Disclaimer: I own nothing but my original characters and works; all other characters and worlds belong to their respective owners. I'm just playing with them.
Betad by Priapus, Beans
The Celestial Punk
Chapter 01: The Saint of Heywood
— V —
She could pinpoint the exact moment that everything went to shit.
Well, actually things went to shit when a bunch of Abernathy's goons stormed into Lizzie's like they owned the place, before promptly dismantling her entire life in front of her. Fucking Jenkins and his gonk plan.
She'd barely heard the corpo hitmen mentioning putting her down, or Jackie getting in their face and reminding them that Kabuki wasn't the most friendly place and they were one move away from turning the bar into a combat zone.
It was a good plan, Jackie was a smooth talker when he needed to be. The problem, and the reason everything went to shit? His brother wasn't. Seeing his little brother face-to-face with some corpo assholes was enough to get the Valentinos' blood boiling.
She'd never met Raul Welles before, only knowing that the Jackster had one surviving sibling who was deep in the Valentinos. Now? She knew all she needed to know about the prick as the typical Valentino chest beating and posturing had either pissed the Arasaka men off, or made them nervous enough to start a firefight when they had been moments from leaving without her.
She was a dangerous motherfucker, who could hold her own against Abernathy's dogs in literally any other situation. With her cyberware disabled, her cortisol levels skyrocketing now that her blockers had been turned off, her head was swimming and she could barely stand, let alone fight. She felt like a hardcore junkie two weeks into going cold-turkey.
So when the lead started flying, her contribution was stumbling to her feet and promptly falling face first onto the table and then onto the floor. Not her finest hour.
And everyone would tell you that corpos were opportunistic backstabbers. Fuck, she'd happily admit it as someone who had been , until about three minutes ago, a proud corpo on the rise.
So, what is an Abernathy goon to do, seeing their target laid out on the floor, unable to fight back? Shoot her four times in the back, of course.
She wasn't sure how the fight even ended, the mixture of the shock from losing her cyberware combined with the pain of several shots to the back ensuring she had no idea what was going on. She would have loved to run a scan on herself but that software belonged to Arasaka and she didn't have access to it, so she could only go by feeling. And she was feeling an awful lot like she was dying as Jackie carried her out, putting her into the back of a car which sped out of Lizzie's parking lot like the devil was chasing them. If the Abernathy goons were still alive, it just might be.
"I told you to stay away," Jackie shouted, looking out the back window to see if they were being followed.
"I don't know if you noticed, but you were outnumbered by five corpo samurai while your 'friend' drooled all over the floor," Raul shouted back, the sound of an engine roaring.
"Fuck. We gotta take her to Luis," Jackie declared, having opened her top up to look how badly she was fucked up.
"You wanna take a fucking corpo to Luis?! No way, fuck that," Raul shouted back, her head swimming as her ringing ears drowned out the argument but from what she could barely see, Jackie was winning as Raul let out a sound of disgust.
V had the feeling he'd rather toss her into the nearest garbage heap. Luis? A ripper? Not one she'd heard of. She watched as Jackie finished a call, turning to her.
"Gonna be just fine, V," Jackie promised, patting her shoulder. "Luis is at work, but Mama says we can put her in the back. Park behind-"
"I know where to park, gonk," Raul replied. "Acting like I've never been to Mama's bar before."
The brotherly squabbling really wasn't helping her mood as street lights flew by and she continued bleeding all over the backseats of Raul's car.
Bar? They were taking her to a bar? Oh yeah, she was dying. Fucking Jenkins. And fucking Abernathy too. She'd had a plan, a path up the ladder of Arasaka, before their pissing match had set it all ablaze.
As the car came to a stop, she knew she was barely functioning. She was sure if she still had her fancy bioscanners, they'd all be screaming at her right now.
"In here," a female, already disapproving, voice said as Jackie carried her into a… kitchen? The absurdity made her snort as a bubble of hysterical laughter hit her. "Put her on the counter."
"Raul, make sure nobody comes in," the female voice commanded. Despite Raul being a hardass Valentino with a clear issue with authority, he meekly agreed and headed to the door. "Luis?"
Ah, the mythical Luis who almost certainly wasn't a ripper if they were bringing her to a kitchen instead of a clinic.
"Yeah," a soft male voice said, stepping into her light. It was hard to see with the blood loss and her barely functioning optics, but the guy standing over her didn't look older than twenty, with messy black hair and amber eyes, a soft frown on his admittedly cute face. "The fuck happened, Jackie? Thought you were going for a drink?"
"Raul picked a fight with some corpo assholes, long story. Can you fix her?" Jackie asked, sounding like he was decently far away. Covering another entrance?
"Fix her? She's not your bike, Jackie," Luis sighed, running a hand through her hair. "Yeah, probably. Done worse."
"Heh, you're cute," V mumbled, surprising the guy who blinked down at her for a moment.
"'bout to be cuter, trust me," Luis snorted, placing his hand on her stomach and closing his eyes for a moment. As he opened them, she wished she could check her optics because she could swear that his eyes were glowing golden.
Then, his entire body was glowing with a golden energy and she gasped as she felt her body, her cyberware, start to mend. The pain faded almost instantly, her vision clearing up enough for her to see that, yes, he was glowing like the fucking sun. Looking down at his hands where they were hovering over her bare stomach, she watched the energy flow into her wound just… mend in seconds.
Her chrome, locked down by her Arasaka overlords, reconnected as the energy flowed through her body. That wasn't possible, it wasn't how this kind of shit worked, but there it was, piece by piece coming back online.
As the exhaustion hit her, and the mess of her hormone-altering chrome reactivating after her body had barely had a chance to get used to it being off, she knew she was about to be out like a light, but as she clung to consciousness, a report that had crossed her desk sprung to the forefront of her mind.
An urban legend more than any actionable data, that she'd shrugged off as the Valentinos leaning too hard into their Catholic imagery.
The Saint of Heywood.
– Days Later –
Sitting in the Welles home, V frowned in deep thought.
She'd vaguely heard of the Saint of Heywood, but Arasaka didn't think there was any substance to the rumours of the man with the healing touch. The theory they were working on was that it was an unusually skilled Valentino Ripper that had an overblown reputation. Maybe worth pressuring into a change of loyalties if they proved talented enough, but not worth dealing with the infamously hard to infiltrate Valentinos.
If they knew the truth? Heywood would be under Arasaka martial law until Luis was found and extracted back to some blacksite.
Jackie had taken her to a Ripperdoc out of fear that her Arasaka tech would kill her, which was an admittedly fair concern. What Doctor Vector had told her still left her dumbstruck.
Her tech was all functioning perfectly, with zero connection to Arasaka's servers. That wasn't how it worked, all her tech was supposed to be hard-connected to Arasaka. They had strict rules on what cyberware employees, especially ones in Intelligence, could use. None of her tech should be functioning, but… it was and she had her own theory on the how.
Jackie, being Jackie, had reluctantly explained that Luis could 'fix shit' with that golden glow. He didn't know how, wouldn't tell her when it started or what had happened to Luis, who she still hadn't seen since that night. But, his wording made her pause. 'Fix'. Her tech was technically fucked, because the signal from Arasaka was telling it to shut down. Luis did his golden touch and tried to fix it, and whatever his ability was, it had discovered that it was the connection that was breaking it and 'fixed' it by removing the connection. All her tech had basically been wiped to factory settings, reset with the Arasaka connections and controls wiped. Some barely legal pretty boy had bypassed all the corporate security that was on her chrome and jailbroken it.
Some had to go, stuff that couldn't function without the connection to Arasaka's servers, like her optics, but most of her cyberware was perfectly safe and now entirely hers. It also meant that Arasaka 100% thought she was dead. It wouldn't last, but from their end, they should be getting nothing from her, which should be impossible without one hell of a Netrunner to go through all her chrome, piece by piece, and do what Luis had in seconds.
Hacking Corporate cyberware like this was genuinely something that only the top ten percent of Netrunners could do, if that. She was a damn good runner, and she couldn't do it.
Which left her with her current situation. What the fuck was she supposed to do now?
The corpo in her pointed out that if she exposed Luis and his ability to Arasaka, she could regain her old position and much more. Go straight to one of the Arasakas with this discovery, preferably Michiko or Hanako, and Abernathy and Jenkins (assuming he was even alive) would be her underlings by the weekend. She could get back everything she'd lost, and better. Maybe even a transfer to the Tokyo branch.
But then what? She'd always seen herself as a climber, working her way up the corporate ladder one step at a time, even if she had to step on her coworkers to do it. But the fact was? At the end of the day, she just turned out to be a rung that Jenkins was stepping on to make the climb himself.
And the dumb bastard had slipped.
She didn't want to go back to being someone's stepping stone. Sure, she'd be higher up, but that just meant that more powerful people would be stepping on her.
She didn't know what Luis' deal was. Nanotechnology, maybe? No, that just didn't make sense. Unless he was a corpo project that had escaped, then how did some Heywood kid get this kind of thing? She'd pressured Jackie a little, subtly, and done some net searches.
Luis Reyes was a story you could find anywhere in Heywood. Mother worked as a bartender at El Coyote Cojo (which is how he became acquainted with the Welles) before losing her life to gang violence. Father was a Valentino Mechanic, who died when Sixth Street hit their chop shop. Just a Heywood kid who'd lost his parents to the ever-present tug of war between Valentinos, Sixth Street and whoever else wanted a piece of Heywood. In any other situation, his story continued with him joining the Valentinos, then dying in the same gang violence.
His net presence was faint, which wasn't much of a surprise, especially without her Arasaka resources to dig deeper. What she had gathered from Jackie and her limited results was that he'd worked at El Coyote Cojo as a bartender and cook, after 'Mama' Welles had taken him in after his mother's death. There was more to that, but Jackie wasn't budging, and she knew when not to push too deep.
But he also worked at a garage not far from the bar, which had recently been opened by Raul Welles. Technically Raul Jr, but he didn't like being called Jr. He'd also already shown up to threaten her with gang violence if her lips didn't stay sealed shut. Again, Jackie's loose lips meant she knew that Raul would be dead if it wasn't for the 'Saint' after having been shot up by Maelstrom.
Which once more left her with her current question. What was she supposed to do now? She had a fat wad of hard cash from Jenkins and didn't need to spend it to replace faulty chrome. She'd set aside some to pay Luis so she wouldn't be in his debt, but the rest was enough for her to get out of NC if she wanted to…
But where one door was slammed shut in her face, another opened, and she had a feeling that the door that had opened for her was the pearly gates to paradise, because she could hear the choir of angels luring her in. Luis, however he'd gotten this power, was a chance for her to rise far beyond her original plan. She was well aware that she was an overly ambitious corpo bitch, but there were enough question marks around Luis that the intel agent in her couldn't resist, and enough potential to have the corpo drooling in more ways than one.
Reaching for her gun as the door opened, she relaxed as Jackie entered.
"Why so tense, chica?" Jackie asked, amused at her stiff posture.
"Still half expecting Arasaka ninjas to burst through at any moment. Even if they think I'm dead, you and Raul zeroed five Arasaka agents," V pointed out, stretching out a little. Gone was her synfiber uniform, replaced with something that no corpo would be caught dead in. A pair of synth-leather pants and a worn red tank top she'd picked up from a used clothing store. The boots were nice- got them for far cheaper than she should have- and they were only mildly stained with the blood of whoever they'd been pulled off of. Haggling for a lower price on something as cheap as clothing was a humbling experience that reminded her of just how quickly she could burn through her eddies if she didn't get off her ass and sort out a new source of income real quick. Jenkins was generous with the mission funds, but not that generous. If Mama Welles hadn't let her crash at their place, she'd probably already be out just from trying to get a place to stay.
Frankly, Jackie was a better friend than she deserved. If their roles had been reversed? V would have let Jackie die to keep Luis' secret. Especially since she got the feeling that Luis was an honorary Welles after saving Raul. Mama Welles certainly talked about him like he was one of her own.
"Relax, V. I keep telling you, if they were gonna hit us, they'd have done it already," Jackie, ever the optimist, said. In truth, he was right. Arasaka didn't fuck around when it came to this stuff… so Abernathy was covering up that she lost a squad? Worked in their favour, but dumb luck only carried you so far.
"Maybe," V agreed. "What's up? It's not like you to be in this early."
"Thought I'd get you to stop brooding. Come on, we're going for a ride," Jackie said with that big dumb grin of his. He was scheming something, but he was probably the person she trusted the most after all this. He didn't need to get her healed, risking his pseudo-lil brother in the process, or have his mother take her in while she got back on her feet.
"Don't suppose you wanna tell me where we're going?" V asked, already getting up. She wasn't brooding, she had a lot to think about. Well, considering she'd spent the last half hour debating the pros and cons of betraying Jackie, it was probably best to let him think she was brooding. She knew none of them would get it if she admitted it, but it was just… corpo things. She was a corpo, born and raised, born into a corpo family, went to a corpo academy, graduated into a corpo job. It wasn't so easy to just drop all that just because the corp had dropped her.
"Nope," Jackie said, popping the p in a slightly obnoxious way. "Come on."
Rolling her eyes with a small grin, she followed him to his bike. It was a damn nice bike, to be fair. Still, riding behind him? Without a helmet?
"It isn't far, and don't look so worried, chica. You're in good hands, the Jackster never crashes," Jackie boasted. V vaguely remembered Luis saying something about Jackie's bike when Jackie asked him to fix her. Luis had to fix Jackie's bike after he crashed, didn't he? Ah, fuck it.
Maybe if they crashed, she'd actually get to meet Luis. She wasn't blind to the fact that they were keeping her away from him. Very logical, in truth. Jackie trusted her, but he didn't trust corpos. And again, she'd spent the last hour contemplating selling Luis to get her life back before she'd realised it would just put her under someone's thumb all over again.
Holding on, she watched Heywood fly by as they headed toward El Coyote Cojo. Jackie was, admittedly, a good driver and the bike was tuned damn well. It basically sung as Jackie weaved through the twisting, winding roads of Heywood. She paused as they drove straight past the bar without stopping, unsure what Jackie was playing at.
They didn't go much further, turning into an alleyway half a block away as Jackie slowed down. Her eyes darted around, seeing several Valentino men lurking in the area. They always stood out with their heavy use of gold and catholic imagery. The alley was covered in Valentino tags, but nobody stopped them as Jackie parked his bike, leaving it outside without a care as he got off and gestured for her to follow into… a warehouse that had been converted into a chop shop?
"Come on, V. They ain't gonna bother us," Jackie reassured her. From a window, she noticed the scowling face of Raul staring down at them. More at Jackie than her, this time, before he vanished from the window.
This was Raul's garage, then? Which meant this was where Luis worked.
Suddenly more interested in Jackie's schemes, she followed him into the building where several cars were being worked on, watching Jackie ignore them all to head to the centre where a Chevillon Emperor with Valentino colours and tags was being worked on. It had clearly been modified, though her scans didn't recognise just what had been done to it beyond some heavy reinforcements.
"Didn't Raul specifically tell you to stay away," an amused voice asked as Luis wheeled himself out from under the massive SUV. He was wearing a set of black mechanic overalls, and had a spudge of grease on his cheek which Jackie wiped at getting his hand swatted away for his troubles.
"Yeah, well, I didn't listen," Jackie admitted shamelessly, grabbing Luis in a one armed hug and squeezing as Luis let out a 'oof' and playfully punched Jackie in the stomach to get him to let go.
"Course you didn't," Luis snorted. "Good timing, anyway. Just finished up with this one. Oi!"
Luis shouted, getting the attention of a nearby Valentino, who stood to attention like Campo Orta himself had just shown up.
"Call Gizmo and tell him his ride is ready. All souped up and modded, just like he wanted. Went a bit beyond the specs he asked for, but he shouldn't complain," Luis ordered. Was Luis a Valentino? Jackie said he wasn't, but he was sure comfortable telling them what to do. The Valentino certainly didn't argue either.
Gizmo? A quick search brought up one Miguel 'Gizmo' Rodriguez, a high-ranking Valentino who was suspected of being in charge of their drug smuggling operations. Her eyes went back to the SUV, and the way it almost fought off her scans.
"Luis is a fucking wizard with anything that drives," Jackie explained, seeing her confusion. "Could tune up a Maimai to purr like a Quadra. Good at getting rid of all those pesky trackers and shit in stolen cars so they don't up and drive back to their owner, too."
"Hey, Jacquito. Get your ass up here," Raul shouted from the catwalk, getting a quiet, awkward laugh from Jackie as he rubbed the back of his neck.
"Go on. I'll play host with your guest while he rips you a new asshole," Luis snorted, clearly not worried. Even Jackie just looked sheepish and some of the Valentinos were outright chuckling. Not an unfamiliar sight, then?
"Yeah, yeah," Jackie grunted with a roll of his eyes, heading to the stairs.
"They told Jackie not to let me near you, didn't they?" V asked, getting a quiet laugh from Luis.
"Yup. Even told me not to pick up any shifts at the bar or visit Mama until this was sorted," Luis agreed, gesturing for her to follow her as he moved to a different car. A fucking Herrera Riptide? That was one expensive car, but Luis popped the front open without a care, beginning to work on the engine. "Nice car, huh? It belongs to Gustavo Orta, but the fucker crashed it again. Told him to go easy on the boost, but does any of them listen? No, they fuck up their fancy rides and come crying to me to fix them again."
That about tracked with what she knew about the Valentinos and their general behaviour. They'd started as a Posergang, and they kept a lot of the flashy attitude and behaviour from those days. Sure, they were one of the strongest gangs in the city now, but their origin had shaped them.
"Never got a chance to thank you for saving my ass," V said.
"Jackie likes you, and the big baby would pout like a bitch if I let you bleed out all over Mama Welles' kitchen," Luis replied with a soft smirk.
"I get the feeling Jackie is the only one who does," V pointed out, glancing around where multiple Valentinos were watching them, some openly armed as if she was gonna grab Luis and throw him over her shoulder before running for the exit.
"Don't take it personally, Raul doesn't like outsiders, and this is his domain. Besides, Mama likes you too. Wouldn't let you stay at her place if she didn't," Luis pointed out. "For me? Jackster is a good judge of character. In his words, 'V's a sweet girl under all the red and black corpo makeup, you'll see. Just needs to get Saburo's hand out of her ass.'"
Sweet girl? She was almost insulted. And yeah, Jackie had tried to get her to ditch Arasaka a few times over the course of their friendship, but she'd never taken his advice. She'd thought she had it all under control. What a fucking joke.
"So, how'd you end up working on the cars of Valentino big-shots?" V asked, changing the subject to get away from the mildly uncomfortable feeling. From upstairs, she could hear rapid Spanish coming from what was probably Raul's office. It was muffled, but her fancy counterintel cyberware did its thing as it picked up the heated argument between brothers.
"Saved Raul's gonk ass, he climbed the Valentino ladder enough to get his own slice of the Valentinos, he opened the garage and gave me a job since I'd been working on his car and Jackie's bike for years, and he knew I knew my stuff," Luis replied with a shrug. "Turns out, I really know my stuff. Made Raul's car a little too good, made some of the higher-ups jealous and suddenly, every boss had their car coming through Raul's little slice of heaven. Pays better than my part time at El Coyote Cojo."
It did occur to her that Jackie's bike drove too smoothly for the make and model. She knew her bikes, and Jackie's was clearly modded to high hell. It also occurred to her that Raul was probably rising up the gang leadership fast if he was monopolising Luis' skills. If all the others came to him for mods, either for biz or just for personal use, he'd establish himself fast.
"But you've not joined up?" V asked, curious.
"Mama told Raul he couldn't recruit me," Luis said simply, as if that settled it. In any other gang, that would have been a massive joke, but the Valentinos took family and community seriously. But was that really enough to ward off the other Valentinos? Raul might listen to his mother, but you're telling her that Gizmo and Gustavo just accepted that Luis was independent because Mama Welles said so? "And Padre told the rest."
Ah. The Fixer of Heywood knew about Luis's ability, then?
A crash pulled her attention back to the office, the volume of the shouting increasing. They had been fairly vague, but the gist was that Raul didn't trust her and thought Jackie was a gonk for 'his plan' and for leaving the Valentinos, claiming he was going to get himself killed and drag Luis down with him. Jackie, being Jackie, wasn't budging and pointed out that Raul just didn't want Luis to cut down his hours in the autoshop. That was the crash, because Raul didn't enjoy the implication that he didn't care about Luis' life.
Whatever was going on, Raul made it clear that if anything happened to Luis, Jackie was fucked. It didn't sound like a threat, but a warning. Raul wouldn't go after his little brother, but that didn't mean the other high ranking Valentino's wouldn't.
"Here he comes," Luis said with a roll of his eyes as Jackie left the office, with one fancy new black eye. "Every single time. If Mama isn't here to babysit, someone is getting punched. Guess who they're gonna beg to fix it so Mama doesn't find out they fought, again."
V snorted softly. With how hot-headed Raul seemed, and how Jackie was, it wasn't a surprise that most of their arguments ended with them needing a magic touch. They definitely cared for each other, that much was clear. Raul sounded more worried than he would be able to admit without losing face as a big bad Valentino boss. It was probably why their conversation was in an office that most people (who didn't have Counterintel-level cyberears) wouldn't have been able to listen in on. It was why Raul had insisted on coming with Jackie to Lizzie's Bar.
"So, you finally gonna tell us what this is all about?" V asked as Jackie returned. Luis didn't move to heal Jackie, which told her that the other Valentinos in the garage probably didn't know about his gift. Luis had added that final line under his breath.
"So impatient," Jackie teased, unbothered by his eye as he leaned against the very expensive car. "You decided what you're doing with your life now that Arasaka kicked you to the curb, V?"
"You know, I have," V admitted. She wasn't made for ordinary life, and with her skills, she wasn't going to get a job washing dishes or selling scop at some street stand. She couldn't go back to Arasaka, didn't want to, and wasn't going to run to another corp to get the same treatment but worse. At least at Arasaka, she had a rep and connections, if she went to another, she'd be starting from scratch, even if she sold Luis as her way in. No, there was really only one path forward for her if she wanted to use her talents and climb a different ladder entirely. "Merc biz is just about the only path I have left."
Jackie beamed at that, and Luis let out a soft sigh as he closed the car up.
"Jackie has big plans of us being the next big merc team," Luis explained plainly, cutting Jackie off as he went to speak.
"You want to be a merc?" V asked, surprised as she faced Luis. She knew of Jackie's big dreams of Afterlife and being the next Morgan Blackhand, but Luis? His response was a shrug, almost as if to say 'yeah, obviously'.
"Think about it, chica. What does a good merc group need?" Jackie pushed.
"A solo, a netrunner, a techie, a medtech and a fixer," V answered, looking around. A solo to be the muscle, and Jackie had a lot of muscle. She was an Arasaka-trained ex-counterintelligence Netrunner. She could run circles around most Netrunners out there. As for the techie and medtech?
She'd just watched Luis work his magic on a preem set of wheels that would normally need to be taken back to Herrera mechanics to be worked on, and whatever his deal was, it put medtechs to shame. And they'd already mentioned Padre throwing some weight behind Luis to keep him from being swallowed up by the Valentinos.
"And we've got one preem fucking driver, V. Wait till you see what he can do in the driver's seat," Jackie said, slapping Luis on the back.
"The Valentinos aren't going to mind you stealing Wonderboy here?" V asked, nudging Luis playfully.
"Trust me, you've missed the last three dozen arguments between Jackie and Raul over this, long before you came into the picture, but I don't wanna spend my time rewiring stolen cars and modding stuff for other people to drive," Luis admitted. He didn't seem reckless, but as he spoke, she heard that familiar sound of ambition in his voice. "In truth, it doesn't change much. I'm independent anyway; they can still pay me for my time. The only reason it took this long is because Jackie couldn't get T-Bug to commit to joining up rather than being a contracted independent Netrunner."
And they couldn't trust someone who wasn't all in with the information about Luis' powers. She really doubted it was that simple, but in truth, she didn't give a damn.
Because Jackie had just given her an in with the magical wonderboy, who was her best shot at clawing her way to the top of the food chain. If she was anything, it was adaptable. Sure, the corpo life hadn't worked out, but as she'd mentioned… she was an overly ambitious bitch, and if she was going to be anything, she was going to be the best at it.
– Luis Ibarra –
Finishing up Gustavo's ride as Jackie and V plot out the actual details of this plan of Jackie's. Realistically, V is doing the plotting because Jackie's plan went something like this.
Become mercs. Be badass. ???. Profit and our name on the menu at afterlife.
It's barely the outline of a plan, because Jackie is all ambition but no plan on how to actually reach that ambition of his. As for me? Honestly, I'd have settled for being a Valentino mechanic like my old man, but things changed.
[Soothing Sunlight] - 200cp
Source: Dark Souls: Covenants
To stand before the Princess of Sunlight is a wondrous thing, for her very presence a soothing balm in these uncertain times. In a physical manifestation of this metaphorical quality, you can unleash a wave of divine energy that shall heal yourself and those near you.
Now, I wanna be clear. I don't have a fucking clue where this came from. One minute, all was fine, and the next, I was glowing like the sun. Jackster was convinced I'd been kidnapped by some Corp who experimented on me, but his theory falls apart when you realise this happened at home and I was never missing to begin with. Misty told me it's something to do with my aura or something about foreign chakra? I never know what the fuck she's talking about anyway, but frankly? I'll take it because it's the closest I've got to an explanation so far. Gramps has his own spiritual, religious explanation, but despite being raised a 'Tino, I've never been big on God. If he's real, he's probably a fucking corpo considering how the fuckers always seem to come out on top.
But what I do know is that this… power of mine doesn't respond to me sitting on my ass, doing nothing. I had it for weeks before it did a damn thing, and it was only after I saved Raul that it finally responded and started spitting out more. After that, I played around, did some different things to work out what makes it tick.
[Mechanic] - 200cp
Source: Fast and Furious
Machines, especially ones that go fast, just speak to you. You have no problem fixing up and tuning any motor vehicle, and can rebuild them after the most devastating crashes. You can keep anything in top condition with just a few simple tools. Of course, you also need to understand the electronics, so hotwiring cars (and sometimes, alarm systems) is not a problem either.
[Vehicular skills] - 200cp
Source: Generic Zombie Apocalypse
In addition to being a frankly amazing mechanic, you're also great behind the wheel. You can avoid any avoidable accidents, and you're quite apt at upgrading vehicles into mobile death machines.
[Most Holy Order of the Socket Wrench] - 400cp
Source: Fast and Furious
You are a master mechanic. Repair and upkeep is nice, but you can go beyond the impossible and improve any vehicle. Take a van and make it beat a supercar? Put NOS injectors on a bicycle (and make it work)? How 'bout something challenging? And anything you can build up you can tear down, too. You're a one-man chop shop, and wiring a car to explode takes but a few moments and some chicken wire.
So, I was left with a choice. Sit on my ass, hiding from the world, and hope the corps continue to buy Grampa's bullshit about the Saint being some underground ripperdoc, or grab the world by the balls and make my power give me enough that no fucking corp can touch me. I can't hide in El Coyote Cojo forever, and the rumours are only growing.
So, as vague and badly-planned as Jackie's master plan is, I can't deny that it sounds fucking nova.