Necrology

## Premise

An Imperial Investigation is sent to distance Black Ops research facility, however, they discover things they did not expect

## Characters

* Dr. Fadicun Moro: The cybernetics ridden and essentric old man, is the only researcher at the institutes. Where his loyalties lie however, are not certain.
* Inquisitor Mire: A dark Psy Warrior (Basically a Dark Jedi but let's not go there) the easily annoyed dark warrior has been dispatched by his master to investigate the Institute and its status.
* Inquisitorial Assistant Zerga: Mainly called the 'Assistant', she is Mire' apprentice as an Inquisitor.
* Captain Texton: Captain of Mire's personal troopers.
* Pending,

## Part 1

The ship sped through hyperspace, a blue tunnel of energy and light, which flowed past it, unconcerned with its presence in this alternate state. It was like a small black dagger moving through this dimension like a blade.

"Inquisitor..." said the pilot "We have entered the system and are approaching the destination, however..."

"However, what?"

"There is a strange hyperspace disturbance around the planet, we may have to come out of hyperspace some distance away, adding to travel time." There was a deep inhale of the com-system.

"Very well..." he replied in an annoyed tone.

The blue streaks of hyperspace faded away just before the ship came upon a red mass of energy. The ship returned to 'real' space, and they came out some distance from the world they were travelling. Even from afar, the world could be seen for what it was, a dark grey dust ball that could only best be described as 'dead'. Yet there was life on this world, or there was supposed to be. The ship came down to the planet's surface. The gravity was just a bit less than Earth's and yet, there was no atmosphere. No one could say why, this world was in the 'goldilock zone' in orbit around its twin stars, it was just far enough, and close enough that running water should've formed on its surface, that gasses should've clung to its surface and form an atmosphere, clouds, weather, life should've sprung up on this world...but it didn't and no one could really say why.

The ship flew towards the base, a small fortress of cylinders joined together on a mountain top. The side of one of these towers opened up for the ship to enter, and it closed within them. Gas was quickly pumped into the hangar as soon as the doors had closed.

From the moment the ship landed, he felt discomfort. The young man, was tall, with pale skin, silky short black hair, and wore a black body suit, with black armor, with red highlights. His cape was black with a red interior, and his eyes were rings of crimson.

He sat in the shuttle, next to a woman with long dark hair, and wearing a hood, the shadows hiding her face.

"What's wrong...?" she asked.

"Do you not feel it...sense it...?" he replied "Something is wrong about this place."

"Afraid...?"

"This is not time for a jest. The professor has a lot to explain..."

"You're afraid..." she said giggling..." He simply grumbled as he got up.

The door opened, a ramp for the inquisitor his assistant and the troopers in grey, black and red to descend from. The troopers, ordinary soldiers, in black body suits, with grey ceramic armor, with red lines and black markings, their helmets had slants for faces with black glass in the front. They were armed with rather long rifles, blaster rifles, ionized bundles of particles, condensed together and fired via electrical forces.

The group of ten, the inquisitor, his assistant, and the eight troopers with him, came down the ramp to...a robot. It was humanoid, grey in armor plating, but there were visible wires and tubing underneath the armor, with large gaps. Its face was a flat rectangle with two glowing optics and a rectangular piece, a stereo for its voice.

"Greetings, Inquisitor, you have been expected."

"Oh..." the young man responded, then where is your master...?"

"Lost in his work, unfortunately he is often forgetful of events outside his research."

The creature screamed. It was humanoid, with three clawed feet and two digits and a thumb on its hands. Its features were angular, and thin, and its ears were pointed. As its mouth stretched open, its rather long upper incisors were clearly visible. It wore nothing than a loincloth, its grey hued skin bare for the lights and all to see.

It was strapped down to a metal table, with mechanical arms all about it. Some held down its gaunt and stringy limbs, which were somehow still struggling, others were injecting it with blue green chemicals, or extracting dark red bile, or were holding open and wide the large gash that had been made in its chest. Another arm came, and it injected some manner of foam into the wound, which began to smoke as the creature continued to scream. Up above this room, in the control booth, looking down was an old man.

This human wore a white body suit and lab coat with a red stripe, though his was old, tattered and with stains around the feet and coat tails. He wore a chest piece over this, with a metal pack pack. and his legs were in a barren exo frame, the legs of power armor, but without the power armor, and connected to the back pack by a wire. The old man wore goggles, and had wild, messy, greasy grey hair, and held a staff, a metal rod, with a wooden butt but the head was a menagerie of various devices and crowed by what looked to be a human skull with green optics in the eye sockets.

He leaned on this staff as he sometimes stood up to write on his data pad, with a stylus, dotting down information.

"So, the abomination does not react well to medi-gel, yet its skin holds some manner of resistance to it...hmmm...hmmm."

"Professor..." said the inquisitor behind him.

"SWEET JIVES!!!" the old man exclaimed as he jump. "What is wrong with you, you almost gave me a heart attack!" The inquisitor's assistant looked through the window and stared and the struggling, screaming and alien being. "Who are you...?"

"I am Inquisitor Mire..."

"Ah, yes, the Inquisitor, here for an expection."

"Inspection..."

"That's what I said..." Mire's eye twitched in annoyance.

"Professor..." said the assistant "What species is that...?" The professor looked back at her.

"Human..." She looked at him "Oh, I am most serious. Come, come..." he pressed a button on the tablet computer he held, and the operation room sank down, as hangar doors closed above it.

## Part 2

"Here in this facility, we, and by 'we' I mean 'I', research things that much of the scientific world view as...'unethical' or 'far fetched'. Said the old man as he walked down the hall way. The Inquisitor and his entourage were annoyed at having to move so slowly "Artificial Intelligence, which sadly, has been discontinued, applications for psychic and...other esoteric forces in weaponry, bio enhancements the likes have never been seen and the study of creatures whose biology operates outside the general standard models!"

The group had walked down the hallway to a large circular room, golden, with several red crystals on statues. They resembled hooded figures with the crystals serving as faces, and in the middle of the room, was a great tree of circuits and wiring, that rose up with another, large crystal in the center.

"What is this?" asked the assistant

"This is where I come to meditate. Do not mind it, but it is possibly the prettiest part of this entire facility." He continued walking towards the other side of the room.

"And that creature...That 'vampire'...?"

"That creature, that creature has no discernible pulse, his blood chemistry is mind boggling, and it can survive indefinitely on blood."

"You jest...?"

"Oh, hardly. I also have zombies, if you're interested, a bio-plague though, nothing really interesting there. We also have experimentation in bio enhancements, organic, synthetic, and more traditional cybernetics, though I don't think we can call 'that' 'traditional'..." he laughed to himself, at his own inside joke. The others thought him simply strange, and he had done little to dissuade them of that notion. They marched to the other side of the great hall and went down another hallway, the old man was still talking about his achievements, their applications for war, so on, and so forth. The assistant however, stopped in front of a door, with two troopers, those ordered to watch her, stopping with her.

Her senses, her sixth sense, had been poked, and plucked, and felt a...calling on the other side of a door. The rest of the group had walked on but she stayed behind. She attempted to crack the security panel, it would not respond. Instead she outstretched her hand, a psychic was radiated, signified by bolts of electricity jumping between her glove and the panel, and then it relented.

It opened to another door, another hallway, a dark one, with no lights. Look down the path, it felt almost like...staring into a bottomless pit to her point of view. Yet she would not be dissuaded. She pressed onward, to another door, with another terminal. Again she forced it open, and the door revealed...a storeroom, filled with metal crates, boxes, of what she naturally assumed was junk, except for one thing.

She turned on a light, from her shoulder pad, and her guards turned on the lights from their helmets, and yet the object seemed to reject the light.

It was a robot, bipedal, two arms, and lacking anything beyond servo mechanics, motors and hydraulics, forming the shape of legs arms, fingers and a humanoid body. Its head sported a somewhat feline appearance but the metal, the metal was unlike anything she had seen before.

To call it black would be an understatement, for it radiated darkness. Its powerless, rectangular optics were not as dark was the armor plating of its head. The line shined upon it, seemed to only generate an aura of darkness, a black mantle that hugged the metal skin tight, but could be noticed. She leaned down and touched it and she recoiled her hand and looked at.

She felt...cold, a cold shiver, like all the heat in her finger suddenly ran off in fear. She felt cold as if she had touched freezing metal, with her gloves, multilayered gloves, base on the garments of a space suit... Her fingers showed now signs of ice, the sensation was gone as fast as it had arrived, but she remembered it, its intensity, its unannounced brutality on her sense.

"I know it was dark..." said the old man, now behind them "but the sign does say 'junk'." They looked back to see the professor and the rest of the troopers.

"What is this...?" she ask, no demanded.

"A prototype, a failed one, the metal...it is difficult to use. I believe the makers of it called it... 'Dark Iron', or at least...that's the closest translation."

"I heard...screaming...I felt screaming..."

"Yes well, it's a psychically treated metal based on darker emotions, what primitives would call 'dark magic', but now come along. There are interesting things to see, not this room full of failures."

"Why is this a failure...?" she asked defensively

"Because everything made with that stuff, goes haywire, assuming you can stuff enough power in there to get it moving."

## Part 3

He was meditating, the Inquisitor. Since he arrived on the planet, he felt...disquiet, he could not calm down, and in the deepest parts of him he felt...threatened...scared, and this was abhorrent to him.

He was alone, in that room, sitting at the table, trying to spread out psychic field, trying to push his awareness, his power, further...and failing. He was convinced now, there was....something blocking his power, his psychic abilities, and that was...dangerous to him, he who's position in the Empire was brought about because of his gifts. The idea that they had created a device to counter psychic powers...now that was disquieting.

He concentrated more, and more until...until, with darkness of his eyelids, blocking all light, he could hear it, a large, very large thing, crawling, its scaly hide being dragged across the metal floor, by clawed limbs. Each step was registered with a thud, and the screeching of claw against metal, and scrapping of scales against said floor.

He opened his eyes, and though the table and chair, and his own person were visible..everything else was simple darkness. An expanding black, that surrounded him, having devoured, floor walls, and ceiling.

He stood up, having spotted them, two red dots in the dark, eyes, staring at him.

"Identify yourself..." There was no response. "I am Lord Inquisitor Mire, of the Empire, and on that authority you will identify yourself!" He drew a cylinder shaped device, and pressed a button, a blade of yellow plasma was emitted from it, yellow, with a red core. "The you will be destroyed!" There was a growl, deep, beastly, and thunderous, coming from the darkness, from the eyes. It sounded like it belong to whatever beast was causing those noises before. Mire took a fighting stance, putting both hands on his sword handle.

The eyes rose up, and out he walked, a tall figure in black armor and ropes. His carapace sported spikes, and black drapes with gold lining. His face was hidden behind a mask. The top half was that of a skull, with the two red dots in the center. The lower half, was like a samurai's, a mouth guard, with bared fangs, and two tusks pointing out to the side. This warrior also sported a samurai like helmet, and an energy blade that was same color as Mire's when activated.

"Is this some manner of trick?!" exclaimed Mire. "I am no child afraid of shadows!" Again there was nothing, no response, nothing just, indifferent, practically maddening silence. Mire charged and swung, his blade was blocked and where the blades met, there was a bright light, from the two plume of plasma competing with each other.

It seemed as if Mire was forcing the warrior's blade down, until he brought it back up in a swing that sent him flying back. Mire was stunned, that strength was inhuman, but he was a proud one, an angry one. His emotions got the best of him as he got up and charged again. He swung and swung and swung, and stranger blocked, parried and deflected his attacks, sometimes changing his sword hand, but he never moved from that spot. His upper body moved, his arms moved, he turned, but his feet were like columns, never moving, never stumbling, noticing this just infuriated Mire, the idea of being...plebeian. This enraged him, until he charged, arms up and full committed to his swing. The stranger blocked it, and for a second he leaned back, as if he was about to be pushed over. Then he directed Mire's blade to the other side onto the ground and brought up his blade, taking it straight through, just underneath his jaw.

Mire woke up. The event of death, snapped him out of his dream. He found himself at the table, in the room, while the Professor returned with his assistant and the troopers. He got up, suddenly noticing that his blade handle was warm, as if he had used the object.

"My apologies for the delay..." said the professor "Your assistance here seems keen on walking off. I would advise she not do that...?"

"Oh, and why is that...?" she asked defensively.

"There are...things in here, that are best not let out, from plagues, to infections, we even have zombies here, and you've seen the 'vampire'. No, there is a reason why this place was built on a lifeless dirt ball, in the fringes of known space. There is also a reason why there is a self destruct mechanism aimed at taking out this entire facility in one go. This place is dangerous."

"Please, my master is a Psi Warrior, he can deal with anything that comes his way."

"I doubt that..."

"And why is that...?" asked Mire annoyed. The old man turned to him, with an eyebrow raised in shock that he needed to ask.

"You've felt, yes, or more accurately, you 'don't' feel it. There is Psi Blocker in ever tower of this building, my own design, for you are not the only 'psychic' on the premises." There was shock at that announcement, the idea of a device that could block the power of psychics was...almost 'heretical', to Mire, whose status and rank was born of his gift.

"How did you come by this?!" he barked, clenching his fist and teeth."

"I cannot say..." the professor said defiantly. Mire rushed towards him and grabbed him by the throat.

"You will answer me, you little-" The professor slammed the butt of his staff into the ground and everyone but him found themselves about to keel over and stumbling.

"I WILL SAY NOTHING!" shouted the professor "All you need to know is that your powers do not work, not properly anyways. The device was created for the protection...of the empire! To reveal its idiosyncrasies however, WOULD BE TANTAMOUNT TO TREASON! You can pull out your blade, or call your lackeys, but I know where my loyalties lie!" Mire was silent...with begrudging respect. With a 'hmph', and a short pout of his chest, the issue was over.

"Very well...what else do you have here old man.

"Yes, well..." said Dr. Moro. Then the optics of the skull on his staff began to flash. "Oh dear..."

"What is it...?"

"Don't leave here..." he said with a worried tone. He walked out of the room, and they could hear blast doors falling down on the other side sealing them in.

## Part 4

Moro walked into a small room. It was dark, perhaps because it was so scarce. There was nothing there but a small station, clearly meant for his staff, which he placed within. Immediately the staff became an altar, as it contacted downward, and the side around it opened, revealing a large menagerie of devices and objects that merged with the cluster that was beneath the skull.

Moro knelt and clasped his hands as if in prayer.

"Master..." The optics turned blood red, as the jaw opened, and a red, thick, liquid pored out and pooled around the base before moving to the professor's side and disappearing into the walls. The voice that spoke was, synthesized, created entirely by a computer

"The Inquisitor, he scratches against the veil, the veil cannot be breached."

"Well...?" asked the assistant. Mire had his hand against the door, his eyes closed and concentrating.

"Nothing..." said Mire "Whatever means the good doctor has to block psychic powers, it is highly effective...I feel...mortal..."

"Come now, it's not that bad..." she said in an amused tone.

"I am an Inquisitor, chosen for my gift to enforce the might of the Empire, to be rendered this...weak...thing...The old man has much to answer for."

"I doubt he will answer..."

"Oh he will..."

"Master...I found something..."

"No doubt..."

"It was...an old robot, made of this strange...black medal...it...it shined with darkness."

"Rather poetic today, aren't we...?"

"I can think of no other way to describe it. I touched it and...it was cold..."

"Don't go touching strange things with your bare hands, you're not a child..."

"I know...and I didn't." Mire looked at her "He plays it off an 'security' measures...but I think he's hiding something, something big."

"On what grounds...?"

"How did he get all of this stuff, of these things, there are no files, nor records of purchases..."

"He Imperial black ops..."

"We're the Inquisition, that...should matter anymore. Master, he's hiding something, and I don't doubt when he says he would die to protect it." Mire stepped back from the door.

"Then our only course of action is clear."

Several minutes later, the sound of the blast doors being dragged back up into their containers echoed within the chamber, and through the halls, and the labs, and the cells. A few minutes later, Moro entered the room, his staff clean and returned to normal.

"Ah, sorry about that, had to go..." The Professor paused and looked at the group huddled together in the center of the room. "Where is your assistant...?"

"She has returned to the ship."

The assistant walked through the halls, with a pair of special goggles on. They were some what large, with cubic pieces on the side of her head, bending to contour to its shape, and green optics, that gave off a dim glow. These goggles, did not just night vision, they scanned for security systems, and augmented what she saw to know how to avoid them.

Oddly enough, there was not much, at least, not for her. She was in a cell block, and she had been made away of the mechanism for this entire section, a lock, ready to be undone, and her best guess, was to drop the section and all its 'content' into molten magma below. She passed service droids, but they either didn't notice her or care, she was clearly too 'normal' to be of interest to them. They went about, either entering and leaving rooms, or dropping, or collecting trays of nutrient packs.

This hardly seemed a place of science, more a prison, or...an asylum, given the screaming and the growling, and roaring. Yet behind all of that noise...was crying, sobbing and she followed that. The source of it was in a cell, marked by characters she did not know the context for, 'D-M'. She looked through the small window, a small rectangular opening, with bars and a green tinted force field. On the floor, in the corner, was the creature from before, the 'vampire', in the fetal position, rocking back and force sobbing.

"Hello...?" she said. The creature jumped back, clinging to the corner and hissing.

"GO AWAY, GO AWAY...!" he said in a strange accent "WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME, YOUR MASTER ALREADY TOOK MY KINGDOM, MY BELOVED, my home, my dignity..." the rage and venom just dissolved into tears and despair.

"Who are you...?"

"Who are you...?' The assistant removed her goggles, but put them back on as it was too dark for her see. She was shocked when she saw again, and he was right in front of her. "You are not a clock work thing...? You are not one of his pawns...?"

"Whose pawn? Moro's?"

"Moro...? The small man bah, he is but a puppet!"

"To whom...?"

"If you do not know, counter your blessing and thank your gods..." The creature returned to his corner and huddled back into the fetal position.

"You're scared..."

"How can I not?! You would be too, if you knew what rules here?"

"I serve the Imperial Inquisition which rules this galaxy..."

"Galaxy...?"

"We have rule over many worlds across the stars..."

"You could rule several oceans of stars, it matters not, not with him. I do not know why you're here, but find it and leave, or he may take an interest in you..."

"Who is this eponymous 'he' that you speak of, and why should we fear him, we rule the stars..."

"You rule nothing except that which he not decided to conquer."

"...Okay, and to whom am I speaking..."

"I was a king once, a king of blood, I ruled of kingdom of darkness and my knights rode as death on the winds...Then my...'brother' and his 'peers' brought it all ruin. He did not even have the courtesy of giving me a warrior's end, to allow me to fall with dignity. No, he locked me up in here, as plaything to his minion!"

"Your brother did this to you...?" She did not notice the pair of red eyes at the end of the hallway staring at her.

"That 'thing' was never my brother. It simply played the part, until it no longer needed to."

"Does this 'thing' have a name?" He looked up at her.

"It does and it is best you not mention it."

"Why...?"

"It draws its attention..."

"Don't tell me you're scared...broken...tamed..." He growled "What is his name?"

It is S-"

"Specimen disposal activated." Said the computer. Both were shocked, but not like the vampire. The inside of his cell glowed bright white, and radiated energy upward, a bright light, that she had to turn away from as his last sound was a blood curdling scream as his body was turned to ash. She stepped back in horror and then turned.

She stopped mid step as she saw them, the two little spots of light, glowing a sinister red. She scanned for it, and her equipment told here...there was nothing there. That was when she ran the other direction.

## Part 5

"You said she went to the ship yes...?" said Moro, as he looked at the head of his staff, which was now flashing red.

"Indeed." responded Mire. As if in response she arrived, the assistant, panting. Moro stood up and glared at Mire, before turning to walk towards her. Mire simply gave a hand signal, and all at once his troopers stood up, raised their guns and opened fire, firing energy bolts into his back and side, and leaving him floored and smoking. Yet his staff remained erect, possibly by some mechanism within it. Mire got up as his assistant walked towards him. "Well...?"

"There...there is something here...something not in the cells, not...an experiment...Moro, is..." she looked at his corpse and took a deep breath "...'was', working for someone, some...'thing'."

"You saw it...?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes...and no...There was something in the dark, two glowing red eyes...and my scanners...they picked up nothing... It was like..."

"A psychic presence..." Mire said concerned "A Psychic Inhibitor, a practically impossible piece of technology, no one has ever...figured out. At best we have places of high signal traffic, but a Psychic would just stand out as their powers...disrupts everything. No, the only other option...would be a place full of other psychics...or perhaps...a field generator...that mimics a psychic field..." He touched the staff.

From his point of view, he was back in that darkness, surrounded by a void, his senses picking up a presence behind him. He turned and there he was, the black warrior again. He was a bit different, but it was him.

"You...you graze against the veil..." said the black warrior. His voice was not his own, and Mire recognized his own voice being spoken to him "You must not pierce the veil."

"Oh now, you talk, who are you?!" There was silence. "What happens when I pierce 'the veil'."

"Fire, and Death and Chaos."

"Are you trying to intimidate me?" he said with a bemused smirk.

"Professor..." Mire was confused "raise thyself..."

Mire was awoken, he was awoken when a pulse of energy forced his hand of the staff and sent him flying across the room, arcs of electricity that left his armor and clothing singed, and him in pain. He was kept conscious only by force of will as the others were also knocked back by the shock wave. Arcs of energy jumped between the staff and the professor's corpse beneath it. Mire realized however, that it was not simple 'electricity' the air, space, warped around the energy as it moved from one container to the other, and the blue glow was the atmosphere in the energy's path, being ionized, heated up to near, or a plasma state, before dissipating just as fast. Said energy was flowing into Moro's corpse, animating it, and...he stood up.

It was obvious to Mire as he drew and activated his energy sword, that the old man, was barely human anymore. Besides the arm that held the stuff, the rest of his body seemed limp, but moved with a robotic mannerism. His eyes glowed the same color as his staff's optics, with scars forming around them, like circuits and the inside of his mouth had turned silver and gunmetal black.

"It is...unfortunate..." said Moro. His voice was now electronic "that I had to undergo this transformation. I truly did enjoy my flesh and blood." Mire sat up, and was on one knee.

"What is this...?"

"In this place, I have done...things, horrible things, I have been around horrible things. The cyber beasts, the undead things, HAH! They are hardly the worse thing I've examined in this place. But...even being around such...abominations...can have detrimental affects on one's soul, and mind, weakening them, driving one mad and into an early grave. So...I needed protection..."

"What...wait...what are you a professor of?"

"Necrology..."

"What...?"

"The study..." Moro raised his hands into the air as if giving praise, or worshiping "of Death!" He brought his hands back down. "The study, of how it works, how it starts, how to hold it off, how to eventually stop...or circumvent it."

"You're a scientific necromancer..." said Mire feeling like he was finally understanding what this entire thing was about.

"Hmmm, not a bad way to describe it, but yes... I suppose you can describe me as a techno-lich, yes..."

"You're as much a monster as anything in here. So I take it, your boss is also interested in becoming immortal!"

"No..."

"What...?" Mire was now even more confused

"My master is beyond death, rules death, this facility is not here for petty mortal things, petty mortal schemes, petty mortal fears! NO! MY MASTER..." The ground rumbled, but it was no random quake, no it felt like...a 'growl'... "My master is not interested in glory, nor pleasing is sharing his identity."

"What, he afraid...?"

"Not, of you..." Mire growled "Proud petty inquisitor, you think your Empire is supreme, bah, you know nothing..." Moro began to walk away, because now the others were beginning to wake up.

"Do not turn your back on me!" Mire roared up and charged, ready to stab with his sword. However, the staff head spun around on its own, with all its contraptions and the mouth opened as if screaming. A pulse of that strange energy went out, focused on him, and sent him flying, as Moro walked off.

## Part 6

Mire stood up in the darkness, again, still feeling the pain, this time the warrior in black was backing him.

"So who are you?" shouted Mire. The warrior did not answer. Mire's pride became rage, and he drew his weapon and charged. The warrior turned around and also activated his blade, but for once, it was not enough. For once, sublime mastery was bested by simple savagery. The warrior was cut down, and he fell, and he shattered into nothing.

Mire panted and stopped, and realized, the black void had changed. Around him were currents of black liquid and a glowing crimson substance that flowed from one horizon to another. Within them eyes opened, opened and closed and those eyes, he could tell instinctively, they had seen many things, many things were caught under the red ember like glow in their dark of those eyes.

They flowed from one direction to other, behind him. He turned around and found that they flowed, to behind a large statue, gargantuan, that he lower half descended into the streams beyond his sight. They flowed behind the statue, into some manner of crimson sun that glowed behind the black stone statue, hiding its already dark features behind shadow. All he knew was that it had claws, and large, rectangular, dome eyes, that glowed with the...same...crimson light...as the diamond on its forehead...

Mire quickly realized several things, whether by his psychic nature, or simple instinct, or the raw and powerful emotion it radiated that any idiot could've picked up. He realized it was staring down at him, he realized it was absurdly powerful, he also realized it was angry with him.

"Who...are you...?" asked Mire, and this time he was 'asking'. There was no 'demanding' in his tone, no sense of entitlement, nor superiority. It was a simple question, from a frightened man. From behind the giant's form, came hands, more black, clawed hands that moved like rivers of black tar, and sported arcs of red lightning as they approached him. He knew he was in trouble, and panicked, then he remember how he awoken last time. and drove his blade, up through his lower jaw.

Mire awoke in a cold sweat, surrounded by his assistant, and his troopers.

"Sir.." said the Captain. Mire noted the two by the door trying to weld it open with portal torch cutters "He's sealed the doors." His assistant helped him up.

"What's wrong with you...?" she asked.

"I saw it, Moro's master..."

"So who is it..." Mire was silent.

"I don't know...but I know now why he worships it."

"What does that mean...?" Mire looked at her.

"We need to leave now..." Mire walked over towards the door's terminal and outstretched his palm. His veins began to pup up as he used his power on it. Eventually the door opened, and he jumped back. The beast was humanoid, or it was. Its head was encased in a helmet, and its arms, which were clearly too large for its body, had metal cable rising out and diving back into its augmented flesh, while its hands had been replaced by mechanical pincers. Mire knelt down as his men opened fire, a shot a barrage of energy bolts into the creature's chest, flooring it, and leaving it smoking.

As Mire stood up, however, he realized that the smoke was not simply from the blaster wounds. Its wounds were were bubbling, smoking, closing. It was going to come back and it did. Mire ducked beneath it s swipe and cut of its arm, and cut of the other at the shoulder. The creature did not react to pain, it reacted in surprise that its arms were gone, so it just roared, and Mire lopped of its head. Yet, he knew it was not done. Something wriggled about under its skin, and made the corpse jitter about. From the neck and its wounds where its arm and hand where came metal tentacles made of cables, clearly searching for the missing parts.

Mire cut the mount of flesh in two, down the middle. Among the burnt flesh and cauterized muscles were lumps of metallic flesh, like metal fibers knits into the shape of organs, and filled with some strange glowing liquid. "Let's go..." said Mire, not keen to stop and investigate. "Captain...thermal detonator." As the group moved out of the room the captain threw a sphere shape metal device, with a red button, into the middle of the carnage, that was pulling itself back together.

It was seconds after they had gone down the hall and turned the corner, that they then heard the explosion, and felt a gush of air, from the way they came.

"Think that finished it...?" asked the Assistant

"I don't know Zerga, I don't know...?" replied Mire.

"That is no tech I've ever seen...!" shouted the captain.

"Because, I suspect this place is being run by an alien power. Why they chose to do it in Imperial territory under the disguise of an Imperial facility, is unknown, how they accomplished this, is even more baffling!"

"Are you serious...?" shouted Zerga.

"Very, I suspect an alien psychic is on the premises, the 'Psi-Blocker' he spoke of."

"Hostiles ahead!" shouted a trooper. The group stopped as the soldiers in front formed a firing line. Down the hall came decrepit and mummified humanoids, with more metal wires and hydraulics in their limbs animating them. When they laid eyes on the group however, their the dark holes that were their eyes, lit up red, with the light of optics where eyeballs should've been. The lethargic things, were suddenly spry, their stiffness replaced with savage nimbleness as they charged down the hallway screaming like banshees.

For all their energy, what they got was faces struck by energy bullets, that held them back. Mire watched from the back line and he heard something. He turned, pulled out his blaster and fired a bolt into the head of the service droid that had come around the corner. It's head was knock back, while its transformed arms, discharged their beams harmlessly into the ceiling before it fell backwards, taken of line.

"So, it's not just the prisoners, he's sending..." Mire mused out loud.

"These things aren't letting up!" shouted the captain. As if to answer him there was a roar, and they it was relatively recent, they knew it was that same sort of hulking creature from before. However, it was not coming from behind them, but in front.

"We need to move...!" shouted Mire.

"But the ship is that way!" shouted Zerga

"Along with an army of undead and a raging hulk of an abomination! This is not a battle we can win. We have to go around them! Now come!"

"Where are we going to retreat to?" she asked

"I don't know, but we can't stay here!"

## Part 7

"My master..." said Moro, kneeling before his staff on its altar "I am sorry, the Inquisitor forced my hand."

"It was not the inquisitor that made you reveal you worked for someone other than the empire, you fool!" shouted the machine voice of the staff.

"Master...?"

"I have enough creatures and being singing me praises, what is, what was, needed from you was SILENCE! They can discover as much as they wish about what lurks in this facility, all the horrors and dregs locked away within, but they cannot know 'I' rule here, and that one, that inquisitor has pushed into the veil."

"He has seen you?!"

"He has seen my shadow, but such thoughts will fade from his mind. However, if he reaches past that...there will be consequences."

"I understand, I will see to it that they do not escape!"

"I care not if they escape or not, I care if they carry information. With evidence, more will come, and this...experiment will have to be moved to another space-time zone."

"What of me...?"

"You already know the answer to that question. Yet rejoice, I will give you a chance, to right your wrong."

"You will...?!"

"Aye, I will send you a warrior, a warrior of steel and might, with skin of adamantine, muscles of hydraulics, blood of lightning, and a soul forged in sorcery. This warrior will not tire, he will not rest, he will not stop. Powerful will this warrior be, and his weapon, both ranged and melee, will tear through these invaders, flesh, bone and armor, like paper. He rises now, to go and hunt and he will show no pity."

"I think you master, thought I cannot believe such mortal things trouble you..."

"This world is wrapped and shrouded by my power, the veil, is MINE! Thus, the others do not look here, and do not not question me. If they leave, if mortals leave here, with knowledge of my presence, then the others can know, that is unacceptable. As for you, the Empire may be no threat to me, but you are not so divine...or invincible."

"I see..." he said nervously "but can you not just...smite them...?"

"POWER IS A BEACON! And I have you for such things and others..."

The suit of armor rested on chains, some inches of the floor, locked away in a storage closet. It was power armor, with its back and back pack, raised into the air, while the chains held it by under the shoulders. The substance, like molten rock, and crimson liquid, flowed across the roof, after bubbling out of the wall. It moved with purpose and speed, going down the scaffolding, to the correct suit of armor, flowing down in the chains and into the armor. The back closed and for some reason the suit feel to the ground. The bulky suit of army green armor stood up as if someone was inside and its red optics turned on. The liquid metal bubbled out of the floor, as more dripped down on it, but it didn't sink. Instead more of it rose up, to meet the bits flowing down.

The ethereal substance was absorbed into the metal, like water into a sponge, changing it. The army green, because blue, with lines of golden metal all about the armor, with green lines around the sides of these gold linings. The bulky, square design, became bulky and curved, the shoulders now sported metal pieces that curved in artistic fashion. The red eyes, became all black, and starry with sinister, blue green lights staring out at the world. Its helmet grew flat ornate plates on its side, horns, and a gold and blue Egyptian style false beard on its chin. To finish it all off, was a black, tattered cape.

The warriors reached down at the last bit of the ethereal lava, and grabbed it, and raised it up, and it quickly morphed into a spear like object. It was a sort of halberd with a blade pointed forward, and a gun barrel above that, both connected to the same box, that was followed by the gunmetal black shaft.