Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I woke up drenched in rain, my clothes soaked and my nose broken. I sat up from the cracked asphalt of the alleyway that I was laying in, and everything was a blur. Where am I? Why is my nose broken? What happened? I thought. The memories came back to me in flashes, showing the three college age boys that mugged me. What were they thinking? I’m only 17. I patted myself down, noticed they took everything except my chipware, which is good, as they probably didn’t have a runner to eject it, since they seemed pretty dumb. I tried to ring up my stepdad but he didn’t respond, he probably passed out after drinking too much. I limped out into the street, and I heard the loud yelling of advertisements, and it was overwhelming so I reduced my exterior hearing. I called up my friend, he picked up immediately,
“yo, wussup choom?” he said when he answered
“Just got mugged, they took my shit, broke my nose, whatcha doin?”
“That sucks dude, head over to someone and get that checked out, and me? not much, just got an insane BD from Jimmy K, this is wild”
“spit it gonk, what’s goin on?”
“its a cyberpsycho dance dude, this guy got merc’d by MAX-TAC, it was so nova”
“I’ll have to check it when I hang out tomorrow”
“oh yeah, forgot to tell you, I can’t hang out, one of my brothers ‘friends’ is coming over and I’m not allowed to have anyone over when he does, I’ll send you the address of the guy who sold me the BD, he’s a ripper”
“Shit dude I’ll head over there after school tomorrow, aight, im almost home, I’ll call you later” I said, hanging up
I got to my door and it opened to reveal my foster dad passed out, covered in bottles and powder, so I just went to my room and passed out, thinking about how awful it is to live in this shitty town, and how the world needs someone to be a good person. I slowly fell asleep looking at the old magazines I put on my ceiling.

I woke up early the next day and walked to school. I entered the school building and sat in the back of the class, thinking about what I should do to try and get my stuff back, when Gavin sat next to me.
“Yo L, whatcha doin?” He said, surprising me out of my thoughts
“Not much Gav, just…thinking.”
“whatcha thinkin bout?”
“Nothing, I'm just tired. Joseph passed out after doing some powder. I think he’ll be okay”
“That’s good… Dude, Evie hasn’t texted me back all week”
“Choomba… it’s fine, you know she’s busy”
“Of course she is, she’s always busy, she doesn’t think about me while im sitting here obsessing over her” He retorted
“Neither does” I glanced around the room “The girl I have a crush on, I text her all the time, I think she hates me.”
“Nah, you’re likeable, you know who hates me though?”
“Evie doesn’t hate you,” I said. He went quiet after that, and we went on and just did our school work. School had us together in every class, that’s how we became friends. He'd help me with my work and I’d help him with tech stuff and brute force. After school I took the train through pretty much all of Heywood to get home. Joseph was sitting on the couch, watching a BD, but cut it off when the door closed. The room smelled less like beer but it was still apparent.
“Why didn’t you wake me up last night?” He asked, voice angry and stern.
“I got home late, I was mugged” I said
“Mugged my ass, don’t give me that shit!” He spat on the floor, and I flinched “Why didn’t you call me then, Lumin”
“I did dickhead, you were passed out on the couch and didn’t pick up, you were drunk off your ass” I said, my voice getting louder
“You fucking punk, don’t give me that, you know I only drank one or two beers.”
“Try eleven or twelve you fat ass” My hands balled into fists
“GET YOUR UNGRATEFUL ASS OUT OF MY HOUSE”
“Fuck you!/.” I said as I slammed the door shut, I made it to the bottom floor of our apartment building before I let tears fall from my eyes, I hated when he yelled at me, he always made me feel like i was not good enough, I ran for a few miles till I made it to the address that Gav sent me, I walked in and it smelled awful, like rotting meat and metal. The room was littered with everything from high quality chrome to some old rusted guns, the walls were covered in blood, there was just so much blood everywhere, and then I saw him dead center in the room, a man laying on what looked like one of the dentists chairs I’ve seen in old magazines. The man in the chair was huge and dripping blood all over the floor, standing over him was a small wiry woman in a tank top with a welding mask covering her face, her hair was a bright yellow and braided. She looked up at me
“Who are you?" She asked, her voice sounded young, older than me but not by a ton, maybe in her mid 20’s
“I… I’m Lumin, my friends call me L.”
“Are we friends Lumin?”
“No, but ju-“ She cut me off
“Exactly, I’ll call you Lumin and you’ll call me… Sasha”
“So I’m here because my friend Gav told me that you had some nice BDs, some Jimmy K stuff.”
“Yeah, you teens and Jimmy Kurosaki, I have some, but it’s not cheap choomba, you got eddies?”
“Well…no… but I’ll pay it back I swear.”
“No need, I actually need an experiment, my last one just bled out, I’ll clean up the chair, throw some chrome in ya and if you survive, you’ll be able to take anything from the shelves” I stood still for a moment, contemplating my options.
“Alright, what are you gonna give me?”
“Depends, I have two experiments, one is a grappling hook, it fires the hook out of your wrist, and the other stores up kinetic energy in your hand and dispels when you punch and while it’s stored, it works like an electro magnet.”
“I-uhhh…I don’t know, can I have some time to think?”
“Yeah fine, while I throw away this man’s body.” Then, she came around the table to pick him up, and I heard the whirring of motors. I saw that she had eight spider legs coming out of her torso. She picked up the large man with surprising ease for her size, and she threw him over her shoulder and went into a back room. What am I doing? this is crazy, all this for a fucking BD, but I’m also getting free chrome, and its experimental, which means it’s probably expensive and worth it… But which one, shock hands would be cool, but at the same time I would be able to zip through the city super quick with the grappling hook, and it could double as a weapon… Yeah, let’s go with that one.
“Ay, you pick one yet?”
“yeah… I’ll go with the grappling hook.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever Lumin.” She gestured for me to lay down on the chair in the middle of the room, while she went and grabbed a large case of metal from the pile of clutter around the room “Just one moment.” She said while looking for something, and when she returned she had one of those masks that people who go to the hospital get when they’re injured. She put it on my face “Take a deep breath in 3…2…” and I was out.

Chapter Text

Chapter Two
I woke up staring at the bright ceiling, my arms were limp by my side, I was now sitting up in the chair and I felt cold hands on the back of my neck.
“Ah yes Lumin, welcome back I’m just connecting up the last-” she grunted and I could feel her hand move “-thing” the moment she said that I could feel my hands whirring to life they felt heavier, but at the same time more nimble
“So, how do I, y'know… grapple” I said, while holding my hands out trying to activate it
“Just…visualize it” Sasha said. I closed my eyes, and pictured the wire flowing down both my arms and shooting out, when I did I heard a soft click then a soft metallic thump a few feet in front of me, I slowly opened my eyes to reveal two long thin chords coming out of my wrists right behind my palms.
“NOVA!”
“now pull them out kid” I tried yanking at them but all that succeeded in doing was making me trip and fall forward before being pulled forward a couple inches by them retracting me into the wall, I yanked and imagined the hook folding into a cylinder and coming out of the wall and I pulled, next thing I knew, I heard a whirring sound and a gear catching and looked back at my arms and it looked like nothing was different, just smooth skin.
“Thank you so much, this is amazing”
“Yeah yeah” she tossed me the BD “take something from the shelf, just one, most of it is experimental garbage but you might be able to find something in the piles of garbage”
I walked over to the old rusty shelves “but don’t take any chrome, I won’t install it for free this time, alright choom” I picked up something that was long, brightly colored had a trigger, and a pump, no clue what it did but it sure as hell looked like a shotgun, but it had a screen on the side.
“Yo sasha”
“What?” she said, her head slowly looking up at me from across the room her eyes full of exhaustion
“What is this?”
“Its a shotgun, but you can slam the pump down several times and that increases the… lets say… potency of the shot”
“Novaa”
“Yeah, yeah, i know, but if it blows up thats your fault, not mine”
“I can deal with that” I said as I shoved the BD in my pocket “talk to you later spider lady” I said as I went for the door.
“Dont die kid, city’s dangerous” she said as I exited the building out into the street, out of the harsh bright neon colors of Sasha’s shop and looked at the shotgun, it was two colors, neon green and neon pink, a very “look at me” gun, which isn’t what I needed, but it's what I got. I put it in between the straps of my bag and headed out to try and find a place to stay. I wandered around the maze of a district that is japantown till I realized that it would be easier to go from rooftop to rooftop with my new chrome, so I found a quiet alleyway and stuck my arms up towards the top of the wall and close my eyes and envisioned the wire flying out of my hands and opening up in the wall. I heard the soft sound of metal on stone and pull me towards the wall before I jumped and landed against the wall, the gravity still pulling against my body towards the ground but the claws and winch system pulling against it and my arms, they felt like they were gonna tear off, but they stood steady, and I concentrated on activating the winch. I felt my arms being pulled up against the winch and I had to run to keep up but the second I ran out of chord, I released and it sent me flying toward the top. I flew over the roof and tried to grapple onto it. The hooks connected, I yanked myself towards it and landed on the roof. When my feet connected and I had my balance I released. The sloped roof steep but I could stand on it, I sat down and caught my breath, the city looked gorgeous from here, the lights were so bright this late at night, and it was beautiful, but it was so cold on this roof, and i needed to find a place to stay for the night, but i was getting so weak and my muscles were so sore. Next thing I knew…I hit the ground.

I drifted in and out of sleep several times and saw flashes of people, I awoke with a cough, and then another, into a full on fit of coughing. I tried to sit up but it didn't work, my whole body felt like it was torn apart and stitched together. That's when I opened my eyes to see the soft lights of the pristine white ceiling, then I heard a door creak.
“Oh! you’re awake” a woman rushed to my side and leaned over me, she looked about my age. Her voice was gentle, no slang, no… edge to it.
“Why…why am I here?” my throat felt like I drank sand
“I was buying noodles in Japan town… I heard a loud clang and rushed to find what it was and I found you… your ribs were cracked, and you had a concussion.
“H- how long was I out?” this was strange, people dont help in this town. There was obviously something going on, what was it
“You were out for around 15 hours, I was so worried when I found you” Yeah right, people don’t worry about each other in night city.
“Where am I?” I managed to choke out, it felt like blood was pooling in my throat
“You’re in Charter Hills… so still in Westbrook” she said while fidgeting with her hands
“d- do you have a bathroom or like a b- bowl i can s- spit in.” The blood was now pooling in my mouth
”of course, one second, ill be right back” she flashed me a smile before quickly hurrying off to go find something, i tried to sit up again, i used all my might to push myself up and back so I was sitting up in the bed neat bed, i looked around the pristine clean room my eyes landed on an ornate golden mirror, and for the first time in weeks got a good look at myself, looking back at me was shaggy dark hair, my face covered in cuts, bruises and blood, my nose busted and stuffed with tissues, and my grey eyes were blood shot. That’s when she came back, her smile bright as ever.
“Here you go” she said, handing me the bowl. I immediately spit up the blood that was starting to leak out my mouth, despite expelling the blood, the dirty iron taste was left in my mouth. “What’s your name?” she asked while pulling up a chair.
“I’m…im Lumin, People call me L” she giggled
”That's a cute name, I'm Sylvie, so L, what were you doing in that alley?”
”i uh…um… I was on the roof of the next door building and I ended up passing out”
”im…that sucks, are you sure you're okay?”
”Yes, I'm sure, thank you for asking…but can I ask why you're helping me?”
”well because you needed it of course” no way, absolutely not, this is wrong, people don't help here in this city
“Well…thanks, where’s my stuff” I tried to turn to get out of bed
”no, you can’t, you're hurt and need time to heal, please” I laid back down, trying to play it cool. “There you go, you need your beauty rest” Something is wrong, I can’t quite tell, but everything feels… off, that's when I realized it, there’s no smell, I couldn’t smell anything aside from when she leaned over me there was a perfume, otherwise nothing, and there was no ambiance, even in Westbrook it was loud, it didn’t matter where you went or what you were doing, it’s always loud in night city. I’ve only known it to be quiet artificially.
“Could you hand me my bag Sylvie” I gave her a big attempt at a smile
“Of course L” she said, going to grab it, but purposefully leaving the gun behind and bringing my bag over
“And the gun please”
“Why would you need that silly?”
“Sylvie…give me my gun…NOW”
”Why would you need that silly?” I stared at her, her eyes didn’t flinch, there was no fear in her eyes, only an absent stare, I tried to get up again, she rushed over to me ”no, you can’t, you're hurt and need time to heal, please” I pushed her off me “Owie” she giggled “im okay though” I limped my way towards my gun. I reached for it, my body screaming in protest but I picked it up and racked it. I racked it again but all that happened was it ejected a shell, if what Sasha told me was true that shouldn’t happen. This is a BD, i need to die… but what if its not, what if i just die. I turned it back on myself and took a deep breath “Why would you ne-” she said as I pulled the trigger.

Chapter Text

Chapter 3

My ears filled with a loud electronic glitch sound before I opened my eyes and found myself in a dimly lit room, metal armrests digging into my arm, leather straps wrapped around my arms. I opened my eyes to a bright harsh light, heavily contrasting the warmth of the room I was just in. There was a darkness surrounding the singular light hanging above me.
“Good morning” a harsh voice cut through the darkness
“Ughhh” I groaned as an immense pain shot through my chest and head, my body felt sluggish and heavy.
“Welcome back to the real world young man” a tall sharply dressed man walked into the light. The only weird thing was that on his face, blocking his eyes and wrapping around his head was a black bar with a red line across the front of it.
“W-whe” I spit up blood “wh- where am I”
“You my friend are in my warehouse, where I make my new product…interactive BDs” he took a bow as if I was supposed to be impressed “what you just demo’d was the next big thing here in night city, personal BD maids who take care of you in your head while in the real world, you end up rotting” he let out a cackle of joy.
“No one will buy your shit, and even if people do, they’ll die so fast after you'll lose money” I tried to spit at him but it just went all over my shirt. He punched me in the face, I could feel the metal in his fist.
”you like that kid, being hit with steel”
”fuck off gonk, i just got some new chrome, electro fists, lets see what that little visor does when hit with a thousand volts, if your borg’d up brain didn’t know, thats twenty times the lethal amount.” I have to get out of here, lets hope he believes me
”yeah right kid, you ain’t got the body for something that powerful”
“take off these straps and try it then” I felt a tremor in my arm there’s no way i could stand right now, think L, think of something. He leaned over me
”I don't think I will kid, your trick disgusts me” he tapped his visor “I can see everything going on on every level of your body, including that little winch system of yours, you’re pathetic” shit, he can see my chrome my heart pounded against my cracked ribs he wasn’t just some rich gonk, he had some high level chrome.
“I’m pathetic? what are you doing, sitting in here, making shitty BDs while im testing out black market chrome that could kill me, who’s really the pathetic one here”
“shut up kid, we both know that if you fired that right now, you’d tear your arms clean off of your body”
“i dont need my chrome to beat you, this needs to be fair, then I'll tear you limb from limb, tying me up and wailing on me makes you weak and scared” I could feel the blood pooling in my mouth again. The metallic viscous liquid made it hard to breathe.
”you wouldn’t get it kid its… what’s a word your stupid street kid brain can get… efficient, it’s efficient”
”efficient my ass” just then i needed to cough this blood, i braced for the pain and used everything i had to expel the bloody pool forward onto him covering his face in a mix of snot and blood.
”UGH, YOU BRAT!” This was my only shot, I remembered the mechanism on these old surgical chairs was on the bottom of the armrest, I reached my fingers as much as I could when I finally found it, a small button, I compressed my finger and just barely pressed it, I could feel the pressure on my wrists release. I pushed myself forward onto the ground and saw my bag leaning against a table behind me. On top of it laid the shotgun. “YOU GET BACK HERE RIGHT NOW YOU LITTLE PUNK” he had wiped the blood from off his face. I just kept crawling. I need to make it to my gun. I heard his metallic feet behind me, THUMP SWISH THUMP SWISH. He was slowly following after me, stalking me. “I will make this very worth it” I just kept crawling until I felt the canvas of my bag, I pulled it towards me and grabbed my gun and pumped it k-CLICK, k-CLICK. the screen lit up with a percentage meter, it said 25%, I held the gun steady, braced myself against the table “Oh no you don’t kid”, he reached for it, but I fired, his head snapped back, I heard a metallic clang as his visor hit the ground, the blood spattered everywhere, his brain matter covered the floor and chair, my arms fell weakly to my side. The high pitched ringing in my ears louder than the sounds of the city around me. I killed a man… I was supposed to be a good person, good people don’t kill anyone. Suddenly an electric voice cut through my thoughts.
“Platinum member flatlined, trauma team arriving in 180 seconds, standby”

Chapter Text

Fuck, if I’m still here when they get here, they’ll know it was me. I tried standing up but my legs wouldn’t keep me up. I had to keep going, I crawled, I crawled looking for something to hide in and I found one, a crate, I opened it and crawled inside. I heard the loud sirens of the trauma team arriving a few moments later. I peaked through the holes in the crate to see them, they were talking with a man who looked like an investigator, I could only make out bits of their conversation.
“Callen, what does it look like?” One of the trauma team asked
“Messy, either an amateur chrome junkie, or your ‘preem’ member here was keeping someone hostage, someone who fought back, hard.”
“So…what, your saying our client got fucked up by some stupid kid?” Asked the trauma team while loading the guy I killed onto a stretcher.
“Not necessarily, you see how messy it is, this wasn't done with any street or surface level weaponry, this was black market stuff.”
“So what Callen, spit it out!”
“Your client captured and cornered someone, that's not okay!”
“But who… and where'd they go?” The detective crouched down
“Well, based on the angle of the shot, and the blood on the floor, not far. Notice the upward blood pattern and the back of the neck being higher than the front? It implies a on the ground position, aiming up.” He started walking towards the crate, I tried to get down in the product inside.
“So what, it could’ve just been a hit and run.”
”Yes, but look at the smearing, there’s a secondary trail where another person was presumably dragged or pulled themselves away from the body, the killer didn’t run.”
“We need to find this kid then, if he’s nearby we can find him, I’ll call NCPD.”
”Why? As I just demonstrated, the kid was doing it in self defense, there’s no reason to try to hurt him, let him go for now, I’ll find him if he does it again.” He now had his hand on the lid of the box, but instead of lifting the lid, he jumped up and sat on it and covered the hole I was looking through. Why did he do that? a few moments later I heard
“Detective Callen, you're needed in Santo, another homicide.” The sound came from above me, presumably a call, he hopped off the box and went outside, with the trauma team following him. I slowly dragged myself from the box and braced myself against it and called Gav. The second he picked up I said
“I need you to pick me up, no questions, Ill tell you when we get to your house, just get here as quick as possible.” As I coughed up some blood
”I- uhh… alright where are you?”
”I’ll send you my location, think I’m somewhere in the Industrial District.”
”Aight, you okay?”
”No, I'm not, I need food and a place to stay for the night.”
”I gotchu choom.” He hung up. I tried to send him my location but I couldn’t while in the building. That fucking gonk had satellite blockers in his warehouse. I limped through the door they carried his body through, glad they left it unlocked. The second I left the building I felt the satellite connection activate, and I sent him my location. It took him about 30 minutes to get to me, he found me huddled against the trashcan outside, it smelt like Sasha’s shop.
“Hey man, w-what happened?” He asked, as he carried me to his car, but I couldn't respond, I was in so much pain, I was fading in and out of consciousness. He set me in the passenger seat and buckled me in. “Don’t worry man… I-I’ll call trauma team… when we get to my house or- I’ll take you to a ripper, I know a lady.” He set off
“No, don’t take me to Sasha” I managed to choke out
“But- but she could help.” He sounded panicked, I couldn’t turn my neck to look though, it hurt to move.
“A-anyone else…pl-please Gav, another ripper or M-MedCenter, don't take me to Sasha please.”He hesitated before responding
“My brother's friend… She’s a ripper… I’m taking you there.” He drove for about 20 minutes, and arrived at a nice building in what I assumed to be Heywood… Not far from where Sylvie would live, if she was real. Gavin carried me into the elevator, I was dripping a lot of blood, it pooled beneath us while in the elevator I probably stained his seat in his car, I feel bad. Just as I was about to apologize, the elevator came to an abrupt stop, and opened up into a beautiful condo.
”Hey Kass, I-I need help!” Gav shouted out into the large, empty, dimly lit apartment
“Who’s there?” A tall woman with bright blue boxer braids and pale skin ran down a staircase and stopped a few feet away “Gav, who is this?”
”Does that really matter? Please just patch him up, he's a friend of mine.”
”Fine, go set him down on the table in the other room.” She guided him into a room with lots of extra parts and pulled out some rubber gloves. “What happened to him?”
”No clue, he didn’t fill me in, I found him bleeding out outside of a warehouse, said he’d fill me in at my house.”
”N-n-new ch-chrome, hurts, got c-captured, g-g-got p-punched, lots in face.” My mouth was pooling with blood again. “Bowl plesthe.” I said, and Kass got me a metal bowl.
“Spit.” She said and I spit up all of the blood into the bloody mucus. “This isn’t good… I’m gonna need to knock him out.” She left the room and came back with a similar machine to the one Sasha used “Breath in in 3…2…” And I was out