Friday Night Firefight: A Cyberpunk Isekai

The fire barrels were still lit, throwing flickering shadows across the underpass in Arroyo. The scent of gunpowder and blood hung thick in the air, sharp and metallic, impossible to ignore. My eyes traced the bullet casings scattered on the ground, glinting in the dim light like grim reminders of the chaos that tore through this place.

Blood was splattered across the crumbling concrete pillars, dark streaks marring the cold, gray surface. The pillars hadn’t done anything to protect anyone. Broken-down cars, rusted and gutted long ago, dotted the camp like relics to a forgotten time. This place, this patch of asphalt and decay, was the reality for Night City’s homeless. It was a small patch of livable space carved out under an overpass where they could try to stay invisible and just survive.

Now, the place was a graveyard.

What little security the camp had – the makeshift barriers, the scrap metal fences – was laughable in the face of a 6th Street assault. They’d come in with all the firepower of a gang that wanted to make a point. And they had. 6th Street was trying to say that the homeless weren’t safe. Not in 6th Street territory. I couldn’t protect them.

I looked around at the devastation, the bodies sprawled on the cold concrete, and a bitter taste of guilt rose in the back of my throat. None of the people here had anything to do with the war I was fighting. They were just caught in the crossfire, collateral damage in a battle they never signed up for.

The camp had been their poor attempt at sanctuary, made up of whatever they could scrape together from the junkyard across the street. Rusted metal sheets, broken appliances, old tires – they’d dragged whatever they could find to this underpass, trying to create something that offered even a sliver of protection from the outside world. I imagined how proud they must have felt while building it, even for a brief moment, thinking they had some small control over their world. It must have given them an illusion of safety that they’d clung to when they went about their day.

Illusion of safety.

I clenched my fists and walked around the underpass. The Pack was supposed to stand for something. To help people. It was supposed to be something like hope, even in this hellhole of a city. I wanted to offer the homeless more than just a chance to be ignored. But as I looked over the wreckage, at the blood on the walls of the underpass, I wondered if my ambition had drawn this death to their doorstep. Was it my ambition, my vision of something better in this shit city, that had killed these people? Without The Pack expanding, without me trying to build something in a city that refused to let anything good survive, would this camp still be standing? Would they still be huddled around barrel fires, eating whatever scraps they snatched from dumpsters and stores like the Magami Market nearby?

The market was still busy. People filtered in and out, going about their day, occasionally craning their necks to take in the carnage nearby, but not lingering. Violence in Night City was just part of the backdrop. Something you noticed for a second before moving on with your life. And the NCPD? They hadn’t shown up, nor would they for a while. There wasn’t an investigation about what happened here. They’d just call in the meat wagons and go about their day. The homeless weren’t a priority for them, not in a city filled with gangs and corporations and cyberpsychos.

Not a single 6th Street body lay on the ground. This wasn’t a firefight; it was an execution. They came in, guns blazing, and wiped out everyone. It was a message. The homeless weren’t safe, and if they thought I could protect them, they were dead wrong.

And the worst part? 6th Street was right. I hadn’t protected these people. This was my failure. The Pack’s failure.

The war with 6th Street had only been going on for a week, but it felt like months. Every day was a grind, and every night was a reminder of how outmatched we were. 6th Street had numbers, more firepower, and experience in gang warfare. Any time we hit them, we were met with a wall of bodies – soldiers, street thugs, mercs, all armed and ready to bleed us dry. For every attack we made, they came back twice as hard.

They’d hit a few more of our spots in the past few days. Casinos, mostly. The cops, eager to look tough on crime, set up shop outside two of our operations, cutting off our income there. They weren’t doing shit except making sure we weren’t making eddies from those spots.

Then there was the garage. We’d been using it to stash a bunch of gear we’d taken during the Cytech job, stuff we were planning to fence. 6th Street had tried to take it, probably figuring they’d cripple us if they wiped out our supply. If Zion and his crew hadn’t been there, we might’ve lost it all. They held the line, killed a few 6th Street shooters, but it had been close. Even with that win under our belt, the atmosphere was shifting.

We hit back where we could, like in Santo Domingo, where Anna’s crew caught some 6th Street hanging out in front of a strip mall. It wasn’t a major win, but we managed to drop the lot of them. Still, it wasn’t enough.

And the attack on this homeless camp was…retaliation. 6th Street was pissed we’d held onto the garage and pissed we’d killed their boys. So, they picked the easiest, most vulnerable targets to send their message. People who couldn’t fight back.

I heard Fred’s footsteps before I saw him. He stepped up beside me, his shoulders slumped, his eyes fixed on the bodies. He didn’t say anything at first, just stood there, staring at the wreckage. His face was drawn, like he’d aged ten years in the last few minutes. There was a quiet grief hanging between us, thick in the air.

After a long moment of silence, I finally spoke up. “Did you know any of them?”

Fred nodded, his mouth a tight line. He tried to speak but stopped. His hand drifted to his face, fingers rubbing at his chin like he was trying to hold himself together.

“Yea,” he finally said, his voice rough. “I knew a few of ‘em.” His gaze flickered over to one of the bodies, a woman lying near a rusted-out car. “None of ‘em were with us,” he added, quieter now. “They weren’t with The Pack. Just…people. Trying to live.”

His eyes moved to the shoddy, makeshift barriers they’d thrown together, and the rusted-out cars that had once given them some tiny hope of protection. “They were just trying to stay out of the way.”

We stood there, both of us, staring at the wreckage.

&&&&&&&&

Diego: final checks before we start

Cyndi: my team’s ready

Anna: we’re good on our end.

Zion: picking out targets right now.

I tapped out my ‘ready’ text and closed the message, a little pissed that I wasn’t going to be part of the action tonight. The team of badges Anna had stationed with me was doing their last checks, making sure they were ready if they got called up as they scanned the streets below. From our vantage on a rooftop of a dilapidated building, we had a perfect view of the massive construction site in Santo Domingo that was our target.

It was late – way past the time anyone not in a gang or on a corpo payroll would be out in this part of the city. But the area was far from empty. Bulldozers, cranes, and trucks filled the construction site, looming under the floodlights like giant sleeping beasts. The foundation of another megabuilding was being laid, one more tower in a city that never seemed to stop growing upward.

The whole place was locked down tight by 6th Street. This site was part of one of their gigs – providing armed muscle to guard corpo assets. Even with the war between us heating up, they had more than enough manpower to keep a stronghold here and still attack us.

I watched the 6th Street guards below as they moved, relaxed, confident. None of them looked tired or like they were stretched too thin, even though they were fighting on several fronts. We, on the other hand, weren’t so lucky. The Pack didn’t have the luxury of manpower. Every hit we made had to count, and every person we sent into battle was often pulling double duty. We needed to protect our assets in the daytime while still gathering enough guns to make a difference during our few attacks on 6th Street.

Which made Diego’s posting of me here, safe and sound, surrounded by Anna’s people, so maddening. Sure, it was smart. But that didn’t make me less pissed with the whole thing. I was basically the king in this giant game of chess. If I got capped in the fight, the war was over.

But that didn’t make everyone in the gang treating me like a porcelain doll any easier.

I’d handed off the planning of our attack to Deng, Diego, and Zion. I knew my limits and, I was definitely not capable of leading a military-style raid on a target. The three vets on my crew had way more experience running ops than I’d ever have. Corpo jobs, wars outside the city, black bag gigs – this was their bread and butter. And to be honest, I figured a raid like this might help them shake off the frustration they’d been feeling lately. Gang warfare wasn’t clean like a military op. It was messy, unpredictable, and deeply personal. It was completely different from what they’d done while working in their corpo armies, and we were all learning how to fight this type of gang warfare.

I checked over my ‘team’ one last time, though there wasn’t much for us to do. We were the lookout squad, stationed to call out if 6th Street reinforcements showed up. The real work was happening elsewhere.

Zion and Deng’s teams were already in position on rooftops around the site, sniper rifles trained on the sentries below. They were just dark shadows in the night from where I stood, but our snipers had been following them for a while now. Zion had gone over the plan twice, drilling it into everyone’s head until there was no doubt. Everyone knew their position and their role, and every angle was covered.

Below us, Diego and Anna’s squad were waiting in position, tucked out of sight but close enough to storm the site as soon as the snipers did their job. They were armed with the Kyubi rifles our crew had nicked ages ago, back before there was a gang called The Pack. The rifles were heavy enough to punch through whatever 6th Street was decked out in. Once the snipers cleared the way, Anna and Diego would be the hammer, smashing through the site and mopping up the rest.

My messages buzzed.

Zion: ready on your mark.

Diego: do it.

A second later, the night exploded with the sound of gunfire. Sniper shots echoed through the air, almost in unison, from perches ringing the construction site. The first wave of 6th Street sentries dropped like flies, their bodies crumpling to the ground. They didn’t even have time to react. By the time anyone realized what was happening, Diego and Anna’s teams were already moving.

I saw them rush in, guns blazing, hitting a group of 6th Street gangers who’d been lounging around a bulldozer, smoking and laughing like they didn’t have a care in the world. That changed quickly. Diego’s team tore through them, dropping bodies left and right.

It was fast. It was brutal. It was the kind of precise strike you only got with trained soldiers leading the charge. In less than thirty seconds, the entire site had been cleared. Bodies littered the ground and I couldn’t make out a single 6th Street ganger left standing.

Diego: where are you Cyndi?

Cyndi: coming in hot.

I watched as Cyndi’s team sprang into action. Thanks to Sandra, they’d gotten hold of the schematics for every piece of heavy machinery scattered across the construction site. They’d spent the last few days poring over them, studying every weakness, every flaw, and planning exactly where to strike to cause the most damage. Each bulldozer, crane, and excavator was laid out in meticulous detail, and Cyndi’s crew moved like a well-oiled machine, splitting up and spreading across the site.

I spotted one of her people darting toward a massive bulldozer, sliding underneath it in one smooth motion. They crouched low, and with a quick, practiced slice, severed the hydraulic hoses of the machine. Dark fluid sprayed out, splattering on the ground like blood from a severed artery. Without hydraulics, the bulldozer was crippled. Done.

Across the site, the rest of the crew was doing the same thing, hitting excavators, cranes, anything with moving parts. They moved fast, jumping from one machine to the next, cutting hoses, ripping apart panels, and yanking out wires. But they didn’t stop there. One of Cyndi’s people broke into the cab of a crane, smashing the control system and ripping out the electronics until the thing was dead in the water. Another punched massive holes in the chooh2 tanks of a few bulldozers, draining them dry in seconds.

This wasn’t just sabotage – it was devastation. By the time they were done, fixing all this would cost the construction company more than just time and parts. It would hurt. Badly. The whole point was to make them bleed so much eddies that they’d turn on 6th Street for failing to protect their investment.

But the real destruction was just getting started.

Cyndi’s crew wasn’t just armed with knives and wire cutters. Zion and Diego had taught them how to make homemade thermite, and they’d brought enough to light up the whole site. One of her people popped the hood of an excavator, dumping a pile of thermite directly onto the engine block. The powder-like substance settled into the grooves of the metal, and a few seconds later, was ignited. A fire roared to life, burning hotter than anything you’d ever want to be near.

The thermite sliced through the engine block like it was made of butter, melting metal and leaving nothing behind but slag. The excavator was done for, and by the time Cyndi’s team was finished, every other piece of heavy machinery – bulldozers, trucks, cranes – was in the same condition. Anything with an engine was reduced to nothing but smoldering, twisted wreckage.

Off in the distance, I could hear the wail of sirens. Maybe they were coming for us, maybe not. Either way, the job was nearly finished.

Noah: we got sirens. Let’s go.

I clenched my fists as another thick cloud of black smoke billowed up from a wrecked truck. Cyndi’s team was already gathering to pull out, their work complete. Anna and Diego’s squads kept watch over them as they retreated from the site, making sure no one was left behind.

All told, in less than five minutes we’d wiped out a major asset for 6th Street and left behind nothing but a graveyard of molten machinery and smoldering ruins. It wasn’t just going to cost them eddies – we were sending our own message that anyone that worked with 6th Street was fair game in this war.

&&&&&

Glass crunched under my boots as I picked my way through the wreckage of what used to be a bustling night market. Just hours ago, the place had been alive – vendors shouting out their prices, the thick scent of street food hanging in the air, neon lights reflecting off the faces of locals and tourists alike. Now, it was a graveyard of broken stalls, shattered glass, and bloodstains smeared across the cracked pavement.

I weaved my way through the small crowd of people sifting through the debris, most of them vendors trying to salvage whatever was left of their livelihood; trying to scavange whatever hadn’t been utterly destroyed by 6th Street’s raid. I caught eyes with one woman who was crouched by her ruined stall. Her hands were trembling as she picked through the wreckage, gathering what few scraps she could find – her entire business likely wiped out in minutes.

The market had been under The Pack’s protection for a while. We’d set it up with the Animals back when we had a good thing going with them. Two gangs working together to rake in the eddies, keeping the market under our control. The Animals brought the muscle while we handled the logistics. It worked. Until the war.

After the Animals decided to sit out the conflict with 6th Street, leaving us high and dry, everything went to shit. The Animals had pulled all their people back and we were left holding the bag. We didn’t have the manpower to cover all our turf, not with our resources spread so thin. This night market was one of the places that had fallen through the cracks. We’d only had three guards posted here in a rotating shift. It was barely enough to keep an eye on things. And when 6th Street came, they took full advantage. They killed all three of our guards in the opening salvo, and then turned the market into a shooting gallery, tearing through the place like it was nothing.

I crouched down by one of the overturned stalls, running my fingers over a bullet-riddled sign advertising cheap cyberware mods. It was useless now. The market used to be a good moneymaker for the pack. We got a cut from every stall. Every vendor’s earnings was a little piece of the pie for us. Now? We were bleeding. Eddies slipped through our fingers with every piece of wreckage I stepped over.

I was trying to figure out all the damage done to the night market in the raid when I noticed a woman barreling toward me, pushing through the small crowd like a bulldozer. She was short, but the anger in her eyes made her look twice her size. Her face was flushed, her whole body radiating fury as she closed in on me.

Before I could open my mouth, she was in my face, jabbing a finger into my chest.

“You promised us protection!” Her voice was sharp, cutting through the low hum of murmurs around us. “The Pack was supposed to keep this violence away from us – keep us safe! But look around. We were targeted because of your damn war, and now I’ve lost everything.”

I took a breath, trying to stay calm. I couldn’t blame her for being angry. She had every right to be pissed off.

“Look, I get it,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “We said we’d protect you, and we didn’t. We were stretched thin, and—”

“Stretched thin?” she interrupted, her voice trembling with rage. “I don’t give a shit about your excuses. I lost everything. Your people weren’t here when they shot up the place. You didn’t see them kill people like it was nothing. How are you going to make this right? Huh? How are you going to fix this? My stall is gone. My livelihood is gone. You can’t just—”

Her face exploded in a spray of blood and gore.

Before I could even register what had happened, something slammed into me hard, knocking the wind right out of me. I stumbled back, hitting the ground hard as the remains of a stall collapsed around me. Wood splintered, metal shards scraped across my face, and I gasped, trying to get my bearings.

Zion had shoved me. He’d seen it before I did.

Then the sound hit me. The buzzsaw roar of a submachine gun tore through the air, its staccato rhythm ripping through the market like a scream. Bullets rained down, shredding stalls, shattering glass, and sending people scattering in every direction. Shouts and screams filled the space as the crowd panicked, knocking over anything in their frenzy to try and escape the bullets. I pressed myself against the wreckage of the stall, my heart pounding, splinters stinging my face as the wood around me exploded from gunfire.

“Zion!” I yelled out, my voice barely cutting through the chaos around me. Gunfire echoed off the stalls. I could barely think straight, but I had to find him.

There – by the side of another stall. Zion was slumped against it, his hand clamped at his shoulder. Blood seeped through his fingers, staining his jacket. For a guy made mostly of chrome, a bullet had managed to find one of the few places he was still human. His face was twisted in pain, teeth clenched, trying to keep it together.

“Shit,” I muttered, trying to crawl toward him. My body still ached from the fall, but I forced myself to move. My hand shook as I unholstered my Chao, trying to keep a steady grip. I scanned the market, my heart pounding as I pieced together the situation. People were still running, screams filling the air, and then – off in the distance – I spotted them. Two cars had pulled up at the far end, and a crew of 6th Street gangers spilled out like rats, guns lighting up the night like fireworks.

I barely had time to process it when another spray of bullets ripped through the air, forcing me to duck behind a shattered stall. The wood groaned, barely holding together as more rounds tore into it, sending splinters everywhere. I gripped my Chao tighter, adrenaline surging through my veins.

I risked a quick glance at Zion. He was bleeding bad, but the stubborn ass was trying to get up, using a chunk of metal as leverage.

“Stay down,” I yelled, but he just waved me off, gritting his teeth and pushing through the pain.

I peeked out again, just long enough to spot one of the shooters. My Kiroshi’s painted the target in red, the aim box from my Chao locking on as I ducked back behind the stall. Without looking, I raised my Chao over the cover and squeezed the trigger. Three rounds corkscrewed through the air and slammed into the shooter, one in his leg, two in his chest. Not bad.

The 6th Street gangers started fanning out and firing into the market indiscriminately. One of them, a massive guy with a Carnage shotgun, was leading the charge, blasting apart stalls and anything else unlucky enough to be in his way. I tagged him and fired again, three more bullets spitting out from my Chao. All three rounds had smacked into his chest, but my rounds barely made him flinch. Asshole was probably borged out, which meant my Chao did nothing.

“Zion, we need to move!” I shouted back, still crouched behind cover. He gave me a look, blood dripping down his arm, pooling on the cracked concrete beneath him.

Everything was spiraling into chaos. Gunfire roared from every direction, drowning out the sounds of panic and the crash of shattered stalls. I tried tagging another 6th Street goon when I saw them; Diego and Cyndi, charging into the fray like a pair of avenging demons.

Cyndi moved fast, her Satara shotgun already in her hands as she bolted toward the 6th Street gangers. She didn’t hesitate or slow down, just raised her shotgun and let loose a blast. One of the 6th Street gangers dropped, his chest exploding in a mess of blood and broken bone as he crumpled to the ground.

Then she activated her berserk implant.

Her eyes lit up with a wild, almost primal fury, and before I knew it, her mantis blades sprung from her arms. She leapt into the fight like a damn whirlwind, slashing and tearing through anything in her path. One ganger tried to club her with his empty gun, but she dodged under it while swiping her mantis blades through his arms like butter. Another one fumbled with his pistol, having dropped his rifle as she was too close for him to use it with any effectiveness, but she was already on him. Her blades punched into his chest, leaving him to drop lifeless to the ground.

Meanwhile, Diego was a beat of his own. His Crusher shotgun barked with each shot, three blasts in quick succession which dropped the leader of the 6th Street crew. The guy was big and borged out, but Diego wasn’t having any of it. White borg fluid bloomed from the guy’s chest as he fell, his Carnage clattering uselessly to the ground.

He tried to reach for it, but Diego was faster. He rushed in, slapped the Carnage aside, and leveled his Crusher right at the ganger’s face. No hesitation, no words. Just one final shot, and the leader’s head exploded in a cloud of red mist.

It was brutal. It was final.

And it turned the tide.

More members of The Pack poured in from the sides of the night market, guns blazing as they flanked the 6th Street shooters. The Pack moved as one, overwhelming the gangers with a coordinated assault that shattered whatever plan they’d had. 6th Street tried to hold their ground at first, firing wildly, but the second they saw their leader drop, panic took over. They scrambled, tried to backpedal their way to their cars, but The Pack was everywhere, cutting off every path.

Cyndi was still in the thick of it, her berserk-fueled rampage showing no signs of slowing down. She caught one ganger by the throat and tore him apart with his mantis blades before he could get a shot off against her. Diego followed close behind, firing off blasts from his Crusher, every shot hitting its mark.

Eventually, the gunfire died down. The market was a mess -ripped apart, shattered – and bodies littered the ground. Sirens wailed in the distance, growing louder by the second. All I could do was look over at Zion who was still grinning but had a grin plastered across his face as he took in the carnage we’d exacted against 6th Street.

&&&&&&&

Despite all the gunfire that had ripped through the night market, none of it had hit me. Sure, a few splinters had kissed my face when the stalls had shattered around me, but it wasn’t serious – just a sharp sting to remind me how close 6th Street got to ending the war.

Zion wasn’t as lucky. He got rushed off to a ripper doc he trusted. I suggested he head to Vik’s clinic, but he insisted on his guy – the one who’d handled all his cyberware work. Diego went with him, leaving Cyndi behind to watch my back. She wasn’t the only one.

Anna had shown up with a squad of Pack members, moving like they were in full-on security mode. They swept through the wreckage, scanning for any more signs of 6th Street. But the truth was, the place was dead. Probably for good. The vendors hadn’t returned after the raid, too scared of another attack. I couldn’t blame them. Even if we threw all the muscle we had at the market, no one would risk setting up shop there again. A market that got hit twice in one night? It was done. We’d have to pull out, not because we wanted to, but because nobody in Night City would gamble with their lives like that.

A few NCPD badges wandered through the wreckage, some doing a half-hearted job of taking notes, while others looked like they were counting the minutes until their shift ended. All of them knew about The Pack. They knew we were in the middle of a war with 6th Street. Still, they were doing a good job pretending otherwise. Just another bloody night in Night City. No gang activity here, folks. Move along.

Anna, though, was playing her part to perfection. She stood by my side, playing the role of concerned friend, helping me sell the story that I was just a poor, unlucky soul out for a bit of late-night shopping when 6th Street had decided to turn the place into a battlefield. No officer, I have no clue who came to our rescue. What can I say? I’m a lucky guy.

I glanced over at Anna, her posture calm and relaxed like this was just another day at the office. She knew most of the badges working the scene, but one in particular caught my eye as she approached us – a woman in plain clothes. Something about her seemed familiar, but I couldn’t quite place her face. Anna, though, recognized her immediately and greeted her with a name: Jenson.

“Detective Jenson,” Anna said with a smirk, making a bit of a show out of greeting her. “Fancy seeing you here. And they got you in plain clothes and everything.”

Detective Jenson smiled, giving me a quick once-over before turning her attention back to Anna. “Yea, yea, I owe you one,” she replied, waving her hand dismissively. She scanned the carnage around us. “But damn, this is a mess. Heard about your little gang war. Not going so great, huh?”

Before Anna could respond, Jenson kept going. “You know, we’ve got a betting pool back at the precinct. No one’s putting eddies on The Pack to win, by the way. It’s more about how long you’ll hold out before you have to beg 6th Street for scraps.” She said it so casually, like she was talking about the weather.

“We’ve been landing some hits,” she shot back.

“You’re bleeding money,” argued Detective Jenson. “But that hit on the construction site? That was nice. Made a few people sit up and take notice. Sergeant Jacobs said it was a shame you’re getting your wings clipped before you can show this city what you’re really capable of.”

Then, with a sly smile, Jenson slipped Anna a shard, her fingers brushing against Anna’s hand in a way that made the exchange almost invisible. “You know what? I’ve got a good feeling about you guys for the coming week. I think I’ll put a hundred eddies on you guys after all,” she added with a wink before turning to walk away.

I watched her go, then turned to Anna, raising an eyebrow. “What the hell was that? And who the hell is she?”

Anna grinned, holding up the shard. “You’ve met her before. That’s Detective Jenson. She was just a patrol officer when you first crossed paths. She’s the one who took credit for the 8yaga hit we pulled a while back. It made her look like a hero at her precinct.”

I vaguely remembered the job. So much had happened since then, it took a second to place it. “And the shard?” I asked.

Anna’s smile widened as she flipped the shard between her fingers. “You asked for info on Will Gunner, right? A big name in 6th Street?” She tucked the shard into her jacket pocket. “This little gem should have everything we need – known associates, hangout spots, the usual.”

I took one last look around at the wrecked market, the chaos still lingering in the air, and felt a grin tugging at the corner of my mouth. “Good.”