19 Remember, Remember

"Entering combat." declared the Mk III Stealth Armor as I cranked the lever of my custom tech shotgun and cleared the first barrel on one of the two men guarding the fortified door to the compound in which Rick Morton, the leader of the 6th Street gang, lives.

The man simply ceased to be in any human identifiable status and the wall behind him looked like the Kool-aid man stopped by. His partner gaped in shock while the second barrel of my tech shotgun did the same to him and the wall behind him.

I cranked the lever of my weapon again, bringing up the next set of shells from the tubes below. My lovingly named Nuestra Senora took inspiration from the Serbian Satara Tech Shotgun, but I'd built it around a lever action to take advantage of the Cowboy perk that boosts guns that are either lever action or revolvers by 25 percent. Throw in the extra 15 percent from Tech Commander on top of the damn thing being a rail gun shotgun and… me gusta. Muy me gusta.

The kills filled me with what felt like a breath of fresh air as Grim Reaper Sprint activated, restoring a small bit of stamina and cooling down my cybernetics on kill. That refreshing feeling made seeing an oncoming squad of men and women armed to the teeth with bad intentions for me quite exciting. Even if they didn't have what it takes to get my robohearts pumping they'd at least feel like the first bite of peppermint gum for my mind.

A river of bullets washed over the Mk III while I casually repeated the devistating process on priority targets. Anyone carrying a boomstick big enough to do more than scratch the paint on my suit got introduced to 14 razor sharp steel spikes spit forth by the mean power of electromagnetism.

I wouldn't survive long on the other end of this beast, and neither did any of my opponents as each and every shell tore through any form of cover or barricade they tried to hide behind. An armored vehicle attempted to squeel out of the compound, but a single retort of Nuestra Senora ripped the cabin to shreds and everyone inside.

As the truck hit the compound wall and exploded I received another level up to round out the three I received prior for the big insider trading deal. I took Nerves of Steel, which enhanced the transmission speed of my nervous system and empowers my brain to handle more feedback while smoothing and improving my mind body connection to my cybernetics. The twenty percent boost to uptime on the Sandevi-zerk was already enough to make the perk worth it, but the twenty percent dexterity boost to my already well coordinated cyberware was more than gravy, it was getting more steak with my steak.

What a beastly late game perk.

The big boost to Street Cred that came from me killing the leader of the 6th Street didn't end, and neither did the sounds of armed conflict as thousands of my gang chooms flooded into Santo Domingo in these early morning hours for Operation: Ghetto Storm. The only guys left behind for this mission are those we needed to guard the borders of our turf shared with Watson and Westbrook. The Claws shouldn't have been aware of our mass deployment ahead of time, but it was damn important to make sure they didn't make a fast response attack on us as we assaulted Santo Domingo.

I ran out of the compound and took to the streets to help do as much damage as possible. Our intel on where everyone in the enemy gang sleeps would quickly go out the window as members fought or fled, but I was sure I could hit another high priority target within the gang before he had the chance to run.

Pablo Silvia lived nearby and I caught the man as he tried to get his family out of the neighborhood in his Armored Chevillon Emperor 620. A shot from Nuestra Senora through the engine block put a stop to that, and I ripped the door off the drivers side and slammed his wrist against the roof when he tried to shoot me.

One punch turned Pablo's head around and finished my work. I wiped my fist off on his shirt. With him gone the upper leadership of the gang is in shambles. Will Gunner doesn't have the clout he'd have in 2077 to take over and Sam Carter is a fucking dumbass. I left the family behind and started just hunting down anyone I could get my hands on. Looking for fire fights and fleeing vehicles.

The Valentinos soldiers had driven hard and fast to establish a perimeter, but no net is perfect. Still with our numbers the entire district became a killzone in less than twenty minutes. We'd miss the ones that fled fast on the far west end, but how many of them would do well in Pacifica or the Badlands cut off from their usual supplies?

6th Street didn't go down quietly though, not at all. As the clock turned the shooting only increased as the members became aware of the situation and desperate to fight their way out of our encirclement and away from our kill teams. I gunned down dozens of men and women as I ran the streets while hundreds more died of my plan as we redrew the map in the blood of our enemies.

I gained two more levels during the hours of fighting and took Hit the Deck as my perk which boosted my damage threshold against explosions by 25 points. In total we caused the deaths of over twelve hundred people this morning, over nine hundred had been 6th Street targets. The rest were collateral, killed by us, killed by them it didn't matter much.

We'd bury just under three hundred chooms for the effort, which is a damn fine improvement over the usual exchange with the far better armed per capita gang of Corpo War veterans. Surprise, numbers, and the decapitation strike won the day for us decisively. More importantly those who managed to flee still left behind most of their gear.

Thousands of Militech guns formerly belonging to a group that spent the majority of their eddies on mods, cyberware, and ammo came into my gang chooms hands via the Iron Price. The raw tonnage of ammunition we came away with was enough to tip the scales of power in Night City even without the new government contract. Plus we didn't need to expand into all of Santo Domingo, just the parts that are less shit and around my factory. Everything else can serve as a buffer between us and Pacifica. It'll be crazy for a bit, maybe the survivors will take back the turf we don't settle on, but that's no problem. There's blood in the water no matter what 6th Street does, and I'm a big fan of 'let them fight.'

Whichever way the wind blows I still have a near battalion of bodies to bag and auction off.

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Padre is going to be so disappointed. Juan just doesn't care about the balance of the gangs in Night City. Obviously I was inspired for this by the attack the Tyger Claws pulled earlier, but scaled it up. That was a bunch of pissed off ground level members rallying for a lynching were this was a major offensive by the whole gang.

I was never impressed with the 6th Street in the game or in my research of them. There was that knee jerk 'Murica' aspect, but then I found out that these are actually just a bunch of corpo mercenaries high jacking the trappings of American Veterans it felt like a big stolen valor situation.

I'm doing an interlude chapter next for V and Gloria, so let me know if there are some PoV's you also want to see.