Selene Voss

Her sword raked through carapace flesh and bone alike. The blade needing only a bit of extra push to slash through the tough bones of the alien menace.

 

A Carnifex. Selene observed, pulling her sword out and lashing out again in a piercing strike aimed right at the beast’s head. It tried to dodge, and despite its large body and immense weight, the Xeno moved quicker than any human she’d ever seen before. Well, aside from herself.

 

The Carnifex trembled once, its dying breath coming out as a startled gasp before its body went lax. She tore out her sword, quickly jumping away as two smaller beasts pounced on her previous position.

 

Shame. She could have used the energy top up from the larger monster, but letting her armour absorb biomass made her stationary for a second.

 

That second would have dozens of the ravenous beasts pouncing on her, it wouldn’t be the first time they would try to bury her alive under a hill of living flesh and carapace.

 

Selene Voss moved with the precision and expertise hammered into her throughout her childhood, she’d been taught swordplay, military strategy, diplomacy, subterfuge, seduction and many more subjects, most of which she had no use of. Still, her family was rather proud of their sword style perfected through the over ten thousand years of the house’s existence.

 

Selene learned it diligently, like anything else she had to. Life was easier when she obeyed back then. She knew many of those lessons would be useless in her life as a guardswoman and she thought swordplay would be on that list.

 

It needed some modifications, especially the footwork part of it as it didn’t account for the user being a Telekinetic, but aside from that she found it surprisingly fitting even for her new supernatural capabilities.

 

She hopped between the horde of enemies, her feet only touching down for brief moments to kick off of the ground. One would think being mid-air so much would be a weakness, making her an easy target, but whenever a beast tried to capitalise on that perceived moment of weakness, she yanked herself out of the way with a precise application of telekinesis.

 

She was quickly growing used to using ‘soul energy’ as Echidna called it. She was dubious at first, a bit afraid to disregard all the paranoia Valenith hammered into her about using Warp Sorcery, but she could feel the difference. It was like night and day.

 

Where she felt vulnerable before, always having to fear a Daemon turning her soul inside out on a moment of carelessness, now she felt … secure, and safe even. How could she not? She could feel the echoes of Echidna’s presence in every lick of energy she pulled into her body, it was as if the woman was constantly by her side and aiding her, helping her. Protecting her.

 

She’d never be alone again. She would never again be left behind.

 

Smaller and larger beasts alike fell under her blade. She didn’t even want to use her Devourer gun thingy if she didn’t have to. That thing was unnerving. The sword her armour created also felt a bit like that, but the lack of flesh-eating worms shot out of it was all the difference she wanted.

 

Reaching the apex of her current jump, she launched herself straight down with a powerful push of psychic power. She barreled down, smashing into the ground and releasing a wave of telekinesis around her which sent a shockwave blasting outwards, sending the aliens rolling head over feet all around her.

 

There was only one worry in her heart, one she thought buried and forgotten after Echidna’s confession. It was stupid. Selene was stupid. She certainly felt stupid for feeling this way, but what could she really do? She was just a human, a normal flesh and blood human with silly little things like emotions, and even worse, insecurities.

 

‘Am I really good enough? Do I really deserve this?’ That was a question that was plaguing her ever since she felt the colossal presence of Echidna’s true soul. The answer was obvious, especially now that she couldn’t blame her brooding on daemons whispering into her ears, it was a resounding YES.

 

So saying she was frustrated would be an understatement. She knew her own answer was the exact opposite of the one Echidna would give to her questions and she didn’t doubt her sincerity, the woman’s clear affection was now easy for her to feel in her aura, even through the barrier of that little forest realm she built.

 

Selene would have been terrified of a month ago, emotions as pure and intense as the ones radiating off of Echidna were unnatural, inhuman. What she thought of as love before felt like a fleeting interest compared to the Love the alien woman felt for her. Some of that emotion obviously stemmed from her weird Eldar biology, but it still came as a bit of a shock.

 

Selene felt … inadequate; she was incapable of loving the woman that much; she was physically and biologically incapable of it. She was using Echidna, using her weirdly naïve personality and exploiting her.

 

Selene didn’t know what to do. There was no choice, no way to be worthy of the love she was receiving and even less the power she was freely given. All she could do was to be there for Echidna, as a friend, a soldier or as a lover even.

 

She should be better at being all three of those. She could be better. That was all she could do, be the lone shoulder for this living goddess to lean on.

 

That’s preposterous … isn’t it? Thinking I can even be of help to her.

 

She shook her head, replaying that night in the reliquary in her mind for what felt like the thousandth time. It calmed her, the reassuring fingers on her face and the soft lips of the woman she was coming to love on her own.

 

To Echidna, Selene was worth more than anything else. The knowledge of that fact along with the lingering touch and warmth of the beautiful woman, was all that kept her darker emotions from spiralling out of her control.

 

Well, that and what she was doing right now. Killing aliens, no, this was more like a slaughter. She barely even got nicked by a stray claw or a shot stinger anymore, only ever having to put much effort into killing the larger Tyranids like those Carnifexes and whatever else.

 

This unearned power gave her the power to crush beings she would have had no hope of even scratching before. She was killing them like livestock; she was dominating them. It calmed her, feeling in control, feeling powerful. She wasn’t just statistics on a paper lost in some upstart Administratum assholes drawer.

 

She let a smirk play on her lips as she imagined the shitshow that was about to go down in the bureaucracy when they realise a Rogue Trader — and one from the founding houses — was openly supporting a Xeno. It would be hilarious … until the Inquisition got involved.

 

She met an Inquisitor before, one that came to their estate when she was young and talked with her grandmother. He was a severe man with more metal in him than flesh and a stony face that held no emotion. He barged in like he owned the place, and her grandmother had gotten busy after that and turned up dead only a few years later.

 

Selene hardened her heart. They would come for Echidna, she didn’t know who ‘they’ were, but she was sure sooner or later someone would decide that such a powerful being shouldn’t be alive, or at the very least, should be locked up in some facility where Inquisitors could extract anything of use she might have out of her.

 

She was a liability. Echidna might be immortal — or close to it —, but anyone with a brain would realise the woman valued Selene. She needed to get stronger, the very least she could do for the woman was to not be a burden.

 

Aside from that, she needed to finally grow a spine, and be the friend — and maybe lover — that Echidna needed, not just the one she wanted. The woman was strong, beautiful and knowledgeable about things she had no right to know anything about, but she was also dangerously naïve and as she had said before, her personality was … flexible. Malleable even.

 

She’s changed so much in just the few weeks I’d known her. Both for the better and for the worse. Selene resolved herself to talk to her and make sure she understood that. If she still wants to keep that morality of hers, she needs to do something. Quickly.

 

---

 

The time I spent in that trance was both short and sort of intangible, I knew it’d been several hours — my mind cores could keep the time, down to the nanosecond —, but I still felt it flow by faster than usual.

 

I was becoming better and better ever so slowly; I wasn’t just swinging a sword around based on stolen instincts and getting bailed out by my supernatural reflexes whenever I fucked up. There were still ways to go before I could call myself proficient with the sword and the master of my own body.

 

That was humbling. I knew how my body worked down to the cellular level and I could manipulate each single one of those tiny parts that made up my form, but I didn’t know how to use all the powers I gave myself. I was a master of my body only in name.

 

This little battle-trance helped me a bunch, but in the last five minutes I was becoming more and more distracted. My Hunter Drone was getting ‘angsty’ for a lack of a better word.

 

It was now kilometres down, far below the earth and in total darkness, sneaking around in tunnels large enough to fit Imperial Knights into them. It was getting closer, whatever was down there was setting off the Danger Sense on the drone more and more.

 

The walls down there weren’t covered in the same birthing pods, but the large veins that pumped biomass and whatever fluids the pods needed were covering the ground and the walls.

 

I was fully snapped out of my trance when my drone instinctually dodged to the side, Danger Sense blaring in alarm and guiding the supernatural Eldar reflexes to save the Drone from an early death.

 

It wasn’t quite enough. Half of the infused bio-energy flowed down to its torso, fixing a large tear that almost cut its spine in half. What was that?

 

The drone’s senses were far inferior to my own as most of mine came from my aura which the Drone lacked. Still, it should have been able to sense anything I’ve met so far. Maybe not daemons, but anything the Tyranids could throw at us.

 

Meanwhile, my avatar stood motionlessly in the middle of the swarm, a bubble of telekinesis sending any approaching beast flying back with the redirected force of their own charge. I focused on the drone, ignoring the insignificant bugs for now.

 

I didn’t feel safe enough to project my consciousness into the Drone, so I just observed it through our link. For all I knew, whatever was there could launch psychic attacks and it could mess me up if I was there mentally. Not sensing it was certainly concerning, and while the armour on the drone wasn’t anything as good as what I usually used, it would take several blows for even a Hive Tyrant to break through it.

 

The Drone scanned its surroundings, three pairs of eyes piercing through the darkness and scanning the rows upon rows of pulsing veins. There was nothing. The Danger Sense went haywire, and the Drone twisted its body out of the way, but one of its arms got torn off by the brute force of whatever attacked it.

 

I didn’t care. I saw something, a large shadow moving in the darkness faster than even the Swarmlord and maybe even rivalling my own speed when I pushed myself. That thing was dangerous.

 

The Drone’s ripped off arm didn’t regrow, but the stump sealed itself to preserve bio-energy. It didn’t have enough to fully heal itself.

 

There was a screech, coming from much further into the darkness, resounding through the caverns and carrying with it infinite malice. I felt being watched by something old and dangerous, but then the Drone’s senses once again sensed something.

 

I caught air pressure changing even before the Danger Sense tried to save the Drone the third time, but the attacker didn’t go for an arm or the torso. It went straight for the head.

 

I felt claws tearing through the armoured neck of the drone, but I couldn’t help but smile. I could see it now, the beast revealed itself. It was towering over my Drone, standing almost twice as tall and staring it down with what I felt was a contemptuous sneer.

 

Its head was similar to the Swarmlord’s, but with two horns growing out of its forehead instead of a single one. It was also taller and only wearing the thick armour-like carapace on its back.

 

What is this thing? I wondered, not remembering the bio-form. It was obviously stronger than the Swarmlord though, that was good. Or was it? I could barely damage the Swarmlord and I wouldn’t be able to dance around this thing with my speed. Fighting this could be dangerous and who knew what else would wait for me down there?

 

I need to play this smart. I thought as I commanded all the remaining bio-energy in my Drone to obliterate every single cell of its body, I couldn’t let the Tyranids get their grabby claws on my improved templates.

 

What to do? Wha-

 

‘Echidna? Can you hear me?’ came the message through Selene’s telepathic link.

 

‘Yes? What’s up? Are you alright?’ I sent back quickly, pushing my worries of giant alien monsters in caves into the back of my mind.

 

‘Yeah, but I’m getting a bit … tired, it’s been well over a day already since we started fighting.’

 

I blinked, then I blinked again dumbly. ‘Really- I mean, yeah. Let’s stop and take a rest.’

 

‘I also have something I want to talk to you about.’ She sent back, a serious undertone carried along with it, riding on the psychic waves of the transmission.

 

‘Sure.’ I smiled to myself. Killing aliens was nice, but some peaceful downtime with my cute partner sounded even better.