Liberty and Death, Chapter 55
Three days later, Cora held an enormous Alphound down with her boot on its neck as she lined her pistol up with its eye.
“I’m a cat person,” she said, and smirked as its skull turned to mush beneath the muzzle flash.
GOOD! +500%
She looked around, watching her team finish off their own opponents. For once, she wasn’t the last one done. Three more nights of grinding for Shimmer and monster bits had gotten her to level 8, and stocked her up enough skill points to buy her first [Class Skill] modifier, for a whopping 3.
There had been a number of ways she could make {One Liner, One Kill} easier to use, but the fact was that even with those, it would still be pretty situational. And also rely on Cora’s ability to be clever during the middle of a fight, which needed work.
So instead, she’d opted for the (Fanbase) modifier for {Entourage}
(Fanbase): Receive 25% of the highest stat of all Party Members within your aura."
While obviously, the potential value of that was astronomical, Hawk alone netted her 7 points of [Str], Cora liked it for more nebulous reasons. This was a solidification of the idea she’d been working towards at Luxholme. The idea that she’d draw strength from her people, and they’d draw it from her.
And goddamn was there a lot of strength to be drawn.
As she watched, Hawk powerbombed another of the enormous Alphounds, [Alpha]s, apparently, into the street, then got a boot under its armpit, using it as leverage to yank its head all the way around in the wrong direction.
It fell limp, the last to fall, and Hawk rocked backwards.
“Uh, guys? I–” she said, then vanished in a flash of Shimmering light.
[PARTY MEMBER: <Tina ‘Hawk> Tagliari> IS UNDERGOING EVOLUTION. THEY WILL RESPAWN AT <Luxholme> IN 24 HOURS]
“What the fuck!?” Cora yelled, staring at the space that had so recently contained their big brutish beauty.
“You guys get that message too?” Kyra asked, suddenly behind Cora, when she’d just seen the girl 20 meters down the street chasing down a Gerblin.
“The evolution thing?” Trish asked, “yep. That gonna happen to all of us, bosslady?”
“I… don’t think so,” Cora said.
Party chat: T, C, K, H?, [BS]
C: any input, [Big Sys]?
[BS]: YEAH, ITS DEFFO CAUSE SHE’S ACTUALLY A MONSTER
[BS]: SHE’D BEEN DOING SO GOOD AT BEING HUMAN THE LAST FEW DAYS I KIND OF FORGOT
“There you have it,” Cora sighed. “Fuck! Let’s get home, I’ll let Fern know we’re heading back.”
She opened a Leader chat with Fern’s Party Array, letting the group who’d stuck closer to Luxholme know to be cautious since Cora’s group wouldn’t be out.
Leader Chat: C, F
F: CORA!
F: ULTSPIREHUNTINGPARTY!
F: NEEDBACKUPRIGHTTHEFUCKNOW!
Fern’s array pinged hers, maybe 10 blocks away.
“On me, we’re moving!” Cora yelled, already dashing towards the ping. “What the fuck is an Ultspire Hunting Party!?”
“Oh shit!” Kyra yelled, easily keeping pace with Cora. “They ran into one!?”
“What is it!?” Cora roared. The blocks were falling fast under her speed, but she knew Kyra could clear them faster.
“Rich nobles. Waaaaaayyy richer than your broke ass. Kids get tech’d out to the nines, come down here to hunt us for sport, basically. If we’re lucky, it’ll just be one asshat and some guards. If we’re not, this is a bachelor party or something, and we’re fucked,” Kyra explained.
“Is casual murder a common bachelor party activity here?” Cora asked, not as shocked as she’d like to be.
“Not uncommon,” Kyra shrugged, “most people can’t afford it though.”
“We should be fine anyway, right?” Cora asked, ignoring that insanity. “They won’t have levels!”
“Oh I wouldn’t count on that, that prick Eldridge did,” Kyra reminded her. “I’m betting a lot of the upper crust do, and they just never let us know about it.”
“FUCK!” Cora roared, as they turned the corner to where the ping was pulsing in her HUD.
It wasn’t good. Fern screamed orders at the two of her team that were still standing, her own hand glowing gold on a massive wound on her fourth team member. There should have been five. It didn’t take Cora long to find her.
Long, spiderlike limbs extended from a sleek figure, suspended on them midair, that laughed as it fired an energy weapon towards the alcove where Fern’s team covered. Impaled by one of those limbs, hanging limply from it like a Halloween decoration, was the missing member of Fern’s team.
“Oh shit!” Cora yelled, diving back behind the corner as one of the guards flanking the Doc Ock nepo-baby leveled a glowing rifle at her.
A lancing beam shot straight through the building just above her, and Cora was glad she’d hit the dirt instead of just taking cover.
Fuck me, this place just went from Chicago to Coruscant, I gotta get me Ultspire tech!
Kyra was already gone, melting into the street to harass the attackers from behind. Trish, however, was just catching up.
“What do we have?” Trish asked, eyes cool, but still locked apprehensively onto the smoldering hole in the wall above Cora.
“Some sadistic sci-fi assholes with laser guns and spider limbs! Any ideas?”
“No good ones,” Trish grimaced, hyperventilated, then spun out into the street.
Cora had felt the weird effect of time slowing down for Trish as her {Deadeye} skill activated a few times during the last two nights grinding runs, but she didn’t think it would ever stop being weird. It was like Trish entered fast-forward alone and the flow of time around her hated it.
Her gun barrel glowed blue and flashed. Cora peeked out just in time to see the high tech gun in Doc Nepo’s hands spark, and its glowing blue coil begin to shift red, pulsing erratically and ominously.
The spider-idiot glared at the gun, then visibly panicked, tossing it to the side, where it bounced off a wall, hit one of his guards in the head, and promptly exploded.
There was nothing left of the gun or the guy, and Cora was a little disappointed. She’d already decided they were going to kill these assholes or die trying, and that was some good loot gone.
That said, maybe best I’m not carrying something around that can do that if I bump it into a table wrong.
Doc Nepo’s power-armored eyes locked onto Cora’s and he pointed like an upset child.
“You killed Frankie! That was not supposed to happen!” He whined, and Cora found herself in a void, Doc Nepo glaring her from about 10 feet away.
[Dylan Hantz (Baron)][Level 9 Duelist (U)]
“What the fuck! That wasn’t even me!” Cora protested, backing up, only to find the bubble of blackness they were in was terribly solid.
“Silence peas-, Linnea?” Dylan’s demeanor changed nearly as quickly as Hawk’s usually did, imperious rage giving way to a sort of polite friendliness. “Why, I should have expected you to be out hunting, its why your family has stayed in Light’s Fall after all. You should also know better than to interfere with your better’s fun, however!”
“Uh… yeah, sorry about that? Gonna let me out of this now, Hantz?” Cora asked. She didn’t love the idea of 1v1ing this dude. He was equal on levels, and clearly had better shit than she did.
“Oh, I’m afraid not, leaving witnesses to these hunts is such a faux pas, and frankly no one will miss you for anything more than that sweet little ass. I’d say I’ll make it quick, but I shan’t have the last words you hear be a lie,” he said politely, cordially, as Cora watched the emptiness behind his eyes creep to the front with each word.
She growled, falling into her stance, and giving the little bastard what she hoped was a confident grin.
“Right, well, I was gonna have my girls help me kill you if you did, long as we’re being honest.”
The limb that bore a corpse like an ornament flashed towards her fast, but not fast enough to outpace Jane’s reflexes. Cora sidestepped, parrying it with [Rib Cutter] as the hard metal carapace sparked off the enhanced steel of her knife.
She brought her gun up, firing a trio of shots into Dylan’s chest, which he didn’t even try to dodge. They sparked off his armor predictably, but shit, she’d had to try. She flipped her gun around, holding it by the barrel to use it as makeshift Kama. Some of their rescues from a couple nights ago had turned out to be remarkably crafty, and two of the Matriarch’s fangs gleamed at the end of the weapon’s grip.
Dylan dropped suddenly as his lower limbs entered the fray, swiping at Cora’s legs. She hopped over them on instinct, leaving her open to a strike from the remaining limb, pulled back to stab her midair.
Fortunately, after getting her ass beat by Hawk, they’d been working on countering exactly this situation.
She kicked off the limb she’d parried as it pulled back to reset, pushing herself to the side of the fourth’s strike. Cora landed in a crouch, then burst forward, trying to get in close while all Dylan’s spider limbs were recovering from a strike.
It worked, but Cora had miscalculated. Just because Dylan hadn’t been using his own body didn’t mean he couldn’t. A wide flat blade slid out of his armor’s forearm with a ‘chunk!’, rising in an uppercut to intercept Cora’s path.
She cursed in slow motion as her Reactimax activated, giving her just enough time to bring her gun-kama around, hooking it under the rising wrist forcing it high as she ducked under the blow. In the slow down, she saw an oddly flexible joint at the armor’s hip, and made an educated guess.
[Rib Cutter] tore through the joint with a spray of blood and a scream from Dylan.
“Oh you bitch Light!” He whined, “do you have any idea how much this armor cost!?”
He was hissing like a child with a skinned knee, but Cora grimaced as she watched the wound already beginning to seal closed under his armor, a familiar silver liquid filling it.
“Guess we're gonna be testing each other’s Nano-stitch, huh?” She grinned, already diving back in, but being forced back by a renewed spider-limb assault. It was all she could do to parry and redirect the flurry of blows.
“The only thing you are testing is my patience, Lady Light,” Dylan hissed. “Be a good little whore now, and die.”
Cora really really wanted to have a riposte to that, but taking any attention off of staying alive meant she’d quickly be following this asshole’s instructions, which she categorically refused to do.