After Regina's vehicle arrived and took the half-dead Tiago away, it quickly vanished into the streets.
A car not native to Pacifica cruising so openly through its streets was already a dangerous gamble.
At times like these, Pacifica was like an unpredictable sea—no one knew what might happen the next second. A sudden storm? Or pirates flying a skull-and-bones flag?
One thing, however, was certain: in the area occupied by Pangolin's crew, no one in their right mind would dare cause trouble.
Fully armed mercs stood guard in what seemed like calm formation, but tension crackled in the air. Anyone with bad intentions would instantly sense the threat level—and think twice.
"How'd it go?" Pangolin asked upon seeing Roqi return.
The grill had already cooled, though the scent of roasted meat still lingered in the air.
Igg, wild-haired and wrapped in a long coat like the other mercs, was tucked quietly in a corner. No weapon polishing, no flexing his muscles or cyberware—completely low-profile.
"Someone's daughter got butchered by the Tyger Claws. The dad was ex-spec ops. Went full massacre mode," Roqi summed up.
For Pangolin, stories like that meant nothing. He wasn't interested in tragic pasts or unraveling secrets like some soap opera. All he cared about was whether that cyberpsycho would interfere with their operation.
As expected, Pangolin simply nodded with indifference, like flipping through a zoning report. Once he was sure there'd be no complications, he moved on, as if it had never happened.
He cared less about nearby butchery, and more about the distant gunfire.
Because you could clearly see what happened nearby. The far-off stuff? Who knew if it had anything to do with them.
"You two, go check it out. Fast and quiet—don't get spotted."
He dispatched two mercs to scout the scene of the firefight.
Loafing around in a hideout eating, drinking, and killing time? That was the behavior of bandits with no discipline.
These weren't vacationers—they were an elite Afterlife merc team working for Rogue, tasked with a highly dangerous op.
Whether it's small skirmishes or full-scale war, intelligence—especially recon on surrounding threats—might not guarantee victory, but it was an absolute requirement.
Like in the Central American wars, when drones and recon squads swarmed battlefields like flies, constantly buzzing overhead.
But in Pacifica, no one gave a damn.
Pacifica's reputation? However bad you think it is—it's worse. Scheming locals, shady storefronts, gunfights more regular than mealtime, and corpses dumped in alleys like trash.
Some call it a warzone. Some, a lawless frontier. Others, a criminal paradise.
All of them are right.
No single word or phrase can fully capture Pacifica. Only a messy combination of all those labels gets close to the truth.
For people living in peaceful neighborhoods or eras, it's hard to imagine such a place—
A city that follows the law of the jungle, chaotic and predatory, yet still somehow functions as a city.
People still live here. Shops still open. And for everything you find in other districts, there's a version of it here—maybe rougher, but still there.
Girls trying to pick up customers line the sidewalks of the commercial district. Under the bridges, black-smudged kids play. At the beach, bored teens dangle their legs off the piers.
No matter how brutal the conditions, no matter how normalized crime becomes, people still survive here.
For some reason, the scene made Roqi think of something else.
Even in the filthiest corners, where disease and parasites flourish, you'll still see moss—sometimes even a blade of grass breaking through a crack in the pavement.
Human adaptability is frighteningly strong. Even in endless warzones, civilians endure. Sometimes for years.
That reality struck home for the two mercs Pangolin sent ahead—especially as they neared the heart of the chaos.
There wasn't a single unbroken window in sight. Shattered glass replaced pavement. Graffiti covered every scrap of visible wall—and where there weren't walls, people sprayed whatever they could spray.
Just like a real warzone—tires burning in piles, wooden frames blasted to splinters, corrugated metal twisted from blast waves. Bullet holes riddled every surface.
In Pacifica, if you heard gunfire nearby and caught a stray round to the head, it wouldn't even make the news.
That's why locals had mastered a move:
Find cover, crouch, and shield your head.
Running was worse. More chance of getting shot. You just waited for the firefight to finish, then walked away.
This forced "audience role" had become a kind of dark joke among locals—something they used to tease each other about.
Here, there were no justice-enforcing institutions.
Pacifica had been abandoned long ago—written off like an unfinished construction site in the boondocks. It didn't even rank as high as the protein farms run by biotech corps further south.
At least those had an NCPD station. Pacifica didn't.
In fact, no police came here willingly.
Pacifica was a forgotten land, left to rot on its own.
The current gunfight? Between Scavs and Tyger Claws. Separated by a highway overpass and a concrete planter in the middle. They were having the time of their lives.
Complex terrain like this meant even a few combatants could draw out a fight for hours.
The reason? Classic: a turf dispute. Or beef from the last turf dispute. Or beef from that beef.
These petty-ass grudges were so common in Pacifica that no one gave a shit anymore. There were more shootouts in a week than you could count on both hands.
Who were the regulars?
Valentinos, Tyger Claws, Maelstrom, 6th Street, Scavs, Animals…
But never the Voodoo Boys. They never got involved.
Pacifica wasn't anyone's backyard. It was open season for all the city's scum.
The Voodoo Boys? They stood apart.
Ask ten people about them, you'd get ten different answers.
They're the true leaders of the Haitian diaspora in Night City. They conduct blood rituals with black roosters (don't ask where the roosters come from). They pray to their ancestors, channel spirits, use voodoo dolls to curse enemies...
Sure, some or all of it might be bullshit. But rumors don't come from nowhere. And with how secretive the Voodoo Boys are, every storyteller adds their own spice.
Some say they've seen Voodoo netrunners on the deep net—dancing with vampires and Leviathans in the haunted corners of cyberspace. Their goals? Beautiful and deadly, beyond anything we imagine in the real world.
And that part? Might actually be true.
Rogue's people had dug up data suggesting the Voodoo Boys were planning something big in the Net. Movements, shipments, patterns—all pointed to something brewing.
Who are they, really? What are they after? What's their plan?
That's what Roqi was here to find out.
Of course, they didn't need to get the full picture.
The goal was simple: smash the Voodoo Boys to bits.
As for the Animals—unlike other gangs in Night City, they didn't have a fixed turf. You could find them anywhere, but everyone knew better than to go looking for them.
The Animals weren't centralized. They operated in decentralized cells, each led by an individual "alpha."
"Chieftain" wouldn't be the right word—but they really did move like packs of wild beasts in a concrete jungle.
And that metaphor wasn't poetic—it was literal.
From their hormone-pumping, beast-mode cyberware to their obsession with street brawls, the Animals glorified the most savage aspects of human nature.
They were massive, muscled, and trained in all forms of combat—ideal as bouncers or security at clubs and bars.
They were also infamous for running underground fights, hijacking shipments, and being addicted to their own hormone-cocktail creation: "Rooster Juice."
That stuff sold for a fortune on the black market, so people often skipped the middleman and dealt directly with the Animals.
They aimed to break the boundary between man and beast—to become a new sub-species.
To that end, they pushed their bodies to the limit with brutal training and fought dangerous, augmented opponents—gangers, cops, even corpo security forces.
They didn't train for sport or philosophy—it was all about survival and strength.
Their internal structure mirrored an animal pack.
No fixed base, but several "teams," each led by the strongest male or female. Disputes were settled through hand-to-hand combat until one side submitted.
They were known for raiding neighborhoods and other gangs' turf.
They organized anti-government actions, manufactured and sold illegal drugs—mostly anabolic steroids. Some groups specialized in robbing pharmacies, hijacking chem trucks, raiding labs or dealers.
Some even hired themselves out as muscle for brothels or strip clubs, or got into extortion.
Calling them meatheads wasn't wrong—but that didn't make them harmless.
In Night City, never forget this one truth:
No gang has clean hands. They're all just different brands of scum.
And then there were the Scavs.
You could call them grave robbers—but they didn't wait for the bodies to hit the grave. Sometimes not even for them to be fully dead.
The Scavs' specialty? Harvesting high-end implants.
By any means necessary.
If you had a cyberware piece worth more than a North Oak condo, you were a walking target.
Which is why you never stepped into a dark alley without working panic implants—or Trauma Team on speed dial. Otherwise, what you'd find waiting was some ragged bastard with a black duffel and a thick Eastern European accent.
So yeah—don't walk into alleys. Especially not in Pacifica.
Most Scavs were Eastern European in origin, but like the Tyger Claws weren't all Japanese or Chinese, the Scavs had picked up plenty of fresh blood from Night City.
Their kidney-harvesting turf spanned across the city, but was concentrated in northern Pacifica and the southern side of Wellsprings.
Sure, ripping out cyberware wasn't a glamorous business—but it was extremely profitable.
To them, humans were just meat sacks full of black-market loot.
They were the go-to suppliers of low-grade illegal implants, servicing other gangs, crime cells, and underground ripperdocs.
They also took on whatever dirty jobs no one else wanted—petty robberies, backup muscle, blunt-force intimidation.
Just slap some eddies on the table, and a Scav would be on their way. No questions asked.
And it didn't matter who was paying—even if they were fighting that same gang last week.
Once paid, they turned into mercenaries of the lowest tier:
Vermin-class, gutter-tier, absolute scum.
They weren't graceful black-market surgeons.
They were rats, picking the rotting organs off dead flesh.
Of course, not all gang members were monsters. But those were rare. Like lone-wolf mercs who still thought of themselves as knights.
Regina always said mercs and gangs were like a muddy swamp. Almost no one went in and came out clean.
No matter what your original ideals were, the environment changed you. In this cursed city, people got so lost along the way they forgot what path they were even on.
Forgot who they were when they first started.
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MY GIRLFRIEND'S A CYBERPSYCHO—WHO KNEW?
🤖💘 MY GIRLFRIEND'S A CYBERPSYCHO—WHO KNEW? 💘🤖
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📢 LOVE MEETS CYBERPSYCHOSIS! 📢
My Girlfriend's a Cyberpsycho—Who Knew? has 100+ chapters ahead available on Patreon! 💘💥
Romance is already complicated.
Now add:
🌃 Night City🦾 Cyberware🔫 Gunfights💀 Cyberpsychosis💥 Property damage❤️ And a girlfriend who might snap at any moment
Love hurts.
In this case, it might also come with bullets, broken walls, and emergency trauma care.
Don't wait for the madness — read ahead now on Patreon!
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