12 Miles Below

Division took its price. Watching it in action through the occult sight was something all right.

On the other hand, I now know why Atius’s sword was so mangled up and about to break while every other occult weapon didn’t have that problem. Those fractals I’d discovered? Not the full complete thing. Enough to divide in the physical world and not much more.

This? This felt like the real deal. The concept so fine-tuned the fractal within cut bits of itself with each strike. I let go of the hilt on reflex, though in hindsight I wasn’t ever in danger of being cut. It only felt that way.

For an instant the fractal remained working - and then something within it was no longer recognized as a fractal at all and the sword promptly stopped glowing entirely, having cut it’s last cut.

But not before it had completed the grim work.

Occult faded, leaving only the body of To’Aacar standing, still taking steps backwards, the dead sword still firmly logged in his chest.

He didn’t fall on the floor. Staggering a few more steps back before standing still. Only a blank face remained now. No emotion, nothing. Then his spear went right back up and I knew I was in for a rude awakening.

“Keith!” To”Wrathh hissed at me from the ground, her working hand quickly grabbing one of her discarded swords, the only one that still worked. She threw it at me, hilt first.

Reflexes snatched that weapon out of the air, hand turning it on. Not a moment too soon really, the concept of a spear jabbing right at me came next and I found myself parrying the strike and attacking back, other hand spewing out fire in a torrent in front of me again.

“How the gods are you not dead?” I spat out, watching as To’Aacar calmly stepped backwards away from the fire again.

He didn’t answer, face still showing no emotion, moving around with Atius’s sword stuck right through his chest. Didn’t even try to remove that either.

The Occult sight was what helped me see what was really happening. There wasn’t a soul, no sign of the occult anywhere in his body. Before me was nothing more than a mechanical machine, following the last set of orders. To’Aacar’s shell waited patiently while his systems cooled, the violet eye holding nothing.

And then he walked forward and began to attack again. Nothing more than stabs, pure optimal attacks making full use of the spear’s range. There was no style, no life to it. Outright predictable too. Any other opponent, I’d have let my shields take a hit, dove into his guard and yanked the spear out of his hand.

Except this wasn’t a human.

To’Aacar was dead. Whatever individuality he had, along with all his skills and experiences, was gone. All that was left was the shell of a Feather - but that was still a gods damned Feather, and they moved faster than my armor could. His jabs were too quick for me to really do much against.

“This. Is fuckin’ ridiculous.” I snarled, trying to batter the dead machine out of the way. Another torrent of flame from my free hand had him step backwards, like clockwork. Whatever program was still pulling his strings, it didn’t like fire and wouldn’t engage anywhere near it.

Maybe if I sprinted into him I might be able to slice his head off. That would end him. Feather or not, he didn’t have a spare hand to use and was out of shields.

The moment I paced too far to the side for some room, the dead Feather turned and began to march to To’Wrathh. I took a few steps forward, and the enemy promptly turned right back in my direction.

That told me what the priorities were.

Baiting him away from To’Wrathh didn’t work, anytime I took too many steps away, To’Aacar’s body would turn back and continue a death march after her. There wasn’t much To’Wrathh herself could do in her state other than try to drag herself further away using the only hand that remained functional.

On the other hand, he didn’t pose a real threat to me anymore. Anytime his jabs started to become too overwhelming for me to handle, I’d open fire with my flames and that would chase the Feather off. The only times I saw him do more than walk was when the flames were out. So the undead Feather could do more than walk, but only when he really needed to.

Sprinting at him also triggered his own speed response where he would leap backwards at a calculated rate, keeping his spear in optimal jabbing range, all the while stabbing out with that again and again, cold dead face staring me down blankly.

Five minutes passed while I tried to figure out how to put an end to him when he turned and swiftly tried to backpedal away from a black blur that sped across the ground directly at him.

With my normal sight, I wouldn’t have been able to tell what that was, two occult trails spinning on one another, obscuring all detail of the central black blur. With the occult sight, I had little trouble figuring out who’d arrived.

“Finally decided to show up? Right when I’ve done all the heavy lifting too.” I called out over comms.

“You were taking too long, dear brother.” Kidra said, blades flashing out, twisting and slashing at the enemy Feather.

On his part he made a good show of it, at least for a few seconds. But his attacks remained predictable, as was the mechanical way he backpedaled, trying to keep her at a distance at all times above all other options. That was the worst possible thing anyone could do against Kidra.

In moments she’d already figured out how to make the dead Feather move to her beat. It was less a fight and more Kidra puppeteering the Feather by proxy into just the right position she wanted him in.

She had some kind of jet packs attached to her belt, letting her take very quick bursts of speed. She fainted an attack that triggered a stupidly predictable backwards leap at a higher angle, and now helpless in the air, Kidra leaped after him like a cat catching a rodent.

Two strikes, one to batter away the spear jab, and the other to strike at the Feather’s shell. She then twisted around in the air, delivering a kick that launched the machine right back down into the ground.

To’Aacar landed in a heap, hand letting go of both his spear and cohesion as a whole, falling apart into individual pieces. The violet eye dimmed, flickering for a moment before shutting down. Leaving only sparks flashing inside the hole Kidra’s sword had punched out in his forehead. Soon even that died out, all power and circuitry faded within.

It was over. Some part of me half expected the machine to wake back up, giving one last speech before escaping again, but I’d seen how his soul had been cut apart in the occult sight. There hadn’t been a consciousness left to hold off against the void of the world around it.

Another knight appeared in my sight, slowing down to land at my side. Teal armor, along with the standard decorations of House Windrunner. His helmet turned away from the Feathers to me. "Since when did you have a flamethrower attached to that armor? I could see that from a distan--”

I didn’t have time to talk to him, already racing across the battlefield, where Kidra stalked darkly forward to To’Wrathh’s wrecked body. Blades still lit. The Feather stared at her coming, making no attempt to escape or even crawl away.

I leaped right between the two. “Wait, wait - She’s on our side.” I said, hands out, turning off To’Wrathh’s borrowed blade in hand.

Kidra outright halted, staring me down. “This isn’t time for jokes,” She said. “That thing has Father’s soul held captive inside! I’m going to cut him free and then stab her until nothing moves but me, and if you don’t want that to happen, you had better be very convincing with your words right now.”

“Wait, she has Father’s soul?” That took the wind out of me.

I glanced back at the broken Feather. The two soul fractals I saw in her heart in my occult sight. Her ability with his skills. Father left behind in a bunker. Puzzle piece clicked.

Kidra shoved me aside. “I have a reserve soul fractal he can use, whatever happens after we can decide later. She needs to die while she's weak.”

Her blades twisted around in her palm, ready to thrust down into To’Wrathh’s chest. The Feather seemed outright resigned to her fate, not making any move to escape. I watched, numbly, as my hand reached out and grabbed Kidra’s wrist at the last moment.

“I can’t let you kill her.” I said. “We can save Father, but I can’t let you kill her.”

Both Wrath and Kidra seemed equally surprised. “Explain.” She said. “If you’re doing this because she has a pretty face, I swear to the gods I will wring your neck and hang you to freeze dry in the snow for a few days.”

I said the first thing that came to mind. “I owe her a lifedebt.”

“She saved your life?” Kidra repeated incredulously, turning back to the Feather. “How do you know that wasn’t some ploy to obtain information? Gaining goodwill like so?”

“I just know.” I said. “Call it intuition. I’ve been traveling with her for a few days. Just… trust me this one time. She’s not allied with the machines anymore. She fought side by side against To’Aacar, and nearly got killed for it. That wasn’t some theater display practiced beforehand, they were really fighting each other to the death. At the very least you could ask why before you end it.”

Kidra said nothing. Then, her head turned to the broken Feather under her. “Are you going to behave?” She asked.

To’Wrathh stared back up and blinked. “My shell is crippled. I’ve betrayed the pale lady, she will notice soon and come to balance the scale. I have nowhere to escape to.”

Kidra turned off her blades and kneeled down, getting a better look at Wrath. The girl wasn’t kidding about being crippled. Wings were scattered loosely all over the place, with only the most basic outline remaining. Legs, outright torn off. No walking that off. And her left hand had been crushed by To’Aacar’s heel, a few fingers and her thumb outright separated, the rest looked mangled. Not to mention the rest of the damages that marred her pretend armor. She’d taken hits in places no human would have survived.

“I want to talk to him.” Kidra hissed.

The white world surrounded me, partly inside the soul trance but also part of a more digital world. Normally I’d have started to investigate every nook and cranny to get a better idea of the bridge between the soul and the digital world, but right now the only thing I had eyes for was the man sitting a few paces away, watching me.

“Father.” I said, more out of surprise than anything. He really was here. It was him.

Kidra had talked to him in length, before I got a turn. When she was done, she’d been crying. Something had changed, but those tears weren’t of hurt. She didn’t elaborate, and just let me see for myself.

“You’ve learned a few tricks since we last met.” Father said. His face revealed nothing, but in the occult space, more than words were shared. I felt relief radiate softly from him. With my new skills and abilities, I was almost unkillable on the surface.

And he knew that.

“How have…”

‘How have you been’ seemed like a really contrite thing to say to a dead man.

Oh, well I don’t know son, I’ve been dead and held captive this entire time. Could be better. Food’s not the best, tastes like wood sometimes.

He seemed to understand my thoughts, the edge of a grin threatening. I guess the soul fractal go both ways when were were this close to each other.

“Death tried. I lived.” He said with a shrug.

“I’m.. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to come back and save you. If I had been braver, or just a little smarter, we wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place.”

There was no judgment from him. If anything, I felt peace from him. It clobbered against all of my older memories of the man.

“Scrapshit. You’ve changed. A lot.” I said. Here in the soul, there were no secrets. It was undeniable. “You really have found some kind of peace in here? In this jail?”

He stood up, walking towards me in the white void. “It was less of a jail to me than you think. I don’t need to sleep anymore. You don’t understand how freeing that was. When I was alive, every night in my dreams, I saw you and Kidra killed by raiders or slavers. For years. I saw myself unable to save you, always in a different way. Dying like the rest of our House did. That fear was all consuming, stronger than my addictions. That was what caused me to climb out of my pit. And it turned to anger when I failed to teach you how to fight the same way Kidra could. Anger as sharp as my fear.”

He looked away, and I felt shame come from deeper inside him. “I never cared to keep living. As a knight, I knew there was little chance I would live to retire.” He said. “My only goal was to see you and Kidra with the skills to survive, so that my nightmares would never come to pass. And here you stand, capable of fighting even a Feather.”

“To be fair, I had to cheat a few times.” I said.

His lips twitched in another ghost of a smile. “Is that not what our family does best?”

A hand reached out and clasped my shoulder, shaking it slightly. “My son. You have everything I wished you could have now. And more. What more could I hope for?”

“Three bundles of frostbloom, if I remember right. I got a little sidetracked on that. Long story.”

That ghost of a smile turned into a real one. “I suppose, this one time, I’ll allow it. Don’t press my kindness, boy.”

This… this was the real him. The one that was talked about in the past. Before mother died. The one Kidra had held on hope would return one day. I didn’t feel any sense of dread being around him like I once had.

"You were with... with Wrath this entire time, right?" I asked, and I could tell he knew where I was going with that question.

The smile faded from his features. "Don't blame the girl for hiding me, it was my request. I didn't wish to burden you further, not when danger surrounded you both. There could be time for reunion later, if ever. I wasn't needed in your life anymore."

But under his words, I could feel the current of the true reason. He was... afraid. Realizing that he'd made too many mistakes, become too much of a monster in his single minded goal to teach me how to survive. It went beyond being afraid of remaining unforgiven on meeting me. He wasn't even searching for that. Seeking forgiveness was something he found... selfish?

I wasn't able to ferret out more of his thoughts, his mind moving onto something he considered more important than himself.

“We need to talk, about Wrath.” He said, eyes growing serious.

I was about to ask him to answer more about why he had tried to hide away from me, but I could tell that wasn't something he wanted to face yet.

“Is she really the spider that tracked us down?" I asked instead. "I just can’t put that image together. She doesn’t seem anything like that.”

He nodded. “She was more of an intelligent animal then. When she first became a Feather it was to hunt you down and even the score. Simple motivations. She grew since.”

“She killed you. Painfully. What happened in between then and now?”

“The gods gave me a second chance to do better, with a clearer mind. I did. Keith, we’ve stumbled onto something… larger than the clan.”

Lejis felt that way. So did Sangrius. As if the world was taking a breath. I knew what he was going to say.

“In all my years serving under Lord Atius, I have never once met or known a machine that was even amenable to peace. This is unique. It will not happen again. I don’t know where this road leads, yet I believe it is worth following.”

“Guessing you told Kidra the same? She was ready to cut Wrath’s head off a moment ago. Now she’s brooding off to the side.”

He nodded. “We do not have the luxury of choosing our allies. Your sister understands. There is no room for animosity.

Gods stay with us, we will need everything and every ally for what comes next.”

Next chapter - Epilogue

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