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"Steady...steady...aaaaaand...fire!"

A crack echoed through the air, as the beam of light traveled faster than they could react. In an instant, the target dummy was a sizzling wreck, small embers remaining near the hole the blast had torn through it's fleshy simulation. She took a deep breath, pointing the barrel towards the floor as she turned to her tutor.

"Not a bad shot for a 200 meter target," he huffed a small breath of amusement. "I'd like to see what you could with a Long-Las."

She smiled.

"Try me."

"Heh, not today. Procedures to get access to one of those would be a pain. The cog boys already give me enough headaches over keeping one of these babies post-retirement."

A beat passed, as he motioned for her to follow him, while retrieving the weapon and unloading it.

"Dad, why are they so stupid?"

At that the middle aged man frowned.

"Need to give me a bit more to work on than that sweetie. Who exactly?"

"Well, everyone you used to server with," she said, kicking a pebble away while walking. "Everything you've told about them, about your time with them. They all sound so...well, stupid. How did you put up with them? How does the Holy Emperor put up with them?"

"Mira," he said sternly. "We've talked about this.'

"Right, I know, but there's no one here is there?"

"When you've been through what I've been, the hills and grass have eyes and ears," he whispered, before sighing. Clearing his threat, his face took on a thoughtful look trying to find the proper words for what he was about to say.

"They were people Mira. They were all flawed in some ways. Their job...you need to understand, not everyone gets off as easy as I did. It...changes people. Twists them. Warps them into the worst version of themselves, the one version that can survive what they face each day," he sighed once more. "And they face a lot. Throne knows how I escaped as well off as I did. I thank the Emperor everyday for that."

He patted her head.

"And for you, munchkin."

"Daaaaaaaad," she pouted, embarrassed.

"Sorry," he gave off a gruff laugh. "As for the Emperor...He doesn't tolerate them. Or us. He loves us, all of us. Humanity is His people and He is our Father. He appreciates the work each and every one of us puts into keeping His dream alive, as misguided as they may be. That is why they are allowed to continue doing what they do, for they have not drawn His wrath. And if they did, they would meet a swift end."

Mira cast her eyes down after the speech, clutching the Palatine Aquila hanging from a necklace on her chest.

"Do you really believe that dad?"

"How do you think I made it through all of what I've told you?"

Mira was silent.

"The answer is, I didn't."

That startled her.

"...Dad?"

"I'm already dead sweetie."

Mira did a double take at that line. He didn't make such horrible jokes like this often. She turned around annoyed at him.

...Only to see a corpse staring back.

"Sweetie, if only you could have such an easy fate."

The sun turned to dust. Darkness fell over her, and the corpse's eyes lit up in a horrible purple haze. She screamed, trying to get away, but no matter how much she tried to run, the ground stayed in it's place. More eyes popped up from the darkness, billions of souls gazing upon her with expectant eyes. She yelled and begged and tried with all her might to try and kill the creature in whatever way she could, but her body did not seem to obey her anymore.

But the worst was yet to come. The hands, the stretching hands, burnt, rotten and yet covered in bile, lashed out for her, spreading to every single part of her body, tearing skin, cracking bones, and even her organs were being torn out, yet she was still very much alive.

She pleaded, and begged, and cried, but none of those corpses would listen. They were as silent as the ash spread across the wastes of the land, her wails of agony the only thing breaking the unnerving quiet.

Batu now possessed four worries within his heart.

The first was a relatively lesser one: Nergui had not stirred from his slumber. His face was calm, his breathing steady, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary, yet the fact that he had remained so for minutes now bewildered him. He had seen his brother scout and properly divulge the contents of entire planetary battlefields within the same time frame, his mighty mind all-seeing and knowing within the Empyrean. Yet, here he was, struggling to find a single individual, amidst an admittedly boiling, insane sea of Chaotic energy.

The second was that of the other compatriot with him at the moment. Mira had still not woken up, yet her movements had become erratic, twisting and turning, while her face had only become more and more agonized. Whatever she was experiencing, it was not pleasant, and Batu could quite frankly not make up his mind whether to mercy kill her or not.

On the one hand, she could simply be experiencing extremely terrible and vivid dreams about her experience with the creature she had been ensnared by, driven to unconsciousness and deep mental distress over it. Mortal minds almost always had trouble comprehending the nature of the Warp.

On the other, she could've very easily been stuck with something truly horrific, whether that be simple corruption slowly eroding her from the inside out, or an entire daemon having been shoved into her. She had certainly been left with the beast long enough for it to have done whatever it wanted to her, and either option seemed plausible. Batu shuddered at that. Even with as much experience as he had with the matters of daemons, cases like this still caused chills to go up his spine.

The third concerned a member yet to arrive. Batu had spoken to and relayed their coordinates to Gan, yet he remained worried for the young warrior. The way he sounded, the manner in which he spoke, told of great grief and wrath, which could leave him all too vulnerable in the face of creatures that fed on and exemplified those emotions. It was doubtful whether he would make it at all.

And the final, greatest one, was that of the impending doom of this world. Whether it would be it's complete conversion into a Daemon World by the foul influences already setting it ablaze, or it's total destruction at the hands of their allies' bombardment, this planet's life was coming to a close, and they could very well all be caught up in it.

And Batu was left only with these thoughts to bear him company in the total silence of their makeshift fortress, attackers possibly ready to break down the walls at any moment, whether they would be surviving Chaos Marines, or daemons. The night outside burned, ash and fire raining down on the world like rain so rarely did.

But he would not be found wanting. He was an Astartes. He would live through it like he had done so many more times. He had to.

They all had to.

And all of a sudden, it clicked. Communications were working again, Kronos' disappearance notwithstanding. The daemons must have rampaged so badly in their insanity that they had destroyed the traitor base, and whatever means were being used to block Vox signals. So, maybe, just maybe...

He immediately clicked several buttons on his helm to start broadcasting.

Litanies left his mouth ceaselessly, honorings to ancestors past and generations yet to come, instinct taught to him since his "birth" as a man.

Gan had his coordinates. He had his mission. He had his fury, and the fury of the Emperor behind him. As daemon after daemon fell, he cared not even that his weapons had gone dead long ago. The Lascannon hanging uselessly on his back, it's ammo spent on the dispatching of a massive horde. His Bolter thrown away, it's useless shells littering the battlefield, scattered across the blasted landscape.

Now just his fists remained. The two instruments of wrath none could take from him. And he had used them much that day. He had used them so much that the armor itself had become creased and cracked, and he could feel the bones in his very knuckles buckling after so many strikes.

He did not care. Any semblance of higher strategy had been foregone. His situation simply did not allow it. Kill, kill, and kill more was the only thing he could do. His survival, and his meeting with the remainder of his group, were just a far off goal at this point. In a way, it was almost as if his brain had gone in a type of autopilot, turned into a living breathing Automata, sheer catharsis and hatred his fuel.

This place echoed something of the familiar. It's pathways serpentine, stretching for far longer than such a seemingly inconsequential entrance had any right to. The construction shifted, changed, the architecture practically reflecting the sheer age that radiated inside the place. Different epochs of different peoples, adding and layering on the labyrinthine construction.

But why here? Why now? And why was he compelled to follow it?

He had answers for none of these questions. He only had the will to keep going.

Eventually, the tunnel shifted from horizontal to vertical, into a steep drop that seemed bottomless. The darkness was so great even his enhanced eyes couldn't see past a certain point. It may very well have led into the core of the planet itself. Yet, that feeling did not go away. It only seemed to get stronger the further he went into this strange place. And height of all things was not about to dissuade him.

He jumped down the abyss, darkness swallowing him whole. He looked upwards to where he had come from, the light shrinking as he descended deeper and deeper. He marveled at the sheer depth of the burrowing, a good minute passing before he finally collided with solid ground. The impact would've instantly broken every bone in a normal human's body, yet Kronos shook it off and got to his feet. Padding from his armor would've been appreciated, yet seeing as that was practically useless metal hanging off of him now, he endured.

The price of a whole world worth of exotic materials gone to waste not lost on him, the Custodes looked around the cavern he had descended upon. Or, at the very least, he thought it was a cavern. The darkness still stretched around, absolute and all-encompassing even now. He took a look at his drained auspex, hoping in vain that it would somehow flare back to life, yet predictably it did not.

...Why was he down here?

Only now did the trance-like haze that had been hung over his mind was lifted. What was he doing? How had he followed this road, so instinctually, with so little input from his own mind? Snapping to full alertness, he took on a battle stance as the very darkness around him seemed like a vast predator, waiting to bite into him at the slightest dent in his concentration. His mind went through thousands of reasonings a second, anything from the influence of the Warp to him somehow being led astray from his enhanced senses developed due to his long exposure.

He sat there for mere minutes, yet for his slowed down perception, it was as if hours passed, with nothing happening. He was too paranoid from having been so easily manipulated in a way he couldn't even guess to move, simply waiting for the abyss to make it's next attempt at whatever it's game was. It seemed insane, yet Kronos was feeling his senses going haywire in those very moments.

Something was amiss, and he was none too eager to be spending anymore time here. With his conscious psyche restored properly, he remembered all that had led up to this. And in the process, recalled what would happen to this planet in what he could only presume was a short time. He didn't know how he would scale the walls, if he could even find as such, to return to the surface. But he would find a way.

He slowly began moving back towards where he thought the tunnel began at the very least. Direction was difficult to determine in such pitch black conditions, even for him. Yet, he took a leap of faith, and thankfully, reached what he needed. A solid wall of stone, consistent in texture with what he had seen the tunnel made out of, greeted his vice grip, which easily penetrated it. He began climbing upwards, taking chunk after chunk off the rock, before only the latest freak occurrence in a very long day stopped him.

++MY SON++

The voice he heard caused him to lose his grip and plummet down once more. It was less like sound and more like thunder given meaning in his head. He caught himself on his feet once more, superior reflexes kicking in as he gripped his ruined Guardian Spear, tensed and coiled like a viper ready to strike without prejudice. Yet, nothing came from the darkness.

This latest occurrence, along with what had brought him here...was he going mad? Had exposure to the energies of the Empyrean driven him off the deep end like so many torturous years had failed to? He found his doubt increasingly prevalent, until he heard it again.

++COME++

One word. Two syllables, with so much power and authority behind them. They were overwhelming. They reverberated across his entire body, igniting his blood as if it were boiling lava. Kronos would be a fool not to oblige such a presence, yet, come where? There was nowhere to go but up.

And as if a queue, the cave shifted. He could hear clear metallic rumbling in the darkness, great masses of artificial materials clanging and banging against each-other, as they reformed, reshaped and unfolded. He would have been more unnerved, but a light soon shined through the darkness, the first he had seen in what felt like an eternity.

It was dim, the light of ancient machinery just barely clinging to life, it's vigor long eroded by the passage of time, yet it still took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust after total deprivation. He looked upon a confusing monument of pipes, gears and much, much more. The goliath machines stretched across the entire room, the only place untouched by them being the entrance he had fallen in from. The room itself was far more spacious than he had originally imagined, stretching out for hundreds of meters.

Various strange objects were littered across the space, their order following some strange kind of symmetry Kronos could just barely make out. They were all mechanical in nature it seemed, yet none were recognized by him. That is, with the exception of one. The very centerpiece of the strange collection.

There, sat upon a throne worthy of the greatest king, stood a golden behemoth. Massive in size, yet oddly slender and graceful at the same time, it was an ornate suit of armor that put even the most well-crafted battle plates of the most esteemed Legio Custodes veterans to shame. Kronos had never prided himself as the most skilled artisan, yet even from afar he could see the countless hours of work, carved with superhuman accuracy and a genius' intuition onto the ancient armor.

It's helm bore the greatest striking resemblance to the armor of the Custodes, being a near complete replica, yet a good portion of it's lower half was painted white instead of gold. On it's chest, a symbol more ancient than even the Raptor Imperialis was carved, a great golden eagle with a single head, glaring daggers through it's ruby eyes at him.

The armor was marked with the dust of time all over, yet it's features seemed untouched outside of the superficial. Dirt, grime, and more had coalesced around the armor and the it was wrapped with, yet none seemed to have affected it's structural integrity in any way. Yet, one more thing drew him to this strange relic. That very same beckoning presence, was now felt more strongly than ever.

As if possessed, he followed the path to it, ignoring all the various other pieces of technology littered around the cave-like chamber. He had to know the source of that thunderous voice. He had to satisfy this strange. He had to simply check if this wasn't all some insane episode that his tired, corrupted mind had come up with.

At last, he was but a few steps away from the armor's resting place. It could've simply been his imagination, or paranoia, but he could swear it's dead, lifeless crimson optics were staring at him intently, examining his every breath, his every twitch. With nothing else to do, Kronos closed the remainder of the distance, and touched the armor.

And...nothing happened. Kronos stood there, before retreating several steps back. Then he let out a hoarse laugh, the first such display of emotion he'd allowed himself in a long time. But there was no humor in that sound, only cold hatred and contempt.

He really was just crazy. A man driven insane by the torturous experiences he had endured, now reduced to a sad, pathetic mess that was wasting valuable time chasing a vague feeling like a Nurglite zombie, hearing voices in his head that commanded him. By the Throne, could he even say for certain this wasn't all just another device of carnage unleashed upon his mind? His expulsion from the Warp nothing but another illusion that the daemonic scum which partook so readily in his suffering had conjured up?

It was certainly complex, dragging him through all of this, yet the constant giving and taking of hope? The carrot dangling on a stick just outside of his grasp? That he could certainly see the foul Neverborn doing, he thought as he collapsed to his knees.

My death is assured, one way or the other. If this forsaken hellhole is indeed reality, my own corrupted mind has cost me the time to escape it's fiery death. If it is not, I will simply be returned to my regular incorporeal prison, forced to endure torture for the rest of eternity, until my mind and soul snap entirely. Once, I thought death would grant me peace, but even that I do not know now.

I know only that I have failed. I failed Damocles by undertaking the reckless charge I did. I failed Constantin Valdor, the greatest of us, by ignoring all of his teachings. And I have now failed the Emperor as well, my will to do what he intends, depleted and broken.

He sat there in total silence, the weight of his own sins crushing him worse than a mountain.

And that damned armor kept staring at him.

It's ruby eyes were like a hot knife cutting through his flesh, unrelenting and filled with wrathful vigor despite their dead opaqueness. Part of him thought it was merely his mind playing tricks on him, another thought this was simply a sign of his completely slipping mind, and the rest didn't care. It just wanted that inquisitive stare to stop.

He raised himself, feeling more drained and tired than he had ever before, wounds that should have meant nothing to him magnified by his own grief, and walked towards the golden statue once more. Even as he approached, it's seething glare did not give. In fact, it only seemed to grow in intensity, it's eyes taking on a new fire. Again he asked himself if he was merely suffering the last degeneration of his unwell mental state.

He came within arm's reach of the armor again, only now truly appreciating the sheer size of it. Kronos was no giant among his kin, but to any ordinary man he would've seemed enormous, making even reasonably tall men look like toddlers by comparison. And yet this armor was larger still, dwarfing even bulky Terminator plate. It almost seemed like a Dreadnought chassis, yet far sleeker and more compact.

His eyes at last shifted from the blood red artificial eyes staring at him, to another set of such ocular simulations, ingrained into the chestplate. The eagle symbol glared into his soul with just as much intensity. Curious, he inspected the head of the ornament, and found suspicious markings on it. He grasped the head, founding it surprisingly swayed under his touch easily.

Yet even more surprising was how it snapped open afterwards, and almost made him jump back. The source of the eye's splendor was revealed, a sizable ruby burning with a strange ethereal energy, encased deep beneath it's surface. Kronos was surprised at it's sheer size. Surely such a massive piece of decor would inhibit numerous vital functions, would it not?

Perhaps the armor was merely decorative? It certainly seemed like a tall order for anyone to fit within it in the first place. He had seen some truly impressive warriors in his time, first among them the Primarchs. But as it stood, this armor looked to either be far younger, or far older than them.

He reached out with his hand again, resting it upon the gemstone. A strange sensation flowed through him, and he was compelled to do something. What it was, he knew not for certain, but he felt his body moving as of it's own accord. He removed a ruined chunk of his gauntlet, casting it aside. With a bit of hesitation, he reached out his bare hand, and touched the precious red heart of the dead giant before him.

At first, nothing happened. Yet, as if a chain of cluster bombs being detonated in succession, he slowly felt the sensation from the gemstone increase in potency, rising and rising until it practically burned. At that, he attempted to yank his hand off, yet he found himself paralyzed, his muscles frozen. The burning now spread and increased in intensity, traveling up his arm, onto his chest, before moving to his neck.

Kronos let out a deafening scream as it finally consumed his head, and all went white.

"...This is...blast it all to the pit..." Batu spat several more curses in native Chogorian. He'd been trying to get a signal directly to the ships in orbit for half an hour now, yet it wasn't working. All he could hear was the damned static.

Both of his companions were still silent, one knocked out and the other engaged in business he dared not even think about. The sounds of the warzone around him had gone silent as well, yet if anything that only put him more on edge. He was practically all alone now, and while he harbored no fear he needed no psychic abilities to sense the foreboding almost choking the atmosphere around him.

And just then, as he was preparing another transmission, the static flared to life:

"...thi...stat...ide...diat..."

Batu returned his helmet's Vox-comm, hoping to reach the frequency better. In another stroke of good luck, he managed just that.

"I repeat, you are broadcasting in a restricted frequency. Identify yourself or face immediate termination."

"This is Battle-Brother Batu, 6th Squad, 4th Brotherhood of the White Scars and..." Batu hesitated in saying the next words, protest almost raising from his throat. "Acting squad leader in light of our Sergeant's death."

"White Scars, by the Throne, we thought you all but lost down there," the speaker adjusted his tone to a careful one now. "This is Gladius, Inquisitorial Throne Agent aboard the Purity of Absolution."

"It is good to hear from you again, Throne Agent."

Batu knew Gladius. They were not friends by any means, but as the unofficial Inquisitorial representative, Batu had become accustomed to him and his crew during the coordination of the mission.

"Likewise, White Scar. I must admit, I had my doubts when your Stormseer personally descended to the planet. We all thought you killed. What is happening down there?"

Batu sucked in a deep breath as he explained as conclusively as he could what had happened in the last several hours. With each shocking revelation, the man on the other side became more and more outraged and bewildered. At last, he finished his sad tale, and awaited a response from the other side.

Chatter seemed to pass over the channel, as Gladius was clearly discussing with someone else on these new revelations, before returning to talk with the Space Marine once more.

"Your plight is acknowledged Marine. Reinforcements are coming. We will have troops and evacuation vehicles launched as soon as possible for you, and all the Sorsan regiments will be apprehended immediately. But right after that, if your reports are to be believed, we must commit Exterminatus immediately. The daemonic plague you speak of could be a threat to this entire sector if left unchecked. Gather what you must, and bolt to the coordinates I will transmit over. Time is of the essence. Ave Imperator."

The comm devolved to static once more. Well, that was one issue taken care of. He glanced once more at his companions, and noticed the Librarian was beginning to twitch within his sleepless slumber. Good. He would have to awaken soon anyway.

And just as a wave of relaxation had somewhat washed over him, Batu heard the dim roar of battle in the distance. It was like screaming, but not any human screaming. This was something beyond that, something far more terrible. Yet, it wasn't just screams if aggression. There were those of pain as well, and the sound was getting closer.

Batu pointed his Bolt Pistol in the direction of the sounds, ready for the enemy to burst into the ruined place at any moment. Nergui himself seemed to be tensing more and more, approaching consciousness again. What happened next neither would be prepared for however.

Out of one of the rockcrete walls, burst forth something that Batu nearly confused for a daemon. Yet on second glance, he just barely managed to halt the stream of Bolt shells he was about to send it's way.

It was Gan. And yet, not him.

The warrior was as far removed from what he had looked mere hours ago as could be. His battle plate was scorched nearly all over, as if the flames of Hell itself had licked off the shimmering white paint it was once adorned with. His tribal livery, Chapter symbol and most any recognizable feature upon his frame had been defiled and erased. He was covered in a rapidly evaporating layer of blood and in the clotted remains of vital fluids having coming from numerous gashes across his body.

His left arm was entirely gone below the elbow, and one of his eye lenses was cracked badly, leaving only a single red orb staring back at him. Yet that single red orb was all that was needed. Gan looked back once, before scanning the room with Batu, Nergui and Mira in it.

"RUN"

Author's notes: Not dead. Not quite living either. But am still here. And here's another chapter. Hopefully you're not getting too bored of me dragging things out, but I sort of have to condense these things, otherwise they'd all be 10k+ words long and take even longer to write.

Anyway, hope the wait was worth it for most of you, and I'm just gonna go to sleep now. As always, favs and especially reviews are always appreciated and wanted, and if you're nice enough I might even finish this before WWIII (hilarious meme that is not outdated haha).

This is Dome of Bones signing off.