Outrun – Cyberpunk LitRPG

Chapter 176

The other three would probably be fine, but Lia and I were squishy compared to them. I grabbed the recovering woman’s arm, pulling her with me as I used Burst Step to get out of the area. My legs throbbed as the movement’s strain doubled, nearly tripping me as I felt my muscles turn to jelly.

With an additional person, I couldn’t get far with Burst Step. We did get just far enough for the hail of spikes to miss though. The rest of the squad tanked the blows, covering their fragile bits as their subdermal armor and plate carriers ate the spikes. At a glance, the blow wasn’t too harsh, just piercing through their synthskin but failing to get through the chrome plates underneath.

”Lost it again. Not on any of my sensors.” Yonrow called as he plucked out several spikes- no, now that they were closer, I could see they were hardened feathers of some sort.

Lia, acting as my support in a complete turn of events as I struggled to force some strength back into my legs, coughed a couple of times. “I-it's in the Aether!”

Just as her shout ripped through the air, Insight hit me again with another ethereal tingle of something hurtling out of the Aether right behind me. It was immediately followed by several cold phantom pains severing from my shoulders down to my hips.

I once more used Burst Step, dragging Lia with me one more time. Just as we dodged, the Aether hawk popped out into a ferocious strike, catching part of my hair as its talons easily gave me an impromptu haircut. It jerked my head back slightly, pulling free several strands from my scalp as I dodged to the side.

As we staggered to the side, I felt something tear in my ankle as I flopped to the ground, pulling Lia down with me. We slammed into the concrete, barely dodging another blow as the hawk used its wings like blades to sweep just over our heads. The whoosh of air billowed past my face, tossing my torn hair everywhere.

With the two of us out of the way, the rest of the squad opened fire, lighting up the bird. Just before it could vanish back into the Aether, several bullets impacted the bird in sprays of feathers and blood. 

“Kreeeee!” The bird cried out, causing a wave of nausea to flow through me. And it seemed like I wasn’t the only one to be hit with the mental attack as the rest of the squad’s aim seemed to go astray, turning several sure hits into near misses.

Then I felt that familiar tingle as the big bird once more vanished back into the Aether… only to pop back out a moment later barely having moved. The squad was ready, including Lia as I tried to get myself back up onto my feet, shaking off the bird’s latest mental attack. All I could hear were the loud echoes of bullets and progressively weakening cries from the bird.

Several more flickers from the Aether teased Insight as I got my rifle back around and helped the team shoot down the bird. I was on the ground though, in an extremely awkward firing position as my legs throbbed in pain. Even with the odds stacked against me on fighting the bird though, it was rather easy to hit it. The thing was massive, and its wing span as it kept trying to take off made it even easier.

With it as injured as it was, leaking blood and several spots bare of feathers, it seemed to have trouble transitioning into and out of the Aether. It kept swinging its claws, flickering in and out as it tried to escape. Under the firepower of all five of us though, it quickly fell.

“Scwaaa…” With one final head-pounding cry, the bird flopped to the ground. Its body lifelessly twitched a few last times before going still entirely.

There was a moment of silence before Hampton called out, “Everyone good?”

”I’ve got a killer headache, but yeah.” Lia offered a hand down to me. “Thanks for the save.”

“No problem.” I grabbed her hand, hauling myself back up… only to nearly fall back down as I felt my ankle throb with pain. Lia helped me stand as I hesitantly stepped forward. “I- I think I sprained my ankle.”

”Damn… Renold? Yonrow?” Hampton asked as he prodded the bird with his gun’s barrel.

”Just a few flesh wounds.” Renold replied. He plucked the few remaining feathers slammed into his subdermal armor out as if they were mere splinters and not a deadly attack.

Yonrow shifted back, taking up a defensive position to watch over the rest of the large recording room. “Same.”

Hampton sighed deeply. ” Let's pull back into the hall. Office 5301, I think. We passed it on the way in. Regroup, rearm, and then will try and clear the rest of the building.”

“Probably won’t be anything here. The bird seemed like an Apex Predator of the area.” Renold offered some insight as he moved to inspect the Aether hawk.

Hampton nodded. ”Still. Rather not get caught out.”

“Here.” Lia offered me her shoulder, helping me walk to keep pressure off my leg. Not that it mattered too much considering both of my legs were in a bad state. Burst Step may have saved me and Lia from being severely injured by the bird, but it wasn’t a catch-all. 

The squad moved with Lia and me in the middle, keeping watch in case any other hostile moved in after the loud gunfight. We moved down one of the halls we already checked, moving into an office that offered a perfect defensive position. Hampton and Renold took up positions at the door while Lia helped me over to one of the desks.

Yonrow moved over to me, crouching down in front of me as he offered a hand. “May I?”

”Chek.” I let him inspect my ankle as I felt it throb in pain. It wasn’t just my ankle either. I felt a tearing pain all the way up through my leg, but that would be a bit harder to explain than I just twisted my ankle with an unlucky step. My other leg was in a similar state, though since it wasn’t the one I used for the leading step it wasn’t as bad.

He prodded at my ankle, pulling up my pant leg slightly to get a better look. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t just my ankle that was heavily injured, but all the muscles up my leg. It wasn’t pretty. “That’s a lot of bruising. Must've hit the ground hard too. Definitely sprained…”

Yonrow took off his bag, rifling through it before pulling out a bunch of bottles, an injector of some kind, and a roll of bandages. “You ever take stims before?”

”Ugh, no?” They were expensive. And with Quick Healing taking care of my injuries, I hardly ever actually used any kind of medical equipment outside of bandages and antiseptics. Saved money that way, and it's not like I actually needed them.

Yonrow rubbed my leg with some kind of cool wipe as he prepared the cylinder injector, numbing my skin slightly. He popped open the back side, pouring a liquid into the injector from one of the bottles before adjusting a few dials on the injector itself and pressing a button. A needle popped out of the front end.

”This is MedTech’s Stem R-61. No matter what, make sure you don’t take another of these within three days.” He lightly stabbed the needle into my leg, pressing a button on the back as I felt a cold sensation flow through my veins. The pain from the injury faded slightly as I felt a slight ebbing and flowing cold sensation.

“Why not?” No wonder no one had died yet if the Crimson Company was rocking a bunch of combat stims. I'd heard about a few of them that could make a person practically immortal as long as they were hyped up on them.

He frowned as he started to wrap my ankle with bandages. “It’s been known to cause mutations on repeated use. It’s only a ten percent chance, but that percentage goes up exponentially as it's used more. Don’t want to end up looking like Lia, right?”

”Hey!” Lia shot a glare at him as she flipped him off. “The fighting is over, so why are you still firing shots?”

Yonrow ignored her, packing his bag back up. He pressed another button on the injector, causing the end to glow red. Probably some kind of cleaner. The injector looked too expensive to be a one-and-done disposable kind. “You should be good to walk, but keep your weight on the other side.”

“Chek.” I took the chance to reload my gun and magazines as the taciturn man moved on to the Magus.

Yonrow ran several checks on Lia, which included shining a light into her eyes. After a while, he handed her some pills and reported back to Hampton. “Lia’s got a concussion. Zuku’s leg is all messed up. Both need rest.”

”Can we finish the objective?” Hampton frowned as he glanced back at us. Probably worried about being out past nightfall. Getting through the city would be increasingly difficult once night fell.

Yonrow shrugged. ”Probably… as long as we don’t get into another fight, it should be fine. And the zip back will be rough for Zuku.” 

“Right. Okay, Lia support Zuku and keep to the back. I’ll take point. Let’s try and clear this fast, get what we need, and get out. We should be out of the way enough up here to avoid any ambushes.” Hampton moved for the door. “Anything worth grabbing from the recording room?”

”Maybe.” I hopped off the table, testing a step on my injured ankle. It still had a faint throb of pain, but I could walk on it without too much issue. Still, I limped with every step as I tried to keep my weight on my other injured leg. “I’ll be able to run a diagnosis report at least.”

”Hmm…” Hampton looked at us for a moment before nodding his head. “Yonrow, stay with Lia and Zuku and head for the recording room. Renold, let's clear the next three floors, though we’ll stay close to the balconies. If worse comes to pass, we can offer support over the balconies or hop off of them to regroup.”

The squad split up, the two combatants heading for the stairs as we moved back to the recording room. It was a bit slow of a process to begin with as I got used to walking with an injured ankle. 

As soon as we entered the room, I headed over to the bird’s corpse. I checked consoles and terminals as we passed, though the majority of them were broken with age or torn to pieces by the hail of gunfire from our fight. Lia and Yonrow split off, walking around the room as I had some time to myself.

I checked the bird’s corpse, pausing for a moment as I stared at the beast. Its deadly claws and feathers looked quite a bit less threatening as I stared down at them. They could make good materials. In my search through Cold Moon Solution’s lab, quite a few of the Aetherially reactive materials had been animal parts.

For a moment, I second-guessed what I wanted to do, then I flicked on Aetherial Perception for the briefest of moments. In the split second, I looked over the corpse, I spotted its talons and several feathers along its wings radiating Aetherial energy. I could also feel a sickly sensation against the back of my eyeballs as if a tentacle writhed against it. The sensation grew with each passing moment till I could feel whatever it was inside of my skull. Before I could invoke more danger for myself, I turned off Aetherial Perception.

With the intel, I set off to quickly cut off the talons and feathers I spotted, stashing the loot into my bag. Might be able to use them for something. If I could get a use similar to the bird, I might be able to finagle some kind of device to get into and out of the Aether. Probably just a pipe dream though. And I'm not sure if I even want to do that in the first place. Aether Gates were a thing, but I'd heard they were extremely dangerous.

Then I moved on, refocusing on the actual job. It took a while to find a terminal that still worked. I wiped off the glass of the terminal, clearing off the screen as I started clicking through programs. Eventually, I got to the system diagnostics and checked what remained of the news station’s broadcasting equipment.