Chapter 8(orphan)
The bus engine was struggling hard now, making the distinctive noises of an engine on death's door. Smoke was rising from under the bonnet, and the entire bus was juddering terribly. The latest checkpoint was a good 5 miles behind them now, and the echoes of sporadic gunfire could still be heard even now, the Sisters of Battle at the checkpoint were putting up a heck of a fight!
The tree branches above the road were too thick for the flying monsters to get at them in this patch of especially overgrown forest, and judging by the gunfire they were currently distracted anyway.
"Pull over for a minute, I will remove the bonnet before we go on, let the engine cool a bit better," Sister Superior Clementine eventually commanded Mother Superior.
The bus pulled up under a particularly substantial tree, and Sister Superior Clementine stepped outside. She raised the armoured bonnet and unsheathed her holy power sword from a scabbard at her hip.
With the flip of a switch, the blade of the weapon erupted in blinding blue lightning arcs, making a hissing loud crackle of power. The Sister Superior raised the sword aloft, and brought it swinging down on the hinges of the raised bonnet.
Bright glowing orange cuts appeared where the hinges had been, and the bonnet fell away sideways with a clatter, half on top of the engine. Sister Superior Clementine pushed the severed bonnet off onto the ground beside the bus, deactivated her holy power sword, and got back onboard.
The engine was now fully exposed to the heavy rain, and steam now billowed up furiously off the overheated engine as the cooling rain boiled away. It was still making the terrible noises of a wounded machine, but perhaps it would improve now with the rain soaking it?
Judging by the extensive damages the bus would almost certainly be retired after this night was done. It just had to last a bit longer, and then it could rest forever. After the events of tonight the Order of the Painful Path would almost certainly put the remains of the bus in a reliquary, this noble machine would be honoured for its heroic sacrifice this night, it would become a part of the proud history of the Order of the Painful Path.
Franklin wondered what this night would be called later in the history books of the Order. Perhaps it should be called the Battle of the Bus? That had a nice ring to it at least.
The front of the bus was now crumpled after ramming its way through a large herd of fully grown hajsnips. They were quite big animals, and even the armoured metal of the bus had not faired well from battering through many tons of small-horse sized wildlife. According to Mother Superior the front crumpling had destroyed the bus radiator, which was apparently extremely serious.
The rest of the bus was little better. The flying Night Lords had cut away even more of the roof, as well as conspicuous chunks of wall, in their efforts to evict the hajsnips to find Franklin. The roof was apparently an important part of the bus chassis, and the bus floor now had a slight but noticeable sag in the middle. Franklin was no tech priest but he thought that this probably wasn't a good thing...
The floor of the bus was covered with bodies and ruin. Very few seats now remained, and more than a few dead hajsnips littered the floor. The bus even contained 3 hajsnips that were still alive, haunched down in a little huddle at the back, looking like they were in shock.
The floor of the bus was steadily filling with water, which was pooling in the sag in the middle, and Franklin and the other surviving boys were dutifully trying to scoop it out with their cupped hands.
The nuns were scattered throughout the bus, sheltering from the weather under what little of the roof still remained, they all looked scared. Franklin watched these nuns protectively whenever he was facing them and could spare his eyes to look, ready to jump over top of them like a human shield at a moment's notice. His love for them was eternal, he would die to protect each of them, they were his most precious treasures.
Franklin didn't want any of this nightmare tonight, he wished more than anything that the Night Lords had never come, that none of this had happened.
Just yesterday Franklin's biggest worries in life had been erections and ejaculations, such tiny little problems in the scheme of things. He had foolishly thought that something as petty as an uncontrollable erection was the worst thing that could ever happen to him!
Franklin would do anything to just go back to that time of petty problems, when no one had died and everything was so normal!
Curse these vile murderous Sevensons! He hadn't asked them to come for him, hadn't WANTED them to come for him! Why couldn't they have just stayed in whatever hell they came from and left his poor precious nuns alone!
So many people had died tonight, 1 precious nun, 16 orphanage boys so far, and who knows how many of the holy and sacrosanct Sisters of Battle! Another dozen or so boys had quite serious broken bones from the hajsnips, 3 of the nuns had non lethal trample injuries from hajsnip hooves, and almost everyone else had at the very least a lot of cuts and bruises.
All in all it was a catastrophe! So much senseless harm had been done, and all for what!?
Franklin wanted so badly to just return to his happy peaceful life of cold baths and floggings. It had been HEAVEN! His own personal paradise of pain and submission, with an entire group of nuns who beat and dominated him every waking moment!
Franklin didn't know if it was a Sevenson trait or just a wonderful blessing from the Emperor, but NOTHING felt so good to him as being dominated and made to suffer by extremely strict and cruel women! His entire life really had been a heavenly paradise, with nothing more serious than uncooperative private parts to disturb his paradise.
He had carried terrible guilt every day of his life, but the nuns had then soothed away this guilt with their wonderful whips and canes. He had known that eventually he would be forced to graduate from the wonderful Orphanage of Strict Chastisement, he had sadly accepted this fact, but that sad day wasn't for another 6 years, 6 more wonderful years of heaven.
And now foul monsters from hell were invading heaven, destroying what was perfect, ruining that which should be paradise forever! By the Emperor he HATED these vile evildoers! He HATED those who killed his beloved nuns, murdered the divine Sisters of Battle, and tried to defile this sacred place of pain!
He burned with a terrible desire to slay these nun killers, to hack off their limbs and hang them to death with their own guts! He felt a terrible yearning to take a knife to them and mutilate them, to slice them to bits and then sew them back together in new forms to strike terror into any others who might hurt his nuns!
Something inside him was awoken, some deep instincts, something that felt primal and born into him. He felt the urge to creep stealthily through the dark, sneak up on his foes. He wished to pick them off one by one, leaving the mutilated bodies for his foes to find, with cryptic messages written around the bodies in blood, to mess with his prey, to make them feel FEAR!
He felt such an enormous hunger for FEAR! The fear of his prey! Sweet nectar to his ravenous thirst! FEAR, that ultimate drink to quench his terrible thirst for vengeance!
Other images awoke inside him, images of a dark place, so completely and utterly dark, a place that felt profoundly like his true home. In this dark home their were women, different from the nuns but in some ways so DEEPLY the same. These women were scantily dressed in black leather, they carried whips and implements of torture, and kneeling submissively at their feet...
It was the monsters who hunted him! THEY were abasing themselves in submission to the women with the whips! Gazing at them with submissive adoration, pleasured by the pain they inflicted! The monsters did depraved things with these dominant leather clad women, such VILE things, yet hideously tempting things!
He saw his own Mother among these leather clad women, though how he knew it was her he did not know. She was doing such vile things, things with whips, things with chains, oh the THINGS that she did!
The monsters that hunted him were seeking to take him back to HER! Back to her leather and whips, to the cruel women in the dark! To a place FILLED with pain and domination, that wonderful pain and domination he had craved his whole life! Not just for another 6 years, but FOREVER in the dark with the women with the whips!
Franklin was so tempted by this terrible promise that he instantly ejaculated! He ejaculated again and again until he had nothing left to squirt out! It was quite simply the most tempting heavenly paradise in the entire world!
NO! NO! NO Franklin thought! I will brook no trespass in my mind! Be gone foul whispering of darkness!
An unknown female voice then spoke clearly in his mind in reply to his thoughts...
"Please think about it brother, I miss you. My name is Violet, I'm a Slaaneshi psyker and I am your sister. The last time I saw you, you were just a few days old, suckling at Mother's breast. I miss you, we ALL miss you. You have no idea how much it hurt the family when the Inquisition snatched you away from us and took you away!"
"You have sisters, so many sisters, all here waiting for our menfolk to bring you back to us. Your sisters have all made cardboard banners, with welcome home written on them. We have lined the walls with welcome banners to celebrate your return!"
"Your mother is here with me, she is waiting with terrible anxiety, she is longing to hold you in her arms again. You have cousins and nephews and uncles and aunts, you have grand parents, distant cousins, so many relatives. You have a family who loves you, you have parents who are going to enormous lengths to get you back! You have nothing to fear from us."
"Please little brother, please come back to us!"
Franklin felt hot tears running down his face as these words filled his mind, these terrible, WONDERFUL words! The temptations being offered were almost beyond endurance, he preyed desperately to the Emperor for the raw strength to resist this insidious temptation.
"You are crying Franklin? Oh poor child, Sister Mary knows just how to cheer you up. Where's your little ear"...
The uninvited voice in his mind screamed as it was forced out of his mind, a mind that no longer had room for anything except the terrible tickling of his ear!
Everything that had been placed in his mind was squeezed out like a turd from an anus, pushed out, gone! His mind imploded in on itself, filled with inner laughter, and everything else was gone...
Franklin turned his eyes in their sockets to gaze at Sister Mary in religious awe as she fondly stroked his ear. The Emperor had heard his prayer, had sent his small mercies yet again!
Praise his name!
He delivers!
Oh Golden Throne that tickles!
***...
Sister Mary felt sick with fear as she played with Franklin's ear to help ease her own terrible tension and anxiety. She found it soothing to find something to do with her hands like this, she didn't want to just be still with her thoughts right now.
SO MANY of the poor little boys were dead now! SIXTEEN little lives snuffed out like candles!
These boys were her babies in a very profound sense, her children, her SONS! She had bottle fed them all as babies, raised them, nurtured them, LOVED them!
Sister Mary was completely celibate, just like all nuns worthy of the title were, and had never born a child of her own, despite desperately wanting children. She had been raised by the Schola Progenium, destined for a life of celibacy and service, no husband, no children...
She had always adored children, and had filled this void in her life by becoming an orphanage nun, to let her have all the children her heart could ever desire. She had become a mother to an army of sons.
It had been hard to be so harsh in her treatment of them, she hadn't wanted to beat them all the time and say cruel words, in truth she most wanted to just cuddle them up in her arms and kiss away their tears. Unfortunately she had not been transferred to THAT sort of orphanage at all!
Sister Mary had not asked for her very first orphanage post to be to something so horrifically extreme as the Orphanage of Strict Chastisement, in truth she had been horrified to be sent to this child torture facility! The screaming of toddlers in the scourging racks had been almost unendurable! But out of love and fear for the children she had stayed for over 20 years.
Orphanages like this one had a habit of attracting the most sick sadists and psychopaths to request staff transfers here, and when she first arrived this place had been staffed by depraved sadists who tortured the children for FUN rather than duty! It had been so distressing that Sister Mary had stayed and made it her duty to have these sick sadists cast out of the staff!
For 20 years she had protected these children from unnecessary abuse, making sure that the children were only punished for the sake of their souls, not the sick pleasure of monsters! These were the children of heretics, for the sake of their souls they needed to complete their painful paths, discipline and agony was essential, but not sadistic abuse!
She had been forced to harden her heart enough to torture and discipline these children constantly, but only to save the poor little things from eternal hell fire! 18 years of agony was far better than eternity, it simply HAD to be done, the alternative was just too terrible!
Her poor little boys had cried so many tears at her hand, it had been really hard on her, but she loved them too much to let them burn. Her poor little babies!
Sister Mary redoubled her ticklish assault on Franklin's ear, desperate to calm herself down. Her grief was terrible tonight, sixteen of her children were dead! She needed to just do SOMETHING with her hands to stop herself from SCREAMING right now!
Her nimble fingers played and stroked all over the ear in a frenzy, frantic to burn off some nervous tension before she exploded. She wasn't sure why she was compelled so strongly to tickle poor little Franklin like this at this exact moment, some sort of odd compulsive urge was gripping her with all her might, telling her that she NEEDED to do this as if it had some grave urgency almost.
Franklin was kneeling down submissively on the floor of the bus, completely still. He had previously been using his cupped hands to ladle water out of the bus, but had suddenly stopped moving and just started crying his little eyes out. He was obviously traumatised by his ordeal tonight, and she didn't blame him being traumatised, she was traumatised too.
She had felt her horror numbed heart break when she saw him stop and cry like that, it had been just the most pitiful sight. This whole night he had been her little rock of perfectly disciplined bravery, to see that rock break down had been a stab in her heart, had given her a slap out of her numb horror to do something.
She hadn't known what else to do, it was the only thing she knew that was guaranteed to make him smile no matter what, so in the absence of any other way of comforting the crying child, she had just started tickling him, and now she couldn't seem to stop.
She had moved him out of the way of the other boys, kneeled him down, and just tickled his ear as though his very soul depended on it. She didn't know why she felt such urgency to do this, but she just couldn't stop.
At least he didn't seem to mind. That was one good thing about Franklin, he NEVER minded. No matter what you did to him, no matter what you made him do, he never seemed to mind. Other boys had to work hard to endure the Painful Path, but Franklin seemed somehow made for it. Indeed, as his recent private part problems testified, he actually enjoyed the Painful Path a little too much!
Sister Mary just kept working diligently on Franklin's ear, unable to stop herself, as the wounded bus sped through the rain choked night. Apart from his frantic goofy grin Franklin was completely still and calm, his tears vanished and his composure regained. It seemed that this was exactly what he needed right now. She was glad.
The bus engine had huge plumes of steam coming off it, perpetually fogging up the windshield and windows as the air column drove it away from the front of the bus. The rain was helping to cut through this constant fogging, but the windscreen wipers were still moving at top speed to maintain enough visibility to drive.
The bus no longer had a working radiator, which was said to be a very important sacred component that kept the sacred engine cool enough to keep working. It was only the driving rain pelting down on the hot engine that was keeping the bus moving at all.
Sister Mary prayed desperately for the rain to fall all the heavier, for cold chilly rain to drench the overheated sacred machinery. This bus HAD to keep moving! If the bus stopped then they were all finished!
The bus had filled with so much water now that Sister Superior Clementine was using her venerated power sword, poking holes in the floor to provide drainage. Sister Mary sighed softly as the large pool of water began to steadily become smaller, draining out the holes, reducing the weight in the bus.
The thunder was very infrequent now, the lightning of the storm was nearly spent. Sister Mary had lost track of the time, it had definitely been hours on the road so far. Hopefully it would be light soon, an end to this terrible darkness.
They just had to endure a bit longer, keep going until the thunder ceased and the Order of the Painful Path was alerted to the presence of the jamming signal. Just a bit longer!
The Order had an air base, out a bit beyond the forest. Squadrons of Lightning fighters stood parked and ready for deployment in the sacred air hangars of the base. At a moment these fighter aircraft could be scrambled to investigate, they would shoot the flying monsters right out of the air!
Sacred missiles would be locked onto the jamming signals, blow them back to hell, and the vox would work again! They just had to ENDURE till then!
Fear made her redouble her efforts to tickle Franklin, she was tense almost to breaking point! She was just so afraid for his soul. Franklin had the most to lose, as he faced eternal damnation if he was caught!
The rest of them faced only temporary suffering and death, they would all go to be with the Emperor in paradise. No child who dies faithfully walking the Painful Path is denied a place in paradise, all 16 of the dead children were with the Emperor now.
The Painful Path had two ways it could be successfully completed, only two. Either you completed the path in life and experienced redemption in this life, or you died from walking the path faithfully, and were granted redemption in the afterlife. All of those dead boys were in paradise now, they would never know pain again.
But Franklin didn't have this luxury, the monsters sought to take him alive! If they caught him they would drag him alive into hell and completely corrupt him, they would not rest until they turned him into a creature like themselves! They would put one of their filthy corrupted gene seeds in him! They would turn him into another Night Lord!
Suicide was not an option, you could not leave the Painful Path by suicide, that was instant damnation. Murdering the child might work, if the situation came to that, but Sister Mary doubted that she could actually do it. Perhaps Sister Superior Clementine would grace the child with a bolt to the head if it came to that?
Had they lacked faith in the Emperor's deliverance then they would have killed Franklin already with a merciful death, but their faith in the Emperor was stronger than that. It would be poor form indeed to kill the child only to find that the Emperor was sending deliverance even now!
They had to stay strong in their faith, and trust that the Emperor would not forsake them. This was a test of faith, and a test that they must pass. They must not give up their trust in the Emperor, he would deliver them from evil. They just needed faith.
Sister Mary forced herself to focus her attention only on Franklin's ear, her seeming appointed task at this dark moment. Don't focus on the bad things, don't focus on the fear, just focus on tickling that little ear. You can do that, it's easy, just stroking an ear, keep yourself busy, just focus on the task at hand.
You are going to be fine, it is all going to be ok, you just have to be strong for Franklin. Don't let him cry, don't let him get scared, keep him distracted, he can't focus his fear if you keep him distracted, Mary told herself.
The sounds of sporadic gunfire were gone now, not even an echo. The Night Lords would be on their way once more. The heavy rain drowned out most other sounds, but not the racket of a boltgun fire fight, especially with so little thunder now. If the battle were still raging then they would hear it halfway to the next checkpoint, the battle was over, the Sisters of Battle at the previous checkpoint were all gone...
The sounds of Night Lord jump packs roared somewhere overhead, Sister Mary shivered with dread. It was just fortunate that the branches overhead were still thickly covering the road like a ceiling, the flying Night Lords would not be able to attack through this vegetation.
The bus was still moving, but slower than before. The engine seemed to be wounded. They had a head start on the Night Lord convoy of commandeered vehicles behind them, but it wouldn't take them long to close the gap.
The thunder rumbled ominously in the distance, still not quite dead. They were still far from safe...
Sister Mary just kept tickling Franklin's ear, fearing that she would go mad from her terror if she stopped. She just kept stroking that ear, it was the only thing she could do to keep from just going mad, as Night Lords hunted them in the dark...
***...
