Liberty and Death: Chapter 39
Chapter 39
[Party Chat: C, H, K, I]
C: Hold up, if [Big Sys} is right, then everyone in that group will ‘respawn’ except Donovan.
[BS]: MAYBE? DEPENDS ON THE DUNGEON SETTINGS, IF THE MOBS ARE CONSISTENT ENTITIES. DONOVAN THERE IS PROBABLY A REAL BOY THOUGH, EXTREMELY SUSCEPTIBLE TO BEING SHOT IN THE HEAD
K: or stabbed in the neck, I bet. Could sneak up in there, slice that skinny throat?
C: Love the enthusiasm, Kyra, and you’re a badass for sure, but I don’t love your chances of getting back out. No, everybody with a gun, line up a shot on Donovan. Let’s try and take him with an opening volley, I do not want him running around if he can bend Monsters to his will or something
H: I just don’t want im fuckin’ running around. Traidor.
C: Right, motivations aside, light him up on 3
C: 1
Cora lifted her handgun, crosshair dancing over Donovan’s head
C: 2
At this distance, with a pistol, the shot should have been impossible. But with cybernetic assistance? Well, it was still a maybe.
C: 3
The gun bucked in her hand, just as a crocodog knocked a Chain-head into the bullet’s path.
“Fuck!” Cora growled as Hawk let [Bertha} roar beside her. The big gun was like a hose of bullets, making absolute mincemeat of the crowded street. It was the kind of thing that felt like it should be a war crime. Shit, maybe it would’ve been, Cora didn’t know international law.
Still, while Link, goblin, and crocodog alike got shredded, Donovan and the Chain-heads were more organized. And more cowardly. A burst from Iain’s assault rifle sparked off of a barrier around Donovan, which shimmered into visibility then immediately burst, but it gave him all the time he needed. He grabbed a Link that was getting gnawed on by a crocodog, and got the poor guy in between himself and Cora’s team’s shooting positions, still holding onto the glowing chains with his other hand as he backpedaled for cover.
The rest of the Chain-heads performed similar maneuvers, grabbing crocodogs, Links, goblins, or even each other as they scrambled for safety in the face of Hawk and Iain’s fusillade of lead.
Cora, however, had kept her eyes on the prize.
Her first few bullets had slammed into the Link Donovan held, and she’d felt the man die as a burst of Shimmer entered her. Unfortunately, dead guys were better body shields in many ways, provided you could handle their weight, and it seemed like Donovan hadn’t skimped on [Str]. Still, on her fourth shot, she’d hit the dead man in the neck, and that had gone through. Not enough to kill Donovan, but enough that he dropped his chains, which dissipated into mist instead of clattering to the ground.
With nothing to hold him here, and reaching an alley, the man cut and ran.
Cora would have loved to give chase, but breaking Donovan’s hold on the massive crocodog had created a new problem. Namely, the massive crocodog.
The giant beast raised its maw to the sky and howled, a sound like a wolf raised by snakes, and immediately taken up by all of its brethren that had survived. The sound chilled Cora to the bone. Supernaturally so, she thought, since she immediately had the urge to make like Donovan and flee.
In fact, next to her, [Bertha] clattered to the ground, and Hawk stumbled backwards, eyes wide with terror.
Ah, right. [Will] of 9 on our Brute. Bet that has something to do with it.
“Dammit Hawk! Snap out of it!” Cora commanded, hoping against hope she could counteract whatever kind of fear effect the alpha was emitting with a dose of her [Cha]. Maybe she’d be able to eventually, but apparently it’d either have to be one of those [Active] skills, or she’d have to have a [Cha] in the stratosphere. The giant woman took two more backwards steps, then turned tail and fled.
[Party Chat: C, H, K, I]
C: Fuck, guys, whatever that thing just did it worked on Hawk, she bailed!
I: Ain’t the lass’ fault, seen this kind of thing in the war. Eyes forward, Cora, we still got problems.
Cora stopped watching Hawk flee, eyes snapping back to the street. Iain was still shooting, but his bullets seemed even less effective than they had been on the crocodogs. Squinting, Cora saw a faint green sheen racing subtly over their scales. She focused in.
[Level 1 Alphound (II)] [Status: Matriarch’s Call([End] Up)]
Shoulda fucking done that earlier, Cora thought, but then the time for thought was over, as one scampered around the wall at eye level and leapt for her.
With her gun already up, Cora was able to shoot that one out of the air, but the bullets seemed to at worst be an inconvenience for it now. It writhed itself upright on the ground, hissed, and lunged once more. Fortunately, Cora hadn’t been idly waiting. [Rib Cutter], ready in her hand, speared down through its upper jaw, pinning it to the ground. It sank into the cobblestones beneath deceptively easily, and Cora gained a new appreciation for magic, [Integrated]] equipment.
That had just been the first Alphound though, and the slithering patter of approaching feet reminded her that Hawk hadn’t killed as many with [Bertha] as Cora would have liked.
Right! Fuck!
Cora dove for the big gun, grabbing it up and bracing it against her shoulder as she slammed her back into the wall.The closest Alphound in the street was already tensing for its attack, which Cora opened the floodgates of lead.
{Matriach’s Call} must have been a hell of a buff, because instead of ripping the thing to shreds, it was more like the hail of bullets beat it to death. But die it did, along with the two behind it. Then….
clickclickclickclickclickclickclick
[Bertha] rattled in her hands as its belt feed ran empty, and Cora cursed, tossing it at the nearest incoming Alphound to buy herself the second needed to find her feet and brandish [Rib Cutter].
The gun bounced heavily off her target’s head, an effective 45 [Str] enough to ring a bell even with a less-than-full-hearted throw. But there were a lot more than one. In fact, Cora was relatively confident there were far more than there had been when they’d engaged.
{Matriarch’s Call}..... Makes sense.
The next monster jumped and Cora struck it down, but they weren’t taking turns. Alphounds clambered over each other to get at her, coming from the street, the walls, the–
“Fuck!” Cora yelled, taking stone in the side of the head from a roof goblin. Her shield didn’t even break from the hit, but it did slow her down, just enough for an Alphound to land its long front legs on her chest.
With her current [Str] the impact wasn’t enough to drag her down, but she did stumble. The Monster tried to close its distended, slavering jaws around her head, but the instant of resistance her forcefield gave her was enough to get [Rib Cutter] through its throat. All the way through, actually, the monster’s body fell free as its jaws went limp, tumbling to the ground.
All that meant, though, was that her Reactimax got the chance to activate, too slow to stop another Alphound’s maw from snapping shut on her knee, but with plenty of time for her to watch it happen. And a little extra time for her to feel the pain as the bone beneath those jaws shattered.
Cora screamed, vision going white with agony as she fell back, stance broken and no longer able to put weight on her fucked leg. The monster shook her leg like a dog, making the ruined flesh flop disgustingly, before Cora made sure it never moved again with a blade through the eye. With six more sets of beady eyes sprinting towards her down the alley, and no way for her to even move, it looked like that might be the last thing she ever did.
Were the Alphounds villains, instead of monstrous animals, they might have taken the time to gloat, playing with the her as she brandished what suddenly seemed like a very small knife in terror. But no, they were obeying the {Matriarch’s Call}, and they rushed her as one.
The first died. Whatever effect was on them, it seemed like it had more or less shorted out their self-preservation instinct. Cora hadn’t even had to move [Rib Cutter], it had just charged forward, impaling itself on the blade. Which was now useless, stuck in the carcass of only one of the six enemies she had to kill to survive.
She got a second too, surprising herself. When she couldn’t get [Rib Cutter] free, she dropped it, catching the jaws of the next monster before they could close on her face. She could feel the teeth tearing her palms as she ripped outwards, but that pain was nothing compared to what the Alphound must have felt as its lower jaw came off.
‘HaHaHAhAHaa!’
But then, arms splayed wide, she was open. One clamped tight on her shoulder, another on her arm, and while they couldn’t keep her down for long, it would be enough for the next to close its jaw on her throat.
Or it would have been, if her executioner’s face hadn’t just been crushed flat by a hand the size of a cinderblock, wrapped tight in rebar.
“I don’t fuckin’ think so. Next love bite left on that neck is gonna be mine.”