12 Miles Below

To’Orda had a feeling even with his best attack, the human would slip away. There was simply too many options for his target with that occult lash in his command.

That lash flying off the human's back saved his screaming target at the last second. As To’Orda had expected, his hammer slammed into the rock Keith had been standing on right as the inertia fractal flickered off, replaced by the shockwave fractal. Sound and glowing molten slag flew off from the impact point, the rest of the rock breaking apart into a cloud of pulverized stone and shrapnel flying off past the speed of sound directly downwards, ripping apart the ground far below, leaving a melted crater to decorate the already melted impact points from To'Sefit's cannons.

Ah. He’d been close that time. If only the human had stood still for a second longer.

That occult lash was getting annoying. But at least the shockwave of the breaking rock had sent the human into a wild spin in the air.

His plates aimed upwards, tracking the human.

That should have been the end of it. But of course, somehow, against all odds, even wildly unbalanced in the air, the human still seemed to know how to orient himself and how to aim.

One hand lashed downwards, directly on the old starship’s flat nose. The other hand aimed that sidearm and opened fire, beating To’Sefit’s cannons in speed.

Damage was minimal, since the human only managed a handful of shots in the maneuver, but it did force him to once more repair the fractals on the panel.

To’Orda tutted and followed behind, leaping from rock to rock until he landed hard on the starship nose. Cracks of glass spread from his bare feet, like spiderwebs appearing immediately on his heavy landing.

The human on the other side had rolled to a stop, landing a heavy knee into position, his arm extended out directly at To’Orda in the same breath - the blasted stolen plate leveled at To’Orda.

His mite shield handled the laser, but the glass surrounding them melted in the process, leaving a glowing red trail from the human’s hand and stolen plate all the way to To’Orda’s shield.

“Nnnnn…” He grumbled, debating how to handle this. If he had to pull out his mite doorway each time, it would mean there’d be no chance to grab the human directly. And given how slippery he’d been, swinging a hammer until he caught the human would take too long.

“To’Sefit. It is absurdly clear to us all To’Orda will not be able to recover your plate from the human.” To’Avalis hissed over the comms, equally thinking though the same problem. “Shut down the cannon linked to it.”

For once, To’Orda felt aligned with his boss on this. That plate was more trouble than it was worth and each time the human fired, there was a chance he’d do something worse in the same breath. Something that could actually damage his shield.

To’Sefit huffed, upset. “Very well. Seems I have no choice in the matter. My, my, how the world turns.”

“We will need to strategize around this new acasual leash he's obtained as well. In his hands it is rather… disconcerting to see in action. He should have died multiple times over already.”

To’Orda could see why. It countered To’Sefit’s plates, and it countered his own gravity manipulations at almost every turn. It was very frustrating to deal with.

“Afraid of a single Deathless?” To’Wrathh purred. “How embarrassing for you three. Although, I suppose it is well earned after all. He will eventually win in some underhanded way. I guarantee it.”

That got the other two to start fighting like cats threatened with water, which To’Orda suspected was the intention.

To’Orda ignored both of them, and went to work. The melted glass under him would have burned anyone else who stood barefoot, but he was a Feather and his skin impervious. The human was clad in armor, so that likewise didn’t bother him.

Keith charged forward, blade and armguard in position.

Far more wraiths than before surrounded To’Orda, hacking and slashing away at all angles while his hammer swung and his shield bodychecked them into oblivion, equally fanning away the torrents of fire constantly thrown in his face. But the human was moving equally as fast, and with a far more refined set of movements now.

Not enough to put him above a Feather’s own combat prowess, except the flock of Wraiths were making it difficult to deal.

“Finally, he makes a mistake.” To’Avalis spoke, gleeful for the first time. “He’s using the engram to fight for him. Give me access to your broadband abilities, and make sure you leave To’Wrathh out of it. We wouldn’t want our little sister here getting ahead of herself.”

“What a boor.” To’Sefit gave a verbal shrug. “I would have expected the human to have wised up about using that engram when it had been hacked multiple times over. Does he truly believe you aren’t aware of that?”

To’Orda said nothing, but his senses told him there was something off about that. And for one main reason: To’Wrathh was quiet.

Each time the human had gotten one up on him, To'Wrathh had been jeering at them all. And each time his hammer had come close to hitting the human, she’d been frantic. Now, she stayed quiet.

As if knowing something and not allowed to boast about it.

But orders were orders. In midswing, he opened up the broadband permissions and allowed To’Avalis access. The Feather wasted no time, sending the hacked administration password and connecting with the human’s armor wirelessly.

A notification appeared next on the chat channel: To’Avalis had logged off.

“Is he being dramatic?” To’Sefit mused. “Leaving us both alone here. How odd of him.”

“Nnnn…” To’Orda muttered back, that gut feeling told him something was wrong. The human’s armor should have been deactivated by now. And yet it wasn’t. And To’Avalis was now no longer in communication with either of them.

Not dead, no. A check through the machine network showed him perfectly healthy. Only occupied.

And To’Wrathh simply stayed in the background, no images sent, simply content in the quiet.

He had to end this quickly. The plates were fixed, and he’d been forced to bring out his doorway for good now, no longer finding any chance to leave it safely latched behind him.

Very well. If he couldn’t keep his valuables safe, he may as well take the chance and use them.

The fractal of danger lit up within the doorway. At the same time, he let the panels float out from their hiding place behind his shield. They locked onto the human.

Keith opened fire on them without a pause, his armguard and other hand aiming directly at each, firing what looked to be a buckshot of occult bullets. Those would absolutely ruin the panels on impact.

They never hit. The fractal of danger drew the bullets into a curve directly onto the doorway surface where they did no damage. To’Orda sighed in relief, he’d been worried.

The buckshots were new. Which meant the human still had more tricks. And more tricks meant more chances for one of them to be dangerous to his shield.

He opened fire with both plates. The human avoided it, two occult lashes flying free from the back of his chest while he was midswing. They both yanked him up for a moment, dissolving just in time to let him latch back downwards and avoid a hammer swing sailing through the air for the human.

Bugger.

His image generator prodded his sides like a bored tactical advisor, showing him a poorly drawn image of the human sending an occult lash at one of those rocks, only for the rock to vanish before the lash could land. Leaving the caricature of that weasel upset.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

He couldn’t dodge forever if he didn’t have any tools left to dodge with. “Nnnn… good thinking.” He muttered to the generator. It sent him back a smiling mini-version of himself, one giant thumbs up lifted high illuminated by shining light.

To’Orda turned his beams to eliminating the floating rocks around them. No handholds for the human, no way for him to keep slipping away.

“Hey!” The human called out, instantly understanding the new plans. “I was using those you bastard!”

“Not my problem.” To’Orda grumbled out, focused on keeping the wraiths from hacking away at his plates while he took out the surrounding rocks one at a time.

Keith answered back in a way To’Orda expected. His plates were weak to area of effect damage, and the human had stolen just such a weapon.

The plate aimed down sight directly at him, which would have forced the Feather to recall his own plates to the safety of his shield. He didn’t, taking the time to shoot down two more rocks.

The stolen plate in his hand opened the portal on the surface, but behind it, To’Sefit’s cannon remained lifeless.

Keith waved the plate a few times, paused, then shrugged. “Well, fun had to end eventually. Honestly more surprised you lot didn't turn it off immediately.”

"Nnn... she doesn't like to lose anything." To'Orda shrugged.

"Oh, well then she'll absolutely hate this." Keith drew the sidearm, triggered the occult plate, then aimed his weapon's barrel into the portal and opened fire.

The shrieking from To'Sefit told him all he needed to know. Those had been occult bullets. Fired into her cannons. And occult bullets would puncture through everything. If To'Sefit was particularly unlucky, the human would knick something truly important like power cells or unstable material and an explosion would wipe out the rest of the fragile structure beyond.

Those cannons couldn't be rebuilt. They were crafted from humanity's old weapons and the schematics for them were long deleted. That she found so many destroyers perfectly preserved by the mites had been a secret To'Sefit kept to herself.

"Tell her she knows what she did." Keith hissed out, his weapon clicking empty. Then he crushed the plate and tossed it behind him, letting it fall all the way down.

"She's too self-absorbed to understand." To'Orda said with a shrug. Also she was too busy screeching at this moment.

To'Sefit turned her anger on him, but his image generator sent back just the right picture showing his frustrations at having to fix her plates up instead of his shawl.

"You petty bastar-" He triggered the mute too fast for her to do much more than annoy him with pings after that.

Perhaps he was a little upset with her and she could use the lesson in how it felt to have her stuff broken in the line of work.

At least things were looking up for To’Orda. His plates were safe from bullets using his shield, and they were repaired, while the human’s stolen plate was turned off and now no longer in play, so everything was going accordi--

To’Orda’s hammer zipped out with speed, snapping away a thrown grenade and crushing it into oblivion before it could explode his working plates out of the way. It did still explode, but the shockwave forced it into a direction away from him.

Bugger.

This hyper-fixated human was such a royal pain. He glared outwards at him.

Keith shrugged. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

“I can.” To’Orda answered back.

Seeing that the grenade ploy didn’t work, and that he’d been left alone while To’Orda focused on clearing out the field and fighting off the occult ghosts, the weasel had all the time he needed to draw out his knightbreaker and aim down sights. “All right, well this one you really can’t blame me for. You left me to my own devices here.”

“Nnnnnn… won’t work.” To’Orda warned, keeping his doorway shield aimed in that general direction. The swarms of occult ghosts were still hacking away at his ankles and sides, but they weren’t impossible to handle either. Two more blasts from To’Sefit’s repaired plates further cleaned up the field. Only a dozen more rocks and then he could crush the weasel into a fine paste and be done with it all.

“Don’t tell me how to have a good time.” Keith shot back.

Occult pulsed from him. To’Orda kept the mite doorway directly aimed in the knightbreaker’s path, ready to halt any shenanigans from that.

Instead, two of the ghosts fighting him reached a hand out, and an occult lash came from them.

Was that even possible? It had to be, given it was happening right now. And both lashes grabbed hold of his plates, yanking them away from his control.

The image generator drew a quick animated image of himself tearing his hair out in frustration.

Very accurate. If he tried to move to prevent the theft, he’d be shot with that knightbreaker round. The lashes weren’t a danger, thus the fractal on his shield didn’t draw them away. He was stuck watching his plates be stolen again, all while powerless to prevent it due to the aimed knightbreaker launcher pointed right in his face.

“I did say he wins using tricks.” To’Wrathh purred.

The more occult lashes from the ghosts daisy chained the stolen plates backwards, until To’Orda was surrounded on three sides. Two plates, and the knightbreaker round.

“See the thing about that giant fuck-everything shield you got.” Keith said, his launcher still aimed squarely downsights unmoving. “Is that you can’t protect every angle.”

He pinged To'Sefit for the obvious next request. And then begrudgingly unmuted the channel. "Sorry." Was all he said. Please turn them off before I die, went unsaid.

“Fine, I admit perhaps my cannons have a flaw in their use case." She said, with a slight huff. "I do stress however, that I do not engage in close quarters combat in the first place when I can help it.”

The plates opened up the portals, each controlled by the occult ghost holding them with a lash. Normally intangible, that lash had given them a means to hold onto things.

The cannons on the other side stayed dead, turned off by To’Sefit’s hand.

Keith sighed, knightbreaker launcher drooping a little in his arms. “You really need to ruin all my fun all the time?”

To’Orda didn’t answer. Instead he launched himself forward, hammer and shield swinging in tandem to swat the pest down.

He hadn’t destroyed all the rocks yet, but without the plates to fire, there’s no point anymore in limiting Keith’s means of dodging fire. And now that they were stolen away, the human wasn't going to let him grab them back, not with the sheer mobility the wraiths had.

To’Orda would have to do this the traditional way, and eventually get a lucky hit with the hammer. They fought, face to face in direct range, trading attacks and blows. His shield was being chipped away but all To'Orda needed was to land one solid hit with his hammer and it would be over. The flames all around him were admittedly wearing down his overclock, but leaping from rock to rock and using them to speed back down at the human for a slam gave him enough airflow to ignore the heat buildup.

The human seemed to realize his predicament at the same time, knowing the fight would wind down to To’Orda’s victory eventually at this rate. He triggered the two plates he'd stolen, if only to fire a small army of occult bullets into each, likely breaking down more of To'Sefit's gear. She could turn off the destroyer's cannons. She couldn't turn off the occult fractal.

To'Sefit was inconsolable. And To'Orda was too busy dealing with the hyper-weasel to care.

The Feather stabbed forward with the butt of his hammer’s staff during one exchange, the human dodging to the side and subsequently being struck by the same handle this time slashing right into his stomach. Keith took a half foot backwards from the impact, which was all To’Orda needed to fully swing the hammer around for a proper hit, going from bottom upwards, like the swing of a bat.

He’d missed all of his kill shots thus far, so he didn’t expect this particular one to land any more than the rest of his hits had. Instead, he'd planned for that hammer swing to break the wraith spewing a torrent of fire at his head, jumping above Keith's own head.

But he’d been wrong on that count.

The hyper-weasel saw his end coming, jumped up into the air but failed to dodge the speeding weapon for the first time since they started the fight.

No, To’Orda realized, the human had planned to take on the hit here. The wraith behind him had been bait to force the Feather's angled hammer swing.

Occult raced around the human, five lashes coming from the center of his chest and latching onto the surviving rocks behind him. Pulling him away from To’Orda at speed.

Again, he belatedly realized that hadn't been the goal. The weasel wasn't speeding directly away from To’Orda. He was speeding up in the same direction as his hammer swing.

The hammer struck home a moment later. That occult barrier shield lit up at the human’s feet, a single set.

His hammer slammed into those, and the occult fractal inside triggered the explosion before the hammer itself could have dug into the human’s direct feet or the armor’s personal shield.

The result was disastrous.

The explosion gave the human a boost of speed, mixed with the earlier five lashes equally speeding him up, all of which let him survive the follow-up hit by the hammer itself. Instead of letting the hammer crush his legs, it propelled him forward even further away. Using his feet like springs, the armor's shield equally used to soften the kinetic force just enough to let the human survive the acceleration.

The hyper-weasel was launched outwards.

And given his muffled scream, likely far further than he’d expected.

The gravity field. It had already weakened gravity in the area, letting rocks float around the human vessel. That hadn’t been taken into account by the human. As such, within a second he’d been launched a few hundred meters away. A second more, and he was now a small black dot against the underground scenery. Another second, and the lights beyond simulating daylight had already made him invisible to To’Orda’s eyes.

To’Wrathh laughed in the background.

“Nnnn… that’s not good.” To’Orda grumbled. Programs within him calculated the trajectory of his opponent, and found he’d be landing a few dozen miles away. Possibly less depending on air friction. “Will he die on the landing? Is there a chance?”

“None whatsoever, you buffoon.” To’Sefit hissed. “He has that new occult grapple we saw the other Deathless use. Expecting him to die from a fall would be like expecting the same from a bird.”

To’Wrathh simply sighed in relief, her laughter trickling down to a stop. “It seems even with your best efforts, you were unsuccessful. A pity. I do wonder how our elder To’Aacar is doing. He’s been gone for some time now. How… odd.”

There was nothing odd about it. To'Wrathh knew what had happened to To'Avalis and she was simply playing the role up. The glee in her voice was barely hidden.

But whatever happened to his boss was none of his concern.

To’Orda tried to calculate where the human would land, and found it was useless. Once the occult lash of that human was factored in, it was anyone’s guess. Not to mention his target had a nearly fully powered exo-armor, and that would let him run miles away further from wherever he did land.

The human had truly gotten away from him.

Bugger.

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