Godclads

Chapter 29-2 Chronoframe (I)

+Chronoframes are constructs designed to embody the very tenets of maneuver warfare. But even before discussing potential tactics and strategic counters to their deployment on the battlefield, it is important to understand the composition and creation of these unique adversaries.

All Chronoframes are grown from specific Sanctians who exhibit a high Temporal Synchronicity rating. This means that their Chronoshifts are more fluid than most of their clade, by a factor of two at the minimum. Chrono Frames are not purely thaumaturgical constructs. Instead, they begin as biological extension grown from their pilot’s body. Over the course of several months, a Chronoframe pilot will see their biology drastically altered in alignment toward a myriad of military grade sheathes. Most retain their humanoid shape to reduce the acclimation time required for the pilot when they begin proper use of their Chronoframe.

The initial sheathes for Chronoframes can range from humanoid to encompassing an entire Sovereignty for the few Ensouled Sanctians.

The base of the frame is almost always biological, ensuring a stable immuno-nervousconnection to the host. From there, however, implants will be added, mostly in the form of genetic or cybernetic reinforcements, sensors, transplanted weapons, and auxiliary modifications dependent on their role in combat. When this is finally done, a Rendsink will be embedded within their fully mature Chronoframe, and the pilot will spend a few more months training to get used to this configuration.

Finally, an Agnos will be brought in to permanently shunt the Chronoframe a few minutes forward into the future during the pilot’s chronoshift, allowing it to exist just a moment ahead of the user; capable of being summoned with a moment’s notice. To this end, it is best to understand Chronoframes as a subset of Golems.

Such is why destroying their materialized forms one time does not constitute a kill. All Chronoframes leave an echo across time, and only by destroying them again before their next natural shift can the pilot be truly eliminated. Ultimately, the best means to eliminate a Chronoframe is by repeated ambushes, nullification, or complete BVR control over the battlefield paired with a mem-lock, allowing you to strike the Chronoframe regardless of their position.

As such, it isalso recommended that you always take the initiative when engaging Chronoframes. If ambushed, your goal should be to break contact and then counterattack thereafter. Do not hold position. They will not linger; and they will return when you are at your most vulnerable…+

-“Combat Stratagem: Chronoframe,” Highflame Vicarity

29-2

{So, let me see if I can get my mind around this. Avo’s supposedly dead, except we're not sure. And Veylis went with him, both of them popping inside the Hunger along with the Heaven of Love. And now the big ugly rupture they left us is spilling all across New Vultun. Up into the void as well. And it's got the properties of the Nether, of the paths, of Wombrash, all at once. And there don't seem to be anything anyone can do to stop it. Does that sound about right?}

{That is an abridged summary of what we have discovered,} Calvino replied.

Draus sighed. What a godsdamned mess. But despite the horrific situation, the EGI had been nice enough to forward a new “map” of New Vultun. And from what the Reg could see, she was currently located at the center of a giant mass of interlocking tendrils. It looked like it was trapped inside of a ratnid's nest. As she continued to examine the spread of the so-called substance, she realized pockets of it were also spilling forth from various ruptures lining the Warrens below and even the Sunderwilds beyond. Most of the enclave had already been bifurcated, with the substance reaching out from where Avo’s many watchtowers used to be.

Well, if there was one bad thing about him becoming a paracausal entity capable of existing across the continuum of existence, this was it. It seemed a new infection was spreading from every place his mind could once reach. But that made Draus wonder. She was connected to Avo, so was the rest of the cadre. So were millions of other people. They were all part of his gestalt. If this substance was eating through the city, then why hadn't it devoured her?

Well, maybe that was the wrong way of looking at it. Maybe she was already consumed, seeing as she was already within the shimmering veil created by one of these tendrils. After Veylis ruptured the gold soul the first time, the architecture of his Frame seemed to have partially merged with the mental world that existed inside Avos’s metamind. It might just be that his mental world is now becoming fully externalized, overlapping with the real, and slowly merging bits contained within his Exo-Paracosm with other locales across Idheim.

As Draus contemplated these new changes inflicted on existence, she glided along windowpane reflections, jumping across the district with each refraction of light. She skipped into the lens of a passing drone, and it scanned the streets below, sweeping for any abnormalities along the rest of its swarm. Seeing the Sanctus assets in this district kicking up their surveillance and putting every mega-block they still controlled into lockdown.

Rows of aeros were halted in mid-air as needle-shaped drones cut them off. Phantasmal tendrils jumped from the observing drones, commanding the passengers within the vehicles to submit to inspections. Most came to a halt, creating a deadlock of traffic extending out from below layers of floating blocks. A few tried to run, gunning their thrusters off and breaking from the designated skylanes, but as soon as they pierced through the holographic veil, a shot would burrow clean through their chassis, reducing the escaping aerovecss to tumbling fireballs.

Directing her attention outward, Draus used her Phys-Sim to trace the origin of the shot and with the Arsenalist’s assistance, she guessed firing platforms were likely cloaked in the skies above, holding a defensive perimeter running at least 20 kilometers long. In most cases, a Guild could fire at and lock threats from beyond visual range, and if she was forced to engage in the open, then she needed to go low and use the undersides of the floating blocks as cover. Otherwise, she'd be facing constant, concentrated bombardment of mag-flung munitions, smart rockets, and whatever miracles their local golem-knots could muster. But that was the least of her worries when the Chronoframes were still in operation.

Leaping out with another splash of luminescence, she dove into the Liminal Paracosmos found within a glossy puddle. With each new pathway she created, she came closer to the Chronoframes and also the ziggurat they were trying to secure. Using her ansible, she formed a microscopic wormhole, triggering an attempt at quantum communication with the rest of her surviving cadre. As the implant buzzed in the back of her skull, several lines extended over her cog-feet as her exo-cortex attempted to establish a virtual connection.

{Stand by…}

Most of the cadre were displayed as greyed out names. Unresponsive. Missing. Lost to the chaos, just like her. Draus guessed that she might’ve died right on time to miss the worst of the mess, and now–

{CONTACT ONLINE: AEDON CHAMBERS}

A vicious smirk crawled over the regular's face despite herself. Of course, the half-strand was still kicking. Loathsome, deviant wretch though he was most days. He was also something of a cockroach, but unnaturally resilient for non-Reg. As the transmission went through, she caught an audible gasp of relief as a virtual avatar of Chambers formed in the corner of her feed.

{Draus—fuck, consang, you have no idea how glad I am to see you.}

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

{The regular snorted briefly before reciprocating, "Chambers. See you ain't dead yet. What's your sitrep?}

A brief spike in volume splashed across. It sounded like things were blowing up on Chambers' side. Draus frowned as she heard a familiar noise, the kind of sound you'd hear when an aerovec’s core suddenly shorted out, followed by the unmistakable noise of a series of collisions.

{Somewhere between pretty good and utterly fucked, not quite sure yet,} Chambers replied. {I have to get back to you on that. Just a couple moments ago, the Guilds were rolling out and throwing down. I'm telling you, Draus, that shit was nova. Hundreds of Knots were slamming into each other, planar lines created folds across entire districts. Nukes started flying everywhere, cadres tore into each other. Got existence shitting itself something bad, but too bad for them they missed us little guys making moves up the gutters. So. Let’s just say I’m doing a little snuffing of my own right now. Me, Cas, the other “mes,” and a whole gaggle of other copies.}

{Cas is with you?} Draus asked.

{He was. Our cult-boy’s currently running recon. After those big fucking tentacle things started spreading, some of the districts got cut off. I don't see how much—agh, DeepNav ain't working right anymore either. So, we decided to do some preemptive liquidation of potential threats, while Avo unfucks all this. Any idea how far along the rotlick is, by the way?}

Draus went silent at that.

{Draus? You still there?}

{Yeah,} Draus replied. {Calvino, you wanna fill him in on what's going on?}

{Certainly, Draus.}

{Calvino! My favorite coldtech testicle looking thing!} Chambers shouted. {I said, guns, I've missed you too. How’s shit looking up in the void?}

{Like a series of popping hemorrhoids, I'm afraid,} Calvino said.

{Shit. Well, that was the exact metaphor I needed,} Chambers muttered.

{Not me,} Draus grunted, cutting into the conversation between the two. As Calvino began to elaborate on their current unfortunate state of affairs, Draus dove into the glass, lining an entire section of the high-rise facing the ziggurat. She got her upfront perspective of the changes this substance was making to the real. Phantasmal veins branched out from the ziggurat, burrowing through nearby structures, slowly spreading with each additional second.

The alterations it made to the environment were slow at first, but Drows ready, Draus could see the architecture of the blocks around the ziggurat changing. Patches of reality were slowly bleeding away and turning into unnatural horizons overlaid upon the distinct’s natural environment. They resembled unnatural smears presenting abnormal vistas; an optical illusion, if Draus was forced to describe more. It was like looking through a kaleidoscope at some point, a kaleidoscope leading to other destinations. Some of these phantasmal discolorations were as if a looking glass peering into somewhere in the gutters. Another showed the interior of the George Washington before its ultimate destruction. Suddenly, existence was mutating, the continuum around the ziggurat melding into an impossible patchwork of neighboring biomes.

Avo’s memories were leaking into the world, changing it, but the tinge of gold lining the edges of the smears also hinted at Veylis’ continued presence. And like the pulsing beat of a heart, the memory-formed tower would splash the very fabric of existence forking bolts of phantasmal lightning, expanding the fissure between the mental and the material.

And then there were the Chronoframes, four of them. Up close, she saw that they were all of different configurations, though humanoid; only two stood over one hundred and twenty meters and sported a large configuration of implanted weapons embedded in their arms and tendrils.

The other two were only half their size, and far more humanoid at that. Instead of nests of tendrils, they seemed to have only a scything blade of gold extended from their left arm and what looked to be a time-preserved fusion burner that replaced their right. Splashes of synaptic lightning spilled down from the tower, but as it crashed against the Chronoframes, it bounced from their body as if small caliber munitions glancing off an exo-rig.

{Wait, wait, wait, no, no, no, no,} Chambers said, interrupting her observations. {Avo isn’t dead, he can’t be—He's not dead. All this shit has him written all over it. And Kae! If he popped, and K also popped, then why don't we have the rash anymore? I died. I came back. I came back clean. Most people across New Vultun are clean. Shit, even the flats are getting better. Whatever he did, he saved people. He kept them whole. He can't be dead. He just fucking can't.}

With every word, Chambers grew increasingly agitated. Death was a hard thing for some people to accept, and Draus herself avoiding thinking Kae’s probable fate, But considering the Heaven of Love was within the rupture as well, the Agnos had even odds of making it out of this. If Avo was still around, then Kae just might be as well.

That was what Draus was telling herself anyway. It wasn’t just Chambers who wanted to believe.

{We are currently uncertain as to Avo’s exact state. However, the continual spread of the substance indicates some level of existing consciousness, especially since the Conflagration requires a stable cognition to come to formation.} No definite statements on Calvino’s part either. Voidwatch was running as blind as she was, maybe. That was a hell of a thought.

{Right, right, that's what I'm saying,} Chambers said, latching on to the nipple of hope. {So, all we gotta do is what, dive into the shimmer? Ping Avo?|

{Don't reckon it's going to be as simple as that,} Draus said, transmitting what she just observed over to the Calvino. In seconds, EGI responded with a thoughtful hum.

{Interesting, it seems the Chronoframes are at least partially warded from the substance's effects. This is incongruous with our other findings. Rendbombs and counter-miracles meant to dissuade incursions from the High Seraph had been deployed against the substance, but failed to slow it by any noticeable degree.}

At this point, one of the Chronoframes released a disruption at the memory tower rising out from the ziggurat.

And then things went from weird to fucked immediately.

At once, reality shuddered and the dissonant whispers in the backdrop rose to a deafening screech. From the tower, a beam of perception speared down at the Chronoframes, and while frames endured, the surrounding area began to twist and warp as pustules burst open upon the face of space-time.

+ERRONEOUS BRANCH IDENTIFIED: RESEQUENCING+

+NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE!+

+HUNGRY! EAT! EAT YOU! BLEED FOR ME!+

+LOST LOST LOST+

+WHEREAMIWHEREAMIWHEREAMI+

Clashing declaration boomed in the back of Veylis’ skull and the Regular winced at the loudness of the voice. To make shit even weirder, the speaker sounded like Avo at first before ending more like Veylis. There was also an echo of Kae and a chorus of other voices in accompaniment, and it all came together as a big symphony of weird eldritch bullshit.

Judging from how the Chronoframes flinched back, they heard it too. A stillness gripped the district, and the clashing voices only grew. The shimmer lining the sky above the district went from steady ripples to turbulent tides. Scenes flashed along its glossy surface, and Draus spotted dotted accretions gliding through the miasmic chaos.

{Oh dear,} Calvino muttered.

A ring of guns spread out from behind Draus within her Liminal Paracosmos. She had a feeling her brief stay from violence was coming to an end.

Draus.

The Regular blinked. She wasn’t sure if she imagined Avo’s voice or if he actually called out to her, but the pressure inside her mind grew, as if nourished by her Ignorance.

Only going to be conscious here for a moment. Did my best to hide you from the rest of myself. From the unstable fragments. Don’t have long. Neither does this strand. They struck the local anchor. Subconscious responding. Retaliation imminent. Going to destabilize the entire area. Kill millions. Need you to snuff to Chronoframes. Remove the threat. Going to make you seem like part of a memory. Rest is up to you.

And a set of four mem-locks blinked into place within her Draus’ cog-feed, and without any effort on her part, she found reticles fused around the cores of each Chronoframe.

Remove identified threats. Remove… Subconscious will go dormant. Need to keep her from taking hold. Her and the beast and… so many pieces… can’t find myself… up to you… trust you… Enter the tower…

Once more, there was only silence. Draus let out a slow breath as she turned her attention on her victims to be. +Synced on that, consang. Stay zero. I’ll make this right. And I’ll do whatever it takes to fix you.+

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