12 Miles Below

I rose back up on my feet - only to get shoved backwards as another metal spike struck the center of my chest. I could see the blinding flicker of blue as Journey’s ancient shields flared to life, breaking the blow’s bite. Still, the force carried me back to the floor with no mercy.

“Warning. Shields low.” Journey chimed in my ear. Scrapshit. These things were too gods damned fast to react against. How the scrap does Father do it?!

Unless... he doesn’t.

If they were too fast to react against, maybe what he was doing was predicting them ahead of time. Given Journey’s shields, I wouldn’t be able to tank that many more direct hits so it was all or nothing.

Once more, I stood back up, and this time I twisted to the side, blindly. Whistling passed right by my helmet’s side.

Scraps, I had dodged a shot. I took a few steps and dove to the side erratically. The spike still struck home, though clearly off center as I felt my shoulder jerk backwards. Journey didn’t flare it’s shield for that one, letting the armor take the glancing hit. I saw parts of the gold ornaments break off but the damage was otherwise superficial.

The turret remained eerily leveled, the long barrel stabilized despite the wild movements of the spider under it. And it was clear the spider was having a fight for its life with the amount of motion going on.

I was onto something, only I didn’t have the agility to pull it off like Father did. Except I didn’t need Father’s agility. I had an intelligent armor that could move for me.

Time to cheat and put my thumb on the scale. “Journey! A little help here?”

“Specify query.” Journey said as I threw myself flat on the floor again to avoid another spike. My impromptu ‘dodge’ worked this time, with the spike flying above my head. The intervals between fire seemed consistent.

“Anything you can do to make me fight better in close range?? Or help me dodge those things automatically?!” I said, rolling to the right, exiting into a sideways sprint.

“Options available. Combat system can auto-correct movements. Warning: User may be injured. Administrator override required.”

Another spike sailed by as I changed directions mid-sprint, using my gut to tell when the shots were coming. “Yeah that’s fine, just do it!”

“Administrator override confirmed. Lowering priority to emergency only. Releasing safety locks. Loading module... Combat module, online.”

I didn’t feel any different. That is up until another spike flew right at me while I was distracted.

The suit instantly twisted my shoulders sideways for me, narrowly avoiding the shot across my breastplate. I could swear I even saw the few fractions of a second that the spike flew by the chestplate, small sparks flying off.

It felt like someone had grabbed my entire back, neck and shoulders then twisted everything violently to the left. There wasn’t any pain, probably because of the pain inhibitor drug that was still pumping through my system - but I certainly felt my muscles stretch hard against the shift.

Just as fast as the override had come, I was free again. Disoriented but free. I took the cue and charged forward again with more confidence this time, knife in hand, though keeping it off. Didn’t want to stab myself by accident if I got sent out for more flying lessons.

Father and the spider had been focused on each other in the meantime, stuck in a deadly duel.

Small cuts had started to form around the automaton’s legs, battle damage accumulated from the fray. The occult knife would bite down on the ceramic limbs, cutting straight for important sections with unerring accuracy. Limbs that seemed to have escaped the reach of the knife would be sliced by a longsword with surprising range.

Each attack could have easily severed the whole limb - if the automaton had not been reacting as fast as Father was moving. It was barely keeping pace however, always pulling the limb away seconds before those blades could find something important.

And in seconds I’d be among the fight, breaking that delicate balance of power.

I dove into the spider’s range of attack, preparing for the creature to try and throw me back again. The creature lashed out as I expected. A quick, panicked response to clearing me out of the way as fast as it could before Father overwhelmed it.

I tried to duck and slide under the hit like Father had done on his initial approach. A second later realized my attempt would fail - the creature had remembered and learned from this already. The sweeping attack it sent out was lower and the spider had already corrected itself to strike even lower. Before I could even think about my possible recovery options, Journey twisted my legs back into a crouch, stopping all my forward motion onto the heels of my boots. It leaped upwards immediately after, bleeding the built up rotational energy into a midair roll.

The attacking swipe flew right under me. Journey had made the right call.

Again, it felt like an unstoppable force had seized every part of my legs and forced me to move like a puppet. My chest and arms were locked in the correct pose for the leap, which brought a sense of claustrophobia, followed quickly by disorientation as the unexpected jump didn’t sync with my running rhythm. I hit the ground and fumbled, turning it into another roll from sheer training reflex.

I came out of that roll disoriented and attacking like a rabid animal, no plan other than to strike. The knife in my hand lit up with a bright blue edge and I slashed out almost blindly at the nearest limb, only getting an inch of the blade into the target.

The limb withdrew with quick jerky motions. I hounded after it, brandishing my knife, slashing into the air. Each time it moved its limbs away from my range.

Was this effective? Not in the least. That wasn't the point. I wasn’t aiming for a solid hit, my own skills were on a far lower level then this thing. Instead, each time it had to defend itself against me, I’d force it to divert attention away from the true threat. I wasn't a solider, my job was support. And by the gods, I'd do my part.

A low hissing started to come from the creature. It’s behavior seemed to change from one of smug triumph to... fear. I think the full predicament it had placed itself into was dawning on it.

It remembered the first lesson it had learned: Father was not an opponent you could afford to forget about.

And here I was, a gnat in the proverbial house, forcing it to commit one of its five limbs to hold me back lest I start cutting important bits. Leaving it with only three to hold itself up, and one to hold off Father. If it still had six arms, it might have been able to do more, but with five, resources were limited. And it hadn’t anticipated the upgrades we’d acquired.

I sliced my knife through thin air, but overswung. Another limb speared out, attempting to skewer me through my armor. Journey twisted me again with a violent last second jerk. The stab skidded across my breastplate, the blue shielding flaring up and deflecting the blow away. I could hear a deep set of cracks, but it didn’t come from the armor - it sounded too muted, like it had come from within me.

“Alert.” Journey said. “Rib cage fractures detected.” Ah. This is what Journey meant by damage - the armor could easily break my bones or tear a muscle if it moved counter to my own motions at the wrong moment. And given how frantic combat was, there'd be too many chances to roll snake eyes.

Tsuya save me, was this what relic knights had to deal with? These fights were too fast to follow. At least we were making progress. That attempt to skewer me had cost the machine.

A lifelong disciple of war, Father was absolutely relentless. He gave the creature no quarter, each move methodical and practiced. A slice of blades always followed each dodge without fail. The spider’s attacks failed again and again. Each swing would cost it. Each stab would be narrowly missed. Each feint countered. Father moved mechanically, as if victory was a foregone conclusion. That the only thing left was executing the right amount of strikes and dodges until the spider made an error that it couldn’t recover from.

So the creature made the only rational choice left: It gave up on the dream to murder us and tried to run instead.

The machine screamed in rage and slammed it’s full body down hard on the bridge, causing cracks and fissures to snap out as the concrete shattered. Parts of its own ceramic armor had snapped from the hit, but the damage was done.

Father didn’t have time to yell out a warning, the bridge crumbled apart, taking all of us down with it.

I lost track of our target in the falling rubble, too disoriented in the fall. The void yawned below us, easily fitting all the broken chunks of the bridge.

My headlights quickly caught a glance at what lay at the bottom. A massive river of water, churning even more as the first bits of the broken bridge collapsed into the water. I braced myself, not knowing what to expect next. Preparing for cold and pain.

I didn’t feel anything as the armor plunged into the water. Belatedly, I remembered relic armor was vacuum sealed.

The river picked us up and threw us into the churn. I was spun, slammed around into the rocks, and all I could see was bubbles and illuminated darkness. Occasionally rocks passed by my view, the headlights showing details only for a moment before they passed. Up or down lost meaning, my balance had been completely shot. The only thing on my mind was to clench my right hand as hard as I could - I can’t afford to lose that knife in this turmoil.

Panic welled up inside until I heard Father’s clear voice in my helmet. “Stay calm, boy. Relic armor is airtight and shielded. You won't drown and a few impacts won’t damage the armor.”

I flailed around, out of control, but he was right that I wasn’t dying or being hurt by any of the impacts against the rock walls.

“Stabilize yourself. The armor will sink us to the bottom soon enough. We’ll find a place to regroup.”

I felt the ground first on my left shoulderblade, and quickly found myself rolling on the riverbed as the water continued to force me forward. With a bit more control, I twisted myself so that my feet followed the direction of the current, the heels grinding two trails into the loose sand.

Ahead, I saw a dim headlight illuminated the underwater stream. Father’s. He must have gone further downstream than I did.

“I see you, boy.” He said over the comms. “Hang on.” The light in the depths turned, and then grew nearer.

A surge threw me off my feet, rolling me over on my back and putting me into a lopsided spin. I almost overshot him. His hand whipped out, catching my own stretched out arm in a death grip.I returned the favor, holding tight to him too.

The current continued to drag us, but now I was getting a much better sense of the river bottom, my feet touching down sporadically. We were still going in one direction, but at least there wasn’t that disorientation.

“We’ll be fine.” Father said, already taking perfect bouncing steps to keep himself both upright and in control against a tumble. “Take deep breaths.”

“The spider,” I gasped out. “It’s out here too!”

“If it had followed us here, the river would be a disadvantage to it. The turret would be useless and its own attacks slowed. We, on the other hand, don't need to strike hard or fast. The blades will cut through the creature no matter the speed. The monster knows that. I would guess it has burrowed into the riverbed while we were swept downstream.”

The stream continued to yank us wildly, but now with Father’s help, I was getting the hang of those large floating steps we were taking. Up until a set of rocks blocked our path. We hit those hard, and Father’s hand pushed my chest down into the riverbed, reducing the surface area and giving me more control again.

The water continued to surge over us, but our feet were planted firmly on the lip of the rockbed, with our backs down against the riverbed. We were finally stopped and had a moment to breath.

I could hear panting over the comms. Couldn’t be sure if they were my own or Fathers. Probably both of us.

“Gods, I didn’t think that thing would chase after us.” I said.

His headlights illuminated the water, moving back and forth. “Neither did I.” Father said. “All the fireteams I’ve been on, we’ve never retreated from a nest before. This is the first time I’ve seen what happens in a draw.”

“Think it’ll keep chasing us?”

“I don’t know everything, boy. What I know is that their behavior was always greedy, often fighting among themselves if a target was exposed or vulnerable. In a fight they are defense focused, skittish almost. When we fought it, the other spiders didn’t interfere, they clustered around to watch me fight. I’m not sure if they have some sort of code or if that creature has marked us as property. It isn’t out of the possibilities that it still continues to chase after us, even knowing we outmatch it.”

I took a moment to think, trying to put myself in the creature's shoes. Think like it would. Find out hints to see what it might do next.

The rock cave-ins. The trap. The way it had cleared off the sides of the bridge so that we’d have no cover ahead of time. It had even thought to bring a turret on its back. Not to mention it had considered a backup plan, likely weakening the bridge ahead of time in case it needed to retreat.

This thing was smart. What had been its full plan? The spikes wouldn’t have slowed Father for long… So they were meant for me. With just my environmental suit, and the lack of cover, I’d have been killed like a goat within the first few seconds of the fight.

From there, it likely had assumed it could batter past Father’s defense since the last time the creature had seen us, Father’s left arm was out of commission.

The plan it had come up with was solid. It only failed because it had been based on outdated information. Something it couldn’t have guessed ahead of time.

The creature was smart. It knew it couldn’t beat us in a straight fight anymore, whatever plan it came up with next, it’ll be built on current information.

“You said they are greedy, right?” I asked.

The headlights shook confirmation. “As far as I’ve seen how they behave outside of combat. I’ve never seen them out of their nests and into the wild like this.” He said.

“Then we should assume the little monster will chase after us. And it’ll have to come up with a better plan for the next round. This time around it found us because it knew we were going up. Do these creatures have other ways of tracking us down?”

“If I knew how they find us, we’d be planning ahead for those tactics from the very start.” Father said flatly.

Oh. Duh. If we didn't know exactly how the creature could find us, then maybe we could take a guess at it. I had to think through how this creature would view the situation. If it were me, knowing I couldn’t defeat my enemies anymore with firepower, then I’d fallback on the second best plan: use the environment. “If it can’t beat us in a straight fight, my guess is that it will try to separate us somehow, or lay a trap to do the work for it.”

“Aye. We will need vigilance. It is possible the machine’s programming only allows it to leave a certain range of the nest, or that it will only attempt to give chase once. But we can’t rely on that.”

“Yeah, but before all that, we need to find a way out of this chasm.”

At that father stood up in the darkness, water now trying to force him downstream. “That part won’t be an issue. There are underground lakes everywhere, this river must lead to one. Keep an eye for the shoreline. Are you ready?”

I stood up after him, and together we jumped off the bedrock, letting the water carry us further down.

We’d been washed downstream for possibly ten more minutes before shorelines started to populate the sides. By then the stream had died down from a torrent to more of a mellow ride. Which ended with a waterfall into a far more tranquil lake.

My stomach lurched as we fell off the waterfall into the lake, the relic armor absorbing the impact with no issues. We sank like rocks down into the depths of the lake. On hitting the bottom, Father and I began to march our way back up the banks, onto the shoreline. The relic armor ripped through the water, powerful enough that even the murky depths weren’t doing much to slow our march.

In moments, water streamed off my armor as we emerged from the lake onto what felt like rocky sand.

We’d found ourselves still underground of course. And with an interesting view. Half of the cave wall on the other side simply wasn’t there, instead showing a full view over the pseudo city we’d left hours ago. This was a cliff cut into the mountains of sorts, and clearly naturally - the cut seemed like a straight line right through, as if the city had a massive invisible cube that cut the surrounding mountains.

It caught me speechless. Lights twinkled across the empty city, like stars in the sky.

Old broken down mite-built buildings lined the area around us, right up to the edge of the cliff. The architecture of these buildings was starkly different, more like welded metal put together in more circular shapes than the square concrete of the abandoned city. No mites anywhere here, this might have been a previous city that existed before the teal mites had moved in.

I could see lights still working in these new buildings. Not the artificial mite ones, real honest to the gods light bulb lighting. Cloth and tapestries draped around these buildings, tent-like for some. Almost as if this had been somewhere people lived in.

Father surfaced after me, water crashing off the frame of his armor. He didn’t gawk around like I did, instead he checked his supplies to verify everything had made it. A soldier to the bone, his priorities had sight-seeing dead last.

“Status,” He barked out at me.

I checked through my own supplies to confirm I hadn’t lost anything in the crash. This would have been a disaster if I were still in my environmental suit. Those absolutely weren’t made to be submerged underwater. If I hadn’t drowned in the river, I’d be dead of hypothermia soon enough. Everything on my belt had survived, even the first aid kit. A check inside showed all the contents perfectly dry. Those kits were a lot more airsealed than I had thought.

“Journey, how far off course did we go?” I asked.

“Additional three miles have been added between the current location and expedition search party.” The armor chimed in response.

“Ratshit.”

“Could be worse.” Father said gruffly. “Winterscar to search-party, come in.”

The comms crackled for a moment, but then a voice blessedly answered back. “This is Atius, report.”

“Had a run in with an automaton that knocked us off a bridge. We’ve been setback.”

“Copy. We’ve run into a few on our own, but are still making good progress. Can you still make it to the meeting point?”

“This area of the city might have an elevator, we’re going to investigate to see if there’s a way to return to the same level. If so we’ll be able to continue our path in your general direction.”

“Timebox it to thirty minutes and then we’ll reconsider options.”

“Understood. Winterscar out.”

The comms clicked shut.

Father strode up to one of these buildings. He stayed quiet for a moment, hanging by the walls. "That was your first combat encounter as a knight. You... you did good this fight." He said. "Your skills have massively improved. I haven't seen someone master armor this fast. Quick enough to dodge attacks from a spider with only a few hours of experience."

On reflex, I tried to scratch the back of my head sheepishly. The armor made that a moot point. "Uhh, about that. Not exactly my skills per se. I had Journey take over dodging for me."

"Relic armors can do that?" He said, stunned for a moment. Then his left hand opened and closed a few times as he rose it up, glancing down to it. A small chuckle escaped his lips. "Of couse they can. You are full of suprises, boy."

"It's the good old time honored tradition of our House; finding any way to cheat. I only got more creative and applied it to combat."

He walked by, patting my shoulder gruffly. "Whichever manner you've chosen to apply your skills, it's helped turn the tide of that battle. Don't ignore that. Had the creature not had a plan to escape, it would be dead at our feet."

It was a moment of awkwardness between us. I didn't know what to say, and he clearly didn't either. Instead he drew his hand back and continued to examine the surroundings as if this moment hadn't happened.

“I recognize this building's architecture.” He said. “The last city that had this also had mechanical infrastructure. A lot of it.”

“Those elevators you mentioned?”

“Aye. And since there’s lights here, then this part of the city has power.” He gazed over the lake, where more of the city lay.

Unlike the concrete one, this metal city looked like a complete mess of buildings stacked against each other in any way that fit, with wide and winding streets. If there were elevators in that metal jungle, I don't know if I'd trust them. "Journey, know anything about this area?"

"Negative. All logged maps are out of date and no longer match the landscape."

"Any way to scan around for it? Might speed us up." If we can get our hands on some map, we'd go through here faster. Last time we'd found a terminal that held a map. Maybe we could make do without that?

Father shook his head. "Active scanning is a last resort option. It lights a torch in the dark, everyone around will see you.”

Ah. And we weren't out of danger yet. Not by a long shot. And not with a possible angry spider plotting vengeance somewhere behind us.