Mistrunner - Chapter 43 - The End of an Era (Patreon)

Good, trustworthy help is almost impossible to find. When you do, cling to it.

Jeremiah Braddock III

I let out a little squeal when I opened the inn’s front door to see Nora sitting across from a couple of amigos. She was just as garishly dressed as ever, and if anything, her wardrobe had grown even more provocative. There was more skin on display than what was actually covered by the stretchy fabric of her leggings, which bore a series of artful slashes that exposed her muscular legs. But after spending my formative years in Nova City, I was inoculated to such things.

I raced across the common room of the Dewdrop Inn and threw my arms around Nora’s neck, hugging her tightly. Until I’d laid eyes on her, I hadn’t realized just how much I’d missed her familiar presence. Growing up, she had always been there with a snarky or inappropriate comment. What’s more, with me mired in a sea of relative strangers, she was a familiar rock to which I could cling.

To Nora, I wasn’t some mysterious girl who was being trained by the town’s best operators. Instead, I was just Mirabelle. She had known me my whole life, and as such, she saw the side of me that was still just a teenage girl. That was refreshing, especially since my exploits had begun to make the rounds after what I’d done in the Admiral. It sometimes felt like, everywhere I went, whispers followed. Nora wouldn’t be affected by any of that, I was sure.

“Whoa, there peanut,” she said, using the nickname she’d given me during my childhood, ostensibly because my head, back then, had been shaped like a nut. “Calm down.”

I regained my composure and pulled away, but I couldn’t keep the grin from my face. I said, “Sorry. Sorry. I’m just glad to see you.”

“Naturally,” was her response. “Everyone loves me.”

I rolled my eyes, saying, “How long are you here? Uncle Jeremiah said –”

“I’ll be around until the end of your training,” she answered, shifting on the bench seat. “Sit down. Get something to eat. You look like you’re down to skin and bones.”

Frowning, I sat, saying, “I’ll have you know that I’ve gained like thirty pounds since I saw you last.”

She snorted. “You say that like it’s impressive,” she said. Then, she flexed her enormous bicep. “These are impressive.” She reached out and wrapped her meaty fingers around my own upper arm, adding, “These, not so much. You need to start pumping some iron, little girl.”

“I do.”

“Not enough,” Nora said. “Clearly.”

Just then, my uncle sat down across from us. The pair of amigos that Nora had been sitting with shifted down the bench to make room. As he sat, Jeremiah said, “Most people don’t want to be the size of a tank, Nora.”

“Everyone is wrong, then,” she said without skipping a beat. She gave him a suggestive wink, adding, “If you don’t believe me, maybe you and me could go have a quick tussle, boss. I promise, you’ll be a convert when I get done with you.”

Jeremiah coughed, then said, “I think I’ll have to pass.”

“Your loss,” she said.

“Gross,” was my response.

Nora chuckled. “Nothing gross about two adults –”

“Anyway,” my uncle interrupted. “Mirabelle. Nora’s going to be taking over your hand-to-hand training.”

“Really? What happened to Simon?” I asked.

“Simon and Vanna have been called away,” he said. “It’s unavoidable. In their stead, I’ll take over Vanna’s lessons while Nora takes over for Simon.”

“Simon Kincade?” Nora asked.

Jeremiah nodded. “He’s been helping with Mirabelle’s training for the past eight months,” he explained. “His partner, Vanna, has been helping her with more subtle training.”

“Simon Kincade. Now that’s a hunk of meat I wouldn’t mind rasslin’ with,” she said. “You know, I met him about four years back. I was just a little stick of a thing back then. Barely more than two-hundred pounds. But he showed me some moves I’ll never forget. If that little beanpole of a wife of his hadn’t shown up…”

“Nothing would have happened,” Jeremiah stated. “Simon’s devoted to that woman, and in ways you probably wouldn’t understand.”

“What’s that s’posed to mean?” Nora asked.

“That you’re fundamentally incapable of monogamy,” he stated. “It’s not a secret. Simon’s not like you. He’s a one-woman kind of guy.”

“Pity.”

“Maybe so,” Jeremiah said. “But that’s how it is.” Then, to me, he continued, “In any case, we’re going to let you get started with Nora tomorrow, okay? I expect you to catch her up with what you’ve been doing.”

“Okay,” I said, hating that the reunion had turned to business. I wanted nothing more than to just sit around and pretend like everything hadn’t changed, like we were still back in Nova City, when Nora would tease me about being so scrawny. I knew it was silly. Those days were long gone. But as much as my situation had rankled on my nerves back then, I could now look at it fondly. Especially because I’d seen some pretty horrible things since my Awakening, and there was a part of me that desperately wanted to crawl back into that cocoon of innocence. An impossibility, I was aware, but that didn’t keep the idea from wrapping itself around my mind.

The rest of the evening went by without anything notable happening, save for when Jo introduced herself to Nora. When that happened, I couldn’t ignore the lecherous look on the muscular woman’s face. And while I let it slide in the moment, I resolved to address it soon. Which was how I found myself in the training building the next day, standing before Nora and saying, “Leave her alone, okay? She’s not interested.”

“Everyone’s interested,” Nora said.  “And she’s a big girl. I asked around. She’s of age, so she’s fair game.”

“That’s gross. She’s half your age,” I said.

Nora shrugged her broad shoulders, then ran a hand through her hair. “Fine,” was her response. “She’s off-limits until your training’s over. But after that…”

“Not good enough,” I said, planting my hands on my hips. “Off-limits for forever.”

Nora narrowed her eyes, then glanced at the obstacle course. “Okay, here’s the deal,” she said. “If you want me to leave that fine piece of –”

“Please do not say what I think you’re going to say…”

Nora sighed dramatically, then said, “Fine. Okay. You are absolutely no fun. But if you want me to leave her alone, you’d better be able to complete that course in under two minutes.”

I perked up. “That it? Want me to do it right now?” I asked.

“Two minutes with me trying to stop you,” she said. “In fact, that’s our training for the next few weeks. You get through it, and I’ll leave the girl alone. Don’t, and she’s fair game. Got it?”

I ground my teeth together. I’d completed that obstacle course a thousand times. More, probably. And while I knew Nora would make it difficult, I felt confident enough in my abilities to accept her deal. With a nod, I said, “That works for me.”

Nora’s resultant grin should have told me just how big of a mistake I had made, but I was blinded by my hubris. That lasted for all of thirty seconds until, as we ran to the course, she thrust her massive fist into my stomach. I clenched up, falling to my knees, and vomiting every ounce of the breakfast I’d just eaten onto the floor.

Nora stood over me, her hands on her hips as she said, “Really? I thought you’d been training. That was half-strength, and you’re already on your knees. If this is all you’ve got, your friend’s going to be eating out of the palm of my hand. Or eating something else…”

I pushed my nausea aside and sprang to my feet. In only a second, I was sprinting toward the obstacle course. I made it about fifteen steps before Nora kicked my legs out from under me. I’d never seen her move so quickly, but she had overtaken me without even trying. Perhaps it was going to be much more difficult than I’d thought.

That first day, I never even made it to the obstacle course. The second, I barely touched the first obstacle – a sheer wall. And on the third, I still hadn’t manage to get any further. Every time I thought I was close, Nora was there, taking the perfect actions to derail me. In the end, it took me a week before I cleared that first obstacle. Another week until I got through a quarter of the course. And a month after that before I finished the course.

That’s when we started the whole thing over again, only Nora was accompanied by one of the amigos. However, I’d gotten the hang of it all, and the additional antagonist was little more than an annoyance. In fact, even when she added a few more to the mix, I found myself clearing the course easily.

So long as I didn’t lose concentration. The moment I lost focus, I would pay the price, and Nora made sure it was always incredibly painful, even if it didn’t leave long-lasting damage. For those first few weeks, I hated her, but slowly, that hatred turned to appreciation as I realized just how much I was growing. Not in terms of my attributes – though those were increasing at a rapid pace – but rather, in regards to my environmental awareness as well as my proprioception. Without those ephemeral gains, I never could have completed the program she had prescribed. With them, by the end, it nearly became trivial.

If Nora’s training was frustrating, I didn’t have words for how I felt about my time with my uncle. I had always known he was a harsh taskmaster. I’d seen that the very first day he took me to the range back in Nova City. But he had clearly been taking it easy on me back then, because his training felt like it had become more of an exercise in masochism than anything else.

“Again!” he barked through the connection in my HUD, and I scrambled from my hiding place, rubbing the injury in my shoulder. It wasn’t more than a flesh wound, but it was a painful one. As I relocated, a timer counted down on my HUD. Ninety-four seconds left. I needed to find somewhere to hide. But before that, I needed to break his line of sight.

I slid down a steep slope of wet grass, skidding to a stop at the base of a small hill before slipping behind a tree. I crouched low, changing directions abruptly. When I reached an overturned and rusted out hulk of an old vehicle, I sprinted directly away from where my uncle’s last shot had originated.

Forty-two seconds.

I needed to move. I could practically feel the reticle of his scope on me. Not that he needed it. He was less than a mile away. He could have taken me out with nothing but iron sights. Fortunately, he’d limited himself to a borrowed rifle without any fancy attachments. He also wasn’t using any of his abilities.

It didn’t matter. We had been playing this “game” for weeks, and I’d yet to evade him for more than a few minutes. Usually, he “encouraged” me with various grazing shots when he found me. They were never life-threatening, but they definitely stung. As such, they made for a great, if abusive, motivator.

The old me would have called him a monster. But since then, I had seen real horror. I had some idea of what kinds of monsters were out there. Without harsh training methods, I would never survive. I knew that, now.

Still, that didn’t make it any easier to bear.

I skidded to a stop beside the ruins of a concrete building, grabbing what had once been its corner, and using it to change direction. As I did, I spied the nearby river; it was a half mile across, and if I dove into it, I felt that I could swim deep enough to evade my uncle. However, that would also put me at the mercy of all the creatures that made their home within its depths. Most notably, the river kraken that had claimed the area as its territory.

The decrepit remnants of the huge suspension bridge loomed over me, and the area’s giant metal containers, rusted and mostly fallen, made for a decent cover. I sprinted between them, remembering that my uncle had said that, once upon a time, they’d held natural gas, which had been an alternative fuel source in the pre-Initialization world. Now, it was unnecessary, as almost everything ran on either Mist or solar power, with a smattering of gasoline powered cars.

I slowed to a stop. Thirteen seconds.

Whipping my head back and forth, I didn’t see anything that might offer decent cover, so I hunkered down against the rusted metal, positioning myself beneath a similarly oxidized staircase that came to a jagged stop halfway up the sizable container. It wasn’t even close to perfect, but it was the best I could do.

The moment the timer ran out, a shot rang out, and I took another wound in my thigh. I let out a frustrated scream as my uncle growled, “Again! You’re better than this, Mirabelle!”

Summoning my determination to succeed, I rose to my feet and took off again. As I did, the timer steadily counted down. This time, I didn’t get nearly as far before another shot clipped my other shoulder. A few minutes later, yet another shot hit my limping form, this time finding my uninjured thigh.

I fell to the ground, my breath coming in ragged gasps. I tried to drag myself forward, but nothing worked quite right. Finally, I heard footsteps behind me, and a moment later, my uncle said, “You did better today. Come on. Let’s get you patched up so we can do it all again tomorrow.”

So it went for the remainder of my final year of training. Some people would have called it torture, and in some ways, it was. Certainly, pain was my constant companion. But through that pain – and the lessons themselves, of course – I was forged into something completely new. Slowly, just like I’d managed to conquer the obstacle course, I learned to evade my uncle for progressively longer periods until, only a week before my training was supposed to be completed, I kept out of sight for long enough that he called an end to the session before I was rendered incapable of going on.

That victory tasted incredibly sweet.

Throughout that time, I continued most of my other lessons as well, learning the ins and outs of dozens of different disciplines, from explosives to basic cybernetics repair, and everything in between. As such, my skills’ proficiency increased, and my attributes drew closer to exhausting my potential.

Finally, after my last training session, I sat atop the upside-down-pyramid-shaped former museum, leaning against an old air conditioning vent as I looked out at the bay. As I watched something huge, bestial, and imposing break free of the water miles away, I pulled up my status:

I was extremely satisfied with my progress, not least because of how hard I knew I’d had to work for it. It told me just how difficult it was to progress; if, after two years of consistent work, I’d only managed to reach Tier-4 in some of my skills, and Tier-3 in others, then other, less diligent people would be hard pressed to match my gains. Certainly, there would be some who engaged in similar training programs, but I had to think that those would be the exception, rather than the rule. Without some of my abilities – like Combat Focus, Regeneration, and Pain Tolerance – my training regimen would have been impossible. And I had an inkling of just how rare the skill that gave me those abilities really was.

I had progressed to the fourth tier in four out of my seven skills, and those that had lagged behind were on the verge of making the jump. The only odd one out was [Stealth Operations], which, while it had progressed well, hadn’t quite kept up with everything else. Still, I had plenty of time to rectify that.

The increases in my skills’ tiers had come with a host of strong modifiers as well as a bevy of new abilities. To get a handle on the details of my improvement, I decided to drill down into my skill trees. The first I opened was for [Firearms], which held a special place in my heart. There was just something about shooting things that spoke to a primal part of my personality. Perhaps, given my uncle’s proficiency with various firearms, it ran in my blood.

Not only had I picked up a variety of modifiers for specific types of weaponry, but I’d also gained three new abilities. The first was:

Empowered Shot (E) – Gather Mist to temporarily empower a rifle. Doubles damage. Charge lasts for two seconds or until one (1) shot is fired.

It was my favorite new ability, and not by a small degree.  Because of its nature, it was really only useful when my Kicker was in its sniper configuration, but when I did use it, the ability allowed me to absolutely destroy targets. I suspected that my uncle had a higher-tiered version of the skill, which he’d used to kill the Hunter six months before.

Next, I moved to the pistol branch’s signature ability:

Quickdraw (F) – Draw (or summon from an Arsenal Implant) your weapon with alacrity. Reduces draw time by half, fire rate increased by 25% for three seconds after drawing a pistol.

It was an incredibly useful ability, and with it, I could have Ferdinand II out and firing in record time. It had made some of the mixed-weapon courses almost trivial after I’d gained access to the ability.

The ability granted by the scattergun branch of the [Firearms]tree was:

Double-Shot (F) – Doubles the effect of a scattergun, mimicking two shots.

It was a simple skill, but, like Empowered Shot, I was limited in how often I could use it. If I tried to activate it more than a couple of times in succession, it did nothing. On top of that, it resulted in a brief moment of weakness that could prove deadly in battle. According to my uncle, it was tied to my Mist attribute, and as it rose, so too would I be able to use those abilities more often.

I had also gained the Weapon Modification Certification, which would let me use various attachments on my weapons. However, none of those attachments were available, so the certification was mostly forgotten.

Moving on from my [Firearms] skill tree, I opened the one pertaining to my [Close-Quarters Combat] skill:

Like with the [Firearms] skill, [Close-Quarters Combat] resulted in a handful of abilities, all of which were tied to reaching the third tier in an individual branch. The first was in the Pugilism branch:

Combination Punch (D) – String together a series of unarmed strikes, all in rapid succession. Each subsequent strike does double the damage of the previous. Current possible string: 4

It was easily my favorite ability in the tree, mostly because when I sparred with Nora, it was the only thing that let me hold my own, however briefly. Without it, I rarely made a dent in her durable flesh. It was unsurprising, considering that she was a wall of muscle that was further enhanced with unknown cybernetics.

Next, I looked at the Bladed Weapons equivalent of Combination Punch, which was called Eviscerate.

Eviscerate (E) – Rapidly attack your enemy multiple times with a bladed weapon. All attacks will cause additional bleeding. Current attacks available: 3

It was a lot like Combination Punch, but with the obvious difference of requiring a bladed weapon. However, instead of up-front damage, it seemed best suited to wearing an enemy down via blood loss. I didn’t know how well that would work against someone who’d been copiously enhanced with cybernetics, but against the virtual opponents with whom I’d trained, it was incredibly effective. Plus, using my nano-sword made me feel like one of the ninjas that were so popular in the various cartoons I’d grown up watching.

Next, I turned my attention to the next ability granted by my Blunt Weapons tree, called Pummel:

Pummel (F) – For one attack (more with ability growth) with a blunt weapon, ignore enemy armor and partially bypass constitution. Current affected attacks: 1

Blunt weapons were admittedly my least-favorite weapons, but when I got that attack, that dislike had shifted a bit. I still didn’t think I’d ever truly enjoy using them, but the benefits were too strong to disregard. Being able to ignore enemy armor, like the subdermal armor I’d encountered while fighting Horace Lafontaine, could be a game-changer. I was sure that there were plenty of caveats to the ability, especially because it hadn’t been that difficult to obtain, but I had very limited experience with it due to only recently passing into the third tier of that branch. I was eager to test it out, though.

Lastly, I focused on the final ability associated with the [Close-Quarters Combat] tree:

Engage (F) – Rapidly close with your enemy. Limit: 45 Feet

It was an extremely simple and self-explanatory ability, and one for which I had few uses. Most of the time, I wanted to keep my distance from my adversaries, and I could only think of a few very specific circumstances where I’d want to do the opposite. Still, it was nice to have the ability in my back pocket, should I ever need it. I’d practiced with it a little, but I’m honest enough to admit that it had mostly been neglected. For that specific branch, I was far more interested in the enhanced movement speed that came with increased proficiency.

Having finished up with the [Close-Quarters Combat]tree, I moved on to [Mistwalking].

Aside from the ability to infiltrate higher-grade systems or defend against increasingly dangerous threats, the tree gave me access to three abilities. The first was:

Overcharge (E) – Briefly overload an enemy’s system, disabling it entirely for a short duration. Small chance of completely destroying lower-grade cybernetics. Requires physical contact.

It was the first ability I’d ever used, and I’d done so without even considering what I was doing. It had allowed my uncle to kill the giant we’d encountered when the raiders had attacked our convoy while we were first traveling to Mobile. However, I hadn’t had many chances to use it since then, mostly because I couldn’t find any volunteers. Without that, I had to advance it during actual combat, which was difficult, considering that it required physical contact. I could think of a few uses for the ability, but they were few and far between. The next ability was far more useful, and it had changed everything.

Breach (F) – Grants the ability to remotely upload Ghosts.

It was a simple ability, and in a lot of ways, it allowed Mishack to mimic Mistwalk. However, that mimicry was limited to the ability to upload Ghosts. But I was fine with that, because with enough creativity, Ghosts could do basically whatever I wanted them to do. Already, I’d spent an inordinate amount of time writing and rewriting Ghosts, but as many attempts as I’d made, I’d only come up with a handful of viable options. More would come, I was certain.

I moved on to the final ability granted by the tree:

System Redirect (F) – While under the influence of an enemy Mistrunner, redirect Mist attacks to non-vital systems. Protect what is important so that you may counterattack.

I’d had the chance to use the ability a few times with Helen, but she was far too strong for me to truly affect. She had told me that that was normal, and that the ability would be far more effective as I increased my proficiency, but I didn’t look forward to that. In any case, it seemed like a useful ability, even if it was difficult to train.

I let out a sigh, thinking about how far I had come in the past couple of years. I was only seventeen years old, and, already, I had a ridiculous amount of power. And I couldn’t help but think I would soon acquire more. In time, I could be just as strong as Jeremiah. Probably stronger.

Was I ready for that?

No. But who could be? I could only keep putting one foot in front of the other and handle things as they came. Anything else, and I would get lost in the woods.