108 Work, work, work

108 Work, work, work

I easily hid ourselves from most prying eyes, to be honest, only Mephiston would have been able to notice me, or maybe if Guilliman’s ultra-instincts somehow activated and alerted him of my presence.

None of the above-mentioned happened. There was no sign of Mephiston and Guilliman showed no sign of knowing that we were looking at the proceedings down below as he disembarked from his Thunderhawk.

His was about the tenth of the things, nine previous ones having vomited out a crap ton of blueberry boys who were now rushing about to reinforce the lacking guards and security on the Fortress’ outer walls while an honorary guard remained behind as they watched Dante greet the Primarch. Well, more like he was breaking down and fell to his knees before him.

The scene before me was eerily similar to what I remembered from ‘The Devastation of Baal’ book. That was one of the few I actually read from start to finish and only a short while before I kicked the bucket so it was relatively clear in my memory.

The one stark difference was that Dante didn’t have half his guts missing and wasn’t a step away from greeting his gene sire as he knelt before Guilliman.

My actions had consequences, for better or for worse.

Though it seemed fate might be flexing its might a bit so only minor discrepancies happened. If that were true, fate might be clamping down hard on butterfly effects, but if I could change small things, I could change the big ones too with enough effort and power.

It was a relieving thought.

“Get up, Dante,” said Guilliman. “I will not accept displays of humility from a man like you. You are one of the few in this era who have earned the right to speak to me on equal terms. Rise. Now.”

The déjà vu was strong with this one. I watched on as they did some bonding or whatnot, with Guilliman attempting to make the Chapter master believe he was in fact, alive, real, and yes, he wasn’t a dream.

“Let us continue further discussions in your command room,” said Guilliman. Finally. “I have the written reports, but hearing it from your mouth would be best.”

“As you wish, My Lord.”

I barely suppressed a sigh. Finally, they were moving. Now, we can do some more talking. Joy. Somehow, I wasn’t all too thrilled about it, maybe because I knew today was just a setup for later, at least for me.

There wouldn’t be much of a prize to be earned in these talks, I was just clarifying that I would not be easy to get rid of and cement myself as a semi-permanent part of this little camp.

The idea in my head was that later down the line, when we fought together for a bit, Guilliman would be more pliable to the idea of handing me a bit of his genetic sample — knowing I wasn’t an entirely insane alien. Plus, to be honest, being antagonistic with the Lord Regent and having to fend off the instruments of his ire — assassins or even crusade fleets — when I manage to settle down somewhere and start my little empire project would be a colossal pain in the ass.

Better that he thought of me as a possible long-term ally or at least a useful one to be kept alive should he need my help later on. Let’s just hope it goes better this time. I messed it up with Dante, but maybe Guilliman will be more level-headed.

With a snap, we Blinked over to the almost empty secondary command room that I knew they would be using. Hmm, this was more like a strategic centre with a giant map in the middle along with large data-slates showing information on whatever might be needed.

The room only had two tech-priests busying themselves by running some final check-ups on the machinery before the important people arrived.Thê source of this content n/o/v/(el)bi((n))

I plopped down into a chair, Selene and Val taking up positions behind me like guards. That was good for now, though I didn’t really like the idea of making Selene subordinate to me, but for now it was ... ideal. Well, ideal to the image, I wanted to show the Imperials, and my little minx knew that.

My instincts tingled in alarm as warp energy twisted for the briefest moment before the towering form of Mephiston snapped into being with a hiss of displaced air in the other end of the room. “What are you doing here?”

The tech-priests almost jumped in terror and with a mental shrug, I dismissed my illusion. Meanwhile, I tried to memorise the ways the warp-energy twisted before he arrived. Mephiston didn’t use Blink or any similar teleportation. He just walked in here so fast it seemed like teleportation.

“Nice of you to join us,” I gave him a smile that didn’t quite reach my eyes. “Take a seat, let’s wait for the rest to arrive.”

I could see his inner debate on his weathered face, but I was relieved to have guessed correctly when the old Librarian gave a minute nod. He didn’t have any warp-energy readied, which was the equivalent of having his blade sheathed for a Psyker. I guessed correctly that he didn’t want to fight.

I mimicked the gesture, not drawing on my energy and making sure neither did neither of my companions. Especially since Mephiston’s gaze was lingering on Valenith. I held back a smile. My psychic might was supposedly hard to measure since my soul wasn’t in my body, one had to sort of reverse-guess exactly how strong I might have been from my feats of strength. There was no such problem with Val, the Eldar was bursting at the seams with power, revelling in the freedom to let his soul bubble and churn without any fear of a thirsty demon god chomping down on him.

Humans might have thought Eldar to be ‘manageable’ before, but they’d never met an Eldar that didn’t have to hold back 99% of their strength. Though if there was one person in the imperium who’d still manage to wipe the floor with Val, it’d be Mephiston.

Mephiston was a menace in combat, I still did not know how he slowed time around him to a crawl with the measly amount of warp energy — well, measly compared to what I could bring to bear — he used to achieve it. Or did he speed up his own time? Like one of those ‘Haste’ spells?

Even if I knew how he was doing it, I couldn’t quite replicate it. I could make myself go faster, but not to the level where everything else around me seemed frozen in time. I didn’t get how he didn’t just immolate everything around him from the friction on even just the air or how he didn’t break himself into a million pieces with every move.

I’d have to watch as he does his thing, maybe with my entire focus on him, and with near-infinite time to review the footage, I could stumble upon something. Or my mind cores would, if not me.

There were always new tricks and tools to add to my arsenal. I couldn’t allow myself to become complacent with fucking Gods being real in this galaxy. I needed enough firepower to make C’tan’s and those Warp-fuckers tremble.

“I can trace the telepathic message it sends back to the source and connect to it, and through it to you. Which would you prefer?”

“You can speak through this thing?” he asked and I shrugged.

“I can modify it to be able to. Though it won’t work if you or I head off-world.”

“Please do so,” he said.

I did just that. I could understand not wanting unknown aliens to connect to your mind.

“Weeeeeeee, I’m being squished.” The thing squealed after a moment and I removed my finger from it with a studiously neutral expression on my face.

“It works,” I said.

“It does indeed,” he agreed.

“Well, that’s it then, goodbye for now. I’ll find you in a few days for that promised genetic library and please do call me when you plan to see what that thing hiding in the caverns is. I’d love to help with that.”

“I’ll see to it that the library is ready to receive you,” he said. “Farewell.”

I smiled and nodded at him. Then teleported us back to our impromptu base.

“Well, that’s that,” I shrugged. “What do you think?”

“Master Eldrad will have questions,” said Val. “I kept up appearances ever since you’ve freed me, but I’ve been ... sparse. Especially in details and I might have failed to actually mention having been freed. He will know. And soon.”

“That Farseer tailing Guilliman was one of his apprentices, right?”

“Indeed,” Val said with a slight grimace. “He’ll rush to report to him, I’m sure.”

“Will Eldrad be a problem?”

“I ... don’t believe so, but you can never know what his true goals are. He has plans within plans within plans and I don’t even know if he himself can keep track of them.”

“Hmm,” I shrugged. “We’ll deal with it when it comes down to it, I’m not annoying a craft world if I don’t have to and we have enough problems on our plate already. Selene, how was meeting a Primarch?”

“Strange,” she said thoughtfully, her stoic expression melting as she relaxed. “I thought I’d feel ... something. I don’t even feel the usual terror when looking at an Astartes anymore. I don’t know what I expected, but it was not ... him.”

“Great,” I grinned. I wasn’t done with the template I was working on for her, but I’d made some minor adjustments and one of them was wiping away the instinctual terror transhuman put into regular humans. Then she coughed as she turned a frown at me and I hurriedly clarified myself. “I mean that my preliminary upgrades are working. I wasn’t sure they’d hold up against whatever bullshit Primarchs have.”

“I believe that had more to do with Lady Selene’s soul being empowered and detached from the Warp. The so-called ‘Primarch Aura’ is a power of the soul, not of the body.”

“Makes sense,” I nodded. “Well, that was boring. Wanna do some sparring and practice?”

Val just grinned and Selen gave me a slightly apprehensive look I understood instantly as anxiety simmered in her aura. “You need practice to get used to your growing psychic powers. Relying on the armour and the weapons I gave you is all good, but you are a psyker. You don’t have to fear daemons anymore or even the corruption of the warp.”

She gave me a resolute nod. She probably felt her powers were almost insignificant compared to mine or Val’s, but she was growing in power with every fight. I could practically feel her soul growing denser, brighter, and more powerful in my realm.

Plus, I’ve also been rather lazy, barely practising or brainstorming on new uses for my powers until I run headfirst into a wall I can’t just plough through. As I’d already known, I needed to diversify my toolset and expand my versatility. That included not only the templates I worked out and my forms, but my psychic powers.

It was time to do some research and development.

Then maybe some friendly sparring. Val would be an interesting opponent and one that could probably push me to improve, especially if I limited myself to psychic powers.

And Selene, well, I’d do my best to help her. Though I had some ulterior motives. Who knew what’d happen once I kicked Val out of the sparring room, leaving the two of us alone. Hmmmm. Yes. Who knew where that could lead?

But first. Work.