Rei Shows and Tells

Say the least, she’s not disappointed…. Nope, not disappointed in the least!

Some of the others here—read ones who aren’t prone or never got exposed due to Game Workshop not having been established in their world/ timeline/ reality/whatever —have no idea whatsoever what this "God Emperor of Mankind" of Warhammer 40K is all about.

They learn from Rei rather quickly (who doesn’t want to waste more time so uses mindspeak). Could be summarized with something like this (a copied webpage she’d used to "bone up" on Warhammer 40K after the one of Uncle Elrondir’s more . . .animated discussions with his Tabletop playing friends one evening long time ago) :

http://en .wikip edia. org/wik i/Wa rhammer _40k

That webpage on Wikipedia had been interesting enough, as well as the hyperlinks (which information she also provides). A little too much for this setting here and now least we get sidetracked but MORE than enough to make more than a few people look green around the gills.

Warhamer 40K would be something of a too . . .weird of game(and probably too violent for 1940’s standard) for children, but to have to actually meet it in the flesh?!

They understood that the Primarch named Horus they’d met in Sunnyvale was a nicer (non-evil/traitor) version of the "cannon" Warmaster Horus, and could easily understand: preventing the other Primarch who’d already thrown in with these Ruinous Powers in ripping apart the Imperium back (and countless deaths) in the 30th millennium and setting things down for the 40K environment. That and Rei kind of hinted that leaving Horus back in Sunnyvale was kind of a bad idea, good guy or not. It was basically the Primarch was BORN to lead and soon enough . . .he’d change things back on that Earth along lines of what the Imperium of Man was (at least in as far as the era he’d left). Rei and the others hadn’t been too . . .comfortable with that idea and leave at that. The Imperium even back then had been a bit too . . .militaristic and such and even back then had . . .

Sigh.

It had fascist overtones, even back then! Oh, eventually the plan had been to let lose the reins of power and such for a more free society and such, but only after molding humankind (and in this case any and all non-human subject) into HIS father’s image at what he’d thought it should be and such.

. . .

"But why’d you go to the 40th millennium if you’d been trying for the 30th millennium through this Hellgate of yours?" the Brigadier finally asks.

"Horus was . . . concussed from a prior battle and still somewhat OUT of it a bit after having barely escaped the Ruinous Power’s clutches through the magic some idiot unleashed upon Sunnyvale during Halloween," Rei sighed, shaking her head. "It had been made MUCH worse due to a disastrous interaction between my magic and his Psyker powers. . . "

Oh, she had told everyone at least in passing about how Horus had shown up and the circumstances they’d met and how’d he’d gotten there in the first place. Kind of skipped over how that "interaction" nearly scrambled both her and Horus’ brains, but did at least cover it by describing it as "disastrous".

"He . . .had been worse off than he’d let on when we’d gone into the Hellmouth so took a wrong turn and we went and ended up there," Rei muttered, shaking her head in consternation at Horus’ bemused look when he found out after recovery. "And at first we had NOT known that we had made a wrong turn into 40K land, what with the Emperor being up and about instead of a living husk only kept alive with the life support of the Golden Throne and such."

Silence only greeted that statement as Rei drew breath to continue, resorting to mentally speak the last part.

The Emperor had been VERY much curious to find out just HOW he was now hale and whole after being a mere husk, of course, and attempted to use some rather . . .questionable means at going about it by trying to rip it out of the mind of the most powerful appearing intruder: Horus; Not of course realizing that Horus just happened to be at least an analog of his now long deceased wayard/mislead son. Of course, after several rather BARBED words between Rei’s group (who he had dismissed as a non-threat but too curious to be executed right off hand) . . .

. . .

Yes, even Rei will admit (actually she’ll be the FIRST to admit) that her group had gotten more good luck in that fracas than any ten dozen people deserve In a lifetime. Thanks for pointing that out there folks.

. . .Anyway, after barbed words (with some multi-tiered puns throne into the mix) the Emperor finally got around from the distraction that Rei’s group had represented to finish delving into the mind of the downed Primarch and . . .

Jidas

If nothing ELSE today, I must say that this Kuudere (for those who doesn't know, girls of the Rei Ayanami type, the cool and detached type), sure has changed since last time I scried upon her before losing track of her whereabouts!

I had cyphered out that her fate had been interceded by Champions. The signs and portants I had to my Arte had stated as much…

But for that young woman to have become a Champion herself, much less this . . .this . . .leader I see before me? After she’d been so passive and . . .

This wasn’t in any scenario I had EVER invisioned. And I am not sure if I am totally comfortable with how things are developing here, I must admit. For . . .various reason.

Before, even if she was . . .as she was, barely a person with a sense of self, I did determine that she was brave. Suicidally brave!

When . . .I spied her attempted destruction of her EVA unit, it had been for Shinji Ikari alone, not for orders from her Commander. Gendo’s orders had been basically to protect Unit 01 (Shinji’s EVA), true. But what I witnessed. What she said right before the Champions showed (the Terra Prime brand of Champion being in the wont of carrying around on their persons powerful anti-magic scrying fetishes that tend to shattered my crystal balls I usually use in such efforts); which is rather annoying, considering how much TIME and EFFORT it takes to find the right unspoiled veins of crystal, much less fashioning it into a scrying device.

. . .

As for Rei? No, she had not been some kind of robotic doll, simply following orders from her creator and Commander. That I do know. But this here and now I do NOT know what to make of it.

If she regained her sense of self as I see here but is STILL . . .

I do not know HOW things back in my Kingdom will end up after everything is said and done, and I worry about that. . .

"Bottom line: we had something of a stressful and enormous misunderstanding on BOTH of our parts," Rei finished up, waving her hands a bit in exasperation at recalling the event. "The civil war within the Imperium that Horus and we had come to warn about was what . . .we’ll call the Worldbearer Betrayel in the "honor" of those Traitor Marines who’d gone over already to the side of the Ruinous Powers, the Chaos Gods, before that failed play at turning Horus in his timeline."

"The Emperor of course thought you were talking about the civil war of his time line—this Horus Heresy," the Brigadier guessed, jumping ahead. "But of course that happened something like ten thousand years ago so of course was dismissed as some kind of nonsensical attempted smokescreen to hide HOW you got into his Golden Throne Chamber and within striking distance of him, basically?"

"Basically, yes that is the short of it," Rei nodded, sighing. "That and of course he was also rather curious as to why he was back to full health instead of a living husk so of COURSE wanted answers: Immediately."

"Must have been expecting Lemun Russ when he woke up and not magic girls in short skirts," muttered John Conner under his breath, well aware enough of 40K lore from some of the less "cool" friends he hung with from time to time (to keep abreast of the finer hacker things in life shall we say).

Leman Russ had been on a VERY long quest within the Eye of Terror (realm of the Ruinous Powers toehold into the mortal realms) trying to get a special kind of mystical fruit of sorts that would have revived the Emperor, for those who were curious.

"Russ showed up a bit after we arrived with the Inquisition hot on his tail trying to stop him from reaching the Emperor for fear of the Primarch being out to actually bring harm to they guy," Rei chuckled mirthlessly under her breath, shaking her head over THAT bit of comedy in the end.

That and the warrant for not only her gang and the EMPEROR himself by some brain dead types (who had surely thought that the Emperor had been an imposter or some such)…. Some sort of ploy by one of those inbred High Lords trying to keep their precious reins of power intact instead of doing something actually GOOD for the Imperium, she was sure.

No, it was worthy of something out of the Keystone Cops, something that had gotten a hearty laugh and some heartfelt sympathy from that one chap she’d met at least in passing during a brief round of "hob nobbing" after the "dog and pony" show she and her sisters had done as something of amends for the misunderstanding (once it was finally sorted out and everyone was UNDERSTANDLY embarrassed at the mistaken impressions).

At least those little infant Primarch which got remanded back to a rather surprised Emperor in the end seemed to enjoy the attention, for the most part. Maria more that Asuka surprisingly enough seemed to enjoy it, anyway; but at least that prophecy (who’s contents even the Emperor hadn’t been able to garner before it came upon us all) turned out for the best as far as she could tell!

It all seemed so contrived in the end, but that’s what you sometimes get when a prophecy has the BAD taste of entangling itself in your lives without so much as a by your leave!

At least the Emperor was understanding and merciful in the end. Guy could have gone and used his psyker powers and pretty much erased what the 40K folks consider a soul for our insolence back there when we . . .pretty much did what we did in order to at least give Fate the two fingers after falling into a situation none of them thought they’d be walking away from in the end.

Hey, maybe after Horus smoothed things over with his father from the30th millennium and maybe, just MAYBE the 40K folks could get some aid, militarily and supply wise, from their 30K counterparts. Frankly, even with the Chaos gods getting whacked from an unexpected angle meant things were still going to be dicey there…

But still…

Ah, the anger Rei had felt over it still soured her stomach; not being able to not only finish her Quest in a good way but fail in protecting Horus (who’d been on his last legs from concussion back there)…

Yeah, that one chap Commissar named Ciaphas Cain (of all things!) I believe could relate to odd happenings and unplanned events, from what I could gather from that brief, short discussion she had with that aid of his, adjutant Jurgen, could appreciate and sympathize.

Heck of a good man, once you got around his rough edges (and body odor), and sure had a good tea that he seemed to be nice enough to share with her while his benefactor and boss had a rather unexpected summons from the Emperor himself.

Rei was pretty sure the summons was something to do with the aid Cain gave Leman Russ in getting back to Holy Terra or some such but she’d gotten swept away on other business before she could really get full information.

Interesting place that was, but still all in all she was glad to be away from it an DONE with it, in the end. Pulling of a win, even but still . . .the things she said to the man, the Emperor. Things she said that couldn’t be taken back and in the end had hurt him.

Hurt him because in the end, Rei realized, the barbs had more than a bit of the truth to the man’s conscious.

. . .

Frankly, she wished she could have skipped that part…

". . . but as you can now understand I and the others had been a bit . . .stressed even before we had to do business with the Master," Rei sighed before turning away from the somewhat flabbergasted UNIT officers. "But that said, maybe now Aslan would please? . . ."

Frankly, she wanted more indepth briefing that the initial one she’d gotten from the Rules and Agents; it seemed needful after the fun stuff she’d seen so far . . .

1. Aslan gave her a look but nodded. "You left out some parts of the tale, but that was more for brevity and privacy than anything else like covering embarrasment, I see."

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