12 Miles Below

Cathida’s opinions of Father took a further drastic turn with the new training Father put me through. Before all of this, she’d been grudgingly accepting, maybe squinting her metaphorical eyes about the whole thing but otherwise accepting enough. Or at least called him by his real name, unlike Wrath.

There's a reason for that drastic turn. First thing he did on arriving into the training sanctum, with me dragged behind, was start a series of spars with her engram directly. Partly to grow more comfortable with his Feather’s shell. But mainly to test exactly how in-depth she could fight.

Cathida couldn’t be used against a Feather, they were capable of hijacking the armor. That's the rub. But she was available against machines, slavers, raiders, pipe weasels (Big ones) - basically anything that didn't dramatically walk around with a halo on their head. So having her skills in combat for all of that would let me be free to focus on the occult, which would directly increase my chances of staying alive. He seemed dead set on that goal, staying silent through most things, but always having that furrowed look in his eyes as if deeply disquieted by something.

Odd how just a look could feel so familiar on such a foreign face.

As for Cathida, she went from dangerous to terrifying from his rush teaching. Both words that she absolutely loved. Moral of this whole story: If anyone wants to bribe the old bat, skip buying colored tapestries. Teach her a few new ways to act like an animal stuffed in a sack in a fight.

It was also a utilitarian thing. Cathida was already being used to train some of the knights, and he hoped to improve her skills until she was good enough to teach others at his level. Having a second in command he could trust would give accurate training, we doubled the speed.

Not a moment too soon, like Father predicted, more knights were appearing each day from the steady war looting behind Shadowsong's campaign. All of these new knights were vetted and given access to the occult powers discovered.

Soldiers the Chenobi had already scouted ahead for. Atius seemed to have predicted we’d be seeing more armor than the clan would know what to do with, which meant looking through the non-relic knight ranks and seeking out more trusted soldiers.

For the first time ever, the clan lord was directly giving armors not to Houses but to individuals. Which would have been the biggest possible insult to that House’s leadership in ordinary times. Outright telling that House he didn’t trust them to figure out who their best knights would be.

But since he was doing it with basically every House, including mine, no one raised a fuss. This was a war of survival. So it turned from something that would have been an insult, to just regular orders from a commanding officer organizing a war effort.

And the training was never ending.

When he gestured with a dagger at a student's foot, that brief grunt of disapproval conveyed a comprehensive list of criticisms that the clan knights appeared to instantly understand.

The subsequent motion of the dagger - a sweeping wave and airy jab to the side - was accompanied by another grunt, which effortlessly conveyed a multitude of recommendations for improvement.

The knight gave a quick bow, hands clasped before him, then reset his stance and tried again.

Honestly it’s like they were all talking in a different language. “How in the world did he understand to move the foot three inches to the right and shift his hip? It doesn’t make sense, is it in the tone of the grunt?” I asked, watching. “Or some kind of Feather telepathy?”

“You do know he can hear you complain?” Cathida said. “Feather telepathy, you know.”

I gave a tut at that. “If I’m complaining, that means all’s right in the world. He knows that.”

Father didn’t show any reaction, instead swiftly disarming another knight, then pointing at the elbow and left knee.

“Of course deary, I’m sure it works exactly like you say it does.”

They reset, and once more the knight was disarmed, but this time he’d moved far more efficiently, implemented an elbow and knee jab, and followed that up with a shoulder slam. Inspired, and likely would have destabilized any other knight.

Instead, he more or less hit a wall and froze in place.

Father glared down at the knight, then gave a nod and head swipe. Right in my direction.

“Oh, I see he did hear you.” Cathida cackled. “Looks like your break’s up.”

This is what I meant when I said training was never ending.

While Wrath was upstairs getting to know the entire clan firsthand, I’d been dragged down here most days to train. In more ways than just hand to hand combat. Further in the sanctuary, knights were training with the occult as well, testing limits and practicing simpler exercises that Lord Atius had shown them.

The division of labor had been done by a few Chenobi Logi, who’d broken down every fractal we knew about, and assigned several knights to investigate the limits of each. A good plan, but it hadn’t gotten a lot of results just yet. A few days isn’t enough to really put these to work.

Atius’s future-sight fractal was outright impossible to use by any knight, the overload too much on their minds. And some other fractals just didn’t work the same way they had for our resident Deathless, but a good amount were still in the running. His arc-swipe that both him and To’Aacar used worked. To varying degree. What the knights could do right now was a puff of occult pulsing forward that could tap things, none of that wave of destruction Atius and his old enemy could unleash.

But as always, Atius had several centuries of practice and training. It would take decades of training for any of us to reach the amount of skill he had in any one spell, let alone all of them.

That didn’t stop the clan from trying anyhow. Even a pulse of occult would make the hairs stand on any slaver, so it was worth learning. I was the clan's second best occult spellcaster, and so I got sent down here to help tutor people during the times Atius wasn't around. And since I’m around a bunch of martial training, I’d gotten wrangled into it.

With a deep sigh, I sat up from my crate, and went to go spar with the knight. The soul fractal would have given me a fighting chance, except he had one too and was just as fast as I could be. So it was my raw skills against a highly skilled and personally selected clan knight. Soon enough, I’d been elbowed, kneed and shoulder bashed into the ground.

“Father’s sending his minions now to do his job.” I muttered, taking the knights extended hand and getting back on my feet.

The man, a knight from House Whitefang, shrugged in answer. “Suppose Master Tenisent is. Try this again, I’ll repeat the same order of attack.”

I took a breather, then reset. Fighting clan knights that knew how to fight was different from the Screamers I’d grown used to. Movements were far more calculated and practiced. Against machines it was an action-reaction game, where so long as I had my next few moves planned out, I’d win. Even the manner they adapted was predictable, so I already knew what kind of hits and attempts they’d throw out. Individually, every machine was a slightly different fight, but as a sum whole, they were very predictable.

Against a trained knight, it was far more like navigating through the colony. A hundred possible directions, each leaving me in a different position with different options. The loser was the one who was caught in a corner. And the opponent was just as clever and smart as I was, equally reacting to my moves.

Whitefang took his stance and opened up. This time around I made it through the exercise, picking to block the elbow, then taking a step to the side to avoid the knee that gave me the space I needed to redirect the shoulder bash.

He got back on his feet a moment later, reset his position, and alternated his approach this time instead of being predictable. Didn’t win that round, but I did last a little bit longer before I ended up on the ground.

“You doin’ all right?” Another voice said, one I recognized. Ironreach. Hardly seen him since news of Windrunner’s end was sent to his House. He'd been invited to their house's funeral, which was out of the ordinary among clan tradition to have outsiders join the wake.

“Oh you know, the usual.” I said, shrugging. “Stress. Panic. Getting beat up by people way above my level. Good to see you back on your feet.”

“Are you really though, boy?” Ironreach said, grabbing my hand. “To me, you’re one of the most dangerous knights in the room.” He turned to my sparring partner. “Wouldn’t you agree Whitefang?”

The knight nodded sharply.

“You do see that I’m the one on the ground.” I pointed out, patting the ground before he pulled me up.

“Fight might end up different if you let me take control. Or that you use all your shiny little toys.” Cathida said over the comms, giving a wispy chuckle. "That armguard of yours really threw those silver-touchers for a loop."

“Aye." Ironreach patted my shoulder, fussing over. "If you let your combat engram take command of your armor, and focused on casting occult spells, along with using your full equipment... well, reckon only Tenisent could actually take you down."

"And how'd you hear about all that?" I asked, giving him a quick tap back. "Didn't peg you for the gossip type."

"Might have been tapped by my House right now, but word still reaches my ears given the people I work with. I hear what the knights say about your occult skills. Got to know who my competition is for the next tournament, whenever that'll come."

"Not exactly allowed to use those skills for this type of spar." I grumbled. "Or any public tournament in front of the entire clan. No fun allowed."

"Of course you ain't. You’re here to improve on what you’re weak in, not what you’re strong in.” Ironreach chuckled. “A knight like Whitefang knows hand to hand combat better than you do, that’s his strong points. And talking about building on your strong points, I’m here to bring you some of your workings, fresh off the forges.”

Oh that got my attention. When I looked behind him, I could see a hoversled further off. A wooden crate filled with stuffing. And through the soul sight, I could see the concepts of what laid within.

Blades. Weapons. Swords of a very specific kind.

“They’re done?” I asked.

He nodded. “All of them. The Reachers took on your challenge and completed them to satisfaction en mass.”

They worked fast as lighting. Took me some time working in the Undersider city to get something close to the right metal composition for those blades, and they took where I left off and must have perfected it if they're already presenting it.

“They just need fractals inscribed now, right? You couldn't have come at a better time, this is a perfect excuse to slink away."

“No need. Incription's all done too.” Ironreach said.

“Wait, what? How?” That didn’t make a lot of sense to me. Only Journey could use it’s nanoswarm to inscribe the specific fractals needed to the tolerance that the occult needed. The other armors were locked behind administrative accounts. Unless... “Did we kelpt some good gear from the slavers? Shadowsong found a metal cutting machine that’s accurate enough to engrave something that small onto those blades?”

“No,” Ironreach said, "We already have one. Two actually, technically, if you're in the know-how. The first one's busy turning an entire clan into her newfound die-hard fans without even having to bat her eyelashes." Then he pointed at Father. “The second one though, he's what inscribed the blades. Insisted on it even. But to anyone else in the clan, Deathless doing Deathless stuff. Wink wink.”

Father didn’t turn to look, instead he remained focused on his current bout.

It made sense. He was controlling a Feather’s shell, along with all the things that came with it - including a far more accessible nanoswarm. Him and Wrath were walking factories.

“A few of the Chenobis took the rest of the parts manufactured by the other Houses and put the blades all together. And now we’re here.” Ironreach gave a clap, and the room came to a sudden stillness.

He walked back to the crate, and gave the sled a slight kick, letting it float forward to the center of the room, walking along side it.

“The weaponsmith made us knightbreakers before, and today we’ve got something new to work with.” His hand dove into one of the boxes and brought out a thin needle like sliver of metal. At the end was a circular hilt, the same one the Winterscar carbon fiber blades all had.

“A specialized weapon for a singular use, to bypass any defense an enemy might have trained on with an occult blade.” He touched the tip of the blade, and then pushed. The whole needle thin weapon bent into one large arc before springing back to the neutral position. “Reachers spent a lot of time and effort figuring out exactly what kind of metal composition to use to obtain this level of flexibility. You will not be able to use this to defend yourself in the traditional way, instead the hilt’s occult blade will need to be used to block attacks.”

This had been one of the prototype weapons I’d come up with, a sort of fencing foil. With liberal use of the wrist to guide the weapon, it could circle around an enemy’s guard and strike a hit even against the most defensive of opponents. Low damage, lighting fast attacks, solid defense and completely undefendable against.

“We’ll be spending the rest of this afternoon workshopping movements that will make the best use of these weapons.” Ironreach said. “Let’s get started on founding a fifth school of combat.”

All good things came to an end however. Halfway through the afternoon of testing the reach and bendiness of these new weapons, Father paused his combat with another trainee, and stalked over to where I was.

“Gather your gear, boy.” Father said. “We’ll be leaving tomorrow with a full expedition of knights.”

I stopped my own drills. “What? Where?”

Cathida cackled, “Where else? Visiting a goddess’s shrine. You might not have noticed yet, but Tenisent’s been busy talking to the metal bimbo and getting lessons as fast as he can. I've been in on it.”

“Lessons on what?”

“Shell reconstruction.” Father said, raising a hand up. “The last sections are complete. Under the armor, I have a body now.”

“That was… pretty fast.” I said, genuinely impressed. Wrath had mentioned it was straight engineering. But he’d been able to inscribe the division fractal on all the new blades we had, and Feathers multi-task without problem. For all I knew, he might have been running as a task manager this whole time, getting his nanoswarm to modify the insides, talking with Wrath and all while training with the knights.

“Can you show me the results?” I asked, curious.

He lifted his gauntlet up and shook his head. “Not without breaking this. I will do so once I have relic armor to replace it with.”

The armor Avalis had couldn’t be taken off. He hadn’t designed his shell to ever remove it. So Father might have everything setup, but the armor itself wouldn’t have any straps or ways to pry it open.

As far as relic armor was concerned, it was built to operate with a human inside. But the hardware that linked up with a human wasn’t complicated and easy to fool. So Father could take one and make it run without issue. As Cathida said, these armors predated Feathers by way more than just centuries, so how could anyone design countermeasures to something they hadn’t expected?

“Right then. Half a day is just enough time to pack some of my best formal suits.” I said, standing back up. “After all, if we’re going to go talk to a goddess for a third time, we should look the part, right?”