A Reasonable Crusade
Part II: Magnus Lux
Chapter VII: The Enemy and the Ally Beyond
The Glorious, Eternal, and Immortal Man-Emperor of Mankind watch James's shenanigans in the Black Library. Cegorach was with him, chuckling quietly.
"I swear, the more I watch this the more it seems familiar. I just can't figure why," the Emperor said, as he watched Team JAMZ and Team RWBY board the train. "Bah, I'll figure it out eventually. Made any progress on getting through Malice's shield?"
Cegorach nodded. "Yes. All we need to do now is decide who to send."
The Emperor grunted. He remembered the last time they had this discussion.
"Damn it all!" Tzeentch screamed.
"What is it now?" Bubbled Nurgle.
"The Anathema has done it! He has broken through! While we are still trapped here!" Nurgle's smile lessened. It never seemed to go away entirely, just got bigger or smaller. The blue bird and pile of disease were alone in the room. Khorne and Slaanesh had gotten into another one of their fights, and Isha was out in the Garden of Pestilence. "If we can find a way to use his portal, we won't need to make our own. We can just send our troops in from there. The only problem is, the portal is out of our reach."
"Do you want me to see if Isha can convince them to let us in?"
"No Nurgle. I doubt that would work. Besides, if you sent her off like that she'd probably just run away." Nurgle was hurt. How dare this fiend insult his perfect Eldar waifu.
"She wouldn't do that. You don't know her like I do." Nurgle was wrong, of course. Tzeentch knew that. She would bolt the moment she got the chance.
"Oi Gork! You done beatin the spikey boy's shield yet?" Mork shouted, in his usual Ork accent.
"Not yet! But it'll come down soon. I just knows it!" Gork shouted back, also with Ork accents. "Then we can has lots of fun!" Of course, by "fun" Gork meant "fights." Although, to an Ork, there is no difference between the two.
"Just as planned" muttered Malice. He watched from the hole in reality. Everything was going perfectly. That in itself presented problems, which he would have to fix. Once Cinder was able to use the Remnant artifacts to summon him, he would be unstoppable. He would destroy Remnant, then not even the combined efforts of the Four, the Eldar, the Orks, the C'tan, and the Anathema would be able to stop him. He would be free, and the galaxy, no, the universe, would burn! But now there was that small issue of things going perfectly. He decided that he would have to sabotage his plans. He went over his Remnanti assets and was surprised. He had come into possession of a techpriest. That would through a wrench into his plans. Malice smiled. He knew exactly what he would do.
The techpriest flew into Vale on a bullhead. He had two combat servitors with him. He had gotten them past the guards by saying that he was bringing them to the South East border of the city, where there had been reports of a possible Grimm attack. The fool guard actually believed him. He could barely contain his excitement. He had only been enlightened by his new master, the Renegade, yesterday and now he was performing a mission of vital urgency. It felt so nice to have the favor of his God. The bullhead landed and the heretek lead the former Ogryns out into the city. Citizens looked on, appalled as he led the heavy-stubber wielding servitors through the city. He searched for a spot where as many civilians as possible could be sacrificed before authorities could respond. He found his way to main street, and it was teeming with people. He figured this would be go enough.
"For the Renegade God!" He shouted, then opened up with the two combat servitors. The heavy-stubbers opened up, dropping civilians as the stubs hit their unprotected flesh. The heretek screamed with glee as he did the will of Malice. In the span of a few seconds, the day had gone from celebrations of peace and the end of the Great War, to a massacre. Already the street ran red with blood, and the heretek continued his path of destruction. By now, the street was deserted, so the heretek had the servitors pepper shops with stubs, causing panicked shrieking inside. The frightened civilians came flodding out, right into the spray of stub rounds. Limbs flew, and blood drenched the walls. They were shooting normal stub rounds, not bolts. It was just the sheer weight of fire that turned Vale's main street into bloody fresco. A police cruiser appeared, and was quickly burning, after the heretek pointed his servitors' four heavy-stubbers at it. He cackled as the officers died inside, without even the chance to escape.
"Take the rot, to make it flesh. Take the skull, the soul to rest. Take their mind and give them peace. Take their will. Sensations cease." The heretek looked on as more started approaching. He quickly took cover inside a restaurant, killing everyone who hid inside it. One tried to make a stand, rushing at the heretek with a steak knife. The heretek put him down by biting out his throat and drinking the blood as it flowed out, right in front of the other customers. The blood dribbled down his chin as the servitors painted the walls red. He remembered the police force outside, and turned the servitors around. Police cruisers had formed a rind around the shop, with officers using the doors as cover. The had various weaponry ranging from shotguns to pistols leveled at him.
"Death to the Corpse's slaves! Glory to the Renegade!" The servitors opened up, unleashing a hail of stubs. The police opened fire, scoring hits on the servitors. It didn't really matter, as long as they kept firing. Which they did. Glass shattered, doors were ripped of hinges, and soon not one officer stood. He cackled madly. The heretek lead his servitors out and across the street, before more could arrive. He was just in time, as soon as he had hidden from street view, two armored vans pulled up. They still thought he was holed up in the restaurant, and they disgorged their contents right in his line of fire. They were accompanied by a few Atlesian soldiers. He waited for all of the armored officers to exit before firing. They had been expecting the stubs to come from in front of them, not behind, and many were mowed down before they had a chance to respond. Unfortunately, the Atlesians' armor protected them from the initial volley. The survivors hid behind the armored vans and started to return fire. For the most part, their stub rounds did little, but the Atlesians' lasguns were actually doing damage. More vans pulled up and were sending out more soldiers. Many died, but the damage was starting to accumulate. Then he heard it. The sound of fliers. He had the servitors stand down, and raised his hands above his head.
"I surrender," the heretek called out. He slowly approached the Atlesians on his knees. They approached cautiously. They were about to place handcuffs on him when he activated the servitors again, this time aiming at the fliers.
"I lied! For the Renegade God!" he cried, mechandrites grabbing one of the soldiers as he pulled the other in front of him, using him as a shield. Slowly he began to pull on the limbs of the soldier he had in his mechandrites, first dislocating each of them, them ripping them out wholly. Once they were ripped off, he brought the limbs to his mouth and dug in. The flesh, it tasted so good, so unholy. Just how Malice liked it. Lastly, he cracked the quadriplegic corpse's head open and drank the juices inside. One of the fliers fell from the hail of stubs, falling right towards him. As it crashed, he was engulfed in a fiery explosion, and his massacre ended. Many of the officers on the ground died in the crash's resultant explosion. How quickly had this day gone from one of celebration to one of mourning. The day's events would produce trouble for negotiations between the Kingdoms and the Imperium, though it was somewhat lessened by reports of what the techpriest had said. Perhaps "lessened" is not the right word, but rather "changed." At first the tension came from what appeared to be an Imperial attack on Vale, but the Sister in charge of negotiations managed to convince the city council that the attack was done by a renegade, a traitor. Which was true, the heretek had declared for Malice during the attack. This only shifted the tension to calls to "make sure it doesn't happen again," calls with which the Imperials were all too ready to comply with, they just lacked the means to. But they would still try their best. This was a problem they had been trying to solve for ten millennia.
"Dohohohohoho!" The Warmaster chuckled. He watched from the keyhole into reality as the heretek did his works. "You actually got my father's slave to do this? Without any support?"
"You bet." Malice grinned.
"I must admit, that was one of the greatest things I've seen while in here." Horus had been "here," which is, the realm outside of existence, for a very long time. He didn't recall how long, not as long as Malice, obviously, but long enough to see the arrival of the Pariahs and Tomb Kings. The Tomb Kings greatly interested Horus. They used the power of the Warp to reanimate dead flesh, and they did it not through Nurgle, but by Tzeentch. Horus was familiar with Nurgle's zombie plague, but that produced mindless beings hungering only for flesh. The Tomb King's not only retained intelligence, but also autonomy, even if their subjects were closer to plague zombies. Grudges they had in life carried over to undeath, to fester for all time. Until the End Times, where everyone, including the Wood Elves, who Horus thought seemed like Exodite Eldar, and Orcs fought against Chaos, but still lost. Just more evidence of the superiority of Chaos. Even if this Archaon guy was infinitely better than "Failbaddon the Armless," as he was sometimes known. When Horus thought about it, these Tomb Kings seemed culturally similar to the metal Necrons. Now their world was gone, but parts had reformed, even if some had been condemned to eternal nothingness. He still found it ridiculous that Slaanesh had been kidnapped by two Elves. It was just ridiculous! No matter, there were other things to be done.
"When you escape from this non-existence, will you be bringing us with you?" Horus asked.
The Renegade only laughed. "I might be the God of suicidal tendencies, but I'm not that suicidal. If I bring you back, the Four may get their shit together before my plans are complete." Horus was sad. He would've struck out at Malice if it would've done anything. Non-existence seemed to make it harder to meaningfully hurt things, especially non-entities as powerful as Malice. If only his father had not banished him to this prison outside of reality. If only he had accepted his forgiveness. Then he could've stayed alive and worked to undermine his father from behind the scenes, carefully rebuilding all that had been lost. Then Chaos would surely conquer the galaxy, and he could strike down his father once and for all. Alas, he had underestimated him. Even so close to death, the Emperor had been powerful enough to banish him here. Even with all the blessings of the Gods. At least he had crippled the old fool. Even so, his plan to prevent the Imperium's degeneration to Emperor-worship had failed. His father had already planted the seeds of it in the population, and he had been too late to stop it.