12 Miles Below

Objectively, the most rational course of action would be to hand over whatever To’Aacar wanted.

It’s hard to argue with taking an easy way out over fighting a murderous killing machine that takes an entire team of Deathless to put down. Especially if said killing machine would go right after my head the moment the fight starts, since he’s got Kidra as a backup.

On the other hand, I can’t tell him everything that happened. Not to mistake my intentions here, I don’t hold unquestioning loyalty to Tsuya. We’ve met exactly once, and it also didn’t help that she was perfectly willing to murderize me as a regrettable cost of business. Not the best first impression.

The problem wasn’t Tsuya. It was Cathida. The old bat had grown on me, and despite Journey’s emulation not exactly being her, I still felt indebted and honor bound to complete her own dying task at some point.

Was I willing to wager my life on that, though?

Hopefully, I won’t need to answer that question anytime soon. So long as he doesn’t start asking questions about what happened after the bunker, should be fine.

“I’m open to negotiations.” I said. “Assuming you let us go unharmed.”

To’Aacar watched me, as if expecting deception. Then he seemed to almost relax, standing back up to his full height. “That was surprisingly easier than expected.” The spear flicked back up, twirling around his hand until he slammed it down into the ground and let go. The metal hand of floating shards extended out to me, a request. “Hand over all recordings, and I’ll be on my way.”

I shook my head. “Don’t have any. The relic armors deleted everything it heard, and Tsuya herself made sure anything else was gone. Only got my memory to go on. You need to ask your questions.”

He tutted, hand curling back. “Annoying. I suppose there’s little a human like you can do about it. How convenient for you.” The Feather shrugged, rubbing the bridge of his nose in irritation. “So be it. Tell me the encounter with Tsuya in detail.”

“She wanted to apologize to me for setting off explosives that I got caught in. Said that the bunker was no longer something she cared to keep secret since we’d already stumbled on it. Before she got to any real requests, Atius interrogated her to find out more things on Relinquished. He got a little heated with her.”

“He made demands of that witch?” The Feather laughed, grinning. “Her own pet barking and biting? No one to blame but herself.”

“He threatened he’d cut off the connection if she didn’t comply.”

The Feather grinned. “I always liked that Deathless. He’s the only one of his kind with a spine to stand up to me. Rare quality. You’re very much like him too, although with far less to back it up. Everyone else is so boring, with all the screaming and running.” He tutted in disgust. “And the questions? What did that dog ask of that bitch?”

“Mostly who she was and why the world was the way it was. He also wanted to know more about the new generation of Deathless. Got interrupted by Relinquished after that.”

To’Aacar scoffed. “Those cowards aren’t worth even paying attention to. At least standard Deathless stand and fight once they’re cornered. The new generation? Trash. Did he truly waste his time asking such tripe?”

“You know about them?” I innocently asked.

“Inverted quality for quantity for this generation. The lows Tsuya will go to, it’s ridiculous. The process is now indiscriminate, no quality control at all. Women, children, elderly, soldiers and weaklings. Dredges one and all, unfit to even wield a blade, let alone the title. Most held onto past memories, what a mistake that was. Many don’t even care to fight and hide away, pretending that nothing’s changed. The ones that do embrace who they’ve become grow warped. Free of any consequences, your kind falls into depravity. Immortality is not a weight most human minds can suffer through.” The spear flicked out, the metal hand grabbing hold of the shaft. “I suppose the little golden goddess has truly grown desperate. Perhaps she hoped among the rabble someone of worth might appear? She should know better. Empower all the ants she wants, not a single one can survive being squashed by a thumb. But I didn’t come here to answer your questions. Continue.”

“That’s basically it.” I lied. “There’s a reason I’m not trying to hoard this info. Nothing of actual weight was said before Relinquished showed up and put a stop to all of it.”

To’Aacar frowned, eyes narrowing. “You’re lying to me, Winterscar. I can tell from your voice.” The speartip swung again dangerously, a threat. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”

On hindsight, maybe trying to lie to a machine wasn’t the smartest idea. I needed to come up with something more convincing, because I found myself oddly unwilling to tell him about the mission Cathida had undertaken, despite the risks of a full-blown fight brewing at the cost. It just didn’t feel right. “Relinquished showed up before anything important happened, I’m not lying on that. Atius was too focused on getting his answers first before the goddess could come to her point. I did get to ask a question to her.” I said, stalling.

“And that question was?”

I had an idea to handle the lying aspect, but I’d need my armor in on it. The issue is that To’Aacar could overhear under my helmet. He’d done that before, so I needed to figure out a way to talk to Journey directly. Get the armor on board with what I needed without actually saying anything.

Sign language behind my back? No, he’d probably learned it by now, and I doubt I could hide that behind my back.

A possible answer dawned on me. Some more secure method of getting what I want from Journey.

Into the soul fractal I dove, and from there, I poked at Journey’s own soul fractal, prodding the relic armor’s spirit. The connection took, and once more I felt its essence, thoughts and feelings interchanged.

It was tense, worried, alert, anxious. There was great danger before it, and apprehension. Fear. Not for itself, but for me. That I would be killed here.

Unexpected intrusion, define directive?

I sent it a message through my soul. Modulate my voice so that the lie detector isn’t tripped.

Affirmative. It sent back. Preparing module.

“The question I had for Tsuya was a little off the cuff. I asked her if my father was alive or dead.” I said, back in reality, “She said he might have survived.” On the side of my HUD, I saw a small progress bar flicker into life. It was filling up quickly.

To’Aacar paused, that remaining eye flashing bright violet for a moment. “Your father was it? And you asked a god about that? Humans die all the time, why this?”

“Well, it was important to me at the time and I was drugged up to the gills not thinking exactly straight.”

He frowned, that single eye starting to look at me with a more baleful glare. “Do you have anything of value? Or did you ask how many toes she had on her personal avatar? My patience is thinning.”

The loading bar was at seventy percent. I needed to stall a little bit longer. “Hey now,” I said, hands raised up placating. “Feet fetishes are very common. Don’t look down on those folks.”

Seventy percent.

“Not saying I’m one of those degenerates, that worship feet. But a goddess’s feet would probably be the best feet to wor--”

The Feather outright growled at me, spear slicing through the ground in front of him, out of frustration. A line of blue cut into the granite, a promise of impending violence. “Do you have a deathwish? Is your sense of self-preservation faulty? Tell me what she told you. Now. You left that bunker with a golden orb, I saw it bounce by your feet. What was it.”

Eighty percent.

I had to trust Journey would come through for me. “Right, the golden orb. The golden orb we found inside the bunker, that golden orb, yes.”

Ninety percent

“I’m just remembering it right now, had all kinds of funny patterns floating around it. Very imperial looking, no doubt. Also in some kind of capsule.”

Hundred percent. Module ready. The Feather snarled, taking one step forward. I took a step back, hands up, cowering slightly. “Okay, okay! She said it was an older attempt to attack Relinquished with, and we needed to deliver it to the first imperial priest we could find. They’ll know what to do with it. I left it up on the surface buried under some snow on the north west, exactly ten miles off the colony site.”

Had it been enough? There was an oddity in my voice. I heard myself talking, but something else was being projected out the helmet’s speakers. Just a slight reverb that overshadowed my own voice. I could hardly tell the difference.

I held my breath.

To’Aacar watched, eyebrows narrowing down over his ruined face. The eye closed. Then opened again, and I knew I’d fucked up. “Do you really think I wouldn’t notice a voice modulation, Winterscar? Congratulations, I can’t tell if you’re lying or not, but I can tell you’re covering something. It seems in the end I still need to squash you all under my thumb after all, rip that helmet off your head and negotiate the only way you hairless apes understand.” The spear twirled again, and he struck down into the ground. “With violence.” Occult pulsed across the spear, and chunks of rock exploded out before him in a massive torrent.

Dust expanded out of the pulverized stone, instantly obscuring the battlefield. Journey auto-compensated the visual field a moment later, just enough time to spot a spear tossed straight through, right at our chest.

Cathida reacted instantly, hands drawing out her blades just in time to block. Following right behind was To’Aacar himself, snatching the weapon and slamming it down into the ground again, occult pulsing through the broken cracks, sending the rocks flying up again and clouding the battlefield.

My armor dodged the damage by jumping over the shockwave, which was exactly what the Feather hoped for, since he sent a wave of occult arcing out from his spear, sending us flying backwards a distance away.

My own knights charged right for the Feather at the same moment, occult blades in hand. To’Aacar didn’t pay them attention. From the scattered dust, the Chosen knights lumbered out to intercept Captain Sagrius and the rest of the Winterscar knights.

Occult pulsed across the Feather and he vanished, reappearing right before me, spear striking out casually to skewer me in the chest. Cathida and I both struck back, my own occult spells pooling together.

Speed wise, To’Aacar was simply on a different level, avoiding, ducking or deflecting every attack while striking back. The lack of his right hand to use limited attack openings from his side, but somehow he still wove them in with that oversized spear, making use of his feet whenever he could as a spacing tool, or to throw off our attacks.

Or playing it more meticulously safe this time around, attacking only when the strike was guaranteed and Cathida would be unable to safely retaliate.

Damage started piling up on Journey, as both of us were forced back, barely keeping it together. The chosen knights on the other hand were not doing as well against my own knights. They certainly matched the speed of the knights, but didn’t surpass any.

Armor was still hard locked to prevent serious damage to the user. No matter how fast To’Aacar moved his puppets by whatever chip he’d implanted into their nervous system, they were still unable to go past their limits. Which meant it was swordsmanship against swordsmanship. And on that front, my knights were holding the advantage, slowly breaking down the enemy.

My own fight was frantic up until To’Aacar let me take a breath to recover, taking a few steps back and resetting the fight. I could see the hollow parts of his body, through all the tears and battle damage, glowing red hot. The air above his head shimmered, the halo resting just above.

Journey. I said, reaching to the armor across the soul bridge. Rakurai, Second form. Overclock the system. See if we can use that strike to open him up for a knightbreaker round.

Danger. The armor returned. This unit was not designed for overclocking systems.

I know that! But we’re already deep in the shit now as is, might as well go full tilt right off the start.

Cathida shrugged, taking a new stance with her long swords while To’Aacar watched on from a few paces afar.

“Ho? Another trick Winterscar?” He said. “I don’t recognize that stance. Some other ancient secret technique you plumbed out of whatever hole your ancestors found? You think that’ll save you?” Behind, the chosen knights were holding off my own knights, the sound of clashing blades becoming background noise.

“Something like that.” The crusader said, and then struck. The lighting style was really made to abuse the speed of the Winterblossom technique. But predictably, the Feather could match that speed. Occult pulsed around my armor, and I joined in the flurry as well, striking down with three back to back spectral mirrors, each wielding a blade, each attacking in the blind points of that move.

The Feather didn’t even flinch, grinning instead. His spear flipped into position, shield flaring on the shaft as he took Cathida’s first blade and let her blade edge slip down the shaft. The wide defense caught one of my own spectral blades, but two more had been thrown out from an angle the spear couldn’t block.

He allowed a glancing hit on his torso from Cathida’s second blade, in exchange for letting him sweep his leg up, and stomp downwards on the broadside of the blade. It crashed into the ground and snapped in half as he forced his full weight down into it.

The Winterscar blade instantly flickered off. A regular occult blade would have continued to function on the broken blade edge, but these blades were made of carbon fiber, and only the outline was metal. The moment he’d snapped the whole thing, the metal contact broke. That was a flaw I should probably amend for the next prototype.

Down one sword. But not out of the game yet.

My own attacks approached his exposed torso in that sliver of time. Two spectral blades, each a mirror image of the winterscar swords and just as lethal.

His single working hand let go of his spear, the floating metal bits starting to shine bright occult blue. On each digit’s edge. I realized immediately what he’d done. Why his left hand was made of floating metal bits in the first place.

That wasn’t only a hand. None of that had been decoration like the rest of his gear. Each of those fingers were tiny occult blades.

With the speed of a monster, the clawed fingers struck downwards, catching both my own mirror blades, dissipating each in the strike. From there, he reached out for our chestplate next, five occult blade digits outstretched, like talons.

Heat surged through Journey’s armor, instantly getting caught inside the temperature controlled innards and leaking out onto my skin. Cathida expertly backed us a step away, drawing out our rifle in the same motion, knightbreaker loaded and pointing downrange, pointblank.

Occult flared around To’Aacar’s body for a moment and he vanished. Cathida didn’t fire, either because she’d already calculated that he’d make a getaway, or that she was using the threat of the weapon as a means of preventing his attack.

With my occult sight, I saw exactly where the Feather reappeared. Right by his discarded spear. His leg knocked the weapon back into his hand. He twirled it into a throwing position along with his body, all in one fluid motion, and then launched it like a javelin. Occult pulsed across his arm.

The spear vanished right as it left his hand, causing a small shockwave of dust to flare out where the spear should have been.

Deep into the soul sight, where I saw the concept of a spear vanish, another one appeared.

Behind! I shouted through the soul bridge, not trusting my own voice to be fast enough, and Cathida heard me just in time to twist and deflect the incoming weapon.

It was a catch twenty two. Block the spear, and open our back to the enemy. Or block the enemy and open our back to the spear.

To’Aacar loomed behind us, having already cleared the distance, that hand of floating occult blades outstretched. I’ve seen what my knightbreakers did. Force multiplication by surface area was utterly devastating when it came to the occult.

The hand opened up, reaching to grab the back of our neck. Five occult blades worth of damage. In his nearly broken eye, I saw only death and hatred. He wasn’t planning on keeping us alive anymore.

Glowing fractals etched across Journey’s armor glimmered further into life as I triggered each. A nearly invisible shimmer appeared into reality, the dome just wide enough to intercept the unpowered palm of To’Aacar’s hand and halt its progress. Bits of his fingers were stopped by proxy, the invisible force holding them in suspension limited in range without the palm to follow through. I felt the weight in my mind crush me against a wall and the occult dome nearly winked out from the sheer kinetic energy.

I held my ground and shoved back with everything I had.

It wasn’t nearly enough. His nail tips were still in range, scratching into Journey’s armor, while the rest of the surface area wouldn’t make it.

But I didn’t need perfection. I just needed to avoid death by a hair.

Journey had seen it exactly as I’d hoped and refrained from wasting its shield. The finger tips brushed through the armor, slicing without resistance, in… and out. Too far away from my spine.

Occult pulsed around my armor as the mirror fractal again lit up deep inside.

His hand instantly retreated, forced away to defend against two mirror strikes, battering them like annoyances. Cathida’s own blade flipped in her hand, and she struck backwards under her armpit, in a quick jab. He stepped away to avoid it, giving her enough time to fully turn and stab properly. The blade dove straight for his torso, and he made no move to avoid it. Instead, his clawed hand shot straight down. Right where the hilt of our blade would be in moments - no, our wrist.

That deadly hand opening up to grasp.

I realized the checkmate. He didn’t need to hit anything vital. All he needed to do was grab hold of Journey in any location to drain the shields. The wrist would do just fine. He could out-trade us easily, five blades against one.

But Cathida was still overclocking her systems right now, and she could think just as fast as he could.

She let go of the sword, letting it loose in the air.

To’Aacar’s hand instantly shifted midway, from targeting the wrist to diving for the hilt of the weapon. Between breaking my shields or disarming me for good, To’Aacar calculated disarming me would be the safest move in that fragment of an instant.

His hand cut straight through the blade, breaking the weapon for good - and putting itself right in the way for Cathida’s hand to wrap around his own wrist in a tight lock.

To’Aacar snarled, lifting his hand up, and us with it. Cathida stubbornly didn’t let go.

Her right hand drew the rifle downrange, pointed straight at his chest, all while she held his arm in place. I saw the violet eye narrow.

Cathida pressed the trigger. Almost the same instant, To’Aacar’s leg shot up, slapping the rifle tip off course, where the knightbreaker round exploded out into the world, narrowly missing his face by a few inches and flying off in a strange lopsided course. The kick had been so quick and devastating; it hadn’t simply put the rifle in an odd direction. It ripped the weapon in half, caught between the grip of a relic armor and the full might of a pissed off Feather.

“Keith!” I heard Cathida yell over the speakers, already letting go of the ruined weapon.

I knew what I had to do. To’Aacar had thought we’d been disarmed with both our blades broken and the knightbreaker round wasted. But with her free hand, Cathida had reached down to the boot, and grabbed the hilt of her reserve dagger. With every bit of focus I could muster, four mirror blades appeared from that hand, each lifting a copy of that dagger, and diving straight for the enemy.

To’Aacar swung us straight down into the ground, trying to dislodge us like gunk stuck on his arm. Rock and stone were pulverized as Journey’s shields flared against the hit, but compared to an occult blade, this was nothing the armor couldn’t handle. In the meantime, my attacks continued their path straight for his body, all while Cathida held a deathgrip on him, stopping him from dodging more. He tried to force an attack through anyhow, but the relic armor was strong enough to slow his movements to a crawl. The only offence he had was one free foot, which he used to kick at my mirror images, expertly avoiding the blade edges and hitting the malformed arms instead. It was working until I started pulsing my images in parallel to one another instead of consecutively.

He snarled, as four daggers stabbed into him, vanishing a moment after from my inability to keep them manifested in the world - but not before they dealt their full damage.

“You worm!” He screamed, again lifting us up and slamming us down again, and then dragging us against the ground. “Get off me!”

We were swung into a stone hexagonal pillar, completely crushing through it. And then swung up into the air, and then brought back down into the ground.

Cathida didn’t listen, instead she slammed the dagger into his arm viciously the entire time, even while we were clobbered through the pillar. His shield triggered, and held the blade in check. I joined in on the onslaught, stabbing again and again as fast as I could flash through the occult spell. Desperate to break that Feather’s shield once and for all.

Unable to do anything else, To’Aacar’s free leg lifted and slammed down on my shoulder parallel to Cathida’s deathgrip, and then pressed, trying to pry Cathida’s arm off his own. The old bat on her part, took the change in stance as an invitation to slam her dagger into To’Aacar’s chest, audibly snarling herself as the weapon crackled against the Feather’s shields, slowly breaking through by sheer strength, sparks of all kinds flying in all directions.

I stopped trying to time my images to attack all at the same time, instead going for straight quantity, stabbing out as much as I could, as fast as I could.

Journey’s superstructure groaned, bits of metal starting to crush downwards from the monster’s foot. In my soul sight, I could see the armor compress, crushing internally bit by bit as tolerances were breached.

All while Cathida continued to savagely hold the knife against the fizzling shield, occult mirror strikes flashed all over, many malformed in my haste, but the majority living long enough to get a bit of damage in.

How powerful were a Feather’s fucking shields in the first place?! This was already three times the damage a regular relic armor could sustain.

To’Accar’s own hand thrashed around, trying to grab anything it could like a dying beast but Cathida refused to let go, keeping the angle just right so that he couldn’t reach with the fingertips.

The Feather’s shield continued to crackle against the blades.

Parts of Journey’s armor fractured and broke apart, flying off and revealing parts of my arm under it, metal ligaments holding tightly and snapping away one by one. I could almost feel the structural integrity of the arm going past critical.

A few seconds was all we had left.

He screamed and pushed harder, further denting the imprint of his foot into my shoulder armor.

It was too late. The Feather’s shields finally broke.

Cathida’s dagger dug into his chest without hesitation, twisted and slashed outwards, cutting a deep gash through the Feather. The second hit, he barely avoided by twisting his entire torso, letting the stab graze over his chest.

She went right for his throat next, but his foot finally pried us loose, the relic armor giving out as too many ligaments had critically failed under pressure. The whole thing snapped, and power faded from the gauntlet holding onto the Feather’s hand.

To’Aacar didn’t waste a moment of freedom and kicked us. Far, far away.

“Now you’ve gone and done it.” He snarled, walking in our direction, feet knocking the discarded spear back into his hand. His body twitched for a moment before he resumed his pace. “Congratulations-s-s-s-s, Winterscar! You’ve officially made it to the-the-the-the top of my most hated list. Let me hand you your prize!”

I could see warning notifications all over my HUD, Journey had taken a severe beating. The arm was completely out of order. Heat was venting off the newfound openings, coming out as a haze and vapor in the air.

The spear struck us like a hammer, right on my head. Journey’s shields turned on to take the impact, but it sent us reeling backwards. Another two hits came down, one hitting my stomach and bending me over, the second following through and launching us into the air again before we hit the ground.

Shields were being drained fast. No weapons, except for our dagger. And one arm down. Father had fought with these odds once.

And he hadn’t made it.

To’Aacar took a moment, glaring down at us, his own body venting out heat. Then, that single eye flashed with surprise. He twirled around, looking straight up the cliff-side.

A clan knight had leaped above him from the higher ground, silently falling down directly at him. A knight I didn’t recognize as part of the crew I’d come here with, because that wasn’t a Winterscar. No, the colors and armor pointed to House Resolution, a minor house who had a single relic armor to their name.

He must have been from that second group, the one that the clan lord had sent to tail me. The one that was supposed to be tied up with the rest of the Chosen knights.

As he soared down he held two active weapons. In one hand, the silver and violet blade that had killed Clan Lord Atius. In the other, an old gold and steel blade, Breaker, the clan lord’s personal sword. Both of these swords were capable of cutting through more than just matter.

He hurled Lord Atius’s longsword with an expert cast. But not at the machine.

The old imperial sword sunk into the ground right before me, occult edge cutting through with no resistance until the hilt prevented the sword from completely sinking. Cathida reached out, and yanked it out of the ground with our working arm. It remained lit, inscriptions on the side of the blade still clearly polished. Old as the sword was, it had been well maintained.

I realized Drass’s gambit. She’d brought weapons to kill a Feather. The second group had likely either survived the counter-ambush and were on their way here, or they’d held their ground and bought this knight enough time to race to the signal Drass had given me, carrying the weapons we needed to cut the head of the snake for good.

House Resolution’s knight showed no fear across that faceless helmet as he fell straight into the jaws of death.

His now free hand reached behind his back and drew out a Knightbreaker round. Not the rifle, not the grenade launcher - no, the round itself. The crazy bastard triggered it right there and then as he fell, the chains spilling out, activating, cutting two of his fingers off, and slicing through parts of his armor by accident despite his best attempts to keep the dangerous thing as far away to his side as possible. Occult chains were stupidly dangerous, just as likely to maim the wielder as the enemy, hence why I’d set up grenade launchers for them. Let it do it’s thing away from the user. The clan knight had clearly prepared himself for a suicide run. Somehow, he held onto the occult round, bleeding fingers never letting it go.

He landed with a heavy crack against the ground, relic armor flaring out its shield for a moment, occult chains flapping down and cutting into the ground as well.

Helmet looking up, just in time to see the Feather’s spear, speeding down right at him.

Occult pulsed.

But not from To’Aacar.

Twelve perfectly formed mirror images stepped out from the knight’s landing position. Like pale blue wraiths brought back from death itself. The mirror fractal.

There’s only one person I know that could use the mirror fractal with that level of competence. Someone I realized had played us all this whole time, waiting for the enemy to scurry out into the light of false security. Counter intelligence he'd called it once.

Violet eye widened in surprise. To’Aacar aborted his attack, instantly spearing out in the defense as the wraiths surrounded him. It was too late, and too many.

Each lunged forward.

Each struck at the same time.

And each wielded a replica knightbreaker, copied from the one he held active at his side.

Forty eight occult chains raced for the Feather, from all directions, like a deathtrap from the maw of hell itself.

Next chapter - Choke

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