OHIMSS 3

999.M41, Cadia, Segmentum Obscuras

The woman dressed in the simple yet flattering clothes of a devotee of Slaanesh took a calming breath, and then removed her shoes and placed them in the box designated to hold them.

It had been many years since she had set foot in a temple of one of the Gods of Order, but she knew the rituals well enough, even without having to read the helpful placard placed near the entrance to the vestibule where she had left her footwear. She turned to the deacon guarding the door, nodded and smiled, and kissed her full on the lips. She felt a tongue press politely on her lips if she wanted to continue with the ritual for more devoted followers, but she not did return the motion, and soon the deacon had wished her a good day in Slaanesh's grace and gently dabbed a sweet, floral perfume on the woman's wrists and nape of her neck.

A few of the God/dess of love's worshippers craned their necks to look at the new worshipper; would have noted the supple skin, shapely figure, long, snow white hair that flowed down the woman's shoulders and halfway down her back. They would have noted, as well, the elegantly and deadly looking blade holstered across her back; but such weapons were hardly illegal in a galaxy as potentially dangerous as the one the Imperium was in.

A heady scent filled Alera Jumil's nostrils, and she heard a soothing melody in the air as hundreds of people prayed for love and fulfilment from the embodiment of the Eldar Goddess Isha, imbued with the combined might of that ancient race in an all encompassing radiance of its love for all other beings. The room was warm, and Alera felt the urge to join in, and partake of the happy feelings Slaanesh gave the galaxy.

Ally and Garen trailed behind her. The Magos was, as usual, looking around in wonderment, no doubt scanning everything she observed to a cogitator. Her pilot was dressed in duty fatigues. She had learnt a long time ago that civilian clothing was not an easy fit for Garen Danar, who never failed to exude a military bearing trained into him almost literally since birth. It wasn't a huge stretch for a man to be in the uniform of the Imperial Navy, since Cadia was one of the more fortified planets on the western rim of the Imperium, and every now and then the Eye of Harmony would belch out random warp storms carrying embodiments of spirits too impure and violent to ever find a home amongst the realms of the Lords of Order.

A few of the attendants noticed her, and after interpreting her polite nod of inquiry correctly, had ushered the trio to a man in simple yet well tailored robes.

The man was sitting on a carpet by the side of the shrine room, cross-legged and with the robe down to his waist. Alera raised an eyebrow involuntarily, for his form was… most attractive. In front of him was a girl, a novitiate of some kind, similarly with her robes down to her waist, her chest bare to the air. There was a crowd of them, all similarly dressed, although only the girl in front of the man had her chest showing. The robed man put his hands out in front of him.

"Hold my hands," the man said, and the girl complied, shaking slightly as she did so. Her gaze began to falter as a blush began to rise on her cheeks.

The man smiled. "No, no, Tilla, focus!" He held her hands firmly, but gently, his eyes looking straight into the girl's.

The girl steeled herself and looked back into the man's eyes. Her breathing slowed as she fought her inner, baser desires and focused on the touch of the man here with her to help her enlightenment. After a while, she began to smile. A carefree, happy smile, as a look of pure contentment settled into her features.

"That's it, Tilla!" said the man, smiling back. "Love, not Lust! Slaanesh isn't a thirst!" He held her hands aside and gave her a hug, letting her exult in the feeling of joy. The man let her go, and nodded. "Do you think you could show that ritual to the rest of the class for today?" The girl nodded.

It was then that he looked up at the Imperial Agent and her companions. "I apologise for my abject behaviour," the priest of Slaanesh said, as he hitched his robe back up to his shoulders and stood up. "You must be Ms. Jumil." He subtly and discreetly motioned the group away from the throng of novitiates now holding hands toward one of the clearer walkways.

"Pleased to meet you," she said politely, as she navigated around a lay member lost in happy prayers. "Brother Tolgerias?" At the affirming nod, she motioned to her two companions. "This is Magos Terenas, and this is Mr Danar." She turned back to the priest of Slaanesh and motioned toward the throng of people around them. "Thank you for coming to meet us. Is there somewhere more private we can discuss our inquiry?"

A few moments later the Agent found herself in a simple, pleasantly furnished room. A few art objects were displayed around the room, and she found they fit extremely well together with the décor. The colours were inviting, the spacing of furniture somehow perfect. The room almost seemed…

"To want you to feel happy?" offered Tolgerias, as he gestured the three toward couches in the middle of the room. He smiled as he saw Alera's brow darken with a somewhat put upon frown. "Haha, sorry, I get that a lot from people I show in. This is what I'd call my office. You might find some church paperwork strewn around here sometimes, but it's mostly a place for me to relax." He flopped down on a couch, and picked up a datapad lying on the armrest.

"I got your message the other day, and I've had a look through my church records, and I've even had a chat with the synod." He pointed to the image of a man now projecting out of the datapad. "Don't know him. No one in the Church of Slaanesh knows him."

A sweet, gentle voice spoke up now, from Alera's right. "I sent you the entire sermon, as well as appropriate metrics to fit him to any biometric data you've got," Ally said. "Are you sure no one recognises him? He was a priest of Slaanesh all right…"

It was at these words that Tolgerias' expression darkened. "Well yes, about that…" The man leaned back a little into his couch, and closed his eyes, steepling his fingers together as he considered how he would phrase what he would say next. "His theology's wrong."

Alera arched an eyebrow. "Love? I wasn't aware that was a characteristic of say, Khorne."

Tolgerias' mouth quirked up in a smile. "Oh no, not that. It's the way he's talking about it." He tilted his head to the side, thinking. The three people in front of him, good rationalists all, would not quite understand the subtle nuances of his religion.

"Proper worship of the Lord of Love and Joy is more complex than the popular conception," he started. "Just because Nurgle preaches acceptance and compassion doesn't mean you just let horrible things happen to you or other people; just because Tzeentch embodies hope doesn't mean you plot and scheme whatever you want so you can see if your plans come true. Just because Khorne loves the brave doesn't mean you show mindless disregard for your safety. Just the same with Love." He pointed around the room. "One of the first things we teach new novitiates is that Love and Joy come from accepting, from finding love and serenity and passion from what we experience. My office, for example."

He glanced at the artworks in turn, nodding at each. "It's furnished not to get a reaction from you, it's arranged so that you can feel what joy you can find in the situation. Slaanesh is not found in ever higher levels of passion or enjoyment or sensation; Slaanesh is found by perceiving what makes you happy and exulting in that."

He spread his hands and smiled; a disarming gesture. "I was out there with Tilla and the novices just then. It's not about the sensation itself that brings joy; it's about finding the joy in the situation you have and not wanting more… Which is patently not what I heard from your alleged preacher."

"What *did* our preacher talk about?" asked Garen, leaning forward now, his chin resting on his closed fist.

"Yes, funny that," Brother Tolgerias said. "Mostly the same things. Except instead of perceiving joy from your surroundings, his argument was that you worshipped Slaanesh to find those sensations that bring you joy."

"And this makes a difference?" Alera asked, eyebrow raised in quizzical inquiry.

"Well, yes," said the priest. "Because the proper worship of Slaanesh is about knowing what makes you happy. He was talking about seeking what makes you happy."

It was at that moment that the priest of Slaanesh suddenly sat bolt upright in his couch, just moments before a novitiate burst into the room.

"Brother Tolgerias!" the boy shouted, clearly unnerved. "They've frakking gone crazy!"

It was probably a good thing that the pews of the church of Slaanesh were made of a solid adamantium alloy fashioned to feel like a solid wood. Lay members of the church lay behind them, trying to take cover, some running for the exits when they had the chance, as the writhing mass of flesh that was a group of Slaanesh initiates convulsed aimlessly near the carving of the God of Love's symbol at the altar.

Their individual forms could still be distinguished, but they moved as one, an amorphous, near shapeless mass of blood and bone that glistened most… seductively as it searched for more bodies to add to it. It began to almost sashay around, testing its movements, waiting for the right moment to lunge at the cowering lay members stuck between it and the door at the other end of the chapel.

"Holy Prince," Brother Tolgerias swore, and at the sound of his voice the thing flung a fleshy limb at him, composed of what seemed to be the top half of the initiate Tilla. A sudden blue crackling field of energy flared from the priest of Slaanesh, and the horror stopped short, as if stung by it.

Then the thing spoke, and it was a sound of pure, angelic beauty.

"Oh Brother Tolgerias," he/she/it said, a heavenly chorus of beatific peace. "You miss out!"

"On what?" was the somewhat disbelieving question.

"The peace of Slaanesh," it said, and once again what seemed to be Tilla reached out for him with her hand. Crackling, eldritch energy emanated from the priest again as he called on his patron God to protect him, to aid his psychic powers, but this time she pushed through the divine barrier.

"Brother, please," the Tilla/thing smiled, as other parts of the conjoined being began to crack and snap as bones broke and remeshed. "Did you think that we would be barred by our mutual Lord and Master?"

The thing reached out with what was the initiate's hand, and then Alera Jumil's eyes glowed a bright azure blue. This time, with a definite crack and yowl of pain, the monstrosity drew back. The priest of Slaanesh scurried backward, out of the reach of the creature. It turned to the Imperial Agent.

"Why, hello," the thing said, its voice melodious and sweet, seemingly composed of a dozen voices. "Someone with her own power."

Alera Jumil's eyes continued to blaze a shining, azure blue, as she carefully unholstered a bolt pistol and raised it toward the abomination. A few of its limbs arced out to reach her, but every time, sparks would fly as they smashed against the blue, shimmering barrier erected by her will.

It had been a long time since she had had to deal with an emotional entity. Alera was an Imperial Agent of the Ordo Respublica, the third great order dealing with the public trust and governance of the Imperium, and it was normally the Ordo Malleus that was tasked with the active prevention and containment of eruptions of emotional entities from the Warp. Spurned by the Lords of Order and cast out by the ministrations of Minister-Master Horus and his brother Princes, minor beings of malice and hate spilled out into the real world. Some called them daemons, and it was not inaccurate; but they were simply psychic emotions made real, and her training kicked in as naturally as her specialty in dealing with corruption.

"You will unhand your victims," she said, with icy courtesy. The bolt pistol was trained at what was Tilla's head, the Agent hoping that it was the creature's controlling brain.. Such calm was standard procedure, for emotional entities fed off the emotions of those they interacted with. Containment until the being lost its hold on its anchor in the physical world was the key, although the destruction of the creature's host bodies would also work. Alera hoped it would not have to come to that.

The monster shook its head, and it giggled softly. "Oh dear, oh dear," it chuckled. "That might work on my dear brother Slaanesh, but it's not going to work on me!"

Suddenly, a bright spark smashed into the Agent's psychic barrier, and she reeled back from the assault. It was truly ferocious, and she stumbled backward, her concentration an shield broken, as tendrils and limbs immediately stabbed toward her, some of them ending in nasty bone spurs.

Almost too fast to see, metal limbs smashed into the bony protrusions, breaking them with howls of what appeared to be pleasure from the monster. Strong hands reached around the Agent and pulled her back behind a pew, where Brother Tolgerias sat, nursing his head in his hands.

"We might need the Guard," Garen Danar said, as Ally Terenas engaged in a bizarre parody of a slapping session with her mechandrites against the collection of bodies.

"Yes, we should call them," Alera said, her head still spinning.

"Already did it." He replied.

"Good boy."

Her Investigator's mouth quirked up at the corner.

At that moment, with a rather theatrical and surprised yowl, Ally Terenas flew past the two of them in a parody of a somersault, a trail of mechandrites following. She smashed hard into some adamantium pews, making a significant dent in the extremely hard alloy.

Ally shrieked as a talon of something smashed through her torso and into the masonry behind her. It sounded certainly more of surprise than of pain, for a mechandrite swiftly swung back and detached the offending claw from its owner, as some sort of sickly looking ichor sprayed through the air. Ally looked down at the offending limb protruding through her body and frowned. Ruined a perfectly good robe. She tried to move but the thing was well stuck into the stone behind her, and she was transfixed.

The emotional entity began to convulse in its triumph, and again reached out for the three humans behind the pew. Her powers could not withstand this creature, and Tolgerias served the same Lord of Order…

There was no going back now. Alera had to make a choice. Emotional Entities could always be fought, but their hosts were all too real…

With a shining, glittering arc, the blade she kept holstered to her back slashed across the torso of the body of Tilla, drawing blood and a yowl of pleasure. Leaping out from behind the bench, the Imperial Agent's eyes glowed a bright blue as she used the eldritch power that gave the Lords of Order their strength to add theirs to her own.

No one quite knew how or why Psykers got their powers, not even the Emperor; but their will could bend reality, and now Alera Jumil spun and slashed with a speed no normal human could match, flicking tendrils of acolyte aside with her blade while her Investigator carried the still groggy priest of Slaanesh away from the monster before them.

She was still careful then, scoring cuts that could be mended, deflecting the worst blows, and she saw, still the mass of people that made up the thing shiver in pain (or was that pleasure?) as she wounded it. She was not trying to kill it. Her left hand began to glow blue, a soft, calming, almost gentle refrain on her lips, the ancient banishment ritual taught to all psychic members of the Emperor's realms…

"Peace be upon you."

She leapt past a few bodies swiping and her, ready to channel pure calm psychic force into the thing, to let it subside and return to the warp, just as she had done for nearly one hundred years.

A pure burst of psychic might emanated from her into the being.

Nothing happened.

A hand reached out and grabbed the Agent's still clothed forearm, and suddenly it melted into a mass of tentacles, reaching, searching for a rip or skin to touch. Suddenly, Alera felt a stabbing pain as the tentacles suddenly punched into her skin, and suddenly she heard a cacophony of voices, inviting, smiling, welcoming. She felt her skin begin to meld, her mind begin to melt, her body begin to amalgamate with the Slaaneshi beast.

The bright burst of a bolter shell's detonation filled her field of vision, and the mass of tentacles burst as the red hot heat disintegrated the arm clutching hers. The agent stumbled back, totally disoriented. She landed on her backside and looked up.

Standing before her were three armoured behemoths in Steel Grey armour. Like ancient knights of long past human history, their rebreather and respiration equipment peaked out in front of their helms like strange beaks, atop powered armours eight feet tall. They had wicked looking chained axes in one hand, an oversized, fully automatic rocket propelled grenade launger in the other. Wolf pelts adorned their forms, joining scrolls and seals of valour, medals of campaigns wages millions of light years away, centuries apart. One of them did not have an axe in his hand. At the end of his glove was a wicked set of claws, crackling with some sort of glowing energy field. At their chests was the proud emblem of the Imperial Aquila, symbols of his Space Marines.

It was an awesome sight, as the knights of his Majesty did their terrible work. Grotesque as the creature was, his Space Marines knew no fear, and they knew very well their work. Revving axes bit into flesh, limbs swatted aside or avoided with the grace that belied the bulk of their powered armour. The monster began to scream terribly as more and more of its component parts were left twitching, dismembered from its body. The parts that were still mostly human and alive began to moan in pain as the Emotional Entity began to leave their forms. In a few moments more, there was only Tilla, poor, sweet Tilla, missing an arm and having gained a foot lodged in her midsection, held down by the great hulk with glowing, crackling electricity around the wicked looking claws in his left hand.

"You will unhand her, Entity!" growled the marine, and it was filled with the calm, placid rage of the warrior in battle.

Tilla hissed, a strange, sibilant sound.

"Maaaaaaaaaaaake meeeeeeeee," she purred, and suddenly she screamed as the entity possessing her forced her to break her own neck.

The marine sagged almost, and then he took off his helmet, his eyes closed, suddenly looking centuries older. His face was bearded, scars crossing the proud countenance. The marine bent his head and reverently closed the poor girl's eyelids.

The other two immediately began to tend to the carnage they had wrought, for still there were people mewling in pain, some with less, some with more than they had and too shocked to do anything else.

It was when the rest of the wounded were all sent to the medicae, and the sororitas and Garen were tending to Tilla's broken body and Brother Tolgerias' broken mind, that Alera Jumil could find enough time to stop helping with the aftermath to find the great, hulking marine helping to pull the bone spur still lodged in Ally's chest.

She approached the marine, who lunged once and brought out the intruding object from Ally's chest with a great sucking noise. A white fluid followed, and the Mechanicus Magos winced as her self-repair mechanisms began to seal the ruptures in her internal systems.

The Agent nodded to the Space Wolf, who nodded back politely.

Alera spoke first. "Your name, Sir-Marine?"

"Bjorn."

Still crumpled in a heap on the ground, Ally's eyes opened. There were few Space Marines with a lightning claw for a hand, and surely one also named Bjorn…

The Marine caught the tiny dilation in her real eye. "Aye, *that* Bjorn," he laughed, a gentle sound not quite fitting with his fearsome build. He turned to the Imperial Agent. "You tell your Emperor it's not cheating to use my claw against him in an arm wrestle, and he still owes me a tankard."

TBC