The firefights became more concentrated as Basil and his Troopers neared the front entry-way. Basil continued to spread his consciousness around the battlefield, seeking out traps and snipers as he went, and nudging the Troopers minds to think twice when necessary.

All while he fought his own battles.

Basil and Lerriksen guarded a staircase with a squad of Troopers while Templars gathered before them, trying to reinforce those above. Lasrifle blasts from the Templars began to land around Basil and the Troopers with him. He reached out to the Warp and a shimmering dome immediately surrounded him and the Troopers.

The Templars concentrated their fire on Basil. "A witch!" the Templars screamed. "Kill the witch!" Lasblasts struck the shield and dissipated. The Templars screamed again in anger and continued to fire at the shimmering dome.

Basil glanced to three of the Troopers alongside him within the dome, each with grenades in hand, awaiting his command, and nodded. With but a thought, a gap in the shimmering dome appeared well above the heads of all within the dome and the Troopers hurled their grenades through it. With but a thought from Basil, the gap vanished. With but another thought, the grenades changed trajectory and zipped straight into the Templars as if they had been shot from a launcher.

The grenades exploded and flattened the Templars, arms and legs separated from bodies while blood and guts splattered across the floor and walls, and onto the shimmering dome of Warp force. Basil dropped the telekyne dome and the Troopers around him raced out, taking the battle to the remaining Templars. The Troopers began running their bayonets through the down Templars, wounded and unwounded alike.

And as they did, Basil's focus drifted up the stairs.

Two squads of Troopers had made it to the fourth level and approached each other at an intersection with each followed by two more squads. And around the corner of that intersection Basil saw a barricade consisting of a couple rockrete pylons and a couple overturned tables, not significant in and of itself, but the barricade was manned by a dozen Templars. He considered nudging the Troopers to halt but then he saw what lay beyond. Past the barricade was the entrance to the fourth level mezzanine over the entry-way, a key point to commanding the field of battle. There is no easy way to do this, Basil realized. We have to take it. The Troopers needed no urging to attack. They had seen the maps and expected the barricade to be there. The lead Trooper at the corner for each squad readied a couple of grenades while others readied behind him to break around the corner. The Troopers each hurled a frag grenade followed by a flash grenade around the corner.

The pair of frag grenades exploded.

A handful of Templars had their guts torn open by one or both of the two frag grenades, leaving gore and blood spattered across both the corridor and their barricade. Another half-dozen Templars were knocked off their feet but uninjured. The remainder had their lasrifles ready to fire and, like the rest, were wearing helms similar to those of the Troopers. Helms with optical dampeners.

The Troopers funneled into the corridor immediately after the frag grenade exploded, counting on the dampeners in their helms to shield them from the coming flash of their grenades. Funneled around the corner into a burst of light from the two flash grenades.

Unfazed by the flash grenades, the readied Templars unleashed fire from their lasrifles at the charging Troopers. But, in the aftermath of the two frag grenades, the fire wasn't concentrated. The first four Troopers were slowed from the impacts, charred marks discolouring their otherwise black armour plates. Troopers behind them moved through their comrades and jumped the barricade, but a lone grenade was tossed overtop by a Templar as they did so.

In a blinding moment countless moves occurred.

Trooper and Templar were in tight quarters, lasrifles and bayonets squared off at each other. Two Troopers quickly ran their lasrifle mounted bayonets into the Templars, up under their breastplates and into their diaphragm, quickly drawing back out and allowing the soldiers to collapse. A Templar drove his bayonet into a Trooper before him, but not with the same skill, stabbing him in the guts but missing his diaphragm. The Trooper wobbled, but remained standing as the bayonet was withdrawn. Several more Templars fired their lasrifles wildly, hitting no one, but punching holes in the walls with their blasts.

Then the grenade exploded in the remaining crowd of onrushing Troopers.

Arms were separated from bodies; mid-sections were ripped open and guts fell onto the floor. All were blasted back and to the ground, wounded and uninjured alike. The Price of Victory, Basil realized. But the Troopers and Templars squared off behind the barricade kept fighting and more Troopers closed from around the corners of the intersection. Closed and topped the barricade, dragging the remaining Templars to the ground with them. Those still standing struck again and again into their foes with bayonets.

With the weight of their numbers filling the corridor, the Troopers kept moving on past the barricade and to the mezzanine.

Basil pulled his prescience back to the steps and glanced at Lerriksen. "We've gained the mezzanine," he said. The Captain nodded and headed up the steps but Basil froze in place.

A presence touched his mind. Come to me, said a voice, a female voice. Basil turned away from the steps and headed toward a corridor, following his instincts.

Lerriksen quickly turned back to Basil. "Where are you going?"

"You have your orders," he said. "You know what to do from here."

Without another word, Basil continued down the corridor. He turned left down a second corridor and then back right down a third. Glancing around, Basil realized he was no longer in the old complex. The corridor walls were decorated with a mosaic of new paintings of saints and heroes and new light fixtures had been installed along the ceiling, every one of them with new and functioning bulbs. Fed by a back-up power system, Basil quickly deduced while glancing at the fixtures. The floor he walked upon consisted of alternating black and white checks. He was in the Choir Chambers additions newly constructed by the Adeptus Mechanicus. And something pulled at him, something that he followed and that consumed his senses.

He was being led somewhere.

Basil turned a corner and froze. He was face to face with two Templars who were as shocked to see him as he was them. They tried to lower their rifles but he snatched the Warp first and set them ablaze. An instant later, they and their weapons collapsed into a pile of ash.

The presence nudged into his head again. Hurry, she said.

Basil turned another corner and walked straight into a woman. She was short and a little plump, dressed in thick green robes that mostly concealed her curves, but Basil's focus was on her face. Her eyes appeared to have been burned from her head, marking her as an Astropath, one who had stood before the Emperor and received his blessing. In her eyes' place were twin scars in the form of pink folds of skin, scars which resembled the scars of Sirsay, save that the woman lacked cybernetic eyes. Her rounded face had pale white albino-like skin, a broad nose, and a wide mouth with full lips. Her hair was a thick volume of individual tight knit black curls that wound up and out, exposing her ears. Ears that had visible cybernetics built into them.

Come with me, her voice said in Basil's head. Without even bothering to share her name, she took Basil's hand to lead him on and he followed without resisting. We must hurry.

Where are we going? Basil asked through their telepathic connection.

To the Choir Communion Chamber, she answered in his head, then dropped his hand and broke into a run.