WARHAMMER 40,000 Genestealer Management Quest

Interrogator Shexia Af-Baru glowered down at the snapped railings, then turned to glower at the cringing nobleman who had been apologizing for the last few minutes. "I have no idea, no idea at all-"

"Quite," she said, cutting him off. "We have search parties out there, hunting for him - but the transponder has been lost in this damn waste of a planet." She pinched the bridge of her nose. She had not wanted to come out here. She had not wanted to be so obviously on the scene - but the immediate response of the Thedasians had been utterly bumbling, and she had needed to step out. Lot and a few of her other armsmen were already among the crowd - and one of them pulled forward a breathtakingly beautiful noblewoman. Shexia shot her a guarded look, eyes flicking her up and down.

Blond tresses, done up in the absurd style of this planet, blue dress, gold collar that plunged down remarkably along her generous décolletage. She was, in short, the exact kind of woman that would either be married off for breeding stock or start a cult. Shexia frowned at her, noting that she had bright tears in her eyes, and...a wafting sense of guilt, tingling around her, an ineffable smell of that Shexia's own psyker talents picked up with ease.

Cult or cheating housewife, she thought, while her armsman nodded.

"Lady Yolanda here was right near Lord Orlax when he fell," he said, bluntly.

The woman quailed at Shexia's look, hand going to her throat.

"Did you push him?" Shexia asked, watching the cringing aura of guilt grow brighter - and filled with fear.

"W-What? No!" Yolanda gasped. "I...I was actually warning him - he was leaning so far over, to watch that horrid witch meet her fate, i should have pushed harder. No, verbally, that is, I should have...oh dear!" Yolanda's hand went to her mouth. "S-Surely, he could survive even a fall such as this?"

"If he landed right and kept his helmet on, yes" Shexia said, pursing her lips. "...you are guilty about something, though."

Yolanda froze. "I...I..." She stammered, the guilt flaring brighter.

Shexia stepped closer. She narrowed her eyes. "What is it?" her voice was as cold as iron. "The Inquisition has harder methods of asking - but I will allow you, as befits the privilege of your rank, to merely use the tongue the Emperor blessed you with."

Yolanda looked aside. She stepped close, whispering. "I, uh...I was..." She blushed, even more. "...I made love with one of the D-Deathwatch..." Her thumb rubbed along the glittering wedding band she wore, and Shexia shook her head, flipping her hand and turning away from her.

Cheating housewife, she thought. Then she considered Yolanda. "You have been in close contact with two space marines?" she asked, frowning. "And how did you manage that? Wait...you're Yolanda Puree, yes?" She stepped closer. "You arranged the second of the two fetes, and your servants assisted in arranging this expedition - catering, correct?"

"Y-Yes..." Yolanda breathed, looking down.

Shexia frowned. She weighed the options she had - her people were blooded, but the cult had been bloodied worse. But there was the nagging sensation at the back of her mind - and she wondered, if she should try pushing. It would cause a horrid stir - everyone would notice, at the very least, when a noblewoman started shrieking and her eyes exploded, or blood fountained from her nose, or she vomited up a pile of spiders, or bones, or a living worm the size of a baby's arm. The risks of pushing and simply ripping information from minds. THe nobles were still supporting her investigation, but even momentary disgust could spell the difference between life and death.

Success and victory.

Interrogators are chosen because of their ability to pick these threads, these narrow moments, these small chances. They alone of their fellow acolytes, have managed to be forced to flip the coin, skull or throne, and call throne when it matters most. It was a harsh school, which winnowed nearly all who passed through it.

But it was not a perfect school.

Shexia nodded. "Your piety shows you quality, Lady Puree." She said, quietly.

Then she turned and stalked off, frowning intently.

Two days. It had been two days of struggle to break the cult's back, and now they simply had to clean up the remains. Shexia sat at her desk in her quiet office in the governor's mansion and read through reports from the Arbites watch stations - they had been finding corpses that had been badly burned by acid wind, and with some marks of self inflicted violence. Was it the normal array of suicides a planet as dreary and dismal as Thedias offered, some murders...or were the cultists devouring themselves. Without the dark intellect of the Hive Fleet and the magus-witch, how could they stay together.

There were no new pamphlets about revolution too, but...that was to be expected.

Shexia pinched the bridge of her nose. She was getting tired. Sleep was needed, even if it stole her from her work. There was a long month ahead of her.

She would do three more reports.

She was in the Black Ship again. The gangway, the last time she had seen her home. The chains bit heavy and deep into her wrists and she heard the sounds of struggling. She lifted her head, and it was strange. For once, the fog of the translation and the sanctioning process parted and she could see the other that had been beaten that day. Her hair was bright blond. She was beautiful. She glared, fiercely, around herself as the Black Ship's crew shoved her to the ground.

In the dream, Shexia shoved backwards. She got herself between the crew and the blond, hissing as a scourge that had splattered the blond's brains out instead slashed along her back, leaving a deep scar. She shrieked. In the strange timesness of dreams, she was in the dank memory of the Sanctionite's Polis on Terra - the screams of other initiates echoing through stone walls. Despite months of travel having crawled by between then and now, the cut on her back still bled, and the blond stitched her up, whispering.

"How are we going to get out of here, Shex?"

The dream...took a turn then. The blond kissed the scar on her back - it was healed now, impossibly fast. She whispered. "I'm sorry about what's going to happen to you."

Shexia jerked her head upright from the desk. She shook her head, scowling fiercely. She had not dreamed of the Sanctioning for...

For a long time. She brushed her hand through her hair, trying to wrack her memory of the blond. There...had been a girl in her cell. Hadn't there? She couldn't quite remember. Fatigue clouded her mind - and more, the sanctioning had involved so much it was better to have forgotten. She had been released from its hold, and blessedly freed to serve the Inquistion for nearly a century now. Juvinat and her own modest biomantic powers alike kept her hale and hearty. She clenched her fist, then unclenched it.

Later, before bed, she craned her head, trying to see the old scar.

It was gone.

She had used her talents to repress scars for so long - she couldn't remember if she had started with one on her back.

A week later and Shexia had still not found Olrax. His fellows in the Deathwatch and the Marines Malevolent had both started to square off around one another - and Shexia was not entirely sure what stance she should take. The Marines Malevolent were trying to, as usual, be as outrageous as possible and impress the Deathwatch squadron into their command - something that was flagrantly illegal and bound to bring the fury of the Deathwatch and the Ordos Xenos onto the heads of those blackguards, but she wasn't entirely sure if they cared. She rubbed her temples as she walked down the corridors of the governor's mansion...and was struck by the image of a beautiful blond, emerging from a sitting room with the governor's wife, laughing.

She was not an identical copy of the woman from Shexia's dreams - she had had two more in the time since the first, as if her mind was trying to tell her something. She had reinforced her wards and made sure to lay out psy-crystals that would detect sendings and visions. But they had remained dark and impotent. The woman in the dreams was younger, thinner, had a fierce light in her eyes, not the cringing whimpering Yolanda Puree.

Still...

Shexia frowned and with a tiny twist of their perception, she cloaked herself from their view. She walked past them, to her chambers - and heard Yolanda saying: "Oh, but I had that handsome Lord Hatoshi around again."

"Really? I hadn't heard - and how could my friends miss him?"

"He's quite...stealthy when he wants to be!" Yolanda laughed, softly.

Shexia froze, frowning. Hatoshi was meant to be staying on the ship. She narrowed her eyes, wondering...

She'd have to speak to either him or Yolanda. Or check on the ship's servitors. But Hatoshi had served for two centuries in the Scout Marines before he had been seconded to Deathwatch - he had been one of those marines who had simply enjoyed being a scout. The fact he was so stealthy was not shocking.

She frowned, then continued to consider.

And as she walked down the corridor, Yolanda smirked.

In the dream, it made total sense.

"Guilty." The gavel came down and Shexia and her love both glared daggers at the judge - who wasn't even regarding them as the Arbites brought in the next one. The branding and the attaching of the nullifier collars went by so fast that the next thing Shexia knew, she was in the mines of Thedias, grunting as she worked a lasercutter next to her love.

There was little time for languidity and repose. In the scant time between shifts, her lover tore her rags off her, bit her, suckled her breast, caressed her. The pain of the world faded, and Shexia gasped and quivered in a sweaty bliss as her fingers tangled through blond tresses. She gripped her tightly and quivered as her lover's fingers delved into her sex, crooking, finding a center of pleasure Shexia hadn't even known she had. She arched her back and cried out in the tiny niche that they had claimed - voice echoing off the walls before she clapped her hand over her mouth.

"The Emperor...ah...still loves us if we're together, right?" Shexia whispered.

"Does he?" her lover had muttered. The memory was so fucking clear. "I...I can't even feel you, like we used too. Remember, when we were...mind to mind?"

Shexia did. She ached with the need for feeling it again.

She ached as her eyes opened. Her bones felt the lack of touch as she shivered and then sat up. Shexia glared at the psy-crystals around her. They were useless. Baubles. Unless. She frowned. Her talents lay in telepathy and biomancy - but the Warp was fickle. More than a few psykers had found a new talent in divination, when their lives were in peril, when they was something vital to be missed. She frowned, then rubbed her hand along her throat, feeling the pure, perfect skin there. But under it, there were a dozen scars - the worst being when an orkoid had ripped her throat almost to her spine. Her biomancy had kept her alive, and later, she had taken great pleasure in glaring at the scar until it faded from her skin.

If only all her problems were so...

She blinked.

"Of course," she whispered.

When she was settled, dressed and breakfasted, she set out to pin down the wife of the governor, Louisa Opal Gemanite Corwin-Af Maru Von Xav.


"Prison records? Of course, what are you interested in?" Lousia Xav asked, politely.

"I am interested in the record of psyker prisoners condemned to Thedias," Shexia said, her voice cool. It was such an obvious truth, she kicked herself for not realizing it. She now knew why her dreams had been so...her cheeks heated. If there had been a Magus, there had to have been a genestealer corrupted child born of a psyker. Psyker talents that emerged in prison populations were killed nearly immediately, it'd have to be one who had been sent to Thedias for a crime.

"Ah! Genealogy!" Louisa said. "Only noble-born psykers ever had the pull to be merely sent to Thedias if they...acted out. You should talk to Yolanda Puree, she loves to study...are you all right, Shexia?"

Shexia realized she was frowning. "This...Yolanda Puree, she's a minor noble, why does she keep showing up?"

"Minor noble? Hardly!" Lousia laughed. "Her house is small, yes, but they're highly influential and have been for centuries. They're only a House Minoris as a custom - they're easily an equal to, say, the Marks." She shook her head.

Shexia's frown hardened ever so slightly. "I see," she said. Yet another noble inanity to make my life more complex. So, Yolanda was not simply a very minor noblewoman who happened to be everywhere. She was, in fact, one of the major power players in the entirety of Thedias noble society and no one had thought to mention it out of custom. This wasn't even the most annoying time this had happened, she still remembered the fiasco on Gornex II. Shexia nodded, then turned and started off.

"D-Do be gentle, Yolanda is a dear, my lady Interrogator!" Louisa called, nervously, after her.

Shexia found that calling on Yolanda was quite easy - for her, for Yolanda, it was clearly a trial as the woman needed to reorganize several meetings and kick out two nobles, nobles that Shexia saw walking across the parkways of Trustworthy Compromise. She smirked slightly as Yolanda, despite the shortness of the warning, had already gotten a tea party set up, poison sniffer at the ready. Shexia used her own tester ring and saw the tea was merely tea - though it was of a blend she had never tried before. It turned out to be as soothing as Yolanda promised - and as the conversation turned to records, Yolanda smiled impishly. "Interested in our hard-scrabble roots, eh Inquisitor?"

"Interrogator," Shexia said, dryly.

"Oh," Yolanda looked so terrified that Shexia actually laughed.

"It's not a faux pass worthy of murder," Shexia said, dryly.

"W-Well, that's a relief," Yolanda said, then paused. "Are..." She hesitated.

"Yes?" Shexia asked.

"Are you quite all right, Inquisitor? Er, Interrogator!" She blushed. "You just look...a mite...peakish."

"Peakish?" Shexia's voice remained dry.

"Tired," Yolanda said. "More tired than a woman of your stature should be, is the governor not treating you well?"

"I'm quite all right," Shexia said, a bit annoyed - not at this silly girl's concern, but at herself. She focused and her biokinesis wiped away the purple shroud around her eyes with a single wrinkle of power. SHe leaned in. "Now, I wish to know of every psyker prisoner that was brought to this planet."

"The earliest records didn't use pict-captors, it wasn't until our tithe quality was high enough to attract some of those tech-priests," Yolanda said. "Let me get the paintings - I kept so many of the noble prisoner paintings from those times, though a few are replicaes...I think one was actually replicated only a few months ago, the old one had torn in half..." She walked off, and returned with several tomes. Shexia settled in to look at them, listening to Yolanda's cheerful prattle about this and that ancestor - and then she froze, turning a page and looking at the woman in her dream. The painting was relatively recent, but...it was her, the same fierce look, the same bold eyes.

"Oh...that's a sad story...Lyiss" Yolanda said, quietly. "She was a noble prisoner - but she refused to be among us, she chose mining. Legends say she was waiting for a lover to come spirit her away - but the lover never came."

Shexia frowned.

"Did she have any children?" she asked.

"Well, the lover never came so...no?" Yolanda asked, shrugging. "Or at least, that's how the legend goes."

Shexia knew it was risky. To do this. The blocks in her mind were there to keep away dark secrets, secrets she didn't need to know. But the dreams were...growing more...

More...

Tantalizing.

In the last, she and Lyiss had walked, hand in hand, down a corridor, towards the sound of singing voices. Lyiss had smiled at her, and whispered. This never happened. But it could have.

Shexia felt the need for Lyiss when she dreamed, and when she woke, her heart raced. The magus, Lyiss, her visions, they had to be linked. And there was a truth she couldn't see. And so, she sat alone in her bedroom, surrounded by candles, her eyes closed, her hands on her knees. She centered herself and remembered the Sanctioning's teaching. There is no door. There is no weave. There is nothing beyond, save the Emperor. Willful blindness, lies, and hatred were your shield, your armor, your sword.

She breathed in.

Then she breathed out. Her own psychic talent felt around, gingerly here, gingerly there. The blocks were there. She felt them deep in her mind - hypnoindoctrination and psyker meddling both. She started trying to ease at them. Then push. Then shove. Her teeth clenched as pain tingled, then flared. Her fingers tightened as she tried to pry them open, just a hair. The candles around her flickered - then for a moment, turned purple. She tensed, eyes opening. Had...she felt another presence?

Then...a block popped open. She gasped, and shuddered as memories rushed into-

She was in the Sanctionite Hall, waiting for her assignment. Lyiss was there, next to her. And there he was, the inquisitor - though his face was oddly shrouded in her memory, as if she couldn't quite recall what he looked like, nor what he sounded like. "Her." He pointed at her. Lyiss threw herself between the two, shouting...shouting-

Shexia gasped and then slammed the block shut, hurridly. She didn't want to remember anymore.

Fury. Shame. Guilt. It all gnawed at her at once as she realized she had been chasing a dead end. It wasn't a lead. It wasn't her mind trying to reveal a clue. It was just pain. She growled, then stood, and waved her palm - the candles snuffed out in a wave of psychic focus. She threw herself into bed, burying her face against her pillow, and tried to retain the calm and detachment she had before.

She slept.

In the dream, she was with Lyiss. But she was aware she was dreaming. "Is this even real?" she asked.

Lyiss smiled at her. But the voice that spoke was behind her. "Of course not. It's a dream."

Shexia knew this. She sighed, then leaned into the arms sliding around her - and the connection was so pure, so bone deep. Mind to mind. Body to body. Soul to soul. The unfamiliar tongue traced a line along her ear, whispering. "But Lyiss? She was my great great great grandmother. She worked the mines, but she was part of the first mutiny. Her talents helped the Little Lord as he played his game." Those warm palms slid along her belly, up to her breasts and Shexia gasped as she was groped gently - she was naked, and she didn't know how. She squirmed and bit her lip.

"I'm...going to find and kill your...entire fucking cult..." Shexia's voice had no fury. Just the gentle sighs of pleasure.

"Your fire is why I love you already, Shexia." The voice whispered in her ear.

The dream continued then. She was led, gently...and seemed to watch herself from outside of herself. She and Lyiss walked into the light - into silks and gentle bedrooms. The she came before a bald woman, her eyes fierce, her smile gentle. Her voice was amused as she gestured for Lyiss and Shexia to kneel.

"The Imperium stole you from your home. Brutalized you. Locked away your own memories, so you might not even know that you had been hurt. Then...they used you to hurt others." Her eyes were gentle. "How many have you killed, Shexia?"

"I...don't know..." Shexia's voice was soft and as she watched herself, she could see her own features. Shame and confusion filled them - just as shame and confusion filled her. She watched her own hands slide along her own shoulders as she ducked her head forward. "M-My mind is blanked between certain missions. I...I have to...the...the Imperium must stand. It must be protected. It must-"

"Must it?"

She realized, then, that she didn't know.

The dream shifted. She was in the Sanctioning chamber again, her body her own. The finger aimed at her. She still had time to choose. She looked at the Inquisitor, and she started to form a word...

Shexia woke from the dream. Her skin was drenched with sweat and she trembled in her bed, her breath coming short and shallow. She was being sent. Someone was fucking with her - and she knew she should be angry. She should be furious. She should be...but...but...she bit her lip. The pain of the Sanctioning was fresh in her mind. She had been plucked out of the pit, and made an acolyte...and...and...used as a weapon. She slid from her bed, sweat making her nightclothes cling to her. She walked to the small wine cabinet in the room, pouring herself a shot of amneisac. She drank it straight down, hissing as her throat burned.

Shexia closed her eyes. "There is still a Magus. You just need to find her."

She considered her options.

Her...shields weren't as strong as they should be. But...that just meant that she could...

Yes.

Yes. She could lead the Magus into her little trap. She smiled.

And I thought the Inquisitor was the only one who tried to work in bed.

Shexia prepared herself before sleeping. She stripped her body naked, then gently poured sacred oil over her back, her shoulders. She closed her eyes and breathed softly as she felt the sanctifying tingle rushing along her sides. She brushed her hands along her skin, and once she felt entirely purified, she began to inscribe her flesh with the wards and the runes. She used a small knife, hissing as she sliced the bloody lines into her flesh - pain stinging as she focused and sealed the wound up. The scars left formed a growing barrier of pain and sturdiness. She worked along one arm, up the other arm, then sliced an aquilla into her forehead, gritting her teeth.

Protected by pain and by purity, she laid in bed, eyes closed, breathing slowly. She fell to-

In the cultists warren, she and Lyiss were told...interesting things. "The Imperium is built on pain, hatred, and fear. But those emotions are not the only things that can craft a society - in fact, they are quite possibly the most fragile. There is also what has kept you together, what has kept you alive, in the face of everything." The Magus caressed along Shexia's cheek. "Love." She smiled. "Love for your family, for your friends, for your people. That love is what we promise - a better world, a better future."

Shexia shook her head. "Love is weak."

"Is it?" The Magus smiled. She was so familiar, now that Shexia was looking into her eyes. She had hair now. She bit her lip, slightly, as she knelt before the other woman. "Why is it that the Imperium must lie to you, again and again, to keep you in your role? To wipe your mind away every time you succeed? If your successes are so terrible, why must they be hidden so fiercely?"

Shexia looked down. She...was speaking worries Shexia had known for so long. But the Magus murmured. "And there is more to life than strength."

Lyiss leaned in. She kissed against Shexia's neck. Her tongue slid up to her ear, whispering. "I've been Kissed, my love. You have no idea what it's like." Her hand caressed along Shexia's belly, her fingers sliding up to her breast. Shexia shivered and bit her lip. She shook her head from side to side - but the Magus kissed her other cheek, whispering in her other ear - her voice just as liquid, just as warm.

"I can already tell how curious you are. You still have memories of learning the first xenobestiary - of seeing the diagrams, the...descriptions..."

"J-Just...ah...to kill you..."

"Of course..." Her hand cupped Shexia's ass. ANother stroked Shexia's belly. Another...her head. One of them was scaled. Clawed. There were too many arms. Her body squirmed in revulsion and horror and...and-

Shexia's eyes snapped open. She had the thread, burning against her hexagramatic wards. Her body tingled and she hissed softly as she clenched her fists and her mind alike. The thread followed...followed...there. She scrambled from the bed, throwing robes onto her body. She snatched her arms belt and without even throwing it around her hips, she stalked down the corridors. Her eyes blazed as her skin tingled. She had nothing but her shield ring, her force sword, her talents. She was nearly naked. She knew it was a mistake to not call Lot and the armsmen but...but...

She came to the basement and slapped the opening button with a palm - and there, she stepped into the softly humming generatoria and quietly hissing recyclers. There, standing in the center of the room...was Yolanda Puree. Her dress was as beautiful and fine as spun gossamer and she stood in the basement, her head tilted back, her eyes looking up at the ceiling. Fury exploded inside of Shexia...

That was how!?

The psy-crystals had been evaded through the most blunt, simple method one could imagine - and yet, it was utterly impossible for anyone but Yolanda, was it? By standing directly below her room and sending upwards, she had simply threaded a needle. It made Shexia furious...and made her feel a twinge of genuine respect.

"Magus..." She said.

"Interrogator," Yolanda said, without fear. She turned to face her and smiled, gently.

"You've...been fucking with my dreams for the entire month," Shexia said, glaring at her. "Threading lies. Falsehoods."

"Was it...I who broke your blocks?" Yolanda asked. "No. Did I lie? No. Lyiss truly lived. Her memory lives on through me - and through you. Everything else, every connection you made, every doubt you felt, was entirely you own." She stepped forward, her eyes flashing as she did so. "I saw, for just a moment, what was behind those blocks - just as you, for a moment, saw the truth of our cult."

"There are no Star Children," Shexia growled, clenching her teeth. "The hive fleet...would kill you all."

Yolanda smiled, gently. "Our people speak truth to one another. Yours implant blocks in your mind. Does it not make you think...?"

"No," Shexia said, shaking her head. "No."

And yet, she found it hard to draw her sword. She clenched her jaw, while Yolanda took another step forward. "There is a world where we don't need to fear mutants nor heretics, xenos nor psyker - where we work together as one. Allies against the forces of darkness." Her fingers gently brushed along the back of Shexia's wrist. They were so warm. The connection throbbed deep inside of Shexia's bones as she quivered and drew the blade an inch, two. The soft purple runes that shone along the blade cast a pale, killing light along Yolanda's gentle features, making them seem alien.

And beautiful.

So...

So beautiful.

Yolanda smiled, sadly. "What was done to you was a crime, my love. What you've been made to do to others was a crime. But we can stop it. Here. Together."

"Liar..." Shexia whispered. She felt the blocks in her mind, fierce staples between memories and mercy, missions and madness. She trembled. "Liar. Liar."

"You can find out," Yolanda said. Her finger brushed up along Shexia's arm, to her cheek. Her power throbbed against Shexia's mind - but waited, slowly. Shexia felt that trust, that paitence, and it was what truly broke her. Her eyes closed and she allowed Yolanda to guide her fingers. The power of two telepaths drove into the blocks, bursting one after the other after the other. The past bloomed in Shexia's mind - and her force sword, still in its scabbard, fell to the floor with a soft clatter. She sagged against Yolanda, collapsing into the dresses and the gentle embrace of shockingly strong arms. Fingers, tipped with claws that had been concealed, stroked along her hair and Yolanda whispered in her mind and in her ear alike. "Shh, shh, shh. It's okay. It's okay. It's not your fault."

A racking sob tore its way out of Shexia's throat as she remembered, with brutal, agonizing clarity, not simply the Sanctioning. No.

She remembered Tyana. She now knew when the memory of Lyiss was given her, when thoughts of her heroic survival and fortitude was brushed into her mind, her own guilty conscience had plastered Lyiss' face onto Tyana. When she had been hustled aboard the Black Ship, Shexia had watched as they beat Tyana to death. She had been sixteen cycles old - too terrified to do anything but watch, frozen in spot. That shame had nibbled at the back of her mind for a century...and it was joined by the others.

When they burned the island-cities of that unnamed world...

You watched.

When the ten thousand were put to death under suspicion of xenoheresy on Uldar.

You watched.

"I'm sorry...I'm sorry!" Shexia sobbed into the woman's arms as clawed fingers clung to her. Yolanda kissed her cheek, and again, she offered forgiveness. Her mind was gentle, enfolding Shexia in warmth, radiating gently. Shexia found her nose nuzzling against Yolanda's neck. She kissed a bead of sweat - a hint that Yolanda had been concealing fear that would have sent most mortals running. That tiny kiss, that little spark...and it seemed to set loose a blazing inferno in Shexia. She kissed along Yolanda's neck, to her jaw, to her ear, then to her lips. Yolanda kissed her back, and her clawed hands shucked off Shexia's night clothes, tossing them aside. Shexia was naked and bare, and her scarred skin gleamed in the pale blue glow of the generatoria.

Yolanda drew her mouth back, her eyes pure black as she whispered. "The scars..."

Shexia looked down at herself, then focused. Her power throbbed and her skin was perfect once more. She whispered. "I-I shouldn't be doing this," she whispered. "I...I should-"

Yolanda undid a few buttons and rolled her shoulders. Her body was impossibly beautiful beneath her dresses. The ridges along her shoulders, the chitin that cupped her hips like armor, the way that a bony support structure of tyrannic organic growth surrounded her breasts, accentuating their curves, was everything that Shexia knew to hate. But...it being so forbidden, so wrong, so impossibly vile, drew Shexia like a loadstone. Her mouth closed around one of Yolanda's nipples as Yolanda gasped softly. She grinned and caressed her, voice soft. "It is good to be with someone I don't need to use my...talents...to hide around."

Shexia's hands stroked along Yolanda's body, feeling the smooth join between the human and alien. She broke her kiss to her breast, then whispered. "A-are you going to...Kiss me?"

"Yes..." Yolanda murmured. "Does that make you happy?"

"I..." Shexia shivered. She looked away. "D-Does it...hurt?"

"You know the answer to that." Yolanda's voice was so warm. "Where do you want it?"

"...here..." Shexia pointed. her cheeks burned furiously as she looked away.

"My favorite place," Yolanda said, then grinned. She gently brushed her dress around, making a makeshift bed, then laid Shexia upon it. The agony of the next moment could not be overstated - Yolanda kissed her way from Shexia's lips to her throat, licking the skin, teasing her with the sharp edges of her teeth. Shexia reached down, her fingers stroking through the Magus' blond tresses, but she did not push her away, even as Yolanda took an eternity worshiping her breasts. She kissed and sucked on her with the tender neediness of a young lover, and Shexia had to bite her knuckle to keep from crying out.

Yolanda paused then. Her breath was soft against Shexia's thighs. She used her hands to spread her, then focused. Shexia felt the psychic call - and heard the thumping sound of something moving in the darkness. Her blood ran hot and cold alike as she saw the dark shape slipping from around the corner of a generatoria. Razor sharp claws glittered and the extra limbs were used to caress wall and ceiling and floor alike. The sleek, almost human head with glittering, fierce eyes crept closer and closer. Shexia felt disgusted and...attracted to it at the same time. It was so...

Right.

"T-This was the only way I'd ever end...isn't it?" Shexia whispered.

"My love, this isn't an ending..." Yolanda caressed her head gently as the genestealer, the purestrain genestealer, knelt down, respectfully almost. Its claws were so gently as it took hold of her legs. Shexia took hold of Yolanda's hand, squeezing fiercely. Her breath was sharp, short, rapid. She panted and clung to Yolanda as Yolanda stroked her hair. "Here. Let me show you how I see her."

The gentle pressure of Yolanda's talent into Shexia's mind was like slipping into warm bath. The glistening perfection of the genestealer's body was suddenly evident - the curve of her talons, the muscular broadness of her shoulders. The length of her tongue, growing out and out and out of that delicate mouth. Warm drool dripped onto Shexia's belly and she whimpered softly in eagerness, her thighs falling even farther open as she whispered, softly.

"She's...beautiful..." Shexia whispered.

The genestealer lowered her head and her tongue thrust deep, deep into Shexia. The pain was momentary, and the bliss?

The bliss radiated through her afterwards.

Then, slowly, she blinked.

A realization, clear and crystal perfect as a bell, sang inside of her head. It was something that took her a few moments of gentle consideration to realize.

"...huh," she whispered. "I was wrong."

Yolanda chuckled as the purestrain slid back, tongue sliding into her mouth. Her eyes glittered with amusement as she started to scamper towards the shadows - to begin lurking among the ductwork of the floating city again. Yolanda stroked Shexia as she focused, using her powers to retract her signs of blessings with a bit of biomancy. Her voice was pleased. "It's okay, I still love you."

"No, I...I'm not enslaved to a hive mind..." Shexia said, hesitatingly.

"It's no good to fight for revolution with a bunch of slaves." Yolanda said, her voice amused.

Shexia frowned.

I'm damned, she thought. I...I am damned and...oh...oh I need...I need to have a baby in me. The thought was hot and fierce, tingling along her skin. She...she had...oh wow. She had thought she had been aroused before. She panted softly, her voice a soft whine. "D-Do you know any males?"

"Ah, the first glow of the implantation, right," Yolanda said, chuckling. "Yeah, the baby fever passes in a few weeks. Or after you get knocked up."

Shexia closed her eyes. Breathed to steady herself. Then she focused.

I am damned. I am fallen. But I was also wrong.

The question was when to tell the Cult that they were quite possibly the luckiest genestealer corruption to have ever been spawned? To tell them that they, and they alone, had the ideology without any of the lies?

Then the question became entirely secondary as she whispered to Yolanda. "...c-can someone please put a baby in me, please please please?"

Yolanda laughed.

---
You now have an Interrogator who is a part of the cult! She'll direct her company to do whatever you want...HOWEVER! If you direct it to do things that the members of the company will have an issue with, they will lose Sovereignty. If their Sov hits 0, then poor Shexia will be found out and likely killed in a hail of gunfire.

[ ] Attack BLANK (Might + Treasure VS Might + Territory)
[ ] Being Informed (Influence + Soverignty vs Diff 1)
[ ] Spying on BLANK (Influence + Treasury vs Influence + Territory)
[ ] Influence BLANK to do BLANK (Influence + Treasury vs Influence + Territory)
[ ] Increase your Sovereignty (Territory + Treasure vs Diff [Current Sovereignty])
[ ] Police BLANK (Might + Sovereignty vs Influence + Might)
[ ] Rise in Stature (Sovereignty + Treasure vs Diff [Current Influence]
[ ] Train and Levy Troops (Sovereignty + Territory vs Diff [Current Might]
[ ] Unconventional Warfare (write plan in)
[ ] Wait and Recover