The first thing Victoria did when she stumbled into the Inn was dig out a handful of crumpled bills from a pocket and toss them onto the counter. When asked what she wanted all she could do was gesture for the bottle that looked the cheapest, gratefully sinking into the motions of drowning with her sorrows with drinks that smelled and tasted like horse piss. Alcohol was her rock, the one constant she seemed to have in her life. It had carried her through nights spent sleeping on the street and brawling with the seemingly innumerable amount of other dirt poor street toughs, dulling the pain of hunger and cuts from blades and bottles. Almost all of her best memories were clouded by a haze of alcohol-induced fog. She had drained a bottle of dubious quality whiskey and collapsed in a heap of screaming and tears when the father of her child disappeared on her. She drank when she was happy, sad, horny, enraged, wistful and any other emotion that could be named. It was an every day event for her, either from the flask in her bag or a bottle scrounged up from somewhere. One drink turned into two, then three, then five. Victoria was a big girl, standing at taller than quite a few men at 6'3" and she had had plenty of practice so she wasn't truly drunk yet, just tipsy. Her judgment was impaired enough that she became a bit grabby, a hand swinging out and slapping the ass of a passing Imperial soldier. She had earned herself a warm beer to the face for that one, the girl that had been the target of her affection muttering curses. Her target had been a rugged looking Federation trooper that had caught her eye. He was from Edinburgh, if the accent was anything go by. She got a good taste of it from the violent threats lobbed he lobbed her way. Some guys didn't like it when you grabbed at their crotch without a moment's warning, who knew? This called for a change of tactics. One of the barmaids reacted favorably when Victoria offered to buy her a drink, only to lose any interest when asked how fast she could slip out of her skirt. [color=BLUE][i]"Bunch of fecking prudes, the lot of 'em."[/i][/color] Private White thought to herself grumpily. That was it, everyone that had turned down her advances had been the problem, not her methods of approach. After all, she was a model of chivalry and good manners. The final turn-down was enough for her to call it quits, the "Prairie Slasher" forking over yet more cash in exchange for a room the size of a large closet with a matress that could have passed for a stained lump of hardtack pressed into the corner. The walls were decorated with some mysterious brown substance that she didn't care to figure out what it was. So far, it was basically the same as home. The young woman dropped her shit to the floor and collapsed onto the "bed", wiggling out of her pants and tossing her underwear to the side. After a very satisfying date with the one thing that would never leave her she allowed herself to fall asleep next to her rifle instead of a warm body, a weirdly tall and aggressively emotional killer clad in a cape, bandoleers, slouch hat and nothing else. ---- She was back in front of the armored car, watching the destruction of her unit and the death of her friends. The vehicle was a hulking metal beast, advancing relentlessly under a hail of bullets and bombs. No matter how much they threw at it the monster still kept coming, an angry god of death supported by its rifle-bearing acolytes. Victoria stared in silent horror as a man got torn clean in half by a burst of machine gun fire, his mangled body getting pulped by the wheels of the Imperial's war winner. A grenade ended three more lives with a single blast of white hot shrapnel, pain searing through White's arms as she earned new scars. All around her men and women were gunned down like animals, blood pouring and bones shattering under the weight of a torrent of lead. Victoria could handle bloodshed, she had seen her fair share of it back home. Hell, she had only been fourteen when she earned her nickname by shoving her knife through a girl's throat. What she couldn't handle was the utter helplessness she felt. She fired until she had no more bullets, threw every grenade she had, and the fucking thing still kept coming at her! Her comrades were all dead, she was trapped in a dead-end alley with nowhere to run. All she could was scream as the car rolled over her foot, sending her to ground as her femur was ground to dust. Her organs and ribcage were mashed to a pulp and still she screamed, crying out for anyone to save her until her skull was smashed into the ground and all went dark. ---- She woke up just after dawn, tugging the bottom half of her clothes back on and picking up her bags and carbine and before heading back downstairs. Breakfast was stringy bacon and hunk of bread washed down by more shitty beer, the meal was utterly tasteless. Victoria sat at her spot on the bar for a few hours, ordering new drinks in between bouts of stabbing the paces between her splayed fingers with her detached bayonet in a show of meaningless bravado. It was nearly noon when a fresh batch of dirty Feds clambered in, Victoria watching them with interest. With some luck, she had just found her new unit. Their highest ranked member appeared to be a Darcen which somewhat surprised her. She hadn't expected to see the double chevrons of a Corporal on the sleeve of a member of the most hated group in the world. Before she could introduce herself the officer was engaged in conversation with some Imperial, Victoria tapping a boot against the dusty wooden floor as she waited. When the seat was freed she stood up and spat on the ground before making her way over, sinking into the still warm chair with a grunt. [color=BLUE]"Private Victoria White, mates call me Slasher.[/color] she drawled easily, tipping her hat politely. [color=BLUE]Me whole feckin unit got smashed by the Imperial bastards, youse lot hirin?"[/color] Her accent was heavy and somewhat hard to understand, not helped by her bastardized vocabulary taught by dealing with illiterate youths and spending not even a single day in school.