Jalith the Trueborn

The sky had grown dark, once again without Tamas having seen any hint of a sun. Against any kind of physical reality, Saldramon had lit a pile of rocks to make a fire for the group to gather around before they went to sleep. Tamas was looking away from the fire and his unusual companions, making him the first one to see her.

"Ah man, it's that eldar girl." He said, seeing the robed shape walking into the light of the fire. It really was Rhia, held up by an equally weak looking Spirimon. Her robes were covered in dirt, and her face looked bruised, prompting Mesme's concern.

"What happened?" The tau asked. Rhia replied, but kept her attention on Tamas.

"No wonder you could beat him." She said bitterly. "He wasn't a real tamer yet."

"What do you mean? I saw his partner-" Tamas began.

"His D-spex manifested during the battle." Spirimon said. "His partner was clever enough of a strategist, but it wasn't until the fallen one unlocked his connection that they were able to defeat us."

"Next time you fight, there's no way you can win." Rhia said, hardening her glare.

"So then we shouldn't fight him, right?" Saldramon asked, not understanding why Rhia was so angry.

"Of course you can't understand-"

"Snap out of it." Piramon said. "Sure you lost, but you're still here aren't you. No need to blame us if you got beat." Rhia glared at him, ready to say something, right before Spirimon interrupted.

"She's right, Rhia." Her partner chastised. Rhia let out an angered sigh but didn't resist as Spirimon lowered her to the ground. "We both need to rest, but I can still keep guard. If we are attacked though, I might not be strong enough to fight. Do you understand?" Tamas nodded tentatively, but still felt the need to clarify.

"So you're with us now?" He asked.

"I am with whoever I need to be to protect Rhia." Spirimon replied.

"Okay."

The fire grew dim, and one by one the inhabitants of the camp went into slumber, or whatever kind of rest they were capable of. The fire was dead as Spirimon kept his vigilance over the children. When he heard Tamas begin to snore, he couldn't help but comment.

"You know, nobody ever breathes like that on the digital plane." Spirimon said, and the snoring stopped quite suddenly. "But then again, I haven't listened to many human's sleeping." He waited awhile, before resuming his speech. "I suppose it is reasonable not to trust us, but you seem quite dedicated." There was more silence, until Tamas finally decided to answer him.

"It's not that." He said, sitting up from the ground but keeping his voice soft.

"Really? How long have you been here?"

"A few days, maybe a week."

"I see." Spirimon, said nodding.

"What about you guys?"

"It's not quite the same for eldar, but… Rhia has been here for one, maybe two decades. I'm not entirely certain of how the units translate." Tamas paused as he thought about what it was like to have been in this wasteland for so long.

"And you still haven't found a way back?"

"There won't be any going back." Spirimon said bluntly. Tamas gave him a questioning look, and the stone-like being began to explain. "Rhia coming here was nothing but a fluke. She was already… In her spiritstone when she came here."

"Her what?"

"She was already finished with the physical world." Spirimon said.

"Oh." Tamas said, piecing things together himself.

"I don't know how you got here, so there may still be a chance for you to return. But that's only part of it, right?"

"Yeah…" Tamas mumbled, confused why he was still talking to what was either a xenos or a xenos machine.

"Is it that you don't trust those you left behind?"

"What do you mean by that?" Tamas asked feeling a little insulted.

"Where ever you once were you are no longer there, and must concern yourself with the present." Spirimon noticed as Tamas grimaced at the last words. "Now, do you trust us?" Spirimon spread his hand, indicating the four other beings that were spread around the camp, not one of whom was human.

"Well…" Tamas began, glancing around at each of them in turn.

"Tell the truth."

"I don't think Mesme could hurt anybody, all she does is smile. Piramon seems to just like making fun of people, but I know he can fight if he wants to. Rhia is…"

"Blunt?" Spirimon suggested.

"…Yeah, let's go with that. And you're... dangerous." Tamas finally decided.

"I feel honored, but as I am right now I think you could beat me. What about your partner?" He asked. Tamas glanced looked at the contently sleeping Saldramon, who had curled around one of the previously lit stones.

"I don't know."

"Out of everyone here he is the one you need to trust." Spirimon said. Tamas didn't respond and just kept looking at Saldramon, trying to make up his mind. "If you're not going to rest soon, it's alright. You don't need to sleep on the digital plane."

"I don't?"

"No, it's one of the quirks of this plane compared to the physical one. So there's no need to worry if you can't rest."

"No, it's okay I think I'm starting to feel tired. Good… night, Spirimon." Tamas said, leaning back and keeping his eyes wide open.

OOOOO

The next morning, Mesme was somewhat surprised to see the normally apathetic Tamas rousing them.

"Come on guys, If we try I think we'll make it to that black spire today." He said.

"Give me a few more seconds." Piramon said groggily, rubbing her eyes with her fins.

"Well don't take too long, I don't want to spend another day just walking."

"Why should that concern us?" Rhia said while standing in a way so gracious Tamas wasn't sure he could describe it if asked.

"Because it might be a- important, thing… something important."

"Like a way back home?" Mesme said not noticing Tamas's hesitation. Rhia had however, and glared at her partner, who simply shrugged his shoulders.

"Hey, do any of you have something better to do?" Tamas pointed out. Before Rhia could respond, Tamas was quick to amend his question. "That doesn't involve fighting a certain psychopath, because none of could possibly win." Rhia frowned severely but didn't say anything more.

They walked as a group, always keeping their eyes on the black spire in the distance as it grew larger and larger. Piramon occasionally tried to start up word games with Saldramon, but they quickly gave up under the tense silence of the rest of the group. It was a good few hours, but the black spire finally came into sight.

The black tower of metal rose up far above the children's heads, reminding Tamas of the vox towers back on Telris hive. The design was wrong though. It was just sheer metal all the way to the top, with some sort of observation tower halfway up, and a ladder leading up to it.

"Finally." Tamas said. He broke into a run, eager to finally reach the mysterious tower.

"Hey, wait for me." Saldramon said, stomping quickly to catch up.

"Tamas." Mesme said as she tried to go after him, but Rhia's hand stopped her in her tracks.

"Stay here, I have an ill feeling about this." Rhia said.

Meanwhile, Saldramon found himself struggling to get a proper foothold on the ladder with his giant claws.

"Tamas, I can't get up." He said.

"Well, I guess you'll have stay down there then." Tamas replied, glancing down from the ladder at Saldramon. "You can make sure no one tries to sneak up on me. Tamas didn't hear any reply from the reptile, so he shrugged and continued climbing the ladder until he reached the top.

From the platform Tamas could see far across the landscape, and wasn't too surprised to see mostly brown stone. In the distance he could see what looked like more black towers like the one he was on. He took a second look at the brown stones.

"No way." Tamas whispered.

OOOOO

Saldramon snorted in frustration, but didn't say anything as he wrote in the dust on a tiny hill. He was the guardian of humanity and he would not complain about his tamers decision.

But he really wanted to go up the tower.

"Psst." A voice said from the other side of the hill, where Saldramon couldn't see.

"What?" Saldramon said, starting to lean over.

"No, don't look at me yet. I'm supposed to be sneaking up on you." The voice said. It was smooth and sharp at the same time, like a well-made blade, and didn't sound like it had a care in the world. Saldramon was confused, but waited for the strangely familiar voice to continue. "Your tamer, the human; what's he like?" Saldramon glanced up at the tower where Tamas was looking out across the landscape.

"He doesn't talk to me much." Saldramon said.

"Eh, better than what I got." The voice replied. "Kid never stops running his mouth, and he speaks even more the more people there are."

"Are you-" Saldramon began to ask, but the voice cut him off.

"But that's life as a partner, right? It doesn't matter what you do, you're just there to fight. Kid, I assure you what happens next isn't personal, but be a sport and put up a good fight anyway, okay?"

"Okay." Saldramon said stepping back into a defensive position.

OOOOO

Tamas's thoughts were interrupted when he heard Saldramon yell a battle cry. He quickly twisted around to see Saldramon fighting Reavmon claw to claw. Tamas's clenched his D-Spex tightly, and felt sweat began to bead up on his brow.

"Come on." Tamas yelled out, leaning over the rail to get closer. "Just like last time." Flames swelled up in Saldramon's throat and he unleashed them in blaze like a flamer's. In the same moment Reavmon unleashed a breath of frost. The two blasts collided, creating a cloud of steam where they collided. Saldramon stared in shock at the cloud of steam as he stopped his attack, only to be caught unaware as Reavmon dove through the steam and struck Saldramon in the shoulder, knocking him to the ground..

"No!" Tamas yelled.

"Yes." A malignant voiced hissed. Tamas froze where he was, leaning on the platform's rail, but in the corner of his eye he could see Jalith standing on the rail next to him. "You were so predictable. Coming straight to the first thing that caught your fancy and not even trying to watch for an ambush, just like the stupid mon-keigh you are." Tamas teeth clenched as he watched Saldramon knock Reavmon away with a lucky punch, only for Reavmon to strike him in the face three times.

"Your so stupid, did you know that? You haven't even realized yet where we are, have you, because you know less about your own language than I do?" Jalith said.

"What are you talking about?" Tamas said, gritting his teeth and staring forward. "I know we're on the Digital Plane-"

"Isn't it obvious? Digital Plane, Digital Beings- or should I say…" As Saldramon tried feebly to protect against Reavmon's blows with his arms, Jalith, stepped down to the floor of the platform and leaned his face close to the trembling Tamas.

"Machine Spirits." Jalith whispered. Tamas's eyes widened. "All this time we've just been in some sort of machine, or a representation of a machine, and you never realized. We fought using servants born from the machines our races built, I believe, and look: all those rocks and hills we walked among look like a mon-keigh logic board, don't they? But all that doesn't matter now. I have some things to finish with you, and this time I won't let any useless servants get in my way. I swear I will make you feel despair deeper than if I tore away your mother-" Saldramon caught Reavmon's claws an inch away from his face.

Tamas punched Jalith in the face. The dark eldar landed on the ground without a word, staring at Tamas in blank shock.

"Shut up." Tamas yelled. "You're the stupid one. You aren't anything!"

"I-" Jalith stuttered, trying to find words to say what he wanted to say. "I am Jalith, son of lord Skalinex, the greatest weapon maker in all of Commorragh, how could you hit me?"

"I don't care what you are." Tamas, swinging his fist aside. "If you're so good, why don't you take me on now?"

"Oh, I will." Jalith hissed stumbling up before charging at Tamas with his fists outstretched.

On the ground far below, Saldramon and Reavmon looked up from their life and death struggle to see their tamers wildly swinging at each other with no care whether they hit or were hit.

"Are they allowed to do that?" Saldramon asked.

"I dunno." Reavmon replied. "Now, where were we?"

OOOOO

Night had come when Tamas and Jalith finally descended from the tower, the former pursued by the latter, both of them panting in exhaustion and severely perturbed to find Saldramon and Reavmon playing a game in the sand.

"What… in the God-Emperor's holy Imperium… are you doing?" Tamas gasped out at the sight. Reavmon dismissed the question with a casual wave of his hand.

"We're only supposed to fight in you two's places, so there's no point fighting when you two are flailing around trying to hit each other." The black canine said.

"Cut that out… right now." Jalith demanded, equally out of breath as Tamas.

"Why did you two stop fighting?"

"We didn't." Tamas said, point at Jalith. "As soon I catch my breath, I am going to lay this idiot flat on the ground."

"You're the idiot." Jalith replied. "You'd never hit me."

"As soon as I catch my breath, I will make you pay for that. Idiot."

"So…" Reavmon said. "Are we going to keep fighting or what?"

"Of course not." Jalith said. "We're going to regroup with the necron until you get your strength back, and then give this mon-keigh a proper punishment."

"Would you stop calling me a monkey? Or at least say it right?" Tamas asked, starting to walk back in the direction where he had left his companions behind while the digital beings followed dutifully.

"Hey, why are you following me?" Jalith asked.

"It's not following if I'm in front of you." Tamas said. "I'm going back to my companions, xenos swine. You're the one following me."

"No, I'm going back to my servants, and your cleverly trying to cut me off."

"As soon as I catch my breath, I'm warning you…"

OOOOO

"Remind me again why we haven't harmed him?" Rhia asked, looking down on Sediba whose hands had been tied behind his back with loose wires.

"So we can interrogate him." Mesme replied.

"…That's surprisingly sensible."

"Yeah, well I know you wouldn't accept an appeal to common decency."

"Do not take him lightly, his race made a terrible pact-"

"That had nothing to do with me!" Sediba protested.

"Silence, necrontyr, you will be-" Rhia's threat was cut of as the sound of loud arguing came. Everyone was quite surprised to see Tamas and Jalith walk in, no matter how loudly they were throwing threats and insults at each other.

"What's he doing here?" Mesme asked.

"Stalking me while I'm too weak to fight, devilish dusk-wraith that he is." Tamas replied.

"No you're the one trying to cut me off using lame excuses about allies, of which I see none." Jalith barked back.

"Hey were right here, idiot." Piramon called out.

"You don't seriously expect me to believe a human calls 'xenos' his companions?" Jalith hissed back in reply. The whole group began to devolve into a mass of shouting and arguing, even the calmer heads only adding more noise to the fight.

Just when it seemed that blows would be struck, everyone was silenced by the sudden appearance of what looked like a servo skull, sweeping in and scanning every mortal and digital being one by one. When it was done, the floating skull drifted back.

"Oh good, you're all here." The skull said, clipped and polite in its speech. "And here I was thinking you'd all be at each other's throats." Tamas tilted his head to get a better look at the strange intruder. "Oh, excuse me."

The glassy orb implanted in the eye socket of the skull shimmered and shone its light down onto the ground, generating a hologram of a techpriest at half the proper scale. Living on a factory world, Tamas had seen many techpriests before, and this one looked relatively unaugmented from what his robes exposed, with only a single eye replaced by the glass orb of a augmented system, and his right hand was obviously bionic.

"I am Antigonus," The holographic techpriest said through the skull's speakers. "Former Magos of the Adeptus Mechanicus now invested in much larger things. This skull is one of many I sent out to gather you and your partners together, but you seemed to have discovered each other on your own.

"Now, Chosen Children, you must discover your destiny."

Author Note: Sorry for how late this is, stuff came up, nobody on this site updates regularly...

So, this is the end of what I view as the prologue, and next chapter will start the main storyline. Please tell me what you think!