A nice place, thought Aiira, for a holiday. Maybe when this was all over she would be permitted to come back for a stay here – it was a nice place, at least today.

The sun was out, casting beams through the forest canopy to the grassy floor wherever it could, creating the illusion of a vast roof. The trees, all forms of Oak with massive trunks stretched to the sky, natural pillars of hardwood. The goddess of light picked her way through, stepping over roots and pushing branches out of the way, slicing them apart with Syr when this couldn't practically be done.

Thus far she had not encountered anything openly hostile – a few birds, something that looked like a monkey, but as of yet nothing that was against her, but no allies either. This could be a problem – you couldn't afford to waste time or energy jumping through worlds that were uninhabited…but that conflict she had felt. There had to be something here, or such a blatant show of warring forces would not be evident. Even when nature went to war, you couldn't compare to the black and white battle between good and evil. It just wasn't possible.

I'm not saying this musing detracted from her perceptions of the world around her. She was hearing, smelling and seeing everything around her in one form or another – I imagine it must have been quite an experience. My understanding is that before becoming the champion, her senses were as any human – five and very limited. I don't know how she felt about this expanded range of perception, but I know it improved her in many ways, in my humble opinion.


She was not, however, alone in the forest. He was some distance off, but nonetheless there was intelligent life in the mass of trees. Precisely, a lone figure, sheltering in the shadow of one of the massive Oaks at the edge of a wide, artificial clearing.

"Nicole, be straight with me. He's not giving me anything here. What type am I looking at?" the figure muttered into a comm-bead in his ear.

"I was hoping you could tell me. Everything from the initial scans are telling me it was just your average production facility, but I'm getting readings from additional sections that aren't present on former facilities."

"I'm breaking it either way. Keep monitoring the frequencies; jam any distress calls that come from the place." The figure stood, and began to scale the tree he had been sheltering under. He was just over four and a half feet tall, and quite clearly not human. A fox of sixteen years, hi fur was coloured straw-yellow, a white crest on his chest marking him out as kitsune. A pair of fluffy yellow tails with white tips dangled lazily behind him as he scaled, two penetrating blue eyes watching the space above him for footholds. Around his wrists was a pair of golden rings, slightly obstructing his climb, and halfway he stopped, and let his tails take over. Then began to spin, slowly, then faster until they could support his weight and he let go of the tree, hanging in mid-air before the force overcame gravity and he began to rise slowly. During the ascent he pulled on a pair of white gloves, the rings expanding slightly to slide over the cuffs before shrinking to a tighter fit.

Once he was level with the branches he reached out and took hold of one of the thickest, the hissing sound of displacing air stopping as his tails stopped spinning and his arms, and by extension the branch, too his weight.

From this high up, the fox had a better view of his target. The factory was basically a giant cuboid, pipes weaving in and out of the surface as if burrowing, while vents spewed a constant stream of toxic chemicals into the atmosphere. On one face, a collection of smaller cubes and boxes were clustered together, like a tumour. If it were not made of metal, it would have looked like a dying animal.

Around it patrolled squads of bipedal robotic constructs, each a miniature weapons platform…more patrols than usual. Apparently this was important, more so than other places.

"Nicole?" he asked, down the comm.

"Yes, Tails?"

"I think I've found those extras you were picking up. I'll keep them intact. Have a team on standby to pick them up. I'm not carrying them back on my own."

"Done. An Imperator team is on the way. Are you going to wait for them?"

"Not likely." He replied, and launched himself from the branches, out over the clearing. He spread eagle, orbs of amber energy flashing into being in his palms. Drawing back his hands, Tails cast the orbs towards the closest of the patrolling groups, watching them lengthen into spears, then multiply to cover all the targets. He was airborne long enough to see them impact, ripping through steel and iron plating, detonating spectacularly within each target. The combots came apart violently, built to withstand impact from without and not from within. A few of the targets got lucky, coming through the barrage blackened or damaged instead of being completely obliterated, but even these were few and far between.

His arc of travel carried him over the factory, and he landed heavily on it, feeling the heat and smelling gunpowder discharge as the combots who had survived began to fire on him, weapons pumping out a steady stream of high calibre shells in his general direction – apparently the blast had damaged their sensors. Normally he would be having to move to avoid their gunfire, but at the moment enough of it was being absorbed by the bulk of the factory for him to worry about it. Destroying the factory would put them out of commission – a few stray bullets were of no moment.

Turning his gaze back to the factory roof, he began to sweep it mentally, his psyche probing for weak points and areas of high stress. He found several – the good doctor's construction technique hadn't improved yet. He moved to the most promising, holding himself low to the roof to avoid the still-dangerous hail of bullets cresting the edge of the flat construction, and dug his claws into the steel, bone hardening into diamond as chaos energy, the natural source of power in his universe, flowed from his mind to his hands, lending him unnatural strength.

The metal parted with a screech, several centimetres of the artificial substance peeled away by his bare hands, exposing the innards of the machine, grunting machinery and sparking wires where bits of metal had torn coils of electrical material from mountings. Raising one free hand he called forth a further gout of power, the chaos energy forming in his hand as a pulsing orb of barely-contained destruction, and he thrust it into the hole he had torn, and backflipped off the factory.

Scant moments later the chaos energy exploded, muffled by the walls. The entire factory seem to ripple as raw energy was unleashed on its innards, then the whole thing simply fell apart under the pressure. The destruction of the factory took with it the localised transmitter array for the combots, and since this unit had been designed for defence and not for offence, they did not house their own wireless communication systems. With the production line and their link to base severed, the remaining patrol groups went into automatic shutdown to conserve power.

Tails hit the ground hard, the shockwave from his devastation washing across the grass, the trees flexing away from the clearing in the wind, and the fox stood slowly, surveying his handiwork with pieces of white-hot debris raining down around him.

"Don't move if you value your continued existence." He told the shadow lurking at the edge of his vision. "You've been there a while – you're good at hiding, I'll give you that, but you can't hide from me." He turned to the figure, hidden by the trees. "You're tall – for a human. What are you?"

"Not human." Aiira told him, stepping out from her concealment. "I've seen humans, I'm friends with a few. If I am human, I'm a very strange one."

Aiira examined the being in front of her. Whoever he was, he was powerful…taking down something that big was no mean feat. Alone, no less.

What's more, he seemed to have a decent grasp of what was going on. She shifted her stance, Syr disappearing into a cloud of ash – she was trying not to look openly hostile.

"I told you not to move – but no matter." He continued, "if you can't tell me what you are, tell me who. I'm not going to keep talking until I have a name to address."

"Aiira." She bowed low to the ground – no, she didn't curtsy. She doesn't wear a dress and bowing at least retains some dignity. It's a far more mutual gesture. "You?"

"Miles. Miles Prower. Now, what the hell are you doing here?"

"Really…I'm lost. I'm looking for people, but I honestly don't have the slightest idea where I am. Dimensional travel isn't the most exact science."

"So you're from another dimension." Crimson flames ignited in his hands.

"You know, I didn't have this much of a problem the last place I went to." Aiira started pacing, shaking her head in dismay. "Are you like this with every inter-dimensional travellers?"

"In my experience most of them are here to kill me. You tend to grow wary of such people."

"Well then perhaps it's time to stop? Oh, and you missed one." Aiira moved in a blur, a bolt of light buzzing past Tails' ear. He caught the smell of ozone and an electric tang, his fur standing on end as he spun to follow the little beam of light. It punched through the toughened optics on a lone combot's head. For a brief moment, nothing happened, then the back of the helmet was ripped apart in total silence. Apparently Robotnik had had at least one independent combot on standby. Now he didn't.

"Nice shot." Tails remarked, "But he wasn't the last. If what I'm seeing is correct…our mutual enemy has more here." To confirm his words, a discordant droning started up, accompanied by the constant thunder of repeating footfalls. Aiira saw, heard, and felt it as well.

"Loud, aren't they?" she heard Tails say, "I'd guess about twenty. Robotnik seems to think it makes his robots more impressive the louder they get. That might frighten the local wildlife, but not anyone who actually has a brain in their head. Prove I can trust you in even the simplest way – I'll take the air, you take the ground."

He waited for Aiira's nod of acknowledgement, then leapt into the air, namesakes powering him up and into the score of combots rising above the treeline on thrusters pods spewing acrid smoke and flame. He outpaced the combots, ramming into the first fast enough to knock it from the sky through dint of force alone. His charge carried him into another, and he dug his claws into the metal, powering his tails to angle his robotic surfboard towards another of his opponents. A second before impact he became airborne again. Leaving the two robots to collide with each other, and heated air washed over him, the explosion lighting up like a sun behind him.

A pair of the combots began to bracket him with converging lines of fire, and the fox flicked out a small golden ring into one of his hands, tossing it calmly towards one of the offenders. The ring intersected with one of the streams of fire, and it suddenly became apparent what it was meant to do. The constant thud of chambering rounds was briefly overlaid by a series of harsh pings as the ring acted as a mirror, the tracer rounds ricocheting off it, streaming off in all directions, including another unfortunate pair of crimson-armoured robots. The fifth was obliterated by another hastily-summoned chaos spear, its insides burnt-out and dead. Tails threw another ring-bomb directly ahead of him, detonating it to arrest his flight, and he dropped towards the forest floor. Looking up towards his remaining foes, he drew another eight rings into being, programming them on the fly and throwing them as a last gift to the four remaining targets. Two rings per robot, and they worked to perfection. The first of each held the same gravitational pull as an average star to each of the robots, the second acting like a fusion drive capable of dissolving Megatal in less than five seconds. His grin was feral as each of the remaining combat robots was tugged into the oblivion created by each of the rings.

A few moments later, he hit the forest floor with a soft crunching, shattering dead twigs and leaves under his impact, and he took his first look at what Aiira could do. It looked for all the world like someone had let off an electro-magnetic pulse in the general vicinity. Each of the nine targets lay at various angles, seemingly undamaged save precisely-aimed cuts and strikes to key areas. The tenth was in pieces, wreathed in a white flame – she had taken a more direct role in delivering punishment to the last, it seemed.

She leant against one of the trees, watching him take in the scene, apparently reading his mind. "No forest fires," she assured, "the flame won't go beyond him."

If he felt anything towards the scene, the kitsune didn't show it. Without a glance back at her he walked off into the forest, pausing briefly. "Call me Tails." He told her, before continuing his journey, apparently expecting her to follow. She hastened to keep pace. About a mile or so from the site of the battle, he stopped and spun to face her.

"Now how about you tell me who the fuck you are, and what you're doing on this planet?"


I must admit, I didn't know where to search. My scope is not as vast as Aiira's – I was confined to only a select few dimensions for the time being. When I separated from the fleet I effectively cut off all my personal resources. I had the weapons and clothes on my back. My rank afforded me some generalised resources, and I had a joker I could play if things went up the creek, but in truth the greatest pool I could draw from I had just propelled myself away from at several hundred miles-per-hour. Because of this lack of control over anything beyond myself, I felt the best way to begin my search would be to drop in on some old friends. My exceedingly long lifetime had granted me a fair share of them, and now was the time to renew old friendships.

So I went to him. I went to Eisenhorn.


And so it had begun. She had control…for now. It was time to use that influence. Under Menthis, the city was quickly cleansed off all those hiding themselves away, and every able-bodied man and woman was put to work effecting repairs. The first port of call was the living quarters – walls repaired, windows filled in or melted together, generally making the place easier to exist in.

Next for the work gangs would be to put in a proper system for maintaining resources and foodstuffs, and then shoring up the defences.

For now, Menthis would be content with getting rid of that damned warp-storm. While it hung over the city, the chaos gods had a clear view over whatever Menthis was doing, and the goddess of darkness does not like to be spied upon. I found that out the painful way. She stood atop the tallest building she could find – the fortress of evil wasn't around yet, that comes later – and her eyes were fixed on the blackest part of the storm. There was no true black – colours changed in moments, but the centre, a swirling purple pit, remained constant to a degree. That was the bridge, holding the warp storm in the material world. Slowly, she raised Asa to the eye, and let loose a torrent of dark power.

Now, perhaps this is a good time to mention the difference in power. Yes, both the warp and Menthis are those of darkness, but they are not the same. The warp is a polluted mass of emotion, untouched chaos given sentience and then form, shoved into a mortal body and pressed into the material world. Menthis is darkness given form, pure, unadulterated darkness. Her power is the touch of creation and oblivion, the antithesis to all that is.

And naturally, the gods of chaos retaliated in force. Shadows broke away from the swirling mass, lightning bolts striking the rooftop and freezing in time, giving birth to chaos incarnate. Blood red humanoid constructions with elongated skulls, horns jutting from the apex – Bloodletters. The foot soldiers of the chaos god of blood and war. Fragments of charred armour, stolen from defeated opponents fused to their flesh, four-fingered hands clutching ageless blades writhing with the power of the warp. In an instant the rooftop was covered in them, and the goddess reacted with similar fluidity.

As the concrete surface flooded with hungry daemons, Menthis dragged the blade away from the eye of the storm, and the link between the two was broken, and with that monumental transfer of energy halted, all that excess power needed somewhere to go.

As her blade connected with the first Bloodletter, it found that output. All that rage, and that spite and darkness she had been channelling into the unnatural weather instead washed out over the material plane. From Menthis came a shockwave, a pencil-thin line blacker than night, sheer force crippling the Bloodletters, not just merely casting them back into the warp, but obliterating their essences entirely – they would never exist again. Those that were not destroyed were maimed horribly, their bindings to the material world wavering and snapping shortly after their brethren, serving only to prolong their agony.

Menthis watched their essences waver, fragment then fall apart with no emotion. Beyond the mortal range of hearing came a discordant screech, one that rang in Menthis' ear and told her that she had just stung Khorne quite solidly. However, Khorne had just succeeded in pissing her off. She spun on her heel, throwing Asa like a spear into the heart of the storm. The weapon blazed away into the seething mass of warp-stuff, and a shudder ran through the warp beyond. The storm rippled, vomiting forth a gout of warp ichor in a sheet of foul rain. As it met Menthis it flashed to steam, the lifeblood of the warp spilling out as Asa wrought destruction within. The dark goddess raised one hand, willing her blade to return to her, and, accompanied by a screeching wail and a sound that no words can describe, it did so, cutting through the non-reality of the warp as its master bid, return. Through that gaping wound followed another surge of the undefined warp-matter, falling apart as it entered reality where it was not meant to go.

The storm began to flicker, curling in on itself, compacting under its own weight, the wound in reality healing itself now sufficient damage had been done to the aggressor to allow nature to take over. The wind began to blow as the vacuum was created, dragging bits of rubble and the occasional small animal into the Immaterium, then a few unfortunate people as the pull became stronger, the chaos gods unwilling to let their prize go.

Menthis caught Asa in one hand, standing adamant in the face of the storm, watching its retreat for a minute more before jumping from the tower into the streets below. As she dropped, she began to speak, her voice amplified, carried to every corner of the city through every street and house.
"Chaos is not your master, I am! You understand the penalty for defying my rule, and you have seen the power I hold over the gods of chaos! They are nothing, mewling new-borns who have been given power they do not deserve! Heed the gravity of my tone and perform your appointed duties, for I will not be merciful should I find you wanting!"

She thundered into the flagstones, the concrete rippling and cracking under the force of impact, and she stood in the crater inspecting the faces around her, staring at her. "Well?" she shouted, "what are you standing there staring for? You have work to do?"

She climbed from the rocky pit with one hand, the other on Asa to quell any questions they might have.

She didn't like this city. Chipped grey walls, mirror-black puddles of stagnant water mixed with warp-effluent, the population half-starved and wasted, almost skeletal. Pale, drawn faces watched her through sunken eyes with a mix of fear and awe as she left the site, minds within skulls wondering what more power she was capable of…it is so much more.

She paced the streets silently, eyes glazed over in deep concentration. She felt tired – that display of power had drained her, the strength she had lost in destroying the warp-storm…rest was needed. It was imperative, she needed to replenish her power in somewhere calm….fuck. This city would not supply that need. The after-effects of the warp storm were still rippling through the background of reality, a buzzing in the back of the mind, and that would disrupt concentration. You couldn't meditate to a fly in your ear.

She collapsed against a wall, breathing heavily.

"Hurts, doesn't it?" Menthis remembered that voice, and waited a long moment before looking over at the apparition.

"Fuck off." She told her between breaths.

"That's no way to treat an old friend." She lowered herself down next to her.

"We're not friends. You just like to rub it in."

"A little column A, a little column B." the apparition smiled.

"Why the fuck are you here?" she asked, "you don't normally bother."

"Just checking up on everyone. You really shouldn't have done that, you know – you've managed to get Khorne upset. Well, not quite that, but the closest you can get that guy to it."

"You think I care? The chaos gods can shrivel up and die in that pit they call a universe for all I care. They're only worth slightly more than you are to me, and that isn't a hard medal to earn."

"Oh, scolding, but unoriginal. You can do better than that."

"You're not worth it."

"Well if you're going to be like that, I'll take my leave."

"Are you still here?"


Well, that's that. Aiira met Miles Prower, some of you will probably have heard of him, others maybe not. He keeps to himself mostly – unless he's breaking things. I never met Mr Power until much, much later, but I knew Eisenhorn from several years prior. I trusted him and he trusted me as much as two Inquisitors can, but I could count on him to divulge to me…situations like this. As for Menthis, I pitied her. She didn't want this shit she was in, and nor did I for that matter, but there was nothing I could do, much to my chagrin.