My gaze snapped up to the sky, piercing through the pinkish roiling skies of Baal and the ever-present dust clouds rolling through it. I saw the great void beyond, but it wasn't enough. The atmosphere reflected most of the weaker light coming from deeper space.

My stomach where I put my gravitational sensors tingled and I narrowed my eyes, snapping open the third one in my chest as I Blinked up into high orbit.

A whole new world of light entered my eyes, I saw colours only the most sophisticated telescopes could pick up back on 21st century earth and the deep dark void of space lit up in a beautiful collage of vibrant colours.

There.

I narrowed my eyes further while my pupils expanded to take up my whole eye. My sight zoomed in what was once less than a molecule sized dot flickering as the light got reflected off of it, expanded and grew into a majestic void-ship filling my entire sight.

'The Macragge's Honor'

I stayed up there for another few minutes, basking in the silence and the weightlessness of my body as I watched the humongous ship drift through space ever so slowly. It was followed by a myriad of smaller ships, but compared to the Gloriana Class monstrosity; they were only an afterthought.

[ETA: 16 days; 8 hours.]

With that done I Blinked back down, casting only a single glance towards the still unconscious Dante who now had a growing group of Space Marines flocking to his prone form.

With the Swarmlord dead, the nexus of the Shadow and the Hive-Mind is gone. Pushing them back should be a bit easier.

My eyes zeroed in on a single Marine cleaving through the Swarm with Selene following closely in his wake, dispatching just as much of the alien menace as the Angel of Death.

I was just about to flicker down to them when I noticed something cresting over a dune near the horizon. Mushroom clouds bloomed among the Tyranids ranks around there as a considerable force of armoured combat vehicles rolled over the dune. Autocannons spoke in their thunderous voice as missiles streaked through the air and some more exotic weapons had left whole batches of Tyranids reduced to scorch marks on the crystalized glassy sand.

My mouth crawled into a grin as a tank as large as a damned mall rolled over the dune, leaving it only half as tall once it passed with a damned gun so long and thick that it wouldn't be out of place among the Wunderwaffe.

The gun roared and fired a scorching beam, drawing a fiery line into the Tyranid swarm and leaving an inferno in its wake.

He is crazy.

Zedev's aura encompassed the vehicles like an omniscient god watching over his subjects, directing each to be the best they can be.

I love it.

The Swarm was far from wiped out, but with the big blue man less than two weeks away, the Swarmlord dead and Zedev's new toys on our side I wouldn't even need to do much to keep the remaining numbers of the Angelic host alive.

Optimal.

A perfectionist part of me wanted to just purr in satisfaction and let others handle all the problems, but another just wanted to go out and put swords through alien guts. Unfortunate as it was for the perfectionist in me, I was turning out to quite like fighting. Who wouldn't if they were a combination of superhuman physical prowess and space wizardry?

'Make sure Dante gets back into the fortress in one piece, help with the retreat. Then I can go play-fight aliens.' — I sent to Zedev, receiving an affirmative response not a nanosecond later.

Because that's all it would be, even the Swarmlord turned out to be slightly disappointing. It was fast, tough and hit hard but … it was wounded, slower than me and once I found out that Vitality draining worked on it, what could it do? Die, that's what.

My sword not penetrating its armour was annoying and something I'd have to work on, but with the Swarmmlord's scythes and superior bonesword in my template bank it shouldn't be an issue. My gaze lingered on the 'Axe Mortalis' for a moment but I shook my head. If I yoinked that I'd have the whole rebuilt Blood Angels Chapter trying to make mince meat out of me.

I levitated it with thought and blinked over to Selene, the axe spinning over to my new position as I did.

The Space Marine with a gloriously bald head and a Chainsword longer than the massive transhuman was tall, was already swinging said Chainsword at me.

"Easy there," I hummed as a simple force field wrapped around the blood-covered weapon and held it in place even as the man tried to tear it out of my grasp, "I'm an ally."

"She's with me!" Selene shouted, and the ferocious frown eased ever so slightly and turned into a glare.

"Let go," he growled, and I did with a shrug.

"Sure," I said as my gaze took in his blood-red armour and black shoulder plates, not that the obnoxiously large chainsword with all of its protections taken off didn't already make me sure of who I was talking to, "The commander is perfectly fine, just unconscious after being wounded, no need to worry."

He scoffed and jumped back, keeping his eyes on me before turning his attention back onto the Tyranids once he assumed he was out of my range of attack. He then turned into a human meatgrinder as he spun around like a Beyblade and sent chunks of smaller and larger Tyranids flying through the air. I could have easily kept track of him just by the flying body parts as he blitzed over to Dante.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Hi Selene~," I turned to my Partner. "How are you doing?"

Psychic power exploded out of me, pushing back the Tyranids and constructing a small dome of concealment.

"Great," she said with an almost uncharacteristic grin on her face. Her body and armour were in pristine condition without a scratch or a drop of blood, but that didn't mean she didn't have to heal both up a bunch.

"How is the armour? The weapons?"

"Perfect," she almost purred as she stared into my eyes. "Thank you."

"Sure?" I smiled a bit awkwardly, as I couldn't quite make sure of the cavalcade of emotions swirling around in her aura. Still, gratitude and adoration were the most prominent, with bloodlust and actual lust contesting for third place, so it couldn't be too bad. "Happy you like them."

"I love them," she said, glancing around the battle still going on around us. "I should get back out?"

"They are retreating," I said as I pointed behind me where the Flesh-Tearer's Chapter master I previously met cut a bloody path for the rest, carrying Dante on their shoulders. Not that he could have gotten hurt with me keeping a thread of thought focused on his condition.

"Ohh," she deflated a bit but shook herself out of it, reabsorbing her weapons into her armour. "Should we too?"

"Yep," I nodded, "Zedev is on his way. Val should be in the Fortress already and I have what I wanted."

"So you killed the Swarmlord?" she asked as she stepped up to my side.

"Dante already gutted it by the time I got there, so it wasn't much of a fight," I shrugged, "Though he got gutted in turn."

"Is he alright?" Selene asked, more curious than worried. Not a surprise knowing that she saw me heal from and heal her from.

"Yep, just sleeping," I said, as I sneaked an arm around her waist, earning a playful eyebrow raise in return.

"We should head in and wait for them there," I motioned for the Fortress far on the horizon, "or maybe help them, not that they need it."

"Yeah," said Selene with her eyes trained on the man making slaughtering Tyranids look easy. "Who is he by the way?"

"Weren't you following him around?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah," she said in an awkward tone. "He was like 'You are not utterly garbage at fighting, follow me.' and that was it."

I giggled as she tried to mimic his growling beast-like voice and utterly failing.

"I see," I nodded afterwards, "you made a dangerous friend."

"Yeah," she nodded with a glance at him again, "so?"

"Gabriel Seth," I stated, "Chapter Master of the Flesh Tearers for the last century and a half, been on trial for extreme collateral damage in front of the Sanguinary Brotherhood and is on the naughty list of every Puritan Inquisitor with several of them sending assassins to kill him off."

"Oh," she said as her eyes widened, "Damn."

"Yep," I said with a preppy tone, "sooo … can we go or do you want to bully more bugs?"

"We can go," she rolled her eyes. "I wasn't the only one bullying bugs."

"Yeah, Zedev is at it too," another beam of white-hot flames lit up the sky as Zedev's ride thinned out the Tyranids between the merry band escorting Dante and the Fortress.

"Yes, I meant him, obviously," she murmured under her breath, and I smiled amusedly.

"Ready?"

"For what?" she looked up.

"Teleportation~"

"No," she said sternly, "can't you make a portal already?"

"I could~"

"Then do that instead!"

"Awww," I deflated. "But Blink is more fun."

"Not when you still forget where to place my organs."

I averted my eyes and scratched my cheek. It only happened once or twice.

"I said I'm sorry," I tried, but a glance showed me a vigorous glare heading my way.

"Portal."

"Okay," I pouted as I mentally connected two dots in space and seared a fiery portal into existence to make that connection a reality. Spacetime was much more squishy and malleable when Warp stuff was involved, so fucking with such a fundamental part of physics turned out to be surprisingly easy.

"Thank you," Selene sighed next to me as I stared at the empty chapel at the other end of the portal. Then I felt an arm wrap around my waist and my eyes flew open as I flicked my gaze at Selene. "Hmm?"

"Let's go?" I smiled happily and she smiled back. Life was good.

The concealing barrier cut off all sounds from the deadly battle outside and the roar of a myriad weapons.

"Yes, let's."

We stepped through as one and then the portal snapped close just as the fancy poweraxe following me flew through and flopped down onto the ground. In doing so, cutting off my connection with the twin-barriers and consequently sent them into a vicious explosion because, of course it did. I like explosions.

"Where are we exactly?" the adorable killing-machine at my side asked as she glanced around curiously before her gaze stopped on a tiny statue of an angel in powerarmour.

"The Chapter Master's personal chapel? Is that what they are called?" I tilted my head. I never was too much into religion, especially not imagined ones from fictional universes.

"This should be a reliquary, I think," said Selene as she got into a staring contest with the statue.

"Hmmm," I nodded, "Probably, whatever."

I grew a couch out of my armour and sat back, pulling Selene along with me and flipped us around so we were looking at the door. I felt like someone was glaring at me from far away, but I ignored it. Dead people should stop bothering the living.

"Are you sure we should be in here?" she asked, with a hint of worry seeping into her voice.

"No," I smirked. "We really shouldn't be."

"Erhhhh," she groaned. "This is the personal reliquary of a Chapter Master, no, THE Chapter Master."

"Yes," I nodded.

"They will eat us alive," she slumped back. "You know they won't give two shits about my warrant, right?"

"Yep." I pulled her in closer. awwwwhhh, this is life, so soft and warm, "don't worry so much, I just saved said Chapter Master's life."

"Okay," she took a deep breath, then exhaled and laid back against the fluffy couch.

"Relax a bit," I shrugged, "you killed a bunch of big bad aliens today. You deserve some rewards."

"Right," she rolled her eyes at me but did relax.

"You are not going to get smitten or anything like that if that's what you were worried about."

"What?" she frowned at me, "could I have got smitten?"

"By my looks maybe," I grinned, but continued at her glare, "but not by the big golden man, no."

"How would you know?" Ouch, might have been a bit too early to shit-talk what she thought is a literal god.

"How would I know anything?" I asked back. "Not like I ever knew something I shouldn't and it turned out to be true."

"That's different."

"How?"

"It- It's... " she blinked, "it is, and I know I look stupid right now but telling me about Eldar gods I know nothing about and that the God Emperor doesn't care that I am barging into a sacred reliquary of one of his Angels is another entirely."

"It isn't, not really," I smiled but shrugged. "Don't believe me if you don't want to but the big man can barely pull himself together for the occasional miracle to save the Imperium once in a while, the last thing he will waste his focus on would be a religious infraction."

"You are so damned weird," she sighed in frustration, "Why do you sound believable when you say that when you can't work a damned Vox?"

"Ehm," I smiled awkwardly, "Oops?"

"You are impossible."

"Thanks~"

"Wasn't a compliment."

"…"

"…"

"Still partners?"

"Yes, still partners!"

"Nice~"