The Effaced: Chapter Seven

On the other side of the portal lay Mist. 

Lay my past. 

Before I was Axel.

But no, that wasn’t quite right. As much as I liked to pretend those days were gone and never coming back, it had taken me a long time to shed off who I was as Mist. This hadn’t been a big, dramatic instance of throwing things away. It had been the gradual putting away of things that I thought I didn’t need, but was too afraid to throw away. 

I was suddenly very glad that I hadn’t thrown them away now.

A set of pistols were there. They were old now, years out of date, with actual revolving cartridges, instead of a slimmer chamber. They’d been sitting here, stuck in another world, not even able to gather dust, for years. I’d been allowed to keep them, and use them in the military, when I was serving as a part of my remittance into society. But the pistols weren't the only guns - there was nearly two dozen assorted guns that ranged from small pea shooters to long distance rifling guns to an airship-armor piercing enchanted gun. There were boxes of cartridges too, ammunition for each of them. All things that I’d purchased during college, convinced that the Arenamaster would try to take me back, and I’d have to live life on the run from her. 

A series of swords and knives and even a few axes, all ones that I’d won from my mentor as I’d grown up, then later, the simple, standard military sword that I’d worn from just after I turned eighteen, through my service, and into college. I was pretty confident that the first time I’d willingly taken it off had been when I’d met Darren, and well, that had turned out just lovely, hadn’t it?

Up until I’d seen the constables at my door, I’d thought my ex-boyfriend was right about it not being healthy to keep weapons on me at all times, like I was one of the people of Paerús, Traktath, or Saxum. 

Now I wasn’t so sure. If I’d still been acting like Mist when I’d seen the constables – really, truly acting like mist, not just shaping spells on muscle memory – I might well have killed them. And if I had, I knew I wouldn’t have been granted the clemency of a child raised in a cult. 

I reached out and picked it up, then drew it from its sheath. Though I wasn’t a druid, I remembered that the air in this world wasn’t quite the same. The oil had faded away, and the blade squeaked its protest, but sure enough, there was no rust to be spotted.

Then I turned my attention to the combat clothing and the armored coat. They were the crowning jewel of the collection, even if I doubted that they’d fit me anymore. The coat might – I hadn’t grown that much since I’d had it last updated and fitted during college, and while I’d lost some of my soldier’s physique and had put on some weight, not so much it wouldn’t fit. 

I picked it up and tried it on. The entire thing was made of wool, with the thinnest threads of steel woven through it like a delicate spider’s silk, as well as several heavier plates of steel around the vital areas. 

Ceramic was better than steel plating for protection  – it was much lighter, was far more resistant to heat, and absorbed the impact more effectively. 

If the person wearing it wasn’t a metal sorcerer, that was. A metal sorcerer who had a recharge that allowed them to draw out more aura when they were touching steel.

The magic flowed to my hands as easily as the magic I used to repair broken plating around airships. Easier, even. My mentor might have been terrible, but she’d made sure I practiced every single one of the spells she deemed needed until I was dreaming about their spellforms. 

The spells clicked the two halves of the plate around my chest, then around my stomach into place, before beginning to alter the properties of the metal. I made it lighter, stronger, more flexible. 

Even with the spells running through it, the coat was heavier than I’d remembered. 

Maybe I was just weaker.

I let my eyes skip over the stores of food that I’d tucked away, and to land on the last item that I wanted to look at, but I couldn’t help myself from taking a glance at. 

Mist’s mask. 

There was a chip at the bottom, where a life sorcerer had closed the distance and clipped him – clipped me –  in the chin with her club. Another chip near the cheek where one of my mentor’s water bullets had almost hit me. A thin scratch from my… from a sword duelist. 

I’d killed him. I didn’t remember everyone I fought. I didn’t even remember everyone I’d killed. I wished that I did, but the Arenamaster had started throwing me into fights too young for the memories to entirely be coherent. 

I remembered him. 

A thin kindling spark of fire lit itself in my belly. I had thought that it was gone, that I couldn’t hate the Arenamaster, because Mist was dead, and Axel was here, and Axel didn’t have all of these terrible issues. 

But I couldn’t run from my past. 

If someone from the undercity had been the one to arrange the constables to be looking my way when Senator Ermonte had been killed, then it was my past. 

If someone in the buildings of the city had arranged for it with their bureaucratic power, then they’d done so because I had a record, and were out to get me, or at least use me as their scapegoat. That went twice as much for the wealthy in their ivory airships, looming over everyone. 

I left the coat on, picked up a single pistol, and slotted it into the coat, with a box of ammo in the opposing pocket. 

Just one. I wasn’t going to slip back into Mist. I didn’t want to be Mist, I wanted to be Axel, the engineer who had no history or past at all, who just lived a normal – maybe lonely, but still normal – life.

But I couldn’t do that. 

I couldn’t be Mist. 

I couldn’t be Axel. 

I’d have to make a compromise. Be both. At least for a little while. 

Then I paused. If the constables, or someone else, was watching me, then they’d see that I emerged with this outfit on. Maybe I needed to ease up a bit on the Mist. 

Then again, if I was being watched, what were the odds that they’d try to take me out? 

Low, I finally decided. If they needed a scapegoat, then the odds that they’d try to kill me were pretty low. More likely that they’d be there to collect evidence and use it against me in court. Seeing as that was likely to be rigged, I considered that I didn’t want to do anything that would make it worse, unless I absolutely had to. Going out in an armored coat with guns was just rash. 

Still, I didn’t want to go without any protection at all. There was accepting that whoever was pulling the strings would probably prefer me alive, and then there was just stupidity. 

I removed the coat and pulled on the old shirt, interwoven with metal. It was uncomfortably tight now, and incredibly itchy, but the stream of aura it provided would be invaluable. I put the guns back, and considered taking a sword. The sword, after all, had been Mist’s backup weapon, if guns weren’t allowed in the arena. 

But no, that was obvious too, and anyone watching would probably use it to argue I was a violence prone sociopath. 

I picked up one of the knives. It was short bladed only about three inches, and folded its blade in, rather than needing a sheathe. Not even really a combat knife. It was one of the first knives I’d ever won, meant for a child. 

It would be easy to hide, though, and in the worst of worse cases, it would be possible to claim the constables had simply overlooked something of this size. 

I closed the portal, folded the cloth up, topped up the enchantments one last time – just in case – and then stowed it away. After that, I changed into a gray button down shirt and suit jacket, which should hopefully hide my combat shirt, and pulled on a winter coat. The weather was still a bit on the warm side for it, but it wasn’t so warm that I’d get many odd looks.

My attorney had told me that the best thing I could do was stay where I was, keep a low profile. I would, but I needed to pay a visit to an old friend, at least once. Since there was technically nothing criminal about it, or even all that suspicious, I didn’t think there was much of a chance that it could be misconstrued in court. 

I replaced the tile, slotting it firmly back into place, then moved the dresser back on top of it, before my stomach rumbled. 

Maybe I could take a quick break to eat. 

I rummaged through my pantry until I found some powdered nuts – it had been poked through as well, and while I’d put things back, it was still not completely in the order that it should be.

I mixed the powder with some water, then spread it on some bread, alongside some jam, but after eating it, I was still hungry, so I poked around the icebox and withdrew some frozen meat from… A while ago. 

Well, it was frozen, so it was probably still good. 

I let a pan levitate out and activated the heating enchantment on the stove, letting the heat flow into the pan, then flicked my hand, quickly slapping together a spell that would let the metal conduct heat better, then tossed the frozen meat in, cooking it quickly.

It came out a bit burnt, but also oddly wet, but I ate it anyways, grumbling all the while. I wasn’t a great cook – shockingly, it hadn’t been on the Arenamaster’s list of skills, and I’d never seen the need to pick up the skill in the military or college. For a while, Darren had cooked, but… 

I pushed those memories away. I might be diving a little into my past, but the painful memories that came with being Mist were helpful. The memories that went with a long, messy breakup were not helpful. I could, no, I would just repress them, and not let them touch me. 

After I finished my meal, I headed out, taking the lift down to the street level. I didn’t hail a cab, since I didn’t want to pay for it, not while money was still tight, but instead I started walking to a nearby grocers. I walked through the shelves, picking up some bread, more jam, more powdered food, and then walked to the cashier, who quickly summed up the total on her pad. I wrote out a check, then glanced up to her. 

“Pardon, ma’am,” I told the pimply faced teenage girl. “Do you know if the owner’s in?” 

She froze, and I had no idea why. A few moments later, I realized that she might be terrified that I might be getting her demerits at work. To a teenager who was still in school, the prospect might be scary. 

That wasn’t my intent, so I hastened to explain. 

“Jessica and I go way back, you see,” I said. “She probably doesn’t talk much about her past, and I can’t blame her, but we know each other pretty well. Just tell her Axel Font is looking to talk to her.” 

“Of course?” the girl said, making it sound more like a question as she tucked the check away, then turned and ran to the back of the store. A few moments later, she returned to lead me back as well. I followed without complaint, passing through the chilled rooms, some of which were submerged underground to help insulate them and keep the dairy chilled. From there, I was led into a thick concrete office, inside of which sat Jessica, doing paperwork. 

Jessica was my age, though none of us knew our exact birthdays, not really. She always looked older, though, like a woman in her forties, whereas I thought I managed to maintain a youthfulness to my appearance. Her style was deliberately casual, wearing a shirt that barely even had buttons on it, only three at the top, and a pair of slacks that had to be freezing. 

To all the world, she looked like an amiable owner of the grocery store, someone who was probably a respected member of the community, but I could see the dark spots under her eyes, the faint, barely visible runes that were etched into the walls and that certainly weren’t to just help things stay cool. 

She placed her pen aside and waved off the cashier, then gave me a serious look. 

“Shut the door behind you.” 

I did, sealing me inside the concrete box. The door was thick, heavy metal. Copper, with a few layers of steel in the center, to strengthen it. The enchantments on the door weren’t obvious at all, but I didn’t need to shape a metal sensing spell to know that they would be worked into those layers of steel. 

“Hello, dearest sister,” I said, a hint of wry amusement in my voice.