Outrun – Cyberpunk LitRPG

“You bastard!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. The points that should’ve rightfully been mine were yoinked out from under me at the last possible moment. A tremble of rage went through my shoulders. There was nothing in the world worse than being stolen from.

Err… there probably were worse things, but still! It felt like a direct challenge to my Kobold Shiro side. I ducked into cover, and slid my saber back into place. I should’ve just killed him. Why didn’t I just go with my gut and flatline the guy?

”Sorry, Shiro. That’s on me.” Luna sighed. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

I took a breath to calm my raging frustration, and shook my head. “No, no. It was a good idea. Just… unfortunate timing.”

Luna had stopped me just before I flatlined the guy. He was defenseless, and totally at my mercy. That also meant he was at Luna’s mercy. The girl wanted to steal all of his points before I sent him back into the real world. It really would’ve been a good idea if it hadn’t been for that damn sniper.

“Any clue who that was?” I asked, and shuffled around to the backside of the warehouse. There was no way I was going to leave through the front with a sniper posted up and keeping watch.

”Um… Summoner.” A time-stamped killfeed popped up in the corner of my HUD. “I think he’s a Magus. Never heard of him, but I’ve run into the runner a few times.”

”Will it be any problem?” I cut open an exit, and paused just at my new way out. Snow billowed into the room, and my fingers started to go a little numb. I really should set a fire somewhere after this.

”Of course not. Just get me close.” Her voice confidently echoed across the private channel. The way she spoke—it was like a cat staring at a pitiful rat.

”That’s what I like to hear.” I was going to kill this guy if it was the last thing I’d do, anyway. It was a matter of my honor as a thief… or something like that. In reality, I just really wanted his sniper rifle. I hadn’t gotten one yet, and there was still that challenge waiting for me.

I trudged out into the snow, and was immediately buffeted with a wave of snow flurries. The storm had lifted right around the POI so visibility was clear between the warehouses, but outside of it? It was a dense wall of white.

”I'm not looking forward to moving through that.” It was already this cold with the buildings blocking the majority of the snow. Out in the snowfield must be miserable.

”I’ve got an idea for it. Just focus on this for now.”

Right, focus. I could totally focus. If there was one thing I was good at, it was taking things one at a time and giving my utmost focus to—how am I going to cross the snowfield with a sniper perched up watching for me?

I pulled at my heavy winter coat, and carefully edged around the side of the warehouse to get a view once over the place once more. I blended in nearly perfectly with my newer gear, so it should be almost impossible for—

Pwing!

A shot whizzed just over my head and slammed into the warehouse. I instantly ducked back into cover. “How’d he know where I am?”

”Good guess? Some kind of tracker?” My point counter dropped by another three. “There. That should take care of anything like that for the moment.”

”Thanks.” I shook snow from my hood, and shifted directions back out into the snow field surrounding the POI. If I couldn’t cut straight across, I could just go out and around. The snowstorm should provide me plenty of cover, though it’d mean I was fully exposed to the biting cold.

At first, it wasn’t so bad. My thermal bodysuit did a great job keeping me warm. Unfortunately, that faded more and more with each blast of blistering cold one after another. By the time I trudged halfway around, every part of my body already felt numb and half frozen.

I routed back toward the warehouse—

“Argh!” I flinched back, and dove into a snowbank as a bullet pierced the veil of snow and slammed into my shoulder. I dove back down the hill to put hard cover between me and the sniper, and whipped out a Medstim. I only had seven more of them. “Fuck!”

”… should we go after someone else?” Luna appeared just beside me.

”Hell no. Definitely not now,” I growled out and rubbed at my shoulder. Although this was just a game, getting shot still felt like getting shot. We’d already invested three points into this. We couldn’t just back out now. “Just… just give me a second to think this through.”

I wiped snow off my face, and glared down at the white substance. How the hell was I supposed to approach a sniper that magically knew exactly where I was? As soon as I left hard cover, he’d shoot me once more. It wasn’t like there was a ton of hard cover up around the warehouse, either. At most there were a few trees.

I worked through several plans up until my shoulder fully healed. There were definitely options. None of them were good ones—at least, not without blinding the guy first somehow.

“I think I got it,” Luna called out to me. “We’re being streamed.”

”Dammit! Which bastard is setting us up like this?” When I got out of here, I’d hunt down whoever it was and tear their—

“Saint.”

“Oh.” The wind abruptly left my sails. Knowing it was him, of all people, made it somehow better and worse at the same time.

What kind of misfortune was that? Wait, no, maybe that was fortune? Luck… I checked my Titles, and sure enough, I still had on Child of Fox. Small coincidences, huh? Why couldn’t the warehouse coincidentally explode?

”I… I can blind the runner for a bit?” Luna didn’t sound too sure of herself. “You’ll only have three minutes, and it’ll take a few points. They won’t be able to see a thing, though.”

“Can you give us access to the stream?” More than just blinding them, being able to get outside information like that would be incredibly helpful.

”Not easily. It’s not necessarily worth it, either.” Luna shrugged halfheartedly. “I’m not the only one who knows how to ghost a Node. I’ll start working on a permanent solution for the future, though.”

Okay… Three minutes… that was more than enough time to get to the warehouse if I threw my all into it. I was already half-frozen though, and my limbs refused to work like they should thanks to the cold. Maybe some of my Perks could help? I looked through the list and slowly shook my head. Illusive might’ve been nice, but it was a mutation type.

It’d just be an outright mad dash to the warehouse. I stood up and shuffled around the snowy hill to the closest point with cover. Stealth was my MO, so being forced out of it was… uncomfortable. And seriously exposed a lot of my faults. If this was real life, my gear and Traits could help me equalize a bit. As things were here, though…

I pulled out a handgun I’d kept, and time started to slow around me. Dexterity came into effect, and the drifting snowflakes started to slow to a halt in midair. “Ready?”

”Just about.” Luna’s voice came back at a lower pitch than normal and incredibly slow to my ears.

Dexterity… honestly, slowing time was just too uncomfortable. I nodded to her, and drew my saber in my other hand. I twirled it around, and lowered myself into a partial runner’s stance.

“Three… two… one…” A crossed out eye popped up into the corner of my view. “Go!”

I darted to the side instead of going from the furthest point like I made it seem. Sure, it slowed me down a bit. If they were reliant on watching me, then they knew only what I showed them. The feint took my precious time to get close to the warehouse, but it’d be worth it.

Once I was far enough, I turned at a sharp angle and sprinted on partially numb legs. Every step sent shocks of ice up through my body. I was already starting to warm up from the mad dash, though. I activated Burst Step, and shot between mounds of snow.

The snowstorm around me abruptly cleared out, and visibility returned. A glint on top of the warehouse slowly panned across the snowfield. I directly Burst Stepped five more times. Each step chained together sent me further than the last. By the end of the fifth, every muscle in my leg throbbed in agony, and my bones felt like mush. I simply slammed a Medstim down to start healing the trauma back without pausing for a moment.

The glint finally flicked to me—

Bang! Bang! Bang!

I fired a volley of bullets up toward Summoner to keep his head down, and darted the last of the way to the warehouse. My legs locked up underneath me, and I slammed forward toward the warehouse wall. My saber flicked out and I smoothly rolled forward into the depths of the warehouse.

— — —

| Conjurer: Did you kick me?

“No?” Saint leaned forward in his chair, and quickly checked the logs to ensure he hadn’t accidentally banned the guy. Monarch strictly prohibited interfering with runners in the DarkNet Battle Royale. That included kicking the cheating bastard out of the stream.

| Conjurer: Then why—

Saint’s screen flashed, and a laughing wolf popped up in front of Conjurer’s name. He smirked, and flicked over to check on Shiro. “Seems Moonfall’s making her move, chat.”

| DarkRun: Finally!

| Redfall: Nightshade killing spree? Nightshade killing spree?

| Distinguished Gentleman: Even I was starting to get a bit bored.

“Yeah, well… I didn’t expect her to go all the way around either.” Seriously, what was she thinking? Didn’t she know it made for bad TV to just watch her trudge through the snowstorm like that?

Saint tsked and shook his head. The route was smart, to be fair. Unfortunately, he was an event commentator and not a Nightshade commentator. He had to swap to some other fights going on around the base to keep up interest.

Saint swapped back to Nightshade’s perspective just in time to see her coolly roll through the side of the building. She popped up into a slide, and rode the panel she just cut out forward. It sprayed sparks everywhere as it ground against the warehouse floor.

Rat-tat-tat-tat!

Assault rifle rounds trailed after her, falling just behind the makeshift sled. Nightshade flicked to a guard spraying toward her, and her pistol barked twice. A moment later, the gunfire cut off and the guard collapsed. Before it could even hit the ground, it dissipated into pieces of code.

Despite the abrupt kill, nothing showed up in the killfeed. Of course it didn’t. Saint clapped his hands together, and did an instant replay of the short skirmish. “There we have it. The first summon is down.”

| Distinguished Gentleman: Just Merc? Really, @Conjurer? All this buildup for that?

| ShadoWalk: @Conjurer, you get tired of disappointing your parents, so you came to bother us instead? Is that how a human should act?

Summoner and Conjurer didn’t pick their name for no reason. Although summoning Sprites was out of the question on the net, deploying ICE programs was not. The guard Nightshade had just taken out was a defensive one called Merc. It was basic and barebones at best, but could be a problem just the same. Normally, they were just formations of code. In a full dive situation like the DarkNet Battle Royale, though, ICE programs became so much more.

| Conjurer: Just you wait! ‘Course we put out more types than Merc.

“There’s over a dozen more programs spread out across this place.” Saint zoomed out on a map, and little blips popped up all across the warehouse. “The duo’s certainly been active in their defensive setup.”

A light blinked out just next to where Nightshade and Moonfall entered the warehouse. Saint checked Conjurer’s connection—there were still just over two minutes left of the blind that Luna hit him with.

| Conjurer: Be ready to—(#)(%$%$*#!

| DarkRun: @Conjuer, there? @Conjurer, there?

Conjurer abruptly left the stream. Saint shrugged, and clicked back to focus on Nightshade. He grabbed a bag of popcorn that’d been mostly forgotten, and leaned back to watch the show. “Moonfall got him. It’s only a matter of time till Nightshade gets hers, too. Don’t blink, chat, or you might just miss it.”

— — —

AN: I saw Outrun on a tier-list the other day and it took me totally off guard. So weird to think it’s been around long enough to be on that kinda thing. B-rank, btw.