Shadow Runner [LitRPG]

The way Gorilla's face got all twisted up would have been funny if it weren't also downright terrifying. For all the stuff I'd gone through, all the people I'd pissed off and fought, I'd never seen such a potent and focused look of hatred.

"YOU! I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN!" the man screamed. "YOU FOLLOWED US, DIDN'T YOU, YOU FUCKING MONSTERS! WE CAN'T EVEN FUCKING GET AWAY FROM YOU!"

Once again, I was immensely glad to have Clairvoyance. I took Mela off her feet and forced us both down to the ground just as bullets started buzzing like angry hornets, riddling the walls, the windows, and the flesh of our drones. Mela grunted and found a way to twist just right so she could glare at me, but I ignored her. I just kept pulling her with me, tumbling back and down a few steps until we were out of sight of the crazed Zerx.

"I TOLD THEM! I TOLD THEM STALKERS WERE FOLLOWING US! THEY FUCKING CALLED ME CRAZY AND PARANOID!"

I felt a nervous chuckle slip out of me as the man whose PTSD I seemed to have set off engaged his own weapon. It was like he was trying to dig through the floor and stairs using the bullets, heedless of how impossible that was.

At least our drones had the chance to open fire themselves.

A future iteration of myself risked peeking over the steps we were now huddling behind, and was promptly rewarded by getting its brains splattered. Before the Clairvoyance showed me my end, however, I also got to see the drones gun down three of the five Zerx cowering at the other end of the hallway.

Amelia's monstrosity was not idle, either.

The creature had seized on the distraction, lunging forward and slamming itself against one of the cyber-enhanced Zerx. The woman screamed as the creature's claws tore into her. I winced at the sight of its many jaws opening up all over its body and gnawing away. The thing pretty much ripped off the woman's face with its teeth alone, her skin and flesh vanishing inside its body moments later.

The woman's screams were enough to break even Gorilla from his temporary insanity. He whirled around to help, which finally gave me an opening.

My arm blurred as I quickly pulled one of my guns out of its holster. I threw myself upright, shooting before I could even process things in real time. Clairvoyance was guiding me anyway, so the three bullets I let loose found their target.

A man who'd frozen up in horror at the sight of his mauled companion suddenly staggered and collapsed as my bullets ruined a good portion of his face. Not even his cybernetics could save him in the face of his own distraction. The spray of blood just made Gorilla scream louder.

Our drones began pushing past us at that point, their own guns up and working away at our opposition all the while. The final un-augmented Zerx fell, riddled with bullets. The second-to-last cybernetics user also ate a couple rounds, simply unable to dodge the entire barrage.

That was when Mr. Gorilla seemed to snap altogether.

The gun fell from his hands. The floor fractured under him as he launched himself forward.

He literally tore the head off of the first drone he reached, throwing it with enough force to crack the helmet of another of our men. Three more drones were tossed out of his way like toys. He was no longer bothering to dodge the bullets coming his way, releasing a plume of blood to spray around him like some demented halo.

He looked set to reach us.

Then Mela was up. Her body shone more brightly than it ever had as she called upon her Behemoth skills. Her fist met Gorilla's jaw with such force that the resulting snap of his teeth clicking together was followed by a spray of bone fragments. His feet had also fully left the ground, getting a good half a meter in height before his entire body came down like a sack of very fugly potatoes.

I'll be honest: I was reduced to staring at Mela in awe. I might or might not have triggered my eyes' programming to save the last couple minutes of what I'd seen, just so I could preserve that punch for posterity.

I was only vaguely aware of the final cyber-augmented Zerx screaming in the background as Amelia's horror finally overwhelmed him. Then silence fell over the hallway, broken only by the sounds of the creature feeding and Mela's desperate gasps. Apparently, her lungs were having a hell of a time supplying her body with the oxygen it needed.

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"Y-You okay?" I asked tentatively, dropping my Stealth.

Mela turned to face me with a bloodthirsty grin.

"Ye-e-e-ah, j-just ne-ed to c-catch my breath. T-That took a-a lot out of me."

I could tell. The glow of her various enhancement skills had faded entirely, and she was drooping like she was going to pass out on the spot.

Frankly? I felt kind of bad about how little I'd contributed to that brief scuffle. I mean, sure, she was way more experienced than me… but I'd been a half-eldritch monstrosity much longer than she had. Besides, I was the one Gorilla had almost killed!

"A-Are ya fucking poutin' at me?"

"What? No!"

"Y-You are! Ha! W-What's got ya doing that?"

"Nothing!"

She looked at me. She looked down at her unconscious victim. Then she looked at me again, a smirk spreading slowly over her face.

"Don't tell me yer actually jealous I got him?"

"No I'm not! Now hush, I need to check if there's more Zerx here."

I closed my eyes, trying to fight off a flush and focus on Tracking at the same time. It wasn't going great, if Mela's laughter was any indication.

"Ha! Oh, I can't wait ta tell Amelia all about —"

Several things happened in slow succession.

First, I realized there was still one more signature, coming from somewhere above us. Second, Clairvoyance suddenly screamed at me, prompting me to leap forward and close my hand around Mela's ankle. I pulled her towards me, heedless of the tumble down the stairs we'd take as a result. Third, an explosion suddenly ripped its way through my senses, blinding and deafening me.

For a while, my world was nothing but dazed pain and confusion. The left side of my body was consumed by such intense agony, I didn't think I'd ever be capable of coherent thought again. My head felt stuffed and utterly empty, all at the same time.

Then a cool sensation cut through the haze, reminding me of the first cup of water to hit my tongue after barely stumbling inside on a ridiculously hot day.

I blinked my eyes open, then froze at the sight of one of Amelia's hands shoved inside my forehead. The other rippled through the flesh of my stomach, soothing my puckered, crispy skin.

"W-Weh, wuh, wa happn?"

Talking while Amelia did whatever she was doing inside my skull was exceedingly odd. It also got her angry, terrified eyes to focus in on mine, which I honestly wasn't sure was such a good thing.

"You left me behind. You left me behind, and you almost fucking died! That's 'wa happn', you stupid, idiotic…!"

She hissed at me. Legitimately hissed at me.

I squinted my eyes at her as I tried to tilt my head. It didn't really work, on account of her arm being inside that particular part of my body.

"That was kind of hot," I managed to mutter legibly.

My reward was a frustrated hiss-scream of pure done-ness.

"I'm currently restoring a good chunk of your body back to functionality after you decided to get it roasted. Do not flirt. Do not be a smartass. If you can't follow those basic instructions, you are sleeping in the clinic for the next year!"

"Yes, ma'am," I mumbled immediately. I tried for a salute, only to find that my limbs were being held down by blank-eyed drones. "Uhhhh…"

"You were convulsing," Amelia said by way of explanation, returning her attention to my injuries. "Probably due to the pain and the chunk of ceiling that hit your stupid, empty head!"

"…ah." My mind finally snapped back to… well, I wasn't sure how long ago, but I distinctly remembered the vision of an explosion consuming the hallway. "Mela?"

"She's fine. You chucked her down the stairs, which pissed her off, 'cause she thinks you should have done something for yourself instead. She's downstairs. She tried to get to me so I could heal you."

"Tried to?"

"I mean, I fucking heard the explosion. Hard not to wake up after that, even if I didn't exactly get any rest. But I'm not as… loopy as I was. I am wondering if I should try and fix that brain of yours while I'm in there, though."

"Please no weird eldritch brain surgery?"

She scoffed, trying for 'amused' and coming across as pained and scared.

"I'm not going to mess with your brain, Adrian. But… a part of me wants to." Her voice was quiet, like it killed her even to say the words. "I-I don't think my recent experimentation bender was entirely my choice. I mean, I don't regret doing any of it, but… but I've been tempted to do… more… for a while now. I just… saw a reason to give in, and I did."

She finally pulled her hand out of my forehead, and I felt the urge to grab it. Tried to, even, but the drones keeping my limbs in a death grip had absolutely no respect for romance.

"We asked you to," I reminded her. "Pushed you to. And, sure, maybe you went a little too far at the end there, but that was hardly your fault. We're all stressed. It's making all of us act a bit more, eh, reckless than usual."

I got myself a watery grin, but I could tell she wasn't buying the excuse.

"Yup. True that. But only one of us wants to experiment on people and make monstrosities."

"Really?" I shot back. "And what's my Shadow-making count as, hmmm?

She ignored me. "Worst part is, I don't even know what to blame it on. My cybernetics, or my father? Is it 'cause I'm turning into a monster? Or is it because I've always been one?"

The high-pitched laugh of pure stress that accompanied the question made my heart twist.

"I love you no matter what," I whispered. "You know that, right? We could both go full eldritch right here and now, and I'd still love you as a weird Shadow/Stalker hybrid."

She snorted, looking away from me as she sealed yet more burns. "You are an idiot."

"Your idiot, though."

She'd reached my hip at that point. I could tell that a good chunk of my left leg was scorched, but it was hard to freak out about it too much when the cool sensation of healing continued to beat the burns back.

I closed my eyes again and tapped into Tracking one final time, flaring it as hard as I could. No more unexpected pings hit me. The Zerx were finally and totally gone from the building.

And all it had cost us was a bunch of drones, fear, frustration, near complete eldritch madness, and a close brush with death!

Some days, I really wasn't a big fan of our lives.