There, standing on the fine, blue dust of an everlasting dark desert, a wiry, gaunt young man stood there, an empty grin on his face with dark circles under his eyes as he internally cursed his circumstances. And everything that had led him here, too.
'This is hell.'
Dressed in nothing but the bloodied rags that'd be expected for a street rat like him to have, the gaunt boy's black hair kept lashing out in the wind, often hitting his face, yet he did not care much. Sweeping it out of his white eyes with his near-skeletal right hand, his left hand curled deeply around a bloodied, rusted knife, he looked down into the cavernous entrance to the Deep Layers.
The only place left untouched by the initial search squad of highly known Hunters.
"Guilty. The boy, Paper, is to be sent down to The Underworld. He will find us an Orb or The Heir of the Justitia Nebula, and only then will he be set to walk free once more."
The dull thuds of the wooden mallet replayed in Paper's head like a broken record, thunderous in its repetition.
'Fucking psychopaths... sending me? A damn near malnourished Street rat? Had I known the death of my parents would have had these consequences, I'd have planned it so that nobody got caught.'
Perhaps it was because of his demeanour? Because of how easily he spoke when he was asked of his crime?
"So, I may or may not have killed my parents because they were being an active danger to my sister. You know, the usual. So, any chance I can get out of this alive, heh?"
Thinking back to it, he really did sell the idea of a crazy young guy with no concept of consequences. If it wasn't for his history of crimes they'd probably have just killed him, but they decided he was one of the few treacherous enough to fight for his freedom.
While they weren't wrong, he hated it.
With the cacophony of the eternal night-life city of The Underworld left behind him, its distant vibrant lights and billboards shining with intensely alluring colors never stopped moving, the only consistent source of light within The Underworld.
After all, There was no sun nor moon nor stars nor space within there. Only weakly flickering flourescent lights terribly drilled into a stony roof that shone a pale hue of blue, barely serving its role to help travellers. Because only Night City was any proper form of light, and only the intensely promiscuous, rich or poor lived in Night City.
All that was left was the sinister whistle of the howling void infront of him. His shoes, coated in scarlet residue, left over from his parents, hung over the edge while he was currently trying to ignore the call of the void.
It was common knowledge that The Deep Layer was dangerous to enter for anybody with a Star, the very basics of power for having overcome an Orb.
However, he had no Star.
Most people didn't. But the previous search party was comprised mainly of Hunters, those who had Stars. So they didn't even consider the possibility for the noble heir being here. More specifically, couldn't. Being sent unprepared to the Deep Layers was equivalent to a death sentence.
The tenebrous pit called to him with increased fervor, almost as if drooling into his ear with heightened howls, it's gaping maw not dissimilar to that of a beast, spanning over 10 meters in size and diameter... Who would he be, if he didn't oblige to it's call?
Ninety-nine percent of gamblers quit before they win big. And he went all-in on the Heir being hidden within this caliginous cavity of The Underworld.
He stepped into the hole, his empty smile now very real as he started a rapid descent. A descent that will lead him to the Noble Heir, still in an Orb's trial, he hoped.
His only other goal was to get off scott-free from punishment so that he could live with his sister once more. The judges masked their avarice for a payout by giving him a false opportunity for freedom if he succeeded, but he wasn't a fool. He'd take it, and he would find his sister again, and he'd protect her happily while living contently.
But not without power.
Orbs were a marvelous thing - They had descended one day from the Euridicean Hunt, an outbreak caused across what he thought was the multiverse itself, which occurred from the death of the gods. Due to that reason, parts of the Overworld had become uninhabitable, yet the parts that remained untouched were almost like impregnable fields. He had often heard his parents talking about the eradication of most the continents, but he never understood what they meant, for he had no education.
All he knew was that whatever was still standing was inevitably stronger.
When someone would break an Orb, they'd go unconscious, and their soul would be taken to a battleground in which they had to eliminate a terror hidden within for them to gain a spark of power. It was like a personal dungeon, atleast to his knowledge.
However, the Orbs created a thin shell, almost a membrane, around whoever broke one. And when that happened, anybody who touched it would have their physical bodies transported into it.
He knew nothing of what happened during the process, but all he knew is that it'd trigger a Raid. Usually, an Orb could only be challenged and conquered by one group, but when an outsider entered the fray? It became a death game.
Just like the continents, the weak would die, and the strong would survive.
'Haha. God, If Ink were here, she'd think I'm insane.' He laughed silently to himself as he fell, almost carefree.
'Or maybe I am crazy?'
After all, this entire gamble was based off of two things: His instincts, and what he considered as common logic.
His instincts had led him here, for if he were to have an Orb of his own, he'd have went to the hole and jumped right in of his own volition to break it in there, because nobody would be crazy enough to go in there as they would.
Common logic was that it simply and completely mitigated the risk of other Hunters finding it and reaping the reward for themselves while taking their lives.
his goal was to find the Noble Heir who'd broken an Orb... and raid it. He was going to take the Star for himself and then find an Orb using the power he gained, if it was any use, and then break out.
Or he'd die.
Not like he had much to die for or live for simultaneously other than his sister, but after the murders he did today? She'd be completely fine with her friends family. For sure.
But the fall had felt endless.
The constant whipping of wind in his hair and rags, trying to lash out on a boy who cared naught, ignoring its biting cuts into his skin. Despite this, he sheltered his eyes ever so slightly, trying to keep them open by force while ignoring the probing tendrils of the air forcing themselves into it.
'Ah, curses! It burns for hells sake!'
A cold feeling started to grip at his heart. What if there really wasn't the noble heir of the Justitia here, and instead an endless fall?
'...There shouldn't be such thing as an endless hole, right?'
He forced his heart to still, continuing to glare at the darkness as if it'd cause a change, begging in his mind.
'Come on... please... please... please...!'
A flicker.
There, in the distance of that seemingly impenetrable abyss, far below him, he saw it. The tell-tale spark of a broken Orb. All Orbs were luminous, and so were their shells. This one glowed a constantly changing color, meaning it wasn't even close to being conquered yet.
Perfect.
'Well, then, here I come.'
It was already tantamount to suicide to take on a noble heir in a death game. That was common knowledge. The noble heirs were always trained to be at the top of the line, the top brass of fighters, and combatants...
But he felt confident. Perhaps too much so.
For he had survived his own hell, the backstreets of the nightlife district, while catering for two useless adults and his sister.
He certainly didn't regret the death of his parents.
And one thing he knew a noble would have never experienced was the violent nature of the backstreets.
With those final thoughts, the underfed boy's body collided with the multi-colored shell, his body suddenly feeling as if it were being disected down to the very atom, yet he felt no pain. Instead, multiple detached, incorporeal voices reverberated through his skull, or whatever remained of it, ranging from that of a man to a woman to an elderly soul and a young one.
「Welcome, Assailant, to the Celestial Trial of Wonder Justitia! You will be arriving shortly.」