Lost Rain
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Outrun - Chapter 325
🕑 Added 2025-11-03 23:04:01 +0000 UTCWe 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 transmitted to me. Unfortunately, the Dragonfly didn’t live very long before Iris killed it.
I motioned back to Mira and knocked on the door. “Iris? It’s Shiro. Let me in, okay?”
A rough gasp came from beyond the door. “S-Shiro? What are ya doin’ here, pipsqueak?”
”Pfft, pipsqueak.” Mira quietly laughed from behind me.
I shot her a glare and tried the door handle. It was unlocked, but the door wouldn’t budge. “Luna sent me. You sounded bad on the phone call.”
”She- ugh- okay?” The sound of something shifting echoed out of the room.
“She’s safe. Better than could be said for you.” I tried to door a bit more. “Let me in. I’ve got medical supplies, and then we can get you out of here.”
Iris’s side was silent for several lingering moments. I shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably. Eventually, she broke into a rough cough. “How do I know if you’re really Shiro?”
”Really?” What did she run into—no, wait, that was fair. There were all sorts of mercs out here tonight. I could just be someone trying to trick her into letting me in so I could flatline her for the bounty. “We first met at Big Mike’s. It was the best burger I ever had.”
“Your entire face lit- ugh- up. Looked like a hamster—“ Iris broke into a wet cough once more. “J-just give me a sec.”
”Is she really in a state to move around? How are we going to extract her?” Mira moved up beside me and leaned on the wall next to the door, still keeping watch of the hallway.
”She won’t survive long in the Aether.” That blew out my Transporter for anything but a short trip. After about fifteen minutes or so, she’d start suffering from Aether Sickness. “Pop her in, get her to the edge of the heights, and then load her up on my bike? Luna could fly her to Nael.”
Mira tilted her head to the side. ”Nael? Not Medtech?
”I don’t trust the people in Medtech enough to not go after the bounty. Professionalism is their thing, but this is a lot of money we’re talking about here.” Even a street rat could kill for a couple hundred rayn, let alone for millions.
She nodded along with me. “I see what you’re saying, but will Luna be okay with that? She seems the overprotective sort. Might fly her to Medtech anyway.”
Saint’s voice echoed across the Packheart Ring, cutting off further discussion. “Shiro, you need to hurry up. I’ve got a squad of mercs closing in on your location.”
”Any familiar faces?” I asked and checked my weapons once more. I had about half my ammo left. We’d need to make another pitstop in my bunker soon.
An image of a woman popped up on my HUD along with several tags full of helpful information. “Mind Freak. She’s a Kinetic that can brainwash people into serving her. Don’t let her see you. Research indicates its line of sight based.”
”I’m immune.” Or I should be anyway. My Trait from Mother, Flora’s Daughter, gave me better mental defenses.
”I’m not.” Mira waved to her halo. “No telling how it’ll interact with me either.”
”Chek… let’s hurry.” Although I said that, we were still waiting for Iris to finish unblocking the door. She was slowing down more and more though as the moments ticked by.
”Move.” Mira ordered and took my place at the door. She paused just at the door and looked over her shoulder. “I only have enough juice to do this twice more.”
“Do what—“
Mira flickered, turning transparent. The next moment she simply walked through the door like it wasn’t even there. I knew she could turn intangible thanks to the previous encounter, but seeing it used like this was still so weird.
It was from the Shift ExoCore, chek? If I could copy their design and make my own variant of that, maybe call it a Shift Cloak or something, I’d have a powerful tool for klepping stuff. Heavy vault doors and such wouldn’t even be a problem for me anymore. I could just walk through it.
While I was distracted by stray thoughts, rough whispers and clatters came from the other side of the door. After half a minute, the door finally popped open and Mira stood on the other side. Iris, bleeding from dozens of wounds across her body and missing an arm, lay in a pool of blood against the far wall.
“Damn!” I pushed past Mira and pulled off my bag, rifling through it for all the medical equipment I just bought. First up to bat was disinfectant. I liberally sprayed it across her various injuries, causing the liquid to bubble up alongside fresh blood.
Iris didn’t even wince at the disinfectant reacting with her blood. She just put on a faint smile, exposing several broken teeth and a shattered fang. “H-hey.”
”Don’t hey me like nothing’s wrong.” I carefully cut off her shirt, exposing the worst of the injuries to her torso. Most of them looked like flesh wounds. Her subdermal armor caught a lot of projectiles. So much so it looked like a magnet that attracted every bit of metal in the surrounding area. “Mira, go keep watch. Saint, how long till Mind Freak gets here?”
”About five minutes.” His reply came instantly. “Luna wants to know what the plan is.”
She probably wasn’t speaking to keep from distracting me too much. She wasn’t a complete idiot. My head heated up as I tried to focus on Iris, the short term plan to take care of her and Mind Freak, and the long term plan of getting us out of here. “Um—“
Mira pulled on my bag lightly and pulled out the Transporter. She tossed it into the air and it started up the process of opening the portal. “For now, get her treated and in here. I- I’ll buy time. Make the mercs slow down.”
”Chek.” I shifted my attention back to Iris. Thankfully, Mira was here to back me up even on planning. I had help now. Not everything was on me. I just needed to keep reminding myself of that till it eventually stuck.
Mira looked over at the muscular woman collapsed against the wall one more time before nodding to me. She grabbed my turrets and popped a salute. “Then I’ll be back shortly.”
”Good luck. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” I was a little worried about Mira, but I had faith in her capabilities. She should be able to escape and get back to me if need be, at least. I turned my focus back to the half-dead merc. “What happened to you, Iris?”
“Won a- ugh- couple fights.” She raised her stump of what once was an arm. I’d only lost a hand, but I was intimately aware of how much losing a limb hurt. It was her chrome one, though, so it’s treatment was way different than the rest of her body. It wasn't as pressing as the rest of her.
I took a breath and then carefully worked away at her subdermal armor, spraying on synthetic skin and a hemostatic foam over the lightest of her injuries. The combination of the two should keep most of her injuries stable until she got proper treatment.
“Looks like more than a couple.” With most of the light injuries taken care of, I focused on the major ones. A knife had been rammed through her subdermal armor. The hilt had snapped off, but the blade was left embedded in her large intestine.
“R-River, that bastard, teleported us randomly. Lost track of the- ugh- team. Fightin’ since.” She winced when I poked at the blade. Her face was already pale with blood loss, but the red light tattoos across her body that’d been throbbing like a heartbeat abruptly gave out, making her look even paler. That, combined with half her hair torn out and a bloody scalp, gave her a particularly ghastly appearance.
“Tell me about that.” I was only half paying attention to what she was saying. Keeping her talking was important though. It kept her focused and awake.
”First it was the mercs.” Her face contorted when I lightly pulled on the subdermal armor where it’d been warped into her stomach by the blade. Nothing I could do. Treating it wouldn’t be painless. “Finally got through all of 'em only to be ambushed by muties. Heh- y-you shoulda been there, smalls. Was c-crazy fun.”
Once done stabilizing the blade injury, I pulled a needle out and carefully withdrew fresh blood that was hopefully free from contamination. I poured it into my canteen. With her blood added, I shifted one of the chambers to start pumping it out. Blood loss was a major issue. The sooner that could be taken care of, the better. It’d be temporary until I could get her sent to Nael.
“What about the others? Have ya s-seen them yet?” Iris asked between rugged gasps of air.
“No.” I could inform her of River’s death, but it was best to keep her as stable as possible. For now, at least. Once she was in a better state, Luna could talk to her. “Barely found you with the help of Luna.”
Somehow, even though I kept my expression entirely neutral and honest, she seemed to see through me. She slowly nodded her head and let out a regretful sigh. “River, right? T-that drunkard… figured he wasn’t getting out after he teleported us.”
”Yeah…” I pressed my ear to her chest, listening to her breathe. Definitely a collapsed lung. Although subdermal armor was good, there were still a lot of impacts. Without the amount of damage she took, I’d say most of her organs had at least light injuries. “Have you had any stims?”
“A few.” She wiped the sad expression on her face and tried to smile. It looked even more tragic with her gum all bloody and several teeth missing. “Dozen.”
”Right.” There went most of my medicine. I could use OxyPulse though. It over-saturated blood with oxygen. It was useful if there was a collapsed lung or reduced blood flow. Just a bit of it though. Next time I bought medical equipment, I needed to get scanners. I didn’t know her exact condition, so I was just going off of my best guess. While I was somewhat informed, it wasn’t nearly enough.
I grabbed an injector from my bag and stabbed it into her, dumping a quarter of its contents into her blood stream. One thing left until I was done. I pried open the access panel to her chrome and messed around inside, disabling the piece as well as the artificial nerves. She started to relax almost immediately.
I checked her over and finished up my stabilizing treatments. She wasn’t healed, but she’d be able to hang on until she got proper treatment. With that taken care of, I finally let the rest of the world flood in. It’d been nine minutes already, and the sounds of a gunfight erupted from below. “Mira, how’s it coming?”
”Fine! J-just living the dream!” She shouted over the link. “She’s using people as meat shields! Can’t get close at all. I have a plan, though.”
“Just be careful. I’m almost done here.” The portal finally opened. I popped in to set up the cot and a stasis bag. The thing was a bit like a body bag, but could keep whoever was inside in a form of short term stasis. It was the most expensive thing I bought when purchasing medical equipment.
”Trust me. I’ve got a plan.” With those worrying words, she cut off entirely. I could only hesitate a moment before returning to work. As soon as I was done here, I could go down and support her.
With that taken care of, I returned back through the portal and gently picked up Iris. Or tried to. She was even bigger than Mira, so it was closer to me dragging her through the portal than anything else. She tried to assist, but her body was a complete mess.
I propped her up into the stasis bag set up on the cot and messed around with the control terminal for the device. “When you wake up, you’ll be right as rain.”
”J-just protect Luna, yeah?” She coughed once more, splattering the see through bag with blood.
“‘Course. You can trust me.” I thumped my blood covered hand to my chest and then sealed up the bag. It activated, and her breathing slowed down to a crawl. Her eyes fluttered one last time and then slammed shut. We were on the clock now though.
I rearmed, grabbed a bunch of ammo, and then stepped back out through the portal to go find Mira.
— - —
AN: If you’re enjoying Outrun, I have a Patreon! If you’d like to support me or otherwise want to read ahead, come check it out? Patreon com/lostrain
As always, thank you for reading! And the follows and comments and stuff. It truly means a lot. I’m not the best at responding, but I do read most messages.
Comments
UnderwhelmingBird
Heck yeah, Iris! Glad Shiro is making use of that first-aid training
Minlett
I'm glad Iris is alive, honestly, (Hope she makes it). She reminds me of that D&D barbarian stereotype that lives their life to the fullest in the moment. I want her to figure out Shiro had the briefcase of Sentinal research files the whole time, because I think she'll find it one of the funniest things possible.
TheBotler
Wow, chapter 324 got an extension. Wonder if 325 will be longer then XD
HikinBear
Shouldn't this be Chapter 325?
