Liberty and Death, Chapter 65
“Didn’t the girls say there would be guards?” Hawk asked, whispering into Cora’s ear. It tickled, which was distracting. Almost as distracting as how hilarious it was having the giantess try and hide behind a stoop while they scoped the Textillery. Anyone really looking would definitely be able to see a crest of crimson-black hair and the tips of ivory horns.
That said, I guess I don’t even know what I’d make of that if I saw it.
Hawk was right though, the factory was deserted, far as they could tell. No guards at the gate, or along the razor wire fence. Lights on inside though, so maybe this was normal?
C, H, T, K
C: what do you guys think?
C: can you see anything through those upper windows T?
The factory itself wasn't much to look at. Well, there was much of it to look at, but besides being big, it was really just a big blocky-ass eyesore.
T: nah, looks like they’re just for light during daytime, maybe if I could get higher, but I’m as blind as you.
C: shit.
C: okay, if we send Kyra in sneaky-like, you can see what she sees with {Spotter} right?
T: more or less
C: cloak up and head in, Kyra
The ping of acknowledgement was the only indication any of them got that Kyra was complying, until they watched the side door of the factory crack open, just enough to admit a slender, invisible, assassin.
T: OH SHIT
Trish’s railgun cracked once, and Cora and Hawk were already moving, fearing the worst.
C: Kyra? T? Situation?
T: Only two guys, one of them has Kyra in my line of fire.
“Fuck! Bet I know which two!” Cora hissed, but Hawk only roared, beginning to glow red as she surged ahead. With Angela, Cora could surpass her, but the last place you wanted to be in relation to Hawk when she was like this was in front of them.
The gate exploded under her horns, and the stone wall of the factory fare no better. But even Hawk was forced to come up short at the sight of what they found inside.
A charnel house.
The Rescues had said there would be hundreds of women working here.
Maybe they’d been right, but to know for sure, you’d be counting bones, and weighing gore.
It definitely looked like enough gore.
“.....why?” Cora asked the [Class Traitor], who held Kyra up by the neck between himself and Trish, with unnerving accuracy. Behind him, Donovan had his ethereal chains wrapped around Kyra, seething red corruption beginning to creep towards her.
The rage in Kyra’s eyes could have burnt down the world, if only she could move to strike the flame.
“Do you think you are the only one of your kind to suffer delusions of grandeur, Linnea?” The Chain-masked man asked. His voice was calm, but rough. Perfect dictation delivered through the throat of a man who hadn’t lived an easy life. “The only minor noble to think they can capture the rage of the people, and turn it to their own ends?”
“Of course not,” Cora admitted, falling into Linnea, and noting that this guy hadn’t used her real name. Either Jocasta or [Big Sys] was looking out for her. Good, let them think this was all some selfish power play. “I do think I may be the first to meet such immediate resistance, however. What business is it of yours, why is a man like you slumming it with the Chains and interfering in my affairs?”
The man laughed, and Cora could hear the crack of his knuckles as his hand tightened around Kyra’s neck.
“The answer to both of those is one and the same, Linnea,” he chuckled. The more she looked, the more those cold blue eyes looked like mockeries of her own. “The Lights, Luxholme, you are a symbol of the Order of things. The foothold we gentry keep in Light’s Fall, to remind the stock of their place. The last thing we can have is that symbol becoming inverted. From Order into Chaos.”
“We gentry?” Cora mocked, both because it seemed in character for Linnea and she had to make this guy slip up, “why would a member of the gentry be labeled a [Class Traitor]?”
Finally, those eyes changed just the tiniest bit, narrowing in anger.
“Watch your tongue, Lady Light. I am the representative of your betters, and you will treat me as suc–”
“No, I don’t think I will,” Cora said, pressing the attack. The red in Donovan’s chains was getting perilously close to Kyra’s body. “I think I will treat you as the jumped up peasant dog that you are, interfering in the plans of people with far better breeding than his own!”
The line was more or less word for word from a shitty period piece she’d helped a friend with back in film school, but fuck this guy. Shitty villains got shitty lines.
It worked too. She couldn’t see it, but she could hear the snarl beneath his mask of chains.
T: Get him to move. That first shot didn’t do shit to his shield, but I bet that dickhead with the chains wont be as lucky
“This,” he said, using his free hand to gesture to the slaughterhouse of humanity they stood in, “was a warning. Your second, and your last, Linnea. Be a good little slavemaster. Maybe take heed of Baron Parnassus’ advances. Remember your role in the Order.”
“Hah! A warning?” Linnea laughed, making sure her smile showed no emotion but disdain. “You’re just bitter you couldn’t take my house with your shitty little gang, you coward. Kill me, or get out of my way, peas–”
The man growled and took a single step towards her.
Donovan’s eyes went wide, as, canny bastard that he was, he realized that meant he no longer had anything between him and a [Deadeye] with a railgun.
Crack!
He shrieked as his shield burnt out immediately, saving his life, but burning half of his face to a ruined mess. He fell screaming to the ground as his boss missed a step, realizing his mistake. As Donovan’s chains fell away, a burning karambit slashed across his wrist.
Cora was already moving. She saw Donovan, even through his pain, reaching for a pouch, and knew they’d lose him again. Even if they died here, she’d take one monster with her.
Chain-mask’s swiping hand almost stopped her anyway, but, however strong he was, it wasn’t enough to completely counteract Hawk with a full head of steam.
She slammed into him, not sending him flying, but sliding them both back, forcing him to release Kyra to focus on a more Monstrous threat.
Cora had no eyes for that. Her eyes were locked on Donovan’s hand, reaching for that pouch. On a surprisingly fragile looking little wrist.
She struck, and the only thing that entered Donovan’s pouch was a bleeding stump. If it was even possible, his screams intensified.
Cora kicked him in the head, hard, and cut off his other hand with a measured swipe. Let him try and crawl away.
A vial flew from behind her, and shattered against Donovan’s chest, and Cora growled in frustration. As he faded into black, escaping mist.
She spun, to find that Chain-Mask might have been sandbagging a bit back at Luxholme.
Both Kyra and Hawk oozed a sickly blue aura, seeming to seep downwards around them. They moved more slowly, their strikes weaker. They could afford to be neither.
Cora could feel whatever that was trying to effect her, but it just… didn’t. Whatever it was targeting, she didn’t count.
[EFFECT OF {KNOW YOUR PLACE} RESISTED: HIGHER SOCIOECONOMIC STRATA THAN USER]
“Hah! Even your own skills know I’m better than you!” Cora mocked, figuring if Linnea being a huge bitch had pissed him off once, then she could do it again. And if she didn’t draw aggro quick, he was going to kill her friends.
He might anyway, as Kyra failed to avoid a sharp chop heading straight for her neck.
Another crack! and while the railgun blast might not be breaking this guy’s shield, it packed enough punch to knock his hand off course, leaving Kyra with a nasty gash across her pretty face, but also, leaving her head intact.
“Grah! Kneel!” He roared, and immediately, Hawk and Kyra began to fall to their knees. Cora felt it too, like a force within her own aura, but crashing against an [Unbreakable] barrier. And that gave her an idea.
Lacey and Jane rushed forward from their points maintaining the perimeter of her aura, grabbing Hawk and Kyra under the arms, pushing them up. That probably wasn’t actually what was happening, but the sudden migraine Cora was suffering from implied her mental effort was doing something.
“I said, theydon’tKNEEL!” She shrieked, straining against the pain.
Chain-Mask’s hand flew to his head, mirroring Cora’s own pain, and looking at her in shock. Gasping, sweating from the agony, Cora still managed to give him a cheeky grin.
Hawk surged up, tattoos glowing with the crimson aura of {Brutal Blow}, and landing a show-stopping uppercut on Chain-Mask’s chin.
However much she’d been weakened, it wasn’t enough to stop that from sending him flying.
“Run!” Cora yelled, and they scattered.
“This won’t be the end, Light!” Chain-Mask’s voice floated after them, more clear than it had any right to be. “I will make the people see how much your resistance hurts.”
Not at my house you fucking won’t, Cora thought grimly, rushing back towarss Luxholme and its new defenses.
And you’ll pay for every life you took outside of it.
Cora blasted past the harvesting group, just finishing up with the Alphound Matriarch. She only spared them one word.
“Run!”
She didn’t have any real idea if Chain-Mask was following them, but if they were…
Well fuck. She’d have to stand and fight wouldn’t she.
“Grrraah!” She screamed, wheeling around to go back and help. At least make sure she was the last one that made it home, if any of them made it home at all.
Heart pounding, she stood rear guard as her people scattered for home.