Mistrunner 2 - Chapter 62 - Battle of the Dome (Patreon)

As always, Gunther has to be difficult. He wants her for himself. Not because of any vendetta – no, he wanted her stuff. The incredibly expensive weapons. The hoverbike that cost more than many buildings. And whatever else she has tucked away. It’s disgusting, but I can’t afford to add another side to the war I’ve been forced to fight.

Nora Lancaster

Everything erupted into chaos. Behind me, a pair of auto-turrets descended from the ceiling and opened fire even as thick, metal shutters slid shut over the exposed windows. I dove away, exposing my position to Gunther and his goons, but they couldn’t take advantage because they were just as subject to the Dome’s defenses as I was. Down the corridor, I could see that they were taking fire from another set of auto-turrets. Hopefully, that would keep them busy.

As I crawled behind one of the thick, concrete columns that supported the ceiling, I cast my {Mistrunner} senses out, and I quickly found the auto-turrets that had targeted me. Without hesitation, I dove into the first’s system, tearing through the meager defenses as I took control of the automated weapon. Then, I directed it to ignore me and target Gunther and his mooks.

It seemed almost too eager to comply.

Of course, I knew it was just a mindless machine, so I was probably just anthropomorphizing the thing. But I was in no position to question it. So, I moved on to the next, repeating the process before tackling the three that were already firing on my enemies. I didn’t want them out of the fight – not if I could just exclude myself from the list of targets. The turrets weren’t that powerful, and I didn’t think they’d kill any of the others, much less me, but they were more than capable of creating confusion and slowing my enemies down.

And that was all I really needed.

In the few seconds it took me to subjugate the machines, Gunther and his mooks had recovered from their surprise. I knew I didn’t have long. I needed to turn the tables. And I knew precisely how.

It only took a moment for me to find my target. She – if gender even applied to someone whose entire body was mechanical – stood out like a sore thumb.  Dierdre had barely even made an attempt at ducking under cover, and the bulk of her metal body was exposed. The turrets fired upon her, but the bullets were rendered useless by her thick armor. I suspected that it would be similarly effective against my weaponry.

So, I didn’t even bother shooting.

Instead, I once again embraced my {Mistrunner}senses. Like the moon amongst starry sky, she blazed in my awareness, so she wasn’t difficult to find. With Misthack, I thrust into her system, finding predictably upgraded defenses. However, after going through those aural sensors around the Octavangians’ camp multiple times, I was barely fazed by the effort required to batter my way through one node after another until, after only a handful of seconds, her system was laid bare before me.

I didn’t have the access I would’ve if I’d jacked into the system via a hard connection, but I didn’t really need it, either. Instead, I initiated the Misthack, which brought up the familiar menu on my HUD:

Misthack Successful. Options:

· Reboot System

· Overcharge

· Disable Cybernetics

· Upload Ghost

I already knew the route to victory, so I merely had to select it. I didn’t bother with a Ghost. Nor did I choose to restart her system. And Overcharge would’ve been little more than a slap. Besides, it wasn’t about defeating her. Nothing in my arsenal could do that on its own. No – I wanted to scare her. I wanted to tear into the morale of her comrades. To that end, I chose the Disable Cybernetics option. But I held off from activating right away.

Then, I moved on to the next.

There were six cyborgs – men and women who’d given up the majority of their flesh in favor of mechanical parts – and I repeated the action. With each victim, the strain on my Mind increased, but I was well versed in pushing through such things, so the burden wasn’t nearly as heavy as I might have expected.

After thirty seconds – during which Gunther and his goons managed to destroy two of the three auto-turrets – I finally toppled the last of the cyborgs’ defenses and initiated the ability. Instantly, the hail of gunfire dissipated as one loud, metallic thump sounded after another as the cyborgs hit the floor.

That’s when I made my move.

With my R-14 still in hand, I summoned a stun grenade from my arsenal implant. With practiced movement, I tossed it in the direction of my enemies. Even as it arced through the air, I closed my eyes and forcibly cut Observation short.

Then, it exploded in a cacophony of sound and light that, even from fifty feet away, was enough to send me reeling. I could only imagine how badly it had affected my attackers.

There was definitely something to be said for homemade grenades. Sure, I could’ve bought a huge stock, and fairly inexpensively. However, that convenience came at the cost of effectiveness. The store-bought ones would be plenty for most situations, but my grenades were far more potent. For instance, the hand-made stun grenades like the one I’d just tossed were powerful enough to kill a civilian outright. Sure, it couldn’t end a real Operator, but their higher attributes meant that, to stun them, a little extra oomph was needed.

Couple those more powerful grenades with the modifiers from my [Demolitions] skill, and I had an extremely powerful tool.

Finally, the cyborgs had already been stripped of their defenses, so they were even more affected.

Which meant it was time for me to make my move.

I leaned out of cover, looking for an appropriate target, but my attackers were no amateurs, so they’d ensconced themselves behind cover provided by benches, a few fake plants, and a couple of statues lining the hall.

In a perfect world, I would have just waited them out. Only an idiot would leave cover in a firefight. But I had a couple of things working against me – most notably, that my previous efforts wouldn’t last forever. The cyborgs would recover control of their cybernetics after a little more than a minute, and the stun grenade’s effects wouldn’t even last that long. Perhaps just as importantly, there was no telling how many mooks Gunther could bring to the battle. Sure, he’d only attacked me with a couple of handfuls, but who was to say he didn’t have a hundred more in reserve? He was a man of means, after all. And as an arm’s dealer, he would have made certain that his goons were well armed.

No - I needed to end the ones in front of me, and soon. Otherwise, I would be forced to continue fighting a battle where Gunther had all the advantages.

So, as much as my learned instincts were screaming at me to stay where I was, I gritted my teeth and dashed out of cover. In only a second, I’d covered the fifty feet between us, and I leaped over a bench, exposing the two mooks who had the misfortune of being my first victims.

The R-14 barked, sending a pair of three-round bursts of molten plasma to tear through their chests. Before the shots had even landed, I was already making a break for another cluster of Operators who’d taken shelter behind a statue of some unknown leader from the distant past.

But I only had eyes for the two cyborgs in their midst. They had been rendered helpless by my {Misrunner} exploits, but I knew that wouldn’t remain the case for very long. So, I took aim at the only unprotected portion of their bodies and sent a tight grouping of shots at their exposed faces.

The result wasn’t pretty. Charred flesh, shattered skull bones, and the smell of burned synapses filled the air as I ended the lives of the other mooks who’d surrounded the cyborgs. They were helpless as well, and they fell even more easily than the cyborgs.

I darted toward the next group, but that was when the various impediments I’d thrown my attackers’ way faded into uselessness, and I was suddenly exposed to a cascade of gunfire. Luckily, my aggression – or perhaps, the sight of their heavy hitters falling helpless – had rattled them, and so, most of their shots went wide. Still, quite a few landed, though none made it through the combination of my infiltration suit and subdermal sheath.

Each shot still hurt, though.

I refused to let it derail my momentum, and even as I was peppered with gunfire, I swept through another two groups. My training paid off, and none of my shots were wasted. Still, as impressed as I was with my own steady aim, I couldn’t even begin to kill the entire group before my defenses inevitably gave out. My equipment was top-notch, but it had limits, and I was quickly approaching the point where I’d have to make some tough decisions.

With the ticking time bomb of my armor’s eventual failure steadily counting down, I changed tactics. I didn’t need to immediately kill them all, did I? I just needed to thin the herd. And I was convinced that a little concentrated lightning would do the trick.

In a blink, I exchanged my R-14 for the still-unnamed scattergun. At the same time, I hadn’t stopped moving. [Acrobatics] came in extremely handy as I maintained my balance even under the constant thuds of so much gunfire. Trying to maintain my armor’s integrity for as long as possible, I dipped, dodged, and ducked, avoiding more shots than actually found their mark, but the wave of gunfire was dense and unceasing. I couldn’t avert damage entirely. I could only avoid what I could and endure what I couldn’t.

A familiar tradeoff with which I was well-acquainted.

When I reached the next group, I found myself faced with a shimmering blue shield. Without skipping a beat, I activated Misthack and tore through its defenses in the blink of an eye; I’d never gone so quickly, but with the adrenaline of battle pumping through my veins, it didn’t even seem difficult. Either way, the seven Operators who expected safety were soon disabused of that notion when a cone of dense lightning enveloped them.

As I fell upon them, I didn’t bother exchanging weapons. Instead, I hefted the Hand of God, and went to work as I pummeled their convulsing bodies with one Combination Punch after another. In a matter of seconds, the once-healthy Operators had become a pile of twitching muscles and broken bones. Some survived. Most did not.

But even the ones who yet lived were out of the fight. It would take a skilled doctor to undo the damage I’d wrought, and even then, I expected full recovery would be impossible. At the very least, they were no longer a threat to me, so I didn’t take the few precious seconds it would take to finish them off.

Because the next group had fully recovered, and it included Dierdre and three other cyborgs. Even with my attributes, engaging them in a melee was an absurdly bad idea.

So, I threw a fragmentation grenade at them.

I didn’t expect it to kill anyone. Their armor was too thick, their defenses too stout. I just wanted a few extra seconds to enact the next part of my plan. Or to repeat the first one.

After all, if it worked once, it would probably work again.

That’s when I got one big surprise and a much smaller one.

The smaller one should have been predictable. Every system had some innate defenses against my efforts. Some were practically impregnable. Others went down in the face of a virtual stiff breeze. And there were hundreds of others in between those two extremes. However, I was mildly shocked to discover that personal interfaces were adaptable, and when I used Misthack to infiltrate Dierdre’s system, I got an alert I had neither expected nor wanted to see.

Warning! Repeated attempts to Misthack a personal interface will result in suboptimal results!

“Great,” I muttered to myself as I deactivated Dierdre’s system. Before, it had only lasted a minute, but I got the sense that this latest attempt would be far less effective. If I got more than a few seconds out of it, I would’ve been surprised.

But there was nothing for it but to adapt.

I leaped forward, drawing Ferdinand II from the holster at my side with one hand while retrieving the sword from my back with the other. My first shot thundered into Dierdre’s head, the armor piercing ammunition I’d loaded into my weapon’s cannister tearing through the thick metal plate covering her temple.

That’s when the big surprise hit me.

Or rather, tore into my side, piercing through my infiltration suit and subdermal sheath like they were no more impenetrable than mundane skin. I screamed, more in surprise than pain, and wrenched myself free of what I would soon find was the blade of a spear.

I tumbled forward in an awkward roll that allowed me to barely avoid another strike. Somehow, I found my feet and faced off against my new attacker, and I saw Gunther standing only ten feet away and holding the spear he’d used to stab me in the back. He’d obviously been targeting my kidney, but my status readout told me that he’d missed my vital organs.

He didn’t know that, though.

“You’re almost as hard to kill as your uncle,” he spat, twirling his weapon with expert precision. Constructed of solid metal, it must have weighed a hundred pounds, and it sported a blade that could have doubled as a shortsword. “He didn’t know his place, either.”

I raised Ferdinand II and shot him.

The look of shock on his face was worth more than whatever minor damage I might’ve done. Clearly, he’d expected me to banter. Or respond in some way. Instead, I’d taken the spare second to snatch the momentum from him.

The resulting round did little damage – as expected – but Ferdinand II was a powerful weapon, and he sent Gunther staggering back a few steps. Still, it was obvious that he was equipped with top-tier armor, so putting him down would likely prove incredibly difficult. It was a good thing that I intended to save him for last.

With Gunther on his back foot, I darted toward Dierdre and her squad. Surprisingly, the shot to the head hadn’t killed her, and she’d started dragging herself to her feet. However, even as she swung a huge machine gun around, I noticed that she was unsteady. I was on her in a moment, taking advantage and letting Ferdinand II lead the way.

I fired one round at her, but the remaining six found their way to her companions. They didn’t have the benefit of her high-quality armor, and Ferdinand II was perfectly equipped to tear through what protections they did have. None were killed in that opening salvo, and I didn’t have the opportunity to finish them off.

Because Gunther had recovered and made another move.

This time, I was ready for him. The moment he’d appeared out of nowhere, I’d come to the conclusion that he was using some sort of stealth variant to mask his approach. So, ever since that first stab, I’d been flaring Observation. It wasn’t easy, sorting through the mass of stimuli assaulting my senses – especially in the middle of a fight – but my Mind attribute wasn’t just for show, and I quickly took control.

And the results were better than expected.

Gunther’s ability, like my own, was almost entirely focused on the visual element. As such, his footsteps still made sound, and with Observation doing the heavy lifting, I knew precisely when he was going to make his move.

Even then, countering wasn’t easy. It happened so quickly that I was barely able to twist out of the way. Still, I managed it, and when his spear found nothing but air, I clamped my arm down, pinning it to my side.

That’s when I discovered that Gunther hadn’t put much effort into raising his Constitution. My grip, awkward though it was, was like iron, and even though he put every ounce of his weight behind his efforts to pull it free, he made no progress.

So, I whipped my arm around in a backhanded blow that found the side of his surprised face. Ferdinand II was empty, so I couldn’t shoot him again. That was fine, though; I didn’t think he could get through whatever armor Gunther was wearing. But the same couldn’t be said for the nano-bladed sword suddenly clutched in my other hand.

I struck with lightning speed, the blade tracing a line across his throat before he even finished his fall. It was a shallow wound, and I heard the metallic clank of metal on metal, telling me what sort of subdermal armor he’d chosen. The heavy kind that traded mobility for virtual impenetrability.

Emphasis on the virtual part.

But I didn’t get the chance to follow that attack with another before Dierdre recovered and, like an out-of-control train, tackled me. I didn’t fall to the ground. The sheer momentum of her monumental weight forced the breath from my body, then slammed me into the nearest wall. I felt bones crack, and my head whipped into the concrete with enough force to give me a hundred concussions.

Through an effort of will, I maintained consciousness, but only just. My various abilities went into overdrive, helped along by my inflated attributes. But that thin thread wasn’t enough to let me dodge the barrage of body blows Dierdre aimed at my sides. At first, it was just a handful, but each punch came faster than the last, and before I knew it, her arms blurred with speed.

Agony tore through my body as I felt like my organs had ruptured anew with each rapid punch, but somehow, I managed to embrace Misthackbefore I was completely overwhelmed. The familiar menu blossomed in my HUD, and I selected the first option I saw. It was the right choice, because a second later, Overcharge tore through Dierdre’s artificial body. It was even more effective than I might have expected – if I’d had the ability to think properly amidst the pain – and Dierdre’s attacks suddenly ceased as she fell to the ground, twitching like she’d been electrocuted.

The reality wasn’t far from appearance, but instead of an electrical current, she was beset by agitated Mist. Whatever the case, it gave me the opening I needed. In the best of times, Overcharge wouldn’t last long, but diluted by her system’s evolving defenses, the effect would fade in only a second or two. So, I couldn’t afford to waste time.

When she’d collapsed, I’d fallen to my knees, but I couldn’t allow myself to rest. Instead, I pushed myself to my feet and struck. My blade, crackling with blue energy, fell upon the helpless cyborg’s neck. Once. Twice. Three times – all in the space of a second.

The twitching faded.

Her head fell free.

And like that, only Gunther was left.

Or that’s what I thought before another barrage of bullets tore into me, forcing me to stagger behind the scant cover provided by a nearby bench.

I had no idea how many people the gun runner had brought with him, but it felt like an army. It was a good thing that I had a weapon perfectly suited to assault such a force.

To that point, I hadn’t used the BMAP because I was afraid of the collateral damage. But as wounded as I was – the entire health readout was blaring red – I knew I couldn’t hold back. So, I holstered Ferdinand II and slid the nano-bladed sword into the sheath on my back. Then, I summoned the BMAP from my arsenal implant, took aim, and let loose.