Mistrunner 4 - Chapter 8 - Well-Made Plans (Patreon)

I don’t know how she does it. Day after day, battle after battle, she never shies away from what she has to do. Meanwhile, I have nightmares about every single fight I’ve ever been in. It makes me feel like a coward until I remember that Mira’s the odd one. Most people can’t go from one life-or-death struggle to another and be unaffected.

Patrick Ward

I let out a deep breath, then wiped my hand across my face. I’d used some of the water I had stored in my arsenal implant – those extra slots were really getting huge – to wash some of the dried blood away, but I still felt filthy – largely because I’d been scrambling around, setting everything up for the coming conflict. Now I was finished, though, and the golems were still miles away.

It was a testament to their size, that I had originally assumed that they were a lot closer. The same could be said for the palace in the distance, which was probably closer to fifty miles away than my original estimate of ten.

In any case, I still had plenty of time to get set up for what I hoped would be a massacre of giant golems. Still, over the Secure Connection, I asked, “Are you ready? You have that –”

“I have it,” Patrick said. “But I told you before, I wasn’t able to fully repair it. The only reason it works at all is because I integrated it into the armor. It’s still going to put out quite a kick, but it’s going to drain my Mist fast.”

“That’s fine. You’re just here to help me finish them off,” I said as I trotted through the emerald forest. Patrick grumbled about being relegated to the back lines, but I ignored him. The fact was that his armor, while impressive, wasn’t ideally suited for the fight ahead. Which just showed how advanced the Rift really was. If we’d gone into the Rift with the spiders as our current selves, we could have ripped through it with ease.

But that was irrelevant.

Because at that moment, I finally reached my destination, which was the highest point within the Rift. That wasn’t saying much, but I was hoping that slight elevation would give me the sightline I needed to bring the full weight of my power to bear. So, without further hesitation, I climbed one of the crystalline trees, scurrying up its trunk until I reached the very top. When I did, I saw the glittering canopy stretching off in every direction, and I found myself idly wondering just how big the Rift was.

Not that it mattered, especially with six enormous golems – they each had to be at least three-hundred feet tall – slowly lumbering in my general direction. Using Observation, I took a good look at the one in the lead, and I saw that it wasn’t comprised of the formless crystal I’d seen from the smaller version. Instead, there were crystal trees growing out of its back, and it actually had hands as well as subtle facial features that made it look like a half-finished sculpture.

Gradually, the horde of crystalline monsters drew closer, and I commenced with the final step of my preparations. First, I settled into the sturdiest firing position I could find before summoning my Pulsar and extending its stabilizers. I hooked one leg around the tree limb, then leaned forward onto my stomach, extending the sniper rifle out in front of me.

It took a few more minutes for the golem to get into range, but when it did, I took a deep breath, then, one by one, activated all of my relevant abilities. First came Stealth. Then, Explosive Shot. After that, I used Execute. And finally, Empowered Shot. I wasn’t sure precisely how much those abilities would modify the damage of my shot, but I knew it was significant – especially with the modifiers associated with my evolved class of {Mist Warden}.

Once Empowered Shot had charged, I squeezed the trigger. The shot took the first golem directly in the chest, hitting it with the force of an artillery shot. Mid-step, the giant creature staggered, which given its size, was quite a feat to have caused. However, as much as I would have liked to see it fall, it quickly righted itself and continued its steady march in my direction.

But by that point, I’d already used Vanish, then reapplied Stealth before going through the cycle once again. The next round hit almost directly where the last had, and though it took the application of Observation to see, resulted in spiderweb of cracks in its crystalline form.

Over and over, I cycled through the same process, and eventually, I carved quite a crater in its form. However, by the time it was only a mile away, I started to realize precisely what I was up against. Hopefully, my plan would work out; otherwise, Patrick and I were in for a long and exceedingly dangerous series of fights.

One ponderous step after another, the golems crossed the emerald forest. And as they drew closer, I was once against astounded by their sheer size. I had seen plenty of large buildings in my time, but there was something wholly terrifying with something that big was mobile.

Finally, the final crystalline golem crossed the threshold I’d marked in my mind. It was precisely what I’d been waiting on. So, after exchanging my Pulsar for the BMAP, I also took a small detonator from my arsenal implant. Then, without further hesitation, I pressed flipped a switch before pressing a button to ignite the explosives I’d set up throughout the forest.

An instant later, the series of explosions sent waves of billowing force tearing across the emerald forest. Soon, those shockwaves – each one the result of a separate explosive charge – was followed by surging blue flames that left nothing but melted crystal in their wake. Even from a mile away, I was soon buffeted by the force of those explosions, and I had to grip the branch even more tightly just to keep from falling free. Fortunately, the flames died well before they reached my position, though. Otherwise, I’d have been melted just like everything else.

Well, everything but the golems.

They weren’t unaffected. In fact, a few of them had fallen to the ground, their legs melted into stumps. However, they were far from dead.

But that was okay.  I’d expected as much. The problem was that, if I were to create bombs powerful enough to kill those creatures in one shot – a dubious prospect, at best, given my supplies – detonating them would almost assuredly catch me in the blast zone. So, I’d resolved to kill them with a steady onslaught rather than one huge blast.

Which was why I had drawn my BMAP out of its slot in my arsenal implant.

I’d loaded it with the most powerful ammunition I had, which was saying something, considering that I’d spent a veritable fortune on the various types of explosive shells it used. Assembling that collection had been a money sink that could rival operating the Leviathan, but I felt it was well worth it. However, even with that commitment to quality, I’d only managed to buy two canisters of this particular ammunition. Not because I couldn’t afford it – I really couldn’t, but I would have made it work – but rather due to lack of availability. Earth was still a backwater, even among frontier planets. And with the quarantine still in place, good equipment was hard to find. Truly destructive ammunition was even more so.

In this case, the shells in question were made from Mist-infused carbonatium – which was supposed to be incredibly reactive – and the warheads were comprised of depleted Rift shards that had been saturated in some incredibly reactive substance whose name I couldn’t even begin to pronounce. The result was, hopefully, the most destructive ammunition I had at my disposal.

Usually, I couldn’t use something so potent because I didn’t want to deal with the collateral damage. Or because I would’ve been in the blast radius. However, in this instance, I didn’t have to worry about either.

Taking aim at the fallen golem, I used Shatter Shot, then Explosive Shot to increase the damage of the entire cannister. Normally, I wouldn’t use Empowered Shot with anything but my Pulsar, but there was nothing about the ability that said it couldn’t be used with my BMAP. It just usually wasn’t necessary or feasible. However, this time, I did just that, activating Empowered Shot before using Execute.

Then, I finally fired.

The other issue with the BMAP was that it didn’t fire with the force of a true firearm. So, the shell flew slowly enough that I could follow it with my naked eye. More, I’d had to arc the shot so it would cover the appropriate distance. Because of that, it took almost an entire two seconds for the shell to come within range of the golem.

That was the biggest reason I’d had to immobilize them via the previous explosions. Otherwise, hitting the creatures would have been annoyingly inconsistent. However, now that it was on the ground, I had no such issues, and as soon as the shell came within range of the fallen monster, it broke apart into five mostly identical copies.

Each of the shell’s doppelgangers was a little less powerful than the original, but with all of my modifiers and abilities, I didn’t think that would matter.

An instant later, the barrage hit home.

Six nearly identical flashes of light preceded the same number of balls of fire. A fraction of a second later, the impact of those six explosions tore across what was left of the emerald forest. But I only had eyes for the golem.

It shattered into a thousand pieces before a thick, black mushroom cloud bloomed above it. Amidst that smoke were a multitude of blue tendrils of pure Mist, each one looking like a persistent lightning strike.

Via Secure Connection, Patrick said, “Damn, Mira…”

I didn’t respond, because I was too busy cycling through my abilities. The only difference with the second round was that I had to precede it with Vanish, then Stealth. However, the results were similar when I finally loosed the shot at the second golem. It attempted to react, but it was both far too large as well as crippled from the detonation of the first set of charges.

Again, six nearly identical shells hit it, and with the same explosive results.

I kept going until all but one of the building sized golems had been completely destroyed. So had most of the landscape, and the once beautiful emerald forest had become a hellscape of melted slag. However, one of the golems had managed to survive the barrage, and given that I was out of those incredibly powerful shells, I knew that, if we were going to progress, we needed to get up close and personal with it.

Fortunately, it hadn’t escaped the bombardment unscathed, and the mountainous monster had been reduced to crawling across the hellish landscape. It was still incredibly dangerous, though. One wrong move, and we would be crushed by its enormous mass. So, it was with immense caution that I descended from the tree.

Soon enough, Patrick – in his armor – joined me.

I looked it over, seeing that the white enamel looked almost completely undamaged. At that, I asked, “Weren’t there a few dents before?”

“Mist-powered regeneration,” he said, his voice slightly robotic from within the cockpit. “It was functional before, but now it’s almost back to peak efficiency.”

“Sexy,” I said, looking back at him with a smirk. “Nothing gets a girl going like peak efficiency.”

I could practically hear his eye roll when he said, “Not the time, Mira.”

“If not now, then when?”

He didn’t respond, which meant that I had nothing to distract me from the results of my bombardment. Melted crystal was everywhere, the ground had been completely torn asunder, and everything looked like a post-apocalyptic hell. Which was kind of accurate, given our circumstances.

In any case, we slowly traversed the mile or so we needed to cover before, at last, the final golem loomed over us. Even prone, the thing was at least a hundred feet tall, and I knew that that thick, grasping arm probably weighed many hundreds of tons. If it hit either Patrick or me, we would be crushed.

“How do you want to do this?” he asked.

“You need levels,” I said.

“You think I can hurt it?”

I shrugged. “Maybe. You never know until you try,” I stated. Even if he didn’t do much damage, so long as he participated in the battle, he would accumulate some Mist. And given how much the golem contained, even a fraction of the credit would probably send him up at least a few levels.

“Alright,” he said. “Step back.”

“I’ll be fine right here.”

“Suit yourself.”

Then, I saw the Mist of his aura swell, then swirl before the armor whirred to life. A pair of panels on his back opened up, and a familiar shape emerged. The Dragon had been cut in half back in Olympus, and the ensuing explosion had proven to be the edge I’d needed to defeat the red-suited android that had almost killed me on multiple occasions. However, before I’d left that city behind, I’d gathered the pieces. Then, when Patrick had told me he needed a bigger gun, I’d given him what was left of the powerful gun. He’d since worked his magic, fusing the two halves into working condition and mounted the result in his armor.

I knew that, during the armor’s creation, he’d built multiple such slots into the structure, but seeing the back open up and reveal the rebuilt Dragon was impressive nonetheless. Notions of what else we could mount in there had me salivating; he could become a walking weapons platform whose only limit was how much money we had to spend on his arsenal.

That was a comforting thought, the idea that all of our problems could potentially be solved by simply having more money. I knew it wasn’t true. We could throw hundreds of thousands of credits at the aliens, and they wouldn’t even consider stopping. Because they were after something far more important. They wanted power for power’s sake; wealth was either a means to an end or a simple byproduct.

Once it had emerged from his back, the rebuilt Dragon rose to his shoulder. Then, it roared.

I knew it wasn’t as powerful as if I’d used it. Not only did Patrick lack my modifiers, but the weapon itself had lost quite a bit of its efficacy. He expected that he could slowly bring it back up to its former glory, but at present, it operated at something around sixty percent effectiveness. Which was still made it an incredibly potent weapon, but it was nothing compared to what it had been when I used it.

Still, the weapon’s issue streaked across the intervening space between our position and the giant golem, and when those rounds hit its bulky body, it sent shards of crystal spraying into the air.

But I knew it was like jabbing it with a needle. Painful, probably. And eventually, it might do real damage. On any sort of timeline that mattered, though, it was grossly ineffective. Even so, it was enough for the system to tag Patrick as having participated in the battle. So, once he’d emptied the Dragon’s significant store of ammunition, I said, “Alright. That should be good. Now, it’s my turn. You should probably retreat, because this is going to get really…uh…bad.”

Before Patrick had a chance to reply, I raced forward with a long, ground-eating stride, and when I got close, I used Engage, springing across the space between us and landing on the monster’s head. Once there, I started planting bombs.

Individually, they weren’t nearly as powerful as the ones I’d used to bring the column of giant golems to a halt. Those had been built for mass devastation, and in that arena, they had met complete success. These new bombs were slightly weaker – on average – than the ones I’d used against the other, much smaller crystalline monster.

But that had one clear advantage in that, technically, they weren’t just bombs. Instead, they were also equipped with tiny drills that, once placed, would dig through any surface until I stopped them.

I hadn’t used them against the first monster because, well, I hadn’t really been thinking straight. But now, it felt like they’d been tailor-made for just such a fight. So, without further hesitation, I raced along the golem’s body, every now and then having to flare Balance to keep from falling from its struggling form, as I placed almost fifty of the bombs.

Then, I used Teleport to escape its immediate vicinity before running off to join Patrick almost a mile away.

By that point, the little drones had had a chance to drill deep into the thing’s bulky body. When I reached Patrick, I said, “This all feels a bit anticlimactic, doesn’t it?”

He had his cockpit open, so I could see him shrug when he replied, “I’ll take anticlimactic, Mira. We’re not here for excitement. We’re here to make money for the coming war. So, if we can do that a little more efficiently, I’m definitely onboard.”

“I guess.”

Even as I said it, I couldn’t deny my disappointment. Certainly, I didn’t want to risk death. Yet, I had to admit that there was a part of me that enjoyed toeing that line. I’d felt it against the first golem, but with the much larger, far more dangerous line of larger creatures, any sense of real danger had been largely absent.

Sure, if I’d made a mistake or two, that would have changed. I knew that. But still, that feeling of slight discontent remained.

I shrugged. “Well, at least I got to blow some stuff up,” I muttered. Then, I pressed the button on the detonator. A grin spread across my face as half a hundred small explosions erupted in the distance, and a moment later, I felt an influx of Mist surge through my body.