Godclads

Chapter 27-7 Shaped by Another

Chapter 27-7 Shaped by Another

Here’s a bit of advice you’ll get from me about having kids in this line of work: don’t.

Take it from me. You’ll fuck up their life. They’ll fuck up yours. No one ends up happy.

Being a legendary squire or some nova-hot Necro? Some Godclad with impossible power? That shits just for your enemies and allies. With family, it’s just an anvil around you neck. There’s no normal life to be had if you want to be in the snuff-game.

None.

-Quail Tavers when asked about children

27-7

Shaped by Another

–[Eurun]–

It felt like waking up after being drowned.

For hours, months, years, Eurun floated in the dark, unable to focus, unable to stay tethered to himself or any of his memories. Everything came in broken instances: Shapes, sensations, then gone.

Afterward, he was in the deep again, waiting for a moment to surface.

Sometimes, there would be a period in which he would be aware of himself—sense his surroundings, feel the fluid touching his skin. He struggled to hold on during those times, but the waves always pulled him under as soon as he lost focus. Then he lost who he was again.

He thought today was going to be another one of those moments. But there was something different; someone else was in his mind with him. Someone else that reconnected all the recollections he could, someone wrapping him in struggle, keeping him leashed to awareness.

The first memory that came back to him was his earliest, when he was just a child, watching the aratnids spill through the roof into his playpen. He would never forget that, never, not unless every bit of him was destroyed.

From there, his memories jumped. He was in a crashing aero, aiming for a Syndicate transport; he was gunning down enforcers in mid-air, diving after them as burning transports fell from the sky; he was torturing a man to impress some of his consangs, trying not to throw up as his victim screamed and begged. He was coughing blood and limping away from the circuits, his shiv buried in the throat of an unmoving Scaarthian.

In all these memories, he heard the skittering of the aratnids. They were taunting him. The little bastards were there, like vermin spread across his entire life. Everything he did, he did to live up to that moment, to kill the little fuckers before they took his world before they took his mother’s respect for him.

It took a hell of a lot to be a worthy son to one Quail Tavers.

Tavers. His mother. She was here. He knew that somehow. Close enough that he could sense her. He knew she was watching him. She didn’t look aged, but something about her eyes made her seem older. He knew that look...

Oh, gods. Not again. Once again, mom had to clean up his mess. Stupid Eurun, idiot Eurun, just-like-his-dad, Eurun. His thoughts were beginning to flow coherently. He remembered all his attempts to impress his mother, to being a squire like her: killing random street toughs, going after Syndicates and Fallwalkers. Anything to prove himself worthy of the name.

The little aratnids he could handle. But she was still getting the big ones. Still doing all the actual work.

So, he ended up joining the circuits to earn a name. He fought in the Blood Games, and got called Eurun the Eradicator for a time. Chainsaw helmet for intimidation and showmanship. High-end bio-augs. Not a hint of chrome on his skin. No one expects to be torn apart by the flat until their skin unlatches and the Sang-shit comes out.

He killed a lot of people during those days. Most of them deserved it, some just didn’t have anyplace better to be. But the circuits gave him a way out, the circuits gave him purpose, and focus, and eventually, a Frame. The Fallwalker who faced him that day in Hseagyr thought they had him. They were a Godclad, and he was an ephemeral. But death comes with every mistake, with every slip and instance of overconfidence. They didn’t manage to kill him fast enough with their flames, and didn’t take him seriously enough to manifest. They died first, he followed, and what ended was one of the most high profile usurpations recorded on the Nether.

That caught the attention of a Highflame Guilder, and they got in touch with him. Said they were interested in potentially brining him in. He thought they wanted to make him a full citizen—an Instrument or something. He drank himself to death three times celebrating right after he finished the cast, but then he spoke to mom, and all he got from her was anger.

Stupid Eurun, idiot Eurun, just-like-your-father Eurun.

“I didn’t burn my life doing runs so you could go sell yourself to the Guilds and be their dog,” she said, more livid than he ever remembered her being. All his life, he just wanted to make her proud, to carry the weight of her legend and shadow. But in the end, he was just Eurun—his father’s son. And that was a bit too much for him to take.

He said things to her afterward. Shit he couldn’t remember, but hurt all the same. He asked her why she wanted to be a moment when she liked holding guns more than him or his brothers. What’s the point of having kids if she just wanted to be a squire?

He asked if it was because she wanted her own dogs? People who would believe in her and follow her no matter what—and wouldn’t leave her like dad did?

She hit him. He ran. She cast. He didn’t answer; he took the Guilder’s gig out of spite. And that ended up being the last mistake he could remember.

Thing was, Highflame wasn’t looking to recruit some new Godclad, but were finding useful dying meat for an upcoming raid on an Ori-Thaum embassy. Something deniable, with someone disposable. They found that in Eurun and a few other Fallwalkers. They got together like they were a cadre, and got all amped about how many thaums they were going to claim that day. But they were compromised before their run even began.

The others died seconds after the fighting started. Eurun managed to keep himself from getting nulled through their subverted intelligence assets thanks to the wards he kept inside his mind as well. But that only kept him alive for a bit. Crawling out of his downed transport, he saw nukes hammer down against the Ori’s forces, but they were ready for it. Just as they were paranoid enough to have their own cadre in reserve.

Highflame’s actual assault cadres came a minute later, and Eurun tried to join them, thinking that he was going to distinguish himself somehow. But again, the skittering sounded in his head.

It was his role to get the little ones. The little ones. Leave the big ones to mom.

Eurun sighed. +But what else am I good for?+

Humanity was ridiculous. All the colors in front of them, and they claim there are none. +Go do something else. Find out. Can still be a warrior. Never told you to stop that. But hired killer? A hunter of other people? No. Not in you.+

+You know, all my life, I just... wanted to live up to mom. Be the one to kill the big aratnids too. She was the one that saved Naeko in the end. You saw that, right? The moment where she got my doll back for me?+

+I did,+ Avo replied.

Eurun sighed. +Fucking useless. Just like my dad.+ A near-trauma pulsed inside him, turning into a dull ache. +All I could think about the Chief Paladin would have been embarrassed to see me. Couldn’t even be brave enough—+

+He would have told you to not be like him.+ Avo said. +That is the truth.+

Eurun was silent once again.

+You’re going to awaken soon. Ego is restored. In perfect condition. Mother is waiting. Life is waiting. Going to leave you now. Should talk to her. Face her. Face your thoughts. Don’t let them just live in your head. Shape them before they shape you.+

A full template of Eurun’s ego formed then, and Avo began to recede.

+Wait!+ Eurun called out. +Who are you? Why’d you do this?+

+I am merely will ascending,+ Avo said. +You will know my name soon enough. Did this for Tavers. It is not a favor. Not nearly enough to make up for how she aided me.+

+Yeah,+ Eurun said, mind a mix of sour and proud. +That’s mom.+

+Worried and tired. That is also mom. You are not alone under the shadow of her legend. Talk. Live. Stop wandering blind.+

And then Avo drew himself out from the man’s mind, and gave a final cast to New Vultun’s finest squire.

+It’s done. He’ll be with you soon.+

+...Thanks, consang,+ Tavers said.

+Thank me by being honest with him.+

He left before she could waste a response on him

–[Eurun]–

And then lights as Eurun’s eyes opened, and he found himself hovering in a cage of water. He paddled for a moment, kicked as he saw his mother. She reacted, breaking from her folded arm posture as she took a step forward. Her mouth dropped open, her eyes were wide, head whipping about. Frantic. He hadn't seen her like that in years...

A dull thrumming pulsed against his skin; he heard a suckling noise coming around him as the water level began to drop. The fluid cupping his body was sticky and had a strange comforting scent, a smell he couldn't quite describe, and after a while, he found himself lowered as the drain below him did its work. Pressures unlatched from his back and spine as the glass before him hissed open. The world was spinning.

But somehow, Eurun stood. On shaking legs, he managed the first step, and groping blind, he took three tries to find the edge of the glass. Slowly, he pulled himself out from his erstwhile home, but nearly fell as he tried to find the ground outside.

Two impossibly strong hands caught him. Hands he knew. Hands that held him under his arms, just like when he was a boy. As his vision cleared, Eurun found himself in a cold, pale room, face to face with his mother.

The stranger was right: she looked tired. But her expression was otherwise stone-still and unshaking. Ever the squire.

He winced then, preparing for her to yell at him, to talk about how he was just like his father. But none of that came. She just pulled him close.

And he let her.

After a minute of leaning against her, she spoke next to his right ear. “You, my boy, are a damn fool.”

That’s more like it. “Sorry. I guess I had to get it from somebody.”

Her embrace tightened. “Yeah. I wish you were smarter like your father too, sometimes. Might’ve made you wise enough to know when to run away.”

Eurun chuckled. And Quail Tavers was suddenly just mom once more.

This resurrection wasn’t so bad.