Shadow Runner [LitRPG]

I groaned and shifted my face away from the light, my hands tightening around Amelia as I burrowed deeper under the covers. Said ripper giggled and continued nibbling on my neck, which alerted me to what had woken me up in the first place.

Eyes still closed, I managed to put my hand on her face and shove.

"No."

"What do you mean, 'no'? It is my official right to nibble on whatever part of you I want to!"

"Says who?"

"Says the marriage certificate we signed and got notarized a month ago," she purred smugly.

"I don't remember reading that in the fine print."

"That's because you didn't read the fine print at all. Ha! You should know that I now own your ass, plus everything you own. And I have unlimited nibble rights."

I opened a single eye to glare at her. "I know, at the very least, that the last bit isn't true."

"Ehhh. And you're fine with the rest?"

Now it was my turn to smirk. "Hey, you're the rich heiress whose job also brings in the credits. I'm just… what was it? 'Acceptable eye candy you like to keep around.'"

"Exactly." Her smile widened. "So, be a dear and get out of bed. I want breakfast, and you know you don't want me to get hangry."

I complained and played at resistance for only another few seconds. Then I was out of bed and in the shower, marveling at the last four months.

No stress. No people trying to kill us. No sneaking around. Just the daily routine of work at Amelia's clinic, which was only growing more popular with the locals.

It was all so nice, I felt like an imposter in my own skin.

Admittedly, there was some unpleasantness at the start. We'd had to get out of the slums quickly, clean up all the mess Amelia's father dearest had left behind with the 'eldritch wannabes' rampage, and then soothe whatever egos and interests had been trampled on by our actions.

All of which was much easier than I'd expected, to be honest.

Yuri had jumped right in without even needing to be asked. In fact, when he learned about his brother-in-law's death, he showed up at our door with drinks and a professionally catered meal to share, already sloshed halfway into the grave.

Seriously. Amelia had panicked over the amount of alcohol in that man's body almost as much as she had over my most recent near-death experience. According to my lovely ripper, the only reason he wasn't dead was his advanced level of cyberization.

Still, once she got him sober, slapped him, and then hugged him, the man was invaluable. As it turned out, the good doctor was such an arrogant asshole that he had never bothered to make a formal will. That meant everything he owned went directly to his only living descendant, so long as the right paperwork was filed.

Yuri filed in triplicate, and then got another six copies of everything delivered to various officials, just in case. Apparently, if no one bothered to claim an inheritance, then the city could officially claim it after a week. Even an inheritance attached to a will. Which… yeah, was just the kind of scummy corpo practice I'd expect.

Anyway, those weren't the only documents he helped us file.

After the drinking escapade and before throwing himself headfirst into bureaucracy, Yuri forced us to tell him everything that had happened. Which led him to some interesting ideas concerning my own father's inheritance.

Long story short, while I didn't get everything, I did get most of it. Thanks, largely, to what had happened in the slums.

Titus had taken his best and brightest with him. All the people he'd trusted to have his back… and every single one of them had gotten slaughtered. Ergo, all the people he'd named in his will were impossible to contact, and his inheritance landed squarely in my lap.

There was stunningly little to work with there.

While I loathed my father, I could at least respect him for his dedication to his chosen goal. Every bit of money he earned had always gone straight into his mercenary company. He'd even stayed at the HQ, in a standard issue room, and relied entirely on company vehicles to get around. He'd lived and breathed the Nightfall Squad.

What in the world had made my mother decide to get together with the man, I would never know.

Regardless, while I didn't get a whole lot of credits, I did get control over the Nightfall Squad. What was left of it, anyway. Which… I wasn't sure how I felt about.

Sure, he'd pretty much abandoned me for them, but that didn't change the fact that ex-soldiers really did get shafted by just about every measure you could think of. In addition to needing cybernetics, most of them were dealing with multiple kinds of lifelong trauma, including exposure to the eldritch.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

In the end, I had Yuri meet with the most senior mercenaries left. He picked one to lead, and I left that person in charge of things. I didn't want to meet them myself. I didn't know how they might react to their commander's son, and I wasn't sure whether I'd be more bothered by hatred or eager acceptance.

Still, though, that technically left us with the (recovering) best mercenary company in the city to call on, if we ever needed to. And contrary to what I'd said to Amelia about my lack of contribution to our finances, part of 'my' company's profits did end up in our bank account on a regular basis.

"What's got you all distracted?" Amelia demanded as we left the bathroom.

"Just, you know… thinking."

I failed to hold back a yawn, but the smell of food wafting from the kitchen did a nice job of perking me up.

It also confused the fuck out of me when we walked in and she spun around, throwing her arms out theatrically to indicate the pretty obviously home-cooked meal.

"Ta-daaa!"

"Well, that looks delicious!" I grinned right back at her, refusing to return her energy with anything less. Sure, the food looked a little burnt or undercooked, depending on the dish, but she'd made a classic Terran breakfast spread: toast, the closest thing we had to bacon, eggs, some kind of smoothies, and what I was pretty sure were meant to be sausages. (They were a bit more burnt than the other stuff, so it was hard to tell.) "What's the occasion?"

"Oh, you know… just felt like it," she lied, like a liar who lies.

"Right…"

"Anyway, eat up. We're seeing Mela and Yuri today, remember?"

"Yeah. Thanks for reminding me," I grumbled in mock disgust, making her laugh.

The fact that the two had gotten together, and were disgustingly content in their weird relationship, was still throwing me off.

Mind you, the 'weird' comment wasn't undeserved. They spent so little time together, I was genuinely shocked they were making it work. Yuri still had his own things going on, and Mela… well.

Mela had refused to stay in the inner districts. As soon as things had cooled off, and there weren't city officials looking to breathe down Patch's neck about the actions of his merc company, she'd pretty much stolen the drones and gone to the slums.

She was doing an amazing job of rebuilding the Kittens, this time as a much more official thing than a gang. Her 'mercenary company focused on peacekeeping within the slums' was getting more and more traction.

Turns out that if you oppress people long enough, then burn their established social order to the ground, they are awfully motivated to build something better from the ashes.

I was happy for her, I really was. But I was also pretty sure that we'd just hear she was dead one day, if she continued to press the gangs that were slowly starting to surface again.

At least she had Amelia's enhancement to rely on. She never did consent to letting my ripper mess with her cybernetics, or anything eldritch-related about her body, but the base physical enhancement from purely human material was something she was willing to let Amelia try and improve.

Which the ripper had done.

With time and better resources, mostly cloned flesh, Amelia had managed to take things a step further. I felt healthier than I'd ever been, not to mention very appreciative of our increased stamina.

There was also the link between Amelia and her drones, slowly drip-feeding her Essence. Just like she'd said, she'd managed to include me in this link, so we were both getting a constant top-up in our Essence reserves.

I wasn't one hundred percent ready to sit down and think about the implications of it all.

We knew from the files that Essence offered a viable path to immortality, and we were up to our neck in eldritch nonsense to begin with. Were we immortal, then? The best Amelia could offer was a shrug and a 'probably', which… wasn't very reassuring.

Mela, on the other hand, had rejected a connection to the drones.

I wasn't ready to consider the implications of that, either.

—

"Anyway!" Amelia suddenly said later, changing the conversation topic just as we were leaving our apartment. "Remember how we were talking about eldritch cybernetics recently, and why we could use them so much better than my father could, or any of his experimental drones?"

"Yeeeah?"

"I figured it out yesterday."

"Oh?"

"Yep. It's… well, because of our parents. Yours were soldiers, so they had access to Essence for their cybernetic enhancements and stuff. They used the supplements the army gave them. Mine weren't, of course, but I'm pretty sure they got some of those supplements the same way they got eldritch bits. Bribery and smuggling and such. I know from getting into his notes now that my father definitely had some Essence, at least."

"So… what? The supplements influenced things?"

"They're bits of eldritch creatures 'purified' and served to people through suspicious processes. You can bet your very nice butt that whoever produced them didn't get rid of all the corruptive elements. They just made the things 'safe enough' for consumption. That kind of thing still changes you, and when you have kids…"

"The changes are passed on," I concluded, rubbing my thumb over the back of her hand and making her shiver as we walked down the street. "Which accounts for our higher compatibility with the cybernetics. We already had bits of eldritch in us."

"Yep. Don't tell her this, but… I had to work really hard to eliminate any problems from popping up for Mela in a couple years. I know I should have told her, but I didn't want her to worry, and she might have been against me making the changes required to her DNA, and…"

"You didn't want her to say no."

"Yep."

We fell silent at that, but I found I wasn't upset. Mela could be stubborn. And when my mind flashed to the image of the doctor looking like a rotting corpse… I definitely didn't want her to end up like that.

"I don't blame you," I said quietly. "And I won't tell."

"Thank you," Amelia whispered, giving me one of those beautiful smiles that made it hard for me to resist kissing her.

So I didn't.

The giggling and kissing breaks made us late, but as we pushed our way into one of the restaurants we'd discovered thanks to our newfound freedom, I didn't care. And once we were shown into the rented VIP room, and the pair waiting for us quickly pulled their seats apart with flushing faces… I didn't think they cared, either.

"Well, there ya are!" Mela cleared her throat, ignoring Amelia's smirk and wiggling eyebrows. "Ya invite us over, and say, 'We need ta talk', and then ya can't even get here on time."

"We need to talk?" I furrowed my brows at Amelia, not having gotten that particular memo.

"Well…" She threw her hand against her forehead with a dramatic sigh. "I can't push myself in my condition."

"Condition?" Yuri asked, immediately alarmed.

"Yep. I'm in dire need of name suggestions. Two names, actually, if I'm getting things right. A boy and a girl."

I blinked, then blinked again. My mind raced. My cheeks flushed.

"Wait…"

Amelia smiled hesitantly. "Surprise?"

I smothered her in a hug.

In the background, Mela squealed. Actually squealed. Yuri grumbled about giving him a heart attack even as a grin bloomed on his face.

I kissed Amelia for all I was worth, and she clutched at me just as desperately. I felt fuzzy, and warm, and thrilled, and terrified.

Mostly, though, I was just… happy.

All of me. The human bits, and the eldritch bits, and the cybernetics that had started this whole thing in the first place.

Whatever I was or would be, I was just happy to be there with her.