Chapter 3 to my Daemonhunter's piece. A tad more talky, but but hopefully still good. Disclaimer: I don't own Warhammer 40k in any way, shape or form. That honor belongs to Games Workshop and I have no intent of challenging them. I don't want to make a profit form this and hope that this doesn't get me sued... Please enjoy!
Twisting Paths to Victory
By Wordbearer2
Inside the strike cruiser, the Emperor's Justice, there was a starkly lit chamber with light reflecting from its padded walls. The walls were white as were its furnishings: a bed welded to the floor, a small absolutory, and a scanning array mounted high in one corner. The minute whirring of its servos matched the breathing of the room's sole occupant. He was clad in a black body glove and knelt in the center of the room, his breathing slow and heavy. His head was bowed as drugs pumped through his veins, keeping him sedated. The man's firm lithe muscles rippled as his head turned in response to the squeal of hinges. His features, scarred by implants, locked onto the grey faces of a trio of servitors as they entered his cell bearing his arms.
Fear blossomed briefly in his one human eye before a new dose of sedative caused him to slump to his knees. The first servitor strapped a harness over his chest and back, reverently hooking grenades to the golden accessory. The servitor's hands trembled as the remnants of its central nervous system urged it to flee. The next servitor hooked a power pack to the man's back and ran a cable under his arm and into a transformer on the front of the harness. The last servitor, bearing a large ornate helm with bone white fittings and one enormous pupil, placed it on the man's shaven skull. The click of connecting ports and servos was muffled by the walls as he shuddered under a new dose of drugs. The servitors withdrew before the Culexus Assassin swung his skull faced helm around and rose to his feet.
Elsewhere, Inquisitor Daria was silent as the shuttle dispatched from the Emperor's Justice rattled and shook its way through the last of the atmospheric turbulence. She was unmasked, her thick brown hair framing a face that would have been beautiful had it not been for the look of intolerance in her grey eyes. Her gaze dashed over to her pair of guardians, blue armored soldiers wielding heavy shot guns as they reverently inspected their weapons. The trio was inbound to the summer palace of Theoginus Rex, governor of Orion VI. Her ship, the Emperor's Justice, was in orbit around this simple productive garden world because Daria had suspicions as to its purity. The shuttle suddenly decelerated and she reached for her silver mask, slipping the accessory over her face as dendrites writhed out from beneath her hair and linked with the metallic relic.
The shuttle landed shortly thereafter, the thump of its feet passing through the passenger's cabin. The back ramp opened and Daria tilted her head in silent communication at the bodyguards as she disembarked. The Inquisitor's blue carapace armor reflected the sun brightly as she walked across the concrete landing pad at the heart of the palace. A nervous chamberlain welcomed her as she entered the shade entrance, "Inquisitor Daria! We were not expecting you until sometime later. I must apologize for the lack of ...."
She quelled him with a scornful glance through one of her yellow mask lenses, "Just take me to the governor. We have the Emperor's business to discuss." Her voice was a flat dangerous monotone and the chamberlain hastened to comply.
The halls of the palace were full of bustling servants who blanched at the sight of the stylized eye engraved on the armor of Daria and her guard. She left a trail of silent, shaken menials in her wake as the chamberlain led them to a sun soaked audience chamber where a thin grey haired man chatted agreeably with peacock clad nobles. A quartet of servitor musicians continued to play as the doors opened and Daria strode in shadowed by her guards, the fabric of her cloak waving behind her. The gossiping crowd fell silent as they took in the ominous new arrival.
The Inquisitor glanced at the servitors and someone hurriedly deactivated these lobotomized servants. The governor loudly greeted the Inquisitor, "Inquisitor Daria, how nice to see that someone knows how to make a flashy entrance." His smile was thin and brittle with the knowledge that no visit from an Inquisitor could be entirely good. The crowd of nobles laughed at Theoginus' jest, a nervous sound that she let wash over her before replying.
"I am not here to exchange pleasantries," she bluntly stated, "I have come to discuss a matter of great importance with the governor of Orion VI and will need some of his time." She looked pointedly at the crowd of nobles and her bodyguards began to edge them out of the room with shotguns at the ready. The governor looked mildly put out but remained silent as the Inquisitor continued, "Alone." The dignitary reluctantly dismissed his ornately uniformed guards and the two inquisitorial soldiers herded them out before sealing the doors behind them. Daria was left alone with the governor of Orion VI in the expansive room.
Back in orbit, the drop pod tumbled through the void, occasionally nudged along a new vector by its jets. The pod was encased in heavy shielding that reflected the glare of a torpedo launch from the Emperor's Justice. The torpedo flared like a newborn star and a wave of electronic noise swept over the southern hemisphere of Orion VI. The planet's defensive weapons were now effectively blinded. The drop pod now acted, an explosion of light driving it toward the atmosphere as its human cargo was cushioned by thick padding. The pod burned its way onto the surface of the southernmost continent of Orion VI and sent a sonic boom echoing down a narrow valley.
The noise stirred PDF sentries in the valley who gazed alertly into the darkness. They were assigned to defend a small bunker and nervously looked at the smoking trail that rose out of the forest to the north of them. The lieutenant dispatched one of his squads to investigate even as he roused the rest of his soldiers. In the forest the now blackened drop pod and the form of the Culexus Assassin was momentarily silhouetted by the pulsing red emergency lights. The figure moved swiftly out of the impact crater and the black body suit helped it to vanish into the darkness. The assassin slipped around the nervous PDF squad and into sight of the bunker without incident. The oversized iris of the assassin's helm spiraled open and glowed blue as the Culexus prepared to spring its trap.
In the now near empty room, Inquisitor Daria addressed the governor, her voice monotone but her stance conveying her tension. "Governor Theoginus Rex, as you know, I am a representative of the Inquisition. What you don't know, what very few others know outside my order, is that I am a representative of the Ordo Malleus: an ordo dedicated to the destruction of the daemonic." Theoginus shuddered at the mention of the fell-handed bogeymen of the Imperium as the Inquisitor continued, "We must seek out daemons wherever they dwell, for to let one child of Chaos escape is to doom one thousand worlds to damnation. It does not matter how they hide, or how many innocents die to ensure their destruction. It is in this vein that I execute you and commend your soul to the Emperor's keeping."
With this final phrase she pulled out a simple slim needle pistol and pointed it at the Governor who stammered, "Wha....Wha...Why are you doing...." Daria fired twice, the shots disappearing into the Governor's chest. The Governor gasped, turned blue and fell to his knees as the poison took effect. Daria closed her eyes in concentration and a nimbus of eldritch fire gathered around her before she held out her hand. An explosion shattered the window as the power she had gathered explosively immolated the still body of the former governor of Orion VI. Daria never took her eyes from the charred corpse, the lenses of her silver mask darkening in response to the glare that reflected off her mask and armor.
She continued to hold out her hand, apparently unsurprised as the charcoal black corpse that had been Theoginus rose to its feet and the mystic flames were absorbed into its form. The figure laughed through cracked lips as it swelled, the char peeling off like sunburned skin. The flesh that lay beneath was pale and wet with a texture like rotten leather. Its face split to reveal a multitude of eyes and a trio of fleshy whip-like dreadlocks erupted from its back. Its knees bent backward with brittle snaps as bird-like claws burst out of its feet. "I must thank you," it chortled as if flexed its newly sprouted talons and attained its full height of ten feet, "you have freed me from the pathetic vessel where I had to hide myself. While Theoginus was an amusing refuge from your kind, I was growing bored with inhabiting his hapless husk."
Daria responded, loathing clear in her voice as her hatred for the foul being before her overcame her training. "I did not free you to amuse you, abomination. I seek your banishment and eventual destruction. This is the only way to ensure that end."
Amusement rippled the daemon prince's dreadlocks and it spoke, "How do you intend to accomplish that, little Inquisitor? You have no more chance against me than Sanguinius against Horus!" Acidic spit splattered the ground as it laughed and Daria activated a small device on her belt. Moments later a thunderous clap silenced the daemon as Grandmaster Judeas teleported into the room, clad in his slate grey terminator armor. He raised his golden bladed halberd in challenge at the towering daemonic warpspawn.
On the southrenmost continent, the darkness of the night was broken as the assassin sprinted out of the cover of the trees toward the first of the barricades where the remaining PDF squad crouched. Glowing bursts of psychotropic energy blew one soldier's head from his shoulders before his squad mates could respond. Lasgun fire scorched the ground as a heavy bolter was brought to bear. The assassin dodged out the way as it closed, the oversized helm no hindrance. A hail of shells tore up the ground with a continuous roar, one shell ripping a bloody hole in the black clad figure's chest.
The assassin ignored the wound, a second burst of energy cutting down two more guardsmen as the figure powered over the barricade. A kick left one guardsman dead, and the assassin twisted the head of another with a forceful open palmed blow. The soldiers fled from this nightmarish assailant, unresponsive to their commander's cries. The assassin advanced on the bunker, seeming to gain energy the closer it got to the grim building. The lieutenant rushed at the assassin only to halt as the nauseating aura emanated by the figure unnerved him. Its very stance conveying contempt, the Culexus powered its helm a third time and the seemingly endless hail of shots left the lieutenant and his command squad a charred wreck. The threat disposed of, the Culexus assassin made its way into the bunker.
Back in the palace, the daemon prince took an involuntary step backwards as the Grand Master's battle prayer echoed off the walls of the room, "In the name of the Most Holy Emperor I banish you from the face of His world! The fire of his torch burns thy soul and removes your unholy presence. It is He who binds you and renders you impotent."
Resisting the force of Judeas' prayer, the daemon roared back in its twisted native tongue, "Th'chinal ak'marnicuqui zetch' morq e'non..." Its deep voice splinted as it spoke, becoming a chorus of voices that encompassed the spectrum of humanity, a chorus of lost souls. Unholy issued forth from its form to envelop the Grand Master, hiding him from sight.
Daria closed her eyes, the mask's filter overcome by the foul radiance. When the flames died though, Judeas was unharmed and charged the towering beast, his weapons agleam. The daemon narrowed its many eyes and swung downward with a massive hand, only to roar in pain as the halberd bit into its forearm. Judeas swung the glaive again only to find it blocked by a shimmering energy field. Grinning madly, the daemon clutched Judeas with its lasing dreadlocks and threw the grey knight into Theoginus' throne causing him to lose his grasp on his long-hafted Nemesis weapon. The throne crumbled under the impact and Judeas got his feet heavily, only to find the daemon poised above him, desperate needle pistol shots deflecting off its force-field. "Did you the think that a daemon prince of Tzeentch would be caught unprepared by your assault?" It grabbed the fallen nemesis weapon and threw it away, "I've arranged matters so that I have all the power that I require."
Judeas thought to himself underneath his continual battle mantra as he robotically blocked strikes with his shield, "Emperor willing, that will no longer be the case quite soon."
At the same time and half a world away, the Culexus assassin entered the confines of the bunker and sealed the door behind him. Immediately the noise of the outdoors faded and the sounds of respirators and other life support equipment filled the air. A dozen life support pods stood before him, each containing a twitching psyker. Blasphemous runes marked their skin and the equipment of the chamber, a trail of them snaking their way across the floor to an obscene icon that dominated one wall. Power fed from the pods and into the Tzeentchen icon in cancerous waves.
The assassin ignored the icon, its attention taken up by the psykers who were beginning to react to its fearful presence. They thrashed against the sides of their pods, desperate terror spreading from victim to victim as the Culexus took in the chamber. It suddenly acted, a thunderous barrage of psychotropic bolts slaying four of the psykers in moments. It rolled a plain grey cylindrical grenade between two other pods. The assassin ignored the shower of sparks and the subsequent odor of burnt flesh as it drove a fist into a pod and clutched the pallid flesh of young psyker. The girl tried to scream around the airtube in her throat as the flesh melted from her body and stained the blue fluids leaking from the pod a murky brown. Withdrawing his arm from the pod, the assassin seemed almost giddy as it turned to the five surviving psykers. The icon began to wither as its energy supply was cut off. Consumed by his frenzied slaughter, the Culexus assassin was unaware of the role he played in ridding Orion VI of the Tzeentchen horror that depended so much on the energy harvested by the icon. Psychotropic fire burned once more in the bunker.
The palace walls groaned as Judeas struggled to block the daemon prince's blows with his storm shield, back pressed against the wall by the reeking mass of the daemon. His armor was scoured by the lashing blows of the dreadlocks and acid holes pitted his armor. The daemon's claws were blocked by the shield and a flare of light glared. Again light flared as the storm shield intercepted an overhand swat. Daria unleashed the eldritch fire storm against the beast only to have flaring power flow off it like water.
The Grandmaster was attempting to move around the beast when it seemed to falter and then backed away keening in pain. The daemon's force-field flickered and died as its flesh writhed like a nest of snakes. Judeas hurriedly reclaimed his fallen Nemesis weapon, uttering a brief canticle of contrition in apology to his weapon's spirit. The daemon straightened and turned to face its Ordo Malleus opponents. Daria fired the needle pistol and the needle created a purple bruise that swelled and burst like a dam holding back flood waters.
The daemon prince powered forward on its backward jointed legs, arms wide and dreadlocks lashing as it sought to deal with these troublesome foes. Judeas met that charge, planting the butt of his nemesis force halberd into the tile. The blade penetrated the daemon's softened flesh. Judeas sought the daemon prince's link to this world with his will and the daemon's distracted mind was no match for him. The towering daemon bled light from every pore before bursting into a flaming mass that boiled away into the air even as it stilled. The room echoed to the reverent words of the Thorian psalms as the Grandmaster knelt to offer the Emperor gratitude for this victory. Inquisitor Daria wordlessly looked on.
So you made it down here. What did you think? Good? Bad? Don't Care? Leave a review if you see fit. Thank you for your time.