Jump Chain 12 - BTVS 4
Part 8
CRD. Sunnydale.
While I and a few of my girls had been off exploring a little of the country known as Morrowind (and this was something that a handful of my companions were still off doing right now as there was much to see and do in that land) Seven of Nine had returned to this dimension via a Quantum Mirror so as to begin work on back-engineering the technology that I and a few of my companions had acquired from the moon of Phobos not so long ago.
The Doom verse technology was somewhat interesting and had been well worth taking, but aside from the power armour, I didn't pay it much attention as I'd already studied plasma and gauss technology and there would be time to study that tech later on.
Sure before today, I'd studied power armour tech as well, but since we were working on a new suit of power armour to be worn by myself, and perhaps others, when slaying demonic creatures of all kinds, it was good to have more materials to work with. You couldn't be too careful when dealing with demons so I would take any advantage I could get my hands on and make work for me.
I looked over at Seven of Nine as the former Borg drone worked. She intently studied the suit of damaged Grey Knight armour I'd salvaged back when I'd been on the moon of Mars. While she documented the tech we also worked on copying it for the new suit of armour I was working on. One meant for the slaying of demons and other supernatural creatures we might encounter in this multiverse.
Since you needed to be both human and a psychic to use the new suit for now only Jane and I would be able to make use of them and the version I planned to make for Jane would end up looking far more like the suit of armour I'd made for Faith. I liked the idea of them wearing armour much that like worn of the Sisters of Battle as I wore one that made me look a lot like a Grey Knight. When Violet was older she might also wear such armour.
We had much work to do as Space Marine as Power Armour was among the finest protections a warrior of the Imperium of Man could ever hope to wear. It is a completely enclosed suit of combat armour composed of shaped Adamantium and Plasteel plates, encased in a Ceramite ablative layer.
This level of protection would be considered excessive in most universes, as well as a waste of resources, even if the suits of power worn by my group weren't as tough as what a Space Marine wore. However, we made use of enchanted items, magical protections, personal shields and kinetic barriers so we didn't need to have as much protection from our armour, and this allowed us to lighten the weight of the armour. Plus we had access to even better metals than the IOM.
Despite the fact that most humans in the 40k universe were backwards savages they were able to replicate some of the technology of past civilizations that had been much more advanced. This showed in the Grey Knight armour we were studying. If it was anything to go by then each suit of power armour used by a space marine possessed a full suite of life-support functions for operation in hostile environments, an automated medical system to provide some level of first aid to a wounded wearer as well as a highly advanced and fully integrated tactical targeting software that worked along a threat analysis system.
The power armoured suit of a space marine would be heavy and cumbersome to wear if not for the electrically-motivated fibre bundles within the armour that followed the wearer's movement and enhanced his strength beyond their already considerable superhuman baseline. This feature could be incorporated into our existing suits of armour for a greater boost to the wearer's strength.
Whilst Power Armour is most commonly associated with the Space Marines of the Adeptus Astartes, the Sisters of Battle and many Inquisitors also use powered armour of one sort or another, but these suits would lack much of the advantages of Space Marine power armour and might not contain the same strength-enhancing properties or life-support functions of Space Marine Power Armour, nor would they always provide the same level of protection.
The power armour suit we were getting to look at was an example of Aegis Armour that was worn by the Grey Knights. Even before we got to see all the details I'd been able to tell that it was an incredibly well-crafted suit of power armour even by the standards of my group.
Also, it had been anointed and inscribed with prayers and wards, ritually consecrated and psychically-charged. From my files I knew that when working in tandem with the Grey Knights' formidable psychic powers, the Aegis warding within the armour protects the wearer from psychic attack unleashed by the effects of the Immaterium and the daemons it spawns, using the wearer's own psychic power.
The armour's ritual blessings and psychic resonance also served to confound the psychic perception of any enemy, resulting in an effect called the Shrouding. I hoped that we would be able to figure out how this was done as we'd be facing many powerful foes in future Jumps and perhaps out in the Halloween Universe that would make the demons of this world seem like nothing more than irate puppies.
"You should easily be able to mentally control the suit we will build," said Seven of Nine.
Without the Black Carapace, Space Marine Power Armour is almost useless, and it is, therefore, the most distinctive feature of a Space Marine and the true mark of the Adeptus Astartes. However, I did not need such a thing as we had the technology to allow us to control things like suits of armour with our minds without requiring a direct physical link to the machines. Much like how I flew a Puddle Jumper or how I controlled my Aurora-class warship.
Right now my attention was on the helmet I was making for the new suit that we were building even as we studied the Warhammer technology so as to find ways to improve on our tech. I was working on the photolenses, these are the reinforced eye guards in the helmet that protect the Space Marine from dazzling light bursts. They also allowed him to see into the infrared and ultraviolet ranges, as well as enabling vision in low-light conditions.
We'd already been working for hours, yet I knew that neither Seven or I were likely to get any rest for the next 36 to 48 hours, both of us could work for 52 hours straight without so much as a break before we had to stop and we would likely have a prototype ready by then. If that were to happen I needed to keep focused on the work and the new tech that we didn't yet fully understand.
As well as its psychic properties, the armour of the Grey Knights incorporated a Storm Bolter weapon that is similar in function in much the same way as a regular Storm, Bolter, albeit with a slightly different design. The weapon was basically two Bolters side-by-side, these weapons are often issued with psychic force-touched ammunition known as Psybolt Ammunition.
Alas, the Storm Bolter on the armour suit I'd found had run out of ammo so I didn't have any Psybolts to study, but I could make my own special ammo for the weapon and I'd already made my own version of the Storm Bolter some time ago.
The projectiles fired from bolt weapons were special as while conventional solid slugs utilise a propellant charge contained in a casing that forces the bullet down the barrel upon ignition, in contrast, a bolt is self-propelled; it features its own integrated solid fuel propellant that propels the bolt at high speeds, essentially acting as a miniature rocket.
Because of this, the propellant is shaped to control the bolt's direction and speed; however, this method of rocket propulsion would normally warp the barrel due to gas pressure. The Bolter uses an ingenious two-stage method to prevent this.
As well as the rocket propellant, a small charge is also utilised. This charge is strong enough to force the bolt out of the barrel at significant muzzle velocity as it simultaneously ignites the bolt's propellant. The rocket-propellant is precisely fused to ignite immediately as the bolt leaves the barrel, alleviating any possibility of pressure build-up. The bolt then accelerates toward the target under its own power.
Standard Bolter ammunition utilises a mass-reactive fuze, designed to penetrate the target before detonating within, maximizing damage to the target and leaving little chance for survival, however when even this isn't enough you could use some specialised rounds.
Hellfire Rounds, for example, have a devastating effect on organic matter, which makes sense as the rounds were developed to combat the Tyranids. The core and tip of the bolt are replaced with a vial of mutagenic acid with thousands of needles that fire into the target upon the shattering of the vial, pumping the acid into the foe. A very nasty way to die.
Inferno Bolts were designed to immolate their targets and destroy them with superheated chemical fire. The dense core of the standard bolt is replaced with an oxy-phosphorous gel, derived from promethium. I didn't use that stuff as it was quite dangerous. Lucky for me there were much safer chemicals I could use to make Inferno Bolts, and such rounds were useful against vampires and undead things that burned easily but were not always destroyed simply by blasting them.
Many demons and monsters had a negative reaction to silver for example so I could make explosive bolts using silver nitrate, a substance used to kill werewolves in the Underworld movies. In the movie, the inspiration for the silver nitrate bullets came from a discovery made by the Vampire Selene when she captures a sample of the Lycans' ultraviolet ammunition. Selene brings the UV bullets back to Ördögház for testing, where Kahn gets the idea for silver nitrate bullets. After developing the first prototype, he gives it to Selene to test, noting that the Lycans will be unable to dig out these new silver nitrate bullets as they do with ordinary silver bullets.
Towards the end of the film, Kraven, who could be considered the main villain of the film, uses a gun that carries silver nitrate bullets to shoot Lucian, the leader of the werewolves, and then to later attack Michael Corvin. Lucian manages to survive long enough to give Selene a chance to bite Michael and transform him into a Hybrid. Kraven then unloads the entire gun's magazine into Lucian who finally dies.
Ultraviolet ammunition is a type of bullet used by Lycans to kill Vampires. They are hollow bullets filled with a special irradiated fluid that emits ultraviolet light. I could make special rounds using this technology as well and perhaps I should supply the vampire hunters in this world and the Halloween Earth with some UV bullets as a gesture of goodwill.
"We lack a power source that can supply the energy needed for the rapid replication of the ammo used by the Storm Bolters" Seven let me know "At least not with such complex ammunition".
I'd been thinking about incorporating a replicator into the new suit of power armour so that running out of ammo would never be a concern even in a large scale firefight. Sadly it seemed to be beyond our capabilities as even stuff like naquadah didn't produce enough energy, not without having to install a portable generator, and I'd been hoping to decrease the weight of the armour suit without having to use magic as spells can be removed by other magic users. Having the armour increase in weight during a battle would not be a good thing.
We could use Mass Effect technology as that universe's tech allowed for the lowering of mass, but that might not be required as I was having other ideas.
"Perhaps we'll come across some substance in the future that will be able to provide the energy we need" I mused.
I thinking far ahead now and I had DC Jump planned so maybe if we could get our hands on enough Kryptonite that strange substance could provide the energy needed, but in the short term I needed a different solution.
"Space Marine Power Armour does come with a power pack carried on the back" I mentioned.
This backpack housed the primary power core for Space Marine armour, as well as reserve cells and an emergency solar collector.
"I wanted to leave the back clear so that we could attach stuff like a jump pack, if such a thing is ever needed" I went to say "But we can make a portable power pack of our own and combine it will the replicator. It can be attached to the suit for long term mission and for the shorter mission it can be left separate so as to reduce weight and ease of movement in confined spaces".
We could work on the backpacks at a later date so as to lessen our workload in the present.
"Armour Etchings" I heard the cyborg say into her own Omni-tool as she took some notes "According to our files a Grey Knight's armour is often an ancient relic drawn from the Chapter's armouries and has been worn by many warriors before him. Sometimes their names or deeds will be etched upon the plates and edges of the armour, a preserved memory of their lost glory. Despite this armour having been created by the chaos spell of the Halloween Universe it too has a history recorded on it. Since these are not vital to the operation of the suit they will not be replicated".
Our version of the armour would be covered in symbols meant to ward off evil and protect the wearer. I had access to such knowledge already so I would be able to add the symbols to the finished product.
"This may help in the construction of your new armour," said Seven of Nine.
While out in her Battlestar Seven of Nine had also visited some of the more civilized ports and had come across a bit of Warhammer tech called the Psychic Hood which were used by Space Marine Librarians to protect themselves from enemy psychic powers. The hoods used a set of interwoven intricately aligned crystals to nullify an opponent's psychic attacks. I would need this technology to be incorporated into the new armour so that I would be better protected against mental attacks.
"I'll have to redo the helmet," I said while looking at my current work "But it will be worth the work".
By the time we were done this suit of armour would make demons run at the mere sight of it.
(Line Break)
Cave System. Sunnydale.
The underground spaces below and around the town were much larger and went deeper than any human knew, and not even the monsters who plagued the human settlement truly understood just how extensive they were. Demons and the like aren't in the habit of making decent maps, or any maps at all really.
Because of this college student Buffy Summers, who just happened to be the Slayer, or at a Slayer as there was currently more than one, had not known what she was walking into when she headed into the cave network to seek out some people who'd recently gone missing.
Things had been peaceful on the Hellmouth even without that Damien guy around as the monsters who lived in and around Sunnydale considered this town to be his and knew better than to make trouble. This didn't mean that Buffy had stopped encountering the odd vampire or two in one of the graveyards, but they were nearly always from out of town and didn't believe that some human mage was a real threat to them. They died in ignorance having underestimated what a human could do even if they were a super powerful mage with access to advanced technology.
Damien's mere reputation had grown to the point that the demons and vampire with enough intelligence to make them dangerous to mankind on a large scale were smart enough to know not to venture to Sunnydale and those in the town rarely left their dens unless they were going to Willy's place.
Not that Buffy had been dealing much with vampires recently. She'd been distracted by man troubles. Her High School boyfriend Scott Hope had turned out to be gay and her new interest Parker had used her for a one night stand. Now she was looking forward to pummeling the demons who'd been grabbing people who wandered too far out of town so that she could vent her frustrations out on someone who couldn't go complaining to the police about her.
Buffy greatly wished that she had her friends with her right now, even if they did sometimes get in the way more than they helped. They weren't here as Willow was really getting into the witch thing and spent her time with another magic users and she was dating a witch called Tara.
As for Xander, he'd still not returned from this road trip, Buffy was starting to worry that he never would come back. Perhaps he'd met his end out there in the big wide world, or maybe he'd settled down somewhere better than Sunnydale with new friends, she wouldn't blame him if he did as there was nothing for him here. His parents were poor examples of the human race, as for his friends he and Buffy had never really been close and Willow had moved on to new magic-using friends.
Sadly for young Miss Summers, her life was about to get even worse, she'd wandered to close to the nest of some very powerful monsters whom she was simply not prepared to fight and as a result of this she was ambushed. To her credit she nearly killed one of the ugly creatures only before her stake could be rammed into its chest she was hit by some sort of energy and ended up blacking out.
(Line Break)
CRD. Sunnydale.
"Don't worry if she is alive I'll find her and bring her home" I promised Joyce Summers.
Not long after my suit of armour had mostly been finished, there were a few finishing to add, and I'd slipped into a trance to restore myself, Morgana had arrived with a worried looking Mrs Summers to tell me about how Buffy had recently gone missing. She'd been gone for two nights and while we didn't know exactly where she was Morgana's scrying attempts had given me an idea of where to go look for the missing human girl. Those were the caves just outside of town.
I would be going down alone, not counting Cameron, as if Morgana's attempts to locate Buffy and her visions proved to be right then she'd been captured by an enemy with potent mental powers, these wouldn't affect bots so I would have some of them with me and Cameron was much more machine than organic.
While the armour Seven of Nine and I had made was great, and much like that worn by a Grey Knight, only without the power backpack or needless decoration, I'd be hesitant to take into battle against the spawn of the Chaos powers, or some of the other supernatural creatures I could encounter in the Halloween Universe, thankfully the demons in this part of the vast multiverse were much easier to deal with.
At least I was well-armed. I would be carrying into battle Stormbreaker a Force Weapon in the shape of an axe that anyone not wearing power armour would need to use two-handed. Force weapons were advanced, psychically-attuned close combat weapons that were only effective in the hands of a psychic such as myself as I could channel my mental energies into the weapon. When I did strike with this weapon the damage done by the axe harmed the target in ways that normal physics didn't allow.
Also on my back, I carried an Astartes Psilencer. The Psilencer does not fire traditional ammunition. Rather, it focuses and amplifies the psychic might of its wielder into an amplified energy pulse that is released as a beam of unstoppable force. These arcane weapons harness the psychic potential of the user, who must unleash a bolt of psychic force into the containment core of the device. This burst of energy is then amplified and directed by the crystals in the weapon.
Since using these weapons was a drain on the power of my mind, and I couldn't call upon the energies of Warp like a psyker would, I made sure to attach a fully loaded Storm Bolter to both wrists of the armour and to carry a couple of enchanted blades in each armoured hand. The psychic weapons were for tougher foes.
"Please bring my baby back" Mrs Summers begged.
Rather exchange more words when some action was needed I activated the teleporter which would take me as deep into the cave networks as I wished. Hopefully, I would end up somewhere near where Buffy was known to have been scouting out.
(Line Break)
Cave System. Sunnydale.
In the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, illithids (more commonly known as mind flayers) are monstrous humanoid aberrations with psionic powers. In a typical Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting they lived in caverns and even cities down in the Underdark.
Illithids believed themselves to be the dominant species of the D&D multiverse and they had no problems using other intelligent creatures as thralls, slaves, and chattel even going as far as to feast upon the brains of sentient creatures such as humans.
When the illithids arrived in the Material Plane, the part of the D&D multiverse that mortals called home, in the far past, they immediately began to build an empire by enslaving many sentient creatures. They were very successful, and soon their worlds-spanning empire became the largest one the D&D multiverse had ever seen.
They had the power and enough slave labour to even fashion artificial worlds. One such world was this empire's capital, called Penumbra, a sort of disc world that was built around a star, which was a thousand years in the making. Such was their might that the endless Blood War between demons and the devils paused as those infernal creatures considered a truce so as to deal with the illithid empire.
Eventually, the primary slave race of the illithids developed resistance to the mental powers of their masters and revolted against them. Led by the warrior known as Gith, the rebellion spread to all the illithids' worlds, and the empire collapsed. The illithid race must have seemed doomed.
Gith was betrayed by one of her own generals, Zerthimon, who believed she had grown tyrannical and over-aggressive. Civil war erupted, and this disruption allowed the illithids to retreat to underground strongholds where they still dwell and some must of have fled to new dimensions, including this one.
Another thing I knew about them was that Illithids regularly conduct raids on all sentient filled settlements so as to acquire new thralls, because their existing stock of sentient thralls could not breed fast enough to satisfy their food and labour needs. Great care was taken to cover their tracks and this was why my group hadn't realised the Mind Flayers were here until recently. They'd not taken enough people for me to notice. People went missing in Sunnydale all the time.
An illithid city, like the one that was forming down here in this large cavern, was ruled by a creature called an Elder Brain which lives in a pool of cerebral fluid in the city's centre. When an illithid dies its brain is extracted and taken to the pool so that the memories, thoughts and experiences are consumed and added to the sum of the whole.
Since the Elder Brain contains the essence of every illithid that died in its community, it functions in part as a vast library of knowledge that a mind flayer can call upon with a simple telepathic call. The Elder Brain, in turn, can communicate telepathically with anyone in its community, issuing orders and ensuring everyone conforms.
Illithids generally frown upon magic, preferring their natural psionic ability. Psionic potential is an integral part of the illithid identity, and the Elder Brain cannot absorb the magical powers of an illithid mage when it dies. They tolerate a limited study of wizardry if only to better understand the powers employed by their enemies. So it was possible that they'd be able to use magic against me.
The Illithids typically communicated through psychic means, but they likely had some sort of way of recording knowledge as humans did with books. So they might have some information down here worth taking I would have to loot the place once it had been cleared out.
How a group of them had ended up beneath this town was a mystery I might never solve, perhaps they'd gotten here from the Halloween Earth having been created there before fleeing here, or maybe they were just another group of extra-dimensional entities who'd managed to find a way into this world because of the Hellmouth. Really it didn't matter, it didn't change what I had to do.
"Cortana if I'm disabled or somehow come under their control, you know what to do," I said.
My AI would not be affected by psychic powers, and if I was she'd disable the armour so as to limit my movements and then trigger the teleport beacon so that I would be beamed back to CRD. Once away from the Mind Flayers I'd either recover or Jane could enter my mind and restore me as I had once seen her do for a boy in a coma.
"Fred are you there?" I asked.
While a radio signal would have trouble down here we had subspace technology that allowed communication across lightyears so unless there was some exotic metal down here or some magical interference she should be able to hear me.
"I can hear you, boss," she said.
While Fred did spend some of her time on the Phoneix as she got used to exploring space she spent plenty of her days at CRD doing her own research and working on the software that we developed as cover for what went on at CRD. As Seven of Nine needed to regenerate for at least the next six hours it would be Fred keeping an eye on things during this mission.
"Deploy the bots" I commanded.
Since this was a rescue mission I didn't want to march a small army of robots into the cavern the Mind Flayers were using a home in case Buffy got caught in the line of fire, as even when Cortana's control such a thing could happen, as such the machines at my side were Magnadroids and were armed with stun weapons. Buffy should be disabled or may be shocked enough so that the mind control was broken.
Once the bots were beamed in I marched them forward and the Mind Flayers, having already sensed my presence, sent their slaves into battle, expending their cannon fodder so as keep themselves safe.
There were no vampires in the horde they sent at me as vampires were undead and therefore immune to a Mind Flayer's psychic powers. Had I known what I was facing in advance I would have teleported to LA to grab Angel, but there was no time for that, if one of the Mind Flayers ate Buffy brain, which wouldn't be much of a meal in my view, she'd die and a new Slayer might be activated, one that I didn't know how to deal with, or that destiny might fall to Faith who I didn't wish to be burdened with such a fate.
Cameron cloaked, but I could still see her outline, thanks to my helmet, and I knew that she'd be making herself useful in the coming battle by watching my back like some sort of unseen guardian angel. As for the bots they moved to disable the demons, who might be quite innocent, and the human slaves as well.
I raised my Storm Bolter, and fired off a bolt at a member of the Ano-movic Clan who were a peaceful demon species, once a nomadic and rather violent species, now totally assimilated into western culture. Ano-movic demons were humanoid in form, though they had red, scaly skin, eyes with blood-red irises and small horns growing from their eyebrows. Their knee articulations were different from those of humans, allowing Ano-movic demons to bend their knees in more than one direction.
While they were known to possess greater strength than humans and likely toughness too that mattered as when I blasted one of them with the Storm Bolter on my right wrist not caring that it might be peaceful as the lives of demons meant nothing to me and it had been charging at with a crude weapon so I'd reacted to the sight without thinking.
The next thing I blasted apart was a Boretz demon, they were a demon species known for their bad odour and their poisonous bite. These demons had the habit of dressing up like transients to prey on homeless people so I didn't feel at all bad killing one of them.
A creature that needed me to blow its head off before it died was a M'Fashnik they were a demon species that were also very hostile. Demons of this species were often mercenaries that performed acts of slaughter and mayhem for the highest bidder.
After that, I blasted a couple of Carnyss demons who were a humanoid species of demons known for their fondness for muscles and mirrors. Carnyss demons were humanoid in appearance. However, they were bald and had facial ridges at the side of the forehead and also horns. Why a couple of them had come here I didn't know and it hardly mattered. Perhaps they'd been intending to visit a gym here in Sunnydale.
The Mind Flayer's army, if it could be called that, fell quickly to my might and before long I found the Slayer, who her new masters had kept back from the fighting, no doubt intending to use the Slayer as a last line of defence. She tried to perform that role, even going so far as to kick me, but all that resulted in was her hurting her foot, and before she could do anything else a phaser shot from a still invisible Cameron stunned the little fighter.
I opened fire even as the monsters tried to disable me with their powers. The tech in my helmet worked as hoped and I was able to gun down all the tentacle faced fuckers without much trouble.
Once they were all down I mentally commanded the helmet to detach and I held in my hands, which were free as I'd never needed to take my swords from the scabbards at my sides.
"Buffy your mother is looking for you," I told the young woman as she quickly recovered from the stun shot.
With the Mind Flayers now dead, Miss Buffy Summer was already recovering from their control over her and when she saw me she smiled.
"For once I'm glad to see you," she said.
While I intended to loot the place and to kill the Elder Brain I could leave that to Cameron and bots so I grabbed Buffy and activated the teleporter so I could take her back to CRD. Her Mom would be happy that I brought her back so soon and all in one piece.
Besides the bots and Cameron could handle any remaining Mind Flayers and conduct a search of these caverns in case any more of them were hiding down there.