Chapter 55(orphan)

The atmosphere was tense a few weeks later as Adolf stood up at the front altar of a mighty onboard Slaaneshi cathedral on his wedding day. On one side of the massive aisle sat tens of thousands of chaos worshipping heretics, and on the other side sat just as many rather restless Emperor worshippers. Over 200 hulking Night Lords stood guard along the central aisle, carefully separating the two groups at this event.

The cathedral was a solid steel enclosure, extremely high ceilinged and vast enough to fit a hundred thousand people in pews. The walls were covered with disturbing sexual artworks depicting Slaanesh and his daemons, painted by hand with incredibly skilful detail, the art all interconnected to portray a vast sprawling heaven of fleshy delights, representing the unholy eternal domain of Slaanesh himself.

Closer to the ground was the massive raised cathedral alter, consisting of a huge stepped platform filled with towering blasphemous idols of greater daemons of Slaanesh, and an extremely well equipped bondage dungeon set up laid out across the platform.

On the platform stood two distinct groups, a group of Franklin's nuns on one side and a group of scantily dressed Slaaneshi priestesses on the other. The two groups of wedding celebrants were keeping well apart, hostility written all over their faces. If ONLY it hadn't been politically expedient to have a combined wedding service like this!

The recent politics on the ship had gotten worse not better after Wendy's earlier deception to lock the rebels in the tower, things were just a mess. The rebels had thrown down their weapons and surrendered, but they had been simmering with discontent ever since being put back into slavery, and had spread this discontent to other members of the crew.

The Nightmare Asylum was perpetually stuck in a raging angry warp storm ever since the mass slaughter of Lavender Furnace, dependent completely on Franklin to even perform periodic short hops through the warp. They were currently sitting in the middle of absolutely nowhere with no escape in sight, trapped inside a pressurised steel vessel with thousands upon thousands of people who were each other's natural enemies.

The common heretic crew in particular was getting increasingly agitated, starting to question the power of Slaanesh in the face of Franklin's power, and growing numbers of them were being converted by Franklin and agreeing to join the "Painful Path"! If enough heretics converted then this ship would very rapidly cease to be a chaos ship, and the Sevensons would become very VERY dead!

Adolf gulped at the mere thought, his wife was in peril!

This increasingly restless onboard population desperately needed a big exciting distraction to help maintain the peace, and a big fancy famous wedding was just such a distraction.

Polygamy was apparently usually discouraged among the elite Sevensons, as it led to no end of legal disputes regarding property rights among the various spouses if the primary spouse died, but in this instance Wendy had searched hard and found a neat loophole. Wendy could not have two wives at the same time without causing problems, and could likewise not have two husbands at the same time either. But Wendy apparently COULD have just one of each, one husband and one wife.

The Sevenson dynasty was a gynarchy society where women outranked men. If Wendy had had two wives and then died, the two wives would have no end of squabbling over the property inheritance, likewise if she had only two husbands and no wife. But with one of each, the wife would automatically legally get the first pick of the inheritance and the husband would be lucky to get any at all, averting a massive and exhausting ongoing legal dispute before it started, making it allowable...

Adolf had slightly mixed feelings about this highly sexist inheritance law to be honest...

As it stood, Wendy and Adolf's unclear relationship status had become a symbol used by the various factions to push different messages. The Emperor worshippers accepted them as married already, and saw the marriage of an Emperor worshipping slave, to the leader of all the Slaanesh worshippers onboard, as a sign that Wendy had converted to worship the Emperor and that the ship was about to be theirs. The chaos worshippers on the other hand saw the existing relationship as not even genuine at all without a proper chaos wedding, and just saw it as evidence that Wendy was being foolishly manipulated by a slave and unworthy of leadership.

Both of these messages were not conducive to general peace and harmony, nor to Wendy's continued position of power, and drastic distraction actions had been required to stabilise the situation.

The mixed faith wedding had been Wendy's idea, (author's note, actually it was username Ronmr's idea, I do listen to reviews lol).

The idea was simple, announce a huge exciting mixed faith "offical" wedding three weeks in advance, one to which absolutely everyone regardless of status was invited to, and then spend three weeks blasting out photos of Wendy posing in various wedding dresses to keep the masses too distracted to mutiny. For the past three weeks since the announcement the mood had been tense, but the actual violence had been minimal, the plan had worked like a charm.

Ideally the "engagement" period should have lasted the entire remaining journey, but the chaos worshippers would not have stood for that, they needed to be assured that Wendy was actually serious about Adolf and that she still worshipped Slaanesh beyond any doubt.

And so, here they were at the promised wedding.

Adolf was dressed in a tailor made replica of a finest Imperial Merchant Navy Rating parade ground dress uniform, complete with shiny polished metal buttons and Holy Aquila, finely polished black parade boots, ceremonial sword and pistol at his belt, official Merchant Navy rating cap, and copious full insignia of his admittedly lowly rank.

Weeks and weeks of the endless highly ticklish soapy scrubbings in the bath each day by the girls had done wonders to Adolf's skin, scrubbing him up so completely all over that he looked clean as mortal man could be, now looking years younger than he was, not to mention looking dashingly handsome!

A huge monitor above the alter showed a close up realtime camera image of Adolf as he stood at attention, giving the restless crowd something to look at and letting the captured Imperial slaves see from his outfit that he was "one of them".

The Emperor worshippers seemed to approve of Adolf, and were murmuring in a loud buzz of (slightly vindictive) excitement and triumph. You could almost read their minds from their demeanour, they fully expected Adolf to completely dominate Wendy's will and force her to submit to the Emperor, they seemed certain that the ship would fall to their control shortly after the wedding celebrations were over.

Adolf thanked the Emperor that the cathedral entrance had comprehensive weapons searches that had stripped this crowd of weapons! This could have been a bloodbath if these people were armed!

The chaos worshippers on the other side of the aisle looked far less approving of Adolf in his blatantly imperial uniform, some giving him venomous looks as though he intended to lead Wendy astray. Adolf was glad that the vast majority of these people were not armed either, as many looked ready to shoot him on the spot!

Adolf looked to his "best man" Franklin, the young neophyte was now almost as tall as Adolf was, and packing at least 50 kilograms more muscle than Adolf!

Franklin was dressed in brutal looking Night Lord scout armour and uniform, bedecked all over with the standard skulls and skeletons and terror motifs, scaring the willies out of Adolf with a chill down the spine every time he saw it. Franklin's face was growing ever more squat and brutal with every passing week, more and more resembling the brutish bully face of his hulking chaos lord father. He looked more than a little like a dangerous psychopath if Adolf was honest...

Franklin's ham sized muscles bulged tightly under his uniform, his arms were like thick rolls of carpet under his long rolled down sleeves, pressing and pushing on the tightly taut fabric, trying to burst free to release the swollen hard muscle beneath... The sight made Adolf feel uneasy, Franklin could very easily kill Adolf with his bare hands.

Franklin was difficult to read at the moment. His nuns were close by and seemed to be keeping him passive by their mere presence, but violent danger seemed to subtly radiate from beneath Franklin's flat demeanour. Adolf could almost taste in the air the intense raw space marine testosterone that flooded the boy's body, he was pulsing with the raw power of the mother of all puberties!

Franklin seemed to feel Adolf's gaze and did not move but simply swivelled his huge black pupils to hold Adolf's gaze, perfectly still with iron discipline. The eyes were studying Adolf, as though looking for any sign of taint or heresy. Adolf broke the gaze quickly, not liking the way Franklin looked at him.

Adolf superstitiously made the sign of the Emperor with his hands, feeling uncomfortable, and the crowd of imperials murmured approvingly at the holy gesture. Franklin's eyes seemed to light up in approval, and he seemed subtly less threatening by a small fraction.

The nuns seemed to sense Adolf's nervous discomfort, and Sister Mary moved to his ear and whispered, "you are doing the right thing, it is the Emperor's will for every lesbian in the galaxy to find a husband to turn her to the natural way of sex. The Painful Path makes marriage allowances in the case of the sin of homosexuality, it is such an especially fell sin that the lesbian penitent is even allowed a husband while on her Painful Path."

Adolf nodded dubiously, he had at first been surprised that the nuns thought the Emperor apparently was SO anti-gay, that a CHAOS CHAMPION's lesbianism would even crack the top 100 sins worth focusing on, but the nuns had been going on about it SO much, that Adolf had gotten, at first used to it, and by now utterly bored with the sheer monotony of their constant condemnation of all things homosexual.

The nuns who taught the doctrine of "the Painful Path" followed a version of the Emperor who bore very little in common with the Emperor Adolf had been taught to worship. The Emperor Adolf worshipped was stern, but not a fool!

The preachers back in Adolf's hive city had taught of a much more sensible Emperor who focused on the big important sins, common sense stuff like don't rape or murder. Gay stuff had not really come up much, and when it did come up it had not really been seen as anything worth getting overly excited about. Some people were just gay, one of the preachers even had been openly gay in fact, in a hive city there was very little privacy, everyone saw everything, and it became obvious just how prevalent homosexuality actually was.

Adolf's own preachers would not have blinked at Wendy's lesbianism, but they would have burned her at the stake for being openly a chaos champion with a supernaturally glowing mark of Slaanesh on her face! The lesbianism wouldn't have even merited a mention in fact!

These nuns on the other hand taught a very different creed, one that would even forgive heretics for heresy but would flip the fuck out over gay sex. The book of scriptures the nuns had given him to read had been extremely disturbing to read, absolutely obsessed with sexual sin. The entire chapters dedicated to a husband's duty to beat his wife had been really chilling...

Adolf had gotten to know Wendy quite well, and knew for a fact that she was actually willing to repent for some of the really big stuff she had done wrong. Wendy was at least willing to improve her life for the better, but constantly pestering her about her sexuality was simply driving her further away from wanting anything to do with the nuns. Adolf suspected more than a little that Wendy was marrying a man just to get some peace from the nuns...

Adolf paused, and thought to himself, "Wendy wants to marry me for peace, but why am "I" marrying HER?, Why am I willingly marrying a heretic?"

A list of reasons immediately filled his mind, she was REALLY hot, the sex was REALLY good, she came as a pair with an even hotter SECOND girl, the alternative was SLAVERY, she was really REALLY hot, (worth mentioning twice), the sex was really really REALLY good... TWO HOT GIRLS!...

Adolf was ashamed of himself, these were all extremely selfish reasons to marry a heretic. What HONOURABLE reason did he have for marrying her?

She was pregnant with his child...

Yes, that was more like it.

He LOVED her...

Adolf sighed, he did indeed love her. She was kinky and weird and an incestuous heretic, but despite all of this he was completely and utterly in love with her. She was a passionate and intelligent woman, she knew what she liked and knew who she was, she had a lot of emotional love to give but she guarded her heart from all who didn't earn it.

Wendy would undoubtedly be the WEIRDEST wife he could ever have, but he actually LIKED how unapologetically weird she was. He wasn't sure if he could ever join her in the toilet stuff, but she had Octavia to do all the stuff that Adolf couldn't do. Adolf was ok with MOST of Wendy's kinks, the bondage games could be surprisingly fun once you got into it. No matter what happened to him during bondage, he never was permanently damaged by it, and the sex afterwards always made up for whatever the girls did to him.

Having Luke Sevenson visit to fuck Adolf's wife was admittedly less fun. Adolf did not particularly enjoy "wearing the cockold's horns" as the saying went, and usually went to visit Fetter and the other slaves for a long chat whenever Luke came over. Adolf was not stupid enough to make an issue with the chaos lord, such a confrontation would hardly end well for Adolf...

Yes, his wife was weird and the stuff he had to deal with in the relationship was weird, but Adolf loved Wendy enough to be okay with these various problems. It was worth it for Wendy.

The cathedral was almost deafening from crowd chatter now, as people talked louder and louder to be heard over the noise, exponentially increasing the background noise. Adolf shifted uncomfortably from the avalanche of sound, the acoustics in this room were amazingly good.

Adolf noticed wiggling pale shapes out of the corner of his eye, and turned his gaze to see naked feminine forms dancing provocatively along the top of a slightly raised section of floor, off against the far side wall next to the chaos side of the aisle.

The dancing figures were DAEMONETTES! Warp spawned monsters were at Adolf's wedding!

Adolf went pale at the sight of the daemons and repeatedly made superstitious signs of the Emperor with his hands, fearfully warding off evil.

The Emperor worshippers in the crowd saw him react on the big screen, and followed his horrified gaze...

The cathedral erupted with screaming and shouting, as pandemonium broke loose. The Night Lords in the central aisle viciously slammed back people in the crowd as they attempted to run at the distant daemonettes to attack them.

Adolf watched in dismay as huge Night Lords brawled the crowd with savage violence. Bones broke with hideous snaps from the Night Lord blows, and screaming injured members of the crowd staggered back, arms bent in unnatural ways!

Men avoided the chaos space marine infested central aisle, and stormed the altar instead to get around the marines!

Adolf was surrounded by angry men now, he was being jostled around as the men charged in the direction of the distant daemonettes, shouting murderous intentions.

Adolf was almost bowled over by the mob, no one was attacking him, but the screams from the Slaaneshi priestesses told that they had been less lucky!

Adolf lost his footing in the milling scrum, and fell down hard on the metal platform floor. He was immediately being trampled underfoot by the crowd!

Men tripped over Adolf, and angry men piled up on top of him, almost crushing him under their weight!

The Slaaneshi priestesses were going silent now, the sounds of brutal violence coming from their direction!

Men got off Adolf, he immediately got to his feet and tried to stagger his way out of the crowd.

Adolf was jostled down the stairs, the Emperor worshipping crowd was charging at the chaos worshipping crowd!

Adolf was carried by the inertia of the mob, right into the frontmost row of pews!

Sevenson women were screaming as the feral mob bashed them up! Blood was pouring down makeup covered female faces from terrible broken noses!

Adolf would not stand for these civilian women being attacked! He chivalrously tried to shield the closest Sevenson women from harm.

Adolf grunted in pain as a fist broke his nose!

Fists pummelled him, the nearest men were now attacking him in a rage!

Adolf frantically defended himself, fighting off five men at once in a jostling tightly packed brawl!

Golden Throne this was the worst wedding day EVER!

Adolf tripped over in the melee, and was being savagely kicked on the ground.

The entire cathedral was brawling now, the common chaos heretic men were joining the fight to protect the chaos women!

Adolf took refuge under a sturdy metal pew to avoid being kicked to death, and boots kicked in under the pew, bouncing off his smarting bruised legs.

Ouch it hurt like fuck!

Savagely beaten Sevenson women were hiding under the pews too, noses broken and teeth missing from the terrible violence against them!

Magenta and pink energy blazed with blinding brightness through the air now, and Adolf saw bolts of foul chaos witchcraft striking the crowd.

Men were exploding in blasts of boiling blood and viscera, boiled from the inside by the magic!

Adolf cried out as hot blood sprayed down under the pew from the exploding bodies, he was drenched in the stuff, it was HOT!

Adolf frantically wiped the hot fluid off his skin, emerging frantically from his cover to find cool water!

More bodies exploded, and Adolf frantically dived back under the pew for cover!

The crowd of Emperor worshippers was backing off now, driven back by the chaos psykers. Adolf saw the horribly burned mutant psyker Hyacinth hobbling over the top of the pews, face filled with sorrowful grim determination, pink psychic energy blazing around her feather topped head!

The chaos worshippers were clearly winning the fight now, and the Emperor worshippers were retreating back to their side of the aisle, being savagely bashed by outraged heretics and Night Lords.

The fighting was soon over, the defeated Emperor worshippers begging and screaming for peace from the fight they had started. The chaos side reluctantly agreed to peace, and the blood soaked cathedral became calm. The entire thing hadn't even lasted five minutes, but it had felt like an eternity!

Adolf cautiously emerged from under the pew and raced to the altar to cool his hot skin in the baptismal bath. Sweet Emperor it was a relief to cool away that boiling blood!

Others were desperately using the baptismal bath to cool down too, and Adolf moved away to make room for the desperate. Common heretic men started pulling fire hoses from the walls behind the altar, and hosed the boiling blood off the screaming crowd with jets of cold water.

Adolf surveyed the room.

Dead bodies lay on the floor in various places, some relatively intact, some little more than cooked skeletal remains from exploded corpses!

Wounded were everywhere, especially abundant were savagely bashed chaos women, as well as a lot of Emperor worshipping men with broken bones from the Night Lords. Some of the injured were in a bad way.

The Slaaneshi priestesses had mostly been either extremely badly injured or downright bashed to death, with only two that were even currently conscious. Franklin's nuns were fine, the crowd hadn't attacked THEM, especially not with Franklin guarding them.

Adolf gazed around for any doctors, and saw Dr Liling Sevenson sitting on the floor, savagely beaten up and bleeding, even her kids had been bashed up by the mob, her daughters had broken bones by the look of it!

Chaos medics started to emerge, and performed triage on the weeping wounded. By the Emperor this was an unmitigated disaster!

Adolf looked to the front doors of the cathedral. Wendy and her entire bridal party had clearly arrived some time during the fighting, and were standing in their elegant dresses looking utterly shell shocked, blinking at the havoc all around them.

The bridal party were soon moved to one side as wounded were evacuated on stretchers. Machines that looked like ambulance buses began to arrive just outside the massive cathedral doorway, and injured people were loaded into them.

A squad of Night Lords formed up protectively around Wendy and her bridal party, and escorted them down the congested aisle to the altar.

Wendy looked as gorgeous as it was possible to look after spending 6 straight hours getting ready, being made up to the max, hair intricately styled, and wearing a see through white veil and elegant white silk wedding dress so perfect that it might have been made by angels!

The bridesmaids all wore pink, with Octavia as the maid of honour, all of them excessively made up and made to look gorgeous, dresses only slightly less lovely than the bride.

Adolf on the other hand was covered in blood and gore, and savagely beaten up with a broken nose and possibly a concussion. His uniform was ruined and he had a lot of superficial burns from the boiling blood sprays. Adolf smiled at Wendy, and then promptly fell down unconscious...

***...

(Merry Christmas one and all)