Godclads Chapter 10-19 Daemon (I)

“Reva, did you know your uncle could do… that?”

“What? Talk with a bunch of loci-infested golems and stop them from glassing the entire district? No. No, I did not know the piece of shit was a golem whisperer, Tig.”

“Good thing too. The Shatterflas snuffed Ullens pretty quick. Heh. Poor half-strand’ll be pissed when he resurrects. ‘First of Reva’s Bloodthanes to die to a golem.’ Agh. Modern Highfla design will lessen the sting though. Sha.”

“Don’t tease the juv about it. He’s young. He’ll learn. And he’ll fight you.”

[Sigh] “Longeyes should’ve never made a Wargskin a ‘Clad.”

[Chuckle] “You and I aren’t exactly ideal Godclad material ourselves. Root manage to figure out how to collapse the containnt yet?”

“Last I heard him crackle from that… uh… radio-gizmo, he said it’s atrophying by itself. Whoever put it up didn’t intend for this to be a lasting thing.”

“...”

“What?”

“Nothing makes sense about this, Tig. Mirrorhead sohow knows we’re here all of a sudden, sohow has four knots of bleeding-edge golems straight out of Highfla’s armories, but then throws all his assets away in a pointless assault… And then Uncle Vince manages to talk the golems down sohow. So-fucking-how.” [Sighs] “The Longeyes are going to be howling at us from out our wounds for this. No way this slips by the ‘Watch. Voiders are going to call a Moot. You mark my words about that.”

“Fuuuuuuuccccckk… You’re right. We’re gonna spend half a month being questioned by one of their Full-Chros. Stread live to the entire godsdamned city. Shit.”

“Yeah. Well. Us and Jhred Greatling–the shadows are coming down. Get ready–what… “ [Discordant sounds; the shattering of glass] “RUPTURE! RUPTURE! DAEMON! GET DOWN! STAY AWAY FROM–”

-Conversation between “Tigertail” and Reva Javvers, Bloodthanes of Stormtree

10-19

Daemon (I)

Blade-edged brambles of blood sprouted from the sheen puddling above the linoleum. Gore and debris overflowed from the moat around the food court, the fluid heterogeneous and thick–porridge made from a massacre. Oscillating light spilled free from the virus-stricken aerolanes behind the collapsed walls of glass, the running red offered glinting reciprocations.

Above the red, two minds rocked on waves of haemokinetic Nether: The first was a sinking vessel capsized by regret and sorrow; the latter rose a lighthouse made from the blood sea itself, its shine a beacon of savage triumph.

“What… was it always… you?” Jhred croaked. It took a supre effort of will on the Guilder’s part to produce those words. An effort of will Avo thought the man long hollow of.

A final staccato of gauss fire thundered from behind. Avo kept his attention on his prize. His sweet, delicious, broken prize.

“No,” Avo said, knowing the truth would fissure Jhred’s ego further. “There were many. Incubi were here. That wasn’t a lie.”

Heeding the command of its sovereign, the blood obliged. Spear-like threads shot free of the brambles and sank into Jhred’s flesh. To Avo’s disappointnt, the Guilder gave no hint of pain or discomfort. The only thing that consud the latter was the sha of a shattered desire and the bitterness of vengeance unsated.

The ghoul played at torture a few monts longer; this was to be a sampling of private pleasure before the main course heralded by the arrival of the others. Just a mont between him and his prey. The Woundshaper subsud the blood coursing through Jhred’s veins, its presence like virus and boundary both, shaping new implants of tornt from within the Guilder. Still, no screams or cries followed.

The man simply did not feel pain as a flat did.

Dismay filled the ghoul, and in its place disgust roiled. He should have known that the sensation of pain would be another thing the Guilders modified within themselves.

Jacking into the mind of his victim, Avo siphoned understanding anew from the exhaust of thoughts hissing free from Jhred’s cracked tamind. A feeling of dull static ebbed from the man’s already healing wounds. There was only blandness; no true taste to this pain.

Avo growled. “Take. Take. Take. All you do. Take from . Can’t even suffer right.” The pounding splashes approached from behind. Willing his Echoheads to rattle, Avo found the Blockcrawler sliding down from the slope of gushing blood behind him, erging from a vast rent opened diagonally across the block–damage inflicted during the slaughter monts prior. Avo hissed in disappointnt.

His annoyance was a fleeting thing.

Drawing weight from the lake of blood around him, Avo accelerated his reflexes and dove into Jhred’s mind.

As he descended this ti, the simulation of the man’s inner palace flickered and glitched, missing m-data and frayed sequences unrooting the entire structure from stability. Chasms bearing blocks rose and drifted, the place seemingly held together only by the tightness of wards. Activating his Ghostjack, Avo set to work, salvaging what phantasmics, sequences, ghosts, and traumas he could.

GHOSTS: [11566]

COPYING PHANTASMICS

[PHALANX DEFENSE WARD]

[STRATEGIST]

[QUARTERMINDER]

[ROOT OF THE IMPLACABLE]

DOWNLOADING TRAUMA PATTERN: [REVENGE UNSATED]; [JHRED’S HUMILATION]

Devastated hulks of drifting architecture unraveled within the palace, undone as ghosts broke from the chains of their union. Where mist and light and the flavor of folklore adorned Jhred’s mind once, now there were but static wounds building as scabs of errors consud entire sections of his mind.

Even so, Avo’s procurent of phantasmics had proven to be a good haul. When he was finished with this task, he would have to examine the properties of the preserved assets, along with all other useful m-data he pilfered. There was information to be cleaned out here. Details regarding the structure of Highfla and deeper revelations that they withheld from the public. Even the FATED who lived in the Tiers.

And then there was the most interesting artifact of all. Sothing that few would cast aside once granted the privilege: A FATE SKEIN identification code.

Avo recorded the code using his mories before doing one final sweep. Copying over a few mories more, he finished with the cannibalization of Jhred’s mind and returned to finish the job in the flesh.

If nothing else, the sheer wealth of phantasmal resources the Guilder possessed would allow Avo more room to experint in the near future. He would, however, need to infuse most of them into crystallized blood fragnts. The mass of over ten thousand ghosts guaranteed that subtlety was impossible, and again, a Necrojack’s greatest strength lay in being unseen.

Of course, he was more than just a Necrojack now. With his haemokinesis and the Yondergales, perhaps he might be able to find a way to engage in dives while augnting himself with more asymtrical ans of stealth…

Avo felt quivering fingers wrap around his leg. Jhred was clinging to him, struggling to think of what followed such an action. “What… you took sothing… you give it back–”

Two Echoheads speared down from opposite sides. One sliced through the edge of Jhred’s elbow. The seams of his suit parted. The outer of layer skin peeled free. Yet, at the first touch of muscle, the tail rang off from subdermal enhancents. The other Echohead whipped up like an ascending flail, cracking into the Guilder’s forearm. Jhred jerked and flopped, face saring into the blood. But his arm did not break.

Gazing into his quarry via the sense of blood, Avo noticed only a partially torn tendon. The Guilders never skimped on the quality of their enhancents. Such a thing reminded Avo of another set of details. Scanning the mories he just took from Jhred, he found twin Voider grafters that used to do business for him.

Good. That would give Avo the edge for future negotiations.

“Give… give back,” Jhred muttered, eyes face as he stared along the crimson waters coating his face.

“No,” Avo said. Lifting his hand, the blood mimicked his action, raising Jhred on a pedestal as newly construct tentacles held him aloft. “Give enough. Think I’m going to take more now. You sll good. Will you taste good?” He drew Jhred in closer, regarding the Guilder’s eyes. The orbs were gleaming bright, so watery, so ripe. Sniffling, the taste was sothing entirely novel, never indulged.

And for Avo, it was forbidden fruit no more.

Salivating, the ghoul opened his mouth and bit down around the man’s face. Jhred didn’t struggle–didn’t fully rember what it ant to struggle. He made a gasp of discomfort as Avo inhaled, fangs anchoring against bone, tongue finding purchase beneath the folds of the eye.

Then, with a bit of help from his Heaven, Avo began to imbibe.

The taste of it was divine. The flesh of new nobility was a different drug, and the sweetness of the eye bursting upon the buds of his tongue made Avo chuff with pleasure. Slurping up the optical cords as well, it took a concentrated effort liquefying all the genetically thickened threads before–

“Couldn’t’ve waited for one fuckin’ minute, could you rotlick?” Draus’ voice interrupted him at his mont of reverie. Swallowing the delicacy that already slid down the back of his mouth, Avo bit down and severed what remained of the organ as he turned, leaving Jhred to sag against the pedestal of blood, moaning low notes of horror.

The Blockcrawler had been parked just beyond where the bridge was–the one that led into the Mall Brawl during the first fight. Draus, black and armored in the chitinous carapace of her bio-rig, walked up to Avo and Jhred, unphased by the ichorous horror around her.

The sa could not be said for Essus and Chambers. Standing on the back of the vehicle, the forr father regarded his surroundings, stupefied by the sheer scale of the slaughter. From out the bottom hatch of the block-penetrating vehicle, Chambers erged left foot first, coming down just in ti to step and slip upon half of soone’s face as it ca carried on currents of blood.

“What the fuck–” Chambers stumbled and fell back. Rantula’s coat opened, exposing the fullness of his indecency to Avo. Considering the swell of his intestines, there might still be aratnids inside him. Landing hard and painting his backside with gore, the ex-enforcer gave a startled cry as he realized what he slipped on. The cry turned into a yelp when a leg bounced off his shoulder. “What… the thorough fuck.”

Unlike his previous cursing, a note of confused dread and anguish muted the enforcer’s voice.

“Jhred fuckin’ Greatling,” Draus said as she approached. Looking the beaten Guilder up and down, she collapsed her helt and spat at his feet. “Funny how we turn out lookin’ like our ma and pa. ‘Cept none of us much rember her.”

Jhred’s lip twisted in a fleeting flare of rage. He tried to rember what one was supposed to do when insulted, but thoughts and mories were hard–so hard.

Injecting a circuit of blood into Draus’ ta, he invited her past the veil of his thoughtstuff, together beholding the devastation he wrought on the Guilder’s mind.

The Regular whistled. “Shit, Avo. This is beautiful. Just beautiful.” She turned and aid a smile at him. “Nothin’ quite hurts inside like a thought-castrated Guilder.” Her amusent dampened. “Would’ve liked for him to really know why we’re about to hurt him, though.”

“Too dangerous,” Avo said. “Let him keep thinking and he’ll use his Heaven. There will be a fight. Rend should be spiked up to seventy percent. Good as snuffed.”

“Hell yeah,” Draus laughed. “Good thing for us the half-strand was too big on himself to have so kinda kill switch implanted. Lets us have a little ti for dialogue. Regrettin’ that now, aren’t we Greatling? Doesn’t that remind us of soone?”

“Reminds of another thing,” Avo looked at Draus. Jhred Greatling’s Fra. After they finished real-deathing the Guilder, he would pull it into himself. Graft it onto Draus.

If that was what she wanted.

Inhaling sharply with annoyance, she sensed his flowing thoughtstuff and turned to say sothing. “Avo–”

The sound of vomit splattering into blood interrupted Draus. The stench hit Avo, the thick sour of stomach acid and pasty blandness of nutrient mush. Turning, he found Chambers on his knees at the edge of the moat, retching violently as Essus held him up. An expression of mind-blanking horror continued to remain scrawled across the forr father’s face as his head swung from left to right, beholding the ruins of the Mall Brawl.

He had been here, once. Slated to be offered to Avo’s brethren here, the entertainnt was a lure to draw Avo into the arena. Afterward, Essus tried to end himself using the arcing electricity surging across the pylons.

The holographic projections of the boy and Avo now faced the blood-swallowed rubble which once held thousands of enforcers–enforcers who now found themselves ingredients of the blood-soaked slurry instead of rowdy spectators.

Essus gazed at Avo. Beneath him, Chambers moaned as he spat clinging strands of stomach fluid. “You told once of Artad’s absence. You told , and I lied to myself, invoking my god as philosophy; as a virtuous idol.” His burning eyes shone as he gazed upon the glorious atrocity spread out before him. “You were right. You were right–the city was right. Artad is dead. Dead in his entirety. Dead like all the other gods.”

Essus looked down, focusing on his own reflection in the gore-mixed puddle. Suddenly, he rose, his face mask a mask of anger as he dropped Chambers into the crimson and strode across the bridge toward Jhred’s kneeling form. “Is this how things are to be now? Is this all that we could conceive as… as free people? That you could conceive as master of this city?”

Avo clicked his fangs together, desiring to impede Essus before the fool could claim the kill for himself. New flavors though Essus’ retribution might offer, this was a pound of flesh Avo wanted to indulge personally. It was not ever that a ghoul got to taste the at of a Guilder. They could all share in the mutilation and harm of the Greatling, but the ghoul would not abide by all the pleasure granted to only one individual. Before he could halt Essus, a hand caught him by the crook of his elbow.

Relax. He ain’t gonna kill ‘em, Draus said, looking at the father. He ain’t got it in him. He’ll break. It’ll be us again.

Shooting a look at the father again, Avo let the Regular pull him along. Certain?

Beyond certain. He ain’t got it.

Standing over the downed Guilder, the FATELESS faced his torntor–the sponsor behind his ascent into the city via Crucible and master to the girl who butchered his son. No longer did Jhred Greatling look Tier-perfect. No longer was he a being of impossible superiority compared to the forr flat.

An open gorge of ropey sinew bounced from the man’s left eye. If not for the scabs and rapidly crawling pinkish-sheath trying to reconstitute the missing eye, it would have seed the Guilder was going be down an eye forever.

Even so, the question of who was more fragile between the two remained. For an instant, Avo thought Essus would shatter there and then, his face twitching between uncontrollable anger and inconsolable sadness.

The man known as Mirrorhead portrayed himself only between monts of regret and confusion, a thought-cleaved haze guttering his thoughts. “Linge–Lingerer? My Lingerer?”

“No. Not yours! Never yours again!” Reaching down, Essus seized the Jhred by his collar. “Tell ,” Essus cried, voice rising to a desperate howl. “You have the power… endless power! Endless!” Lifting the Guilder up, he made him turn and face the slaughter. “But was this the most you desired? This? To drive thousands to their death.”

“I… I had to avenge… I needed to kill…”

“No!” Essus roared, taking the object of his hatred by the shoulders. “You did not need to kill! You wanted to kill! You chose to kill! You chose to hurt people–n, won, children! Everyone you touch you hurt! Never once did you do sothing good–never once!”

Jhred choked back a sob. “My… my mother. I had to… to avenge…”

“What about my son,” Essus seethed. “My son. He did not kill anyone. He did not start any war. Why him?”

Faced with such a question, all Jhred Greatling could offer was a tilt of the head as he struggled to string together an answer. “You’re… FATELESS. I… needed you to do… greater things… I… I never thought of him… as…”

As a person. As my equal. As worth regarding as anything more than fuel for the city–fuel for a Soul.

Looking over the carnage, Avo felt the fire of his own Fra roaring, its radiance like a nuclear warhead exploding–constantly exploding. Disquietingly, he understood how Jhred felt. More than rely for the joy of killing, for the taste of flesh and the hit of cruelty, he liked the growing bulk building within. Liked the deepening hum of his thaumic resonance. Liked the flare and reach of his Soul’s growing borders.

He liked being a god. And in the depths of his being, the Woundshaper crackled with laughter.

So the truth was revealed. Jhred Greatling’s open admission. A thing Avo understood.

And the words that shattered Essus entirely.

Draus was right. The father didn’t have it. He never had it. Not even for the boy. All that ti, Jhred Greatling never regarded the child’s holographic form once.

Releasing the Guilder, father-no-longer took two steps back, his titanium legs pounding and cracking linoleum, throwing up sprays of blood. Looking up at Layer Two–a blockade of alloy and glass and screaming error codes, the man scread too, howling a note of anguish and despair toward the skies unseen.

And with all the miles of city above, Avo knew the father would go unheard all the sa.

“Is this all there is,” Essus moaned. “This city… the best thing in it. You? Both of you?” Essus dropped a glance at Avo and Draus, conveying the fullness of his despair. “A monster that dreams of flesh. A huntress that chases death. This is the best… the best of us?” Essus sank to his knees. “Why were the chains ever broken then? What was Artad shattered for? What did Jaus even free us from?”

The splash of bare feet wading through blood heralded Chambers as he faced the maltreated form he knew as Mirrorhead. The ex-enforcer stopped, face pale from spewing. “Shit,” he chuckled. His heart wasn’t in the noise. Chambers swallowed. He was fighting the urge to throw up again. “Looks… looks like you fuc–agh!” He failed. Only fluid rushed free from his mouth this ti. He emptied himself again, gagging as he tried to stop himself from getting anything on Avo’s talons.

The ghoul frowned. Was it sothing the man ate? Why was he–

It’s the blood and the death, Draus asked.

Avo didn’t get it. Looking around, he breathed in the clashing aromas born from the slaughter. All the different flavors of blood types and organs and the tang of tal and the redolence of offal. All of it was a joy to inhale.

For you, consang, Draus added, a note of wry amusent. So folk ain’t made for the killin’.

Wiping the bile away with his arm, Chambers was unable to et Avo eye to eye. Instead, he looked again at Mirrorhead and winced. “So… uh. What… what are we gonna do now? You… you want to–let’s find so aratnids.” The enforcer brightened, a new thought capturing his focus. “The type that bit . Let’s pull down his pants and have two of them bite the shit out of his sack. Then, when the eggs from the sides start hatching inside his balls, we can watch the clusters fight and bet imps on–”

WARNING: FOREIGN SOULS DETECTED

UNIDENTIFIED GODCLADS DETECTED

The warning wailed loud in Avo’s mind just as the first spear of light flashed over the blood. From his experiences facing golems, Mirrorhead, and Zein, only direct exposure of a Heaven in use revealed the presence of a Fra and the Soul that burned within it.

Rising on his Echoheads, Avo spun back a second behind Draus as a tide of blinding light enveloped them.

Then ca the voice. The voice of a screaming star. The voice of a dawn exploding with ire and hatred, lifted by a chorus of screaming falcons.

“UNDER THE DECREE OF HIGHFLA! UNDER THE WILL OF THE SERAPHS, THE RULE OF THE AUTHORITIES, AND THE MIGHT OF THE INSTRUNT, I COMMAND YOU ALL TO STEP AWAY FROM THE WOUNDED, AND FACE DELIVERANCE.”

The weight of two new Godclads pressed down on Avo.

And the thrill and hunger ignited within him anew.