Night
Santo Domingo
An abandoned warehouse
6th Street has established itself as the base. They just hit a robbery commission targeting Ascension Technology. The run succeeded, although a few Arasaka security personnel in the convoy proved too strict to handle, resulting in the loss of several men. The payout will be generous. They have hauled the cargo back and are waiting for the employer to collect.
Sentries and patrols ring the floor. The whole site is on alert. Most of 6th Street's gang members are ex-military, so their discipline is tighter than that of other crews. They keep focus. They have accepted multiple contracts against Ascension Technology. They are not afraid of Ascension, but they have heard about the efficiency of Ascension's Special Operations Department. To keep a counterstrike from landing, they strengthened the base defenses.
In one corner, two 6th Street soldiers stand facing each other at two support pillars, watching the angles they are assigned to cover. The overlapping fields of view should be foolproof. If anyone tries to take one guard quietly, the other should catch it.
One guard yawns despite himself. Standing watch is not easy. Staying keyed up burns energy fast. Fortunately, the task is nearly done. The buyer should arrive any minute. So far, nothing has gone wrong. It looks like another night will end clean.
He checks the time—ten minutes to the handoff.
In the instant his eyes slide off center, something flashes across his peripheral vision. He snaps his head up. The opposite guard is gone. Only four deep claw marks score the concrete pillar behind where his partner stood.
He realizes something is wrong before his brain can issue the following command, his head parts from his body.
Two guards die in a breath with no noise at all. No one else in the warehouse realizes an uninvited guest has arrived. And those two are only the beginning.
Two
Three
Four
Soldiers drop one after another without seeing what hit them. As the bodies mount, the rest finally understand. "Enemy!"
Alarms blare. 6th Street snaps into a full alert and tries to pin the intruder. It does not help. The killing does not stop. In one man's horrified stare, his teammate is sliced in half right beside him. Blood splashes across his chest. He still cannot see the attacker clearly.
Numbers fall at a terrifying pace. The local 6th Street leader has no answer and orders everyone to regroup. Otherwise, the whole warehouse will be dead men.
They pull back to the center and mass around the stolen cargo. It is the most open space in the building with the most precise lines of sight. A few more die on the way in, but they preserve what strength remains. Their count is already down by half.
For a moment, once they have finished assembling, the killer does not appear again. The air goes tight and strange. All of them stand shoulder to shoulder with weapons up, trying not to make unnecessary noise, afraid to mask the one clue that will give the enemy away.
Under that tension, the invisible killer seems to have vanished. Some begin to believe the regroup was successful and the attacker will not show up again.
Then a blue light wakes at the far edge of the darkness.
The glow resolves. Everyone sees it. A pair of claws shines electric blue. Above the claws, two rows of sharp beast teeth glow the same blue.
Before they can react, the owner of those claws and fangs leaps. One soldier goes down hard. Claws sweep—blood arcs. Right in front of them, a companion is cut into pieces.
Under the lamps, 6th Street finally sees the thing's full shape for the first time. An all-metal body in black and white, with no trace of organic tissue. It is impossible to tell whether they are looking at a cyberized body or a pure machine. The build carries a wolf's posture, with blue-lit teeth and talons and a tail that lashes as it moves. They understand they are not facing a person at all, but an unknown killing monster.
{ PROJECT: Warwick }
{ From the League of Legends universe, a superweapon created by the PROJECT Company. This is the first-generation counterpart of PROJECT: Annihilation[1]. Unlike Annihilation, which fuses human and multiple beast genes, PROJECT: Warwick creates the ultimate weapon by directly weaponizing a ferocious beast. Warwick exists to kill. It is a pure killing machine. The beast-based transformation achieves that goal. It has no reason, only animal instinct, violent and wild, and difficult to control. During a control program test, uninvited guests interfered, and Warwick broke free of the company's restraint. (In this module, Warwick's control system is perfected, and he is absolutely loyal to the host.) }
This is Rocky's gift to the troublemakers—a hunting feast led by Warwick, a top-tier killing machine.
[1] I could only find information about the LOL project: Warwick. idk what annihilation is