12 Miles Below

They’d been waiting on a small wooden pallet, straddling two metal chairs. Rifles aimed right down at where he’d walked in.

Bullets immediately riddled his plates with a clear vendetta. Outshooting To’Sefit’s plates before they could acquire target and open fire themselves. A wall of fire came for both him and the Drake, quickly drawing warning signs from his system overclock. Occult wraiths sprang from the ground itself just to bath him in further flames. It was as if he'd stepped into hell itself.

To’Sefit shrieked in anger as if she’d been the one here watching her own gear be vandalized and burned. To'Orda just sighed deeply to himself, muting the channel to get some peace.

His target had battled To’Sefit and won, so he wasn’t too surprised her weapons were the first thing to eliminate.

He’d watched the weapons get riddled with bullets in slow motion, since they couldn’t possibly move fast enough to avoid bullets. And neither could he reach out and shield them at this distance before they were destroyed. The fire would take some time to bring his overclocking system down, so it wasn't yet a problem.

If he’d kept the plates closer to him, he might have been able to protect them. But then they’d fire far too close to him and burn more of his shawl on top of burning his overclock faster.

Regardless, they were now functionally useless until he repaired them, as if they weren’t already useless in such a confined space against the hyper-weasel.

He felt more annoyed about the comms channel than the events. It was pinging him with a few hundred angry beeps each second, and within the overclocked speed that was getting quite grating. He unmuted against his better judgment.

“What are you doing?!” To’Sefit screeched at him, “Where is your shield!?”

“No time.” He grumbled. In the time it would take to pull out the shield and activate the fractal within, the panels had already been punched through. Although that wasn’t completely the full reason. He could have walked in with his shield out instead of just the hammer on his shoulder.

But again - that was his shield. He didn’t want it anywhere near that human. Any other Deathless he’d feel more comfortable, but that human?

He’d find some way to scratch it up.

“Fine, then at the very least focus your repairs on my plates, not your stupid shawl!” To’Sefit continued hissing like a furious cat on his right shoulder.

“Nnn… but--” It was her plates that had burned his favorite cloth piece in the first place. And the rest of it was under literal fire from the hyper-weasel's onslaught, which would eventually continue that damage. Rather obnoxious she’d want her stuff repaired first instead of his own.

“She’s correct.” To’Avalis said, dogpiling down on him. “Your shawl can be repaired another time, it remains cosmetics. Your obsession with such simple fabric is noted but not necessary at this moment. The plates must be brought back to working condition immediately, they offer more tactical options by default. Do not be a fool.”

“Appearances are important. I’ve learned this over my operational time.” To’Wrathh whispered, voice sweet at honey on his left shoulder. “Why spend so much effort with how you look and not be able to fight at your best? Doesn’t that feel… wrong? The flames are too dispersed to deal any true damage to the nanoswarm, there is no harm in continuing repairs.”

The voice of reason in a world filled with chaos.

Up until To’Avalis made it clear that was an order, not a request.

“Nnnn… fine. I’m going.” He muttered, sending the commands to his nanowarms to begin repairs. Black smoke drifted from his head, navigating through the inferno roaring around him, past his floating metal halo and into the damaged plates floating above. Bullets flickered past the cloud, ripping small holes into the swarm and causing larger ripples due to the air dispersal from everything going on, but otherwise completely ineffective.

The Drake hadn’t been still. He’d opened his maw, charging a beam when one of the humans dropped straight down onto his head, a blade slashing out followed by a blast of pure sunlight from his other hand. Great, even more fire.

The punch slammed into the poor lesser’s head, knocking him down into the ground and snapping the jaw shut. In a moment, that human was now firmly grappled over his head, one gauntleted hand holding onto a fang with a vicegrip, the other hand already stabbing directly into a throat section of the lesser. The Drake snarled, shaking his head left and right, throwing off the attack, trying to dislodge the unwelcome passenger and finding it impossible. The movements seemed practiced, as if the human was well used to fighting lessers of this kind.

The drake lifted straight up, and slammed the Deathless into the metal of the ship but still failed to dislodge the threat. The human armor didn’t bother to trigger shields over that, but it did seem to be unexpected and interrupted the practiced technique, the occult blade ripping out and failing to sever the right sections the human had aimed for.

The human got his barings, and angled the blade for a strike down again.

But there was an issue with the Deathless’s positioning - he was just within To’Orda’s hammer range. Not himself, but his outstretched arm and blade. To’Orda’s hammer was a massive weapon after all, more than eight feet in length - a few inches taller than he was. And that afforded far more range than anyone ever expected.

The Feather flicked his weapon with one hand, letting the shaft of the weapon slide through his hands until it reached the very tip. His grip tightened, electric pulses triggering the inertia fractal within, turning the hammer temporarily light as a staff of tin.

He swung with it, the air tunnel behind it completely smothering the inferno around him. The fractal turned off the second before impact, slapping through the outstretched hilt of the Deathless and part of his hand. While the armor tried its best to protect its user, that didn’t stop the sheer kinetic force behind his swing.

Bones within the hand were pulverized. The blade was equally smashed in, bent against itself and thrown far off. The forces continued through the hand and arm even after the hammer had passed by, forcing all of it backwards until it hit the armor’s natural range of motion. And then sections of it snapped off, ripped apart, letting the arm continue unnaturally backwards. It wasn’t completely ripped off however, the armor had contained it well enough. But the rest of the bones inside were equally crushed, and it would take hours or even a day for the Deathless to regenerate that kind of damage.

He debated if he should have just taken a step to get closer and smash through the chest instead of the hand, but at least he’d done something to help the lesser when he had the chance.

The Drake slinked out of the tower at the same moment, backpedaling madly, like a ferret hunting insects that stuck its head too deep in a burrow and been stung by a vicious wasp.

The Deathless was dragged out with the lesser, the other working hand still holding a vice grip over the teeth, even if his dominant hand was no longer in working order.

To’Orda would have walked out to help the Drake further. Would have. Except the other human had landed nearby and begun opening fire. But that was hardly what was dangerous.

No, the real problem is that he couldn’t turn his back to the hyper-weasel. He had a knightbreaker as To’Avalis called it, and he wouldn’t hesitate to fire it the moment he thought To’Orda wouldn’t be able to dodge or intercept it anymore. An implicit threat without even action behind it. Rather annoying.

There’d been a chance the human would have opened his surprise attack with it, and he’d been ready to snatch it out of the air and crush the thing before it did anything worse. Unfortunately the hyper-weasel liked to keep his cards close to his chest.

“Sss… Worry not, great one. I’ll handle this nuisance.” The drake said, paw flashing out to pry off the Deathless now that he had space to work with. The Deathless jumped before that could happen, his good hand drawing out a dagger. He slashed forward with a few warning strikes, forcing the drake to backpedal further away from the tower.

“Okay.” To’Orda shrugged, keeping his eye on the primary target, his vision easily cutting through the flame and smoke all around him. He was still firing those standard bullets aimed right at his face and throat, so To’Orda let them spark across his features as he leveled out his hammer in both hands and took steps out of the inferno around him.

Then his internal shields flared out, subroutines detecting danger a millisecond before it slammed into him.

Ahh. There were those occult bullets. The human thought he’d sneak them in. “Nnnn… not going to work.”

The hail of bullets instantly stopped.

“Worth a try.” The hyper-weasel answered back, finally holstering his sidearm the moment the attack proved useless. “Any chance you could just drop dead and fast forward this for everyone?”

Fast forward? And skip this entire fight? “Nnnn…” He considered it, nodding slowly at the idea as he stood in the torrents of fire around him. Fast-forwarding anything appealed greatly to him. “I accept, but you die first.”

He’d get to fast forward all this, and not have To’Avalis angry at him. To’Wrathh might be a problem, but hopefully she’ll forget he killed her human and stop bothering him in the future. He forgets things all the time, she should too.

“Sad we can’t see eye to eye on this one.” Keith said, rolling a shoulder, drawing out a blade and that armguard riddled with occult edges. “So who sent you? Relinquished or some older friends of mine?”

The flames ended as the occult ghosts around faded. Likely the human realized To'Orda wasn't running overclocks with any high speed right now, there was no need for that. The ambient superheated air would eventually get to him, but not for a good while at this rate.

And more importantly, his shawl was made of thick weave that wouldn't burn easily. Even To'Sefit's beams being so close could only fry the fabric's edges.

“Don’t answer him.” To’Avalis hissed in his comms. “He’s fishing for information.”

“And what if he is?” To’Wrathh countered. “Explain to him everything, this assists my end goal. Or do you wish to interfere with a plan the lady sanctioned?”

He was starting to think the mute button might glitch out after being turned on and off so many times.

It didn’t stop him from hitting it again.

“I work with To’Sefit. And To’Avalis.” He said. Then paused as a flood of pings came from To’Avalis. “Nnn… used to. He was the Feather you killed.” Technically. “To’Aacar is now my boss.” The actual feather the human had killed.

“Huh. Thought I killed them all a few times already. How are they taking it?”

“Badly.” Feathers don’t deal with being beat with any kind of calm. They’d all gone insane in one way or another, and now he was suffering for it all.

The human laughed, “Tell them I weep for their losses, if you could.”

He groaned, and unmuted the channel. “The human says he weeps for your losses.” He dutifully relayed.

“If you bothered to run some of your additional programming, you’d notice that’s a lie. While I would wish you an excruciating death for that, I would rather see the human die first.” To’Avalis said. “You dying before him would complicate that greatly.”

To’Sefit scoffed, “That was a rhetorical request from him, you dounce. Pay that no mind.”

To’Wrathh just preened, proud of her human.

“They’re not happy you said that.” To’Orda relayed back with a deep shrug. “Nnn… don’t ask for more. They are being a pain.”

The human tilted his head just slightly. “Didn’t actually think you’d tell them. Mind if I know who I’m fighting then? You seem a little familiar. Work for Shadowsong by any chance? She’d be tall, snobby and surrounded by other minions too. You got the size to fit right in with her mooks.”

“Nnnn…. No.” To’Orda said. To’Sefit was tall and snobby, but her name wasn’t Shadowsong, and the only minion she had was him. “I am To’Orda.” He paused, then realized he had to fully announce his name, since he'd said it. He gave a deep sigh, then recited the words. “The one of resolve dyed ash.”

The hyper-weasel nodded in understanding. Given that To’Wrathh was technically a traitor, it was probable she’d already told him who to expect. Although the hyper-weasel couldn’t openly admit it right now, or else things would get even more complicated.

“So. To’Orda. Where are all your minions?” His helmet was slowly turning its focus from the tip of his hammer and following the handle all the way down to the ground where he had let it rest. “Your army of machines? Or is it just you and your pet lizard? No, no, don't tell me... budget cuts?”

It was just him and the lesser. Getting other lessers here would bring attention, something To'Avalis had told him multiple times was off the table.

“He’s fishing for information. Again.” His boss gave a deep sigh. An image came back of the Feather sitting on a chair of some kind, one hand cradling his head. “Just. Don’t be stupid. Please. For once.”

Was he saying not to tell the hyper-weasel any information on To’Avalis and the others, or no information on the background dramatics? To’Orda couldn’t keep track of all of this, it was so exhausting.

“My, I would respectfully disagree here.” To’Sefit said. “The longer the human talks, the more time our dear To’Orda here has on repairing one of my plates. Just focus on the one first and then blast him with it, if you could?”

As he'd said: Exhausting.

To’Wrathh just annoyed him further with requests to connect comms with the human. And he’d been strictly ordered by To’Avalis to ignore that kind of request. He sent her back the direct orders To’Avalis had told him word for word, and that got her to silently fume in the background.

But back to the question - he considered how to both avoid answering the question given as To’Avalis wanted, and extend the conversation further like To’Sefit asked. He decided to ask a question back instead.

That should work out. “You are Keith, the hyper-weasel To’Wrathh annoys me about?”

“Hyper-weasel?”

To’Orda thought it was obvious. He gave a questioning head tilt, hammer slightly raised to the side.

“Oh, not denying it at all. Hyper-weasel sounds accurate.” Said hyper-weasel considered, head equally tilted. “Just surprised Feathers of all enemies are calling me that.”

“Nnnn… The others agree. Just not openly.”

To’Wrathh squawked in protest.

To’Orda’s image generator angrily scoffed and sent her a screenshot of the hyper-weasel as he stood right this moment, circled with a red marker and multiple arrows pointed right at him. It also made use of the newly added text feature to include a quick caption. “Are you seriously arguing this?”

She went quiet for a moment, then sent back a slightly sulky wordless agreement.

To’Orda smiled. He really, really liked this new generator. Best addition he’d added in the past few decades. And it was acting more and more independent, he didn’t even need to prompt it with things anymore. Absolutely perfect.

“Are you going to talk him to death?” To’Avalis asked. “The plate is nearly repaired. Engage him in combat before he realizes and opens fire on it again.”

To’Sefit also joined in on berating him, and To’Wrathh was equally annoying in a different way. All three started to squabble and talk over one another. He muted the channel again before any of the peanut gallery could really get under his skin.

Well, they were right. His first plate was around fifty percent repaired and the human wasn’t firing bullets at them. He better get to work before the human gets wise about it as ordered.

To’Orda took one single step forward.

It was only a single step. Absolute chaos descended down.

The hyper-weasel exploded out into a pulse of occult and wraiths, all diving and ducking in different directions before racing right to him, trying to bodycheck him with that armguard shield. Fire and fury once again resumed, turning the entire world into an orange haze.

That many occult blades would overtax his defenses, and he'd need to dial up his overclock systems to calculate responses fast enough. Which meant the fire was actually a hazard now. He swung with his hammer a few times in quick succession, battering the ghosts with both ends of the weapon, delivering small direct strikes with the hilt, headbutting one that got past his guard, and stomping another trying to slide under to slash at his feet.

He moved fast. Faster than he ever had to move in the past few years now. His bulk alone forced airflow past the walls of fire, giving his heat vents fresh breaths of life. He calculated that into the overclocks and organized it all into various priorities on what to hit, where to stand, and what to pay attention to.

It was all moot. Each time he was about to destroy one, they’d flicker in place with a pulse of occult and another wraith would start moving from the origin point. Usually ducking or avoiding the attack that was about to end its parent before launching more fire and armguard strikes.

The hyper-weasel was bringing back wraiths faster than he could destroy them. Which meant he’d need to put in more effort to both beat them down and then get to the human. And that would require more overclocks, which would need more clean air to work with. Of which he wasn't getting enough.

All right. He had to switch plans.

To’Orda slammed his hammer directly down into the ground and forced one of the fractals inscribed deep within to trigger. A shockwave of power roiled out, splashing against him and ripping apart some of the weakened shawl he still had. It was a harsh trade to further break that apart, but the shockwave did clear out the room of the wraiths and scattered the wall of fire out of the way.

Through the ember cloud, he lumbered out like an arrow, leaping directly for the hyper-weasel, hammer swinging for his chest. The human ducked and rolled to avoid his hits, wraiths peppering his sides at all times with that armguard a constant threat.

But To’Orda was a Feather and if he wasn’t calculating his strikes fast enough, all he had to do was put more power in his overclock to give him that much more time to tighten up his combat. And so long as he kept moving, he'd find new pockets of air that the weasel hadn't burned up.

Either he’d land a hit, or his plate would get repaired. And he’d force the human into either eating a hammer blow or being stuck in the firing path.

The human wasn’t fighting at his best. To’Orda could almost feel that in the air. No, he was being tested and prodded for how he’d react and where he’d swing his hammer from. Combat algorithms within him changed trajectories often to keep unpredictable, but To’Orda hadn’t spent enough time to really polish those up. Most of his fights with Deathless this close up never lasted this long. So there’d been no point in tightening such details as obsessively as other Feathers had.

All a moot point as well. His first plate was fixed, and he backed the human into no-win situation. Either get hit by the hammer, or get lasered by the plate.

His hammer swung. The hyper-weasel made his choice and jumped into a roll, letting the hammer slam into him. Occult pulsed at the same time, some kind of defensive shield appearing. Multiple layers of it. Each easily crushed through, but it did sap away his hammer’s power. By the time the weapon slammed through the enemy's actual shields and flattened against the side of his chest, it wasn’t powerful enough to pulverize the human inside.

But it did send him flying right into a metal wall. Unfortunately the structure was too weak to finish the job, ripping apart instead of acting like an anvil to his strike. On the other side, the human got back on his feet and dove out of sight.

Angry beeping came from the comms channel from both To’Avalis and To’Sefit, but To’Orda was too smart to unmute any of that right now. He gave a sigh, then followed behind the hole, stepping through and surveying where the hyper-weasel had run off to, his single repaired plate humming with power, ready to laser on first sight.

An occult lash of some kind wrapped around his newly fixed plate and pulled up. The power behind easily ripping the floating plate from his orbit.

To’Orda looked up, following the trajectory of his stolen plate. "Nnnn?"

The human hadn’t run off. He’d run upwards out of sight. The plate flew upwards, and into the hyper-weasel's outstretched hand.

It was now glowing bright occult blue, the portal within materializing on the surface.

Pointed right at him.

Maybe he should have unmuted the channel after all.

Bugger.