Selene VossHer sword raked through carapace flesh and bone alike. The bde needing only a bit of extra push to ssh through the tough bones of the alien menace.

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

  The ifex trembled os dying breath ing out as a startled gasp before its body went x. 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 rger monster, but letting her armour absorb biomass made her stationary for a sed.

  That sed would have dozens of the ravenous beasts poung 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 swordpy, military strategy, diplomacy, subterfuge, sedu 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 lear 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 swordpy would be on that list.

  It needed some modifications, especially the footwork part of it as it didn’t at for the user being a Telekiic, 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 toug 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 Ea called it. She was dubious at first, a bit afraid to disregard all the paranoia Valenith hammered into her about using Sorcery, but she could feel the differe was like night and day.

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

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

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

  Reag the apex of her current jump, she unched 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 bsting outwards, sending the aliens rolling head over feet all around her.

  There was only one worry in her heart, one she thought buried and fotten after Ea’s fession. 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 guing her ever since she felt the colossal presence of Ea’s true soul. The answer was obvious, especially now that she couldn’t bme her brooding on daemons whispering into her ears, it was a resounding YES.

  So saying she was frustrated would be an uatement. She knew her own answer was the exact opposite of the one Ea would give to her questions and she didn’t doubt her siy, the woman’s clear affe 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 Ea were unnatural, inhuman. What she thought of as love before felt like a fleeting i pared to the Love the alien woma for her. Some of that emotion obviously stemmed from her weird Eldar biology, but it still came as a bit of a shock.

  Sele … ie; she was incapable of loving the woman that much; she hysically and biologically incapable of it. She was using Ea, using her weirdly na?ve personality and exploiting her.

  Selene didn’t know what to do. There was no choio way to be worthy of the love she was receiving and evehe power she was freely given. All she could do was to be there for Ea, 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 even be of help to her.

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

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

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

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

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

  She met an Inquisitor before, ohat 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 ion. He barged in like he owhe pce, and her grandmother had gotten busy after that and turned up dead only a few years ter.

  Selene hardened her heart. They would e for Ea, she didn’t know who ‘they’ were, but she was sure sooner or ter 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 extraything of use she might have out of her.

  She was a liability. Ea might be immortal — or close to it —, but ah a brain would realise the woman valued Selene. She o get strohe very least she could do for the woman was to not be a burden.

  Aside from that, she o finally groine, ahe friend — and maybe lover — that Ea needed, not just the one she wanted. The woman was strong, beautiful and knowledgeable about things she had nht to know anything about, but she was also dangerously na?ve and as she had said before, her personality was … flexible. Malleable even.

  She’s ged so mu 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 uood that. If she still wants to keep that morality of hers, she o do something. Quickly.

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

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

  That was humbling. I knew how my body worked down to the cellur level and I could manipute 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 i five minutes I was being more and more distracted. My Hunter Drone was getting ‘angsty’ for a ck of a better word.

  It was now kilometres down, far below the earth and in total darkness, sneaking around in tunnels rge 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 rge veins that pumped biomass and whatever fluids the pods needed were c the ground and the walls.

  I was fully snapped out of my trance when my drone instinctually dodged to the side, Danger Sense bring in arm 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 rge 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 cked. 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 approag beast flying back with the redirected force of their own charge. I focused on the drone, ign the insignifit bugs for now.

  I didn’t feel safe enough to project my sciousness into the Drone, so I just observed it through our link. For all I knew, whatever was there could unch psychic attacks and it could mess me up if I was there mentally. Not sensing it was certainly ing, 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 sed its surroundings, three pairs of eyes pierg through the darkness and sing the rows upon rows of pulsing veins. There was nothing. The Danger Sense went haywire, and the Drowisted 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 rge shadow moving in the darkness faster thahe 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, ing 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 ging even before the Danger Seried to save the Drohe third time, but the attacker didn’t go for an arm or the torso. It went straight for the head.

  I felt cws 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 t over my Droanding almost twice as tall and staring it down with what I felt was a ptuous sneer.

  Its head was simir to the Swarmlord’s, but with twrowing out of its forehead instead of a single o was also taller and only wearing the thick armour-like carapa its back.

  What is this thing? I wondered, not remembering the bio-form. It was obviously strohan 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 o py this smart. I thought as I anded all the remaining bio-energy in my Droo obliterate every single cell of its body, I couldn’t let the Tyranids get their grabby y improved temptes.

  What to do? Wha-

  ‘Ea? you hear me?’ came the message through Seleelepathik.

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

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

  I blihen 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 uone carried along with it, riding on the psychic waves of the transmission.

  ‘Sure.’ I smiled to myself. Killing aliens was nice, but some peaceful dowh my cute partner sounded eveer.