me to die out on the pavement. "They showed mercy. You were lucky to have survived that. I'm just looking out for you, kid." I nodded.
"Yeah."
"Maybe after a year or two-" I shook my head.
"I'm not gonna rush it anymore. I trust you." He nodded as our drinks arrived. "Cheers." I spoke solemly.
"Cheers."
_____
[15 months later <age estimate: 19/20>]
"I was born to die. So finish this, DO IT!" I spat out blood onto the concrete as I sat tied up in a chair. My nose was broken, my lip was busted, and my eyes were black & blue. Dino promised me this mission was simple, a quick heist, in and out in 10 minutes. He assured me I'd be able to handle it. He was a fucking liar. I snuck into a BioTechnica warehouse deep in the Badlands where I was surrounded by Scavs and subsequently beaten and taken captive. "Well...are you...gonna finish me off?" The short but stocky man wearing a black skull face mask looked at me and slammed a steel pipe against my stomach. I howled in pain as I doubled over in the chair, puking up blood and bile.
"SILENCE YOU FILTHY MERC!" He growled as he turned his attention towards a woman wearing nothing more than a red lacy thong. "She's all yours, boss." She smirked as the thug left the room, locking the door behind himself. I furrowed my brows at the woman who knelt down besides me, licking her lips at my dismisal of her.
"My, my. What's a thing like you doin all the way out here?" She spoke as she ran her hands along my bruised arms.
"Get your....hands...off me..." I coughed up a bit more fluids before shaking off the nausea for a bit. "Look, I'll pay ya whatever just let me go."
"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Where's the fun in letting you go?" She firmly grasped my groin and I jumped, tugging on my metal restraints in a useless bid to get free. "Settle down now, dear. I'll be gentle." I saw the look in her eyes, the look of sin and hellish revenge. My heart dropped and the last thing I remember before passing out was her undressing me.
_________
Waking up alone and naked in this metal box of a room, I sighed as I ponder the idea of never escaping. That Dino never finds me and I end up being a sex slave and punching bag til my body fails on itself. They've made it clear they wouldn't kill me....so maybe I'll just do it myself.
Gunshots echoed all around me, like a mardi gras of weaponary. The barbaric yelling mixed with the clash of metal upon metal filled the silence. I stared cautiously at the door as the violence calmed down. Locks and gears shifted as the door swung open with a godly force, smoke and dust wafted into the small room as I choked on contaminated air. Two men wearing bulletproof armors and gas masks entered, one holding a rifle branded "Arasaka". I gulped as they released me from my restraints only to toss me into a body bag and zip me up.
"Number 21 has been secured. Bringing specimen back to Lab." One of the men spoke into a radio. Today is the day I die. Today, I will die.
_____
"Wake. Up." A cold metallic hand slapped my cheek as I sat in a familiar chair with a metal dome over my head. "I wanna see the life drain from your eyes." The crazied man's face was covered by a medical mask but I saw the devilish hue in his eyes. "Flip the switch."
"WAIT!" I yelled out but it was futile. White hot energy shot through my veins as I screamed the air out of my lumgs before the pain overcame me and I blacked out. Awakening in the coded void once more, I observed the desolate wasteland. Just codes, coding being created and then broken in an endless loop. A seemingly bottomless void of nothingness surrounded the "platform" I walked upon as my "boots" echoed through the air. "Scar? Raine? Devil? Saint? Anyone?" No familiar voices responded. A thunderous boom shook me to my core as a woman constructed herself from coding.
"Your friends are no longer here." She spoke in a monotoned but informatibe voice.
"Where are they?"
"They submitted, they became coding in this wasteland."
"Is it possible to rescue them?"
"No. They all gave up their memories, their "souls" as you mortals call it. They are nothing, they are no longer on this plane of existence." I stared at the woman of code, rage engulfing me as I bawl my fists up. "Death is inevitable, face it or sucumb to the darkness."
"I'LL KILL YOU!" I launched myself at her, only to faze through her. "GIVE ME MY FRIENDS BACK!"
"When will you learn, V? Everyone you pass in life will die. It's inevitable, you are a curse." Before I could react, my body felt a familiar sense of lighness as my coding became corrupted and disappeared. "We will meet again, Ghost."
"The name's V, asshole."
"Alt."
__________
"Ah you survive." The Arasaka scumbag smiled as I awoken on a small cot in a prestine all white room. "Ramana did mention there was a 50/50 survival chance, Soulkilling you again and returning you back into your prior body. From human host to a cyborg back to human host? People said I was mad for attempting this!-"
"And rightfully so." I smirked back.
"Silence yourself, merc. One flip of this switch and you'll be nothing more once again, trapped in a void of coding, doomed to an eternity of nothingness." I bit my tongue as the man ranted on. "You're living proof of the possibility of an eternal life, jumping from one host to the next, you could practically be a god!" I furrowed my eyebrows, the thought of being someone's play dummy was degrading and, in this case, deadly.
"Sure, you can suck my soul endlessly. But can you prove one's strength will still keep up? A god is almighty and powerful, not a weakling in the shell of a mortal." The man had a wicked sparkle in his eyes and he released me from the contraption. "Should've fried me when ya had the chance." I cackle as I lunged at his throat, gripling his windpipes with all the force I had in me. His skin turned a frozen coloured blue before he went lifeless onto the tiled flooring. "Fuck you." Leaving the empty building, I stared at the moon. How long was I gone? What day is it, hell what year is it? I didn't know and quite frankly, maybe it was best to let it remain unknown for the time being. All I knew was I had to see Dino and maybe I was gonna rip him a new one.
_______
"DINO!" I yelled as I entered his garage. His motorbike's engine was warmed so he must've came here recently. "I KNOW YOU'RE HERE YOU BASTARD!" He stood up from the worn out leather sofa taking up residence in the corner of the workshop, looking at me with a look of uncertain familiararity.
"V...? You're alive?!"
"No thanks to you, psh "It's a safe job" my ass! I DIED, CAME BACK AS A DROID, WAS RAPED GOD KNOWS HOW MANY TIMES, DIED AGAIN AND NOW I'M BACK?!" I pulled out my revolver and aimed it at his head. "Give me one reason I shouldn't put you down."
"There's no one else in this city who's gonna take care of you. No one's gonna give a shit about some baby merc like you. The streets'll eat you up." I fired off my gun, striking Dino in the abdomen. As he fell to his knees, clutching the wound, I walked up to him and smirked.
"I was raised on the streets by people who gave a shit. And now, here I am, standing infront of a famed fixer who's wanted by alotta people...."
"Wh....what do you want?"
"Your head on a silver platter but I'm a kind soul. Gimme your bike and 250k eddies and I'll spare your pathetic life."
"I hope the Tyger Claws slaughter you like the pig you are!" He spat at me as the eddies flowed into my account.
"And I hope your death is slow and painful." I hopped onto the bike and rode off, a weight of guilt still haunting me but I knew it was possible to come back from death.
I will find you guys. I promise.
<A/N: yeah....rough and dark chapter. Young Valarie defs has trauma up the ass. But this is the last (dont quote me) past chapter for Val. Fleshing out her past was alot more....rough than I originally intended but then that helps answer the question, what sparked V's cyberpyschosis which haha....i am not ready to go back to present Pyscho V, this bitch is unhinged and yaaaaaa....anyways-
Think I know how im ending this story (relax theres at least 4 more chapters til this is over)
Thanks for stickin around with me even though i update whenever i feel like it, you guys inspire me to write this story, which stared as a fuckin joke and theres....actual readers??? Still mind fucks me
-deadwords