Neon City, 2147. The sky was a bruise, smeared with the electric glow of holographic billboards and the distant hum of Xyren warships. Liu Infan crouched in the ruins of his family's apartment, the air thick with the acrid stench of plasma burns. At fifteen, he was all sharp angles and sharper eyes, his black hair matted with ash. Three days ago, the Xyren—biomechanical aliens with glowing optics and limbs like liquid metal—had torn through his district. His parents and little sister were gone, their screams silenced by a war-drone's pulse cannon.
Infan's fingers trembled as he clutched a cracked holo-pendant, his mother's last gift. Its flickering image played her final words: "Survive, Infan. You're stronger than you know." The words cut deeper than the plasma knife strapped to his thigh. Strong? He felt like a ghost, hollowed out by grief and rage. The Xyren weren't just invaders; they were parasites, stripping Earth's core for their tech and enslaving anyone who didn't burn.
He stood, wiping soot from his face, and surveyed the wreckage. Shattered holo-screens, melted furniture, a single photo of his sister Mei, half-charred but smiling. Infan tucked it into his jacket. The Xyren would pay. Not today, not tomorrow, but he'd find a way.
His wrist-com, a scavenged piece of junk he'd jury-rigged to tap into Neon City's darknet, buzzed with a warning: Xyren patrol drones were closing in. Infan grabbed a backpack stuffed with salvaged tech—a few circuit boards, a busted data-slate, and his knife—and slipped out the window. The alley below was a maze of neon-lit pipes and graffiti, the pulse of the city drowning out his footsteps.
Neon City was alive, a beast of steel and light that never slept. Hover-bikes screamed through the streets, their riders cloaked in augmented reality masks. Black-market stalls peddled Xyren tech alongside vat-grown meat. Infan kept his head low, blending into the crowd. He wasn't a hero, not yet. Just a kid with a vendetta and a knack for not dying.
As he ducked into a shadowed alley, a voice rasped from the darkness. "Lost, kid?" A figure emerged, an old man with a mechanical arm glinting under the neon. His name was Chen, a cyber-smith who ruled the nearby junkyard. Infan tensed, hand on his knife, but Chen's eyes held no threat—just curiosity.
"You got fire in you," Chen said, nodding at the holo-pendant Infan still gripped. "Fire's good. But it'll burn you out without focus. Want to fight those alien bastards? Start here." He tossed Infan a small, humming device—a pulse pistol, crude but functional.
Infan caught it, the weight grounding him. For the first time in days, he felt something beyond rage: purpose. He met Chen's gaze, his voice steady despite the tremor in his chest. "What's the catch?"
Chen grinned, revealing a row of steel teeth. "No catch, kid. Just work. Junkyard's full of scrap—some of it Xyren. Learn to build, learn to break. Survive long enough, and you might just hurt 'em."
Infan nodded, slipping the pistol into his jacket. The Xyren drones were getting closer, their hum vibrating through the alley. Chen jerked his head toward a rusted hatch in the wall. "Move. They'll fry you if you're still here."
Infan didn't hesitate. He dove through the hatch, landing in a tunnel lit by flickering LEDs. Chen followed, sealing the entrance behind them. The junkyard was close, a sprawl of twisted metal and forgotten tech. Infan's new home, for now.
As they moved deeper into the tunnels, Infan's grip tightened on the holo-pendant. His mother's words echoed in his mind. Survive. He would. And when he was ready, the Xyren would learn what it meant to bleed. The tunnel stretched ahead, dark and uncertain, but Infan walked on, each step a promise to himself: he'd claw his way out of this hell and carve his vengeance in neon and steel.