I haven't ever tried my hand at Warhammer 40K fanfiction before, but I have been an avid follower of its lore for years and I've had this idea for a story brewing for a while. Feedback is appreciated as always, and I hope that you enjoy.
Hive Enchellus, Karvonis IV – 999.956M41
The pouring rain failed to drown out the sound of gunfire echoing through the undercity streets. Heart pounding in his chest and head, Samias sprinted through the sodden, sprawling alleyways. Gang violence was no special occurrence in the lower districts of Hive Enchellus, but since the Adeptus Arbites's withdrawal from the Elestra region the bloodshed had only increased.
Samias rounded a grey corner, skidding to a halt and leaning against the greystone wall of a windowless house. Legs aching and panting for breath, the boy grasped onto the pistol strapped at his waist, fingers slick with sweat and rainwater curling round the handle of the weapon.
It had only supposed to be a routine trip for supplies – he and two friends had been dispatched to secure the ammunition smuggled out of the close-by Munitorum factorium by one of the Chrome Fangs's regular dealers, but no sooner had they even entered the neighbourhood they were greeted by a firefight unfolding in the downpour.
Breathe, he told himself, repeating it like a mantra as he tried to get his shaky inhalations back under control.
Clearly the big-time gangs had decided to expand their influence over the more middling districts of the hive. Before he and his fellow Chrome Fangs members had been forced to run for their lives, the adolescent had caught a glimpse of a crimson spiralling eye sigil daubed onto one of the hive thug's coats. That meant the Red Eye had arrived to fill the vacuum left by the departing Arbites.
Samias was born and bred in the undercity, was no stranger to violence and had scraped his way through many rough fights. But the sight of the Red Eye had made his blood run cold. Famed for their brutal, merciless methods even amongst a sea of violent gangs, the Red Eye had the largest share of the hive undercity to call their own.
It was a badly kept secret that because of that and the psychoactive Red-EX drugs (the side effects of which were the source of the gang's name) they exported to the upper levels, the Arbites let them have free reign of the lower city.
Dumb pigs never did anything for us anyway.
The Chrome Fangs had thankfully only had a single run in with the Red Eye, a perk of being a smaller gang in the upper reaches of the undercity. But if they were here in Elestra district some form of confrontation was inevitable. Besides, Samias had his own reasons for despising the opposing gang.
"Shit, Sam. You saw them right?! Fucking Red Eyes are here!"
Absorbed in the rhythm of his adrenalized heartbeat crashing around in his skull, Sam didn't even hear the approach of his friend. His pistol was out and aimed before he could even think.
"Fuck me!" the other boy in front of him yelled, flinching back from the weapon. Samias flashed a grim but apologetic smile, lowering the gun as Michael punched him hard in the shoulder, hissing, "thought you were about to blow my fucking brains out there mate."
"Sorry Mikey," Samias replied tersely, his friend's swearing as obvious an indication of his terror as his own sloppy reactions were.
Shorter than Samias by a head, the youth's dirty silver hair stuck to his face in the rain, and despite his fear he still found it in him to flash finger-guns at Samias – his actual pistol still holstered at his waist. Samias wondered how his friend could see with all of the hair over his eyes but decided that now was not the time to point it out.
"It's okay," the gangly teen slapped his bulkier friend's arm once again, before his face tensed up. "Wait … where the fuck's Val? I thought she went with you?"
Truth be told, when Samias had first locked eyes with the Red Eye member as they opened fire and began his panicked repeat, he hadn't paid much attention to what his friends had been doing – too busy avoiding the hail of gunfire that had been sent his way.
"Sam? Sam!" Michael prompted quickly, his voice a higher pitch than it usually was. Samias didn't know how to answer his friend. Instead, his eyes wandered, taking in the street-corner house he had decided to use as an impromptu hiding place. He hoped, perhaps fancifully, that whoever lived here had got out when the Arbites decided to abandon the district.
"Emperor's arse, she's still back there isn't she? Fuck. Shit! What are going to do?" Michael almost babbled, shaking Sam's arm. The other boy snapped back into focus, gripping his friend's bony shoulder tightly, probably too tightly.
"You need to calm down," he told him, wishing he could heed his own advice. But with Mikey in a state of panic that left Sam to be the one who had to take charge.
"Calm down? Did you not see the Red Eyes killing those people? Shit, Sam. They're gonna do the same to Val, and then to- "
"SHH!" Samias growled, hoping he was intimidating enough to shut Michael up for a few seconds. The noise of gunfire cut through the downpour, and Sam willed the pounding in his head to quieten so that he could focus.
The eighteen (solar) year old had always possessed a talent for hearing, honed through years of listening for the skittering pattering of sump-rats in the factorium dump wastelands of the undercity. With his friend thankfully as silent as he could be, Sam was able to identify the source of the shots.
He could hear several overlapping staccato cadences signifying autogun shots pierced with the fizzing sizzle of lasweapons in the rain originating approximately south-west from their position. The boy frowned as an unfamiliar click was followed by a whooshing boom cut through the rest of the gunfire's song, too quiet to be a heavy weapon but undeniably explosive in nature. Whatever weapon this Red Eye had got their hands on wouldn't bode well for whoever had chosen to resist their encroachment on the district, that was for sure.
"Val's gotta be that way," Samias pointed, hoping that the girl hadn't met the same fate as the first victims of the Red Eye's expansion. He turned back to Mikey, who looked remarkably more composed now that they had been out of immediate danger for a few moments, and adopted a more authoritarian tone as he said: "You're gonna have to go back to base, tell the Chief and the others about these Red Eye bastards."
"Nu-uh," Michael shook his head vehemently, droplets spilling from his soaking hair. "There's no way I'm leaving you to go back for Val alone."
Samias let the smile he felt play on his lips for a few seconds before returning to his previous stony expression. Honestly, he was glad that his friend had affirmed that, because whilst he cared for Michael's safety and was worried about how the other boy would act in a firefight the thought of going back alone to face Emperor-knew how many Red Eye brutes chilled him to the core.
The boy clutched at the crude Aquila pendant in his pocket with his free hand. That, aside from the pistol, was the only thing he had left to remember his mother by.
"Come on then. Stay low, be careful. Even if you see Val, don't go running towards her," Samias cautioned, Michael making a show of rolling his eyes even if he appreciated the grounding advice.
Sam took a moment to check that the street they had both ran from was clear of foes, before motioning that it was safe to continue. The two boys were bereft of any weaponry aside from pistols – which weren't even autopistols - and any form of protection – as the latter were emblazoned with Chrome Fang insignia and this was supposed to have been a simple transaction where they wanted to avoid any recognition as gang members.
They stuck low to the ground, skulking through the empty streets of the district as the volume of the gunfire gradually increased. The people who lived here had wisely decided to shutter their few windows and lock up, leaving the hab-block deserted.
Samias knew that they were approaching the Elestra district's main square, which is what they had been about to pass through towards their ammunitions dealer before they witnessed the Red Eyes executing some poor men and women for an unknown reason. He held up his hand, signalling for Michael to stop, and leaned round the corner of the
Befitting its status as a lower district of the hive yet one out of the underhive, Elestra's central square was modestly sized, with a verdigris-withered statue of the eponymous Saint overlooking what would normally have been a densely crowded area leading towards the district's Administratum building.
The effigy was currently in use for a reason other than worship, a lithe figure crouched behind its base as autogun rounds impacted into the copper statue above, Elestra's benevolent expression adorned with bullet holes from some poorly aimed shots.
Samias swept his gaze across the entire scene, taking extreme care not to be noticed from his rather exposed position by any of the members of the firefight, trying to see if he could find Val pinned down in any of the sparse cover within the square.
"Who are those brave fuckers fighting the Red Eyes?" Michael breathed out, and Samias stopped searching for the third Chrome Fang for a moment to properly examine those who seemed to going toe to toe with the most vicious gang in the hive.
There was four of them from what he could see, including the one pinned behind the Saint's statue. All of them seemed distinctly unremarkable for the situation they were in, clad in grey fatigues not unlike those habitually worn by the manufactorum workforce of the district. If not for the weaponry that they were sporting and the very clear combat competence as they ducked and weaved out of cover to launch shots at their opponents, Samias could have easily mistaken the group for normal hivers.
"Who knows?" he whispered in reply, watching as one of the group leaned out of the wall he had taken cover behind to fire at a particularly brazen Red Eye that had made the foolish choice to advance on the man's position. Samias watched with a mixture of awe and horror as the unfamiliar bang of the large pistol's discharge was proceeded by the ganger's chest evaporating into a crimson mist, arms still gripping the woman's autogun crashing to the ground.
He'd never witnessed a bolt pistol in action before. Such weapons were reserved for the elites of either the biggest gangs or the bodyguards of highspire aristocrats. He had to push down the tendrils of revulsion coiling in his gut, Mikey's shocked intake of breath telling him that the other boy felt the same about the weapon's sheer capability for violence.
Another grey-clad man unclipped what was clearly a military grade frag grenade from his belt, tossing it towards where the Red Eye ranks were hunkered behind a Administratum supply truck. They scattered, the explosion itself outran by the gangers but the resulting shrapnel shredding the bodies of those too slow or unlucky to avoid it. Though the grenade itself didn't cause many casualties, its true purpose soon became evident – freeing up the woman trapped behind the district's resident Saint from the pinning volleys and allowing her to lay down a punishing storm of las-fire on the regrouping Red Eyes.
"Emperor above. Are they actually taking on a full fucking squad of Red Eyes with just four people?" Michael exclaimed in hushed tones, disbelief streaking his frightened voice. Samias forced himself to tear his eyes away from the unfolding confrontation, gaze skipping across the firefight to where a familiar figure was huddled behind a wall on the other side of the square.
In spite of his stern orders to Michael only moments ago, it took all of the willpower Samias had not to burst out from their vantage point and hurl himself towards Valeria. He was unbelievably glad that she was unharmed, but at the same time she was in the centre of the danger.
He elbowed his friend and motioned at the other Chrome Fang, Michael's initial relieved exhalation followed by a string of colourful expletives when he realised how far away the girl was.
Val had spotted them in turn, the fear in her eyes coloured with no small amount of anger – both at the Red Eyes themselves and at her friends for running off without her when they first encountered them. Understandably, she had done as little as possible to attract attention to herself, though that also meant that as the Red Eyes had advanced across the square they were perilously close to her position.
For once, Mikey didn't voice the burning question: how the name of the holy Emperor were they going to get her out of there?
Val was gesturing towards something as wildly as she could whilst still remaining crouched behind her cover. Samias frowned, glancing towards where Val was pointing, before his eyes widened again. From an alleyway that led into the courtyard through its western side, Sam could see at least six more Red Eye men clad in their distinctive scrap flak armour quickly advancing towards the four unknown assailants that their comrades were currently embroiled in battle against, out of range right now but closing by the second.
With no way of knowing of the fresh wave rapidly approaching from their flank, the group who had performed admirably up to now would be outnumbered and surrounded. Samias didn't count their odds if that became the case, and with them gone they would find Val next. But the street that the two boys were in now merged with the square at the south-west, meaning that they were almost directly behind this new threat…
"Oh shit. They're done for," Michael muttered, before turning to his friend, the question on his lips suddenly replaced by shock when he beheld the determined expression on the older boy's face. "Sam, no … you've gotta be shitting me if you're thinking of doing that. What the fuck do they even mean to you?"
"Anyone who kills Red Eyes is a friend in my book," the eighteen year old growled, feeling a strange form of adrenaline-fueled resolution begin to fill him, and tightened his grip on his pistol.
"You're insane – you're gonna get all three of us killed!" the other near-shrieked, grasping onto his friend's muscular arm before Sam shook him off. Valeria had obviously reached the same conclusion as Michael and shook her head rapidly in their direction.
Samias didn't even see her. His vision seemed to hone in on the backs of the Red Eye grunts, trigger finger itching to compress his pistol into savage action even as Michael tried desperately to get his attention, too paralysed with his own terror to do anything more than repeat Sam's name.
Time almost seemed to slow around him, muffling out the sound of his friend's pleas, and he picked out his targets amongst the six Red Eyes.
You bastards are going to pay for what you did to her …
The boy waited until the moment he knew the gangers' autorifles would be in range to unleash death upon the four they were flanking before he burst from his own vantage point, pistol levelled and firing, incoherently roaring his defiance of the Red Eye gang.
The first three shots impacted into the shaven head of a Red Eye thug who died before he could even scream. Two more produced sprays of blood as they pierced the exposed back of another gang member, although this one could howl in agony as he fell, drowning in blood flooding up from his punctured lungs.
The sixth and seventh shots missed, whizzing through the rain-choked air, whilst the eighth thudded through the flak armour of a third ganger, causing the woman to screech in pain but not felling her like Samias had intended.
Out of ammo for that clip, Samias hurled himself to the ground, misjudging his trajectory and crashing into the hard rockcrete, knocking the air from his lungs and leaving him wheezing for breath. The three untouched Red Eye members had spun towards the assault from behind, their autorifles shots bouncing off of the courtyard and going wide of the boy thanks to his evasive dive.
Alerted of the planned ambush by the screams of the wounded and fallen, the unknown grey-clads swiftly responded to this new threat, a withering spray of lasfire cutting down another coverless grunt whilst more patiently sequenced las shots dispatched another.
Samias rolled, rockcrete exploding around him and sending shards of it tearing through his fabric overalls and into the fragile skin beneath. The boy made a pained noise somewhere between a hacking cough and a shriek, fumbling with sweat- and rain- slick fingers for the second clip he had prepared before his crazed attack.
Jarred by his fall and the near-deafening noise of the gunfire all around him, the teenager had lost all sense of the both focus he had been instilled with earlier and where he was in relation to anything else.
He jammed the clip into his pistol, cursing the fact that the Chief hadn't thought it pertinent to equip the three with autopistols before this mission, firing near-blindly in the hope it would hit one of the two Red Eyes left near him.
The battle in the Elestra district square, which had been a brutal stalemate until now, had exploded into action with Samias's reckless charge. Those he had saved from the ambush had turned to react to it, whilst the other Red Eyes had broken from their cover because they saw that the flanking attack had commenced and their foes' attention had been diverted elsewhere.
The bolt pistol fired again, and one of the Red Eye scum who had been targeting Samias disappeared in a spray of blood and shredded organs. Sam whipped his gun around to the woman he had shot earlier, his eyes meeting her ruby-hued own before he fired and rolled.
His shot went wide, but hers didn't, and the boy screamed as white-hot pain cut down his left arm, blood spurting from the wound. The rest of what would have been a deadly fusillade scattered wildly as a full clip of bullets was unloaded into her by Michael, the slightly younger boy howling like he was the one who had been shot.
"Shit fuck Sam! Are you alright?" the silver haired boy questioned desperately, kneeling down next to the prone form of his friend.
Yes, you are alright. You've had worse than this. You've had worse …
Tentatively touching his left arm, Samias could tell that even with the agony the bullet had just clipped through the skin instead of embedding in the limb – a few millimetres to the right and he would be dealing with a lot more than a flesh wound, even if it was a damn painful flesh wound.
It was then that he realised that he and Michael were still virtually out in the open with a gunfight raging around them. Grabbing his lanky friend, he near bodily hauled the other boy with him behind a nearby wall, hissing at the pain in his arm the action caused.
Adrenaline still thudded through his veins, and he and Mikey peered over the top of the rockcrete they had huddled behind, glad to see that the Red Eyes' focus was back on their other foes instead of the Chrome Fangs.
After the failure of their ambush the other gang members had been left stranded halfway between an attempt to capitalise on the distraction created by their allies and the need to get back into cover now that the flanking party had been eliminated.
The man with the bolt pistol unexpectedly marched into the clearing, the autofire immediately directed at him spattering ineffectually off of some form of invisible shield that surrounded him, the halting of the bullets creating a scintillating pattern that seemed to form from the pounding rain also. Unprepared by the sudden immunity of their enemy, three more Red Eyes were quickly cut down by the scything lasfire alongside the brutal impacts of the bolts.
Samias ignored the frantic babbling of his friend beside him, too absorbed in the violence that he was thankfully no longer a part of.
As the golden light spilling from the seemingly invulnerable man began to intensify, he quickly hid himself behind cover recently vacated by the gang members, the shield fading not a moment later.
Samias thought that perhaps he and Michael should have advanced with those he had risked his life for earlier, but now that rational thought was returning to him he found himself perfectly content to hide behind this wall and just watch.
Fucking hell … I almost killed myself … The thought was an odd one, and Samias shuddered, feeling his throat tense up and suddenly short of breath as he truly realised how close he had come to death.
He was glad that it was raining (as usual), because he didn't want Michael to see him crying now that the rush of adrenaline had faded.
"Wait … what is that?" the boy squashed next to him asked, the curious mix of horror and disgust in his voice palpable. Samias gazed out to where the youth's long forefinger was pointing.
Surrounded by other Red Eye lackeys who had drawn vicious serrated weapons and begun to charge their opponents was the strangest sing Samias had witnessed in his short life.
The person's head was completed swallowed by a quivering blob of translucent pink flesh, bifurcated tendrils reaching out to paw at the air. A single crimson eye, large, unblinking and unnaturally lit beheld the world around it, though the monochrome sphere did not move like the visual organs of other organisms.
Samias had seen mutants before – no true underhiver could say that they hadn't – but this eclipsed any perversion of the human form he had witnessed previously. Whilst the other mutants had deformities that could be traced back to natural anatomy, this aberration of wriggling flesh that stared emptily ahead seemed to be bonded to the ganger like a parasite.
For a moment, all Samias could see was that red eye, gazing into his soul, stretching out every fabric of his consciousness over an eternity. Then the feeling passed, and the boy had to do all he could to stop himself from retching up the contents of the nutrition pack he had eaten for breakfast earlier today.
"I … I don't know," he mumbled, doing everything he could to look anywhere but that all-consuming eye and still focus on the violence. The man with the bolt pistol fired two rounds in quick succession, both aimed squarely at the vile thing clinging to the thug.
It raised two gently swaying fronds, and the bolts flickered and disappeared as though they had never been there. A blazing storm of las curved as light should never do, its trajectory altered from the being's host to carving into the rockcrete at its feet. The air shimmered around the creature, raindrops swelling and bursting into showers of red illumination around it. Mesmerised by the display, Samias had still seen that the other Red Eyes
"Aurelius!" the man with the bolt pistol shouted, his stern voice slicing through the noise like all of the gunfire was just the whining of petulant children interrupting an important discussion. The smallest out of the group who must have been the addressed nodded, touching his throat for a moment before sprinting into cover next to the vile thing
The beautifully disgusting displays of radiant rain splashes instantly halted, and the nebulous lump of leathery flesh made a strange mewling sound (despite having no visible vocal capabilities). The haunting light of its central orb dimmed before fading entirely, leaving it a sort of pinkish red like spoiled milk mixed with blood.
A volley of las bolts cut down the creature and its host, scorching holes tearing through the human body underneath and searing the parasite that had engulfed its head.
"Holy Emperor," Michael breathed, making the sign of the Imperial Aquila – one of the only reverent things Samias had ever seen the other boy do before.
"Samias!" a voice shouted, before he was near tackled by another form. Startled, he looked down to see Valeria having hurled herself at him, arms wrapping around his waist as her head pressed against his chest. "You damn idiot! You're insane!"
He smiled fondly down at the girl, ignoring the quiver in her voice and the quiet sniffles that interspersed her reprimanding. Val pulled away almost as quickly as she had arrived, pulling the boy's wounded arm forwards as Mikey snorted, "I told him the same thing, Val. But you know how Sam is. Always has to be the hero."
Aware that his friend was only teasing him, Samias swallowed the caustic remark brewing in his head, instead yelping as Val pulled up his sleeve to expose his bleeding arm. Instead of apologising, she merely scowled, tearing off a piece of her own sleeve and tying it around the wound, ignoring Sam's whining.
Relief flooded through all three of the Chrome Fangs, each of whom thought that their lives would have been cut short by the merciless Red Eye. For a moment, they were each content to bask in the continued company of one another as the adrenaline faded away. Michael laughed, and Samias joined him for a moment, pretending that the pain in his arm and legs had disappeared. Valeria tried and failed to curl her lips back into a frown so she could look annoyed at the tallest of the trio.
"That was some good shooting back there, kid. And your damned reckless heroics certainly helped us out," a gruff but amused voice interrupted their small celebration of survival, all three spinning around to regard the man who had addressed them, each somewhat embarrassed that they had forgotten about the presence of the other victors. He was tall, outstripping Samias in height by several inches, and with the muscle mass to make that size intimidating.
His casual pose belied the carefully taut posture of a seasoned killer that Sam had seen before in some of the older Chrome Fangs, and numerous scars blemished an otherwise unremarkable face. Brown eyes scanned each of the underhivers, simultaneously open yet inscrutable. He grinned at the youngsters, absently twirling the laspistol in his left hand, before extending his right towards Samias.
The boy hesitated for a moment, his gaze flicking towards Val, whose grey eyes encapsulated a metaphorical shrug. He took the man's hand in his own, his big hand feeling small clasped in the other's, wondering how it was strange he felt barely any wariness towards someone he had, only minutes ago, watched slaughter a group of Red Eyes without even a flinch.
"The name's Strask," he introduced himself, holding onto Samias for a moment more than necessary as his eyes conveyed his gratitude. Samias replied with his own name, feeling suddenly unworthy of being in this man's presence and subjected to his unspoken thanks.
The other two also named themselves moments later, somewhat awkwardly as it seemed that Strask wasn't too concerned with them.
Strask then continued, "You three probably have somewhere to be, but I'm sure he wants to thank you for your aid himself." The man flicked a thumb behind him to the direction of his other allies who were gathered near the strange creature they had just killed. He phrased it as if they had a choice, but the look in his eyes implied otherwise.
The Chrome Fangs exchanged glances, before Val took charge. "Sure, why not? I mean, we have to get back to base and tell them about the Red Eye bastards, but a few minutes here shouldn't hurt."
Strask let out a little "huh", the welcoming yet grim smile not leaving his face. "I'd suggest waiting until they finish their little chat first."
Val shot him a perturbed glance before following him to the other side of the square, indulging in a moment of what she would usually consider pointless superstition to thank Saint Elestra for watching over them – especially Samias.
Truth be told, the boy was curious to see who those he had almost died for actually were – any friends that were this talented at killing Red Eyes would certainly be welcome, though he had the sneaking suspicion that they wouldn't be that inclined to aid the Chrome Fangs either.
"So, interrogators. What are your thoughts?" the man with the bolt pistol questioned as the four approached, pacing around the corpse of the unnatural thing and its human host. His voice had not lost its harshness from earlier, and Samias could feel the authority brimming in every uttered syllable.
It was like when the Chief of the Chrome Fangs spoke, invoking the respect and subservience of those around him from the strength of his words alone, although with this man it was more an unyielding demand.
"If I didn't know better, I'd say it was almost Tzeentchian in nature," a woman with her back to Samias mused, pacing closer to the aberration they had killed and kneeling down in front of it. Her voice was cultured, refined and accented in a way that reminded Sam of the speech of the crowning of the new governor of Hive Enchellus that was blasted across every pict-feed in the city. The fascination in it almost disguised her distaste. "But no, it is far too stable in form for that."
The woman stalked round the thing, and Sam caught a glimpse of neatly arranged white hair that had fallen slightly astray in the confrontation and rain-spattered ebony skin. "Is it Tyranid, perhaps? It is certainly purely biological in nature, and though I've never seen a specimen like this before it wouldn't be unexpected of a Genestealer strain to develop such parasitical mutants."
Samias could hear the frown in her speculative words, as if she was annoyed at herself for not having a concrete answer to the man's question. Personally, he barely had an idea of what they were discussing at all, but he didn't have the confidence in him at all to break the discourse between the three.
The man remained silent, offering no words of encouragement nor rebuttal. The smallest figure – Aurelius, Sam recalled - who had pulled the hood of his grey fatigues over his head, stepped back from the tentacled creature. The alien glow of its eye returned, and Samias started, grasping the hand of his pistol before Strask waved a placating hand.
It seemed that even in death, the thing's eerie light persisted. The eighteen year old suppressed an involuntary shudder, averting his eyes from the redness.
"It is undeniably psychic in capability," the woman murmured, continuing on her slow walk around the thing like it was a specimen on a dissection table. Her brown was furrowed in consternation, and she didn't look up to acknowledge Samias and his friends staring at her now that they were afforded a full view of her posture.
She was younger than Strask but definitely an adult, the smoothness of youthful features etched with the encroaching lines of middle age and experience – in spite of her noble countenance. "And a mutant strain of Tyranid remains my hypothesis for now, though without any insight into its biochemical structure I cannot be certain."
Aurelius stepped closer to the subject of their attention once more; Samias was grateful for the extinguishing of the thing's light even as he questioned why this person seemed to have the ability to eliminate it.
"Could it be … an Enslaver?" a young voice that Samias had not been anticipating at all asked with a hint of uncertainty. It was met with a swift reply, "Very good, Aurelius. I believe it is indeed an Enslaver, though an infant one at most. You see, Udanya, whilst you were close in the xenos nature of our foe, this being's psychic capabilities far outstrip that of any form of Genestealer mutant."
"An Enslaver, of course!" Udanya exclaimed, her excitement warring with revulsion, "That explains the singular eye, and the control it was exerting on the other gang thugs. But I was not aware that their infant forms were parasitical in nature. How did you deduce that one, Aurelius?"
"I didn't know that either," the boy mumbled with a shrug, his back still to Samias, who was stood with Strask and his friends a respectful distance away. "I just saw that its defence against the mass reactives was to remove them from realspace rather than kinetically repulse them – suggesting a connection to the Immaterium that a Tyranid or a derivative wouldn't possess."
"Excellent reasoning," Udanya stated with a neutral expression, before turning to the third member of their discussion, "But surely that means…"
"Yes," the man replied gravely, "If this being's identity as an Enslaver is confirmed through dissection, then this is no longer a matter for the Ordo Hereticus alone."
The words meant little to Samias and Michael, but Val gasped at them. As if suddenly aware that there were other people near them, the trio turned to the group that had been waiting patiently for their little chat to end.
"So … uh … if you could explain what was going on, that would be great," Michael stuttered nervously, plastering a dumb smile on his face. Valeria scowled at him whilst Samias only grinned, proud of his friend for not being intimidated by the killers of the Red Eyes. Ok, "not intimidated" was perhaps a bit of an overstatement, but he had definitely displayed the usual Chrome Fang disregard of authority.
The three temporarily abandoned the corpse they had been conversing about, stepping towards the underhivers and Strask. As they came closer, Samias got his first proper look at the eldest and youngest of this strange collection of killers, his gaze captured by the latter first.
Patrician features with thin, medium-high cheekbones framed eyes of piercing blue stared back at him, a fringe of bright golden hair almost reaching down to them. Aurelius's stature was almost petite, the non-descript hive wear hanging off of what would definitely be a skinny body (judging by how thin his fingers were in skin-tight black gloves), the boy himself a couple of inches shorter than Michael's modest height of five feet and nine inches from what Sam could tell at the distance.
He was undeniably very pretty, even soaking wet and with a slight scowl twisting his handsome features. His eyes shone with intelligence, though they bored into Sam's own as he stared into them, filled with nothing more than hostility before he ripped their gazes apart to glare at something else.
Samias was freed from the reverie he had fallen into with a sharp nudge from an elbow. Valeria smirked at him with knowing eyes, and the boy was glad that he was already red from previous exertion as otherwise his blush would have been stark on his face. He would have given her a clap round the shoulder if they weren't about to make their first impression on potential allies.
At least Mikey seemingly hadn't noticed his lapse. Valeria would definitely tease him about it later before forgetting about it, but if the youngest of the three by a couple of months had picked up on it Samias probably wouldn't be spared from it for at least a week.
As the three stepped closer, a sensation of strange discomfort overcame Sam, something akin to what the so-called Enslaver had made him experience but simultaneously a complete opposite to that mesmerising loss of focus.
Everything around him became suffused with excruciating clarity, from the pounding of every raindrop on his skin to the quiet breaths of Val and Michael which had become near deafeningly loud. It was a form of sensory overload that made every stimulus seem so much more real, and yet in spite of the sharpness that defined every physical feeling the world was suddenly so much more empty than it was only moments ago. His thoughts felt incredibly distant, glittering sunlight dancing on a pool of nothingness that he couldn't swim out of no matter how hard he tried.
Nausea swirled round in his gut, and the boy winced as he took an involuntary step backwards, the noise of his foot cracking down on the rockcrete below reverberating in his ears like he had just endured a grenade explosion.
Aurelius fiddled with something on his neck, and the world snapped back to its usual self, Samias's thoughts returning back to him as the urge to vomit passed – though the aura of what he could only describe as otherness remained. Judging by the stunned expressions of Michael and Val, they had felt it too. He shivered and frowned at the blonde boy, who did not meet his gaze, but had no chance to question just what the hell that was before he was being spoken to.
"So you are the ones who aided us against these gang warriors," the oldest one in the square gazed into him. If Samias had thought that Aurelius had stared straight into his soul, then this man's eyes stripped him down to the very core of his being and beheld it for what it was, could tear every secret from his mind without even trying. He couldn't hold the man's stare for even a few seconds, so instead examined the rest of them.
He was bald, with hard facial features that had nothing particularly unordinary about them aside from those intense eyes, and was of average height and stature for a man on Karvonis IV from what Samias had seen, a head or so shorter than Samias himself. And yet, despite having to cast his eyes downwards to take in the man's appearance, the absolute authority that defined the way he held himself made it seem as if Sam was gazing up at him.
Come on Sam, get it together. You're not going to be intimidated by this guy, so stop overblowing the effect he is having on you. Reassured only slightly by his internal monologue, the teenager merely nodded in response, still feeling somewhat queasy from earlier. Steeling himself, he met the man's eyes once more, and although his words expressed gratitude his gaze seemed to do anything but, "I thank you for your aid in repelling the party sent to flank us."
He fished inside of his grey jacket's interior pocket, before pulling out a gleaming pendant that he displayed before the adolescents. The stylised I, gilded and ornate but otherwise rather simple in design, swayed in the downpour. To say Samias didn't recognise the sigil would be a lie, though it took a moment for it to truly click inside of his head.
"I am Inquisitor Julion Dominus of the Ordo Hereticus. And you three will be coming with us."