෴Raz෴

෴Midnight෴

෴Fidel෴

෴෴෴ ෴෴෴ ෴෴෴

We are the Champions

෴෴෴ ෴෴෴ ෴෴෴

During a short stop at what appeared to be a scrapyard for old electronics, Midnight thickened his armor to well over twice his normal battle mass, taking on a load of exotic materials to incorporate in his armor. In his loaded-up state, he set a relatively sedate-paced northwestern course toward southern Mongolia.

Midnight came in for a gentle landing several miles from Mercator’s lair. Night came earlier and more abruptly in the dry mountain terrain. The long afternoon shadows were giving way to twilight as the sun touched the sawtooth horizon. In the fading light, he could see the dry rocky hills around them, spotted with patches of scrub grass.

As soon as Midnight let them out of the travel pods, the other two took a few steps on the rocky ground, stretched, and got their bearings. Raz began to scan the horizon while Fidel dug around in the large pack of gear Brock and Nicolette had sent along. Satisfied that nothing was approaching, he took a moment to stack Friendly Fire markers on Fidel and Midnight.

Hmm, it's a bit fainter than from Brock’s place, and a lot less intense than the outpost was, but I’m pretty sure we’re near an Incursion.

“I think there's an Incursion in that direction.” Raz quietly announced.

Fidel looked in the direction he was pointing, then went back to what he was doing. Midnight didn't even look.

“Yeah, it’s about nine miles past Mercator from here. Good news, this site only has one kind of incursion beast. Imagine a giant earthworm, except these can grow to about forty feet long. They have some natural defenses, but they avoid other animals, and they’re the least aggressive incursion beast I’ve ever seen,” he straightened up and peered toward the horizon, “You could even pet these if they came to the surface, which they almost never do. They don’t seem to be hurting anything, so I leave them alone.”

Once the gear was ready, Midnight glanced in the direction of their target, then turned to the other men. “Any last questions before we hoof it in?”

Fidel spoke up. “Dah. You fly fast. Why walking?”

Raz nodded in agreement. “Good question, how far is it, and not that I mind a walk, but why?”

Midnight looked over his shoulder. “This whole time I’ve been recharging, and you’ve been getting ready, I’ve been wracking my brain to dig up anything I know that might help. One thing I realized in retrospect, is that I’ve never liked how he always seems to know when I’m coming. The only time I can recall him possibly being surprised to see me, I came in the winter, and there was a light snow on the ground that obscured his doors just enough that I landed about a mile out and walked the last bit using GPS to guide me to the spot. It might not matter, maybe he’ll know either way. Just something I thought was worth trying.”

Fidel appeared satisfied with the answer and strapped the tall pack on. “I will need find sites with good view of target.”

Midnight nodded and pointed at a line of low hills to the west. “The ridgeline of those hills should give you line of sight all the way there. It’s on the way.”

Fidel nodded and started walking in that direction. “Blagoy. That will work.”

They walked for just under fifteen minutes when Raz stopped and pointed ahead. “You guys seeing that?”

They shook their heads no. “Ok, think ‘yes’ to this,” Raz said, as he shared out his perceptions to them.

Fidel reflexively swiped at the air in front of him when the prompt appeared, then agreed to receive sensory input from Raz. Midnight simply received it.

Interesting, does that mean if someone says yes once I can do it forever, or did he just not revoke the permission? For that matter, I wonder how you do that.

[Revoking such permissions would be simple for us, and probably not unduly difficult for Midnight. I am unclear on how or if someone with no system interface would accomplish this.]

Another mental note for the to-do list. Figure out a way to get people who already have abilities to get a foundation of some kind.

[A worthy and probably significant undertaking.]

Raz turned his attention to the shimmering field above them and pointed. “See that area in the air? I bet you’re right,” he said to Midnight, “as far as I can tell, it's not exactly doing anything, but it feels like it would react if something big passed through it. An invisible tripwire in the air.”

A few minutes later, they all saw another, smaller shimmering field surrounding the area around the distant doors. Midnight slammed his armor-clad hands together with a clang. “Damn, I bet that’s the one that took Hex out of commission. That’s right about where she collapsed.”

One more reason to take Mercator down.

Fidel stopped and began unpacking gear. Midnight helped him while Raz kept watch. Once the main relay was deployed, Fidel took the rest of the pack and resumed walking with them. They altered course to walk past another good location for Fidel to deploy a secondary relay.

Shortly thereafter, Raz briefly checked electrosense and biosense to see if there were any surprises nearby. The other two men came to an abrupt halt as their vision suddenly filled with unfamiliar composite views of the world.

Midnight shook his head and blinked several times. “I was just getting used to how good your hearing and vision are, it’s like looking at everything through a perfectly focussed telescope all the time. I can see so much detail! The herd of, what are those, Impalas over on that hillside, the abandoned wagon with the broken rear wheels over in that valley. But that… that other view I don’t even know what that was. Is that how you usually see the world?”

“Nyet, Impala is African deer—uh—antelope, yes, African antelope. Those are goats. Look like Gobi Ibex,” Fidel commented, seemingly unphased by the sudden influx of sight and sound.

Picky picky. Someone must like his Animal Plane—Oh wait! He served in this region in the Russian Army. To hear him talk about his survival training, I bet he could just turn north and make it home on foot. I wonder if places like this bring back memories for him, or if he even still has a home.

Raz shook his head and tried to address Midnight’s question. “Honestly, I’ve lost track of how much better my hearing and vision are at this point. To me it’s just how I am. Only when I deliberately turn it all off am I reminded that I used to be almost blind by comparison. What you just saw was low intensity. I’m about to max it out, so stop walking for a minute so you don’t fall over,” he turned on all his senses and opened his sensoria wide. The blazing universe of energy, light and sound, all blended into a gestalt sensory experience he was still only beginning to truly have a grasp on, “But this, this all takes some getting used to.” He finished his look around and closed down his sensoria to his new normal, then disengaged his extra senses.

Midnight shivered. “That is a very bizarre and intense way to see the world.”

Raz shrugged. “I once read that humans only perceive a razor-thin slice of the reality around them. Thinking about all the things I can’t see or feel, I suspect all I’ve done is expanded that razor slit a little. But, if it’s too hard to deal with, all you have to do is focus on using only your own senses and mine will fade into the background for you. ”

Fidel chuckled. “Wondered how you so brave around cliff at night. Was even dark for you?”

Yeah, I guess of all the things we’ve talked about, the actual fight is a subject we’ve kind of tiptoed around.

Shaking off the bad memories of that night, Raz shook his head. “Not really. I could see pretty well. Honestly, I wondered how you could navigate out there in the dark so well.”

The burly man shrugged, causing the tall back to bob on his back. “Hard explain. Sense of heat. Not good in hot sand, but that night, could feel edge of cliff. Like lack of heat. Also have darkness training, use ears for help move at night.”

Raz recalled the way Fidel had stood so very still, hands cupped to his ears as he turned his head like a radar dish.

Makes you wonder what a guy like him could do with my senses. So he has some kind of fire or heat ability, and can sense heat. Does every ability tree include some kind of ability to sense the related energy?

[I do not know, but it would be congruent with what we have experienced if that were the case. Using HUD as well as Synergistic Interfacing appears to allow you a much greater access and integration to this sensory input.]

Soon enough, they reached a spot for the next relay, and turned back onto a direct course toward Mercator’s lair.

As they drew nearer, Fidel stopped and took off the much-diminished pack to deploy the final relay. “Was told deploy machines, watch and record from safe distance,” he said as he setup a tripod, the sound of disappointment in his voice.

Raz clapped him on the back, and surreptitiously checked his health, energy level, and MHP. Satisfied that Fidel was as well-off as he could make him, he just smiled and nodded. “Stay safe my friend.”

Fidel scoffed and pulled out the Tabar waraxe he’d received from Brock. “You stay safe. I am out here with goats. Already am safe,” he said with a fluid whirling flourish of the weapon.

Clearly not his first time with an axe.

Midnight interrupted them. “Honestly, if Mercator wins, and even suspects there’s someone out here, you won't be able to get away from him. He’s way too good with portals.”

Fidel smiled. “Spasibo, thank you. Cannot run away if he knows of me. Is very good to know.”

Midnight and Raz continued on. Once they were solidly out of earshot, Midnight glanced back at Fidel. “He’s an odd fellow. His reaction to knowing that you can’t possibly escape from Mercator on foot was not what I expected. Do you trust him?”

Raz nodded. “How much honesty can you handle?” He countered.

Midnight shrugged, the movement oddly muted in his extra thick armor. “Lay it on me.”

“Ok, well then, honestly, I trust him more than I trust you,” Raz saw Midnight’s stricken expression and hurried to continue, “I’m not saying I distrust you, but part of me can't help but wonder if and when you’ll bail out if things get too tough. You’re the one that said you have to live no matter what,” Raz shrugged, “not sure how else to take that, other than the possibility that you’ll leave me hanging if things go bad.”

Midnight didn’t have a response to that. A few seconds later Raz continued. “By the way, I’m still sharing my senses, so he heard all of that if he’s still accepting the input.”

Midnight spun around and looked at Fidel. With Raz’s vision, he could easily see the man pointing to his ears and nodding. “Great. Well, no offense meant Fidel. Just all too aware of how recently you were on the other side.”

“If I can let it go, you don’t have a leg to stand on.” Raz said quietly.

Midnight signaled a halt. “Whoa! I can’t believe I almost forgot! Listen, this is important. You remember that old movie Ghostbusters?”

Raz nodded. “Sure, that was one of dad’s favorites.”

They both smiled at the memory. Midnight shook it off first. “Do you remember the part at the end with the demon dogs and the door coming open?”

Raz chuckled. “Don’t worry, if someone asks if I’m a god, I’ll be sure to say yes.”

Midnight laughed, a sudden, surprised gut laugh that lasted nearly a minute before he regained his composure. “Whew, yeah, sure. I needed that. But this is serious. If he asks if you’re a champion, you have to say yes. We can talk about why later, if there is a later. As far as he knows, we’re both champions of Earth. Yeah, I know how it sounds. Grandiose much, right? But seriously, if he asks, the answer has to be yes!”

Raz chuckled. “Sure, I got it. Yes, if he asks, we’re gods, I mean champions. And if we have to choose our own destruction, I will for sure, not think of any marshmallow men.”

Midnight sighed. “You know, I truly hope this goes so well you can hold on to that flippant attitude,” he shrugged,” Who knows, we could get lucky. He might decide he doesn’t want a fight with both of us,” he turned a somber gaze at Raz, “You should assume he’ll be eager for a fight.”

As they neared the door, Midnight paused once more. “I wish you’d brought more in the way of weapons. That little two-headed chicken foot won't be much use. You don’t want to get anywhere near him.”

Raz shrugged and extended it out into its war club size. “Brock seemed to think it would serve me pretty well.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure what it’s meant to do for you, but he roped me into helping him make it while you were recovering,” Midnight glanced at the closed three-talon head and then down at the triple-bladed dagger spike at the bottom, “Don’t get me wrong, he makes good stuff, and it looks cool as hell, but you cannot afford to get into a stick fight with Mercator!”

Raz shrugged angrily. “I brought what I have. What did you expect? Besides, you said guns weren’t a viable option, so I brought what I know.”

Midnight frowned. “They aren’t. You’d get one, two shots at the most, and then he’d make a portal sending all the bullets right back at you. You said you’ve only got one day of combat training with clubs. Is that really your best option?”

Wow, he is seriously worried about this fight. For a guy who claims to have won against this guy multiple times, he seems really on edge. I wonder what he’s not telling me.

Raz looked at Midnight with exasperation. “You remember that time mom and dad sent us to ninja school before we learned to walk, and there, in a high mountain secret training ground, they taught us the ancient arts of battle until we were masters of every weapon, kata, and form?”

Midnight cocked his head to the side. “No! What are you going on about now?”

“Yeah. Me neither. Aside from recreational shooting, all I’ve got is this club martial art I just learned, and the mixed martial arts classes in middle school that you know as well as I do, we signed-up for, thinking it would make us into tough guys, then didn’t try all that hard in. Sorry I’m not a lifelong trained and blooded warrior with hundreds of years and thousands of battles worth of experience,” Raz chuckled to himself, “ I know you’ve been old and experienced for a long time, but at the end of the day, I’m not you,” he spread his thumb and forefingers and caused dancing arc of energy to appear between the tips of his gauntlets, “But hey, if it’s any consolation, I can throw lightning, so maybe that’s worth something?”

Midnight sighed and nodded. “Sorry, that was uncalled for. You’re right, that ability seems pretty powerful, I hope it’s enough. And yeah, I’ve been around for a while now. Sometimes I forget what it must be like to be so young. Just remember, watch your back in there.”

That reminds me. I need to make time for more practice using full surround senses. Eyes in the back of my head is pretty awesome, but only if I can use them without it being a distraction.

[Agreed. I’ll continue to feed you instinctive information, but mastering this skill yourself would be best.]

They resumed the walk toward the inset doors on the rocky hill where Mercator lived. As they walked they continued to quietly rehash their strategy, such as it was.

Near the midpoint between Fidel and the door, Midnight stopped and face palmed. “Oh no! I almost forgot something critical,” he looked at Raz with irritation, “Damn, I wish you’d just let me go through my whole spiel back at Brock’s place. I had it all mapped out in my head, everything you needed to know about the Megiror, and how to deal with Mercator specifically,” he glanced around at the darkening valley around them, “Now we’re wasting time here, and I need to stop and go over some things.”

“Ok, then stop bitching about it and just tell me.”

Midnight scowled, then pulled up his screen. It was only visible for an instant, but Raz noted it was covered with various scribbles, including at least one symbol he recognized from the sheaf of thin metal documents the Ancient One had given him.

“Ok, so there are some things you need to not talk about, even tangentially, to Mercator, no matter what.”

“Hold up, I’m mentally prepared for knocking down his door and immediately going in guns blazing for a fight to the death. Are you saying we’ll be having tea and chatting first?” Raz didn’t hide his skepticism.

Midnight’s armor flowed away from his head as he glanced between Raz and the distant doors. “I wish, that would increase our chances of a peaceful resolution. It’s not likely, but it is possible. He has a kind of twisted code of honor. If you show up as a guest he’ll at least pretend to be civil right up till he tries to kill and eat you. Our best shot at killing him would be to come down hard and fast, hit him with overwhelming firepower. But that’s not our best plan to get mom out. I suspect that would get her killed. This is all very uncharted territory for me,” he glanced up at the stars fading into sight, “Honestly, I don’t know how things will go in there. The last time I saw him we were trying to kill each other. Since then I’ve left him cows, and come back to find stripped bones with the marrow sucked out. He could be,” he paused, and lowered his voice, “Look, I didn’t want to say this, but you know how I was saying that I’ve fought him before, and won? I’ve also fought him before, and lost. Not a total loss obviously, I still got away, but a loss nonetheless. What I didn’t tell you, and the reason I was looking for someone with some firepower, is that I’ve never been able to win a fight against him if he’s fought me before.”

Raz scowled, glancing at the doors ahead and back at Fidel. “Yeah, that’s a hell of a thing to just happen to forget to mention. Do his abilities adapt, or his tactics?”

Midnight sighed. “His tactics, definitely. Once he’s got a sense of what I can do, he acts differently, knows my tricks, and the fight is a lot more one-sided, and I’ve never even come close to winning a second round before having to bail out.”

Raz ran his hand through his unruly mop of hair. “I really should have gotten a haircut,” he muttered to himself, “Well, thanks for waiting till we’re here to bring that up. Why’d you wait? Do you think I’m going to back out? That's my mother in there. Maybe in some way, you have a connection to her as well, and that’s great, but if you fly off into the blue sky right now, I’m still going in. So anything else I should know, you might as well just spit it out now.”

“Yeah, like I was saying, if we end up talking, then no discussion about science, or even science adjacent topics. Nothing, I don’t care if he tells you the sun is a torch being pulled by a chariot across the sky, you don’t correct him, or disagree. You get me?”

I get that you’re sounding more and more like a nutjob, sure.

“Yeah, no science. I hadn’t planned on having a chat at all, so not talking about something specific won't be hard.”

“Good, the other thing you need to not mention, is your age, or how long it’s been since you were exposed to Catalyst. Obviously don’t lie, but try to evade the question if he asks. I don’t know how he would react, but I know they have longer lives than humans, and assuming he was telling the truth, they take a long time to gain capacity for abilities. The main thing is, he’s the enemy, and we need to avoid giving up any information, since we don't know what information could help, or provoke him.”

Great, he might want to talk, but don’t talk about anything. Cool.

[As a Pinnacle ability, I recommend keeping HUD a secret from enemy factions as well.]

Really starting to hope he just wants to fight.

Finally, they reached the doors. Through the heavy stone, Raz felt a yawning chasm, something that felt oddly infinite and yet small and claustrophobic. Electrosense revealed a few feet of a tunnel, then nothing. Midnight was about to lift the heavy stone panel when Raz spotted the telltale fine shimmer there at the edges of the frame. He silently held up a hand to stop Midnight from opening the door. “I’m pretty sure that even if he doesn't know already, he’ll know someone is here as soon as the door opens,” he whispered.

Midnight quietly swore. “So much for my stealth plan. If I crack the door just a little, could you do that thing where you teleport on lightning and slip through it?” He paused and looked at Raz with a question in his eyes. “Actually, do you even feel like you could use that ability right now?”

Anything stopping me from using Spark Gap?

[No. There are varying unknown energies in our immediate vicinity, but the ability feels completely available. Beyond those doors, things get a little weird.]

Yeah, I noticed.

Raz nodded. “Yeah, feels fine. As I understand it, it’s not really teleportation, just very fast movement in an altered state. But,” he held up a hand to forestall Midnight’s eager response, “You heard it when I used it at Brock’s place right? There is nothing stealthy or subtle about that ability.”

“Oh yeah. I didn’t think about that. In that case, I don’t see another option but to go in and roll with whatever happens.”

“There’s something else.”

Midnight froze, then slowly turned to look at him again. “What?

Raz opened electrosense again, and increased the sensitivity so they could see the tunnel through the stone. “See the way it outlines the walls of the tunnel there, but then just fades away a few feet in?”

“Yeah, but this land is very high in iron. Not a great source for trace metals, but plenty of iron. Could it just be grounding it out?”

Somehow, I doubt it’s that simple. Now I wish I could turn invisible or something. Just sneak in there and see what’s up.

Raz nodded, worry and eagerness fighting for control of his face. “I guess that’s possible. So, are we knocking at the door, or just busting in? Either way, let’s do it.”

Suddenly, Raz felt a pulse of foreign energy all around him. Sitting on a nervous hair trigger, the instant he felt something, he went hard into slow time. With new Might at his disposal, he felt faster and more capable in slow time than ever before, experiencing the world through discrete slices of glacially advancing time. The certainty of imminent danger burst through him. When the massive doors of stone slammed open, Raz was already jumping back away from them.

Something almost visible, more of a ripple in the air, flashed through the space he’d just vacated. An impossible vortex. A force somehow twisted into existence against all laws of reason and nature. Something so lethally wrong he felt it in his bones. Through the vortex he caught a glimpse of a dark shape quickly receding into a darker backdrop, dotted with specks of distant light . Everything about the disk of horribly corrupt energy passing through where he’d just been, screamed mortal peril to the ancient reptile brainstem deep within him. The brutal affront to his senses moved fast even to his slow time perception. The disc hit the ground where he’d stood, cleanly removing a disk of soil and dirt several inches deep.

A corrupted pulse of energy filled the air and warned him an instant before another disc of mind-bending twisted reality appeared. He was already rolling away from the effect when it came into being. A vast sound like a deep, roaring whistle filled the air as a sudden windstorm engulfed him. He crawled away from the sound. A glance over his shoulder showed him grass, sand, and rocks alike being sucked into the void. Scrambling away as fast as he could, staying low to the ground, he still felt the hurricane force winds grabbing at him. Gravel and grit, driven by the wind, sandblasted his face in slow motion. The wind pulled him toward the source of the whistling wail.

If I get sucked through that hole I’m done, I know it!

Diving as deep as he could into slow time, he half crawled, half swam against the torrent of air and stone. In desperation, Raz opened his sensoria wide, looking for anything that might help. Amidst his desperate attempts to fight against the pull, he spotted a thin connection, an ethereal strand of something connecting the disc to something further inside the hill.

Alright, let's see how connected they are. Target it then Sky Bolt.

Drawing from one of his recently developed mental and procedural shortcuts, Bee layered Ground Control and a red Ionized Path marker on the disc itself, and opened the White Fire gate wide, for just an instant. More than long enough for a crackling shaft of lightning to erupt from the earth and sky, meeting at the disc itself. The disc vanished without a sound, leaving behind nothing but a cloud of rushing air and dust in its wake.

Be ready to do it again, as fast as possible.

[Of course, I’ll Bee ready.]

Seriously? Not now!

Raz got to his feet in slow time, sensoria open and alert for another attack. He glanced over to see how the older version of himself had fared. Midnight was gone. Raz spun around, eyes wide and searching, peering around him through the cloud of dust, and above at the darkening sky. As night fell on the valley, he was alone.

Then he heard it. Echoing faintly from deeper inside the tunnel. A sound he hadn’t heard for years, not since she got her life back together. A voice he recognized all too well. The sound of his mother crying.

It’s a trap. It’s obviously a trap. The question is, is it a trap for me, or for anyone?

Raz looked around again for Midnight. There was no one in sight. He swallowed his fear, gripped his weapon tight, and descended into the earth.