LUIS DANTE
His feet touched down with a loud thud as his jump pack's ignition cut off. He bounded through the gate with the men he took out for this sortie following behind him.
The portcullis fell down right as the last Marine stepped through while the constant firing of auto cannons atop the battlements held back the Swarm.
"My Lord," Mephiston greeted him, the Chief Librarian having been awaiting his return.
"Speak," Dante spoke as he waved him to follow.
"Private," Mephiston said in his dark, whisper-like voice. He always had that certain weakness to his tone when the sun was up in the sky. "About what you asked."
"I see." the two of them walked in silence. The fortress was the most sacred of locations to their chapter and they knew it like the back of their hands. Dante navigated the hallways filled with rushing people, finding a room set aside for privacy.
The two stepped inside and even if it was redundant, with Mephiston being right next to him, Dante engaged all the regular protections against eavesdroppers and psychic intrusion.
"The ward is set," the chief librarian spoke in a whispered sigh.
"What have you learned?" Dante cut right into it and Mephiston caught his meaning. The two of them had agreed on specific turns of phrases and signals to communicate in during the negotiation.
Right as they left, the Librarian excused himself to meditate and dwell on the happenings and grasp the meanings hidden behind the deceitful veil of words.
Why didn't you kill 'her' or 'incapacitate' her? Was his real question the Chapter Master asked.
"I failed to sense her presence."
"She lacks a psychic presence?" Dante frowned behind his mask.
"No," Mephiston answered, the shake of his head only conveyed in his tone. "It was there, but out of my grasp, ethereal and beyond my senses."
"So she is not a blank."
"That is certain."
"What manner of being is she, then?"
"I do not know," said Mephiston in the same, dispassionate voice. "Her power eludes me, yet I know it is there. She is something I haven’t encountered before."
"Were you able to gleam anything else?" Dante was calm. Calmness came easily when he faced the horrors besieging humanity for centuries with naught but his axe and jump pack.
"The Black Rage fears her," Mephiston said with a dark glee. "The black angel hates her."
"I suspect," Dante reconsidered his next words, but no matter how much he went through them, they still rang true. "So does the Sanguinor."
That wiped the glee off of the pale librarian.
"Beings of the Warp, both."
"Indeed."
"It would be … curious to see how demons react to her."
"Enough of that," said Dante, cutting off the Librarian's musings. "If you had to guess based on what you know, how strong would you say she is?"
"There are layers to that question," hummed Mephiston with grim amusement. "What is certain is that the defences of her mind made me doubt the success of a telepathic attack."
"A strong mind is the sign of a powerful Psyker."
"Indeed."
"I suppose we will see the extent of her power today," Dante mused. "If she plans on actually aiding us."
"Her choice of compensation was … concerning."
"Worse people than her have our genetic material," Dante would have shrugged if he could have.
When heretical lunatics like Fabius Bile were in possession of pure Blood Angel geneseed, he couldn't be bothered to worry about a few locks of hair to someone who was already a menace even without whatever power she could extract from it.
Dante’s priority was holding the Fortress for as long as possble, he would have allied with Drukhari if he had to if it meant holding the Swarm for a week longer. Plus, the troublesome woman was likely to end up dead by the week’s end, along with what remained of the Angelic Host.
The ‘Swarmlord’ was dead and gone, but the swarm of ravenous aliens was relentless.
Mephiston hummed an acknowledgement.
"Let us see how much she is willing to show us," Mephiston murmured, and Dante agreed with him. He'd been out on sorties to take down large bio-forms ever since he left that negotiation. For some damned reason, there was even a giant earthworm popping up from time to time around the battlefield that no one could take down so far.
Let's see whether I can make her kill that thing.
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"Hi~" I chirped right as the door opened up. Putting up a barrier that looks like a swirling mass of darkness in the chaotic mass of colours that was the warp was about as stealthy as an elephant in a birch forest.
"Greetings," Dante said, and Mephiston gave a single bored nod.
"We were just going to go out and kill anything that comes close, but I wanted to ask whether you have anything that needs express killing around here?"
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
"There is," he answered after a moment of thought, waving Mephistion away, who went on his way with a nod. "A enormous Worm-like bio-form has been making any large-scale missions going out challenging. I think your Magos acquaintance lost quite a number of his vehicles to it, too."
"Hmm," I caressed my chin, "Sure, let's go for that."
"Aside from that, the more Xenos you kill, the better. I have no more targets that need killing more than the ones swarming the walls."
"Cool," I shrugged. "I’ll go get on with it then — Oh, I almost forgot!"
I pulled his fancy poweraxe out of my chest. The huge thing barely fit into my body, so it was a pain to carry it around next to that gauss flayer. I really should have gotten a spatial storage item like all those OP transmigrators instead of this shit phasing. Oh well, better than nothing.
He stared at the extended handle for a long second before he wrapped his fingers around it and gently pulled it out of my hand.
"Thank you," he nodded at me and I just gave him a polite smile and a "I'll see you later!"
"Indeed." he nodded, his gaze following the two of us from behind his mask until we disappeared behind a corner.
"Armor up," I hummed with glee as I let my armour flow over me. It had gotten no further upgrades yet, as analyzing the new genetic samples was going to be a slog and a half. That Swarmlord was a bitch to make a template out of and reverse engineering a gene seed out of some locks of hair required no less perseverance.
I was going to have to step up my game hard and fast if I wanted to use that thing in active combat before Dante died of old age.
I had ideas, of course. Many a warhammer fanboy or girl ridiculed the Tyranids for their apparent stupidity. The aliens should have been more than capable of generating biomass in large quantities if they just settled down and started farming algae on an ocean world, for example, or just photosensitize.
It wasn't quite the same for me as I'd learned that bio-energy was more like life force or vitality than biomass turned into energy. I could gain, let's say, 1 unit of bio-energy from 1kg of moss. That was good and all, but at the same time, I'd gain 10000 units of bio-energy from a single kg of termagant flesh.
The complexity and quality of the biomass played a huge role in how much energy I could get from absorbing a certain thing.
Still, if I could be constantly making more biomass without much cost on my end and giving myself a continuous, passive regeneration, then I'd be set to live forever. No more worrying about expiring like a home-made bread.
There would be annoyances with getting bio-energy to the avatar I was using, but it shouldn't be too much of a problem if I perfect that Crotalid warp-jump symphony thing.
"So we are killing that Worm?" Selene asked, now covered in that beautiful armor I made for her from the neck down.
"Mostly me, I think," I smiled at her enthusiasm. She was becoming a little murder rabbit and I couldn't get enough of it. Having shared hobbies and interests is good for a relationship, that is an Echidna approved fact.
"Why?"
"The Hive-Mind probably made that thing to counter my powers, I think," I mused. "It didn't really count on me being as powerful a Psyker as I am though, so I should manage, but you might not."
"I see," she said, and a pit formed in my stomach at the disheartened aura she was radiating.
"After that, I am going to need some … unfortunate testing subjects."
"For?"
"I … am sorry, Selene," I glanced at her so she could see the sincerity in my eyes. "I should have started working on this much sooner, but I won't be procrastinating on it any longer. I want to get it done before the fleet arrives."
"What are you talking about?"
'Your Psychic powers.' I sent through a newly made telepathic link.
'What are you going to do with them? Didn't you say that all of your ideas were far too dangerous?'
'They are too dangerous to test on you because they might not work out exactly as I hope, but that is why I need to do some tests beforehand.'
Between one step and the next, Realspace rippled around us and I pulled Selene along with myself as we rode the waves of the shallowest layer of the Warp.
When my feet next touched ground, we were out in the depths of the wasteland with nothing but white sand and dry dirt visible for kilometers on each side.
Selene groaned a bit, and I grimaced. I thought the transition would have been seamless by now, but it seemed I still had some training to do. Using Blink like this would broadcast my presence to any nearby psykers as even if they can't naturally feel my soul energy, what they could feel for certain was the ripple of realspace that the Blink used to teleport.
Not that the main reason would be that if I had better control, it wouldn't give a migraine to my girlfriend.
Was she my girlfriend? We kissed, and she said she'd try out this relationship of ours. That meant she was, didn't it?
"Hey Selene," I asked. "So we are sort of together now, right? So we are girlfriends now, right?"
My answer was a weak glare as she massaged her head with a hand and swallowed something back down with a sour grimace on her lips. Oops.
I let a soft stream of bio-energy numb her pain and soften her nausea.
"Thanks," she said with a sigh, still massaging the bridge of her nose. "Yes we are, and didn't I ask you before specifically to NOT use Blink on me? And could you keep the dumbass questions for when I'm not vomiting my guts out?"
"It was a very important question," I huffed. "And I thought I could cast Blink perfectly already." I scratched my cheek.
"Well," she sighed, shaking her head with a slight smile. "You definitely can't."
"Your organs remained in the right place." I defended myself.
"It felt like my brain was rolling around in my skull."
"Mhmmm," I nodded, leaning in to look at her head. A trickle of psychic energy flooding my ocular system — my eyes and their central control system — allowed my sight to pierce through her soft skin and cranium to have a look at that brain inside.
Oooops. I gave her a concussion.
"Yep." I turned off my x-ray vision and suddenly found my face only inches away from Selene's, so I took the opportunity to give her a quick peck on her cheek before leaning back. "I gave you a concussion by accident, somehow your brain gained some extra velocity during the Blink."
She nodded at me, while giving me a look.
"I'll have to figure out why that is." I tapped my chin.
"How is it that only I got a concussion?"
"My brain is much less important for thinking and controlling my body than it is for you, plus I made some precautions." I shrugged. "For one, I fixated it in place by tendons connecting it to my cranium, and the fluid it floats in has some non-Newtonian properties, which helps a lot."
"I see," she nodded. "What's non-Newtonian?"
"This," I shrugged and made a bit of it in my palm. It was the same as those high school chemistry projects where you made these from flour and whatever. That is if you ignore where these come from.
I toyed with it, making it flow like a liquid before squeezing it tightly, causing it to escape my grip and show properties like a glob of wet sand.
"And that is inside your skull?" she asked with an obvious show of morbid curiosity on her face.
"Yep," I shrugged, reabsorbing the stuff.
"I see." she looked thoughtful, but shook her head a moment later. "So, what am I to do while you go worm hunting?"
"Well, if you are willing, of course, I might have a … mission for you," I said with what I hoped was a mysterious smirk.
"What is it?" she asked with a glimmer of glee in her eyes. This girl loved the power I gave her, maybe even a bit too much, but oh well, so did I.
"I want you to procure some of those previously discussed test subjects."
She looked left and right doubtfully, then gave me a look. The white wasteland went on and on until it dipped below the horizon a few kilometers away. There was nothing here but boring sand.
Or so it would seem.
I could see all the living souls on Baal and a bit beyond quite easily, so I saw the few dozen human souls right below our feet huddling together like ants in a nest. It might feel like I am bullying these obviously Warp-tainted assholes, but they'd be excellent targets for Selene.
My one worry was whether they could somehow use her Psyker nature against her. I knew some Psykers went mad and fell just from looking at heretical runes and scriptures.
That could be a problem.
Would chaos cultists even work as test subjects? I'd need to see later, buuuuut they also had some untainted people down there. Initiates or prisoners maybe? Slaves or sacrifices?
Bad Echidna. If they are innocent, you shouldn't be ripping innocents’ souls from their body just to test your ideas …
That would be the optimal course of action though, and I couldn't say I wouldn't be willing to test my idea on some sorry sods that turned into unwilling sacrifices if it meant I could keep Selene away from the demonic quartet's grasp.
Selene was just about to say something, but she stopped midway, her mouth hanging open as three tendrils of thick soul energy pierced into the ground below me.
I hummed as they burst into the underground rooms and caverns, questing for any denser concentration of chaos taint I could feel down there and washing them away with pure overwhelming power combined with a touch of Smite weaved into the tendrils.
I cared not as the cultists wailed, their single Psyker bursting into bloody ash under my power along with books, ink, scrolls and such joining him in his new ashen existence.
It only took five seconds before I stopped, scanning the whole thing another two times before I gave myself a satisfied nod.
Telekinesis flowed along the tendrils as I tore them out of the ground and with them came tonnes of sandstone and the rockrete wall of the underground hall closest to the surface.
"Chaos Cultists," I provided helpfully as Selene stared at the newly made gaping hole in the ground, probably also starting to hear the panicked shouts echoing out of it.
"I see," she gulped. "Okay."
"You can do this," I gave her a sideway hug. "I took care of anything that would have Inquisitors on your ass just for looking at it along with their lone Psyker. The rest should be run-of-the-mill cultists with lasguns and such."
She gave a more resolute nod to that. Good.
"Good hunting." I said with a smile.
"Yeah," the edge of her mouth quirked upwards. "Good hunting to you too."