Note
Writing this chapter was a bit hard with not much to go on for the training of sisters of battle, so creative liberty was taken a lot on here. I hope you all enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Also if there are any issues with lore please let me know. Thank You
Chapter 2: From Nothing to Sister
Several weeks of travelling had finally come to an end, leaving me to somehow miss the Hyperia Hivesprawl, after all, it was home for such a long time. Yet the cruiser was so different from home, the sounds and smells, nothing like the Schola Progenium. While I slept you could hear the engines roar, the clicking, clacking and smashing of Tech-Priests and crew working night and day, the overpowering odour of the engines was all you could smell. The food was questionable at best, after all, it's designed to bring only nutrition. This was not uncommon to me but somehow they tasted even more rancid. When we had finally arrived, a moment of relief washed over me, thinking to myself, I was finally here.
Arriving at the Covenant Sanctorum I found myself questioning if I was ready, this happened a lot and I still do. I had been training and working hard, as Sister Superior Helena had been teaching me much about the orders and way of life for a Sister of Battle, pushing my body beyond its limits.
As we stepped off the transport ship the lights blinded me at first, it was so long since I had seen natural light, this caught me off guard. Once my eyes adjusted, I saw it, feeling that this must be a dream. The grand golden towers gleaming as if they were the sun themselves, the cathedral stood proud adorned with statues honouring the countless heroes and saints of the Adeptus Sororitas, straight-ahead, just in front of the cathedral stood strong and imposing the statue of Alicia Dominica, the founder of the Adeptus Sororitas. My legs had failed me and crumbled, but I managed to stay upright mustering all my strength, I looked to the statue, bowing my head deeply out of respect and said a prayer to the Emperor and Saint Alicia.
We were greeted with a procession of sisters representing each of the Orders found at the Covenant, each wearing the power armour of their Order and banners flapping in the wind. As we passed each of the sisters, they would salute and slam their banners poles twice on the ground as a welcome to training. We were stopped just before the end and a Sister walks up with parchment in hand, she is adorned in blood-red power armour, she was from the Order of the Bloody Rose. Countless relics and sigils adorned her armour with a small brazier of yellow and blue flames burned as it sat on the back of her armour, this commonplace amongst higher ranks of the Adeptus Sororitas, this showed she was a much higher rank then Sister Superior Helena.
She starts to read the parchment. "In this time of consistent war, Hersey and Xenos can be found everywhere, we the Daughters of the Emperor are needed more than ever, the heretic does not sleep and the Xenos is never satisfied. You have all been selected to become a Daughter, a Sister of Battle." Her word echoed inside me, ringing reminders of where I came from, questioning if I really showed promise. As she continued I was snapped back to reality. "You will be placed into training squads with one of you becoming the trainee superior. I will list the name of each squad and the name who will be placed in that squad, you will then be taken to your dorms, where the training will begin," her words were a reminder, this was not a dream. "Remember training will not stop till you die, we are all training to better serve the Emperor," she continued and listed the names. One by one, then she reached my name. "Squad Adelynn. trainee superior will be Celest-" As her words caught my ears, the whole world had stopped. The Sisters around me were motionless. An illusion, it must be, there was no way I was selected as trainee superior, yet, I was. In the background, I caught the eye of Sister Superior Helena, she noticed the look of shock on my face and smiled returning me to my senses. The Sister continued to read the rest of the names.
In Squad Adelynn was; myself, Aspa with dark olive skin and dark brown hair, Salona with a paler skin tone and pure white hair, and Juliana with a deep brown skin tone also had pure white hair. Once in the dorm, we were given basic training clothes, just linen shirts and shorts, they had dark brown stains covering them, possibly from previous trainees. They would constantly be scratching the skin, but that was to be the least of our concerns.
The training involved long intense days with very little sleep to no sleep, hours of studying scripture, the history of Adeptus Sororitas, combat training, equipment training and we would receive power armour training as part of the final step. They would wake us before the break of dawn, first to clean and tidy the dorm, then pray for until sunrise. Prayer was the only time for peace, in this time no pain was given, only to sit and pray, to reflect, and praise the Emperor.
My favourite was the equipment and combat training. Once a week we would have combat against one of the other squads, using polymer bullets, won't kill you but hurt like hell. When these matches happened we always saw members from the Ecclesiarchy watching, now I know why, only to place bets on who would win, still disgusts me to think they would bet on us, what would the Emperor think?
For equipment training we would often be down at the ranges using various types of weapons, my personal favourite was the Meltagun. Meltaguns are particularly good at taking out vehicles, melting many materials it would come in contact with; metal or flesh and bone. We were taught what each weapon did to live target, making use of captured Xeons and heretics for this target practice, they would rip out vocal cords or gag them especially the heretics, didn't want anyone to hear the heresy they would speak, after all, Xeno and heretics deserve to be purged from this galaxy. The use of these targets helps us to understand the effectiveness of each weapon on different targets, also a horrific reminder of what they could do to us.
One day I remember just after prayer, as we left the cathedral I was stopped by a Servo-skull, requesting my presence and that I should follow. As I followed the Servo-Skull it took me up a spiral staircase, the walls lit by several aged candles giving just enough light to see the stone aged steps. After several minutes we had reached the top with a hallway, at the end of the hallway was a large metal door, hanging on the door were several parchments and Inquisition sigils, along each side were more doors with no marking or anything to indicate what was inside. The Servo-Skull hovered down the hallway to the door at the end as I followed, it then announced our arrival. A voice came from the room, a voice that I recognised, It was Sister Superior Helena,
"enter, please." When I entered there sat an Inquisitor just behind a desk and stood behind them was Sister Superior Helena, looking and smiling at me like she often did.
"This is Inquisitor Belfor, he is here for you Celest. I shall let you explain, Inquisitor." I was confused about what was going on but since she was there then I needed to listen.
"Please have a seat, sister," requested the Inquisitor.
"Yes Inquisitor Belfor, but I'm no Sister yet." I took a seat in one of the chairs in front of the desk.
"Right you are...Tranniee Celest, you are not a Sister but I'm sure that will change in due course. Besides, the Inquisition already has a mission for you," he said as he smiled, and pulled out a datapad handing it to me.
"Already, why have you chosen me?" I asked, taking the datapad and saw it was information on my homeworld, Vigilus.
"Well as you can see it involves your homeworld, we suspect there is a Genestealer Cult in the Hivesprawles. One of the Inquisitors sent to investigate ended up missing, could be a comms issue but we have reasons to believe otherwise. When you finish training you will be sent with a squad of sisters to Investigate under the command of Sister Superior Helena, when you arrive two Inquisitors will join the squad. Sister Helena has all the details, she will brief you on arrival to Vigilus. Now finish your training and may the Emperor guide and protect you. That will be all, now return to your training," Inquisitor Belor explained. I had questions but just left the room heading down the stairs, I remember little of what happened after those events, my mind was plagued, I could not stop thinking about what I had been told.
The day of graduation was a grand ceremony, hundreds of Sisters gathered in the Cathedral hall, golden braziers were lit with golden flames, Sisters wore ceremonial armour of their Orders, banners of all the Orders draped the walls, statues were lit up with lights as scripture was read. The ceremony took several hours. This was the day they gave us our power armour and told us the Order of which we would join, of course, I was sent to the Order of Our Martyred Lady, but also Julian and Salona, while Aspa was sent to the Order of Serenity, a Hospitaller. We received robes to wear when not in armour, a ceremonial sword and our first orders, but before we could leave the ceremony we had one last thing to do, don our new armour and cast out our trainee clothes as we are no longer trainees we are Sisters of Battle, the Adeptus Sororitas.