Mistrunner 3 - Chapter 38 - Killer Clown (Patreon)

The world – probably the universe – is filled with horrible things. I know that, and I accept it. But I think there’s just as much good out there. You just have to be open to it. To look for it. To embrace it. I want Mira to see what I see, but I just don’t know if she’s got that in her.

Patrick Ward

I couldn’t leave the E’rok Tan compound – and those horrible cages – behind quickly enough for my taste. But even so, I wrangled my emotions into some semblance of control as I stalked back into the surrounding amusement park. After all, the danger posed by the killer clown and its miniature followers had not abated, so precautions against detection were necessary.

Even so, my mind roiled with what I had seen. Or rather, the implications behind it. I had seen into those peoples’ eyes, and I had recognized the lack of anything approaching intelligence or self-awareness. For all intents and purposes, they were no different from any other livestock.

Perhaps Alistaris could help them. I suspected that these people had not only been generations of genetic modification and pumped full of various chemicals to enhance their yield, but they were almost certainly under the effect of some pretty sinister implants. I could only hope that those implants could be safely removed and that doing so would allow the people to recover. But I had my doubts about the viability of such a hope.

I felt guilty about it, but I really didn’t want to see the results. In fact, I wanted to forget about the entire thing altogether, mostly because I knew that it would only take a slight push in the wrong direction for the entirety of Earth’s population to end up like that. Maybe they wouldn’t become livestock bred for food, but mass enslavement was a distinct possibility. And given the proliferation of invaders already mining the Earth’s various resources, there was every reason for the invaders to resort to slavery to meet their labor needs.

In the time Patrick and I were separated, I’d descended into a malaise of hopelessness. And rightly so. The Earth’s population faced long odds, and to date, I had seen nothing to suggest we were capable of overcoming forces arrayed against us. However, of late, I’d actively forced myself to see the other side of things. The people who’d managed to carve out productive lives, the families who’d remained intact, the cities that had thrived during the Initialization.

But with the sight of all those enslaved and dehumanized people, the hopelessness returned in force. My uncle had never intended for me to fight against the aliens. Instead, he had recognized the hopelessness of Earth’s circumstances. Because of that, he’d utilized every asset he possessed in an effort to help me survive.

Not fight back.

Certainly, he didn’t want me to be some sort of savior.

No – I was simply intended to survive and escape. From my uncle’s perspective, nothing else was possible. And though I tried to resist that pessimistic mindset, I could feel it enveloping my mind. I knew that if I didn’t actively try to combat it, it would overwhelm any sense of optimism I might have nurtured.

And maybe that was the point.

Perhaps that was my uncle’s intention all along. Hope was a dangerous thing that often got people killed. If I didn’t let it take root, then I could turn the whole of my attention to the simple goal of survival at all costs. If I already thought everyone was doomed, I wouldn’t risk everything to save them.

But was that how I wanted to live?

And even if I did manage to survive, could I stand the guilt of standing by while the world – my world – was enslaved, killed, or worse? I didn’t know myself well enough to answer that seemingly simple question. Selfish survival? Or potentially sacrificing everything in the hope that I might save a few people. What’s more, I didn’t even know if I could make a difference. I was just one person, after all.

Or was that just an excuse not to try?

Questions of that sort followed me as I stalked through the overgrown amusement park. Along the way, I saw evidence of my explosive distractions as well as the battle that had subsequently ensued. Part of the roller coaster track had collapsed, more than one building had fallen, and there were still a few flames burning their way through anything try enough to catch fire.

Part of me was saddened by the loss of so much history. Any other time, and I might have enjoyed exploring the area. But now, it was a warzone, and I was still a combatant. So, I pushed the intrusive thoughts out of mind as I focused on what really mattered.

Eventually, I found the clown wildling huddled on the ground, surrounded by a pile of bodies. Some were the corpses of the smaller wildlings I’d seen before, but there were plenty of E’rok Tan bodies as well. Most had been torn to shreds, which rendered them nearly unrecognizable. But there were enough that I could figure out what had happened.

Like the scene I’d witnessed when first arriving at the location, it was clear that the aliens had been ambushed and ripped apart by the lanky clown. But unlike what had happened in that instance, the invaders had given just as much as they got, and as a result, the wildling had been gravely wounded.

It was still alive, though one of its arms had been severed at the elbow. The other hung limp, and its legs were splayed across the overgrown ground as it leaned propped itself up against the splintered ruins of a booth. Among the bodies were the decayed and discolored stuffed animals, most of which had been torn to pieces by the battle.

I watched as a dozen smaller clown creatures fell upon the alien bodies, ripping limbs from joints before bringing the results to the larger creature. It looked down on them with something like pride before taking their offerings.

The little clowns danced with satisfaction before returning to their grisly work. Like that, they fed the lanky clown wildling, and before my eyes, it began to heal. I had no concept of how it did so; no skill I’d ever encountered could do such a thing. But there it was, plain as day.

In fact, it reminded me of the Templars. I hadn’t seen Isla heal me after my near fatal encounter with the irradiated wildlings three years before, but I knew my own condition well enough to suspect that Templars – and other Mystics – were capable of far more fantastic abilities than people like me.

According to Freddy, that gap would close as I continued to progress, but a wide gulf remained between my own skills and abilities and whatever the Mystics could bring to bear.

So, following that logic, I had to assume that some wildlings were capable of similar feats. In fact, the evidence of just that was right in front of me. Perhaps the wildling was less powerful. Maybe its abilities were less pronounced. But even so, I felt confident in asserting that they followed along a similar path.

I just didn’t know how it all fit together, though I vowed to ask Freddy if I ever saw him again. Or perhaps some of my contacts in the Bazaar would have an answer for me. Whatever the case, it was neither the time nor the place to ponder the nature of the Mist and how it affected people.

Because if I was going to kill this wildling, I needed to do so before it finished healing. Which, given the speed of its regeneration, was probably going to happen sooner rather than later.

So, I backed away for a couple hundred yards until I reached a huge wheel-like structure which was held upright by a series of pylons that extended from the ground to the center of the circle. The wheel itself was at least a hundred feet tall, and along the outer edge, there were carriages, many of which were barely hanging on.

In an effort to gain some altitude, I shimmied up one of the pylons until I reached the center of the wheel. Then, I climbed hand-over-hand until I reached the apex. Finally, I planted myself in the most intact carriage I could find and summoned my pulsar. My perch swayed in the gentle breeze, but it presented an otherwise stable firing position as I brought the weapon to my shoulder and took aim.

Finally, as I sighted in on my target, I activated Empowered Shot, waited for it to charge, and then fired. The moment I squeezed the trigger, the unbearably thin clown’s head jerked up and it locked its eyes on me. However, by that point the ball of superheated plasma was already in the air.

The moment I sent the shot downrange, I repeated my actions, hoping to get another shot off before the creature could react.

Even though it couldn’t avoid the shot altogether, the clown didn’t remain idle. It flinched to the side with such quickness that I could barely even track the movement, and instead of the bundle of plasma burning its way through its forehead, the shot took it in the shoulder.

The impact spun the wildling around, and by the time it landed, I had another shot in the air. This one was more successful, taking the creature in the chest. However, I was unsurprised to see that, as lethal as my shots usually were – especially when empowered by my abilities – the thing was still up for a fight. It demonstrated this by leaping to its feet and avoiding my third, unempowered shot.

That’s when it let out that evil cackle.

I was far enough away from the creature that I only felt a slight tremor of fear, so I was able to keep my wits about me as I continued to fire. Despite my flawless technique, I only hit with every third shot. The creature was just too fast, its movements too unpredictable. Still, I did what I could as it raced toward my position.

That’s when I detonated a set of stun bombs I’d left behind during my initial positioning.

They weren’t intended as more than a distraction. I didn’t think that even my most powerful homemade bombs would do much damage, so I’d opted for shock charges instead. Upon detonation, each one sent out a bolt of lightning, which was accompanied by an incredibly loud sound and a flashing light. The results were predictable.

The lightning set the wildling’s muscles to spasming as the auditory and visual stimuli overwhelmed its senses. It dropped to the ground in a brief seizure that I was more than willing to use to my advantage, and I continued to fire upon the wildling, peppering its body with a series of increasingly serious wounds.

However, as it quickly recovered from the stun bombs, I was shocked at its continual regeneration. Whatever the case, I had no choice but to keep going. I’d picked the fight, and I knew it wouldn’t let me escape now that it knew I was there.

I kept up the barrage until, at last, it reached the base of the wheel. That was close enough that I could just barely reach it with Misthack, but when I tried to do so, I got nothing. Not surprising, really. I’d only ever encountered one non-sapient creature that I could affect, and that was in a Rift. For all I knew, those spiders were based on some other alien civilization. Regardless, the clown wildling was completely immune to my {Mistrunner} abilities. So, after I fired one last shot, I leaped to the next carriage before replacing the Pulsar with my assault rifle.

As I relocated, I used Explosive Shot and continued my bombardment. The wildling wasn’t going to sit there and take it, though, and it wasn’t long before it was skittering up the wheel’s infrastructure like a mutated monkey.

My enhanced shots tore huge holes in the creature, slowing – but pointedly not stopping – its progress. Still, I continued to fire until the magazine ran empty. I used Instant Reload, following it up with another use of Explosive Shot before resuming my assault. Like that, I tore the creature to shreds, one exploding shot at a time.

Still, it kept coming until, at last, it caught up to me.

Just as it lunged toward me, I dismissed my assault rifle, summoned my blade, and sliced through the support cables holding the carriage aloft. Then, just as it reached me, I used Teleport to jump to another carriage almost twenty feet away. I gasped as the last of my Mist drained into the skill, but I quickly jammed a Booster into my hip, giving me some level of relief.

I turned back to see the wildling falling more than a hundred feet before it hit the ground with an incredible impact. Immediately, the miniature versions of the clown wildlings raced forward, each one carrying an alien limb or hunk of muscle. I had seen that trick before, so I quickly exchanged my blade for my BMAP and opened fire.

Over the years, I had discovered that, while the mobile artillery platform was entirely capable of significant destruction, it was best suited for either of two very specific situations. The first was if I wanted to bring a building or slow-moving armored vehicle down. With the right ammunition, it was perfect for that sort of thing, and given its name, I felt certain that such circumstances were why the thing had been built in the first place. But it was also well-suited to one more situation: dealing with a large number of weaker enemies.

I had no illusions that my barrage of explosive rounds would kill the wildling clown, but I expected it would stave off – or at least slow – any regeneration abilities it might bring to bear. On top of that, I expected that the BMAP would make quick work of the little creatures that seemed to serve the larger one.

I emptied the BMAP’s cannister, careful to avoid destroying the wheel structure’s support pillars, and by the time I was finished, only charred corpses remained where the little monsters had once been.

But as I’d suspected, my efforts did little to finish the larger creature off, and by that point, it had begun to pick itself up. As it did, I noted that it wasn’t doing so great. Even before I’d begun my assault, it had been wounded, but now, it looked like the walking dead, with huge chunks of its body missing. What remained was bloody, burned, or both.

Still, it was dangerous, and I needed to finish it off.

To that end, I climbed down the wheel, stopping ever so often to shoot the creature a few more times. Doing so wouldn’t kill it off. I knew that. But it would keep it off-balance and make it expend even more Mist – assuming that was what fueled regeneration – to heal.

Once I reached the bottom, I stowed my assault rifle away and summoned the dragon. By that point, my Mist levels had recovered enough that I could use Explosive Shot. I did so, enhancing the weapon’s ammunition before I brought the ungainly weapon around and aimed it at the wounded creature.

Then, I let loose.

The Dragon roared, spitting a ten-foot blame from the end of its corrugated barrel before sending more than thirty rounds a second to tear into the thing’s battered body. The results were predictable, and over the next dozen seconds or so, I ripped it to shreds with my most powerful weapon.

But even then, it wasn’t enough.

The Dragon’s rotating barrels spun down, and when the smoke cleared, I saw a monster barely clinging to life. Missing an entire arm, and with a body that resembled minced meat more than anything else, the creature still tried to drag itself toward me. It let out a gurgling cackle that carried with it only a fraction of its formerly terrifying power.

I ignored it.

Stowing the Dragon away, I summoned my nano-bladed sword and strode forward. I could have kept shooting. I probably should have. But I needed to dispatch it in more personal manner. I needed the visceral satisfaction of feeling it hacked to pieces beneath me.

Otherwise, the fear might return.

Sure, I told myself that I just wanted to save on the exceedingly expensive ammunition the Dragon required, but the reality was that the wildling had terrified me. It had made me feel weak and powerless. And now, I was going to exorcise that demon the only way I knew how – by hacking it to pieces until it surrendered its grip on life.

And that’s what I did.

Over and over, my blade descended. At first, it barely found purchase, but I persisted, bringing every ounce of my hard-won strength to bear. And slowly, I accomplished my goal. By the time I finished, I knew I’d picked up an audience, and when the thing finally died, I took a deep breath, turned to where Alistaris stood, and asked, “Enjoy the show?”

“I did not,” he said.

“Good. Me neither,” I replied. Then, without another word, I whipped my sword out, sending a curtain of thick blood slicing through the air before I dismissed it. After that, I just shook my head and said, “Let me know when you finish relocating those people.”