12 Miles Below

I had to defeat Father.

The thought was like asking the sun to die. Or the earth to stop spinning. Father was a force of nature, the single constant in my life that couldn’t be beat without the world throwing absolutely everything it could at him. It had to grind him down hour on end, alone and forced to protect an unconscious son. Against a small army of monsters that never relented.

Only then was the world able to actually beat Father.

This was when he was still breathing, limited by a human body. Now he was stronger than an actual demi-god, and just as immortal.

There was no winning. In two months, I’d be forced to say goodbye to Wrath, likely forever. The thought burned a hole in my head again, like a pain that came back in waves.

The next few days were not ones I felt proud of.

Shut myself into my room, hid under the blankets and tried to zone the world away.

Hexis was the first to realize I'd gone missing within the day, because he sent a strongly worded letter to the estate ground to be delivered directly to my doorstep. Likely extremely annoyed I hadn't showed up for the daily lessons. That letter was handed off to the servants who then came to pass it to me.

A few more days passed, and they noticed I didn’t accept much food anymore and wasn't coming out of my room. They knocked, and I told them to leave me alone. So they sent Kidra after me. She didn’t take “Leave me alone” as an acceptable answer. My sister cut the locks on my door with her occult blade and then walked right in.

I think we talked for a bit. Father hadn’t informed anyone of the gauntlet he’d tossed my way, of course. To him, that was my problem to deal with.

She admitted soon after that the idea of me staying behind in the clan was something she agreed with. Although, she also considered it wasn’t her place to bar me from choosing how I lived my life. Out of respect to that, she went to speak to father directly and see if she could talk sense into him.

That she didn’t appear for the next few days told me how that had gone down. She’s probably still trying right now, coming up with a new attempt to word things that would reach him.

Knights sent by Atius were the next to arrive. I hadn’t shown up to the sanctum to continue teaching the occult to new knights. My armor was instead being shared by other Winterscar knights, specifically to train against Cathida in the digital sea.

More letters came from Hexis, and I left them unopened. Last I heard from the servants, he wasn't a very happy warlock.

I hoped for a moment that Atius would outright order Father into compliance. That didn’t happen either. In his eyes, he was paying back some of the debt he owed for what I’d brought and created for the clan. Giving me direct access to a warlock for training, all while knowing I’d be leaving within the next few months, forcing Hexis to restart with another apprentice. The warlock was none the wiser about the plan, but he certainly wouldn’t have agreed to teach me if he knew it was going to be a waste of time.

Finding out that I’d be staying behind at the clan just meant these next few months wouldn’t be wasted from the clan’s perspective. Servants told me Atius had called on Father to speak to him in private. Whatever happened there, it didn’t change Father’s mind at all. Nothing changed.

Parts of my mind were trying to rationalize all this over the days. The clan would migrate down underground and they did need everyone they could get. Hexis would teach the occult, and I’d become an occult warlock in time. Maybe even a great one. Always did daydream of doing something that would actually help the whole clan forward.

Being one of the founding members of its occult tradition was about as important as it could get.

All I’d be losing was Wrath and Father in exchange.

And all the progress I’d done to talk myself into accepting this would go straight out the airlock with that one singular thought.

Then I realized something else - Father hadn’t bothered to tell anyone about this, leaving that part to me. Kidra would have spoken it to Atius and a few others.

But Wrath? That was probably on me to speak to directly. Everything sucked, but I wasn’t going to be a coward and never tell Wrath what was going on.

So for the first time in a few days, I got out of bed and walked down the hallways.

Wrath’s quarters were further down in the estate, the old guestrooms. Almost never been used, up until Kidra actually revived the House. It had been well furnished by the time Wrath and Father returned, so an ideal spot.

She deserved to know directly from me. Not over comms, but face to face.

“Enter.” She said as I knocked on the doorway.

She’d been sitting at the center of the room, wings folded at her side, likely interfacing with a few dozen digital conversations. Her eyes turned to match mine. “Keith. I heard you had closed yourself off for contemplation. Is something the matter?”

“Has he told you yet?”

She tilted her head, confused.

“I’ll take that as a no. Of course.” That bastard. Least I’d picked up on this before someone else told Wrath. That wouldn’t have felt right.

“Can you explain the situation?” She asked. “Your vitals are abnormal.”

I gave a shrug. “There’s been a change in plan. When Abraxas comes, Father will be the one leaving with you. And everyone else is staying behind.”

Wrath frowned. “Who has changed the plan?”

“Father did.”

“What is his reasoning? Why have you accepted?”

“I didn’t have a choice.” I said with a shrug. “And as for reason, it’s simple. He doesn’t think I’m going to survive if I go with you. I’m not a Feather, just a squishy human meatsack in the end.”

She stood up, brushing her feathers back into shape. “Is this an attempt at humor from him?”

“Father, with a sense of humor. Good one.”

She started to pace now, biting her thumb as she thought. “This seems opposed to his earlier views. It does not make sense.”

“He seems pretty consistent thinking I’ve survived by sheer luck this whole time.”

“That is not so.” She said. “He has stated on multiple occasions that there is unlocked potential within you. I would agree with him on this course. And while death is… a possibility, it is not certain. And can be mitigated with plenty of fallback plans. One moment, I will speak to him.”

She closed her eyes, more like a blink. “Oh. This is a relief, he has made it clear to me that you will be allowed to travel if you can defeat him in combat, to prove you are capable of fighting a Feather directly. I had feared it would be more complicated.”

I kind of just stared at her for a moment, not really understanding what she meant.

“What is your initial plan to tackle this? We should do a ‘workshop’ as humans called them. It may be even fun, I had hoped to see your thought process in action.”

“Initial plan? What plan? He’s Father.” I said, “You can’t even beat him one on one, and you’ve got a Feather’s shell to fight with. What hope do I have? He threw that challenge just out of pity. He already knows it’s not going to happen.”

Wrath looked me over with a more critical eye. Then her eyes seem to light up, “Ah, I understand! You are suffering from a bias. Your worldview is in conflict between your current mental image of Tenisent and reality.”

Which, coming from Wrath of all people, shook me up.

“What?”

She nodded to herself, as if everything made sense. “Mrs. Silverstride shared with me resources on human behavior and psychology. I recognize the pattern. Your doubt is rooted in emotional bias, a mental image of Tenisent as protector that cannot be defeated, and lack of self-esteem in your own abilities. In reality, you have no logical reason to believe you are incapable of defeating Tenisent.”

“No logical reason? Wrath, that’s Tenisent fucking Winterscar Prime. The only time he’s ever lost was when the odds were so stacked against him, not even Legadris could have won.”

“Legadris.” She tapped her chin, accessing clan datafiles likely. “A main character from twenty nine different surface songs, known for surviving impossible odds. Do I have the reference correct?”

“You do.”

“I still do not understand why you believe you cannot beat Tenisent. It is certainly within your abilities.”

Within my abilities? What, if I find the perfect insult he’ll keel over dead? “All right fine, run the numbers. What are my chances of beating Father in a duel?”

“Your chances of success mathematically calculated returns a null, rounding up to zero percent.”

“That makes me feel great.” I said. “See, I have so little a chance, your math says it’s in the negatives.”

She shook her head at that. “This algorithm returns the same result with each Feather you’ve previously fought. To’Aacar. To’Orda. To’Sefit. And To’Avalis. You defeated each, against prediction.”

“Cheating each time and having major help from people around me.”

She shook her head. "Life is not a game with rules and structure. Doing anything to win is laudable when your life is at stake, I learned this from you personally. And if the mathematical prediction model is consistently off-mark, it is not an accurate model. Do you understand? You are an anomaly. I do not have any accurate formula to calculate your chance of success. Numerically, you have no traits that surpass a Feather’s default specs. And yet you’ve still managed. You find ways of abusing outside elements in ways that cannot be predicted. It is your strength. Why is this situation any different?”

“Because it’s gods damned Father I have to beat this time around!” I outright yelled, “He’s the definition of unbeatable, a gods damned mountain!”

She hummed. “No opponent is invincible. That is simply impossible. And you are not factoring in your abilities. With each combat encounter, you have had to consider plans, select the best one, and then had a single attempt to execute it. Most combat situations demand you to execute all of that mental calculation within seconds. Each time with limited or no resources to pull from.” She waved a hand, turning into a finger that poked my chest. “And yet each time you have succeeded. You now have two entire months, as many attempts as you wish, and a clan’s worth of resources to draw on. Algorithms are unable to factor that into account, too many variables and I do not have any other models to simulate combat. My intuition however, believes you will succeed in defeating Tenisent Winterscar.”

I think I did a lot of staring in bewilderment today, but clearly I had more to go through. “You seriously think I can beat him?”

She nodded back without a shred of hesitation. “Of course. I do not know how you will do it. Only that you will, somehow. You defeated me before. Giving up is not your default setting. This is how I know you are currently under outside influence. You did not behave like this when facing any other threat.”

I don’t know if it’s how she looked at me, or just the sheer sense of conviction behind her voice. But Wrath really believed I could pull this off. Didn’t even doubt it.

She thought I was outright going mad to think I couldn’t do it.

Thoughts turned inward a moment later. Was it actually possible? Could I beat Father if I really tried to scrape up everything I could throw at him? Probably not.

… Why not try anyhow? “Guess I better get started.”

She smiled at that. “Yes. Let’s.”

First thing was to get the full rules of engagement. Which were pretty direct.

Father had inscribed twenty four different soul fractals all across his new body, from skull to feet, and he was stretched across all of it.

Relinquished’s Feathers couldn’t stretch or move around fractal to fractal without the Unity Fractal enmeshed with them, and soul fractals connected to complex machines would generate a soul, limiting them to one single soul fractal to control the body.

Stab a Feather through their soul fractal and they had to bail. Stab my Father through his soul fractal and he’d just be angrier about it. Even if every soul fractal was stabbed on his shell, he could outright survive as a disembodied soul floating around, out of sheer spite. Possibly for hours even.

Tall order already. Then factor in his stolen shell’s abilities.

Everything had dozens of redundancies from the start. The only thing that was unique and irreplaceable in a Feather’s chassis were the neuromorphic computer in their skull, and their soul fractal.

Father didn’t need either to keep operating his shell. So long as his soul fractals were directly connected to the movement systems, he could still fight even if the computer systems were cut straight off. He just wouldn’t be able to overclock or make use of a Feather’s more fancy sensor systems.

And talking about that - He didn’t need even need his shell’s eyes. Not with the soul sight, which wasn’t something that could be stripped from him. There was no way to blind Father.

As if to put one last insult, even if there was something that could actually kill him, he’d see the concept of it appear long before it struck and he'd know exactly how it would kill him instinctively.

The only way to kill him would be to force him into a situation that would utterly eradicate his entire shell all at once, with no means of dodging it, and then seal off the area making sure nothing wandered into the blast ruins. Because he absolutely would continue to wage a spiritual war up until his soul finally got snuffed out by reality.

Killing him was almost literally impossible. That wasn’t the goal though. It was to deal enough damage that a regular Feather would have keeled over and ran.

Rules of engagement were thus: Cut his head off or otherwise slice through the neuromorphic computer. Or stab through the central soul fractal. Both of which would have broken down a Feather.

Since he was basically immortal in way more than just the demi-god sense, everything was allowed. Even knightbreakers weren’t off the table.

All he cared, was that I could fight and defeat a Feather. As Wrath said, this wasn’t just a challenge - I had clear run to train against a Feather and discover what worked best against that type of opponent.

Beating him was a simple math formula. Sum up all his strengths, and find a way to equal or surpass them. Anything from taking a few levels to match him all the way down to outright removing those strengths as a factor somehow. So, let's tally up the scores.

He was stupidly fast.

Stupidly strong.

Had about triple the shield capacity of a relic armor.

Could overclock his system.

Could see in all directions.

Could never be blinded.

Could use far more occult fractals than a regular Feather would.

Had hearing that would make a maid envious.

Was undefeatable at close range.

And immune to taunts, which was half my arsenal.

...

Well, when put on paper, not too bad. I had a few directions in mind already. “Wrath, mind sending a message to House Insight? I need them to design a few prototype explosives.”

The footsteps were the first hint I got that my target was nearing. I knew he could see me. Not directly through the vents where I hid. But his soul sight would let him notice a human nearby.

And he wouldn’t suspect anything from that. Not with the concepts of tools and toolkits scattered around. The biggest kicker - I wasn’t wearing Journey. No concept of a relic knight anywhere.

Deep in my weasel nest within the vents, I lurked unseen pretending to be a Reacher. Lessons with Hexis had come in handy. No mind-weaving yet. But I did get a few tips on how to make the occult portable.

On my neck, plates jingled around, and one such plate lit up bright. Tied down with gloves and rope, the fractal of heat equally lit up within my hand.

Eight occult ghosts dove straight through the walls from all sides, even above and below. On their hands were mirrors of my own, right down to the fractal inscribed. Streams of fire engulfed him and the entire area a moment later.

No overclocking for him. Not with all the inescapable superheated air. One advantage scratched down.

Home-built occult blades, held in my off hand, leaped out to slice through him.

Too many to dodge, especially cut off from overclocking his systems.

“Not enough.” He said with a grunt, as eight blades sliced straight for his body. Occult pulsed from his shell, fractals lighting up under his skin. Half-domed shields flashed out into the air, catching each blade.

All right. That’s nice. He can also use the occult. And he wasn’t going to handicap himself just because it’s me.

Figured he’d have some kind of ratshit to get out of this initial ambush. I was just setting the stage here.

I kicked down a lever next to me, which triggered a trap further down the hallway, firing a grenade from a launcher almost directly on target.

As much as I would have liked him to catch it in his hands dramatically, he did the smart thing, backhanding it out of his way like a hanger ball, using his shields to slow it’s motion down before he completely reversed the kinetic direction. Occult shields flashed across his body, aimed straight at the direction of the grenade, ready to take on any kind of detonation.

I’d worked with Wrath for these homebrewed explosives. She hadn’t been thrilled to be the test dummy, but she was the only other Feather I could test this on.

The grenade detonated. Not with fire, but a wave. The electro magnetic pulse rippled out, amplified by the tight corridor, bouncing off the metal walls, frying lights and everything in the way.

Should have been strong enough to piss off a Feather, or at least disrupt the more fragile sensors. The human equivalent of a flashbang grenade rupturing ear drums and blinding eyes. Wrath had not been a fan of it, though she easily survived even the strongest burst we could pack into a grenade, but it did mess up her balance for a second before she adjusted.

I didn’t wait to see if it had worked, instead kicking the weakened vent under me and dropping straight down. In my hand was a loaded knightbreaker round, primed and ready to fire.

Which I did, hardly taking the time to aim. Without armor, I could feel the kick of the launcher right on my shoulder, knocking the weapon up a few inches even though I’d braced. A few months in armor has clearly spoiled me.

The knightbreaker flew right through the lightshow of flames, going fast enough to leave a widening hole of air through the flames.

Prevented from overclocking his systems, stunned by the modified EMP grenade, and having put all his shields down the wrong direction, he now had to survive a knightbreaker round fired straight at his back.

His hand snapped straight out, on sheer reflex, catching the round square into his open palm. He seemed to realize a moment later exactly what he’d caught, because the occult chains were launched out the side, still spinning, barreling down on his body in the deadliest hug known to man.

I don’t really know how he did it. His hand pulled back, yanking the knightbreaker on its prior trajectory, where he ducked under and had it glide over his shoulder. Almost as if he’d redirected the lingering force like a water current, feet and hands equally moving in one fluid motion.

It wasn’t flawless. A chain still licked the side of his arm and chest, overloading his shields and cutting deep into his chassis. That would have been the end for anyone human. Not enough for a Feather.

Father simply stood back up from his twist, then stalked forward, blades drawn.

Plan foiled, I knew the game was up. I had a few occult ghosts launch forward at him, but he cut through those faster than I could summon them. A moment later he had me pinned against a wall, bladetip at my throat.

“Dead.” He said, hand lifting away, letting me drop back down on the floor. "And unreliable. You will not always be able to ambush an enemy. Do better."

“That wasn’t the point.” I said, coughing slightly. “I’m testing the limits of what a Feather can and can’t hold up against. The EMP gives me more options to work with, and the flames are critical to any engagement. I know that for a fact now.”

He looked down on me, eyes devoid of any tell. “You’ve found your resolve again.”

“Yeah.” I said, standing back up, hands brushing dust off my pants. "Took a nice bath, ate a good meal, had a long think. And you know what I realized? You talk too much. Pisses me off. So I decided I’m going to bury you in the snow.”

His mouth twitched, just slightly. "Good. I expect nothing less."