Chapter 18-7 These Bodies Be Our Prison

Chapter 18-7 These Bodies Be Our Prison

+Mag? Mag? Were coming in rough, whats+

[Moment! No! Run! Stay away! Dont do this! Dont use me like this!]

-Final thoughtcast between Moment and Two-Mag, Syndicate Forgotten Lance

18-7

These Bodies Be Our Prison

Hubris: Neither organisms the user is melding may be destroyed during the process or thaumic backlash will be triggered

Avo and one of the bioforms fell into each other like toppling towers, bodies crumbling with tumorous debris. Yet, collapse did not follow. Hardly. Their structures held as the biologies of ghoul and prototype pressed together, entwining skeletons and melding sporelings into Avos blood.

Linked to the creature he was absorbing, he felt the bioform melt away into thin air as the Weaver wove it into him, infusing his flesh with the best parts of its design.

From two bodies emerged one. From divided architectures rose a sheathe sporting a new shape. New pattern. The Woundshaper caressed Avos material form with curiosity as new senses bloomed from his mind.

With his next exhale flowed a cloud of sporelings, and as they spread, they joined his Sanguinity as another expansion to his cognitive perception. He could feel the metal around him. Sense the matter he could grip and those he could. Imbued with a Domain of Lightning, a constant, unnatural power lingered within his field, ever-charged, never-diminishing.

Avo Kae breathed, looking between him and Elegant-Moon. The Sang just leaned back against the seat of her cell and smiled at the ground.

It is a gift that can be offered to any, Elegant-Moon said. You have shown me new life to twist and twist it into you I shall. Our flesh is a garden. We need but the proper seeds.

Jack sighed as his phantasmal avatar studied Avo. +As I said. Raw damn woo-woo bullshit. We had to cut him open for that stupid implant. Here she is waving her hands.+

Looking upon himself using Elegant-Moons eyes, he let his Meldskin sink back beneath his cordyceramite plates. Once, paleness reigned absolute across his body, his sheathe the hue of naked bone. Now, contrast ruled. Neat rows of ebony discs lined his spine, collar, ribs, and limbs. A second skeleton had grown over his sheathe, its rubbery interior threaded to his bioelectrically charged mycelia.

The greatest change fell upon his Echoheads. Once likened to blade-headed serpents coated in armored scales of midnight, each tail now floated behind Avo in segments. Sporelings spewed from the divided pieces and hyper-conductive nodes lined the spines of the transplants. Volts arced down each of the Echoheads, imbuing it with thrumming power. Now, his tendrils would be as if shots loosed from a railgun more than a spearing piston.

Drawing a stream of blood from his body, Avo watched as sporelings growing within him wriggled with the coursing red, nursing themselves on his haemophage. He formed a helix, and a single pillar danced between linking curves of blood, black bisecting red.

+Beautiful+ Ruveca breathed.

+Impossible,+ Jane said, sternness betraying her unease. +The casual mixing of biological properties is+

Woo-woo, Kae whispered, unable to hide an impish grin. Cold science may have its wonders, but thaumaturgy can be everything. Her grin broke into a shy smile. Which is why I should be granted access to deeper knowledge! Think of it. Think of what I might be able to do if I only knew what you knew. What other creations we could see elevated? Synthesis of knowledge, old and new. Just like were seeing here.

Essus looked a bit more than disturbed, and fascinatingly, the once-flats rubbery skin proved to be like magnetoreceptive camouflage.

The voider grafters shared a likewise disquiet, but their wariness was directed more toward Kae.

+Lady, you have no idea how much what you just said scares me,+ Jack muttered.

+Indeed,+ Jane concurred. +Oh, no. Look what youve done. You made me agree with him.+

{Another one of our eggs disappeared,} Draus said, sweeping through the room with her glass shards, blasting all corners with her perception to ensure there was no one using an Incog. {Rest of the hostiles are down. Good number are still kickin, but their rigs are dead and done.} She paused. {Felt its field yank on my implants. Not my Meldskin though. Nothing there. Guess that voidtech just built better.}

{That,} Calvino began, {and the fact that its omnidirectional thrusters work through the manipulation of gravity and magnetism. Interference is interference, and electromagnetic pulses are a vector of attack as old as the atomic bomb. To us, anyway. This shall be a novel thing for some of your foes to experience, hm?}

Avo grinned, and his teeth glinted in the light. Science and discovery. Wonderful things.

{Indeed.}

With a twitch of his finger, Avo splattered the surviving Syndicate forces.

The assault portion of the run was done. Now came the time for interception and extraction.

A barge awaited them. As did its crew and the slaves it carried.This chapter was first shared on the Ñøv€lß1n platform.

Thinking back to his first resurrection in the Maw, Avo looked down at his clawsdigits now lined with silicon circuitsand then at those around him. This was one of the moments where he felt lifes rhyme. An echo of who he was calling to what he was becoming.

How far he came. How far he had yet to go.

Suddenly, a shape pushed against the edges of his Sanguinity. Beyond the reach of his new magnetoreception, only his Heaven caressed the arriving barge and the two hundred and twelve bodies manning its cramped confines. The vessel emerged from nowhere, tumbling out from the light itself and scraping its sides against the leftmost edge of the hangers opening. He had to right its course using his haemokinesis to prevent it from crashing hard into one of the nine mag-rings meant to anchor it in place.

Whatever the condition of the crew, they were clearly unprepared for their arrival.

A beat later, a session-link request from Moment, the barges captain spilled across Avos cog-feedthe memories sourced to one of his newest acquisitions: Two-Mag.

The Heaven of Love was not so easily denied.

Through the barge did the bodies writhe, and when a slave groaned in the corner of the hold, a technician echoed their pain forth, face down on the metal flooring, breathing the same moans.

{Avo} Calvino chided, disappointed at the atrocity inflicted.

The ghoul breathed. Sorry. Couldnt resist it. Was poetic.

{Yes, in a degenerate-psychopath way, I suppose. But come now}

Avo grunted in annoyance, knowing the EGI was probably right. Poor behaviors formed poor habits. Still, it was interesting to discover he could be persuaded toward regression if the fancy struck him.

Alright, Avo said. He clenched a hand. The Woundshaper squeezed. Bodies burst. The crew died. The chain of agony shattered, and in its wake followed new templates welcomed by a sobbing Moment.

[Ah. Farewell, new memory,] Elegant-Moon said, genuinely sad. [May we be rejoined.]

Shifting back over into his original sheathe, he took a moment to reacclimate as his senses returned and turned to Essus. Many are in a bad state. Mutilated. Broken down. You will see. If you come.

The mans eyes widened and grew unfocused. But his brows furrowed and he hardened what remained of his resolve. I must face this. I must face this wrong. I remain for a reason. I am here to help

Regarding Essus a moment longer, Avo sent another message over to Draus. {Barge secure.}

{I saw,} she replied. {Had glass in the air. What the hells were you doing.}

{Knotted their senses together. Starting with the slaves.}

{Old habits dont die, huh, rotlick?}

{Elegant-Moon is a bad influence.}

The Regular snorted. {So what now?}

{Now I help Essus. He needs to extract the slaves. Good for him. New purpose. Im going to cycle through new memories. Understand how theyre jumping the borders. Then examine the barge.}

{Synced. Ill pull it through a passage. Tavers is planting a tac-nuke surprise for reinforcements.}

That made Avo laugh. The old squire was growing to be an endearing figure. {Good. We move out of the district after this. Hit someone else. Dont want to leave too much of a trail. Have to be careful.}

{Yeah. When you cutting the Sang free?}

{Soon. Probably two days. Well have harvested Heavens from golems by then. Want to get some more deaths though. You and I can work in tandem in our spare moments. Focus on killing for a few days. Bring us up to Sphere Five.}

{Shit. Thought youd never ask. Still. Were gonna have to figure out what to do with these FATELESS. Aint got a place to keep em. Too much noise.}

Avo paused and considered his choices. The answer, came as he thought of Dice. The girl was huddled in the corner of the Manta, wary of the ship and all its inhabitants. Her speech continued to be restrained, but there was a growing interest building behind her eyes.

He would see her freed. Returned to the wilds that spawned her. But for every Fallwalker, there was an enclave and people to man its walls.

Many of them would die in New Vultun. Many of them would die outside its walls.

If such was the case, then perhaps all that needed to be offered was a choice of location.

{See about that when the time comes. Hide them in the gutters for now.}