Shadow Runner [LitRPG]

"Okay. So! I have a plan."

Honestly? Hearing those words from Mela should have terrified me. Oddly enough, though, it didn't. Probably on account of how focused and sincere she looked.

"The credits came in, right?" she pressed on.

"Yeees," Amelia replied cautiously. "We got a little over 1.3 million, in the end. Why?"

"Well… would ya mind terribly if I asked for a nice, round million credits?"

Amelia glanced at me, then back at Mela. "I'm not saying no, but I am curious why you'd need so much."

"Well, ya see, I was all caught up in planning how to take care of the Zerx, right? Then it hit me! We don't need ta do it ourselves. I mean, obviously, we should get involved, but we don't gotta be the main actors. And then I thought about kiddo's daddy, and an idea came to me."

"Why am I still stuck as kid or kiddo?!" I huffed. "Amelia's barely older than me!"

"Because you're acting like it. Shush." My lover shot me a smug grin before refocusing on the ex-ganger. "I'm with you so far. And?"

"Well, he ain't the only mercenary leader in town! Sure, he's probably the most popular, and his mercenaries are the best rated, but there are others. I managed to track down five promising companies. Did some research on their success rates, behavior, how much they charge…"

She pushed the Shadow Buddy scroll across the table to us. Said eldritch creature's eyes appeared for just a second to wink at us happily, then vanished. The screen was fully taken up by graphs and analysis sheets of all the data Mela had collected.

I watched blankly as Amelia scrolled through it, then lifted my eyes to land them on a very smug redhead.

To my shame, I'd honestly forgotten: Mela was one of the Kittens' higher-ups. She had helped run the gang. Though she liked to act like a brash idiot, she was neither stupid nor incompetent.

The fucking file she'd just handed us was more than enough proof.

"This is comprehensive," Amelia muttered, echoing my thoughts.

"Oh, just you wait," Mela purred. "Bring up the other file I left open."

Amelia did so, then froze.

Battle lines. Invasion points. Maps of the slums, with highlighted spots where strategic tunnels and hidey-holes had been added.

This wasn't just some half-baked idea for charging headfirst against the Zerx. This was planning a war.

"Mela… what the fuck? This is seriously impressive," I breathed.

She laughed. "Why thank ya! See, this is why I need the credits. With about 200k for each of the five companies, we could get them on our side. Could even sweeten the deal and guarantee their cooperation by offering to cover battle expenses."

"Would we have enough for that?" Amelia asked.

She was trying to sound reasonable. But from how eagerly she was devouring the data, not to mention the bloodthirsty little smile she was rocking, I could tell that my ripper was pretty much sold.

"Easily. Wouldn't take more than 100k, I think. Mind, these would be professionals. Not the rabble most of the Zerx are. It would be a slaughter."

"And this is actual war we're talking about," I hedged. "The corpos…"

"Won't care." Mela cut me off with an eye-roll. "Most of them, anyway. The really shitty ones buying from the Zerx might, and they might try to warn us off. But if we just sell 'em some shit about how we're replacing the Zerx, they'd probably back off, too."

"And then be pissed at us when we 'break our word' later."

The look Mela gave me was scathing. "Ya want this done or not?"

"I do! I do! I'm just worried, is all. I'm trying out the whole 'less reckless' thing."

"And I'm immensely proud of you," Amelia chirped, turning to give me a quick peck on the cheek. "But this is actually a great idea. I mean, my father will probably be one of the people eager to get at our throats for this. So if we can do it, and then pretend we have merchandise for him…"

"We could finally do something about him," I finished for her, sighing. "And my own dearest father? This could seriously piss him off."

"Sure, but he can't officially claim the Zerx, can he?" Mela drawled, her eyes gleaming maliciously. "If he does, we can crucify him on the net. Sure, the corpos might not care if he keeps things on the down-low, but when things go public? They'd need to react to protect their own reputation."

Once again, Mela had nailed it. I stopped myself from saying something potentially insulting as she leaned back and crossed her arms, still radiating smugness.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Seriously, she could be very competent and convincing when she was motivated.

"Okay. I'm in." What else could I say? "Amelia?"

"Yep, I'm more than fine with this, too. We using Patch as the face of the operation?"

"Yep." Mela popped the 'p' loudly with a grin. "We'll just be nameless mercs. Maybe a small team he hired alongside the others? Not a ton of people got themselves a ripper, specially not one as good as ya, so we can argue that was our selling point."

"That works… but don't try to stick me in the back and 'protect' me or whatever. Both of you."

Amelia directed one of her signature glares at each of us, and I raised my hands in surrender.

"Got the message loud and clear. No coddling. Don't think I could for too long, even if I tried, with the way you've been going at it in training…"

Mela nodded. We had both been completely caught off-guard by Amelia's willingness to drive herself to utter exhaustion and then beyond. "He's right. I'm impressed. Didn't know you had it in ya."

"Well… it helps when you can fix yourself and get rid of lactic acid buildup in seconds."

She smirked at our stunned faces, especially Mela's.

I was just glad to have solved the mystery of how I was feeling so good every morning. I had found it a bit suspicious that Amelia had insisted on giving me massages every night before sleeping. Not that I hadn't returned the favor, unskilled as I was…

Mela, on the other hand, was now pointing an accusing finger at my girlfriend. "Ya cheatin' little…! Whidja not tell me about that?!"

Amelia broke into giggles, batting away Mela's hands as the redhead pretended to be trying to strangle the ripper.

Well. She was probably pretending?

"You didn't need any help," Amelia crooned at Mela. "You're in great shape already. I didn't want to enable you to push yourself too far!"

"Like you've been doin'?!"

"Well… I may have been cheating a little, sure. But if I've got the skills for it, why not?"

Catching the way she emphasized the word, I sighed. I had noticed that Amelia was shaping up stunningly fast for a very sedentary ripper with a penchant for greasy food. I almost didn't want to know what she'd been doing to herself.

Mela scowled. "Yer gonna share from now on! We all need to prep. I used to be in way better shape."

"Sure, sure, it's just…" Amelia glanced at me, then looked away quickly. "I've been trying to figure out some cybernetic alternatives, and it's been, uhhh, working pretty well for me."

That caught my attention real quick. "Explain?"

"Well… you know how my particular flavor of eldritch monstrosity is known to 'improve' their victims? I figured I could test some of that stuff myself."

I gaped. I felt lost for words. Kind of dizzy, too, if I'm being honest.

Of all the stupid things she could do…

"Amelia. Please, please, please tell me you haven't been experimenting on yourself using eldritch powers?"

She flushed, refusing to meet my eyes. "Listen, the only reason Medics are so feared is because they twist people into monsters! The base abilities are something I've been using this whole time, and it's not like I did anything major…"

"Amelia —"

"Oh, hush! I've been able to speed up the adaptation and growth of my muscles, and make them a little denser than normal. I've done something similar to my bones too. Made them a little denser, tougher, that kind of thing. I've been careful not to mess with things too much, and make my bones and surrounding tissue too rigid or something, because that could actually be really bad. But it's working great so far!"

"Is this why you've been eating so much more recently?"

"Well, yes! Need to fuel the process somehow. I could try sourcing biomass and directly adding it to my body, but I'm not sure I want to do something like that. I have no idea at all what that would do to my DNA, not to mention the risk of various forms of cancer and the like."

She was mumbling to herself at that point. Meanwhile, I was seized by a sudden urge to hit my head against the wall.

This was the woman criticizing me for recklessness?

"Amelia…"

"Stop saying my name all disappointed-like, okay? What else was I supposed to do? Buy people to experiment on?" she snapped.

I looked away, guilty at the realization that I would kind of prefer that.

"I did do some of the experiments on the drones first," she went on. "But I can't really rely on them for that kind of stuff."

I glanced up sharply. "Why not?"

She was the one to look away this time, hesitating.

"You know you can tell me whatever the reason is, right?" I reminded her.

"I know…" She swallowed. "It's just, I noticed certain… irregularities in the drones."

"Such as?" Mela cut in this time, looking intensely intrigued. Probably in case whatever was happening made our merc drones more useful in the coming conflict.

"Their physiology's been changing on their own, slowly. They're tougher. Faster. Stronger. The whole package. They eat less too, somehow, and they practically don't need to sleep anymore. The changes are… odd. I think I somehow triggered them when doing the brain alterations, because I admit I relied a ton on the Medic instincts there, and only tweaked a few things. But… I don't know how any of it works."

She sounded stressed, and I couldn't blame her for it. What I could do was blame her for not sharing sooner, but that was different. She didn't need that kind of attitude at the moment.

"They're changing into… something," she mumbled. "And I don't even know what. I do know that makes them very iffy as 'human' test subjects, though."

"Okay, okay, that's…" I paused to take a deep breath. "Okay. We'll deal with it later, and it's not like the mercs deserve any pity from any of us to begin with. Seriously, though, we can snatch up Zerx for you or something once the fighting starts. Just please don't do more testing on yourself, okay? What's happening to the drones is a good reason not to."

"I just… I didn't want to be like my father," she admitted, so quietly that I almost missed it,

The words were a very nasty shock to my system.

"Love, you're nothing like him. I promise you're nothing like him." I swept her up in a hug. "And you don't need to do this just for me. I'll get the stupid cybernetics. You don't need to risk your humanity over my discomfort!"

"It's not just that. The kind of control and power I have…" She buried her forehead in my chest, words coming out in a flood. "This could be big, Adrian. Bigger than the iffy rejuvenation treatments the corpos are fond of, and the cyberization procedures, or even Essence. If I can figure this out, I might be able to reverse aging. Optimize our bodies. Make sure any kids we have, and their children, are never sick a day in their lives."

Affection and worry fought a war in my chest. Still, I couldn't stop my whole stance from softening if I tried.

"And I'll help you get whatever resources you need to make all of that possible," I assured her. "But… I can't lose you, okay?"

She sniffled a few more times, then looked up, finally meeting my eyes. "Okay."

The smile she gave me was so achingly beautiful.

"Okay, ya two are sweet an all, but ye are aware we're discussing extremely disturbing and illegal shit, right?" Mela squinted at us, massaging her forehead. "I ain't saying I wouldn't like to be immortal, though…"

I just sighed, grimacing at the redhead. She really was frustratingly good at ruining emotional moments when she wanted to.

Another thing to add to her growing list of accolades.