Chapter I.
Beacon Academy's library was not the most elegant structure—it did not need to be. It was pragmatic in its design, generous perhaps in its dimensions, however. Large, with open space allowing for room to grow its interior. Walls that were half-a-foot thick, comprised of materials that could resist the force of a Megaton Dust bomb, if it were to exist on this strange world.
Despite these shortcomings, it still managed to awe the students as they entered, immediately greeted by a gothic marvel, akin to that of an, albeit simple, large cathedral. The front doors were wide, comprised of dark, well-conditioned and well-made wood that could withstand the blast of a grenade without even a scratch, battened by flat steel reinforcements along its top and bottom sections, riveted with gold and brass. Above that door, arching up to converge at a single point from which a stone gargoyle would sit upon an arched outcropping, and above that stone guardian, was a window. Stained glass in the shape of a nigh-perfect circle, plagued by the imperfections of the tools at hand, but certainly not the craftsmanship. It was no particular depiction displayed in the colourful window, yet many students still claimed to see figures in its visage.
Upon exiting the foyer—entering deeper into the mighty library, dubbed the Magnus Librariae, the Greatest Library, this theme only continues. High ceilings are accented by light fixtures that mimic the silhouette of candles, even giving the faintest flicker every so often to perform its best imitations of a wicked stick of wax. Walls with grandiose architecture that was painted along the curved roof to depict many a battle from that Great War which ended some eighty years before. The murals and the stories told by them, however, ultimately serve little other than to add an air to the building, something it accomplished well. Students respected this place above all others—no fights broke out in its expansive interior. No rules laid out by the quaint, feeble old man that called himself the librarian, were ignored or disobeyed. Books were placed on shelves where they belonged, and they remained nearly as pristine as the day they were taken off the printing presses.
Among the many towering shelves of the Beacon Library, a single book, one with no fancy cover or elegant text upon its spine, a simplistic, yet exquisitely crafted, leather-backed tome, sat upon a shelf. This shelf contained many tomes like it, each one unique in its contents if not its cover, but this one, so simple among such elegantly, flamboyantly crafted tomes, had the luck of catching the eye of the first woman to read its contents in so very long.
Pyrrha Nikos, while not much of a scholarly type in her own right, could still appreciate a good book. A good pastime when one spent as many hours as her or her team did recovering from battle wounds or engaging in the oh so arduous and pressing task of simply finding peace. Pyrrha couldn't quite place what had drawn her to decide to read upon the topic of history. Perhaps Oobleck's lessons were starting to get through to her, learning of history, after all, is the best way to avoid repeating those past mistakes in the future. Perhaps it had been the simple cover of the tome, the black sheep among the flock of silver-coated, shimmering lambs. Perhaps it had simply been fate.
Pyrrha took the tome from the shelf, finding herself coughing as long-settled dust was released from its still place along the ill-searched shelf. A brush of her hand and the cover became clearer, the title in simple, bold font along the top sect of the book, not too small that one must bring it closer to properly read, yet not too large as to take up any amount of space wider than a young woman's hand. On the dusty, sage cover of the historical text, read the title:
SORTIARIUS, THE LOST CITY OF THE SHARPENED DREAMERS.
Pyrrha hummed softly as she mulled over the title. A brief flip-through showed the book in fair condition, with very little wear on its pages from frequent readings like some of the more popular tomes, like that of the Faunus scholar Mitellus and his reflections on the prejudice of man and beast, or the influential military tomes of Taurus Rex that taught many of the young students the advanced combat techniques utilized by full-fledged Huntsmen and Huntresses, or even that of the popular comic series, Pumpkin Pete's Bizarre Adventure. This one was different, different enough to warrant being tucked under Pyrrha's arm, against the bronzed cuirass of her outfit alongside the dozen other thick books already waiting, yet still a black sheep among a sea of ebon wool in comparison to the rest.
The shelves of the library were not only tall—dwarfing Pyrrha like a grown adult man to a toddler and then some—but they were dense. Sound had issues fully traveling in some places, especially the historical literature sections and discerning one's location had become such a crisis that electronic signs would be mounted along the narrow of the shelves in order to direct students to where they wished to go. Even such a knowledgeable woman like Pyrrha found herself using the screens to get back to the main foyer of the library, the notorious two-floored, incredibly simplistic in comparison, warmly-lit main area where students gathered at tables to study and where the more commonly-read tombs were positioned on significantly smaller shelves than their taller, broader cousins in the deep of the library.
Soon enough however, the crimson-haired girl found herself weaving out from the shelves of the library and toward the wooded balcony overlooking the humble librarian's station, situated cozily against the wall, alongside the main tables, where she would find her friends of Ruby and her wonderful team, alongside her beloved comrades in Team JNPR. Pyrrha quickened her pace, quietly speed-walking down a stairwell off to the right before emerging from past a column which supported the stairs she'd mantled. Ruby was the first to spot her, waving frantically to Pyrrha before the rest of her friends did the same, happy to see their friend alive and in one piece after her oh-so-brave venture into the heart of the library of Beacon, plentifully notorious for having many a student get lost in its winding halls for days on end before being found.
"Pyrrha! We thought you got lost," Jaune said to his teammate with a smile as he turned to greet her, his blonde mop of hair obscuring the upper parts of his eyes as he shifted. Nora quickly bounced up from her seat like a helium-infused rocket and hugged her dear red-headed friend.
"Haha! I'm glad to see you're safe—and not just because Ruby and I had a bet over whether you would get lost in the library," Nora rambled as she embraced her friend, the raven-haired tiny reaper seething quietly at her seat with a hint of amusement drawing at the corners of her lips. Pyrrha allowed herself to giggle a bit at the antics of her friends before sliding into one of the wooden chairs beside Jaune, books neatly taken from the crook of her arm and stacked atop one another. Her eyes drifted curiously down to the sage-backed book at the top, the tale of the Lost City, a story of which she was endlessly curious about now. Not once in any of her history lessons, from the youngest of ages to now, had she even been vaguely made aware of this city, this Sortiarius. It baffled her mind and tempted her as her fingers graced the ribbed spine before gently taking it into her right hand, pushing softly the heavy stack of tomes off to the side in order to make room for the one which now held her full attention. Flipping it open to the front page, she was met with the author's name and the opening words. She read the words in her mind after taking a deep breath.
'It is in this tome that I, Helio Kalliston, noble orator of the final dynasty of the Redguard Guild of Serfs and Peasants, enclose the fullest history of the noble city of Sortiarius, from its earliest days as a result of colonization turned to migration by the various nations of the time, to its final days, collapsing at the hand of the damned Grimm…'
Pyrrha was quickly sucked into the elegant words of Helio Kalliston. He described a city borne from the ashes of apocalypse at the hands of Grimm, forged by the ancient and venerable Crimson King, a towering giant of a man who wielded the very weather in his own hands as he led his people from all the way in Solitas as the tyrant-kings rose to power, all the way across the ocean and through many villages, saving those they could from the rampaging hordes of Grimm that followed the melancholic band of knights that followed the King, whose powers were legend among the descendants of the Sortiarians. One story described a knight in full plate that carried the very hand of the righteous God of the Sun along his right arm, melting Grimm with beams of glowering orange heat, whilst the snarling, hateful axe of the God of the Underworld was clasped in his left, using these weapons to strike down any, man, woman or Grimm that dared stand in the way of him and his King. The legends enraptured Pyrrha like few things had done before—the harrowing tales of a city being forged from the fires of a Grimm-infested forest filled her with excitement, whilst the tales of the many dynasties of the philosopher-kings thrilled her, before saddening her upon their deaths upon the eve of long-gone centuries past. Pyrrha had no concept of how much time had passed as she fingered through the pages of the historical literature, allowing the outside world to bleed away until it was only her and the fated words of Helio Kalliston, the final orator of Sortiarius and its dynasties before the city's destruction, described in the final words of the tome, written in by a second writer who included what Helio could not in the final manuscript. To think that any of this could have possibly been true, even if exaggerated, amazed Pyrrha. She lamented thoroughly how dozens of other records were used to cross-reference and act as intellectual sources for the knowledge of the tome and, though it was long, it seemed almost hollow. Reading the ending sentiments at the back revealed to her the unfortunate truth—that the tome was meant as the summary to a longer line of historical records which would cover in detail the many aspects of life in Sortiarius, from the socio-political battlegrounds to the innerworkings of the nigh mystical Redguard, the angelic warriors who defended the city to the last man, woman and child, the incorruptible few among the fallible many. How she would love to sink into the past and simply see what it may have been… however her fantasies were cut short by a nudge from Jaune. Promptly looking up, Pyrrha found the eyes of their table entirely on her. Cheeks flushed and quietly turning to Jaune for an answer, she sputtered out an embarrassed excuse to her silence.
"I-I'm sorry, I was so enraptured in my reading I didn't even hear you if you were speaking to me." Jaune smiled and nodded in understanding.
"I know the feeling. Those Pumpkin Pete graphic novels always have me glued to my seat!" The wholesome smile on their naïve leader's face was something to be appreciated when it showed, Pyrrha had learn to do as the naivety—or perhaps innocence—of Jaune was enough to bring joy to both their teams in ways that would become scarce in their later years. This moment was no exception, giggles spreading across the table before Pyrrha responded.
"Well… While I can say that I've read those, albeit for a children's charity some time ago… this book is one I don't think I've ever heard of," Pyrrha spoke with curiosity mixed into her tone, bringing forth that same emotion from her fellows.
"That's so weird! You're like one of the biggest bookworms I know, how have you not read this one?" Nora asked loudly as she came in close to her Mistralian comrade, the girl rocking backward to compensate for the distance lost between them.
"Well… I don't know. It was in the historical section in the deeper parts of the library. It talks about an ancient civilization that was around before any of the four kingdoms, called Sortiarius." Pyrrha explained the book in simpler terms to her younger and more… immature friends.
"It was this city that existed, well, we don't know how long ago, but the footnotes suggest thousands of years ago! They were a kingdom, well, closer to a city-state, but they were a big one. Their government was a complex bureaucracy guided by mentor-figures called 'The Philosopher Kings' who ruled over the city. According to this book, they had mastered the art of using the soul as a tool that they could perform minor acts of what they considered sorcery. Although, I'm not so sure if that last part is real… ultimately it wouldn't matter all that much, their city fell to the Grimm and internal strife long before even Vale was around," Pyrrha explained to the best of her ability. While it wasn't difficult in by any definition of the word, it certainly wasn't simple by any means either. She had barely gotten through the first three chapters and it had been at least an hour. She let out a minor huff of irritation as she stared down at the book—as interesting as it was, she didn't have the free time in any week to reliably put in enough time to read and retain whatever information could be gleamed from the book. However, judging by how the weapons were described in those opening three chapters, she had a fair idea of who might find better use of the book.
Pyrrha Nikos flipped the book shut and stretched out her arms before turning her gaze to the young, raven-haired red reaper.
"Ruby, you love weapons… you should read this. The Redguard—the city's defense force, huntsmen of the time, they used some of the most advanced-sounding weapons I've read about, guns that fired some sort of energy and something called a 'chainsword,' among other things." She placed her hands over the book and thumbed the cover as she asked, admiring the simplicity in the design for a moment before her eyes caught Ruby's own orbs turning to saucers.
"Chainsword? As in a chainsaw-sword? Guns?! What kind of guns?! Sniper rifles? Shotguns? Pistols? Automatic weapons?! I demand to know moooore!" Ruby all-but belly-flopped onto the table as she got close to Pyrrha and the precious book, hands reaching out to snatch it, though the fiery-haired champion tugged the ancient tome back before her young friend could snag it.
"This book is very old, Ruby, be careful with it." She was prepared to lecture the girl slightly, though feeling that was more the white-haired ice queen's—as the rowdier students had nicknamed her, rather rudely—job than hers. The pouty face given by Ruby had not helped much either.
"I will! I promise," Ruby said softly upon Pyrrha bringing the book closer. The younger girl took the tome in her hands for a moment and did the same as her compatriot—just finding a moment to admire the simple design, where so many others were elegant, vain and loud, this one was… humble. Quiet, soft-spoken. It knew that what it contained was worthy of her eyes, it was confident to such a degree that it did not need such a vain and flashy cover. A simple, leather, sage-green cover with neat, lightly-coloured, tall and bold font to display its title and the purpose of the tome. Something about it relieved Ruby's mind as she took the book and scooted back into her seat. She slipped it into her bag after a moment of contemplation longer and refocused herself on studying.
Some hours had gone by, studying, socializing, and doing the part of students as best as could be expected of them. Eventually the sun grew tired and dipped below the horizon, allowing for the fractured moon of Remnant to rise in its place. The students, having spent their day studying, were unified with the sun in their exhaustion. So, after a long day of studying, the two teams separated from one another, said their goodbyes, and retired to their dorms. Whilst most members of the teams were quick to lay their heads to sleep, there was one outlier among them.
Through the darkest hours of the night and to the early morning of the next day, Ruby sat at her desk and poured over the tome. Vast in density with its glorious renditions of battles between the mystical Redguard, towering giants that were rumoured to be ancient half-automata half-man, and the darkest and most formidable forms of Grimm that Ruby had ever seen depicted. Real or not, the images were nice to look at and that was where most of her time was spent, for despite the thickness of the tome, it still bore little content. Pyrrha's assessment of the book had proved painfully correct, as it referred to so many dozens of other books that were likely long gone.
Her hunger for knowledge, always satiable, overwhelmed the young raven-haired reaper and she found herself redressed and quietly sneaking off to the library in those dark hours of the early morning. As she came to those huge oaken doors, Ruby paused.
Would the doors be locked? Would this all have been for naught? No, she would get her answers. Did that mean breaking in? Or did that mean waiting till morning? There were classes and countless trainings the next day, she wouldn't get a chance like this again. But what if she was caught?
Her endless tirade of paranoid thoughts was stopped when the doors slowly creaked open, startling the girl as the humble librarian quietly pulled the door open and stared at her. He was hunchbacked ever slightly, wearing a brown robe that enclosed a thin body, while frail, had once been muscular and built like brick and steel. His face was wide, likely statuesque in his youth, but years fighting had scarred his face and old age wrinkled the once handsome features.
"You should be in bed, young one," he greeted quietly after a brief staring contest that might have lasted a few seconds too long.
"I-I know, but I read this book and I just wanted to know more-!" Ruby began to explain in a lapse of mild panic, only for the librarian to raise a hand to silence her as he spotted the ancient tome in her hands.
"I am not one to judge the practices of those seeking knowledge… Gods know that would make me a hypocrite," he opened the door fully and beckoned the young Ruby Rose in. The library was quietly lit by golden candlelight, the dim flickering shading the librarian's face in soft yellows and oranges, highlighting the scars along his left cheek, burns, cuts, gauges in the wrinkled flesh. It intimidated the girl a moment, but the knowing smile invited her into the expansive library, and she took the offer gladly, clutching the sage-backed tome in her arms as she entered Beacon Library, the door closing behind her softly.
Soon, Ruby was sitting with a small stack of disappointingly thin tomes that could barely equate to the width of the historical, sage-backed volume, but it was enlightening, nonetheless. A cup of steaming tea sat at the opposite side to the books, on a ceramic saucer. Across from her, sat the librarian, pouring over a quiet-looking book. She shifted in her seat for a moment and waited to see the reaction from the old man across from her. When none came, she sat her head on her hands and sighed exaggeratedly. No response. The young reaper wriggled in her chair for a while before she couldn't take the silence anymore without books to pour over.
"I still can't believe that this place used to exist," Ruby blurted. The librarian peeked up from the book he was reading, raising an eyebrow curiously.
"You're unsure of the truth," the librarian spoke softly as he closed his book, sliding it to his left. Ruby hesitantly nodded.
"The way they describe the weapons and these drawings, they just seem… unreal. Like something out of a fantasy book. They said the one captain, Hastar H'Kett, he had a weapon that was like… some kind of lance of orange light and all the pictures show him doing all this crazy stuff—it just… it feels more like a legend than ancient history, y'know?" Ruby ranted rapidly, red-faced and rosy as the old librarian stared at her with an amused expression gracing his features. He folded his hands together and sat them in front of him as he began.
"Well, I can assure you. This," he pointed to the book, tapping its cover with his index finger, "it is our history. Remnant's history. Some of those images were… exaggerated, but I can tell you that they very much had weapons like how those flowery words describe." He grinned as Ruby became bemused at first, her forehead scrunching as her eyebrows furrowed and her eyes darted back and forth in thought.
"It… they're not lances. They're guns. But… how could that be possible!? No Dust weapons could even accomplish stuff like this even now!" Ruby asked incredulously. In return, the humble librarian laughed softly, tapping a hand gently to the table, understating what would be a symbol of exaggerated laughter. Perhaps it was a sign of his age catching up with him, making him more soft-spoken. Perhaps it was simply an action to be amusing to the young student, a goal he readily achieved as Ruby tittered at his antics, something that brought a smile to his aged facial features.
"Well, I can at least tell you a story. Something passed down in my family… it all began in those olden days when most men fought with spears, swords and axes. Not the Sortiarites, they used majestic automata and weapons the like of which would never be known again…"
Ozpin stared out at the glowing candlelight of the library from his office, a cup of now-cold coffee clutched in one hand, a grimace adorning his face. Behind him, Glynda continued to rant at the hulking behemoth in red that stood in front of Ozpin's desk.
Shen'ban Albistus was not a normal man. His stature was that of an Ursai, yet with the agile movements of a huntsman. He moved with speed that was purely unnatural, with that hulking suit of rugged Mark Five power armour, shoddily welded ceramite, connected at the corners with molecular bonding studs and pounded into place with sheer psychic might made up his pauldrons, his face a bulldog-like, glowering helmet comprised of similar ad hoc construction. Heat visibly sweltered from the overworked vents of his power pack, whilst his asymmetrically armoured leg tapped idly in boredom whilst Glynda told him off. One, reinforced frontally and pocked by dents, the other formless with studs at the rounded kneepad that was built into it. Cables crisscrossed the surface of his torso, connecting to a round grille that sparkled and crackled with the occasional burst of dull static. Covered in a coat of chipping crimson paint and accented by bronze, a tabard covering the cables along his chest with a hole cut in the center to let the circular grille remain visible. The armour was rough and rugged, emitting an aura of carnal violence that almost dared any enemy to test it, to show that it may be rough, but would stand fast in battle even against the harshest foe. The gun strapped to his thigh, with a barrel that barely poked from the long receiver and without a stock, was so large that it would be ridiculous in the hands of anyone besides Shen'ban. The long-staffed, curve-bladed chain-toothed Khopesh on his back emphasized that feeling even further with its sheer length and culpability to commit acts of incredible violence alone.
"… I simply cannot understand how you claim to have the numbers to field an entire army, claim to care about this planet, about humanity, yet you cannot dedicate even a single of these… sorcerers of yours to help with Amber! Does the idea of the enemy gaining the power of the Fall Maiden not worry you?!" Glynda fumed at the towering behemoth of ten and a half feet, throwing her hands up in exasperation and prompting a snort of irritation from the giant.
"I assure you, Goodwitch, that the Thousand Sons' intention on this planet is and forever will be, the safeguarding of Humanity and all Her children," his voice carried across the room and if one listened closely, the sheer volume leaving metal objects ringing, "but it is not the duties of the Thousand Sons to meddle in your affairs, especially after you ignored the warnings of our scryers!" Anger began to bubble into his once monotonous voice.
"You let arrogance get the best of you and ignored the signs. The warning spoke of the loss of Fall amid a nameless nowhere to an enemy unforeseen. But no. You stood and you waited until Qrow had the dying girl locked in your Atlesian machines!" His rage brought his limbs to balled fists. A pulse of psychic feedback washed over them, the mortal woman falling to her knees momentarily whilst the perpetual simply groped his temple with irritation drawn across his face, snarling at Shen'ban.
"We made a mistake, but you must be fair, this would not have marked the first time your scryers have made a false prediction. Albistus, you must help us in aiding Amber's recovery. Name your price and we can grant it, come now!" Ozpin spoke with fleeting terror in the corners of his mouth. The Astartean warrior stood stock for a moment before allowing a grumble of irritation to filter through his vox grille.
"Even if I had the sorcerers, which I do not, even my visiting is jeopardizing the recovery of the Primarch without my expert knowledge there to guide the novices and to keep us working, this is your mess, Ozma. Your ignorance and your belief in your superiority led you down this path…" The words sat in the air for a while as Ozpin fought to find a retort, a frown encasing his features. One hand clutched his cane, whilst the other tightened its grip on his mug. No, they had acted reasonably, the likelihood of what had been predicted was incredibly low and they already had their hands full hunting the other members of Salem's little cults…
Ozpin's musings were cut off by Shen'ban removing something from the inner pocket of his cloak, a letter. His rage was forgotten and his eyes locked onto the letter.
"The only reason I could make this trip was because this message was given to us by the Corvidae… I'm sure your agent will affirm its contents in some days with his own field work. The Enemy prepares to make their move, Ozma." The Astartes stomped forward with light steps that were unnaturally light, uncomfortably quiet for such a hulking behemoth. He gently placed the wax-sealed letter on Ozpin's desk, tapping it with his gauntleted finger for a moment before spinning on a heel. To the door he went, Ozpin left staring at the unopened letter, his name neatly printed in calligraphic Valean. His eyes drifted up as Albistus stopped at the opening elevator doors, turning to face Ozpin with the flickering cyan lenses of his Mark Five helmet.
"I've seen the path laid out for men such as yourself, Ozpin. I only wish that you overcome the limitations of the chains that bind you, lest they tear you to the depths and see you rent apart by those unspeakable…" His cryptic peace said, he entered the elevator and gently punched the B1 button with his index finger, allowing the doors to shudder close, leaving Ozpin now sitting at his desk, thinking over the words spoken by Shen'ban Albistus.
In those unspoken corners of Remnant where no sane mortal man walked, there lay a fortress upon a cliff. This fortress stretched on for miles across the cliffside, with circling walls sporting long, arrowhead-shaped watchtowers pointing outward in eight directions. Constructed of black stone, brass, and iron, with wrought iron pickets lining its outer walls. Foul, Nurglite fungi grew at the ground where the walls met hard, cold, dark brown dirt.
Outside these corrupted walls, hordes of lesser daemons battled in limbo, where the material realm and immaterial realm had become blended and blurred, unable to enter the material realm or leave the immaterial, they were specters, fighting, fucking and spreading their horrific taint across the lands, corrupting the black pools from which the horrific beasts of Grimm would arise, met by hordes of foul daemons that ripped apart their animalistic minds as they fought with one another to possess their newborn horrors, riddling them with infection, bulging muscle and rotting, gnarled clumps of mange.
The writhing hordes of beasts were watched upon by the tainted cultists that manned the fortresses walls, once human or faunus, now hollow husks of their former selves, maddened by their hungering for power, for eternal life, for lust, for blood, that drove them to the worship of Chaos. Their debased masters of a diabolical warband of Chaos Space Marines waited in that inner ring of walls, preparing and plotting whilst carrying out the orders of one who surpassed even them. The foulest witch to blight the tainted land upon which they walked, the one who struck low a Primarch and walked away from it, alive and stronger. The Champion of Tzeentch and Matriarch of the Retches in the Dark, the foul daemon-kin that she called 'Grimm.'
Salem.
On a hill, with its winding spires creeping over the star-shaped grid of walls that formed the dark fortress, there sat a castle constructed of dark stone. Creaking girders of rusting steel with brass rivets held up a board-comprised roof that silently stared as a dark ritual was performed in the shadow of an eight-pointed star. A man screamed and cried as he was dragged toward the ritual circle in the centre of the room, damned witch-priests knelt and whispered painful, wicked words that hurt to hear. Along the floor, round the circles of the ritual, those same words burnt into the stone floor whilst candles made from man burned, tainted incense burners emitting intoxicating, corruptive smokes that twisted and curled amid the air in a cruel, agonized dance.
Overseeing this ritual was the foul matriarch herself. Bedecked in a form-fitting, sleeveless dress of black silk, her skin pale and with black, spidery veins clawing their way up her face to frame her elegantly crafted nose, slitted, a menacing black pupil on a backdrop of crimson, with a narrow pair of pursed lips. Ghost-white hair done up into a tight bun sat atop her head, hanging glowing, black crystals that glowed with similar unholy words to the ones being burnt into the ground by the tongues of foul priests. Her arms were long, slender, and ending in long, claw-like nails painted black with a sheen of polish, her veins, purple and streaking up her arms, curling into the corrupting symbol of Tzeentch where her shoulders met her torso. In one hand she clutched a ritualistic dagger, curved and imitating the shape of that retched symbol of the Architect of Fate, with a stone cat's eye in the center.
Beside her, Adam Taurus stood with arms crossed as he observed his subordinates in the ritual, his eyes aching from staring at the sight of the ritualistic symbols behind his Grimm mask. Allying himself with this… woman, had been a sacrifice. One of many done in the name of the cause. His brothers and sisters would be trained in these dark arts in order to further their goals of liberating the faunus of Humanity's tyranny. Unlikely allies, he had heard. Truer words never spoken, he supposed. Their goals were aligned and so far, this alliance had only served to benefit Adam and the White Fang, though the High Leader disagreed, he made a decision that would benefit both his and the Fang's goals equally. His thoughts were interrupted by the halt in the man's screaming.
Now centered with his legs apart and arms out, parallel with his shoulders, the man only cried and wailed as the freshly inducted acolytes of the dark cults began carving painful words and sigils into his chest, his arms. The disturbing click-click-clicking of a Seer caught Adam's ears and he tensed.
The things were hideous, glass balls sitting upon pedestals of black flesh, plates of asymmetrical bone spotting the surface of its pedestal, with long, spiked tongue-like tendrils hanging below it, sharpened and in varying lengths. This one bore fresh, glowing runes and foul words carved into the bones and flesh of its form, the glass ball "head" a constantly shifting kaleidoscope of squares, triangles and a constantly changing, shifting myriad of other odd shapes, constantly morphing into one another and barely maintaining the dome-like silhouette. Tribute to Tzeentch, one may have figured, had they known the name of the chaos god.
Salem strode forward as the priests finished preparing the ritual, holding the sacrifice still with iron manacles that were drawn off to different sides of the room, kneeling before the circle. In an unholy tongue, her lips began to move, speaking foul words, the blade grasped tightly in an underhanded grip in both hands, knuckles whitening as she spoke the words to complete the ritual.
The man began to scream again, writhing in agony as his body began to raise off the ground, his limbs still held down by the heavy manacles, yet unmoving. His bones creaked and he wailed in pain as his limbs were popped out of sockets. His screams grew louder and more desperate, crying out for a long-gone mother, for a father, for his pitiful gods as his limbs began to strain at the joints.
"AAAARRRRGGHHH!" His screams echoed as his limbs soon began to tear, until with a sickening squelch, his torso was ripped free of his limbs, blood seeping into the ritual circle's deep recesses in the stone floors. Salem, in all her cruelty, did not allow the sacrifice to live. Rather, she continued rending him apart, using her cruel and dark psychic powers to force the man to live, for his agonies were a parting offering to Slaanesh, his undeath an offering to Nurgle, this broken warrior's skull an offering to Khorne, whilst her patron God simply reveled in her show of psychic talent.
The Seer floated to the centre of the damning ritual and soon glowed with Immaterial energies as the barrier between reality and the Warp thinned. The seer's clicking became one with the sacrificial corpse's screams and soon, the Seer embedded itself into the torso of the man, its tendrils hooking into whatever place it could as it began to drain him of blood, the shifting dome atop its fleshy pedestal glowing before exploding outward into a smokescreen, from which the dark image of Salem's only master appeared. Glowing lenses from a long-horned ceramite helmet stared at her from the other side, silent.
"Lord Astartes, how good it is to see you again—" Salem began to speak softly, a fiendish grin encompassing her face until she was shaken from it by several loud taps against the smokescreen, causing it to shudder as the other Seer's dome was tapped repeatedly by transhuman armoured fingers.
"Is this fucking thing on? Tzeentch-damn it, if this damned thing broke again, I'm going to perform Rubricron on…" His rant paused as his lenses refocused on Salem, a chuckle escaping his lips. "Good! That spell takes far too long to perform anyway… Continue."
Salem withheld her comments. Even someone as powerful as her would have trouble fighting Astartean enemies. Undeath came in the form of resurrection, not immunity to damage, sadly. "Yes, greetings, lord. As you can tell, we were successful in the ritual to create a connection between the two dark spawn of mine. We won't be able to maintain connection for long due to the current sacrifice, but we can reconnect in time—"
"Good enough, though next time it would be excellent if you could use the amount of sacrifices as we told," Salem's lord spoke with a sneer in his voice. Salem held her tongue and kept a mask of uncaring across her face, nodding in agreement.
"We did what we could. As it stands, getting the sacrifices into my realm has proven more difficult than originally anticipated… the rampant daemonic incursions outside the fortress dropped on my castle certainly is not making it easy," Salem explained, earning a disgruntled huff from the transhuman on the other line.
"That would make two of us, then. As it stands, the Warp is more inhospitable than we had predicted and our strongholds are frequently raided by the Sentinel Legion marching across the damned Corpse-Emperor's Imperium. Do not fret, however, acolyte. In time, the full might of the Cerulean Outcast, the true thousand sons of this damned galaxy, will cast itself to Remnant. Until then, continue preparations. We will be unable to properly navigate to your little backwater if there is not a strong enough psychic beacon…We may have the unwanted blessing of that fething 'Architect of Fate,'" Salem could hear the disgust in his voice at the mention of Salem's patron god, "however that will only bring us so far. The connection is fading fast, Salem… do not disappoint me." The connection flickered as the smokescreen began to dissipate, though that wasn't to say either of them were out of communication for long. Deep in the recesses of the Matriarch's mind, a voice communed silently across the Warp with the dreaded Corvidae Seer that now controlled what remained of the wicked Crimson King's corrupted legion. Salem listened carefully to that voice, for it was the same voice that led her down this path of power.
After all, it had seen her done right so far, who was to say it was leading her wrong now?
In the criminal world of Remnant, there were often two types of people. Those who were comfortable with the status quo, leaching off the civilized world until they were caught, the basic thieves, murderers, rapists, the whole pot of decrepit undercity trash.
Then, there were the Roman Torchwick types. The go-getting, scheming, plotting, anarchy-causing egotistical types who the judges often mourned their lifestyles, figuring them having might've been better off using their genius for good. That was… if the judges ever caught them. The Roman Torchwicks of the world rare allowed themselves to be caught and of those times, there's always a goal behind it. Some devious scheme to cause pure, uncorrupted and undiluted chaos. It is the nature of the type.
Roman Torchwick was proud to be the man who put a name to that little tidbit of identification. The lanky ginger-haired gangster stood before a procession of White Fang as he pondered the organization of criminal minds, his white coat untouched by the grime that the rest of the menial, servile abhumans were caked in, his gray dress pants and shimmering black shoes much the same. Fiendish hazel eyes picked over the mask-clad, uniform dressed faunus as they hauled in crates from their most recent score. Behind Torchwick, Cinder Fall stood, irate with crossed arms as he observed the foot soldiers lugging 'SDC' marked boxes from shipping containers, box trucks, whatever stolen storage containers that held the precious source of Dust, arms crossed behind his back, lording over them from the observation box of the warehouse.
"[Roman]. [Guests] + [waiting] = DISPLEASED. [Displeased Psyker] + [Heat-based Psychic Chauvinism] + [Plasma Conduit] = DANGER. Donot leave them waiting, please," the hissing, mechanical voice of Roman's dearest, closest ally, the red-robed Tomika Epiphinia, crackled at him. Leaning over a steel table covered with burning incense, machined weapon parts that were both archaic and advanced, she was an oddball.
Cinder couldn't quite place her origin. At first she figured Atlas, but the tech was unlike Atlesian tech in all regards. The archaic designs then made her think Vacuo or some Mistralian town in the middle of nowhere, but the stuff, despite its design—it was simply too advanced for some bumpkin town. The red robes encasing what Cinder had first assumed to be a heavyset frame were odd too, but the many mechanical… tentacles, with the varying tools mounted on their ends, they had to come from somewhere. Her actual limbs were encased in brass, bronze, steel and leather, whirring as she moved, supporting an almost hunched back that rose up with glowing blue lightbulb-like fixtures and metallic spines torn through the fabric of her crimson robe. The only identifying factor that determined it was a 'her' at all to Cinder was the long violet-streaked caramel-brown hair, streaming down around a steel respirator flanked by black, metallic hoses, and round goggles bearing eight, glowing, spider-like turquoise lenses.
Regardless, the woman, for all her eccentricities that Cinder figured as exploitable, was more of a hindrance to Cinder's plans than help. Constantly interfering in their plans and Roman, oddly despite his known reputation for being ruthless in his single-minded goals, always going along with her interferences, going as far to dedicate the resources given to him by Cinder's dearest, beloved master toward her goals. She was a nuisance and just staring at her masked form, Cinder allowed her maiden powers to creep into use, raising the temperature of the room ever so slightly in response to Tomika's insult, only proving her prod at Roman true.
"Don't fret, red! I'm quite aware of—dearest Cinder here! In fact, I'm just making sure these… assets of hers, are doing their job right." He walked closer, producing a red-capped cane that he tapped to the ground in step with his right leg, swinging the leg forward into a straight line, coming down on it and throwing his other leg forward in a bent angle. Cinder attributed the clicking noise that accompanied his steps to the expensive shoes he wore.
"And you, dear Cinder, don't you worry a thing!" Little Neopolitan, whose hair and eye colour did the part of making her namesake ring true, wielding her rapier-point parasol, appeared behind Roman. Cinder was baffled by that girl, not nearly as much as the red robed cyborg to her right, but certainly baffled, nonetheless.
"My plans are moving along nominally. With your muscle ready, we'll be able to move all this stuff to Glenn and get the tunnels dug out in time for the big finale. Just keep their trails cold and it'll be like stealing candy from a baby," Roman assured. A silver tongue he may have had, it had little effect on the soon-to-be Fall Maiden, who deadpanned him. A moment of silence passed before the red-robed woman to Cinder's right let out a noise she assumed was a snicker.
"[FAITHLESSNESS] + [ARROGANCE] = [FAILURE.] Have faith and you will never be found wanting," Tomika said matter-of-factedly, earning a snarl of irritation from Cinder.
"And since when were you involved in this, robot? As far as I'm concerned, you're just an unwanted bystander," Cinder regarded darkly, threatening enough to prompt a response from the shadows as Tomika's silent watcher made itself known.
From the darkness, metal footsteps revealed a silent bodyguard, wielding a maul and an elegant pistol with what appeared to be a silver block mounted upon the top, alight with glowing cyan energy, the maul's head doing the same. He was metal, with prosthetic—implying there was even a human under all that armour—limbs and a basic metal helmet with a horizontal cog plume atop his head. Tomika held a hand up at him and let out words in some odd, illegible tongue. Immediately, he stepped back into the shadows, bringing Cinder's bemusement forth. How such a loud, shining and tall thing could hide so well was beyond her. Tomika turned to face Cinder and the Fall Maiden to-be could feel the frown behind her mask. Before she could respond, Roman answered for her.
"I build your tech. Your powerful guns, the drills you use to dig into those tunnels to that abandoned hive, the bombs you will load onto those trains and I don't ask questions," Tomika explained, her voice betraying how irate she was with the conversation. Cinder's curiosity only grew, almost unnaturally.
"You are an oddball, aren't you? Where would such a criminal mastermind like Roman find someone with such technical skill?" Cinder smirked as she leaned on one hip, watching the red-robed techie like a hawk. Tomika narrowed her lenses momentarily at Cinder before picking up one of the parts from the table. A long, narrow metallic tube rose up from her robe, ending in a small nozzle which deposited searing, white-hot flame onto a broken segment, welding it shut whilst Tomika responded, completely independent to the robed woman.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you, psyker," Tomika spoke softly, earning a devilish grin from Cinder, prompting her to arrogantly reply, "Try me, robot."
"I come from another galaxy. The Milky Way, from the Adeptus Mechanicus, sister empire to the Imperium of Mankind, an empire of a million worlds, ruled by an emperor who guides its ships through the perilous Warp. In its ten thousand years of existence, never once has it fallen to the enemy. Equally can be said of the glorious Adeptus Mechanicus, which maintains its technology, its weapons, always searching for lost tech in order to restore the glory of the olden days of Mankind's prime," Tomika declared, losing herself in her own words for a moment whilst she milled about the table, cleaning, repairing, welding, ceaseless in her work. She continued her harrowing tale after a moment of silence, staring at the welded casing clutched in a mechadendrite. Cinder could tell, watching the woman wistfully staring into nothing from behind those goggles, that there was baggage. Internally, she grinned. Where there was baggage, there was vulnerability, so Cinder listened, intent on possibly gaining a new ally in the long game.
Khorne looked onto the girl, finding her rage suitable. Tzeentch found her scheming amusing in equal parts. A dark pact would be made that night in the depths of the Empyrean. Through schemes that made the former's blood boil and pacts of raging, frothing madmen that laid siege to the latter's plans, a daemon worthy of conquering worlds was born of the Architect of Fate and the Blood God, though that spelled the end of their brief respite from the Long Game.
On Remnant, deep within the shimmering steel-black sarcophagi, their centerpiece, a glowing throne upon which sat a one-eyed king of crimson hair and bronze skin, began to hum. A finger of the long-stasis bound Primarch twitched as his mind awoke for the first time in decades.
Ozma watched blindly through the windows of his tower, wondering the plots and schemes of his enemies whilst the fires of treachery began to grow from simple embers beneath him.
Ruby Rose sat in the library and talked to a mantled ancient, learning the histories of old fiefdoms and of tyrant-kings.
Though few of them knew it, Remnant was about to change. For better or worse, none could ever hope to know.
Thus marks the first chapter of * .
Chapters will be marked oddly, apologies for that, as I've worked through (with the current, final version included) three different variants of this story.
Ver1 - First Iteration, the original version of the story, which would've been the only version, however due to computer problems, the planner and a lot of the drafts were lost.
Ver2 - The Second Iteration, which was my revised version of the story, II-Legion and Thousand Sons centric. Discontinued as I figured the legion to be a bit... OC-ish, mary sue-ish. They'll make a showcase in the current version, though it will be more backseat-ish once the story kicks off.
UNMARKED/Ver3 - Current, final iteration of the story. These early chapters, 1-9 (roughly) will be slow to come out and likely won't come with any form of announcement due to them overwriting old versions. After that, it'll be smooth sailing.
There's a forum, though this site is rare used for them in my experience. Updates will be posted there regarding rewrites.
I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. For those who are just picking up this story, I thank you for your patience in waiting for the new releases.
Yours truly,
Director (and Commissar) Waffles.