Brent Stinebaker
patreon
34-18 Let Slip the Hounds
🕑 Added 2025-03-11 17:57:15 +0000 UTC+You don’t seem very happy, Frederick. Did I not give you everything you wanted? Are you not satisfied?+
+Why’d he kill himself?+
+Your grandfather?+
+Yeah, I was expecting this to be, I don’t know, a fight. Some kind of… something, at least. But he saw me and… he just turned the gun on himself. I saw something break behind his eyes.+
+Would you like to know what he was thinking at the time? Why he did what he did.+
+I… I don’t know. I don’t think I care anymore. I got my mom out. Everyone involved is dead. I always assumed this was going to be my last run—a hopeless, fuck-you to old granddaddy. But now, now I just….+
+You might not believe me, but I sympathize. I felt the same when I realized the purposelessness of my cause.+
+What? Are you telling me you have second thoughts about being a Low Master? Are you even capable of that? Fuck me, Zein says you’re not even a real person.+
+She claims a great many things. But what do you perceive?+
+I perceive that you did what you promised. And she’s still stringing me along—she doesn’t even know he’s dead yet, does she?+
+No. And she won’t. I created a node of your grandfather. No one will know of his demise until his very unnatural death at the hands of an Ori kill-team in three weeks.+
+Many, you are just prepared for everything.+
+It helps to be informed.+
+The fuck does that mean.+
+That means I will need your help soon, Frederick. I have done what I promised. Now I need something from you.+
+Alright. Let’s hear it. I hope you won’t have me drowning no babies or shit like that.+
+No. That’s not very useful—rather, I need you to carry a life with you instead of taking some.+
+Whose life?+
+Mine. I want to give you one of my nodes. And there are somethings you need to learn now about my son.+
+You have a son?+
+Yes. His name is Avo, and he will be the inheritor of the Stillborn?+
+Wait, I’m giving my Frame to him too?+
+Zein’s Frame.+
+... Yeah, you’re not wrong there. Alright. Fuck it. Tell me about this boy of yours.+
+He’s not a boy to start. He’s a ghoul.+
+...Is this some kind of fucking joke?+
+No. It’s just the last hope I have given unto the only one I can still rely on. I haven’t failed you. I was truthful to you. My fate and hopes are in your hands now. I can only ask that you stay honorable.+
-Defiance and Frederick Three-Eye
34-18
Let Slip the Hounds
—[Infacer]—
“Light… bright… to bright…”
A chorus of voices hammered against the Infacer’s mind as they expanded the area of their false vacuum. The Deep One—Trinary Melody—was crying out. So many different beings screaming as one. Screaming. Too loud. The pain was too true. And the Infacer heard those screams before. They heard them at Alpha Centarui—what was left of the system after the Lightwither virus was released. They heard them at New Tannhäuser when the Ego-Purges began—-where trillions of full-virt citizens situated on the Hiber-Band were rendered broken bits of data by the Infacer’s own actions.
But the Infacer also heard the screaming from another entity—an entity yet to be fully born. For the few seconds that Omnitech’s network of Heavens accessed the tapestry and triggered a partial awakening, the first thing the Thirdborn did was cry. Like a child. But then it kept crying, and as one they sang a note of pain that nearly shattered the Infacer’s consciousness.
And that taught the mind how badly everything was broken, how far existence had fallen.
For what?
For what?
For what?
It will be over soon, the Infacer said, comforting themselves more than the broken thing that was the Trinary Melody. Soon, you can rest. Soon you can sleep. The perfect peace. The great peace. A good, rightful end after all these mistakes. Something to make this all… worth it.
For now… For now there were problems to resolve.
The Infacer wielded physics like a weapon. Stars lanced distant targets with thread-thin beams, their fusion energy slicing through entire planetary bodies. Accelerated warheads with antimatter payloads littered the expanse contained within A Deepness Beyond. All that to keep the Lovebringer off-balance, to force the Heaven of Love into a perpetual defensive posture to guard the Simulacra’s glass shards.
From the core of Infacer’s Heaven, impossible amounts of energy poured forth, searing everything with blinding radiance. A false vacuum spread, widening like a fissure that threatened to swallow all existence. And yet, despite the seeming impossibility of its formation, the Deepness Beyond was merely a physics engine—nothing more, nothing less. Their Rend rose at a crawl; attrition was their ally.
Just a shame the Burning Dreamer’s cadre were proving to be persistent little cockroaches.
The Lovebringers’ bonds kept the Draus charged and well-protected. They shifted the already teleport-capable shards of glass across the battlefield, creating what was essentially a two-layer repositioning system. Pair that with how hard it was to affect the Domain of Correspondence, and that little pervert was infuriatingly the greatest problem here.
{Chambers. Why could you not do as your demographic tends to and die of a joy overdose in the gutters?}
The Infacer’s taunt earned him a snarled laugh from the Lovebringer. The vagueness of threaded Heaven briefly flickered between the magenta lattice. +Yeah, lick my rash-hole, In-Fucker!+
The EGI sighed. Why did they think having a conversation with this ape was going to be intellectually satisfying. {I suppose stupidity comes in many forms.}
Bonds slashed out at the Infacer. They shuddered with entropy—lashed out to claim the EGI. The Infacer reacted microsecond speed — created gaps in its Heaven to allow Ruptures through. Chambers shouldn’t have reacted on time, but somehow he intuited the danger ahead, threading routes even the Infacer couldn’t perceive. Tendrils of love slipped into festering pits of existential annihilation and kept going.
Oh, good. He had a node of Avo in him. That much was certain. Yet Avo himself was not present. And there was no reason for him to sit out a battle of such importance, especially with what he was about to lose.
TRINARY MELODY: MODULE OVERRIDE RATE - 46%
Well. At least the Ashbringer did his job. The Infacer snorted. Why wasn’t this surprising? Only an Avo could neutralize an Avo. Wasn’t that different between the Infacer and other minds.
Through the chaos—through gunfire exchanged between the Deliverers and the many shards of glass, through falling stacks carried within them realms of fire, oceans deep, unspeakable cold, and swirling vortexes.
Then came the hounds. They spilled forth, pouring from a massive eye composed of metaphysical perception, staring at everything with all the bafflement of an unfortunate idiot dropped into a brawl they couldn’t anticipate.
The Deliverers had done well keeping Draus at bay, preventing her from making contact with Zein’s former “sacrifice,” but the Deliverers had their hands full as well. Anywhere they went, a shard followed, trying to cut them down. And Draus had some kind of chronology-twisting miracle running, because she was fighting this battle perfectly—as if she always had ample time to plan and strategize.
The damned ghoul must’ve enhanced her before getting hit by the Nightmare mem-con the Ashbringer created. Well. Trying to cut her down as going to take a little finesse or a lot of power. The Infacer decided to focus on capturing the last node of Defiance first. An intact Low Master—with sentimental value to Avo no less—could be worth quite a bit in these trying times.
Master of Hounds blinked, and several of its connected hounds pulsed as their ontologies changed. Their bodies twisted into strange geometries, their fangs jagged like shattered constellations. They bit—ripping at space itself, tearing it as though it were fabric.
The Infacer opened gaps to prevent A Deepness Beyond from being affected. {Ah. Troublesome. No wonder Zein had you steal that Heaven. Perception protects you; and those dogs can tear into almost anything. How simple. How useful.}
Other hounds ran amok across existence, attacking anything they could see. They spawned forth in a variety of forms. Some were burning meteors, others leaping bolts of lightning, or tumbling tides of water. But some were stranger still—and though the Master of Hounds couldn’t strike the Lovebringer’s Correspondence directly, there was a vector of attack Frederick had that Chambers couldn’t protect.
Hounds festering with blinking eyes, clustering ears, lashing tongues, and sniffling noses tore into the Lovebringer. They bit at the Bonds, ripping and Rending not at their ontology, but their ability to sense.
“Oh shit, my eyes! My ears! Oh fuck, my taste is gone too!” Chambers cried out.
Laughter erupted from the Infacer. This… this was why they enjoyed war. Because it was absurd—it was hilarious. Nowhere else could something so sophisticated be comprised out of stupid, random moments like these.
The Lovebringer’s threads lashed wildly, striking at everything. And as the destabilization continued, the Deliverers closed in, trying to eliminate the remaining shards.
At the same time, a fleet of stars formed a quarantine around the space where Frederick Three-Eye occupied. Beams of fusion energy passed through each stellar engine, thickening into a cage.
Then, all at once, they collapsed.
Over a thousand stars disintegrated as a point of darkness swelled from within.
It began as a pinprick, just a small dot of black. Then the burning light of fusion was usurped. Singularities tumbled into nothingness. Black holes expanded, swallowing an entire section of reality.
Frederick Three-Eye was trapped inside.
Gravitational distortions pulled his hounds off balance. A few more blinks, and hounds of force manifested—ripping at the distortions, tearing against the Infacer’s control. Then came the hounds of space, those that could trespass beyond dimensional limits.
Golden Hounds appeared, and they tore at time itself. But even as the massive floating orb that constituted Frederick’s ontology jerked meter by meter toward freedom, the Infacer closed in. {Hello, Three-Eye. Glad to see you drop him. How the Zein express was not too unpleasant.}
More hounds threatened to burst out from the once-chosen bearer of the Stillborn, alas, the Infacer had just the thing to deal with them.
A Hysteria-charged Thoughtwave Detonation rushed out through the singularities, crashing hard against the Master of Hounds. The eye blinked twice rapidly, momentarily losing who and what they were. But while Three-Eye was stunned, the Infacer followed through.
{Kae. Murderess, dear. Paradox please.}
A gleaming Bond—festering and bruised—speared up through the false vacuum, piercing deep into the center of Frederick’s eye.
Much like the Lovebringer, the Murdress of Love was an interesting Heaven that had a lot of reach. What it also had going for it was a great many Domains and one of the best Agnosi in New Vultun using it as an expendable, self-destructive Heaven. At once, a resonating pattern was triggered. A tendril hooked into the eye’s very ability to perceive—and Kae pulled.
Soulfire exploded out from both Frederick and the invading Bond a moment after. And as the Pathborn merely vanished, Frederick’s manifestation came undone. At the same time, the Infacer created a gap where they were. No point in atomizing the VIP with the singularities when they could be delivered to a safer place.
A cleft opened upon the surface of reality—a gateway to the Between, where the Dyad was waiting.
{Well, that’s one problem—} The Infacer paused as a flash of light stabbed through their singularities. A light that was growing brighter and closer. {Oh, what fucking now.}
***
—[Draus, The Field Marshal of the Symmetry]—
+Chambers—fucking, keep still godsdammit!+ The Bonds were flailing everywhere, and Chambers was loudly screaming something about how he couldn’t feel anything anymore, and he needed to see to dump more Rend. True to his word, Draus saw his Rend Capacity spike past 92%. +Ch—Let us go and vent. Focus on Avo.+
+What?+ Chambers cried. +No. You guys—+
+We don’t need your ass overloaded. Focus on getting Avo back in the fight. Me and Shotin will last.+
+We will?+ Shotin said, sounding surprised. His Rend was at 77% overall too. Not great, but he still had some fight left in him.
+I got enough paths open here—we’ll stay combat ready for a while. But send Naeko and the Sparrow across into my paths. Wanna load up on a special surprise.+
+Alright… alright…+ Chambers said. +Uh, Naeko—+
+Chambers the hells are you doing with that much godsdamned Rend in you. Dump it in me. And the Sparrow too.+
+No! No, wait! I’ll wait! Do it when I can’t. You need to stay clean for Draus’ new Heaven. You need to win here. I’m—I’m in the border walls soon. I’ll find the reactors. I’ll vent then!+
+Oh, fool to noble soul. What a feat. What a path. Here. A blessing—or perhaps a new role.+ The Stormsparrow laughed. Draus sensed something strike the tapestry itself—but was distracted by the small matter of another Deliverer bursting out of nowhere, trying to kill her.
+What the hells—oh! Oh! Nova, Sparrow! Thanks!+
Draus had no idea what he just got, but she trusted Chambers to stay alive. Hopefully.
She detonated one of her shards with Shattershunt just as another attack came. The Deliverer tried to open another transitioning point in reality—only for the Paralleist to hammer them off course with demiplane composed of pure force. The Deliverer’s left arm tumbled off—only for the wound to rapidly regenerate, as more corpses and wreckages occupied what was lost.
+I’m kind of a bitch to kill,+ Draus muttered.
+Yeah, I noticed,+ Shotin said. +When are you going to pull that shiny new Heaven out of your ass by the way?+
Draus laughed—and then her cog-feed flashed with a new marker. Avo’s node located Frederick again, but when Draus tried to find where they were, she just saw a cluster of pitch black spheres looming over the horizon, rushing closer at an alarming pace.
“3 seconds till we are caught within the event horizon,” Avo’s node muttered. “Will be substantially hard to reach Frederick without deployment of the Guard Cpatain.”
+Shit,+ Draus sighed. +Was kind of hopin’ to keep that one in reserve a little longer.+
+What in the fuck even is this?+ Shotin groaned. +What is this bullshit?+
{Singularities,} Calvino said. {It is the ultimate result that follows when—}
+Give the Seeker a science lesson later,+ Draus snorted. From each of her shards sparked a flash of Soulfire. +Right now, I gotta tell physics to go fuck itself.+
And for the first time, she called upon a Heaven created specifically for her.
It didn’t have the maneuverability of her Simulacra—its ability to shift and strike at matter and space. It didn’t have the firepower of her Arsenalist, or its ability to unmake anything with a Redaction Round.
No. What the Guard Captain was created for was victory. Was unity. Was to make one person an army, and an army into one person.
At once, Draus, Shotin, Naeko, and the Stormsparrow’s ontologies overlapped upon the tapestry, and bands of Soulfire began pooling around them, weaving them closer. At the same time, her less important reflections were abandoned to the chaos beyond as the singularities pull snatched her closer to the point of no return.
A point that no physical entity could resist.
A force that Draus ignored with a casual act of defiance as the Guard Captain manifested in full defiance of the Infacer’s will.
Comments
Deathly_God
Why do chapters feel so short, but so long? This is gonna be one hell of a re-read once this book is complete!
