"Hffl nnl!" Nohi warned.
Mio wished for her tinnitus to be gone already, and then grabbed madly at a organ pipe when she saw Tsumugi brace herself. A moment later, the Crescendo veered right, ran up on the kerb, and then swung left into a U-turn so hard Mio lost her weak handhold, crashed into Mugi, and nearly went overboard. She felt the vehicle shuddering madly beneath her, and heard the dull squeal of stressed metal. Ritsu nearly fell over sideways, but somehow continued to whale on the drums, filling the air with bolter fire and spent casings.
The heretics manning the rubble-pile fortifications were ground to a paste as the Exorcist slid over them. Nohi revved the Crescendo's engine, and turned the U-turn into a full circle turaround, resuming the advance to the west. Tsumugi shoved Mio back on her feet. Mio took shaky aim at the third-storey windows of the warehouse four buildings down and squeezed the trigger. The heavy bolter snarled, spit two seconds' worth of shells at the warehouse, and then began clacking strangely. Mio glanced down, and saw she had just used up her ammunition belt.
God-Emperor damn it… Mio loosened the shoulder strap from the heavy bolter, slung it over her left shoulder, and drew her bolt pistol. "Ritsu!" she shouted, "heavy bolter is dry!"
To Mio's relief, she half-heard the response. "Fffay agaih?" Ritsu called over the drums and gunfire.
"My heavy bolter is out of ammo!"
"Ropher!" Ritsu said.
A chain of thunderclaps echoed from the left. Mio glanced in the direction of the noise, and saw the Avenger fighters swoop overhead, engines screaming, guns blazing with solid sheets of flame. Bombs rained from their bellies and erupted in geysers of tan smoke and crackling red fire in the heretic lines. Ritsu whooped, and ended Don't Say Lazy with an excessively cymbal-laden encore.
Yui point up at the top tier. "Ehennih vehill, ooh o ohk!"
Mio followed Yui's finger. Just over two hundred metres ahead, another wide street led down from the top tier into the construction fields. At the top of the hill, Mio caught a blur of motion surging down it. She focused on it, and after a moment picked out the turret and shape of a Chimera from the blob. The warbling, hooting, heretical music Mio had heard earlier was spewing from it. The idea of audaciously standing atop armoured vehicles seemed to be catching today; Mio saw a figure standing on the roof of the vehicle.
"Nohi," Ritsu called on the squad vox, "can yoh dehstroy daht vehicle?"
"Yef, ma'am!" Nohi replied.
Mio preemptively covered her ears. A few moments later, the Exorcist's main armament roared again, and three missiles arced high into the sky and then plunged down towards the Chimera two hundred metres distant, now at the one o' clock position relative to the Exorcist.
The Chimera slalomed back and forth wildly; Mio decided the driver had to be even more mad than Nohi. The Exorcist's missiles came down with blows that shook the earth, but the effects of the target moving and the rapid launch meant the Chimera narrowly escaped the missiles.
"Ritsu!" Mio called, "Orders!"
Ritsu's head twitched back and forth as she scanned the battlefield, drumming something cymbal-heavy and definitely heavy metal in origin. The Chimera skidded onto the lower tier and turned head-on towards the Exorcist. Mio saw the enemy vehicle more clearly now: gaudy purple-and-laser-green paint, sigils of Chaos painted on in jagged pink brushstrokes, banners of skin snapping in the wind, barbed vox-horns blaring heretical music, all trimmed with curling iron spikes. The turret mounted an autocannon, and just behind the turret, standing before what looked like a terrible accident between a truckload of plumbing parts and a few giant vox-amplifiers, was a man wearing the most ridiculous brass instrument Mio had seen. It had the head of a tuba, a plethora of valves like a saxophone, enough tubing for a section of horns, and strange capacitors crackling with fuchsia-coloured lightning. Additional tubes ran from the instrument and into the man, for some sinister and unknown purpose, and the man himself was barely visible. Mio saw the glint of metal, lots of metal, in his face, a fiendish grin, and little else. He and his Chimera were still a hundred eighty-five metres distant.
Mio saw Ritsu's fingers tighten on the drumsticks. "Mugi, Mio, Azusa, ready krak grenades!" she called. "Yui, ready the flamer! Nohi, target enemy vehicle on our twelve, ramming speed!"
"Yes, ma'am!" Nohi cheered.
Mio leaned down by Ritsu and shouted, "Plan?"
"Ram 'em, flame 'em, take 'em!" Ritsu replied. "Take the initiative, Mio! I trust you!"
Feeling somewhat reassured and mostly anxious, Mio unhooked a krak greande from her belt. Nohi whooped a battle cry as the Exorcist accelerated; the squad crouched down as low as they could. Las-bolts and bolter shells chipped desperately at the Exorcist as it sped towards the Chimera on a collision course. Mio jumped as a las-bolt spattered off her pauldron, but considered herself better off than the left splash cymbal, which was all but obliterated by a stray solid round.
Ritsu hammered the drum kit again, with another encore for Fluffy Time's finale, even faster and heavier than before. The bolters sang, and the oncoming Chimera sparked with shell impacts, some of the profane banners and more fragile decor shredded by the fire. The heretic with the horn blew a response from his instrument; a harsh, atonal shriekof noise shot from the gaping tuba mouth, visible as a cone of grey-lavender distortion, shot through with crackling pink sparks. Mio's stomach lurched at the sight of Warp-magic. Even though the blast dispersed moments later, Mio still heard the unnatural noise echoing over the battlefield, and caught a whiff of ozone on the ragged breeze.
Ritsu threw herself into the performance, limbs flying and hair swirling in a display of headbanging that would have dear old Sawako's full approval. Mio fired her bolt pistol at the Chimera, more to blot out the heretic's unnatural noise than for any other purpose. The heretic with the horn responded in kind, sending forth discordant, outrageously loud blasts of sound and energy from his cursed instrument.
The distance between the two vehicles closed rapidly. Incoming fire petered out, the other heretics probably fearful of hitting their own vehicle. Mio thought of expending her bolt pistol's magazine, saw the Chimera pass the forty-metre mark, and decided she had too little time. She saw more figures suddenly climbing onto the roof of the Chimera, possibly from the rear hatch of the vehicle.
"Ritsu!" she shouted.
"For the Emperor, the Order, and cake after Mass!" Ritsu bellowed. "HOLD ON!"
That was it, there was nothing for it. Mio howled in unison with Yui, Azusa, and Tsumugi, wrapped one arm around Mugi's backpack, and hooked the other into the back of the command throne. The new heretics on top of the Chimera opened fire with autoguns, and the head heretic blew a piercing note on his horn. A spear of crackling pink energy lanced from the horn's mouth, bridged the last ten metres, and hit the Exorcist square on with a crack of rending metal.
WHAM
The Exorcist and Chimera, two vehicles each weighing over forty tonnes, crashed against each other and stopped dead. Mio and the other Sisters lurched, nearly thrown from their handholds. Mio heard metal shriek and groan, heard the prolonged rattle of objects inside the Exorcist rolling around. Yui's flamer rasped, throwing a tongue of orange-yellow fire out. Mio, Mugi, and Azusa hurled their krak grenades, and the heretic with the horn blew a massive bass note from his instrument. A cone of distortion-energy swept the roof of the Exorcist, blew the flamer's gout of fire off to the left, deflected a krak grenade over to the right, and sent Mio's grenade hurtling back towards her.
Mio instantly raised an arm and slapped the grenade away to the right, and pulled Tsumugi down. The grenade went off a moment later with a report that deafened Mio in her right ear. Her left ear wasn't much better, having to filter in the raucous joy of Ritsu's speed-drumming and the awful parping of the heretic leader's horn. Warp-energy tore at Ritsu's drum kit, and bolter shells skidded through the air around the heretic leader, only a few breaking through his sorcerous ward to punch holes in his horn. Mio saw one of the leader's minions make a mad dash across the Chimera's roof for the Crescendo, and was justly executed by Ritsu's sheeting bolter-fire. The others huddled behind the massive vox-amplifiers and plinked away with their autoguns.
Barely audible over the cacophony of battle, Ritsu shouted, "Sisters! Flank them!"
"Yui, Azusa, take the left!" Mio called, drew her combat knife in her left hand, and leaped off the right side of the Exorcist. Tsumugi followed, and they ran alongside the Chimera. The leader was turning to his right, away from Mio; his soldiers behind the vox-amplifiers turned their fire on Mio. Autogun slugs rattled against Mio's armour; she clenched her jaw, raised her left arm to protect her face, and popped off return fire with the bolt pistol.
"Frag out!" Mugi shouted. A grenade dropped among the heretics, and they scrambled in all directions, two falling off the Chimera in their haste. Mio crouched against the Chimera and emptied her bolt pistol's magazine into the two unlucky heretics. The grenade went off, cutting short a scream of terror with a wet tearing noise. Mio put several rounds into each of the two heretics just before her, shot them each in the head for good measure, and reloaded her pistol.
Mio glanced at Tsumugi, who had stowed her bolter and drawn her own bolt pistol and combat knife. "Ready?"
Mugi grinned. "Your call."
"Over the top! For the Emperor!" Mio shouted, scrambling up the Chimera's flank. She crested the roof of the vehicle, and a blurry boot smashed into her face. Spluttering with fury and pain, Mio tried and failed to regain her perch, and toppled backwards off the Chimera. She landed on the battered cobbles of the boulevard with a thud, head swimming, a nauseatingly greasy feeling permeating her mind.
As Mio picked herself and her weapons up, she saw Tsumugi make it up, and barely dodge the same boot. It was the heretic leader, managing to blow his horn at the Exorcist while he kicked at Tsumugi. Mugi hauled herself onto the Chimera's roof, using her right elbow as leverage, and slashed at the leader with her knife, drawing blood from his calf. Mio staggered upright, raised her bolt pistol, unloaded the whole magazine at the heretic leader.
To her surprise and terror, Mio's bolter shells seemed to curve around the heretic leader's figure. Only a few shells hit home, and those took chunks out of his instrument. The twisted horn wrapped all around him in a vinelike tangle of pips, trickling pink Warp energy from various orifices and holes. Mugi grabbed the leader's boot and tried to pull him down; he cackled and blew a long, wailing note on the horn, arching his back. Pink lightning flashed around him, snapped around Tsumugi, and hurled her off the Chimera.
Mio's pistol clacked empty, just as Tsumugi crashed to the ground. For a moment, Mio feared the worst; but then Mugi scrambled back to her feet, and Mio charged the Chimera again. "Yui, Azusa, kill him, kill the leader!" Mio shouted into the squad vox.
"We're pinned down, right by the Chimera! The other side!" Azusa replied.
"Azusa, smoke incoming!" Mio said. She pulled a smoke grenade from her belt, armed it, and threw it over the Chimera. The heretic leader mistook it for a frag grenade and ducked, dropping to one knee. Mio jumped onto the Chimera's flank, scrambled up it, and this time made it on top. She raised her bolt pistol, already firing, and yelped with pain as the heretic leader swung his ungainly horn and knocked the weapon out of her hand.
Mio lunged at the heretic and grabbed him by the shoulders, pulling him close. He snarled at her, grabbed at her neck with his right hand, and blew a long note on the horn. Warp-energy screamed from the tuba-mouth just above and to the right of Mio's head. The electric funk of ozone filled the air, as did the sickly-sweet scent of pure Chaos. Mio screamed back, shoved his hand away, and jammed her knife into him, puncturing flesh and metal.
"Weak!" the heretic crowed. "You had promise, so much promise when the machines collided! The possibility of noise beyond imagining was there!"
Mio snarled and slugged him in the jaw. She heard teeth break, heard bone crack, but the heretic laughed madly and twisted his hips, smashing Mio on the head with the horn's mouth. Mio staggered, saw the heretic's leather-clad knee come up to meet her face, and then blood and flashes of pain filled her vision. She clawed at him, hung on, found a gap in the horn's winding pipes with her knife and shoved it in.
"Mio!" Tsumugi shouted. Mio heard a bolt pistol bark, and then another ululating wail of the horn. It sounded too loud, too lonely, too uncontested. Something was wrong, something had changed.
Mio realized what had happened amid a flash of agony as the heretic leader yanked a chunk of hair from her head. Ritsu's drumming had stopped.
The next thing Mio knew, she had been thrown to the roof of the Chimera, and crashed against its turret. She raised her arm, scrambled upright. She'd lost her knife; it was still in the heretic. Through a stream of hot blood running down her face, and white smoke drifting over the Chimera, she saw Tsumugi struggling with the heretic leader, who was still ranting on and on.
"Colourless! Dull! Devoid of breath!" he howled, fending off Mugi's knife with an right arm that was quickly becoming less of an arm and more of a collection of shredded flesh and leather. He seemed to be enjoying it, judging from the horrible rictus grin deforming his already over-pierced face. "And yet, there is promise! There is raw talent in your skillless limbs! You can yet be the vessel for the fantastic, incredible disharmonies of the Dark Prince himself!"
Mugi slammed a fist into the heretic's gut. It was blunted by the pipes, however, and the heretic headbutted Mugi, wormed one leg around hers, and threw her off balance. Mugi crashed to the roof of the Chimera. The heretic, choking on laughter and his own blood, pull Mio's knife from his side, and made to bury it in Mugi's eye.
A cymbal whirled past Mio from the right and hit the heretic's wrist. It drove his blow down, and the knife skittered off Tsumugi's gorget. Ritsu dashed past Mio, kicked the heretic in the head, and dragged Mugi out of his immediate reach. "Yui, now!" she shouted.
Mio glanced left, just in time to see Yui aim her flamer and let loose. A jet of purifying fire washed over the heretic leader, and this time Warp magic could not save him. He screamed, really screamed, as the fire took hold in the ragged flesh of his right arm, in his deformed head, on his precious instrument, and writhed as the burning promethium ate away his unholy form.
"Encore!" Ritsu ordered. Yui hosed the heretic once more, and he became a living mannequin of fire, dancing and writhing macabrely, screaming in either agony or disturbing ecstasy. The fire leaped to the vox-amplifiers and began eating into them eagerly. The heretic stumbled in Ritsu's direction, and she stepped forward and caught him by the throat with one hand.
"By the power vested in me by the God-Emperor of Mankind," Ritsu declared, "I execute you for crimes of heresy against the Imperial Faith, for treason against Imperial rule, for wanton murder and destruction of an Imperial world and its civilians, and for an infinity of offences committed against the perfectly decent music of the Imperium!" And with that, she drove a drumstick deep into the heretic leader's eyeball.
The winding shriek that tore from the heretic's throat put all his other exclamations to shame. He grasped at Ritsu, and was punched aside by several well-aimed bolter shells from Azusa. The horn squealed and whined, sending arcs of pink lightning snapping into the air. The vox-amplifiers blew out in a blare of white noise as the lightning tore into them. Ritsu backed up, flinching as one bolt of lightning caught her, scarring her armour and frizzing her hair out. The squealing of the horn reached a fever pitch, and it burst open in a flash of unholy light.
Mio saw horn and heretic stretch straight up, the heretic's scream echoing into an infinity of agony. Then there was a thunderclap of displaced air, and a pile of smoldering bones clattered to the roof of the Chimera.
Tsumugi stood up, rubbing her head with one hand, her other held out warily. "Is…is he dead?" she asked.
Ritsu straightened her back with pride. "He's purged, good and proper," she said. She prodded the bones with her boot, and made a pouty face. "Took the drumstick with him, though."
Azusa grabbed Ritsu and pulled her down as a volley of las-bolts pattered over the Chimera. The other Sisters crouched and took cover behind anything available.
Azusa said, "Ma'am, I suggest we take cover behind the Chimera!"
"Great idea! Follow me!" Ritsu rolled unceremoniously off the Chimera's south-facing side, and the squad scrambled after her.
Mio helped Ritsu up, and then took stock of her own self. She's lost the bolt pistol and knife, and realized she'd lost the valuable heavy bolter as well. Mio was on the verge of panicking when Tsumugi joined her and pointed to the heavy bolter, broken strap and all, lying by the Crescendo. She rushed to it and made sure it was in one piece, and then joined Azusa, Tsumugi, and Yui in maintaining a watch for hostiles.
"Nohi," Ritsu called over the squad vox, "Nohi, do you read?"
A groan of pain came over the vox. "I copy. Driver is dead. My assistant driver and I are both wounded but operational. Orders?"
"Reverse left into cover," Ritsu said. Mio stepped aside as the battle-scarred Excorcist growled and began to move. She scanned the heretic lines, and saw there were a great many more smoking craters in them than before. A shout from Yui pulled her gaze away from the enemy: "Movement in the buildings, south, twenty metres!"
Mio grabbed a piece of rebar and hefted it as a club. The other Sisters huddled beside the Exorcist as Ritsu shouted at Nohi to pull behind the Chimera wreck. Mio watched the half-collapsed warehouses before them. There, coming through the alleyway, several figures, armoured…familiar…
Mio called, "Delta Sigil Primaris! Delta Sigil Primaris!"
The figures halted. Mio saw blue armour, gold trim…it had to be more Sisters from the advance. But she used the code phrase, just in case. The Archenemy was infinitely devious, after all.
A powerful female voice bearing the tone of someone over a century old and used to being obeyed barked back, "Primaris Vox Alpha! Identify yourself!"
Ritsu stepped up by Mio. "Squad Tainaka, Fourth Bombardment Company. What can I do for you, ma'am?"
Canoness Patricia and her Celestians strode out of the mess of corrugated metal and shattered rockcrete slabs. Ritsu, Mio, and the rest of the squad dropped to one knee each, Mio planting the piece of rebar down like a chainsword.
"Rise," Patricia ordered. She glanced around the scene twice, taking in the battered Sisters, the smoking heretic defenses, the Exorcist lumbering indecisively behind the Chimera wreck. "Glorious Crescendo," Patricia said, "this is Canoness Patricia, do you read?"
Ritsu coughed deferentially. "Crescendo lost her main vox. We're using channel eight on the squad vox."
Patricia made the adjustment to her vox, said, "Crescendo, turn ninety degrees and reverse up to the pile of rockcrete behind you, and stand by."
Nohi voxxed an affirmative, and the Exorcist maneuvered into the ruins. Patricia and Squad Tainaka moved behind the Chimera wreck. Mio saw Patricia glancing between the heretic vehicle and the Exorcist and its drum kit.
"Sister Ritsu," Patricia said, "there is a drum kit attached to the Crescendo's command throne."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Explain why there is a drum kit attached to the Crescendo's command throne, Sister Ritsu."
Mio felt sweat roll down her neck. Ritsu somehow kept a cheery, if strained, smile on her face and said, "It's a field modification added to disrupt the heretics' defence with the holy music of the Emperor."
Mio snuck a glance at Patricia. The brown-haired woman's expression was stern and unreadable. She said, "Explain, Sister Ritsu, why the Crescendo is here and not with the Fourth Bombardment."
"We got lost, ma'am. Our vox was knocked out during an enemy ambush. Recon revealed we were due east of the heretic lines, and I ordered a charge into their lines to disrupt their defence."
Patricia took a look at the Chimera, and at a Celestian carefully bringing a blackened skull down from it. "Explain, Sister Ritsu, how the heretic commander Bairnskein is dead, and his command vehicle destroyed."
Ritsu blinked. "That was Bairnskein, ma'am? I…I thought he was an enemy commander, but I didn't guess…" She collected herself. "He came roaring down the hill looking for a fight. We rammed him, boarded the vehicle, and Sister Yui dealt him the killing blow with holy fire, ma'am."
Yui piped up, "Sister Superior Ritsu stabbed him in the eye with a drumstick, ma'am!"
Patricia glared at Yui. "Thank you for the additional information, Sister Yui."
"It was totally metal, ma'am!" Yui added. Azusa elbowed her, and Yui shut up.
Patricia glanced at the drum kit, glanced at Ritsu, and then glanced at the remaining enemy defences. "Squad Tainaka," she said, "overwatch our left flank, stand by for orders." She got out a dataslate and began coordinating the advance. Mio glanced around, and could not keep a stupid smile of joy and relief from splitting her face when she saw Avenging Choir Rhinos advancing up the lower tier, backed up by Battle-Sisters and loyal PDF.