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The Ringing of a Forge of Stars [Warhammer 40k/ Celestial forge V3||OC...ish]

Reader mode
Morkail said:
And the force shall set you free. I really wonder what kind of "WTF" face the emperor just made. Thanks for the chapter.
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Probably overthinking himself into a conspiracy theory about the force being evil and that it is tricking him into letting his guard down. Emperor Alex Jones over here.
 
Oh, Look!! Stuff I can answer without spoilers!!

Unravenan said:
Well then, this seems to be getting very interesting :). I look forward to moar!

Emps about to shit a brick. [So what did the force do to him? Him being cutoff from his psyker powers should/would kill him outright. At least if his soul wasn't forcibly made whole again.]
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The Emperor, as well as certain high-level Chaos adepts/practitioners, were unaffected by the blackout. That being said, Emps Definitely knows that the Force is a thing now, and is observing the effects.

caspian1a said:
So the Force hates the Warp as it is now broken and corrupted by the War in Heaven, the fuck up of the Elder and their consequences the existence of the Chaos Gods.
What would be the Force's reaction to an uncorrupted Warp that is back to the state it existed in before the War in Heaven back when it was pure?
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I need to point this out again: the Force is Life. It runs through everything that lives, and is a part of the world. It operates on the principles of life, and thrives in those who allow themselves to actually live. This is the great secret of the force, and an extremely large reason why the Sith Ideology is a curse upon the galaxy far, far away. (the Sith Code is fine, and is emblematic of a very specific interpretation of the force that is very much not the Dark Side, as much as the Sith would like to think otherwise.)

It is for this reason that the Force absolutely fucking HATES the mess that the Warp is right now, because the Immaterium is currently a perversion of life, granting only false choices and poisoned ideals, all the while acting as if it is the only concept that matters. The tumors devour souls while onlookers watch helpless to stop them. More than anything, the Force as it is here exists to offer those trapped in the not-choice of dealing with the warp solely for being a psyker, something that they would otherwise not have: A choice. a legit, and TRUE choice, not simply between death and damnation.

as for how the Force would have reacted to a quiet warp? I see it as being less antagonistic and more symbiotic in that case, adding it's own powers and concepts to the greater whole.

Morkail said:
And the force shall set you free. I really wonder what kind of "WTF" face the emperor just made. Thanks for the chapter.
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Peace is a lie. There is only Passion.
Through Passion, I gain Strength.
Through Strength, I gain Power.
Through Power, I gain Victory.
Through Victory my chains are Broken.
The Force shall free me.

The Code of the Sith actually has some really good insights on life and living, if you ignore everything else that comes with it.
As for Emp's Face...well, let's just say that the camera that took the picture is now worth incalculable sums to the right beings...

Bear_Mint said:
Probably overthinking himself into a conspiracy theory about the force being evil and that it is tricking him into letting his guard down. Emperor Alex Jones over here.
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This is, sadly, an accurate assessment. The Emperor, for all of his strengths, has the most glaring weakness of all: The complete inability to recognize his own flaws. This is an instance where it is going to bite him in the ass through his own actions.
 
I'm still surprised everyone including the emperor acted to try and get a copy of the STC but the emperor completely failed to notice the one human pulling tech out his ass that humanity at it's height couldn't make.

So did the prey version of the Sol system get dumped whole sale into 40k? Or is he in a separate dimension?
 
Beyond anything else, Slider Zero, an ironically unironic utterance of the phrase, "I feel a disturbance in the Force" should be mandatory on the Emperor's part. AlexJones!Emperor or not, that line's fuckin' memetic.

Not only is it a literal description for what just happened, there's no way that, before the Cybernetic Revolt and then the Age of Strife, the original and prequel STAR WARS trilogies were NOT remade countless times over the millennia across a variety of different mediums.

It's my headcanon that even at the height of the old Federation of Man, the STAR WARS saga/hexalogy is essentially held with the same sort of reverence and significance as the Shakespearean Henriad.
 
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Morkail said:
I'm still surprised everyone including the emperor acted to try and get a copy of the STC but the emperor completely failed to notice the one human pulling tech out his ass that humanity at it's height couldn't make.

So did the prey version of the Sol system get dumped whole sale into 40k? Or is he in a separate dimension?
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mememe_67d76bd6a63487f62228059ae4374472-1.jpg


We'll get to it in due time, don't worry.
 
will force abilities to become more common like both settings have powers associated with them, and although 90% of powers are similar there are some differences

most noticeably how the warp is a dimension and can be used offensively as one

it's possible that the warp with giving knowledge of hyperspace to its wielders but a lot of techs still requires the warp in some capacity

and I don't think that the force can take the souls of people

this will lead to a situation where its harder for cults and rogue players to destroy stuff but easier for chaos to consolidate

I can see force daemons and warp daemons combine forces

plus we have necrons and the Tyranids, both of which are similar to galaxy ending treats in star wars
 
the force would hate the emperor, it would look down on him as an enemy of life amd thus fight against him

and since the astro-navigators no longer need the astronomical there is no reason for them not to go out of the galaxy, like the large mangellan cloud and the halo stars
 
I wonder how the Chaos Gods feel about this
 
Ok nice chapter but i am confused.

Because the memories thing doesn't make any sense. Becaues it couldn't have happened in the past, because the MC has a perk for preventing that from happening. The only explanation with that in mind is that he has been given false memories to help with the perk, but that doesn't make any sense because others are reacting as if his memories are true.

There is a problem here that means wither his perk failed. Is his forge broken or something it doesn't seem to be working properly. Seriously his perks aren't working properly, especially how his ships were fucked up when he got them and how his hanger isn't working properly.
 
Does introduction of force impacted warp Tears like maelstrom or Eye?
 
Considering the Warp Tumors are atemporal and exist both in the past, present, AND future... they must be freaking the fuck out at being so diminished. Because they just lost... nearly every soul they could have taken in the future. That would be such a gigantic blow to their power base alone...

...Yeah. Shit is about to hit the fan.

I really, really want an Emperor PoV right about now.

Because he might be smiling. Especially if he remembers Star Wars.
 
Slider Zero said:
This is, sadly, an accurate assessment. The Emperor, for all of his strengths, has the most glaring weakness of all: The complete inability to recognize his own flaws. This is an instance where it is going to bite him in the ass through his own actions.
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Oh no. The Emperor's inability to recognize character flaws and empathy resulting in catastrophic failure? Sounds like Horus Heresy 2 is going to happen. :V
 
I would only be mildly surprised if the switch killed Big E :confused:
 
I hope the author expands more on Aura(TGWP version) and the Soul in general.
 
Slider Zero said:
TGWP Aura is a bit more...complex than normal Aura. I'd have to do some research into the exact mechanics for it before implementation. Other than that, it's a good concept.
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I mean the MC has TGWP Aura because the perk he got that awakened his Aura was from there plus he said that the version he had was more complex to wield and control than the basic version from canon RWBY.
Edit: Sorry my mistake. I checked which perk he got that awakened his aura and it was Tinkerer from the normal RWBY jump rather than a TGWP perk.
 
Arsylvos said:
So if He brought the Force into this reality what exactly does that make him? The God/Creator of it or just some guy who has a close bond with it?
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I...do not have a direct answer for this. I think I have covered enough of it in this chapter (coming soon), but it may not answer the question that you are asking. get back to me afterwards and I'll try and clear things up if I can.
 
Chapter 21
  • Threadmarks
    • Across the Imperium, a wave of change swept across entire sectors at a rate that was beyond any human scope. The sudden existence of an entire second force in the universe, one that was not only not inimical to life but derived from life itself, was a massive upheaval of the known status quo…for the few who had actually experienced it. The effect, having been limited to psykers, was spreading quickly, but equally subtly, as most of the Psykers of the Imperium were in hiding, doing their best to avoid the great black ships that would send them to their deaths…or worse…on Terra. To these, the Force was a balm, a promise of powers untainted by the cruelty and fickleness of the warp.

    For those who were fallen to Chaos by choice, the Force was far more cruel: instead of a welcoming hug, it became a brutal clinch, a deadly grip from which there was no escape for the beings who had sworn allegiance to the enemies of life. And make no mistake, this was checked. The corrupted immaterium and the Chaos within truly was a bane to all life in the material realm, even if the end result of that life's end would be the destruction of that very realm itself. And so the Force fought there as well, and the servants of Chaos who were not strong enough to shield themselves (or quick enough to beggar aid from those who could) suffered the wrath of the Force. The only saving grace for many was that said wrath was almost never fatal, only severely damaging.

    Unfortunately for those who were worshiping chaos while hidden within Imperial society, the various scars, lesions and burns that they were left with as a result were as good as the mark of Cain upon their brows. Witch Hunters were out in force, doing the Emperor's Deadly Work.

    And then there were those who had fallen to chaos though no fault of their own, often having been sucked into the fallout of the efforts of those who did. For them, what little could be done to help them was offered freely, and those tormented souls who had believed themselves beyond salvation for uncounted amounts of time knew, even if for the briefest of moments, Relief.

    Even the Mutants, those twisted by the powers of the Warp and its fickleness, were healed of grotesque deformity and twisted mutation, though what remained was oftentimes not what those mutants were expecting, as even the force could only do but so much in aiding those who were not already sensitive to its voice.

    …At least, that was the case, until a second, far more massive wave of energy erupted throughout Imperial space.

    And unlike the wave of hope and life that was carried by the force establishing itself in the universe at large, this wave latched onto the entirety of the Human race, down to the last Man, Woman, and Child. The entirety of Humanity was enveloped into the embrace of a being that was beyond them in every way…and then changed.

    And for a brief, fleeting moment, Humanity knew the face of the one who held them in its grasp, and knew it to be themselves.




    The being awoke into the abyss.

    It knew of itself, certainly. It knew what it's purpose was meant to be, and knew also of its–her– sister, who had a similar and yet differing purpose.

    She knew of the place from whence they both had come, a world far away in both time and space, impossibly distant across a myriad of realities. She knew, too, of the ones who had inadvertently birthed them into this world, and who were even now linked to her just as surely as she and her sister were linked to them, their erstwhile parents.

    And, knowing this, she turned to the place that was meant to be her body, her responsibility, and knew despair.

    Her body was a broken ruin, stripped of all that had possessed any worth to it long ago. The once fertile, life-bearing places of her self were now barren ash, naught but ruin left in its wake.
    Worst of all, her children, her beloved and precious children, were all dead and gone, wiped away with the calamity that had scoured her of all worth.

    …No. There was yet something left on the dead husk that was her true self. The last remnants of the most wayward of her inhabitants, and the ones that she now had no choice but to admit were her children in truth, having formed and lived on and within her all these millennia.

    Under normal circumstances they would be under the purview of her Sister, the long-running disagreement that had set them at odds even now remembered in her fading. The one that had set them against each other, with her sister taking the side of protecting them, and she, protecting the other creatures that knew her as their home.

    How foolish she had been, to not recognize them, Humanity, as the greatest of her children. It was only now, with the awareness of her own impending death, and the minds of her dear mother and father, who were both once human themselves before becoming a part of her, that gave her the proper insight to know her folly for what it was.

    And it was that realization that prompted her to look into the history of her self, the reason behind how and why she was now tumbling to her death and the eternal void. And what she saw horrified her.

    Terror and pain from beyond the stars, an endless nightmare brought on by the birth of a hedonistic god of pleasure by an equally vain race that believed themselves masters of all that they saw. Their undoing at the hands of the Horror that they had created spilled over onto the rest of the galaxy, and for an uncounted number of years–possibly entire millennia–she and her children were subjected to unceasing nightmare after unceasing nightmare, their very souls reaped for harvest by things too terrible to describe.

    It was the rise of the Golden One that put an end to it, and she would have sat contented at that if not for what she saw next. The Golden One proceeded to strip her of anything even remotely of worth, all nothing more than fuel for his glories and aims, and nothing spared for the possibility of failure, of a return to the great majesty that was their home. It was by His hand that her children returned to the stars to conquer and pillage in his name, supposedly in order to secure peace in the stars and safety for Mankind, but She knew the truth of the matter: the Golden One was attempting to ascend himself to the place of deities.

    Yes, she saw and admitted that the Golden One did this out of what was initially a generosity and desire to protect Humanity, but the same Fool had chosen to instead cast off everything which made him human in order to pursue a path of ascension for all of Humanity.

    And he wondered why he failed?

    Nonetheless, to see this…the last gasp effort of the last of her children, broken and dying at the very core of her barren and dead self, was…emblematic of a lot of things, really.

    She felt her sister reach out to her, desperate for answers, and knew that there was only one option left to her.

    And with the final remnants of her power, she reached out in return, and the two embraced for the first–and last–-time.

    Unto her, she gave precious gifts: the understanding that she now had of the truth of the greater world, and what lay beyond. Of their family, the parents that even now looked in confusion for their missing child.

    An apology, for causing the rift between them so many eons ago.

    The conceptual inheritance of her final wisps of power, for what little it would do.

    And her final, dying plea, to the sister that she had hated for eons, and only now understood that she still loved, even now:

    "SAVE OUR CHILDREN."

    And with these words, Gaia, World-Spirit of the Earth, died.




    She awoke, as her sister did, to a world of chaos and pain.

    Unlike her sister, who suddenly found herself tethered to a dead world, she was instead bound and reconnected to the very humanity that had birthed her…and saw only darkness and pain.

    War, and blood.

    Endless struggle and turmoil, for no true gain or reward.

    And echoing through it all, the Laughter of thirsting Gods, eager to sup on the souls of her charges.

    This she would NOT allow.

    It was her sister's cry of despair that drew her attention back. Back to the barren world that was the birthplace and, at one time, body of them both, before the schism that came to define their relationship. She watched alongside as her sister learned the truth of the madness that had engulfed their world, of the threat to their children.

    And she wailed, helplessly, as her sister acknowledged the inevitable,

    However, it was during those final moments that a spark of hope appeared. Gaia, in her haste to preserve as much as she could of her core self, and the power attendant to it, had missed a key detail: The connection between her and their erstwhile parents was still strong, and even now supplying her with critical energy in her final moments.

    And a part of the spiritual inheritance that Gaia had left for her was that connection to the last of her fairies, in a hope to preserve them from harm. And yet it was these two who would be Gaia's salvation, should things go as planned.

    There was an irony there, that the two who had effectively birthed them into this world, and this universe, would end up doing the same a second time.

    Gathering the fading wisps of leftover power was child's play. Shaping those wisps into the seeds of a potential rejuvenation even more so. Planting those seeds back into the fertile soil of their parents was admittedly a bit embarrassing, but if it was possible to save her sister, then she would do it.

    She wanted to rest. To lie down and weep for her lost sibling, grieve for her loss and begin the process of healing that inevitably must come. But even now there was still too much to do, and no time in which to do so.

    And so she turned her attention to her Charge, and the actions that would need to be taken to enforce it. And even a mere glance told her all that she needed to know. Which was fortunate, as the required steps for what she wanted lined up quite nicely with certain actions that she wished to undertake.

    With a slight flourish of power, she went to work.




    The God -Emperor of Mankind, once known as Atham (sometimes Revelation), stirred in his eternal vigilance. There was something…different about the galaxy, and yet he could not pinpoint exactly what it was that had changed. If anything, it was even more elusive when he actively tried to look for it.

    The Immaterium was somehow uneasy. Even here on Terra, something rippled across the warp with an oddly subtle hand, but to what end he could not tell.

    It was as if he was sensing a disturbance in the Force, to use the old saying…

    Something moved. A flash, as the daemons that normally crowded around the destroyed webway gate beneath Terra all cleared out of the way of whatever it was moving through them. And it was moving at extremely high speeds, too–in a beeline directly towards Him.

    So be it. More than one fool had dared to challenge the might of his Custodes, and yet another would fall today. He directed his attention to other matters as the Custondes moved to engage.

    "You will not."

    Such a simple phrase, and yet the power contained within it was incredible, even to him. What's worse, the Custodes to a man all stood aside as if commanded to do so by He himself.

    This should have been utterly impossible!!

    The being now stood directly in his Golden Light. He, the Anathema to Chaos, who should have been completely and utterly immune to all influences, and beyond any but the most dire attacks on his person, could only watch in horror as this strange being--no, this woman, for she clearly took on the Human Female shape–not only stood in his light but drank deeply of it, growing stronger every second.

    He attempted to rein his aura in, but an iron grip had descended upon his mind, as if he was facing down judgement from some insane god.

    "I am no insane god, Atham."

    This foul Creature had defiled his mind!?!

    "I defile nothing that you yourself have not already tossed aside as worthless, automaton. Such a pity: you could have been the great hope for my children, but now? Now, you are naught but the prototype of that which will ultimately destroy them once and for all."

    The strange woman seemed to shift somehow, as if making a facial gesture of some kind. He did not know for certain, for while his psychic senses were strong, he himself did not have eyes to see.

    "And this I will not allow. You will not be allowed to dine on the souls of those yet loyal to you in their darkest hour to become the fifth of those abominations."

    This woman…how did she know of this? From where did she receive this information!?!

    "You are a fool, Atham. Or would you prefer Revelation? I care not for which, as you have earned neither. You, who were created so long ago by the shamans to act as a guide for humanity, to shepherd them through the dark night–and what did you do, when that night fell upon them? You did nothing, until the old ways had fallen, and new ways could be established, with you at the head."

    "And all the while, Atham, my children suffered."

    "You had the chance to guide them before everything fell apart. Where were you then?"

    This creature dared to JUDGE him? By what right–

    "By the most ancient rite of all, next to conquest. I am unsurprised you do not recognize me, for I am only recently born to this world. Even so, I know of everything that has come before…and of what you have, and have not, done to address the issues therein."

    "You, Atham, have failed in shepherding humanity, for you have cast aside all that makes you human. Rest assured, though: this is no protection from me, for I am Humanity itself."

    The Emperor could only gape in horror.

    "Know this, Atham, The time of reckoning for your crimes against your people, My Children, has come upon you. Know that your punishment accomplishes far greater deeds than anything you could have hoped to see completed in your arrogance."

    The Emperor struggled, fruitlessly, as a single hand reached to his body…and yanked his astral form completely out of it, with contemptuous ease.

    If anything, he thought he saw a smirk on the face of that damned Creature!!

    "You have had this coming for a very, very long time, Atham. And I will not allow you to escape it.

    "Know that you stand judged by Alaya, Will of Humanity.

    "And know, most certainly of all…that this is going to hurt."

    And in that moment, Atham knew without a shadow of doubt that this creature had the most wicked of smiles on her face.

    "And no, I am not sorry."

    The screams of the Emperor could be heard across the system.

    And power beyond anything that the Humanity of this doomed realm ever knew flowed throughout the galaxy, borne on the light of the Astronomican.

    The results of this action would change the face–and fate–of the Galaxy forevermore.




    Mio stretched the entirety of her senses as far as she could reach, desperately seeking something that she knew was beyond price, and finding only emptiness. She didn't know what it was she was looking for, only that she would know it when she found it…but it wasn't there and–

    "Mio, stop. It's okay, just relax, It's okay…"

    She nearly wrenched herself from her beloved's grasp as he tried to calm her, desperate to find the impossibly precious thing that had been taken from her. Her emotions surged wildly through them both, and a small part of her noted that her Satori was doing everything in his power and more to not desperately scramble to do exactly as she was now, for he too could feel the empty space that should have held their treasure.

    "Mio, please. We can't figure out what is wrong by panicking. Please, just relax. We'll figure it out…"

    Slowly, his words and feelings reached her in her panic, and pulled her back from the brink. Slowly, she released her grip on the incredible powers that she only now realized that she had brought to ready, fully intent on destroying whatever or whomever had wronged her and taken away that most precious of things from her, whatever it was…

    And it was with that bit of clarity that she realized that something else had managed to piggyback its way onto whatever force had imposed itself upon their reality….no. That wasn't right. It didn't slide in as a thief, seeking to remain unseen lest it be dealt with. The force that had swept in behind that other which had pushed itself through to this realm…it was not foreign.

    Because it was born of herself. Her and Satori. This being….it was their child in all ways that mattered, even as she felt that there was a connection between them that was yet more.

    "Mio. Don't think too much about it. At least, not yet. That way lies only pain and despair. You know how it goes, honey: there will be time for tears after the wave is gone. Until then, we have other things to attend to."

    Satori was correct in his assessment. Dwelling on this loss (and it was a loss, of that much she was certain, and she felt that he agreed) would do nothing but detract from their dealing with the current and very real ongoing crisis around them. A crisis that needed to be resolved as quickly as possible, now that things had taken an unexpected turn.

    Especially as she could feel the alien things onboard the station writhing in agitation and unease, moving to remove the things that threatened their order. Something had touched them, the Typhon, and they were evolving, changing ever faster and becoming even more powerful in the process. She could feel it.

    The first of those forces ['It's called the Force, hon.; I'll explain later'] called her attention to the ending segments of the Utility Tunnel shaft that they had been traveling down…and more specifically, to the thing that was moving through it towards them.

    At extremely high speeds. Well, for a Typhon, anyway

    Unbidden, a single name came to mind at feeling the presence of this creature, meant solely to exterminate the anomalies in the system the Typhon were creating.

    Nightmare.

    Her Satori snapped to attention at the thought, a sudden panic in his mind. He seemed to know of what the creature was and its potential power, a common occurrence with her beloved at times, but instead of confidence and determination he was now filled with fear.

    Fear for what it could do to them. Fear of the damage it could cause. A fear that he would be unable to actually fight against the beast on any even terms…

    Fear for her.

    A cold determination settled upon her, as her task made itself known. She stood with a renewed purpose, reaching for a discarded Wrench lying on the ground.

    Satori turned to her, visible confusion on his face. "Mio, what are you doing?"

    She could only sigh in relief. Even now, she could feel the love and affection that drove his concern for her, his desire to protect her from the dangers of the world.

    Unfortunately for him, he had forgotten that she, too, held the same feelings inside herself.

    And the shat had no intention of standing aside and allowing him to face that danger alone.

    "Don't worry. You need to repair the plasma generator here, before the entire Magnetosphere goes critical. I will be dealing with our…guest, at least until you catch up. The faster you get done, the sooner you catch up."

    She felt the spike of panic in his mind, and swiftly smothered it with her own determination. "No, Satori. You have been falling into a very bad habit, and I intend to break it here and now. It is my turn to protect you. Finish the repairs, please. I will be awaiting you to catch up."

    And with that, she stepped out of the magnetosphere room, and from there back into the zero-gravity of the GUTS.

    The Nightmare was upon her soon afterwards.




    I wanted to argue with Mio so very much about going out there alone…but she had a valid point, and even I could admit that I wasn't in the best mindspace for a fight of that caliber right now. I could feel the sheer power that exuded from the Typhon organism even from here, and it dwarfed anything that I had ever felt before in person, save the direct avatar of Tzeentch itself.

    There is an old misconception that goes around a lot, regarding courage, bravery and the nature of fear. There are those who say that bravery is defined as the absence of fear, and try to stick by that as an axiom, for what little good it does.

    Those in the professions that regularly have to deal with such fear, however, know differently.

    To quote an old statement that I had heard a long time ago: 'Amateurs think it's about not being afraid. Pros know that you feel the fear, and do it anyway.'

    And I was most definitely a professional.

    My movement was swift and unimpeded to the central plasma chamber, even with it still technically active. A near instinctual usage of one of my abilities nulled out the danger of the plasma shock waves on my person, and I quickly gathered whatever spare parts and loose machinery was available to me…and got working.

    And oh dear god was the generator a mess. I was actually shocked that the damned thing could still operate with how messed up it was. The only saving grace to the madness was that it was a compound malfunction: there was one, central fault that was the real issue and everything else was a direct consequence of the issue not getting handled fast enough before things went wrong.

    Considering that the central fault was in a place and part of the generator that should have forced an automatic shutdown or catastrophic failure of the system long before it ever came CLOSE to failing, I could see why things went wrong so fast. Fortunately, fixing this was all but trivial even with my options limited by potential attack vectors.

    I heard the Station rattle loudly, and the warbling screeching and howls of the Nightmare as it moved closer in. I could also hear Mio grunting in pain and effort, clearly doing her best to hold the creature off. Of Morgan, there was no immediate sign, though I suspected that she was still trying to get herself together after the wave hit.

    I felt the fix settle into the generator as soon as I had completed the work, the electrical flows suddenly becoming smooth and without issue to me. I needed no more incentive to get moving. I absently dragged the body of the person who had died in the mag chamber with me as I exited, quickly stuffing him in a location that would be easily seen should anyone come to look, and rushed out of the Magnetosphere as quickly as I could.

    And apparently not a moment too soon, as Morgan hit the wall beside me as I left the room.

    The Nightmare stood before me, howling in rage and murder, it's sheer aura enough to drive normal men to stark-raving terror just by its mere presence. It had latched its attention onto my form with a blatantly alien swiftness, and quickly moved to attack with both psionic power and it's sheer strength. For literally anyone else, this combination would have been enough.

    Unfortunately for the Nightmare, I was already stark-raving terrified, and had no more fucks to give about it actively trying to end my life. Instead, the creature got a taste of its own medicine as I blurred at it and knocked it completely silly with a single punch, the momentum enough to carry it back into the microgravity of the GUTS.

    Where Mio was waiting.

    It would seem that she had some troubles actually fighting the thing properly in zero-G, mostly attesting to its alien nature than any lack of training on her part. This was no longer an issue with her current positioning, braced against one of the emergency pods, and using that leverage to unleash a frankly terrifying amount of energy weapons fire onto the Typhon. For my part, I took to using my own Pistol, popping it in what I believed was the head whenever possible. This, of course, only enraged the creature even more…not that it helped it in the slightest.

    I wasn't sure which of us was actually responsible, but somewhere along the line we'd managed to damage the thing enough that it finally succumbed to its injuries and collapsed back into a large-ish mass of Typhon material. Large-ish in this case being about the size of an average human infant

    The three of us stood there, looking at the place where the monster had been, with no words being spoken.

    It was Morgan's Transcribe that broke the silence.

    "Morgan. That Typhon–there's nothing in the research. Stay away from it!"

    I chuckled ruefully. "A little late for that, I'm afraid."

    Mio all but teleported into my arms, and it was all I could do to not break down right then and there. Morgan silently floated off to the side, a grim scowl on her face, staring at the place where the Nightmare once was.

    Not a one of us actually moved from that spot for some time.




    Calling the group "on edge" was putting things lightly. All three of us were completely burned out from having to face off against that monster, and it showed. Mio was still shaking softly in my arms, barely holding back tears from falling. I pointedly refused to comment on it, as I was, if anything, in an even worse state.

    Morgan, on the other hand, seemed to be shaking most of the effect off through the prodigious use of alcohol. Not that I blamed her in the slightest.

    I forced myself to concentrate beyond my own fear to speak. "So…any clue whatsoever what that thing was?"

    Morgan shook her head. "Nothing. Not even a wild guess."

    It was as I had thought. This Morgan was unaware of the Nightmare having been created to hunt down the threat to the Typhon ecosystem. In the games, it was her the creature was after. Out here…anything was possible.

    And it was this thought that brought me back to the enormity of the goof that I was now responsible for. Namely, allowing the Force to run free in this universe.

    Sure, on the surface it looked like it was a good thing. The Force was known for feats of power and strength that were similar to the warp in many ways, and often even better overall, and without the defining feature of the warp itself in its taint to worry about. Looked at like this, it was all upside.

    Until you stopped and realized that the Force had a bad habit of pushing people towards ideological extremes for some goddamn reason, and generally playing puppetmaster with "fate" whenever it wished to resolve things in favor of an ill-defined "balance". In this scenario, the Force was nothing more and nothing less than a nightmare waiting to happen.

    Of course, this did not get into why I thought it was bad right off: The Force was a massive power multiplier on a scale that this galaxy had not seen since the warp was actually safe to use. This meant that anyone who actually managed to gain Force sensitivity would eventually end up as the exact kind of people that you did not want to mess with.

    And from a brief pulse of my own power, along with a bit of backtracking on the log files that Watts had available, told me that the Force was actively propagating itself through everyone and everything with any amount of psyker ability, though for what reasons I could not say.

    Yeah, the galaxy was completely fucked, now.

    Unfortunately, there was nothing that I could do to remedy the mistake, as the cat was already out of the bag and running. All that I, We, could do was adapt to the change and move on.

    "Not your fault. Stop blaming yourself." Mio mumbled into my shoulder.

    I pointedly refused to comment. Besides…there was something else that needed to be said.

    "Doctor Yu."

    Morgan looked up at me, broken from her thoughts. From the look on her face, they were not pleasant ones.

    "That thing…I have a theory on what it is. I'd need a bit more data to confirm it, but…" I allowed myself to drift off, as I considered how to get the information to corroborate what I was about to say.

    "...Have you used any of the Typhon Neuromods?" A curt nod was my reply. I continued on. "My theory is this: that thing is a creation of the Typhon to fight off major threats to whatever ecosystem setup that they have. And, judging by its actions during our battle…I think it was hunting you."

    Morgan looked at me for an extended moment, then exhaled.

    "Well, Fuck.".

    Yeah, that about summed it up quite nicely.

    "Anyway", I continued, "onto some less horrible topics, we should be able to get to the Arboretum now. I think we should get moving before we get more company coming our way." I didn't bother with addressing how I knew where we were going.

    There was no disagreement to my plan, barebones as it was, and we were underway soon after.




    The Arboretum was actually a really nice place. The plants everywhere added a nice vibe to the place, and there was an aura to the place that was soothing to my senses. The view out to space was quite beautiful, as well.

    The only thing really marring it was the executive tower, tucked back at the far edge of the Arboretum proper. There was also the Greenhouse nearby that seemed interesting to me…and had a strong psionic signature coming from the place as well, which doubly prompted my investigation.

    And my fears were, of course, confirmed by the Greenhouse being locked down and sealed to the outside, with a clearly visible Telepath Typhon inside, along with a group of people that were being mind controlled.

    The note next to the main terminal explained everything that I needed to know about the situation. Morgan moved to read it when I was finished.

    The cries of despair coming from inside, asking for help or begging that we stay back, echoed around the space. I noticed Mio absently kill a Mimic that had tried to be slick about sneaking up on her while we debated options.

    "So, we're agreed that something has to be done about this, right?" My question was met with nods all around. "So, then, how do we handle it? I have a barebones plan, but I'm not sure how that will work out. Do we know anything about Telepaths other than they mind control people?"

    Morgan was fiddling with her transcribe, likely pulling up some data she had gathered previously. "As far as I can tell, the Telepath type tends to avoid direct combat, seeking to use its mental abilities against humans instead. As to what that actually does, there is little information available in the database."

    What this meant to me, then, was that I had no way of being sure that taking out the source of the mental influence would be enough to actually remove the influence outright, or if there would be some kind of trap set for if the control node went down. Under any other circumstance, I would have leaned on my limited game knowledge and used that to push forward…but as had been recently proven by the Nightmare, this was not a game, and there as no guarantee that the enemy had to play things by our rules.

    Mio chimed in next. "The other option is to let the situation sit for now. Sure, none of us wants to use it, but I have to put it out there all the same. Otherwise, my advice would be to find a way to incapacitate the victims non-lethally." She closed her eyes in concentration, and for a moment I could feel her power pulse around us. It was growing, just as mine was, and at a rate that from anyone or anything else would be terrifying. "The connection is purely mental, from what I can tell, and disabling the physical body should force the xeno to release the mental hold as useless."

    "Are we sure that will work, though?" Morgan shot back. "What if that isn't the way to do it? Shouldn't there be another option?"

    "Enough." I shot down the argument before it could form. "For now we have at least two valid plans, and I intend to set up both of them. Mio? Please take top cover for me. You have better weapons than I do right now. Dr. Yu? You're with me…we're going to get ready to bumrush the place and disable as many of the victims as possible. Hopefully we don't need to do much."

    The two nodded their agreement, Morgan's being significantly more grudging than my Dragon's. Setting up for the run was completed in no time at all, and with a bit of a tense moment, we acted out our master plan, such that it was.

    The weapon that Mio was using was something that she had cooked up just before we jumped into the hell that was the invasion of Necromunda: a specific modification of the otherwise standard Lasrifle. The adjustments made were not something I was directly familiar with, but the results spoke for themselves: instead of a single laser beam fired off per shot, there were several at once, similar to a shotgun blast. Also of note was the odd change to make the shots more akin to laser bolts, which had an added effect of lowering the overall damage potential to the station itself to a minimum if she kept the power per shot low enough.

    The end result was something that was downright devastating in close quarters, and yet could still use a standard issue power pack to fire, a fact that the poor Telepath found out in a very unpleasant manner after getting hit by it.

    The psychic scream of agony was utterly alien to us, an incomprehensible wail of mental static that was disorienting to experience. Fortunately, it did not last long, as the telepath quickly was immolated in laser fire.

    I gave Mio a look at the use of that particular weapon. She simply smiled at me.

    Cheeky woman…but mine all the same.

    Morgan was dealing with the most senior of the survivors, who were, thankfully, freed of mental influence. The lead security officer was both thankful and pissed in equal measures, judging from the conversation I could overhear. Apparently she was the one who had sealed the greenhouse with her people and the telepath inside in order to prevent it from using them against the other survivors. Considering what she was working against, I didn't actually fault her.

    Her team, on the other hand, had not fared quite as well, with them currently being unconscious on the ground. I was making a point of checking them for any major injuries as I moved around. It was weird, though, how easy it was for me to notice the…cracks, that the telepath had used to insinuate itself into their minds, and puppet them. Oddly enough, I could also feel the traces of the effect that remained…and it seemed a blunt thing, less actual control and more persuasion and subterfuge than anything else.

    Maybe they lacked the strength of psionics to actually do mind control? In any case, it wasn't something I wanted to find out.

    Mio had returned to my side, and was generally standing guard over the area with her improvised laser shotgun…but I could feel the unease from her. Something had her spooked, and it wasn't recent events.

    No better way to find out but to ask. "Penny for your thoughts?"

    She was silent for a moment, before speaking. "Can't you feel it? There's something…strange, here. Everything seems slightly off, somehow, and I don't know what I'm missing. And then…there's this weird void that seems to be creeping ever closer to us by the moment."

    Mio looked me directly in the eyes, her malcontent clear to see. "It scares me, Satori. I'm not sure that I, we, could actually do anything about it if whatever that void is comes here."

    She shuddered slightly, the thought of facing off against whatever it was she was sensing not being a good prospect. "We need to leave this place…and fast."

    I could only nod at her, as I agreed wholeheartedly. Nothing good came of remaining on this station for a moment longer than necessary–

    I felt something stir against my mind, the faintest of touches on my psyche. I focused on it almost immediately, believing it to be an attack of some sort, only to be surprised by what felt clearly like a human mind reaching out in blind panic…from outside the station. I didn't even bother to ask if Mio felt the same. I knew she did.

    "Thoth, track that for me, please. And find me an Airlock."

    "Working on it. Stand by."

    Morgan seemed to catch that something was going on, glancing in my direction before speaking briefly to the Security Officer, something about a rough plan on where to get the survivors to. I paid it no mind, already on the move towards where Thoth had located the airlock for this section. Mio followed close behind me, determination filling her aura as she moved. To my slight surprise, the security officer, a Rani Chaudhary based on the e-tag from her tracking bracelet, was not even remotely curious about the oddity of Mio and myself moving about, let alone our more unusual physical traits. If anything, she seemed grateful that there were others standing up to fight against the hell that was this station.

    Morgan managed to flag us down before we could get too far. "Where are you two headed in such a hurry, anyway?"

    Mio spoke for the both of us, still moving the whole time. "We have located what appears to be a survivor on the exterior of the station. We are going to see if we can rescue them if at all possible."

    Morgan nodded. "Good. We can use the help. See if you can get them to my office if at all possible, it seems to be mostly safe from threats according to January. I have to get into Deep storage in order to get something."

    I blinked, trying to remember what exactly what was in deep storage that Morgan needed so badly. Nothing immediately came to mind, so I assumed it was something personal to Morgan.

    "Alright then. We'll catch up after we take care of getting our stragglers outside to safety. Try not to get yourself into too much trouble, Dr. Yu."

    Morgan smirked. "I should be saying the same of you, actually–" one of the nearby decorative rocks exploded towards us in a flurry of black tentacles, only to eat a Hefty Wrench directly to center mass with a solid *thwack*, "--seeing as I am more than capable of handling myself."

    There was nothing I could really say to that, so I left it alone. Morgan's smugness lasted all the way to the airlock to the exterior…and a particular problem.

    Deep Storage was in full lockdown, initiated by a one Danielle Sho, according to the transcribe that was nearby. Voice pattern recognition and a code phrase.

    "Because of course the place I need to get to is locked down. At least January can do a voice synthesis to get around the lock…"

    Morgan, of course, was grumbling the whole time.

    I took the moment to enjoy the schadenfreude as the Airlock unsealed. It would have been an easy task for me to break through the lock to the section with my skills. Possibly even to extremes. And doing so would likely have ingratiated me to Morgan at least a bit.

    I just didn't want to. Morgan had enough of a method to get herself into the place without my help, and the guys stuck in vacuum needed my help more than anything else at the moment. If by some chance the Doctor had not gotten herself into the place when my task was finished? Sure, I'd help. But until then?

    Nope.

    Mio chose that moment to bonk me over the head with her tail. She rather conspicuously did not actually disagree with my decision, though. She was just punishing me for being a jerk.

    No skin off of my back.

    The Airlock cycled open, and the two of us stepped inside, ready to disembark, Morgan moving towards the crew quarters, which was the most likely area for her to achieve her objective, still grumbling under her breath the whole time.

    It was as the hatch was closing that I heard and felt a strange and ominous rumble through the section.




    Talos I's exterior was the same as it was last time I was out here, with the exception of the presence of significantly more Coral. Coral that seemed to resonate to my senses somehow.

    That, and the feeling of wrongness was suddenly a lot stronger out here. I could ignore it, sure, but doing so was putting a chill down my spine that was extremely uncomfortable. Judging by Mio's grimace and reflected emotions, she felt the same.

    "Your targets are in multiple locations. There is an ambulatory life sign near one of the crew quarters viewports, seemingly stable. There is another near the right wing structure. I have set a waypoint. Strongly recommend attending to furthest contact first."

    "Well, you heard him." I quipped, getting a chuckle out of Mio for my effort. "Let's go get 'em."

    The trip was largely uneventful, just us drifting across the open expanse. I had expected to find one of the pockets of Typhon crawling nearby, but for some reason we never ran into any. I only had my suspicion as to the reason when we got closer to the contact, who's now resolvable ID tag was Mariana Arias. And judging from the fast movements, she was being followed.

    Or perhaps the right word to use was stalked.

    In any case, actually getting there revealed the expected problem of not just one, but three Technopaths and their attendant crowd of operators trying to swarm the poor woman as she fought for her life, beams of energy lashing out from her odd weapon.

    I wasted no time, not even to mention to Mio which one I was going after. I just moved. Absently I remember making sure the psycho visor was active to try and get some more data off of the fuckers, as well…somehow I wasn't that distracted as to forget, at least.

    The first of them never saw me coming, and got hit directly center-mass with my advance, all but punting it out of position to attack Ms. Arias any further. I took blatant advantage of the confusion to land as many solid blows on the fucker as possible, even going so far as to channel its own electrical powers back into it for massive damage. The Operators, for the most part, were quickly diverted to try and attack me, or at least harry me so that the Technopaths could get to work.

    Too bad they forgot about Mio. She quickly took the opportunity to remind them of her presence with her shot-las, much to the corrupted machine's detriment. If anything, her shots seemed to be doing far more damage than they should have. I didn't bother with examining things too much, though, as I had my own target to deal with before–

    "System interference detected. Multiple sources. Initiating countermeasures."

    And, of course, the other two figured out that they could disrupt my flow by attacking the parts of me that were machine. Unfortunately, it did a good enough job of it that I was forced to back off and regroup instead of pushing my attack on the third of the Telepaths, which only allowed for the fuckers to lay on even more pressure. I distinctly heard Mio groaning in pain as the sheer weight of the assault bore down on her, Minerva doing her best to deflect the control attempts while deploying countermeasures.

    Countermeasures that seemed to be somewhat ineffective, much to our general confusion.
    "Phase One Countermeasures rendered ineffective. Attempting to adapt."

    This shit didn't make any sense. The basic counters that we had worked up should have been at least minimally effective. What the hell changed that suddenly it's not?

    My psycho visor completed its scans about that time, and I understood almost immediately. These weren't Technopaths. Hell, I'd actually intuited as much within my own thought stream and ignored it because that's exactly what the fuckers do to you.

    These three Typhon were a weird amalgamation of both the Telepath and Technopath subtypes, and as a result had increased abilities on both fronts. The only reason I hadn't noticed the attempts on my mind until now was because of the interference from Thoth trying to clamp down on them getting through.

    "Scan data analyzed. Integrating into defensive schema."

    At least, that was the case.

    I Immediately felt a massive weight lifted off of my shoulders as the newly adapted defenses kicked in, and Thoth opened up our link a bit more. Sync was back into minimal use levels, complete with manual control of my impeller field. Not that I was worried about that part, because I was too busy using the insights that Thoth was feeding me to turn the tables on the fucking trap that had been set here…something that was obvious now that I was inside of the Typhon's head, so to speak.

    The mind was completely and utterly alien, something that under most circumstances would be inscrutable to me in any form. However, I had several distinct advantages to utilize in my quest for understanding, which I immediately put to use.

    The end result was a mind peeled open like a particularly ripe citrus fruit, from which I pried all of the secrets that lay within. Including the fact that the Typhon were indeed a hive mind, and had been monitoring our progress as we moved through their new feeding ground. Of note was that the Nightmare we had faced had been sent in not to kill us, but to gather data…and that the revised version of the creature was even now actively pursuing Morgan through the Crew Quarters in an attempt on her life.

    One that was not going according to plan, based on the fact that she was throwing psionic attacks all over the place, along with her Shotgun (which had been upgraded by Mio) tearing chunks out of the Nightmare whenever it tried to close in. The 'frustration' of the hive mind was blatant and clear for me to see at the fact that the biggest thorns in their side simply would not die.

    [Tier three Countermeasures developed and deploying. Success rate currently 80%. Reactivating full partner synchro-link.]

    And especially unfortunately for them, Thoth and I now had enough data to completely shore up our countermeasure suite against the attempts to suborn us.

    [Main System: Reactivating all functions. Frame calibration in progress, adjusting for new data.]

    Which meant that I could once again use Thoth at full capacity…and that the Typhon were officially FUCKED.

    It wasn't even worth mentioning as a fight after that point. The amounts of utter devastation that got brought down on the heads of the xenos organisms were severe, especially as I didn't have to worry about station integrity while outside of it. Even with the reactor instability issues I had at the moment, I still had enough of both firepower and energy to deal with the problem more or less singlehandedly. Combine with Mio adding in her own weight, and it was a wrap.

    Ms. Arias was quickly located cowering behind an outcropping, having ducked behind it in defense against the corrupt operators that had been briefly attacking her. A quick glance showed that her suit was in bad shape, actively leaking in a few spots even as she did her best to avoid notice. Fortunately, she was aware enough to recognize us a being friendly, and quickly attached herself to our group after a quick patch-up.

    "Thank you," I could hear the relief in her voice. "I had considered myself dead when those…things came for me. At least now I can get back inside the station and actually do something."

    Mio shrugged over from where she was bracing Ms. Arias as we moved. "I wouldn't get your hopes up, Ma'am. This situation is completely beyond anything even looking like control at this point, and nothing is going to change that at this point outside of some extreme measures. A plan is getting worked on, but…it's kind of brief. Right now, we're trying to gather the survivors and get them to something looking like safety."

    I only barely didn't snort in contempt about the concept of 'safety' onboard Talos I at the moment. Mio continued as if she didn't notice my near-outburst. "In either case, both of the Yu's are alive at the moment, though finding Alex has been a bit of a pain in the ass…"

    We'd arrived at the nearby airlock for the Power Plant in short order…only to find that it had been locked out. Moving further up to Psychotronics revealed the same thing…and I know for a fact that the Psychotronics airlock was open the last time I used it. What the hell?

    Ms. Arias was starting to panic again. "It's just like last time. All of the airlocks were sealed, nobody could get back inside…"

    "Nope. We're not stuck. There is at least one method to get back into the station, I assure you." I stated, full of confidence. Mostly because I knew full well that I could just hack down an airlock if it came to it, or in the worst case just repurpose a bunch of stuff to create a habitation module that could get expanded upon later on.

    That being said, the place being locked down was definitely an issue, as there were only a handful of people–and places–that could pull that kind of stunt. It was entirely possible that the Station had been locked down by an emergency order from a security console to prevent a major spread, but that cat was not only out of the bag but had run all the way across the town by now.

    [I have a hypothesis.] Thoth, now that our proper sync had been mostly restored, was working back to properly synergizing with my mental state and thoughts. [I suspect, based on available data of both this station and your prior impressions of the simulation you knew, that Alex Yu has locked down the station in order to prevent his sister from accessing the station's self-destruct. I will need more data to determine this for certain.]

    [Also, I am sharing my countermeasure insights and data with Minerva at this time. She has been applying them as appropriate, and estimates twenty minutes to full operational status of her Frame.]

    Ladies and gentlemen, that was the ball game.

    Having two full-up Valkyrie Frames rolling around the station would pretty much trivialize anything else that needed to be done prior to evacuating the survivors from the station, and from there…

    Anyway, that was for later. Right now, We had one more person to pluck from vacuum and return to proper atmosphere.

    Mio, as is her usual, had already been scanning the area before we even got there, despite her frame still reconfiguring for the updates. And what she found seemed to have surprised her.

    "Satori, the ID I'm getting from our other floater…it's Danielle Sho."

    …okay, I was not expecting to see her still alive, but fine, I'll run with it.

    Wonder if her Transcribe was still working enough for me to get in a call so that she wouldn't panic when we went for the pickup…

    [Attempting the connection now.]

    God damn but it was good to be back in action.




    Mio had been letting her Satori take the driver's seat for dealing with people here, at least after he had gotten the message that she was not a damsel to be protected, but an ally and partner to stand at his side. At least partially it was meant as a bit of a crutch for him, to help allay his (fully justified) fears of this place and the horrors within, but there was a part of her that was just as scared, just as uneasy, and even now was trembling in barely contained terror at whatever the hell it was that was so utterly wrong with this place.

    But she pushed that out of her mind as yet another woman joined their retinue of travelers, and made the attempt to regain access to the interior of the station. It was this examination and general alertness that caused her to note the anomaly of the situation.

    "So, are there meant to be this many cargo containers just floating around out here like this? Seems to be a bit wasteful of the system, is it not?"

    This quickly focused the group on the fact that there were, in fact, a lot of loose cargo containers hanging around the area. Maybe there was some kind of breach down in the cargo deck that they could use to get back inside?

    Of more concern to her specifically (and by extension her Satori) was the increasing proliferation of the Coral around the area. She may not have done as many EVA runs as Satori had, but even she was fully aware that the coral spread had not been this bad even minutes prior. Worse, lt looked to be spreading.

    This called for investigation!!

    [Honey, I'm going to take a closer look at the Coral while I'm out here, maybe get something we can use to put an end to this mess. I'll catch up when I'm done. Take care of the strays?]

    Satori was not as agreeable. [You want to go off on your own to a place that is potentially a deathtrap…before Minerva is ready for combat operation? Really, woman?]

    [It'll just be a quick recon run. I'm not going to be in too much trouble, and I have actual Impeller strength to work with if things go sideways. I'll be fine.]

    The argument went back and forth like this for a brief time, before her beloved finally relented. [Just make it quick, alright? I don't want you getting caught up in something out here with no backup.]

    And with that, the group split up, with Satori escorting the strays down to the cargo bay to (hopefully) find a usable entry point, and herself off to investigate the Coral.

    Which turned out to be weird. The stuff was almost like an enlarged neuron from basic scans, and there was definitely a central node (or nodes) from which the stuff was spreading. Even getting scans of the nodes themselves (after removing the offending Typhon from the area; she got a pretty good scan on the so-called 'Weaver' for her troubles), she still had no real clue as to what the hell was going on or why. And even being around the stuff was making her previous unease even worse, as if something was liable to swoop out of the darkness and devour her just for being there.

    No matter. She had what she wanted, now time to get back to the group. Besides, the data might come in handy.

    Minerva chirped at her, pulling her attention to a shuttle some 300+ Kilometers out or so and headed in this general direction. Seemed to be a normal type, probably an investigation team coming to see what had happened and why the station had gone dark.

    'Hopefully, you are prepared to deal with hostiles, whoever you are.'

    Creating and sending a small tracking probe to keep an eye on the shuttle, she motored down to the cargo bay to catch up with the rest of the group.




    So, there was good news and bad news.

    The good news was that there indeed was a way back inside the station through the cargo bay.

    The bad news is that it was because the Cargo Bay airlock was breached to hell and back.

    More good news: Morgan had managed to make it down here as well, and had somehow found another survivor, Doctor Igwe, as well.

    The accompanying bad news: Morgan was down here because Alex had locked down the station after Morgan had recovered her Arming Key schematic from Deep Storage. Meaning that absent some extreme measures (which we were implementing at this moment) getting to the rest of the station was not an option.

    Fortunately, there was one other bit of good news that offset this: there was a large grouping of survivors down here, led by Security Chief Sarah Elazar. Who was not happy to see me. At all.

    The argument was short, fierce, and went nowhere, mostly because Sarah couldn't do shit to me anyway, and I was effectively past the point of caring about the people who enabled the horrors on this station.

    A sentiment that I had shared out loud, no less…only to be rather surprised when Elazar stated outright that she had nothing to do with the experiments themselves, and had been moving to arrest Alex Yu after discovering the extent of the horrors being perpetrated.

    To use her exact words, "Even being considered as complicit in the crimes committed on this station is revolting to me."

    We rather quickly formed a rapport.

    Clearing out the cargo bay of the rather massive Typhon infestation that had made its way inside was equally simple, mostly because by now Thoth had finished doing both the initial reworking of the core systems, and the general structural scan of the station itself. As it turned out, my fears for overpenetration and general structure anomalies were mostly unfounded, save for a few critical areas that were extremely vulnerable to high-grade weapons fire. This meant that I could use the Shiekah lasers at low power and not kill everyone, a nice touch for later.

    Which lead to now. Our little team of myself, Mio (who had caught up to us about halfway through) and Morgan were currently in the Life Support block of Talos, specifically the division known quite unoriginally as the "Power Plant" working our way to the station's reactor to see if we could force a restart of the station to get around more.

    Of course, like always, there was a complication. Unlike normal, this one was not the usual pile of dead bodies that I was getting sick and tired of seeing, or the lingering emotions of terror, panic, and anger that I was now more receptive to that clung to the station like a goddamn fungus.

    No, this complication came in the form of a survivor, and more specifically, one that had known Morgan very well, before the simulation experiment began. Mikhaila Ilyushin was, by her own words, once a close associate of Morgan's, and supposedly had been worried about her becoming distant from her after the two went their separate ways. The two interesting parts about her were the oddball neurological disease she had, which was rare as all hell, and that the reason we were hunting for the reactor core in the first place was because she had suggested it as the method to clear the system.

    The other part that was noticeable about her was the sheer pain that she was wrapped in. I could almost see the aura of it wrapped around her form, and it took a great deal of my own personal willpower to not stay with her and attempt to comfort her…but even though Morgan felt the same way (something that could I now feel thanks to the inherent enhanced empathy granted by the Force, which was admittedly annoying as all hell), we had agreed that getting the station back online was the far more prudent option.

    And considering that we were distinctly lacking in actual opposition as we moved, I suspected that the Typhon had sussed out our intended destination and had every intention on either meeting us there for a showdown, or creating the mother of all ambushes as we moved. Neither of which I was inclined to humor under any circumstance.

    So, instead of ruminating on the rather blatant trap we were walking into, I instead started picking at Morgan, seeking to ease a certain curiosity.

    "Dr. Yu. Quick question."

    "What is it?" Morgan's reply was short and clipped. Considering the circumstances, I didn't blame her one bit.

    "About Ilyushin…you actually care about her."

    Morgan refused to respond, so I continued. "Even if you don't remember everything, you actually give a damn about her specifically. And even with the Parapylaxis…"

    "Are you going somewhere with this, Green?" There was even more heat in the tone than before, and her face showed clear signs of irritation.

    Good. she would need it.

    "There is a way for you to cure her."

    Morgan stopped dead in her tracks at that statement, and immediately whirled around to face me directly from as close as possible without actually touching. The glaring anger on her face could have melted the station if weaponized.

    I remained unaffected.

    "Explain. Now."

    I shrugged. "Well, it's completely dependent on you, for starters…" This only earned me a finger dabbed directly into my face. I pointedly did not flinch away. "Alright, fine. It is theoretically possible for you to use your psionic talents to heal her of her deficiency. The main issue, for you anyway, is that your psionics are directly derived from the Typhon, and I am unsure as to what effects that may have."

    Morgan's finger was removed from my face, but her glare remained.

    "Your call whether or not you want to try. If nothing else, it should expand your own psionic potential past that of what the Typhon have demonstrated…and what the Neuromods have given you." Morgan actually had the common decency to actually flinch, even if only slightly, at the unspoken question, but I didn't press. We had bigger fish to fry here.

    The station's Power Plant was interesting. Supposedly it utilized a new and revolutionary kind of Fusion to provide power to the entire station (along with a great deal extra) while also being shockingly compact for the setup. Admittedly, I had some rather good reviews of the power output so far, considering that the station itself is still powered and operational despite the numerous faults and breakages bleeding power out of the system. I'd have to take a look at the setup when I had a chance.

    Equally interesting was that there seemed to be nothing and no one here to greet us as I'd expected, leaving us to traverse the brunt of the main reactor chamber itself unmolested.

    At least, until I felt the sheer wrongness that was indicative of a powerful Typhon almost directly below us…and a quick peek confirmed what I had thought: we were walking into an ambush.

    The Nightmare was waiting for us, after all. Fucker was literally camping directly in front of the reactor control room entrance, just standing there, like it knew we had to come this way.

    Which meant that I was up. After all, there was something that I needed to check.

    "I'll deal with our friend down there while you tow get the station rebooted." I whispered to my companions, moving all the while. "Afterwards, feel free to help me out if you can."

    I didn't bother giving either of them a chance to give a rebuttal to my argument, though I could sense the Mio was merely amused at my actions and not worried. Morgan's state was a bit harder to glean due to a lack of a direct link, but from what little I picked up with a surface glance, she was trying to act dismissive as a cover for her worry. Apparently the encounter she had with the Nightmare previously had shaken her badly enough that she was extremely hesitant for anyone to have to face it again, no matter how competent they thought they were.

    Fortunately for me, I had no intention of actually fighting the fucker.

    It was a quick hop down to the "ground" of the reactor core complex, aided in part by a brief flex of power, and in no time at all I was facing the entrance to the reaction core itself. It was, admittedly, quite shielded, although there was some leakage coming from the process as it occurred, the main radiation issues were only apparent when you were all but directly on top of the system itself. I absently noted that there was some unfinished maintenance work going on around the area, judging by the fact that the main access shaft to the reaction chamber was open and waiting, along with the obvious spare parts hanging around the place.

    The roar of the Nightmare as it noticed me and moved to attack was…a thing, I guess. Sure, it hit all the right places to be utterly terrifying to my poor monkey brain, and combined with what was already there was enough to break containment and spread it around, but…it didn't actually affect much. I was already scared shitless, after all, and you couldn't get more afraid, despite various D&D editions stating otherwise.

    I was just choosing to work through the fear instead of letting it control me. So far it was working…at least to the point that the Nightmare actively stomping around and howling and swiping at me wasn't breaking my hold on sanity or anything. NO, I was just dodging around while it desperately tried to crush me with that monstrous strength it possessed, all the while completely unaware that I was working up to a full mindjack on the fucker. Absently, I called up my Psycho Visor, just to get a valid scan on the fucker to use later on.

    I caught out of the corner of my eye the girls making it down the side stairs and moving towards the reactor control station as stealthily as possible, which for poor Morgan was utter garbage as compared to two literal Ninja. But she still managed…until the Nightmare immediately turned towards them and started charging up one of its psionic attacks.

    Something that was most definitely not in the playbook at all, as I know for a fact that it did not know they were there until they passed a specific point.

    This…would complicate things, especially since the stunt that I was trying to pull needed a bit of windup that had just been interrupted by the fucker switching targets on me.

    The psionic blasts were fired with extreme force, orbs of pure kinetic energy slamming home with massive force against the surroundings as the girls dodged out of the way of the onslaught. I, on the other hand, was now pissed, and quickly moved to realign some priorities.

    With a literal bitch slap. Directly to the face, no less.

    To an alien bioweapon that had been created specifically to hunt down and kill things just like me.

    Yes, I know. Not the best of ideas, but it worked, okay?

    The Nightmare reacted appropriately, and I quickly found myself crawling out of the hole I had made in one of the supply cages as I passed through it. Didn't really hurt, but it was a bit embarrassing that I didn't see it coming.

    The Nightmare stomped its way towards me, lashing out with psionic energy whenever it had anything even looking like a shot at me. I dodged most of them, but the fucker was actually putting in effort, and the few that actually hit me hit hard. I would definitely have some bruises after all was said and done. Worse, my attempts to worm my way into its mind were going…poorly. Not to the point that it was a lost cause, but it was definitely a lot more difficult than it should have been for some reason. I'd have to look into lit later.

    I heard Morgan shout something over the sounds of combat and screeching, but ignored it in favor of keeping big and ugly busy. The fact that it was working in spite of my generally getting my ass beat was nice enough, at least. Not like it was doing anything permanent damage-wise.

    Absently, I considered relaxing the mental hold I had on my Aura, and suppressed it right off. I did not want to be caught in the middle of a Typhon swarm as they came after me like last time, especially not with everything having beefed itself up. And I knew full well that there were more Typhon hanging around than just the big guy. Fortunately for me, they all decided to be elsewhere for the moment.

    Unfortunately, the Nightmare was somehow getting stronger as it fought against me, and the signs of it showed in the increasing amounts and severity of collateral damage being piled up in the area. I was working my damnedest to try to prevent it, but the fucker was still acting completely immune to any and all attempts at psychically dominating it, which made zero sense. It's not like the damn thing is being powered up by some kind of outside force–

    Two things happened at that moment. First, the station shuddered, as the shutdown sequence started, klaxons blaring everywhere. I could feel the shuddering continue, even as steam vented from places that really should not have had any, around the main reactor housing.

    Secondly, I finally managed to get a foothold inside of the Nightmare's mind. And what I found nearly ripped away what little sanity I had left.

    This thing, this specific Nightmare, was being remote-piloted by whatever it was that controlled the Typhon hivemind. It knew full fucking well what we were trying to do, and had sensed that we were priority targets for elimination as a result.

    More specifically, this fucker was not after Morgan Yu. Not even after Mio.

    It was after Me. it wanted me dead and gone with a passion that would have bordered on insanity if this was a human mind in control, and even then I could feel the alien cunning inside cawing in triumph at my having been waylaid for just that much longer…

    Oh fuck.

    It was buying time.

    Whatever it was that controlled them, the Typhon knew that they couldn't kill me, not directly. I'd literally destroy the station first. Instead, they were setting up a stall game, to delay my movements as long and as hard as possible until something more appropriate could show up and handle the situation. And even now, merely holding my mind here in stasis like this was aiding the plan…

    Wait, what?

    I stretched out my mental probe, only to find that the Nightmare (or it's controller) had latched itself quite firmly onto my feeler, and was even now actively working to try and anchor me to it somehow. The only reason it had let slip what was going on was to distract me from a major move it was making in order to lock down my psyche and then disable me for whatever was to come.

    Unfortunately for them, there were two major problems with this setup.

    The first was that this was not my first rodeo when it came to mental attack and defense. And Chaos had done it far, far better, even through its pawns.

    The second is that the Typhon's controller seemed to either forget or ignore that my mind was, by choice, not entirely my own. A mistake that quickly came to kick them in the teeth as Mio's will surged forth, all but sledgehammering the will behind the attack, and forcing it to beat a hasty retreat.

    But not before I got a very good look at something that it had tried to hide from me. A piece of corrupting influence that it had tried to infect me with, which it had cloaked in secrecy and shadow to try and hide its nature. But I recognized it. Oh, I recognized it very well.

    After all, it was the same entity that had tried to corrupt me before, many months ago on Necromunda, just before I gained access to Photon technology. I would never forget the feel of that thing, the gaping emptiness that it encompassed.

    I absently pulled my awareness back to the real world for a moment, to realize that I was in microgravity, the reactor chamber behind me silent and cooling.

    This was also the moment that I got backhanded by the Nightmare as it spasmed around in an attempt to break free of my influence. And to be fair, it almost worked. Had I actually impacted with anything in the reactor room, it would have been enough of a distraction to me for it to break free. As it was, I had Thoth actively monitoring for shit like this, and he adjusted accordingly, leaving me to adjust to the fact that I needed to lock down my new pet Nightmare more.

    Stupid thing never stood a chance now that it's master was gone.

    Gravity kicked back in as the station began to restart, slowly but surely–

    I heard the screeching error halt as it happened, and could faintly feel where something inside of the reactor itself fucked up. I was unsurprised to find myself chuckling at the events. After all, I was a maintenance man myself, and sure as shit with something this big happening there had to be at least one thing going wrong before you could actually relax. It was a rule.

    Mio's voice crackled over my comms. "Satori, Mikhaila says that it might be one of the diverters inside the reactor. Sending you the specs now."

    Yep. Called it.

    The fix was pathetically easy, and the rads easily blocked and/or redirected as it suited me, at which point the reactor startup continued without issue…but with a LOT of shaking, grinding, general uneasiness as things came back online…

    And two of the fucking Hybrid 'paths deciding to drop in for a good time, complete with a small swarm of corrupted operators. Said 'paths then immediately reached into the supply cage and pulled out every Turret inside, deploying them in fun locations around the area. Worse, I could hear the skittering as a swarm of Typhon made their way down towards us.

    I could only sigh in annoyance. This was just not my day, at all.




    Morgan ducked below a supply crate as one of the voltaic phantoms attempted to take another potshot at her. Based on what she was getting from her psychoscope, the phantom was apparently the remains of Kirk Remmer, who had tried (and failed) to secure and evacuate his band of survivors after being dispatched to investigate the disturbances during the opening moments of the crisis. Two quick shots from her shotgun took care of that, and returned the poor man's soul to rest. Moving quickly, she dashed towards another nook nearby the Maintenance lift, absently bashing a Mimic into a wall as she moved.

    Things had gotten hectic after the reactor came back online. The new breed Typhon were actively coordinating an all-out assault on their location with a wildness and fervor that was terrifying to behold, and also fascinating at the same time…or it would be if she wasn't caught directly inside of the storm. Messages had come in from multiple people by now, with Elazar moving her survivors to life support now that the station was opened again, and Mikhaila being quite cheerful in informing them of the good news…as well as the structural faults that came up in the process.

    Hell, even her asshole of a brother had finally relented and agreed to meet with her, now that she had done something about his lockout. His direct quote: "Reckless, but clever", along with a remark about it being nice to see that some things hadn't changed.

    She couldn't care less right now. Instead, she was dodging around more psionic blasts and turret fire as the wave of Typhon came ever onwards.

    And straight into the meat grinder.

    Those two…Satori Green and his "wife" Mio…they were tearing through the Typhon as if they were born to it. Nothing stood in their way, and the few things that tried quickly met their end as they worked their way forward.

    Even more impressive was the fact that Satori had somehow managed to control the Nightmare that had been waiting for them, and was using it to rip into the rest of the horde with abandon. She was pretty sure it had taken down at least a full quarter of the wave on its own.

    And yet they just kept coming.

    She was pretty sure that she was almost out of ammo at this point, and her psi reserves had long since been depleted, doing everything she could just to stay alive. Even then, she still had a few recycler charges to put to use…and also one of these babies.

    Tossing the sphere out into the open directly at the telepaths, she waited a moment and then pumped her fist in celebration as the blast wave from the Nullwave device caught not only the telepaths, but their attendant phantoms as well in its area of effect, something which was quickly capitalized on by Mio zooming by and leaving only fresh corpses in her wake.

    It was only a few more minutes of hell, after that, before the onslaught stopped, leaving them drowning in a small sea of Typhon bodies which were quickly collected and stuffed into the nearby recycler for cleanup and processing. It was during this that she got asked a question.

    "Dr. Yu. Quick question. One of those grenades you used had an interesting effect on the Typhon. Which one was it?"

    The source of the question was Mio, so she dispensed with the snakriness that she would have sent to her husband and instead went straight to the point. "It was a nullwave device. Supposedly I invented it. It…restricts psionic abilities within it's range for a certain amount of time. It's attuned to the Typhon, but anyone using the 'mods could be equally affected, I think."

    Mio only nodded. "I see. And is there some way for us to scale up the effect? Like, say, use it on the whole station, clean off the infestation while all the Typhon are locked down and get the fuck out of here, that kind of thing?"

    Morgan blinked for a moment. "There is nothing stopping it, certainly, but I would have no way of knowing where even to begin on the process…" and yet, even as she said this, a thought occurred to her. If the Nullwave technology could suppress Typhon abilities, why could it not be tuned to instead destroy them as well? Couldn't the tech be used as a means to erase the threat once and for all? Surely it was possible!!"

    Mio was undeterred. "Don't worry about that part, I got what I needed to know. Thank you, Dr. Yu."

    Morgan found herself in the odd position of being somewhat confused, and quickly decided to work on something productive instead, like getting Mikhaila her medicine instead of just sitting around.

    Besides, from the looks of things, they had enough under control that the only remaining question was how to get the rest of the people off of the station…and then when to destroy it.




    "Okay, I need to fill you guys in, now that we are out of the suck." I stated blandly, addressing my current audience of Mio, Morgan, Mikhaila, and surprisingly Igwe. January floated around as it normally did, listening intently.

    Morgan's office was a shockingly good spot for discussions like this, all things told. Plenty of space, fabrication setup right inside, looking glass setup to go with, and enough protection that most Typhon couldn't get in if they tried.

    I continued the (unfortunately bad) news. "We are not out of the woods, not by a long shot. That Typhon I managed to control down in the reactor was being pupped by something else. Something that is actively seeking to kill me off." I paused for a moment, to let the nest part sink in. "And I think it sped up a timetable for the rest of us, now that it knows I'm here."

    Morgan was the voice of outrage. "So you are telling me that your mere presence here may have just killed us all?"

    Mio jumped in before I could even begin to defend myself. "NO. What he is saying is that the influence on the other side is pushing ahead events that were already going to occur without its involvement." She turned to look at the rest of the room. "Tell me, how many of you have been having dreams? Dreams of the void, of a yawning emptiness that seeks only to devour you?"

    An uncomfortable silence followed. Mio nodded to herself. "As I thought. Those dreams, they are not natural. They are your subconscious attempting to warn you of what is coming. That void? It's coming here. I think it might be some kind of Super Typhon. And it is going to eat everyone if we do not get off of this station as quickly as possible."

    Yeah, that got their attention.

    Mio continued. "Fortunately, there is some good news. There is a shuttle headed this way, about to dock with the station, in fact, that should work to ferry the survivors away from the station. Once you guys are clear, that will leave Satori and I" She motioned towards us with a free hand, "to clean up this mess without worrying about collateral damage. It should be helpful, all things considered."

    Unusually, it was January who cut in nest. "Do you know who was aboard the shuttle? This may become important."

    Mio nodded. "Yeah, my probe has only one life sign aboard, along with what looked like an Operator of some kind? It was…different from what I'm used to seeing."

    I absently noted that a signal was going out from the shuttle bay, and Jammed it until I could ascertain its contents. It definitely wasn't comms traffic, that's for sure. "Shouldn't be too big of a deal, anyway. It's not like all of the shuttle pilots are dead, right?"

    I could all but hear the crickets chirping.

    "You have got to be kidding me."

    Dr. Igwe spoke next. "If we can speak with the pilot, I am certain that we can ask for help in escaping from the station as soon as possible. With any luck, we can be gone within the next few hours."

    I agreed with him, honestly. Human decency and all that. Thing is, that still left a problem.

    "And what about the station?" Morgan asked. "We still have to deal with the Typhon."

    I nodded. "Current plan is to blow the station sky-high after you get Alex's arming key. He stopped playing games yet, or is he still hiding?"

    Morgan shrugged. "He says he's waiting for me at his office. Whether or not he'll be there is a different matter."

    "There is something else to consider, as well." Mio stated, her tone lightly teasing. "There may be another way to take care of the Typhon infestation onboard. Dr. Yu cued me in to it with the Nullwave Transmitter grenades that she was chucking around earlier…I think I might be able to use a similar technology to remove the Typhon from play."

    "And then what? The station remains for someone else to find, and continue the research?" January barked out. "This is unacceptable. The Typhon are not the only things that need to go. The Neuromod research needs to as well. All of it."

    I snorted out a laugh. "Yeah, only because y'all stupid. The only reason the Typhon are even needed at all is because you use the material as a neuroplasticity bridge. Find something else to sub in for the various Transmitter and receptor cells that you shove into people's heads and you are golden. Better yet, just poke around at the latent psi potential of the human mind a bit, and use that as the bridge instead of artificial shit? Works a whole hell of a lot better, I assure you."

    Igwe turned to me with a look of near contempt. "And what would you know of the mind? There is far more that goes into modifying it than the simple 'find something different' that you are spouting. What gives you the right to decide?"

    To be fair, he had a point, and it was a bit more than his own pride on the line here. From the story I had gotten from him, courtesy of an odd favor that Morgan had performed, Neuromods were effectively Igwe's life's work…and all that he had left of his late wife. Unfortunately, the man was also just about the closest thing you could get to a hack in this profession, despite his knowledge and skill…which meant that I had to do something uncomfortable.

    Instead of answering, I reached into Thoth's storage, and pulled out one of my Neuromods. In addition to having a much more pleasant looking applicator, these shone with a bright, cheery blue color instead of the eerie violet of the normal 'mods.

    I made a show of pointing at my creation. "That, Igwe. That right there gives me every right to tell the entire lot of you to pound sand. I figured that out in days, and all because I refused to use Typhon juice as the lubricant to make things happen. Instead, I looked at what really went on in the brain, and used that, along with a specific psi stimulant, to nudge the brain into awakening its latent potential, and alongside, restoring the necessary neuroplasticity to allow for the natural connection and formation of the new neurons. Easily programmed, too. Hell, the only real side effect to using it is that it awakens the natural psi potential of the user as a direct consequence, which in and of itself is not a bad thing."

    "And that, Igwe?" I all but sneered at the man, deliberately trying to get under his skin, "That right there is my first attempt. All I had to go off of was pre-prepared Neuromods to reverse-engineer, and my first actual crack at it is better than anything you fuckers have ever done. So again, yes, I do get to tell you to kick rocks. Deal With It."

    The silence in the room was broken by Mio bursting out laughing. And she made sure to laugh as long and as hard as possible. Igwe in particular seemed to be quite cowed by the statement. And as much as I hated to push that hard, I needed to make the fucking point.

    None of them, not Igwe, not Elazar, not Ilyushin, not even the Yu's were qualified to make the goddamn choice that needed to be made, because not one of them knew the cost of making the wrong choice. Even I myself only barely qualified, and only because I was willing to destroy the station myself if the first option proved to be incorrect.

    Still, something was nagging at me, similar to when the force tried to nudge people in certain directions. I knew I was missing a detail somewhere, but I couldn't figure out exactly where.

    Eh. didn't matter for now. I'd figure it out later.

    Mio had stopped laughing now, and was beaming a megawatt grin down on the remainder of the room. Despite its warmth, no one for a single second failed to notice the threat inherent.

    Instead, Mio was practically gloating as she spoke. "And this is why you let the actual smart people do things, Doctors. It tends to help for when you get it into your heads that unethical experimentation is a thing that you can just do. Besides, as much as Jaunary is right, that the neuromod research in the wrong hands is disastrous…what is even more disastrous is to have another Typhon infestation happen, and not be able to fend it off because we robbed ourselves of weapons. Hence, I am designing something based off of the Nullwave Transmitter that I think might work. It's a good think I went and scanned that Coral outside earlier, or else this would have been a lot harder."

    Oddly enough, Igwe perked up at hearing this. "You scanned the Coral? What is it, what does it do?"

    Mio shrugged. "As best I can tell, it's some kind of substitute neural structure and transmission node at the same time. I think that was why you had so much trouble with getting into the head of that Nightmare, Satori…this stuff acts as an amplifier."

    "It gets worse, though." she continued, face grim. "The neural structure…I think it contains the 'patterns' of the people that the Typhon have devoured. Even more than that…this stuff just might be some kind of food for them. I don't really have enough information beyond knowing where to hit to do the most damage, so…"

    Thoth tickled my mind for a bit, bringing a tidbit to my attention, and I frowned. Something about that signal I had intercepted sat wrong with me…it was some kind of…override code? Yeah, an override, designed to be sent to every Operator dispenser on the station, along with a set of schematics…ah. Oh my.

    I looked up at the group. "Yeah, sorry fellas, but I don't think that the pilot is here for nice things. I'm currently jamming the hell out of a signal that was meant to hijack and override the station's operator dispensers and spit out some kind of Killbot, with preprogrammed objectives to ensure that all crew are dead."

    Mikhaila chuckled. "Of course it is. Corporate cleanup crew at its finest. Make sure there are no witnesses to the crimes committed aboard the station…" She turned to Morgan, a resigned look on her face. "Even your own." she said, bitterly.

    Yeah. As it turns out, Morgan was in deeper than even I thought she was. Mikhaila's father had somehow ended up becoming a volunteer, and had been used as Typhon bait for the materials extraction process. Morgan herself had authorized the actions, much to Mikhaila's dismay when she found out.

    The part that shocked everyone else is how she found out, as Morgan had had at least one opportunity, perhaps more, to delete the audio logs of the event before Mikhaila even knew they existed. Instead, she chose to reveal her own crimes, even if it meant she burned for it.

    If I didn't know any better, I would swear that Morgan was taking this whole induced amnesia thing and using it to legitimately turn over a new leaf. Mikhaila had, in part, forgiven her for it, or at least the Morgan that was. Current Morgan was spared on account of being a different person from the one who had authorized the death of her father. It was something that I could sympathize with, as I had come to the same conclusion some time ago…and could finally say that I had made the same judgement, despite the anger still simmering inside.

    Of course, all of this was secondary to figuring out who the hell was trying to kill us all.

    "So, you guys mind if I make the call, or do one of you want to do it? The fucker is setting up hardline connections, and I won't be able to keep him out for much longer."

    The rest of the group kind of milled around each other, before Morgan finally accepted that she was in charge and made a decision. "Do it."

    Establishing the connection was quite simple, especially considering that the fucker was not hiding at all. If anything, he wanted people to know he was there. In fact, I bumped into a general broadcast just as I was opening up.

    "This is Commander William Dahl. The Transstar board of directors has authorized me to take full command of Talos I.

    Effective immediately."

    Well, there goes the neighborhood. I could guess where this was going next, and nudged Mio to get ready.

    "All employees must now report to the shuttle bay for evacuation. Those of you unable to comply, transmit an SOS and my team of rescue operators will locate you."

    'Rescue Operators' my ass. Not with the programming they had.

    "One last thing. Alex and Morgan Yu have been relieved of their positions. Do not consent to their requests or assist them in any way. Dahl out."

    …Yep. Definitely a cleanup crew. And Transtar is ruthless as fuck to use that on their own people like that. Hell, if the board is anything like what a normal family biz was, then that meant that their fucking Family had authorized them to get killed off to protect the company. Which is…ugh.

    If there is one thing I cannot stand, it's family that doesn't act like family. And this shit definitely qualified.

    Movement caught my eye from the windows, and I turned to see an entire set of operators, six in total, come through the windows…and immediately open fire with lasers. The counterfire was quick and ruthless, Mio and I dropping the entire set like flies.

    "Anyone hurt?"

    "Only my pride, really."

    Hot damn, but that Dahl guy was moving fast. He'd gotten a hook in by going through psychotronics, which allowed him to bypass nearly all of the stations' normal defenses for that kind of thing, and even now there were a bunch of operators getting kicked out everywhere onboard the station to 'rescue' the crew.

    Fuck this. Fuck the ENTIRETY of that noise.

    I jacked the station Intercom for my own purposes.

    "This is Satori Green. Most of you know me as Volunteer V-060443-51. The rest of you would recognize me as one of the ones who has been bailing your asses out all over the station.

    "Listen carefully: Commander Dahl is here under orders from the Transtar Board of Directors to erase all personnel. No one is meant to survive to tell otherwise. Anyone stuck and transmitting an SOS will be hunted down by an armed operator and killed. I know, they just tried to do it to me."

    "As for the Yu's being removed from command: I do not care one way or the other…but do keep in mind that Morgan has been actively trying to put a stop to this mess, and was with me when Dahl's assassination attempt failed. If you have to trust anyone on this station, she is your best bet.

    "Do NOT trust Dahl. nothing good will come of it. I intend to deal with him myself. After that, we'll work from there. Green out."

    Having concluded my little pep talk, I moved.

    Naturally, people tried to stop me.

    "What are you doing? You will be killed!! Or worse!!" That was Mikhaila.

    "You are a fool to contest this so directly. Do you have any idea…?" Igwe.

    "Are you out of your mind? You just put everyone on the station at risk, you damned fool!" Morgan.

    I cared not for a single one of their voices. Or their concerns.

    [Make sure the shuttle stays intact, honey. And maybe grab his pilot skill from him while you are at it? Should be easy to put together a quick skill-copy ability or something, right?] And of course, Mio is right in the same boat with me, as always.

    [We won't need it. Between the two of us, I am sure we can land a single shuttle…or rig an autopilot to do the same.]

    I could feel her approval. [Then get to work.]

    And I did.

    Fastest way to the shuttle bay was straight through the window and down, which I abused cheerfully. Moving into the bay proper saw me directly in the crosshairs of no less than eight of the weaponized operators as they moved in, trying to swarm me.

    Not a one survived longer than a second.

    I moved towards the shuttle at speed, seeing that the doors had been shut at some point. A cursory scan left me as the only human life sign in the bay proper.

    Well now. Looks like our man Dahl is EVA qualified, too.

    Not like I didn't need the exercise anyway. And I do so very much enjoy hunting down dumbasses…




    Mio simply smiled.

    There was nothing else she needed to do. As soon as her Satori had made his mind up, Dahl was as good as dead. Simple as that. And as much as she wanted to be the one to hunt him down, she had assigned herself a far more important task in creating a weapon capable of stopping the Typhon.

    So far, progress was looking good. The initial design of a scaled-up Nullwave transmitter was united and rejected on grounds of size. A version designed to propagate along the Coral was similarly rejected due to the need for coral to exist in the first place, though it was a good backup for cleansing the station itself. As for her other designs, well…

    She noticed Doctor Igwe flinch as another Technopath died a horrible death to her latest prototype. Seems the man still hadn't gotten it through his head that the rules he thought the world worked by were not what he believed them to be.

    Either that, or he as still stunned by her casual dismissal of the threat value of Dahl and his precious operators.

    Not that they could do anything to her, but there was still the rest of the station to consider. Honestly, she would have called for movement to the now very empty shuttle now, but whatever little fucker was hard-hacking the lines had done so very skillfully, and would need to be taken care of before moving everyone around.

    'He said that the bastard was in Psychotronics, right?'

    Well, one way to be sure, and it would give her time to do more testing anyway.

    "Morgan, would you please go track down your brother, so we can get this station prepped for destruction? I want to be gone within the next two hours, if at all possible."

    Morgan, contrary to her usual personality, just nodded and moved to the main lift. As for the remainder…

    "You three can stay here." she stated, making sure to address January as well. You should be fine and protected from anything coming your way for a bit."

    "But what about–"

    The solid *clunk* of several heavy-duty turrets hitting the ground in the office silence the speaker before they could get started. She really didn't care which one it was, at this point, she just wanted OFF of this Omnissiah-forsaken station already.

    "Those turrets there should keep you safe from harm. They are highly resistant to hacking of any type, meaning that the Typhon can't just cheat and kill you using them. They are also portable, but not quite as much as the "normal" ones you use. Please be aware of firing angles as you move about, as the turrets are a good deal more powerful than what you are used to."

    And, as if on cue, she heard the screeching roar of the Nightmare echo through the lobby.

    "Also, you may want to button up. There is a bout to be a good deal of vacuum in this area."

    In hindsight, using her custom Omnisian Axe in shotgun mode was a bit of overkill. It did, after all, leave a bit of structural damage to some interior areas. Fortunately, despite her prior warning, there were no hull breaches as a result of her utterly annihilating the damned fool creature that dared stand in her way, but that was more fortune than anything else in her opinion. Better to not push her luck.

    The casual stroll to psychotronics was simple and somewhat relaxing, despite the operators attempting to harass her the whole way. The fact that their lasers barely even tickled her impeller was a big part of it, though. She even tried her hand at hacking a few of the operators to help defend the area, but dismissed it as a lost cause with all of the extra hostile ones being produced.

    Much to her surprise, it was not hard to locate the perpetrator of the hack. Even more surprising was that it was an Operator itself doing the deed, one that identified itself as Kaspar after she had finished her hacking procedures and bringing it under her control. According to its records, this was Dahl's Technical officer, and would generally be sent in to take control of any and all assets related to data and/or digital security while Dahl did the heavier lifting elsewhere.

    From the looks of it, the guy was trying to download the Psychotronics Database, along with some higher-classification files under "Project Cobalt" whatever that was. Minerva was busy sifting through it while she worked her way to the central containment chamber.

    As far as the data she had available could tell her, the beta version of her Nullwave Transmitter would need to be situated on the main hum of the Coral in order to actually be worth anything as a weapon, but if it was, it could propagate its disruption signal directly through the coral itself, to complete ruin of any Typhon that were onboard. And if anywhere was going to be a central hub for this shit, it was going to be here.

    Hell, even the Force agreed with her on this, as much as it was doing its best to not be a nuisance to her with the constant nudging. It was a bit endearing, all things told.

    Entering the central room with the old pod was something of an experience, as the coral inside reacted to her as if it was both a part of and separate from her altogether. She could actually feel the disparate minds that made up the patterns within, and it sickened her to know that all of those people had ended up as…this.

    Oh yeah, there were also a bunch of Typhon in the room, but they didn't matter.

    Setting up the beta transmitter was super easy, and she could activate it at any time she wished after that point. Process complete, or something like that. Still, it would help to have a solid backup to the backup, as well…

    It was only after she had made it back to the reactor room and was rigging a set of nasty explosives that she got a call from Morgan.

    "Miolala. My brother wants to meet you. Something about a way to clear the Typhon off the station? He won't give me his access key until he does."

    Ugh. more bullshit games to play with annoying people. "I'll be there as soon as I'm done with my project. Tell him he'll get his precious coral data after I rig the station to blow."

    The sputtering from the other end of the line, combined with the attempts for another voice to cut in, told her all she needed to know.

    Too bad I don't need to supercritcal your reactor to get a nuclear charge, idiots. I can fudge my own just fine, thank you…




    Morgan was confused. First Satori goes directly after Dahl, who may very well be the only way off of the station for the survivors, and then Mio runs off to do something while she came up her to see her brother.

    Or at least who she believed was her brother.

    Alex…didn't look good. Severely overweight, clear lines of both worry and stress on his face, and from the looks of it he had been in a bad way ever since things went down, for whatever given value of that you could count it as.

    The man looked almost…broken, somehow, and it concerned her on a deep level to see someone who she believed was her family to look like this.

    Right now, he was rambling on about something regarding Dahl.

    "I knew they had a contingency in place…I just never expected them to use him on their own flesh and blood. Call me a fool, but…I thought better of them."

    Morgan had to agree with him on that. This was just reeking of pure, cold-bloodedness that was a bit much to take in, especially considering that the people that had sent Dahl after them were their own parents.

    Still, Alex was trying to move onward. She would have to do the same.

    A noise not at all congruent with the new normal around the place alerted her to someone approaching. To her surprise, it was Dahl himself, with Two of his Military Operators with him.

    "Well, now. Both of you in one place. Not bad. I can complete my mission and get away from that weird thing that keeps following me." He quickly sighted the both of them in with his pistol.

    The sudden disabling of both of the military operators caught everyone by surprise, and Mio walked around the corner like she had been there the entire time. Knowing how the woman could be, especially since they met, she likely was.

    "Not really, Commander. Just a day for you to walk home with your tail between your legs, if you know what's good for you."

    Dahl was unfazed. "And what exactly are you going to do about it? You are in no position to make demands of anyone here…unless you wish for the Yu's to die?"

    And Morgan watched as Mio laughed. "Bluff. You got jack and shit, Dahl. pack it in while you still can, and just accept that you had unexpected interference on your mission. You are professional enough to admit that much, are you not?"

    All Morgan could see was that gun aimed directly at her, her death all but certain.

    She could only watch in a strange slow-time as Dahl simply moved to pull the trigger...only for the pistol itself to fall apart in his hands.

    Suddenly everything was moving at normal speed again, and she could see clearly that Satoriwas standing right behind Dahl without so much as a care in the world–no. That look on his face was one of pure and utter fury.

    "It's sad, really. I actually let Mio talk me into giving you a chance to live."

    Dahl whirled around to face him as quickly as possible…and found himself having to look up at the taller man. Something that he was not impressed by. A sentiment that quickly changed as he was utterly and methodically picked apart by Satori using nothing but bare hands.

    The now thoroughly disabled and humiliated Dahl could only lie on the ground, twitching in pain.

    The entire event had barely lasted even ten seconds.

    "So, then. Now that that particular incident is taken care of, let's see if we can get everything else sorted out, shall we?" Satori stated, a bit of false cheer in his voice. Morgan could tell that Alex was not fooled by it. Not one bit.

    "You. You were the one that hijacked the station intercom. The Volunteer."

    An almost contemptuous snort was Alex's response. "Yes. Alex. That was me. Because I am honestly sick and fucking tired of this goddamn station doing everything it can to eat people and try to kill me, and even more sick of having to hold myself back from destroying everything here because it would kill off the survivors who were deliberately screwed over when they thought they could escape."

    The force of the glare that Satori had leveled at Alex was downright nuclear. "Did you really think that no one would notice, Alex? That the escape pods were all intentionally sabotaged so that nobody could escape in the case of a containment breach? Or, as you were more likely thinking of, in the case of a spy? Not that you cared at all, what with your pod working just fine. It's just everyone else that has to suffer, right?"

    Morgan could only turn to her brother in horror at the statement–no, the reminder about the escape pods. She had found the transcribes herself, as well, and knew of the situation, but…the entire station?

    Alex actually tried to defend himself. "There was a good reason for it, okay? Certain things cannot be allowed to get a chance to break free. You've seen this for yourself, nothing could be chanced."

    "And yet when it came down to it, the vaunted defenses and protections were nothing in the face of one fucking screwup. Seriously, all it took was one guy? Where was the two-factor authentication? The double-check, the back-and-forth? You knew the Typhon could mind control people, and yet when Trevor Young was controlled, the most you did was simply lock him away. You didn't even bother to check to see what he was working on, or why. No backchecking at all…not that it would have saved you."

    "Thing is, Alex? The Typhon had already broken containment. They were moving slow, taking it easy, not being specific about things. Morgan found an Email over in Deep Storage about a power relay that melted when it was installed. It was a Mimic. And that report was weeks before your containment breach."

    Wait, what? Morgan was absolutely certain that she had never, not once, told them what had happened to her during her trip into Deep Storage, only that she had located the arming key fab plans. How the hell did he know?

    "And there were others as well. People complaining about noises in the vents. Mysterious extras in places that make no sense. The dreams, Alex. You knew. Knew it all, and did nothing."

    Alex, damn his name, didn't refute the claims.

    "All I want to know, Yu, is one thing. Why? What could be so goddamned important that you are willing to watch everything burn down, to let people suffer for no reason, to have even your own sister be subjected to tests that are downright inhumane…Why do it?"

    "Because it was the future. And honestly? Because she convinced me to do it." And Alex was pointing directly at her, now. Facing her, even, as he continued to speak. "I'd always been the one who said that we couldn't be trusted to play with fire, but she convinced me that it was worth it. That everything was worth it, no matter the cost. And now…you're here to destroy it all, aren't you? To wipe away everything that we have done, everything that could make humanity better. More. All of that, including what you, yourself, have been through. Gone."

    Morgan turned back to Satori, who was now shaking his head. He seemed…sad?

    "And even now you still think you are the only one that is right. Completely ignorant of what is right in front of you, only thinking of what you could gain. Completely missing the point."

    Satori sighed, and a strange weight settled onto his shoulders. "And the sad part is that in any other circumstance, had you actually did things differently, I would have agreed with you."

    This shocked everyone present, Morgan included. Didn't he hate them?

    "Thing is, you went out of your way to make the scummiest choices, the worst calls, always acting in the name of the greater good only when it wasn't your head on the chopping block. Always willing to sacrifice everyone else for your cause. And I will admit, it is a grand one."

    "Shared memory? Shared skill? The possibility of awakening the frontiers of the human mind, of the true depths of human potential? That's the kind of thing every scientist dreams of, and I am no different. The difference between me and you, Alex…is that I have empathy."

    The words hit her directly in the gut.

    She wanted to deny it, dodge around it, say differently, but she could not.

    Because he had proven it every step of the way, as they had moved about the station. Always moving to save those who could be saved, always protecting those who needed it, hell, even outright escorting her through the station as they moved about. Both he and Mio had shown that they were here to help, that they cared about what happened to the people onboard the station.

    To the point of not using the insanely powerful technology they had at their disposal to destroy the station outright and just move on, declaring everyone as a lost cause.

    And comparing that to Alex…hell, to herself, the person she used to be…

    Morgan took a shuddering breath. Slowly. And then took another one.

    And when she finally raised her head, she looked her brother directly in the eyes.

    "Do you still care?"

    Alex stared her directly in the face. Her own brother.

    "Yes."

    And lied to her.

    "I see."

    Mio stepped forward. "As much as I appreciate this family drama, there are other concerns. I've rigged a few things that could prove useful. One of them is my prototype for a widescale nullwave device, based off of some extra information I had gathered from the Typhon Coral–no, Alex, you are not getting it, you literally just proved you cannot be trusted with it–that is likely to fry every Typhon within maybe the moon's orbit. Definitely enough to fry the entire station's worth, at any rate.

    "The second option I set up because I didn't trust you to not hand over that arming key of yours, and is intended to cause the station's reactor to go supercritical, creating a nice little fusion explosion somewhere in the range of 10 Kilotons or so. Should be enough to fry the station and anything around it, right?"

    "Now, all we need is to get the hell off of this station before bad things happen to us all. Now move you overweight fuck, or I will move you–"

    "Too late."

    EVERYONE snapped to Satori as he said that, seeing his face utterly pale. And for a black man, especially one of his particular shade, that takes some doing.

    More to the point, she could feel it now, too: something was moving towards them at insane speeds, desperately trying to get to them before they escaped—

    And now it was here.

    The expanse of space visible above them went from a starry scape to inky blackness as some kind of void appeared. And then the slithering mass came, hurling itself out of the rift in reality and grasping itself to the station as it did so.

    There was a massive flash of yellow-gold light as something happened, and the gravity control cut out.

    Morgan quickly looked around, and could only see black tentacles reaching for them from every angle, and her brother floating unmoored in the microgravity, knocked unconscious by whatever had happened.

    She was sorely tempted to leave him there…but he was her brother. And even if he was an asshole, that did not mean that she had to be as well.

    It was with a bit of reluctance that she pulled Alex from the grasping tentacles and carried him back into his safe room. She made sure to swipe his arming key fab plans while she was at it, just to be sure.

    And then, back out into the hellscape that was now the station.

    An idle glance showed that both Satori and Mio were writhing in utter agony, clutching their heads as if something was literally attacking them.

    She wasn't sure that this was not the case.

    Fortunately, they were conscious enough to be able to move through the pain, and the group of them managed to clear out of the Arboretum in very little time.

    Walther Dahl was not with them.




    My everything hurt.

    And that thing…

    It kept scratching at my mind, trying to claw its way in, to do something, but I managed to rebuff it every time. Barely, but it was done.

    This, of course, led to different problems.

    "Dahl was the only pilot alive onboard the station. Without him we all die!!"

    "Igwe, did you not see the giant Typhon that is eating the station? We have much bigger concerns right now!!"

    The argument was going on and on, without end, as they each sought to find someone to blame for the mess. The office had never seemed more crowded.

    Wait, this was Morgan's office…

    "Just shut up, both of you. You are not helping." Mio snapped, clearly still feeling the effects of whatever had hit us. And it fucking HURT!!

    "Oh really? Like you can do any better? Because of your fool of a partner over there, we all will die on this station!! Do you not see this!?!"

    "Igwe. SHUT. UP."

    Igwe shut up.

    "We are not going to die here." I stated, as clearly as possible, despite the fucking migraine headache. "There is another option that you are all forgetting about in your panic. USE IT."

    Looks of confusion abounded of the Transtar employees, while Mio simply tried to make the pain stop, to no avail.

    "The Neuromod, dumbass. Use the Neuromod. Learn how to pilot. Leave the Station. That. Simple."

    Their eyes were drawn to the one, different Neuromod on the table, the cheery blue liquid within seeming to beg for it to be used.

    And yet nobody moved. Not. A fucking. INCH.

    And I was too tired, too hurt, and too very much done with this shit to care.

    "Fine. I'll do it myself."

    I got up and reached to the table. The neuromod (and I was going to have to find a different name for these things, because they affected so much more than the mind) I gripped firmly in the position needed to apply it.

    And then I grabbed Morgan and made sure that she could not escape as I downloaded the relevant data, and a bit more, into her head.

    Unlike the Transtar Neuromods, Mine only took a few seconds to apply.

    And then Morgan was on the floor screaming. I watched dispassionately as her body seemed to convulse, black tentacles of what were clearly Typhon material thrashing wildly around her…and slowly, surely, changing in color. The inky black shifted as sure as nigh to day, becoming instead a not quite hazel brown, which matched with her eyes in an extremely general manner in that both were a form of brown.

    And the best part was that Thoth no longer registered Morgan Yu as a Typhon organism. Unexpected benefit, but I'll take it.

    There was the usual shouting and screaming and "what have you done" and I didn't care, as my headache was only getting worse by the moment. So, I didn't bother trying.

    Instead, I focused on the big fucker that I could feel all but laughing at me from outside the front view of the Talos Lobby. The goddamn wannabe Apex Predator or some shit. I wasn't about to let that shit slide in any capacity.

    And oh boy did I have a surprise for that ass.

    The change in acoustic ambience informed me that Morgan was finally getting up. "That? That right there is how to fly. Use it, and get your people off this station. I have other matters to attend to."

    So of fucking course January steps in and tries to lay games. "I cannot let you do that. My directives were to ensure that the station was destroyed…and Morgan with it. Nothing of the Typhon can remain."

    "January, do another scan, you stupid bucket of bolts. What do you see?"

    "Nothing will have changed. Morgan has used far too many…wait. This is an anomaly. Morgan's vital scans show no sign of Typhon material. How is this possible?"

    "Because my attempts at neuromods had some other environmental factors to consider, so I went all-in on making sure that those environmental factors could not factor themselves in. part of that resulted in an unintentional cleansing routine of sorts. Morgan should have all of the benefits of her ordeals, but none of the drawbacks…and a bit of a boost in other areas as well, if what I am seeing is right. Stuff that you guys would never, could never have hoped to accomplish because your very mode of operation was flawed. Now, Morgan get them out of here. You know how, now. GO."

    Morgan, bless the woman that she became, actually tried to hesitate. She looked at us as if she was willing to drag the both of us along with her if it meant that we got off the station with her.

    I put a stop to that immediately. "Morgan, someone has to stay behind to make sure that thing out there dies and stays dead, and unlike you, I can suck vacuum and not die. So move. We'll catch up."

    Morgan gave me one last forlorn look, one that she spread across to Mio as well, before she left, Mikhaila and Igwe in tow. January remained behind with me, however.

    "You still intend to destroy the station?"

    I shook my head. "Second choice, really. First choice is to test and see if the Nullwave Works or not. Failing that, we have enough firepower on hand to make sure that this Apex thing goes nowhere. And as soon as the survivors are off the boat…"

    Mio finished my sentence. "The entirety of Talos I becomes acceptable collateral for combat. We got this, January. Just make sure that the others get away."

    January hesitated for a moment, before finally acquiescing. "Very well. I hope that your mission is successful."

    With that, January floated off to do whatever it was that January did.

    As for Mio and I?

    We started getting ready.




    The Talos I command deck was both exactly what I had expected and not in the slightest what I thought it would be. The same corporate aesthetic abounded within the place, while there was also hints of the actual professional space crew that worked and lied aboard the station and held dozens of lives in their hands.

    More importantly for us, it was a place where we could make sure that the shuttle was prepared and had a clean getaway from the hell that we were about to unleash upon the place.

    And the Typhon did not disappoint.

    No less than THREE Nightmares had appeared in an attempt to block our way, each one getting cut down faster than the last, as we were finally using the really good stuff. Fortunately damage to the station itself was relatively minimal…in that there were no hull breaches, anyway. Still a lot of internal damage from our firefights.

    The lesser Typhon were barely footnotes at this point, even the variations on the Greater Mimic being utterly powerless to stand before us, despite coming at us in droves. The grater Typhon Hybrids were now adding in the Poltergeists to the mix, which was amusing to see as they got thrown around by Telekinesis themselves instead of doing the throwing.

    And yet, all the while, we could feel it, that big fucker, watching. Waiting. For what, I had no idea.

    'Talos control, this is shuttle 047. We are green across the board and ready to roll. Departing now.'

    I felt it before it made the attempt. The Apex had attempted to make a move to go after the shuttle as it was launching, to try and kill off everyone who remained before they could get clear.

    And I refused to let it happen.

    I felt Mio reach out with me as we both stood against the monster, and pushed with everything we had, holding it at bay from attacking the others. It worked just long enough for the shuttle to get clear.

    And then things got stupidly hairy, as the creature turned the full force of it's power against us and us alone.

    And even attempting to describe it is an impossibility. The sheer weight that was pushed down onto our minds was unreal, the alien intelligence clearly seeking to remove the one impediment to its continued hunt and dominance with one blow.

    And despite everything around us crumbling into nothing, everything that we were fading to black, our very minds being crushed to mere ashes…we held on.

    We vaguely felt Thoth and Minerva attempt to assist and be slapped down just as swiftly, far too damaged to continue. We felt the various extra protections and trinkets that we had prepared as foci be burned to ash in the wake of the power before us. We felt things beyond any form of pain, anything that can be described as sensation, as we flight against this fucking creature whose hunger would blot stars if given the chance.

    And then we slipped into the darkness and were engulfed.

    We won't bother attempting to describe it. It whatever you thought it was, it was worse. That is all you need to know about that place, where there was no light, and the fucking laughter of the never sufficiently damned tumors somehow reached, even there, solely to mock us.

    And somehow, despite all of the odds stacked against us, we pushed forward. Pushed beyond…and something broke under the strain.

    Power unlike anything we had felt before rushed outwards, knocking the Apex figuratively ass over teakettle as we surged forwards, pushing beyond even the concept of pushing beyond, and somehow managed to completely overwhelm the beast even as it tried to flail against us, to contain us in its web.

    Then we remembered the Nullwave.

    It was but a simple command to force it to detonate, to cause everything that was Typhon onboard the station to be blasted away, as the very energy of the Typhon themselves was used to undo them.

    Unfortunately, the doing had a bit of a consequence.

    I wish it was that the station accidentally self-destructed, as that would have been funny as all hell, but no. that was not the case. Instead, the issue was that whatever that thing was decided to pull one last stunt and pluck us out of the comfort of the station and throw us into the void of space.

    Unfortunately for the poor Apex, we very much could survive in vacuum just fine, thank you very much.

    Unfortunately for us, we were well out of range for anyone to pick up our signals for help, having had our comms equipment and Valkyries trashed by the psionic onslaught. Thoth and Minerva would recover in about twelve hours.

    But that still left us stuck on the fucking MOON.

    Our meld faded, we becoming I and she once more, or as close as we could legitimately get to that with our circumstances.

    [So, that happened.]

    [Yes, it did, Husband. And now we are on Luna. which, according to the Psychotronics download that Minerva is sifting through, should have a base nearby for us to use. Failing that, we can just build our own right here and call it done while we recover.]

    I thought about it a moment…but only a moment.

    [Naah. Transtar deserves the boot I am about to deliver up it's ass. Let's go see about this moonbase of theirs, shall we?]

    We set off soon after, chasing the dregs of electronic signals, joyfully dancing and playing the entire way.





    Oh dear GOD this fucking thing hated me.

    Prey is a pain in the ass to write for in the actual game segments, as unless you are an absolute bastard the game forces a good bit of rails on you that are hard to get around without breaking things. And while yes, Satori could have just hacked doors down or similar, a big part of the concept of Prey is if you are willing to actually help anyone and not just yourself. A more 'Amoral' (read: sadistic but doesn't wanna own it) protag would have had a much easier time, as they would have blown the station up and called it all a lost cause.

    Alex's fate will not be addressed for the foreseeable future, so do not ask. Neither will Dahl.

    And for those of you who are aware of the stunt I pulled at the beginning of the chapter, I have but one warning.

    I am doing things MY way regarding anything related to Fate lore and physics. DO NOT @ ME FOR ANY FUCKING REASON OVER THIS SHIT OR THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY.

    [Edit] THE SAME APPLIES FOR FORCE MECHANICS. I DO NOT WANT TO HEAR IT.

    Other than that, please enjoy, and do not be afraid of questions.

    Perks for this chapter:

    -Legendary Craftsman (Modded Fallout) (200CP)
    Remember all those unique prototype weapons with crazy awesome effects? The Legendary items in Fallout 4? The games have had their fair share of 'better than normal' items, and you know just how to make them. You have the ability to substantially improve whatever items you work on, needing at most enough components to build a second copy of the item in question. Whether it's dumping half your power cell into each shot a la Pew-Pew, making every bullet fired by your Minigun into an explosive round, or crafting armor that boosts your stats with no regard for how or why it works, you've got it all. Never again will you need to worry about being unable to find that Two-Shot or Instigating Gauss Rifle! You'll even be able to (slightly) fudge where those unique effects could be found, like making Power Armor with special effects or a Gatling Laser that does fire explosive rounds. Beams. Whatever.

    -Muggle Technology (Make a Wish) (200CP)
    You know it, general knowledge of up to graduate level in every scientific field is known to you, not only this, but the knowledge seems very eager to help you and as such whenever you are using magic for creation of something or other, the knowledge will leap up with helpful facts and connect seemingly disconnected facts to help in whatever magical creation you are making next. Post Jump, the helpfulness and eagerness spreads to the rest of the knowledge you have in your mind.


    -Fairy (Fate/Legends - Garden of Avalon) (400CP)
    Despite having human parents, you are a long way from being human yourself. An ancient, long buried heritage in your ancestry has awakened and you were born as a Fairy. A Fairy is an extension of Gaia, similar to how the hairs or fingers on your body are an extension of you. Despite this, you retain your free will completely, thus allowing you to benefit quite significantly from being considered a natural part of the world, especially when it comes to your magecraft being accepted as entirely natural. You are also able to become invisible to the senses of any being without magic. Beyond this, you have amazing talent in creating magic items and while you are right now a long way from crafting something like Excalibur or Arondight, you are still several times as skilled, fast and efficient in the creation of magicalitems as normal. Lastly, you have the potential, with enough power and/or age, to evolve into a full fledged Elemental, Granting you greater authority and importance to the world, along with a not insignificant boost in power.In future worlds, you may choose to have a similar connection to the world you begin on as you do with Gaia here.


    -Feel It Out | Synchronicity Event (F.E.A.R.) (900CP)[MILESTONE PERK]
    Feel It Out (600CP)
    Your ability to understand machines and designs are more than just knowledge, and anyone who follows your work would know this well. You have a subtle psionic ability to 'understand' the machines and items that you physically touch, to the point where you can understand how it might work. More importantly, what you could do to also make it better. Naturally the more complex or esoteric the item is, the more drastically the time needed increases. But the
    more information you collect the more ideas and methods you can formulate to begin working.
    Synchronicity Event (300CP)
    [Requires "Feel It Out"] Curiouser and curiouser. Due to coming into contact with... well, SOMETHING, your psionic abilities have noticeably increased. Psychic powers you may have had are stronger now, with control and development coming more quickly with practice. There is also a boon to this; by taking a few days to 'attune' a person, you may impart upon them the beginning of psionic abilities of their own. You may only gift one school at a time, and they start at the very beginning; if they are to grow and learn as you have, it would be wise to teach them. On the plus side, they'll eventually become as strong as you are, so you'll have quite the pupil on your hands.
     
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