10-23 The Pruning of the Path (II) (Patreon)

“Cas… what am I even looking at?”

“Thousandhand’s ‘gardening.’”

“And you didn’t stop her?”

“Think about what you just said. Stop her. She probably saw this conversation and laughed.”

“… I’m going down there.”

“She probably foresaw that too.”

“I don’t care. People are dying, Cas. This is not—“

“—Not the fucking dream. Tell me about it.”

--Valerie Denton and Cas eld’Canduir, Ninth Column

10-23

The Pruning of the Path (II)

Fissures of force and luminosity bled out all around, birthed by sound. Strings wormed into reality as they inched out from beneath the skin of nonexistence.

The world was an explosion of intersecting actions. Avo drew in mass. Light clashed against light as a shield of blossoming force rang against a cleaving blade. War-ash scattered as impacts swept through the sky, the air above flung open like a curtain.

Tons of matter swirled into a flowing phalanx of blood. The weight of a dozen explosions struck the armored umbrella Avo formed over his group, and channeling his ghosts through its sheen, he witnessed a coming clash between rival titans, both sides ignorant of the other’s existence until mere moments prior.

Zein. This had to be by her design. All of it.

A reflexive rage clenched inside Avo; his oldest wound—to be beneath the reins of his own fate—flared anew. He would not be a slave to her, or her Heaven. He had what he came for, and now it was time to break from the scene, regardless of whatever unseen machinations are in play or the rising excitement feeding strength to the beast.

REND CAPACITY [WOUNDSHAPER]: 68%

REND CAPACITY [GALESLITHER]: 100%

Flechettes and shrapnel burst against his protective construct. Reaching out with new tendrils and linking with his cell, he projected surrounding threats directly into their cog-feed.

The Bloodthane that had spiked him back down into the Warrens had vanished—the immensity of its blazing facade breaking apart into a strum of lyrical notes that traveled out upon wavelengths of light and noise towards a row of bisected blocks from which approached the Strider.

Essus and Chambers both cried out before Avo diverted the mem-data from their minds. It didn’t do for the uninitiated to gaze upon the naked forms of divinity, but the strength of his new Quicksand halted the intrusion of potential traumas.

What it wouldn’t protect them from was the noise that followed next: A chorus of blood-stilling barks sounded from the devastated urban hive all around them. A note of recognition pealed from Draus as she realized the coming threat first.

She fired her projectile launcher at the parking entrance. A micr- missile whistled out and erupted outward in a shredding barrage of force. Metal peeled before the onrush while creatures bearing the vagueness of hounds descended upon them from all sides, slipping out from cracks running along buildings or out through the collapsed perimeters of the local shield-shaped megablocks.

+Woundhounds,+ Avo said to the group. +Nine of them. Six hundred feet. Closing fast.+

Drawing in more mass, he sought to increase his own pace, to enshroud himself in power and speed through haemonkinetic means.

A harshly cast thought from Draus made him pause. +Avo! Keep your burn low! We can handle the dogs—ain’t gonna be as easy if you end up pullin’ the other ‘Clads back over to us with your shine—+

The link broke. He inflicted Linger on his flowing defenses as they splashed against the side of the ruined entrance. A cauliflower bunker solidified around them as Avo ensured the absence of any cracks.

Spewing his entropic gale free from his being once more, he directed it forward as he began to hollow all matter in their path.

“Where the hells are we going?” Chambers cried, his feet slapping at a near constant rate as he struggled to keep to the group’s speed.

“Out the other side,” Draus said. “Snatch some wings if we can! Dive low. Get down into the gutters and disapp—”

A wing composed of brilliant blades flicked through the walls above them, splitting rows of stacked aeros in half. Weight hammered down as structural supports split apart, and the building began to groan under its own mass.

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck,” Chambers chanted. Heavy slabs of plascrete fell. Essus threw himself over the unarmored ex-enforcer, using his own body as barrier against the first pelting rocks.

“Fuck,” Draus concurred, snapping to an impossible stop just in time to stop herself from being crushed by an anvil of burning machinery.

“Stay close,” Avo hissed. Spreading his matter dissolving gale out wide, he let the floors above dissolve against his Hell while Draus dragged the other two next to him.

The Hell for his Woundshaper emptied nigh instantly, but he cast out the momentum draining sphere of his Galeslither the moment he ran dry.

Dust showered their forms. Coiling his Echoheads around the others, he felt bouncing rocks and detritus skip off against his armored form. In seconds, his total Rend had gone from near absolute capacity to a full venting.

As the applause to their continued survival came in the form clicking pieces of rubble sliding out of place, Chambers coughing joined the accompaniment.

Protected within a pocket amidst the crumbled block, the cramped area found itself lit by Essus’ neon wings. The visages of both the boy and Avo were lined with static now, the damage breaking the hardware down, blow by blow.

“Sphere’s going to pop in a bit,” Avo said, watching as the last few percentage points of his Galeslither’s Rend Capacity trickled down. “Manifesting Woundshaper”

Chambers shivered. “Fuck me, not the blood the again.”

Draus angled her helmet to look at Avo. “It’ll make us an obvious target. Will all that killin’ you did, I’m bettin’ your Frame brighter than a candle in the void right about now. Ain’t no missin’ us that way.”

He widened his fangs with a scowl. “Think Thousandhand wanted this. Didn’t save us just now. Might be on her desired course.”

“You think she wants you to fight all those other ‘Clads?”

“I think she might be trying to force my hand. Make sure I don’t fight them alone.”

The Galeslither’s stasis began to fade. Two pebbles skipped off Avo’s shoulders.

Draus sighed. “So, that’s how it is, huh? You said you wanted me to choose, and here she is, narrowin’ down our choices.”

A voice cleared between them. Chambers spoke. “I mean… you could give the Frame to me? I’d be willing to be your second Godclad, consang.” Three heads turned to glare at Chambers. “Or… or Essus here.” He patted the former flat on the chest. “Think of the story—former father who took down Mirrorhead and claimed his Frame in revenge.”

Essus didn’t hide his disgust. “No. I will not bear anything to do with that… that coward inside me. If he was worthy of godhood then I refuse! I spite divinity—I spite him!”

Draus glanced at the other two members of their group and then back to Avo. She coughed a laugh. “Jaus. We’s the weirdest bunch of half-strands I’ve ever seen.” She sighed. “Fuck it. Fuck it all. Graft me.”

Avo stared at her, barely noticing the approach of the Woundhounds. “You sure?”

“No. But I reckon if that Frame of your’s can burn it in me, it can probably also pull it out as well. If not, well, I suppose I can ask Kae…” Her voice trailed off. “I just don’t wanna be nothin’ like them. I just wanted it all to mean somethin’.”

“I know,” Avo said. “I’m sorry. It’s just them. And me.”

“Suppose you’re right. Suppose I could be in worse company.”

“Suppose you could. Going to ask again. Will only do it if you want.”

She took a breath.“Light me up, Avo.”

And so he did.

A coruscating river of rippling incandescence washed over Draus.

UNABLE TO GRAFT [BROADSWORD PATTERN LIMINAL FRAME] TO ROOTED NOUS

PLEASE ENSURE RECIPIENT’S DEMISE BEFORE INITIATING TRANSFER PROCESS

IF YOU WISH TO PERFORM A VOLUNTARY USURPATION AND GRAFT THE [STILLBORN PATTERN LIMINAL FRAME] TO ROOTED NOUS, THEN SELF-TERMINATE AT 60% REND OR HIGHER FOR ALL ACTIVE HELLS WHILE LINKED TO THE MIND OF THE GRAFTEE BEFORE THEY SELF-TERMINATE THEREAFTER

Or at least he tried.

“Avo,” Draus said, her voice even. “I don’t feel very ‘Clad-like right now.”

“It wants me to kill you. The Frame.”

He could feel her glare through her helmet. “You sure it’s your Frame that’s tellin’ you this?”

“Beast just wants to kill you. Frame has sent a textual request for your murder to my feed.”

Chambers exhaled under his breath. “Shit. Glad I didn’t push on that Frame thing.”

Draus paused for a moment. “Link me, I wanna see it.”

“Now you don’t trust me?”

“No, you godsdamned joy-fiend; I don’t trust you when it comes to killin’. Now link me and—”

The sound of muffled barking echoed out from between the cracks surrounding them. Woundhounds were creatures of unparalleled persistence, it seemed.

“Figure it out later,” Draus said. “Bleed us a way out.”

Chambers whimpered. “Remember to close your eyes, Essus.” He stared up into the other man’s optical implants. “Oh, right—“

REND CAPACITY [GALESLITHER]: 2%

Avo ended his stasis before he unzipped himself into tendrils of blood. Fusing into a nest around his companions and drinking in as much nearby mass as he could, he extended his sensory lattice and found the nine hounds closing from all surrounding angles.

No matter. He could just go downward instead.

At his touch, matter melted as he tunneled down through the factory, the Woundshaper unmaking all in its path like a kinetic kill rod swimming through liquefying architecture.

He splurted free from the underside of the building at a curtailed speed. Behind him, the innards of the structure leaked out into clumps of gore-stained debris, oozing free like prolapsed organs.

His reflexes were running hot again, the synaptic flow of his mind sending his ghosts circulating through the circuitry of his blood at hyper-accelerated cycles. Still, he needed to watch his inertia. The goal here was to burrow his way out through Layer One and vanish into the winds without getting drawn into—

He felt them then—another Godclad. The rippling wavelength of his Soul reached far, and against the subreality of another he felt it crash.

Immediately, they became aware of each other, presences like twin supernovas in the void, Heavens unsheathed in their fullest manifestations.

SHATTERBORN, FORGEMASTER OF BROKEN THINGS

THAUMIC OUTPUT: 849 THAUM/c

As Avo punched down through a weave of ringed walkways spiraling down from beneath levels above, he saw the form of his enemy.

Surfing out through a collapsing section of the city above swam a magma-coated titan of three stone heads and five gleaming arms of heated iron carried by a beheaded lamb hewn from the substance of obsidian. The chest of the Shatterborn was an open smithy that hissed steam and was worked by countless burning human hands across eighteen rungs.

It scooped wreckage and rubble as it twisted away from him, feeding its heart. With each thundering heartbeat it seemed to grow faster, climbing from a barely perceptible speed to being a fourth as fast as the Woundshaper.

A curtain of sinuous light shredded the infrastructure in the backdrop behind the Shatterborn, wrenching a chasm into shape.

There, Avo saw the stormtree’s portals shining through the avalanche of smoke and destruction.

The beast called for him to fight, but he knew better than to stray from his escape. Staying and fighting was a risk that might end in his death. Better that he play the role of the predator that he was rather than the warrior he wasn’t.

Avo increased his velocity and moved to sink through the district itself.

His plan came undone as the Shatterborn slammed itself down into the foundations of the district and embedded its ontology into the foundations of the surrounding area.

Jets of steam hissed free from spreading cracks that bubbled with lava.

Tendrils shot out from Avo’s back as he pried himself from the course of his moment. Lava erupted out from around and beneath them as he barely quelled his Canon of Haemification in time to avoid the backlash of trying to convert liquid matter.

New constructs formed along his back as he sailed through the air. Propellers pushed him as arteries exploded free from his form, just as the Shatterborn fired a scattered burst of screaming debris in his direction. His expanding network of blood greeted a dozen missiles of molten stone, their size growing per their acceleration.

Ejecting a flat sheet of blood from his being, Avo harmonized the shield to one a rapidly constructed limb and swung outward. The sheet met the rocks at an angle and vectors of force deformed from the desired path.

From the severed shield were boulders parried, and by the time they struck the surroundings, they impacted as small hills.

The Shatternborn’s missiles missed. With the ejection of its consumed mass, slowness consumed its movements as it tried to dive into the lava below.

Not fast enough to avoid the tip of Avo’s tendrils.

Unwilling to risk hubris, his blood bore the properties of tungsten and locus yet. Molten stone chipped and parted as he dipped his reach into his opponent. Sprays of heat and magma oozed free. Avo’s blood sank further and spread into branches.

The three heads of the Shatterborn screamed as the first of his lattices bled into its heart. There, in a forest of writhing arms, he brushed the presence of a Metamind. His Ghostjack surged. Traumas flowed. The Shatterborn and the Bloodthane’s mind broke in unison, stones and sequences tearing free and tracing arcs through the air.

The volcanic activity died in an instant. The heat vanished.

Filtering through what sequences he brushed upon mulling his foe, he found himself annoyed with the truths the met-data offered: The Bloodthane—Reva something—still had another backup cycler with Heaven and Hell attached.

Still, he felt her ontological signature scarring reality like a wound. As the Soulfire rippled from him again, it washed over a swelling scab on the face of the tapestry with transparent links binding it to pieces of plascrete and passing flows of heat. There, Avo beheld the burgeoning resurrection of another Godclad for the first time.

The moment was broken as a flash enveloped him from behind. Channeling the perception of his Whisper backward, he saw the spark expanding from between a flashing bridge behind him. Then, came the heat and the force, its coming a roaring cataclysm that cooked the air, that uprooted all structures unbolted from the ground.

It was only as two blocks vanished from sight as the explosion spread that he realized what he was looking at.

A mini nuke had just gone off.

Dashing forward as fast as he could without pulping his passengers, he fled from the rushing updraft of the blast toward the stormtree itself. He had a good two miles to make, and the air was already beginning to cook.

REND CAPACITY [WOUNDSHAPER]: 43%

Speeding unevenly through the air, he fired out grasping limbs to pull himself along whatever points of stability he could to right his path. Measuring his current velocity against that of the encroaching blast, he found himself well beyond the damage radius, and reconsidered his current trajectory toward the stormtree.

Then, the light faded. And so did the heat and the force. In its place sounded a single droning note so loud he had to strain against the vibrations to stop it from rattling his blood.

Another instance of Zein snapped free from his being and flickered out of sight. A beat later, the note ceased and a fist of pure force hammered down on the district.

“Good work, little dagger. You spared me over seven steps. Let’s call this three for now. Get to the tree and do kill Captain Draus before you arrive at the base. I would not like to lose her because of all this indecision.”

Avo formed stacks of haemokinetic armor as he braced against the block-crushing impact. The yield of a swallowed warhead bore down upon the area as pure kinetic energy just as he shaped enormous crimson Echoheads to hold himself in place.

But where blood held, fate betrayed him.

The blocks around him succumbed before the fighting, and just what felt like a falling star struck him from behind.

Blades of cleaving brightness screamed against his tungsten shell as a chorus of falcons cried out in surprise.

The Strider, bereft of an arm and a leg, turned to grapple the Woundshaper as blades shaped by blood greeted wings lined with slashing shine while tumbling toward a storm-carved tree guarded by trio halo of burning golems.

REND CAPACITY [WOUNDSHAPER]: 71%