Silvi couldn’t help but roll her eyes at Professor Dawn’s comment. She’d watched a lot of videos of both her aunt and other hunters and huntresses, and while creatures of Griff never seemed put off by the loss of a limb; it certainly had an effect on them. Cutting the arms off a Beringel might not kill it, but it certainly made it a lot less of a threat.
"So...what’s wrong with you?" You seem a bit...off ever since we actually started the classes."
Aiden’s soft voice made her twitch, as she hadn’t noticed him moving over towards were she’d sat. Curling her tail up onto her lap, she slowly started to run her fingers though the hair. “I’m bored,” She replied just as softly. “I thought they’d be teaching use useful things about fighting Grimm…you know…how to deal with a charging Goliath, how best to combat Lancers or Nevermores while on foot, you know…shit like that.”
Yawning, she stopped stroking her tail and stretched, arching backwards slightly over the melted lump she was propped against. “This stuff,” She added, motioning slightly towards the professor. “Might be relevant to the academics that study Grimm, but I don’t see the relevance for a Huntress.”
Name: Mary Elizabeth Williams (Alias: Red, Red Mary, Mew)
Species: Human (Cyborg)
Age: 50 (Thanks to pre-natal treatments appears to be 35)
Sex: Female
Description: At about 180 cm tall with a trim build (being fat and lazy in her line of work is a good way to get killed), Mary could blend into most crowds; if it wasn’t for a couple of things. Her bright red hair, her cybernetics and her amber eyes, oh yes and her tattoos.
While she was born a natural red-head, she’s had some ‘aug’ work done to make it a deep, almost blood red, crimson. She keeps it about shoulder length, and combed to the right, with the left side of her head shaved. Her cybernetics stand out, not because cybernetic are uncommon. In more well-to-do regions (which she tries to avoid for a myriad of reasons), most favour cybernetic that mimic the look and feel of real limbs; were as hers are obviously artificial. In rougher areas, they wonder how she managed to score such advanced tech. her eyes were naturally emerald green, but an unintended side effect of anti-rejection meds from her ocular overlay implants caused her eyes to become an almost jewel-like amber in colour.
Clothing wise, she pretty much lives in her TGRN issue flight suit while in space; though her model of suit is no longer in front line service, she’s kept hers well maintained, having modified it to seal around her right ‘bicep’ so that the forearm can open so she can deploy her hold out pistol if needed, without breaching her suit. On those rare occasions she finds herself planet-side, or somewhere else where vac-gear’ would seem out of place, she generally sticks to a set of coveralls and a pair of mil-surp boots.
Cybernetics: Fifth generation neuro-interface controlled cybernetic right arm and shoulder. (Arm has a neuro-controlled 11 mm chemrail ‘hold out’ pistol concealed in forearm. Has the word ‘Void’ engraved on the fingers) Fifth generation neuro-interface controlled artificial left and right above knee leg cybernetics. Neuro-control implants for cybernetic control Ocular Overlay (Allows her to project a HUD into her regular field of vision without an external visor or eye piece. Projects an aiming reticle for personal weapons) ----------------- Tattoo(s): Head [Left side] “No Man’s Sky” in Gothic script above ear. [Right Eye] Three tear drops at corner of eye. [Neck, Left side] Sitting black cat. [Neck, Right side] Compass Rose.
Left Arm [Shoulder and Upper Arm] European style dragon attacking starship. [Forearm] Succubae in fetish gear standing over bound and gagged Angel on outside. Knuckle duster knife on inside. [Hand] ‘Born’ across fingers, broken clock face with no hands across back.
Torso [Upper Back] Grim Reaper from mid-point between shoulders to small of back. ‘Only He’ above image, ‘Can Judge Me’ below in cursive script. [Lower Back] A pair of chemrail pistols at the belt line. [Collar] ‘Into The Black’ along collar bone incursive script. [Chest] Skull with outstretched angel wings underneath breasts [Waist] Chain that follows the belt line (including over top of the pistols), links broken below belly button.
Gear: Mark 9 Terran Grand Republic Naval flight suit (heavily modified) and helmet. Maintenance kit for fifth generation cybernetics hardware and software.
Weapon(s) : Personal:
K&K P45 11 mm chemrail hold out pistol (mounted in left forearm, with neuro fire control)
Vehicle: FAI-45 'Spectre' Multi-Role Fighter [Lilith’s Hand] [Specifications]Weight: 14 tonnes (Empty) 20 tonnes (Loaded) 30 tonnes (Max) Length: 19.4 m Wingspan: 11.7 m Height: 5.5 m Crew: 2 Powerplant: GF400/950 300 MWe Micro Fusion Reactor Engine(s): 2 GEW RV-1200 He-3 Thrusters --- Armament 1x MKCr 32 Rh3034-2 30mm chemrail autocannon (600 rounds) 6x AIS -145 SRAFM launchers (20 missiles per launcher, 3 in each ‘cheek’) 10x AIM-60/3 MRAFM 4x Type 90 AGM 2x Tesla-dyne Model 4 plasma cannons[/spoiler]
Skills: As a top ten graduate of the GRSN’s Fighter Training Program, Mary is an exceptional small craft/fighter pilot, with an advanced spatial awareness that makes her a formidable combat pilot. These skills do translate to a degree to Walker piloting, though the much lower speeds and greatly reduced maneuverability do hamper her instincts at times; that said, she is still a dangerous combatant with her machine.
Operating outside of any ‘formal’ support structure has forced her to become her own maintenance chief, if for no other reason than to ensure the work gets done to a level that she’d satisfied with, and while she’s discovered she’s not too bad at it, she’ll readily admit there are many out there that are better than her.
Bio:
The joke in Mary’s family was that they’d been a part of naval traditions since before muzzle loading cannons were a thing, so needless to say there was more than a bit of expectation that she would carry on the tradition; after all her mother was an admiral with First Fleet, her father was a Rear Admiral on an R&D board and her older brother and sister were both commissioned officers, the XO of a heavy cruiser and Capitan of a frigate respectively.
Born on a hospital ship after some local ‘instability’ trapped her parents on a resort station towards the end of the pregnancy, Mary was raised and educated onboard a naval belter station and didn’t set foot on a planet until she was sent to the Grand Republic Stellar Navy naval academy on Earth at the age of seventeen. While her technical and academic were enough to get her out of high school and into the Academy a year early, her personal performance left a bit to be desired. Fights, bullying, general disobedience and an unproven case of drug dealing, while not enough to deny her entry to the Academy, certainly did make her instructors keep an eye on her.
Once again, she did quite well in the technical and academic aspects, and it seemed the personal difficulties may have been just ‘teenage rebellion’ as other than one fight and a couple minor cases of insubordination, her free time was consumed by a newly discovered passion for flying. Once her instructors realized that, she was put on the fast track to the Navy’s Fleet Fighter Pilot program. Over the next four years, there were no negative incidents of note as she proved to be a natural pilot.
Unfortunately her bad habits seemed to re-emerge during her first deployment. During the course of her first deployment aboard the GRSNS Neil A. Armstrong, she was written up four times for insubordination, twice for starting fights while on shore leave, and was implicated, but never proven to have been involved with, a shipboard contraband smuggling operation. These incidents left her confined to the ship while in port, and then later grounded for the duration of the cruise. All this came to a head when, at the end of the deployment, her direct superior made a comment about not being able to catch her red-handed, and promised to make sure to get her next time. The verbal tirade and shove that she replied with earned her six months in the brig upon returning home.
After she did her time, and spent some more time on probation, she was finally allowed to deploy once more, this time aboard the GRSNS Yuri A. Gagarin. Once more, her old habits reasserted themselves, and she found herself grounded and possibly facing more brig time or dismissal from the Navy. Instead the next time the ship came to a port of call, she stole her flight suit out of the pilot’s locker room, somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be because she was grounded, slipped out an unattended maintenance airlock and stowed away aboard an automated garbage drone that was picking up refuse from the ship. Riding the drone to freedom, she then bluffed her way onto a planet bound shuttle from the station the drone had returned to, and did her best to loose herself amongst the locals until the Fleet left the system.
After a quick credit withdrawal before the Navy froze her accounts, and some petty theft for clothes to wear over her flightsuit, she began to poke about spaceport bars looking for work that didn’t ask too many questions. After some searching, she contacted a mercenary company that was looking for a small craft pilot. After some demonstration flying in a ship that was probably older than her father, she got the job.
As her new ship, the Maiden’s Hand, set out she began to notice a few ‘peculiarities’ her and her crew; one, she seemed to have a rather large crew for her size and two she seemed oddly well armed, even for a mercenary’s support vessel, especially one that seemed to have started her life as a medium lift freighter for an Inner Colonies shipping firm. Mary’s suspicions were soon confirmed when, about six days out of port, they happened across the lone He-3 tanker.
She was told to sortie on one of the Maiden’s Hand’s armed shuttles, but when she got to the hanger, she found the Captain and a couple other crew waiting for her. He told her straight up that he intended to capture the tanker and then he asked if that bothered her. Her response was a simple, “So you are actually pirates. I think you owe me any extra ten percent from this take for lying to me.” The Captain laughed, shook her hand, and when the take was sold off he gave her that extra ten percent out of his share. From then on, and for the next fifteen years, she flew with the Maiden’s Hand and Captain Willis, eventually becoming one of his senior officers.
She was tasked with either making sure their prey couldn’t run, or in dealing with any small craft that might attempt to flee, and she did it well. That said, things didn’t always go perfectly; four months in, a little bulk carrier put up a fight and one of its point defence guns shot up the shuttle she was flying pretty badly, hitting her in both legs in the process. She managed to crash land the craft back into the hanger, and get rushed to the sickbay before she bleed out. The damage was so severe that the doc was forced to amputate both her legs at the mid-thigh. After recovering from that trauma, she underwent surgery to fit a pair of cybernetic legs and the physio needed to adapt to her new set up, because despite what popular opinion may believe, pirates take care of their own. Though she had the odd close call, it was another five or so years before anything as traumatic happened again. During a drunken confrontation on Tortuga Drift, she took a scattergun shot to the right shoulder, which necessitated replacing the whole arm and its support structure.
She served under Capt. Willis for another ten years, before he decided to ‘cash out’ and retire to a nice quiet Outer Colony world that wouldn’t ask too many questions about his past. Paying out the crew after one last haul, the crew of the Maiden’s Hand threw a massive party for their captain, before drifting off to find new ships…once the hangovers had receded a bit.
After taking a bit of down time, she signed on with the Regent Star, a recently captured mining vessel that had been refitted to suit her new role. Now that Mary was a known name, the captain of the Regent Star was more than happy to have her aboard. Ten years into another successful stint as a pirate, she was instrumental in snagging a little gun-runner who the Regent Star had been hired to track down, by his competition. In lieu of her normal share of the prize, she was allowed to take first pick of any of the hardware that they’d captured, and it was from there that she got both her current fighter, her walker and her crop of small arms. Three years later, she led a raid on a TGR ‘black site’ in the Outer Colonies and managed to score some cutting edge cybernetics. When she was getting her old, worn out, limbs replaced with the new tech, she had the docs install the ocular overlay to simplify some of her control.
She had this work done while the Regent Star was in dock at the New Providence Resort, a once grand orbital resort for the rich and famous and now the largest pirate ‘freeport’ in known space, for a refit. Since a bunch of the work was centered on her hanger bays, she had both her walker and fighter packed up and moved off ship to clear space in the bays. A week into the work, the Captain called a meeting for the senior crew in one of the larger bars, though Mary was late to the gathering as the lift she was riding on suffered a power failure for about half an hour.
Arriving in a bad mood she finds the place torn apart and on fire, with the crowd muttering about it being a bomb attack, which was unsettling, as one of NPR’s ‘etched in steel’ rules was that crews were to leave their feuds outside the station. Realizing this had been a targeted hit by someone that wasn’t concerned about the collective wrath of NPR, she decided to bug out to one of the slightly more civilized Outer Colony planets with her gear, rather than wait around to see if whoever had target the Regent Star was looking to tie up any loose ends. After several months of laying low, she emerged from her seclusion and hired on with ORION Company. Granted there may be people out looking for her, but woman has to eat, and ammo is expensive.
She didn’t quite roll her eyes at the professor, but it was a near thing; instead, she sheathed her sword and sat back down on the melted Grimm, mentally shrugging off the ‘look’ Aiden gave her. Keeping half an ear on what people were saying, mostly in case someone directed a question at her, she focused the majority of her attention on either mentally practicing her forms and movements, or other more ‘frivolous’ thoughts.
With a soft ‘huff’ she shifted slightly and fought the urge to pull out her scroll; since the fall of Beacon and the network, it could only connect locally, but that would be enough for her to bug her sister to see how her latest project was coming along. That said, Silvi was pretty sure doing so would probably earn her Professor Dawn’s ire. Instead she made do with trying to at least look like she was paying attention.
“ You should also learn their attack patterns and behaviours. That'll also come in handy."
Silvi glanced back at Aiden and rolled her eyes. “No shit,” She smirked. “I thought that would’ve been obvious.” Standing, she drew her blade and ran the tip of it slowly across the fused remains, scoring it lightly. “Tell me…just how is looking at one of these lumps going to teach me what to look for just before a Beowolf leaps? Or where the soft spots on a Beringal are? Or how to best avoid a pinion from a Nevermore?”
Scoring a second line parallel to the first one, she let out a small, bored, sigh. “All this tells me is that if you dump a bunch of molten rock on ‘em fast enough, they don’t disintegrate…not exactly something one is likely to be able to do mid-fight.”
When the Professor proclaimed that the busted up glasses were his, she simply shook her head slightly and rolled her eyes; with that minor distraction gone, she went back to being bored; this time sitting down on the melted lump of a Grimm that might have been something like a boarbatusk.
"What do you.. guys think about them."
Looking over at Mika from her seat, Silvi gave a disinterested shrug, rapping a knuckle on a partially visible bit of what had been the creatures armour. “Dead is dead; like I said before, all I really need to know is where’s the best place to shoot ‘em or stab ‘em.”
She nodded and smiled to her teammates replies. “Excellent, I’ll give my folks a call after class and give ‘em a heads up.”
The trip to the site was uneventful, though once they got there Silvi found herself getting progressively more bored as they moved through the cavern. The professor was talking about something, but between her lack of decent sleep and general disinterest in the topic at hand, she was barely listening to the words being said.
Listlessly eyeing the rock-like lumps of what were supposedly ancient Grimm, her mind began to wander. She started thinking about what she needed to tweak the next time she was servicing Moonlight Shard; while it was a well-made weapon, and her mum had made sure it’s modernization was a top notch job, the age of it meant that it still needed a level of regular maintenance greater than a newer design…like Aegis Hammer.
Her wandering thoughts were interrupted when she spotted an out of place shape on the cave floor. Being a lava formed cave, it was primarily all smooth, flowing lines and forms created by the movement of molten stone; the angular and reflective shape stood out like a signal fire in the forest. Taking a few steps towards the object, she chuckled quietly to herself when she realized what it was; a damaged, but obviously fairly new, pair of glasses. “Well somebody had a shitty day.” She muttered. Must’ve belonged to one of Dawn’s colleagues…or maybe an assistant.
She’d missed Aiden’s reply as his voice was drowned out by the yawn she was trying to stifle by not opening her mouth. The wadded up note however did get her attention; reading it, she shrugged before giving Aiden a thumbs up after which, she poked Mika in the side and handed her the paper.
"We are taking a field trip!"
“Huh?” She started, blinking in confusion. She was already standing and a on the move with the others before she twigged on where they were going. “Fuck, I need a better bed…” She muttered. Stretching her arms out over the heads of Aiden and Mika, Silvi yawned more openly. “So you two have any plans over the weekend?” She asked her class/team mates. “What to go see the Wulka factory? I ask because I know my folks will give me no end of grief if I don’t at least offer an invitation…just don’t ask my sister about whatever her newest project is…you’ll never get her to shut up.”
Classes went about as well as she’d expected…the twins ‘double talk’ still grating on her nerves, but Silvi resigned herself to just having to get used to it, though it made paying attention to their talks a bit trying. The only thing of real note during the first week was the arrival of a new teacher, a biologist specializing in Grimm of all things.
As Professor Dawn went on about fossilized Grimm, Silvi opened her mouth in a yawn that threatened to pop the top of her head off; the bed she’d been provided with seemed to be both completely bagged out and yet rock hard at the same time. She’d been more than a little tempted to try and convince Berun to bring her bed from home…but that smacked a bit too much of spoilt rich girl. Next time I talk to my folks I’ll see if they can make a donation to buy to better beds…I doubt Mika’s or Aiden’s is any better.
Tired, sore and a tad bored, she hadn’t really been listening to what the new prof had been talking about. Stretching in her seat, she rocked back slightly and put her feet up on her desk with a soft ‘clunk’ from her boots. “What does it…” She yawned once more. “What does it matter what old Grimm were like? All a huntress needs to know is how best to kill a current one quickly…” She added.
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