Deep within the planet, back inside the throne room of Outer Heaven, Loki was having an important conversation with all the Planetary Primals—all of whom were Valkyrian-Royals though not all Royals were Planetary Primals since those consisted of just the planets in the Valkyrian solar system—, all the Grand Primal Commanders, and all fifty of the top A.I. faction's leaders who were allied under Freya's banner. These were the leaders of the Valkyrian main planets, all Valkyrian naval fleet groups, and all the top commanders of the 488 "Celestial Presence"-sized military groups, each with hundreds of billions of V.I. and tens of millions of A.I.s under their command. Joining them with their own holograms on Loki's request were leaders of the Valkyrians' most trusted and dependable allies, namely those who had a sizable space navy. These leaders were as diverse as sentients could be. One was at least seven feet tall and the other was about five. These leaders were of the Yautja, Morphus, Eldarian, Ceph, Turian, Space Pirates, Chozo, Luminoth, and even Harbinger of the Reapers.
The projection had darkened the bridge of the Outer Heaven into pitch blackness and each and every leader and commander was represented by an equal-sized hologram that showed their true appearances, not some bright-colored form famous throughout multiple medias. Most were not put off but the size of this meeting and indeed, a few were quite shocked by the number of representatives. The Turian in particular kept his bearing but any of the more experienced holograms could see the shock in his eyes.
Some, especially the Chozo and Luminoth, were surprised by the appearance of Harbinger as they'd long ago since been informed of the Reapers 50,000 year harvest cycle.
"Now that we are all in attendance, I call this meeting to order with my opening statements," Loki began. Many wanted to question the absence of Freya but knew to keep to tact and courtesy in these kinds of meetings.
"First off, for until the time she returns to active duty, Queen Freya's has left me in charge of all Valkyrians branches. The reason being that for the first time in her life, she has become a mother and is putting her whole attention into raising her daughter."
Several gave congratulatory claps though some were confused but decided to ask later.
"Next, I will give a report on a startling discovery in a galaxy we've designated W40K. It's a large spiral galaxy and has been dominated by endless war. Apparently, the main xeno factions that we know of for certain and have encountered in some way are Humans, Orks, and the Nurgle-faction of Chaos." A picture of each, taken from the memory of Freya she supplied to Loki for study, as well as battle footage with the Orks and Nurgle forces where a screen played out in front of each hologram.
The Humans, we only speculate though the example given in the picture of this 'Primarch Dorn' is a special, very rare case of what the finest of the Humans' super-soldiers look-like. We haven't actually encountered them but we know they have a massive galactic Imperium. The Orks were the aggressors against one of our young colonies. After repeatedly rebuffing their attacks, Outer Heaven came and with its personal armada, tracked the fleets to a world practically destroyed by and covered in the Orks. Despite their looks, they're actually a sentient fungi, a bio-engineered weapon race made to reproduce through the shedding of spores from their bodies and to wage war. We know not their original enemy, but their numbers are almost without end. Initially dumb and barbaric, their DNA is encoded with knowledge on how to fight and make weapons of war. They use this with the aid of a gestalt psychic force across entire civilizations to actually defy the laws of physics and in some rare cases, reality. Weapons made of scrap metal that would never work in the any of our hands would fire true in the hands of an Ork because with their gestalt force, if they believe it enough, it will actually come to pass. It is also present in their genomes that the more they fight, the bigger and stronger they get."
Images and noted research findings flashed across their faces of the various sizes of Orks in comparison to their respective races or units. She could see the incredulous looks on many of the non-Valkyrian faces, Omega Ceph and Harbinger excluded since they didn't really have facial expressions, and the Yautja's mask hid his face.
"They have no culture, no history they treasure, nothing but love for war, guns, weapons, and apparently the more teeth—not their own—that they have, the 'richer' they are. They are truly savage in every definition of the word."
A change of screen showed the Chaos faction Nurgle, the Plague Marines and Infestids along with Typhus. "Then there are the 'Ruinous powers of Chaos', that are split into four rival factions. The ones shown belong to the Chaos God 'Nurgle', the 'Father' of decay, stagnation, and rot. These Gods are literally masses of sentient energy, energy supplied by that galaxy's examples of whatever they herald. They dwell within an entire universe immaterial to our own where they manipulate time and space to their wills. They can not exist in our realm without an anchors. These anchors are often humans called 'Psykers' who can channel the raw energies of this Immaterium to perform feats similar to magic or energy projection. The infested and Plague Marines here are examples of what happens when humans and Space Marines respectively give themselves to a certain Chaos patron. These became manifestations of Nurgle's rot and plagues, becoming nothing but sentient shells of humans and Space Marines. Not even ships are excluded from a Chaos God's 'blessing' as shown in an ancient Human battleship that became a living entity personifying rot, decay, and plagues."
Indeed, the images of the Terminus Est, Typhus, and the infested humans sickened many, even Harbinger at the thought of his Reapers becoming infested with such a disease.
"Thankfully, the Herald of this Nurgle, Typhus, the large one shown, is now an inside source of information for us. After that brief confrontation, our queen allowed him to barter for his life. While we haven't confirmed it, apparently, when you give your soul to a patron like Typhus here did, you become immortal in a sense that if you die, you'll simply be punished by your patron for a thousand years before being resurrected. Typhus bartered since he and his ship are valuable to Nurgle and are part of a heated rivalry between their patron of decay and the Chaos God Tzeentch. Tzeentch apparently represents all things like schemes, ambitions, and plans. Typhus has said that Tzeentch proclaims to know everything within the galaxy and manipulates any who has plans and the ambition to accomplish them, all for his own end game which even he doesn't know. He is said to have so many plans that many contradict each other. He values greatly these Crystal worlds of his and so in exchange for some rare materials and a non-aggression pact, Freya fired the main cannon of Outer Heaven into a 'warp rift' that Typhus used to initially encounter us, and Nurgle manipulated the rift to aim the cannon's shell at the world. It was destroyed along with several Tzeentch fleets, dealing a massive blow to his capabilities to carry out schemes in the material universe. This has landed us favorably with Nurgle and so for the time being, we'll only have to worry about two other Chaos Gods, Khorne and Slaanesh."
The footage had followed her words, illustrating her report with absolute clarity.
"Khorne is the Chaos God of bloodshed and warfare. He doesn't care whose blood it is, as blood is blood to him. A favorite chant by his followers is 'Blood for the Blood God, Skulls for the Skull Throne.' His minions haven't been encountered yet, but based on this bit of knowledge, all they care about is needless and senseless slaughter of all life. Men, women, children, elderly, animals and nature. As long as some form of blood is drawn, he is pleased."
That definitely had many clenching their hackles and claws or limbs.
"The last is the Chaos God Slaanesh, the patron… patroness… deity of lust, debauchery, and anything related to acts of carnal pleasure. According to that title, we can assume she/he… *sigh* it was literally birthed into existence by rampant debauchery. Aside from Nurgle, the other Gods, especially Slaanesh and Tzeentch, have become sworn enemies of Freya when they tried to psychically pressure her mind with thoughts of treachery and infanticide. She took the insult as an assassination attempt and due to the sheer scale of these new enemies, we have ordered the construction of a second Path of Defiance to build ships of a larger scale. I strongly advise any who have not the numbers to even explore past their own galaxy to not even enter this galaxy. As of now, only the Valkyrians, the Ceph, the Galactic Federation, and—had they been alive—the People and the Forerunners would be able to handle the turbulent wars. Several of you all have the technological capabilities, but the numbers are simply not on your side, and you would have no reason to engage in activities here. We have information that billions die every week or month, and that's just among the Imperium of Humanity, which speaks highly of the numbers they could throw at any who enters W40K."
Many were appalled by the sheer loss of life and knew they could not last in such a place.
"Now, the next order of business before I let anyone take the stand is to issue reports on Object 4-DG and the Missing Procedure. We will let the two most knowledgeable give their reports. Omega, if you would?"
Loki took a step back as the form of the Omega Ceph floated to the center for her, but in front of the hologram faces of everyone else. Any amount of small chatter was silenced as all deferred respectively to the oldest creature among them all. Even Harbinger, well over a billion years old, often spoke respectively of the Ceph.
"Object 4-DG. No longer… dormant. Small activity detected… energy fluctuations noticed… not enough to even power a cruiser… but growing larger. How much it will grow… we do not know. Fluctuations detected… one inter-stellar week ago. We'll continue to watch."
The hologram floated over to its place in the first circle of images, and the one next to it moved. It was of a large computer. "Please explain what you know of the Missing Procedure for the few who are new here, Ex. For those who don't know, Ex is the leader of the Morphus people who have existed for around four billion years. Do show respect where it should be given," Loki diverged respectively. She gave respect where it was due and this was a being whose age and knowledge eclipsed her own by entire eons. The announcement of its age shocked all who weren't Valkyrian or Ceph. Even the Reapers had no former knowledge of the Morphus' age.
"Thank you, Loki. Your news was quite troubling. This universe seems to hide horrors outside of it as well as in. Give Freya my congratulations when you're able. Even I was surprised by her having a child." Nobody would have known that the super-computer that made up the 3.7 billion years of Morphus knowledge was making a joke thanks to its tone.
"The Missing Procedure is a universal phenomenon. It is a conglomerate of energy gathered from all points of the universe and has grown sentient on a subconscious level, and that this entity exists in a parallel dimension. Even I do not know its true age but we can assume it was started the moment natural evolution was first artificially mangled within our universe. It draws energy naturally through species suddenly jumping up in their evolutionary phases, whether it be biological or technological. The former is something that is unavoidable unless we are to make the entire universe's inhabitants stagnate for eternity. As for the technological evolution, this happens most commonly whenever a species' technology is directly influenced by the introduction of new, more advanced examples. A famous case would be how the Turians used to solely rely on the knowledge of the extinct Protheans' ruins to improve their technology. Thanks to intervention from both Morphus and Valkyrian, they have been corrected. The rest of your Citadel species should follow in step as they have been the largest, single source of energy fueling the Missing Procedure for the past 200 deca-cycles (2,000 years)."
The Turian looked decidedly uncomfortable but the stares he got were ones of respect. Many knew it couldn't have been easy for Turians to basically restart their entire system of technology.
"Yes, it is excellent that we have talked to the Reapers as well. Oh, that's the hologram that looks like a floating Cephalapod, Turian. They actually created the Citadel, Mass Relays, and killed the Protheans. I believe your two kinds would be meeting officially in about thirty-five years should the Reapers have stuck to their 50,000 year genocidal harvest cycle of all Eezo using species in your galaxy. I can properly introduce you if you'd like?"
"No, maybe later, Ex," the councilor responded with a chill down his back. He definitely realized just how deep he and his people were in. They were talking about some really major news, bigger than any he could have made up with his imagination, and would surely cause the Citadel Council itself to panic and deny. However, when he became the Councilor for the Turian Hierarchy, he was disclosed this information by the Primarch himself and sworn to utmost secrecy. Knowing that the Protheans were simply a powerful race who were 'harvested' by this Reaper, one he was sure was eyeballing him, caused a sudden urge to gulp for him.
"As you wish, Councilor. Moving on, normally, this method would be too slow but over the past few millennia, the link between the Missing Procedure and our universe—a roaming planetoid of pure energy we refer have referred to as 'Nox Obscuras'—has been growing more powerful. We couldn't understand why at first until we discovered that Nox Obscuras uses its near infinite amount of collected energy to send out purple crystals of energy we have called 'Grigori' across the vastness of space towards ignorant planets. Once upon a planet, the Grigori will begin corrupting the lifeforms around it. Those lifeforms of certain capability will experience an evolutionary growth of thousands of years within mere decades. One race, the Cardianon, were hunter tribes merely three deca-cycles ago. Now, they are advanced enough for interstellar travel with ships equipped with energy shields and weapons of an unfamiliar design. We have compiled data from similar instances to conclude that these Grigori corrupt and evolve lifeforms and send not only the energy, but data of the lifeforms themselves, straight to Nox Obscuras, feeding the Missing Procedure as well as giving it new information to use to create more variety for their pawns—the group we have named the Phantoms. They resemble any race that has been corrupted by them, only looking like a red and black form of soliquid, as well as the forms of technology such as ships and weapons. These Phantoms are much more powerful than the originals they are made from and their numbers are endless as long as Nox Obscuras is being supplied energy. We are constantly monitoring its movements but have yet to be prepared for an assault on the link as Nox Obscuras is defended by several million warships, a few being Cardianon, Human, and Eldarian, but many more of uncatalogued species. That is all for an explanation. If you need more, I will gladly send you enough information to make your young minds crash. As for the update, we are currently tracking Nox Obscuras and its long-term trajectory, if it stays its course, is the spiral galaxy most commonly known by its populous as the Milky Way. Estimated time of arrival to the closest settled solar system is 3.9 deca-cycles. That would mean that of those among us, the ones who face imminent danger are the Turians, the Reapers… and the Valkyrians."
Loki had been greatly enjoying the cynical teasing of Ex and the looks of absolute horror on the previously ignorant representatives' faces, but now was not the time to enjoy such things unfortunately, especially with this bit of news. "Thank you, Ex. I'll make certain to inform Queen Freya of this unsettling report as soon as this meeting is over. Is there anything you have to report on it?"
The super-computer sentient glowed green for a moment before answering. "It would be wise to begin preparing all capable inhabitants of the Milky Way, or evacuate them to prevent Nox Obscuras' Grigori crystals from consuming them. Outposts should be set up with all charted planets to report for any signs of Grigori. Only the Ceph and the Valkyrians are capable of mass producing proficient combat units to be rapidly deployed to investigate any sightings of Grigori and destroy them in a timely manner. Valkyrians' variety of combat platforms should have self-destruct features installed. Should any be corrupted and Nox Obscuras gain information to reproduce your armies and improve upon them, any ground based battles will be hopeless. Dangers would increase exponentially should they be able to reproduce actual improved Valkyrians-Minors or Majors. No battle data is collected on your Royals, but if given data is accurate, the Missing Procedure would have the penultimate foot soldiers where nothing short of complete obliteration would be the result of any resistance."
The news greatly unnerved everyone present and many who have been allies with the Valkyrians knew of the absolute necessity for no actual Valkyrians to be corrupted. Loki had to put them at ease, as hard as that would be.
"Each and every Valkyrian is always accounted for and monitored due to the expanse of our influence and small numbers of our species. Each and every one of our people are necessary for the continuation of our species given 100 percent of our species are female. Each of our colonies and stations are equipped with an entire Core of cyborg soldiers of various make and model. All are operated by V.I.s and led by competent A.I. commanders. Each Core is never sent out without a maintenance facility to make necessary modifications and repairs based on their environmental situations. Having each unit equipped with an adequate self-destruct warhead upon operational failure or imminent capture will not be an issue despite our vast armies."
Many, if they could, breathed sighs of relief before the acting leader of the Valkyrians interrupted their respite. "That being said, I'm afraid that the Outer Heaven will be unable to respond to any major threats or join in any large offensives for several deca-cyles at the least. When Freya overclocked the Grateful Sun Ray to fire upon Tzeentch's crystal world, it was stressful to the cannon to contain the explosive energy of a supernova. The ship is still operable but I'm soon to begin adjustments and modifications to Outer Heaven to make it more efficient. With such a massive ship, even with our technological knowledge… this will take some time. However, Path of Defiance will soon have another twenty fleets added to our Navy within a few day cycles that we commissioned several months ago. Once properly manned, equipped, and sorted, they will be sent out to reinforce any of our colonies or allies that need it. We have several small skirmishes still ongoing and Queen Freya has ordered me to finish them already so that we may divert our full attention to the problems that matter in the grand scheme of events."
As the meeting went on and each group gave their reports of their sectors or territories, the few smaller races finally began to realize just how huge and dangerous the universe was, and that even it was under attack from extra-dimensional monsters. Having been somewhat secure and content with their small, unnoticeable civilizations, they were now like worried children hiding among the legs of their adult allies.