}!{
"The witches are here!" The battery commander exclaimed, "Good! More xenos to kill in His name! Divert a third of the guns to bring those cruisers down!"
"Wait!" Horus stopped him, "Focus your fire on the immediate threat- the flagship of Typhus. The eldar may not be the aid we prefer, but they are the aid we need at this time."
"But Primarch..." Galio asked, "...what's to stop them from stabbing us in the back while it is yet turned?"
"My lord, incoming transmission from the eldar flagship!" The comms officer barked, "Shall I accept?" Horus nodded in affirmation, and the flickering image of the Prophetess Yvraine appeared on the holocron. At her side was the aeldari Farseer Eldrad Ulthran.
"Greetings, Lord Horus of Terra, I am Yvraine of the Ynnari. My people are here to assist in your battle against Typhus, so I ask that you do not train your station's weapons upon us."
"The Eldar, here to assist us?" Horus had plenty of cause to remain suspicious, but the Primarch was not so. The minute he saw Eldrad at the side of the Prophetess, he knew their intentions were pure, though it was hard to judge the enigmatic ambitions of the eldar accurately. "What interesting times we live in."
"Am I to take that as your compliance?"
"You are." Horus replied, "But let me be clear this one time; my men will not attack you if you show the same amount of restraint on your part. Break the truce, and you will suffer the wrath of the Luna Wolves. Understand?"
Yvraine nodded and terminated the connection, leaving the station commander bewildered at the Primarch's decision. He knew better than to question it openly, and so he remained silent about his opinions. "The hangars are open for the cruisers to depart, Primarch. We shall do our part here and soften them up for you."
"Very good, commander." Horus donned his helm and exited the station along with his First Company. The Divine Fury detached from port, accompanied by several dozens of battleships, light cruisers and a hundred or so escorts. The swift conglomeration of eldar and human fighters swarming over the massive, diseased construct of the Plague God. The Primarch of the reformed Luna Wolves legion boarded their vessels that they may prepare to breach the rusted hulls of the Terminus Est. Horus didn't wish to just tear the thing apart, he wanted to ensure that the commander of the plague legions would be blotted out of existence. The casualties of such an endeavor would be high, but worth the risk. Nurgle's hold on this reality will weaken, enough that they may take control of this chaos-ridden reality.
The Divine Fury shuddered as the chaos voidfleet opened fire, bathing their shields with corrosive bile globs and radiation clouds as the bombs were hurled across space. Horus stood at the vanguard of his reborn sons, face taut with determination as the pods were jettisoned into the void, aimed directly for the battered surface of the Terminus Est. Horus brought with him the finest of his terminator spacemarines, of whose tenacity and endurance had been boosted specifically for the many horrifying new diseases the Plague God surely had in store for them.
They breached the hull and landed three decks past their intended target, directly within the bile pits that acted as the Terminus Est's gun battery main ammunition reserves. Here, the servants of Nurgle do not stand alone. Rather, the very halls are filled with Typhus' Destroyer Hives and all manner of plaguebearer daemons. The temptation to purge all in purifying flame proved too great, and so the Luna Wolves succumbed to the maddening brilliance of prometheum, bathing their enemies in its hungering light. The flames danced across the rusted and bile-encrusted walls and pipeworks, spreading over into the pits of boiling hot green sludge and sewage. The spacemarines' faces twisted in permanent grimaces of apparent disgust within their helms as they beheld the unspeakable horrors of the Warp. Horus had seen much of Nurgle's influence back in the day, but never before had he seen it at this stage of corruption. It was like peering into a mere sliver of the Plague God's realm, perhaps a foreshadowing of his soon attempt to wrest Isha from his grasp to save the Emperor.
"Burn it all!" Galio thundered, "Remind the Dark Gods that their reign is ending! Burn! It! All!"
At his command, the Luna Wolves discharged their weapons at the amassing horde. A good thing too, for the responding plague marines were quick to converge on the breach team's position. The floors and walls were blackened to soot, a result of the spacemarines' infernal weaponry wiping clean the tainted grounds. Here, they felt safer to tread, and so only walked upon what their flamers had burned. Bolt shells rained down upon the path as Horus and his sons boldly pressed forward, undeterred by the plague marines seeking to bar their progress. Blood and bile, corrosive goop and all manner of detestable substances spilled onto the Terminus Est's many decks as every team moved ever closer to the massive construct's bridge- where Typhus remained interred.
Upon securing entrance into access halls of the ancient warship, the Primarch was met with a brilliant explosion of psychic energies that could only mean the eldar teleporting aboard the Terminus Est. His terminator brethren swiveled their guns upon the multitude of Ynnari guardians, warriors and exarchs, as the cocoon of energies dissipated into shimmering mists, revealing the Prophetess Yvraine and her companion the Farseer Eldrad. Likewise, the wary aeldari soldiers moved into a defensive stance in case the Mon'kei legionnaires opened fire.
"Stand down." Horus commanded, "Today the Eldar cause is in line with us. I intend to keep it that way."
"Eldrad spoke highly of your wisdom, Primarch Lupercal." Yvraine replied, "I must admit, I am surprised to see you've proven his words to be true."
Horus motioned for her to come with him, "We can exchange pleasantries when the danger has passed, Prophetess. Presently, we must deal with Typhus and his hordes of pestilence." The Prophetess was a beautiful eldar woman, as much as anyone of her kin would be expected to look like. Her hair was a glossy mane of purest white, cropped at the sides and tied into a neat little tail that flew behind her head like a broken standard. Yvraine was dressed in a tight fitting Farseer garb with an assortment of trappings hailing from her long journeys in the Webway and beyond. Her feet remained bared at the toes and heels, but this did not seem to bother her at all when she walked upon the cold steel floors. She carried with her a sabre, of whose blade sang of a thousand deaths at her hand. Another thing of note was the jade crown that sat above her brows.
When they have gone a ways further from their troops, who remained at a fixed distance from each other, Horus addressed the Prophetess on the matter at hand. "You didn't come all this way just to extend a helping hand to us, did you?"
Yvraine merely smiled. The Mon'kei Primarch was sharp.
"There's no point dancing about the issue, if we are to be allies you must show a level of trust. I extend this much goodwill to you, now you must return the favor." Horus said, his patience growing thin.
"Typhus holds a divine artifact within this vessel, stolen from the halls of the Black Library. He plans to deliver it unto his master, your brother Mortarion." Yvraine revealed, "Before he is to be defeated, we must retrieve it from his hands and use it against him. You may kill the unclean one, but the artifact belongs to the Ynnari."
"How did he manage to obtain this artifact?"
"How is not important, the fact that he holds it is." Yvraine said, "While it yet remains in his possession, know that Typhus has the power to control the Warp itself, bending it to his will that he may cause all things to decay at his command."
"This artifact, does it have a name?"
The eldar priestess nodded, "It is called the Hand of Darkness."
"Interesting." Horus flexed the fingers of the Nebula Gauntlet, the ancient pre-Heresy artifact he had recovered in the vaults of Mars. "Very well, I shall endeavor to retrieve this 'Hand of Darkness' for you. But let me be clear. If it proves too dangerous, I shall exhaust all means to see to its destruction- and Typhus along with it."
Yvraine frowned, but uttered a humorless chuckle. "I doubt you'd manage to do such a thing, but you are certainly welcome to make the attempt."
"My lord, you trust these vermin?" Galio asked on a secure vox-channel shared between him, the Primarch, and his fellow captains. "It is a different case letting them barge into the battles outside the station, and another when we walk side by side."
"I do, to some extent." Horus replied, "I understand your skepticism, Brother Galio, and I will not ask you to smother it. Remain wary for me, but do not break the truce. If anyone here is to betray the other first, it will be the xenos- not man."
Galio hated the alien, whatever the form, but he upheld honor above hatred. Without it, mankind would be nothing more than the greenskin hordes that roam the cosmos, another barbarian race unworthy of the name of man. "Yes, my Primarch." The captain and his men walked on the opposite side of the catwalks parallel to where the Ynnari warriors tread. They had not gone long when upon a sudden, the task force was assaulted by another horde of disgusting, bile-encrusted daemons brandishing rusted axes and diseased warclubs. Their blubbering cries of joy at the sight of new playmates were utterly detestable to the Luna Wolves, and they responded with a storm of bolter-fire that shredded the daemons into nothing but fine red mists. These hordes were then followed by another warband, this time of greater daemons spewed forth from the deepest recesses of the Fly Lord's realm of plagues! These loathsome creatures are each facsimiles of Nurgle himself, both physically and in terms of their personality. They welcomed the Luna Wolves to the Terminus Est's foul underbelly, prognosticating the many 'wonders' of Papa Nurgle that awaited them should they choose to go further.
The answer of the newly formed legion was far simpler, and the greater daemons were repelled with the cleansing fires of the Luna Wolves' flamers.
"I will need a thorough cleansing with prometheum when this battle's over!" Galio exclaimed. As the captain turned about to look for their aeldari allies, he discovered to his great surprise that they had disappeared! Not a single Ynnari soldier or exarch remained in sight, and the Luna Wolf uttered a loud outburst of litanies and curses at his carelessness. "We have been betrayed! The foul xenos had left us to our end!"
Horus, as he fought alongside his sons and brothers, did not pay heed to his elder captain's words. He knew the Ynnari were up to something, and it was for the benefit of both races. He only hoped Yvraine still knew what honor meant, "Stand by me! Stay behind the shield!" He willed Soulrender to repel the Destroyer flies buzzing around the shimmering cocoon of psychic energies he had cast. This was the only way he and the Luna Wolves could pass unaffected by the myriad of diseases stemming from all around them. Horus' power was near limitless, even more so in the presence of Chaos magicks. "Onward!" He never feared the Plague God's curses or pestilence-ridden hordes, for he had gone through even worse hell than any disease could muster.
Then, just as he was about to forget of her, Yvraine and her acolytes reappeared in the middle of the swarming formation of pestigors, bearing aloft a strange black shard that burned with the intensity of a dying star. As Horus watched, transfixed, the flames on that artifact danced with growing strength, pulsating and heaving until it grew into a nightmarish humanoid form that burned out everything in its vicinity. The iconic symbol of the necron glyph appeared like a maker's brand upon the being's forehead as it finished its transcendence from a lonely shard into a complete C'tan form!
It cast its malevolent gaze upon the Prophetess Yvraine, and at her word, the ancient Star God seized control of the Luna Wolves' prometheum flamers and set the Unclean Ones on fire. The C'tan's hold upon realspace was greater than the Chaos Gods could ever have, and Nurgle's servants were completely at its mercy. Their squeals were like music to Horus' ears as they were reduced to ash and shot back into the Warp. He preferred to kill them permanently, but should he even lower his weapon to do so now would doom his sons into a painful death at the hands of the Destroyer hives.
Once all had been cleansed, Yvraine whispered unto the jade crown and returned the Burning One to its shard. The C'tan reluctantly obeyed and surrendered its flames to the Prophetess, who tucked the shard back into her bag of curios and turned to flash the Primarch a mischievous smirk. Captain Galio merely huffed and stomped off with his brothers, embarrassed to have his previous assumptions derailed as early as it had been formed.
"So you command the C'tan as well." Horus declared.
"Just this one." Yvraine replied, seeing that a little honesty here could be beneficial. "But it proves time and time again to be quite enough."
"I'd be more careful using that thing in the future if I were you." Horus cautioned. "I know many who would kill for a C'tan shard, even more so with that crown you carry that could command it."
"Duly noted."
With this intervention, the Luna Wolves begrudgingly gave their allies the benefit of the doubt, and it pleased Horus to see that the seed of alliances had sprouted its first leaf. It wasn't much, but it was a start. They would learn to trust one another, but it will take time. Even his redemption took years to come to realization.
In a world shard hidden beyond the veil of reality safely nestled within the Webway, Liivi and Taldeer prepared to leave their home, having decided to rejoin the ranks of the assembling aeldari. They had heard news of the stirring powers in the Imperium, the successes of the three brother Primarchs and the return of Horus Lupercal. Neutrality was not a choice, Taldeer knew that better than anyone. The balance between order and chaos was tipping, and not even their little hideout would be safe in the coming war. Little Senua had grown into a young girl of twelve around this time, and was no longer the helpless toddler she used to be.
Senua had shown a high affinity for the psychic arts early on, and at first her parents feared she would have great difficulty controlling her abilities. Thankfully, so far, nothing dangerous had occurred in her stay with them. Taldeer handed down everything she had been taught in her long years as a Farseer, instructing Senua to embrace herself as a halfling, never once discouraging the young one from exploring her psychic gifts- for she never needed to. Her daughter was born with a gentle heart, and her husband had proven to be an exceptional parent in spite of his shortcomings.
Though she displayed these gifts as a psyker, Senua had taken an interest in her father's stories as a marksman and so begged to be taught in the ways of the Vindicare. Unlike Taldeer, Liivi treaded a lot more carefully around the subject, never wishing to expose Senua to the horrors of his youth. He taught her what he knew about rifle maintenance, shooting straight, and blending to her surroundings without the aid of a cloaking device.
It was here that Senua developed her first psychic manifestation, in the form of a mimetic skin that often gave her the appearance of a chameleon whenever she'd emerge out of hiding in her occasional pranks on her loved ones. Additionally, having learned the eldritch lightning power from her mother, Senua proved innovative in this aspect, having then discovered her own manifestation of that power in the form of a devastating chain lightning. They felt she was ready to do her part in the long journey they would soon make.
The day they began their journey was also the day danger struck the little family. A drukhari raiding band, having been lost in the murky depths of the Webway, chanced upon their hideout by an unfortunate twist of fate. Sensing the powerful souls therein, they swooped down like locusts on a field ripe for harvest. Taldeer foresaw this among her many visions, each with different outcomes stemming from different actions, and reacted in the best way possible. Her old transporter, a remnant of her past so carefully maintained in the small hangar hidden in the forest behind their house, had been prepared for this situation long before it even happened. Plans within plans, that was how she and her husband kept their family alive and well all this time. If they stuck to it, all will go smoothly.
The only rogue element here was Senua, for the girl was an eddy in the river of fate, unpredictable and quite dangerous for lack of a better term. Taldeer hoped she would prove useful instead of burdensome in their escape attempt.
"I will cover your escape." Liivi declared, "Keep to the shade, stay out of sight. I will rejoin you when I've crippled them."
Taldeer was not the type to protest her husband's decision, knowing full well his capabilities as a Vindicare assassin. The years had not rendered him dull, the man had only grown stronger in his time with her. "Be careful, my love."
"We'll wait for you, father." Senua said, determined to see him alive after this.
The two women fled the house with their meager belongings, leaving Liivi to prepare for the impending battle. He donned the matte-black bodyglove synskin suit, relishing the cool feeling of the fibers fitting over his flesh like a second skin. Afterwards, he fastened his spy mask and lowered the visor over his face. As if not a single day had gone by since he laid that moniker to rest, the terrifying eyes on that visage lit up and the Vindicare assassin was reawakened.
Liivi picked up his Exitus rifle, a weapon responsible for the deaths of thousands- be they xeno or traitor, and slapped on a fresh clip of Turbo-penetrator rounds. He knew the dark eldar would bring heavy armored warriors to every raid to bolster their lesser equipped comrades, these special rounds should be adequate enough.
If they had psykers, his Exitus pistol was equipped with Shield-breaker rounds, perfect for energy shielding.
Having finished gearing up for war, Liivi slipped out of the house, setting the explosive traps before fading into the treeline. He revealed himself intentionally as he stepped out of the door to attract the attention of the approaching warband, and his bait worked exceptionally well. The drukhari burst through the grounds of his home and set off the trap, enveloping them in a ball of prometheum flame. Those left exposed to the flames were instantly turned to ash, and those that survived were left horrifically scarred from the flames. These deaths fueled the hungering desire for blood, and the drukhari doubled the pace in which they used to hound after the fleeing trio.
Unfortunately for them, the Vindicare assassin was more than a killer, he was one with a cause.
Once, he shed blood in the name of the Emperor, a thankless task that never brought him peace. To fight for his loved ones was the greatest fulfillment a man can have, and Liivi was no different.
He would die before he would let them touch his girls.
"I've got no strings, To hold me down..." Liivi sang quietly, each breath intake and exhalation bringing a kill to his tally. "To make me fret, Or make me frown..." The stock slammed into his shoulder, another dark eldar for the void.
"I had strings, But now I'm free..." The empty casing whistled past his face.
"There are no strings on me..."
}!{