Ghost in the City
is a Ghost in the Shell and Cyberpunk 2077 Self-Insert fanfiction Crossover written by Sera.
Set a few years before the events of Edgerunners, a young woman wakes up in the body of a teenaged girl called Motoko Kusanagi, who up until recently was in a medical coma after being abducted by the Scavs. Now forced to live as someone else in a bleak world that will spit her out if she's not careful, Motoko takes advantage of the Gamer system she's been given and begins making strides in building a reputation as Night City's newest merc.
Can also be found on Royal Road (here) and on Archive of Our Own (here).
Ghost in the City contains examples of the following tropes:
- The Ace: Motoko and Jun, to varying degrees.
- Motoko's Gamer system effectively lets her become this. With each stat and skill she levels up, she grows into a terrifyingly effective merc who dabbles in almost everything, be it as a Techie or even as a Netrunner.
- Jun is one of the Tyger Claws' lieutenants and one of their most effective members, primarily due to his horrific efficiency on the battlefield. It helps that the group he's part of are considered cyberpsychos in the making, and they're all just as dangerous as an actual Cyberpsycho.
- Aroused by Their Voice: After she sufficiently levels up her Rockerboy skill, Motoko learns how to adjust her octave levels and vocal chords. One of the first things she does is mimic Major Kusanagi's actual voice (Motoko is still a teenager whereas the Major is a synthetic adult), which flusters Jun and makes Hiromi blush up a storm.
- Big Brother Instinct: Played both ways.
- While Motoko is physically younger than Jun, mentally they are closer in age, but she's still very protective of him. She constantly worries that he pushes himself too far and that he isn't taking better care of himself, even briefly worrying over whether he's developing cyberpsychosis. It doesn't help when she learns the group he's with is composed of cyberpsychos in the making.
- While its unclear whether he was always protective of Motoko prior to the protagonist reincarnating in her body, he started to fill this role after her abduction by the Scavs. It got to the point where he was treading cyberpsychosis in his dogged pursuit to become strong enough to protect her, though he later dials this back after learning Motoko is capable of handling herself.
- Blood Knight: Motoko eventually admits that she loves fighting and killing people.
- "I like killing. I’m not going to stop."
- Can't Catch Up: There are hints that Jackie is feeling this way towards Mokoto as time goes by.
- Chick Magnet: Jun. Despite being just as Oblivious to Love as his sister, he earns the attention of his new neighbor, Rebecca, and even Rita Wheeler. Motoko is flabberghasted to learn her brother's got game.
- Cool Car:
- Malcom eventually finds and buys a Caliburn, a car he's always dreamed of. Granted, his first attempt to buy one was a scam where the thieves trick would-be buyers with pictures of potential cars and nearly got zeroed in the process, but he's still happy and spends twenty minutes geeking over it.
- Motoko's Shiv model Quadra Type-66, albeit to a lesser extent. While not as impressive as Malcom's Caliburn, it's still way above the average car in Night City. That Motoko even owns it despite being a teenager is noted by a few people.
- The Dreaded: Owing to his status in the tabletop game and 2077, Adam Smasher is this. He's the one person Motoko is not confident going up against anytime soon, if ever.
- Drives Like Crazy: Defied. One of the running jokes is that Motoko is about the only person in Night City who obeys the rules of the road - except in emergencies.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Motoko gradually becomes this over the course of the story thanks to her Gamer power. To everyone else, she has gone from being Tyger Claw wannabe nobody to Solo good enough to get into the Afterlife and has racked up a body count in the triple digits since waking up from her coma. Especially since she has done all of this in a matter of months. She's even earned a moniker among the Tyger Claws as "Onryo", much to her chagrin.
- Glorious Death: Motoko is NOT a fan of the Edgerunner attitude towards dying. Her fighting murderous criminals for fun is completely different, really.
- Good Thing You Can Heal: Motoko can heal almost any injury by sleeping for eight hours and the emergency stimulants, Max Docs work like magic healing potions for her. If not for this, she'd be dead ten times over.
- Improbable Age: Motoko is fourteen years old and, due to her Gamer powers, is a master in many fields, some of which are extremely technical. People, who have only seen a fraction of her skill set, think she must be either the product of some Corpo super soldier project, or not really fourteen.
- Insistent Terminology: Motoko is a mercenary, not an Edgerunner or gangoon-for-hire.
- Kleptomaniac Hero: Motoko considers looting her dead enemies to be a perfectly acceptable means of upgrading her arsenal or supplementing her income. Later extends to the rest of Mokoto's immediate friend group as Mokoto spreads her looting ways to the rest of Section 9.
- Living Emotional Crutch: Without Mokoto, Jun would almost certainly have succumbed to cyberpsychosis. Without Jun, Mokoto would do nothing except train and kill people.
- Mini-Mecha: The Minotaur that Section 9 recovers from one of their gigs, albeit is it remote controlled rather than piloted from a cockpit.
- Mistaken for Romance: The Mox briefly believes that Nox is in a relationship with Motoko or is simply being led around by her. When it looks as if she's ghosting him, Rita and Judy chew Motoko out over it until she explains why she couldn't answer his messages.
- Mook Horror Show: There are scenes from the point of view of Motoko's opponents/victims.
- Noodle Incident: Wakako has an unfavorable impression of the Kusanagis for some unexplained reason. The best Motoko can glean from Jun is that it involves their parents, though this thankfully doesn't mean Wakako won't offer Motoko any gigs once she proves her conmpetence.
- Oblivious to Love: Motoko has no idea that Hiromi is attracted to her. Jun is also unable to tell when a woman is flirting with him. They are both able to tell when someone is attracted to the other, though. In the case of Motoko, this is an Enforced Trope by the author
due to the moral concerns of having an adult mind in a teenager's body hooking up with an underaged minor. - The Pollyanna: Motoko is really and weirdly happy about being in a dystopian hellhole full of murderous psychopaths.
- Poor Communication Kills:
- Played for Laughs. When Motoko tells Jun and her friends she's been scrolling B Ds, they immediately assume she's talking about the steamy kind since they're the most common kinds and react with shock.
- Motoko creates a BD with a Doom (2016) theme, titling it "The Only Thing They Fear Is You". Throughout the entire BD, Motoko puts herself through a berserker rage as she slaughters her way throughout an entire Scav den. Upon experiencing the BD for herself while editing it, Judy is overwhelmed and believes Motoko went cyberpsycho. It doesn't help that this happens shortly after Motoko receives unwilling implants after being kidnapped by Maelstrom, though she does clear up the misunderstanding when she has the chance.
- Red Baron: Jun is called "The Oni" by the Tyger Claws due to his brutal efficiency and fighting style. Motoko also gains the nickname "Onryo" from the gang, though she's less than pleased to learn this.
- Serial-Killer Killer: Motoko can veer into this. Notably, she stops off on the way to kill a notable serial killer to kill a Raffen Shiv gang.
- Shout-Out: The second the protagonist realizes she's reincarnated in the body of a young woman named Motoko Kusanagi, she takes full advantage of her new situation and starts styling herself as the Major, at least in terms of skills and appearance. Personality-wise, Motoko is an excitable and hyperactive gremlin. She later dubs her friend group "Section 9", albeit jokingly until she and her friends decide to run with it.
- Small Girl, Big Gun: Motoko is a fairly small fourteen year old girl. She often uses a Burya, the largest handgun available.
- Smiting Evil Feels Good: Motoko does have a code and keeps herself under control by directing her blood lust at acceptable targets, which Night City has in great abundance.
- Spared by the Adaptation: In this fanfic, Sasha survives her ill-fated gig with Biotechnica after exposing them, albeit barely. She and Maine are holed up in a safe house where she can safely recover.
- Took a Level in Badass:
- Thanks to the Gamer system, Motoko begins to gradually take more and more levels in badassery. From an outside perspective, this applies to the original Motoko Kusanagi, who was far less impressive due to being a Tyger Claw wannabe.
- This later applies to Motoko's friends Malcom, Ichi, and Hiromi. At the start of the story, they are a bunch of Tyger Claw wannabes like the original Motoko. Thanks to her influence and efforts, however, they gradually become competent fighters in their own right. Hiromi becomes the group's personal Fixer and is in the process of creating her own criminal empire, Ichi turns into the crew's Badass Driver and pilots a Minotaur, and Malcom personally fights alongside Motoko, Jun, and Rebecca in a Scav raid. Keep in mind Ichi used to be the Tyger Claws' delivery boy and Malcom was pretty much a "nobody" compared to the rest of his friends.
- Vocal Dissonance: With some investments in her Rockerboy skill, Motoko eventually learns how to change her voice. She successfully replicates the Major's English Dub voice from Stand Alone Complex, dubbing it her "Sexy Motoko Voice". It lives up to its name as it arouses Hiromi and flusters Jun. Keep in mind Motoko is a teenager here.
