Liberty and Death, Chapter 74
Chapter 74
Kyra guided the group off into an alley, apparently unnoticed by the guards.
Get what you pay for, I guess.
THEY’RE MOSTLY FREE!
Yeah, that was my point.
“Okay, from what we saw earlier, there will definitely be innocents inside,” Kyra said. “Tanya scouted the place out, whatever that building was, it's basically been hollowed out into a series of holding pens.”
“May I?” Lysander asked, not waiting for permission.
Like she’d done in the study, dust and wind coalesced into a transparent representation of the building.
“Draw the layout in here,” she commanded, and Kyra’s eyes flicked to Tanya.
While Tania often seemed almost supernaturally tranquil, Tanya was constantly frenetic.
Not even necessarily fidgeting, sometimes it was as subtle as a vein pulsing in her jaw, or the knuckles cracking in a clenched fist, part of her always looked like the rest of her was actively committing murder.
She stepped forward, and with quick slashes in the air drew the outlines of cages along the walls of the building.
“Guards were here,” she hissed through gritted teeth, marking points at the entrance to each cell and scattered throughout the floor.
She also slashed a set of stairs into the back wall, leading up to a lofted office area.
“Couldn’t get in here, but looked like leadership,” she explained.
“Can you pinpoint that on the outside of the building?” Cora asked, a plan beginning to form.
Tania nodded, but offered nothing further.
Okay, guess she’ll do it when the time comes?
The plan was forming in her head, but it needed a boost. It needed experience.
She fell into Jane.
Immediately, her mind felt like it sharpened. Not smarter, not wiser, just… seasoned. Those guards marked in the diagram, her mind began to build sightlines off their positioning. How their positions might have changed, how they might change further depending on her team’s actions.
‘Mmm. Didn’t know we could do that…’ Jane said, Cora’s own voice like a ghost in her ears, but cooler, distinguishable even from Lysander’s.
I don’t think we have any idea what we can do yet, Jane.
“Oooo, who is it this time?” Kyra teased, eyes twinkling as she noted the change in Cora’s expression. The flat, but faintly amused, stare Cora returned wasn’t entirely her own.
“Jane,” Cora answered. “This shit is her bread and butter.”
She shifted her attention back to the diagram.
“Okay, so here’s what we’re thinking…”
Tania walked up to the guards.
It didn’t even look like she was sneaking, it was as casual as a stroll through a field of flowers.
Then her body language changed.
Her hand was through the first guard’s chest, heart crushed in it’s knuckles before he even had time to react.
Just as quickly, Tanya’s thumbs were buried to the meat of her palms in his companion’s eye sockets.
Cora could see her vibrating with fury from a hundred feet away. That rage would normally find its outlet in one of her inhuman screams, but she was finding the will to keep it contained. For now.
Cora looked across Hawk’s back, receiving a grim nod of readiness from Jocasta on their steed’s opposite shoulder.
“Go,” Cora ordered, tapping Hawk’s delt, just below where she held on.
Hawk’s breathing sped up. It became more frantic, more ragged, bestial, shaking her shoulders as Cora felt her skin heat up beneath her fingers.
Like just below that thick, beautiful hide, rage flowed hotter than lava in her veins.
Cora saw the muscles in her jaw clench, and had a flash of panic for their element of surprise.
With Jane’s deftness, she slapped a hand over Hawk’s mouth, catching her roar in her palm. She couldn’t staunch the sound entirely, but that was fine, because Hawk did it for her.
An animalistic growl, and sharp teeth closed over her fingers.
Cora hissed in a sharp breath of pain, and apparently that was enough to get Hawk to refocus.
Her steed let out a whine of apology, and took her first step forward.
With each stride, Cora felt like she was ticking up the ascent of a roller coaster.
Speed, power, fury, all of it built within Hawk as she ran at the building, solid door looking more like a piece of a children’s playset in light of what was coming for it. Cora hunkered down below Hawk’s shoulders, praying to [Big Sys] this wasn’t going to snap her fingers like twigs.
A step before impact, Hawk could no longer contain the rage, and that roar from earlier escaped, immediately drowned out by the immense ‘crash!’ of metal and stone as Hawk hit the door, and the door crashed into the other side of the building.
Cora wiped the dust from her eyes, and looked over to Jocasta. The old woman’s eyes were wild with fear and excitement, but she was unharmed. Cadey, beaten and bloodied, scowled at Cora as she faded out of existence in front of her.
To business, Cora, Jane chided, and Cora took to the task at hand.
[Vector Driver] was already in her hand, ‘tech letting her draw an easy bead on a Link on the far side of the building.
Those were the most dangerous, the ones close to Hawk’s dynamic entry were too surprised and disoriented to do much of anything.
Cora’s target, on the other hand, nearly had his own assault weapon up when his head burst like a melon, throwing off the aim of the man next to him, an instant before that guy’s head met the same fate.
A hollow ‘thunk!’ next to them told Cora that Fern had been close behind Hawk, as planned, the sound of her mace redesigning a skull becoming familiar.
Hawk, for her part, hadn’t stopped moving.
Bullets pinged off her glowing skin as she roared, lowering her head to slam into a Chainhead across the room.
The force wasn’t something a human body could withstand, even with however enhanced the Chainhead’s were. A group of scared looking people were showered with gore as one of their captors was pushed back through the bars of their cell, staying nearly recognizable as human for a moment before collapsing into a pile of gore.
“Make sure Jo gets some kills!” Cora said, slapping Hawk on the shoulder before leaping off. She didn’t like that Kyra hadn’t made an appearance yet, they’d hoped she’d be able to leap into the office window, slit a couple administrative throats, and join the festivities below before they really got started.
The door to the loft office was still closed.
Cora ran for the stairs, taking shots of opportunity as they presented themselves.
It wasn’t that often. There were surprisingly few Chains here, for what looked like a pretty large scale operation.
Cora missed a step, which was weird, since she should have comparable dexterity to a mountain goat right now.
Then she realized that she’d only missed a step because the floor had moved, sections sliding back, and what was beneath rising up from the foundations.
Cora stepped back as the one in front of her completed its rise, scowling at the big black box blocking her path.
“What the fu–”
She jumped away as the sides of the box fell away, and familiar keening screams filled the warehouse.
Cora was barely able to bring [Rib Cutter] up in time to get it in front of a particularly eager Shimmer Addict’s first strike. The big rubbery monster’s arm didn’t react the way you’d expect to impacting squarely on the business of a very sharp blade.
With no bone to stop it, its arm just split as it continued on its way, bisection stealing some of its power, but still hitting hard enough to cause Cora’s shield to spark and fizzle out when it hit her in the chest.
She rolled with the blow falling back in a flip that an olympic gymnast would have envied. Landing on one knee, she put [Vector Driver] blasts into both of the Shimmie’s legs, gruesomely separating them from the monster.
Cora was experienced enough with these things now to not be surprised when the Shimmie was slowed, but undeterred.
However, while it still scrabbled towards her with all the speed its arms could muster, it was child’s play to put another three blasts into its head, stilling the beasts.
“FOCUS, Cora!” Cadey roared next to her, Cora’s head snapping around to see her driven to her knees by a blow that would have taken Cora in the back of the noggin.
That Shimmie hadn’t been alone in its cage, its friends had just been a little slower.
Cora cursed, rolling backwards once more to avoid a follow up strike.
Lacey!
She tossed up [Rib Cutter] as she dodged, and Lacey’s calloused knuckles closed around it, driving it down into the crown of the Shimmie’s skull with enough joyous force that it damn near pushed its head all the way into the monster’s torso.
Those stunt doubles had taken it out of Cora. All of 30 seconds into the fight, and she was sucking wind, barely able to keep her crosshair steady as she lined it up with the chest of the final Shimmie in the cage.
Catastrophic damage was really the only way to take one of these down, and while they needed their heads, it didn’t seem like they needed much else.
That said, five shots from [Vector Driver], and the only thing that hit Cora of this one was a fine red mist.
Her little surprise box cleared, Cora swept her eyes over the room.
Behind her, Hawk was beating a Shimmie with its own arms while vines from the flowers in Jocasta’s hat stabbed it over and over with tiny pinpricks. Cora could hear her cackle from here.
Fern and Emily were conducting themselves comparably well, Renly’s shade forming the third side of a triangle of death that didn’t leave any openings for their monstrous adversaries to exploit.
Tanya, however, was struggling.
She was fast all the time, but that unbelievable berserker strength she used? She only got that against Slavers. These might be monsters, but they weren’t that kind.
Her talons still rent their flesh, and she still darted around every blow, but–
A blazing stream of molten air pushed her assailant back, as Cora got to see Lysander in action for the first time.
She wasn’t sure how she was doing what she was doing.
The crimson stream that flowed from her hand looked like nothing so much as it did a laser cannon, but Cora was 99% sure Lysander had been primarily an elementalist, not a Lasermancer.
However it was happening, it was immensely effective, even against a Shimmie’s insane vitality.
Twisted flesh sizzled and cracked even as it was shorn away, eroding like–
Holy shit, she’s sandblasting them, Cora realized. Elementalist was right, nothing Lysander was doing couldn’t be explained by a stream of superheated sand propelled by pressurized air.
Cora growled, let out a low whistle of appreciation, and turned back to her goal. Kyra was still in that office.
As she reached the stairs, she hoped she’d find the girl full of excuses, and not full of holes.