Getting Warhammered - [ 78 ]

“Ehm,” I glanced up at Selene, “I can’t really make drones to catch me the test su- *cough* escaping cultists. Could you collect some for me?”

“Sure?” Selene looked at me weirdly. Was there something weird on my face?

“Thanks,” I smiled at her.

“Okay then,” she shrugged and let go of the man, letting my TK take over from her. “See you later?”

“Yes,” I gave her a wave. “I’ll have an interesting story to tell too.”

“Sure,” she shrugged. “I am curious why you are like that.”

“Mhmm,” I hummed, “Bye~”

Then she was off, throwing another curious glance at me. There must be something on my face.

I reached up patting down my cheeks, chin, hair, ears. Everything was there.

“Do I look weird?” I asked the woman, who was still holding her malnourished daughter behind her like a protective mama bear.

“No?” She was giving me looks mirroring Selene’s.

“Really?” I tilted my head, turning my psychic senses on myself for a moment, just to make sure. “Aha!”

My facial structure was all wrong, I still looked similar enough to my Psyker Form to be easily recognisable, but my cheekbones were a bit too high, my chin was a bit too low and my nose was a bit too wide. Plus, I had freckles on my cheeks.

God, I hate freckles.

If there was one thing that topped the list of things I wanted to change about myself in my previous life, it was freckles. They were worse than my all too wide nose or my boring shade of brown hair.

Thankfully, a quick surge of bio-energy washed away those imperfections and brought me closer to my ideal image.

I conjured up a small mirror, Psychic Illusions being more than capable of the task.

“Hmm,” I turned my face left and right. “It will do for now.”

“Excuse me?” spoke up the woman, looking at me like a weird animal. Then she glanced at Bob, suspended mid-air as he was without being able to twitch as much as a finger. “Uhm, I can see that you wanted him, right?”

“Not quite,” I shrugged. “I wanted souls to experiment with, and the runaway cultists will serve me well for that.”

The woman gulped, she’d been staring at me like I’d bite her daughter’s head off at any moment. If that could take a turn for the worse, it did as I finished my sentence.

“So,” she cleared her throat, standing up straight and aiming a resolved gaze at me. “Can we go then?”

“Go where?” I asked, my lips curling in amusement. “These caverns are dead ends and wasteland surrounds us for hundreds of kilometers.”

“I, we- , we will find a way,” she muttered.

“Stay here,” I offered. “In a few hours I’ll open up a portal leading to Arx Angelicum. You know what that is, right?”

“Y-yes,” she answered with a trembling voice, her eyes wide in what I thought was disbelief. “Yes, thank you! Erm- I mean Thank You My Lady?”

“You are welcome,” I smirked. Once again, I am acting like something I am not. It’s more of a misunderstanding this time though.

Sanctioned Psykers were a thing, a known thing. All Psykers were feared as witches or something like that, the populace at large both feared and hated them for their abominable power. This, of course, applied to those Sanctioned by the Imperium.

Even if they wouldn’t run away screaming or get their pitchforks when they saw a Sanctioned Psyker — like they’d do with an unsanctioned one — the hate and fear remained. It was beaten into humans through many millennia of Psykers being born and causing calamities.

And the Imperium not only does nothing for their Sanctioned Psykers, they condone the hatred.

I got it; I understood it. During the Age of Strife when Psyker numbers multiplied rapidly, the only worlds that survived were the ones that put them onto stakes and burned them.

I understood it, but I didn’t like it.

Magic — and Warp Sorcery was Magic in my eyes — was something fantastical, it was something to be loved. I might have been more into Science Fiction in my last life, but that was mostly because I didn’t believe fantasy could become reality.

Nanoswarms, Arcologies, colonising alpha centauri and whatever else was something I was within the realm of possibility for humanity’s future. Whereas, flinging fireballs and teleporting, was not something I considered possible.

Yet here I am, flinging fireballs and teleporting. And so much more.

“Settle down,” I waved her off. “We’ll be here for a while, and I can’t do anything exerting until we get out of this hole.”

“Y-yes,” she nodded, sitting down against the wall and pulling her daughter into her lap.

Now on giving er a closer look, the girl didn’t look too good. I grimaced as I let my psychic senses wash over her, yikes.

A flick of my wrist pushed Bob against the wall, I lessened my focus on him and only fixed his four limbs to the wall along with a face mask that kept his mouth shut. Then, I walked over to the two, both of whom were looking at me with a great deal of wariness.

“I cannot exert myself,” I reiterated, “but healing her up a bit should be doable, I have enough energy for that.”

“Yes?” The mother blinked at me, uncomprehending. “Heal her? Is she sick?”

“That she is,” I kept the grimace off my face. Sci-fi fantasy gut worms were even more disgusting than the regular ones, no wonder the poor girl was skin and bones. “Nothing too severe of course, I can heal her sickness now, but I can’t give her back all the weight she’d lost.”

“Please help her!” The woman said, begging me.

“Alright,” I laid my palm on her abdomen, the little girl shrinking back from my touch, but herm other kept her in place. “It won’t hurt, you won’t feel a thing.”

Tendrils phased into her body, spreading into a hundred hair thin tendrils that located every damned worm in the girl. It was honestly disgusting, but it was just a bit of free bio-energy and some good samaritan work at the same time. Good for the body and good for the soul.

Once I was done, I sent a fraction of the new bio-energy back into the girl and fixed up any pressing health issue in her. Even if I didn’t do another round of healing — which would mostly include me regenerating her muscles and fat — she’d recover if she ate well and slept well for a few months.

“Should be good,” I stood up, patting myself mentally on the back for a job well done.

“Thanks,” I caught the little girl’s murmur and sent her a smile.

“You’re welcome.”

Then it was time for the main course. No, that is a terrible choice of words with me being a man-eating alien, so let’s go with the main show, the main attraction! Doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.

“Stop being annoying,” I flicked my wrist, raising Bob away from the wall and smashing him back into it. The fucker was trying to twist his joints to get out of the shackle-like bindings I’d put on him.

Now, you might be thinking: ‘This guy is like, a hundred years old, don’t bully the elderly!’ BUT, I could feel the vitality coursing through this fucker, it wasn’t much compared to me or even just a regular Astartes, but it was a good chunk above what Selene had.

Curious. How? Why? Why did he have this? Why did he call it ‘Her’? Why was he protecting it? Intriguing, so very intriguing.

I pulled the shiny blue gem into my hand, having had it floating around me like a little moon. Now, why would I do such a thing when most things were straining on this low-power-mode human form? Because it seemed to infuriate Bob to no end.

[~ding!~Personality Trait Unlocked: Sadism!]

I’d have thought these shitheads would go into hibernation in low-power mode. Don’t waste energy on bullshit!

“You know,” I caressed the thing gently. “I thought I’d have to take one of these off a fuckwit Eldar that decided to fuck around, but this is just what I need right now. “

“So Bob, I think you deserve a reward for generously giving this to me and I think I know just the thing you’d want,” I smirked at him. “Objectively speaking, I am probably among the four best flesh crafters in this galaxy.”

His eyes flew wide and his struggling calmed down.

“I think I know what you want, but I haven’t bothered looking too deeply into your mind so I want you to tell me just to be sure,” I slowly removed his face mask made up of solidified psychic power. Green Lantern had nothing on these force objects. “I want to hear you say it.”

“Bring her back,” he wheezed, eyes going bloodshot as he stared without blinking. “Bring her back!”

“By that you mean,” I placed a hand on my hips and started playfully throwing the gem up and catching it. “‘Please oh so mighty being, forge a new body for the unfortunate soul trapped in that spirit stone’, right? Or is it more like: ‘Please make a new body for my steaming hot totally not-heretical Eldar girlfriend, I hadn’t gotten laid in over a century!’?”

His mouth fell open, then closed. He repeated that for a while, mimicking a fish out of the water. Even his wide eyes are matching.

“How?”

“Dumb question,” I chided him. “I asked you a question.”

“Please,” he scrunched his eyes. “Give her back to me.”

“Fine,” I rolled my eyes. “I’ll take pity on you this once, I will accept that answer.”

He slumped in my hold, stopping his struggling for the first time since I laid eyes on him.

“Now then,” I rolled my shoulders and cracked my neck. “Will you be a good boy if I drop you Bob?”

“Yes,” he said, his face twisting as if he bit into an unripe lemon.

“Good.” I dropped him. “Let’s get walking then, group. It is a long walk from here back to the surface.”

Then we were off with me leading the way and the other three following me a few meters back, though Bob kept some distance from the mother-daughter pair.

My clock was ticking, I wanted to summon up my refreshment bio-energy from my Puddle ASAP. Then I could go about fiddling with souls and maybe by the end of it I’ll have a way to not only shove that Eldar Soul back into a living body but also to fix Selene’s problem.

Because that’s what it was, if you haven’t realized already. Bob here was protecting a Spirit Stone like his life depended on it, just like the one Val had embedded into his clothes around his chest. Though, his was purplish and not sapphire blue like this one.

Fun times ahead. How would the Eldar react to seeing my real soul in its entirety when I shove it into my puddle? Will she freak out? Proclaim me the incarnation of one of her dead gods? Or will she just make something entirely stupid and idiotic?

I was leaning towards the last one based on my not-too-extensive knowledge of Eldar lore, Valenith was far too normal and had far too much common sense compared to the Eldar I’d read about. Basing your actions on idiotic visions of the future that won’t even come to pass is the go to plan for most Eldar.

There was that time when they sent an entire group of Rangers just to kill the baby Primarch Angron when he crash landed on Nuceria, just because their Farseer saw a future version of him wreck some Eldar.

Now, this seems entirely relatable and understandable right? But as it turns out, killing a baby Primarch is beyond the capabilities of a centuries old trained group of Eldar Rangers. Yes, they failed to kill a damned baby, but they weakened him enough so when human slavers found him, he couldn’t resist capture.

And that was the start of his path down a spiralling path of anger and destruction which also included wrecking more than ‘some’ Eldar.

Idiots.

Good thing I was better than them, there was no Farseer who could exceed my stellar foresight!

[~ding~ *snort* ‘foresight’ ]

Oh, shut up!

I glared at nothing in particular, my feet stomping just a bit stronger than before which made the little girl jump up in fright.

“Oops, sorry,” I threw a smile back. What did they do to that poor thing to have er react to just that brief expression of annoyance?

Caverns turned and bent but we kept on walking, even the little girl was coming along on her own two legs with a growing feeling of vitality, probably not having been able to even stand for a good while before I took care of her ailments.

I oohed as the flickering light of a far off torch sent long shadows over the walls, contesting with my tiny orb of light which floated along a few centimeters above my head.

The natural caverns we left behind had no sign of human habitation but as we continued walking a few things left around spoke of the now-gone occupants of this place. Torches, lighters, tech gadgets and other tools were left to the side along with some basic furniture. If you can count a stool missing a leg furniture.

The cages and the near-dead prisoners inside only got my attention for a moment. I had neither the energy nor the care to spare for them at the moment and their souls were flickering weakly, only a single breeze away from dying out.

My psychic touch would more than count as a ‘breeze’ so they were hardly test-subject material, it was like trying to build a sand castle out of dry sand. Futile to even try.

By the time I made up to the central hall which I tore a new ceiling window for not too long ago, Selene was already standing there with twenty cultists shaking from fear at her feet.

She turned to me and even my blocky dense head realized that there was something wrong. There was a conflicted look on her face and her aura was radiating a feeling I could only dub as ‘unhappiness’.

“What’s up?” I asked as I walked over, my head tilting to the side.

“I,” she started, not meeting my eyes. “I uhm, I think, no, I want to ask you something.”

“Uhm, sure?” I asked, a smile intended to be comforting on my face.

“I want you to let me do things by myself.” She got the courage to stare into my eyes.

“But you did clear out this cult by yourself?”

“After you took care of everything dangerous!” She raised her voice.

“Ah,” I blinked. “Selene you are a newly awakened Psyker, a single look at any of the things I destroyed and all that effort you put into your protections would come crumbling down.”

“Can’t you trust me just a little?” She asked. “I can understand if the Psyker was beyond me but you just sent me to hunt down malnourished wannabe cultists.”

“I’m sorry?” I apologised, what else could I do? I made her feel useless and weak so that was the least I should be doing. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s just that I know that to look at chaos scripture directly as a Psyker is to invite demonic possession or worse and you are woefully unprepared to face anything more powerful than the smallest of demons.”

“I,” she gulped, the huffed. Her shoulders sagged as she looked at me. “I just want to be useful, I just feel like I am adding to the weight on your shoulders instead of lifting it. I want to be someone you can rely on, someone who makes things easier for you, not harder.”

I hopped up to her and wrapped her up in a hug.

“Stupid,” I knocked her head, receiving an ‘ouch,’ in return. “I appreciate the sentiment and I’m sorry for not giving you more chances to prove yourself. You have to know that even when I am mostly whimsical, I can be very practical and logical. When I sent you in here, I wanted to give you something to do while I beat up that worm without putting you into too much danger.”

I stepped away from her, my arms still on her shoulders as I stared into her eyes.

“If what I am planning works out, neither of us will ever have to worry about you getting corrupted by Chaos or possessed by a demon.”

“I see,” she deflated. “Sorry for that outburst,” she smiled sheepishly. “It was uncalled for.”

“It’s alright.” I smiled at her. “Communication is important.” I nodded to myself more than anyone, that was one of the few things I’d learned about relationships. Though, being a psychic empath also helped. “Feel free to speak up again when you are dissatisfied with something alright?”

“Okay,” she gave me a smile, traced with a hint of curiosity. “So to take you up on that offer … “she trailed off, gauging my reaction but seeing the same smile on me she continued. “What’s up with you? You’ve been rather weird since coming back?

“Ah funny story,” my smile slowly turned into a grimace. “So I sort of got kidnapped.”