Fatal mistakes often come from arrogance.
Arthur squinted lazily, cigarette dangling from his lips, watching the whirlpool gangsters unknowingly march toward their doom.
This sort of thing happened way too often in Night City.
Arthur didn't think it was wrong — sometimes he even enjoyed it.
Sure, maybe saving a few scumbags wouldn't make the city any brighter.
But removing a few cockroaches here and there?
If it made someone's life even slightly better, that was good enough.
Good enough.
"Hey, old man, did you hear me?" the Uzumaki kid jeered from the container top.
"Hurry up and tell your little buddy here you're backing out. I still got time to hit Twisted Street and enjoy myself!"
The rest of the Uzumaki gang hooted and hollered, mocking the silent cyberpsycho standing motionless beside them.
None of them noticed the old man's pupils — twitching faster and faster, like a machine about to overheat.
But Arthur noticed.
Oh, he noticed.
The air around the old guy had shifted — no longer human.
Colder.
Chaotic.
Broken.
There was no soul left in there anymore — only a killing machine, ready to snap.
And still, the fools laughed and patted the old psycho's shoulder, oblivious to the monster they were poking.
Arthur took a slow drag of his cigarette.
King Yama's Palace must be bugging out right now, he thought.
So many new souls queued up at once, the servers must've crashed.
BOOM!
The next moment, it was like reality paused for Arthur.
He watched in ultra-slow motion as the mohawked Uzumaki kid's head exploded —
bursting apart like a rotten watermelon struck by a sledgehammer.
Every droplet of blood.
Every shred of brain.
Every twitch of flesh.
Arthur saw it all, captured perfectly like a high-speed camera recording death.
"St! What the fk?!"
The rest of the Uzumaki gang howled in rage and horror, pulling out their weapons and charging the container.
The crowd of bystanders?
Gone.
They bolted faster than cockroaches under a flashlight, screaming as they scattered.
Arthur watched, mildly impressed.
Clearly, this wasn't the first firefight they'd rehearsed fleeing from.
DA-DA-DA-DA-DA!
BANG-BANG-BANG!
A storm of bullets turned the dockyard into a war zone.
Arthur, unfazed, calmly leaned back against the container.
The cyberpsycho next to him — the old man — didn't even flinch.
Instead, the old guy raised his right arm.
With a mechanical click, the flesh folded back, revealing a hidden missile launcher embedded inside his forearm.
Mann's favorite toy.
WHOOSH!
Without even aiming, the missile fired — a shrieking, flame-tailed demon screaming into the gangsters.
BOOM!!!
The resulting explosion lit up the dockyard like a small sun.
Even in broad daylight, you could see the blast from half a mile away.
Arthur clicked his tongue.
Damn. Definitely a lab-grade prototype. No way that's standard military gear.
Another corpo experiment dumped on the streets. Typical Night City.
As the smoke cleared, Arthur casually stood upright and started walking toward his "brother" — the patient — still standing atop the container.
Most of the Uzumaki gang was gone.
Reduced to ash and red mist.
But not all.
Because when you jam enough junk mods into a body, it tends to stubbornly cling to life.
"Asshole..." croaked a dismembered head on the ground.
Somehow, one of the gangsters was still alive — just a severed head, glaring hatefully at Arthur.
"You lied... no beefy chick... cyberpsycho... you... f**king cyberpsycho..."
Arthur smirked, dropped his cigarette onto the ground, and casually crushed the guy's forehead under his boot.
Squelch.
"Because it was fun," Arthur said simply.
"Because I was bored.
Because you were dumb enough to believe me."
The head's eyes bulged in horror.
"You... you're the real f**king psycho!"
CRUNCH.
Arthur pressed down harder.
The head exploded like a crushed melon.
Up on the container, the cyberpsycho hadn't moved.
But his body tensed slightly — like a machine locking onto a target.
Without hesitation, the old man's wrist snapped sideways — a gun muzzle sliding out.
DA-DA-DA-DA-DA!
Bullets sprayed in a deadly arc, chewing up everything in their path.
Arthur moved just as smoothly, as if the world slowed to a crawl.
He flicked his cigarette aside.
Mantid blades snapped from his arms with a metallic hiss — gleaming, neon-tinged blades reflecting the carnage.
Moving effortlessly between the bullets, Arthur accelerated — faster than any normal human could perceive — and launched himself upward.
One second he was on the ground.
The next, he was standing behind the cyberpsycho, mantis blades resting casually on the old man's shoulders.
Arthur leaned close to the old man's ear and whispered:
"I can tell these arms aren't factory standard.
Way too heavy, bro."
He flexed the mantis blades lightly against the prosthetic joints.
"Let's chop 'em off.
Maybe, just maybe...
you'll wake up feeling better.
And if you do — don't forget to pay me the medical bill."