The Last Masquerade (Vampires The Masquerade/Cyberpunk: Edgerunners)

‘I should have known,’ V thought just before the hot goth girl straddling his lap's face split open, revealing a set of fangs that lowered from the roof of her mouth and were attached to vials and tubes. Honestly, what was he thinking? No way a girl like her picks up a guy like him in a club- his first assumption should have been that she was some kind of serial killer. That would be far more in line with his luck. 

V tried to react, going to push her off of him, but the girl, who fed him a probably fake name of Silena, beat him to it. A hand slammed into his chest, and the wind was knocked right out of his lungs, his sternum feeling like it was bruised down to the marrow. He had noted the Realskinn on her arms back at the club, and he made the assumption that her arms were chrome, but he hadn’t thought the 4’3 goth girl would be rocking a set of gorilla arms. 

He was pinned to the couch that he thought he was about to get lucky on, so he went for his iron in a holster under one arm, only for that to be caught in a hand that stopped it dead cold. Fear rose in the back of his throat, his brain scrambling for options, but whatever they were, they weren’t enough because Silena dove in, latching to the side of his neck, and he felt…

Bliss. Toe curling orgasmic bliss. It was better than sex. 

It was just a bit overshadowed by the fact that he saw his blood erupt into the vials attached to the fangs before it was siphoned off into a tube that led down her throat. 

“That’s my… blood… give… it… back…” Hardly the most inspired last words, but he couldn’t do better. Selina was slurping him down like a juice box, and already, he couldn’t feel his limbs. He felt cold. His head was full of fog, and darkness encroached on his ‘ganic eye. His optic, however, remained active. 

But all he saw was a message that he hoped to never see. 

Fatal System Error

Flatline

The message glitched, static making it go fuzzy, before it winked out entirely. And V… he was gone. 

…

…

…

… Or was he?

“Wah…” V rasped, peeling open his eyes to find an unfamiliar ceiling. Something was wrong with him -- he felt it immediately and so sharply that it cut through the fog that seemed to shroud every thought as he reclaimed consciousness. His body felt like it had shrunk three sizes too small, his senses felt like someone had dialed them up to eleven but then muffled them, and the hunger… 

V had grown up hungry. Finding yourself on the cold unfeeling streets of Night City as a young child would do that to you. He had more than his fair share of lean times when he was so broke he was left digging through dumpsters for half-eaten trash for a meal. But this hunger wasn't that. This was sharper. More defined. 

It was a beast that curled in his guts, scratched at his sternum, and gnawed on his ribs to escape. To feast. 

Yet, at the very same time, he felt good. Better than he ever felt before. He felt like what he imagined it would feel like to finally upgrade with some quality chrome that could catapult him amongst the stars. The complete contrast of fantastic and awful left him feeling unsteady as he tried to sit up, only for his vision to swarm. 

His optic still gave him the same Fatal Alert, but given how he was still up and kicking, he figured it hadn't cleared with his rise from the dead, so he blinked it away. 

“Awake already, are we?” V heard a familiar voice remark, and with that, all the pieces clicked together, and he was scrambling to his feet. He half fell off the bed he was lying on, but he managed to get his feet underneath him and looked at her. Silena. 

Something was wrong. 

Silena wasn't appearing in his optic. Her appearance wasn't encrypted, blurring her features like what most used -- she was outright gone. The only reason he could see her was because of his organic eye, and she didn't look any different despite the grand reveal that she was a blood-guzzling psychopath. 

It was impossible to tell what she really looked like given her face was a face plate -- only the dedicated netrunners or people who wanted to change their faces like clothes got those. But he had put her around his age of twenty-one. Pretty with stark white hair, eyes that glowed silver in pools of black, which completed the Gothic look that she sported. She was small, wearing a dress that was black frills and fishnets, complete with thigh-high platform boots that gave her an extra two inches of height. 

There were a whole lot of things he wanted to say as he looked at her, starting with ‘what the actual fuck?’ But he had to prioritize. “You hacked me,” he accused first, a hand going to his port to check it for a shard. The whole ‘biting and drinking his blood’ thing was absolutely weird, but given that he was alive, she wasn’t a serial killer with a blood fetish. So, that could wait. Just for a moment, because as he found his empty port, he checked his neck to find smooth skin. No trace of the bite. 

Silena offered a lascivious smirk, “It would be more accurate to say that I stopped hacking you.” What did that even mean? She was invisible to his optic- that said she was rocking with some premmo tier ICE that she switched on, or that she hacked him. And given that even ‘Saka ninjas hadn’t cracked digital invisibility, he was betting on the latter. “But, I can understand your confusion. I’m sure you have plenty of questions, V. I might even be willing to answer a few of them, so choose wisely.”

There was something in her voice that sent a shiver of fear racing down his spine. It was how… dismissive she was. Her absolute confidence. He didn’t even register as a threat to her, and given how easily she overpowered him… how fast she moved… he was inclined to think that she was right. 

And if she was only going to answer a few questions… “Why me?” He asked, every muscle coiled like a spring and he could feel the power in his muscles. So many questions nearly jumped off his tongue, but those could wait. Just for a moment. 

Silena seemed pleasantly surprised as she began to walk, and he made sure to have her in his vision at all times. The loft apartment that she brought him to wasn’t exactly huge, but it was better than his shithole in a megabuilding. “Why you? Not what did I do to you?”

“You’re bound to tell me that at some point. Or I’ll figure it out myself,” V said, walking so that the couch was between them. It wasn’t much. Frankly, it was nothing, and it only seemed to amuse her based on how her lips twitched. “You’re the one who approached me at the club. Out of everyone there, you chose me for whatever the fuck this is. So, why me?”

Silena came to a stop, and V was keenly aware of the tinted window at his back. A means of escape if he didn’t mind a three-story drop. “You’re right,” she admitted. “I did choose you. You, V, have all the qualities that I’m looking for,” she began, stalking forward and now that he was really paying attention to it, he noticed that she moved with a little too much grace. Too much precision. A face plate, gorilla arms, and prosthetic legs? Was she a full on borg? “You know this city. You’re a halfway skilled mercenary, but a middling reputation makes you easy to forget by those that know of you, and the real players of this city have never heard of you.”

Ouch. His feelings. Not entirely wrong, though. It had been the reason for his decision to head to Atlanta in search of greener pastures. Going to the club had been his last hurrah in Night City before he flew out. 

“And what do you need a halfway skilled but forgettable merc for? Couldn’t you have gone through a Fixer?” He prompted, an edge of anger in his voice. 

Given that she had a face plate, he knew he couldn’t trust her expressions, but she seemed decidedly amused with his snark. “Because I have plans for you, V. For this city. For-” She began, and he got the impression she was about to go on a whole ass monologue like she was some evil super whiz, but her attention suddenly snapped to the door to her apartment. 

She made a sudden gesture and V was left staring with stupefied awe as shadows rose from the ground, forming a barrier around the door just as it exploded into the room. His staring didn’t last long, though, as the window shattered behind him and he felt something slam into him from behind with enough force that his body spun. He landed in a heap, shards of glass raining down on top of him as someone came through the window. 

V saw a man covered in head-to-toe matte black armor, all except for a symbol he didn’t recognize on his arm and a pair of glowing red optics. He didn’t even take notice of him, simply raising an assault rifle and opening fire at Silena. The apartment became a place of pure noise -- gunfire, screaming, and the sound of flesh being ripped apart, followed by the splashing of blood. 

‘Fuck this!’ V thought to himself, making a snap decision and scrambling to his feet. He didn’t give him a second to second-guess himself and simply threw himself out of the window. Just as he did so, an explosion rocked the apartment, telling him he made the right choice even if the ground was fast approaching. 

His limbs flailed in the air for a moment, but he managed to right himself enough to land on his feet and roll. He slammed into the wall on the other side of the alley, but he bounced off it and took off in a dead sprint, the adrenaline in his veins letting him ignore his probably broken ankles and not caring in the slightest where he was going, only that he wasn’t there. The sounds of gunfire were fading ever so slightly, and by the time he reached the streets of Night City, they sounded distant. 

But something was wrong. 

The smells were sharper, assailing his nose with the stench of rust, garbage, and a busted open sewer to the point that each breath burned. The noise of the city, the shouting, horns honking, the sounds of feet on pavement… he learned to block them out, but they sounded like claps of thunder and were impossible to ignore as he stumbled through the streets. A holographic ad flashed in the corner of his eyes and it felt like he went blind for a moment with a spike of pain in his brain. 

And there was this strange beating sound and a scent he couldn’t make sense of. It was everywhere, and with every breath, the scent sent hunger pains from his stomach to his brain. 

He saw the looks that he was getting as he stumbled down the streets, feeling entirely too strong and completely uncoordinated. They probably thought he was drunk and trying to find his way home after a bender. The people of Night City were long used to drunks, strung-out addicts, and homeless people screaming into a void of indifference, so they barely gave him a second glance if they gave him one in the first place. Especially in the middle of the night. 

Night City never slept, but that didn’t mean anything good happened in the dark. 

“I need to get home. I can have a panic attack there,” V reasoned, the thumping echoing in his ears. He was in Vista Del Ray, the district neighboring Heywood, the streets he called home. So he wasn’t far. A good thing because with every beat he heard in a growing symphony, the hunger that coiled in his guts grew stronger. 

He cut through a back alley, moving as fast as he could without drawing attention to himself. A mistake, V realized in hindsight. 

“Hey! Where do you think you’re going?” V heard from a familiar crowd that hung around in the space between buildings. A pair of them. V must have walked by them a thousand times before now, never giving them a second look because he had been a merc, always armed, and so he wasn’t an easy target. So, they let him walk by without a word a thousand times. 

He knew exactly what they thought when they saw him stumbling down the alley, taking uneven hurried steps and half-folding over because of the hunger pains. 

Easy prey. 

V kept walking, hoping that ignoring them would be enough, but that thought was put to rest when each step behind him felt like it shook the Earth before a hand grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him back a split second before he was shoved against a graffiti-covered alley. 

“I’m talkin- the fuck?” The thug started, only to cut himself off and visibly recoil from the sight of him. V was caught off guard by that until he followed his gaze down. 

“Oh,” he breathed, realizing that the guy who busted through the window hadn’t kicked him. The front of his shirt was blown open, revealing a grizzly bullet wound. Whatever he had been hit with, it punched through the flack armor of his jacket like it was nothing, and it hadn’t been gentle on the way out of him. 

He should be dead. Or, at the very least, dying. He should be a bleeding mess, and yet…

A hand went up to his chest, not to the wound, but to his heart. 

He didn’t feel it beating under his palm.

‘Did that psycho turn me into a zombie?’ Was his first thought before he shook it off. No. Not a zombie. Those fangs… “Vampire?” He muttered, feeling the paradigm of his view of the world shifting dangerously underfoot. When you grow up in a city like Night City, the insane and batshit were common and he had all the pieces to put the puzzle together -- the bite, the blood, and now his missing heartbeat. 

Meaning that what he smelled in the air… 

Blood. 

His gaze rose up to the two gangsters that were crowding around him, the shock quickly fading away. “Vampire- no, I don’t even care,” the lead thug decided, flashing some iron, and he expected V to cower from it. “Empty your pockets, whatever you have, I want it-”

V tried to resist. He really did. He knew next to nothing about vampires, but the stories said that a cure was possible if you didn’t feed on human blood or something like that. At least, that’s what all the melodramatic flicks said. But the very moment the pieces clicked together and he made the realization what that smell was… it was like putting a feast before a man dying of hunger. 

He couldn’t help himself. 

Smacking the gun away, he lunged for his neck and bit down. Blood erupted into his mouth, and it tasted delicious. It was also absolutely disgusting. Yet, he drank down greedily, a hunger he had never known before being sated. The gangster was in the same boat he was mere hours earlier, the cold and numbness that came with blood loss making him lose his strength, and the only thing keeping him on his feet was V’s teeth. 

The other thug reacted as all Night City thugs did with confrontation. He was entirely lacking the context, but he saw a whacked-out addict chomping down on his choom and acted. A baseball bat rose up, going to make a swing. V dropped the first thug, who collapsed at his feet, before he caught the baseball bat cold and sank his fangs into the second thug’s throat. 

His blood wasn’t any better than the first. It was something delicious, yet rotten. Unclean. Like a cake baked with sewer water that tainted the entire thing. 

The second thug dropped at his feet, and a sigh of bliss escaped V. The fog that clouded every thought and the beast that coiled in his guts were cleared, and he felt whole. The only downside of it was the awful aftertaste that he spat out on the ground before looking down at the two thugs, and to his immense surprise, both of them were still alive. 

He thought about killing them -- loose ends, and all that. They’d hardly be the first he killed. By the time he could grow a beard, he had already flatlined enough people that he stopped bothering to count. But, instead, he chose to walk away and leave them to be someone else's problem. 

He had enough already to deal with. 

However, he was stopped cold in his tracks when his phone received a message. 

Unknown: When is a pawn not a pawn? 

“What is it now?” V grumbled, his brow furrowing, almost going to brush it off, only for his messenger to buzz again, a video on display on his optic. 

A video of him currently watching a video of himself. Instantly, he whipped around, his gaze searching for the camera and finding it after a beat. It was small, easy to miss and V realized he probably walked right by it a hundred times before. It was barely peeking out over the ledge of an outcropping. Wasn't police issue, he didn't think. It was also perfectly poised to watch the two thugs during their business hours. 

His mind raced a mile a minute, all the more so when he saw his eyes when he stared into the camera. Eye, rather. His optic was the same as it ever was, but his organic eye was off. For starters, it was a reddish orange color, and secondly, it was glowing.  

Swallowing a lump in his throat, he maintained eye contact with the camera before speaking, “When it reaches the other side of the board?” 

He got another message, this time with an address and a name. Then he watched as the messages deleted themselves from his call history before the camera self-destructed with a loud pop. Leaving him stupefied with the feeling that he had just stumbled into a spider web and he had no idea if he was lunch or not. 

“Who is Smiling Jack?” 

…

The address led him to Lizzie's Bar, the home of the Mox. A street gang comprised of street walkers, joy toys, and high end dolls -- they were something of a fresh face to the city, carving a decent chunk of territory out of the Tyger Claw turf, but he didn't know that much about them beyond that. He was passed through by the bouncer and he stepped inside. Instantly, his flesh started to crawl as he drank in the atmosphere of the club

The thumping music that was just close enough to the copyright that the label was probably going to send a kill team after the DJ, the dim lights, and the sea of dancing people. It hadn't been more than four hours since he was last in a club, thinking he was going to get lucky. Now, he was back, better than ever, just without a heartbeat and a clue what was going on. 

“It'd help if they gave me a picture,” V muttered to himself, heading to a bar counter. He decided to post up in the corner, letting himself get a decent view of the door, so if he saw someone who would fit the vibe of someone called ‘Smiling Jack’, then he could make an approach. He ordered some grub and a beer to blend in a bit, but the moment he took a bite- 

Wrong. Food was usually delicious -- extremely over-seasoned to cover up the fact that it was a step away from styrofoam in terms of texture, taste, and nutritional value. But it tasted bland. Almost entirely flavorless. The beer wasn't much better either with a distant sharpness of alcohol but otherwise flavorless. 

“So,” V nearly jumped out of his skin when someone took a seat next to him. Large, a wild mane of dark hair and a beard that was more tangled than not. He wore a biker vest, a pair of tight fitted pants, and well worn boots -- he stuck out like a sore thumb as he took V's plate of food and his beer right out of his hands. “You're the one I was told to meet, huh? Don't look like much. Don't smell like much either.” 

V was too confused to feel insulted, “You got a message too? You're Smiling Jack?” He asked, giving the man another once over. He looked and smelled like he just woke up from a nap inside of a dumpster. 

“That's me,” Jack replied, stuffing his gob and washing it down with a swig of beer. “Some Malkavian told me I should meet you. And when a Malkavian says something halfway coherent, it's usually best to listen.” 

“A Malkavian?” V said, tasting the word in his mouth. It meant absolutely nothing to him. And that must have shown because Jack tilted his head at him, chewing thoughtfully. 

“One of the Clans? Got a peek behind the curtain of how the whole world works and drove them all bat shit fucking insane? What, your sire skip the intro or something?” Jack questioned, making V frown. 

“My sire? You mean that crazy psycho chick who sucked me dry like a juice box and started yapping about ‘big plans’ and ‘How I was chosen?’ Before some jack boots kicked in the door?” V questioned sharply, and there was a flicker of surprise in Jack's eyes. Neither were optics. No other signs of implants either. 

“That'd probably be her, yeah,” Jack replied blandly. Then he tilted his head like a thought struck him. “Kid, this psycho chick… she on the short side?” 

“She was practically pocket sized- you know her?”

He was answered by Jack throwing his head back and laughing uproariously, “Oh, hell kid! You really are fucked! Hahaha!” He laughed at him openly, banging a fist on the table. Guy practically had tears in his eyes. 

V scowled, “Yeah. Go on. Laugh it up. But when you're done, how about you explain to me how I'm more screwed than usual? I mean… got no heartbeat and food tastes like ash. Oh, and I'm chowing down on two-bit thugs and their foul ass blood?” 

Jack, irritatingly, took that as permission to keep laughing before tapering off after a few minutes. “Ah, man- I haven't laughed like that since Silverhand nuked the city. Good times,” Jack said, wiping a tear away. Silverhand? That happened fifty years ago. Jack didn't look a day over thirty. Normally, he would assume some kind of nip and tuck beauty treatment, but given that Jack was fouling it up… and this new little revelation… “Well kid-” 

“V,” V interjected. 

“Took a single letter out of the whole alphabet? Sure, whatever,” Jack dismissed him easily. “Well, you got lots to worry about, but I'll give you the bullet points as to not waste what will probably be the final hours of your life.” The fuck? “You’re a vampire. Not sure from what Clan, but word is your sire, Charlotte Stillwater, is a Lasombra. There's a lot you should know, but what you need to is that what she did? Big no-no in the world of vampires. You gotta have permission to sire a childe, which she didn't get on account that she's wanted dead in every Camarilla owned city.” 

Camarilla owned. Implying an organization. Was there a secret society of vampires? 

“Why she's wanted dead is because she's a big fan of one of the other big no-nos in polite vampire society: thou shalt not diablerize another vampire,” Jack said, seeing the cluelessness in his eyes. “Which means to drink another Kindred so dry you suck their soul out, too. It's a way of growing stronger. Thickens the blood, which makes you stronger, and Kindred society is all about the might makes right mentality, even if they dress it up and slap on some lipstick.” 

V put the pieces together. “She turned me so she could eat me for a power up?” 

“That's what the word on the street is,” Jack replied with an uncaring shrug. “Done it once or twice already, so I hear -- sired a childe, fed ‘em their greens so they grow up big and strong. Then, with the blood bond she makes ‘em submit and offer up their necks.” Then he cast a suddenly curious glance at V. “You feel anything for your sire, kid?” 

“Beyond murderous rage? Nada,” V answered curtly. 

“Oh? Well, in that case, there might be some hope for you,” Jack remarked. “That attack on her by whoever that could be- don't ask because the list of possibilities is too long. Well, the attack stopped her from enforcing a blood bond on you. Meaning you're as free as a bird.” 

He reached out and settled a hand on his shoulder, “My advice? Flee the city.” He advised, sounding serious for a moment. “I'll tell you what you need to know about the new world you've been tossed into the deep end of. Enough to survive, at least. But your best bet is to flee the city, go to another, and keep your head down for the rest of your unnatural life.” 

“Because of Charlotte?” V questioned, clenching his teeth. 

“Her. And the Camarilla. They're going to want you dead -- for finding out about the Masquerade, for being her childe, just because they don't like the look of ya’. The Camarilla are the hammer of justice, and they love to swing it around. Especially these days. The moment they find out about you, they'll send the Sheriff and his Hounds after you, if they haven't already.” Jack said, his voice firm but not entirely without sympathy. 

Unfair. A complaint about it nearly slipped past his lips about how unfair the whole situation was -- he hadn't asked for this. Any of this. And now he was a wanted man because of some chick he barely met, much less knew? But he swallowed it down because the cold truth of it was that it didn't matter how unfair it was. Fairness had never once mattered before, and it didn't matter now. 

“Or?” V prompted, setting his jaw and meeting Jack's gaze. 

A slow smirk stretched across his lips as he withdrew his hand, “Or,” Jack continued, “You could give the Camarilla reason to call off the Blood Hunt. Show ‘em that you can be a prim and proper member of Kindred society. You do ‘em a favor, and they might do you one in turn.” 

“So, same as the regular world, huh?” V mused, the arrangement sounding familiar. And that was a comfort. “What kind of reason? A choomba needs to be flatlined? Need something klept? I'm a half decent netrunner,” he spitballed, though the last one was mostly exaggeration. He knew the bare bones of coding, largely with quick hacks, but that was it. 

Jack gave him a weird look before he shook his head, “The slang gets weirder every century, I swear," He remarked and V's eyebrows nearly shot off his face. Centuries? Because of that, he failed to react in time when Jack reached out with a finger and jabbed him hard enough to draw blood. He flinched, but by the time V went to inspect the damage, there was only a red smear and smooth flesh. Jack, for his part, brought the bloody nail and gave it a lick.

“Gross,” V remarked, feeling vaguely violated. Then concerned when he saw Jack's befuddled expression, giving V a look that he wasn't sure how to decipher. “What?” 

“Your blood is pretty thin. But potent. Too potent to be a thin-blood, but too thin to be thirteenth generation,” Jack remarked like that was supposed to mean something. “Strange given if she was that weak, then she wouldn’t be so good at slippin’ the headsman’s axe.” 

“... the lower the generation, the stronger you are?” V reasoned, earning a small nod. “Who is generation one, then?” 

“I'll spare you that revelation for another time,” Jack said, and there was a laugh in his voice that V didn't like. “There's a gang of thin-bloods that have been going around calling themselves the Mongrels.” And to V’s surprise, he had heard of them. 

“The ones that have been tearing up Arryo?” He questioned, earning a nod. Thin-bloods, huh? Something that he was a step away from, but he knew an insult when he heard one. 

“That’s them. There’s some context that won’t make a lick of sense to you right now, but the important bit is this -- The Camarilla want them dead, but it would be politically inconvenient for them if they actually pulled the trigger. Or complained loud enough for someone to get the hint that they want them dead.” Jack informed, and that was vague enough for him to work with. “Think you can swing that, kid?”

“Apparently being a half-decent merc is why Charlotte chose me,” V replied. “I can swing wiping out a scav den. No sweat. They got anything that I’m going to need to worry about? Charlotte was flinging shadows at people.”

“No more than you need to worry about some random having decent ‘chrome’ on a job, I figure,” Jack reasoned, though he seemed a bit thoughtful when he mentioned her throwing shadows. 

V stood up, “I’ll go take care of it then. Since I’m guessing that bit about vamps hating the sun is accurate?” 

“That it is,” Jack agreed, giving V a nod that was something vaguely resembling respectful. “Those of your generation might be a little more resistant to it, but the only way to find out is painful. Better not risk it.”

V gave him a nod, making to move, but he lingered for a moment. “Thanks,” he said, glancing at Jack who returned to finishing V’s meal. 

“Don’t thank me for anything, kid,” Jack warned, sounding serious. “Because, the thing is? You’re still fucked. Odds are your sire escaped that little ambush. Lasombra are a slippery lot. Which means that even if you get the Camarilla off your tail, none of them are going to go to bat for you against her.”

“Then I zero her when she comes around,” V reasoned, his lips thinning. 

“Easier said than done, but sure, anything is possible,” Jack reasoned. “She’s going to wait for a spell. Wait for your blood to thicken. Watching you every step of the way. And just when you’re strong enough to be a decent meal but not strong enough to resist her? That’s when she’ll pounce. Could be a year from now. Could be ten. But, make no mistake, kid, you’re up to your ears in shit. So, as soon as you get the Camarilla off your tail? Run. Run for the hills, find a hole in the ground, and don’t leave until you’re at least a century old.”

It would be an outright lie to say that he didn’t consider it. He had already been planning to leave Night City to try his luck elsewhere. But this… this was different. This wasn’t leaving the city because he wanted to. It would be leaving because he was chased out. Because he was forced to run away. 

“... Nah,” V decided in that moment, conviction coiling around his unbeating heart. “If I gotta fall into my grave, it’s going to be on fire with my iron in hand.”

“Ha,” Jack chuckled and for the first time, V heard outright approval. “Like the attitude, V. If you don’t get yourself killed before the night is over… take this,” he said, tossing V something. He caught it, finding it was a square brick about the size of the palm of his hand with a retro digital readout screen.

“What even is this thing?” He wondered, not sure what to make of it. 

“It’s a pager. Send me a message when the job is done with it, and I’ll introduce you to the powers that be,” he said, but that didn’t clear up his confusion. 

“...how do I do that?” He asked, looking the thing over and finding a couple of buttons but no number pad. 

“You got a lot to learn, kid,” Jack decided with a sad shake of his head. 

V felt like that was the understatement of the century. 

…

This is a little plot bunny that I needed out of my head because of Bloodlines 2. The game is okay -- a terrible successor to Bloodlines, but if it were called The Nomad, I think opinions wouldn't be so harsh. I liked the main story and characters, and the gameplay is pretty fun, though the sidequests are actual garbage to the point it would almost be better if they weren't in the game. 

As for the story itself -- I'm somewhat new to Vampires the Masquerade and the World of Darkness series, but the idea of keeping hold of your humanity to stave off the Beast felt like it had a lot of obvious parallels with Cyberpunk. So obvious that there was an official crossover between them called A Future World of Darkness, and reading up on that kinda sent me down the rabbit hole until I wrote this. 

A big thing that I want to explore is how the Masquerade has changed, as it's both easier and harder than ever to uphold it. People have cameras in their heads and with a glance, they could tell that room-temperature piece of ass is actually room-temperature. However, with the rise of implants, you have plausible deniability -- that vampire moving at impossible speeds and running up walls? Clearly, they have a Sandevistan. Or that guy's blood erupted from his veins, formed into a dagger, then he stabbed someone with it? Nanomachines in the blood, son. 

Of course, that raises its own issues. Humanity is stronger than it ever has been before and with enough chrome and know-how, they can go toe to toe with vampires centuries old. It also means with the power of unregulated ultra capitalism, humanity has fully reshaped the world and sent it racing off the cliff of total annihilation. Which has further changed the politics of the Camarilla, Anarchs, and the Sabbat. How so is something I would want to explore in the story, but I'll drop a hint and say it's why Smiling Jack said that V needs to get right with the Camarilla rather than flipping them the bird and taking him to Nines. 

As for the characters of Bloodlines, I'm altering the history a bit. Night City remained a free Anarch city until the aftermath of Johnny and Morgan nuking Arasaka tower, which allowed the Camarilla to slide into place. So, you have Sebastian LaCroix as the Prince, Nines as the voice of the Anarchs, etc. As for Bloodlines 2, I would be folding most of that cast into Night City, though contradictory roles would default a level. Katsumi would work for Nines, while Lou Graham would be the seneschal for LaCroix. 

Stuff like the Antediluvians won't really come up, as I have no plans for them. I mostly want to focus on the street level stuff, and eventually have something like an Alchemy/Thaumaturgy enhanced Adam Smasher. Basically, Vampires vs Implants and how they counter or enhance each other.

The story starts before Streetkid V's planned trip to Atlanta, so we are in the year 2075, a year before Edgerunners and two before the events of 2077. Felt better that way because while I love the Fledging in VtM:B going from 0 to 100, it does kinda stick out to me. Like: 

Nines: Fledgling, you killed three elder vampires and completely wiped their factions off the face of the earth. You were embraced three days ago. What the fuck?

Fledgling: I'm built different. 

So, the story would largely take place over those three years. In terms of actual length? I'd say the story has the potential to be a decently long one, but I think I would want something a bit on the shorter side. Maybe 30-40 chapters with a couple of solid arcs. Could go for a bit longer if it's a hit, so like 50-60. 

Let me know what you think of this one because it feels like it could be a fun one.