“She’s in range.” Wrath called out over the comms, “Sending the targeting information I have.”

Journey’s HUD lit up with a three-dimensional beam aiming from further ahead of us, out of the darkness. The blue beam swept through like a searchlight, locking onto Wrath for a moment, before scanning downwards, past the bridge, and then onto me.

Right as I was mid-way unhooking the mirrors off the lantern to start my own sprint.

“Can you tell when she’s about to fire?” I asked, keeping my pace on the bridge consistent and unpanicked. The beams superimposed over me, like a magnifying glass. I felt like I was about to get shot. “Any way to delay her? Or mess with her aim? Wrath…”

She was quiet for a moment. “There is. Are you certain you cannot increase your speed?”

The beams were now superimposing on me. A countdown was triggered.

Wrath tutted. “I am sending her an infohazard over the general channel. Even sprinting, you will not make it to safety in time.”

“Infohazard?”

The beams stayed focused on me as I continued my usual measured sprint down the bridge. Then vanished, as well as the countdown.

Then the rock started howling with laughter.

“I can’t believe you did that.” The rock started. “Hah, Oh and Avalis is pissed, never seen him this upset. Probably blowing a fuse at how stupid and effective that was.”

“To’Sefit has halted her attack.” Wrath said. She sounded annoyed. I could see her across the bridge, arms now crossed over her chest, cheeks puffing out in a deeply conflicted and frustrated look.

“What did you do?” I asked, “Because the angry beam notifications are gone.”

“I supplied her with an alternate idea I was planning on using for myself” Wrath said.

“She means on the group chat, she sent a video file of old human media she’d recovered. Like a ton of it. You know your wizards? Some of them have really long chanting incantations, vague poetry basically, before at the end of their chant they call out FIREBALL. Or something.”

“And this helps how?” Almost to the middle point of the bridge. I was getting ready to use some of my reserve tricks early to stay alive, just waiting on Wrath to give a signal. But Wrath no longer seemed agitated or scared about my survival.

Which meant she’d already calculated I would get to safety in time at my current speed.

“Because To’Sefit’s now chanting to herself before firing a laser.” The rock said. “The delay’s going to let you get to safety before she can open fire so she aborted her attempt, and Avalis is pissed telling her it’s suboptimal. Probably private messaging her how it’s too suspicious Wrath dropped this little bombshell into the chat at the worst possible time. And To’Sefit’s doubling down, digging her heels in, instead of, you know, actually listening to sound advice.”

I could imagine Avalis typing out things in all caps at this point. But what I couldn’t completely understand is how Wrath was even talking to them in the first place. “I can’t believe they haven’t kicked you out of their group chat. Or left the general chat. Having the enemy right there doesn’t sound like the best idea.”

“To’Avalis has left the general channel twenty seven times, and rejoined it twenty eight times.” Wrath said. “Very likely both those numbers will increase by one soon.”

“It also saved your bacon here, so seems like a great idea to me bub.”

“But you’re outright enemies? I wouldn’t want to hang out in a chat channel with people who’s only goal in life is to end mine.” I stopped midsentense, and reassessed. “At least, not for long.”

“Why would they remove themselves permanently from a shared group chat?” Wrath asked. “Discussion there adds additional knowledge and is of interest. There is no reason to avoid it.”

“They’re bored and this is one other source of entertainment.” The rock translated. “Machine blind spots are their names. Human blind spots are their emotions. You’re opposites like that.”

“You’re going to have to explain that one to me in more detail.” I said, reaching the light range of the next lantern. The feeling of the cold outside vanishing was like stepping into a warm bath. As I had done before on other bridges, I slowed my speed here to a jog, as I still needed a quick breather at each bridge to restore my soul.

It was like running from bath to bath. Go out into the chill, dive into the bath, get warm again and then go on to redo it. I’m just a lot faster than machines are at the middle step.

“You humans have one single window open on the monitor and that’s all you work with. Hell, you rarely are able to even run a second window in the background. Machines can have as many as they want and swap between without issue anytime they want to. On the other hand, you don’t care what software version you’re running, you just care about the program’s running and giving info. While machines are built around using the right version number, the wrong one simply can’t be run.” It paused, trying to think of a better analogy. “Wrath and the other Feathers can be out to kill one another, and when the workshift’s over, drop what they’re doing, shake hands and go out to get drinks and talk about how dumb other machines are. They’re a gossipy bunch.”

“We do not gossip, we discuss current events and other items of interest besides our current main missions.” Wrath said. “They are family. Do you not have arguments with your own family during one hour, make attempts to steal or murder each other, and then continue daily routines the next?”

“I am the absolute worst person to ask that kind of question.” I said. “Winterscar traditions are very different from regular families out there.”

She deflated, “Oh. I found them rather familiar and easy to adapt to.”

“That’s exactly why they’re so different from everyone else’s family.”

The rock started laughing again. “Oi, forget all that. Get this, she’s planning on screaming ‘Oblivion!’ right when she fires her lasers now, so before she’s done saying that word, that’s your cue to do something clever.” The rock said. “Everything else she says while she’s locking onto you is just fluff, you can ignore that part.”

…

“Wrath, you mentioned you were saving this to use it yourself.” I said, worried now. “In what way is announcing your own attack a good tactical option?” I asked, slowing my pace now that I’m in lantern range in order to give myself more time to recover.

She frowned, and I could see a bit of heat start floating up from her head, past her halo. She was deep in thought. “The benefits far outweigh the loss of opportunity.” She cryptically said.

“What benefits?”

“The benefits.” She fiddled with her hair, looking away.

“As in it's too cool to pass up on.” The rock translated again. “She’s probably been vibrating in her shell to use this on her next fight with them ever since she found out, which would have absolutely made them green with envy. Now if she uses it, she’s derivative and it’s no longer original since her sister got to do it first.”

Wrath nodded, as if that made perfect sense. “The choice was… difficult. However, between holding onto this or saving your life, I decided your life was more valuable.”

“I’m going to barf.” The rock said. Then the projected doodle did exactly that.Like a sixth sense, it could sense the confusion radiating from me. “Buddy, you don’t understand. She’s giving you a way bigger compliment than you could imagine, coming from a Feather.”

I finally slid to a stop by the end of the bridge, now in the warm blue light of the mite lanternpost. Honestly, I had no idea what to even say to this. Feather biology and priority systems were… a little different compared to anyone sane.

Sometimes Feathers felt hyper-competent, able to fight in ways I couldn’t even counter. And other times, it felt like I was dealing with semi-rational, questionably caffeinated children bouncing off the hanger wal- “Oh my gods. Is this how Kidra sees me?” I muttered, suddenly having an epiphany.

Then I shook my head clear of the traitorous thoughts, and focused. “Nevermind. We need to start figuring out how to either kill her or convince her to jump off one of these bridges, let’s stay focused on that. Talking plan B’s and C’s here.” I said. “What have we got to work with?”

We debated, discussed, and then came up with an appropriate scheme.

----

“Sister. There is only so fast I can redeploy the telescopes. The current sight lines I can feed you are likely to be the only ones available. They need to move miles on the circumference in order to get so much as a two degree difference in field of view.” To’Avalis sent on their private chat. “And, as I have explained to you time and time again, this isn’t coincidence. They will constantly choose to find locations where they can obscure the sightlines. Your systems are compromised. They are at the very least tracking your location and are aware when you are aiming at them. To’Wrathh’s media ‘discovery’ was far too perfectly timed to be simple chance.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

To’Sefit huffed, “I have already removed the viral payload, and I see nothing else within the sections you pointed out. You are being paranoid my poor To’Avalis. My little sister was understandably excited about her discovery and wished to share it.”

“It would be a fairly stupid viral weapon if it remained the exact same as the ones I had to excise. To’Wrathh is many thing, stupid is not one of them.”

“Oh hush. Be a good dog and give me my targeting information without the backtalk, and I’ll see about eliminating the targets you want me to~”

It had been five minutes now, and the group had not yet moved from behind the mountain. They seemed to be speaking to one another, or possibly planning to camp in this location. Perhaps the human was tired.

Slowly, the outer telescopes were being moved around by To’Avalis’s forces, quite manually as well. They were fast, however their vision target was far inside the biome. Unfortunately most of these scouts could not survive past any of the longer bridges. That limited where they could be deployed greatly. She estimated thirty minutes at most before she had vision behind that mountain.

Until To’Avalis sent her another feed. One far closer.

“My, my. Holding out on me I see? How cruel of you.” She licked her lips, looking over the new video feed supplied. This was far closer, and she had no idea how To’Avalis had gotten his forces to come behind the group given the amount of bridges that were too far into the darkness. She considered asking, but knew the paranoid Feather would keep his secrets from her, if he truly suspected she was compromised.

He had, after all, only revealed this new video feed at the last second. She peered through it, and found To’Wrathh and To’Orda, both sitting down by a small campfire. Behind them was a small sconce for one of the mite lanterns, right by their little campfire.

There was food on top of the fire, mushrooms of some kind. And they were feeding the birds on To’Orda’s shoulders. “See, it’s not that they know I’m here.” To’Sefit said, “It’s that they have animals to keep fed. So silly.”

“Where is Keith Winterscar.” To’Avalis sent back, the very first bit of discussion. “I do not have a visual sight on him anywhere.”

“Possibly hunting food within the mountain?” To’Sefit considered, “I will begin operations once I have him in visual sight again.”

“You don’t understand.” To’Avalis hissed. “This is the Winterscar. If we cannot see where he is, we must assume he is already on the offensive. Reposition immediately, the advantage is no longer ours as of this moment.”

“You do not order me to do anything anymore.” To’Sefit said. “The time for mother’s commands on that has long passed. You should be thankful instead that I go along with your schemes and plans. For now.”

“My schemes and plans keep you alive. Reposition yourself, now. Remain in motion until we have visual sight on Keith, use randomized motions only. And once he’s back under watch, wait until the group has left their current location. We cannot be certain traps were left behind there. Another location to attack them will need to be selected.”

“I doubt there is any trap that can defeat a fully operational golden age destroyer’s laser cannons.”

“He’s already crippled multiple cannons, and there is no repairing them. Are you certain this is something you wish to gamble with? For all we know, he is baiting you to open fire, and will somehow deflect or redirect your attack directly back at you.”

“Impossible.” To’Sefit scoffed. “Mine is the power of gods, only few have survived a direct onslaught.” She still had a name to hunt down and collect on that front.

“To’Naviris did not keep an eye on the Winterscar’s location, and he was executed for it. You will be following his steps.”

“Keep the video feed on them and we will not have this problem. The human will appear eventually, he’s never far from little To’Wrathh’s side after all~”

It was at that moment, she heard the sound of a boot landing on the ground. Distorted slightly, as if… stretched? Which meant an audio recording of some kind that had been modified directly with. Her systems quickly traced the sound pattern back to the sound of a human armor’s boots landing lightly behind her.

She turned immediately, one eye flashing behind her large hat. Nothing. Just the dim blue light of the mite lantern she stood nearby, and the rock behind her.

Odd. Was To’Avalis attempting to spook her into compliance? She shook her head, then turned back and continued her vigil on the targets, humming to herself again. Once the human showed up, she’d take a target lock on them all, and send To’Wrathh a belated video footage of how she’d shot all of them in one fell swoop.

She’d also take out all the lanterns that dotted this landscape, and melt the nearby bridges as well just because she could.

There was another rustle of sound behind her. The click of a weapon being unholstered, along with the soft metal tapping of a hand grabbing the trigger hilt. And the safety being switched off. Once more all distended in a way that audio couldn’t realistically happen due to physics.

“This would be a far more effective joke if you hadn’t modified the audio frequency.” To’Sefit sent to To’Avalis. “Are you attempting to send me some form of subtext?”

“I fail to see what you are implying, sister. Explain?”

She didn’t get the time. A moment later, her early danger detection systems triggered, sensors now picking up something directly behind her. She triggered her overclocks, and turned her head at the same time, watching the world turn to slow motion.

The barrel end of a rifle had appeared in midair. From nothing. A rift of some kind. Her systems registered exactly where she’d seen this before, along with multiple pings on the manual To’Avalis had generated for them all. This weapon appeared time and time again in deep detail.

The knightbreaker launcher. Which meant a knightbreaker round within it, the human equivalent of a portable nuke.

Already the explosive round within had triggered, and she could see the gasses escape the barrel end, combusting. The round within was already cutting through the cloud of fire, emerging from the barrel end.

She didn’t have time to dodge. She ran through all her options in that sliver of frozen time, and moved onto the best possible one to mitigate damage. She swiped her staff from the upper position it was already in, downwards, directly into the round off its side. Aiming to knock the round off its path.

The hit landed, crushing it as the round’s inertia kept the cursed thing still on path. The chains launched from the side, and she used her staff to shove further against the round, trying desperately to manhandle it out of range.

Incredibly complex and precise movements were required now.

If a single one of those chains managed to even so much as graze her…

They extended out, four different directions, like distended jaws of death. Her calculation showed no possible escape at the speed she could physically move. She was lucky enough her staff had connected into the side of the round with only a small section of it getting exposed to the chains and cut apart.

It got even more dire. More of these rifts were appearing all around her. Right next to her floating plates. Sixteen of them. Through each rift, the mirror image of an occult blade extended out through.

Each cutting into her plates, all done simultaneously. They hardly had to slice through a few inches of distance before they connected and destroyed their targets.

In one moment, she’d lost more than half her firepower. Unthinkable.

She recalculated her options given the new threat. And realized if Keith could attack her from any angle, bypassing space itself to do it, he could have stabbed her soul fractal instead. Thus the only reason he hadn’t, was that her defensive general shields would prevent a single stabbing.

Or worse, the occult bullets he’d revealed against To’Naviris. Then he could shoot her from any direction, so long as it was within fifty yards, she wouldn’t be able to physically move fast enough to escape.

A perfect assassination. Only her passive shields were keeping her alive against this threat.

She couldn’t afford to lose them. And the human knew that.

The knightbreaker round here wasn’t aimed at killing her. It was to strip her shields. Which would then expose her to death at any time.

How this human could summon outright portal rifts like this was a question for another time. Perhaps To’Orda had leaked the fractals he’d known about within To’Aacar’s chestplate. But those were linked to a soul fractal, which included the unity fractal. Had Keith created a replica of To’Aacar’s full soul fractal, even running the risk of Mother having direct access to his soul, in order to use To’Aacar’s occult portals?

No. There was a range limit to those. And she was nearly a mile away from her targets. Keith would have had to move all this way without being seen or scanned by any ping.

The chains glowed occult blue, waggling slowly in the air. She made her choices.

The plates couldn’t be saved. Not without exposing herself to the knightbreaker round.

Second, she couldn’t survive this round with her shields intact. Even with her staff in direct contact with the round, perfectly matching its velocity, and directly shoving it off the path, if she pushed too hard, the round itself would break, and the chains would continue flying directly at her.

She pushed the staff as far as she theoretically could, watching as the round crumpled against the side pressure, trajectory slowly changing. Downwards to her right was the best she could do, and at that, it would only change the trajectory by twenty seven degrees. Her sideways leap to the left would compensate, but parts of the chains would still collide against her chassis.

Behind, she could see the gun barrel withdrawing back into the rift. She could see the edges of the rift wavering, more like a fabric rather than anything solid. Very small, perhaps under one foot, and it looked folded multiple times over.

Geometry aside, sacrifices had to be made. She manually disengaged her shield triggers, deciding it would be better to take damage to her hull directly and keep her shields powered.

Her arm was cut, efficiency dropping from one hundred to seventeen. Parts of her chest had a chain cut through, wildly whipping within. Redundant systems kicked into gear, compensating. It wasn’t perfect.

Her right hip and leg took the brunt of the damage, a chain cutting through the pelvis downwards as the round itself was knocked off target.

Mobility dropped by a staggering forty three percent. Stability algorithms compensated for the lost muscle control, keeping her functional. The round passed her by, chains still reaching, barely grazing her. A few shallow cuts across her arm and chest, cutting through her epidermis. Multiple coolant veins were hit, but her nanoswarms would quickly seal those sections away. Minor damage compared to the structural integrity issues appearing all over her feed now.

The moment she calculated further shoving with her staff was no longer beneficial, she redirected her weapon to lancing forward, the occult blade on its tip glowing bright blue. She had to slice through that weapon before it retreated back into the rift. She calculated she’d reach the gun in time, stab right through it, and then cut upwards at the edges of the rift.

Whatever it was, there were few things in existence that the division fractal couldn’t divide.

The tip was fully pulled back behind the rift, and everything vanished. Outright vanished. The edges of the rift were gone, and the window into the other side was equally gone with everything there.

Her blade sliced through nothing.

Her next actions were twofold. First, she recalled her plates down by her side, and second, she tried to fend off the dozen of occult blades extending out to slice through more of her plates.

They did dissolve if she so much as cut into the side of the rift.

And her sensor pings also noticed something else. One small sliver of space that was sending back data. A… closed up rift? Just the edge parts of it, near where she’d tried to slice the gun.

She lunged for that again, and the moment she did, the rift disappeared. As did all the occult blade rifts around her.

A master rift then. If this one is triggered, all the others are triggered too.

She heard boots lift off the ground. Invisibility? Her staff cut straight through where the sound originated from, but she cut through nothing.

Her systems showed this should be where the originating sound came from. And yet she’d cut through nothing. No resistance, just pure air. Where was the audio disturbance even coming from if there was quite literally nothing at the source?

And given the target was now airborne, tracking Keith would be next to impossible. She had to flip the tables on him. Had to get him pacified somehow so she could properly plan.

She turned, and grabbed one of her floating panels, then aimed it down at To’Wrathh. Targeting solutions fired up. Her arm was already damaged, she could run the risk of losing it completely with this attack.

The second thing she did at the same time, was deploy her greatest wide-range spectrum blocking. Everything was shut down around her. All her feeds from To’Avalis froze, signals terminated - And that would include whatever Keith could send or receive.

It was now only the two of them here, in the middle of nowhere.

But she still had To’Wrathh’s final position locked in memory.

“Freeze where you are, Winterscar! Or I will open fire and eliminate To’Wrathh.”