Shadow Runner [LitRPG]

Mela got everything she wanted.

And I'm not just talking about the funding here. First, she announced herself as Patch's 'assistant', reminding me and Amelia that she was the only one of us actually capable of showing their face in public. She then immediately started going after the people she needed in order to make her plans work.

I could only watch in awe as she contacted the mercenary leaders, one after another, adopting a slightly different persona for each of them.

For the Zappers, she was brash, eager, and boasted an explosive temper. For the Wild Wolves, she was a calm, collected, but passionate young mercenary who genuinely believed in 'Patch's vision' of 'cleansing the slums of the most disruptive elements, so the area could see improvement.'

The other three groups also got their own flavor of Mela. What didn't change, though, was how vividly she extolled the virtues of cooperation, how much she totally respected and looked up to the mercenary groups, and her eagerness to work alongside them on 'the Zerx issue.'

Naturally, Patch completely agreed with her on everything. This was corroborated by the man himself, smiling brilliantly and offering excuses for how he was 'too busy' and had to leave most of the coordination tasks to his assistant.

It was eerie, seeing Patch go from smiling and friendly to complete robotic emptiness the second he was away from the cameras. Well. It was eerie seeing him so nice and positive to begin with, actually. Still, Mela was extremely precise with the orders she'd given him, so I had no real worries about any oddness coming out at an inopportune time (thereby potentially outing us for doing creepy human experiments).

Mela's session of order-giving also confirmed some of Amelia's theories about the biological changes the drones were experiencing.

Nothing else made sense, really. Mela had rattled off several pages of preplanned orders, all in short succession. Patch had just numbly absorbed them before proceeding to carry them out, as far as we could tell, to perfection. If that wasn't the result of weird brain modifications, I didn't know what was.

All of this effort, of course, could easily have ended up being for nothing.

While no rules existed to govern mercenary action outside of city bounds, the situation inside the city was different. The law was supposed to stop individuals from just hiring themselves a private army to go on a killing spree or pull a coup.

Well, it was supposed to prevent anyone other than a top corpo, gang leader, or a particularly motivated mercenary captain from doing that. Everyone else lacked the influence and credits required to make the law look the other way. Ergo, the law was perfect for suppressing regular old browbeaten civilians from getting any dangerous ideas, just as the corpos liked it.

It sort of made sense, then, to discover that our city's rulers didn't think much of the law.

You'd expect city officials, even those utterly indifferent to the suffering of people living within their purview, to be careful, logical people. You'd expect them to do stuff like, I don't know, deny a bunch of mercenary companies permission to perform 'large scale gang suppression' within city limits.

They didn't, because of course they didn't. Why would anyone care about anything beyond immediate profits?

This meant that, with Patch as her very own puppet, Mela was able to put together a proper invasion force through official channels. Just as officially, she purchased all the supplies we needed, coordinated the dispersal of those supplies, and penned in a proper date for the whole operation to kick off.

What was I doing this whole time? Getting my ass kicked, that's what. And also trying very subtly to keep an eye on Amelia, since the changes she'd made to herself were beginning to show themselves fully.

The changes were actually positive. For her.

She promptly used them to stomp on me in our spars, revealing superior physical strength, dexterity, and flexibility. I could totally win if I used Clairvoyance and my claws, but within the rules of sparring imposed on us by Mela, I got my butt kicked.

Obviously, Amelia used this as the perfect example of how she was totally and completely qualified to accompany us to the slums and wade into combat herself… which she was. I was worried about her safety, yes, but I couldn't bring myself to continue trying to coddle her.

Still, in spite of Amelia's improvement, my own increased competence from all the training, and everything Mela was doing to prepare, I was anxious.

Titus was still out there, and we were rather publicly preparing to tear down his investment in the slums. I kept expecting him to try something. Every morning, I half-expected to wake up to find every merc inside our stolen HQ dead. (I very pointedly refused to imagine the same happening to Mela.)

But instead, there was… nothing. Nothing at all. It was like Titus was genuinely just a leader of the top mercenary company, and completely unconcerned about whatever might happen to the Zerx.

At least, that was my impression until that official kickoff date rolled around.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Mela, Amelia, and I were all in the same vehicle as Patch for the occasion. The redhead was constantly relaying orders to him about what to say in communication with the leaders of our little mercenary league.

We had voice modulation software to make her sound like Patch, so she could have just talked to the merc leaders herself. But she'd flatly refused to rely on it. I understood that if someone recorded the call and went over it later with an analysis program, they might pick up on something being off, but still… Mela had surprised me with how paranoid she could be.

So there we were, listening to Patch repeat everything she said. Why she felt the need to stomp dramatically around the vehicle while telling him what to say, I wish I knew.

Mind, we were not in one of those horrid trucks that served as mobile jail cells. We were in a large van outfitted with some of the best communication tech around. It even had ridiculously cozy seating as a cherry on top, not to mention thick armor plating.

That plating was the only reason we survived when, minutes after we'd entered the slums, multiple missiles slammed right into the van.

I had just enough warning from the passive 'danger-response' activation of Clairvoyance to tear myself out of my seatbelt and tackle the annoying redhead to the floor, digging my claws into said floor as I did so. Then we were rocked by the explosions in a tangle of limbs, Amelia's screaming, and Mela's curses.

Patch was a good little drone and didn't so much as release a peep. But then again, he was properly locked in place by his seatbelt, which tightened automatically in response to the barrage. It kept his body secure so the cushions under him could inflate and almost cover him completely, just as they'd been designed to do.

The same happened to Amelia, another perfectly sane and reasonable person.

Mela and I were jerked around by the forces involved, without any cushioning, held to the floor only by my claws. Again, WHY did the neurotic redhead have to stomp around the vehicle while giving out orders?!

"Amelia, you okay?" I asked the second the world stopped trying to dislodge me from the floor. My shoulders felt achy. There was mostly likely a bruise forming on my forehead where Mela's chin had hit me.

"Fine!" Amelia squeaked. "Get me out of this!"

I looked over to see her completely smothered by the safety cushions. Her shorter height meant she was currently glaring at the top of the van with only her face peeking out. At least her neck was properly braced and cushioned against impacts?

"Cut yourself out, you can shift your fingers! Mela, status?"

"She gets 'are you okay' and I get 'status'?" The closest thing I had to a sister glared at me as a strange puncturing sound reached us. "I —"

"Shush!"

"Did ya just fucking —"

"SHUSH!"

She finally shut up, letting me focus. There, at the edge of my hearing, I barely caught it. Gunfire, muffled by all the plating and the van's surprisingly powerful noise cancellation.

"We're under attack, beyond just their attempt to blow us up."

"Good. Great! I'm fine, by the way, ya ass. Mind letting us drop so we can do something about it?"

I rolled my eyes, but I also finally withdrew my claws. That sent us toppling down to the side of the van, seeing as it was currently flipped from the force of the explosions. Amelia managed to tear her way out of the safety mechanisms nearly as fast, her fingers resembling large, wickedly sharp knives before they morphed back to normal.

"Status report, now!" Mela barked, finally engaging that voice modulation software.

Whatever info she got in response, she clearly didn't like. She spun towards me with a curse.

"Get us out of here, stat."

I nodded, bounding towards the back of the van. A single glance at the doors was enough to know why Mela was giving me that order. They were noticeably dented inwards, and the opening mechanism they required due to their additional armor plating was looking a little messed up.

It was one of the van's prime selling points: how safe and reliable it was in the face of attacks. There'd been a long passage in the materials specifically about the design of the doors, which would lock up and crumble to prevent them from being opened in response to stress and damage.

Unfortunately, that made them a potent pain in my ass right then and there.

I actually struggled to slice through the metal, even while using Essence. That was genuinely a first. I made a mental note to look up the doors' composition later, and also find out whether we could get the crap they were made of. It would make for some impressive armor.

Still, within five minutes, one door finally came loose. It fell away and clattered onto the road rather loudly. I instantly engaged Clairvoyance to the fullest and rushed out, gun in one hand and claws unsheathed on the other.

The street surrounding our transport was a scene of controlled chaos.

Four groups of Zerx had crawled out of the surrounding buildings. One blocked our way back, one blocked our way forward, and the other two were trying to pincer us. Those two had additional support from some of their members intelligent enough to stay in the buildings on either side.

I went straight for the group to our left. Shouting updates to Mela and Amelia through our shared call, I focused on getting rid of threats as quickly as possible.

Honestly? After putting up with Mela's 'training' for so long, and my encounter with the gorilla guard group before that, these Zerx were just… disappointing.

The sheen of sweat on their faces and the gleam of their eyes immediately told me just how high they were. They recklessly opened fire at us, keeping their lives by sheer virtue of laying down enough fire to prevent our drone mercs from methodically taking them out.

They'd also focused on the drones, the obvious combatants, a little too much. I was able to climb out of the van and almost get on top of them before they realized I was even a threat.

Sure, three of the twelve guys actually turned and opened fire, but I felt a delicious twinge of satisfaction when Clairvoyance proved none of them particularly competent. I stayed safe and bullet-free as my gun whipped around, three of my bullets finding purchase in three of their skulls. Then I was close enough to wade into their little crowd and put my claws to use.

It was a little hilarious that I only killed about half of them. The rest managed to mow each other down. Their drug-addled brains made them reflexively fire at a close threat, and I simply moved out of the way.

In the background, Mela's enraged bellows were followed by some rather harrowing sounds of flesh and bone giving up before a superior force. The street actually shook once or twice from whatever she was getting up to.

The most impressive sight, to me at least, was Amelia.

I glanced further down the street to see her practically dancing between the gangers. Her hands lashed out and passed through flesh like it wasn't even there, leaving it unmarked. Yet any ganger she touched went down, spasming so hard I'd bet they were tearing their own muscles and bones apart.

In spite of that, I could tell they weren't actually dead.

They'd probably wish they were by the time we were done with them.