12 Miles Below

This was it. This was the most probable location according to his research.

With alacrity, To’Avalis vaulted over the last of the rocks and came to a stop at the shoreline, where rolling cubes undulated over each other, mimicking waves. The mite sea stretched before him, split apart only by small arpeggio islands, looming like mountains in the distance. Everything else remained deceptively flat, the sea at a constant level.

A virtual data line sent a ping to his systems. To’Sefit’s voice appeared. “My, my, how bold. Are you sure you want to be stirring trouble with a place like this? If the sea nicks even a single toe of yours, it might gobble you right up and not let you leave. And then you'll be stuck like me, waiting in line for a shell. Why are you even here taking such a risk?”

“A Feather was killed.” To’Avalis said to his dead sister.

"Feathers die all the time. I'm dead right now, why is this one so important?"

"To'Aacar isn't. It is the manner he was killed that is important. Not even the unity fractal shows a hint of his existence anywhere on the world. Whatever can kill a feather so permanently is a threat. I don’t fight threats that could potentially kill me like this without research and a plan.”

“Ah, but we don’t know if he was destroyed or simply running away.” To’Sefit countered, although they both knew better. A destroyed Feather would have remained in the digital sea, waiting for Mother to allocate resources to crafting a new shell. A Feather running away was only delaying the inevitable. Regardless of where they hid, the unity fractal would reveal they're still alive somewhere in the world and the hunt would never end. Machines had eternity to live, the fleeing Feather only needed to fail a single time across all those years. Defeat was inevitable.

And yet, To’Aacar's unity fractal showed only darkness when To'Avalis had requested to verify. That Feather was either completely destroyed, or he had found a way to hide from Mother fractal. One of those two options was impossible.

“It seems counterintuitive to be worried for your shell and then come here of all places.” To’Sefit said. “Let To’Orda handle your protection. That is his role after all, he’s quite good at it. Perhaps not against the entirety of the mite sea, but one can never know. He has surprised me before.”

Before To'Avalis, the sea stretched wide. Roiling with billions of small cubes, constantly moving like water. He kicked a small rock by his foot into the churning cubes, watching it fly off, bouncing once against the hard cubes, before being caught in a random dip. A wave passed by, lifting the rock and cubes up. The rock tumbled between the cubes and sank out of view.

By the time gravity would have pulled the bits of rock down to the bottom of the mite sea, it would have been pulverized into fine sand.

“The mite sea has something I want.” He said. “And I know enough about this location to keep myself safe.” Combat on the mite sea was well cataloged. Any entity that landed on its surface had seconds to kick themselves up and out of it, or be caught by a wave. A single stumble was all that the cubes needed to drag down a victim, the cubes powerful enough to crush even the strongest machine alloys.

The sea shifted, responding to his probing. It all began as bubbling blocks all across the sea, rising up like fountains.

Structures of different eras assembled from the churning cubes, half complete and pushed up, constructed dynamically in the moment. Hundreds of cubes fell off the sides, like water dripping down from the looming structures.

A newly made bridge of voxel cubes stretched before him, inviting him forward. Daring him to cross. More structures in the distance were breaking the sealine, rising up. What looked to be a cathedral with hundreds of walkways and open gates, a massive maze of open terrain.

The sea’s challenge. To cross, one would need to make it through whatever gauntlet lay in that distance. He was certain more structures would rise and break the moment he stepped foot, forcing him to sprint or jump, or even run across the sea ground itself to the next safepoint.

He wasn’t here for that. The prize he wanted wasn't something the sea would wish to offer him. “To'Sefit. Do you know the term protofeather?”

“Making up words now, are we?” To'Sefit answered, watching through his optic feed.

It was understandable his siblings didn’t know the term. He had only found out himself a few days ago, during his research. “You know of the first generation?”

“Of course. Only Feather directly named by Mother herself. Abdication.” She said, as if reciting a speech from memory. “What of him?”

“That wasn’t his original name.” To’Avalis said.

“Ohh? What was his true name then?”

“A57.”

There was a pause. To’Sefit likely had expected something that matched the current naming schemes Feathers followed. “A strange name. I take it he didn’t pick that name either?”

“That’s besides the point. Note the number system. It suggests that the first generation wasn’t composed of only him. There were fifty six others before him.”

“Prototypes you say? Likely failed ones, I assume?” To’Sefit mused. “The test prototypes before Abdication was made? Someone as powerful as he must have had quite a legacy of prior attempts I suppose.”

“Yes. Those were known as the proto-feathers, they were the true first generation. And they were fully functioning.”

She hummed. “That is all fascinating trivia little brother, but this elder sister of yours fails to understand where you are going with this? If you would so kindly skip forward.”

“Have you studied To’Aacar’s operational records?” He asked instead, then forwarded one of the logs that remained from their original target.

It loaded up into both their memories.

“How?” The Feather stuttered, staring down a human knight, error logs still reporting damage to his superstructure. “A12’s dead. How did you recover his chain? I saw him cast it into the mite sea, seven entire levels below, right before we killed him!”

He paused the recording, and replayed it.

To’Sefit was quiet for a moment. “A12?” She asked, now getting it. “To’Aacar fought against Abdication’s prototypes? That makes little sense. Some kind of competition between the second generation and the prototypes?”

“I went through the same thoughts myself.” To’Avalis confessed, taking the time to verify integrity to his occult fractals in the meantime. The job they needed to perform in order to navigate through the mite sea was critical. If they weren’t aligned perfectly, he would die in the next few minutes. "It would be within Mother's model of operation to pit prototypes against prototypes and select the winner as the one to move forward with. She's done this in the digital sea already."

The module loaded into view and began crunching numbers. While he waited, he spoke. “I went searching for the name. I found a match to the keyword within our archives, the older ones from seven centuries ago.”

He wasn't quite honest here. He hadn't found a match. Not until he started looking for the term within locked archives. He knew it must have existed somewhere, To'Aacar wouldn't have called out for something that didn't exist.

To’Sefit remained quiet on the line, listening in.

“This is where I discovered the protofeathers I spoke about earlier. I’ll forward you what I found.”

The data uplink came up and showed full transfer of files. Within moments To’Sefit was up to date. And horrified.

“These proto-feathers betrayed mother? Turned against our own?”

“They did. And I suspect it is happening again.”

“To’Wrathh.” The woman said, voice growing cold. “You had better be extremely certain about this. I rather liked my little hellion.”

“I am near certain. Too many data points point directly to this conclusion.”

Numbers finished their verification. Everything showed green. The newly installed occult fractals remained in working condition since his initial tests. Now he would put them to their first real use.

“Near certain isn’t completely certain, To’Avalis. Tell me the evidence you’ve got first before I make a decision and before we bring this to Mother. She will not have any mercy for wasting her time.”

“The human weapon To’Wrathh used against you is a keystone item.” He said, triggering the occult fractal deep inside him.

Fractal power pulsed and To’Avalis faded slightly, turning more into a ghost. A cross dimensional leap, only halted at a very specific point. A similar ability he had found among To’Aacar’s own suite.

He was loath to commit several of his hardpoints to any ability, not without being certain it would become his standard of fighting. But he had been in operation for near a decade now, most Feathers already had a full suite of fractals by now.

Decision paralysis. The chronic vulnerability of an overthinker.

In a way, having the choice taken away from him had been a blessing. He needed this ability to search the mite sea. And he needed what was left behind deep inside the sea. Against an enemy Feather, he needed a weapon that had been used to kill Feathers.

“You know the source of that weapon she used against me?” To’Sefit asked.

“That log I sent you is the first recorded use of that weapon, by a human against To’Aacar. The very same human that To’Wrathh’s logs showed skewered by her sword.” He said, taking a few steps forward, translucent.

The sea made no motion, the shapes looming in the distance remained waiting.

“Hardly any evidence. My cute little sister killed the human like she had been tasked to do and took his weapon as a trophy. We saw the footage ourselves. That doesn’t seem to be much of a conspiracy against Mother. Paranoia is not a good look on you, you're far too young to lose your head already.” To’Sefit huffed.

“That would have been the case. Except while diving into the archive to recover the information on the protofeathers, I was intercepted by two human knights.”

“Intercepted in the digital sea? Impossible. Humans can’t digitize like that. They’re - well, they’re meat. They can’t connect to the digital sea.”

To’Avalis didn’t answer that, instead sending over the data package of his experience. “The armors worn by both knights. One matches the same human that nearly destroyed To’Aacar. The one that was supposed to be dead. To’Wrathh doctored the footage somehow to make it seem as if she’d killed the human. She didn’t take his weapon. The human created or lent her his.”

“Your recording might have been some rogue program using their image to spook you." She said, although he could tell in her voice she wasn't quite convinced. Too much coincidence. And no program should have known he'd been tasked with investigating.

To’Avalis remained quiet, letting his teammate mull over the chances of that. All logical thought returned back to To’Wrathh having some kind of working relationship with these humans. To’Avalis didn’t need to say a word.

With a final step forward, he walked out into the sea, the cubes passing through him, harmless now that the occult kept him slightly out of reality.

The power remained stable, keeping him immune to the crushing cubes that roiled around him.

“...We need to warn mother.” To’Sefit finally said, defeated. “Even if we are not completely certain yet, you're right that there's far too much that fits your conclusion. She’ll need to know that it’s at least possible.”

“She already knows.” To’Avalis said through the data link. “Consider it. To’Wrathh was built like the original protofeathers, intentionally. And then mother attached a second-generation Feather as her mentor. An assassin built to kill Feathers. Already primed to search for any hint of betrayal. I see only one logical reason for this.”

“I see. She thought he’d keep her in line, or deal with her before she betrayed mother.” To’Sefit concluded.

As far as To’Avalis understood Mother’s true plan, he believed she had attempted to recreate the same success she had with Abdication. A second A57, loyal to her. Her old champion had been destroyed against the humans long ago, or so went the general tale, and she hadn't found another champion to elevate since.

Her project clearly failed, and now they had to clean up.

Further into the depth he went, trusting his instruments to guide the way. Scanning through, searching for evidence. He hit the seabed, vision completely obscured by the cubes, no light reaching here.

In the murk, the real work began. “There is one additional factor. Us.”

“Us? Including me in your plans for once? How sweet of you."

“To’Aacar was a veteran Feather specifically made to kill Feathers, he could have easily cut all three of us to pieces. And he lost. Were it me, I would have dispatched several second generation Feathers to eliminate To’Wrathh. Insead, she sent us, and worse - assigned me as the leader. Why send what is effectively cannon fodder?”

“I’m pleased you think so highly of To’Orda and I.” To’Sefit said, unamused.

To’Avalis said nothing, waiting for an answer. His own track record was clear, and he held no illusions on how that reflected on himself, given the number of retreats he'd comitted.

“Fine… If you ask me, this must be a test for you.” To’Sefit said. “Perhaps mother is attempting to give you a second chance to prove yourself?”

Mother was cruel, that he already knew. It would be like her to send him and his two subordinates unsuspectedly into the jaws of an enemy she had no hope he could win against. To’Sefit and To’Orda would both be rebuilt without issue.

Him on the other hand? That would be different. That’s why he had to fight unlike all other Feathers. He couldn’t afford to fail even once. He doubled his efforts, continuing his search at the bottom of the mite sea, keeping a careful watch on his resources.

Nothing so far.

“I believe she is hedging her bets.” To’Avalis said, keeping his inner thoughts to himself. “Mother is sending us first as expendable soldiers to test To’Wrathh’s true abilities in full. Trading our shells for information, so that her second team of Feathers will eliminate To'Wrathh with no damage. We're cheaper to replace than more powerful Feathers.”

Ironic in a way, as he'd done the same to To'Sefit when ordering her to investigate To'Wrathh. He had only suspicions then, hunches. They'd proven true, as always.

“My, my, what an accusation. Suppose we’re there to deal the opening punch then. Better get this over with fast, we should be getting To’Orda and marching back to deal with our misbehaving little sister, we'll go directly to that city of hers first thing. Perhaps we might suprise Mother and take her head ourselves.”

“I told you before. I don’t fight threats that could kill me without research and a plan. And she won't be in that city either.”

“I nearly eradicated her and I see no sign of her anywhere in the sea, she must be back at her city, licking her wounds. Not destroying that city of hers first before she's back on her feet is a mistake."

"Regardless of your thoughts, I have been given command of this team." To'Avalis said. He couldn't lose control of these two Feathers. They were the expendable ones, and his strongest units. "To'Wrathh needs to be handled with care."

"Please, she won by chance and surprise." To'Sefit scoffed. "And now she's only got chance left. Against three of us? Not even that."

"You underestimate her resources. To'Wrathh alone could not have killed To'Aacar. She must have had help from the humans. And I do not know what that help has resource wise."

"Humans? We can bring lessers to handle the insects. Why bother factoring them in? They're only humans."

"I'm not here to take chances. You will obey my orders, even if you do not agree with them."

"Fine, fine, oh magnificent leader. I'll do my best to be scared of the little scurrying humans hiding behind their walls."

Arrogance. To'Avalis thought. Arrogance born from those who didn't need to care about living through a fight. "Those same humans nearly destroyed To'Aacar alone. I am not going to repeat someone else's mistakes, and neither will you."

"And your great plan, oh wise leader?”

“To’Aacar misrecognized the human chain weapon when he first saw it - and he feared it. He claimed it had been thrown into the mite sea. I narrowed down the most likely location to here.”

“Ahh, so you’re looking for the dead corpse of a fallen Feather, to loot their weapon. My, my, how appropriate coming from you.” To’Sefit said, a smile in her voice. “Assuming you even have the right section of the sea here, his shell and fabled weapon must be gone for good. Nothing sinks without getting crushed into pieces first, as you know.”

“Appearances may be deceiving. My instincts tell me there is more to this.” In effect, he had gambled everything on those feelings. They’d led him correctly so far.

Did the mites really let A12’s dead shell get crushed into pieces? If so, he should find scraps of it at the bottom. Thus far, he only found crushed sand and metal parts that matched second generation Feathers. The material composition was well documented in the archives, as alloys were improved over time.

He knew that the original protofeathers were built differently than their mass manufactured counterparts.

The protofeathers had the favor of the mites during their rebellion, that part had been clear. If they had not crushed his shell… there was a chance his body was still intact and hidden under here. The mites were known to be creatures of habit, often marking places as sanctuaries to remain undisturbed. Moved around, yet untouched by future colonies. Part of their original task, to contain and protect dangerous waste material. Even after all this time of mutation, some part of their original task must remain buried in their collective minds. They were hoarders, always looking to preserve history in some way.

“And if this protofeather grave of yours exists, why here?”

The other strata moved over time, mite colonies changing or pushing the landscape every few decades as they passed by. But the mite sea was different. This entire strata was nearly untouched by mite terraforming colonies.

“There are only two battlefields within this strata from that time period that have their records sealed off. I do not know what happened, the terms of engagement, nor the forces. Only that something happened here. And if it had been this redacted, it could only mean one thing.”

And evidence of broken second generation parts had only confirmed his original assumptions. He had one in two chances of being correct.

It took hours of wandering blindly around until he stumbled upon something different.

A hollow section deep within the mite sea. He stepped through the moving cubes and found a set of them completely frozen, acting as a wall. Crossing the wall, a massive trapped bubble of air waited on the other side. A cavern within the mite sea. Relaxing his occult power, the Feather rematerialized inside the empty space.

The cavern stretched far, twisting and turning at many angles to form the layout of a flower petal. All leading to a center room, brightly lit and filled with a reflective shallow lake. An inch of crystal clear water, undisturbed for years, looking almost invisible except for the few sparkles of reflected light, acting more as an unbroken half-mirror of the ceiling.

Above, twinkling lights like stars spread across, providing illumination, the space in between too dark to make out against the white dots, giving the cavern a feeling of eternity. The floor slowly raised the closer to the center of the chamber it went, eventually surpassing the shallow lake, turning into a small patch of dry land.

Here, To’Avalis found what he had been searching for.

An unmoving silhouette, eternally meditating upon a dias, legs crossed. A shawl of unremarkable tan covered its features, designs long faded away. Behind it, a massive pillar watched over, illuminated water flowing from both sides, brightly lit.

The protofeather. A12.

The Feather paused, scanning the area for possible traps. Signals sent out, sounding waves, electroscopic data retrieval, infrared pings. Everything he had in his suite.

Nothing.

The chamber was wall, water and pseudo-stars of the ceiling. The pillar, only a set piece. A small ring of water surrounded the dias, separate from the lake, churning water flowing from the fountain behind, dimly glowing blue from lights secreted under.

He hesitated despite all systems showing green. There was a creeping sense of instinctive fear climbing up his spine. This place was not one he was welcome in. The stillness felt almost oppressive.

He began to walk from the edge of the room to the centerpoint, across the lake. Waves raced away from his footfalls with nothing else to compete against. He moved slowly, deliberately, keeping his senses on high alert. His steps were the only sound in the chamber besides the flowing waterfalls from the pillar at the center - and his ultimate target.

Differences between his own shell and the proto-feather were stark. It lacked the grace and organic curves of his own shell, looking far more angular with lines and cuts. Far less humanlike and more machine.

For a moment, To’Avalis believed that the proto-feather was waiting on standby. Further cautious steps forward showed the truth, especially after his scans returned.

The old Feather’s body was shattered, held together by bits of cubes fused together under the ripped robes, as if a child had stuffed a broken porcelain doll with clumpy wet sand in an attempt to restore the basic look. Large swaths of his body were outright missing, completely made up of the cube stuffing, where the mites attempted their best to recreate the true shape that had once been. Most of the head had been replaced by cubes as well, melding into the Feather’s porcelain face. What was left of it. It looked as if a geometric cancer had ravished the body.

A macabre sight.

A12 did not stir as his graverobber slowly approached. The shell remained seated in a lotus position, slightly hunched over, a monk frozen in trance.

No, the proto-feather was dead. Long dead. This chamber was nothing more than a tomb, built by the mites as a form of homage. He spoke over the link. “I have found the proto-feather’s shell.”

Static for a moment, but a data package was received in mostly good shape. “My, you’re awfully cavalier about all this. Shouldn’t you be more respectful in this sort of location? That is one of our great forefathers after all, willful traitor or not.”

“I don’t see the point.” He said, continuing forward across the lake, directly at his target. His scans had found no traps, and further time spent would not reveal more. “Superstition is not befitting of a Feather.”

He supposed other Feathers may have stopped or felt afraid of a location like this. But To’Avalis put his priorities first. The Feather before him was dead and gone. And he needed to avoid that fate. The intrusion in the archives had been a wake up call that his enemies would not be the standard Deathless.

Scans showed a small rectangular stone, recessed in the ground right by the foot of the dead protofeather. With little difficulty, his hand lifted the slab off, tossing it away. A large chain was neatly folded inside, coiled like a snake. Just as To’Aacar had described it.

“Looks like your intuition paid off.” To’Sefit said.

The weapon’s handle was ornate, a work of art with angular straight lines. As if cutting through wind. Each link on the chain had written words in fine print.

Names of Feathers, To’Avalis realized.

Some written more than once. A quick scan showed four hundred and twenty seven names. To’Aacar’s name appeared fourteen times. No wonder the Feather had felt panic on seeing something similar.

He reached a hand out to lift the weapon from its grave. Lights flashed on the sides the moment his hand wrapped around the hilt, the chain waking from slumber as if groggy and mildly confused.

To’Avalis was not one for sentimentality, but there was something about this ancient weapon that had his hackles on edge, as if it would just as easily destroy him as it would his enemies. It was clearly far too heavy for any human to use. Which made sense - A12 was not a human.

There was no trigger nor activation switch. Instead, To’Avalis found only an I/O port embedded within the hilt. With little choice, he connected a wire from his palm and prepared his systems for possible cyber warfare. Firewalls and a few dozen virtual warfare suites booted up within his systems. He verified their integrity three times, isolating himself into a sandbox instance before he opened the port.

Nothing came from the weapon besides a simple connection request, blocking him from accessing the rest of the chain’s abilities. A set of twelve cryptographic keys were needed.

He would need to obtain the instructions directly from the source.

One hand drew up to the broken shell before him, linking a wire into the first functional port he could find at the neckline. Most had been destroyed or disconnected, but one seemed to still work. He didn’t expect to find the keys to the weapon within the corpse. If the proto-feathers were anywhere near as intelligent as he’d read up, they would have already taken standard steps against enemy tampering. There still might be data to recover that could assist him further in how to use the weapon, and he’d need it. Protofeathers were far more than their weapons.

“My little brother, acting a little reckless now are we?” His sister called out, watching the feed through his eyes. “What if you wake him up? I can’t exactly come down there to bail you out, and even To’Orda can’t save you either, his abilities have limits you know. Not that it would help even if he could reach you. If this really is a sleeping monster, don’t be surprised when you find yourself stuck in his teeth as a starting snack.”

“So long as I am careful and in control, I can prevent mishaps.” He said, more to himself than to his sister. If the proto-feather was functional enough to return to life with just his light prodding, it would have already done so. It had centuries to repair itself back to full health in this hidden tomb.

A12 had not.

That was meaningful enough to draw a conclusion.

Connection established, power flowed from To’Avalis into A12’s broken systems. Blue light flickered and grew within the slumped shell. To’Avalis could sense the internals respond. Requests from different partitions arrived and he carefully filtered through each, taking a tentative beachhead within the broken systems. There was no resistance.

First he had to confirm why the Feather had not been able to restore itself automatically. Just to be sure that he would not trigger something dormant.

Integrity reports almost failed to load, all key measuring systems broken beyond repair. That was promising. What little backup systems did function showed deep red. All fractals within the central chest plate had been destroyed, including the soul fractal, which had four massive holes punched through. To’Avalis sent a connection to the machine archives and ran the fractals through, curious to see what kit this feather ran.

No results returned for any of the fractals.

The protofeather must have discovered new fractals outside of what Mother knew about, and brought it to the grave with him.

The soul fractal itself did not match the standard template. Instead, it looked mutated, only vaguely similar to the one he’d been familiar with. A new soul fractal? It lacked the Unity fractal as well.

He supposed that could be a possibility. Fractals were infinite. The study of fractals was more a study of statistics. Recreating this fractal was impossible with the holes punched through. However, knowledge could always be leveraged in the future.

To’Avalis shut off his connection to the machine archives, no longer needing them. Mother always made sure no Feathers could hold a copy of those, lest one of their kind be defeated and hacked into by Tsuya, unveiling her strongest assets. Security he had no wish to poke at, given his current rating among her servants.

A pity those fractals had been destroyed. And while To’Avalis could search through the broken memory banks left behind, he was certain even if A12’s memory nodes were fully restored, those fractals would not have been saved at all, following the same security Mother used. Specifically to prevent situations exactly like this.

Nano-swarm command nodes within the broken protofeather had all been destroyed with pinpoint accuracy as well, likely a priority target. Self-healing was out of commission. But the mites could have opted to repair him, given how far they’d gone for all this. Which meant enough of A12’s systems must have been destroyed to the point physical restoration would restore a factory default rather than the original Feather. A new soul would have crystalized instead.

He opened power gates into the upper systems, restarting the base core of the Feather and watching carefully for what he’d find.

Some of A12’s neuromorphic mind remained functional as expected. Not enough to generate any meaningful data, or reboot the systems without To’Avalis’s own assistance providing the majority of the power and computation, at which point the rebooted systems would be more an extention of him than anything else. But there were enough pieces left to store fragmented data of the protofeather’s past.

Memories slept within the dead body, floating in the darkness eternal.

The new Feather took them all in, churning out a few dedicated threads to attempt to stitch the data together, predicting what the missing pieces could be with the context clues and restoring it within a threshold of ninety percent accuracy.

Half-remembered memories of combat. Things that the protofeather had buried away. Those he copied over, finding many of the files possibly helpful, if their new coordinates after all these centuries could be found. Seems even the protofeathers had enemies they could not completely destroy, and had to seal away instead.

Next, he searched for remaining combat systems, turning on what he could find in order to duplicate them, constantly keeping vigilant with each new subsystem reactivated.

They responded, lighting up, showing him detailed information in green. Of all hardware a Feather would want to make sure remains in working condition, it would be those.

Customized suites, generated and honed by the protofeather over time. Hundreds of variations remained stable, the nodes all backed up three dozen times throughout the body. A12 had done a thorough job, making so many redundant backups that they had outlived even his own complete destruction. To’Avalis could respect that kind of foresight. Whoever the proto-feather had been, his shell had been shaped and prepared for war, to fight to the very last possible second, and even theoretically past that point.

This was also what nearly killed To’Avalis.

He couldn’t notice the systems slowly crafting rogue connections autonomously, deep under the layers of data. The growing mass of threads sneaking to the ruined remains of the neuromorphic mind, following pre-constructed connections hidden deep within the software, attempting to reestablish a link. One last failsafe, impossible to spot from individual nodes, only appearing once enough systems had been activated.

The dead Feather’s eyes flew open, deep glowing blue staring at To’Avalis from the grave.

He kicked his systems into overdrive a moment too late.

The hand of a dead wraith jabbed forward, dozens of cubes breaking into fine powder as the metal skeleton under it all moved. Intrusion countermeasure systems flashed active. Too late to catch the command blocker sent by the dead Feather. Shields failed to materialize as the virus took a few microseconds to completely purge out of his system. During that tiny window of time, nails effortlessly cut through To’Avalis’s unshielded chest plate, the fingers aimed straight for his soul fractal.

Reaction speed and the armor he’d worn saved his life. To’Avalis shifted his shoulders, forcing the fingers to cut through more armor to reach his core, slowing down the attack by an extra fraction of time. At the same moment, his free hand shot out, grasping the dead Feather’s wrist and stopping it in place.

There was no emotion on the dead face, but To’Avalis felt as if the remaining bits of the dead protofeather were mildly annoyed that its attempt to kill had been foiled.

That had been close. Very close.

There were lessons to learn from this, he thought, squeezing the old Feather’s hand and crushing the internal components easily. It had been fast, but not fast enough.

The protofeather’s shell was long obsolete compared to his own. Not to mention the structural integrity of the arm was already barely holding together. If the protofeather’s fingers hadn’t already been weapons designed for jabs like this, they would have broken against his chest plate armor. As it was, the thicker armor slowed the hand as it went through, just enough.

Other Feathers hated armor, considering it an insult to the ability of their current shell. To’Avalis didn’t care, replacing his torso and body with the far more bulky armor in order to fit in slightly more shields. The only vanity To’Avalis allowed was a set of reading glasses, a personal harmless callsign.

Satisfied that the proto-feather wasn’t going to attempt to turn this room into a second tomb, he downloaded everything he could from those rebellious systems, placing it all carefully under quarantine and safely locked away in case the protofeather had left behind more traps. With the systems reconnected to the neuromorphic mind, the full array had been active and within reach.

He hastily cut the connections with swift and merciless strikes through the digital codes, the half-working combat systems giving hardly any resistance without a central command to organize the defense. The hand went limp.

From there, he disconnected himself from the body, watching as the proto-feather’s internal lights faded away, returning to the silent vigil of death.

He had A12's weapon and the combat data he needed to use it. The codes protecting it would only last for so long before he broke the encryption.

With this, he had the tools to deal with To’Wrathh and her human accomplices.

It was true that To'Avalis rarely won. Almost all skirmishes in his records showed nearly constant retreats. Fights that should have been resolved within a single bout lasted dozens. Spanning hours or even days until his target was eliminated. He really was considered the weakest Feather by objective metrics. A coward in Mother's eyes.

What Mother failed to understand about him is that when the dust finally settled, he was the one who remained standing.

Every.

Single.

Time.

This task she'd sent him on would be no different.

Next chapter - Resolution

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