Liberty and Death, Chapter 60
Reine had appeared from the Armory, tossing a matte-black bundle at Hawk.
It was honestly hard, just looking at her, to tell that the woman had gotten bigger, if only because the scale of Hawk was already tough to wrap your mind around.
But when she literally didn’t fit into her spare bodysuit and combat harness, having to rip the arms off and turn it into a comically tight tank top, her growth was undeniable. It would also just have to be good enough for now, they simply didn’t have extra clothes in the house that would fit her.
“Lux, let some of the girls who still like working a sewing machine know I’ll pay double the weekly rate to the first one to make Hawk some pants,” Cora said to the air
‘Are you certain, Lady Cora?’ The house asked, and Cora could swear it was mocking her.
“Of course I’m not sure, sassy bitch, look at that,” Cora said, gesturing to where Hawk got used to her new upgrades in a spar with Kyra. Her thighs were smooth and bulky, pulsing with power, and that ass….
“But yeah, tell em anyway,” Cora said. “Yo, Hawk!”
“Yeah?” Hawk asked, stopping short and taking a kick from Kyra to the face with the same level of concern you might give a mosquito bite.
“Oh come on, at least pretend it hurts!” Kyra complained.
“Sorry, short stuff,” Hawk laughed, ruffling Kyra’s hair, then dodging a stab with one of the girl’s actual weapons. “Whoa now, kicks might not hurt, but that fuckin… fire poison or whatever it is you do probably will.”
“Do that again and you’ll find the fuck out,” Kyra said, but her threat didn’t have any teeth. Despite what the girl had said, Cora could see she was at least a little smitten with Hawk as well.
What is it about bad girls?
“Stop flirting!” Cora yelled, “Hawk, I was saying earlier, you should have a stat point available, right? Use it to learn {Stat Focus: [Str]}. I think having a class is working against you, [Big Sys] told me you can’t get a stat past 50 before level 10 without it.”
“Too swole for the universe to allow it,” Hawk sighed, “story of my fuckin’ life.”
Her eyes glowed teal, faint blue of the system coloring the yellow, then she grinned wide and sharp.
“Not to brag y’all, but I’m pretty sure I could punch a Trihorn hard enough to explode it,” she announced.
Cora rolled her eyes, but checked Hawk’s status again. Her base [Str] was a staggering 62.
Shit, she’s probably right.
“Yeah?” Cora called, “why don’t we see what you can do to some slave overseers instead? We’ve got some new friends to fre–”
A whistle, and a BOOM!
Cora’s ears rang as she came back to herself, 10 feet from where she’d been, and ass-over-teakettle.
What the fuck…?
‘Cora! Cora!’ Lux said insistently, ‘Jonesy says Chains are filling the street outside!’
A high whistle nearby, and time slowed. It took Cora a moment to figure out exactly why, but then her eyes began to track a shell, arcing slowly through the air in bullet time. Jocasta was hobbling back towards the Grove, slowed even further than usual by a shredded leg. That thing was going to land like a foot from her.
You’re up Angela.
Angela Faust ran. It was what she did. It was what she was.
Fastest kid in the trailer park. Speediest teen in the public school. Lightning bolt in the collegiate stadium.
Finally, the gold medalist in the Olympic games.
Angela Faust ran. Ran out of poverty. Ran out of destitution. Ran straight into the hearts of a nation.
To be honest, Chariot of Desire, had been a pretty shit movie. Angela’s life story was inspiring, but it didn’t make for a good screenplay, and Cora had been bad casting. There was a reason most sprinters didn’t have the assets Cora, and now Hawk, had possessed.
It was, however, the only movie Cora had worked on where she’d learned about her role from the very person she was portraying. Angela had been a good person. That trailer park? Townhomes now, and populated by the exact same people that had been in those trailers, funded entirely by the generosity of a hometown hero.
Angela’s speed might not have technically been superhuman, but the woman herself had always felt that way to Cora.
‘Plant your feet,’ she said in Cora’s mind, for once a voice besides her own or [Big Sys]. Coil. Release.’
Cora followed the instructions, shooting off the ground like a bullet. She slammed into Jocasta, carrying the tiny old woman like a doll out of the blast radius behind them.
Or she would have, if the shell hadn’t crashed onto a shimmering barrier right above the Heartfruit tree.
“Lux! Tell the non-combatants to get under the Grove!” Cora yelled, deciding to trust that barrier, and dumping Jocasta. She hoped that the woman’s healing abilities could see to her leg. Then Cora scanned the courtyard for any more wounded by the first blast.
She cursed when she saw a crumpled form in black tactical gear and a beret. She dashed out, grabbing Trish and getting her back under the tree in seconds. Jocasta’s leg was already looking better under her hand’s green glow, but her eyes went wide as Cora dropped Trish in front of her.
Trish’s all-black getup hid the blood well, but dark, shiny spots spreading across her body told a tale of shrapnel and carnage.
“Treat her next!” Cora ordered, then she was off, dashing on winged feet through the house to the front gates.
She passed Hawk, already rushing to the gates, on the way, and told her to be ready to sortie out.
The guard tower Dip or Jonesy occupied at night was a good 20 feet tall, way too tall to easily scale. Cora ran straight up it, rolling over the lip, finding Jonesy clutching a bleeding shoulder, covering against an absolute fusillade of gunfire, which hammered on the other side of the concrete wall like a metal tide.
“How many?” Cora asked, grabbing a nano-ampoule out of her duster and jabbing it into Jonesy’s wound. The things were expensive, but seeing Trish save Hawk’s life with one was proof enough to Cora that they’d be worth it, and she’d picked up a few in the Bazaar on their last trip.
Jonesy hissed as the bullet hole filled with silver, but color returned to his cheeks.
“A fuckton, boss!” He answered, “must be the whole goddamn gang, or whatever their dungeon can make or… however this shit works! They’ve got some giant fuckin’ Shimmer Addicts too, came out of the alleys right before I took that hit.”
“Shit,” Cora hissed, mind racing. She grabbed a box next to the wall, dragging it over to Jonesy’s side. The 25 or so frag grenades they’d pulled off dead Chains rattled inside. “Okay, you stay here, stay in cover, but just start yeeting these over your shoulder, okay? Maybe we finally get you a class with all that Shimmer, yeah?”
Jonesy’s smile looked grim, but he nodded, pulling a pin and tossing the grenade over the wall behind him. There was yelling, then a percussive whump! and suddenly the gunfire was just a little bit less deafening.
[Party Chat: C, I, K, H]
C: I’ve got Jonesy up here in the guard tower, he’s stable and playing explosive Plink-O with these assholes.
C: Iain, how are things looking =Captain of the Guard=?
I: I cannae see ‘em outside the walls, lass, but I can see our folks. Fern’s in the foyer setting up with ‘er team, Hawk’s waitin’ for yer go ahead in front of ‘em. Non-Coms are either in the Grove or the dungeon. Tanya, Kyra, ‘n meself are holed up in teh Armory.
Cora’s duster shield fizzled back to life, after probably saving her ass from the first blast.
C: got my shield back and my [Agi] is boosted into low orbit. Gonna take a run around the wall, circle to you and get a peek at the sitch.
“Hoooooo,” Cora let out a big breath, took in a bunch more little ones, then crouched and leaped over the side wall of the guard tower.
Oh FUCK thats a lot of ‘em!
Cora was no good at quick counting, but she’d bet there were over 50 dudes on the street. That alone wouldn’t really be that concerning, Luxholme was well fortified and they could deal with pretty much any number of Links.
No, what worried her were the living fucking seige engines they’d brought.
Two of the massive Shimmer Addicts, ones Cora had only caught a glimpse of as they fled a few nights ago, were wrapped in glowing chains, and pounded on Luxholme’s doors. On the shoulder of one, connected to each by those spectral chains, was a familiar asshole.
“Fuck off Donovan!” Cora roared, snapping a shot off with the [Vector Driver] straight into Donovan’s head. Again, a shield sparked and fizzled, and the man just grinned at her before ducking around behind his Addict’s head.
Cora snarled in frustration, unloading more shots into the side of the thing’s nog, but while the chunks they blew out were considerable, the gun clearly didn’t have the same penetrating power on biological material.
Or shields, apparently.
She hadn’t stopped running, but the pinging patter of gunfire from windows across the street was starting to catch up to her, and without Cadey’s [End], she was uninterested in taking a bullet to the dome.
Something blessedly small-caliber pinged off her shield as she kicked off the bollard on top of the wall’s corner, jetting towards the Armory outcropping. She jumped down, and messaged Iain to open up.
“What’s teh plan, Lass?” Iain asked as the door swung open.
“They’re all concentrated on the front of the building. I want you to reinforce Fern in the foyer, and let her know we’ll be opening the main gates soon. The girls here and I are gonna go out the side, hit em from the flank, and when I give the signal, tell Lux to open the gates. We’ll see how these dickheads deal with a real Monster,” Cora said with a grin.