AN: Sorry for how long this took to make for you guys but I've been busy. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did making it. And before you get onto me for the small time skip I think it was a good way to go, a problem I've had before is going too in depth with shit and bogging stories down for far too many chapters following my characters through literally every step of their life. We really didn't need eight chapters of them hunting gangers lol, especially when that will be what happens soon enough anyways. But anyways I hope you all enjoy!
The depths of the hive were silent, the usual sound of gunshots and gang warfare was nowhere to be found and the white noise of active and ancient machinery filled the void that had been left behind. In this silence I walked out openly, tall and framed in green with my antlers displayed proudly for all to see.
Dyrrath and Anluan walked at my sides, their presence a comfort in this world without other fey with which to converse with, or at least someone of equal brilliance. Though now that I thought about it, who could be an equal when men live such short depressing lives? It's no wonder they need my protection when even the most basic of tasks and magics are beyond their ability to understand.
I jerked slightly, refocusing my thoughts, a necessity when I spent many of my days encased in the form of the Grand hunter. At first it was comparatively easy to keep the mantle under control, I wasn't an emotional wreck like I had been those first two times and now when I transformed I wasn't on the verge of death and particularly vulnerable. After the first week however, after seven straight days in the form of the Grand hunter I started to notice changes in and out of his form.
I began to associate myself far more with my two companions, as in I began to find myself agreeing with them more and more on matters I would have once completely thrown away as nonsensical. Sometimes like had just happened I would catch myself calling humanity out for being the short-lived scum it was.
No no, just like that. I can't help the thoughts when they come to me, and as the days pass and I close in on a month with my fey form I find myself wondering if it isn't still completely me that walks the under-hives and not the Grand hunter with a sprinkling of my remaining personality. But I can't stop, I have to use the form of the Grand Hunter, because I've done so much good for the people of the hive and Imperium in just this short time that I've been active.
The silence that encompasses the tunnels? My doing. I hunted them down like dogs, whether they be man, woman, mutant, ork, or heretic they all fell to my spear in the end. I still haven't figured out just why my former regiment is garrisoned here but I can feel myself drawing closer to the answer every day.
I'm close to the answers I seek, I can feel it deep within my breast. The heretics have been growing bolder, striking into the territory that I've cleared out so far, obviously trying to hunt down the thing that had wiped out their cult in the area along with all the other gangs that had inhabited the area. On the flipside my expeditions into the deeper and further sections of the hive have been met with stiffer resistance, more alert guards and traitors, and equipment that suggests the beginnings of an actual armed force.
Which is why I've taken the form of the Hunter today, even if I was supposed to use today as a day of rest and recovery after weeks of constant hunting and battling, spilling the blood of hundreds. Simply put, Dyrrath and Anluan aren't enough.
Sure they've done their best, and if it wasn't for their efforts I'm sure that all my efforts to clear out this section of the underhive would have been for naught simply because I couldn't be everywhere at once because even ten layers below the surface millions still lived in the small area I had taken as my own.
Which is where the hundreds I had killed came into play, I had kept their souls despite my reluctance in the matter, justifying to myself that since they truly were traitors and heretics in rebellion against the Imperium then they deserved no mercy. It still made my stomach churn just thinking about what I would be doing to their immortal souls. Thankfully I had been right in the assumption that I could put souls to sleep and I had done so immediately to the souls of the family.
Like the souls of the family, the souls of those I had killed were put into a deep sleep of their own, giving them dreams and visions of a heaven of their own for eternity even as they were twisted into my soldiers for the battles to come. "What is on your mind my Lord?" Dyrrath spoke and I spared him a quick glance as we continued our slow walk through the hive.
"I'm trying to decide what to do with the souls of those I killed and how their essence should be manipulated to serve the purposes of the hunt. While hounds like my sweet Anluan." I gave her a small head rub to her immense pleasure. "Would be more than adequate for the brutal dispatching of enemies as Direhounds are best at, I don't need to simply kill the heretic, the traitor, and the Xeno but also control the areas we cleanse."
"Sort of like a conquest my lord, we need garrisons and soldiers who can stay out of sight." Dyrrath's words were right on point and I gave him a head rub of his own, I don't know why both hound and fey enjoyed the experience but loyalty is loyalty. "Exactly! The men of the hive stay hidden and out of sight now because they don't yet know that the gangs and cults are gone for good so we aren't in any real danger of being outed, but soon enough they'll begin to know its safe to travel the streets and alleys again and I'll need my soldiers to be able to move around without causing a scene."
Dyrrath nodded at my words, he had acted as my primary scout and assassin up to this point after all. Never would I have guessed a seven foot tall man could be so sneaky but he could disappear even from my senses with an ease that was astounding. "Am I to expect siblings and cousins soon my Lord? I'll admit I am disappointed that you are no longer showering me with your personal attention. I thought we had something special." Dyrrath spoke jokingly, his face was wrapped in a shitting eat grin and I couldn't help myself. A small laugh broke through my lips.
His grin grew even wider when Anluan began whining and demanding my attention, shooting the wolfish version of a glare at Dyrrath for stealing my attention. "You needn't worry. None shall ever capture my attention like you." I spoke looming over him with my hands resting on the side of his face gently, sending a blush creeping up the elfin mans' face. "You are quite the cruel master my Lord. I believe the human phrasing would call you a massive dick head." At his words I couldn't control myself anymore as I broke down laughing with him by my side. It had been far too long since I could just joke around with someone. And despite his initial uptight attitude Dyrrath has very quickly proven himself to be a friend.
"You know I had too my friend, you are simply far too easy to tease, I created you but that doesn't mean you must let me do as I please too you." I was of course just kidding around with him, I had found over the last weeks that interacting with my two companions made for far better conversation than treating them like automatons and servants.
Dyrrath for his part just coughed into his fist before speaking with a large blush on his face, far too easy to tease. The man would have died with my friend group from my previous life. "Anyways my Lord you didn't answer my question, am I to expect new siblings and cousins soon? We must have a plan in place if we are to truly build a new hunt. I actually have a few thoughts on the matter including command structures…"
I tuned him out at that point, oh don't get me wrong I listened to him but only with half an ear. He has a bad habit of devolving into an unending stream of details, plans, and technical word vomit that I just can't for the life of me find it in myself to listen to fully. Maybe its the fickle mind of the fey affecting me in some way or maybe its the fact that I simply don't have the disposition of a bureaucrat but listening to someone listing over eighteen different plans and contingencies just wasn't something I enjoyed doing.
I'm a man of action, I do something and then I react as challenges come my way. Maybe that isn't the best way to go about life or running an operation to exterminate heretics and traitors but bite me it's the way I do things. It hasn't backfired on me yet… we're gonna ignore the mutant with the explosives. That was an extenuating circumstance. "My Lord, are you even listening to me?" Dyrraths words broke me from my internal monologue bringing me back to the present.
Honestly I had stopped listening completely at some point, but its Dyrrath so I trusted that he had come up with a good way to handle things, he had been the brains of the operation so far after all. I was trying my best not to be dragged down by the fact that I was about to commit an immortal sin against humanity and the God-Emperor. "You aren't listening to me are you." Dyrrath spoke, breaking me from my own thoughts once more.
Clearing my throat I spoke. "I was Listening to you Dyrrath but I have much on my mind, excuse my seemingly ambivalent attitude. Please just give me a more compressed version of your plan for the new members of the hunt and I shall decide on whether or not I will implement it." My words had the desired effect and he didn't question what I had been thinking about, not like he would understand my care for human lives and souls in the first place, I was increasingly feeling the same way myself after all.
"My plan is simple my lord, while the hunt of old was as wild as its name suggests as is only right with our current situation and what you have told me of the world we need not be a hurricane but a tsunami." As he spoke we continued our walk on the way to our destination and he used subtle magic to speak to me on a deeper level. Every word was expounded upon and his every meaning give shape and form through fey magics.
"In the beginning those soldiers you make should arrange themselves in four different types of hunters. The first of which shall be those you deem worthy of being your personal bodyguard and vanguard. I know not how you will craft the bodies of those you shape but I suggest these be like the great Green knight. Large, powerful, cunning, and capable of taking all damage dealt to them and fighting on in your name."
As he spoke he sent me the images of these warriors, clad in fairy steel and elfin leather, and wielding spear and shield they would each be a little over seven foot tall, large and well built with an almost human physique while still retaining the fey qualities that would define my hunt. They would be as he said shock troopers and bodyguards, Feenritter I named them. Magically they would be built to use their magic in a healing and reinforcing role, acting less like the sorcerer Dyrrath and myself were and more like tanks who could heal themselves. I liked the idea, I would implement them into my plans.
"Next should be the front line soldiers of our war effort, while I have never been in a war myself I know from what knowledge you have imparted to me that these will likely form the vast majority of our forces if we go on the model of men." He paused at that and seemed to introspect for a second before he continued talking. "My Lord I must suggest that when you are creating these soldiers you keep in mind that we are not men, we do not have the same attributes as them and as such for these hunters I recommend they be outfitted and shaped with such in mind."
Magic imparted to me what his thoughts on the matter was, and it was quite enlightening. He saw the way our enemies had used their men, sending them in human waves or if they were particularly smart small teams in a mockery of small unit tactics to try and fight an enemy they only ever saw glimpses of. They used lasguns, stubbers, and even an autocannon to light up any position they thought we might have been in and they were slaughtered all the same.
He didn't want our soldiers, our Feenjägers' to be like that. Wildly flailing failures of soldiers that relied far more on overwhelming firepower to scare off or suppress their enemies than actual skill and tactics. I could understand where he got that thought from and I quickly disabused him of that notion by giving him a vision of what our soldiers really would be in the confines of his system.
They would be like my Feenritter, seven foot tall and lean with muscle, clad in fairy steel and elfin leather strong enough to shrug aside las bolts without failing, for a while at least. Their main weapon would be a weapon I had been hard at work creating, mainly because a sword which was to be their secondary weapon, spear, or bow wouldn't be enough against true warfare in this universe. I had based it off the M110A1, and I named it the Weitblick.
It was to be a long rifle, and unlike the lasguns of the guard it wouldn't be energy based, instead it would use the magic inherent to the fey to create a long sharp bullet of green half made fairy steel and then launch said half magic-half real bullet at speeds near 1500 meters per second, twice the speed of the rifle it was based. Really the Weitblick was less of a rifle and more like a wand specially made to use the magic of the Feenjäger shooting it to cast a series of rapid fire spells that emulated a rifle.
The only downside? Each of them had to be created from a soul as well, I had been quickly figuring out that most of fairy magic required the sacrifice of a soul for anything truly impressive. It really put into context all those stories of the fey taking peoples first born for their own uses.
I pushed these designs Dyrraths' way along with my plan for our soldiers. They would never be expendable, they would be marksmen that would engage our enemies using refined tactics programmed into them from my own military experience, with weapons that would ensure they could engage our enemies at a distance. I tried not to cringe at the obvious tau equivalency that could be drawn but I moved on either way.
Dyrraths smile as he was assured that his brothers and sisters wouldn't waste their lives however made the cringe more than worth it. "But as I was saying my Lord, with our basic foot soldiers and shock troopers we come to the final two arms of our new hunt. The Feenattentäter, and the Märchenfürst. Our very own scouts/saboteurs, and the designated sorcerers of our army. Magic, true magic seems to be rare in this place and as such it will be very important for our forces to make use of our natural abilities to their fullest." He spoke, nearly devolving into the word vomit that I expected of him before I intervened.
"And the Feenattentäter will act as our scouts and light infantry. I gathered as much from their name and your base description. Thank you Dyrrath." I didn't have to say anything more as his mind touched my own for a final time and the armaments and descriptions of these soldiers entered my mind. The Feenattentäter would be the same as my Jaegers with the small exception that they would be focused entirely on stealth, equipped with both a pistol and Weitblick, and they would be slightly less muscular with a build shaped for stealth. The great thing about fey weapons? The user can shape them to their own needs so I wouldn't have to go around adding silencer features thank the God-Emperor.
The Märchenfürst would be more like my Feenritters, large and clad in heavy armor wielding spears and swords. However their weapons weren't what made them actually dangerous, no that was the fey magic that they would be given great knowledge of. Two souls would be required to create them but from that they would be able to cause damage great enough to completely turn the tide of nearly any battle, I would put them near the level of a gamma or beta level psyker, with far more control of their magic.
As I looked over the four new fey forms that I would be consuming hundreds of souls to create and hundreds more to equip Dyrrath continued talking. "Finally I believe at the lowest level each hunt should consist of four Jaegers, three Attenater's, and two Ritters, and one Märchenfürst for a total of 10 soldiers. Of course this can be changed to include more or less of each such as a simple hunting party of a few Attenaters for operations that require smaller, more stealthy units. I've named this unit a Kleine Jagd and they in my opinion should form the basis of our larger operations and units. I have plans for those too if you like my Lord-"
I put a single finger to his mouth. "I appreciate your thoughts on the matter, Dyrrath, but we've arrived, the time for talk is at an end. I need to focus on what is to come." He closed his mouth as we walked into the hidden clearing that was our destination. I had set up various barriers around it to ensure nothing and no one would stumble in, I just hoped no unlucky fairy tale child somehow slipped in.
The scent alone was enough to almost floor me as we walked into the area. Blood, iron, bronze, and rot filled the clearing that played host to a ritual circle. One thousand, two hundred and twenty bodies lay in concentric rings, each of them one of those that I had killed. I disposed of the bodies of the orks and unknown xenos' that had been unlucky enough to run across my path, their souls would act as fuel alone.
Slowly I walked to each and placed a soul, or two for those that would be my lords and sorcerers, upon their chests. The souls themselves had long ago been forced into a deep sleep and so my ritual would not be interrupted by their screaming rage. At least most of them had, somehow the souls of the Ork's were resisting the pull of sleep, and some had even managed to escape my hold upon them and went into the warp.
As a consequence of that I kept them nice and close, their souls would serve as the fuel to create my soldiers weapons. While Dyrrath had spoken of how each of them would be created and what their exact would be, I had made this ritual far beforehand, the bodies themselves would simply act as extra fuel and an anchor for the soul, saving power that I would desperately need for the acts to come.
The reason I had Dyrrath wait so long to give me his idea for them was simple, to make sure it was fresh in my I stepped into the central ring of the circle I could feel the weight of magic on me as I kept near two thousand souls under tight control, already I could feel my mind becoming a little heavy as I began to build power and having a clear and recent picture of what I wanted would be paramount.
"Good luck my Lord, I will be here lending you my power for the duration of the ritual, simply call upon me and I will end it at any time if you need me too." Dyrraths' words were a small balm upon my increasingly strained soul as green began to flood out of me. My breath hitched as the magic hit the first ring and golden blood leaked from my nose.
It hurt, it hurt more than I ever thought would be possible. It felt like my soul was being stretched too and beyond its limits. The souls thankfully stayed quiet, and I could feel Dyrrath trying his best to use his magic to supplement my own, and at the same time I could feel the mantle slowly creeping in upon me. It was like an anvil above my head, the harbinger of doom and my personality death.
The minutes ticked by and as the magic spread to each of the rings I could feel the mantle as it slowly, ever so slowly descended upon me. It was like a warm blanket, a touching and gentle hello to oblivion and for a second I prepared myself to be submerged into it like I had during my second transformation.
It never came.
Instead I felt myself strengthen, knowledge not my own flowed slowly, and my magic came to me easier and stronger. Not because I had done something to earn its favor, but because I was finally truly using it. I wasn't denying it, denying the hunt and my purpose. In this moment I was calling upon the hunt, tapping into it and expanding it. It didn't matter that I had intentions to use these souls for purposes other than pure destruction, the simple fact that I was doing my duty as the Grand Hunter was enough for the mantle, and now it was aiding me when I needed it most.
I don't know how long the ritual carried on, I stopped being able to think after the first hour, and my sight left me after three, but I do know I never stopped. I never stopped pouring myself into the ritual, and the mantle never left me, and when I awoke in my human form once more I was sat upon the cold stone of the circle. It was quiet, no sound could be heard and for a second I thought that maybe it had all been a failure, and I had condemned all those souls non-existence forevermore.
Then the warm hands of another took my chin and lifted my head to stare at the results of my work. I idly noted it was Dyrrath who was gently cradling my weak body as I stared at the sight that knelt before me. A thousand fey clad in green, blue, and gold stood before me, their Kaleidoscopic eyes kept firmly on the ground.
I had done it, now I had the soldiers I needed to cleanse this hive of the heretics and traitors one and all. The laugh that escaped my throat was weak but it was victorious. I could have cried in relief ain that moment.
-
She twitched as the familiar green power flowed through the hive. She had noticed it about a month ago, that pulsing disgusting flow of nature and change that seemed to be increasingly infecting every inch of the under hive, HER under hive. It had started out as a slow, quiet and nearly completely unnoticed pulse that she just assumed came from some flailing psyker that was starting to manifest their powers.
And then it got stronger.
The pulse grew in intensity with every day, and every day the strength it hit her with grew even louder. The worst though had been just a few hours before when the entire hive seemed to come alive with the green wave and she was nearly suffocated under the scent of nature, chaotic, orderly, dangerous, and wild.
She wouldn't pretend that it didn't send her into a fit of pleasure, as was her privilege as an aspirant in the arts of slaanesh, but it was also a problem. Because the green had been killing her cultists, wiping out the gangs, and it was moving ever deeper into the hive. Soon enough she was sure that it would run into the bulk of the cult in the spire and she was sure war would come with it.
But she wouldn't intervene, the governor was already far too suspicious of her and her corruption of his son wasn't yet complete. Until then she would keep a low profile and allow the green to war with her cult for the spire, she had others throughout the hive and even in others outside of it, she could afford to lose them if the green proved too strong.
By that point the governor should be dead, his son should be in power and the General mollified. All she needed to do was ensure the regiment in the hive was rid of and soon enough the hive, and then the entire world would fall to her masters. Yes, the green was just a minor inconvenience, it would be dealt with in time.