The recent argument with Aurora weighed on his mind. She would be pissed if he tried to save her, and she would be dead if he did nothing. It was an awesome lose-lose situation.
He exhaled a loud sigh, surprised at how quickly the situation had shifted. His father’s warning came back to him: ‘Never engage a superior force, especially without the resources to defend your position.’ He thought his new powers would be enough. They had been until now. He had to check in to see what Aurora had invested the FP into; maybe he could defend the manor better than he could in the past. If they wanted to take it, they were going to have to fight for it.
Gus had walked down the beach on auto-pilot and began to jog down it as he thought. He was bursting with stress and indecision and just had to bleed some of it away through physical exertion. He was rapidly approaching being overwhelmed with the heavy decisions he would have to make soon, so he ran and he was able to think a bit more clearly with his body otherwise occupied.
He knew he couldn’t just give up the manor. Basileus was crazy but he had to see that if he killed Aurora, he wouldn’t have any negotiating power. Gus began to form a plan on how to buy himself some time. He would get new abilities after sleeping tonight and extra time would let him get familiar with them. He should hit level 20 and hopefully unlock another Fractal Level with the stat boosts that accompanied it. Or so he hoped; he still didn’t understand how or why that mechanic worked.
He still had the arena, and he couldn’t waste the XP that Adaptive Training offered; maybe he could level enough to get that much stronger. Gus jumped over a large downed tree with ease. So much had changed from his first time running around the island.
What about his pre-Leech abilities? He had been neglecting them in his effort to become familiar with the new ones, but how could he blend the two? Nick’s question of ‘What do you want?’ kept coming back to him. What did he want from all of this? He remembered those days before the pirates came where he could practice his skills at his leisure, develop them in an easy, relaxing environment. Granted, he had leveled much more quickly with all the attacks, but it was stressful and frenetic all the time. Not something he felt he could maintain long term.
How had his dad done it for so many years? Compartmentalizing was never one of Gus’ specialties. He was becoming painfully aware that he really had not had any major challenges in his past life. He had gone through some things that he thought were tough, but in comparison to now, they were laughably frivolous and fairly childish.
He wondered again what life would be like when he got home. His big worry was that it was going to implode. That his new self-imposed responsibilities and goals would be so alien compared to the past Gus that he would simply not connect with his old friends and just drift away.
Or that he would be so busy that there would be so little time to dedicate to goofing around that his friends would find someone else to fill his space. The thought of losing his friends both worried and angered him. He sped up his running as the emotion swelled. Part of him thought they would accept him regardless, but the other part that held on to his own prejudices stirred up enough doubt to make him uncertain.
He had thought he had wanted just to defeat the invaders, but what would prevent more from coming? While he enjoyed trying and gaining new abilities, the novelty was wearing off a bit. He was often using them as an afterthought, rather than a planned part of his attack strategy. Maybe that would change in time as he assimilated them into attack routines.
He had to get more powerful, that seemed to be the key. Maybe Purple Faction was right by following the tenet ‘might makes right.’ If he was strong enough, he could make his own choices, not be buffeted about by the whims of others. He was so sick of other people forcibly guiding his life. That was the type of independence he really wanted, to choose his own destiny without anyone interfering.
When he framed it like that, it almost sounded like how super villains lived. Hell bent on their personal agenda, and any opposition must be swept away. Was that where he was doomed to end up? Was there any use in worrying about things that far in the future when he had a real enemy to face tomorrow? Gus shifted his thoughts to planning what to do to deal with Basileus and his goons.
Gus continued to run, dismissing worries as they popped up, trying to center his thoughts on productive plans. He was worried he would come up with nothing useful as he kept moving while his brain shifted into cruise control, offering nothing insightful.
Gus wanted to take a break. To just run away until he was mentally ready to deal with these new problems. None of his powers could stop time though. He tried to formulate plans, but he kept coming up empty. Before he had Nth, and Gus felt overwhelmed, he would sleep a lot more than normal. He would retreat from any social interactions and keep to himself. Maybe binge stream a holovid series, or play a game.
Eventually the overpowering sensations would fade and he could deal with life again. That life
