Well, I didn't think I'd ever really make a second chapter to this but here we are. Welcome to part two of Blood and Chrome where I change a few things from the last chapter.
The last chapter was more of a teaser. Or maybe a test run? I don't know, it was just to introduce everyone to the ideas behind the story.
But the real one starts now because I need a bit of a break from my main story and don't feel in that much of a dark mood for Coils.
On with the show!
London, England, 2074.
Valkyrie hated doing these odd jobs for the rank-and-file pencil pushers from the lower floors of Grunnings Armaments. They were always in rat-infested drug dens that she found herself in now with concrete floors covered in stains from god knows what. The lighting was always dim and blinking on and off with sharp corners and shoddy-looking gonks coming and going at all hours of the day and night. Meeting with gangers and cyberpunks looking to make a quick eddie by robbing your still-cooling corpse or ripping you off in some way.
But when working in the security and acquisitions department, you didn't question orders unless you wanted a slug to the dome or worse, fired. So she walks behind the desk jockey who jumps at every random noise and creep that comes waltzing down the hall. She wore the standard issue Kevlar-lined black suit with a bulletproof vest with the Grunnings logo stretched on the front right breast. Her black combat boots made no sound on the floor unlike the desk jockey's shiny shoes that do nothing but make an annoying clicking sound with every step he makes. The pale brown walls of either fading paint or nicotine stains from over the years make Valkyria want nothing more than a smoke, but she sighs and tries to suppress the growing headache with sheer willpower as they walk.
Valkyrie was sent with the desk jockey to go get some experimental Magi-Tech that some big megacorp had spent a decade and a couple of million eddies to develop. It was snatched up in some job that a local Mollie Gang pulled on the poor fuck they took it from before they had sold it to another local gang called the Blinders or some stupid gonk name like that. It was apparently some powerful Cloak Daemon that rendered the user completely and truly invisible, from any type of scan or spell, leaving no trace or interference.
Which to Valkyrie, was laughable.
They all heard the legends about a Cloak, be it Daemon or streetwear, that could do what it was selling, but that's all it was a legend. Just like the Model-001 Scythe or Soulkiller, they were nothing but whispers and talk down in the pubs filled with edgerunners, the gun that took no ammo but could kill someone all the same, or the program that could copy and recall a soul. A bunch of bloody gonk bullshit was all it was, but you did have a megacorp run by a bunch of prissy pure-blood cunts who wanted to try and recreate the legends of the past pop up once in a while.
This cloak was just the newest crack at trying to create them.
The desk jockey stops right outside a door numbered six three two before turning to her. "We're here. Now, you're just gonna let me do the talking because I've already built a reputation with them, you're just the muscle, got it?" the desk jockey says, trying to push his non-existent weight around. He was a tweedy-looking desk jockey with slicked-back red hair and fully chipped eyes that looked like goggles sticking out his face with a pinprick of blue light shining in them. His suit was cheap but he tried to make it look more expensive.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say," Valkyrie says with a bit of a sigh before the man turns to the door and she steps to the side as the man knocks on the door three times. The door hisses as the pressurized arm behind the stone wall slides the door backward.
BOOOOOM!
The sound of a Cranage going off was a very distinguishing noise, and so was the wet splat of blood and meat hitting a stone wall. Valkyrie looks over to the now very dead desk jockey lying in pieces on the other side of the hall. Before the Cranage could be pointed at her, Valkyrie swung the M2038 Tactician that hung off her shoulder by a strap and placed the barrel right to the skull of the gonk that pulled the trigger.
"Don't," Valkyrie hisses out as she grinds the barrel into the man's head. "Even think about it Choom," she says as the ganger swallows before the barrel of his gun drifts to the floor. The ganger was chromed out with Magi-tech arms and legs with a viser fused to his face that was running constant scans on everything the gonk could see. "Now, let's be smart about this, Choom. I'm here, was here with someone looking to buy something, you ripped off some Asakura gonk, and I'm looking for a guy named Siz. You him?" Valkyrie asks slowly and carefully but never points her gun away from the ganger's skull.
The ganger swallows but shakes his head. "Nah, but he's here was waiting for some corporat," the ganger says as sweat drips down his forehead.
"Well," Valkyrie says with a sigh. "You just turned that corporat into a chunky salsa, so now you have to deal with me, preem?" she asks and watches as the ganger nods his head slowly.
"P-preem," he agrees with a nod of his head before pointing his weapon fully to the floor.
"Good," Valkyrie says before stepping forward and shoving the ganger inside the apartment. Valkyrie looked around the apartment and noticed that the gang that had taken up residents in the unit had knocked down a few walls and extended the floor plan into the neighboring apartments, adding them to the overall layout. Inside were a few more of the gangers lounging around either watching the scroll or spine-deep into a brain dance while others were with hang-around girls and knuckle-deep into them.
Valkyrie sighs as she lets her shotgun drop down and swings back on the sling. She was at least thanking the forethought of the corpo overlords when they gave access to the account with the eddies for the transaction to both her and the desk jockey. The ganger leads her past the brain potatoes and into one of the side rooms guarded by two other chromed-out gangers who eyed her with scorn. Past the reinforced metal door sat a large dark skin bald man with Magi-tech bio-enhanced muscles, and from a quick scan Valkyrie was able to pull out this guy was a complete chrome head with all the Magi-tech he had chipped in. He sat on a large couch with pounds of SynthCoke getting processed into smaller amounts to be dealt out.
The telltale glow of Magi-tech burned behind his eyes as he spoke out to thin air. "Well the fucking brat isn't here," he says angrily with a frown on his face as he was leaned back on the old beaten-up pleather couch. "Yeah I know, but my buyer is-" he stops, getting cut off by whoever was on the other side of the line. "Fuck, don't you have some way to track the little Choom? Yeah, yeah, I know. I'll call if he isn't here in ten," the large man, Siz, says before blinking and killing the call and looking at Valkyrie.
"You the Corporat?" Siz asks with a scowl.
"Nah, choom, I'm the Corpo enforcer," She says as she looks at the only other place to sit down, a beat-up old chair with puke stains all over it. "Your man here flatlined the faceman at the door, but I've got access to the eddies for the deal," Valkyrie informs the Chrome Jock quickly as Siz turns to glare at the ganger who brought her in.
"Trigger, what the fuck have I told you about shooting before thinking you fucking brain potato," Siz snaps at the doorman before pulling a piece and blowing a hole in the gonks foot. Trigger falls screaming to the floor as Valkyrie walks over to the far wall and leans against and watches the Chrome Jock yelling at Trigger about how he would kill him if he wasn't his brother. After the door guards drag Trigger out of the run, and hopefully throw his ass in the trash where he belongs, does Siz turns to her.
"Sorry about that, Choom," Siz says before walking back over to the couch and sitting down, putting his piece on the table with a sigh. "Been telling that fucker to stop being so twitchy,"
Valkyrie just grunts in agreement before reaching into her coat pocket and pulling out a pack of fags. "Mind if I smoke?" she asks, and Siz just shrugs. Valkyrie happily places a cancer stick between her lips before cracking her arch lighter and taking a drag. "So, on to the biz?" she asks as she exhales.
"Right, so about that," Siz says with a sigh before leaning back. "It's not here, yet mind you," he admits before Valkyrie pushes off the wall.
"I'm Delta," She says through the fag hanging from her lips.
"No, hold up," Siz says as he jumps up from the couch. "It's not here because a runner is bringing it right now, he's just a bit late is all," he tells her quickly.
"Why the fuck did you leave something you klepped with a runner?" Valkyrie asks, turning back to look at the man with a confused face.
"I didn't leave it with no runner, gov. I had a fixer look after it seeing that it's high-value stuff, the fixer is sending a runner to drop it off," Siz explains while holding up his hands. "It's just the runner is a bit behind is all," he says in a pleading tone.
Valkyrie sighed for what had to be the hundredth time since entering the sleazy apartment complex. "Well when the hell is the runner gonna be-" Valkyria begins to say before a loud tapping echoes around the room, but the oddest thing was it was coming from the widow behind Siz. Both Valkyrie and Siz turn to the window to see one of the oddest sights that Valkyrie has ever seen.
A kid was hanging off one of the pipes that ran up the building wearing the biggest smile she had ever seen. The kid was pale as death and looked no older than ten with bright emerald green eyes hidden behind Coke bottle frames with an unruly rat nest of black hair that seemed to stick in every direction but forwards. He was wearing an old beat-up black jacket with an LED collar with an old set of headphones that looked to be held together with rubber bands and duct tape. Beat-up blue jeans and a shirt with a club logo on the front completed the street rat look the kid had going for him. The boy taps on the window once more before pointing at the lock and making a motion to open the window to Siz.
Siz marches over to the window, unlocks it, and throws it open so the kid can climb in. "There you are you fucking brat, you almost lost me the deal because you're late!" Siz snaps at the boy.
"Oi, chill Choomba, the lawman was out thick today and I had to delta from a pair that was trying to book me," The boy says as he drops in the room before swinging a backpack from behind him and placing it on the couch and opening it up. He reaches in and pulls out a small back plastic case no digging then a pack of fags with the Asakura logo on it. "Now, who has my scratch? You or the madam? Because I've been running around for the last week with something hot and that's gonna cost someone," the boy says before handing over the case to Siz.
"The eddies are coming out of my pocket as soon as I finish this biz," Siz says taking the case from the kid who frowns at his words.
"I get paid on delivery," the boy says as he crosses his arms and squints at the taller man. "You know that, Siz,"
The older man tilts his head back as he sighs, looking as if he is praying to a higher power for more patience to deal with the child in front of him. "I know that Harry, it's just gonna be a few minutes before I can get the chop for you. So, just go get some grub while I finish up here," Siz says as he looks back down at the boy named Harry.
Harry scuffs before scowling. "I'm filling up my bag then," he says before picking up said bag and making his way toward the door to the rest of the apartment.
"Fine, whatever, just come back in a few, preem?" Siz tells Harry before waving his hand to dismiss him.
"Yeah, yeah, preem," Harry says before the door to the room slides open to let him out only for him to mutter "Gonk" under his breath before ducking a pillow aimed at his head by Siz.
Valkyrie turns back to Siz after her eyes trailed Harry out of the room. "He's the runner?" she asks, shock coloring her tone.
"They're getting younger every year," Siz says sarcastically with a smile as he sits back down. Valkyrie turns to look back at the boy's retreating form, and out of habit runs a quick scan on him. She knew for a fact that her eyes and Magi-Neuralware weren't the best on the market, but they also weren't the worst. They did exactly what she needed them to do, run daemons, scan and access archives that she needed, and quickhack something if need be. Valkyrie was hooked up to both the Grunnings and the LCPD database which should, in theory, give her access to everyone's skeleton on the net. So, imagine her surprise when she scanned the kid and not only got nothing to come up but watched in the bluish haze of the Magi-tech scan, Harry became nothing more than static to her. Like one of those old tellies with a bad signal, fuzzy through and through.
Valkyrie tries to run a quickhack to find the source of the interference but gets no signal back, but she does get a stabbing pain sent right into her eyes like an ice pick to her brain.
"Ah," she hisses out in pain before cutting her quickhack and scanning off, and closing her eyes. "Fuck, what the hell was that?" Valkyrie says under her breath while looking away and rubbing her eyes.
"Tried to scan the kid, huh?" Siz asks, looking at Valkyrie with a grin while holding the box.
"Yeah," She answers truthfully while wiping away tears from her eyes and blinking out the stars. "Fuck," she mutters before reaching down and picking up her still-smoking fag before popping back between her lips before taking a drag.
"Yeah, we get some gonk trying to do that every once in a while," Siz says with a shake of his head as he leans over a bit to watch Harry raid his gang's fridge and stuffing backpack full of food. "Even met a guy who tried to hack the kid only to have his freaking peepers melt out his head. Jokes on him though, the kid isn't chipped," he says with a laugh as Valkyrie just narrows his eyes at the man before taking a drag of her fag. For a kid his age not to have at least some neural interface plugs or Magi-Neuralware was odd, it was practically needed in this day and age.
Valkyrie exhales a cloud of smoke. "Let's get this Biz wrapped up, Preem?" she asks as the larger man just smiles.
"I was asking for forty thousand eddies and a shipment of hardware, or did your bosses scrap that offer?" Siz asks, waving the box that held the Daemon around.
"They did," Valkyrie says with a shrug before inhaling again. "Their offer is twenty-k and a shipment of hardware. Here, check the dets," she says before her eyes flicker blue as she sends the data to Siz whose eyes light up orange. He frowns in thought as he reads over the list of iron he was getting out of the deal.
"Hmm, is that the new Grunning auto-cannon? The XLM model?" Siz asks while running a hand across his chin as he looks over to Valkyrie.
"No clue, the guy who knew the list better is chunky salsa, remember?" She tells him with a shrug before taking another drag of her fag.
"Hm," Siz says to her with a frown before getting to the bottom of the list and smiling. "Well, fuck. Your bosses are throwing in some Hex Ammo as well? That's some preem shit," he says with glee.
"Probably why they cut it from forty to twenty," Valkyrie says before Harry walks back into the room with his backpack stuffed with food. He stands just in front of Valkyrie before placing his backpack down, giving her a full view of the Samurai logo on the back of the old beat-up jacket.
"You gonks done yet?" Harry asks before crossing his arms with a scowl on his face.
Siz rolls his eyes but nods. "Yeah, the offer is good. I'll take it so I can shut up the brat at the very least," he says before the orange light leaves his eyes and slides the plastic case across the table.
"Preem, do you mind if I check the Daemon before I hand anything over?" Valkyrie asks before walking over to the table and picking up the case. Siz just shrugs and waves his hand but keeps his eye on Valkyrie as she opens the case to find a shard. She sighed before activating her Heads Up Display and the world fell into a neon-blue haze, Valkyrie tilted her head to keep Harry out of her sight so as not to try and scan the kid. The HUD was an integrated and customizable system in any Magi-Neuralware that linked up to Optic's and the OS that sat at the tailbone and ran up the spine with Polonium wires that were threaded throughout the body. The many things that could be loaded and controlled via the HUD of any given person were extensive with new programs and apps popping up all the time.
Valkyrie's setup was practical for her line of work, or at least she thought so. Her heartbeat, blood pressure, tox screen, and Magi-tech radiation levels, or her Bio-monitors. On the other side was her digital ammo count for both her shotgun and sidearm along with the slots for her quick hacks, a small tab labeled "Collector mode", Operating System, and RAM Temperature. Along the top was a drop-down screen for access to the net and cellular adapter with a list of contexts for work and a few joy toys she enjoyed.
She was a bit of a workaholic, she was woman enough to admit that.
Along the bottom was just a generic compass that would point north, but honestly with the NaV system she could pull up with the net, she really didn't need an app for it. Valkyrie scans the shard and doesn't even blink as it comes back as a mixture of Silica and Polonium, she had expected that. She quickly activates a firewall for her Neural Port located just behind her ear before sliding in the shard. The clicking sound and slight pitch she felt right beside her ear was always a bit off-putting but she ignored it as a stream of data started running down right in front of her eyes in pink. She ran a basic scan to figure out if the shard was real or not, it was, and she let out a sigh of relief.
She knew enough about tech to know what she was looking for to authenticate what was on the shard, but she would leave it to the deckheads in the lab to figure out if this was the real deal or not. She was only to pick the damn thing up and bring it back to the office, nothing more, nothing less.
Valkyrie presses against the shard and ejects it from the port before placing it back into the plastic case it came in before reaching into the inner pocket of her suit and pulling out two plastic cards.
"Here," Valkyrie says, handing off the cards to Siz who takes them with a raised brow. "The gold one is the chop," she tells him as her brown eyes flicker blue once more, emptying the private account full of eddies into the data chip on the card. "Should have the eddies on it now, the second one of a key card that will give you access to a private storage locker on company grounds. It two days head to this nav point-" she says before sending Siz the dets "-and at ten pm, the guard is gonna take an extra long break. You'll have two hours to move everything in storage container two-two-six off-sight, no more, no less. There should be a mag-lift waiting for you to use when you get there but be warned that the card will only work on the outside gate, the main door, and the unit. Using it anywhere else or more than once will set off the alarms and you'll have lawmen crawling all over your ass, Preem?" Valkyrie informs Siz who frowns at her words but nods his head.
"Preem, Choom," Siz says before standing up and offering his hand with a smile. "Hopefully this is the start of a beautiful partnership," he says as Valkyrie just looks at his hand before taking the final drag of her fag and putting it out in an open Nova-coke can.
"Loss my dets," is all Valkyrie says before stuffing the Cloak Daemon into her pockets. "And don't forget to pay the kid," she says with a smirk before turning away from the Ganger.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say Corpo-"
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!
RATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATAT!
BANG BANG BANG BANG!
Before Siz could even finish his sentence a hail of gunfire ripped through the cheap drywall and him. One of the large rounds hits him, turning his upper torso and head into a liquid that splashes like sticky hot red paint on the walls, Valkyrie, and the kid. Valkyrie dives to the floor and covers her head as the onslaught of ordinance blasts through the wall just above her. She hears Harry scream before hitting the deck himself and rolling into the corner of the room to tuck himself into a ball.
Valkyrie really hated odd jobs.
As the first barrage of gunfire dies down, Valkyrie brings back up her HUB before activating "Collector mode". Her eyes glow blue as she feels the static shock running down her spine and into her limbs. Magi-tech implants begin to hum with energy as the system boots up the cyber-tech implanted in her body. Polonium cyber-lines that run along her arms, back, chest, and under her eyes start to glow faintly blue as the fake magic circuits wake up and begin to run hot. She was faintly aware that her OS and body temp began to spike as she rolled over onto her back.
Valkyrie quickly activates the Localized Gravity Generator in her right arm and bends the fundamental energies of the universe to her will via the Magi-tech in her arm by throwing the couch at the back wall. She rolls to her feet as she keeps her head low and swiftly crosses the room to take cover behind the couch before pressing her left hand to the fake leather before she feels a surge of energy down her arm. The couch shudders once before a cracking fills the air and the couch is transfigured into nothing more than a couch-shaped block of iron.
What Magi-tech can accomplish with non-magical humans is limited, to say the least. Any wizard or witch with a wand could have done the same thing without the drawbacks of using Magi-tech and in half the time with proper training.
The ping ping ping of rounds being reflected off the iron block echoed around the small room as Valkyrie brought her tactician up before cocking back the pump to a half-cock to check the round in the chamber. The powder blue of a Hex Shell looks back at her before she pulls the pump forward and loads the shell. Valkyrie hears the footsteps of a charging (possible) ganger and takes a breath before popping up from behind her barricade and taking aim with her shotgun.
Hex rounds is a catch-all term for any munitions that have been enchanted, charmed, spelled, or otherwise modified in any way with magic. From the projectile, to the gunpowder, to even the casing or primer. They come in as many forms as there were spells and potions that Magical kind had created over the years.
Valkyrie's M2038 Tactician had been hand-modified by her to remove the trigger disconnect from her shotgun so it allowed her to slam fire it. Turning a single-action firing shotgun into a semi-automatic shotgun that was very effective in the alleyways and hallways of London that Valkyrie often found herself fighting in. Adding in Flechette Hex Rounds on top would admittedly be a bit overkill, something that Valkyrie wholeheartedly approved of.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Four shots were fired in less than three seconds and the electrified enlarging flechette scattered out in front of her. As the flechette leaves the tube of the Tactician electricity jumps between them creating a web of lightning as they cut through the air, dust, gun smoke, and bodies. Once they impact soft tissue the barbed flechettes expand into yard-long spears that rip the first ganger apart as they fly through him. The screams of other gangers can be heard through the dust as Valkyrie smiles.
She takes the lull in the gunfire to turn on her heel and begins to run, keeping low as she does, holding her shotgun by the barrel. She vaguely notes the kid scrambling for something in the middle of the room before she charges out. The larger living room just beyond the small office was in no better shape as some of the gangers and hang-arounds lay dead as she rushed through the room and toward the door.
"You fucking cunt!" a voice screams and Valkyrie turns her head to see Trigger the doorman setting up with a bleeding stump for an arm as he was trying to raise his Cranage with his other arm. Valkyrie reaches into her suit jacket and pulls out her Unity handgun before giving Trigger two pops goodbye as she rushes out of the door. Valkyrie crosses the doorway just in time to crash into another ganger, this one more borg than the chrome jockeys she was dealing with. Metal limbs and twisted spikes sticking out from the top of his head slam against the ground as they both fall on top of the corpse of the faceman she had shown up with, her shotgun clattering to the floor.
The ganger, with far more powerful limbs, overtakes her in the struggle as they begin to wrestle for her gun. "You fucking little meat bitch, I'm to fuck you in two!" the ganger screams in her face, his tongue twice as long as it should be hanging out of his mouth. Valkyrie tries to force her handgun to point at his chest as he sits on top of her, but the ganger's arm is a vice of three cyber claws cutting into her fingers to stop her.
She doesn't know if it was dumb luck or him having a death wish, but the next thing Valkyrie knows the ganger is flung forward when someone slams into his back.
"Watch it gonk!" Harry yells at the ganger as he trips over the older man and lands off to the side, his bag full of food hitting the floor. The man's other arm lashes out with his other arm with the same claw-like Magi-tech arm and wraps it around Harry's leg.
"Where the fuck do you think you're going flesh bag, I'll fuck you to death too!" the ganger screams in a wild synthetic tone like it was coming out of a speaker.
"Get the fuck off me, asshole!" Harry yells as he begins to kick at the man's arm to no avail.
In a desperate moment, both Harry and Valkyrie struggle to escape the Borg's grasp as the pound of footsteps can be heard coming down the hall. The Brog slowly begins to crush Valkyrie's hand as she screams with Harry being dragged closer. The Brog laughed, high and mechanical as it taunted them for being a two-for-one special, right up to the point the barrel of the tactician was pressed against his chrome dome.
"Let me go," Harry says as he holds the shotgun, the butt of the gun resting on the floor as the small boy holds the body to his side and his finger resting on the trigger. "N-Now," he demands in a voice filled with fear as his hands shake.
"Or what meat bag?" the Borg asks with a laugh. "You gonna pull the trig and flatline me? Do you even have the balls?" the Brog taunts Harry more as his hands begin to shake even worse, with emerald lines that look like the gold circuitry on a motherboard beginning to crawl and cover the shotgun.
But Harry didn't have to do anything but buy Valkyrie a few seconds to load the Brog with a quickhack. Harry watches as the almost fully cybernetic man's eyes like up light blue before his synthetic voice screams in agony as his body and circuitry begin to fry from the electrical discharge going off inside his cyberware. This frees Valkyrie's hands enough to point her right hand at the Brog's chest and use her LGG to launch the ganger off of her and through the air as she levels her sidearm to the Brog.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
Three rounds found their way to the dead center of the Brog's chest as he flew through the air and landed in a heap in the apartment. She doesn't know if it zeroed the fucker or not because at the moment she doesn't care as she cuts her HUD and turns her Unity on to the kid. Harry, is frozen in fear as he looks down the barrel of a gun and holds the shotgun in his shaking arms. The pounding of footsteps came ever closer as the two looked into each other's eyes, dull brown meets shining emerald.
"Mum, what's a Valkyrie?" she inquired of her mother so long ago, long before her first surgery, long before meeting the monsters she called grandfather and father. "Is it like an angel?" she asked so innocently.
She couldn't remember much of her mother, the pain of the surgeries and the trauma of the brain dances that trained her long stripped away most of the memories of those happy days. But she does remember her pausing, hesitating to tell her what a Valkyrie was, possibly because she knew what fate awaited her as a Squib.
"Yes, dear. They're something like an angel," she whispered sadly before brushing her brown hair out of her face, and Valkyrie wasn't sure if she was crying or not.
It would be another two years before she found out what her name meant; The Collector of the Slain.
But what she saw in front of her wasn't a warrior or fighter to be collected. It was a scared and hungry child, eyes wide with fear and covered in blood not his own. "Fuck!" she yells before rolling to the gangers coming down the hallway and opening fire on them.
Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!
Valkyrie kneecaps two of them before landing two shots on a bigger ganger with enhanced muscles that had a Cut-o-Matic raised above her head in the eyes. The three gangers drop, and scatter the rest into cover as Valkyria stands back up and lays down cover fire.
Pop! Pop! Pop! Click!
As the Unity runs dry, Valkyrie reaches for her belt. First, she grabs one of the two Hex grenades off her belt before pulling out one of the two spare magazines for her sidearm. She presses down on the primer before tossing the handheld explosive and presses the release for the magazine well before quickly flicking her wrist to toss the spent magazine away. By the time she slams the new magazine into the well and racks the slide back to load the new round, the Hex Grenade goes off.
Pop! Hisssssss!
The hex grenade was one infused with a Glacius charm which sends a sheet of ice almost a foot thick in all directions, sealing off the hallway from the rest of the gangers. Valkyrie turns to see Harry looking at her with wide eyes before she reaches down and grabs him by the aluminum collar of his Samurai jacket and hauls him to his feet. "Move!" she yells at him before pushing him down the hall.
"But my bag!" Harry yells looking back at the bright orange backpack before Valkyrie shoves him again.
"If we make it out of this alive kid, I'll buy you a new one! Now move your ass!" Valkyrie yells before pushing Harry one more time, who stumbles with her shotgun still in his arms right before.
Bang. Crack! Snap!
Something punches through Valkyrie's NIJ level three-plus ballistic plate armor, her side, and right through the front plate as well. The bullet, one that was no doubt a hex round, barely misses Harry due to his stumble. Valkyrie watches her Biometrics immediately start to dip as her body heat starts to rise to one hundred and one degrees. The heatsink sub-system activates as the slots that run up her spine open to vent hot air and liquid coolant shoots down her spine chilling her body and dropping her heat back down to safe levels. Sadly, it did nothing for her blood pressure which was still dropping.
Harry turns around just in time to see Valkyrie slam into him and pin him against the wall right before-
RATATATATATATATATATAATATATATATAATATATAATATATATAATATATATATATATATATATATATATATA!
A hail fire of hex rounds rips through the enchanted ice like it was cheap wallpaper, it also doesn't help that the bullets cut through the steel-reinforced concrete wall as well. The bullets cut a hole in the ice and both Harry and Valkyrie could hear the gangers screaming to blow the ice. Valkyrie holsters her Unity before taking her Shotgun back from Harry, her HUD updating to show the remaining rounds in her Tactician along with what's on her. There were still four in the chamber, all non-hex Slug rounds, and eight more shells on her that were a mixture of Hex and Non-Hex shells.
"The stairs! Get them now and head up to the roof, now!" Valkyrie yells at Harry before pointing down the hallway.
"Up? Shouldn't we be going down?!" Harry Argued as he started down the hallway.
"If these gonks have a brain cell between them they would have cut off all exits on the bottom floor," Valkyria says as she grips her shotgun handle. "So get to the roof! If we can get there we can get out of here, so get your ass moving!" she shouts back at Harry who takes off down the hall. As Valkyrie sees an arm reach into the hole cut by the hex rounds with a primed-armed grenade, she quickly levels her shotgun at the offending arm, and as she squeezes the trigger, Valkyrie can't help but wonder why there was aquamarine circuitry on her Tactician.
Ba-Booooooooooooooom!
What left the barrel of Valkyrie's shotgun wasn't a slug, but a lead rod surrounded by a cone of condensed mana. It shattered the ice wall like it was glass and carved away the concrete and steel that made up the hallway like it was butter as well as reducing the gangers behind the ice wall to pulp. The Tactician kicks back like a Cranage and knocks Valkyrie off her feet and through the air before she slams into the back wall. She slides down the wall and lands on her ass with a gasp, feeling as if someone had stabbed her in the guts thanks to the bullet wound she had.
Valkyrie couches at her stomach before looking up at the destruction done at the barrel of her gun. She winced and blinked in surprise before using her Tactician to help her back to her feet. She was feeling the pain and the blood loss now as the world began to wobble and tilt as she made her way to the stairwell. In the corner of her HUD, she vaguely sees a small pop-up downloading something in emerald green.
[DHE-001 download confirmed…]
….
[Download starting…]
….
"The fuck?" Valkyrie thinks to herself as she tries to cancel the download and launch a counter-hack against whatever net runner was trying to get into her systems.
[Download Percentage: 10 percent]
She tries to trace the hack, but it begins and ends with her, much to Valkyrie's confusion.
[Download Percentage: 45 percent]
She tries to reinforce her firewalls to block the download, but it punches right through them as if they weren't even there.
[Download Percentage: 90 percent]
The only thing Valkyrie could think of was a hard system reset but doing that in the middle of a firefight was tantamount to suicide.
[DHE-001: Scythe download completed.]
….
[Reaper rounds remaining: One]
….
[Protect him. Please.]
….
The download stopped with that simple message. Valkyrie didn't know who or what had done it, and didn't even know the "him" the program spoke of but as the message box collapses all it leaves behind was a strange symbol on her HUD.
That of a line inside a triangle inside a circle.
Valkyrie ignores it for now and begins to push herself up the stairs to the next floor, hoping to get to the roof before any more of the Brog fucks show up. "Harry!" she calls out as she leans on the railing and uses her shotgun as a crutch to get up the stairs. Valkyrie sees Harry looking over the edge of the railing almost two stories up by the fire escape to the roof; she quickly cuts her HUD to look at the boy.
"What the bloody fuck was that explosion?!" Harry screams down with his eyes wide with fright.
"Nothing! Is the door locked?" Valkyrie asks as she continues to stumble and climb the steps.
"Yeah, but I'm working on it, so get up here!" he calls back before disappearing back over the railing. Valkyrie looks back just for a moment to the hallway, listening for more footsteps or voices but to her relief, she hears nothing. As quickly as she can she makes her way up the stairs while making a quick call.
Be-Beep! Be-Beep! Be-Beep!
"Yes, Miss Carrow?" a synthetic female voice speaks into her ear in a cheery and bubbly tone.
"Mave! I need an emergency pick-up on the roof of Sukimaru Apartments in Whitechapel for two, on the double!" Valkyrie yells at the Virtual Intelligence of the company-owned AV, the VI was named after some old Celtic queen.
"Of course, Miss Carrow, shall I come in with guns hot?" the VI asks, and Valkyrie swears that it had a bit of glee to her voice.
"Whatever! Just get here, Now!" Valkyrie says as she makes it to the last flight of stairs. Harry was by the door, and a control panel was installed in the wall next to it. Harry had somehow gotten the panel's face off and was fiddling with the innards of the panel. "What the hell kid? I could have just hacked that," Valkyrie tells him as she limps up the last of the stairs.
"Well, you weren't here. So I had to do it myself, and I almost…Got it!" Harry cries out as there is a flash of aquamarine light before the door to the roof sliding open with a hiss of hydraulics. "Come on, I know a path to the other building that we can get out of here from," Harry says as he steps onto the rocky roof and points over to the other building that looks even more rundown than the one they stood on.
"No, wait-" Valkyrie tries to say, to inform the boy of her incoming AV and to get him to stop. But no sooner as Harry takes off to run across the building, the roof explodes outwards. Stone and metal rain down as Harry is thrown forward, rolling across the roof before slamming into one of the many data banks that were scattered across the roof. Under the overcast sky of London City, on the rocky roof of a ten-story building, a man-made monster of metal and flesh ripped its way through the concrete roof. It was once a man but over the years had removed his flesh, blood, and bone to be replaced with mesh, oil, and steel. His legs were replaced with black reinforced Magi-tech legs with inverted knees that led up to a reinforced waist that had a long scorpion tail attached to it, dripping acid onto the roof from the tip that was poised to strike.
One arm was replaced with a silver arm with six long blades sticking out of its forearm that sent sparks as it carved into the concrete. The other arm was half the size of its huge body, and its forearm was made from thick concave metal, almost like a shield with a large tube of what looked to be solid steel sticking out of the top. Its chest was encased in armor that could tank even direct hits from Hex rounds and mortar ammo. Other than its lower jaw, most of its face was replaced with scanners and sensors with a long mane of red synthetic polymers that made up its fake hair.
"A Manticore!" Valkyrie thinks to herself in shock and fear. "Where the fuck did a street gang get a fucking Manticore!?" she asked but had no answer to her own question.
Many magical creatures did not survive the technological revolution brought on by Magi-tech, dying out by poachers both magical and mundane, or killed off by the pollution from factories spilling into their territories. But did not stop pseudo-military organizations from creating look-alikes of these once terrible monsters with Magi-tech and "willing" test subjects.
Valkyrie snaps out of her shock when she sees the Manticore reaching out for Harry. The Tactician is racked to eject the last spent shell before sliding into the next slug into the chamber. She levels her shotgun at the beast of war before the pop-up on her HUD returns once one.
[Would you like to use a Reaper round? Y/N?]
Valkyrie ignores the pop-up before squeezing the trigger and firing off the slug round into the side of the Manticore's face. The man-made horror screams out in pain before turning to Valkyrie and pulling itself fully onto the roof, but Valkyrie already started to run across the roof, drawing her Unity as she does. The Manticore swings its bladed arm at Valkyrie, she ducks under the swing as she begins to unload her sidearm at the Manticore's face. But the man-beast just kept eating shot after shot with its face, small arms fire was doing nothing, and with dropping blood pressure and losing even more blood. Valkyrie wasn't fast enough to dodge the follow-up blow from the shield arm, knocking her airborne before she landed and bounced across the roof and into an AC unit with her Tactician skidding away from her.
The Manticore charges at Valkyrie, raising its shield arm, looking to slam it down and crush her to death. Before the beast could do it, however, the whizzing spinning up of mini-guns could be heard.
PINKPINKPINKPINKPINKPINKPINKPINKPINKPINKPINKPINKPINK!
The red and silver flying car descends onto the Manticore from the air and releases its full payload onto it. The man-made monster roars and brings up its shield arm to block the hail of bullets letting Valkyrie try to get out of the way. The Manticore rips a data bank from the roof and throws it at the AV, causing it to swerve out of the way as it runs out of ammo in the five-second window it gave Valkyrie.
She tries to make it to her shotgun, but the Manticore turns and slams its shield arm down right beside her as Valkyrie barely dodges the blow. The metal bar on the shield arm comes down with a BOOM! shattering another part of the roof and flinging Valkyrie across the roof. She rolls to a stop, only a few feet away from her Shotgun, seeing she had also dropped her Unity when the Manticore hit her the first time.
She tried to push herself back up, but her vision was fading and she had lost far too much blood. The Manticore walks much like an ape would if they still existed over to the down Valkyrie before placing its weighted arm down on her. She would have screamed if she had any air in her lungs, but she could barely turn her head to see the war machine raise its tail to bring it down on her.
"This is it," Valkyrie thought to herself. This was the price one paid for doing something good in London, this was the end, so she closed her eyes to accept her death.
"Fuck off you knob-headed gonk!" Harry screams, causing Valkyrie's eyes to shoot open to see the boy vaulting over the beast's back. In his hand was a combat knife with aquamarine circuitry running up the blade, Valkyrie watched as neon lights began to swirl and dance around the blade before they solidified into a crystal blade as long as her arm.
Techno-Magi. A term that had only popped up in the last thirty years, most pure-blood wizards and witches scuff at the term. For it describes a new race of magical humans who can interact with the advances in technology to a greater degree than those who control it. Out of one thousand children, only one could be born with these new and powerful magics.
The blade of light cuts through the manticore's tail like a hot knife through butter causing the creature to roar and lash out at the thing that had harmed it; freeing Valkyrie from its grasp. Valkyrie's right hand shoots out and summons forth her Shotgun, as it flies into her hand she flips over just in time to see the beast strike Harry and knock him away from it. But by the time the beast turned back to her, she had racked her shotgun one last time as the emerald green pop-up appeared again.
[Use the flipping Reaper round!? Y/Y]
At this time, any Edgerunner would say a quip or spout something heroic, but all Valkyrie does is smile before squeezing the trigger.
BA-BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
And powder blue light wrapped around a lead rod fires from the barrel of the gun, obliterating the upper half of the mechanized monster.
Valkyrie's HUD turns off as she hears Maeve's synthetic voice in her ear "Miss Carrow, my scans indicated that you have lost a substantial amount of blood, would you like me to transport you to the nearest hospital?" the VI asks as soon as Harry comes limping into view with wide eyes and an unsure look on his face.
"Maeve, land on the roof and open the door," Valkyrie says, trying to fight through the pain and tunnel vision. "Harry, …glove compartment, …first aid hypos, …Maeve take us…home…" she says as her head begins to dip.
"Us? Miss Carrow, my sensors only show you on the roof? Are you perhaps hallucinating?"
As the AV lands and Valkyrie begins to slip into unconsciousness, she finally gets why some legends…Never Fade Away…
Chapter done and holy fuck this was a fun one.
But no rant, too brain-fried to do one.
Hope y'all enjoyed it!
Kingsaxcul, out!