I have to lead off with a steady flow of vitae to my brain and body just to be able to run through all this mess. These caves were never intended for human traversal and there’s no money or interest in making them conform. They’re untamed. Fields of jagged stone fangs and molars. One wrong step and my ankles are a jigsaw puzzle. I’ve gathered up enough reserve vitae over the last couple days (tanks at 13%, enough for maybe one full-body charge) that it wouldn’t stop me, but it’d slow me down for a minute while the bones cinch back together and I stop for nothing. I stomp down the hill, jumping over fallen stone columns and sprinting through the dark.

At first I can hear Rocky behind me - he’s not very fast, but his footfalls are catastrophic and almost perfectly metered. BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM. From the shattering noises I also gather that he doesn’t really bother with moving around all the stalagmites. I’m going almost as fast as I can without opening up the special sauce valve, so the sound of him fades behind me fast.

The most direct path through Clocktower Cavern to the northeast exit will take me right through one of the shantytowns. Between me and Rocky we’ll be the star of our own topside monster story in about a week. I charge through what could vaguely be called the main “street”, heading right around all the plaswood shacks, bonfires, lamps, and grimy faces in the shadows. No one gets in my way. If anyone realized they were in my way, they got out of it. You don’t stand in front of an 800 pound slab moving at fifteen miles an hour unless you’re deeply dissatisfied with your current bone arrangement.

Out of the firelight and back into the dark jagged distance again. Run, run, run. Heart rate is starting to pick up. Sweat collecting, but at this speed it can’t stay on me for long. I’m not much of a marathoner, but genetic modification, magic, and a career of chasing people has led to pretty decent stamina, especially for someone of my size. Hopefully it holds long enough at this speed that I can run this fucker down and have it all over with.

As I enter into the yawning throat of the exit tunnel, I very wish that Rocky wasn’t moving at about half my speed. All I know is that if I go this way, I might run into the perp. I execute a (very dextrous and impressive) vault over a waist-high rockfall. Wind in my ears. The ground here is less cluttered - I can afford to check the spectral readouts mid-sprint. Anything. Any indication that this thing is giving off emissions that I can detect and follow.

Nope. Just the same emitter noise. The Brotherhood are screaming and screaming, and this thing is dead silent. We’re flying blind. Mother and Father, if you’re paying attention to this shit, don’t let your boy down now. A lot of people need this win.

Tunnel winds left, then right, then left again, snaking through the earth. The walls are smooth and it’s mostly clear - people come through here a lot. I dash through it all. Then there’s the exit.

I get spat out into an impressive junction cavern. Dead ahead, there’s a dropoff. Sheer cliff going off down into who knows where. There’s a wall way out there across the chasm, but no way over, unless you’ve got a pressurized reel projector or wings. Dangerous to come here if you can’t break the dark. To the left, near the edge, I can see another tunnel that comes in from the west. And to my right-

There. There you are.

A flapping cloak. Legs in confident, powerful stride, the sound of heavy armored boots clanging in tight rhythm on the stones. Hooded head. Hard to make out any more details in the gray-green muck of night vision, through the distance.

No vitae at all.

“Stop, fucker!”

The fucker does not stop. The fucker instead disappears down the throat of that far tunnel, into the waiting dark. Out of my vision. It’s fast as hell. I whip out the splat gun from a snap reel cinched to my flank, aim for the longest instant I can stand, and fire three shots in rapid succession. Menu over to the beacon tracker software.

Nothing, static signals. Fuck. Need to get closer. Time to get spicy.

I let that five-alarm sauce into my blood and crank the engine to twenty miles an hour. Liquid light floods my heart and lungs. No normal person could hope to run this fast. In half the city I’d get a ticket stuck to my forehead for breaking the speed limit. If they could catch me. I’m a one-man stampede. I fly through the dark, my boots pounding a heavy staccato beat. My heart is a hunting drum in my chest. I’m coming for you. I am going to-

Where is that chill coming from. From-

Oh you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

I look up.

The wall on my right is another cliff. And from it descends a familiar creature. Jumps from the stone ledge and crashes down right in my path like a falling piledriver. I skid to a literally screeching halt, the plates on my boots kicking up sparks. One hand to my sword.

Krint Seagraves lifts his massive steel fists from the splintered earth and stands to his full height, his red ocular gleaming in the dark. He shakes off the impact, rolling his artificial shoulder plates. Arcs of hissing electricity ripple across the surface conductors as he does, throwing wild flashes of white light in all directions.

Four of his black-armored cronies rappel down the cliff and join at his flanks. It’s hard to tell from the masks, but they look winded. They’ve been doing a lot of running. They’ve all got guns. Not punch guns, either, these are the kind that shoot bullets. Evil little submachine guns that can fill a hallway with leaden hellfire in a fragment of a second. No more pulled punches, no more little fucky games. They’re playing for every chip in the pile this time.

I can see that Seagraves has had some further modifications since we last saw one another. The plates on his arms and the synthetic muscle mesh in his chest have a different kind of shine to them. Probably a literal electrorepellent non-stick coating to stop me from gluing him to the floor again. I hope they put some on his ass, for when I spank it so hard I can fry an egg in a few minutes. There are also some interesting cylindrical things on the outside of his wrists, and some extra bulk on his back.

I’ve seen that mechanism before.

Seagraves sets his shoulders and levels his gaze at me. He has no expression. Just that impassive wall of ice behind his eyes.

“Stand down, Featherlight. Go home.”

“Fuck you. People’s lives are at stake. Get out of my way.”

He raises a fist at me.

I have just barely enough time to flash and swing my sword around to block the front of my body.

A line of harpooned steel cable fires from the projector in his wrist and clanks harmlessly off my broad bloodstone shield. But that’s not all. A shredding charge of electricity shrieks from Seagraves’s back and through the cable for a blinding moment. The wire explodes before it can even hit the ground, unable to withstand the current running through it. There’s a sound like a discharged cannon, and flecks of liquid metal splatter off in all directions. A couple of them land on my arm and it hurts like an almighty motherfucker fuck fuck fuck shit fuck.

Don’t panic. Set the vitae to work. Heal. Work through it. Claw your way out.

Seagrave’s wrist clanks and hisses. Pulleys re-reel more wire. A rising electric whine. Repressurizing, recharging for another shot. What a fucking evil weapon. Ingenious, but evil, and an obvious bastardization of something that Tennima intended only for use in sport. Against other robots.

The four soldier boys aim their guns at me. I’ve been shot more times than most people in this city. I’m no stranger to pain. I’m a tough piece of meat. But… I don’t know if I can just shoulder through four submachine guns’ worth of bullets all at once. I don’t think my body has enough room for all that lead.

Seagraves rumbles, “Live to fight another day, Featherlight. Be smart.”

See… that’s the thing, isn’t it.

I crunch the tip of my sword onto the ground and sigh, like I’m thinking about giving up. Which I… might be. I don’t know. Even the fact that I’m considering backing down is a bad sign, but… I’ve said it before. I’m not a hero. Maybe it would be smart to walk away, come back at this from a different angle, regroup and rethink my approach. They’ve got the guns, they’ve got the tech, but I’ve got brains, right? I can outsmart them later.

Sigh.

My hands unsnap the scabbard’s securing straps. One. Then the other. I haul the gleaming, mesmerizing metallic feather out from its home with a single sweeping upward motion. The stone scabbard falls over, before finally hitting the ground with a slam. I bring the glittering blade in front of me in both hands, looking past it to Seagraves’s half-iron face.

I’m not smart.

To my mild surprise, Seagraves nods at me, very slightly. Maybe a sign of respect from one professional to another. An understanding. One of us dies here tonight. May death go to he who earns it.

I see him open his mouth to tell his men to fire.

But another voice cuts him off.

“Supreme!”

Seagraves frowns. The gunners break alignment and aim their guns in all directions, looking for whoever it is.

“Sublime!”

There’s a great rumbling, coming from everywhere and nowhere. The left. The chasm. Something down in the depths is rattling the entire cavern.

“UnSTOPPABLE!”

I think I know that voice. Louder now. And it takes every single ounce of my willpower to continue looking cool and determined instead of smiling in surprise.

A massive geyser of water explodes from out of the deep. It’s an entire cistern’s worth, a wall of fluid gushing from the depths and into the air like the death of the world’s largest fire hydrant. The roar of its ascent is nearly deafening. The mercenaries turn to behold the deluge erupting out of the dark below. Seagraves makes a facial expression.

I can see vitae. There’s a familiar bubbly wash of color in the middle of that oncoming flood. An odd little man. I can hardly fucking believe it, but I have never been happier to see him in my life.

“Delpo Dellweather’s signature…”

His voice fills the entire cavern. It may as well be the voice of the Dark River itself.

“HYDRO HAMMERRRRRRR!”

The water comes down, all at once. A brutal tidal wave, like ten thousand high-pressure fists. The sound is unbelievable, like a waterfall coming down from a mile high.

It probably really sucks to be on the receiving end of this, but I wouldn’t know. I’m over here. And they are over there. They should really know better than to stand in the way of an exploding dam.

The deluge crashes into the mercenaries and deletes them from existence. It’s a thirty-foot wall of water, I can’t see a damn thing. Even from my respectful distance I have to set my stance and grab my scabbard off the ground, to stop it from getting washed away.

The sound quiets, and the river drains back. At its height the water came up to my knees.

Delpo’s over there standing on the edge of the cliff, the tide having deposited him right where he wanted. He’s got his hands on his hips like some kind of weird action figure, looking very proud of himself. I’m assuming. The guy has a porthole for a face.

Two of the gunners are just gone. I can’t feel their vitae anywhere. Taken down below by the dark current. One of them is crumpled up against the cliff wall, probably dead. Hard to avoid getting your neck snapped when you’re smashed into a wall of rock at almost a hundred miles an hour. The fourth guy, surprisingly, is trying to stand up, but he can’t get his legs under him, and all the guns have been swept away.

Seagraves is still standing there. Barely moved a step backward. He uncrosses his arms from in front of his face and looks at Delpo with refrigerated death in his eye. Hard to wash away something that weighs more than half a ton, even if you borrow a whole river to do it. Something happens with his implants. There’s a rising hum, and a few of the plates start to glow an angry red. Steam begins to rise off of him in gouts. Smart - he’s got heating elements so he can dry himself out.

Noticing that there’s still more work to be done, Delpo waves his rubber-and-brass arms around in a weird exaggerated pattern, and a great wash of the loose water everywhere sweeps across the stones and gathers on him. It picks him up and sets him down by my side, then rushes into a clear sphere, with the hydromancer in the center of the orb.

Delpo takes a fighting stance.

A number of tentacles burst from the surface of the water ball, and roil around him like great serpents.

I’ve got my sword reunited and held defensively in front of me. “Delpo, where the fuck-”

His voice is bubbly and wavering, but it comes through the water just fine.

“I’ve been following you!”

“... Oh.”

“You are very easy to follow! Look at all these people that found you already! But that’s not important. Run! After that whoever that was!”

The tip of one of the water tentacles turns into a cartoon hand and points at Seagraves, who does not look very happy.

“You there, knave of iron! You may rest well. Your task is all but done, and your fate sealed! For now… THE OCTOPUS SHALL BE YOUR OPPONENT!” He strikes a very dramatic pose.

Seagraves fires a shock cable at Delpo before I can even react.

The currents in the orb of water swell and writhe, and the severed cable just washes off to the side harmlessly.

Delpo barks in reply, “You are not a very good listener!”

I make a move forward to try and get running, but Seagraves isn’t having it. He fires at me with his other arm. I only barely catch the movement of his arm and lunge backward, turning to try and catch the metal spray on my coat instead of my skin. Delpo helpfully runs one of the cool liquid tentacles down my back, which is an extremely weird sensation that I don’t think I want to experience again.

The whirling currents around Delpo accelerate angrily, and the little man in the diving suit changes his stance. He jabs an arm forward. A huge battering ram of water bursts from the orb and smashes into Seagraves’s chest. That would have blasted any normal person twenty feet backward, but not this big clanker. It pushes him back a little bit, but he’s still got his feet.

He takes a step forward, steaming from his plates, electrical arcs crackling all over. I’ll give it to the Brotherhood, the guy’s implants are really well-insulated.

If I let the valve wide open, leave it all on the rocks. I might be able to overpower him with Delpo’s help and get down that fucking tunnel before it’s too late. Hell, it might be already. But we’ve got to try.

boom boom boom boom

Y’know… I had very nearly forgotten.

Boom Boom Boom Boom

Kind of silly of me, honestly.

Delpo turns around to see what the hell is making that pounding noise behind us. Seagraves looks even less happy than he was a few seconds ago, which is extremely funny to me because he’s all wet. He looks like a cat that just fell in the bath.

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM-

Rocky comes thudding into the chamber with his halberd held in front of him, ready to fight, like we’re on some ancient battlefield and he’s leading the charge. Delpo’s helmet turns toward me inquisitively.

“He’s uh, with us.”

Delpo shrugs. He’s an accepting kind of guy.

Rocky doesn’t even stop. I don’t think there’s any force in the universe that could stop him. He crashes right past us and bears down on Seagraves like a human-shaped landslide.

Seagraves fires another cable at Rocky. It doesn’t do shit, just clanks off the golem’s armor like he’d flown a kite into a brick wall.

“PREPARE TO BE REMOVED FROM THE PATH OF JUSTICE.”

Seagraves winds back and punches Rocky square in the solar plexus with a steaming iron fist.

There’s a shockwave that I can feel from all the way over here. Rocky stops dead in his tracks. Okay, so I guess the Brotherhood’s best tech and a hell of a lot of weight can stop him.

Then I see Rocky’s helmet angle down slightly. Meeting Seagraves’s eye.

“STRONG. BUT NOT STRONG ENOUGH.”

He brings his axe blade down. Seagraves catches the pole on his wrist and bats it aside, hopping backwards out of range of another swing. The halberd’s blade crashes to the floor and sends stone chips buzzing like wasps in all directions.

Delpo takes a step forward and smashes him with another water pillar, giggling like a goblin.

Rocky says to me, “RUN, MR. FEATHERLIGHT. WE WILL KEEP THIS ONE OCCUPIED.”

I don’t waste any time. I pump the vitae up, get some speed into my blood, and charge forward, sword over my shoulder. Seagraves catches my movements out of the corner of my eye and tries to fire another lightning harpoon at me, but Rocky elbow smashes his arm upward and the shot goes way wide. He tries to disengage from Rocky and run after me, but Delpo sweeps his legs with a tentacle and he almost goes over on his ass.

I’m like a meaty freight rig now. I yell back, “Thanks for the assist, fellas!” and I’m off down the tunnel like nothing ever happened.