Fighting With Faith- Forty-First

The thin slits that were the nostrils of Master Cultist Barnel, Overseer of the Tyranid forces in the throbbing warehouse flared, giving out an audible and menacing hissing sound. He stood immobile on his tendril-like green command pulpit, a pulsating organ that throb and gurgled as though feeling the pain of the crumbling building it was in. Thick, gooey veins ran along the circular base of the pulpit, growing into a tangled vine which served as a chair for the Barnel to sit upon. Tiny organisms scuttled around the living chair, foraging for microscopic food and prying off unwanted parasites from the veins.

Barnel was concentrating on the various reports coming in from the breach points in the building from a pulsating and heaving communicator, oblivious to the mass of people and creatures that surged around his seat. Many hangers were already overwhelmed with Imperial forces, with increasing elements of such already dispersing into the warehouse, threading ever so closer to its heart.

Barnel gave a grunt, nodding to himself after finish hearing what he thought was enough to know for at the current moment. He closed the link of the communicator and heaved his seemingly spindly frame off his seat, issuing a sick sucking sound as moist suction pads tore lose from his amphibious skin, revealing the gaping maws beneath, hungry to be filled again.

As he stepped off his pulpit, Assistant Kaweit immediately drifted to his side, giving him a questioning gaze which was soon replace by a knowing face as he saw the direction where his Master was heading.

The pair walked out of the command chamber, long slender legs carrying them forward through many chambers and corridors, passing many faces and alien creatures. They soon arrived at their destination, where they waved away two guarding cultists and proceeded through the door. Beyond the door lay several massive whitish purple oval shaped eggs, pulsating from within, seeming to have a life of its own. Veins of brightly coloured blood and fluid flowed along the walls of the chamber, leading through walls, eventually into the splayed organs at the bottom of the eggs.

Barnel walked to the nearest one, his face turning soft as he lifted his hands to caress the egg, cooing it softly, as though taming a beast into submission for his own twisted will. The presence of the Hive mind was strong here, the stench of it overwhelming. Both Master and Assistant basked in the aura, feeling momentarily the awesome might of the approaching fleet.

With practiced ease, Barnel snapped out of the euphoric ecstasy, continuing his inspection of the eggs and eventually reaching the last one. He gazed upon the soft, tender flesh of the shell and purred softly at it. As though in response, the soft spot of the shell moved. Barnel smiled to himself as it bulged, a squishy sound coming from within. Soon the bulge became a swell, and the whole piece of shell slowly pried open from within.

“Yesss my child…yessss…” Barnel hissed, fatherly loved reflected in his now warm features as he witnessed the birth of a lovely child of his.

A massive skull white claw began to poke from the oozing hole, tearing the wound bigger as the face of the alien peered through. It gave a gurgling moan, like a child first crying when coming out from its mother’s birth canal.

“Master,” the reverent voice of Kaweit came from behind, “Master, the Carnifexes are borne…”