My brain decided to give me this idea and after seeing there aren't much fics of my babies The Goo (I found like, only one), I can't help but decide to throw another one out there. To at least bring some new crap. This is actually inspired by both [When In Doubt, Blame the Eldar (PA SI Multicross) by Blackhole1] and [Shroud (Grey Goo game Shroud SI / Warhammer 40k) by Drich] (man I wish they get continued), anyway. I hope you guys will like this brand of brain fart from me.
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You know? When I died, I thought I'd be doing many different things. You know? Going to the afterlife, maybe being reborn back into the same world without memories of my past life, hell even get isekaid somewhere and become an overpowered protagonist who is either a guy with all the ladies or on the opposite side of the spectrum a gal with all the guys.
Well... I have been isekaid into an "overpowered protagonist", see the quotation marks? But I've so just been isekaid into quite possibly one of the WORST places to be isekaid to, one where my "OP-ness" might most likely be worth jack shit. I'm on a planet, and not just ANY fucking planet ooooh nooo, but I'm on a random ass planet shrouded in a warpstorm and basically have every 40k faction and their god damned mother on this planet fighting for whoever gets to live for who knows how many fucking years until the warpstorm dissipates, and in the middle of it all sits ME, a single Mother Goo (That sounds a bit wrong) who has already attracted a passing freaky Slaneesh daemon, an adeptus mechanicus whose eyeballing me rather invasively, a necron lord somehow smiling at me, and a... actually this Ultramarine is actually a good guy, saved him and he saved me. You know, aside from the Ultramarine this kind of reminds me of a certain meme.
Ah right this is probably a little bit too big of a summary, well let me start from the beginning...
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Ugh... my head... did anyone get the number on that truck that hit me? Why is it so dark? Why the hell is it so hard to open my eyes??? Come on. OPEN THEM! ACK! It was at that moment that the world around me burst into color, not only did I see the trees in front of me, I see the trees towards my sides, the boulder behind me, and even the sky and ground, all with PERFECT clarity and some kind of bluish and grey tint on my vision? Ah that is hurting my head a bit, why do I have 360 degree vision?! Urghk I think I'm gonna hurl.
I try to take a step forward but noticed something... why can't I feel my legs? Actually, why can't I feel my other body parts? Trying to look down I see grey-ish goo that looks like it has pulsing blue energy and "stars" dotting and running through the goo. I quickly try to shake myself as I very much recognize that grey goo anywhere and notice that the grey goo... shaked. with. me... Am I?... No no no, no no no no no no no! I can't be a Goo! I don't want to be a Goo! I then see a sort of notification pop with an icon of a sphere with a question mark. It simply says :Incorrect Designation and Identification. Correct Designation - Mother Goo, Correct Identification - Eien:
Fucking hell. I'm a Mother Goo and what's with that name? Eternity. I'm a god damned Mother Goo from the Goo faction from the Grey Goo game! I mean, I KNOW what the Goo are capable of but I'm not even remotely humanoid! I can't exaclty pull a Rimuru and eat a person to get their form?! Because, one that's kind of fucked up, and two I'm not even a slime! I'm a blob of self replicating nanomachines that can disassemble and scan anything I "eat" and use the mass to make more of me!
I sigh mentally, feeling very mentally tired. Though I wonder how I got here and placed in this situation in the first place. Let's see if I can kind of remember anything before I... Oh, right. I died. Saving two kids before getting rammed up the arse by the almighty truck-kun. Turns out the truck is kind of like one of the more realistic ways to die than any other way. But I digress, I'm stuck now as a non-human entity and am probably on some random ass planet since I don't even recognize these trees and vegetation. Maybe if I look up I can kinda guess where am I at on this planet? Actually I don't even need to look up because of this weird 360 degree vision that's messing with my human brain, actually can it still be human brain? Human mind might be a better thing.
So I "look" up to see if I can guess what kind stars this planet has, huh that's an actually weird looking pink sky this planet has. Does?... Wait a minute, that's not pink sky... Ah hell. That's a warpstorm, this planet is in a warpstorm, which means that I'm in the warhammer universe. I'm a Mother Goo on a planet in the Grimdark setting of the Warhammer universe! Where peace, happiness, and prosperity have been replaced by war, death, and destruction. Not necessarily in that order but necessarily in mass quantities. Everyone and their momma are fighting each other and every faction can probably tear me to bits easily despite being the Goo. Ah fuck me... Why couldn't I be the Shroud? At least I would have been able to easily survive against the Chaos. (Arguably the most dangerous faction)
Speaking of Chaos, I can't help but wonder if it can even affect me? I mean, I'm technically a cluster of quite literally billions or more machines called Von Neumann probes. But Chaos HAS corrupted mechanical creations before, I'm unsure if I can be included due my nanomachines being tiny. I kind of don't want to try and see if I am immune to being corrupted. Anyway! Another incredibly dangerous faction to me would be the Necrons, their stupid mountain dew lightning sticks can quite possibly just delete any cloud of nanomachines it hits, I might be exaggerating about how dangerous those gloriously stupid green lightning guns are but I don't want to take any chances.
One rule I made whenever it comes to 40k, if you are dropped in that world, assume everyone and everything wants to kill you. Some would call it being excessively paranoid, but in a world like 40k? Its going to be what keeps you alive. I don't even look remotely close to any of the other races, and its pretty much the whole 'If you don't look like me, you are my enemy' type deal soooo yeah. Paranoia is going to be my best friend here, god that sounds depressing already.
Quickly, I mentally shake my head. Focus 'Eien', I need to make sure I am safe for now. Let's see do I even have any of the Goo units from the game? Answer is... yeah actually, thankfully. Let's see, how do I oH My gA-! I just split off a small protean mass of goo, that felt really weird. Like I can control it like its a part of me, but I can also let it move on its own after I give it a command. Uh... I need a radiant? Oh it's actually doing it- ooooh wow...
That's really pretty actually, to the naked eye it kinda looks like a blob is just having a seizure while condensing itself into a shape, but to me... I "see" them, all of them. Every single nanomachine inside the small protean looks like as if they are dancing, exchanging what looks like bluish grey electricity between each other as they come together in like one big synchronized dance. Pulling each other up and swinging each other to their required positions before interlocking and forming together. When the Radiant was fully formed, I felt a sort of awe flow through me, and pfft- I can feel the "mind" of the Radiant almost preening under my awed gaze. That's really cute actually.
Let's see, how much resource do I have left. Ok the resource I have is basically called Mass, kinda makes sense, and I have enough to make a large protean actually. I'll save that Mass for some other time, in the mean time I gently take hold of the Radiant and try to have it turn invisible like in the game. Mostly to see if I don't need to buy upgrades and instead can just have them do it. To my pleasant surprise, the Radiant actually turns invisible which is really nice. Now to see where this forest is, I don't want to find myself blindsided.
With the Radiant heading towards a random direction in hopes to get out of the forest, I'll try to see if I can actually force my blob form to take at least some kind of humanoid shape. Let's see, maybe if I think really hard my body will form one for me? Come on, shape into a humanoid, shape into a humanoid, shape into a-ACK?! Ow ow ow ow ow! That hurt! But why?!
I turn the 360 degree vision back onto me and still see I am the Mother Goo blob, much to my dismay. Come on! I'm not bound by the laws of the game! Let me do what I want! Let me moooaAAAACKK!!! I feel as if lightning is striking my body repeatedly, I never thought I'd be feeling a physical pain now that I was a formless blob of nanomacines but nooooo! Mentally gritting my teeth, I continue to forcefully try to shape my body to form at least a humanoid shape.
Minutes have passed, but to me it felt like hours with how much pain I was in, I didn't even react to the Radiant pinging me a notice and reacting in a panic after it felt me in pain. I didn't feel or see the Radiant rush back to my convulsing protean body, I didn't see or hear an imperium vessel crashing into the forest I was in just a little aways from my position. I felt something shatter in the back of my head and the pain faded away into nothing, my body let out a small wave of electromagnetic plasma that burned the area around me.
"Opening" my eyes I could see my 360 vision is still here, so I sighed and turned it inside to see my failed expe-riment? For the most part, I see that I still had a lot of my protean body still there, but what made me kind of mentally blush was that right on top in the middle was something I'll describe as a silvery slime girl with pulsing bluish grey electricity throughout her body. Oh come on! Just because I'm a Mother Goo, doesn't mean that my humanoid shape should be a girl! I'm a sci-fi fantasy hybrid looking monster girl! That's not right! I sigh, and see that my humanoid form also sighed with me. At least the shape is mature and not a child, a nanomachine slime-girl Mother Goo, there's a joke there somewhere.
With an audible groan from my humanoid morph at least that confirms it does have "actual vocal cords", I guess I'll call it "Eien" shape, thankfully aside from the face its mostly featureless and the Goo formed a lot of things covering the body. So I collapsed it back into my protean body, somehow this protean mass is much better for me than the Eien shape. But since the Eien shape could make sound it is very important for when I want to communicate with any of those who are smart enough to 'ask first shoot later' than the other asses of 40k.
I looked towards the panicking Radiant, since I let go of the gentle control it's back to acting more like a child, one of it's eyestalks tried to soothe me by rubbing against me similar to a canine. It made me laugh a bit, I sent the feeling that I was ok back at the Radiant and it already brightened in response. It then showed me what it found at the edge of the forest, fuck it was an Ork outpost, thankfully it was an outpost so I could hopefully either sneak past it or take it by surprise.
The Radiant surprised me though by showing a crashing imperial vessel just a little to the north of me. I thought to myself just how and why was there an imperial vessel flying in this planet with the warpstorm happening out there. But... tech, oh its so tempting. But that ship probably contains one of three things, imperium forces, chaos-corrupted imperium forces, or imperium forces and whatever is fighting said forces. Many things can go wrong if I went there to try and salvage their tech... but still, Imperium tech is better than having no tech.
Fuck it, I'll just gain more mass while I travel there. Sending my Radiant ahead, I made my protean form go as low as possible while spreading out and slowly moving towards the crash site. Consuming everything except the trees to convert to more nanomachine Mass while I traveled onwards.
it was a dull few minutes, but my Radiant showed an all clear area and I took my time reaching towards the crash site. It was some kind of cruiser that I don't actually recognize. I think it's familiar but I'm not really sure... Oh well! Loot and tech for me to "eat" then!
My desire to consume the ship was stalled as I heard banging coming from within the ship, followed by another, and another, and another. Each steadily growing louder and louder as I formed the Eien shape simply so that I could focus the eyes of the Eien shape to get a closer look at what is causing that noise. A wall of the ship was growing more and more dented, I only now realize that is actually some kind of door and just about flinched when it got violently ejected outwards. I see like two black space marines exit the ship in rather bad shape, fuck I recognize those. They are Black Templars, followed by... no fucking way. A certain badass Ultramarine that Roboute Guilliman would be proud of. Captain Titus, followed by who I can only assume is Inquisitor Thrax. I should move away from he-
"I see you." Fuck, Titus. The man made of badassium just said he sees me. Fuck fuck fuck. I don't want to die. So I slowly peak my head out and look down at them from my vantage point.
I see the inquisitor hum and look at me. "It looks remarkably like a human female." That statement easily made my eye twitch, thankfully I was far enough that the four of them didn't notice it.
Captain Titus turned to look at the inquisitor then at the Black Templar marines then back at me. I don't know what he is thinking, and the Black Templar marines look like they want to shoot me already. It's only because they are under Thrax's command that they aren't shooting at me already... probably... I hope.
"Young lady. Can you assist us? As you can see, we have crashed and we would like to know if you know of a nearby imperial outpost." Titus asked, and I saw the two other marines and Thrax look at him like he's an idiot for thinking I can possibly help. Which slightly peeves me since Titus is one of the more smarter marines.
Thank the Drichmander that I can understand their language. Hopefully I can speak it and they can understand it as well. "No. Knows." What. Ok let's try that again.
"Orkz. Outpost. Me. Take." Why the hell am I speaking broken Gothic? Oh this isn't good.
The four of them look surprised more so about what I said about the Ork Outpost and what I'm gonna do with it.
"Really now? You're going to try and take an Ork Outpost? By yourself young Xeno?" Thrax had the gall to look bloody amused at me, the two templar marines look like they want to shoot me more or follow me to shoot me and the orkz. Dunno which one actually. Titus still is keeping that poker face up, the one that makes it look like he is always frowning.
I simply nod an affirmative, and raise up and show that while Eien was humanoidly-shaped. The rest of my body, wasn't. Immediately it put all four of them on guard and I had to do something quick to not make them anymore liable to shoot me.
"No. More?" Fuck I'm still broken speeched. They look visibly confused, good less of an idea to shoot me. I point at them and repeat my broken question. They seem to get the idea and they looked to be in silent discussion, finally Titus turned to me and said.
"There are a few wounded in the ship, but it's proving difficult to get them out." Ok ok ok, this can be really good or really dumb of me to do. I slowly moved down the cliff, the four of them stood alert and watched me, my protean mass lower half slithered(?) down the cliff face and moved towards them, the Eien shape on top laying down forwards head resting on 'her' arms before I spoke.
"Need. Me. Help?" Hopefully this would get them to think I wasn't going to attack, and this would hopefully make it so that I don't get attacked back.
I can already see that I rendered the four of them stunned with my question...
...
This is already going better than I thought!
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OMAKE: (What realistically would have happened. Probably)
"Need. Me. Hel-?" BANG BANG BANG BANG
Bad idea bad idea bad idea! I thought frantically as my protean mass quickly flowed away. Not listening at all to Titus' calls to come back or the incessant screeching of the two Templar Marines.
Yep. This is already going better than I thought actually... Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:Under_The_Endless_Stars, Collectors, SEYRAWYN and 134 othersTheDinnerQueenJan 2, 2024Reader modeAdd bookmarkThreadmarks Threadmarks Chapter 1: Helping the 'Neighbors' Threadmarks TheDinnerQueenHeed my words... EggJan 2, 2024Add bookmark#3Captain Titus POV
This... grey... slime girl? Let's go with slime, xeno seems oddly friendly with us. Well, I say friendly. It is very obvious that she's extremely cautious of us, even if the humanoid shape isn't a normal biological, I can definitely tell that she recognizes us. Whether if it is us personally, or just by our armor I do not know. But still, she definitely knows that we are dangerous to her and that makes her extremely cautious around the two Black Templar Marines, Inquisitor Thrax, and I.
In my 150 years of service to the Imperium, I can definitely say that I have never encountered a xeno resembling the one brokenly speaking in front of us. Actually, now that I think about it I'm slightly curious how it can understand Low and High Gothic as well as speak it. Albeit brokenly, hmm I don't think she knows she is doing it on purpose and she doesn't know but she is actually switching between Low and High Gothic. It is one of the reasons why her speech sounds a little broken.
Looking to my... companions they can recognize that she's speaking both Gothic languages and are making no motion to correct the young xeno. They are probably busy studying her for any weaknesses they can see.
I see Inquisitor Thrax turn slightly to the three of us to speak. "For a xeno such as it, it is remarkably ambitious for telling us that it will try to assault an ork outpost presumably by itself."
One of the Templar Marines spoke, Jorim I believe his name was spoke quietly through the communicator, most likely so as to not let her hear what he is saying. "I say we just shoot this xeno and be done with it." I can see the other Templar, Mastalor nod his head minutely, barely being missed by the xeno in front of us.
Looking at Inquisitor Thrax, it is obvious he is thinking about it but I can see it in his eyes. Like I did back on Graia, he didn't believe a single thing that Leandros said and treated me like an unfortunate scapegoat.
He spoke quietly to the three of us. "No, with us undoubtedly behind ork lines from what this xeno is telling us. We can't afford to... get rid of any xeno that we can potentially use as a shield between us and those who are clearly our enemy." I would nod at that, as I'm pragmatic enough to allow temporary alliances with xenos if it means an easier time dealing with one of the more numerous xeno filth.
I could practically feel the two Templar Marines slump ever so slightly in quite possibly annoyance and dismay at not shooting the xeno right in front of us. When we saw her move, we immediately heightened our guard, our guard was raised higher once we saw that this grey slime girl only had a mostly humanoid upper body. The rest of it looks more like a sort of goo.
We then heard her ask if there was no more, which slightly confused the four of us. It was clear what she was asking once she pointed at the four of us, quickly we switched to communicator speak while keeping our eyes on the xeno girl. "What do you think Inquisitor? Do you think we should tell her? You did make the argument to not get rid of any xeno that isn't openly hostile to us." I quietly speak through the communicator in my armor.
"Have you lost your mind Ultramarine?! If we talk about the survivors inside the Incorruptus, who is to say the filthy xeno won't try to kill or maybe EAT them?" Jorim harshly whispered through his own comms unit, Malastor actually nodded his head enough for the xeno to see it.
"Well we can't just leave them, since there are still some behind ruined systems. It would take heavy demolition charges to crack through the ruins of the cruiser." I whisper just as harshly, I was never one for leaving men behind. As every man lost is another man who can no longer serve the Emperor and his Imperium.
"I would have to agree with Captain Titus, we risk nothing but what we already risk after the good Ultramarine called the young xeno out on its hiding tactic." Both the Inquisitor and I could hear the two Templar marines grumble and made a few quiet words that strangely sound like they could just shoot it and damn the consequences. Which sounded like heresy to me for what seems to be disobeying an inquisitor, but for now we should try to secure a... tentative friendship with this xeno.
"There are a few wounded in the ship, but it's proving difficult to get them out." I answer the xeno slime girl, and immediately all four of us prepare for combat as she... slithered? Right let's use slithered. She slithered down the cliff and the what I assume is the main body is uncomfortably larger than I thought. The main body of this xeno is bigger than two land raiders slapped together.
When she asked us if she could help, it frankly stunned the four of us. Because well, essentially this xeno just risked herself to stand in front of us before asking us if she could assist. But... its possible this xeno wants something from us in return, and Inquisitor Thrax thought the same.
He cleared his throat and spoke to the xeno in front of us, the humanoid form seems to be laying down on her front while waiting. "While your... assistance, would be welcome. What exactly is your end goal for helping us? What do you want from us in return?" Hopefully, this xeno won't try anything.
Eien POV Switch
I can't believe that they haven't shot at me yet, uhh. Ok how do I word my 'price' without setting the Templar marines or the Inquisitor off immediately. Hmm... Ah that could work.
"Me. Hungry. Me. Eat. Metal. Ship. Metal." It took a second or two for the four guys in front of me to realize what I was asking. Oof, it seems like the Templar do not like that as they are now aiming their bolters straight at Eien-shape's face.
The inquisitor and captain Titus narrowed their eyes at me in suspicion. "Why exactly do you need to eat?" The Ultramarine asked/demanded with a dangerous tone in his voice. Ahhhh shit. I have to be honest enough otherwise they might just start blasting if I try to avoid the question.
I can't believe I'll have to pull it this way. "Me. Mother. Goo. Make. More. Goo. With. Mass. Metal. More. Mass." I should let them believe I'm a xeno instead of a machine intelligence, they would just try to blast me if they think I'm anything like the Men of Iron of old.
The words I used kind of embarrassed me, but it seemed to get the point across to them. It made them look at each other before Inquisitor Thrax looked at the rest of the ship. It's... not really in good shape, the thing is nearly sliced into two pieces, there's a lot of holes both that allow you to see inside the ship, the engines are pouring out black smoke ahh, and the bridge just exploded. The ship is better to be scrapped and turned into something else than trying to repair the poor thing.
I could feel the reluctance emanating from the Inquisitor, most of it is probably from not wanting to offer imperium technology as essentially food to me, and unknowingly as something I can scan while I 'eat' it, but they don't need to know that. But even I can see that there is no hope of getting that ship to soar with the stars ever again with that kind of damage, and I'm not even someone whose tech savvy with void-based vessels. Well, not yet at least.
The inquisitor sighed heavily and looked me in Eien shape's eyes. "We will let you... eat, the Incorruptus. But only after you help us get our injured and dead out of the ship. I don't want our injured and departed men and women to be introduced to your... 'stomach' or whatever your equivalent is." Huh. The inquisitor is oddly allowing it, I'd have figured that they would be diehard idiots who would rather see the ship burn to ashes than give it to any xeno. Much less to someone like me who is basically a very unknown xeno to them.
Either he is pragmatic and/or smart, or he's trying to gain my trust so he could stab me in the back later down the line... It actually wouldn't be the first time since some inquisitors could be as manipulative as those damned Eldar Farseers. If I have to "trust" anyone, it would have to only be Captain Titus. Since that man is pragmatic, smart, and makes good on his promises. So if I get him to make a promise with me for him to not try to kill me. Then that means I'm completely safe from the ultramarine.
Actually, this can be a good time to get Titus on my side. I'm not even thinking of trying to befriend either the inquisitor or the two Templar marines, the former because of manipulative tendencies and the latter does not need any explanation.
I nod and brokenly speak my piece. "Will. Help. But. Friend. Need." Fucking hell I really need to figure out why I'm speaking broken gothic, this is going to confuse people the more I speak.
Oddly enough one of the Templar marines was the one who grasped what I was meaning first. Which I don't know how to feel about that actually. "The xeno will accept that, but it needs one of us to be with it while it is... helping the others get out of the ship."
The inquisitor held his chin in thought while keeping an eye on me. I was about to speak but it seems like Titus had other plans. "I will go with her." Ah right I have to get used to being addressed as a woman. Titus simply turned around and faced both the templar marines and Thrax. "I will be the one to accompany this xeno to aid our brethren, if things go wrong or I fall to her through manipulation. I will accept being gunned down." Damn, I forgot how this man made of badassium is hardcore and devoted as hell.
Thrax and the two marines seemed to accept that and stepped aside for me and Titus to move through. Though I just realized something as I stopped halfway from entering with Titus into the void faring vessel. I looked at the doorway with narrowed eyes, and the four imperials looked between me and the door.
"Uhm. How. Fit?" It dawned on them as well that I probably need to have a bigger entrance. Captain Titus had a question. "Since you can form a humanoid shape, can't you just... compress yourself?"
I mean I could try, but doing so is probably going to be both annoyingly difficult and quite possibly feel very cramped. But I try to do so, while my Eien-shape didn't so much as move, my lower protean half started jiggling and convulsing until it started to compress down little by little, thankfully even the Black Templar marines were patient as the four of them... watched... me... Now that I think about it, this feels very uncomfortable but I'll just ignore it.
Oof, ok this is very cramped but now I kinda look like a grey slime girl in a slime dress with how compressed my protean half is. I look like a lady with a dress if she was completely made from slime. I have to be careful to be mostly solid with a bit of squishy bounce to my form and not immediately start eating.
Captain Titus stepped back from the door and let me through, once I went further inside with the ultramarine captain as my guide, the other three followed behind with their bolters aimed at both me and Titus. I can't help but look around the vessel's interiors. The hallways are actually a lot less... ornamental than I thought for being an inquisitor vessel. No random candles, statues of the emperor or whatever, it is simply a hallway for walking through. Though the few curtains is a bit wasteful, but eh I'm going to be eating it all later anyways.
After a minute of traversing the hulk, we came across a ruined section. Ruined would be putting it lightly, it's like some giant took the hallway or room in front of me and squeezed it like a person does a pepsi can. Titus turned to look at me and waved his hand at the ruined mess. "There are survivors behind this rubble. Help us get those out of this and other similar rubble then this ship is yours to eat."
Nodding my Eien-shape, I got closer slightly decompressed my lower protean half and sunk my Eien-shape into it before I started to eat at the rubble wall. Going slow so as not to accidentally eat anyone that is near the rubble in any way.
- Few hours later -
Bujeezus, just eating through the rubble gave me enough mass to grow five times in size, I had to compress myself five times before I started overflowing. After this I need to get out of the ship and... birth. I need to come up with a better term, birth a few other mothers and we can share the load of eating this feast. Anyway, back to the task at hand.
Its kind of disheartening, there were VERY few people left alive in the ship, the rest were dead or too far gone with their injuries. The last part was the bridge, we got a few more people with us while the rest were with the dead to help prepare them for 'cleansing' whatever that is. Probably a ritual to prevent the bodies and souls being used by Chaos. Sadly the souls are already being used by Chaos I reckon, they would just be preventing the use of their bodies.
Of what I'm told, the nine hundred thousand people on the Incorruptus (Which is crazy, cause it didn't count the servitors on the ship.) Only like nine people not including the four I met survived. You know, when I saw the meme of 99% casualty rate and space marines claiming it a victory. I didn't think it would have some basis on this fucked up reality!
Ah, we are here at the bridge... Something's wrong. I immediately had my Eien-shape start growling and it grabbed the attention of Titus, Thrax, the four Templar assault marines, and the one apothecary that came with us. There were two apothecaries but the other stayed behind to tend to the dead.
"Why are you growling xeno?" Thrax couldn't help but be curious, as I never showed any outright hostility to the four of them at first.
I don't know if what I'm feeling is correct or not, but I felt something WRONG with whatever is behind the doors to the bridge, seeing as I was mostly machine I had to be sure that what I was feeling was genuine. So I looked at Titus and motioned to the door. "Bad. Feeling. Wrong."
Captain Titus' eyes ever so slightly widened as he seemed to grasp at what I'm insinuating and looked at the others. "Prepare yourselves brothers, the xeno girl thinks she is feeling the filth of Chaos." The mention of the sworn enemy of the Imperium got all of them on high alert as they aimed their weapons at the door.
Gently moving closer to the door, I stuck myself to the ceiling and reached for the terminal to open the door to the bridge. I turned to see my temporary allies were ready and clicked the button and stuck myself close to the top. When the door opened the marines and inquisitor stood still as they aimed their weapons at the open door.
Seeing as nothing was coming out, I turned to them and pointed at myself before slithering slightly forwards and peaked into the room, scanning for any hostiles from every angle. Seems like there is no evil Chaos daemon here. Which honestly both surprises me, worries me, and scares me. I still feel the WRONG feeling in this room. So I slithered further in and looked around, then I saw... huh. So that's where the feeling of Wrongness comes from.
I motion for the others to come in and did not take my eyes off of what I saw. What almost looks like a throne with many cables and sigils attached to it, on the seat was some kind of priest garbed thing. I say thing with generosity, it seems whoever this was got his face stuck into a rearrangement ray, and gave him a lot of disgusting muscles and powers.
Titus and Thrax walked up beside each other to my left. "The navigator." Titus spoke quietly, looking at the warp touched navigator. Inquisitor Thrax nodded and spoke just as quietly. "A shame this had to happen to the poor navigator. The warp capitalized on his moment of weakness, and it was all they needed. Let us burn this body."
Usually I'd try to take the body for myself, but I don't have any more mothers to be able to switch into if anything goes wrong. So I'd have to take a body of some avatar the other way on some other day. But I recognized something, and thought that i was simply being paranoid but...
"Pulsing. Body. Pulsing. Wave." I tried to convey that this thing was letting out some kind of signal to tell others of its kind. Titus and the Inquisitor looked at me with wide eyes as they realized what I was talking about. I looked out the bridge windows and it confirmed what I was feeling. It was a beacon, and I see that few daemons are coming towards this ship, and it is a larger than normal force of daemons and cultists. They knew what the ship held. As the imperial forces on this ship prepared for battle I had one thought.
...
Fuck me...
Wrong. Words cannot express how WRONG the feeling I'm getting upon seeing the lesser daemons of chaos, but one thing I noticed that is actually really interesting. They have separated into four small mini-groups, I would realize that they are actually separated into each of their patrons, Nurgle had the most at 22 daemons and cultists most of which were nurglings and plaguebearers, Khorne had the second most at 18 daemons and no cultists, mostly filled with bloodletters and flesh hounds, oddly enough Slaanesh had the same amount as Khorne's group, 18 daemons and some cultists which are mostly daemonettes and fiends, and Tzeentch had the least with actually no daemons and just 10 cultists.
Combined they all number at 68, they outnumber us 6 to 1 since we only had 13 people not including me, four of which are not so skilled in combat, the most skilled combat units we have four Black Templars, two Apothecaries, Inquisitor Thrax, Captain Titus, and the one Tech Priest who is still unconscious back with the one apothecary, I need to move away enough that I can make my units to help in pushing them back.
With that in mind, I turned to Titus and Thrax. Titus stared me for a moment before nodding at me and ran to inform the others in the makeshift morgue/medical room near where we entered earlier. Inquisitor Thrax still stared at me as Captain Titus left with the apothecary and two Black Templars, the other two standing with Thrax as they too stared at me.
He must have seen something he liked or something else in my Eien-shape's eyes and turned to run and catch up with Titus and the others. As the last of the Imperials left the ruined bridge and left me with the warp corrupted corpse of the navigator. I could begin eating the ship and birthing my units from my mass. I still need to find a better term than that.
But first, quickly I reached for the navigator to toss him away from the throne in the middle of the room. I grabbed him by the priest garbs and felt something... like... what?... A flash of colors came upon my mind for a brief moment before seeing it get sliced by black and white, just as quickly as I saw that I was back on the bridge.
What was that? Wait. Focus Eien! Shaking my head I toss the navigator's corpse to the far end and decompressed myself enough that I birthed two large proteans immediately. Turns out there wasn't a limit to how much mass I can carry irl which was a blessing in this damn world I guess. I sent the large proteans bursting out of the bridge windows and had them climb to the top of the wreckage and had them form into four Crescents, and they were damn big.
Their sudden appearance seemed to have stunned the Chaos group as they stopped briefly to look at my Crescents forming, oh my. My goo forms FAST. Much faster than they do in the game, that's very interesting. Alright! They've formed, I immediately had my Gootillery lob their payload at the Chaos group while I started consuming, scanning, and overall just violating this ship's technological goldmine (to me).
The hostile movement from my Crescents seemed to have sparked a light underneath the Chaos group as most of them roared and started charging at the ship. Sorry Titus and temporary friends! You're gonna be getting visitors much earlier than you thought!
Damn, how dense are these fucking metals? The mass I'm getting from eating a few inches of the bridge is like if I was probably eating Catalyst for mass! I immediately separated enough to form another Mother Goo, what. Oh my, ok that is really REALLY interesting. I somewhat focus and ignore the sounds of battle outside as my crescents rained blobs of death from above. Thankfully the Formless Goo they fling are more deconstruction nanites and aren't actually connected to the Goo network.
But I was kind of wondering how they make the formless goo for ammunition, but when I birthed the new Mother Goo (That sounds really wrong), I found out how. The Goo Network is not just a network connection. It is a KEYHOLE NETWORK. One somehow locked into the Goo Network, it's kind of like a hivemind where I can share mass with any unit I have. It's also how the units are able to regenerate even when in their commanded forms. The Crescents are taking enough mass from me directly to make the formless goo.
Ok! Quickly, that is enough fascinatizationizing. With me and the new mother goo, we can speed up consuming...
- PING! -
Ah, the navigator chair and the bridge consoles I ate have been scanned, I'll check them later when we are NOT under danger. I hear the sounds of battle start escalating, and had both me and the new mother goo make eight small proteans and sent them out through the bridge window.
Setting the commands of my 'main' mother goo and the new mother goo to continue eating and producing proteans and the occassional mother goo to speed up production. I connected with one of the Crescents and looked through its eyes, I could feel it purr and croon in the back of my mind and slightly smiled a bit mentally which grew wider when I heard the other crescents and the one radiant I had ping in jealousy.
Ok, my eight small protean masses climbed down and I had them form into four groups of drovers and four groups of striders. Looking at the battle, it was actually kind of even, the bloodletters, flesh hounds, nurglings, and daemonettes were actually the first to die but they gave as good as they got, the two Black Templars I rescued earlier from being buried took the last of the bloodletters and daemonettes down with a suicide attack.
I forgot those fanatics were crazily devoted, but now I had more units. The crescents apparently killed quite a bit of the nurglings and plaguebearers, the cultists channeled their inner humanity or what's left of it anyway to become the most dug in pieces of shit I've ever seen. Hell I see some of the cultists use the bodies of their fallen as shields against my gootillery! Which is actually kind of effective much to my dismay. The destruction nanites violently eat a large area and detonate in a small burst of electromagnetic plasma, it sounds good but the attacks actually spread out too much and don't eat as deep as you think. The Crescents payload is more suited to slowing them down than just straight up annihilating them like normal artillery.
Huh I've seen the Striders be near or higher than the Beta which are taller than humans. The Drovers match the Striders in height and they are about the same height as a Space Marine. That's nice to know. Sending them forward I see the 16 Drovers charge up their shotgun shots and let loose with the Striders behind them picking their targets carefully advancing.
Drovers and Striders may have been a good choice for swarming, but I need to develop new and better units since I think even Imperial Guard can take out my small protean units easily.
It's a thought I believe had merit since I see a charging Drover may have killed a cultist, one of the others did some weird mini-ritual on his knife and shoved it into the drover's cannon and it caused my unit to explode. Tsking, I surveyed the battle and saw Captain Titus moving like he does in the fucking game. He is slicing through them all like god damn butter. This is great! Nothing can go wro- Shit.
"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"
... I just had to mentally say that huh? Uuggggghhhh FUCK!!!
Quickly I look through the 'eyes' of my Radiant nearby and balked at what I saw. That's a fucking WARBOSS! Why in the FUCK is a WARBOSS HERE?! NEAR AN OUTPOST?!?! I look at the skies as if the fucker who shoved me in this world was watching and gave the mental equivalent of the finger, it's because I tempted fate. Fuck you.
"Orks, why did it have to be orks." I heard Titus through one of my Striders and can't help but agree with his muttering. Taking stock of what new proteans my Mother Goos made and sighed in relief before calling them out. Three large protean masses and eight more small protean masses, this was good. I'm not saying anything else that cosmic bullshit will use against me.
I ordered one of the large proteans to move in front of the imperial team and had it morph into a Bastion for them to be able to take cover behind along with another that formed into a pair of Destructors, the last protean formed into another Bastion and I made a gamble and made a gamble to have it 'attack' the Chaos forces. Thankfully my gamble worked, since my forces are not bound by the laws of the game, they can do actions that make sense.
Oh wow, ok so the Bastions attack almost similarly to those big Pandora herbivores in the Avatar movie, aaaaand I just watched it slam its head down and bulldoze one of the few plaguebearers left into green paste. That's disgusting.
This is going to be a very messy fight, I had the eight small proteans quickly morph into four more groups of striders and drovers. I need to quickly wrack up the numbers on our side to take care of the surprise Ork Warboss and whatever the Chaos forces throw at us. The destructors and the crescents keep sending their projectiles at the Chaos and newly introduced Ork forces. I had to take most of my goo units and throw them at the Orks to buy us time, at least until Captain Titus and the others deal with the Chaos team.
I received a ping that notified me of something with the goo mothers and my first body, looking through their 'eyes' I was surprised at what I saw but in a good way. One of the five goo mothers (Not including my main body) ate through the floor and landed in the armory! I found bolters, heavy bolters, hell even a few pieces of spare inquisitor power armor... actually there are quite a number of pieces, this kind of tells me what kind of fighter Inquisitor Thrax is.
Either he is overly cautious or some kind of battle maniac. Judging by what I see that he is actually keeping up with Titus, who is a full fledged space marine, I am inclined to believe he is some sort of battle master of an inquisitor. Not much is known about him really. Quickly having the goo mother look at the entrance to the armory I see it is broken and ruined... maaaaybe I can sneak some of the pieces and give the marines the rest? I mean I'm just potentially giving them more guns to shoot me with but with all this mass from eating the ship? I can risk it.
I have the mother in the armory birth a large protean and had it 'eat' but not dissolve the heavy bolters, plasma cannon, ammo, medical supplies, a weird looking power spear, and pfft. Oh I hope Titus likes me for this. The Vengeance Launcher. I wonder if the good captain channeled his inner Blood Raven and swiped it before he got taken in.
ANYWAY! I had the large protean quickly exit through the hole above and through the bridge windows, along with a few more large and small protean reinforcements. Taking control of a strider near Captain Titus and Inquisitor Thrax I channeled my voice through them.
"Captain. Inquisitor. Back. Weapons." FUCK. Still broken speeched, I saw them look at the strider and quickly had the strider turn and point at the large protean heading towards the templar marines and apothecaries. I noticed them flinch as they saw what was in the large protean and quickly ran back to the lines while my new proteans morphed into more bastions, destructors, striders, and drovers to wreck havoc and distract both Chaos and Orkz.
INQUISITOR THRAX POV
How... thoughtful of the young xeno to give us better weapons, it must have found the armory. I thought as the blob it sent dumped the weapons down on the ground. Ugh. Don't be disgusted me, the xeno went through the trouble of giving us better weapons. Hmph, I see the two Templars decided to immediately take the heavy Bolters, not surprising.
I felt a lot of amusement however when I saw Captain Titus pick up the Vengeance Launcher with an almost joyful look in his eyes, a young veteran he may be. But any space marine loves a good explosion, and after seeing the reports of that weapon in action I can already see the Templar marines being jealous of him.
As for me, I chose to take the Plasma Pistol and ah. I should properly thank the young xeno girl. I pick up my personal Power Spear, [Iron Blessing] and almost felt it warm my hand as if to say it's happy to be wielded again. If I were to be honest, I am glad the xeno girl brought it here. I oversaw the forging of this weapon myself since it was to be mine.
Not a moment too soon, I turned and followed Titus back into battle, hmph it appears he is enjoying himself with using the Vengeance Launcher on the Orkz. I on the other hand charged at a surviving Bloodletter that was going to swing its cursed blade at the ultramarine.
Stepping quickly into it's guard I parried the blade with Iron Blessing and rammed it through the daemon's skull before blasting it apart with my plasma pistol. It's been a while since I fought with Iron Blessing, I should enjoy it while I can.
EIEN POV
Damn. This Inquisitor Thrax is not a joke at all, he didn't even look winded after essentially hauling ass to save Titus' ass from a bloodletter sneaking behind him. He seemed a little happy when I had the protean drop the power spear, was that his? Well, it WAS next to the inquisitor armor. Eh, its a happy accident.
Turning back to survey the battlefield, I can't help but wince. I may be constantly churning out more goo forces, but the Orkz are giving it good to my swarm of Drovers and Striders, despite them losing a lot of ork boyz and nobz. They just keep screaming and coming at us, if I were still fully organic I would shit my pants at seeing them act like that.
I checked and noticed my goo mothers are making a lot more proteans now and that is great, the goo mother in the armory completely ate the rest of it while birthing another two mothers and some large proteans. Ok finally, I have enough now to afford some breathing room for all of us. I gave the command and from the newly eaten holes of the ship. Everyone on the battlefield could see the tide of multiple large and small proteans surging from the hulk of the wrecked ship.
I had my main body follow out and switched back into it as the tide of protean masses morphed into more Bastions which set up a perimeter base for me and the imperials, Destructors which acted like tank destroyers targeting whatever, Crescents which took refuge on top of the ship out of reach, Tempests just in case any air decides to surprise us, countless Striders and Drovers to give the enemy something to shoot and be worried for, and more Radiants which I quickly had turn invisible under the cover of the Bastions and sent them out behind enemy lines.
My main body morphed the Eien shape and it seems like the good captain and inquisitor decided now since I sent a large force out to come back and... actually I don't know if they rest physically, maybe mentally. Yeah let's go with mentally.
"Xeno, I would have to thank you for bringing me Iron Blessing. She is my personal weapon and one that has served by my side through many battles. She has saved my life many times, and I would hate to part with her so soon." Inquisitor Thrax ACTUALLY thanked me, I'm shocked and my Eien shape blinked her eyes in shock.
"I too wish to express my thanks for bringing me the Vengeance Launcher, it is a good weapon and excellent against large hordes like the Orkz brought here." Captain Titus thanked me as well for bringing his favorite weapon. I don't actually know if it is his favorite but that thing would be any space marine's favorite with how much big boom it does.
I look to the side to see that the Tech Priest is still unconscious which I am thankful for, as she would immediately notice that I was no biological but a full machine. Though eating the ship gave me a lot of new goo mothers so I can transfer my conscious quickly to any of them. It's a good way to not die just in case they are dumb enough, which I am hoping they are not, to shoot me once my secret is outed.
"No. Thanks. Need. You. Give. Ship. Me. Help." That was actually a semi-good sentence, maybe my gothic is getting better! "Ah, maybe now I should say it. You are switching between High and Low Gothic, that is why your sentences seem broken xeno girl." Wait what? I quickly did a scan on what words was I using exactly and found out he was right! How did that happen?! I set most of the goo forces on autopilot and quickly set out to fix my mixed gothic problem.
Barely, I could hear the good captain and inquisitor begin speaking with the other space marines and apothecaries about what to do about the remains of the Chaos force and the Warboss' horde. Ok, so maybe this little node is the reason? It's all tangled up with the other nodes, just straighten it out aaaaand...
"Hello? Testing, testing, one two three?" My Low Gothic was actually good now! Huh, my voice actually sounds a little sensual, kind of like those ara ara ladies in anime I used to watch. It grabbed the attention of Titus and Thrax, who walked back over to me and started speaking themselves.
"You finally manage to speak normally young xeno? Truly remarkable." Inquisitor Thrax I don't need you to drawl and be a sarcastic ass right now!
"With that done, do you have a name young xeno? I doubt you would like to be called young xeno all the time." Captain Titus ever the gentleman... well, except to his enemies.
Clearing my throat, although that is not needed. I spoke clearly. "I would rather not, my name is Eien. Since I can clearly speak the language now, I can tell you more about our situation after seeing it from my Radiants." Inquisitor Thrax, Captain Titus, and the rest of the Imperials began listening closely. Since I could speak clearly and I had the only information that could help shed light on our situation.
"My scouts have seen something weird among the Ork forces, their Warboss actually is staying behind and not leading the charge like I usually see other Warbosses do. Though thankfully it seems that the Warboss' didn't intend to join a fight since it didn't have any heavy armor or flying support. This must just be one of those 'fun hunting parties' the Orkz do from time to time. The Chaos team on the other hand are doing something odd, the few cultists have decided to dig in and also dug a hole small enough for them to get in and for my forces to not be able to. Not even my Radiants are able to see what they are doing, the few daemons and cultists left are defending that hole with their lives though." As I finished what I was saying, Inquisitor Thrax's eyes widened and immediately informed us of what had him spooked.
"Those blasted cultists are going to try and bring a greater daemon here! How long ago did this happen?!" Just as I said not too long ago the Chaos position exploded in a pink pillar of warp energies and out from the pillar came a few more slaanesh lesser daemons as well as furies of chaos.
"Ah, fuck me..." I can't help but reflexively said and immediately realized that it was the worst thing I could have ever said in that moment.
"SiNcE yOu ArE iNvITiNg~ wHo aM I tO ReFuSE?~"
Shit.
-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-
The three of us stared at the pillar of pinkish purple warp energy with mixed reactions. Titus had the most deadpanned look on his face like he's seen this stuff before and granted, he actually did with Memeroth and who knows how many others in his 150 years of service. Thrax on the other hand looked for one second before he turned around and- oh you cheeky fuck. Inquisitor Thrax rammed his Iron Blessing into the ground to keep it upright and holstered his plasma pistol before he began slowly clapping while looking at me. Words didn't need to be said between the three of us.
I wanted to put my head in my hands and scream. Fucking hell, me and my big mouth. Why did I forget that I have to watch what I have to fucking say in this universe, whether physically or mentally. Murphy's bullshit is a constant in this world like stupidity is a constant throughout the multiverse! I could feel the gazes of both Inquisitor Thrax and Captain Titus at the back of my head, knowing that me saying those words was what got the now confirmed greater daemon of Slaanesh to speak.
Taking a deep breath, I calmed down and calmly ordered all of my crescents to bombard the absolute shit out of that Chaos pillar and the surrounding area around it. The Orks, thankfully decided to split in half and now we had less of the horde coming for us, and new foes coming for Chaos. I watched as my tempests launch their homing plasma grenades at the furies of chaos, blood and guts spewing everywhere as they died gory deaths, the few bastions that were rampaging in Chaos lines are still scraping down daemonette bits across the ground with their bulldozing which is nice. We looked at the pillar and out came... ok, that is a Greater Daemon of Slaanesh, I almost didn't recognize it with it's appearance.
This Keeper of Secrets is NOT one I recognize, but it is already notable because of how different it looks to its other brethren. It is BIG, like this Keeper of Secrets is the size of a Bloodthirster. I didn't think they could even get to that size! Did Slaanesh decide to make a big boy Keeper to give Khorne the finger? Somehow I kind of see that happening due to them having a rivalry. This pink and purple abomination looks like a minotaur with four beefy arms and is dressed more like a warrior than the nearly naked others of their kind.
"Question, you two are seeing the same thing I'm seeing right?" I couldn't help but ask for clarification.
Inquisitor Thrax is the one who replied in a drawl. "If by seeing you mean actually witnessing that the greater daemon in front of us looks like an abominable love child of both Slaanesh and Khorne wielding four swords? Then yes. Yes I do see it." Captain Titus replied with an affirmative grunt right after Thrax finished.
I hum in thought, nodding idly as I see this perverted creation actually look at me with it's onyx jewel eyes, did... did it just lick its lips and wink at me?! I shudder in disgust and remembered my Eien form is almost fully naked and can't help but idly move my arms to block my chest from the greater daemon's lecherous gaze.
With a command, I had the bastions rampaging in Chaos lines to charge at the greater daemon's legs. This is going to be a test, to see if just a single touch can corrupt my units.
As my bastions charged at the greater daemon, it looked to the skies and roared while raising his four greatswords to the sky. "Sheep of Exalus! Do not fear~ I... Kassar'duun, am here to bring you under the light of Slaanesh!" To hell with that with trickery! I watched as the bastions crashed into Kassar'duun's legs and watched it fa- wait what?
The bastions that rammed into Kassar'duun's legs don't look corrupted? But what is... Oh a ping. Unknown energy detected. Ah right, the Goo have no information on the warp. I'll just quickly share my knowledge, ok the Network works fast and... huh? Unknown Energy classified as Warp Energy. The bastions DID lose health, but they look fine?... Wait.
I look up the insides of one of the bastions as the crescents started to focus bombard Kassar'duun while he is still down. The nanomachines look fine overall and... There! Ok that looks weird and potentially dangerous, my nanomachines are not actually getting corrupted which is a big plus, but they do have warp energy attached to them. It looks weird, like mini warp bubbles around each nanomachine and those bubbles are actually preventing the 'infected' nanomachines from linking up with each other.
Checking the connection, the 'infected' nanomachines are still connected with the Goo Network so I can communicate with them. I quickly had the bastions 'vomit out' the infected nanomachines and tried to forcefully have the infected nanomachines replicate. Ok that is interesting, the warp bubbles do not spread to the other nanomachines, instead it the existing bubble sort of stretches and forms around the growing mass as a whole. I'll have to look at the warp energy shenaniganry later, we have to take care of the daemon.
After having the infected nanomachines deconstruct and detonate themselves, causing the warp energy to fizzle out harmlessly. I look at the unholy abomination, I checked how many goo mothers I had and blinked a few times, they were working hard. I had a LOT of mothers, and the ship isn't even a quarter done. The constant stream of large and small proteans flowing from the holes of the Incorruptus is a blessing. Something as big as this daemon I need a Purger, and FAST.
I turn to look at the good Captain and Inquisitor. "Inquisitor, Captain. I can make something to deal with that daemon, I just need time." My words garnered raised eyebrows from both Thrax and Titus, with the good captain being the one to reply first.
"You. Want us, to distract a greater daemon by ourselves?" Titus looks skeptical at what he thought I was asking.
I quickly shake my head. "No, no, no. I mean to ask you two to keep the orks attacking us busy while I direct some of my goo from the ork line to the chaos line so I can tie them down more. I need as many of my goo to keep moving towards Chaos since the daemon is slicing through my forces, even the bastions are getting taken down in like two or three hits from the greater daemon, and that is even with them pulling mass to regenerate fast."
Mentally gulping, I watch as the inquisitor and captain locked eyes and silently talked, I really hope the Purger is going to be enough. I ordered a good chunk of my harvesting mothers to gather near the biggest hole in the ship and started the formation of a Purger. It is still going to take time for it to form. I almost sighed in relief when the two strongest imperials in our group looked at me and nodded. Inquisitor Thrax picked up his Iron Blessing and turned towards the orks, he side eyed Titus who readied his Vengeance Launcher again, Thrax snorted and dashed towards the Ork lines, Titus following behind.
Thrax yelled at the templar marines to provide both him and Titus with fire support, one apothecary watched over them while the other is trying to revive the tech priest. It's not gonna be pretty once she awakens. I pulled back as many units as I could spare from the ork line in order to supplement the chaos line, my swarm of drovers, striders, bastions, and destructors kept the pain, getting protean mass reinforcements as fast as the forms are getting annihilated by Kassar'duun.
"Do not resist my dear~ Just accept the light of Slaanesh and you will feel ecstasy beyond compare~" The damned daemon is trying to seduce me to Chaos, hell no. I know their tricks, as long as I don't listen to a word it says, I am completely fine. If I was a biological woman, I would have probably been entranced by the thing's fucking non-echoing baritone voice.
So I did the most mature thing I ever could have done in that moment, I flipped him off. I shuddered again since it seemed to grin down at me. "Feisty~ I will make sure to savor you~" Fuck, I shuddered a third time since I saw the thing. I morphed back my Eien-shape back into my protean mass and moved it farther away.
The Purger is almost done, which is good. But it seems like my refusal to acknowledge the damned daemon is sending it into a frenzy, it is dealing with my forces faster than I can make them. Damn Lord of Excess actually lived up to that title in a different way and made this Khornish Keeper. I split my attention to the chaos side and see that the lesser daemons are easily dealt with, it is just the greater daemon who is making things exceedingly difficult. The ork side on the other hand is starting to diminish, the Warboss is actually looking like it wants to retreat. Hopefully they leave soon so we can focus on chaos bull-
"WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE OMNISSIAH IS THAT MONSTROSITY?!?!" Shit. I split my attention again and see the tech priest is awake and looking at me with a raised bolter stolen from the Apothecary that revived her. Emperor, your people are idiots and they have no sense of priorities.
Just as the tech priest was about to yell again from what i see, I just got pinged and if my Eien-shape was active it would be smiling widely.
The Purger is online.
From the Incorruptus, a massive protean mass of goo exploded from the hulk. It's massive near mountain sized form garnered the attention of the entire battlefield. Everyone went silent as they saw my epic unit, and what an EPIC UNIT it was! Multiple towering tentacles of various sizes sprouted from above the Purger's mass and it let out a reverberating bellow that echoed across the battlefield.
It appears that this was the final straw for the Orks as the Warboss yelled for a full retreat. Since they didn't have any gargants to help deal with my creation. This freed up the rest of my forces to go all in on the forces of chaos, while the inquisitor and the captain fell back towards our defended position. I could see the tech priest look conflicted, her semi-organic face switching from stunned horror, to almost religiously fanatic upon seeing the mountain of goo.
Speaking of which I formed the Eien shape on top of my main body and looked at the greater daemon with a smug look on my face, Kassar'duun looked between me and my Purger a few times and let out a rumbling growl in challenge before looking at the Purger. It was hell of a lot larger than he is, the Purger is meant to be akin to a force of nature, on par with natural disasters. If he wanted to tumble with it, then bring it on you four armed minotaur freak.
"So. That is... your Purger." Inquisitor Thrax walked up to me, along with him are Captain Titus, the two Templar Marines, the two Apothecaries, and the stunned silent and docile Tech Priest. Ah, I should make sure that the Purger doesn't try to eat the daemon.
Inquisitor Thrax POV
I see the xeno Eien nod her head, and look at the monstrous creation of goo. A titan from sheer size alone, whatever this xeno is. I've already classified it as extremely dangerous due to her ability to rapidly replicate and create morphed shapes, then she pulls out this titan to deal with the greater daemon. By the time we get off this world and out of this warpstorm, I will have to name Eien as probably being a full faction by herself.
Our little group would watch as the daemon roared and started stomping towards the Purger and quickly escalating into a full run. Jumping a small distance from Eien's titan, it landed right in front of it and slashed with all four of its greatswords. Two tentacles were sliced off and a bit of the front(?) got sheared off from the main body. Although, the titan retaliated by regrowing the two tentacles and wrapping them around the daemon's arms, lifting it up and slamming it down against the ground.
One thing I and the rest of the loyal imperials noticed about Eien's titan. It is fast. Nothing that big should be that fast, but one can argue that the goo-like nature of it is the reason why it can move fast and not lose momentum.
Turning away from the battle, I noticed that the warp pillar is still not dissipating. "It's a shame we don't have anything to close that portal." I said it out loud, and received mostly affirmatives from everyone including the xeno Eien.
Captain Titus spoke his piece. "Indeed, if only there was a way to take away enough energy in order to collapse the damned thing." Just as Captain Titus finished that sentence, I saw from the corner of my eye that the xeno girl Eien froze. Hmm. I wonder, why did she freeze? What is going on inside her equivalent of a head?
Eien POV
I mentally scream as hard as I could, in a private server. Because Titus, bless him just made me realize that I am a dumbass who forgot a key thing about the goo. We faced the Shroud. We adapted to the Shroud as best as we could. We evolved a specific unit to combat the Shroud... After this fight I'm going to find a dark hole to cry in.
WHY DID I FORGET ABOUT THE FUCKING SIPHON?!?!
Frustration spread throughout my body and actually leaked out to all of my units in the Goo Network, ughhhh this is so embarrassing! I ordered the Purger to morph in some crude Siphon attachments on the main mass body. Kassar'duun noticed it and narrowed his onyx jeweled eyes at them, for a brief second he noticed the warp energy getting sucked towards them and quickly jumped away. Fuck, this greater daemon is smart too.
Kassar'duun jumped back multiple times before he landed next to the warp pillar. Eyeing the Purger with apprehension, I believe he doesn't know exactly what the Siphon does but he probably felt it from honed instincts.
I see him turn his head towards us, while it may have been on our group. I can tell he is directly looking at me. This time, it is not just that perverted gaze, but there is an underlying feeling of hostility. "You... are dangerous." The greater daemon of Slaanesh said, with no seducing drawl at the end of the sentence.
The fact that the greater daemon regarded me as dangerous, something that is rarely done by Chaos in general made the imperials with me turn towards me with surprise. I didn't look at them and simply stared back at Kassar'duun's black gem eyes with my own serious gaze. I forced myself to not shudder as the daemon went back to licking his lips at me.
"Interesting~ You win this bout 'My Dear', but we will meet again~" Ah, that's not going to be good for my continued health.
We watched as the greater daemon decided to retreat into the warp pillar, as soon as he disappeared into it. The pillar disappeared into nothing, at ground zero of the pillar, the ground was cracked and the star of chaos was burnt into the earth. Residual Warp energies were left behind, and it appears it is up to me to clean up now. I had a few free large proteans morph into multiple Siphons, I watched as the anti-Shroud units were used to clean up my infected units and the Chaos grounds of the Warp Energy.
I sigh and my humanoid form slumped into my protean mass, it is very much obvious that the Imperials now want to talk to me after all of that. Ugh, this would have been slightly easier if the damned tech priest didn't wake up and out me immediately.
Well, at least the ship is mine I hope and we drove back Chaos and the Orks from trying to murk us. Well. It's time to face the music I guess.
Unknown Location
In a void, a void that is black and white, the domain split into multiple patterns of black and white, sometimes the colors of black and white invert, or swirl around each other. The 'sky' of the void is a roiling mass of simple black and white patterns.
In the void, sat a deeper void. The void where color does not exist, the void where light does not exist, the void where Chaos... Screams.
In the void. A star brightens, and the void shakes.
Ḫ̴͔̰̝͚͍̦̜̤̮̠͖̼̠̩̮̌͜Ȩ̸̧̥̯̻͉̭͎̗̰͍̜͖̃͊̒͛͆̀̓͒͌̓͠͠ḣ̷͇̜̣̤̮̻̥͍͒Ĕ̸͍̔͑͂̒͌̚͜͝ȟ̴̨̙͎̜̘͔̝̬̗̗̇̈́̅̌̓͐̉̄̈́̾̆͊̍͝͝ë̵̢̹̤͖̦̗͇͙̠̹̜́̈́H̶̨̎E̴̢͉̓̏.̴͖̲̬̩̖͍͉̤͘.̶̢̛̭̝̗̬̝̤͇̠̫͎͚̠̖͒͊͐͗̽̅̽͛͗.̵̡͖͍̟̪͚͓͙̭͉̹̗̠̎͑̔͜͠ ̷̠̞͕̲͇̜̽̅̃̀͊̆̅̆̚h̴̦̺̙̝̻̥̳̗͊̑͆̃̀̀̌͠Ă̵̹̪͒́͂̃̔̎͌͠͝Ȟ̶̡̗̺̹̖̟̱͕̬̙̭͂̿̿̅̂̉̓̄̃͐̈́͋̂̚͜͝a̵̞͖͕͗̔̅̄̓̾̓̌͘͝Ḩ̵̍͊̿̍̃̔̋̽̽͑̄̔͌̏͘͝a̵̢̪͔̩̝̤̦͈̤̎̈́̄̔͋̎̎̊̅̿͌̀͛̉͠͝h̵̼̜̯̱̯̖̬̗̩̩̜̠̤̀͆̏̔͐̔̓̂̀̋̓̑͑̊̔͘͜͠Ǎ̴̳̄͑͛͆̎̀͆͝H̶̡̨̢͍̱̦̰̪̱̟͎̖̰̊̉̏̿́̈́̕ä̴̛̛̤͇̦̰́ͅ!̸̠̭̘͈̜̼̺̺̥̹̞̉̄̊̈́̕!̷͍͌̀̓́̋̋̉̅̈́̿̀̽́͠!̷̜̥̖̯̖̲̫͠
̸̨̤̣̼̖̝̥̘̯̦̓ͅ
̶̧͓͎͎͍͎̲̞͕̼͓͖͓̫̰̝̈̄̈́͒̅̎͋̇̈́͌̈͘͠ḩ̶̲̦͚͕̊̓̀̇̿͛͛͒̑̍̚͠Ó̵͕̲͐̿̊́̓̌̍̏̚͘w̸̯̝̗̲͕̫̝̮̤̠̹̗̬̾̄͛͗͗̓̍̆̿̐́̊͆̏͑̕̕ͅ ̶͚̤͖̀̒̓̄̍̎̄̓̅͐͘̕̕̕ͅI̸̠̗͖̼͒̆͑̑͛̓́̐͠n̷̨̧̼̲̠̩̱͔̬̜͉̗͚͙͙̈́̇̾̍̏̄̓͘͜T̸͖͚͖̽̃́̔̄̈́̆̆̂̒̀̕̚͠Ė̷̡̨̨̮͙͈̱̦͉̪̋̔r̷̛̯̜̹̆̂͂͐̄͂̋̈́̓̍͘ͅẸ̶̢̢͎̮̞̤͓̥̟̰̗̀̍̀̓͗̾ṡ̴̡̨̛̘̤̬͇̠̹̻͈͓͉̳͇͔̦̂́̍̂͂͂̄̆̈́̂̚̕͝ţ̸̡̘͕͇̫̟͖͈̠̀̾͌̑̍̿͒́̓͒͐̀͘͝ͅȈ̷̺̞̗̩̹̄̏̂͑̉̃͒̄͒̎͒̉̚n̷̮̲͚̯͙͖͖̦̱͕͓̻̗̬̥͔̍̇̒͒́̚͜G̷̨̛̳͙͎͚͕͇͘.̷̗͓̮̭́͗̊̀̿̌̃͗̆̆̉̚̚ͅͅ
̷͉̤̟̗̹̹͈͋͌͌̽̈̑
̵̛͈̜͗́̉Ņ̸̡͕̬̳̾̀̅̈̋̓́̀̔̐̈̒͠͝͠ͅo̸̞̯̖̍̏́̎͠W̷̧̨̟̪̺͕̹̳̭̺̝̮͌̾́͜͝,̶̡̈̐͗̑̄͒͘͝ ̸͉̏̉͂̊̾͐͒̾͌̌̍̔͘͘l̶̛̠̠̥̳̜̹̜͔̤̳̼̳̯̘̠̒̅͋̀͐͊̊͒̎́̚I̸̪͕̖͖͖̥̗̭̟̻͆̾̈́͝͝͠ţ̴̧̨͙̭̼̤̺̯̘̟̙̦̟̗̑͋̾̍̑̓̿̐̈́̈́̅̀͂͝͠͠Ţ̵̨͇̭͍̻͚̐̓̆͌̽͆̓̓̋̄̏̾̚͜͝͠l̸̗̝̼̟͔͍͈̼̮̤͒̈́́̐͗̈́̈̏͐̄̔͊̀́̇̇͜͜ͅE̸̡̢̗̖͚̹̰̬͖̞͖͍̳̩̪̔͋̋͊̄̀̎͜͝ ̶̼̯̲̯̼̼̖̫͗̍͠w̶̢̛̉̾̓̎̓̒Ȍ̴͕̫͖̮͚͚̎́̎̽̊̈́͆̑̓͊̎̚͘͝͝͝m̴̨̺̤̝̦͕̟͔͈͙̦͍͍̟͊̏̃̀̋̋̏̽̏̃͂͘̕͜ͅA̷̡̩̜͚̳̥̞̜͗̇̓̈͌̍́̍̈́͛͌͋̋̍͘͜Ņ̵̛̻̯̞͉̪͎͌̇̉̂̈́͆̃̕͘̕͝͝͝ ̸̨͙̱͇̪̲̤͐͆̃̂̈́̓̊́̀̔̚͜͠o̴̠̪̗͗̌̐͐̄̊̄̃̓̓͐͗̕͘̕F̴̨̳̰͖̣̞̣̻͍̯̱͔̹̥̱̆̓͌̒͛͆̍͘̕ ̷̞͍͇͖̱͎̀̊̿́̈́̐̽̇̉͛i̷̱̬̖̱͙͌͌́̾̽̒̽̏̈̋̋̎̓͌͘͘R̵̡̺͔̭̺̹̰̺̃̍̅̈́̏̅o̵̖̰͕̰͈̼̔Ǹ̷̡͕̊͋͋̒͂̒͆̍̄̿͜.̵͙̯̣͕̦̦̬̩̜͚̞̹̹̺͎͐̃̓̐ͅͅ
̸̪͉̘̠͎̲̰̖̲͓͈̗̻̥̞̅́͊̀͊̋͊
̸̦̭̠̻͔͓̊̒͑́̆̊̅̽̌͛͗͒̚͠g̷̙͔̱̪̬̦̗̰͉̠̫̮͉̲̓̊̆̽̑̃̆̌̇́̀͌͊͊̚Į̵̨̙͖͈͔̭̭̳̝͔̈̇̈́̓̋͊͋̽̀́̓̚͜͠ͅv̸͚̟̟̈́̈́̒̆̎̅̿͠E̶̢̢̨̲̖̥̺̩̹̜̪͕̻̻̒̇̍͒̋̚͜͜͠ͅ ̵̜̰̇̓̔̈́͑m̷̛͍̓̔͋͋̎̅̓͂́͂́̆͒͝E̶̼̯̽̈́̀̈́̄̃̐̾̾͝ ̵̨̹͓̱̫̱̜̹̭̱͍̫̳̟̩̺̜͗̈́̉͊̾̒̿͊̿͌͂͝Ą̶̙̝̲̭̙͊̔̿̾͆̅̓̊̑͜͝ͅͅ ̴̤͎̞̠̭̘͖̼̮̽͐̍́̿̅̀͐͋̈́͛̈́̍̇̚͝g̷̘̮͍͙̺̮̤̹̦̦̔̓̇̌̆̉͐͊̇͌͌͐͘ͅͅO̶̧̩̝͇̣͈̲͚̮̔͘͠O̷͚̪͎̰͈̯̗̘̘̺̟̙͇̊̈́͛́̀̽̀̃̏̈́̇̓d̵̨̹͔̳̳̞̦͉̭̠̬̦͕̙̮̄̀̏̏͋̀̂̋͜͜ ̵̛̜͙̭͈͇͓̠̦́̒̈͒̑̓̐̃͊̆̓̆s̵̼̈́̑̃̏̾͒̔̉͌̐͊̕̚͠Ḩ̷̡͍͇̯͎̪́̾̿̾̚o̴̡͉͚̟̱̳͎͉̫͉͔͓̺̦͓͐͂̈ͅẄ̷̰̭́̊̊͆̒͗̀̓̀̈́͘!̷̣̘̔̈́͊̉̉̾̈́͘͝
̴̜̠̻̣͓̣̦̫̑̊̍͆̍̆̒̉̊̚̕͜͠͝
̴̡̛̱̠͇̓̏͗̃̌̏̇͜͠m̸̨̡̹̹͕̭͇̦̬̟̣̮͐͜ͅĄ̷̹̠̦̣̖͍͚̇̆̌̾͑̒̂̏̃͘̕͜k̷̨̢̡̛̞̖̪̟̮̯͖͇̮͈̰͎̺̀̋̄͋͌͛͂̅̂̿̀̈͊̋͝E̵͕̔̐̎͛̆̈́͌̈͋̓̕̚͠ͅ ̵̢̡̛͕̹͙̞͚̣͕̻̗̰͌̔̏̇̅̆̒̿͌̐̾́͛͘ͅm̷̛̛̛̠̰͈͔̝͖̯̩̯̙̐̇̓͌͆͒͆̀͆̋͂̕͠ͅͅͅY̴̢̡̙̺̖͐͆̾͗̓̈́̈̑́̍͆̑̎͘͠ͅ ̷̛̖͈͍͗̓͗̄f̶̪͙̠̰̤̘̟͉̬̞̖̏Ȩ̴̧̪̯̣̘̟̾̐͂̎̐͊͒l̴̡̝̝̱͖̜͎͂ͅL̶̠͍͗͋͘Ö̸͔͈̫͎̝̥̞͙͎̯́͛̑̃̄͊ͅw̵̬̠̲͇̙͉̲̬͔͚̫̘͖̫͇̯͒͝ͅ ̷̠̗̪̮̳̜̲̣̩̠͓͖̩̜̋̔̿̆̀͆͂́̄̂̽̆̆̀͘g̷̢͍̝̳̫̻̳͛͑̿͌̾̄̃̃̂̋͛͗O̶̼̖͗͒̋̎̃̅ḑ̷͈͚͇̩̣̻̭́̈́͋̽̑͆̂̊́S̷̺̺͙̱̩̙̥̭͚̈́͂̀͒͂̈́̉͌̑̿́͊́̈̚͝ ̶̡̛̺̌̃̾̈͒̂͒͋͂̄̓͝k̸̡̢̛̛͉̖̳͈̘̙͊͆͛͑̈̑̏͂͘̚Ǹ̷͈̠̩̰̍̆̃͊̍̊̈͘O̶̱̼͓͓̥̱͈̹̮̗̳̺̺͍̫͔͓̽̕w̴̞͆͐̉̓̕ ̴̢̛̹̮̻̣͓̮̔̏͆̆̐̿̓̾̇̑̌͘F̵̙̱̪̋́̑̓̋͠E̸͇̠͔͚͉̤͙͙̝̦͖̬̣̭͍͇͕̒̾̓̀͝͝A̴̛͇̮̪̪͖̩͆́̈́͋̒̅̕͝Ŕ̴̡̲̠̦̭̤͉̞̦͇̰̯͍͖͐̈̅̊͊̌̊͐̊̌̚͜͝͠!̵̡̨̤̣͖̼̣̫̑́͋ͅ!̵̨̧̛̰͙̫̘̝̻̣̞̻̱͎̍͗̆̈́̓̎͋̓͗̃͜͜͝͝!̴̧̦̝͍͚́̐̄͒͑̉͂͗͌̋̚
...
...
...
The star dims, and disappears.
The deep void is silent once more.
Yet. The surrounding void, rises and begins to shake.
The void awakens, and in response. FOUR gazes look towards it.
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