Outrun - Chapter 467 - Head’s Up (Patreon)

A splash of water flooded up over the side of the megayacht, and sprinkled across the flyer bay on the top floor of the megayacht. The walls were open, letting light spill in from the city far off in the distance. Naturally, quite a bit of ocean water came with it. 

I adjusted the filters of my helmet, and breathed easily. Although the walls were all open so flyers could get in, there was a roof above us that lights dangled from. They flickered dimly, and illuminated the moisture in the air. 

Somewhere below us, music spilled out of the main party hall of the megayacht. Everyone down there was clueless about what we were about to do. They had no idea about the chaos that was about to erupt at any moment now.

Red plasma flashed from my fingers, instantly melting through the bolts holding the elevator control panel in place. I pulled out one of my knives, and popped open the control panel for the elevator. The lights across it flickered like it was putting up one last, feeble resistance.

”Whatcha doin’, partner?” Tex dragged a guard behind a flyer behind me. There had been a whole group on patrol up here, but the man had single-handedly taken care of all the security. Err, maybe not single-handedly. Ronin took care of the wards, and Luna was on the electrical side of things.

“We don’t want guards flooding in here, do we?” The sharp claw of my gauntlet caught on a wire, and I pulled it to me. The wire was easily cut. I repeated the process with a few more, then controlled my Kinetic ability through the panel. With the jolts of electricity, the elevator’s mechanisms ground to a halt. ”Oh, Ronin, don’t take the elevator.”

”… got it. Headed for stairs,” Ronin sighed heavily like that was the last thing he wanted to do. Honestly, I couldn’t blame him one bit.

The power flickered overhead, and went even dimmer. Luna was slowly but surely strangling out the power systems throughout the entire megayacht. From what she said on the way up, quite a few of the guards were sent down to the engine room to sweep the area and see if something was up. That worked into our favor all the better.

“They’re almost there.” Luna called across the comms. My attention flicked to my HUD where she’d pinned the perspective of the camera inside of the yacht’s private elevator. It was just Mr. Sancho, Amon, and his two androids. Lexi was nowhere to be seen.

”Take out the androids. I’ll snatch the case.” Tex and I moved over to the private elevator and got into position. The boat rocked steadily underneath us as our targets slowly came up.

With a flick of my plasma claws, I opened up the control panel for the private elevator and prepped it. Then, I crouched low to the side and flicked a spare knife up at a light illuminating the area right outside of the elevator doors. I was instantly swallowed into the shadows. Wisps of darkness flowed off of me, and I blended in perfectly.

”I see they don’t call you phantom thief for nothing.” Tex moved further back, and jumped up onto a flyer. He went prone with his repeater pointed in my direction. He drew a revolver and fired a shot into the light above to further conceal his position. Glass clattered down against the deck.

”I could just hack those, you know?” Luna sighed heavily. The rest of the lights across the flyer bay went out except for a small path leading forward to keep up appearances.

“Turn the cams back on.” I activated my Blinder once more, and looked around the security systems that’d been shut down. After a moment, they slowly started to come back to life.

Ding!

The elevator doors started to slide open, and the conversation from within leaked out. “… as good to see you as always, Anthony. Ah, tell your wife I said good-bye.”

”Lexi…” Anthony Sancho tsked as the doors fully popped open. The two were so caught up in their conversation that neither noticed something was off. “Going for a drink? At a time like this?”

”Give her a break.” Amon patted Anthony’s shoulder, and moved to step out of the elevator. The two androids moved ahead of him to sweep the area. Anthony picked up a Medtech PerfusionMAX. The organ transplant box was exactly what I expected. 

“I give her more than enough breaks.” Anthony sighed like the world was out to get him. He froze, and his eyes darted around the flyer bay. “Amon, something’s—“

Bang! Bang!

Two shots rang out the moment I started to make my move. The heads of both androids whipped backward, and their bodies collapsed a moment later. I surged forward, and latched onto the organ box before either one of them could react. I popped up into a dropkick and slammed Amon in the chest with a surge of Burst Step to further enhance my strength.

I felt something crack underneath my boots. The box was ripped out of his hands, and he flew backward into the elevator with a sharp cry. The moment he was back in the elevator, I raked my arm toward the control panel. Plasma erupted, and completely destroyed the thing.

The elevator started to ding rapidly, and the doors snapped shut. A second later, the mechanisms totally failed and the elevator dropped to the shaft. The two men were taken with it, leaving behind the biocomputer. 

Tex fired two more shots into the androids to ensure they were down, and called out from his position on a flyer. “Well, that’s one way to—“

A loud alarm went off, and red lights flashed all around the room. On the far side of the space, a door slammed open. Four guards rushed out with rifles at the ready—only for the lead one to be dropped by a single shot of Tex’s repeater. The rest scattered for cover.

”Coming up.” Ronin’s voice came across the line. “Let’s put on a show.”

I darted forward, and whipped a knife out. It slammed into a guard’s receiver just before he could pull the trigger. As he fired a shot, the rifle exploded in his hands. He dropped backward, and collapsed with a sharp scream that was abruptly cut out by Ronin accidentally tripping over him.

“Over there!” Ronin shouted, and drew his blade. Unlike my katana, he held a much longer nodachi in his hands. He whipped it forward toward us, accidently slamming one of the guys that came up with him in the jaw. The guy dropped like a sack of bricks. “Get them!”

I ducked behind a flyer just as a spray of bullets lit up my position. Ronin, although he was here for the magic side of the defenses more than the combat, wasn’t a slouch. Lightning crackled in his hands as he cast a spell, and he whipped it out toward me.

Instead of dodging the strike, I let it course through me. I was intending to recharge my power cell. The soft currents of electricity licking up my bones distracted me just long enough for the current to cut out entirely.

A burst of bullets slamming into my body snapped me out of my daze. My armor faithfully did its job, and most of them slammed harmlessly into me. Pulses of purple spread across my armor, and I suddenly felt a little weightless. 

Burst Step carried me toward the opponents in an instant, and I slapped Panther’s Fang out of its sheath toward the guard who just shot me. The blade sliced up through his chrome arm, and I followed through with a pommel strike to his jaw. It wrenched in the wrong direction, and he collapsed backward. 

A shot slammed into my head point blank, and I slowly turned my head to see the man whose gun exploded in his hands. He shakily held a pistol with eyes full of regret. He pulled the trigger one more time, and the bullet flattened against my visor before clattering to the ground.

I slashed forward at the downed man—

Clang!

A nodachi appeared at the last second and caught my katana just before it could strike. A shock traveled up my arm. I back-stepped away from Ronin and the guard. Ronin pushed forward, slamming the guy he just saved in the side of the head with his foot. There was only one guard left, though he was taken care of by Tex.

I threw a casual slash forward at Ronin, and dropped into a conversational tone. “You see any more guards on the way up?”

”I stripped all perms for wards.” Ronin met my slash, and deflected it off to the side. A spray of revolver shots slammed into him from the side. The wooden armor, surprisingly, deflected the bullets. Runes pulsed to life with a dim glow. “No one’s coming.”

”You sure?” I slashed forward once more. Our blades met like a casual match of tennis, though from the outside it undoubtedly looked fierce. 

“They’d have to force their way through.” Ronin pushed off from a clash of our blades, and flicked his hand toward Tex. A fireball whizzed right over the gunslinger’s head. “Not likely.”

”Cams are out. 20 seconds.” As soon as Luna called across the line, all three of us stopped fighting.

”Make it look good?” Ronin twirled the katana in his hands, and cancelled the second fireball he was about to throw. The flames sparked, and then died in place.

”Holding out in a two versus one is already good enough.” Tex flicked his revolver, and several casings hit the floor. He smoothly loaded bullets back into it one by one. 

“I’ll handle it.” I nodded back to Tex, and tossed him the case holding our biocomputer. “Go start up the flyer.”

He tipped his cowboy hat to me, and backed away. Luna’s voice called back across the line. “3. 2. 1.”

Electricity sparked from right in front of me, and the full force of a lightning bolt hit me in the chest. It passed right through my armor. The warm currents surged through me for only a brief second before I manipulated them up into my armor’s power cell for a field recharge.

”You won’t succeed!” Ronin shouted loudly for the cameras, and then swung forward once more. 

Ronin clashed with my Panther’s Fang in a shower of sparks that left both of us bathed in light. I pushed off the ground, and rolled to the side to avoid an ice spike skewering up out of the ground. My plasma claws activated with a thought. I raked backward in a feral slash, barely missing the Adept’s blade.

“You are beginner?” Ronin asked as he snapped his nodachi at me. The long blade whistled through the air—only to be caught by my katana and deflected over my head. Although his weapon looked like he could cut me in half at will, he was moving slow enough for me to keep up.

”Don’t tell anyone.” Figures I can’t keep that hidden from him… I should’ve gone to the Fang sooner for training. I slashed forward into a brutal overhead blow. He caught it on his lacquered gauntlet, and threw his arm off to the side. My entire body was taken with it. “Disarm me, and then go for an attack.”

”Are you sure?” Ronin backstepped to dodge three daggers aimed at his face. I popped back up to my feet with the gap I bought.

”I’m sure.” I watched him for a moment, and then charged forward in the most choreographed attack I could make. A heavy overhead strike came down at him once more.

Ronin smoothly flicked his nodachi. The motion was incredibly fast, and totally put to shame his earlier movements. A cold burst of Insight flashed across the back of my hands a second before his blade made impact. The Panther’s Fang was ripped out of my hands, and flung off toward where Tex was just now boarding the flyer.

I flinched backward, and Illusive took hold of me. Shadows moved up to swallow me as Hidden Hands and Hidden Weapons came into play. In a split second, I retrieved my Jade Dagger, and Burst-Stepped forward.

A purple glow lit up a gap in Ronin’s armor just on his side thanks to Weakness Wrangler. I slashed forward at the gap in his armor with the dagger. He twitched like he was going to resist, but it was already too late. The Jade Dagger smoothly cut through the gap, and his entire body locked up.

I pulled back, wiped the blood off my dagger, and slid it back into its hidden slot on my gauntlet. Right as the paralysis fully hit, I bowed at the waist toward the samurai. The moment my bow hit its lowest, he collapsed to the ground in front of me without a sound. “It will wear off in an hour. Should be long gone by then.”

Ronin, predictably, didn’t answer. Not that I expected the man to when he was completely paralyzed. I adjusted my gauntlets, and moved back toward the awaiting flyer. I picked up my Panther’s Fang, and slid the glowing katana back into place. 

Should I add an extra limb to the armor? I’d been thinking about it off and on for a bit now, but it might be nice? Hmm… I needed to test if an extra arm strapped to my shoulder could activate Dexterity. The time slow was too good to pass up on, but the requirement of having a gun in my hand sucked. I really needed to test—

“Behind!” Tex called out, and a repeater shot rang through the air. It whizzed over my head with a loud streak, and slammed into something behind me. 

I turned back just in time to see our target, Anthony Sancho, crawling out of a staircase. He looked significantly worse for wear. His fancy clothes had been set on fire at some point, and repeatedly at that. Ash covered his face, and his bloodshot eyes stared at me with hatred.

Before I could even hope to reach the flyer, Anthony Sancho lifted his hands. “GIVE IT BACK!”

Aetherial Perception sparked with awareness as he finished casting some kind of spell. Before I could even hope to shout a warning, magic chains erupted from the ground. They crackled with a dark-purple light that made the gloom all over the ship all the more oppressive. 

“Fuck!” Tex flung himself out the door of the flyer with the biocomputer in hand. Right as he left it behind, the chains ripped in every direction. The flyer, designed to survive even brutal falls from high above the ground, was ripped apart like a toy with a sharp metallic screech. And with it, our hopes of escaping.