A/N: Well, I'd like to thank Mt - At, Long Live Warhammer40k, TenguTie, Sly1, and Dumbledore Is Gay for their reviews. And I have a response! To TenguTie:
Well, I am starting pretty close to the start of the series, and the characters are staying fairly canon up until they aren't. So, there's that. Not to mention, these Imperial soldiers, well, they aren't on the level of a Penal Legion, or even a regular main battle regiment. They're a support regiment. Comms men, a larger than normal pool of Enginseers and Tech-Priests, extra transports, and a token presence of normal soldiers. They are, therefore, somewhat understrength, in numbers and in battle-hardened-ness. And a Youma, as unthreatening as they may seem to us, through the TV screen, could break at least a single squad, probably. Individual Youma may vary. They are Daemonic seeming. So...we'll see how it plays out.
Crystal Terra
Chapter One
First Impressions
"Then she spoke, the Mistress of Time, and she said, 'Behold! Thou art not meant to be here. Yea, it is forbidden, and thus thou all must Perish.' With a wave of her blessed hand, she was gone, and the craft of the Mechanicus was cast about, as a ship on a stormy sea." - Guardsman Rithus, Domina Temporis +++Executed For Heresy+++
"What I mean, Commissar, is that we are no longer in Imperial space." The man - if he could still be called that - standing at the head of the table said. His voice was mechanical and emotionless. "The star patterns match no record we have. Nor are they distortions of any star pattern in my records. They are fundamentally different. However...there is a more pressing problem." The glowing red lenses that replaced his eyes turned to the officer sitting across the table from the Commissar. "Tell me, Colonel, are there any Astropaths attached to your regiment? Sanctioned Psykers?" His red robe fluttered as a mechanical appendage reached over his shoulder and adjusted a knob on his chest delicately.
"Hm?" Colonel Genthe was slightly surprised at suddenly being the subject of the Tech-Priest's unblinking gaze. "Hmm...There are three Astropaths attached to us. They do come in handy, and our regiment tends to need them more than others...Why?" The Colonel was suspicious. Two weeks ago, Magos Antaeus had agreed to carry the Corroboran 73rd Support Regiment to their new posting in the Calixis Sector, because it was on his way to wherever the cogboy was going, and in all that time, the only sight any of the regiment had had of him was during the loading, when he met with a small delegation from those cogboys attached to the regiment. Now, he was calling meetings and inquiring into the state of their Warp-Sensitive personnel...
"Three hours ago, we exited the Warp. Twenty minutes later, I was alerted that our location was unknown. Immediately afterwards, I recieved word of a...disturbance from the Navigator's quarters. It appears-" The Tech-Priest abruptly fell silent as a volley of expletives and question followed this deadpan statement of utter doom.
"The Navigator's quarters?!" Was the general consensus, and the babble continued until Commissar Vladek, the only one at the table other than the Magos who had remained silent through this announcement, fired his Bolt Pistol into the ceiling. The crash-boom of the explosive bolt impacting the reinforced plating of the room silenced them effectively, and Antaeus continued as though nothing had happened, with a slight nod to the Commissar.
"-that the Navigator went mad. She was ranting about how 'the light is gone! The Light!', and she somehow managed to acquire a laspistol. She shot herself in the head. Unfortunately, that makes it impossible to...'revive' her." He paused, and turned toward the door, to his right. He stared at it a moment. "Colonel, there are two Guardsmen here to see you. It appears there was an incident regarding your Astropaths." One of his mechadendrites reached over and toggled a button on the table in front of him.
The door cycled open, sliding into the walls. A pair of nervous Guardsmen in blue fatigues quickly shuffled in, shooting nervous glances back at the torso hardwired into a weapons platform guarding the door. The servitor in the corridor beyond was on two heavy-duty treads, and both arms had been replaced with weapons normally reserved for vehicles or Terminators. They both visibly relaxed when the door closed itself. Snapping to a salute, the one on the left began to speak immediately. "Sir! The Astropaths! They...they're dead, sir!"
"What? What is the meaning of this?!" Setsuna raged at the Gates of Time, still in shock over what they were showing her. "What happened to Crystal Tokyo?! What- What is this?!"
The rage had been touched off when she returned to the Gates, from a brief(and well-deserved) vacation, to resume her vigil...when the image shimmered and changed right in front of her eyes. Where she had been looking at Crystal Tokyo, now...she didn't even know WHAT she was looking at. Everything was Gothic architecture, there were double-headed eagles on everything, and where Tokyo was...was the biggest building Setsuna had ever seen in her entire life. Something she had picked up somewhere forced itself to the front of her mind, supplying her with a name for the type of building...an Arcology, a massive, self-contained single-building city. She scanned the rest of the world...and it was almost the same, most of China a single huge factory, Arcologies covering much of the rest of the world...oh, but there's a country that's become a giant series of cathedrals. She frowned. Australia wasn't showing up. The Gates of Time just greyed out whenever she tried to see...odd.
"How could the future possibly change so much, so quickly? I missed something...something important...this isn't irreparable, if I can just figure out what happened." She set the Gates to view the present, and gaped at what she found. Setsuna knew there shouldn't be a, a, cathedral-starship-thing hiding behind the moon! Working herself up into a righteous fury, she began to look through the ship for the Captain...Ah! There we go, that looks like an officers' meeting, perfect! She thought, and paused briefly, staring at the...humanoid...at the head of the table. Six arms...four of which are obviously artificial. And his face, ugh, who are these people? She gave a mental shrug, and stepped through, ready to demand answers and browbeat the fools who would interfere with Crystal Tokyo, and the advent of a second Silver Millennium, one that would, hopefully, last a whole lot longer.
"Well...not long after we emerged from the warp, they...erm...stopped twitching and muttering. They seemed sorta lost. They all did it at different times, and after the second blew his brains out, well, we thought we'd try to stop the last. I'm sorry sir, don't look at me like that, but I don't know their names! None of the other boys really wanted to, either. They...they were psyk-touched, sir. Anyway, when we tried to stop the third-" The Guardsman shuddered. "He lashed out. We've sealed off his rooms. Nobody can stomach going in there, sir. Frest, Wesker, and Haakon are the other casualties."
"Damn..."
There was a sudden change in the air, and everyone in the room froze. Antaeus, standing at the head of the table, turned suddenly to face the intruder. "Who are-" He began, bringing a plasma welder and flamer to bear with the dedicated lower mechadendrites.
"No, who the hell are YOU?!" The strange woman demanded, interrupting the Magos, "Why are you here, and what do you think you are doing? This is the sovereign territory of the Moon Kingdom, and you're knocking the timeline all to hell!" Her long, green hair waved behind her. "You have three minutes to be somewhere else, or I'm destroying the ship!"
Determinedly ignoring her words, Commissar Vladek brought his bolt pistol to bear. "Your words are heresy. I don't know how you got here, or what this 'Moon Kingdom' is, but threats against the Emperor's soldiers will not be tolerated."
"Grrr...None of you are supposed to be here! That is IT! Rocks fall, everbody dies!" She waved her hand, and disappeared moments before a plasma bolt, bolter fire, and a las-bolt passed through the spot she was standing in simultaneously.
An alarm began to sound. "Psyker witch!" The Colonel spat, holstering his laspistol as red lights began to flash.
"I would suggest that your regiment load up into the landers. That is a collision alarm. I have been informed that a group of asteroids are closing in on the ship." And with the -*crack*- of a teleporter, Antaeus was gone. There was a brief delay before the Guardsmen began to bark orders, and hurried from the room, to make sure as many of his men as possible could escape the doomed Mechanicus vessel.
A/N: Well, that meeting could certainly have gone better. It looks like the IG and even the Tech-Priest are going to have to abandon ship, and who knows where they'll come down? After all, Setsuna's certainly not just going to let them land on the planet! Thanks to my reviewers, and tune in next time, for the Culture Shock to end all culture shock!
And, for those who are wondering, the reason Australia won't show up is because the Inquisition is based there(At least, they are in this AU), and they are so well-shielded they can even block the Gates from viewing them. They're the Inquisition, time means nothing! And neither does the fact that she wasn't even seeing a certain future, but a possible one!
