Welcome back to another installment of my joyous fanfic! please do enjoy all of the happiness and sunshine!

Thanks to the usual crowd of my minders over on the Celestial Forge Discord. They know who they are, and I have mentioned them plenty of times to boot.

Specific special thanks to JoeHalo, who likes posting lots of cool artwork in the story channel. he is great for morale, and I do not deserve him.

Harry had wandered off, lost in thought, after his little crisis there. I was actually quite happy for both him and myself; him, for proving that he really was the man I thought he was, and myself, for being able to see it and allowing it to come forth instead of being paranoid as fuck.

Didn't mean that I was completely defenseless, though, as I had maintained a mage barrier during the whole setup just to be safe.

Trust but Verify is still a real thing.

In any case, Harry had his cybernetics now. They were a mix of everything I could give him in one package and would adapt and upgrade themselves as needed...possibly eventually to the point where he became a sort of Full-body augment, the way I had it set up. The least he was going to get out of it was a general reinforcement as everything was given a tune-up from the various systems working in the gear. I'd specifically set it up to only go as far as he was comfortable with, but this was the Imperium: Transhumanism was alive and well, just very much dogmatized.

Speaking of transhumanism, Project: Psion had reached a point where it could be called complete. The tests had come back as close to negative as I could make them, and everything seemed OK for the go-ahead for artificially-induced psionic powers.

Naturally, I double-checked, and then checked again just to be sure. There was no such thing as too safe when it came to the Warp.

The double-checking that I was doing had caused me to make some revisions to the formula and setup, ones that I thought would be useful for both stability and overall breadth of available ability. My best estimate goal was to be something similar to D&D psionics without the gamey parts, which was both powerful and versatile all in one. Hopefully, I could push it that far.

I also made a very specific point to adjust the dose I'd intended for myself to my personal genetic and physical profile, just in case it mattered.

Paranoid? Of course I am. Anyone who wouldn't be paranoid when dealing with the Warp is a dumbass, and it is one of the few things that everyone who worked with it agreed on, regardless of species or creed.

There were far, far too many examples of what happened when you got complacent to even keep track of.

This still left the very real issue of not could I take this plunge...but, should I?

After all, this was not strictly necessary for anything I was seeking to accomplish, nor was it a definite requirement for taking on anything that I would be facing in the immediate future to the best of my knowledge. Hell, the chances of it backfiring on me were high enough that I should probably sit on it for a bit and test harder just to be safe.

But I also wanted this shit tested and ready to go if it was good, so I had one more weapon in my arsenal should I need it. Training for it was going to be an absolute bitch, but I could get around that when I got there...if I got there.

Run it through another test while I work on something else, then. Couldn't hurt any more than the previous ones.

Now, to continue addressing my lack of options when faced with the Genestealers(?) yesterday. First off, I needed to get some better stuff for use outside of Thoth at full expression, so I didn't have to go all out right off. Second, I needed to do some more training with the computation orb to get a real feel for the output, as I grossly overestimated how much mana I would need for that artillery spell. Also would help for getting a stronger mage barrier set up.

And to do that, I needed to revisit the digital orb project.

Considering I only left it alone because of an emergent situation, and also because of the lack of breakthroughs in mana storage for the orbs to be viable, there wasn't much reason for me to not dive right back in.

Shuffling through the notes I had made on both the orbs themselves and the prototype capacitors, I found I had a sudden urge to kick myself.

Even without tapping into the myriad cluster of abilities I now had, having taken time away from the project left me seeing EXACTLY where I had screwed up and why I was beating my head against a brick wall on the capacitors. It was literally rightthere, waiting for me to see it. And now I felt like an idiot. Anyway, time to get to work. Might as well look at the digital orb architecture too while I'm at it…

I am an idiot.

That is the only thing I can really say for this. I am a fucking idiot.

So many answers, sitting right in my face, just waiting for me to see them. And I had ignored them all because I was being stubborn and blind and an idiot.

Oh well, what's done is done. Just learn from it and move forward.

The latest versions of both the capacitors and the digital orb were now ready for testing. The digital orb had received an almost complete revamp of its architecture, having a much smoother flow of the mana through the circuitry and less bleed out as I found ways to insulate the connection better. The twin processor cores were capable of some quite impressive calculations if and when needed, and had a good bit of "memory" buffer to work with as well. The new capacitors were the size of a belt, now, and could be used to power up and maintain the processor cores until their charge had run out…in about twelve hours, at projected max load.

Not bad for a first revision, but there was one major thing that I did not do for this: I never ran it through the Miniaturization and Efficiency engine to optimize, wanting to make this as good as possible without leaning on some of my more esoteric talents. The result was quite impressive, and proves that the tech had plenty of room to expand and grow.

Maybe that pure mana core system was not too far off, then…

A relatively quick test proved that the system worked to standard…and quite some ways over standard, too, as the test numbers had shown. I hadn't done a test flight with the orb (not needing to due to my other redundant methods of flight) but I suspected the max altitude had increased dramatically as well. So far, all good.

Now to push this shit to the edge and beyond.

The next revision of the tech leveraged any and every ability I could use at that moment, with the sole purpose of iterating down to the absolute best possible version of a digital core with an inbuilt capacitor. The only limitation I kept on myself was that the end result had to be buildable by a "normal" human being in a reasonable time frame with the appropriate human-buildable tools.

Somewhere along the way I accidentally invented a freaking mana reactor and shrunk that down to fit in the orb proper, even as I added more and more capacitors, process cores, better channels for power management, and even larger memory channels and storage for more active spells at once. Hell, I think I even tried to fit in a basic OS or something…

The end result of my newest prototypes...were something that I wasn't sure was even possible until now. It was a pleasant surprise, though: four process core clusters, working in a 2x2 grid configuration, with four nodes each, for a total of 16 independent cores. That each of those cores could then each run up to Thirty-Two independent threads pushed that even further, and was the primary reason why I settled for so few core clusters. Being able to run a staggering Five Hundred and Twelve individual spell processing channels was downright insane...and that was just what was available to the user, not what went into maintaining the miniature mana reactor., which only needed one dedicated core in a separate channel to keep everything operating smoothly. This didn't even get into the boosts afforded the entire system from the move up to a non-analog calculation system, which were themselves already huge to begin with.

But even all of that paled to the stunt that I had pulled off. Those core clusters? They could act as a single processor on command, one with a downright staggering amount of multithreading ability even beyond what the cores themselves would normally add up to. The capability boost...was terrifying in its implication.

And this was the "general-purpose" model.

That had to have been the single biggest increase in pure power I had seen from this tech. And I had a suspicion that I could combine the principles of device technology with this to go even further beyond…if I had anything at the base levels to work with. Right now, all I knew was focused on the ability to make Unison Devices work properly, not how to get the more basic ones running right. I suspected I would have to come at the answer to that from a different direction...like, say, this nice computation orb project I'm working on.

In any case, this was test number two of an orb that could be feasibility made by normal people, even though it might take a bit longer for them to actually accomplish. Now, the only things left were to REALLY push the limits on this system by applying some of my other tech bases to it...or by pushing to the next, possibly final, step.

For reasons of brevity, I chose to just add in the extra available tech that I had to the mix, namely in photonics and the bits and pieces that were applicable from the mess of technologies that went into unison devices. I was hoping that at least one of these would add in something useful to the mix that I could safely call a "final" product to either use for myself or feed to Thoth, so he could learn how to recognize and understand Magitech.

And then I ran into the concept of a photon reactor and started kicking myself again.

Photon reactors were quite powerful for energy generation, and not only could, but were miniaturized to power various tools as needed, including weapons. If I remembered correctly, the Phantasy Star Universe games used it as a sort of energy meter for the various attacks and techniques that you could use. It was gamey, but it worked well enough from what I remembered.

In the real world? Completely different story.

It seemed that the civilization that utilized photon reactors before had no clue what the hell they were really doing, as pulling out the max efficiency of these things was almost a cakewalk even before I applied my skills, and even easier after that. They were renewable, self-sustaining and could supply damn near however much power I wanted for almost free. Provided there was enough time to gather in the necessary photon energy.

The reason I was kicking myself is that this "new" technology was almost a direct-line development from the mana reactors I had just invented, even if it was focused on photon tech and not just mana in general. Hell, looking closer, I could probably combine the two into one proper technology and go hog wild.

Wait. Need a time hack really quick…

Huh. Not too much time has passed. Only about two, two and a half hours since I got Harry situated?

I think I have a bit of time to push this just a little further, or at least to make an experimental setup for what I'm about to do.

I am Definitely going to need to get some more materials, though, as I kind of ran through my current batch running this up as far as I did. This is probably a good thing anyway, as I really need to put this new core through its paces...and it also needs a name.

How many times did I iterate It? Nah, not naming it like that.

Wait. I know what I'm naming it after. One of the best early personal computing systems of the then-dawning computing age.

Computation orb, I hereby dub thee: the Amiga.

I needed to do something about my supply issues. This was going to become a major roadblock if I wasn't careful, especially with trying to implement Photon technology. The necessary parts and pieces aware easy enough to acquire, sure, and in quantities enough that I could refine them into what I REALLY needed through some of my more esoteric abilities, but even then it added time was going to be a pain in the ass to deal with, especially with my being on a crunch period. Those genestealers were not going to just sit there and wait to be killed, after all.

This meant that I had to get another bulk run of supplies as soon as possible. And with Harry currently indisposed due to the weight of the revelations I had just dropped on his head, that meant that I had to do it myself. With at least two groups of enemies willing to break cover and reveal themselves if it meant a shot at my back.

Sometimes it sucks to be on the spot.

In any case, I needed to pack up and get things moving. There was, however, one thing that needed to be done before I ran off.

The Amiga orb was such a massive departure from the original operations orbs of the time that it was nearly an alien technology. Even the greatest of the technology of the day, the semi-legendary Elinium type-95 operations orb, paled in comparison, and it was a legit German-excuse me, Germanian-wunderwaffen. This meant that while I was absolutely sure that it worked, my previous experience with using an operations orb, even as limited as it was, was now defunct and obsolete. I had to adjust.

How fortunate, then, that I had my own personal flight range.

I headed out to the hangar area and the open field beyond, preparing myself for this test of the Amiga orb. The various spell calculations were pretty basic, from what I had available, and would likely need to be refined (again) to account for the new processing power, but they would suffice for now. All I was doing was a simple flight test, after all.

Finally reaching my destination, I looked up at the clear blue sky, which almost seemed to beckon to me to rise up and bask in its freedom.

And with a minor push of mana, I activated the Amiga and soared into the awaiting sky.

Harry was well aware that he was not in the best of moods at the moment. It was perfectly understandable, considering all that had occurred to him within the last several days. The uncovering of the genestealer cult, the multiple(!) purebred genestealers themselves, the inexorable knowledge that despite everything he had done to stem the tide, the xenos infiltrators had beaten him and corrupted his flesh with their vile poison, and would soon corrupt his soul as well. The Escherite members of said genestealer cult taking matters into their own hands and dismembering him outright, flying his flesh even as the xenos poison corrupted him, and leaving him to die or be consumed by the genestealer's kiss.

The arrival of the unknown being in advanced power armor. The resultant beating of every Escherite in the area, and release of the dozens of potentially infected men. The look in that man's face, even through the odd visor, when he saw the state that Harry had been left in.

He remembered, even now, when he realized that this man had braved a xenos hell, alone, to come for him. How he had somehow managed to stop the corruption of his flesh, and heal his multiple wounds to the point where he was no longer in danger of immediate death. He remembered even more the moment when he realized that the man in that armor was his friend.

And now, after what had seemed to be his own personal punishment from the Emperor for his deeds, he was saved, cleansed of the corruption and filth of the xeno, healed in body, and even now equipped with personally built cybernetic prosthesis...all by his friend.

Whom he had nearly shot in the back after not only rescuing and healing him, but had even then offered to go back into the nest of horrors to cleanse them from the bowels of the hive, and possibly the planet itself if need be.

His thoughts kept whirling back to those moments in an inescapable loop, unable to break free of the cycle of his own damnation. His friend, a xenos conspirator? No. and yet he had nearly killed him out of paranoia and suspicion, for daring to offer his aid against the enemies of the Imperium, just as any citizen should.

Movement from the "entrance" area drew his attention, as he watched his friend (and he as somewhat ashamed of himself to still refer to him as such, even in his own mind) walked out to the calm meadows of the open air area.

And then gaped in astonishment as he began to fly.

First only a relatively small distance from the ground, almost as if he was trying to get a grasp of how to do so, then higher and higher, and faster still, eventually moving like a blur to his eyes. It was totally incredible to see, and there was apparently no form of technology actually aiding him in this endeavor.

A thought ran through his mind: Is it some kind of psyker ability?

Satori landed nearby shortly thereafter, looking quite wind-ruffled but somehow in a good mood, his ever-present hat still on his head despite all the movement. He called out to Harry after a moment spent catching his breath.

"Oh, hey Harry. You feeling any better man? New parts holding up?"

Harry stopped for a moment, confused at the disconnect. Wasn't he just flying without any form of aid? Doesn't he think I suspect him as a Psyker?

Harry chose to ignore his internal questions for now.

"The parts are holding up pretty good. What I am more concerned about is your little...excursion just now."

Harry watched as Satori shrugged. "Oh, that? Just testing out a new piece of technology, making sure I have a feel for it. That sort of thing. You never go into the field with stuff you have no clue how to use, and I need to head out and get supplies soon. Figured I'd get the test out of the way so I at least knew what I was working with."

The odd statement from Satori piqued his curiosity. "And what exactly is it that allows you to fly with no aid whatsoever?"

"It's a prototype of a kind of energy manipulation system that utilizes some unusual principles to get away with the size of the unit." Satori showed off the odd orb-like device on a simple string that was currently hanging from his neck. "Because of certain factors involved in the type of energy used, not everyone can actually make use of these. I think you might be able to, though. I'd offer you a chance to try it out, but you still have to recover from that incident, and the prosthetics are going to take some time to fully settle in anyway. I'll happily guide you through the process once you're good to go, though."

Once again Harry found himself in an unusual position of having to justify his own suspicion against a friend, and found that he had less and less reason to be so the more he looked. Still, he would remain vigilant. Even a fallen Inquisitor could do that much.

"Oh yeah. You heard from the bosses over with the House? I've been expecting them to drop by for a while now, but nobody has shown up yet. Know anything I don't?'

Harry blinked at the subject change, although it was a valid one. He'd been expecting the same himself. "No, I don't. And the fact that we have not been contacted yet is itself very strange." He found himself moving towards what he believed to be the exit to this strange place. "It is something that I believe that we should investigate as soon as possible."

Satori nodded in agreement. "Yeah. I need to get some more parts anyway, so might as well make a full run of it. If nothing else, we can at least accomplish that."

As Satori began to lead them towards the exit, Harry could only think that his life had gotten oddly complicated, even for a former Inquisitor. He shrugged and bore on regardless.

After all, even for me, duty only ends in death.

Harry is still being really closed off. I wonder what's on his mind.

Nothing I can help with right now, at any rate. We have some bosses to check in with first.

I checked and made sure I had all the equipment that I thought I would need before I left my workshop, not wanting to separate myself from Harry for too long. Makes people paranoid, especially after the kind of crap I'd dropped on his head...and pulled him out of.

My check found something interesting, though. For reasons unknown to me and without any notice whatsoever, I found myself to somehow be in possession of another omnitool. Which made no sense whatsoever, as I only had the one to begin with.

A quick run-through of the 'tool itself revealed quite a bit of info: this particular omnitool was one of the set custom-crafted and created for the Andromeda initiative, possessing a number of specific mission mods that were not available to us "normal" N7 folks. Chief among them was a specialized fabricator module that allowed for repurposing nearly any material in the field into something usable with Alliance technology, even allowing for converting most forms of plant-based biomatter into medigel. There was also a rather nice scanner upgrade built in to the tool, but a quick check showed that it was meant to be slaved to an AI of some sort for maximum efficiency. I kinda shrugged and moved on with life.

A thought occurred to me. If I had acquired this omnitool out of nowhere, then maybe I also had a new set of abilities in the queue as well.

A quick check confirmed this suspicion, with the omnitool being a part of the new set of abilities granted to me. The second was an ability in a similar vein to my efficiency power, but at a significantly lower scale; it was something that a supremely skilled human could do with damned good planning, maybe skirting the limits of possibility but never outright breaking them. That it seemed to settle itself in with my efficiency power and almost relax was mildly amusing to me as well.

It was that third ability that caught my attention.

It simply labeled itself as "Clarketech." this in and of itself was interesting, as most of the abilities I had didn't just hand me a name...and they definitely did not reference Arthur C. Clarke in doing so. The elevator pitch I got from it was basically "you're a supreme science officer type a la Star Trek, have fun". That was not the problem.

The problem was that the damned thing came with its own spaceship, complete with levels of technology that would have the Mechanicus screaming at me and the Navigators' guild trying to kill me. Both were something that I wanted to avoid at all costs.

The good news out of that though is that it finally stabilized the odd section from my previous pickup play, and allowed me to actually get a quick look at what might be inside.

The area was in the back of the entry hall, being a very noticeable door. The reason it was so noticeable was that there were extremely clear warnings for depressurization and microgravity in the area, and recommendations for wearing some form of EVA suit while within.

It was an honest-to gods SPACE Hangar...and it now had two ships inside it.

As much as I wanted to investigate further, I did not. I had no need to frustrate Harry any more than he already was, and the lack of contact from Van Saar actually was a priority, so I allowed it to slide, for now. Besides, they were not going anywhere as it was.

I did, however, stop and grab the neuromod injector for my experimental psychic awakening serum. As much as I distrusted the prospect, I had already nearly been ganked by Psykers twice now, and anything that could help break that was useful. Besides, the checks keep coming back clear, and if I can't trust my own work, let alone Thoth's, then whose could I trust at all?

Gear in hand, we finally made it out of the workshop space, and I shut everything down while Harry started heading towards the toilets, probably to help clear his head along with the usual. Not too much for me to worry about, and it gave me a moment to use for myself.

I hadn't intended to hide this from Harry, but in the name of easing him into the insanity, I decided that this was something that I could tell him about later. I grabbed the neuromod in question, and mentally ran through the "install" procedure. I had redesigned the applicators a bit, for ease of use, and as there was no actual "skill" data involved, it wouldn't require entire minutes to install. Plus, Thoth already had a copy of my brain state in case of emergencies, so there was nothing to worry about on that front.

With that, I placed the applicator on my eye socket, and took the plunge.

It was...weird. I can't really describe what happened or how, at least not from the perspective of someone in the driver's seat, so to speak. I knew about what was supposed to happen, about all the science that was supposed to go into allowing for it, but the process itself was a complete trip. I saw flashes of sound, felt waves of color, heard the smell of sweet grapefruit. It was wild, my senses shifting from one place to the next in an uncontrollable rhythm...until everything just...stopped.

And I stood alone, surrounded by POTENTIAL.

I snapped out of the trance then, removing the applicator from my eye socket, and tried to not rub at the spot where a pair of needles had just jabbed into my brain. Thoth reported on damage whatsoever. And I...didn't feel any different. No sudden onrush of power, no voices in my head, nothing like that. Just me and myself and I.

Huh. Maybe it didn't work after all. I'd have to run over the details later on as a postmortem. Right now there was other business to attend to.

The streets were oddly quiet for this time of day.

Normally there would be a certain hustle and bustle as people went about their daily routines, many performing the various jobs that kept the Hive city operating day in and day out. Right now, there was none of that. The streets were almost deserted, and the few people out and about were very clearly expecting trouble from the way they were armed and armored up...but didn't bother trying to make any moves towards me or Harry, which I found especially odd.

An itch formed in the back of my mind. Something was wrong.

And from the look of it, Harry had noticed as well, and agreed with my silent assessment.

We moved down the eerily empty walkways and passages, headed towards the Van Saar compound with the intent of trying to pry out what was going on. And no matter where we went, the streets stayed almost stubbornly empty, save a bare few.

The itch grew larger, and I found myself unconsciously gripping my modified Hellpistol tightly, having drawn it sometime during our advance.

It was not until we got to one of the major thoroughfares between us and our objective that we saw the cause of the strife.

The vast majority of the locals were gathered here, all bunched together like a pack of sardines, and seemingly listening to someone on a makeshift pulpit yammer on about something or another. A sudden wave of confusion drifts over me that I shake off without incident as I move in closer to the pile, trying to hear what is being said.

And yet there are no words spoken.

So why the hell is everyone just standing here faking listening to this guy anyway?

A tap on my shoulder grabs my attention, and I turn to face Harry, who has a grimace of near pure concentration on his face.

"We need to leave, now." his tone left zero room for argument.

I allowed Harry to start guiding me out of the area before I bothered with asking questions. If this was important enough that even he was trying to clear out, then we did not need to be here.

We broke line of sight with the crowd before I sent a harsh whisper his direction. " What the hell is going on, Harry? That crowd..."

"Not here."" Harry's reply was equally harsh, and I noticed that he had some slight signs of panic in his bearing. "We need to get clear of this mess, NOW."

I had trusted Harry in the past when things were odd and I lacked understanding of the situation, but this was straining it severely. "And the people back there? What about them?" I glanced back the way we came for just a moment.

"Don't bother. They're as good as dead already, and unless you want to join them, we need to move." again, Harry's reply was terse, even as he started pushing us to move even faster than before, almost to the point of outright running now. The fact that he was perfectly willing to try and DRAG me away from whatever the hell that was…

That itch in my mind was now getting closer to an outright headache. I found myself squinting unconsciously, trying to force my attention past it tosee.

Why was Harry so afraid of an odd gathering? To the point that we were hauling ass in as close to a straight line as possible AWAY from the area? It made no fucking sense-

It was a flash, nothing more. But in that moment, somewhere past the growing pressure in my head, I heard it. The faintest echo of the damned Laughter.

I quickly put two and two together after that...and realized with absolute horror that we would never clear the blast zone. My eyes were dragged forward, finding themselves suddenly fixed firmly on the squad of what were clearly witch hunters.

And I once again noted that we were just about the only things moving on the street.

FUCK.

The witch hunters noticed our movement very quickly, and I saw them drawing weapons and setting themselves to gunning us down.

FUCK.

I didn't even bother to try and be subtle about it. I just grabbed Harry and "pushed" us away from the immediate line of fire, even as I desperately tried to find some form of cover to get to. An old ferrocrete block for what I guessed was supposed to be some kind of statue rather quickly became our new home, and not a moment too soon, as the Bolts were already chewing up the scenery around us. I desperately tried to fight down my own sense of panic, knowing full well that being stuck between the current combination of a rock and a bigger rock was not helping us one bit.

It was perhaps fortunate then that I never had the chance to actually panic.

From behind us, a burst of something surged outwards, picking up everything from random debris to entire chunks of ferrocrete in its wake and hurling them outwards with the blast wave. Fortunately, there were not many people out to be caught by the resulting storm of debris.

Unfortunately, we were. And the mass of debris was tearing up everything in its wake.

Harry's response had to have been trained, because he immediately rushed towards more suitable cover against the storm than our current position. I followed behind him at an only slightly slower pace, still trying to keep my head level, and also fighting off a now nearly migraine-level headache that I only now realized was a reaction to some kind of Psyker attack. Harry seemed to notice my distress, as he was visibly torn between wanting to snap me out of it and just shooting me.

"Harry" I hissed between my teeth, the pain from the headache becoming ever more pronounced as whatever force was behind it applied more pressure. "Get us out of here. I'm not going to be able to hold up much longer…"

It was only the absence of movement that caught my attention through the deepening haze of pain. Harry stood motionless, almost as if in a trance, his eyes rolling upwards into the back of his head, even as a grimace of pure loathing spread across his face. Whatever the hell was trying to break me, it had gotten Harry first.

The pain grew stronger, as the grip of whatever...no, whomever that was grew tighter. It was all I could do to even focus at this point, barely having any ability to hang on to my own conscious thoughts, desperately scrambling for a way to get out of the deathtrap that we were in.

I think that was what ultimately saved us, in the end.

In my desperation, I lashed outwards unconsciously at the perceived source of my pain, seeking some form of relief from the pressure by any means. When that didn't work, I did it again. And again, and again, each time ever more desperate as I fought to break free. It was one of those last ones that finally broke the hold on my mind.

I slumped to the ground in relief as the pain receded, only to be reminded of the storm of debris raging all around us. Acting with as much care as was possible, I grabbed Harry and dragged him to a nook that had been created by the ensuing destruction, and stuffed him inside as best I could without hurting him, then followed. I didn't notice our other occupant until later, though, as I was trying with limited success to close off any means of getting scraped into a bloody smear on the surroundings.

Almost on instinct I accessed the Amiga, creating a mage barrier strong enough to protect us from the ensuing storm even as I unconsciously beat back yet more mental attacks on my person. And as the storm swirled all around us, destroying everything in its wake, I huddled down in a desperate effort to save the lives of myself and my friend.

Around us, buildings were being torn apart as the storm raged on, gaining even more momentum and debris as the structures were torn to shreds, the terrified inhabitants being dragged outwards and into the whirlwind of death. The blood of the slain mixed in with the howling winds as the storm reached a fever pitch, even the meager cover provided by the nook we were in proving no match for the onslaught.

The other inhabitant of our nook reached out and grabbed onto me with a shriek of pure terror. I absently noted that the voice was female., even as she clung tighter to me, the mage barrier only barely keeping the destruction at bay around us.

I watched in horror as nearly the entire plaza was annihilated in a whirlwind of ferrocrete and steel, killing what seemed to be thousands in its wake as it raged on. The constant attacks on my mind grew in intensity as well, even as I braced and held on for all dear life to not get sucked into the void.

Perhaps it was inevitable, then, when the very ground I stood upon gave way and broke, sending us hurtling into the storm. I managed to grab hold of Harry just before it could claim him, even as we were thrown into the worst of it.

The endless chunks of ferrocrete, and what looked like razor-sharp steel raged around us, constantly stressing my barrier to the limits and beyond. I suspect that the only reason it was still holding out was due to the built-in mana reactor augmenting my reserves, else I doubt that we would have lasted even this long.

I was drawn out of my very brief contemplation by the sight of an absolutely HUGE piece of ferrocrete appearing directly in front of us, slamming into the barrier I held up even as it tried to push us further into the maelstrom. An absent thought went through my mind that this would be a good way to crush us, but instead the block seemed to take us into the eye of the storm.

And unlike a "normal" eye, this was the absolute worst part to be in.

I could only look on in horror as seemingly endless amounts of people were tron to shreds, with the storm seemingly having a mind of its own and choosing who to rip to pieces as all watched, helpless to stop the slaughter. All the wile, my mind was stretched to the breaking point by the constant onslaught of attacks, even as I struggled to maintain the barrier keeping us from death.

And so was my world consumed and reduced to nothing more than instinct, noise, countless grinding pieces of stone, and the echoes of countless screams.

Not once did I stop to consider that one of those screams was my own.

Yeah. This chapter is a thing that exists. Aftermath coming up.

Perks this chapter:

-Omnitool | Scanner (Mass Effect Andromeda) (200CP)

Omnitool (100CP)

You get an omni-tool loaded up with programs and information that'd be best suited for unsupported colonization in a new galaxy. Because the Andromeda Initiative knew that they'd be going with a finite supply of ammo, medi-gel and power cells, each omni-tool can recover and repurpose appropriate resources to serve appropriate functions. For example, liquid coolant allows weapon heatsinks to be reused, and organic compounds can be refined into medi-gel. They can also convert consumable items into immediately usable forms. Finally, they do everything else regular omnitools can: Communication, manufacturing fabricator, sensor analysis, and computer mainframe.

Scanner (100CP)

This omni-tool mounted system is how the Andromeda Initiative plans to rapidly survey planets. This system is fast and accurate sampling system that is formally known as Panoptes. When linked to an AI, it can produce multiple analyses and predictive models in seconds, turning what would be the surveying work of weeks into mere moments. For most purposes it uses a transmitted accelerator mass spectrometer to create a snapshot of an objects components, atomic weight, and radioactivity, allowing for in-depth analysis. For biological materials, the system switches to an electrospray ionization system, so that plants or animals can be scanned without causing radiation damage. For a Jumper, you no longer need to have an AI linked to the system for it to work, though that would help. You can also take DNA scans of organisms for further study, and scan devices to help you figure out what they do, and maybe later reproduce them. Lastly, if you have a longer ranged sensor system, you could link the Scanner to that to scan further away, even if being in the Scanner's original range would get you clearer results.

-Clarketech (Generic Space Opera) (400CP)

Not only are you able to reverse engineer, extrapolate from, and eventually replicate with a device of your own make any technology you encounter, you also are able to do so with any other phenomenon, be it a physical occurrence, magical or even divine in nature, or even just theorised by you to be possible, though in the latter case you naturally will encounter failure if your theories prove false, in addition to research and prototyping taking a prohibitively long time to do.

(Author Note: Comes with a Spaceship. Details will be when I introduce the ship itself.)

-Loaded Up (Generic Cyberpunk) (200CP)

It's not enough to have what you need locked away back in the workshop, and even when you have time to prepare you often have to pack light. You have a particular genius when it comes to building and working with tools, gadgets, weapons, armor, and other personal scale equipment. Whether it's cramming a computing setup that would take up an entire workstation into something that a hacker can slap onto their arm for on the fly hacking, or taking a normal pistol and modding it until it's more lethal and effective than most military arms, you're able to cram a

stupefying amount of effectiveness into easily ported packages. Your creativity, skills, and genius just seem to skyrocket when dealing with things in sizes that would hamper anybody else. Bigger doesn't always mean better, sometimes it just means cumbersome.

-N-Ways Fusion Plant (Endless Space) (200CP) (NOTE: Acquired Chapter 7)

Refueling? What's that? You have mastered the art of Endless power generation, and any device you possess or can claim as yours never runs out of power. Other things can still be a problem, like weapons overheating, engines breaking down, etc, but you never need to worry about your battery running out. Your starting equipment and ship already have fusion plants installed in them, and you have schematics to make more, of various sizes, but you will need some rare elements and facilities to make them. The smaller they are, the simpler it is. Making a capital ship reactor is going to take a LOT of materials, but is totally worth it.

Scout Ship (Free): An engine, a cockpit, some life support. This is as barebones of a ship as you can get, about the same size as a modern day space shuttle. It is essentially a space faring RV with sensors and a couple point defense weapons, designed for long journeys to the edges of known space.

Drop-In (Style): Not all ships that travel the galaxy are made by the big names. While nothing sets these ships apart, they aren't the subject to the same hatred opposing factions have for one another. Good if you want to lie low. A good jack of all, master of none ship.