A small, terrified creature was making its way through the thickets of dry bushes, breaking through branches. If someone happened to see Meowtie now from the side, it is unlikely that a casual viewer would recognize her as a young, but not for years sharp-tongued daughter of the elven people. Now she did not regret her strange, but in her own way cute costume, which she sewed once from a set of a young needlewoman presented for her fortieth birthday. Elven age is different from human age — by the standards of ordinary people, a hundred years is the limit of life. Representatives of the sharp-eared people, having passed a century, barely began to mature, preserving childish naivety and innocence. Alas, now Meowtie could not immerse herself in the shroud of old memories of her sister's warm embrace and her playing along with children's quirks. She couldn't disobey a older even if she wanted to. She just knew she had to.
Monster. Not just a mamono who seduces people. No, the real monster of the era of the past lords showed her what cruelty and death are. It, with only a few movements, amazing with its lightness and refinement, took away from her the most valuable thing that had only been in her short and naive life. Her soul mate, her sister, a part of herself. A grinning monster with eyes burning with bloodlust, a beast that had a human appearance... for some moments he showed her the dark underside of this world. From that moment on, her childhood ended.
She had to grow up dramatically and irreversibly. She felt violated. This is usually said about those elves who happened to become participants in the sophisticated amusements of their dark cousins. The dark relatives, in confirmation of their perverted, demonic and dissolute nature, did not hide this at all — on the contrary, they liked to brag about their "exploits" in relation to the previously "pure" children of the forest. But Meowtie's current condition hardly had anything to do with that. A trace left in the soul, a deep wound, a burning pain from within, which was not yet felt in all its light of agony only from shock... it was many times deeper and incurable than anything that even the most perverted master of twilight could do.
There was no longer the one who shared bread and shelter with her from the first days, the one who supported her from the earliest years. Je'ssi would never tell her off again for breaking dishes or spilling a bucket of water. Now little Meowtie was ready to drain at least a whole well and smash all the household dishes to pieces ... just to hear her voice again.
"Hey? Is there anyone here?" the knife-ears of the young elf caught someone's voice.
Heart seemed to be trying to jump out of my chest, and my breathing became even more erratic. Meowtie pressed herself tightly against the tree trunk and closed her mouth so as not to give herself away. She was afraid it might be the red monster that was following her trail. The voice she heard was clearly female... but the terrified elf was already losing the ability to think soberly. Who knows, maybe this creature is able to imitate other voices? The girl's ears drooped and she could not stop trembling. Closing her eyes and hugging her knees with her hands, she curled up, desperately trying to isolate herself from the whole darkened world. But even if she had covered her ears with her hands, she would still have heard measured footsteps approaching her precarious hiding place. If the child had been a little calmer at this moment, she would have realized that the steps she heard did not resemble the heavy tread of a bloodthirsty giant, but rather the horse's trampling on the forest floor.
Meowtie felt a hot jet of air hit her. Something was sniffing at her. Her imagination has already drawn an unknown monster that grins its mouth, anticipating a meal. But, in the end, she found the strength to open her eyes and, probably for the first and last time in her life, look into the face of fear and death. But instead of sharp fangs and eyes burning in the twilight, the little elf saw in front of her ... an ordinary face. The face of a girl with golden hair leaning towards her and a little worried.
"Hi, baby," the stranger's voice was friendly, but somewhat uncertain. "Are you all right?"
"W-who are you, madam?"
"Madam? Hehe, uh no, I'm not that old yet. I'm only twenty—four," the girl stretched out her arms and grabbed Meowtie by the armpits, lifting her off the dirty ground. "My name is Lisa".
A girl in tattered cat pajamas wiped tears from her eyes and even allowed herself a weak, confused smile. Next to an adult, even if not an elf, but still an adult! She will protect her from the monster, she… But these thoughts were interrupted only by a single vile fact, which she realized after a few moments, during which she managed to get a better look at Lisa. The new acquaintance wasn't just a non-elf. She wasn't human either. And she was not sitting astride any horse, as in the first seconds it seemed to her eyes clouded with tears — the horse's rump was one with her human torso. Mamono.
"AHHH!" the girl screamed with a thin ringing, twisting out of the centaur's hands, falling to the ground and crawling back, covering herself with her hands. "Don't, don't touch me!"
"Hush, hush, everything is fine, calm down," the monster waved her hands. "So you're... an elf? Oh, then that explains a lot. You have nothing to worry about, baby, I won't eat you. I won't even bite you, I promise," Lisa smiled encouragingly and winked.
The girl opened one eye in disbelief and looked closely at the girl. She distanced herself from her at a distance and kept her hands open to the sides, demonstrating that she was extremely peaceful and did not want to frighten the child. Of course, she was a mamono hunter and knew them much better than some, anyway she still did not trust them and always hoped for the protection of adults, communicating only behind their backs. But now...
"R... really?"
"Really, really, see?" mamono crouched down a little to seem smaller and at least try to equalize by height with the little elf. "Seriously, don't worry, I won't hurt you, little one. By the way, I almost forgot. I already said that my name is Lisa, and you are?" the centaur introduced herself.
"M-meowtie," the elf rose slowly from the ground and shook off the dirt.
"What an unusual name for your people. Listen, what are you doing here, all alone, in the woods?"
Instead of answering, the young elf lowered her head and whimpered.
"Monster… It's..." Meowtie fell to her knees and rested her thin hands on the ground, bursting into burning tears. After a series of shocks in a short hour, the first wave of hysteria began to slowly cover her.
Fresh memories tormented her mind like hungry animals, leaving only a bitter emptiness. Soft hugs became a lifeline from the ocean of sorrow. Just like her sister. When she came to herself a little, the girl realized that her new friend was hugging her tightly but tenderly.
"Calmed down?" in response, the elf made a heavy and somehow detached sound, wiping away the remnants of tears. "That's good. And now, if it's not difficult, then tell me what happened".
"Everything... everything was fine in the beginning. W-we were walking through the forest together with my sister, her friend and the fairy. Then we met… It's... I... I don't even know what it was".
"You mean the "monster"?" Lisa asked incredulously. "I do not know what your elf parents taught you there, but there are no more monsters left. There is only us, mamono. I don't dispute that you could have run into someone from the wild even in these parts, but believe me — with your friends and sister…"
"But I saw it myself!" Meowtie interrupted Lisa with a mixture of anger and resentment in her voice, even jumping aside. "It wasn't mamono! It's... it's... it's got a human face, but there's no human inside! I... it… It killed her... Je..." the girl's face was again distorted by a grimace of grief, a new batch of tears was coming to her eyes, but still the elf still had enough strength not to cry again.
"I'm sorry I offended you, I didn't mean it," mamono tried to get into the position of Meowtie, but she couldn't, because she didn't even understand what had happened to her. "What did this monster look like?"
"It... that thing... whimp... it was wearing red armor. Such huge, scary ones, as if their demons had made them," it was clearly increasingly difficult for the girl to cope with the newly rolling wave of tears and hysteria, and the fact that she was reproducing pictures of the recent past for herself did not improve things. Just the fact that a new acquaintance stroked her on the head and soothingly sniffe. "W-we thought so... that this, whi-, living armor is so... well, strange. And it once... and took off the helmet, and there was a head... an ordinary, human, living head. But, whimp, he's not a man... not a man, do you hear! No human being can be so evil, so... so cruel, terrible!
In the words about the man in the "red armor", the image of her strange chosen one clearly surfaced in mamono's head, clearly running away in the direction from which the young Meowtie rushed. But this image clearly did not fit in with what, according to the young elf, the knight in red armor had created. Of course, he was very strange, even rude... what is there, he eventually behaved like a perfect boor, running away without her, trampling her mother's flower bed along the way (although it is possible that it could have been her herself to discredit the chosen one) ... but he, of course, was not any butcher and murderer, what he was described by a girl! Lisa did not interrupt Meowtie's story, trying only to nod understandingly and soothingly stroking her hair. But at the same time, the centaur faced a difficult choice more and more clearly.
On the one hand, it was worth helping the baby by taking her to the village and starting to look for her sister and friends. But during this time, the beloved will have time to escape further and it will take longer to ride after him. On the other hand, she can leave the young elf to the mercy of fate and continue the pursuit of your betrothed without delay. But Lisa understood perfectly well that neither the presence of a wolf settlement nearby, nor the ability of elves to get along with wild nature, does not guarantee one hundred percent safety for a small frightened child now. She couldn't leave her alone with her fears. At this moment, two bright features of mamono collided: love for a man and love for children. The contradictions between these principles made the mind in the young, exuberant head of the centaur boil. But she still found one simple solution in her genius: to push everything to the elders.
After all, now she herself is probably being pursued by her mother with her unshakable confidence in the wrongness of her daughter's choice. Lisa had almost no doubt that the angry mother was rushing on her trail — she literally felt it with her tender croup. And yes, what she was going to do can hardly be called a responsible act of an adult, but she solved a difficult problem. And who usually solves complex problems? Adults, of course!
"Wait a minute, Meowtie, I have to do something," after these words, mamono gently patted the elf who had finished her story and quieted down, stepped back so as not to hurt the girl, and reared up. And then she began to prance furiously on the spot, making loud clacking sounds and convincingly imitating a horse neighing. Dust and dirt from under the hooves scattered to the sides and confused by the behavior of mamono, Meowtie covered her face with her palms, frozen in place.
"... Well, and I say to him: "They don't look a gifted centaur in the teeth, they stare at something else, ah-ha-ha!" and the man burst out laughing, even starting to slap his knees. It was his seventeenth tale.
"Ah-ha-ha-hr-ra-ha-ha!" Sveta was laughing breathlessly with an admixture of a growl, listening to old fables from a person's personal collection, which, by an amazing coincidence, resembled the "personal" stories of many other people, like two drops of water. Well, Jerry found a grateful listener and interlocutor in the wolfman. The female-horse was gnashing her teeth imperceptibly.
Ratatoskr rolled her eyes, mentally allowing herself to swear. What else could you expect from a fellow traveler of low birth and upbringing? Good taste? No, in the first moments of communication there were still chances when Sveta began to say something about the high culture and harsh philosophy of the wolf race ... but later it quickly became clear that her cultural knowledge was reduced, for the most part, to the horizons of most other provincial werewolf and people like them and mamono. Wolf-pretentious quotes, oh yes, what could be better? Even before that, during her journey, Ira managed to communicate with her fellow traveler's relatives and appreciate the culture of the inhabitants of the rural-forest hinterland. "Sister for sister — and with boy in a threesome", "You'd better have a friend than your girlfriend" and the like. With these great wisdoms and instructions, the squirrel managed to get acquainted in full so much that she was already beginning to hate them on the sly.
"And how do you just take it out?" Ira asked Rose, the innkeeper. She asked quietly, so as not to accidentally hurt her husband's feelings.
"Believe me, it can be worse. The main thing is not to leave him alone with Amy, otherwise they can arrange a whole circus performance," the woman sighed, but then somehow dreamily continued. "But you know, on the other hand, my Jerry's cheerfulness is like a balm for my soul. With him, I always feel like a brisk and daring filly, whose face is beaten by the wind of the steppes and who still has a lot ahead of her..." the woman's cheeks flushed a little.
She was brought out of her trance by a distant noise, which the wolfwoman also heard. Both pricked up their ears, but if the second one suggested that somewhere in the distance a sharp pebble got into a horse's hoof, or even an animal got into a trap, and perhaps she could eat fresh meat, then Lisa's mother perfectly recognized the signal that she taught her daughter.
"Oh, angel fuck me... Jerry, it looks like our daughter has problems".
"What's going on, Rose?" mamono-squirrel asked in confusion while the woman's husband jumped into her saddle.
"Our Lisa was found, and she was found by troubles. In general, then you will go yourself and make that bastard pay for my products and flowers! Good luck to you!" and without waiting for an answer, the centaur dashed away.
The strange (to put it mildly) ritual performed by the centaur finally ended and Lisa turned to her new friend.
"So, listen to me carefully, Meowtie," the girl even grabbed the young elf by the shoulders and shook her a little for edification. "I have to leave now, urgently. But don't be afraid, I gave the signal and there will be those who will take care of you very soon. Just stand here and wait, don't go anywhere," the centaur turned around and headed towards the smell of the spiritual essence of her beloved.
"St-top, Lisa!" the little elf screamed desperately, coming to her senses and digesting what she had heard. "Don't leave me, there's no need to go there, there's a monster there!" in the voice of Meowtie, there was already a natural panic because of the absolutely absurd and suicidal act of a new friend. But the centaur, hiding behind the trees, no longer heard her.
"Poor kid, what happened to them there, what did she imagine? Nothing, I hope Mom will help her. Who gave her such an illusion — to take my beloved for some bloodthirsty killer?Anyway i should be more careful".
Some time ago…
"Heh-heh-heh... Blood to the blood me!"
The movements of the subhuman armed with a small dagger were fast, but impetuous, clumsy. Dodging attacks was no problem for a trained Astartes. To the credit of the xenos, he quickly got his bearings and, at the moment of Eli's counterattack, instead of a senseless block, ducked under the blow, avoiding the giant's sword. The blue-haired man turned around in a squat with lightning speed and jumped like a spring. The elf's blade almost reached the Space Marine's face, but the latter, playfully, grabbed his hand with his steel-gloved palm.
"Ha-ha-ha," a laugh more like a growl came out of the depths of the man's chest. "You're slower than a legless necro-…"
Eli was interrupted by a second blade that passed dangerously close to his face, and if he had been a little more enthusiastic about the mockery, the Space Marine would have lost his nose. The next moment, the xenos, twisting, tried to hit the Chaosith a second time with a hidden blade, but Eli again deflected his head and threw his opponent into the trunk of a tree. His ears caught a pleasant crunch of bones, and the sight of a mortal collapsed to the ground and coughed up blood only provoked the berserker.
"You shouldn't have interrupted me, xenos," — the astartes decided not to finish off the blue-haired one yet, without making fun of him a little more. "How do you think our world works? The powerest takes everything — the weakling gives everything. Including a life".
"You, khe-khe..." the subeldar leaned on his elbow with difficulty, casting a look full of hatred at the enemy. "D-don't you understand? What is power?.. Do you know that?
"Idiot," Eli drawled impressively, enjoying the useless attempts of the blue-haired one. "The real power is me! And you should have fully realized this by now. There's no one on this whole crappy planet who can stand up to me!"
"Ahem. And-ahem-the idiot is alone here... and it's you... you beat me... and this is my last fight… But... you're blinded by your pride, freak. Je'ssi and I... have been beaten by a lot of people. Are you sure you can handle them?"
Eli, seemingly in momentary perplexity, looked questioningly at the wounded elf. Then, as if realizing what he was talking about, he laughed.
"Are you talking about your worthless xenos? Those who fuck and turn you into even more worthless slugs than you are with their pathetic psyker magic? Haha, thank you for your concern, a pathetic parody of the pathetic Eldar, but it won't catch me by surprise anymore!"
"Anymore by surprise? So that means..." Ja'mes, during Eli's answer, settled down, leaning his injured back against a tree so as to give her the least load. It was worth paying tribute to him — he even seemed to have almost forgotten about the piercing pain in his battered back and broken ribs. "Kha-ha… so... what are you talking about... oh, in the name of the spirits... of our ancestors... are you afraid," as if realizing something for himself, the elf weakly grinned. "Are you afraid of... ah... this…"
Eli, who had been frozen for a moment, shook his head, driving away the thoughts that came from nowhere and the damned, disgusting memory of feeling helpless. The astartes walked up to the wheezing elf and stepped on his foot, leaning with all his weight. There was a crunch of crushing bone, and the xenos screamed shrilly in unbearable pain. For the former Khornith, it was the most beautiful melody.
"What? Did I interrupt you, insect? Ah, sorry," the Space Marine drawled. "Am I afraid? You see, I know what fear is. I know as no one knows in your miserable little world. And it is you who are experiencing fear, horror right now".
"B-bit-kh-ha!" the elf coughed again. "Do you think I'm afraid of you, freak?!
"I am an Astartes, I am death. You're all afraid of it".
"Not a damn thing like that! If I was afraid, kha... died — begged for mercy! Come on, kill me already, you beast!"
"Not death, but pain, right? Well, I'm not a slaaneshit, but I understand something about it. Didn't you scream when I did that?" the Space Marine shifted his boot to an entire foot and pressed down on it. The elf screamed again, it seemed a little more — and he would pass out from the pain shock.
"This is… It's a deception," he barely uttered, as soon as he could catch his breath. His voice was already torn from shouting and clearly weakened.
"...What?"
"Pain is a deception of the body… Fear is a deception of the mind..." the blue-haired man breathed more and more intermittently, while his face became paler and paler. He was beginning to lose consciousness.
"...I have to give you credit, xenos. The skull of even someone like you will take pride of place at the foot of my throne," but then Eli noticed one oddity. The blue-haired had already lowered his head and was staring somewhere behind the space marine's back, finding the strength to smile weakly. Turning around, the superhuman realized that the elf was looking at the place where the little one had been before, about which he had already lowered his head and was staring somewhere behind the space marine's back, finding the strength to smile weakly. Turning around, the superhuman realized that the elf was looking at the place where the little one had been before, about which he had almost managed to forget.
"Oh, so all this time you've been distracting me so that this little thing could escape? And you came up with it cleverly, I didn't even understand at first," chaosith still remained calm, imposing and even relaxed. Well, the mouse in his claws considers himself smarter than the cat, giving his kinsman time to save. Of course, this will not help them, and he still has a lot of time to play with the loot, it's a pity that interest has disappeared. "So, knife-eared, you will die very soon from blood loss, which means you will not have time to fully appreciate everything that I will do with her. But I, as the good god of war, will probably share a couple of ideas with you. Maybe I'll start by cutting off her fingers, one by one. Or I'll make her eat your own flesh, fried on fire — it will be interesting to see her face later. Perhaps it's definitely worth taking her scalp and hanging it on her own hair. Also i can still put it on a stake. I'm telling you, I'm not a Slaaneshit or a Commorag inhabitant, we're not particularly sophisticated in torture, we prefer something simpler. But I guarantee that if she turns out to be tenacious enough, she will suffer for three or four days. And that's if it doesn't piss me off yet".
The xenos, if he was still alive, did not show any signs of it. But, as soon as Eli had already turned in the direction of the thicket, the hands of the xenos grabbed one of the greaves with a death grip.
"I...-n't let..." the mortal hissed softly.
"Oh, are you still twitching?" the astartes drawled indifferently. He was already bored with this prey. "A good weakling is a dead weakling!"
A mighty hand grabbed the elf by the neck and easily tore him off both the ground and the astartes' leg. The last burst of life and strength given to Je'Imsu rage and fear, finally dried up. The elf's appearance was extremely deplorable: shattered, bloody legs hung lifelessly, the skin turned bluish-white, like snow in the shade; the sparks of the soul disappeared from his eyes, giving way to a misty emptiness.
"Well, everything is learned in comparison. To be fair, by local standards, you weren't the least of the mortals I've ever killed. Perhaps, for lack of a better one, I'll remember your face for another week. But I promise nothing," with these words, the warrior licked the blood of the xenos woman from the sword, and then plunged it into the chest of the blue-haired man almost to the hilt. The last groan, which turned into a short, hoarse gurgle — and the body hangs limply, nailed to the trunk of a tree.
That was the end of the Team L.
The test is completed. Analysis of the results…
Result:
Unsatisfactory.
The alien entity returned to the old model of behavior when disabling the "containment" mode. The energy of the "demonic" type in the ratio of 1 to 3 magic units did not have a significant effect on behavior.
Conclusion: The previous hypothesis has been refuted. The reason for the aggression of an alien entity is not pollution. The established cause is a psychological deviation of an unspecified level caused by prolonged exposure to the cerebral cortex with butcher's nails implants and neurological training.
The problem: The impossibility of restoring the personality with the help of second-level contact, in view of aggressive behavior, and in the case of an active regime of "containment" of the doctrine of "absolute stupefaction".
Proposed solution:
Activate the "containment" mode. Continue to increase the number of "demonic" type energy sources. Reconstruct reality.
Proceed with the operation…
"Well, now i can have some fun with a little hunting. Of course, the girl hardly had time to run far… What the?!.."
Eli's train of thought was interrupted by the indications of the implant responsible for the analysis of food. And he gave out as the result of a blood test from the blade, which the astartes licked off, sheer nonsense. If believe it, the pink-haired woman's blood consisted of... grape juice, sugar and alcohol! The Space Marine could swear by anything that just a couple of minutes ago he felt on his tongue just such a wonderful and familiar salty, metallic taste of the victim's blood.
"~A-ah! How so… How h-hooot!.. ❤"
Chaosith turned at the exclamation behind him and realized that now he could hardly trust not only the taste implants, but also his own eyes and ears. A languid exclamation was made by the corpse of the elf he had killed. Even though the body itself clearly refused to consider itself a corpse — the pallor and glazed look disappeared without a trace, the look acquired relative meaningfulness. There was still a huge pool of blood around (?), and the through hole in the chest was clearly tightened, which could be seen through the still torn and soiled outerwear.
"Everything... in fog ~ ... how... how nice... ❤"
"Frag! How?!.. How could you?!" chaosith nervously intercepted the dagger he had picked up for replacement more comfortably. He was somewhat taken aback. It would seem that it was difficult to surprise a native of the world burning in eternal war by the living dead — but, as a rule, such experiments and phenomena have always had to do with Destructive Forces, someone from the Great Four. As a rule, the so-called "gifts of Grandfather Nurgle" were especially notorious for this. The Abysses of the Eye of Terror could contain examples of other such experiments of Chaos, hitherto unknown to others. It is quite possible that they could fully reanimate the dead man, healing his wounds at the expense of an unholy alliance with a demon, which will still take its toll. In this field, a specialist could definitely be called the madman Fabius Bile and, indirectly related to the unborn, the perverted homunculus bastards drukhari. For them, however, the very identification with the local pathetic sharpe-eared savages would be an insult.
No, what was happening in front of Eli's eyes had nothing to do with anything he had known before. At least by the absence of the smell of ozone, lightning, cursed runes and other attributes of the use of witchcraft. The woman didn't seem to pay any attention to his exclamation at all, turning over hard and clumsily, trying to get to her feet. At the same time, green glass fragments fell to the ground from her cutted and hanging on the side of her satchel. And Eli realized that, no matter how absurd it may sound, but on the blade of his blade was not the blood of a sharp-eared, but red wine. But there was definitely her blood on the sword before that, and the sharp-eared xeno-girl was definitely dead! But now she was propped up on her elbow, and a strange, stupidly lustful smile was wandering on her thoughtless face.
"Je... Je... ssi…"
A soft groan behind him made the berserker turn around again. There was also something, to put it mildly, wrong with the murdered false eldar stabed to a tree. Something that from the outside could easily be mistaken for one of the witchcraft techniques or gifts-mutations of the Indivisible. From the blade with which the elf was nailed to the tree trunk, strange dark purple waves now emanated, enveloping the corpse of the knife-eared. But is it a corpse? The blue-haired man was no longer breathless, as he had been for a minute - on the contrary, judging by the heaving chest, he was now breathing rhythmically, quickly and deeply. It was as if there were no broken and crushed ribs, no cracked spine, which were healed with a dull crunch, and, finally, a fucking huge two-handed man who pierced through his very chest! Rivulets of sweat flowed from his forehead, veins swelled, turning unnaturally black, obviously dispersing an unknown magical substance emitted now by the sword throughout his body. But after a short time, the blood vessels returned to their usual appearance, moreover, returning the healthy color of the skin itself. Healthy skin color of a living elf. The completely blackened eyes came to life and opened again to meet the world, although inflamed, black tears flowed from them, which made the elf often squint. Then, unexpectedly, his entire body was engulfed by black flames from the blade, causing him to convulse without making a single sound.
Suddenly, from the stumps of the shattered limbs, black tentacles flowed in a thick slurry, which then took the form of grotesque likeness of palms with long clawed fingers. They quickly probed the ground around the tree, greedily absorbing every drop of blood they found. As soon as they reached what used to be legs, they immediately distorted into the semblance of ugly, fanged mouths. They furiously clung to the lower part of the mutilated calves and shattered joints in order to pull back with snake-like movements. Having reached a certain point, covering the limbs of the sharp-eared with a black substance, they soon stopped, freezing…
Eli was even somewhat fascinated by the rather disgusting, in fact, spectacle, the beauty and art in which someone from the tzinchith, or rather from the slaaneshith brotherhood, could rather find. But the fact remained that when the black substance disappeared, either melted or absorbed, completely whole and healthy legs of the elf appeared to the world, which five minutes ago chaosith was smashing and crushing with such passion.
The blue-haired xenos grabbed the hilt of his sword with both hands and, puffing, set about the difficult task of pulling the blade out. And finally, after another jerk, he succeeded. When Ja'mes, who had collapsed like a sack of potatoes to the ground, not without difficulty got up, holding a sword extracted from his body in his hands, it was clear that he did not even have a hint of a wound in his chest. Eli did not even try to explain what was happening to himself anymore — he felt how, through the efforts of the local universe, his mind was boiling and clouding again.
Meanwhile, leaning on the blade as if on a cane, the elf raised himself on his knees trembling from overexertion, breathing heavily. Wiping the sweat rolling down from his forehead, he looked around in confusion and bewilderment. Eli froze, not moving, ready for the attack of this... whatever it is, it doesn't matter. But the slightly empty gaze of the now bright red, like rubies, eyes of the blue-haired man seemed to have passed through the space Marine without noticing. And then his gaze finally fell on another "living dead". His gaze immediately became truly alive and meaningful. Throwing away the sword, he clumsily, somehow got up on his still unruly legs and hobbled to his girlfriend.
The man fell beside her, grabbing her shoulder.
"...mes?" the eyes of the knife-eared hunters returned to life met, their faces simultaneously lit up with happy, albeit somewhat strange smiles. The girl mumbled passionately, confusedly, her breathing became more frequent. "You're... so... brave~ Rushed at the monster… ~ To me… I'm hot, Ja'mes... even hotter... with you ❤"
"Me too... I..." and without finishing, the blue-haired man pulled off the tattered remnants of his outer clothing.
His companion followed suit. Under her T-shirt she had some strange element of a wardrobe made of white fabric, vaguely resembling the elements of the breast armor of the radical flagellant Adepts of Sororitas. The scarlet-haired woman did not stand on ceremony with him and, with one sharp jerk, tore it open, releasing a rather large appetizing breast with already swollen pink "cherries" of nipples for viewing. Eli himself realized more and more that he had little control over the course of his own thoughts and why he was frozen as if spellbound, not taking his eyes off the unfolding spectacle. A new, previously unknown instinct, simply forced him to look and look, to unconsciously want to participate in such a thing, to touch such soft, inviting curves…
"Mes... ~ Do you mind if I... kiss me, it will cool my heat," the hot woman no longer cared about the presence of an outsider next to her, or what had just happened to them. She and her partner were completely taken over by each other and no one else existed for them now.
"Yes, yes ... I'm burning too ... too ... I want to cool off with you," two intoxicated elves bit into each other's lips, gently making out and intertwining their bodies in caresses.
Eli finally managed to regain his composure and decided that he had had enough for today. What was happening again paralyzed and neutralized his thirst for murder, entwined his losing mind with a powerful veil of instincts previously unknown to the space marine. For a more than two-meter-tall bully in a huge bright armor, he surprisingly neatly managed to bypass a couple of sharp-eared inhumans who were brought back to life by an unknown force ... but at the same time deprived of any semblance of shame. He reached for the dropped helmet and, unexpectedly, as soon as the astartes picked it up, a blue ball with a fairy tied to it flew out, causing the chaosith almost fell, but was able to keep his balance.
"Um... I think I'll go. Be well, you fucking slaaneshiths," Eli somehow waved his hand in a slow manner and, turning away, saw a dissatisfied face of a butterfly girl hovering in the air a couple of meters away, mysteriously already there.
He must say, it did not look like an illustration of its kind from the Encyclopedia from the word "at all". A thick, unruly afro of curly hair, larger than her own head, sharply distinguished her from the appearance of other previously seen inhabitants of the world in which asrtes turned out to be. And a shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the first buttons unbuttoned and trousers made of dark blue material would only increase some dissonance for an outsider. The representative of her kind in her, in fact, was given out by pink wings, and a brush clenched in her hands, only slightly smaller in size than herself. The height of surreality was a rubber balloon to which she was tied with a string, in the manner of a parachutist's cables, which allowed her to fly. It was blue in color with a strange, stupid face of some cartoon monster depicted on it
Some people think that the propaganda of the Imperium is completely tasteless, overly arrogant, pretentious and devoid of imagination in its directness… well, respectable imperial citizens probably know the contacts of the nearest branch of the Inquisition, where it is worth reporting such troublemakers. The masters of agitation and propaganda from Terra itself were able to find an approach to the most diverse strata and age categories of the population of the imperial planets. For the young generation of the future soldiers of the Emperor, a popular holo program about a squad of young inquisitors who assembled a squad of wild, semi-intelligent animals, the so-called "pokemonsters", from the planets of death, was released for a long time. The animals underwent rigorous training, and then fought with other similar creatures in special arenas. All this, of course, for the benefit of the Imperium of Humanity and by the will of "God-our savior-the Emperor." The young heroes-coaches were opposed and schemed by a vile group of former renegade inquisitors and their tame creatures, the so-called "Team C", who defected to the side of Destructive forces and wore the unholy emblem of Chaos on their clothes (which, of course, was carefully hidden by censorship in the film adaptation).
Actually, the face on the balloon resembled one of the tamed monsters from the holo-show for children. He was on the billboard of one of the planets that Eli visited in the best years of his service to the bastard on the skull throne. Perhaps he would even remember exactly where he saw this face... but at that moment he was more busy pinning another worthless weakling to this shield with an axe.
"Leanan Sidhe!" Meanwhile, Mamono shouted angrily. Piles of multicolored sparks fell from her hands, which, spinning and shining, eventually transformed into a canvas suspended in the air. A whole action in the form of a comic book was colorfully unfolding on the canvas. Something big, red, horned and barrel-shaped in the first frame pierced a pink-haired man schematically painted with sticks, and in the next one nailed another, exactly the same humanoid, only blue-haired, to a tree. In the cloud shown above the head of the red monster, he was depicted pulling his hands already to the third "stick" man, smaller. It differed from the previous ones in that it was painted yellow, and some triangles protruded from the round large head, which, apparently, were supposed to represent cat ears. In the next frame, this cloud was already painted over in black with a white inscription on top of it: "NO NICE THINGS." A frame later, the fairy on the balloon was kicking a red giant trembling and cowering on the ground. In the last, final frame, over which the fairy was still waving her brush, sticking out her tongue from zeal, it was already possible to see a red barrel-shaped giant, but already with a bow and holding out a candy to the balloon with a face…
This deeply philosophical, revolutionary work in the avant-garde style, which simultaneously inherited the traditions of the late and early Dragonies Renaissance, the spirit of the old school, subsequently gained worldwide fame. Reviews, articles and even monographs were published about her by many art critics and critics, huge queues gathered daily at the museum of the Realm of Mackay. She raised dozens of social, economic and religious topics and was even banned from showing in some kingdoms because of her audacity and uncompromising attitude, becoming a symbol of the movement for change and preservation of the old order in society, inspiring many scientists, artists and even politicians.… But the very first review of the masterpiece, brilliant in its accuracy, versatility and conciseness, belonged to Eli himself, who was lucky enough to be present at its creation:
"Fuck..." his ideas will always be relevant.
Alas, even the superintelligent and astute fairy, being immersed in the creative process, did not have time to immediately understand the full depth of the semantic load invested in this review by a genius colleague who was already leaving for new ideas.
Meanwhile, a couple of elves were clearly on their way to losing steam. Je'ssi began to rub and caress the excited crotch of Ja'mes, while the blue-haired half-elf himself pulled off her pink panties, wanting to begin reciprocal caresses.
"Oh, your pussy is already wet," the man whispered to her, grinning excitedly.
"Hehe, pussy wants, just craves her "cat"," the elf laughed playfully. "Come to me, mur-r, meow-w..." but then suddenly her passion-intoxicated face acquired a frightened, concentrated expression and the obsession receded. "Meow... Me-Meowtie... MEOWITE! Ja'mes, where's Meowtie?! Is she here?!" Dumbfounded by a sudden thought, Je'c jumped to her feet, inadvertently pushing her partner away.
"Meow-tie? Meowtie… Oh, succubi tear me, Je'ssi, I..." he also came out of his trance, shocked by the realization of what had happened. "I... I ordered her to run away from here... to run without looking back, because… Oh, in the name of the spirits of the forest, this creature is not here either!"
"Mes, what are you talking about? — apparently, she did not yet know all the details of the events that occurred after her "death", and the memory of what happened before that has not yet fully returned to her.
"There is no time to explain, everything on the way! Get ready quickly and follow me!" hastily pulling on his pants, collecting his discarded things and giving his partner a sword, the elf headed towards some path with a wave of his hand. "I remember, she ran this path, let's go, let's go!"
"Is there anything in this frag world except one dirty village and this damned forest?!" Eli's angry, rhetorical question flew into the void.
But still, it was not the monotony of the local simple ecosystem that angered the Space Marine, but the cursed witchcraft of the local subslaaneshith creatures. Because of them, he has already lost his true appearance, a real product of war and carnage... changed into the guise of a pathetic, mortal little man, as if this universe itself wanted to humiliate him! And that was just the beginning, oh yeah! Then there was a fucking little book from this abnormal burp of the local warp! "Incubus", "beloved hubby", tear them apart bloodthirster! He was clearly starting to lose his mind on this planet, because how else to explain the fact that he clearly could not do anything to the local lustful creatures and was forced to run like the last intimidated gretchin, considering it completely natural! And it was only then that Eli began to regain his sanity and he wanted to at least have a little rest and relax from all the madness that had happened to him ... quite a bit, a small massacre of a couple of knife-eared nobodies and a hunt with torture - a small seed, so as to correct his nerves. And even this he was deprived of in the most disgusting way, which made the Space Marine doubt whether the Hungry Bitch was not at least indirectly related to this? The mind, which had been restored to the state of a normal Khorne warrior, was now undergoing the same disgusting changes from this vile world again.
"And why do I have the feeling that I am being watched now? There must be a fucking demon who deliberately set me up for this whole marathon with these mamonos and their corrupting sorcery. Or is it a frag joke from this clown-cretin Cegorach? The warp parasite was exactly like him. Ow, mini-me, unborn burp! Have you come back yet?!"
No one answered, but the Astartes did not expect an answer. Eli has already lost count — what day is he in this hole? Somewhere less than one or two, but it felt like an eternity had passed.
But if you forget about all the undesirable, that is, just everything, meetings, the former warrior of Khorne has not seen such pristine and quiet, peaceful places for a long time that he could hardly compare this forest with anything in his life. No, of course, the night forest is fraught with many surprises, and even more so it is filled with myriads of sounds that will not hide from the human roughened ear — what can we say about the ideal hearing of a superhuman? The chirping of crickets and other insects; the low cry and heavy flapping of the wings of an owl from the top of a pine tree; the echoes of a wolf's howl are somewhere very far away - rather, even the peals of an echo. Somewhere on one of these edges, maybe local merchants with armed guards of the wagon train or a gang of robbers hoping to profit from such belongings or, at worst, the money of an unwary traveler.
For a simple person, the night forest is a place of many fears and dangers hidden in the darkness, making the heart beat faster with fear. For the astartes, this is a place on a strange semi—agrarian world with its strange magic - a place of incomprehensible, amazing peace ... alien to almost everything he had seen before. The explosions of shells, the monstrous, agonizing roar of demons and genestealers, the monotonous call of a siren — these are the sounds and scenes of hundreds of worlds... many of which probably once resembled this one. And no fireflies, the brilliance of distant stars and moonlight can shine as brightly as the sparks from the sawaxes, cutting through armor, flesh and bone, spilling liters of blood; or the fire of a plasma gun, incinerating all life in its path; but still, still… There was something completely unfamiliar to Eli in such relative silence. Unfamiliar, but attractive. Who would have thought that not only the delicious heat of a bloody battle, but also its complete opposite, could make you think about the line between life and death?
Although now the silence has become almost absolute — there were no more cries of night birds, except for the roll call of rare disturbed crows or the hooting of an owl. There has not been a chirping of crickets for a long time. Somewhere very far away, the echo of a mournful wolf howl could barely be heard. But the loudest sound now was only the creaking of the ground underfoot. The air around him seemed to have suddenly cooled by at least ten degrees, and the space Marine returned from his thoughts back to reality. The usually wary warrior was too fascinated by this strange, unusual feeling, erased by the harsh struggle for life. He did not notice how the terrain around him had already changed considerably. Chaosith had not managed to walk too far through the forest, but now a thin layer of snow was crunching under his feet, powdering the frost-covered, thinned and frozen grass. The trees around were leafless, their bare branches looked lonely against the background of a starless, overcast sky. The light of the moon, however, somehow made its way through this veil.
Eli never had time to think about what happened — how did he manage to move to a different climate zone in an hour of leisurely walking? He did not have time, because with his peripheral vision he caught a bright light in the darkness, clearly approaching him. The source of the fire, however, did not think to hide. A couple of minutes later, a xenos girl appeared on the path with an ex-khornith. Eli looked her over. The lizardman, or rather, its subspecies — the salamander, as they were called in that book, shone in the darkness of the frosty night like a torch, thanks to the flames on its long, thick, red tail, which allowed to see it better. A hefty, tall girl, dark-skinned, with a shock of short but thick scarlet-brown hair. Everything about her, from her appearance to the light and warmth she exuded, seemed completely strange, out of place here in the winter forest, but at the same time attractive, especially for an ordinary, frozen traveler, even if Eli did not consider himself that way.
The salamander, who had clearly seen the stranger from afar and was catching up with him, tried her best to pretend that she had stumbled upon Eli completely by accident. A cheerful, exaggeratedly friendly grin, designed to hide embarrassment, an even, not at all disturbed breathing, even though steam was coming out of her mouth in the cold. But on the way from jogging, her dark red hiking cloak with a clasp that hid her figure opened, revealing an unusual, but very pleasant sight to the astartes' eyes. Dense, slightly stocky, despite his tall stature, the physique at the same time harmoniously combined athleticism and strength with femininity of forms and seductiveness. Strong, powerful shoulders and hips, strong arms and legs gave her a trained fighter. But they ended from the knees and elbows with grotesque lizard paws covered with red scales — exactly like in the illustration (Eli only realized after a while that it was from her that the picture was copied). The girl's impressive but still proportioned chest was partially hidden by a somewhat bulky dark bodice with something like a strange scaly armor. However, the bodice clearly intentionally left some cleavage area open. The same strange scaly armor flaunted on a very short mini-skirt that covered the salamander's wide, strong thighs. A scabbard with a sword embedded in it was attached to the belt of the designated wardrobe item. Actually, a bodice and a miniskirt with a belt were her only items of clothing under the raincoat. At the same time, it allowed admiring almost not hidden, but only the emphasized half-naked figure of a stranger ... and gave the situation even more surreal.
The damned planet again, obviously, managed to wrap his brains up a lot. Otherwise, Eli could not have explained to himself that for almost a minute, in complete silence, in the middle of the night forest, he stood silently and looked at mamono who had caught up with him.
"I wonder if she really thinks it is armor? The witches of Commorragh would find their equals in intelligence here".
The flame-tailed xenos girl was the first to break the awkward silence.
"Um, I'm sorry," she began with extreme awkwardness in her voice. "Do you know how to get to the library?"
"To the library?" Eli asked with an unusual, almost stoic calmness in his voice. A stupid thought flashed through his head that perhaps the Alpha Legion had something to do with his misadventures. "In the woods?"
"Um... yeah?"
"In the middle of the night?"
"Ah... um. It doesn't matter anymore..." she even seemed to blush a little, embarrassed and, confused, turned away, probably intending to go in the other direction. But then she froze in place and inhaled air with full lungs. The flame on the tail, which had almost gone out during the failed conversation, flared up and shot up again with scarlet tongues. When she turned back to Eli, flashes of flame lit up her swarthy face — instead of the former embarrassment, a cunning and slightly predatory grin blossomed, and determination flared up in her dark golden eyes synchronously with the flame of the tail. "Hmm, screw it's all to demons, I've never been able to start such conversations from afar. Frankly speaking, the aroma of your mana is very good. You're obviously strong…"
"...I'll take it into account".
"Listen, that's what I'm all about. Don't you want to face off? Your armor is cool, and you're clearly not a weakling yourself, I can feel it," the stranger pulled a coal-silver blade from its scabbard, but the space marine quickly realized and waved it away.
"I would gladly accept your offer, xenos, but alas, I lost my axe, and it's not fair to fight without weapons. I think I'll go," Eli slowly turned around, but before he could take a step, the intrusive lizard girl hung on his arm, pulling herself up with her whole body and trying to look into his eyes. Taken aback by such impudence, Eli at first did not even attempt to free his hand. And when he tried, he realized that his body had betrayed him again. He could only hope for the language.
"Listen, honey, you really can't fight without a weapon, right ~?" her breath even slightly burned Eli's cheek, and her voice was insinuating, seductive, though a little sad.
"Y-yes, there is absolutely no way without it," the astartes somehow managed to control himself and began to pull off the salamander, which was clearly losing control over itself. Something clearly did not allow him to just break the brazen xenos girl's head... those very new instincts that had changed him since his arrival on this planet. Now, the heat that heated and excited the girl in front of him seemed to be transmitted to him, flaring up inside with terrible force, and it cost him a lot of effort to suppress these urges. The thoughts became more and more clouded.
"Hmm... okay," the girl jumped off Eli, giving him a deep breath. "I'm sorry, I really got carried away with something, I lost control of myself, hehe. I have an idea! Let me find you an axe and then we can come together in a fight".
"Yes, yes, of course," the half-dazed chaosit waved off, continuing to retreat.
"If anything, my name is Sally. Sally the salamander. And you... although no, don't, don't introduce yourself yet, I'll find out your name later when there's a fight. That's when you need to find out the name of your betrothed opponent".
"Fine, I'll remember".
"I really had some other things to do, but now, for your sake, my dear, I will postpone them, they will wait!.."
"Yeah, I see…"
"Not that it's worth telling on the first date, but I have a rather unusual life… Oh, who am I lying to, I can't lie, my life is the most ordinary. A simple mercenary — half her life or a bouncer in bars or staged fake duels, so that a weak mamono could show that they can stand up for her husband. There is no gap in such a life, you know?"
"... clearly…"
"Many people think that salamanders should choose only heroes, they say, you are the best of the best and should choose from the best. Ha! Most of the heroes — have you ever seen them, the "best" of these?! Especially the "main" heros, titled ones, whom I met — all empty, simple cardboard boxes — no personality power, no individuality! I don't want to judge everyone — there are probably exceptions somewhere, but I haven't met such people in our area. Do you understand what I'm getting at? You're not like them, you're... different. To be honest, sometimes it seems to me," Sally sat down on a stump, thoughtfully staring into the distance, "That it would have been better if I had been born a simple lizard. Let's be honest — there are less expectations from them. Hero — ha, of course. After all, I myself am an ordinary, simple girl who wants a simple, good relationship. I don't want to constantly match someone and something, you know?! I am average in all the parameters of my species, no more and no less. Average. Vulgaris, as they said in one dead language. We had a weirdo recently, an artist, who drew illustrations for the reissue of some kind an encyclopedia. That's what he told me, think about it — "you, he says, are an ideal, average representative of your species". And yet, they say: "With great power comes great..." Huh? Where are you?"
Sally stopped her sudden outpouring of soul only when she noticed that her potential partner, interlocutor and so far failed opponent had disappeared from sight.
"Ah... gone. Well, okay, well, please! Do you think I won't find you? I'll find you an axe, and I'll find you, don't doubt it! That's just where to get this axe and which one will do?.."
Getting away from the annoying, but narrow-minded mamono turned out to be quite simple thanks to her inattention and concentration on her own chatter. Eli was convinced of the effectiveness of a simple rule: first to think, then to do, and only then, if necessary, to speak. The simple formula was confused in his buzzing and already little-thinking head. Consciousness seemed to strive to leave him. He already had a bad idea where he was going and what was happening around him. The temperature became even lower and the snow was already slightly slowing down his steps, and a blizzard was beating his face in a protected helmet, but he no longer had the strength to be surprised by the extremely strange and rapid change of climate. Something was definitely wrong with the Space Marine, otherwise, in a sane and combat-ready state, he would have broken through the barbed wire fence that came from nowhere, and would have heard a quick crunch coming from behind amid the hum of a blizzard. If there's someone in the back, it's not good. This inhibited thought was formed too late, and reflexes did not have time to react…
*BONK!*
Something extremely heavy hit Eli on the helmet, so much so that a dent formed on it, and his legs gave way. In its normal state, the Berserker would hardly have reacted in any way to such a blow. But now he collapsed to his knees, losing consciousness. His fading mind could barely hear the words spoken by an unfamiliar voice:
"Ласкаво просимо в MAMONLAG, грязный буржуазный импонтент!"
A/N
Here I am with a new chapter. The chapter turned out to be some kind of filer: there are not enough jokes per square meter (sorry, I'm not a foot fetishist), and the hero has not gone far (by the way, in Russian the words "hero" are used as well as "character", although there is a separate word for this - just explaining the meaning of the joke from Sally). However, the next chapter will be much more voluminous (it was then that 20-30 pages of Kniga Fanfikov became the norm for me, not 10). But it will also have to wait longer because of my next attempt to face not just 2, but 3 languages at once...
Write an opinion about what you read.
That's it, gentlemen and ladies. See you.
