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When I woke from the blast my head and ears felt sore. It reminded me of the time my younger brother thought it would be funny to blast an air horn into my ear to wake me up. The doctor said I was lucky to still have a functioning eardrum after that. The headache was just that, and I couldn't help but groan aloud as I tried to sit up. The ground was cold and hard so I could help but shiver at it. The surrounding environment was dark except for a little bit of light that bled into the place. My shelter, as I quickly discovered, was a cave and probably still in the jungle. I was about to start wondering how I had gotten here when my eyes finally managed to focus and even in the limited light I could see the pale grey and carapaced cover complexion of a Hormagaunt.
It was a mere yard away from my feet and I cried out in a panic. Scrambling back from it and onto my feet. I was about to flee when I notices something off, it wasn't prone and ready to strike but just laying on its belly. Balded forearms tucked under it in what could only be described as nonthreatening. Which was not a term that should be used with Tyranids hence my confusion.
Now that I was staring I was able to note the Hormagaunt had a lot of scars around its face. Not large but small gashes that looked to have recently stopped bleeding, a memory of the grenade and that this beast covering me with their body. Or more like shielding me really...
"But why did you do that?" I asked and it only remained laying there watching me, motionless except for some steady breathing. "Get up." I added and to my surprise, the Hormagaunt indeed moved to its feet and began approaching me slowly. All the while keeping its blades low.
That last part got me even more scared and I backed up while the Tyranid become stock-still. Approaching me would have been my second order but it did it before I said anything. Then I thought back to the temple, where I knew I had to protect my body from harm and the Hormagaunt shielded me... Even now it stopped the moment I thought about crying out for it to do so, without ever opening my mouth. So I make a more specific thought in my mind and the creature carefully closed in, my arm was extended and palm flat. The Hormagaunt moved slowly step by step until it was able to nuzzle its forehead into my palm.
Its grey skin was hard, not to the extent of the carapace pieces around its body, but felt like leather if it was hardened to be like stone. It makes sense, this was a warrior variant meant to soak up projectiles while closing the distance for melee attacks. As I felt its complexion my mind immediately went back to the genestealers and the pressure at the back of my head, one that I suspected existed because of my control over this creature. Clearly, they had done this for the hivemind to exert control but that begged the question, or several.
Why did genestealers do this?
How come I don't feel compelled to follow some unseen will nor see the Tyranids as glorious beings?
The former I wondered because weren't genestealer cults independent from the hivemind? They had their patriarch and were connected but were still all individuals working towards a common goal. How come they would make me a conduit for it? Was I a conduit for it!?
The ladder question I asked because I was absolutely certain I am in control of my mind and thoughts. I feared the Hormagaunts when I first saw them and wanted to get as far away from the genestealer hybrids as possible. The device they were using on me wasn't for my health obviously and was it the imperial guard's intervention that saved me? There was something in me that I could control it may influence the actions of this Hormagaunt.
Then another question hit me, why me? They couldn't just use one of their own or something?
I didn't have any answers nor was I going to figure it out by asking them here. Taking my hand off the Tyranid and sending a mental order for it to sit I made to the entrance of the cave. A peek outside showed me there was considerable space outside between the cave and jungle foliage with rocks spread out from the mouth of the cave. I looked back and noted the deep blackness that seemed to just stretch on and leaving the cave revealed more such holes all over the side of the mountain I was apparently in.
"Tunnels?" I wondered, this was getting weirder by the second, wherever these led to it was probably more Tyranids and despite my new powers, I was in no mood to go looking for more Hormagaunts or even larger creatures to see if the same thing would happen.
"What I need is to get somewhere that isn't liable to have a lot of Tyranids or Guardsmen. Then I could maybe formulate an actual plan."
With Guardsmen and Tyranids running around this place it was basically a warzone and the chances of running into someone willing to shoot first and ask no question were extremely high. Therefore I needed to get to some kind of city or town and slip into the populace Then figure it out from there.
How to get there was going to be a challenge... or was it?
The Hormagaunt's feet padded on the stone as it existed in the cave and took up a spot at my side. It knew I wanted it near.
"Take me to the nearest human settlement," I ordered, and without hesitation, it immediately began moving towards the thick jungle and dimming sun. I tried to follow but had to step carefully as I still didn't have shoes or even my feet coverings anymore. Things were still wet from the previous night's rain and the heat kept it humid.
"I wish I didn't have to walk all the way..." As soon as the idea entered my head the large Tyranid bent slightly and waited for me to board its back. Now, this was not a horse, of course, far smaller even if it was strong enough to hold a hundred and sixty pounds in its back. So when it began to race into the jungle I had to lie flat against it and grip hard on its bulging carapace. Getting a ride from a vicious creature might sound fun on paper but the reality was that this thing wasn't made to have someone ride on its back.
The Hormagaunt would occasionally slow down whenever I felt like I was losing my grip or thought it was going too fast. The Tyranid could see well and react fast enough to obstacles in its way I decided to place a little faith in this creature... Until I found a town at which point I fully intended to tell this thing to run away forever or into a machine gun nest.
It was getting late when a town was finally found, the sun had almost fallen below the canopy of leaves. The edges of the jungle had been cleared away from it and metallic walls rose into the air. I suppose it was a bit much of me to hope I'd easily find a place that was without fortifications. I probably would have been spotted if not for the gunfire and shrieks that I could hear even when I was almost half a mile out. The place wasn't big and the wall looked like it was hastily set up, which it probably was. From what I could glimpse over the wall and torn open gate there were a lot more metallic buildings. The head Tyranids strewed around not that I would have assumed anything else was attacking this place. Odd that this thing knew to bring me somewhere small yet filled with humans.
"Then again it knows exactly what I'm looking for because I'm sure it can listen to my thoughts." It was a weird thing to consider but the Hormagaunt is basically just an organic machine, it has no real individuality behind its mind. That's just what most Tyranids are really.
In spite of my newfound control of the Hormagaunt I was riding upon. I had little interest in walking into that town and trying to see if I could influence anymore. There was a bizarre pull though... the more I look the more I wanted to walk in... I had no idea if that was good or bad. The back of my head wasn't tingling like when giving orders to my new companion. I didn't know what was in there nor who was winning. If it was the Imperial Guard, great I could easily slip into this place among the chaos. If the Tyranids, then I only had this Hormagaunt to protect me and a power I did not understand the limitations for.
"Would it hurt to check...? This thing is pretty fast, maybe I could approach slow and bolt once it gets dangerous?" Continuing to run through the jungle hoping I'd just find the perfect town and never run into Guardsmen or genestealers was probably a lot t ask for. If luck was on my side I would have never woken up here or had immediately been taken by the hybrids.
My mind was made up as the Hormagaunt got low and slowly crept towards the entrance. I hugged its back, ready for it to bolt the moment it sensed danger. There were bodies of Hormagaunt and even Termagants laying about. The gate was pretty thin as I noted when we got close, actually, now I was here the gate had scorch marks and bent metal all over it. I had only really seen explosions in movies and video games but this gate didn't look as if it was torn off by claws but blown open. I hazard a glance to the ground and scanned for a bit and noted the purple and grey hue common for genestealers in the mount of corpses. That might explain the discrepancy, hybrids blew the gate and likely caused chaos within the settlement.
I cranked my head to the sky but still didn't see anything resembling a swarm of hiveships in the atmosphere. This planet was clearly under attack but where was the hivefleet?
There was another reason why I looked to the sky. I had never been around corpses before and tried my damnest not to acknowledge the opened bodies and parts strewn about. So I leveled my gaze to look into the town, then lower to eye a pair of binoculars on one of the bodies and slid off my ride to take it. Ignoring or doing my best to ignore, the dead Guardsman it was attached to.
The place kind of reminded me of Hadley's Hope in aliens, just with no atmospheric processor. Same side buildings and all-metal, I would have called it homey if not for the clear signs of recent battle and gunfire in the distance. I wondered where the nearest Tyranids were at when it happened.
A large door opened to one of the larger buildings just a block down the street and a woman ran out, not a soldier from the lack of flak armor either. She bolted out and following close behind was a Tyranid Warrior. At least that's what I thought they were called, it felt dump that Games Workshop came up with so many unique names, and yet the most basic synapse creature was called Tyranid Warrior.
My thoughts were immediately broken when it plunged one of its blades into the woman's back. Her screams echoed and joined the distance fighting as a retinue of Hormagaunts and Termagants busted out of tinted windows and the open door. Even from here I could see many had a distinct red coat painting them, evidence of a massacre that no doubt took place in the structure they came from.
The woman continued to scream even as the large warrior drew its blade back and sank its teeth into her shoulder. Hormagaunts grouped around like piranhas. Biting hard on limbs and clothed flesh and pulling back to tear chunks of meat off her bones and even a whole leg that one eagerly worked at with its jaws. Bone, muscle, fat, nothing could offer resistance to its teeth or jaws. Entrails and other organs soon flopped out from her opened belly and were scooped up into the jaws of the smaller Tyranids forms. They were gathering biomass at the behest of the warrior, the understanding came to me after a moment of watching them feast. While it only took a few seconds before the woman passed and her body torn apart and consumed by the addition of the Termagants I immediately felt sick at the show.
I wanted to drop the binoculars and stop looking but my entire body had tensed up, leaving me to watch the gory consumption. At last, my body lurched from the show to dry heaved nothing out, reminding me how I had eaten nothing ever since I got here and it sickened me even more. When I looked up the Warrior and its group was staring right at me. Panic filled me faster than tossing an empty glass into a pool of water. My companion immediately took a position in front of me and screaked in the most threatening manner it could muster while standing on its hind legs. A protective move to shield me from a perceived threat.
The threat was met with the warrior turning to face us fully, it let out a far more mighty roar. Then my head was hit by a spike of pain. Like someone had driven a metal rode into the wound on the back of my head. I couldn't help but rub that stop in some vain attempt to soothe it. Whatever the Tyranid warrior was trying to do I didn't think it was conclusive to my health, although I was confused as to why it suddenly stopped until I too heard the roaring engines of an aircraft.
Cranking my head up and to the left of the group of Tyranids flew over a red Thunderhawk, almost low enough to scrap one of the two-story buildings. The ramp opened while it hovered and out flew a squad of red-painted Space Marines. The jump packs strapped to their backs Showed they were Assault Marines. They descended like boulders from the air and slammed into the Tyranid brood landing just outside the groups and wasting no time bringing their chain swords to bear. The creatures reeled knowing full well what these guys were before the synapse creature roared once more trying to rally them. By then I had the binoculars back in hand and was able to get a good view of the carnage.
Hormagaunts leaped into the melee and Termagants fired their biological rifles, more blood-soaked Tyranids emerged from the building to try and overwhelm the Marines like the Guardsmen here. It was no use of course this was and an entire squad of Space Marines, what they couldn't hack apart with their serrated blade were blown apart with bolt pistols. They could have easily torn apart the Tyranids but instead opened the path for their leader.
I knew he was in charge because I spotted a power axe, the distinct blue glow from a plasma pistol, and he had no helmet on. The ordinated marine surged forwards to meet the dual-bladed Tyranid warrior, tanking useless fire from spike rifles and even cruising a Hormagaunt underfoot. Powered blades were insanely powerful and their fields could cut through just about anything made all the more apparent when the Warriors blades were sliced in half than its leg. The beast had no time to react as a ball of superheated plasma blew its head clean off.
All this occurred in a little over a minute, I was barely able to track the specific movements as the Tyranid brood was decimated. The Thunderhawk had already left to either unload more Marines or just off to a different job.
It was them I was able to see something one the large pauldron, I recognized the color scheme and design. The blackbird with its wings spread wide with a red drop of blood in the middle of the bird that was set on a white background. They were the Blood Ravens from the Dawn of War series.
"What the heck are they doing here, just at what point in the timeline am I in?"
I paused, staring at the Blood Ravens as they went to town on the broken Tyranids. There were Genestealers active on this planet so an invasion of Tyranids occurred but there were no large hiveships blocking the sky... and one of the Blood Ravens with a power axe had some wicked hair. Like it looked as if he used a massive amount of hair gel that morning just to get it to hold straight and not sway in heat of battle.
"Is this Sub-sector Aurelia...? It would have to be some time after the events of Dawn of war two and that one guy looks like the commander you play as..." My luck was a seismograph during an earthquake with how often it's been changing...
With the synapse creature dead the remaining Hormagaunts and Termagants immediately became sluggish and instinctively moved to flee from the area. My personal one lowered itself before me to ride. I was about to get on when one of the assault marines turned and saw me, a civilian getting onto the back of a freaking Hormagaunt, and after a moment's pause to eye me up, he turned to level a bolt pistol at me.
Panic grew even further and cut between ducking behind my ride or putting my hands up. I needed that bolt gun to be pointed somewhere else or the marine holding or distracted, I swear I could feel my head tingling once more. Then every remaining Termagant stumbled for a moment like they all got a collective migraine then stopped trying to run and levels their spike rifles at that one marine.
The combined fire of ten did nothing to the armored limb but the sidearm in his hand didn't fare as well. Being torn out before the trigger could be pulled and over a dozen, Hormagaunts rushed through the marines to attack that one guy in particular. Most went through the other marines and were cut down, it was enough for me to latch onto the one at my side like a tick, and then we were off. My Hormagaunt making zig-zag turns the second the thought entered my mind although I heard no bolt rounds whizzing by. I only felt moderately safe once we passed the threshold from the open field and thick jungle.
I didn't know where to go from here and just thought anywhere the Hormagaunt felt was free from danger would be fine.
Then my mind went back to the retinue of the Tyranid warrior. When it died the group it was leading broke as it would. Yet they suddenly rallied when I felt serious danger and panicked.
"I did that, I summoned them to help me... I know I did but how!?"
A mystery to be solved once I got something to eat, my stomach rumbled and I began to wonder about the sense of getting the Hormagaunt to get food for me...
