Chapter 490 - Far Future – Pay it Back Two-Fold! (1/2)
”You have proof of this?” Inquisitor Hrom pressed.
”You must be out of contact with high command. They received copies of the Mechanist reports an hour or three ago. Someone pulled it out of the Mechanists' Magenta-secure archives and plopped it into their briefings.”
The note in her voice held the suggestion that she knew exactly who had done so. Techmeister Vahix, running only on a backup emergency power cell, couldn't even berate her for daring to violate the sacred data of the Guild.
”I also have personal scans of eight different factories, analytics of the transportation networks I have used, and records of external changes to every hab, blok, and spire I've trundled past, which emphatically back their assessments. I believe the Mekkers were unimpeachably thorough and correct in their judgement.”
The sneer in her voice was impossible to conceal. The Inquiry team all looked at the Techmeister, who undoubtedly had known about this.
Inquisitor Hrom pulled out his plasma pistol, and without blinking shot the Techmeister right in his cerebral cortex. The sun-hot blast blew right through his partially-replaced brain matter and out the back of his warframe, and the need for his backup power cell went away.
”Can we get out of here?” the Inquisitor asked, lifting the weapon, which was suitable for purging a demon at close enough range, up to cool.
”They're going to blast open the east stairway in five seconds.” Heads snapped around at the flicker of a pointing Tail, where a grey and rust light had lit up at nine o'clock from them. ”That's your exit point. Got a Dead Magic round, sniper? Chamber it.”
Bremin barely blinked as he pulled out a glittery black cartridge, and inserted it into the base of his gun. ”I'll fix his position for you, he'll be using displacement.” Her inhuman, psi-molded arms lifted, pointing two lasers with odd, crossbow-like attachments in that direction with a gunshooter's poise... all the while her real arms still hadn't stopped moving, and those burning blades of multi-flaming light were still plunging down into howling black and white energy vortex down below.
There was a soundless roar as a pulse of something violently unclean blew through the rubble blocking the stairs, and simply smeared them out of existence against the wall of reality. None of the dust even survived to hit the round. It even turned a big chunk of the droning swarm that had not given up probing them into drops of goo that spattered and cracked down upon the mounds of corpses.
A grossly fat man holding a staff made of flowing, melded bones and skulls levitated into view, fixing them with a baleful glare. His half-revealed body was covered in oozing sores, which at this moment all seemed to be glowing eyes dripping putrescent tears as they stared at everyone.
”Warp Sorcerer,” she said conversationally, still not looking over as her guns opened up. Pulses of spiral-bound violet lasers swirled around the man, sweeping right through his image... and were warded away from an area five feet to his left and higher, promptly painted from all directions by swathes of harmless laser fire.
The punt of Bemrin's rifle was completely unnatural, and for a second all the psionic energy around them was gone, repelled by the utter nihility that shot out of his rifle's barrel.
The beam of darkness punched through something invisible, something physical, and out the far side, driving into the wall beyond and instantly soaking the entire glyph-scrawled mess in something black. The Warp energy surging through those sigils blew away like a rock striking water, shattering them for a hundred feet around the impact point as it did so.
The image of the Warp Sorcerer had a new black hole where the rotting remnants of his nose had been. He staggered, his eyes turning down to look at the hole in his face, and then something black boiled up out it, covering his eyes almost instantly, and the hole began to grow as his head began to slough away into black slime.
They watched him fall, the invisible field that had protected him fading as the corpulent body plopped heavily to the ground.
Violet lasers caressed him, and the corpse virtually exploded into unwhite fire, as did the black spot on the wall.
”There's your way out. You'd better get started.” She tossed the fusion core, which was now pulsing with a very cold unwhite light, into the air between two of her Tails. ”I'll give you to a sixty count. Go.”
Everybody except Assassin Klisto promptly started running for the entryway a hundred yards away around the concourse, using rockets, grav-boosts, psionic dimension-shifting, and shadow-walking to accelerate their speed to something considerably faster than mere human. If the swarm wanted to follow them, it was still reeling from the corruptive Warp Sorcery that had assailed it, and didn't respond in time as the Inquiry Team ran for it, and were more than happy to shoot the Warped cautiously poking their heads up and gaping at the blazing vivic bonfire that was all that remained of their mighty Warp Sorcerer boss.
Some terrific violence erupted there, cemented by a powerful discharge of psionic lightning from Mentat Kiprugh that tore through the packed Warped and opened a merciless path for them to get out of there.
---
”You don't seem surprised that I have stayed behind,” Assassin Klistos stated.
”You probably think your time is almost up, and this is as good a way to die as anything, no?”
Her studied her with unblinking eyes, and heard a tinking sound echoing up from down below.
Suddenly that Mindsword was between him and her, and his eyes widened as it cleanly severed the swirl of his Helices... and wasn't ripped apart in passing.
”You are not a threat to me, Brother Firesword,” she stated, turning her head to look at him with possibly the most intimidating set of blue eyes he had ever seen... and he'd looked into the eyes of demons.
Her Tail reached out, grabbed the unmoving carcass of the dead Techmeister, and tossed his warframe down the hole she'd bored. Several seconds later, a crushing crash echoed back up.