Welcome back to Dark Changes! Where the Gods are real and their servants plot to bring about everlasting war! Now with that said let's get onto answering some reviews
from our followers.
Jetjedi: SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!
Expeor: Like my last Rwby/Warhammer fic I tend to mix Sci-Fi and Fantasy(especially when it comes to chaos), for example the Corpse Grinders are from Necromunda, and Azraq is intended to be a Master of Possession, and "The Nine Ravens" are… Well I'm afraid you're just going to have to read the story to find out.
Also fair warning: updates on this might be awhile as I'm heading to college, working on two or three other stories(dear god), and am considering writing my own book.
Chapter 5: Threats and Piety
In the dark warehouse his puppet had purchased in preparation for his arrival, Azraq worked to restore nine suits of armour for war.
To do so required knowledge in three different subjects: Sorcery to bind them to his will, Smithing to fix the rents and cracks in the armour and weapons, and finally ancient mortuary practices known to a dying breed of priest from a kingdom that is all but forgotten to appease the damned souls that howled inside. It is slow and tedious work, more suited for one of Nurgle's lumbering oaths if not for the fact that they rarely cared for their weapons or anything besides the foul plagues brewing inside them. But no one of Azraq's brotherhood would let their charges be touched by some…. Outsider, not without properly making sure they could control said outsider's every single move(and making sure they could be sacrificed later).
And so he went to work, diligently reciting the necessary prayers to gods who had long been consumed by a power older than mankind as his mind created a complex network of interconnecting geometric patterns that connected him to the remnants of souls residing within the bare suits of armour. Time slowed as he went about his task, etching a new rune here and there as he reapplied azure paint to hide the bronze and clay mixture of the armoured tomb.
"Why do you care for them?"
Making sure a part of his mind continued to weave and maintain the growing web of patterns Azraq turned to face The Tattered Scholar, the daemon had warped its stolen flesh to the point that it resembled an yellow pages depiction of a arachnid faunus, with multiple eyes and a set of mandibles hidden behind a ragged cloth. It's borrowed skin was greying and cracking under the pressure of keeping a being of pure spite and manipulation contained in a realm where it simply does not belong.
"Why do you care for these pawns? Their fate was sealed long ago by The Grand Architect, but you and your kind still treat them as if they could stab you in the back at a moment's notice."
Azraq scoffed at the daemon "As if a creature such as yourself could ever understand an iota of our reasoning."
"I think I should understand you, after all I've been beside you since the beginning, and we both know I'll be beside you when your little flame burns out."
Before the two could go through the motions of an argument they have had seemingly since time began there was a knocking on the warehouse door. Curious, Azraq activated one of the minor surveillance spells he had placed throughout the warehouse and nearby buildings to see that it was a very pissed off Taeun. He slowly opened the door only for the pissed off Nurglelite to barge right past him screaming "Did you have anything to do with what I just went through?!"
"...Not that I know of…." Azraq cautiously answered, sending a portion of his consciousness towards the Nine Ravens in preparation for a rather one sided fight as The Tattered Scholar silently edged closer to their angered pawn/ally, its fingers slowly morphing into jagged claws that would make a beowulf jealous.
"So you didn't pull some machiavellian scheme to get me arrested and then interviewed by the Headmaster of Beacon?"
All sorts of alarm bells were going off in the "young" sorcerer's brain as Taeun's sentence registered in his fragmented mind "why in the name of The Four would I want that to happen?"
Taeun's anger was slowly giving way to confusion as his disease-addled reasoning began to fall apart, "I don't know, maybe to mess with his head? Showing him that there's a revolution brewing? That the faithful are uniting into an army-"
"That so far consists of you, me, a daemon in a meat puppet, and less then a hundred cultists?!" Azraq interrupted, pacing back and forth as he muttered curses in a dead language, "Look, I know that my kind have an extremely well deserved reputation of fucking our enemies and allies over in the name of some grand scheme, but I will be completely honest here- I'm not kidding- and straight up say that I had no intention of getting you arrested. It's too early in the game to let anyone see the cards we've been dealt."
"So… this wasn't some 'Just as Planned' thing?"
"No this wasn't some 'Just as Planned' thing."
A few moments of silence passed between the odd trio before Taeun let out a sigh, "Well in that case I'm truly sorry for accusing you of being a machiavellian dick(even though you probably are one), besides I learned three really interesting came out of this whole mess."
"And what, pray tell, would those three things be?" Azraq asked, a sense of fate hanging in the air.
"For one thing I met a rather interesting young girl with a big ass scythe," oh Gods damn it- "And Ozpin must be getting desperate for new recruits as he offered said girl and myself, a person whose fighting experience comes predominantly from street fights, a place at Beacon."
Now that was very interesting. "Did you accept it?"
Taeun let out a raspy chuckle "Gods no, I mean come on that deal sounded like something out of a poorly written fanfic. Finally, and this is the most important bit, I overheard a couple police officers talking about how they're about to send a bunch of convicts to the "Crazy Farm", including a Duardin."
Taeun could see the gears turning behind the sorcerer's everchanging eyes at this particular bit of information. Duardin, no matter how twisted they might be by the powers of the Dark Gods, are an immensely prideful race and don't let debts or insults go away easily, plus depending on the other prisoners they could potentially score some new recruits for the crusade! And if not then they'd be good fodder for daemonic sacrifices/possession.
"When are they shipping out the convicts?"
"Early in the morning, that way the public won't see them leave and the prisoners will still be groggy enough not to realize they're being sent to die."
"How many guards?"
"From what I've heard about this sort of thing? protocol is six drones for the main bus, plus two jeeps with Anti-Grim auto turrets, and a scout vehicle."
"Where did you hear that last bit of information?"
"I got it from Junior."
The Scholar let out a low chuckle "This meatsack's remaining memories confirms this, how many souls are they sending to be slaughtered by the feral children of the False Brothers?"
"Sixty two, excluding the Duardin," Taeun's grin was nearly ripping his skin in how wide it was growing "Seven times Seven, it's as good an omen as I've ever seen."
Azraq rolled his eyes, numerology was hardly the most reliable source of divination, but then what was? "I agree, gather your men and bring any weapons you've managed to scrounge up that could pin down that bus; I'll secure the planned route and draw up a plan." As he spoke the Nine Ravens began to glow with a pale blue fire as the magicks bound within them were activated.
Early the next morning Azraq woke before the crack of dawn and began to enclose himself in his armour, saving the horned helmet for last as a private ritual before muttering a prayer to his old and current patron for success and wisdom in the task to come. With that said he opened a small portal into the realm of Chaos, briefly glimpsing the sanity breaking logic of that realm before appearing on top of a small hill with the Nine Ravens standing in perfect formation, armed with the spears and shields of their past lives. In the undergrowth Taeun was lying in wait with twenty of his most trusted cultists who were armed with surprisingly functional AK-47's and knives covered in the foulest diseases they could come up with on such a relatively short notice. A flashing of a broken mirror signaled that the convoy was coming fast, meaning he had to move even faster.
Bringing his thoughts into the proper sequences Azraq reached out into the void and called upon the power of the shadows to bring about a fog thick enough that one could literally cut it with a knife if they were inclined. It was a draining task as the winds were constantly being suppressed in the mortal realm, a celestial "Fuck you" courtesy of the Brother Gods mere moments before they wiped out all of humanity for uniting under the one who would become the Black Queen, Salem, in a foolish attempt GT mm bom to overthrow them. Where magic was once able to flow freely there was barely enough to stir an etheric breeze, and to tap into it was to extract a high price. It didn't help that Azraq wasn't skilled in the winds of shadow magic, but that wasn't important, the only thing that mattered was the plan.
Once the fog was in place Azraq and the Rubricae made their way to the center of the road, the automaton corpses forming a shield wall as the sound of vehicles grew closer. The scouting vehicle ran straight into the wall, its rider was impaled upon three different spears as she unleashed a blood curdling scream.
"That's your cue Taeun," Azraq muttered under his breath as his brothers lowered the half dead woman onto the ground, a look of utter terror and desperation on her quickly paling face, "Hello there young lady, what's your name?"
"He….Help…. Help me….."
"Help me? Well I knew that this day and age has a rather interesting naming convention, but I don't think that there's a color by that name." Azraq lightly mocked as he pulled a kris from a sheath on his belt. "However,I will help you, and in return I do not require much, just your wretched husk of a body..." And with that he brought the blade to the young woman's flesh, and began his next ritual.
Taeun was having the time of his life.
His head was ringing like a church bell and he felt like he was about to throw up an all-you-can-eat buffet, but that was nothing new. But that did not matter, all that mattered was the fact that he and his men would be spreading Nurgle's precious gifts to so many people. The plan was to wait for Azraq's shield wall to march up after taking out the scout, but the sorcerer made his spell too perfect, the convoy had slowed to a near standstill in order to avoid being ambushed by Grimm. The two jeeps had deployed their defensive turrets, the artificial intelligences slaved to their circuitry. Not that it really mattered to him or his fellow knights of disease, as they were quickly succumbing to a feverish haze.
"GLORY TO NURGLE AND THE GARDEN ETERNAL!" and with that the cultists charged the slowed vehicles, the war cries of the devoted and their rust decay claimed weaponry clashed with the whirring bursts of the turrets and the deadly rain of lead and Dust pouring from their barrels. Against all but the most ancient of Grimm this would be enough to turn a decent horde to shreds, against most huntsmen this barrage would break aura in seconds before filling the air with a red mist. But the Grandfather gives his children many gifts, chief amongst them a remarkable resilience to such a petty thing like pain.
Taeun felt twelve rounds tear through his emancipated frame, but that did not stop him from reaching the front of the jeep, so close he could make out the frightened looks in the driver and his passenger's eyes at the sight of his free flowing blood mixing with the dirt that covered his ragged suit. Smiling beneath his mask he brought his flail down in a wide arc, brutally silencing the throaty growl of the vehicle.
Azhan Oathbreaker, Forge-Disciple to Zharraz the Cold, Endrinkuli of "The Railyard Bulls", was angry.
Forget the fact that he was arrested while trying to capture a worthy sacrifice for his master's latest ritual(he now suspected that this was just a ploy to get rid of him) and was deemed unfit to stay in the umgak city, or that he was chained up next to a crying Owl Faunus who was missing her right arm from the elbow down and an unashamed pedophile, no he was angry for one simple reason.
The guards had tried to shave his beard while he was asleep.
The moment he felt the cream upon his face he awoke and attempted to choke the guard to death for such an insult he felt the winds of magic stir and the shadows thicken before everything went to shit. After all, why waste time killing a dumb human quickly when he would soon have the chance to make every single moment a form of agony so painful the children of The Lost God would be sickened?
The driver had been killed by a stray bullet from one of the turrets ricocheting off some idiot's aura, so the leaders of this daring raid had to beat the reinforced metal doors to gain entry. What surprised Azhan was the fact that the two champions were a plague touched loon of the grandfather clothed in rags and scrap metal, and a schemer of Tzeentch who seemed to flicker in between this realm and the beyond. Eventually the schemer took the initiative, taking a step towards his row.
"Greetings to you, the oppressed and unwanted peop-" he was interrupted by one of the guard's remembering that he was supposed to do something and opened fired, only to have the sorcerer bring his aura up around him and spit out a hateful incantation that saw said guard become a charred corpse.
"...Greetings to you, the oppressed and unwanted people of Vale." The sorcerer continued, causally stepping over the pile of charcoal he just created "For that is what you are, is it not? The ill, the lame, and the wretched parasites of the "Kingdom" of Vale? Unfit for civilized society because you were not born rich, suffer from an illness with many symptoms, or are simply not a member of a so called "pure" race.'' The owl faunus next to Azhan seemed to shrink as the sorcerer continued on "Indeed it seems as though even the Brothers Oum do not give a damn about you, for your prayers go unanswered." The schemer paused for a moment, before taking off his helmet to reveal eyes burning with an ever changing flame "That is because brothers and sisters you have been lied to."
"The Twins are not the rulers of the realm beyond the veil, they are barely jesters were it not for Gorkamorka and his menagerie of aspects filling that role so nicely in the eyes of the true powers that be!"
"Gaze into my eyes and see the first Primordial Truth, The True Gods reward those who follow them willingly! Be you a warrior dedicated to The Axefather, an architect worthy of The Changer of Fate, a stalwart champion of traditions in the name of The Lord of Decay, or an artist seeking a muse in The Prince/Princess of Pleasure! All are welcome!" with that said he aimed a pistol he pulled from seemingly thin air and shot the guy sitting next to Azhan straight through the head.
"However, I for one cannot stand pedophiles."
So sorry this took nearly three months to post, I swear I will get the next chapter up sooner, until next time everyone.