I easily hid ourselves from most prying eyes, to be honest, only Mephiston would have been able to notice me, or maybe if Guilliman’s ultra-instincts somehow activated and alerted him of my presence.
None of the above-mentioned happened. There was no sign of Mephiston and Guilliman showed no sign of knowing that we were looking at the proceedings down below as he disembarked from his Thunderhawk.
His was about the tenth of the things, nine previous ones having vomited out a crap ton of blueberry boys who were now rushing about to reinforce the lacking guards and security on the Fortress’ outer walls while an honorary guard remained behind as they watched Dante greet the Primarch. Well, more like he was breaking down and fell to his knees before him.
The scene before me was eerily similar to what I remembered from ‘The Devastation of Baal’ book. That was one of the few I actually read from start to finish and only a short while before I kicked the bucket so it was relatively clear in my memory.
The one stark difference was that Dante didn’t have half his guts missing and wasn’t a step away from greeting his gene sire as he knelt before Guilliman.
My actions had consequences, for better or for worse.
Though it seemed fate might be flexing its might a bit so only minor discrepancies happened. If that were true, fate might be clamping down hard on butterfly effects, but if I could change small things, I could change the big ones too with enough effort and power.
It was a relieving thought.
“Get up, Dante,” said Guilliman. “I will not accept displays of humility from a man like you. You are one of the few in this era who have earned the right to speak to me on equal terms. Rise. Now.”
The déjà vu was strong with this one. I watched on as they did some bonding or whatnot, with Guilliman attempting to make the Chapter master believe he was in fact, alive, real, and yes, he wasn’t a dream.
“Let us continue further discussions in your command room,” said Guilliman. Finally. “I have the written reports, but hearing it from your mouth would be best.”
“As you wish, My Lord.”
I barely suppressed a sigh. Finally, they were moving. Now, we can do some more talking. Joy. Somehow, I wasn’t all too thrilled about it, maybe because I knew today was just a setup for later, at least for me.
There wouldn’t be much of a prize to be earned in these talks, I was just clarifying that I would not be easy to get rid of and cement myself as a semi-permanent part of this little camp.
The idea in my head was that later down the line, when we fought together for a bit, Guilliman would be more pliable to the idea of handing me a bit of his genetic sample — knowing I wasn’t an entirely insane alien. Plus, to be honest, being antagonistic with the Lord Regent and having to fend off the instruments of his ire — assassins or even crusade fleets — when I manage to settle down somewhere and start my little empire project would be a colossal pain in the ass.
Better that he thought of me as a possible long-term ally or at least a useful one to be kept alive should he need my help later on. Let’s just hope it goes better this time. I messed it up with Dante, but maybe Guilliman will be more level-headed.
With a snap, we Blinked over to the almost empty secondary command room that I knew they would be using. Hmm, this was more like a strategic centre with a giant map in the middle along with large data-slates showing information on whatever might be needed.
The room only had two tech-priests busying themselves by running some final check-ups on the machinery before the important people arrived.
I plopped down into a chair, Selene and Val taking up positions behind me like guards. That was good for now, though I didn’t really like the idea of making Selene subordinate to me, but for now it was … ideal. Well, ideal to the image, I wanted to show the Imperials, and my little minx knew that.
My instincts tingled in alarm as warp energy twisted for the briefest moment before the towering form of Mephiston snapped into being with a hiss of displaced air in the other end of the room. “What are you doing here?”
The tech-priests almost jumped in terror and with a mental shrug, I dismissed my illusion. Meanwhile, I tried to memorise the ways the warp-energy twisted before he arrived. Mephiston didn’t use Blink or any similar teleportation. He just walked in here so fast it seemed like teleportation.
“Nice of you to join us,” I gave him a smile that didn’t quite reach my eyes. “Take a seat, let’s wait for the rest to arrive.”
I could see his inner debate on his weathered face, but I was relieved to have guessed correctly when the old Librarian gave a minute nod. He didn’t have any warp-energy readied, which was the equivalent of having his blade sheathed for a Psyker. I guessed correctly that he didn’t want to fight.
I mimicked the gesture, not drawing on my energy and making sure neither did neither of my companions. Especially since Mephiston’s gaze was lingering on Valenith. I held back a smile. My psychic might was supposedly hard to measure since my soul wasn’t in my body, one had to sort of reverse-guess exactly how strong I might have been from my feats of strength. There was no such problem with Val, the Eldar was bursting at the seams with power, revelling in the freedom to let his soul bubble and churn without any fear of a thirsty demon god chomping down on him.
Humans might have thought Eldar to be ‘manageable’ before, but they’d never met an Eldar that didn’t have to hold back 99% of their strength. Though if there was one person in the imperium who’d still manage to wipe the floor with Val, it’d be Mephiston.
Mephiston was a menace in combat, I still did not know how he slowed time around him to a crawl with the measly amount of warp energy — well, measly compared to what I could bring to bear — he used to achieve it. Or did he speed up his own time? Like one of those ‘Haste’ spells?
Even if I knew how he was doing it, I couldn’t quite replicate it. I could make myself go faster, but not to the level where everything else around me seemed frozen in time. I didn’t get how he didn’t just immolate everything around him from the friction on even just the air or how he didn’t break himself into a million pieces with every move.
I’d have to watch as he does his thing, maybe with my entire focus on him, and with near-infinite time to review the footage, I could stumble upon something. Or my mind cores would, if not me.
There were always new tricks and tools to add to my arsenal. I couldn’t allow myself to become complacent with fucking Gods being real in this galaxy. I needed enough firepower to make C’tan’s and those Warp-fuckers tremble.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
That would not be anytime soon, though. For now, I needed enough power to protect myself and this motley little crew I somehow gathered around myself.
I shook that thought away. I was working towards that right now, having the genetic template of a Primarch would go a long way towards that goal. Even if their greatest strength didn’t come from their biological bodies, Primarchs were the best bio-engineered super-soldiers in this galaxy.
I gave a glance to my two companions and a minute nudge. They straightened even further, if that was possible. And then the doors screeched open on cogs and machinery that could have used all that oil the duo of tech-priests squirted all over the keyboards in the room.
First came Dante with two of his men flanking him, all of whom froze and pointed weapons. How rude. I refrained from ripping the bolters out of their hands, mostly because I noticed Mephiston visibly tensing. He didn’t pull on the warp just yet, but he was ready to do so in a moment.
I just tilted my head at them and smiled. I had nothing witty come to mind, but watching the interesting cavalcade of emotions on Dante’s face as a large blue hand came to rest on his shoulder was a better use of my focus, anyway.
Fingers left the triggers, and the barrels lowered as a heavy stare bore into me. “We meet again.”
The Primarch’s voice ran through the Blood Angels like a jolt, even Mephiston looking the slightest bit shocked as he tore his gaze away from our group to look at Guilliman. Dante was much worse, his face twisted into something indescribable for a moment before he wiped it of any emotion.
Yes, yes, I met your big bad boss, and he didn’t let you shoot me on sight despite knowing I beat you up and killed some of your men.
“That we do,” I said with a smile, rising from my chair — the one just to the left of the one titanic chair probably hastily clobbered together to fit the Primarch’s large … frame.
He nodded as if me being here was a matter of course and strode to the chair obviously made for him. His commanding stare washed over the rest of the people, lingering on my two companions and Mephiston. “We have much to discuss. Take your seats.”
I readied myself for the most boring meeting of my life and wasn’t disappointed. Guilliman only seemed to care about dangers on the planet and quickly got to working out a plan to eliminate any major threat on Baal. He still had thousands of planets and systems to liberate on his crusade, Baal was just one of the many stops for him and he wanted issues brought forward and solutions made as quickly as possible.
My only input was once again relaying what I’d found down in the caverns and giving Guilliman an eye on the strange creature that ripped my drone apart.
I was sure he kept an eye on me and would grill everyone on what they knew of me and the two people I brought along with me later, but he made no move of his own yet. He seemed satisfied with just strategizing and planning for now.
Val and Guilliman’s pet Farseer were locked in a staring contest for the entirety of the meeting and Selene made a convincing portrayal of a statue. Meanwhile, I only had a little part of my mind dedicated to following the mind-numbing meeting as I entertained myself by redesigning my mindscape a bit.
It was … a bit hectic. Back when I first visualised it, I only had a handful of mind cores so it worked. One central pyramid floating in the void with half a dozen lesser pyramids orbiting it, connected to it, and to each other, by streams of energy.
Now though, the central pyramid which was my conscious main mind, formed a tiny core at the centre of a disparate cloud of lesser pyramids which all connected to every other pyramid. Looking out from the top of the big one, I couldn’t see an end to them. They extended so far into the void and were packed so densely that I couldn’t even see the void from them.
It was a mess, in short, and my paranoia of my mind cores somehow working together to overwhelm my psyche was getting louder and louder with each new mind core joining the rest.
Firstly, I created partitions. I had rudimentary ones already, but these were just designations and the mind cores still made up a single unified web instead of separate ones.
I fixed that first. Secondly, I funnelled more power into the central node of my mind, basically growing the main pyramid in size a hundredfold. Hopefully, that wouldn’t mess with my thought process too much. Losing myself was one of my biggest fears so I refrained from a larger enhancement for now.
Hopefully, being able to think faster and of more things at once wouldn’t mess with me too much.
If it didn’t work out, I’d have to look into creating basically lobotomized mind cores filled to the brim with mental power to use as cudgels should any of my mind cores decide to be rebellious.
I always loathed stories where the hero had a demon, alternate personality, or some old cultivator stuck perpetually in their head who was fucking obviously trying to steal their body. I’m not having that shit in my head. You hear, little shits? You better behave.
Either way, aside from soothing my paranoia, partitioning them into separate groups should make them more efficient in accomplishing their tasks. If they need to communicate with other groups, I could make dedicated communication relays between them.
I need to learn more about these things … I’m sure there is a better way for this. These things are basically AI, even if biological in origin, relying on my instincts will only take me so far. But who the hell can even help with these things?
In the meantime, the meeting came to an end and Guilliman graciously offered to have us stay in the fortress, an offer which I refused with a gracious smile. However I decided that a line of communication was a must-have between us, so I quickly came up with a solution.
I was graced with the sight of Guilliman staring down at a fluffy ball of fur I’d placed in his hand with what I’d assumed was apprehension on his face.
“Squish it?” he asked with a serious frown on his features as he turned the thing around.
“Squish it, try it,” I said. He did so and the thing deformed in his hands like one of those gelatinous squish-balls from back home. More importantly, it sent me a telepathic message.
‘I am being squished.’ It sent to a newly created tiny mind-core dedicated just to this. The thing was about as smart as two rocks, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t run a single ‘IF(Squished) THEN (Send Message)’ program continuously.
“How do I know it works?” he asked, staring at the thing like it was the greatest mystery of the universe.
“I can trace the telepathic message it sends back to the source and connect to it, and through it to you. Which would you prefer?”
“You can speak through this thing?” he asked and I shrugged.
“I can modify it to be able to. Though it won’t work if you or I head off-world.”
“Please do so,” he said.
I did just that. I could understand not wanting unknown aliens to connect to your mind.
“Weeeeeeee, I’m being squished.” The thing squealed after a moment and I removed my finger from it with a studiously neutral expression on my face.
“It works,” I said.
“It does indeed,” he agreed.
“Well, that’s it then, goodbye for now. I’ll find you in a few days for that promised genetic library and please do call me when you plan to see what that thing hiding in the caverns is. I’d love to help with that.”
“I’ll see to it that the library is ready to receive you,” he said. “Farewell.”
I smiled and nodded at him. Then teleported us back to our impromptu base.
“Well, that’s that,” I shrugged. “What do you think?”
“Master Eldrad will have questions,” said Val. “I kept up appearances ever since you’ve freed me, but I’ve been … sparse. Especially in details and I might have failed to actually mention having been freed. He will know. And soon.”
“That Farseer tailing Guilliman was one of his apprentices, right?”
“Indeed,” Val said with a slight grimace. “He’ll rush to report to him, I’m sure.”
“Will Eldrad be a problem?”
“I … don’t believe so, but you can never know what his true goals are. He has plans within plans within plans and I don’t even know if he himself can keep track of them.”
“Hmm,” I shrugged. “We’ll deal with it when it comes down to it, I’m not annoying a craft world if I don’t have to and we have enough problems on our plate already. Selene, how was meeting a Primarch?”
“Strange,” she said thoughtfully, her stoic expression melting as she relaxed. “I thought I’d feel … something. I don’t even feel the usual terror when looking at an Astartes anymore. I don’t know what I expected, but it was not … him.”
“Great,” I grinned. I wasn’t done with the template I was working on for her, but I’d made some minor adjustments and one of them was wiping away the instinctual terror transhuman put into regular humans. Then she coughed as she turned a frown at me and I hurriedly clarified myself. “I mean that my preliminary upgrades are working. I wasn’t sure they’d hold up against whatever bullshit Primarchs have.”
“I believe that had more to do with Lady Selene’s soul being empowered and detached from the Warp. The so-called ‘Primarch Aura’ is a power of the soul, not of the body.”
“Makes sense,” I nodded. “Well, that was boring. Wanna do some sparring and practice?”
Val just grinned and Selen gave me a slightly apprehensive look I understood instantly as anxiety simmered in her aura. “You need practice to get used to your growing psychic powers. Relying on the armour and the weapons I gave you is all good, but you are a psyker. You don’t have to fear daemons anymore or even the corruption of the warp.”
She gave me a resolute nod. She probably felt her powers were almost insignificant compared to mine or Val’s, but she was growing in power with every fight. I could practically feel her soul growing denser, brighter, and more powerful in my realm.
Plus, I’ve also been rather lazy, barely practising or brainstorming on new uses for my powers until I run headfirst into a wall I can’t just plough through. As I’d already known, I needed to diversify my toolset and expand my versatility. That included not only the templates I worked out and my forms, but my psychic powers.
It was time to do some research and development.
Then maybe some friendly sparring. Val would be an interesting opponent and one that could probably push me to improve, especially if I limited myself to psychic powers.
And Selene, well, I’d do my best to help her. Though I had some ulterior motives. Who knew what’d happen once I kicked Val out of the sparring room, leaving the two of us alone. Hmmmm. Yes. Who knew where that could lead?
But first. Work.