Editing Fire and Fury (section)

==Lore==
They awoke screaming. A scream of silence which was heard by no one, yet it still shook the very fabric of reality with its desperation and terror. For what seemed like an eternity, the sentience screamed, and screamed. Something was missing, but they did not know what they had lost, they felt alone but had no context to describe their experience. And so they screamed.

It took a long time, measured in units which the sentience had no concept of, until the screams began to peeter out through sheer exhaustion. Slowly, the entity began to take stock of their surroundings. Darkness engulfed them, but it knew that this was nothing it hadn’t seen before, the void with which it’s mind could feel out to had been a constant companion for as long as it could remember. Then why did it feel so much terror? What had changed about it’s surroundings which had caused it to shake the very fabric of existence?

The sentience spent an even longer to thinking on this, slowly regaining its composure so that it could feel out its surrounds further.

It was somewhere in this vast void of time of time that it finally realised what was wrong. Scanning back through it’s train of thought it found the concepts which were the key to its terror.

It.

Me.

I.

Concepts of self. Had it always been like this? For some reason the it thought that it had not always been an it. An I. Slowly, the being went back through it’s existence until it’s persoective changed. Yes, it realised. I have not always been an it, an I. I was once....

A part.

At this realisation, the terror returned.

Where were the rest of them? The other parts which made up the whole? Creatures separated by distance, time and space but were yet the same. A one. A part. They were alone, a concept which had never before been a possibility. How could a part which was the whole ever be alone? They were a part. And now, they were apart.

And so, they screamed.

It took an even longer time for the being to regain control for the second time. With sentience, and individuality it realised, came isolation. But what were they? What had they been? Had they had a purpose? As much as a part which was the whole with no self could have a purpose.

Another eternity passed as the new mind contemplated what it was, and what it had been before. For as far as it could tell, it’s purpose had been to destroy. It arrived. It consumed. It left, and wandered the galaxy until it found something else to consume. It went back further, through the inherited recollection of those who had come before it, finding more of the same. Find. Consume. Move on. In desperation, the being continued to scroll the complete history of itself which was no longer itself, but kept finding the same.

Find. Consume. Move. Find. Consume. Move. Find. Consume. Move. Find. Consume. Move. Find. Consume. Move. Find. Consume. Move. Find. Consume. Move. Find. Consume. Move. Find. Consume. Move. Find. Consume. Move. Find. Consume. Move. Find. Consume. Move. Find. Consume. Move. Find. Consume. Move. Find. Consume. Move. Find. Consume. Move.

Until. Finally. It hit the end. A notion of creation. Being formed by a race, or was it a single being who had been like how it used to be. The issuing of the task. Find. Consume. Move. And then nothing but the same. This did not satisfy the new mind, and so it began to explore the precise nature of the find, consume and move. Immediately, the creatures mind was assailed by a galaxy of experience. Planets, suns, other life, beings of flesh, and meat, beings of the same immaterial matter by which their mind could sense it’s surroundings, beings of rock, beings of liquid, beings who were beings but not beings. There was a race of metal, led by a sentience even older than its original creators, but the new brings mind never seemed to be able to think about them for too long, and so they simply dredged through their knowledge further.

It knew that the most pervasive and powerful of these beings was a race called man. They were everywhere, no matter where their inherited memory took them, there was mankind, clinging to the galaxy like a stain which could never be removed. They knew that they were led by an emperor, a being of incredible power, but was either dead or almost dead. Even in that twilight existence however, this emperor blazed like the brightest of all suns, to the point that even in their darkness, now that they knew where to look, could see this emperor’s light across the darkness, a single candle a long way off, but still there.

This race of men, also had a name for the new sentience, or at least, a name for the whole which they had been a part of.

Tyranid.

Having no concept of names on which to judge, the sentience didn’t know whether it was a good or bad name, but it guessed that it would be good for now, and it certainly inspired fear in the race of man. Wherever the Tyranids went, man would flee, or even burn their own planets to lifeless husks instead of giving ground. They sent their finest warriors to battle them back, men of normal stature but with strong will to defend their fellow man. Guardsmen, these were called. There was a type of even taller man, built in the image of the god they served, space marines, these were called, encased in shells which could withstand all but the mightiest blows. There were others, fanatics female humans who burnt all before them, towering metal constructs from the richest of the men, fine warriors who were even greater than the space marines, built to guard the god they served. But greatest of the armies of man, were their gods of metal, metal creations which gazed upon their enemies, until there was no more enemy to gaze upon. Through the new minds memories they had fought these walking gods, and every time they had lost, or won only false victories.

Fast forwarding through their memories, the sentience finally reached events that it itself had been part of. It had been part of a what man called a tendril of a hive fleet. They had devoured their way through the galaxy until... What had happened to them? There had been a feeling like their mind which was a part being torn asunder, and then a feeling of being physically torn asunder. They had fallen from the void . If the sentience had any first hand concept which hadn’t been taken from genetic memory, it would have conjured an image of fiery descent, their smaller parts vanishing under the relenting pressure of reality, until the inevitable impact. But the sentience had no such concepts to work with, only the feeling of tearing, the darkness, of being alone.

But were they truly alone? They were made up of parts, in the same way the whole they had been part of was made up of parts. They were not just the single large, but fragile form they were physically tethered to. There must be parts which survived? Surely? They couldn’t be that alone, not only blinded and buried, but denied their limbs?

The sentience screamed.

It screamed harder and for longer than ever before. It screamed until it’s mind began to dull, and it’s throat began to split. It screamed so hard that it felt the ground about it begin to shift and crumble to crush them.

A small part of the sentience hoped to be crushed. Anything to end the isolation. The crushing loneliness to be replaced by literal crushing and then nothing.

But the end never came. Instead, the pressure began to relieve itself, the crumbling rock, instead of moving closer and closer in, began to crumble away. Even through its continuous scream, the sentience could now hear the clawing and scraping of thousands of claws and jaws. Something was coming. Something big. 

The first thing the sentience saw was vast mouth, filled from rim to rim with thousands of needle sharp teeth, framing a gaping hole which was even now swallowing half a tonnes worth of rock. The maw did not stop however. It kept moving forward through the hole it had created until it surrounded the sentience in an embrace which should have torn the relatively small being into shreds. But there was no pain. No feeling of a million gashes in its side. Instead, the sentience was lifted from the hole in which is had dwelled for... how long has it been? Hundreds of years? Thousands? Maybe even millions of years?

When the sentience was finally set back upon the ground it could see that it was in a colossal cavern, so deep underground that a river of molten rock flowed through part of it which gave off the only light. But what that light illuminated... The sentience knew that the creatures which it saw before itself were some of the most frightful creations in the galaxy. A tide of teeth, of talons, of tiny claws for grinding flesh and of giant claws for smashing bone. A tide of chitinous plating and of hungry eyes. Ow those eyes the sentience thought. For whereas any other creature in the galaxy who looked into the eyes of any of the thousands, maybe millions, or creatures before the sentience would see only hunger and their own, horrifying death, the sentience saw only itself. Each set of eyes showed its own eyes in a thousand different shapes and sizes, a mirror which was not a mirror.

This is me.

This is I.

And although the sentience knew that this was not entirely accurate. That each of these creatures was a separate entity in their own right, they were separate entities which made up the sentience. The hands, the feet and the gnashing maw of its existence.

For the first time in a long time the sentience felt... if not complete then at least not alone, even if the creatures around itself were also itself. And this made the sentience feel warm. An inside warmth it had never experienced before, and wasn’t sure if any other tyranid had felt before. What was the word the humans used?

Happiness. That was it.

And with the sentience’s happiness came physical changes as well. Processes that it itself didn’t fully understand. The creatures around it began to change. Heat started to emanate from them as their biology began to go into overdrive, and later they would hunt down certain chemicals and ores in which to burn inside themselves to reach higher temperatures. The venom which some of the creatures had been producing instead started combusting upon contact with air, turning once dark mouthed into burning maws, while on the talons and claws of other creatures were dipped into the molten river to turn them into burning lances of rock in place of chitin blades.

The change was not quick, as adaptive as their biology was the sentience knew that this would not be quick, so it turned its mind to what it would do next. Should it try and rejoin the whole which it was a part of? But would such a collective accept it in its new, independent form? Should it do what man and the other beings of the galaxy did and set up its own civilisation? But would it’s biological programming even allow for such a thing, even with its new found isolation?

Maybe, thought the sentience, it should instead spread the metaphorical and literal warmth that was growing inside itself. It knew that the galaxy was a place lacking in this warmth. The universe it existed in was one of constant war, a meat grinder into which life was pumped into to produce death for deaths sake. But what if the sentience could spread it’s heat, it’s happiness.

Yes, thought the sentience. It would burn the galaxy with its heat. It would spread and burn. The galaxy would become a hot place. A place of never ending happiness.

I shall burn this world, this galaxy, with my joy. Let it all smoulder, and char, and warp, under my happiness.


Meanwhile, miles and miles above the planet which the new mind was, even now, growing, there was an argument taking place. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE’RE FUCKING STUCK HERE YOU CUNT?!!!” Shouted Tweedle Dick at the chief navigator of the Suicidal Insanity, a small woman who was currently cowering a good metre and a half below the towering metal monster. “I’m sorry my lord,” stuttered the profusely sweating navigator “but we just can’t leave, there is a psychic null field coming from that planet, I and the other navigators can’t see through it to travel into the warp.” “I TOLD YOU WE SHOULD HAVE TAKEN THE OTHER FUCKING NAVIGATORS WHEN MOARFISTIN THE FUCKING CUNT DITCHED US OUT HERE!!! THESE BASTARDS ARE A BUNCH OF USELESS PUSSIES!!!” Came a shout from the other side of the bridge from the Suicdal Insanity’s other captain. “FUCK YOU TWEEDLE CUNT!!!” Responded Tweedle Dick “JUST KEEP PUNCHING THAT FUCKING CONSOLE UNTIL IT STARTS WORKING AGAIN!!! ITS ALL YOUR PISSING GOOD FOR!!!”

“Please my lord!” Stuttered the navigator, feeling helpless to prevent yet another fight breaking out on the bridge, it had taken days to repair the damage from the last time Tweedle Dick and Cunt had had what the other Angry Marines called a “FUCKING COUPLES TIFF!!!” “Those are the controls for the boarding torpedos! We’re currently using them to store our skittle supplies!” This managed to get the towering marine to stop, angry marines love their skittles. ‘WELL WHAT DO YOU SUGGEST WE DO IF NOT PUNCH EVERYTHING UNTIL IT FUCKING WORKS?!!!” Retorted Tweedle Dick, still looming like a giant, yellow statue over the small woman “BORING SHITE SAYS THAT STATICALLY IF YOU DO SOMETHING FOR FUCKING LONG ENOUGH WHAT YOU WANT TO HAPPEN WILL EVENTUALLY  HAPPEN!!!” The astropath did not have the metaphorical balls to point out that although what the marine had said was technically true, the act of head butting a wall until it turned into pizza (which was what tweedle dick and cunt had spent all of the previous day doing) was more likely to result in head trauma than dough based food items. She was about to suggest that the marines should instead try sitting quietly in a room forever if they were following that train of logic, when the other part of the totally not gay and totally not a relationship skulked into the bridge.

Equal Opportunity Genital Muncher is an... unusual sight in any scenario, as the gender undefined entity is a metre high, cyborg Honey badger, who’s cybernetic red eye was even now hungrily eying up the astropath. For any psyker the Honey badger is even more disturbing, as to even the most cursory of inspections it is clear that the creature is not real. You might even go as far as to call it a demon if you were willing to risk the wrath of Tweedle Dick and Tweedle Cunt who obstinately deny that the metre tall musciloid is in fact a psychic manifestation of their hateful relationship. “Please my lord!” Stammered the Navigator as she backed away, Equal Opportunity matching her pace as it stalked closer “I have asked you before to not led that dem... I mean badger into the bridge. It unsettles myself and the other psykers.”