FOCUS ON YOURSELF
Cora grumbled a bit, but realized it would be good not to have to ask the excitable and finicky voice in her head every time she wanted information. She tried a meditation technique she’d mastered, one that always helped her calm down, and fall into roles. This time, it felt like she fell into herself, and when she opened her eyes, her stat screen was once more in front of her. She focused on {Star Power} and the words expanded to fill her view before dissolving into a description.
{Star Power}: Receive a bonus stat point to [Cha] on every level up. In addition, receive a boost to all stats equal to 10% of your [Cha]
Niiiiice. Probably. I assume most people don’t get that?
‘MADE IT JUUUUUST FOR YOUUUUUUU,’ the voice in her head sang. Cora sighed, and focused on the other.
{Method Actor}: Once per day, choose a base stat to replace with your [Cha] value
Cora whistled. That was clearly OP.
How do I activate this? She asked, very eager to pop it into endurance to make sure her head didn’t get Gallagher’d by a stray round.
DON’T KNOW! OR DON’T REMEMBER. JUST TRY TO!
Cora sighed once more, then pictured her stat page, trying to overlay the [Cha] value onto the [End] value in her mind. She checked it again. Nothing.
Fuck. She looked at the passive once more. {Method Actor}. An idea began to form.
“Hey, Hawk?” She asked, letting her voice drift just a little higher, a little more femme than normal. While she told herself that was an entirely intentional manipulation tactic, she was worse at lying to herself than she was to anyone else. “I wanna try something, but it’s gonna take some focus. Can you help me stay on track?”
The enormous woman grinned down at her, and she switched her grip on the big gun to heft it with one hand. She wrapped the freed one tight around Cora’s shoulders, pulling her roughly into her side. Given the height difference, she was nestled cozily into Hawk’s armpit. The smell probably should have grossed her out, but really, Hawk didn’t smell bad. She smelled like work, and oil, and danger, and all it really served to do was make Cora think of the things Hawk would do to her if she ever got her alone.
Paradoxically to that thought, it also felt very safe. Even if her weird insights hadn’t told her Hawk had durability enhancements, her arms certainly felt bulletproof. Secure in the knowledge that the most dangerous thing in the immediate area was currently on her side, and holding her like a prize, she fell into a role.
Cadey Carmicheal hadn’t wanted to get married. But when your Daddy was a billionaire on paper, and a pauper in reality, you were more of a commodity than you were a daughter. Her marriage to an up-and-coming tech magnate would secure a fortune for him, and a future for her. Nevermind that the man was 35 and on already on wife #6. Never mind that those wives had all disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
When their wedding night turned out to be less virginal blood on white sheets, and more not-so-virginal blood on a silicon altar to a machine god, Cadey Carmicheal had been given one choice: endure, or die.
Endure she had. Naked, afraid, but fighting every second of the way, she’d escaped the labyrinth beneath that house in the hills. Escaped the house itself, killing most of her new in-laws along the way. When the sun had finally risen that morning, it rose on carnage, and a woman reforged.
Cora came back to herself, carrying a piece of Cadey with her. She felt the woman’s strength and resolve merge with her soul, igniting a fire that burned with the will to survive. She breathed deep, and checked her stats page again.
[Cora Casanova][Level 1]
[Str:5+2(SP)]
[Dex:8+2(SP)]
[End:5+2(SP)+26(MA)]
[Vit:8+2(SP)+20(Nanostitch)]
[Agi: 8+2(SP)]
[Int:9+2(SP)]
[Will:15+2(SP)]
[Cha:26+50(seduction dependent)]
[Skills: {Star Power}, {Method Actor(End)}, ]
Fuck yeah. She didn’t really feel much different, but she wasn’t even sure she was expecting to. Endurance and durability really only came into play when something was acting against them. Maybe she felt a little less tired?
“You done huffin’ my stank down there, sweet thing?” Hawk mocked, clearly just viewing this as a clumsy attempt at flirting by Linnea. To be fair, she wasn’t wrong, Cora could have asked anyone to help guide her while she was distracted. She’d asked Hawk.
“For now,” Cora chuckled, pulling away, “not like it's going anywhere, you smell like you shower on a rotation of months rather than days.”
“Heyyyy now!” Hawk laughed, clapping her on the shoulder. That was the first time Cora’s new endurance reared its head. She didn’t so much as flinch. “Kitty’s got some claws! I wash up plenty, thing is, with guns like these you get sweaty just movin’ around.”
She flexed an impressive bicep, and, yeah, Cora was pretty sure she could hang off of it without Hawk even noticing.
“That so?” Cora laughed, bumping her shoulder into Hawk’s side. “Good to know, but not like I was complaining.”
She watched Hawk’s lips twitch up in a confused, but seemingly genuine, smile. A first.
I don’t think she’s used to people actually flirting with her. Just people being overawed or being conquered.
A buzzing ‘ping!’ and her world flashed white. When her vision cleared, the white derezzng into yellow shards around her head, Hawk had a new cut under her eye, and was slamming into Cora.
“Takin’ fiyah!” Iain roared, “Get teh fook oof teh rood!”
Training for movies had ingrained a lot of skills into Cora. Being in an honest to god firefight wasn’t one of them. She got her bearings as Hawk bullrushed them both behind a concrete stoop, bullets pinging off the other side, and buzzing through the air like pissed off wasps. Cora just cowered, but Hawk was unlatching the bipod on her gun, psyching herself up to swing around and take a look.
Across the street, Iain bunkered in a stairwell with the maids, poking his head up just enough to find a range before unpinning a grenade, and tossing it down the street. Cora’s eyes followed it’s arc out of sight, then… whumph!
As the grenade went off, Hawk swung her gun around, steadying it on the railing of the stoop and starting to fire more quickly than would be appropriate, were one concerned about collateral damage.
Cora’s mind reasserted itself. Cadey’s strength reasserted itself. She wouldn’t cower, she would stand and fight. Cora spun around Hawk, kneeling next to her and bringing her own gun up, crosshair painting her vision as she took stock.
A dozen men and women shuffled down the street, a few more already bleeding out on the ground. Each of them wore face coverings, and all shared a chain motif that, if Cora was their costume designer, she would have said looked a little overwrought. Far more important than their garb, however, were the weapons they held. A hodgepodge of firearms, all blasting away at her or Iain’s position.
A bullet glanced off the concrete next to her, shooting up concrete flecks that should have torn her cheek. She barely felt them. Instead, she focused on her training. She let Cadey’s cool rage seep into her, then identified the shooter, and lined the crosshairs up on his head.
With a pull of the trigger, Cora took her second human life.
Eh. Slaving gangsters barely qualify. The first lifebarely qualified.
A bullet punched into her shoulder, spinning her back around and under cover. Her pulse raced, it didn’t hurt, not yet, but she knew that was shock, oh god, she’d been shot she’d just gotten fucking SHOT-
She poked at her duster. No hole. The pain never came.
Huh. That [End] is something else, ain’t it?
DON’T GET TOO COCKY, YOUR FACE SHIELD IS DOWN AND A SHOT TO THE HEAD WOULD STILL KNOCK YOU OUT AT BEST
Cora laughed, that was still a hell of a lot better than a shattered skull leaking brains onto the street. She breathed quick, hyping herself up, before yelling a wordless battlecry and rising back up.
Her implants activated as she did, and she got to watch in slow motion as a burst from Hawk’s gun tore a guy to shreds. Another figure had joined the melee in the street as well, lithe and black clad. Kyra had one karambit buried in the throat of a gangster while the other was in the middle of a flying arc towards the temple of a poor bastard who had no clue it was coming.
Cora locked eyes with a man training his weapon on her, but he was moving like he was under water. She smiled, aimed, and fired. The crosshair made it easy to ride the recoil, walking it over to the next closest man and giving him a new hole for his brain to breathe out of as well. Her next target was a woman, and, maybe seeing how badly things were going, she looked scared. But if she hadn’t joined up with a gang that specialized in slaving, maybe she wouldn’t be getting shot in the head right now. Samuel Colt, or this world’s equivalent, dealt in equal opportunity death.
As her final target slumped backwards, the street went quiet.
“Fuuuck,” Hawk growled, “I saw at least one of em scamper. Could be good, could be bad. They’ll know we’re not fucking around, but they’ll know that if they come again, to come correct.”
“Linnea? Bigg’un?” Iain called, “Ye both of yas all right o’er there?”
Cora had noticed it a few times, but now that she’d gotten used to it, she loved Iain’s accent shifting with his mood. You just never knew what you were gonna get.