“Hello, Vincintine. Please put the gun down. You’ll only delay this conversation by an hour. It takes some time for me to get into a different body.
“Hmm. This smell. I know you… I know you…”
“I have a favor to ask. I made your nightmares go away some years back. I didn’t ask for much then. I’m not going to ask for much now.”
“Right… Citrus man. I dream about you sometimes, you know. But… I gotta ask. How’d you get in? This place isn’t…” [laughing] “Not exactly publicly accessible.”
“Same way anyone gets anywhere. Knowledge, and enough time. Your guards are sleeping. The golems attacking your district–they’re being driven by the Low Masters. I can help you stop them.”
“...Just like that? Just for free?”
“No. Not for free. I need a favor. I need you to help me do something. Are you going to put that gun down?”
“Talk first. We’ll see how I feel after.”
-Exchange between ”Walton” and Vincintine “Ripperjack” Javvers
10-25
Fate Denied (I)
The fires encasing the three golems dimmed, and with light bleeding like a trinity of dissolving stars, the machine anchoring the divine revealed their shells.
Layered in rounded armor, their design seemed more like armored knights melded upon a wheel of gleaming gold. Plates of armor were fused around a central cross-shaped cockpit, and in each each limb there seemed to be a jutting emitter that resembled the look of a lance.
They each were no longer than twenty feet wide and thirty feet high, but Avo felt the touch of something sophisticated in their make as they entered the closeness of his Frame. There was something of breadth to their thaumic nature - sophistication in the unseen architecture that he didn’t feel in either the Galeslither or the Sangeists.
As the first golem drifted close, it halted ten feet away from him. Avo’s haemokinetic wreathe coiled as he prepared to siphon the necessary mass from his environment to fully realize his Woundshaper. Unlike Abrel, the machines gathered before him held form in matter. It would not take much from him to see their dissolution.
Arcing missiles struck down from on high as clouds of rising ash spread across the district. Entire blocks burst apart as threads of light danced and scattered into blasting shockwaves. Three buildings were melted into a molten rod before being fired into the sky at something unseen beyond all the smoke.
Nu-Scarrowbur was coming apart at the seams. People were dying. And that the center of it all, the stormtree remained untouched. Certain portals along its rising stretch were closing one after another, but most still remained open. Avo wasn’t sure how the tree functioned, but with how scattered the Stormtree and Scalper forces were spread, and how he found himself only faced with three golems, there didn’t seem to be much worry on the part of the locals to protect the namesake of their guild.
“You smell a bit like him, you know?” The words spoken by an unseen individual caught him off guard. A dissonant tone occupied the man’s voice, and he gave the sense he regarded Avo as a passing fancy rather than an adversary. “He warned me about his… heh, ‘brothers.’ Told me they’d be coming after you. Gave me means to subvert some of their phantamics. Suppose that’s how I didn’t get bent by them when I jacked into these golems. Nothing but mem-cons and whispering ghosts in here. Too bad for them the cracks in my head have already been filled.”
The central mass of the golem hissed and opened like an unfolding crucifix. Holding within a grav-generated gimbal, a heavily chromed man with dark eyes, pale skin, and long flowing hair stepped out to breathe in the ash of his home and greet the ghoul. There was something predatory in his eyes, and the way his cybernetic exoskeleton was half-laced over his flesh made him look closer to a botch-graft than an actual threat.
Yet, the emptiness in his gaze told Avo another tale. Something inside this one was lost, and it would never be found again. Not truly. His expression harkened to a joining between Draus and Essus, possessing all the cold viciousness of the former, and all the mind-broken trauma of the latter.
He fell–his feet more akin to chrome hooves as he left the weightless clutch of his piloting seat and sank ankle-deep into the soil. So close, he seemed to be Draus’ height though gaunter by far in build. Holding out his arms, he embraced the falling ash as if a child reaching out for snow in a vacation ad for Vard Heldjmar in the Skuldvast.
Echoheads chittering, Avo mapped his surroundings to track for any threats. Rage boiled inside him at slaughter denied–Abrel had been saved by the explosion. He had not felt her die; worse, he didn’t even get to kill and taste her flesh.
It was as if the battles were conspiring against him, fortune and misfortune turning deliberately too–
“Zein,” Avo hissed under his breath.
There were too many coincidences happening at once for him to regard any of this as related to chance. He was being nudged from fight to direction. Like an artanid behind forced to run a maze to the whims of another.
No. He wouldn’t accept this. Would find a way out. He was a Godclad now. Not even time would be his prison. He will find the limits of her canons. He will find the extent of her power–
“She can’t see past the surface.” the man said, interrupting his thoughts.
Avo’s mind screeched to a halt. “What?”
“This… uh, Zein. Zein Thousandhand. Old woman. Old myth. Old legend. Walton warned me about her. He managed to take some memories from her, even. Don’t know how he did but…” the man tilted his head and grimaced. “You shouldn’t see your own future if you can avoid it. But if you can see several futures… well, that’s something else. Ultimately, her problem is that she only sees what occurs on the surface. Walton knew that. Told me about what to expect with her.”
His expression tightened. “Expecting and beholding are two very different things, though.”
Avo paused. “Walton. He told you about Zein? Know how her canons work?” His mind was spinning now. How had Walton managed to take memories from Zein without her knowing? Was she really unaware?
“You know,” the man said, voice scratchy as if he had spent an entire lifetime sucking in breaths next to a fusion burner, “when Walton spoke about a son, I didn’t expect… you? What are you? A bioform? A new experiment?” He looked up and regarded Avo with a twitching eye. A sneer tore over his circuit-lined face. “No. I know your eyes. I’ve seen those eyes–see how they twitched when I cut at the scalps of your brothers. Ghoul.” He chuckled hoarsely, as if beholding an amusing joke. “What a fuckin’ guy he was. First, his family are clones. Then–”
A wave rushed over the both of them. The man turned away as embers splashed out from his gaze. Avo hissed as he felt his own retinas heating up.
“Fallen Heaven,” the man said. “My niece’s Bloodthane’s got one of those Highflame half-strands. The one that can channel power through a Heaven of Sight.” He pointed to the southeast end of the city where a downward slope led to a valley of half-melted buildings. “Her eyes can’t stare into each other directly. But it happened. It happened too many times. Hubris. Backlash. Her Frame popped. Same shit, different Heaven. In some ways, you ‘Clads are more brittle than us. But that’s the dose when you’re comprised of living mythology, right? Don’t worry. They’ll all be occupied with each other for now. We got time to talk. I got some stuff I need to tell you. Part of the deal I made with your old man.”
Zein’s voice echoed in his skull, bright with amusement. “You should listen to what he says. It was amusing, twisting him to purpose, using one of your father’s nodes as a proxy. It directed him in such ways.”
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Her voice vanished in a rising peal of laughter. Avo swept his head around, hissing as he tried to find Zein.
More and more, the world around him narrowed. There were fights happening everywhere, but everything–everything was collapsing into her grasp. His mind was spinning. He didn’t know what was beyond her design anymore. Where the deception began. Where it ended.
In the distance, blooming wings of light cut free into the air as the Strider rose through smoke and rumble. Only to suddenly burst apart from within as the Shatterborn leaped free from its chest like it was being used as a doorway somehow. Light shattered and airy falcons were swallowed into the volcanic heart of the Shatterborn as it crested the horizon.
Death came instant and incomprehensible even more Godclads. The only difference was that they all got a chance to try again. The rest of the district would not be so lucky.
“Ask him about ‘Walton,’” Zein said again. This wasn’t a dialogue. Each word she spoke was cast forward from the past, set to trigger at a specific interval of time or a specific instance in the future. “It will be amusing.”
Releasing his blood and enwreathing himself in a screen of entropy, Avo glared at the stranger and regarded him with apprehension. “Talk. Walton? You know him?”
“No,” the man said. He plucked a single strand of hair free from his mane. “Only a facet, I think. But that’s what he was. A facet. A piece out of a whole. I think he understood me because of it.” He inhaled and coughed, choking willingly on chemicals and filth riding the winds. “I missed this. If I knew all I had to do to get back here was let all my Scalpers get snuffed, I would have done it. I would have provoked a fight with that Greatling fuck and seen everyone did just for the taste of it again: The memory of the fire…”
His words gave Avo a new direction. His Metamind filtered through memories. His Scalpers. A name and a collage of memories joined to offer Avo a splitting replica of the person who stood before him.
He was speaking to Vincintine Javvers. The head of the Scalpers. The one people called Ripperjack.
“What do you think about fate, ghoul?” Ripperjack asked. He gestured behind him as a lance of surging water shot down from the fog above. Breaking against the molten hide of the Shatternborn. The Aegis slammed down from on high as a knot of Galeslithers rose as a chorus through the wind, slipping into a half-toppled tower. Within moments, gauss fire erupted from inside the building, pelting the encroaching Highflame Godclad to draw their attention.
Chaos reigned all around them as disjointed battles were joined. This was a cacophony of an unseen conductor. Behind this was the touch of Zein, nudging and twisting clashes into occurring for her desired outcome.
“Fate,” Avo said. “No. Not fate. Just power. Power over reality. Absolute influence over the future.”
Ripperjack bit down on his tongue and seemed to swallow back something sour. “Maybe. Maybe. Do you know what I think? I think we have fates because we’re conscious. Self-aware. Our minds are like scars–there are only so many choices we can make with the way we’re broken. The waters down run right any other way. Sure. We lie to ourselves and say we can do anything but… no. We don’t. We never do. I… I was the same way, but with what I got from Walton… the other ones think I belong to them, but they don’t see it.”
Ripperjack’s expression twitched into a maddened grin. “They don’t see it. I belong to me. I’m perfectly broken. I’m the perfect agent. Walton gave me the memories back. The memories I needed. I see everything clearly now. This moment. What I needed to do to win. To get back up into the Tiers. He managed to steal that memory from Thousandhand for both of us. She doesn’t see me–doesn’t know her plan to lead the Low Masters here didn’t work. And you can get what you need done.”
Zein’s voice cut back in across the annals of time. She was practically choking on her own amusement by this point. Tension knotted inside Avo. She was taunting him. She was taunting him beyond the edge of time itself.
“What is this?” he said, words intended for both individuals before him.
“I’m supposed to make sure you get across through the right threshold,” Ripperjack said.
“He is instrument and entertainment both. In every path, he chooses suicide before service should I approach him directly. But he had history with your father, and history is such a supple thing to exploit.”
“Why?” Avo snarled, turning. His Echoheads coiled and lashed out with agitation. He couldn’t see her, but she was there, inside him–inside the meat of time itself, like a parasite he couldn’t strike. “Why? Is this all for fun? All these little twists. Manipulations. Why? Couldn’t just do it yourself? Why do this?”
For the first time, confusion bled over into Ripperjack’s face. “Who… who are you talking to?”
Avo turned back to the man and grunted a dismissal. The poor fool thought himself spared. Thought he was a player in this game. Thought he had a glimpse of the bigger picture.
“Tell him, if you will,” Zein said. “It makes no difference now. He has served his purpose. His golems were directed against Abrel Greatling. The mem-data within their locus will have logged this engagement against her cadre once they are purged of the Hungers’ influence. That will make them look most culpable.”
“You're framing them?” Avo said.
The wind rushed over his person. Immediately, his cog-feed cried warnings that a Galeslither was approaching. Over rustling grass and shivering ash, three figures spilled free from an unzipping breeze. Draus landed on her feet, gun raise and wing-scythes wide. Essus and Chambers toppled out behind her, confusion writ upon their faces.
“I’m providing the most desirable cover story possible,” Zein said.
Ripperjack’s features turned stone-like. He stared at Draus. His eyes turned back over to Avo. “Ghoul? I didn’t send that Galeslither. Who are you talking to? Answer me. Talk. Fucking talk–”
A shroud of time shivered over Draus, Essus, and Chambers. From Avo, Zein stepped free, head held high as she stepped free, offering Ripperjack a little wave. “I thank you for all the assistance you provided. Without you, my pruning would have been substantially more… strenuous.”
The bedrock of confidence broke within Ripperjack. The man’s lip began to curl, his eyes darting between Avo and the aged woman, fading in and out of reality to the oscillating flow of time. “I… what?”
“It was the easiest way to ensure your compliance,” Zein said. “You remembered him. And using the mutual link, I bent you to my will.”
“Then, why–”
Zein waved a hand. Ripperjack flickered and vanished. Faintly, Avo felt a lurching sensation as if the man had been flung somewhere.
Or some time.
The golems Ripperjack once commanded hovered in place, silent and unmoving.
“You should take their Heavens as well,” Zein said, turning her head back over to regard Avo. Gauss flechette sipped through her form as she smiled. “You will hate me more, momentarily, Captain Draus.”
Two more shots went through her. She tuned out of reality before either could hit her.
“Why?” Avo said, stepping closer to her. Something splattered down into the mud next to him. The metallic shine of a blood-coated missile caught his eye, and the mini-nuke festooned as its payload made his tension spike.
“Also,” Zein said, “Remember to copy the pattern of the warhead next time. It took more work than expected for me to pluck this from the husk you left behind.”
“No,” Avo said. He cast out his matter-unweaving winds. The mini-nuke flickered behind him. Zein shook her head.
She wasn’t fading now. Instead, she was growing increasingly solid. Increasingly stable, like the waters of time were cementing her true self back into form. Still, though, never fully turned corporeal---remained a gold-tinged echo as she spoke. “I am much like you in this regard–I refuse anything that I perceive another to force upon me. But this is not force. This is my chosen path. I have pruned it.This will happen.”
A cry of agony sang out from everything stone-like around them. Plascrete shook and rattled. Structures dissolved into sand.
“Ah. Reva has died.” Zein frowned. “A bit early for my liking. Disappointing. Let us see if the others can hold until she resurrects.”
“You planned all of this?” Avo asked. “Using the Scalpers. Their golems. Turning the Low Masters' hunters over to him–”
“Oh, no,” Zein laughed. “Much of this was but a happy occurrence. The original plan was to see the Bloodthanes occupied. But when I spoke to him, the path revealed such delightful things. Truth be offered, your father did mend his mind–and in him left protections against the other servants of the Hungers. And so he became of true use to me."
“Avo,” Draus said. Her voice was steady, but she never averted her gun. “What the hells is happening?”
Zein winked at the Regular. “I’m ensuring your glory, captain. Just as I am ensuring the incrimination of Abrel Greatling’s cadre as part of a grand conspiracy to assassinate the ambassador. Or as an unfortunate victim in a grander conspiracy between rogue parties of Stormtree, Ori-Thaum, and Highflame. It depends on how the fighting goes, really. Whatever the case, you will be our hero, dear girl. You stopped a Chivalric plot. You and your new Fallwalker cadre.”
“Cadre?” Draus whispered.
“Yes,” Zein said, “it is all by my desig–”
And then her head exploded off her body in a spray of gore.