I wanted to scream. There was a gunfight happening right in front of me. This supposed lucid dream session was turning into a real nightmare. Being a lazy pacifist who resided in a relatively peaceful country all my life I had never been anywhere near a gunfight, let alone a gunfight involving futuristic heavy weapons. But no voice came out from my throat, weird messages kept appearing in my vision.
[Regalis] Action override-
[Regalis] Action override-
[Regalis] Action override-
'Protect the holy daughter!' The leader-looking sister ordered and tackled me. The holy daughter who? No time for any question, we went down on the floor just as another round of enemy fire was let loose.
Everything seemed to be in slow motion, I could see the tracer fire flying past above me and actual bolter rounds flying and spinning in the air.
Wait a second. The world around me really did slow down to a crawl. In a mind-numbing state, I began to look around. Everything around me appeared in exquisite detail. It was only then I noticed the new messages that had appeared in my vision.
[Combat detected]
[Cogitatio Acceleratio auto activated]
[Auspex auto activated]
Then the most peculiar thing happened, I felt an expansion of energy burst forth from my body to the surroundings. As the energy expanded forward scanning everything on its path, I gained a clear understanding of the chaos around me. An indescribable feeling of clarity reached my mind and I could read the whole battle as easily as the back of my hand. We were cornered but benefited from cover and elevation. 11 battle sisters with 3 fighters of unknown origin against 35 enemies, 2 of which were enormous. I froze at the distinctive silhouettes of the two giants amongst the hostiles.
No mistake about it, mixed within the mass of incoming gunmen and towering amongst them were the familiar shapes of hulking armoured individuals with huge pauldrons. This setting, this universe, these can only be … the transhuman space marines.
As a long time player myself on the grimdark tabletop miniature game, I personally had over a hundred space marines under my collection and instantly recognised these as the main threats. As if the situation wasn't dire enough, one of the hostile marines was holding a weapon that looked too large to be carried by a human - a heavy bolter.
The other marine was barking orders, as he did so in slow motion one of his minions with a flamethrower stepped forward towards two of our fighters that were hiding behind a cover. 'Flamer!' I screamed internally at the hapless duo who were about to be doused by fire. Then the time dilation effect stopped, the cacophony of a close-quarter gunfight hit me like a truck.
Real-life gunfire was much louder than I had ever imagined. My ears were hurting as I felt the resonance of the discharge of every weapon near me. The sound of firearms being fired indoors had a distinct quality to it, they hit you like a solid hammer.
Again I wanted to scream, again that message appeared.
[Regalis] Action override-
I tried to slow down my breathing, only to discover I was breathing at a normal pace. What is this? My mind was a mess but my body was calm. The incongruity made me dizzy.
Suddenly, another weird sensation came to me, mixed within the chaos of the gunfight was a distinct pattern calling.
<01010011 01111001 01110010 01101001 01101110 01100101>
I had absolutely no idea where that came from and why it caught my attention during the gunfight. A shower of shattered stonework pulled me back to the immediate threats near me. A deafening amount of gunfire was pouring from the enemy side, to be answered by distinctively fewer but heavier guns from around me. Bolters, the sisters were shooting bolters. One can clearly hear the gun caliber difference by the sound they made.
Regardless, lucid dream or not I need to get away from here. Then an inconvenient truth came to me, I realised that except for a large blast door a short distance behind us, the hostiles had blocked the only way in and out of this chamber. I knew this from the scanning action earlier. Every inch of the chamber was pictured clearly in my head, I could see and rotate it in my mind’s eye with absolute clarity. But was this information true? Can I try to do the scanning action again to confirm? I need to see it again, to confirm if there was really no other place to run. What was it called again? Auspex was it? Come on, come on... my consciousness expanded in the next second.
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[Auspex] activated-
Another blast of scanning energy expanded forward. With my readings, I saw the battle from a god’s eye view. The duo that was approached by the enemy flamer had relocated further back, the piece of cover they were hiding behind just a moment ago was in flames. I wondered if they had heard my warning?
The enemy flamer had garnered himself a lot of attention, soon he was fed with a dozen bolter rounds and exploded into a huge fireball. The blinding flash and explosion robbed me of my hearing. Nothing but constant ringing in my ears.
But I could still ‘see’ the enemies from the residual readings from my last scan, banking on the new experience I tried to do the same action as before.
Hostile, hostile, hostile, hostile, hostile, hostile with a grenade launcher!
I marked out the closest batch of enemies and tried to project their positions to the people on my side. To my amazement, the battle sisters switched from random suppression to disciplined burst zeroing in on the targets I marked in the smoke-filled chamber.
The first enemy to go down was the grenade launcher user, he was standing around apparently still dazed by the fireball. A bolter round lodged into his head and blew it off like a watermelon hit by a speeding truck. The rest of his marked companions soon followed his fate. The unfortunate gunmen briefly danced like ragdolls as they were hit by a hail of bolter rounds, then they literally exploded, showering blood and body parts freely before fading from my readings. I wanted to vomit.
The air had a hint of metallic taste added to it now. Deprived of sight and sound, I became conscious of the stank of blood and sweat.
<01010011 01111001 01110010 01101001 01101110 01100101>
That calling came again, but I was too occupied with making myself small behind cover. Despite the good opening for the fight, we were still outnumbered and pinned down by the sheer volume of incoming hostile fire. Fortunately, high ground and solid cover proved to be our salvation as the enemies struggled to utilise their advantage to end us.
With teary eyes, I risked a quick peek and saw them advancing through their fallen ranks, the space marines pushing the rest forward through the smoke and dust. This was bad, very bad. I need to do the scanning trick again.
[Auspex] activated-
For the third time, I sent forth an expanding detection net to mark the enemies. Hostile, hostile, hostile, hostile, hostile, hostile, hostile, hostile, hostile, hostile, another hostile with a grenade launcher that was sending grenades over at my current location. Grenades were flying over here. At the same time, a corner of my mind registered the hostile space marine aiming his heavy bolter at me. My mind went blank.
'Get down!' The leading sister appeared from nowhere and pushed me down, covering me with herself from impending death. Totally helpless, I closed my eyes and waited for impact. After being subjected to the loudest sound I have heard in my life, I expected the worst and opened my eyes only to see dust all around, miraculously all my limbs seemed to be still in their respective places in contrast to the piece of life-saving cover that had been blown clear by heavy fire. The sister who saved my life was still on top of me but appeared hurt and was groaning from unseen injuries.
How I escaped from that unscathed but the power armoured sister didn’t was beyond me. The gunfight raged on all around, it appeared the heavy bolter marine was directing his wrath elsewhere at the moment after being shot by other sisters.
We have to move, now! I thought and pushed the sister, she fell over with surprising ease, considering she was wearing power armour and the full weight it entailed.
Then I saw it. My hands, these weren't my hands. I panicked and looked down at myself for the first time in a while due to all the happenings. Instead of my usual T-shirt, I saw a white robe.
WHAT IN THE WORLD?!
A loud clang was heard behind me, I turned and saw that the sealed blast door was opened. Grotesque figures were pouring out, tracked monstrosities with human-looking torsos rolled out one after another with huge guns blazing from where their arms were supposed to be.
At the forefront of the newcomers was a ginormous figure, far larger even than the space marines below, and it was rushing towards me, non-human legs carrying it across the floor with astonishing speed, it opened and stretched its many arms, I saw a multitude of weapons and guns hanging on some of it.
So this is GG. I expected death or the end of a dream and closed my eyes. But neither came, so I looked up.
A huge hooded figure was in front of me, it had positioned itself to block any incoming fire from the hostile gunmen below, its many hands extended to form a shield around me. The palms of all the hands were metallic but shaped into distinct human-like appendages.
<01010011 01111001 01110010 01101001 01101110 01100101>
Finally, its meaning reached me. The binary canticle faded and a name appeared in my mind.
Where its eyes would be were several huge lenses. On all their reflections I could see but a single person -- the Aquila young lady I met at the long winding foggy road.