51 – Falling

51 – FallingThe smell of death permeated the hallway, overpowering the musky scent of overgrown ruins. The smell of death, an interesting term, what I mean by it is a mixture of the coppery tang of blood, the repulsive smell of entrails and gore and the smell of burning flesh that prickled the nose. I breathed in, analyzing this mixture, searching for anything that shouldn't be or something that stood out, but nothing was forthcoming. I could barely make out sounds over the constant rhythmic exhale of bullets, plasma bolts and flesh-eating worms. The screaming/cheering Orcs didn't help in that department either. I spread my psychic aura. This was different from poking all over the place with tendrils of soul energy. This felt more like expanding my metaphysical body. It should also be much harder to detect. I felt a weird 'cloud' of warp energy covering all of the Orcs, I couldn't even get a feel of what it did but I could guess that it was the manifestation of the WAAAAGH!!! in realspace. I marveled at the work of the Old Ones for a bit, seeing something so different from the basic applications of my powers was certainly humbling, compared to them I was only good for breaking things. Orcs were also made only for that singular purpose but they were still so sophisticated in the way they were made. Wouldn't it have been easier to make giant weapons or something, probably not since the Old Frogs shouldn't have been morons? The Webway was a weird place to be in as a Psyker, I could feel the Warp being a mere thought away from me at all times and yet I didn't feel it around me, the energy didn't come in rushing at me like a ravenous beast and neither did I feel especially disgusted by it at all times. There was a sense of dissonance, or maybe a feeling of separation from it, like the Webway was an impregnable wall between me and the Warp. Supposedly not even Greater Demons could just enter it when they felt like it, everyone needed an entrance for that, be they a simple human or a Lord of Change. The Shadow was gone as well, I could once again see with some clarity into the Waters below. It was a bit disorienting, from the perspective of my soul my body was moving at astronomical speeds, faster than light by a long shot and my soul was being dragged along by the thread like a balloon filled with helium. The Ocean of Soul Energy followed it along, orbiting it like an expansive nebula of esoteric wonders. I didn't have the time to actually survey the forming Sea of Souls in detail but I could feel something changing in it, it was going from a calm sea of pure energy to something resembling the Warp a bit. In structure if not in its characteristics. But that didn't matter at the moment, what mattered was that with this sense back in place I could sense some disturbances in the forc- *cough* Warp, yes Warp. Pockets of its energy were gathered in formless blobs, these blobs were faint and barely noticeable but they had the same feeling as they could covering the Orcs. These blobs moved and were zig-zagging towards us between the falling Orcs. Like a coat, I maintained the Illusion around me, hoping to hide my presence just as effectively as the blobs concealed the crafty assailants beneath them. I moved, appearing in front of the closest blob, and my hand snapped out, air parting around it as my backhanded slap broke through the sound barrier. My hand touched rough skin, then penetrated firm muscle, and finally shattered bone to reach the brain. I stopped my hand as the invisibility flickered out and the corpse of an orc flew off to the side and plastered itself on the wall, making an orc-shaped hole in the old bricks. For a moment, I stared at my hand with curiosity, contemplating if I had broken the illusion through sheer force. That shouldn't be possible. It most likely failed because I killed the one it was anchored to. With a grimace on my face, I licked at the back of my hand — yes, I know, disgusting, but it must have looked disturbing as hell, the things I do for my self-image — absorbing the substance and analyzing it. The mixture I expected was there: blood, muscle, tendons, grey matter, but one extra was something that coated the skin. It was inorganic, so I exhaled it through my skin and watched as the substance covered my hand. My hand became purple. I blinked, then blinked again. It was simple purple paint. I let the illusion around me fall as I flickered my gaze between the other blobs. They were trembling and much more noticeable now. "I can see you~," I grinned widely and saw a handful of Orcs shimmer into existence where the blobs used to be, I evaded incoming bullets and shabby missiles with small but graceful movements as I made my way closer to the uncertain-looking Orcs. All of them had their skin painted purple. Never seen a purple orc before. "How is thiz humi saw us?" "Nobodyz saw us withz the paint on." "But she grumped up Gokk bad." "Gokk was small orc." "Sorry to interrupt your debate, but I'd like for you to fulfill one of my requests if you don't mind," I smiled at the confused Orcs, "Die for me, will you?" I cringed a little. That was so fucking edgy. Five little orbs just like before flew out of my palm and smacked into all the purple Orcs. They kneeled over one after the other and started clawing at their heads with pained screams. I let out a blast of energy centered on me and sent all the annoying Greenskin flying back a dozen meters along with the five purple ones whose heads exploded midflight, coating all the other mushroom people in a shower of gore. It didn't do much damage, quite the contrary. The Orcs flew into an ecstatic frenzy as they rushed at me with wide grins splitting their ugly mugs from ear to ear. Any lesser person would have been horrified at the dozens of bloodthirsty monsters coated in blood and gore rushing at them with a ravenous look in their eyes but I wasn't a lesser person. My bio-sword formed in my right palm and I gave it a gentle spin. I felt psychic channels form inside it and I let my energy flow into it. The sword gained a presence and aura of its own as I did so and as its end razed the stone floor, the old material split around it like butter. The Orcs' shots missed me as I danced between them, skillfully avoiding their clumsy melee attacks. I didn't even put any force behind my swipes, my sword easily parted armor and flesh alike as the corpses started the litter the floor. I didn't have armor on me but I felt no need for it, not a single bullet even grazed my skin so far and even if one did I could just regenerate. I kept my aura spread around the battlefield, so I didn't even need to look to know where an Orc would strike at me or if they'd have a chance of actually hitting me. At that one fleeting moment, I felt omniscient. I let my guard down. Unholy green light overwhelmed my vision and then I felt pain. My whole being became one with white fiery agony. More out of reflex than anything I calculated the angle from where the green beam of un-life hit me even as I felt my body disintegrate and launched an Eldritch Blast filled with all of my pain and intent to murder the asshole that made me go through it. Someone screamed, but I could barely hear it. I felt myself fall. One of my arms was missing, along with my legs and half of my torso. My bio-energy surged, but my body disintegrated faster than I could heal it. A single worry remained in my mind. If the bio-energy stored in my body didn't get all used up before my form disintegrated, it'd turn this part of the Webway into a burned out husk. So I forced my remaining mental functions to channel that energy into something useful and keep me alive for even a moment longer. I didn't even feel my back touch the ground when the world went dark and all sensation left me. Selene Voss Everything was going well, the Devourer as Echidna called it, was as deadly to the enemies as disgusting it was to wield. Selene focused on just aiming and shooting and tried to dissociate herself from the worms boring into the Orcs and the soul-tearing screams they let out every time her shots struck true. Selene stood still. She felt bullets strike her armor by the dozens every second but she barely felt them. What was Orc weaponry worth compared to Echidna's disturbing arsenal? Nothing. After the first minute, Selene noticed that even aiming wasn't a must. She vaguely pointed her weapon in the direction the Orcs came from and she felt the armor adjust her aim. It wasn't much, but it turned hits that'd maybe catch the Orc in the side into a full hit that had an entire Swarm eating into the Orc's flesh. It all felt too easy, she was fighting Orcs damnit. Orcs. Terrifying Xeno monsters that knew nothing but war and tortured children to pass the time. An infestation that could never be eliminated with 100% certainty and needed constant culling to keep in check. The helmet kept track of each enemy and Selene saw the Orcs outlined in red and Echidna swirling between them in blue. She let the armor do most of the work as her eyes fixated on the alien woman, her snow-white hair flew freely in the air as she flickered from place to place, her every movement was a work of art, perfection manifested into reality that put to shame any dancer she saw as a child. Her V-shaped face and angular jawline gave her a refined beauty that was only made more enthralling by her forest-green eyes flickering with childish mischief. Selene let her eyes wander. There was nothing childish about that body, though. She gulped as her tongue ran over her dry lips. That skin-tight bodyglove she wore left little to the imagination, though at least since Selene first met the woman she started tying a loose cloth around her hip which at least acted like a mini-skirt but as she twirled around with her sword raking through two Orcs at a time, that cloth flew around in the air. Selene made the mistake of glancing up and catching a glimpse of her face. The woman wore a wide smile on her lips filled with pride as she enjoyed every moment of what she was doing. Selene felt her heart skip a beat but shook the intrusive thoughts out of her head. She is slaughtering aliens and coating herself in blood, this is far from being the time to be horny. Her mind wandered rebelliously, remembering the same woman clutching onto her hand as she went to sleep, the time Selene held her at her weakest. Then came another memory, she remembered how the woman ever so carefully pried away her armor. For a moment Selene imagined what'd have happened if it wasn't just her armor that was pried off of her with those dexterous fingers. 'an offer, partnership if you like.' Partners, why'd that woman want me as a partner? All I have to offer is a piece of paper I only got because all my brothers died in the last Tyranid Invasion. As her thoughts started to spiral down when her armor pinged in alert. Her eyes instantly snapped up, focusing on a single larger Orc still more than a kilometer away from them. It was outlined in black and her vision was flashing in danger. Why? She couldn't tell but she positioned herself so there was always another Orc between her and the incoming giant monster. Echidna will handle it, I'm sure. Still, Selene kept her eyes on the entrancing woman even as she tracked the incoming enemy. The black mark stopped a kilometer away and just as she started to wonder what it was doing she saw the dimly lit hallway light up in a disturbing green color, with her staring at Echidna she saw the exact moment when the beam of green energy struck the woman. Selene heard a sound, a scream filled with pain that engraved itself eternally into her memory. Selene saw the woman she had relied on for the last month, the woman who had been at her side when she got betrayed, the woman who had made up that stupid offer of partnership even if she had no use for her help, disintegrate. Time seemed to slow down as she saw her legs and left side turn into carbon ash as a last bolt of vindictive light left the woman's right hand. Her armor pinged and the black outline flickered out, followed by the blue outline. Selene stood still for a moment. Even her weapon stopped firing as she stared blankly at the ash cloud floating through the air. Then she heard it, the chuckles, the cheers, the laughter. Her armor which went slack the moment Echidna's signal flickered out came back to life. Energy she didn't know flooded into her body and continued on into her armor. She felt one with it for the first time; she wasn't relying on Echidna's energy to keep it running anymore but using her own even if she didn't know it at the moment. There was nothing on her mind but a dark vindictive urge to slaughter the ones who took away the woman that maybe could have been her first friend. You are going to regret ever being born. Her body flickered from its place, clouds of vaporized blood and screams filled the air not a moment later, the previous laughter feeling like an illusion of a past that never was.