stressed over valko, stressed over moving into my apartment next month, got caught in some stupid work drama, my friendship with my bestie of 7 years almost ended cuz of it (a man started it sigh) but we’re GOOD NOW!!!, drunk texted a guy (not proud of myself), a friend of mine almost dying cuz she drank too much and passed out for like 2 fucking hours (she’s also fine now!!), and now trying to peacefully write LMAO
WELCOME TO JURASSIC PARK: ISLA 17, the 𝗌̶𝖾̶𝗏̶𝖾̶𝗇̶𝗍̶𝖾̶𝖾̶𝗇̶𝗍̶𝗁̶ first park of it's kind, where science has achieved the impossible and common sense has taken an extended vacation. Clock in, choose your role, and remember: if you're running, keep that margarita firmly in hand - you'll need it!
PARK DIRECTORS
🦖 Hali - @sailorsoons
🦖 Ren - @seungkw1
SHOW TIMES
🦖 Sign Up Period: Now - until spots are filled
🦖 Writing Period: Open Ended
🦖 Posting Period: October - Soft Deadline January 30
🦖 Banner and Summary Due: September 30
TICKET FINEPRINT
🦖 Knowledge of dinosaurs and Jurassic Park is not necessary! This is for fun and absurdity and crack is encouraged.
🦖 Your member or reader must be the park position assigned to that member - it doesn't matter in what capacity, but your reader or your member must be the person who fills the park position!
🦖 You must have a Discord and join the Jurassic Park: Isla 17 server to keep up with communications and collaboration information. The server will close after the collab is done. If you have a Discord but do not want to join the server and have valid reasoning, please speak with Ren or Hali to see if that can be arranged.
PARK RULES
🦖 Your fic may be multiple parts. This collab has a soft deadline, which means we would love for you to be done by the proposed deadline but this is a silly goofy collab and we are not stressed about writers dropping out or missing the deadline.
🦖 Works may be NSFW or SFW, but must not include any of the following: Non-con/dub-con, incest/stepcest, abuse of any kind and/or self harm.
🦖 All fics must be a minimum of 1,000 words, but may be however long you wish.
🦖 You must be 18 years of age or older to participate and your age must be displayed in your bio or somewhere visible on your Tumblr profile.
🦖 You must have one (1) current work posted for Seventeen prior to application
🦖 This collab is a blind pick aka - you will be selecting the park role that speaks most to you and not the member. Each member is assigned to a park role, but you will not know who that member is when selecting. This is to keep all assignments fair.
NOTE: This collab has 26 slots. Each member has two roles assigned per member, and thus will have two writers per member.
SYNOPSIS. In the year 2197, Xu Minghao works as a government shadow operative, hired to hunt down political dissidents. After surviving a catastrophic accident that should have ended his life, his body had been rewired to become nothing more than a living weapon solely engineered for one purpose: obedience. You live a different kind of double life. By day, a reclusive digital artist curating an elite art gallery; by night, a ghost hacker where you siphon power and secrets from the city’s corrupt core. But when your latest hack uncovers an unsettling truth, a target is painted on your back—and Minghao is assigned to terminate you.
PAIRING. shadow operative!xu minghao x ghost hacker!fem!reader
GENRE. cyberpunk au, futuristic au, angst, smut (minors dni 🔞), fluff, hurt/comfort, enemies to lovers
WARNINGS (FOR TEASER). violence (murder, blood, gore, etc), minghao killing someone (yummy), body modifications/cybernetic enhancements
WARNINGS (FOR FULL FIC). explicit sexual content, cursing, drinking/drugs, violence (murder, blood, gore, etc), “implied” death, body modifications/cybernetic enhancements, government corruption, morally grey characters, brainwashing/memory manipulation, human experimentation
WORD COUNT (FOR TEASER). 1.3k
WORD COUNT (FOR FULL FIC). tbd, but hopefully 15k+
notes: hello :3 i hope u all enjoy this lil teaser hehe <3 this is for the @studiosvt cyberpunk: reload collab! tbh i have NO idea how long this will be, but this was def a genre i've been excited (and nervous) to dive into and i am honoured i got to write for minghao hehe
SECTOR TWO — THE VEIL DISTRICTS
The rain showering down from the night sky hisses against the alloy skin of the city.
Xu Minghao finds himself standing on the narrow maintenance ledge of a building sitting right across from the 47th floor of the Helix Tower, the tips of his combat boots hovering just over the edge as the wind snaps at the tails of his black trench coat. Right below his feet, the neon arteries of the city bleed through the thick layers of dense, permanent fog and rain.
Tonight’s target is a man named Arthur Kim. Age forty-three, married, with two daughters𑁋assigned to be executed under the orders of the Dominion for illegally accessing financial streams and attempting to sell them to some brokers located in the Undercity. A fatal error that costed him his entire life, and Minghao was sent to deliver the act within a termination window of two hours.
Minghao didn’t need all that time.
In due time, the ocular implant in his eye pings, immediately locking onto the target’s heat signature through the reinforced glass and walls. Minghao narrows his gaze, heat mapping across his vision, following the man’s dull amber silhouette frantically pacing inside of his dimly lit and expensive apartment, as if already knowing what’s about to come.
A forty metre gap separates the two buildings. Minghao steps into the void without any hesitation. The wind roars past him as he launches himself off the ledge, his coat flaring out like wings. Twin magnetic grapples fire out from the wrist of his right bionic arm with a sharp hiss, cables flying across the chasm until they latch onto the Helix Tower’s exterior frame.
At the apex of the launch, he releases the grapples and twists his body into a controlled dive towards the window. The second he makes contact, reinforced glass explodes inward as his boots smashes cleanly through Arthur Kim’s window, causing shards to rain across the carpet floor like confetti.
The man in question spins around too late, eyes blown wide with utter panic, clutching nothing but a half-empty glass of whiskey in his trembling hand and useless revolver in the other that he shakily points directly at Minghao.
“Don’t… don’t come any closer!” he begs, fingers twitching around the trigger. “I have connections𑁋I-I have a family, a wife, two little girls𑁋I can pay𑁋”
Minghao doesn’t speak. He never does on missions like this. Words are wasted on the already dead.
Instead, he crosses the room in three, perfect strides, way faster than any modified human should. Arthur attempts to shoot, but the revolver kicks back into his grip and causes the bullet to go wide and harmlessly punch into the wall directly behind Minghao, barely grazing the edge of his temple. The second bullet misses again and punches a smoking hole through a video holographic family portrait that flickers and dies mid-laugh.
When Arthur tries to bolt towards the door, Minghao cuts him off with a firm seize to his throat with his cybernetic hand, lifting the man clean off the floor and knocking the breath out of his lungs with a choked gasp. The synthetic muscles and servos whirr softly under the plating as Arthur’s legs kicked uselessly through the air, causing the whiskey glass and gun to slip free out of his hands.
Arthur’s screams are muddled when a sudden boom of thunder vibrates the world outside. Minghao doesn’t budge, even as the man claws at his grip with both hands. Forty-three years of soft living against a body rebuilt for war𑁋there was never a contest.
Minghao tightens his hold ever so slightly. Not enough to fully incapacitate yet. He wants the man to feel it, to feel the consequences of his actions with a teasing crush to his windpipe. The ocular implant in his left eye feeds him live data: heart rate 179… 203… oxygen saturation plummeting from 97% to 47%. It isn’t long until Arthur’s face bloats and washes into a deep crimson. Veins stand out like ropes along his temples. His eyes bulge, whites shot through with burst capillaries, tears leaking from the corners as his tongue presses thickly against his teeth.
Nothing but a wet, gurgling choke escapes him, barely audible over the storm raging outside and Minghao’s ironclad grip. “Please… my girls…”
The man continues to spew out gargled, pathetic words𑁋about his family who he only wanted to provide for, his wife who didn’t know anything, his innocent little girls𑁋and Minghao doesn’t feel a single ounce of remorse for it. He was assigned a task to complete. There was nothing programmed in him for mercy or pity.
When Minghao squeezes his fingers a fraction tighter, Arthur’s windpipe collapses with a wet, sickening pop. His eyes roll back completely in his head, his face drained of colour, as one final spasm jerks through his body before his arms drop limp to his side. Minghao holds him suspended in the air for a full ten seconds after the heart monitor flatlines before opening his hand.
Arthur’s body falls to the floor with a thud, sprawling among the glass shards and spilled whiskey. A thin stream of blood leaks from the corner of his mouth and pools beside his lifeless eyes. Updated data swarms through Minghao’s vision.
Target: Arthur Kim — TERMINATED
Elapsed Time: 8 minutes, 53 seconds
Minghao exhales a breath through his nose, rolling his shoulders back. The servos under his bionic arm hum faintly through the movement of his artificial joints, recalibrating itself from the temporary exertion. Eight minutes and fifty-three seconds. It’s somewhat sloppy by his standards, but the noise of the storm did well to hide most of the struggle. Still, the Dominion would be satisfied with his work as they always are.
He crouches beside the corpse, metal fingers brushing against the man’s neck to confirm zero pulse. Rain pours in from the shattered window, mixing in with the whiskey and the small pool of blood at his feet. This was definitely one of his messier missions, but the cleanup crew will do their task when he leaves.
He does a quick scan around the room, cycling through spectral overlays𑁋motion, thermal, electromagnetic. No alarms or security drones are detected. Arthur Kim had been arrogant enough to hide behind privacy glass and a single biometric lock on his door. What an amateur.
The apartment is dead silent now, except for the storm outside slowly beginning to dull out. But what catches him for a split second is the glitchy sound of laughter. Minghao shoots a glance toward the broken holographic family portrait that Arthur had shot at just moments ago.
His gaze lingers on the screen as it flickers erratically. What remains is a looping fragment: Arthur Kim smiling wide with his arms looped around another woman, and two small girls in front of them, both of them with equally big grins as if the world had never once been cruel. The audio stutters with one of the girls saying, “Daddy, look! I drew you a𑁋” before restarting the loop again.
Minghao forcibly tears his eyes away. He forces out a flat exhale through his nose, turning his back on the portrait entirely. Sentiment was a luxury for the wealthy civilians; for him, it was just irrelevant data. He mindlessly steps over Arthur’s corpse and treads his way toward the shattered window, climbing onto the rain-slicked ledge without looking back.
The wind claws onto him immediately, trying to sweep him off the building. He activates the magnetic grapples through his hand and anchors onto the opposite structure. With one powerful pull, he’s airborne again, swinging across the forty-metre gap like a shadow trailing through the void. Then he finds himself running across the rooftop before stopping right at the edge.
Below him, the city continues its restless slumber. Minghao watches it all distantly.
Then he jumps down into the void as the rain washes away the city’s sins.
This time, the fall felt a little longer than it should have.
hi!! hope you're doing well <3 i'm trying to organize my ideas/wip list, cause hoo boy is it chaotic, and i was wondering if/how you organize yours, or if you have any tips?
love ya!! - eia <3
hi eia lovely! i'm so so sorry for the late response :(( and i'll be honest- i wish i had good advice to give you cause i also suck at organizing all my wips. tbh i don't even think i have a proper way of organizing them 😭😭 but for me, i always love creating the banners first before writing, creating a new doc, then inserting the banner in there so i know that i can get back to it later whenever i open docs. i have seen people flat out just typing all their wips/ideas in one document too, srsly its whatever works for you !!
(me crashing out on main don't mind me guys i'm sorry)
even if there's still a LITTLE bit of hope (such as potentially delaying his release, editing some of the supposed "controversial" actions from the trailer, and all the legal stuff thats up in the air for the company rn, i hope infold knows the nuclear amount of damage they caused. we, the global players and the CN girlies who supported valko, tried our very BEST to be heard- we created petitions, got other fandoms to join us, donated to wolf shelters and to those in need, named a goddamn STAR after him, etc. i've never seen a fandom so united and it was honestly so heartfelt to see. we've accomplished so much this past week and i've never felt so proud.
when valko was revealed, he was seriously such a breath of fresh air to see and i was excited to see how the main story would unfold and all of his interactions with MC from his release. now that he appears to be completely gone (as of now) we won't get to witness that. we were promised a new LI and that he wouldn't be removed for whatever reason, but it took only a week for him to be completely cancelled. HE WASN'T EVEN GIVEN A DAMN CHANCE. why are we letting hate win when this game is entirely about love? especially in a game many people found comfort in?
so yeah congratulations haters, what do you guys accomplish? LITERALLY NOTHING. i hope you guys have fun with your repetitive and rushed content <3. this also shows that if you hate any other LI, they can be removed too. what kind of fucking power dynamic is going on seriously??
yes am i crashing out over a pixelated man? THE HELL I AM AND I AM NOT ASHAMED OF IT.
pissed until the end of time tbh. until infold releases some sort statement and/or valko returns, they've officially lost all trust and appreciation from me and i hope valko haunts them for the rest of their lives x
SYNOPSIS. In the year 2197, Xu Minghao works as a government shadow operative, hired to hunt down political dissidents. After surviving a catastrophic accident that should have ended his life, his body had been rewired to become nothing more than a living weapon solely engineered for one purpose: obedience. You live a different kind of double life. By day, a reclusive digital artist curating an elite art gallery; by night, a ghost hacker where you siphon power and secrets from the city’s corrupt core. But when your latest hack uncovers an unsettling truth, a target is painted on your back—and Minghao is assigned to terminate you.
PAIRING. shadow operative!xu minghao x ghost hacker!fem!reader
GENRE. cyberpunk au, futuristic au, angst, smut (minors dni 🔞), fluff, hurt/comfort, enemies to lovers
WARNINGS (FOR TEASER). violence (murder, blood, gore, etc), minghao killing someone (yummy), body modifications/cybernetic enhancements
WARNINGS (FOR FULL FIC). explicit sexual content, cursing, drinking/drugs, violence (murder, blood, gore, etc), “implied” death, body modifications/cybernetic enhancements, government corruption, morally grey characters, brainwashing/memory manipulation, human experimentation
WORD COUNT (FOR TEASER). 1.3k
WORD COUNT (FOR FULL FIC). tbd, but hopefully 15k+
notes: hello :3 i hope u all enjoy this lil teaser hehe <3 this is for the @studiosvt cyberpunk: reload collab! tbh i have NO idea how long this will be, but this was def a genre i've been excited (and nervous) to dive into and i am honoured i got to write for minghao hehe
SECTOR TWO — THE VEIL DISTRICTS
The rain showering down from the night sky hisses against the alloy skin of the city.
Xu Minghao finds himself standing on the narrow maintenance ledge of a building sitting right across from the 47th floor of the Helix Tower, the tips of his combat boots hovering just over the edge as the wind snaps at the tails of his black trench coat. Right below his feet, the neon arteries of the city bleed through the thick layers of dense, permanent fog and rain.
Tonight’s target is a man named Arthur Kim. Age forty-three, married, with two daughters𑁋assigned to be executed under the orders of the Dominion for illegally accessing financial streams and attempting to sell them to some brokers located in the Undercity. A fatal error that costed him his entire life, and Minghao was sent to deliver the act within a termination window of two hours.
Minghao didn’t need all that time.
In due time, the ocular implant in his eye pings, immediately locking onto the target’s heat signature through the reinforced glass and walls. Minghao narrows his gaze, heat mapping across his vision, following the man’s dull amber silhouette frantically pacing inside of his dimly lit and expensive apartment, as if already knowing what’s about to come.
A forty metre gap separates the two buildings. Minghao steps into the void without any hesitation. The wind roars past him as he launches himself off the ledge, his coat flaring out like wings. Twin magnetic grapples fire out from the wrist of his right bionic arm with a sharp hiss, cables flying across the chasm until they latch onto the Helix Tower’s exterior frame.
At the apex of the launch, he releases the grapples and twists his body into a controlled dive towards the window. The second he makes contact, reinforced glass explodes inward as his boots smashes cleanly through Arthur Kim’s window, causing shards to rain across the carpet floor like confetti.
The man in question spins around too late, eyes blown wide with utter panic, clutching nothing but a half-empty glass of whiskey in his trembling hand and useless revolver in the other that he shakily points directly at Minghao.
“Don’t… don’t come any closer!” he begs, fingers twitching around the trigger. “I have connections𑁋I-I have a family, a wife, two little girls𑁋I can pay𑁋”
Minghao doesn’t speak. He never does on missions like this. Words are wasted on the already dead.
Instead, he crosses the room in three, perfect strides, way faster than any modified human should. Arthur attempts to shoot, but the revolver kicks back into his grip and causes the bullet to go wide and harmlessly punch into the wall directly behind Minghao, barely grazing the edge of his temple. The second bullet misses again and punches a smoking hole through a video holographic family portrait that flickers and dies mid-laugh.
When Arthur tries to bolt towards the door, Minghao cuts him off with a firm seize to his throat with his cybernetic hand, lifting the man clean off the floor and knocking the breath out of his lungs with a choked gasp. The synthetic muscles and servos whirr softly under the plating as Arthur’s legs kicked uselessly through the air, causing the whiskey glass and gun to slip free out of his hands.
Arthur’s screams are muddled when a sudden boom of thunder vibrates the world outside. Minghao doesn’t budge, even as the man claws at his grip with both hands. Forty-three years of soft living against a body rebuilt for war𑁋there was never a contest.
Minghao tightens his hold ever so slightly. Not enough to fully incapacitate yet. He wants the man to feel it, to feel the consequences of his actions with a teasing crush to his windpipe. The ocular implant in his left eye feeds him live data: heart rate 179… 203… oxygen saturation plummeting from 97% to 47%. It isn’t long until Arthur’s face bloats and washes into a deep crimson. Veins stand out like ropes along his temples. His eyes bulge, whites shot through with burst capillaries, tears leaking from the corners as his tongue presses thickly against his teeth.
Nothing but a wet, gurgling choke escapes him, barely audible over the storm raging outside and Minghao’s ironclad grip. “Please… my girls…”
The man continues to spew out gargled, pathetic words𑁋about his family who he only wanted to provide for, his wife who didn’t know anything, his innocent little girls𑁋and Minghao doesn’t feel a single ounce of remorse for it. He was assigned a task to complete. There was nothing programmed in him for mercy or pity.
When Minghao squeezes his fingers a fraction tighter, Arthur’s windpipe collapses with a wet, sickening pop. His eyes roll back completely in his head, his face drained of colour, as one final spasm jerks through his body before his arms drop limp to his side. Minghao holds him suspended in the air for a full ten seconds after the heart monitor flatlines before opening his hand.
Arthur’s body falls to the floor with a thud, sprawling among the glass shards and spilled whiskey. A thin stream of blood leaks from the corner of his mouth and pools beside his lifeless eyes. Updated data swarms through Minghao’s vision.
Target: Arthur Kim — TERMINATED
Elapsed Time: 8 minutes, 53 seconds
Minghao exhales a breath through his nose, rolling his shoulders back. The servos under his bionic arm hum faintly through the movement of his artificial joints, recalibrating itself from the temporary exertion. Eight minutes and fifty-three seconds. It’s somewhat sloppy by his standards, but the noise of the storm did well to hide most of the struggle. Still, the Dominion would be satisfied with his work as they always are.
He crouches beside the corpse, metal fingers brushing against the man’s neck to confirm zero pulse. Rain pours in from the shattered window, mixing in with the whiskey and the small pool of blood at his feet. This was definitely one of his messier missions, but the cleanup crew will do their task when he leaves.
He does a quick scan around the room, cycling through spectral overlays𑁋motion, thermal, electromagnetic. No alarms or security drones are detected. Arthur Kim had been arrogant enough to hide behind privacy glass and a single biometric lock on his door. What an amateur.
The apartment is dead silent now, except for the storm outside slowly beginning to dull out. But what catches him for a split second is the glitchy sound of laughter. Minghao shoots a glance toward the broken holographic family portrait that Arthur had shot at just moments ago.
His gaze lingers on the screen as it flickers erratically. What remains is a looping fragment: Arthur Kim smiling wide with his arms looped around another woman, and two small girls in front of them, both of them with equally big grins as if the world had never once been cruel. The audio stutters with one of the girls saying, “Daddy, look! I drew you a𑁋” before restarting the loop again.
Minghao forcibly tears his eyes away. He forces out a flat exhale through his nose, turning his back on the portrait entirely. Sentiment was a luxury for the wealthy civilians; for him, it was just irrelevant data. He mindlessly steps over Arthur’s corpse and treads his way toward the shattered window, climbing onto the rain-slicked ledge without looking back.
The wind claws onto him immediately, trying to sweep him off the building. He activates the magnetic grapples through his hand and anchors onto the opposite structure. With one powerful pull, he’s airborne again, swinging across the forty-metre gap like a shadow trailing through the void. Then he finds himself running across the rooftop before stopping right at the edge.
Below him, the city continues its restless slumber. Minghao watches it all distantly.
Then he jumps down into the void as the rain washes away the city’s sins.
This time, the fall felt a little longer than it should have.
SYNOPSIS. In the year 2197, Xu Minghao works as a government shadow operative, hired to hunt down political dissidents. After surviving a catastrophic accident that should have ended his life, his body had been rewired to become nothing more than a living weapon solely engineered for one purpose: obedience. You live a different kind of double life. By day, a reclusive digital artist curating an elite art gallery; by night, a ghost hacker where you siphon power and secrets from the city’s corrupt core. But when your latest hack uncovers an unsettling truth, a target is painted on your back—and Minghao is assigned to terminate you.
PAIRING. shadow operative!xu minghao x ghost hacker!fem!reader
GENRE. cyberpunk au, futuristic au, angst, smut (minors dni 🔞), fluff, hurt/comfort, enemies to lovers
WARNINGS (FOR TEASER). violence (murder, blood, gore, etc), minghao killing someone (yummy), body modifications/cybernetic enhancements
WARNINGS (FOR FULL FIC). explicit sexual content, cursing, drinking/drugs, violence (murder, blood, gore, etc), “implied” death, body modifications/cybernetic enhancements, government corruption, morally grey characters, brainwashing/memory manipulation, human experimentation
WORD COUNT (FOR TEASER). 1.3k
WORD COUNT (FOR FULL FIC). tbd, but hopefully 15k+
notes: hello :3 i hope u all enjoy this lil teaser hehe <3 this is for the @studiosvt cyberpunk: reload collab! tbh i have NO idea how long this will be, but this was def a genre i've been excited (and nervous) to dive into and i am honoured i got to write for minghao hehe
SECTOR TWO — THE VEIL DISTRICTS
The rain showering down from the night sky hisses against the alloy skin of the city.
Xu Minghao finds himself standing on the narrow maintenance ledge of a building sitting right across from the 47th floor of the Helix Tower, the tips of his combat boots hovering just over the edge as the wind snaps at the tails of his black trench coat. Right below his feet, the neon arteries of the city bleed through the thick layers of dense, permanent fog and rain.
Tonight’s target is a man named Arthur Kim. Age forty-three, married, with two daughters𑁋assigned to be executed under the orders of the Dominion for illegally accessing financial streams and attempting to sell them to some brokers located in the Undercity. A fatal error that costed him his entire life, and Minghao was sent to deliver the act within a termination window of two hours.
Minghao didn’t need all that time.
In due time, the ocular implant in his eye pings, immediately locking onto the target’s heat signature through the reinforced glass and walls. Minghao narrows his gaze, heat mapping across his vision, following the man’s dull amber silhouette frantically pacing inside of his dimly lit and expensive apartment, as if already knowing what’s about to come.
A forty metre gap separates the two buildings. Minghao steps into the void without any hesitation. The wind roars past him as he launches himself off the ledge, his coat flaring out like wings. Twin magnetic grapples fire out from the wrist of his right bionic arm with a sharp hiss, cables flying across the chasm until they latch onto the Helix Tower’s exterior frame.
At the apex of the launch, he releases the grapples and twists his body into a controlled dive towards the window. The second he makes contact, reinforced glass explodes inward as his boots smashes cleanly through Arthur Kim’s window, causing shards to rain across the carpet floor like confetti.
The man in question spins around too late, eyes blown wide with utter panic, clutching nothing but a half-empty glass of whiskey in his trembling hand and useless revolver in the other that he shakily points directly at Minghao.
“Don’t… don’t come any closer!” he begs, fingers twitching around the trigger. “I have connections𑁋I-I have a family, a wife, two little girls𑁋I can pay𑁋”
Minghao doesn’t speak. He never does on missions like this. Words are wasted on the already dead.
Instead, he crosses the room in three, perfect strides, way faster than any modified human should. Arthur attempts to shoot, but the revolver kicks back into his grip and causes the bullet to go wide and harmlessly punch into the wall directly behind Minghao, barely grazing the edge of his temple. The second bullet misses again and punches a smoking hole through a video holographic family portrait that flickers and dies mid-laugh.
When Arthur tries to bolt towards the door, Minghao cuts him off with a firm seize to his throat with his cybernetic hand, lifting the man clean off the floor and knocking the breath out of his lungs with a choked gasp. The synthetic muscles and servos whirr softly under the plating as Arthur’s legs kicked uselessly through the air, causing the whiskey glass and gun to slip free out of his hands.
Arthur’s screams are muddled when a sudden boom of thunder vibrates the world outside. Minghao doesn’t budge, even as the man claws at his grip with both hands. Forty-three years of soft living against a body rebuilt for war𑁋there was never a contest.
Minghao tightens his hold ever so slightly. Not enough to fully incapacitate yet. He wants the man to feel it, to feel the consequences of his actions with a teasing crush to his windpipe. The ocular implant in his left eye feeds him live data: heart rate 179… 203… oxygen saturation plummeting from 97% to 47%. It isn’t long until Arthur’s face bloats and washes into a deep crimson. Veins stand out like ropes along his temples. His eyes bulge, whites shot through with burst capillaries, tears leaking from the corners as his tongue presses thickly against his teeth.
Nothing but a wet, gurgling choke escapes him, barely audible over the storm raging outside and Minghao’s ironclad grip. “Please… my girls…”
The man continues to spew out gargled, pathetic words𑁋about his family who he only wanted to provide for, his wife who didn’t know anything, his innocent little girls𑁋and Minghao doesn’t feel a single ounce of remorse for it. He was assigned a task to complete. There was nothing programmed in him for mercy or pity.
When Minghao squeezes his fingers a fraction tighter, Arthur’s windpipe collapses with a wet, sickening pop. His eyes roll back completely in his head, his face drained of colour, as one final spasm jerks through his body before his arms drop limp to his side. Minghao holds him suspended in the air for a full ten seconds after the heart monitor flatlines before opening his hand.
Arthur’s body falls to the floor with a thud, sprawling among the glass shards and spilled whiskey. A thin stream of blood leaks from the corner of his mouth and pools beside his lifeless eyes. Updated data swarms through Minghao’s vision.
Target: Arthur Kim — TERMINATED
Elapsed Time: 8 minutes, 53 seconds
Minghao exhales a breath through his nose, rolling his shoulders back. The servos under his bionic arm hum faintly through the movement of his artificial joints, recalibrating itself from the temporary exertion. Eight minutes and fifty-three seconds. It’s somewhat sloppy by his standards, but the noise of the storm did well to hide most of the struggle. Still, the Dominion would be satisfied with his work as they always are.
He crouches beside the corpse, metal fingers brushing against the man’s neck to confirm zero pulse. Rain pours in from the shattered window, mixing in with the whiskey and the small pool of blood at his feet. This was definitely one of his messier missions, but the cleanup crew will do their task when he leaves.
He does a quick scan around the room, cycling through spectral overlays𑁋motion, thermal, electromagnetic. No alarms or security drones are detected. Arthur Kim had been arrogant enough to hide behind privacy glass and a single biometric lock on his door. What an amateur.
The apartment is dead silent now, except for the storm outside slowly beginning to dull out. But what catches him for a split second is the glitchy sound of laughter. Minghao shoots a glance toward the broken holographic family portrait that Arthur had shot at just moments ago.
His gaze lingers on the screen as it flickers erratically. What remains is a looping fragment: Arthur Kim smiling wide with his arms looped around another woman, and two small girls in front of them, both of them with equally big grins as if the world had never once been cruel. The audio stutters with one of the girls saying, “Daddy, look! I drew you a𑁋” before restarting the loop again.
Minghao forcibly tears his eyes away. He forces out a flat exhale through his nose, turning his back on the portrait entirely. Sentiment was a luxury for the wealthy civilians; for him, it was just irrelevant data. He mindlessly steps over Arthur’s corpse and treads his way toward the shattered window, climbing onto the rain-slicked ledge without looking back.
The wind claws onto him immediately, trying to sweep him off the building. He activates the magnetic grapples through his hand and anchors onto the opposite structure. With one powerful pull, he’s airborne again, swinging across the forty-metre gap like a shadow trailing through the void. Then he finds himself running across the rooftop before stopping right at the edge.
Below him, the city continues its restless slumber. Minghao watches it all distantly.
Then he jumps down into the void as the rain washes away the city’s sins.
This time, the fall felt a little longer than it should have.
SYNOPSIS. In the year 2197, Xu Minghao works as a government shadow operative, hired to hunt down political dissidents. After surviving a catastrophic accident that should have ended his life, his body had been rewired to become nothing more than a living weapon solely engineered for one purpose: obedience. You live a different kind of double life. By day, a reclusive digital artist curating an elite art gallery; by night, a ghost hacker where you siphon power and secrets from the city’s corrupt core. But when your latest hack uncovers an unsettling truth, a target is painted on your back—and Minghao is assigned to terminate you.
PAIRING. shadow operative!xu minghao x ghost hacker!fem!reader
GENRE. cyberpunk au, futuristic au, angst, smut (minors dni 🔞), fluff, hurt/comfort, enemies to lovers
WARNINGS (FOR TEASER). violence (murder, blood, gore, etc), minghao killing someone (yummy), body modifications/cybernetic enhancements
WARNINGS (FOR FULL FIC). explicit sexual content, cursing, drinking/drugs, violence (murder, blood, gore, etc), “implied” death, body modifications/cybernetic enhancements, government corruption, morally grey characters, brainwashing/memory manipulation, human experimentation
WORD COUNT (FOR TEASER). 1.3k
WORD COUNT (FOR FULL FIC). tbd, but hopefully 15k+
notes: hello :3 i hope u all enjoy this lil teaser hehe <3 this is for the @studiosvt cyberpunk: reload collab! tbh i have NO idea how long this will be, but this was def a genre i've been excited (and nervous) to dive into and i am honoured i got to write for minghao hehe
SECTOR TWO — THE VEIL DISTRICTS
The rain showering down from the night sky hisses against the alloy skin of the city.
Xu Minghao finds himself standing on the narrow maintenance ledge of a building sitting right across from the 47th floor of the Helix Tower, the tips of his combat boots hovering just over the edge as the wind snaps at the tails of his black trench coat. Right below his feet, the neon arteries of the city bleed through the thick layers of dense, permanent fog and rain.
Tonight’s target is a man named Arthur Kim. Age forty-three, married, with two daughters𑁋assigned to be executed under the orders of the Dominion for illegally accessing financial streams and attempting to sell them to some brokers located in the Undercity. A fatal error that costed him his entire life, and Minghao was sent to deliver the act within a termination window of two hours.
Minghao didn’t need all that time.
In due time, the ocular implant in his eye pings, immediately locking onto the target’s heat signature through the reinforced glass and walls. Minghao narrows his gaze, heat mapping across his vision, following the man’s dull amber silhouette frantically pacing inside of his dimly lit and expensive apartment, as if already knowing what’s about to come.
A forty metre gap separates the two buildings. Minghao steps into the void without any hesitation. The wind roars past him as he launches himself off the ledge, his coat flaring out like wings. Twin magnetic grapples fire out from the wrist of his right bionic arm with a sharp hiss, cables flying across the chasm until they latch onto the Helix Tower’s exterior frame.
At the apex of the launch, he releases the grapples and twists his body into a controlled dive towards the window. The second he makes contact, reinforced glass explodes inward as his boots smashes cleanly through Arthur Kim’s window, causing shards to rain across the carpet floor like confetti.
The man in question spins around too late, eyes blown wide with utter panic, clutching nothing but a half-empty glass of whiskey in his trembling hand and useless revolver in the other that he shakily points directly at Minghao.
“Don’t… don’t come any closer!” he begs, fingers twitching around the trigger. “I have connections𑁋I-I have a family, a wife, two little girls𑁋I can pay𑁋”
Minghao doesn’t speak. He never does on missions like this. Words are wasted on the already dead.
Instead, he crosses the room in three, perfect strides, way faster than any modified human should. Arthur attempts to shoot, but the revolver kicks back into his grip and causes the bullet to go wide and harmlessly punch into the wall directly behind Minghao, barely grazing the edge of his temple. The second bullet misses again and punches a smoking hole through a video holographic family portrait that flickers and dies mid-laugh.
When Arthur tries to bolt towards the door, Minghao cuts him off with a firm seize to his throat with his cybernetic hand, lifting the man clean off the floor and knocking the breath out of his lungs with a choked gasp. The synthetic muscles and servos whirr softly under the plating as Arthur’s legs kicked uselessly through the air, causing the whiskey glass and gun to slip free out of his hands.
Arthur’s screams are muddled when a sudden boom of thunder vibrates the world outside. Minghao doesn’t budge, even as the man claws at his grip with both hands. Forty-three years of soft living against a body rebuilt for war𑁋there was never a contest.
Minghao tightens his hold ever so slightly. Not enough to fully incapacitate yet. He wants the man to feel it, to feel the consequences of his actions with a teasing crush to his windpipe. The ocular implant in his left eye feeds him live data: heart rate 179… 203… oxygen saturation plummeting from 97% to 47%. It isn’t long until Arthur’s face bloats and washes into a deep crimson. Veins stand out like ropes along his temples. His eyes bulge, whites shot through with burst capillaries, tears leaking from the corners as his tongue presses thickly against his teeth.
Nothing but a wet, gurgling choke escapes him, barely audible over the storm raging outside and Minghao’s ironclad grip. “Please… my girls…”
The man continues to spew out gargled, pathetic words𑁋about his family who he only wanted to provide for, his wife who didn’t know anything, his innocent little girls𑁋and Minghao doesn’t feel a single ounce of remorse for it. He was assigned a task to complete. There was nothing programmed in him for mercy or pity.
When Minghao squeezes his fingers a fraction tighter, Arthur’s windpipe collapses with a wet, sickening pop. His eyes roll back completely in his head, his face drained of colour, as one final spasm jerks through his body before his arms drop limp to his side. Minghao holds him suspended in the air for a full ten seconds after the heart monitor flatlines before opening his hand.
Arthur’s body falls to the floor with a thud, sprawling among the glass shards and spilled whiskey. A thin stream of blood leaks from the corner of his mouth and pools beside his lifeless eyes. Updated data swarms through Minghao’s vision.
Target: Arthur Kim — TERMINATED
Elapsed Time: 8 minutes, 53 seconds
Minghao exhales a breath through his nose, rolling his shoulders back. The servos under his bionic arm hum faintly through the movement of his artificial joints, recalibrating itself from the temporary exertion. Eight minutes and fifty-three seconds. It’s somewhat sloppy by his standards, but the noise of the storm did well to hide most of the struggle. Still, the Dominion would be satisfied with his work as they always are.
He crouches beside the corpse, metal fingers brushing against the man’s neck to confirm zero pulse. Rain pours in from the shattered window, mixing in with the whiskey and the small pool of blood at his feet. This was definitely one of his messier missions, but the cleanup crew will do their task when he leaves.
He does a quick scan around the room, cycling through spectral overlays𑁋motion, thermal, electromagnetic. No alarms or security drones are detected. Arthur Kim had been arrogant enough to hide behind privacy glass and a single biometric lock on his door. What an amateur.
The apartment is dead silent now, except for the storm outside slowly beginning to dull out. But what catches him for a split second is the glitchy sound of laughter. Minghao shoots a glance toward the broken holographic family portrait that Arthur had shot at just moments ago.
His gaze lingers on the screen as it flickers erratically. What remains is a looping fragment: Arthur Kim smiling wide with his arms looped around another woman, and two small girls in front of them, both of them with equally big grins as if the world had never once been cruel. The audio stutters with one of the girls saying, “Daddy, look! I drew you a𑁋” before restarting the loop again.
Minghao forcibly tears his eyes away. He forces out a flat exhale through his nose, turning his back on the portrait entirely. Sentiment was a luxury for the wealthy civilians; for him, it was just irrelevant data. He mindlessly steps over Arthur’s corpse and treads his way toward the shattered window, climbing onto the rain-slicked ledge without looking back.
The wind claws onto him immediately, trying to sweep him off the building. He activates the magnetic grapples through his hand and anchors onto the opposite structure. With one powerful pull, he’s airborne again, swinging across the forty-metre gap like a shadow trailing through the void. Then he finds himself running across the rooftop before stopping right at the edge.
Below him, the city continues its restless slumber. Minghao watches it all distantly.
Then he jumps down into the void as the rain washes away the city’s sins.
This time, the fall felt a little longer than it should have.
SYNOPSIS. In the year 2197, Xu Minghao works as a government shadow operative, hired to hunt down political dissidents. After surviving a catastrophic accident that should have ended his life, his body had been rewired to become nothing more than a living weapon solely engineered for one purpose: obedience. You live a different kind of double life. By day, a reclusive digital artist curating an elite art gallery; by night, a ghost hacker where you siphon power and secrets from the city’s corrupt core. But when your latest hack uncovers an unsettling truth, a target is painted on your back—and Minghao is assigned to terminate you.
PAIRING. shadow operative!xu minghao x ghost hacker!fem!reader
GENRE. cyberpunk au, futuristic au, angst, smut (minors dni 🔞), fluff, hurt/comfort, enemies to lovers
WARNINGS (FOR TEASER). violence (murder, blood, gore, etc), minghao killing someone (yummy), body modifications/cybernetic enhancements
WARNINGS (FOR FULL FIC). explicit sexual content, cursing, drinking/drugs, violence (murder, blood, gore, etc), “implied” death, body modifications/cybernetic enhancements, government corruption, morally grey characters, brainwashing/memory manipulation, human experimentation
WORD COUNT (FOR TEASER). 1.3k
WORD COUNT (FOR FULL FIC). tbd, but hopefully 15k+
notes: hello :3 i hope u all enjoy this lil teaser hehe <3 this is for the @studiosvt cyberpunk: reload collab! tbh i have NO idea how long this will be, but this was def a genre i've been excited (and nervous) to dive into and i am honoured i got to write for minghao hehe
SECTOR TWO — THE VEIL DISTRICTS
The rain showering down from the night sky hisses against the alloy skin of the city.
Xu Minghao finds himself standing on the narrow maintenance ledge of a building sitting right across from the 47th floor of the Helix Tower, the tips of his combat boots hovering just over the edge as the wind snaps at the tails of his black trench coat. Right below his feet, the neon arteries of the city bleed through the thick layers of dense, permanent fog and rain.
Tonight’s target is a man named Arthur Kim. Age forty-three, married, with two daughters𑁋assigned to be executed under the orders of the Dominion for illegally accessing financial streams and attempting to sell them to some brokers located in the Undercity. A fatal error that costed him his entire life, and Minghao was sent to deliver the act within a termination window of two hours.
Minghao didn’t need all that time.
In due time, the ocular implant in his eye pings, immediately locking onto the target’s heat signature through the reinforced glass and walls. Minghao narrows his gaze, heat mapping across his vision, following the man’s dull amber silhouette frantically pacing inside of his dimly lit and expensive apartment, as if already knowing what’s about to come.
A forty metre gap separates the two buildings. Minghao steps into the void without any hesitation. The wind roars past him as he launches himself off the ledge, his coat flaring out like wings. Twin magnetic grapples fire out from the wrist of his right bionic arm with a sharp hiss, cables flying across the chasm until they latch onto the Helix Tower’s exterior frame.
At the apex of the launch, he releases the grapples and twists his body into a controlled dive towards the window. The second he makes contact, reinforced glass explodes inward as his boots smashes cleanly through Arthur Kim’s window, causing shards to rain across the carpet floor like confetti.
The man in question spins around too late, eyes blown wide with utter panic, clutching nothing but a half-empty glass of whiskey in his trembling hand and useless revolver in the other that he shakily points directly at Minghao.
“Don’t… don’t come any closer!” he begs, fingers twitching around the trigger. “I have connections𑁋I-I have a family, a wife, two little girls𑁋I can pay𑁋”
Minghao doesn’t speak. He never does on missions like this. Words are wasted on the already dead.
Instead, he crosses the room in three, perfect strides, way faster than any modified human should. Arthur attempts to shoot, but the revolver kicks back into his grip and causes the bullet to go wide and harmlessly punch into the wall directly behind Minghao, barely grazing the edge of his temple. The second bullet misses again and punches a smoking hole through a video holographic family portrait that flickers and dies mid-laugh.
When Arthur tries to bolt towards the door, Minghao cuts him off with a firm seize to his throat with his cybernetic hand, lifting the man clean off the floor and knocking the breath out of his lungs with a choked gasp. The synthetic muscles and servos whirr softly under the plating as Arthur’s legs kicked uselessly through the air, causing the whiskey glass and gun to slip free out of his hands.
Arthur’s screams are muddled when a sudden boom of thunder vibrates the world outside. Minghao doesn’t budge, even as the man claws at his grip with both hands. Forty-three years of soft living against a body rebuilt for war𑁋there was never a contest.
Minghao tightens his hold ever so slightly. Not enough to fully incapacitate yet. He wants the man to feel it, to feel the consequences of his actions with a teasing crush to his windpipe. The ocular implant in his left eye feeds him live data: heart rate 179… 203… oxygen saturation plummeting from 97% to 47%. It isn’t long until Arthur’s face bloats and washes into a deep crimson. Veins stand out like ropes along his temples. His eyes bulge, whites shot through with burst capillaries, tears leaking from the corners as his tongue presses thickly against his teeth.
Nothing but a wet, gurgling choke escapes him, barely audible over the storm raging outside and Minghao’s ironclad grip. “Please… my girls…”
The man continues to spew out gargled, pathetic words𑁋about his family who he only wanted to provide for, his wife who didn’t know anything, his innocent little girls𑁋and Minghao doesn’t feel a single ounce of remorse for it. He was assigned a task to complete. There was nothing programmed in him for mercy or pity.
When Minghao squeezes his fingers a fraction tighter, Arthur’s windpipe collapses with a wet, sickening pop. His eyes roll back completely in his head, his face drained of colour, as one final spasm jerks through his body before his arms drop limp to his side. Minghao holds him suspended in the air for a full ten seconds after the heart monitor flatlines before opening his hand.
Arthur’s body falls to the floor with a thud, sprawling among the glass shards and spilled whiskey. A thin stream of blood leaks from the corner of his mouth and pools beside his lifeless eyes. Updated data swarms through Minghao’s vision.
Target: Arthur Kim — TERMINATED
Elapsed Time: 8 minutes, 53 seconds
Minghao exhales a breath through his nose, rolling his shoulders back. The servos under his bionic arm hum faintly through the movement of his artificial joints, recalibrating itself from the temporary exertion. Eight minutes and fifty-three seconds. It’s somewhat sloppy by his standards, but the noise of the storm did well to hide most of the struggle. Still, the Dominion would be satisfied with his work as they always are.
He crouches beside the corpse, metal fingers brushing against the man’s neck to confirm zero pulse. Rain pours in from the shattered window, mixing in with the whiskey and the small pool of blood at his feet. This was definitely one of his messier missions, but the cleanup crew will do their task when he leaves.
He does a quick scan around the room, cycling through spectral overlays𑁋motion, thermal, electromagnetic. No alarms or security drones are detected. Arthur Kim had been arrogant enough to hide behind privacy glass and a single biometric lock on his door. What an amateur.
The apartment is dead silent now, except for the storm outside slowly beginning to dull out. But what catches him for a split second is the glitchy sound of laughter. Minghao shoots a glance toward the broken holographic family portrait that Arthur had shot at just moments ago.
His gaze lingers on the screen as it flickers erratically. What remains is a looping fragment: Arthur Kim smiling wide with his arms looped around another woman, and two small girls in front of them, both of them with equally big grins as if the world had never once been cruel. The audio stutters with one of the girls saying, “Daddy, look! I drew you a𑁋” before restarting the loop again.
Minghao forcibly tears his eyes away. He forces out a flat exhale through his nose, turning his back on the portrait entirely. Sentiment was a luxury for the wealthy civilians; for him, it was just irrelevant data. He mindlessly steps over Arthur’s corpse and treads his way toward the shattered window, climbing onto the rain-slicked ledge without looking back.
The wind claws onto him immediately, trying to sweep him off the building. He activates the magnetic grapples through his hand and anchors onto the opposite structure. With one powerful pull, he’s airborne again, swinging across the forty-metre gap like a shadow trailing through the void. Then he finds himself running across the rooftop before stopping right at the edge.
Below him, the city continues its restless slumber. Minghao watches it all distantly.
Then he jumps down into the void as the rain washes away the city’s sins.
This time, the fall felt a little longer than it should have.
