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"Then in the name of your Regnem-Ra, we thank you from the bottom of our newly-installed heart. Now, it is time to defend your people."
Hahoalki emself would spend a fairly large number of processing cycles appreciating the gift that Zul had given em. But there was a war on. People needed to be saved.
E would find a way to repay Zul's generosity. Whether through cybernetic implants, a new suit of armor, or some other means, e would find a way to honor Zul as Zul had honored em.
In the vaccuum of space, in an area of a galaxy non specific but definitely in the realm of FT-27, A massive station - or it use to be - floated with a grotesque distortion of flesh and pointless organs covering it almost entirely.
"Curse you Skiven! Your demise is mine to have!" A disembodied voice trembled across the station and across almost every Communications frequency.
It was obvious that this was the main central location of the evil Hivemind of the Krakatoa virus, also known as Ergrith.
"CURSE YOU SKIVEN!!! YOUR DEMISE IS MINE TO HAVE!!!" Ergrith growled through the comms of the Ziotoan and Allied States warriors.
"Yeah he knows we're heading there. Best to be ready for a counterattack set up before we arrive. Make sure every ship needs to be prepared for sacrifice. He'll thin our numbers and try to gain numbers by boarding our ships." Zul stated as they launched into space to meet the forces.
The Nathrasil Grand Council has recently declared Princess Bael the queen of Nathrasil putting the entire Aquarius Constellation under her rule.
Some shydes explored their twin universe. Generally, they were ships under the command of various system lords. One of Keron Allud’s ships headed to the source of the mysterious message. A Junior Lieutenant, Mivlon Igniscan was in charge of the communications and attempted to hail the station.
Vettiel took approximately 3.5 seconds to formulate a response, during which time he ran countless simulations and predictions by in his head, compared outcomes to one another, weighed pros and cons. He eventually came to a conclusion:
“<C:/Emotion Emulator Setting = Accepting> This proposition = ///ACCEPTABLE///. Contact with the [Iron_Warriors] shall commence posthaste.”
With that, Vettiel’s cable-like fingers sort of ‘plug in’ to sockets on his Cogitator. Hahoalki can see the Wetware begin to run some kind of transmission.
Eventually, somebody picks it up.
A holo-projector in the middle of the room activates, and the holographic figure appears. He is clearly some kind of superhuman, given that he’s over 8 feet tall and clad in Power Armor that looks to be specifically tailored for him. He clearly has many cybernetic implants, and several mechadendrites are extending out of his back.
“This is Warsmith Gragnal of the Iron Warriors Legion. For what reason have you contacted us, Vettiel Katrolosax?”
He pauses for a moment.
“…Why is there a giant seagull with you?”
----------
As the station continues to be expanded, Hahoalki starts noticing… oddities.
Sometimes, he’ll come across alien geometries in the architecture that shouldn’t physically work. Other times, he’ll discover systems or rooms have seemingly moved, or outright disappeared. Soon, Hahoalki finds himself completely incapable locate the station’s geometric center, even though he knows it has one.
Sometimes, symbols appear on the walls, just for a moment. A flash in his vision, only visible for microseconds. Eldritch glyphs that, for all his processing power, Hahoalki can’t fully wrap his mind around; all surrounding a central marking of an eight-pointed star.
Sometimes the walls themselves blink at him. One time, they bled.
The Xenarites, for their part, don’t seem disturbed by this… at all. They all act like it’s just another weekday. Their shadows don’t match the light that hits them; they dance, twist and distort, seemingly of their own abandon. Hahoalki swears he saw one of them smiling at him.
The Telekine scrunches up his nose.
“That world, Prism… It sounds like a place positively filled with Slaaneshi-tier filthmongers.”
“I say we’d best head for Mira, if you will.”
The answer was obvious. These were Orks, after all. As such, they show a blatant disregard for all self-preservation, charging directly into the fray and not caring in the least about the casualties they accumulated.
Meanwhile, Big Cogz began to work on the legs, altering them as to use less power.
—————
As this is happening, some of the Orks notice something. Shimmering shapes, moving in and out of the darkness. Kommandoz, though… they don’t seem to loyal to the Mekboss.
Meanwhile, these dead-stealfy gitz relay what they’re seeing back to their Sneakboss. It’s almost time to strike.
"If he sticks to his standard tactics, that is. We'll be sticking to ours until his change. Jumps can be tricky that deep in system, but the Jenner Drive can pull it off. It just takes a little more calculation time prior to the jump. We've got a full cluster on this one, complete with Angel of Death, so fire support during the fleet engagement will be about as good as we're liable to get unless the pocketstars are brought into play - but hopefully it will never come to that."
"The standard number of decoy hulls will be in use. Orders are for the standard 'burnt vacuum' tactics to be employed. It takes a lot of power, but eliminating 99.9% of spaceborne particulates is its own reward. Still, expect the standard loss rate of 35% prior to planetfall, most of which will be self-destruction via compactification bomb."
The projection noticed the misidentification (Hahoalki's visual presentation was based on an avianoid from Durgets known as a Kriianak - literally "soul bird" - similar in form and niche to Earth's forest eagles), but ignored it, as it was unlikely to persist, and even less likely to be repeated.
"We would be the answer to the first question. We are a teleological projection of the the Archailect of the Allied States, Hahoalki. If you imagine a so-called 'Abominable Intelligence' of such vastness and power that it requires a complex system of artificial universes to hold its brain, you will be wrong only in ways that do not matter."
"As for why the Fabricator General is in our company, there's a story there that neither of us are particularly keen to share. Suffice it to say that we came to this brane to secure our interests, and that we have finally come to a mutually beneficial understanding with him."
"In short, the Allied States were invited to join the Interdimensional Confederation. Since you also are members of it, we wished to gain your approval before officially becoming members. Our initial attempt at contact resulted in misunderstandings on both sides. After initially butting heads with the Fabricator General here, we have - as we stated - finally come to an understanding."
"We would like to establish formal diplomatic relations with the so-called 'Traitors' known as the Iron Warriors, as well as the so-called 'Dark' Mechanicum." The projection was careful to make the scare-quotes audible here. Hahoalki had found information about the strange fictional world of Warhammer 40k, but most of the material uncovered portrayed the factions e was dealing with in a negative light. Whether the members of these factions saw themselves as being "Traitors" or "Dark" was, so far, an unknown quantity.
But the projection continued.
"As for what we have to offer, we have demonstrated the ability to reverse-engineer archaeotech and produce STC files for it. If you do not believe us, ask the Fabricator General here, and he will attest to it. And we are but the shadow cast by the mind of Hahoalki emself. You may be assured that, should a proper Avatar of Hahoalki be allowed into your brane, the Archailect shall be able to unveil all the secrets of whatever you present em with - from the smallest digital weapon to the largest battleship."
"That being said, experience has taught us that the very knowledge of our existence can be memetically hazardous to certain tech-priests - specifically Xenarites. They become insane, convinced that we are some sort of Machine-God. The Xenarites of the Steel Nexus had to be removed for re-education in our home brane. If such should happen in your brane as well, we would request the opportunity to re-educate them as well."
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Hahoalki had read enough of the Black Library archives to know exactly what was going on here - Chaos.
E simply asked the tech priests to explain, in their own words, what the purpose of the chaotic invocations were.
As they enter, the Saturnians may be shocked to find that the three representatives are not all human. They are all wearing clothes consisting of an exotic fabric, and of an interesting design. Although formal to them, it is not traditional formal human clothing. One of the representatives is human, the other is of a species called the Maus, and the third is a Lizaro. They each shake her hands. The Lizaro says "My name is Logas, my species is called Lizaro. I am the head representative of The Galactic Confederacy's mission to this realm. These two are my companions, Magwaf the Maus and Sheilan the Human." (The human looks quite different from what they'd expect of a human) They each do a strange gesture, which is their analogue of a handshake. "I am honored to be here in your audience." Logas says.
She thinks for a moment. "Alright. Magic can't work in our own realm, so I suppose the only one in danger is me." She says. "I'll do it."
When they reach the bottom and exit into the terminals, they get some stares and excited looks as security leads them out of the building. While they are heading towards the federation's meeting hall, they are greeted a few times, and some people ask them where they're from, but most people leave them alone. People are more or less used to exotic creatures coming through the rift.
Upon being asked Haru would give a slight smile and respond with "Kaniros." externally, the shydes weren't that different from the humans, they were a bit on the shorter side and had a tail, their most fundamental difference from humans was their inner physiology. Apart from Haru the other team members were all in a black suit of armour specifically designed for their line of work.
The captain nodded thoughtfully, stating jovially as he did, "Mira it is. Great place for stretching our newfound...appendages? Our newfound magicks will be of great aid should the local authorities try to organize a witch burning for us as opposed to the Red Witch's ilk."
Shadow Kalad looked at her for a moment, then smiled. It was not a nice smile, stretching too wide and full of far too many teeth to be something a normal human could have. A brief moment to allow for feelings of regret and terror to emerge stretched on for what felt like eternity, before the looming impression of something alien and vast and wRoNg closed over her mind like a shroud and she blacked out. When she awoke again on the cloud floor, Shadow Kalad was, of all things, drinking some shadowy impression of what appeared to be tea spun from golden hues.
In the Orion-Cygnus arm of the Milky way galaxy, system lord Keron Allud had sent multiple scouts out and had gathered substantial intelligence.
Mars and Venus were back to their original form, but the Earth was untouched by human hands, not only that but her scouts had reported that the primate species that would one day become the humans were completely gone, the shape of Earth's landmasses were different but they were recognisable, there could be no mistake, Earth was back, but the humans were not.
However, they were not alone in this galaxy as some of the system lords assumed, a planet within the same region as Earth harboured life, a species of extremely powerful beings, far larger than even the greatest beings the Shydes had known, and possibly greater than themselves in sheer power.
The planet was kept under surveillance as the Shydes searched out the reborn galaxy for additional signs of life.
"We need to develop our own offensive new tactics. So far we've been chasing the defensive with a weak offense. Problem is our attempts to save sentient species has hindered what we can do. I don't want to drop this resolve, but I can't help but wonder if we would be more successful if we gave up our hearts and killed without prejudice." Hych Aun Zul stated as they continued their travel.
"WHO DARES TO SPEAK TO ME!? ARE YOU A BRAVE FOOL OR TOO IGNORANT TO KNOW BETTER?! WE ARE ERGRITH! COME! MEET A GOD!" A reply came back with multiple voices overlayed and demonic sounding in deep multiple dissonant tones.
Franklin passed the journal over to Cody, who promptly began annotating everything that Franklin had wrote thus far. Franklin then proceeded to kick back a bit and observe his surroundings. The antique atmosphere was very new to both the Cascadians. They were more accustomed to their modernized 1950-esque architecture and lifestyle. It was very new to them, but wasn't to say either of them found it discomforting Franklin took a lot of time to write down the details of the Northestan architecture and designs, and Cody seemed to relax after a bit, moving his hand away from his holster. When calls for food and lamps were made, Franklin turned to Cody. "You want anything?" He asked.
"I mean, I dunno. Don't we have like, two weeks worth of MRE's?" Cody asked, face still in the notebook. Franklin snapped his fingers. "Good call." He reached up for their cargo, grabbing his backpack. (
Azucur) Franklin called to Rimiris, "Hey, you want one? We got three Menu's available, ah...We got beef stew, we got pepperoni pizza, or we got chicken-chunks." He offered. "And where the hell is the MRE-heater..." She could hear him idly speaking out-loud as he searched his backpack. Cody stared at the notebook for a bit. "Know what? I think I'd rather see what I'm writing. I'm gonna get a lamp." He got up, and headed out to go purchase one.
Mivlon looked at the others on the bridge before turning back to the comms "You know, that doesn't really sound like the best idea from where I'm standing." She said, "If you really are a god then approaching you seem like the worst thing we could do." She responded.
Mivlon was well-aware that the ancestors of their creator race had killed every god and godlike being apart from the Eternals, but the Shydes weren't prepared to accomplish the same feats, especially when they had no information on what powers this god had access to.
The Admiral on this ship raised an arm "Take us closer, but do not dock, stay outside the range of that monstrosity, but keep the weapons primed in case we need to make an escape." the admiral was a shydean man, he had served Nercon faithfully for years like most other members under Keron's command, and held little respect for anything that was not a member of the Allud family.
"Think I'll pass." Rimiris said as she kept her gaze out the window. While nutrition was necessary for her species, Rimiris only ever ate in the company of other nobles, unlike most others she could feed on the magical energies of Iiqaath.
It was an original ability of the Dragons, but Rimiris had gained it through extensive research and conversations with Neldras. The ability was initially thought impossible to copy, but if one magical being could do it, chances were that another could do the same.
"DO NOT WASTE MY TIME! BE OF IMPORTANCE!!" Ergrith growled once more in his devilish tone waiting for the Shydes to settle to see what they possibly want.
"Okay. Lemme know if you change your mind." He replies. "Where the f- there it is!" He removed an MRE heater from his backpack, and proceeded to carefully inspect it. He paused for a moment, "potential fire hazard, World with alternative sets of physics..." he pieced it together out loud. "Yeah. I'll save it for when we aren't on a train full of people." He sighed, putting the heater back. He proceeded to open a pack of bread sticks from the MRE, and casually snacked on them. "So, thinking about anything?" Frank asked her.
Rimiris sighed "I do have a question, I notice humans seem to care very little for the environment, the smog that is produced by Northesta is something that will inevitably destroy the environment of Iiqaath one day." she says as she continued to look through the window "Electricity might not work here, but there has to be an alternative source of power that can be used without killing a planet. So why don't humans seem to care?" she said and turned to face him, in the case of Azucur it was Magitech, which didn't produce any emission, but humans still didn't have the means to create it, most of them couldn't use magic and even so, few actually knew the steps to power alore and extract energy from it.
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