Liberty and Death: Chapter 37
Chapter 37
After dinner and a nap, Cora had pulled in all the people she was considering her immediate ‘away team’; Kyra, Hawk, and Iain. She wanted to bring Trish, and would, just as soon as they got her [System Integrated], and preferably hooked up with a Receiver Array. Unfortunately, she’d been told in no uncertain terms that bringing the woman outside of Luxholme’s walls at night before then would be both useless and harmful to her. While Trish herself had been willing, probably some sort of misplaced pride, Iain forbade it. So while he was gone, Trish was instructed to keep Dip and Jonesy in-line, and make sure to have Lux contact [Big Sys] if there was any trouble.
“So, Hawk, you were a street thug most of your life,” Cora said, to beaming pride from the giantess, “any insight into what we can expect out there at night?”
Hawk scratched at the back of her neck, smile turning into a grimace of uncertainty.
“Ehh… even the Wolves mostly stayed inside at night. Few times we had to do night raids on rivals, we avoided beasts as best we could. Did have to fight one time though,” she said, speaking more quickly as her memory was jogged. “No clue if this is all there is out there, but we ran into a pack of… like… lizard wolves? Came out of nowhere. Fast, clever, more legs than you’d expect. Didn’t like getting shot, but also took more bullets to take down than your average man. A lot more. Had to cut and run, in the end, they took out two of my guys before we could even react, and that meant the mission we were on was borked anyway.”
“Yeesh,” Cora said, “that’s not great, but does sound manageable, especially if we can avoid getting taken by surprise. From what you said, I’m betting these things have high [End], which means all of our guns but [Bertha] will be less effective, according to [Big Sys]. Load up anyway, but be prepared to take things down in melee. I’m going to pop [Str] into [Method Actor], and plan on being in the shit.”
“Engagement plan, lass?” Iain asked, tone implying that it Cora didn’t declare one, he would.
“Right, basically, Hawk takes point, both because she’s tough as nails, and because it should keep her sightlines open to let [Bertha] loose if we get lucky enough to get the drop on things,” Cora explained, smirking to herself as Hawk preened. “The rest of us start shooting too, but I’m less than certain our guns will do a lot of good. If anything gets close, Hawk, stop shooting, and let the rest of us engage. Check our backs, and if we’re clear, engage as well, savvy?”
“Loud and clear, Miss Mistress,” Hawk grinned.
“Question,” Kyra said, but didn’t wait to be called on, “if shooting shit doesn’t work, what makes you think stabbing it will?”
“Good question! According to [Big Sys], our melee weapons damage should scale with our [Str] and, to a lesser extent, [Dex] stats. Guns, with the exception of special ones like [Bertha], have fixed damage values that won’t get through high [End].”
Cora explained all of that very matter-of-factly, but had to admit, it all sounded pretty dubious. That said, they’d all been experiencing magic recently, so all of them were able to suspend disbelief, at least for the moment.
“Alright, we clear?” Cora asked, when the gears in everyone’s heads had stopped visibly sticking. She got a chorus of nods. “Good, lets load up on weapons and ammo and head out!”
10 minutes later, they were stocked and strapped. Cora nodded to Dip on the complex wall, and Lux opened her gates for them.
The instant Cora left the walls of Luxholme, stepping into the Tyrinnan night, she could feel the shift. Shimmer was just barely visible, like a heat haze over everything. It didn’t make it harder to see up close, but it added up, and visibility was down to maybe 50 yards.
More than the sight, Cora could feel the Shimmer. Just the slightest bit of it flowed into her with each breath, and the smallest fraction of that stayed within her, converting into power. She knew that if she could spend enough time out here, she’d level up without doing anything.
A keening howl in the distance reminded her why people didn’t do that. It also gave them a target. She pointed in the direction the sound had come from, and the group headed out.
“Kinda nice they yell, huh?” Hawk asked, smirking back over her shoulder at Cora after they’d been walking a bit. “Who knows how else you–”
“Contact!” Iain yelled, assault rifle opening up with controlled bursts down the street.
Cora, like an idiot, had been laser focused on the gleam of Hawk’s teeth beneath the curve of her lips, so by the time Iain’s muzzle flash was reflected in nocturnal eyes, the Monsters were too close for comfort.
Fortunately, this was exactly the kind of situation her Reactimax implant was made for.
The monster slowed in its incredible leap, already no more than 10 feet from Hawk. Her description had been pretty accurate, though these had more xenomorph than Cora expected. It was like a slavering alligator-dog, long, sinewy body, enormous jaws, and six disturbingly long dextrous limbs, two of which were reaching for Hawk’s throat.
Cora’s bullet took it in the side, hitting it like a punch rather than bursting through, but still knocking it out of the air. She cursed, and fell into a role.
Lacey Fortune had been a cop, a career choice she’d regretted since day one. It could be said she was lucky, that she didn’t have a lot of days after that.
When the one other rookie she’d trusted informed her superiors that Lacey hadn’t turned off her bodycam during some routine police brutality by her training officer, she became a problem that had to be rectified. What better way to get rid of her and the bodycam both than to have her ‘take a fall’ into a vat of chemicals during a fake call-out?
It had worked. She’d dissolved, she’d felt every second of it as her body drifted into its constituent atoms. That pain had been nothing compared to the pain of reconstruction. But reconstruct she did, better, stronger, perfected.
Corrupt cops had been small potatoes for Miss Fortune to deal with. But when the world began to get weird, its people just had to hope their first superhero could stay sane long enough to save them.
Cora felt her muscles swell with power, surging with the very force of her personality, and it felt good. She slammed her gun home in its chest holster, and flourished her short swords.
She focused the strength in her thighs, and burst forward, past the monster she’d shot and that Hawk was currently turning into swiss cheese with [Bertha]. Another crocodog was leaping for the distracted giantess, but it met Cora’s sword instead, slamming it down the monster's gullet with her own force as well as the power of its leap.
“Here’s your daily iron supplement, bitch!” She yelled, then wondered what the fuck she was talking about.
‘SORrY! Got ExCITed:)’
Oh goddamnit. I was hoping Lacey wouldn’t be as real as the others.
That had been risky, the thing probably could have taken her arm off if that maw had snapped shut, but fortunately, it was far too dead for that final fuck you.
She shook the corpse off her arm, growling as its sharp teeth dragged rents into her flesh. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw motion above her, and looked over to see a crocodog tensing on the wall of a building, beady little eyes locked on her.
Cora locked her blades in front of her, hoping this thing would be stupid enough to jump anyway. Maybe it was, but she wouldn’t get to find out, as something new slammed into her side.
Cora had always thought goblins were cute. That was before she saw one in real life. Oh, it had the big floppy ears, cartoonishly huge eyes, even a little hat. It also stank, was covered in twisted, gnarled muscle, and was raising a club as big as it was over her head.
‘i THInK iT’S veRY CuTE!’
Quiet, Lacey.
It disappeared from above her in a spray of blood as Hawk lit it up with a burst from [Bertha], but Cora barely had time to get to her knees before another was on her, club coming down just slow enough for her to roll out of the way. It cracked the cobblestone street below, and Cora knew those grotesque muscles weren’t just for show on the diminutive creature.
Doesn’t look that tough though, she thought, dropping her right-hand sword and performing a quickdraw snapshot into the goblin’s forehead. It dropped like its strings had been cut, and Cora felt power surge into her. Between the goblin and the crocodog, she was filling up.
She rose, running to Hawk and slamming her back into the woman’s ass. Things had gotten well out of hand, and their little engagement plan had not survived contact with the enemy.
The roar of [Bertha] behind her gave her some confidence that at least one angle was taken care of, so she focused on the rest.
A pair of faintly glowing, bulging yellow eyes peeked out from the darkness of an alley, and Cora put a round between them. She could see more of the little shits, running between alleys and stairwells, always moving, tough to hit. She was almost too focused on them to notice when a patch of cobblestone began to scuttle towards her.
“Oh, CAMO? Fuck you guys!” She yelled, jabbing her off-hand blade through the approaching crocodog’s head.
[Party Chat: C, I, K, H]
C: the lizards have camouflage! Watch out!
A few pings of confirmation rang out, as they all realized how things had gone pear shaped so fast.
Another shadow had joined the goblins flitting between cover, but where it went, movement ceased. These things were not set up to deal with Kyra.
‘OoOOooo! SHE’s SpOOkY!
Cora grinned, picking off a couple more with her handgun while keeping Hawk’s back clear of crocodogs. One more tried their luck, but it ended up skewered like the first.
Moments later, the echoes of gunfire remained, but they were the only sound besides heavy, exhausted breathing.
“Fuck me,” Cora gasped, annoyed at how quickly she’d gotten used to boosted [End], “that was a shitshow.”
Her HUD’s health silhouettes showed all of her party members as healthy and intact, though a few green limbs had begun to yellow, probably indicative of scrapes and bruises.
“Alls well what ends well,” Iain said, pulling his own blade out of a particularly large crocodog, “but aye, that she was.”
Kyra materialized out of the dark next to them, something Cora hadn’t figured out how she did yet. It wasn’t her suit’s magic invisibility, it seemed like she really was just that stealthy.
“Honestly, the chaos works for me,” she shrugged, dumping a couple of goblin corpses at Cora’s feet. “How do we want to do harvesting?”