Everchosen Chapter 21

-991.M41-

-Miracle of Suffering, Segmentum Solar-

-Joshua Pendrarc, Everchosen-

There was some difference between psykery and sorcery, allegedly. He wasn’t sure what separated the two arts beyond that such a separation existed, and he didn’t know enough about either to distinguish them beyond vague instinct.

That vague instinct was screaming at him right now that whatever the sorcerer Hercule was dueling was doing was absolutely unnatural- even beyond the standard level of unnaturalness that psykery operated at. 

The sorcerer in teal and gold armor threw out bolts of lightning that crackled with hues of light that flesh eyes were not designed to distinguish, only visible thanks to the machine nature of his optics and the prickling of psychic-sight that the Emperor had invested into him. The lightning, in turn, flashed forwards in bizarre curving arcs to strike at the golden demigod. Each lashing bolt of twisting lightning would weave to correct its arc so that it would hit the custodian even in spite of his blurring ducks and weaves.

It was hard to appreciate how fast Hercule was when this bizarre lightning was even faster and somehow intelligent enough in function that it could twist to chase and follow him as he moved. 

It was at this point that Denaira apparently got tired of holding him and let him go. He practically dropped onto his feet, stumbling once before righting himself, using the oversized sword of Russ as a counterweight and cane to prop himself up upon. 

Frantically his eyes roamed around. This was the first of three intersections that they had to cut off the sorcerer at, and Hercule was well on his way to closing the gap between them and finishing him off. The engines won’t be destroyed thanks to that.

He drew from the tarot again. Were there any other threats that he needed to deal with?

Focus on self-development.

No. His machine-eyes expanded and contracted to the rhythm of a golden cicada beneath the sockets, spying a line of rubric-marines being held at bay by a fervent, screaming band of men and women with guns and chainblades. He turned his gaze down the other immense chamberway, with towering arches large enough to drive tanks through two-abreast and walls decorated with saints and cables. Masses of menials and workers looked upon the ongoing battle with wide eyes from behind blocks of toppled machine-parts and supporting pillars.

He drew from the Tarot again. Did Hercule need any help to win this battle and complete the objective?

Trust in the strength of your allies.

No. He exhaled, turning his gaze back towards the ongoing battle. Hercule’s blurring form passing under and over bolts of curving lightning with increasing efficacy, bullets bouncing off his armored form and sending their explosive munitions to detonate against the walls and floors, his own gunblade barking out to harass the enemy sorcerer with its own explosive bullets.

Slowly, inevitably, the giant golden demigod was gaining ground on the increasingly-desperate sorcerer. There was nothing he needed to do in that regard.

What the hell does he do in that case?

‘STAND PROUD, SYMBOL OF THEIR STRENGTH’

The voice that burned like fire and boomed like thunder rolled across his mind, speaking with the faint undertone of sympathetic understanding. 

Joshua closed his eyes briefly. He supposed the Big Man would’ve had a lot of experience with being in this exact position, huh? Where there was nothing left to do but wait for his warriors to accomplish the task set before them, the task he knew they could manage on their own.

Golden gears churned. 

Joshua opened his eyes and straightened his back, twisting the massive sword around and planting it firmly in the plasteel flooring with one semi-smooth motion. His arm shook with the weight of the blade, but he managed it somehow.

Hand on the hilt and sword planted, Joshua stood in the midst of the intersection as the battles raged around him, upright and eyes focused. Every instinct developed from growing up on Necromunda told him to flee and find a nice safe nook to hide within, but he somehow managed to avoid listening to it. 

Only the occasional twitch of his arms and legs betrayed this honed instinct.

A distant explosion rocked the chamberways, sending a pulse of air through the corridors and making his hair blow to one side. He maintained his stare upon the battle taking place between sorcerer and custodian, surrounded by the brilliant golden aura that signified excessive use of psychic power. 

Slowly he turned his gaze towards the larger battle, where men and women clashed against rubric marines, scores of bolts and laserfire crossing the path between them with alarming frequency. 

He could feel the servoskull that followed him around everywhere request something of him, somewhere in the machine-interface that laid under his skin, but without his helmet to act as interface he had no real idea of knowing what it was requesting. Something of a flaw that he’d have to request correction for- a backup program to link its interface with his eyes instead of the helmet maybe?

There was a feeling of patience in the back of his mind and folds of his soul, where the gold had settled itself and began to dig roots, as if he was missing something obvious but it was expected of him. An easier solution to the problem before him that he’d figure out in time. 

He had gotten quite experienced in reading the subtleties of the Emperor’s mood, he belatedly realized. 

He denied the request of the Servo-skull, whatever it was, and re-entered the command for it to passively follow him and only shoot at whatever he shot at first. The skull buzzed in confirmation and returned to its passive state. 

He glanced to the side at the sound of rapid pen-scratching, briefly glancing at the old remembrancer hard at work with an open page and mechanical-hand split apart into two five-fingered hands, one of which was still typing away at his carried typewriter and the other was rapidly sketching out the scene.

As someone who occasionally dabbled in sketches, the speed and detail of the ink-sketch was fucking impressive to behold. Joshua quickly turned his gaze back ahead to not disrupt the pose for him, he knew how annoying that could be. 

The battle continued between Hercule and the sorcerer, with Hercule now close enough to start making blurring sweeps and stabs with his blade in addition to a furious onslaught of bolt-fire and thrusts with that two and a half foot blade wielded as a dagger. The sorcerer maintained less and less arcs of that terrible lightning and projected increasingly frantic barriers of harsh light, most of which were shattered when Hercule’s flashing blades crashed against them.

The terrain around the two combatants was ravaged beyond repair, with enormous gashes torn in plates of space-age metals and blooms of molten metal left suspended as alien towers from where lightning occasionally kicked off surfaces to redirect itself towards Hercule. Entire panels were smashed inwards and flipped out, revealing the hundreds of thick cables that served as the ship’s arteries beneath. Pillars that once held up the magnificently tall ceiling of the chamberway were shattered and toppled, and the ceiling groaned with unsupported weight from above.

Like a prehistoric hunting cat, Hercule hounded his prey, creeping ever closer through stray arcs of stunted lightning and flashes of magical barriers. His armor was stained in a sort of black soot by this point, but nothing the sorcerer could do would stop his progress forwards, even as the sorcerer frantically dodged away and backpedalled across the chamberway.

Finally, the moment came. A shield was conjured and smashed in the exact same moment. The sorcerer’s boot caught on a raised section of torn floor.

Hercule’s tremendous knife slammed down, punching through the sorcerer’s helm with a crack of ceramite and machinery and straight into the floor below, nailing the enemy to the ground. The body seized up on the floor, back raising and legs tensing, before suddenly giving out entirely and thudding to the ground limply. 

Hercule held his position for a moment, then yanked the dagger free from the sorcerer’s helm in a spray of rich blood, pulling up to his full height once more over the corpse. Then he turned and began to walk back, helm roaming in search of any further dangers and finding none in particular. 

Joshua pulled from the tarot again. What’s the next threat?

The explosion.

His eyes widened in alarm. The what?! 

Distantly, invisible to all but his psychic-sight, a circular pattern completed itself on the interior of the sorcerer’s armor and began to glow a bright indescribable hue. It ticked like a flashing bomb and writhed like a two-headed serpent. The serpent turned on itself, one head consuming the other and then beginning to swallow its own tail, shrinking rapidly as the micro-moments passed. 

Hercule, detecting something was wrong from the look on his face, turned fearlessly to confront whatever was behind him. Joshua opened his mouth to yell a warning.

“It’s going to expl-”

The serpent devoured itself, and as its jaws slammed closed around its final segment, it burst into a brilliant flash of light, heat, and sound.

Joshua raised his arms to shield himself. A desperate, animal fear seized hold of his mind and every motion turned towards protection from the attack to come. 

Golden gears clicked forwards one time, with the echoing sound of a thundering machine. Some rusted, never-used part of his mind slid into place and churred to life for the first time.

His mind demanded his arms to rise.

All four of his arms answered the call. 

A wave of terrible, painful heat and light followed. His body shook with force. Screaming pain filled every cell.

And then the moment passed. Whoozily, he realized that he was laying on his back and staring up at a dust-filled world. A heavy weight across his torso revealed itself to be Denaira, protectively braced before him and making his mind ache with pain from her sudden proximity. 

He groaned, pushing her to the side and getting up. She practically collapsed on the rubble that used to be a floor next to him, silently quaking with pain of her own. 

“Thank you.” He muttered gratefully, to which she nodded curtly, face scrunched up in agony.

The dust around him dissipated slowly, and as it did he took in the sight of the chamberways after the explosion.

The death-curse or whatever it was of the sorcerer had ruined the chamberway, as well as the chambers above it and what looked to be the chambers below it. Joshua was in a crater of the floor that was on the rim of a massive hole in the ship, the guts of the ship spilling out and hanging openly in the middle of a canyon-sized chasm stained in black soot. Arcs of erratic electricity burst to life between torn cables.

What was strange was that all of it was stained gold, as if the explosion had painted everything in a curiously familiar hue of flaming radiance…

His machine-eyes wandered for a few moments more, breathing slowly stabilizing, before he seized up and almost threw himself forwards with realization. Hercule was close to the middle of the-

-He stumbled, the impact leaving him disoriented and weak. His mind demanded his hands catch him, but one hand held his sword and the other his laspistol-

He caught himself, leaning far enough forwards across the lip of the torn section of ship that he should be tumbling down the side right now. Both of his physical hands were full.

He realized what was going on, as the motion had dislodged the color of gold from the world and focused it into two broad protrusions. 

Protrusions that he recognized as arms and hands. 

Another push of will, careful and slow, and the phantasmal, golden hand that had caught his fall slowly righted his body and stabilized him. He looked up, and saw the vague form of a torso and only the barest impression of a head and face through it. The golden arms jutted forth from either side of the torso, and slowly returned to its side as he relaxed a part of his mind that he didn’t know he had.

He slowly exhaled.

The Librarian had spoken rightly when giving his lessons on telekinesis. It wasn’t something that could be taught until it had been done for the first time. There were no words to describe the action, just as there were no words to describe how one moved a limb in unconscious demand of action.

He pushed the matter aside as unimportant, and cast his machine-eyes down into the chasm of the explosion, optics roaming for a glint of gold.

There. He hesitated briefly, then jumped down into the chasm.

An application of will followed as he approached the ground, and broad golden legs formed in an instant before catching his fall with a weightless impact. 

“Hercule!” He called out through the gloom of settling dust. His machine eyes meant he didn’t need to blink in irritation, only to clean away the grime that settled on his artificial irises and obstructed his vision. “Hercule!” He called out again, slightly more desperate. 

He stumbled through the immense crater of machinery for several long, terrible moments. Only the sounds of distant machinery and far-away battle accompanied his search. He jumped over immense blackened pillars, golden legs laid over his own like ghostly armor and enhancing his strength enough to make the leaps simple. 

A sliver of gold and black caught his eye, and he raced over to it. 

A massive gauntlet, connected to soot-stained arm armor, buried beneath a small mountain of collapsed rubble. He grit his teeth in worry, and exercised his newfound ability.

Great golden arms stretched forwards, seizing broad plates of megalithic construction with clumsy hands and tossing it aside. The rubble echoed thunderously as his telekinetic limbs flung it carelessly away, hastily excavating the rest of the armor that the limb was attached to. 

An immense, thousand-pound section of piping clattered and broke apart as massive golden arms threw it aside. Enough of the rubble had been pulled away that he could begin to brush aside the remaining fragments and carefully scoop the subject from his impromptu burial. 

Hercule’s form was damaged to a terrifying degree. His armor, once opulent and imperial in its grandiose imperviousness, was cracked and shattered to the point of fragmentation. Chunks of auramite flaked off and fell with even slight movements, and every plate was covered in a thick layer of soot and molten metal. 

A bare few droplets of blood fell to the ground every few moments, raining with the fragments of metal like water and hail. Joshua threw his head forwards, planting it across the massive demigod’s chest and listening as carefully as he could.

Silence.

Silence.

Silence.

A faint, thumping pulse of a mighty heartbeat. 

“He’s alive.” Joshua muttered to himself in great relief, kneeling next to the nine-foot demigod’s unconscious form upon a mountain of shattered metal and snapped wires. 

Then, like an idiot, he realized he could’ve just asked the tarot about where his friend was, if he was alive, and what he needed to do to keep him that way. 

The explosion had really knocked his head loose, huh?

Fortunately, the Emperor in his head refrained from emoting in his metaphorical direction for that particular moment of brain damage.

—

“He’ll recover fine, yes?” Joshua asked with a worried scowl, standing in a starkly clean medical chamber with arms crossed. The attack had more or less concluded nearly an hour ago, with alarms being shut off and fires across the ship being put out. The explosion that had injured Hercule had been one of three that came from various attackers across the ship. 

He wasn’t sure the extent of the damage yet, mostly distracted with worry about the state of the custodian that had been caught near the center of one such devastating burst of energy.

Denaira looked especially worse for the wear, her armor stained in soot and quite frazzled for a Sister of Silence, nodding tiredly and unhooking her gauntlet from a series of medical implements that attached themselves to the immense, unclad form of the unconscious Custodian.

His torso was a mass of mangled tissue, and his once-pristine handsomeness was partially concealed beneath a thick layer of medical gauze and wrapping. His immense chest rose and fell at regular intervals, almost to the same time as the beep that registered his slow but strong heartbeat. All four of his limbs were set in bindings and casts to hold them in place, and a servitor embedded into the wall of the medical chamber kept a constant watch and made endless micro-adjustments to his positioning and drip-feed of chemicals. 

“I’ve never had the pleasure of working on one of the custodians before, nor will Knight-Vestal Denaira release his biological baseline for me to observe, so it’s difficult to make an accurate assessment.” The red-robed techpriest with a distinct lack of obvious machinery explained with a slightly raised hand. Despite his words, his voice was without particular judgement or accusation. “But yes, I judge he will recover in time. Were he a base template human, he’d live with a ruinous level of scarring. As he is a custodian, I am uncertain of his regenerative capabilities.”

Denaira did not offer any particular answer, only standing quietly next to the unconscious Custodian.

Joshua nodded slowly, closing his eyes.

He drew on the tarot. The soft glow of gold around his form pulsing once, still not quite faded from his previous exertions.

Will there be danger in the next twenty four hours?

Your expectations will only be met with great effort on your part.

So no. He was going to start asking that every time he woke up. “Denaira, stay by his side and make sure no one threatens him. This is an order.”

Denaira stiffened up and turned to look at him. He didn’t need to open his eyes to see this, the void in his senses turning to face him. 

He cracked open one eye with scowl on his face. “You and Hercule’s assignment to guard me is suspended until he recovers enough for combat duties, do you understand?”

She looked like she wanted to protest the order, mouth cracking slightly open for a brief moment. Then, after a pause, she closed her mouth again and nodded. A forced placitude overtook her expression. 

“If I need your protection, I’ll call upon you.” He nodded shortly, then turned to the mechanical servo-skull that hovered over his shoulders. “Get Tech-Adept Ukey to me with my armor- I don’t intend to take it off for a while.” 

A terrible knot of stress had woven itself in his head, in his gut, in his shoulders- everywhere. He was in a horribly impolite mood at the moment.

He’d make a note to apologize for it later. 

What did he need to do? He drew from the tarot again. The golden halo, slowly fading over the many minutes it took to bring Hercule to the medical bays, burned its way back to life around his head.

Information is power.

Right, that was obvious. He probably didn’t need to bother the Emperor to figure that one out. 

“I’m going to the bridge afterwards.” He declared firmly, voice thick with tension. “I need to know what the state of the fleet is.”

Information first, then decisions.

Golden termites built mounds between his ears. Gilded ants marched new patterns across his bones. Glistening mites devoured mortal flesh and exposed new tissue beneath. A thousand phantom sensations of a thousand tiny, delicate manipulations wracked his body as he waited in stressful silence.

Quietly, the immense form of Hercule slumbered through his horrific injuries.