(I) Fugitive

-Emergency Shelter and Curfew Broadcast in Gate Theborn (Compact Territory)39 (I)

Fugitive

Momentum Core > 70

Shiv felt something inside the orc’s chest break as they smashed through another wall. A path of ruin and rubble crashed down behind them, blocking the security dimensionals’ pursuit. As they emerged into what seemed to be a grand and wide lobby, Shiv saw they were quickly accelerating toward a wall made of solid gold. Holding onto 811’s throat, he spiked the big bastard headfirst against the wall, using him as a meat-shield to blunt the impact.

Not that it mattered. Shiv felt tough enough to shrug off a literal mountain falling on him by this point. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to dig himself out afterward, though, and would even end up dying of suffocation or starvation.

The orc was still stronger than him—a better brawler and a better mage. But now, with Shiv’s Adamantine Adaption Skill Evolution, 811 was now the underdog in a direct fight. Because what worth was there in being stronger when your punches and direct magic attacks failed to achieve anything more than a nosebleed?

“Get up,” Shiv snarled. The orc blinked a few times, eyes rolling. “Aw, got a concussion?” Shiv asked sarcastically, before grabbing 811 by his head and slamming him through a nearby desk. Wood and marble blasted everywhere. A human-looking automaton dressed in a fine suit and a red cap sighed at Shiv and the orc from nearby. “Please, Master Pathbearers, take the fighting elsewhere.”

Some shrapnel was lodged in the automaton’s body, but it seemed fine overall.

Shiv guessed as he started smashing elbows into 811’s face. He felt his arms—his entire body get harder with every blow, adapting specifically at the points of impact. The orc was bleeding badly now, face shredded and mangled like he’d been cut up by a knife. With every punch, Shiv drained more momentum, building up his core again. He dropped a heavy haymaker—811’s rolling eyes snapped to alertness, and he .

The orc vanished in a gust of wind. Shiv’s fist sank through the marble-tilted floor—and got locked in place there as a column of dense crystal and stone fused around the limb. “Shit,” Shiv cursed. 811 reappeared right next to Shiv, unleashing a hurricane of hooks, straights, uppercuts, overhands. He pounded Shiv’s liver like he was trying to mine a gold vein. Blood twisted and jerked from 811’s brutalized face like lengths of liquid rope. He was giving all he had—his entire body was solidifying into crystal, his blows carrying the power of Geomancy and lightning.

Shockwaves blasted out from Shiv as he kept trying to free his arm while the orc used him as a heavy bag. The automaton was launched off its feet—but showed only slight damage to its hull. A surreal scene took shape as sighs and boos sounded across the lobby, with people moving from where they were sitting and walking out at a brisk pace at most. This was how Shiv guessed that most of the people in the chamber right then were Adept martial Pathbearers. The few nursing severe wounds or clutching their bleeding ears were, he deduced, Initiate, Pathless, or non-martials. And the one woman who continued reading what looked like a newspaper nearby without a care was likely another Master.

Shiv realized.

811 gasped and staggered back, staring at Shiv with disbelief. “Why… What… This makes little sense.”

The Deathless frowned at the orc as he finally ripped his arm out of the stone-vice with a final shout of effort. Shiv opened and closed his fist as he studied his arm. “Yep,” he breathed. “Definitely a bit more metallic-looking than before under the lights.” Absolutely no cuts, though. Pushing through the pain of using his Biomancy, Shiv examined the effects his new Skill Evolution had on his body.

Where Diamond Shell gave his biology a layer of collective protection from his skin to his very cells, Adamantine Adaption left his body seeming extremely . But after another heartbeat of observation, he realized he wasn’t looking at fractures, but minuscule slats of dense, metallic matter infused into his very cells. Some slats were bunched tight together, forming a concentration of for the parts of his body that were just impacted. Shiv suspected this was the reason why the first blows the orc landed on him earlier still hurt. .

Now, though 811's fists carried within them the combined power of a storm and an earthquake at once, Shiv was a mountain, and so the hits graced him with the yield of bombs but the effect of raindrops.

Mud-thick blood splattered out from the places where 811’s crystalline hands were cracked. He heaved for air, blinking at Shiv through two swollen eyes. “How… how are you—” His eyes flashed, and he clenched his broken fangs in disbelief. “What? Master That—that is no human skill! That is not even an orc skill! It is for monsters! That belongs to a cursed Tarrasque or Sea Leviathan!”

“Clearly not just them,” Shiv said as he advanced on the orc, cracking his knuckles. The remainder of his pants peeled off, leaving him only ripped shoes and miraculously strong undergarments. He needed clothes. He needed to get out of here and find a new Perfect Semblance to replace his burned identity. But before any of that, he needed to finish this bloody orc. “I’m gonna hear you scream for what you did to those people, 811. I’m not done until you’re just paste between my felling fingers. Now. Ball your fists and die fighting, Pathbearer!”

He charged. To 811’s credit, he did ball his fists. He did call upon rising stalagmites of stone and crystal. He did unleash a wave of wind and lightning at Shiv. The Deathless just marched through it all, shattering through stone, ignoring the lightning, using the wind to fill his core, using his building Reflexes to avoid the erupting hands that sought to hold him in place.

Parry > 42

811 roared and dashed toward Shiv. He blinked across space as he used his Master-Tier Striking again. But there was a limit to even skills. He might have been a better boxer than Shiv by far, but the Deathless wasn’t afraid of him, and he was far faster. 811 missed his first punch—did his pivot into a spinning elbow, only for Shiv to duck under that as well. Shiv wrapped his arms around 811’s leg and yanked with a shout of effort. 811 had his base pulled out from under him—the orc toppled. And was promptly dragged off the ground as Shiv drew on his Might of Mass, swinging the giant around like a club.

Might of Mass > 86

811’s head was whipped back into the golden wall that stopped their initial entry into the lobby. A new dent was made near the last one. And then another. And another. Smears of orc blood splattered and painted the walls. Shiv roared as he flung the monster overhead and started bashing them against the ground. Tiles exploded. 811 tried to call on his Geomancy, but another emergency meeting between his skull and the golden wall renewed his concussion. His spell broke. And Shiv’s Momentum Core was full again.

Grappling Proficiency > 46

For a moment—just a moment—Shiv released him. 811 sailed through the air, his brain clearly rattled, his eyes rolling. Then Shivwas on him again. He seized the orc by the neck before he could hit the ground, and they made eye contact a second before the Deathless discharged his Momentum Core.

“Fight back!” Shiv bellowed. A kinetic bomb erupted off of his body. The Adepts and others were gone. The only Master in the lobby finally turned, then. She looked up from her newspaper, narrowed her eyes at Shiv, and then she decided to teleport away instead of ignoring what was about to come.

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The world lurched. Shiv zoomed forward—but he spiked the orc’s face into the ground before he did.

For the first time, Shiv heard 811 scream in true agony. The sound was everything he hoped it would be. The orc’s shrieks drowned out even the howling winds and lasted until the sound barrier burst apart against them. A channel of blood and tissue painted their path of destruction as they exploded through room after room before erupting back out of the building. A group of unfortunate dimensionals were in their way—and were rendered into broken pieces of armor and puffs of dying embers. Shiv felt multiple mana fields brush his—but he was moving too fast for anyone to respond with a spell.

As orc and man sailed into the open air again, Shiv saw that 811’s right arm was barely clinging by a few strands of gristle and skin. The orc was also blacking out from the pain. He planted his feet down on 811’s chest as they made their descent. Legions of dimensionals and Pathbearers were teleporting in all around him—emerging all across the bridge in spatial pockets.

They were finally responding. A bit too late to stop any of the actual fighting. Shiv thought. He crashed down on a new bridge using 811 as a board, and at some point a jutting plank clipped the orc’s compromised arm and tore it clean off. That woke 811 back up again. The orc howled loud enough that Shiv felt a brief stab of pain in his ears. Brief because his Adamantine Adaption kicked in that way too as the corresponding cells hardened in response to the specific trauma.

Shiv thought. His initial feelings were a sense of awe and excitement—followed by an immediate plunge into worry as he realized Adamantine Adaption was going to be a nightmare to level now.

But that was a later problem. Right now, he was going to rip this orc apart. As they came to a stop, Shiv jumped off 811 and immediately booted the orc in the head. A splatter of blood sprayed across the bridge as 811 crashed into and a group of wolf-headed dimensionals, tearing them practically in half.

“Shit!” Shiv cursed and winced. “Didn’t mean to do that.” He didn’t mean a lot of things during this fight. As his adrenaline began to stabilize, he thought back on all that just happened over the course of the last ten minutes or so and…

His thoughts were interrupted as two spatial pockets expanded around him.

“On the ground!” a wolf-headed dimensional barked. The creature swung a massive hammer into Shiv’s chest. He drank some of the hammer’s momentum and broke the weapon in half by charging through it. The wolf-headed dimensional let out a yelp as it was flung off its kicking legs into a wall of its own comrades.

Fiery, flying elementals rose along the sides of the bridge and sprayed Shiv with jets of fire. He gave an initial hiss of pain as some of his skin burned—and then his cells hardened accordingly again. Shiv couldn’t help it. He cackled with laughter. The world kept killing him. Over and over and over. And now, he was truly hard to—

Shiv’s delusions of invincibility broke as a spell smashed against his Biomancy field. His Biomancy field. The Deathless collapsed as he spasmed and rolled across the ground. His Biomancy allowed him to push the spell—something commanding his muscles to lock up and stop moving. In a roundabout way, it managed to achieve that.

Biomancy > 50 (Skill Evolution Imminent)

“I have him!” a feminine voice cried. Shiv groaned and pushed himself off the ground to see several teams of heavily armed Pathbearers approaching him. At their forefront was a human woman in a dense, turtle-shell-like carapace. She was sculpting a new Biomancy spell, and if this one hit, Shiv might just black out again.

Shiv groaned internally.

Then, salvation came from a most unlikely source. Before the armored Biomancer could finish her spell, a bolt of lightning crashed into her face, forcing a cry of annoyance and pain from her lips as her spell broke. A wall of wind washed over the other Pathbearers. A few were launched off the bridge. A massive bruiser of an automaton came pounding forward on its three legs.

“Surrender!” it commanded with an electronic crackle.

Shiv drank in the wind’s momentum and got to his feet, ignoring the bot. He met 811’s gaze and glared. The orc stood there at the end of the bridge, standing atop a pile of dead and dying dimensionals. He was smiling too, sobbing as if something touching was happening right before him. “Come!” he called out to Shiv. “Come, Deathless monster! Let us give 812 a most dream to start his life!”

Shiv didn’t understand any of that—had a hard time forming more complex thoughts at the moment. He didn’t care. Shiv was just glad he didn’t need to chase the damn orc. The automaton Pathbearer shouted another decree before punching Shiv in the back of the head. The machine gave a hiss of pain and surprise as its attacking hand was reduced to wires and scrap. Adept-Tier, probably.

Shiv barely noticed.

“Come on,” 811 breathed. He staggered toward Shiv, channeling every bit of lightning, every gust of wind, every burst of stone he had left. But the orc was flagging. His mana fields must have been beyond strained as well. He took a one-armed fighting stance. The right side of his body had been scraped off, exposing bone and inner flesh. His right arm was gone. The right side of his face was the white of exposed bone.

The orc was a monster. The orc enjoyed butchering the innocent and weak. But the orc was ultimately a Pathbearer warrior that wanted to die fighting.

On some level, Shiv understood and respected that. On every other, he was going to rip this damn orc apart.

811 blinked forward and launched a whipping hook. Shiv parried the punch into the ground and lifted the orc off his feet with a single-leg takedown. He carried the orc through another set of walls, into another building. But Shiv held back from draining any momentum this time. He saw around him. Slaves. So many slaves. And then his thoughts from earlier hit him as his initial rage ran its course.

811 dropped a thunderous punch on the side of Shiv’s head. Shiv responded by spiking 811 into the ground.

Might of Mass > 90

Grappling Proficiency > 47

“Get out of here!” Shiv shouted. He was in the entrance of some kind of… . Slaves with unchained collars looked at him and the orc in terror. Both of them were covered in blood—mostly from 811—and as the orc tried to rise, Shiv stomped down, driving 811’s face through the floor. “Run! Now! If you don’t want to die!”

Intimidation > 24

Several slaves screamed. Some wept. All of them started stampeding out of the building. Shiv cursed as he started punching the orc, doing his best to hold 811 in place until they were out. A flash of all the destruction and mayhem caused during this brawl with 811 rushed through Shiv’s mind. Something turned sour in his stomach. This fight started with the death of a child. A child Shiv was trying to save. Now hundreds were dead, at the very least. Dead because Shiv was guided by undisciplined rage, and because 811 enjoyed the butchery.

As Shiv pounded blow after blow into the orc’s face, 811 laughed and gagged on his blood. His left eye—the only eye he had left—noticed a nearby automaton slave trying to get out. He snorted. And then sent a bolt of lightning through its body. The automaton burst apart.

“No!” Shiv snarled. “You godsdamned—” And the rage took hold again. The rage. At the cruelty. At the casual murder of the weak and innocent at the hands of a Pathbearer so powerful they got nothing out of this but pleasure. Shiv’s fists turn into crimson-soaked blurs. His Momentum Core surged to fullness. What remained of 811’s left eye burst apart under one of the blows. Ripping the orc out of the ground, Shiv planted both feet on 811’s shoulders as he locked his fingers under the orc’s chin.

Somehow, the bastard was still smiling. “It was all beautiful,” 811 whispered. “All of it. I love you. I will find you again.”

Shiv was furious beyond coherent thought. He yanked twice, feeling tendons in the orc’s neck snap. Absorbing a final hit of momentum, Shiv felt his core hit capacity, and he discharged with a primal shout of anger. His hands were locked tight around the orc’s chin. His feet pushed hard against the orc’s shoulders. His Momentum Core flared. And after three final cracks of resistance, Shiv ripped 811’s head clean off as he slid across the ground, back along the bridge he came and blasted through newly arriving dimensionals sent to apprehend him.

The world turned into a haze of twisting colors, falling limbs, and screaming voices. Shiv never let go of the head in his hands. When he finally slammed to a halt after smashing into a fountain, he staggered out from the debris, soaked, thick orc blood still clinging to his mostly bare body, and surrounded by waves of dimensionals and Pathbearers.

But that wasn’t the most pressing thing for Shiv. No. As he looked down at the severed head of 811, a colossal weight crashed down on him. A weight he hadn’t felt in days.

Foreshadowing: In another realm, a newborn orc bursts free from the corpse-womb that bore him. As he draws breath, a final set of memories flows into him, taken from his spiritual predecessor and bestowed upon him by .

812 takes a tentative step into the wasteland dimension that his people call “The Tutorial.” A sea of corpses and rusted weapons litter the world as far as he can see. He notices his brothers hatching free all around as well, other orcs spawned after the deaths of their predecessors, preparing for a new run on life.

He is bare. He is weak. Though he remembers much, his soul is new, and so he must regain his strength. But 812 is different from the other orcs.

812 is in love. In love with the man that killed his predecessor: an undying titan hidden under human flesh. He still feels that sweet moment when his head came free. He still sees the man’s face: wrathful, furious, feral.

And he knows there is no one more perfect for an orc to face. A reincarnating warrior against an undying one. This tale does not need to have a final end.

And just then, a Quest is bestowed upon the newborn 812. He has never heard of an orc infant being granted a Quest. But this one is. And this one smiles, because he is going to make it back to that world called Earth, and he is going to find the man that killed him—and break him for good.