It won’t take much for everything to come apart in battle.
This is why you cannot rely on the Nether when the fighting gets rough. Things get disrupted, and even Ori-Thaum’s Weavewrither Counter-Suppressive Intelligence Network can be suppressed by prolonged Thoughtwave Detonations.
As such, a Godclad cannot fixate on a single tool alone. You need to open additional options for yourself. You need to create openings and stay aware of the situation, or you’ll find yourself lost and soon to be dead.
Remember the sequence of battle. Perception and awareness are everything. Establish and control your perimeters. Shape the situation. Prepare your necessities. Engage–and do it quickly. If you stay locked in combat for too long they will zero in on your canons and rotate specialized Rendbreaker units to see you snuffed.
Tempo. Tempo. Tempo. Play to your rhythm, and get out before you culminate.
And if everything is already going to hell, and you don’t have a clear overview on your situation, break, retreat, survey, and then assault.
If you juvs want to keep those Souls you got, you need to use your heads. Not knowing what kills you isn’t an acceptable excuse when the Big Nothing comes calling.
-Santanado “Starsinger” Mondelles, Combat Instructor to Axtraxis Academy of Highflame
14-17
A Seizure of Gifts
The scene portrayed by Reva’s aero’s visual sensors made it look as if distant stars were flashing into being over the assaulted block. As bright as they burned, so too were they quick to dim and fade, as if the flames torching them from within were pulled away to another place entirely.
Something about the incomprehensibility of it all made Reva’s stomach turn.
+Holy shit,+ Raldi breathed. His awe–and terror–were palpable. Never before had she seen him so captured by a sight, and never did he allow so much emotion to leak through his thoughtstuff.
Whatever the creature was doing, it was enough to shake a veteran Necrojack to his core.
+What’s happening?+ Reva asked through their shared session. +What’s he doing?+
Raldi didn’t respond immediately. Instead, as his ghosts leaped and twisted to and fro from his mind, he connected her to his cog-feed and interfaces loaded into her mind’s eye. He was creeping through the districts surveillance systems.
+He’s nulling them. All of them. Jaus, it’s like someone firing a fusion burner down an interconnected. He must be tearing through their lobbies. This… Jaus, I have no idea how many people he’s nulling by the second.+
As if to compound his words, the ghosts once transmitting their warnings over the block sparked and promptly vanished, and with their banishment followed the light as well.
An entire patch of the district went dark.
Beside her, the ghoul clicked its spear-like fangs together and chuffed with artless glee. The unseen massacred pleased him, but his disposition was that of a connoisseur observing an art piece–no; he was the artist himself, marveling at the greatness of his own skill.
Slowly, he turned, and the writhing flames that crowned his accretion discharged a splash of ghosts and burned ever thicker. Between the undulating folds of the blaze, she caught sight of screaming faces and ethereal memories breaking and forming like the steam that cloaked her body.
Her instincts screamed with anxiety, and she understood what she stared upon immediately; these were the memories of his victims, fed into his ghosts and stripped clean of their consciousnesses.
A subtle shift of his posture made her jolt, and she reached out for her Heaven–
And stayed her hand in the last instant.
“You are forgiven,” Avo said, low hissing mirth escaping him. “I cannot blame you for being afraid. It is appropriate. Now more than ever it is a proper response. You are a real person, Reva. It is good to treasure your own life. Understanding your kind more now.”
Reva felt her nerves tighten with every word the monster spoke. Her blood was rushing like before a battle, and it took all that she had to refrain from attacking him.
She had to.
For all the hubrises he was certain to possess and the paradoxes she could strike if only she knew all his domains, but of his absolute weaknesses there was one avenue. Yet, what would follow would certainly be her end—and possibly Raldi’s.
She had been a Bloodthane for years, and in that time she told herself a single story, that she was the huntress, and her foes the prey.
Not so at present. Not so.
An old truth revealed itself to her then—one long known to the wolves, wargs, and beasts which dwelled in the deep and deeper of the woods.
There are mountains beyond mountains and horrors above horrors.
“How many,” she whispered. Her voice didn’t sound like her own. “How many did you null?”
The ghoul’s gaze was a discomforting thing to suffer. His happiness offered greater dread still. “I am now composed of forty-thousand six-hundred and forty-two ghosts. They can assemble and form over eleven thousand one-hundred and forty-six templates. They were unprepared. Some jocks died first. But I went for their Necros immediately. N-Sec disemboweled first. Then I went for the rest. Left their snuffer teams alive though. Five hundred and twenty snuffers backed by five thousand Wights. So many little lives blind and lost in the dark without the Nether” A low and hideous chuckle rasped free from his throat. “The ones I nulled tell me such delightful things.”
+You’re just… directly integrating them into your mind? And there’s no rejection? No trauma?+ White-Rab’s question came with a slight mental shiver and a major note of jealousy. Unused to this scale of casual slaughter though he was, Reva sensed his envy of the ghoul.
To possess such an affinity for devastation in the Nether would make any Necrojack feel small. She understood because the privileges afforded to his Frame ground a similar rawness into her ego.
Avo turned and stared at the Wight. “Don’t worry. I will share my knowledge. You can learn. Understand. Become. It’s what Walton would want. It’s what I want. But I need your help right now.”
+Do you?+ Raldi’s voice rose a pitch, and his latent horror shifted over into curiosity. Reva huffed a small breath. If there was one flaw her lover had, it was a novel challenge. She knew that slight bursts of inadequacy assailed him as they conversed with the ghoul, but now that the creature was directly calling for aid, how could White-Rab not be interested?
“Yes,” Avo stated simply. “Everything I touch burns and becomes me. I am too much like a plague. A calamity. These… changes have deprived me of the nuances of the art. I miss it. I cannot hide within memory and sculpt details into deception. But you can. You are a master. Walton knew this–saw the potential in you. We share that. I need you to do what I can do no longer.”
From his body sprouted a new locus, and it shed phantoms playing patterns of repeating memories.
“Here. This is a session to access what’s left of a lobby. Need someone to go in. Make it seem like they were betrayed. That Highflame assets had a backdoor all along.”
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
+Oh. You’re pinning this on the Golds? Bold, and very out of character.+ White-Rab hummed. +Maybe if I make it seem like they got help from freelance sources…+
A glint of mirth shone in the ghoul’s eyes. “Going to cause some trouble for a rival?”
+They have it coming. Trust me.+ Across the Nether, Reva could feel the beginnings of a smirk tug at Raldi’s lips. Already, the slaughter was fading from his notice. He was like a moth to a flame in situations like these–issued a new challenge and with the potential to prove his skill, he couldn’t turn away. Didn’t want to.
All it took was a little opportunity granted by the ghoul and…
And so Reva blinked and looked upon the monster before her with new eyes.
Was he doing this on purpose? To engender feelings of unity and co-dependency to deepen their relations? She couldn’t tell. While their Souls were adrift from across each other, Avo sounded nothing but truthful.
His gaze snapped over to hers, and she felt a jolt of panic threaten to overtake her. Behind his teeth, his long coiling tongue flicked and slithered, the motions like a nu-dog dipping the appendage into something.
“Come. Reva. I dropped the defense system. We can approach now. Still snuffers present. And a cadre Fallwalkers.”
“Fallwalkers?” she asked, confused. “Fallwalkers for a block war?”
Avo snorted a laugh. “No. Block war is a distraction. The Fallwalkers are for a girl–former Ashthrone Guilder. Betraying her color for Highflame. Has some essential information they don’t want leaked. Directly moving Guilder ‘Clads with known Heavens exposes their hand too visibly. Will invite reprisals down the line. Third party is convenient. Disposable. Easy to bribe. You understand. Not something Stormtree hasn’t done before.”
He was right, but much of the picture was still absent in her mind. “All this was for one person?”
“It’s for everyone,” Avo said. “For all those who think of trading one color for another. Nothing special. Nothing unique. Just another day in the city. Power games between great powers. They’re just crossfire. An opportunity to be seized.”
“What are you talking about?” Reva asked.
“I’m saying it’s a shame that the assault group will be massacred. And the Frames and Heavens of the Fallwalkers won’t be recovered.”
She understood and coldness spread through her. “You’re going hunt them for thaums and ontologics. Did you know about this? Know about the block war? Did you plan it?”
The ghoul just leaned back on his couch and breathed. “I was honest before. This was just chance. Can call it fated. Only wanted to see what Walton might have left behind. But opportunity must be seized. Now. Want you to go with me. We’ll raid the raiders. It will be fun.”
“Fun,” Reva muttered. To her dismay, the pitch was enticing. She was Bloodthane still, after all. Hunting big game was her trade, and here was a chance to properly view this… anomaly in action. “Yeah. I guess it does sound pretty fun.”
The ghoul giggled, and something about it sounded almost girlish. Reaching one unnaturally long arm over, he wordlessly pattered her on the shoulder. His claws splashed through the light of her holocoat as the visage of a tri-headed steed spread out from his shadow.
“Come along then,” he said. “Follow me into the dark. See what we find at the end.”
***
GHOSTS: [40,642]
Ultimately, Avo didn’t need his subminds to obtain support from White-Rab or Reva Javvers. This achievement was entirely his own. From the experiences he claimed as both Necro and Godclad, he knew their wants as well as they did, and though his cog-donor was the more susceptible one between the two, Reva feared him, and that worked just as well.
Doubtless, she thought this would be a good moment to learn his weaknesses and methods.
Unfortunately for her, his evolutions came radically. Even now his mind swam with new words and whispers and wonderings. With all the jocks and Necros he consumed, his consciousness was a small township unto itself. Knowledge and recommendations fed themselves directly to his notice, his new templates organizing by seniority and relevance for each situation.
He had learned the true reasons behind the assault in a near instant and withdrew before the lobby began purging itself after he devoured all the protecting Necros. His mind shifted between euphoria and annoyance at his vulnerability; his flames could brand all the Nether into him or the other way around, but he would be snuffed like a paltry candle when the disruptors went off.
The tradeoffs were extreme either way. As such, he already devoted a good percentage of his mind to coming up with a solution.
Regardless, he approached the sieged block in silence, shuttling the aero with Reva and White-Rab toward confrontation. He hadn’t fully manifested his Galeslither, but he wasn’t far off with how much of he was invoking his power over shadows.
Speeding toward the structure itself, Avo regarded the situation with precision.
He had jumped from mind to mind while spreading his cognition, and using the penetration already achieved by the attackers, he disabled critical functions within the defending block’s protections. Most of the loci he left untouched so as to not alert the attackers of his coming.
Of course, with their logistical and information backline slaughtered and the nukes entirely silenced, they''d soon be aware that all was not well for this operation.
Surfacing within the ground level of the block’s lobby, Avo pulled himself and the aero out from the darkness as if he was crawling onto shore. Warning klaxons sounded around the cavernous lobby of the block, and lights brightened and dimmed, basking hundreds of mutilated bodies in throbbing oscillations of neon.
A cold wind ran through the open gateways leading beyond the block, and with a peek into some of his new memories, he understood the scene.
Ashthrone and Sanctus Necros managed to breach the block’s systems and removed major parts of the lockdown before local Highflame personnel caught on.
By then, however, it was already too late. The attack was on, and the blitz came in a storm of bullets and monofilament grenades. Bodies large and small, male and female, of every make, shape, enhancement, and aesthetic were left as ruined mounds of meat toppled over each other.
Open faces and empty eyes told Avo the residents were entirely unprepared, and the wounds on some revealed that the raiders found amusement in blowing the legs off their victim and watching them crawl.
Sometimes, man was not so far from ghoul.
+It’s done.+ White-Rab’s thoughtcast emanated from within the aero, and Avo found himself surprised. Had his cog-donor already managed to instill the necessary fabrications to distort Ashthrone and Sanctus’ theories? If so, Walton trained him well.
He would be a most useful ally for clandestine situations. So long as Avo needed a softer touch, White-Rab might just be the one to deliver.
“Good,” Avo whispered and spread his Sanguinity outward. His tactile awareness exploded out from him to sweep for any details he might have missed with his cog-feed alone, and he accessed his newer templates to track where each assault team was heading.
Five hundred twenty operatives were deployed into the block depths supported by a multitude of drones and war wights. Some already lay dead among the innocent in the lobby, gauss wounds telling of return fire.
[Eight kills for a massacre. What a disgrace.] Abrel’s template snorted with derision, and apart from her, even the minds that had a hand in this atrocity flinched at her coldness. [What? What, you assholes? If they were gleam enough, they would have repelled the assault instead of getting cut down like this. We need to improve the combat training of our smallfolk. Ori-Thaum and Stormtree are one thing, but the Blues and Grays? No. That’s just fucking shameful.]
A chorus of offense roared in the back of Avo’s consciousness, and he asserted his control again before everything tumbled into chaos.
With how many voices his mind was channeling now, he needed better means of having them address each other. Right now, his open gestalt resulted in constantly triggered conflicts between his legions of templates. Perhaps he needed to form an alternating line of representatives? Something to allow the more level-headed of his generatable intellects smoother interactions with each other.
A flow of ghosts promptly entered his accretion, and his cog-feed populated with over eighty markers.
+I got a mem-lock on all the snuffers too,+ White-Rab said. He sounded more than a little pleased with himself.
“Thanks,” Avo said, infusing his reply with as much gratitude as he could. This didn’t need to be faked. He had all the means needed to locate his prey, but having White-Rab do it was far more circumspect.
The doors of the aero hissed, Reva stepped out and frowned at the massacre. “Sloppy.” But that’s not what she meant. In her quietude, Avo sensed flashes from Nu-Scarrowbur pass through her near-term memories. She had gone from one mass death event to the next, and now her mind was making patterns where there should have been none. “So. Are we going hunting, or did a particular body catch your appetite?”
Her words caught Avo by surprise. Hunger. The hunger was still there but… crushed. Contained. With all these minds surrounding him, he was but the heart in a massive organism that shifted and changed between the passing of moods and whims.
He had more control than ever now. More control over himself than he ever did in his life.
Truly, he owed the Low Masters more than he could pay.
He would just have to make do with murdering them when the time came.
“No,” Avo said, filtering the nearest group. There were just on the floor above, and the mem-data White-Rab injected into him, they were trying to cut their way into an intra-block entertainment zone. “Forgot to feel hungry. Thanks for the reminder.”
He released his leash on himself and let his base mind expand. All the flavors of death came to him at once.
But he wanted premium flesh. He wanted struggling deaths.
His days on carrion were done; now, he would cut himself on harder meat.