Mistrunner 4 - Chapter 51 - Guidance (Patreon)

I hate the things I’ve had to do. The lives I’ve ruined. The lies I have told. And for what? So when the time came, we would be abandoned to a fate none of us earned? The Templars were supposed to save us. And yet, we find ourselves in the same boat as everyone else on Earth.

Frederick Connoly

The trip back to our temporary base was characterized by a subdued attitude. We’d set out to save a team of likeminded defenders of Earth, and we’d come away empty handed. What’s more, the aliens had destroyed any information or equipment we might have taken from the situation. But even then, I was more focused on the things I had lost.

My arsenal implant was gone, and my guns had been destroyed right along with it. All the bombs I’d made, my hoverbike, and even my clothes had been disintegrated by the bomb that should have taken my life. I had survived, and in doing so, I’d crept closer to a revelation that I felt was always just over the horizon, but knowing that didn’t help me in the short term. I still had no weapons, no armor, and no hoverbike.

But at least I’d proven much harder to kill than even I would have suspected.

Once, I’d seen a video of my uncle where he’d survived for some time after being decapitated. And despite that gruesome image – and all the implications that followed – I couldn’t stop myself from hoping that I would be capable of repeating that feat. Of course, I didn’t want to be decapitated. The last thing I desired was to be put into that kind of a situation. But at the same time, I hoped that if I did find myself beset by those circumstances, I could endure.

Now, I knew I’d shot well past that mark. I didn’t even need a body to survive – at least for a little while. And I could rebuild my body during whatever time I had. It was a disturbing level of power that I still couldn’t quite wrap my mind around.

Still, it had saved my life, and I’d gained power as a result. I didn’t have a status to tell me I’d gotten stronger, and there were no pretty skill trees to consult. Yet, I knew that I’d made some serious gains. Without testing, if I’d had to guess, I would liken it to a similar power jump to what I’d experienced after killing the Pacificians and evolving my class.

Which was terrifying.

Because I was already far and away the most powerful individual on the planet. I’d come to grips with that reality when I started taking down mystics left and right. They’d thrown the best they had against me, and they’d continuously come up short. That was all the evidence I needed to recognize that I’d reached an uncommon – perhaps even unique – level of power.

It wasn’t enough, though.

I knew that right down to my roiling core of Mist. For all of my might, the aliens still had all the advantages. Sure, I could escape, and probably more easily than ever before. I could probably even take a few people with me. But Earth seemed no closer to being saved than when we’d first begun. That was a depressing, yet persistent, thought.

“Are you really okay?” asked Patrick, glancing over as I sat in the co-pilot’s seat. He’d finally gotten the Leviathan running, though it was clearly not in great shape. Hopefully, he was right when he’d claimed that he could get it back to perfect condition once he had time and access to all of his tools, the largest and most expensive of which were back in the temporary base.

“I don’t know, Pick,” I admitted with a shake of my head. Then, I looked down at my hand and said, “I rebuilt everything, cell by cell. Maybe atom by atom. A few hours ago, this was the Hand of God. Now, it feels like flesh and blood. No – that’s what it is. It’s not artificial. It’s real.”

“Can you do it for me?” he asked.

“Do you want that?”

As he piloted the Leviathan, he shrugged. “Maybe. Sometimes. The cybernetics are useful, and most of the time, they’re way better than my old limbs.”

“But?”

“But it’s not the same. You know that as well as anybody, right?” he said. He wiggled his artificial fingers. “I can feel with these, but there’s something missing. It’s not like using a real hand. Real fingers. No matter how good the cybernetics, it’s just different. Not worse. In a lot of ways, it’s better. But it’s…”

“Different. Yeah.”

I didn’t feel that from my new hand. Or the rest of my body. In fact, everything felt better than it ever had before. Though it did come with the added caveat that my every sense was heightened, and I could feel the saturation of Mist like never before.

“I can try it if you’d like,” I offered. “I don’t mind.”

“Maybe,” was his noncommittal response. I understood his hesitation. After all, there were infinite ways it could all go wrong. But I vowed to help him if I could.

“What do you think caused that explosion?” I asked.

He shrugged, clearly relieved at the change of subject. “I don’t know. Like I said, it was just a beam of light from the upper atmosphere,” he answered. “A satellite, probably.”

“Or a ship,” I suggested.

“Yeah. Or that.”

And considering that there was a massive ship up there with all sorts of advanced weaponry, I didn’t have to think long before I came to the inevitable conclusion. “It’s the Infinite Conquest. I’m sure of it,” I said.

“If that’s the case, we’ve got problems. That thing…Alistaris said that it was advanced even in the core systems,” Patrick explained. “That means that for us, it’s…it’s insane.”

“It would have to be something big,” I stated. “That blast radius was miles wide. It could destroy an entire city. I guess I’m not the only one that likes to blow stuff up.”

“Be serious.”

“I am,” I lied. As troubling as what had happened was, it didn’t really change anything about what we had to do. We’d always known that the aliens possessed far superior firepower. Seeing it in action was terrifying, but it didn’t give us any new information.

The next couple of hours were punctuated by idle conversation and Patrick’s questions about how I had survived. It clearly scared him, what had happened, but I think that knowing what I could do frightened him even more. Or maybe it just reminded him of how much of a freak I really was.

Finally, Patrick guided the ship to its customary spot, where he set it down only a few dozen yards from the compound Alistaris and the Dingyts had built. Once there, we went through the post-flight checklist.

“I’ll go let Al know what happened,” I said. “You want to come?”

He shook his head. “I’m going to start working on the ship,” he said. “It’s going to take a while to get her back to normal, and I want to get a jump on it. Let me know if anything important happens.”

“Will do.”

Then, I headed to the nearby hatch and let myself outside. Night had long since fallen, and the sky was filled with a carpet of stars. I took a moment to admire it, wondering which ones of those stars hosted other planets that, presumably, had similar problems to Earth. Of course, I also saw the moon, and my eyes found the crater I’d left behind after my lone trip to the lunar surface.

Hopefully, I wouldn’t have similar control issues as I continued to fight the Gamorans and the mercenaries they’d hired. If I repeated the actions I’d so flippantly taken on the moon, Earth wouldn’t survive. That was the level of power I was dealing with now. Control was paramount because anything less would destroy the planet. I was certain of that.

Sighing, I pulled my attention away from the night sky and headed toward the facility. However, when I arrived, I was a little surprised to find that the gate didn’t automatically open. More, the gnomes who were acting as guards kept their weapons trained on me as they demanded to know who I was.

“Are you serious? I’m Mira. You all know me.”

“Mist signature’s off,” said one of the Dingyts, her weapon still pointed at me. I could have disabled her – and anyone else in the facility – if I so desired, but I knew that would cause more problems than it solved. I chose to wait for cooler heads to prevail, and soon enough, Alistaris arrived.

“You going to call off your dogs, Al?” I asked.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

“Mira.”

“No, you’re not. We’ve had Mira’s Mist signature stored for months. You don’t fit.”

“Yeah, because I got blown up. That kind of thing tends to change a girl, if you know what I mean,” I said. “I don’t –”

At that moment, something hit me in the side, sending me sprawling across the ground. However, I arrested my momentum with a quick pulse of Mist, then shot into the sky. That’s when they started shooting.

The first few bullets thudded into my rebuilt body, but they didn’t penetrate more than a quarter of an inch. They still hurt, though, so I raised my hand and, with a deft surge of Mist, sent the gnomes flying backwards. At the same time, I looked down to see a furious Freddy leaping in my direction.

And he meant business, too, because he glowed with a blue corona of Mist that roiled like fire. Before he reached me, I shot to the side, sending another tendril of Mist at him. Before he could react, I squeezed it tight and yanked him back to the ground. He hit with enough momentum to break a normal person’s bones, sending a cloud of dust billowing from the point of impact.

But I knew he wasn’t really hurt.

None of them were, because I knew that if I took that step, things would progress well past the point of no return. If I really injured someone, I’d probably have to kill some of them. And considering that I didn’t want that, I showed restraint.

For once.

“Enough!” I shouted, seeing a shimmer in the Mist that told me where Alistaris was. I slapped him aside with another tendril of Mist, deactivating his ability. He skidded across the ground, hitting the nearby wall. “I don’t want to hurt anyone!”

Freddy roared, “Abomination! What did you do to her?!”

That’s when I lost my patience and let the full extent of my new power loose. It exploded from me in an explosion of Mist that knocked all but the strongest unconscious. I didn’t even know what I was doing – not consciously, at least – but that didn’t make it any weaker.

Of course, Freddy and Alistaris remained conscious. Neither of those two would succumb so easily. However, it did stun them, which allowed me to send thick tendrils of Mist out to wrap around them. Then, I pulled, yanking them in my direction. When they got close enough, I stopped their momentum and left them hanging in mid-air.

“Stop!” I yelled. “Just stop!”

“Imposter!” growled Freddy. “What did you do to her? Who are you? What are you?!”

“Oh, for God’s sake, it’s me!” I insisted. “I met you in the woods after you lost one of your apprentices to the Mist. He’d just turned into a wildling, and you were following him.” Then, I turned to Alistaris. “You cornered me in New Cairo, sneaking up on me and trying to blackmail me into working for you. It worked, but we kind of moved on from that after I slaughtered a bunch of android assholes. Since then, we’ve been working together. Plus, every time I let you into my ship, you leave a bunch of trackers behind.”

“That doesn’t prove anything,” Alistaris said. But Freddy at least looked mildly convinced. In any case, I had to spend the next few minutes recounting everything about meeting the both of them before they finally accepted that I was who I claimed to be. Even then, I could tell that neither of them were entirely convinced. But at least they weren’t going to attack me anymore. If that persisted, I was going to have to make some tough decisions.

Finally, I set them both down and floated to the ground.

“When did you learn to fly?” asked Alistaris.

“You aren’t you,” Freddy insisted. “Far too much Mist. And your body…”

“Please stop looking at my body, you old pervert,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. It didn’t work, so I said, “Fine. Okay, so here’s what happened…”

I explained how the mission went down, going into as much detail as I could. I even described how I’d learned how to fly, taking some degree of pride in Freddy’s disbelieving reactions. More than once, he muttered, “Impossible.”

Which just made it feel that much better. Or it would have if he wasn’t staring at me with undisguised suspicion.

At last, I got to the part about the bomb, and I described how I’d pulled myself back together. It wasn’t entirely accurate, largely because words failed to properly convey most of the experience. Yet, I did the best I could, ending with, “But it’s not all sunshine and daisies. I lost my whole arsenal, my Cutter, and my clothes. So, I’m stronger now. A lot stronger. But I don’t have any weapons.”

“That…is quite a story,” Alistaris said. Then, he turned to Freddy and asked, “Does that make sense to you?”

That’s when I realized that Freddy was almost assuredly drunk. The pungent smell of alcohol combined with body odor hung off him like a cloak, and he looked like he hadn’t bothered with basic grooming for weeks. And finally, he was more than a little unsteady, with his Mist aura undulating out of control. Which wasn’t like him.

Or it hadn’t been before he’d obviously given up on life.

But there was some life in his eyes, now. Something that hadn’t been there at any point since I’d first met him. That highlighted a simple fact: Freddy’s decline had been ongoing for longer than I’d known him. Probably longer than I had been alive, given that Templars were known to live quite a long time. It was a grim reminder that, even if I was more powerful than most – maybe more than everyone – they all had their own lives, their own struggles. The world did not revolve around me.

Except that, in some ways, it did, which was a difficult thing to accept.

“She’s on the verge.”

“The verge of what?”

“Of Supremacy.”

“So soon?” asked Alistaris.

“A body forged of Mist. An untethered mind. Control. It’s all there,” Freddy stated. “She need only take the final step.”

“How?”

“Guys – what are we talking about?” I asked.

“Supremacy,” said Freddy, his eyes shining with something manic, with something I didn’t like.

“Okay – but what is that?”

“I have spoken of those people who have reached the peak,” he said. “The ones so powerful that they’re as gods to the rest of us.”

“Yeah,” I said, recalling the conversation.

“You are close to becoming one.”

“A god?”

“Indeed. But it is a long step. A difficult one that most are never prepared to take,” Freddy explained. “I didn’t think I would ever see it with my own eyes, but there you are, glowing like the sun. It is beautiful and terrifying in equal measure.”

“Can we use this?” asked Alistaris.

Freddy shook his head. “No. She won’t soon take that final step, and forcing it would be unwise.”

“In what way?” asked the Dingyt.

“She would not survive, and her body, mind, and soul would be absorbed into the Mist,” said Freddy without hesitation. “She is more powerful now. Far more than either of us can comprehend. Even she doesn’t know her limits. Yet…”

“Yet limits still exist,” finished Alistaris.

“Indeed.”

“So, nothing changes?” I asked, annoyed at the cryptic nature of the exchange. They made it sound like I was nothing more than a weapon. Certainly, I was that. I had accepted that role. But at the same time, I was a person, too.

“Everything has changed. But our situation is still dire,” Freddy stated, some of his mania fading. “We are still doomed.”

Then, without any other warning, he turned and walked away. I was tempted to reach out with a Mist tendril and bring him back so he could answer my questions, but I stopped myself. Freddy was broken, and though that brief exchange had tapped into the person he’d once been, it hadn’t changed who he was now.

So, I turned to Alistaris and asked, “What’s the plan? I know we lost a team, but…”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “We thought you were dead until you arrived. I’m still not sure that you’re not an imposter.”

“I’m not.”

“That sounds like something an imposter would say. For now, just head back to your ship. We need to figure out where, exactly, that blast came from. Once we’re sure of that, we’ll need to take care of it. I have some ideas on how to take down the blockade, but they’re not certain,” he explained. “The issue is that it’s not just protected by a single defense. Norcite plated satellites. Mist shields. Drones. It’s all built to guard against Templars, so it’s meant to defend against anything we can do.”

“We’ll figure it out,” I said. “I have faith.”

“That makes one of us,” Alistaris admitted with a sigh. “Now go. Rest. I’m sure some new crisis will present itself tomorrow.”