12 Miles Below

Abusing my enemy’s behavioral patterns was a time honored tradition when it came to fighting machines.

Spiders were too cautious about everything, drakes couldn’t see to their sides, runners like Yrob had a sweet tooth, and Feathers really, really didn’t like to be called copy-paste variations of each other. And I mean violently disliked that.

The speech hit them all in slightly different ways, but ironically, all of them reacted the exact same way: Racing straight for me, leaving their posts behind.

Every portal had one to three Feathers sprint out of it into the citadel, looking absolutely livid. Although, there were a few reports that had shown no activity, but couldn’t win them all.

“They are currently approaching, T minus four minutes for the nearest opponent.” The Icon said, sounding slightly worried. “Prepare yourself for contact.”

She had fully gambled that Urs and I could fight off a small army of Feathers and beat them back. We did have some backup, to be fair. Winterscar knights that could be spared were in the backline with rifles aimed down range, and knightbreakers ready to deploy for any Feather that hadn’t taken the warnings seriously.

“We got this. Just leave it to us, and focus on the war front.” I answered back.

Four minutes passed, and… nobody was coming into the vault.

The Winterscars were far too professional to complain about anything, but I being their fearless leader and an example to follow, had choice words for this moment: “So, uh, where are they? Why is there a Logi traffic jam in the catwalks happening?”

The battle map was showing them all standing in the same different hallways, often in pairs or smaller groups. “I thought we planned to clear the hallways so they could sprint here without killing anyone else in the way?”

“We did. And I have.” The Icon answered back. “We are in luck however.”

“I always love hearing those words, but uh, how? Are they walking up the hallways dramatically or something instead of running here?”

To be fair, the idea of Feathers deciding they were going to walk all the way to me wasn’t exactly far-fetched. I could really see a few of them doing that.

“I did not predict just how far Feathers will take their personal pride above all other priorities. See for yourself.” Then she showed me a far more detailed video footage from one hallway.

It was weirder than walking. I’ll give it that. “I… I don’t think I have the right words for this.” I was more occupied staring at the footage.

It was happening everywhere.

All the hallways the Icon cleared out in preparation for the enemy were currently occupied, just not for the intended purpose.

“Please say nothing.” The Icon suggested. “Current events are quite fortunate, and I would very much not want any of this to change.”

And as it turns out, part of my backup was the enemy.

“They’re fighting each other.” I stared. “Why are they fighting each other?”

“To get to you alone.” Wrath answered over the comms, still busying being our side’s entire medical wing by herself. “Defeating you is now their primary objective. The overall tactical side of the war effort is not something they are engaged with. Therefore, other Feathers are not allied units. They are competition.”

“Oh.” I blinked. “All right, Wrath, I’d like extra praise for this one please. I planned all this you see. All of it.”

“Please remember that I am capable of detecting lies within your voice patterns.” Wrath instead said, spoiling the fun.

On the other hand, the Feathers were certainly having fun.

The battle map didn’t display a direct one to one recreation of what was going on, that’d be overwhelming information. The Icon instead displayed it by red dots showing where the enemy was and their composition being an open tooltip that would appear if it detected I was looking that direction. But now she’d added quick functionality to the whole thing that opened up a video feed of the nearest possible scout or eyes that we had on the area.

Most spots were unfortunately static with a red ‘No visual contact’ listed above. But the ones closer or left alone to pass through the frontlines into Icon-held territory did have a nice video feed already prepared and added by her logistics team.

And wow did I get front seats to it all.

It was an impromptu unbalanced, and clearly unsanctioned combat tournament, of which the Feathers had no care in the world. With the hallways and chambers actively making winners brackets while the losers would remain crawling on the ground or monologued to death until some other Feather arrived mid-monologue.

“How did it even get to this?” I stared at the absolute chaos of Avalis’s forces. He’d clearly reacted to all this and his actions were to pull back his forces away from the running rogue Feathers out here because they would - and have - attacked his own units on their way here.

“It began within the first thirty seconds of your taunts.” The Icon answered, showing me a quick slideshow adding her own touches on the history.

It all started with outposts that had multiple Feathers stationed there, so they came out of the portal all at once and were already used to each other’s presence. Which meant familiar enough to try and trip each other up on the path. Obstacles, attempts to slow others, taunts. A lot of taunts.

All that rapidly devolved into violent means of course. And that was just the ones familiar with each other.

Solo Feathers had clearly been stationed at their staging grounds alone for a reason - they were unstable and liable to attack anyone else they believed was a threat to their superiority, and when two of those Feathers ran into each other on the hallway or chamber paths to the vault, it would devolve.

Now, even the more peaceful ones from later generations still trying to outsprint the others would run into a fight or another on the path, which would force them to start defending themselves at the very least.

A few tried to be objective in that they served the pale lady above all. Or that they were above such petty things as fighting one another for supremacy. Usually fifth generation and below.

That reasoning quickly failed when the third generation Feathers proved it was everyone for themselves, and they were clearly mother’s favorite. She would forgive them for stepping over the others.

Worse, anyone who was stepped over by the others clearly deserved it and mother would be happy to see them scrapped early.

Now even the lower generation were forced to fight or die off. Not that they were against that completely, they were still all the dredges that Avalis predicted weren’t going to play nice with the other Feathers as he needed them to be.

More minutes passed long after the original timeline the Icon sent for enemy contact. Still no Feathers had arrived at the vault.

The closest portal to here really had been four minutes away, and that single Feather that had rushed out was unfortunately too slow. A more hulking one that didn’t sprint well.

He was caught flat footed by another speed-based Feather, who had killed off two other Feathers on the way here and was already primed for a fight.

The slow guy did win that fight, to be fair, it just took him too long and after he had crushed his opponent, he decided to spend an entire minute monologuing to his defeated peer. Of course others were now running into him, starting the cycle all over again.

“Forty two Feathers remain.” The Icon spoke. “All are currently engaged in fights with each other.”

By this time, even the portals that had reported no Feathers rushing out, finally did have visual contact of one Feather or another limping out. They'd decided to fight it out before even reaching the citadel proper. Which meant every single portal had indeed bit the bait, and we had the ultimate talley up here on who I'd have to fight.

“Mother’s success in this world is based almost solely on being unchallenged.” Wrath said, equally looking over all this mess. “I am not surprised they would choose to fight each other over the central threat.”

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“Thirty seven Feathers remain.” The Icon counted. Already she was calculating my odds of success higher and higher with each Feather killed off by natural selection.

They all believed, with all the faith a tired Logi had on the last pot of coffee - so I mean truly, fanatically believed - that the machine empire would win all of this over time regardless of how any individual battle would end. Them killing one another was just a cost of business and wouldn't change the course of history at all.

That’s the only way I could really justify all this in my head.

“Avalis must be dying on the inside watching this.” I muttered. “This is the biggest scrapshit defeat I’ve ever seen. All caused by his own forces, and he clearly can’t do a thing about it.”

“I am more impressed it came from simple words.” The Icon said, sounding rather happy. “There are older historical examples of human defeats similar to this in which the enemy pride or a massive bluff was abused to rattle the troop moral, however none in modern history. Until now.”

The tally was now twenty five Feathers still in action. All of them currently still fighting one another, which meant that the final tally would end up far lower than twenty five.

“I do worry that the ones who reach you will be the strongest of their kind.” Wrath said, “Do not let yourself be killed here human. I would be most upset.”

“If I die, I wouldn’t get to goat about a plan going perfect for once.” I answered back. “Don’t worry, we’re ready for anything.”

“The enemies that do arrive may not be as dangerous as Miss To’Wrathh fears.” The Icon added, showing me one very specific video. “Many of the stronger Feathers are being weakened in their fights and due to their prior expenditure of resources, they are often being eliminated. You are likely not going to fight the strongest, only those better suited to endurance.”

Effectively in that video I saw a Feather with control over the occult. Similar to Drakonis’s implosion spell, except instead of sucking away the occult, he muted it in a sphere around himself. Or at least seemed to, there were a few Feathers still holding onto their occult abilities within his sphere, so it could be resisted. But likely at a cost.

Which would have made him a natural counter to myself. Except while he had strong anti-occult abilities, he did not have strong ranged defenses. And was promptly eliminated by another Feather with some kind of ranged drone swarm of butterflies, which all landed over his shell and detonated in different explosives colors.

Another Feather flew right into the chamber, sliced his head off as if a side distraction, and then went for the butterfly lady and equally took her out at the cost of his entire shield, left arm, and those wings. Which made him an easy target for another Feather passing by.

The only time I ever saw any of these Feathers work together, was when one Feather in the chamber was clearly favored to win by brute power. The rest would wordlessly ally together, and beat the stronger one down, before the truce would end and chaos would return.

What finally came through the vault doorway were the dredges. The ones who had limped to the finish line, or had been built for stealth and ambush abilities above all.

All the Feathers that did make it to me equally came one at a time, only to find themselves up against a firing squad of Winterscars ready with rifle and blade. Along with myself at the center, already midway through attacking with everything I had.

To be fair, I certainly didn’t help matters for them on their way here. I had sight of them, and that meant they were getting swarmed with occult ghosts slicing and throwing fire at them. Some folded up fast, others were more resistant and so I made sure those got delayed until other Feathers bumped into them, which usually ended poorly for everyone involved except for me.

It was a wild time and eventually, the party finally came to an end.

“Please inform Avalis if he wants to offer his unconditional surrender, now would be an excellent time.” I brought my occult blade back onto my belt, and patted my hands free of any imaginary dust. "Although I'm still going to kill him the moment I get a chance, I'm a principled man and I stick to my promises, whenever it suits me."

Up ahead, the final enemy Feather collapsed onto his sole remaining leg, giving me an expression of absolute hatred right before an occult mirror of another distant Keith happily stabbed him through the neck from behind.

He’d lasted exactly eighteen seconds inside the vault, managed to block a short wave of occult bullets shot at him with a wave of water that swept the bullets off angle, yanked the fire from the napalm and occult ghosts in the area until he was riding on it like a wave, before the sum total of everything was too much to handle and he collapsed right into the ground a few feet away.

It looked every bit as dramatic as it sounded like, and it didn't save him at all from his inevitable defeat.

“So close buddy. Good luck next time.” I shrugged as he died, glaring at me the whole while. “Right, so with the last Feather guarding the portals dead, what’s next?”

“This.” The Icon showed the battle map in real time and I saw her kill stroke. Groups of crusaders led by Deathless surged forward, ripping past the machine defenses, leaping through the portals.

They had been this whole time. Whenever the Feathers had sprinted out of the portals and vacated the chamber behind, the Icon had already moved her forces in, sending a dedicated kill team onto the other side.

Avalis closed them right on the team of course, but they knew what they were signing up for. And each squad was strong enough to hold their own against whatever was predicted on the other end.

Now the Icon was taking over territory permanently, moving into the final phase of the citadel fight. No backup jammers being brought back to disrupt her lines. Room by room, she began to muscle Avalis out of his current entrenchment.

It took her fifteen minutes, all in all, before she managed to connect with the wallside defenders, and from there it was almost over for Avalis.

But of course, he had more backup plans in the tank.

As it so happened, Avalis wasn’t stupid enough to think he could pick a fight with a golden age AI, even one dedicated to being a secretary for a luxury ship. He might not know about the golden age AI bit, but he could tell he was losing this fight. So he’d swapped his victory definition away from actually winning inside the citadel, into buying himself time.

“We have a potential issue at the wallside.” The Icon reported, as I saw on the HUD the citadel entry wall itself turn bright green as the entire sector came under her control. “I now know where the older Deathless have vanished to. I had suspected their instincts would draw them to where they felt most needed, and that would be the direct defenses. Indeed, I was correct. All seven first generation Deathless are there. And so are Avalis’s greatest units.”

“The second generation Feathers.” I looked over the map, seeing how the red dots by the wallside were moving in highly coordinated attack wings, diving in, eliminating green all across the map before retreating back.

The Icon was now taking charge of the defenses and shoring it up with far cleaner teamwork. But second generation Feathers were still the most dangerous enemies the machine empire had to throw at us.

And if they were occupied trying to break the wallside defense and the first generation Deathless there instead of fighting off the Icon inside the citadel, then the real strategic issues were outside the citadel.

“Let me guess, everything that couldn’t fit through portals is on the approach?” I asked, looking over the three dimension map of the strata beyond. All of it had been faded grey and black before, but now that the Icon was seeing video footage from relic armors stationed there manning cannons and ranged weapons, the light lit up to what Avalis was really doing:

Giant glowing red highways were showing up woven through the battle map, showing massive activity of machines slowly making their way through the strata, appearing like slowly creepy enemy supply lines.

The guns on the walls were all active and shooting out, holding off the machine advance. Despite the constant raids by the remaining Feathers to bring those guns offline, most of our defenses were already set up within the walls by default formation, which made it difficult for Avalis to fully breach. Especially with the older Deathless there holding the line, supported by warlocks and crusaders.

In the video feed, I saw the wind and storm pick up, causing all the strings to start flying into the air in every direction, lines of glowing blue wiggling like a blender. All except for a very specific tunnel of occult blue. The armor zoomed the sight in, and I got the final few details I needed to make sense:

“They are laying down some kind of base road tiles, which seem to be magnetically locking the occult strings, pulling them in one direction with full force. By doing so, the wind cannot move the strings, and they can even be reused to protect against parts that aren’t quite under control. An impromptu canopy of occult strings guarding the highway they construct.”

They were spread outwards, opening up a pathway, where a full production’s worth of machine lessers were rapidly constructing more. It was like watching ants at a distance, all carrying material up the line, to the very end where a team of machines were taking that and placing it down.

“Scrapshit. And that’s only what we can visually see. What else is he making under our nose?”

“Siege weapons.” The Icon chirped back. “My prediction models estimate an area of effect weapon will be brought to bare that can rip through the current wallside and level the citadel itself. It would be the only means of victory if I were in Avalis’s position. Given I have excised their forces within the citadel minus a few rogue elements, Avalis will be forced to rush his attack even at suboptimal ranges or with biome interference. Defenses will be required soon, as well as open offensive maneuvers outside the biome in order to hold down the enemy forces.”

“And whatever Avalis is planning to bring on those occult highways he’s building outside, it’s already rated to break down the walls." I could see where all of this was going: "Which means the next phase of this battle is pure offense and trying to fight back out in the open to disrupt their siege equipment. We have to go all out in order to keep them off balance. Or we abandon the citadel completely and disperse across the biome, making his siege weapons useless without a singular target.”

Not the easiest task. And the second option would likely lead to heavy casualties. We had it good here with Wrath in one central location to heal all others, and an excellent wallside defense, minus a small army of second generation Feathers running amok still, trying to break the defenses from the inside out.

Urs was the one who answered that question. “I believe there is a way to hold the walls. Talen traveled to the terraforming platform in order to prepare its great weapon, and he brought with him the fractals I designed for the work. However the platform would need to line itself up with Relinquished and then open fire on her directly once stationary. She would not take such an attack without retaliation. I designed a shield, the concept built to protect large structures, to be triggered by Talen during the most critical moments. The final version of that fractal is safely within orbit, the work successful.”

“Final version.” I said, “You mean there’s a prototype version?”

“There are many. Creating fractals takes time and testing. Most remain within my grove where I researched and designed them. But, during the great war, Talen brought the final prototypes out of my grove, to where they would best be used.” The blue eyes flickered over, watching through the walls of the vault. Up to the walls far beyond. “They remain here where he left them, deep within the superstructure. Bring me to them, and I will use their power to defend the citadel.

Until Talen arrives himself.”