Chp 5: His Dark Desires

Bright blisters formed all over his hands the heat now unbearable, the section of metal beneath his feet now starting to turn orange

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If someone was standing nearby pointing a thermal imaging camera at Adam, they'd have to assume it was broken.

Adam's temperature was yoyoing from one extreme to the other. Boiling and freezing simultaneously.

This sudden shift in temperature was quickly edging Adam body towards a steam explosion, something he definitely wouldn't survive. 

Perched precariously on Kaldor's back he held on for dear life a Kaldor paddled waist deep for the shoreline still agonisingly far away, but inching closer minute by minute.

Kaldor's terminator armour had already started to glow orange, clouds of steam pumping out his respiratory life support systems. Which were having to working overtime in order to decrease the temperature of his quickly heating personal barbeque.

Hearing the sizzling of Adam's exposed flesh, he recognised that he still needed some help Kaldor shouted. 'Adam listen to me, currently the two forces of hot and cold within you are fighting for supremacy, but both are necessary for this ability to work. You must make them work together by creating a transitionary space in your mind whilst holding the forces apart. If you don't find a balance you will explode or die from the heat.

None of the more esoteric explanations working Kaldor changed tact and screamed one word 'Diffusion, just focus on the concept of diffusion'.

Finally, something got through Adam's thick skull too mentally clouded at this time by the sudden change in temperatures. But one word he could focus on, struggling to imagine the forces gradually defusing into one another.

Slowly, ever so slowly, his temperature stabilised at a more reasonable forty degrees centigrade.

Evidently still not perfect though, due to the shortcuts taken. His face flushed like a menopausal woman.

He had successfully convinced his cells that they were in fact, not touching metal a thousand degrees hot, but rather metal that just had a slight temperature from being out too long in the sun.

A few minutes later Kaldor crawled up the beach as quickly as he could, lava dripping off his chest and lower half. Adam hopped off, whilst Kaldor ripped off his helmet like a man possessed a great cloud of steam billowing into the air above him.

'I never want to go to a sauna ever again' gasped Kaldor.

He then piroetted dramatically before falling down onto his back, waiting for his armour's temperature to go down. Transitioning slowly from a lightbulb of bright white, to yellow then to orange and finally to the familiar safe grey of his armour.

Getting back up as soon as his armour reached a reasonable temperature he got to his feet and gathered his bearings, having a cursive look around, brows immediately furrowing.

'What the problem' asked Adam.

'This area is way to stable … oh damn check out that bush over there forty meters out, 2 o'clock'.

Adam looked over eyes almost bugging out as he saw the most delicious-looking purple fruit hanging from the most beautiful pink Sakura tree. They looked so juicing he thought, his feet walking him forward.

When he was a few meters away he heard Kaldor come up behind me. 

'Adam I wouldn't touch that if I was you' he said worriedly.

'Why it looks fine to me' replied Adam looking to see if he could identify any signs that it was poisonous seeing none.

Kaldor pointed, 'Look again but this time apply the same technique you used in the lake but visualise truth pouring into your eyes.

Adam did just that, eyes widening as the beautiful purple fruit morphed into what could only be described as what would happen caltrop married a tennis ball.

'Aaahhhh' said Adam 'That's a nope'.

'If you had eaten that you wouldn't even have felt it as it cut you apart inside in fact you probably would have grabbed more, it's covered in a numbing toxin which is a hundred more time addictive than the most dangerous drug acquirable in the lowest dregs of any hive city within the bounds of the imperium. You would only have noticed something was wrong when you passed out from internal bleeding' said Kaldor.

'Damn' replied Adam, 'how did you first work that one out'.

'Cough … um in' seeming to think for a while, 'In a book'.

'There are books focusing on the horticulture of the warp that's pretty impressive, would I be able to find a copy when we get to the materium it seems really interesting'.

Kaldor looked pretty stumped before replying quickly, 'No it's out of print and last I saw the last copy was burnt'.

'Oh, that's a shame,' said Adam not noticing Kaldor letting out a breath like he had just dodged a bullet.

'We better get a move on this stability shows that the prince of pleasures realm if expanding in this part of the warp and we don't want to be here when Khorne notices'.

Carefully the two of them walked towards the direction of the formless wastes being extra careful to skirt around anything that looked too nice, pleasurable, or spiky.

Finally cresting a hill, they caught first sight of the formless wastes a grand river meandering peacefully through a forest of desiccated wooden trees.

'Whats that smell' asked Adam his nose scrunching up as he got a good wiff.

Kaldor called back over his shoulder moving down the other side of the hell 'That vinegary smell is because that river doesn't have any water on it, it's flowing with black tar heroin'.

----

They had spent the last week passing through the formless realm at quite the sedate pace having passed through landscapes of every apocalypse terrain type piece imaginable. From nuclear wastelands to overgrown cities filled with mushroom-like zombies that exploded like balloons from the slightest glance from a las pistol that Adam had found and begun to have some fun with. 

At that moment they were moving through a valley and Adam was honestly in pretty good spirits after Kaldor had begun to open up to and answer his questions about the grey knights.

'Ba-ang' 'Squawk'

Adam watched as Kaldor zeroed a fury with his wrist-mounted storm bolter dual barrels still smoking as it careened down like a smoking aircraft straight towards them.

At was about to hit Kaldor's hulking form his left arm whipped out backhanding what was left of the fury into a nearby emaciated-looking bush, storm shield frying what little was left of it.

Damn thought Adam a little taken aback by the sudden extreme violence against the fury which had just been minding its own business. But quickly realising that Kaldor wasn't going to acknowledge what had just happened he went to continue asking questions about the elusive grey knights.

'You mentioned that the chapter isn't codex compliant' asked Adam.

'Oh yes, well there's one very good reason unlike other chapters we only have one real purpose. We are premier demon hunters the militant arm of the ordo malleus. It would serve no purpose if we fielded anything other than devastator squads loaded to gills with heavy weaponry and melee power weapons. There would be no point in us trying to fight a greater demon with a bolt pistol and chain sword of the standard Astartes space marine squad wields. It would be like trying to use a lasgun to take down a chaos space marine as a guardsman, with enough of you grouped together you may have a shot but more likely than not it will end up being … ineffective with that heretic, having plenty of time to kill most of you before you even heat up his power armour'. 

----

Coming out of the mouth of the valley they finally saw the great mangled mass of a space hulk ahead of them bringing their conversation to a close, behind which was the boundless turbulent eddies of the warp where their hope to reach a passing void craft lay.

'Come there might be something we can salvage in there' said Kaldor leading the way into the looming spacehulk.

----

Sometime later they were walking through a particularly studious section of the space hulk books and souls piled to the ceiling. Turning the corner Kaldor leading the way almost stepped on the scattered pieces of a burgundy set of MK 2 crusader armour strewn across the corridor.

'Now that's not something you don't see every day' said Kaldor 'I don't recognise the chapter the symbols seem to be worn away' leaning down to pick a shoulder pauldron up,

'Great crusade era, perhaps definitely pre-heresy'.

Continuing past they stepped through into a shadowed room that only Kaldor's eyes were capable of piercing. In the centre of the room was a great stasis chamber. There within he saw a space marine in stasis but terribly mutated, only one chapter experienced such effects he thought, the flesh change in the flesh as it was. 

Adam not seeing anything in the gloom spoke, 'What's in here'.

'Nothing' he said as a spark of inspiration came to him, he had a plan, but it relied on Adam not knowing, 'Let's go back'. As Adam stepped out of the room Kaldor grasped onto a pipe with his mind subtly channelling the warp before yanking it off the wall and into Adam's unsuspecting head knocking him out before he even saw what hit him.

'Headshot'.