Liberty and Death, Chapter 69
The girl Fern tapped, much to Cora’s surprise, was Emily.
In a house of broken people, Emily may have been the most recently shattered, after the loss of her sister Renly to Dylan Hantz and his little hunting party.
It had only been a couple of days since then, but a couple days was a long time for someone to go without saying a word.
There had been plenty of wordless screams, filled first with pain as she’d processed her grief, then filled with rage, as she’d manifested her grief into a specter of her sister.
She’d fought alongside that vengeful apparation in defense of Luxholme, and it had made Cora wonder: did the system give you a stronger class the worse your life had been before you got it?
YEAH, KINDA!
Gah! Fuck, what thoughts of mine can and can’t you hear!?
WHY WOULD I TELL YOU THAT?
It’s polite?
DON’T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT POLITE!
I GIVE A FUCK ABOUT FUN!
CLASSES LIKE EMILY’S ARE GOOD FOR THE PLOTLINE
That seemed like it should be something Cora complained about, but given how much it stood to benefit her, having a house absolutely teeming with wrecked humanity, she kept her mind-mouth shut.
“Thanks for coming along, Emily,” Cora said with a cheery smile. Emily returned it with a stone faced nod. About what Cora expected.
“She’s happy about it, believe it or not,” Fern chuckled, slapping the woman on the back. Emily’s expression did break enough to glare at her squad leader.
Cora almost thought she could see it soften at the edges when Emily saw what Cora did; Fern’s eyes were tight, smile much more forced than usual. Cora didn’t know what kind of relationship Fern had curated with Emily, or Renly for that matter, before her arrival, but it clearly hurt her to see Emily like this.
A smile would be far too much to hope for, but Emily’s lips did twitch as she punched Fern in the side, just a little harder than would probably be playful.
That said, Fern was a lot harder than your average person, so that worked out.
[Fern Janey ][Level 7 Paladin(E)]
[Str:12+6(TotW)]
[Dex:16]
[End:15+6(TotW)]
[Vit:14]
[Agi:8]
[Int:8]
[Will:32]
[Cha:6]
[Class Actives: {Divine Infusion}]
[Class Passives: {Triumph of the Will}]
[Skills: {Mace Proficiency}, {Mace Mastery I}, {Firearms Proficiency}, {Assault Rifle Mastery II}, {Stat Focus: [Will]}]
[Relationship Stats]
[Devotion: 36/60]
[Affection: Camaraderie]
[Cybernetics: Party Array]
[Stat Points:0]
[Skill Points:2]
Her stats were impressive, on par with most of Cora’s A-Team, and she even had a skill that worked fairly similarly to Cora’s [Star Power]. Though {Triumph of the Will} didn’t seem quite as extensive, it did give a larger proportional bonus to its affected stats.
While that was great, it was honestly incidental to Fern’s usefulness. You know, aside from being a good woman, an excellent soldier, and an all around great hang.
No, what made Fern invaluable was {Divine Infusion}. It was a dangerous world out there. The ability to heal, to get her team back on their feet, to let them survive otherwise fatal wounds? If Fern never got any other abilities, that would still make her a top-tier asset to whatever the inhabitants of Luxholme were trying to do in this city.
Plus, it let her hit shit with a glowing mace for a little more damage, which was extremely cool.
Emily… well, Emily’s stat block wasn’t that impressive, but {Memory’s Shadow} was a terrifying active. It went beyond a projection of her sister mirroring her moves, she’d seen the two working in synchronized tandem to cleave through Chains like blades of grass.
“Done staring, bosslady?” Fern asked with a smirk, and Cora blushed.
“Yeah, damn, gotta figure out a way to snoop peoples stats without looking rude. You two are gonna wreck shit, if we run into anyone out there,” Cora said.
“That’s the plan!” Fern laughed, bravado undercut somewhat when Hawk came up behind her to clap her on the back, knocking her forward a step.
“Shiiiiiit, we got Fern coming along?” Hawk asked. “That means I don’t even gotta worry about getting shot, right?”
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t do it in purpose, big girl,” Fern chuckled, rubbing her shoulder, “but… I mean, yeah, I can patch up 9 mil holes pretty quick, if they can even hurt you anymore.”
“Only one way to find out!” Hawk laughed, went to pat Emily on the back like she had Fern, then clearly thought better of it. Instead, she threw the straps of the cart they’d loaded up over her shoulders, and made the executive decision that the group was moving out.
Cora was about to tell her to wait for Trish, when the woman sat up from inside a pile of leather armor in the cart, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
She ran what seemed like a hundred checks on her new rail-rifle, all before Hawk was through the front gates.
They’d almost made it to the Bazaar before the screaming started. At first, Cora thought it was just Shimmies, uncommon in the daylight, but not unheard of, especially when the Chains were involved.
But no, some of those screams were definitely human.
“Whatcha think, bosslady?” Fern asked. She was already whipping her shield off of her back, the kite-shaped steel glowing golden with power.
Emily’s eyes were just locked on the direction of the screams.
Cora winced, looking between the cart, and towards what were potentially people in trouble down the side street.
Fuck, sorry Berg, Cora thought, and hopped off the cart, tapping Hawk on the flank.
“Come on,” she said, and made sure Trish was following. “Leave the cart, we check this out together. If it is a trick to lure us away, I’m not risking one of you protecting a cart full of bullshit.”
Down a blind alley, and around a corner, the source of the screams came into view.
And it turned out they didn’t have anything to worry about.
All 12 feet of Ingrid was terrifying in motion.
As Cora’s group stood stunned, she lifted a man, hand over his torso, one over his waist, and just… twisted him apart.
She tossed the upper half of him at a fleeing compatriot, a cruel chuckle sounding out of her helmet’s speakers as it knocked him to the ground with a pitiable ‘umf!’.
It didn’t look like she was moving fast as she strolled over, but those long strides ate up distance. A couple second later, her final step landed her foot right on top of the second man’s head, squishing it like a ketchup packet.
She lifted her metal boot, and either glared at the mess or admired her handiwork, it was hard to tell. Then she noticed Cora’s team.
While they hadn’t done anything wrong, this… well, if it was back home, and you saw a cop do something like this, you could assume their bodycam was off. And you’d be an ‘unavoidable’ casualty.
Instead, she just put the boot back down with a wet squelch, and walked over to greet them, her friendly wave looking insane coming from a steel clad giant still covered in gore.
“Well hey there, Luxholmers, been seeing a lot of you recently!” she greeted, voice booming casually through her tannoy.
Cora’s threshold for dealing with incredible violence had increased a lot in the past week, but… full on casual conversation after murder that one-sided?
Okay, maybe, but she knew the Chains were bad guys. That was supposed to feel good, right?
Regardless, as she looked over the genial iron giantess, she wondered how the fuck they were ever supposed to deal with her.
The Bazaar was a necessity, for now, but it had to fall. It was the center of the slave trade in Light’s Fall, enough that they had their own auction dias in the Depot. For what Cora was doing to mean anything, that had to go.
But accomplishing that meant neutralizing a 12 ft iron giantess in power armor. It seemed an even more impossible task than killing the [Class Traitor], another absolute must on her to-do list.
With any luck, I can make sure Eldridge eats it tomorrow night during our little terrorist operation. He’s definitely the low-hanging fruit on my kill list.
Shit, maybe Ingrid is just a merc and we can buy her, or talk this out.
“Hey, Ingrid!” Cora said, channeling all of her charisma into a pleasant smile. “Keeping the peace?”
“Hmm? Oh, yeah, these idiots tried to boost some merchandise,” Ingrid chuckled, “kept saying some shit about it being ‘their sister’ or something. Big no-no, though, and we deal with theft pretty harshly around here.”
Right. So, not talking this one out. Sorry Iain, only way you’re getting with your crush is gonna be joining her in the ground.
“Way the business has to be, right?” Cora said, with a smile that came easier than she liked. She was leaning on Linnea right now to keep herself from doing something stupid and spectacularly fatal. “Fools like this simply don’t understand.”
Ingrid nodded, servos in her suit whirring with the movement.
“I’ll meet you back at my post and let you in,” she said. “Though, I have to say, Light, your contribution to the stockyard has been scarce recently. We miss that Luxholme meat around here.”
Her helmet gave a slow once over of Cora’s team, and Cora heard the street crack under Hawk’s boot. She reached a hand back, grabbing her wrist.
Can’t even get my hand around it holy shit, she thought. She could feel Hawk vibrating with rage against her palm. She’d love to believe it was in response to the shocking injustice just perpetrated in front of them, but.. No, it was probably just from being stepped to.
[Party Chat: C, H]
C: Hold the fuck on
C: Her time will come
H: gunna cum predy fukken soon, i get my way
Ingrid’s legs tensed, and with a WHOOSH she leapt over the buildings, landing hard enough to shake the road the next street over.
Cora looked at the bloody mess of two foolish heroes in the street for a few moments, before accepting that right now, there was nothing she could do.
“C’mon,” she said, to a team that was suddenly grim faced and dour, “let’s do what we need to do and get out of here. These shopping trips just stopped being fun.”