Shadow Runner [LitRPG]

It didn't take us long at all to mop up the rest of our attackers. Sure, they were well-armed. Beyond well-armed, judging by the attack on our van. But this was still the grunt-level Zerx we were talking about. Drugged out of their minds, literally, and about as competent as an average person you'd scrape off the ground in the slums. (Not very.)

Honestly? That just made the damage they did successfully score against us sting all the more.

"They had missiles, Adrian. We do not fuckin' have missiles. Why don't we have missiles?" Mela fumed, pausing only to kick a random Zerx's stomach.

"Because we can't legally, or even illegally, get those. And because we're not idiots willing to use that kind of crap in a residential area! Please stop kicking him? He might die, and then he'll be useless to Amelia."

My lovely ripper chose that moment to chime in. "That's not true. If he dies, we can preserve his corpse, and I'll use it as biomass for a couple experiments!"

The angelic smile on her face faltered when we both just stared. "What?

"Yeah, no, this checks out. I find that both hot and disturbing. At the same time. And I definitely have issues. Yep. Everything makes sense," I muttered to myself, then shook my head when I realized I was the one getting stared at now.

"Riiiight." Mela turned and started hollering to the drones, who were just standing around, blank as shit and waiting for orders. "Gather up all these idiots, ya useless layabouts! We need to keep moving!"

"Should we have them help us with —"

I cut myself off as Mela marched right up to the van. She crouched down on the opposite side of the wheels, grunting as she managed to get a good grip. The activation of her various skills made her light up. Scale patterns emerged on her skin.

Ever so slowly, she lifted the thing all on her own.

With one final shove, the van rocked back onto its wheels, remarkably undamaged. Then the redhead glanced at me.

"Wha was that? You were saying something?"

Well, I'd been about to suggest we have the drones help us get the van upright…

"Nothing," I replied. "Nothing at all. Wonderfully done, by the way. Didn't know you could do that."

"Yeaaah, turns out the boost's tied to yer physical condition! Who knew? All that working out helped me, too!"

I nodded slowly, feeling very thankful indeed that Mela was on our side.

—

"How bad is it?" I finally asked, once we were back in the van and Mela had finished communicating with the other merc leaders.

Our ride was much bumpier than it had been earlier. Something had clearly been damaged in the attack. To be honest, though, I was just glad the vehicle was functional.

I was less glad about the frustrated look on Mela's face, which didn't prep me for good news.

"It's… not horrible," she grunted.

"But?"

"But it wasn't supposed ta go like this, either! The Zerx were better fuckin' prepared than we thought they would be."

"What's going on, exactly?"

"Pitched resistance, every step of the way. Apparently, we ain't the only leaders they tried to take out. Furious Furies lost their captain. They're now being led by their vice."

"Fuck!" I couldn't stop that one from slipping out, and apparently neither could Amelia. "They're pulling out?"

Mela actually laughed. "Fuck no! They're goin' deeper in. And they want blood."

She began tapping on the scroll in her hands. The TV screens that covered the wall separating us from our driver flickered and shifted to a map of the slums. The Zerx territories were marked clearly, thanks to the data I'd stolen. The current positions of the mercenary companies were also displayed on the flickering screens, with the one marked as the Furies having cut deepest into the Zerx territory.

"At this point, it's personal. I'm worried they'll burn themselves out, or literally burn themselves up, but they're doing fine so far!" Mela's laughter shifted quickly to a scowl. "But still, the Zerx weren't supposed to be ready. Not like this."

"I mean… we knew Adrian's daddy dearest would do something, right?" Amelia piped up.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

She was working away at an unconscious Zerx, surrounded by several containers of what I'd charitably call 'remains.' The guy's body was already bulky, and judging by how difficult it was becoming for Amelia to shift him around, I could only imagine his weight was steadily increasing. Apparently, my lover really wanted to see how far she could push muscle density before she hit some kind of hard limit.

She was also supposedly working on converting 'biomass' into bits that matched the DNA of the person she was operating on, but I had no idea how that was going.

"Right," I groused, my claws clenching at her mention of Titus. "We were all thrown off by how little he'd done. I guess it makes sense that this is his reaction."

And we'd never be able to nail him for it.

Sure, the sudden appearance of advanced weaponry was suspicious. Without direct evidence, though, none of the corps that ruled the city would be likely to rush into pissing off my dearest father. Not because they were afraid, but because he was convenient.

"The good news," Mela cut in, no doubt noticing the thunderous look on my face, "is that these idiots are mostly wasting the toys he got 'em! They're untrained and reckless when it comes to using up resources. Frankly, all the reports of them accidentally blowing each other up would be downright hilarious if we didn't hafta deal with the occasional idiot getting lucky. Put enough of those together, and it's inevitable they'll do some damage."

Amelia sighed, finally pausing her work altogether to eye up the Zerx like a baker sculpting a perfect cake. "They're trying to make us back off, aren't they?"

"Yep. They want us gone yesterday, and they're trying to make themselves too expensive to fight," Mela snarled, crossing her arms. "Thing is, they might just succeed if they've got enough grunts."

It made sense, in a horrible, wasteful way.

The Zerx higher-ups didn't care about their members. Fuck, they were selling a chunk of them! No, what they wanted was the survival of their little organization. If they could ensure that by spending enough lives, why not? Just arm a mob to the teeth and unleash them on your enemies. Eventually, said enemies would either wise up and leave, or your mob would grind their numbers down into nothing.

Sadly, I doubted there was a lack of drug-addled idiots in the slums.

That meant the Zerx wouldn't run short of forces, so long as they could keep supplying said idiots with weapons and ammo. From what I knew about my loving father? He probably could do that, yes. At the very least, he could continue funding the Zerx well past the point when our hired mercenaries would all be dead.

Which would leave us without many cards to play.

Mela had carefully combed through the available manpower for hire to find the most reliable organizations. Maybe we could scrounge up one or two smaller companies, but beyond that? We'd need to keep watching our backs just so my pathetic sperm donor didn't buy them out from under us. Betrayal would rob us of manpower at best, and serve us up to him on a platter at worst.

Not appealing.

"We need to break them quickly, then," I mused. "Or at least make the Zerx territory significantly smaller so we can block off any deliveries that might try to top up their supplies."

Then I grimaced, thoroughly annoyed that we suddenly had to worry about logistics and supply networks. We were there to kill Zerx, damn it! Not act out an actual war!

Thankfully, that's when Amelia cheerfully interjected.

"I might be able to help! Maybe. Let's see…"

She stuck her hand inside the ganger's head, eyebrows scrunched in concentration. A couple minutes later, she withdrew, and the guy's eyes fluttered open with that same dull expression found in all our drones.

And then he tried to stand up.

It was an… involved process. Slow, too. He looked to be straining against both gravity and his own body. When he finally managed, though, we were faced with a wall of muscle.

Amelia had done nothing to alter the guy's height, so it was still pretty underwhelming. But his muscles? He looked like some kind of caricature of a strongman. All bulging, wiggling, very-unpleasant-to-look-at muscles that strained against his skin.

Honestly? He looked like he could have tanked one of those missile shots and walked it off with minor cosmetic damage.

"Hrm. Not ideal. I made him too heavy, and the muscles too… well, just too much. It's impaired his agility, not to mention his ability to function normally at all. I do think he'll prove very strong and damage-resistant, though!"

There was a gleam in Amelia's eyes. It wasn't hungry, or malicious, or anything of the sort. It was just intense, and so very, very excited and curious. She looked ready to perform as many follow-up experiments as we let her, and for just a moment, I wondered…

Did her father start out like that, too? A man driven by his curiosity, with a need to learn more about a field he was excited about? And did that excitement, combined with his utter disregard for moral concerns, push him to become what he did?

Now, that didn't make me scared of Amelia. I knew her. I loved her.

I also knew she loved me. If for no reason other than my asking her not to, she wouldn't take things too far. She was already so conflicted that she preferred experimenting on herself over trying stuff out on other people.

If she'd been left alone with her father, though? Well…

"You mentioned helping us?" I asked, just to distract myself from the odd direction my thoughts were taking me.

"Yep! Just park us somewhere and give me a few hours, and I'll have a whole squad of these ready to go. She slapped the muscled drone's arm. "They're dumb as bricks, but they'll charge Zerx lines like nobody's business. Our very own little shock troopers! We can use them as expendables too, maybe rig them up with some explosives? Eh. I'll leave the planning to Mela."

…Okay, so maybe I should be a little more worried about Amelia than I originally thought.

I also found her incredibly hot in that moment. Which, yeah… I wasn't in denial about my issues anymore.

Mela just nodded. "That could work. Ya sure, though? Someone could figure out what's happening out here if ya just start printin' out those things."

"Meh. Not really? I can change their appearance a little, just so no one can recognize them as former Zerx, and we're surrounded by my drones. Sure, if someone's spying on us, it might be an issue, but you can clear the area, right? We'll introduce them to the other mercs as, uh… I don't know, clones? Androids? Cyberpsychos who get off on this kind of shit? I don't know, I can't come up with all the good ideas! You guys do some work too!"

I snorted. She had a point, though.

"Well, we have those troops, I guess," I said. "We also have ourselves. If it comes down to it, we can probably collapse a front or two to help our allies push a little deeper."

"Sure, we just need to make sure we leave no enemy witnesses behind!" Amelia grinned again, and I felt another delicious shudder go through me.

Was it okay to make out in what was essentially hostile territory? I wasn't sure.

But if she kept going like that, Amelia and I would find out.