Solomon Demeter hurtled towards the surface of Ulaston III, a cometary tail erupting from the drop-pod's peak. He was seated, watching fire blaze past the windows, even as the planet's acceleration sped up the pod yet further.

Then, it ended. With a deafening clash, the drop-pod drove itself into Ulaston's soil. Cracks ruptured the forest around it, even as Sergeant Paesius Anapene kicked open the hatch.

"Children of the Emperor!" Demeter screamed with a grin, jumping to his feet.

"Death to his foes!" Squad Anapene echoed.

Anapene staggered to the side to allow Demeter passage, and the Captain stepped out. The impact site was surrounded by a forest of kilometer-high trees, mountains of green blocking the view; but by his vox-senses, Demeter could hear the Hive City's rumble to the north.

"Advance!" he announced. "Targets to the north."

They ran through the wood, as gleeful as children but infinitely more dangerous. A couple of shots could cripple millennial trees, and so Anapene began to make those shots.

"Stop!" Gaius Caphen screamed, linking up. "What are you doing?"

"Pleasure and pain," the Sergeant responded, as if it resolved everything. Of course, it didn't.

In despair, Caphen tore off his helmet - Demeter followed suit. The second-in-command shot a pleading look to his Captain. Yet Demeter could not bring himself to care, to be angry about this, even though he felt sadness at the tragedy of what Anapene was destroying. For a brief time - seconds or minutes, he genuinely was not sure - he stood in thought, but then boredom dictated his decision. "They're trees," he eventually said. "They don't even feel pain. This is pointless, Anapene; let's get to the city already. For Slaanesh and the Emperor!"

Then the Emperor's Children were in a run once more, dashing for the walls of Hive Ulaston - the only such structure on the planet. Calling it a Hive was somewhat misleading anyway; it was a small assembly of buildings, technically built on each other in the typical Hive manner, but housing only perhaps fifty million inhabitants.

The walls came into view suddenly; as the Astartes ran around a growing tree, the full enormity of Hive Ulaston turned visible. It was a construction of red and blue, pipes and windows, houses and antennae, rising ceaselessly above the Emperor's Children. It was small by the standards of Hive Cities; on the human scale, it might as well have been infinite.

"Up the center," Demeter declared.

They went.

They smashed into the wall like a breathing battering ram. Chunks of plascrete showered them, but power armor protected against much. Demeter strode in, still helmetless, still somehow bored. The Astartes headed towards the central shaft, wherein they began a slow ascent into the inhabited levels of the Hive.

It was tiring, even for Astartes, to clamber up the endless angles of the construction. Demeter relaxed, wondering about what they would do when they got to the higher levels. It would be tempting to immediately fan out and search for life, but the true prize sat at the top….

No. No foreplanning. For now, there was only the metronomic rhythm of the endless stairway and the irregular shots fired by Anapene that dotted the railings with gaping holes.

They jogged through the endless Hive, the tough air that strained the helmets' filtration system being slowly supplemented by pure, breathable atmosphere. As they rose, more and more of the toxins were only precipitates, only fluids pumping themselves through the intricate walls.

The first signs of life came on the 97th floor, rats that Demeter exterminated. The task force continued up, and on the 185th floor the first apartment complexes radiated from the shaft.

"Continue up," Demeter declared, a split-second decision. "They're civilians. Not deserving of our wrath, and frankly boring." He shouldn't have needed to say that, or should he have? Demeter noted, in those instants of reflection, that his mind was changing. That excited him more than it disturbed him, which was itself a sign. But some among his Company were less restrained, now that he was encouraging Slaanesh rather than suppressing it.

The planetary militia rained down to meet the Emperor's Children above the 300th floor. They numbered a few hundred, about the same as the Space Marines; but they were only men. They would be smashed, but at least they wouldn't go down easily.

Battle, at last! But then again, these were deluded men and women, people that could have and should have heard the Emperor's and Fulgrim's call. They could have surrendered like their metaphorical brothers and sisters on Ulaston II and Ulaston V.

That they didn't was more a sign of incomprehension than anything else. Demeter wiped the tears from his face as he killed the men. He started a song up, a Terran battle hymn that - paradoxically - mourned the death even as it encouraged it.

This was necessary. Unfortunate, perhaps, but necessary!

Joy and sadness alike pulsed through Demeter's arteries. The Second Captain swung his power-sword through the rabble. It cleaved their heads from their bodies, their chests from their stomachs, their knees from their torsos; it caused more carnage than Demeter had ever seen from his trusty blade.

The men screamed for surrender in oddly high-pitched voices. Demeter tried to signal his Astartes to accept the surrender and stop the massacre; his command was in normal tone, but the others sounded different.

"Demeter areyoualright mycaptain?" Caphen spurted.

The Second Captain shook his head, and the effect passed. Perhaps it was only an apparition?

"What happened to your voice?" Sergeant Perio Xatraus inquired.

Demeter was about to retort, but recognizing his sword's unnaturally swift movement, shook his head. "No matter. You should have stopped killing them."

"With all due respect, Brother-Captain, the command came when they were all dead," Anapene noted.

"There was an anomaly, then," Demeter said "It doesn't matter. Let's get this battle… or not… let's just go." His mind clouded with turmoil once more, Solomon Demeter carefully clambered up the stairs. A mild migraine began, but he was Astarte - pain could be withstood.

Madness, however - no, he was not going insane. He was fighting! He was at war!

"May the Emperor be as safe on Terra as we are here," Demeter noted.

Caphen nodded agreement. "Three casualties, true, but they had their helmets off in the midst of the attack... not surprising. Speaking of which - Brother-Captain, we're not on Laeran anymore. It would be wise to protect yourself."

"Maybe," Demeter said. He needed Caphen, more than ever now that he could not trust himself. "But - three casualties?"

"Aye. Battle-Brother-"

"Dead or wounded?"

"All dead."

Demeter stood silent as Caphen listed the fallen. "Why were you not there?"

"I always wanted to be at the forefront," Solomon Demeter said. "I was in the battle - oh, whatever. I'm sorry. I truly am sorry. For everything."

There was a brief silence as the Second Company of the Emperor's Children continued to ascend the stairway.

"Their progenoid glands have been collected?"

"Yes, although we have plenty of gene-seed by now. We lack warriors to implant it into."

"Find them, then."

Caphen was dumbfounded by this, but after a few minutes he managed to ask what, exactly, that meant.

As if it wasn't clear. "Rush into the residential hallways. Find the boys that are fit to be candidates for recruitment. Take them."

"That isn't-"

Solomon Demeter, Second Captain of the Emperor's Children, roared as he drove his fist into his second's face, allowing the surface of his armor to scratch momentary agony into Caphen's face, though Astarte regeneration would ensure there were no scars.

"Let's begin!" he screamed to the Emperor's Children, even as he recognized his barbarism.

Demeter led one of the small packs, rushing into a hallway on floor 453. He tore a door off its hinges, casting it aside; it smashed ringing into the opposite wall. A chant built up in his head.

Chaos Chaos Chaos Chaos CHAOS-

The Captain rushed into the entryway of the apartment, which also served as the living room. It was a one-storied construction, with only a dining room and two small bedrooms separated by doors from the entryway. Sergeant Araius Makusto swung one of the doors open with a crash.

Inside, a man was desperately gripping a pathetic lasgun, his wife and two sons cowering in the corner below a table.

"Give us the boys," Demeter said.

The father responded by pulling the trigger. It was a perfectly aimed shot, and though Demeter's reflexes allowed him to dodge the bolt before it was fired, his right chin still burned with a fraction of the impact. The Second Captain responded by leaning forward and kissing the father's cheek, before gulping the left half of the man's face down. It was delicious, in a way living flesh generally wasn't.

What am I doing?

Doubt rose within the Captain, and he spit out the flesh.

"Don't kill her!?" he screamed. "Leave the mark of Slaanesh, and take the children. But no more than that."

The Emperor's Children followed the order, some more reluctantly than others. My mind is clouded, Demeter observed. This will pass, but I am not currently fit for command.

It is mine nevertheless.

The Astartes exited the room in greater order by far than they entered it. Of course, it would have been impossible for the exit to be more disorderly than the entrance; but the reorganization was still impressive.

The Space Marines continued to comb through the Hive, searching for minors of the appropriate age and physical characteristics. Some of the packs, Demeter knew, would retain their savagery; that was for the best. The citizens needed to be terrified.

Yet at the same time, the places Solomon Demeter had been before coming to his senses haunted him throughout the search. Was that wildness still within him somewhere, just waiting for the chance to come out?

It was only when the raid was over, when the nobility of Ulaston III sent Fulgrim - and Fulgrim sent Demeter - a message of unconditional surrender, that Demeter's attention was drawn to something on his face, below the eye. Close examination revealed it to be a tiny flagellum, a spontaneous adult mutation - rare, almost unheard-of, but supposedly one of the gifts Slaanesh bestowed upon his faithful.

And for an instant, pure and uncontrolled terror gripped Demeter's heart, as he recognized the moment when the sign of favor had first appeared - when he had bitten the unknown father's face off.

Only for an instant, though. In the next instant, those tears and inner conflict, though still crashing in his heart, had become a further bastion of Slaanesh within his soul.