NOVEL WEB 63 – Onto War
My Third eye was wide open and scanning the planet, I was searching for the largest concentration of strong souls that should signify where the current headquarters of the defenders are.
"What is it?" Selene asked from next to me, staring down at the planet through a biological monitor I made, making the Lictor Carapace show what an eye saw on the hull of the ship instead of the usual camouflage was surprisingly easy once I understood how it worked so now I could share what I saw with the others. Though Zedev and Val were sent to look at another monitor, yep.
"I'm searching for strong souls and I found one disturbingly powerful one...I think I know who it is too," I narrowed my eyes at the blazing bonfire that was hidden deep beneath the earth, "he shouldn't be a problem."
"Why?"
"He managed to get himself and his pals buried under a mountain inside the mines."
"Oh," Selene blinked, "Okay."
I wouldn't say no to getting a lock of hair from him though.
Unfortunately, he might be even more dangerous than Guilliman, him being the Chief Librarian of the Blood Angels, Mephiston. He was the avatar of the Dark Angel which was the dark part of the Primarch Sanguinius and he was probably one of if not the strongest loyalist Psyker in the Imperium with the only one getting anywhere close being the Chief Librarian of the Ultramarines Tigurius.
I found another set of similarly strong souls swimming around where I saw the largest concentration of stronger souls. That should be the headquarters, a fortress monastery if I remember right? Though for the life of me, I had no idea what the name of it was.
My eyes narrowed as my vision zoomed in on them, thousands of 'strong' souls were walking around, these were like torches in the darkness where a normal human was a brief flicker of candlelight but one among them was a larger torch. It had an old and weary feeling to it and two phantasmal souls without solid anchors to realspace were following along with it from the Warp, watching on as he tried to somehow halt the advance of the Tyranids.
That should be Dante...and his two stalkers the leftover fragments of Sanguinius' soul and the Sanguinor, the avatar of the White Angel which was the counterpart of Mephiston's Dark Angel.
"Zedev where is the defenders' headquarters?" Just to be sure I decided to ask, after all, he should be plugged into the battle reports.
"The defenders remain scattered throughout Baal as an aftereffect of the Warpstorms..." he answered after a moment, "Chapter Master Dante of the Blood Angels retreated to the Arx Angellicum Fortress-Monastery with a few of his warriors...they are readying for a final stand."
"Let's go then," I smiled nervously as I aimed the ship right at the monastery, "Get ready for immediate combat once we land, I'm probably going to end up in the middle of the swarm."
"Stellar," Valenith sighed, back in his human guise already with the accompanying Sanctioned Psyker garbs.
Zedev's barrier emitters roared to life as his power axe hummed with power, that thing was a monstrosity in and of itself which could go blow for blow with my bio-sword.
The reality was unstable in the whole Baal System but it was concentrated most on Baal Prime and around the Fortress-Monastery, I glanced into the Warp to find a Legion waiting to pounce, wrapped in ominous warpfire and driven by righteous vengeance to deliver the emperor's wrath upon the enemies of Mankind. The Legion of the Damned was just about ready to assault the Tyranids.
It seemed we managed to arrive for the finale.
The Ship entered the atmosphere, I cared not for casting illusions or covering the vessel with camouflage and instead started making it smaller and more streamlined. We were falling now so propulsion wasn't an issue, I reabsorbed the tendrils along with most of the navigation sensors and other organs and only left the armoring and the inertia dampeners along with the artificial gravity.
In any other ships we'd be getting thrown around from the harsh turbulence of atmospheric re-entry but it wasn't the case with this ship, of course, the Tyranids didn't make any of the organs for this purpose but I didn't have to make many modifications to it to turn it into this. I was tempted to turn the whole ship into a swarm of drones but I was in the heart of the Imperium and right under the nose of the Angelic Host and soon that of The Lord Regent of the Imperium.
We'll fight the swarm as if we were normal humans...well, more normal than we are.
We were a ragtag group of a Psyker focused on mass destruction, a Magos with a fetish for cutting up aliens, an ex-Rogue Trader wrapped up in my bio-armor and wielding modified Tyranid weaponry, and myself. I might be the weirdest one out of the bunch. Psyker, Shapeshifter, Xeno, bio-weapon, Reincarnator, a soul from another universe and so on.
Selene's armor flowed over her body like a gentle wave of textile which was in actuality thousands of hair-thin tendrils interweaving to create her armor. Her arm morphed as she quickly went through her assortment of weaponry, each modified so the flying, screeching, flesh-eating worms shot out weren't dead giveaways of what they were.
She stopped on one that was a smaller version of the cannon I used on the void ship, it'd shoot out bio-plasma propelled chitinous bullets but instead of being filled with my tendrils, they were loaded with condensed bio-energy which would explode violently once the shell cracked or dug into something. Basically, it was a bolter but instead of being a bulky monstrosity, I designed it to look like a streamlined sci-fi rifle right out of my wet dreams.
It was matte black with some silver accents, it didn't have many straight edges and had more curving lines and smooth sides and of course, it didn't have a magazine. It'd have to be refilled with bio-energy from her armor, I left a tendril in it which would allow her to eat stuff similar to how I do it and store the consumed biomass as bio-energy in the armor, so far she can only use it to heal herself, her armor and reload her rifle and I don't particularly intend to turn her into a second me so that is all she'll be capable of doing.
Her armor also changed some, Astartes had robes over their armor and so did Custodes so I decided that we needed to have them too. She had a two-layered armor with a skin-tight black armor covering her from neck to toe like a skin suit and a white outer armor that covered her torso, thighs, shin and arms but left her with full range of motion. The robe came in next, flowing down from under the white chest armor like a tabard on her front and back. It was a silky material as blue as the sky.
I thoughtfully looked her over. This was much better than before, she was starting to look both classy, hot as fuck and badass, a perfect combination.
"I outdid myself on that armor," I nodded, "you look gorgeous in it."
"Thanks," she tried not to smile as she looked down on herself, "how did you even make this?" she twirled the blue silky robe around her fingers.
"Turns out eating some plants here and there can be useful," I shrugged, "that is made from some sort of weird plant that grew in that Aeldari temple in the Webway."
"Though it not having a helmet is...unorthodox," she raised an eyebrow at me.
"It could cover your head if you want," I shrugged, "but with the forcefield built into it anything aside from that is mostly superficial, if it senses that something is going to break through it it'll cover you in another ten layers of armor and you'll probably look more like an Astartes in power armor than how you do now."
"Why can't I do that from the start?" she arced an eyebrow but I caught the playful twitch of her lips. Yessss!!
"So I can see your face as you fight?"
"Sure," she giggled and continued checking over her weapons even though her modified Bonesword and that sci-fi rifle were leagues above the baseline Tyranid weaponry.
With a wave of bio-energy flowing through my body, I let my own armor flow over me, it was very similar to Selene's but my own did a better job at sticking close to my skin and accenting my figure. I'd gotten used to being in a bodysuit that left very little to the imagination so even this much felt like I was far too covered up, though I might change my mind rather quickly once disgusting people started ogling me.
Both of our armors were several separate layers in reality with the psychic pathways linking all of them together despite there seemingly being only two of them, I wasn't going to be flayed again and neither was Selene if I could help it.
Zedev on the other hand... I really wanted to see what'd happen to a human if they died but before their souls dispersed or got nom-nommed by demons I snatched them up and placed them into my Soul Puddle. It'd be unfortunate if that'd turn out to be Zedev... buuuuut
Okay, I'll try to find another vict- subject. I don't know if that sounds any better. Anyway, I shouldn't experiment with my allies' souls, bad Echidna, very bad.
My staff —Atiesh, I almost forgot I named it — twirled around me eagerly, ever since I made it it's been following me around even without my input.
It wasn't irreplaceable but it wouldn't be the same Staff anymore if replaced, it'd be similar but not the same, which was important with it being a focus of the Immaterium. At the moment it was my number two priority to keep it intact, after Selene of course and Zedev came in after my avatar which was third. I'm such a great boss.
Val can keep himself safe, if not I'll have a new necklace with a grumpy Eldar in it.
I glanced at the Soulstone embedded into his robe around his chest, if he ever died while fighting because of me the least I could do was protect that thing and get it back to his Craftworld. Or maybe try resurrecting him...bad Echidna.
"Shouldn't we slow down?" Selene asked a bit nervously as she watched the ground closing in on us through the monitor.
"Oh," I fed power into the central sphere again and reinforced its barriers while feeding bio-energy into the inertia dampeners, "I've got it!"
My tendrils quickly sucked up the biomass making up the rest of the ship, only leaving behind an empty shell loaded with a bit of overcharged bio-energy.
The monitor went dark a few seconds later but we felt nothing, well, physically at least. I felt the shockwave hit our barriers as the bio-energy exploded violently and wiped away the swarm of bugs approaching us, before we crash-landed the whole ground was swarming with them but now there wasn't a single bio-form in a five-hundred-meter radius of the sphere.
I flicked my wrists and the energy making up the barriers gained a new directive and blasted away all debris and smoke clouding our vision.
My nostrils flared as I took in a deep breath, vile smells crawled into my nose, acidic blood coated the whole wasteland that was Baal, and the smoke in the air carried the scent of burning flesh, both human and alien. Beneath these overpowering scents I smelled blood from humans, ozone from the burnt air left behind by the use of plasma weaponry and lasguns.
The ground was glassy as either our landing or the following explosion turned the sand into glass and the pinkish sky of Baal was reflected in its jagged faces.
The sky was unnatural, not the pinkness of it but the deep red lines criss crossing through it like rivers of blood which in actuality were only the last vestiges of a receding warpstorm still concealed the interstellar space beyond.
Dry air slapped me in the face, swinging my pale hair around and throwing ash and sand into my mouth.
"Urgh," I spat it out and cleaned off my mouth then turned on my repulsor field, "I hate sand."
Selene Voss
Life was weird, that she knew. She'd fought those greenskins before in the Guard, she'd met Eldar before and was well acquainted with all the troubles that came with them.
The galaxy was a wide place and unlike what many humans thought, she knew humanity was far from conquering it and subduing all of its danger. Those who knew better, those who saw the bigger picture understood that the Imperium's position was precarious and the more one knew the more evident this became.
Necron Dynasties awoke from their slumbers, sometimes right under the feet of Imperial worlds and while she never fought them she knew those lifeless beings were a terror entirely different from all others she faced.
Then there were the Tyranids.
All-devouring, ever-hungry monsters from beyond the galaxy. They came from all directions and seemed to evolve by the day with the singular purpose of ridding the galaxy of life.
With a thought her rifle spoke, the plasma propellant was silent but she could hear the bullet cut through the air before bursting into a large Tyranid still a good four hundred meters away. Whatever Echidna's armor did to both her eyesight and aim was magical, she saw the Tyranid and wanted to shoot it, so she did.
The beast's carapace imploded, bending inwards from the force of the bullet crashing into it before exploding outwards in a cloud of gore. The shards of its carapace were sent flying so fast they became shrapnel and garroted several other Tyranids around it.
"The shadow is setting in," Valenith said calmly as his staff started resonating with power as the Eldar scanned the horizon swarming with the aliens.
"The hive-mind is reasserting itself," Echidna said offhandedly, "I can feel a nexus around which it is condensed even more."
"A superior Synapse creature?" Zedev queried.
"That is our first target," Echidna grinned, her eyes flickering with a hunger and greed Selene became familiar with over the last few weeks. The woman wasn't human, far from it and moments like these solidified that fact in Selene's mind.
"The Swarmlord."
"Indeed," the woman nodded, "let's get going, we should be close to the fortress."
Echidna started floating. She did love flying and Selene couldn't say she wasn't jealous of the ease with which the woman did it. She could fly too, although it was more of a controlled fall with some telekinetic assistance.
The woman sat sideways on her staff like she was using it as a ride and then she shot off with a last challenging glance behind.
"Why did it have to be me," she heard a weary sigh from the Eldar as his form flickered and she felt a slight rebound in the Warp, and then another ripple reached her from far away.
She noticed the Eldar was standing just as he was but four hundred meters away. Then he flickered again.
Selene threw a glance at the bulky Magos, as far as she knew he wasn't capable of any form of speedy transportation without a vehicle.
"It is recommended that you catch up with them ex-Captain."
"What about you?"
"My transport is on its way."
"If you say so," Selene said and then she was off, maybe it was because of the sour feeling left in her heart every time he called her ex-Captain but she wasn't overly enthused at the idea of having to carry him along.
She jumped and bounded over a row of swarming bio-forms with jagged scythes and by-now familiar ranged weaponry. Her foot connected with the head of a larger one, a Warrior, and sent it crashing into the ground as she launched herself back into the air.
Mid-air a swarm of flying Xeno came rushing at her but she just threw herself out of their way with a wave of telekinesis and sent a barrage of exploding bullets their way.
Fighting like this was little less than a dream only months ago, sure she had a power armour but it was one used by some higher ranking Sororitas members, and as such it was far from anything Astartes wore. Her current armor felt like something entirely different, it took her, a normal human woman and made a warrior out of her who could crash Tyranid Warriors under her boot like they were insects.
It was...addictive.
Out of nothing she suddenly felt an overwhelming force slam into her and send her flying straight down, she smashed into the sand like a bullet and sent up a dust cloud while crushing several Tyranids underneath her. She snapped up instantly, he vision shifting to infrared, thermal, energy sensor, electric sensor, and bio-electricity each flickered for a moment before the bio-electricity and the atmospheric one overlaid themselves to her normal vision.
A form twice as large as her was rushing at her so fast it should have left explosions in its wake as it broke through the sound barrier.
'Are you alright?' She heard Echidna's worried voice come knocking on the walls of her mindscape but she only had time to send a quick 'Yes' before the beast was upon her.
Her sword formed in her hand, one moment there was nothing and the next she was gripping its hilt and slashing up to defend against the scythe-like appendage trying to rend her in half. The swords connected and unlike what everyone with common sense would have expected it was the beast that rebounded, it was stunned for only a brief moment and while Selene herself couldn't have reacted in time her Armor was far from just for protection.
Her gauntlet shifted her hold on the sword by itself and slashed up and to the side, by the time Selene realized what'd happened her sword was held out at her side and a scythe-like appendage was drawing a bloody trail through the air.
She narrowed her eyes at the still Tyranid which lost its invisible coat and was revealed to be a vicous-looking Tyranid with tentacles streaming down from its head, a Lictor if she remembered right.
Selene twirled her blade around and readied herself for the continuation of the fight but as a stronger wind swept across the battlefield, the monster toppled over, its head falling through the air unconnected to the rest of its body.
She glanced at her sword and gauntlet with some apprehension but shook her head. It was a combat program like in combat Servitors, it was better to think of it like that.
I shouldn't mention that to her though, she hates Servitors.
Selene mused as she jumped back into the air and continued towards where she felt Echidna's presence through their connection.
'Selene, where are you?' the alien woman's silky smooth voice echoed through her mind as she let it in freely.
'A Lictor thing ambushed me, but I've dealt with it.' She had to add the second part quickly, it was more an instinct than knowledge but she felt the woman would have turned 180 and rushed back to her to help.
'Alright, hurry up then' the woman said after a moment, 'I found the Fortress and our friends.'
There was something inherently wrong with the way she said friends, well maybe because telepathic communication carried meanings and feelings along with the words to make up for the lack of body language in the communication.
'I'll be right there,' Selene sent and channeled a bit of that bio-energy into her body and armor. Her body became both lighter and stronger, her next launch off of the back of a Tyranid splattered it on the ground instead of knocking it down. She could barely keep up with her new speed but the steady stream of bio-energy and her Armor correcting her miss-steps made up for it and she dashed through the battlefield faster than even most Tyranids could see.
Her heart was hammering heavily in her chest as she crested over a dune and the main battlefield spread out in front of her, this was it, her first battle where she fought for something she actually wanted. The guard, the Wanderer, or even her house were all fleeting and let her down time and time again but Echidna...
I just hope I can stand next to her...as a friend...or...
She gulped. She wasn't a teenage girl and neither was she dense as a brick; she felt bad for already having some feelings for a woman just a month after Seraphina died but that felt like it'd been years ago already.
The attention and care the woman showed her was something she had never experienced before. There'd never be dynastic talks with her or expectations of fulfilled duties, no weight placed on her shoulder, responsibilities she didn't want dragging her down to the abyss.
It didn't hurt that even the woman liked to take on forms and wear clothes that were doing things to Selene.
She wanted to see my face during battle, Selene sighed, foregoing putting on a helmet, let's give her a show then.
