Lost Rain

Outrun - Chapter 333

Mira sprayed into the lunging rat with Blaze rounds, causing fire to sprout all over its body. It didn’t even seem to notice. Instead, the rat let its bone plating take the hits while it leapt at us. It used the wall to ricochet forward, aiming at the closest target: me.

This time, I was ready. I pulled the Jade Dagger out and dropped into a low stance. If I could just stab into one of its several eyes… I saw my a perfect angle and threw the Jade Dagger—

The rat pulled back ...

Outrun — Chapter 332

The lift groaned and creaked with every passing second. Old gears shrieked in protest, and the cables shuddered heavily as if trying to shake us off midway. Every creaking gears caused Burt’s of rust to drift down from the ceiling in lazy sprinkles. Oil could only go so far.

Mira brushed flakes off of her helmet with an annoyed flick. “Nova. Tetanus snow. As if this couldn’t get any worse.”

I didn’t look away from the flickering panel showing our descent and the status o...

Outrun - Chapter 331

Mira and I walked aimlessly down the halls for a while. Honestly, I had no idea where I was going. The blueprint I had for this place from the city archives was entirely different from what was actually going on here. It was supposed to be an office building, and yet we were just aimlessly walking in circles.

I pulled Mira into a broom closet just as a group of patrolling ASCorp corporate guards turned the corner ahead of us. I watched the bright dots on the minimap walk down the hall. ...

Outrun - Chapter 330

”R-ready.” Luna called out to us through the Packheart Ring. I looked up to see three combat drones buzzing just overhead. One of them dipped as if acknowledging my gaze.

I silently patted Mira on the shoulder to let her know that I was also ready. She hefted her heavy gun and nodded her head. “Ready. Deep breathes, everyone. Nothing we haven’t done before.”

”Right, because charging a fortified location is something I’ve done before.” I shot a glare at Mira. To be ...

LR Q&A

Its’s been a long time since I did one of these. We’ve come even further since those days. I think there were only a couple questions asked on the last one, but there’s way more of you guys. I’ll try to keep up and answer almost anything asked!

Of course, this was supposed to be a celebration of hitting three hundred chapters… it’s a bit late. I was busy and all that, but it’s here now, so happy chapter 330/311! I wouldn’t be here without you guys, so truly, from the bot...

Outrun - Chapter 329

”So this is it?” Mira moved forward next to me and leaned over the railing of a roof. 

We climbed up on a building as soon as we neared our destination and had been roof hopping ever since. It kept us up off the ground and away from the majority of the fighting. The less we had to fight on the way here, the better off we’d be.

I moved up beside her, keeping my head low just the same to peek over the edge of the building. Robinson Tower lay just ahead of us. It’s light...

Outrun - Chapter 328

I quietly slid back into the building where I left Mira behind. The handoff had been a completely uneventful affair. I slunk toward the edge of the heights, strapped Iris to the waiting hover-bike, and then watched it fly off toward Nael’s clinic.

Honestly, it was a little too easy. I half expected to be shot at by merc squads or hunted by mutants, but nothing of note happened. I kept to the shadows, and even without Blackout hiding me from cams, Luna took care of anything electronic....

Outrun - Chapter 327

“What do we do with them?” Mira stared down at the collapsed mercs. Her eyes flashed with concern, though she shoved that emotion down just as quickly as I noticed it.

“L-leave them. We s-still need to find my b-brother.” It wasn't much of a surprise that Luna wanted to ditch the mercs and refocus on the mission. Even with two down, she was still in a rush. To be fair though, the last one was her family. 

“If we leave them, their chances aren't very high to get out�...

Myth//OS - Chapter 61

When we were halfway to the bridge arching to the next floating island over. Without warning, the wind abruptly picked up. If before it was a pleasant breeze, then what hit me was closer to a high level magic of wind. The surprise burst instantly shattered my stability and would’ve sent me flying if I didn’t react quick enough.

Spikes of white Ebonshroud flowed down through me and lanced deep into the ground to hold me still while my Will Wire flew out with a spear deep into the gro...

Outrun - Chapter 326

Content warning: Suicide

Woah, this is the second content warning this arc. Considering I’ve only ever written three of them, including this one, I dunno how I feel about that.

— — —

”Mira, you there?” I called lightly into the Packheart Ring and worked my way down the building. With everything taken care of, there was no reason to keep sticking around.

She didn’t reply. An uneasy sensation filled me. The gunfire had cut off at some point too. The buildi...

Outrun - Chapter 325

We moved through the rest of the building, picking off the occasional mutant that ran away from the initial fight. There weren’t many of them. Most of the mutants fell into herd mentality and rushed us, so only the ones that ran away when I flared Fear the Reaper were left.

It took us barely any time to work our way up to the bright green indicator several floors up. Iris was locked in some kind of storage closet, one that was apparently super reinforced from what the Dragonfly transm...

Outrun - Chapter 324

I eyed the compass. “We should be closing in soon.”

Mira and I had already been moving through the heights for a while now since I pulled her out of the Aether. So far we’d managed to avoid almost everything that would stop us. There was a run-in with a squad of PMCs, but even that wasn’t an issue. Neither side wanted a fight, so we both tactfully pretended we didn’t see each other.

”How can you tell? I thought it was just direction?” Mira pulled to a stop just at th...

Lost Drop - Tidings of Joy

Tidings of Joy

This one was going to be a massive sci-fi style space opera in the same vein as Restless. Similarly to Restless, I hid a spot with it that I just stopped feeling it, which is unfortunate. I really did like the MC of this one and the side characters. She’s probably one of my favorite MCs to date, to be honest.

— — —

“Um- boss? A-are you sure this will work?” One of her guards pulled at his clothes and hesitantly called out to the short girl leading ...

Outrun - Chapter 323

“How you holding up?” Saint idly called out to the other inhabitant of the room.

”I-I am. Somehow.” Luna’s voice still trembled slightly, but she had stopped crying, at least. Small mercies. It made it really hard to focus when there was a crying girl not that far from him. 

“We’ll find the rest of them.” He wanted to say that they’d be fine, but finding one of her teammates dead by himself wasn’t a good sign. At the very least, it meant the other two aban...

Outrun - Chapter 322

Like I expected, this was a control room of some sorts. Server banks lined a far wall, and the other was covered in monitors and terminals. There wasn’t even a hint of the biomass in here like there was in the rest of the infested lab. The security door into this room was a hefty piece. 

And, although most of the facility was out of power, this place was still running. The lights above were bright, server banks whirled, and terminals blinked with life. It seemed the lack of power...

Outrun - Chapter 321

AN: Here’s a warning. This one gets a little messed up. Think snake altar back at New Tress City type messed up.

— — —

I touched down as light as a feather, though sunk into the floor as soon as the anti-gravity chambers shut off. I lifted my foot, feeling the meat squelch and pulled at me desperately like it didn’t want to let go. I sunk into the substance that shouldn’t be moving, but somehow did. The pink fibers twitched around me like muscles.

Mira pried open...

Outrun - Chapter 320

Mira and I cut through a dim alley illuminated by the raging fire of a building far above. The drone that Luna captured floated just behind us, projecting a bright light for Mira to see by. I didn’t have any issue, of course, but the same couldn’t be said for my mikata. When we got back, I needed to make her a full set of gear.

We moved out of the alley and finally spotted the co-op. Or, at least, what was left of it. The building was now a carcass of steel, shattered glass, and cha...

Lost Drop - Imperial World Tree

Imperial World Tree

This one was from a bit earlier than even Shattered Veil. I was probably sixteen or seventeen when I started to write this? It’s, uh, it’s kinda bad? It’s also super interesting to me how some of my ideas showed up even way back here. If you’ve read Myth//OS, you might recognize something.

This was going to be a journey through the dimensions type story. The MC joins the Asgardian Legions and battles through all sorts of crazy dimensions for va...

Lost Drop - Rise of the Penguin Guild

Rise of the Penguin Guild

This was a joke story I thought up based on a feature of Royal Road. If you go edit your profile, there’s a primary user group. I don’t really know what it was for, but I think it’s obsolete now. Regardless, everyone was part of the Penguin Guild. That birthed this idea and the amazing Lukheart III.

It was going to be an organization building story with an op arms dealing penguin. Said penguin is perfectly normal. It’s the world that’s strange.<...

Lost Drop - Vixen‘s Ascent

Lost Drops: I talked a bit about having stories that I either dropped or put on hiatus before releasing them for whatever reason. After listening to you guys, I decided to upload a couple of them in my free time. Read them if you want or just pretend they don’t exist. Doesn’t really matter.

I’m calling them Lost Drops, but basically these are just stories that never got finished or died in their infancy. Some of them I’d really like to come back and make a full story. Some of th...

Outrun - Chapter 319

The city was on fire. Or, at least, this section of the city. There was no doubt in my mind that East End was collapsing slowly but surely. First the whole AEZ incident, and now this? Things weren’t looking good if this trend kept up. The whole district might get swallowed by a sandstorm or ocean next. Wouldn’t that be something?

The snowstorm had calmed down at some point. Now lone flakes drifted down, joining their brethren in soot stained banks of snow. Some of the banks were alr...

Outrun - Chapter 318

The hover bike shot up into the air. I tightly grabbed onto Mira to avoid being tossed off by her erratic movements. “Guys?! Where’d that come from!”

“O-one sec… g-got it. There’s a SAM truck setup here.” A gleaming light appeared in my eyes on one of the many buildings across the heights. Its roof had caved in with snow all over it. Something metal twisted just collapsed the roof.

”Why the hell are there SAM trucks in the heights?” Mira shouted. Thankfully, it l...

Outrun - Chapter 317

“Are we killing these guys too?” Mira asked from up so far above me. “They look like civs.”

I glanced down toward the bottom of the tower. This was the third one. The second one was easier than the first. Mira just lit up the whole group with the fifty cal and that was that. 

As the base of the Node Tower, a small shanty town of wooden shacks were set up. Most of them were tapped directly into the tower in one way or another to siphon a connection. There were a few ar...

Outrun - Chapter 316

I flicked on the Blackout module as well as the sonic suppressor for my bike well before reaching the tower. As far as anyone knew, there was nothing in the sky. We had no signature, no profile, and nothing for chrome eyes or sensors to lock onto.

That was the plan, at least. There were still a few lazy potshots taken at us when we passed by a few buildings. They were the kind of shots someone fired off when they saw something move and wanted to feel important.

They weren’t even...

Myth//OS - Chapter 60

I sat at a coffee house. Of course I did. Where else would I sit and wait for someone? The coffee was on the house too. It was some kind of special event or something? I was apparently their 100,000 customer. I wasn’t one to look down on free coffee. 

I sipped at the cup, doing a last minute check through Cloud Keep Temple. Interestingly, the biggest issue with this rift wasn’t necessarily the monsters. It was the environment itself. I’d have to be extremely careful about fal...

Outrun - Chapter 315

”Are you sure that was a smart idea?” Mira leaned forward to my ear and wrapped her hands around my waist just under my poncho. Her Sorrow jacket wrapped around my shoulder and her ballistic vest pushed up against my back uncomfortably.

Even with the proximity, I barely heard her over the rushing wind. We were moving to the Scath Heights, and we weren’t slowing down even a little bit. “The rings?”

Just before leaving, I handed both Luna and Saint a Packheart copy. They w...

Outrun - Chapter 314

The hotel wasn’t the fanciest establishment in all of Aythryn City, but it was pretty decent as far as places went. Had okay security, each room with its own full bath, and even the usual amenities of a hotel. Sure, it was a bit pricey, but I saw it as investing in the future. It’d suck to piss off a Netrunner more than I needed to.

It wasn’t too hard to find them. As long as Mira had on the Packheart Ring, I could feel her exact location like a second heartbeat. Mira opened the d...

Outrun - Chapter 313

Script popped up into my HUD of its own free will. A moment later, it turned into a text message from an unknown number. ‘Lead them into the basement. All sorts of turrets set up down there.’

Luna? Scary scary… she got through the ice of my phone and chrome in seconds. My immediate knee-jerk reaction at seeing my chrome so easily taken over was to teleport out and abandon her here. We were allies for now though. After this was over, I definitely needed to find the new Constellatio...

Outrun - Chapter 312

I checked the location and nodded to Mira. “Looks like this is it.”

We were pulled into a hover over a warehouse in Portside. It looked abandoned and decrepit, with half of it collapsed under the onslaught of storms that plagued Aythryn City. It didn’t look like much, but I knew firsthand how easy it was to have a hidden bunker underneath something mundane looking.

That, and I knew for a fact there was a basement underneath the warehouse. It was on the circle’s maps, so it...

Outrun - Chapter 311

I checked a mechanical arm, manually sending an impulse of electricity through the delicate circuit boards. The arm flexed, sticking out straight. I went over its parts a few more times and then started to install it into the micro-fabrication unit I was working on for Nael. It was nearly there now.

Hmm… I’m going to call it the Founderer. That name sucked, didn’t it? Why was naming things so frickin hard? Should I just pull up a name generator? “Mira, I need some help.”