Lost Rain

Outrun - Chapter 202

We walked a bit more, entering a sprawling metro station. It was big, taking up a large space with a balcony looking down onto the foyer. It'd been buried with time long ago, left to rot down here in the Underground.

It would’ve been quite something back in the day. Now though? Now it was worn and torn. Cracks crisscrossed the walls, and everything was left in a state of disrepair. There were also almost no lights outside of a few bioluminescent plants. Dev and the other Squire’s fl...

Outrun - Chapter 201

With the assistance of Dev, I managed to get back up and out of the hole without plummeting into the depths. By the time I latched onto the other Squire’s hand and he pulled me out, the Knight and her two Squire’s had arrived.

“I see you found the way down.” Persha idly commented as she peeked over the ledge. “Long drop.”

“Trust me, I’m intimately aware.” I shook off some plant goo that splattered on my poncho.

 The unarmored Squire raised a hand. “U...

Restless - Chapter 11

Two weeks. That’s how long it took me to figure out what all was going on with my body. It was a slow and tedious process, especially considering my state as a pseudo-prisoner. I wasn’t literally a prisoner, but my ‘Flaw’ kept me locked up with the Reality Anchor. 

At first, I’d freaked out about it. By the second day of being cooped up, I forced myself to leave the room, even if it meant dying. There was no way I was once more going to let myself be cooped up in a metal ...

Outrun - Chapter 200 !!!

We were escorted to the back of the restaurant. Down a hall sat a private room with Blood Scythe guards standing out front. These weren’t like the rest though. They looked trained, chromed, and armed with SMGs and shotguns.

The room they guarded was a private booth hidden away from the rest of the restaurant. Three important-looking people sat eating tacos and drinking… margaritas? They looked like margaritas at least.

Hmm... when I open the speakeasy, what kind of food should...

Outrun - Chapter 199

The robed man approached. He was an elder, with short-cropped silver hair and a salt-and-pepper beard. “You are?”

“Shiro. Shiro Tsukuyomi.” I held out a hand to the man. I was slightly annoyed that Echdina had so casually marked me down with my real name. “I’m here for an exchange?”

”I am Librarian Zeta. Shiro Tsukuyomi…” The man took my offered hand. His eyes glowed in a telltale sign of using his chrome. Not an Echidna Magus then? “Ah, I see. Yes, in exchan...

Outrun - Chapter 198

The cams weren’t as helpful as I hoped they would be. I mean, they were helpful, but not too helpful. We watched a couple hours' worth of footage, finding more than enough evidence something had gone down.

We started with our first victim, carefully pouring over the video footage from the camera in the hall. We spotted a suspect shortly after the vic returned to his apartment. Feature Scrubber, unfortunately. Couldn’t say much about the suspect other than it was a man ...

Restless - Chapter 10

“Gah!” I sprung awake, gasping for air as I felt the cold pangs of death radiating throughout my body. My brain felt as if it was a maelstrom tearing at the edges of my skull with brutal intent.

My hands shot up, blocking out a blinding light as my memory came back to me in one scrambled mess-

I froze entirely, feeling the flesh underneath my hand. I carefully traced my chin to the top of my face, feeling the gaunt features and high cheekbones. I glanced down, barely able to s...

Outrun - Chapter 197

We checked a few more apartments and found many of them to be the same. Not everyone had food out, but based on other clues in their apartments, we suspected a similar chain of events. There were similar circumstances at least.

For one, Lewis was an outlier in that he had a relationship. As far as we could tell, almost everyone else on the list was single and living by themselves. No one would notice that they vanished. It suggested a level of organization and information gathering that...

Restless - Chapter 9

AN: 4/4

Also, I probably should have put this beforehand, but here's a content warning for Sensitive Content for the rest of the book.
-- -- --
Moll and Clyde entered the fight with a bang. Clyde, the ever-cheerful man, lunged towards the beast. His power activated as his form melted away into something like a cat, though much larger and covered in black fur. Right, shapeshifter.

Moll was quick to follow. Before, she had been holding back. All I’d seen of the woman’s pow...

Restless - Chapter 8

AN: 3/4

-- -- --

We stepped into the building, Moll leading the way as she burned through the meat webbing all over the place. The lobby was extremely simple. There were no motifs or artistic reliefs along the walls like I’d seen in Slarin Republic architecture. Only a simple wooden building with a simple wooden teller’s booth.

 The villains looked way too complacent as we headed for the far side, though I couldn’t necessarily blame them. This would probably be th...

Restless - Chapter 7

AN: 2/4
-- -- --

The place was a ghost town. At least, that was the conclusion I came to. Signs of life were there, but they were old as though the inhabitants hadn’t been back in a long time.

But something else had. Trails of sticky red webbing that reeked of rotting meat lined everything as if a warped spider had made the entire place a nest.

If it was just the meat webs, it wouldn’t be too bad. But the webs were seemingly alive. Even from here at the alley’s mout...

Restless - Chapter 6

AN: 1/4

-- -- --

I don’t know how long we walked, but the path we took was confusing. And that's saying something considering I commonly ran packages down into the Undercity. The paths down there were something else.

 Clyde must’ve had a great memory to know the path so well. Countless intersecting paths were caved in, making it even harder to find the right direction. I almost immediately got turned around and lost.

The sewer system was rather tight, narrowin...

Outrun - Chapter 196

“So good cop bad cop?” I asked Dev. Getting our roles down now was probably a good idea so I’d know how to act in upcoming situations. And it seemed as if he was already leaning towards good cop bad cop.

Dev shrugged as we walked down the hallway. “I guess. I can make a killer good cop.”

I bit back a laugh as I looked up into the guy’s unblinking eyes. He seemed entirely serious in that statement. The guy practically had a serial killer vibe to him, thoug...

Outrun - Chapter 195

The first stop was Trashcan Terisa. No way I wanted to pilfer a place potentially full of plants and their cultists without some kind of fire. Sure, a mundane fire might not be all that effective, but could be a distraction at least.

Trashcan Terisa ended up being a person, not an actual shop. She was set up in a narrow alley between two foundations of the Arcology. Her ‘shop’ was just a bunch of scavenged junk from what was probably trash cans. Regardless, she had what I needed. I ...

Outrun - Chapter 194

Dev and I met up just outside of Lang Tower in Old Town. It was a true arcology, built to be a city within a building. It was similar in shape and design to Talus Tower in that it was a fully self-sustaining location. The rest of the city could go to shit and yet the arcology would still be fine.

Assuming it was left alone, that is. If the city went to shit, there was a good chance it would boil over and affect the arcologies considering their proximity. It was a fancy dream, but still ...

Outrun - Chapter 193

As soon as I entered the Blue Crusade, I could feel the tension in the air. Everyone was hustling and bustling, moving around and trying to get whatever they were working on done. It was also quiet. Too quiet. I was used to the Crusade’s constant chatter, so actually having all the Crusaders quiet and focused for once was incredibly weird.

It was almost as if I was in a normal workplace environment where everyone just focused on their jobs. Honestly, I'd rather have it back the way it...

Outrun - Chapter 192

Firearms. It had some crazy choices for Perks. Dexterity was practically a time-slowing effect, and that’d been a level four Perk. Granted, it was likely a mistake that it was so lowly placed. After all this time, I’d long realized that the Perks, Skills, and Traits of the interface weren’t exactly balanced for the world.

Not that I was complaining. Made my path to dominance so much easier by having the good stuff. It gave me a fighting chance against the insane death cultists, ch...

Outrun - Chapter 191

“Zuku! It’s about time. Been trying to reach you for weeksh!” The ever-cold voice of Inquisitor Ligh came across the line.

”Inquisitor… about that…” What do I even say? How can I ward off an inquiry into a month-long absence? This is seriously too much to worry about. I didn’t even think about the Crusade before, during, or after the job.

Hmm… should I run away? With Master of Disguise, it’d be surprisingly easy to escape the Crusade. And anyone trying to find ...

New Years Special

This is a collaboration I did with RavensDagger and Plum Parrot. It's just something short and, hopefully, sweet for New Year's. Juliet and Angel are from Plum Parrot's Cyber Dreams, and Cat and Lucy are from RavensDagger's Stray Cat Strut.

As a side note, this is the first collab I've ever done with other creators and it was quite the ride.

Plum Parrot's Cyber Dreams:

2024-12-31 18:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post

Outrun - Chapter 190

I collapsed onto my small bed, a stroke of pure satisfaction running through me as I felt the soft mattress. I’d spent way too long letting the water brush over my skin, even going as far as to ignore the interface popping up in my vision until now. All for this moment of relaxation. Of being sand-free for the first time in a month. My hair had been particularly filled with the substance.

I relaxed for a while. Unfortunately, the world wouldn't wait for me like the interface would. I ...

Outrun - Chapter 189

”I see…” Captain Roger frowned as he stared at a blown-up hologram of the Laurus Theatre. “Nothing we can do about the radiation. None of us are built to deal with it… I’ll call Athena. She might have other plans.”

Right, Athena. The overall boss. Kick it down the line, notice. Definitely recognized that little tactic. I really hoped that she wouldn't want us to go down there. Guns and monsters were one thing, but the ever-invisible and fatal nature of radiation was an ent...

Merry Christmas!

Or Happy Holidays if you don’s celebrate Christmas. Thank you all for a wonderful year so far!

No chapter today, unfortunately. I was planning a Christmas Special, but I didn’t quite get done with it. Felt rushed reading back through.

A couple other authors and I have a collab in the works for New Years though! I’ll get all sappy and sentimental in that, so I’ll keep this post nice and short.

Outrun - Chapter 188

I found what I was looking for without too much searching. It was rather simple to find once I was free to look. A bookshelf on the back wall didn’t match the pattern the rest of the Back Archives abided by, which threw me off when I first saw it. Then add in the fact that touching one of the books triggered Technical Expertise, and my suspicions were through the roof.

By simply tapping every book on the shelf, I found four books that were connected to a mechanism in some kind of code...

Outrun - Chapter 187

I stared down at my drone early the next morning. What I wanted to do to bypass the whole ultrasonic sensor thing was fairly simple. The sensor only knew something was wrong when the ultrasonic waves bounced back off something. 

If I simply removed the ultrasonic sound waves, it’d likely activate a tamper alarm. I had to be careful and smart with how I approached this. My idea? Mute the original frequencies, then send back my own ultrasonic frequencies as if nothing were happenin...

Outrun - Chapter 186

I flicked on my Blinder just before entering the building. I also ran through a final check of all my sensors, ensuring everything was running smoothly. So far. at least, nothing had broken.

”Zuku?” Hampton called, seemingly staring right through me. “Where are you?”

I waved a hand at him. “Right here?”

He jumped slightly, staring right through me still. “Where? Did Lia cast some kind of invisibility magic? I thought she was having issues with the sprites?” 2024-12-18 23:04:00 +0000 UTC View Post

Outrun - Chapter 185

“So what do you think?” I asked Captain Roger. I’d already explained the situation to him.

“Hmm…” Captain Roger’s voice cut out for a few moments. “What did you say the odds are of this working out?”

“High. At least seventy-five percent sure that everything will run okay. We can test it with just one person first though, just to be safe.” I looked through the terminal. “I’d just need a few days to get everything up and running- oh, wait. Do your people ha...

Outrun - Chapter 184

”What happened here?” Renold asked as poked at a mound of wooden snakes. The pile shifted, falling into a disgusting mess of dead serpents.

“Oh, uh- there was a creepy monster down that way.” I pointed down the hall towards the offices. “It's been taken care of.”

Renold chuckled to himself, kicking aside one of the wood snakes as he withdrew a cigarette and lit it up with the lighter built into his hand. “Should’ve guessed. Plant monsters are this place’s bread a...

Outrun - Chapter 183

The next morning, I infiltrated back into the offices. On the way back in, I noticed quite a few bots kneeled over. Sabotaging the charging ports has already had a strong effect. Once I found the building's schematic and got the rest of the charging ports, the bots wouldn’t even be an issue.

The haze had reduced noticeably, returning visibility to a moderate level. With the return of visibility, the turrets along the ceiling were back up and active. I paused momentarily below a cubicl...

Outrun - Chapter 182

I watched the terminal to pass the time. The more I watched the weird script pass by, the more I started to realize a pattern. The script abruptly changed for a moment, flashing to read 'HELP ME!' before going back to the other weird one as if it had just been a fluke. 

Before I could think too deeply about it, I heard a noise. The flapping of wings came from beyond the haze along with the heavy sound of something being dragged across the ground. My grip on my rifle tightened as I ...

Outrun - Chapter 181

Halfway to the stage, an indicator on my wrist started blinking red. I looked down just in time to catch a list of warnings from my Blinder. Overheating sat as the topmost warning. A shutdown was imminent. About fifteen minutes seemed to be the life span of the Blinder.

I sped up my movements, nearly sprinting past clueless robots. If my readings were right, it would be a matter of seconds till the Blinder shut off. If I was caught out here without my Blinder active? I sped up once more...