Outrun – Cyberpunk LitRPG

A shiver broke across my body before anything else. As my vision slowly returned, I wrapped my arms around myself and rubbed. “It’s freezing here.”

Here was… a military barracks? Rows of bunk beds stretched into the gloomy building. For once, I couldn’t see all that clearly. My mutations that gave me night vision weren’t active. A shattered window on the side leaked in a freezing draft alongside a large mound of snow.

“We’re in Sovet.” Luna appeared just next to me. She was holographic and ghost-like, though. “Somewhere in the arctic circle.”

“No wonder.” My teeth chattered lightly. “Who the hell decided it was a good idea to make us feel the cold?”

“It’s part of the bonus objectives, I think.” Luna flashed out of existence, and a blur bar appeared at the bottom of my HUD. “Don’t let that fill up.”

“No shit.” I shuffled over to a glowing crate and kicked it open. A heavy, black winter coat popped out alongside a handgun. A point counter in the top right of my HUD ticked up by one. “Map at five, chek?”

“Yeah. Hurry, Shiro.” My HUD updated again with an ammo counter. In real life, such a thing would need fairly simple attachments to the gun. Here, though, it was as simple as Luna interacting with the code.

Okay, getting the lay of the land first. I needed to figure out where I was, and what the map looked like first. Flying blind was a guaranteed way to crash—

My pistol shot up toward a shadow in the corner of the room—

“Just your reflection.” Luna sighed. “Relax. They wouldn’t spawn you ontop of someone else.”

“Chek…” I shook my head and kicked open another chest. More crates gave me ammo, ice climbing gear, and enough cold-weather gear to not instantly freeze. All common stuff lacking meaningful camo. Better than freezing to death in a simulation, though.

I pushed on the main door to get out, but it was hard stuck. Instead, I kicked out the glass of the window and escaped through there. It was a tight squeeze even for me, but I managed.

The barracks opened into a snow-clad tundra. Flurries of flakes scattered heavily across the location, dropping visibility to barely anything. Frigid wind billowed across me, instantly dropping my heat levels back from comforting to freezing. Every breath of air felt like I was inhaling glass.

“Get somewhere with access ports if you can, Shiro—“

“Wait.” I waved a hand to silence her, and dropped back into the snow. The freezing substance pressed up into me, but that hardly mattered. Background Noise, one of my learned perks, isolated out the sounds of the storm.

A barracks door three doors down from me slammed heavily. A gruff voice shouted in frustration. “How the fuck are we supposed to get out of here if the fucking door won’t fucking open!”

Another voice, this one slightly robotic, echoed back. “If you would’ve listened to me, I could’ve forced a better spawn.”

“And risk being spawned on top of someone! Just—just help me with the door.” The door slammed heavily again. “Can’t you hack the snow away or something?”

“What do you think I’m trying to do?” The netrunner shouted back at him.

“They don’t have a private channel. Amateurs.” Luna appeared just in front of me, and twirled in the snow. “Oh, they can’t hear us.”

“Chek.” Even if the runner was an amateur, there was no telling what kind of combatant I was going against. I was unfortunately wearing all black, too, which would make my usual methods a bit more difficult. Not to mention mutation-type Perks like Illusive didn’t work in the net.

I looked across all of my gathered items, and a plan slowly formed in the back of my mind.

— 10 Minutes Earlier —

“Streaming live from Monarch’s DarkNet Battle Royale, this is Saint of Sorrow!” Saint spun around in his chair, and typed across another deck while chatting with his stream.

With the recent explosion of City of Sorrows, he’d managed to worm his way into being one of Monarch’s commentators. He was given exclusive access to almost the entirety of the competition, including partial access to Monarch’s event manager. All of it was, ‘course, a benefit of Inverse Media.

”Man do I have a show for you guys. I missed the last one, but this is one to remember! The line-up is crazy, and filled with stacked duos from every hidden nook of the world.” Saint chattered while waiting for the game to officially start. On a side screen, his chat rolled past.

| Cyberpunk_Blue: @admin Start! @admin Start! @admin Start!

| ShadoWalk: Did you see they even snagged Shadowshot? Crazy.

| DarkRun: Who are you voting for? @admin

| Still_Cleaning: My money’s on Red Fury. I heard the map’s going to be in Sovet.

||| ADMIN: Bet’s are live! Follow this link!

”In Sovet, huh?” Saint frowned. Hopefully visibility wouldn’t be too affected, otherwise the stream would slow down quite heavily. He pulled Still_Cleaning’s comment up. “You have a source?”

| Still_Cleaning: Source = 8 mins

”Fair, fair.” Saint shrugged. Wether or not it was actually in the Northern Sovet would soon be relieved. “As for my vote, I haven’t had a chance to read through the updated list quite yet. Shadowshot is definitely a contender here. Top level snipers usually have the advantage in this format.”

Saint swapped to a stream of Monarch’s feast hall. Hundreds of contestants idled around while they waited for the competition to officially begin. Saint chatted about nothing while reading through the list. About half way through his eyebrows furrowed, and he leaned back in his chair. What are they doing here?

”Hmm… Actually, I’m changing my pick.” He pulled up a familiar duo of names. “You might not know her, but Nightshade is a crazy thief. No one would even know she existed if not for her calling card. Her partner is even more wild. Moonfall. Those who know, know. ‘Nough said.”

| DistinguishedGentlemen: Nightshade’s that phantom thief, right?

| NotACorpo: Threw Raijin’s entire investigation team into a loop

| ForKnife: Shadowshot victory! Easy! Not even a competition!

Saint glanced through the chat and chuckled. They had no idea. He didn’t have a single clue as to how Shiro and Luna got in on this one, but the two were tricky even on the best of days. If not first, then they’d still definitely get a top finish.

The feed darkened, and abruptly changed to a snow-covered outpost in the middle of the wilderness. Trees creaked and groaned with the weight of snow, and everything had long turned white and frost eroded.

[Drastovosky Research Base, Northern Sovet]

“Well… it seems Still Cleaning was right afterall.” Saint leaned forward in his chair and accessed the feeds. First thing he did was pull Nightshade’s feed onto a side monitor. The, he swapped the feed to Shadowshot, the favorite for this competition.

The feed zoomed in on a dark-haired man standing in the middle of a domed observatory. The moment he appeared, he already started moving for a chest off to the side. He was as silent as the grave.

“The first couple minutes are bound to be boring.” Saint swapped across to a world view. A massive compound amidst a snow-covered forest spread out. He highlighted a mountian jutting out of the forest, and the airstrip set up at the top. “It’s too early to tell what’s going to go down, but this area seems like it’ll be hotly contested. We’ll have to see how the Node collapses.”

He scanned a dozen perspectives, and his eyes brightened. “Looks like we’re about to see first blood.”

The feed abruptly swapped to a spectator view of Adrian Locke, one of the guys who started in a barracks to the south of the abandoned research base. At the moment, the man was throwing his shoulder into the door again and again while bickering with his netrunner.

Adrian, clad in loose winter gear and armed with an assault rifle, slammed the door again. “Fuck! Can’t you do something?! Useless bastard!”

“I’m trying! You were supposed to be the muscles!” His partner, ElectricGridRover, shouted back. His silhouette was faintly visible against the dark barracks.

| DarkRun: Um… @admin? You sure?

| ShadoWalk: Why are we watching a hack?

| OfAllThings: Stupid admin! Stupid admin! Stupid admin!

”Relax, guys. Just trust the process. Have I mislead you in the past?” Saint coughed lightly, and pointedly ignored the comments saying otherwise. That was when he first started up streaming COS. His accuracy was much higher now. He shook his head and glanced at the side stream. “Ah! Here we go!”

“RAH!” With one last shot, Adrian slammed into the door. It shot open in a spray of snow. The second it opened, Adrian’s assault rifle snapped up.

Light flashed just across from him, and a burst of bullets slammed into a snow bank on pure reflex. The chat exploded at the lack of a kill message. Everyone and their dog piled on the poor commentator.

| DistinguisedGentleman: @admin washed?

“Just wait.” Saint patiently sat back.

A shadow flicked across the snow in front of Adrian, and he flicked toward it—only to freeze as a shadow stared back at him. An intense bout of fear went through him, and his muscles locked up.

Not just him, but every single viewer of the stream likewise felt the death-chilling terror crawl along their spine. Even Saint, who’d been exposed to the pure terror of death several times before, momentarily froze.

The first to snap out of it was Adrian. Although he was being made fun of, the man didn’t get invited by Monarch for no reason. His rifle snapped up and a full spray of bullets rained across the shadow. With a soft shattering sound, the shadow dissapeared.

Perhaps due to lingering terror, he continued to fire until his rifle clicked empty. With practiced ease, the mag shot out and he replaced it with another. It was only once his mag was about to click into place that he realized something was wrong. Shattering—?

A cold voice, like the reaper itself spoke, came from directly above him. ”Gotcha.”

Shnk!

An ice pick slammed Dow and through Adrian’s eye. He stopped mid-jerk upward, and his finger spazzed out on the trigger, firing a burst of rounds out. They grazed the sleeve of a shadow pouncing on him.

He collapsed before he could do much more, and the shadow dropped down alongside him. A piton slammed into his chest a moment later. The shadow popped up by throwing her entire weight down into the piton, driving it down and through his heart in a brutal finishing move.

[First Blood!]

[Nightshade > Adrian Locke]

”Huh… that was easy.” With a wet schlick, Nightshade ripped the ice pick out of the man’s eye and smoothly dropped it back into a loop at her waist. Throughout the short fight, she never once fired a shot.

Like a shadow, she grabbed his gear and vanished into the snow. It was only several moments later that Saint managed to find his voice again. “S-see? What’d I tell you guys?”

| MagicIsTheAnswer: I thought Magi and Adepts weren’t capable of using their magic here?

| Cyberpunk_Blue: Was that some kind of shadowmancy?”

“No, check this out.” Saint shook out his arms and zoomed in on the snowbank Adrian lit up. Shattered window panes had been set up to perfectly reflect the roof of the barracks where Nightsahde had lurked.

| ShadoWalk: That’s possible?

| DistinguisedGentleman: @admin my apologies. Truly the GOAT

| DarkRun: @admin legend! @admin legend!

Saint controlled the feed to zoom in on several buildings that had their panes removed. “Rember guys, this isn’t just a game. Treat this like you would real life. A bit of creativity goes a long way.”

Although he said that, Saint couldn’t help but shake his head. ‘Course Shiro would pull of some crazy stunt instead of just fighting it out. She could never do things easily, could she?

”Ther’s a big firefight on the north side.” Saint swapped the perspective to a different competitor. Even as more firefights broke out, the terror-inducing image of Nightshade standing over her victim long lingered in the minds of those who saw it.