Outrun – Cyberpunk LitRPG-Chapter 235

The discussion lasted a while, though eventually we were sent off to go rest while we could. The higher-ups were planning an all out assault—surprise—on the ritual circle. It was suspected to also house the illusion and spatial distortion magics.

I went off to see one of the medics. They gave me a stim shot to nullify the pain for a couple hours and wrapped my ribs, but otherwise I needed rest. I wasn't one to argue with a medic, so I did as suggested and found myself a cozy enough spot in the cargo hold to lay down for as long as I could.

Insight constantly gave warnings, which made it a bit hard to sleep. I could feel something massive building in the Aether, though I was far too scared to actually take a look with Aetherial Perception.

Once I activated Cold-Blood though, I fell asleep almost instantly.

— — —

I awoke to a foot nudging my leg. “Get up. It’sh time to go.”

I groggily rubbed at my eyes. My cloned one stung slightly, though the sensation faded as I forced myself up onto my feet. My rib still felt injured, though not as much as it had been. I could move around without feeling like it was stabbing into me, at least.

So tired…. I shook my head out, feeling a headache as I reminded myself where I was. Inquisitor Ligh stood just in front of me as the able bodied Crusaders throughout the cargo gathered. “Sir?”

”We have a separate mission than them.” He nodded to the gathered Crusaders.

I followed the Inquisitor to a smaller, separate group off to the side of the cargo hold. There were about ten people, including me, the Inquisitor, and his Squires.

“… mission is to open the blast doors into the cargo hold where the ritual magic is located. We managed to geta few messages through their Netrunners. Once we pop them open, we’ll get Waymaker support.” A Knight standing on a box said. She was a familiar face—Knight Autumn. Looked like she was the leader for this one.

Aside from Autumn, there were two more Squires, one Knight, and one Inquisitor. The other Knight was covered in what looked like detachable shields hovering just over his armor. The Inquisitor was equipped with the standard longsword, though he held a crossbow of all things in his other hand. The Squires were typical tac-gear and partial armor.

”Inquisitor! Are we ready?” Autumn asked. I could feel her eyes on me briefly before she dipped her head. “It’s an honor to fight alongside you once more.”

”The honor is mine, Knight.” I felt curious eyes on me, namely from Hope and the other Squires.

“Good. Set off. We’re wrapping up and around to the control room. Expect heavily entrenched Circle cultists.” Knight Autumn stepped down, boldly leading the way towards a side of the cargo bay. At some point, stacks of crates had been built up to the ceiling.

We climbed up, at which point Autumn cut through the ceiling with her twin shortswords. The ceiling panel collapsed. Assuming Sentinel even got their ship back, they’d have so much random damage to patch up.

Not to mention, you know, restaffing the entire Supercarrier. No idea where they’d even get all the people to float this thing anymore. Couldn’t exactly pull skilled staff who knew how to operate a Supercarrier just out of anywhere.

And the cleaners! This place need a deep, deep scrub to clean up the corpses, blood, and marks of battle covering it. The blood alone would be awful… then again, there’s probably a Kinetic that could control blood or something and speed that along. Or a cleaning Kinetic? Or magic.

Everyone moved up through the hole in the ceiling, and soon it was my turn. Hope stretched down a hand to help get up. I grabbed it, and was pulled up into a small room filled with dusty old cots. “Thanks.”

”No problem.” Hope looked at for a moment and then sighed, looking away. “Weird hearing your voice with the illusion.”

”I can imagine.” My voice was fairly soft and young sounding. It was at complete odds with the rugged soldier look of the Circle cultists.

Knight Autumn moved for the door, pausing as she pulled out a small holo-puck and checked the ship's blueprint. “Alright, Darren, you take point. Inquisitor Ligh, you’re the flank. Inquisitor Shin, save your magic.”

“Roger.” Knight Darren, the man covered in detachable shields, moved forward. The shields detached as he passed, each one moving to one of the people in the squad. The Knight still had five of them floating around him, but now everyone had a single one hovering next to them.

I poked at the one floating just in front of my chest. It gently bobbed in the air and then shifted around as it slowly rotated in front of me. Nova. How’s it work? Tech? No… probably magic or a kinetic ability. Could I make something like this? A floating shield could be pretty helpful, even if it only took one hit.

“Let’s move.” Darren moved for the door, waving his hand. One of the shields moved forward, slamming into the door and knocking it off its hinges. It was unlocked. A bit overkill, but okay.

We moved out into the corridor. By the standards I’d built up traveling the Supercarrier so far, it was clean. There were only a few dead Sentinel employees scattered around.

The squad moved down the hall, pausing before the bulwark. Autumn went over to the next room over and then cut through the wall, letting us past the Spatial Distortion without much trouble. Glad to see my technique was still useful.

We ran into a couple of plant entities as we moved down corridors and rooms in various conditions, though they were rapidly cleaned up. Darren acted as the group’s tank, easily protecting us with his hovering shields. With the added protection, it enabled the rest of us to fully focus on attacking. With the combined firepower it took little time to cut through them.

Our group, while it was a small strike squad, had been thoroughly planned out to be as effective as possible. The Knights and Inquisitors were the main draw, with the Squires acting as fire support if nothing else.

Inquisitor Shin used what looked like magic bolts from his crossbow on occasion, exploding into fiery maelstroms that put my Blaze rounds to shame. And that was without swapping to his magic. The guy looked to be an Adept, though it wasn't easy to tell since he didn’t have a wand.

Then there was Inquisitor Ligh. He just used a normal gun, though every single shot fired miraculously hit the ideal spot to do damage. Those that didn’t just so happened to perfectly hit parts of the environment.

For instance, we were attacked by damaged Sentinel bots defending what looked like an officer’s quarters. He fired a shot that perfectly burst a water pipe, drenching the bots in water that short-circuited their already damaged components. The fight ended before it could even start. It was almost as if he had some kind of-

I nearly slipped, though barely managed to catch myself. Weird... well, whatever. Whatever I was thinking of probably wasn't that important, all things considered. We were in the middle of an active warzone. I could think about it later.

Eventually, after fighting our way through the ship, we arrived at the point marked on Knight Autumn’s holomap. She paused, staring at momentarily before motioning for us to stop. “Just below us. Prepare yourselves.”

Inquisitor Shin nodded before going completely still. The Aether started to tremble as Insight warned me of magic being cast in my close surroundings. After a minute, I felt a familiar magic being cast over the group. It was the fall reduction spell that the Adepts up above cast on us what felt like forever ago.

Autumn’s swords flashed, cutting open the metal floor. It dropped into a large room covered in control panels far below-

Something popped up through the hole immediately. Grenade-

A shield slammed into the grenade, forcing it back down the hole. A shout came from below before it was cut off by a bright flash and an explosion. Darren dropped into the hole a moment later, his shields following. Autumn likewise dropped right after him.

My boss waved toward the hole. “After you lot.”

"I-I'll guard up here." Inquisitor Shin panted as he sustained the magic. He looked extremely drained based on his body language.

The other Squires were the first to move, followed by Hope. I cut in before Joshua and Dev, this time ensuring I wouldn’t be the last of the Squires. I saw how that ended last time, and I’d rather not have a repeat scenario.

The magic ensured I took no damage as it suppressed the force of gravity. I slammed into the ground, feeling a shock of cold tracing through my body. I dodged to the side, taking cover behind a console covered in buttons as I got my first look at the situation.

The control room was closer to a long and wide hallway covered in screens and consoles than anything. It stretched along what was probably the cargo hold, with thick glass separating the two. Blast shields had been deployed at some point though, completely obscuring the interior of the room.

A group of cultists were set up on the far side of the room. Borgs defensively held their position with HMGs, firing with wild abandon towards Darren and Autumn. One of them shot a grenade from his arm towards Autumn, though it was batted out of the air by a falling piece of debris and deflected into a group of normal cultists.

The Knights acted as the front, taking and blocking most of the damage as the Squires fired away at the group. Return fire was mainly blocked by Darren’s shields, allowing us to fire at will. I joined in, shooting bursts towards the HMGs to hopefully take them down. The Borgs behind the guns didn’t even react as my bullets embedded deep into subdermal armor as if they felt no pain-

A cold burst slammed through my head, creating an instant headache. I ducked just in time to feel a freezing shard of ice fly just over my head, slamming into a console behind me with enough force to cave in the metal. I tracked the trajectory back to a group hiding behind the Borgs.

More ice projectiles flew out, spreading a chill through the air. From the impact zones, small ice creatures grew rapidly. I flinched back, firing back towards the console just in time to catch a goblin-like ice golem with a burst to the head. The ice shattered, though it started to reform almost immediately.

The other Squires likewise turned to take out ice golems, with Joshua being the most effective as he blasted apart its chest. A shard of blue ice shattered, followed by the rest of the golem as if the original shard was the core.

I moved to follow his actions-

I threw myself to the side as the small, child-sized ice golem sprang at me with a freezing dagger outstretched. Darren’s shield guarding me blocked the dagger from doing any serious damage. The golem accidentally slipped as it landed, slamming into the consoles I hid behind. Electricity arced up through its body, electrifying it as the entire golem shattered into pieces.

Inquisitor Ligh dropped down as the battle raged, calmly striding behind cover as bullets and projectiles seemed to warp around him like they were scared of hurting the guy.

With a momentary lull, I dropped my bag and grabbed my launcher. I loaded it with a pyro round and fired it towards the Borgs. It slammed directly into one of them, instantly coating the cultist and his surroundings in fire.

At first, he didn’t react much other than turning the HMG to me. Then the fire burned into his flesh, overwhelming the pain inhibitor. He crumpled to the ground, screaming as he rolled around.

With Inquisitor Ligh added into the mix, the defending side rapidly started dropping. Even as they doubled down on firepower with shouts of ‘For Mother!’, it didn’t matter. Bullets and grenades reflected back into the group as weapons misfired and chrome broke of its own violation. Even the ice-throwing guy crumpled as his arm froze and shattered.

I used three more pyro grenades, giving gaps for the Squires to exploit with perfectly fired bursts to do maximum damage. The suppressing fire likewise gave even more room for Darren and Autumn to close the gap. And once Autumn closed in? Her shortswords got to work slashing through the defenders.

The fight barely lasted a minute after that. The defensive line collapsed entirely, making it even easier for the Squires and I to pick off stragglers. I even managed to gun down one of the Borgs, shooting through the gaps in his chrome.

As the last of the cultists let out a death scream, Autumn pulled out her shortsword and wiped the blood off. “Someone figure out how to get the blast shield up! Darren, Shin, patch the hole in the ceiling! This is our position now, let's keep it that way. Ligh, with me. The rest of you, entrench.”

The Squires spread out, scanning the consoles. Almost all of them looked clueless, instead opting to set up defenses for a retaliatory strike. In the end, it was just Joshua and me trying to figure out everything. Even Hope went off to help move an HMG.

Almost all the consoles were scrap. The battle hadn’t been kind to them. Bullets from the HMGs covered almost every single one of them, shattering screens and breaking components without any regard.

I moved between what was left, scanning everything with Technical Expertise as I built up an idea of the situation. It wasn’t looking pretty.

A bright flash caught my attention. I flinched and looked upward, catching sight of Inquisitor Shin floating in the air on shaky legs. He stood on Darren’s shields like footholds as they floated, supporting him. His hands flared with brilliant flames, slagging the floor panel back into place in a shoddy attempt at welding it.

I turned back to what I was doing. “Joshua.”

”Yeah?” The guy flinched as he noticed my attention, his hand stuffing some expensive-looking part into his pocket. I take it back, it was just me trying to figure out what was working.

I motioned him over as I pulled a panel of one of the consoles and exposed its internals. “Find me some of these. Ones that aren’t too damaged.”

The guy checked the parts I showed him with a frown. “Right, I’ll go look.” freewёbn૦νeɭ.com

With the two of us moving around, collecting bits and pieces from scrapped machines, I slowly amassed enough components to jury-rig some repairs. Hopefully, I could get at least some of this stuff back up and running.