A run-down shit-hole within a burnt-out hell-hole.

A/N: For the action scenes in this arc, play 'Second to None' by Style of Beyond for the background mood and theme music of Novak's fights whenever he starts to take things seriously against his opponents. It'll give you the general mood of what a badass nerd he can be in a fight or as his general theme song.

June 7, 2566

Old Steeltown District, Neo-Detroit Mega-City

6 Years, 6 Months, and 6 Days after Novak Neumann's 'Death'

In the place where Novak Neumann disappeared six and a half years prior, the once-active recycling plant has been reduced to a condemned warehouse building due to the rough times the place suffered after the electric surge that jump-started the super-tech embedded into Novak's corpse. The place had suffered a fire that heavily damaged the building infrastructure. The recycling plant, which had already faced financial difficulties before Novak's initial death, had effectively gone bankrupt due to the catastrophic inferno from the flammable oils, lubricants, and residual fuels the various machines and electronics piled into heaps lighting up into one massive fireball, crippling several workers for life in the blast.

The building today, if you can call the burnt-out structural husk of its skeleton a building, is now condemned by city zoning officials as unsafe, yet the legally questionable have found a use for it. Now claimed as territory by one of the local cyber-gangs, known as the Chrome-Bloods. The Chrome-Bloods are a gang that heavily modifies their bodies with a large amount of Cyberware enhancements. Often to the point of being more metal than flesh and just short of a full-body conversion, albeit cobbled together with all manner of black market cybernetics and illegal home-made modifications and pirated creations.

What makes them so dangerous, however, is that the Chrome-Bloods are also sick, sadistic bastards whose fingers are in the pies of the worst of the worst of the black market's illicit goods. Illegally manufactured DDVR programs, such as illegal pornography to Black VR programs allowing you to experience being murdered from the victims point of view. Illegal street drugs like Trigger and Refrain. While the other gangs also deal in these black market goods, what makes the Chrome-Bloods worse is they're also scavengers. They'll rip Cyberware or Bioware out of bodies to sell on the black market. Sometimes while their victims are still alive and without anesthesia to numb the pain of having their implants ripped out of them, killing them in the process as their implants are removed. They'll also rip out any organs they can sell from their unfortunate marks, whether viable or not, as black market donations with no guarantees if it's even safe or healthy to transplant.

Yet at the very place where Novak 'died' six and a half years prior, a distortion in space is occurring as a ghost of the past returns to the land of the living, as a man out of time...

Novak Primary P.O.V.

As I finally return back to the place where I 'died', I nervously look around, and I don't recognize the specific place I appeared. despite the fact I literally popped out of the place where I popped into the HubSpace from. The problem?

"Oh, SHIT!" WHAP! Thud. "...ooowww..."

I popped back into the world I was born in literally about 20 feet off the ground and landed right on my face. Sugar. Honey. Iced. Tea. That fucking hurts like a sunnuva bitch! As I laid face-down on the ground making muffled groans in pain from my unplanned face-plant, I suddenly hear what sounds like a group of about twenty guns suddenly cocked and feel them pointing at me when I look out of my peripherals. Oh you have got to be kidding me. Since when have the Chrome-Bloods been calling this particular district their turf!?

(Start Playing 'Second to None' here)

This is not my day....

"Well, well, well..." A particularly raucous synthetic voice states in a condescending tone of mock politeness. "What have we here, boys? Looks like some stoner just dropped in to offer us some free goods to sell."

"..."

"What's the matter stoner? Cat got your tongue?"

"...fuck this shit."

"Wh-"

He never got the chance to finish, as the moment I realized the shit-storm I just dropped into, I activated my Exodrug gland and Sandevistan simultaneously. Time itself immediately slowed to a crawl from my perception as I moved. The chemical cocktail from the Exodrug gland would normally allow the body to move at high-speeds, but not allow your mind to keep up with how fast it's hauling ass. A Sandevistan accelerates your reflexes and mind's processing speed by slowing your perception of the world to a crawl, but your body itself cannot keep up the strain for long, and it has to undergo a cooldown period to minimize the strain upon your body, lasting different lengths depending on the model in question.

Individually, neither alone can give you a true form of bullet time for very long. But together, however...

I flipped forward onto my hands as I kicked outwards in a split towards two gangers, both brandishing scatter-guns, forcing them to point towards their own allies as the triggers was pulled reflexively from catching their fingers in the triggers, blasting a couple of their own into bloody metallic chunks each. Oh yeah, these guys were also involved in the illegal black market arms trade. Like Dragon's Breath shotgun shells. Those four unlucky gangers didn't just get blown to bits, they got lit up like human torches from the synthetic oils and lubricants for their heavily chromed-up bodies igniting. Flipping in a clockwise spin, my hands lashed out. Grabbing the guns out of the air from two of those now-dead gangers dropped from their newly slack grips, I pointed the barrels at the heads of the two scatter-gunners, blasting their chrome-domed brain-cases with a new ventilation port each. Using the recoil to spin counter-clockwise, I proceed to head-shot the chrome-addled vultures as I emptied the clips of the two handguns.

Tossing the now empty pair of pistols towards the leader, beaning him in his head in the process across both sides of his rather large chrome dome, I snatch the other two guns out of the air that had slipped from the other two dead ganger's grips. These two were a revolver and a hand cannon...I'll be keeping the later one. After scrubbing it and modifying its chamber, barrel, and everything else to ensure this thing don't get me hunted for murders I didn't commit. The illegally modified revolver only has eight rounds. It also has mods for firing at armor piercing velocities. Nice. I'll be keeping this one too to tinker with. Completely emptying the revolver's drum of eight .45mm caliber rounds, I simply put the emptied revolver into my Inventory as I aim the hand cannon at the remaining chrome-sniffing fools. .50mm caliber bullets through the heads of all but the leader.

...these two military-grade implants together, with their synergistic effects, allow one to literally pull the closest thing to a time-stop as you can physically get. In just a single split second, I dropped nineteen gangers and left only their leader still alive as the bullet time effect finally ended, pointed my new hand cannon straight at the drug-addled smart-ass who thought me an easy target.

"-aAAAAUUCCCKK!!!"

(Pause Song Here)

The guy's hands rushed to clutch at his newly-dented chrome-covered forehead as his buddies all dropped to the ground, dead, with dull thudding with a distinctive metal-hitting-stone sound. All in the span of a fraction of a second. This is why military-grade implants are so damned valuable, even defective ones on the black market. It's also why these very two implants are banned from ever being implanted and used by the exact same person at the exact same time outside of active military personnel or freelance mercenaries with a lot of pull to their names. Since I'm technically neither, then I don't want to get caught by any cops once I leave this area. So avoid deep scans wherever and whenever I can for the foreseeable future.

Now, one may wonder, how the hell does a tech-savvy ex-college student know how to fight and use fucking gun fu?

The answer to that is actually rather surprising to any who hear it. My folks were the ones who taught me the basics when I was younger. Specifically, my father, a former modern-day cyber-ninja. As for my mom, she was a super-genius who did some classified work for the military and government, so picking up a thing or two about guns through osmosis from being around soldiers so much was inevitable. They both died under very suspicious circumstances when I was just about to enter my first year in middle school. Before that, they both taught and trained me in the basics of self-defense, be it up close or at a distance with guns, even going so far as to teach me using paintball guns and training swords while telling me I'd thank them for this one day. Needless to say, they were right, as they tended to be.

Kick-flipping myself back onto my feet, I stood towering over this dumb-ass as I held my pilfered hand cannon with the business end pointed at his head. I waited for the guy to realize just how fucked he was in five, four, three...

"You little bastard! We're gonna-!" Numb-nuts here froze his roar of anger mid-rant, look at the nineteen of his fellow chrome-domes all dead weight thudding heavily onto the ground. Clattering for those four who got blasted apart with the scatter-gun's Dragon's Breath. All in the span of a single instant. All with a single gun-shot to the head or torso, near point-blank. Execution-style.

...two, and one.

"...huh?" He sees me pointing a .50mm caliber hand cannon right at his face, standing on my feet, looking up in dawning realization I was a far bigger and stronger fighter than he was even with near full-body conversion, as he tries to raise his hands in a peaceful gesture. Too bad he was a Chrome-Blood. These borged-out dumb-asses wouldn't understand the meaning of 'mercy' if it sat in their laps and called them 'mama'. "...heheheh...l-let's just-WAIT!"

Ka-BANG!

"---------"

The ganger suddenly clutched his crotch, as I shot his 'lower' head and blew it clean off. His high-pitched shrieks were such a soprano in how high their tone was, I couldn't even hear what he was saying. I saw a couple of meaty walnuts fall out of his pants legs along with a bloody sausage. Both with some Cyber and Bioware implants clearly exposed to the world. Ah. I see now. I didn't just shoot his dick off. I also shot his balls off at the same time. Seems this hand cannon can unman any poor bastard I shoot in the crotch with it. Good to know if I ever run into any sick pedo bastards. I then pointed the barrels towards his big 'ole chrome-dome of a forehead before touching the business end of the hand cannon directly to his head. Though it seems he was too busy mourning the end of his bloodline, frothing at the mouth as I spoke anyway whether he heard me or not through the agony he was in.

"You really shouldn't have picked a fight with someone bigger than you." I state while looking down on him. Not a hard thing to do when I had a literal foot and a half on the guy. He barely registered the cold metal pressed against his forehead as I pulled the trigger one last time.

BANG!

(Continue Song Here)

Fifteen minutes later, I'm walking out of the remains of the factory with a big 'ole grin on my face, carrying a small armory's worth of illegal black market firearms and a few machetes, baseball bats, and even a damn punk knife and katana. And that's on top of the nice chunk of EXP I got stockpiled from killing these gangers. The crazy bastards even had a couple crates full of frag, incendiary, and EMP grenades. EACH. Those'll be handy once I get back to my workshop to mod and upgrade them to something more my style and level of tech mastery. I'll also mess around with the ammo boxes full of all manner of different caliber bullets for the nearly one-hundred different guns these borged-out tweakers had stashed here in this burnt-out hell-hole. Needless to say, I've got more than enough raw materials to make some special bullets with and then some with all the extra left-over rounds for normal shooting practice.

As I went over the warehouse, scouring it for any other goodies I can 'repossess' from these chrome-sniffing tweakers, I also found nearly ten grand in credit-dollars. That'll come in real handy. Since I am technically 'dead', I can't exactly have an active bank account, so some physical cash is the only way for me to buy anything unless I find someone willing to act as a middle-man and serve as the go-between for me and any shop-keeps selling their goods. As I was walking towards the exit of the warehouse, though, something caught my eye in the scrap piles still left to rot within this former recycling plant. Raising a brow, I move for a closer look before my other joins it in surprise finding such a goodie here and nobody thought to take it before me.

"Hello~ gorgeous..."

Oh well. Their loss is my gain. As for what it is I found? It was the broken down and mostly-intact engine and emitter for a hard-light chain-sword. Why the fuck anybody would throw that out I have no idea. They're not even that hard to fix. A quick check showed it simply suffered a minor defect in the wiring for the emitter. An easy fix that can be done with just a few credit-dollars. I can fix this in my sleep with one hand tied behind my back, easily. A slight modification, and with some of the blades and metal bats I 'acquired' as 'compensation' from these gangers, and I could make a monster of a melee weapon that no one would want to be on the wrong side of, if they had even a single functioning brain cell in their skulls. Putting that away right there in my Inventory, right next to those same blades and baseball bats to workshop a prototype blueprint later.

Before I stepped out of the warehouse, I stepped out of direct line of sight and activated my omnitool discretely to connect to the local network via my technopathy. I need information. Specifically, I need to know what happened to my friends after my six and a half years of literally dropping off the face of the Earth. I can't exactly do this openly, either, as net-runners need to register too, in order to legally ply their trade out in the open, whether it be as a freelancer, corporate, or law enforcement. So on top of illegal cybernetics, possession of illegal and/or stolen weapons, and using a defunct ID that belongs to a 'dead' man, I can now add 'unregistered net-running' to my growing list of crimes. Great. But then again, the cops never really gave a damn about my reports against Dickins' ever-escalating criminal bullying. Being a spoiled rich kid and heir to a massive fortune clearly gave more weight to his word than an orphaned kid who almost nobody seems to give a damn about.

Now, let's see what-!

(Stop Song with record scratching sound effect)

Oh. Oh. Oh, HELL NAW!!!

I was immediately fucking murderous when I saw the news on Isaac Dickins, CEO and Founder of a new multi-billion cedit-dollar corporation specializing in cutting-edge cybernetic prosthesis and artificial organs. The designs and innovations shown on his company's website...those are my stolen designs!!! That thieving little shit! Murdering me wasn't enough. He had to steal credit for my life's work! My Magnum Opus! As I hack into his company's employee roster, physically shaking my head at the laughably pitiful cyber-security, I note the names on his board of directors and immediately scowl at the four names listed alongside his own.

CEO and Founder, Isaac Dickens. A former jock with a(n un)naturally tall and well-built physique. Being the head of a corporation really let him upgrade his chrome it seems. Though some of his bulk and muscle was actually from abusing growth hormones and biochemical concoctions back in middle and high schools. I should know. It was why he made it his life mission to make my life hell, because I caught him juicing up using the chemical cheat to get onto the main sports team for the football division without tripping the mandatory drug tests. He cheated to become quarterback and team captain. And now, he was cheating to win at life. Only one thought ran through my mind after I realized just how badly he screwed my life over that evening six and a half years ago...

I'm going to fucking KILL him!!!

Head of Finances, Vladmir O'Reilley. One of Issac's most loyal lackeys. The guy was a known scam artist. He could con people out of all kinds of credit-dollars. He was also the one responsible for helping Issac with his bookkeeping. By cooking the damn things the hell and back, and the one who managed to get Issac and their buddies their little chemical cheat. The bastard also kept stealing my credit-dollars, calling it a 'protection fee', and beating my ass anytime I refused to pay up. I had a similar thought once I finished reading...

I'm going to fucking RUIN him!!!!

Head of Research and Development, Shaw McCarthy. That guy spent so damn much time finding ways to steal other people's homework and claiming it as his own rather than doing the work itself that I wouldn't be surprised if he was still doing it now to other people's hard work. He was also the running back for the team back in college. After reading his information, my mind continued along with the same mental tracks...

I'm going to fucking TORTURE him!!!

Chief of Overall Security, Leonardo Dantellion. A muscle-brained brute who always thought being bigger would make his life easier. Isaac also shared a portion of his growth hormones and biochemical concoctions with him. In fact, the meathead even bought his own supply on top of what Issac gave him to be the main linebacker for their football team. This guy was the typical thug they had to beat my ass on the others behalf. After reading his current dossier, my mental revenge plans screamed...

I'm going to fucking BREAK him!!!

Head of Public Relations, Johanne Kreuer. This damned pretty-boy had a poison-laced silver tongue and could fast-talk anyone into getting his way if he couldn't use his good looks to do so. He was the one who usually called out the plays during the games, instead of Isaac, who was the captain and quarterback of the team. The guy also had a shady rep as a serial date-rapist back in college, but it was never proven due to how careful he was about it and his own connections, in spite of a mountain of circumstantial evidence pointing to him as the culprit. My mental murderous plans culminated into a single thought...

I'm going to fucking MAIM him!!!

I instantly recognized all five of those bastards. They're the ones who jumped me and locked me in that damned shipping container! They stole my phone, my wallet, and...and my bag. The same bag containing my designs. The very designs these bastards are now profiting off of by claiming as their own. My blood suddenly boiled to the point the air began to haze from the sheer heat I was giving off to the point of near-combustion. Shaw. As head of R&D? That meat-headed discount neanderthal wouldn't know innovation if it bit him on the ass! More than likely, he just has actual geniuses do all the hard work and steals their credit. I wouldn't put it past him. Same with the others. More than likely they're just figureheads making others do all the hard work as they profit.

A quick search on the employees directly subordinate to them confirms my suspicions. I do a quick search on all five of these bastards personal lives and freeze when I find their marital status in the public registry. Oh, hell naw...I pull up their pictures and immediately feel my rage boiling over.

Isabella Dickens, formerly Hawthorne and his cheer captain girlfriend. The bitch queen who made it her life's mission to ruin my social life and left me with only three true friends since middle school.

Aisha O'Reilley, formerly Wilborne and elder twin sister to Eina. This Black bitch was a demented sadist who got off on making others mentally break through psychological torture and watching them suffer the meltdown.

Eina McCarthy, formerly Wilborne and younger twin to Aisha. This is the OTHER Black bitch who was just as twisted as her elder twin. While Aisha liked to mentally torture, she got off on physically torturing her victims.

Eliza Dantellion, formerly Merigold and his old supermodel girlfriend. She is a known size queen who has a thing for bigger guys than her. But she's also the dumb bimbo of the group. Using her ditzy air-headed act and sex appeal to get away with all kinds of trouble. Apparently, she's an actress now.

Anastasia Kreuer, formerly O'Reilley, and Vladmir's sister. She's shallow as hell, what's more, when Johanne roofied and raped other women, she actually helped to cover it up by making it seem like they were the ones throwing themselves at him trying to get into his pants. She's the biggest reason that piece of shit never got caught. I only had a single thought running through my mind at seeing this, my vengeance-driven mindset concluding my plans for retribution upon these ten individuals...

I'm going to fucking WRECK these bitches!!!

Oh, those gold-digging bitches from college chose to marry those piece-of-shit scumbags they were dating back in college, huh? After doing a deep dive on their personal lives and even discreetly hacking into their phones, I found a string of deleted data for a series of protected chat groups between the five of them and a male escort service operating out of a spa and resort. A highly exclusive, very private spa and resort. I immediately snorted at the realization of the restored messages' contents shared between these five bitches and their usual 'girls week out' every month. The realization made me begin to have an idea on a way to get retribution. And the best part? I wouldn't need to do much to get it to work; just manipulate a few things, a bit of hacking, and swap out their 'usual stress relief supplemental treatments' and alter the access and records of their 'appointed masseur' with something else right under their noses and I can make those bitches pay while ruining those thieving little bastard's marriages in the process, all at the same time.

In fact, I still got a couple of days to do so before their next little 'girls week out' trip for this month, and I can rig things up within just about an hour to ensure I can carry it out. After settling on that plan of action, I begin to search for my three friends from college, hoping to find them somewhere within reasonable traveling distance. After a few minutes of searching, I finally found two of them, but the third is practically a ghost. There's absolutely no record of him from the past five years. That's got me a little concerned. What the hell happened to my childhood best friend Demetrius 'D-Ray' Bellaire? He was basically a modern-day high nobility, as his family was very wealthy and influential. If Will Smith was the 'Fresh Prince of Bellaire', then D-ray was the 'REAL Prince of Bellaire'. That's the kind of background his family had. Guy didn't even need to go to college, but he did so anyway to ensure he wasn't reliant on his family's old money. He should have at least had a deposit and withdrawal record from his credit-dollar account, yet it hasn't shown a single credit-coin change in the last five years according to his bank statements. That's not normal. I've got a bad feeling about this, and the fact I can't find any records more recent than that is more than a little concerning. Even his family doesn't seem to know where he is from what I can dig up. He's been my best friend since we were kids. This isn't like him.

The other two names I looked up, though, were thankfully enough still in the city, and easily within walking distance. In fact, much to my surprise, they were living in the same apartment address. That surprised me a bit, but on second thought, it really shouldn't, given their preferences. Theresa Moon-joy and Evelyn Walker were both a pair of freelance investigators now. Part private investigator, part freelance mercenary, part independent journalist, they take jobs that require detective work as much as muscle and cyber-diving to complete whatever gigs they get and occasionally post stories to local news outlets. Evelyn being a registered net-runner and Theresa being her trained muscle and occasional bodyguard. While Evelyn deep dives and searches through cyberspace, Theresa is the one who goes in guns blazing, metaphorically or literally as needed.

Back in college, Evelyn had a birth defect that made getting implants impossible to cure her disability. She was legally blind due to a birth defect from botched gene-mods crippling her optic nerves near the back of her orbital cavities. On top of this, the section of her brain they connected to weren't properly attached, so getting any implants wouldn't work due to how dangerously close to her brain the defect is. When I learned of this, I made some special goggles that used a neural interface programmed to read her body's natural bio-electric flow to give her a limited form of 'sight'. Her skills as a net-runner only increased ten-fold after the goggles I gave her, and aided her dual majors in cyber-forensics and IT. I then got a real nice 'reward' from her for the gift. That was how I lost my v-card in college.

As for Theresa, she was always a bit of a tomboy, but flat-out refused to join any sports or athletics clubs despite the fact she could have been the ace if she wanted to. She instead studied physical education with the intent of joining the military originally, but after meeting and befriending the three of us, she decided to change to dual majoring in physical education and criminal forensic science. She actually first met me when D-Ray and I helped save her from a group of Chrome-Bloods trying to snatch her off the street. A quick beat-down and sweeping chromed-up trash later, and she ended up joining me, D-Ray, and Evelyn as the fourth member of our little nerd herd. After a few months into our first year, she and Evelyn began to openly express their preferences in the bedroom, with me and D-Ray actually supporting them. After all, the heart wants what the heart wants, and it's nobody else's place to say who you can and cannot take into the bedroom.

As for why the two moving in together isn't too surprising for me? That's simple. The two were lesbian lovers back in college since a few months into their second semester of their freshman year, but they were both actually bisexual, so every now and then they'd invite a guy into their bed for a very kinky menage-a-trois. Usually me, more often than not, though sometimes they had invited D-Ray instead if I was either unavailable or had something else preventing me from joining in.

After casually walking for about an hour and a half to the next district over, I found their shared apartment, which also apparently doubled as their office for their private business. After triple-checking one last time to make sure I had the right address, I buzzed the intercom by their front door on the ground floor. A few moments later, a very confident, very irritated, and nostalgically familiar voice with a slight Native American lilt to it spoke up from the speaker, as nostalgia filled my chest and a mischievous smirk formed upon my face.

"We're closed for the day. Business hours don't start again until tomorrow morning around 8 o'clock." An annoyed half-blood spoke through the intercom. It is a little late at night, so not too surprising. Oh, she's going to hate this response I'm about to give her.

"Heard you're secretly a bottom for Evie. That true?" I spoke with an evil grin on my face, knowing exactly what was coming next.

(Start Song back up one last time from last point)

The next second, the door practically burst off the jam all but exploding outward as a very pissed of half-Navajo woman pointed a limited edition old-school .10mm Glock S&W Handgun at my face while brandishing a wickedly sharp and very large custom Bowie knife pointed right at my crotch. Her defensive denial of being the bottom in her relationship with her lesbian lover right on the tip of her tongue. Her platinum blonde hair was in a slightly disheveled mess. I also noted that she was wearing a very sheer negligee with a set of some rather transparent lingerie visible beneath it, hiding practically nothing of her curvy Amazonian beauty. Behind her, I also saw Evelyn, wearing her goggles and a very skintight leotard with some zippers over the intimate bits hastily zipped up. Her own large and curvy figure was a plush contrast to Theresa's. Her own locks of dark purple hair was slightly messy as well and she had a massive blush on her face down to her neck. Ooops. Guess I accidentally interrupted their sexy times while on their day off. My bad. I internally winced at my unintentional cock-blocking the two as I moved in a maneuver they'd never forget anywhere.

Grabbing Theresa's wrist on her handgun with my left hand, I pulled while swiping my right leg in a low sweep, pivoted on my left foot, then grabbed her hand gripping the Bowie knife with my right hand, twisting her in a manner that left her lying on her back, arms crossed over her ample caramel twin mountains. I then place my right knee on her abdomen, pinning her down while keeping the majority of my weight on my left foot to avoid crushing her. Her arms crossed, corded muscles tensed and her abdominal muscles clenching as her generous tits jiggled against my thigh, rubbing dangerously close to my slowly hardening twin shafts from the delicious eye-candy these two beauties were giving me and my own years-long blue-balled state not helping matters.

Evelyn and Theresa both started at me wide-eyed in shocked disbelief at what I had done. After all, they knew that maneuver I just used. It was the same one I pulled to save Theresa back in college when we first met. In a shaky, slightly hesitant tone somewhat out of character for her, Theresa's rather unique pink eyes looked at me in fragile hope as she spoke up her question.

"...Novak?"

I simply smiled as I nodded at her, then turned to Evelyn as I responded.

"I'm back, girls."

Afterwards, I'm immediately rushed back into the apartment with the two very sexy, very confused, and very insistent ladies asking me a very important series of questions lasting for a full four hours. Now a very important question occurs to me that makes me a little nervous as I see the looks the two are giving me...

(End Song)