Author's Note: So this is my first fanfic. Not much else to say other than I hope you guys will all enjoy it. This is going to be the beginning to what I hope will be about a 10k words per chapter novel, but hey, see where the winds of life are blowing first. Ngl, There may be some delays as my housing situation is pretty precarious and I might be homeless here shortly, so I hope its cool with yall that my second chapter may be a little delayed. Thanks for being understanding. Spiral out bitches.
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Breathe, Victus, breathe. It was a constant mantra I repeated to myself, similar in its robust musical structure to the ways in which several god-emperor fearing sects chanted, but to no avail or ease to myself. The incessant pounding of the empyreon trying its best to challenge my deeper thoughts in my head, to use me as just another conduit to that terrible realm so wretched that most of the imperium was denied its knowledge. That was the true horror of being a psyker, to know that at any moment you could endanger your best friends, that you could endanger worlds with your mere presence. But sometimes the typical caution in fully using one's power must be thrown to the wayside, such as in situations like this.
"Emperor Damnit, Victus, pull it together, we will be landing in just a few moments!" Came the roaring voice of our platoon leader, Hector. A man of inscrutable honor, character and truthfulness and always someone who you would rather play a game of poker against, as you are guaranteed victory. He was truly a rock, a rock that we now needed as we rapidly closed the distance between our boarding craft and the target, a large freighter carrying some artifact that was unknown to us by order of Ordo Malleus.
The Inquisition did love its secrets.
I held back the urge to puke the closer we got to the potential conflict, as Khorne and his bloodlust was so great that it overcame his hatred of psykers trounced upon my mind as I continued once more to shut the dark gods out. I began to perform a ritual, tapping my right index finger against the hem of my garments. It was a very simple measure that helped me to focus on tuning out the demons as we got closer. It proved effective, my need to retch ceased and I was calm once more.
Then, it happened.
Bam! The boarding pod had latched onto the town and a laser had begun drilling holes in the ship while maintaining an airtight seal, allowing us to board the vessel. The air was filled with tension, we might be walking straight into a killzone, hence my presence to produce psychic shields. There was a shuffle or two sideways, a nervous clench here or there, but this was nothing new to the 332nd Jalmarth Division.
Then, the sealing was complete and a section of the ship was removed. We stormed out only to find,
Nothing. Nada, a ghost town. No killzone, not a lick of anyone alive. Bizarre, I thought. How could this be? I took a look inwards at my map of the vessel's interior, apparently we had attached somewhat close to where the bridge of this vessel was. By all means I expected to encounter heavy resistance, but instead nothing happened. Then suddenly, beyond the usual tempting of the dark gods was a hint of something even more malevolent somehow. I needed to make my voice be heard.
"Beware the path ahead, many dangers lie before us," I said forcefully.
"You guys heard the psyker, there's more danger here than meets the eye," Hector replied.
"I think it's tied to the object we are to seek here. I am unsure of the nature of the premonition, other than it implies danger. We must forge ahead more cautiously." I said.
"Hmph, very well," Hector grunted in reply as he turned to address the rest of the platoon of soldiers. "Alright everyone, you know the drill. Seek and recover, no heroics, no bullshit, just come back to me in one piece. Spread out and keep in comms range, our resident psyker here just got a bad feeling about this object, so if anyone gets the sense that something else is up, message us and we'll be on it like flies on shit," Hector said. "Victus, you're with me."
I nodded in response, prepared to go with them. Besides Hector, I knew of none of them. First and foremost, most of the soldiers of the 332nd were replacements, high casualties were expected within the imperial guard after all. Something to whit made me feel a twang of sorrow about the recent passing of most of Hector's personal guard during the campaign of Thalsus, at least if it wasn't for the fact that most soldiers shunned me and my kind like we were the plague. Both reasons why I would spend so little time amongst their group making friends.
"Fucking witch is with us now? Great." I heard one of the guardsmen mutter under their breath. I offered up no response.
"Victus, where is this Emperor-damned miserable object so we can snag it and go home already?" rang Hector's voice.
I turned my third eye inwards in an attempt to shift through the currents of the empyreon once more. It seemed that many hours had passed but in reality I must have sat there for a grand total of 2 minutes before coming up with a sufficient answer. "Down in the middle of the ship, there is a vault, we must access it."
"Alright," Said Hector. The men behind him looked at each other in a questioning manner, before sounding their concerns.
"Hey uh, Hector, are you sure you can trust this witch?" Said one of the soldiers.
"Guys, I've worked with Victus for long enough to understand who he is and what he's capable of. Since you guys are new here, I'll let this disrespect of your commanding officer slide, but don't question my orders again." Hector said.
I smiled in response. At least there was one here who trusted me.
It was time to separate. Each trooper got a move on, each fitted with unique armor that had been scavenged in one form or another from various different battlefields. As ragged and haggard as the individual carrying it, worn down by the weight of keeping the imperium safe from the mutant, the xeno, and the heretic. Funny, it was almost I who was the mutant and the heretic a long time ago, before the black ships found me and took me down on the path of the sanctioned psyker.
Another story, for another time.
"Victus, which hallway?" Hector asked me.
"This one, the center most hallway, is a straight path to the vault."
"Excellent, we'll be done and set in 5 terran standard minutes, tops." Hector said.
How wrong we were. As we moved down the path, the lights would flicker on and off depending on where we were standing. Certain paths would remain in the dark, as if allowing for the path that leads directly to the vault to be the only way forward. It was eerie, to be sure. The clatter of boots hitting the ground did nothing to nullify my growing concerns, concerns about this device, or if some enemy psyker was leading us straight into a trap. Our tiny little fighting force was mere guardsmen, what if the device was an ancient Necron device? Too many questions to ask.
Eventually we came upon a hallway. A hallway that I sensed was longer than most. That's when it hit me. The sudden wails and perforating screams in my psyche. "Hector, stop!" I shouted. That brought them immediately to halt their advance deeper into the vessel, giving me the time to recover.
"Victus, what's wrong?" Hector questioned, a look of grave concern crossing his face for the briefest of moments.
"I think it's the device, its power is washing over me. I'm not sure how much further I can go."
"C'mon Victus, we need you. The Inquisition has you setup in our squad for a reason. Push through it," Hector said, his no nonsense attitude I could feel emanating from him like a warm torch on a cold winter's morning. It was enough to convince me to move forward, almost.
"Fine, but just so you know, this is a level of danger that I have not seen before. Be on your toes."
I watched the distrustful eyes of the guardsmen who had been watching me double in intensity and piercing gaze.
That is when I saw it with my third eye, movement.
"Get down!" I screamed at the top of my lungs.
Just as soon as I said it, a multilaser bombarded the position that we were just in, threatening us all with death. The only thing protecting us was the psychic shield I had erected moments before. Now they all sought cover as I slowly edged my own way towards the cover that was being offered against this damnable manned turret.
"C'mon Victus, get your ass into cover!" Hector screamed. Easier said than done, with all my focus being solely on maintaining the psychic shield. I could not wait much longer, I had to get to the safety of the cover like everyone else or I was dead. Step by step I edged backwards. Until finally, "Oh thank the Emperor he's safe. Men, fire and maneuver, break into the other hallways and see if you can't get a shot on them. I'll contact the other squadrons and let them know we have contact!" I could barely hear Hector scream over the din of firing weapons. But I understood him, and relayed his message psychically to all nearby. Unfortunately, I was no astropath, but I figured that that would be sufficient to help organize the men.
We sat there being bombarded for what seemed like hours when in reality it was only mere minutes as the groups split off and began attacking it from different directions. Suddenly, that's when it happened. Lasgun fire from a different corridor fired on the mounted lasgun position that was hitting us. Ah, the cavalry had arrived! As much as I was a hated and detested part of the corp, it did do good to cheer for one's own side every now and then. Removed the chance of fatality by friendly fire.
Hector breathed a sigh of relief as he sheathed his plasma pistol. It would have been almost nigh impossible to get a shot with the pistol while being suppressed like that, thank the Emperor for the timely intervention of the Emperor's hammer.
"Victus," Hector addressed me quietly as he slunk over in relief. "Any more surprises I should be aware of?"
His sarcasm washed over me as I gave just the glimmering edge of a petite smile, "None that I can see right now."
"I guess only moving forward will do us more good then right?" He said with a smirk.
The other soldiers were not as enthused as us.
We eventually came upon the firing position of this particular multilaser. Right in the middle of an intersection of eight hallways, and on an elevated beam. Excellent place for an emplacement such as this one.
"Victus, anything from the bodies?" Hector asked.
I stopped and tried my best to extract as much soul essence as possible from the dying soldiers before they lost their minds to the Warp. Oftentimes these little readings offered nothing, but sometimes on rare occasions, would be the glimpse of something big. Unfortunately for me, this is one of those times where the answer was nothing, except for one random lonely word which seemed to be shared between the crew. Gaddeus.
Gaddeus.
Gaddeus.
Over and over again it rang out to me, until it ceased. What was Gaddeus, was it a person, a place, a weapon? I didn't know, nor would I find out until I pressed on further.
"Anything Victus?"
"No, just one word, hung on repeat, Gaddeus."
"Huh, weird."
We pressed onwards, encountering no more resistance other than the one isolated multilaser turret. It became more and more bizarre, the bridge which was handled in part by forces who had been in our boarding pod, was found to be completely empty. It was like a ghost ship.
Eventually, we came to a large room, meeting up with 2 other squads, making us about 30 men strong. Inside was the vault which I had foretold would lay about here.
"Alright Victus, this is where we part ways. Stay at the door, no matter what happens, you hear me? This is our work now." Hector stated without so much as an inch of space for arguments.
So I sat outside, eager and anxious as to what they were uncovering. I could hear faint commands, and a few gasps.
"Look at the size of this thing!"
"Oh Emperor, it's massive!"
Thats when I heard it, by then it was already too late.
"SCREAM FOR YOUR LIVES PETTY MORTALS, YOU CANNOT STOP MY ASCENSION!"
At that point I understood that everyone who had been in that room was dead, sucked into this giant spherical object which sat at the center of the room. Except I, I was the only one who could shut it down. I began to take steps, shielding myself using my psychic shield to advance.
"WHAT IS THIS? ONE STILL SURVIVES, AH, A LOWLY MORTAL PSYKER. TELL ME PSYKER DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO STOP MY ASCENSION? I THINK NOT."
The loud booming voice continued to scream within my head. I ignored it as best I could, but he was strong, stronger than I by far, and yet his hubris gave me my opportunity.
"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING, BEGONE!"
His psychic wave nearly doubled in pressure in an attempt to push me away from the sphere. But I endured. I endured because I thought of the one friend I had ever had in service to the Imperium being boiled away in front of my own eyes. I thought of the Inquisitorial review of the mission and how it would find me to blame, and surely be executed, I thought of all these things, and I endured.
"NO, NO, NO!"
I had my fingers on the clamp that Hector and company had installed onto the device, and throttled it.
Then I was gone.