WARHAMMER 40,000: A Thousand Tiny Suns (40k/Exalted Crossover!)

You squared your shoulder, lifted your head, then snarled. "I am Corpsman 41-22." You reached up, brushing your hand along your palm - a pathetic dusting that should have done nothing more but smear the blood on the coat. Instead, there was a swirl of wind and the blood seemed to come away in a sheeting spread, splashing to the ground - leaving your uniform as clear as if it had just come from the laundry. Your mask gleamed. "Of the 309th Krieg Cavalry, Death Riders!"

You reached down, drawing the Lens Lans, lifting it up into the air, your voice growing firmer. "As long as one Krieger still draws breath, the planet will need to break before the Guard does. Au nom de Lui-sur-Terre, saint Empereur!"

Silence rang in the air as you swept the lance down, holding it in the crook of your arm.

The massive, burly beastman blinked those bright purple eyes at you. "...41?" he asked, cocking his head - as if he had met you before. His tail twitched and he shifted in his stance, then seemed to shrink down - his shoulders slimming, his fur fading in sheeting, cascading falls. By the time he was merely human size once more, he was clothed as well: Flak vest, leggings, boots, las-carbine hung off his back. Bright, purple eyes. The gauze was gone, so, you weren't sure how to really take the rest of his face. But it was the Cadian from before.

Kit.

The Cadian blinked at you, slowly. "Uh..."

"What in the Warp was that!?" 7-7 exclaimed, her voice clear and high without her respirator. Then, shaking her head. "Warpstuff! Chaos! Taint! Gun!" She scrabbled, reaching for a firearm - but they didn't seem to be any nearby.

"Quiet!" you snapped. "I'm the medic, i'm in charge, this is an aid station!"

"What?" The Mordian asked, as the other guardsmen gaped. K...the Cadian glanced back at them, then growled.

"I'm no warp-touched mutant!" He shouted, his voice a deep, bassy rumble that made your cheeks flushed.

"You became a dog!" 7-7 shouted.

"Kitten, actually," you corrected.

"I'm...no! Not either of those!" Kit snapped, turning back to shoot you a look - exasperation. Kitten!? He seemed to be thinking. His features...you could read them like a map, painted with topographic lines and avenues of advance and retreat. It was absurd, how could anyone see anything in those lips and that nose - thinner lips than you expected. In your imagination, they were always grotesquely oversized and bulging, and the nose was something hideously squashed and stunted compared to the elegant nozzle of a respirator. Instead, it was simply a nose, kissable and neat.

...kissable?

Kit continued: "When the fire started, I knew this wasn't it. Not for me. I didn't survive Cadia and here to die because some prick with a promethium tank could burn me. And when I knew I wasn't going to die...I...saw the Emperor." His voice grew a bit soft. "He was in a silver gown, as pregnant as he was with Horus, and he showed me the way out of the fires. And I carried...everyone with...me..." He paused. "Then I killed that asshole." He jerked his chin to the dead Traitor Space Marine.

"You? Killed a space marine?" 7-7 sounded nearly hysterical. "What's next, 41-22 killing one?"

You shifted in your saddle. "...um..."

"Did you say the Emperor was pregnant?" one of the other guardsmen - from some world you'd never heard of before. "Isn't he a man?"

This drew irritated grumbling from everyone.

"As if the Emperor couldn't be pregnant if he wanted-"

"How else do you think-"

"Horus was his son, you know!"

"What backwater church did you-"

The overlapping grumbling caused the guardsman, who was like the rest, unwounded but showed signs that his clothing had been burned and slashed and cut up and bandaged, to hold up his hands and duck his head before us more worldly people. The Emperor With Child was a fairly common hagiographic corruption of the proper variation, the Emperor With Vat, where he cradled a uterine replicator in his hands with cherished gentleness. That kind of iconography was usually paired with the memento mori, either on His face or in the replicator itself, to remind all what the child would be. Horus. Sin. You frowned behind your respirator, while Kit resumed his telling.

"And then you showed up and...I don't know what happened, but it has to be a miracle from the Emperor," he said. "I don't know why He chose me. But I'm not going to let any of these people suffer and die. No more." His purple eyes flashed, fierce and eager and ready.

You squared your shoulders. "Very good!" you said.

"Thanks," he said, flashing you a smile that made your knees tighten around Gitta, making her shift from side to side on her claws, kicking a little at the ground with a soft snuffling noise. She lifted her head, turning it, as if to look at you and ask what? Your cheeks heated. Strange thoughts. Wonderings. Feelings. Um.

...he had been very...large and soft looking...in...

What a stupid, absurd thought. You pushed it away, before the half realized, fluffy image of burying your ungloved hand into that belly fur could materialize, before the question of how far down before you hit skin could percolate and fester. You pointed with your lens lance. "There's still a war going on out there! We have to win it."

"What, six wounded guardsmen, a mutant and a medic?" 7-7 asked, seeming to have forgotten she wasn't wounded.

You scoffed.

---
What do you do?

[ ] Make them fresh uniforms, boots, belts, and gather up the supplies, then lead them and Kit towards the enemy
[ ] As above, but leave the guardsmen behind - they'd just be in danger. Kit and you can handle this alone.
[ ] Write In

All exalted characters have intimacies - representing what they feel and how strongly they feel about one another and their goals! You can have as many as you want, but you need to have a minimum of four, one of which must be defining, one of which must major, and at least one must be positive, one must be negative!


[ ] You feel increasingly sure of yourself (Use GM's intimacies)
[ ] You think... (write in your own)

And...something dark stirs in your breast, ignored for now. Pick one Limit Trigger - whenever it occures, you get +1 Limit. At 10 Limit, you Break and are consumed by the Great Curse that lingers in your Exaltation.

[ ] You are insulted, belittled or frustrated by another
[ ] You are forced to lie, break an oath, or deceive another
[ ] You see innocents suffering and cannot help them
[ ] You are hindered by the self indulgence of those around you
[ ] Your allies suffer a setback or defeat because of a mistake you make
[ ] You are offered a chance to advance your goals but forced to make other suffer
[ ] Your emotions mislead you into an action you regret
[ ] You are denied a favored vice or pleasure

STATS
Health: Fine
Anima: None
Personal Motes: 13/13 | Peripheral Motes: 28/28
Major Projects: 0/5
SXP: 0 | GXP: 5 | WXP: 0

You squared your shoulders and nodded.

Time was wasting. Battle was calling. Your eyes swept over the wounded guardsmen - most of them were fit to walk with the uniforms they had, but...no, some of them simply were not ready to go into battle. They lacked boots, they lacked shirts, they lacked uniforms. You sprang off Gitta, saying: "We have to get ready first - then we shall join battle against the traitor marines," you said.

"Get ready, how-" The Mordian asked.

You snatched up some cloth that had been used as a bandage. You breathed in, then breathed out - feeling your knowledge shifting and growing in your mind. Chemistry...the molecules, binding together, linking one to the next, it was just sewing on the smallest scale, wasn't it? You slapped the cloth and the dust and blood bloomed out of it like a thin cloud. You waved it away then struck at the cloth with your hand, straightening it, and tugging at threads with the tips of your fingers, before squeezing makeshift dyes from the medkit by the wall. Power seemed to well and flow through your body and in a haze of tugging, twisting and straightening, the bandages and the scraps of cloth became a bright blue new Mordian uniform. You polished it off by tossing a pair of jack boots onto her lap.

"...holy Emperor..." the scarred Mordian whispered.

You caught a glimpse of yourself in a scrap of warped mirror - one of the bronzed surfaces used to catch light for surgery.

Your forehead had a glowing circle on your brow, half filled with shimmering light.

You went to work. Scraps and ruined uniforms flowed into your palms and miracles sprang forth as you made an Elysian uniform, a Krieg uniform, a Cadian uniform. As the guardsmen took them from you, their eyes wide, their jaws dropping, the glowing grew brighter and brighter. Your skin flared with a golden flames that licked and danced, the flames of creation itself.

You laughed as you tossed away the last pair of boots. "Simple! It's so-"

"What the fuck!?"

You and Kit turned - he had been watching you, his eyes wide, a look on his face, unreadable.

Standing there, looming, were two Space Marines, bedecked in the livery of the Word Bearers. Their bolter rifles were cradled in their arms, their disfigured armor a frustrating mixture of well preserved archeotechnology and complete farce - spikes? Really? For armor meant to protect you from shrapnel and radiation not blades, what an absurd affectation. The thoughts blazing in your brain and the flames flickering along your skin made you laugh, you had to laugh, it was impossible not too! "You know your armor could use some servicing!" you called out.

Both raised their bolters.

You sprinted forward. As you ran, you grabbed a discarded M39 mark II Therian pattern lasgun. It had been snapped in half during the battle. you held it in one hand, then tossed the Lens Lance into the air, where it hovered like it was stuck in a dartboard, right above one of the marines. "Just a second," you said, darting past the shocked marine as he tried to track you with the barrel of his bolter - shells exploding in the muck behind you. You grabbed a conduit off his power backpack, ripped it free (it wasn't needed if you weren't using an integrated shield system anyway), then leaped up, landed on his shoulder. "Borrowing this!"

"What-"

You got the lens of his helmet free, slapped it into place, sculpted metal into a barrel by yanking on some wreckage with a spray of sparks. "Done!"

You tossed the finished Lucian XII-A hellgun underhanded to 7-7, who caught it with a grunt.

Then you snatched the Lens Lance out of the air, dropped off the space marine's back, and nodded. "Ready!" He spun around and you thrust, knocking his bolter aside - shells whistling into the air. The marine stumbled, drew his knife, and his comrade sighted at you. You casually flicked the lance aside, and the rippling distortion field surrounding the tip detonated every incoming bolt with a roaring flare of explosions. You stepped backwards and the shrapnel pinged and clattered off the Word Bearer that was trying to gut you with the knife. You regarded it curiously.

"Can I borrow that?" YOu asked, pointing at his auspex.

"Die, Corpser!" the Word Bearer screamed.

You swept the lance out, catching his legs with the blunt end, lodging the tip into the ground, discharging a tiny jolt of gravity waves, and sent him splattering into the mud. His bolter and his knife out of his hands, you stepped forward, knelt onto his back as he tried to get his hands under him. "Just gonna..." you said, snatching the auspex off, then smashing it with your palm. Components went flying out and your hand darted out, catching each. Throwing it together into a makeshift lens-barrel, you turned back and tossed it to the Mordian. "Stick that on your gun!"

The other Word Bearer aimed his bolter at you. The sightline was perfect.

The shot whipped out, straight at your head.

You grabbed the Lens Lance then jammed the tip into the ground. Mud exploded upwards with a spurt and the bolt vanished into it with a flare of orange-white light. The mud splattered down as you stood, then casually brought your lance up, then down, impaling the prone space marine through his helmet with a crunch.

"Th...That...what are you!? Your god is dead! YOUR GOD IS DEAD!" The Word Bearer shouted, slamming in a new magazine with a crunch and a clack. His bolter started to hammer. You dodged left, then right - bolts whipping past you, snatching up a lasgun here, a discarded power pack there. You assembled another hellgun, then chucked it off to the Elysian. You leaped aside, landed, rolled, came to your feet as the Space Marine jerked his head around - and saw that there was now a firing line of Guardsmen, ragged and less than uniform, all holding hellguns.

"Guardsmen?" you asked. "I would like a field test."

Interlocking ruby red beams shimmered and flashed along the Word Bearer. Ablative armor bloomed off him like steam. He staggered, fell to a knee, and then his shoulder jerked, one pauldron exploding off, and then finally flames exploded along his body and he dropped to the side with a crash. The guardsmen lowered their rifles, slowly.

You panted.

"...s-so, um..." you said.

Oh god-emperor.

Everyone was looking at you. Staring at you. You were at the center of attention and...and they all thought...oh. Uh. Uh. Uh. You felt a strange mixture of exhausted and buzzing with ideas - you could see how you could make a better lasgun. A las cannon. Wait, no, that void shield emitter slot on the power armor...you could build one of those. Or-

You shook your head. "Kit?"

You saw him standing next to eight other Space Marines, who he had stacked almost as tall as his beastman form. The highest one had no helmet and had dropped a chainsword, his armor marked with the colors of a Sergeant - so that made a whole tactical squad, even if the Traitor legions didn't use the Codex and- AUGH! Yzou shook your head. The buzzing facts in your brain felt overwhelming.

"...g-good job," you said, blushing.

"Not bad yourself," he said, then grinned at you.

Right.

Right!

Right.

...right.

---
You're full of ideas, represented by GXP

[ ] Bank them to make artifacts later
[ ] Start buying more Craft skills (each craft skill at 5 gets you more automatic GXP every few updates. Also, you don't need to waste time and focus using ARETE SHIFTING PRANA to get them!)
[ ] write in (if you want to spend a certain amount on craft skills, and then bank the rest)

Also, you're tired - essence is low, and while you regenerate fast in combat, you can also take some time to meditate.
[ ] Press on and hope to survive on 5 motes per turn
[ ] Rest and meditate


STATS
Health: Fine
Anima: Glowing (-3 to stealth/disguise)
Willpower: 4/5
Personal Motes: 1/13 | Peripheral Motes: 0/28
Limit: 0/10 (Trigger: Being stymied by indulges around her)
Major Projects: 0/5
SXP: 48 | GXP: 45 | WXP: 0