She almost gaped at me. “Warp Sorcery?!” Her horror at the very idea was totally apparent, and what would follow that would be blasphemy and bullets.
“Throne, no.” I rolled my eyes at her before she could start a tirade, and now the others were coming over, as our conversation was carrying and reaching them.
“You’re a Vortex. You can feel the corruption inherent in Warp Sorcery. It is filth, a contaminant, a taint, and it Must Be Purged.” Even she flinched at the razor in my voice. “That is what vivus does, it removes that Taint. For if something is corrupt... it must also have a pure form, must it not?
“The Warp Gods have tainted all of magic, and nothing living can touch the one without accepting that Taint.
“Unless that power has been purged by vivus.
“Burn the Warp in vivus, claim your magic, ward your souls, and LIVE, Sisters!”
They all gaped in me in shock.
I flipped out Chalice, and let the unwhite fire blaze up on her short Focus. “Feel that.” I held it out, and their Vortices swirled over it, making it dance and drawing it away. “It is not even pure, is it? It’s... transcendental, I’ve been told. And when it burns the Warp, it purifies the magic.
“Oh, it’s only for a short time. Seconds... maybe minutes, if it’s a big burn. But that’s all a Vortex needs, really. Draw it in, make it your own, and ward your mind and soul against the world.
“Live, Sisters!”
They stared at the flame, deepest of suspicions warring with the need to live.
“How? We are not psions!”
“I did tell you that everything that lives is psionic, and you agreed. Are you telling me you are not alive? Because if that is the case, I’m going to kill all three of you for the undead abominations that you are.”
They blinked at my threat, and the real flatness in my eyes. “We... are certainly alive,” Eloise affirmed, feeling a distinct danger coming from how my Null got even harder. “But... we have no psionic power...”
“You have never Awakened your psionic power, you mean.” I rolled my eyes. “I can do that for you in under two minutes per.”
They gaped at me again. I raised my hand, as did Jonah. There was a snap behind them, and all three of them turned around to see Elijah and Noah ambling over, electrum mindclaws around their right hands, too. Despite being huge razored finger-claws of hard light, they somehow managed not to look threatening in the least.
“You are Forsaken. The boys are Forsaken. I am Forsaken. We are not Powered. We do not have liquid souls. We cannot send the power out into the world, and indeed the power will only extend inches past our skin.
“But our souls can be as strong as any of the Powered!” I declared firmly, and the flash in their eyes showed they agreed with that truth. “We can make Ten! We can go past Ten!” I glared right at her. “I am a Thirteen! Do not even think of telling me what Forsaken cannot do, and none of the Forsaken are as beloved by the Land as the Voids and Vortices are!”
They all swallowed together.
“You... can show us how to manifest a mindblade?” Eloise asked carefully, trying to stay calm.
“No. Mindblades are too long.” I held up the golden blades extending from my fingers. “Forsaken have claws. If you want a blade, you need a Focus.”
I held Chalice out to the side, and my soulclaw vanished as there was a snap, and my golden soulblade, with its five Stars and two Suns humming dangerously, coalesced in less than an eyeblink.
They reached out to feel it with their Vortices, despite themselves, and their faces changed.
“Yes, it feels much different than the mindblade of a Powered, doesn’t it? Just like our claws. We are the Forsaken, not the Powered, and you... are just like us!”
“How does one do this?” Eloise asked abruptly.
“You get a Mark Tat, we establish a telepathic interface, and you follow exactly what I do. Bing, you’re a Void Psion.”
“What can we do as a Void Psion?” she pressed, her voice clipped.
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“You can take Psionic Feats, you can form a Nimbus, and you can manifest a mindclaw,” I replied promptly. “Oh, and build up a Psionic Reserve, which is what wards your soul.” I shook Chalice. “Chalice here is all that made manifest. Size of the Blade is based on raw Reserve. Suns are from Psionic Feats and being Psionically Focused. The Stars represent mastery of raw psionic ability focused into your Sword.”
They had hungry eyes as they looked at the soulsword, and the psychic force harder than adamant. “You... can use telepathy on us?” she asked, eyes narrowing slightly.
“You can remove the Mark that allows it with your Vortex instantly,” I rolled my eyes. “You only need it for the Awakening. Remove your gauntlet, I’ll Tat you up-” they watched as my hair pulled out the tat kit from my narrow Masspack, “and we’ll be done with this.”
She regarded me for a long breath, glanced at my soulsword with a steely hunger... and decisively disengaged her armor lock and pulled off her gauntlet.
Her skin was pale, and she paused for a moment as her hand came out. She turned to Jonah, holding it out like a hand to a flame, feeling it breaking over and through her skin. Her face relaxed despite itself, and then she turned and looked at me. Her hand stretched out towards mine, and paused as it touched the edge of my Null.
Despite herself, she winced. It was a new sensation for her. She pushed ahead physically, and almost gasped as her hand went in... and there was nothing, nothing at all...
She flushed as she laid her hand down next to mine. “A rock... or a deadly silence?” she had to ask me.
“That all depends if you are outside or within it.” I snapped my head, and my hair billowed up, deCompressing in a wave, and I caught her hand before she could instinctively move back. The strands settled across her face and head like a fine auburn net. “Inside, there is indeed silence to a Silent Sister, I would imagine.”
“By the Emperor,” she whispered, looking at me through my hair. “I... feel nothing!”
“Hard soul.” I inclined my head at Jonah, keeping her eyes. “Burning soul.” I jerked my chin at the three of them. “Airy soul.”
“And the Powered... have liquid souls.” Her eyes glimmered in understanding.
“Yes.” Chalice receded and was withdrawn into my arm as they watched alertly, my hair whipped back and shrank to normal length, and I dipped my nails into the ink as golden points gathered on the obsidian. “This will hurt, but it will be fast.”
Given how many thousands of Marks I’d Tatted up, it literally took only seconds to make. She could feel the power in it start aligning, and was rather shocked as it took form, and didn’t just go away in her Vortex.
“Since it enhances your Vortex, your Vortex won’t automatically get rid of it. If you concentrate, you can of course get rid of it almost instantly by destabilizing it.” She nodded, completely able to feel and tell that. “Now, there’s going to be a link coming up. It’s like a door in your mind. Open up, and we can talk.” A Soul Tat glowed up on the back of my hand, and I turned it over to press against the Mark on hers, a bit of misdirection.
Her eyes lit up as she instantly felt the connection, and gasped despite herself. “You and every other Forsaken who’s never been mindlinked before,” I rolled my eyes, and the hardass slayer of psions blushed at the mistake. “Just open it up. I can’t do it from this side.”
She took a breath, a mental step forwards, and pushed it open.
I /looked into her mental eyes.
She swallowed slowly, /staring at me.
“Do this.” I slowly stretched out my hand, broadcasting every motion of muscle and gesture, the thoughts that went with it. Hesitantly, she followed suit, duplicating every motion of hand, fingers, elbows slowly and perfectly-
And I flipped my hand, wrenched, and twisted from a point Down There.
My soulclaw snapped into being as she gasped, and there was a second, whispery hum in the room.
The other two Sisters gawked and stared at the wispy, almost transparent mindclaw there, somehow looking hungry and sharp despite the faintly blue-silver creation looking not very substantial.
“And you should probably close the Door.”
She turned to look at me with real and mental eyes, that held a note of hope and wonder that had likely not been there for many years.
“I...I can see the spark of psionic power. It is not very strong...”
“It has probably only bought you a month of life,” I said kindly. “You need to take Void Psion all the way to Ten.”
“How...How do I do that?” she had to ask.
I snorted, pulled a plain Sword Focus out of my Masspack, and slid it across the table to her. “Make that have Five Stars and Two Suns.”
She looked at it, and picked it up with her clawed hand. The wispy, ethereal mindclaw vanished; she concentrated, her arm twitched, and the Sword Focus channeled the power into a mindblade with a crackle of psionic energy.
It was only a dagger, ten inches long, still wispy, still blue-silver. And it had no Stars, and no Suns.
“That’s a Sword Focus for newbs, of course. You definitely need a better one.”
She turned her gaze from it in rapture and over to me, as did the other two. “And I suppose you make better ones?”
I smiled toothily. “I do, and oddly enough, they will work for Void Psions, where ones made by the Mekkers and Mentats will not.”
“Because we don’t have liquid souls, and they build to those standards?”
“No, it’s because a Sword Focus for us has to transform a claw into a blade. For an actual psion, it just enhances the existing blade. In other words, there’s less work to do for theirs.” I made a face. “Freaking Powered have it so damn easy...”
Her eyes were starting to burn with will and hope. “And you teach Forsaken psions how to use their abilities?”
“That is what that whole training room full of them was about,” I agreed.
She looked at the Mark on her hand. “If I get rid of this, can you put it back?”
“Of course.” The Soul Tat on my hand flared up again, two white stripes leading to my middle fingers.
She concentrated on the Mark, and the Door to the small Markspace eroded in seconds, and was gone. She let out a slow breath, staring at her hand, where she was only wearing ink now.
And then she extended that hand back to me. “Link me back, Mark up my sisters, and show us what to do.”