Project: Gamer Ver. 2 (Young Justice/Gamer/Multicross OC)
- Thread starter Mister Ficser
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Frescko
Transhumanist
At the highest levels Reinforcement is powerful, exceedingly so, the reasons why people don't use it more often in fate is because it's dangerous to learn to reinforce you own body, reinforcement while mainly used on the body can be used on spells, making them conceptually better.
welp someones going to do something stupid, most likely Zeus. Unless Wonder woman delivers a warning from Gia's higher plane self or Al may get a quest to 'defend' himself from their behavior. Only one I like is hades, a few of the others are ok Hera always blames zeus's kids and the women he sleeps with and not the man himself, she the goddess of marriage could divorce him it is an aspect of marriage.
His first wife was the Oceanid Metis, who he swallowed on the advice of Gaia and Uranus, so that no son of his by Metis would overthrow him, as had been foretold. Later, their daughter Athena would be born from the forehead of Zeus. I don't think any of the other gods know he did this and think she just ran away, plus I'm reasonably Sure they all have a deep seated dislike of eating either each other or humans, there's a myth about how a king became a ware wolf because he feed the gods people meat also they were swallowed by their dad...I think Metis is alive as well though, sitting in zeus head and literally makeing him paranoid and erratic doesn't excuse his behavior tho, but might just be another fanfic. Sorry for the rambling can't wait to see what happens.😄 also they could just look at him sense what he is and nope right out of a confrontation, or try desperately to win him over.
His first wife was the Oceanid Metis, who he swallowed on the advice of Gaia and Uranus, so that no son of his by Metis would overthrow him, as had been foretold. Later, their daughter Athena would be born from the forehead of Zeus. I don't think any of the other gods know he did this and think she just ran away, plus I'm reasonably Sure they all have a deep seated dislike of eating either each other or humans, there's a myth about how a king became a ware wolf because he feed the gods people meat also they were swallowed by their dad...I think Metis is alive as well though, sitting in zeus head and literally makeing him paranoid and erratic doesn't excuse his behavior tho, but might just be another fanfic. Sorry for the rambling can't wait to see what happens.😄 also they could just look at him sense what he is and nope right out of a confrontation, or try desperately to win him over.
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Given that she ended up on his naughty list, as of chapter 135, with the above being from chapter 140, he seems to have just ignored her in his inventory afterwards. Just one more toad statute of numerous ones cluttering up the place.
She doesn't get any kind of mention in story afterwards, in any case, as far as I can recall (with searching also not bringing anything else up).
She got a single line since then. There simply hasn't been much to do with her yet. If that changes, you'll know.
Anime Adjacent: Edgerunners 03
Cyberpunk Edgerunners Part 3
Once upon a time, David's mother had told him not to get into the car with any strangers.
Always sound advice and infinitely more important in Night City, one of the Corporate Capitals of the world with a Scav population to match.
That said? The stranger in the driver seat of the little brown minivan had taken David at his worst and taken him to get actual, medical assistance. In Night City that made Alec something akin to a saint.
The saint of slow drivers!
"How long does it take to get out of the city?" David asked, his cheek pressed against the window as he stared at the passing cars while they sat at a red light.
"Depends on how the city is feeling." Alec told him, one hand tapping away at the steering wheel in tune with some ancient rock song about being closer to right. "She doesn't like letting go of people before she's made her mark."
"...That doesn't make any sense." David was having second thoughts on asking the Solo to teach him. And third thoughts.
Not that he was going to act on any of them. The two of them were at the northern limits of the city, heading out to the oil fields where Alec promised to teach him how to shoot and figure out how to use the external cyberdeck he'd offered the boy.
Finally the light turned green and the duo passed by a tricked out yellow and black Chevillon Emperor that definitely caught David's eye.
He wanted to know how much he'd have to earn, how much work he'd have to do so he could get something like that... Rather than a dinky little Indian minivan like Alec was driving.
"'Course it don't." Alec agreed as they began to pass by the ruins of oil wells beyond the walls of the city. "You're a native. You don't really feel it when the City is watching you, planning out which way it'll kill ya. Trap ya. Ain't the first time I've been somewhere rotten and hateful, down to the core. If the merc life suits ya, you'll get out from time to time, make some scratch somewhere that ain't so hostile and you'll really feel it when you come back."
David... Honestly couldn't tell if the guy was talking about the atmosphere of the city or if he really believed in some kinda spiritual hoo-doo.
Giving up on worrying about it as crazy people with crazy opinions, he chose instead to focus on where they were and what they were doing.
Specifically in the destroyed oil fields north of the city and Alec was parking his little junker. Getting out of the cramped hunk of junk, he followed Alec to the back and barely kept his jaw from dropping when he saw what the man had hidden behind the closed doors.
Guns! Bullets! A laptop computer?!
"Whoa!" David exclaimed, reaching out to try and grab one of the pistols only to have his hand slapped away by Alec, the Solo offering him an unimpressed glare.
"Chill, Dave. Got things to go over before you start blastin' shit." The man extracted two identical pistols and handed one over to the boy. "This here is a Liberty. Solid pistol, standard magazines have fourteen rounds in 'em. It's a Power weapon, means it can link up with a Ballistic Coprocessor and show you where things'll go. Heard there's some new mods that the corpos are playing with to skip that part, though."
David flipped the weapon over in his hands, noting the weight, the length of the barrel, the buttons on the side of the gun...
"What do these things do?" He ended up asking as he flicked one of the buttons and noted that it made another one pop out on the opposite side of the gun.
"Good, you already found the safety." Alec held his gun sideways, fingers conspicuously away from the trigger, and pointed at the parts David had asked about. "That's basically a physical lock inside your gun. It stops you from squeezing the trigger when it's active. The other button releases the mechanism locking the magazine in place, lets it drop out. You'll get real familiar with both of those, real quick."
The next thing Alec extracted from his van was a box of bullets. 9mm, fifty in a box.
"Gonna teach you to load up while we go over some safety basics. Guns are damned good weapons, David, but they don't care what's in front of the barrel. That's gonna be on you, that's gonna be on me. Ain't about to tell you not to shoot a person, Night City ain't gonna give you that kinda luxury. I am gonna tell you to be real sure you only point it at people you want dead." Alec explained as he showed David how to load ammo into the magazines. "You feel you gotta make threats, you make 'em. Don't go pulling a gun though, not unless you plan to use it. Also, don't be a gonk and keep your finger off the trigger unless you plan on pulling it. You get spooked, you pull a fist, that's an accidental gunshot. Might'a shot a friend. Might'a gave away your position. All bad shit."
David nodded as the expert spoke, making sure to pay attention. This wasn't some kind of game. If he messed up, he might not get to go home.
"So, what, I keep the safety on when I'm not using it?" David asked, getting a nod in return as he mimicked Alec on loading the magazine into the gun. Pulling the slide back slowly, the Arasaka student watched as the mechanism loaded a bullet into place. "And I don't point it at things I don't want to shoot. And, uh, keep my fingers off the trigger when I'm not shooting? Is that it?"
"Almost." Alec nodded to him as the orphan paraphrased his instructions. "Bullets don't stop just 'cuz they hit somethin'. So try and stay aware of your surroundings when you start shooting. You put a bullet through some Maelstrom metal-head? That's great! The bullet kept going and hits whatever you went to extract? That's not so great. Hate failing an op on stupid shit like that, but it happens and it'll keep happening. These rules are to minimize risks, we can't really get rid of 'em."
After that, things went pretty smooth. They spent the better part of an hour just shooting at scrap metal. David had even found some antique prosthetic left arm, rusted chrome, that they'd propped up to shoot at for a bit until it was nothing more than twisted scrap.
Back when Gloria had been alive, they'd never been able to do that kind of thing. She and David never had the money. Never had the time. She'd worked, tirelessly, just to put him through the best school in the city.
And David saw three months of her take home wages when a random Solo had gone and flatlined a skeevy ripperdoc and given the boy the leftovers.
Eventually the two moved on to figuring out how to configure the external cyberdeck to David's implants. That one...
"Swear to god, hate messing with this stuff..." Alec grumbled, text scrolling visibly down his glasses as the two of them were connected to the old Owl unit. "If it weren't so useful, I'd just stick to creepin' round the shadows."
"...Think I found the permissions." David spoke up, letters and numbers dancing across his own eyes. "Yeah! Just got to set myself as a registered user and... Done!"
"Fantastic!" Alec disconnected the hardwire that was hooked into the side of his glasses. "That thing'll run as fast as you can think at it. Me? Gotta use a keyboard and some macro buttons sewn into my gloves. Still, works fine for breachin' most things and slinging quickhacks. Speakin' of..."
David got a very, very brief warning flash before he lost all feeling in his limbs and he dropped to the ground, his vision went dark. He wouldn't lie, he started screaming then and there.
The 'Rebooting!' message flashing across his optics only helped a little to calm his panic.
"...What the hell was that?!" David screeched after he got his breathing back under control. "The hell did you do to me?!"
"Cyberware Reboot." His vision was grainy when it came back, his optics going through a boot up sequence that was downright unpleasant. "Not exactly a common quickhack, there are better ones out there for its cost. Like System Reset, that one straight up knocks someone out."
"Why can't I feel my limbs?!" David was still panicking. He just did a solid job of listening while he did so.
"That Sandy of yours." Alec stated, pointing at David's chest. "Made that the key to your whole nervous system. That thing has to boot back up? You're outta commission. In the field? That means you're dead."
"But-but it's, like, some kinda top secret military prototype! Shouldn't it, like, have some major ICE or something?!" A new bar had appeared in David's vision, in the middle where it blocked his view.
It said 'Sandevistan: Loading...'.
"Kid... If it's some military model, this is gonna be a sad reality check. Military gear is made to be as cheap, fast and replaceable as they can make it. And experimental prototypes can be even worse." David's vision fully returned, as well as his sense of touch. "You don't know what the thing they were testing, is. Did they want to see how well it would work without safeties in it? They trying to cut down the reset timer? You got some new part or mod hooked in there? Thing like that, security'd be minimal on purpose just so they can jack in and check it out without having to go through a mess of authentication every single time."
David managed to get his breathing under control after a few more moments, then he finally managed to stand up.
He really didn't want to admit that Alec made sense. He wanted to think his gear was special, that it was better than what other people had. Being told otherwise... Hurt.
"I'm... Good. I'm good." David said, shaking his head and patting himself down, checking the gun strapped to his hip. "What can I do about that?"
"That? That I don't know." Alec admitted as he began walking back to his car. "Should be some way to limit the number of devices that can access it. Lock down its network so only trusted devices can connect to it. You'll have to talk to an actual expert on that front- Never had to learn, myself."
Right. Cyberware sensitivity. The guy was practically a cripple on that front.
Great.
David spent a long moment thinking about that issue as the guy set up a handful of targets before turning to the boy.
"So." Alec waved to the fourteen targets spread out around the area. "A Sandevistan. Those things speed up your perception of time. Recent models can even get the whole body moving at stupid fast speeds. You're looking at a whole lot of give and take, there. Be smart about it, though, and you can see a whole lotta use out of it."
Fourteen targets. The same number of bullets in his gun.
"You said I could be real dangerous if I used it smart, but using it dumb would... You mentioned people blowing out their joints?" David knew he'd said something like that over at the noodle stand.
"Yeah." Alec extracted the magazine of his gun and checked the side, silently counting out how many bullets he had before he moved to top it off. "Even cyber-limbs have a tolerance to how fast they're supposed to move. Exceed that and you start putting a lot of wear and tear on the joints. For you, that'd mean a lot of pain. For a borg? Sudden cyberware failure. Friggen hilarious when they're trying to ram a mantis blade through you and their arm freezes midway."
"So... How do I fix that?" That actually sounded kind of horrifying. David had already gotten to experience sudden limb failure today. He didn't want to go through that again!
"Short answer? Don't use the Sandy to move, at least not a whole lot." Alec brought his gun up to aim at the targets. "It's a reflex booster... But more importantly, it gives you time to think. Gives you time to make a dozen small movements where normal folks only get to make one."
Squaring up, Alec took aim at the first target. David activated his Sandevistan when he saw the man squeeze the trigger the first time.
In slow motion, he watched the man fire off all fourteen shots. Each time he moved as little as he could, adjusting his hands and the tilt of his head more than he did his body. In a corner of David's vision, he could see a timer slowly ticking up.
By the time eight seconds had passed, Alec had put a bullet through each target. Not headshots, no, but he'd still hit center-mass fourteen times out of fourteen. At ten seconds, David cut the Sandy off and time resumed. For David, those ten seconds had felt like minutes.
"Fancy shit looks cool, really impressive. Problem is? Takes more effort and focus." Alec explained as he checked his gun and confirmed it was empty. "So while you're puttin' in the effort to line up a row of headshots? Someone else is puttin' in the same for you. Hit a gonk in the center of mass and drop 'em, then put a second shot in the dome. Bullets are cheap, unless it's in you."
David swallowed thickly at that, remembering how much... How much blood had come out of his mom. The price he'd been charged just to stabilize her.
The gnawing hole in his chest where she used to be.
"Come on." Alec's voice broke David out of his thoughts, the heavy hand on his shoulder oddly comforting as the memories made everything feel cold. "Let's pack it in then I'll let you shadow me on my next job. If it's something you don't want to do? This'll be the place to learn it."
They put things away silently. Alec seemed to be focused on the task at hand whilst David was looking at what he'd been shown, been told and had to think if it was something he genuinely wanted to do.
Maybe he could apply for a scholarship? Move into the students dorm, put the few mementos and physical memories of his mom and home into a storage unit. It'd be cheaper than trying to rent an apartment.
His thoughts drifted from one painful topic to the next as Alec drove his dinky little minivan through Night City, the filthy streets and neon lights welcoming them back into their rotten embrace like an abusive lover.
The city... David saw more crime, violence and drugs and prostitution in the forty minutes it took to get across town than he'd ever paid attention to before. Corpos buying drugs off back alley dealers, NCPD talking to Scavs and pointing them towards an enclave of the homeless...
He'd never noticed it before. Never paid attention to it before.
But right then, right there, his choices involved either looking within or looking out. It hurt less to look out.
"Wait..." David pressed a hand against the tinted glass of the side window and leaned forward to stare at a building down the block from where they'd parked. "I know that place!"
"The hell?" Alec turned to look at him, curiosity plain in his expression. "I've been watching that place for a few days. How do you know about it?"
"It... It's the place where I took my mom." The building was a run-down clinic, a place for the poor to get basic, life-extending surgeries. At a price they really couldn't afford. "She- she died, there."
"You know, I'm starting to get a little worried how often you get mixed up in my shit, kid." Alec shook his head and reached into the back seat, grabbing his laptop. "Spiky-ass hair, 'Special Implant' put in by some back alley whackjob. You gettin' bullied in school, too?"
"...Yeah?" What the heck was the guy getting at? He was the one getting mixed up in David's business!
"Found myself a goddamn protagonist. Great." Alec sighed heavily and side-eyed the young man. "You know what? No. Not dealin' with that shit right now. Got an op planned, I'll talk you through what I'll be doing. You feel like jumping in, saving some girl or handlin' some Scav that's about to pop me in the six? Don't."
Opening the laptop, the guy connected a data cable to it from the cyberdeck attached to his belt. One quick loading bar later and David could see through every camera in the building!
"Now, kid. Did you get the money-back guarantee from these butchers before they figured you couldn't pay 'em more than their buyers could for your mom's chrome?" Alec didn't even bother looking at David as he asked him that question. Instead he was busy loading several gun magazines for his pistol. Pistols.
He'd pulled a second one out from behind his back, though it looked significantly different from the Liberty he'd taught David how to handle. Some kind of rail-gun Tech pistol from the looks of it.
"They don't have a money-back guarantee." David said dumbly as his eyes were glued on the screen. As he watched the surgeon that said his mom had been stabilized was ripping the limbs off of a man that was still alive.
"Sure they do." Alec said, attaching a silencer to his Liberty. "You just gotta know the right language to ask for it. Me?"
The grin that came over the Solo's face was cold.
"I'm fluent in lead."
Once upon a time, David's mother had told him not to get into the car with any strangers.
Always sound advice and infinitely more important in Night City, one of the Corporate Capitals of the world with a Scav population to match.
That said? The stranger in the driver seat of the little brown minivan had taken David at his worst and taken him to get actual, medical assistance. In Night City that made Alec something akin to a saint.
The saint of slow drivers!
"How long does it take to get out of the city?" David asked, his cheek pressed against the window as he stared at the passing cars while they sat at a red light.
"Depends on how the city is feeling." Alec told him, one hand tapping away at the steering wheel in tune with some ancient rock song about being closer to right. "She doesn't like letting go of people before she's made her mark."
"...That doesn't make any sense." David was having second thoughts on asking the Solo to teach him. And third thoughts.
Not that he was going to act on any of them. The two of them were at the northern limits of the city, heading out to the oil fields where Alec promised to teach him how to shoot and figure out how to use the external cyberdeck he'd offered the boy.
Finally the light turned green and the duo passed by a tricked out yellow and black Chevillon Emperor that definitely caught David's eye.
He wanted to know how much he'd have to earn, how much work he'd have to do so he could get something like that... Rather than a dinky little Indian minivan like Alec was driving.
"'Course it don't." Alec agreed as they began to pass by the ruins of oil wells beyond the walls of the city. "You're a native. You don't really feel it when the City is watching you, planning out which way it'll kill ya. Trap ya. Ain't the first time I've been somewhere rotten and hateful, down to the core. If the merc life suits ya, you'll get out from time to time, make some scratch somewhere that ain't so hostile and you'll really feel it when you come back."
David... Honestly couldn't tell if the guy was talking about the atmosphere of the city or if he really believed in some kinda spiritual hoo-doo.
Giving up on worrying about it as crazy people with crazy opinions, he chose instead to focus on where they were and what they were doing.
Specifically in the destroyed oil fields north of the city and Alec was parking his little junker. Getting out of the cramped hunk of junk, he followed Alec to the back and barely kept his jaw from dropping when he saw what the man had hidden behind the closed doors.
Guns! Bullets! A laptop computer?!
"Whoa!" David exclaimed, reaching out to try and grab one of the pistols only to have his hand slapped away by Alec, the Solo offering him an unimpressed glare.
"Chill, Dave. Got things to go over before you start blastin' shit." The man extracted two identical pistols and handed one over to the boy. "This here is a Liberty. Solid pistol, standard magazines have fourteen rounds in 'em. It's a Power weapon, means it can link up with a Ballistic Coprocessor and show you where things'll go. Heard there's some new mods that the corpos are playing with to skip that part, though."
David flipped the weapon over in his hands, noting the weight, the length of the barrel, the buttons on the side of the gun...
"What do these things do?" He ended up asking as he flicked one of the buttons and noted that it made another one pop out on the opposite side of the gun.
"Good, you already found the safety." Alec held his gun sideways, fingers conspicuously away from the trigger, and pointed at the parts David had asked about. "That's basically a physical lock inside your gun. It stops you from squeezing the trigger when it's active. The other button releases the mechanism locking the magazine in place, lets it drop out. You'll get real familiar with both of those, real quick."
The next thing Alec extracted from his van was a box of bullets. 9mm, fifty in a box.
"Gonna teach you to load up while we go over some safety basics. Guns are damned good weapons, David, but they don't care what's in front of the barrel. That's gonna be on you, that's gonna be on me. Ain't about to tell you not to shoot a person, Night City ain't gonna give you that kinda luxury. I am gonna tell you to be real sure you only point it at people you want dead." Alec explained as he showed David how to load ammo into the magazines. "You feel you gotta make threats, you make 'em. Don't go pulling a gun though, not unless you plan to use it. Also, don't be a gonk and keep your finger off the trigger unless you plan on pulling it. You get spooked, you pull a fist, that's an accidental gunshot. Might'a shot a friend. Might'a gave away your position. All bad shit."
David nodded as the expert spoke, making sure to pay attention. This wasn't some kind of game. If he messed up, he might not get to go home.
"So, what, I keep the safety on when I'm not using it?" David asked, getting a nod in return as he mimicked Alec on loading the magazine into the gun. Pulling the slide back slowly, the Arasaka student watched as the mechanism loaded a bullet into place. "And I don't point it at things I don't want to shoot. And, uh, keep my fingers off the trigger when I'm not shooting? Is that it?"
"Almost." Alec nodded to him as the orphan paraphrased his instructions. "Bullets don't stop just 'cuz they hit somethin'. So try and stay aware of your surroundings when you start shooting. You put a bullet through some Maelstrom metal-head? That's great! The bullet kept going and hits whatever you went to extract? That's not so great. Hate failing an op on stupid shit like that, but it happens and it'll keep happening. These rules are to minimize risks, we can't really get rid of 'em."
After that, things went pretty smooth. They spent the better part of an hour just shooting at scrap metal. David had even found some antique prosthetic left arm, rusted chrome, that they'd propped up to shoot at for a bit until it was nothing more than twisted scrap.
Back when Gloria had been alive, they'd never been able to do that kind of thing. She and David never had the money. Never had the time. She'd worked, tirelessly, just to put him through the best school in the city.
And David saw three months of her take home wages when a random Solo had gone and flatlined a skeevy ripperdoc and given the boy the leftovers.
Eventually the two moved on to figuring out how to configure the external cyberdeck to David's implants. That one...
"Swear to god, hate messing with this stuff..." Alec grumbled, text scrolling visibly down his glasses as the two of them were connected to the old Owl unit. "If it weren't so useful, I'd just stick to creepin' round the shadows."
"...Think I found the permissions." David spoke up, letters and numbers dancing across his own eyes. "Yeah! Just got to set myself as a registered user and... Done!"
"Fantastic!" Alec disconnected the hardwire that was hooked into the side of his glasses. "That thing'll run as fast as you can think at it. Me? Gotta use a keyboard and some macro buttons sewn into my gloves. Still, works fine for breachin' most things and slinging quickhacks. Speakin' of..."
David got a very, very brief warning flash before he lost all feeling in his limbs and he dropped to the ground, his vision went dark. He wouldn't lie, he started screaming then and there.
The 'Rebooting!' message flashing across his optics only helped a little to calm his panic.
"...What the hell was that?!" David screeched after he got his breathing back under control. "The hell did you do to me?!"
"Cyberware Reboot." His vision was grainy when it came back, his optics going through a boot up sequence that was downright unpleasant. "Not exactly a common quickhack, there are better ones out there for its cost. Like System Reset, that one straight up knocks someone out."
"Why can't I feel my limbs?!" David was still panicking. He just did a solid job of listening while he did so.
"That Sandy of yours." Alec stated, pointing at David's chest. "Made that the key to your whole nervous system. That thing has to boot back up? You're outta commission. In the field? That means you're dead."
"But-but it's, like, some kinda top secret military prototype! Shouldn't it, like, have some major ICE or something?!" A new bar had appeared in David's vision, in the middle where it blocked his view.
It said 'Sandevistan: Loading...'.
"Kid... If it's some military model, this is gonna be a sad reality check. Military gear is made to be as cheap, fast and replaceable as they can make it. And experimental prototypes can be even worse." David's vision fully returned, as well as his sense of touch. "You don't know what the thing they were testing, is. Did they want to see how well it would work without safeties in it? They trying to cut down the reset timer? You got some new part or mod hooked in there? Thing like that, security'd be minimal on purpose just so they can jack in and check it out without having to go through a mess of authentication every single time."
David managed to get his breathing under control after a few more moments, then he finally managed to stand up.
He really didn't want to admit that Alec made sense. He wanted to think his gear was special, that it was better than what other people had. Being told otherwise... Hurt.
"I'm... Good. I'm good." David said, shaking his head and patting himself down, checking the gun strapped to his hip. "What can I do about that?"
"That? That I don't know." Alec admitted as he began walking back to his car. "Should be some way to limit the number of devices that can access it. Lock down its network so only trusted devices can connect to it. You'll have to talk to an actual expert on that front- Never had to learn, myself."
Right. Cyberware sensitivity. The guy was practically a cripple on that front.
Great.
David spent a long moment thinking about that issue as the guy set up a handful of targets before turning to the boy.
"So." Alec waved to the fourteen targets spread out around the area. "A Sandevistan. Those things speed up your perception of time. Recent models can even get the whole body moving at stupid fast speeds. You're looking at a whole lot of give and take, there. Be smart about it, though, and you can see a whole lotta use out of it."
Fourteen targets. The same number of bullets in his gun.
"You said I could be real dangerous if I used it smart, but using it dumb would... You mentioned people blowing out their joints?" David knew he'd said something like that over at the noodle stand.
"Yeah." Alec extracted the magazine of his gun and checked the side, silently counting out how many bullets he had before he moved to top it off. "Even cyber-limbs have a tolerance to how fast they're supposed to move. Exceed that and you start putting a lot of wear and tear on the joints. For you, that'd mean a lot of pain. For a borg? Sudden cyberware failure. Friggen hilarious when they're trying to ram a mantis blade through you and their arm freezes midway."
"So... How do I fix that?" That actually sounded kind of horrifying. David had already gotten to experience sudden limb failure today. He didn't want to go through that again!
"Short answer? Don't use the Sandy to move, at least not a whole lot." Alec brought his gun up to aim at the targets. "It's a reflex booster... But more importantly, it gives you time to think. Gives you time to make a dozen small movements where normal folks only get to make one."
Squaring up, Alec took aim at the first target. David activated his Sandevistan when he saw the man squeeze the trigger the first time.
In slow motion, he watched the man fire off all fourteen shots. Each time he moved as little as he could, adjusting his hands and the tilt of his head more than he did his body. In a corner of David's vision, he could see a timer slowly ticking up.
By the time eight seconds had passed, Alec had put a bullet through each target. Not headshots, no, but he'd still hit center-mass fourteen times out of fourteen. At ten seconds, David cut the Sandy off and time resumed. For David, those ten seconds had felt like minutes.
"Fancy shit looks cool, really impressive. Problem is? Takes more effort and focus." Alec explained as he checked his gun and confirmed it was empty. "So while you're puttin' in the effort to line up a row of headshots? Someone else is puttin' in the same for you. Hit a gonk in the center of mass and drop 'em, then put a second shot in the dome. Bullets are cheap, unless it's in you."
David swallowed thickly at that, remembering how much... How much blood had come out of his mom. The price he'd been charged just to stabilize her.
The gnawing hole in his chest where she used to be.
"Come on." Alec's voice broke David out of his thoughts, the heavy hand on his shoulder oddly comforting as the memories made everything feel cold. "Let's pack it in then I'll let you shadow me on my next job. If it's something you don't want to do? This'll be the place to learn it."
They put things away silently. Alec seemed to be focused on the task at hand whilst David was looking at what he'd been shown, been told and had to think if it was something he genuinely wanted to do.
Maybe he could apply for a scholarship? Move into the students dorm, put the few mementos and physical memories of his mom and home into a storage unit. It'd be cheaper than trying to rent an apartment.
His thoughts drifted from one painful topic to the next as Alec drove his dinky little minivan through Night City, the filthy streets and neon lights welcoming them back into their rotten embrace like an abusive lover.
The city... David saw more crime, violence and drugs and prostitution in the forty minutes it took to get across town than he'd ever paid attention to before. Corpos buying drugs off back alley dealers, NCPD talking to Scavs and pointing them towards an enclave of the homeless...
He'd never noticed it before. Never paid attention to it before.
But right then, right there, his choices involved either looking within or looking out. It hurt less to look out.
"Wait..." David pressed a hand against the tinted glass of the side window and leaned forward to stare at a building down the block from where they'd parked. "I know that place!"
"The hell?" Alec turned to look at him, curiosity plain in his expression. "I've been watching that place for a few days. How do you know about it?"
"It... It's the place where I took my mom." The building was a run-down clinic, a place for the poor to get basic, life-extending surgeries. At a price they really couldn't afford. "She- she died, there."
"You know, I'm starting to get a little worried how often you get mixed up in my shit, kid." Alec shook his head and reached into the back seat, grabbing his laptop. "Spiky-ass hair, 'Special Implant' put in by some back alley whackjob. You gettin' bullied in school, too?"
"...Yeah?" What the heck was the guy getting at? He was the one getting mixed up in David's business!
"Found myself a goddamn protagonist. Great." Alec sighed heavily and side-eyed the young man. "You know what? No. Not dealin' with that shit right now. Got an op planned, I'll talk you through what I'll be doing. You feel like jumping in, saving some girl or handlin' some Scav that's about to pop me in the six? Don't."
Opening the laptop, the guy connected a data cable to it from the cyberdeck attached to his belt. One quick loading bar later and David could see through every camera in the building!
"Now, kid. Did you get the money-back guarantee from these butchers before they figured you couldn't pay 'em more than their buyers could for your mom's chrome?" Alec didn't even bother looking at David as he asked him that question. Instead he was busy loading several gun magazines for his pistol. Pistols.
He'd pulled a second one out from behind his back, though it looked significantly different from the Liberty he'd taught David how to handle. Some kind of rail-gun Tech pistol from the looks of it.
"They don't have a money-back guarantee." David said dumbly as his eyes were glued on the screen. As he watched the surgeon that said his mom had been stabilized was ripping the limbs off of a man that was still alive.
"Sure they do." Alec said, attaching a silencer to his Liberty. "You just gotta know the right language to ask for it. Me?"
The grin that came over the Solo's face was cold.
"I'm fluent in lead."
- Location
- United States
God damn he has the worst luck in protag backstorys. On the other hand he rolled a nat crit for his wise old mentor.
damn, that was a pretty good chapter and I will be looking for more. Also sucks to learn that the place Gloria was taken to turned out to be a scav shop, but its Night City and as much as I hate to say it, that's list how things roll there. Also very happy Alec is fluent in lead, lets go get us some payback.
Always be the dragon.
If you can't, then get adopted by a dragon.
Don't know about wise... Savvy definitely, wise? Isn't this that same guy who turned Cheshire into a toad and gave her a eating disorder? Or when he accidentally created a eye stealing freak by revealing eldritch TRUTH. The point is that he is one of the most chaotic mc I have read in a great way but he personifies the absent minded professor very well.
Just read this and I have to agree.
- Location
- Isekai'd to this shitty world we're live in
Hmm... I vote YES. Let's adopt David. Yuffie could use an older brother, and Jynx might change her luv target.
Also, it would be fucking hilarious, if he learned some magic, and then they'd had a quest in Shadowrun, and here comes wired mage (WTF?! That's illegal!).
- Location
- England
I mean, both and also could be some AI shit.
- Location
- Quebec
Those life lessons are going to make it so David is even more likely to make it to the moon with Lucy.
Fixed your mistake: Al recognizes the boy is a protagonist, and can actually coach him on getting the harem ending with full confidence that, through some unpredictable bullshit contrivance, it would actually work out.
With all the intercession happening so far, the boy's story is already shaping up to be a golden ending as it is.
Teaching the kid that it's how you use your tools that's more important than having the biggest, shiniest ones. After that, telling him that practicality beats showing off.
Could he show the kid how to use a Nekomata (Wall-piercing sniper rifle)? Sure. How often is it really gonna come up, though? If the kid is actually smart, not too often.
You know, things are getting a little out of hand there. Might be time to look for an administrator.
There's this mayor of a nice little hamlet, he knows how to organize a bunch of superpowered nutjobs and undead.
"Kid, let me tell you a little secret about women. You're never going to understand what's going on in their heads. The people that do understand what a woman wants? Well, hell, the only folks that really get it are other women. That's why they hate each other- they know how the other ones think." Alec finally answered David's question about what to do in regards to the girl that approached him earlier in the night. After Alec had downed three shots of straight vodka.
"You actually get one in bed? Buddy, I'm a tell you straight. She got you into bed. You're over here, riding high on finally gettin' a piece of tail. Her? She's gonna use you as a beat-stick for all the other women in her social circle. Her success? That's her success. Your success? That's her success. Don't ever mix up your work with your Mr.Stud- Any women you meet on the job? They're gonna treat you like a gun. Once you're outta bullets or they find somethin' better? She's gonna split and you'll be left wondering what you did wrong."
"I thought you said your input met you while you were teaching some other kid?" David had to ask. He'd seen the woman a few times- Some short thing, maybe a former member of the Animals? The girl had some serious Exotics chipped in.
"Yep. Got a little golden unicorn, there." David wasn't sure what Alec meant. The girl was red and had two horns. "Don't hurt that she's more into violence- Actually, y'know what? You're lookin' for a girl, find yourself someone that will stick with you through the worst situation you can imagine. Someone that'll back you up even if you do some stupid shit like try to get into a shootout with Adam freakin' Smasher."
"...Where the Hell am I supposed to find someone like that?" Alec's advice sounded suspiciously like what his mom, Gloria used to say. About how some girl out there would be lucky to have such a smart, handsome boy like David. Considering David had never had much luck, he was going to assume it was an old person thing.
"...Shit, I'unno." Alec admitted, leaning over the bar in the Afterlife. "Look around, I guess? Ride or die midget gunbunnies can't be that hard to find, are they?"
"...You have got the weirdest sense of taste. You know that, right?" David shook his head and looked down at his own drink, still untouched.
"Key thing there, kid?" Alec brought his glass up, his fourth shot. "Is that I do, in fact, have a sense of taste."
WeirdRatThing
Contains Red Dye 40
- Pronouns
- He/They
...
Ride or die midget gunbunny...
Callin' that for a band name, thankyouverymuch.
Ride or die midget gunbunny...
Callin' that for a band name, thankyouverymuch.
Help yourself to it!
Just make sure to send me a copy of your albums.
Just make sure to send me a copy of your albums.
WeirdRatThing
Contains Red Dye 40
- Pronouns
- He/They
The entire discography is just gonna be different character themes played on kazoo.
First up: Rebecca, Milly, Kusanagi, Seras, Revy, Coco.
First up: Rebecca, Milly, Kusanagi, Seras, Revy, Coco.
Red_Faux
私を終わらせる
- Location
- 'Straya M8
Red_Faux
私を終わらせる
- Location
- 'Straya M8
Wisdom and stupid decisions are very much not mutually exclusive. In fact, one is required for earning the other
Edit: Oops, double post. Sorry
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