A/N: This story has been sitting around for a while, I started it when I first read Death Korps of Justice. I simply could not resist creating a story on the same vein.
It took me a while to settle on an Eversor Assassin, first it was a Arbites Judge, then a Battle Sister, then a Space Marine. I needed something that really epitomized the spirit of Warhammer 40,000.
I put down a list of requirements. It had to wear a skull helmet, it needed to be angry, it had to be super-human, and it needed to be as far off DC's hero mentality as humanly possible. My first thought was: Chaplain Lemartes! But I eventually landed on Eversor, because in addition to doing all of these things, it also explodes when you kill it. Nothing gets more 40k than that.
It was called the Hecatomb. A facility buried in the depths of a rogue asteroid, whose very existence was a tightly held secret. For the Officio Assassinorum drones that toiled here, the very halls seemed to radiate a palpable aura of death and terror. Not so unfitting for a storage vault of the legendary Eversor Temple.
The Hecatomb had been Aric Gissen's home and prison for the last twenty-three years, and not one of them had been in any way kind to him. His old promising life in the Schola Progenium felt like it had happened centuries ago rather than a little over two decades, but time seemed to traverse differently in this dreary madhouse tumbling through empty space. Creases now lined his face, crows feet had formed around his eyes, and his black hair had begun to gray at the temples.
'You must endure the inevitable consequences of your actions.' the wrinkled old tutor abbot's voice still echoed forth from memory, as clear as the day the Schola prefects first dragged him from the dormitory, accusing him of academic sin. In layman parlance, he had been caught cheating. And they could not have that.
They had beat him of course, made him repent his dishonesty. It had felt so right back then, to alter his exam scores. He did not want to spend the rest of his life as an insignificant Administratum clerk toiling in a mailroom till the Warp froze over. He had always envisioned himself as a Commissar, a Stormtrooper, or even Emperor willing, an Inquisitorial aide. Looking back at his life so far, he probably should have left well enough alone.
The Officio Assassinorum was a grim and heartless organization to work for. There was no retirement plan, non-existent employee benefits, and his overseer scared the Emperor-loving shit out of him. He was the very definition of the word 'expendable' at any time his superiors could activate the capsule of neurotoxin buried into his skull to render him immediately brain dead. At least in the Administratum he could write himself off as deceased, and steal a few blank promissory notes to get himself relocated to a paradise world. There was no escape from the Hecatomb, he was going to die here, and his body would be rendered down into a paste to feed the servitors that operated the numerous arcane systems.
Life on the Hecatomb was only made worse by the fact that there were no women on this rock that were not comatose psychotics or mindless cybernetic automata. It was a policy invented by some soul shriven Officio bureaucrat holed up on Terra, out of belief that women would be an unnecessary distraction. Plus the Hecatomb supported neither a maternity leave policy or a nursery to support the consequences of intermixing genders. Obviously they did not think what kind of atmosphere this would generate in the workplace. Indeed when Aric first arrived, he had to fend off one horny sodomite after another in his off duty hours, and hide when groups banded together to hunt the 'new meat'... he did not always escape. And even when he grew too old for the degenerates to find attractive, he would still be occasionally awakened in his rack by pleasured masculine groans from the bunk above him. It was fair to say that by now he was completely erotophobic.
He hated this rock. He hated his co-workers. He hated his life. And he especially hated the assassins.
The Eversor assassins. There was nothing in the galaxy quite like them. On any given world in the Imperium, one could expect to find individuals who will end the life of someone for a shine of throne gelt, these people have the nerve to label themselves as assassins. Comparing those low-life blades for hire to an Eversor was like comparing a kitten to a Catachan Devil.
The Officio Assassinorum produced the core of Man's homicidal elite. The Vindicare, who only glimpsed society through the scope of a rifle, to end rebellions with a single shot. The Culexus, soulless and the root of fear for all touched by the Warp, to prey upon the most illusive of gifted apostates. Callidus, bereft of identity and divorced from honesty, so death could be meted from a familiar face. And then there was Eversor. A microcosm of brutality, that lives only to kill, to strike terror in the hearts of those who would doubt the Officio's mandate.
And all existed only to visit judgment upon the Emperor's enemies. They were weapons, and the Eversor was the most monstrous of all them.
But that was only part of why they so disgusted him.
It was disgust that he felt every time he descended into 'The Gallery' a cavernous octagonal corridor with a narrow catwalk running through it, flanked on all sides by a row of dark plasteel coffins featureless save for Gothic numerals etched into their surfaces. It was cold, and stank of madness and decay, a metal surfaced mausoleum. Here rested the vanguard of the Emperor's unforgiving contempt of human folly.
Shaking off his unease, Aric proceeded to stasis unit CIXIV. The status monitors wreathing the foreboding casket produced a putrid green glow that seemed to dampen what little color that was present in the chamber. Slowly he began the rites of release. After manipulating the runed keys on the control altar in the correct order, the coffin hissed and it's face parted down the middle and slid to either side to reveal an armacrys cylinder, and he beheld the face of death.
A barely human husk of overbuilt muscle and bionics was suspended in a foetal position within it's fluid cell. It gazed back at him through vacant, lightless eyes, the augmetics fused into it's post-human flesh twitched in spite of it's comatose state.
On one monitor, the creature's combat history scrolled down. Unit service life: seven years. Number of deployments: five-hundred-and-seventy-six. Estimated enemy casualties inflicted: seventeen-thousand-three-hundred-and-twenty-eight, including collateral damage.
Biological age: sixteen standard years.
Aptitude level: Epsilon-Dan
Then there was the medical history.
L2-L5 lumbar vertebrae shattered from a Tyranid hive tyrant. Detached median nerve in right arm by Dark Eldar haemonculus. Severed mandible below ramus in close combat with a Khornate Champion. Electrical burns 42.4 % of upper torso by Black Legion Chaos sorcerer. Left arm crushed below elbow by an Ork warboss. Two-hundred forty-three separate stubber and lasgun wounds. Eighteen cardiac arrests and automated restarts. And the list went on. By all the saints and primarchs, what did it take to kill these abominable things?
Aric keyed up the activation routine. Details of CIXIV's newest mission was downloaded into the assassin's neural cortex. Moments later the tube raised out of it's alcove and guided by an overhanging servitor onto a monorailed track that ran down the length of the hall. Aric followed the tube and it's inactive occupant to the arming chapel.
The fluid tomb was lowered onto a center pedestal, robed tech adepts chanted in their secret buzzing dialect, the stasis compound was drained out. The tube opened, and another servitor came forward. It delicately removed the unresponsive body from the tube and onto an empty frame, where its arms and legs were held fast by invisible restraining fields.
The chanting grew louder as sanctified cleansing oils were applied to scarred hardened flesh, bionic systems blessed and sanctified in the name of the machine god. The rack was flipped to a standing position as two servo arms rose from the floor, their ends furnished with delicate sprayers. They chanted again and the arms began to move.
Working up from the feet, a layer of black glossy material was strategically sprayed onto the assassin's bare flesh. This was synskin, a bio-reactive bodysuit utilized predominately by the Officio's agents. There were several varieties, and each temple had a unique pattern tailored exclusively to their code of operations.
When the sprayers were finished, every part of CIXIV's body save for his head was covered in the gleaming, wet textured material. One of the tech adepts had produced a compact pistol-shaped device, with a wide slot shaped barrel. When activated it emitted a ray of cyan light, that upon touching the freshly applied synskin, caused it to lose it's smooth gloss finish and adopt a non-reflective texture morbidly reminiscent of exposed skeletal muscles.
Next came the murder dress. First the various armaplas coated tubes comprising CIXIV's infusion transfer system were connected to various metal ports around his body left uncovered by the synskin. After than the assassin's ceramite and plasteel armored torso plate was mounted. The left side was dominated by the extractor. It filtered out the chemical waste byproduct created by the drugs running through it's system and vented it out through the circular grill as a noxious vapor. The backpack, which contained CIXIV's allotment of combat drugs and macrostimulants as well as the arcane omni-scope mast was fitted to his back, it whirred as it connected to the injector seats located on each of his thoraic vertebrae. Segmented plates wrapped around the thighs. Boots, greaves, and knee guards fashioned into skulls followed. The deadly neurogauntlet was fitted onto the left arm, it's hyper-alloy claws glinted menacingly in the low light, an ordinary armored glove and gauntlet sheathed the right. Finally the skull shaped helmet was fitted over CIXIV's head, the lower part was fitted directly onto the assassin's bionic lower jaw; completing the grotesque leering visage of death that was the hallmark of the Eversor Temple.
The tech adepts continued to the rites of rearmament. The armacrys ampules connected to the neurogauntlet were ritually filled with mutagenic acid, frag grenades were clasped to the belt, a Terran manufactured Executioner bolt pistol was mag-clamped to the thigh, melta bombs harnessed beneath the backpack, a power sword was sheathed behind the left shoulder.
Aric observed as the adepts finished the process and moved the still comatose Eversor assassin into the special one-man drop pod, where he would remain until the commencement of his mission. He hated CIXIV and all his brothers and sisters, hated the fact that the humanity was so flawed as to need such monstrosities to keep it in check. He prayed for the swift destruction of mankind's enemies, so that beasts such as them would be disposed of, before they ply their mockeries of lives the only way they know how.
With resignation he signed the confirmation order. He had seen the creature rearmed and primed for activation. It was all in the Emperor's hands now.
There was no dreaming in stasis. Brain activity was held close to terminal levels, vitals frozen to a crawl. It was the sleep of the dead.
It felt like a moment had passed since he was put under following his previous mission.
The wake-up call came as it always did. Eight ounces of pure amphetamine, flowed into his body. Enough to make a man's heart explode inside his chest, barely enough to stir a pound of enhanced cardiac muscle; six chambers – four organic, two artificial – flexed as they pumped blood through a mixture of natural and synthetic arteries.
CIXIV awoke, body aching, veins dry.
He drew breath through augmetic lungs, functionally superior to the original organs they replaced. A gentle thump reverberated through his chest cavity as he exhaled slowly.
He was in a drop pod, mid descent stage. Twenty-four seconds until contact.
There was thirst. The combat drugs were not running through him yet, making him feel weak, hollow. Had to find something to kill.
Directives flashed through his head as his attention curled around the maps in his mind and scuttled around genemarkers and images of the target. His Primary.
His mission was to assassinate Grand Premier Nalaji Prodeur and his entire house, a total of one-hundred-fifty-three targets with ages ranging from over two-hundred years to only a few months old. They all needed to die.
'Find... heretics... kill heretics... Praise... God-Emperor.'
The altimeter cycled down with mocking slowness, making the assassin wait. It hated waiting! The start of the mission was always the worst for CIXIV, alone in a plummeting drop pod with nothing to do. With no drugs to stave off the shakes and chills, praise the Emperor.
He wanted to scream, wanted to bellow and rage and chatter as he normally did while under the needle. Could not find his voice in this state, stuck to moving his lips behind the mask in a ceaseless litany.
'Blood-too-dry-recharge-and-kill-and-repeat-and-sleep-victory-in-the-name-of-the-Emperor.'
Ten seconds.
He shifted, snapped impotently at the imposed countdown. Hypodermics still beyond reach. Flavorless tepid blood flowed faster through the veins, wanted so much to spit it out, it felt so vile and joyless.
Five seconds.
Breathing increased, fingers flexed. The mask's teeth rapidly split apart and snapped together in tiny increments, the first of many seizures to come.
One second.
The assassin finally found it's voice and used it to scream with want.
The silent monotony of the palatial royal wing was shattered when a tall black pod tore through the roof, fell through the floors, and settled on the middle level wedged between two plasteel girders halfway between floors. It's psychotic payload was released moments later.
When confronted by a skull-faced superhuman, loosely held together by drugs, and armed with a wide variety of weapons, reactions tended to lean mostly towards gut-wrenching terror followed by dying howls of agony as ones guts were actually torn out by aforementioned embodiment of death and faith. And this recent deviant faction to come under the Officio Assassinorum's lethal notice was doing nothing to buck this trend.
"KILL!KILL!KILL! BLOOOOD! VENGEANCE!" the Eversor howled as he used his terrible claws to disembowel a frightened royal armsman, whilst diagonally bisecting another with his power sword.
Subdermal augmetics, genetically overdeveloped musculature, and psychotic bloodlust drove the pharmacological nightmare forward. Chemical agents swam through veins hard as tree bark, pushed under enormous pressure by a heart hammering at over three-hundred beats per-minute. The Eversor was only truly alive when it was killing.
A trail of victims littered the Eversor's path from here to his point of entry into the government palace, some had been guards, some servants, and others were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some of these people may have been loyal, Emperor-fearing subjects of the Imperium, but their connection to the Primary – though peripheral – was enough to warrant their violent executions, in the eyes of the Officio.
The Eversor met sterner resistance as he carved his way closer to the heart of the palace, where he would find the Primary, dispense judgement, and kill every secondary that was connected to him. He was going to exterminate the entire royal family.
The assassin's boot connected to an ornate door fashioned from imported wood; the force of the strike knocking it off plasteel hinges and sending it crashing into the room beyond, eliciting surprised shrieks from the occupants within. The apex murderer stalked into the room, muscles barely registering the effor of each footfall. The omni-scope mounted atop the retractable mast behind his right shoulder endowed the assassin with a three-hundred-sixty degree panoramic view of the room the moment he stepped in. He registered six targets, four armed men, an unarmed elderly woman, and a toddler.
The Executioner bolt-pistol was in the Eversor's right hand in an instant, before the guards could bring their antiquated las-locks to bear, the assassin fired four times in quick succession. Four men toppled to the floor with gaping craters in their chests.
"Mercy my lord! He's only two years old!" The old woman, a nanny presumably pleaded to the murderous agent of Imperial justice. The assassin was unmoved, the biological age of his targets was inconsequential to him; the Emperor's judgment was swift and absolute, no matter age or gender.
"No exceptions," the Eversor hissed as it stalked towards the two.
"I won't let you!" She cried, charging the assassin. Only to have her chest cavity married to the Eversor's neurogauntlet before being divorced and sent flying off to the side into the wall, she did not get up again.
The assassin then leveled his pistol at the child, uncaring of the boy's frightened tearful eyes. The needle gun seamlessly built into the pistol made a soft click, a crystalline toxic splinter entered the child's body, he was dead in a little over a second.
Similar dramas played out as the Eversor continued to purge the royal wing of the Primary's relatives and extended family. This was made easier by the human instinct to seek comfort with familiar faces in chaotic situations, they were grouping together, conveniently expediting their collective liquidation. The harvest was good, and the Emperor was pleased.
Hypodermic needles worked like pistons stabbing into his upper spinal column, urging him towards his ultimate objective. Leaving the royal wing a gore strewn abattoir of severed limbs and mutilated corpses, he fought his way into the inner palace.
'KillburndestroypraisetheEmperorfindkillslayfortheGoldenThroneshootburnexterminatethehereticpraisetheEmperor. Praise! PRAISE!'
"PRAAAAIIISSSEEE!" The Eversor roared as it vaulted off a mezzanine overlooking an atrium packed with nobles and other worthies, the Imperial assassin landed in their midst power sword crackling disruptive energy, neurogauntlet infused with toxic death, his reality devolved into a storm of screams and blood.
Countess Justine Wralder, heiress of a wealthy dynasty in a neighboring star system. Recipient of countless cosmetic alterations to make her beauty unrivaled, her famed visage was reduced to an explosion of blood, bone, brains, and biosilicon strips by a plasteel armored boot driving it into the marble floor.
Director Karl Shoeler, the chief overseer of the Departmento Munitorum labor camps in the system. Suspected of malfeasance. Cut cleanly down the middle by the assassin's glowing adamantium blade.
Lord Valo Kurn, chairman of the House of Nobles. Confirmed heretic. Willfully trafficked illegal xenos artifacts, linked to the disappearance of several ranking Administratum customs officials. Screamed like a child while his spine was torn from his body.
Captain Lorym Balasta. Rogue Trader. Associated with Valo Kurn. Aided Kurn in coveting and transporting illegal xenos artifacts. Throat crushed by Valo Kurn's detached spine, used by the assassin as an improvised cudgel.
The Eversor slew everything in sight without regard for social rank. There were no innocents here, only degrees of heretical complicity. He thanked the Emperor for granting him the privilege in punishing them. Alas his strict time table only allowed a little over half the room's occupants to be brought to judgment before the golden-eagle-double-header voice urged him forwards toward the Primary. So much to do. So much to do.
Dashing into a vaulted gallery, the Eversor was once more accosted by guards, this time augmented with the presence of three combat servitors. The lurching, cybernetic constructs leveled arm mounted heavy stubbers at him and opened fire. The assassin deftly leaped above their overlapping fields of fire, using his momentum he along the length of a gilded wall for several paces, outrunning the hailstorm of tracers that chased his steps.
'Find the heretic! Slay the unbeliever! Find-and-kill-rip-and-tear-and-eliminate! Praise the God-Emperor! Murder! Death! Kill!'
The Eversor slammed into the servitors, gutting the fools around them, scrambling over the hulking, lobotomized guardians, neurogauntlet leaving deep gouges that burned the life out of them with poison moments later. The eagle in his head screeched with satisfaction.
'Hunt the heretic! Destroy the heretic! Burn-and-eviscerate-and-decapitate! Praise the- what?'
A manservant, held by the throat, claws held back in preparation to cease circulatory functions. The man's half black half white robe was disheveled by the assassin's rough handling, parting to reveal the edge of something under the left collar bone. The assassin forced the fabric aside to get a proper look at it. His mental chatter ceased.
A skull, bicolored black and white, imposed over an eight pointed star.
When most people look at an Eversor assassin, they see a mindless killing machine. In reality however, an Eversor was a highly intelligent killing machine, capable of conducting field interrogations, operating virtually every type of Imperial vehicle, and constructing crude melta charges from various appliances. So upon seeing the blasphemous mark of Chaos, the ramifications this discovery had on his mission became immediately clear to the assassin.
With a thought the secure vox-link was established.
"Status." a terse voice immediately commanded.
"Code: Omega-Extremis detected in mission area."
There was silence, "Acknowledged. Contingency protocol 21-Nu is in effect."
"Understood," the assassin growled.
He was going to purify this place the only way he knew how.
But first he needed to have a few words in private with his new best friend.
The heretic had revealed much. Under the influence of the interrogation drugs, the man had figuratively spilled his guts to the assassin, before he in his generosity did so literally. It was clear that the Great Enemy had planted its vile seeds but a handful of terran years ago. Not that it mattered to the Eversor, soon there would be nothing left to perpetuate this abominable affront to the God-Emperor.
His original mission overridden, the assassin turned his unstoppable rampage upon every inhabitant of the palace. Nothing was spared, servants, children, guards, techpriests, courtesans, pets, concubines, visiting dignitaries, even the cockroaches in the kitchen; it mattered not who they were, no chances could be taken at this point, everyone in this place was now a primary.
Delving into the sublevels below the palace, the assassin was disgruntled by the distinct lack of targets to destroy. Blasphemous icons and writings became more commonplace the deeper he went, words whose meaning and arrangement caused the assassin more discomfort and hatred than the opiates coursing through his veins ever did.
He now stood before a large plasteel door, the foul images daubed upon the surface burned the Eversor's unblinking eyes behind his death mask, his omni-scope could not pierce the door and reveal what lay ahead. It did not matter, the God-Emperor's will would be done.
His hand gravitated to one of three melta bombs fitted underneath the backpack which housed his replacement fluids and infusion reserves. The melta bomb was a powerful explosive device that radiated a destructive pulse of intense thermal energy on detonation. This one originated from the most recent pattern, incorporating features innovated from studying captured Federation technology. Rather than releasing it's energy all at once, the new pattern incorporated a stasis device that sustained the detonation for several seconds, vastly increasing the amount of damage to a target. Such weapons were for the time being limited to the Inquisition, the Eversor Temple, Adeptus Sororitas, and the coalition of Astartes chapters currently opposing the upstart Federation.
The Eversor folded, almost double as it cradled the heretic hating explosive, it's entire body quivering in ecstasy as it savored this special moment. Shivering and muttering a half-remembered prayer to the machine spirit, frantically imploring it to unleash ultimate devastation to those that may be standing too close to the door.
He primed the melta bomb and tossed it at the door. The distortion bands around the casing fused to the plasteel door at the molecular level. The assassin began to laugh at the top of it's lungs.
A large sphere of blinding light bloomed inside the darkened halls beneath the palace, a lone star that chased away the darkness. Moth eaten tapestries devoted to the ruinous powers instantly combusted under the tremendous amounts of radiated heat, mouldering paint blackened and peeled off walls.
The moment the star collapsed, the Eversor vaulted through the partially collapsed, slagged doors, landing on the bank of the molten puddle on the other side.
"Emperor preserve me."
The walls and ceiling was covered in pulsating tumorous organic matter. Fleshy fronds ending in lamprey maws writhed and twisted, sallow reptillian eyes bulged and rolled, puckered gangrenous orifices gaped and released noxious red-brown plumes. Then there were the bodies.
Hundreds of human shapes were fused to the hall's corrupted surfaces, the holy form of man was displayed in various states of mutation and distortion. Many wore the same black and white robes as the heretic he played with earlier, some wore the brown coats and bronze plate of a palace armsman, others were adorned in the lavish trappings of nobility, the rest were too changed to even identify. But all were still living, their lips moving in unison, a chorus of dry whispering voices.
"Malice"
"Malice"
"Malice"
"Malice"
The Eversor forced his attention off the choir of the damned. He scanned the room, Executioner Pistol held in an iron grip in front of him, omni-scope panning left and right atop the mast.
"So contemptible," a slick oily voice uttered from the shadows, "After hounding my steps to this world, the Inquisition sends not one of their own, but a glorified attack dog to lead me to slaughter."
CIXIV's bloodshot eyes searched impatiently for the miserable arch-heretic that spawned this abomination.
"I wonder if your simple mind can comprehend the majesty of this sacred place. You who stumble in the dark, fumbling in ignorance, incapable of grasping true enlightenment. My ally lord Malal has shown me the true path to victory against the Great Enemy, and I will not have my work undone by a base creature such as yourself."
The Eversor was barely listening at this point. Whatever reasoning this heretic used to excuse his actions was irrelevant, nobody was exempt from the consequences of sin. This filth may as well be arguing his points to the executioners axe. But the manner of his communication did make CIXIV ponder, the assassin suspected that his quarry was a witch of some caliber which complicated matters. CIXIV was accustomed with slaying psykers, they would occasionally be employed by his targets as a means to thwart their own termination. Even the weakest and least talented witch could be a menace to the unsuspecting, or worse a potential bridge to the dread inhabitants of the Immaterium, Chaos daemons. The best remedy to their ilk was to kill them as quickly as possible.
"Retinue; remove this assassin in the name of the Emperor!"
They came from the shadows, it took the assassin but a few instants to gain the measure of the opposition. They were not the cultists that now covered the walls, their structure was far more flamboyant. He saw a heavily augmented individual clad in the traditional red kamino of the Adeptus Mechanicus, a large man who had the bearing of a Ministorum preacher but brandished a double-handed chain sword, an oversized abhuman brute wielding a double barreled auto-cannon, a woman bedecked in Sororitas pattern power armor with a meltagun, and many other outlandish combatants.
CIXIV did not wait to let them attack first. The assassin instead thrusted his pelvis out, canted his head back and unleashed a bestial scream of pure orgasmic murderlust.
"WRYYYYYY!"
Eversor assassins are reputed for their speed, most could run at bursts in excess of 70 KPH. CIXIV flew at the retinue at 82 KPH. A storm of gunfire lashed out to meet him, he fired back at the immediate threats with his bolt pistol, his clawed hand raised high. The autocannon toting abhuman was the first to die, two Hellfire bolts to the chest and the creature dropped to the ground as mutagenic acid payloads liquified his lungs and heart.
CIXIV jinked to the side as a searing melta stream swept towards him, fired by the 'sister'. The Eversor assassin gracefully dipped out of her field of fire and finally closed with the retinue. The pistol was holstered and replaced by the buzzing single-edged power sword.
Agents of the Eversor Temple are not quiet killers by any means. They are Apocalypse bound to human flesh, conceived for the special few that have angered the Imperium. To those whose indiscretions have warranted an Eversor pride should be taken, not every heretic is worthy of such a gruesome visitation of Imperial retribution.
Ropes of bloodstained saliva hung from the jaw of the skull helmet as it articulated to mimic CIXIV's howls of hate/pain/joy. He danced like an epileptic amongst the mismatched heretics, neurons fired through his system like an assault cannon as he dipped, dodged, clawed and cleaved his way through their ranks. A stubber round buried itself in his shoulder, he flinched not from pain, but the hated feeling of amphetamines being spiked into his body. The bleeding was staunched immediately by hyper-coagulant, the synskin reformed over the wound.
Even as he slew, the Eversor assassin's thoughts whorled and twisted like a hurricane. The mind of an Imperial assassin, no matter what temple it belonged to, moved like an intricate and unstoppable clockwork machine, Eversor were no different. Since the moment his training began, CIXIV had not only learned how to kill, but was taught everything there was to know about the Imperium that would be his hunting ground. In between having his body ravaged by endless steroids and stimms there was a razor sharp mind, and even within the drug induced haze, this did not completely leave him. Whilst the bloodletting continued he was subconsciously drawing up the report he would be giving to his handler should he walk from this mission alive. And the report was shaping into something even he found disturbing.
A quartet of death cult assassins surrounded him, eight gleaming blades locking him inside a cage of steel as he fought off attacks on all sides. This reminded him of training, confined to a cell with blade equipped training-engines as his only company, the dried blood of the Eversor Temple's failures staining their dark metal chassis. The death cultists were fast, but he was faster. Like a blur he lashed out with his claw, the index tip scratching a female assassin's wrist. Within moments her blade dropped from nerveless fingers and dropped to her knees as the poison consumed her, she was swiftly beheaded by an opportunistic flick of CIXIV's power sword. Moments later he knocked aside a male assassin's guard and stuck his claws into the lesser killer's shoulder dragging him close; he died when the Eversor's teeth tore out his throat. The spicy taste of death cultist blood was like heaven to his augmetic taste buds, but he reminded himself that these were the foulest of heretics so he quickly spat it out and activated the washers built into his metal jaw, the bitter flavor of purifying chemicals struck his pallate. The death cultists faltered at the sight of pink foam suddenly pouring out of CIXIV's mouth, making him appear like an obscene rabid beast.
"PRAY TO YOUR GODS!" The assassin bellowed, skewering a third assassin on his claw, crushing her heart. The last assassin, the leader if the red cowl was any suggestion pressed the attack, his keen blades seeking to end the life of the creature that slew his brethren. But it was futile, despite his senior rank the gap in ability was simply too profound. The power sword cast a glittering arc as it met the two blades with such force that they shattered in the death cultist's grasp. A ceramite armored boot slammed up into the fork of his legs, forcing him to double over. Before he could move a felt a prick on the base of his neck. The death cultist tried to shout. He could not. His throat.
He felt his throat sealing shut, even as his nerves burned and bunched inside his flesh.
The death cultist curled into a fetal position from the cocktail of lethal toxins that had been injected into his spinal cord. Confident that the poison would finish the job, the Eversor turned his attention to liquidating what remained of the retinue.
The priest armed with the giant chainsword rushed him muttering heretical oaths, CIXIV casually sidestepped the slow attack, grabbed the apostate by the neck and crushed his larynx. He then twisted and threw the corpse at the sister as she fired the melta again. He rushed a group of men who may once have been Imperial soldiers, but their uniforms were blacked out on one side, in keeping with the cult's blasphemous fashion statement. He cut them down with a single sweeping stroke as he passed into their midst. Sister was the only one left now.
He covered the distance between them in a single leap, knocking the melta out of her grasp with a backhand and pinning her to the floor. She struggled as he raised his neurogauntlet, and brought it down. She cried out as the claws penetrated the articulation point in her hip and commuted the essence of death into her veins.
"W-what?" She gasped, "Emperor, have mercy what have I- what-" she broke off as the searing pains began. The Eversor ignored her and got to his feet and walked towards the end of the writhing hall.
The warp spawned blasphemies became denser further in. Was any redemption possible for a world harboring such a nest of evil? It went without question that after this was over this planet would come under harsh Inquisitorial scrutiny. Inquisition... suddenly everything clicked.
The assassin sprinted forwards, weaving through the corrupted growths and dodging errant tentacles. His heart hammered at a rate that would kill a normal human, his teeth gnashed behind his mask as his wrath deepened.
He came to a stop when he reached the end of the hall. The arch-heretic was standing in a glowing ritual circle, surrounded by eleven freshly gutted corpses, the Eversor noted that one of them matched the description of his original target. The machine spirit inhabiting his suit acknowledged the heretics death and 'rewarded' CIXIV with a massive dose of celebratory opiates, his Temple's equivalent of a pat on the head. But the rush felt hollow to him, too premature in light of this new heresy.
The heretic was large, bulky, most likely wearing power armor, he had his back turned to him and the cloak he wore obscured most of his figure. The assassin did not hesitate. CIXIV burst from hiding and dashed straight at the heretic at blinding speed, he waited until the last moment to activate his power sword and aimed it at his back where he judged the heart would be.
And then he vanished. It was like time had stopped and the ruinous powers edited the heretic out of that last, adrenalin fueled second. The Eversor had only a moment to process the feeling of pure incredulity before he was seized by an unnatural force. CIXIV screamed with impotent fury as his boots lifted off the floor, and an invisible hand tightened it's grip on his body.
"Your kind is pathetically predictable Eversor," the haughty voice said mockingly, "Like a moth to the flame."
He was turned about in the air until he faced his newly appointed target.
CIXIV enjoyed those brief moments when the target was confirmed. It meant that his mission would soon be complete. To the Eversor, a primary that still drew breath was like an itch that could not be scratched, the longer the target lived the more he suffered, it brought him indescribable joy whenever he served the death blow, it felt as if the Emperor himself was smiling down on him. But to have his quarry in reach, and be unable to strike...
It was torture.
The target wore a set of gloss black power armor, the paint on the left side had been scraped off to reveal the gray metal beneath, set into the center of the chest the stylized tri-barred 'I' of the Inquisition was visible, his face was obscured by a silver embroidered hood. The heretic was an Inquisitor.
The Officio Assassinorum was only rarely called in to terminate a renegade Inquisitor, the deeply secretive Ordos preferred to use their respective militant arms to take care of loose ends, as it was impossible to secure the Officio's service without getting the Adeptus Terra involved. It only happened when all other options had been eliminated. CIXIV had never killed an Inquisitor before.
The Inquisitor stepped forward, he had a curved ceremonial knife in one hand made of yellowish metal. CIXIV could not stop a maniacal grin from spreading across his mangled face. The fool intended to take his life as a sacrifice, which was perfect. Like all other Eversors CIXIV had a special organ stuffed in his ribcage, a small lumpen thing the size of a child's thumb called a Terminus Gland. When his body sustained terminal damage, the organ would rupture and spill a reactive substance that would endow his bodily fluids with acidic and combustible properties, resulting in an explosive reaction. His dying mortal shell would turn into a deadly firebomb that would ensure he got the last laugh. Not all servants of the Emperor got to die so fashionably.
'BlooddeathfiremurdermaimstabtearburnEmperorglorytothedoomofthepraiseHimonTerravictoryindeathand-'
"We are not so different you and I," the heretical Inquisitor said icily.
'Murderforsaintsandprimar- what?' The Eversor's giddy anticipation for it's own explosive demise fell flat as the blasphemer started speaking.
"Both of us uplifted from the ashes of our origins to serve a flawed Imperium..." the man continued.
The Eversor's confusion turned to frustrated realization, 'Emperor's grace, he is monologuing.'
"But where you were raised to be a thoughtless bureaucratic tool, I was burdened with the impossible task of saving Mankind from the madness of Chaos."
CIXIV's muscles contracted beneath the synskin as his mounting rage induced rippling seizures throughout his body. The Imperial Assassin fervently wished he could simply will himself to explode, such a thing would be a blessing compared to listening to the self-important fool ramble on about his fall into corruption. This was not the first time a Primary had tried to engage a monologue with him, normally CIXIV killed these idiots before they finished the first sentence, this time he had to endure the whole thing.
"... first loyalty is to the Emperor, last to myself. If I must entreat with foul powers to satisfy the mandate of the Ordo Malleus, I will gladly..."
The man really loved the sound of his voice. Or perhaps, it was because CIXIV had already massacred everything in the general area, and the heretic had no one else to talk to. The Assassin instead tried to imagine what he would look like exploding; a blistering fireball propelling his vaporized molecules, blackened twisted bionics, and smoldering slivers of synskin and charred wargear in all directions mixed in with the burning flesh and shattered bones of the Primary, it's death scream of shock and horror lost amidst the thunderous report of his last service to the God-Emperor. It would be beautiful.
"... only you could imagine it. Chaos turning on itself and guttering out forever! Humanity's victory would be complete and nothing would..."
At this point, CIXIV's mind was a boiling cauldron of murderous desire, even more so than usual. Every cell in his body screamed for the heretic's blood, the debased fool had him on a platter and he would just not shut up!
"... mentor would not believe me, even my retinue thought I had gone mad! But I can be very persuasive, another advantage of being a psyker. In the end victory is achieved, and at so little cost. I may be a heretic in your eyes but history will remember me as a..."
'Makeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstopshutupshutupshutupshutup!'
At this rate, CIXIV would not need the Terminus Gland to self-destruct, every single muscle in his body was in constant strain trying to free himself from the psychokinetic confinement, needles forced pure adrenalin into his body intensifying the blazing agony that wracked his mortal shell. The Inquisitor's damnable voice lowered in pitch and he spoke ever more slowly.
"...heeeeerrrrroooo, aaaaannnnnd viiiiissssiiioooonnnaaarrry. Iiii shhhaaallll mmmaaaake thheee Iiiiimmpeeerriuuummm grrrreaat aaagaaaiiin!"
CIXIV swore an oath that if he left this place alive, he would cannibalize every egotistical windbag in the galaxy, that is if his handlers would let him. The heretic's voice dropped further, sounding more like upset bowel movements than a long-winded prepared speech.
The assassin's vision flashed and blurred as more chemicals flooded his body, and pumped out again by the extractor to be recycled and the process begun anew. His grasp on reality was slipping and he was maintaining extra effort to keep his last active aggression inhibitor from deactivating, which would reduce him to a mindless husk beyond the Officio's ability to control. He would be hunted and put down like a sick animal. Although that was not much of an issue given his current predicament, old habits died hard.
"Buuuuuutt Iii haaaaavee sssspoookeennn looooooonnnng ennnooouughhh! Iiiit iiisss tiiiimmme fffooorrrr yooooouu tooo beeee puuuuuut doooowwwwwnnnn!" That had CIXIV perking up immediately. Finally the filthy heretic was done with it's worthless lip flapping!
The Eversor watched as the golden knife was raised, towards it's neck. So the traitor sought to slit his throat? CIXIV was bored already, he had been hoping that the heretical Inquisitor would wildly stab him all over the place, to really make him feel it. But it seemed the man's appetites for death were just as flavorless as his speech, CIXIV was extremely disappointed. But still it was a moot point, the moment when his blood ignited within his flesh would more than make up for it, and at long last he would be standing at the Emperor's side.
He felt the knife cut through the synskin, and slice his jugular open, eliciting a bright carotid spray as his life blood was evacuated.
'Peaceatlastpeaceatlastpeaceatlastboomboomboomtherewillbenothingleftofme! PRAISE-THE GOD-EMPEROR!'
"Praaaiiissseee..." he gurgled, blood sluicing out through his mask's mouth.
The Inquisitor's triumph and CIXIV's bliss was then interrupted.
"Ave Deus-Imperator!" A feminine shout quaked through the assassin's ears, and his eyes focused on a figure that had appeared behind the Inquisitor. The heretic bellowed in rage and pain as a screaming Eviscerator chainsword plunged through his back and out his belly, held in the trembling grip of the battle sister CIXIV dispatched earlier. How she was capable of standing through the hard dose of toxins he did not know, but the golden glow surrounding her may have been responsible.
The sister's Emperor-given interjection caused the Inquisitor to accidentally release the assassin. CIXIV fell to his knees and in an instant, hyper-coagulants had already stemmed the flow of blood from his neck, and replacement fluids streamed into his body.
"NO! YOU FOOLS! THE WARP WILL CLAIM US ALL!" The heretic bellowed in a voice that were it transcribed to paper in Low-Gothic, it would likely appear in all capital letters. But CIXIV wasn't really in the mind to listen, the amount of drugs in his system was extreme even by his temple's standards, it completely precluded any reasoning.
The Neurogauntlet flashed and punched through the Inquisitor's jaw with enough force to shatter it, throwing free the hood as it penetrated the tongue, sinus, esophagus, pallete, skull, brain, and out through the temple. Half the man's face bore heavy chemical burns, and his black hair was bleached on that side as well. CIXIV snarled twisting his claws violently, so as to crush that man's face beyond recognition.
Although the celebratory narcotics did not come this time, CIXIV felt intoxicating degrees of relief and joy as the Primary's vitals ceased permanently. His eyes then focused upon the battle sister, she had sunk to her knees and was shaking. Obviously that glowing phenomenon had done something to hamper the efficacy of the poisons that he had injected her with, which shocked him quite frankly. If left alone she could possibly pull through the toxin's effects, he placed her odds in the field of three to ten. He was contemplating whether to finish her off or leave her for the Inquisition to work over, but his attention backslid to his surroundings when he noticed the room began to bend around him, and the air crackle as the circle of runes flashed an angry red. Reality was falling apart right before his eyes as the barrier between two realms evaporated.
CIXIV roared when his feet left the ground for a second time as the laws of physics took their leave. A spherical warp rift formed above, and the assassin, the sister, the Inquisitor's corpse, and everything else was sucked into the mad embrace of the Immaterium.
The assassin did not pass into the realm of Chaos quietly. Even as he fell into a world of discord he lashed out blindly with sword and claw at all perceived threats. His eyes were closed, he could not open them no matter how hard he tried. Chitters, roars, screams, and moans came at all directions and distances at once, unmentionable things caressed him even as he blindly cleaved away their foul appendages.
For any normal man, a trip to the Warp meant certain damnation, the mind torn apart and the soul devoured by eldritch horrors. CIXIV's mind had been broken countless times since he first began his service to the Imperium, broken and remade stronger than before. He would not give the daemons the satisfaction of unmaking him without a fight. But with his body so jumped up on stimulants and combat drugs, the sheer sensation of being in the Warp was quickly overwhelming him.
Despite his defiance, or maybe because of, the howls of the warp things grew louder and more excited. He refused to succumb however, even though his handlers were far beyond reach he still had his commitment to the God-Emperor to urge his refusal. He was prepared to die fighting. But that was not what happened.
The assassin suddenly felt himself flying. Not battered by convulsing currents but hurling into a linear trajectory he vaguely registered as 'up'. The Eversor felt his body fall at ease as he flew through the Warp like a deathstrike missile, leaving the roars and bellows of the daemons behind. The assassin was not concerned, for him this was the culmination of everything the Eversor Temple had taught him since the beginning. He had completed his duty, and his faithful service was being rewarded. This could only be the Emperor calling his loyal killing machine to stand at his side at the Battle at the End of Time. And for the first time in a long time he allowed himself to feel true happiness.
His eyes opened behind the mask. The HUD icons blared inconclusive readings and warning runes as it's machine spirit tried and failed to make sense of what was being seen. He was tumbling through a tunnel of dancing lights around a field of black, bouncing against invisible walls and flashing as they caromed in alternating directions. Was he falling down a rabbit hole? Would he be allowed to kill the rabbits? String their ears together and present them to the God-Emperor as tribute?
He saw light at the end of the tunnel, and his vision grew darker. 'Mission... successful.' The Eversor assassin blacked out just as he crossed the threshold.
Millie Vaughn was just a typical home-schooled autistic nine-year-old girl, she spent most of her time at her mother's Gotham City apartment and did not have any friends. Millie had a routine she rarely deviated from, she woke up every day at nine in the morning, infallibly ate the same brand of honey nut cheerios for breakfast, watched reruns and recordings of Ed, Edd, and Eddie in the noon, spent the afternoon in her room playing with her toys, and after eating the same spaghetti and meatballs dinner she's had for the last two years she spends the next few hours being tutored by her mom until going to bed precisely at eight in the evening.
Deep down Millie wanted to try something new, maybe meet kids her own age and possibly befriend them. But that would mean breaking her routine for the day, which unsettled her, so she would put it off for the next day or even the next week. She wished that friends and other exciting things would come to her, and she would often spend hours fantasizing various scenarios that were infinitely more interesting than reality.
The only person who she actually interacted with was her mom. Millie really liked mom, but sadly she was not that much of a conversation partner. Mom did not understand that Ed, Edd, and Eddie was the coolest thing ever, she would ignore her every time she tried to tell her every funny thing that happened in today's episode, it was like she did not even care. Why did she not love Ed, Edd, and Eddie?
It was currently two o'clock and Millie was as usual inside her room, sitting cross-legged on the floor facing a neatly arranged row of stuffed animals and other toys, lost in her own world. After a few minutes of silence the little girl sighed dreamily and a sudden thought came to her.
Putting her hands together in prayer, Millie spoke aloud, "God it's me again, I need a friend, someone who will not make fun of me. I want an angel, the nicest angel you have, amen."
The simple, childish prayer was answered by a loud crack coming from outside. Millie never heard a sound like it before. Her curiosity aroused the little girl left her room and headed towards the door that led out into the hall. Her apartment was on the ground floor so it was not a long walk to the double doors that led into a wide alley.
There just a few meters into the alley was a funny looking man lying on the ground wearing strange black clothes. Cautiously Millie ventured out into the alley to get a closer look, soon she was standing over the stranger, an expression of pure fascination formed on her face.
The stranger wore a silly looking skull mask with glowing red eyes, and the funny suit was actually armor, she also noticed a very large sword clenched tightly in it's right hand, and a pointy fingered glove on the left hand which had tubes running into it that connected to a pair of glass bottles filled with bright red fluid, it looked like fruit punch. All these things told her that this was a noble knight from a faraway land who has come to be her friend. Or maybe he really was an angel? She always got knights and angels confused.
"Hey angel! Wake up!" she called down to it. There was no response, aside from the random twitches of it's limbs and fingers.
Impatient, Millie proceeded to grab the angel by it's claw arm and drag it towards her apartment building.
