Shadow Runner [LitRPG]

The current state of the slums was, in a single word, chaotic.

Several neighborhoods were now active warzones. I could only hope that everyone living in those areas had managed to evacuate promptly. The fact that I wasn't getting crushed by guilt was worrying, but, also welcome, to be honest.

Besides, I had other things to focus on. I was on the verge of getting the jitters as I watched the front line of our troops clash against the Zerx.

The enemy had taken over the street ahead of us, blocking our way with makeshift barriers built of trash and even a few barely functioning vehicles. Our convoy couldn't make it down the street without us clearing the rubble first. Attempts to shift to a different street were met with much the same success.

We might have underestimated the Zerx a little. At least, when it came to their ability to think on their feet and take advantage of their local knowledge.

But in terms of direct combat prowess…

I stared at the wall of screens in the van, watching as one of Amelia's new 'shock troop' former gangers roared. Their way-too-bulky body writhed with unnatural muscles. Then I kept watching, transfixed, as the pile of meat with a barely functional brain charged forward.

We'd stiffened them and their fellows inside makeshift armor, which held briefly against the enemy's bullet barrage. Then the armor got torn to pieces, letting the bullets hit home.

Except said 'home' scolded the bullets harshly and sent them packing. Other than a few small trickles of blood, the monstrosity didn't look affected.

Sure, its skin split apart, and the impact of so many bullets almost sent the brute staggering backwards. But that didn't mean the Zerx were succeeding. If anything, they just made the monster angrier.

This became quite apparent once said monster was finally within reach of their attacking former allies.

The pile of muscles reached out enthusiastically for the Zerx gangers and began squishing faces to bits, tearing off limbs, or just cracking heads. It was like watching a kid gleefully kick an anthill apart. The ants might get a few bites in, sure, but they couldn't do any appreciable damage.

Then, once the monstrosity had waded deep behind enemy lines, Mela pressed a detonator with a gleeful look on her face.

The explosion shook the van. The resulting shower of blood and bits was not pleasant at all.

The math of what we'd done, though? Immaculate.

One converted ganger, five gangers' worth of biomass (which we could easily get from the battlefield), and some heavy-duty explosives. That's all we had to expend in order to deal a serious blow to our enemy's numbers and morale alike.

Mela immediately ordered a push. Our unfeeling drones opened up, taking full advantage of the panic, madness, and rage lashing the Zerx ranks. It was a total rout.

And we didn't even need to get out of the van! Our secrets and skills were safe from spies and stray bullets, and we were successfully preserving most of our own troops.

Really, I would have thoroughly kissed my lovely ripper if she weren't elbows-deep inside another former Zerx.

Their face was already shifting, thickening, becoming something…. foreign. Just weird enough to make sure anyone would remember a person of that description, without getting them tagged as either aliens or some kind of eldritch abomination.

Which, funnily enough, they were.

Amelia had optimized every last thing about them. They were at the very limits of toughness she could manage without making them utterly useless. She had pushed their survivability to top levels.

And then she'd gotten creative.

For example, they were all fitted with a cavity in their torso that was chock-full of explosives. There was no outward sign of these bonus goodies, of course. We were hoping the Zerx wouldn't catch on for a minute, so we could continue sending the advanced drones out to die at such high cost to the enemy.

Amelia had also stripped her victims of pretty much all sexual characteristics, using the space typically reserved for those to fit in more explosives.

Finally, of course, she'd made them perfectly obedient to their handlers. Mostly used every option in the book to prevent confusion and accidents, but that was only smart.

The result? Our suicide bombers were now attacking all Zerx fronts, kicking ass briefly before slipping into enemy ranks and blowing up.

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Sure, the Zerx were drugged up to their gills. Sure, they were oddly well-armed. That didn't matter much when a single one of our explosive charges had enough potency to blow up a full cyborg, and our bombers were featuring several of those charges each.

The only downside of the whole thing was the pressure it placed on Amelia.

"You sure you don't need a break? I asked for the thousandth time, keeping a careful eye on the latest Zerx getting dragged towards the van. They were kicking and screaming the entire way, if their injuries allowed, which contrasted eerily with our drones.

Those said not a word, ever, unless prompted. They were a silent wall of death that marched and acted on Amelia's pleasure.

I was catching my first glimpse of exactly how dangerous Medics could be. I definitely understood why all our files treated them with such caution. Let a Medic prep for too long, and your world would get swarmed by their monstrous creations.

The interesting thing was that Amelia appeared to be genuinely enjoying herself.

"Nope!" she replied. "No break necessary."

"Are you sure? You okay?"

The question was as tentative as I felt. Not because I was some moral bastion or whatever, but because I was concerned about how hard Amelia was pushing herself.

She'd been at it since she decided her enhanced drone soldiers were the ideal response to the Zerx nonsense, and she was showing no signs of stopping. A light sheen of sweat covered her forehead. While no blood and viscera stained her, I'd watched her work through literal buckets of biomass.

But she was beaming.

"Of course I'm okay! Do you have any idea how long I kept trying to make minor changes to myself just to test things out? How worried I was? I don't need to think about stuff like that at all right now. I can just do whatever I want!"

I returned her smile happily enough. Still, I also spotted the subtle tremor in her hands. I noticed her eyes were ever so slightly unfocused. And, of course, I saw the way Essence swirled around her, fighting to seep into her arms at a pace quick enough to match her consumption.

I forced myself to look away from all that and focus on the joy in her eyes. "Figured out something exciting?"

"Yes! I can definitely give you some enhancements. Both of you! Though… we're going to need to be careful with it. I can tell these idiots I'm awakening aren't of the, ehhhhh, highest quality. It helps that they're drones, and it helps that we're not planning to keep them around, but they're not the most stable."

"Stable?" I echoed, fighting off a wave of dread. "Like, mentally?"

Frankly, if those monsters went insane and turned on us, it wouldn't even be a fight. While the other merc companies we'd hired were numerous and strong, there were none of them in our immediate vicinity. We had too many secrets to hide.

Our own troops were rather limited. Only about two-thirds remained of Patch's original mercs, and his company had been on the smaller side to begin with. If even a single one of Amelia's berserkers went wild, it would be…

Bad.

Thankfully, before I could lose it, my ripper jumped in.

"No, no! They're doing great mentally. Or, er, they're not doing mentally at all. It's their bodies I'm worried about. They're practically falling apart. I can smooth along rejection between different types of flesh, but there's only so much I can do for blood types. And it's sort of impossible to actually account for compatibility and stuff when you're literally bringing me human bits in buckets!"

"I'm not doing that. The drones are doing that."

"You know what I mean! These will hold just fine for a couple of hours, but after that, the enhancements I made would start to chafe. Their bodies would start to work just a little worse. In a day or two, bits of them would probably start to go necrotic. It's a good thing drones only care about what I tell them to care about…. not that they're living long enough, anyway."

"And you said you think you'd be able to give us some enhancements, if we wanted?" I asked carefully, and with decided reluctance.

"Well, I figured out how to do it. But I can't do it to you yet. We'd need to either source compatible biomass or have some grown for you using organ-cloning vats. Probably the vats, really. Not worth risking our long-term health just to save some money. But, yes. If we had what we needed, I'd be happy enough to help you and Mela along. That one gives me hope it's pretty safe."

She gestured at a former Zerx whom she'd set aside to keep as a test subject. His eyes were wide with horror, but clear and aware. Not brainwashed, barely modified… he looked mostly normal.

Other than the fact that his arms had been fused together at the wrists and his legs at the ankles, of course.

At least he didn't have to be tied up.

I eyed him warily. "He's showing no signs of changes like the drones would typically be going through?"

"Absolutely none. He's terrified, of course, but he's holding stable and sane. Well, he became the latter when I purged all the drug crap from his system. I don't think he appreciated that."

Our captive wiggled his fused limbs and tried to scream something past the gag keeping him silenced. Whether that was agreement, begging for help, or something else, I couldn't tell. Didn't much care to, either.

"Okay." I nodded. "Get some suitable material for all that at… some point, I guess. We've been busy."

"Yep! The best kind of busy!" Amelia happily shoved her hand deeper into her victim, eliciting some vaguely alarming jerking. "Oops. Gotta look out for that. Not good when my subjects die on me…"

Then she lit up like the sun. "Wait, would I be able to bring them back to life using all this stuff I can do? Wonder what that would be like from their perspective…"

I left Amelia to her muttering and turned to Mela. Now that our efforts were shifting the designated borders inwards, towards the core of the Zerx territory, the redhead looked almost as content as the ripper.

In fact, she looked about ready to break into a satisfied evil monologue.

"Any particular news, Mela?"

"Nope! We're doing great overall. We're pushing them back more and more, and we'll soon be able to assault the Cattery directly. That's not their HQ, obviously, but they latched onto it hard and have been refusing to let go ever since. If we can get them to scram…"

"We do something nice for our campaign, and also for everyone's memory," I filled in for her, earning myself a brilliant smile.

"Exactly! We just need to chase off the idiots and assholes, and we'll have a very nice regional HQ for stamping out the rest of the Zerx."

"I can't wait!"

Even as I answered enthusiastically, however, there was a churning in my gut. Sure, we'd gotten through the initial ambush just fine. Sure, Amelia was truly proving her worth as a Medic. But the fact remained that none of the Zerx we'd wiped out so far were particularly skilled or scary.

I couldn't help feeling like the other shoe was about to drop.