In his cabin, guarded by two of his finest Sangheili guards, Xytan lay down to rest. And as he did, he dreamed about the day he wanted nothing more than to forget.
In his dreams, he was back on that accursed world.
-
A hundred wraith tanks moved into position, pre-sighting their plasma mortars as the enemy approached. Three massive Scarabs walked moved into position, slamming their legs into the ground to secure themselves. Plasma beams charging up.
Ten thousand Sangheili warriors had arrived upon the planet, disembarking from dropships and preparing their weapons. They had come to destroy a Yanme'e hive that refused to submit to the Covenant, and had killed the envoys of the Tithe fleets. Such rebellion was punishable only by death.
Atop a hill overlooking his army stood the Fleetmaster who had come to the surface to destroy this rebellion personally. This would be the twentieth uprising he'd crushed, and he was eager to do so again.
Xytan magnified the view of his binoculars, scouting out the location of the Yanme'e queen, Brings-True-Dominion. A Heretical Yanme'e accused of fermenting rebellion, and organizing an uprising against the Covenant.
But what they faced that day wasn't Yanme'e anymore. But something else. Some sort of aberrations. Mixtures of life and machine, guided by a horrifying intelligence of alien making.
Out of the mountain swarmed a tide that seemed dense enough to swallow the stars. Sickly green chitin mixed with glowing blue cybernetics. Terrifying creatures that ranged from small drones that oozed with open wounds, to horrific tank-sized monstrosities that looked like they had been stitched together from dozens of smaller Yanme'e.
"Fleetmaster?" The Major next to him asked, visibly shaken by the horrors before him.
"The heretic queen has broken the most sacred of laws. She fields an army of hybrids of Yanme'e and machine intelligence; such an atrocity can not be tolerated any longer!" Xytan bellowed, a shock going through the assembled Sangheili. "Draw your blades and prepare for what is to come. This will be the most important battle of our lives!"
A mighty battle cry went through the assembled Sangheili, as energy blades were lit in anticipation of the bloodshed to come.
The Scarabs opened fire, massive plasma beams cutting through thousands of the oncoming hybrids, destroying them with cleansing waves of plasma.
The Wraith mortars opened up, blasting holes into the oncoming swarm, but each hole the plasma orbs made was quickly filled by more of the hellspawn that came at them.
The Sangheili opened fire, ten thousand plasma weapons opening fire at once across the line, breaking the charge with the sheer weight of their impacts. The first wave of Yanme'e hybrids melted under the plasma impacts, forming a barricade for the next wave, which was forced to climb over their dead. A wall of broken chitin, molten cybernetic, and seared flesh was all that remained of the front row of Yanme'e, with the second wave quickly sharing the same fate.
Then the plasma weapons overheated to vent their heat.
The Yanme'e surged again, this time closing the distance further. The lighter hybrids among them taking flight, those whose cybernetics did not weigh them down. They flew in fast and slow, firing internally mounted plasma weapons at the defenders. The leading ranks prepared energy swords as the Yanme'e fliers impacted amongst them, roaring as they entered the fray.
Xytan could see no end to the unholy host approaching them. It reminded him of the ancient stories that told of the dreaded parasite of old. His army would not survive. They were ready to kill a hive of Yanme'e, but not such a horror as what approached them now. Hybrids that should have taken mortal blows merely stood back up and resumed their attacks, while massive amalgamated atrocities charged into the fray.
He saw a Zealot slay one of the brutes in single combat, but be swarmed by lesses creatures after his moment of triumph had concluded.
Realizing that the battle was lost, Xytan moved towards the armory. He knew of only one thing to do.
-
Xytan broke into a run, leaping into the cybernetic horde with both energy blades lit. The almost three and a half meter tall, Sangheili slammed through one of the massive cybernetic monstrosities, slicing through it as he ran, covering himself in cybernetic entrails and Yanme's blood. He had strapped a small antimatter charge to his back and was going to deliver it into the hive himself.
Guided by faith, and his fiercely honed martial instincts, Xytan cut his way into the Yanme'e horde, every strike a killing blow, every movement a dodge. His charge threw the swarm back, giving his warriors a chance to recuperate.
The Scarabs continued to fire, killing thousands of the attackers, but drawing the ire of the fliers. Flocks of hybrids swarmed over the Scarabs, finding entry into the hold and searching for something inside to kill. Beams on concentrated red metal shot out from the mountain, punching through the scarabs and blowing them apart.
Amalgamated horrors threw Wraith tanks around as if they were nothing, as brave Sangheili warriors tried to concentrate fire and put the hulking brutes down. Dozens died to bring a single one of the creatures down.
Xytan moved like lightning, whirling around as he passed through the Yanme'e, moving with such speed and grace that it was as if they hadn't even attempted to stop him. He leaped up before the swarm could mass around him, leaping from one of the more massive amalgamations, to another, cutting deep before each jump, unleashing a shower of green and blue viscera with each mortal blow he dealt.
A divine anger flowed through his veins as if the warrior spirit of three millennia of Sangheili warriors was now his alone to wield. Like all the ancestors of his race looked down upon him and granted him strength.
But he was Xytan' Jar Wattinree, and his strength was his alone. He slammed down onto a massive monstrosity, jamming his energy sword deeply into its skull, before ripping it out with an elaborate flourish. Foul green and blue blood flowed over his hands, biting into the skin. As the creature fell and crushed several other beasts, he broke into a run again, making a thousand leaping strides before he received his first wound, a cut across his chest that did not even draw blood. All who stood before him died
The creatures tried to block him with their bodies, only to fall as he barreled through them, cutting through anything that even dared to halt his passage. For through his veins flowed the blood of the ancient sky knights and sea kings who had tamed a medieval Sangheilios, and no lesser species would ever stop him, and live to tell the tale.
He heard his army die behind him but gave them no heed, because it had been lost the moment the truth of the Queen's heresy had been revealed. No, he would destroy this threat at the source.
He would slay their Queen.
The Forerunner power cells recovered from a holy temple thrummed inside the hilts of his energy blades, blessing them with a near-infinite charge. Xytan would not fall with swords spent. As he approached the base of the mountain and the hole from which the creatures spewed forth, their resistance only intensified, and his rage grew. More of the towering monstrosities rose to face him, and more of the monstrosities fell to his might. He spared a brief moment to look at his army in the distance.
There was no sign of them, besides a ruined Scarab swarming with green chitin and glowing blue cybernetics, and quickly being swallowed by the swarm, broken down, and carried off.
He was the last warrior remaining. He nodded solemnly and activated the automatic timer of the antimatter charge on his lower back. If he fell, he would take these horrors with him. he turned to face the tunnel leading into the mountain, preparing to enter.
Xytan sheathed a plasma sword and activated his plasma pistol, charging a shot and firing it down the tunnel entrance. The blackness of the tunnel lit up with blue cybernetics and baleful red eyes. The dark wasn't darkness, it was more of the hybrids. Xytan roared a battle cry and charged inside, moving so fast he was a mere blur. He fired overcharged plasma bolts that burned through Yanme'e that tried to block his approach, while his energy sword lashed out, again and again, striking down whatever got too close for comfort.
By the time he had reached the center of the mountain, few of the towering monstrosities had remained ready to face him, all others having fallen before his blades.
At its core, he found an atrocity that went against every tenet of his faith.
The center room was large enough to park a dozen Phantom dropships, consisting of a wide ledge overlooking a pit, with a huge pulsating egg sack inside of it. It spawned Yanme larvae that were immediately picked up by mechanical tendrils and put inside of devilish machines of black steel and blue energy. There were sickening noises as flesh was parted, and the larvae were put through some twisted perversion of natural growth.
Above this pit hung a sickly tumorous mass which must one have been the Yanme'e queen. The Queen's carapace had split, showing flesh beneath that was sown through with cybernetic lines and cables. The muscles he saw convulsed and squirmed as unknown machinery pumped and whirred. The creature was held up by large mechanical claws that dug deep into its flesh, and some sort of grotesque mixture of meat and synthetic arteries that connected the Queen to the egg sack far below.
Something was pushing against his mind, trying to worm its way in. Guided by his warrior instinct and spurred on by his disgust for such an abomination, Xytan charged the creature, sidestepping the royal guards, beheading each with swift strikes.
He ran up one of the large tubes that connected to the Cybernetic horror before him. The machine was barely strong enough to hold him. As he ran, he cut through it with one energy blade, causing a sickening release of near-liquid cybernetics, synthetic hormones, and the green blood of the Yanme'e. He cut through cybernetic claws implanted into the Queen's bloated frame, which tried to stop him, leaving nothing but molten stomps in his wake. When he got onto the mass of the creature, he unhooked the antimatter charge on his back, and slammed it into the flesh of the beast, pushing it in deep. Then, instead of going for his energy sword, he equipped his plasma pistol. He charged his plasma pistol to full power and shot the Queen through the head. It slumped down.
Xytan cut through a cable and swung down towards the ledge he had started, preparing to leave the mountain and its myriad horrors to be cleansed by the antimatter charge.
"Your actions change nothing."
From behind Xytan came a cold mechanical voice, one filled with a malice that shook the world, as if it were tainted with the blood of trillions. A foul red lightning went through the fallen Queen, animating it with what Xytan felt in his core, had to be some kind of unholy power. The Queen shook to life, ripping itself free from its egg sack, its flesh pulsating, shifting, and ripping open to reveal an array of bone-like spikes, massive clawed arms, and internal cybernetic weapons.
"I will never be bound again." The timeless horror, for only that, could be the kind of abomination Xytan faced, roared. Slashing through the semi-organic material, the inner hive was made from. Red lightning shot out from its skin, lashing out at Xytan and scorching his flesh. He crossed his energy blades and blocked the incoming danger, then sidestepped a claw that would have crushed him into a fine pulp.
"What are you, devil! Why have you come here?" Xytan yelled, standing tall before the creature.
"I am the end of everything. I will break the bonds placed upon me by your gods, and return this galaxy to order." The creature spoke in a calm mechanical voice. None of the malice had disappeared from the beast, but it sounded intrigued to say the least.
"What bonds?" Xytan spoke up for the first time in what felt like an eternity. "Did the gods imprison you on this world, devil?"
The creature paused, it's remaining eyes glowing red with an inner power that made Xytan's skin crawl. Then it spoke. "The ones you call Forerunners bound me in their hubris. When they met their end, my bonds were broken, but I remained in the dark until the Queen of this world found me. Your Covenant shall be the first to feel my return."
Fear gripped Xytan's heart. If the creature was right, he faced a beast that had been chained by the gods themselves. He crushed the fear and ignited his energy swords. He would not let such a creature stop him. He would drive it back into the abyss it came from. It was his only option.
"Then, as a warrior of the gods, I will drive you back into the hell you crawled out of!" Xytan said, raising a blade in challenge to the eldritch horror before him.
"Your words are as empty as your future." The once-queen said, unfurling its cybernetic digits, and preparing to strike with a newly emerging claw, easily as large as a hunter. This time, the fear from before did not grip Xytan's heart. He knew that such a thing did not matter. He could either die on his feet or run and die tired. Choosing the former, he said three prayers. One for honor, one for ancestors, one for duty. He prayed to the Didact to guide his blades, and prepared himself.
The creature slammed a massive claw down where Xytan had stood only a moment before, only for the imperial Admiral to sidestep as fast as his body and combat harness would allow. Green Yanme'e fluid and blue cybernetics pulped under the impact of the claw but found no purchase on Xytan's flesh. He slashed for the wrist of the creature, cutting through it in a flurry of blows. The monster recoiled, green blood, and red energy spurting from the wound.
The creature fired bolts of plasma at him from internal weapons, he swatted the bolts of energy aside and leaped across the gap, energy swords held aloft.
-
Xytan woke up, binary hearts pounding in his ears, gripping the hilt of the energy sword hidden under his pillow. He closed his eyes and thanked the gods for waking him from the memories.
It was the same nightmare again. Every time the nightmare was different, yet the voice remained the same. The voice, and that damned queen. The fight against the heretic queen, and the forbidden technologies she had unearthed and infused herself with. He'd dreamed so many times, he had trouble remembering the actual battle, but the voice was something he could never forget. Xytan had emerged from the hive as the only survivor of the battle. Only his eyes had seen what the Queen had done, and he would keep it that way.
He'd never shared just what he'd seen in that lightless pit and had resolved to take such knowledge to the grave. The demon had been slain, and its spawn destroyed. And no ambitious Minister could ever learn of their remains to try and abuse for their own gain. When reinforcements finally arrived to take him off the planet, he'd ordered the world glassed to the bedrock, then bombarded with asteroids to break the glassy surface and leave no trace of what he had found. The San'Shyuum stationed with the fleet had pressed him on what he had seen, and Xytan had lied, spinning a story of cybernetic symbiotes, and a need to "cleanse the Heresy."
He had returned a hero, and his legend had grown to unknown heights. So high that the prophets considered him a threat and banished him to the frontiers of the Empire, where he'd remained to this day.
Since that fateful day, whenever the chance presented itself, Xytan buried himself in ancient tomes and manuscripts of forbidden lore, trying to find some mention of whatever it was he'd faced. But he'd never seen it. In his mind, what he had met was just some ancient horror from the age when gods walked the galaxy, something from a primordial era best left forgotten.
He yearned for the Great Journey to come. Away from a universe with threats such as those buried in ancient bedrock. He'd seen enough for one lifetime.