A Storm Gathers

Roric's body was aching and drenched in sweat. His shirt was a torn bloody ruin and he ripped the remaining rags off. One of his floating ribs was broken and it pained him immensely. He had great bruises across his back and torso, and his right

eye was rapidly developing a shiner. Something, or someone, had evidently pissed Alexov Ursain the hell off.

Roric had felt the first tremors of anger during the Inquisitor's personal interrogation of the prisoner. They had just come from a short debrief, and then it was right to the interrogation. He had bid Roric to come watch and learn some new

techniques. Roric had watched in silence as his master had broken everyone of the man's fingers, then his toes, hands, feet, arms, legs, ribs, and Ursain hadn't even started asking questions. He had walked in, taken off his coat, and gone right to

work. Snap, crack, crunch, went the grisly tune, and all the while the man howled and moaned and begged for death. "Someone took the old bear by the balls," he thought.

When Ursain had finally finished working him over, he had said one word, "Who?"

"Gracen!" the man had screamed. "Baron Gracen! He has the governor 's ear! Kill me please oh emperor please kill me please," he whimpered, much like an abused dog Roric had thought. Ursain had looked Roric right in the eye and smiled. The old

bastard smiled.

"We have our man." he said. Roric had tremendous respect for his master, but he failed to suppress a look of disgust. That had taken the smile off the old man's face and replaced it with a disappointed frown. "We will spar tonight, you and I," was

all he said. Roric broke from his musings and concentrated on his more immediate problems. The lights were on a disorienting flash cycle that skewed his perception of speed and depth. A sound recording from a battle between an Imperial Guard force

and a Chaos warband from the sound of the screams roared out of the loudspeakers and echoed off the bulk heads rendering his sense of hearing all but worthless. He could smell the ozone coming off his master's powermaul, but he remained

undetected due to the flashes. The only thing Roric had to his advantage was his lack of shoes, which he had kicked off when the flashing had started in the hopes of being able to feel the vibrations of his master's booted steps. So far it had work

admirably, and Ursain bore two shallow cuts where Roric had scored glancing blows with an archaic bladed dueling weapon his master had called a main gauche. The blade was old, likely a ceremonial piece, but its edge was razor sharp. Roric had

possessed a similarly old sword but it had been shattered by a blow from the powermaul, and wielding the small dagger by itself was proving a challenge.

Roric felt a series of vibrations coming from his seven 'o clock and dove forward. None too soon as it turned out when Ursain's weapon crashed down where he had been standing. Roric came up from his defensive roll and pivoted on his left foot.

Now he was facing his master and pressed the attack. He chose a desperate diving lunge in the hopes his master was similarly disoriented. Ursain saw the lunge coming and moved his powermaul in a low sweep, hoping to intercept the blow. Roric

changed his attack in the midst of his dive and planted his unoccupied hand on the floor. He used the strength of his arm and his momentum to execute forward flip over his master's sweep, and planted both of his heel in Ursain's chest. He felt a

crunch and Ursain was sent stumbling. Roric rebounded enough to land on his feet and he pressed his advantage, moving his blade in a tight figure eight pattern desperately trying to keep his master off balance. Ursain recovered quickly and grabbed

Roric arm in mid swing. He pulled him forward and gave him a vicious headbutt, which sent Roric reeling back. He lost his footing and fell hard to the ground. Roric made no motion to rise, and Ursain clicked off his powermaul.

"End sequence!" he shouted over the din of the recorded combat, which abruptly terminated. The only sound that filled the training room now was the labored breathing of two bloody men.

"Heh. Broke one of my ribs with that flip move of yours, boy." He laughed, his anger used up in the heat of combat. "Made you pay for it though." Roric managed an amused sort of snort, which sent a spray of blood out of his nose.

"Yes well, you broke one of my ribs and my nose, so we aren't exactly tit for tat are we?" Ursain laughed again. Roric finally managed to stagger to his feet, and gingerly touched his nose in an attempt to assess the extent of the damage.

"Well we're both going to see the good doctor, so I'd say that's even enough." Ursain moved to collect his own shirt which he had taken off before they had started. Roric looked at his master's muscular form. Inquisitor Ursain was in his early

seventies, but his stamina and physique spoke of someone a quarter of that age. He had no visible augmetics but Roric knew there were internal ones. No normal heart beat in his chest, or normal lungs give him air, and Roric was sure there were

others. Barring a battlefield death, Inquisitor Ursain would most likely outlive him and his non-existent children. Roric snorted again and moved to collect his ruin of a shirt, and other effects. He highly doubted that Inquisitor Alexov Ursain would want

to be in a bed when he finally died. He took a drink from his field canteen and pulled a cigarette out of its box. He flicked his lighter open and took a long slow pull. Ursain cast a sidelong glance at him.

"Now come on boy, we both know that those make my lungs act up," he chastised.

"With all due respect milord, we both know that's grox shit," Roric said. Ursain chuckled.

"Watch your self, boy, or I swear I'll beat you bloody." They both laughed at that. Roric pulled on his boots, and the two made their way to the medical wing, where the doctor gave them a tongue-lashing that would've made a R.I.P instructor

proud. First disposed of the cigarette, then he set Roric's rib and put two titanium screws in it to keep it from moving. Then his nose was set and patched, and he was given a bag of ice for his head, which had the mother of all headaches.

"So what had you so pissed in the first place. Emperor but you made that poor sod suffer." Roric really didn't care about the poor sod, but he wanted to know all the same. Ursain threw up his hands in annoyance.

"I knew it was Gracen from the start, and I chased that sneaky bastard for months just so he could tell me what I already knew," he sigh in exasperation. "I could've taken out the source of the problem months ago but the higher ups wanted

adequate proof before I went and executed a high ranking bureaucrat. Now he likely knows we're after him and he'll disappear, then its back to searching for leads." Ursain looked at Roric hard for a moment. He seemed to confirm something within

himself and stood up and cleared his throat. "How long have you been my acolyte?" he asked. The doctor immediately left.

Roric shrugged. "I imagine it'll be close to thirteen years soon. I haven't really kept track." Twelve years, three hundred and twenty seven days Standard. He'd kept track. On the outside, he kept his face totally neutral. Inside his mind was racing.

Why is he asking me this now? Is he transferring me? Is he casting me off?

"In that time you have served me well. You have done what I have asked, you have followed orders, you have done terrible things in the name of the Emperor without so much of a pause. In all you, you have been a great service to His Holy

Inquisition, and to the Ordos Hereticus," he paused, seemingly to gather some appropriate words. "However, your time with me and the rest of the team has come to an end. I have submitted your name and application, to become a full Inquisitor."

Roric was dumbstruck for a moment.

"Wait warp-blasted second," he said. "Most acolytes serve for at least fifteen years and that's only the one percent of the immensely talented. Normal acolytes can serve upwards of thirty before becoming Inquisitors. There are ranks, and

protocols, and-" Ursain cut him off.

"The Inquisition does not have a ranking system like the Guard does. As long as you have the blessing of three Inquisitors or a single High Inquisitor you can be made into one of us. Granted you are correct about the fact that most serve much

longer than you have. Consider yourself in that one percent. The last several missions you've been sent on were tests, culminating with the capture of this specific heretic." he paused to let Roric absorb what was being said. "Your assassination of

Planetary Governor Lupus kept an entire sub sector of the Segmentum Obscurus from falling to the Ruinous Powers, again. The man was an arch heretic and was planning on staging a great revolution that would engulf myriads of planets for decades.

Your investigation on Sempris Minor led to the uncovering and destruction of not only a powerful heretic cult, but the daemonhost that was leading them. The success of your current mission, despite my opinion of its futility, will be instrumental in

brining down a powerful revolutionary and saving the Imperium countless lives and resources. Your actions in your own view have seemed trivial but they have effected the Imperium on a massive scale."

"How is it possible that I wouldn't know all of this?" Roric asked. He kept his tone neutral but his face betrayed his skepticism.

"I've kept the entire team in the dark. None of them knew that their actions were going to have such tremendous results. It was all part of the test, which you aced." Roric stared hard at the man who been his master for the last twelve years. The

man had taught him everything he knew. He had protected him. He had shaped him into, among other things, a man. In a twisted sort of way, Inquisitor Ursain was the father he'd never had. Roric suppressed a smile. "The man nearly killed you ten

minutes ago and yet you think of him as a father? Roric, my boy, what the hell is wrong with you?" Roric slid off the table he had been sitting on. "I understand. You really think I'm ready for this?"

"I'm not senile yet boy," Ursain growled. "If I didn't think you were ready we wouldn't be having this conversation. You'd still be planet side in that toilet of a city."

"How long before we find out?" Roric asked. Given the way that the Administratum generally handled things, it was likely to be months before they found out anything.

"About three Standard days. I've got a feeling that the Administratum will speed this particular request along. Requisitioning kit and destroying planets isn't the only thing the Inquisitorial Seal allows us to do." With that, Ursain turned on his heel

and walked out of the room. Roric smiled as he listened to the fading sound of Ursain's boots ringing off the metal floor. When he could no longer hear them he grabbed his cigarettes and walked out of the treatment room and turned the opposite way

Ursain had, back toward the training room. The lights flicked on automatically as he entered. A control lectern flipped down out of one of the walls and Roric keyed his entry code. The front panel of the wall slid away, revealing an arsenal of weaponry.

Roric pondered the weapons for a moment. There were las guns of every kind, flamers, shotguns, autoguns, heavy caliber dueling pistols, bolters, sniper rifles, stubbers, and several Xeno weapons. Roric picked up an beautifully crafted shuriken

pistol that Ursain had taken from an Eldar Banshee. He fiddled with it a moment, trying to find the trigger. There was a pop and a whistling sound as his finger slipped over it and a monomolecular disk shout out. Roric carefully placed it back on its

stand and moved further down. He came to the close combat weapons, and admired their deadly beauty.

There swords and knives of every kind resting in display cases or on simple stands. There were Eldar swords, Kroot knives, Ork choppas, chain swords, eviscerators, powerfists and myriads of different human weapons from around the Imperium.

Roric looked over some of the more exotic weapons for a moment and then his eyes rested on something unusual.

At the far end of the arsenal was an eight foot long metal box, cover with purity seals. Roric was puzzled. He'd never seen it before and he had been through the arsenal multiple times. He suspected it was a recent acquisition, most likely from a

private mission of Ursain's, which was nothing out of the ordinary. Many times after Ursain had completed a mission on his own, he had taken trophies from vanquished enemies or mementos from fallen comrades. Roric took a closer look at some of

the seals. They were written in High Gothic, and though he was perfectly fluent in High Gothic, the type of style and construction of the text was unlike anything he had ever seen. He could see that it was a derivative of High Gothic, many of the same

roots being present, and that it must have been an obscure dialect of the language. As he poured over the seals, he uncovered something odd. At the top of one of the larger seals was a date. The seal was old and the parchment had yellowed but

the writing was still largely visible. Sein Heilig Kreuzzug, 29,999. Roric gazed wide-eyed at the date: 999.M29. M29 was the millennium in which the Great Crusade had begun, meaning that this box pre-dated the rediscovery of the Primarchs. Someone

had sealed this box over ten thousand years ago.

Roric smoothed the folded corner of the parchment with his hand, trying desperately to find another clue.

"I feel you mortal..." The words echoed in Roric's mind. Horrified, Roric removed his hand as if he had suffered a burn. "I feel your life force... your soul...your mind is untainted...release me."

"No! Get out of my head daemon! You'll not have my soul!" Roric shouted.

"RELEASE ME!" the voice roared. Roric fell to his knees screaming, blood trickling out every orifice on his face. Images of places he had never seen, people he had never known, flashed in his mind. Time held no meaning. He saw green fields being

sown with crops and watched them turn to battlefields strewn with corpses, great cities rising from the earth and then burning down in an instant. The cycle repeated over and over again, faster and faster. The images became a blur and then he saw

them; two great eyes, filled with fire, boring into the depths of his soul. The voice spoke softly in his head. "In time, Roric, we will break this galaxy's back. Not yet though. Now you must sleep. When you receive your power take me, and I will make you great

among men."

Roric pitched forward on to the floor, unconscious. A chuckle came from the box as a small bolt of red lightning shot out of it. The bolt hit Roric square in the back and left a discreet rosy pink burn. His arms pushed his body off the floor, and his knees

slid underneath him. His eyelids snapped open. A voice not unlike his own came from his mouth.

"Millennia of bidding my time, and look what drops into my lap; a human. I had hoped for an Eldar, but the ones that beg aren't the ones that choose I suppose." His hands felt and probed his body. "Male by the feel of things. Recently damaged,

but repaired in an efficient fashion. Very fit, very strong. A useful vessel for Nakir." Roric's eyes rolled back in to his head for a brief moment. A smile broke Roric's face.

"Calculating, logical, intuitive, highly intelligent, and merciless. Well versed in many forms of combat, both close quarters and firearms. Exceedingly adaptable fighting style. Above average marksman. First hand knowledge of explosives and their

various uses. Cursory training in poisons, but finds them slightly distasteful. Capable of using torture, blackmail, sex, intimidation, murder, rape, and kidnapping, but rarely finds need to use such methods." His eyes rolled back a second time.

"Father died when he was five, mother committed suicide three weeks and two days later, raised at various orphan schools until the age of 8. Savagely beat a fellow student for an insult. Met a young woman a decade later. Developed a

relationship, had intercourse four times. Female taken by another male. Depression, failed suicide. Taken himself by another male soon afterward. Twelve years of slavery, acquired unique skills. Hates...rain?" His hand reached up and scratched his

head.

"Why do you hate the rain I wonder." Nakir reviewed what he had been able to learn from his intrusion. "Ah, almost missed that bit. It's been millennia so you will have to forgive me, dear Roric." Nakir, or rather the body of Roric, laughed.

"Oh, this one has a good laugh." Nakir experimented for several minutes, testing different styles of laughter. When he had found something suitably dark to his liking, he tested the motor functions. He found that he could control the body

sufficiently enough to walk, so he made his way to Roric's room. The place, a ship he surmised, was large but fortunately, Roric's memories had provided him a detailed layout. As he walked, Nakir was shocked to find that he had pulled out a cigarette

and started to smoke. Nakir took cigarette from his mouth and laughed again. Out of the corner of his/Roric's eye he saw a humanoid shape step out of a room along side him. The shape turned out to be a stunningly beautiful female wearing

absolutely nothing. Nikki; the name fit the memory. She had a piece of cloth in her hands and, Nakir assumed from the way she was rubbing her head with it, that she was drying it off.

"Roric's mate perhaps?" he thought. She had shoulder length auburn hair, bright emerald eyes that seemed to burn. Nakir began to survey the rest of the female's body, taking note of the various physical aspects, but was abruptly stopped when

he was hit in the face by the towel she was holding. He considered pulling her arms off but something restrained him.

"Not polite to stare, Rory, especially when you're mouth is hanging open," she said playfully. Nakir felt Roric's face burn, which was odd considering he had no reason to be embarrassed. "Holy Throne! What happened to your face?"

"What? My face?" Nakir put on the best puzzled expression he could manage. It worked evidently as Nikki took the towel and started whipping his face with it. Nakir saw the reason for her concern a moment later when the towel was pulled away.

My mental transfer must've caused this, he thought. "Just some sparring."

"Roric your ears are bleeding, and blood his coming out of your tear ducts. Aren't you in pain?" she was rapidly growing more agitated, or 'concerned' as a human would have called it.

"Pain?" It had been nearly ten thousand years sense he had felt something even close to that. Nikki's eyes narrowed.

"Have you been drinking?" she asked. Nakir smiled, and Roric's body shrugged without being prompted. Nakir found the motion unsettling.

"Nope, just had some fun in the training room, and now I think I've found some more." Nakir reached out with Roric's hands in attempt to grab the woman. It had been ages since he had fun of any sort, and the female looked appetizing. The

female clearly wasn't to pleased with the notion and she drove her knee in between his legs. Nakir was aware of a very distant ache, and glanced down.

"Warp, you've been drinking hard." Nikki grabbed him by his hair and pulled him into the room she had exited, which looked like a personal sanitation facility to Nakir. As he was allowing himself to be pulled, Nakir caught his first look at the physical

appearance of Roric's body. Short black hair, and cold, pale blue eyes that reminded him of ice were set in a bloody but good looking face. Several scars marked the face, but really just added to the charisma of it. His vessel clearly hadn't shaved in the

last several days. Rugged is how a female would've described it, Nakir assumed. Nakir was broken out of his observation as his head was plunged into water, which while not terribly bothersome to him, would've registered just above freezing to any

human. Oddly enough, however, Nakir felt his control begin to slip. It suddenly struck him that he hadn't actually possessed Roric's body in the traditional sense. He had merely used it as a temporary vessel while Roric's conscious mind was

suppressed. Unnoticed to Nikki, a small spark of red shot out of Roric's hand and into a wall. Nakir could wait three more days, it made no difference to him.

Roric's survival instincts kicked in as his consciousness reasserted itself. He could feel a hand on the back of his head, the frigid water, and his lung burning for lack of air. He lashed out with his right arm, but it was caught and penned behind his

back. Just when he thought he would lose consciousness again, his head was yanked up out of the freezing water. He gasped for air.

"Thinking clearly yet?" said a feminine voice. Roric recognized it as Nikki's.

"Nikki, what the fuck is going on!?" he shouted. Nikki pushed him away.

"I could ask the same," she said with a hint of amusement. "You're not normally a hard drinker, so this is admittedly strange."

"Drinking? What are you talking abou-" Roric stopped mid sentence as the worst pain he had ever known erupted in his groin. The wave a nausea that him was so strong that he dry heaved for several moments. He staggered to a wall and slid

down to the floor clutching the abused area. He saw Nikki trying to suppress smile. "Bitch," he mumbled.

Nikki laughed. "Look but don't touch." Roric then noticed that she was wearing no clothing. One of the only rules the men of team followed, and apparently he had unknowingly broken it. The problem was Roric couldn't remember breaking it. The

last thing he could remember up until this point was...the voice. Horror gripped him momentarily. Nakir. He remembered the name the voice had called itself. Roric slowly got to his feet.

"I've got no clue what was in that liquor I drank," he lied. "Probably something I'm not use to. Anyway, I apologize trying to force myself on you. Friends?" He held out his hand. Nikki smiled and shook his hand.

"It's nicer to ask anyway. Normally you'd get a yes, but seeing as you're drunk, and certain parts of you are out of commission, there will be no fun tonight." She tossed him a wink and walked out.

"Roric my boy, you're in deep shit." he thought.He stumbled his way back to his quarters and dropped heavily on to his bed. In the darkness of his room, Roric began to contemplate the nightmare he

was in.