Chasing Butterflies…

“Dearie, then I dare say you’d be quiet correct!” a woman’s voice rings out, her Cocky accent quiet evident (as well as an otherworldly reverb). “But not to worry! The God Emperor of Mankind is speaking of the kind of prophecy quiet different. Namely, he’s after something that he believes or rather HOPES shall afford his Imperium a MUCH easier. How, exactly, he’s not really too sure about but now that we are here . . .”

“Who are you and how do you come to be here?” shouts the Emperor, drawing his sword halfway out of his hilt before finding himself suddenly being pulled (rather PAINFULLY) down by his ear by a vice like grip that shouldn’t be ABLE to pull him down by his ear like some petulant child . . .but does so none the less!

So painful that he rather losses interest in completing the draw, so painful is Walker’s grip on his ear…

And the really damnable thing about this whole business as he yelps and shouts (beside not having seen how Walker had gotten from one side of the room to the other before finding his ear gripped) is that NOT one of his Palace Guards seem to be HEARING this fracas go on!

And then the cheerfulness that Diane Walker exudes drops, along with the smile she’d been sporting up until that point after pausing to lower my plum colored passenger to the ground and glare at the now startled looking Emperor still grasped firmly in hand (as it were).

“Shame on you dearie!” Walker cooed, looking up into the pain filled eyes of the Emperor. “Trying to draw a sword on someone only trying to help! Bad boy!”

She then gives a small swat with her free hand to the Emperor’s backside, causing a yelp of surprise as the he feels it land through his rather ornate power armor (http://war hammer 40k. wikia.c om/wiki /Emperor _of_ Mankind_ (Warhammer_ 40,000)), leaving quiet the bruise on his buttock!

. . .

And considering in THIS particular form the Emperor (in this “Golden Giant”--12 foot plus) was being treated by a more human sized woman the girls are going to look back upon this one day and lauuugh!

But not right now at this second. Too busy looking aghast really to laugh.

Horus? Well, he seems to have zoned out here and is staring at the far wall. Kind of fell victim to a stray blast of divine from Walker to stay put and out of the way right now to really do much more…

“Walker, what are you doing?” Rei asked--the young winged woman at Walker‘s feet forgotten for the moment--almost whimpering in reaction to this latest twist. “Look, this is Warhammer 40K and all that but damnit it doesn’t mean that you have the right to just walk in here and spank people left and right for being . . .dirty fascists here. I mean the guy here is actually the last, best hope at turning things around here for the humans in this God forsaken reality and you queering our luck! I mean, he REALLY has a chance here beyond being the God Emperor and all that. He‘s James Bond, for crying out loud!!”

I know you’re one of Game Workshop’s biggest critics when it comes to the Imperium of Mankind and all that, Rei mentally sent to her “Auntie” Diane Walker, who’s still looking rather puckish right now. I know that you’re in the wont of quoting that one Space Battler author Mangi on your thoughts on the whole bloody lot of this place: “40K - where the genocidal, xenocidal, fascist, ultraconservative zealots with a morbid fear of technology and an unhealthy fondness for burning things... are the good guys”.. But I’m not trying to lie to you here about this!

Frankly, Rei and the others weren’t sure just what exactly to make of this whole deal with Walker (or rather a Walker being influenced by the Forge). Maybe if they could appeal to the human woman within she could somehow sway the goddess (or whatever the Forge really was . . .Rei hadn’t bought into it being a true god) into being more . . .lenient.

Walker had been very critical of the Game Shop God Emperor and the Imperium, but quiet a bit different of opinion on what had been THOUGHT to have been a different character from a different franchise entirely.

Walker . . .was a 007 fan, surprisingly enough. Played right into that almost mono-manic obsession the woman had for that British scifi TV series: Dr. Who. You know that old joke about James Bond having to be a Gallifreyian Time Lord, what with all those different actors

Jesus Christ only knew what the Forge thought of James Bond, though. But as for the Emperor of Mankind? The Forge had been . . .much more vocal (and then some) whenever she made her presence known through Walker…

Rei and her other sisters were actually fearful for the God Emperor’s life here…

“Yeah dearie, I know that this berk called himself James Bond and used his abilities to change his appearance throughout to ‘step in‘ to the shoes of his predecessor,” Walker said softly, this time without the reverb. “That’s the reason why the Forge is going light on ’im instead of throwing him all around an’ hitting three o’ the four walls before he hits the groun‘, ya see? Still putting down a propa pounding relationship, show him what is what an‘ all that, but more gentle. Even brought gifts and such afterwards to make nice afta.”

A nice pounding so improved a chap’s attitude problem, don’t you know. Makes them so much less mouthy and more prone to LISTEN to what one has to say (or command) when the time comes, eh?

Well . . .that’s how the Forge works after hearing some of the less than stellar things some of the Others had to say about various analog versions of this guy so figured a heavy handed approach was called for and hang the man’s feelings about it.

Man had a Hell of a temper for quiet a while for some reason after coming back from the dead and all that. Some kind of side effect from being kind of lingering so long in the Warp and all that. Not healthy… Tend to start to go a bit barmy and kind of develop something like a god complex, some of them.

Frankly, the Forge would rather not have had to come back to this particular reality at all but due to certain repercussions of actions that a certain green haired magic girl of love and justice did, this was a necessary evil. Oh, it had been nice that Setsuna had been kind enough to raise the Emperor back to health and all that, but still! Setsuna, in her brief madness as a godlike entity, had made a mess of things here and a LOT of other places.

Butterfly effects from her time hopping/dimension skipping and all that, you know! As for one of the butterflies?

Hopefully she and the caretaker of her Avatar, Walker, could sway the tech priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus (the only religion that had been allowed by the Emperor during his life and afterwards . . .due in large to them being the only ones being able understand, make, and maintain Imperium technology) from making HER their new Omnimessiah (their literal God in the Machine as it were).

Bothersome. The Emperor had been declared that (much to his chargrin) back before the Horus Heresy but such believes had kind of fallen to the wayside by the tech priest, what with him having been almost killed and placed into life support with the Golden Throne and all that…

Well, long story that. But better him than Her. Then again . . .better Her than that upstart “Star God”, the Void Dragon. If that C’tan took the reigns of the church up, then humanity was pretty much SOL in this reality…. Soulless robotic cyborges would be the best way to describe it, dearie!

And then her fellow Highers Ups were going to have to stand aside and let those OTHERS from outside the Milky Way step in and use some Ideon level weaponry to save the rest of the universe at large from THAT stupidity from spreading…

. . .

Like we said, long story. Don’t need to go into it right now (if ever).

Turning away from Rei and the Champions, Walker/the Forge refocus on the Emperor of Mankind.

“Dearie, I don’t have bleedin’ time for niceties and grandstanding so I’ll be brief,” Walker (channeling the Forge) says softly. “As for I am, one short answer is I am called the Forge and my avatar’s keeper while I’m about doing things away from the mortal plane is called Diane Walker.

“And the sleeping winged girl used to call herself Rei Ayanami but now has taken the name of Yukiko?” Walker continued. “She . . .kind of wanted to meet Rei and her sisters. Wanted to get the family she’d never been allowed to have and all that AND she was frankly needed for this upcoming Prophecy rot and all that, dearies.”

“But let’s move this into the library,” Walker suggests, gesturing towards a side room after releasing the Emperor (who staggers about a bit) and picking up ‘Yukiko‘. “Believe that it would be best for all, really”.

“She named her Snow Child?” Fred asked blankly, staring at the now stirring young teenage girl. “Appropriate.”

Like his wife and his wife’s sibblings, she had that pale, albino looking skin so definitely had the “snow-like” look down pat.

1. The former First Children, meanwhile, have been silent all this time, looking at the young girl who’s now awaking…

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