"Kill this piece of trash."
"Fire."
Gunfire hammers the dark. The warehouse fills with muzzle flash and smoke as 6th Street empties magazines into the thing in their midst.
Bullets clang off Warwick's frame and vanish into the shadows behind him without leaving a mark. Rocky built him with an energy-absorbing alloy skin; the claws sheath integrated laser edges. Ask Marvin about those test scratches on his forearm. He learned the hard way.
Warwick throws his head back and howls. The sound is metallic and wrong, a synthetic wolf through a blown speaker, loud enough to smother the gunfire and turn heads out on the Street.
A pressure wave bursts from his body and ripples across the floor. Men lift off their feet and slam down. As the howl fades, the blue lights along his chassis shift to a hard red. That is when the killing starts in earnest.
He moves through them as if they are standing still—limbs arc. Blood spatters the pillars. The concrete becomes a slick field, and the air turns copper-bitter. The warehouse becomes a grinder in seconds.
When the last man drops, Warwick does not check the crates. He drops to all fours and runs out into Santo Domingo. He is not an agent. His task is not to seize assets. His task is to kill. He knows which targets. Instinct handles the rest.
…
NCPD strings tape across the scene not long after. Civilians swamped the switchboard the moment the howl rolled through the industrial blocks.
"Victims are all gang," an officer says after a quick walk-through. "No civilian casualties, no sign of a cyberpsycho targeting bystanders. It looks like a gang war that got out of control. Count the bodies and clear it."
With that, the cops write it off. They do not stay long.
Warwick is not finished.
…
Another street in Santo Domingo.
A sedan zigzags through traffic at a dangerous speed. The driver wears 6th Street colors and is unable to stop sweating. He watched a monster tear through his crew. Resistance did nothing. Shooting did nothing. He was in the car smoking when it hit, and he only survived because he floored it on reflex.
He hears a heavy thump on the roof. Something landed on the moving car.
He is still accelerating. He never lifted off the pedal. If he were a worse driver, he would already be dead. The thing still caught him.
Claws open the roof like a can. The hand that reaches in does not miss.
In the end, the man who ran still dies with his hands on the wheel. Once Warwick marks prey, the trail never goes cold. He will close the distance, no matter where they flee.
Warwick keeps hunting through Santo Domingo. Every target wears 6th Street colors. Several safehouses fall before sunrise, every one of them ending in the same red quiet.
…
Next morning.
"Good morning, Night City. You will never guess the number on today's death lottery. NCPD cannot even count the bodies yet. Too many parts. Multiple 6th Street bases were wiped last night in what looks like the ugliest gang massacre in years…"
Every outlet runs the story. 6th Street wakes hurt, furious, and afraid. They do not know what hit them. Their headcount craters overnight.
Across town, the Valentinos do not waste the opening. They push into the 6th Street turf immediately.
Now, 6th Street must absorb hits from an unknown monster and a rival crew at once. The ground under them slips. If they cannot stabilize, their name may vanish from Night City.
Either way, they have no resources left to bother Ascension Technology.