Thruought the inmaterium something had begun to change, the realm of souls, the realm of shadows, the warp itself and even real space had begun to shift upon themselves, bits and pieces of a being that at one point had been many had begun to come together and as a direct result had begun to change the realms around them.
One such fragment had found itself embedded on a fortress that resembled the Imperial Fist Phalanx, while the fragment itself was relatively weak in comparison to the others, it none the less continued to grow stronger and with its growing strength came a greater influence with the ship itself.
Its first act was a simple one, a change in the color of the ships metals and ceramics, this allowed to have greater control in what he could see both inside and outside the fortress.
This was show it learned of the growing influence of the woman and how she had already twisted a greater part of the fortress to fit her needs, for fortunately for him the woman had confined herself to those tainted areas and it was because of that, that he now could influence everything else.
That included every other small fortress and ship within the main fortress itself.
The fragment could feel and for the briefest of moments could have even sworn it heard its other selves speaking as they drew closer to each other and their two greater wholes, one that remained firmly placed in a distant world, while the other drifted in a state that only existed before one's birth.
Regardless the fragment itself began to remember things it had long forgotten or perhaps had only learned because of its broken self-had been able to learn far more than it ever could have when it was one solid piece.
There were things in space, ancient long-forgotten things, that only a few creatures ever truly remembered. It was those very things that connected to objects left behind by its enemies, but the fragment knew it couldn't operate those things alone.
For that it needed a servant, someone that would do as it pleased without knowing he was doing it, the answer was obvious, the captain of the fortress. He was ideal for the job, he had a ship, enough weaponry, and shields to fight his way out of problems and best of all he was completely ignorant of everything that was truly going on.
(Character change Jose)
Jose looked at the golden light it was moving, something had shown up on the background near the light, it looked like some sort of tower, but what would a tower be doing out in space. Regardless the second light was getting near the thing and as much as he wanted to he was unable to speed up.
Already the remains of spaceships had begun to show up and the fortress had begun to automatically bring them in, some were being stripped for parts others were being repaired and some were flat out melted down.
Somehow the fortress had located every planet that could sustain life and locked its systems on to them, unfortunately, Jose found that his hops for food were misled, there was green life like plants and waters that had fish.
Unfortunately, none of it was edible by humans, some sort of infection had spread all over the planets and the animals were now some sort of hive mind that only desired to breed, the plants were no different and Jose would not risk even drinking the water on those worlds.
It looked like the only water he could rely on was the one he had on board, at least he had a lot of animals and some of the food from that world he had passed by.
Still whatever had happened in this section of space must have been horrible, the number of broken ships was only increasing and the majority weren't even Human ships for that matter, in fact spaceships that could barely leave their atmosphere littered the section of space he had just entered.
Each ship either had aliens that were barely alive, or had completely died, somehow the fortress had begun to create a bobble using its tractor beam. There were to many spaceships, so it began to gather them behind it.
Those that were to broken, were being either scrapped for parts or being melted, as for the aliens, well every ship that was being repaired was getting a long tube-like connection added to it, this made the alien have no choice but to learn to get along.
Especially considering that the number of ships were only being added to their strange bubble, normally Jose would have been worried but apparently, this was standard procedure considering the fortress was doing this automatically and was showing that it was planning on setting up airtight walls for when a certain size was made.
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(character change Isha)
She whipped the sweat off her forehead, finally, she was done her new garden was complete both fresh and salt waters flowed in a way that mimicked the freedom they would have had on a planet and nearly all of the strange variety of beasts walked around hopefully, her presence was everywhere and not a single plant or animal could, would deny it.
It was time to speak with her new husband and inform him of everything, who she was and what his role in this cosmic game was.
She walked towards one of the few doors that still functioned and noticed that there was present that wasn't there earlier, whatever or whoever it was had taken advantage of her distraction and had turned everything into gold, Isha could feel the stone corridors that had been carved out of space rocks actually complete their transformation into the metal.
Not only that she could hear them both close and far into the distance, the whispers of souls that cried out for salvation some were already onboard others were also near yet separate from her new home. This was troubling but not outright dangerous, not the danger came from the whispers that were drawing closer by the second.
From every direction, the whispers grew louder, at first they seemed like a distant fog, yet with every passing second their presence only grew, now they seemed like a distant rain.
The voices of the elderly, mixed in with those yet to be born, whose voices mixed with those of beasts, the souls of the planets could be heard crying out in desperation and it was only getting worse.
Isha knew that for whatever reason, no matter what it may have been there was no escaping this area of space now. No, if they wanted to leave alive, they would have to fight.
The gentle machines began to push her towards an area of the fortress she hadn't been before, their wills announcing to her that it would be their only option, one pulled her acting as her guide, while the other polished her, urging her to quicken her pase.
The golden walls seemed to twist and turn as if urging her to hurry before vanishing completely, it was only then that Isha found herself walking towards and infant that cried desperately. Isha felt her instincts kike and as she lowered herself to lift the infant of the floor, she found that the ceiling, walls and floor were all apart of a single giant mouth, which, in turn, had several million smaller mouths attached to it.
Isha was about to scream only for the golden color to return, the other was urging her to hurry, its presence felt uneasy like if it was unwillingly slowing her to be in its territory, but if they were going to survive, it admired that they would have to work together.
Isha could feel the spirits sing in a mad rage as engines powers up weapons long forgotten, shields and armor made themselves known in defiance at the sight of whatever their adversaries brought out.
Isha could hear mussels sing their songs of death as they knew this was their one and only flight, railguns roars and lasers alongside plasma cabins erupted, shaking the fortress, all the while the shields laughed as they rejected any attack that was aimed at the fortress.
The two machines now pulled and pushed her with even more strength, they were growing angrier as the seconds became minutes.
The other roared in defiance as smaller weapons unloaded their payloads until their munitions ran dry and had to be reloaded. The forges and Manufactories sang as they were all reawakened before they laughed in a made song of war.
Munitions, armor new weapons, ships and armors were being made all announcing their births, Isha finally arrived at a simple docking bay where a single ship was being placed inside a room that seemed like it was a honeycomb.
The golden color completely covered everything as the ship was finally locked in place the two flying snails pushed her onboard and Isha quickly found herself standing in front of a metal chair, it didn't take a genius to figure out what they had to do and the moment Isha took sat down, she was greeted by a sight that would don't her for the rest of her mortal life.
Entire planets were left as nothing more than dead rocks, while others melted away until no life was left in them, others were so enveloped in war that whatever life was left in it was forever scarred.
Entire fleets fought their way in a desperate attempt to escape, even if it meant forgoing any pasts beliefs, ships were literally being eaten under the hungry sight of a Tyranid fleet.
As she turned to look at the fortress Isha saw the unthinkable, the fortress was like a golden star, whose arrival brought in the long forgotten light of hope, it many weapons carved thru the hive ships, as its shields forced any tyranid ship or soldier way keeping the fortress safe from harm.
The many ships had learned that the only safe place was near the fortress and for that reason were quickly gathering behind it, those with the ability to fight used what was left of their weapons to fire at the enemies.
Yet for all its splendor and its might, the fortress was growing weaker, with each attack observed, reflected, or unmade by its shields, caused the shields power to drain, with every attack fired the fortress waisted ammunition that needed time to be replenished.
Already hundreds of thousands of Tyranid ships were destroyed and yet the living cloud was nowhere near the fortresses location.
Unfortunately, that was no longer the case, as the hive mind had identified the fortress as its only true threat, it had directed its tendrils to the fortresses destruction.
Isha felt the presence of the other and an unwanted alliance every mussel built by the Atlantian race was unleashed their targets every single Tyranid ship and control beast in the solar system. The Tyranids used the biggest creatures to control the smaller ones, if those were destroyed the smaller ones would tear each other apart.
In space, billions of eyes both human and not watched as a golden star unleashed a wave of lights from itself, one green one gold and one white, a green one fell into the nearby worlds and moons before rising once again and spreading onto the others.
The golden one struck at the tyranid ships closest to them, while the white lights began to tear into the main Tyranid tendrils, they watched as the star revealed itself to be an Imperial ship that fought its way towards the main enemy fleet, how the fortress carved its way thru.
Video recorders and personnel alike watched as several of the fortresses gun barrels melted shut from overheating and how every missile fired destroyed thousands of ships, they watched as a growing number of ships now followed the fortress from the only place they could find any form of safety.
Yet in all of this they watched as the fortress carved its way out of the system leaving a trail of dead bodies behind their only communication was a single message of a man screaming. "Get out of the way!"
Isha watched as every tyranid ship was destroyed and as their main control bests died she watched as the tyranids either ate each other or were being whipped out by the desperate people in those worlds.
I'd a fell from the control chair, she could watch no more, it was far too much she fell into a fetal position and cried, she had seen it all. She had seen the guardsmen definitely fight even as they were overwhelmed and eaten by the enemy.
She had seen the towers where countless souls were forced into before they were slowly digested, everything was collected, every tear and every ounce of fat was stripped from those unfortunate souls.
Until the only thing that remained was their collective feeling of hopelessness, yet even that was collected.
Isha had seen her husband raining from one computer to another like a madman desperately attempting to keep his castle from falling, yet he was just one man and he was getting tired.
Isha could hear the collective scream of everything the tyranids had ever devoured, including each other. Every soul, every single mind no matter how young or ancient was still alive somewhere in the hive mind screaming for help.
Isha hopped that for whatever reason none of them knew how long they had been in there, for she dreaded what would happen when one of them realized the truth.
Isha opened her eyes as her tears finally stopped flowing and she found her self-staring at a pair of armored boots.
"So it was you who used those things. Thanks it's going yo be a while before this thing can fight again, you really save us back there." Jose told her before he's lifted her up like a bride on her wedding night, or a princess in her day.
A brief light told her they had teleported somewhere and she found herself staring at the three banners once more, yet as she looked at them a set of words made themselves known to her.
"I am the wielder of the flame, I am the holder of the flame lighting the way. I am the keeper of the flame, the soldier of." Isha wept she could no longer bear to see those words, the fortress was the flame, the star that light the way.
It was he who had this power under his control, she had only used it because he had allowed her, right now the troops were gathering behind his banner, even if they didn't knew it yet, every ship behind him would soon ca him master and that scared her.
Isha cried even as she tightened her grip on the man's body and stained his golden armor with her tears, it was just to painful to watch.