The Bladefather

Kensuke Muramasa was engulfed in a raging tempest of sensations, every drop from the storm raining down on him shredded his skin and bones, unleashing a whistling pain that once would have been silenced by the half of him now missing. He used to be a calm man -- rational -- but a dying mind did so little to instil calmness. Not his mind.

He struggled to maintain two battles at once. This would have been easy thirty years ago. One through the Southern Ward, where the Dogwhistler was attacking his mutant soulless and keeping them from reaching him. A second with the Captain, and the two interceptors of Crimson Souls.

The Queen's suit had morphed once more, now it was turret of volatile agony. Each bullet accompanied by a hundred more each passing second, some with effects. They burnt, dissolved, poisoned and bled him down. The Heart had grown in numbers, calling upon her own version of soulless husks who took her appearance and bombarded him with scarlet shrouded debris.

While Krishav, that man was the greatest threat The Bladefather could recall. His ability to manipulate the essence of water was synonymous with the capabilty to manipulate life. Add that he was also a Dual Adapter with nanomachines forming scales of metal, they shielded him and carried upon the currents of water to give each attack an appearance as though a dragon was in pursuit.

Once, they had bonded over that. Being dragons in a world of snakes. Once, Captain Krishav told The Bladefather that he'd help him rebuild his life in New California. Once, The Bladefather considered working in the Police Force. But Yuzhou meddled at every step.

He could feel them approaching, from beyond the storm clouds a ship the size of a mansion breached into vision. A Yuzhou Tenrei, he remembered once being on the control deck, positioning troops as The Infinite attacked.

He remembered it being torn in half.

Blood steamed out of his mask, a reaction born out of a moment of resonance. Somewhere… deep below, someone had just used his power.

And it wasn't his daughter. He laughed, feeling all the more proud of the Hammer's grandson. Emizren had been right about Ripley Donovick.

He only regretted that she wasn't here to see it.

———

Silvereye

To merge blood and steel. That thought echoed through me, and before I knew it… I'd been taken to my knees as Change was forced through me, stuffed down by Stability to remain… manageable.

My lightning snapped through my suit, burning it hot as Silver Energy coursed out of Ripley and into me, Warpcode… I understood. And likewise, he'd just now absorbed my blood, allowing himself access to minor amounts of Mutagenic material. Black blood fell down his mask, then strangely, it began to flow back up… reversing it's movement to seal over its cracks with black steel.

Ripley managed to stand up, as a foreign understanding from him forced itself into me. This wasn't like the last time we synched up, now it was one-sided and his presence almost engulfed me. I felt… so much greed and hunger in his heart. A need to conquer, to create, to own. To fix.

I felt like that Water which had always been so calming, was now drowning me in a riptide. Like I was a helpless passenger in the river of his desires, it dragged my mind and soul, twisting my thoughts as I felt that need of his conspire with my own.

So I had no choice but to let him feel the same treatment of fire, my rage wreathed over him to let him shudder and the only thing I felt was… agreement.

"We'll adapt better if we expose ourselves to threats. Silvereye." The Tetradyne behind him sent four tentacles slithering through the ground of clattered Shardware, grabbing the leftover corpses from when The Dogwhistler attacked this place. He flicked his black blood over to them, and it began digging in like worms.

As for me, my mind was still all over the place, Starlight was quiet as she maintained our bond, so I focused on the noise. Bladedaughter was a liquid arsenal of weaponry, every exchange between her, Kim and Archangel invited some new tool or trick.

Kim's body was layered in green, matching Bladedaughter's explosive speed and technique, but the daughter of blades was inhuman in her movement. She broke past the constraints of logical anatomy to force every twitch of hers into serving an offensive maneuver.

And if she took damage? Sabrina pulled frost into the air, letting Kim pin her blade into a shoulder and rend the limb off. Bladedaughter grabbed it with some magnetic component of her leg, a sickle forming over the shoulder which she swung into Archangel's shield. It bounced off a shield, falling right back into her stump as tiny tendril-like machines fused the limb back to her.

Her Shadow Tendency hid all of her actions, but beyond it lay a physical force of electricity. That… I could feel. That, I could manipulate. Lightning draped my body and suit, but feeling different this time. Electricity always felt… neutral, a presence of reality with no thought to it.

This time, it felt alive… it felt like an extension of me. A part of my will, running and coursing through the suit like arteries carrying blood. It extended even into those invisible magnetic waves resonating around the disks Ripley forged for me. Their lines stretched like a layer of muscles over my suit, and I forced them into my action.

In one step, I'd streaked the entire distance towards Bladedaughter, and within her I felt her surprise. My katana sliced into the joints of her neck, and passed through as her head flung into the air. Then her claws jabbed into my chest, I ignored the pain, intending to finish this when suddenly the metal scattered on the floor shifted.

And shot for me.

———

Dreadwire

I dropped the bodies I'd infected, diving through the mess of Shardware on the ground instead. The Dogwhistler attacked here knowing I would come, so I wasn't surprised to see she'd left worthwhile scrap for me. Diana filtered in knowledge, her understanding of electricity had changed once I fed on the Warpcode of War-Watcher, someone incredibly attuned to machines and their usage.

By extension of our bond, I read the finer details around us by stretching Defragmentation into Warpweb. Bladedaughter had this place trapped, loyal soldiers hidden within the confines as her Legion. My voice slammed into Dryder and Anomoly through the Neuralink.

"Sonic sickle, near Diana!"

As Bladedaughter's head came flying off her neck, the disordered scrap came alive. Six blades pincered onto Diana's position, one carrying with them a swarm of shrapnel, but Dryder was as obedient as he was annoying.

His sickle was the seventh weapon around Diana, and my thoughts submerged her into action as she ducked. The sickle erupted, glass panels in the room erupting as it's sonic shriek pierced the air, and Anomoly gripped it. Each blade skirted just off course, some switching to target Kim or Archangel.

The distraction was enough for Bladedaughter to catch her falling head, sticking it back onto her. She smirked through her destroyed mask.

———

The Bladefather

One head flew into the air, just another visage of the Crimson Heart disappearing as the Bladefather danced in a duel of blood and rain. The Queen shifted again. Her anti-mutant bullets had done their work, but not nearly enough. So she became a grenadier instead. Yuzhou troops began deploying around the field, but they were fools.

Bladefather's gaze landed on those who'd landed like they were mere ants, in seconds appearing where they had been. Missiles launched off Crimson Queen's suit, faster than the Leviathan's rushing river of a body. Smoke and force erupted atop the roof of the Western Ward, settling to reveal a massacre.

In a few blinks, they were all slaughtered. And the Bladefather rose, quite literally into the air as his true form came into existence. From behind him pulsed tentacles writhing with blood, each devouring a corpse that melted into his body. If not for careful insertions of Gravitanium across his skeleton, he would weigh several tons.

His robe peeled off, exposing the fleshy worms digging across his body. Yuzhou wasn't idiotic enough to send SIM Adapters after him, and each of these BUG Adapters had poisons circulating in their body… sacrificial lambs to weaken him. The eyes under his mask curled with the shade of blood, he'd be getting plenty of SIM Adapters soon enough from those he'd infected.

He needed all the flesh he could muster once he unsheathed the blade from which he was named after. It was starving.

———

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Silvereye

Those six blades dragged their chains around us, each slithering towards Bladedaughter who snapped her head back into place. Their chains stabbed into her back, but the blades themselves lay floating in the air as watching sentries. She shuddered as they came alive, pulsing with power and…

One blade shimmered, black threads snapping off it as it became a swarm of piercing rapiers. Dryder blew the strands apart, but they came writhing down to slam on Archangel's shield and wrap around it. Another blade burned with blue flame, erupting a spout of it at Sabrina who doused it with a spray of frost out of her new right arm.

A third had each swing accompanied by flying debris and shrapnel towards Kim, the fourth pulsed with circuitry and Warpcode, the fifth was fleshy and drinking on my blood that had spilt — cracking with electricity, the sixth went after Ripley.

It battered against his Tetradyne, stabbing into a joint as a corruptive golden glow infected the steel. The limb came snapping off, about a third of the overall limb caught in the curling chain which it dragged back to Bladedaugher. Ciricuitry wired from her back, digging into the piece of Ripley's Shardware as it fused to her back along with that blade.

Until she had a single Arachnodyne limb. She snickered at us. "This is a new model, right? I'm glad to see you all made your preparations… unfortunately, so did I. Be glad I'm only using what's been familiar to you."

Each blade carried the power of a sibling that we'd faced.

The blade of circuitry flew to Dryder's position, stabbing into his gun and pulling back. His bullets refused to fire, and by then the blade of fleshy lightning slammed down on him. He grabbed a second gun, but Anomoly got to his side first, shooting it with bullets that carried her sonic capabilities to make it's flesh bubble and burst.

It healed in seconds, slashing over her wrist before she rippled a haze of hardened air. The blade split it open regardless, using her own Mutations against her as the air turned sharp, a shotgun from Dryder pushed it aside from piercing her skull, just nicking her cheek.

All that, I got from Ripley's vision.

I'd been with Kim the entire time, taking control over the metal flying in her path, turning it back around as me and Bladedaughter exchanged control, twisting this storm of shards back around to one another. Bladedaughter grabbed this blade, which I assumed was based off Steel Vanguard, and wielded it with extraordinary might. Even with my enhanced speed and strength, I still relied on Kim's insightfulness to protect me from slashes carrying that undying bastard's might.

Ripley was on Archangel's case, his knowledge of Shadow Son helping him deal and twist out of those strands of hair which he snipped apart to free Archangel from having her shield crushed a second time. The relief was easy to see in her breath. But then an Arachnodyne came down on both of them.

And War-Watcher's blade from the side. It nicked Archangel's side as she focused her attention on the Arachnodyne, that shield fizzing away and forcing Ripley to battle his own Shardware while she moved to protect Sabrina.

Through our sync… I felt his excitement.

———

Dreadwire

This was the second time my own creation was used against me. Well then, I'd use Bladedaughter's own Feature against her. Technomorph swelled inside the Tetradyne, working alongside Shardweave in harmony — one created weaponry, the other assimilated them. Bladedaughter came down on me with two weapons, one forged to mimic War-Watcher and the other from Heart Seeker.

I'd take both.

The Tetradyne surged up, a mass of machinery enhanced by both Unique Features as I slashed into both with saw-blades stolen from the corpses on the ground. What touched War-Watcher's blade grew inert, and so I cut it down with a free arm, and simultaneously rebuilt it free of that corruption. The Arachnodyne, still grappled by a chain, attacked like a spider with one bladed limb.

It was crude, poking and slashing without the articulate nature of the movement I'd made my own. Both weapons weaved around me, intending to wrap me in a web of their chains. But I was the weaver, and I was the unraveller.

Golden wire strung off my Tetradyne, dragging me away from their paths all the while leading them deeper into my realm of control. They chased me, right over the bodyies I'd infected with my nanites. They swelled like bloated corpses. Black blood burst up to my command, a spray forced through a stimulation of their organic tissues to contract. It stuck to them like web, coagulating over their edges as it slithered exactly to my command.

Through them, I manifested a protocol of Bladedaughter's. Corruption. They froze in their tracks, unable to move as the combined effects of my Thread and Diana's Lightning Tendency snapped movement from them. I swiped them off their chains in the moment they were paused, already feeling them becoming mine.

Then the Tetradyne absorbed them, assimilating them into it's structure as Retrofit made the necessary adjustments. I sensed Bladedaughter's charge at me through Diana, bending as she swiped over me, then she slashed down on my prone form. Force erupted through my feet as I twisted and kicked her in the jaw, but that made the second time my foot came loose.

A limb grabbed and fitted it back in place, all before I landed. Diana's lightning forked around us, discharging into the protective shrapnel Bladedaughter spun around the Vanguard Blade. She slammed Bladedaughter into a wall, suffocating her with telekinetic force.

Then those chains touched the scrap on the floor, instantly erasing Diana's control as Bladedaughter came upon her like a reaper. I jabbed War-Watcher's blade into her Vanguard blade, the in-built Datacleaver rendering the weapon worthless as the veil of shards around them died.

Diana's blade slashed up, it's Dianium coating rippling to shoot needles of the substance into Bladedaughter. The Bladedaughter's windmill-bladed arms deflected them, but they came right back the same time I stabbed into her wrist with Heart Seeker's blade. I tore her hand off, instantly shifting the weapon to become jagged as it met her left arm's crescent-bladed whip.

This time, I wasn't cut through. Kim appeared from behind, her green-veiled body crashing her blade through Bladedaughter's torso — bisecting her.

She fell, and at the same time, so did me and Diana as our legs fell apart. We hadn't even seen…

We forgot. Bladedaughter's lower half twisted like a cybernetic ballerina in a pirroute to finish us off, seemingly forgetting my deal with her as jagged scythes aimed for our necks. Archangel's spear flung towards one, cut in half but tearing it off course from Diana's head. My own grace came from Sabrina's frost creating a layer of ice between me and the weapon, letting me barely turn my head away from its whistling edge.

Bladedaughter's upper half was assaulted by Kim, but even being half a woman didn't deter her. She used the blades she was connected with to drag her around like an Arachnodyne of her own, grabbing scrap which instantly corrected itself to her torn bits to become weapons of war as she and Kim exchanged in a spraying sparks of the other's weapons. Blue flame from the Phoenix sword rained down on us, only Diana braving it as she refused healing own legs to fling herself at Bladedaughter. Archangel, without a weapon, exposed electric blades from her gauntlets and ran closer too, where icy mist overtook the blue flame.

Bladedaughter's lower half engaged with me, spinning kick after kick as knee, thigh, and foot each became deadly. Taking a step out of Diana's pace, I decided to forego my legs by manipulating my momentum with the Tetradyne, the tentacles writhed me away from the deadly pair of legs, Dryder and Anomoly pelting shot after shot, each breaking it down piece by piece.

That didn't stop it from impaling my abdomen, and swiping through my liver to leave it. Before I could even breathe out the pain, Preservation Matrix had overridden my control over my nanites, the black blood refusing to leave me as it stitched into the wounds and fused vessels and tissues back into themselves.

But the pain left its mark and made me collapse. The legs jumped, one deadly hamstring aiming to scythe down on me… with hurried voice, I reached Twilight.

And left a single order. "Quartz."

———

Quartz

What had gone right today? First, Quartz had heard this building had a tendency to fall apart, then he'd experienced it himself. After a few assaults where he was the focal point of much machine gun firing, only protected by Corporal Alex Lopez's expert manipulation of shielding drones, they'd then received news that the Northern team was under assault from three royals at once.

Soon, they experienced the same. Crouching Dagger was nowhere to be seen, only the effects of his blade. Blood and severed limbs trailed his path, at most all you would see was a single flying dagger that would then be hidden. Invisible blades, if Quartz knew he hated it when he could see the threats that loved him… he detested the idea of something like his brother hunting him down.

Speaking of his brother, Topaz had apparently killed a royal himself.

The Widower. Based on that name alone, it was deserved. His brother had entered the Southern Ward around the same time their building had been rocked like a momentary earthquake ran through it. His brother joked that he'd farted, but then reality was reported.

The Revenant was here, a red mist spreading through his Ward like an infection. Or at least, that's what Quartz thought so until Twilight said something about The Bladefather, then about The Dogwhistler.

He'd seen the effects firsthand, many of the people on guard duty began twitching in and out of control. Some began firing on each other's backs, he'd personally seen Special Investigator Belle Rockfel have his back filled with lead and needing to be escorted. As did Alex Lopez, who'd suffered a seizure due to the Dogwhistler's prodding.

Once they heard The Bladefather was on the offense, they'd all made the decision to retreat to a medical ward. All the while, gunfire could be heard as forces unknown to them clashed and decimated the surrounding Wards. Quartz, truly, felt thankful for Ripley's modifications to his suit — the last thing he wanted was to draw the attention of The Bladefather.

Rick Lopez was restrained with Warp Cuffs, his eyes burning red-and-white as he trashed about, bits of his skin breaking off as the ground beneath him would crack and flicker into dust. That hadn't been his Mutation, it was becoming a bear-like hybrid.

Alex, slightly recovered, tried her best to calm him down. But the man just thrashed with no recognition, like so many others. Belle tried to bring hope, using the plants under his suit to aid his paralyzed movement, saying that Diana had been working on a cure for him.

Alex mentioned something about Anabelle being the reason for this.

Quartz just stayed far away, not wanting to be a part of this anymore. But he had to… for his brother. Periodically, the sound of clashing between Evolved beings could be heard in the form of collapsing infrastructure. They were those loved and touched by Aether.

Those who had become one with it.

Yuzhou had arrived now, they could take care of things. If anything, he considered his part in this raid over… except…

Twilight appeared, tears in her eyes and a tired expression over her. She whispered something.

It was. "I'm sorry."

Then she touched his suit, and the thanks he'd had for Ripley building something capable of hiding his presence quickly turned into contempt as the containment over his Aether erupted. It wasn't a massive explosion, or anything so dramatic.

But it was a shift, as everyone, whether asleep, wounded, arguing, fearful, fighting, or mourning, turned to him. Their eyes festering as though to devour him with their eyes. They flicked away in seconds, confused.

"What… was that?" Belle grabbed his head, still staring at Quartz who now stood up.

It was Rick Lopez who spoke, speaking coherently for the first time since he'd been infected by the Revenant's pollen. Rather, it wasn't the Revenant speaking, if Quartz believed Twilight. It was the Bladefather — and there was madness breaking through.

"I've never seen anything like that. You'll make an interesting blade."

Blood coughed from his mouth, his tongue splitting apart which snapped one of Alex's fingers off. His body began cracking, blood spraying off as he violently twitched.

Belle reacted first, managing to leap and grab the corporal, pushing Alex out of the way. Then Rick's body bloated and burst, raw meat rending the air and tearing concrete walls apart. As did all the others in the medical ward infected by the Bladefather, whether their infection was known or not.

As the blood settled, Quartz sighed with the knowledge that the most feared entity here just became aware of his position.

Laying his head against the wall, he accepted the fate in store for him.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.