As it happened, the creatures came from just about every possible direction. Both ends of the hallway, for starters; many emerged from the nearby vents, too; and a great number came crawling toward the group on the walls and ceiling, clearly intending to leap down on the soldiers from above the way the first had attempted to attack Lucius. Some even crawled out from a nearby pit that the Marine had previously not noticed.

That, however, was about as much info as he was able to glean before throwing himself into the fray, combat blades flashing as he cut down monster after monster. The first scratch to his stomach, barely evaded to prevent it becoming a lethal strike that spilled his guts, told Lucius enough about them: the claws of these things were sharp enough to claw open power armour with ease, never mind unarmoured flesh, and the xeno-things wielding them were as fast as lightning, as the next several injuries would further prove. About the time that one got a lucky strike off, tearing a trio of gashes down his left arm that quickly filled with coagulated blood, Lucius decided further fighting would be a worthless endeavour, one which would surely end his life for no good reason. As it happened, the combat let up for a short while just after that, giving Lucius a moment to assess the situation. The Ogryn was surprisingly competent, it seemedl the rest of his squadron, clearly, was not.

And passing through a nearby bulkhead doorway, [url=http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Genestealer_Familiar]some tiny thing was skittering,[/url] like one of the larger xenoforms in miniature. With an almost instinctive jolt, Lucius practically leapt toward the thing, passing through the open bulkhead door at nearly the same moment as the creature and tackling it to the ground, and then skewering it with his knife until it ceased to move, heedless of its pathetic attempts to defend itself... at least by comparison, for the scrapes on his chest hardly compared to the wounds on the rest of his body. The point of that, then, would be to stop whatever activities it had been engaging in, since such a small entity was surely not intended to be a combat form of the creatures... then again, he knew Orks sometimes used their Grots and Snotlings as cannon fodder, the latter mostly as ammunition, but were the two situations comparable? Not likely.

And that put Lucius in another hallway, with a cross junction not ten meters away and nothing living in sight. Perhaps it was better like that, and if the tiny fragment of battle memory that crossed his mind anew had anything to say... wait. Correction: somebody was screaming for their life. And if Lucius wandered up to the crossroads...

He found his minion, falling at the feet of another xeno lifeform and promptly being flipped on to his back, this one with tentacles in place of its mouth. The significance was irrelevant to Lucius, because how dare it threaten his peon? Only he was allowed to do that! The calculations for how to throw his shorter weapon took perhaps half a second, and the throw itself reached the alien just as it began to lean down toward the cultist - perhaps in preparation to suck his brain from his skull, or perhaps for another purpose, but now only to have half its face severed along with its neck, blood spewing from the stump as the body slumped to the ground. Lucius ignored the cultist's subsequent struggles to free himself from beneath the creature's corpse, passing by the man to retrieve the blade, lodged in the metal flooring just a short distance from the body proper. A sudden shock rumbling throughout the Hulk helped free the weapon, and whilst it was oddly massive in scale, it hardly affected Lucius' balance. Maybe something had exploded nearby. An engine, or what have you.

And then, with nothing else in sight - especially not above him, he made sure to check - he sheathed both weapons, and at last turned to his minion, the both of them now splattered with alien gore in various colours. Khorne would probably appreciate that sight more than any other Chaos God, but what did Lucius care? Not much, that was what. However, he wiped his face clean with one hand anyway, listening quietly to the psyker's offerings of 'thank you my lord high master' and 'it is so good to see you again, o Scion my Scion' and 'I'm sorry for the bother, sir, I couldn't defend myself'.

'It's okay, it's no bother, it wasn't your fault,' Lucius offered, a smidgen of praise just to shut the man up... of course it wasn't his fault, though. There were so many of those things on board the Hulk, and they'd surely have found Ga'duk and his Imperial allies anyway. It wasn't like anyone had a beacon drawing them to-

An abrupt realisation hit the Fallen Angel like a hammer, and he promptly gripped the minion's clothing in one fist, raising the squirming maggot up to eye level, slamming him against the wall just enough to rattle him.

'How often have you been using your telepathy?' Lucius asked, quiet as death.

'Uh- w-well, I mean, that is to say, oh high mighty lord-'

[i]Which shoulder was it that his third eye was located on?[/i] Lucius asked himself. [i]Did the worm ever say?[/i] He tried the right one, just lightly poking it, and was rewarded with a yell of pain at the pressure.

'I ask again: how often?'

'Wuh-once every two or three minutes, master.'

'You blithering fool,' Lucius uttered, eyes narrowed with contempt. 'Let's ignore the general risks of constantly using psychic powers, and go to the more immediate problem: there are probably thousands, if not [i]hundreds[/i] of thousands, if not hundreds of [i]millions[/i] of those... "Genestealers" on board this Space Hulk. If even one of them is psychic, and I'm almost positive they have psykers, then your constant broadcasts are like a massive sign yelling "Come here, there's good eating to be had!"'

'...I, ah, I admit, sir, I was preoccupied with, ah... with, um, informing-'

'Stop. Using. It. Unless you want to join the Chaos Gods that much sooner.'

'Yes m'lord sir, sorry master lord scion.'

And then he let the minion drop down again, the man's knees collapsing beneath him briefly before he got his footing. That said, it seemed Lucius would be alone once more, unless the Ogryn had found his way into this very same hallway without being followed.

...and speak of the daemon. Sans shield and caked in blood, but otherwise intact, the creature walked into view of Lucius and the telepath with almost comic timing. And if he was the only one of his squadron who'd survived...

'If anybody asks, you worship the Emperor of Mankind,' Lucius muttered to the peon under his breath, before standing up straight and strolling toward the brutish creature, clearing his throat to try and make sure it noticed him. Its inherent stupidity would surely work in his favour, hopefully letting him fool it into believing he had good intentions all around, and perhaps even allowing him to instill a degree of permanent loyalty to him, if he played his cards right. So long as his present follower didn't screw anything up, of course.

[@Sophrus]