Scene 1: The Glitch

  The command was given. But execution is rarely as smooth as the business plan.

  "Get them!" Junkie Joe shrieked, waving his machete like a conductor’s baton.

  The twenty Mad Dogs surged forward like a tidal wave of filth and madness. They didn't shout war cries; they hissed and giggled, their brains fried by the chemicals. Benny stepped forward. He didn't raise his guard. He simply threw a straight right cross at the first attacker. It was a perfect punch. Kinetic energy transferred from the floor, through his hips, into the junkie’s nose. CRUNCH. The junkie’s face caved in. Blood sprayed. By all laws of biology, he should have dropped instantly. But he didn't. The junkie stumbled back, blood pouring into his mouth, and laughed. "More!" he gargled, lunging at Benny again with broken teeth. "Hit me again, big man! It tickles!"

  Benny froze. His eyes widened slightly. For the first time, the machine hesitated. "Why... no sleep?" Benny muttered, confused. He punched another one in the solar plexus. The man folded, vomited, but clawed at Benny’s legs like a rabid raccoon.

  Behind him, the panic set in. "They don't stop!" Daniel screamed, shielding his face with his arms as two skinny addicts clawed at his expensive jacket. "Get off! Get off! This is cashmere! You’re staining the cashmere! Do you know the dry-cleaning rates for blood?!" Daniel was flailing, trying to push them away without actually touching them, dancing a clumsy tap dance of terror.

  Gara was backed into a corner, swinging his flashlight wildly. "Back! Back, you tax-evading zombies! I have a wrench and I’m fully insured!" But they were closing in. The drug "Blue Devil" had turned off their pain receptors. They were biological machines with only one instruction: Destroy.

  I stood in the center, watching the chaos. A junkie lunged at me with a rusty screwdriver. Daniel, despite his panic, slammed his shoulder into the man, knocking him off course. I stepped back, adjusting my glasses. My mind raced. Analysis: Soft tissue damage is ineffective. The software (pain) is corrupted. We must destroy the hardware.

  "Benny!" I shouted, my voice cutting through the screams. Benny looked back at me, a junkie hanging off his arm, biting his tricep.

  "Pain is irrelevant!" I ordered, pointing at the mob. "Target structural integrity! Joints! Spines! Necks! Disable the mechanics!"

  Benny blinked. The confusion vanished from his eyes. "Break... toys?"

  "Break them all," I commanded.

  Scene 2: The Demolition

  The atmosphere shifted instantly. Benny grabbed the junkie biting his arm. He didn't pull him off. He grabbed the man's head with one hand and his shoulder with the other. He twisted.

  SNAP.

  The sound was not like a punch. It was louder. Drier. It sounded like a thick tree branch snapping in a winter storm. The junkie dropped like a marionette with cut strings. Dead before he hit the dirty floor.

  For a micro-second, the room went silent. The other junkies stopped. They stared at their fallen comrade. They didn't understand death, but their primal instincts recognized the sound of a predator. I looked at Benny. He wasn't breathing hard. He wasn't angry. His face was blank.

  He moved. He wasn't fighting anymore. He was working on an assembly line. Grab. Twist. Snap. Discard. It was industrial. It was mechanical. It was terrifyingly efficient.

  He caught a swinging fist. He didn't block it; he hyperextended the elbow. CRACK. The attacker screamed—not from pain, but from the visual shock of seeing his arm bent backward at a 90-degree angle. Benny didn't pause. He kicked a knee cap. POP. The leg bent sideways. The junkie tried to stand, but physics denied him.

  Benny's Internal Monologue: Bone is hard. Joint is weak. Lever is simple. Neck. Snap. Next. Arm. Crack. Next. Leg. Pop. Next. No wasted movement. No emotion. Just processing assets.

  Meanwhile, Daniel was having a revelation amidst his hysteria. A large man with a baseball bat charged at him. Daniel squeezed his eyes shut and swung his massive arm in a blind panic. "Get awaaaay! I just moisturized!" Daniel shrieked.

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  His forearm—thick as a tree trunk—connected with the man's chest. The attacker didn't just fall. He flew. He sailed three meters through the air, crashed into a pile of old TVs, and stayed down.

  Daniel opened one eye. He looked at his hand. Then at the unconscious man embedded in the debris. "Oh," Daniel whispered. A grin started to form. A stupid, arrogant grin. "I..." Daniel straightened his posture, dusting off his lapel. "I am strong? I am strong!"

  He puffed out his chest. "Come at me, you peasants! I am the Bulldozer! I am the apex predator!" A junkie jumped on his back. "AHH! GET HIM OFF! HE TOUCHED MY HAIR! NOT THE HAIR!" Daniel resumed his flailing, but now his flailing had the force of a wrecking ball. He was a terrifying mixture of lethal power and cowardly screaming. "My stylist is fully booked for two weeks! If you ruin this cut, I will sue your family!" SMASH.

  Gara, seeing the tide turn, found his courage. Or rather, his greed. He realized the Mad Dogs were focused on the two giants. He became the opportunist. Whenever a junkie was distracted, Gara would dart in from the shadows. CLANG. A heavy wrench to the back of the head. THUD. A steel-toed boot to the kidney.

  "That’s for the mental anguish!" Gara shouted, hitting a man who was crawling toward me. CLANG. "That’s for the suspension maintenance on the Cadillac!" CLANG. "And this is for the inflation rate! Do you know how much milk costs?!" Gara was venting all his economic frustrations on their skulls.

  The room was a symphony of destruction. The wet thuds of bodies hitting the floor. The dry snaps of breaking bones. The terrified screams of men who suddenly realized that being high doesn't stop your legs from being shattered.

  Scene 3: The Hostile Takeover

  Three minutes. That’s all it took. The room was silent, save for the groans of the crippled and the heavy breathing of my team. Eighteen bodies lay on the floor. Some twisted in unnatural angles. Some still.

  Only Junkie Joe remained standing. He was shaking. The drugs were still pumping through his veins, but his brain was starting to register fear. He looked at his fallen army. Then he looked at Benny, who was wiping blood off his knuckles calmly, looking as bored as if he were waiting for a bus.

  "You..." Joe stammered, raising his machete with a trembling hand. "You ruined my crew! Who do you think you are?!"

  He screamed a war cry and charged. Not at Benny. At me. He knew I was the head. Cut the head, the snake dies.

  "Die, Suit!" Joe swung the machete at my neck.

  I didn't move. I didn't even blink. Because I knew my security protocols were active.

  A shadow eclipsed me. Benny caught Joe’s wrist mid-air. The machete stopped inches from my face. A single drop of oil from the blade splashed onto my cheek.

  Benny didn't snap the wrist this time. He looked at me. "Boss?"

  I took a handkerchief from my pocket and wiped the oil from my cheek. I looked at the scratch. Minimal damage. I looked at Joe. "He is a liability," I said softly. "Permanently write him off."

  Benny nodded. He grabbed Joe by the waist and the thigh. He lifted the screaming drug lord high into the air. And brought him down hard over his knee.

  CRUNCH.

  The sound of the spine shattering was sickening. Joe didn't scream. He just went limp, falling to the floor like a wet rag. His legs twitched once, then stopped moving forever. He was breathing, but he would never walk again. He would never hold a weapon again. He was liquidated.

  I adjusted my glasses. The lens reflected the carnage, hiding my eyes. "Audit complete," I said, my voice echoing in the dead silence. I nudged Joe's paralyzed hand with my foot. "Market correction is a bitch, isn't it?"

  Scene 4: The Aftermath

  We walked out of Block 13 into the cool night air. The silence of the street felt heavy compared to the screams inside.

  Daniel was the first to speak. He was checking his reflection in the Cadillac’s side mirror, frantically wiping a spot of blood from his collar. "I think I chipped a nail," Daniel whined, though his voice shook with adrenaline. "And I smell like a dumpster. Boss, I’m putting in a request for a hazardous environment bonus. And a spa day. Mandatory."

  Gara was carrying two heavy duffel bags filled with cash—$80,000 in small, dirty bills. He popped the trunk and threw them in, patting the bags affectionately. "Eighty grand," Gara whispered, his eyes gleaming. "Do you know what we can do with eighty grand? We can fix the suspension. We can buy real guns. We can buy steak!" He looked back at the dark building. "We... we actually did it. We beat the Mad Dogs."

  I looked at the overflowing bags. Joe’s debt to Moretti was only fifty, but Joe was a shark in a small pond. He’d been skimming off every dealer and tenant in Block 13 for months. We didn’t just collect a debt; we just performed a hostile takeover of his entire liquid cash flow.

  Benny stood by the car door. He looked at his hands. They were bruised and bloody. He wiped them on his pants, then looked at me. "Hungry," Benny rumbled.

  I leaned against the hood of the car, lighting a cigarette. My hands were steady, but my heart was beating a little faster than usual. Not from fear. From opportunity. I looked at the building, then at the trunk full of money.

  "We aren't going to Tommy’s," I said, exhaling a plume of smoke.

  "What?" Gara stopped celebrating. "But... he’ll kill us if we don't bring the money."

  "He tried to kill us tonight," I corrected him. "The contract is void. "This isn't a collection. This is our Seed Funding." I looked at my team—the giant, the mechanic, and the monster. They were dirty, bloody, and tired. But they were mine.

  "This is our War Chest," I declared. "Get in the car. We have a hostile takeover to plan."

  As the Cadillac drove away, leaving Block 13 behind in the darkness, I knew one thing for certain: Solomon Gats was no longer an employee. He was a competitor.

  End of Chapter 7

  "To my first 4 followers: You guys are the early investors in the Skull Cross empire! To everyone else: If you're enjoying the tactical side of this story, please hit that [FOLLOW] button and join the board of directors. We're moving from debt collection to a full-scale Hostile Takeover."

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  Copyright ? 2026 by Gats VII. All rights reserved. This story is officially published only on Royal Road, Scribble Hub, and Patreon. If you are reading this elsewhere, it has been stolen.