Father of the Second A 30k Celestial Forge Story

by CallMeKingNobody

The premise of the story is thus: a guy from the modern world wakes up in the Warhammer 30k universe. Pretty basic, right? Here's the twist: he has no knowledge of Warhammer and is in possession of a heavily modified version of the Celestial Forge. Will he set the Galaxy ablaze? Will he laze around? Read to find out! Rating is because Warhammer is pretty dark.

11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11:

The relief I felt in victory was dissipated immediately by the knowledge that the Forge granted me. I simmered in the implications of this new knowledge. My mind, expanded by the Forge and by my modifications, worked to put everything into place neatly.

Simply put, we were in danger.

I frowned, and looked down at the Weirdboss. With it dead, the Orks should have been thrown into disarray and made a run for it, whereupon strafing runs by the drones would take them out, as planned.

Instead, they were celebrating.

They roared with an enthusiasm I could almost feel. Then an Ork with a hole in its chest the size of my fist punched another. Instantly, a wave of violence spread over the Orks and in minutes, I was in the middle of a brawl.

Strangely, the Orks were avoiding me. Instead, they focused on fighting each other with an almost religious fervour.

"Father!" Esau shouted, over the cacophony of the violence being perpetrated by the Orks against each other, bringing me out of my thoughts.

I looked to the origin of the noise and saw him navigate his way through and around Orks viciously slaughtering each other. Were they avoiding him as well? A quick look at how he interacted with the Orks showed me that they were not. They simply didn't see him as a threat worth fighting above each other, because he was too small.

It would be best not to mention that to him.

Still, even though he was moving at speeds that would damage a normal body, he was having some trouble getting through the Orks. It took a moment, but soon I realised the reason why; they were getting bigger.

Orks grew as a matter of course, during fights and after them through a mixture of physical and psychic stimulation. In fact, they would grow throughout their lives, but they were not meant to be growing this quickly. Even after battle, they would grow almost imperceptibly, gaining anywhere from a single centimetre to ten from a fight, sometimes more.

They grew, yes, but they did not swell in growth as fast as these Orks were. Not usually, and especially not after a loss. Something was wrong and as I moved forward to meet Esau, through the mass of Orks, I realised what it was.

I had just seen a vision of the gods the Orks followed and been tempted by them. I denied their call, as I was sure almost any normal person would. I was still getting used to being connected to Ork gestalt, but it seemed that all the Orks on the battlefield had shared the vision. Whether it was because of my connection to the gestalt, or because of the Weirdboss's psychic abilities, I didn't know.

Regardless, the Orks had shared my vision, and unlike me, couldn't deny the call. I doubted that any Ork could. No Ork would see a problem with fighting an endless meaningless fight. If anything, it would be euphoric to know that an endless fight was what awaited them, if only they fought enough to gain the attention of Gork and Mork.

The logic was circular, but that was Orks for you.

Still, their growth was problematic and was quickly becoming something we had to solve. At their current rate of growth, we had maybe a few hours before we had Orks that could challenge Esau or I directly.

I met with him in the middle of the heightening violence between Orks judicially cutting at each other with improvised knives. I ducked under a slash thrown out at random, prompting a response from the Ork.

"Uh, sorry Boss!" It shouted. "I was tryin' ta stab this git!"

Then the Ork froze.

"Wait a zoggin' minute. You'ze big like an Ork, but ya aint no Ork, so you'ze can't be a boss- '' it said before being stabbed through its chest by its opponent, who apparently had no respect for the conversation its fellow Ork was trying to have.

I punched the offending Ork in its face, knocking it out, my fists having healed in the minutes since the battle ended and together, Esau and I ran back to the compound. Despite the problematic nature of the fact that the Orks were growing, the change in their behaviour was interesting, because in it I saw an opportunity. The Ork had called me 'Boss'. That had potential. Perhaps it was potential that I couldn't take advantage of right now, but it was potential nonetheless.

Soon we were back in the Fort, having navigated the dead Orks and the traps we set up..

"You're larger." Esau commented as soon as we crossed the threshold and closed the gates.

"What?" I replied automatically, before my brain caught up to what he said.

"You've become larger. Stronger as well." He said as he messaged Kha and Kov to get them to disable the traps surrounding the compound.

"Am I?" I asked as I tried to look for the nearest reflective surface to see what he was talking about. I found one in the form of the gate we had just walked through. The metal it was made of apparently made for an excellent reflective surface.

The moment I saw my reflection, I was struck by how different I looked. Like Esau said, I had gone from about two metres tall to something close to three metres tall now with a more pronounced muscular profile. Instead of looking like a bodybuilder like I had thought, I instead looked more like something between a professional weightlifter and an especially large wrestler. My armour was torn apart and I was almost drenched in viscera. Whatever was left of my clothing underneath it just barely hung off of me. Luckily, my pants and boots were intact, as well as my dignity.

"You are." Esau said as he stood next to me. He himself hadn't changed besides maybe gaining a slight amount of muscle definition. "Near the start of the battle you could beat any normal Ork in sheer strength, but minutes into the battle you were capable of fighting off upwards of a dozen Orks at once."

He was right. After augmentation, I was strong but not strong enough to fight through a veritable army of Orks.

I hummed. "I didn't think my growth would be so pronounced."

He nodded in agreement.

"I doubt any of us did." He said before turning to me. "Should we not bombard the Orks, while they are distracted?"

"We should." I said, before wincing at how much I had changed in a few weeks.

Just weeks ago, I had told Esau never to kill unless absolutely necessary, but I was now acknowledging the sheer utility of a plan to kill swathes of Orks. From a utilitarian standpoint, killing the Orks was likely the correct thing to do. The Orks were an absolute pest of a species but admitting it made me feel like a hypocrite.

"We should," I repeated. "-and we will, but I have a plan. We need to increase maintenance drone production and then send them to dismantle the Drukhari and Ork ships in full. Keep sensors, burners and fighters on standby in case the Orks get the idea to attack us."

Esau looked to me for a moment, nodded and he tapped a few commands into his omni-tool and fabrication of the drones began through the use of the build guns.

A minute later, a few drones closed in on us. One drone was holding an omni-tool, specifically mine. It seemed I had lost it at some point and Esau had retrieved it. My spear was still lost in the fracas outside. It wasn't a big loss. If it was truly lost or broken, I could just make another one.

"Thank you." I said as I inspected it. Thankfully, it wasn't damaged during battle. In hindsight, going into battle with the only omni-tool that possessed eezo was a mistake. A mistake I would not be repeating again. I let the omni-tool scan both Esau and I. Besides a couple of bruises that were rapidly healing, we were fine. Esau and I took a look at the changes to my physiology and found that they were well within 'healthy' standards despite my growth in size. My bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments and all other supporting structures had grown proportionally and there were no signs of something like cancer occurring.

Scans done, I looked back at our reflections in the gate.

"We need to take a shower."

"Agreed."

While Kha and Kov exited the compound, I had the fabrication drones create a shower system like the ones we used in the compound, while Esau designed a system for the incineration of our clothes. Fighting as we had amongst the Orks guaranteed that we were covered in spores.

Cleaning ourselves up before dealing with the problem of the growing Orks was perhaps an oversight, but if my time in college had taught me anything, it was that problems became easier to deal with when one was clean. So after a hot shower and I felt more human, I met up with Kov and Kha to discuss what was going on while Esau took his.

They were sitting opposite each other at a table inside the 'living room' of the compound. Kha was sitting with her hands folded right in front of her and her face was in a slight grimace. Kov sat with an omni-tool open right in front of him, browsing absently through the designs in it. The tension between them was almost palpable.

"Thanks for waiting for me." I said as I sat down between them, cutting the tension between them.

"You've become bigger." Kha observed. I snorted.

"So I've heard."

"Your aura has changed as well."

"What do you mean?"

"Your aura, it is brighter. More vibrant. Greener."

"Is that a good or a bad thing?" Kha shrugged in response.

"You are more connected to the greenskin gestalt than you were. As to whether that is good or bad? Only time will tell." That was both ominous and slightly frustrating.

"I never know how to respond when you say stuff like that." She shrugged again.

"I only speak the truth. I do not mean to frustrate you." Right. At this range, she might as well be an empath. Thankfully, before I could respond she turned her attention to an approaching Esau. He was done showering and had changed as well. He approached the table and sat opposite me.

"Good, now that we're all here, we can talk about what to do." I said. "We have broken the Ork assault, for now but we have another problem. The Orks are still here and they are still fighting. Only, they aren't trying to fight us. That of course is not the problem, the issue here is that in doing so-"

"They are becoming bigger." Esau finished for me. I nodded.

"Can we not just bombard them as we have been doing?" Kov asked.

"Yes, we can." I agreed. "We absolutely can. But I have an idea."

Both Kov and Kha practically groaned. Ouch.

"Hear me out, here. I'm not that bad." Kha gave me a look, which was impressive, considering. I forged forward regardless. "After we won the battle, I was rewarded by the Forge with knowledge. A lot of it."

Kha tried to look neutral but I could tell she was annoyed, the fact that she couldn't tell where my knowledge came from bothered her greatly.

That was fair enough, now that I knew what I knew. We were in a hostile universe, where any being that could give me what the Forge gave me, only did so for its own benefit. In contrast to her, both Esau and Kov looked intrigued.

"The knowledge I got was knowledge about the Great Ocean, or as most of the galaxy calls it, the Warp."

There was a sharp intake of breath from Kha, but I continued anyway.

"While I don't have Kha's knowledge on the more esoteric aspects of the Warp or any of her general experience, I have been given an expert understanding of it and the tools necessary to manipulate it."

Kha snorted.

"Do you?" She asked me. "I think I speak for all of us when I say that the resources this Forge entity has granted you has been invaluable. Kov and I would likely be dead without it or worse, but this is something that I have to say."

She turned her attention fully towards me, and even without any eyes, I knew she was staring at me in mine.

"The Great Ocean is an incomprehensibly dangerous place where any misstep will result in consequences that are beyond horrifying."

She inserted two of her fingers into where her eyes would have been, still staring at me all the while.

"I am proof of this. And you have a history of attempting dangerous procedures that you don't fully understand. The greenskins fighting each other just outside our gate are proof of that. You chose to enhance yourself using greenskin essence off of a nebulous understanding of the Great One's abilities without a single thought to the consequences."

She stood up and knocked her chair to the ground, pointing at me all the while. In the corner of my eye, I saw Kov flinch almost out of his own chair and I saw Esau put a hand on his shoulder to keep him steady.

"You are powerful now, perhaps even a match for the Great One now, but in getting there have had the potential to doom us multiple times." She stuck a finger in my face, between my eyebrows. I didn't move, she had a point. "Perhaps the knowledge you possess on the Great Ocean is immense and perhaps it is accurate, but I have lost sister wytches dear to me because they thought themselves experts on it."

She removed her hand from my face, took a few deep breaths, picked her chair up, placed it next to the table back where it was, and sat down. In the silence, she spoke again.

"I do not know what you plan, but know that if you plan to experiment with the waters of the Great Ocean, you will face my wrath."

I sat in my chair, stunned.

Eventually I managed an answer.

"Fair enough." Kha had a point, I had a habit of jumping ahead before really thinking through the effect my actions had on the people here. Since I had come into contact with Esau's pod, all I have ever thought about was working to raise him or to change myself to better raise him. I had looked to do that to the detriment of everything else.

I doubted that Esau even knew he had done it, but he had changed me in our first meeting. I was effectively brainwashed to want to raise him to the best of my ability. The effect was so strong that when I identified it in the Drukhari ship, I avoided confronting it. It was perhaps unfair to say that I wouldn't have tried to raise Esau regardless, but I certainly wouldn't have tried to use the Ork essence if I wasn't so desperate to better understand him. And as a result of that, we had to fight Orks that were all Oddboyz.

I hated having my mind messed with. I really did, but I couldn't blame Esau for it, not really. He was a child. Regardless of the brainwashing, I was the one who chose to modify myself as I had.

Still, whoever created Esau had earned some enmity because if the fact that Esau could as a baby mess with minds told me anything, it was that his creator was insidious in their methods.

I would have to talk to him about everything after things calmed down.

"Father?" Esau asked, getting me out of my head.

"Sorry about that, I was lost in thought." I turned to Kha. "Look, you're right. I messed up by using the Ork essence and I'm sorry about that. I will not be trying to mess with the Warp, trust me. Even before the Forge granted me the knowledge that it has, I would have never done so. You know that. I know you do."

She dragged her hand through her hair.

"That is fair. I apologise. I should have waited for you to present your plan before I decided to criticise it." She covered her face. "It's just- I know your plan has something to do with the Great Ocean. I can read it in your aura-"

"And you were afraid I was going to do something reckless and stupid." I finished for her. She nodded.

"I can't blame you for that. I see where you're coming from. But my plan does not rely on drawing from the Warp in any way. That being said, I now know enough about the Warp to build things that could reasonably allow you to teach Esau some of your talents."

"Truly?" Esau asked, a little shy of seeming too eager. Kov on the other hand looked distinctly uncomfortable. I couldn't blame him.

"Yeah."

I had forbidden Esau from learning Warpcraft after I had seen Kha almost lose herself in the Warp. With my -and by extension, Esau's - new knowledge though, I couldn't justify not letting him learn when we could construct items that would make the learning process infinitely easier. On both of them.

"Would you be willing to teach him?" Kha was quiet for a few moments before answering.

"I am. Though I would like to know the extent of your knowledge on the Great Ocean and the breath of the devices you wish to have constructed. She said,

I hummed in agreement and began to tell them all that I knew of the Warp.

The Great Ocean, or the Warp as the Forge and apparently most of the galaxy called it, is a dimension that sat on the material dimension. It's made up of - and sustained by - the dreams and emotions of all living beings in the galaxy. It's a dimension where literally anything was possible and it was where Kha and the Weirdboyz drew their abilities from, if only the Weirdboyz did so after a fashion.

Kha was annoyed by the comparison but conceded the truth of it.

In isolation, this was not a problem. The problem was that the Warp was both incomprehensible and extremely dangerous, as Kha herself had demonstrated.

You see, while the Warp was a place where any dream could come true, this also meant it was a place where any nightmare could come true as well. All emotions fed into the Warp, both good and bad. This turned it from something potentially wondrous into something eldritch and horrifying. If you could control the Warp, you could do literally anything. The thing was, by its very nature, control of the Warp was impossible. You couldn't control the Warp, in the same manner you couldn't control an ocean with a teaspoon. Even if you could control a portion of it, it was too vast to truly control in truth.

As an added bonus, and perhaps as a direct result of its make up, the Warp was filled with denizens that were actively malicious and pretty much objectively evil. I had seen them in Gritzz's memories, but I had brushed them off because I had just thought them to be aliens, in the same way the Orks or the Drukhari were.

I had been wrong, because the Warp was filled with Daemons. Actual Daemons, in the same sense as Demons from Hell. Not only was the Warp the source of all magic, it was also Hell. In the same vein, it was also Heaven, and Purgatory as well, depending on who you asked. Kha explained that no two people experienced the Warp in the same way, so any of those could be correct.

The Warp was a frustrating place to try and figure out, so I gave up trying.

It was better for my sanity that way. Kha agreed.

As a whole, there were four general types of Daemons, all following a so called 'god' that had power over - and were empowered by - a given domain; Daemons following the god of wrath and slaughter, Daemons following the god of glut and excess, Daemons following the god of stagnation and decay and Daemons following the god of change and manipulation. There were some Daemons that lived outside of these domains but they were few and far between.

This had been news to Kha. Apparently, the witches of Tectum had only encountered maybe two types of Daemons over their entire history, which had introduced themselves as simple 'spirits'. She personally had experience with a small group of 'spirits' as they apparently had led one of her sisters to butcher a dozen people before being stopped.

This gave me a new perspective on Kha's capabilities. To hear her say it, she wasn't very powerful, even before her current circumstances. However, the more she talked about her exploits, the more I realised that she was straight up lying.

She didn't explain the circumstances behind it, but she once had to stave off the temptations of a Daemon while her sisters worked to banish it. She was humble about it, but I knew that it was an insane achievement.

This was because literally any use of the Warp carried the possibility of getting the attention of Daemons. It didn't matter what you were using the Warp for, you could catch the attention of Daemons upon each use. And she had used it almost her whole life in an active warzone without once calling down a Daemon. Furthermore, she was able to stave off a Daemon directly tempting her.

Even greater still, she avoided summoning a Daemon when Esau and I woke her up, even though she thought that we were the Drukhari. While she apparently disagreed for reasons beyond me, Kha was a certified badass. Even weakened, she was still capable of using potentially very dangerous amounts of the Warp.

Though to be fair, using any amount of Warp energy was potentially catastrophic. Which would be fine, if not for everything that relied on the Warp.

Because the Warp was a weird chaos dimension, time and distance in it was a bit wonky. This meant that if you could navigate the Warp well enough, you could go anywhere at any time. In theory. In practice, attempting to do this without specialised knowledge would result in people either going insane, or calling Daemons towards them. Sometimes both.

Again, this was fine, if the Warp wasn't the only method of faster than light travel and communication available to humanity, and if I deciphered Grittz's memories correctly - the only method available for most species throughout the galaxy. This meant that if we wanted to go to Earth, we would have to travel through the Warp. Where all the Daemons were.

The icing on the cake was that even if we figured out a solution for faster than light communication and travel, circumventing the need to use the Warp, there was a chance of the Warp coming to us.

Both Kha and Kov had legends in their cultures about something called the 'Dark Night' which separated their worlds from the rest of the galaxy. Neither Kha and Kov knew what the cause of the Dark Night was and what the effects were, but I now knew the cause to be the birth of the daemonic god of glut and excess in the Warp.

Going by the sliding timescale between both tellings of the legend, about eight or nine hundred years ago, something happened to create the fourth daemonic god, sending ripples into the Warp so strong that all forms of Warp travel and communication prior to that event was destroyed. If humanity was united before the Dark Night, it now made sense why they were not anymore and why it became a legend shared by two different cultures from what was likely to be two different planets.

These disturbances in the Warp were so strong that even today, hundreds of years after the initial event, the Warp has not recovered. This meant that it was so unstable that in some parts of space, warp space had breached into real space. Gritzz's memories sealed it for me because with this new knowledge I had, it was now obvious to me that they came to this planet through a rift in real space that opened a portal into the Warp. A rift that existed just outside of this planet's orbit.

A rift that was likely still open.

It was also the rift through which Esau had likely arrived.

"Forgive me, Father." Esau began as I let them all process the information and its implications. "But I do not see how this leads into a plan you have. This is all interesting but I do not see how it concerns us as we stand now, with Orks fighting each other metres away from our front gate."

"I will get to your first point in a minute but the reason I'm so concerned about the Warp instead of the Orks is that the Orks are not an issue currently. The Warp is. The fact that a Warp rift exists in orbit implies that the Warp currents around the planet are so unstable that there could be Daemons here already. Especially if this Warp rift has been spewing forth things lost in the Warp for what could be hundreds of years."

"The tides of the Great Ocean around are extremely irregular." Kha pointed out. "If Isaac's information is correct, almost one fourth of the denizens of the Warp rule over the purview of decay. Necromancy perpetuates the cycle of decay and we have seen signs of something like that happening westward. And there was that there was that golden beam of light that came from there as well. Put everything together and the probability of the Great Ocean's denizens having been on this planet at some point is exceptionally high."

"Right," I agreed. "-which means that anything native to this planet could be tainted by the energies of the Warp."

"So anything native to this planet could potentially infect any one of us through a potentially infinite number of vectors and we have no defence against Warp related attacks. While we can easily deal with this particular group of Orks. Especially as they are in disarray." Esau said as he sat back.

He steepled his hands together and nodded.

"I see. How do you plan to implement defences? And where do the Orks fit into your plans?"

"As part of the knowledge the Forge granted me, I have tons of knowledge concerning technology that manipulates the Warp. Including machinery that could allow me to open Warp rifts and stuff that ease the use of psychic powers-" I said as I inclined my head to Kha "-or to stop their use altogether. We're going to use this machinery to give us the best shot at overcoming any possible daemonic incursion. We're also going to be sending drones to the west. Gold isn't necessarily a colour favoured by daemons or the Warp but it is not a good sign. We need to know what is going on there."

We really did. This planet was almost actively hostile to life, so anything that could cause a beam of light, visible in daylight, to erupt was not good at all.

"And as for the Orks, I plan to make myself their Warboss."

"What?" Kov exclaimed. "Why? The Orks just tried to kill us!"

Esau had been out there with me and the Orks, so he was less concerned, but Kov had echoed Kha's concerns.

"I have a few reasons." I answered. "The first is that the Orks have an abnormally large resistance to temptations by daemons because of their gestalt. That makes them potentially very useful. Especially if what is happening in The second is that the Orks simply multiply too fast to effectively cull. Each Ork has the potential to produce hundreds of spores, each one capable of starting an ecosystem. Nothing we have access to is capable of getting rid of the Ork infestation in the long term. Even if we were to kill every Ork outside and burn the bodies, we would be hit by another attack within the month."

I motioned to Esau.

"Esau and I could probably produce something, but that would likely take years. By taking over the Ork horde, I would have at least some control over the Orks. The fourth reason, and the most important one, is that we need them."

I thought about what I just said for a few moments before continuing,

"Okay, we don't need them specifically. The truth is, this planet has been extremely hostile, and we are in a hostile galaxy besides. Both you and Kha know exactly what I'm talking about, so I won't go into finer detail. Suffice it to say that there's a ton of danger out there and we are besieged by potential enemies on all sides. We need something we can throw at a rapidly increasing number of problems and they happen to fit the bill."

I shrugged.

"Plus, throwing the Orks at people who want us dead means that we end up killing two birds with one stone."

"The reasoning is sound, but what makes you think you can be the greenkins' warboss?" Kha asked. Esau answered for me.

"An Ork called him 'boss'." She frowned and turned to me.

"Truly?" I nodded. It sounded like a minor achievement, but an Ork calling someone 'boss' meant a hell of a whole lot more than a person calling the person who pays them 'boss'. It was an almost reverent title in Ork culture. An Ork calling you 'boss' meant that you were above that Ork in every conceivable way, or at least in ways that mattered to Orks.

"I think I earned their respect. Or at least their awe." I admitted.

"By killing their Warboss?" I saw the reason behind her disbelief. Everyday, on a thousand worlds, Ork Warbosses died, by virtue of millions of Orks dying everyday in a million wars. If all one had to do to become a Warboss was kill the previous one, there would be tons of non Ork warbosses running around the galaxy.

"Yeah, that and I also kind of...met and denied the temptations of their gods." At that, eyebrows rose and a tense silence returned to the table. The consequences of being a little too honest, but I refused to lie to these people. Their lives were in my hands, so they deserved to know about anything that may threaten them. Kha's lips thinned.

"You met the greenskin gods?"

"Well...I less met them and was more in their presence."

"And you denied their temptations." Her voice was small.

"Yeah, they wanted me to fight. They didn't have an enemy for me to fight or anything. They just wanted me to fight. Like, forever. If I fought hard enough, they would then give me their attention. I figured it was a bad deal so I denied them."

Her next facial expression told me that if she still had her old powers, I would have long been thrown through a nearby wall. Then something dawned on her.

"That is why the greenskins are fighting each other instead of running away as they should have."

"Yes." I admitted, my voice sounding startlingly like I had been caught with my hands in the cookie jar. "Actually, that relates directly to my plan to become Warboss and why I asked Esau to finally dismantle the ships."

I scratched my head. How could I put this?

"I kinda need to have a look at my soul." I said, finally. I put my hand up to forstall everybody's comments. "I just left the presence of the Ork gods. Even if I escaped their notice – which I doubt – Being in the presence of anything in that tier of power in the Warp tends to change people in some way. My soul is already somewhat of a chimaera, and I need to know what else it is now before I continue."

"I see." Kha responded. I could see she approved of that. "How do we begin?"

"Well, that's where Esau comes in. How goes the process of dismantling the ships?"

Esau checked his omni-tool.

"They're about halfway done." Impressive for only ten minutes of time.

"What have you done with the dead bodies?" I asked.

"I had the drones set them aside for later incineration. I would have set them alight on the spot, but you wanted the burner drones to stay near the Orks."

"Good. I'm struck with an idea, so don't incinerate them yet. Do you still have access to the cybernetic interface?"

"Yes I do. I had done some work to try and miniaturise it to turn it into a cranial implant but faced some difficulties. Why?"

"Well, I'm about to make your work a whole deal easier. Do you still have scans of the creatures the original interface came from?"

"I do."

"Excellent." I said as I looked the scans over. The more context I had, the higher my appreciation for how insanely high tech this all was. "These creatures were used to obtain both biological information and memories. Both from people who are alive and people who are dead."

Esau caught onto what I wanted immediately.

"You want me to build something to take knowledge from the dead Drukhari." It wasn't a question. Both Kha and Kov looked at me. I wasn't earning any points with them here.

"All species that Warboss Gritzz encountered relied on the Warp in some way while the Drukhari did not. All of us want to leave this planet at some point." I pointed to Kha. "You want to see Tectum again, right?"

Reluctantly, she nodded. I pointed to Kov.

"And you want to go Home as well, right?"

Surprisingly, Kov shook his head.

"I do not have love for my home. There, I am...nothing. Here, I am with sachem and I am important. In the days I have spent on this junkheap of a planet, I have seen more than any man on my home planet has ever seen. I do not wish to go home." With each word, the boy seemed smaller, tired. There was a story there, but it was not for me to know. For now at least.

Esau put his hand on Kov's shoulder.

"You will not have to go back if you do not want to." He said, more earnest than I had ever seen him.

"I know." He said. "Thank you."

"I will not use their torture techniques, nor do I care about their poisons." I said in the awkward atmosphere. "Both of you know this. The Drukhari have a wealth of medical knowledge and have access to an alternate method of faster than light travel not reliant on the Warp. They also have a database containing multiple maps of the galaxy. That's what I'm interested in."

I turned to Esau.

"We'll also be pulling knowledge from the dead Orks too." It wasn't the most moral action, and both Kha and Kov no doubt felt betrayed, but I felt that everything I now knew made the action a necessary one. "They managed to create mech suits. That might become very useful. Then we incinerate their biological material."

Both Kha and Kov agreed to help wherever possible.

Soon, after a few minutes of brainstorming, we had something of a working design. We would have vats filled with a liquid of drukhari design that would dissolve each body inserted into it into its component biological building blocks. Then a heavily modified version of the cybernetics in the Drukhari designed creature would then extract information and transform it into formats we could actually use. The biological material would then be incinerated before the process was repeated. We were calling it the 'Forebear Analysis Machine' or 'FAM' for short.

As we put the finishing touches to the FAM, Esau had a suggestion. The Drukhari had guns that could steal literal years from somebody, literally ageing them to dust. We had full access to a few of those guns and they were still intact. We hadn't used them, simply because they were simply too impractical. There was no point wasting time ageing someone to death over hours when a regular gun would kill somebody instantly. By copying systems from the FAM, we could modify the guns into guns that could literally steal knowledge instead of life essence from anybody it was shot at.

The integration of these systems into the gun was a bit less seamless so the end result was a monstrosity of a machine that looked like a gatling guns' meaner cousin. Its effective range was relatively short at a hundred metres, but I figured it was good enough for an initial design. Since Esau came up with the design, I encouraged him to name it. He named it 'The Eccentric' which was genius. It was the first bit of humour I was able to wring out of him, despite the morbid subject matter, so I gave him a high five.

Even with this development though, the Orks were still outside and they were still growing.

Kov came up with a possible solution. The idea was simple. If the Orks generated psychic energy which in turn made them bigger, and life essence was part vitality and psychic energy, could you not just use a life essence gun to draw both out of an Ork? The idea was genius, so we brainstormed a way that concept could be applied on all the Orks at once.

The machinery was simply too massive to be put into something like a grenade or even a gun, so instead a drone was constructed the size of a small car that had the same effect. As a bonus, it could also drain knowledge like the Eccentric. Instead of coming up with a new name, Kov called it the 'Eccentric Pattern Drone' which was still admittedly cool, if unoriginal.

The range was short, at twenty-five metres radially, surrounding the machine but that was meaningless because we could just make more, as long as we had the material.

Dismantling the ships meant we had a lot of material to work with.

I immediately had production start on the machines dotting them outside the gate, surrounding the Orks, between burner and fighter drones. Almost immediately, the Orks stopped growing and the storage cylinders were filling up with Ork essence.

We had successfully bought time. While the Orks would continuously generate psychic energy that stimulated growth through their gestalt, the energy would be drained before it went to use in actually stimulating growth.

It also meant that for however long the Orks fought, we had an effectively infinite tap of Ork psychic energy. The uses we had for it were limited and we would hit a cap eventually, but the amount of energy that we would collect had potential.

After placing the drones we finally worked on improving the cybernetic interface. The knowledge the Forge had granted me had included in it an immense amount of knowledge on the designs of psychic implants, which I could draw from. The knowledge didn't exactly apply to Drukhari tech, but it made adaptation much much easier. Soon, I had a cybernetic interface that looked like an allied World War II helmet, capable of transferring years worth of data and experience in hours.

Esau duplicated the interface using materials from the Drukhari ship and gave them out to everyone. Now everyone could benefit from my knowledge. The sheer amount of knowledge involved meant that it would take days to transfer for everyone besides Esau, who cheated - on the short end - but I figured that it was worth it.

The transfer process was much smoother this time. Less pain for one thing. Esau like always, absorbed knowledge like a sponge, while Kha and Kov absorbed knowledge at a more sedate pace. Neither of them could absorb all the knowledge I had - they simply lacked the brain capacity – so I was exceedingly careful to only transfer knowledge to them that was pertinent to their skills and knowledge.

While Esau would get everything – I doubted that he had a upper limit to the amount of knowledge he could learn and retain – Kha got knowledge on wards, the Warp and how living beings interacted with it while Kov got my admittedly meagre mechanical knowledge along with my much vaster knowledge of medicine, chemistry, mathematics and the physical sciences in general.

The rapidly growing number of dead bodies was coordinated into FAMs, each collecting vast amounts of biological information and knowledge. Despite the sheer size of information we would collect, I doubted that I would discover anything useful in deciphering how the Ork genetic memory worked. Still, we ran into a problem soon after implementation. We had to figure out how to sift through and store it all.

Due to my paranoia regarding the presence of daemonic entities on the planet, I decided that it would be for the best that we redesign our computer systems from the ground up. Our systems had to be modified anyway, so it wasn't a big step to include protection against daemonic incursion.

Every computer system was made resistant to daemonic influence through the use of an almost absurd number of redundancies. Anything that could be considered a computer, including our omni-tools, build guns and drones had systems installed that watched for any internal and external irregularities with each piece of data having copies that would be regularly checked against each other.

Drive and Memory partitions were set up so that they could be quarantined or destroyed at will. This had the extra bonus of lessening the effects of viruses and worms in our systems as well. The most promising method of protecting our systems against daemonic attacks however, were hexagrammic wards.

Hexagrammic wards were symbols that typically looked like multiple triangles overlayed onto each other in ways that formed knots at every intersection between the shapes. They made it difficult for anything daemonic to latch onto anything they were etched into.

At the mention of hexagrammic wards and after seeing a description of what they looked like, Esau was struck with inspiration. He left our little table and soon returned, bodily carrying the pod he had arrived in.

"Why did you go get the pod, son?"

"This is why." He said, gesturing into the inside of the pod.

I was gobsmacked. When I had initially removed Esau from the pod, the insides looked like an indecipherable medley of metal. Now, I saw carefully balanced, interlocked systems that worked to keep Esau alive during his journey here. The pod had life support systems, a gellar field generator, what looked like the pieces of a highly damaged personal force field and the most advanced hexagrammic wards I had ever seen. The force field generator was unsalvageable, but gave me a few ideas.

The hexagrammic wards and the gellar field generator – a sort of force field that protected anything in the warp from the warp – on the other hand were still intact, and certainly explained how he arrived here through the warp unscathed. Before I saw these wards, the strongest available to us were unicursal hexagrams which provided a sixty or so percent chance of warding against the average Daemon. These had upwards of an eighty percent chance of doing the same.

We set about putting them on anything and everything that we could. Including circuitry, computer casings and other components. We even decided to place them in and around the compound and the fort in mathematically relevant calculated patterns, increasing their usability.

"I feel more at ease." Kha said suddenly, as we finished. With the build guns and maintenance drones, it had taken an hour instead of days of continuous work to do everything. "The taint still lives in the Great Ocean, but it feels farther away."

"That's good." I said honestly. That meant I could be a little less paranoid about the possibility of a Daemon manifesting right in the compound. It also meant she could teach Esau her warpcraft easier.

I turned to Esau and Kov. "You hear that, boys? We did a good job."

I put up my hands for a double high five. Kov recognised what I was doing and high-fived me first.

"Of course we did." Esau said as he followed suit, smiling. Well, it was more of a shadow of one, but it still meant he was enjoying himself. I had promised to work with him on projects and by God was I pulling through.

I felt bad leaving Kov behind at some points – Esau and I just worked too fast - but I made sure to always circle back.

Our preparations complete, we sent drones into the west, where the golden light was coming from. They were hardened, as the compound was, so any daemonic happenings would hopefully be more easily handled.

In total, we sent three drones westward. Two sensor drones and one eccentric pattern drone. We could have sent many more, but I figured that stealth was best for initial scouting. The eccentric pattern drone was less stealthy, and was more of a last resort, but a drone that could literally absorb the knowledge from most living organisms was too much of an advantage not to use.

"What's next?" Esau asked.

"We work on stuff for Kha, so she can better teach you Warpcraft in future and look into my soul."

In the meantime, Kha meditated in preparation for the procedure.

She could look into my soul right now but that would be a bad idea. Because of her actions in the Drukhari ship, Kha's soul was effectively butchered. Honestly, now that I had some context for what that meant, it was absolutely insane that she was still alive, much less able to use the Warp in any meaningful fashion. If she looked into my soul now, especially after I had been in the presence of Gork and Mork, the 'weight' of what she was seeing could kill her.

The first item we made then, was a protective item. It was a machine the size of a backpack – looked like one too - that would function in 'smoothing' out the currents in the Warp directly surrounding the wearer. It was based on a mix of technology you would find in a gellar field generator and a Warp drive. It functioned something like an air filter and thus would regularly produce Warp tainted material that would have to be emptied and destroyed.

It also wouldn't really do anything against a Daemon or even a Warp user of middling ability, but it would protect her soul and allow it to heal in 'clean' conditions instead of in the form of an open would exposed to air as it had been. The worst part of the machine was that it also took an absolutely horrendous amount of power to work for even a short time. Even the darkstar reactor I put in it would shut down within the year.

The next item we made was a set of eyes. The idea was Kovs', surprisingly. He figured that if we were going to be using Kha's abilities, we might as well be able to record and dissect the experience. Especially if we were going to use her abilities to figure out what happened to my soul and my connection to the Orks. It came from a place of distrust, but was a legitimately good idea on his part. So we made them.

Despite their name, they looked less like eyes and more like lenses that would cover the eye sockets. I built a sensor suite into them that could record and broadcast anything that was seen from their view through a few light frequencies and could even accurately record imprints of Warp energy. It wouldn't show exactly what Kha was seeing, but it would be close.

Esau constructed the power supply and Kov worked on meshing these systems together. Despite the size of the task in front of him, he was done in minutes.

Damn, this kid was good. On Earth he would have been the type of kid any university would give anything for. Here, he was the third smartest. I frowned.

I was still hesitant on physically enhancing him, but I would work on mental enhancements, in time.

"I think that's it."

"Are you sure?" Esau said. "Are we not going to make a void shield?" Geez.

"You've processed all the information already?"

"No, I have not. It will take some time to process how everything fits together, but I am reasonably sure that I am aware of around a third of the technology you have access to."

That was simply insane. Barely an hour after I started and he had already received what was multiple lifetimes of knowledge. Even a third of the knowledge I had would likely kill anybody trying to process it. Once again, I found myself marvelling at how fast his brain worked. I was close to his processing speed now, but evidently I wasn't close enough.

"We will. I just wanted to see what else could be built with the materials at hand first." I said as I looked at the material collected by the drones.

The Ork ship lacked interesting items to look at besides guns, bombs, a warp drive and a few mech suits. Most of it was useless. We could use the various bits and baubles, of course, but much of everything was built following varying amounts of design methodologies, most of them slapdash. I could reverse engineer much of everything present, but it was more feasible for me to just work on different projects that would have better immediate results. I suspected that the sheer difficulty I had when looking at the technology the Orks produced was intentional.

If the Orks were an artificially produced species, with an ingrained instinct for technology and combat, it made sense for the designers to make it as difficult as possible to reverse engineer. Perhaps different Orks unlocked different portions of their 'tech trees' or perhaps different Orks just made things differently in the same way Esau and I would go about the same problem in different ways. Considering the complexities of the third strand of Ork DNA, it was likely both. So almost everything the Orks built was used as materials.

The Drukhari ship on the other hand was a gold mine. Much of the ship was used as material as well, but much of it wasn't. After everything was vigorously cleaned and sterilized, we had novel life support systems for all types of alien species (most of them depraved in some way), various computer systems we would mine for data, a few more splinter gun designs, a few soul torture devices I would study and a single gun that seemed designed to disintergrate the target. The most important item, however, was a portal generator the size of a small house. It was heavily damaged by the crash, but was more than intact enough to study.

If everything went as planned, it was also our best chance at leaving this planet.

"Everything looks good. We have more than enough material to build a void shield."

Void shields were force fields that shunted damage to them directly into the Warp. As such, they were excellent defensive options. Once again, the build gun came in clutch. With the cybernetic interface, all we had to do to build a void shield was send it the designs of various components, then use the drones to assemble said components. Ten minutes after starting, we had a working void shield.

Kha came out of her meditation as we turned it on.

"What is that monstrosity of a machine?" The void shield has been constructed in the middle of the compound, just behind the houses and had a very menacing hum. I could see the reason for her concern.

"That is a void shield. A force field that shunts any and all attacks into the Warp. Horribly inefficient, power to use wise, though."

"Ah. I see. I felt a change in the currents of the Great Ocean as it turned on."

"A bad change? Will it affect the check on my soul?" She shook her head.

"No, on both accounts."

"Excellent, we have a gift for you." I said, motioning for her to follow me to the workshop.

"A gift?"

Soon we were in the workshop and she was staring at the items we had made her.

I gestured to the backpack.

"This is a portable device for calming the tides of the Warp in your immediate vicinity. It took a bit of engineering to figure out and won't stave off a Daemon or anything, but we think we succeeded." I gestured to the lenses. "This is your actual gift. A set of cybernetic eyes."

Her eyebrows rose so high that they almost left her face.

"I-" she began, astonished, before I stopped her.

"They are both group designs but the eyes were Kovs' idea." Kov's face flushed as she turned to him.

"I did not think you would tell her that the idea was mine." He admitted. That was distressing, because that and his prior comments spoke to a history of being overlooked.

"He's feeling humble." I said, before the atmosphere became too awkward. "So thank him at your leisure. They likely won't be as good as your aura vision, but they should give you more options. "

"I-thank you, Isaac. Thank you, Kov. Thank you Great One." She said, sincerely. I shrugged, and so did the boys, following my lead.

"Put them on. The eyes will self adjust the moment you put the metal bit in your eye sockets."

Immediately, she inserted the cybernetic eyes into her eye sockets. Damn. I thought she would take more time to examine them first. The eyes adjusted in the eye sockets, and the internal mechanisms expanded to fill the sockets before-

"Oh!" -they turned on. She could see again. I waited a few minutes for her to adjust as she just stared at her own hands, the lenses clicking to signify a change in the sensor suites being used. She looked up and shook her head.

"I'm sorry about that. I, just – thank you."

"It's okay. Are you alright?"

"I am."

"Alright, put on the backpack." Still stunned by her eyes, she put it on without much complaint.

"Okay. Are you good?"

She nodded. I turned the backpack on and I could visibly see her posture relax. I waited another minute or so for her to adjust.

"Alright. I'm ready." She said, before removing the cybernetic interface and holding up a hand to hold mine. It was the moment of truth. I held her hand.

Immediately, she doubled over in pain and her new eyes glowed an unnatural green. Esau and I removed her backpack and held her steady as she went through the motions. The omni-tool beeped. While holding Kha with one hand, I pulled the omni-tool and looked at what caused the alert. The Orks were getting rowdy. They had stopped fighting each other and were all singularly focused on attacking us.

Damn. The void shield had been a fortuitous suggestion on Esau's part. They were still relatively far and were being stymied by the various traps outside the fort, but the void shield was keeping bullets out the barrier.

Kha started to convulse pretty badly. Esau and I couldn't leave her.

"Kov." I said, doing my best to seem calm. "Aim all turrets at the Orks. Any Ork that get within fifty metres should be shot."

After being momentarily startled, he went to it. He ran into the turret command centre and soon I was hearing gunshot fire. Kha was still convulsing pretty badly, but Kov needed help.

"Esau, go help him."

"But-"

"I know, but he can't do it alone. Go."

Esau ran.

The Orks didn't stand a chance.

Still, the minutes I had with Kha felt like hours, as each convulsion had her almost crack her head against toolboxes, errant drone parts and various unfinished prototypes alike. I moved quickly, clearing an increasingly ridiculous number of metal objects from her path. After five minutes of this, she calmed down and the convulsions stopped.

Slowly she stood up, holding herself up on a metal workbench. 'Slow' must have been too fast because she immediately fell back to her knees and vomited her lunch. I went to help her but she waved me off. Instead, I got her some water, which she drank heartily.

"You weren't joking when you said you met the greenskin gods." She mentioned after some time, her voice was hoarse. She had finally managed to stand up on her own power.

"I wasn't, no."

We stood in silence for a few moments.

"Where are the boys?" She asked, suddenly noticing their absence.

"They're fighting the Orks in the command centre." At her look, I explained. "The Orks, went nuts as soon as your examination began."

She tried walking to the command centre, before almost collapsing after a few steps. I caught her.

"Take me to them."

I obliged.

Soon we were in the command centre. It was pandemonium. Esau and Kov were relatively calm, but the Orks were anything but. If I had thought them ferocious before, it was nothing compared to how they attacked now. They threw themselves forward with reckless abandon without regard for their own safety. Worst of all, they were coordinated, acting with an uncanny, almost hive-like intelligence They were also eerily silent.

Even then, they were no match for the sheer violence brought down upon them. We still hadn't replaced the splinter turrets on the, but the boys had compensated by essentially using the excess maintenance drones as improvised mobile turret platforms. Each one was holding an Ork shoota and was raining explosive gunfire down onto the Orks, replacing the ammunition of the weapon. I took a look at their numbers and the weapons we had ready.

In less than an hour, they would be annihilated.

Kha turned to me.

"They are attacking because of me." She said, "But they should be calming down soon."

As she said it, Orks stopped clawing at the void shield, a wave of confusion overcoming them. In the confusion, one Ork tripped another accidentally and the fighting continued, this time without us as the main focus. Esau and Kov backed down their drones.

There were maybe three hundred Orks still alive.

"What just happened?" I asked. She didn't answer, her hand brushing her hair out of her face. I recognized the action to be a nervous gesture. Whatever happened, it had frazzled her.

Eventually, after taking a minute or two, she spoke.

"When I looked into your soul, I saw what you had seen. I saw the greenskin gods. The giants of the Great Green. I saw Gork and Mork." She swallowed, thickly before continuing. "Like you, I heard the call and like you, I denied it. Unlike you, however, the Great Green treated me as an intruder, for it is not a realm meant for human beings. Isaac could visit the realm because of his unique condition, but I could not. This is why the greenskins tried to attack us. They were trying to kill me."

"Oh, Kha I'm sorry, I swear I didn't know something like that would happen."

She waved me off.

"I do not blame you. You are many things, but you are not malicious. What just happened is of no consequence. What is of consequence is what I saw in your soul."

Did Gork and Mork do something to me? Kha must have read my aura because she answered the question before I had asked it.

"The Ork gods have laid no effect on your soul."

I sensed a 'but' coming. She paused. My breath caught.

"They laid no effect upon your soul because they did not have to." That was much worse than what I expected. "Your soul is functioning properly and so are the implants. The issue, then, is that it is functioning a little too well. You have been absorbing the soul of every Ork you have killed."

What?

The look on my face must have spoken volumes, because she continued.

"When they were first implanted, your implants stimulated your growth after absorbing the essence of the Ork Warboss, connecting you to the greenskin gestalt. The act of infusing yourself in the first place should have killed you. Except-"

"My unique physique allowed it to happen because the process had a miniscule chance of enhancing me."

"Exactly. The fundamental nature of how your soul functions has changed. Your soul calls on the souls of greenskins weaker than you. Perhaps this is why the greenskins specifically sought you out above any other target. Instead of travelling into the Great Green, as is the nature of the greenskins, they have travelled into you. This is why you have grown bigger and stronger. This is why your soul seems brighter to me. You simply have more soul to see.

Your soul is now something like a beacon, attracting weaker greenskin souls to you. This is…not good. Greenskin Warbosses and Weirdboyz will be attracted to you like a moth to flame, seeking a challenge. Currently this manifests in the greenskins on this planet wishing to fight you, or fight with you. The moment we leave this planet and the 'Warp Storms' occluding it, however-"

"I'll attract every Warboss and wannabe Warboss in the entire galaxy." Damn. There had to be a solution to this. I had knowledge of a myriad of Warp tech, but little in the way of soul manipulating technology. The Drukhari had items I could potentially use, but I would have to study them and the Drukhari no doubt had tons of traps that would flay my soul or something if I messed with them.

"Yes. Unfortunately, I have more bad news. When you absorbed the greenskin essence, you inherited some of his bloodlust. The pattern will continue for every greenskin you kill. This will continuously make you stronger, faster and smarter. However, if you keep absorbing souls in this manner-"

"I'll eventually become an Ork, mentally." I finished for her. In the corner of my eye, I saw Esau grit his teeth and ball his hands into fists.

"Don't worry, Esau." I assured him. "I'm not going out like that. I'm simply too awesome to."

I punctuated my statement with a dab. No one here knew what the hell I was doing, but the sheer lameness of the action reached him, and he snorted. Mission accomplished.

"Fortunately," Kha chimed in, "I may have something approaching a solution."

"You do?" I swear I could see the shadow of stars in Esau's eyes as he heard that. I couldn't blame him. I had stars in my eyes, too.

"I have an idea at least." She admitted. "But that is better than nothing."

"Agreed. So what's your idea?"

"You know that I was something of a ritualist, back on Tectum?" I didn't like where this was going. Hesitantly, I nodded.

"Well, there exists a ritual." She hesitated, as if merely mentioning it pained her. "It is known as the Rite of Becoming. I had not mentioned it before because it is one of many rites the sisterhood is not allowed to show outsiders. Not to mention its supreme danger."

Of course it had to be a ritual. I hated those on sheer principle alone. I hated them after surviving the one Kha tried to trap us in, but the Forge increased that hatred a hundredfold. The knowledge the Forge gave me didn't cover them, but it did cover the results of rituals gone wrong. The nature of the results of a failed ritual varied based on the type of ritual, but permanent mutilation of body and soul such as in Kha's case, was the least of your problems.

"What does the ritual do?" Kov asked.

"It alters the soul of a target. It is primarily used to remove portions of a target's soul. As the soul and the mind are interlinked, this tends to change the target, inexorably. It may also be used, however, to change aspects of a target's soul. Like turning an affinity for one psychic discipline to a different one altogether. It also has around a thirty percent chance to shred the target's soul, even if done correctly."

If done incorrectly, I reckoned that the chances increase dramatically.

"Do you know of any other rituals that may do something similar?" I asked.

"No, I do not."

Damn. So I either face getting turned into an Ork or I face getting my soul shredded. I had trouble picking what I would rather have happen to me if I failed. Then an idea struck me.

"You said the ritual alters souls. Does that include enhancements?"

From her expression, it was clear that she saw where I was going and didn't like it.

"Theoretically."

"The way my physique works, theory is good enough." I hoped. "How long would the ritual take to prepare?"

"I could perform it now. We possess all the items the ritual should need and there is very little need in the way of preparation, on my side at least."

"On mine?"

"You need to take a bath in salt water. But do not dry yourself off after."

"Really? That's it?"

"That's it." Huh.

"Better get to it then. Boys, please help Kha with whatever she needs." I said, leaving to draw myself a bath.

I obtained the salt after a relatively lengthy process of obtaining salt via boiling one of the fruits we got from the Drukhari before evaporating the liquid until only salt remained. The bath was done, I wore my clothes without drying myself off and made my way to Kha's portion of the compound, where we agreed to meet.

I arrived to find everyone standing outside a ritual circle drawn in chalk in the middle of Kha's living room. The circle had a simple hexagram drawn inside of it. The middle of the hexagram had two items in it. A single vial of Ork essence from the drones outside and a single Ork skull, cleaned of all flesh.

Seeing me enter, Kha motioned for me to sit opposite her, just outside of the circle where she stood. Both the boys stood behind her, kind of menacingly.

Kha put on her backpack, and visibly relaxed.

She breathed in deep.

"Are you ready?" She asked me.

"I am." I wasn't. She turned to Esau.

"Great One. Take this as your first lesson in the ways of wytchcraft." She said and he nodded. She turned back to me, sat down and began talking partially for my benefit, but mostly for Esau's.

"Rituals need three things to work. They need a catalyst to begin the ritual, in the form of a sacrifice of some kind, an intended result of said ritual and a method in which the intended result will be obtained. These are the absolute basics. Everything else is additive to this and depends on a number of factors."

Her implants whirred and they began to glow. She brought her arms upward and a blue-green substance spilled out of them onto the floor. Immediately the liquid turned into words that swam across the floor, surrounding the ritual circle. I felt a pressure in my head. All the while, Kha spoke.

"Is the sacrifice equal to the intended result? Often, this is not the case and as such extra compensation is necessary. Never put yourself in a position whereby extra compensation is needed. This is because the extra compensation demanded will always be more than what you are willing to give. Always."

The circle increased in size, eventually growing to encompass Kha and I, then it stopped growing. The pressure in my head increased.

"In the same vein, is the intended result possible with the catalyst used? This is not always clear, but is very important. If, for example, you wish to partake in a ritual to gain strength, you have to think of how you will be given that strength. Do you wish to take the strength of the sacrifice into yourself, or are you looking for some nebulous boost in strength from an ill-defined place?"

The pressure increased.

"Improperly defined methods such as the second are extremely dangerous, because the Great Ocean may interpret it however it wishes. At the same time, approaches such as the first tend to lack power. The best approach is a balance between these two extremes."

The ritual circle increased in it's glow and the pressure in my head increased.

"A good practical example is what your Father wants me to do here. The Rite of Becoming is simple and needs a very small sacrifice: any item of value. The intended outcome is clear and the method to do so is clear, but the enhancement ritual is less so on all thr counts. The marriage of the two is murkier still. However, the three of us have come up with an amenable solution."

She put her hands down and started to float, her voice brimming with power. Each word fell like a meteor upon me.

"The catalyst will be all the essence collected by the drones throughout the day, along with around all of the greenskin's bodies. The intended result is in two parts; alteration for the soul, and enhancement in the form of control."

She paused, her smile turning feral.

"Yes. Yes. Yes. This is fair. Let us begin."

Wait, we hadn't begun ye-

I was floating, and I was on fire.

Errantly, I felt the processes of the ritual take place. The essence burned and so did the skull - until there was nothing left. I did not need to see to know that all of our essence and all the Ork bodies had burnt away as well.

The burning complete, I felt a tugging on my very being, as my soul appeared in front of Kha, divided into seven orbs. They flowed in front of her, twisted and deformed, a sickly green colour. In her hands, a hammer formed and before her, an anvil appeared. She began to forge. Each strike of the hammer resounded throughout my very being, and each strike of her hammer changed me.

Each strike of the hammer fortified me.

When she was done, the seven parts of my soul were in front of her and they were beautiful. Where they were the colour of sickness before, they were now emeralds, shining a light out into the void.

I felt a link form, the Orks outside the gate linked to me. Instead of being drawn to me, they were repelled. Their souls left their bodies and disappeared into the Great Green.

In the place of their souls was a void. A void I filled. A lifetime ago, I had wished to become a Warboss. I had given my companions logical reasons for my wish, but in the end it came down to instinct. An instinct to conquer, to bleed and to make others bleed. An instinct formed by the Orks I had absorbed.

It was an instinct I no longer had.

Gritzz Earripper could no longer control me through his instincts. Zogsnagga could no longer ensnare me through his. Instead they formed an armour around me that would repel, instead of attract. It was an armour that was weak now, but would strronger with each Warboss I defeated in combat. As long as I fought and I won, it would be inviolate.

I smiled.

The ritual was complete.

Kha fell and so did I, exhausted. The boys scrambled to get the both of us water. Esau handed me a glass of water and a jug, while Kov handed Kha the same. Kha drank in measured sips while I drank from the jug with reckless abandon. I was tired, but my strength was rapidly returning. Soon, I was strong enough to stand. Minutes later, so was Kha.

"What did you do?" I asked. She smiled.

"I altered your soul and enhanced it, and you, as requested. I wished to remove the greenskin essence in its entirety, but I found that I was incapable of doing so. Even as malleable to change as your soul turned out to be, it was impossible. I simply lacked the ability or the power to do so. The greenskin essence had become a part of you, there was nothing I could do about that. Instead, I altered how the connections formed.

You will still absorb the souls of the greenskins you defeat, I could not change that, but only now you are capable of absorbing Warbosses. Any other greenskins will have their souls sent into the Great Green instead. This still presents a problem in that you would still influence you. To fix this, I changed the nature of the connections between you and the souls absorbed. Any souls absorbed will instead form a cloak around your soul, protecting it. I based the structure on what little I saw of the Great One's soul."

That was...incredible. Taking into account her history of making her own successes seem small, the task must have been titanic, and she pulled it off. There was no doubt that the unique nature of my body helped her greatly, but what she had done was still likely far from easy.

Not for the first time, I found myself wondering what her rank was when compared to the rest of Tectums' witches. She must have been one of the best witches they had, if not the best, period. Still, I had a question.

"Then what happened to the Orks outside the gates?"

"Their souls were sent to the Great Green."

"Yes, but why? And why do I still feel them in the gestalt, and why do they feel like me?"

"That would be my fault, Father." Esau interjected. "When the lady Kha was designing the ritual, I expressed to her a possible solution for the Ork infestation we're afflicted by. If she was going to change the connection you had to the gestalt so that they could be repelled once dead, why not change it so that the souls were repelled from their bodies while they still lived? That way, as soon as a new generation of Orks are born in your vicinity, their souls will be seperated from their bodies and sent into the Warp."

I blinked. What?

"Orks born with a strong willpower will still resist the effect, however. So will Orks that have been in a horde for a lengthy period of time."

"That shouldn't be possible." I mentioned. "The sheer amount of power that would take would dwarf the psychic energy contained in the vials we collected."

"We supplemented the power with the Ork bodies we hadn't transferred to FAMs." Geez. That is terrifying.

"And as for feeling your presence in the Ork bodies, well Kov had an idea." Esau said, pushing Kov forward.

"Well," he started. "I-uh, thought that if your problem was that you had too much soul...stuff, then why not allow your soul stuff to spread to the bodies so that you could control them? Like a computer with many sort of good processors, instead of a computer with only one."

He obviously didn't know a single thing about how souls worked but the idea was genius. It also explained the oddities I was feeling. My body was about the same, but my mind was faster. Drastically so. I was sure that right now, I could match or even surpass Esau in sheer processing speed.

"Good job, boys." I said, giving them a high five.

Man, I thought Esau was bad but both of these kids were terrifying. I needed to get them focussed on non-violent endeavours soon. Hopefully with the Orks dealt with for the time being, I would have time to get them to do actual kid stuff. Problem was, nothing good for children would be enough to intellectually stimulate Esau and anything that would stimulate Esau mentally, would be too much for Kov.

An idea struck me. We had tons of drones, of varying capability. We had already sent drones westwards but why not send drones all over the planet. That way, we knew what were dealing with on this planet in its entirety. Maybe we would run into people. Statistically, if space debris has been hitting this planet for centuries, and with humans being space faring, there was at least some chance that some humans landed somewhere on this planet.

But first, I had to see what was going on with the Orks with my own two eyes. I opened up my omni-tool to my drone footage and found a video-feed of the Orks just standing around. They all stood motionless and had blank expressions. Now, Kov said I controlled them. But how, did I have to directly order them around or what? Could I will them to do something like jump for examp-

Simultaneously, they all jumped. Was my control general or fine? Did they draw from my knowledge for each intruction or did they only know what each Ork did before their souls were removed?

So many questions. But first.

"Thank you Kha, Esau, Kov. I really appreciate it. I know I keep coming up with crazy ideas and I drive some of you insane, but know that I appreciate every single bit of help you have given me."

I felt tears well up in my eyes. I wiped them out before they formed. I wondered where I would be without any of these people. I would probably still be roaming the desert in despair or dead.

"Just. Thank you."

I put my arms up for a hug. Esau and Kov returned the hug. Kha on the other hand was a bit more hesitant. She crossed her arms and pretended to ignore us, but eventually, she gave in.

Since arriving on this planet, I have been faced with struggle after struggle. Fight after fight. Still, it was moments like these, which made everything feel worth it.

Because in this one moment, for the first time in too long, I felt content.

Action: Take Control of an Ork Horde

Reward: Hybridization Theory (Zoids Legacy)

Action: Give the II Primarch a Family

Reward: Extremis Formula (Marvel Cinematic Universe Vol. 1) (200CP)

As I disengaged from the hug, everyone turned their attention to me, having recognised the look on my face.

"The Forge?" Esau asked. I nodded.

"What did it give you?"

"For some reason, it gave me two things instead of one."

"Really?"

"Yeah. The first thing is that I can now merge any two machines into one machine, regardless of the differences in design theory, engineering and power supplies of either machine."

"Interesting." Esau commented. "The second reward?"

I blinked. No, that couldn't be possible. The Forge had given me the Extremis formula from Iron Man 3. That was, concerning. Did the Forge make it real, or was there some universe where everything the Forge gave me all existed? Was the name of the formula a coincidence, then? My instincts said that that was unlikely. If this was real, what did that imply concerning my other abiliti-

"Father?" Esau called out to me, getting me out of my thoughts. I blinked again.

"Yes, Esau?"

"The second reward?"

"It's a formula for a virus that gives anyone that is infected with it physical capabilities nearly on par with yours."

His eyes were so wide that I was surprised his eyeballs stayed attached to his head. His mouth was just short of being agape. Kha and Kov were the same, though Kha was more poised about it.

"Truly?"

"Yes." I nodded. This time Kov interjected

"Do we – um - have the materials to make it?"

"We do." I said, as my omni-tool beeped. It was the second emergency signal today. "Hold that thought."

I opened it up and saw a massacre. The drones had reached the mountains in the west.

"Esau, Kov, Kha." I called, doing my best to keep calm. "Get in your command centres, please."

"Why?" Esau asked, pulling out his own omni-tool. "What's happening?"

His display was large enough for both Kha and Kov to see.

Scores of people were being dragged from hovels, beaten and dragged away into flesh-like structures by people in leather clothing. Anyone who resisted was killed with extreme prejudice. I didn't need to hit zoom on the sensor drones to saw that the structures weren't flesh-like.

They were flesh.

They were people as well, though disgustingly warped and crouched down on all four limbs, with warped growths coming out of their backs like sacks. When a grotesque number of people were stuffed in the growths, the creatures ran up into the mountains, whipped by the people in the leather.

Those being dragged out of the hovels in the mountains into blood soaked sands were gaunt. Almost skeletal even, with large bloodshot eyes and bent backs, as if they had never stood up straight in their whole lives. Looking at the large numbers of people being dragged out of tiny cramped spaces, they likely hadn't.

Kov looked absolutely sick, like a stiff breeze could blow him over at what he had seen. I couldn't fault his reaction. Kha on the other hand looked angry, almost apoplectic, even.

"I see." Esau said, his tone filled with heat. "You wish to go there. Help those people. Let me go with you."

"No." I would not have him fight whatever these people were. Especially not after I had gone through so much trouble to enhance myself. The horrors we had seen so far were no doubt the tip of the iceberg, and they were sickening. I would not have a child see these things.

"Please, Father." He insisted.

"No." I said, turning away. I needed to get my load-out ready for battle.

"Is it because you think that I am incapable of fighting alongside you?" I froze and turned back. I walked up to him and crouched down so that we were eye to eye.

"That is not true. You know for a fact it is not. You are strong. Do not disrepect yourself like that. I do not wish for you to come with me and fight because you have fought enough." I took a deep breath and sighed. "You are a child, regardless of your abilities. You should be worrying about what books you want to read or the hobbies you should pursue or which girl you want to ask out to prom or whatever. Not this.

The very first moment I met you, I promised you and myself that I would raise you to be a man, and a good one at that. With each battle we fight, I feel that goal of mine get farther and farther away. So I do not wish for you to fight. That is final."

I stood up to walk away.

"I do not know much about what makes a man good, Father." He said as I did so. "But surely, feeling rage at the injustice of how his fellow man is treated is one of the traits of one?"

I froze again.

"It is." I admitted. Empathy was one of the big things I was trying to make sure was instilled in Esau. Denying that at this juncture would be disastrous.

"Surely, so is a feeling that you should help, if at all you can?" Damn.

"It is."

"You see, Father. You haven't failed. Since I first became aware of the world, I have been watching you and I have been learning.

You could have chosen to leave Kha and Kov at the ship, especially not after Kha almost killed us. As I was back then, I would have with no hesitation. At first, this confused me, I admit. Why would you do such a thing? It was illogical, and then I realised why you had done it.

You yourself taught me that life was valuable, regardless of who it belongs to. This is why you saved Kha, despite her failings. Since then I have tried to emulate you in my actions. I do not know if I am a good man yet, but I would like to try to do the right thing, with you."

I sighed. Shit.

"The thing about trying to be a good father, or a good man in general, is that you can never really tell if you are." I said, finally. "Fine, you may come with me. Get ready."

He ran to get his tools.

Kov had recovered and Kha was still apoplectic. Good.

"I need you two at the command centre and act as support. Esau and I will need you to take care of anything we may not handle alone. Medicine, food, supporting gunfire. Is that okay with you?"

They both nodded.

"Okay, please get to your stations, then." They ran too.

I followed after Esau. Once again, it was time for war.

11.1. Perk(s) earned in this chapter:

Domain: Quality: Size - Hybridization Theory (Zoids Legacy) (400CP): So one day you had a bit of spare time after your daily Zoid admiration hour. After taking a close look at your favourite Gojulas and your favourite Mad Thunder, you decided that if the Gojulas could wield the Mad Thunder's Magnesser Drills like an arm weapon, you could probably reenact that scene from the show you watched two days back on the professor's hi-def television. Those mechanics can slap on parts and scavenge however they like. You can literally merge two machines together into one, with twice the processing power as before. Mind you, Zoids typically won't respond well to suddenly sharing a body with another core and another mind, but you'll have ethical uses for this...right? For most mundane machinery, you don't need any power source besides your own, but be careful that should you make your machine too big, the internal power supply might not be enough to feed it.

Domain: Databases: Mundane - Extremis Formula (Marvel Cinematic Universe Vol. 1) (200CP): Another attempt at creating super soldiers, this formula creates a virus that can enhance a person to superhuman strength, reflexes, and endurance. Additionally, normal Extremis users gain the ability to generate extreme amounts of heat through a complex metabolic process, generating heat from their bodies up to several thousand degrees Celsius on any part of the body they desire. When regenerating body parts, the wounds take on the appearance of burning ashes while growing back the lost body part, in a matter of minutes, and cooling into regular skin, flesh, and bone. Be wary however, as this makes you light up on thermal sensors, and should your body heat up too much, you may end up exploding. Keep this in mind.

A/N: I know its been a long time but life's been pretty busy. Anyway here's chapter 11. I hope you enjoy! Also I know, two perks at once?! I just felt the moment necessitated them.

Oh also also, if you want to learn more about this world, please check out the ao3 or spacebattles threads for this fic. I answer most questions on those threads because it's simply much easier that way.