Outrun - Chapter 461 - Decisions, Decisions (Patreon)

I joined Tex outside while he took a smoke break. The man leaned over one of the old pumps, and stared off toward the city. I didn’t really need the fresh air since my helmet had a full filter action suite, but it was nice to get out of there. That place was stuffy between Lavender and his ego.

Vox trailed after me, and jumped up onto an old gas pump. The entire station was ancient, and had never been retrofitted for AE3. Old, worn out stickers plastered the pump trying to sell gasoline. “Probably not smart to be smoking next to the pumps.”

”I doubt there’s even fumes left in this place.” Tex blew out a thick cloud of smoke, and dropped his arm down. “What brings you out here?”

”It’s away from Lavender.” The Hound didn’t give us a very clear plan until he knew we were in. Instead, we were given the outline and some time to think it over. That was hard to do when Levi and Lavender immediately broke into an argument. No idea how Ronin stayed in there with all the racket. 

Tex tapped the smoldering cigarette against the side of the pump. Small sparks scattered into the dry breeze. ”You don’t like that guy?”

”You do?” I leaned against a jagged metal pole sticking out of the sand. It held the roof of a carport at some point, though that had long been mostly blown away. “ I needed some air, anyway.”

Silence settled between the two of us. My eyes traced the distant outline of the glowing city even as my mind drifted to the plan. Thankfully, we weren’t actually assaulting Mystech HQ. That would be outright suicide. 

Mystech wasn’t super prevalent in Aythryn City. They had a subterranean pyramid built, but it was closer to a research facility than a true corporate HQ. I’d put them just a bit higher than Shen Kang in terms of presence throughout the city. Quite frankly, we were just a bad market for them. The people of the FSA just had a distaste for magic in general what with the whole Endless Sandstorm and all that.

The Hound wanted something from Mystech’s labs. A biocomputer, to be exact. No idea why he’d want something like that, but it didn’t really matter. What mattered was that the guy was willing to dump a ton of rayn into getting it. Rayn that I wouldn’t mind having in my pocket.

The doors to the gas station clattered open, and Ronin exited the place. The arguing voices of Levi and Lavender briefly rang out into the desolate desert before the doors swung shut behind the man. 

“I needed some air,” Ronin said as if that explained it all. He stiffly adjusted the straps of his armguard, and moved over to us.

“Funny. Nightshade said the same thing.” Tex lifted his cigarette back to his lips, though didn’t huff on it. Instead, he just held it there like he couldn’t decide what he wanted to do. “So… Mystech, huh? We’ll have to lay low after this one.”

“That’s why you should hide your face.” Just because corporations didn’t go after specific mercs all that much didn’t mean they wouldn’t.

Tex chucked softly, and waved a hand at himself. “This is my money maker right here… maybe I will for this one, though.”

”Does that mean you’re in?” Ronin asked.

“It just might, partner, it just might.” Tex flicked the cigarette butt to out into the sand. It smoldered for a moment before a stray breeze smothered it. “Need the rayn.”

”Don’t we all?” Ronin sighed. I watched the man for a moment. Ronin, contrary to how he looked, was an Adept. I for sure thought he was some kind of close combat specialist with the lacquered armor and all that.

Magic… I never liked the stuff. I was warming up to it slowly, but I still tried to avoid it where I could. I wouldn’t be able to avoid it this time, though, should I agree. Magic and tech were infamous for not playing well together. Mystech was the premier mega-corp when it came to getting them to mesh into viable products. 

That also meant their defenses wouldn’t just be tech, nor would they just be magic. It was a whole new ballfield that I quite honestly wasn’t ready for. That alone made me second guess agreeing to the job. It wasn’t too late, anyway. I could still back out. My rep might take a hit… that probably wasn’t worth my life.

There was a whole other aspect to it that made me hesitate too. Echidna was known to collaborate with Mystech. Echidna, who had her main base in Lathvin City. Not to mention Mystech was also from right around there. Taking this job would potentially fuck up the whole rescue attempt for Luna’s brother.

Not to mention Echidna definitely knew about the heist now. Having the eidolons plugged in and watching at all times made going against them in any way quite difficult. Pissing one off also just didn’t seem that smart. How did previous, um… scions? Right, I think we were called scions. How did previous scions act when it came to stuff like this?

It’d be foolish to take this job, wouldn’t it? I shook my head, and pushed off the pillar to pace through the sands a bit further away from the other two. One of the heavy KairoTech drones buzzed over my head on its patrol route. “What do you think, Luna?”

“I’m not totally sure,” she said. “The funds would be really nice to have before we leave the country, though.”

“Chek… chek they would.” Money was just always nice to have… it wasn’t like we were hitting the pyramid itself, either. I wasn’t totally sure, but it looked like we’d be hitting a convoy transporting the tech instead. The Hound had been pretty evasive about the whole thing until everyone was in, which was fair. 

I was maybe in. It all depended on the eidolons, actually. Echidna might not even care about the job. The eidolons all seemed kinda aloof when it came to things like this. It’d also be right up a megacorp’s alley to greatly exaggerate how involved she was with their corporation.

Too bad I didn’t have a way of asking an eidolon directly without slipping into the Aether—ah, wait. I might not be able to ask an eidolon, but I could ask a sprite, couldn’t I? “I’m going for a walk.”

”Don’t go too far!” Tex called after me. “The boss’ll probably bolt at any sign of trouble.”

I waved my hand over my shoulder and kept walking. My blinder popped out of my shoulder to take me off cams, and I moved around a dune. “Luna, blind everything around me.”

“On it.” Her moon symbol pulsed in the corner of my eye. After a few minutes, it brightened. “You’re good.”

“Thanks.” The moment I was totally out of sight, I felt for the Spectral Flock connection and teleported back up to my Roughrider high above the gas station.

”Um… are we leaving, Shiro? You forgot Vox.” Luna’s voice came across the Packheart Rings.

”I’ll go back down in a sec.” I opened up one of my saddlebags and pulled out my backpack. I didn’t wear it with my Nightshade armor. Honestly, I probably wore it too much in everyday life too. I was starting to look like a pack rat.

After digging through the bag for a minute, I finally found what I was looking for in one of the side pockets. A small, glowing token. Even without Aetherial Perception, the summon token I got from Fox had a faint blue glow to it. 

The moment I grabbed one, I put my bird back, fell off the side of the Roughrider, and dropped behind the dune once more. I flicked the token to the ground in front of me with my thumb and sat back to wait on the sprite that’d supposedly arrive.

After a few moments, nothing happened. I scratched at my helmet, and picked the coin up once more. “Wish she would’ve given me a user manual.”

”Whatcha trying to do?” Luna asked. “I don’t think I’ve seen that kind of thing in your workshop before.”

“Didn’t come from there.” I held up the coin, and checked out the intricate carving of Fox on one side. “It’s an experimental magic item.”

Throwing it didn’t work… maybe it was something I had to break? That seemed kinda stupid, but it was how some talismans and scrolls worked. Scrolls were literally just torn in half to activate. I hesitated for a second longer before putting pressure on the coin. With barely any effort, it snapped in half.

A rift cut through time and space in front of me, similar to when I’d seen Magi work in the past. It was totally invisible to the naked eye, but Aetherial Perception let me pry into it. An intricate array of runes, so small and detailed I couldn’t make much of them out, appeared in thin air.

”Yip, yip-yip!” A fox tumbled out of thin air and stylishly dropped down into the sand. The red fox had on a maid’s dress, with a feather duster clutched in his mouth. “Yip! Yip!”

Hey! Would you look at that?! First try. Honestly, I was pretty impressed. With my luck, I half expected the rift to spit out some horrid abomination of the Aether… probably a good thing that I wasn’t an alpha tester for these summon tokens.

Magic burst to life just as the rift started to fade. Big, bold letters burned into the air in a spectral blue fire TANK YOU FOUR USENG FOX MADE SERVISE! The flaming letters were sucked back through the rift right as it closed. I stared after the letters for a moment. Fox? Are you… dyslexic?

The maid fox sprite shook out his tail, which was partially caught in the elegant tutu wrapped around his body. The moment he saw the desert, he instantly wilted. His eyes pitifully turned up toward me with a look like you expect me to clean all of this? 

”Um… Shiro? Did you just summon a sprite?” Luna asked hesitantly. “And, uh, why’s he wearing a tutu?”

“Those are both very good questions that I’ll answer some other time.” I crouched down in front of the fox spirit. “I won’t make you clean… Can you talk to Fox?” 

Normally, I wouldn’t assume just any sprite could just go talk to Fox. This was her experimental summoning service though, so I figured there was probably a connection in there somewhere. 

“Yip-yip!” The fox excitedly wagged his tail as he shook his head.

”Nova, then will—oh… you can’t?” I paused. That threw a wrench in that plan. I rubbed at my arms, and tried to hold back a sigh. At least it wasn’t for nothing. I still needed to find time to use the other summon tokens at some point for Fox. “You’re dismissed.”

The fox looked up at me with disappointment in his eyes, and slowly dragged himself away. After a few steps, a rift opened up and swallowed him whole. “What was the point of that?”

”I’ll tell you later, Luna.” If one door closed, I just needed to open a window. I stretched out my arm, and reached for a Perk I hadn’t used in a very, very long time. “Corvid? You there, buddy?”

“Caw-caw…” An exhausted voice called from thin air, and a familiar crow appeared out of thin air. He was much larger than last time I saw him… and also much more exhausted looking. The Greater Crow Sprite rubbed up against my arm with a wing. “Caw~”

“Good to see you too. Is, uh, is Crow not treating you well?” I lifted my hand and rubbed the bird’s head. No way the eidolon was still running on only two greater sprites, chek?

“Krawwww.” He waved a wing tiredly. He closed his eyes, and leaned into my touch. The poor sprite looked like he was about to pass out.

This was why I didn’t want to summon the bird. Crow definitely kept him busy, so I didn’t want to take even more of his time away… although maybe I was looking at that the wrong way. Should I start summoning Corvid more just so the little guy could get some sleep? Seriously, he looked worse than Hope.

“Um… you can talk to Crow, right?” I asked.

The bird blinked his eyes open—only to roll them a moment later. Obviously. “Caw.”

”Could you ask him what Echidna thinks about the whole—“

”Caw. Ca-ca-ca-caw~ Caw-caw! Caw? Caw-caw-caw.” He started to pace up and down my armored arm, and diligently repeated Crow’s words. 

Right… guess it wasn’t that surprising Crow already knew what I was going to ask. Still, the answer was a little unexpected? “I guess that makes sense.”

”How the hell can you even understand that, Shiro? Are you part bird?” Luna asked in a miffed voice. It sounded like her entire world-view was collapsing. “You never told me you were a Magus, either.”

“I’m not. We can play fifty questions when I get back, Luna.” Probably not my best idea to do all of this in front of her. There were eyes and ears all over this place, though. Even with Blackout active, she would’ve figured something out.

”Fine. But we will talk about this… if you want.” Her voice went weak. “I-I guess if its a secret you’d rather not share—“

“I can tell you a bit.” I patted the crow’s head one more time. “Are you sure Echidna wouldn’t care?”

“Caw. Ca-ca-ca-caw…” The avian shook his head rapidly. His head slumped, and he turned back like he was listening to something. “Caw.”

”Yeah… yeah, see you, Corvid.” I lifted my arm so he could fly off of it. “I’ll summon you again sometime soon!”

”Caw~” he flapped a wing in my direction, and dropped through a rift back into the Aether.

Well, that answered that question. I wasn’t sure what the exact relationship between Mystech and Echidna was, but the eidolon was too busy working on a major project to care much about anything else at the moment. At least, according to gossip from Crow. 

Even if I did piss her off, I could just do a job for her to make up for it, chek? There was probably something she wanted. She was the most active in the material world, after all. ‘Sides, I really wanted to participate in this heist.

I kicked the feather left by Spectral Flock to make it vanish, and then headed back toward the gas station. I was so ready for this.