We had problems.

In that while Urs could sense his old defense system was embedded within the wall, he’d need to go there himself and locate it. According to him, he could trigger the system into an active state by sending a command out through the fortress. But after that, he’d need to walk the halls and feel for the ripples in the occult around it, until he could find one of the terminal spots.

Meanwhile, the second generation Feathers were going to be a problem. Ironic given my earlier speech about them actually being a pain in my ass, because turns out that was completely true.

They were disciplined, methodical, practiced, and actually followed Avalis’s calls and orders. And there were a grand total of seventy three running around with the remains of the assault forces. Each had been profiled by the Icon and she knew how to keep them off her back.

Only the older Deathless in tandem with the Winterscar knights that were left were holding them off. Other combinations of units including the imperial warlocks just didn’t stand a chance.

They weren’t winning against the Icon’s tactical movements, but they sure as the gods weren’t going away.

“And if we leave our position here to shore the wallside, they will come to the vault and eliminate your signal.” Urs concluded as we both watched the battle map. “Leaving us in a situation.”

All the power to crush anyone I wanted, and the only real issue was them getting into range. I couldn’t be everywhere at once. The Walls or the Vault.

“We have alternate options.” The Icon said. “Do remember our ultimate strategic goal is to draw Talen and then have Keith deliver you close enough to him to heal his soul. Holding the fortress is not technically required for that.”

“You propose we scatter into the biome?” Urs hummed at the option. “I suppose that would negate our enemy’s wallbreaking forces, would we survive long enough without defenses?”

“That’ll all depend on what’s out there, right?” I waved a finger over the virtual terrain beyond the walls. “We know who Avalis will send to blow up the vault the second he’s got a free shot at here, but what is he planning for the wall?”

The current battlemap was very much showing only empty darkness beyond the red ant-like roads Avalis was building up.

“I am uncertain Mister Winterscar. I can make predictions, however the machine catalogue of potential weapons and units is quite vast even with Miss To’Wrathh assisting my knowledge banks. I would need additional scouting outside on Avalis’s total forces. Although I strongly suspect he has used up all of his available capital in his opening move and his follow up options here are limited. Remaining within the fortress is a datapoint he is aware of and will attempt to counter. I believe the units he will bring to bear will attack via saturation attacks.”

“We could go out there and break a few expensive things.” I suggested. “Just saying, that’s almost always worked for me.”

If those wallbreaker units were the only real weapon Avalis had left, along with the command army of second generation Feathers, then blowing those up would effectively end his assault. Sure we’d lose the fortress, but we’d get a checkmate in exchange.

Avalis had changed his definition of victory a while back when he realized he wasn’t winning against the Icon. We had to adapt as well.

“There is a third option.” Urs said. “The portal fractal that he has used. I sense I am close to a breakthrough within it. There are concepts I am teasing out and transcribing into mathematical equations within our systems, a more refined version of it that will do what we need it to do instead of what it is currently only able to do.”

Connected as we were to the soul link, I could see what he was doing: Multitasking. As in breaking down his research among the infinite connected Urs, each of them searching and testing different aspects of it, returning information they found back up the chain to the primary realities moving forward. Alone, he might have taken a year or two to figure this out. Right now, he was already mostly complete, he had his hands on the very concept itself. It was just transcribing it into a usable mathematical formula was difficult.

Our simple one’s and zero’s was easy to understand. The universe didn’t use or care for numbers, it only recognized patterns. Urs had that pattern in mind already, he just needed to find the right way to inscribe it.

And whenever I touched minds to check, the pattern he saw in his head was clearly deep in the fourth dimension, moving around constantly, and filled with hooks and potential additions that he was sharpening into a weapon.

Oddly funny in a way, that the concept of the portals was already solved, just figuring out how to transcribe it into mathematics was the catch. There were some parts of that pattern that just couldn’t be made with mathematics yet, which forced him to cut those away and then try to remake variations that would replace those parts while still being transferable into our mathematics.

“Do not fear,” Urs said, sensing I was watching him work. “I have all I need here to resolve this riddle. I only need time.”

That said, we were still in the same predicament.

“We can’t stay here in the vault. If Avalis breaks the wallside, then whatever units he’s got that can level the fortress will open fire and eliminate everything from a distance. Which leaves either going to the walls to power the defenses myself, or we abandon the citadel and take our chances out there, where Avalis can’t focus fire on any of us. At the cost of the Icon’s guidance.”

If she was knocked out, but Talen still arrived on time, we’d be fine. Or at least Avalis wouldn’t be our real problem anymore.

“There is an update.” The Icon said. “I now see Avalis’s plans. The wallbreakers have entered the map.”

The warmap updated and Avalis’s move was highlighted. It was unfortunately the worst possible case. “Ah. Well, I guess the plan to abandon the citadel won’t work now.”

The ‘wallbreakers’ really weren’t at all unique for a solution: Drakes. He’d brought a small army of drakes, who had to get close enough they’d get a good line of sight on the walls and start lasering into it. Too far, and the beams would waste power on floating rocks and other debris.

But he’d been holding them in reserve this whole time, waiting until the occult pathways were complete enough for those drakes to make it out all in one wave.

And now they were rushing down the paths, sprinting ahead. Hundreds of them, slowly crawling over the virtual ant-paths. They looked like a swarm of angry red dots, flooding through.

He was bringing more and more specialized units besides drakes, but they all carried the same weapon: A beam like To’Sefit’s own weapons. Smaller, more compact and far less dangerous.

And further off far behind them, lumbering with far slower speed, were the heavier units.

The size of Murdershrimp, although they looked more like a giant conch than anything else. They had actual old-world tank treads under them for locomotion, but Avalis clearly thought that was suboptimal. Probably Relinquished playing around at giving her forces weaknesses so they’d slowly die off over time and never grow old enough to think rebellion.

Avalis’s solution to the slow tank treads was stupid and effective.

The conches were being carried by several hundred Runners, on what looked to be hastily built giant palanquins.

And I could see the faster drakes already getting into position and lasering out at the wallside to start cutting a path into the fortress proper.

The Icon was firing back as fast as they were coming, shells and To’Sefit lasers being returned back, cutting through defenses and blowing entire paths wherever she saw they weren’t defended enough.

She’d already sent away teams to attack the enemy frontlines from alternate angles they weren’t prepared for, and up there leading the charge were mostly the Winterscar knights. Which meant they weren’t inside the fortress holding off the second generation Feathers still causing mayhem everywhere they ran.

Still, more and more lasers were getting a shot off at the walls, melting down the metal fortification, or attacking the guns. Avalis was now in his endgame, throwing everything he had.

“We need to take to the walls.” I said, looking over the damage.

Urs’s eyes flickered. “I have sent the signal.”

A pulse of occult flowed through. Not in any physical sense, but my occult senses could feel it.

Something had turned on at the walls. Vast. Humming.

Waiting.

“The old defense network is awake.” Urs said. “It now needs us to guide and fuel the shield. Take me to the walls. We must be quick, the enemy will likely have noticed.”

And clearly Avalis felt it too, because his forces all moved slightly back for an instant, as if reeling from something. Then they doubled their frantic effort, trying to get the weapons to bear before whatever the humans were planning came to fruition.

The sounds of explosions and groaning metal started reverberating through the citadel. Large weapons were being used now, peppering the wallside. A timer appeared, counting down. Seven minutes until the walls were breached.

It would take me about five to get there myself. Well, that was it then. Time to get to work.

My hand reached out to the terminal, giving it a pat. “Icon, you’ve been the best thing humanity’s had in this entire scrapshit. I’ll see you soon, hopefully on the surface. If you don’t see us there, then either Avalis managed to get us, or we couldn’t beat Talen. I'm sure you'll come up with something. But for now, you’ve done everything you could.”

She could even predict the exact locations the second generation Feathers would flood out to eliminate the vault terminal here the moment I was gone.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“I will do my best to support your-” She stopped. “One moment. There is activity on the walls.”

I looked over to the wallside defenders. The video feed were showing me the interior and exteriors.

“Urs… is this supposed to happen?” I asked, looking at how the walls began to glow occult blue on the camera feed, the fortress acting like a titan waking from sleep.

“No.” He answered. “Someone else has reached the defense network before us. And they have begun to command it.”

Tiberius held a hand out and the Feather froze in the air, still snarling to strike him down.

He focused on the enemy, forcing his occult into shape, squeezing down.

It would not kill a foe as strong as this of course. But it would allow the other humans nearby to complete the fight for him.

They did so, moving flawlessly together, chains of occult ripping the Feather’s shields away, while more occult blades sliced through and beheaded the frozen target.

The machine lessers nearby swarmed out, trying to protect their commander, before receiving orders to retreat.

They had been like this for a while now, attacking the interior walls in tandem with the Feathers, and falling back immediately to conserve forces.

“Tiberius, please relocate to the third floor. We have need of you there.” The woman’s voice spoke, showing on his relic armor the exact position he needed to be to hold off a future attack.

He followed the command with little trouble, half jogging, half sprinting. The world did feel oddly dreamlike to him, but it always had for years now. His mind was fading. There was a limit to how old mankind was meant to be, and he knew his time was coming.

He'd merely been prolonging the end. For something.

He was pulling debris up. He was firing his weapon. He was holding a Feather at bay. He wasn’t sure when or what time he was in, but he knew he was doing something important. He’d come back here for a reason.

All seven of them had.

Lucidity flowed through at strange moments. He would blink and find himself elsewhere, doing something different.

“Tiberius, relocate to the second floor, third corridor and hold the stairwell from invaders.” He moved, passing obstacles, slicing through machines, his body moving almost automatically with little thought. He blinked.

He was sitting on a stone cube, in the darkness of the biome, within one of those suspended rocks one fled for refuge from the storms.

“Tiberius, do you think we’ll ever take the citadel back?” Another voice spoke to him, watching the massive citadel ahead of them. The old heart of humanity. “I hear deep within, we might find the means to connect with Tsuya. Surely the machine empire would know of the danger and defend it with everything they have.” She turned her helmet to him, as the imperial forces behind all prepared the assault to retake the ancient structure.

“Mister Tiberius, follow map route guidance to the ninth antechamber and coordinate a defense force with the Winterscar knight there. Expect three Feathers to attack with sixty four lessers among the assault forces.”

He cut off the head of a machine, and a burst of occult from his hand slammed into a Feather trying to race away. Another Deathless perfectly stepped through, power drawn into her hand. He didn’t get to see the deathblow. The voice was already telling him to move.

The walls had holes melted into them now. Those were new. Explosions were breaking the superstructure.

And outside, he saw the enemy gathering up in large ant-like swarms, building bridges. Massive lasers were being fired now from the fortress out into those swarms. The walls shuddered with firepower as cannon shells and ordinance fended off the invaders at a distance.

He was sprinting across the silver bridges scattered through this biome, blade in hand, the rest of his fireteam behind him, charging for the ancient citadel walls while the storm was down.

“Two minutes Tiberius, we won't make it! Let's focus on finding cover for the fireteam.”

He identified a rock further up ahead, they would all make their way there and then wait out the next stormwave. Hopefully the machines holding the citadel hadn’t yet noticed them.

“Mister Tiberius, travel to the first floor into the medical wing there. I need you to assist the defense forces while we ferry the wounded to miss To’Wrathh further into the citadel, across the enemy held lines.”

He obeyed, sprinting through hallways and memories.

His rifle barked out, clicking empty. The screamers ahead of him had dodged, they always were uncanny in that regard. And the ambush had caught his fireteam flat footed right on the bridge.

The citadel walls were too far away, they wouldn’t make it.

The walls were right here, and he was sprinting through them right now, on his way to the medical wing, blade in hand singing away as imperial warlocks fought around him.

Where was he? How had he arrived here?

He held his hand out, and a shield of power came out, blocking the Feather trying to strike and stab at the defenders holding ground there.

He blinked and focused his will, struggling to keep the shield up as the storm picked up, flinging occult strings all over him. The dead screamers that had ambushed his fireteam were scattered to pieces, as his Deathless and imperial crusaders under his command huddled around him for protection.

He could see them staring at him. His fellow Deathless were already resolved. They’d been caught in the storm, death was imminent. But they would return.

The humans under his care however, they only had this life. He couldn’t let the shield drop. They had to make it to the next rock.

“I will not fail.” He groaned, struggling against the might of the biome itself trying to rip him to pieces. Taking step after step through the rippling winds.

He would see them to the safety of the rocks ahead.

He blinked. The occult blade swings from the screaming Feather were almost absurdly easier to fend off. He barely felt them. Why had he been struggling? He remembered holding off the weight of a hundred occult strings and now he was here, fending off a few dozen slashes from one enemy that paled in comparison. He could see the frustration and hate as the Feather retreated.

He blinked, he was in a medical chamber. A hushed silence of wounded imperial crusaders stared up at him. His hands were extended out, occult crackling off from them where he held a massive dome shield, protecting them all.

Ahead of him an old Deathless leading him on, her golden blade pointing out sections of the newly captured citadel. “They’re going to breach the walls soon, but can you feel it, Tiberius? This citadel, these walls. They’re alive. There’s something deep inside this fortress, calling for us.” She seemed so certain.

“Mister Tiberius, advance to the antechamber and form up ranks with Sir Highwind Winterscar, keep him protected. Expected enemies, seven Feathers.”

Was she in his helmet? Or was she ahead of him, leading him on? The voices sounded so similar.

Perhaps she was here. Once more guiding him.

“Mister Tiberius, you are off course, please advance to the antechamber. We need your defensive abilities there. Mister Tiberius!”

These walls, he’d been here before. And now he felt it. A call.

Yes.

He knew these hallways.

He’d seen someone else ahead of him, running. A name he didn’t quite remember.

"Mister Tiberius! Please respond!"

“There is something I must do.” He answered the voice in his helmet, unsure himself. Following his feet.

“Elaborate if you could?”

“I… cannot. I do not know.”

He’d been in these halls once. When he was younger. His broken mind tried to put it together as his body followed through on his instincts.

He remembered fighting here before. Purging the machine nest that had infested the citadel. It took months to clear out the entire fortress. He was here with hundreds of others, all fighting to reclaim the old heart of the empire. And the machines had tried to take it back.

Who was it he was following behind? Someone he’d known, who had told him to follow.

“We don’t have a choice.” She said, up ahead, as they both raced through the besieged citadel. “If we stand and fight with the others, we’ll keep the fortress held for another week at best. But if the citadel itself is calling for us here, it must be for a reason!”

His feet moved him in odd directions. The voice in his helmet spoke again, red starting to flash forward. He took his helmet off, it was distracting him.

He could see her now. Ahead, Selinia led the path, so sure of herself as the machines began this week’s attempt to dislodge the new invaders of the citadel. “They’re scared of this place, Tiberius. They had to gather together to assault it for a reason. I can sense the citadel calling on me, it’s alive.”

Down the corridor. To the left. Up the stairs, to the fourth floor. “It was here.” He muttered, passing by rushing crusaders and imperial warlocks. “It was here all along. I remember.”

The next chamber he’d entered held the ruins of a cannon. Melted down, where the machine forces had attacked back. Slowly breaking the teeth of the fortress, one weapon at a time.

Debris had covered it. He rushed over, relic armor gloves grabbing a broken metal chamber that had been melted off at the base. Still glowing dim red.

With effort, he heaved up. Outside, there were more and more lasers hitting the wallside. He could see the glow of blue from the open hole. The return cannon fire was slowing down. They were losing.

He flared the occult around him. The debris had to be removed. He had to make it. Inch by inch, the metal bent away and lifted, revealing the trapdoor under.

He reached down and forced it open with a burst of power.

Darkness below. She jumped down ahead, helmet light blinking on. “It’s here. Tiberius I found it! Quickly now, we need to man the defenses.”

His armor triggered lights. Old architecture welcomed him back, exactly the same as he’d once seen before in another life.

And there, at the center, was what he had come for.

A pattern of softly glowing blue light, built into what was almost a large rock. Wires were connected to it, feeding off into machinery that hadn’t been triggered in centuries.

The citadel groaned around him, the walls breaking down. The enemy was in full assault.

His hands tapped a few latches on his right armguard, releasing the locks. The gauntlet opened up, the armor slipping off his fingers and hands, pieces hitting the ground in the chamber as he moved closer.

His hand reached out to the rock ahead, it glowed in response, sensing the occult around it. Crackles formed between them.

He saw her touch the rock, burning away from the power passing through.

She turned to him, face fading into ash as the power ripped through and finally overwhelmed her. “You need to be the one now. Be strong for us all, one more time. After all, I’m long gone.”

He touched the rock with his bare hand, the same place she had. This was the end of his life, he could feel it. He’d been holding onto sanity for this final moment.

The stone responded to him, drawing out power. Magnifying it. A living force on the other end shaping the shield.

He could feel it asking him to pour more. To shape the shield. Occult crackled across his body, and he was more than himself. He was the walls. The fortress itself.

He fell on his knee and struggled to get back up. He needed to do this. The citadel had to be protected. He focused his will as he had hundreds of times before, sharpened it and delivered unto the rock what it needed.

Outside, a force grew around the walls. A hand of occult blue formed, like a massive guardian, slowly cupping around the entire walls.

Lasers and firepower lanced through, ripping the manifestation apart. It reformed, a massive beast coalescing again, he struggled to hold it together.

Power bled from him and through him. He could feel the engineering of everything come together, how massive the system truly was. This rock was merely one of many entry points. The fortress itself was connected, power cells amplifying his own willpower through the stone.

He knew he wouldn’t return for some time after the toll was paid here, if at all. She never had.

And now, connected, he knew why.

It was meant to be triggered by someone far more powerful than he was. In the light of that, he felt like a small imitation. But that was fine. He didn't need to burn for long, he only needed to burn once.

More firepower struck into the wallside shield, failing to punch through, protecting the humans on the wallside firing back. Beyond, the enemy raged, doubling their attempt to dismantle the defences before they could fully manifest.

He had protected his charges from the storm that caught them. Protected them from blade, bullet, Feather and machine. He'd been doing so all his life. Drawing the power through centuries of experience, feeling what the stone needed by instinct, he continued.

Skin was now burning, tendrils of power spreading through his body like lightning, leaving only ash flaking off his cheeks and hands. The power demanded too much, and he was an imperfect vessel for it.

The shields were breaking back down. Occult scattering off as holes formed within the shield. There wasn't enough of him to complete the defenses.

As he felt the occult run through his skin and burn his soul, breaking his back, a hand reached out and took his.

From elsewhere in the citadel.

Another Deathless. Drawn to the stones. A companion who’d felt the occult pulse.

Lift. The other said. Together, brother.

Together. He answered back.

They rose back up as one.

The projected defences formed again, like water and mist, flowing into what it needed to be.

Another joined in shortly after. And another.

He could see them move through his walls, now that he was part of the citadel. As each drifted through, searching for where the call had come.

Until the last of his siblings from the first generation connected to the defenses.

All seven of them held each other through the occult. And with one final push together, the shield closed and hardened, a translucent barrier before all threats, solidifying into an impenetrable barrier, maintained for as long as they could stand.

Nearly seven hundred years of life for this moment, but Tiberius knew it was well spent.

This was where they were needed.

This was what they’d come here for.

So that when the citadel faced its last breath, they would give it one more.