Day 10, Continued
There would be chaos in the Underhive, for a time Tide knew. Killing the so-called Three-Eyed King before he had finished pumping Flood Spores throughout every crack and crevice had all but ensured that. Thankfully, with a Gravemind, he could spread Spores far more widely than ever before. Along his countless tentacles that stretched and snaked across kilometers of corridor and piping, he created bubbles of Spores that grew and grew until they popped, filling the air with infection vectors, pumping them into the few water sources. It would not be long before the whole of the Underhive, and all within it, were under his control.
His mental map of the Underhive had been growing steadily, but his Gravemind's roots filled out almost every gap within it and collected any additional biomass he'd missed. Most of it was moss or plant-life, but he also managed to acquire several new kinds of combat forms from local wildlife. There were also quite a few humans, but it was fairly simply to snatch them up with a tentacle and wait for an infector pod to arrive and Alter them. A bit of memory manipulation, something that had become even easier as well, and he was safe. Blinding Altered to the presence of the more conspicuous Flood forms was child's play. While he wouldn't be operating openly any time soon, not until the entire hive city was taken, he could at least breathe easier.
Or, he could have, were it not for the teams of martian priests scurrying about his levels. They all wore breathing filtration devices, making them immune to the subtler method of infection, and he wasn't going to risk sending an infector pod after someone with what equated to instant internet access. One pict of a Flood form and the Hammer of the Imperium would land squarely upon this city.
What was more concerning was that he didn't know for sure what they were doing. He had suspicions. Not every Tech-Priest, let alone their lower ranking servants and serfs, should have been wearing a personal filtration device. The air wasn't that toxic. Which meant they were worried about something besides the poison. Like, for example, a certain airborne disease that had trouble penetrating more advanced filters.
A certain airborne disease that they likely had collected samples of and brought to one of their superiors in the planetary capital in the far North. It was still just speculation, but the pieces fit together well enough that it had him sweating, figuratively speaking of course.
Despite his instinct to react by rushing every transport capable of reaching another city, filling it with Flood forms, then crashing it into the nearest city, he held himself back.
From what he knew, there were no Exterminatus capable weapons within the system and the Warp Storm prevented the arrival of any such munitions. At this point, anything short of collapsing the entire hive city would fail to kill him and even that would just destroy his Flood forms, not actually eradicate the Flood Spores.
For another thing, he had yet to give the Imperium any reason to eradicate him, as far as he knew. The only things they should have been aware of were the spores filling the air and the fact that they were infecting people with no obvious side effects.
Those ten Altered who had died in the North had likely been dissected as apart of their studies. He hoped they were irredeemable criminals, but knowing the Imperium, they were just as likely to be totally innocent save for the crime of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
He was fairly sure they wouldn't be able to determine his true nature from their studies. The Forerunners and ancient humans from Halo hadn't been able to and they were arguably more advanced than any race in 40k.
However, was what they knew enough for them to decide he deserved eradication? A disease that only spread and had no ill-effects? Not even that, but was beneficial?
… Maybe. This was the Imperium, after all. It would depend on who the people in power were.
There was an inquisitor on planet, Tide knew. But what kind of Inquisitor were they? Radical or Puritan? Reasonable or batshit insane?
If he was dealing with a more zealous Inquisitor, one who subscribed to the belief in the 'perfect human form', they would like take offense to the existence of such a disease. Likely, their retribution would come in the form of trying to destroy all the Spores and killing everyone infected.
He was watching the Tech-Priests as they worked. They carried weapons, but only small arms, not anything that could really damage a hive city, nor anything that appeared like it could harm spores on any serious level. Mostly what they had seemed to be surveying equipment of some kind, scanners and auspexes. Not necessarily a fanatic then.
If the Inquisitor was more reasonable, that could mean a number of things. The least likely outcome was that the Inquisitor allowed the spores to spread unchallenged, at least not until it was better understood. That could be the reason why the Tech-Priests were there.
Then again, a reasonable Inquisitor might also note the Warp Storm going on around the system and connect the spores to Chaos or, more specifically, a certain chaos god fond of diseases. It wasn't exactly a huge leap in logic, though it was possible, even likely, that the Inquisitor had a psyker of some kind on retainer. Presumably, such an individual would be able to sense something of the machinations of Chaos, at least an obvious one like a massive plague.
Then again, the Three-Eyed King had sensed nothing of Tide's presence within his servants, only the death of Crick. The mutant had been a favored servant and it wasn't impossible for someone who was almost certainly a minor Chaos Sorcerer to have bound another's soul or have some kind of alert system in place. What could be deduced from a Psyker sensing nothing from those infected or even a full puppet like Grease had been?
Perhaps they would think the spores were merely a strange but mundane disease that just happened to be beneficial rather than harmful. Nurgle wasn't the god of every plague after all. However, when was anyone that lucky in 40k? One didn't become an Inquisitor by being less than paranoid.
Perhaps not Chaos, but Genestealer? Some kind of airborne variant of that Tyranid substrain's own infection method? That too was a possibility, especially if the Inquisitor was aware of the Genestealer presence on the planet.
Or maybe, just maybe, he was mistaken about the Inquisitor knowing about the Spores. The Mechanicus was fond of secrets and there was no guarantee that they would bring this to the attention of the Inquisition, especially if they thought there was value to the Mechanicus.
He dedicated portions of his Gravemind to thinking about these various possibilities and extrapolating the best strategies to deal with what would come of them. His focus, however, turned to something more appealing to his creative side.
Flood Pure Forms.
He could make them now.
Technically, he could make them before. Infector Pods and Flood Spores were, technically, pure forms since they had no biomass that wasn't Flood. However, the more interesting Pure Forms were what he could make in large numbers now.
He started simple, recreating the Pure Forms from the Halo games.
The first he made was the Flood Shifter, which was capable of mutating itself into a number of different forms, namely the Tank, Stalker, and Ranged forms. The Flood Tank was as tall as Hoog and even wider, with strength that actually surpassed the Ogryn's own. Most interestingly, this version of the Shifter had a significantly greater amount of biomass than the other versions. When it mutated, it actually shed that additional biomass by creating a cloud of Flood Spores around it. Similarly, it could recall that extra biomass to transform back into the Tank.
The Stalker was small, spider-like and Tide quickly saw an opportunity to improve by giving it the strongest webs of the Underhive's spiders. Similarly, he improved upon the design of the Ranged form by granting the spiky projectiles, which it fired at speeds high enough to pierce flak armor and with terrifying accuracy, a similarly enhanced version of the wasp venom he had acquired. Depending on need, the spikes could also secrete regular Flood Spores as a method of infection.
The next Pure Form he designed after the originals was the Gaunt, which was roughly as tall as the Flood Tank, but lither and much, much faster. It had a bulbous upper torso and whip-like tentacles in place of arms. He modified these to have razor sharp bones extruding from their length, giving them some extra bite, and as an extra, made them able to secrete Flood Spores or the wasp venom like the Ranged form.
It was after he'd finished the Gaunt that he realized the shifter could take its form as well. There was no limit to what it could mutate into beyond having access to the biomass. Given how filled with Flood Spores the Underhive and many levels above it were, that size could be quite large. More than that, he realized he could merge the Shifters into larger forms or separate them into smaller versions of themselves. They were incredibly utilitarian, practically like nanotechnology in their malleability.
The first larger form he made, roughly equivalent to the biomass of three Tanks, was the Juggernaut. It was essentially just a Tank, more capable of taking damage, stronger, and significantly larger. It had two long tentacles in place of arms which could extend a dozen meters. He gave these natural weapons the same treatment as the Gaunt's.
The second form made of multiple shifters took even more biomass, equivalent to seven Tanks, and was akin to a massive centipede or worm that crawled along a writhing series of tentacles that could allow its great body to move surprisingly swiftly and silently. Utilizing the utmost of his creative power, he dubbed it: Wyrm. It possessed a maw similar in appearance to his Gravemind's, albeit with sharper teeth. Additionally, each of its tentacles could extend spear-like tips made of the same bones as the Gaunt's rippers.
While he could have gone larger, anything bigger would begin to have trouble fitting through all but the largest corridors of the Underhive. So, instead, he left the Pure Forms for the moment and considered his Puppets.
When he had infected Hoog, he'd gained access to the Ogryn's own genetics, including the significant natural strength within his people. While there was a limit to how strong he could make a single Puppet without causing them to tear their own bodies apart from something as simple as tensing a muscle, he could still make them much, much stronger than even the peak of unaugmented humans. Strong enough to throw a punch that dented ceramite or cracked rockrete.
Granted, those punches always ended up causing the fist to essentially explode in a shower of gore and the arm to be nearly torn apart from the straining muscles, not to mention the damage to almost every other part of the body, but that wasn't nearly as much an issue for him as it would be for humans. Repairing a wrecked arm took less than a minute if he was keeping the human biomass intact and only a few seconds for a Pure form. Even less time for the relatively minor damage to the rest of the body.
Still, the body lost a small amount of biomass through the splattering of the fist. Even more if he threw a kick with the same level of force. While it wasn't significant and the biomass could be recovered fairly easily, it was still enough that continuous usage of that level of strength would start making his Puppets looking rather scrawny, which was less than desirable.
Some kind of carapace armor would likely help with that, or at least some kind of body glove that wouldn't get too damaged by the force of the strike. It would act as a natural barrier and second skin, holding the biomass in and making it easier to repair. Something like knuckled dusters would further amplify the force as well. It was an interesting idea, but one for another time when he had easier access to such resources.
That level of strength wouldn't be needed most of the time anyways, not with his Puppets. As infiltrators, displaying such power would be inherently counterproductive after all, though he could imagine specific situations where it would be useful as a last resort. For the most part, his Puppets would restrain themselves to human-levels of strength and speed, or at least the upper tier of what could be naturally achieved. Nothing superhuman.
He had a level of soldiering experience thanks to the acquisition of the memories of the occasional Arbites and PDF member, but that was hardly enough to make a proper soldier. What he was most interested in was acquiring the memories of a few experienced guardsmen, especially some of the more elite groups like the Catachan Devils or even the Lucifer Blacks. However, even the twenty regiments that had been raised by the Inquisitor, the Monstrum Urban Cohorts, were currently out of his reach and he had little doubt he wouldn't be seeing a Lucifer Black any time soon, given they were guards of the Imperial Palace on Terra.
Still, one could dream.
Instead, he considered the Puppet soldiers he had. They would be decent fighters, possibly on par with the average Guardsman, not including their more superhuman capabilities, but that was all they would be for the moment. Decent.
Now he wanted something extraordinary.
He thought for a while about what he wanted, not just in a soldier, but also about what he would be fighting for. Was he trying to escape this galaxy? Just survive? Or try and create something better?
If he wanted to escape, there weren't many places to go, at least not that he knew of. It was possible that the Tyranids had already devoured the rest of the universe, that there was nothing else left. If that was the case, the Tyranids would inevitably come for him. While he'd been able to infect a Genestealer, that one had only been partially Tyranid in genetics. There was no guarantee that he could successfully infect a full Tyranid. More than that, the Hive Mind was intelligent enough to recognize a threat like him and possibly even create countermeasures or even just… blow up the planets he dwelled on. While not exactly their modus operandi, if there was one thing that could be said about the Tyranids it was that they were adaptable.
More than that, even if he did escape, even if he could kill the Tyranids, if the galaxy was empty then he would be utterly alone. That… wasn't too appealing. Maybe he could find a way to reach another universe, multiversal travel was clearly possible, but that was a rather large maybe.
If he was trying to just survive in this galaxy… Well, having that as his 'endgoal' was pretty much doomed from the start. Assuming Chaos didn't find a way to corrupt him, the Imperium didn't learn of his nature and start blowing up every planet they detected so much as a spore of him on, or something else unspeakable happening, he was not going to survive by just treading water and trying to keep himself afloat and hidden. At some point, something was bound to go wrong.
Which left the final option: create an environment that was less hostile to his existence. A rather pessimistic take on 'make things not shit', but it was essentially what he was planning.
So, he wanted to take a galaxy that was old and dying, filled with fanatics of a faith built on lies and misunderstandings, and create something capable of… well, fixing all that.
He had just the thing.
A Shifter and a Puppet merged together, the Shifter quickly consuming the added biomass, molding and shaping it. The body grew taller to over eight feet in height, its skin transforming into a grey hide, its legs snapping as bones and muscle were reshaped to become digitigrade in form with hooves in place of feet. Its arms grew longer, with two fingers and two thumbs on opposite sides of the hand. Its neck grew out and thickened, hanging forward, while its jaw split apart into four mandibles with sharp teeth.
Tide smiled as he studied the Sangheili through its own eyes.
"Yrechaaa." Tide tried to speak through his newest puppet and then tried to frown at the noise that came out, failing at both. "Hrn."
This would take a bit of getting used to.
Genetor Vidriov's augmented legs clacked audibly down the deck of the shuttlecraft, its cooling exhaust vents still giving off a rumble that sent vibrations throughout the floor of the hangar. Before him, over five hundred Arbites stood at attention in neat columns, lasguns held at rest, and the city's Magistrate waited for him.
Vidriov would not normally have stooped to the work of… lesser beings. As a Genetor, a full Tech-Priest, not to mention a member of an Inquisitor's retinue, even one as young as Catherine Ellen, he was above menial tasks like delivering messages. Especially messages that could be done via serf or even vox.
However, this was not a normal situation. The inefficient nobles of this planet had power everywhere. While, legally, the Inquisitor had the authority to commandeer every organization on this planet, the reality was much messier than that sublime ideal. Even the Arbites, the supposed enforcers of the Emperor's Justice on this hive world were not free from local interests.
It seemed that they had become less and less welcome ever since they'd conscripted twenty regiments of local PDF troopers into the Imperial Guard. PDF that were normally wholly under the purview of their individual hive city's local governor and advisors. There were ten times that number left, but those chosen had been the cream of the crop, the military-grade promethium.
It had left them with very few allies on Monstrum, though no noble had been so foolish as to say so. The new Guard regiments had been thoroughly retrained and indoctrinated and the Sisters of the Cleansing Rains were genuinely loyal to those invested with the Emperor's authority. Still, the longer they remained on the planet, the more dissent would foment. With the Omnissiah's Blessings, the warp storm would lift from the system and a transport ship could see them to their original mission.
Preferably after a thorough cleansing of the disaffected nobles once orbital supremacy had been attained.
Regardless, for the moment, acts like the quarantine would not win them any favor with the local authorities. It was for that reason that Genetor Vidriov had been sent by Ellen personally. Hopefully, a visit from a member of an Inquisitor's retinue would impress upon these enforcers of the God-Emperor's Will the seriousness of their task.
Genetor Vidriov took his first step into the fortress-jail of the Arbites… and froze as an alert crossed his auspexes.
"Genetor, the Inquisitor honors us by sending-."
The Magistrate, whose name Vidriov did not care to learn, stopped mid-welcome as he watched the Genetor turn on his heel and stomp back up the deck of the shuttle, the craft quickly sealing shut behind him. Completely dumbstruck, he just stood there as the shuttle's engines reignited, not even having finished cooling cycles, before taking off and departing the hangar as quickly as they had arrived.
Back aboard said craft, the Genetor had just finished composing a vox message to the Inquisitor.
"We may have a problem."
"My Lord, the servant you sent to Malum has perished," The man in a mirrored mask said, head bowed low, trembling slightly. Ahsael felt nothing for the mortal's fear, but atop his shoulder the winged form of Vra'kzil fluttered, its chosen shape of a deep blue-feathered crow flickering in the dim light in ways both real and unreal.
"The Shadow's servants have finally taken another place on the board then," Ahsael said, bringing up a massive, gauntleted hand that could have wrapped around the man's head with ease, only to softly stroke his disturbed familiar in a way that would have been soothing for a bird but was more a reminder of the hierarchy for Vra'kzil. Its displeasure was clear to him through their bond, as was often the case when something unexpected occurred to disrupt their plans. Something that had been occurring alarmingly more frequently in the last few centuries.
"I-," The man's jaw snapped shut with an audible clack and Ahsael considered the error. This was just some nameless agent, an informant, nothing more. Yet, something had made this mere pawn speak, even if only momentarily, unbidden in his presence?
The mortal was silent now and still as a statue, his nervousness and terror at his mistake radiating from him like the tongues of flames. A modicum of psychic potential was within him, Ahsael noted, but not nearly enough to begin learning any more than the most rudimentary of the Mysteries.
"Continue," Ahsael allowed graciously. He plucked a bloody eyeball from a bowl filled with them set by his throne, holding it up before him. With vicious speed, Vra'kzil's tongue darted out like a frog's, claws springing out from its end to snatch the treat before snapping back behind its silver beak.
"I… believe another party may have been involved in the death of my Lord's servant," The man suggested. "From what other trusted agents present there have said, the assassination was conducted by several treacherous servants that, while in favor with the Three-Eyed King, had not been introduced to worship of the Architect…"
Ahsael would have snorted at the pretentious name if he were less in control of himself. That mortal had simply been a sorcerer with a little power that had clearly gone to their heads. Still, an ego was hardly the worst trait a servant could have, and that servant had performed suitably as what amounted to an early warning system. Still, the servant was meandering around the point, and it was rousing Ahsael's impatience. "And why is this of note?"
"There was another servant!" The man quickly supplied, doing well to not trip over his words. "One of those whose soul the Three-Eyed King had bound to himself! He worked alongside those who had betrayed him!"
"Indeed?" Ahsael said, leaning back in his throne. "That… should not be possible."
"Yes, my Lord," The man agreed, nodding his head fervently, but he was all but forgotten by the Sorcerer of the Thousand Sons. Instead, his attention was on the whispered cawing of Vra'kzil.
"Indeed, we may need to do just that."
