Chapter 3-12 To Joust a Spider
Alright, Im going to say this one more time for you half-strands that wont stop asking about it: do notyou hearing me? Do. Not. Implant yourself with assault-grade chrome.
You wanna know why people call it assault-grade chrome? Because most implants of that kind probably belong better on a drone. And youre not a drone. Youre a street squire. Least I hope you aredont know why a drone-jock will be taking any advice from me.
As street squires, your biggest advantage is that youre high-speed and no-drag. You engage and disengage. Push in. Mark something. Snuff someone. Get out. The moment your chrome pushes you past the two-ton mark is the moment that you stop being no-drag and start being a logistical liability.
The heavy lifting should be done by your rig, not your body. Your body should be oriented for speed and survivability, not raw durabilityand certainly not layered in heavy weapons.
Why not?
Iyoutell me, juv, how many calories do you consume in a day? How many nutriboosters can you shoot up in a row without emptying your stomach? Whatever you say, it aint enough to fuel 2 tons of alloy, a neuro-op system, and however many heavy weapons you want to graft into yourself.
I swear to Jaus, you fuckin kids are nuts these days. You keep thinking about how you can make yourselves assault drones or tanks when they already bloody exist!
-Quail Tavers, School of the Warrens
3-12
To Joust a Spider
Rantulas metal legs twitched, rearing at Avo as a spider might as she slowly circled him. Randomly, she would strike the ground, chipping chunks from the floor in an effort to get him to flinch, to prematurely fire his reflexes.
He thought it appropriately dog-like of her to play these games. She was hoping to burn his nerves out before the fight even started. It wasnt a bad plan. The problem was Avo had a measure of her pace alreadyan advantage she betrayed when she struck her subordinate earlier.
As such, he kept thirty feet between them, mirroring the arc of her movements. Inside, Avo coaxed his inner beast. He wouldnt be able to keep it chained forever, but his earlier slaughter of the enforcer and his brothers had sated it, if only slightly. Now, deaf to the rising jeers of the crowd, he waited for Rantula to break first.
Hed keep his Celerostylus quiet until after she moved. Then, he would begin by crippling her.
Tension was building through her body; she gripped her hammers handle so tight her fingers grew pale at the tips. Her optics were narrow pinpricks, all eight locked on his form while they paced, circling each other. Then, he caught one flicking over to the father before swiveling back to him.
Rantula grinned.
Avo glared.
Wasnt hard to guess what she wanted to try. She probably got the idea from Little Vicious when she finally trapped Draus using the boy as bait. Poetic, in a sense, but it made her plan obvious.
Avo adjusted his cudgel. Go for it.
You know what, Rantula said, licking her hammer, I think I just might.
Two of her spider-legs descended, digging deep through the material of the floor and flinging outward toward the father, hammer raised, voice roaring. Avo fired his Celerostylus. She slowed, her pace stymied as if she was pushing through a pool of water. Still, she was faster than his brothers. Fast enough that he wasted no time in enacting his own strategy.
If she wanted to steal a trick from Little Vicious to use on him, he would pull one of his old tricks on her as well. Avo moved, striding first to tear a pulp of flesh from the savaged remains of one of his brothers before pushing for her. The father was leaning against a gore-coated table, his head tilting all too slowly to even see the descending hammer.
But that wasnt all Rantula had prepared.
Avo activated his Phys-Sim, numerical data spilling from her moving limbs as dissolving strands within his perception. Rantula, for all her obvious stupidity, had a low cunning. Her hammer wasnt the only thing giving off velocity markers, for her spider legs had reacted, shortening as potential energy began to build up within, the hydraulics ringing loud even with his heightening perception of time.
She closed. Eighteen feet and falling, her legs and hammer extending her reach by another eight. Ten feet in function. Avo wouldn't make it in time. He didnt have to.
Cupping the handful of flesh, he called a trajectory lane with his Phys-Sim and cast it loose along the calculated arc. Dripping viscera sailed free of his hand, a fracture rattling through his index finger. Avo winced. All that force concentrated on one digit was more than the bone could take; needed to favor his other hand when using his weapon.
Like a pebble of trailing crimson, the pulp of flesh darted closer and closer toward the plotted point of intersection with Rantulas head, her face barely turning in time to reveal her surprise. One of her metallic legs pushed forward to deflect, but too late. Red burst across her face as the pulp of flesh disintegrated into a misting cloud, doing its job.
A furious cry free from Rantulas lungs. Blinded, she swung with her hammer, missing the father by a full foot. Her alloyed legs speared, shredding naught but air and the edge of a table.
Avo felt a simmer of heat radiating from the center of his skull. The clock was ticking. Three feet between him and the father; four before another one of Rantulas wild swings came into impact radius. Avo caught the father by the collar and shoved the man onto the ground.
Just in time for his Phys-Sim to wail. Avo shifted back, angling just as an extending segment of titanium plunged through the rippling air where his head was.
A stinging pain flared along the side of his skull. One of Rantulas legs had opened a thin slice on his scalp as she shot past him, her momentum guiding her down toward the moat. Hissing, he spun and brought his hammer down on the back of her calf before she was out of range.
He struck, and felt a vibration flood through his hand, his broken digit flaring with pain. It felt like he was hitting a mountain, her muscles akin to veins of ore. His blow had all but bounced off. Snarling, he hit her twice before the burning cauldron inside his skull made him stop.
Backing away, he dragged the father with him as he retreated, watching the distance grow between him and Rantula as she landed in a rising spray of fragments, waiting until the thirty-foot boundary was reestablished before releasing his Celerostylus.
His hold on time dissolved. Spiking pain twisted through his skull. His knees and his elbows felt like someone had been hitting him with a hammer instead the other way around.
Across the foot court, Rantula turned around, rubbing the back of her right leg as she crackled. That was dirty, ghoulie. Dirty. But you got the swing of a flat.
As she turned, he focused his Phys-Sim on her. Numbers flooded his awareness, and he got his confirmation: mass was resting more on her left now. She wasnt nearly as unaffected as she acted.
Pretty quick though, she said, wiping the blood from her augmented eyes. Nice to have speed advantage for once in your life, aint it? Shame bout them bones and sinews though. Too soft. Too weak.
He was only half listening to her. He plotted his next course of action. The cudgel was barely enough to bruise her calf. Would be entirely useless against her torso and head with all the subdermal lining. Could continue targeting the same leg. Force her to walk on her spider implants, and reduce her vectors of lethality; force her to leave one of her exo-limbs planted long enough for him to drop his micro-rockets into the exposed hydraulics.
Yeah. He thought that could work. Inside his head, the throbbing ache was beginning to recede, but barely. He wouldnt be able to keep his reflexes boosted for twenty seconds this time, but maybe there wasnt the need.
Maybe instead of using the Celerostylus across extended durations, he should fire it in bursts. Accelerate his reflexes at specific instants to reduce injury and improve control. Rantula was fast. Fast enough to react to him. Not fast enough to catch him. And like the golem, inertia had levied a tax on her mass.
He could make this work.
...and when Im done, this time youre gonna finish watching the ghoullings hatch from his corpse! Rantula snarled.
He studied her steaming breath, swaying hammer, and twitching implants. Somehow, it looked like she managed to cause more rage in herself while taunting him. Detriments of an unstable personality.
Sorry. Need you to repeat, Avo said. It was a virtue, being honest. Wasnt listening.
Fucker! she cried. She moved on him. Fuck! You!
Her legs struck the ground in a thunderclap. She leaped, her hammer drawn over her shoulder in a readied swing. Avo tensed his Celerostylus and shuffled toward her, Phys-Sim measuring their closing distance.
He approached her linearly first. He took inspiration from Draus with his next steps, stealing the initiative as he dashed toward Rantula, closing within eight feet, but just barely. She swung. Her legs lashed out. He shifted outside her threat radius, waiting for the strikes to miss by inches before stepping in again.
Marking the arc of his strike using his Phys-Sim, he whipped his weapon out directly at her ankle. The cudgel crackled through the air, punching through a barrier of resistance to greet Rantulas enhanced tissue as a scythe. This time, he felt a pop follow the pulses running down the handle of his weapon.
Ugly thing was, he couldnt tell if the pop came from his elbow or her ankle.
He pulled away, throwing himself back as he watched the distance between them reach thirty-five feet. By the time he quelled his reflexes, spots were forming in his eyes, and his body was shaking. It felt like molten heat was coursing through every nerve inside him. The pain was so total, so intense that he almost missed Rantula toppling over with a roar as she put pressure on her right foot.
Almost.
He laughed, relishing the sight of his success as she gripped her leg, spitting litanies of slurs to the sky. Quivering, he placed a hand against a table. And felt his left elbow fold out of place entirely. He joined her on the ground, tumbling down with a hiss.
Turns out, the answer to his question of what popped between his elbow and her ankle was yes.
Clambering back to his feet, he kept his eyes trained on Rantula as two of her spider legs punched into the ground, lifting her into the air. Snot and hate flowed from her being, her thoughtstuff boiling out like the steam from her implants.
Fucker! Fucker! Fuck-agghh! Profanity and gibberish found a shared home on her lips. With staggered steps, she pushed forward, coming for him before he could recover.
Thirty feet.
Shaking his head, Avo winced. He didnt know if he could fire his Celerostylus for more than a second this time. Needed to be accurate. Quick. He plucked a micro-rocket from his jacket and left the other as a reserve.
Twenty feet.
He snapped his elbow back into place and let it heal. It suddenly occurred to him that he dropped his cudgel. Reaching down, he froze. No. Hed come back for it later. He needed speed more than its mass right now. Had to get in and out away from Rantula in a heartbeat.
Ten feet.
Avo met Rantulas charge, firing his reflexes. Pain exploded behind his eyes in shockwaves of agony, and darkness crept along the corners of his eyes, almost causing him to miss a leg of solid titanium sliding down into the red-outlined impact trajectory toward his skull. Avo threw himself into a roll. A hammer descended, sundering where he was a mere moment ago. The force made Avo bounce. A leg sank a full foot into the linoleum beside his chest.
Before pain ate away what remained of his consciousness, he flicked his micro-rocket into the exposed mechanisms within the leg. It sailed along a planned trajectory. His reflexes cut out before he could see if it went in or not.
Avo rolled, crawling blindly as he tried to flee. Thundering clusters of headaches exploded in the depths of his brain. He tried rising to his legs, but his body shook too much to comply. A series of servos sounded behind him. He ducked instinctively. A sudden gust tore past him, sending him staggering. The hammer? Did Rantula miss?
His answer came shortly in the form of another two of her legs. They did not miss. The good thing about having the single most torturous headache in existence is that you barely noticed it when two titanium pillars punched through your shoulders.
Gasping, Avo wrapped his still functioning arm around Rantulas extended exo-limb, trying to lever it free from his flesh, feeling its serrated edges sawing through his ribs.
Rantula made a noise that was something between a growl and a laugh. Lets fucking see you be clever now. She pulled him across her body like he was a bowstring to better look at him. Avo coughed mouthfuls of blood as he struggled, fighting harder as one of her hands closed around his nape.
She dropped her hammer onto the ground.
Pulling back a cinderblock of a right fist, a feral grin spread across her face. Gonna feel this, ghouli
He spat blood into her mouth, his Phys-Sim lining a lane directly down her throat. She choked. He didnt waste time, plunging the claws of his prehensile feet into her optics and tearing. Wires and cords of tissue popped free. Gargling a howl of pain, she took a step forward, trying to shake him off.
Then, Avo heard itthe glorious sound of pressing hydraulics cracking the casing of a micro-rocket. Beneath them, an explosion rippled. Flensing shards flicked flesh free across Avos body. Rantula toppled, screaming, the spinal base of her implanted limbs now jutting free at an angle.
The explosion ripped it out from her body.
Greeted the ground back-first against cold shattering tiles, Avo groaned as he clawed against the ground, pulling himself free from impalement, inch by inch, from edge to edge.
Somewhere next to him, Rantula was shrieking. My back! Fuck! I cantI cant fucking feel my back!
As he finally felt the metal slide free from his back, he vomited blood across the ground. With his head spinning and legs shaking, he pushed himself to his feet. His hunger screamed at him, body mending his countless wounds, cells burning through his caloric intake at an intense rate. Stumbling, he made for the mangled remains of his brothers, mind-blank as he left Rantula behind him to her pain.
When the haze of his hunger cleared, his new jacket was coated in a sheen of red, clumped with dotted tissue. He had no idea how long he spent feeding, only that he had gorged himself before his senses returned to him. Rantula was still jerking on the ground, screaming.
The father was crawling away from them in his periphery. Avo ignored the man and made to finish what was started.
Approaching Rantula, he savored the sheer extent of harm inflicted on her. Along the detached bolts of her spider legs implanted spinal base, her flesh was torn, lifted in a chasm of weltering crimson. He could see the moving gleam of her spinal column, doubtlessly laced with metal. A few looked like they had been wrenched out of place. Dented even. Two of her implanted eyes hung from her face as she cried out. Her right foot was folded unnaturally.
As his shadow slipped over her, she stopped crying out for a moment and swallowed.
Alright.! she snapped. Alright, fuck ghoulie! Smart play. Good play! You win! You w He picked up a detached tip from one of her formerly implanted legs. Her lip quivered. Ghoulie. He took a step over her. Moonblood His shadow slid over her body like a snake. Avo, no!
C-Six, he said, chuckling as he remembered his time with the grafters. Pulling back, he viciously plunged the titanium stave beneath a random column of bone.
The scream he tore from her lungs was loud enough to burst the first layer of his eardrums. The second layer went when he wedged it deeper, and booted the flat side of the stave, levering her already ruined spine into two loose pieces entirely.
Mirrorhead said to break her body. Well, who was he to leave a job half-finished?
The enforcers in the first row were silent, their faces ashen. A mixture of horror and triumph rained down on him from the spectators as he proceeded to the next component of his mutilation.
An ear.
He plunged a claw into her softest tissue, and when he found something that clung to him, he pulled. Ropes of the prolapsed organ came spooling out of her with each tug. Her lungs carried the weight of agony louder than the heavy metal still blasting from the speakers.
Above, he heard the announcer call out for the fight to end, that he had won, that there was no need for this. Avo heard her. Avo didnt care. Drove his claws into her face, carving around her optics as he worked to finish her blinding. By this point, Rantula was whispering faint pleas of mercy.
He flipped her over so that her working ear was facing him.
Im in your mind, Avo whispered. Going to be there. Always. When you close your eyes. When you look at a reflection. Thats Mirrorhead. But when you dream. Thats Me. He tore an optic free from her face. Always and forever me.
He was rearing back to take another one of her eyes when he heard a sound. A crackle of debris to his side, fifteen feet toward the moat. The father had crawled past them and was making for the electric field. Dust and blood trailed behind him in a smear.
Avo struggled to stop himself from hurting Rantula more.
Brutalized, beaten, broken. The fool was trying to fry himself. Most of Avo didnt care. The part that belonged to Walton couldnt let it happen. Not until the man was clear of mind to choose self-termination properly.
Oh, how he wanted to finish Rantula. Kill her. Take one last echo and manifest his Hell. How he wanted to spit in Mirrorheads face and leave this place. But he knew better. Knew to be patient. Knew that before he could ever escape, the Syndicate boss would need to be dead and devoured.
Avo was not going to spend the rest of his life fearing every reflection he came across.
You live now, Avo whispered to Rantula. Live. But never heal. Not inside. You see me again, eyes stay on the floor. Like a dog. Heel. Dog. Heel.
He shoved her head down and cracked the tiles beneath her, leaving her sobbing there amidst the detritus.
Staggering and limping, he trudged behind the father as his flesh continued to mend.
Wait, Avo said. Wait. The father kept crawling. Avo tried firing his Celerostylus, but the pain blooming through his nerves was too much. Three feet between the flowing arcs of electricity and the man. Ten between Avo and the man. He wouldnt close the distance in time. Essus!
The man stopped and turned to look at Avo. You know? You know my name?
Avo nodded. The field cut out. I know.
The fatherEssus stared. Do you know my sons name?
What was the answer to this question?
No?
I dont care.
What would Walton say?
Tell me? Avo asked. You can tell me.
Essus blinked and let out a breath. Aurrie. His name iswas Aurrie.
He too, then, joined in Rantulas example and began to sob. He held himself and shivered.
Avo exhaled. His mind felt numb. His body felt frail. His insides felt hungry.
Looking back up the decks, the enforcers were half-standing in outrage, half-silent with indecision, and all too cowed by Mirrorheads presence to do anything about the ghoul that had brutalized one of their own.
Exhausted, Avo stumbled over and pointed out at someone random. A random girl in the first deck.
You, Avo said. The enforcer was young, with gleaming ebony skin and metal stilts for legs. The other enforcers around her inched away, leaving a space around her. It was like he cursed her.
Me, she pointed to herself. He could barely hear her voice from so far down.
Yes, Avo said. He gestured weakly at Essus. Get him medical assistance. He shot a glare at Rantula. And a mop for her. Then, show me where cafeteria is. Hungry. Hurt. Need food.
She mustve been a genius among her comrades because she wasted no time doing what he told her to.
It was good to be feared.
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