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[x] take it outside
-[x] outside the ship, specifically. He probably doesn't need a helmet to survive out there, right?
--[x] then to wherever else you feel like, maybe now's a good time to see the sights? 40 thousand years in a box and you'd say you've earned some r&r.
-[x] outside the ship, specifically. He probably doesn't need a helmet to survive out there, right?
--[x] then to wherever else you feel like, maybe now's a good time to see the sights? 40 thousand years in a box and you'd say you've earned some r&r.
Before Alaric can react, you slap a hand on his shoulder, and teleport to just outside the hull of the ship. You bring a little air along with you, and reinforce everything with cursed energy, even more than you usually do. You also ramp up the RCT healing process in more than just your brain; Infinity keeps the chill of the void away from you, but there is only so much that can be done when there's no air. You can minimise your need for it, but so long as you are alive, there are limits.
You doubt that you are going to find yours today, mind. That would take much more time than you intend to spend out here, in the cold dark of space.
It's... interesting. Quiet, so quiet that the sound of your own pulse echoes loudly in your ears. Huge, vast, even; if it weren't so similar to your own domain expansion, it might be overwhelming. The stars shine in the far distance, unfamiliar constellations sketched out across a sky that stretches forever, without horizon. To one side, the ship--a gothic monstrosity of a thing, but still, a space ship--and on its other side, the brilliant green globe of the planet below. It's not Earth, not home, but there's still something... humbling, almost, about hovering here, looking down at the planet, and knowing there's a whole world there, full of people and places and things...
...and part of you really wants to launch a Hollow Purple at it, just. To see what happens. You bet you could crack the whole thing open with a big one, aimed just right. You ignore the impulse, because you're actually better than that, even if there will always be that part of you that really wants to know. You did just save the planet from an interdimensional invasion of cursed spirits. Daemons. Same thing.
Alaric reaches for your face with one massive hand, interrupting your philosophical train of thought, but otherwise failing to interfere with you. You let him get closer than before this time, but Infinity still catches him just under two centimetres from you. He snarls, and you give him your most insouciant smile in return.
His cursed energy surges, and you feel a sudden hammer on your mind.
If you were a lesser man, you would crumple in an instant.
You are not a lesser man. You are Gojo Satoru, and you are the strongest. RCT keeps working automatically, regenerating the damage done--and there was some damage done, turns out Alaric's not a complete hack--as you smile wider, and wag a finger.
Frost is crawling slowly across Alaric's face and armour, the small amount of moisture crystallising as silently as anything else out here. Fascinating. You kind of wonder how long he can last out here. As long as you? He does have the protection of his own cursed energy, crackling around and through him, and whatever protection his armour offers, and... Well, it is the future, and he's very nearly twice your size. There might be cybernetics, or bioengineered organs in there.
Alaric yells into the void, and sparks crackle around his hands--and space begins to warp around the pair of you. The space marine stops short, his eyes widening, the light in them dimming, and you can read a curse on his lips. He starts to pull his cursed energy back in, starts to do--something, you're not sure, you've never seen it before, but you? You are so much faster it's not even funny. You know how to handle portals and warped cursed energy, and it's a simple matter to shut it all down.
For you, anyway. You remember how much it had taken out of Calvara.
Alaric grits his teeth, and points at you, and then back to the ship. Well, that's easy enough to follow--he wants you back where he can breathe to yell at you. Fair enough. You'd want the same if you were him. So you take him down to the planet, back to the edge of that big hole you accidentally blew through it.
Your world is suddenly full of sound, pressure and vibration that you were never aware of before, but will now never fail to notice again. Air fills your lungs, and Alaric's cursing fills your ears, and the man stares at you like you've grown a second head. (You haven't, you would have noticed.)
"You done?" you ask idly, when the stream of invective finally stops.
"You," Alaric grinds you, and seems otherwise at a loss for words through his anger. He seems to notice the giant hole then, and does a double-take at the perfectly sheer walls, and the flawless curve as it circles off into the horizon. He calms as he looks at it, or at least gets himself under control, and you can see his gaze tracing the lines of it as far as he can, and then looking back to you.
"It seems I have underestimated you," he admits, grudgingly.
"Yeah, it's a pretty bad look," you reply. Damn, that hole is big though. You feel kind of bad about it. About the people you killed when you made it. Sure, you had no idea at the time how that portal would interact with Hollow Purple, but that feels less like a valid reason, and more like an excuse. You... yeah, you feel bad. You won't let yourself dwell on it, however, because there lies a different kind of yawning black pit of the sort that could easily eat a man. Not you, probably, but another man.
Alaric takes another look at the pit, and then looks back at you, and you can see him doing the maths. He doesn't strike you as unintelligent, just a tad belligerent, and, well. All sorcerers have their flaws.
"You did this," he states.
"Yep." You pop the P on purpose.
"Why?"
"Well, there was this naaasty bad portal," you start, and he holds up a hand to forestall you.
"That is enough," he says. "The end result is terrible, but worth it to prevent further incursions of the Warp."
"I dunno," you disagree. "The loss of life--"
"--was a small price to pay," Alaric cuts you off. You tilt your head slightly, regarding him. He seems to mean it, his face sober and serious in a different way than it has been before.
"Anyway," you say, before he can continue, and grab his shoulder again.
This time you're standing on one of the mountains you had glimpsed from space--that had been really handy for getting coordinates in your head--a cold, windswept peak, that nonetheless has a beacon of some sort planted atop it, another heavy, gothic thing, drippping with skulls and baroque ornamentation. There is a... person there, cybernetic tentacles sprouting from their back and working along with their hands to apply what you guess is lubricant to the exposed innards of the beacon.
To all appearances, they are completely oblivious to their surroundings, other than to their tools and parts, working quickly and carefully, a low buzzing, chirping drone coming from somewhere on them, like a chant made a dozen times in beeps and boops, much too fast for most minds to process. Your mind, of course, is capable of discerning that there is some meaning to it, even if you can't pick it out.
"Apologies for the interruption, Magos," Alaric says, deliberately turning his back on the--Magos, you guess.
The person jumps.
"Oh!" The voice is light, somewhere around a low alto or a tenor, and not at all as mechanical as you were expecting. Magos turns, revealing a face masked by tiny interlocking metallic scales, and a pair of obviously cybernetic eyes, one crystalline with a faint tracery of circuitry through it, the other a metallic replica of an eye, with a glowing red iris. "That's quite all right. I didn't hear you coming up."
"We teleported," you offer.
"Oh!" Magos exclaims again, in a tone exactly identical to the one they had used before. "I see. The matter must be urgent--but no matter how urgent, it can wait until I have finished the Ritual Of Unimpeded Movement. So you can wait over there-" one metallic tentacle, covered in the same tiny scales as their face, points "-until I grant you leave to approach once again."
Alaric pulls away from your grip, and moves to the designated spot, willingly, if not entirely cheerfully. You can't believe it. The same man who has been giving you so much trouble. Is just doing whatever--huh.
"Say, do you outrank him?" you ask, jerking a thumb at Alaric. The circuits in Magos' crystalline eye spin as they regard you, shifting and reconfiguring even as you watch. You wonder what that strange eye sees, looking into your own.
"We are not within the same rank structure," Magos says, and then pointedly turns back to what they are doing, ignoring you.
"Do not interrupt him," Alaric says, frowning deeply at you.
"Why?" you ask in return.
"How can you not--" He cuts himself off with a disgusterd noise. "The rituals of the Adeptus Mechanicus are vital to maintaining the function of their... sacred machines. The machine spirits must be appeased in order to ensure the proper functions," Alaric explains slowly, as if to a small child.
"It looks to me like he's just lubricating parts," you point out. "Same as we did in the past."
"Of course it's the same as was done in the past!" comes Magos' voice. "The Ritual Of Unimpeded Motion has been passed down for millennia, unchanged since its inception in the depths of time." He sounds almost offended. "It would be unthinkable to do otherwise. Now stand over there-" he points again, sharply this time "-and as the Librarian said, don't interrupt!"
[] Do as he says; wait with Alaric until Magos is done. Maybe make a nuisance of yourself to Alaric while you wait.
[] Interrupt. (How?)
[] Never mind this; time for another stop on your world tour!
[] Something else? (Write in.)
