12 Miles Below

Damage hit the superstructure above, moving the already heated metal like a wave.

It undulated, then ripped a tear when the waves collided against each other.

It didn't need to be large. Anything that broke through the integrity of the structure was enough for the white wastes to destroy the rest.

Temperature differences between the nearly melting room around us, and the sub-zero surface above caused an outright explosive decompression of pressure. The degrading aerogel insulation couldn’t hold, forced far beyond what the reachers of the past clan had prepared for.

I found myself sucked straight up and out, the wind strong enough to blow the rest of the roof with it.

Journey remained at full integrity, flashing its shields only when needed against flying debris, and leaving Cathida to navigate through the explosion. We flew a few dozen feet in the air, now falling straight down through the billowing snow.

"Brace!" Cathida called out, hands extended out. She landed with an expert roll, dissipating the kinetic force and leaving the armor to handle the rest, boots finding purchase and peeling off a layer of ice behind it as it skidded across the flat ground.

We stood back up, now on the surface of the world.

Father landed shortly nearby, not bothering to do any kind of roll, leaving his legs to take the impact, blades in his hand, ready to fight.

He stood up, occult halos trailed behind the two edges. There was no heat above him anymore. He didn’t need any kind of cooling system. Up here, he could overclock at maximum as long as he pleased.

There would never be enough heat on the surface to ever cause issues.

“Ratshit.” I cursed. “We almost had him.”

Further away, he started to stalk forward. Relic armor equipped everywhere except for his helmet. Occult still pulsed around him, eyes glowing over the look-alike human face. It was like watching a Deathless from myth. The ones who took on gods and demi-gods alike in the songs. The ones who fought alongside the like of Talen, Urs, and Tsuya.

He struck forward the moment he came into range. Cathida met his charge, along with every ghost I could summon to assist.

Now pairing his overclocking with the future sight fractal, it was a far closer fight, but I could tell we didn’t have the advantage anymore.

“Is that all the fury you can muster?” Father roared over the whirlwind of blades. “Is that all you have?!”

The knights inside groaned, holding off an unfortunate series of strikes from Father. Journey had to intercede on two of them, flashing its shields to protect the hit.

“You have not reached your limit.” He said, voice more a half whisper that somehow could still be heard. “I will beat it out of you. If I have to put you in true danger, I will. Better here, under my control, than deep down in the heart of the enemy territory.”

The onslaught increased in ferocity. Cathida was forced to dial off her attacks, turning to defense. We began to lose ground.

I realized what he meant. His attacks were so fast, Journey was having a hard time deciding if it needed to trigger shields or tamper down on the reflex and let the knights handle it. If there was even a minor fuckup, that’s an occult edge cutting straight through. Father was clearly aware of this, and fully prepared to cut an arm or leg if he had to. Even out here in the freeze. Because Wrath could heal me up.

She was out here, watching from a distance. Journey's HUD had her nametag on screen listed as a nearby ally. Wrath must be watching from the top of the clan colony, plated up in her own relic armor to hide from the gods above. And with wings, she could fly down in seconds. Father really was going to squeeze out every last drop he could when it came to pressing my limits.

Danger flared through my mind, and I forced it back by retreating into the soul fractal and focusing on my ghost army.

He was winning right now. But not by much. The only thing we had that was constantly pressing him back was the army of ghosts I was sending. That’s how I could tip the balance in my favor.

I focused. I needed more than nine ghosts attacking.

Occult roiled around me, I felt my mind groan from the strain, but a tenth occult ghost walked out of the armor and joined the fight.

His onslaught grew slower, having to move and work harder to slip through the small army between himself and me. Cathida began to find openings to attack again, no longer having to constantly help the faltering defense.

Ten wasn’t enough. I needed more.

Atius could summon a full twelve occult ghosts and keep perfect command over them. With that many, even To'Aacar had difficulties escaping out of the way, despite him overclocking to calculate every possible attack vector.

I needed the full twelve.

My mind focused harder, trying to split my thinking further into parts while keeping the whole together.

The eleventh ghost stepped out, blade swinging for Father's throat.

Cathida maneuvered around, making use of the ghosts as if they were part of her own body. We surrounded Father, slowly pressing him down.

He was still getting occasional hits off on the armor, and the knights were holding tight to resist each blow, but now he was equally taking hits back.

I needed more. I needed to beat him. I had to.

A half formed twelfth ghost slipped out of the armor, but dissolved halfway out. Father didn't even bother trying to deal with that one, already having seen ahead into the future that there had been no threat from it.

If I couldn't beat him, I wouldn't be allowed to travel with Wrath, Kidra, and all the others.

I had to win. I had to.

Once more, I tried to summon the twelfth ghost. To keep all the plates spinning at the same time. It took a step out of my armor, and Father instantly barreled into us all, blade striking out again and again.

He'd seen ahead that three of my ghosts had destabilized from my exertion. And he'd dove down through that weakpoint to take free hits.

The damage was mounting up, and the knights were not Captain Sagrius. Their reserves weren’t limitless.

Something cold seemed to open up to my soul senses. I felt parts of my soul tendrils slowly pulled towards Journey’s central fractal.

The armor had been roused awake. It turned its gaze to me, a mountain studying a small rock. It searched over my desire to win, trying to understand why I was so desperate to do that. And why something within felt so kindred to itself.

It found it. One singular emotion I had deep down inside. Approval radiated around the armor. It reached out to me, a deep cavern of resolution. The calm I needed to truly split my mind twelve ways over, even more. The single minded focus I was searching for. Offered freely.

My soul reached out for the armor.

The knights stepped in, barring the way.

Power gained through this path will come at a cost, Master Keith. One said. One that we have seen is too expensive.

This is not the way, lad. The other said, pushing Journey's connection away. You will lose yourself if you attempt this.

The armor watched over the two knights, finding equally kindred ideas. To protect me, from it. Journey’s soul simply moved on with a lazy curl, retreating back into the depth of its fractal. Like a massive beast that saw no reason to press for anything. The offer had been made, if I decided to shun it, that was my own choice.

The pathway closed. The armor returned to its eternal vigil, to safeguard me against any danger.

My mind snapped back to reality and I realized just how close I'd come to that very danger. I needed a new plan. One that didn’t involve getting my soul enmeshed into something far bigger than me.

“Ideas?” Cathida yelled out over the combat, desperately holding off Father. The two knights were equally running themselves ragged, trying to maintain the occult shields against his relentless and perfect assault. Them having to take the time to stop the stupid Winterscar from lobotomizing his own soul hadn’t helped them at all.

I needed another way to win and I needed it now. My mind jumped from a few dozen possible ideas, narrowing down what could work, finding each thread leading to a dead end.

Until I had a simple epiphany: The only thing that could match a Feather overclocking their system was another Feather doing the same.

"Wrath." I said over the comms as Father and I raged against each other, blades flashing forward, occult shields triggering on both our armors, ghosts flowing through the air. "Take over the armor."

"...I see your plan." She said, already connecting all the dots. "Cathida, if you would."

Technically, Wrath didn't need to ask. She could impose her commands over the armor since she was using the same viral attack To'Aacar and To'Avalis had. But the little murder spider bot was always polite.

"Eat metal and choke, scrapheap." Cathida snarled back, the exact opposite. "But fine! Pyrite curse me, I know I can't beat that monster at his peak and he’s not looking to play anymore. Just don't be smug about this after!"

"Thank you. Keith, I will need your full assistance. My overclock can only match his own, the occult futuresight he has is beyond my ability to tackle."

"I’ll handle that part." I said. "I know what I need to do. What I need you to do is get his shields down."

“I will do what I can.” Wrath said. Journey's HUD froze for a moment, then my movements changed. Gone were the imperial inspired techniques, mixed with clan schools of combat.

Wrath's movements were all learned from Father, and sharpened against Kidra. She didn't have wings here to mix in her own personal flair, but the fundamentals were there.

And more importantly - she could match his calculation speed.

Wrath’s blade sung a battle hymn like no other. Frozen wind whipped around us, snow trailing past the occult sparks as both our blades slammed against each other. All I could do was trust Wrath could get past his defenses. This time I focused everything I had on just the ten ghosts flowing through the battle.

Nothing on heat. No attempts to muddle around the fight. Just sheer ferocity to match his own. Eleven was too much to hold onto. Ten I could keep around for a few more minutes, and by then all of this would be over.

If any attack had any potential escape, he used it. The only way to get a hit off, was to make it utterly inescapable. And the combined might of Wrath, my ghosts and the knight’s stalwart defenses allowed us to do exactly that.

His occult shields could only block so many before he needed to pause for his willpower. He wasn't Sagrius with an inhuman bottomless resolve. Bottomless speed and thinking, but not willpower.

His shields began to take damage - the real ones on his shell.

Fifty percent.

Twenty percent.

His face morphed from cold indifference to deep focus, the frown becoming further and further pronounced.

Ten percent.

The knights were faltering, and the next set of hits from Father triggered Journey’s personal shield. The armor took the hits with grace, and our current offense forced those attacks to be small taps at worst.

But we were now losing shields faster than he was.

Was it enough? He was hovering just under ten percent.

It would have to be. I was out of time. I needed to trust the instruments I’d crafted.

Halfway through one of Wrath's movements, I took command of my body again. I had no hope of matching Father's speed, but that wasn't what was needed. The armor still moved and jumped to her control, but she could tell I was moving my actual body around.

"Keith?" Wrath asked, likely knowing all the ways this would go wrong.

"Trust me."

She did, letting her control slip. I took over, and swung for Father, leaping straight into his charge. In a moment, he had my blade knocked clean out of my hand, spinning away in the air, while his other blade sliced straight for my chest.

He tried to abort the attack a moment later.

If he was seeing into the future, then he knew exactly what he’d walked into. He leaped backwards at the same time, a trail of black dust beginning to stream out of his shell, already preparing to mitigate the damage that was coming.

Issue was that even with a Feather's speed, we'd already done the tests - a bullet was faster.

Every remaining shaped charge on my chest detonated one after the other, gravity pucks leaping straight out, most missing him entirely. Others were sliced by a sword that had already moved to intercept. He even summoned mirror arms to swing more blades in the air, pairing his future sight to predict exactly where the trajectory of the pucks would be.

Of all the pucks sent, three ended up landing. He triggered his occult shield for all three, but the magnet inside only made the puck slip across the dome like water over a rock, before it snapped against his armor’s hull. Tendrils of black dust were already reaching across to the invaders, eating through the metal shell the moment they’d landed.

Occult still pulsed out from each, and he was sent floating off further into the air with his current inertia - no walls or roof in sight to kick off of. Only his occult arcs to propel him in a direction.

He tried to be fast.

My occult shotgun was faster.