Chapter 13-17 The Flames Awakened (II)
+Osjed, do do you feel like you just forgot a bunch of stuff all a sudden?+
+What you mean, Venven? Like, do I have brain fog, or do I think someones snatching the thoughts out of my mind?+
+Yeah. The second.+
+Well, seein that were Exorcists and were operating within the systems confines, no. It would take someone making a Heaven of the Nether to get past us.+
+I mean+
+Listen. You need stop thinking this way, alright? I saw you dust an entire cell of Necros in that Kososo raid a couple of years back.+
+Shit. Dont remind me. That entire thing was such a mess. Fucking Kososo.+
+My point is: Youre nova, Venven Mori. Maybe not as good as me+
+Suck a ghoul, Osjed.+
+--But it would take a Necrojack at the absolute apex of skill to snatch shit from us.+
+...Yeah. I guess youre right. I just I keep forgetting things down in the admin sequences near Super-Four.+
+Oh. That happens to me all the time too.+
+And you dont find it weird?+
+Theres a lot of tangled sequences down there. Just looking at all that mem-data gives me migraines and nosebleeds. If the Incubi or whoever want to climb through that jungle, they can be my guest. If they make it through, they earned the right to jack us. But you know what?+
+What?+
+I doubt it. Because if its hell for you, and its hell for me, its probably no cakewalk for the masters either. Look, the average half-strand cant even dive for more than twenty minutes without breaking from empathic psychosis. Were rated for five hours. We practically breath the Nether. And its going to take a hell of a lot more than just five hours to dig through the tangled thicket at the base of the Oversec.+
+Yeah. Yeah, youre right.+
+Of course I am. Listen do you still want to do that thing+
+Not on official channels, Osjed. After work.+
+Yeah. Alright. After work.+
+And uh thanks.+
+It aint nothing. Youre pretty great, Veven. Doesnt matter if someone might be better. That doesnt change the skill you have. Besides, how much better can they be compared to us anyway.+
-Exorcist Osjed Danvens and Exorcist Venven Mori, Oversec-C1
13-17
The Flames Awakened (II)
However unprepared Avo was for the process of burning himself into the marrow of anothers cognition, his surprise doubled as his ghosts began to scream in the voice of his assimilated prey.
[No! No, let me go! Let me fucking go]
The sheer terror filling her veins was a euphoric rush he could not put into words. As he ate her away from the inside, she did not vanish so much as she fused into his structure, the core of her self-awareness shattering while the dynamics of her mind played on, simulated by his self-moving fires.
In a sense, it was like layering one Metamind atop another. At the very core, he was still himself, though entire portions of his memories vanished and returned between the microseconds as he struggled to conjoin himself fully to her design. Concurrently, new wants and habits flooded his being. Channeling the aspects of Talon-1s ego, Avo drank in internalized fear for the first time.
Though long had he sequence and cast constructs tied to such an emotion, only now did he conceptualize how it felt when raw thought-numbing dread numbed the mind in its capacity to think.
The experience sent a shivering current through his bones.
A delight, deep and true.
Still acclimating to his altered neurology, he willed himself to shapeshift closer to the woman he just devoured, the Eaters that formed the fiery flesh of his mind incinerating unneeded structures to manifest desired sequences.
The sequences around him dissolved and regenerated into new pathways while the simulated core of his mindscape descended into layered steps as the labyrinth she used assumed the place of his. His very sense of self mutated externally, leaving only enough ghosts to support Avos base ego at the center of the entire apparatus, a monster fully tethered to the cognitive feedback of humanity.
Enlightenment was delectable and traumatizing all at the same time.
He dreamed he was Avo, the ghoul. He dreamed he was Talon-1, leader of an Incubi Strike Cell, and proxy-mind parted from the wholeness of the person beneath.
As their joining culminated, his ghosts screamed louder, infected with her disgust at his intrusion, and the despair of being eaten away by what appeared to be a living plague in the Nether without any chance of resistance.
But an Incubus dead was an Incubus still, and when most would have shattered into psychosis, the copy made from Talon-1 mustered the remainder of her hatred and turned to greet her new puppeteer.
[Are you enjoying this, you sick fuck? You killed me. Now you have your ghosts wearing me like Im some kind of glove. Fuck. You. Do you hear me you corpse-licking bastard? I hope I give you the shits!]
His other submind cut into the conversation, taking on her tone with burgeoning curiosity. [Hmm. Assumed position of alternate. Interesting. Can she still be controlled?]
Avo willed it so that the avatar of Talon-1 liked him instead, that his dissolution of her mind was the best thing she ever experienced. Once more the psionic inferno that he was obeyed, and new nuances were soldered into his new mental templates sequences. She was happy to be part of him now, true and total.
Until he decided to change once more, formless hydra his mind now was.
He released his enforcement of mandatory joy. Her torment returned, and he found it far more palatable that way. The way Talon-1 hurt was realthe last bit of agency this facet of her mind would ever know.
And, if he was to be truly honest, her suffering still tickled the core of his being.
[Ghosts at 2133 again,] submind three said. [Compared thought patterns. Shes a faster sequencer at baseline. Works with 4.3% higher efficiency than us. Recommend full integration of her habits. Deficient otherwise.]
His other self didnt need to tell him that. He remembered all her capabilities since she was him now.
[Also recommend using her Auto-Seance. Access cell. Infect them. Spread ourselves wider.]
Yes. He would take that suggestion. And then some.
As Talon-1s Auto-Seance burst into shape with the expulsion of embers, he grew the necessary sequences inside it to bypass the need for sequencing. Immediately, a phantasmal portal opened within the construct, bridging him to what few surviving Incubi remained.
Between the folds of his thoughts, he heard the quiet laughter of the beast comingle with the desperate cries of Talon-1, wailing for her comrades to flee.
It didnt matter. He was the only one who could still hear her. None of the other Incubi were prepared when he cast himself into them, his consciousness growing like a burning plague.
***
Shit was already fucked for Talon-3 when he found himself drifting across the open Nether of the lobby in the middle of a trauma exchange.
One second he was about to breach the Auto-Seance and null the four half-strands and whatever sequences they were jacked into, and then next there was just nothing.
It wasnt even like he forgot. There was just nothing, and a sense of violated community as if his mind was been stretched wider than it was meant to go.
It took a trauma pattern rattling against his wards to fully sober him from his mind-addled stupor, and he blindly cast out his cycled traumas, he found himself faced with a half-broken Auto-Seance bleeding mem-data over into the administrative node itself, and what looked to be a bonfire of ghosts rising from a blazing accretion that just wouldn't go out no matter how much everyone tried to null it.
Entire sections of the burning mind burst and fragmented before him. Embers took the place of fragmenting ghost stuff, and though Talon-3 swore that he saw pieces of wards fly free, the damage cauterized as fast as it could be inflicted.
Something about it all reminded him of the Conflagration; the way the fiery threads reached out to stitch themselves back together, the way the flames ate away at some of the traumas.
It took him more than a few seconds to realize that the enemy Necros he was preparing to ambush alongside Talon-adversarial Necros he was trying to jump with Talon-6 were also casting at the same mind.
He didnt have long to question why that was though.
Before his eyes, the inflamed mind roused its smoldering thoughstuff and began spinning. In an instant it lashed outincandescent ghosts spearing past Talon-3 to strike at someone behind him.
The local sequences were completely fucked apart. Memories meant to be joined were gnawed apart along their lengths leaving most of his cell with their asses bare in the ethereal winds like him.
He didnt much like Talon-1 from the vibes she gave, but Talon-3 didnt like plenty of people he worked with. His gut clenched all the same when the lashing ghosts cracked her wards. He tried fragmenting the ghosts linking whatever trauma was being projected. Didnt work. Each one of his attacks saw ghosts torn free from his mind somehow, and incomprehensibly, the burning mind flowed like surging magma across the length of its reach.
What followed wasnt entirely clear to him as the first volley of traumas from the other Ad-Necs took his attention. As his wards rattled and his cog-cap spiked, he drove his ghosts to dive into the nearest sequence for concealment.
Not far away, he saw Talon-12 and Talon-19 bridging new sequences from the sides, moving to flank the Ad-Necs. Gazing through his Auto-Seance, he found that there were still fifteen others active in the session.
Fifteen, and then fourteen as their link to Talon-1 suddenly broke with a scream.
+Talon-1+ He cursed immediately after casting the thought as a trauma-laden ghost struck the memories three sequences down and knocked his hiding place loose into the membrane of thoughts between everything.
His cog-cap spiked past seventy-two percent and his Metamind disabled half of his auxiliary phantasmics to devote more resources to his wards. Leaping out from collapsing progression of memories he dwelled in, he landed somewhere a few strings away from Talon-7, who was emptying their ghost reserves by launching high-area nulling traumas at the Auto-Seance.
Talon-3s mind spun. Everything was godsdamned fucking mess.
The only saving grace was how the Exorcists seemed ignorant of the literal war happening inside their lobby, but that just meant someone was probably actively sequencing their perceptions.
+Shit! Shit-fuck!+ Talon-3 growled. This dive was well past lost. They needed to jack out. They needed to break away and come back with more assets. He should have trusted his gut with Shard-1; no one skilled enough to snuff an Incubus was going to leave any chance of evidence behind.
This was a trap through and through.
He didnt even know how compromised his own network was.
+Jack out!+ He cried through his Auto-Seance, casting his thoughts to every other Incubi joined to the session. +Jack out now!+
And just as cut himself free from the session and prepared to end his dive, it happened.
Phantasmal flames erupted up from Talon-7s accretion in a column of climbing radiance. In the distance, he watched other coruscating spears of burning bright punch up through sequences where his comrades once hid.
The Ad-Nec assault had ceased too, and as the etheric winds stilled from around the Auto-Seance, it seemed the enemy was waiting for things to play out.
Enraptured by confusion, cold terror, and genuine amazement, Talon-3 watched as the blaze swept through Talon-7s mind, destroying and reconstructing him all at the same time. He was unmade in thought, memory, and constructs, but by the time the fires reached the edges of the Incubus accretion, the entirety of his cognition had been rebuilt as a perfect replica.
It wasnt just a bit like the Conflagration anymore. The way it traveled and burned and consumed Talon-3 only saw something like that once, and this was the same, only greater in function, capable of breaking and building all the same.
In a nigh instant, a dozen lanes of perception snapped to him all at once. The new ghosts mantling Talon-7s ego, peeking out like apparitions of steam between the licking tongues of the firestorm, danced and flickered into the shape foreboding silhouette.
Through it all Talon-3 felt them then. The inhuman presence. A second set of awareness nested within the first. They knew he was here, and slowly the fire was beginning to spread along the sequences as well, the structures around dissolving into a madhouse of agonized screams.
He heard them then. The members of his cell. Their voices grew louder and louder with the building crackle of the infectious fire eating through the memories around him. He could hear Talon-1 and Talon-6s cries blended into each other, the distorted noise coming forward like some kind of chimera of torment.
Something inside Talon-3 broke, and he jacked out.
He abandoned his cell and fled while the nightmare was still unaware of him.
The real exploded back into shape before his very eyes, and he found himself staring up at a gunmetal grey ceiling lined with soft yellow lights. A series of pressure points loosed along his back, and Talon-3 let out a gasp as the spinal clamp released him from his jacking station.
Holding up a shivering hand before his cog-feed, he fought to keep his calm as he pushed himself off the chair.
He needed to get this proxy off of him. He needed to get out. He needed to
A choked sob escaped from his chest as he tumbled against the wall, his legs shaking too much to bear his weight. He was hyperventilating. That was a first. A few chuckles of nervous, incoherent laughter escaped from him as he crawled into the corner and, with quivering fingers, tore the soft tissue of his proxy mind free from atop his head and freed himself from remembering.
The menders found him later curled catatonic and soaked in his own waste, begging whatever waited on the other side of his proxy mind to stay away from him.
Of the twenty Incubi that served as members of the emergency-assembled Strike Cell Flameater, five could not be recalled in any capacity by anyone, anywhere, at any point in time aside from a note in one of their backup coldtech terminals, and the fourteen were consumed by an unknown entity.
Talon-3 remained the sole survivor of the dive.
Elder DRongos security was subsequently increased tenfold.
***
+What the fucking-fuck is it doing,+ Peace asked.
From the edge of a partially nulled memory, Emotion cast his perception out at the flames spreading along all the sequences, slowly encircling them from all sides in a rapidly growing cage of fire.
+I do not know,+ Emotion said. It was refreshing to be inflicted with ignorance. He was used to it being the other way around, but it was clear that Defiances project possessed far more capability than they anticipated. +This is good.+
+Good? Good! We fucking One of the war-minds was used up for this. It was supposed to make him easy for us to take. Not whatever cunt-fuck this is.+
A low keening note came from their new Joy, recently arrived through Emotions Auto-Seance. Other nodes from each of their variants had also gathered within the crumbling debris of this Auto-Seance in anticipation of reclaiming the Helix, but the creature had escaped from them. Unfathomably, it escaped from them by burrowing into the mind of one of the Incubi.
In the chaos that followed thereafter, the conflagration only spread, consuming all other servants under the Ori.
Whatever phantasmic or power the ghoul possessed, it was beyond Nolothic lore.
For now.
Emotion knew it would please the Hungers most greatly if they could claim such gnosis from the traitors inheritor.
But such a prize was far harder to obtain than expected.
+The rot-licking shit is trying to burn away all the memories around us. Leave us trapped.+ Peace cycled another high-yield trauma and Emotion regarded his parted self with muted disappointment. His facet dedicated to war was too crude of an instrument. He wished he had waited a few years before parted him from the consensus. That would made him more effective, and less prone to invectives.
+He is rebuilding the structures around us,+ Emotion corrected. +He will likely attempt to pervert our Auto-Seance from the outside using the corruption he possesses. Such a fascinating power.+ His mind settled on a new approach and he regarded the other two priests. +I will depart and face him. I must learn of his new nature and offer this bounty to our chosen masters.+
+Emotion,+ Joy whispered, aghast at his decision. +He will unmake you.+
+That is of no concern to me. I seek what I seek. And we will reclaim what was lost.+
A new session pulsed inside of him, and he felt another mind structured much like his own speak to him from within his being. +The Exorcists remain suppressed. Shall I reveal the presence of the creature to aid your efforts?+
+No,+ Emotion said. +Keep them ignorant. Rebuild the damage. I will seek a new dialogue with our foe. And true comprehension.+
+I see. Then may you serve the chosen masters well.+
The session ended. Emotion committed himself to his path.
Turning his perception to the other two nodes, he cast but a simple command. +If he destroys me, do not reveal yourselves. We will learn much from how he interfaces with my death.+
Peace sneered. +I still think+
+Priests.+ The words of the ghost rumbled from all around them, the burning ghosts of the local sequence numbering well past the tens of thousands, all speaking as one. +I took something from you. You wanted it back. You offered me power. Position. Privilege. And slavery. You did something to me earlier. Changed me. Can still remember what you did. Can still remember the Ignorance. The war-mind.+
+No, that cant its lying+ Joy moaned.
+Things change. Things always change. You should have learned that across all those years. You should have chosen better masters to serve. But it doesnt matter. I have a new path to give you. My own offer. My turn to give you choices. Your turn to take or reject me.+
A low thunderous rumble of cruel mirth flooded the Nether, and Emotion tasted what it was like to be a ghoul.
+But+Avo said, releasing a shuddering breath. +I can lie. I hope you tell me no. I hope I can get a reason to break you all.+
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