12 Miles Below

Systems within his stolen shell lit up, highlighting his target. He could sense everything in between, from the exact temperature that surrounded him to the air currents between his blade and the clan knight before him. The exact range of motion still capable of the enemy, down to the very numbers A prediction based on prior movements, superimposed on the target in a cloud of green, yellow, orange, and red. Even the very color carefully painted on the knight’s armor was identified down to a set of numbers and symbols.

A hundred other data points fed into his mind, ranging from useless to essential. He’d learned which to pay attention to and which to discard. Some would have slowed him down to even consider when he’d been human, but now he could pause the fight to read a book if he needed to.

As the man took a step forward to fight, Tenisent expanded his mind outward, forcing his will on the machine systems. It complied without any struggle, accepting commands as he thought of them. Self-destruction orders To’Avalis had tried to send again and again in the early stages of his takeover had long ago ended once he’d left any range of connection with the machine underground. Hastily made viruses and digital landmines he’d attempted to implant had likewise been eliminated with Wrath’s help. To’Avalis had fought him with everything he had and lost.

There was nothing left to attempt now, not unless the Feather fought him soul to soul again. But this time, it was Tenisent’s fortress to assault. That coward would never take such a risk.

The body moved to his cadence, flowing from strike to strike faster and faster. The knight’s earlier attempt to take the initiative instantly turned Time slowed, and the knight’s unnatural speed grew back to normality and then further below. As if he were fighting in heavy water, trapped.

A Feather’s shell had power beyond anything Tenisent could have imagined. And it worried him beyond all reason.

Human. Tsyua had hummed in his mind on the top of that mountain shrine. It is the same as the last time I saw these models. Appears weaker, likely cheaper to construct. Though your old host has attempted to mitigate that. Regardless, compared to her other machine constructs, these shells are a league above.

Tenisent had filed this information as near-worthless. The origins of Feathers were irrelevant to him, whether they were human-made or machine-made; they were simply enemies to fight. He instead asked what truly mattered. Is it in your power to build these for us? Now that you see how they are made,

Tsyua returned a negative ping. I’ve seen them before. When the protofeathers came to me for help. We tried back then too, to make more of them. The nanoswarms are the ones that hold the genuine blueprints. You cannot access them, the same as you could not control your heart while a human, or tell your blood how to heal a wound.

That was true. The boy thought he’d been able to understand circuitry and machine code to repair the inside of his chassis from To’Avalis’s armored modifications. That hadn’t happened. In truth, all he did was activate the nano-swarm under Wrath’s instructions and allow them to work as intended, only directing them to operate within the regions he’d specified. There was little thought. They did the rest.

Authentication is necessary for further action. Tsuya had said. Beyond this, my sight is limited.

How did you know this was human forged if you cannot see anything of use?

A chuckle came back. The encryption, quite courteously, informs me only employees of Lockheed Martin are allowed access. This was an old defense company of significant global influence. Once. Relinquished would not qualify even as a secretarial program for their systems, far less an engineer. Feathers cannot be her creation. She could certainly modify them, make them worse. Improve them however? Not possible with her means.

Explain.

She had. All that she could from the connection and scans she could perform on his body and what she’d learned in the past. The differences between their old shells and Tenisent’s stolen generation

The original chassis had been made for a human organization whose closest analogue Tenisent could understand were the clan lord’s chenobis. Agents that held the full weight of authority to settle disputes and enforce order with force if needed among the many cities.

Old humanity still had dangers, despite living in the lap of luxury. Some deaths in action were inevitable for any of those humans acting as the law, even with all their power and technology. So, the old world humans had planned to turn to robotics.

Military machines had the skill, power, and durability. But there was no room for sub-optimal performance in war; none of those machines had any humanoid shapes. The public would see them with open hostility, too alien to relate to.

Civilian service androids were more tolerable, but they lacked power, speed, and agility needed for the task. And construction machines were far too massive.

A middle ground was found. A humanoid shape to traverse the same landscape the old human agents of law would have and remain relatable to ordinary people of that time. cutting-edge military hardware and software, taken directly from all they learned from their war machines. And construction-rated materials and redundancies to make them as durable as possible.

The original Feather chassis was built. Designed to dive into hazards of all kinds, from collapsed buildings still burning down, to deep dens of criminal scum. They could lift beams of metal several hundred times their own weight, were capable of analyzing and countering danger in milliseconds, traversed any kind of terrain, and were deadly when needed. Only their humanoid shape kept these models off the battlefield. All else would have been on par.

They never made it to production, too tied down by old-world politics. Guardian machines built to protect humanity and never given the chance.

Exactly the kind of irony Relinquished was compelled to seek out.

She took the blueprints from the dead hands of their engineers, reforged them to appear like angels, implanted soul fractals to command their systems, and grant them powers beyond what their human designers had intended. Then she let them loose on the world with her original goal.

The protofeathers had been closest to the original schematics. Future generations, such as his shell had been made weaker but cheaper to produce. Avalis sought to restore his body closer to the original, seeking power and security above all. Most Feathers didn’t make any changes, only clothing and weapon choices. Only the protofeathers had made any attempt to radically alter themselves.

There was not much for Tsuya to learn beyond this. She’d spoken to Wrath after a private discussion on the future and the grand prophecy of those mites.

Home again in the clan, that destiny seemed a faraway thing to him. There was only the here and now.

His blade weaved around the knight’s guard, now moving at two-thirds of his maximum speed. The tip edge of the blade struck out, slapping against the relic armor before him: top right shoulder, bottom left hip, left wrist, right wrist, right arm, right leg, and then a direct full edge slam into the chestplate from the exposed guard from the knight’s delayed reaction to the bottom left hip strike. A full five strikes ago.

It had all happened in seconds. And it hadn’t required him to use any of the shell’s heat-handling functions. The relic armor before him hadn’t triggered off the shield in between each strike; his movement was swift enough to keep the whole thing near continuous.

He could see the bubble of reality before him, bright occult blue, rippling on the surface of the knight’s armor. Undulating, vibrating, breaking apart. Dissolving into the air.

His blade retracted. The knight stumbled backward, still trying to parry the second blow he’d launched. This was an elite, a man who’d spent just as many years as himself studying and mastering the blade and rifle.

And he’d been defeated in seconds.

This was the enemy Keith would have to fight against. He didn’t know how to prepare his son to fight against the monsters that lurked underground.

"I don’t understand why I can’t move as fast as you do, Tenisent." Arcbound said, taking a few steps back and tapping his chest as if it were his own.

"I control a Feather." Tenisent grunted, the answer obvious. His sword sprang back up, ready for another bout.

"Oi, and I’m no longer human either. I shouldn’t be limited to my body; this ain’t flesh and blood anymore. I’m a machine now, like you."

Tenisent gave a second grunt. This line of questioning was pointless. "A Feather wasn’t built to protect anyone inside. It will do more than your armor."

Relic armor was specialized to do one thing: keep the human inside alive and safe. His shell didn’t have that limitation. He had nothing to protect. "You have not reached your limit yet." Tenisent said. Numbers flowed everywhere in his mind and sight; he knew the exact tolerances these armors could reach. The heat cloud that surrounded the knight wasn’t as hot as his shell reported it could be.

His blade flashed out, and once more he continued the spar, forcing Arcbound to react. Attempting to speed up and force a match to end had not helped Arcbound unlock the full potential of his armor. There was no last-second moment of discovery. Perhaps it was a matter of time. Tenisent switched his attempts, crafting a new plan to train the knight.

A steady stream of strikes and blows rained out, all just slow enough for Arcbound to react to. The man did so, fighting back. In such a mindspace, Tenisent pondered on the changes to his life as he let the rhythm of combat move his shell.

He’d died, that part he’d always expected. Rather, he was already a dead man walking the moment Lyn died in his arms. That was his first, true, death. The time spent after was nothing more than a haze of time passing.

After his House had been culled down to the root, fear returned him to lucidity as a revenant. No soul, only a body living on borrowed time. A ghost of a man. He’d spent nearly a decade like this, living only to train Kidra and Keith to survive. Only then could he die with no regrets.

He’d died a second time underground, and this time, it had been the death he’d hoped for. One that he could confidently meet Lyn in the afterlife and look her in the eyes without shame.

Duty demanded his return from that death. Willpower was drawn, and with it, he seized a place within Winterscar’s heart. Only once Keith was seen safely to the surface would he unbind himself from the tortured armor. Winterscar becoming his gravesite felt like a fitting end.

Instead, deep within a dying imperial bunker, he found his true gravesite. He didn’t expect to wake up a third time.

He had. Once more brought back from the dead, as a prisoner and mentor. No body, only a soul living on near-infinite time.

And now the cycle had turned nearly opposite to his past. He had both a body and a soul once again. More than that, he was immortal. Tenisent would outlive his daughter and son, and their children’s children as well. The concept seemed utterly alien to him. A lifetime spent knowing his death was inevitable, to the sudden realization that he was no longer part of the cycle. He didn’t know what to do.

"I’d get all your affairs sorted out, old man." Arcbound had told him when they’d spoken in private. "Prepare yourself for the long haul. That’s what I’m doing. Speak to Lord Atius on being a Deathless. We are functionally the same now if you think about it."

"I am no Deathless." He’d sent back.

"It’s a title, nothing more." Arcbound had said it with a digital huff. "Duty calls on us to be Deathless, so we’ll be Deathless. We can use their powers, and we are just as immortal. We’re clan knights, we honor our vows."

I am no Deathless. Tenisent didn’t answer. But I will honor my vow.

"The only thing I fear is losing my mind now." Arcbound had said. "The clan lord spoke to me that this will be what we really struggle against. Time. Three gods above, I hope they know what they’re doing with our fates."

"Only one is left." Tenisent said. And she’s no god.

His mind flickered back to the present. The blade halted in the air for a fraction of a second, and Arcbound took the opportunity to backstep away, resetting the fight.

Combat efficiency has dropped. Are you unfocused? Wrath’s voice echoed in his shell’s mindscape. She’d been watching him then.

Ruminating on pointless topics. He sent back. He should be considering the present.

Wrath had to be brought underground to find the Division Stone. Before To’Avalis reported her defection and before Relinquished herself decided to check in on her.

More importantly, he had to prepare Keith to fight the Feathers chasing the girl. Even if he was left behind, safe with Atius and the clan, the enemy would hunt him down regardless.

Those Feathers had been bested by humans. The insult would never be left unchecked. Pride was built into the very core of their beings, all except for To’Avalis, who seemed more immune to such irrational behavior.

Not immune enough to allow having his shell taken to be a forgivable offense.

The shell held all his recorded memories, and Tenisent had seen them. He knew what kind of gods-forsaken creature To’Avalis was. And he’d seen further underground than he’d ever explored before.

The other Feathers To’Avalis had crossed paths with. The machines lurking down there. The landscapes below. The sheer danger the mites represented made it feel as if the land itself was trying to swallow and destroy anyone who set foot upon it.

And most dangerous of all - his son’s curiosity. Everything down there would tempt his son to remain underground and continue to study and learn.

There were wonders.

Old treasures were rebuilt by mites and left as prizes for anyone who completed their gauntlets.

Technology never seen on the surface, pilfered by undersiders whenever possible. Hunted down and destroyed by machines more often.

Mad Deathless, who had lived far too long under far too much stress and mentally broke, even if their body was unable to. Demi-gods with powers over the occult that Keith could only dream of.

Feathers that preyed upon those demi-gods. Hunting them for sport or challenge. Sometimes losing, most times winning.

Life had found purchase, if only because it wasn’t human and was ignored by Relinquished.

And deeper down, the war machines of ages past were taken by her and held in reserve for the day she was ready to eradicate humanity for good. She’d lost too many of those over the years from attrition, all to keep seeing her efforts come to nothing as Tsuya rebuilt again and again. A lesson was learned, and now she waited.

The underground was too dangerous to allow his son to roam down there.

And yet, if he left Keith here, would he be safe?

Out here on the surface, Tsuya’s orbital cannons were a threat the machines could not counter. To’Avalis couldn’t chase him here.

But the clan would migrate down. It was inevitable. Idle waves of nearby machines were no match against the clan knights. So long as the greater threats had no reason to visit the clan’s new site, they would flourish underground. They deserved it; centuries of work to survive for this moment.

That safety wouldn’t hold against the fury of Feathers. Enemies like To’Orda or To’Sefit would easily rip apart the clan from the inside out.

Danger was coming for his children, no matter where the two hid. The boy was too entangled in all this. And his daughter wouldn’t let her brother face any danger alone.

At least Kidra would be easier to handle. He would appeal to her sense of honor. That the clan’s migration would need her far more than her brother would. And if Keith and Wrath left during the migration, the machine Feathers would never chase down the clan.

Keith however. There was no hiding from danger. No running from it either. Nowhere would be safe.

Tenisent could remain on guard, but the enemy would adjust to that. To’Avalis was patient and cunning. He wouldn’t be a permanent shield against a Feather like that, only a temporary delay. True safety would be the ability to fight and defeat a Feather.

The boy was capable of it. Sheer skill in combat wasn’t in his nature, and yet when his mettle was tested, the boy had fought and defeated enemies even the Deathless failed against. He had something more.

He’d seen it when Keith had waded into an army of slavers and methodically dispatched each and every one. When he’d continued the fight with To’Avalis. Or faced down To’Sefit. Courage wasn’t lacking. Neither were tactics. The clan lord himself had called Keith a savant when it came to occult powers. The gear and weapons were built and were as ready as they could be.

Tenisent only needed a way to force it out of him. That ability was what let Keith win against the odds.

The blade in his hand weaved and spun, again and again. Forcing Arcbound to his limits. Until the heat cloud around his armor finally hit what it was capable of all at once, his speed doubled for a few perfect seconds.

It could be done.

But ordinary training would not suffice.