“Yeah? Hello? What you want? I’m playing Stormjumpers—nuclear detonations? ‘Clad on ‘Clad—dammit, the Fallwalkers again—Highflame? Stormtree cadres. Open battle in the district of Nu-Scarrowbur? Plot to assassinate—okay–okay, slow down.
Loop the district. In fact, loop the surrounding ones too. No one in or out. Put the Warrens back under lockdown. And somebody cast Voidwatch. I need them to distract the Guild while I figure out how to settle this mess.
Couldn’t even wait for me to finish this match.”
-Chief Paladin Naeko
10-24
Beneath the Tree
It took but an exchange of strikes for Avo to learn that Abel Greatling was his superior in a direct clash of force.
Edge struck edge as instruments of blood and light met in a calamitous joust. The Strider’s wings flared and all that shone cleaved deep. Where once he felt needling pricks beneath her resplendence, now came countless puncturing thrusts. Gleaming blades lanced free from her wings and all the tungsten in the world wasn’t enough.
A gulf burst free at his center. He barely shifted Draus and the others down just in time. The Strider’s strike kept going, coring through blocks and bridges for as far as her shine could reach. Around him, he could feel more of the district crumbling, more flickers of flowing ichor winking out.
How much had this battle cost in collateral damage? How many unaffiliated lives had been consumed for no fault but simply existing in the wrong area? So much wasted flesh, never to be tasted, memories bound for dissolution, and ghosts destined to wither away.
Drawing in more mass from the ground, Avo replaced that which was unmade nigh instantly, but the flaying glare of the light too was unceasing. Tendrils shot through rubble below him, roots sprouting high while he flattened his flowing shape to duck away from the worst of her gaze.
He moved twice again as fast as his foe, but the range and immediacy of her assault drove him back under the weight of countless blazing spears. Whatever constructs he lashed out toward her were severed by her radiant aura.
A scything wave of light met a shredding barrage of haemokinetic shards he whipped free from his own being, the Woundshaper’s outer layer spinning like a hurricane. Her slash parted clean through the onslaught and bifurcated him along the middle just as the first of his brambles breached free from the ground and into her.
Naught but roiling smoke-like falcons and humming pulses of force greeted his encroachment. His touch slipped through Strider’s form at an angle.
She dissolved then, her falcons sweeping a full fifty feet away while her wing was mid-swing.
The light faded, and the cutting pressure went with it. An eruption of blood lashed out and found no purchase even as she remanifested.
Another series of explosions shook the district.
Light splashed against and through his midsection. His tonnage halved. Time snapped forward. He reached down and seized the split segment of his ontology before it could destabilize and see his companions smeared.
Linking, time lurched again as both flapping wings reared high overhead as they slammed into—and then clean through—a devastated megablock. The ever-flashing lightning of the storm tree illuminated both Godclads as they made the final ingression to the heart of Nu-Scarrowbur.
Entire floors descended as a waterfall of ruin upon Avo, showering his form and soaking harm from the invading brightness. The Strider’s aura diminished for a moment. He took the time to think.
Fusing a capsule around Draus and the others, he ejected them from his being as he increased his speed. He couldn’t overcome Abrel’s omnipresent influence while fighting at diminished efficiency. They would be fine if his Phys-Sim’s calculations were correct. Safer than they would be with him right now, anyway.
He cast his allies free and embedded them into a stable section of wall behind him. The Regular could probably tear her way free, and he’d try to locate them in the form of the Galeslither once he had the chance to break from this fight.
For now, he needed to approach Abrel Greatling. Without the means to strike at her physically, his next best chance was to break and escape or influence her mind somehow. Both options posed substantial risks as his Haemokinesis was the only thing that allowed him an advantage of speed and force over her.
The Galeslither might as well be a still target for her attacks, and if she had anything capable of projecting heat–like the body of an enforcer armed with a fusion burner, for instance, backlash and thaumic overload would be certain to follow. That, and he had already suffered the weight of a paradox earlier by whatever space-affecting canon inverted him out of his Galeslither. There was at least one other Godclad here whose abilities directly contradicted his.
Rays of light stabbed clean through the collapsing tonnage of the megablock. His cog-feed whined with warnings of building Rend. Every strike from her painted gaps in his person. Every attempt he made to counter was met with destruction or absence. He needed to change tactics. He needed to strike her from symmetrical footing.
It was such a thought that spurred his Heaven to speak. “Inject your Rend into her, master”
The suggestion was a strange one. His Hells dissolved matter and or drank momentum. Perhaps the Galeslither’s could affect the Strider, but even then it would be a temporary measure.
“The supplicant knows much–symmetry, as Kae has spoken. That is the critical weakness of every God, every Godclad. Through all Hells are we bound by a singular domain: Entropy. Perhaps you might not be able to strike them, but you should be able to transgress their boundaries and infuse that which festers within you into her, seeing as you could manage the action by joining yourself to a Rendsink. For now, we simply need a method of encircling her–strip her focus and surround her.”
Part of him wanted to ask how she intended for him to perform such a feat, but the memory of puppeteering bodies and corpses returned to him. He didn’t need to fight in such a centralized manner. Indeed, holding to the superstructure of the Woundshaper itself was proving to be an increasing liability in this battle. Where Abrel’s canons dealt a certitude of damage, he needed to drain her endurance and awareness through other means.
REND CAPACITY [WOUNDSHAPER]: 89%
His structure expanded into rings of flowing plates. Each other layer ran curved to deflect some of the flashing light. Most importantly, he injected his central mass through the collapsing floors of the block and into the ground beneath him.
Bodies and lives were swallowed in the onslaught. His thaums and ghosts were building. Narrowed by battle, his attention belonged to Abrel Greatling alone.
Bursting free from the other side of the block, flicking strikes split the air between them as tons of his mass were snipped free from his grasp. With each stroke she made with her wings, she transposed herself on a haze of falcons, using the weightlessness of intangibility to keep pace with his speed.
Slowly, the velocity advantage shifted over to her.
But not fast enough.
Again, he found himself beneath her. Only this time, the nucleus of his being was tunneling through the ground beneath her as she dispensed with the rest of his vessel. With a chambered burst, he erupted out from beneath her. Testament to her training and reflexes, she noticed him immediately and slashed down.
Light sliced through the foundations beneath her as a spike of blood was split in twain.
And then the Strider froze.
A bubble formed around Abrel’s Heaven–a pocket of stasis enchaining her to a debt of movement. Her speed was impossible and he risked thaumic overload with her acceleration.
Caught in the throes of combat, Abrel failed to notice the rushing of whistling wind sailing out before the haemokinetic construct was cast, and so focused were her wings in that instant that Avo found a window to sink back into mortal flesh and strike her from behind her heel, using the darkness of her smoking falcons to obstruct the light.
A heartbeat was all the time he had. He made it count.
Falling free, he speared his Echoheads into her being, thoughts frozen in anticipation. If this failed, then he had to focus only on fleeing. He would have to risk using the Galeslither for an extended duration, but he didn''t like it. Remaining in combat only prolonged the conflict and allowed her to herd him toward true death with the Rend infusing his resurrection cyclers.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Then, it happened.
His Frame cast out a ripple, and like the time he accessed the Rendsinks, he felt a connection form.
META-FAC ACTIVATING
TRANSFERRING REND FROM THIRD CIRCLE [WOUNDSHAPER] TO THIRD CIRCLE [STRIDER]
->REND CAPACITY [STRIDER]: 94%... 99%
->ACCESS CANONS–
Just as Avo stopped to consider the last bits of information, Abrel Greatling collapsed her own Heaven in a burst of expanding shadows. It struck him how enormous her form had been–taller than his Woundshaper, though not quite as large. From the darkness dove a figure clad in bright porcelain armor, plates of flashing propulsion expanding out from her back via a magnetic connection.
Avo hissed as he pursued her using his Galeslither. He would strip the combat skin from her body and pluck whatever implants she had. With how delicious Jhred was, the sister couldn’t be–
Space inverted around him again. Reality twisted like a rubber band, and then he was fifty feet away from where he started, crashing through a glass bridge as he found himself tumbling out from his Galeslither before smashing into Abrel.
Both Guilder and ghoul cried in concurrent surprise as he felt the heat of her thrusters singe his plates while he embraced her using his Echoheads. The surrounding cityscape was a blur of cascading collapses and skull-shaking impacts.
With their Metas overlapping, he cast his ghosts out and injected his traumas into her. Yet, upon overlapping his mind with hers, he found the dissonant wavelength shivering the flow of his ghosts from passage–something he had experienced when he tried to spoof into her while hiding within Mirrorhead’s memories.
Traumas went in but faded without properly impacting. He didn’t know what was happening. Was this the work of a cano–
She headbutted him. His fangs shattered. Spitting broken teeth into her visor, he returned the favor. Except for the fact that he was using his Quicksand in place of his skullplates. Wards rang against wards as he felt her mind rattle. How was that impacting when his ghosts were not?
COG-CAP: 44%
He did it again and felt her Metamind fracture. Abrel cried out, clutching her head. Space around them inverted again and they skipped thirty feet above. And again. And again. With each skip he struck her using his wards–he might not be able to infest her with his Ghostjack, but his wards were adapted to trauma, and hers wasn’t.
Suddenly, ward-bashing was a viable option again. Sometimes, the vulgarity of force just worked out.
As space lurched around him, Zein tore out from his being, and suddenly, pieces of an unseen golem split apart right next to them, its ring-like structure breaking in two as a chain of spatial checkpoints collapsed back into each other.
Suddenly, he found himself back where he was while he was chasing Abrel using his Galeslither. Except this time, she came back with him.
They slammed hard against the side of the block as something flashed brightly in the distance. Scraping down the side and crashing through a balcony, he kept her between him and the onrush of obstacles even as her armor cooked him. Twin stings of pain erupted from his abdomen as he felt something punch an inch through the protective shell of his sheathe.
The moment didn’t last long as they were struck mid-fall by a spiraling drone.
A series of rattling cracks sang up his left leg and hip. Feeling faded from his lower spine. Shrouded by the protective embrace of his Echoheads and her armor, Abrel barely grunted.
Flung free from stable trajectory by the sudden impact, Avo found himself launched through a partially collapsed megablock with his prey in tow. They skipped off against a piece of plasteel rebar and came to a crashing stop against an already cracked wall. A classical family portrait fell from its place and broke against Avo.
Squeezing Abrel tight, he gathered what remained of his unvented Rend and–
A line of pain slipped through him. Feeling faded from everything below his abdomen. As a hiss of pain escaped him, Abrel pulsed and her form shifted. Her body erupted into a pillar of fire as his Echoheads began to chitter in pain.
HEAVEN DETECTED
CLASSIFICATION: SPHERE I [EST. 10 THAUM/c]
->RES-RESERVE UNIT-1
A spew of flames lashed out at Avo. It felt like he was being cooked by a low-level fusion burner. He ignored it and sank a claw into her. Channeling the Rend from his Woundshaper out again, he felt the Hell attached to her Res-Reserve Unit-1 fill instantly.
Again, Abrel shifted ontological vessels, flickering across subreality channels as she angled to a different cycler.
HEAVEN DETECTED
CLASSIFICATION: SPHERE I [EST. 10 THAUM/c]
->RES-RESERVE UNIT-2
This time she turned into an open fissure surrounded by floating rocks. He had no idea what this Heaven entailed, only that he felt himself getting lighter. Spilling his Rend into her again, he felt this Hell of hers nearly burst before she shifted again.
“Come on,” Avo hissed.
HEAVEN DETECTED
CLASSIFICATION: SPHERE I [EST. 8 THAUM/c]
->RES-RESERVE UNIT-3
REND CAPACITY [WOUNDSHAPER]: 78%
She was suddenly a giant golden sunflower with seeds made from solid diamonds. This, too, didn’t last as he continued infusing her with the Rend from both Hells. By this point, her First Circles were only soaking single percentage points from the massive pools of his Galeslither and Woundshaper.
If he continued, he would–
A line of dissolving flame threaded through his torso. Avo’s mind went blank as he felt both of his lungs combust from within. Inhaling hurt. Existing hurt. Three more beams tore through him through the block itself, slicing clean through three of his Echoheads as he toppled from the Guilder in pieces.
A loud cry bellowed from the outside. Something was flashing again.
“ABREL! ARE YOU–” Something exploded. Someone screamed. His cog-feed glitched and a tide of rushing Soulfire washed over him.
It felt wrong, somehow. The same sensation you’d get when someone’s organs wash up against you in the sea.
“Master… there are pieces of a Fallen Heaven in that. I could–”
RUPTURE DETECTED
DOMAIN: [SIGHT]
Sight?
How would that–
Avo got his answer when both his eyeballs burst apart. He first choked before the searing pain as his sight vanished. Then, he seethed as he heard Abrel scream with frustration. She must’ve suffered from the same effect.
He wasn’t going to get to eat her eyes.
The beast in him whimpered.
His flesh began to bubble and mend from the inside, fibers reaching out to knit his flesh anew. For the umpteenth time, he found himself pleased that he got the Echoheads implanted. Chittering, the shape of his surroundings came back to him, and he found Abrel standing as the thrusters folded out from her back again.
He lashed out for her and caught her by the ankle. By the strength of her combat skin and her implants, he felt his blow ring off as if striking memetic matter. Lashing out with two more Echoheads, he forced himself up using one that remained and realized his lower body was still lying halfway across the room.
Her thrusters snapped off as one of his tails struck her. A projectile darted out from her back. He spored the air with his Mime-fog and latched onto the ceiling. Whatever she fired at him punched through the wall and missed.
Blinded and enraged, she turned and fired a dozen more shots using some kind of auto-gun implant under her wrist; the slugs exploding on impact, shredding the room even more.
And coming nowhere close to hurting Avo. Pushing off from the ceiling, he launched himself down using one Echohead as a spring and the others as unfurled fingers. He was like a wolf-spider from days of old springing down upon its prey.
When he touched her this time, he would liquefy her and tear the Frame from her corpse as well. So close. To kill two Greatlings in one day would be–
An impossible force swept him and Abrel out of the block.
The room warped and twisted around him as a concussive wave blasted him through the walls and into the open air. Gravity took him again and lightness filled his thoughts and body. Rain. That was the first sensation he noticed. Rain licking away his wounds. Rain falling through down from on high.
It was getting to be midnight again. Channels of water were still allowed to flow from on high. Distantly, he could hear wailing sirens making their approach as well.
As the healing water returned color and shapes back into his sight, he blinked, only to find his vision directing a chain of lashing fire into the air. Around him, a thousand other such beams split the brightening sky over Nu-Scarrowbur.
Passing across the ringed portals of the stormtree, Avo suddenly felt himself caught in a net of unseen force. His momentum drained. His thoughts cleared. Coughing, he spat out fried pieces of his insides as he opened his mouth more to take in the healing waters. The air around him rushed and turned. He felt himself placed against soft soil and muddied ground.
There was a static buzzing beneath the earth. A building force sang out around him.
He felt a whisper from the past brush over his mind. “Two. You are close. There were so many deviations, but we are on the precipice of a most delicious future, little dagger. You will thank me when this is done.”
“Zein,” he growled. Pushing himself up using his Echoheads–three of which were regrowing, he found himself basked in the warmth of three flame-encased golems.
One of them drew closer. Avo expanded a lattice of blood around him.
And then a rasping voice echoed out from the first flame. “Stay zero, consang. I would’ve fried you instead of catching you if I wanted to get bloody.” A pause followed. “Still got half a mind to, see. Your arrival has… fucked my home up something bad. But hey, that’s life sometimes.” A snort. There was a disorienting disjunction with the way the man spoke. “Listen. A couple of my old friends wanna talk to you. Say that you got something of theirs. Some kind of Helix. Say that a certain Thousandhand pointed them this way to my home. You, uh, got something to say about that?”
The flames brightened. Avo growled.
The Low Masters were involved in this chaos too. Why wasn’t he even surprised?
Zein.
Zein was why.