Mistrunner 4 - Chapter 20 - Payback (Patreon)

Mira has been through a lot. I’ve lost count of the number of times she’s almost died. But none of those instances have affected – or continue to affect – her quite like the time she went up against a horde of irradiated Wildlings. It wasn’t until that moment, when someone else had to rescue her, that she started to recognize her own mortality. And that has stuck with her ever since.

Patrick Ward

A month later, I felt confident enough with my new abilities and arsenal to really put them to the test. However, I had no intention of assaulting a Rift mining operation or other alien enclave. Instead, I wanted to throw myself back into the fray against the opponents who had tested me most completely.

So, Patrick and I loaded ourselves into the Leviathan and set off across the landscape in search of the crater where I’d encountered the irradiated Wildlings who had nearly killed me the first time around. Of course, this time, I wouldn’t have a friendly group of Templars to pull me out of the proverbial fire – as confirmed when Patrick and I reached the site of that battle and saw that there was no human presence for dozens of miles around. The closest settlement was almost a hundred miles away, and even that was sparsely populated, with only the barest hint of advancement.

It reminded me of Bayou la Batre, or rather, what that small town would’ve been if it hadn’t had its shrimping industry to prop it up.

“What are you thinking?” asked Patrick as we banked and circled the settlement.

I shrugged, watching the town so far below. It looked so small. So fragile. But I knew it wasn’t. Nobody could survive so close to the Dead Zone without significant ability to defend themselves.

“Nothing,” I said. “I was just wondering about all the little towns around Mobile.”

Indeed, in the few months since we’d set up shop in the ruins of the city, we’d made a few forays into the wilderness. There, we’d found the remnants of a handful of towns. All had been destroyed or abandoned, likely because, without Mobile to supply and protect them, it was too difficult to maintain those villages. For us, that meant we didn’t have to worry about them stumbling on our campsite, but it was also a reminder of the consequences of my actions. I hadn’t invited the Enforcers to attack Mobile, but they wouldn’t have come if it wasn’t for me – or the Tier-7 Nexus Implant I’d absorbed – so I still felt partially responsible.

But aside from the initial destruction of Mobile – and then Nova City – there were far-reaching consequences I’d so infrequently considered. The entire region had been decimated, with only a fraction of the inhabitants being unaffected. Without me, they would have continued living.

“It’s not your fault, Mira,” he said.

I just nodded, knowing that his statement was never intended to be factual. Instead, it was Patrick’s attempt at soothing my guilt, and though I wanted to believe it, I knew better than to absolve myself.

In any case, I continued to ponder the ramifications of my actions as we swooped around and scanned the area surrounding the crater. When we reached the site itself, I saw the same giant, reptilian skeleton, which was surrounded by the war machines of a bygone age. Tanks and trucks, all painted in camouflage patterns, were scattered across the crater. Some were more or less intact, but others had been blown to bits. None had escaped completely unscathed, though, and the ravages of age were more than evident.

The biggest difference from my last visit was more attributable to my augmented {Mist Warden} senses. With the naked eye, the entire crater looked all but deserted. A few irradiated Wildlings were visible, but the bulk of the horde were buried below ground. Since my first encounter, I’d learned that there was a warren of tunnels and chambers beneath the crater, and that was where the creatures lived. They usually only left to hunt, coming and going from the tunnels via disguised exits.

But with my new senses, which were further augmented by Observation, I could see the evidence of an enormous population. Even through ten feet of solid earth, the creatures’ auras were entirely visible. Some were weak – barely denser than a low-level human – but others looked like raging storm clouds, thick and ominous. And finally, there were a handful of auras that clearly rivaled even my own, which was the only real context to which I had been exposed since developing the ability to sense auras.

“There must be hundreds of thousands of them,” I said.

“So many?” asked Patrick, keeping his own eyes on our progress. He couldn’t see what I saw, but the Dead Zone had more denizens than Wildlings. It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for some winged beast the size of a spacefaring ship to attack us. So, he kept his attention where it belonged.

“Al said that Wildlings are sometimes attracted to these Dead Zones. It’s a way to accelerate their own strength, and they’re instinctively drawn to it,” I said. “They’ve also had almost a century to breed down there.”

Indeed, Alistaris and I had shared more than a little communication during my training, and he’d given me some insight as to what had happened down there. Dead Zones were already hot spots when it came to Mist accumulation, but it seemed that humanity’s use of nuclear weapons had exacerbated the situation by quite a lot. As such, the Mist had reacted to the resulting radiation – mostly to clean it up – and that adaptation of the Mist had tainted the environment. Without the Mist’s intervention, the region would have been uninhabitable for hundreds of years. Now, it had already been rendered safe, though with the result being a unique evolution of the natives.

And that evolution was why the Wildlings were so much more powerful than normal. Based on previous experiences, I put their average power level at something around the alphas I’d fought in the past, which meant that the irradiated alphas were a good deal stronger than any other Wildlings I’d ever encountered. Then, there were the strongest among the horde to worry about; as far as I could tell, they were the most powerful creatures I’d seen on Earth, and if I’d had to guess, they would have been on par with Edrax Kel Tanimvan, the android with the huge sword whose copies I’d fought on the moon and in Olympus.

Maybe even stronger, considering that a good deal of his power was wrapped up in having multiple copies.

Which meant that the crater represented the perfect opportunity to test my new abilities, higher attributes, and expanded arsenal. In addition, I had Patrick to back me up and assure our retreat if something went wrong. So, we were as prepared as possible.

Still, I wasn’t above cheating a little, so I said, “I think it’s time.”

“Alright. I’ll circle it five times, then set the Leviathan down where we talked about,” he said, turning his attention to business. Though he hadn’t seen the horde first-hand – except for a brief glimpse – Patrick knew what it had done to me in the past. So, he was ready for a tough battle.

After rising from my seat, I gave Patrick’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze before heading back to the cargo bay. There, I found that he’d already opened the back hatch, exposing me to a blast of cold air. We weren’t high enough for it to become truly frigid, but I was a self-avoid tropical person, and as such, I didn’t enjoy freezing temperatures. Still, I endured it as I crossed the cargo bay, thanking my Balance ability along the way, until I reached a handful of huge crates.

Normally, I kept my grenades and other explosive charges in my arsenal implant, but I didn’t want to waste so much space when I had a perfectly good cargo bay at my disposal. So, when I reached the first stack, I unlatched the lid, then flipped it open to reveal fifteen square charges.

I retrieved the first handful, then started tossing them out of the open hatch. Knowing our general air speed, I threw one every couple of seconds. Then, following that pattern, I kept going until the first crate was finished. After that, I started in on the second. Then, the third. Within a few minutes, I’d placed more than a hundred powerful demolition charges throughout the crater. They weren’t perfectly spaced, but it was close enough that I didn’t think I’d have to worry about missing any.

“I’m done,” I said via Secure Connection.

“Ten-four,” Patrick responded before guiding the Leviathan to the landing zone from which we had agreed to launch our assault. As he circled back around, I could sense the Mist of my explosive charges, which was quite a bit different than before. I think that was the biggest difference I’d noticed since Mist Control had evolved into Mist Authority. My ability to manipulate the Mist was mostly unchanged, but I could sense subtle differences in a way I never could have before. Without the evolution, I’d have only seen a giant blob of Mist – the horde of Wildlings – with a few hot spots here and there to represent the more powerful among the population. Now, though, I could see individuals, even from an elevation of more than a thousand feet. I could also see my own charges clearly, which told me that I’d spaced them out properly.

For a moment, I was beset by a desire to detonate them. If I did, the resulting explosion would kill all but the hardiest of Wildlings. However, I chose not to for two reasons. First, I wasn’t there to exterminate the population. Sure, it would hopefully be a nice side effect, but the goal of the excursion was to test my abilities and provide Patrick with the opportunity to gain some levels. So, not only did I need the chance to actually bring my expanded arsenal to bear, but I also needed to do so in a way that allowed Patrick to affect the battle and gain experience.

The second reason was a little more personal. I very much enjoyed blowing things up, but there was just something personal about using my other weapons. And given the state the horde had left me in after our first encounter, I wanted nothing more than to see the effects of my weapons up close.

Or as close as possible.

As we landed, I mentally checked my preparations. The bombs were armed, my weapons were all loaded, and I was about as protected as possible. In addition to my Sheath, which had recently received another upgrade module courtesy of Gala, who’d remained on the lookout for anything that would boost my defenses, as well as my Infiltration suit, I had also absorbed the [Shielding] skill.

Using it was a little frustrating, largely because, even after rapidly progressing from F-grade to D-grade, I only had two ways to use it. The first was as a passive defense, which used my Mist aura to block attacks. If I’d had to guess at its efficacy, I would have put it somewhere between the defenses provided by my Infiltration suit and the effect of my Sheath. So, it was a very potent ability, though not quite the impenetrable defense that I’d hoped for.

The second mode was not really part of the skill, but rather a way for me to eke a little more power out of it. Using Mist Authority, I could harden my shield even further, augmenting the more normal effects at least tenfold. However, that came with the downside of rapidly draining my personal Mist reserves, so I could only keep it up for a second or two. I hoped that it would become less costly as my abilities progressed, but even now, it provided strong innate defenses as well as a powerful emergency ability.

Still, it wasn’t quite as strong as I’d hoped for, which was the source of my frustration.

In any case, that had never been the point of absorbing the skill in the first place, so I counted any extra defenses as a bonus.

Once I’d triple-checked my arsenal, and Patrick had done the same, we both exited through the back hatch of the Leviathan. After that, I used Bastion to ensure it would remain secure before we set off through the wilderness. We’d landed the ship a few miles away from our intended battlefield, which meant that it was close enough to provide a means of retreat, but far enough away that it wouldn’t become collateral damage. So, it took us a little less than an hour to hack our way through the tangled wilderness; we probably could have gone faster, but there really wasn’t any reason to.

Finally, we reached our destination, and Patrick summoned his armor from his own spatial storage, then mounted it. Soon enough, he was enclosed within his cockpit, and I’d summoned the HIRC. I set up on the lip of the crater, taking aim at the most concentrated cloud of Mist signatures. Then, I said via Secure Connection, “Get us started, Pick.”

He’d set up a few dozen yards away, but the thunder of the assault rifle he carried – it had taken parts of my old Kicker as well as my R-14, creating an amalgam of both that was far more powerful than either had been alone – cut through that distance to ring in my ears. Immediately, clouds of rock, dirt, and pieces of vegetation kicked into the air.

His target – a cluster of comparatively weak Wildlings – took the fire well. One went down with a dozen gunshot wounds, but the others were almost entirely unaffected. Immediately after his spurt of gunfire ceased, the swollen-bellied creatures whipped around and charged in our direction.

But I wasn’t concerned with them. Patrick didn’t have my innate power, but he made up for it with the strength of his weaponry. I knew his guns weren’t nearly as strong as mine, but they were far more potent than most. Couple that with the fact that each one of them counted as a cybernetic – which, given his class, applied significant modifiers – he could more than hold his own on the field of battle.

As such, he could easily deal with that small group.

My attention was on the rest of the horde, which I saw had already begun to surge. Their Mist signatures spun with ever-increasing fervor, but they were still too far away for me to enact the first part of my plan.

That changed before the Patrick’s targets had even covered half the distance between us. Even as they tore across the ruined crater, vaulting over the ruined machines of war, Patrick filled them all with holes. Meanwhile, the rest of the subterranean Wildlings erupted from a hundred small tunnels, adding their bulk to a growing horde.

When that army of mutated creatures grew into the thousands, I hefted the HIRC to my hip, took aim, and let loose.

The results were, in a word, explosive.

The Mist-infused explosive rounds, which were enhanced by both Explosive Shot as well as my significant modifiers, slammed into the front lines, the impacts prompting a dozen small explosions that tore my victims apart. The weapon didn’t have the Dragon’s rate of fire, but it didn’t need it, either, and I felt a smile spread across my face at my increased firepower.

Once, those creatures had stretched me to my limits. But now? My new weapon – and more powerful abilities – made quick work of them. Their fall would have been even faster if I hadn’t reined myself in so Patrick could add his own contribution. Doing so would let him gain more experience, which in turn would push his progression further.

Like that, we took care of the first wave, but even as we cut those first couple of hundred down, I could see that thousands more were on their way. And that wasn’t even considering the ones deeper within the crater; they were far more powerful, and those would provide me with a lot more context as to the strength of my new arsenal.

Before I’d used even a tenth of the HIRC’s magazine, I stowed the weapon away and switched to the Stinger. The assault rifle was sleek and compact, especially when compared to the much larger HIRC, but it felt incredibly appropriate in my hands. Switching it burst-fire mode, I took aim at the largest cluster of Mist signatures; they were still underground, but I could see that they were on the verge of bursting through.

A few seconds passed, and Patrick continued his own onslaught on the smaller groups. Still, I waited until the first group of elites – they were stronger than the ones we’d killed so far, but I didn’t feel comfortable calling them alphas – bursts through. I used Explosive Shot on the Stinger’s entire magazine, which drained a significant amount of Mist, then let loose in a series of three-round bursts.

Each burst destroyed a Wildling. Some went down with the first shot, their chests exploding in green blood and chunks of pale flesh. However, most took at least two shots before their torsos were destroyed. The strongest among them didn’t go down without three shots.

That was a testament to their durability.

But a scattered few took multiple bursts. I considered those on the verge of being alphas, though I knew the real battle had yet to even begin. That, more than anything, hammered home just how close to death I’d come during my first encounter with the irradiated wildlings that called the crater their home. Back then, I thought I’d been on the verge of winning the battle, but now, I knew I’d never had a chance.

Even so, seeing how easily I was cutting the creatures down gave me some context as to how much I’d grown. The real challenge, though, was yet to come. I could see much more powerful Mist signatures underground, and already, some had begun to burst through the earth.

Soon enough, I would see how my new arsenal and abilities would stand up to a real threat.