"Didn't you say that I should calm down just a few minutes ago?"

"I did." My leg was jittering and I was looking around this boring little room, which seemed to have annoyed Selene enough for her to voice it.

"So?"

"This is just …" I could still hear the roars, screeches, the bursting voice of the auto-cannons, and the ground trembling beneath the giant tracks of even larger tanks.

I could be out there, fighting, throwing Spells around, shoulder to shoulder with futuristic space soldiers and stuff, but I am sitting on a couch instead.

"How long do you think we'll have to wait here?" Selene asked.

"Not sure … " I swept my senses over the Fortress, and unlike the last twenty times I did it in the span of the last half an hour, I now sensed Dante and Gabriel Seth inside the building. "Oh, they are in!"

"Great," Selene sighed, "So, how long?"

"Mhhh," I focused in on the Commander, feeling his aura and vitality, "Dante should be up and running soon, I think? He is just sleeping from the looks of it, not comatose as he was supposed to be."

"Supposed to be?"

"Yep," I winked at her. "Changing the future is a dangerous thing, but I did it."

I really did. His aura is active, and so is his mind. He should wake up in a few hours at most.

"So he … was supposed to get comatose?" Selene tilted her head with a cute frown on her face.

"Yeah," I nodded. "If I wasn't there, the Swarmlord would have fucked him up even worse than it did and there wouldn't have been anyone nearby capable enough to heal him like I did."

"So you are a healer too now?"

"If something can be solved by dumping bio-energy on it, then I can heal it." I shrugged.

"About that … " she shifted uncomfortably, and I immediately noticed the nervous storm clouding her aura.

"What is it?" My relaxed posture was gone in a blink as I sat up and turned my entire attention to her.

"I got— I mean— can you check out if I got … tainted?"

"Alright," my third eye snapped open as I grabbed ahold of her shoulders, guiding some tiny streams of soul energy into her body.

Her Soul was still clear and vibrant as before, a cute little bonfire in the warp's darkness.

"Owww," she yelped as my energy made contact with tiny packets of Warp energy inside her body, the latter instantly trying to convert the first into more of itself, violently.

"Sorry," I smiled wryly as I guided the energy to encase these tiny pockets of leftover energy and annihilate them. Soul Energy and Warp energy weren't opposing forces. One was pure and the other was tainted, I didn't know if there was a counterpart to Warp energy, one of Order and stability, but Soul energy wasn't it.

That being the case, I had to actually Instruct Soul energy to fight back against the Warp Energy otherwise it would have just accepted becoming Warp energy without a fight.

Selene gritted her teeth as her body flinched every few seconds. Muscle fiber tore and organs got injured as I cleaned up all the garbage in her body.

"Just a bit more," I pushed the last little pocket out of her heart carefully. Even without a consciousness behind the energy, it was insidious. Had I not been as careful as I was, it might have just burst her heart apart and with time, it could have gotten even worse. Thankfully, I can somewhat control Warp energy just like soul energy with my aura, still … this is going to be untenable.

"Ahhh~" Selene relaxed as bio-energy pushed into her body and quickly repaired and soothed her injuries.

"Done," I nodded seriously. "I cleaned out the taint."

"Will this be a regular thing from now on?" she asked with a slight quiver of her voice, which pulled on my heartstrings.

"Hopefully not," I said. "I'll try to find an alternative … or some way to connect you to the realm I pull my own power from."

"I … I really? … I mean- you'd do that?" she stuttered as her eyes went wide.

"Why wouldn't I?" I smiled at her.

[Warning: Unnecessary security risk… Please Reconsider!]

"This … " she pulled her mouth into a thin line. "Thank you."

"I'm not sure if it is even possible as Val said before," I shrugged. "You humans weren't built to have your souls moved away from your bodies."

"What does that mean for me?"

"Well," I weighed my words. "I'll need to test it on someone … expendable first, or many someones. I won't try it on you until I can be sure that it'll work."

"I see," she nodded resolutely. "Thank you … I don't know if I could handle these whispers for the rest of my life."

"Whispers?" I perked up.

"Yes," she grimaced. "They are trying to tempt me. Incessantly."

"Don't they go away when you don't use your powers?"

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"They become barely audible but I can still hear the faraway whispers chattering even now."

"That is … annoying."

"Horrible, it is fucking horrible." She exploded. "They are constantly trying to make me kill you, corrupt you, take your power or something to that end."

"Oh," my eyes glinted dangerously as I formed another set of Navigator eyes and scanned the nearby Warp. Naughty little demons. Time to get obliterated.

"Wait!" Selene grabbed my arm as energy started to roil around my Soul.

"Hmm?" I turned my gaze to her and she flinched for a moment.

"You want to connect to the Warp don't you?"

"Yes."

"Won't everyone in this sub-sector know of you and your true strength then?"

"They will."

"But you said you didn't want that."

"And you said that some insignificant trash is trying to turn you against me."

"It's fine," she tightened her hold on my arm. I promised I'd protect her from the demons. I promised. Those disgusting fiends.

"Echidna," my avatar was being shaken, but my soul was already glaring down hatefully at a gaggle of garbage hiding behind the light of Selene's soul so far below me in the deep, dark sea. They'd learn sooner or later.

"Grrrrr," a shiver ran up my spine as my stomach twisted into a tight knot. So disgusting. What is it?

I had arachnophobia in my last life, so the one thing I could sort of compare what I was feeling right now was when I found a huge ass huntsman spider on my arm one morning but it was happening all over my body, both inside and out.

"ECHIDNA!"

"Ewwww," I gagged and quivered. " So fucking disgusting."

"Sorry," Selene sighed, and she put her palm on my thigh, but I jumped away. Disgusting. Horrible. I want a new leg.

"Echidna?"

"Wha-" I cut off the snapping glare that came without prompting and cleared my throat as I sent a surge of Soul Energy through my body, shivering one last time as the Warp energy Selene pushed into my body dissipated and got purified. "Yes?"

"Are you alright?" she stood up. "I mean, I'm sorry … I didn't know how to snap you out of it."

"It's alright," I said with a grimace. It was not, in fact, alright. I want to vomit up my intestines.

"Sorry again." Her face matched my own, drawn into a grimace as I doubled over and heaved.

"Why did you do that again?" I asked with a bit more bite that intended.

"I didn't want you to derail your plans because of … me." She looked away awkwardly and slumped back down onto the bad. "Sorry for raving before, about complaining. I shouldn't have. They are my problems and you've already done so much for me."

I sighed deeply, then walked over and slumped down next to her, but being careful not to touch her body just yet. This is going to be a problem if a Psyker can just have me debilatated by shoving Warp energy at me. Though a simple barrier could ward it off. Still, something to keep in mind.

[Note Added]

"Look," I turned my gaze on her, sitting there with her head lowered in shame, "Selene, look at me," I said more forcefully and the woman raised her head and looked at me while biting her lips. "I promised you that I'd protect you from the Demons. I Promised that. I will keep it, even if it might make some of my plans harder."

"But-"

"No buts," I cut her off with a glare, "I don't know where this comes from … or why you think that I wouldn't keep my word but know that even if a damned Greater Demon comes for your soul, I will keep my word."

Words. Echidna, words. You almost called out her sudden self-pity and lacking self-respect.

Even with a moment of thinking I realized that she might feel like she wasn't worthy of being my partner. I was a powerful Eldritch shapeshifting Xenos with enough power to wrestle with Primarchs, literal demigods to her. In contrast she was a human with an old piece of paper she inherited on luck, well that is what she thinks.

I thought I showed her that she means more to me than a woman attached to a Warrant of Trade … maybe I'll have to make it clear to her.

She stared into my eyes for a moment, her eyes glimmering in the flickering light of the reliquary. She averted her gaze just when I realized that those were tears.

Yes. I must.

"Selene?" I asked gently as I kneeled down in front of her, trying to look through her locks of midnight black hair. "Hmm Selly? no that doesn't sound right, does it? Sel, can I call you Sel?"

She gave me a jerky nod.

"Well Sel," I smiled. "You know I am a monster, a monster that becomes what it thinks it is and what it acts like."

I put my palm on her knee and forced down a grimace as I sent a soothing wave of energy through her, the Warp energy she used this time didn't have time to seep too deeply into her body so I effortlessly flushed it out of her.

"When you first saw me, I was more a monster wearing a human skin than a human that could turn into a monster." I started caressing her knee gently as I talked. "At first I thought to just hitch a ride, act like an Inquisitor, maybe take the form of someone else onboard if I got found out. After all, the humans there were so weak, every single one of them had their minds open like a walk-in library, but when I saw you, it was different."

"Your mind was closed, secure and strong," I hummed as I thought back. "The Astropath and the Magos were also beyond my expectations, but who could fault me? I only fought Tyranids and random mutants living in the sewers. I'd never met a Psyker or a living tech-priest before and neither had I met anyone like you before that day."

"You weren't an actual Psyker who'd maybe be a danger to me, I assumed the Astropath could have noticed something was wrong with me but you were just strong enough so I couldn't use my Telepathy on you but weak enough so I didn't have to fear being outed every moment I spent with you."

Careful there. She liked the Astropath. This is already skirting some lines.

"Of course I only thought it'd be a fun way to pass time," I smiled, despite Selene not looking at me as far as I knew. "I really craved someone to talk to, someone who wasn't a muscle head or a bottom dweller who couldn't even read or write. It didn't hurt that you are gorgeous either."

Her shoulders quivered for a moment, but I wasn't sure if it was sobbing or a giggle. Peeking at her aura right now would have felt like cheating.

"And so I started bothering you. I started enjoying our conversations. It was a breath of fresh air in the monotony of slowly growing stronger and manipulating everyone around me. It was something real, something fun.

"Do you remember that day when I was floating out in space? That was the day I realised that I was losing my emotions and was slowly becoming a monster not unlike the Tyranids, only living to satisfy an endless Greed and Hunger. I decided that a life like that wasn't worth living and so when I got the samples from Zedev I changed myself. I changed my body and my mind into that of an Eldar.

I noticed her jerk a little at that, she was listening raptly to every word I spoke. Still, I felt like a wrong sentence could somehow break her. She's never felt so fragile before … and neither did I feel her presence weigh so heavily on my heart before. Watching her so downcast, so pitiful was doing things to my soul. Not in the literal way … I think?

"That change affected my feelings the most. My emotions grew from dwindling embers to roaring wildfires. What barely got a smidge of annoyance out of me before now was an unbearable menace on my mind. What I had a slight distaste for before, I now loathed with all my heart … and what I liked quite a bit before blossomed into something so much stronger … something that I felt I couldn't live without anymore."

"Do you know what I'm talking about?" I smiled as I noticed her eyes glimmering with tears look into my own through her falling bangs. "Who I'm talking about?"

She gulped but just shook her head weakly.

"You." I smiled as her eyes went wide. Silly girl, who else would I be talking about?

"Wha-"

"My emotions were chaotic for a while after as I struggled to get a handle of myself, to keep myself from entertaining every whim and do whatever I felt like in the moment," I slowly stood up and as Selene leaned back to watch me rise I smirked. "The one thing, the single Anchor I had in my new existence; was You. The single thing I knew I really wanted was you and your company. I knew it was good, that it made me better, more of the person I wanted to be."

With the same smirk on my face, I crawled onto the couch, Selene stared up into my gaze with eyes wide and brimming with tears. I smiled down at her as I sat on her lap, my knees going to her sides as I stared into her enchanting steel-grey eyes. They were like immaculate blades that reflected my own eyes in them.

"So I made sure you were alright," I said with our faces only centimeters apart, feeling her hot breath on my cheeks sent an electric jolt down my spine. "When demons attacked, I fought, so you'd stay safe. When we were stranded in the Webway I made sure you'd have everything that I could give you to help you survive. When we fought the Tyranids just now I gave you the best armour and weapons I could so you'd surely survive. It was both out of fear for what would become of me if you'd died and because I genuinely didn't want to lose you."

"You-" her lips quivered and I laid my palms on her cheeks, gently cleaning off the tears with my thumbs as I smiled.

"I've never felt like this before," I admitted.Even in my last life I didn't have anyone I felt the same way about. I was an orphan and my love-life was filled with one-night stands and short affairs. I can confidently say I've never experienced love before. "I am not sure what you humans call 'love'," I said with a giggle, "but I want you to stay with me. I want you to live, and to be happy."

"Are-" her voice trembled, "Are you lying? This- " She sobbed. "Why?"

"Didn't my 10 minute monologue answer that question already?" I raised an eyebrow but quickly wiped the amusement off my face as Selene flinched away but having her face held between my palms had her just closing her eyes.

"Please look at me," her eyes flickered open, still glimmering with unshed tears. I shut off some hormone generation for a short while at that look. This really wasn't the time. "I don't know what I can do to make you believe me, I don't want this to be fake, I want-" I gulped, "I need something real in my life Selene, I could make a thousand carbon-copies of you and make them love me but it wouldn't matter, they wouldn't make me feel the way you do. I need you."

I took a deep breath.

"Please, let me love you."