I crossed my arms and stared at the flickering shelf for Leadership. I decided to go ahead and start with it since it had all new Perks that I’d never seen before. Unfortunately, that just made my decision paralysis worse than usual.
| Eye for Potential |
| Eye for an Eye |
| Codified Rule |
| Valiant Presence |
| Trust |
| Commander’s Ire |
| Total Party Wipe |
| PK |
| Orders are Orders |
| Roger, roger! |
| Princess of Ruin |
Decisions, decisions… Some of them were pretty freaking niche. Eye for Potential would let me see approximates of how useful a person would be to me. Kinda meh, but a level twelve Perk that relied on it and level twelve Perception was called Eye for People. It’d let me see Perks, Skills, and Traits that a person would have if they had the interface. Paired with the Panther’s Fang, and, well…
Too bad that was such a small matter. It definitely wasn’t worth investing so heavily into, especially with Panther’s Fang only having a small chance to steal that stuff. Even if I saw it, it’d be a tease. At the end of the day luck was the name of the game.
Total Party Wipe and PK were both pretty unique among the Perks. Unlike most of the others which focused on authority or the team, they focused on betraying the team. Total Party Wipe would supposedly massively enhance my strength, agility, and endurance for a short time if every person in my team died. Alternatively, PK would give me a small boost to all three for every teammate I betrayed and killed.
No way I was taking either one, ‘course. Total Party Wipe might be good if things went to complete shit, though. It’d allow me to get out quicker. The only use case would be if I teamed up with randoms for a job.
Instead of either of those, my focus was on a rather unassuming one.
| Trust - When your actions support your words, trust will build up much quicker. |
At first glance it was kinda meh. Commander’s Ire, for instance, would supposedly make any subordinate weak in the knees from a single glare. Or even Codified Rule would massively help with robots. Trust, though? It just made people a bit more trusting of me.
That being said, trust was a unique kind of danger. With trust, I could move much, much easier. I’d probably get more jobs and sales, too. If it applied on a large scale, Cold Moon Solutions’ popularity might sky rocket. There weren’t many corporations people could trust these days.
After reading through descriptions once more, I grabbed the scroll and moved over to the easel. It unraveled to show a man’s back while he talked to someone. His arm was curled around, and he held a dagger that gleamed against the light. All the while, the other person looked entirely unguarded.
I blinked, and woke back up in bed to a soothing sensation radiating up my spine. Mira gently brushed my tail with a hairbrush. The young woman blinked in surprise, and her hands stilled. “Oh, that was quick.”
”Yip—?” My words tied up in my throat. Right, I wasn’t human at the moment.
“Don’t mind me, Shiro.” She laughed lightly, and stashed the brush to the side. “Was just about to sleep… had some things on my mind.”
”Nyehh?” My head tilted to the side, and one of my ears automatically flopped low into a question look.
Her lips softly parted like she was going to say something. Instead, she just looked away. A stray headlight flashed through the apartment’s window from a flyer, and briefly danced across her face.
”It’s nothing, it's nothing.” She patted my head lightly, and fully turned over onto her side to curl around my much smaller vulpine body. Mira couldn’t exactly sleep on her back with the Shift ExoCore, and sleeping on her front wasn’t ideal for two other large reasons.
My tail flicked, and brushed her calf as if to say I’m here for you. For the next couple minutes till I jumped back into the pavilion, anyway. It was the most I could do without a voice.
”Thanks,” she mumbled, and dropped a hand right in between my ears. Her fingers slowly circled the spot, and a wave of comfort washed down through me. “For everything.”
”Yip!” If anything, I should be thanking her for not giving up. I didn’t even want to think about a world without my best mikata in it.
She laughed softly, and messed with my ears. Her fingers skillfully rubbed the delicate fluff. “Heh, I see why you cover the truth sometimes… that’s kinda hypocritical of me, ain’t it?” “
“Mmm.” My tail bobbed on her leg. It didn’t really matter. If she wanted to keep something a secret, I wouldn’t push her for it.
Her hand stilled for a moment, and then resumed the soft head pats. “Actually, I was thinking about dreams.”
”…?” I twisted, and looked back up to meet her eyes.
”You know, this thing doesn’t make it easy.” She stopped petting me to run a finger along the Halo Cortex. “Five minds is five times the dreams… sometimes I can’t even tell if I’m away or not.”
Five times the dreams… that didn’t sound so bad, actually. Oh, wait… five times the nightmares too. I couldn’t handle that. I’d finally started to sleep normally without being plagued by memories of Mother. If I had to deal with five times that the entire time up to this point—my tail curled uncomfortably.
”Yip…” Is that why she was much more inclined to scratch at her chrome in the mornings? I’d noticed, but thought it just had to do with the medicine not kicking in quick enough.
“You look so derpy like this.” She abrutply shifted the conversation away, and pulled me closer.
“Yow!” I resisted for only a moment, though I let her once I spotted the far away look in her eyes.
Her hand returned to my head, and she let out a heavy breath. “Night, Shiro.”
A few minutes later, her hand stopped entirely and her breath evened out. The halo atop her head gave one more pulse, and then the light slowly faded away. It still clung to her, and floated just above her head, though. The gravitic chambers kept it perfectly stationed.
“Yip?” Once I was sure she was asleep, I let the interface pull me away once more before I could likewise fall asleep.
I shook my head, and moved over to Perception’s shelf. I had no idea what I wanted to pull from it, to be honest. Tracking and Perception had quite a bit of overlap, so I had quite a few enhancements already. Criminology’s Background Noise helped my listening capabilities, too. That left… sense of touch? Or smell.
I could go for the full Bloodhound Shiro route and grab something to track scents. That sounded absolutely awful, though. There were a surprising amount of people that didn’t understand BO. That alone made me reject the idea. Not to mention all the smog, gore, and drugs I frequently ran into.
| Read The Room! |
| Predator’s Focus |
| Rhythm Master |
| Broken Voice |
| Weakness Wrangler |
| Eyes Behind Eyes |
| Peripheral Perception |
| Deep Water Watcher |
| Discover Dimensional Instability |
| Danger Sense |
| Survey |
My heart throbbed as I read through the list. A lot of those were really freaking good. Should I say as expected of level 12 Perks? There were several that even fit into my… build? I hated to call it that. It made everything seem like just a game that didn’t matter, but it was an accurate term.
Funnily enough, though, there were quite a few Perks that I already basically had. Danger Sense was just a lesser version of Insight, in a way. It wasn’t alone, either.
Survey, for instance, would supposedly massively enhance my ability to track and create 3D models of spaces… Except I could already kinda do that? I’d had plenty of practice since getting Technical Expertise and Eidetic Schematic. Not to mention it kinda looked like a learned Perk. They should just give that to me to make my Perk list more impressive.
Discover Dimensional Instability was also what Crow’s Celestial Compass did. It seemed cool, but it was kinda useless in the city. I dunno. Maybe it’d trigger more often if I went elsewhere? From what I’d seen, Aythryn City was pretty freaking stable. Why is that? Something to ask about next time I got the chance.
The two that really caught my eye were Weakness Wrangler and Peripheral Perception. Both were insanely good for me. Likewise, I wanted both. There was only one point, though.
| Peripheral Perception - Maintain awareness of your surroundings while focusing on another task. |
| Weakness Wrangler - Scan an object, structure, entity, or plan and discover its weakest point after a moment. |
One would allow me to maintain my vigilance, and the other would make me better at quite a few things. It was a serious issue being too focused on one task, especially out in the field. Peripheral Perception could very well save my life.
Finding weakness would likewise be life-saving. I’d be a much stronger combatant, for one. The real thing that caught my eye was the part about scanning a plan, though. It’d help me fool proof future plans, which could help me avoid dangerous situations altogether.
I paced back and forth in front of the shelf for a moment. Eventually, I settled on Weakness Wrangler and pulled it off the shelf. Avoiding danger altogether was always better than just noticing it. ‘Sides, I could always grab Periphreal at a later date if I needed to.
I tossed it up onto the easel, and stood back to watch. The scroll unraveled into a massive robot the size of a skyscraper. A single, small bolt on its chest glowed an uncanny red. It felt like hitting just that one bolt would cause the entire thing to collapse.
Black washed over my vision, and I was promptly booted out the interface and back into Mira’s arms. She’d started hugging me at some point, and her arms were entirely wrapped around my body.
“Hmph.” I shook around, and loosened her arm where it’d been pressing into my injured paw weirdly.
| Shiro Tsukuyomi - Shorty
Traits: Fox’s Grace, Quick Healing, Insight, Flora’s Daughter, Spectral Flock, Kinetic
-Skills- -Bounty Board- -EF Shop(EF:701)- |
There was my new title. I stared at it sourly for a moment, and checked on my eidolonic favor. 701 wasn’t bad by any means. I was getting closer and closer to a Free Perk Point. Skills!
| Tracking - 11
Panther’s Sight, Stalk
Tech - 13
Eidetic Schematic, Corvid, Transmutation, Quantum Automation
Stealth - 13
Fox’s Paw, Cold-Blooded, Illusive
Sleight of Hand - 11
Hidden Hands, Ambidextrous
Perception - 12
Aetherial Perception, Technical Expertise, Weakness Wrangler
Net - 5
Badger’s Code Scan
Melee Weapons - 10
Throwing Weapon Master, Viper’s Strike
Leadership - 4
Trust
Intimidation - 9
Fear the Reaper, Silent Terror
Influence - 2
Firearms - 11
Dexterity, Aether Imbuement
First Aid - 9
Calming, Perfect Donor
Explosives - 7
Concussive Connoisseur
Evasion - 9
Burst Step, Arc Flash
Driving - 9
Land Vehicles, Air Vehicles
Deception - 11
Honest Face, Master of Disguise
Criminology - 10
Cues, Background Noise
Concealment - 9
Lethargic Presence, Hidden Weapon
Cleaning - 5
Squeaky Clean
Brawling - 7
Swipe
Art - 2
Accounting - 3 |
Ah, there it was. My Skills were being fleshed out slowly but surely. It’d been almost about a year since I got the interface, and I’d come a seriously long way in such a short amount of time. Hard to imagine I used to be so little and weak. What was it Luna called me? Shrimps Shiro? That definitely fit back then.
I used some Perks more than others. It was fine, though. Back when I first started picking, I wanted to diversify my capabilities. Now they were so diverse that I could go weeks without using a Perk. It was a good thing, in my opinion. They’d be there when I needed them.
I turned in Mira’s arms, and settled back down. My paw throbbed painfully, so I activated Cold-blooded and Lethargic Presence. The two Perks combined slowly lulled me into a deep, restorative sleep.