So my sponsor is an old friend?" I asked in curiosity as I talked to the computer terminal before me after finishing the brief tutorial and signing my contract.
"Indeed." It confirmed with text spreading across the screen, "The friend you once knew as Dominic has long been one of our best contractors, and is the favorite of his powerful patron. As such, it was well within his ability to sponsor you into the company."
"Dominic…", I muttered in shock. It was a name I hadn't heard of for a couple of years. An old friend who had just upped and disappeared one day, leaving no trace to be found. However learning that he had been recruited by a company with multiversal outreach, that now made sense, "How has he long been one of your best contractors? He's only been gone for a couple of years."
"A couple of your years, sure, but due to the time difference between universes, your friend has been employed with us for millennia." It replied, "Which is why not only was your recruitment via his suggestion approved but the changes to your destination were approved."
A smile spread across my face. So my boy had been living the high life working for a massive company while getting to travel the multiverse? Well good for him. Dom always did love to travel and thanks to Uncle Sam, he had already been to most of the continents on Earth. I'm sure he must've been having a grand ole adventure all these years.
However, something did seem off with that last bit.
"My destination? I don't remember much about your catalog, but I thought I was supposed to pick the world along with my build?" I asked.
The computer beeped, "Ah yes, well as part of the condition that your friend stipulated for your recruitment, he has already chosen your universe and build for you. Just as you did for him."
What?
"I did?" I questioned, "I mean, I think I remember messing around with your company's catalog interface at his house one night, but I didn't build that for him."
The terminal seemed to ignore me and I felt something vibrate in my hand. Looking down I saw a phone that definitely wasn't mine suddenly held in my palm. Bringing it up, I saw a catalog build staring back at me.
Template Stack II (X2):
Kratos (God of War)
The Doom Slayer (DOOM)
Spoiler: Kratos
Spoiler: The Doom Slayer
Holy shit! My boy was looking out for me!
Looking through the rest of the build, I couldn't help but notice that it was a little bit more loaded than the one I kinda remember making. It had a couple extra talents like science and engineering, along with a few more defenses as well.
And is that…
Ride:
UNSC Ship: Spirit of Fire (AI Serina included with purchase)
Damn, Dom really built something that he'd known I'd like. Wonder what kind of poor world he was about to unleash me upon? Because so far my build seemed a little OP for most settings I think he'd send me to.
Scrolling further, I saw that some sort of difficulty modifier was listed down on the farthest part of my build. One that I vaguely recognized.
Legendary Run (Modified):
So you want a bit of a challenge contractor? Say no more:
For your first world, you're on your own. No buying companions from the waifu catalog***, no frameworks telling you how acquired powers work, and no leaving your first world until you've tamed it.We'll also be disabling almost everything in the Binding & Lures category. This includes the company stamp. Waifus may still be captured via love confession.Most company services have been locked for you.Because it's a legendary difficulty: If you're dead, you're dead. For both you and your retinue. R.I.P functions are entirely gone due to legacy difficulty being applied.Oh, and did we mention you only get 50% of your starting budget? What? We can't make things too easy on you.That being said, you're not totally screwed. You'll have your starting build, the ability to spend credits on further Talents and Defense, and you can still sell/capture waifus (as outlined in the methods above) or take missions to earn said credits.
***Waifu designated "Serina" circumvents this rule as she comes with the purchase of the ship "Spirit of Fire".
Oh, well this was… interesting. I guess Dom didn't want me to have a complete power fantasy? Which was fair I guess, I had already chosen it once anyway.
Pausing as I read over the modifier again, I frowned at the 50% point reduction.
It made me think of something I hadn't thought about yet. Namely, how did Dom get all these points for my build? This was a lot of shit even compared to what I did on mine.
I think.
I was really drunk when I made that thing.
I hit the expense tab and looked at his spent budget. It looked to be a grand total of around 1250 of these company credits. So with the zero left over and then doubled if I got rid of the -50% modifier…
Dom had a budget of 2500.
It was then I remembered a very unfortunate fact. Namely, your starting budget was tied to the tier of the world you were sent to. And this budget was way higher than I had. Which left a sinking feeling in my stomach considering that I was pretty sure I had chosen a high-tier world compared to most.
Where was I going to?
Clicking on another tab, I wasn't prepared for the utter mindfuck I was about to see with my own eyes.
World Name: Warhammer 30K
Danger Rating: 10
Substitute: 11th Primarch
You know, I was beginning to think that I might have pissed Dominic off somehow.
It was just a feeling I had.
"I don't suppose you'll just let me just go jump off a bridge instead?" I asked lamely to the computer. Because if I was going to die, I'd rather do so before I get to a place where a chaos god can fuck with my soul.
"No, as you have already agreed to the contract. Plus your friend paid a hefty sum for this." The terminal informed, "Don't look too terrified, he didn't completely fuck you with that build. Plus, he did add some changes you may eventually find nice. As repayment for allowing him to meet his beautiful and loved wives."
How did I help him meet his wives?
My mind replayed the past couple of minutes and the nuggets of information began piecing themselves together. The fact that I chose his build, the fact he seemed a little mad at me, and the fact that I had allowed him to meet his wives. It all lead me to a pretty solid conclusion.
That drunk RWBY build I made was forced on him.
The floor disappeared below me, sending me into a freefall that began the dissolution of my body. And with a final few words that would be the last uttered from the vocal cords I had owned all of my life, I let the last of my ire be known.
"It wasn't even that bad of a build you fucking crybaby!!"
"Gestation period sufficiently complete. Adolescence achieved. Subject 11's vitals are stable. Initiating awakening process." A synthetic voice announced as my eyes opened for the first time within this new body, "Current location is unknown. Star charts suggest the galactic northeast relative to Terra. However, this may be inaccurate due to star charts being out of date by several millennia."
I let out a weak groan and my hands went up to my face to massage my temples. It felt like my brain had just been put through a meat grinder, spat out, and then fired from a cannon. A feeling I could only assume was coming from the fact that my adult mind had been shoved into the body of a newly created child. Primarch or not, a small child's mind just wasn't built to handle the sheer amount of information an adult had.
Honestly, the only reason I was probably having a headache instead of a seizure was because I was a Primarch child.
"Computer, machine spirit, or whatever the fuck you are. How old was I gestated to and what's the situation?" I asked grumpily as I opened my bleary eyes to find a young pair of hands staring back at me within the rapidly draining liquid-filled pod.
For a moment, I found that the fact I was talking to any semblance of an artificial intelligence was odd considering Big E had a direct ban on the things. Then I remembered the ban was just on others using it, for the most part. Because the machine spirits that were said to be used in many types of Imperial war machines were totally not AI.
Totally.
Using one of these things to make sure the Primarchs in their test tubes didn't die actually made some amount of sense.
"Subject 11 has been gestating for several months. With no interruption, the biological size of subject 11 was able to be accelerated to that of a 13-year-old standard human due to the increased threat rating of subject 11's surroundings."
Well, that matched up with the minimum age substitute would allow you to go in as. So that was definitely the company's doing.
"Can you provide any other information?" I asked.
"None other than the history of vitals. That is all that is stored in this gestation pod hard drives."
I rolled my eyes. Machine spirit or low-level AI, whichever the lore would dictate at the time, was beyond damn useless.
My irritation flared and my hands shot up to grip the metal tube I was currently in. With strength born from either innately being a Primarch, the potential of an ancient Greek god of war, or the rage from the slayer himself, the metal bent and groaned under my grip. With a great heave of strength, I ripped myself out of the pod in a shower of metal and arcs of electricity.
Tossing half of the now shattered birther away I craned my head to get a look of where I could possibly be.
Definitely wasn't Earth, judging by the two moons that hung overhead in the night sky or the trees of towing black wood that stood all around me in a size that reminded me of the redwoods of Earth. The massive growths of wood combined with the starry night of the two moons above gave the place where I had landed an almost mystical ambiance that Earth would be hard-pressed to replicate.
Of course, such a beautiful place could also mean extreme danger in Warhammer. Shit, for all I know, I could be in a world right next to the Eye of Terror. Hell, I could be decades into the future or the past due to being flung through the warp during the scattering.
I needed a map. Which I should have as this build said it had something called a "mapper", but where the hell was it?
Not helping either was the fact that I was the 11th Primarch. One of the two that had been completely erased from Imperial records at some point before the Hersey. That was a huge setback in terms of being able to use any meta-knowledge about my personal situation effectively. I had a rough idea of the era and area where most of the Primarchs were found, but those two were complete blanks.
What a headache.
Feeling a cool breeze blow through my loins brought me back to reality. A reality that I was currently naked and alone in while on an alien world.
Bzzz* Beep* Bzzz*
Blinking in confusion at the sudden sound of a ringtone, I looked down at the ground below and was met with an odd sight. A smartphone, a pair of pants, a shotgun, and a golden ring. All three items were laid out neatly before the remains of my pod as if something had been expecting me to be here.
Had I just been randomly reincarnated here, I would have been wary of the four gifts. The old shifty blue bastard could have already read my mind, predicted my landing, and left three cursed objects in the guise of gifts from a mysterious benefactor.
But as a contractor, there were some things owed to me according to the rules I read in the contract. A company device namely, which is what the phone should be. The two weapons were kinda a surprise since my contract stated they needed to be earned by working through the templates. Maybe it was because both of the templates had template stacking two?
I leaned down and picked up the phone. Flicking the screen on showed that I had a message ready and waiting for me. Curiously I tapped the notification icon to see who it could possibly be.
'Ship location can be found within the mapper app.' The message read, 'Reach your ship and claim it to gain an audience with the patron chosen by your sponsor'.
Oh, that wasn't too bad of a first task. Plus I now had the map the build was talking about.
Swiping through the device and selecting the map gave me an overview of the planet I was on and showed the location of my ship. The vessel was apparently at the base of a mountain range due North, a couple of days' walk at most. A time frame I was sure I could shorten due to being an adolescent superhuman.
Bar a strike team of dark elves coming down to spawn camp me, things were looking pretty alright.
Tapping the planet revealed a scant few details. Like its size, climate, and what I assumed was the scientific name of the world.
'Nova Epsilon Eridani II.'
The name stuck out to me. Namely because in every near future sci-fi universe that involved a space-faring Earth, Epsilon Eridani almost always had at least a mention. Both because of how close it was to the Solar System and because its star was in a similar spectral class to the Sun. It was a convenient real-life system to name-drop when describing inner colony worlds.
Epsilon Eridani II specifically was a planet in the system. A planet that was famously known as the world of Reach in Halo. Judging by the planetary view I could see from the map and what I remembered from that stellar entry in the series, the name wasn't just for show either.
Spoiler: Reach
I would have to be an idiot to think it a happy coincidence considering the ship my build came with. But at the same time, I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Reach while mainly mountainous and forested, was practically a paradise world compared to most of 40k and was incredibly metal-rich, specifically in titanium.
Still...
"Am I that close to Earth?" I muttered.
It was a nice thought, but one that couldn't be true. Horus was the first Primarch found and he was on a colony way further out than where Epsilon Eridani would be. Plus, my trivial knowledge of Latin told me that Nova meant "new" in English. So I could only assume that this was a star system that had been named after Epsilon Eridani during the Age of Technology for having a similar system makeup.
Or hell knowing the absolutely batshit stuff humanity was up to during their golden age, this might have just been a straight-up recreation of the star system for shits and giggles.
An icon on the side of the screen, shaped like that of a spiral galaxy caught my attention next. Selecting it zoomed me out of the planet I was on and showed me the galaxy at large. There weren't many locations that I could see, which I could only assume meant that I would need to travel and upload any maps I found myself, but there were large areas that were broadly marked as any Imperial map would be.
Areas that made me regret saying things were looking pretty alright. Because according to the map, things were very much not alright.
Segmentum: Ultima
Expanse: Halo Stars/Exodus Worlds
Sector: Ghoul Stars
I stared at the map and the map stared back at me for a long while. Until silently I put the phone down, put on the pants that lay folded on the ground, and grabbed the golden ring and the shotgun.
I was just going to ignore that for now and instead be thankful that I wasn't somewhere in or near the Eye of Terror.
Still.
"Fuck you, Dom." I muttered.
Slipping the company device into a pocket, I could only sigh as I slung the shotgun over my shoulder and began my walk. Hoping all the while that the horrors that I had heard of, the ones that specifically were said to lurk in these cursed stars, weren't on this planet. Because what could possibly be the odds of that?
A sharp whistle reached my ears as something slipped through the air at high speeds from behind me. It was only encoded Primarch instinct and ability that stopped my brain from being splattered across the forest that surrounded me as my body almost moved on its own and dodged out of the way.
I was rapidly learning that I needed to stop testing fate.
Crashing to the ground and bleeding my momentum off into a roll. I came to a stop near a grove of old trees. Following the path of where the object had continued on by my head, my eyes found a shard of crystal embedded deeply into the trunk of a tree with black wood. It glimmered with a strange purple light and if I were to focus my enhanced hearing enough, a strange frequency that sent a chill down my spine.
"What the hell?" I hissed as my brain went into overdrive. Through mental calculations of trajectory and probability in a time frame that would have fried the mind of a baseline human, my eyes traced the trajectory that the crystal had most likely come from and in the distance, my vision settled onto the form of my attacker.
Spoiler: A Ghoulish Resident
"Why couldn't it have been an Exodite world?" I groaned as I unslung the UAC combat shotgun, "I could've been wooing hot tribal space elves like my big brother. Instead, I get literally Cythor Fiends."
From a distance, I saw a silver disc float in the hands of the fiend before it too glowed in an ominous purple light. It flashed and with a crack that sounded like glass shattering, a dozen crystal shards similar to the one that almost sniped me appeared around the beast.
Fuck.
This thing was a couple hundred yards away and here I was, armed with weapons that were pretty much exclusively made for close to medium range.
A dozen whistles met my ears and my muscles tightened into powerful springs. As the shards of crystals neared I burst into action. The 13-year-old superhuman body I was in launched itself with a speed and strength that tore the ground underneath me as I barreled forward deftly.
With grace I could only mimic a small fraction of at my best in my old body, I leaped into the air, avoiding the first shots of crystal that streamed past me. The others behind them angled up and tracked my movements, altering their course and firing off towards me. Had I leaped into the open air amongst a field I would have been shot mid-jump.
Thankfully, I was in a forest.
My free arm lashed and my fingers dug deep into the bark of a tree beside me. With a yank, my whole body was pulled beside the trunk of wood. Letting the crystals either miss me or slam into a wall of protecting oak.
Not wanting to lose the initiative, I planted my feet onto the tree and launched myself forward, noting the sound of exploding wood as the plant absorbed the full force of my movement.
My eyes locked back onto the fiend and beheld that it was already summoning more darts of crystal from the floating metallic disc.
I was closer now. The speed and jumps of my superhuman body have closed the distance between us by a hundred yards or so. Still too far to effectively hit with my shotgun.
But not by something thrown by a Primarch.
I stretched my arm into a cocking motion and with a mental call, sent out a cry of aid to the golden ring I had slipped onto my finger earlier.
'Draupnir.'
Spoiler: Draupnir Lvl 1
A golden spear with a blood red sash appeared in my hand. A hum of something that felt divine echoed through me, but I ignored it and with a great heave forward, launched the javelin towards the creature.
Maybe it was because I was only still a child or perhaps because I lacked the inherent skill a template was supposed to give you, but my spear did not strike true. With an unnatural yet almost lazy jerk, the Cythor jerked to the side, letting my spear hit harmlessly into the dirt beside it.
But that was fine.
Because the dodge had momentarily diverted its attention away from launching its newly summoned crystal munitions. Letting me land on the ground below unmolested and most importantly, allowing me to summon a second Draupnir into my hands.
My divine spear glowed gold and with a grunt, I slammed the butt of the weapon onto the ground below.
The spear that was lodged into the ground beside the fiend exploded. The blast was bigger than I had expected, larger than the small little blasts in the game would have you believe. A violent explosion tore chunks off the alien and sent them asunder. Damaged and unfocused, the crystalline shards dissipated as the metal disc was lost from its grasp.
Seeing my chance I rushed forward. Spear at the ready as I rapidly closed the distance. With another leap I angled Draupnir down, intending to spear the almost dead alien through its head.
Unfortunately, it wasn't as dead as it seemed.
A lightning-fast backhand from its remaining massive claw diverted my strike and I was sent flying off to the side with a force that sent me crashing through several massive trees. Pain erupted both from my sternum where I had been struck and the parts of my back that had acted as a battering ram through the large oaks. A light ringing pinged through my head as well, something I could only assume meant that I had a minor concussion.
Luckily it quickly faded into a pain you'd expect from a nasty bruise. A bitch of a feeling, but something certainly better than what a baseline human would be feeling from a strike with even a fraction of the force.
A loud screech rang out that quickly made my ears ring as harshly as my head currently did and the world came back into focus as the shape of the mutilated alien hauled ass at me. I don't know if it was because it lost its magic disc or because of the damage I had done to it, but the Cythor has definitely pissed off something fierce.
Not interested in finding out how fast it could up close and angry, I raised the combat shotgun that I had somehow kept ahold of and pulled the trigger. The weapon kicked in my grip and unloaded its contents into the face of the alien, rewarding me with a shower of gore as the thing damn near exploded from the shell.
Silence rang through the moonlit forest. The only sounds to be heard were the gentle blow of the wind through the leaves above and my labored breathing as the pain from my wounds ever slowly faded.
I had been content to do a mix of walking and jogging towards my ship. Maybe see the sights of what looked to be an untamed world and give me some more time to think out what my future plans would be. But after this?
I was going to be hauling ass toward the Spirit of Fire.
Somewhere in the warp, Khorne is currently full mast and doesn't know why.
This story is a side project so that I don't get bored of/burnt out on writing Of Gods and Eikons. As such updates for this will be lower priority than it's sister story.
Also, here's half the reason this story exists:
was beginning to understand why genocide was so widely accepted in Warhammer.
"Screw off!" I roared as Draupnir pierced the skull of the Cythor Fiend before me. The beast went limp, and I yanked the divine spear out, twirling it in my hand to readjust the position of the bladed end. With a burst of strength and no small amounts of anger, I launched Draupnir forward and interrupted a fiend in the distance who was charging another volley of crystals from the silver disc in their hand.
God, I fucking hated these things.
But at least they weren't becoming crystals themselves anymore.
In addition to using them as weapons, ships, and the building material for cities, Cythor Fiend could shatter their body apart using that silver disc and turn themselves into a self-piloted fast-moving physic crystal. One that, in the novels, could slit the necks of unarmored attackers in the blink of an eye. That shit had been annoying when the second group of them I encountered a couple of days ago pulled that shit.
That quickly stopped, however, once they got a taste of Primarch-level reflexes enhanced by a bit of divine rage. It turns out that turning your whole being into a crystal that an enemy can pluck out of the air and shatter, thus insta killing you, was not a good tactic. How they communicated that to the other was a mystery, considering I left no survivors in each group I fought. But for now, I'd assume it was some warp magic bullshit.
A branch broke on the ground behind me, giving me enough warning to avoid being speared by the large claws of the two freaky-ass aliens that had tried to sneak up on me. It did not, however, stop me from getting taken to the ground as both aliens crashed into me. A grunt rushed past my lips as nearly all the air in my lungs was blown out of me from the weight of two beings that were almost 4x my size.
Had I been a fully grown Primarch, they probably would have barely taken me to my knees. If I were in power armor, I'd have been able to react to and kill them before they even reached. Double so if I had a form of Mjolnir enhanced by a smart AI.
The bastards were damn near crushing me as they tried to readjust themselves. Fully intent on pinning me down and stabbing me. I had to jerk my head to the side to avoid a sharp set of serrated teeth that tried biting my ear off as one of the aliens hissed in rage at me.
Fuck. This.
"Get..." A growl escaped me as I felt heat building inside of me and my vision dyed itself red, "OFF. OF. ME!"
The heat exploded outward, and the ground beneath us cracked. With a strength beyond what this undeveloped body should have been capable of, I grabbed both fiends and pushed, quickly lifting both into the air. With the ability to move freely again and gain leverage, I flipped our positions and slammed both into the ground below.
With a roar of rage, I raised both arms and slammed down. The Cythor Fiend directly below me had no time to shift out of the way before it exploded into bits of gore, fluids, and crystalline shards. Rolling over towards the other downed bastard and avoiding the crystal shots of the fiend in the distance that had recovered from my earlier spear throw, I brought my elbow down as I completed the roll, reducing its head to mush on contact.
I flipped into a crouch and spotted the last one standing. My lips pulled back into a snarl, and the only thing I could perceive besides the soon-dead bastard was the roar of blood that rang through my ears. With a growl, I launched myself forward and covered the distance in a blink within a haze of rage.
As I descended on the fucker, I felt my shoulder jerk from a dull thud that slammed into it, but I chose to ignore it. Instead, I focused on reaching out and grabbing one of the arms of the Cythor and yanking with all my might.
I was rewarded with the sound of not-quite flesh and bone tearing apart, along with an ear-piercing shriek of pain and rage. My other arm lashed out with a punch that caved in the outer shell of its chest and sent the abomination crashing to the below. With its torn appendage still in hand, I followed it downwards, bringing down the arm like a war mace upon its head.
Repeatedly.
So lost was I in the heat of rage, anger, and the explosive power that came with it that I barely registered after a dozen hits; I had already reduced its entire upper body to shards of crystal and a slurry of not-quite blood. Similarly, the arm in my hand had been shredded down to its base crystalline bone structure.
Yet the rage was still there. As if it was never en-
+Breathe.+
A sharp breath of cool air flooded my lungs, and the heat receded.
The world came back into focus, and with it, the dull throb in my shoulder became a sharp, stinging one. A sliver of crystal was jutting out from my arm, leaking small bits of blood down my arm.
I grimaced. For the first time, I had experienced what was most certainly a weak form of Spartan's Rage and already took an unnecessary hit because I was lost in the proverbial sauce. Sure, it wouldn't have been a big deal if I had armor or energy shields, but there were weapons that could easily overcome both in this galaxy. I did not need to get shanked by the shit knife like Horus did because I wasn't paying attention.
My hand went up to yank the crystal out, and I noticed a shimmer of heat displacing the air around my arms that was already rapidly cooling. Hmm, an early form of Ares's blessing indeed, if I couldn't even generate the flames that came with it yet.
The crystal came out quickly, and the pain began dulling. Lifting myself from the remains of the dead alien below me, I glanced once more around the section of the destroyed forest to check for any more enemies. When I found none, I reached down and grabbed the silver disc the fiends had been using to generate those crystals.
Like the others before, it didn't react to my touch, but I hadn't expected it to. For now, they were to be collected for later study. Pulling out the company device in my pocket, which had taken the shape of a phone, I activated the pocket space app and threw the disc in, letting it rest with the others I had collected and my shotgun.
The little pocket space wouldn't help store anything of significant size, and I couldn't enter it or sleep in it like the upgraded pocket apartments and houses. Which I unfortunately did not have in this build. But it did act as a convenient sci-fi bag of holding.
And maybe, if I could find a way to hook up the company device to any power armor, I wore in the future that had a neural connection, a Doom-like weapons wheel from which I could pull armaments.
Now, wasn't my ship just over that ridge?
Resting upon the ground and nestled up at the edge of a mountain range that encircles the rest of the surrounding valley was the Spirit of Fire.
Spoiler: The Spirit of Fire
She was a beauty. She was not the strongest ship the UNSC had, not by far, considering she was a repurposed colony ship; one retrofitted for battle under desperate wartime actions. However, something about her look stood out from the more classical cylinder or gun-style ships that comprised most of the UNSC fleet.
Walking up to her rear, I raised my fist and knocked on the massive rear cargo door.
I didn't expect any crew to answer the door; after all, there shouldn't be any. But I was hoping Serina would be paying enough attention to let me.
My hope was rewarded as the titanic Titanium A armor-plated doors cracked with a hiss, and the hydraulics kicked into gear to lower the industrial loading ramp. Moving out of the way so as not to be crushed, I was met with the view of a massive cargo bay filled with stores of supplies and building materials.
Well, time to meet a new face.
Walking up the ramp and into the ship, I was in awe at how big this thing was. Sure, it would barely count as a light cruiser by size in 40K, and it wasn't even that big of a ship by Halo standards, but as someone from a world where actual starships were a thing of fiction. A world where the farthest-traveled manned ship had only been able to carry three people to its destination, being on a ship that could hold almost 12,000 people was unbelievable.
A strobing of lights caught my eyes and broke me from my thoughts. Looking above, I saw some of the light fixtures blinking in a pattern, starting from the back and lighting up as they moved past me in a way that looked like a guiding form of light.
Or, well, I guess a literal guiding form of light as my eyes law it lead to a specific doorway further in.
Well, if the lady was painting me a path, best follow it.
"You know, Serina," I said, allowed as I followed the path she set through the 2-and-a-half-kilometer ship. Knowing full well that the high-level smart AI could hear me throughout the halls of her ship, "You could have just directed me over the intercom. The pulsing lights are a little bit spooky in these empty hallways."
I let out a small chuckle as the lights seemed to slow down in their blinking, taking on a more ominous pattern. Looks like I had a jokester for an A.I companion.
In a far faster walk than my hike here, I reached a set of doors larger than most of the others I had seen in the hallways. I heard mechanisms whirl to life, and they parted for me, revealing a command deck similar to what I had once seen on a screen years ago.
And standing on a holo table in the center was the lady herself.
Spoiler: Serina
"Aren't you a little young to be on a planet all by yourself, luv?" The AI, with a sass only a woman with a British accent could muster, asked as she looked me up and down, "I thought maybe the sensors aboard the ship were malfunctioning, but no. You can't be more than what, 13? And, is that a gunshot wound on your shoulder?"
A small smile formed on my lips as I moved up to the holo table and removed the company device from my pocket. "Biologically? 13. Chronologically? Anywhere from a couple of months to a year, depending on how long I was in the lab gestating. Mentally? Early 20s. This wound? From a crystalline form of ammunition, not too dissimilar from the rounds that Covenant needlers use. Except these don't explode and turn you into ground beef without armor."
"I see." Serina muttered, "So you're an artificial life form? I have questions about that, but others are more pressing. Such as the circumstances of where we are, why I have access to the full scope of UNSC knowledge, to include projects dated for over 20 years into the future, and why, upon reactivation, I am told that I work for "The Company" alongside you. Whatever that is."
"Integrate with this real quick," I said as I slid the phone forward. "I was told upon my tutorial with the company that all AI smart companions can interact with it similarly to how you can integrate with power armor. It should answer your last question at the very least."
Serina arched a holographic eyebrow at me before shrugging and putting her avatar hand on the phone. The edges of the device glowed blue for a second, and after a few moments, she raised her hand and stood back. "How... interesting. We work for this company, but also not quite because of this difficulty modifier. And I have way more knowledge of the UNSC database because it came with the ship?"
I nodded.
"And you, according to this build, are a Primarch?" She asked.
"In body only. In mind, I am a young man from early 21st-century Earth, " I explained.
Serina blinked as if trying to process what I had just said, "You're from 500 years ago?"
Oh.
I see that whatever database she just got from the phone didn't explain the exact situation of the universe we were in, which made sense. If all it told her were that the world was named 30K or 40K, that would have given her no reference if the franchise never existed in Halo.
"More like almost 28,000 years ago." I sighed.
This was going to be a long conversation.
"So reaching Earth is out of the question." I concluded.
Near two hours later, we were sitting in front of the holoprojector table as Serina and I overlooked two galactic maps.
"Extremely out of the question." She said dryly, "To start, UNSC slipspace drives, at least the ones from the era that this ship is equipped with, are highly inaccurate as is. Under nonwartime circumstances, procedure is to make jumps as far outside of a system's gravity well as possible at pre-designated interstellar jump points. Even then, UNSC ships sometimes still end up millions of kilometers off the mark after exiting slip space."
With a swipe of her hands, the galactic maps overlayed against each other, and points of red began highlighting specific areas of the map.
"Not only is the map provided by your mapper app extremely vague, considering it requires you to either explore yourself or upload any maps you may find into it, but it also deviates highly from all the UNSC star charts I can access. Practically making them useless without even factoring in how celestial bodies have moved in the tens of thousands of years since the charts were last updated." She explained, "Throw in that gravity wells do, in fact, affect ships in slip space..."
"Not only could we end up way off the mark while trying to get to Earth, but we might exit while going full tilt into a celestial body, " I summarized.
My new AI friend nodded, "The time we would spend in slipspace would also be a problem. All UNSC colonies were within the Orion Arm. Yet it would still take months to reach the frontier worlds. From what I see on your map, we would be spending a decade at minimum in slipscape to get anywhere near Earth from here."
I shook my head, "That's a lot of valuable time to be wasting in cryo."
Time that could be detrimental depending on where I was in the timeline.
"Indeed." Serina replied, "If we could retrofit The Spirit with a newer slipspace drive, like the designs I have for modern UNSC ships or the Infinity's, we could make a more accurate, safer, and faster jump. However, the ship's manufacturing capabilities wouldn't even allow us to fabricate an older design like the one we have on hand. Much less new ones that take inspiration from reversed-engineered Forerunner technology. We need a colossal and advanced industry for that."
She wasn't wrong. Even large modern-day Earth companies had dozens, if not hundreds, of smaller supply industries to make their advanced products. To say nothing of all the other industries needed to feed, clothe, supply, house, and entertain workers for said industries.
I tapped the table before me, "Which leaves us with two options."
Serina nodded, "We either sit on our bums here and wait for this emperor to find you, which, depending on where we are in the timeline, could be a decade or over a century from now. Or we start building a star nation of our own, similar to what you say your brother Guilliman will do."
"Not that we have much of an option anyway." I said, "The Imperium has a hard ban on AI courtesy of my father and the actions of an AI rebellion during humanity's golden age. If the emperor arrives and we have no sort of leverage, power, or anything at all to offer and negotiate with..."
The light of Serina's avatar dimmed a bit, "He'll terminate me."
"Maybe. I have no clue what his personality will be like here." I nodded sadly. "Maybe if I train my templates to their peak, take them beyond that summit with talents, and make good use of my resistances, I could beat him in one-on-one decades or a century from now. But then I'd have an entire fledging Imperium with multiple Primarchs and their legions coming after me. Even with a star nation, I do not want to be the one that fractures humanity again and starts the heresy. I don't want trillions to die."
"So we build a star nation, negotiate, and hope he's reasonable." She concluded.
I shrugged, "That, or build a nation of sufficient size to where we can hide you. Show him UNSC dumb AI, say they were what we were using, terminate them to please him, and keep you in the background."
It was still risky, but Serina was my companion as far as the catalog was concerned. I wouldn't let her get terminated without doing my best to prevent that.
Serina smiled, "While I'm touched you would go to such lengths to preserve me, how do you propose we begin this little empire of ours."
"First, we need to solve the biggest problem, " I said, "Manpower and population. We can partially solve that with the cloning facilities the catalog provides for free due to the ship's high cost. But that's an a bit of a slow endeavor relative to the force we'll need."
Spoiler: Crew Production
It was a problem. Just a quarter of the Ghoul Stars was a more extensive realm than what the UNSC had held dominion over pre-war, and that took them centuries to colonize with no competition. Even then, they only had one planet with over a billion people: Earth.
I had Cythor Fiends in this system and throughout the Ghoul Stars, at least one horrific Necron faction called the Flayed Ones, possible Daemon worlds, and other unknown horrors rumored to be among these cursed stars to contend with.
Fuck.
"We could accelerate the population growth further by subsuming already colonized worlds from humanity's golden age, which, according to you, number in the millions. Furthermore, we could incentivize childbirth by offering various services and tax credits once we have a large enough population for at least a city, but that will take time." Serina spoke as she seemed to crunch the numbers in her head, "We'll have to do everything we can to encourage and produce exponential population growth for as long as we can. But growth vats and population subsumption will have to be the priority for the near term."
"Then let's start now." I agreed, "If you can access the crew production vats, start spinning them up. If necessary, take a blood sample from me if genetic diversity is a problem. I want actual individuals, not just clones, and I should have the entire human genome within my DNA."
Serina smiled, "Already on it."
The wonders of having a smart AI on your side.
"By the way, what's your name." Serina asked, "I know we got lost in the conversation, but you at least have to introduce yourself to a lady."
I had thought about it over the last couple of days, and as much as I would find it funny to have a Primarch have some generic name from 21st Century Earth. I felt something relating to Kratos and the Spartans was appropriate.
"Atreus." I said.
And here we see Atreus get his first sip of Kratos's anger, meet his newest AI friend, and make plans for the future.
Next up: Getting a message from his patron.
For those who are familiar with the standard way waifu catalog runs, much like Of Gods and Eikons: don't take the WC rules to seriously. Very good prompt to base things off of, but in the interest of story, plot, and not being a complete power wank, some rules are going to be interpreted rather loosely. It's why I left parts of Legendary Run vague. Also, no multiverse travel will be done in this story. Introducing outside elements like The Spirit or his templates is about as far as I like to go with outside franchises, just like Of Gods and Eikons . Though things changing (such as enemies waking up or arriving earlier, or even some in universe factions being more powerful) can be on the table.
Now, a question:
Which drip for the future 11th legion and Atreus?
Spoiler: Doom Style?
Spoiler: Classical Spartan Style?
Spoiler: More Classic Astarte Style?
shower with hot water was something you didn't know you would miss until you went a couple of days without it. Even after having it for three weeks, I was reluctant to leave it as I turned the shower off. Unfortunately, as the new captain of this Phoenix class support vessel, I had duties to attend to.
Drying myself off and brushing my teeth gave me a chance to glance at the unfogged bathroom mirror that was still clear despite the steam, a minor quality-of-life upgrade that was quite pleasant. With it, I was able to see hair that was black as night and skin that was dyed with olive-tones stare back at me.
Whether it was intentional during the gene forging process that created 11's body or the influence of my two templates, which were composed of a Greek and a Texan, I had a very solid Mediterranean look. It was rather nice, all things considered. Plus, it looked like I would be joining Corvus and Curze on the black-haired Primarch team rather than the ranks of the blonde or white/silver-haired ones.
However, unlike my two emo brothers, the sun didn't seem to be a foreign concept to my skin.
The silver irises that framed my pupil where kind of weird though. As far as I knew, neither of my templates had silver eyes. Nor did Big E or my brothers. The only thing I could think of was that Kratos was related to Artemis. Maybe just a bit of godly DNA that randomly expressed itself?
How else did one explain silver eyes that glowed like bit of moonlight?
"Has anyone mentioned that your biology, despite containing the entirety of the human genome, is so far from human that it's almost not funny?" Serina's voice rang through my smart device as an avatar of her was projected standing on top of the screen.
Funny thing about the build that Dom gave me. There was an add-on in the generic section that lets you access your company device with just a thought as a HUD at all times. A real handy thing you could purchase for yourself or any of your party members. It would let you do things like look at the mapper app at any time, check on the status of your party, and even enabled you to cycle through your inventory pocket space at will.
Unfortanly he didn't buy it for me.
He bought it for Serina.
It was annoying, but it did allow her to access my device and project herself at will anywhere at any time after she had first touched it. Should I finally get some power armor that would allow her to interface with me as Chief and Cortana did neurally, I could have her cycle through the pocket space like a weapons wheel for me at a thought. For now, though, I'd have to rely on her to hear me verbally call out what weapon I wanted.
I rolled my eyes as I quickly put on the smaller UNSC officer uniform that had been located in one of the supply closets and picked up the company device that Serina had appeared through, "Save your objections for Big E himself."
Serina huffed as we moved out of the bathroom and towards the door that let me exit the captain's quarters, "If he doesn't decide to terminate me, trust that I will. Because your growth rate is bloody insane. In the time span of three weeks, you've grown a little over 1.2 inches."
"Your point?" I asked.
"Normal adolescent humans grow around 3 inches a year." Serina stressed, "You'll smash through that in two months."
"I also happen to be a genetically enhanced and lab-grown super being, Serina," I reminded the AI as I hit the open button on the door.
"The data I have on the original ORION and SPARTAN II-IV programs show that there were concerns about artificially stimulating such growth over a period of years. Growth that ended in heights far less than what you've said Primarchs reach on average." Serina continued, "Are you sure you aren't feeling any pain from such rapid growth?"
"None." I confirmed, "You can give the Empoer a lot of shit for decisions he made over the years. But outside of a couple of freak mutations that some of my brothers possess, he is highly talented at genetic manipulation. There's a reason the Primarchs are unmatched by the rest of humanity at a physical level. Plus, the company's talents will ensure I grow and mature without complications."
"I suppose." Serina sighed as I stepped through the door.
I snorted at her sigh. Just from the sound alone, I knew that this wasn't the last time I'd be hearing about this. But it was nice to know that someone in this galaxy cared about me.
"Sir, lady Serina." A crew member called out respectfully as they passed my quarters in the hallway. They wore a UNSC maintainer uniform and held a toolbox with a data pad that no doubt displayed orders of where they were needed courtesy of Serina.
"Morning, Alverez." I gretted the Hispanic man as my eyes flickered to the name tap on his chest, "Busy day?"
"Yes, sir. The tilling and seeder machines are next on the production queue. Once they pass inspection, we'll help the agriculture department get them out and start working on the designated farm plots." The recently grown adult responded in a slightly dull tone, "We'll be working full shifts until they are fully deployed."
The dullness in the present crew's voices was a bit off-putting, but it couldn't be avoided. As literal newly grown people, they hadn't precisely developed personalities naturally. Still, they would change over time, mainly as more crew members were produced and they interacted with the older and already grown crew. Of course, Serina and I could also help that move along.
The Spirit's data centers had stores of media entertainment buried deep inside them, ranging from the 1900s all the way up to the 2500s. It was most likely a leftover from when it was a colony ship, as not only would it provide comfort for the colonists from the inner colonies, but it would have helped cement a shared culture to help remind the outer colonies where they came from.
Not that worked out too well considering what was happening pre-war, but you can't say that they didn't try.
However, it would work out well for us to build these people's personalities. As regularly observing how other humans acted would give them a baseline and let them continue from there. Plus, it would help me re-establish long-forgotten human holidays in this galaxy.
I wouldn't consider my little empire a success until my people were out doing things like celebrating Halloween and taking their kids out to trick or treat.
"Ah, then don't let me stop you. The sooner we establish an industry, the sooner we can make contact with Earth and the UEG." I lied through my teeth.
"Of course, sir. I can't wait to be beachside in Hawaii and see ole Luna rise over the sea. It'll be one hell of a liberty." The man smiled briefly before continuing forward.
"Yeah..." I frowned as I watched the mechanic walk off.
"Still not a fan of lying to them." Serina guessed from the phone held in my palm.
"No, but it's not like we have much choice." I sighed.
There was an unfortunate problem with having The Spirit of Fire, a crew, and not knowing where in the timeline I was. Namely, since I didn't know when I'd make contact with Big E, there had to be contingencies in place in case he showed up anywhere within the next decade or so.
Because if he came down, read the minds of my crew, and saw that I was growing humans. I might just catch a virus bomb to the face. Well, at least, I think I might. I wasn't aware of how the big guy personally felt about people other than him messing with human genomes.
Also, telling people they were artificially grown would be bad for morale and raise some existential questions once they fully developed personalities and became everyday folks. Giving them a national identity and a past would be a stabilizing factor.
As far as the crew was currently aware, they were all the first to be woken out of the Spirit's cryo pods after a slip space accident sent us way off course. The rest of the crew would gradually be "woken up" in batches, and due to spending possibly centuries in cryo, longer than any humans had ever been, the long-term effects included a loss of memory and a short-term effect of duller personalities.
Eventully it would be annocuned that we found other lost colony ships on this world. Not accurate whatsoever, but we needed an explanation until we hit a population milestone of anywhere between 50k to 100k. After that, it would be hard for anyone to notice "new" people suddenly appearing out of nowhere. As the sheer population and natural births will hide our human production operation.
As a bit of the failsafe, Serina would be the sole accountant for any census information for a long while. Even after its release, the numbers from these initial months and years would be heavily doctored.
I sighed at the lengths I'd have to go to hide this shit from certain psykers. Damn stupid mind-reading space wizards.
"Well, if it makes it any better, they all were "born" on a UNSC ship. By all legal standards, that makes them UEG citizens by birth." Serina tried to soothe, "Plus, given what you've told me about the state of this galaxy. Using the mixture of your perfected genome, the medical records I have from the UNSC, and data already in the pods, the humans we're growing are probably the most "pure" Earth-based humans in this galaxy."
I suppose my AI companion wasn't wrong. This galaxy was frought with humans with various mutations. Many weren't even discernable at first glance. Such as dark worlds where people had paler complections and excellent dark vision as the result of the lack of light, death worlds where the people and their warriors had higher resistance to disease and radiation, and even Vulkan's people who had developed charcoal black skin from the how volatile the world was.
I'm pretty sure this version of Earth and the inner colonies had massive amounts of mutants from the nuclear warfare and collapse of the golden age. One's that Big E would purge at the start of his conquest.
"I suppose they have a higher claim to be called Earthlings than most people in this galaxy." I agreed.
"Indeed, as such, it's not much of a lie." Serina agreed as we began making our way to the command deck, "But on to more pressing matters, I'd suggest the next batches of our crew be marines.
Nodding to a few more crew members as we made our way through the hallways, I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow, "You want to start expanding this early?"
Serina nodded, "It's imperative that we do. The Spirt's supplies are impressive, but they were stocked for about 11,000 crew members. At the 2,000 we add every week from the pods, we'll be above that number in about a month and a half. Furthermore, we haven't just been using the supplies for simple survival. We've been actively using them to fabricate machines and industry."
"Than marines it is then." I agreed.
The fiends on this planet were going to rip apart any UNSC marines I deployed in an offensive manner. As the marine infantry of the 26th century were quite literally, only human, outside of a few cybernetic neural enhancements. Which meant that our expansion would have to be slow and defensive in nature. For now at least. The balance of power would change once I had aircraft, heavy vehicles, and artillery.
"There's also another option…" Serina hummed as she pulled up a file.
My eyes scanned the file "Spartan I's huh?"
"It's a stop gap measure for sure, but with the more advanced technology and all the existing data I have access to compared to the original Orion Program, augmentations should be simple and more effective." Serina claimed, "They should be closer to the IV's than I's. A Spartan 1.5 if you will. In time, we might even be able to make them standard augmentations for all special forces units.
Now that could be interesting.
"Well than, lets make some Spartans. Operation Orion is a go."
Spartans... they may just be the ace in the hole I needed. For my own personal timeline and the threat of meeting the Emperor wasn't the only deadlines I needed to beat.
My mysterious patron had made contact in the form of a message sent to my company device not long after I had made it to the ship. They hadn't revealed their identity, instead, they had issued a simple quest. One that promised a reward and a possible meeting should I impress them.
That quest?
Conquer and secure Reach within a year.
The rewards? Bedsides a reveal of just which catalog patron I had received? The data of an in depth brain scan. With the identity of the individual only shown as ?.
It was safe to say that my interest was peaked.