Mistrunner 4 - Chapter 41 - Escape (Patreon)

Consequences. It’s a concept that most of the universe does not fully understand. On the surface, that doesn’t seem to be the case, and yet, they consistently push people past their breaking point. Eventually, they snap. And one day, one of those people is going to set everything ablaze.

Alistaris Kargat

“It smells weird in here,” I remarked as we strode down the wide corridor. “Like a mixture of ozone and antiseptic, with a little gunpowder mixed in. I can’t say it’s a pleasant aroma.”

“Please take this seriously,” Alistaris said, limping along.

“I could carry you.”

“No,” he growled.

“Hear me out. If I did carry you, would you prefer to ride on my shoulders? I think I could rig up a harness with a couple of my belts,” I said. “Or are you one of those princess-carry kinds of guys? I bet I could even strap you across my chest so you could –”

“Miss Braddock.”

“What?”

“Please stop talking.”

“What?” I asked innocently. We’d recently passed into the more populated part of the Bazaar, and we were definitely getting some odd looks. I didn’t blame them, really. A gnome walking through a space station wearing nothing but an oversized – to him – Leviathan tee-shirt wasn’t such a common sight that people wouldn’t take notice. Making it even more attention-grabbing was the fact that he was carrying an assault rifle almost as big as he was.

He sighed. “Nothing. Where are we going?”

“Meeting a friend, then heading to the hangar where we parked the Leviathan,” I answered.

“And this friend is?”

“Gala.”

“Gala who? It’s not that uncommon a name.”

I shrugged. “You know what? I never got her last name,” I admitted. “Does that make me a bad friend? Or just self-absorbed.”

“The latter,” he said without hesitation.

“Ouch.”

“This can not come as a surprise to you,” Alistaris pointed out.

Indeed, it didn’t. I was well aware that I acted like the world revolved around me and my misadventures. Yet, in my defense, it often did. However, I knew it was an issue, and it was one I’d resolved to try to fix. I had not been successful.

“Anyway. Gala’s a giant minotaur lady,” I said. “She’s –”

“Are you talking about Galatira Iamaxis?” he asked, stopping in his tracks.

“I just told you I don’t know her last name,” I stated. “Why? Is she a big deal?”

“I didn’t think she had gotten involved,” he said. “I knew she was in the system station, but…”

“I’m going to need an explanation,” I said when he trailed off.

“Galatira Iamaxis is a former Erdikar Dreadnought commander,” he said. “A war hero who was forced to resign after her sister disgraced their family. Normally, that would have been a death sentence – people don’t just leave the Erdikar Dreadnoughts – but she was too popular. She could have led a revolt, if that had been her goal. Most people expected it. And yet, she did precisely what she said she was going to do and headed out to the frontier to peddle weapons. I suppose I should have made the connection…”

“You’re not doing so great on the all-knowing mastermind front,” I stated. “I thought you knew every step I took.”

“I did. In the beginning, but lately…you’ve become difficult to track,” he admitted. “Is Commander Iamaxis going to join us?”

“She’s the reason I’m here. I think they came for her first, then she tried to rescue you. It failed, and she escaped in some sort of tiny ship. Ended up coming to me for help. By the way, you’re welcome for the rescue,” I said. “Most people say thank you when somebody risks their lives for them. But hey – I suppose manners have never been your forte.”

He sighed. “Apologies. I will thank you properly once we’re safe,” he responded.

“I was joking. Sort of. But let’s get moving. Gala’s waiting for us.”

After that, we set off through the so-called system station I’d always referred to as the Bazaar. For me – and all the other residents of Earth – it was a special and miraculous thing. However, for everyone else in the universe, it was nothing unique. I had to keep reminding myself that my little corner of the frontier was a backwater, and Earth was so far behind that we weren’t even in the race.

Not in any way that mattered.

That meant I couldn’t afford to hold back. Instead, I needed to seize on any advantage I could find, the realization of which solidified the plan that had been brewing in the back of my mind since I’d first arrived in the Bazaar. It was crossing all sorts of lines, but I was no longer holding back.

I let out a slight chuckle at that, which brought a curious glance from Alistaris. I said, “Sorry. I just had a silly thought.”

The reality was that I’d stopped holding back a long time ago. Yet, there was a difference between not restraining myself and actively seeking to do as much damage as possible, regardless of the consequences. The system was so stacked against Earth that I was only a hair’s breadth from throwing all morality aside and embracing the burn-it-all-down mentality. After all, if society had no intention of stopping a technologically superior group from coming in and literally destroying my planet, then I reasoned that I owed nothing to that society.

Aside from my ire, of course.

Regardless, I was rapidly approaching the point where I had nothing to lose. So, the idea that I would hold back anything was kind of laughable, especially considering that I’d already killed millions of people.

What were a few million more, right?

In any event, Alistaris and I got plenty of odd looks on our way through the Bazaar’s corridors. Once or twice, people looked like they were going to try to stop us and demand to know what was going on. In those situations, all it took was a glare from me to bring them up short. If they’d come any closer, I would have ripped the Mist from their bodies, and without significant hesitation.

Perhaps that said something about my current mentality. Or how addictive power could become.

Not that I was eager to learn any lessons, of course.

Eventually, we found our way to the massive chamber that held Gala’s shop, and to my surprise, there was no one there. Certainly, the stacked cubicle-like shops were probably occupied, but I’d half expected to find a squad of Gamori warriors as well as a few enemy mystics barring our way. There was no one, though, which put my hackles up.

“It’s quiet,” I said. “A little too quiet.”

“What?”

I sighed. “Nothing,” I said. Then, I added in a mutter, “Patrick would have gotten it.”

It was only a few more minutes until we found our way to Gala’s shop, and when we arrived, I saw that there were quite a few scorch marks on her door. In fact, her cubicle looked like someone had beaten it with a large hammer, though the door slid open the moment we came in range.

Gala poked her massive head out and said, “You weren’t followed, were you?”

I’d been keeping my senses – the normal ones as well as the one associated with my class – so I would have detected if anyone had been trailing us. So, I said, “No. Not sure how long that’s going to last, though. I left a mess back there.”

“Better come in, then. I’ve got some medical supplies for your friend,” she said.

I let Alistaris go first, then I followed. As I did, I asked, “How is Patrick?”

“Fine,” came his voice. “A little embarrassed is all.”

I saw him sitting on top of the counter, his back to the wall. He looked fine, but I knew that having his Mist disrupted like that had to have been both disconcerting and painful. On top of that, it tended to make people feel extremely vulnerable. Patrick showed no signs of that, but then again, he probably would have kept that kind of thing to himself around Gala and Alistaris.

Regardless, when the door slid shut, Gala unceremoniously picked Alistaris up and set him on the counter. He objected weakly, but she ignored him. Instead, she immediately started to treat his wounds via a series of injections. I couldn’t help but notice the Mist swirling as she worked, suggesting that a skill was in play.

Once she’d finished, Gala said, “That’s the best I can do. It’ll take time or someone more skilled than me to do any more.”

“Thank you,” said Alistaris. “Do you by chance have any other clothes? I fear this…shirt looks ridiculous on me.”

“I think it suits you,” I remarked.

He ignored it. Gala said, “I think I’ve got some clothes that auto-size. Come with me.”

After that, the Dingyt hopped down from the counter and followed Gala through a door that had just appeared. At one point, I’d seen that same spot turn into a closet containing a multitude of weapons, so I knew there were shenanigans about. More importantly, I could see the subtle flow of Mist that suggested that the entire cubicle was far more than it seemed.

“I think this whole place is some sort of spatial anomaly. Bigger on the inside than it looks from the outside, I mean,” I said.

“Probably,” Patrick agreed. “It’s not uncommon technology in the wider universe. I’ve seen it mentioned quite a few times during my research, but it requires a bunch of materials that aren’t available on Earth. Although, the theory isn’t that dissimilar from your Cutter.”

“Or your armor.”

“That’s tied to my skill. Completely different thing.”

“Oh,” I said. Then, I asked, “How are you?”

He ran his hand through his hair, and with a sigh, answered, “Embarrassed, like I said. I feel like I should have done more. After all the work I’ve put in…I don’t know. It’s just disappointing.”

“Have you gotten any further studying the Adjudicator armor?” I asked, knowing that he’d begun to investigate methods of incorporating the norcite-based material into his own mech suit.

He shook his head. “Getting that to play with my abilities is like trying to light water on fire,” he said. “It just feels like I’m missing something important.”

“You’ll figure it out. In the meantime, I got a present for you,” I said. Then, I retrieved an item I’d picked up after the battle. I tossed it to Patrick, and he caught it. “I thought you might want to study to see how that sort of thing works.”

“Is this…”

“One of the grenades they used to disrupt the Mist. Yeah,” I answered. “Maybe it can give you some insight into how to block it next time.”

The item in question didn’t look like one of my grenades. Instead, it was a ten-inch long cylinder with tiny spikes jutting out all over. Inert, it didn’t seem all that dangerous, but I well remembered how it had disrupted the Mist, rendering Patrick and Gala insensate. For my part, I’d quickly overcome it, but it wasn’t difficult to imagine a situation where someone used something like that to better effect. So, I’d taken an extra couple of minutes to search one out so that Patrick could hopefully figure out how it worked.

From there, it wouldn’t be long before he could counter it.

Before either of us could continue the conversation, the thunderous sound of gunshots filled the air. I could tell they were coming from outside, but to my surprise, my {Mist Warden} senses couldn’t penetrate the cubicle’s walls. As I sprang to my feet, drawing the Stinger from my arsenal implant, Patrick slipped off the counter and pulled his pistol from the holster at his waist. Then, his cybernetic arm opened, revealing a cannon I’d never seen before. But there was something about it that seemed familiar.

“Is that my old scattergun?”

He nodded. “New, enhanced, and improved. No more pretending to be non-lethal for this bad boy,” he said, looking at the thing appreciatively. “Mist-infused electro-net of pure destruction.”

“You just made all those words up.”

He shrugged and grinned in my direction. Just then, Gala and Alistaris returned, but both had clearly found some equipment. For his part, the Dingyt wore an infiltration suit not unlike mine, though his featured a host of holsters filled with various weapons that seemed to fit his size. In his hands was my R-14.

Gala, though, wore a full suit of real armor that, in a way, reminded me of the black gear of the Adjudicators. However, it differed in a couple of key ways, the most notable of which was the color. It was blood red with gold accents. Second, it was absolutely flooded with Mist.

For her weapon, she didn’t bother with a firearm – aside from Ferdinand II at her waist. Instead, she’d armed herself with a giant sword with a blade wider than my shoulders. It reminded me of the weapon wielded by the red-suited android I’d fought back in Olympus, and whose name I’d never bothered to remember.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Defenses activated,” she said. “I knew they wouldn’t stand for this.”

“It was a trap,” Alistaris said. “They expected her to come. Now, they’ll throw everything they have at us.”

“How many?” I asked, my words punctuated by the muffled gunfire of Gala’s defense system.

“At least a hundred. More than one mystic, I’m certain,” he answered. “If I’d have known they had this kind of presence…”

“The Gamoris are like avastian burrow roaches,” Gala said. “There’s always more of them than you think.”

“What’s an avastian burrow roach?”

“Context,” Alistaris said.

“No, I get they’re probably some sort of pest. It’s just a very evocative name, and I think a little curiosity is perfectly –”

“Mira,” Patrick cut me off. “Not now. This is serious.”

I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Yeah. Fine. Putting on my serious face.”

I scrunched up my face, which brought a bit of a snicker from him.

Gala sighed and said, “Children.”

“This is what I have been dealing with all this time,” Alistaris said.

“You have my sympathies.”

“Hey, we’re not that bad!” I insisted.

Gala just shook her head. “In any case, they think they have us pinned. Mira, you’re our flanker. Patrick, I need you in your suit. Commander, you will circle around behind and assassinate any officers.”

“Uh, how are we getting out?” I asked. “Only one exit, as far as I can see.”

She fixed me with an unreadable glare, then gestured at the back wall. Suddenly, it slid open to reveal a pair of doors. “That leads out back.”

“Oh. Secret door. Nice.”

“Please take this seriously.”

“I am. Totally,” I said, using Vanish. It was unnecessary, but I liked the effect. The moment I’d disappeared from sight, I sued Stealth. Then, without skipping a beat, I reached out with Mist Authority and commanded the door to open. It did, and I slipped outside. I heard Gala say something back inside the cubicle, but I ignored it. Instead, I focused every thread of my mind on the coming battle.

Vaguely, I was aware of Alistaris exiting behind me, but he went in the opposite direction. For my part, I slid along the backside of the cubicle wall, holding my Stinger. As I did, I kept my overall plan in mind; it wasn’t time to put it into motion, but that wasn’t the point. It required quite a bit of preparation if I was going to pull it off.

So, I moved a bit more slowly than was absolutely necessary, but eventually, I reached the end of the cubicle wall. When I did, I circled it and took a look at the force arrayed against us.

There were more than two-hundred Adjudicators, each one in gleaming black armor. In addition, I saw dozens of mundane soldiers as well as a multitude of mechs and drones. It was an army, and not a weak one, either. It made the forces I’d fought back on Earth look like ragtag militias.

In the back, I sensed a pair of tightly controlled auras, and it didn’t take long after that for me to lock in on their owners. One was a tall and slim alien with four arms, while the other was a short, green, goblinoid creature that was so wrinkled that I suspected it was absolutely ancient. The tall one was obviously much weaker than the goblin, but neither were nearly as powerless as the one I’d dispatched so easily back in the compound where Alistaris had been held captive.

“I’m going to take care of the mystics,” I said through Secure Connection. “It’s not –”

The goblinoid whipped his head in my direction, and a moment later, I saw a giant hand of concentrated Mist racing in my direction. I hammered Mist Authority against it, scattering the would-be attack.

But another came directly after that, slamming into me and knocking me across the huge chamber. I didn’t stop until I hit a line of cubicles, denting the exterior upon impact. It hurt, but I didn’t take any serious injuries. However, there was already another attack coming my way. My mind going a thousand miles an hour, I used Teleport to avoid it, then reached out with Mist Authority to take control of one of the bots.

The latest version of my Rage Ghost took hold in an instant, and it immediately spun around, burying its allies under a barrage of bullets. They didn’t do much damage – the enemy was entrenched behind a series of Mist shields – but that was never the point. Instead, I’d only intended for the thing to cause a distraction, which it did remarkably well.

I took aim and fired upon the mass of soldiers, and my rounds were certainly not as inconsequential as the bot’s. They tore through the warriors with undeniable fervor, while another thread of thought sent a different tendril of Mist Authority to hammer into the goblinoid mystic.

He easily slapped it aside.

But by that point, yet another thread slammed into his partner, who wasn’t nearly as quick on the draw. In an instant, I’d infiltrated their system-like core and torn it to pieces. They dropped without ever having affected the battle.

Meanwhile, Patrick and Gala came thundering out of her cubicle. He wore his mech suit, with his sword extending from his arm and the shield held out before him. Gala didn’t bother with any of that, instead leaping into battle like a berserker. Her giant sword swept out, cleaving four soldiers in half with a single attack. Their fellows attempted a counterattack, but their shots clanged off her armor ineffectively. And then, she was among them.

Not to be outdone, Patrick stomped into battle right behind her. Even as I parried another giant hand of Mist, I saw Patrick slam his shield of blue Mist into an Adjudicator, sending them sprawling backward. Then, he brought his sword down in a vicious overhand attack. Like Gala, his armor was impenetrable to the small arms fire. However, neither of them were impervious to the likes of the Adjudicators.

Still, the held their own, which allowed me to focus on the fight at hand.

It was not going well.

Even as I fired upon the goblinoid mystic, I used multiple threads of thought to slam into him with Mist Authority. But without even moving, he blocked each one, even going so far as to send multiple attacks my way.

I held my ground for a few more seconds, but it quickly became increasingly clear that I was entirely outmatched. I brought the full weight of my [Multi-Mind] to bear on the fight, but I made no headway. In fact, his attacks were getting closer and closer by the second. I needed to do something.

Anything.

Just when I was getting ready to take drastic measures, one of the Adjudicators barreled into me. I recovered quickly, hammering the Hand of God into their throat, but that small distraction proved to be my undoing.

The goblin mystic’s own expression of Mist slammed into me, wrapping around me like a constrictor snake. But it didn’t just exert physical pressure. Instead, it was mental as well. And finally, it felt like it was squeezing the Mist right out of my body.

Finally, the goblinoid moved. Just a single step, and then a cocky smirk. Even from fifty feet away, I could feel the arrogance radiating from him.

And then, a deep gong-like sound swept through the area, and the goblinoid exploded. The stranglehold of Mist faded, and I fell to the floor, gasping for air. When I looked up, I saw Alistaris standing where the mystic had been. He had a long, wicked knife in his hand, and he was absolutely covered in green flesh, blood, and a few other unidentifiable bits.

I gave him a nod.

He returned it with one of his own.

Then, we both turned our attention back to the battle at hand.