Chapter 6-15 Seize the Tempest (II)

Chapter 6-15 Seize the Tempest (II)

Godclads enjoy an addiction to killing, do you know this? I say enjoy as we do not suffer. We do not even die, should we be worth any merit, blessed so with our Frames.

The price we pay for our violence is bestowed unto the lessers. Other Godclads who cannot face us. Rival guns. And collateral damage.

Always, always collateral damage.

A kill committed with a Heaven resonates within you differently than one naturally performed. There is a depth to the deaths you taste. You sense what youre doing to anothers bodytheir lifethrough the narrow gaze of your domains.

Little wonder most of my ilk grow so addicted. And little wonder why most Fallwalkers last less than a month before they lose their Frames to another.

Eventually, you will seek a higher path. Mountains will wish to summit greater mountains; stars to burn beyond their rivals; pleasures to be surpassed.

To kill a person with one Heaven is to taste a cessation of existence in but one flavor. To see the dimensions of a life stripped from the tapestry in totality, more is required.

And so, apotheosis must always grow, for there is nothing more addicting than the kill, and there is nothing more thirsty than a wanting Soul.

New Vultun Sunrise Interview with Ying Yang Wei, The Stormsparrow

6-15

Seize the Tempest (II)

Few things were worth more than surprise in a battle.

Conferred from the gaze-scouring radiance cleaving through the air from the dead Enforcers fusion burner, blindness was given sound by a droning chorus of warbled wails from a dozen lips.

Lacquered in a second skin of blood, the immensity of the burners heat pressed on him still despite being directed away from him. Its touch dipped deep, steaming the very fluids out from his outer shell. His discomfort was comparatively minor.

Not twenty feet away, a crackle snapped loud even in Avos time-quelled ears. Flesh hissed and cooked. Water boiled, stripping the moisture from sloughing flesh.

At his whims, the burner halted, the corpse unclenching its right fist as the last spills of coruscating bright died down to a fading orb.

The strain on his Celerostylus built. The burden now was placed entirely upon his nerves, his Heaven serving to enhance the frailties of his broader flesh. He could perhaps squeeze another five seconds from its use. Five seconds better left as a cushion in case of the unexpected.

Spurred by two windows of timeone belonging to his implant, the other the disorientation of the Scalpershe sent his three puppets up the steps as he followed closely behind, masking himself with cover as the Conflux enforcer took point as the primary meat shield.

Trails of gauss fire ran diagonally in his sight as he reached the top, impact trajectories painted by his Phys-Sim. A rain of ravaged metal fell; two drones cored clean by still-traveling flechettes crossed his feed. Across a mental bridge, he felt faint sensations from a mind synced to his. Draus was ejecting her clip. Draus was reloading. Draus was firing again.

All done in the smallest fraction of a second.The initial posting of this chapter occurred via Ñøv€l-B!n.

Calamity had erupted outside the bar front. Some were fumbling back, clutching eyes made permanently blind by the spear of light. Many of the enforcers were only stunned, their optical implants adjusting to the sudden spike in brightness, their other senses compensating. The drones, automated and devoid as they were of human limitations, were the first to respond.

Three of the arrow-shaped drones split and held the stairs, moving to intercept Avo. The remaining five spread out and ascended as a squadron, triangulating Draus position from the impact vectors.

REND CAPACITY: 16%

Circuits of ghosts came alight across his Metamind in a sequence of stars. Each of his phantasmics flickered as all nonessential cognitive enhancements were briefly deactivated. His Ghostjack solidified then, injecting itself deep into the flesh of the greater Nether as its spire-top was tuned with new and ruinous thoughtcasts.

Secondhand Fatality primed itself first and delivered in a scythe of screaming ghosts, Avo swept his cognitive blade up at three approaching drones, their guns on the cusp of firing. At the vanguard, Avos Conflux puppet shuddered as a hail of hyper-accelerated kinetics hammered its armor.

Inside the exo-rigs shell, the corpses sternum was dented as cartilage tore. Even a reasonably augmented enforcer would have been halted, bathed by these threads of force. But a piloted corpse was a different matter. Blood pushed. Flechettes struck. Between two hammers of ever-increasing acceleration, the flesh within the shell came apart.

As did the loci of the drones when Avos ghosts finally licked across them.

Functions shaped by a system of ghosts, the Secondhand Fatality impacted against wards in a mind-rattling splash of clashing phantasms. Two drones overloaded outright, their vents hissing flames as their governing sequences were rendered unmade by a glimpse of true death.

COG-CAP: 20%

The final drone, spared by its cohorts blunting the worst of the damage or just protected by better wards pressed on, its fire unceasing, barrel warping.

One of its shots found fortune. A needle swam through the exposed wound left in the Conflux enforcers armpit. Before Avo could respond, to harden the local flow of blood, the left arm of his corpse tore free, swaying on strands of gleaming sinew.

Displeased, Avo had his newer puppets take aim. Positioned on the flanks of the Conflux enforcer, he made one of his controlled Scalpers shoot the monochrome-rigged corpse in the back. The other of his Scalpers aimed a bit higher and let loose with their rifle.

WHOLE MAKE ME WHOLE

Inside his Soul, Avo felt his Sangeist speaking to him. A flash of something eldritch, something alien and long-passed flickered to life, if but for an instant.

He remembered his Heaven speaking to him before. Somewhere in Burners Way. It was louder now. More coherent.

Draus voice thundered through his mind. +Twelve seconds. Ask Kae about that shit later, we need to peel out!+

Ignoring the unease rising from within his bones, Avo shaped new appendages and drove them into the undersides of each golem. Kae had gone over details regarding the Rendsinks, and it took him little time to locate their positions on each respective golem after some research in the Nether.

It was housed in a compartment just behind the Sangeists. For the Galeslither, it operated with two sinks, and they lined the bottom. Avo wasted no time with surgery, instead opting for a more brutal approach. The golems sagged as he alchemized gulfs of matter into blood, slicing the Rendsinks free as pieces from the whole.

With a grunt, he pulled hard. Even with how fast he could pull, his blood was affixed to his strength. As such, he held little hope of lifting each cube, heavy as they were. Thankfully, he didnt need to. Exerting his Heaven, he rendered the outer surfaces of each golem liquid.

REND CAPACITY: 83%...88%...94%

And following that, he silenced his Heaven and made to balance the scales with his Hell.

Plunging his entropic shroud through the ground below him, he scooped matter away in a flaying fog. Across from his position, several tons disintegrated at the touch of his Hell. Across his cog-feed, his Rend Capacity fell back down to three-fourths as he sliced the incline of a ramp into the ground.

DANGER: DAEMON MANIFESTATION POTENTIAL GROWING

Avo frowned. That was new. His Hell did mention the possibility of a daemon if he focused the powers of his Hell on one area alone.

+Negative two,+ Draus said. +Windows passed. Leave the sinks if theyll slow you.+ In the corner of his vision, a new marker appeared. A line of text expanded across it, forming the words exfil. It strayed a good hundred feet down the street and a level below.

REND CAPACITY: 39%

Avo growled. He had this. He didnt need to lift. All he needed to do was pull.

Guarding himself against the pain, he fired his Celerostylus again. His senses felt like they were on fire. His skull thundered as a headache spread from the stem. He didnt need reflexes this time, but acceleration. Something to make up for his lacking strength.

Latching onto each severed compartment, he pulled. The ground sparked. Blood and bodies oiled the groaning path of his Rendsinks as he constructed lashes to pull and augmented legs to push. With each surge, his Rend filled and his nerves crackled with torment. But by the limits of his flesh, he drew his prizes over the slope and let them slide.

Smears of blood ran behind. They slide outward. Avo quelled his reflexes and barked a laugh. A laugh that turned into a choked gasp as their continuing momentum tore him from his feet.

REND CAPACITY: 49%

Tumbling out into the street, Avo groaned and tried to right himself. Faintly, he watched the exfil marker approaching. Overhead, the hovering form of a fifty feet long garbage barge passed over, its six propulsors left at minimum thrust, its underside opening as it descended.

+Brace for grav-pull,+ Draus said.

+Grav-pull?+

A sudden weightlessness snatched Avo from the ground as the insides of the garbage barge shone, grav-projectors coming alight. With the Rendsinks in tow, he floated for but a moment, and then fell back down, slamming against a cold metal surface with a grunt just as the doors closed.

+Got the sinks,+ he said. Faintly, he heard a legion of wailing engines approaching. They were growing by the second. +Company?+

+Yup,+ Draus said. +Later than I expected.+ The barge lifted hard, engines blasting in a loud scream. Gravity pulled hard on Avo again, his insides feeling as if they were being drawn through his back with a string. +I think were gonna have to work on your arithmetic there, Avo. Hangin round them Necros mightve put you through fancy word-school but it clearly aint done shit for your math.+

He shook his head and chuffed. +Whend you get this aero?+

+Yesterday,+ Draus said. +Had it followin us around. About five hundred feet distance increments.+

+Really like using garbage trucks, dont you?+

+Well, its the right tool for the job, aint it? What else are you supposed to use to pick up trash?+

Avos felt an involuntary growl coming on. The beast coiled, incensed. With a thought, he reactivated his Morality Injector. The coming rage shattered against a flood of counter-memories. Across the session, he could feel Draus smiling.

+Feelin sensitive?+

+Just drive.+