Time Throws Fire | Volume Two | Chapter Sixteen
volume two of the second story in The Foundry series
Time Throws Fire | Volume Two
By Ophelia Everfall
Part One - Cosmonaut | ONE | TWO | THREE | FOUR | FIVE
Part Two - Holy Fire Priestess | SIX | SEVEN | EIGHT | NINE | TEN
Part Three - Get the Guts | ELEVEN | TWELVE | THIRTEEN |
Part Four - Demon | FOURTEEN |
Part Five - Synecdoche’s Synapse | FIFTEEN |
Part Six - Viscera Rising
Part Seven - Exile
Part Eight - Semblance
Part Nine - Threnody of Lojack
Part Ten - Time Throws Fire
PART FIVE | SYNECHDOCHE’S SYNAPSE
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Fuckity—fuck—fuck dude.”
Jammed — slipped up — its grip was lost — Synecdoche hadn’t quantified it exactly — a proving of trouble in her ability to launch more rails.
Each weight upon her back, that specifically designed sack, those people who’d found such dare to stare, the woman who’d failed beware — it all took second-fiddle to possibilities wrought from such stowance, that trouble, gifted from other’s hearts, curmudgeonly obstinances of fateful romance for those soon to be refound by malicious judgements of wall-blunt printer-carbon. Their weights were lighter than ever.
Some splatter did it — embedded in the rail-chamber.
It had Synecdoche going to a knee as the shouting aboard Exile grew towards fevered pitches of guttural lamentations laced in false-confidence from bravados unearned. Peoples of Exile made a beautiful ship, Vermillion grafted wills within all of excellence; clearly earned courage through bravery in facing down violence was present-apparent within even those who’d stood against her.
Those still yapped like fools and oversaw their own claim to mightiness wholesale, and by right of a blindness they’d hold towards bearing of, their falsest notion un-recognized within. They were puppets of Elaria and loving it.
“Your path ends here—demon!”
That woman wore a look on her face Synecdoche detested. They’d been overtaken by the spirit of a patriarchal colonizer. They were shouting her down with some privilege she’d never have, surrounded by men that supported and lifted them onto a pedestal, obliviousness apparent to them gifted surroundings of rich community in families formed of strongest bonds, still capitalizing on every privilege of Elaria and taking all for their smallest fiefdom, coalesced within an evil empire. The survivalism of those women borne of struggles on Vermillion before her, taught them towards treating fighters like Synecdoche — women of her make — as exactly what their hypocritical mental blocks disallowed them from seeing of themselves. They were whores to patriarchy remade into all they’d once hated.
“Check this out.” Synecdoche begged herself, still ungrasping the inability to communicate through feeling back towards a separate echo.
Choosing to go by Synecdoche permanently, for the sole visage of a consciousness based within The Foundry’s core-complex’s creative intelligence space so entirely composed of one Echo Béleaph’s wholeness had been confusing to her.
Regardless of facts, feeling it out, coaxing some need to scratch an itch slowly, Synecdoche was most pleased that dreadful wretch of never-to-be-acknowledged privilege had found herself lacking towards remembrance of their fallen peer, who’d been spread so completely across illustrious marble flooring.
Nearly — almost — situation-types would presume that woman from before into Synechdoche’s formations of body-mind, some murderess, the huntress within, that burdeness of fate — still, yet never quite in completeness.
Some softest spot upon the mid-chest would be found by that seeking shot which Synecdoche presumed the fool believed themself of ability to dodge, after those briefest moments of her rail’s barreling flight, so slowed to sight took a fist’s-girth in one smacked, dulled, echoless thud onto the stone wall sixty-longest-steps back.
Hallways were broad for painting on Exile. Synecdoche allowed her favorite thing to steer the taking of that leading shot. Her mind said, ‘Left!’
Heart told right.
Boys were easy. They’d come in bunches though.
Synecdoche had to set down the rail gun for an extended moment where it taught of some fear which might build if they’d gotten too close, and she’d not been able to prepare before their misfired shots — made running full speed one handed, an almost-nonexistent tilt proving artifice of their egoic natures, professing themself hardened in ways of enjoyment, despite their lack of need to take part at all, and no matter how honorably they presented themselves only moments before. That goddess-spirit of royalty from Ecatosh’s truest-borne lineage before them was a sight they’d not live to remember.
Luckily, to all in Boreál, some wisest intelligence placed that woman, known, exactly who she’d been, into the perfect place for what was needed most — some folks just needed setting free — they’d realized her apt to the challenge, and required her printing a weapon of its own design upon Exile’s highest-tech systems first.
Hatchet tried to explain the needlessness for a remade and renamed Burdeness of Hope, but an echo knew a perfect thing didn’t come around often. She’d not forget where she came from — never.
Lighting unseen would strike their hearts to cease from beating by the push of a button on Joyless Twig. Those half-dozen-or-so men had simply fallen.
It felt anticlimactic to Synecdoche.
Another had taken some prone position down the hallway and lobbed shots at her materially-defenseless, spiritually protected body which used a genuine shield grafted from fearlessness, to walk through open-fire untouched of a simple right borne from that knowing it would work.
“I can’t believe you people.” Synecdoche let slip as she’d lifted Burdeness with both arms, full-bore leg strength, and all of her lower back, taking much longer than the whole of her disarming proposition, grunting with profuse obtuseness towards her predicament when realizing she’d left it unloaded and had to reach behind her for a rail — some forever-problem.
“Touchdown home-dog.”
Her chuckle loosed the shot wide left, he’d rolled. It was divine.
Broadfaced rails were re-chosen after much time preferring a more aerodynamic make, despite the minimal difference to efficiency of flight form an arrowed tip would have her missing desperately, for the simple variation in splatter pattern but moreso how it would smear the human body itself.
Enough velocity was borne of that burdened hope-cradle to eviscerate, no matter the pettiness of that ammunition it slung. She’d not met a wall overmatched. To use her finest, proper-rail with the flattest-end pointing forward, upon a dumbest bloke who’d feel wise to spread himself into that hard-target by means which would create a pin-pointed display, would then prove the most unwise corpse.
Time slowed to a crawl, beyond any moment Synecdoche would have known before.
He’d a smile when glancing up with some freshest pearly-whites. Arrogance, childishness, pretentious-coolness which told Synecdoche immediately of the man she was about to see dismantled face-forward.
That boy wouldn’t allow themself to be seen as who they were. He’d been told who to be by conflictions of desire, need, suffering, oppression, and a complete lack of privilege to ever overcome the situation of spiteful existence Elaria bore him and his people into by forces unknowable through time.
He was a victim. He was about to be her victim.
Still not would prove his honor-true, and that seemed enough to quell her worry, for not all here would prove so bold to stand down a woman rising for herself against their masters. Synecdoche of The Goddess judged every person on who they presented before her alone.
Somehow realizing that echoed clacking’s waves had hit ears first, with eyes still taking in the genuinely horrific sight ongoing, that man’s body erupting into viscera entirely less complete than some notion of a chunk, would prove strangest telling of the mysterious universe’s playfulness. That rail’s slapping upon his teeth would ring passed it all, and its hum seemed to carry her through the display she’d grow to enjoy less, and nevermore.
His flopping heart had spoken to Synecdoche. She’d heard it true.
Thank you, honey.
