Alex is starting to wonder how useful a katana is in battle, she’s only actually used it twice, both times in Gamma floor twenty-one coincidentally. If she didn’t blow all her money to become literally hard headed she might consider buying a rifle. Alas, it was not to be, and so she finds herself hiding behind a vending machine a little under-equipped. She can feel the bruises starting to form from where the SMG hit her armor.
This wasn’t supposed to go this way!
It was just supposed to be a simple protection job for a simple drug deal.
Who the fuck starts blasting ‘cause the dealer doesn’t want to haggle?
A dealer who is now very dead, so she guesses they aren’t getting paid.
Fuck, she hopes the other’s are okay, she just went for cover as soon as the shooting started, and now she’s here, hiding behind a very sturdy vending machine.
It sells chips.
The shooting stops, she leaves her hiding spot and points her Tengu.
She shoots.
She misses.
Fuck a cuck
She takes her chances and shoots again, but he’s already gotten into cover to reload in the safety of his little corner.
Alex has to make a choice, she holsters her Tengu and charges past three corpses.
Time to cut a bitch.
She makes it to his corner just as he gets out of cover.
She cuts off his hand, he screams but manages to shoot with the other one.
She tries to weather the storm of bullets as she goes to strike again.
She cuts off his head.
It rolls on the ground with a thump, and Alex can feel the dents in her armor pushing against her skin. A lot of the bullets went through, but those were stopped by her ribs. Going to have to fix that, she thinks as she hears Aki’s Ramus followed by a scream, later.
She rushes down the corridor as the sound of gunfire intensifies. She turns to find be met with the backs of two idiots taking turns shooting with their pistols at the corner Aki’s using for cover. There’s a corpse between them. She walks slowly, the gunfire’ll hide her footsteps but there’s no reason to tempt fate. She shoves her blade through the back of one of them, then blasts the other in the chest with her Tengu.
Gunfire is replaced with coughing and gurgling.
She pulls out her blade from the woman's back.
“Aki! It’s clear”
He edges out of his corner, and Alex is a bit miffed to find that his armor is barely scratched.
“Thanks” he says looking at her “damn, you got shot up good”
“Fuck you” She say’s “Let’s find Sasha before the adrenaline wears off.”
-
The gunfire from Sasha’s corner of the school ended first, and Alex’s is worried something happened since the girl didn’t come help them. When she turns the corner she finds a sight she didn’t expect, Sasha cleaning her Raptor over the bodies of five people. One of them is still alive, moaning in pain as his guts leak onto the floor. Alex stabs him in the throat and ends his misery.
“Sasha” Aki says.
She keeps cleaning her gun.
He walks towards her slowly “Sasha” he says again.
She keeps cleaning her gun.
Aki puts his hand on her shoulder and shakes.
She points her Raptor at his face.
“Woah woah, it’s me, you don’t want to shoot me” Aki says “I hope”
Sasha’s quiet, then lowers her gun slowly. Tears well up in her eyes.
Aki pulls her into a hug “hey, it’s okay, you’re okay.”
“I thought I was going to die” She chokes through tears and snot.
“You’re okay, you’re okay” he repeats
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Only then does Alex realize the state of Sasha’s armor.
It’s almost as bad as hers, but she has no bionic enhancements.
“We need to get her to a doctor,” Alex says.
“Ok, yeah, that sounds good. C’mon Sasha, let’s get you patched up.”
-
Flesh Maestro’s are the ideal candidates for post-battle injuries, but most of those only take appointments, and you can’t exactly tell bullet wounds to kindly wait with all the blood loss. So they go to the next best thing, a Ripper Doc. Juliet doesn’t really give a shit about patient privacy so she lets Alex watch as she binds the girl's chest (Luckily none pierced through her lungs) and arm, after she picked and chose which bullets to remove.
“Why not take all of them?” Alex had asked
“If the bullets aren’t in a joint, bone, or intestine it’ll do more damage than its worth” Juliet replied without looking away from her work.
After paying the woman they went on their way
-
To the surprise of everyone they did actually get paid. Not the full amount mind you, but a cool thousand creds is still a nice boost, especially considering her finances right now. Maybe she shouldn’t get bionics right after she gets the money for it? Nah totally worth it. She’s vindicated when a bat crashes into her skull and does absolutely nothing, well, except for a concussion from the whiplash. She’s going to have to enhance her neck muscles if she wants to stop that.
She turns to the man and tilts her eyebrow.
“Seriously?” she asks in the very public space, with a number of dragons in sight.
He just swings again, she dodges, then punches him heavily in the sternum.
He curls over and wheezes.
She grabs his head and drives her unenhanced knee into his face. The man goes unconscious.
“That was just pathetic”
-
It’s just another day in Lost hope. Alex went to all of her classes and now she’s watching sports with a bunch of the other kids. Boxing’s kinda lame, it’s more about who has the better cybernetics than actual skill, but the tradition of watching two dudes beat each other is as old as humanity.
Just another day.
The two fighting, Terrance and Roland are fighting for the heavyweight championship. Each punch could tear off her head, literally, but they each take it without flinching and continue their barrage as they dodge and weave. Ok, maybe there’s some skill, but it’s mostly cybernetics.
Just another day.
Sasha and her decided to do some extra sparring, limber up the muscles and all that. Hiroshi and Danny joined them, and surprisingly enough so did Aki. They fought for a good while, Alex switching between her normal and her flow state. She wants to understand what she’s doing differently, so that maybe she could apply it without needing to lose her focus.
Just another day.
They took a break, chatting it up on the rooftop. Danny rebuffed Aki’s advances with a finesse that could only come from experience. Alex and Hiroshi have been talking fairly casually which is nice, Sasha fills in the gaps if the conversation stalls. Hiroshi’s mostly interested in swordsmanship, which is cute, but he’s amenable to other topics.
It’s just another day
-
The BumbleBee is pretty good against flesh, but any level of armor can usually stop most bullets. They’re the same caliber as her Leka after all, and everyone in the orphanage gets that for reaching their tenth birthday. Still, it eats ammunition like nobody's business, bullets for the BumbleBee are about two creds each. It can go through a hundred credits worth of bullets in the span of three seconds.
Absolutely insane.
She’s still not gonna use it though, probably going to find a store to sell it too. Her Tengu costs her a hundred per shot, but each shot is a killshot, at least so far. That thing barely injured her.
But first she needs to ask her friends.
“Hey Hiroshi, you want an SMG?”
He raises an eyebrow at her, “Is this from one of the adventures Ellie sends you on?”
“Yeah.”
He rubs at his chin then shrugs, “sure.”
“Sweet”
-
She can feel it again, that mammalian sense of being watched. But that can’t be possible because she’s in her room, where could someone hide? She rolls over on her bed.
She finds nothing.
-
Alex is in the broken world, she’s been here a few times since their first encounter, but the flesh-thing hasn’t spoken to her since. She Just lays in the sand and waits for the semi-dream? Semi-dream, to end. It doesn’t take long usually, just a few minutes. This time is different.
You’ve been busy, says the living flesh planet
Alex shrugs “I try”
Indeed you do, how’d you like our gift?
“It’s weird” Alex says “But it’s saved me a few times, and I think it’s making me good at the sword. What is it anyway? At first I thought it was some weird people finder, then it warned me about a gun pointed to my head. Now it’s making me some sort of blade savant”
Oh, we don’t want to give it away, they say, It’s more entertaining this way.
Alex rolls her eyes, “Well it’s good to know you’re amused at least”
Indeed
“So you talking this time for a reason, or do you just feel chatty” Alex asks
She gets the mental impression of a chuckle
You haven’t lost that insolence, even with the belief that we are real. Good, we like that. Keep that spark little Alex, and maybe someday it’ll grow to be a bonfire.
We want to talk to you because things are about to change, It says, we’ve been watching Arthas ever since you gave us a NAME, and we have seen how soon the tides will change.
“What, you’re a prophet now?” Alex scoffs
We are old, and dabble in many…practices.
Alex gets a sense of melancholy from the flesh planet.
“Touchy subject?”
Hmmm, no, not anymore.
“Ok, can you tell me what exactly will change?” She asks.
I can, but I won’t.
Alex scowls “why not?”
Growth comes from challenge child, if we tell you, we will stunt your growth. You want to be a ‘Scar’ yes? See this as an opportunity to prove yourself.
Alex stares through the broken window, through the monstrosities, and at the planet “It’s that bad?” she asks.
Bad is a relative term, to us it will mean nothing. To you? Well, you’ll find out soon enough.