Outrun - Cyberpunk LitRPG

Time seemed to slow further than Dexterity allowed as pure adrenaline spiked through my body. My finger squeezed the trigger, every millisecond felt torturously slow as my muscles brought the trigger back and the lance-like leg of the Pervider arced at me.

The first shot whiffed entirely, slinging just over the spider’s leg. The shell ejected, my eyes shifting from the leg to the brass for a nanosecond. The sound hit me, stretching longer than it should've as the gunpowder blasted inside the gun. The second shot was much better as time sped ever so slightly back up as my body acclimated to the spiked adrenaline. The bullet ricocheted off the Pervider’s durable leg and slowed its attack. The third, fourth, and fifth followed as they deflected the leg ever so slightly off course.

By then, the rest of my body caught up with my brain, my leg muscles shifting backward in a leap out of the way. It was surprisingly hard to do so many things at once. When time flows normally, I don't even have to think to move, but now? I felt as though I had to control each muscle to move. A burst of air rushed past as the leg scythed mere inches from my face, snatching a loose strand of hair with it. A brief pain echoed from my scalp as the loose strand ripped out of place.

And then I was free of its reach. I disabled Dexterity momentarily; my course was already set, and I felt like I moved on autopilot. I quickly backpedaled away from the horror of a spider as my head spiked in pain. I adjusted my aim from the thing's leg back to its head. The kick started to get to me, so I shifted to a burst fire directly toward the thing’s remaining eye.

I missed, though it didn’t matter as the burst of bullets destroyed what was left of its head in a spray of gore. My burst was followed by Hope’s rifle tearing into the thing, guaranteeing its death for the third time as it stopped twitching entirely. Still, neither of us stopped till our guns clicked empty. I backed up and stood next to her as we both reloaded, listening to the chilling death cries of countless baby spiders as they burned in the raging fireball.

My heartbeat slammed in my chest, shooting spikes of pain through my head, as I shifted focus to the rest of the den behind the spider wary of more threats. A few of the babies crawled free of the mangled fireball, tracking fire further into the webwork covering the place, though they met with a quick end from my rifle. In minutes, the entire place would turn into a bonfire, at least until it choked itself out.

The smoke already started to fill the place, making it hard to see past as our flashlights reflected off of it. Thankfully, the masks were of a good enough quality the smoke didn’t affect us, though it did add a certain flavor to the air.

Hope’s hand tapped my shoulder, nearly making me flinch out of my skin as the last of my adrenaline spiked through my body. My fight instinct kicked in, barely held back as I forced myself to calm down with a flicker of Cold-Blooded. Her thumb arched back towards the way we came. “Let’s go.”

“Chek.” My voice was barely loud enough to be heard over the crackling of fire. I looked over my rifle, swapping out the magazine as I followed her swiftly back down the cave path. Much like last time, Hope went first as she swept the southside with her rifle raised.

I followed her movements, sweeping the north side for more contacts drawn by the sounds of fighting. The subway tunnel was just as abandoned as when we left it, though it was quickly filling up with smoke from the cave as the fires raged on.

Hope double-tapped my shoulder with one arm, her other holding up her rifle still without any apparent issues. I knew she was strong, but she didn't even twitch as she held up the rifle one-handed. “Take point. I’ve got our flank.”

We shifted, though we didn't drop our guards. I probably would’ve dropped my guard as soon as we exited the cave if I were by myself, but Hope’s tension kept me from relaxing as we moved down the subway tunnel. She followed closely behind me, her rifle never dropping as we moved.

Another chance to break off appeared, this time onto an ancient subway platform. We hopped up onto it, carefully keeping watch. The platform was a simple thing with broken benches and piles of rubble scattered around. The staircase leading up out of the platform had been long caved in by rubble, blocking the path. On the other side of the platform sat another set of subway tracks still going north to south.

“Tracks,” I called out as I looked the place over. Dust and debris covered it, though fairly recent tracks in the shapes of boots cut through the place. Little spots of displaced pebbles and shifted rocks made crystal clear tracks to my eyes. I counted them, carefully looking them over as I kept an eye on our surroundings. “A squad of four or five moved through here recently. Maybe a couple days old.”

“Think it's them?” Hope asked as she swung her rifle from one side of the platform to the other, causing shadows to shift and twirl as her attached light passed by, revealing several other marks and clues.

I checked them out for any other details, though nothing stood out. Well, other than this area being high traffic. There were dozens of older tracks scattered about. “Maybe. Too little to go off of, though we are within a mile.”

Hope dropped her rifle, twisting back to look at me. She finally seemed to calm down from her 'shoot-first-ask-questions-never' reaction. “Chek… are we going to talk about that nest?”

“What’s there to talk about?” I looked through her mask, meeting her eyes as if daring her to bring up the fact I almost got myself killed. Again. Dumb Shiro. “We killed a threat and moved on.”

“Hmm…” Hope looked like she might say something else, then seemed to shift tracks. “Got any more Molotovs?”

“One.” I eyed her. “Enough stuff to make a couple more, maybe.”

She nodded her head. “Good call then.”

“Fire is exceptionally useful down here. Most critters are terrified of it, and those that aren’t… well…” Underground tactics were something I briefly looked into after my trip with Mira down here a couple months back. Fire was the number one recommendation. It was another reason I wanted to get Molotovs so bad before coming down here.

Hope motioned to the tracks. “Can you track? I was never very good at it back in the academy.”

“Maybe.” Up here on the cluttered platform wouldn’t be too big of an issue, but I wasn’t so sure about down the tunnels.

I carefully followed the path cut through the rubble, my training from Fox’s Paw kicking in as I subconsciously avoided anything that would make noise. Hope walked close at my back as she noisily kicked about loose rocks and scattered chips of concrete.

The path led close to the wall and buried the staircase of the platform, almost cutting straight east before dropping back onto the subway tracks. We followed it, my eyes catching the little hints of scattered debris and occasional footsteps. The tunnel split northeast as we followed it, leaving behind the platform.

At some point, I noticed an additional set of prints next to the group I tracked. They were small paws, closer to a dog than some kind of vermin, at the same age. I paused, stepping back to find where they first appeared to try and figure out where the creature went. At some point, the tracks just vanished into the air. I wandered around the area as Hope warily watching our surroundings, looking for any hint of the creature.

The tracks just vanished. Or rather track.

Did the creature just disappear? That’s not how things- no, wait. These were magical fanatics, right... Maybe a materialized sprite then? Then, whoever the Magus was, sent it back after its job was done.

We continued following the path, leapfrogging from one potential clue to the next as I puzzled it all together in my mental map. We were close. Really close. I motioned to Hope, backing up far enough we wouldn’t be heard by anything. “It should be right ahead of us…”

Hope looked herself over, seemingly to make sure everything was in the right place. “How do we want to do this?”

“Quiet till we have to go loud is my vote… also, keep your eyes peeled. If this is anything like the stash Inquisitor Ligh and I raided, there’ll be magic traps waiting for us.” I flicked on Aetherial Perception as I mentioned it to her, catching a slight glimmer up ahead of us.

“Ready?”

I gave myself a once over, pulling out my mag just to make sure I reloaded. “Chek.”

“I’ve got point.” The armored squire walked ahead of me, casting long shadows from her light. They danced and twirled along the walls, remarkably unsettling as we advanced.

I took advantage of said shadows, flicking off my gear and submerging myself in the darkness with my Perks active. I had armor now, yes, but I’d much rather Hope get shot than me considering she almost had a full suit while I just had my vest.

My rifle stayed leveled as I switched Dexterity back on, flickering Aetherial Perception every couple seconds just to be safe. We slowly approached the first glimmer I spotted from further down the tunnel. My eyes and brain slipped past it several times, forcing me to refocus myself every time as they finally accepted the existence of Hibisen plants.

The mind-warping plants ringed a tunnel, hurting my head even as Aetherial Perception helped to keep me grounded. The offshoot itself was a rather wide tunnel lined with small light bulbs. Parts of it looked smoothly worn out of the rock as though it was manmade, though other parts looked as if an unplanned collapse naturally widened the path.

A hazy substance filled the area, much like the Hibisen plants the first time I dealt with them. Our flashlights reflected off the haze in the air, making visibility even poorer

I stretched a hand to Hope’s shoulder, tapping it twice as she continued without pause. There wasn't even a hint in her posture that she noticed the obvious tunnel as she kept on following the subway path.

Hope tracked my eyes, looking towards the tunnel just the same as me. Then, as if her head wore ice skates, she glazed right over the cover of the Hibisen plants without notice. “What?” Her muffled voice asked.

I sighed, tugging on one of her arms as I stepped towards the hole in the wall. “Just trust me. You’ll see.”

“With what? I really don’t see-” We crossed the threshold of the haze, causing Hope to lock up as she dropped into a shooting stance. She was silent for several moments as her gaze passed around the space. “Damn.”

She dodged up against the mouth of the tunnel, taking up a firing position as she stared down its barely illuminated depths. Her finger trigger twitched as she gazed back at the flowers, though it stayed nothing more than a twitch as she shifted back to the tunnel.

“I think this is it.”

“No shit… you weren’t kidding about the magic plants.” Hope kicked her head back the way we came.

“Expect worse,” I muttered as I followed her out of the haze liquid’s interference. While inside the bubble it overwhelmed Aetherial Perception, making it impossible to seek out other kinds of wicked plants lurking down here.

The tunnel shrank as we moved through it, dodging the occasional mechanical booby trap laid out. Surprisingly, there weren’t too many more magical traps and those that existed seemed to just not function as we moved. The path, which had once been large enough to fit several cars, slimmed down till we were single file, Hope taking the front.

The pathway shifted, changing into a more natural-looking cave system than the almost perfectly smooth stone we had just been traveling through. The ground remained fairly smooth, the rock worn away by apparent months of travel.

I flickered Aether Perception, catching sight of a small red puck in the ground. I pointed it out and we stepped over the thing, easily making its purpose null as we approached. We weren’t so lucky with the next one.

Hope froze in front of me as a subtle click filled the air.