12 Miles Below

Environmental suits are sturdy things built to last against wear and tear. Tools and equipment help to extend the suit’s lifetime with the tear part, but nothing’s rated to be slammed against a stone wall while going at insane speeds on top of a dead metal bird the size of an airspeeder.

Surviving a collision like that would have typically gone under the ‘How to make peace with the gods’ sections of Retainer training. No need to ask where the ‘surviving’ part of that shows up, it doesn’t.

Fortunately, I was in relic armor, so the wall ahead of me was in more trouble than I was.

The bird slammed into the top of the tower, breaking the already battered thing even further. Chunks of larger rock outright split up, collapsing down into the whirlpool at the bottom. A few pillars broke apart under the tower, but somehow the whole thing stayed together despite having a giant monster half buried inside.

And holding on tightly for dear life on the more protected back of the bird was me. Alive.

A novel way of defeating an aerial opponent. Wrath said. I will need to add rope on my list of potential threats to be aware of against future enemies.

“Never doubted for a moment, deary. Young blood is exactly when heroics like this are supposed to happen.” Cathida hummed in appreciation. “What a grand show, right in its own home domain.”

“Show’s not over yet.” I muttered, unwrapping my hands from the back of the metal chassis. “For my next trick, I’m going to try to make two Feathers disappear. Somehow.”

“Squireshit. Go in with no mercy.” Cathida corrected. “You hesitate, you die.”

“Great words of advice from someone who's dead.” I said, climbing on top of the dead bird and making my way to my trusted hook. An inventory check was also running, looking over the list Journey had on my HUD. Wrath was still on my back, utility belt had everything from drugs down to grenades still there. At my hilt were my swords, and under Wrath's sack on my back, the white sheath of a special blade Lord Atius had entrusted to me. One I had kept hidden under sack and cape. Knightbreaker launcher was still on the small of my back, and a check over the weapon showed nothing serious had hit it. Maybe a few dents, but that’s all cosmetic and adds character. I clicked it open, extracting the round inside to inspect for damages.

Journey confirmed the integrity, sending an all clear before I slammed it back into the launcher, clicking the weapon shut. Given Avalis had a history of stealing my scrap, being paranoid of having my stuff stolen right off my back during a fight was fully justified.

On afterthought, I clicked the safety off, priming the round ahead of time. I’d need it soon.

“Not exactly great trigger discipline.” Cathida chimed in, as I retracted the hook and rounded up the rope.

“Against opponents that could move fast enough to fall under the dictionary definition of ridiculous, I want every millisecond I can get.”

Wrath tossed ice on that thought. The additional time would be negligible. We Feathers can overclock our systems to calculate plans and process information at near any speed needed, so long as the heat draw does not pass certain thresholds.

“Hate to say this, but the silver bimbo’s right on this one. In a fight with a Feather, getting a few extra milliseconds of speed would amount to basically nothing. Don’t fight your enemy where they’re strong. A kick where the goddess won’t look was often my first resort in bar fights. Worked back then, works just fine now.”

“Point.” I said, taking the advice and a few steps off the metal bird, jumping from cracked rock to rock on what was once a stairwell of some kind. “I’ll aim for a situation where all the speed in the world can’t save them. Think that might be my only way through this.”

The stairwell did lead into the tower top, showing a smaller room all the way up here. Likely used to be a bell tower of some kind, but that bell was missing now, replaced by the dead head of my unorthodox ride back into the fight here. It remained dead, one of its eyes gouged out with a hole punched out on the other side.

Also missing in the room was the floor. Crumbled away during the crash, showing a direct decent right down to the whirlpool at the bottom. And the events happening under me.

Far below, on the parameter of the whirlpool and solid ground, Windrunner was outright strangling To’Sefit.

I did a doubletake to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

Nope. The man was holding the Feather down on the ground, knee on her back, trying to rip her head clear off while she desperately tried to pry his arms off. She did not look happy in the slightest about these recent events. A mix between surprised, angry, and insulted.

“Three gods on an airspeeder, is he actually going to win doing that?” I whispered, in awe.

No. Wrath said immediately. Human armor has a smaller max power range than any Feather chassis, including older models. It is only a matter of time until To’Sefit overpowers the knight, even with his advantageous positioning.

“Better find a way down right now.” Cathida said. “Wrath's right, this isn’t going to end well for him. He might hold her off for a few more seconds at best.”

“And while she’s held down, she can’t dodge.” I finished the thought, searching around the ruins of the room for any way down. If he could hold her still, I could end her.

This was a belltower, there had to be a way up here, unless the mites made the room for show. Which was possible, though this time luck was on my side. An archway on the other end of the room was half collapsed down, but it did show a further stairwell wrapping around the tower edges, going down. I jumped in one leap across the void below, landing on the overhang left behind by the floor, yanked a few rocks out of my way and raced down the stairwell. The rest of the internal was intact, up until I wrapped around where the bird had crashed above. That had a few chunks of rock crumbled down, obstructing the way. Journey calculated it could easily handle this much without issue.

A few seconds into the work a massive occult pulse expanded from further down. The wave washed over me, unseen but absolutely felt. It felt eerily similar to the pulse that Father’s armor had made when he’d forcibly manifested inside, taking command of the armor as a disembodied spirit. There’s only one spellcaster in our party I could imagine being able to make such an impact on the occult.

And it couldn’t have come cheap. Not something like this. A moment later, my hunches were confirmed as Lord Atius’s nameplate went gray on my HUD, following the sound of a screaming woman and her terrifying beams. She fired four times, one after another, clearly aiming to scour the Deathless from the world, despite his name having gone gray after the first one.

That’s fine. I had to remind myself. Lord Atius was Deathless. It’s in the name. He’ll be back. If anything, he might have seen it like a morbid shortcut to the surface, with a relic armor as payment. More importantly, if To'Sefit was firing her weapon, it meant she'd shaken off Windrunner already.

I yanked a larger chunk of rock out of the way, punched the remaining one in my way. Good enough, Wrath’s sack was thrown through, landing on the other side with little decorum, leaving only her head poking out. She did not look amused with the treatment.

With a heavy forward stomp on one more rock in the way, the crack was wide enough for me to fit through. Bits that were in the way weren’t solid enough to stop a relic armor passing through. Part of Journey’s white cape caught on something, but between several hundred pounds of relic armor and heavy unyielding mite-made granite rock, the cloth may as well have been made of melting snow for all the resistance it put up. I hadn’t even noticed it until I heard the sound of the rip, more concerned with making sure all my gear didn’t get scuffed as I made my way through the obstruction.

I grabbed Wrath off the ground in a drive by, strapping her on my back as I raced across the stairwell.

It finally led into open air, now following the massive pillars keeping the whole tower up. Chunks of rocks had been ripped off quite a few by now, showing hints of a metal skeleton under it. A nice, sensible touch from the mites to reinforce the granite holding several hundred tons this high in the air.

What wasn’t sensible was that the stairwell ended abruptly at one of the pillars, as if the way down was by doing a cliff dive.

The mites really did make the belltower room inaccessible to regular foot traffic. As if to add insult, parts of the stairwell were still there, hanging out like overhangs from the pillars, the middle section broken down with all the shaking, leaving only the sturdiest parts attached.

Video feed returned from all parties left alive, and I cycled through each to check up the events.

Kidra was locked in combat with what had to be Avalis, who used a chain weapon exactly as the rest of the approaching knights reported. He fought her carefully, letting the mass of machines surrounding the pair attack her one at a time, at just the wrong moments. They were used more like bullets in a rifle, carefully aimed and fired out without any thought of recovering them.

It was highly effective. They died against her blades with hardly any spared attention from my sister, but that wasn’t the point. Each time she was forced to twist around and cut down an encroaching machine, Avalis was mid swing with his weapon, landing either occult blasts that she barely managed to hold ground against or outright chain strikes, which she used her dagger and occult shield to parry off. Each time the defense was costing her precious bits of focus.

Regular shields had long since been burned out from the HUD display above her. Any hit could slice her in half if she didn’t block it. Worse, each time those attacks came, there was absolutely no way for her to retaliate or turn it around. Avalis was playing a completely different game, leaving nothing to chance, turning a duel into a slow and certain execution.

I jumped from broken ledge to ledge, cursing with every breath, trying to get closer to the ground before I had to jump this far down. As much as Cathida boasts about the old armor she now inhabits, relic armor wasn’t miracle armor.

Which is where I saw her earlier predictions on Windrunner had come true. The elite clan knight, with several decades of experience as a bodyguard for lord Atius himself, hadn’t been able to hold the ground against a Feather by himself, although he'd gotten further than any regular human could have possibly been expected to.

The medical report alone showed he wasn’t going to make it back to the surface already without Wrath’s full healing spell being used. On the other hand, To’Sefit’s plates had all vanished, except for seven that floated closer to her person. As if she were guarding them like children.

I cursed again, watching as he remained still against a cracked wall. The fight had gone out of the man the moment his cauterized hand slumped back down on the floor. His head lulled back then turned ever so slightly in my direction. Even at this distance, with both of us carrying armored helmets that covered every detail of our features, I could almost feel his eyes locking onto me. There was only one thought going through my head. He had to hold on for a moment more, and I’d get to him.

Windrunner seemed to understand, giving an almost unnoticeable nod. Then he turned his gaze back at To'Sefit. A hand lifted off the ground, right before his executioner. The occult shield appeared before him.

The time for thinking was over. Had to make do with this height and the tools I had on hand, or else I wouldn’t reach him in time.

Journey followed my commands without question, turning the careful jog into a full on sprint before it leaped forward into the void, carrying me with it.

I unhooked my knightbreaker and took aim as I fell.

To’Sefit fired.

Windrunner took the blast, head on, dissipating energy washing off the sides, melting rock all around the knight. His vitals instantly went to red - but they held.

A mirror raced forward at the same time, leaping at To’Sefit’s remaining panels, slashing one outright, turning for another.

I knew what had happened even before his name turned gray. The moment that image faded off from reality. A sinking feeling spread through my veins, as my slowed emotions caught up to what my rational mind had already figured out.

Father had held on against the pull of the world, but only by sheer strength of will and a slowly chilling body to clutch onto until the occult gave him a backdoor into an occupied soul fractal.

Windrunner had none of that. His body was utterly eradicated. And so were any soul fractals inscribed in his armor. There was nothing left behind where he'd been, besides melted rock.

Shock came through me first, the propranolol tampering it down into more of a dissociated feeling of loss. Disbelief that I hadn’t been able to save him, despite being seconds away. Incredulity that a knight and living legend like him could just… disappear like that. I shoved it all to the side, focusing. To’Sefit had to die. If there was anything I could do for Windrunner, she had to die fast. The targeting reticle on my HUD showed red as I locked onto her unsuspecting form. Just slightly behind her, from above. The perfect ambush angle.

She snapped her gaze up, tilting her neck in the process, the halo above her sliding away. Wet hair matted her sides, violet eyes glowing with malice, with a truly horrifying grin spread wide.

Directly at me. Surprise had been blown out the airlock.

“Did you think I didn’t notice a metal rat scurrying about in the attic?” She said, words floating through the comms while I fell, helpless to change course, her grin deepening until it looked more fitting on a monster, eyes narrowing like a predator. The staff in her hand raising up to aim at me.

“I thank you kindly for delivering my rebellious little sister directly to my care. But I’ll take it from here, human. I’m afraid that you are no longer needed.”

Next chapter - Oblivion

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