NOVEL NEXT 174 (I) Riot [III]
…Aside from the Starhawk, the only other Ascendant that holds true subversion potential is the aptly titled Cripple the Strongest. Yet, Cripple will prove to be a fascinating case, as it is not its Avatars that are vulnerable, but rather the Ascendant itself.
Unlike the Starhawk, Cripple is not driven by personal ideology. Instead, it is motivated by a crude sense of personal justice and grievance, and often finds itself at odds with the other Ascendants. It also does not have nearly as much political presence as the other Ascendants, due to its reclusive nature. That being said, Cripple is one of the more powerful Ascendants due to its unique nature—and with how every Avatar that serves it functions somewhat as an active martyr, effectively letting Cripple "Overcharge" them with divine mana during combat to a far greater extent than other Avatars.
This makes Cripple the Strongest an exceedingly dangerous foe in direct combat. As such, its vulnerability is not in the domain of warfare, but in the realm of interaction and conversations.
Several of our Sparrows that have served as Cripple's Avatars have offered us a great many details regarding the Ascendant's dissatisfaction with the trajectory of its Republic, a deteriorating relationship with the other Ascendants—including the Starhawk—and a growing sense of self-loathing.
We propose seeding more agents in critical Republic facilities and organizations. Especially their Rubix Wells, considering Cripple often likes to interview prisoners in person to decide their eventual fates.
Perhaps we should consider "repurposing" some burned assets as well, as an opening trial…
-Aviary report on "Cripple the Strongest"
174 (I)
Riot [III]
Shiv clenched his fist and began harnessing new overflow vectors as he stared Cripple down.
The Ascendant's Avatar was badly damaged, sprouting only a single arm and a shattered chassis. Wires and divine mana spilled free from the Avatar's broken body, forming an incandescent membrane that painted the faintness of Cripple into existence, and the Ascendant loomed over its vessel like a tower-sized shadow, regarding Shiv with its cyclopean gaze.
"I mean you no harm at present," the Ascended declared. "I simply wish to speak."
Shiv failed to hide a sneer. "Yeah, sure, and I'm not trying to escape right now. I was just feeling like I wanted to take a walk."
A cascade of heavy impacts shook the walls behind him and made Shiv jolt in response. Holes were being punched through the Orichalcum cube, but Cripple's wall of fists remained unbroken. Shiv turned briefly and regarded the wall of interlocking fists created by Cripple. Each burning fist was the size of a small building, and they were pressed together, knuckle to knuckle, arm beside arm. It was effectively a greater bulwark than even the Orichalcum behind it.
Even so, though Daughter couldn't pierce Cripple's hands, faint flecks of black tar seeped out from the cage of fists. Shiv could hear her screaming, could hear the constant sound of battle ringing from the rends lining the Orichalcum walls.
Daughter and her Avatars were still warring against Rebis, and that tar-black essence of hers seemed to be leaking into existence itself. It was like the atmosphere became a soaked page, with the blackened substance burrowing deeper into the fabric. Shiv could feel an oiliness clinging to him, and the foul odor returned. As the Deathless gagged slightly, Cripple's Avatar didn't react. Instead, it held out a hand.
"I speak truth. I do not wish to shed blood nor oil. I simply wish to speak."
Hope and paranoia came together to form a dense brick at the bottom of Shiv's stomach. He wasn't sure why Cripple was doing this or what game the Ascendant was playing. What he did know was that he needed a great deal of help right now if he wanted to escape from Daughter. And if Cripple truly wanted to hurt him, it could have joined the fight alongside its fellow Ascendant.
Shiv was barely able to survive Daughter on her own. Should Cripple join the fray, the battle would already be over. Yet, Cripple wanted to talk, not just to Shiv, but to Adam as well. Maybe, just maybe, Cripple is a bit less of a bastard compared to the other Ascendants…
Psycho-Cartography: This could be a trap, but we can't see a good alternative angle. If Cripple wanted to recapture us, trying to lull us into a false sense of security is pointlessly complicated. Two Ascendants is more weight than we can carry on our backs. We couldn't escape Daughter with Outside Context Problem. Frankly, the only reason we're keeping her at bay is because of our Legendary Skill… and Cripple probably knows that.
Shiv lowered his fists, but he placed the temporal anchor where he was and kept cycling more overflow tides through his body.
"Adam's not with me, you know that?" Shiv said. "He's the main reason I didn't just leave this prison. I know about the time loop you have around the Nadir, and I think I can get through that. But I'm not going. Not without him. If he's actually here at all. If all this isn't some kind of strange bullshit trap."
"I know." Cripple hesitated. "Whatever you feel toward me and the Ascendants, I am glad that someone still holds a sense of honor toward their brother-in-arms." Discomfort seized Cripple as its ethereal form turned away from Shiv. Its Avatar remained strong—kept its three glowing, vertical optics locked to the Deathless in its master's stead. "You being here, I understand. But Adam Arrow should not be in this place."
Just then, a loud screech filled the air. "CRIPPLE! I CAN FEEL YOU, CRIPPLE! HE IS MINE! MINE! MINE!"
Daughter's cry came as a deafening chorus. The sounds of young girls laughing and weeping echoed in the backdrop. Cripple just sighed in response. "I also envy the fact that your brother-in-arms remains sane and stable rather than mad and broken." More particles of sludge-thick blackness leaked into the world. Shiv pulled himself a bit further away from the edges of the cage of burning fists so he wouldn't come into contact with the divine filth.
"Yeah, well, mind calling your whatever-in-arms off first?" Shiv asked. "Because I don't know what kind of conversation we can have if they're still trying to scalp and eat me."
"I fear that there's too little left of Daughter for her to be compelled," Cripple muttered. "It was not always this way. She was more human once, despite everything life inflicted upon her. It was only after her mother applied those alchemical concoctions to her body that she changed past that threshold between child and monster completely."
Shiv blinked. "Wait, her mother did this to her? Broken Moon, does no one have a stable family anymore? It's a godsdamned shit show everywhere I go."
"Maiden—her mother—didn't have a choice," Cripple said, its voice heavy with sorrow. "It was transgression or death. And she chose the only choice she could for her young. But I offer you a solution to both Daughter and myself right now."
The Avatar reached up and pried the front of its torso free. Panels of dented metal fell away, and Shiv saw the burning core of the automaton Pathbearer for the first time. It resembled a layered disk in terms of design, but it was far from pristine. Fractures lined its surface, leaking brilliant fluid that sparkled with violent crackles of electricity. A sphere twisted and turned at its very center, and Shiv noted how it was dense with not only energy, but also mana and vitality.
"In approximately thirty seconds, Daughter will rip through my crude protections. Before that happens, I request that you give my Avatar a proper end. It has earned that much, though it deserves far, far more."
Cripple's Avatar hovered past Shiv, arriving just in front of a massive, incandescent arm that kept Daughter from bursting free from the Orichalcum walls. For a beat, Shiv just watched it. Cripple's Avatar held out its remaining arm, and the act proved too much for its disintegrating body. The arm snapped at the shoulder, the metal connecting the limb to its body breaking free in a splash of spraying pieces.
Despite this, the Avatar betrayed no hint of pain.
"Come, we do not have long," Cripple said urgently. "When you are ready, drive your fist through my Avatar's chest, but take care to hold onto the center-most reactor core. Do not destroy it. Without that, we will not be able to communicate after my Avatar's demise. Now, come! Give this Avatar a proper end!"
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Shiv didn't understand how that was supposed to help deal with Daughter, but the urgency in Cripple's tone conveyed a sincerity that couldn't be denied. Shiv made the decision to trust Cripple—at least for now. He used some of his Shapeless Tides to reposition himself. Arriving before the Avatar, Shiv concentrated a surge of overflow vectors into his hand. He didn't know how strong its broken body was, but he knew better than to underestimate an Ascendant's vessel.
Instead of making a fist, Shiv opened his hand and drove his fingers through the Avatar's core. The damaged automaton shuddered before Shiv and gave a growl. Something inside Shiv shuddered as he followed through with the execution. Pity filled Shiv. Just a bit. It was one thing to treat the Ascendants as enemies, but their Avatars—the Waifs used by Daughter and the dying automatons wielded by Cripple—felt like collateral damage.
Shiv hated collateral damage.
"It is alright," the Avatar whispered, voice suddenly clear. "Fear not the end, Deathless. Even if you might never know it. The true dread comes with regret. With a life unlived and deeds unfinished. I have spent all of myself. I was ash before I was gone. But I burned bright while I was here. Will you?"
Philosophy 14 > 16
The Avatar's words splashed into Shiv's consciousness and sank deep. Pity became a feeling of companionship as he held out another hand and gripped the broken bot on the shoulder. "I will. I will. I… I wish I could have known you."
The Avatar's optics flickered. "In this moment, you will know me truer than all others besides my god. Now make your hand a fist. Trust in my death."
That was all that needed to be said. Shiv surged forward, and his fingers sank through the crumbling chest of the Avatar. He seized the Avatar's reactor core. A flash of mana and power clashed against Shiv's hand. The Deathless let out a brief hiss of pain as a rush of divine mana splashed between his fingers and burned the flesh of his palm. He sent a flood of overflow tides to rebuff the divine incandescence rupturing out of the Avatar and drove godly fire in the opposite direction.
As the Avatar came asunder, so too did the cage of fists preventing Daughter's exit from the nearby cage. The moment the cage vanished, Shiv watched as a legion of tar-covered shapes exploded free from one of five gaps lining the Orichalcum. Chains of near-blinding vitality connected them to one another, and Daughter's laughter clawed Shiv's awareness like nails leaving bloody furrows upon his flesh.
The Waifs came for Shiv as a screaming horde, moving so fast he could barely track them through the air. Still, he tried. He tried as he circulated more overflow tides through his body while hardening his pillar.
Multi-Tasking 28 > 29
The Deathless circulated striped force vectors across his body as Cripple's Avatar broke apart into fading pieces. Before Shiv could leave context and halt time, a remaining fragment of the Avatar's head spoke one final time, directly into his mind.
"And before there is not even ash left of this vessel, the memory of fire will roar one final time," the Avatar proclaimed. "Witness, Pathbearer, the might withheld from you in this final death."
And then the Avatar detonated, unleashing a near-solid wave of incandescent force in all directions. It was hotter than anything Shiv had ever felt, and he pointed his tides against the incoming explosion and turned away. Yet, the blast did not burn him. It did not unmake him. The explosion wrapped around Shiv like a gentle breeze, leaving him utterly untouched.
The same couldn't be said for Daughter and all her Avatars. Where Shiv was untouched, she and her Avatars became like moths consigned to a firestorm. First, the incandescent blast struck her many Waifs like a riptide. They were ripped away from Shiv, tiny bodies dragged out to a metaphorical sea. As they were launched away, Shiv realized they were burning. Screams filled the air. Screams from the Waifs that all bled together as Daughter's howl overtook them all.
A ragged shriek of disbelief tore through the world, and Shiv tasted the incredible rage burning within Daughter's breast. "HOW! CRIPPLE! YOU WORTHLESS—"
At this point, Cripple's Avatar had dissolved entirely, and the sheer amount of divine mana it unleashed painted everything around Shiv white. He hovered at the epicenter, as more rippling waves swept out. The Waifs were burning, but as their little bodies melted away, Daughter remained. The nightmarish Ascendant herself was untouched by the blaze, but the waves still battered her—still displaced her further from Shiv.
"No! I must have him! I must sup his blood and drink his marrow! I must!" Daughter broke down into a tantrum, and the many bodies she had reached out to one another. The chains of vitality keeping her bodies connected hardened, and soon, she merged into a singular entity—a four-meter tall monstrosity that had too many arms, too many limbs, clutching too many knives. The unified Daughter was a nightmarish shadow that drove spikes of indescribable fear into Shiv. Just looking at her made his nerves go haywire.
But Shiv wasn't quite so human at his foundations, either. Daughter wasn't the only monster wearing human flesh here. As coherent thought fled his mind, Shiv defaulted to violence. Daughter fought her way toward him, a mangled giantess warring against Cripple's incandescent tides. Shiv darted through the blast with ease, untouched by fire and force. He came for Daughter, infusing both Vitae and Shapeless Tides into his left arm. Daughter snarled. She tried to strike him, but Cripple's mana collapsed down upon her and began dragging her under the incandescent mana. She tried to push through crashing waves with her arms, but Daughter was but an insect fighting the falling waves of the ocean. Reality could sustain her presence here no longer, and she was beginning to sink like stone. "CRIPPLE! HOW COULD YOU LET HIM DO THIS! HOW COULD YOU LET HIM BREAK YOU—YOU BIG, STUPID—"
Her following words turned into a wretched scream as Shiv drove his fist into her skull. His Vitae allowed him to strike at her spirit, while his Shapeless Tides granted him the might he needed to tear at god-flesh. A gasp followed. Daughter's rage turned to a whimper of true pain as Shiv shredded her insides with a burst of fragmenting vectors.
Even with Legendary Physicality, mutilating the soul of a god was like trying to crush a diamond. Daughter's Magical Resistance was staggering and abnormal. Rather than lining her outsides, it clenched down on him like pointed teeth when he intruded into her being. But just as Shiv had a hard time gouging her soul, her unnatural inner mana met his Leviathan of the Shapeless Tides and was stopped dead.
A clash followed as Daughter cried out in absolute horror. Whatever Cripple did, it seemed to be ripping her out of this reality. But Shiv wouldn't let her go—not when he had a golden opportunity to give her a proper souvenir.
"I hope you enjoyed the taste of me earlier, because here comes the motherfucking consequence," Shiv growled. Icon of the Paindrinker activated. The Deathless wrenched hard against Daughter, and something inside her came apart.
The false goddess wailed, but in the undercurrent of its monstrous voice, a faint sob followed.
Psycho-Cartography: She's a monster, but there's a reason why she still acts like a child… She is one mentally. Those screams are not the screams of an adult.
"Okay! Okay! Let me go! I'm sorry! Let me go! I don't want to play with you anymore! I don't want to!" Daughter stopped her struggles and pulled her head away from Shiv. He tried to hold onto her, but he didn't have enough tides. A fist-sized hole was left in her face. Daughter shrieked as she ripped her head free from his grasp. As she plunged beneath the waves of incandescence, Shiv could hear her crying and screaming, more child than beast. "Mama! Mama! He hurt me! He hurt me! Mam—"
The incandescence stilled. Shiv couldn't hear Daughter anymore. Yet, the last thing to fade was a chain constructed from the substance of the Daughter's tar and Shiv's Vitae.
Shiv had wounded an Ascendant. What's more, he had earned her fear. The latter sent a rush of delicious power flowing through his being—but it just kept building. He gained more than mere levels for the feat of traumatizing an Ascendant.
Shape of Monstrosity 112 > 119
Feat Gained: Dread-Tainted (Legendary) - The Pathbearer has left a divine being scarred with terror. Gods have fled your presence. You are now a source of absolute fear. Allows the Pathbearer to lace their skills with the divine entity's lingering terror.
Something snaked under Shiv's flesh and wriggled into his soul. It didn't feel uncomfortable. In fact, it was like a new muscle tightening inside him. From deep inside, he could hear Daughter's sobbing cries of horror and the mark of cold dread he left upon her soul.
Despite the rush of power entering him, Shiv didn't feel proud. Frankly, he was disturbed by the end. The incandescent waves unleashed by Cripple began to fade, but the Deathless found himself lingering upon an endless canvas of absolute brilliance. No more force washed around him, but he wasn't where he'd been a moment ago.
"You shouldn't have done that," Cripple said quietly. The Ascendant's voice echoed from the core Shiv still held in his left hand. "The destruction of my Avatar was enough to banish her. You didn't need to harm her further. She will remember this. And her mother will not forgive this."
A snort escaped the Deathless, but the voice of Daughter continued to resound in the back of his mind. "I didn't start this fight. You made your choices, I'm just responding."
Cripple let out a low sigh. It sounded like it wanted to say something, but kept its words in check. Shiv kind of wished that Cripple would have said something, because now he had to deal with his own thoughts, and he really didn't want to.
That was… Well, that was something. She's a monster, but her voice at the end sounded like a child. I don't… I really don't know if I feel good about that.
Psycho-Cartography: You shouldn't. I don't think she is entirely sane. Whatever her mother did to her, it twisted her. We might have just injured a child and a monster—both in the same body.
Shiv grimaced. He didn't entirely regret wounding Daughter, but something about injuring someone with the mind of a child left him feeling ill.
Psycho-Cartography: Again, it should. But we need to face the discomfort and make the best choice that we can. There are going to be more situations like this. The System doesn't care what happens to people across Integration. Children can struggle too. Children can be monsters. The only way we can avoid harming her is if we were far stronger, but Daughter is an Ascendant. And without Cripple, the outcome of this encounter might have been uglier than we can accept.
Psycho-Cartography 63 > 65
"So, where the hells am I right now?" Shiv asked. He tried flying around the space, but found himself completely trapped within this blank expanse of divine mana. The Orichalcum cage was gone. The crawlspace was gone. Everything was gone but him and Cripple.
"We are within a Divine Domain," Cripple said. "The thresholds of Integration here are so solid that nothing can break through. Not other gods. Not the Outside."
The Deathless looked around at the curling flecks of incandescence that characterized the surrounding space. "You don't do much decorating, do you?"
"Deathless, do you think I would bring you into my domain proper or simply a vacant portion? There is a limit to my trust."