In the depths of the warp, they watched onward. Four beings of power beyond than that of even the emperor watch a battle waiting to unfold. Eldar and Human forces managing to fight together without shooting each other in the back too much? All too entertaining to Tzeentch as he found the alliance unstable and decaying right before their eyes, and that wasn't even the most intense part of his plan. Nurgle, the god of pestilence watched the eldar close to see and wonder how he could speed up their fall to extinction with what plague he could cause and a way to combat their advance medical tech. Slaanesh and Korne had their eyes on different prey.
Slaanesh saw the man and instantly found shivers up her spine and growing desires to make him suffer. She found the man's naive perception of good and evil to be adorable and believed it could bring great pleasure in breaking it. Korne had other thoughts as he saw his fury against the warband that has attempted to wipe out the imperial invaders. He felt the hatred that consumed the man at times, and he grew eager to meet him on the battlefield.
As they watched, Tzeentch was the first to speak. "Quiet the little show we have here don't we? Very rare to see such a... Pair up." Spoke the god as the Korne gave a sneer. "Shut up and watch the battle. We are watching one of the Anathema's chosen." He spoke as Slaanesh gave a giddy squeal. "By the architects! He looks so cute, and he's quiet "sizable" under that armor." Purred the whore god as she wanted to rip into the materium and steal him for herself. Nurgle gave a rancid chuckle as he spoke up.
"Too bad he's taken then!" He spoke as Slaanesh gave a mock laugh. "Please, I'll have her soul soon enough, and I think he won't mind bargaining for it." She spoke as Korne growled. "Shut up whore, I wish to watch in peace." With his hostile stance Slaanesh strutted to him and placed a finger upon his armor. "Oh don't worry, you're still my favorite plaything." She spoke with a seductive tone as she dragged her finger down his armor. He gave a disgusted snarl and was reaching for his chain axe, only for Nurgle to speak.
"Stop! It's starting!" Call the plague father as they now turned their attention to the growing forces.
Sean stood their. He watched as the growing forces of chaos undivided slowly made their way toward them. He noticed the guardsman digging in and eldar setting up defence platforms around key thermal generators and bulwarks. A sound soon clicked behind him.
It was the chaplain, and he had his bolter to him. "You shouldn't do that." He spoke as he turned to face him. "I do not care. Should I really believe that you are of the emperor's chosen? It may just be possible your body just mutated by the likes of chaos!" He snarled as Sean looked onward.
"Do not worry about him." Spoke a voice as the feminine figure approached. "He holds no corruption of the gods and he holds no fury to us." Said the woman, revealing to be the farseer.
She then stared directly at him and smiled. "Besides, good men have too many rules." She spoke as Sean looked at her. "Good men don't need any, and chaos are the reasons why I might have to recheck the list." He muttered as he turned away as the smile on the farseer fell.
"You know your fate if you stay here. What if you come with us?" She spoke as the chaplain looked at her an Sean in shock. Sean shook his head however. "The imperium is my home either way. I can never abandon my fellow man, much less for xenos." He replied as she frowned.
"Don't tell me you still despise us like all mon'kiegh do. Do not tell me YOU also hate us for simply existing!" She growled, presuming he had simply been hiding his animosity toward eldar. Sean shook his head once more.
"No, I just can't leave for the simple fear of death. And how would your race react to a human suddenly on their ship? Same way we'd react to an eldar on a planet, sanctioned or not. Wounds must heal first before I could think of that." He spoke as the farseer sighed.
"Excuse my outburst. It is rare to see someone so open minded and with such foresight in the imperium. I'd be a shame to waste such potential" She said as Sean nodded and looked onward to the now rapidly moving forward. "This may be our last battle, hope you can cherish these moments." Spoke the farseer as Sean sighed. "To the jaws of death and the mouth of hell, I'll fight until the fight is done." He muttered as his armor face plate closed and he prepared for the fight.
The battle started, cries of blood came from the tides of cultists and madmen as they charged into a wall of bullets and flak. As they died by the bushel, chaos sorcerers started using the tides of death to call upon deamons. As this became apparent, Sean let the powers of the gods flow through him.
It burned every inch of his body as their collected powers started to break from their physical restraints. "Sean! We can only lend so much before it can incapacitate you! GET US TO THEIR PORTAL" Roared the voice of his emperor as the corrupt portal came into view. With a roar of pain and anger he charged. Every eldar and guardsman almost stopped firing as the man left a trail of disintegrated corpses behind him as he charged directly into the chaos forces.
"COME ON MEN, GIVE OUR LAD SOME COVERING FIRE!" Shouted Twitch, a surprise to most, hearing such a voice among the chaos come from such a feeble man. Cries and cheers rang across the trenches as they started to focus their firepower across the stunted lines of chaos. The chaos war leader, Crull, snarled with anger and felt a new sense of challenge. "COME, LET US RIP APART THE LOYALIST SCUM! FOR CHAOS, LET THE GALAXY BURN!"
With the scream of their leader, sorcerers and traitor marines charged in blood driven frenzies as they tracked down the the soldier in the tides of bodies. However, a sudden appearance was made. With the ground starting to move, metal claws and hands moved. Suddenly one such hand grabbed a cultist and dragged them halfway into the dirt before a massive sharpened claw flayed the flesh from their body.
Necrons. They rose by countless numbers within the ranks of the chaos worshipers and they were not happy. The immortal machines started ripping apart and incinerating massive amounts of cultists before they started to change their attention to the main portals and bases.
"M-My lord! W-We cannot h-hold! We m-must retr-" before the begging of a nearby cultist finished, he was crushed under the pressure of the warlord's sudden grip. "ONLY MORE BLOOD TO SPILL!" He screamed as the cultists charged, only to miss calculate the fact they had been flanked by a single guardsman. Sean had managed to make his way to the portal.
Crull snarled as he gestured to his lead sorcerer. "TAKE CARE THE LOYALISTS I HAVE GREEN SKINS TO KILL!" He roared as he charged further into the titan's wreckage. The gave a light sigh as he turned to Sean.
"Oh dear, it seems that you still hold loyalty after all this time." He hummed with an amused tone. Sean seized at the voice as he remembered it from that night. "Years of collective knowledge and artifacts, all turn to fail." He chuckled as he looked at the soldier standing in the snow.
"Come now, I'm sure you remember. I must admit, your mother made a fine slaneeshi whore." He spoke with venom as Sean didn't move or speak, just stared. Meanwhile two eldar watched.
"What are they doing? Muttered Telria as Mealaeth hummed. "Trying to make him angry..."
Sean kept his silence as the cultist spoke onward. "All that potential! Such could bring a new era of chaos and humanity as one!" He ranted as Sean felt his flames of anger burn. "Oh how you could have saved her and many others from their folly! But yet you still serve a corpse..." He ended with a growl.
Sean then spoke. "How did it feel to betray your brothers, your fathers, and every single servant in the growing imperium. How does it feel that you ran with your tail between your legs when my emperor turned your leaders into corpses. Tell me, how does it feel to have your crusades repelled time and time again by mortals. I am no longer loyal to the imperium, but to my emperor. I will fight for him and I'll restore his imperium to it's true potential." He spoke as he glared at him behind his helmet. He tossed his weapons to the side and marched on.
The sorcerer saw this and held his hand up, focusing warp energies to try and stop him and rip him apart, but he marched. "I will fight and die if it means humanity lives, I will cut out the corruption and plunge us into our own purity, I will make sure we can rip apart your regime and burn the chaos gods." He snarled as the sorcerer became nervous.
His power amplified as Sean showed signs of slowing but no struggle. "I'll show you imperial might. You wish to play god?" He asked he stood right in front of him, where the wizard panicked and tried to strike with his staff. Sean caught it and yanked it forward as he grabbed the sorcerer by the throat and slammed him to the edge of the portal. "Play god and you realize that you're no god, because the mortals will strike you down. Your gods will wither and die, mine will live past them. Nothing is eternal." He spoke as he balled his fist and cocked to back.
"W-wait! I could offer you everything! Power, money, women! I can show you the paths you may take for these things and-" before he could finish a black crackle of lightning struck his chest and revealed to be Sean's now broken fist. The force that had plowed through the sorcerer had hit the portal and it began to cut off. Screams were heard all around as cultist and space marine began to feel their power drain, the psychic backlash causing the eldar to waver and the psykers to scream in madness.
The dying voice of the sorcerer called out. "Be a hero, then you'll die one. "God Hunter"" He spoke in his final whisper as he slumped on the collapsing portal.
Sean followed suit, falling to his knees as the gods inside him shouted. "NOW SEAN! REACH INTO THE PORTAL!" Roared the voice of Ynnead as Sean rose to a stumble. As he plunged his arm into the portal, massive surges of energy ripped into him. It was like a battle inside his very soul as the portal shifted from a purple red to a blurry blue and white. The man screamed in agony as he heard the voice of Ynnead speak to the warp.
"Know I live! Know that only one may have the souls of eldar! Know that I hold them in my grasp! You will now release those you claimed and know that I will have my due and take them from your wicked dimensions!" With the end of Ynnead's speech, Sean's arm was blown off and he was flung in the middle of a battlefield filled with screaming cultists. He didn't move, his very body was burned out and he couldn't see. His arm was not growing back and as the cultists dropped around him or retreated, he was not moving.
The remaining chaos forces fought further way in the ruins with the orks, while necrons made their slow approach. Mealaeth saw Sean's body and felt everything go cold. The freezing snow could not match the lump of ice that formed in her heart.
"SIR! TITAN'S WEAPONS ARE ONLINE!" Shouted a soldier behind her as the massive titan cannons targeted the necromancy monoliths. As she saw them pop one by one, she stared at his body. Then it can to her.
"SEAN!" She screamed as she hopped a trench and rushed to the man. All around him was slaughtered cultists and broken necrons, and he laid their as if he had joined them. She quickly dropped to his side as she coddled his unmoving body. "Sean! Wake up, quick laying here and wake up!" She shouted as his closed eyes did not move, nor did she hear a breath from his lips.
"SEAN! YOU WILL NOT DIE HERE YOU HEAR ME!? YOU WILL NO-" She felt a hand on he shoulder and turned to see Telria. She was silent and her face was exposed to be slack. No emotion.
She remembered then that eldar couldn't openly express emotion out of fear of sommoning slannesh. She slowly set Sean down as she rose. She turned to Telria to see her own breaks. Tears rolled down her face as she turned away, her feet dragging in the debris.
While the remains of the necrons were wiped out, the eldar began to slip away in the most way that the space marines didn't even know until last second.
"Damn xenos got away!" Snarled the chaplain as the general hummed. "What of Sean? He was loyal to the end, shall we give him writes of virtue?" He asked the marine as a priest approached. "I shall preform his writes. He was loyal to his emperor, his body simply failed to drive away it's corruption." He spoke as he approached the fallen soldier, only to halt at the sight of the ruins of the chaos portal. The portal flickered and hissed as forms passed through, as the soldiers rushed to rearm and prepare to fight.
"HOLD FIRE!" Roared the chaplain as he knew the forms that approached. As they stopped, the forms looked onward at the body of Sean. The warriors looked on and found the sights of the imperial forces. The chaplain stared back as they approached the body.
With whispers and silent prayers, the strange space marines stood with Sean in his arms as they retreated back to the portal, leaving to the warp.
"My lord, why have we not stopped them? Where they not chaos?" Asked a soldier to General Sturnn. "It was the chaplain's call son, it was not ours to make." He spoke as they stared on as the priest came back with a mix of confusion, but acceptance.