Brent Stinebaker
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13-21 Become (II)
🕑 Added 2023-07-09 19:36:32 +0000 UTC“I am going to try something. I wish to see if I can change her mind.”
Such were Avo’s first words as he withdrew himself from Abrel’s corpse. Surging fire collapsed backward across the vastness of the Nether, and everywhere he was felt indelibly marked. His presence was no longer quiet, like termites eating through the wood.
He was now a traveling forest fire. A conflagration, a fitting alignment to the spreading flames that constituted the new sinews of his cognition. His shadow lingered in the Nether in the memories he left absent and the minds he left bare.
Soon, Abrel Greatling would be among them. Unlike the rest, however, she was like him–an exile from death’s embrace.
Through her, he would tread the next steps of his self-comprehension.
And if what he theorized was right, hers as well.
Denton jolted back after the words first left him, the nectar of her mind teasing him like a ripe fruit beaded with scintillation. Oh, the secrets would glean if he took her into his consensus.
[Couldn’t access her mind before. Didn’t have the proper components. Things are different now.]
[Still not certain of effect. She could join with our thoughtstuff. Want to see if she burns. But wait. Maybe wait.]
[Another chance later. See if a bargain can be struck. She is… useful. Don’t alienate. Still too beneficial.]
[Will be delicious though.]
[Yes. Delicious. New colors to see.]
Somehow, Avo didn’t think Walton intended for him to obtain new experiences this way.
As he pushed himself up using his Echoheads, he left the hidden session he sequenced inside Abrel active within himself in anticipation of her resurrection. If the rules behind her death continued to apply, he would have no problem funneling himself across the Auto-Seances and taking her mind for his own.
But her mental template would only be the first step.
The true victory awaited in the discovery of what he could change thereafter.
“Avo, you good there, consang?”
He paused. Who had said that–oh, Draus.
The barrel of her projectile launcher was extended from under her wrist, and his Phys-Sim had it lined straight at his head.
She hadn’t shot him. Drawing in the emanations of thoughstuff leaking free from her accretion, his subminds constructed a vague simulation of the dilemma she felt.
“Thanks,” he said, living out her internal conflict in real-time. “Thanks for not shooting me.”
“Yeah,” she replied, not yet lowering her gun. “Don’t mention it. Would've done it if you hung around inside a couple seconds longer.”
[Jelen Draus. Always reliable.]
[Estimating simulated responses.]
[Still could just burn her mind into ours.]
[Again. Will lose her trust. Control our hunger.]
[Control.]
[Master.]
[Grow her trust.]
[Yes. Simulating new cognitive pathways. Installing adaptive thought patterns to improve socialization.]
ADAPTING MIND-TEMPLATES [TALON-1]; [TALON-17]; [TALON-11] INTO COGNITIVE STRUCTURE
The transformation of his mind was as obvious as it was uncanny. From atop his crown did his Metamind burn, rising towers fire spilling free and constant from the bend of his halo. The phantasmal brightness he projected cast all the others beneath the presence of a dancing shadow, and they regarded him with rigid stances and unblinking gazes.
He changed. In such a short time, he changed again. They didn’t understand. He himself didn’t understand. They were afraid.
It was wise and reasonable to fear the unknown in this city.
But this time, things would be different.
New sequences grew and connected like the roots of a tree spreading wide beneath the softness of soil. At his foundation, he remained himself, but there was more to him now. Additional layers of emotion and genuine empathy burrowed into him, and a soft hiss of pain escaped from his lungs as his base nature sparked a flicker of trauma when the pure human designs settled into him.
“Avo?” Draus said again, her tone worryingly thin.
“I’m fine,” he said. The newer, more “human” parts of his mind weren’t in that instant, but his subminds attuned his structure and dissolved the conflicting aspects of his nature. He looked upon Draus again and noted the worry in her brow, noted how Chambers had taken to standing in front of Kae, and how the Agnos was peeking out from behind him, eyes wide, her mind unsure what to feel.
“I…” he said, beginning with Draus.
There was so much he could say. So much he wanted to say now that he understood more. Now that he grafted humanistic feedback into his meta-neurology.
[Be honest with her.]
[Yes. Tell her what you wanted to do. We know she likes honesty.]
[Honesty will gain her trust. She respects it. Will make both of us seem more real to each other.]
[Connect.]
[Yes. Connect.]
“It was so hard for me not to burn your mind away,” Avo admitted. Draus’ expression didn’t change, but Denton’s eyebrow twitched as she slowly backed away.
Sunrise, possessed of more foresight or self-preservation than everyone else in the room, was currently plastered around the doorframe leading downstairs next to Cas, who held his sting-corded arm out to the side as if preparing to draw a pistol.
[Maybe too honest.]
[Can still try again after she shoots and kills us. Not a big deal.]
[Could liquefy bullets. Fight her.]
[Yes. Also option.]
Avo ignored the inner vocalization of his doubts. “I burned some of the Incubi I encountered. I have their proxy templates in my mind. I know what they know. I can think as they think. They’re showing me new things now. New understanding.” He paused. “Wanted to understand you. Become you. All of you. Fought. I fought myself.”
Chambers’ frowning mien inched over Draus’ shoulder. “Yeah, about that consang… did… did you stop yourself fighting for me, or is there a reason why I’m not running my tongue along the insides of someone’s eye-holes because… I remember you burning me pretty quick.”
It didn’t even take much from his new template to guide Avo toward a more diplomatic response. “Fought harder for some than others. Knew you were strong enough to withstand. Survive. Guessed it could’ve nulled you. But you have endured worse. Have remained yourself despite everything. Never had a reason to doubt you, Chambers.”
The annoyed glare on his face cracked as Chambers swallowed and looked away. The words took him by surprise, and the effect was immediate. His thoughtstuff reeled with discord, and his mind shrunk inward in retreat, unsure of how to process this sudden gift of offered praise.
[He was easy. We have been inside his mind for a long time.]
[Yes. Wants to matter. Wants to be part of something that won’t leave him behind. So he tries to fit roles in groups or communities. Especially wants to matter to someone more than him. He wants love and kindness from authority figures. A cut etched into place by his father. We can give it to him. We can bind him to us even without Necrothurgy.]
Poor wounded Chambers.
Avo paused. That thought was so very unlike him. Such a thing rested strangely upon the backdrop of suppressed violence and cruelty that flowed at the foundations of his being.
“Something happened to me when I confronted the Low Masters,” he said, turning back to Draus. “They used something on me. I tried to burn myself away using some of the fire I took from Kae’s mind. The effects… joined. Merged with me. I changed. I am… more now. Different.”
“More,” Draus said. She lowered her launcher. “So… you’re in the flame, or what?”
“I am the flame. I am all that which burns. All it touches. I have over twenty thousand ghosts inside. Entire sections of the lobby remembered. I know everything that the Incubi I devoured know. I am more. And I will be even more soon.”
The Regular stared at him blankly for a passing moment, and her face cracked into a chuckle of disbelief. “You’re a never-endin’ ball of fuckin’ surprises, you know that rotlick?”
“Would you prefer it if I was any other way?” he asked.
She didn’t offer a direct response to the question. “Just keep your fire away from me right now. I don’t want to catch ghoul from you.”
[Maybe laugh at her remark.]
[Can manifest a higher level of humor.]
[No. Wait. Simulations show she will be unnerved instead.]
[Just grunt?]
[Yes. Grunt.]
Avo grunted. “Fires might offer something useful for you as well.”
Turning to regard the others in the room, he awkwardly patted Denton on the shoulder. “You told Draus not to shoot me?”
“Yes,” the glaive said, still staring at Avo with an unreadable expression. “I would… like to go over your changes in detail later. If you would allow.”
Ever inquisitive. Ever searching for another angle, another thing to learn.
“Later,” Avo said. “I have one last mind I wish to dive into. One more I want to see changed.”
“Who?” Denton asked.
“Abrel Greatling,” Avo replied. “I have part of her mind. She will come back soon. Very soon. Want to see if I can become her. And then I want to see if two minds that are the same can stack.”
“Stack?” Denton asked.
She didn’t understand, and the idea only existed as a concept with him as well. Soon, he would be able to see how it worked in practice.
Patting the Glaive on the shoulder gently with one of his Echoheads, the woman went stiff and seemed to stare through him as he passed her. Making his way over to Kae, the Agnos flinched at his approach, and he heard her heartbeat quicken and her pupils dilate as her gaze drifted upward to face his blazing cognition.
From her mind leaked stomach-coiling stress and flinching trauma, but also a deep and aching root of jealousy.
[It broke her. Ruined her life.]
[Now we wear it as another mantle of power.]
[Walton destroyed her. And empowered us.]
[We are a symbol of her pain manifest as another’s glory.]
[Through no fault of her own.]
[We can’t give her peace.]
[We give her a promise]
[Make her loss mean something.]
[Grant her chance at revenge. Fix the Rash as she wanted. Take back all the knowledge stolen from her.]
[She won’t be whole. But she will have a path. She needs a new path.]
Kae took a step past Chambers and stared up at him, the lines on her face deepening with exasperated exhaustion. “How does it… feel? For you, I mean. I…” Her voice cracked as she let out a strangled laugh. “I can still remember how it felt for me. Does it burn? Is it hard to think?”
“No,” Avo said. “There are more voices here. More of me. More of everything. Easier to think than before. Can make myself understand by growing other minds from my own.”
She breathed out. “You are the fire?”
“I am the fire. I am what the Low Masters left inside me. And I am more still.”
She nodded. “You’re father must’ve truly loved you.”
“Yes,” Avo said. “And you should hate him.”
Her face twisted in a sneer, “I don’t need your validation for my feelings.”
“I can’t make things better, Kae,” he said, cutting her off before her anger could be roused in full. “You lost. Lost so much for no reason–”
She clenched her teeth. “Stop…”
[Keep going.]
[It will hurt. It must. But she will survive.]
[Lead her toward new path. Use her pain if need be.]
“--Lover. Research. Future. Life. Security. All never coming back.”
A tear of anguish spilled out from her left eye as she jabbed a finger into his chest. “You fucking…”
“Hey, Avo,” Chambers said, eyes whipping between the two.
He could hear Draus approaching.
“--But we can still make this mean something. I can get you all the minds of those who hurt you. And the elder. And we can fix the Rash. And we can take back your research. Stop the Guilds from making a bigger mess using your research. Steal back the Heaven of Love from them.”
Her chin began to quiver in the same instant he felt Draus’ fingers clamp down on his shoulders like a titanium vice. Old instincts clashed with new as all of him that was ghoul screamed for him to turn on the Regular and tear her apart for laying hands on him. His greater self, however, knew she was coming, and simply clamped his claws over her grip.
“Trust me,” he said, angling his face so he could only see Draus from the corner of his eye. “Please.”
She glared at him, but surprisingly little anger burned behind her eyes. “You’re hurting her.”
“I know. Don’t have a better way.” He turned back to the Agnos. “If what I do with Abrel Greatling works. If the twinned alteration of our conjoined minds takes effect… I think I can take your pain away. Will you want that?”
At the mention of pain being taken away, he heard Essus sit up from across the room. Avo considered the man another candidate for this experiment, but the former father had already suffered too much. There was little sense in breaking him when one more deserved could pay the price of any failures instead.
“I don’t want to forget anything,” Kae said. “I told you that.”
“You won’t.” For a moment, he considered reaching and engaging in tactile contact with her as a sign of physical support. But he didn’t. So much choice had been deprived of the Agnos. She should get a little back. “My father took from you. Ori-Thaum took from you. Even Highflame took from you. Used your research for something you didn’t intend. I am not them. I am the culmination of all your work and more. And I want to grant you what you want. And more.”
[Abrel Greatling just resurrected.]
[Can feel her mind on the other side. She is frightened. Confused. Disoriented.]
[Should consume her mind before she composes herself.]
He funneled his reaching flames through his Auto-Seance and into her mind just as she resulted. She came ablaze from within, the entirety of her mind burning away into his as her template settled upon his growing inventory.
Moreover, he felt her life swell inside him–past battles and distant memories of Tierside schooling settled into him. The added weight of her experiences broadened his sense of self instead of exhausting him.
More. Always more.
Repeating what he did earlier, he overloaded her implants and left her dead and adrift in the void again. The act took less than a thought for him–not even a deep dive as his subminds completed the minutiae on his behalf.
He worried this would make him lazy.
[Mental template: Abrel Greatling subsumed]
[8021 ghosts with her as well. And three new phantasmics worth considering. Can remember her life. Can remember–]
[Later. Focus on Kae now. When she resurrects again we can do the next part.]
He risked waiting a moment longer. Kae mattered more, and for the first time, he didn’t just think such a thought, he felt it as well.
What a gnawing ache apprehension brought.
“You’re not lying, are you?” Kae said, finally. She swallowed as swiped at her face. “You’re really going to try and… and give me anything I want? After your father… after everything?”
“Yes,” Avo said. “And I won’t try. It will happen. We will come to know what the color of justice is.”
At that, Kae laughed. “People… people destroyed my life. Took my work. And now a… monster is going to try and kiss it all better.” Her mind settled back into weariness as the anger slipped away from her. She shook her head. “What is my life.”
“Strange,” he answered .”But we’ll face that together.”
He felt Draus loosen her grip on his shoulder, and he, in turn, released her hand. “Thanks for not turning me to glass,” he said.
“Yeah. Gotta admit: it was pretty hard for me not to for a second.”
He chuffed a low note of bemusement. Being human was ticklish sometimes.
“I’m going to dive over again soon,” he said. These words were offered to the entire room rather than just Kae or Draus. “I just subsumed Abrel Greatling’s mind. I feel her… I can manifest her cognition now.” He let her sequences cascade through his flames in an instant and the contents slammed down upon him like a ton of bricks.
“You broke her family in more ways than you know.” These words were, however, meant for Draus alone. He looked into her shining irises, alight with the touch of technology. “Broke them deep.” The ghoul inside him seethed in admiration of the lingering torment that nested deep in the corners of Abrel’s psyche. Such a delicious wound.
That thought accompanied a note of self-disgust and a spark of trauma as his mind rattled against himself.
[Hm. Some problems of internal conflict are caused by executive thinking.]
[The base mind is still too cruel. Has human structures but will need more stable connective sequences to bridge empathic constructs to our core self.]
[How about a gradual increase of psychopathy? Acclimation as a buffer. Feel human initially and then let it settle. Could be like digestion?]
Again, the shape of his mind shifted, and new stretches of cognition fused over the vulnerabilities of the old.
“I… uh,” Chambers snorted. “I’m not gonna lie: I’m still pretty fucking confused as to what’s going on? Like… I like nice Avo. But he also freaks me out–but I don’t want you to go back! You’ve been getting nicer! Nice is good!” He whipped his arms around for suppose. “We all like you nice! Right guys?”
There was a lot less agreeing and a lot more staring than he wanted.
“Godsdammit, you shits! Back me up!”
Everyone kept ignoring him.
“What are you trying to do with her?” Kae asked suddenly. “Abrel, I mean. What is it that you’re planning on doing with her now that you have her mind? Are you… are you trying to transfer yourself across bodies? Sheathes?”
[No. But that’s another experiment: Will we resurrect in her body if we move all of our cognition into her?]
[Questionable? Test at the end. Use Chambers as anchor on this end.]
“Chambers,” Avo said. “I’m going to need to burn you again later. Eat all of your mind.’
“You see!” Chambers accused. “This is the shit that happens when no one backs me up.”
“You’re the only one that can take it,” Avo lied. “You’re the only choice.”
Immediately, Chambers puffed out his chest and his disappointment swelled into pride. “Never say Aedon Chambers didn’t give his heart and soul for his consangs.”
Cas sighed under his breath. “Jaus. The ghoul’s gonna make this fucking half-strand unbearable in record time with all this ass-kissing.”
“I’m going to shift my mind to be almost exactly like Abrel’s,” Avo said. “Going to see if that still destroys her cognition, or if we will ‘stack’ over each other.”
“And… then what will you do?” Kae asked.
“Then I see if I can change her.” Avo reconsidered his words. “Change us.”
[Abrel’s alive again.]
[Shift sequences on base-mind. Ready to dive.]
“Draus,” Avo said. “Shoot me if the fires empty from my mind and I drop mind-dead. Going to try Kae’s idea at the end.”
“My idea?” Kae asked.
“Diving now,” Avo said. “Will share new understandings when I return. New options.”
Chambers leaned close to Draus. “Reg. I’m still fuckin’ lost.”
“Some flamin’ nova-hot Necro-shit.”
And with a thought, Avo shifted his mind and felt his sense of self reknitting anew. The empathy in him coiled and changed, deadening toward certain concepts and people while kindling hotter for others. Toward Draus, he felt an incomprehensible hatred, while in Kae he found himself directing a conditioned respect.
Arrogance, confidence, rage, and withheld sorrow intertwined at the core of her being as he felt the edges of her cognitive architecture spread out into shape.
Besides a single pinprick of awareness at his core, all else belonged to Abrel Greatling, the flames now weeping from pathways entirely aligned to what he drank away from her when last she lived.
Manifesting an Auto-Seance, he injected this section of himself through the session, and across the vastness of void, his mind ascended upward to bury itself into Abrel, symmetry achieved in sequence, thoughtstuff, phantasmics, and all.
Comments
Inv7ctus
I for one adore this development. Before Avo was a knot of self contradiction. His nature and desire always fighting. The path forward was always some kind of growth that allowed him to be both. That usually happens in stories as development through life changing experiences over time. This different kind of development feels strange because of its suddenness. But it meshes far more neatly with both the setting and who Avo has shown himself to be till now. The potential it opens in the story is great for new perspectives. The power itself is cool as shit. And it also becomes a new path of growth as he has to re learn how to be a great necro. In terms of setting, powersystem, character development and relationship, and general asthetic this change is perfect. I hyped to see where we go from here.
Jeremy Russell
I’m excited for the idea of Avo’s expanding humanity, it’s not like being human means he’ll be stable. It just means he has more to experience. Now let’s see how human he stays once he gets back to the Arc and the AI on it. Not to mention whatever robotic situation Denton is.
Astra Tomas
definitely agree the stories tone wouldn’t work the same if he wasn’t still struggling back and forth with violence and his innate behavior
Brady Fiola
Aw man, I actually am excited for the changes. He still a bit of a psychopath, but I think growing empathy is necessary for the continuation of the story—at least, in some form or another.
Arcane
I must be honest. This change in Avo is not super appealing. To me, he doesn't even feel like the same character, though I'm not surprised when I know what happened to him which caused this change. I do hope he'll return to being Avo, but I'll still enjoy the story either way.
