Abandon All Hope, Embrace All Chaos Chapter 7: Way Come The Counterattack, a X-overs + Warhammer Crossover fanfic

Opening File: Minor Chaos Gods

Though the Changer of Ways, the Blood God, the Plague Father, and the Prince of Pleasure are most powerful of all Warp Entities. True, they are the most powerful of the Chaos Gods but they are far from being the only.

Stromfels: Also known as the Shark God, The Wrecker of Ships, or The God of Maelstroms, Stromfels is the Chaos God of the Ocean and all its hazards. The Shark God is often accompanied by massive amounts of water that either destroy or flood anything that is in his path. Stromfels' lesser daemons are the Pit Dwellers and his greater daemons are the Feasters From The Abyss. While there is no known Daemon Princes or Chaos Champions of the Shark God, it is known that it has a horde of mutated and zealous followers known as the Stormalongs.

Hashut: Also known as the Father of Darkness, Hashut is the Chaos God of Fire, Greed, and Tyranny. A grim and malignant being, the Father of Darkness is often represented as a great blazing bull wreathed in smoke and shadow whom is none the less a master blacksmith and crafter, of whom Perturabo considers his Patron god. His lesser daemons are the Bale Taurus and his greater daemons are the K'Daai Zharr. His domain is the City of Fire and Desolation, a massive forge that is said to be the size of a solar system where the Father of Darkness and his greatest blacksmiths construct the greatest weapon of all time.

Necoho: Also known as the Doubter, Necoho is the Chaos God of Atheism, Unbelief, and Doubt. Not much is known about Necoho except that he has been sealed in a Daemon Weapon known as the Spear of the Nonbeliever due to the other Gods believing that he poses a threat to them and the Great Game.

Imago: Also, known as the Enlightener, Imago is the Chaos God of Faith, Devotion, and Fervor. It is the patron god of Lorgar and its most notable Daemon Prince, the Candyman. It's lesser daemons are the Imagine, sapient swarms of bleeding glass and wooden cicadas and its greater daemons are the Martyrs of Belief, massive cicada-like daemons that can manifest mockeries of the Emperor or the Living Saints.

The One Who Knows Silence in the Earth: Also known as TOWKSITE, The One Who Knows Silence In the Earth is the Chaos God of Silence, Peace, and Tranquility. Its presence is remarkable as it is the only Chaos God not to take part in the Great Game. So far, the only known daemons that it unleashes are the Heartless; people whom had died in its realm and remade into its eternal servants. Worshippers of TOWKSITE that find themselves in her garden, have their voices constricted via crowns tight around their necks, and while stirring in their inkwells with bolts, they concoction elixirs that possess myriads of affects.

The Hanged King: Also known as the One Bound in Madness, the Hanged King is the Chaos God of Fear, Paranoia, Delusion, and Madness. He resides in the center of the City of Alagadda, a planet spanning city of 18th century Venice design in an endless Carnival of decadence and insanity. Wandering the city are the Cackling Carnivalesque, a possession of maddened wretches and sycophants that snatch victims from the material multiverse and slowly whittled their minds until they are crazed members of the member of the decadent Carnival. No known lesser or greater daemon have been reported so far, but given what their god represents, this chronicler dreads whatever hideous form they take.

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Opening File: Azula

The only daughter of Fire Lord Ozai and Princess Ursa, Azula was crown princess of the Fire Nation. Enjoying the life of riches, splendor, and privilege that royalty provided, Azula grew into a prodigy of the psychic art of Firebending, becoming her father's favorite child. During her childhood, Azula began exhibiting sociopathic traits as she often threw rocks at the turtleducks in nearby ponds and also tormenting her older brother psychologically.

During the 100-year war, Azula became one of Ozai's generals at the age of 14, tasked along with her 'friends' to hunt down the Avatar, a powerful reincarnating psyker that was capable of manipulating the elements, and his allies. However, Ozai was overthrown by the coming of Sozin's comet. This, along with the abandonment of the two people she could call her friend, lead Azula in a downward spiral that saw her interned into a mental hospital for 5 years.

However, when she was 19 years old, Azula escaped the asylum and stole a boat. Azula was never found by the authorities, but the truth was that she had managed to travel to a desolate place that led to a Warp Rift. The former princess was seduced by sweetened promises of everything she ever wanted by Slaanesh and, unable to resist such an offer, accepted.

Quickly succumbing to the decadence and depravity of The Dark Prince, Azula formed her own warband, known as the Unhallowed Hearts, and craved her way to becoming a Chaos Champion of Slaanesh, her power even swaying several of the Emperor's Children to her warband. For her obsession with perfection and power, Azula was given the moniker of 'Mistress of Perfection.'

The act that granted her Daemonhood was when her influence caused the Hive World of Damania to fall to Chaos by corrupting both the Highborn and the lower class into worldwide acts of depravity. Ever since, the Mistress of Perfection has been on her Daemon World of La'Magra or various luxurious places throughout the multiverse, indulging whatever vice pleased her tastes.

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Opening File: 'The King in Blood and Ash''

Alan Yates was born in 1970 in the town of Owego, New York. From what could be gathered, Yates was diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder at age 13 after killing his neighbor's cat and that he obtained his bachelor's degree from Colombia university and NYU Film school, with a degree in filmography.

What is most highly known was that Alan soon discovered his purpose in life - to shoot documentary films. With the documentary form, Alan felt he could show the truth without the manipulation found in commercial cinema. This caused him to be renowned for his documentaries such as "The Last Road to Hell" (1998, grand jury prize, best documentary New York City Critics Association Film Festival), "Slaves of South Africa" (1996, Academy of Arts nomination, best documentary, best editing), "Vietnam: Horror in the Rice Patties" (1993), "The Vermin of Capitalism" (graduate thesis film, NYU, 1992, Awarded film completion grant).

Alan soon succumbed to the same evils that he opposed as an avid film student. His award-winning documentaries which were shocking and horrific in nature, were later rumored to have been fakes. Due to this, Alan was accused of creating docufakes - setting up situations, paying actors to pretend to be real people, etc. Alan denied all charges and due to lack of evidence, the charges were dropped.

However, everything went downwards for Yates in 2005 when he was documenting his 'magnus opus'; "The Green Inferno." The documentary was meant to record the savage indigenous people of the amazon, as Yates and his girlfriend, Faye Daniels, had hired another crew to explore the Amazon jungle and river. However, during filming, Yates and his film crew were attacked by the indigenous people, with Faye and the crew being killed by the tribe with Yates barely managing to escape by setting the forest ablaze.

Initially, Yates took advantage of the story to increase his notoriety. However, when a professor at New York University, Harold Monroe, reviewed the unedited version of Yate's film, he came across a horrifying revelation; Yates had in fact raped, tortured, and killed dozens of the indigenous people along with his film crew which had provoked the cannibalistic tribe to attacking them. Public outcry immediately followed, calling for Yate's death with Alan himself going into hiding under a long string of aliases.

5 years later, Yates was caught after an attempt to steal a car and was sentenced to death for his crimes but only spend 13 years in prison before the opening of the Maw ravaged the planet, allowing Yates to escape to Asia. Yates soon became a War-chief for a bandit tribe known as the Green Infernos, known across the land for their immense brutality and hedonism, leading Yates to be given the moniker, 'The King in Blood and Ash.'

After finding and reading a scroll of Warp Sorcery, Yates lost whatever was left of his sanity and beyond as one of the abilities he gained upon reading the old scroll was speaking to the dead. Unable to tune out the voices of the deceased, Yates soon became an exceptional practitioner of Warp Sorcery (specifically the art of Flesh-Shaping) after finding companionship with the spirit of the Necromancer Lord of Barbarus, the adopted father of Mortarion.

Through Yate's talent with Warp Sorcery, Yate's tribe soon became an empire, spanning 12 states in the West Coast, all of whom lived in fear of the King and his power. There, Yates would charm his followers by performing 'miracles.'

The empire soon made contact with a mysterious Daemon (Prince?) of Chaos Undivided, known as the Devourer in Slattern Nights or the 'Half-Man', whom the King made a pact with via a special amulet he had crafted with the help of the Lord of Barbarus. Ever since, so long as the King maintains their pact, Salacia will provide the former with unimaginable sorcerous power.

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So many lives built on my father's deceits and manipulations. So was mine. I was born in this world, training not only for my friends, but for my family and my brother. I have lived through the second, third, and fourth Wars for Armageddon, seeing the blood and hatred of so many. I saw my family, my friends, and my fellow soldier fall to the Imperium's cruelty. I have seen entire worlds burn in the flames conjured by my father. This world...it's so cruel. I've died twice because of it. Can someone tell me why is this world so fucked up?

...Can someone tell me...why am I so fucked up?

I remember when I was a naïve child, playing with my older sister, dreaming of being a soldier. I remember the day I was caught in that trap, pain, loss of feeling, lost of self. I should have died...but I didn't. I remember meeting him, the Primogenitor, he taught me the horrors of humanity, and the truth about myself. I should hate whoever set that damn trap, but I don't. Justice is about more than revenge. I swore I would see my sister again and show her what we truly are. Now I have. Now I finally feel whole again.

...But those days of foolish naiveté...I wish I could have had more of them...

"I am." That was my first thought. My true name would drive even the strongest mad. Humanity gave me the name, "Tzeentch." It grew on me, so I kept it. But to say I am superior to them, is like saying they are mammals. I have existed longer than they could ever fathom, I know of a hundred millennia of knowledge that would drive them into utter madness. I see many of sights that they will never grasp. They are not worthy of the grasp that they desperately seek to gain. They're such gluttons for punishment, it's so amusing that they are. In my eyes, they are of little consequence.

...Though...I do wonder why they persist...it's so irritating...

Malice, the God of Destruction. Destruction burns away forest, levels landscapes, collapses buildings, and ruins oneself. Yet destruction is a necessity, a part of the cycle of life, through destruction comes the will to be stronger, to build against the disasters yet to come. Everything relies on a continuing cycle of destruction and reconstruction. Even to the most pathetic of individuals rely on this cycle, one must have moments of regret, self-loathing, and self-destruction to gain resistance against those moments. Destruction is a cruel yet very effective teacher.

Stromfels, the God of the Ocean. The ocean is such a virulent yet wonderous thing. In the upper parts filled with light, there by the most wonderous of sights, coral of such vibrancy, strange yet mostly handleably creatures, an underwater desert spanning beyond sights. In the lower parts filled with dark, there are creatures vibrant like the stars in the night. The ocean is source of food and travel, to embrace the ocean, is to embrace the excitement that comes with it.

Hashut, the God of Blacksmithing. Innovation is a peculiar concept. It can build yet it can take, it can birth hope, yet it can birth greed, it can ease the weights of lives or can amplify them. Innovation was birthed after the apes that would become man learned to use sticks and stones to puncture flesh and break bones, to men who heated and hammered metal into blades and armor.

Necoho, the Unbeliever. What is Atheism but another word for belief? What is a Nonbeliever but another word for Doubter? Unbelief and Doubt are needed when presented that defies the lines of belief and acceptance, when the mainline of our views is challenged. For what is belief when no one questions the savior? And what is assurance when no one doubts a miracle?

Buttercup, or perhaps Serena*, leaned against the seat in the Javelin after another day of fighting and purging Chaos corrupted individuals and cults around the planet. The coming of the Wave was only 2 months away, which meant that more and more cults were forming all over the planet, which meant that they were spending day and night purging them down to the last member.

The Justice League were dealing with whatever aliens or out of control metahumans were running loose while they dealt with anything Chaos related. Warren was busy with his investigations into Sharpwood, while their other 'specialists' were on their own cases as well. Meaning that while not always out purging cults, the Emperor and the Acolytes were really freaking busy.

The Emperor was almost done with his array of Blackstone Siphons with the last 6 under-construction but worries came when he got notice that the last one would be complete past the time that the Wave would come to Earth. As such, he's been trying to bring more Blackstone from his home dimension, which was complicated by the fact that the stuff cancels out Warp energy.

With that, most of the Emperor's time has been occupied with finishing his project, so Batman was in charge of purging those infested by Chaos. Despite his code of not-killing, Daemonhosts and Possessed were not alive in that sense, so he could use lethal force against them without violating his code. As for the people corrupted by the Gods, the Acolytes would take care of that as they were raised to kill the unclean.

Aside from that, on her very rare off times, Serena felt harder and harder to identify with her former identity as Buttercup due to how much has changed and how much she has changed. Just a few months ago, she was 12 years old, beating up bad guys and saving the city from evil. Now, she was artificially aged to adulthood and killing cults to stop the spread of Chaos.

It's not like she regretted it, but Serena still couldn't help but to reminisce on the old days.

Serena was snapped out of her thoughts when the sounds of the Javelin setting down on the Watchtower. Letting out a sigh, she and her fellow Acolytes exited the vehicle and walked out into the Watchtower docking bay, their faces perfectly still under their helmets as they trudged to their room for some much-needed respite. Some of the workers of the Watchtower asked what was up but she just blew them off as she was too tired to care.

The moment the automatic doors closed behind Serena, she removed her armor and changed into some nightwear, a black tanktop and warm up pants, before collapsing on her bed, passing out almost instantly. 6 days and nights of destroying a Nurglite cult in Mexico, a Slaaneshi cult in Egypt, a Khornate cult in El Salvador, a Tzeentchian cult in Silicon Valley, another Khornate cult in Brazil, and another Slaaneshi cult in Japan.

And that was not taking into account that each of them had to choose which one to purge and do it on their own. And each of them had to go about it in different ways.

Elitras had to burn the Nurglites from afar to prevent himself from getting infected by the Destroyer Plague, Nero had to wear a blindfold to prevent himself from being seduced by the Slaaneshi's beauty, Alistair claims that the Khornates he fought could regenerate entire limbs so he had to reduce them to pulp to beat them, Cyrene had an extra hard time fighting the Tzeetchians because they had the ability to warp themselves around their location, Belicara had to lure her opponents into a trap involving liquid nitrogen because they developed shells that she couldn't penetrate, and Serena had to immolate the entire building that the cult was in to ash so she wouldn't be seduced by them.

Suffice to say, after six days of this with no sleep has resulted in them being utterly exhausted, even though they had been through worse in their time in the Imperium.

Despite that, they have finally been allowed some respite now that the most powerful Chaos cults have been dealt with and that their specialists and their 'militia' were dealing with the minor ones. There was something powerful about having to sleep for almost a full day after getting back to their rooms, but suddenly, certain thoughts appeared in her head.

Thoughts about Sensei Jack.

Serena's eyes fluttered open, staring up at the grey ceiling of her room and the metal of the Watchtower. The Sister of Sanguine rubbed her green eyes as she yawned and stretched her arm before picking up the iPhone the Big E gave her and the others on the nightstand built into the metal bedframe, only to for her eyes to bulge when she saw the time and date.

9:00PM

Sat, January 15th, 2023

She was asleep for 2 months?!

Rubbing her eyes and looking back to confirm that she wasn't hallucinating, Serena got out of bed and turned on the TV that was in her room. The image that came on was one that nearly caused her to drop the remote in her hand.

It showed a disheveled anchorman, his blue suit in tatters while his face has several cuts on his face. There was a bloody headband around his head, a shotgun laying on the desk in front of him with several spent shells laying around, and the background screen of the broadcast was in ruins with sparks and wires showing from the tears. The anchorman had a hard look with his hands folded and having poor posture, his eyes both bloodshot but functional, and his hair now disheveled and splayed out.

"To anybody watching, my name is Kent Brockman. Former Channel 6 news star." The anchorman spoke, his tone stoic and mechanical before letting out an incredibly tired sigh, putting his head in his hands that were still folded for a second, "It has been... 2 weeks since the apocalypse. Society has mostly collapsed with very few vestiges left around the world. The Justice League and the Global Defense Force has been wiped out and currently the aftermath of the 3 Day War has left those of us who survived without security... and without hope..."

Kent inhaled deeply before leaning back in his chair and looking up at the ceiling before continuing, "Those left have been trying their best to protect us from those... things that have been terrorizing us ever since. But with all that has occurred, many of us have lost hope and have fallen to the Thirsting Gods to escape their pain and misery." Then his tone turned determined and resolute, "But I am not one of them. I found something that can give us hope."

The anchorman unfolds his hands, reaching down from under his desk before he brought up a katana in a black sheath. Serena let out a loud gasp as she dropped the remote in shock, recognizing that katana.

"Sensei's katana." She breathed, as she put her hands to her mouth. What happened to him? More importantly, what happened to the world?

"This katana is that hope." Kent continued, refolding his hands, "I know it doesn't look like much, but it is. This katana is able to destroy... whatever the hell those things that came through the rift are. I've been using it to defend by self against the... things, but I'm not making this broadcast to boast. I just want anyone that's watching this to know that... there is still hope. With this katana, there is still hope that we can make it!" The anchorman then unfolds him hands, "I don't know how many people watches this, but I don't care. My only regret is that I didn't do this sooner. But to whoever is watching... Don't give up hope."

That was when the broadcast went silent and only static remained. Serena stared at the television for a long moment until she changed into her armor and walked out of her room. But the moment the doors to her room, another gasp ripped from her throat.

(Fallout 1 OST: Desert Wind)

Swaths of the halls of the Watchtower were stained with gallons of blood, hundreds of bodies of the Watchtower staff riddled the floor and walls mutilated past the point beyond recognition, tears in walls exposed still sparking wires and cables, and little to no working lights while the far end of the hall was engulfed in darkness. A horrid fetid smell rose to her nose while a gelid feeling came slathering down her spine and the sounds of stertorous breathing piped through her ears.

Serena swallowed a breath of gelid air, her bolter forming liquescently from her armor into her hand out of unconscious fear as she began walking down the dark halls. But her trek down the bloodstained hall led her to the promenade, where more troubling sights came.

At the teleportation deck was Shayera Hol, kneeling down to nobody with her head down, with a whimpering sound issuing from her lips. Her wings had grown to where they reached the edges of the deck even when wrapped around her with the feathers gleaming as if composed of ferrous ore, massive cables were imbedded in her back, her ginger hair had grown to reach her knees, and her skin was pale with blackened veins. She was naked but her wings covered her torso and her hair covering her face, the cables seemed to shift with every movement, and then words came from her lips.

"I shouldn't have doubted... I shouldn't have doubted..." Shayera incessantly whimpered out, her voice wreathed with trauma and self-loathing, shattered in both body and mind, "Why did I doubt the Emperor? We shouldn't have doubted the Emperor..."

Serena would have been smug if she didn't know what was happening to the former superhero. The Sister of Sanguine simply stroked Shayera's hair in comfort while uttering a prayer for salvation, before giving her the Emperor's Peace.

A gunshot rang through the Watchtower, along with the clinking sound of a spent casing falling to the floor, and the sound of a body falling dead.

The smoke from her bolter rose upwards into the gelid air before Serena extinguished it with a breath before looking down on the corpse of one of her old heroes. A look of pity formed on her face as she brushed some of Shayera's hair to expose her face. The expression was one of fear and sweet relief as Serena used her left pointer and middle finger to close her eye lids.

"May you find peace in the Emperor's light." Serena prayed to the lost Thanagarian before her bolter was reabsorbed into her, and she started walking off to the Control Deck, hoping to find answers for what in the Emperor's name happened in this version of the Watchtower.

The journey to the Control Deck was much more tremulous though; as when she got to the elevator, where she found numerous messages written in blood around the walls and floors that had little or no bodies or blood, drawn messily as if in rush to inscribe and then escape whatever was coming for them.

THE END IS HERE

DON'T FIGHT THEM JUST RUN

THE EMPEROR WARNED US

Serena was unfazed by the warnings as she knows how to deal with the Neverborn, but she was still unsure as to the extent they were infesting the Watchtower, if they were here at all. Something obviously was in the station, however. Something from the Warp, but she could not pin down what it was though. The shadows, ever present with the infernal magenta light shining from the rift unseen, seemed to be closing around her, like a stealthy predator taking in its helpless prey.

But when she got into the elevator and set it go to the Control Deck though, a feeling of dread and unease crawled up her spine, like she was alone in the elevator with a rapist. But even when she looked around and confirmed that she was indeed alone, the feeling didn't go away. It got worse as the elevator ascended the shaft, like the arms of the presence wrapped around her in a twisted form of comfort.

The elevator was still ascending, Serena's frame relaxed against this thing's grasp as it felt like a warm bath was washing over her. It leaned its head against her head and shoulders, taking in her scent for it own pleasure, purring at her vulnerability. Serena desperately tried to move and destroy whatever that was in the elevator with her, but her body refused to respond. A breath of pleasure escaped her mouth as her senses were filled with these dark pleasures, her mind screamed out to resist, the world seemed to fade to black. A soft and sultry voice whispered to her ear, sensuous as chocolate, "Sweet, sweet baby."

Suddenly, there was a ping and the elevator doors opened. Serena suddenly found herself in control of her body again, the feeling and presence was gone. She turned to the elevator, seeing that it was vacant as ever with not but a dust speck out of place. The green Transhuman just looked around and scrambled out of the elevator as if it was filled with poisonous gas. She stared at it for a few long moments in fear of something immerging.

"What the fuck?" Serena whispered out before shaking it off, must have just been a ghost of somebody that had fallen to Slaanesh or something.

The Sister of Sanguine entered the Control Deck only to be met with a pleasant surprise. The Control Deck was in a rather pristine condition, there were a scant few bodies lying around and some of the controls were rendered non-functional with wires sticking out, but other than that it was void of any signs of the Neverborn. A spark came before the various holographic screen came to life and the screens on the panel came a lit while the familiar whirling of machinery running rang out.

Though a little put off by the semi-pristine condition, Serena walked towards the deck in the hopes to find some answers as to what happened only for the bold words in red to appear on one of the holographic screens: TELEPORTATION DECK OFFLINE

"Oh, great." Serena groaned as she began typing commands into the intact keyboard, hoping to at least figure out what was wrong with the Watchtower, "No way to get down to the Earth. No way to see what happened to the rest of the world. And no way to pull anyone out that needs help. Just great." She decided to not think about it though as she brought up the status of the Watchtower.

LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS: ONLINE

ELECTRICAL SYSTEMS: OFFLINE

FIRE CONTROL SYSTEMS: OFFLINE

BLOWOUT CONTROL SYSTEMS: OFFLINE

REACTOR STATUS: CRITICAL

BINARY FUSION GENERATOR STATUS: CRITIAL

WARP CONTAMINATION: 75%

"Shit." Was all Serena could say as she stared at the holographic screen in shock.

"At..." A cracked voice came out, causing her to turn and see one of the dead crew members was still alive, though he was in irreparably bad condition. Slashes with long clotted blood stained his face, tuffs of hair sat at the edges of the wounds, his eyes were clawed out, the lips and cheeks were torn away, and his limbs were bent and twisted in nauseating ways. The worker seemed to be breathing his last as he tried to wheeze out a warning to whomever was nearby.

"Black... Hat..." Raising an eyebrow, Serena leaned her ear next to his mouth to hear what he had to say. Feeling her press against him, the worker wheezed out with the last of his strength, "It... wore... a black hat..." The worker went quiet before he slumped against Serena, finally able to die.

Suddenly, there was a crash. Serena turned around in the blink of an eye, green energy pouring into her eyes and forming around her hand, only to see that it was merely a fallen box filled with spare parts. She did not lower her guard in the slightest as she scanned the room for whatever was evading her.

A dark laugh rang out from some dark part of the hall, sounding deep and booming yet high pitch and raspy. The walls seemed to bend and pulse like veins filled with tainted blood. Serena's eyes narrowed as she created a bigger orb of energy, bathing the halls in green light as she walked through them to find the source of the laugh.

The dark seemed to eat the light around her, to where that Serena couldn't tell where she was even though she knew she only walked a dozen feet from the Control Deck. The laugh came again, coming from an even deeper part of the hall, echoing and raspy with reverberations flowing through the walls.

"Don't you know? The more you sleep, time flies by." A voice, raspy yet deep, rang through the darkness from all sides. Serena looked around the darkness, unable to find where it was coming from, but it was getting closer to her.

"Your time stopped for 2 months while you slept time away." The voice recited that poem as Serena felt something form from behind her, "Seconds, minutes, hours, days, and nights crawled by on hands and knees as you missed the death of light."

The Acolyte of the Emperor swirled around to face the thing, but the moment it came into her sight a gasp ripped out of her throat. Nothing that the Emperor could prepare her for what the thing she saw with her own eyes in front of her.

The thing in front of her had dark grey skin, a noseless face with one of its eyes covered by what appeared to be a rimless monocle that reflected while the uncovered eye merely possessed a single void-like pupil, a mouth filled with teal fangs that seemed to change at every shift in its expression, and the upper part of its head was covered by a black top hat with a red band around it. The thing's grinning expression was one of malicious and calculating intent, not even the slightest twitch of muscle or deforming of the chest for breath.

It was dressed rather formally; a black ankle length trench coat with a popped collar and red inner lining over a light grey waistcoat and red dress shirt with a black tie, dark grey pants and black shoes with spats covered its lower half, and a cane composed of writhing shadows in his hands.

Serena's jaw was open and her eyes wide as she stared at this thing, her legs forcing her to back against her will. The darkness around them vanished as the lights to wherever they were came on, revealing that they were in the Watchtower's hangar. It was in ruins; Javelins were smashed against the docking bay entrances in a makeshift barricade, the charred corpses lined the docking bay floors with panicked expression frozen on those who's faces were still extant, numerous messages of "HELP", "THE EMPEROR WAS CORRECT", and "BEWARE BLACK HAT!" covered the walls to where they were nearly eligible.

The darkness receded from the hangar until Serena saw that it was all flowing into the thing's cane, as if feeding it. When the cane seemed 'fed', the thing did something she didn't expect; it bowed, courteously.

"Greetings, my dear." It greeted in a raspy voice as it looked back up to her, barring its teal fangs at the Acolyte of the Emperor, "I assume you know my name?"

"B-B... Black Hat..." Serena whispered out as she recalled what the late worker told her, uncharacteristically frightened out of her wits as she backed away from the true king of the Undivided. That fearful statement seemed to cause the monster's grin to grow even wider.

"Ah, so you do know who I am." Black Hat assumed a straightened posture, twirling his cane for a second before tapping its tip to the floor, "I'm touched. I believed that the Emperor wasn't courteous to mention the name of one of his greatest adversaries. But enough with the introductions, let's get to my favorite part."'

Black Hat's cane then elongated into a tendril like shape before he lashed it at Serena, whom barely had time to dodge as it slashed through the space on the floor where she was standing. The Acolyte fired her eye beams only for them to bend out of the way before they could hit him, Black Hat in turn formed a red orb and lobbed it at her, missing as Serena dived out of the way.

Furious, the Acolyte screamed as she charged her fists with energy, "What have you done, Black Hat?!"

The King of the Undivided merely chuckled evilly, twirling his cane until he rests it on his shoulder, "While you were gone, while all your loved ones died, the whole world WENT TO HELL!" His tone became deeper as his uncovered eye turning black with his pupil red and his monocle shifting into blood red flames.

Serena gained an even more furious expression, letting out a bloodcurdling roar filled with rage as she rushed at Black Hat, who's damnable grin seemed to widen at this notation. The Acolyte threw an energy infused punch that Black Hat caught in one hand, sending shockwaves through the room but not affecting the Daemon of Chaos Undivided in the slightest. Serena roared again with tears coming out of her eyes as she threw another punch that hit Black Hat in the chest, yet still didn't affect him in slightest.

Her composure now utter dust, Serena began blazing with energy from her utter fury at the Daemon with the Black Hat. Her hands curled into fists as they crackled with lightning, her eyes igniting with jade and golden flames. The Acolyte let out a roar before striking Black Hat in the chest, sending the Daemon flying through the room and into the wall, sending dust and debris everywhere as Serena started panting from exhaustion at the overexertion of her powers.

"Are you finished?"

Black Hat immerged from the smoke, no worse for wear and still grinning that damnable grin at her.

"NO!" Serena yelled out, but it was betrayed by the gallons of sweat pouring down her face, and with how much she was panting, it was clear that she was reaching her limit, "Don't you know?! YOU CAN'T BEAT ME!"

"Beat you?" Black Hat repeated while still keeping that damnable grin, his eyes glowing teal with malevolence, "Oh, but my dear, don't you see?" He then flew into the air, his trench coat fluttering from the force of his power as his voice deepened, "I've already WON."

Suddenly, his form was enveloped in darkness, red lighting and teal specters flaring around in a cacophony of horror and dread, the shadows seemed to flow towards him in a river of blackness. As it faded, Black Hat's new form was revealed for the Acolyte to see.

The new form was 20 feet tall, vaguely humanoid with numerous ebony and crimson root-like tentacles in place of lower appendages, thin leather covered arms ending in gnarled claw hands as numerous eyes and maws of teal formed and unformed at random parts in liquescent fashion, massive, thick and curved spines sat on the broad shoulders, red gnarled muscles on the chest that resembled his red dress shirt as a strip of ebony bone resembling a necktie ran down the ribcage.

The most horrific part was the head, more in common now of a massive top hat with the band replaced by his grin of teal fangs, the features of his face seemed to have disappeared or rearranged as the monocle was seen above the hat's grin of fangs. Finally, his cane had become more of a staff with the handle replaced by a decorative structure while an orb composed of pale emerald flames sat above, flaring and swirling.

Serena stared at the new form of the Daemon with nothing but fear as whatever confidence she possessed before was extinguished. Before she could react, Black Hat pointed his transformed cane at her and fired a bolt of teal lightning. It hit Serena in the chest, sending her back into the wall before metallic arms formed from the ground, pinning her to the wall.

As the Acolyte struggled against her restriction, Black Hat slithered closer to her, still grinning that same damnable grin as he raised his staff to unleash his fury upon her. Before he could though, Serena fired her eye beams one more time, but he simply shifted out of the way, letting it pierce through the opposing wall.

"You missed." Black Hat taunted her as his grin seemed to widen even more at her last chance being wasted, only to be caught off guard when he saw a grin of her own came to her expression.

"I wasn't aiming for you."

Black Hat seemed confused before he turned to where her eye beams pierced the walls of the hangar only to realize where she had struck: the reactor. A reactor that was running over critical power along with the Binary Fusion Generator. Instead of panicking, the True King of the Undivided looked back to her, legitimately impressed at this mortal's planning, "Clever girl."

Suddenly, an explosion rocked the Watchtower. More explosions came from above them, dust came falling down on them before the barricades gave away, causing the long-sealed breach in the Watchtower to be reopened. Neither of the two could react in time to escape from the breach as both were dragged from the hangar through the destroyed docks into the endless void that was the universe.

Serena would have screamed but she was left awed by what she saw, only for it to turn into horror when she realized what it was, The Maw of Annihilation. Its malevolent presence seemed to have grown since she had last seen it, waves of magenta crashing through the stars in a cacophony of unimaginable vastness, millions of city sized ships rode the blasting waves of insanity towards the Earth and the galaxy beyond, a symphony of madness bellowed from the Warp in horridness unspeakable.

Black Hat's form shifted into his 'normal' form, albeit one with massive black wings with red membranes, still grinning as he pointed his cane at the Maw. He spoke in assured damnation, "A day is coming, my dear. A day when the dead will dance, and all of the Warp will sing!" He dramatically extended his arms and wings in sadistic glee before staring her down, "Now, be a good girl and die, please."

The dark then formed in front of him, growing until it became a mass of black tendrils, burning red eyes, and gaping teal maws. She could do nothing as the darkness was about to consume her in its horrid jaws when-

"NOOO!" Serena screamed as she catapulted out of her bed, screaming at the top of her lungs. She panted heavily, sweating pouring from her in droves before it was then that she noticed something that nearly caused her to faint.

She was back in her room. The Acolyte's jaw dropped at this, rubbing her eyes and looking around again to ensure she wasn't hallucinating, before picking up her phone again and checking the date and time.

8:00AM November 12 2022

She only slept in for two days. Serena collapsed back onto her bed from the relief.

The Control Deck... two hours later.

Everyone remained silent as Serena finished relaying her dream to the Emperor, the other Acolytes, and the Justice League. The Emperor maintained a calm yet pondering expression with his hands folded, while Batman, Brisbaine, Weasel, Elitras and Alistair remained calm, Nero and the other Sisters looked unsettled. Professor Utonium and the Justice League on the other hand looked utterly horrified by what Serena had relayed to them. Shayera, in particular, was pale at what Serena described about her, understandably.

When Serena screamed nearly her lungs out, she nearly awoke the whole Watchtower. Cyrene ran into her room and asked what was wrong, only to see the traumatized look on her sister's face. When she asked about that, Serena nearly begged her to take her to the Emperor. And when they got to the Emperor, she began telling them her dream.

Now here they were, the Acolytes still in their night wear while the Emperor and the Justice League were dressed formally.

"Did this feel like a dream?" The Emperor asked her, knowing that he's seen this before.

"No." Serena lowers and shakes her head, still really shaken by the dreams, "It felt so real. Like more of a possible future than a dream."

Superman then stepped in and asked the Emperor, "Has the Imperium ever encountered something like this?"

"Yes, actually." The Emperor said as he stood up and unfolded his hands before putting them behind his back, "There's a standard ability among Psykers; they call it Witch-Sight. It allows them to 'see' the ebb and flow of the Warp. Usually in most cases, Witch-Sight allows one to read the aura of others as they can used the Warp to peer into the minds of others, allowing them to extract information. But Serena's abilities have evolved to develop Foresight, like Konrad or Sanguinius. Though, she developed it without any effort."

The others, especially Serena, were surprised at this but the Emperor wasn't finished.

"However, I've never encountered a case where one can actually interact with the vision." He continued, as he put his hands on Serena's head and began studying her, much to her discomfort, "It could be a mixture of the portion of power I imparted and her Chemical X infused soul, but I'm not sure."

They all then look to Professor Utonium for answers, who only shook his head, "I admit I'm out of my depth when it comes to the anomalous and volatile energy of the Warp. The best I can hypothesize is that Buttercup- Sorry, Serena- randomly developed the ability during the time when she was asleep."

"Wait, the Warp can let you see into the future?!" The Flash exclaimed, and with the Emperor and the Acolytes nodding in confirmation, he facepalmed in exasperation, "Good god, what can't the Warp do?!"

The experts on the Warp all looked at each other and just shrugged before the Emperor replied, "I stopped asking that question a long time ago." Batman merely nodded while the Acolytes rolled their eyes.

"Also, Professor Utonium, can Chemical X grant psychic abilities?" The Emperor asked the Professor, who looked thoughtful as he put his hand to his chin.

"Maybe. It can give certain abilities under certain circumstances." He explained as the Emperor continued to examine Serena, who squirmed like she was still twelve years old, "Then again, given Chemical X's unpredictable reactions and with how volatile Warp energy is, I suppose it is possible for her to have acquired some psychic abilities."

The Emperor shrugged, "It's certainly possible. Most people that manage to survive exposure to Warp energy develop potent psychic abilities. Because of the Gellar Fields and the very limited amount of Warp energy exposure, Psykers began appearing only after a few dozen generations in the Dark Age of Technology." Serena brushed the Emperor's hands off her, tired from both the horrid dream she had and the whiplash from the dream and from waking up after sleeping for two whole days.

"So, what do you suggest?" Wonder Woman inquired to the Master of Mankind, who stood up and put a hand to his chin, "Should we be on guard for another move by Chaos?"

"Maybe. If we're lucky, it was just a random vision." The Emperor muttered as he thought over what her vision meant, "If we're not... then we are screwed." The others looked worried at this, wondering what kind of future will unfold with Chaos' presence in their universe.

Meanwhile, Serena, needing to destress, dialed a number on her phone as she walked out of the Control Room.

Megaville

Three hours later

Jack hummed as he waited for Buttercup to come meet him. He was dressed in a grey sweater under a brown jacket, black dress pants, and brown dress shoes, sitting on a bench in the middle of town, humming as he stared up at the Scorched Sky.

A few hours ago, she called him so they could meet again. However, Jack was confused as she sounded... older for lack of a better term, like she had suddenly gone through puberty and was now a grown woman. Still, it was nice to see her again after she had been away for a month or two.

A voice came to his ears, "Hey, sensei." But when Jack turned his head, instead of seeing Buttercup, he saw one of the most beautiful women he'd ever seen in his life. She had long ebony hair tied in a ponytail with her bangs framing her face, pale ivory skin with familiar emerald eyes, clothed in a green leather jacket over a long-sleeved shirt that had a jade skull covered in emerald flames printed on the chest, Demin jeans, and a pair of black motorcycle boots. She had a body that most women would kill for, and there seemed to be an aura around her that he couldn't describe.

"Buttercup?" Jack breathed out, "You... look amazing."

Serena blushed at her sensei's words, letting a smile bloom on her face. She waited 10 years for this moment. It was completely worth it.

Serena was beautiful in every sense; those big bug eyes she had in her youth were now normal sized, her face was now heart shaped that was greatly contemplated by her smooth ebony hair and her emerald-colored eyes. She looked just like Ashi, but with longer hair.

"Come on." Jack put his hand on her shoulder and lead her to wherever they found themselves in for the next few hours.

Megaville Park

An hour later

They had gone to the Park for some R&R, and Serena explained to Jack about the Emperor and how she was artificially matured to adulthood. She already told Jack about the Imperium in their phone call, and while he was shocked about the facts of the regime, he took it pretty well. Despite that, they found themselves starting to talk about the Imperium's less than savory morals.

"So... you have murdered others?" Jack asked her, though not in a condescending way.

"Yeah." Serena said sadly, not regretting her decisions but still knew about how the others would react to them, "Look, Sensei, I know you prefer peace over violence but... With Chaos, there is no peace with them."

"I see." Was Jack's only reply. They sat in silence for a second, taking in the view of the park. The leaves were already changing color, the weather slowly became colder as winter approached, the people around them were enjoying life as they could in case the beginning of the new year was the beginning of the apocalypse, the boss of the park yelling at his employees to clean up the fountain and everything else going by like they would have if the Maw wasn't present.

Serena then gained a flustered expression as she pondered what she should confess about her crush on him. She was almost his age, so it wasn't that weird any more and she could be with him, but he was dating Agent Honeydew, whom was very kind to him. Serena couldn't make him cheat or break up with her! "Gah! I'm so confused!' The Sister of Sanguine screamed in her head as she pondered on whether or not to confess her feelings to him.

"Buttercup, what's-" Jack tried to say as he noticed her flustered expression, but hearing her original name caused the emotional dame in her to break. Her mouth and vocal cords moved against her will and yell out what she's wanted to say for years.

"IHAVEACRUSHONYOU!" Serena blurted out before clamping her mouth shut with her hands, her cheeks turning scarlet in embarrassment. Thankfully, they were in a rather secluded part of the park, so she didn't gain anybody's attention. Jack only seemed surprised by her outburst, calmly taking it in while formulating a response.

Serena's cheeks turned even more red at Jack's calm reaction, thinking that her outburst ruined her chances of being with him and that he would awkwardly decline her confession and them her thoughts degraded into rambling on how she was an idiot and that she should have retained the calm and collected disposition that she acquired in her time with the Imperium.

"I see." Jack responded to her outburst calmly, despite the suddenness of it, "You must understand that while I am flattered by this, I am in a relationship with Ms. Honeydew. So, you understand that this is quite jarring."

Serena sighed, her cheeks still red from embarrassment, but accepted his answer none the less, "I understand, Sensei. It's just that... even after I grew up in the Imperium, my feelings never really went away. I just keep thinking about you and then..." She trailed off, too embarrassed to go on. Then she felt Jack place a hand on her shoulder and her face turned an even deeper shade of red.

"I understand." Was all he said to her. In truth, Jack had encountered many a meeting of the schoolgirls that have crushes on him. At first, he was uncomfortable but overtime, he learned to live with it.

"But Sensei..." Serena asked, concerned on what he might think of her now ultra-right-wing views, "What about your feelings with the Imperium?"

"While I do not condone the actions of the Imperium, I understand their reasons." Jack tells her in an honest tone, surprising her a little, "The Emperor became a conqueror as his goal was to unite humanity, he created the Imperium and the Space Marines to protect humanity, and he made the Inquisition to police humanity. All these things the emperor has done, he did because he believed that there was no other choice, and to this day, not even some of his sons have been able to prove him wrong."

"The Emperor of Mankind and the Primarchs are without a doubt the bloodiest tyrants in human history." Jack continued, before looking down and sighing, "Yet it seems that they are the only ones that keep mankind afloat in the grim dark future."

Serena nods in agreement, "In the grim dark future... War is peace." The two then sat in silence again before she abruptly leans on him. Jack looked surprised but put an arm around her.

Unknown to him, Serena squealed mentally. She wished this moment would never end.

The Watchtower- The Emperor's Laboratory

The Emperor hummed as he finished his transcription of Serena's vision. From what he could gather from it, it seemed to be what would happen if he didn't complete the array in time was what transpired in her vision.

But apparently, the sword that her kendo teacher has the ability to kill daemons. It could be something that she created in her head to give her hope, but given how recent it was, he had doubts that it was just a coincidence. If it actually could kill Neverborn, then he may get a massive gain in his plan.

He continued to ponder this before abruptly asking out loud, "Dexter, how's the connections for the Warp Drive coming?"

Said boy genius slid out from under a massive machine that resembled a miniature warp drive, covered in grim and oil. He wiped his brow of all the sweat that was building up and looked at the Emperor, "It's going fine but the regulators are in constant flux. I need more time to create a stable variant so enough power goes in! It took me several weeks to adapt machinery to not be affected by Warp energy! I-I can't just make something as complex as the Warp Drive over night!"

"I've given you plenty of time!" The Emperor yelled, annoyed by all this, "We have less than two months to finish this, or we all die screaming while being anally eviscerated! And you know I'm not exaggerating!"

Dexter winched at the Emperor's words, "I know! I know! But I'm just saying that it's hard for me to adapt technology that is several thousand years ahead of the technological tier of what is ahead of Earth's current tier!"

The Emperor was clearly not convinced as he deadpans, "So, you're telling me that Earth's current technological tier, one that has super advanced technology, fully sentient and thinking AI, gene-altering serums, advanced nanotechnology, teleporters, and actual superheroes, is unable to produce technology sufficient to contain and use energy from another dimension?"

Knowing that he couldn't convince the Emperor otherwise, Dexter relented, "Okay... I admit; I'm hesitant to create such technology as... Well, given that you've shown how volatile the energy from the Warp is, the other scientists and I believe that creating devices that harness it will lead to disaster. Or worse." The Master of Mankind actually paused in thought before he sighed.

"Look, Dexter, I get it. Really, I do." The Emperor replied honestly before lowering down himself to the boy's level, "But we can't argue morals when faced with foes that are void of any. The followers of those Reality Tumors will do anything and everything if it means winning. We can't pull punches with them."

Dexter still seemed conflicted but nodded before he noticed that the other Acolytes were nowhere in sight, "Say where are-"

"I sent them around the country to patrol for Chaos corruption." The Emperor interrupted him, "Think of it like they're both on the job and on break at once. Nero and Belicara are in Louisiana, Elitras and Cyrene are in L.A, Serena is out to Megaville, and Alistair is in New York. I imagine, the last one's having fun."

"Huh." Was all Dexter said before he shrugged and got back to work with the Warp Drive.

Azula's abode, Los Angeles

In the city of Los Angeles, life was good. Those that remained in the city lived in secret blighted decadence, angelic on the outside but demonic on the inside. On a hillside at the farther part of the city, sat an utterly luxurious mansion that must have cost millions of dollars. It had a modern aesthetic with several expensive art pieces, furniture, clothing, and appliances. Numerous females, clad in black revealing outfits or casual attire, worked around the mansion like automata; cooking, cleaning, or serving their mistress.

Sitting by the pool was Azula, sunbathing in the hot Californian sun despite the Scoured Sky still being present. The Slaaneshi Daemon Princess was in human form, one of a 23-year-old woman with an incredibly curvy and well-endowed figure, long black hair with bangs framing her face, clothed in a dark purple bikini and sunglasses that covered her glowing pink eyes.

Azula sighed in almost contentment as she finished her drink and leaned back in her chair, setting the empty glass on the awaiting tray of one of her slave girls who immediately walked off to get another for her.

By the Gods, she never regretted joining Slaanesh. Not only for the experiences but for the rewards. As a Daemon Prince, she had everything she ever wanted; unimaginable luxury and wealth, multiple luxurious mansions and houses, hundreds of beautiful slave girls conditioned to serve and love her no matter what, her own Daemon World. Life could not be better for her.

Suddenly, the sound of a car running down the street pipped through her ears. Normally, Azula would have been annoyed or angered by such noises but this time, she kept her cool as a red Ferrari came speeding down the street next to her luxury house. One that had two very familiar people in the driver and passenger seats.

"Well, well, what do we have here?" Azula lowered her shades, confirming that it was their target. Getting up from her chair and grabbing the now filled glass that the girl was bringing, Azula slammed down the Slaaneshi wine and said, "Gaz? You're in charge of my house while I'm gone."

"Yeah, sure, whatever." Gaz replied to her master apathetically, her appearance much changed since they were last on earth. She was now a 20-year-old woman, she had cut her hair down to a pixie cut while wearing a white beater and black shorts, Slaaneshi runes engraved all over her skin from the neck down, including on her palms and feet. The purple haired woman was laying down on a white couch, playing a video game that Azula didn't care much for.

"Oh, and Gaz?" Azula reminded her protégé before she left, an aura of intimidation irradiating around her as she took off her sunglasses and stared at Gaz with those piercing pink eyes with black sclera, "If even a single thing is out of place when I get back, it'll be you who pays the price."

Gaz, completely intimidated, only nodded while giving a nervous smile and putting up her hands, chuckling nervously, "No problem, mistress."

The Mistress of Perfection hmphed in satisfaction, walking away from her protégé, not caring that the latter just rolled her eyes and laid back against the couch, resuming her game.

Azula's attire then changed, spreading around her form and covering every part except her hands and legs. It now composed of a low-cut black tank top with a purple skull necklace sitting on the front that very generously exposed her assets under a black dress jacket, a black skirt with purple stockings, and light purple high heels. A proper disguise to fool those two, complete with her now purple tainted sunglasses.

She snapped her fingers and a purple Camaro roared to life, moving on its own accord and stopped just at her side. Azula got in the driver's seat, reeved the engine for a second, and sped off after the red Ferrari.

Ember's apartment, Los Angeles.

Ember McLain played on her Daemon Weapon, a guitar called Heart Slaver. Her appearance was one of a 21-year-old woman with pale skin and long teal hair that framed her face and went to her chest, purple lipstick, and royal purple eyes. She wore a black crop top that exposed her midriff under a leather jacket that had had some spikes and a skull design on the back, black leather pants with a silver belt, and boots that had a skull motif.

The Player of Cacophonies simply hummed as she tuned Heart Slaver to the correct frequency, feeling the power of the Keeper of Secrets flowed through the strings and the soundwaves. She observed the effects on the men and women around her, practically fawning over her with their hearts and souls, much to her delight.

It was another one of her apartments, filled with heavy metal posters, covers, and CDs, just like her Daemon World of Sorona, just one of her past times being on this earth before Zim called them all to the Forge for the next Phase of his and Abaddon's 'master plan.'

Just then, the sound of two cars going down the road near her apartment pricked her ears. Bear in mind; that her apartment wasn't near the main center of town, so it much quieter, meaning that it meant something significant to her.

Getting up from her leather chair, Ember looked out the window to see a Red Ferrari and a Purple Camaro speeding down the street across from where she was standing. In the purple Camaro for just a split second, Azula turned to her and winked before time resumed and the two cars roared down the street.

Ember gained a small smile as she uttered, "Hell, it's about time."

She struck a chord that cause a portal composed of flames to open in the floor. When she fell through it, Ember found herself in the apartment's garage where a familiar person was standing in the middle of.

It was Doomrider, still in his usual appearance; a large yet lanky man clads in a black leather uniform that concealed every part of his body, lined with belts, spikes, and studs, polymerized with a black duster. Adorned on his head was a helmet resembling a skull with two forward facing horns and twin white streaks resembling gashes running from the back of the head to the jaw.

He was leaning against his bike called Unbound, while sticking his neck with a gun-like syringe filled with a bubbling purple fluid. Doomrider pulled the trigger which emptied it in his jugular, causing him to roll his neck and groan in pleasure before he muttered out in his deep, filtered and reverberating voice, "Ah, life giving stims."

The Rider of Slaanesh noticed Ember standing there and he chuckled, "Took you long enough." Doomrider then backflipped onto Unbound and reeved the engine, yelling to her, "Let's ride!"

Ember chuckled in pleasure; lightly strumming Heart Slaver as pink waves emitted from it. Her clothing ignited in purple flames, cladding her entirely before dissipating and revealing her new attire; a full body leather outfit that had several metal plates with skull-like designs all around the chest and joints, her head was covered by a featureless porcelain white mask with black tear-streak markings and black lenses on the eyeholes, while her now flaming teal hair framed her face with some of the bangs covered her chest and back.

Heart Slaver disappeared as another bike appeared beside her, purring like a beast. It had a skull-like aesthetic with music blasting loudly, Slaaneshi runes covered every metallic surface in gleaming reverence of her presence, flaming teal wheels blazed to life in a charlatan hunger. Ember laughed as she got on the bike, reeving the engine. The two Chaos riders reeved before they speared to the streets after Azula and the two Acolytes.

The Realm of Brass and Blood

A Khornate Berserker roared out in defiance to his killer, only for his head to be caved in by the right hand of Hama. The body slid off her hand and fell to the blasted and blood-soaked plains, as the tainted blood on her hand was absorbed into her body.

Hama was now clad in an armor composed of the hides of blessed followers of Khorne and Bloodthristers, a helm with many horns and antlers covered her face yet showed her blazing red eyes and oily black hair. In her hands was the Daemon Sword, Gorrumalxa, bound to her by both blood and the tendrils that bound themselves to her arm while a bronze bow rests on her back but no arrows.

The creature that used to be Hama gazed at it and the bloodstained sand in satisfaction while remembering how she came her.

**After she broke out of her prison, that damned Irken tricked and dumped her here. She would have been enraged but after a few days, she actually thanked him for giving her so much slaughter. Hours became years as she descended further down Khorne's pull. Her long lost youth returned and gifted her new strength, gifting her the ability to bend her own blood and the blood of others for her own, using them to form blades and arrows that she called bloodbolts.

The followers were easy pickings. Due to her newfound strength, their bones shattered like cheap glass and every crack of bone brought a slickening smile to Hama's face. The Bloodletters were a step up, however. They were fast, powerful and relentless. Wanting to converse her energy, she managed to snag one of their Hellblades and hacked them in half with the grace of a deadly ballerina while using her eye beams to decapitate several Bloodletters in a gory swath.

But the Chaos Champions were her hardest challenge yet. Her bloodbolts had little effect on their armor and she had to strain herself to increase the power of her bloodbolts which put tremendous strain on her body. Every blast from her power punctured armor, severed limbs and blew apart heads in a show of brain matter...but it wasn't enough.

When she was captured by the Champions and converted into another pawn of Chaos, she had absorbed the surge of power and became a living embodiment of demonic fire. She reduced the Champions to ashes and was soon confronted with not one, but TWO Bloodthirsters. It suited her just fine, she needed a challenge to test out her new abilities. It was a long battle rife with blood, sweat and enraged screaming but Hama wound up burning one to death inside out by launching a fireball down its throat while she popped the other's head off by using its bladed whip as a garrote.

She couldn't wait to head back to her world and get her revenge...**

Hama was snapped from her thoughts when she heard a roar. It was an approaching Phalanx of Wrath, one of the new Greater Daemons of Khorne. It was a massive muscularly built daemon with massive goat-like legs, plates of leather on the chest and shoulders, a noseless and lipless face with burning red eyes and massive forward-facing horns, and clawed hands that would reduce Space Marines to bloody pulp. Their skin was ashen grey with thin burning red cracks, giving the appearance of recently cooled magma.

It lumbered towards her, brandishing flaming blades bound to its forearms before roaring out in a bellowing call for blood. Hama simply responded by charging a bloodbolt and launched it at the Phalanx, hitting it in the forehead. The blast shook the area around them, but to her surprise, it didn't die right away.

Plasteel-like chitin coated its chest, back and oversized arms. This armour of anguish crawled up its neck to encase its head, jawbones cracking out as the armour filled in the gap of its now broken jaws.

Its skull, formerly strong and vaguely cone shaped, became oblong and pain riddled as the seams of its cranium were undone and its brain smothered in chitinous coating that left it roaring its agony to the universe. Where claws once remained on reasonably sized limbs, now grew to be as large as a Juggernaut's legs and thrice as strong.

No digits remained in their original place, melted away by the heat of its own blood as the casing that crawled under and through its skin form a cylinder of superheated blood. At the entrance to this cylinder formed large, blundering fingers. At the center of this zygodactyl appendage was the exhaust port of this cylinder formed in its oversized forearm.

Formerly supported by normal feet, the creature feels under the weight of its newfound limbs. The sword with which it was formerly named, was swallowed by its the cauldron of superheated blood in its arms. Beneath the creature's waist, where the sword would've been laid to sharpen, its feet and legs were changing.

It was now supported on three spikes of keratin-three hooves conjoined at the ankle to support this oversized behemoth's weight. These backwards-bent legs stretched and thickened as the casing of this creature crawled down further, covering its hooves until they were like treads at the end of a spear.

Rising to its hooves, its skull-reshaped to suit its new purpose-was now like that of some great stallion if its muzzle were to be sawed off at the eyes. This opening wasn't filled with chitin like the body was. No, it was occupied by enormous spikes which it had once been proud to wear atop its head. No longer would it be on its head these spikes were found, but in its jaws.

Eyes covered by its lids as it roared in damning pain, it opened its eyes to reveal x-shaped pupils to see in ways it had not been able to until now. The pain fell away, its hunching posture broken as it reared up and cried out its newfound power to the Warp.

The Phalanx of Wrath roared at her and launched off the ground at her, sending bloodstained sand everywhere before Blackfire dodged out of the way. It fired two streams of liquid fire at her that glassed the sand around her, before Hama spewed flames from her mouth that hit its chest. It did not even flinch at the strike and was ready to reduce her to smolders when a flash of red punched it across the face, sending it to the floor.

Hama scowled under her helm when she saw her savior. Ozai, King of the Phoenix.

He was clad in a cobbled together armor composed of sections from the uniforms of the Maccabian Janissaries, the Tempestus Scions, and the World Eaters. His frame was nearly as large as an Astartes yet incredibly lean, each piece of his blood red armor with golden accents was bound to another in a web of black muscles and nerves, a bolter with a daemonic design, a flaming sword rested in his right hand, a Daemon Weapon by the name of Phoenix Bane. Finally, a crimson helm that resembled a noseless skull with black eyes and a grin of thick, jagged fangs.

Ozai gave her a hand up that she took, as much of a strike to her pride it was, "It is time, Hama. The Acolytes are separated, vulnerable. They will be easy pickings."

Hama grinned under her helm. This will be fun.

The Garden of Nurgle

Undergrowth hummed a song for the children as he and Sam Manson tended the Garden of Nurgle along with the other caretakers, picking fruit for the children and planting new seeds for the new ones to come. The Ghost of Nature had not changed in appearance since he came to the loving arms of Nurgle. His daughter was nearly the same as well except for her skin becoming green as a sign that she was truly one with his power.

Undergrowth's appearance was that of a giant, vaguely humanoid being apparently composed of plant-matter in the form of vines with a face. He has red eyes, darker green wreaths of leaves covered his hands, pauldrons of fungi, a green cape of seaweed, and four spikes rested on his head. His mouth resembles a spiky bird beak, which is probably where the nostrils are as well.

Just as Nurgle taught him and Poison Ivy, Undergrowth and she has taught the Father of All how things truly should be; as all things must rot, so to must all things grow. Nurgle saw the error and corrected it. There were now Plague Marines and Floral Marines; Astartes that were blessed with all of their flesh being replace with plant matter, fused with their armor and capable of growing their own weapons composed of plants.

While there must be disease, decay, and death, so to must there be regeneration, recovery, and rebirth.

Undergrowth simply finished that thought and brought the basket filled with fruit to the Gathered before calling out to some with a whistle.

The Conjurers of Pestilence were gathered together, chatting together over their discoveries about the latest ailments to worlds unbeknownst to mankind. That is, until one turned out of the shadows to address its kin.

Where feet should've been where the suckers of a creature that knew not how to walk on anything except the surface of a ceiling. Its body-formerly bloated with fat and pustules-was deflated, hanging like empty trash bags on a telephone pole as the being had used itself as a test subject and all of the viral flesh it once had was consumed when no one disease could kill it.

One, disabled arm was larger than the other, voids in the flabby, wrapped skin of its body...housing invertebrates that acted as its accountants and assistants. This swollen home for large insects was given the benefit of being connected to a couple of the chittering scarabs within by tendrils of synaptic tendons. In his smaller, less deformed limb was a book, shaped from the rotting matter of a great beast and the now fibrous flesh of a Necron Flayer which this being had bought at a market.

Atop its mismatched shoulders was a ghastly sight. Where one would've expected a face, the visage they found was a mask made of skin and bone, shaped into the shape of a bird's head to mock and honor the Grandfather's greatest foe. This curved beak was tinged yellow as urine, shaped like a banana yet it parted open, revealing leathery jaws housing three eyes in the back of the throat.

"Gathered friends," It gurgled in its own liquified irises and pupils-reshaping them to resemble the sexual stalks of a flower. "Listen again as we hear the tales of our Great Father and his Beloved Wife..."

Undergrowth chuckled; it was always a blessing to play with the Children in the Garden of Nurgle for whatever the reason. But it was then that he heard a bubbling from behind him. Turning around, he saw Scarecrow immerge from the swamp.

It was impossible to tell what was burlap and what was flesh on Scarecrow's face, the hood was covered by algae and slime, his eyes were a burning orange along with his tainted veins, his ragged burlap outfit polymerized with a duster covered his entire frame with sections of plant growth around the chest, arms, and legs, and in his hand was a scythe that was covered in grime and plants.

Garbled and deep words bubbled from his mouth as he said, "Undergrowth. It is time." Scarecrow then sank back into the swamp without another word.

Undergrowth simply smiled.

The Churning Forge

Mesogog hummed as he worked in his laboratory. He was a hideous being; He had a lipless mouth with jagged teeth and everchanging eyes, his face one of an azure saurian's haphazardly grafted onto a man's, a white forked tongue slithering on his fangs slicked in drool, and three-digit talons of gold. The rest of his hideous frame was thankfully hidden by a black outfit that seemed like a fusion of a bathrobe, straightjacket, and longcoat with spikes on the upper arms and a silver belt around his waist with the Mark of Tzeentch on the buckle, black pants and black boots.

Mesogog mixed some concoctions into a beaker composed of crystal, producing an iridescent radiant fluid that seemed to be roiling over itself.

"Interesting." The Alchemist of Tzeentch hissed/purred as he swirled the fluid in the crystal beaker while examining it and putting a golden claw to his 'chin' in thought before he took it with him as he walked to his 'partner' in their project.

His 'partner' was the King in Blood and Ash; a tall man, frame thin as rails that was wrapped completely in uncountable number of bandages with azure markings akin to eyes under a tightly bound azure cloak with decorative crimson markings and black fur accenting the interior and edges, and a crown of jagged sapphire sat on the bandaged head in earnest. Around his neck was an amulet that resembled a serpent-like eye around a silver hollow pyramid, barely visible between the bandages.

The King was standing by a massive fleshy cauldron, one hand circling the edges with wriggling fingers, the other holding a bundle of flaming incents, and his covered mouth uttering chants in a language that anyone other than the followers of Tzeentch would dismiss as gibberish. The madman noticed Mesogog walking towards him with the crystal beaker in his claws.

Mesogog added the iridescent fluid to the contents of the cauldron that began to bubble almost immediately. The King in Blood and Ash was uninterrupted in his ritual as he then watched the compound raise from the cauldron, taking shape as a miniature many limbed, eyed, and mouthed thing that sat above the King's palm. It then burst into flames before the plasmic matter became a Tzeentchian rune that then burned onto the unseen skin under the bandages of the King. He then tested his hand before seeming satisfied.

"Another daemon bound." The King muttered to himself as he formed an orb of blue fire over his palm before extinguishing it, "It is time to enact Zim's plan. If we do not act now, it'll be too late."

The Alchemist nodded and the two walk off to begin Zim's plan.

Los Angeles

Cyrene and Elitras drove through the streets of the city in the Ferrari, knowing that they were being followed but not reacting as they had a plan of their own. It was rather challenging to ignore the constant bright lights and honking cars that blighted the city even now.

When they got to a certain crossroads, Elitras, who was driving, noticed that the purple Camaro and the two bikers that were following them had turned left instead of right. Suspicious, he kept his eyes on the road for any reappearances of them but still kept driving as they slowly reached the edges of the city and to the hills surrounding it. The two Acolytes continued to drive through the hills, until they reached the hillside across from the massive Hollywood sign. There, they parked their car just at where no civilians were in sight and walked out to the highest point of the hills, waiting for them to take the bait.

As for the reason no one questioned their presence, they were in their civilian attire; a red whit-beater, grey shorts, and black sandals for Elitras, and a pink shirt, brown shorts, and red sandals for Cyrene. The two Acolytes remained at the hillside, waiting for those who were following them to show up for whatever they had planned.

"You think they're gonna take the bait?" Cyrene asked Elitras unsurely, whom had his arms crossed as he stared at the horizon, their long red hair bristling in the evening wind.

"Let's not get our hopes up, Cy." Elitras told her as he looked over the city of Los Angeles.

They just remained still on that hill for what felt like moments, staring at the breathtaking sunset of the western coast before the sounds of feet crunching on grass piped through their ears. The two didn't need to turn their sight to know that Azula was there beside them. She was now clothed only in a very loosely tied purple robe that left little to the imagination, barefoot and with her hair loose and bristling in the wind, smiling a genuine smile.

"It is truly beautiful, is it not?" The Mistress of Perfection asked the two Acolytes, her voice lovely like the most perfect of a breathless sultry song, "It is moments like these that I am glad there is a multiverse. Moments to savor and sensations to glut."

"I thought you are only moved or amused by the most perfect of things?" Elitras asked her, finally turning his gaze towards her as he mentally assessed what she would do next.

Azula laughed a haughty laugh while folding her arms, genuinely amused at this mortal's attempt to comprehend her thoughts, "This is true. But what can I say? Some days, I enjoy the life of a queen. Other days, I feast and fuck like the lowliest of uncultured swines. But that usually depends on my mood."

Both of them rolled their eyes in annoyance.

"Then again," Azula's expression softened as she gazed at the setting sun, "I guess I never forgot the beauty of a sunset." She chuckled in a rueful tone, "I can't believe that those pitiful mortal parts of myself still exist in me."

"You can never rid yourself of what makes you human." Cyrene told her, "You were human once despite that now you are daemon. No matter how much you say otherwise."

The daemon prince of Slaanesh merely rolled her eyes but kept the amused expression on her face, "True. But what else is there in life but to enjoy it?"

For that, neither Elitras nor Cyrene had an answer. Both just struggled and looked at the sunset in silence. Azula smirked and turned back to the setting sun, still taking in the painting-like scene and making a note to make an actual painting of it later.

Suddenly, when it finally set into the horizon and let night take its reigns, Elitras struck first. He fired his eye beams at her, only for her to move out of the way in an impossible fluidity before raising her left hand and fired a streak of purple flames. The Acolytes flew out of the way, only for two chains to suddenly appear and wrap around Cyrene's ankles.

"What the-?" She didn't have a chance to finished as she was dragged from the air to the ground, sending dirt and dust into the air. Though unaffected, Cyrene grunted in pain before both her and Elitras turned to where the chains lead. It was Ember and Doomrider on their bikes, with the chains in the latter's hand.

Doomrider pulled the chains tight, almost dragging Cyrene to him before she used to eye beams to sever the chains. The Sister of Sanguine backflipped to her feet and fired at Doomrider who threw a circle-shaped bottle at the beams, causing an explode that scorched the hills.

With that, as the Acolytes were blinded, Azula give a sadistic smirk. Purple flames enveloped her in a discordance of color before parting to reveal her true Daemon form. She flared her massive wings outwards as numerous gold glided chains formed from her hands, binding themselves to the Acolytes' limbs before they then bound themselves to the ground on platinum stakes. Once they saw that they were bound, the two used their eye beams to attack the bikers, only for them to move and dodge out of the way.

Grunting against her binds, Cyrene then tried to use her strength to break the chains or at least uproot them from the ground but only succeeding in tightening the already circulation cutting grip of the chains. Elitras attempt to use his eye beams to sever them but found that they did not even heat up, much less breaking them. Realizing that they couldn't break free, the two could only continue to futilely struggle against the golden chains that bound them to the earth.

Just when the stakes were slowly being uprooted, Azula breathed out a glimmering purple mist from her mouth. The second the Acolytes breathed it in, they were rendered unconscious, falling to the ground like bags of dead meat.

At seeing that they had won, Azula pouted childishly, crossing her arms and straightening her posture, "Now, this was much too easy." She always hated it when a hunt was unchallenging.

"Admittedly." Ember agreed with the Mistress of Perfection, "But it makes our jobs easier. Now one of you kill them and let's get out of here. I got places to be before the world ends." Doomrider silently complied, riding Unbound to the two unconscious Acolytes and confirmed that the two were in fact asleep.

Suddenly, a flaming vortex appeared on the Doomrider's side, who reached in and retrieved a weapon with the polymerized appearance of an axe and a bass guitar, composed of silver and wreathed in Slaaneshi runes.

It was his greatest weapon: the Daemon guitar, Fuckslayer***

This weapon was the result of him collecting the quicksilver blood of the Mnay'salath, Kyriss, and Ax'seana, the blood of several Emperor's Children, and pieces from the actual palace of Slaanesh, and forging it into an instrument of death and cacophony. To use his favorite weapon on an opponent was one that had gained his respect.

Ready to reap his rewards for another hunt, Doomrider raised Fuckslayer over their heads...

Megaville

Serena and Jack were walking back from their day out to Jack's house, the former talking about her experiences in the Imperium and the latter talking about his adventures in the future of Aku, both laughing at the most amusing parts of their stories. By the time they had gotten back, it was almost night though Serena was unaffected by the cold, to where she actually let Jack carry her leather jacket as she didn't need it.

"And then Batman had to dive in and rescue Butch from the black sand!" Serena finished her story, "All of us were laughing our asses off for the whole night! Even Butch!"

Jack laughed slightly. Even in the grim dark future, you gotta laugh sometimes. But just as they were nearing Jack's house, Serena felt a disturbance, one that she was very familiar with. And it felt like it was getting closer.

"Say, sensei?" Serena asked abruptly, looking to where she felt the presence, "Do you have your katana with you?"

Jack looked at her in confusion, but answered, "No, but we are near my house, so I can grab it quickly. Why do you ask?"

"Because you're gonna need it."

Before he could even blink, Serena tackled him away from the space where they were standing, which was then where a flaming sword slashed downwards, cutting through the pavement and a car in front of it. Jack looked shocked but Serena didn't as she saw the cause of it.

It was Ozai, twirling Phoenix Bane in his hand while laughing. He lumbered toward them with his murder-hungry expression hidden behind his helm, gripping Phoenix Bane with tightened vigor for slaughter. Anyone that saw the behemoth holding the flaming swords abandoned whatever they were doing and ran into their houses, a futile obstacle that they hoped would save them from the flaming wrath of Khorne.

Serena yelled to Jack, "Sensei, go get your sword! I'll hold him off!" He didn't ask as he broke into a sprinting blur towards his house while she fired her eye beams at Ozai, who blocked it with Phoenix Bane. The Phoenix King then raised his flaming sword and put it in a reverse grip before thrusting down to where she was, only for her to blitz out of the way and strike him in the chest.

Ozai roared as he was thrown back, stabbing Phoenix Bane into the pavement to slow his momentum and then using his feet to stop his flight. Almost impressed, he twirled Phoenix Bane and leapt into the air, twirling into a downwards slash again only to twirl around nearly splitting Serena in half if it hadn't been for her speed. He slashed again sideways, cleaving a Humvee that was in his way in half before leaping over it and slashing at Serena again, who dodged and fired a bolt of power that hit his chest, sending him back but not off his feet.

Suddenly, an explosion burst from behind, the flames burning away the backside of her shirt with her invulnerability protecting her from any burns. Serena twirled around to see Hama in the middle of the street to her right, blood whip in one hand and her bow in another.

"So, that's how they want it to go down." Serena said with a tone of cold fury as her left hand slammed on a black watch on her right wrist. Her armor flowed liquescently from her arm to her entire body, forming her armor, helmet, and sword. The Acolyte then launched at Hama, sword drawn and ready as she cleaved the Khornate in half before the latter had a chance to react. Hama's upper half was sent flying into the air but the stream of blood that flowed down from the wound congealed and became tendrils that reconnected to the lower half.

The two halves reunited, and the wound knitted together and disappeared like it never existed. When Serena turned around and saw this, her jaw dropped under her helmet, "What the?!"

"Surprised?" Hama rhetorically asked her, grinning as she felt her blood bumping and flames rising in her muscles, "Benefits of having the blessing of the Blood God. You. Cannot. Kill me."

Serena growled, taking that as a challenge as she leaped at Hama quicker than the latter could react, slashing off her left arm only for her blood to congeal and for the limb to reattach.

"What did I just say?" Hama laughed tauntingly.

While she was distracted, Ozai leaped at Serena, Phoenix Bane drawn and posed to impale her through the chest. But before the blow could be struck, another blade intercepted it, the impact creating a deafening clang as if an unstoppable force meets an unmovable object.

The helmet receded when Serena saw who it was, revealing her shocked face, "Sensei?!"

It was indeed Jack; holding up his katana and blocking Phoenix Bane, sweat pouring down his face as he struggled to hold his own against Ozai's strength. The Ronin then wrenched out of the stalemate and swung several times, all of which Ozai parried.

"We must keep them from the civilians!" Jack yelled to Serena as he blocked as many strikes as possible from the Phoenix King, miraculously not shattering any of his bones in the process.

The Acolyte nodded, before glaring at Hama with her sword drawn to rend her opponent to bloody chunks, "Alright, blood bitch. Let's dance!"

New York

Alistair hummed to himself as he walked on the sidewalk of Time Square. He was dressed in a green long sleeve shirt, beige ankle length trench coat, brown pants, and brown dress shoes. The Emperor told him that there was something in the city, so he flew to Time Square to start. He admits that it was an amazing place to visit if it wasn't so damn crowded, but other than that, it didn't seem like there was anything wrong.

That was until some guy bumped into him.

Alistair was gonna yell at him to be more careful but then he noticed that the guy's eyes. His eyes were as black as the void, more like black marbles than eyes, not even reflecting the light from the city or sky. His face was worse; there was no twitch of muscle or blinking to moisturize the eyes, not even any deforming of the nostrils for breath.

Quite bewildered, Alistair let the man go before pumping into a nearby woman, only to see that she had the same black eyes and blank face as the man. Looking around, he saw that they all had the same black eyes and empty expressions. Backing away from the sidewalk, the Acolyte saw that the streets were void of cars or vehicles of any kind, and any vehicle that was present were avoiding Time Square like the entire place was the plague.

As he was wondering how he didn't notice this, Alistair then saw that there were two figures standing in the middle of Time Square. It was Mesogog and the King in Blood and Ash.

By the King, were many men. They wore a haphazard cloth uniform consisting of a heavy long coat with a flak jacket containing several grenades and canisters, cloth pants covered their legs, while their uniforms had hoods as they wore a complete facemask with sunglasses over the eyeholes, along with leather gloves and boots. They each had a flamethrower strapped to their backs, wreathed in runes and leaking warpfire.

Alistair watched as the two and their army marched towards him, the latter ones having weapons drawn while Mesogog simply kept his hands behind his back and the King with his arms outstretched and orbs of Warpfire floating above his palms.

Seeing this, the Acolyte imbued his hands and eyes with power, energy arcing from his frame as he glared furiously. So, it came time to purge another batch of corruption, eh? He could use a little stress relief.

With a furious roar, Alistair launched two blazing orbs at the two, tearing up the streets only for the King to launch his orbs at the same time. The orbs collided, causing a massive explosion that rocked Time Square though the blast was contained by psychic barrier that shielded the civilians on the sidewalk. The King's arm flared in blue and gold as a whip composed of blue flames coiled outwards.

He lashed it at Alistair, who rolled out of the way before firing his eye beams at the King, only for a portal to open in front of him before they could hit him. Before the Acolyte could even blink in confusion, those same beams hit him from a portal behind him. Now thoroughly pissed off, Alistair speared towards the King at speeds rivalling light with a furious roar. He spun midair and kicked his opponent in the ribs, feeling them shatter and the Tzeentchian sorcerer fly into one of the buildings, sending dust and debris everywhere.

"Ha! Eat that, you-" Alistair didn't get to finish that quip as several crystalline spikes burst from the ground near him, though they shattered against his skin. The transhuman turned to see Mesogog standing there, the aura around him indicating that it was him that created the spikes.

"Be careful not to choke on your own mirth, fool." The saurian sorcerer warned him in that same hissing and slightly raspy voice.

"Then I'll leave you breathless!" Alistair snarled as he readied two more orbs in his hands.

The two let out a yell as they did a charging leap at each other.

New Orleans

The two blonde transhumans hummed while searching around the skies, looking for any signs of Chaos in the city but weren't having any luck as New Orleans seemed pretty quiet for the time being.

Seeing that they had no plan whatsoever, Nero and Belicara both just landed on the top of a building and assessed their situation.

"Well, I don't see anybody suspicious and I'm not feeling any warp signatures around, so..." Nero shrugged before looking at Belicara, who said nothing while laying down on the floor of the building, "Should we call the Emperor and tell him that there's nobody around or?"

"Maybe." Was all that she said, burnt out due to her still being worn out from those 6 six days of purging, "Can you check around one last time? I'm too exhausted to try."

Nero shrugged as he stepped to the edge of the building and scanned the area with his x-ray vision. When he was about to give up after still seeing nothing for 3 minutes, his gaze then snapped to the sewer system when he saw something in it.

It was two vaguely humanoid figures wading through the sewer water, one looking alike a scarecrow covered in algae and sludge and the other looking like a humanoid composed of vines and plants.

Scarecrow and Undergrowth.

Nero steeled his nerves before hopping down to Belicara, who had just fell asleep, "Hey! Bel! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!" That did stir her back to consciousness as she looked at him, very much annoyed at the interruption of her sleep.

"What?!" Belicara groaned as she rubbed her eyes while getting up from the floor.

"Look to the sewers. I think there are some Nurglites." Nero informed her, pointing to down where he saw the two figures. His female partner blinked in confusion before activating her X-ray vision to scan where he was pointed. But a few moments later, her eyes widened as she whispered to him while staring at the sewers.

"They're staring at us."

It was his turn to blink in confusion as he uses his X-ray vision to look through the sewer, only to see what she meant. Scarecrow and Undergrowth were standing under the manhole, staring up at the Acolytes as if they could see them. Scarecrow's expression was unreadable under his burlap mask, but Undergrowth had a malicious grin on his face.

Suddenly, the ground shook, the asphalt of the roads cracked and tore apart revealing massive vines that grew from the sewers. Civilians screamed and scrambled away but hundreds were consumed by many carnivorous plants that began growing from the vines, entire streets began flooding with plant-life while others had the civilians screaming at things only, they could see.

Nero and Belicara only stared at the destruction before them as the former said, "Yeah, we should do something." But before they could, a mass of vines burst from the ground, weaving and shaping until it took shape as a grinning Undergrowth with Scarecrow in his hand.

"Leaving so soon?" Scarecrow taunted them while readying his scythe.

"Not in the slightest." Belicara growled as the two snarled as they readied their swords and bolters.

Los Angeles

Back with Elitras and Cyrene, things still aren't going to well, given that they were bound by chains and the fact that they were about to get their heads chopped off by a sadistic biker.

Just as Doomrider brought down Fuckslayer, a beam of energy burst from Elitras' eyes that speared into the ground, preventing the Slaaneshi from connecting his guitar to the flesh of the Acolyte's neck. The trio were nearly thrown to the ground before when the chains were rooted up by the very much awake Acolytes. Before their enemies could react, the two flew of in a flash of red and pink.

The three Slaaneshi watched on as the twin streaks of red and pink grazed through the night sky, surprisingly calm about what had just transpired.

"The hunt is on it seems." Doomrider did not seem peeved by this turn of events in the slightest and neither did Ember or Azula as the latter two were grinning like children that have learned that Christmas has just arrived. The Black Rider simply banished Fuckslayer back to whence it came, reeved Unbound's engines before speeding after them, shredding the ground from the speed of his tire's rotations.

Ember backflipped onto her bike and sped off behind Doomrider while Azula spread her wings and took to the air as all three began their hunt for the Acolytes.

Back with Cyrene and Elitras, the two managed to get to and abandoned steel warehouse they found off the coast, so they settled there for a moment, with the male one taking watch while Cyrene caught a breather for a moment before she managed to get the golden chains off of her and him.

The two stood in silence with Elitras having his bolter raised while Cyrene only had her Power Sword in her hands, both weapons formed from the condensed form that was their armor. After hearing footsteps not but a few minutes later, the two looked at each other before Brother took the lead with Sister behind.

Elitras peaked around the corner only to snap his head back before looking back at Cyrene. The former unfurled two fingers and pointed them at his eyes, before unfurling his ring finger with only his pointer finger raised, before curling them back and using his thumb to point around the corner far he looked. She got the message as they both crept down and peaked through the window.

Doomrider and Ember were just outside while Azula was nowhere in sight, both were on their bikes and looking around for their targets. They noticed that the Black Rider was holding a corrupted Bolter instead of Fuckslayer while Ember still had Heart Slaver in her arms.

"Are they here?" Ember asked her companion, who was sniffing the air like a bloodhound.

"They are." Doomrider growled in his deep and reverberating voice, "I can smell them."

"Shit!" Elitras seethed as he ducked his head from the corner of the window along with Cyrene, whispering to her, "They know we're here."

She nodded with a calculating expression as they slowly backed off from the window and snuck back into the south corridor of the warehouse. As they headed back, the two heard a crash and the strumming of guitar strings. Doomrider and Ember were in the warehouse.

They heard him sniffing the air loudly before he growled out, "They are most definitely here. This way!" Swearing in distress, the two bolted into the deepest parts of the warehouse where a destroyed portion of the ceiling lead to the upper parts of the warehouse.

"Wait, why are we running away?" Cyrene asked him, confused as to why they were running away instead of killing them while they had the chance. Yet who knows things here might do to them if they get captured.

Elitras didn't reply at first, staring down the hallway for any signs of the two before answering quietly, "We're gonna lure them into a trap. Follow me up to the balcony. We'll wait them out. They'll follow us out there eventually. And when they do, we'll be right there."

She nodded and headed out of the dark room alongside him, after checking around to make sure that Doomrider and Ember weren't nearby. The Acolytes slowly flew up the shaft of the warehouse and to the balcony. Once there, Elitras pulled out a bag of smelling salts that he happened to carry around a lot as both hid behind the many piles of steels sitting in the balcony.

The Brother Armorym poured a sample into his hand and gave it to Cyrene, explaining to the confused Sister of Sanguine his plan, "Rub some on yourself. It'll screw up Doomrider's sense of smell, then we ambush them."

Cyrene nodded, the both of them rubbing the salts on their skin and clothing just as they heard the sound of Doomrider and Ember slowly ascending to the balcony via platforms created from Warp energy. The two look around the wide empty room, not seeing the Acolytes behind the piles of scrap.

"The trail ends here." Doomrider says after taking a large sniff in the air, looking around the attic and balcony, "They are here."

Just as he finished his sentence, Elitras immediately vaulted over his cover and fired his Bolter. Before the bolts even left the first ten feet from the barrel, Ember strummed a riff on Heart Slaver. The intensity of the soundwaves stopped the bolts just as they detonated, but the blast was strong enough to knock the two back off the edge of the balcony.

Doomrider fired a daemonic bolt from his corrupted bolter in the faction of the second he had before he backflipped out of the radius of the blast. The daemon bolt speared through the air towards them only to be cleaved in half by Cyrene's Power Sword in the femtosecond it came into her sight. The entire warehouse burst into flames as he two Acolytes took to the air to escape, now clad in their armor.

They were about to leave it at that only for a bolt of Warp lightning to spear down at the two, both looked up to see a vaguely humanoid figure in the sky. It only took them a fraction of a second to see that the figure was Azula, Warp energy crackling from her palm while giving an utterly sadistic grin at the two.

Suddenly, Doomrider leaped from the burning warehouse, unscathed as he backflipped out of the smoking wreck next to Unbound. Ember walked out of smoke unscathed, protected by a pink dome of Warp energy as she was strumming Heart Slaver. The air was silent as if waiting for one another to do something as they all stood there.

"I got the Black Rider!" Elitras relayed to his teammate as he glared down at them, "You take care of Azula and Ember!"

"Roger, Red Leader!" Cyrene saluted as he disappeared to lure Doomrider away, before she mentally giggled, 'I've always wanted to say that!'

Doomrider reeved Unbound into a wheelie before speeding off after Elitras. It didn't matter if him had to hunt for days; he once waited three days for a planetary governor who wouldn't come out of his tower for anything, save the most important of matters, only for Doomrider to ambush him and gut him in front of his children.

If he can wait for that long for a paranoid man to come out of his tower, then he can wait a few hours to catch his prey in a motorcycle chase.

While the men were out killing each other, the women were duking it out. Azula had assumed into a humanoid form clad in a full body leather outfit like Ember's with her hair tied to a ponytail and a blank porcelain mask with black tainted lenses.

The Mistress of Perfection kneed Cyrene in the face before the soundwaves of Heart Slaver's riffs slammed into her back. The Acolyte was sent flying but halted her momentum with the soles of her armor and fired her eyes beams, the two moved out of the way before Azula fired a stream of pink and orange Warpfire and Ember plays a power cord sending out a sonic wave from Heart Slaver, attacks that the Acolyte barely managed to duck under.

Taking advantage of her distraction, Azula leaped to the air, forming Warpfire in the color of sunrise. Azula's movements were more akin to a twisted yet breathtaking performance as she danced around Cyrene's attempts to counterattack with a grace that surpassed the Eldar while lashing at her opponent with her whips of flame. Ember assisted as she ripped power cord after power cord that kept the Acolyte from getting a chance to breath and form a plan in her head.

"Alright! You two wanna play?!" Cyrene roared as she flew to the air, hands and eyes crackling with energy, "LET'S PLAY!"

"Oh, and just when I was beginning to lose interest." Azula both boasted and mocked as she formed more of her Warpfire and Ember imbued Heart Slaver with more power.

Megaville

Hama's face was caved in by Serena's knee to her face before the latter decapitated the former. The blood spewing from her neck congealed and reattached her head back to her body as her face regenerated. Not giving her a chance to go on the offensive, the black-haired woman struck Hama's midriff with such force that it pulverized the internal organs and spine.

The Khornate woman upchucked a cough of blood and chunks, the many wounds that covered her flesh sprouting curved blades composed of solid blood, her torn away cheeks were replaced by a second set of blood-made fangs. Hama rammed her elbow into Serena's face, mangling her arm despite it knocking the latter away and said arm regenerating.

Despite her ability to regenerate and weaponize her own body, it was clear that Hama was outgunned in a fight with one of the Acolytes of the Emperor. Taking this in, she decided to kick this up a notch. Just before Serena could attempt another strike, two massive wings burst from Hama's back in a bloody display. Her flesh tore apart and remade as blood burst out of her veins, bones cracked and reassembled, horns torn themselves out of her brow, and her hair ignited in a mane of fire.

Hama now resembled the daemon that she was on the inside; massive wings with black membranes sat on her back while two upwards facing horns had grown from her brow, spike covered muscled armor covered her skin and muscles, saber-like claws came from her hands and feet, a thick tail with a spiked and clubbed end, her eyes and hair literally flames that lit the night.

Serena seemed unfazed by her opponent's transformation, though she did mentally groan, 'Well, that's gonna get annoying.'

Hama disappeared in a flash of red and before the Sister of Sanguine had so much as a chance to blink, her fist collided with the latter's cheekbone, sending her to the street, the impact caving in the pavement. Serena managed to duck a claw strike that would of decapitated an Astartes and fired her eye beams at Hama's midsection, that pushed her back before she swung her clubbed tail at the Acolyte, whom backflipped over and fired a blast from her hand that hit her opponent in the face.

The Khornate monster roared as the cracks in her armor sealed up and the blood seeping out receded back into her body before laughing, "Your attempts are impressive, but they are no comparison with the power of a Daemon Knight!"

Her opponent blinked, "Daemon Knight?"

That thought wasn't allowed to continue as Hama swiftly swung her clubbed tail again with Serena barely having time to react as the spikes grazed her hair when she ducked. Serena grabbed a car and slammed it against Hama's head, shattering it but cracking the armor around her neck and dazing her slightly, letting her opponent ram her fist into her chest, the impact sending the monster off her feet and into a building.

Roaring in impotent rage, the Daemon Knight burst into a flash of red and ramming her fist into Serena's chest before the latter could react. The Acolyte was sent into the street while firing her eye beams again, this time taking aim for the inside when Hama opened her mouth for a roar. The top of her head was blown apart by the beam and exploded in a shower of blood and gore yet reformed instantly, this time with her eyes and hair blazing red as she burst into a roaring charge towards her, arms raised to rend, and wings extended for flight.

Serena growled, her hatred for Khornates growing bigger, 'Why don't I have an ability to- Oh, yeah!' She remembered and blinked in realization, there was one ability that she had up her sleeve. Acting fast, Serena took in a massive breath as Hama closed in, the latter screaming in unfathomable fury as the wind cracked into a storm that brought only death.

With the brazen claws just inches away from her face, Serena exhaled. Suddenly, a stream of blue spewed from her mouth, releasing a wave of cold that immediately froze all moister that came in contact with it. A layer of frost immediately formed over Hama's form, followed by another and millions more as the Daemon Knight of Khorne was encased in a tomb of ice the size of a small building.

Serena's eyes were hard as she panted, the hand outstretched and centimeters from the skin of her nose.

Hama was frozen solid.

She let out a sigh of relief as she let herself fall to the ground. That was way too close, especially seeing as how that last strike could have nearly cleaved her in half. Getting up, Serena narrowed her eyes as she studied the frozen body of the Daemon Knight.

Hama looked like she was frozen solid, but instinct and years of surviving in all the hellholes of the Imperium had honed Serena's instincts to beyond the limits of imagination and she suspected something was wrong. She was about to breath in and blast it with her new freeze breath again, only for a hissing sound to come from the ice.

Steam began to pour off the ice, Serena began backing away from the frozen Daemon Knight, trying to keep the intense heat she was feeling at bay. The heat began to eat away at the ice in front of her and she inched back, her eyes widening beneath her stoic expression in shock at the creature literally melting its way out of its icy tomb. "What in the Emperor's name...?!" she whispered while staring on, heat continuing to unmake the icy tomb, "This... This is not normal..."

With Jack, he wasn't faring much better.

Ozai's strikes were strong enough to cleave through Power Armor and with Phoenix Bane, a single strike would rip him in half so the samurai could only block and dodge, hoping to find a weakspot to exploit. Each strike that he landed against Ozai's armor merely seemed like he was only annoying the Phoenix King and the only reason he was still alive was because he was faster.

The Phoenix King held his flaming sword in a downward thrusting hold, spearing down to skewer the Ronin only to be met by Jack's katana. Struggling, Ozai rose his flaming sword to strike again but as he did, Jack swung a counterattack, creating another clash between the two blades.

Suddenly, Jack's katana burst into scorching white flames as a flaring heat raged from the clash between blades. Just before either of the two could take in the white flames, Ozai's sword then shattered into eight pieces of random size. Phoenix Bane exploded into a pillar of flames, a daemonic face appeared screaming blasphemies as both it and the flames disappeared in a dust storm of white.

Both of them stared in disbelief at what just happened, Ozai was silent with his mouth open behind his helm and Jack staring at his katana still wreathed in white flames in disbelief before shaking it off.

Not giving the opponent a chance to adapt, Jack jumped directly to the level of Ozai's head and then slashed horizontally across his face, the eyes bursting into gory mush in their sockets.

Ozai roared in agony, covering his now eyeless face as he stumbled back with Jack landing on his feet, before his roars turned to laughter. "YES! This is a real fucking fight, samurai! Now, you die a warrior's dead!" The Phoenix King began transforming; growing even bigger, armor fusing to flesh, horns bursting from the brow and joints, and flames burst from between plates.

He now resembled a giant that almost dwarfed Tyberos the Red Wake, his armor now one with his flesh, curved horns had emerged from the brow and joints of the limbs, his hair now more akin to chitin covered dreadlocks with the mockery of the Fire Lord crown on his topknot, and flames erupting from between each plate of the fleshbound armor.

Clad in armor made from the bones of great monsters like the Tyranids and the titanic insects of alien worlds, the blind-eyed man's sockets rage with eternal fire as he vomits out a long flaming white armour slayer sword with the hilt composed of burgundy bone and the guard composed of horns. The weapon splits in twine and he slashes two massive gashes into his abdomen, causing the blood to spew from the wounds and then form into massive flaming wings as it fell then slide up his back as two more horns grow from the shoulders.

"COME AT ME!" The raging lord of Khorne roared as he readied his new sword, Soul Feaster, as its two halves fused back together.

Jack happily obliged.

New York

Alistair roared as he fired a beam of pure energy from his hands at Mesogog, who countered calmly by cast a Doombolt that intercepted it. The two beams burst into a flash of light, sending Alistair skidding back, burning the soles of his shoes as he rammed his feet into the street to slow himself down.

Glaring in hatred, the Acolyte started firing volley after volley of energy orbs that exploded, sending dust and debris into the air and landing all over the psychic barriers. The people under the spell of the King didn't notice as they all flocked like mindless sheep in the sidewalks and walkways, while Mesogog himself seemed unaffected by the constant volleys of energy blasts yet their mooks were blasted into bloody paste.

Unseen to Alistair, the King in Blood and Ash was getting up from the building that he had crashed into, shaking off the concrete and rebar that had fallen on him. It seemed he has become too dependent on his sorcery in the most recent times, though said spells had prevented him from dying just then.

No matter, it seemed he required more power. And so, he gave himself more.

His claws under his bandages swelled to become monstrous golden swords, his face swelled and rippled, black horns curling from his temples and gleaming corrupted body parts becoming visible as the Daemonic power took complete control of his body. Mist of ebony and azure oozed from the spaces between his bandages, enveloping his and the section where he had crashed, it flared while woven in blue lightning and launching out of the building, landing in front of a surprised Alistair just as he was about to attack again.

The mist shifted, black and blue mist concealing and growing. It cleared to reveal an abomination.

It stood 30 feet tall, humanoid and avian, black leathery flesh with feathers, pearl eyes, and mouths speaking in linguistics unknown. Each step, one limb grew uneven to the other, it's claws avian and crustacean like. One wing feathered, the other leather like and sharp. Its fang filled beak slick with drool speaks in many males and female voices.

"Welcome to Chaos!"

Alistair had a shocked expression but couldn't react in time when a bolt of Warp lightning from the abomination's beak hit him directly in the forehead. The Acolyte's mind reeled before it became blank as he fell into forced unconsciousness.

Alistair woke up in a grind, he pulled himself up with a groan of annoyance.

As he wakes, he sees.

(Fallout 1 OST: Vats of Goo)

The world was a black barren land with a grey sky and a spot of white, dunes of metal dust and lakes of phosphate. The obsidian trees are jagged and malformed in shapes that would make even the bravest weary. The smell of blood and decay sulfates the fooled air, broken weapons wearingly laid rusted and abandoned.

A dubious profusion of wind piped stridently through the Engineer's eardrums with the graining bells of dead churches and pitches of fire arching in unseen distance. In the lakes of phosphate, horrid tendrils form and unform with cracklings of searing meat and clinking of broken glass.

The Brother of the Armorym, only clad in brown ragged garments, walked on fearful and panicked footsteps, eyes and head darting in snapping motions with rapid, wet, fear induced blinks before the fear washes down as he sees a fine and shining scythe in a metal dust dune. It was then that his eyes beheld a message carved into the dirt-stained flesh of his left arm, one that would perplex him even when he awoke from this abstraction of mind.

"YOU ARE THE ENGINEER."

With his footsteps printing the metal sand, he walks to the scythe with a perplexed expression at the queer object among the rusted and broken weapons. Grabbing it and attempting the blow the metal dust off, the scythe instead disintegrated into a trail of rose petals that flutter like the mariposas of old. The fluttering petals multiplied on mass, growing in number within microseconds till they appeared as a turbulent blizzard of red snow, clotting his vision as he finds the location changed anew.

The same local only with the grey sky repainted red with a blizzard of rose blankets the metal dust dunes, the pools of phosphate now awash in black, the obsidian trees now resembling mockeries of reaching hands wrapped in wires of prudent barbs.

As he watches with awe-filled and dazed eyes, the gunshot sound of a whip cracking broke his trance as the Engineer gazes to the source of the crack.

Racing through the red and gunmetal landscape, was a parade float-like chariot pulled by humanoids bound in chains with another standing atop the chariot, cracking a whip and pulling the chains like the reigns of breed horses of old Rome.

The Engineer's walk then became a run while trying to gain the eye of the nearing chariot, screeching in a desperate wail, "WAIT! WAIT!"

Whomever was guiding the primitive vehicle seemed to notice, as they harshly yanked the rose soaked chains for the haulers to halt while collapsing in boneless exhaustion.

Upon nearing the chariot, the Engineer saw those that were hauling it was an ebony haired woman of remarkable beauty and four others that were indistinguishable from one another, clothed only in stained white rags with rusted steel collars attached to the rose soaked chains.

The Engineer could not hold back the gasp that ripped from his open throat.

The one atop the chariot was Elitras.

He was festooned in porcelain bandages with markings akin to eyes, brown soil ridden rags and hides of dead humans and wolves, and leather armor and belts cobbled in haphazard uniformity. Stains of blood were the paint for the eye-like markings along with thin tungsten wires tightly bound in the familiar appearance of the human circulatory system, and an onyx liquescent necklace with a singular emerald eye in a distilled mockery of the Imperial Aquila. His face was far more horrid, decorated with numerous asymmetric scarring in random lengths and sizes, monochromatic war paint in the classic yet ever so haunting vestige of the grim reaper, his eyes were various shades of red with scarred markings.

And finally, engraved on the leather of his arm were the words: I am the Operator.

The Engineer then saw the Operator had companions. They were a sultrily clad woman with a red-tailed hawk in her arms, she sat by an ivory sculpture assembled of blades and guns in the shape of a horrific throne with the familiar flag of America acting as it's banner, the words 'Ave Imperator' being imprinted in black on the ivory throne's backrest. The final item was a derelict, dirt mottled astartes' helmet by the ivory feet of the throne, the eye lense's shattered and coaxed in blood.

The Operator uncouthly placed the chains on a long rust-ridden nail, before extending his hand to the Engineer who grasped it reluctantly. Pulled up to the chariot, he was forced to his weak knees as the Operator pulled a rustic flask with a symbol akin to a haphazard polymerization of a swastika and a pentagram.

"Drink."

His voice was more familiar to vipera who's throat chokes on metal and glass, glazed with his accent of Slavic. The Engineer only shallowed a seed of uneasiness and shakingly drank from the queer, rustic flask.

The very moment after consuming the horrid ichor in the pensile flask, the Engineer saw his skin was decorated alchemical writings overlapping with skeletal artistry of ebony and ivory, his brown rags replaced with fine ivory clothing of an open front sweater and simple pair of long johns.

"I will call you 'Moonrise.'" The Operator spoke trimly and soft then looking to the dark horizon beyond, "Beautiful Moonrise."

The Operator raised his free bandaged and wire bound hand to the long rusted nail where the binding chains sat. Suddenly, the chains leapt into his hand which instantly clenched, then cracking the chitinous scaled whip in his right hand.

Daphne and her sisters obliged with little locution as they pulled the chariot on their weight strained spines as they treaded across the rose blizzarded dunes. The rose snow and gunmetal dust kicking upwards in the familiarity of smoke piping in the Engineer's ears, the wheels chattered in old dialect with the panting acoustics of the pulling sisters.

The Engineer, filled with exhaust, laid back on the ivory throne in discomfort. His eyes then laid to the woman's sight, whom giggled sultrily. The Engineer simply turned his sight away while sipping from a glass of brew that appeared randomly in his left hand, hoping his cheeks had not flushed.

Suddenly, a crackling bristle peaked his hearing.

Adjusting his head, taped to a random adjured blade from the throne was a parchment of light shaded brown folded in a crimson wax stamped envelope. His face adorning a perplexed expression, he untaped the envelope and unfolded the old and dust ridden parchment.

They are dying

I'm drowning

Please, help me

Father, please

I'll be a good boy...

The Engineer turned the parchment over.

Have you learned your lesson?

Yes I have.

Will you disobey me?

No I won't.

A disturbed yet curious expression plagued his face as his eyes recorded the contents of the parchment.

Within a customary 30 minutes, they neared a cavern. It had the appearance of an empty open chest cavity with ambient and godless swaying calcium spikes, the path oceaned an unearthly Prussian blue liquescence, viscous and mephitic.

The Engineer had an expression of profound nervousness as he stared at the thing beyond, "Why are we heading to that?"

"Because HE is through the path, Moonrise." The gangly Operator responds, with his arms extended in zealous worship, "He Who Shaped All Humanity." He pauses with the nuances of dementia, "Or was it He Who Crafted All Humanity?" Then shrugging uncaring, "Nevermind, he'll prefer either."

With his nerves akin to viscousness, the Engineer arose from the throne to be stopped by the Operator's hand the very moment he neared the resplendent edges of the chariot.

"Embrace thy fear, Moonrise." He rasped, leaning to the Engineer's wary face, "He Who Crafted All Humanity is exuberant for visitors, but not in the norms which you are familiar."

The black haired man gulped, "I'll keep that in mind." Before a marking on the back of his hand caught his sight; a blank mask atop a cross with large cracks on the left side and tears flowing on the right side, which the Engineer took it with a bemused expression.

He slowly trekked to the liquescent entrance. The Prussian blue mucilage bleed from the pulsating wax-like stone in the complex shape of a skeleton, twitching, seizing, jerking, and shifting.

Unseen to the Engineer, was the Operator sitting in a mediational pose. His right hand beheld a katana overflowing with a viscous fluid darkness akin to tar or ink, his left hand beheld a saucer-like clay bowl gathering the fluid darkness.

His appearance was however drastically changed; Now covered in a black liquescent frayed suit in resemblance to an exoskeleton, a featureless mask adorned his face with tree branch horns and emerald tearstreak marks, all held by a grey fleshy inner layer. In the epicenter of his chest was an emerald variant of the emblem of the Imperium above the enlarged serpent-like eye.

A ghastly prayer in acoustics foreign from the planet issued from his hidden face, at the singular moment, a gaunt humaniod with porcelain skin and void of a face danced a rhythm of twirls and jumps while tossing violet rose petals around the Operator, mutter the same unearthly acoustics. The woman stood behind him now clad in ceremonial robes, muttering the acoustics in old Latin, arms extended with a flame in one palm and a cross in the other.

The float-like chariot was replaced by an altar of metal, bone, and will. It's shape akin to a gaping maw with elongated, warped, and deformed slabs of metal as 'teeth', the base was composed of half-liquified bodies smelted with steel, the 5 black haired sisters unconsciously bound by feminine limbs with a single womanly face placed by the Operator's feet.

The moment the Engineer touched the liquescence, he fell into blackness.

XXX

Alistair jerks awake with a yelp, blinking rapidly as he looked around. He was in a grey stone room with a black and white checkered floor and only a single light holding back the darkness. It was empty yet cacophonous, silence being the dominant element while the room seemed to stretch beyond sight or length. Numerable supports held the hollow ceiling up while the darkness seemed to shimmer and seize, the feeling of being watched bombarded his nerves. He stood up, noticing that he was back in the attire that he arrived in New York with.

"Hello?" Alistair yelled out, his voice echoing throughout the endless darkened room seemingly without end. He tried again with the same result as before, this time it was like it was devoured by the darkness. Not knowing what to do, Alistair walked through the darkness to find something to get out of here.

After walking for a few minutes, Alistair noticed a figure in the distance, unmoving and staring off to the west. He sprinted towards it only to stop and gape at the appearance of the figure.

It was then that he saw that the person was himself, beardless and white as chalk. His movements were jerky and sporadic, his clothing consisted of a white beater and black pants while he was barefoot, and his scars were present for all to see with a large pentagram branded on his back. The noises that issued from his throat were a mix of groans, screams, cries, and moans.

His face then swerved towards the Acolyte with the fettered sound of bones breaking; his eyes had been replaced with orbs filled with static and speck-size screens, constantly changing colors.

Suddenly, a black opaque liquid began and seeping from his eyes and mouth, overflowing and trailing down his cheeks and chin like tears and blood of ink. He then started hurling the blackness in chunks, staining his whit beater while the rest disappeared into nothingness. He began twitching, spasming as if an invisible puppetmaster was using his muscles as strings.

The White Shadow of Alistair suddenly bent backwards, a loud groaning roar issued from his throat. A stream of pale green fluid then spewed out of his mouth, hitting the ceiling before abruptly disappearing.

He then bent forwards, producing a horrid hacking sound from the bottom of his throat while on all fours.

Something wet and scaly jerked and slithered up his throat. He then reached into his mouth and grabbed it, pulling it out of his esophagus. It was something serpent-like and black. He ripped it out of his throat before letting it fall to the floor; it appeared as a serpent's skeleton, teeth wriggling and smoke rising before it collapsed into a pile of goo.

The Shadow of Alastair touched it, only for it to transmute into a onyx cloth as it grazed his palm.

Both of them looked at the cloth in his hand when the Shadow abruptly threw the cloth into the air. It grew to where covered the ceiling, abruptly falling onto the Shadow, tightening around his body like a noose. The cloth that covered suddenly became a grey cloak that flowed in an unseen breeze, the hood revealed a blank black face that appeared cloth-like.

He then leaned down while folding his hands before placing his face in his hands then parting them and looking back at Alistair, who jumped in surprise. The face was replaced by a black mask with two featureless eyes: tear-like marks on the right and three large cracks branching from the left side. It seemed fused to his face yet there were no disruptions of the breathing in his lungs.

"The psychotic drowns where the mystic swims." The Shadow starts poetically, his voice metallic yet calming as if like the calm waters of a warm bath, "You are drowning. I am swimming."

Alistair was confused before he was thrown off his feet by a punch to the gut by the Shadow, sending him flying into one of the many supports in the infinite and dark room.

"Poor poor Butch," Said the Shadow, condescending yet charismatic as it sauntered towards him, "Like the character we are, just reeling in the dark away from the true fires of the other. Simply spinning and respinning the untanglable web of those we are pulling on razored wires."

The Acolyte grunted as he retched himself out of the support pillar, "Why are you comparing all of this to a story?"

"Because what is the real world than the most brutal, horrifying, thought provoking yet greatest story ever told?" The Shadow smarmingly retorted as he wriggled his ebony fingers in dramatic effect.

Alistair growled, "Then here's my review of your story!"

He roared out as he roared towards the Shadow, who flared his robes out as the darkness enclosed around him.

New Orleans

A flurry of murderous plants was incinerated by Belicara's eye beams, while Nero was burning away clouds of plague from Scarecrow with his eye beams. Worse still were those infected by the spores of Undergrowth were reanimated into the Spore Carriers, nearly overwhelming them from the sheer numbers alone. The things were coaxed in chlorophyll and overgrowth of daemonic plants, clothes degrading and fusing into their bodies as they shamble towards their enemies.

"Aim for the head!" Nero shouted to Belicara as the Spore Carriers were getting closer, drawing his bolter to mow them down.

"What?!" She shouted back, also drawing her bolter, "How do you know?!"

"I've seen horror films."

Belicara looks at him, both bewildered and curious.

"AT DRIVE-IN THEATERS!" Nero clarified hysterically, not having the time for information indulgence when they have purging to do.

The two opened fire, tearing down the Spore Carriers with Inferno Bolts before any of their daemon powers on the world. Belicara took care of the rest of them while Nero surged towards Undergrowth, who grinned in anticipation. The Ghost of Nature threw a punch while extending his arm, Nero swerved out of the way only for a myriad of plant matter fist to slug him across the face.

He was sent into a building, but it was quickly assaulted by thorny vines that attempted to impale him on their ends, thankfully while they did pierce his armor, they couldn't pierce his flesh though the impact sent him further into the building. After ripping the vines out of his quickly repairing armor, Nero shot through the roof of the building and fired down on the surprised Undergrowth. The Inferno Bolts destroyed several sections of the nature spirit's body but to the Acolyte's surprise, he quickly regenerated, and counter attacked. Undergrowth fired several pillar sized thorns that pierced through numerous skyscrapers around them, but Nero wasn't letting up.

Meanwhile, Belicara was having more than a little trouble with Scarecrow.

The blonde Acolyte backflipped away as another of Scarecrow's vials shattered onto the ground, melting through the concrete as a swarm of rust colored blades sprouted from the dirt like the fangs of a monster. She burned the rusting plague away with her heat vision but barely managed to move out of the way when Scarecrow came swinging his scythe at her, the weapon seemingly infecting the air that touched the blade as its master swung it at the Acolyte of the Emperor.

Belicara gracefully dodged each swing lest she be infected by whatever Warp substance the scythe was coated in, but whatever was struck by Scarecrow immediately began dissolving into a black green sludge that began spreading through the sidewalk they were on. She fired her eyebeams at Scarecrow's midsection, piercing through it and vaporizing all of the concoction caught in the crossfire, though the Nurglite didn't seem fazed by this.

Suddenly, boiling rust-colored phlegm and puss filled the gaping wound before botanical matter grew in and sealed it. Dark green thorny vines emerged from ever tear in his outfit and coil around whatever body part was closest, writhing and flailing in spiritual pain. Scarecrow's eye became a radiant orange as dark spores and plagues flaked off and swarmed around him like a cloud of pestilence.

Scarecrow thrust his hand outwards, the cloud of plague speared towards her only to be burnt away by her heat vision and the purifying flames quickly spread to the rest of the cloud as he was enveloped by the heat and destroying the black green sludge. However, several daemonic specters immerged from the flames, barring massive fangs and brambles as they lash out towards her only to be destroyed by her eyebeams.

Just before Belicara could catch her breath, the ground under her feet began to cave.

Immediately sensing that something was coming, the blond Acolyte shot into the air as Scarecrow, completely unharmed, burst out from the ground and swung his scythe at where she was half a microsecond ago. Seeing that she saw his move coming, Scarecrow merely twirled his scythe and rested it on his shoulder while looking up at her.

"Impressive." Scarecrow complimented her, "But this is not over until I say it is over!"

The Blight Bringer slammed the end of his scythe down onto the pavement, corruption and plague spreading from where he was standing as things that Belicara could only imagine in her worst nightmares emerged from the ground. They were pitch black with orange radiant eyes and veins and appeared as versions of her and her fellow Acolytes that had fallen to Chaos.

Belicara had to catch her breath as she gazed at the things spawned from Scarecrow but steeled her nerves as she prepared to purge them like the rest.

Los Angeles

Elitras was having a stressful time chasing Doomrider. Or to put it more accurately, having a stressful time trying to flee from Doomrider.

The Black Rider had drawn Fuckslayer once more and was playing it while chasing after Elitras on his motorcycle. The trouble was that Fuckslayer was basically a Sonic Blaster in the shape of a guitar that was also capable of unleashing torrents of Warp Lightning and Warp Fire as it was possessed by Greater Daemon of Slaanesh. And that's not even getting into the fact that Unbound's Doom Sirens were firing sonic waves at full blast.

Doomrider himself was standing on top of Unbound as it was spearing down the streets of LA while playing Dragonforce on Fuckslayer, the soundwaves and torrents of Warp Fire and Lightning desolating the area and all of the cars that were caught in his way, storms of dust and blasted asphalt trailing behind as the sheer force of Unbound's tires shredded the road into dust. All while Elitras was flying as fast as he could away from the Black Rider.

The riffs that Doomrider played on Fuckslayer produced a massive purple field of sound that ripped apart the street, cars and their occupants caught in its effect were reduced to scrap and paste, buildings reduced to rubble, all while purple lightning scoured through the area in furious blasts.

Elitras swerved out of the way of a blast of Warp lightning that speared towards him, hitting a jumbo jet instead that exploded on contact, sending flames and debris through the air. The Acolyte kept speeding away from Doomrider, but the Slaaneshi biker always seemed to be on his tail. He fired his eyebeams at Doomrider only for it to be met by a beam of Warp Lightning, both attacked bursting in an explosion of purple and red.

Doomrider played another power cord, this time summoning swathes of purple Warp fire in a daemonic vestige that shrieked in disquieting cacophonies as they swarmed towards Elitras. The red Acolyte fired his eyebeams at the specters, obliterating them entirely as more torrents came from the skies instead of Fuckslayer.

Now and thoroughly pissed off, Elitras disappeared in a flash of red. Suddenly, the entire square mile in front of Doomrider burst apart in a blaze of red energy, a storm of debris and rubble rose to the air as flares of red reduce it into furious black waves, leaving a half mile deep crater in its place.

Instead of being shocked or annoyed by this, Doomrider howled in utter excitement, "That's the fucking spirit, Elitras! Now let's kick this up a notch!" The Black Rider then slammed his foot down on a switch that was near his left leg and began playing "Through the Fire and the Flames" by DragonForce on Fuckslayer.

Suddenly, Unbound began shifting; a backrest of black velvet leather arose as the Black Rider sat down as the handlebars lengthened, the Doom Sirens spread out to act more as cannons than speakers, and its tires were enveloped in pink flames. Meanwhile, the Black Rider continued to play the song uninterrupted as the purple swathes of lightning condensed around Unbound.

Just as it reached the edge of the crater, the thing that happened next shocked Elitras into silence; Unbound began to fly. Roads composed of Warp lighting formed in front of the front wheel as the Doom Sirens lengthened to act as turrets, and the force from Fuckslayer's rhythms empowering the event.

"Come, Elitras! Let's rend this city into a true stage for the Prince!" Doomrider challenged the Acolyte, who responded by giving a grim and silent glare as he cracked his knuckles.

Meanwhile with Cyrene, she was doing fairly well in a fight with two opponents. That said, she was wracked with wounds that were more painful than they should have been and in quite the desperate need of respite.

Her Power Sword clashed with Azula's blade of Warp Fire before she fired her eyebeams at Ember just as she played a power cord, countering the sonic waves coming her way. She then twirled out of the clash and rammed her knee into Azula's ribs, sending the Mistress back and skidding to a halt. Cyrene let out a yell as she imbued her arm with energy and rammed it into the ground. Pink waves of energy burst from down under, sending both Azula and Ember away from her.

Suddenly, a massive explosion caused all three of them to stop, turning to the source of the sound. It was a storm of black with flashes of red in the distance, a trail of destruction trailed lead to it like the passageway to the Golden Throne. Blasts of purple roared through the black as torrents of Warp lightning clashed against the flashes of red.

"Elitras..." Cyrene whispered in concern, hoping that her fellow Acolyte could hold out against his opponent.

"Doomrider..." Both Azula and Ember growled out, angered at the Black Rider for putting on more of a show than them.

Immediately realizing that her opponents were distracted, Cyrene put clenched her Power Sword with both hands and imbued it with as much energy as she could in the span of a few seconds. When Azula shook out of her anger induced stupor and saw what was happening all in the span of a split second later, Cyrene swung her sword horizontally, sending a crescent shaped wave of pink energy at her opponents.

Azula and Ember, who noticed a fraction of a second later than the former, ducked under the wave as it destroyed a bunch of other buildings behind them. The Mistress suddenly disappeared in a blaze of fire and then reappearing behind Cyrene and spin kicked the latter across the face before she could react, sending her to the ground only to kick Azula in the midsection, feeling the bones and organs that she hit break and liquify.

The Daemon Prince backflipped back and landing gracefully on her feet, moaning in pleasure as she feels her destroyed innards regenerate, "That hurt. Ember, could you take over for a moment please? I need a minute to... collect myself~"

Ember merely played a massive power cord, sending out waves of pink that torn the concrete pier apart. Cyrene yelped in surprise but grounded her heels into the ground, her strength and invulnerability being the only things that kept her intact against the force of the waves. She attempted to fire her eye beams, but the vibrations destabilized the beam into rampant but harmless particles, barely giving Ember a raise in temperature.

Thinking quickly, Cyrene raised her left leg. Almost immediately, she was sent flying by the continuous sound waves from Heart Slaver but this time she could maneuver around to counterattack. Cyrene fired her eye beams at a surprised Ember, who was hit square in the chest, nearly destroying her guitar and throwing her into the ground.

A crater nearly eight feet deep formed with Ember at the epicenter, not killing her as she was a Daemon Prince like Azula but definitely taking her out of the fight as she was banished back to the Warp. But in only a second later, an orb of Warp fire struck Cyrene in the chest, knocking her down to the ground.

Bear in mind that Cyrene has been fighting two Daemon Princes of Slaanesh, and though she's immune to Chaos corruption, she's not immune to being tuckered out or rather paralyzed by Warp Sorcery. She struggled to move or use her powers, but nothing happened, even as she struggled more and only able to make sounds with her mouth.

Appearing in front of Cyrene, Azula immediately stomped her foot down on the Acolyte's chest, making her yelp in surprise rather than pain. The Mistress of Perfection looked down on the Acolyte at her feet, who was glaring up at her with righteous fury much to her amusement.

"Don't bother. I know you can't kill me because you don't have anything to truly kill a Daemon Prince." Azula mocked her while crossing her arms over her chest, making Cyrene scowl in holy anger. Then Azula gave a genuinely amused smile, "And I will not kill you. Because you are too much fun."

Now, Cyrene blinked in both shock and confusion.

"You are one of the few mortals that have actually amused me since I ascended to Daemonhood." Azula responded to the unasked and unheard question, "I've seen planets get destroyed and fail to amuse me, but you've somehow managed to entertain me. Maybe it's the invulnerability, the fact that I haven't been in a good fight for millennia, or your looks, but you've piqued my interest Cyrene." Behind her mask, Azula gave a lewd grin as her gaze was firmly locked onto Cyrene, her cheeks red and her eyes burning bright pink as she rubbed her legs together in pure unadulterated lust.

The Acolyte had a blank expression but internally she was extremely worried. Becoming the object of a Slaaneshi's desire, much less of a Daemon Prince's, was a very bad thing. A fate worse than death if there ever was one.

Suddenly, another explosion grabbed their attention. The storm of black was reaching a terrible climax, flashes of red and purple flared through the air as they hear roars of rage and excitement echo from the eye of the storm. Azula got on her knees while setting Cyrene's head in her lap in twisted affection as both stared up into the sky with the clash between Elitras and Doomrider raged on.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Azula began, staring up at the sky, "It's not just you that I find myself interested in. Elitras must definitely be proving himself if Doomrider is using Fuckslayer's full power. I would love to have both of you as my warriors..." Under her mask, she licked her lips in burning desire as her eyes gazed on at the Storm of Black. Cyrene would have squirmed if she could, very much able to tell that Azula was barely able to control the raging urges inside of her.

Then, the storm burst into a blaze of white that wiped itself away, Azula covered her eyes with her arm while Cyrene shut her eyes as hard as she could. Almost a second later, a crash, a tumble, and the sounds of panting rang through Cyrene's ears before she opened her eyes and gasped.

It was Elitras; slowly getting up from the ground and a feet away from spot where he crash landed, his armor was nearly in ruins with cracks and tears that were quickly self-repairing, unseen wounds all over his frame and deep burns on his right cheek while steam rose from his hair, and heaving breaths issued from his throats as he stared on at the sky with rage burning from his eyes.

Suddenly, they all saw a flaming purple object heading towards them. Azula scowled under her mask, she knew exactly who this was.

The object impacted a half mile away from them, shaking the ground and sending a cloud of smoke into the air and a splash of purple light around them. A minute after, the sounds of a motorcycle slowly but surely grew as a figure became visible through the smoke, before it exited the cloud. It was Doomrider, completely unscathed with only steam rising from him, while riding on Unbound in its original form.

The Black Rider got into their vicinity within a minute, screams coming from nowhere as he swerved it to stop while the left side faced them. When Unbound quieted down as he hopped off the daemonic bike, it was then heard that he was laughing in delight while resting Fuckslayer on his shoulder.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" The Black Rider laughed out in delight, his left arm raised as if grasping the sky, "That was the greatest fight I've had in years! All the blasts, him throwing those boulders, and that massive clash! Ah, that was amazing!"

Elitras growled but was unable to act on his instincts due to the pain wracking his every nerve and muscle.

"You know what?" Doomrider said almost cordially as he walked over to the group, oozing smugness "Because you've been so much fun, I'll let you go. What do you say, Azula?"

Azula actually grinned under her mask, petting Cyrene's head, "Indeed. So much amusement from these two." She purred, thinking of all the horrible and agony-inducing things that she'll do to Cyrene and Elitras. But her sadistic thoughts distracted her when Doomrider made a pistol-like shape with his fingers and jerked his hand back like firing a gun.

Suddenly, Cyrene found that she could move again and immediately took action.

The sound of a blast rang through the air as the Mistress of Perfection let out a choke and gazed down; there was a hole in her torso where what should had been blood and flesh was instead pink energy shimmering and spasming. Cyrene's eyes were leaking blazing pink energy, signaling that she had fired her eye beams. Azula remained still for several moments, seemingly not able to comprehend what had just occurred.

Suddenly, her lips curled into a smile as her mask fell off, a small snigger escaped her throat. It grew and grew in volume until it became a full blow cackle of madness, the composed expression erased as she cackled in absolute pleasure.

"I WILL HAVE YOU!" Azula howled as her composure evaporated into a grin born only of madness, revealing a thirsting beast as she was banished back to the Warp, "I WILL MAKE YOU MY TOY FOR ALL ETERNITY! AND YOUR AGONY WILL SATE ME TO THE END OF ETERNITY ITSELF!"

That was the last howling cackle, Azula was cast back to the Immaterium. Unseen to them, Doomrider looked at his wrist as a blinking blue light came in, if he was checking a wristwatch.

The two red haired Acolytes panted in exhaustion at finally beating her. But then Doomrider chuckled in dark amusement, gaining their attention as he shook his head, "She'd be back and so will I. See you around." A mock salute came from the Black Rider as he walked away, getting on his bike before speeding off into the ruins of LA.

Elitras immediately collapsed as both he and Cyrene heaved in exhaustion.

Megaville

Streaks of white flames raged across the streets of Megaville as the swords of the two warriors clashed in volcanic fury. The flames from Soul Feaster carved through a building behind them while the ones from Jack's sword sliced through the sidewalk with ease. Each clang shook the ground as the sounds of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object rang through the air.

The hair held back by Jack's hairpin was now flowing out freely while the feral look on his face gave an aura of grim determination, the flames from his sword burning like the stars of the universe as it clashed against Soul Feaster. Ozai merely had superficial slashes over his frame while the bronze grin he had continued to grow as the fight dragged on, the flames of Soul Feaster like a white inferno of rage.

Ozai thrusts his sword at Jack who swiftly leaned out of the way before swinging at the former's side only it to by blocked by Soul Feaster. Jack attempted to destroy the monster's head by jumping up and swinging but was blocked again by Ozai before he swung Soul Feaster down, sending a blaze of white flames towards Jack. The samurai was barely able to dodge the attack as it destroyed another building and blocked a strike that sent him off his feet but rammed his sword into the road and jamming his feet down to slow himself down.

Jack was panting hard with sweat pouring down his head and torso as he used his sword to hold himself up, near fainting from the stress of the fight. Buttercup had said that the Khornates were powerful, but he not thought they were this powerful! Ozai was stronger and faster than any foe he had yet to face, unable to give him a chance to perform a quick enough attack to give him and opening, and that wasn't getting into the fact that he could only cut a few inches deep into Ozai's armor.

The samurai managed keep himself from getting killed but he's still not sure if he can hold out much longer.

Ozai then snapped Jack back to reality when he attempts a vertical slash at the latter, who ducked and slashed at the former's legs but only grazing the calves. The Phoenix King spun around with a swift horizontal slash that Jack blocked with his sword, but the force knocked him off his feet and sent him tumbling into the wall of a building while also losing a grip on his sword.

Jack groaned in pain as he arose from the rubble that was the wall that he crashed into, only to hear a clanging sound near his feet. It was his sword, the blade still wreathed in white scorching flames. He raised an eyebrow before seeing Ozai standing in a knightly position with his hands on Soul Feaster's hilt while the sword itself was pressing against the ground.

"Raise your sword, Samurai." Ozai commanded, his tone now calm as ice, "I will not fight a weaponless man."

Looking shocked before nodding in understanding, the samurai grasped his sword as he stood up. Jack then pointed his sword towards Ozai, who then twirled Soul Feaster before pointing it at Jack.

"Let the fury we unleash this day be felt for a thousand years." Ozai stated as he poised Soul Feaster to strike in a piercing thrust.

"And let the strikes of our blades crack the earth." Jack retorted; his sword poised in the same way. The two then let out a yell as they clashed their blades together.

Back with Serena, she was having a bit of trouble with Hama. Their clash sent them through dozens of buildings, sending metal and glass falling down to the streets while one landed a strike against the other with the force of meteors striking against each other.

Serena slugged a practically raving Hama across the face, sending her back into the top of a building while breaking her spine and wing. Hama coughed up chunks of blood before glaring murderously at the woman in the air glaring down at her. The Daemon Knight roared as she shot back into the air the second, she regenerated, the force shattering the concrete and windows of the building she was on, before unleashing a massive flaming breath at her opponent that missed but melted an antenna that was caught in the crossfire while Serena fired her eyebeams.

The beams pierced Hama's sternum though not the back of her hide, incinerating her internal organs and boiling her blood in the mere seconds that it was in contact even though she managed to stay in the air. Hama roared in agony even as the destroyed organs began regenerating, bleeding molten and boiling quicksilver that quickly receded back into her innards, wings flared with her claws outstretched.

"I WILL FLAY YOU ALIVE, GIRL!" Hama screeched out as the flames that composed her eyes and hair flared even brighter in her fury.

"You can try." Serena kept her composure but underneath she was quite frustrated by the fact that no matter what she did, she was unable to land a decisive injury because of Hama's ability to regenerate.

Deciding that she needed a sec to plan out her next course of action, Serena speared at Hama at speeds faster than the latter could react. The green blur pierced through Hama's chest, then destroying the arms, legs, wings, and head before the Daemon Knight could even blink, reducing her to bloody mulch that immediately began regenerating as it fell to the streets.

However, a stream of white flames speared towards Hama as she fully regenerated within seconds. Just as both of them saw it spearing towards her, it was too late as the white flames hit her directly in the chest. Hama let out a scream that would have curdled the blood of Serena of she wasn't experienced with Chaos before, sections of her skin slogged off as her flesh burned, boiling molten blood oozed out of each wound as she flailed around in agony.

Thankfully for her, Hama managed to slash a fire hydrant in half, extinguishing the flames as vast amounts of steam emitted from her spot but it seemed that she was down for a while.

Serena had a bewildered look on face at what just happened, not just for the appearance of the white flames, but for the fact that they seemed to have stopped Hama in her tracks. It was only when she followed the trail of flames to its source that really shocked her; it was from Sensei Jack and his duel with Ozai. Each clang of their blades was like the boom from a Cyclonic Torpedo, blasting and scouring swathes of white flames burst from every clash as the ground itself shook at their strikes. It seemed like the two were really going all out, especially given that Jack's coat was in tatters and with his hair loose.

Suddenly, a moan pricked at her ears.

Looking down, Serena saw that Hama was slowly regenerating but something seemed... off; the areas of armor that were regrowing seemed thicker and possessed larger spikes while her right wing and tail seemed larger, giving her an asymmetrical appearance as she stood back up. Her flaming hair was now a pixie cut as her eyes burned brighter, while her cheeks parted to reveal a second set of bronze fangs that sat at the exterior of her jawline, and finally, whatever slice remained on her form was replace a short and thick spine.

Serena blinked as she saw what was happening, did the white flames screw with her ability to regenerate somehow?

'Wait, those white flames came from Sensei's sword.' She thought as she recalled something from her dream, 'And what did that newscaster guy say?'

XXX

Serena gasped, realizing what this meant, "Could it be?" She whispered to herself, now thinking that they just got one hell of a weapon against Chaos if what she assumed was correct.

A loud roar brought her out of her thoughts as she looked down at the source of the noise. It was Hama, standing up in a hunched posture while glaring up at her ferally as blood and drool leaked through her fangs.

"Oh, someone's up for round two, eh?" Serena slammed her right fist into her left palm as a sign of challenge, "Let's dance!"

The Acolyte formed her Power Sword from her armor and dived down, the weapon in her hands blazing with her energy as she speared towards her opponent. Hama swung her arm at Serena, who only swerved out of the way and slashed off the former's arm of at the shoulder.

However, instead of a single arm growing back, five arms grew from the stump. Each one having five fingers with crimson claws, lashing at the air randomly.

Serena blinked when she saw this, "What the-?!"

Before she even had a chance to react, Hama lashed out with all of her five right hands. Serena could barely block all their strikes at once and that wasn't given getting into the fact that the Daemon Knight was being to pressure her. Thinking fast, the Sister of Sanguine speared under Hama's strikes and cleaved off her left leg.

Just as she suspected, a new leg almost immediately burst out of the stump to replace it but this time it was more akin to raptor's than before. In the split second before it formed into the leg, Serena's enhanced vision caught that it formed from various tentacles that interwove together as it took shape.

'So, either she regenerates stronger body parts or that with each regeneration she mutates.' Serena mentally analyzed in the split seconds she had before she needed to act, 'This'll be tough.'

The second she finished that mental sentence, Hama leapt towards Serena at blinding speeds before the latter could react, this time actually striking all five right arms in her sternum and sending her into three buildings as the last one collapsed under the weight of the impact. Just as her opponent emerged from the rubble, Hama rushed at even more blinding speeds with a furious roar but this time, Serena fired her eyebeams the second she opened her eyes. The beam slashed Hama's wings and left arm off and sent her tumbling into the second building, sending heaps of dust into the air.

Serena panted for a second to catch her breath before Hama emerged from the rubble, roaring and frothing in berserk fury. Her five arms wrapped around her right leg and tore it off. Half a second later, her wings grew back, but were now larger than her whole body with needle-like spines covering each membrane. An armored appendage with a massive, armored hand grew from the stump of her left shoulder, and another raptor-like leg sprouted from the stump of her right leg.

Hama immediately tried to crush Serena with her massive hand, only for the latter to grab the arm by the elbow. Before the Daemon Knight could even blink in shock, Serena pulled with all her strength, tearing off the limb at the elbow in a bloody display of power. Hama screeched in agony before said severed hand then backhanded her across the face, breaking her neck and knocking her into the wall of the ruined building.

"Oh, I'm sorry. In need to be rearmed?" Serena let out a pun as she used the severed limb as a makeshift hammer to smash remaining supports, sending the building crashing down on top of Hama. Suddenly, a massive pink tentacle with a maw of fangs burst from the rubble and lashed at Serena, who blocked it with the massive, severed arm. The mouthed tentacle bit down on left side of the hand before devouring it, just as Hama burst out of the rubble with an extra mouth of bronze fangs on her neck. Hama let out a feral roar as she lashed tentacle arm out only for Serena to duck out of the way, before she swiftly drew and swung her Power Sword, slashing off the tentacle arm.

Now tired of this game of back and forth, the Acolyte slashed all of five right arms away. Not giving her opponent a chance to react, she cleaved through the waist, torso, neck, and head of the Daemon Knight then speeding away as every severed half reconnected into a mishmash of sprouting body parts. Hama's wings ejected thousands of spines at once, hoping to skewer her opponent but all of them only strike air as Serena flew out of their path, before the latter charged massive spheres of energy in her palms.

Just as the orbs were the size of a truck, Serena hurled both of them at Hama, both orbs twisting in with each other as they flew. The thing that used to be Hama could only roar as the sphere of energy collided with her.

The explosion rocked the city in a cacophonous blast of radiant green, forcing many a faraway civilian or approaching superhero to cover their eyes from the sheer intensity of the blast. Waves of the dust and rubble surged through the block, flattening several buildings and freeways as Jack and Ozai's attention was torn away from their fight and to the source of the blast that shook the earth.

"BUTTERCUP!" Jack yelled in worry before he broke into a mad dash towards the epicenter of the fading explosion, hoping that his student was alright.

Ozai remained silent but was mentally curious as to the cause of the explosion, 'What in the Blood God's name caused that?' With that thought, he formed the flames into Phoenix wings and took flight towards the crater formed from the blast.

Just as Jack got to the edge of the crater, he saw Buttercup flying down to the edge, looking like she had just been through the wringer; covered in blood, cracks and gashes on her armor, her hair was a mess with all the blood and gunk covering her head, and there was a look of utter exhaustion plastered on her face. She noticed Jack running up to her and gave a tired grin, "Hey, sensei."

"Buttercup, what happened?!" Jack asked frantically, worried sick over what just happened but she only seemed nonchalant if really exhausted.

"Not much, just expended a lot of energy. Really take a lot out of-" Serena was interrupted when a small rumbling was heard from the wreckage. Suddenly, a large mass of tendrils and limbs burst from the wreckage; all kinds of human and inhuman limbs grew out as multiple bodies and faces with various bizarre features or having too many features or too few that resembled Hama emerged from the mass, screaming or roaring at Serena and Jack.

"Oh, COME! ON!" Serena yelled in exasperation. But as the mass shot out it appendages at them, Jack slashed them away with his sword still wreathed in white flames. The mass shrieked as the scorched parts blackened and peeled away but instead of regenerating, pink bubbling fluid leaked from the wounds like a salivating mouth.

Seeing that, Jack got an idea on how to beat Hama. Breaking into a sprint despite a distraught Serena, Jack jumped high into the air while raising his sword as the thing that used to be Hama lashed out all of her limbs at him, the moonlight shining on Jack's sword flared brightly. The samurai let out a furious yell, swinging his blade down at the monster with such force that it nearly cracked the bones in his arms.

Suddenly, a massive wave of white flames blazed from Jack's sword, striking the abomination at the 'chest.' A second later, the mass of limbs was enveloped in a torrent of flames as it screamed in unspeakable agony. Jack landed back next to Serena as the two backpedaled away from the flaming mass of limbs. It continued to scream, reaching decibels that nearly shattered all glass in their vicinity, flailing it multitude of limbs at whatever was near, desperately trying to escape its flaming death.

The screams grew quiet, the flames began dimming until they outlined to reveal the mass. It was dying, reaching out at everything that was near, all of its faces stuck in an expression of fear and agony as several tentacles and clawed limbs attempted to reach Jack and Serena in a final attempt on their lives. The mass of charred flesh then crumbled away into ashes as the wind blew out the flames and whatever was left away, leaving no trace of Hama left.

Serena stared on in shock with her jaw firmly open before her gaze turned to Jack's sword, now void of the white flames. Jack himself was stunned, looking at his sword in shock.

"Did... did you know your sword could do that?" Serena asked Jack while still staring at his katana in awe.

"I'm... not sure." Was all Jack could respond with.

Unknown to them, Ozai was watching them all from the top on the building behind them. Though he was calm, the Phoenix King was as shocked as the two. That sword could kill a Daemon Knight? Such a thing should have been impossible unless they possessed an artifact that could neutralize Warp energy, but if the sword could destroy one, then that meant...

"By the Skull Throne, he has the Silver Blade of Necoho." Ozai whispered to himself, thinking what this revelation could bring, "I must inform the Blood God." He then looked at his wrist as a blinking blue light appeared over it. The Phoenix King sneered before he curled his fingers into his palm, piercing the flesh of his palm and drawing blood that spilt onto the floor. Suddenly, the blood boiled and simmered rising against nothing and spreading into a circular shape. It then brightened and parted, revealing the Realm of Brass and Blood that Ozai walked into.

The rift sealed behind him with Jack and Serena none the wiser.

He awoke in a stone room of dubious design before it was then invaded by men that stood against the walls.

The cultists were wearing stained robes made of flayed human skin crudely sown together, same with their gloves and boots. They also wore crude necklaces made from a human spine, various sharper bones, and a human skull. They were holding rusted scythes, knifes, and blades decorated with lanyards of fangs and teeth.

Alistair looked shocked when he saw them, but his expression turned to confusion when one of the cultists knelt to him while offering a purple rose. The Acolyte took it and palmed it for a second when the offerer took his open hand and lead him down through a dark tunnel that reflected no light. Alistair tried to yell in protest, but no noise issued from his throat.

They then lead him to a carved circle in the pavement of the temple floor, they filled it with goat's blood and then circled around with a lit herbs releasing a pleasant-smelling smoke before another cultist sliced open a small cactus-like plant that spills a clear liquid into a bowl of many-colored powders.

"In tenebris aquas, nigrum in equitum solis." They chanted monotonously yet grandiose, "U mračnoj vodi, jahači jašu crno sunce."

The liquid became a light emerald that emitted an ominous glow.

Everything faded away as the world was replaced with a blackness that stretched farther than Alistair could fathom, yet he could see himself while grey tendril-like clouds slithered around him listlessly.

Suddenly, four horsemen marched through the accursed black haze with clear motive. Each different from the other yet the same as well.

Around the black one was an air of lifelessness and fear, it's eyeless skull-like face contrasts the hundreds of cold pupiless eyes coated its body. In its hand is a massive scythe of cold steel, ready to end a life within a heartbeat.

The red one had an aura of murder and strife, it's head nothing but a torrent of flame igniting the matter around it with its body being armored in organic plates. In it's right hand, it carries a longsword twice the length of its owner and just as red.

The white one was emaciated with its skin being stretched and near breaking. Its face was a maw of thinned human teeth slicked in drool, it let off a feeling of hunger and desire. The weapon in its hand being a massive club of bone and teeth.

The green one haunted her for an eternity. Its face was a bird-like mask with soulless black eyes, accompanying its face was an odd hat in the shape of a disk, while its body was cloaked in an emerald outfit. The weapon in its hand being a long staff with a cross at the end.

They lunged through the haze, snarling out in disgust, all visual stimulus chromatically inverted to look like its opposite. Alistair, a little unsettled, slowly stepped away only for him to see the horsemen circling around him like lions circling around a wounded elk.

And then they started chanting.

There are things known.

There are things unknown.

In between

Lie the doors of perception.

They sang and sang as it burned into her mind, their voices reverberating yet melodic. Alistair curled up with his hands to his ears, trying to block it out but it kept burning into his head, unable to stop. The sounds of the hooves of their horses' stomping almost becoming a melody of madness, drilling into his skull no matter how hard he tried.

Suddenly, everything went white.

XXX

The world around him was nothing but seen blackness that spanned everywhere and nowhere. The unseen grass crunched and bent under his feet while the dubious senses that she was normally accustomed to were useless. Alistair, in the most abrupt of feelings, suddenly became aware that something fetid and large was exceeding near him, unmoving and unswaying.

Abruptly, he was granted back his accustomed sight, only for a gasp to escape his throat and his hands to nearly reach his mouth. It was himself; constructed crudely out of weathered, porous limestone, with a strange light glowing from deep within it. Around him and the limestone statue in his likeness were billowing, garishly colored clouds and water, ready to rain down akin to the winter storms that dominated the world.

His hand glided along a limb of garish cloud before turning to see the statute in his likeness being accompanied by twin statues with their arms wrapped affectionately around the legs of his'. Upon closer inspection, the statue resting to the right was in likeness to Elitras and the statute resting to the left was in likeness to Nero.

Before Alistair's mind could absorb this, the head of the limestone statue was suddenly composed of a blackness, void of any of the features that gave it his likeness. A moment passed when it began liquifying while the garish clouds behind were replaced by a lurid black and pink hellscape. The liquid portions of the statue instead flowed upward into a reflecting pool above, rippling red with each drop. The statues wrapped around the melting one abruptly crumbled to ash, the liquid ripped away listlessly until all that remained was a cleaned onyx skeleton, standing supportlessly in the swallowed land.

Horrid otherworldly smoke then began pouring into the skull, spreading down the ribs, spine, pelvis, and limbs like a non-solid fungus until the skeleton was entirely obscured aside from a pale-yellow luminescence that grew from within. The smoke writhed and slithered in between each onyx crafted bone as Alistair watched in equal parts confusion and fascination, backing away while the statue underwent its metamorphosis. The smoke began condensing and shaping around the skeleton, until it coalesced into a human-shaped carapace of chalk that shattered as rapid as it formed, revealing another statue of himself made out of glowing red amber or metal illuminate in furnace blaze, as if he is being reforged into a new being.

Alistair could feel the heat blazing from the object, backing away until someone claps their hands on his shoulders. The air became tenser, as if he was swimming in clear water. Whomever was grabbing his shoulders abruptly released him before wrapping their arms around his chest and pulling him close. The thing's gentle lips pricked at his left ear.

"Time to wake up, Alistair." The gentle voice of the Emperor's Compassion piped into his ears.

New York

Alistair woke up, inhaling deeply as his eyes shot open. He was back in New York and saw Mesogog with the King back in his normal form at his side, while the tainted civilians were gathered around a ritual circle of sapphire. Letting out a groan, Alistair got up to his feet which gained the attention of the two.

"What?!" The King yelled in terror, backing away while Mesogog remained composed, "How did you break out of the illusion so quickly?!"

Mesogog did not voice his disbelief as he fired numerous Doombolts from his hands that only made contact with the far end of the street as Alistair disappeared in a flash of green. The Alchemist of Tzeentch raised his left arm when Alistair's fist connected to an invisible shield on the former wrist as the latter appeared above and threw a punch.

A massive crystal spine then speared from in front of Mesogog's foot that would have speared through Alistair had he not spun out of the way before he then fired an orb of energy only for another crystal to shot from the ground and deflect his shot into a building. The King unleashed torrents of red Warp lighting that hit Alistair on the back, causing the latter to stumble before twirling around and firing his eye beams at the sorcerer that hit him in the chest.

The King was sent into the wall behind him, cracking the concrete that connected to his back. He groaned in pain but quickly pulled out the amulet around his neck, wiping his head in reflex at seeing that it wasn't broke. Suddenly, Alistair appeared in front him, grasping the hand that was holding while grinning an evil grin.

"Oh, I'm sorry, but this seems important right?" Alistair asked rhetorically before he crushed the King's hand and the amulet along with it. The amulet stood no chance against the force from Alistair's grip as it was crushed into fractals, piercing the hand of the King and drawing out blood. The King in Blood and Ash screamed in pain before his eyes bulged under his bandages when he realized what just happened. The sorcerer wailed in worry as he futilely attempted to reassemble the amulet in vain while Alistair watched in amusement.

"No... No! No! NONONONONONONO!" The King bellowed out as he continued to attempt the amulet's reassembly, knowing what's going to happen if the amulet was broken.

Suddenly, a dreadful feeling washed over all of them as the air grew heavy and the sky darkened, causing Alistair and Mesogog to stop their fight and look around in confusion while the King froze in fear. A moment later, an infernal explosion shook the ground, causing everyone to cover their eyes. As the smoke cleared, the King in Blood and Ash trembled as everyone else was still dazed from the blast.

"YOU HAVE BETRAYED ME!" An old, raspy, yet deep and powerful voice boomed.

It was a 15-foot-tall thing is a phantom-ish decrepit mockery of human shape, dark grey ragged robes layered above light grey bandages, leather binds, spiked chains, and a noose of wires around the neck. Instead of a face, it wore a helmet-like mask with forward-facing horns and eight red eye-like markings, four on each side in a curved formation. Under the bandages, slithered black tentacles in and out with small impish creatures with grey skin pulled taunt and overstretched, some caressing with comfort and others pulling harder on the chains and binds.

The King wailed in fear as Mesogog and Alistair looked on in fearful curiosity as to who this was. But before they could anything, the figure snaps his fingers in a sound that rang from forgotten times. Suddenly, purple lightning blitzed from his finger towards the tainted people, reducing them to chunks before any of them even had a chance to scream. His head snaps towards the King who yelps in fear, falling to his back as he tried to scramble away. The figure only pointed a long and boney finger at the terrified sorcerer.

"Be blind." He rasps out. The King in Blood and Ash suddenly wails in pain, clawing at his face as his bandages darkened with his blood before chains of ebony flame erupted from the ground and bound themselves around his frame, shearing into his flesh and painfully restricting him to the ground.

"What are you doing?!" Alistair yelled, for once in fear as the Emperor never told him about this daemon in all of their time.

"You. You are needed alive." The figure rasps out, before he drawlingly commanded out in power from the deepest depts of the Warp, "Sleep."

Not a second later, Alistair's eyes grow dull before he collapses back into unconsciousness. The figure than looks to Mesogog, who remained composed but bowed his head to the figure, who merely looked back to Alistair, who was still passed out on the sidewalk.

"We will meet again." He rasps, before he disappears alongside Mesogog and the King in Blood and Ash, leaving the unconscious Acolyte behind with the thousands of liquified dead for all the world to see.

Hours later, Alistair's eyes cracked open to the sounds of police chatter and sirens as he felt hands on him. Groaning, his weary eyes opened to see NYPD all around him, a lot of the officers looking horrified by the liquified bodies while some green recruits ran to find a place to vomit, only a few noticed him forcing his sore body to sit up from the ground.

"Hey, this one's awake!" One of the officers yelled out as he ran over to Alistair, helping the man up to his feet, "You, okay?" The look of annoyance on Alistair's face was palpable but he grunted that he was fine if a bit sore. The officer called for the others that they had a survivor, while Alistair saw the crowd of horrified people behind caution tape, some screaming bloody murder when they saw him.

And it was then that he noticed he was completely covered in blood, likely from the other dead.

"Oh, just freaking perfect." Alistair mumbled, not even having the energy to swear in frustration at the moment. The officer set him down near an ambulance as the medics took off his trench coat to clean it while they put a blue blanket over his shoulders, letting him collect himself as the forensics and cleanup crew came by to clean up the mess.

"...What the fuck happened here?" Another officer abruptly asked Alistair, looking on at the hundreds of dead coating the sidewalks, the gap in the streets that was filled with fleshy tendrils and eyes, the destroyed buildings, and the fact that he was the only one left.

Alistair merely produced a cigar and lighter before lighting it and taking a drag, ignoring the numerous amounts of Cyrene's reprimanding of him either drinking or smoking that were playing in his head as he needed something to cool down. Finishing, he looked up to the officer and muttered out.

"Where do I begin?"

New Orleans

Undergrowth bends out of the way of another beam from Nero before he swiftly extended his fist, hitting the charging Acolyte in the face and sending him into a building. Suddenly, Undergrowth's fist burst apart as Nero fired beams from his hands, freeing the Acolyte as he flew out of the building. The Spirit of Nature was unfazed as his arm regrew before he produces and threw several person sized seeds around the block that exploded into clouds of spores.

Dozens more Spore Carriers emerged from the buildings around them, flooding the streets in a frenzied swarm before Belicara set them all a blaze with her heat vision before Scarecrow stopped her with a swing of his scythe. Nero swore before he continued his fight against Undergrowth who was now attacking with fanged vines.

Belicara swerved away from another scythe swing from Scarecrow and a right hook from Alistair's fake before destroying it with her eyebeams. The fakes of Elitras and Serena both attempted a spin kick, but she ducked and fired beams from her hands that hit both in the chest, destroying them instantly before her fake rammed its fist down at her face only for her to tank it. She rammed her fist into the fake's head, shattering it into pieces before destroying the fakes of Nero and Cyrene with her fists.

Taking a moment to catch her breath, Belicara then heard the sound of slow clapping. She turned to see Scarecrow standing at the corner of the sidewalk, slowly clapping in a sarcastic manner, "Impressive." Scarecrow then let out a raging stream of plagues out of his mouth that the Acolyte countered with her heat vision, neither side gained ground as one pushed against the other in a blazing struggle.

Suddenly, Scarecrow ceased unleashing the stream of plagues and ducked under the Sister's eye beams as it came towards him unchallenged, hitting the building across the street behind him. Crane then grabbed and threw several vials from his innards, shattering upon the concrete in splashes of radiant orange. Swarms of black mites came out of the orange fluids, darkening whatever was light was shining down on her spot as it took then a form vaguely humanoid in shape with streaks of orange appearing randomly.

The Swarm swung down, enveloping a wrecked van strung up in the street where it was rusted to dust before it turned to her and let out a buzzing screech. Belicara responded by imbuing her Power Sword with energy in challenge. The two then leap at each other, yelling all the way.

A single swing from her sword incinerated the mites that touched the energy corona, but it reformed and threw down a punch that she dodged. The Swarm deformed into several tendrils that speared at her in all directions, only for Belicara to slash all of them when they got within an inch of her. It then reformed into a massive, fanged maw that the Sister barely managed to avoid by falling to the ground as its jaws closed, before she then fired her eye beams that slashed it in half, destroying even more of its mass. All the while Scarecrow watched in interest.

Meanwhile, Nero fired a beam into Undergrowth's chest as the former was diving down away from the latter's jaws, piercing through only to regenerate the second it dissipated. A groan escaped Nero's throat as Undergrowth laughed before bellowing, "Haven't I said already? You cannot destroy me!"

The Ghost of Nature then shot several rust-colored brambles from his palms that would have killed Nero had he not flashstepped out of the way. The Acolyte then gave an angry stare as he formed his Power Sword in his right hand and slashed away spiked vines that abruptly emerged from the ground while forming his Bolter in his left as he began firing Inferno Bolts and using his heat vision to damage Undergrowth as fast as he was regenerating.

Nero's plan seemed to be working as Undergrowth began to back away while screeching in pain at the flames from both his heat vision and the Inferno Bolts produced, when more of his daemonic plants began spawning, stalling the flames and giving him a chance to regenerate. More daemonic vegetation grew from the buildings, blocking the flames as the right side of Undergrowth's body slowly regenerated and the flames sputtered out, sneering at the Acolyte as a flower with fangs in place of pedals emerged from behind and bloomed.

Without Nero noticing, the flower spewed out a cloud of gold spores that blew into his face. The Acolyte merely took one breath as he looked at the cloud confused before he went still, his heat vision puttering out and his eyes rolling into his skull as he fell unconscious.

Undergrowth merely hummed as he finished healing and the daemonic plants receded, but before the Ghost of Nature could do anything else, a blinking blue light came from his wrist. Taking a look at his wrist and making a disappointed face, Undergrowth turned around and yelled out, "Crane! It is time!"

As Belicara continued to fight against the Swarm with her Power Sword and energy beams, Scarecrow turned around and calmly replied, "Very well." Just as the Swarm used the last of its strength to try and kill her but it was for naught as the rest of it was incinerated by her firing massive beam of energy that she fired from her eyes with a roar.

Belicara panted, using that much energy always took a lot out of her especially given that she hasn't experimented with using her ability to manipulate her flesh and bone like the Emperor drilled into her. But was only when she composed herself, that she noticed Scarecrow and Undergrowth were gone.

The blond Sister groaned, but it was less work as she and Nero merely needed to burn the plants away. Speaking of Nero, Belicara then flew 3 blocks to where her unconscious counterpart was, on the crossroads of the street. After confirming that he was merely out cold and not corrupted, Belicara slapped him across the face. Hard.

Nero woke up almost immediately, holding his cheek in pain and yelping, "Ow! What the hell?!"

"Nothing, just need you awake." Belicara responded as she helped him up to his feet, "Undergrowth and Scarecrow are gone but we gotta purge the city of the daemon plants."

He sighed while facepalming but didn't complain, "Well, it's easy at least."

The Watchtower, the Emperor's lab

2 hours later

The Emperor put a closed fist on his chin in thought as he paced around the lab. His Acolytes just reported that they were attacked at every city where they were sent, the attacker's either being Daemon Princes or something that Serena described as 'Daemon Knights.' Thankfully, there was a silver lining as Serena told him that her sensei's sword could kill Daemons without needing to invoke any rituals or the True Name. That is definitely going to be useful later.

The confusing part was that he didn't understand the point of this. He could get the basic idea of separating them and taking them out, but only two individuals were sent instead of a horde of cultists or Daemons or even titans. The Acolytes were powerful, but they weren't invincible.

It was then that it hit the Emperor; it was to lure them away from somewhere. But where? It wasn't the Watchtower as he didn't sense anything other than the others. It couldn't have been Megaville as that was where the Khornates attacked. So, what the hell was the place?

The Emperor's musings were interrupted when a buzzing sound was heard on his laptop. He turned around in confusion, seeing an appearing tab that indicated Cadmus was contacting him. Looking around to make sure no one was around and closing the doors, so nobody interrupted him, the Emperor sat down at his desk and accepted the call.

Thankfully, Dexter had gone home for the night so he was alone in his lab, thus he could talk to the project without compromising his secrets.

Project Cadmus Headquarters

It was a hectic day at Cadmus to say the least. Maintenance was repairing whatever was destroyed, security was recontaining their experiments and assets, and the fire teams were putting out the fires around the facility. The base was attacked by several Daemonic entities that suddenly manifested in the hanger and attacked. Their security and some of their assets repelled the attackers but not without destroying several shipments and equipment, now they had to report this to their benefactor.

At the meeting room, Amanda Waller retained her composure but there were cracks given the sweat on her forehead. Alongside her and General Eiling were Senator Abraham Stampingston and General Walter Crozier. The doctors were back at their stations to resume work and to access whatever damage had occurred during the attack.

Senator Stampingston was a 68-year-old man with short slightly unkept grey hair, a lightly wrinkled face with high cheekbones, faded blue eyes, and was ungodly lean and thin. He was wearing a white dress shirt and red tie under a blue dress suit, blue dress pants and black shoes. The senator was a devout republican and conservative but secretly began supporting Cadmus in its endeavors after the incident at Megaville.

General Crozier was a 57-year-old man with a brown-greying buzzcut, a hardened face with blue eyes, arms behind his back, and was looking rather healthy for a man his age. He was wearing a decorated four-star general's uniform with black leather shoes. The general, alongside Senator Stampingston, secretly joined Cadmus after the incident at Megaville.

Both maintained an air of professionalism despite the recent events, but Waller still was sure that the benefactor was going to be please by what happened. Though Stampingston had said that the damage has been contained, it still crossed her mind that things were going to be complicated by this attack. No matter her thoughts, they must report the incident to the benefactor.

The screen in front of them showed the same image of a featureless male figure in a black background, sitting in a leather chair with his hands folded together and one leg across the other. The benefactor's voice came on merely a moment later, deep and filtered into a cacophonous metallic reverb.

"DIRECTOR WALLER, GENERAL EILING, GENERAL CROZIER, SENATOR STAMPINGSTON. WHY HAD YOU CONTACTED ME?"

"Sir, we have something to report." Waller composed herself immediately as did everyone present, "The facility was attacked earlier by several Daemonic entities. We were able to repel them but not without damage to the base and heavy losses to our security force."

"DAEMONIC EN...TI...TIES..." The benefactor at first questioned before trailing off. He then almost yelled at them for confirmation, "WHAT DID THEY LOOK LIKE? WHAT DID THEY LOOK LIKE?!"

The gathered almost jumped at the alarmed tone of their benefactor before the senator answered calmly and professional, "They were almost impossible to describe. The only description I and other can give you is that they were pink and blue in color."

The benefactor was silent before he uttered out something that seemed to be directed to no one, "ZIM..." He then turned his attention back to them and asked, "WHAT DAMAGES HAVE YOU SUSTAINED?"

"The worst of the damage was done to the loading bay before they spread to the rest of the base." Waller informed the benefactor, "We only managed to repel them by using some of our Psyker experiments, but they destroyed at least two tons of replicated Blackstone."

"SHIT!" The benefactor couldn't seem to hold in that curse as they also heard the sound of a fist slamming onto a desk, but he composed himself a second later, "WELL, IT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE. SPEAKING OF YOUR PSYKER EXPERIMENTS, WHAT IS YOUR ACCESSMENT?"

"It's remarkably well, actually." Waller replied, "They were stable both physically and emotionally. They followed orders without questions and did not use their powers without restraint. After the daemons were repelled, the experiments showed no signs of corruption or instability. I believe we are making progress"

"GOOD." The benefactor's tone indicated that he was relieved, "RUN YOUR PRODUCTION OF BLACKSTONE AT FULL STEAM. WE NEED TO GET OUR MAIN OBJECTIVE FINISHED BEFORE THE END OF THE YEAR OR THE CONSEQUENCES ARE BEYOND IMAGINING. HOWEVER, SEVERAL OF MY OPERATIVES HAVE BEEN ATTACKED BY DAEMONIC ENTITIES AS WELL."

"Do not be concerned." Senator Stampingston replied to the benefactor, "I've had our infiltrators at the pentagon contact all footage of the incidents at Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York City, and Megaville. The rest of the world will only see this as another incident like the Bombing of Detroit." Waller showed no outward reaction but was quite surprised to hear that they had agents in the pentagon. Something wasn't right.

"VERY WELL. RESUME YOUR OPERATIONS AND KEEP THESE INCIDENTS COVERED UP UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE." Their benefactor seemed satisfied as he logged off, leaving the four to their devices as he went to work.

With that settled, General Eiling left the meeting room to see to other matters, but just as the general left the room, Senator Stampingston abruptly asked, "Director Waller? May I speak to you for a moment, please?" Waller merely raised an eyebrow but stayed in the room with the senator and General Crozier, the former of whom straightened his tie and cleared his throat.

"I assume you are wondering how we have agents in the pentagon?" Stampingston seemed to read her mind. Waller's eyelids raised a fractioned but nodded, and in response, Senator Stampingston pulled out a card with a particular emblem and handed it to her.

It consisted of two rings, the smaller one inside the larger one with three arrows pointing inwards.

Despite her internal shock at seeing the symbol, the only reaction Waller gave the senator was merely to raise an eyebrow again, "You both are affiliated with the SCP Foundation?"

"Indeed, though I wish to keep my and General Crozier's positions in the Foundation to be confidential for the moment." Senator Stampingston replied, taking back the card and placing it in the inner part of his suit, with the general nodding in agreement, "You must understand, Director, that the presence of the rift is not an event unique to this universe."

Waller allowed for both of her eyebrow to go to her hairline that time but kept her composure, "'This universe?'"

"The Foundation has infiltrated not just this universe, but many." General Crozier answered, still as stern and professional as ever, "Multiple sites across the multiverse have reported what we have classified as SCP-7000: 'The Warp Gate.' It's a gateway to another dimension that links the multiverse together, however it's been spilling into the multiverse and corrupting it."

The Director of Cadmus was certainly surprised to hear this, but merely furrowed her brow and asked, "Then I assume you are working on a plan to contain this Warp Gate?'"

"Yes, but our efforts have been fruitless until the benefactor contacted Cadmus." Senator Stampingston replied as he produced a nugget of Blackstone that was equal size to a golf ball from his pocket and held it out to Waller, who examined it in interest, "With the discovery and production of Blackstone, we may be able to finally contain the threat of Chaos."

"Understand, Director, that what the threat from SCP-7000 is greater to the people than the Justice League ever could be." General Crozier told Waller as honestly but strongly as he could, "If the benefactor's plan fails, then we will all be in a situation worse than the extinction of our species."

"Very well." Was all that Amanda Waller replied with as she accepted her part in the safeguarding of the world, walking out of the room just a moment after formally ending the conversation with a handshake from both the general and the senator.

The second Waller was out of the room, General Crozier turned to Senator Stampingston and said, "Now that we've convinced her, shouldn't we continue our work, O5-1?"

"Indeed, O5-7." The Senator replied to the General. But before he could leave the room, a pinging noise was heard behind him. Turning around and raising an eyebrow, Stampingston saw a screen that showed Subject 101 was beginning to become aggravated again.

Straightening his tie, the Senator inputted a command into the nearby keyboard; RUN SENTIONAUT PROGRAM.

In another part of the facility, doors parted to release a flurry of smoke into the hallway.

As it cleared, a sterile room with mirrored walls and overhead light ceiling revealing a humanoid figure; It was unnervingly tall and lean, hands long and languishing while standing in a tranquil yet intimidating pose. Its clothing was an odd red suit with black lines, with black gloves covering its hand and red shoes. Sitting on its head was a red hard plastic helmet with no features except two ports by the ears. The mirrored room it resided in made it seem like there was a thousand copies surrounding it.

The Sentionaut cracked its neck and curled its fists, before turning to the right and walked off.

It's movements both too seamless yet too jerky, each limb moving both in sync yet independent of each other. It walked through the sterile and void of life halls to where the master had preset him to go. The hallway was the same, being the slight illuminous red with plexiglass walls and floor of the same color. Its journey ended when it came to the target's room. The door parted to reveal Subject 101.

It was Bell; aged now to 22 years old, 5'9 ft. tall, her straight white hair cut to her neck, while her voluptuous figure was covered by a white top and shorts. She was restrained to the bed, struggled heavily with a furious look on her face before her eyes locked onto the Sentionaut as it walked into her room. Her face contorted into one of fear and terror as she harder struggled against the bonds of her bed, screaming and yelling for help.

Bell continued to struggle against her bonds as the Sentionaut got closer and closer, heavy breathing issued from its helmet as it raised its right pointer finger up. All of the sudden, a long thin needle emerged from the tip of its finger, then pointed said finger, and by extension the needle, at the bound woman.

The woman continued to scream as the needle elongated to where slowly inched closer and closer to her neck until it reached her left jugular. The organic-metal needle pierced the skin and into the vein before its venom followed through her.

Bell's eyes bulged in fear before they rolled back into her sockets as she stopped struggling, now unconscious.

The needle retracted from the woman's jugular, the wound being so thin that no blood escaped, and into the Sentionaut's finger. It shook it's hand in slight pain as it approached the unconscious woman and examined her via its fingers. Heartrate and breathing were normal, the scars from her years as a slave were still present while her tattoos hadn't been removed due to being unnecessary for the moment.

Slightly caressing her cheek after putting the headphones back on her ears and playing the tape, the Sentionaut straightened as it received orders.

ORDERS FULFILLED. RETURN TO CONTAINMENT CHAMBER UNTIL FURTHER ORDERS.

The Sentionaut did not fuss but looked back to the woman strapped onto the bed. Despite the scars on her limbs and chest, she looked so beautiful. It looked down to its right hand. It knew what she was going through, because it went through the same thing. It looked back at her one last time before exiting the room.

Poor girl. The Sentionaut wished that she would not end up like itself; Alone. Trapped. Lost in insanity. The ultimate pleasure being constant pain and the constant pain being the world she would live in.

Megaville

The Blue Moon Club

Serena slurred as she rested her head on the bar in emotionally drowned exhaustion. Her self-loathing was somewhat quelled due to the copious amounts of alcohol, though she could vaguely feel her transhuman physiology dampen and slowly undo the effects. Yet she was infinitely glad she was the only occupant of the nightclub because of it.

After Jack annihilated Hama, Serena could barely hold back the urge to demand him to date her but then he said that while he understood her feelings for him, he claimed that Agent Honeydew would love to meet her now. The very thought of tearing the two apart just because she liked Jack more filled her with disgust at herself, more coming when she realized how she was back before the rift even opened. That and combined with her vision of the future, nearly frazzled her emotional and mental state.

Now subdued, Serena thanked Jack for the great day and flew off to whatever high-class nightclub was open in Megaville, now sedating her distressed thoughts with copious amounts of liquor and vodka. Still, it's not Amasec. She could barely get the shit in her but fucking hell does it get ya some drunk.

Before she could order another drink, an old man sat in the chair. He had intensely greying hair with a white mustache, brown eyes hiding behind a pair of aviator sunglasses. He wore a white dress shirt with no tie under a grey suit, grey pants, and black shoes.

"I'll have a glass of Weeping Heart please." He requested to the bartender, who looked shocked before unsurely nodding and going off to prepare the drink. The only reason there was no reaction from the other occupants was because there were no other occupants except Serena as previously mentioned.

However, Serena shared the same shocked look as the bartender, "You sure you can handle that shit?" She unsurely asked the old man, concerned that a man his age wouldn't be able to handle it.

"Relax, kid. I've been on Omaha Beach.****" The old man says confidently, as the bartender sat the glass to him. It was filled with a clear liquid that smelled like jet fuel and seemed to be smoking.

"Alright," She relented but still warned the old man of the drink, "But tomorrow, your mouth's gonna open up like that elevator in 'The Shining.'"

The old man took a drink and let out an 'omph', before having to hold onto the bar to prevent himself from falling over. Serena had to help him straighten up after he almost lost his grip and fell off his chair.

"Golly," He said hoarsely, as the black-haired woman helped him up, "That's got some kick."

After a while, the two talked about each other. Serena revealed her name and background but kept out about her being connected to the Emperor. At the same time, she felt like he was hiding things as well, though at least he revealed that his name was Stan Lee. But aside from that, she was actually enjoying the old man's company.

Just like Jack.

"Hey, what's eating you?" Stan asked empathically as he noticed the sad expression that suddenly adorned her beautiful face.

The black-haired woman simply looked down sadly and muttered out, "You wouldn't believe me."

"Then say it in a way I can believe."

Serena let out a breath and let it pour out, but didn't reveal her secrets, "When I was younger... let's just say, I was a horrible person. I burned a lot of bridges and made a lot of enemies. Now, after those enemies are threatening to tear me down and destroy all I ever loved."

Stan still had a sympathetic expression but stayed silent.

"Now, I don't know who I should be." She almost whispers as she poured out her self doubts, "And I don't know how to respond from it."

There was a few moments of silence between the two before Stan responds compassionately, "It's alright."

Serena looked shocked at Stan, barely getting out, "B-But..."

"You messed up before. We all have regrets, Serena," The old man interrupts her, putting his hand on her shoulder, "Lost friends and family we'd like to have around, things we'd take back. But the past is done. Stewing in the past only leaves you bitter and sad."

The Sister of Sanguine grumbled out as she rested her head on her hand, "Then how do I make up for it?"

"By doing better." Stan replied, causing Serena to look at him in confusion, "Do better now. Be better now. Now is the only time that has ever mattered and ever will matter. There is no future, only now. By being better than you were then, maybe you'll make up for it."

She just has a conflicted expression at the old man's words but felt touched by them.

"Ask yourself, do I make bad decision? How can I do better? Who do I want to be?" Stan asked her, "It's not a bad thing to feel regret, but if you let that regret and guilt fester inside you, you'll find yourself in places you wouldn't like."

The old man then pulled out his wallet and showed her some pictures in it. The photographs showed a smiling little boy with his equally beaming mother and father, a 20-year-old man with several other men dressed in the combat uniforms of WWII while holding their rifles and grinning at the camera, a grinning man with aviator sunglasses in a business suit with another grinning man as they held up a comic book, and a man that was identical to Stan grinning at the camera as he was signing autographs.

"Yeah, both you and I made mistakes," Stan continued on his speech to her, "But my old man said, 'A man who never made mistakes, never made anything.' And look at yourself, you made mistakes and you made something better from those mistakes."

A tearful expression adorned her face at his words, she refused to cry though.

Stan only let a wistful smile spread as he saw his words effect on her, "We all need to learn that mistakes are the dirt we grow from. And that only by doing better that we can turn those mistakes into something better."

Serena's sorrowful face then morphed into a tearful smile as she wiped her tears away. After a few moments, her emotions settled down and thanked the old man before she left. Stan Lee only raised his glass, along with the bartender who was holding a glass of beer and had heard his whole speech, "Excelsior."

Megaville

Dexter's House

It was almost midnight, but Dexter was still in his laboratory connected to his house, still working on the device that the Emperor requested of him. The regulators were stable enough to handle the energy needed to power the device and regulate the output of Warp energy, but the anomalous nature of Warp energy meant that there could be any number of reactions should he mess anything up.

Dexter wiped the sweat from his forehead as he tried to finish the prototype by the weekend and present it to the Emperor. He was at least over halfway finished with the prototype and given the Emperor is a genius, he might be able to help him with the next attempt.

Suddenly, the boy genius saw that a woman with red hair entered his laboratory. At first, Dexter assumed it was his mother but then he saw that her hair was longer and, in a ponytail, and the fact that she was dressed in a pink shirt under a black jacket, blue jeans, and pink tennis shoes.

Dexter blinked before realizing who it is, "Oh! Uh... Hey, Blossom!"

Cyrene gave a small smile as she walked to the boy as he worked, "Hey, Dexter." She then saw what he was working on, "Are you... working on a Warp Drive?"

"Yeah, the Emperor requested it." Dexter explained before he then gained a sad expression, "Speaking of request, can I talk to you about something?"

"...Okay, what's wrong?"

"It's about Mandark."

Cyrene almost winced at that but having encountered dangers far greater in the Imperium numbed her, "What about Mandark? We both know he's dead."

Susan Astronomonov was born to Oceanbird and Windbear a few years before Dexter was born. Even as a baby, he was different than his parents, for they were hippies while he was a scientist at heart. His parents never understood his desire for science and encouraged against it, denying the boy his dreams and ambitions. As a result, a powerful darkness grew in Susan that was unleashed when he met Dexter as his family moved to the U.S. after they traveled across the world. Because they wished for him to not be constrained by gender stereotypes, they forced him to have long hair and dress like a girl while also naming him Susan despite the fact that he was very much male.

The straw that broke the camel's back was when Dexter laughed at him for his feminine appearance. After that, he cut his hair and dressed like how a boy dresses, while also calling himself "Mandark." The rivalry between the two was legendary until the day that Dee Dee jumped in the way of a beam of Mandark's design to protect her brother, during an attack on his lab. She died, and Dexter, her little brother, and Mandark, who had grown to have feelings for Dee Dee, were both devastated.

Even after her funeral and the consolation of his parents, Dexter, out of grief, attempted to recreated her, nearly disregarding the promise he made to Dee Dee about not using the power of science for her sake. After hearing her voice, perhaps in a fit of grief induced madness, Dexter ran to the graveyard where they buried her only to find Mandark grieving over her grave in horrid regret. In a fit of rage, Dexter attempted to kill the despairing Mandark but was unable to go through with it.

After that incident, Mandark spent months in a correctional facility, left only to dwell on his regrets and about Dee Dee. One day however, Bell broke him out of his cell and brought him to Black Eden at the request of Dr. X. Assisting the doctor in his experiments and creating devices and equipment to advance Black Eden's plans, Mandark seemed to have found a family. But then that night came when Bell attacked her, and Mandark sicked his monsters at her. He invited Dexter to a final duel between them for her life.

During that final confrontation, Mandark activated his base's self-destruct sequence. Though she, Dexter, her sisters who came in the nick of time, and Coop who helped get past the base's defenses, escaped from the base before the detonation, Mandark stayed behind and allowed himself to perish in the explosion, ending the tale of Dexter's nemesis.

"I'm saying it because..." The boy genius sighed as he thought back to the last time he saw his nemesis, "Mandark was an abused animal. The world bit him hard, and he desperately wanted to bite back. It pushed him to the absolute edge." Dexter then looks down mournfully, "And then we nudged him off."

Cyrene looks down in thought like Dexter but replies with a hand to his shoulder as they both looked eye to eye, "We didn't nudge him. He jumped."

The boy genius merely nodded but allowed her to give him a hug. Neither of them saw Dee Dee standing behind them, looking like she was about to cry as golden tears ran down her cheeks.

In a place in the Warp, where dark ruled in place of light since the first thing committed the first murder, sat the King Draped In Blood and Ash. He was still in his usual attire, but he was sitting in the dark with his hands to the sides of his head, in a room where time and light had no meaning.

"It's connected..." The King just sat there, babbling almost coherently, "Everything is... I had a speech. I learned it all." He then put his face in his hands in maddening despair, "Oh, God. They won't understand, they won't understand."

"Of course, they won't understand, Sparky." He looked up to see Zim standing there smugly, "I'm beyond their understanding. They're humans. Sugar and spice and everything... useless unless you're baking. I'm more than that. More than flesh—"

Zim then walked to the other side of the King shifted to the appearance of Azula in her daemon form,"—more than blood. I'm..." 'She' pauses while turning back to the King, "You know, I honestly do not think there's a human word good enough for me." 'She' sighed pleasantly, smirking in glee at what was to come, "Oh, my name will be on everyone's lips, assuming their lips haven't been torn off. But not just yet. That's alright, though—"

The thing that looked like Azula then became Ozai, "—I can be patient. Everything is well within parameters." He stares off as if looking to a camera, "They're exactly where I want them to be." He then stares back to the captive, "And so are you, Yates. You're right where you belong."

He then appeared as Doomrider, crouching next to the King, "So what'd you think? You'd get your power back and you'd be top dog again? The power of the Gods is more volatile than most souls! Why do you think I sold mine?" He chuckles slightly, "Well, you probably thought that you'd be your own man, and I respect that, but—"

"—you never will." Whatever was in front of the King then took the form of Mandy, touching his bandaged face despite his discomfort and obvious terror, "You'll always be mine. You'll always be in the dark with me, singing our little songs. You like our little songs, don't you? You've always liked them, right from the beginning." She then leaned in close and whispered to him, "And that's where we're going—"

It then assumed Black Hat's appearance as he stands up, continuing its cryptic speech, "—right back to the beginning. Not the Bang... not the Word... the true beginning."

He starts circling the King like a predator taking in its prey, as it continued, "The next few months are going to be quite a ride. And I think we're all going to learn something about ourselves in the process. You'll learn you're a pathetic schmuck, if it hasn't sunk in already. Look at you. Trying to do what's right, just like them. You still don't get it. It's not about right, not about wrong..."

It walks out of sight before the King turned around to see it then took the form of a man. An old and tall man in good health with long thin white hair, a heavily wrinkled face with a grey goatee. The man was clad in a black leather and metal armor adorned with silver cattle skulls topped with curved spikes, five orbs of five on the chestplate in shape of an upward pointing arrow, arm plates adorned in spikes covering the arms, a massive silver intersecting belt wrapped around the waist, segmented plates around the thighs, spike covered leg plates covered the lower legs, and finally a horned helm was crowned on his head.

"It's about power." He uttered in a raspy and drawling voice that echoes from the dead cosmos that came before time and life.

And so, Salacia the Half Man laughed.

And done!

My god, this was amazing but hard to write and I'm sorry if this has gotten confusing to follow but this story is gonna come to some amazing heights later on! Also, if the chapter feels disjointed, I'm sorry as well.

Just a note, what do you guys like about the new Doomrider and the King in Blood and Ash? And bout Senator Stampingston and General Crozier being O5s for the SCP Foundation? And how Bell is held captive by either Cadmus or the Foundation?

All of these questions and more will be answered soon! And as always, feel free to make a reaction fic or a Tv Tropes page!

*Remember the names I gave them in chapter 6?

**That scene was made by reeleffendeel. Check him out. He's an amazing author.

***If any of you have heard of Thirty Hs, than you know what I'm taking about!

****Foreshadowing. Hint, hint.

See ya!