Godclads

Chapter 7-12 Feed the Beast (V)

“Sir, sir! Apologies for the interruption but–there’s been a spike of nullings. Origination: Nu Scarrowbur.”

“Nu Scarrowbur? That’s–uh–that’s Scalper territory. In the Warrens. Stormtree problem. I told you this before, rook, we don’t touch Guild shit–”

“I’ve traced the source. It’s coming from the gutters. Sir… our monitors across emergency services are showing three-hundred thousand mind-deaths. At least. All casualties FATED. From the Tiers. Sir, I think someone spiked a lobby. A-a Crucible’s lobby. That’s… uh, my theory.”

“...Fuck.”

-Trainee Kare Kitzuhada to Paladin Maru Sandrupal

7-12

Feed the Beast (V)

The song of the autocannon played an alloy of notes: the snapping plink of an impact when the bullet kissed armor, the thunderous roar that followed right after, and a climax of flesh bursting within a titanium can.

The drone, its size comparable to a small aerovec, was firing from within a current-sheared tear upon the fabric of space. Overlayed across his right eye, Avo watched as the Chainsaw's ammo vanished.

3405/9000

Near six thousand rounds drained away in mere seconds. Barrel integrity was lined orange in the drone's structural condition window. Worn, but usable, which was about as good as most things the Syndicates had.

At least the Scalpers seemed to care for their kit.

The enforcers, new and unblooded, remained a step behind, lacking sophisticated implants and stuttering in surprise at the change in their initiation ceremony.

A deluge of wind and steel battered them.

Two of their group tumbled back, bumping into the same bubble as the breachers. The newcomers found their bodies halted as the inverted winds swirling about drank their momentum away, trapping them all the same. Immediately, Avo felt his Rend drop. Fused between a border of stasis, a rain of rounds shattered against their rigs, fragmenting shrapnel bursting from their bodies and feeding his Hell further.

REND CAPACITY: 30%

The carnage played on. The other six responded with collapse and indiscipline.

One fired as the Chainsaw clipped their shoulder. Their aim jerked off trajectory with their finger still on the trigger. An accident followed, their gauss repeater surging as one of their comrades–the one Avo struck with his Secondhand Fatality, still dazed from the mental assault–stumbled in front of the barrel.

With armor thinner than the hardness of their wards, blood and bone flowed free, the shot birthing brain-gristle-encrusted flechettes through a rent in the enforcer's faceplate.

He was not the only casualty.

By mass and firepower alone, the Chainsaw struck joints, the impacts folding joints and limbs. Armpits and necks burst open into spurts of hyper-oxygenated red. Three more toppled, limbs twisted, screams loud.

Another of the Scalpers fired back, more steel on the inside than his companions. He fired thrice, each ringing off the drone plating at an angle.

Avo rewarded him by unzipping spatial reality beneath his feet and sending him tumbling into the Youndergales. The enforcer spun in this concentric plane of cyclonic catastrophe. Their terror flowed raw even through their wards. For a frozen instant, they spiraled behind the drone, gun lost to their grasp as they groped blindly for a solid surface.

A wish that came fulfilled. Avo opened a new gulf in their path and released them.

Right back into the other Scalpers at terminal velocity.

Rigs were more effective than typical subdermals at increasing one's survivability. Yet, the tyranny of the third law remained when untouched by the reality-bending fingers of thaumaturgy.

Near two tons of mass bore approximately twenty thousand newtons of force. Such was what the Phys-Sim told Avo. The clash of rig meeting rigs rang in a deafening sound as more fell. A blur of shadows and sparks painted a portrait of chaos, of defeat.

The chains of courage broke in what few of them remained as they turned to run.

Avo grew tired of playing with his prey.

Opening gulfs between currents slithering into the cracks in the enforcers' armors, he directed his drone's firepower past the can and into the meat.

The shudder a person makes when their body splatters inside their rig is a unique one. It's a sudden, uneven jerk, with limbs flopping in opposite directions, with heads toppling because the neck that used to be there just wasn't anymore.

He released a command. The drone stopped firing. His Celerostylus relaxed.

Time slid back into pace as bodies toppled before him, a series of thudding impacts.

Stepping through parting mists, Avo manifested in his mortal shell to better behold the glories of his labor. The stench of exposed offal flowed free from jutting openings–organs and bone revealed between strips of mangled metal.

THAUMIC CYCLER: 330 THAUM/c

Ghosts: [305]

The dead lay as petals extended from a sphere of wind. Bound still by a momentum-drinking prison, the breachers could not turn, could not see as he walked around them.

Moment by moment, he felt his Rend diminish. Where the Hell of his Woundshaper filled fast and emptied fast, the one bound to his Galeslither balanced slower but had the advantage of being affixed. All it took to deploy this Hell was a thought. A working. Then, as it formed like a cancerous pocket, he could remain operational otherwise.

While the burn on his nerves subsided, Avo considered the two breachers a moment longer before plucking a gun from the ground--a large weapon left discarded by one among the dead. Peeking a gaze upon the Chainsaw's status, he saw it was empty of bullets and battered by his winds. He released it from his control and found himself by the ringing thud that followed.

His Metamind's in-built Possessor phantasmic wasted no time in interlacing with his new gun's micro-locus.

Vinhalyyr Rhythm

It settled in his hands a comfortable weight, feeling more as if a solid bar of metal than a loose assembly of fragile components that so many guns were these days. With a square-shaped barrel and a holo-reticle at the top, the weapon had a makeshift feeling to it. Like it could be produced by the thousand for troops in need of constant firepower.

He expanded its specs with a thought.

Vinhalyyr Rhythm

Infantry-carry Anti-Rig Multi-Function Assault Rifle

Magazine capacity: 40 Microrockets

Maximum Rate of Fire: 5 Rockets/s

Rockets:10 cm

1 kg of explosive material

Maximum Effective Range: 2000 Meters

Meters. Not feet. Made sense. Stormtree used different measurements, and Vinhalyyr was most certainly a Stormtree-owned business.

With this moment of brief respite, he desired to test something.

Pulling the trigger, the gun gave the barest of kicks as its payload rattled free. A clicking noise came from inside the weapon. Likely a component knocked loose during the fight earlier.

As the rockets greeted his bubble, they halted against the surface on impact, unmoving while Avo watched his Rend percentage drop. In seconds, he had consumed half his ammo while his capacity was only reduced by the merest percents. The gun wasn't doing the trick; the sheer distance and velocity his Galeslither could generate was beyond what a single shot could plug.

He needed something constant to feed the Hell. Some consistent vector of motion to push against the counter-pushing flow of the spatial winds...

Another fissure of ghosts opened along the Nether. A sudden epiphany followed. He could game his Rend using reality itself by pocketing someone or something mid-fall. As far as he could tell, gravity still held sway. He could use physics to drain the excess.

It took but a thought for him to dispel his Hell, the cage of collapsing wind bursting over the stumbling breachers as he felt the pressure of the presences fade from his vectored currents. Both Scalpers toppled forward, bodies unsteady as their lungs made a desperate sawing noise, as if drawing in breath after a long bout of suffocation.

The same lungs likely popped when he shot them in the back.

THAUMIC CYCLER: 332 THAUM/c

Ghosts: [307]

Metal warped inwards as their bodies collapsed. Their deaths came without much fanfare. Just choked sputters and damaged spines, the damage inflicted made blunt by their rigs, but lethal all the same. Scooping their bodies with a scything gust, he sent the ten Scalpers and the Chainsaw toward the edge as he expanded another bubble but a foot into the fall.

The relief was slow but immediate. His Hell balanced as the combined mass of the fire team hovered upon the circumference of the sphere, the laws of reality serving as milk to the nature of his Rend.

For a few moments, he contented himself to watch, to study the functions of his Hell.

The Galeslither possessed an endurance with this Hell, but it lacked the intensity and tempo his Woundshaper could deliver. Before, at the least.

He had yet to experiment with its limitations. Part of him desired to see how unbalanced it was with the Heaven outweighing his new Hell so.

REND CAPACITY: 28%... 27%... 13%... 4%... 0%

Yes, perhaps he should take the opportunity and--

A series of cries diverted his attention. Four hundred feet away and a deck down, accretions were winking out. His DeepNav positioned them along novelty mem-sim shop. Avo frowned.

+Draus. Are you taking food from my mouth?+

His message was marred and distorted by the ongoing turmoil affecting the local Nether, but the message he got from the Regular was clear.

Speed up.

In seconds another few lives were snuffed, this time winking out across multiple teams.

Desperate cries rose across the vast curve of the mall as the Scalpers blindly fired back, their own guns punching through glass and plascrete. Mag-flung flechettes and heavy kinetics tore through the gutters, their attempt to kill Draus more delusion of volume rather than a retaliated deliberation of precision.

They didn't know what they were aiming for.

A flash of her cog-feed bled through their session. Just for an instant.

He caught sight of her pulling another shot through the head of another one of his victims. The Woundshaper bubbled, the veins within Avo humming to the tune of praise. Draus was using him and the return fire from the Scalpers to triangulate her shots.

Avo growled. This was revenge. This was retribution for him nulling all those spectators. She couldn't stop him from committing what she considered to be folly, and now he couldn't stop her from snatching his playthings away.

A low laugh reverberated from the fires that burned inside him. "Ah, half a full person though she is, she does please me. I would have coveted having a huntress of her like during my time. So eager to kill. So eager to spite. Of course, she would have to die if born apart from the lines of the Matriarchs. A pity, but such is the life of a partling."

Two fire teams were gone from his sight already. Twenty ghosts and echoes of Essence snatched from his fingers.

"Do not be hysterical, master. We are not far from the corpses of our adversaries. Pass by and we shall be fed regardless. There are no other gods down here but we."

"Wanted to kill them myself."

"Ah. So it is impotence that wounds your nature. Do try to shed it. Such a thing is for children and pets. And you are not a pet anymore, are you master?"

Avo wasn't used to being taunted by a freeloader that dwelled within his blood. He decided he really didn't like it.

"To the part where you slay yourself, then. We both know that the Galeslither will not stop her from picking your quarry clean before you even arrive. She is striking them true across the distance of leagues and through the thick of walls. You play a game of twisting and tearing with formless fingers. A harder game. One that will doubtlessly amuse her when she gets to shoot the floating targets before they sink into your grasp."

The reluctance he felt toward suicide lasted but a second before he saw another phantasmal presence wink out.

"The winds are not sufficient to outpace her. Lift them and she will use you as but an archery range--a gallery for her targets. You know what must follow, yes?"

"My food!" Avo snarled.

Following that, tucking the Rhythm under his chin and pulling the trigger proved to be an act of disconcerting ease.

The world burst apart, existence unfurling into a twist of error codes and flashing white.

And then, Avo felt the familiar drop as he tumbled back into the eldritch dawn he housed within.

INITIALIZING RESURRECTION - 1%

Diving down into the root of his Soul, he basked consciousness in cleansing flames as he tuned the speed of his return to its utmost variable.

Resurfacing, he ejected himself from the Galeslither, diving out its lightning-cracked chest as the winds lost their animation. Grey to his sight, the Woundshaper greeted him with an emanation of smugness, the atmosphere around it rank with arrogance.

"Stop that," Avo growled.

"Alas, but I am unable. You flatter me so very much with the haste of your approach."

"Want Heaven. Not you. You're luggage."

"Such is a matter of semantics. There is no difference between me and the Heaven in ontology. Perhaps once, when my Soul burned separate from my shell, I would have argued differently…"Avo missed the days when his blood couldn't talk to him. Unable to kill, eat, or remove the problem, he committed to his next best choice: pretending it didn't exist.

As it turned out, it was hard to choke the Heaven of Blood when one was not mantling said Heaven of blood.

HEAVEN GRAFTED - [WOUNDSHAPER]

DOMAIN: (BLOOD/MATTER)

THAUMIC REQUIREMENTS - 265 THAUM/c

Around him, the spire that was once the Sangeist embraced him, binding itself to the nucleus of his Soul through veins of flowing crimson. Twin sigils ignited in his awareness, markings more intricate and severe than those of his Galeslither.

He checked his resurrection.

RESURRECTION - 66%

"Slow," Avo complained.

"Would not but such a matter upon you if you would have only used me in the first place."

"Couldn't fly."

"Ah, but I can leap. I can achieve speeds beyond the feebleness of your steed. Grow me further and the air will turn ablaze upon my skin. Rebind me to better hubris and find me more stable Hell, and I shall deliver upon our adversaries annihilation absolute."

Another moment passed. The weight of impatience was upon Avo even without the touch of neurochemistry.

RESURRECTION - 90%

"Remember to fire your little organ when we emerge. It appears to accelerate your senses."

"I know."

"I am merely ensuring you recall best practices."

"Stop it."

RESURRECTION - 100%

The light of existence approached.

Mem-data booted, filling Avo's mind. He paid them no heed.

Tearing back into the world with a snarl, the thing Avo noticed was the diminishment in the number of Scalpers. The tags of three other fireteams were already missing. Draus was moving onto her fourth, firing across the way at the opposite arm of the mall.

She was depriving him. Starving him of deserved kills.

"Be it so deserved if she kills them first?" the Woundshaper asked.

"Half-strand," Avo cursed. He didn't know if he was speaking to his Heaven or Draus. He frowned. He didn't like it. He didn't use to curse before.

From on high, the low notes of descending engines thundered, the three spearships circling above as if unclear the situation.

Flexing his Celerostylus as hard as he could, the pace of time found itself lingering just barely ahead of Avo's acceleration.

A whip of blood tore out from his wrist and spread into threads. From the slain Scalpers he siphoned what he could, and from the matter around him, he liquified even more.

REND CAPACITY: 39%

Avo's eyes widened at the near-instant spike. It had been less than a second, and he had barely more than two tons wrapped around him. Two tons for an immense amount of Rend. Working fast, he instilled the blood around him with a canon of Linger, freezing it in place so that he might continue drawing from it.

From all things solid, he siphoned more material mass and digested them into blood. The clock was ticking. Draus was going to kill everything if he didn't hurry. The beast inside him whimpered. The Woundshaper spurred him on, calling for him to alchemize faster, that the surrounding aesthetics offended it.

REND CAPACITY: 98%

VENT NOW! VENT NOW!

Not yet a second and eight tons. He would need to vent now, but after reaching ten tons, he would wait no longer. He calculated his route using his Phys-Sim. Still six teams left. Six teams and the ships. He could hit each and every one of the Scalpers ahead of him. Build up more blood, more speed.

Already, he had the foundations of a small tower about himself. Reaching out, he felt its strength press back, with cords of vascular thickness augmenting the enhanced Heaven of Blood. The new strength imbued in its form felt as if a shaking base.

Emptying his entropy into the edge of the deck, he carved more than thirty feet of material out of existence to quell his Rend.

What remained was entirely occupied by his present size. A present size that was set to grow more as he added two more tons, eating away the outer walls of the theatre. Tendrils drained physical structure into building veins of vascularity as he pumped newly alchemized mass into the broadening frame of his Woundshaper.

From a mere eight feet, Avo felt himself rise another twelve as he reached ten tons.

With each increment of mass, a new might filled his constructed limbs, the shell around him growing not only stronger but faster. Where the world was as if moving through sludge before, now it seemed near frozen before his gaze.

Ten tons. Ten times his natural strength. Ten times his natural speed.

Paired with his Celerostylus, a thought appealed to his ego: what need did he have to be the storm when he could just drag it in his wake?

He spurred himself to a gallop, manifesting tentacles pounding down--and through--the ground beneath. Surging, the space around him shattered in blasts of plascrete, while tides of detritus rose high, cleaved high as parting sprays by the sheer velocity left in his wake. The world blurred as he drove forward, his size a boulder crackling at the speed of a lashing whip. Even with his reflexes tuned high, his velocity was evident. Around the frame of his Heaven, the winds bent, the ground split, and he fell upon his first victims, ignorant of his approach.

He rode forth an unnoticed omen of oblivion, his pace beyond the perception granted by standard street-squire implants.

From the structure of his Heaven birthed bladed limbs and lashing tendrils. What walls stood in his way were but things to smash through or liquefy, matter but binary states for him to interchange.

Ahead, the remaining markers for each team called out to him like milestones, the melody of his rising Rend screaming for his awareness.

REND CAPACITY: 89%

What followed bore no semblance to battle.

What battle was there to be had when a ten-ton god moving at six hundred and fifty miles per hour impacted a dozen bodies encased in meager shells of titanium?

The same outcome could be observed when a swarm of insects fails to evade the path of an oncoming aero.

If nothing else, their smears fed into his being all the same.

THAUMIC CYCLER: 342 THAUM/c

Ghosts: [317]

At such slaughter, the beast chortled in delight, but within Avo's greater wholeness, the first hints of bitterness began to spread.