Birth of a Legend: Chapter 4

Okay, so it was less hunting and more like walking around for hours hoping to randomly stumble onto a crime. I swear that before I started actively looking for crime that I would see at least a half dozen muggings just walking around. Now? Fuck! This is so damned annoying!

Thankfully, I just got another message for a nearby assault in progress. So, naturally, I break into a sprint and head for it. And can I say that I fucking love sprinting? Seriously! I've done some running before but ever since I got this system thing, it's a whole new experience. After that last assault I experimented a little.

Running, jumping, throwing a punch, and swinging a blade, it all drains some stamina from me. I don't think that's unexpected. What isunexpected is that as long as I don't drain my stamina completely and let it refill, I never get tired! I can sprint until I've got very little stamina left, stop for a little to let it refill, then take off again and I feel nothing from it! No breathing heavy, no muscle strain, not even that annoying pain in the side! Fuck, I don't even sweat from it! Now, if I do run out of stamina I get 'exhausted' and I'm left moving sluggishly while waiting for my stamina to refill. While the debuff is on, I can't do anything that would cost stamina.

I did learn, after draining my stamina to nothing a few times, that I can get experience in my Athletics from the activities that drain it. Though, I think it either takes a ton of effort, or it has to be fully drained several times. I'm not sure which but either way it actually takes a lot of effort! Still, Athletics is one of the skill trees I want to really work at. Way too good not to.

During my down time I also discovered something... odd. Yeah, odd seems like the best word. I discovered how to get the components and stuff I need for crafting. When I have a legit weapon in my inventory, like my new Lexington, Knife, and Pipe, I can use the system to 'disassemble' them. I get the parts from that. I tried it on the pipe and got six common and three uncommon components. I also got some experience in the Crafting tree for that.

So, yeah, now I kind of know how crafting works. Though I am still confused about weapon rarities. The Lexington I got is 'Common' and that makes sense since they're everywhere. If it's like a game then will I get, or craft, weapons with special abilities and properties or something? That'd be badass. It's not like there's weapon damage numbers or anything on the gun that increasing rarity could buff up, so I'll just have to wait and see.

I did some other experimentation over those few hours and I gotta say, some of it is weird. Like the stealth mechanics of my system. To enter stealth I just have to crouch down. Even if I do it in the middle of the sidewalk, I will enter stealth. I laughed my ass off when I confused the hell out of some random dude testing it out. He was just walking along, minding his own business when I started to follow him. When he started getting nervous about how close I was, I crouched down and suddenly he was just fine. As soon as I stood up, he got nervous again. I did it over and over until I couldn't take it anymore and started laughing.

I also noticed that if I try to sneak up on someone and they 'spot' me, there's a small window of time in which I can hide again and they seem to completely forget about me. It checks out with what Cool said about detection times while in stealth. I can seriously fuck with reality using this system and it is glorious!

With that being the case, I come to a stop just before turning the last corner that will lead to the scanner job. I crouch down and peer around the corner to see what I'm dealing with. Doing so means it's highly unlikely for anyone down the alley to notice me and if anyone looks in my direction for more than a second or two, I can duck back and 'hide' from them.

As I look around the corner I can't help but feel a combination of excitement and fear. I can see four Tyger Claws. Two are acting as lookouts while two more are yelling at and smacking around a fifth man. I'm excited because four Claws means four weapons and probably a good amount of eddies in their pockets. I'm afraid because I can clearly see that all four of the Claws are armed with guns.

The two on lookout are holding DS1 Pulsars. Very common bullpup style submachine guns. I've heard they can be hard to control but they can put a lot of lead down range very fast. One of the gangers beating on the fifth guy is holding a handgun that I can't quite make out while the last guy is holding a D5 Copperhead. It's the assault rifle that replaced the AK-47 as the most common in the world, 'nuff said.

This was going to be dangerous as hell. I've only got twenty-one bullets and they've got more guns. But I've got the system and that trumps everything! I'm not an idiot though so there's no way I'm just charging around the corner gun blazing. Instead, I draw my Lexington and take careful aim around the corner. However, unless the lookout I'm aiming at has a skull made of metal, then even the nine millimeter slug from my Lexington should kill him in one shot.

Just as I get a bead on the lookout nearest to me, the guy with the pistol uses it to pistol whip the rando. As the guy lands, the Claw with the pistol shoots him several times. The gunshots sound deafening to me, but they also draw the lookout's attention. I don't hesitate to retake my aim and squeeze the trigger on my Lexington. Another gunshot rings out and I can see the moment the little nine millimeter bullet slams into the lookouts skull. There's a small burst of blood from his head and then he just collapses to the ground.

There's a moment of confusion due to my shot being so close on the heels of the Claw shooting the rando. I take immediate advantage and sight in on the two who were doing the beating. I pull the trigger down and fire off at least half a dozen shots. My lack of experience with guns becomes obvious when only the first couple of rounds plow into the beater with the Copperhead while the rest go wide from the recoil.

He goes down and all hell breaks loose. The remaining two Claws clue in on their buddies being gunned down and where the shots are coming from. The last lookout aims his Pulsar in my directions and opens up on full auto. I don't stick around to look past the point of him aiming in my general direction. Gunshots roar out and concrete, plaster, and other building materials go flying as his bullets rip into the corner of the building I'm ducking behind.

“We're going to fucking kill you! You don't get to mess with the Tyger Claws and live!”

“Flatline that fucker!”

I grimace as small shards of material bounce off of me. I've got not choice but to wait until he runs out of ammo and has to reload. There's no way in hell I'm sticking my head out for it to get shot. I've got no clue how much damage a single bullet will do to me, let alone a dozen from a submachine gun. It takes only a few seconds for the Claw to run through his magazine, though it feels like minutes to me.

I drop down until I'm practically laying down on the ground to peek around the corner. No need to leave my head where they might expect it to be. I quickly spot the guy with the Pulsar reloading while the other one covers my general area with his pistol. I pull back and quickly hop to my feet and carefully aim around the corner. I don't take the time to aim for more than a torso shot and squeeze the trigger once again. Another half dozen shots got off in seconds. Some slam into the guy before my aim is thrown off by recoil once again.

“Fuck! You killed Taka you bastard!”

He squeezes off a few shots in my direction but I've already pulled back again. I can't stay back for long. The last thing I need is him grabbing one of the dropped full-auto weapons and hosing me down. I crouch again and somersault out of my cover. I haven't done a somersault since I was a kid! But it works to get me out of cover and into a different position while only giving a small target. If I thought I could pull it off I would have leaped out and rolled, but I'm no action hero!

I level my pistol at the last guy and just hold the trigger down while doing my best to keep the barrel aimed in his general direction. Bullets slam into him while he returns fire at me. I feel what I'm sure is a bullet slamming into my left shoulder and driving a grunt out of me. I can see my health drop dangerously low but it's not enough to kill me outright. Meanwhile I've filled him with enough lead that he drops to the ground.

I slowly climb to my feet while panting as the adrenaline slowly begins to leave my system and gives me the shakes. I look carefully at my shoulder and can't even see where I'd been hit. There's no visible damage and no pain. Getting shot hadn't really hurt, it was just like a heavy impact really. Despite that though, I had less than thirty health left. Two hits and I would have been dead. Useful and terrifying information to have. I wasn't even hit in a vital spot, it was a shoulder hit! I can only imagine that a single shot to my head would be just as deadly to me as it was to the first guy I shot.

I barely pay attention to the experience gains in various skills while I holster my empty Lexington. I quickly enter the alley and strip the four claws and dead rando of everything they have. When everything was said and done I ended up with one Nokota D5 Copperhead, two Darra Polytechnic DS1 Pulsars, one Constitutional Arms Unity, one Tanto knife, thirty-two hundred eddies, and one datashard.

It was the rando that donated fifteen hundred eddies and the datashard to my proceeds and I cannot even express how fucking thrilled I am with this outcome! Datashards replaced USB drives forever ago and can be slotted directly into a persons skulls to give them information. Which means that under no circumstances am I jamming this datashard into my skull without checking it first. So it will just have to wait until I get home...

Wait...

This feels familiar. Didn't I think the same thing earlier with the credchips? And doesn't this system have a tab for shards? I quickly dropped the shard into my inventory to check out what would happen. As soon as I did a small message popped up asking me if I wanted to read it. With nothing to lose and no fear of directly injecting malware into my brain, I accepted.

Donovan! Choom! We got a nice job lined up. I found a nice juicy corpo target and observed him for a bit. Gonk seems to love cash cause I saw him withdrawing money more than once and taking it to his place. Had out runner friend do some digging. Dude's got a safe in his place and his accounts only ever contain enough to pay his bills. Rest of his money must be in cash in that safe. I've attached the address, floor plan, suspected location of the safe, and a daemon that should crack the safe open easily. It's your turn choom. Break into his place, get that cash, and meet me at the usual place.

While I read the message, the details for the job were loaded into my system and I got my first quest, though it was listed as a Side Job. It even updated my built in map with a waypoint pointing to the corpo's place in the more affluent section of Wellsprings. I checked everything over and nodded to myself. I could pull this off right? I had all the info, the daemon to crack the safe, and the location. The corpo should still be at work so... I just needed to get there and rob him blind right?

I looked up and down the alley to make sure I'd grabbed everything worth grabbing when I spotted something that made me grin. Sitting at the opposite end of the alley from where I came in were three vehicles. Two motorcycles and a car, all painted in Tyger Claws colors. I walked over to the nearest bike and checked it out. I think it's a modified Kusanagi, but I'm not as up on my motorcycles as I should be. The only reason I know so much about guns is because I studied them and my system gives me more info when I pick a model up for the first time.

I hit the ignition switch and grin broadly as it roars to life. I hadn't found the ignition cards on any of the dead guys so I had thought they might have left them installed. It's not like they expected someone to be gonk enough to shoot them. Surprise!

I threw my leg over the bike and revved the engine a few times. I'd learned how to drive motorcycles but it's been a few years since I'd had the chance to ride one. I popped it into first gear and slowly eased off the clutch while twisting the accelerator. I took my time so I could get used to riding the machine. Not only had it been years but Kusanagi's are powerful motorcycles and I didn't want it throwing my ass off if I gunned it.

I pulled out onto the street and slowly accelerated into traffic to make my way toward my new goal. I had a rich corpo to rob and I was definitely looking forward to seeing how much he had stored away in that safe of his.