A Scientist, Stolen.

[Vulre Oakenlimb]

“My name is Omni. This is not the world you know. This is the Omniverse. You interest me, so I have made you part of it. The Omniverse is a place that reflects the wishes of those who are part of it. But! There are rules. I will explain them only once, so listen carefully.”

“This is Omnilium. It’s what ties the Omniverse together. Without it, you are nothing. With it, anything you desire can be yours. But you will need more than this. If you desire it enough, you will find it. You will find that using it comes naturally. Just think of what you desire most.

“You will not be alone in the Omniverse. There are others. Of course, they, too desire Omnilium. Do not fear death. For as long as you interest me, you will be reborn.

“That’s all you need to know right now. You’ll figure out the rest soon enough. I’ll be watching … and waiting.”

Axemerax arose, no longer recumbent on the void beneath him, servos whirring as they struggled to lift the durasteel of his armour off of the ground, its surface shining under the sourceless light that bathed this strange new world. Endless blank planes stretched across the horizon, reminiscent of the salt flats of Merax in their barren, lifeless nature. The Scientist Supreme breathed in, various subsystems within his suit flooding what remained of his biology with a cocktail of antibiotics and steroids, his life sustained for another moment.

He blinked, or rather, refreshed his optical processors, to confirm this vision before him. A cracked and desiccated fountain lay behind him, its spigots and spouts long-since abandoned, the only hint of it ever containing a liquid of some description being the stains upon its basin. Dried up and left behind, long since past its usefulness.

"Saddicus!" He called out to the uncaring winds, the miniaturized zero-point reactor upon his back blazing to life as he called for his favoured servant-slave, gears grinding as he flexed his gauntlet, his cybernetic eyes adjusting to this new environment as he critically assessed the reaction time of his artificial limbs. "Acceptable," he murmured under his breath, his weight shifting as he took a cautious step forward, hydraulics hissing as the void supported his augmented weight.

Was he dreaming?

No, the cybernetics grafted to his grey matter, paired with his chemical cocktails had long since made rest redundant. Every moment he slept was a moment taken away from him, every blink one step closer to the great sleep, his disposal in the dunes of his homeworld. The sensors within his armoured suit registered none of the interstellar radiation that one would expect, nor did they encounter any of the typical substances that would be used to seal those signals off.

The shroud, or something similar? The Dethakkan people lacked the telepathic capabilities of some of their more ‘enlightened’ neighbours, but their knowledge of the Jump Drive and the rapacious hordes of the Unbidden were proof enough of realities adjacent to their own. Given the words of this ‘Omni’ creature, his abduction to an alternate reality for the sole purpose of the Demiurge’s amusement seemed to be, unfortunately, the new truth to his existence.

Alone in an absurd reality.

"I did not conquer the galaxy for this," Axemerax hissed, their venom gland engorging, paralytic toxins dripping from his jaw as he gnashed his mandibles together. He was Primus of the Alignment, unbidden damn-it. He had bent a planet of sociopaths and worse to his will, and proceeded to do the same to the rest of the galaxy; even the impossible realms outside of reality had been repulsed from his perfect order. Poison dripped onto his breastplate, the mechanisms within pulsing to the beat of his ancient heart. He had brought the galaxy into line with his ambitions, with talons of burning science he had chained the heavens themselves and used them to fuel his worlds-spanning Imperium. The gods themselves had been humbled before him, shackled to his throne and branded with their self-serving scripture. He was Axemerax, Primus of the Dethakkan Alignment, and he would not be a mere plaything of this so-called Omni, he wou-

Tranquilizers were injected into his bloodstream, his thoughts being cut-off mid-sentence as the narcotics quenched the burning rage that had begun to overtake him. He fell to one armoured knee, panting as he allowed the drug to cleanse his thoughts, the frenzied passion that had buoyed him in his youth being resigned to the recesses of his mind, discarded in favour of a measured practicality. Such reckless decisions would do him no good, especially without the resources of The Alignment to support him.

No, he was back to square one. He had seen stars die at his command, and he was reduced to nothing more than the steel upon his back, the diagnostics superimposed on his sight registering the utter lack of most subsystems. Decades of weapons development, and he had nothing more than his claws and fangs to defend himself with.

He placed a single claw to his forehead, massaging his scales while an esoteric mixture of a hiss, rattle, and gurgle escaped his jaws.

He conquered worlds. He could do it again. Rising to his feet once more, he began to stalk off over the horizon, visions of deathrays dancing through his mind, mad, burning science demanding to be made real, to be put to use, to split atoms and shatter molecules.

“Soon,” he salivated.