Lost Rain
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Outrun - Chapter 323
🕑 Added 2025-10-29 22:04:00 +0000 UTC“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 abandoned him down there.
He scrolled back through the video of Mira and Shiro diving through the depths of the facility. He hadn’t blown it up on the main stream, instead opting to follow around Mind Freak more. Quite frankly, he wasn’t sure what they’d find. Now that it was over and they were out, though, he was having a hard time deciding whether to play it back or not.
When in doubt, ask someone else. “Shiro, what do you think about the facility? Want to keep it private?”
Their fearless leader panted roughly. She hadn’t stopped sprinting since she left the elevator shaft. “A-a little busy at the moment, Saint.”
”Right, sorry.” He flicked over to a Dragonfly that’d been following her ever since she left the facility. Now she was several blocks away, climbing up the side of an abandoned apartment building. Or mostly abandoned. There were lights on in several of the floors.
In a feat of impressive dexterity, she flipped up onto a ventilation shaft from a set of old piping. Then she used that weird electric ability of hers. Her entire body turned into a lightning bolt and zipped straight up into the sky. On the way down, she hit a perfect aerial and casually dropped onto the roof.
She stood there for a moment as if processing and then a drone popped out of her bag. The one that opened a portal. Saint bit his tongue to keep from asking questions. Honestly, he had a feeling he’d seen far more than he should’ve tonight. Between her controlling electricity, teleporting, and a portal device, he was getting more and more confused about his suave thief friend. She was like a clown car, only instead of clowns she was constantly popping out with some new crazy skill.
Once the drone started projecting a portal once more, she moved over to the far side of the roof and stared out toward the building the Cornucopia facility sat under. “Okay, Luna. Blow it.”
”R-roger.” The Netrunner chattered lightly from the other side of the room and tapped a button.
The next moment, the camera on the Dragonfly shorted out. A brilliant flash bright enough to hurt even his eyes through the screen erupted. Light devoured everything. The dust and chemicals that spilled into the air around the building turned into a catalyst to make the explosion even larger than they originally planned for.
Then came the noise. Thunder washed through the heights loud enough he could faintly hear it from the hotel on the other side of the city. Air transformed into a deadly weapon, and windows all over the heights shattered into clouds of deadly debris.
The roar continued like a living, violent being. It was low and endless, causing the two buildings right around the facility to likewise collapse in on itself. A cloud of fire and ash shot straight into the air, and the entire Scath Heights ground to a stop.
Several Dragonflies were batted out of the sky by the shockwave. From most of them, though, the same scene showed. Mercs all over the place froze when they heard the violent explosion. Something big had gone down, and everyone in the sub-district knew it.
By the time silence returned, it wasn’t true silence. The debris and shut began to fall like snow, thousands of screams and shouts lifted into the air, and the air shimmered with untamed fire. The co-op was simply gone. Pulverized by the magnificent explosion that rocked the entire sub-district.
“Woah…” Shiro muttered quietly. She was far enough away that she wasn’t directly knocked over by the shockwave, but it still hit her. The entire building underneath her trembled faintly with it.
“Yeah.” Saint muttered quietly. Then, the next moment, he threw up the explosion on every stream to show it off. He was the only caster for this grand event in the heights. If he didn’t show it, no one else would.
”What were you asking about, Saint?” Shiro backed off from the edge of the building and checked on her drone. A jolt of electricity flowed through her hand into it, likely recharging the device.
“The facility. Keep it private?”
“Do whatever you want. Just scrub me out of it.” Their fearless leader looked around the roof and then collapsed down into a mound of snow. “Wake me up in ten minutes.”
“N-no problem.” The TV of the hotel room flicked on and a timer popped up. Luna’s ability to get into technology was downright terrifying. Most Netrunners were, for that matter.
Saint played the explosion one more time and then threw up a ‘thirty minutes earlier banner’ onto the main stream. A clock slowly wound backward, and the main stream zoomed in on Mira and Shiro—zoomed in on Seraph and unknown at the top of the shaft.
From there, he let the events of the flesh lab play out, voicing over their communications with the outside. Of course, he hid the more mystical side of things. Her ability to turn into lightning for one. Just before the door could close and she used that ability, he cut off the recording and returned to a live view of mercs fighting a wave of mutants.
Saint chuckled to himself and glanced through the comments section of the stream. It was churning with disappointment and anger at the abrupt cut off. Most of the viewers were just along for the ride, and they desperately wanted to know what happened next.
|ShadoWalk: Slag! Go back!
|Cyberpunk_Blue: What happened to my sweet Seraph?! No way they died in the explosion. I can’t accept this. @Admin! Do something!
|DarkRun: At least she was safe inside the control room. What about Eclipse?! Did she make it in? Was it explosive proof????
|2077Historian: Can we talk about that hellscape of flesh?
|ArchangelSupporter: The video quality is insane! You could totally put movie makers out of business.
|SavantHater139: No way this is happening right now. I’m going to be sick.
|Still_Cleaning: @SavantHater139 welcome to the party.
|||ADMIN: Check out this article if you haven’t already! Stay informed!
|BrokenMind: Thats fucking crazy. Is this was high-level mercs are like?
|DistinguishedGentleman: @BrokenMind as an expert tactician, I can confirm. These two are pros. Especially Seraph. Eclipse is only so-so.
|Eclipse4Life: @DistinguishedGentleman take that back you bastard! You wouldn’t know tactics if they slammed you over the head. My Eclipse is far superior!
Usually, he didn’t bother with the comment section. It was full of chaos and his IQ felt like it was dropping just from interacting with them. This time around though, he was interested in the name they came up with for Shiro. He had yet to make a card or name for her, but these guys took it into their own hands.
”What do you think about Eclipse?” Saint asked his Netrunner companion. Honestly, he kinda liked it. He could definitely see where they were coming from. Everytime Shiro popped up, he covered her with a shadow like she was some kind of solar eclipse
”B-better than the last tries.” Luna twisted in the chair and glanced back at him. “C-can you order some food? I’m starving.”
”Can’t you?” He huffed and closed the chat, getting back to work.
“M-my assets were all frozen.” She rubbed at her eyes and leaned back in the chair. “I-I literally have nothing.”
He winced when her tear filled eyes landed on him. Although he wasn’t exactly rolling in rayn, he was making a nifty sum from tonight’s streams. All sorts of corporations had already reached out for advertising on top of the click through he was earning from Inverse.
”Fine.” He sighed and closed the stream for a moment. “Pizza fine?”
— — —
“Wake up.” A voice called across the line. My eyes snapped open and I bolted upright just in time to see the portal finish. My ten minute nap made me feel more tired, somehow.
Just as I got to my feet, Mira popped out of the Aether. She tossed me a bag of ammo. “Finally. Thought you’d leave me there.”
”Don’t tempt me.” I smirked and swapped out my magazines. Now that we weren’t down with the flesh monsters, it was back to normal bullets. I put away most of my blaze mags, only keeping two of them on me just in case we needed a little more punch at some point. I tossed the leftovers back through the portal. “Did you- did you get him settled?”
“He’s wrapped in a body bag.” Mira nodded her head. When did I get those? Honestly, there was so much junk in there I’d long lost track of it all.
“That’s good…” I really, really hoped only one of Polar Moon’s members would be coming home in a body bag.
My mikata hefted up a heavy LMG without any issue. Her rifle was slung over her shoulder, out of the way. “I grabbed this, is that okay?”
“Take whatever you want.” I had a small armory in there from stuff I’d stolen from various groups. Most of it I’d never use, especially the heavy-duty guns. At least, not without a power suit or something. “Just don’t weigh yourself down too much.”
”’Course. I’m not an idiot.” Mira rolled her eyes and held the LMG up with one hand. “The Shift ExoCore makes stuff like this easy.”
“That’s good.” At least she wasn’t trying to tear out the chrome. Although its acquisition wasn’t great, there was no denying it was some high-class stuff. Not to mention its other functions that I was still in the dark about. “Hey, what’s it d—“
”Found them!” An excited call came from Luna, completely shattering my focus. “T-the transponder you found is linked to t-two others. U-um, I can’t tell you exactly where, but I can give you a direction!”
A direction sure beat running around blindly. And my plan to use Panther Sight went out the window as soon as we ran into Cornucopia. ”That’s as good of a place as any. Still no luck triangulating where her call came from?”
“N-no. I-I coded the protections too well. N-never thought it’d bite me in the a-ass like this.” Luna sighed. A moment later, a compass popped up on my HUD. It was getting more and more cluttered as the night progressed.
Thankfully, the Netrunner seemed to realize that at the same time I did. Before I could say anything, the opacity on the HUD dropped to almost nothing unless I was focusing on it. “Which signal is closer?”
”Ugh—t-this one.” The compass abruptly lit up with a bright light pointing off toward the distance. “I-I can’t tell where though.”
“Thats fine.” I motioned to Mira. “You ready?”
”Definetely.” She had a broad grin on her face. The cheer of old Mira shined the brightest I’d seen it since I pulled her out of the lab.
I thought about leaving her behind, of course, but I was glad I didn’t go through with that decision. It would’ve kept her safe, but she lived for stuff like this. I could see it in her eyes. Being left behind while I went out to a sub-district in chaos would kill her inside, even if she tried not to show it.
Not to mention she had been nothing but helpful this entire time. I doubt I could’ve breached through the biomass without her help. Two guns beat out one gun any day of the week, especially when hers had five different minds to run calculations and trajectories on. She was already a sharpshooter, but the Halo Cortex turned her into the deadliest marksman I’d seen so far.
I was really tempted to make her a heavy sniper and get her posted up somewhere during future jobs. I had a feeling I’d have no issues with her acting as my overwatch. That was all for the future though.
Not to mention it was damn nice having someone I could fully trust my back with on the field. The last time had been with Hope, but even then I couldn’t fully trust the now-Inquisitor. It was different with Mira. She knew most of my secrets, so I didn’t have to hold myself back in the slightest—
“I know I’m pretty, but we have places to be. Stop staring at me.” Mira smirked and waved a hand in front of me, drawing me from my thoughts.
”Sorry, I was distracted by the dumpster fire you call a face.” I snorted coldly and turned around, shaking my head.
“Keep telling yourself that, Shorty.”
I almost turned back to throw a fist. Almost. It was a near thing. If we weren’t in the middle of a job and pressed for time, I would’ve given into the temptation. I took a deep, calming breath and then packed up my Transporter. At least we knew where we were going now.
Comments
UnderwhelmingBird
10 minutes is a cursed number. 20 minutes, shiro! That's the one you wanted Love how Luna's able to assess the needs of her new/temp(?) crew and make QOL adjustments in real-time Seems Mira would prefer to die a glorious death than to fade into irrelevance, so Shiro can rest easy on that front. the ExoCore to boost physicality, plus the Halo, makes her an instant tactician. Letting Mira take the wheel with in-battle tactics would allow for better survivability. Shiro hasn't died just yet obvs, but she's come close more than once or twice. To do that, though, she needs to know all of what Shiro can do. Off to a decent start on that front!
R H
Hey thanks for all the pages! Top shelf story!
HikinBear
I like the change of POV. Saint narrating the craziness that is Shiro brings home how far she’s come and some of the difficult questions she’ll have to answer later if she truly wants a team.
TheBotler
Looking forward to the next chap, hopefully the rest of Polar Moon are k. Iris needs more screen time.
Minlett
I really liked this chapter, but I'm not sure why. It might simply be I love internet comments in books, but maybe it was the reflective tone cuz this chapter was a break between transitions.
