If you want to read 20 Chapters ahead, be sure to check out my P-Tang12!!!
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(A/N: Don't forget to give those power stones to Skyrim everyone!)
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He rolled out from under the train car, using his max level Sneaking and his high agility stats to sprint through the shadows, weaving between piles of coal and abandoned carts. Bullets chewed the dirt at his heels, but he was always a fraction of a second faster than their aim.
He vaulted over a wooden barricade and found himself behind a stack of crates, fifty yards from the nearest watchtower. He holstered the Litchfield and drew his twin Navy Revolvers.
Caleb triggered his level four Dead Eye Skill.
The world instantly plunged into a deep sepia tone. The deafening roar of the battle faded into a muffled, rhythmic heartbeat.
Time didn't just slow down, it crawled. He could see the individual muzzle flashes from the Maxim gun above, hanging in the air like blossoming fiery flowers. He could see the faint red outlines of the vital organs of the two gunners operating the heavy weapon.
With impossible speed, Caleb raised both revolvers. He painted four red 'X's in the blink of an eye.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
He deactivated Dead Eye. The four shots sounded like a single, elongated crack of thunder.
Up in the tower, the Maxim gun instantly fell silent. The primary gunner caught two bullets in the throat, and the loader took two between the eyes. They slumped over the heavy weapon, dead before they realized they had been targeted.
"Tower one is down!" Caleb roared, his voice carrying over the chaos. "Push forward all of you!"
Bronte's men, emboldened by their Underboss's god-like marksmanship, let out a battle cry and surged forward from the train cars. They fired wildly, pouring lead into the scrambling Pinkertons.
But Caleb knew what they didn't. He knew the patrol routes, and he knew how much ammunition he had secretly advised them to leave behind for the sake of "speed and mobility."
As Team Alpha pushed into the open courtyard of the administrative sector, another wave of Cornwall's guards poured out from the alleys. The firefight turned brutally close quarters. Men were fighting hand to hand, using weapons butts and hunting knives when there was no time to reload.
Caleb stayed on the periphery, a phantom of death. He used his Navy Revolvers with terrifying efficiency, dropping any Pinkerton or Cornwall's men that posed a direct threat to his own safety, but consciously allowing Bronte's men to take the brunt of the assault.
He watched with cold calculation as Silvio took a bullet to the shoulder, staggering backward, only to be saved by another capo who subsequently caught a shotgun blast to the gut.
The casualties on Bronte's side were mounting rapidly, exactly as planned. But they were taking a massive toll on Cornwall's forces in return. The ground was littered with bodies wearing Pinkerton badges and Cornwall company uniforms. The administrative building was on fire, the flames licking at the night sky.
Suddenly, through the smoke and the chaos, Caleb's high perception caught a specific movement near the docks on the far side of the town.
There, illuminated by the fires of the burning sorting facility, was a heavily guarded convoy of men moving rapidly toward a luxurious, multi decked riverboat that was furiously stoking its engines.
In the center of the formation, wearing a pristine top hat and a heavy, fur lined coat, was Leviticus Cornwall himself. The tycoon was red faced, screaming orders at his guards, looking absolutely terrified and infuriated by the destruction of his property.
Caleb immediately holstered his revolvers and pulled the Carcano Rifle from his system inventory. He scaled a pile of industrial piping to get a clear vantage point. He peered through the high powered scope, putting the crosshairs directly over the center of Cornwall's chest.
At this distance, with his max Rifle skill and Dead Eye, the shot was a guaranteed kill. He could end the tycoon right here, right now.
But Caleb's finger paused on the trigger.
Killing Cornwall now would end the war too abruptly. If Cornwall died, his empire would fracture into legal battles and boardroom squabbles. The immediate, violent threat to Bronte would vanish. Bronte would claim total victory, consolidate his power in Saint Denis, and become undisputed king.
Caleb couldn't have that. He needed them both alive, bleeding each other dry, until he was ready to sweep the board clean. He needed Cornwall alive to seek vengeance, to pour his vast wealth into destroying the Italians, completely distracted from a small gang hiding in the heartlands.
Caleb smiled a cold, calculating smile. He shifted the crosshairs slightly to the right.
He triggered Dead Eye for a fraction of a second and fired.
The high caliber round tore through the air and impacted the head of the Cornwall's guard captain standing shoulder to shoulder with Cornwall. The man's head snapped back, his bowler hat flying off in a spray of red, and he collapsed dead against Cornwall's legs.
Cornwall shrieked, stumbling backward in horror, his pristine coat splattered with his guard's blood.
"Get me on that boat!" Cornwall screamed, his composure entirely shattered. "Move! Move!"
The remaining guards practically threw the rich tycoon onto the gangplank. They scrambled aboard, cutting the mooring lines with axes.
The riverboat's paddlewheel churned the dark water furiously, and the vessel began to steam away from the burning town, retreating into the safety of the Kamassa River, heading south toward open water.
Caleb lowered the rifle, satisfied. Cornwall was alive, but he was humiliated, terrified, and his northern operation was in ashes. The tycoon's rage would be biblical.
Caleb turned his attention back to the battlefield. The situation on the ground was deteriorating exactly as he had orchestrated.
"Underboss!" Silvio yelled, limping heavily toward Caleb's position behind the pipes. His face was pale from blood loss. "We're running dry! The boys are out of repeater rounds! Carmelo's team is getting pushed back from the ridge!"
"Fall back!" Caleb commanded, his voice ringing with fake desperation. "The plan is done! The facility is destroyed! Fall back to the tree line near the river! We regroup and exfiltrate!"
It was the fatal command.
Bronte's men, exhausted, bleeding, and low on ammunition, broke from their cover in the town and began to sprint across the open, muddy expanse leading toward the tree line bordering the river, the exact path Caleb had laid out during the meeting.
But Caleb had known Cornwall's secondary reinforcements, the mounted patrols from the northern camps, would respond to the explosions by circling down the river paths.
As Bronte's men rushed toward the trees, thinking they were reaching safety, the darkness of the woods erupted with muzzle flashes.
Dozens of fresh Cornwall guards on horseback emerged from the tree line. Worse, two heavy, iron plated carriages tore out from the access roads, skidding to a halt to block the path. Mounted in the back of the carriages were Gatling guns.
"Ambush!" a capo screamed, just before a Gatling gun opened up.
The heavy, rapid fire weapons shredded the retreating mobsters. It was an absolute massacre. Caught in the open mud between the burning town and the reinforced tree line, Bronte's elite soldiers were cut down like wheat before a scythe.
Men screamed as they were ripped apart by the heavy caliber rounds. Carmelo's Team Beta, scrambling down from the ridge to join the retreat, ran right into the crossfire and were decimated within seconds.
Caleb watched the slaughter from a secure position behind a wrecked coal cart, his face an emotionless mask. He was systematically pruning Bronte's army.
But he couldn't let them all die. He needed survivors to return to Saint Denis to tell the tale of the "unforeseeable" reinforcements, and more importantly, to tell the tale of Caleb McLaughlin's heroism.
Caleb surged into action. He activated Dead Eye to its maximum limit.
He stepped out from cover, drawing the Litchfield. Time froze. He painted the gunners on both Gatling carriages, the drivers, and the front line of the mounted guards. The sepia world was littered with red targets.
He unleashed a torrent of fire. He emptied the repeater with impossible speed, the lever blurring in his hands. He dropped the rifle, drew his Navy Revolvers, and kept firing, fanning the hammers.
Within five seconds of real time, both Gatling guns fell silent, their operators dead. Six mounted guards tumbled from their saddles, their horses rearing in panic.
Caleb's devastating display of marksmanship punched a temporary, bleeding hole through the ambush line.
"Move! Through the gap!" Caleb roared to the battered survivors. "Go! Go! I'll cover you!"
Silvio and the remaining dozen mobsters, out of the nearly thirty elite men who had started the night, didn't need to be told twice.
Bleeding, limping, and completely out of ammunition, they scrambled through the hole Caleb had created in the enemy lines, plunging desperately into the thick, dark woods of Roanoke Ridge.
Caleb stood his ground for a few moments longer, firing into the darkness to keep Cornwall's recovering reinforcements pinned down. He made sure he looked the part of the selfless commander, risking his own life to save his men.
When the last of Bronte's men vanished into the brush, Caleb threw a stick of dynamite toward the remaining mounted guards to break their pursuit, turned, and sprinted after his men, his high Agility allowing him to easily outpace the danger.
The sounds of the burning town faded behind them as they plunged deeper into the wilderness.
Hours later, as dawn began to bleed grey light through the canopy of the Grizzlies, the ragged remnants of Bronte's strike force collapsed near a small, hidden creek.
They were a pitiful sight. Expensive suits were torn and soaked in mud and blood. Men were groaning, binding wounds with ripped shirts. Silvio sat against a tree, his breathing ragged, his arm useless. Of the two dozen elite killers and capos, including Carmelo's team, barely ten men had survived the meat grinder.
But the damage to Cornwall was undeniable. Behind them, Annesburg was a smoking ruin. The coal supply to Saint Denis would be crippled for months. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in infrastructure had been reduced to ash in a single night.
Silvio looked up as Caleb approached. The Underboss looked pristine compared to the rest of them. His duster was dirty, yes, but he hadn't taken a single scratch. To Silvio, Caleb wasn't just a man, he was a god of war who had pulled them from the jaws of hell.
"Underboss..." Silvio rasped, coughing weakly. "We... we did it. The town is ash."
"We did," Caleb said softly, looking down at the battered men. "But Cornwall had an army waiting in the wings. They brought Gatlings into the woods. It was a setup we couldn't have anticipated from the scouting reports."
"If it wasn't for you..." another made man choked out, wiping blood from his eyes. "If you hadn't taken out those guns... none of us would have made it across the mud. You saved us, Signor McLaughlin."
"We are family," Caleb lied smoothly, his Persuasion skill wrapping the surviving men in a blanket of absolute, unbreakable loyalty. "I don't leave my men behind."
Caleb turned away, walking to the edge of the creek to wash the gunpowder from his hands.
He looked at his reflection in the rippling water. The night had been a flawless, brutal success.
Cornwall was deeply, financially wounded and publicly humiliated. His rage would force him to focus all his vast resources on Saint Denis.
Bronte, meanwhile, would celebrate the destruction of Annesburg, completely blind to the fact that his private army, the elite capos and made men who enforced his rule, had just been effectively castrated.
The two titans of the region were now locked in a death spiral, deeply wounded, paranoid, and utterly focused on each other.
And Caleb, the orchestrator of their mutual destruction, was now the undisputed, revered hero of the Italian mob.
Caleb smiled at his reflection. The war was officially out of control, and it was beautiful. It was time to go home and see if the ghost in the basement had finally stopped breathing.
Silvio after taking several deep breaths, draw strength from Caleb's apparent calm. "Those reinforcement s... we need to move, Signor. They'll send trackers to track us down immediately."
"Agreed." Caleb turned to the other men. "Split into three groups. Take different routes back to Saint Denis. Travel light, travel fast. No fires, no unnecessary noise. If you're pursued, lead them away from the others. Understood?" The men nodded, their faces set in grim determination.
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Name: Caleb Thorne
Age: 23
Body Attributes:
- Strength: 8/10
- Agility: 8/10
- Perception: 9/10
- Stamina: 8/10
- Charm: 8/10
- Luck: 9/10
Skills:
- Handgun (Lvl MAX)
- Rifle (Lvl MAX)
- Firearms Knowledge (Lvl MAX)
- Past Life Memory (Lvl MAX)
- Knife (Lvl MAX)
- Blunt Weapon (Lvl 2)
- Sneaking (Lvl MAX)
- Horse Mastery (Lvl MAX)
- Poker (Lvl MAX)
- Hand to Hand Combat (Lvl MAX)
- Eagle Eye (Lvl 2)
- Dead Eye (Lvl 4)
- Bow (Lvl 3)
- Pain Nullifier (Lvl 4)
- Physical Regeneration (Lvl 3)
- Crafting (Lvl MAX)
- Persuasion (Lvl MAX)
- Mental Fortitude (Lvl MAX)
- Cooking (Lvl MAX)
- Teaching (Lvl 3)
- Trilingual Language Proficiency - G, I, & C (Lvl MAX)
- Inventory System (Permanent - 50x50x50)
- Acting (Lvl MAX)
- Alcohol Resistance (Lvl MAX)
- Treasure Hunter (Lvl MAX)
- Drugs Resistance (Lvl MAX)
- Business (Lvl 2)
- Leadership (Lvl 2)
Money: 3,322 dollars and 60 cents
Inventory: 250,992 dollars and 61 cents, 11 gold nuggets, 70 gold bars, 1 Double Action, 1 Schofield, 2 Colm's Schofields, 1 land deed (Parcel), 1 Mauser, 1 Semi Auto Pistol, 1 Lancaster Repeater, 1 Old Wood Jewelry Box, 1 F.F Mausoleum small brass key, 1 Ruby, 1 Braithwaites Land Deed, 1 Broken Pirate Sword, 1 Milton's Safety Deposit Key, 1 Senator Pendleton Sealed Envelope, Proof Of Marlin-Thorne Firearms Co., 10 Dynamites, 1 LeMat, 1 M1899, 1 Carcano, & 1 Ownership deed of Doyle's Tavern
Bank: -