Venerable Brother Morphaeus and the Third Samus’s Club Crusa

Venerable Brother Morphaeus and the Third Samus’s Club Crusade


Spak Prime was an Imperial world much like any other, full of supermarkets much like any other, with parking lots much like any other; however in this parking lot, in front of this Samus’s Club, on this Imperial world all was not well. A ground transport was quadruple-parked across every one of the Samus’s Club’s handicapped spaces. As if this blasphemy against the Holy Imperium of Man’s Sacred Parking Regulations did not by itself profane the Emperor’s valiant sacrifice this ground transport, this veritable chariot of unholy damnation, was not even displaying a handicapped sticker.
	As a meter-maiden of the Adeptus Arbites approached the offending vehicle, more to ascertain how the driver could have managed to quadruple-park such a small vehicle than to post a citation, an obviously synthesized stentorian yell burst over her vox so suddenly the meter-maiden yelped and accidently flung her citation pad and pen across the parking lot.
	“YOU HAVE DONE WELL THIS DAY ARBITES! THE EMPEROR KNOWS AND LOVES ALL WHO CRUSADE IN HIS NAME AND YOU SHALL NOT FACE THIS FOE ALONE! FALL BACK AND WITNESS THE FURY OF THE EMPEROR’S CHOSEN; SALVATION IS AT HAND!”
The meter-maiden stumbled back from the quadruple-parked handicap-zone violator frantically looking around for the source of the vox transmission. As the half crazed mechanical voice over the vox began some sort of chant it was joined by a kind of roar, strangely she could almost feel it in her gut.
“MY ARMOR IS CONTEMPT! MY SHIELD IS DISGUST! MY SWORD IS HATRED! IN THE EMPERORS`S NAME, LET NONE SURVIVE!!!”
A second after the roar turned into a shriek the meter-maiden could feel in her molars, earth and molten blacktop exploded from the handicapped spaces as a drop pod slammed into the offending ground transport like the Fist of Dorn writ-large. The pod’s ramps exploded open and a single massive armored form charged out from the specialized drop pod rapidly panning its sensors in every direction alert for the possibility of the now-vanquished vehicle’s lamentably unaccounted-for treasonous operator. Determining that there were no immediate threats in the area Ancient Morpheus of the [Redacted by order of the Inquisition] Chapter focused his primary optical sensor on his landing site where a single corner of the ground transport’s bumper could be seen poking out from the crater his arrival created.

“HA! WHO NEEDS THE LEGION OF THE DAMNED? THAT PHASING IN AND OUT SHIT IS FOR PUSSIES WHO CAN’T STOMACH A DROP LIKE REAL MEN!”

Ancient Morpheus swiveled his boxy armored frame back around and found the meter-maiden sprawled on the ground twenty yards away, she looked up at him blinking rapidly and obviously concussed. Not some contemptible commissar or inquisitor content to treat other servants of the Emperor as disposable lasgun platforms Ancient Morpheus stomped over to the arbites, carefully bent foreword, and extended a single flange or “finger” of his close combat weapon to his fallen comrade-in-arms.

“RISE NOBLE WARRIOR, THOUGH THIS ENEMY OF THE EMPEROR IS SUNDERED OUR TASK REMAINS UNFINISHED AS OTHERS YET DRAW BREATH!”

The dazed warrior took the outstretched flange and Morpheus graciously assisted her to her feet. Ancient Morpheus failed to notice his gentlemanly assistance also removed the woman’s arm from its socket (as well as achieving several other skeleto-muscular maneuvers her doctors would be able to publish a number of papers on). The meter-maiden opted not to say anything as the senile death machine had seemed quite gallant, even cute in a bumbling, grand-parent-y, almost-dismembering-her kind of way.

The target of opportunity dealt with and having established a rapport with local forces Morpheus decided to move foreword with his primary objective. Morpheus focused his primary optical sensor on the still woozy meter-maiden, “CAPTAIN HELINVAS ANTICIPATES A STRATEGICALLY SIGNIFICANT RENDEZVOUS WITH A DETACHMENT OF ADEPTUS SORORITAS AND I HAVE BEEN TASKED WITH SECURING WINE C—,” there was a sudden burst of static from the dreadnaut’s vox grill, “NECESSARY SUPPLIES. PLEASE DIRECT ME TO THE LOCAL SAMUS’S CLUB.”

The meter-maid cocked her head at Morpheus quizzically then screamed back at him, “Sorry what was that?!” She gestured to her bleeding ears with the arm Morpheus hadn’t pretzeled, “I THINK THAT EXPLOSION DID SOMETHING TO MY HEARING!”

Sensor’s honing in on the woman’s obviously compromised sensory organs Morpheus also noted the arbites’s right arm appeared to have been mangled by some godless heathen before he’d arrived on the scene. Morpheus considerately optimized the settings on his vox-grill to facilitate better communications with his source of local intel (his “optimized” settings were comparable to those an arbites rhino would use for less-lethal crowd pacification.) “SAY NO MORE COMRADE! THOUGH I WOULD GLADLY SEE YOU FIGHT AT MY SIDE I CANNOT IN CONSCIENCE ALLOW YOU TO ACCOMPANY ME FURTHER WITH SUCH WOUNDS. YOU’VE DONE YOU’RE PART IT’S TIME I DO MINE. FALL BACK AND SEEK A MEDICAE, I SHALL CONTINUE TO THE SAMUS’S CLUB ALONE.”

The arbites perked up, “Samus’s club?! It’s right behind you!” She pointed with her good arm.

“FAREWELL NOBLE WARRIOR!” The dreadnaut swiveled in the indicated direction and was more than slightly miffed to find the Samus’s Club less than ten yards behind him, it was fortunate armored sarcophagi could not blush. With that, after carefully hanging his disabled tag behind his pod’s rear-view mirror, the veteran warrior strode up to the store. (Whose entrance he had to widen with several explosive blows from his dreadnaut close combat weapon.) “I’M GETTING TOO DEAD FOR THIS SHIT!”

	The meter-maiden never forgot that day and for a hundred generations her family would proudly recount the tale of how she had lost her hearing as she waged war as the sole companion and partner of, not just an Adeptus Astartes but an actual dreadnaut, the Ancient Whorepheus.




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Morpheus turned down the indicated aisle and quickly acquired his target, Captain Helinvas’s beloved wheat thins. There was a full shelf of reduced carb wheat thins but only one box of classic wheat thins. At the same moment his targeting sensors honed in on the box of classic wheat thins his peripheral sensors noted a shopping cart being pushed into the other end of the aisle. At first Morpheus nearly mistook the blob-like creature behind the over-ladden cart for one of Nurgle’s vile demons but closer inspection revealed it was merely a grossly overweight woman. The porcine woman’s eyes immediately fastened on the box of classic Wheat Thins as though she were drawn to it. Then she realized Morpheus also regarded the classic Wheat Thins, the two made eye/sensor contact for a brief moment, one warrior saluting another before battle was joined.

The nurgle look-alike rushed towards the wheat thins at the same moment Morpheus sprang foreword reactor roaring, his immense bulk shattering the tiles where his foot pads came down each stride shaking countless jars of Peso and off-brand generic salsa off of the selves. Even as Morpheus red-lined his servos and hydraulics he could see the blob-woman would reach the Wheat Thins first. Fortunately for Captain Helinvas and the Imperium, which relied on the Captain feeling properly sated to lead at 100%, Morpheus had learned to rely on more than brute strength and firepower to win the day; after all was it not the holy mission of every Astartes to master every aspect of war?

Even as the woman stretched her arm and sausage fingers out towards the classic Wheat Thins a series of grenades erupted from their launchers atop Morpheus near instantly filling the aisle with opaque smoke. The nurgle-woman continued towards her target unfazed however, reaching out and grabbing the box of wheat thins by memory before cackling and pulling out of the aisle. Had Morpheus still been housed in his old body he would have smiled as the store’s sprinklers came on and the smoke dissipated to reveal a single missing box of diet wheat thins, the diet wheat thins that Morpheus had shoved farther down the shelf and in so doing moved the classic Wheat Thins out of the fat woman’s aim.

Morpheus proudly swept the classic wheat thins into his cart, no Captain of his would go around eating diet wheat thins like some elder ninny.



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“CITIZEN YOUR CART CONTAINS ELEVEN ITEMS!”
“Yea, so what?”
“THIS IS THE EXPRESS LANE! TEN ITEMS OR UNDER ONLY!” Morpheus swung his lascannons to point at the hanging sign and inadvertently tore apart a section of drop ceiling.
The man with eleven items shrugged, “Chill out man, its not a big deal.”
Ancient Morpheus was suddenly glad he had been tasked with securing the items on the company’s shopping list; many of the younger battle-brother’s were soft and inexperienced in the ways of the world outside the fortress monastery, they might not have seen this filth for what he was. “HERETICAL SCUM! MINE IS THE WRATH OF THE HOLY IMPERIUM! IN THE EMPEROR’S NAME PREPARE TO BE PURGED!”
	As his dreadnaut close combat weapon was currently employed to operate his shopping cart Ancient Morpheus stepped back and the store manager’s frantic plea was drowned out by the whine of Morpheus’s rapidly charging lascannon capacitors. In an instant the filth who would dare defy the ten items per cart edict of a supermarket of the Holy Imperium of Man was no more, his corrupt flesh purified by the holy light of Morpheus’s lascannons. Hateful scum that he was his death also caused the loss of checkout stations four, five, and six. They went down with all hamds.
	Morpheus turned back towards the cashier and seeing that the lady who had been in line ahead of the heretic had inexplicably chosen another line Morpheus pushed his cart up to the check-out and regarded the cashier with his numerous sensors, “I HAVE COUPONS!”


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	The cashier, an experienced store employee currently on the tail end of a double shift, had clearly checked out mentally; her only reaction to the massive armored sarcophagus or his (and the Imperium’s) glorious triumph over foul heresy was to chew her gum a couple of times and hold out a hand for the coupons as Morpheus’s items made their way down the registers conveyor belt, “Let me see ‘em Hun.’ I’ll ring everything up then plug in any discounts.”

“I HEAR AND OBEY!” If the woman had been paying more than the absolute minimum attention required to mechanically scan the price codes, slide them into the bagging area, take her customer’s money and make change she might have been impressed with how deftly the ancient dreadnaut was able to tear out the tiny, poorly perforated coupons from the booklet offered in front of the store with nothing but the stubby finger flanges of his dreadnaut close combat weapon, as it was her only reaction was to frown at one of the coupons she knew would require her to actually punch in the coupon code by hand as a printing error had ruined its bar code.

“Sir, this coupon is for the name brand boxed cereal, not the generic bagged cereals like you’ve got here. Would you like to swap the bagged brand out for the boxed brand? Even without the coupon these generic ones are still cheaper though it won’t have the toy inside.”

	Morpheus’s primary sensor node whirred audibly as he focused the lenses on the problem bag of cereal. After a moments assessment he gave grunt, which when issued through his vox grill sounded vaguely like gravel crushers mating, and gave a dismissive wave of his twin-linked lascannon, “THIS ITEM WILL BE SUFFICIENT, IF BAG BRANDS WERE GOOD ENOUGH FOR THE EMPEROR, THEY’RE GOOD ENOUGH FOR SCOUTS!” Heh, he thought, maybe this’ll get the little shits to think twice the next time they go to stencil “Purity Sealed for Freshness” on my power plant . I swear on the Golden Throne itself if I ever catch them at it the bastards will find themselves getting some of what Horus got. Suddenly he realized the cashier had been trying to get his attention for several moments, her eyes occasionally darting to the clock urging the end of her shift to arrive.

“Sir? Sir!”

“ERM, YES? WHAT? OH!”

Morpheus extended his cred chit from its housing in his close combat weapon, but the woman shook her head at it and gestured for the umpteenth time at the several six-packs of wine coolers yet to be scanned.

“Sir, I’ll need to see some ID for the Wine Coolers.”

The ancient dreadnaught’s worn framed lurched slightly and for a moment the only sound was the whiring of adjusting lenses as his primary sensor node zoomed in and out on the cashier several times, “ID? WHAT USE HAS AN ADEPTUS ASTARTES FOR ID CARDS? MY IFF TRANSPONDER HAS BEEN MAINTAINED PERFECTLY, ANY BASIC DATA SWEEP WILL TELL ANY LOYAL SUBJECT OF THE IMPERIUM OF MY RIGHTEOUS STATURE IN THE EYES OF THE HOLY EMPEROR. I HAVE WAGED HOLY WAR IN THE EMPERORS NAME ON A THOUSAND WORLDS, TALES OF MY DEEDS SPAN CENTURIES. AND YET YOU DARE QUESTION ME, I WHO HAVE SHIELDED THE REALMS OF MAN SINCE THE EMPEROR HIMSELF STILL WAGED HIS HOLY CRUSADE ALONGSIDE MY BATTLE-BROTHERS AND I!?”

The cashier showed not the slightest bit of concern for Morpheus’s booming voice or the wild gesticulation of his lascannon and close combat weapon, she merely chewed her gum some more with a bored expression and gestured to the notice next to the register, “Photo ID required for all purchases of Alcohol and Riot Weed, no exceptions.”

“I’m sorry sir but if you can’t show me some valid photo ID I’ll have to put these back on the shelf, you don’t have a drivers license or anything?”

“I’M GETTING TO DEAD FOR THIS SHIT! THIS IS AN OUTRAGE! I’M A DISABLED VETERAN GODDAMNIT; IS THIS HOW FAR THE IMPERIUM HAS FALLEN PREVENTING A WOUNDED OLD MAN, A MAN WHO GAVE HIS LIFE SO THAT PARASITES LIKE YOU CAN HAVE THE COMFORTING LACK OF LIBERTIES THAT WE ENJOY TODAY! I WANT TO TALK TO A MANAGER! IF THIS IS WHAT THE HUMANITY THE EMPEROR GAVE SO MUCH FOR HAS FALLEN TO PERHAPS IT IS A MERCY THAT HORUS’S BETRAYAL FORCED HIM TO WITHDRAW TO THE GOLDEN THRONE FOR IT SPARES HIM THE SIGHT OF TRAVESTIES SUCH AS THIS!”

Morpheus broke off his righteous condemnations as the manager arrived in response to the commotion. Morpheus’s sensors locked onto the nametag clipped on the pudgy man's pinstriped dress shirt and verified he held a position of authority.

“Sir is there a problem?”

“INDEED THERE IS CITIZEN! I, A DISABLED VETERAN, A MAN WHO HAS DEDICATED HIS LIFE TO THE PROTECTION OF THE IMPERIUM, AM NOW BEING DENIED SERVICE! IS IT TOO MUCH TO ASK THAT AFTER HAVING SACRIFIED EVERYTHING, EVEN MY VERY FLESH, IN THE SERVICE OF MANKIND THAT I BE ABLE TO PURCHASE SOME WINE COOLERS AND SPEND A PLEASANT AFTERNOON DEBRIEFING A DETACHMENT OF PLEASANT YOUNG BOL-“ here there was a sudden burst of static. ”ADEPTUS SORORITAS WITHOUT BEING TREATED LIKE SOME KIND OF PENAL LEGION CONVICT? I HAVE RIGHTS  GODEMPERORDAMNIT!”

The manager smiled in his most conciliatory manner and whispered to the cashier that he would take care of this customer and she could go off shift a few minutes early, “Oh, dear I’m terribly sorry about that sir; my word a veteran and everything. Here sir by way of apology I’ll just go ahead and let you take those wine coolers free of charge. It’s the least I can do to repay you for your service.”

“OH, WELL… THANK YOU THEN SIR. I’M SORRY IF I’VE LOST MY TEMPER, ITS JUST I’VE SEEN GOOD MEN DIE DEFENDING REQUISITION-MART’S JUST LIKE THIS ONE. PERHAPS I’VE OVER REACTED.”

“Oh, no need to apologize sir, and thank you for your service to the Emperor. Let’s see, without the wine coolers, that will bring your total to…” The manager rang up the purchase and the register displayed the final total.

“35.26?! WHO DO I LOOK LIKE, MARNEUS CALGAR?! WHAT KIND OF RINKY-DINK ROUGUE TRADER OPERATION IS THIS?!”