12 Miles Below

Book 6. Chapter 23: Lionheart

I get a feeling Lionheart thought he’d be fighting the good fight against me, leader to leader.

That didn’t happen, because Father was Father. He got the first hit in.

And the second hit.

And third, fourth and fifth hit.

Honestly not much of a fair fight when it came to the two Deathless here. The moment the fight started, he overclocked his systems to full, and moved as fast as his Feather’s shell possibly could, swords easily pinning the veteran Deathless’s weapon from the very start, while his other blade slashed again and again at the exposed target, making perfect use of the occult guard modification I’d added to those blades.

Lionheart tried stepping back in an attempt to free his blade, but Father was stronger than relic armor, faster, and already predicted the Deathless would try that.

The sixth hit actually got avoided, and only because Drakonis had precommitted to casting his shockwave at the both of us, throwing us off our feet and sailing away.

Father traveled a lot less distance given his mass, and his body’s perfect calculations allowed him to land back on the ground ready to fight.

I on the other hand, got a faceful of occult as Drakonis cast an occult leash directly on me, then yanked himself off the ground right into my face midair, left arm glowing with poorly hidden flames, the windup looking like he was about to suckerpunch me.

She did, leg kicking at exactly the right time to slam into Drakonis’s elbow, knocking his punch up and harmlessly over my head, as we tilted backwards.

Drakonis hadn’t gotten his helmet back from where he threw it, after discovering we were ‘deathless’ and that gave me an entire theater seat to his reactions.

There was utter confidence and single minded focus, then that morphed into uncomfortable shock at how perfectly Cathida had executed her under-the-elbow kick. One moment his punch was going right for my head, the next he was punching air just above.

Occult pulsed around me, and six mirror images leaped from my chest, all slashing a blade from every cardinal direction, like circular jaws of death. Now his face morphed to ‘oh shit.’

He kicked my exposed chestplate, thinking if he shoved us out of the way, all the images would be dragged away with us, the swords slashing into the air like a six handed claw that just barely missed grabbing the target.

The kick connected, and in midair we had little ways of avoiding that. Cathida sailed straight down back to the earth, but my images remained where they were, the blade all scything down on his exposed frame.

He moved onto plan B in a heartbeat. The occult leash was still connected to my armor, and he yanked himself after it. It let him duck just under the connecting blades. Triumph came from him, up until his shields took six slashes right on his back.

I could generate images from images. There were six floating above him. He wasn’t escaping by ducking those.

He lashed out against the chasing ghosts with a wild blade and kick, getting a few and finding that so long as one was well and alive, I’d be regenerating images from that root.

He moved onto plan C without hesitation. Drakonis curled into a ball and then expanded out, a shockwave going from every direction in midair. Far weaker than the concentrated one he’d used to knock Father and I off our feet, but it was enough to dissolve the occult mirrors all around him in one go.

All right, that shockwave move was fairly good at multiple uses. Good on him. Starting to notice a trend that Deathless tended to have spells with multi-use cases.

We landed on the ground and Cathida didn’t waste a moment before she was on top of him, blades swinging from any direction she could abuse. His defense was a mix of Imperial and Undersider techniques, shifting through them with enough skill to prove he’d been practicing.

Practice didn’t make up for the sheer skill cliff between Cathida and him. And then there was me, ghost images of arms carrying blades slashing down at him right after Cathida’s own blades. If he couldn’t stand against Cathida alone, he absolutely couldn’t with me in tow.

In moments his shield broke, and he almost lost a hand.

“Neophyte.” Cathida chuckled in my helmet. “Feels like I’m bullying a squire.”

Right after his shields broke, is when Drakonis realized he was in the shit. And then panic set in his eyes. He went right back to plan C - throwing shockwaves in the air to build distance and keep my ghosts in check.

First was a smaller shockwave on the ground, ripping up dirt and other obstructions like a small wall, and equally dispelling my images. Journey instantly shifted its vision modules around to a scanner based system, letting Cathida see past the dirt and grim.

I could see in the soul sight already what his next move was. One of his hands reached backwards, and the occult tendril latched out to the ground a few dozen feet away, letting him reel himself away. His other hand threw an orb right through the dirt wall, which Cathida deftly avoided by a semi duck and twist as we burst through the shockwave and dirt wall like it was just a waterfall around us. Now past the dirt wall and lingering wave of power, mirror images were safe again and began leaping out of my position, rushing straight at him faster than was physically possible.

“Lionheart!” He called out, and slashed his hands through the air, as if sending an invisible command.

The ball of power he’d thrown and missed, now harmlessly right behind me and still traveling away, froze in the air and expanded outwards instead. A tendril of lightning lanced out and licked at Journey’s armor. Shields instantly drained fast, but that wasn’t the only thing it caused.

I felt the soul fractal flicker, power draining from it and knocking me right out. Fractals all over my armor equally dimmed, including my defensive ones. All my mirrors faded out of existence, puffing into occult mist that was sucked backwards, flowing over my armor, directly at the ball of energy behind me.

The shockwave itself he’d sent out a moment ago was still traveling through the air, compressed backwards, equally drawn into that ball of energy, as was the occult tendril still connected between me and him.

Then the vacuum ended, and the ball contracted onto itself.

Whatever his spell had been, it was at least temporary. All my occult fractals had returned to full power the moment that vacuum ended, but Journey’s shields remained greatly sapped away.

Still, that power had to go somewhere.

It exploded outwards with the stolen strength. I braced myself for the hit - and it never came.

Instead, all the power and light was sucked again - this time into Lionheart’s outstretched gauntlet. A gauntlet that on second thought, did not match his armor at all. Only the colors did, painted over but it looked… wrong? The shape had a far more organic appearance than the rest of the relic armor, like curved horns wrapping around his hand. The actual hand was relic armor, all the plates and fingers looking like good golden age human tech. The bands around his arm sinking down to his gauntlet? Not so much. And they were glowing bright occult blue, as the whole conflagration was sucked right into them.

Father slammed right into him a moment later, dual blades slashing a good ten times in a single second. The veteran fought back, but it mimicked the fight I’d originally seen from To’Aacar against Atius. The Deathless was skilled, methodical and trained - but he was out of his league.

Father was faster. And equally better at predicting Lionheart’s defenses. The only difference between To’Aacar and him, was that To’Aacar had always held back simply to make the fight more fun.

Father wasn’t here for fun. He was here to kill a Deathless, and then go after the second standing in his way.

Lionheart lost ground, but in the process the armguard he had remained glowing, white power spreading through his armor and chestplate.

With a roar he waved the arm before him, as if to ward off Father, and a white pulse of occult rippled around him from all sides. Father crouched low to the ground, lowering his exposed mass, feet digging into the ground as both blades lanced straight into the dirt to give him extra leverage. He was ready for the occult ratshit to try and throw him off his target.

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It didn’t do that. The pulse washed over him and the flowers, everything moving as if underwater, then stilled and stayed unmoving.

Lionheart extended his hand out and slashed it through the air again, palm up. Fire flowed past the strange armguard, up and off his fingers - then slowed down to a crawl in the air, almost freezing in place the moment it no longer touched him.

With practiced motions, the Deathless yanked out a handheld pistol, aimed it through the frozen flames directly at father and fired.

Bullets go very, very fast. And whatever Lionheart had done, I could see them fly out of his gun and zip forward through the flame. I could even see the small explosions at the barrel end of the weapon. Which shouldn’t be possible, because bullets and explosions happen stupidly, horribly fast.

Only one reason I could physically see and track them with my hands. He’d slowed time. And Father wasn’t able to move out of the way of the bullet stream.

Each bullet peppered into his armor, glowing bright red, the physical bullet crashing into itself, splintering into fragments and flying off in a rain of shrapnel, leaving no damage behind on the relic armor - except some kind of fire that lingered across Father’s armor, like glowing red spots where the bullets had touched.

On my part, right after Drakonis expanded his spell, Cathida made a snap judgement, and turned tracks to tackle Lionheart. Drakonis had no shields, and was an open target. I debated taking out some occult bullets, and simply shooting him down while we raced to assist Father.

Ultimately decided against that - the fight hadn’t lasted even half a minute and I was already far in the lead. Even without shields of my own, I still had a lot of defensive ability left, anywhere from soul sight marking where things were in my blind spot, to Father’s ability to see Death itself. In addition to shield fractals, and mirror fractals that could carry those shields with them if I really put in some focus on just one.

Before Cathida could make it to harass Lionheart off, the occult leash yanked us backwards and off our feet. The dead crusader instantly cut behind herself, the blade whistling through the occult lash and severing it from existence, but not before Drakonis had zipped forward himself, landing hard into the ground in a slide, his blade between Lionheart and myself.

A flurry of occult images flew from my body as Cathida got back on her feet, but Drakonis threw that stupid gods damned shockwave through the air to disrupt the images. It hardly even tickled now, drained of almost all energy, except just powerful enough to deal some damage to the images.

Lionheart slammed his sidearm back down on his belt in the meantime, and reached a hand out to the hilt of something under his greatcloak. That’s when I saw the Deathless didn’t have a single sword - he had three all lined up one after the other by his belt, each with different ornate hilts. His hand wrapped around one with red vines, drawing the crimson blade out.

Time started to flow again, the white mist and power around him fading. Father began to move, looking like he was underwater now. Not completely back to full speed but able to react to things again.

The red blade cut through the thawing flame, sucking in the power somehow, eating every lick and glowing deep red and blue as a result. The blade slashed several inches in front of Father’s already moving body. An occult fractal lit up on Father’s shell, his own personal defense kicking in, but the blade seemed to suck that energy out, eating it.

Soul sight showed me a few things from the red blade that seemed to go right through occult spells and shields - it didn’t have an actual occult edge to it. Which meant the cut was going to bounce off Father’s armor like a metal bat, possibly even damage the blade itself.

Instead, Lionheart wasn’t trying to cut Father with it at all, he was slashing through the space before Father. The flames that had been eaten by the sword spilled out in an arc, latching onto Father’s armor in one diagonal line where the blade had passed.

Time resumed to normal, and Father completed his backwards leap. He had several dozen glowing dots still burning all across his armor, flames occasionally licking up and out, along with one large slash equally burning into him, superheated air warping around it.

Father looked down, then back up at the Deathless, unphased.

Drakonis reached the side of his mentor, while I took a few steps to circle around and stand next to Father, letting the fight reset. Grand result, we had lowered shields sure, but Drakonis was empty and Lionheart was equally in the red.

Father remained unhurt, the lingering flames still burning bright on his armor, eating through the clothing and doing next to nothing else. “Why bother with a spell like this?” He asked, oddly chatty. “Relic armor is far superior at protecting from elements, it was designed for it.” He stood back up to his full height, then dot after dot, the bullet hits faded away, and the slash itself equally ran out of juice.

I saw it happen in the occult vision. The flames weren’t natural, they were lingering occult power that seemed stuck like tar on his shell. A tendril of soul moved from his fractals, touching each and dispelling them with a tear of willpower.

Lionheart’s head tilted at that, which made me think that wasn’t supposed to happen. Then sighed. “I haven’t ever needed to use that attack on a non-machine target. I see it’s simply not effective against relic armor. It was worth experimenting with.”

A HUD message passed by from Father. Venting heat. It said. Keep him distracted.

All right, I’m good with that. “I see your people are fond of setting things on fire.” I said, taking a look behind at the fight. Walls of fire had blocked the path of my knights, but they were already hacking away at it while the rest of the Deathless were huddling together, regenerating their shields.

Lionheart nodded slowly, “Machines have a weakness to heat.” He said, sheathing his red blade and taking out the final one instead - the one with a white hilt. It didn’t have any kind of red blade or glow to it, just silver white with a very slight curve to it. “Diffused heat will hold them off for a moment, but landing any form of lingering or permanent heat effects on their bodies will greatly weaken them for the rest of the fight. Perhaps I have grown too used to the same patterns, your movements remind me of theirs. In hindsight, of course such an attack would be ineffective against you.”

“You slowed time.” Father said.

“And you speed it up.” Lionheart answered. “Your movements are faster than I’ve ever seen possible.” His eyes turned to me, then behind him, where the Winterscar knights were brawling with his Deathless. It was a shitshow over there, spells flying in every direction, but the inevitable winners were clear.

His helmet looked over me and then across my equipment. Most of which I hadn’t yet used, because no need to tip my hand when my current build was doing work. Knightbreaker rounds, the occult armguard, sub machine guns built with occult rounds all loaded and ready along with my chestplate bombs ready to trigger, I was a walking anti-feather weapons platform. And I was hoping to end this fight before I had to start using any of that.

It’s still ordinance I have to take time to rebuild.

Something seemed to go through his mind then, he lifted his silver blade, head looking down at it as if in thought, then he lowered it all ever so slightly.

Drakonis meanwhile hadn’t been silent, he threw down a white pulse of occult at his feet, expanding it into a sphere of mist that filled both Lionheart and himself with power. I’d seen that being thrown around in the melee happening further off, and the effects were the same here. Both Lionheart and Drakonis had their shields returned to full from what Journey estimated.

“That seems pretty ratshit.” I hissed under the comms to Father. “I want it.”

He hummed slightly, which was the closest I’d ever heard him agree with me on anything. “For all its power, it has little effect on the course of this fight.”

“Got that right.” I sent back. “We just got to beat them down again until they run out of spells.”

The occult was black magic space ratshit, but one rule it seemed to follow was that there was some kind of payment for everything more powerful. They’d run out of juice eventually, whatever the juice was.

Lionheart lifted his white blade, then held the flat of it to bar his ally’s way. “No need to expand that. They are more powerful than we planned for. We’ll retreat and adjust. This battle is unwinnable.”

The Undersider seemed utterly pissed at that thought, but a glance behind showed him his mentor was correct - the Winterscar knights were wrapping it up, cutting down the stragglers, gaining an unbeatable lead when it came to numbers.

“Are you surrendering?” I asked.

Drakonis swiveled his head right back at me, eyes locked tight. “Never.”

“Clan knights are often known to have traditions on taking armor from any foe they defeat in combat.” Lionheart said. “Regardless if that foe is friendly or an enemy, so long as there was an attempt on their life, they are entitled to the defeated armor.” He looked down at his blade. “I am certain you were looking forward to this part. The mites create wonders, and every so often across the years, you will stumble upon one such thing. And learn that you cannot afford to lose them.”

“Are you surrendering on condition we allow you to take your mite treasures back with you?” I changed the question a bit, anticipating. “Because as it stands, you would be lucky to part ways with simply your life.”

He shook his head. “No. I am parting ways by offering you a lesson you are unlikely to learn yourself until it is too late, one that will surely sting. And, someday, we will fight side by side. You will need to know this. Powerful Deathless such as yourself will not stay in the upper strata for long. Eventually, you will find yourself in the lower stratas, fighting against the great enemy. And, given your powers, I do not believe you will suffer defeat for quite some time. Lessons all Deathless learn early on when pressed against defeat, you might only learn when it is too late to do anything about it.”

His hand reached to his belt and pulled out a small cube. I’d seen one of these before. The cube made by the mite forge, when I fought To’Avalis.

“You will amass gear and boons from the mites, if you haven’t already begun.” His helmet nodded at some of the gear I Father and I held onto. The blades alone were odd designs, given the Winterscar handguard I’d built into it all. A little flattered that he thought we were using mite equipment.

Behind him, the rest of the Winterscar knights finished off the last of the Deathless, who fought to the very last.

Pretty soon it was just Lionheart and Drakonis still standing, with my entire army surrounding the two.

“Defeat will come to you inevitably, as it has to our side just now. So learn this lesson here and now, one Deathless to another.” He stretched his hand out, palm out, the cube flat on it. “This is a recall cube. An item mite forges can produce for you, when asked. You do not need many, but always have at least one on hand when you explore further down. Always. So long as there is one person alive in your fireteam who can trigger it, it is better to do so early than too late.”

Father lunged right then. Faster than I’d ever seen him move, blade already slicing right for the cube. He didn’t wait for Lionheart to continue his lecture, and the Deathless clearly saw this coming from a mile away too.

The cube sparked blue, and pulsed. Father’s blade flashed through, sliding right across fading occult mist.

Lionheart was gone. As was Drakonis, and every Deathless body behind him, even the dismembered limbs were gone, as were the blades. All of it turned into occult mist, even the bullet shrapnel hiding among the silver plants.

He was gone. And with him, all the hard earned loot.

Fuck.

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