A/N: Alright, now for The Lady Inquisitor's ass-kicking chapter! Enjoy! :D
Book Two: Corruption's End
-Chapter 14: Kill the Mutant-
"Emperor help whoever she names her enemy. Their end is approaching." Lieutenant Chera Marius, on The Lady Inquisitor
Serviceman Chung dropped him off before the rest of the Woadian 111th. From three miles away, the city looked empty.
Broken. Deserted.
As the troops made their landing, he waited. A lander swung low to the ground, and Gamma platoon scrambled out. Right on schedule. Golden hair spilled out from underneath her helmet, thick and unbound. Her face held a radiant smile, smeared with fierce blue paint. She had purple eyes.
Vibrant. Alive.
He fought down the reflex to look away. Putting Trooper Yang between his crosshairs seemed wrong.
Sinful. Heretical.
But there was no mistaking it, no way in Hell. This was her, this was Trooper Yang, his target. His Lady had described her for him, but 'tall, with long blonde hair and violet eyes' was an understatement. Had to be her idea of a joke. A bad one.
The shot was lined up. One squeeze of his finger, and he would paint this woman's squad with her brains. One shell-breaker round is all it would take. Just like he had done so many times before. That is him. That is who he is. There is no one better.
He does not flinch from duty.
But for the first time in his service to the Holiest Vindicare Temple and the Lady Inquisitor, his mission seemed ludicrous. Just six minutes under his scope, and he knew this woman would remain pure. The smile on her lips, the laugh made silent by the miles that distanced them. She's uncanny. There was something afoot, more than his Lady let on. Big surprise really, her being an Inquisitor and all.
He was built for duty, bound by deference. But he knew his Lady was keeping secrets about this woman. Trooper Yang reeked of secrets. He could see it in her mischievous smile. He watched their advance into the city, and she was grinning the whole way.
Golden. Radiant.
The Lady Inquisitor gave the word, and the Woadians marched. Waving forward the Elodian armor with her power sword, she was the first one in the city. According to Creed, the governor's mansion was where the distress signal emanated from. She could feel the psychic residue at the center of the city, faint and obscured, but present.
If she could find out what happened here, perhaps she could find a lead on this plague of insurrections that had set her astropaths into a frenzy. An undercurrent of menace seethed beneath this whole enterprise, a feeling that set the Lady Inquisitor's hackles on end.
But as the wind of their advance swept her duster back to reveal the shimmering might of her power armor, a small smile played across her lips. Once more, she rode forth into battle. She had spent the majority of her time in the Inquisition hunting heretics and playing shadows against the wall for Amalathians to chase.
Cutting down the Emperor's enemies in open warfare would be refreshing at the very least. It had been awhile since her skills were tested. And sharpening them before Yang inevitably asked to spar struck her as particularly prudent. Her days as a scalpel were over.
Ira was in command of the Scythe of Morning while she was planet-side, and her kasrkin rode behind her in their Chimeras, ready to serve at a moment's notice. Looking over the regiment, she could see the hill where Amat made his nest. The task she'd assigned him was one of brutal necessity. She trusted his judgment implicitly, and could entrust the task to no one else. Not even herself.
The ash-grey sand whorled around her, swallowing the brick buildings as the armored column rolled into the city. Examining the streets, it appeared to be empty, but that was a deliberate construction on the part of the enemy. Their black souls sat here, but she could not tell where they were or when they would strike. A dark fog sat over her witches' sight, obscuring the sharper visions to which she was accustomed.
There's something deeply wrong about this.
Opening the hatch, she stooped to order the vox-officer in the Leman Russ to warn the regiment of enemy activity.
"Tell Colonel-" was as far as she got before a rocket slammed into the front of the lead tank, The Wrath of Saint Alfabusa. The explosion sent roiling clouds of dust shooting into the street, but the tank was unharmed. It returned fire, smiting its attackers into vapor. Peals of thunderous fire echoed up and down the column, blasting the rows of buildings into ruin. Pintle-mounted bolters roared to life, clattering as their explosive rounds shredded enemy cover.
The Lady Inquisitor sprung forward. Already, her kasrkin surrounded her, disembarking from their Chimeras. Their hellguns whined as they readied themselves to scour the rebels into ash. As the tanks stalled and searched for targets, her retinue advanced.
"Most of the platoons are engaged. Taking casualties." Cade, her vox-trooper reported. "Your orders, my Lady?"
"What else? Advance, and leave none alive." He nodded, relaying her orders to the Woadian 111th. "Now, with me! It is time to deliver the Emperor's justice!"
"OOH-RAH!" Her kasrkin replied, faces hidden behind their masks. Ordering the armor to support the main advance, the Lady Inquisitor gathered her guard and dove into the twisting alleys.
The rattle of small-arms fire echoed throughout the city, distant but constant. Working their way through the concentric ring of buildings, the very walls of the place seemed to constrict them, funneling them into some unknown cauldron. She shook the feeling off. Her witches' sight going dark was no reason to start imagining things. This was nothing she hadn't seen before.
Movement. The Lady Inquisitor called a halt, raising her fist to stop her procession. Almost fifty cultists shuffled forward in the street, marching forward to join the battle. They were a motley bunch, wearing ragged clothes and horrid brands. A few bore a touch of the mutant, fouling her nose. Her kasrkin readied themselves, taking aim from the cover of their alley.
"Say the word, my Lady." Darron whispered. She waved him off.
"I will handle this." The ground below her glowed white, her glyphs given life for the first time in many months. Releasing the spell, she rocketed forward, her aura pushing her speed beyond mortal limits. Her blade scythed through the first cultist, and the next five behind him. Blood splashed up her arm as she danced within the mob, her power sword humming with joy as it tore through the hated foe. Each movement was fluid, practical, and necessary. Her arm was a blur as it carved the enemy into meat. One man fell after another, dozens of limbs and headless bodies tumbling to the sandy streets. The grey dirt drank the blood greedily, slurping up the heretics' foul ichor.
A cultist sought to attack her while her back was to him, but her aura and honed psychic power alerted her long before his sword fell. With a casual grace, her power sword jutted into his chest, piercing his heart. She brought it forward to cleave another man in half. Falling to the earth, he still lived, pawing at the sand while he screamed in insensate pain and fear.
She crushed his head with the heel of her power armor, ending his suffering and heresy.
"Go now, and join the Emperor!" She cried, leaping forward once more. They swarmed her, railing against her power armor and aura with lasguns, stubguns, and crude swords. None found purchase. Grabbing an attacker's sword with her fist, she bent it before his eyes, turning it around to open his belly.
"FOR CHAOS!" A man cried, bringing the bayonet of his lasgun into the Lady's Inqusitior's chest. She let the blow fall, where it scratched against the paint of her power armor. "Wh-what…" The Lady Inquisitor brought a finger to her lips.
"Shh..." The man screamed, and her sword met his neck. His head sailed through the air, coming to rest on the blood-soaked sand.
"DIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEE!" A cultist cried, leaping at her from the rooftops. Tears ran from his eyes, an arsenal of bombs wrapped tight around his ratty clothes. She threw him aside with a thrust of psychic power before he could reach her, smashing him into a brick wall thirty meters away. He stood, broken and bloodied, meeting her ice-blue eyes.
He stumbled to his knees as blood leaked from his nose, then his eyes and ears. Screaming, he flailed and kicked, howling as the Lady Inquisitor rent his mind apart. As he died, his explosives detonated, filling the street with loose sand and gravel.
The pressure wave sent her coat flapping about her, but did not faze her. Her kasrkin marched forward, stomping the remains of the cultists into nothingness.
"I haven't seen you cut loose like that since the manufactorums on Shina." Darron said, whistling as he examined the torn, bifurcated bodies before him. "Why the change?"
"Didn't want to get out of practice." She replied, grinning as she deactivated her power sword and cleansed it on her sleeve. "I didn't see my loyal guards helping." She said amicably.
"You did say you'd handle it." He said with a smile. He shrugged. "It's not like you were in any real danger. You missed one though." Bringing his hellgun to bear, he vaporized a cultist who had been observing them from a distant corner. His flesh boiled away under the sheer heat, reduced to a puddle of cooking flesh.
Chera grinned at him. Nice shot.
Darron nodded. Thanks babe.
"Let us continue." The Lady Inquisitor said, leaving the stacks of corpses behind her. As they pushed further into the city, the cloud that had settled over her mind intensified.
"We're now past any elements of the 111th." Cade said. Within the shade of the alleys, they crept forward. In the street before them, an enemy Chimera lumbered past, adorned with repugnant symbols and writings painted in gore. Corpses dragged behind it, bound in rusted chains, while bits of bodies decorated the hull.
The Lady Inquisitor drew her inferno pistol and fired. An orange burst of light issued forth, the well-aimed shot striking its fuel compartment, sundering the vehicle apart. Flames spewed out of the weapon ports, and burning cultists scrambled from the vehicle, only to be cut down by her kasrkin. Striding forward into the street, she examined the destroyed Chimera. What are cultists doing with this kind of equipment? She wondered, eyes parsing the charred metal. A bullet crashed into her aura and tore a hole in her duster. Reinforcements had arrived.
"Push onwards!" She cried, waving her men forward with her power sword. Bullets and las-fire licked at them, kicking up sand as they dashed into cover. The fresh wave of cultists took refuge on the other side of the street, the last row of buildings before the governor's estate.
Taking cover behind the smoking ruin, the Lady Inquisitor directed the flow of battle. Now that her enemies were within view, she could easily warp their minds, attacking their perception and eroding their remaining sanity. A few crumpled completely under the mental pressure, howling and clawing at their eyes while she flooded their mind with untold suffering. Some managed to resist or ignore the phantom pains, fighting on with gritted teeth and bloody noses. Still, their aim was hindered and spotty, eroded away by their struggle to remain conscious.
Her kasrkin advanced with practiced purpose and unerring skill, ignoring the hailstorm of bullets and las-bolts that hounded them.
"Covering fire!" Darron called. Hellgun blasts responded, erupting from whatever cover his men could find. The red beams of light crashed into the row of buildings, searing the cover and boiling away their targets. "Malik, Arken, move it up!" Out in the open street, cover was sparse, and a rapid assault was their best option. Malik hurried forward, crouch-running under his comrade's storm of las-fire. Arken followed, the pilot light of his heavy flamer flickering in his haste.
Diving down below the first window, Malik threw a grenade into the interior. Crawling forward, he repeated the process, each grenade hurtling into occupied buildings, ripping its occupants to shreds. Arken purged whatever survived, his heavy flamer bathing the rockcrete in enormous gouts of promethium. A few crazed cultists rushed the assault team, howling war cries.
One sprinted at the black-clad cadians, bombs strapped to his chest, detonator in hand. Chera melted his head away, and the body tumbled to the earth, his explosives inert. Well-aimed shots slew his comrades. The Lady Inquisitor enjoyed watching her kasrkin work; they were precise, efficient, and deadly.
"Go, go, go, move it up!" Darron cried. The black-clad forms dashed forward as one, storming the enemy buildings. As the last of the cultists fled their defenses, the psychic pressure from the spell she had cast slackened, the miniscule pressure on her mind ebbing away.
Advancing with her guards, the Lady Inquisitor kicked a door open, revealing the results of her kasrkin's work. Besides a few human-shaped burnt-black husks, the room was empty. A few blasphemous prayers ran across the walls, the furniture within broken and burning.
She examined what was left of the bodies. Many of them of had guard-pattern lasguns, which was worrying. Before planetfall, she'd tried contacting the regiment that had been stationed here without success. If these lost souls were in possession of them, it could mean they'd been overrun, and looted the rest of the regiment's equipment. It would explain the Chimera…
"What is it, my Lady?" Chera asked, boots stained red from the corpses she trod over.
"The Chimera." she stooped, picking up a desecrated lasgun. It was painted a silvery grey, and the previous owner had engraved the eight-pointed star of chaos on the stock. "These guns. Both guard-issued. How did these cultists obtain them? Did they kill the entire regiment? Are these just the ones they managed to steal?" She cast the weapon away, sending it clattering to the corner of the room. Perhaps the PDF here turned traitor. But if that was the case, where were they? Why were they not fighting alongside their fetid cultist brethern? "Cade?"
"Yes, my Lady?" He answered, stepping forward.
"Get a progress report on the advance." He nodded, snatching up the receiver. Picking her way over the bodies, she examined the governor's manse from a back window. A concrete wall surrounded it, its wrought iron gate barred by a Leman Russ, now stained with chaotic inscriptions and bristling with bolters. Retreating cultists ran past it, pointing and shouting at their backs. It is only a matter of time before they start shelling our cover.
Only sand filled the street, leaving no ground between them and the corrupted tank. My inferno pistol cannot reach it from here, and if we will be cut down if we try to dash out if its line-of-sight.
"What's the word, Cade?" She said, keeping her eyes on the enemy.
"Mostly positive. The woadians have regrouped from the ambush, and are pushing into the city. Resistance is present, but-"A deafening crash, and the room collapsed around them. The heretic tank had found them. Rubble fell on the Lady Inquisitor and her kasrkin, great chunks of plaster and rockcrete that she threw aside with a roar and pulse of psychic might.
Leaning on her power sword, she stood, calling out for her guard. A chorus of voices answered her, all twenty men and women accounted for. Her reflexive spell had saved them, leaving a ring of rebar and shattered walls that sheltered the black-armored forms.
"I'm going to take care of that tank. Stay put." She said, striding out to meet the foe.
"My Lady!" Chera cried, coughing as she crawled forward. "You can't!" Dust filled the air, covering their faces in silt. The Lady Inquisitor ignored her. She could just rend it to pieces with her mind, but to do so now would be wasteful and risky. Her reserves of power were vast, not infinite. She tried another tactic.
Her hand swept in front of her, psychic power kicking up a torrent of sand. Blinded, the enemy's bolter turrets raked the cloud of dust, searching for a target. None found purchase. Calm and purposeful strides carried her within range of her target. Amid the crashing storm of landing shells, she fired her inferno pistol, the high-pitched squeal of vaporizing metal letting her know her aim was true. A plume of fire shot into the clouded air, the stacks of ammunition set alight by the burst of heat.
With a hiss of cold breath, she let the sand around her fall, revealing the carnage around her. The metal hulk burned, the crew reduced to ash.
"Sic semper hereticus." She mumbled in high gothic. The air reeked of the warp, after effects of her witchcraft settling into the air.
"My Lady!" Chera cried, jogging up to the Inquisitor. Her comrades followed her, their eyes shifting about for any signs of further danger.
"I am fine." She waved them forward. "We must enter the manor. The sooner we can leave this place, the better." She said, spitting. "This whole city reeks of death."
"I could have told you that, my Lady." Malik said, wrinkling his nose at the heretics cooking in their steel bonfire. With a swirl of her duster, she stomped past the blackening metal.
The black cloud that sat on the edge of her mind thickened as she approached the imposing tower of rockcrete. Gargoyles and defaced statues lined the approach, the once carefully manicured lawn left to weeds and decay. The door was heavy, made from precious imported wood.
With a snap of her fingers, her kasrkin destroyed it with a flurry of lasbolts. They thundered through the smoking doorway, entering their objective. A tapestry of fresh horror awaited them. The halls were lined with still-living victims, impaled on filthy iron spikes that dripped blood onto the polished marble floors. They moaned and cried out in pain, echoing wails that filled the manor's steep halls. Scrawled on besides thems were writhing, mind-bending symbols.
In the atrium, they found the source of the distress call. Spread wide by rusting chains, a choir of astropaths hung from the ceiling. Blood from countless wounds and their dangling entrails dripped onto the floor, their faces frozen in a rictus of agony, their mouths stuffed with the metal wiring that trailed from the back of their heads. The Lady Inquisitor shook her head.
A pain-cult, then. Just another one of the myriad ways worshipers of the arch-foe practiced their foul faith. She sighed. The foul decorations explained the what of the insurgency, but not the how or the why.
The atrocities at the Lady Inquisitor's senses, but she shrugged it off without much effort. Her black-clad guards were no different. They had stood with her for twenty years, seen every color of chaos. This was not new to them, and they burned it all, Arken's flamer belching cleansing flame.
"Release the survivors from their suffering." They'd been impaled, left to sink down the metal poles over the course of several days. There was no hope for them, except at the side of the Emperor. "We must push on." Whispering prayers, her kasrkin set to their task.
Psychic residue writhed below her, calling to her.
Something's off here. She thought. Where are the rest of the cultists? I was sure this would be the most heavily guarded part of the city… Then, a red blade slid itself into her mind.
Pain.
Blinding pain.
She fell to her knees, power armor cracking the marble. Unbinding her aura, she let her soul course through her, fighting away the insistent, maddening whispers. Her kasrkin cried out, shielded from the worst of the pain by their blunt minds and her protective glyphs.
"Downstairs! We must push on!" She cried. Hurrying to their feet, they ransacked the manor for passage below. Chaos was afoot, the walls seethed with it. "HURRY!"
"I found something!" Seff bellowed. The huge man struggled against a towering bookcase, muscles straining under his armor. "There's," he grunted, "there's a door behind here!"
"Stand aside!" Activating her power sword, the weapon crackled to life, arcs of lightning running down the engraved blade. She hacked apart the bookcase and the wrought adamantium door behind it. A set of stone stairs twisted into unknown depths, lit by weak torches. "Follow me! Quickly!" The voices in her head crescendoed once more, the whispers now full voices, rich with incomparable hate and blasphemy. The lights on the end of their hellguns snapped on, scanning the tight walls of the staircase.
A cultist was waiting for them at the bottom of the stairs. Springing forward, the Lady Inquisitor ran him through, the hilt of her sword meeting his chest. A door stood behind him, sealed tight with unknowable scrawling. The flailing corpse still speared on her weapon, a glyph whirled around her feet and launched her forward. The door shattered apart, fragments of white-hot metal scattering into the room beyond.
Blue-robed figures stood in a circle, their staves ringing against the cold stone floor in perfect harmony. Mad chanting spilled forth from their forsaken throats, feeding the writhing figure at the center of their unholy ritual. Reality itself was coming apart, sending her head into a maddening spin. She shook it off, baring her teeth as she whispered a fervent prayer.
The corpse slid off her sword, and the Lady Inquisitor set to her work: cleansing the unfaithful. Shrieks filled the low ceilinged chamber, her inferno pistol bursting men apart while her power sword clove them into mincemeat. Hellguns and Arken's heavy flamer took care of the rest, boiling away the ones she missed and scouring the floor clean of taint.
For the pitiful creature in the center, the Lady Inquisitor slammed her sword through his heart, pinning him to the earth and ending his horrid twitching. Already, his body was showing signs of wretched transformation, nails grown into claws, and patches of skin that glowed an unnatural blue.
They were trying to summon a daemon. Thank the Emperor we arrived in time to halt their ritual. A few of her kasrkin vomited, unable to stand the foul stench and sheer vileness of the room. They would all surely be plagued with nightmares in the weeks to come. She could not blame them. Her own stomach roiled at the suffocating atmosphere.
"F-fool." A weak voice croaked out. Her inferno pistol snapped around, centering upon the source of the noise. A wounded cultist clutched at his entrails, flesh sloughing off his body and pooling to the floor. Only one touched with chaos could still speak and endure such agony.
"What has transpired here? Where is the Guard Regiment that was stationed here?" The Lady Inquisitor said, advancing on the broken body. He only cackled, lost in his madness. A low rumbling above their heads shook dust from the ceiling. The explosion must have been tremendous to reach them in this unholy sanctuary.
"Why," the lunatic said, a putrid grin on his face, "they've arrived. Just as He said they would."
"Basilisks." Darron hissed.
A/N: Also known as: Why Weiss is scary as shit - the chapter.
Hope you guys enjoyed! It was a lot of fun to write. The chaos-bits were pretty icky though. Don't blame me for that shit though, that's on the source material.
Also, why is every PDF regiment in history either useless, or corrupted? I digress.
Anyway, did you guys like Amat's POV? I tried something a little different for him. Figured he'd think in clipped, Hemingway-esque bits.
Review Replies:
DanAbnettFan1997: Exactly! Glad you liked the chapter!
giodan: Thank you!
Legion of Misfits: Glad to see you liked my OC. And I hope this chapter delivered!
OBSERVER01: I know right? She's a blast to write! And yes, Weiss is a BAMF.
RED Roman Pyro: I miss playing that game!
dksamuri: Thank you! Winged Knight says thank you as well! :D
Mintskittle: She punches with the hand on the sword too. I don't know how she makes it work, but she does. XD No hints as to what's to come, but awesome theory! :D
deathwing316: It's certainly possible, but it remains to be seen!
shadow2777: That is a terrifying thought.
Nemris: She certainly hit them with her sword, didn't she?
TheSpawn117: It all remains to be seen!
Fizzygrenadier: Thanks for your reviews! You rock! And yes, the 40k universe is one of the ones least concerned with camouflage.
Gafgar: Thanks for your reviews, for both this story and TSL. So pumped you're liking this story!
TYou guys rock, leaving all these awesome reviews for me! I love each and every single one! :D
Next Chapter: Team _W_Y gets to work. See you then! :D