“Who are you?” I asked, trembling in fury as livid arcs of power jumped over my skin. “And what have you doo Selene?”

  My aura was fring and I could tell everyone on the ship with even a nick of psychic potential could feel it. The … thing in front of me was Selene. Every cell of her body fit, every strand of hair, even the expressions, the way she liked to half-smirk a her eyelids fall halfway wheeased me. Everything was hers.

  But it stank. And I couldn’t tell why … the link. Of course. How could I be so stupid? I had a damelepathid with her, and it was missing.

  No. Not missing. It’s still there, but not linkio this fake. I calmed down instantly as I felt Selehe real Selene’s shock at my outburst from somewhere above me. A flush of embarrassment ran up my cheeks, then I huffed out a breath as I gred at the stupid fug thing.

  That was all the warning it got before I shed out. It danced out of the way, but a bst of furious energy tore off its shoulder and then I was on it. My fingers closed around its ne vice as I moved faster than ever before even as my Custodian-grade muscles tore from the strain and mehemselves a moment after.

  “Yoing to pay for that scare.” I tightened my grip and flooded its body with the most painful electricity possible. “Py stupid games, win stupid prizes.”

  It screamed, eerily still sounding like Selene as it did and I couldn’t help the shudder that rushed down my spine from that. Even just a fake mimig its voice, imagining the real her being made to scream like that tore at my heart.

  Then it started giggling, transf into a full-blown cackle even as I was running a whole-ass industrial geor’s worth of electricity frying its nerves. What, the, fubsp;

  “What a bust.” It croaked out between giggles. “What gave it away? Hey, tell me? ’t just be that your love wouldn’t have said what I said? I know it wasn’t. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me.”

  “Daemon.” I said, my eyes widening for a moment and I saw glee ihing’s eyes as it saw my surprise. Then it must have seen the cruel glint fsh behind my eye as its grin fell away.

  I didn’t say anything. I just ihe electricity with Smite.

  I thought it was screaming before, but that was merely an imitation. This stupid thing mimig a human’s reas. Now, though? Now the Daemon was screaming from the depths of its infernal soul as my energy tore into it and annihited it part by part. Slowly. Oh, I went slow and ehe sheer agony in its eyes as it tried to twist itself out of my grasp.

  It was like a hundred people screaming as one. Like a hundred pigs getting sughtered, a certo of chalk screeg on a hundred bckboards. The voices fluctuated from young to old, human to alien.

  It went sck, bones melting, flesh softening and skin turning liquid in my grasp, but I ed the whole disgusting goop up in a psychic barrier and squeezed it into a ball and tio ever so slowly fry its soul.

  “Ea?”

  I turned my head to her. I could tell this Selene was the real one, I felt our Bond as clearly as a physical thread ing around my throat. She must have rushed down here after she felt my outburst, maybe even Blinking. Did she learn how to Blink in my one month of being a shut-in? Or was it Val who teleported her down? “Yes?”

  “What are you doing? What’s up? I felt-”

  “I know.” I set my jaw, returning a seething gre at the shrill daemon goop. I ed a field of soundproofing shield around the already existing Barrier. “This … thing. Dared to impersonate you. It- I’m going to kill it. Slowly.”

  “Oh,” she just stared for a sed, lips pulled into a thin line as she watched the ing goop as it formed hands to cw at my shields, nails digging in surprisingly deep, but tearing off as I tugged at the shields just so. “Wh- What did it do? I mean- the-”

  “Don’t worry about that,” I said. “It just … spouted the typical Daemonic bullshit. Wanted me to bee some monster and ‘shed off my facade of humanity’. Well, I’m curious how much of a human it thinks I still am right now.”

  “You are … t it.”

  “I am,” I said, only realising what she was meaning. “We agreed I torture when it has some goal. I have to make this damhing pay. Or we are going to have a bunch of these shits running around and tormenting us. They never learn. Only oblivion makes them feel true fear and that is what I am going to give this thing.”

  “I … see.” She gulped. azes locked together and I saw worry in her eyes, and a hint of fear. I paused. What. No. No. That was bad. Really, really fug bad. She shouldn’t have to fear anything, least of all me. “Could you … get it over with? For me? Kill that thing quickly, don’t py with it. Please?”

  My hands ched into fists, my nails digging into my flesh and drawing blood. I took a deep breath. Then another.

  I pulled my hand out of the orb-like barrier and stopped electrifying the goop, whistantly calmed down a into overdrive. Frantically trying to break out, but I was not holding baything. Flesh eeling bay fingers from the amount of soul-energy flowing through my bones and p that barrier. Not even Guilliman could have cwed his way out of that prison without his fancy sword.

  Though it was exorbitantly costly on my reserves. I really should get it over with.

  “Alright,” I said, fog on Seleo keep my emotions under some measure of trol and calm. “Alright. Okay. Sure.”

  I turned back to the goop orb. “Well, it was most certainly not a pleasure knowing you, whoever the fuck you are. I hope your fellows heard your screams and learn their pce lest they end up like you.”

  My barrier shuddered and I could tell it was screaming again, cursing me and swearing up and down how my soul will be torn to shreds when ‘the rest find me’. I let myself smile at that. They’ll learn. Sooner or ter. Though I’d still have to avoid Greater Daemons as much as I . I’ll have to my base up in as many anti-daemon sigils and wards as physically possible. Anything short of dreng it all in Sisters of Battle blood like those Grey Knights did their ons. I don’t want any other surprises like this.

  Smite-infused soul energy jumped to my fingers, flowing through my bones unimpeded and gathering in my fist in more and more potey with every passing moment.

  My flesh further peeled back, but I hardly cared. It’d be ba a minute. After I took care of the Daemon.

  I unched my hand without another word, my fingers poised like the tip of a spear and brimming with Smite-infused energy as they nced right into the goop. Then the energy exploded outwards and burst into the twisting daemon. I could tell it tried to run, to slip out of the orb-like barrier by flowing over my wrist or even invading my body, but it severely uimated the amount of energy I was willing to waste oing it dead right then and there as quickly as possible.

  Boxed in by the orb, it had o go and soon the only things that remained inside were my rampaging smite and my ranslut hand. I dismissed it all, sug the lingering energy bato my Puddle.

  I don’t feel even a hint of daemoniergy in it. It’s dead as be.

  “Done,” I said, flig my messed up hand and having flesh and skin flow back over it. I could have built another damned fake spaceship like the one we were riding out of the bio-energy it took to heal up a single hand of my new Psyker Form. “It’s dead.”

  “Dead dead, or baext week dead like demons usually are?”

  “It ’t get any more dead than it is right now,” I smirked. “I annihited it down to the st flick of energy. That thing is most certainly not ing back ever again.”

  “What was that thing anyway?” Selene asked, scowling at the floor where the grey goop was not so long ago. “Besides ‘a daemon’. I don’t think I ever heard of daemons like that.”

  “Have you heard a lot about daemons?” I raised an eyebrow. “I thought they were pretty much taboo to talk about in the Imperium.”

  “Val told me the basics,” she shrugged. “So? What was it?”

  “Good question,” I said, rubbing my . Then paused as a little s of warhammer lore came bae. “Could it have been that one? But … “

  ‘The geling, also known as the "Trickster of Tzeentch," is a Daemonic Herald of Tzeentch who epitomises the Lord of ge's love of sowing discord and distrust, and his perverse sense of humour.

  Tzeentch long ago bestowed upon the geling a doppelganger's ability to assume any shape, from that of the ti io the rgest Greater Daemon.’

  “It died pretty easily … hmmmm.” I frowned in fusion. That thing was supposed to be on the level of a Greater Daemon and should have been capable of fooling even the mightiest of beings ience. I think I remember it being at the cil of Nikea, hiding uhe nose of the Emperor and half a dozen Primarchs … then there was that time it snuto Khorhroneroom and put a … fartpillow on his throne? Or was that just a silly meme? Hmmmm.

  “What are you thinking?” Selene asked, sliding up o me and ing a hand around my waist. She rubbed my side fly, as if trying to calm an angry cat by scratg it behind the ears.

  “I’ve heard of a shape-ging daemon before,” I said, leaning into her half-hug. “But this thing died too fast, too easily for it to have been The geling.”

  “Wait,” Selene said. “‘The’ geling? As in, this was supposedly a unique one?”

  “As far as I know,” I shrugged. “There are other shape-gers in this gaxy that I know of, but none of them even e close to the perfect mimicry the geling supposedly has. Plus, it was a daemon. I’m sure of that, at least.”

  “So, hypothetically, what would the sequences be if you really did kill that unique daemon?”

  “Nothing much,” I said, my lips curling into a smirk. “I just killed one of Tzeentch’s favourite daemons, he’ll probably ugh his ass off and leave me alone, right?”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah,” I snorted. “‘Oh’, indeed. We might be fucked.”

  And here I was, thinking I could avoid them messing with me this early on. I’ll have to speed my pns up. That base outfitted with anti-daemon sigils and more o be ready yesterday.

  “Worse yet,” I closed my eyes as I felt my little Realm. “I just wasted almost a fifth of my entire Soul Energy reserves.”

  “Meaning?” Selene asked, and I could feel her worry spiking.

  “Meaning we have to speed things up if we don’t want to get caught with our pants down,” I said. “With this thing dead, I doubt it’ll take long for a stronger daemon to e after me. Or a horde of them, even. If there is ohing these fuckers fear, it’s oblivion and I just showed them I make even a daemon as strong as the geling face it. They’ll want the threat I pose gone as soon as possible.”

  Well. The Greater Daemons will. If I know ohing about Tzeenth, it’s that he enjoys anything that spices up the Great Game and I am a whole fug bucket of chilli poured right into it. But that just means he won’t put in any personal effort into getting me killed.

  Selene squeezed me tightly, worry flowing into her aura like a riptide. I uood, really. Daemohe ultimate boogeymen in this gaxy. They ed the mind, never died and their masters were powerful enough to orchestrate the Horus Heresy and put the Emperor himself out of ission.

  “It’ll be fine,” I said, my emotions shown clearly through our Bond. I was worried, true, but I was annoyed more than anything. “We just o prepare a ready. Daemons aren’t omnipotent and they ’t just materialise on a thought. We have some time.”

  “What do you need me to do?” She asked, staring up at me resolutely.

  “Keep up your training,” I said. “And try to pry whatever information you out of Val. I know there are Daemon wards, sigils and whatnot that obstruct them. I’m not sure if he knows of them, but if he does, I don’t have to hunt down some Imperial Inquisitor to get my hands on them.”

  “Okay, sure. What else?”

  “Nothi.” I shrugged, crag my neck. “We o get these fish heads to hurry the hell up. But I’ll hahat. Aside from that … I don’t know yet.”

  “Okay,” she said. “If you need me to do anything, just ask.”

  “Thank you,” I squeezed her a bit tighter. “You are perfect. We’ll hahis. o worry overly much. Worst case sario, we run and hide under a random Tyranid Hive Fleet’s Shadow.”

  P3t1