Abandon All Hope, Embrace All Chaos

by Zeroth17

During the Science Fair in Megaville, a gate has opened to unleash a force beyond imagining. Now the heroes scramble to survive, the villains reign, and Chaos Descends upon the multiverse. Rated M for Violence, Foul Language, Sexual Themes, Nudity, Horror, And References to other 40k Fics and TTS. (Powerpuff Girl Doujinshi/Warhammer crossover) (Cover Art by Symptom99)

12. Exit Reality

I own nothing except my OCs

Holy shit, did I have fun making this!

---

Vatra Zanosa

It was an untold number of years since the rift opened. Riots and wars broke out in droves, people corrupted by the Ruinous Powers slaughtering and raping whenever they could, nuclear strikes burning away the planet and coating the world in nuclear winter. It was hell on earth with no end. Humanity was only saved because of the newly built Megacities that shielded them from the winter that engulfed the world.

The internet survived, culture survived, and people survived as always. Before things got out of control, martial law was enforced to keep the people at peace, soon sequestering them to camps where they would have to wait until the new cities could be made. New technologies were developed to detect ethereal radiation, using it to root out whoever was tainted by the Warp and execute them, while rest were taken to the new cities.

The US had no contact with any other major country except for Mexico or Canada, both have been annexed by the US after the Economy Wars. But to say live in the US was bad was a bit of an overstatement. The rich obviously was doing well and working class were well off, while for the poor, it was utter hell. The city was often described as a city with no streets that spanned the state, buildings connected through tunnels, and polymerized with apartment complexes, stores, office buildings, restaurants, and of course, corporations.

Corporations controlled everything; you name it, they own and control it. The only thing they don't have control over was the government, who made sure that the corporations didn't try to plant any sleeper agents into any of their branches. That wasn't to say that the corporations were working to circumvent this, but the government has them in their crosshairs for a long time.

The poor were sent to the underground, a place of lawlessness and where the most depraved people imaginable. Also served as where all the criminals go, with the government deciding to simply to just let them all kill each other. Meanwhile, the rich could get away with anything that they wanted, so long as they clean everything up before the police show.

In the snow-filled air was a limousine-like hover car, holding one of those rich people. And he was coming for a good time after a few tasks.

If there was one word to describe the Mad Scientist sitting in the limo, it was a toss-up between foppish, flamboyant, bright, and dark. Or possibly all of the above. Asmodeus was a tall, absurdly thin man in his twenties with snow white skin and neck length vibrant violet hair with streaks of royal purple, magenta and pink, fuchsia eyes with black sclera, black eyeliner, lipstick, and nail polish, and surgical scars that ran from his tear ducts to the Glasgow smile scars that trailed to the back of his ears. The skin below his neck was covered in thousands of tattoos that both somehow wove together yet each individual one stood out, of varying designs and aesthetics that yet again both wove together while each individual one stood out, almost hiding various surgical scars that covered his skin as much as his tattoos did.

Even his clothing and decorations was impossible to look away from; he was wearing a garment that resembled a black Japanese monk's robe with royal purple flames over a black long sleeve tunic that had pink and purple heavy metal designs all over it, black hakama pants that with similar designs and had "FUCK THE CORPOS" in big bold red words on the upper right leg, a hot pink cloth belt that had pendent that resembled a silver flaming skulls wrapped round his waist, and black leather slip-on shoes. He had a ridiculous amount of bejeweled gold and silver rings on his hands, black bands with silver flame designs around his wrists, four earrings that resembled daemonic eyes on each of his ears, the nails on his right hand almost resembling claws, around his neck was prayer bead necklace with a purple horned skull pendant, and his teeth being platinum replacements.

The interior of the man's limo was a darker shade of pink with electric guitars, rock memorabilia, metal album covers, video games, speakers, duffle bags filled with the hardest drugs money could buy, more duffle bags filled with his custom weapons, and rock posters strewn all over in a surprisingly orderly fashion, while the man himself was strumming a black V-shaped guitar with purple flames printed around the edges, pink fangs on the bottom of the body, the neck having purple snake-like eyes, and the head being a golden demonic dragon's head that had a built in flamethrower, while sitting on his expensive leather seats. This guitar he affectionately called Hellraiser, with all of his weapons and guitars getting kickass names.

As for the man himself, this is Asmodeus, Lord of Vice, and he was heading to a special occasion in New Las Vegas.

His limo soon landed at the landing zone of the district's most luxurious hotel, lowing as snow flushed out of the way while Nanodromes soon formed a clear cube shape that cut the perpetual winter from the interior. The manager of the hotel and tons of servants immediately got out to the landing pad after Asmodeus stepped out, smelling the gasoline fumes from his hover-car and the warm air from the hotel, with Hellraiser in its case and the bags of hard drugs in his arms.

The manager was a lanky and neurotic man with combed back black hair and high cheekbones, dressed in a burgundy sweater under a green vest with a blue bowtie, grey pants, and polished black shoes. The servants were dressed in red uniforms with gold accents and polished shoes.

"Greetings, sir." The manager sycophantically to the hot pink haired man as he walked down to them, "How long will you be staying with us?"

"As long as I want." Asmodeus said in a laid-back tone before he snapped at the servants, "OI! If I find that a single thing is misplaced, you'll all be out of a job!"

The servants all flinched and nodded, noting to ensure that they missed nothing from the Lord of Vice's limo. When they were finished getting all of his stuff, Asmodeus merely strutted like he was the most important man in the world as the servants lead him to the penthouse. The halls were brown with golden accents, dimly lit and empty, red carpets with golden accents on the floor, Italian maple furniture, and fresh smelling air. It was almost like home.

To alleviate the incredible amounts of boredom that he was feeling due to not being able to play his guitar at the moment, Asmodeus put on a pair of hot pink Beats on while listening to Light Em Up by Fall Out Boy as they were entering the elevator. Like many in the US, he was infinitely glad that the internet managed to survive the war, but he mostly used it to buy more hard drugs and all kinds of illegal stuff. And the stories he could tell of all the awesome times he had with all that illegal stuff...

Asmodeus also let his mind wander, thinking about what to do while waiting for the occasion to get start. Should play Hellraiser on full blast? Nah, he didn't want to destroy his speakers again. Kidnap any hot visitors or staff and 'play' with them? No, the manager wasn't as hot as the last one was. Use the drugs that he brought with him? Maybe, but the high tended to last for days and he needed to say focused for the upcoming event. Illustrate some of his ideas for the new Heavy Metal movie? He wasn't patient enough. Play some of his gory FPS'? ...Yeah, that could work.

A tap to his shoulder brought him out of his train of thought, causing him to pull down his headphones and give a dirty look to the servant that tapped him. "What?" A male servant pointed to the elevator doors, that were open and showing the penthouse. "Oh, thank you." Asmodeus thanked the servant in a curt tone as he stepped out of the elevator with the manager and his servants following behind.

They place all off his bags and items on one of the beds in the penthouse, the windows having a nice view of the iridescent yet dark megacity that Asmodeus starred out of, while the servants placed the rest of his thing in the room, and the manager placing soap, napkins, and the key to the penthouse on the table before they quickly left him alone before he decided to 'play' with them like he did with the last manager and his servants.

Asmodeus merely grunted in disinterest as he then merely took out his Xbox, plugged it into the flatscreen, put in his favorite game and then sat down on a leather chair with his feet up on the table before he started playing. He didn't understand the hate for shooters, they all involved shooting and killing people! What wasn't to love?!

Thankfully, after a few hours of playing through his favorite games, Asmodeus' phone started ringing and when he pulled it out of his coat pocket, sure enough, it was the number he was waiting for. The Lord of Vice put the phone to his ear and pressed the accept button, before saying in a singsong tone, "Yello?"

"We got your batch. Meet us in the docking bay in ten minutes." The modulated voice said through the phone. The Lord of Vice pouted slightly, making an evil speech wouldn't hurt every once in a while. Regardless, he had a deal to make, but first.

Asmodeus opened one of his duffel bags before pulling out a purple Colt Python with gold etchings, opening the empty chamber with a flick of his wrist and then loading it with gold bullets. "Onetwothreefourfivesix." He counted rapidly as he loaded it rather quickly and then closed the loaded chamber with another flick of his wrist before twirling it and holstering it into his sleeve. That gun he called Gold Spinner.

The Lord of Vice immediately pocketed the key to the penthouse and walked out of the room to the hallway, then walked to the elevator before. At first, Asmodeus just stood in the middle of the elevator stoically, but then his eyes turned to the speakers and then found himself tapping his foot, nodding his head, and humming to the elevator music.

A ding and the opening of the doors to reveal the lobby signified that he was at his destination. The lobby was as pretentious and sleekly designed as a Marriot suite would be, with many wealthy men and woman in expensive clothing, all of whom immediately backing away in fear at seeing him as he strutted towards the manager's desk, where a wealthy couple was arguing with the incredibly nervous manager, who's nervousness skyrocketed when he saw Asmodeus approaching the front desk.

"What do you mean the penthouse has already been booked?!" The wife demanded from the manager, "Who booked it?!"

"I booked it." Asmodeus answered for the manager, causing the couple to turn in anger, only for said anger to falter when they saw who it was. He silently made a shooing motion and the couple immediately obeyed before he placed his elbows on the desk and said, "I'll be direct cause I'm hard on time. Need you to get me to the cargo bay."

"What?! I can't just-" The Lord of Vice smacked a large wad of hundred-dollar bills onto the desk, silencing the manager who stared at it like a slice of delectable meat. The manager looked side to side before he took the wad and pocketed it, whispering while pointing to the hall behind him with his thumb, "Follow me to the back."

The two walked off after the manager put up an 'Out of Service' sign on the desk, coming down a hall to where the people immediately got out of the way when they saw Asmodeus, who grinned and gave a pleasant sigh, "Ah, it's the little things." They soon came to another hall that was void of rooms, turning corner after corner until the manager suddenly gained a particular thought.

"Sir, why do you need access to the cargo bay?" He asked Asmodeus, who just had a nonchalant expression while still walking.

"Buddy, do you want to end up cut up into a bunch of pieces and have what's left of you be mulched into a brew for me to drink later?"

The manager looked at him, frightened by his words, "N-No..."

"Then don't ask any more questions and you'll live." Asmodeus replied, curbing the manager's desire to know more about this. They soon came to a heavy iron door where the manager swiped a card on a keypad beside the frame, causing it to open with steam hissing out as it rolled into the wall.

Asmodeus entered the cargo bay before the manager sealed it behind him, leaving the both of them to walk down the stair way to where a large semitruck and four men dressed in black and armed with assault rifles, minus the driver who was still in the driver's seat, awaited, looking quite impatient before the Lord of Vices got to the floor that they were on.

"About time." The lead one said, walking up until he was a few feet away from a stoic looking Asmodeus, "Where's our pay?"

"You'll get your pay when I say you'll get your pay." Asmodeus shot that down as he crossed his arms, "Where's my product?" The guys in black all look at each other to decide before one of them shrugs and the others deciding that they might as well show the buyer that they had what he wanted, or they wouldn't get paid. The leader of the group got up to the truck, unlocking the heavy locks on the trailer before pushing up the door.

Asmodeus climbed up to the open trailer and looked inside, gaining a pleased expression. In the trailer were 30 people of all ages, bound in chains and gagged in leather straps, all having either looks of fear or angry as they tried to fight against their chains.

"Alright, you got the number I asked for." Asmodeus complimented them, jumping down to the floor and walking a bit from the truck and the crew, "I suppose then I have to give you your payment."

"Yeah!" The smuggler leader replied in a tough tone, before he saw that there were no other cars or cargos in the bay other than them, "Wait, where's the gold you promised?!"

"Right here." Before any of the smugglers could react, Asmodeus withdrew Gold Spinner from his sleeve and fired on all four smugglers, hitting them in the chest or arm. The pain caused them to collapse to the ground and causing the manager to let out a comically high-pitched yelp along with the skittish captives to scream, putting hands to his mouth while Asmodeus smirked sadistically.

"You... you son of a bitch!" One of the smugglers attempted to shoot the Lord of Vices before a stinging pain coursed through his body, causing him to cough up what felt like blood... but instead, he saw a pool of his blood that was slowly turning to liquid gold. The other smugglers saw their flesh, bone, and blood slowly and painfully turn to solid and liquid gold. Large boils formed from their skin that burst and released liquid gold, their limbs solidified and restricted their movement, bones breaking and collapsing on their quickly liquifying organs.

The leader of the smugglers turned to Asmodeus as he cried tears that were turning to gold, lacerations in the cheeks bleeding gold, and gold gurgling out of his quickly flooding through, "You promised us all the gold we want!"

"I did promise you." The Lord of Vices recalled as he got to a knee and gave a sadistic grin, "You just never specified where the gold had to come from." The smugglers tried the best they could to raise their guns and shoot the bastard, but they collapsed into piles of jagged gold and torn clothing. Asmodeus then strutted to the driver, who looked close to panicking from the sight of his group being turned to piles of gold, before he jumped up to the driver and pointed Gold Spinner at him.

"Oi, driver! Take the product to a different part of the hotel." Asmodeus took out a piece of paper and then gave it to the nervous driver, who had rolled down the window to grasp it, "Try anything, and you'll end up like those four. Remember, I got two bullets left. One for you," He then pointed it at the manager, who yelped again and put his hands up, "And for you, if you try to stop this."

"N-n-n-n-no, sir, I won't!" The manager shrieked like a pussy.

"Okay, good. And consider those piles of gold my Christmas donation to the hotel." Asmodeus replied, twirling Gold Spinner back in his sleeve and jumping down to the floor.

Suddenly, a door opened on the side of the wall, leading to a tunnel that had an ominous purple glow that seemed to both bring a feeling of excitement and dread to those that weren't the Lord of Vices, who was unmoved and then snapped his fingers to bring the driver out of his trance.

The driver of the truck immediately fired up the engine to the truck while the manager closed the trailer and hopped off, slowly etching from his spot as the truck crawled through the tunnel. A full five minutes later, the truck had entered a dark and spacious part of the tunnel, a part that the driver noted was more like a steel mill than part of a hotel. A light then flowed through the interior as if scanning for something before it focused on the paper in the driver's hand, turning red and then making a beeping sound. A sign lit up, pointing to a space highlighted with a hollow rectangle. The driver swallowed his nervousness and slowly guided the truck to the highlighted space on the ground.

The light went out, leaving only the truck's headlights being the only source of light for the driver. Suddenly, footsteps echoed throughout the structure of the tunnel before... something came into the light, causing the driver to scream. They were two humanoid things adorned in what seemed like leather straps that covered the chest, arms, and legs, their skin resembled cracked porcelain yet pulled and bent like rubber, possessing black void-like eyes and a wide mouth that split their cheeks with needle-like teeth, rubbery black tentacles sat on their heads in place of hair, their hands ending in horn-like claws.

They were Sculpulytes, things that were once people that were warped and made from Asmodeus' twisted imagination, now their only purpose in existence was to do his bidding. One of them walked beside the door of the driver seat, giving the terrified driver what he assumed was a flirty look before it and its partner strode to the back where he heard them open the trailer, the captives scream in horror when they saw the silhouettes of the Sculpulytes as one of them grabbed a loose chain and pulled taunt, forcing the trafficked people out of the trailer and onto the cold sterile floor of the room.

Something then compelled the driver to be still, becoming calm and unmoving before suddenly, a gunshot and a bullet blew his brains out, the blood and grey matter quickly turning to gold as the body fell out of the driver seat. Asmodeus strutted in, humming to himself as he pocketed Gold Spinner and kicked the melting body away for the servants to take.

The lights came on revealing the Sculpulytes to the terrified captives, who screamed against their gags, hushing once The Lord of Vice came as got his monsters to back off from them, before he stood in front of the crowd of terrified people. Those that weren't blinded with panic saw the room as it was; it stretched for what seemed like miles and filled with wide metallic silos that were bleeding a dark purple mist that flowed down into what seemed like an endless abyss of blackness.

"Hello, everyone!" Asmodeus said in a charismatic and affable tone, putting his hands together, "So glad you all are here. Now, I am truly sorry for the whole kidnapping thing, but it's for a good cause. You were all chosen because you all are, to be honest, hobos or trades off from affluent families. People that won't be missed or bought off by family members that sold ya for stacks of hot money!" The hurt looks on most of them caused him to grin but still kept his affable tone, "So, now, you'll be my... shall we say, test subjects for a little... experiment of mine."

He finished that sentence with a sinister tone that terrified the others before he snapped his fingers, causing the two Sculpulytes to pull at their chains. Now came the somewhat fun part; Asmodeus had to pick the first test subject, which was honestly hard given how many good one he had.

The little boy in the white shirt and pants? No, he could useful later. The old lady that was shaking like she had Parkinson's? Nah, she'd probably melt into a pile of goop after the first test. The MILF who was guarding her terrified little girl? No, he can have his fun with them later. His eyes then settled on a girl, likely in her 20s, having a face, hair, figure, and feeling that just scream out 'take me' to him, even as her eyes widen in fear when he locked gazes with her.

Perfect.

Asmodeus snapped his fingers while pointing it her, "Get her." The girl began screaming into her gag and fighting against her restraints, while a man, around the same age as her, fought against his restraints in an attempt to help her, something that Asmodeus noted, "Oh, feeling brave, eh? Get him too."

The Sculpulytes approached the two, who screamed in terror, undoing their chains while one lead them to Asmodeus and the other lead the rest to their cells, leaving them alone to face the Vice Lord's machinations.

The Sculpulyte undid the gags on the two, causing them to pant from lack of air before Asmodeus walked up to them, "Okay, now that all that is taken care of, let's begin, shall we?" The boy glared at him while the girl looked scared before Asmodeus walked along a walkway with the monster forcing them to walk along with him to wherever.

As they walked along, the two mentally noted that this place seemed like a steel mill than a laboratory, several silos filled with something that was bleeding dark purple mist, through the platform where they were heading to had several screens and equipment along the edges where one of the silos was, a massive cubical like room laid beside that was filled with God knows what, and another platform laid over the silo held up by chains and having a gurney with loose leather straps.

"Here we are!" Asmodeus exclaimed with his arms spread out dramatically, "My lab! Or one of them at least. Get used to this place, kiddo, cause who know? Might be the last thing you'll ever see..." He chuckled sinisterly, making the girl whimper in fear while the boy didn't dignify him with a response. The Lord of Vice walked to a lever at the edge of the platform, brushing his fingers against it before he grasped it, "As for my experiment..."

He finished by yanking the lever towards him, a sound of gears turning rang through the room as the lid of the silo below them began receding, revealing its contents to the world. It was a boiling, writhing mass of dark purple tarry slime that bubbled and blew out black mist. The two gaped at the sight of the roiling mass of ichor that was in the silo while Asmodeus chuckled.

"Interesting, isn't it?" The Lord of Vice asked, resting an arm on a handrail while looking down at the silo, "During the war, all kinds of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons were launched. The waste produced by the weapons, alongside Warp energy saturation, created this gunk. Been buying silos of the stuff and experimenting with it to see its effects. Most people called it; the Corruption."

The girl looked utterly horrified by the implications while the boy yelled in rage at Asmodeus, "You can't do this to people!" His shouts causing the Slaaneshi Lord to turn to him, "It's unethical! Even if you tested it on animals!"

"WHY?!" Asmodeus retorted harshly, faking it as he plays with the boy's views, "Why does all the crap we consume have to be tested on animals first?"

"Because-" He was cut off when the Lord of Vice interjected by raising a hand to silence him.

"A rat doesn't wear lipstick, okay, a rabbit doesn't use hairspray, a monkey doesn't need pills to get ramped up for hot monkey sex!" Asmodeus counted off by unfurling his fingers and then thrusted his pelvis on the last part for emphasis, "It's people, man! We're miserable! So, why shouldn't we try it all first!?"

"That's different!" The boy shot back before he was gagged and restrained by the Sculpulyte, still trying to spew metaphorical venom at the mad scientist. Asmodeus chuckled at the attempt, putting a metallic glove covered in hypodermic needles on his right hand and screwing a small glass vial filled with a clear liquid into a port.

"Alright, because you've both amused and annoyed me in equal degrees, you'll go first." Asmodeus said in a cheerful tone that did nothing to hide his sadistic glee as he jammed the needles into the boy's chest, causing the girl to scream out in fear. The concoction dispensed from the vial into the boy's body before Asmodeus bloodily ripped the needles out of the former's chest, blood flowing out like a fountain before it stopped, the wounds quickly closing in almost an instant. The girl's jaw dropped as did the boy's.

"Chemical X07." Asmodeus told the boy, who stared at his healed chest in amazement, "Grants the users powerful regeneration. And today we're going to see how it holds up on pure Corruption!" He exclaims that last part as the Sculpulyte suddenly grabbed the boy and then threw him into the silo, his screaming being cut off as he lands headfirst into the pit of Corruption.

The girl screamed the boy's name though it was muffled by the gag, causing Asmodeus to give a perverted grin before he yelled out to wherever the boy was in the silo, "It only hurts for a second. What comes next..." The Lord of Vice chuckled sadistically as he pulled off the metal glove, "More so." He lowered a platform just so the boy could grasp onto when he emerged from the stuff.

A hand emerged, now tumorous, violet, and spasming, grasping onto the edge of the platform before pulling the rest of himself onto the platform. The boy was now void of any hair, his skin now a tumorous mass of flesh nearly slogging off his frame, his face now bulbous and lacking a nose, his jaws distending and his teeth curling outwards, tearing at his cheeks as stomach acid and viscera began spewing out of throat before bulging out and bursting into slurry.

Suddenly, whatever remained of his organs that were in his throat retracted into his chest, reforming while the tumorous skin slogged off as healthier skin grew in that was covered in purple veins that covered every part, his bones breaking apart and healing in tandem, his jaws reconnecting and healing. His right cheek then tore in twain as dagger-like fangs formed and unfurled in his mouth before they broke away and his mouth and cheek healed almost instantly. His chest caved in, spewing dark meat and feathers, arms bending and curling in unnatural ways, spine crunching down before his body forced itself to reform from the mutations. His hand attempted to fuse into a pincher before the chitin peeled off the skin before the fingers could fuse. His torso burst open as his entails spilled out and spidery legs unfurled before liquid tendrils grasped them and pulled them back into his stomach as the arachnid limbs detached and the fetid flaps sealed and strewn back together in tendrils of blood.

More tumorous growths began forming as quickly as his regeneration destroyed them, sections of his flesh bulging and receding, a paunch filled with his liquidized organs before the fluid expelled out of his mouth, his limbs bending out of shape before they realigned. The boy finally fell unconscious when it seemed like the violent mutations had finally been quelled.

"Interesting..." Asmodeus purred, taking a bite of a bar of chocolate while the girl looked horrified at what happened to the person that she cared for, with the former pressing a button that elevated the platform to their level. The hedonistic scientist took a look at the boy infested by Corruption and gained a pleased expression, "As I expected, the healing factor the chemical gave you is fighting off the corrupted cells as quickly as the Corruption is infecting you. Oh, what experiments I'll perform on you~" He finished that with a seductive tone as he patted the side of the boy's face, almost affectionately.

Suddenly, a series of purple slit-like eyes ripped from between his ribs before they were absorbed back into his body, causing the girl to scream and Asmodeus to raise an eyebrow, "You feeling all right?"

"No way... I feel great..." The boy moaned out orgasmically as the Sculpulyte dragged him away to the cells with the rest of his experiments, bleeding vibrant purple blood that congealed into black-purplish flesh that then burst apart and dissolved before he was thrown into a white and impossibly smooth cell.

The girl fell to her knees in shock and trauma, her eyes blank yet filled with tears that ran down her cheeks, not reacting even when Asmodeus took off the gag from her mouth and undid her cuffs, brushing her short brown hair out of the way of her face that showed the delicious suffering on her face.

Asmodeus then knelt down and asked her while taking another bit of chocolate, "So... what is he to you? Boyfriend? Brother? Cousin? Absurdly youthful father? Am I getting hot or cold?" He made a 'So-So' gesture, leaning in to hear her response, his breath a pungent mixture of blood, acid, junk food, and cocaine.

The girl whimpered out, her eyes shaking in trauma, "He was my brother..."

"Oh, so you're into incest then?" Asmodeus cracked a joke at her, laughing at it as he then stood up, "What's your name?"

"Sarah." She answered meekly, not having the willpower to resist him. The Lord of Vice shrugged before he pulled her by the collar to his laboratory. The doors to the massive cubical structure opened to reveal the inner parts of the lab; it was lined with chemistry sets, vials filled with concoctions of variously colorations, jars filled with formaldehyde that held organs or other bizarre stuff, notes and gadgets strewn on counters and shelves, and a surgery table with a tray that had all kinds of tools on it.

He laid her on the table before meticulously cleaning his surgical tools with disinfecting chemicals. Suddenly, Asmodeus ripped the dirty white shirt off of Sarah, leaving her chest bare in the lab before he ripped the pants off her just as quickly. The still unresponsive woman was now only in panties that were then removed also by Asmodeus, leaving the petite woman bare in his lab.

"You know, the government hired me to experiment on the Corruption?" Asmodeus began to monologue as he worked for his next experiment, "I found a way to turn Corruption into an energy source, capable of powering the megacity for about 300 years. I was rich and won the Nobel Prize for my work! But then, calls from the CDC and the Worker's Union came in, talking about side effects of the workers exposed to Corruption fumes. Said that it caused them to start coughing up black sludge and it spread to their families. Ended up transferring them and their families all here to keep the public quiet, told me that I could do whatever I wanted so long as I could find a cure. But I discovered that the fumes contained mutagenic properties that caused fascinating effects on the children of the worker's families. Ended up euthanizing several of the children after I extracted samples from them. Been experimenting ever since."

He then placed a cobalt blue eyedrop bottle, a jar filled with a transparent amber liquid that held a Tarantula Hawk wasp that was the size of a hand, and a jar filled with a cobalt blue colored liquid. "One theory I came up with involves pharmacology, so I'm just gonna give you a taste. The bottles got my special batch of LSD, the venom of this wasp's venom has been pickled, and the jar has a special concoction of mine. I call it... the Mind Flayer. LSD, DMT, Peyote, PCP, a drop of fermented Fugu fish venom, a drop of fermented Cobra venom, Scopolamine, Mescaline, and a fuck load of shrooms. It practically melts your brain, and you'll love every fucking second."

The woman only whimpered, causing him to move to her side and caress her cheek, whispering sweet promises and honeyed comforting words into her ear, "Don't you want the pain to go away? Let me do this, and it will all go away. The pain will be gone, and you do nothing but dream sweet dreams."

"I don't understand..." Sarah muttered out, feeling dazed all of the sudden like a sweet presence had filled her.

"Then don't worry about it. You don't have to worry about anything ever again." The Lord of Vice whispered in a honeyed tone, lecherously sniffing her sweet-smelling hair, "I'll do all your thinking for you. Just let me do this and then it'll be nothing but good feelings from now on."

Sarah felt the blood rushing to her face, suddenly feeling as if she was being pleasured by some unknown force, "Do it. Make the pain go away." She said it like she was a child looking for a mother's hug.

Asmodeus gave a grin that held a dark eagerness; He started by taking the cobalt blue bottle and unscrewing the dropper, putting it to her eye and then dispensing it all as he pulls the eyelids apart with his pointer and thumb so that he didn't miss. Next, he took a pair of grabbers and then opened the jar that held the hand-sized wasp, watching it as it struggled against the metal grabber before he lowered it to Sarah's jugular, where the twitching stinger broke through the skin and let its sweet, pickled venom flow through her veins, her only reaction was a pleasurable moan. Asmodeus quickly put the wasp back in the jar and sealed it, before then taking the jar filled with the concoction.

He took off the lid before putting his hand to her face and forcing her mouth open, pouring the cobalt blue concoction down her throat. Sarah's vision was slowly being flooded with vivid colors, sights and sounds that she couldn't describe, a feeling of mind breaking bliss flowed over her like a hot bath with sweet scents. Vaguely, she could feel Asmodeus taking him into his arms and walking out of his lab, before placing her back down onto another table, feeling him securing her to it by leather straps.

Everything was slow, meticulous, vivid lights blinding her from seeing him, sounds that both soothed and hypnotized her. Sights that could never be comprehended came, senses that she never thought existed emerged, pain and pleasure burring to no return, her blood burning and electrifying. Asmodeus then spoke in a voice that was deep, vibrating, and reverberating.

"Let your mind unravel and let the bliss be your only reason for being."

A sense of complete peace washed over Sarah, vaguely hearing the crank of the lever and the table she was strapped to lowering down. A wave of pure heat then flowed over her before she was then submerged into a hot sludge. Sarah could still breath and hear, but everything was muffled, and she could barely move.

Suddenly, her very cells seemed to seize as the Corruption began flowing through her body. Bones and flesh reshaping, the venom and concoctions in her system assimilated with the infested cells, Warp energy flowing through her cells like a star going supernova. Her eyes and mouth ignited in bright violet light that shined out from the silo of the black sludge. Something slithered out of her head, hardening and curving, the sludge's essence becoming one with hers as its power crackled at her fingertips.

Just a moment later, the table she was strapped in was lifted from the silo and into Asmodeus' lustful gaze.

XXX

2 hours later...

Sarah was set aside onto one of the beds in the penthouse that Asmodeus had set her on. Her appearance had changed significantly; gone was the petite girl with short brown hair, now she was a slender and shapely woman with light blue skin, black sclera with violet irises, a crown of purple curved horns from her head, and a long purple scorpion-like tail. It twitched and tensed in her sleep while she stirred, dreaming things that she never dreamed before.

Meanwhile, Asmodeus chugged down his fifteenth Red Bull as he looked over the results of the tissue sample that he took from her. And judging by his frantic and excited expression, he got more than he bargained for.

"This... this is unprecedented!" Asmodeus exclaimed in excitement as he triple-checked the results to ensure that he wasn't seeing things. The Corruption and her cells have somehow achieved complete symbiosis! Something that he had been attempting for years! Was it his concoctions? Her blood type? Chemical irregularities in her body? A certain set of genes? Or was it just a fluke? He had to know!

Judging from his analysis on her cells, they seem to be able to morph and manipulate themselves into any form imaginable. If he can apply this to his other experiments, his army would be ready in but a snap!

Suddenly, an object outside the window caught his attention. It was a military craft, resembling a garbage truck but 2-3 times larger, filled with soldiers armed and ready for a raid of some kind. Likely they were sent to raid his labs.

"So, those pen-pushing jackoff bureaus finally grew some balls, eh?" Asmodeus raised an eyebrow, actually amused that they thought he would give up his work that easily, popping the joints in his fingers before he pulled out his phone and typed something, "All right, Azzy; time to see if you were paying attention to Bile when he was teaching you."

XXX

The soldiers, armed with advanced battlesuits and M14s, stormed the dark and hollow walkways that lead to the labs under the hotel. The leading sergeant kicked a metal door open before him and his team entered the labs, racing through the walkways of the laboratory until they reached a small iron door, that one of them placed a hacking device on the door.

"All right, men; we're here to arrest Dr. Vatra and seize his experiments." The leading sergeant ordered all the troops, before they entered the labs and arrested Dr. Vatra, "Remember, no matter what we see, just find Dr. Vatra and arrest him."

The other soldiers nodded and steeled themselves for whatever they would find in the labs. The hacking device let out a beep before the red light on it turned green, and the door opened with a hiss. The troopers immediately entered the facility as the lights flared on, revealing the thousands of Corruption silos in the massive and spacious room. They soon came to a section that had a large cubicle room, a platform that had various screens and another platform that held a chair with leather restraints.

"Jesus, what has this guy been doing?" One of the soldiers breathed as they traveled through the labs, encountering several cylindrical cells with silvery metallic exteriors, similar to the silos. One soldier walked to what seemed like a terminal or control panel, before he tried to think of what kind of password that the doctor would use.

His answer was a lucky one as he typed in ACDC onto the keyboard. The beep that came from the terminal indicated that it was correct and took him to a menu that showed various logs and notes on what he knew was Dr. Vatra's experiments on Corruption. But as he scrolled through the documents, a growing sense of dread filled his mind as pictures of what were labeled as 'results.'

"He experimented on children..." The soldier growled in anger, loud enough to gain the attention of the other soldiers who went the terminal that he was at, only to gain the same disgusted expression as him. It showed various men, women, and children, all in states of mutilation and mutation, either possessing too many abnormal features or too few.

Suddenly, there was a quiet hissing sound. The soldiers all turned to see the doors of the cells slowly open...

XXX

Asmodeus laughed as he looked over the camera at the screams of the soldiers as his experiments started tearing them apart, then again, the soldiers were putting up a pretty decent fight themselves. Thinking that this scene needs a touch of himself, Asmodeus took out Hellraiser, plugged it into the speakers and started playing some rhythms.

The music eventually caused Sarah's eyes to flutter open and to moan as she slowly got up from her bed to see Asmodeus playing his guitar. Suddenly, she noticed that her skin was now a shade of blue and that her hair had turned purple and grown past her shoulders. Then a gasp escaped her throat as her scorpion-like tail swayed and coiled around her bare leg, and then noticing that not an inch of clothing covered her, and yet she was not bothered in the slightest. Slowly, she slunk off the bed and crawled to the Lord of Vice as he continued playing, only stopping as she rested her head on his lap.

"Well, you're finally awake." Asmodeus stroked her head as she purred like a cat at his touch, "Wanna hear more of Hellraiser's tunes?"

"Yes, my master~" Sarah whispered, a slave forever more to the Lord of Vice as he continued to play his guitar to the screams of the soldiers while they were torn apart by his creations.

A ringtone then rang out, causing Asmodeus to stop playing as he pulled out his cellphone and pressed 'accept', "Yellow?" He answered in a casual and friendly tone.

"Asmodeus, I require your assistance with a project." A deep and modulated voice spoke through the other end of the line, causing Asmodeus to grin ear to ear before he gave his reply.

"Alright, I'll be there." He then hung up and stroke Sarah's head causing her to purr like a cat, "Come, Sarah." His voice then turned eager for the bloodshed and carnal sins to come, "We have a party to prepare for."

---

The Destroyer, The Purifier, The Gunslinger, and The Reaper

The Warp was a dimension of miasma, daemons, corrupted thoughts, tulpas, and corrupted followers, but the very, very, very few are known as the Undaunted. They Who Lived, those who's will was like steel against the tides of the immaterium, armed with both its power and weapons forged in its flames. The Undaunted are those that are neither with the Emperor or the Chaos Gods, forging their path with nothing but the will of themselves.

Three of those Undaunted are the Destroyer, the Purifier, the Gunslinger and the general of the Daemon Queen, the Reaper.

XXX

A World Eater, corrupted by the dread blessings of the Blood God, was cut in twain by a blade of crimson light, slashing through the ceramite and flesh to leave only behind scorched ash that flaked off as the twin halves fell away. The blade then turned to another, a Bearer of the Word, cleaving through the corrupted weapons and then into a daemon filled armor that twitched in a desperate attempt to fight against the scorching heat of the blade, ending in failure as the armor and flesh burned away to ash at its biting touch.

The lightsaber was drawn out of the Astartes corpse, held in a dark and armorbound hand as the sound of raspy breath came from the grilled mask as others before him stepped away as the primordial emotion of fear flooded through their veins. Burning, breaking, the world falling under the weight of the thousand damned, some sequestering themselves furthest from where this dark lord stood, the cape that sat on his back fluttering in the tremulous wind that flowed like liquid and black as the night themselves.

The dark lord was clad in a black armor that seemed to be one with the flesh underneath, flowing in a mixture of organism and technology that mended and strengthened, a helmet that resembled both a gas mask and an Astartes' helm, the cape flowing like onyx liquid that devoured light and soul, the lightsaber humming through the air as the blade of Kyber power burned even dust away.

A fist connected to the helm, shattering it and revealing a face born from nightmares; grey skin covered in a maze of overlapping and intersecting scars of various length, above a broken nose sat twin lustreless scarlet eyes that seemed more like miniature gates to hell boring into him. The lower half was the most horrid, void of lips or cheeks, of a genuine mouth there was none: the lower jaw replaced by a metallic facsimile that bore wolf-like fangs that contrasted pearl white teeth above. The helmet reformed in a blaze of red, veiling the horrid face as he brandishes his lightsaber.

It was He Who Stood, Truest Son of the Dark Galaxy. He is Darth Vader.

And he says:

"HAVE AT THEE!" The Sith Lord brandished his crimson lightsaber at the hordes before him.

Darth Vader raised his lightsaber to deflect a daemon infested bolt that was aimed for his head, before the other were released of their fear and fired upon him with their thousand-strong weapons. With but a look, the bullets, bolts, and lasfire halted in the air, not even a centimeter from him, the crowd of those who opposed him could only look on in shock for a second more before the horde of projectiles were turned upon him. The hail of returned projectiles tearing through the corrupted armor and flesh of the mortal while the Astartes turned away from the Imperium merely staggered from the force.

Leaping before the Astartes had a chance to recover, Darth Vader brought his Lightsaber down, cleaving through the head of a Khornate Berserker before severing the limb and head of another. The corona of a Word Bearer's power sword clashed with the lasblade of the Lightsaber, clashing in a blaze of energy with one attempting to overpower the other before Vader spun, breaking the struggle and slashing the Astartes' legs off without an ounce of effort before he then slashed the head of the Dark Apostle off his shoulders.

The Sith Lord then sprinted towards the black massive ziggurat that they were prostrating themselves at, cutting through the black stone gates and running through the corridors that echoed with the chanting and screams of the damned. Blasphemous things from the deepest recesses of the Warp emerged from the hidden torture chambers, possessing features that would blast the sanity of any lesser man, but they were mere fodder for Vader as he slashed them away with his Lightsaber and threw the rest into the spikes with his Force powers before quickly moving on his way.

Turrets manned by cultists fired upon him with armor piercing rounds, capable of piercing through the armor of a Space Marine or Leman Russ tanks, only for the rounds to stop with but the gesture of a hand and sent back to them, tearing the heads and torsos of the shooters to bloody pulp. A Chaos Spawn resembling a green skinned mass of red eyes, fanged maws, and bladed tendrils lashed towards him, only to meet a grisly end as Vader's lightsaber cut through it like anything else. An Alpha Psyker attacked with blasts of unfathomable power, however they failed to notice Vader disappear into the shadows and reemerge above them, beheading the psyker before they could counterattack, with Vader simply sprinting on to the next corridor.

A blinding red light came through the next corridor, not stalling Vader due to his helm's tinted lenses, leading him to the center of the ziggurat.

It was a spacious area, nearly the size of a gladiatorial area, filled with hundreds of cultists prostrating to something in the middle; a shapeless thing seemingly composed of both flames and viscous liquid, inhuman shapes and things forming and unforming at random intervals, both spouting philosophies and gibberish. In the center was an entity that both sickened and fascinated him.

The entity was quite slim, with beige colored skin, and sharp yellow teeth. He sports a short red angled bob cut with black tipping on the bottom and two large black-tipped tufts of hair extending from the top of his head, resembling deer ears, an undercut and two small black antlers sitting beside the tuffs. He wore a formfitting dark red robe lined with chaotic scripture, spiked shoulder pads with a single glowing red eye, long parchments lined with Colchisian rune scripture, two hanging from the shoulders and one from the waist, held by a thick leather belt with the eight-pointed star and a skull, a grimoire of chaotic power hanging by the belt on chains, one arm covered by a long burgundy glove, the other covered by a formfitting blood red gauntlet, and the legs covered by pointed black boots with gold outlines. In its hand was a long staff with the eight-pointed star that held a crimson eye.

This was Alastor, the Vox Daemon.

Alastor turned to him, grinning a smile that bore nothing except malice before speaking in a voice that seemed to be flowing through an old radio, "Why, Darth Vader, hello! Come to ruin one of my plans?"

Vader simply ignited his lightsaber in challenge.

"Oh? Looking for a fight? Well, I'm happy to oblige!" He raised his staff that shortened itself before crimson Warp lightning arched from the Star of Chaos, weaving into a blade of crimson. The two then leapt at each other as their blades clashed against each other in a blaze of crimson before a blast of power forced them both back.

A portal opened to reveal blood red tentacles that lashed at Vader, who leapt away in a flash before blasting them with Force lightning, then dived at Alastor with his lightsaber posed, the Vox Daemon's grin widening at the prospect. Suddenly, Alastor's mouth opened, unleashing a wave of crimson sound that shook the ziggurat, nearly cracking the foundation as the force of it sends Vader back, slowing the impact as he uses the Force to create a platform for him to stand on.

Thinking quickly, Vader used the Force to rip out several pillars around him before throwing them at Alastor, who merely slashed them all away with his crimson saber that deformed and elongated to slash all of the pillars at once. Then, Alastor manipulated the smoldering pieces like puppets on invisible strings, his crimson power flowing into them as they bubbled and deformed into cervine stone golem with mantis-like arms.

The Sith Lord wasted no time as he jumped down from the stone platform and cleaved one of the golems in half while two more attempting to slash him in twain only for him to slash their legs off and then jump over their heads and behead them both with a single strike. Three more were felled after Vader used the Force to raise spikes from the ground, and the last four were killed by a blast of Force lightning as Vader landed in front of an amused Alastor and charged in to slay him.

Each strike from Vader was blocked by Alastor's crimson blade twirling to intercept each swing of the former's lightsaber, much to the frustration of Darth Vader and the amusement of Alastor. Vader than unleashed torrents of Force Lightning at Alastor, who merely opened a portal with the snap of his fingers, sending the blast through it and out of another that opened above Vader, who sidestepped before it even exited the portal. The Sith Lord used his power to throw a large piece of stone from the broken walls of the ziggurat at Alastor, who merely deflected it, but Vader banked on that as he leapt at the Vox Daemon, surprising him but not losing his grin as he blocked the crimson lightsaber with his crimson Warpblade.

"Impressive, but you still cannot defeat me, Vader." Alastor chuckled at the Sith Lord, amused that he was too stubborn to give up.

"Let's agree to disagree." Vader countered as he then broke the struggle, leaping into the air as he then grabbed something from on his back, whipping it out to reveal a massive sublime rifle with a blade of blackstone replacing the barrel. Vader than pulled the trigger, green energy coiling around the blackstone blade before the emerald beam speared through the air towards Alastor, who dodged and warped to his position, grabbing by the neck.

Alastor laughed while his grin grew to nearly encompass his face, "YOU. MISSED."

If Vader's helmet was not fused to his face, a ghost of a smile would have been on his lips under it before he boasted, "I wasn't aiming for you."

Before Alastor could even inquire what he meant, the beam of emerald speared through the shapeless red thing. It began screeching, the wound smoldering as it spread throughout the formless blasphemy that wailed and flailed against its ruin before it burned away into a swirling mass of red.

Alastor's smile didn't fade as he then genuinely complemented the Sith Lord, "Well played."

The second that sentence ended, the mass of red exploded, desolating the ziggurat and sending the Sith Lord flying into the Warp. He landed onto a floating platform of black rock as the boom echoed through the Warp like the dying screams of something born in shadow and death. The Vox Daemon was unfazed by the destruction as he kept grinning and gave a bow before he warped away.

Darth Vader was unmoved by the Vox Daemon departure, merely disengaged his lightsaber and walked away to purge more of these filth spawned from the Tumor Gods, "Let my journey continue."

XXX

The heads of several Nurglings burst into chunks as puss and bile spewed out of their necks and their bodies begun to burn in white flames. The substances coating a metal bat became ash as the wielder twirled it to wipe it away, resting the weapon on his shoulder as he approached the awaiting forces of the Plaguefather.

The man was in a baseball uniform that seemed to belong to no known team, a black baseball cap covering his head that wore a stoic expression, and in his arms was a silver baseball bat with the symbols of Alpha, Omega, and Epsilon etched into the metal. The man's face was hidden by the cap... that is if what features laid on his pale and bleached head could even be called a face. He possessed a mouth cut into a Glasgow smile with staples holding the cut that led from the lips to below the cheekbones, four eyes black as night and with irises red as blood, his skin and short bristling hair white as snow, his teeth onyx and sculpted flawlessly.

This man had no name for he was simply the Batter. He forsook his name, his past, his future, the prospects of anything more and traded it all for one single role; purify the damned.

The Batter raised his weapon and brought it down onto a Great Unclean One, the head bursting into a mess of puss, chlorophyll, and chunks of rapidly disintegrating flesh as it was banished back to the Garden of Nurgle before he ducked the swing of a Manreaper from a charging Plague Marine, then swung his bat on the rusted and grim covered leg, nearly breaking it and staggering the marine. The Batter than held his bat in a reverse grip as the Alpha symbol began to glow white before he swung.

Suddenly, a large ring of white light appeared and rocketed towards the Plague Marine like a stone being launched from a sling. The ring cleaved the Plague Marine in twain as white flames burst from both of the severed halves, consuming the Nurglite with an agonizing scream as its soul was cleansed of corruption. The ring returned to its master before he swung his bat at a Sporecarrier that attempted to attack him from behind, striking it so hard that the head was ripped from the body while the white flames purified the corroded soul that inhabited it.

Seed Bolts from a Floral Marine nearly struck him had he not leapt out of the way before he made a throwing gesture and the ring speared towards the corrupted marine, who retracted a metal blade with a handle of vines from his chest, clashing with the ring. The Floral Marine managed to overpower the ring and strike it back at the Batter, who dodged and leapt at the marine, dodging a swing and thrust before the Omega symbol on his bat began glowing white.

Another white ring appeared behind the Floral Marine and slashed through him before he could react. White flames burned away the body and soul before they could regenerate, the ring returning to its master like the Alpha. Seeing that there were no other Nurglites, the Batter merely raised his bat and the rings dissolved and flowed back into his weapon and continued his journey.

The Batter looked around and rested his bat on his shoulder, walking out of the dense daemonic forest that he was residing. He reached a haggard cliffside, overlooking a place where the great and old things came to rest, a titanic castle of onyx shard spires floating and flowing in the distance, crevasse sized mirror cracks in the ground that lead down to molten part that bellowed screams of the damned and chained hands of sacrificed reaching in a hollow attempt for salvation. Discordance piped through the strident wind as the crunch of the Batter's footstep echoes from the black metal sand of the Formless Wastes.

Deposits of skulls and bones laid liberally on the ground, abandoned rusted weapons lay abandoned as they cracked under the weight of the Batter's shoes on their frail constitution, voiceless songs breathed into whatever lived in these unhallowed areas, black formless ichor-like beasts trudged along on the delicate edges of the crevasses in fear of their fates beyond, sounds of orgiastic prayers came from a place unseen in the skies, crimson openings that faintly followed the Batter like faceless eyes as he grew near the onyx shard castle.

When the Batter came to the edge of the cliffside where the Castle of Shards levitated, the entrance warping, billions of onyx shards either miniscule as dust or massive as an aircraft carrier flowing in disquieting unison like the cells of an abstract amorphous organism. They parted to reveal a stone-grey tunnel that lacked any suggestion of any known mineral or material, an influx of black steaming wisps that seized at his presence flowed out and seldom came even a meter away from him. The Batter slowly entered the tunnel, expressionless and void of fear even as the entrance sealed liquescently behind him.

Curious whispers muttered through the tunnel that attempted to dissuade the Batter with sweetened promises that turned to furious threats of unfathomable violence when he was not swayed. He ascended the winding tunnel that seemed to be coiling something that irradiated a wrongness that was both enticing and repulsive, eventually ending in a stain glass balcony overlooking a spacious throne room composed of the same onyx shards.

Sitting on a jagged throne composed of stained glass, was the Queen of Glass.

The Entity was a kin to a curvy feminine mannequin, a face void of features, save for two sets of eyes in shape of almonds black as the void with irises of metallic grey, long metallic follicles that seemed more akin to wires, her skin dark grey and lacking areolas or genitalia, composed seemingly of plastic that moved and bent like flesh, floating shards of stain glass and obsidian in random shapes and sizes sat behind her back in the shape of angelic wings. There was a potent lapping, soft bristling winds of melancholy and despair flowing from her being as ink-like tears flowed down her cheeks, the crying echoes of those lost in her embrace.

He was unfazed by the entity, merely raising his silver bat at the air around him before he then bellowed out, "Show yourselves, corrupted children! I am the voice of forgiveness that will eliminate your calamitous forms!"

The Batter was then surrounded by the Queen's specters, black things composed of liquid blackness and shards of obsidian shaped into vaguely humanoid forms with listless tendrils rising from their back, floating and reforming. They shifted their fingers into claws, growling at him even as he brandished his bat at him with an expression of cold fury.

"Prepare yourselves to face my judgement."

The bat then became wreathed in white shining flames, becoming more a sword of burning holiness that a simple bat. The Batter then leapt at one, cleaving it in twain before it suddenly shattered and reformed as the other specters extended their arms into spears in an attempt to impale the crusader, who ducked and struck them in the legs with a single swing.

One reformed before the Batter struck, white flames burning through the tar-like webs holding them together, reducing it to nothing but shards of obsidian before he swung at another, who twisted out of the way before it slashed at the Batter, who blocked with his flaming bat. The Batter than twisted his body out of the way and then swung it, striking the twisted thing in the head as its tendrils burned away, falling away into oblivion as the Batter then thrust his bat into the next specter, piercing its chest and forcing the weapon upwards, cleaving its obsidian body in half. One of the last three Specters attempted to slash the Batter's head off, only for him to duck and then swung his bat at the leg, shattering it and staggering the Specter before the Batter swung at its head, shattering it and burning the tendrils away that held it together.

The Batter immediately turned to the last remaining specters, who shifted their limbs into scimitar shape before they screeched and charged at him, the crusader ready to strike at their blasphemous existence. The Batter swung his flaming weapon on the nearest one that bent out of the way as the other swung its claws as the crusader could barely dodge. The three became a blur of black and white, a tempest of slashing and dodging that tore through the plastic floor.

Obsidian blades met the flaming bat before the Batter shattered them with his strength, swinging down and cleaving the tendrils away from one of them, the conflagration burning the tarry constitution away as the obsidian lifelessly fell to the floor. The final Specter roared at the death of its brother, its form bristling to reveal several thousands of obsidian spikes and spines, glaring down at the Batter who was merely glaring back.

"You demented child of evil. The last grain of sand has fallen through the hourglass of your life!" The Batter bellowed as he charged at it with his flaming bat raised to scorch it to sunders.

It lashed out its glass tendrils at the crusader, cutting into his thigh and left side of his chest, merely cutting into his outfit that weaved itself back together in an instant before he leapt into the air, spinning out of the way of its tendrils before he swung again. This time the specter was smart enough to leap back when his white blade of flames came down and fired thin obsidian spines at the Batter, who then summoned his white rings that blocked the projectiles and parted as the Batter sent a wave of white flames. The specter didn't have time to dodge as the flames struck it in the chest, burning away the tendrils as it swung its arm, sending chunks of obsidian at the Batter as a final act of defiance.

The Batter moved out of the way of most of the obsidian projectiles, but one got lucky and slashed him across the back of his hand. The cut bled teardrops of black but the Batter paid the wound no heed as he stared at his target still sitting on her stain-glass throne.

With her expression still stone-like and unmoving, the Queen of Glass rose from her throne, her wings tensing and relaxing as she drew nearer to the Batter who walked in an emotionless and determined trek towards her. The three rings spun behind their master's back, combining into a chain of white that formed into a pair of flaming wings.

Both Queen and Crusader stared at each other like lost lovers finally reunited after years of being separated. They stared on, neither moving, blinking, or breathing, when the Batter raised his flaming blade at the unresponsive Queen, as ink-like tears ran down her cheeks.

"Queen of Glass, it's time to join your disciples. It all went wrong. Time to let it all go and dream sweet dreams." The Batter spoke in a rueful tone, leveling his holy weapon at the weeping entity.

The Queen lashed out with her shard wings, attempting to skewer the crusader who clashed with his flaming weapon as quickly as she was striking at him. The Batter ducked, dipped, dived, and dodged out of the way of the Queen's strikes, batting away any strike that he could not evade, getting closer to his adversary before rearing his arm back and attempting to strike them with a swing. The Queen blocked the holy weapon with merely her arm before one of the Batter's wings slashed across her chest, cleaving through her form that suddenly reconnected while the gash sealed with nary a scar.

The Glass Queen shaped her right wing into a fist before striking the Batter in the gut, sending him back with gashes in his uniform that healed instantly before the crusader leapt into the air and posed his flaming bat to strike, the Queen attempting to block with her wings when suddenly the wings sitting behind the Batter broke apart into the three rings that then speared toward the Queen. The entity of plastic and glass was nearly cleaved in twain, but she was clever enough to twist out of their way before she was struck by the rings before launching shards of obsidian and stain glass in massive droves at the Batter, who used the rings to shield himself.

Just when she stopped her attempt at his life, the Batter immediately charged at her, faster than the Queen could react. The Queen was struck in the chest, white flames searing through her plastic form and severing her in two before grey liquid tendrils weaved together as the two halves melded back into a singular whole. The Queen's eyes suddenly flared with tendrils of black fluid flowed out of her sockets, breaking apart into globules that then shaped into long and thin needles before hardening and launching at the Batter in just a mere moment, nearly skewering him but he moved in such a way that they merely grazed him.

Before either could react, the Batter threw his holy weapon at the Queen like a throwing knife, impaling the entity before the rings cleaved off her arms, legs, and midsection that melted upon contact, with the force sending her into the walls. A crater formed from the impact before the severed pieces reattached to reform the Queen with her equivalent of an annoyed expression, the castle tensing and shuddering at her emotions.

Suddenly, the walls broke apart, her throne disassembling into shards that flowed into her wings like streams of stain glass. A blast shattered to shards of black that formed together into a storm of shards and needles, tear-track cracks formed from the corners of her eyes that trailed to her jawline. Numerous pillar sized spears of obsidian then appeared and rained down on the Batter, who barely had time to react, jumping out of the way of some and using the rings to block others.

The crusader immediately tried strike at the Queen, who merely rose her hand before clenching it into a fist. Suddenly, the shards around him splintered before they all converged on the Batter faster than he could react, burying him in a tomb of obsidian. The Queen then held up three fingers before bringing then down like a snapping jaw of a Crocodile, causing the sphere to suddenly compress itself into the size of a basketball. The Queen of Glass would have scoffed had she had a mouth before dismissing the Batter, disappointed that he could not end her despair.

Light abruptly shown through the cracks, regaining the Queen's expression as her eyes widened a mere millimeter, before the sphere of obsidian burst apart with a roar, revealing the Batter. The Crusader was now surrounded by a white aura of flames with the rings began spinning intensely like the flares of a collapsing star, his eyes burning with white flames that glared at the Queen.

The Batter roared, a light blazing through his wounds that shattered the shards in his body before he speared towards the Queen, who sent every single shard of the castle at the charging crusader, only to shatter against the aura of flames. Her wings forming shields that collided with the flaming bat and rings that crashed with the force of a meteor, creating sparks of white as they struggled against each other.

Suddenly, the Queen broke the struggle and swung her wings down on the Batter, the rings blocking her last desperate attack before the crusader roared and plunged his holy weapon into the Queen's chest. An ear-piercing screech filled the air as the Queen's head threw back with her body seizing, her stain glass wings falling apart and shattering. The Batter than ripped his bat out of the Queen's chest before raising it with a furious roar.

"YOU!"

He struck her arm, turning it to ash.

"ARE!"

He struck her shoulder that burned away. The Batter raised the bat into the air, the Queen unable to do anything but watch.

"JUDGED!"

The Batter brought his weapon down, the Queen's head burning away in the conflagration before a flash of light erupted from her form that nearly blinded the Batter, who covered his eyes to shield them. When the light died away, the Batter uncovered his eyes to see the Queen as she was now. The Queen was now merely a thing made of grey smoke in feminine shape, that parts that resembled hair flowing in soundless wind, eyes a soft red that bled tears of sweet relief.

"Thank you." The Queen muttered before her body slowly darkened, crumbling away to ash while the castle fell away into the darkness below. The Batter let out a breath as the aura faded, the flames that wreathed his bat dissipated, and the rings returned to their place. He needed no thanks, no glory, nothing, all he needed was to follow his vow.

"Purge the Damned, Purify the Lost, and Cleanse the Wicked in the Flames." The Batter recited his vow as he rested his bat on his shoulder, his face unmoving and smooth like the glass around him, "For that is my vow, unto the end of eternity itself."

The crusader then walked away, continuing on with his eternal crusade.

XXX

In a dead earth, inhabited by nightmares and the worst of humanity, scouring the deserts of blasted nuclear fire, was the Gunslinger.

The Gunslinger was a rough man; tall, old, and lean, having rough features with short greying black hair covered by cowboy hat. His well-built body covered by a dirty white long-sleeved shirt over a brown leather duster, a red bandana wrapped around the neck, black pants with two loose fitting belts that held twin black steeled revolvers with gold decorations, and black cowboy boots with silver spurs.

His real name is Roland Deschain, last of the Gunslingers.

He entered the lost city of Ros, a city of ruin spanning miles; vast swathes of building that were now composed of ruined concrete and glass, streets lined with vast hordes of infighting bandits that spilled the blood of even infants for a mere centimeter of territory. Priests draped in garments of cloth and flayed human hide held metal torches that burned with the boiling bile of the damned, preaching the word of dark things beyond the veils of reality. Crimson clad cultists that bore haphazard armor anointed with the eight-pointed star, beasts that had scars for skin that craved the blood of innocents, hollow vessels filled with daemons that grasped the strings of fate, and abominations of metal and flesh all marching through the streets in lust for power and domination.

With nary a breath, Roland withdrew his twin Apocrypha revolvers, Justice and Vengeance, and fired on the hordes in front of him. Many did not have a chance to react as they were cut down by the hundreds of bullets that came their way, the silver slugs piercing through armor and flesh with the ease of tearing paper, felling the damned by the dozen as their blood sprayed through the streets.

Some attempted to jump behind cover, only for the bullets to turn and strike them no matter where they fled. Some summon the daemonic power invested in them to smite Roland, only for his shots to burn through the warp miasma and struck them in their hearts, burning the blasphemies out of the hollow forms. Scarred monster in human form charged at him in bellowing fury, only for the bullets to pierce the eyes and brain. Priests squealed like pigs as they fled off their high horses, only to get shot before they could get very far.

Roland casually dodged a blade from a screaming berserker, before blocking his sword with Justice and then shot him in the head with Vengeance. He then raised Vengeance and fired on an oncoming armored vehicle, piercing through the armored windshield and splattered the driver's brains out, the vehicles quickly overturning and crashing into the nearest building. The Gunslinger, without even looking, aimed Justice behind him and fired on a maniac behind him that was attempting to sneak up behind him and shank him, the bullet hitting the bastard between the eyes as he fell dead.

After moments of firing and aiming at the hordes, those heretics and mutants left retreated to the deeper parts of the city out of fear. Deschain used the moment of respite to twirl Justice and Vengeance back into their holsters, before pulling out and lighting a cigar as he trekked deeper into Ros.

As he reached further into Ros, a feeling of both intrigue and weight crawled up his spine as the air seemed to grow denser, whispers of the Changer of Ways pricking his ears, the tiles on the street he walks growing softer and damp like skinless wet flesh. One building grew lashing azure tentacles that flailed and writhed in the air, screams of the lost echoed through the city.

The Gunslinger knew what that meant; Tzeentchians. The moment that thought ended, a swarm of Pink and Blue Horrors burst from some place and stormed the streets at the unmoved Roland, who smirked.

"First come smiles, then comes lies. Last is gunfire." The Gunslinger said as he withdrew his revolvers and fired upon the Tzeentchian horrors before him. Horror after Horror as felled by the hail of silver bullets that burst from the barrels of Justice and Vengeance, with the Gunslinger merely needing only to aim as he casually strolled through the city, somewhat internally admitting that he's gotten a bit lazy since Justice and Vengeance could fire hundreds of bullets at rapid pace without reloading.

Suddenly, a Chaos Spawn that resembled a polymerization of spider and avian came through the ground, covered in azure pliable chitin. Roland was unfazed by the Spawn as he fired a shot from Justice... only for the bullet to bounce off the plates, causing the Gunslinger to merely raise an eyebrow. He fired more, each bullet bouncing off the plates while it screamed and lashed its arachnid legs as the undaunted, whom dodged and backflipped, grabbing something from behind his long coat before he whipped out a quadruple barreled shotgun, black steeled with the hammer in the shape of a demon's head and a wooden stock. His trusty Apocrypha shotgun, Hotshot.

A squeeze of the trigger caused a blast of warpfire to erupt from the barrel that rocketed toward the Spawn, cleaving through the plates like a flaming spear, blasting a truck sized hole into the Spawn. It screamed before it was consumed by red flames, burning through its cells until it was nothing more than a pile of ash. Roland then gave a scoff and twirled Hotshot before placing it back in its holster, looking around the area for something.

"I know you're out there!" Roland shouted out, feeling the presence of whatever Tzeentchian thing was hiding beyond the veils of reality. "Come out and let me fill you full of silver and lead!"

The presence slithered behind him, speaking in a voice that seemed to be made of both one and millions, "Come to meet the one who plays with the Gods?"

"Maybe." Roland said as he lit a cigar, "Depending on you I'm speaking to."

"My name is not important."

"Oh, well pleased to meet you, Not Important." The Gunslinger mocked the entity hidden from him, "Why don't you take a form and let us fight like gentlemen?"

There was no response before tendrils of blue mist following together, coalescing into some liquescent thing that emitted every color yet no color. It weaved into a long and lean form that pulsed like a heartbeat. The figure shifted back into its favorite form, one covered in a blue shimmering cloak accented with gold, the hook covering and concealing the face, and a single humanoid arm with sky blue skin and bone thin fingers on one side that held an iridescent serpentine staff and three humanoid arms on the other side.

It was the Changeling of Tzeentch.

Roland gave an unimpressed stare at the Changeling, "What would you expect me to say to one who is so manifestly unimpressive?"

"You could begin with 'thank you.'" The Changeling retorted, "Were I to confront you with one of my more 'impressive' forms, your mind would leak from your ears."

The Gunslinger then twirled his revolvers out of their holsters and aimed them at the Changeling, "Then let's make this fight impressive." He fired both Justice and Vengeance at the Daemon, who dodged and fired a bolt of Warp lightning at the Gunslinger who jumped to the side of the street and fired again. The silver bullets were ineffective as the Changeling became intangible, the projectiles passing through it like water as it struck like a serpent of mist, hitting Roland in the chest and sending him flying back before he skidded to a halt, grinding the soles of his boots into the ground.

Roland then whipped out a golden lasso before throwing it at the intangible Changeling, wrapping around the daemon and forcing it to tangibility. The Changeling threw its staff at Roland, who merely sidestepped out of the way when suddenly, the serpent decoration animated and lashed out at him, causing the Gunslinger to lose focus on keeping the Changeling bound, leading it to loosen the Golden Lasso's hold on it. At the moment Roland shot at the animated staff with Vengeance, the Changeling then shifted its arms into azure tentacles covered in eyes and mouths before lashing them as Deschain.

The Gunslinger didn't have a chance to react as the tentacles impaled his arm, leg, side and shoulder. Roland let out a yelp of pain before he grits his teeth to block out the pain as he raised Justice at the tentacles that were impaling him before firing, the silver bullet slicing through the pseudopods impaling his right before tearing the last out of his shoulder, freeing him of the Changeling. He then whipped out Hotshot and fired at the Changeling, whose body suddenly split in twain as the blast missed the two halves before they reconnected as the Trickster of Tzeentch suddenly morphed into an azure amorphous thing that lashed out a flood of inhuman limbs at the Gunslinger.

Roland made the wise decision and ran, using the Golden Lasso to act as a grappling hook and climbing up the nearest intact building to escape the flood of limbs, only for the limbs to follow together into a being of azure slime in the shape of a vaguely humanoid thing. It thrusted its arm at Roland, who whipped out Hotshot and fired, destroying the arm and the right side of its body before it simply reformed and then unleashed thousands of ethereal arms at Deschain. The Gunslinger quickly jumped off the building as it was reduced to dust from the power of the Changeling and used the lasso to swing to the street, quickly whipping out Justice and Vengeance before squeezing the triggers.

A hail of silver bullets fired from the twin revolvers, hitting the transformed Changeling in many spots by the burnt holes that were made by their impact disappeared with another moment as if they never existed, before the Trickster of Tzeentch lashed an arm that transformed into a maw of gold saber-like fangs, attempting to decapitate him with a bite. The Gunslinger ducked as it passed over him and fired Hotshot, the blast of warpfire cleaving the maw off the monster, the halves burning as it screeched.

Roland growled, even with Hotshot he wasn't sure that he could beat the Trickster of Tzeentch. It was then that Roland saw a trail of blue that was connected to the Changeling, he quickly followed the trail with his eyes to see something that now made sense. A small Warp rift, almost the size of a truck, sitting in street a long way from the two, feeding it a steady supply of Warp energy so it can stay tethered to the material world.

Realizing what that the Gunslinger now knows his only tether to the materium, the Changeling lashes out at the Gunslinger, hoping to kill him before he could sever its connection. It took the form of a massive sky-blue Horror with thousands of arms that rocketed toward Roland as he took aim at the rift with Justice, the arms grabbing him before he could fire.

"This game had been amusing, Gunslinger." The Changeling spoke in a million voices, hoisting the struggling Roland in the air, "But it's time for it to end and for me to be the winner."

Roland growled, "Never say that to a man in debt, Trickster!" With all his strength, he forced his arm to move against the strength of the Changeling's grip, aiming Justice at the rift and curled his finger around the trigger. Two arms then grasped Roland's throat, cutting off the circulation. Roland choked as blackness creeped from each corner of his sight, struggling to fight, raising his gun to the rift and with the last of his strength, fired.

The silver bullet speared through the air like a blade of light that rocketed towards the rift. The Changeling, reacting in one millionth of a second released Roland and attempted to grab the bullet before it could pierce through the rift. The silver composition burned through the ethereal essence of the stream connected to the Changeling, spiraling as it pierced any and all limbs that attempted to stop its path before it reached its destination. The rift was speared in the middle by the silver bullet, burning it away in a torrent of white flames, severing the Changeling's influx of warp energy.

"NOOOOOO!" The Trickster of Tzeentch howled in fear. The feeling magnified when he heard Roland get to his feet and look directly at him.

"You're outta juice, which means," Roland whipped out Justice and Vengeance and cocked back the hammers, "You're shit outta luck." The Gunslinger opened fire on the Changeling, the silver bullets ripping through its form with the wounds burning more as it had no influx of warp energy to replace the damage. The daemon of Tzeentch screeched in rage, charging towards the Gunslinger in a final attempt to smite him only for Roland to raise Justice and Vengeance at it with a smirk.

"And that's Checkmate."

He fires both Justice and Vengeance at the Changeling's 'head', destroying it in a burst of flames that sent it screaming back to the immaterium. Satisfied, he twirled his revolvers and put them back in their holsters before Roland lit a cigar, thinking back to what the Emperor told him.

"Tomorrow let them see our strength, and weep whilst they their want of losing blame; their valiant folly strives too long to keep what might be render'd without shame. For the man who has nothing can still have hope."

Roland scoffed but didn't disagree.

XXX

It was not of otherworldly coincidence that one would be contested to think that the Queen of Daemons would have become the Ruler under the Gods. While she was done many a terrible thing on her won after becoming a Daemon Prince, when she was merely flesh and blood, there was only so much that one could get with mere psychic power alone. One must be charismatic, intelligent, cunning, and ruthless, gain followers and connections, supplies and weaponry, if one was to get even to the ranks of a Chaos Cult leader.

One can only shudder when they imagine what horrors Mandy must have committed to gain not only the favor but the respect of every single Chaos God, enough that would gift her the authority as the actual Queen of Daemons. One of those horrors was her son.

They were not children in a traditional sense, infants born from one of her thousands of lovers like many of her illegitimate sons and daughters. Most of her sons and daughters were trained from birth to be loyal to her onto death, only living for their mothers' will whether as Daemon Princes or Chaos Spawn. To be one of her children was to be blessed like none other, and to be a monster among daemons.

Then there was her general, her Praetorian, her Eater of Souls, and her Son of Blackness. A tall being composed of flesh and blackness, a black face with glowing green eyes and a mane of brown hair hidden under a hood, and in his hands a scythe that can command the spirits of the dead.

This is Grim Junior, aka the Reaper. Currently, he was waiting in the halls of his mother's home as she had called him for something. As he sat there on a chair made from the bones of screaming Eldar, he couldn't help but think of the times he spent under her shadow-made wings.

Since the moment he was born, his mother taught him violence and cruelty, not giving him a name until he earned it. She was still of flesh and blood but had been given eternal life and youth by dark rituals and xeno technology. When he was five, he killed a man using a gun that she gave him as her first and only gift to him. A saying was that what kind of person you'd be if you could sleep after your first kill... and he slept without a thought about that man's life.

After that, Mandy gave him his name: Grim Junior. Based on the name of the entity she had ensnared to her will went she was but his age before she told him something that stuck with him for the rest of his life.

"War is in your blood. Don't fight it. You didn't kill for the Gods. You killed for yourself. The Gods are never gonna make that go away. When you're pushed, killing's is easy as breathing."

That advice saved his life many a time during his mother's brutal introduction of Chaos.

Years passed as his mother and he craved a bloody path through the Imperium of Man, swaying hundreds of Planetary Governors to secretly allow her Cult to fester and sow subterfuge into entire sectors. At but the call from her, every planet they had been to begin rebelling against the Imperium, a bloodbath spanning 300 planets and each one embodying each God of Chaos. An event that caught the eye of each god, ending with the sacrifice of 500 billion souls and her ascension to Daemonhood.

Her ascension was one of blasphemous radiance as she exited the gateway on the plant of Molech before the planet was engulfed in blackness. To behold the power the Gods have given her was to compare the power of a lasgun to The World Engine, one could not possibly comprehend it. However, their celebration was short lived as the Anathema himself blasted through the gate and battled Mandy. The blaze of their wrath cracking the planet and reducing it to sunders while Grim and his brothers and sisters could barely escape before the planet burst to flames.

Their mother reappeared to them, having survive her encounter with the Anathema. For the first time in his life, Grim had seen her joyous, showering her spawn with gifts from the Gods. His reward? She ripped out his eye and replaced it with the Eye of one of the Nergalings, dark and emerald things born from Ruin, the darkest parts of the Abyss of Eternal Shadows, bearing the Plaguefather's name, letting him control a thing of shapeless blackness and emerald eyes.

Ever since, he's helped her with the conquest of the Multiverse. The only reason the Despoiler still wields Drach'nyen because his mother allowed it, but if the Despoiler displeases her, the Echo of the First Murder will go to either her or her son.

Speaking of his mother, Grim leaned back in his chair while staring at the warped gothic doors. She should have been here by now.

Suddenly, a squad of Formless burst through the doors, shattering them as the leading one sent an enlarged fist at Grim Junior, who casually ducked out of the way and then backflipped before landing on his feet. Then liquid blackness lined with green protuberances and eyes emerged from his arm and formed into a scythe that he used to slash through one of the Formless.

Another deformed into a massive creature with a gaping maw with lashing tentacles that attempted to snare him, only for the Son of the Daemon Queen to form a gun-like protrusion from his arm, firing a beam of emerald power at the Maw, reducing it to ebony sludge-like pieces that splattered against the walls. Another two fused together into a mess of tendrils and blades that barreled towards Grim Junior with all its blades poised to skewer him only for his scythe to come down quicker than them, cleaving them in twain before they burst apart. And the last three then fused into a massive composite form that attempted to swallow the general whole.

Unphased, Junior formed several tendrils that then opened into green fanged maws that fired beams of emerald at the dark things, annihilating them with a single blast as they attempted to swallow him, sending chunks of blackness around the room.

With a sigh of annoyance, Grim Junior called out to the empty room, "I'm done, mother."

"Good work, Grim." His mother's voice came to him, sweet and terrible like a madman's lullaby. He turned to see her standing there, the Queen of Daemons in all her unholy glory, "Your power has not dulled. That is good."

"Of course, it has not Mother." Grim replied, as the tendrils receded back into his body and folded back into his outfit, "I am not that weak child, mother."

"I'm glad you're not. But that proves nothing until you achieve a victory that is worth my attention. And then your use to me is confirmed." Mandy replied coldly to him, before turning away from her son, not bothering to look at him before she slowly walked out of the room, "Be sure to be at the gathering of the Undivided at my castle when the Pit of Slaughter has concluded. I expect you to be ready for when we begin our plan. Now, come. I do not want to be kept waiting."

Grim Junior's face contorted into a scowl when her sight was not on him even as he followed her out of the room. Though he would never admit or acknowledge it, the Reaper does dislike his mother's lack of affection toward him.

The Reaper followed his mother from the bleak and blasted halls of this place towards her personal vessel, a vessel nearly the size of a planet and made of technology taken from Mankind's Golden Age and the greatest technology from the Eldar and the Necrons. A machine whose very presence allows them to conquer an entire universe and a sign of her dominance over all daemons. The Crown of Ruin.

Mandy then turned to Junior as the blasphemous gates opened for them to enter, smiling a sinister smirk, "Come, Grim. The One Above me is waiting."

The Reaper swallowed his fear and followed onto the Crown of Ruin, awaiting whatever horrific things may come.

---

Lonely Are The Ones Who Walk The Line

He couldn't remember when he last slept. Was it 3 days ago or 5? He wasn't able to remember as he had been fighting and killing for years that felt like decades and longer. The last fight was against some she-devil that took to raping men and boys before eating their skin and organs, ended up expending lots of precious bullets when she turned into that scorpion thing.

But the truth was that he didn't remember how long he had been fighting the Chaos bastards but he sure as hell remembered the day they came.

He was in high school, a goth, thinking about how much he hated his life. But one day, his hot female teacher suddenly grabbed one of the jocks in the class and dragged him to a closet in the middle of class, and a few moments after that, the janitor broke his mop in half and then started stabbing the principle over the loudspeaker. The students either started panicking, killing, or raping each other, he was one of the lucky ones and escaped before too long.

He got home, only to see his big sister having killed their parents and was doing all sorts of messed up shit with her girlfriend. He never saw her again, but he could only imagine what kinda things she'd be into now. Him? He ran. Ran like the devil had got him in his sights and by the looks of things, that didn't seem all that implausible. He found God during that time, now a devote Christian, pledging to purge the heretics that made up the planet.

Been fighting them ever since, armed to the teeth with weapons and move across country. Think he might be near Oklahoma. But he ain't gotten this far just by telling stories. Think he gained a reputation as many people have come to calling him, The Walker.

He found himself near a small, abandoned town in ruins, buildings stripped bare or filled with hobos, streets filled with ruined cars or dead bodies, the sky grey and no patch of blue in sight. The Walker looked around the crossroad that he was standing at, catching a surprisingly intact gas station northwest of him. Knowing that there no cars that could hit him, the Walker strolled across the street.

The gas station had definitely seen better days, dirty, doors broken and forced together to keep strangers out, and food and supplies strewn about with reckless abandon. The Walker slowly holstered his 10-gauge double-barreled Remington when he saw there was not a soul in the interior, before he grabbed the doors by the frame and then pulled like he was in a game of tug of war. The doors were ripped off their hinges, barely keeping the Walker from falling due to the whiplash before he threw the useless thing aside and enter the gas station.

He searched the place diligently for food or ammo, finding some drinks and food that were kept preserved from the freezer that was anomalously still working despite the power having long since gone out. The Walker gathered whatever food and drinks he could find before he entered the restroom with the pile and locked the door to make sure that nobody came took his stuff.

During that time, the Walker took off his mask and slowly looked himself in the mirror, probably the first time he did so in years.

The Walker was about 27 years old, having long, brown matted and dirty hair, hardened ice blue eyes, and a burn scar across his cheek that looked like a Glasgow Smile scar. He was wearing a closed leather duster that covered a red long sleeve shirt, dirty brown pants, and dark leather boots, all under a Kevlar vest and armlets and leglets, and in his hand was a gunmetal mask that resembled a Japanese Oni. Guns were placed in whatever spot that he could fit them, 1911s, Uzis, his 10 gauge in a holster on his back. Along with a M14 and AK-47, some AR-15s, and a pump action shotgun that he kept in a bag that he kept with him at all times.

He laid down, slowly eating an energy bar before he turned off the lights, pulling out an AR-15 and slowly allowed himself to fall asleep.

XXX

The Walker slowly woke up to the dark bathroom that he fell sleep in, holding that same AR-15 with his bag at his side. There was a sound from beyond the restroom, a ruffling sound coming from the other side as he slowly stood back up with his AR-15 in hand, slowly etching towards the door before he swung it open and raised his gun to the source of the noise.

A scream rang out along with other yells before he saw that it was just some people that were savaging for resources in the gas station. The Walker scowled but left them alone before he put on his metal mask and grabbed his bag filled with rations and weapons, walking through the ruined halls of the gas station and into the ruined world.

Scavengers. Most people that he hadn't met had turned to scavengers that plundered whatever they could find, hoarding precious things and either selling them for a pittance or merely just to enjoy the forbidden fruits that are so rare in these desperate and lifeless times.

He strolled down the empty street to a small town that seemed to be larger than it was when he saw it from far away. Howling wind piped stridently through his ears while gentle tapping of rain on his head and duster gave him a fleeting sense of peace, looking around to see several people crowding themselves into the abandoned buildings in the town, most of them skidding away in fear when they saw him like he was the devil himself. He couldn't blame them; he'd be scared of himself too.

Suddenly, a small red rubber ball rolled towards him, stopping after it hit his boot, causing him to stop and look down at it with an empty expression hidden behind his mask. The Walker bent down and picked up the small toy, looking it over as he muttered out, "Sweet innocence."

Just as suddenly, a little girl, no older than 7, peaked from behind the corner of the building that was beside him. Short blonde hair, blue eyes like sapphires, and clothed in tattered clothing as she slowly walked towards him, stopping at just a mere foot away from him. The two stared at each other for a second before the little girl's eyes trailed down to the rubber ball in his hand. The Walker knows what she would have asked if she spoke, so he wordlessly gave her the ball, take she took into her small hands. Suddenly, a woman, at 30 years old, appeared out of nowhere and scooped up the girl and glared at him.

"YOU STAY BACK!" The mother screamed at the Walker, who didn't react even as she ran away with the child. He didn't bother trying to change that image of him, all he cared for was that he killed as many heretics as he could before he died.

A screech then rang out from behind them, causing them to turn in alarm. A sharp and high-pitched sound suddenly rang through his ears before the mother's head suddenly exploded in a spray of gore, most of it splashing on the little girl who barely reacted aside from her eyes widening slightly. Knowing what was coming, The Walker immediately grabbed the girl and dove into the building, covering her mouth in case she screamed as the two of them hid behind a window.

There was a deep rumbling, sounds of soldiers marching and heavy vehicles passing by filled the building as the people scurried to the deepest and darkest parts of the complex as to not be seen by the massive caravan of cultists that were passing through. He vaguely heard one cultist stop walking in tandem with the caravan and slowly approach the window that the Walker and the girl were under.

He looked down to see the girl having a scared look in her eyes, before his gaze snapped back to the window and whipped out a 1911 .45, keeping it up to the frame of the window in case that the cultist peaked through and spotted them. The cultist stopped just inches in front of the window, not caring to lean in and look side to side before he merely walked away.

The Walker lowered the gun and waited for the caravan to pass before he moved. 12 minutes passed by with the sounds of vehicles and footsteps ringing through the air like the sulfating gasses of sulfur, only after the twelve minutes passed, the sounds passed. The Walker slowly released the girl, who immediately ran to somebody that he assumed was a family member, who glared at him.

Such a reaction didn't faze him anymore as he simply got up and peaked out from the window from the side. There was no one in sight. Good, that meant he had time to follow them and ambush them when they least expect it.

XXX

It was several miles later that the caravan stopped to a truly large camp at the edge of what he thinks is the Gulf of Mexico, near a beach that overlooked a massive body of water. The vans opened to reveal people bound in chains and dressed in rags, covered in bruises and cuts, having hollow faces filled with trauma as they were led to a different part of the camp that he didn't see.

The Walker hid behind a section of rock that obscured him from view of the cultists while allowing him to spy on them. Thankfully, he saw a massive thunderstorm that was coming, which would give him opportunity to attack without being overwhelmed. A massive crack of thunder snapped him from his state of mind while the other cultists winced, caught off guard by the crack of thunder. An idea came to the Walker as he slowly withdrew an AK-47 and loaded it, waiting for the right moment to strike.

It slowly began to darken as thick and dark clouds covered the skies and rain soon came, combined with that it was reaching night. The heavy rain that was coming down, creating a shroud of rainfall and darkness that he could use to hunt them down.

At the first flash of lightning, the Walker vaulted over his cover and fired just as thunder crackled in sync. The first shot blasted the nearest cultist's head off before he squeezed the trigger, spraying bullets at the cultists who fell like ants before they even had a chance to react. The Walker immediately ejected the clip and loaded another in at blinding speed before firing as more cultists came his way after hearing the gunshots, firing on them before they could even react. One of them managed to survive but he killed them by plunging the bayonet attached to the barrel into the freak's head, killing them instantly.

Suddenly sensing something, the Walker fired, the shot hitting someone as a sharp yelp pierced through the air like a needle through flesh. He fired on, hoping to hit whatever was beyond the darkness but more shapes came through and raised their unholy weapons at his direction. The cultists charged at him with clubs and swords raised, only to be felled when the Walker fired upon them.

He snuck through the spaces where there were no cultists as to hide when more came out to investigate the gunshots. Despite what one might think, running in guns blazing can only get out so far if you don't have the speed, strength, reflexes, endurance, firepower, protection, or ammo reserves to match it. You wanna take down an army? Come up with a strategy, even if you have to do it on the fly.

The Walker waited for them to get close as he placed the AK-47 in the bag and pulled out a M14 with a fully loaded magazine as to not create enough sound while reloading that they'd find him. When they were merely a few feet away from him, he squeezed the trigger and killed the group of 5 with in just a few second, blood spewing out as they collapsed like puppets cut from their strings. He then quickly raced over to the bodies and grabbed whatever ammunition that they had on them before he then hid in another area as more cultists came in and found the bodies of their comrades.

His black mask and black leather duster made it ideal to hide in this environment, the dark colors blending in with the shadows. The Walker could take them on headfirst if they were a small group, but when faced with an army of possibly 300 or more, he had to play smart and fight them as more of a shadow than a warrior. A bullet struck one of the cultists in the head before several more spewed out from the gun, felling the rest of the group before they could find out where he was.

After that, the Walker dove into the nearest empty tent, looking around for supplies to use only to stop when he saw something that would definitely help. An M134 Minigun, with the ammo belt connected to a large backpack that likely had at least 10,000 bullets. A grin would have formed on his face if he was anyone else, but he calmly dropped his bag filled with guns, albeit keeping a few pistols in case he runs out of ammo, putting on the ammo case and taking the minigun into his hands.

"It's killing time." His gravelly and dry sounding voice came through his throat as his eyes drank in the sight of the minigun before he slowly walked out of the tent. A group of cultists immediately caught sight of him, due to one having a mutation that gave him night vision, but by then it was too late as the Walker squeezed the trigger.

The gun immediately began reeving up before a hot storm of bullets launched at a large number of cultists that immediately were mowed down. Bullets cut through them like a fat kid through cake, spraying blood and liquified viscera out as they pierced several cultists at once, reducing several of them to mere mulch while casings flew in the air. The barrels began turning molten orange from the heat while the downpour constantly brought water to keep it from overheating as the Walker marched on and continued mowing down the hundreds of cultists that were coming in.

A few of them tried to charge at him with shields made of steel and axes.

They were cut down and their shields were shredded to scrap.

Cultists armed assault rifles and light machine guns, firing with reckless abandon and not caring who got caught in the crossfire, be they other cultists or prisoners that escaped turning the confusion, as long as he was killed.

They were mowed down after killing several of other cultists in the confusion, due to their recklessness and because the Walker was hidden by the kicked-up dust and darkness.

Desperate cultists boarded armored vehicles and charged at him, running over the dead in a mad dash to kill him as quickly as possible.

They were reduced to slurry when the Walker aimed for the windshields, piercing through the reinforced glass like paper and blowing their heads to mulch before they crashed into each other.

What felt like hours passed as the Walker kept killing more and more cultists until they all seemed to blur together like they usually do when he's able to let loose and slaughter cultists and their monsters without needing to plan out anything. The Walker noticed that the backpack was now at least half the weight as when he first picked it, meaning he's used at least half of its ammunition. He'll have to use it more sparingly, which won't be a problem seeing as the ground was covered by the bodies of all the cultists he had slain.

However, he saw several cultists running away to the largest tent in the entire camp, resembling a circus tent than anything, made of human skin from the slavers that they drowned in their own blood. He could tell because the faces were still bloodied and had hair on them. Inside though, he could hear something, a chanting almost, something that he heard before and it nearly caused his heart to skip a beat.

The Walker almost barged into the tent but stopped himself and opted to simply peek inside to see what they were doing. The cultists were joined in hands around a bound and terrified man with occult symbols carved onto his flesh, chanting flooded the air as a red thick mist came and slowly condensed over the bound man. The man thrashed against his restraints, desperate to escape his bonds before whatever horrible fate claimed him, but it was for naught as the red mist suddenly turned to an iridescent mass of writhing energy that then invaded his eyes and mouth, his veins lighting up with immaterial power.

The Walker then barged into the tent and then squeezed the trigger, the barrels wound up before bullets came spewing out. The stream of hot lead cleaved through the cultists like a hot knife through melting butter, cutting them all down except for the bound man. The bullets merely stopped in front of him, covered in a red aura before they disintegrated.

"A Possessed." The Walker growled. This was gonna be hard.

The Possessed quickly broke from its bounds and then let out a bellowing screech, a wave of red bursting forth from its chest, sending the Walker flying back and destroying the barrels of the minigun. He tumbled and rolled, the ammo case coming off his back before he dug his hands and feet into the ground, stalling his momentum. He quickly disregarded the minigun before he drew out twin Taurus Raging Judge magnums and aimed them at the Possessed as it floated out of the tent, seemingly amused that he thought he had a chance.

The thing possessing the man's body twisted and contorted its vessel in ways that were not possible, flesh moving like water, features forming and unforming at random intervals, giving an impossibly wide grin that brandished thorn-like fangs.

"Well, well. This is an unexpected turn of events." It spoke in a voice that was both melodic and dark as it bent the body it was in until it touched the ground before snapping back like a whip. The Possessed suddenly leapt at him without a second thought, the fingers extending into saber-like claws that would have skewered the Walker had he not fired his twin revolvers, hitting it in the throat and him moving out of the way as it tumbled to the ground.

Laughter bubbled from its mouth, but the Walker paid it no heed as he sprinted to the tent that he left his bag of guns in. Thankfully, it was untouched when he got there, slinging it over his shoulders and withdrawing the AK-47 and reloading it. He got out of the tent to see the Possessed standing a mere 200 hundred feet away, the wounds from the twin Magnums gone like they never existed.

"Not hard enough~" It said in a singsong tone, waving a finger at the Walker who only raised his gun at it. He fired, but the bullets merely sunk into its flesh instead of piercing it, flowing through its body until the slugs fell out like raindrops. He kept trying though, spraying more bullets into the Possessed that merely laughed as they rippled through its vessel, holes popping out and sealing up instantly. Then the Walker threw a grenade at its feet that exploded in put a few seconds, letting him run to replan and discard his bag back into the tent as he knew that guns were useless against the Possessed.

Running, he grabbed an axe from one of the corpses and massive slab of titanium from one of the vehicles before a tendril wrapped around his calf and dragged him back. The Walker chopped the tendril off with the axe before he used his make-shield to stand back up, seeing the fowl thing closing in.

The Possessed suddenly grew tendrils that lashed out at him, quickly enough that he could barely raise his makeshift shield to block them. Its torso then extended as it lashed at the Walker, who brought down the axe that the heretic was using, burying it into the warped ribcage of the Possessed before suddenly, the wound opened into a maw with fangs made from the ribcage that bit down and crunched the axe into pieces.

He then used the broken handle as a pseudo stake to pierce the head, though it gave no other reaction than an amused grin. The Possessed then bloated, deformed, folded, and reformed until it dissolved into a mass of black oily tentacles that lashed at the Walker in all directions, cutting into the slab of titanium he used as a shield. The Walker let go of it and then leapt, bringing down the axe in whatever it had that resembled a head, only for the flesh to gouge like a semi-solid than flesh before several tentacles coiled together to form a fist that it than used to uppercut the Walker.

The man was sent flying back but landed on his feet, grabbing a katana from one of the corpses and brandished it as the Possessed finished its gruesome transformation. It now resembled a long and lean humanoid composed of black oily tendrils, a horned head with three green eyes, shapeless limbs connected to the back that swayed and flowed like water, and long clawed hands and feet that tensed like muscles.

The Possessed elongated its arm into a mace-like form that it then used to attempt a strike on the Walker, who leapt out of the way before he charged, slicing at its legs only for the wounds to close immediately after. Its tendrils lashed at him, but he managed to jump out of the way and brought out his 10 gauge, aiming it at the Possessed's head before he fired, sending steel pellets into its head, tearing it to shreds before it simply reformed, looking rather peeved. The daemon's tendrils managed to move faster than he could react, grabbing him by the leg and throwing him into the air, but he twisted his body so that it would fall behind the Possessed, allowing him to slash its spine in twain. It screamed before striking him in the chest, knocking the wind out of him and sending him flying into the roof of the circus tent that it had been summoned in, crashing into the ground with a loud thud.

He could barely breathe, much less talk, pulling himself to his hands and knees while trying to fill his lungs with air and ignore the pain coursing through him from the broken ribs that were only kept in place because of the tightly bound Kevlar vest around his torso. It was then that he found something fortunate in the tent; it was a Winchester Repeater 1886 with a parchment attached to it that said, "If the ritual is a failure, use this to banish the daemon."

The Walker ignored the absurdity that they would prepare for this possibility and grabbed the gun, just as the Possessed ripped through the roof of the tent and lashed out several tendrils at him. He dove through the entrance of the tent and took off in a sprint, hoping to gain some distance between him and the Possessed to give him more room to maneuver.

He heard shouting and saw several cultists coming his way before he withdrew his Tarus Magnum and shot first, hitting one in the head before he dove away on instinct. Suddenly, the dark tendrils impaled the remaining 13 cultists simultaneously, their bodies bloating and then bursting into chunks of meat before the Walker saw the daemon with its tendrils extended.

The Walker acted quickly and leveled the repeater at the Possessed, pulling the trigger. Unknown to him, the Winchester was loaded with silver bullets that have banishment runes carved into the slugs. The bullet pierced through its left hand that it used to extend tendrils that were meant to kill him, but the bullet caused the hand to start burning as white flames and red energy spewed out of the wound.

The daemon screamed in agony before it suddenly heard the Walker uttering prayers as he cocked the lever action rifle and aimed back at the Possessed.

"And shepherds we shall be, for Thee, my Lord, for Thee. Power hath descended forth from Thy hand."

A shot hit the shoulder, causing it to screech and clutch the now boiling shoulder as red energy spew out like blood.

"That our feet may swiftly carry out Thy command. So, we shall flow a river forth to Thee and teeming with souls shall it ever be."

Another shot hit its abdomen, causing more red energy to spew out of the wound.

"In nomine Patri."

Another shot pierced the heart, causing it to let out a bellowing screech before it fell to its knees, unable to act before the Walker was just a few inches away.

"Et Filii."

Chck-CHACK! He cocked the level action rifle, the shell flying out of the chamber, before he leveled it at the Possessed's head.

"Et Spiritus Sancti."

The Walker fired, the silver bullet piercing through the skull and brain of the vessel before it started shaking. A scream echoed from its being before it spewed out of the mouth and disappeared into the immaterium, leaving only a husk of damaged and torn apart meat suit that collapsed into a pile of meat and fluids. The Walker breathed a sigh of relief, that was one less daemon to haunt the planet.

Now, he needed to-

"Mr. Sticky?" A small voice interrupted his thoughts, causing him to turn to the source only to be given pause. It was that little girl from that ruined town, still holding that small ball in her little hands and looking up to him with a wide-eyed look. "Where's Mr. Sticky?"

The Walker raised an eyebrow under his mask and knelt down to the child before he gently asked, "Who's Mr. Sticky?"

"He came to me when I saw you in the town." The little girl said naively, not understanding who this 'Mr. Sticky' was, "He told me that he would be my friend. So, he told me and everyone else to come after you left."

The child had seen the daemon. That meant he had to do something that many would abhor.

Picking up a .44 Magnum from one of the corpses, the Walker gently led the child away from the camp and slowly walked to the garden nearby, holding a patch of lilacs. The girl looked at him with a morbid curiosity in her eyes, but he simply motioned for her to go to the patch of lilacs. She walked to the edge of the garden, kneeling down and glided her little fingers on the flowers, rain pattering around her while the Walker was silent, looking over the edge that they stood on.

The Walker looked at her and then the gun in his hand, a small part of him screaming out not to do it. A small part yelling that it wasn't too late. She could change, grow away from 'Mr. Sticky', grow and see and fight against the tide of malice. But the other parts of him silenced that small voice, telling it that it was a false hope. She would grow up as a deluded womanchild who would have no sense of right or wrong, seeing daemons as her 'friends', and letting them do terrible things to her in the guise of a sign of friendship.

The Walkers knows this because he saw it before, back in Miami nary a year ago.

He was with a group known as the Scorchers, a hodgepodge group of police officer, national guard, militias, and people just wanting to kill some cultists. They were at Miami, fighting hordes of cultists and mutants that were plaguing the streets. One of them was a suicide bomber that he shot in the head just a second after he pressed the detonator. The bomber was a ten-year-old boy, barely out of 5th grade, ready to blow himself up with a joyous smile like it was Christmas. They dove out of the way before the explosion hit any of them.

The moment would have made him vomit had he not done it to many corrupted children over all this time, that one was the most recent one. The first time... Well, it just blended with all the other kills over the years. He did remember the first time he killed someone, but he slept without a thought in the world.

"Will I see mommy again?" She abruptly asked the Walker, bringing him out of his thoughts, she didn't see the Magnum as she was still looking at the flowers, oblivious to his plan.

"Just look at the flowers, kid." The Walker spoke to her, raising the barrel of the .44 Magnum to the back of her head and cocking the hammer back with his gloved thumb, "You'll see your mommy again. Just look at the flowers."

He fired, the gunshot ringing out like a missile strike, and the thud of the girl's dead body falling into the patch of lilacs.

The Walker did not even shudder at the sight of the child's dead body, for once finding no pleasure in killing a cultist. Then he saw there in the garden, written in the girl's blood: YOU ARE STILL A GOOD PERSON.

The Walker looked away for once, he hadn't felt like a good person for all these years.

"God, hear me now." The Walker uttered to God, praying for the slaves and people lost to the tide of evil, grabbing his bag of guns from the now silent as a grave camp, "Many more souls have been returned to you. Please accept them into your loving arms. Please grant these poor lost souls everlasting peace and salvation."

And with that, the Walker continued on, walking the line that he walked ever since the world ended.

XXX

It was months after fighting that Possessed, and here he was, walking along through a town he didn't know in the state of Texas. Walking along the green fields in a damp and cold air around him, resting in buildings with thankfully uncorrupted survivors before going out to the warzones filled with cultists, zombies, or mutants. The temperament was always the same as before, firing, killing, burning, hating, and walking.

Sitting down on a chair by a powered down tv, the Walker put his hands to his face and slid them down while leaning back against the seat, thinking back to the first weeks of his war against the heretics.

His wide and horror filled eyes were laid on the heretic he just shot with the SPAS-12 in his hand. The bald and gangly man screamed as he tried to keep his guts in with his hands due to the massive gash in his torso, blood spewing out like a foundation as he desperately clung to life like a scared animal. The madman then glared at the boy, who trembled at his gaze.

"YOU MOTHERFUCKER-!"

Not thing, only reacting, young Danny immediately pointed the barrel at the thug's head and pulled the trigger, the pellets reducing the horrid man's head into mulch as blood and grey matter spewed out of the cleaved open neck. Hearing others coming, Danny immediately dropped the shotgun and grabbed the deceased man's AK-47 from the pile of rubble that they were standing on before aiming it down at the oncoming group of Lost and Damned and squeezing the trigger.

The hail of bullets immediately hit the nearest one, felling it instantly before he turned it to the others, squeezing the trigger until the clip was emptied and the other ten heretics. With the clip empty, Danny abandoned it and grabbed the SPAS-12 before jumping down the pile that he was on, hiding behind it as he clutched the shotgun close.

His lungs were assaulted by the dust filled air as he stared on at the ruined city with the orange colored mist that veiled it, shaking from the shock of the events that occurred over the last week. His instincts then kicked in when he heard the crunching of footsteps, immediately firing on a Lost and Damned that came around the corner, the blast ripping her chest open in a spray of blood and eviscerated viscera before firing again on another, blasting his leg off and then blasting the man's head apart.

Danny tried to fire again, only for the gun to dry fire. Abandoning it, the boy immediately dove through the window of an abandoned hardware store, shattering it as he cartwheeled back to his feet. He then grabbed twin buzzsaw blades before hiding behind the counter of the store.

After a few minutes of waiting, Danny sprung to action when he heard the bell of the main entrance ring, vaulting over the counter and throwing the buzzsaw in his left hand at the nearest Lost and Damned before they could react. The man could not even make a shocked expression as his face was cleaving in half by the flying blade. The other could not react in time either as the buzzsaw then slash through his leg, causing him to wail in agony before Danny grabbed a hammer and swung it down on the savage's head.

Blood gushed from the eyes and nostrils as the broken skull fragment ripping through the skin as the rest of his body began siezuring. Wasting no time, Danny immediately struck the head again, and again, and again, and again. Over and over until the head was nothing but a mush of pulverized blood, bone, and brain matter on the floor. Not taking the time to think, the boy that would become the Walker grabbed the twin pistols from the back and holstered them in his pants pockets along as many clips as he could, then grabbing the AK-47 the other was holding before hiding.

And there he hid for what felt like hours, waiting for help that never came...

The Walker scoffed as he shook off that memory, uncapping a plastic flask of Captain Morgan's. He left that scared little boy in that store all those years ago.

It was only when he tried to stop when the feeling came like a storm even during moments of respite. When he thought of quitting, the thought would be extinguished by the memories of his sister and the horrors of all the other cultists caused. He realized that he can never go back to a normal life even if he tried. This was his life now; it was a nightmare that he couldn't wake up from but at the same time, doesn't want to.

Such was the nightmare that continued when two cultists burst into the room that he was staying at, only to be gunned down by his .44 Magnum. The room he was in was a surprisingly clean and intact hotel room where he had all of his guns, ammo, and his mask and coat laid on the spare bed in the room. The Walker breathed out and grabbed an AR-15, getting by the edge of the door.

He heard several cultists coming up the stairwell down the hall, immediately going into the hall and then firing his gun when the first few entered. They were felled before they could fire on them, then retreating back into his room to prepare for more enemies. Thankfully, he still had all his Kevlar gear on, so all he had to do was throw on his mask and duster before grabbing some guns and going out to kill them all.

The Walker sprinted to the stairwell and immediately opened fire on the cultists that were coming up. They didn't have a chance to react before they were riddled with bullets and sent falling down the stairs, more cultists coming in and being cut down by the Walker who then reloaded and then kicked another in the face that broke the cultist's nose and skull, killing him as he was then shot in the face.

More were coming so he got down to the lobby to kill them. But the moment he got through the door; someone rammed the stock of a rifle into his face, knocking him down to the floor, his mask protecting his face and preventing him from being knocked out. The Walker fired his M14 at the cultist that attempted knock him out and turned his gun to the many other cultists in the lobby and then stood back up to kill more.

Before he could, a black whip with pink spikes whipped his M14 out of his hands before said whip then was wrapped around his wrists. He struggled against the whip, but the wielder was stronger than him and yanked it towards themself, dragging him to his knees as they made themselves known.

The wielder of the whip was a shapely woman whose body was covered by a purple leather catsuit with golden designs and decorative markings showing screaming daemonic faces, dancing flames, and fornicating figures, the feet covered by high heels, and the hands covered by purple leather gloves with golden full finger rings that resembled claws. Her face was covered by a golden mask that resembled a woman's face that was smiling gently, contrasting to the shoulder length ebony hair that seemed to drink the light around them.

Before the Walker could free himself and strike this wretch down, she lifted her mask to reveal the lower half of her face, free of blemishes and white as milk with lips of black. She let out a breath of pink mist that caused his eyes to roll back and for him to fall into blackness.

XXX

The Walker's eyes fluttered open to reveal him in a caravan, surrounded by several terrified people that were bound in black cloth, not speaking bit having terrified faces that kept them silent. It was then that he tasted metal in his mouth, and it felt his wrists were wet and something was piercing them. He looked up to see that his hands were bound in barbed wire, and that his mouth had a gag made of wire. It was then that he noticed that he was in a surprisingly clean white long sleeve shirt with the sleeves rolled up to below the elbows, while he still had his pants and boots on, but none of his weapons.

"Hey," One of them whispered to him, a teenage girl by the age of 17 from his assessment, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." His pronunciation was butchered but it came across clear enough to the girl, who nodded in concern before going silent. The rest of the journey lasted for 30 minutes at least, before it came to a screeching halt. The back of the truck opened to reveal the masked woman and several others as they pulled out the prisoners to their encampments.

Alongside the masked woman were 3 others; One was covered in rags that were wreathed in moss and grime, the skin green and covered in lumps, his face covered in a wooden mask with twin eyeholes and crooked antlers, holding in his claw-like hands a staff covered in mold and vines. Another was covered in armor red as blood with tears and scratches, in both hands were axes polymerized with chainsaws, numerous metallic cables implanted in the head with the face covered by a red skull-like helm with upwards facing horns. And the third was covered in iridescent and constantly changing colors robes with gold decorations that changed shape and mass at random, his face covered by a golden helm with numerous horns and eyes, in his hands was a golden staff ending in an azure eye.

Each of these four took a group of the slaves in the van and unsurprising to him, the woman took him among her group, keeping the barbed wire restraints around his wrists and mouth.

The woman led them all through a camp that covered the entirety of Death Valley, divided into five sections: Red, Blue, Green, Purple, and Black. She and others like her lead them to the purple section, sounds of ecstasy and agony rang through the air, impossibly sweet smells hung in the air, the casitas, clothing, and weaponry all of beautiful and elaborate designs.

All the others were led away while the masked woman personally led the Walker to a massive casita that had the awful smells of cocaine and sweat in it. The woman opened the clear and pristine door before the both of them entered and he couldn't help but blink; the interior was one that he expected from a teenage girl obsessed with sex, drugs, and rock n roll, heavy metal memorabilia strewn about the walls, instruments of torture around the floor, and bags of what he assumed was heavy drugs. The walls were painted in purple with intricate golden patterns that resembled flames and feminine figures.

Suddenly, the woman punched him in the gut and knocked him off his feet before she tied the barbed wires to the walls, then taking off the gag that allowed the Walker to breath while coughing blood. He vaguely saw her walking out of the room, unzipping her suit before she entered another room. After a minute, the sounds of running water piped through his ears, meaning he has time to escape and arm himself.

The Walker struggled and pulled against the bindings, but they only seemed to dig more into his wrists as if they were alive, more blood slowly flowed down his arms and lightly stained the sleeves of his shirt. He grits his teeth in pain and then started thrashing against the binds, trying to yank the binds off the wall but they didn't even move, if anything, his yanks only made it dig deeper into the wall.

After a few minutes, the Walker stopped because his efforts clearly weren't working, combined with the fact that the binds were coiling so tightly around his wrists to where he felt his bones either getting pierced by the barbs or crushed by the pressure.

Whatever thoughts of escape were halted for the moment when the woman came back in, dressed only in a black furred bathrobe with silver decorative markings and the golden mask covering her face, her skin and hair were damp with water, her arms and legs covered in morbid and visceral yet beautiful tattoos. The Walker glared up at her, which only seemed to amuse her as she tilted her head to the left suggestively that only annoyed him.

"You don't recognize me?" The woman asked suddenly, her voice sensuous like chocolate and husky but it had little effect on the Walker.

"If I had recognized you, I would have killed you." He replied to her bluntly, not caring about this Slaaneshi's needs.

"Oh, come on." She replied before taking off her mask, revealing to the Walker her face. The Walker's eyes went wide, his jaw slackened, the plans in his head disappeared for a moment as he stared on. The woman's face had flawless white skin, purple eyes with glowing pink irises, and black lips, she gave a smile at his reaction and said, in a questioning tone.

"Don't recognize your big sister?"

He did recognize her now. The woman was his sister, Miranda. The sister he hadn't seen since the end of the world, the sister that he saw covered in their parent's blood, the sister that he used to watch scary movies with while mom and dad were away on business trips, the sister used to defend him whenever others bullied him when they were in middle school, and the sister that used to tell him stories about the binges that she and her girlfriend went on.

"Miranda?" The word dried his throat like the scouring desert and causing his sister to give a grin.

"Bingo. How long has it been since we last saw each other, Danny?" She cooed in an almost seductive tone, trailing her fingers from his chest to his nose that she then poked his nose with a finger, much to his anger at that and the mention of his name, "Come on. It's been over 10 years. Would it have killed you to say hi to your big sister?"

"Knowing you, I would have been dead if I even attempted." The Walker snarled at her, which didn't provoke a reaction expect for a light chuckled.

"True. But still, I had my fun after killing mom and dad. After that, I've been having the time of my life." Miranda replied, getting close enough to him to where their noses almost touched, "I've seen and done things that would made you blanch, but I assume you'd be numb from all the things that you've done, no?"

"I kill out of necessity, not enjoyment or pleasure." He shot back with a glare.

"Don't make me laugh; you love killing people as much as I do." Miranda retorted with a sadistic grin, leaning in to where her mouth was near his ear, "You're a little bit like me, we both love killing people, the difference being that I revel in it while you just push it all down. We've got our similarities, I mean, we are brother and sister. And let me tell you, you caused so much trouble for us."

She kept him pinned to the wall while a thirsting look crossed her face, giving a twisted grin on her lips as she then whispered to him, "Now, be a good boy and give me good feelings."

The Walker merely growled like a wild animal but was unable to act as she had him pinned to the wall and floor while his hands were still bound, meaning all he can do is weather whatever she would do before he had a change to escape or grab a weapon. Miranda then extended a black tentacle-like tongue that licked the side of his face, the muscle tasting the blood and sweat drenched in his skin that brought a high to her, but he barely reacted even as she dug her black fingernails in the skin of his collar bone, breaking it and nearly reaching his bones, not giving her the satisfaction of hearing him scream.

"Oh, not budging, are you? That's fine, I have better methods." Miranda grinned, revealing pearl white teeth that then turned to fangs. She then opened her mouth and bit down on her brother's collar bone, piercing flesh and bone as she suckled out the blood from the veins and marrow. Her brother only gave a slight grunt of pain that made her smile in sadistic glee, biting harder as in her bliss, she undid the barbed wire binds but forced her brother' hands to the floor before he could to anything despite his struggles against her grip.

In her high, she threw him a few feet and then tackled back on him before he could get back to his feet, gripping him like a predator that just caught its prey, grinning a twisted grin as she met her brother's angered gaze.

"Oh, I'm going to have so much fun with you~"

XXX

It was hours later, Miranda was satisfied with 'playing' with her brother, she dressed herself back in her bodysuit and golden mask before she wrapped the barbs back around his wrists and forced him to his feet, leading him out of her casita and throughout the camp, meeting the sneers and mocking laughs of the various cultists that saw the infamous Walker laid low and unable to fight back.

They led him to the cliffside where the black camp laid, alongside giants in red armor that were decorated with Chaos iconography and fetishes, with the symbol of a closed clawed gauntlet on the pauldrons. Around them were several ships that caused his eyebrows to go to his hairline, much to his sister's amusement, their design both gothic yet warped and fused with flesh, though some seemed to have an aesthetic like the four factions, with the casitas being loading onto the ships as if preparing for departure. But even that paled in comparison to one final sight.

Above them was a massive tear in reality, equal in size to an aircraft carrier, red as blood, with lightning arcing and screams of lost things echoing from the roiling mass of metaphysical power that was the Warp. It seized and shifted, spitting out swarms of wisps that shined and seemed alight in power, things that seemed to change shape with every blink of an eye, flying into the skies and off into the distance.

"How did-"

"Perception runes." Miranda replied pre-emptively, taking sadistic joy in the horror-stricken expression on her brother's face, "The Tzeentchians inscribed them along the cliffsides so that the rift and the ships are all but invisible to everyone not aligned with Chaos. As for the rift itself, our master has been using it to reap the resources of this shithole of a planet to increase his war efforts."

The Walker glared at her with hatred indescribable, "This shithole of a planet is your home!"

"Oh, please." Miranda scoffed, annoyed that her brother still cherished whatever was left of this earth, "You think this is the only earth? The Warp is connected to the multiverse, so there are many more earths better than this backwater dump of an earth. Earths with superheroes, beings and weapons of unfathomable power, or even having a better history than ours. This earth is just a mundane old earth, nothing new, nothing exciting, so I came to hate it when they first came to me."

"First came to you?"

"Back in high school remember?" His sister replied, circling him like a lion circling its prey, "I was miserable, both of us were. Remember when both of us came home that one day during November, smelling of booze and weed? You did that because it was fun, but I did it not just because it was fun but because I could barely stand to be in that hell of a place and because I hated our lives. Sarah and I often went through a twelve pack a day because of how much we hated our lives. And how couldn't I? Living in a corrupted society that stamps out its citizens' passions, parents that were rarely there for us, seeing my little brother waste away into a self-loathing psychopath that I doubt would have lived past twenty, and a school that stamped out my dreams."

Miranda then gave a grin as if reminiscing on a fond memory, "Then I met the cults on my way back from school. They showed me things that I never could have imagined, concoctions that made hard drugs from this planet seem like saline, and pleasures that I never thought possible. I just had to join them, and the first thing I did when Chaos splintered society was gut our parents while they begged." The smile then vanished as she then looked at her brother with a forlorn look that surprised him, "Then you entered the house. I thought that you'd be overjoyed to see them dead, but I only saw horror on your face. And I wondered why that look hurt me as you ran away, and why it still hurts me after all these years."

The Walker sneered at his sister, "And did you figure out why?"

"Actually, I did." Miranda replied much to his surprise, getting down onto her knees and placing both of her hands to his cheeks, "Because I still love you."

His response was to glare at her more intensely, "And how could you still love me after ten years of debauchery?"

"I can and I do." Was all she said before getting back up, seeing the others coming their way.

Hordes of debauched maniacs clothed in gold and silk, murder-hungry psychopaths covered in blood and skulls, joyous philosophers wreathed in grime and disease, and ambitious seekers of knowledge draped in color and crystal. Those in between covered in patchwork armor, cobbled together, either black with red markings or red with black markings, and wielding corrupted weapons from both past, present, and future. And others were dressed in red robes lined with chaotic scripture and draped in parchments also lined with chaotic scripture, having books chained to their sides and armed with staffs that held the eight-pointed star with a crimson snake-like eye.

The giants in red came beside them, looking down on the bound Walker and relishing in the pest's helplessness, who merely did not give any of them the satisfaction of showing any kind of fear. One of them walked up to him, covered in the same cobbled armor of the others and having a serrated blade in each hand, giving the Walker a hateful look that he returned.

"Is this him?" The cultist asked Miranda, not looking at her as he kept his hateful focus on the Walker.

"Yes, this is him, Ivara." Miranda replied, seeing the other cultists removing the barbs before they bound him to chains on twin pillars, forcing him to his feet. A laugh then came out, one that caused all of them, Miranda and Ivara included, to their knees. The Walker was not moved even as a giant among giants came through the pathway that the cultist parted from.

In front of them was a giant even among the Red Corsairs, their leader; Lufgt Huron. The Blood Reaver, the Tyrant of Badab, Huron Blackheart. Clad in red cybernetic armor with cables, the right arm possessing metallic claws that crackled and sparked with infernal power, and a massive axe that arched with lighting. The head was a mess of scars, cybernetics, and mutations, his lips forming a gruesome facsimile of a smile.

"Lord Blackheart, forgive me for my eagerness." Ivara groveled in a cowardly tone, sweat pouring down him like a waterfall at the thought of incurring his master's wrath, "I was merely excited to rid you of this nuisance."

Blackheart merely waved him off in apathy before he brushed past the cultists and his Corsairs, now face to face with the Walker.

"You were quite the annoyance, Walker." Huron stated with his voice filled with irritation, "Destroying my supply lines, slaughtering my followers, and banishing back many of my daemonic allies. But as you can clearly recognize, you suffer the same fate as all those who stood against me and my empire; defeated. And now here you are, standing defeated, stripped of your weapons, stripped of your honor, and stripped of your freedom."

The Walker did not give him the satisfaction of a response, even as the winds from the Warp licked against his skin while the redness began to fill his vision in a vain attempt to corrupt him. His silence was enough for Huron to note of, even as he felt raw Warp stuff spill into the material world.

"You wish to die in dignified silence?" Blackheart noted with whatever equivalent he had to an eyebrow being raised, "Commendable. You know you are defeated, and you waste not your breath on pointless curses and insults. Regardless, you have incurred the foul action of fighting against my empire. For that, your death shall be an agonizing one."

With that, he motioned for his torturers to do their duty. Miranda immediately grabbed her whip and lashed it at her brother, striking him in the cheek and slashing it open as the agonizing poisons flowed through his veins. Ivara then plunged his daggers into the Walker's gut before he then forced them to the side, cutting deep into his abdomen as blood spilled out. Twin draped in robes composed of human skin and spikes, wielding scythes that they then used to cut deep into his arms, not severing them as they wished him to die as slowly as possible. A hulking monstrosity in human skin armed with a stone club came up to him before it then used it to strike at his legs, shattering the fibula and tibia in both of his legs, causing them to bend sideways.

But despite the injuries, despite the agony, despite the shattering of his leg bones, despite the cheers of seeing a thorn stamped out from their side, the Walker never screamed, not even a grunt or flinch of pain. Something that drove one of them to the deepest regions of insanity.

"SCREAM, DAMN YOU! SCREAM!" Ivara roared as he kept plunging the knife again and again into the Walker's gut, but even when his teeth grit hard enough that they nearly cracked and the agony grew to immeasurable highs, never once did the Walker scream. Blood spilled from between his teeth, mixing with his saliva into a pink foam that filled his mouth and slowly dripped out, yet not even a grunt came from his throat.

Suddenly, the Walker then asked Ivara, "What's with the anger, buddy?"

"YOU KILLED MY FAMILY, YOU SON OF A BITCH!" Ivara roared as he struck the Walker across the face with one of his knifes, but he didn't even give a grunt of pain.

The Walker merely gave a glare at the heretic, uncaring at what he had done to him, "Your family were all heretics, worshippers of the foul things beyond. Their deaths meant nothing to me."

Those words infuriated Ivara more than anything in the world, his body acting against him as he let out a bellowing scream and slashed harder and harder, cutting into the bones and nearly severing the arteries. Before he could deliver the final blow, Miranda's whip wrapped around both of his arms, preventing him from landing another blow on the Walker.

"What the fuck, Miranda?!" Ivara roared as he tried to rip the binding whip off of his arms, but both it and her grip were like iron.

"He's trying to bait you, idiot." Miranda berated the cultist who stopped when he heard that, "If you had continued striking you would have quickened his death." Ivara blinked before he realized what she meant and relaxed his rage, as the twins slashed the chains, releasing the Walker and letting him fall down in an undignified manner.

Blood gargled out from his throat, digging his fingers into the ground to force his upper body up, the glare in his eyes practically burning holes in his sister, who turned away unable to look at him in this state. His arms then failed him as he fell back to the ground with a thud before one of them forced him to look at them.

"That was for my family, you son of a bitch." Ivara growled at him, who glared back. Using whatever strength in his bones that he had left, the Walker spat out the blood spilling in his mouth into the heretic's face, causing the man to reel back. Ivara stared at the blood on his face before an enraged expression crossed his face as he raised his knife to kill the fucker before a voice interrupted him.

"Entertaining as that was, our time on this burnt-out version of Terra is done." Huron said to Ivara, unconcerned for the mortal's need vengeance, "Leave and let him bleed out. He's lost enough blood already." Ivara didn't dare protest but grumbled under his breath as he left, Miranda had a sorrowful look on her face before she departed for the ships, leaving her little brother behind. The twins and the muscular monstrosity both walked away in silence, as did the cultists and the Corsairs, leaving the Walker behind to die as they moved on to the next world.

The Walker merely coughed up blood as he felt the life slowly bled out of him, his life flashing before his eyes; his first birthday, the time his sister had been beaten up some kids that were bullying him, the time that he got into his first fight in the yards of middle school, the time he and Miranda drank beers while watching Re-Animator and From Beyond, and the time she admitted to him that she was bisexual but he accepted her as he did.

All he wanted to do now was strike those heretics down where they stood, but he accepted that it was his time to die.

What will you do?

The voice came neither from his head, nor from his ears, speaking from beyond irking him from his blackening sleep. Both cacophonous yet mellow.

Who will you become?

Memories of who he was and who he is now flashed in front of his eyes like a frenzy of rage and hate.

Right now, you are unfocused.

His arm twitched, stirring the sand slightly. His teeth began to grind together as a burning rage swelled up from his chest, restarting his heart despite his injuries.

Your family became victims of the Daemons and their games before your very eyes, and still, you are unfocused?

Ragged breathing returned and issued from his throat, gaining the attention of some cultists and the Red Corsairs as they saw his body stir.

Who else needs to die before you learn?!

His hands curled into fists that dug into the sand, the sound causing the cultists around him to step away and gaining the attention of the others as they saw him stir.

The DAEMONS took your family!

He then raised his right arm and brought it down onto the ground.

The DAEMONS took your world!

He then raised his left arm and then brought it down, before he forced himself up. The cultists too stunned by the act to fire upon him.

How will you make them pay?

The glare of burning rage in his eyes caused many of the cultists stepping back, only of the Corsairs were unaffected.

WHAT!

One leg bent as the foot dug itself into the ground, the shattered bones in his legs forcefully holding themselves together to support the weight of his body.

WILL YOU TAKE!

The other leg bent and forced itself to support the weight of his body as the stunned cultists all watched.

FROM THEM?!

His eyes burned with holy golden fire as he forcefully stood back up, despite his entrails hanging out and the broken bones in his legs, joints grinding against each other, steam blowing out of his lungs as his blood boiled.

"EVERYTHING."

The cultists and slaves all stared with wide eyes and slackened jaws, his sister and her friends were stunned silent while the other factions seemed like they had just seen the impossible, while Huron and his corsairs only looked amused.

"HOW THE HELL ARE YOU STILL STANDING!?" Ivara yelled out in shock, dumbstruck as the rest of the cultists that the one who they had tortured to near death was still alive and standing.

"It matters not." Huron stated, more amused than annoyed at the mortal's defiance of him and his empire, marching past the horde of worthless mortals before he was facing the Walker, who was still standing despite the torn open torso, viscera spilling out of his chest, and gashes in his flesh, "Your defiance in notable but worthless. If you wish to die by the hands of the greatest of the Chaos Lords, then so be it."

Huron raised the Tyrant's Claw into the air, energy arcing as the blades a lit in maddening songs of death. Miranda watched her brother stand defiantly against her master, feeling something akin to pride, some deep part of her screaming out at her, begging her to act and save the brother that she cherished so much when they were younger. That part of her began breaking through as Huron reared back his claw to strike down the Walker, her own muscles acting against her.

Unseen to the others, the Possessed began to tense as they felt the currents of the Warp begin to boil. A pulse rippled through the ethereal ocean flowing over reality, cool and deep, as its flitting shadows under its surface fled from the hot flowing blasts of gold that roiled through the

Time seemed to slow as Huron swung down with a trail of red crackling energy flowing as if burning the air itself, the Walker remained unmoved by Huron's swing as the flames in his eyes burning even brighter that the stars themselves, Miranda's body going against her will as she screamed at the top of her lungs at her little brother.

"DANNY! NOOOO!"

Suddenly, the rift around them ignited in a blast of gold before a golden flaming comet burst from the rift and rocketed towards the Walker faster than light. It weaved passed the cultists and Corsairs before it hit the defiant man in the chest just as Huron's claw glazed against his skin, healing the man of all his wounds and clearing him of all pain.

A voice then spoke inside his head, rich, bombastic, yet comforting. Like one of God's angels had come down and healed him.

"Your time is done now, Daniel Holden. I will continue your fight, even when you are gone."

With a smile and a tear coming down his eye, Danny closed his eyes, and the Walker was finally able to rest.

A blaze of gold flames washed over the land, blinding everyone before it formed into a burning tornado that then threw Blackheart and his corsairs along with the cultists back before they stopped near the rift, while those not in range of the tornado were staring in pure disbelief at the thing that just came through the rift. The perception runes were burned away, revealing the skyscraper sized pillar of golden flames that seemed to light up the planet, burning away several thousand Possessed and Daemonkin.

As the light faded and those aligned with the Dark Gods uncovered their eyes, they were shocked to see the being in front of them in place of the Walker.

In front of them all was a 9-foot giant of a man, wreathed in golden flames polymerized with golden armor that seemed both organic and inorganic, decorated in rubies, and two massive angelic wings composed of pliable gold sat on its back. In its hand was the sword Sinslayer, a massive armorslayer sword with the blade composed of golden flames, the guard resembling twin angelic wings with a ruby in the middle, the grip resembling golden brambles, and the pommel being a serrated golden arrowhead. The head was featureless except for twin crimson glowing eyes, flames in shape of long hair and twin upward facing curved horns, a corona of light seemed to be around the head and burned shadows away in blinding radiance.

This is the shard that embodied the Emperor's bravery, fearlessness, and love for war: The Emperor's Valor.

"I! AM! REBOOOOOOORN!" The Emperor's Valor roared as his wings extended and golden flames blazed, causing the ground to quake and the shadows to recede from the earth.

Most of the corrupted Space Marines could not control their legs as they slowly backed away from the flaming angel, their hands shaking even as they gripped their bolters, eyes wide under their helmets as they stared on. The Emperor, the man that they had rebelled against, that they denounced, was standing before them, not a corpse decaying to ash on a throne but a burning god of war. Others kept their composure that was none the less cracking from the presence of the Emperor's Valor, their frames quickly shaking from their quickly growing terror as their daemonic allies screeched and fled back to the Warp merely to get away from the Anathema.

"Im... Impossible!" Huron roared out in disbelief at the being before him, "The Emperor... The Emperor is nothing but a corpse on a throne! A decaying thing only alive through the weight of his arrogance and continuous sacrifice! This isn't possible! THIS ISN'T POSSIBLE!" He attempted to slay this anathemal thing with the Tyrant's Claw, but the Emperor's Valor simply blocked the strike with his arm and then slashing Blackheart in the chest, cleaving through the gravitic field and the heavy layers of his terminator armor, searing the flesh it was fused to and throwing the Tyrant back.

Ivara could no longer control himself as he let out a scream and ran away only for a flash of golden flames to wash over him, reducing his body to ash that fell away into nothing. Not even a moment of silence came before the Emperor roared his glorious voice to the corrupted hordes.

"HEAR ME, HERETICS! HEAR ME, TRAITORS OF MANKIND!" The Shard of the Emperor roared out to the fearful traitors of mankind, "YOUR TIME HAS COME, YOUR REIGN IS OVER, THE DAYS WHERE YOU SLAUGHTER WITH IMPUNITY ARE ENDING. I AM THAT END! I AM THE EMPEROR'S VALOR, INHERITOR TO HIS BOUNDLESS RAGE AND COURAGE! WHERE I WALK, YOUR EMPIRE FALLS. WHERE I STAND, YOUR CORRUPTION BURNS AWAY! I AM THE WINGS OF THE EMPEROR! I AM THE SLAYER OF THOSE WHO GIVE THEMSELVES TO THE DARK POWERS! I AM THE BANE OF CHAOS! I AM THE EMPEROR'S VALOR!" The Emperor's Valor then levels his sword at the terrified Huron Blackheart, "AND I! HAVE! RETURNED!"

The response from the cultists was the most natural one: they ran like hell away from the shard of the Anathema, quickly boarding the ships around them so that they could get away while they could. The Corsairs attempted to stand their ground, but most lost their nerve and fled along with the cultists to the ships. Huron, unable to accept the presence of the Emperor's Valor, roared out in defiance, swinging the Tyrant's Claw down in archaic fury that was blocked by Sinslayer before the flaming god spun away before the blade was then driven into Tyrant's side, cutting deep into the armor and cybernetics that was the abomination of machine and flesh that was Huron's body.

Blood, bile, and oil spewed out of the wound before burning away in Sinslayer's flames before the Emperor's Valor wrenched it out, then slashing Huron across the face, barely escaping a decapitating blow by leaning back as quickly as his corrupted Astartes biology allowed, while trying to heal the wound. The next swing was blocked by Huron's axe, but the weapon quickly proved to be the lesser against Sinslayer as the blade of the axe began to crack under the force exuded before it shattered, the flaming gold sword then cut into the Tyrant's arm and pauldron, nearly crippling the limb had Huron pulled back at the last second and blocked the next strike with the Tyrant's Claw.

The Emperor's Valor then raised the Sinslayer, the flames blazing out to the length of three men, before he brought it down onto Huron, who didn't have time to dodge, nearly felling him as it cleaved a massive gash in both his armor and body. Huron, desperate to survive, leapt back and used the Eye of the Maelstrom imbued in the Tyrant's Claw, sending a beam of red Warp energy at the Emperor's Valor, who merely raised Sinslayer and brought it down, sending a trail of golden flames that intercepted the beam, both trying to overpower the other.

"GOGOGOGOGOGOGO!" Miranda vaguely heard her friends scream out as one of them grabbing her by the shoulder and pulling her in to the ship as they got the hell out while they still could, somewhat watching Huron try his best to fight off the Emperor's Valor while they escaped into the Warp. She dove into the ship and quickly got to her personal room as she heard the engines roar to live and begin to push the ship into the rift, abandoning their leader to face the Anathema alone.

The power struggle between the two attacks ended with an explosion of red and gold before the clash resumed. The Emperor's Valor rocketed towards the Tyrant with a mighty yell as he swung Sinslayer down as Huron could barely block with the Tyrant's Claw, gold and crimson Warp energy blazing against each other before the Emperor won out and struck, caving in the Blood Reaver's chest and throwing him off his feet, sending him to the edges where the rift laid, its energy coiling and healing both his wounds and his armor and cybernetics. However, the Emperor's Valor was approaching in an intimidating stroll, letting the Tyrant of Badab take in the oncoming doom that shined of gold even if it was from 4 miles away.

"Tell me, Huron, do I seem like a rotting corpse now?" The Emperor's Valor questioned as he backhanded a blast of Warp energy away from Blackheart's attempt to blast him back, "I don't appear be bound on the Golden Throne, do I?"

Blackheart grinded his metal teeth in defiance against the lord his chapter once worshipped, even as the tendrils of Warp material mended his body and armor, "I have never set foot on Terra, so I admit I never saw the entombed rotting thing that was your body. Regardless, I have regained what the Imperium stole from me! I have been given rewards that paled in what you and your Imperium provided! I have been given everything I desired and beyond! Why would I not betray the empire that failed me!?"

The Emperor's Valor did not even seem amused by Huron's response, "You mean, the empire that you swore loyalty to? The empire that raised you from a mere mortal to a Space Marine? The empire that recognized you and your chapter's pride and honor? Your chapter was sent to the Badab Sector because of their unwavering dedication to the Imperium, something that you ruined with your hubris as a cur, a petty false king. You lacked the dedication to humanity, led only by ambition and sense of entitlement, you felt like the masses of the Imperium owed you. You're owed nothing, you had a chance to retain that small empire, but you squandered it out of nothing but petty grudges."

Huron roared at the Anathema's declaration, but the floodgates broke at the next sentence.

"You know what happens when imperial bureaucracy gets in the way of the needs of the one who thinks himself the center of the galaxy, even when he is meant to serve the empire? They leave behind a joke. Now, let's see if you have a good punchline."

The Blood Reaver bellowed in unholy fury, his abomination of a body devouring thousands of crimson Warp tendrils as it radiated unholy power. A roar akin to nothing from this plane of reality burst from his throat before the tendrils of Warp power coalesced into an orb of crimson in front of his face. And with another roar, the orb burst into a beam of crimson that tore apart the ground in a blaze of power that rocketed straight at the Emperor's Valor, whom didn't even flinch.

The Emperor's Valor then raised Sinslayer before bringing it down hard. Suddenly, a skyscraper sized blaze of golden light erupted from the Sinslayer, cleaving through the beam of crimson and striking Huron in the chest, sending the Tyrant screaming through the rift and into the Warp, abandoned by his Corsairs and left to fend for himself in the dark recesses of the immaterium. The golden flames burned the rift away while spreading to the rest of the camp that had not been loaded into the ships, hearing the screams of the corrupted as they were rent asunder by the fire and their souls dragged to the Warp to be devoured by daemons.

"Hmph. You did have a good punchline then." The Emperor's Valor muttered as he twirled Sinslayer before sheathing it and stared on at where the rift was. His flaming form then faded to reveal a muscular man with long dark brown hair, a sharp jawline, and glowing golden eyes. He wore a stainless white long sleeve shirt that were rolled up to below the elbows, black pants, and black leather boots that reached the calves. He then looked at the hand of his current vessel and softly closed it.

"Daniel Holden... Thank you for giving me your body." The Emperor whispered, holding that the soul that once inhabited this vessel will understand, "I will ensure that those tumor gods will fail in their conquest for the multiverse."

He then stared on at Death Valley as the last of the dark god's influence burned away to nothingness.

XXX

On the ships that fled when the Emperor's Valor came, Miranda awoke from another one of her nights of reckless indulgence, covered in blood and entrails with the taste of booze and meat in her mouth. Her bare form bonelessly then freed itself from the pile of the moaning and regenerating bodies around her as she shook off the entrails and made her way to her quarters.

It was the casita that she had been in at Death Valley, now connected to several more rooms around her, filled with items similar to the one in the casita. She was about to lay on her bed when she suddenly realized that she needed to clean herself off from last night as she didn't want to stain her silk sheets, like when she slept with Asmodeus and the sheets on his bed were stained.

She cleaned herself with a black towel, but something still lingered on in her head. Miranda's head kept going back to when she saw Danny possessed by the Emperor's Valor, somehow feeling an iota of guilt in herself. Deciding that she needed to clear her head, Miranda decided she needed a trip to the ship's bathhouses.

Miranda clothed herself only in a black bathrobe and walked out of her room to the bathhouse. Entering through the golden and daemonically decorated gates, the bathhouse was composed of marble pillars, porcelain walls and floors, all decorated with golden marking that resembled scenes of war or Sculpulytes resembling both males and females with abnormal, yet alluring features tended to the visitors, of whom were simply relaxing in the hot steaming purple slime that filled the baths.

The woman disrobed as she lowered herself into the baths, moaning and letting the world fade away in hot bliss, though thoughts came to her as she did, thinking of Danny as he laid there dying only to stand up despite his injuries, of how that shard of the Anathema bonded to him and he was now its vessel, and of how that in all likely hood, that would be the last time she ever saw him. A feeling of sadness came over her as when she had her fun with him... she felt happier than she had in over the last ten years. Did she love him more than a brother? Now she would never know.

Miranda felt the thick purple slime ripple as the sound of masochist relish came through her ears, causing her to slowly open her eyes to see the one who had just entered the baths. A smile than graced her lips as she spoke,

"It has been a long time... Lucius."

The light chuckle coming from the lipless and cheekless maw of the Soulthief. The skin below the neck was nothing but a layer of scar tissue, tinted lightly in violet, his hands having dark hardened tissue with the fingertips shaped like claws, patches of metal fused to his flesh were visible, wound-like orifices sat at the sides that breathed out a light purple mist, a tentacle like tongue licked the pointed wolfish fangs that lined his jaws, his eyes glowing lilac with snake-like pupils. The Soulthief took a chalice filled with iridescent liquid Warp stuff and chugged it down in put a few seconds before he then turned his gaze to Miranda.

"Hello, Miranda." Lucius said in a sleek and silver-tongued voice, "Surprised to see me without my luscious armor?"

"Very, but how'd you do it? I believed that your flesh had long since fused with your armor?" She inquired, taking a chalice filled with stolen and finely aged Fenrisian Ale from a Sculpulyte that was serving her.

"Oh, no, dear. I literally had to cut myself out of my armor. Cutting into every inch, slowly pulling myself out as my skin ripped from my muscles only for scar tissue to form over my flesh like a shroud of skin." Lucius purred at the memory of the mind-numbing agony, it nearly made him orgasm.

Miranda chuckled as she drank from her chalice before the taste and effects of the ale hit her like a warhammer, letting out a relishing and elated laugh at the new sensation, something that Lucius noted with a chuckle.

"Powerful, isn't it? I remember the first time my legion had gotten a taste of Fenrisian Ale." Lucius put a hand to his chin at the memory, "We were hammered and singing songs with the Space Wolves until our throats had gone hoarse."

She chuckled, hammered on the Ale's potency and then took another drink. A thought then occurred to her as she then sincerely asked, "Lucius, do miss your departed brothers?"

A thoughtful look crossed Lucius' face as he pondered, "There are some of my Battle-Brothers that I miss. I was jealous of Saul truly, but that did not mean I did not respect him. But I comfort myself in the fact that I simply honor their memory by indulging more and more, just like they would have wanted. Now if you'll excuse me, I must continue my indulgence." Lucius said as he extended his tendril-like tongue that impaled a massive roast covered in cooked viscera and spiced with Nocturnian Devil Peppers that the Sculpulytes brought him before he began chowing down on it like a feral beast.

Miranda pondered the Soulthief's words, wondering what her brother would have wanted her to do. Suddenly, a faint glow appeared in the corner of her eye, disappearing almost as quickly as it came. She turned her head to see what appeared to be a photograph, picking it up and holding it in front of her face.

It was her and Danny when they were still in highschool, before all this happened. She was smiling at the camera with her right hand forming a peace sign while leaning on Danny who was smiling at the camera sheepishly while he had an arm around her. She was dressed in a black and white striped shirt, black pants, and black shoes, while her brother was wearing a black Ice Nine Kills shirt under a black longcoat, black pants, black boots that reached his knees, and a silver necklace that had a catholic cross on it.

Miranda stared at the photo with a nostalgic and saddened expression, she remembered that day. They took that photo while at home and their parents back from their latest business trip, finally having a normal day for once. Other days, the siblings barely cared enough to even go to school while their parents were away on a business trip, drinking and getting high while watching Heavy Metal or Beyond the Black Rainbow. Maybe her lack of concern for anything but her brother and getting high was what made her an easy target for Slaanesh, like how Arnold's lack of friends was what made him an easy target for Nurgle, Marty's ambition to achieve knowledge that made him fall to Tzeentch, and how Roy's violent urges made him fall to Khorne.

Hell, she remembered what one of the cultists told her that convinced her to join them.

"Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, washing machines, cars, bunches of expensive streaming services and new electrical devices you don't need. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on a bleak and lazy Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing game shows and spirit-crushing reality shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose a woman who sucks away your freedom, your money, and your dreams. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you've spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life... But why would anyone want to do a thing like that? I choose not to choose life. I choose something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when all you want is to feel good?"

Miranda chuckles bitterly and forms her version of that rant but from her experiences in her head.

"Choose unfulfilled promises and wishing you'd done it all differently. Choose never learning from your own mistakes. Choose watching history repeat itself. Choose the slow reconciliation towards what you can get rather than what you always hoped for. Choose a life of mind-numbing sex, drugs, and rock n roll just to forget the pain. Choose watching your beloved little brother be gutted like a fish while you can't do anything about it before he gets possessed by the arch enemy of your god. Settle for a live of sadistic hedonism that erodes your regrets because you hate yourself so much that you want it to go away. Choose disappointment when you realize you can't take it back and choose losing the ones you love, forgetting them as they fall from view in your head. As they die, a piece of you dies with them, until you can see one day that in the future, piece by piece, they will all be gone and there'll be nothing left of you to call alive or dead, just some sensory junkie that only wants their next fix and doing anything to get it. Choose your future, Miranda."

Still, while she felt no remorse for the lives of those she took in the name of her desire for vices, Miranda felt nothing but self-loathing at the fact that she wasn't able to convert her brother to her side.

"Miranda... I miss you..." Danny's voice graced her mind, surprising her like a lover embracing her after years of being apart. Miranda let a small tearful smile grace her lips, keeping the photo close to her side as she laid back into the bath as she fell asleep, feeling a warm inside her bloom as she embraced every part of her to the Prince of Pleasure.

---

Comedy and Tragedy

Often was the case when the forces of Chaos can produce good from their invasion, regardless of circumstance. This universe was such the case as when the armies of heretics invaded New Mecca, every single man, woman, and child of the lower class, regardless of jobs, were enlisted into the army and given all kinds of augments and drug to turn them into capable soldiers, before the revival of the NULL project was approved by the government to defend the country. Any NULLs that could be found were immediately hired back on the promise of Chronos for their addictions, city engineers fortifying every district the best that was possible, all scrapping together to the best defense they could manage.

It wasn't enough.

A decade of fighting passed, and billions of cultists and turncoats were killed from bullets, bioweapons, chemical weapons, and nuclear weapons long since banned, if only because they had become desperate beyond words. The biosphere burned, immoral projects were approved; clone soldiers, aging and mental conditioning tanks, robot soldiers, energy weapons, all ideas were thrown into the burner for the sack of surviving another day from the oncoming hordes.

Zero had been assigned back to the NULLs by his organization, who had brought the little girl that lived in his building into NULL. He learned her name was Yukiko, trained her to become a killer like him, watching her grow into someone that was like him. Killing out of necessity, not enjoyment like the cultists, becoming empathetic yet ruthless in battle, beautiful yet terrifying.

It made him so proud.

Thus came a day when all he knew would be challenged.

It was when Zero had come back to his 'chambers', a fancier version of the apartment he used to have in the Third District, after another day of killing and saying good night to Yukiko as she lived next door to him like they did in the Third District. Sticking to his routine, he drunk his tea and went to sleep on his couch. But when he awoke, he found he couldn't move and that he was not alone.

XXX

Zero, appearing as a 39 year old man with apricot skin, long, black hair that is usually tied into a samurai-like ponytail with a yellow hairband and brown eyes. He wears a black one-sleeved bathrobe/kimono-like outfit with gold trim, black hakama pants, and brown geta-like sandals with black straps.

"Behold, Comedy!" A voice, deep and silk, came to his ears as Zero forced his eyes to open, only to find that he could not move, "The wayward swordsman awaketh from poisoned slumber!

There were two men standing above him, having the most bizarre appearances he'd ever seen. The first was wearing a dark trench coat featuring silvery-gray lapels under a dress shirt of matching color, and a light silver scarf wrapped around his neck and collar, along with a matching dark fedora with a silver hatband, dark rubber gloves, and black boots. On his face was a silver mask with black markings that resembled a frown and two crescent eyes flowing downward. The second was even more bizarre, wearing an outfit that resembled a Victorian undertaker with a golden diamond mark on the left breast, a black tophat with golden hatband, a golden mask with black markings that resembled a mischievous smirk and two crescent eyes flowing downward, and a black polished wooden cane with a golden derby handle.

"Tragedy and I drugged your tea!" Comedy mocked, leaning his head in with the tone of his voice making it clear his expression was matching that of his mask's, "You didn't even know, dimwit! He He heeeeee!"

Zero struggled with all his might but whatever drug or concoction they used had prevented his nerves from performing any action, something that Tragedy noticed and lightly laughed

"Thou strugglst vainly, errant heart. 'Tis not thy time to pass beyond that cryptic threshold, though time abideth no man's dominion." Tragedy spoke in Old English before gesturing dramatically to himself, "Now gaze upon my woeful countenance and harken thou these words."

"Yeah! Harken, bitch!" Comedy laughed like a madman before silencing himself quickly to let his partner speak.

"Two lustrous masks upon they visage rest, of gold and sterling silver. O'er life and death these masks preside." Tragedy began, taking a stance like an actor preforming dramatically in front of the audience, "LO! The silver mask commandeth death! With sword and sling, libate upon death the alter the turbid wine of man!"

Comedy laughed as he threw his head back before sadistically staring down at the helpless Zero, "You're a real killer, huh? Not so scar when you can't move! He He heeeeeee!"

"The golden mask shineth life, a vestal child wandering time's infinite fractal, unspoiled by Babylon's malignant spell." Tragedy continued, causing Comedy to pause as he turned to the frightened looking Zero, who seemed to recognize what the silver masked man meant.

"Is that... A girl I see? One grown up and becoming that hottie? I didn't know you had a conscience! He he heeeeee! Lucky!" The golden masked man laughed heartily, finding this hilarious.

"Two masks thou hast, yet one alone may thy countenance adorn- Gold or silver, life or death." Tragedy continued, the room seemingly darkening around him as he spoke, "Three grains of sand yet linger within thy shrinking hourglass. Deliberate upon thy soul, o errant heart! Time's stoic harvest reapeth bitter yields!"

Comedy leaned in to the confused Zero and sadistically translated what his partner meant, "In three days, we're gonna met again and you're gonna have to pick life or death. But remember; whichever one you choose, we're gonna take away the other! SEE YA, THEN!" The golden masked man threw his head back and let out a vile howling laugh that echoed throughout the building, awakening nearly all the NULLs in the building.

In the chamber next door, Yukiko, a 20 year old woman with short black hair and serene blue eyes, shot up from her red silk bed when she heard the laugh, throwing on a black bathrobe on her unclothed form and grabbing her katana, bolting out of her room and into the hallway. Before even the other NULLs could open the doors to their chambers, she kicked the door open... only to find the room empty.

She lowered her katana in confusion only to hear a choking sound, causing the woman to turn to see her sensei on the couch, struggling to move and stertorously breathing. The female NULL immediately sheathed her katana and took her sensei into her arms, carrying him out of his chambers as the NULLs got out of their chambers and the guards approached.

"Here!" Yukiko said to the guards as they approached her, "He was poisoned!" The guards immediately took Zero out of her grasp and rushed him to the medical ward while she and the other NULLs looked on in worry.

XXX

"Tell me about the men in masks..." The therapist inquired to Zero. They were in the therapist's room, smoothing music playing while the other NULLs and several guards standing by, the former looking worried for Zero, who had his hair undone and looked disheveled and uneasy.

"It's... There were two of them." Zero described stoically but was clearly exhausted, "One with a silver mask and another with a golden mask. They called themselves Comedy and Tragedy. Tragedy looked like the main character of a film noir and spoke botched Old English while Comedy looked like a ringmaster or undertaker and talked like an angry drunk."

Pointedly ignoring the bewildered gazes of the others, the therapist inquired as he wrote that information down, "And what did they say to you?"

"They said... in three days, I'll meet them again. And I have to choose life or death." Now an alarmed look crossed all their faces, including the therapist's, but Zero continued, "But... were they just hallucinations? I could have been suffering something."

"Well, we all heard that goddamn laugh, so I'd wager not." A NULL deadpanned with his arms crossed.

"We found traces of a powerful drug in your tea. However, it does not cause hallucinations, so I very much doubt it." The therapist adjusted his glasses, "However, no sights of intrusion were found. None of the motion sensors, cameras, or security checkpoints had been disturbed. So, unless there was a massive malfunction or the system was hacked, there was no possible way they could have entered."

That sent a feeling of unease down the spines of most of the people present. If their enemy could enter their quarters without them knowing, how would they stop them?

Despite the sense of dread suffocating the room, the therapist was still calm and collected, "Regardless, all of you are due for your Chronos injections. Proceed to the deployment station for your injections and deployment to the battlefield."

The NULLs all nodded, including Zero, and got to their feet before they exited the room and walked stoically to the stations where their next assignment to the war against the cults.

"Sensei," Yukiko shook her sensei out of his thoughts, now dressed in the standard issue black bodysuit for the NULLs, "I'm worried about what you said about the masked men. Could they have been real or where they just hallucinations?"

Zero shook his head, "I do not know Yukiko, I simply do not know."

That terrified her more than anything.

XXX

Hell could never have been a more generous word in this situation; smoke blackening the sky, the stench of blood and sulfur sulfated the air, bullet casings littered the earth uncountable, gunfire and explosions rang through the planet as the soldiers of New Mecca and the billions of cultists stormed the destroyed streets of the Third District.

It was only when the NULLs arrived that the battle turned in their favor. Turns out an ability that rewinds time after being killed has plenty of benefits when dealing with the monsters that plagued the streets.

One Khornate Berserker slashed Zero in half. Time rewinded and he dodged the swing from the chainsaw axe before jumping and driving his blade into the eye of the helmet that had long since fused to his flesh, piercing through the beast's brain and ending its wretched life.

A group of cultists gunned down Yukiko by catching her off guard. Time rewinded and she managed to deflect or dodge every single bullet before slaughtering all in a flurry of rose petals.

One NULL was stabbed in the gut by a monster in human skin before being beheaded by his own sword. Time rewinded and he took back his sword before slashing the beast's arms off, slashed his gut open as his black oily entrails spilled onto the ground, and then his neck was ripped open as blood spewed out, and the beast fell dead while the NULL wiped the blood off his sword.

Each time it seemed like the cultists took the life of a NULL, time would rewind, and the killer would be slain. Millions were slain from the NULLs, no matter the weapon, no matter the method, nothing could kill them, and nothing could stop them but their own fatigue. It was only due to Chronos and adrenaline that they lasted for three days of non-stop battle against the oncoming wave of cultists and monsters.

Zero seemed to move like a blur, whatever cultists getting in his way being reduced to slurry from his blade, heads and chunks of meat flying throughout the air as other NULLs moved through the streets. Yukiko seeming like an untouchable flurry of steel swings, blood and flesh being reduced to mist and bone reduced to powder, no foe spared from her blade.

The others were the same, blood and shattered armor littering the streets in a tempest of steel and wind, but it seemed like they were barely stemming the tide of bodies that were coming through the First District. They kept fighting harder and harder but the adrenaline that kept them going was beginning to wear off as was the shots of Chronos in their veins were beginning to run dry as they pushed their powers to their limits.

It was only when they reached outside a building that things got hectic, more of those giants in power armor were coming their way and over a million cultists backing them up. It was only when they were surrounded on all sides that they realized that the situation was about to become utterly dire.

Suddenly, a voice came to his head.

"The golden moon casteth wide its brilliant smile upon the altar of thy ablution. Thy baptism of blood draws nigh." He hears a familiar voice come to him, speaking in botched Shakespearean dialect. Zero's eyes widened fractionally, he knew that voice and its owner then came to him.

Suddenly, Tragedy appeared before Zero, now holding a pair of black metal revolvers resting in his hands. The conception that he was a hallucination was shattered when others blinked at him in shock and surprise.

"Wha-What the fuck?!" Zero vaguely heard one of cultists yelp as the entirety of both sides froze when they saw the silver masked man before raising their guns at him. Tragedy merely responded by snapping his fingers, the sound ringing out like a explosion. Suddenly, a tidal wave of blackness swept across the battlefield, each person with the exception of Zero and Tragedy were frozen in time.

Just then, as the blackness was then dotted with stars and nebula clouds, Comedy appeared behind him in a flash of gold and started laughing hysterically, startling the samurai as the two masked men began circling him like a pair of lions taking in their prey.

"The stars dictate thy ultimate death. Wring from thy errant heart libations of blood upon this hallowed altar." Tragedy spoke in his botched Shakespearean English.

Zero unsheathed his sword and brandished it at the silver masked man, "When did you get here?!"

Tragedy was silent for a second before his only reply came as he lightly adjusted his fedora, "I was here all along."

The swordsman was taken aback by that answer as a shocked expression crossed his face, barely able to reply for a few seconds before he collected himself enough to say with a viscous look on his face, "Back off or I'll kill you!"

"Yes, yes!" Tragedy uncharacteristically yelled out in excitement, contrasting his previous stoicism as he reached out dramatically, "Make of me your final sacrifice upon this macabre altar! Don thy golden mask and find eternal peace in death!"

"W-What are you talking about?" Zero rasped, his voice raw from the yelling and screaming that these last few days had brung.

"Thou heedest not my grim haruspicy? But not three nights ago did I foretell thy choice - of silver death and golden life!" Tragedy gestured dramatically to himself before splaying his arms out, gesturing to the frozen Chaos Space Marines around him, "This altar demandeth thine answer! Dost thou choosest the golden mask of life, to stay thy blade and be reborn in grace? Or dost thou choosest the silver mask of death, and sow upon this fallow soil the blood of thine enemy?"

"Life or death. What a choice, huh? Glad I'm not in your shoes right now, he he heeeee!" Comedy cackled sadistically as they continued to circle the NULL, who maintained his composure, even if it was hanging on by the atoms on his fingers while they were stomping on him with their cryptic talk.

"What are you talking about?" Zero repeated, figuring that the one with the golden mask would make more sense.

"Remember that little talk we had the other night a big choice you had to make?" Comedy replied to the NULL, gesturing around him dramatically, "Here it is! Life or death! You choose! He he heeeeee! Choose life, these guys die, and you walk away. Choose death and... Well, I think you can figure it out."

"The choice thou makest affecteth more than just thine own fate." Tragedy cut in, "To don the mask of death is to embody death; and likewise, the mask of life bestoweth life unto those thy heart seekest to protect."

Zero could barely take it anymore, his composure was steadily grinding down before he collected enough of himself to breath out, "Why is this happening?"

Comedy laughed sadistically again, "Cuz the stars say so! Or maybe it's 'cuz of this war you're tied up in. Or all those people you killed. Or maybe we just like fucking with ya. Me, personally, I like fuckin with ya! He he heeeee!"

"I can't die." Zero denied, only for Comedy to laugh again in amusement.

Tragedy merely tipped his hat, giving the left eye of his mask a dangerous glint, "Thy final death is imminent, errant heart."

"This is for real. The Chronos in your bloodstream is running out. You'll actually die if you choose to." Comedy replied smarmily, before gesturing to everyone around him, "But think of all the people who will live! Like your commrades. And that sweet little friend of yours." He gestured to the frozen Yukiko, who had her hand on her sword, ready to unsheathe it to slay the cultists.

"Why would I ever choose to die?"

"Oh, I don't know! Maybe it's something you want? This seems like a unique opportunity, since time usually resets whenever you die." Comedy laughed his question off before he then said, "So whaddaya say, do you want to live or die?"

After a moment that felt like an eternity of contemplating, thinking that hard on what to choose. They said he would die but others would live, yet he didn't want to die. But one the other hand, they said he would live but there would be consequences to the ones he seeks to protect. The conundrum was palpable as his head was filled to bursting with stress.

Then there was clarity as an idea came to his head.

It might not work. It might just him throwing spit into the wind and he will have to choose regardless. But it was the only idea he had for all the people around him, Yukiko, and the others around him.

"I'm ready to choose." Zero informed them with little emotion in his voice.

Comedy and Tragedy all but smiled under their masks, the tension in the thickening to where it could never be cut even if it could, "Then what dost thou choosest, o errant heart?"

Zero inhaled deeply before exhaling, his eyes not betraying any emotion or expression, his posture straight and unmoved before his answer breathed out from his lips. One that would decide the fate of this world and shake the tide of Chaos.

"I choose neither."

Zero couldn't tell what the looks on their faces were when he said that, but judging by the sudden rigidness of their postures, they were most definitely caught off guard. Before either of them could reply, Zero intervened and silently prayed that his plan would work.

"Forcing me to choose either live or die? Come on, that's not fun." Zero played to their sense of amusement, gesturing to the Astartes standing around them, still frozen by their strange powers, "Which is more amusing? Killing one man, or killing dozens of monsters? Look at them all, you can slaughter them all and I can give you more than that. So, come on; why not have a little fun?"

The masked men were silent, looking at each other before they turned to Zero, their body language suggesting that they were convinced.

"Thou maketh thy most convincing of arguments, errant heart. Would thou agreeth, Comedy?" Tragedy turned to his partner, whom was bouncing in excitement at the thought.

"Hell yeah!" Comedy shouts in sadistic excitement, "Screw killing this guy! Let's kill all these motherfuckers!" With a curt nod, Tragedy snapped his fingers and time resumed, where everyone saw the twin masked men in all their glory. Nobody, not even the fateseers or the NULLs saw them coming, judging by the expressions of shock that passed through the horde of killers.

"What the-?!" One cultist was interrupted from his shout of confusion when Comedy unsheathed a blade from his cane and slashed the man's head off. Comedy then struck a pose as he and Tragedy announced their presence to the world.

"Welcome, ladies and gentlemen! We're the special entertainment, motherfuckers!" Comedy yelled out before the slaughter began.

The silver masked man then pocketed his revolvers and whipped out a Tommy gun and began firing at the hordes, silver bullets piercing through the armor and homing in at every target, felling each hundred on his side. The golden masked man disappeared in a flash of gold before a second later, he reappeared and then several thousand of the cultists and Astartes to bloody pieces with his cane sword in the air.

A Crimson Slaughter roared as he brought his axe down on Tragedy, who blocked it with his Tommy gun that somehow didn't shatter from the chainaxe before he wiped out a silver katana the length of his entire body before swinging it so hard that the giant was slashed in twain. The silver masked man stuffed his Tommy gun back into his coat before flinging the blood off his katana and dashing off to kill more people.

Two Noise Marines attempted to kill Comedy with their Sonic Blasters, only for him to not even be fazed by their effects when he takes them head on. He merely scoffed, "Please.", before spinning his cane sword at an impossibly fast pace, beginning to grow golden with power before he swung it down. A blasting laser trail surging out of the blade as the two Noise Marines are blasted apart in a blast of gold. With a laugh, Comedy sheathed his cane sword before dashing on to slaughter the rest.

Zero looked in shock, the masked men were not even on Chronos as far as he knew, but even most Gamma NULLs were incapable of most things that he was seeing before him. It was then that he snapped out of his stupor and drew his sword before looking to the stunned Yukiko and other NULLs.

"What are we standing here for?! We got a job, let's finish it!" Zero rallied the other NULLs out of their stupor, all of whom immediately drew their blades and charged into the battle fields.

Two NULLs disappeared in blurs of blue that slashed through a Plague Marine, bifurcating the plague-ridden bastard before Tragedy cleaved the marine head to groin as he flared through the battlefield. Zero and Comedy stood back-to-back before the two practically fought, stabbed, slashed, and sliced in perfect unison against the hordes that were surrounding them.

Yukiko slashed the head off a berserker in a spray of oily blood before a Nurglite zombie attempted to bite down on her exposed neck, an attempt that failed when Tragedy lobbed the undead's head off. The female Gamma NULL was surprised before a betting smile came to her face as she narrowed her eyes in challenge.

"Want to bet on who can kill more?" She challenged the silver masked man while raising her sword.

Tragedy's response was to simply brandish his sword and said, "Thy bet is settled. Let death reap thou's bloody harvest!" The two let out a yell as they dashed into the horde of cultists and monsters, blood and viscera flying into the air while the screams were drowned out by the gunfire and explosions that eclipsed the world around them.

Blasts and tidalwaves of blood and organs ran through the streets like a porous wave of death as blades cleaved through the dark grasp the cultists and monsters had on their beloved country. An idea of horrid abandon began blistering in the traitors' minds as hundreds fled wholesale in a desperate and thankless bid to escape with their damned lives, but no quarter was asked, and none was given as they were hunted like the rest in this expanse of ruin.

Soon, the final remaining cultists was left scrambling on his ass as he attempted to flee, while screaming his lungs out as the bones in his legs fractured from the sheer force that exerted on them. However, it was for naught as Comedy and Tragedy appeared in front of him and swung faster than he could react, cleaving off his legs as the rest of him was sent flying into the air while blood spewed from his stubs like a high pressure hose. Before even a nanosecond passed, the duo slashed off his arms before they then impaled the cultist in his heart, before Tragedy whipped out his revolvers and fired as he screamed, ending the madman's life as blood spewed from the wounds in his head.

The duo wiped the blood off their blades before they turned to Zero, who had run after the last cultist to slay him only to stop when he saw that Comedy and Tragedy had beaten him to it. Zero merely sheathed his sword and stoically approached the two mysterious beings, of whom the one wearing the golden mask started laughing hysterically and slapping his knee.

"You were right!" Comedy hollered out loud, his laugh echoing through the city like a storm, "That was much more fun!"

Zero didn't reply to that, instead asking them something that they tormented him three days ago, "Why did you plan to take my life or the others?"

"Cuz the stars say so! Or maybe it's 'cuz of this war you're tied up in. Or all those people you killed. Or maybe we just like fucking with ya. Me, personally, I like fuckin with ya! He he heeeee!" Comedy repeated from before and laughed both sardonically and sadistically, making it clear that they would never give their reason.

Before a sigh or expression of annoyance came, the duo then slashed Zero across the palm before he could react. Blood did not spill from the wound, only for twin black tentacles to spill out and wrap around his arm before it sunk into his flesh, becoming a serpentine tattoo on his arm and a tattoo of a comedy and tragedy mask on his palm.

Zero let out a yelp of pain before he noticed the markings on his arm and blinked in surprise.

"Thy pacth is sealed." Tragedy spoke to Zero, sheathing his sword as did Comedy, "Should thou needth our assistance, drawest thy blood and we will appearth to aid thou in your perils. A warning though beforeth we depart. For our aideth, thy must incur a terrible price; a life for a life."

The Gamma NULL stared at the mark before nodding. The duo then tipped their hats before Comedy said in a sadistic tone, "See ya in the Warp, Z." A second later, the two disappeared in but the blink of an eye.

XXX

3 hours later...

Just as the NULLs were collected and sent back to the base, the cleanup crews immediately went to work at disposing the bodies and fortifying the beach in the Third District with even more reinforcements, gun turrets, and soldiers. The NULLs were given their injections as so they would not be affected by their withdrawals on the perception altering drug.

Sometime after he was able to go back to his chambers to rest after the three days of fighting and barely any sleep, there was a knock on his door. With a tired sigh, Zero got to his feet and trudged to the door. Opening it, he was surprised to see Yukiko standing in the doorframe, clad only in her bathrobe that hung both loosely and tightly on her form.

"Hey, Sensei." Yukiko said shyly, a deep contrast to her usual demeanor on the battlefield, "Um... Can I come in?"

The swordsman simply breathed out and silently opened the door for her to enter. She sat beside him on his baby blue couch and watched a samurai movie that she recognized when she was a little girl, leaning against him almost suggestively. Yukiko remembered when she covered her eyes when one of the character's head got chopped off, but now it barely fazed her.

Suddenly, a thought went into her head; whatever happened to those two men in masks that appeared in the battle today?

"Sensei, what happened to those two in the masks?" She asked her teacher, who stiffened at the question, causing her to become concerned. Zero wordlessly raised his right arm for her to see the markings on his arm, causing her to gasp in shock before she turned to him for answers.

"They left this mark on me. I can call upon them, but it requires a sacrifice. 'A life for a life', they said." Zero answered, lowering his arm for Yukiko to examine curiously, "I dread to think what would happen if I must enact this pact. Or what 'A life for a life' could mean if I were to use it."

"Then, don't use it." Yukiko replied, though she was a killer like him, that never meant she gave up the part of her that held her compassion, "I get it, sensei, but even if you are in a dire situation, you've been through worse. So long as we have Chronos, we can survive until we're not needed anymore. I know that may seem nihilistic, but... I'm glad I could fight to protect the people of my home."

Zero had a surprised expression on his face before a ghost of a smile crossed his face, "I guess." That was his only answer as the two closed their eyes and slowly drifted to sleep like two lovers. Hours passed and the two slept on his couch before a soft bristling drew them both to the realm of consciousness. It should have been unnoticeable to everyone else, but when one spends every single day for the past ten years or more on the killing fields, noticing even the smallest of details could mean life or death.

There was a soft glow coming from behind the doorframe, white and baleful, with wispy tendrils vaguely forming and unforming as shadows that faded. The two Gamma NULLs looked at each other before they both grabbed their swords and slowly approached the door, tension bubbling like a boiling ocean as Zero slowly grasped the doorknob and turned it at a snail's pace.

The second it swung open, a pale, baleful light shined into Zero's quarters, causing them to lightly cover their eyes from the brightness before their sight adjusted and they could take in what was happening in the hallway. And what a sight it was.

20 feet away from the door of Zero's chambers stood Comedy and Tragedy, both unmoving as statues despite the tides oncoming from the winds that fluttered their clothing. Behind them however was an object of equal parts surprise and terror; a white spiraling vortex that seemed to be akin to a supernova and a black hole simultaneously while howling wind stormed through the hallway.

Tragedy was the first to move, approaching to where he nearly stood toe to toe with Zero before suddenly, the winds were silenced. He then spoke in his usual way of speaking, "Thy time has come. Lord and lady must come and join the stemming of Chaos' bloodsoaked tide."

Zero narrowed his eyes while Yukiko had a bewildered expression before the former inquired, "I was led to believe that I was to call upon you to appear. Was that not the terms of the pact?"

"Normally, that's right." Comedy said smarmily with that crass tone not leaving his voice in the slightest, "But a certain someone called in a favor and asked for you two to come with us to... join the fight."

The surprise on their faces were palpable as they turned to each other and then back to Comedy and Tragedy before Zero suddenly asked, "What fight?"

"Chaos' eldritch grasp is tightening around the multiverse. The dread tides of horror are flooding through the cracks of the materium. Thy's time has come to brandish thou's blade and cleave through the ivory conflagration!" Tragedy announced dramatically, splaying his arms out to the others and his voice reaching a volume that the two NULLs were puzzled that none of the others were awakened from it.

"And don't worry! We got several vials of Chronos! It's very easy when the shit Chronos is distilled from is practically air in the Warp!" Comedy laughed, "It's all kinds of fun!"

"Thou hath the chance to refute our offer. But know thou's self and bequiff us an answer. We will give thou both a moment to compose your decision." Tragedy offered them, standing stoically and forcing Comedy to shut his mouth with a glare so he didn't spoil anything else.

The two NULLs are silent before they both looked at each other and formed an answer. Zero turned to his surrogate daughter and requested her the greatest task he could ever ask of her, "Are you ready, Yukiko?"

"Never a doubt." She smiled at him, getting a smirk out of hum before they turned to Comedy and Tragedy, who were still waiting patiently for their answer. And then they said in perfect unison.

"We accept."

Comedy and Tragedy seemed to be incredibly pleased with their choice before they then gestured to the gates. The two both took a breath and stepped into the portal with Comedy and Tragedy following behind, disappearing behind them as the building now silent as a tomb continued standing.

---

Happy Birthday, Priscilla

The earth of this particular universe was one that was dominated as quickly as the rest of the earths in the medieval or modern times, but the reason they were not reduced to blasted heaths was simple, resources. Each earth has a unique resource; be it people, substances, or subspecies of humanity with special abilites that were harvested for the forces of Chaos. All reaped in a bloody harvest that fueled Chaos' growing crusade against the multiverse.

The results from this harvest were bountiful; the Spartans Vs were made from the slave population from the blasted worlds of Damascus, Locus Horde soldiers engineers from children being dunked in the vats of Imulsion, Sarkites taking in slaves or converting morsels to their side to join in their decadent courts composed of flesh and bone, or Herman Fuller's Circus of the Disquieting taking in freaks, mutants, and anomalous people for their mind-bending performances.

This earth had one resource that was incredibly intriguing to the Clonelord born on Terra: the Claymores and the Yoma. The prospect of creating Astartes through the unique energy produced by the flesh of the Yoma was too exciting not to take up upon. After his legion of modified Space Marines had conquered the planet, the Clonelord had forced an organization that was specializing in creating Yoma-human hybrids called Claymores.

Vast swathes of land were replaced with industrial sites that churned out dark machinations from the most depraved and calculated minds could produce, damning a vast plenty to labor until they die, a fate merciful compared to the fate so many others have befallen; children from all corners of the planet were taken to the labs for Bile's horrible experiments.

The process was one of horrific pain and suffering; the children are forced to undergo methodical torture and cultist indoctrination before the surgeries to become a Claymore begin.

One such instance was a boy and girl being wheeled on gurney, void of clothing and being followed by two men, though less of men and more of monsters. A hairless bone thin man covered in a thick black cloak and adorned in a white shirt and pants, and black shoes. His face was different than most, the left side of his face was void of skin, exposing his teeth and eye to the air as fluid spilled out lightly. This is Dae, one of the many scientists from the Organization that surrendered to Bile's side during his conquest.

By his side was the Clonelord himself, giving a thin smile of interest as he walked alongside Dae to a descending stairwell that led to one of the castle's largest dungeons.

They came to a thick wooden door, reinforced with steel bolts and heavy chains composed of the same indestructible metal as the blades they produced for the Claymores. Twin serfs in white elaborate cloaks with their faces covered by veils immediately reached to the locking mechanisms, pulling on twin slabs of iron that undid the chains and bolts on the door, revealing a deep, vast, and wide dungeon shrouded in darkness before the serfs entered and lit twin torches, lowing them to a bowl filled with flammable oil. The oil immediately was lit ablaze, trailing through the network of oil slick connections and igniting the torches lining the walls, revealing what laid inside this church-sized chamber.

It was a horrific sight.

A sea of black and azure tentacles comprising of random limb-like growths with spiked maws and twitching pustules. The liquescent and tumorous pseudopods writhed and spasmed as if in agony, the maws leaking black pus-like drool as it squirms forwards. Its head was a dark sapphire with two hollowed eye sockets, the flesh coated in innumerous tumor-like growths, the mouth a three way separating fang-like beak open to reveal wriggling fangs.

Suddenly, it's head squirmed and bulged in epilepsy, shedding away to reveal a serpent-like head with numerous red eyes and a four way separating maw filled with teeth. It struggled and slithered across the sea of tentacles and growths until it reached the edge of the observatory before a series of tendrils ending in clawed hand unfurled from its throat, moving bonelessly as they grabbed the dead bodies of the failures and swallowing them whole. It's eyes then laid to the still form of the girl and boy on the rusting gurney.

"That's right. She's broken." Dae responded, anticipating the monster's thoughts and gesturing to the girl, "We broke her, and we need you to fix her. Just like before with the others." It hovered over the girl before the scientist placed a jar of Yoma flesh on the table with surgical tools. "Use all this to fix her. Make her better. Take away all that's broken."

The thing opened its maw, revealing a hundred thousand grey tentacles slick with clear slime, some descended down and wrapped themselves around the tools before one of them coiled around the jar before opening it. The red eyes blared down at the prone and still form of the girl, staring up at the beast with deadened eyes and a deadened soul, not stoic nor defiant, simply an empty and hollow gaze reflecting the soul beneath.

It raised its tendrils wrapped in the surgical tools and lowered them at the little girl, who did not even react as the blades descended.

Warning: Body Horror Surgery ahead. Even longer than last time. Don't want to read it? Go to the next message in bold.

A tentacle with a scalpel dug into the girl's neck, dragging it down her abdomen and cutting it open, stopping at the groin. Blood immediately spilling out as two more tentacles quickly grasped the sides and forcing it to expand, exposing the little girl's innards. With the insides exposed, the monster took slivers of Yoma flesh from the jar and lowered them slowly into her insides.

One piece was lowered to the intestines as another tentacle slithered next to it, swelling up as a sphincter formed and a thin needle slowly emerged, attached to a white thread. Another tentacle ending in a sinewy prehensile paw gently took the needle into three of its thin fingers, pulling and extracting more of the chalk white thread as it descends down into the open cavity before it began cutting into the intestines, connecting whatever arteries where intact on the chunks of Yoma flesh and meticulously began stitching them together.

Jars of Yoma blood and various concoctions were presented by the serfs, intravenous taken by more prehensile pawed tentacles and then stuck into every major artery, the eyes, and the jugulars. Each chunk of flesh was stuffed and stitched crudely into her abdomen with Dae and Bile watching in interest as Yoma blood flooded into her system, organs slowly greying as the chunks were absorbed into her system. Grey thin tendrils began forming and coiling around her organs, half-formed faces appeared and began greedily suckling on the intravenouses that pumped Yoma blood.

Another tentacle grasped a vial filled with an emerald concoction, sliding it into an injector before moving it above her heart. Sliding through between the ribs, the needle began piercing the heart, heartbeat not changing before the tentacle tightened, squeezing the trigger as the emerald serum was dispensed into her veins. The girl's only reaction was a slight jerk, but there was not change in her expression

Her viscera began swelling, dark fluid spilling into the empty spaces of her insides, her skin paling, her brown follicles lightening into a platinum blond, her blue eyes bleaching into orbs of silver. Slowly, her body began maturing, bones lengthening, muscles growing in tandem. Her breasts began developing, spine lengthening, hormones cycling, and hybridized blood pumping as the beast continued its work.

Suddenly, one of the beast's tentacles reached upwards into the mouth of its master and tore a large piece of grey oozing flesh from somewhere, lowering to the girl's still mouth while her eyes followed.

"EAT." Came a deep and cacophonous voice came from the bowels of the beast's throat. The girl, now resembling a fourteen year old, obediently opened her mouth as the chunk of flesh was uncouthly dropped between her parted lips, grey ooze bubbling from the dark colored flesh and foul taste slicking her tongue. Without a thought, the girl, now resembling a 16 year old, began chewing, pulping the chunk of flesh into a foul-tasting slurry and swallowed.

The rapidly maturing girl did not even choke on the foul pulp that flowed down her esophagus, the meaty tube pushing it down into the stomach that was expanding and contracting like a heart. Yoki began surging through her veins, her eyes turning gold and her pupils turning to slits for the briefest of moments while she seized slightly, and her fingers darkened and became claws before they turned to normal.

"As you can see, Lord Bile, Yoki is derived from the flesh of Yoma." Dae informed an immensely interested Bile, "Each one of our hybrids has displayed varying yet consistent traits that you are seeing; platinum hair, pale skin, silver eyes. But, once Awakening occurs, these traits disappear."

"Fascinating." Fabius breathed before he turns to Dae, "Do you believe that this process can be used to enhance Gene-Seed?"

The Organization's turncoat scientist merely laughed, "That is why we are here, no?"

The beast then closed the stigma using a tentacle that ended in a mouth, breathing a light stream of fire that seared it closed while the girl, now resembling an 18 year old, didn't react to the white hot pain of the flames. And if anyone who cared saw, she never reacted even when they sliced her open or stuffed her with chunks of inhuman flesh. The second the beast was finished, the girl, now resembling a 20 year old woman, slowly got off the table and bowed to her masters.

Dae smirked as he approached the nude and newly christened Claymore, lightly touching her cheek before turning to Bile, "As you can see, the months of torture and conditioning has created a dependence and loyalty to us. In addition, when they reach adulthood, Claymores stop ageing, my lord."

"Hmph, it is the same with Astartes albeit over the course of a thousand years." Bile told the scientist before he turned to the boy, who had not reacted the beast's presence, "Now, for the experiment."

"Indeed." Dae agreed before he turned to the beast, who was eying the boy with its radiant red eyes, going to his side and looking to the beast as he had anticipated its thoughts when it saw the male, "That's right. He's broken too. We broke him and we need you to fix him. Just like before with the others." He then motioned to a multitude of Gene-Seed vats that Bile had brought, "Use all these to fix him. Make him better. Take away all that's broken and make something new."

The beast seemed to view this as a challenge given the narrowing of its numerous red eyes at both the vats and the boy. Its tendrils coiling around the vats that contained fully developed Gene-Seed infused with slivers of Yoma flesh that Bile gave it, examining them in a keen fascination in its eyes before it seemed to understand what it has to do.

It then turned its head to the boy and immediately readied its scalpel, digging into the neck and dragging the incision to the groin, two more tentacles forcing it open as the beast began its work.

Grabbing the vat with the secondary heart, it opened the container with a grey prehensile paw and extracted it as old and foul smelling culture fluid. It then reached into the exposed chest cavity along with other arms, sewing the second heart into the arteries and circulatory system before squeezing it over and over so it would start beating on its own as blood flowed into the second heart as began to beat on its own. Suddenly, it grabbed several IVs from the jars of Yoma blood and jabbed them into the boy's hearts, jugular, side of his eyes, and arteries.

Acting quickly, the beast then extracted the miniscule Ossmodula, a nickel-sized organ with pale skin, and made an incision at the base of the skull, cutting into the skin and bone before gently pushing the small organ-like lobe into the brain while trying not to disrupt anything. The next Gene-Seed, the Biscopea, a small spherical organ that pulsed with a purple smoke flowing out was taken from its vat and placed in the open chest cavity, sewing it into the organ into the area below the second heart, the hormones from the Biscopea and Ossmodula quickly beginning to circulate through the boy's veins.

As they were watching, Bile suddenly asked the scientist beside him, "May I inquire of the beast?

Dae decided to humor the Clonelord and explained, "We call it the Monster Maker. It was originally our first attempt at creating a Claymore. However, he Awakened almost immediately after implantation. However, he was weak and not worth killing, so we tossed him into this pit. As other of our experiments were meant with failure, we threw them into the pit for him to feed on. But as our failures grew, we discovered that he ate, he assimilated; growing in size and power with each feast."

The scientist then looked to the Monster Maker as it finished implanting the Haemastamen and the Larraman's Organ into the still boy, who seemed to be slowly growing from the implants. As the Catalepsean Node and the Preomnor were being implanted, blood began seeping from the eyes, nose, and mouth, as the boy suddenly began clenching his fists as the muscles and bones began to grow from the hormones, straining the nerves and forcing the twin hearts to pump lightened blood faster and faster.

"Soon, he grew into that misshapen mass of tendrils and growths, losing the last slivers of humanity he had left. Now, he sits in the darkest depths of the dungeons of our castle, toiling away and helping us with our creations."

Bile then gained an interested expression as he put a hand to his chin, "It seemed to be uninterested in taking revenge against its captors. Why is this?"

"You fail to understand, my lord. The Monster Maker believes he is 'helping' the children that he experiments on, fixing the broken ones and making them better." Dae explained to the Clonelord, "And as you can see, it is quite a skilled surgeon. Though, it feeds them pieces of its flesh as to 'heal' them. Such as it is doing now. "

The Monster Maker, as Dae said, tore a piece of its flesh from inside of itself, a grey misshapen blob larger than the last, and lowered it to the boy's mouth, who's eyes followed the piece before it came to his lips. The boy opened his mouth and began fervently chomping down on the grey oozing piece of flesh, tearing it to shreds and consuming it, the pieces visible through the throat as they entered the stomach, which began to churn as the pieces were digested. Small parts of the boy's viscera began to grey, spreading across his intestines as they began churning and rearranging in sickening ways, the skin and hair paling, and as the Monster Maker began implanting the Omophagea and Multi-Lung.

The blood that came from the boy's orifices darkened to a black color, daemonic faces forming and unforming from the pools of blackened blood as the Occulobe was implanted, before the one of the Maker's tentacles grew a limb that resembled a pair of scissors that chopped off one of the boy's ears. It then took the Lyman's Ear and began sewing it into the space where the original ear was, replacing the inner ear structure with a superior one.

The boy's scalp was slowly peeled away, bloodily exposing his cranium as another set of tentacles began implanting the Su-san Membrane into the bones of the skull, hooking the membrane deep into the marrow. The Melanchrome was next; the melanin producing organ was slowly implanted into the lymphatic system near the sternum, tendrils of flesh forming from the veins and connecting it to the body as Yoki infused melanin flooded the boy's veins.

Next came the Oolitic Kidneys; the Maker slowly dug through the shifting guts, probing and pulling until it reached the circulatory system, sewing it near the liver and spleen as microscopic tendrils began to connect the arteries to the Gene-Seed. As the last vein was connected to the organ, toxin infested blood in the boy's body began flowing and purifying by the inner parts of the Gene-Seed.

Most damningly, the boy seemed to be maturing like his sister; growing in size and height, musculature matching that of an adult bodybuilder, the breaths issuing from his throat steadily deepening, and subtle formation of facial hair.

As the Monster Maker began to implant the Neuroglottis and the Mucranoid, other oddities manifested ununiformly; shadows danced in the boy's eyes, his three lungs filling to bursting with air before exhaling, the ribs slowly thickening as if fusing to a single overlapping plate, green liquid leaking from his tear ducts, black mucus pouring out of small parts of his body. Just when the Betcher's Gland was implanted, droplets of saliva spilt onto the operating table, burning small holes through the metal.

And then came the two most important Gene-Seed, the Progenoid Glands. The first one was implanted in the neck, the Monster Makers stitching it with such precision as he did with the second, the germ cells immediately beginning the five-to-ten-year process of harvesting information for the next possible recipient. And then the final implant; the Black Carapace.

The carapace was in actuality various sheets that had to be implanted under the skin, but before the Maker implanted that, he had some work to do. Releasing the tentacles that held the incision open, the Maker then began to cut under the pale skin, separating the epidermis and burning red muscles before two other tentacles began sewing the muscles together. Other tentacles began grabbing devices presented by Dae, using them to stamp various sensors, transfusion points, and the many direct neural interface ports that were necessary for the armor.

As he stamped the last sensor, the Monster Maker forcefully tore the skin from the muscles, gradually exposing the muscles to the cold biting air of the dungeon. As he stretched the skin further and exposing both the chest and back, blood and oily fluids leaking from the relaxed twitching muscles, other tentacles grabbed sheets of the black fibrous material from its vat, slowly and meticulously placing it on the exposed muscles in the vague shape of a vest before the pieces grew microscopic tendrils that began digging into the muscles. With that, the Monster Maker began to slowly sow the skin back on the newly christened Astartes, covering the back and chest and leaving scars that resembled decorative markings.

Just as the last of the incision healed, the Neophyte began puking a black oily bile that seemed to boil when touching the air, eyes becoming black hollow voids, hair white as snow and skin pale as chalk. Serfs immediately helped the Neophyte to his feet and took him out of the room while Bile commanded them as he walked out of the room, "Take him to the others and immediately provide him with sustenance! Without proper sustenance, he will grow improperly!"

Body Horror Surgery end

As Bile's voice faded as he instructed the Serfs on what do to next, Dae turned to the Monster Maker and lightly petted it on the head, "Good boy." He then reached into his robes and removed a tightly wrapped piece of Yoma flesh that he unwrapped and placed on the awaiting tongue of the Monster Maker, who then immediately withdrew its drool slick organ into its mouth and began chewing.

The Monster Maker than quietly slunk back into the darkness that consumed the darkest parts of the dungeon, waiting for when the next feast arrives or when they need him to help the others. Dae then walked out of the dungeons and to the sterile halls of the castle, pointedly ignoring the bellowing screams of the thousands of children that were currently undergoing the 'initiations' of their work.

After a brief walk, Dae ran into a friend of his, Asmodeus. The violet haired Slaaneshi was working with Bile on rapid Astartes and Claymore creation; and as he saw these last few months, they were making interesting progress and thousands of failures that were fed to the Maker, who ended up actually giving them the breakthrough they needed.

"Thanks to the research of our cabal of scientists from the multiverse, all Gene-Seeds can be implanted in one surgery while the transformation takes only days instead of years. We have accomplished mass production of Space Marines and Claymores." Dae started offhandedly as they walked through the halls of the castle they were working in while the slave population toiled in the distance.

"Actually, while this does produce Astartes and Claymores at a much faster pace, there are... issues." Asmodeus admitted, "They have such a high chance of Awakening than those of our previous Claymores that we must continuously torture and condition them before their operations, as so when, not if, they mutate, they will remain loyal to us."

"I suppose." Dae mumbled in agreement, annoyed that they were still running into problems with the creation process.

The new Claymore was wheeled away on a gurney to the cages, a tired expression adorning her face as they arrived at a series of cells where their fellow newly christened Neophytes and Claymores were placed for recovery. The serfs quickly began inserting IVs into her arms and chest, a respirator was placed on her mouth and a feeding tube was inserted into her stomach through an incision in the abdomen before green fluid came through the IVs and a light brown paste came through the tube.

Asmodeus came into the Claymore side and gently smiled while running a hand through her hair, "Happy Birthday, Priscilla."

XXX

5 years later...

Priscilla suddenly woke up; eyes snapping open as she slowly lifted herself from the bed, bereft of clothing as she saw Asmodeus standing near a mirror. The daemonic scientist was wearing his black long sleeved shirt and nakama pants as he exhaled smoke from his pipe before he looked at her, saying in the honeyed voice that grandfather would say to their grandchildren, "Wow. Just... wow."

He took another smoke before walking directly towards her and gently caressing her head, making her squirm from the contact.

"You were amazing last night." The depraved scientist whispered to her, before he got up, donned his black coat with purple flames, and grabbed a bag filled with what she imagined was hard drugs that was laying on the side of her bed before he left the room, leaving her to her lonesome.

Priscilla signed as she got out of bed and donned merely a pair of pants and a black tanktop before following Asmodeus. Despite his cruelty and violent hedonism, combined with his psychopathic manchild personally-emphasis on psychopathic-, the Lord of Vice's brilliance led him to be the one to lead the Abyssal Ones and the Awakened Beings to the multiverse for them to indulge in all their violent and cannibalistic cravings.

...and it was also the reason she fell in love with him. Because she was in fact not that much different than him aside from the differences in intelligence. Something she keeps quite to herself as she walks out of the room and walked down the advanced looking halls of the base that Asmodeus set up in the North. Thankfully, the Lord of Vice managed to keep all the rock memorabilia, hard drugs, and trippy artwork to his room while the male and female Awakened Beings worked and guarded his base from both the anti-Chaos Claymore warbands that were running through the world.

Shouting then caught her attention as she started running down the stairs and came to the labs across from the stairs. However, when she opened the doors, Priscilla saw that it was merely a psychiatrist's room which had Asmodeus stilling at an Italian Mabel desk as arguing with Roxanne while the other Awakened One, Luciela, watched. Again.

Priscilla sighed and crossed her arms, entering the room before asking Luciela, "Are they arguing, again?"

The annoyed expression on Luciela's face when she turned to her was her answer.

"For the last time, why won't you let me trash the nearby villages?!" Roxanne demanded in a bratty tone while the other Awakened Ones watched in amusement at seeing her be denied her wants.

"Simple; I don't care, and I have better things to do." Asmodeus' flippant reply came as he finished writing something in his journal before closing it and standing up, only for an angry Roxanne to block him from leaving.

"I am fucking sick of waiting here for the signal. It's been 3 days and still nothing!" She almost roared before her tone became one of a begging girl, "Just one village, please? Just one village to slaughter?"

Asmodeus gave an amused look in response, and put a hand to her shoulder, "Oh, sweetheart; under any other circumstance, I would love nothing but to do just that, but Bile has made it clear; no destruction until he gives the signal. Also, I don't need the Cabal. With the exception of Bile, they need me."

Roxanne scoffed at Asmodeus' arrogance while crossing her arms, "Oh, please. I bet you can't clone any of the Abyssal Ones."

Insulted beyond belief that this cur of a woman doubted his abilities, Asmodeus let out a mocking and offended laugh before he sharply retorted with that smile still on his face, "BITCH, I can clone anybody!" He then turned to the others and pointed at Luciela, who was until this point neutral in this arguement, "I even cloned Luciela."

That certainly got Luciela's attention as she slowly turned her unsettled gaze to the Lord of Vice, "...What?"

"IN FACT, just to prove my point..." Asmodeus then put on a purple glove with golden metallic decorations and jewelry, before posing dramatically in front of the bemused Awakened Ones, "Ladies and Motherfuckers, here for your eyes, is Luciela 2.0!" Before any of them could respond or stop him, the depraved scientist snapped his fingers and a miniature Warp gate before something came out of it.

It was a long and sinewy creature, impossibly thin with skin that sheened like plastic, void of clothing and with hair that reached its waist and had more in common with wires than follicles. The eyes seemed more like cloudy lusterless orbs than actual eyes sitting above a mishappen nose, the cheeks parted like the maw of a snake, fangs more like woven together needles than teeth slick with drool, the tongue a lashing black tentacle clad in chitin, and serpent-like eyes on the abdomen. It possessed long chitin covered claws, fang-like spikes dotting her frame, two vein-like tubes proturding from the chest and back, black mist issuing from its nostrils that smelled both sweet and foul. It moaned and gurgled as a clear metallic fluid bubbled from its throat as it glared at the four in front of it.

"YoU lEfT mE uNfInIsHeD." The creature gurgled out, eyes flaring gold with Yoki and Warp energy. The reactions from the Awakened Ones that saw it were quite natural.

"WHAT THE FUCK?!" Roxanne screeched as she nearly fell on her ass in shock at seeing the creature in front of her.

"WHAT IN GOD'S HOLY SHIT IS THAT?!" Luciela screeched as she hid behind Priscilla who was nearly catatonic with shock at seeing the creature.

"It's a work in progress." Asmodeus made a so-n-so gesture with his gloved hand, his tone unnervingly casual and nonchalant.

"MmMoOoOoMmMmMYyYyYyY..." The creature moaned as it extended its clawed hand towards its genetic source.

"EW, NO! GET THAT FUCKING THING AWAY FROM ME!" Luciela shrieked as she scrambled away from the demented and deformed clone of herself.

"Don't say that to our daughter, you insensitive bitch!"

Luciela nearly hurled when she heard what Asmodeus said, "OH MY GOOOOOOOOD." She bemoaned that she can now never get that out of her head as Asmodeus laughed and banished the clone back to her cloning vat with the snap of his gloved fingers.

"Okay." Priscilla pushed past the traumatized Luciela, who was curled onto the floor while rocking back and forth, and touched Asmodeus on the shoulder, "We really need to talk about your addiction to cloning things, Azzy. It's getting out of hand."

The Lord of Vice scoffed and brushed that off, "Oh, please. I'll curb that addiction when I'm dead." Suddenly, a pinging noise sounded from his wrist, causing him to gain a confused expression and raised his hand to see what it was, revealing a decorated silver watch that beheld a bleached white symbol that resembled a blank horned face that was blinking. A surprised expression crossed his face before he showed it too Priscilla, who blinked in surprise when she saw the symbol.

"It's time." Asmodeus told them before he grabbed Priscilla by the arm and dragged the woman out of the room before the other two followed behind them as quickly as they could react without tearing the halls apart. The two took the route fastest to their destination, which happened to be where he and Bile moved the Monster Maker to 3 years ago.

The Slaaneshi scientist and his companions then looked to the Monster Maker from a barred viewport, who was ripping parts of itself off and sewing them together in misshapen and mismatched patchwork things that more resembled Chaos Spawn than creatures. It's appearance had changed from both its feeding and surgeries for the damned; arms bifurcated in a mantis shape, many crystalline eyes and outward hearts, twisted knots of muscle over and beneath random metallic hides, geometries warped and unbalanced, many odd organs hung outward and inward, skeletal blades and barbs resembling hair hung from the 'head', a multitude of rows with shifting thorns like that of a chainsaw, many of limbs with an appearance unique to only itself.

It then finished one of its many creations before sending it through the tunnels.

Huge lobster legs stamped into the floor, crusted with what appeared to be barnacle-like orifices made from wrought iron, its movements slow and lethargic. It had a body resembling a whale of some variety, with the skin of a dolphin and a crocodile mismatched across its hide. No lips were present to hide the baleen, spiked-suckered tentacles, electric eel tails and stingray tails that warbled around in its Megalodon toothed maw. It had large, cephalopod-like eyes that stared into the souls of any who met its gaze, damning them should they stare too long into the abyss of its pupils.

Atop its back were an assortment of fins, some longer than others and many forming what appeared to be spikes, making it look quite intimidating. At its side were more than a few flippers, the largest pair having large, stubby, webbed finger-like extremities that could snatch up anything in their grasp should anyone enrage it. The smaller flippers moved perpetually like the oars of a great seafaring ship, allowing it to move through the air just a little bit easier.

Under its maw were a pair of crustacean claws, large and imposing, like two guillotines at its disposal. Being it swayed many tails, resembling the tails of sea snakes with swallow feathered shark fins. It was quite a sight, beyond the imagination of many, to think that this creature was one that could be a reality.

Asmodeus let out an impressed hmph as continued walking while Priscilla had a disturbed look on her face and Roxanne and Luciela merely kept their gazes away from the beast in order for them not to go insane from beholding the Maker and its creations.

They arrived at a bolt steeled gate, reinforced by plasteel and adamantium, that opened to reveal the forest that their base surrounded; a dense and moist landscape where most of his mindless creations toiled in the dark, a bleak blasted hillside trail that granted only the briefest respite as it warded away the feral swarthy beasts away as to not waste Yoki or concoctions on killing them, and as they reached their destination on the dark and weary formation of dark spires and bladed flowers.

Black-bone plated chimeras stood 20 feet tall with annoyance radiating from them in the presence of the Lord of Vice and his Awakened Ones. It's muscled body had a number of features, four pronged taloned feet, a black mamba for a tail, a lion's head with long backwards facing horns folded to the shoulder blades, a forward-facing horned head with 3 glowing red eyes. The servitor race; the Daehals.

The Daehals moved out of the way of the Lord of Vice and his companions as they entered the house size ritual circle where an entity stood in a quiet piety of silence.

It was Phobos, the Bleached King. The Prince of the Undivided was clothed in robes that were made of liquid dark and covered in crimson glowing runes, with his head clad in a mask of liquid darkness with eight red eyes and his hair white as snow. Multiple horns facing multiple ways sat on his head akin to a crown, grey bandages with decorative markings wrapped around his body under the liquid dark robes, his torso wrapped in chains that dragged along the floor, and black arachnid creatures crawled across his body.

He turned his fluid, boneless form to Asmodeus, whom was unfazed while his companions were haplessly quiet with fear at the dark odious thing before them.

"Is this her, Asmodeus?" Phobos spoke in voice that seemed calm as the lapping ocean yet with the frightening quail of a maelstrom echoing behind, pointing a skeletal bandaged finger at Priscilla who flinched at his dread attention.

Suddenly, Phobos snapped his dark fingers. The world distorted, and reality screamed for a fleeting moment before they found themselves not in the dark forest where they had tread from Azzy's lab. Now, they had arrived in a castle akin to the one where the Organization used to occupy, only now composed of stone that glimmered in the dark with Daehals lining the halls, guarding their master with their lives.

"Now, Asmodeus." Phobos announced to the Lord of Vice, gaining his attention before extending an open palm as if to grasp an offering, "You remember our deal, do you?"

Looking remorseful for perhaps the only time in his life, Asmodeus mumbled to Priscilla, "It's for a little while. After that, we'll have all the time in the multiverse."

Priscilla had a hurt but understanding expression cross her face but nodded and walked to the Bleached King's side before Asmodeus then abruptly asked, "What do want with her? Sure, she's powerful and a helluva looker, but I still don't understand."

"You do your work, Asmodeus." Phobos waves the Lord of Vice off, unconcerned with his words as Priscilla's face turned red at her lover's words, "I have plans for the girl."

"Then be careful, my lord." Asmodeus jeers, "This one is quite the specimen." The depraved scientist and his companions disappear from their sight into the dark corridors of the castle, leaving the Bleached King and Priscilla alone. Phobos then turned the girl as a series of white crystal tendrils wove together into the visage of the throne he used to have on Meridian before the damned rebels overthrew him and he was cast into the Land of Eternal Shadows.

"The people of this world cower. They tremble in our presence." Phobos began as he walks to his throne with Priscilla beside him, sitting down, "We have the power of the Dark Gods, we are meant for a greater purpose."

Priscilla glares at him, an aura of Yoki flaring from her as her eyes turned gold, with little success other than amusing Phobos.

"You are angry, but you know I speak the truth." Phobos says with an amused expression, leaning in on the armrest of his throne, "Why be their servant when you can rule them all?"

"Rule over the multiverse?" Priscilla asked with wide eyes as the aura faded.

"Or would you rather the Daemon Queen did?" Phobos responds as he leans into her face almost to where it touched hers. Priscilla let a pondering expression cross her face before she exhaled and assumed her Awakened form.

Her clothes shredded as her skin turned blue and hardened, two sets of beige diaphanous wings sprouted from her spine, near her shoulder blades and her ribs respectively, her hair bleached and became a mane of spikes, her ears sharped into the shape of a Eldar's, and a single horn emerged from her forehead. She took in a breath before uttering, "What is thy bidding, my master?

Phobos let a snicker escape him before he threw his head back and let out a howling cackle that echoes throughout the castle.

XXX

Unseen in the darkest parts of Asmodeus' base, the Monster Maker stirred. Its tentacles and inhuman limbs twitching as it sensed the presence of the Bleached King, and, more importantly, Priscilla's presence. She was coming to the fold of the King. He needed to save her!

Suddenly, multitudes of inhuman limbs receded into the Maker's body as it began bloating, thick fluids and gases spewing from wound-like orifices, using its stomach as a crucible to compose its greatest creation yet, every limb and organ collected all being woven and fused into a body that he could transfer his consciousness into, hoping that he can save Priscilla and Clare when the latter inevitably confronts her.

From its gaping mouth, the Monster Maker birthed his avatar in a disgusting ritual of slime and flesh. The mass of Awakened flesh wriggled on the floor, flailing its limbs wildly as the transferred consciousness struggled to gain control over its new vessel, before it managed to wriggle it into its control and shape it to his will. Limbs folding, crushing, weaving, compacting, and reshaping, faces and inhuman heads caving in and reabsorbed as to force it into a human shape, follicles quickly grow out of the quickly forming head just as the eyes and mouth peeled open while fangs quickly grew in.

Newly forming bones quickly gave the body structure, forming lungs quickly intaking air and expelling carbon dioxide, and pupils formed from the milk white eyes in his skull, tentacles shrank and folded into the back as the body of the Monster Maker forced itself to stand. His breath stabled, vertebrae and joints popping as he rolled them before he grabbed a cloak from one of the barracks by extending his arm and fishing it out, donning it and headed out as his main body continued its work.

"Hold on, Clare. Hold on, Priscilla. I'm coming." The Maker whispered as he started running out of the base, hoping to stop what was to come.

---

The Circus of Midnight

One reason she abandoned her name was because she loathed herself. She loathed her parents, she loathed the town she grew up in, she loathed the world where she was born, and she loathed herself for turning to a needle for comfort.

The name she was given was Ellenor Daran. And this was the story of how she lost herself to the ringmaster, Devyn Cavendish.

It started when she was 17. She had been kicked out of the house by her asshole landlord, neither her parents nor her friends willing to lift a finger for her, living on the streets and drifting from city to city until she came to a small hick town in Montana. She still lived on the streets, selling her body to whomever would pay her, sometimes robbing people to get the money she owed to drug dealers that she bought drugs from, drinking heavily to forget it. Eventually, she was able to afford an apartment, where she often cried herself to sleep.

How? How did she end up like? She had so much to look forward too; college, a promising career as an artist and a ballerina, a boyfriend, and bunches of friends who had her back. How did one stupid mistake cause her to lose everything? All she did was get in a DUI and suddenly her life was in shambles. She swore she didn't mean to hit that pizza guy!

Somehow, Ellenor remained as beautiful as her father told her she was. By then she was 18 years old, having long black hair that she washed diligently with Head N Shoulders, a body most girls would die for, and eyes that seemed to glimmer in the light. Still, she began to slake her sorrows in drugs, sex, and wallowing, spending her days in her apartment when not at the coffee store she worked at.

One day, however, her entire world came crashing down when she accidently ran over a homeless man. She was just driving in her car when the hobo came out of the road, screaming his head off which startled her enough that she forgot to apply the brakes, hitting the man in the chest and caving his ribcage in. He didn't even scream as he keeled over onto the streets, blooding pouring out of his chest and mouth, staining the street in blood.

In a panic, Ellenor drenched the hobo in a bottle of liquor and threw off the dense forest hillside that she was driving along before then driving off like nothing happened. The bliss of insanity came when she tried to rationalize what had just happened, convincing herself that the hobo wanted to die like she had when she lived on the streets, thinking that she did the guy a favor. Soon, whispers began coming from her head, telling her that she did the right thing.

After a while, an odd man came to her, whose name remained in her head for the rest of her life; Devyn Cavendish.

He was a charismatic man with slicked black hair and in a nice suit that she assumed was from some expensive company. Ellanor was attracted by the man and the two talked over her break. He kept telling her things that were unseen or were yet to come before giving her his business card and leaving the shop. At first, she just ignored his words and got on with her day, managing to make her thoughts on them go away as she worked, but later that day, an event that Sander told her about came true.

He told her that the coffee store owner's rival would die off a heart attack, she scoffed it off, but low and behold; the owner's rival died of cardiac arrest just an hour later.

She was in shock when she heard but dismissed it as a coincidence. That belief was shattered when the rival's wife committed suicide after he died, just like the voices told her just a minute before. Realizing he was telling her the truth, she kept quiet before her shift ended and she left to find Cohen standing on the sidewalk, asking the artist how he knew this in a hushed tone, so she didn't seem like a crazy person.

The man merely laughed and told her that he simply knew thing would help her with anything she wanted, art in any form. And so, she followed him to the lodge that he was staying in and showed her his collection. It was a collection of freaks and oddities that he had collected over the decades, to a convention of freaks and entertainment that he called, the Midnight Circus.

It was odd as she never once had a fear of clowns or anything involving a circus, but she always did like the thought of being part of a circus. And so, she quit her job and went to the mansion that the Circus was at. Days and Weeks passed as she helped out at the Circus, getting to see and interact with the other freaks that they had.

Eventually, it seemed like the whole world crumbled away chunk by chunk, people abandoning all notion of restraining the madness and thirst for blood that we buried under compassion and consumerism. The world was finally ending, and she couldn't have been happier. She abandoned civilization in favor of the Midnight Circus, continuously going to them as they became more of her friends than her mere coworkers. They would always teach her things that she never dreamed of; pulling things from out of nowhere, performing magic tricks that seemed less like clever illusions and more like actual magic, and summoning things from the depths of dark and hollow places. They told her they were 'tugging on the strings of the universe', letting them do things that others could only dream of.

She remembered playing to the Ringmaster and impressing him with her want of a place to belong. And it was there that she learned more about the Circus.

The Fifth Circle is the lowest ranking in the Circus hierarchy: the men and women who populate this circle are the dregs of the Midnight Circus, often looked down upon by the other employees; even the inhabitants of the Freak Show regard them with contempt. Carnies who have fallen from grace can be found here, along with performers too dysfunctional to achieve much status and entities directly enslaved by the Infernal Trinity; their ranks include the brainwashed werebear Dimitri Babinov, the aptly named Tub of Flesh, the terminally alcoholic animal trainer Bill Biloc, and psychotic vampire mime Tamiko Tanaka.

The Fourth Circle is the backbone of the Circus: the everyday employees of the Midnight Circus can be found here, including riggers, vendors, barkers, ride operators, and other carnival hands. However, the bulk of the performers can also be found here, including clowns, acrobats, sharpshooters, equestrians, storytellers, fortune-tellers, fire-eaters, and many others. Though few of them command any influence, some subgroups can command a certain degree of power - usually by reputation or the favour of the Infernal Trinity: the Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse, the show's equestrian performers, are greatly feared for their role in hunting down escapees and killing unwanted interlopers; the Hetaerae, the prostitutes of the carnival's secret brothel, command great political influence due to their efficiency in seducing new recruits into the show; and the Freaks are widely feared and respected for their show's tendency to corrupt visitors to their show by presence - and because most of these visitors quickly become freaks in their own right.

The Third Circle consists of individuals who have gained sufficient power within the Circus to command influence and respect; the members of this circle have usually acquired retinues of followers - either sycophantic hangers-on or slaves to their will. Dr Owl and his Museum of Oddities can be found here, as can Koba the Clown, the Cone of Flesh (currently recognized as King of the Freaks), and the Three Mystics.

The Second Circle are the nobility of the Midnight Circus. Populated by long-time survivors of the brutal Circus lifestyle, the members of this circle have all acquired significant power, either through their own efforts or by offering their services to one of the Infernal Powers. Mr. Flint serves as one of the latter, a were-raven currently serving as the Ringmaster's accountant and spymaster; conversely, the vampire necromancer Baroque has been scheming his way up the ranks largely under his own power and may be in line to replace Calabris himself.

The Infernal Trinity rule the Circus. A tradition almost as old as the circus itself, there must always be three to manage the affairs and mechanisms of the carnival: the Magician commands the Glamour Veil, hiding the true nature of the Midnight Circus from prying eyes with powerful magical illusions; the Opener of Ways allows the Circus instantaneous transportation between grounds and protects the inhabitants from entropy and aging; finally, the Ringmaster manages the day-to-day affairs of the Circus, collects the souls of the audience, and negotiates directly with the "Old Shareholders." As the Opener of Ways ensures that the carnival workers remain effectively immortal, the only way to claim a position in the Trinity is by killing one of its members - as many have in the past.

The Ringmaster than gave his blessing to her, claiming that she would now be someone that the Circus would treasure.

It was then that the little crumbs that was her sanity disintegrated, and only madness remained. She started off by murdering her ex-boss and then wearing his skin as a robe, feeling the blood and viscera fluid dripping down her nude form as she escaped through the window, leaving her ex-boss' flayed corpse for her horrified former co-workers to find in his flayed form.

However, Ellanor didn't think things through as the police came looking for her as she left plenty of evidence of her crimes.

She knew that this was the end, but they offered her one last way to escape. A ritual of sorts, one that would let her go to with them, a place where she would no longer be lonely.

The second she finished, the wall across from her opened to reveal a golden radiant light that spoke to her. The moment she entered the gate, she knew she would never leave... not that she wanted to.

The ragged black hoodie, black tank top, torn jeans, and red sneakers were gone as if they never existed, replaced by a leather bodysuit. Her face had a beautiful porcelain mask plastered on, one that was smiling gently and decorated with black shading on the lips and around the eyes. The Circus was part of a greater whole, something of ecstatic beauty called the Silver City of the Prince.

She immediately surrendered herself to the decadent pleasures of the city. When allowed a chance to directly control a dream, so many claim they would fly or visit the stars; those people are liars. Most choose to surrender to the ecstatic delirium of sexual pleasure. She slept with numerous of the masked men and women, drank wine with favor that was unlike any on earth, lived his lavish places that she could only dream of.

The people around her were odd, they seemed normal at first but if she could focus on them, they either had too few limbs or too many. One of those she gave her body to was a woman who had curves in all the right places, only having her beauty enhanced by the tentacles. At first, it was unusual, but soon, she didn't care.

Her perception of reality was further distorted when it seemed like her body had been frozen in time, untouched by decay, disease, or age. Time passed like a river, and gradually she forgot everything; she forgot her town, she forgot her family, and she eventually forgot her name, taking a new one to the suggestion of one of the people; Narkai.

Narkai became one of the Ringmaster's concubines, attending his trips to the courts alongside his other concubines. The courts were places of abandon and vice; however, when considering the infinite orgy, one may simply allow their imagination to run wild, slaking the twisted thirsts that filled her like liquid. Whatever you could possibly conceive - you'll find it within the Hall of Mercurial Virtue.

A Flesh Shaper of Adytum, their pale mask asymmetric, fondled a Blood Vestal of Daeva with hand and tentacle - the two whispering terrible secrets into each other's ears. Their auras revealed a history intertwined; their copulation practically incestuous from a certain perspective. Though she cared not, Narakai sought something more palatable to her senses.

A Centaurial Dreamsmith of Oneiroi bargained with the Deathless Merchant of London, the one closest to real having the apparent upper hand. The Merchant spat legal jargon, nasally articulating his terms of agreement. The Wansman told her he sensed no past or future for the Dreamsmith, though an ephemeral existence is challenging to read. In contrast, the Merchant cast a long shadow, where dead souls accumulated and pointed accusatory fingers.

A trio of godlings, entities so often thought to be in opposition, mocked their mortal faithful - their barbed tongues spitting venom and condescension. The three consisted of a Horned Tyrant of Panthiss, a Bedlam Sprite of X'nol'zok'thussss'i, and a Hierarch Cherub of Eldonai. Betwixt the godlings resided an altar, carved with symbols that twisted and blurred and seethed.

A chitinous servitor delivered a hatchling to the shrine as one might deliver a meal. With dagger raised, the retainer chanted words that escaped translation. She did not avert her gaze, thirsting to watch their mortal strike, the blade entering the flesh and the spill of blood.

The servant removed the ghastly corpse and surrendered a curtsy before vanishing in a blink. Dinner had been served and the cultivores appeared satisfied; feasting upon not the victim but rather the symbolism of the atrocity.

More came for the parties that filled the courts; the Jesters from the Changer of Ways, the jovials from the Plague Father, and the connoisseurs from the Prince of Pleasure. Daemon Princes from all Gods except the Blood God came for jovial times and delights of all kinds.

Seduced by her love of the physical unbounds, Narkai fell to the Red Lord of Alagadda, Wearer of the Mirthful Mask - a porcelain guise with eyes wide and manic, a smile carved from cheek to cheek. His section of the palace an endless brewery, filled with patrons from across the multiverse that drank multitudes of wines and brews made by the makers of the Dark Prince.

Eventually, Narkai came back to the Circus with the Red Lord's blessing, becoming part of the Second Circle just through receiving the blessing of the Red Lord of Alagadda. During their travels, they encountered the other servants of the minor Gods. First were the Pirates of the Shark God, who enjoyed the bloodbaths and thrilling acts. Then came the blacksmiths of the Father of Darkness, trading with them precious metals in exchange for weapons and supplies. Then the servants of the Hanged King visited for their shows, dressed in attire one would see at a masquerade ball in Venice, feeling organic and chitinous, their faces covered by irremovable porcelain masks, most of them clapping and sipping their fine wine.

Soon, she went without clothes in place of a body suit of black malleable and smooth plaster, more pliable than flesh that bound itself to her skin, her face covered by a black swan mask with gold decorations, her sleeves covered by black feathers, and black heels covering her legs. Her only role now was the main dancer for her magnus opus, the Lascivious Frenzy as the Black Swan. An orchestral piece from the deepest and darkest parts of her soul that were woven into a story of blood and death.

There was nothing left of her, only another part of the circus like the others, there was only the Black Swan... and she fucking loved it.

---

Praetorian Unbowed and Unbroken

Deep in the Warp, deep in dark parts where the Forces of Chaos gathered, was the Castle of Sins. An impossibly massive castle standing atop a mountain composed of dark spires that shimmered and drank whatever light shined on it. Uncountable ships arrived and departed in streams of metal and engine fire, flowing into maws of bright red light, trading weapons, people, substances, valuable items, etc.

What most do not know was that this was the home of serval Chaos Champions and Daemon Princes as it was as massive as several planets cobbled together. And its ruler was the Queen of Daemons herself, Mandy.

The Castle of Sins was also a place where the new Forces of Chaos came to celebrate any victories against the Anathema. And the today was one of great celebration; for they had assaulted the Imperial Palace itself, or at one version of it. True, they barely managed to retreat after the Custodes and the Sisters of Silence got on the offensive, but they had already claimed their prize in the assault.

Their prize? The Primarch of the Imperial Fists: Rogal Dorn.

And they now forced him inside a gladiator ring filled with the stench of dead flesh and riddled with blood and broken weapons, reminding him of what Father called 'Ancient Rome.' Above the pit were bleachers filled with cheering followers of the Archenemy, eager for blood to be spilled.

Little do they know; the Marquis of Locusts has other plans...

XXX

The pit in the Colosseum was a ring of death and slaughter, black metal composing the walls with curled spines lining the top, corpses of fallen warrior littered it so much that it was impossible to see the ground, broken weapons of the fallen laid abandoned on the ground, and bleachers filled with thirsting Champions of the Chaos Gods and Daemon Princes that were bored of all the spare time they had, wishing for entertainment of the violent and depraved variant.

Sitting on a highly decorated and stylized throne in the front row was the Queen of Daemons, Mandy. She was wearing in a tight fitting and revealing dress that seemed to be made of pure blackness with bright red fur lining the high collar, black sleeves covering her arms with her fingers covered in numerous bejeweled rings. Mandy wore no crown for she had one composed of bright red flames sitting above her head, her hair and eyes were still of the same coloration of her flaming crown while her skin was still charcoal black. In her hand was her sword, The Bringer of Strife, burning matching bright red flames that seemed to corrupt whatever was near them.

In the bleachers around the Queen were Azula, Ty-Lee, Ember, and Necrafa all in their human forms with Blackhat, Grammor, Phobos, and Shredder all still in their armor, watching from their own personalized thrones. Ty-Lee resembled her old self, but in dirty and tattered clothing, bands on her wrists and ankles, her matted hair down, and splotches of dirt and disease on her skin, one eye being yellow and the other being normal. Necrafa, meanwhile, resembled a prim and proper lady, long ebony hair with golden jewelry in her hair, flawless pale skin with blood red eyes and black lips, clad in an ebony silk dress with red and gold accents, her arms and fingers covered in jewelry, with an onyx crown seemingly composed of shards.

Standing by the ring were two figures. The first was a lean and tall man, wearing a purple and gold outfit that resembled that of a ringmaster, complete with a purple top hat with golden accents and a purple mask that resembled a grinning demon. In his hand was a long ebony cane with a golden horned skull and a golden serpent's tail coiled around it.

The second was an unimaginable attractive woman, her face covered in pale makeup with light blushes on the cheeks, purple lipstick, purple eyeliners, and black finely combed and styled hair. She was dressed in a purple, violet, gold outfit that resembled both a suit and dress that was reminiscent of the Mad Hatter and the Queen of Hearts' attire from Alice in Wonderland, a purple top hat with an Ace of Spades and a Queen of Hearts tucked in the band, striped stockings under purple pants and knee-high leather boots. In her hands was a black whip with golden spikes that she twirled around and cracked in the air.

"HELLO, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! I AM HERMAN FULLER AND MY PARTNER, MAD MOXXI! WELCOME YOU ONCE AGAIN TO THE PIT! OF! SLAUGHTER!" The ringmaster yelled out in an incredibly bombastic voice, gesturing with his cane in an overly dramatic fashion as the gates for their combatants to come out, "In this corner, the Red Slayers, the Hounds of War, it is THE WORLD EATERS!" Five World Eater Terminators, one possessed by a Bloodletter, emerged from the cages and armed with corrupted Power Swords and Chain Axes before Moxxi announced instead of the Ringmaster, "And in this corner! The Praetorian of Terra, The Unyielding One, and our undefeated champion! THE PRIMARCH OF THE IMPERIAL FISTS: ROGAL DORN!" The gate opened and the cheers became a cacophony as the Primarch slowly strolled out.

The centurion armor that he had hid in for nearly ten thousand years was stripped from his form, now merely clothed in a white bloodied loincloth, his mustache had grown to a full beard that covered the lower half of his face, his left fist had been replaced by a facsimile composed of Necrodermis. His face stoic and unmoving as ever, but underneath was a rage so cold that it would shatter any metal, his frame covered in blotches of dried blood and fluids.

"AND FIGHT!" Fuller and Moxxi roared out with a slashing motion with his cane and a crack of her whip, signaling the start of the fight.

The first one attempted a downwards slash, only for Dorn to casually move out of the way and grab the berserker's head with his hand before he crushed it with merely a squeeze, causing it to pop in a spray of blood and shattered plasteel. The second and third attempted to strike at him, with the Primarch grabbing one by the arm and then using the corrupted marine as a club against the third, smacking the berserker into the wall before the fourth jumped in with his sword raised and ferally screaming.

The fourth brought down his Power Sword raised, but Dorn used the second as a makeshift shield, stopping the blade as it cleaved into the second's torso before he threw the body away, causing the fourth to lose grip of his weapon. With his opponent disarmed, Rogal drove his Necrodermis fist through the fourth's chest, piercing through the corrupted metal and flesh of the berserker's Terminator Armor before the head bulged as his fingers dug through the eyes and mouth, ripping through the lenses and grill of the helmet. Rogal then gripped the head and then yanked his fist back, ripping the fourth in half as blood and viscera sprayed out from both halves, before he threw it at the fifth, who backhanded it away.

The final one glared at the Primarch with fury unparalleled that met Rogal's unfazed and unmoved visage. Suddenly, blood began seeping from between the plates before they began deforming, muscles bulging, wet membranous wings fused with the armor ripping out of the back and flaring out. His claws swelled to become monstrous crimson swords, his Power Sword fusing to his arm and channeled red blasphemous power, his helm swelled and rippled, black horns curling from his temples, four glowing crimson eyes ripping open under the lenses, a grin of white saber-like teeth peeling open from the grill of the helm, metal and flesh melding together and gleaming lines of the armor's parts becoming visible as the Daemonic entity took complete control of his body.

The Praetorian of Terra was still unmoved, merely rolling his shoulders and grabbing the second's Power Sword, the corruption infesting the weapon screaming and burning away in his hand as the corona of energy shimmers to life. The Possessed Marine roared at Dorn with its blades raised and leapt at Dorn, bringing its corrupted sword down on the Primarch who blocked it with his Necrodermis fist before batting the blade away and then swinging his weapon at the claw of the monstrosity, cleaving it clean off as blood spewed out like a high-pressure spray of liquid before the arm was replaced by a metallic tentacle that possessed serrated blades.

Dorn then ducked as it lashed its tentacled arm and then blocking it with his sword, driving his blade through the monster's chest and then blocking its corrupted blade with his living metal fist when it attempted to strike him. At blinding speeds, Dorn ripped his sword from the Possessed Marine, cleaved off its bladed arm, and then drove his blade through its neck before he then wretched it out, effectively decapitating the beast.

The cheers of the crowd were deafening as the Bloodletter's essence wretched itself out of the marine's body, but Dorn paid then no heed as his gaze turned to Mandy, who looked quite entertained by his slaying of the World Eaters. Suddenly, Rogal's composure shattered as his calm and collected visage twisted into a snarl of rage so intense that even Angron would have paled at the sight of it.

Before any of them had a chance to react, Rogal then sprinted at top speed, racing up the walls before he leapt into the air with a feral scream. The enraged Primarch was flew out of the ring and dove towards Mandy with his sword poised above his head, ready to rend the Queen of Daemons to dust.

Mandy was unfazed, giving an amused smile as she extended an open palm out before she shouted, "DOOMBOLT!" A bolt of bright red Warp lightning shot from her hand and struck Rogal in the chest, sending the Primarch flying back into the ring where he landed and tumbled back, the sword he was carrying having shattered and him being rendered unconscious with a massive burn on his chest that refused to heal despite his superhuman physiology.

The deafening cheers returned a millionfold, reaching a cacophony as Mandy extended a palm, forming a large dish from red Warp energy before the grumbling people around her place pieces of gold and jewels. Earlier, the Queen bet all of them that Dorn wouldn't attempt to strike at her like he did the last four times and sure enough, he attempted it yet again.

"By the Gods, I swear she is using Warp sorcery on him..." Azula muttered with her chin resting on a hand, Ty-Lee nodding in agreement.

After that was all settled, the other Undivided left for now, while Mandy and her group exited the colosseum with Mandy's Formless forming a platform that they carried the unconscious Dorn on it, the ringmaster and Moxxi behind Mandy.

"By the way, does Perturabo know we have Rogal?" Herman whispered to Moxxi, who scoffed in annoyance at being reminded of the petulant manchild.

"Please, like anyone is going to indulge that whiny manchild's fantasies." She mocked the Primarch of the Iron Warriors, getting a laugh out of both Mandy and Herman.

Mandy chuckled out to her cohorts, amused at Dorn's futile attempt on her life, "Well, that was certainly fun, but next time needs a touch more..." She put a hand to her chin in thought, humming before she turned to Fuller, "Can you get Sarkite monsters? Hundreds?"

"Sure, I know some Sarkites." Herman confirmed to her, already anticipating as they neared the end of a hallway with Roman columns made of Onyx before a presence made itself known.

"Again?" Zim entered the hallway with an unamused expression as he walked to the Primarch and placed his claws on the latter's head. A transparent wave of blue washed over Dorn, causing the Primarch to seize slightly as the wound slowly closed with nary a scar left on his chest.

"Oh, great. The buzzkill's here." Moxxi rolled her eyes at the Irken's presence, but he didn't give her the satisfaction of giving an annoyed expression.

"Your majesty, I dare not question you, but I must ask why you keep using the Primarch, one of our most valuable assets, for entertainment." Zim inquired of the Queen of Daemons, annoyed that he had to constantly inform the others of the importance that the Primarch posed to his plans, "You know, that since Dorn was the one who constructed the Imperial Palace, he had vital information on all its secrets, including one that I believe that will be the key to our victory over the anathema! I am just asking that you keep the Primarch alive for now."

"Healing him is your job, Zim. Ever since Abaddon declared his Multiversal Black Crusade, I and several others are, for lack of a better term, bored." Mandy apathetically informed Zim, explaining her reasons for using the Primarch as entertainment, "Since I now have literal decades worth of spare time and when I'm not leading our armies to new universes, I am spending that time crafting more weapons of war for my armies, writing tomes of eldritch power for my sorcerers, or doing something else. And there's only so much enjoyment in forcing untrained slaves fight each other or telling captive Dark Angels that their Primarch knows about the Fallen."

"Yeah, most of the time, they just slip and impale themselves on their weapons while the Dark Angels cry like little girls and then kill themselves out of 'penance.'" Moxxi commented fondly, remembering how one of the Dark Angel was left a blubbering mess after they told him.

"No, that's the entertainment I'm talking about. Very amusing." Mandy replied before she turned her attention back to Zim, "The Primarch is the best entertainment we have had since we stormed the World of Mirrodin and gaining trades with the Phyrexians. Everything we've thrown at him, every idea we've came up with, he's survived. At one point, I once saw him even cutting his way out of a captured Sandworm from Arrakis after it shallowed him whole."

"I get it, your majesty, but he has vital information to our cause." Zim explains to her, hiding his exasperation as he knew she would not take kindly to his real thoughts. Despite her desire for entertainment, he knew the Queen of Daemons has conquered galaxies through her armies and power alone, "I told you this after you had him fight the Tower of Flesh that you had Asmodeus, Y'golonac, and the Fleshshapers make."

Mandy chuckles as she recalled that along with Herman and Moxxi, the latter spoke with a chuckle in her voice, "Ah, I remember that. Dorn was covered in blood and entrails for weeks."

"And again, when I found out about the Staring Contest with the Changeling."

"Technically, the Primarch won that one." Moxxi commented, remembering that event.

"He never blinked." Fuller confirmed with a nostalgic nod.

Mandy decided to humor Zim, knowing that Dorn would be too stubborn to give anything up, "Fine, Zim, you can interrogate him. But don't be surprised when the Praetorian does not indulge your wishes."

"Oh, I think I have a way of making him talk." Zim assured them all as he psionically lifted the Primarch and left with him in tow.

Once the Marquis of Locusts was gone, Mandy leaned to Herman and whispered, "How long would it take for you to prepare that Sarkite event with the Primarch?"

"Neo-Sarkite or Proto-Sarkite?" The ringmaster inquired.

"Surprise me." The Queen of Daemons replied to the Ringmaster while he and Moxxi went off to make preparations for the next event.

XXX

SPLASH!

A coldness ripped Dorn out of unconsciousness when a splash of liquid crashed on his face, causing him to start coughing violently before he immediately noticed that he was blindfolded with the feeling of wind blowing against his skin, tightly bound chains wrapped around him and tied to a metal stake. A raspy voice then pricked his ears, a very familiar voice.

"Good. That water trick works on Primarchs too. I was worried." Zim spoke in his other voice, audibly oozing smugness and annoyance with his arms crossed, "Now, are you going to cooperate this time?"

"Blindfold? Water?" Dorn identified his situation before he paused and, after a few moments, then sighed out in resigned tiredness, "Is it Thursday already? And are you bringing out the violating tentacle Sculpulytes again?"

"No, I have convinced my colleagues to take a moment of respite from our usual routine." Zim replied as he removed the blindfold from Dorn's face, giving the Primarch the displeasure of seeing Zim's face, "Because we're on a little field trip, Dorn."

Dorn didn't give the Irken the satisfaction of showing his emotions, pulling against the chains that had bound him to the stake, but Zim merely scoffed, "Don't think I haven't prepared for this, Praetorian. Those chains are composed of an indestructible metal. As for why I have brought you here..." The Emperor of the Irkens pointed to the horizon, letting Dorn see that they were in fact on the precipice of the castle, in front of a crenelated parapet that was overlooking the section of the Warp that it resided in.

It was then that Dorn took notice of several thousands of visible and massive Warp currents, more akin to the Webway than normal currents. Alongside of them were streams of colored emotion and ideas flowing to a place unknown, lost dreams of mankind floating in the ephemeral oceans that cried out to the dreamers of times long past, and swarms of newly formed daemonic things coiling and writhing discordantly, all hewn and blending with the writhing mass that was Chaos. Dorn's eyes followed the currents to their origin points before a gasp ripped from his larnyx at a new sight.

Dotting whatever could be called the sky, was the Maw of Annihilation. Not one but billions more, spanning across the Warp like stars, connected to each other in the massive currents like veins carrying ethereal blood, things made of nightmares, dreams, hopes, and fears forming in the currents and unforming in but a moment later.

"By the Emperor..." Dorn breathed, barely able to maintain his composure as he stared on at the rifts dotting the Warp, "There are billions of them... Billions and billions... More than I can count..."

"Indeed." Zim commented, staring at the work that had gained him much favor from Tzeentch and the other Gods, "I admit I had only intended it to give us access to more than a thousand universes, but soon after, more Maws showed up out of the blue. I do not know how, but I am not one to question a gift when it has been presented. Good news, though, they had stopped appearing for now."

"You mad fool." Rogal growled at the Marquis of Locusts, "You are dealing with powers beyond your understanding-"

"Beyond my understanding?" Zim interrupted him, looking almost offended at the notation of him not understanding such things, "I am a lifeform superior to any of you flawed Primarchs. I am able to do things that Magnus can only dream of. And I can make you do what I wish."

"And what would you have us do, Xenoform?" Dorn retorted to the Irken Emperor, recollecting himself enough to confront the arrogant Xeno, "Bend to our knees and let us be conquered by your vile creations?"

"Well, it would be a lot safer, in the long run."

Rogal only scoffed in disgust at the Xeno's words, "Safe? It would be naught but the safety of the grave."

"Yes! Exactly!" Zim replied to the Primarch, "By Tzeentch, it is so refreshing for us to finally all be on the same page here!"

"Firstly, this situation has little to do with parchment. Secondly, go to hell, Xeno." Dorn retorted to the Irken.

"Unlikely. You see, I have brought you here for something I know will pique your interest." Zim implied as he pointed to a tower beside them with Dorn's gaze going to said tower, only for his eyes to widen a fraction. There were a group of nearly a thousand Astartes, all still in their armor but the colors and iconography were all to recognizable to the Primarch; the Imperial Fists, the Crimson Fists, and the Black Templars. Around them were several abominations, black, insectoid, and tentacled, iridescent eyes that changed color at but the drop of a hat.

"The depths of this region of the Warp have yet to be fully explored, but as I am a scientist first." Zim explained his plan to the Primarch, pointing to the tower that held the Astartes again, "So, I intend to throw some of your sons into the dark regions before my drones will simply descend to where they landed and watch them dissolve into piles of slime and tentacles... unless, you give me what I want." The smugness in Zim's grin was palpable, knowing that he had the Primarch in a bind.

Dorn's face was the definition of unreadable, before he spoke again, "...Suppose on the 0.000000001% chance that I agree, what could you possibly want from me when there are literal millions of alternate versions of me?"

Zim grinned as he announced what he wanted, "Well, all I want is to know one thing, something that every Primarch has alluded me with; What is the Terminus Decree? If you tell me what the Terminus Decree is, I swear that I will release your sons."

Rogal blinked before his face became impassive once more, "...Very well. If my sacrifice can lead to the safety of my sons, then it would be wrong not to make it freely. After all, even with this information, there is a chance that Father and his allies will thwart you." It was then that Rogal decided to do the one thing that he has never done in his entire life; lie.

"The Terminus Decree is a weapon only to be used in an absolute last resort, when the galaxy has reached a state of such violence and depravity that the only solution to bring it forth order. It is a machine so power that the laws of reality are nothing but inconveniences, entire stars could be formed and unformed from the power that it wields."

"...I can't believe it. Wow. Just... After all this time..." Zim seemed to be convinced by Rogal's fib before he dropped the mask, revealing that he saw through it instantly, "I have finally found the very WORST liar in the entire universe."

Dorn deadpanned at the Irken, "Did you honestly believe I'd give you answers to something that I know nothing of?"

"Then next time come up with something believable." The Marquis of Locusts retorted to the Primarch before he yelled to his creations, "THROW IN THE FIRST GROUP!"

"NO, WAIT!"

Zim raised his hand to stop his creations at the Primarch's shout, turning to him with a scowl, "You're going to have to come up with a better explanation that just a machine. The Emperor of Mankind was capable of creating advances of both biology and technology that had yet to be seen since the Age of Strife. I want to know details: what does it entail? How can we derail it? What even is it?"

"I have told you many times. I do not know. Father had not revealed to—"

"Yes, yes, this is where you discuss the Emperor and his insistence to not reveal his contingency plans in the defense of the Imperium. A lovely tale." Zim interrupted Dorn, still doubting that the Primarch knew nothing of the Terminus Decree, "And in all our time together, every Mind Probe, every Zone of Truth, every divination of any sort corroborates that you are telling the truth."

Zim then circled the stoic Primarch as he continued on with his theory, "But which is more believable: that that one of the sons of the Emperor—Evidently the one charged with the construction of the Imperial Palace—would deliberately ignore the last remaining defense for the Imperium in such a time when it legitimately could be threatened with desolation? Or that you simply have some obscure ability capable of fooling divination magic? The latter requires only a sweep of the Imperial Palace and while the former implies that for 100 centuries, the Emperor has willfully sabotaged your ability to perform your duty out of silly stubbornness."

He then got to Rogal's still unmoving expression and bellowed out, "Do you honestly expect me to believe such a ridiculous story?!"

Suddenly, unnoticed by either, one of Zim's soldiers came through the entrance to the tower they were on as it appeared next to its master and presented a white lampshade in its claws to Zim, where the two noticed it, "Supreme Leader, I have that lampshade you requested."

"Just hang it anywhere." Zim waved it off, much to Dorn's confusion as he raised an eyebrow. When the Irken soldier left, Zim continued, "Where was I? Oh, right. I find it FAR more probable that you are somehow resisting my power. This 'Emperor's Secrecy' story is just that—a cover story designed by your father. The information is there, somewhere. I just need to find a way to push past your conscious mind to access it. And since psychic powers cannot break you, I've been forced to rely on the more traditional torture methods. Which I honestly haven't expected to be too productive, what with your infuriating levels of stoicism."

Despite a touch of anger flowing though him, Rogal was still unmoved before a thought occurred to him, "Wait. You are insisting that I am holding out on you, based solely on what you consider the most likely scenario?"

"Naturally. Logic dictates that the simplest solution is the most probable."

Rogal's expression only changed with him raising an eyebrow as he spoke again, "And you find the prospect that I have an inkling of secret knowledge implanted in my brain by the Emperor of Mankind that has been so deeply suppressed that no psychic abilities can unearth it to be simpler... than the possibility that I simply do not know anything about the Terminus Degree?"

There was a beat of silence between the two, Zim opened his mouth and raised a finger to give an answer but then closed it and lowered his hand when he realized that he couldn't find an answer to refute the Primarch, "...I like the way I phrased it better."

Not wanting to even give the xeno the satisfaction of rolling his eyes, Rogal snarked, "No doubt."

Deciding to force Dorn's hand, Zim then turned to his men and yelled out, "THROW THE IMPERIAL FISTS!" The tentacled creations of Zim raised their arms to grasp the Imperial Fist, who did not give the monsters the satisfaction of their fear while the Crimson Fists and the Black Templars struggled against their restraints, only to stop when they heard Dorn yell out to them, "WAIT!"

"Then tell me what I want to know!" Zim demanded of the Primarch, getting close while his creations ceased their attempts on the Imperial Fists, "What is the Terminus Decree?"

Dorn remained unmoving but his tone was a tad forceful, "I am telling you; I do not know the information you seek! I cannot give you what I truly do not have!"

"Damn you!" Zim raged at Dorn for his stubbornness, motioning to the Astartes behind him, "You're a Primarch! You can't just let me do this! These are your sons!"

"I am not 'letting' you do anything. I cannot give you what I do not possess!" Dorn retorted to the vile Irken, not budging in the slightest as his face became more of a glare while still blank, "If you must throw my sons to their undoing, then do so and be swift. The act is on your hands, not mine. Were I able to break these chains, I would kill you now and save my sons, but there is no possibility my words can save them. I will know that the Emperor will look after them and their brothers and I will carry on against you and your vile kind in their name."

"How?!" Zim growled out, infuriated and frustrated beyond words at Dorn's stubbornness, "How can you condemn hundreds of your own sons like that?! Don't their lives—their very souls—mean anything to you?!"

"They mean everything. More than you could ever know." Rogal replied, steeling himself for the death of his sons yet not changing his expression, "But I must endure their senseless loss, nonetheless. For that is the task that the Emperor have given me and countless others—to endure."

Zim was stricken with rage before he calmed himself enough to speak again, "Humans... I've come to expect your lack of respect for the lives of other species, but I am still continually amazed at how little you value those of your own. You're nothing but savages, amoral savages."

Dorn remained silent, not willing to give another word to this filthy Xeno before one of Zim's soldiers walked up to him and asked, "Supreme Leader, are we going to throw the Sons of Dorn into the dark regions or...?"

"No..." Zim breathed out to calm himself down, putting a hand to his face and slid it down, "Let them go. This was a waste of time. They can go back to the slave pits and tell the others how merciful we were, and how their own Primarch was willing to let them die all for a damned secret. It'll be great PR. And take the Primarch back to his cage, the Queen of Daemons is probably going to want him alive for her entertainment." He concluded apathetically, walking away from the primarch and going to his lab to continue with experiments that he neglected.

The Praetorian of Terra did not even give a grunt as the Formless came out and wrapped their tendrils around Dorn's arms to prevent him from escaping, undoing the chains and leading him away to his cell.

XXX

"...and the entire time, he never broke." One of the Imperial Fists finished the tale to the other imprisoned Astartes in the Castle of Sins' slave pits, all of from various Loyalist Primarchs of various timelines.

"I never seen such stubbornness before!" One of the Crimson Fists commented in pride.

"I couldn't hear what information the vile Irken was after, but by the look on his face, he didn't get it." One of the Black Templars commented in immense pride of his gene-father.

"So, the Primarch made it through the Queen's games?" A Blood Angel inquired in interest, thinking that hope had finally come to them.

"They must be making that man's life a living hell." A Salamander said in concern for the Primarch's well-being.

"By the Emperor, if he can resist them, so can we!" A Space Wolf howled out, getting a roar of agree from the other Astartes around him.

"Spread the word to the next cell." A White Scar said to a Death Guard, who nodded and walked to the edge of the cell and told the tale to a group of loyalist Thousand Sons.

XXX

What Dorn thought was months passed by as he remained chained in the bleak and asymmetrical cell, time being as pliable as clay, yet he remained stoic and unmoving as he was when they dragged him away from the Imperial Palace. Barely sleeping, his vocal cords still and his mind fortified like the palace, his will stronger than adamantium.

Suddenly, the sounds of fighting rang out from beyond the bounds of his cell, causing Dorn to stand up in and grab a large pipe that he managed to wrench out of the walls while trying to dig out of his cell, poses it like a dulled blade that would pierce power armor regardless. To his surprise, it was not the Khornates or retched guards from the Lost and Damned that broke the cell door off its locking mechanisms, but one of his sons.

An Imperial Fist legionnaire without his helmet, having black shaven hair and a mechanical eye, clad in Artificer Armor adorned with unique patterns and imperial iconography, came in with a stony expression before it became an elated one as he then bent a knee.

"My Primarch, we have come to rescue you." He spoke in a tone that was one of both relief and nostalgia.

Dorn remained impassive before speaking, "To whom am I speaking to?"

"I am Faber, First Captain of the Imperial Fists." The First Captain greeted him, not looking behind him as he continued, "And all those behind me are the Imperials Fists, Crimson Fists, and Black Templars that have been captured and taken to this wretched castle."

Rogal raised an eyebrow as he looked beyond the shattered frame of the door, and as Faber said, there were hundreds of Astartes legionnaires all bowing to him in near religious reverence. The First Captain then rose to his feet and led his Primarch to the awaiting sons before him, all standing before him even as the traitors in their cells stare on in disbelief.

"My sons," Rogal started, standing tall and proud before speaking to his sons young and old, "I, Rogal Dorn, still live."

Faber nearly prostrated himself but restrained himself as to not shame himself in front of his Primarch as did the other Imperial Fists, Crimson Fists, and Black Templars, standing in both pride and shame in the presence of their gene-father. The First Captain then stated, "I have missed you, my Primarch."

Rogal narrowed his eyes a faction, "Have we met in the past?"

"You do not recognize me, my Primarch?" Faber asked the Praetorian of Terra, sounding almost hurt at the prospect of his Primarch not remembering him.

"I do not."

Faber chuckled before he looked to his Primarch with his single organic eye, "I remember the first time I came to the Throne Room. I was merely a novitiate to the Vox Casters, I met you, the Emperor, the Custodes, Helbretcht, Uriah, Magnus, and Decius. It has been, so many years since I saw you last." He smiled and revealed on last piece of who he was, "I was the one who broadcasted the voxcasts for the Emperor."

The look of realization was one that the Space Marines would cherish as he whispered, "...Boy?"

A ghost of a smile came to Boy's face as he bent one of his knees, as did every other Imperial Fist and successor chapter to Dorn, "Lord Praetorian... The Imperial Fists and the successors have fought valiantly in your name throughout all these ten thousand years. Ever have we wished to uphold the vows of vengeance that you spoke of ten thousand years ago upon the traitors that turned away from the Emperor's light."

"You need not to raise your fists to me, my sons." Dorn stated, raising his Necrodermis hand to his sons, "Rather, I shall raise my fist to you. For you have burned your fury into the souls of the heretics and traitors for ten thousand years. For ten thousand years, you have brought the Arch-Enemy to heel, the Xeno hordes to withdraw to the dark corners of the galaxy and strengthening the loyalty of the Imperium. For I swear, nevermore will I leave the Fists of Inwit again."

Faber tried to hide the tears as he spoke, "My hearts are burning with pride, my Primarch. A-Are we truly worthy?"

"Do not die, Faber. You will shame the legion." Grimaldus grumbled through the tears of pride that came through his eyes.

"Oh, shut your mouth, Grimaldus." Faber retorted with a smile.

Dorn allowed his lips to twitch into a smile and for a chuckle to bleed through his lips before he realized something, "Faber, you speak as if the VII Legion still exists from whence you came. How is this possible?"

"I will explain, my Lord." Faber explained to his Primarch, "Due to the opening of the Maw, as well as the return of the Primarchs, Vulkan, Corvus Corax, and Roboute Guilliman, the Emperor decided reform the legions, overturning the edicts written by the Codex Astartes. Problems arose however when the Emperor, Guilliman, and the Captain General discovered that many of the documents to many of the chapters have been lost and/or destroyed, meaning that it would likely take decades of genetic matching to determine which Chapter belonged to which Primarch. Time that the Imperium did not have. So, the Emperor decided, and I quote, 'Fuck it', and eliminated the 1000 Marine limitation, effectively turning each Chapter into a Legion. Each legion now answers to their gene father and if said gene-father is absent, or has not been identified, they will answer to the Lord Regent himself."

The Praetorian of Terra was pleasantly surprised before he immediately decided that this was not the time for questions, "Regardless, all of you are here to fight against the traitors. We must act while the Arch Enemy is still distracted."

Each and every one of the Space Marines nodded before a group of them presented a suit of Power Armor that was about Dorn's size. It was rather haphazard and made from various pieces of Power Armor from the various successors; the right arm was from the Black Templars, the left arm from the Hammers of Dorn, the torso and backpack from the Imperial Fists, the right leg from the Crimson Fists, the left leg from the Sons of Dorn, and the helmet being from the Astral Knights.

At seeing Dorn raise an unimpressed eyebrow, Faber coughed in slight embarrassment, "I am sorry, my Primarch. This was the best we could create in such a short period of time."

"It will suffice for now." Rogal replied as they slowly clad in the haphazard armor as quickly yet meticulously as they could. Most sections were modified with parts from dead Astartes that were either Terminators or Dreadnoughts that they salvaged from to accommodate for Dorn's size, not bothering to repaint them as they lacked the time to. When they done, Rogal took the helm into his now armored hands and then shouted, "Now, we must go my sons! While the Queen of Daemons is still away!"

The Primarch then donned the helmet as he and his sons quickly raced out of the pits before the Queen of Daemons returned to her castle.

---

Crusader Reborn in Shadow

At Gotham, she had believed the world was divided into two categories: the predators and the preys. And she, Cassandra Cain, was definitely a predator.

The day Chaos had decided to burst through the layers of reality that separated them from the material world and rampage across the world, destroying everything and everyone meeting their path, she had understood there was a third category: the monsters.

Those beings did not care how many people they killed. They did not even seem bothered that they were most likely going to die for the devastation they inflicted upon the world. They just wanted the reality to burn.

And Chaos had done it. She didn't know why the things in the Warp had begun their campaign of annihilation by throwing Ayers Rock on Beijing. No one did. They just knew it had been the prelude. It was the first act of a gigantic bloodbath, the announcement of desperate last stands, continent-sized disasters and the end of civilization.

When she had first killed someone, the body language had horrified her, but in seeing so many dead in so many horrific ways, her first kill almost seemed merciful.

Cassandra had known she was going to die. Chaos was far too powerful for another outcome to be possible.

Maybe she had. There had been a lot of pain, a lot of light and colours impossible to describe precisely.

And then she had woken up.

It had taken her a few seconds to understand that if this was the afterlife, she had not been chosen to go to Heaven. Dirty and smelly tunnels were the first places she saw on her arrival. In minutes, large brutes which embodied the gang-members in all its stupidity had tried to kill her – unless it was eat or rape her; these minions had not been blessed with high levels of intelligence. She had been so angry at them their deaths had not been easy ones.

A few hours and she had collected enough information to know she wasn't on Earth anymore. That was the good news. The bad news was that, somehow, she had landed on the Hive World of Necromunda. It was an extremely populated place where billions of men, women and children were living in atrocious conditions. It was a world of darkness and death, because the planet had been so industrialised and exploited every drop of water outside was a poisonous slime and the air could kill every cell in your lungs in one breath.

It was a place where more people than the entire of population of Earth were killed day after day by a Nazi regime calling itself the 'Imperium of Mankind'. At first, the vigilante who had once been known as Orphan had laughed at this ridiculous invention. Honestly, Adolf had been unable to conquer and hold Europe before he killed himself before the Allies could kill him for his crimes. How in Hell these Nazis could rule an entire planet, never mind an Empire?

Unfortunately, it appeared to be the truth. The only saving grace was the fact that these holy and mighty rulers didn't care about the skin colour of those who worked under the steel heel of their boots. Otherwise, they were good little Nazis. Brutality for brutality's sake, the skull and the bones for emblem, the 'Eternal Emperor' had replaced the 'Eternal Fuhrer' and you had to pray for the Imperium was going to last tens of thousands of years. It had her made angry. Many of their hulky brutes in armour had learned the hard way they could do nothing when she pushed them in gaping holes the sizes of skyscrapers.

Yes, this was the harsh reality of this world. Apparently, there were millions of men dying each day having learned these lies for all their life. Not that they survived long. In these gigantic slums where the lights were weak and lit a few hours per day, being a predator or a prey was not a question of lifestyle. It was just a question of survival, and it was measured in weeks. If the lack of food and water, the inter-gang warfare and the punitive raids of the 'Enforcers' didn't kill you, you could live as far as forty years old...maybe.

Cassandra had not wanted to die in this hellhole, and she had left these diseased slums they called 'Underhive' the moment she knew the direction to escape. Without free electricity in the abandoned quarters, her abilities in stealth allowed her to go everywhere, steal in all impunity and grab enough money that when a proposition to leave the planet had presented itself, she had taken it.

Seriously, if there was someone in this Galaxy wanting to retire in the poor blocks of this miserable smog-covered planet, let him throw the first stone at her. Cassandra would not die on Necromunda. She was a survivor, she had been ever since birth, and she was not going to be buried among people who made Professor Pyg look like a model of hygiene, cleverness and success. She was not going to break, even abandoning her and Batman's vow of non-killing to survive like she did during Chaos' invasion. When she had no more throwing knifes, she had been able to replace it with a sort of powerful laser gun. Her torn-apart clothes had been thrown in the compactors and she had gained new and better armour. And since it was obvious the 'Imperium' were taking in skilled humans to expand their ranks, she had the advantage.

Where had everything turned wrong? Well, the idea of the ship recruiting for the settling of the new world had just been a big lie in the end. She should have been far more distrustful once she had seen the columns of tall and eager gang members trying to buy their exit ticket out of Necromunda. But it was not like there were hundreds of ships at her disposition, much to her displeasure. Necromunda had very big spaceports, but unlike the slums and the toxic hellholes it had electricity, heavily armed guards and serious security measures. So, when she had discovered the Emperor's Judgement, a starship called a 'special-carrack', which was leaving for better skies, she had seized the opportunity with both hands.

How could she have known the captain and his whole crew were completely crazy?

The moment she had come aboard, she had not only lost all her money, she had been thrown into a blood-soaked cage and told to fight and kill against girls her own age. That was what the first crewman to come had told her anyway once she and the first girl had been brought their first meal – a meagre piece of meat which was small for a small eater, never mind for two and a goblet of water which had a deranging odour.

"Fight. Kill. Cage," the man had said, with a truly deranging smile and an appearance of a villain from a very bad horror movie. "Kill good. Kill gives food."

Instead of trying to strangle the poor girl, Cassandra grabbed a sharpened piece of bone from one of the previous fighters and then drove it through the spaces between the cages, piercing his skull before stealing the keys off his belt and opening the cage. She had been so angry that the kill had been over before her rage had the time to run.

Unfortunately, doing so must have set off a lot of alarms. She had not heard them, so maybe these persons had installed cameras or something similar to tell them there was something wrong with their prisoners. Before she had the time to free more than a handful of prisoners, a hundred or so guards had stormed the room and no matter how many times she had managed to evade them, it had not been enough. They had weapons able to hit her before she could react fast enough, and they had rapidly figured she could not remain in the shadows eternally.

The beating they had given her afterwards had put her between life and death for... actually she didn't know how many days she was unconscious. What she was aware was that someone must have healed her, because she had very little scars or sign of injuries when she had been able to stand up.

And then the nightmare had truly started. Someone had placed an electrical collar around her neck and different pieces of technology around her legs and arms. If she tried to escape, she received an awful amount of pain for her trouble. She was forced to obey, to participate in the bloody games of the ship masters. No weapon of any kind were authorised and the rules were simple: kill or be killed. These guys were mad and her anger this time had no escape. There had been thousands of gangers in the gigantic hold. Thousands of cages were the scenes of thousands of fights to the death and there was no mercy or treatment or favouritism. In the light or the darkness, they were forced to kill if they wanted to have food, water and one more day to live before death came for them. It was not an assassin's life; it was those of a monster caged by bigger monsters. And there was no way to stop it. Hours, days, months...it was impossible to say how much time they stayed alternating between rest and furious cage battles, bleeding and screaming. In the end, her anger had faded away fight after fight. She originally despised killing, but there was so much blood and murder in these fights that it wasn't leaving her a choice to survive.

Today was different.

Cassandra had woken up in a comfortable bed with white sheets, a weird sensation when nine times out of ten she and the rest of the Necromunda fighters had slept on the filthy and bloodstained ground. There was no cage fight, no violence and no insults. They were examined by doctors and nurses, or at least by medical personnel in white and red clothes. The countless scars and injuries which had slashed her skin were gone like by magic. For the first time in an eternity, Cassandra felt great. Miracle of all miracles, they had the right to take a hot shower and were given clothes to their size, a black uniform devoid of decorations and black boots.

Once they were all ready, one of the doctors placed a new collar around her neck. Obviously, the starship authorities didn't trust her enough not to escape. Orphan might have felt a bit vexed, if she had not had planned for an evasion the moment the first attempt had failed.

But without her abilites, the chances of escaping the armoured figures patrolling every corridor were close to zero. Like the other survivors, she had to wait. Assuming they were all she could see; it had been a massacre with survival chances smaller than most battlefields on Earth. Thousands men and women of all age had paid at Necromunda to leave the planet: there were only twenty-six survivors now and she was the only girl. The twenty-five others were all far taller and bigger than her, and now that their wounds were bad memories, she knew she wouldn't last long if her abilities and skills were unavailable.

A masked figure covered from head to toe in black came in front of them, accompanied by the captain in person. For once, the man wasn't giving his sadistic smiles like when he came to see the cage fights and was acting like a love-sick puppy. But Cassandra saw but his body language and in the green pupils that sat in his eyes, there was a deep fear. For all his talks about killing, this man was just a rat.

"Twenty-sixth survivors," said the stranger in a loud and nasal tone. "It is better than your previous travels assuredly."

"Thank you, Honoured Adept."

The black figure took the sort of portable computer an officer handed him and read some information on it. Despite the fact she could not see his visage, Cassandra could somehow guess this newcomer was pleased.

"Yes, you have done well." He pointed a black finger in her direction and uttered a single word.

"Callidus."

Then the hand moved to the boy left to her. "Eversor," the man said. He repeated it twenty-two times before then saying to the last two, "Vindicare. Veneum." Sometimes, he consulted a long time his device, often it was a short and immediate answer. "Lead them to the transports," the order came once these short and mysterious words had been spoken.

Escorted by fifty-something guards in threatening armours, there was nothing to do but obey. Despite the 'Callidus', 'Vinicare', 'Veneum', and 'Eversor' judgement, they were put in the same big shuttle, their hands and their feet were bound to various metallic contraptions. Surprisingly, the guards didn't stay aboard and once they were all harnessed, they left the transport. The great hatch closed in a complete silence; a sinister sound compared to the racket of the doors aboard the Emperor's Judgement.

There was no window or screen to inform them where they were. For all she knew, they were going back to Necromunda though she somewhat doubted the pigs of this starship had organized this slaughter just to go back at their departure point.

The only thing Orphan could guess was that they were entering the atmosphere of a planet. Despite having only felt it once on Necromunda, the sensation was impossible to forget. After what looked like several hours of hard accelerations and decelerations, their transport stopped moving. The hatch opened, and the weird human-cyborgs the Imperium called 'servitors' came into view. Soundlessly, their bounds were removed, and they walked off the hold.

To her disappointment, there wasn't any clue where they had been landed once they left the shuttle. The location looked like a bland place, with no markings or any other signs proclaiming who owned the place and which planet they had arrived. A few big screens were present, but the only message on them was to 'follow the servitors' in this butchered version of English they called 'Low Gothic'.

The twenty-five and she were not the only ones in this grey-brown terminal. There were many shuttles arriving and departing, disgorging hundreds, no thousands of different types of people. This was not good for her. Yes, she was more than capable of fighting hordes of foes out in the open; between being part her father's training and then a hero she had had plenty of times to build her skill in all forms of combat. But she was one for stealth, not one of those mountains of muscles which debarked by whole sections of the columns. They were also taller than even Batman, which wasn't a joke, but the teenagers and men marching in neat lines alongside her were between either below or above Bane's size. A lot were tending towards the latter, to be truthful.

At one point, the servitor in front of her turned right while the rest of the groups continued ahead. Had there been someone intelligent close, she would have had some questions but trying to talk to a servitor was a waste of time. They passed by a series of doors and lifts, before arriving to a large alley decorated by the usual skulls. There was something different however this time. The human skull was superposed with a sort of four-point cross and a sword. At the end of the avenue was a balcony. There were two large black seats, with no bindings, chains or other objects to show it was for prisoners. After two seconds of hesitation and seeing the servitor to the side was not going to provide instructions, Cassandra sat in the right. Instantly, it was like the seat adapted to her body in order to provide the maximum of comfort.

After savouring the feeling when she was confident, she was not going to be bitten, stabbed or destroyed, she watched the procession under eyes.

The balcony was overhanging a large and dark hall. The emblem of the skull-cross-sword was painted white and six meters-tall on the opposite wall. There were no other signs of decoration, no furniture. There was a rather large balcony to her left, although this one was far lower positioned and there was a sort of console for someone to speak, and two others like the one she was sitting in where the two that had not been labeled Eversor were.

As for the hall itself, it was filling slowly but surely. The dark space between the gloomy walls was extensive, there was enough ground here to play a professional football game, but there were more and more people entering in neat columns. The noise of footsteps and breathing was all that was to be heard. There was no whisper, grumble or low voice. Once more, the female vigilante was disquieted by how few women were in this assembly. For that matter, even the ones she could see looked more like muscular men who had somehow acquired breasts than women. Cassandra counted a column and then multiplied it by the sixty-plus lines fixing in front of the main balcony. The rapid mental calculus gave her somewhere around seven thousand people. It was incredibly frightening if her own experience was any judge. Thousands had died aboard the Emperor's Judgement only for twenty-six to leave it alive. If they had all surmounted the same massacres and cage fights, the numbers of deaths had to be absolutely insane.

A few more minutes and there were no more arrivals. The four doors which had allowed the crowd to enter were closed in a long ceremonial procession. On the main balcony, several black-hooded figures brought a sort of great metallic coffin they placed in a vertical position. Idly, the apprentice of Batman wondered if their hosts had invited Dracula.

As the object opened and gasps echoed in the hall, she wondered if a vampire would not have been a preferable choice.

The thing in the coffin was an inhuman horror. Plunged in a shimmering blue liquid, a skulled face was grinning at them. At first sight it seemed impossible this thing was human. The details of its body showed grotesquely inflated muscles, ones even the super-muscled athletes never managed to achieve.

What was there to describe? The creature was covered in a black cloth hiding nothing of its muscles and mutations. It was covered in weapons which were scary just by merely looking at them. A large claw, many guns, swords, spikes and syringes were visible and given the distance, Cassandra was fairly sure there were more to see...not that she intended to get closer, oh no.

The servitors and the rest of the figures in the balcony connected several cables and devices and suddenly a powerful voice boomed out of nowhere, silencing the whispers and the little conversations which had started.

"Welcome to Holy Terra, assassins," there was eagerness in this monstrous voice and a look directly at the coffin-lie support unit showed her bright red lights had appeared where eyes were supposed to be. "Welcome to the Officio Assassinorum."

There were some screams and accusations uttered but the speaker ignored them all.

"Yes, we exist. Yes, we are not a rumour spread by the High Lords of Terra to keep the Governors and their corrupt families in line. Yes, we are the assassins of His Holy Majesty, charged by Him to hunt down his enemies and erase them from existence. For those that defy the Imperium, only the Emperor can judge your crimes. And only in death can you receive the Emperor's Judgement."

Instantly, the name of the ship which had brought her here made suddenly a lot more sense. On the other side of the transparent barrier, the thing opened its mouth in what could have been a grin if it had not been on such a monstrous corpse-like visage.

"I am NC-UT2997, Master of the Eversor Clade and if you are in my presence today, it is because you have successfully passed the preliminaries to become in time true Imperial Assassins. I would gladly leave this vat to congratulate you...but it would be the last thing you would see in your life."

Hundreds of men shivered at this ruthless and inhuman voice. Inside, Cassandra knew fear too. This was not a predator; it was just a monster.

"An Eversor Assassin is the ultimate force of the Imperium!" The voice half-shouted and the bloodlust could not be missed in these words. "We are not the impeccable marksmen of the Vindicare, the anti-psyker terrors of the Culexus or the disguise mistresses of the Callidus! An Eversor Assassin will not trick his enemies into destroying themselves, poison water tanks or convince the target to commit suicide!"

The expression on the monster skulled face grew more deranging per the second.

"No, aspirants. An Eversor is a killing machine, and our only goal is to kill everyone. Mutant, xenos, heretic, spies and traitors; if they are between an Eversor and his target, they must die, and their agony screams will be heard by the God-Emperor Himself!"

There were many in the public who applauded at this announcement. Then again, there were as many who stayed silent and continued to fix emotionlessly the being floating in the blue solution. By God, if this thing was a human, what had they done to him? The survivors in the hall may be murderers and survivors, they were all big and threatening, but none of them looked like abominable freaks...

"But you are too numerous." The clapping and the smiles died instantly. "Eversor masters and trainers are far from unlimited, and the Clade has no intention to use sub-par material for its next generation of Assassins. We need fifty candidates." The horrible head moved slightly, and the voice became a low rumble, but everyone heard it, nonetheless. "The worthy will win their place; the others will die."

For an instant or two none of the Eversor 'volunteer aspirants' moved. Then one mountain of muscles in the second column from the right strangled the boy in front of him and everything after that was chaos. Men and women fought each other with their bare fists, teeth and sometimes small weapons they had managed to hide in their mouths or another place. People bashed the skulls of their enemies against the walls. Death by strangulation was happening a hundred times. Battles of every size and with two to a hundred participants raged. Battle-cries of a thousand planets were screamed before the fighters plunged again in the melee.

And next to her ear, Cassandra heard a chuckle.

"The Eversor selection is really something, isn't it?"

The vigilante teenage girl turned her head fast. She could have sworn seconds ago that the other seat was unoccupied, but no more. There was now a woman in a sort of back skin-tight costume watching her and she instantly recognised the posture of a predator. Her hairs were combed in a long blonde braid arriving to her lips. Like the Eversor in his coffin, there were red lenses over her eyes or something fulfilling the same function. The Assassin had quantities of weapons on her like a large gun on her back, a spiked gauntlet coursing with green energy and several explosives tightened to her belt. Between her breasts, there was a variation of the first emblem, a skull divided between black and white on a four-pointed cross.

This woman was mortally dangerous, of that there was no doubt.

"This is why they aren't recruiting many girls." Cassandra didn't make it a question and the absence of answer proved she had guessed right.

"The skills the Officio expects from an Eversor are not hard to find on any world of the Imperium," It was only due to Cassandra's skill that she picked up the hint of mockery in the woman's voice. "Their selection methods are taking this into account."

For several minutes, they watched the massacre unfolding. Hundreds had already fallen, but the butchery was continuing, nonetheless. There was nothing subtle or predatory in the young men still crawling or running to kill more of their challengers. They were covered in gore and existed solely to kill...in their behaviour they were already barbaric Assassins for their temple. Cassandra knew she should feel anger or hate at this treatment, but instead she just felt...numb. Killing and the shedding of blood was not making her heart pump harder now.

She heard a series of clicks and suddenly the electrical collar which had been a silent menace around her neck fell to the ground. Obviously, Cassandra's attention directly returned to the female Assassin.

"You have potential, Cassandra Cain." The tone employed by the woman was giving her the impression of a big feline...minus the purring. The black substance covering the skin touched her hand...it was somewhat cold and soft, but underneath she could feel the steel grip. "The captain of the Emperor's Judgement was so impressed by your skills he ordered his Astropath to contact us directly..."

The former hero chose to stay mouth closed. This woman was giving her the same vibes General Zod did before Superman banished him back to the Phantom Zone along with his cohorts. It was the feeling your interlocutor could end you like a bug...it was not a pleasurable sensation.

In the distance, the ruckus caused by the battle was getting louder.

"I am Xanaria Lythis, Clade-Primaris of the Callidus Temple. I'm searching for an apprentice. Interested?"

XXX

Training to become an elite assassin of the Officio Assassinorum was an unimaginable succession of suffering and hellish training.

There were many militaries and PMC organizations on Earth which were famous for threatening their soldiers with exercises with real ammunition, shooting those who failed a session or leaving you naked in a freezing environment. Her own father did that in his version of "Two for Flinching."

The Officio Assassinorum of the Imperium of Mankind began at this level of insanity and increased the pressure from there. On her first day, Cassandra had completed an obstacle course where she could very well have lost her life, her skill or not. There had been flamethrowers and plasma wire every five metres, spikes and barbed wire had been covering the ground in generous quantities and after five minutes, the sadist operators began to pour an airborne toxin.

This had been the morning wake-up, so to speak. Afterwards, she had been told to climb a skyscraper covered in a sort of glass material. No, she hadn't been granted any rope or the security essentials professional mountaineers took for granted. The authorized 'help' had been two daggers and that was it. Her lungs had been in fire when it was over, and the less said about her muscles, the better.

In the afternoon, she had taken her first drive lessons aboard a sort of flying shuttle-jet. The instructions had been limited to 'you're on your own'...and then she had been forced to do three laps in a labyrinth, pursued by missiles and fired upon by laser turrets. The driving lesson had ended with a monumental crash she had only survived by breaking the windshield and climbing on top of it and jumping off...and then her new teacher had placed her in a sort of torture cage that she couldn't escape from, before teaching her the language of High Gothic.

The next days had come with more insane activities, trials and challenges. However, the 'day' part was a misnomer, really. Clade-Primaris Xanaria Lythis was not hesitating to unleash the hellish 'morning alarm' in the middle of the night and too often Cassandra had collapsed in exhaustion after over seventeen or eighteen hours of non-stop strenuous obstacle courses and lessons. Her father had done the same thing when she was young, but this was ludicrous.

By the tenth 'day', she had begun to lose count of the day-night cycle and the number of tests she had performed. Survival was all what mattered, and the different environments taxed her muscles to the limit. Inside the Assassin temples, every type of landscape could be recreated, and this offered a crazy number of possibilities to her murderous mentor. Carry a bag full of metal on your back and run in a swampy environment? Check. Transport half your weight in water across a desert? Check. Find your way in a maze similar to a warship corridor before hundreds of bombs went off? Check.

Worse, every trial, every order and every lesson had only two outcomes: failure – death – or success – which led to new trials and tests. It was not a game, and the dangers weren't simulated in the slightest. Cassandra was the only apprentice Xanaria Lythis taught, but there were other Callidus instructors in the vast complex they called a Temple. And while her 'professor' generally began their sessions with no one else in sight, there were from time-to-time opportunities to see girls and young women try the same sessions she had just completed.

Most of the time, they died and while Cassandra didn't know them, their deaths were bloody enough to empty her stomach in the next seconds, with the terrible feeling it might have been her down there being impaled on blades or roasted in the burning pits.

At least, she had vomited or cried the first times. But session after session, it had no longer been the case.

Cassandra wasn't sure when she had first realized her mentor-master was changing her. Worse, the feeling she was changed had not horrified her at all. But it was like...there was something missing. In the sessions after this point she had not thought much of it, but it was when Xanaria had whispered to her she was a blade destined to eliminate the enemies of the God-Emperor that Orphan had understood how deeply the changes had affected her.

Cassandra had heard the words and she had felt good.

It shouldn't have been like that. She was a vigilante, one that fought along Batman's side, something redoubtable yes, but not something one wielded. She was her own mistress, she was a predator...and yet the words felt good, the prospect of facing great and dangerous enemies. Somehow, the shocks from the collars wasn't bothering her anymore. She had always been in excellent health, but this new hell-training had given a body of pure muscle and her strength, her speed and the rest of her capacities were largely at the Olympic-level now.

They were changing her, and she hadn't found a single thing she could do against it. Since her sessions left too little time for propaganda and the like, she supposed they forced her to swallow their doctrine when she was unconscious – certain canticles she had recited after her first climbing and hot pursuits of the day had come out of nowhere. But it was so invasive, so good...and each time she said the words, it felt so right. For those that defy the Imperium, only the Emperor can judge your crimes. Only in death can you receive the Emperor's judgement.

When she had said 'yes' to the fatidic question, she had thought about escaping at the first opportunity. But there was no exit which was not guarded by things able to vaporize you in a millisecond. Courtesy of her prowess and tendency to hide in the shadows, the defenses now included motion tracking cameras and big flashy lights. There would be no shadows to escape into.

The alarm screamed and she jumped out of her small resting place before a second thrill had the time to sound. Shower, clothes and a green paste serving as breakfast were done in more than a minute and the moment she closed the door of the space serving as her quarters, Xanaria was waiting for her. Immediately, Cassandra bent the knee, not wishing to endure another obstacle course for her lack of respect.

"One minute and twenty-nine seconds. Exceptional. Who are we, Apprentice?"

"We are the killing tool of the Imperium, Master. We live to honor the Callidus Temple and die to serve the Emperor."

"What is to be Callidus?"

"To assume the shape of the accursed and deliver death from the purity within you – that is to be Callidus, Master."

"Good, very good, rise Apprentice, and follow me."

The pace the Clade-Primaris imposed today was rather slow – though Cassandra was sure before she came here, she should have sprinted to not be distanced.

Like most days, the visage of Xanaria had changed: her eyes were now a deep black and her hairs were long and black. She still had the skin-tight black uniform of the Assassinorum on her, however.

The room they entered after ten minutes was not one she had come before – at least not that she remembered. Unlike most of the temple, the walls were painted white and the equipment dispersed everywhere screamed medical facility. She wasn't able to say how half of it functioned, but between the vials, the tubes of bright green liquid and the prosthesis, the role of this room was obvious.

"It seems we are quite a bit early," without warning the traits of Lythis shifted back to one of the appearances she took to train her: blonde hairs in a braid, light blue eyes – the red lenses and the head-part of the uniform were not worn today – and she was quite a bit taller. "It will give us some time to discuss the hierarchy of the Temple. First, congratulations you aren't any longer an Apprentice-neophyte."

"Thank you, Master," Cassandra replied but inside she felt a bit of displeasure. Everything she had done until now was the training of a neophyte. It was not a boost to her morale.

"Apprentice-neophytes are also called Apprentices of the Tenth Level, formally. As the name implies, there are ten levels in your Apprenticeship, with the tenth being the lowest and the first the highest. Once you are accepted as Apprentice of the First Level, your Master – me, in your case – can nominate you to the Grand Master at any moment to undertake the final trial: an official assassination mandated by the High Lords of Terra.

You are still far from this point, but you have climbed the first steps and you are now an Apprentice of the Ninth. And it leads us to a new trial today, one where genetics prime over skill and fortitude."

That was not reassuring in the slightest. How did one manipulate genetics in their favour?

Like a queen of blades, Xanaria Lythis went to one of the containers and after taping a complicated code, drew a vial of black liquid and went back to show her the object.

"In this vial, there is a powerful drug the First Siress Callidus invented several thousand years ago. We call it Polymorphine. It is this drug which allows every Callidus Assassin to transform into a million different appearances and infiltrate the enemy ranks under a friendly appearance."

The ability was not that much a surprise after everything she had observed in the Temple...so this drug gave the Imperial Assassins powerful shapeshifting abilities.

"What is the cost?"

"The cost, my Apprentice, is the simple truth that the majority of humanity doesn't react well to this drug. And Callidus Assassins are Callidus Assassins because we have the Polymorphine. It is the heart of all our tactics, doctrine and assassination abilities. Whether you are charged to kill a Traitor Governor or a Space Marine, use of Polymorphine is paramount."

Okay, now she felt anxiety.

"Men are by their hormonal balance and their lack of flexibility unable to cope with more than five transformations in their entire existence, which is why we are recruiting only girls. But if the failure rate of the men in the first generations was nearly one hundred percent, this doesn't mean there can't be complications."

"Complications...Master?"

"Yes, complications. Approximately ten percent of the Tenth Level candidates develop lethal allergies to the Polymorphine after a dose is injected in their veins the first time. Another thirty percent have their bodies rejecting the drug between the second and the tenth dose. Ten percent more have their body break down before the end of the first year. It is why the procedures of the Callidus Temple are only second to the Culexus Temple. We often do not hesitate to make extensive manipulations in the genotype of entire planets to have the thousands of young girls we need. You are an exception in this regard, for you are quite a bit older than most recruits and do not come from one of our main recruitment sectors."

This was crazy. She had no idea how many apprentices were killed in the trials she had survived, but it had to be a lot. She had no idea of the real numbers, but they had to be high, sixty seventy percent easily. And now the Clade-Primaris was telling fifty percent of the best candidates were failing...because their very body failed them? This was more insane than the first trials added to each other...

"Traditionally, the first dose of Polymorphine is injected at the start of the Ninth Level..."

A door opened and two massive servants equipped in heavy black armours dragged a young pale white-haired woman by the arms. Judging by the countless places where her skin had turned blue and the dozens of wounds, it was almost a miracle she was breathing.

"I have decided this will be your first test for the Ninth Level," Xanaria Lythis declared. "While some experienced assassins think they can keep their birth appearance for Temple affairs, my experience is totally against this sort of emotional weakness. We are Imperial Assassins, and we use everything in our arsenal to eliminate our targets."

The fingers which touched her lips, and her cheeks were lukewarm, but the words conveyed with the touch were icing her to her very soul.

"You will abandon your first mortal shell. Together, we will forge your new one...when you will leave this room, you will have given everything to the Officio Assassinorum. Your looks, your body...and your name."

The wounded girl – certain an apprentice given her muscles and her lack of regular Callidus uniform – regained consciousness and tried to escape the bounds of the armoured guards, but in pure loss. Bound and gagged, the white-haired girl was placed on a sort of operation table, unable to escape her fate.

"Cassandra, remove your clothes."

She obeyed before a thought of protestation came. The sort of black sportswear-uniform was abandoned on the cold floor as were her boots.

"Is the drug going to hurt?"

"Atrociously," Xanaria replied. "Reshaping the human body is hardly something painless, and one never forgets the first time. Now concentrate. I want you to take the appearance of this failure. Assimilate all traits, study every detail of your enemy...and change!"

The bite of the vial-syringe entering contact with her blood brought her a gasp in the first couple of heartbeats.

This was nothing however compared to the ocean of agony which engulfed her five heartbeats later. This was like she had just been poured poison in her lungs, fire in her legs and each bone, muscle and organ in her body was hammered by a mad scientist.

The image of the white-haired girl's body was in her head, but as bones and muscles shifted Cassandra screamed in agony. She saw darkness, maybe she was hallucinating? There were tendrils of gold, a massive vast place with colors that she couldn't describe, a skeleton on a throne, her veins coursing with energy and a place so vast...

[ADDITION]

[CHANGE]

[COMPLETION]

There was a last spike of raw, unbelievable agony and then it stopped.

"Seven seconds, exceptional," and for the first time in her training, Cassandra heard the voice of Xanaria Lythis carry hints of respect in it. "There are several apprentices of the First Level slower than you, my apprentice."

Cassandra stood slowly, watching the changes the Polymorphine had given her body. Her Caucasian skin had disappeared like it had never existed, replaced by a snow white similar to the one exhibited by the Clade-Primaris. Her hairs were now a beautiful shade of white, and when she looked in one of the mirrors present in the room, her eyes were a nearly transparent blue. Her breasts were a bit bigger, and she was taller now, her muscles a bit more developed. She felt stronger, more in control.

"You have a last task to complete the change."

A dagger was thrown in the air, and she caught it without looking. What was her teacher implying? Then her eyes turned to the bound woman she had just turned into the perfect copy. Cassandra hesitated.

"Who are we, apprentice?"

"We are the killing tools of the Imperium," and her blade cut the throat of the failed apprentice. Blood flowed on the heavily beaten skin and the breaths of her victim grew erratic. The light in the pale blue eyes dimmed before vanishing.

A new appearance sealed in blood. She knew there was no return from this point. They had broken everything in her and now the only question was how long they would spend tempering the blade before they declared her ready. Cassandra Cain was dead, there was only a blade for the Imperium to wield.

A roll was placed in her hands. On it were thousands of names, some amusing, some awful and many which weren't even for women. In eight heartbeats, she made her choice.

"This one."

"An original choice," Xanaria Lythis judged, "But one no one has taken until now. I give you half an hour to adapt to your new body before starting the next phase of your training. Your new clothes are here..."

This was not a Callidus skin-tight uniform, but was beginning to look like one, with the only non-black shade being a few green inscriptions and a brilliant 'five'. The cloth espoused her new unfamiliar body and she felt colder than ever.

"You are CA-608MQ17XL-9, Kassas Umbra, Apprentice of the Fifth Level, Officio Assassinorum. The real training begins now."

XXX

It had been ten years since she had forsaken her name and taken a new one made by the Assassinorum. In time, her memories of Bruce, Dick, and the others faded away and replaced by the teachings of the Imperium, where she had one admired the metahuman and alien superheroes on Earth, now she views them with nothing but loathing.

As she walked through the sterile and sublime golden halls of the Imperial Palace, escorted by the Custodes, Kassas couldn't help but to reminisce on all of the assassinations she had been assigned to.

The first was a traitor Planetary Governor from the planet of Daemanis III, who had planned to secede the planet from Imperial Rule. It was an easy one, as she simply killed and assumed the identity of a guard, and then his personal chef, then one of his advisors until she then impersonated his wife. When he finally figured it out, she was still in the form of his wife, causing him to hesitate when he attempted to shoot her. The last mistake he ever made as she struck him in the thigh one of her Poison Blades.

Something that happened unexpectedly when she was out of disguise; when one of the servitor guards nearly caught her in a hallway that had no exits that were close enough for her to get to, her body suddenly became nothing but shadow, disappearing into the darkness as the mechanical guard came into the hall to find nothing. She was bewildered, but it was as if the shadows themselves were at her beck and call. Taking this as a blessing from the Emperor, she used it only when she couldn't rely on the teachings of the Callidus, which was an occurrence that had not happened since.

The next was a charismatic leader on the Agri-World of Sarandas, who had a massive military force with plans to rebel against the Imperial government on the planet. Kassas took the form of a starving and frail old man, taken in by the unsuspecting rebels who were taking in refugees from the Underhives. She took in their food and water, faking gratitude as she thanked them, going to the speech that the leader gave to rally them against the Imperial forces on the world, inspiring both his troops and the refugees while she was unmoved by his charms.

When he was done with his speech, Kassas secretly killed one of his troops and took their appearance before donning the rebel's uniform, slowly making her way to the tent where he was staying in and when she had the chance to enter with no one watching. What she hadn't anticipated, was the leader hiding by the entrance and putting a pistol to her temple, with the hammer cocked back. Playing along, she dropped the rifle that the trooper had and put her hands up in surrender, the leader expressing disappointment that his friend would betray them for an empire that feasted on their people and gave back nothing, to which she responded that the Emperor Protects and that they must sacrifice in his name. When he got close enough while refuting her words, Kassas used her Phase Sword to disembowel him. She then escaped while his army was attacked by Imperial forces, his words not impacting her faith to the Emperor in the slightest.

Of the 17 targets she had killed, most recent one was still fresh in her memory. It was of the Cult of Saneless Vices, a Hanged King cult that was led by the Planetary Governor's wife, her husband not aware of the cult. The most recent was the most simplest as well, as she simply killed one of the wife's secret lovers and killed her with a poisoned knife. Kassas then simply watched as all the cultists devolved into infighting.

When she returned to Terra though, one could not imagine her surprise when one of the Custodes approached her and Xanaria for an audience with the Emperor. She was soon joined by the wardens of the ascended province, iridescently gleaming in luminosity shone like chiliad suns reflecting the soul-enriching facts of the God-Emperor's million golden hues. With them, she followed as they traveled through colossal chambers with roofs invisible to vision unassisted, whose uppermost reaches contain with them their own microclimates, so vast are they and so uncannily constructed.

They strove for the most sacred light of lights, shining at the apogee of the sanctum, burning brightly like a galaxy ablaze. They passed through mountain ranges of impossible height, the skulls of heroes whose names have faded into the sands of time carved from their ancient summits, clouds of incense billowing around features worn smooth by the crushing passages of millennia past. Before their eyes, the apparitions of those whom sold their very lives in holy service sit crying enmasse, choirs of the wailing souls of ten long millennia singing their eternal blissful agonies before shriveling to dust at their approach. Throughout their journey, a slowly converging network of cables and machinery vary in size from spindly threads to massifs in their own right all creep like mechanical vines towards the distant, pulsating light, winding their way through the gilded graveyards of these halls within whose coffins the corpses still scream.

After uncountable time, after walking through lakes of plasma, halls of sleeping golems, valleys of pistons and pumps, pyramids of glimmering auramite, they reached the ultimate door, guarded by the gilded and gold clad forms of the Custodes. It opened in a cacophony of screams and falling dust, revealing the Emperor of Mankind on his Golden Throne.

As they approached the Throne however, it was then that Karas noticed several other assassins approaching the Throne Room, also led by Custodes. One was an Eversor in his stasis tank that was being wheeled in by a Custodes, another was a Culexus who was led by the Sisters of Silence, a Vindicare with his Exitus Rifle folded on his back, a Vanus assassin that was working on analyzing data before she saw where she was, and a Venenum that remained as silent as the others as they all bowed themselves before the Emperor including the Custodes and the Sisters of Silence.

"Assassins of the Imperium..." A deep and cacophonous voice echoed from someplace beyond their mortal senses, "The End Times are coming to the Multiverse. The Arch-Enemy are extending their eldritch limbs to the multiverse, corrupting its people, crushing their hopes and filling them with dark insatiable desires. If we do not act, they will be forever damned. For this task, I will gift you with power as we prepared for the Despoiler's final Black Crusade."

His holy gaze then turned to Kassas, who shrunk into herself in both honor and shame.

"Cassandra Cain, I give you the gift of shadows from my son Corax. Use to smite the damned and their delusions."

Kassas felt something flow into her, seeping into her soul and fusing with it, flowing through her veins replace her blood with blackness for the briefest of moments before she prostrated herself to the Emperor for his gift to her. She did not hear what blessings the other assassins received from the Emperor as his holy gaze was not focused on her now.

Minutes later, his holy voice came back in only a single word. "RISE."

All rose without a word or pause and then Emperor continued on, "Now, go my assassins. Go with the New Crusade to the multiverse and slay the traitors that sided with the Ruinous."

"Where must I go, my lord?" Kassas whispered to him, never expecting him to answer.

"The Earth you once called home."

---

The Emperor's Undesired

During the ten years that the Emperor molded the Powerpuff and the Rowdyruffs into the Acolytes of the Emperor, he assigned them to assist the Custodes in the multitudes of tasks around the Imperial Palace. Either assisting the Shadowkeepers in guarding the Dark Cells, assisting the Tech Priests in cleaning and maintaining the mechanisms of the Golden Throne, collecting the tears from the Emperor and the dust from the Golden Throne for the manufacturing of the Psyk-Out grenades, or working in the factorums near the Palace as so they wouldn't become as self-righteous as many of the Inquisitors that came from the Ordos.

And the one that Belicara was currently one, was one of the more periless; routine examination for the Emperor's Canals. And the one who she was assisting was none other than Whammudes of the Fabulous Custodes.

"Greetings, Belicara." Whammudes greeted Belicara, who bowed in respect only to pause when she saw that the Custode had a Vox-Caster hooked up to his body in a vest-like fashion.

"Um, what are you in possession of a Vox-Caster?" She couldn't help but ask, as seeing a Custodian using a Vox-Caster was a rare sight.

"Oh, this is for a stream at the other Shield Company's requests." He answered, pointing to it as he fiddled with it before he began recording.

"Oh, okay." The Acolyte nodded in understanding, at least it wasn't one of his newest weird fashion treads.

"Greetings, Shield-Companies." Whammudes began his recording, speaking in his usual boastful self, "I was about to perform one of the eleven-hundred eleventileven tasks when I recalled the many- a request I have received from you, insisting on please uncovering some work experience to the greater Custodian masses. Reveal what it is like to be a Caretaker to you, my aspiring kin. So, I thought I would take you on a quick routine pilgrimage through the Extolled Canals of Our Emperor's Undesired. An especially enviable part of my most privileged of duties."

Belicara frowned slightly, their duty to cleanse the canals of its various dangers was more of a sacred task to her than a privilege.

"With me, I have Sister Tace, Sister Non Loqui, and Sister Sana Detestatus. Oblivion Knights of the Sisters of Silence." A respectful tone came as he motioned to the Sisters of Silence, whom stood stoically with their weapons sheathed and their hands on the hilts before Whammudes motioned to Belicara, "And Lady Belicara of the Emperor's Acolytes. Say hello."

The Sisters, knowing that the last sentence was him mocking their oath of silence, slapped Whammudes in the ass, causing him to yelp in surprise before glaring at them, "I jab at your oath, you jab at ass? ...Fair." He grumbled as he rubbed the sore part of his ass.

Belicara snickered with her mouth closed as to not disrespect the nearly nude Custodian but gave a wink to Loqui who winked back.

"The reason, dearest listener, for why I am bringing these Oblivion Knights and one of the Emperor's Acolytes with my finely lubricated personage may or may not become apparent depending on how fortunate we are in the depths but, suffice to say, the Silent Sisterhood are integral to this operation. But enough speaking." He then snapped his fingers and yelled to the Mechanicus that were operating the controls to the entrance to the Sewers, "OPERATORS! UNLATCH THE MANHOLE!"

The tech priests immediately plugged their mechadendrites into the control ports of the manhole. Said manhole was a massive a vault door-like mechanism, equal in size to a Warhound-class Titan, switches and mechanisms turning and unsealing, tubes of fluids flowing through and out of the inner mechanisms as the klaxons blared to signal for all servitors and serfs to clear the area.

"There is only one true entrance to the Canals, and it is this one. Our Master's Monumental Manhole." Whammudes spoke into the Vox Caster as the Operators continued to unlatch the manhole, "It is closed at all times, bolted shut by ancient seals of titan size, liquid auramite locking mechanisms and hexagrammic wards keeping the hole unsullied by those fools who would wish to penetrate its depths. Forever secure from within and without. except during routine examination."

A massive creaking rang through the palace as the manhole opened. A blast of miasma spewed out from the depths of the tunnel, and the odor was so unfathomable, so horrid that the techpriests around them began gagging despite the fact that most of them have rid themselves of their digestion tracks and their mouths had been replaced by speakers. The reason she was not affected by the gas was due to the Custodes constantly exposing her to the miasma until she was unaffected by it.

"Ah, yes. The glorious miasma is enough to have Techpriests rediscover their utterly biological gag reflex." Whammudes commented on before he said to his awaiting group, "Let us plunge. Ready the Gutterhawk!" He called out as the Techpriests finished the modifications and prayers to a black and large flier, causing the jets of the vehicle to come to life with a machine's equivalent of a roar of excitement.

"The canals are quite far into the ground, so we take this, our flier baptized 'the Gutterhawk', one born to carry us to and fro the depth below." Whammudes commented as he entered the flier as did Belicara and the Sisters of Silence, sitting down as it creaked slightly before continuing, "This machine needs no pilot. A pilot would perish in the depths. But fortunately, the Machine Spirit knows its purpose, and always perfectly succeeds in taking its plu-"

Whammudes was cut off when the Gutterhawk suddenly nosedived into the tunnel, causing him to start screaming in distress while the Sisters managed to keep their composure. As they were rocketing down the pipe to the sewer, Belicara let out a yell of excitement, throwing her arms up in childish glee. This was always her favorite part of the job. Soon, the Gutterhawk slowed down and softly landed on the sewer floor.

Belicara let out a sigh as the adrenaline high passed while the Caretaker was unusually calm, "Ah, mm, yes. Indeed, the Gutterhawk is also whatever the Machine Spirit equivalent of an ADRENALINE JUNKIE IS!" He shouted, causing Belicara to burst out laughing, as he wiped the ash off a black rubber speedo that covered his groin area while letting out a sound of frustration, "MY LOINCLOTH IS TURNED TO ASH ONCE MORE, YOU F-! YOU AREN'T A METEORITE, YOU'RE A FLYING FUCKING BOX, START ACTING LIKE IT, PLEASE!"

Whammudes then opened the hatch to reveal the Emperor's Canals as they climbed out of the Gutterhawk, landing on their feet in the black-greenish sludge that covered the floors. As the Custodes went on to say how it was a good thing that none of them were wearing heavy armor, Belicara looked around the Canals in barely hid nervousness; the walls and floor were composed of adamantium bricks held together by a nearly indestructible adhesive polymer, cables and pipes lining various parts of the walls and other passageways that lead to the Golden Throne. Covering everything was a black-greenish sludge that was thicker than blood, composed of psychic runoff and biological residue.

Her attention was brought back to Whammudes who let out a razzling sigh, "Nevertheless, we are here now in the Extolled Canals of the Emperor's Undesired. Welcome, Welcome. We are currently in the Canal Primus, but today we are heading to Canal Secundus for its routine check, as we had cleansed Primus, Teritus Quartus, Quintus, Sextus, and most of the sewer wombs in the last few weeks. Now, Secundus regularly damns my existences with its existence. It's been clogged time and time again, and there's just-"

Whammudes was interrupted when a distant, echoing, inhuman scream came from somewhere far away in the canal, causing the group's attention as they turned to the tunnel where the scream came from.

"...Right." Whammudes steeled himself and tersely commanded the Sisters and Belicara as they walked down the path, "Perimeter scan. What do we believe that was? The Undesired, ripping into each other?" If the others had an answer to what that was, they didn't share it as all of them only remained silent much to Whammudes' dismay, only for Belicara to thankfully break it.

"It could be." Belicara replied, knowing what he was talking about and hoping that it wasn't.

"Please, please, please, I dearly hope that is the case..." Whammudes almost outright prayed as they trekked on through the sewer before he continued with his recording, inhaling deeply to sooth his nerves, "Nevertheless, so the Canals are of course not to be confused with the multitudes of other sewers within and without the Imperial Palace. This one is the Emperor's personal conduit. Now, if you happen to be utterly ignorant you might question this." He then put on a whiny voice that made Belicara chuckle, "'Eh, the Emperor is a stasis bound body! Why would he need a sewer?!'"

The Acolyte couldn't contain her laughter as she let out a loud chuckle that seemed to be infectious as Whammudes let out a giggle before composing himself, "And wondering this would betray such utter ignorance as to the true nature of the Emperor's form in this the of our lord 999.M41 that it cannot be answered with anything but utter condescension and outright dismissal."

As Sister Tace signed to him the true date of the year and him complaining about how they have not had their new millennium extravaganza, Belicara felt something slither around her leg, causing the blonde transhuman to look down. It was a thick worm-like organism with thin vestigial arms, glistening white skin, and an infant's face that mewled at it looked up to her with its black void-like eyes. Unfazed, she quickly stomped it with her armor covered foot, ending the thing's pitiful existence.

It was then that she heard Whammudes argue with Tace, "Well, it's certainly not my fault that the calendar is utterly useless! Honestly, they should just invent a new calendar. Make the pin-ups a core feature rather than a quote-unquote 'vain accessory!'" Whammudes spitefully spit onto the floor as he disgustingly noted, "The only things swollen about the Administratum are the clots in their limbic system, they don't know shit."

"Tell me about it..." Belicara muttered, having to deal with the arrogant milksops in the Administratum.

Suddenly, there was a drippy sound as they reached a tunnel that was flooded by the sewer water that rose up to their waists while for Whammudes, it only reached his knees. Barely visible beneath a massive black mulch, lubricated in slime and bubbling phosphates, acted as an organic dame that let the filth and bile polluted water build up and restrict their movement.

"Aaaaaand here we are, then. Massive clog in the Canal Secundus. As expected." Whammudes observed as they approached the clog through the filthy sewer water that they were trudging in, "Commencing cleanse."

The four nodded in synchronize as the Sisters laid down the large black rectangular cases that they were carrying on their backs, opening them to reveal parts of a massive gun that they quickly began assembling. As they constructed the gun, Whammudes then continued for his recording while also helping with the weapon's construction, "When you come across a clog in the tunnels of a canal, one has to rinse the excess so the discharge can flow down into the promethean steam pit located beneath Canal Primus."

He then stuck his arm into the gauntlet-like attachment where the grip and trigger laid inside, before it then closed around his arm like a glove, attaching it to his limb like an augment, "So, how one does this is by using this." He cocked the hammer of the large gun, making a loud cocking sound, "A gun. All hail Grand-Uncle!" The Custode then presented it in a dramatic fashion to Belicara and the Sisters, who clapped before he took aim at the clog, "Now, here we go."

Whammudes fired Grand-Uncle, the boom deafening and ringing through the canal as the large round cut through the organic dame like a hot serrated knife through flesh, sewer water and runoff flying everywhere as he fired twice more just for good measure. The sewage streams loosen as the dark colored water began flowing down the drainage pipe that led to the furnace.

"There we are. That's it. That's all of it." Whammudes said in satisfaction as he saw the sewage drain down the pipes before he smirked under his helm, "Hey! He-he-hey, Loqui! LOQUI!" The Sister of Silence turned her attention to the Caretaker as he then pointed to his crotch, "Hey, would you care to kiss Grand-Uncle? Heh-HEH!"

Loqui responded by punching him in the groin.

Whammudes yelped in pain before he started shouting, "AH! NOOO, DO NOT PUNCH GRAND-UNCLE, IT IS A VERY NON-MALFUNCTIONING GUN! PLEASE! It was but a hysterical prank what I have pulled!" A moment of silence passed before he stated calmly, "Let us continue forward."

The squad all nodded before they began walking forwards to scout out the rest of Canal Secundus for anything that requires their attention. As they were walking, the Caretaker began speaking into the Vox Caster, "So, you might be curious. What is this effluvium we walk in? More specifically."

Belicara and the Sisters shuddered silently, knowing full well what it is and how it is created. Whammudes continued, regardless of their discomfort.

"Well, I cannot say with full accuracy. But, in broad strokes, it is bewildering ooze that leaks from the Emperor's wide intramurals. Detritus from the many machines that keep our Emperor's vitality. Unspeakable necrotic sludge and grains of psychic residue. All coming together, flowing like water, blood, syrup, muck, creating this gangrenous stew I have to step foot in all too often."

"True beauty, these canals." Belicara deadpanned as she walked next to the Caretaker.

"Indeed." Whammudes deadpanned back as they continued walking in silence. A minute or two passed as they approached an intersection in the canals before vague, crying, mewling voices made their presence known. Voices that were very familiar to the Caretaker and the Acolyte, both of whom let out a breath of relief before the former started chuckling.

"Ahhh... Hahaha! Relief... It seems a clan has settled here. One of these scum must have been responsible for that blaring screech. " Whammudes observed as the voices kept ringing through the tunnels, before going back to his recording, "So, dear listeners; yes. There is indeed life, if you can call it that, drawing breath in the Emperor's Undesired. And indeed, this is just why we call them 'the Undesired.' Years and years of forgotten pilgrims that have somehow ended up in these canals by measn we have not quite yet figure out. Like meal beetles, they appear from nowhere, infesting these canals. Harmless, but just revolting."

Belicara bit back a shudder, these canals and the things they inhabit are the very few things that frighten her. The Undesired, though harmless, filled her with disgust at how far the Holy Human Form can be defiled.

"Their subsistence is an immediate result of their surroundings, as they live off of our Emperor's effluvia, being their one and only source of sustenance down here. As far as we've seen, these creatures are now dependent on the consumption of this sediment. They cannot live without it. And, oh yes, you might be utterly offended by this notion. And so am I! But our last Caretaker, one Little Kitten, allowed these creatures to live in these Canals, deeming them peaceful and 'quite useful', their sludge sucking providing a minor but beneficial edge in this line of work. I however remain unphased by this reasoning."

"Why though?" Belicara asked the Caretaker, seeing Kitten's point in using the Undesired to better their workload.

"Simple." Whammudes decided to humor her, "They gross me out and I wish them culled."

"I... can suddenly see both sides of the argument." The blond Acolyte admitted before she observed the clan in the distance, "But, it seems like they are frightened."

"We'll be working something out in the near future, look forward to that stream." He continued before he continued to that last part, gaining a sarcastic tone, "Astute observation. They are frightened. Perhaps they came to their sense and realised they live in a sewer?"

Belicara rolled her eyes in annoyance, "Regardless, are we going to investigate?"

"Yes. Of course, we shall investigate. We have a lot of ground left to cover anyhow. Let us move." The Caretaker replied as he and the others continued their routine check through the canal. A minute later, Whammudes turned to the Sisters, "So, hey. Since we're live and most listeners haven't... heard from you Silent Sisters in a while. How is your Vigil doing?"

The Sisters only looked annoyed as Sister Sana began violently gesticulating at the Custodian, who merely seemed more amused than anything as he chuckled almost haughty, "Sister Sana Detestatus demands to be taken seriously." That statement causing Sister Detestatus to further give more violent gesticulating as Whammudes replied, "Hey, yeah I agree! Without the Vigil of Penitent Plumbing, the Palace would be overflowing with skeleton sewage. Do you wish to see your newly polished wargear forever mouldered by a tidal wave of psychic wastewater? No? Then cease your derision, emissaries, lest Grand Uncle might come and void its contents in your priggish little armoury!" He finished with the laughter of a dirty old man while the Sisters glared at him.

Belicara let out an annoyed sigh at the arguing between the two before she noticed something floating in the wastewater, causing her to nudge Whammudes in the side, getting his attention as he followed her line of sight. It was a myriad of bodies, skin grey as smoke, tumorous and gelid, void of hair and hunched backed with blackened clawed hands, open suppurating mouths with pink tendrils-like tongues below lidless milk white eyes, their organs hanging from their mouths barely intact with strings of hardened bodily fluid.

"Corpses." Whammudes observed bluntly, "Allow me to slightly rectify my previous statement regarding the Undesired. They are quite useful in one regard! And it is for leaving corpses behind. For this lets us know that something has killed them! Scanning area." The scanners in his helmet activated, scanning the various dead bodies strewn around a small duct in the wall.

"Looks like sixteen dead, organs ejected from their bodies consistent between all of them with no other signs of physical trauma." Whammudes said mostly to himself as Belicara took one body to the walkways as slowly examined it, sighing in relief, "Right. Good. Good, actually. Yes. Fungal Infection. More than likely that ducted the corpses are all conveniently surrounding."

"Oh, good." The Acolyte sighed in relief; this task should be easy enough.

"Now, dear listeners; another lifeform subsisting down here is fungus. And, no, before you ask, not Orks." Whammudes paused before adding, "As far as we know. We always do try to keep any potentially dangerous organisms from growing and proliferating, but this place cultivates new strains of deadly mildew like none other. If but a single spore of this vile rot was to make its way out of these Canals proper, it could spell the end for generations worth of Terra's civilian population, which, well, the Emperor Himself has insisted he'd prefer prevented. So, in order to prevent this, I will have to purge the decay."

The Custodian then removed Grand-Uncle from his arm and handed it to the Sisters of Silence while continuing his recording, "Now, you might think, 'Oh, a flamer would be handy.' But, nope! Flamers are not allowed! Nor is Belicara's las vision. Only as an absolute last resort! Last time one of the Acolyte's used their las vision down here, exactly everything caught fire, a massive blazing sewer inferno boiled the canals for months, and the temperature of the throne room rose slight which is extremely bad!"

As Whammudes went on a tirade about how the temperature of the Throne Room must remain stable, Belicara laughed nervously, snatching the back of her head in embarrassment. She remembered that day; the last time she used her heat vision, the buildup of flammable gases that had been built up in all the canals were set ablaze, engulfing the canals for months before a team of Custodians had to go in and use cryo-grenades to keep the fires from overheating the mechanisms of the Golden Throne. Though Karstodes and Custodisi secretly thanked her for basically giving them extra free time, and it killed the multitudes of threats slithering around the canals.

"Nevertheless, by now I'm just rambling and putting this off." Whammudes sighed as he turned to the others, "All of you, please, seal the bodies and have them thrown into the Pit. I'll rinse the duct out." The Custodian walked up to the small duct with a sigh as he examined it, "This duct is... Yeah, an extremely tight one and usually the fungi wellspring is nestled deep within. So, I will simply have to... crawl in."

He proceeded to do just that, crawling headfirst into the pipe that was only able to fit his head. Suddenly, his collarbones and shoulder blades folded in as his body twisted and compressed in a way that would kill any baseline human before the rest of him disappeared into the duct as it creaked horribly. Belicara and the Sisters were unphased as they had seen Whammudes do this multitudes of times.

Vaguely, Belicara heard him talk into the Vox Caster as he was crawling down the pipe, "Now, as the pencil-pushers of our ranks might have forgotten; the Custodian body is a malleable thing. Thus, by fracturing some bones and severing some fibre, we are able to compress our bodies and travel wherever we must. And now the crawling begins."

His voice ceased as he crawled down the pipe while the Acolyte took the bodies and dumped the bodies into the nearest pipe that lead to the promethium pit so that whatever spores were left in their corpses would be scorched away. With that done, all Belicara and the Sisters could do was wait until Whammudes purged the fungi in the pipes.

Except that it was a few more minutes than it required for him to be finished and he had still not surfaced from the pipe.

The blond Acolyte facepalmed and slid her hand down her face as she groaned, "Oh, by the Emperor, if he's monologuing again, I will-" She was cut off when there was a massive blast of air that echoed throughout the canals, causing her and the Sisters to nearly jump out of their skin. As always, Whammudes used his enhanced lungs to let out a blast of air that blasted away the fungi into spores that he could then eat so that his attuned and toxin immune body could digest them.

"GAH!" The Acolyte yelped as she placed a hand to her chest due to her increased heartbeat from the shock, muttering, "You'd think I'd be used to that!" The Sisters were only lightly affected by the sudden boom that rocked the canals.

A few minutes later, Whammudes crawled and popped out of the pipe, his contorted form forcefully restoring itself as his fractured bones refused, the severed fibres reconnected, and then flattened organs restored themselves. However, the Custodian seemed quite tipsy, judging by the slurred speech and that he seemed rather unbalanced.

"Gagh. Yes. Hello. The fung-" Whammudes took a moment to let out a breath as he tried to collect himself and failing, "Yes hello the fungus has been ingested. Another grand victory for the Imperpeum and thousand thousand normals lives saved." Whammudes drunkenly spouted off, as the Sisters and Belicara clap causing him to drunkenly chuckle, "Thang you. Thang you. My success shall be remembered in the halls of glory for fiiive minutes." The Caretaker then managed to collect himself enough that he could order them, "Let us move onwards, there might be more sporoids up ahead."

They all nodded and moved out while Whammudes strutted highly but was still unbalanced so Belicara had to support him with walking until the spores cleared his system. As they were walking, the Caretaker then began talking again, "Belicara?"

"Yes?"

"Allow me to... Allow me to speak about the previous Caretager." Whammudes drunkenly began voicing his thoughts, "His name, eh, Kittles... He was quite the boy. I have to say, I had no respect for him for the longest time and I know," He cut her off before she could interrupt, "Controversial statement. He is the Captiain-General, I should habe respect for the Captian-General. I did not. We did not. In my Shield-Company. As you might remeber, we were quite infamous for not voting for him at all. None of us."

"Yeah, I've been wondering actually; Why don't you respect Kitten?" Belicara asked, recalling the Captain General and how he was nothing but nice and supporting to the Acolytes, teaching them all about the inner workings of the Imperium and the Custodes, along with the Emperor.

"Instead, we elected to havbe our giant, giant axe man Trajann Valoris elected but..." He trailed off before sighing, "I dunno... he was... considered too 'Warmaster-y' or something, I don't know. I didn't really get it." He suddenly then spoke into the Vox Caster, "Hey, if you're listening Trajann, I still think you're cool. You're still my boy, but anyway. "

"You do know Trajann was elected Captain General in other timelines, right?"

"I know, but regardless." Whammudes brushed off before he continued, "Kitten has been Captain-General for years now but, before he was elected, he was already the Caretaker. I never really thought it made sense that he would have both of those titles, it was... just totally unfair. Unnecessary. But..." The Caretaker trailed off before admitting without a hint of boasting or arrogance, "You know what? You know what? I think I understand better now."

"What?" Belicara could only reply with.

"I have been on Caretaker duty for a while now, and it has taxed me to my core. It is possibly the most demanding job one can have as a Custodian." Whammudes admitted without an ounce of flaunting, "Yet, Kitten has done it for thousands of years. Thousands. And throughout the years, he expanded his workload not only to take care of the Emperor's person, but... but to take care of the forces that protect the Emperor. He deemed it equally as important, claiming we were like... the Emperor's 'immune system', and that we must be tended to much the same as the rest of the Emperor's bodywork." He chuckled in exasperation, "The- The gargantuan workloads that involve both taking care of the Emperor and the Custodes... Yes. I can comprehend it now. And with comprehension, comes respect."

He ignored her surprised expression as well as the Sisters' before he continued, "And yeah, Trajann, as I said, you're still great and you could probably beat the absolute furballs out of Kitten with your humongus fists but, honestly so could probably most of us. But... but... I don't think any of us could tailor-bake nutritious yet delicious pizza pies for ten thousand Custodians every single morning. He's got all of us beat there."

The Acolyte chuckled, "Well, you know Kitten, he cares about you guys like you're all his kids. Kitten considers himself a dad and wishes you all the best. And... that's why both the Acolytes and the other Custodians like him."

"I know." Whammudes looked down while rubbing his stomach, "And fuuuuuck am I craving one of those pies right about now, I am... incredibly thankful he left a cryo-vault full of them ready and available to heat up before he left for Mars! Oh, piiizaaa." He nearly whined at the end.

Belicara smiles at the Custodian's goofiness, "Relax, when we're done, I'll get one out of the cryo-vault and heat it up for ya. Might as well get some for the Sisters too, uh?" The Sisters smiled under their helms in gratitude.

Suddenly, a voice from deep in the canals echoed through the tunnel they were walking in. It was deep and distorted like talking through water, waves of unease and pain rippling through them had they not been with the Sisters.

"Oh... no..." Belicara breathed in dread, knowing what made that sound and knowing the danger it posed.

"The Undesired have never head this deep in." Whammudes said with a sliver of fear seeping into his tone, his fear immediately neutralizing the spores' effects before he ordered the Acolyte and the Sisters in an almost panicked tone, "Advance. Double time!"

The others wasted no time as they started jogging through the sludge. The vague voice grew louder as they stopped and looked around for it, Belicara knowing where dur to her advanced hearing, pointing to it coming from a tunnel on the right. The group quickly approached, the voice now clammy and clicking as something approaches them with nauseating sounds, slithering towards them and emerging from the sludge.

Before them was a massive thing that came from the nightmares of the psychics consumed by the Golden Throne; a polymerized shapeless thing that resembled something both solid and liquescent, shifting between forms at random intervals, often changing in but the blink of an eye. Of genuine bone and blood, there was none, only azure bulbous viscous flesh and red vibrant eyes consistent between form. First, taking the shape of a mass of congealed screaming people that tried to reach out before changing to a lumpish quadruped creature with a maw of mishappened teeth.

Waves of psychic energy radiated off and from its hideous frame as it slowly drew near, its form thinning to a near skeletal shape covered in thousands of needles and mouths, only to recoil at the presence of the Sisters, taking a serpentine shape before slithering away with a clammy clicking moan, disappearing into the canals.

Seeing it slither out of her sight, Belicara let out a breath she didn't know she was holding, slowly releasing her grip on her Bolter that was still in its holster.

"It escaped. It could not approach as it wished. The Sisters obstructed it." Whammudes told the listeners, "That thing is primarily why these Sisters and one of the Acolytes are here with me. The vilest products of these canals. No doubt the most perilous. Lifeforms born of our Emperor's residuals, molded from the Warp-Attuned waste and the remains of the souls of the thousands of Psykers fed daily to the Golden Throne. Creatures of absolute obscenity. Bastards of the Sludge."

"We must find it." Belicara orders, the tone her voice now sounding like one from a Custodian as she vigilantly looked for the monstrosity, "And have it terminated."

"Indeed." Whammudes replied sternly, motioning the rest forward, "Move."

The team quickly began moving towards the sound of the Bastard crawling through the sludge, with the psychic residue it left behind giving them a trail of azure sludge that they could use to track it. Turning a corner to another tunnel, the group saw an azure viscous tail slowly slither into a duct on the wall.

"It's in that duct. Approaching. Step carefully." Whammudes said as they approached the duct. The Caretaker examined it and let out a heavy sigh, "Even tighter than the last one."

"I'll go in." Belicara offered, causing the Custodian and the Sisters to look at her in surprise, "I can fit in there. I'll grab the Bastard and drag it out for you and the Sisters can kill it before it can further develop."

"...Very well." Whammudes agreed after a moment of hesitation, a rare sight for the Custodians, "Just be cautious."

The acolyte nodded and slowly grasped the sides of the duct, pulling herself up and entering the pipe headfirst. The inner lining of duct was covered in the slime that composed the Bastard, meaning that it definitely went down here. Thankfully the slime made it easier for her to move around in, but it was a little hard as her armor was making it hard to maneuver through the pipe. Maybe Whammudes had a point about doing this without armor.

"Belicara, do you see it?!" The Caretaker called down the pipe after she had crawled quite a few meters in.

"Not yet!" She called back, even with her enhanced vision pearing through the pipeline; it was hard to locate the Bastard.

Suddenly, there was a sound that echoed through the pipe, causing her to stop crawling. "What the-?" The Acolyte didn't have a chance to react as the Bastard shot from deep within the pipe and grabbed her, dragging her down the pipe as she yelped in shock. Belicara quickly got over her shock and slugged the Bastard in whatever it had that resembled a face, causing it to screech and unleash its psychic powers onto her, flooding the pipe with pale baleful flames that would have ignited the gases in the canals if they did not stop 3 feet from the pipe's entrance, thanks to the Sisters of Silence. The light causing Whammudes and the Sisters to shield their eyes from the intensity.

"TAKE ME TO FATHER TAKE ME TO FATHER TAKE ME TO FATHER TAKE ME TO FATHER TAKE ME TO FATHER TAKE ME TO FATHER TAKE ME TO FATHER TAKE ME TO FATHER TAKE ME TO FATHER" It gibbered as multiple screaming faces formed in front of her, howling psychic powers blazing like a maelstrom of terror and strife. The two struggled and fought around the pipe, trading blows against one another as its psychic powers superheated her armor and nearly burned away the flesh from her bones with the intensity, only for her flesh to heal as quickly as it was being burned away.

"AWAY WITH YOU!" Belicara roared as she struck the thing so hard that the armor around her fist shattered, sending the Bastard further into the pipes as it squealed and writhed away into the deeper parts of the pipes. She let out a breath of relief as her burned flesh healed and her armor cooled enough for her to move.

"Belicara! Are you injured?" Whammudes called out from the pipe entrance, concerned as to what just happened in the pipes.

"I'm fine. The Bastard caught me off guard!" Belicara yelled, looking to the pipes. The Bastard was slithering away at a quickened pace, causing her to gain a determined expression.

"I'm going after it! Be ready to kill it when I get it out!" The Acolyte yelled to the others, moving out only for her armor to not move along with her. She attempted to move again, but it still would not move with her. It was then that she noticed the joints of her armor had been smelted together, likely from the psychic blasts that came from the Bastard during their scuffle. Belicara grit her teeth, trying to force the damaged and smelted parts of her armor to move, only for them to squeal and crease at her movements.

Realizing it was a waste of time and the Bastard was escaping, Belicara forced her body to move until the smelted armor began to crack, causing her to force her body against it harder until it broke, before she then ripped herself out of her damaged armor, leaving her unclothed except for a loin cloth and a cloth bra. If she felt any embarrassment from her near nudity, the blond Acolyte shoved it down to the deepest parts of her subconscious as she had to find the Bastard before it escapes into any of the other canals. Kicking her useless armor out of the pipe for Whammudes to catch, she crawled down the sludge covered passage after the sludge form.

Thankfully, the filth lining the pipes lubricated her body and she was not as large as Whammudes so she had an easy time crawling through the pipes. Her X-Ray vision showed her that the Bastard was crawling to an impasse at the end of the pipe, so she crawled as quickly as she could to reach it before it escaped. As she crawled though, she came to the same impasse as the Bastard did, only to find no trail of slime going into any of the three pipes connecting to the one she was in.

"Okay, where did you go?" She whispered, using her X-Ray vision to scan the intersection for the Bastard. It was then that she saw the Bastard, hiding at the dead end from the left pipe. "Staying put, are you? Okay, I can use this to my advantage."

The Acolyte twisted her body so that she went feet first into the pipe to the right and crawled in, banging her fist lightly to make a sound to lure out the Bastard from its hiding spot. The sound seemed to get the Bastard's attention as it's clammy and clicking voice grew louder and its azure body slithered out of the pipe it was hiding in, lightly looking curious as to what the cause of the noise.

"THERE YOU ARE!" Belicara yelled, jumping out from her hiding spot and grabbing it by its head and retched it from out of its hole. It squealed before it sunk its teeth into the flesh and bone of her shoulder, causing her to scream in pain, a sound that echoed through the pipes and reaching Whammudes.

"BELICARA!" Whammudes yelled before he decided he must take action. Reaching into his speedo, he immediately pulled out two canteens filled with body oil and lubricant, popped them open with his thumbs, and emptied their contents all over his body before he turned to the Sisters, who looked alarmed, "I will assist the Acolyte, be prepared to kill the Bastard when we emerge!" The Sisters immediately unsheathed their swords before Whammudes forcefully compressed his form tightly enough to enter the pipe.

The Caretaker crawled as quickly as he could, his bones and fibre stressed to their limit as he reached Belicara and the Bastard, the former ripping the latter off of her and uppercutted it in whatever it had that resembled a jaw before it could use its psychic potential again. Whammudes quickly extended his arms and grabbed the Bastard's eyes before ripping them out of their sockets.

The Bastard screeched and flailed in pain before Whammudes wrapped his arms around whatever it had that resemebled a torso to prevent the thing from escaping, shouting then to Belicara whom looked shocked at his sudden presence, "Grab onto me, Belicara!"

She didn't waste time, grabbing onto Whammudes' leg before she asked, "Why?"

His answer came in the form of him inhaling so hard that he sucks the air out of pipes, inflating his lungs to the point that his ribs began to crack. Realizing what was about to happen, Belicara gripped the Custodian's leg like it was her last line of life, gripping it so tightly that the bones nearly broke.

Whammudes exhaled; the blast sending all three rocketing out of the absurdly long pipe and onto the tunnel to the surprised Sisters of Silence. The Acolyte let go of Whammudes' leg and somersaulted in midair, before landing on her feet and skidding to a halt, before turning to the shocked Sisters, "WE GOT IT OUT!"

The Caretaker landed on the sewer floor, the squealing and flailing Bastard still in his arms, "NEVER YOU UNDERESTIMATE MY LUNGS, CUR!" He then shouted to the Sisters, "KILL IT NOW!" The Oblivion Knights immediately withdrew their swords to slay the beast, but suddenly the canals began to quake, nearly causing those that were standing to lose their balance.

Belicara immediately realizes what happening and almost started panicking, "Oh, no. Nonononononononononono! NOT NOW!" Her fears were realized when a black tide of wastewater came their way as she could only shout, "DISCHARGE INCOMING!" The discharge wallowed them whole, sending them off their feet and tumbling them around the canals.

As the tide washed them away, Belicara saw the monster attempting to flee, something that she could not allow. Surging through the sewer water, the Acolyte quickly caught up to the Bastard before she began charging her eyebeams. Normally, this would be suicide but given that they were underwater, the liquid would likely extinguish any flames. Just as the Bastard turned around to see her near him, Belicara unleashed her eyebeams.

It only had a second to screech before the beams reduced it to merely a head while the rest of its body was blasted to ash. Not wanting any of it to escape, Belicara grabbed the head as the tide seemed to slowly die down as Whammudes and the Sisters emerged from the tide, covered head to toe in filth as was she. All of them seemed disoriented as they struggled to stand up.

"Oh. Report!" Whammudes yelled to the group as he shook off the gunk that covered him, "Is everyone alive? Belicara?"

"I'm good." She raised her hand, confirming that she was alright.

"Sister Tace, yes." He confirmed when he saw her clean off the gunk off her armor, "Sister Sana Detestatus, yes!" He confirmed when he saw her shaking herself to clear the wastewater from her, "Sister Non Loqui... yes!" He hesitated for a moment before he saw her emerging from the wastewater, pausing when he saw her topknot ruined and littered with gunk, "Oh. I'm sorry about the topknot, that's... that's a lot of gum..." She waved him off before he got to the matter at hand, "Now, where is that- where is the Bastard?"

"Relax! I got it!" Belicara exclaimed as she raised the Bastard's head above her own for them all to see before dropping it to the sludge covered floor and then crushed it under her foot, ending the threat of the Bastard.

"Oh, thank the Emperor." Whammudes breathed out in relief, putting a hand to his heart before speaking into the Vox Caster, "And that, dear listeners, is why one of the Acolytes must accompany me during inspection. In case a situation similar to this one was to occur." He then turned to the others and ordered them, "Now, let us return to the Gutterhawk. Our job is done for now."

"Alright." She sighed, before she noticed a problem while looking around, "Um, Whammudes? Which way did we come from?" The Caretaker and the Sisters all looked around as well before they found that they were in a part of Canal Secundus that was far from where the Gutterhawk was.

"Do not be alarmed. I have memorized the canals. We will simply walk back." Whammudes calmed any fears from them, before he pointed to Belicara's nearly destroyed armor, "Can one of you grab Belicara's armor? It must be sent to Master Crafters for repairs." Sister Non Loqui grabbed the damaged armor as they walked off to their flier.

After a few minutes of walking, Belicara bashfully played with her thumbs before she worked up the courage to say, "Whammudes?"

His attention was then turned to her, raising an eyebrow under his helm, "Yes."

"I... suddenly see the appeal of doing this without armor." Belicara blushed as she scratched the back of her head, a little embarrassed that she was somewhat enjoying being half naked in the presence of a Custodian, much less with one of the hundreds that shamelessly move around the palace without their armor.

The Custodian chuckled in genuine amusement, "Yes, being unclad makes things like this breeze exquisite~" The Acolyte chuckled as well as they continued to trek down the canals.

---

Pity the Guardsman

Pity the Guardsman...

It was a battlefield on a nameless planet, hordes of alive and dead from both sides strewn in fields of bodies so vast and deep that it was impossible to see the ground. Blasts of flame from mortar shells hitting the ground while the deafening booms rocked the battlefield but were soon drowned out by the sounds of lasfire, autoguns, and Bolter fire.

A simple guardsmen crawled through the field of bodies, his sense of smell numb to the persistent pungent odor that sulfated the air, clinging to his lasgun as if it was his last line of life. In front of him was the body of his commissar, dead and void of his head. Thinking quickly, he grabbed the dead commissar's Bolter and stuffed it in his pants.

As he kept crawling, the battle raged on; Chaos Cultists and Mutants being killed by other guardsmen and Astartes, Chaos Space Marines killing indiscriminately while howling to the Gods and being shot down by the loyalists' bolters and Lascannon fire. The sky shrouded in smoke and blackness, a lit only by the fires that echoed below with the screams of the dying.

A weak sack of flesh destined to die for a dead god that never cared, he spends his pitiful, brief life, alone in his foxhole with nothing to keep him company, or to keep him safe, than the cheapest, most disposable of equipment. Perhaps the glow from his lasgun barrel keeps him warm at night.

The guardsman managed to get to his feet and sprinted across the battlefield, firing at whatever moved that had the Star of Chaos on their armor. As he sprinted towards a chuck of a ruined building for cover, he saw other guardsmen using their fallen as cover before they saw him running for that small piece of cover, the few brave enough to follow and even fewer surviving the trip. They mounted their guns onto one of the window frames and squeezed the triggers, firing into the horde of frenzied violence that had engulfed the planet.

Screams of chainaxes rang through the air, the guardsmen turning to see a Khornate Berserker charging at a Dark Angel armed with a Power Sword. The Astartes fight seemed a force of nature rather than a fight between two giants, their blows a crack of thunder, each hit seemingly able to pierce a mountain, the clash having the force of a supernova, their armor gaining tears from blows that would cleave a man in twain. With a mighty swing, the Dark Angel's Power Sword slashed through the veiny armor fused neck of the berserker, severing the head from the neck and the rest of its corrupted body, blood spewing like a high pressure hose.

Me? As a servant of the Powers, I enjoy the delights of all this world and the warp has to offer. Power, it courses through my veins. The gifts of the Chaos Gods will soon overtake me, and one day I may even ascend. What has the Guardsman to look forward to but a grim life, and if he is lucky perhaps, he will feel nothing as my axe sends his soul to Khorne.

A single moment of respite was all that was needed for the Dark Angel to be slain by a blast of plasma to the head, curtesy of a howling World Eater that charged at the chuck of building that they were hiding behind. The Guardsman with the Commissar's bolter made the semi-wise decision to jump out of the cover while the others didn't have a chance to react as the World Eater charged through the piece of cover and reducing the guardsmen to a bloody pulp in the rubble.

Panicking, the Guardsman began firing at the Lost and Damned near him, sweat, blood, grime, and piss staining his uniform as he sprinted at the hordes. His courage was enough to inspire the others to fight even if they were merely throwing pebbles against an unstoppable tide of blood. His valor rewarded them with a hill to use as the high ground to support their comrades.

But before they had a chance to fire upon the hordes below them, a furious roar came. They turned to see a Khorne Daemonkin standing at the bottom of the hill. It was the most horrific thing any of them had ever laid eyes upon; an Astartes meatsuit inhabited by a daemonic entity, flaming orange burning through the eyes and neck, the armour seethes with blood-wet muscle and plates of spike-studded brass, its helm deformed into fang-mawed horrors from which bestial horns curl, the limbs are jagged blades or lashing, spiked tentacles, impossible to tell where armor or flesh started or ended as it shifted to often that it pulsed like a heartbeat.

He lives for a corpse god, and he shall join his god, as a corpse. I shall spare a half second to think of him and his kind. Then, I shall only laugh. Hail Chaos!

The guardsmen shivered and nearly backed away, their hands shaking as it drew near and the howls of the Lost and Damned grew louder. Only for one, heart burning with anger and desire to fight let out a roar of defiance.

XXX

You would laugh monster. But let me remind you.

"FIIIIIIIRE!" The Guardsman yelled as he whipped out the dead Commissar, firing it at the Khorne Daemonkin that came at them. The bolts digging through the rippling flesharmor of the Daemonkin, exploding as soon as they struck its chest plate. The projectiles immediately burst, cutting into the armor-fused flesh and blowing into the meatsuit wearing daemon. Despite the blast, it remained unaffected, roaring in anger as it climbed the corpse covered hill in a furious charge of boiling rage, corpse reduced to slurry at his footsteps.

Suddenly, a Power Sword pierced through the chest of the Daemonkin. It howled in pain before the sword was retracted from its chest and then cleaving the horrid thing's head off. A blast of red ethereal power blasted from the neck, shooting into the sky before bursting apart as it was banished back to the Warp. The Dark Angel whom had done the deed merely flicked the blood off his Power Sword without a word.

Before even a shout of thanks could be said, a screeching howl for bloodshed echoed through the air, gaining their attention as they turned to the horizon. A horde of Lost and Damned were closing from the distance.

Within that weak sack of meat and bone, uncared for by his god and wept for by none, beats a heart. A human heart, that carries with it the strength and courage of all mankind.

Instead of panicking at the sight of the Ruinous forces drawing near, the Guardsmen all grab their lasguns and slowly stood up to fight. The Astartes looked on in silent approval as they readied their Bolters and blades to purge these heretics.

Within that sack of meat is ensconced the hope, the will, and the fury of every man, woman, and child from every corner of the Imperium.

The Bolter wielding Guardsman let out rallying roar as he raised his bolter into the air, the other still guardsmen letting out a bellow of valor as they charged down with the Space Marines following. As the hordes drew close, the guardsmen opened fire, sending spears of red through the mutated and haphazard armor covered bodies of the Lost and Damned.

Within that weak sack of meat, festooned in thin armour and weapons only powerful in numbers, beats the heart of a man.

They fired on, using whatever they could as cover as both sides sent continuous vollies of lasfire and bullets at each other. Some fired until their lasguns overheated and they threw them at the Lost and Damned as pseudo-grenades before they picked up any weapon that was on the ground and continued firing. Abandoned lascannons and Autocannons were remaned and began firing on the oncoming Ruinous forces, reducing several hundreds to mincemeat while their vaporized blood began flooding the air.

For ten thousand years, the hearts of men have beaten, strongly, in defiance of your so called "powers." For ten thousand years, the hearts of men have stood united against a galaxy that despises them for no reason save that they had the audacity not to lay down and die.

When their magazines became bereft of ammunition, a fervorous few grabbed the fallen melee weapons from the fallen and charged at those that were closest, taking precious few lives before theirs' were ended by bullet or lasfire. Those not driven mad by their desire to avenge their fallen stayed and fired from haphazard spot to ed the lives of those reckless Damned that came for their blood and skulls, all while the hundreds left of those still loyal to the Imperium came and enforced the counterattack.

The Dark Angels came, blades drawn and bolters firing on the Heretic Astartes oncoming. A berserker was slain with a blow from an Arcanum, a Noise Marine silenced with a blast from a Plasma Pistol, a Possessed blown apart by a Melta-gun, and a Dark Apostle impaled by a Power Sword. The Sons of the Lion did not stop and neither did the guardsmen, continuing on fighting even as the muscles in their bodies strains and their skin burned.

For ten thousand years, your Black Crusades have been pushed back, beaten down and made a mockery of, by weak sacks of flesh with cheap weapons and disposable equipment.

One guardsman grabbed a spear and sprinted upon an incline, jumping off with a mighty roar and impaling a mutant that resembled a hideous polymerization of a man and house fly in the head. Another ducked from the swing of a beast in human skin before firing his Autogun into the monstrosity, causing it to howl in pain as its guts were torn open and its entrails spilled out like a pink slurry before the guardsman impaled the creature on the bayonet on his gun. Another used his depleted lasgun as a club, crushing the skulls of the traitors before him. Another guardsman used the corpse of his fellow guardsmen as a shield and fired his lasgun into a charging squad, another grabbing a pair of axes and started chopping any traitor that get near him, another duel-wielding lasguns, and another brawling others with merely his fists.

For that weak sack of flesh that you so gleefully mock is no super soldier, no immortal warrior, no creature cursed by Chaos like you.

More were coming, they mortal and Astartes alike knew it. The cries of the Lost and Damned echoing through the air of the planet. And they were ready.

He is a man.

The pseudo leader of the mortal loyalists raised his bolter and howled his rallying cry, the sound igniting the fires of valor in their souls as they readied themselves for the counterattack.

An Imperial Guardsman drawn from some forgotten corner of the Imperium to fight for his species and for the safety of the people he loves.

They attack; hundreds on both sides felled in an instant, but for every loyalist life that was taken, 10 more were taken from the traitors. Blood seeped into the ground and air, echoes of fury for the Emperor and the Dark Gods bellowing from the fervorous, fighting for the people they stand for, not caring if they know their sacrifice or not, it did not matter, for it was their reward.

He is a factory worker,

A guardsman, once a factory worker on a Hive World, swung the club that he had taken from a corpse of a Lost and Damned into the face of a mutant that had the mouth and lashing tongue of a snake, crushing the monster's skull in a bloody splash of grey matter.

a farmer,

Another guardsman, once a farmer on an Agri-World, struck as many traitors as his sight could behold with a blade akin to the scythe he used to harvest crops from the old section of crops he served on. The battlefield was the section of crops he harvested daily, and he had work to do.

a storekeeper,

A former storekeeper on a Feudal World grabbed a slab of steel from a ruined Baneblade and threw it at a Lost and Damned that attempted to gut another guardsman, stunning the bastard before he aimed his lasgun and fired, piercing the heart and head in that order.

a father,

A guardsman, thinking about the wife and son he left behind, fired his lasgun at a charging monstrosity, killing it after at least 5 shots before he then returned to the fray to fight alongside his fellow guardsman in the battle.

a brother,

The eldest brother in a family of five swung a sabre from a fallen Lost and Damned, slashing their jugulars and causing high-pressure blood to spray out like a fountain before whipping out a stub pistol and firing it several times into the bastard's chest.

a son,

The son of a wealthy merchant gunned down whatever traitor he could see with his lasgun before he saw one guardsman about to be stabbed in the back by a cloak clad Damned. Acting quickly and with fire burning in his heart, the son drew his knife and leapt off the cliff, diving towards the robed fiend with a feral cry. His knife plunged into the heretic's head, killing them instantly. The guardsman he just saved turned to see his deed, giving silent thanks before they returned to the fight.

a mere man.

The Defacto leader of the Guardsmen killed any many traitors as he breathed, swinging the sabre and firing the bolter that his deceased commissar carried. He fired until the ammunition clip ran dry, he kept swinging the sabre until the blade was red with the wet blood of traitors. Each of his cells felt as if they were ablaze, his bones reverberating with each swing, his heart bounding like an engine while adrenaline flooded his veins, a flame burning inside brighter than the stars.

And against creatures like you, teeming and numberless, powered by the very will of thirsting gods... he holds the line.

As the last of the horrid traitors were felled, they had lost half of their own while the Astartes barely seemed have even lost one. There was no time to mourn the dead, as they saw more coming. With a cry, the leader rallied the guardsmen for one final stand.

"HOLD THE LINE!" Came the bellowing declaration from his blood and sweat covered lips while the survivors raised their weapons to fight on.

And he has held the line for ten thousand Years.

It was then that the leader began to think.

There would be no reward, no parades in his honor, no statues raised in his name, no still living man on this nameless planet speaking his name in reverence. Only an unmarked grave and someone to take his place in another regiment... But to know that he let the Imperium, the Emperor he served, the people he left behind, those quintillions throughout the galaxy that does not even know his name to live one more day in the hostile galaxy of their's.

That in itself was a reward beyond words.

So, what's your excuse, monster?

Doubt purged from his thoughts; the leader raised his sabre and cried out to those that still lived upon this battlefield, "FOR THE EMPEROR!"

"FOR THE EMPEROR!" The others cried behind him as they charged, and the war continued.

XXX

At the end of the day, though he's been ferried through hell on a ship that's ten thousand years old to some godforsaken, war-torn rock; though he deployed from high orbit with nothing but a grav chute; though he is one of ten million men and women snatched from his homeworld to fight a war he barely understands; though he has been given a weapon that fires small suns and may annihilate him as he fires because the knowledge of how it functions has been lost; though his company is supported by tractor-tanks that run on anything you can burn; though he wages war against a devouring hivemind, ravenous demons and hordes of hyper-advanced aliens with strange technologies and sorceries he never dreamed existed; no one will remember his sacrifice. There will be no records of his deeds, no glorious parades in his honor, and no remembrance of his name. All he will earn is a shallow, unmarked grave on a forgotten world untold light years from home.

Yet for all this thankless sacrifice, a Guardsman is a man, just like you. He has no millennia-old genetic engineering, no prophetic leader, no miracles of faith. He has his lasgun, his orders, and those beside him. He is an Imperial Guardsman.

And he will hold the line.

We stand

We fall

We are birthed

We die

We love

We hate

We are not gods.

We are but men.

And these are their stories.

---

The Hollow Knight

For those that could even grasp the power of the Undivided, one would know that the Queen of Daemon's power is surpassed only by the Anathema and the Gods themselves. As such, to become a Daemon Prince of Chaos Undivided, one must pass the Trials of the Everchosen; a series of trials created by each of the Gods, major and minor, to see if they are worthy of their favor. To even be allowed to even commence the Trials was worthy of a great feat, worthy of being commemorated.

However, there was someone that not even the Everchosen could reach, the Dark Master. A being second only to the Gods themselves and given power beyond imagining.

Those were Mandy's thoughts as she walked through the halls of the Castle of Sin.

Usually, her attire was a black top with a red design in the middle with a red orb, a fitting black bottom, two giant red feathers on her top, black armbands, a long cape attached to her top with the same red feathers, and thigh high leather boots. Floating above her head were red flames in the shape of a crown, while she was clad in a black furred coat made from the hides of great beasts from the Abyss, and her side was a corrupted Power Sword with its blade a radiant crimson and the hilt seemingly composed of an onyx carapace, jagged and shrapnel-like.

However, now she was wearing a tight fitting and revealing dress that seemed to be made of pure blackness with bright red fur lining the high collar, black sleeves covering her arms with her fingers covered in numerous bejeweled rings. Her Formless standing at her side in the shape of valiant knights that serve their queen unto and beyond death itself.

Soon, they came to massive marble doors covered in screaming faces and daemonic fetishes, opening at the presence of the Queen, revealing a massive ballroom where dark specters danced for all eternity and standing in the center was the Dark Master himself. The younger brother of Be'lakor, and the current Dark Master of the Forces of Chaos.

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 the little amount of light present 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. The one was a being of such terrible existence that one can only call him, Black Hat.

"May I have thy hand, my Queen?" Black Hat inquired gentlemanly, offering an open hand to her as if for a dance.

Mandy giggled, smitten by the entity's charms as she took his hand, "Always the gentleman."

And so, the two Angels of the Gods danced.

Held in his arms like a lost lover, the Queen of all Daemons, clad in a dark and vibrant dress as they danced in the scarlet mist filled land, their clothing fluttering in the soundless song of wind. White rose pedals lightly dripped in blood flowed and rode the breeze that circled around them like the lost and unseen, dancing alongside them in an eternal listlessly of those that pasted.

Behind them were numerous of her Formless, shaped to be clad in black loose robes playing violins that released beautiful melodic sounds, their faces hidden behind black veils that fluttered listlessly in the wind, the skin of their hands onyx and lusterless.

There were no words, only movement as the Angel and his ghosts danced, while the black clad players played on as the world faded away around them. They danced and they danced until they both broke their grasp and the rest of the Undivided came to the ballroom.

Phobos, the Bleached King, was clothed in robes that were made of liquid dark and covered in crimson glowing runes, with his head clad in a mask of liquid darkness with eight red eyes and his hair white as snow. Multiple horns facing multiple ways sat on his head akin to a crown, grey bandages with decorative markings wrapped around his body under the liquid dark robes, his torso wrapped in chains that dragged along the floor, and black arachnid creatures crawled across his body. His human form was that of an adult male, thin with hair white as snow, eyes akin to a heedless gate to the void, clad in robes of decorated black and having a jagged crown of white liquid.

Hawkmoth, the Anointer, was dressed very formally in a dark dress shirt with a black butterfly-shaped lapel and a brooch that resembled the star of Chaos, and black dress pants. His mask now seemingly composed of a series of either bone or porcelain plates that covered his face and neck. In his hand was a cane covered in runes and behind him trailed several crimson butterflies.

Tallest among them was Johnny C, the Artist of Chaos. He was hidden under a cloak of flayed skin and animal hides with blades of varying lengths and widths sticking out and lining it that obscured his face and form, a belt of severed heads and knifes sat his waist, the body underneath ungodly thin and lanky while painted with morbid, surreal, and gothic artistry. His face was covered by a white Masquerade mask with a blank face and golden decorative markings. He had no human form, for he abandoned his cast-off humanity entirely.

Next was Necrafa, the Dead Queen. she has a skeletal appearance; tall, a long red cape with bat-like wings, red slits for eyes, and no mouth, which she has on her second face which is more a blackness than her first. She dons a ruby necklace with four gems on the sides. In her left hand, she wielded a long, thin scepter of the most darkest sorcery birthed from the Warp. Her human form was that of a prim and proper lady, long ebony hair with golden jewelry in her hair, flawless pale skin with blood red eyes and black lips, clad in an ebony silk dress with red and gold accents, her arms and fingers covered in jewelry, with an onyx crown seemingly composed of shards.

Finally, was Gramorr, King of Depths. Bore on his head of long white hair a silver crown bejeweled with rubies, his face covered by a featureless mask that only had a large arcane symbol painted in red. On his body was an armor of blasphemous flesh and metal, skeletal, reptilian, and segmented, as much a part of him as his own flesh and blood under robes of liquid dark and a cape of red flesh. His human form was of a handsome groomed man with darkened blond hair, a face that had a scar running from the hairline to his jaw, and void-like eyes that seemed they shimmered, dressed in the black and red garments of a prince.

Mandy smiled and took Black Hat's hand again before looking to the others, "Care to join the dance?" She and Black Hat then resumed their dance, stirring the Warp even more with their might. Phobos turned to Necrafa and charmingly offered a hand for her, that she took with a giggle, the pair joining the dance while Hawkmoth chuckled and offered his hand to a specter that resembled his deceased wife, who took his hand and the two joined the dance. C did not join, thought he summoned a canvas and began to paint using the tar he took from the Abyss and the blood of daemons, creating a portrait that held this moment for all time. Gramorr did not join but merely watched on in amusement.

Time was an odd concept, one that most Daemon Princes found almost immediately. What does one do when they have eternity to look forward to? What do they do when they completed the journey to Daemonhood? One has to fill life with their wants and desires, pleasure and goals becomes their only purpose, and eternity must be made interesting.

And one can only indulge before Slaanesh begins to influence them to abandon their unified allegiance.

When they finished their dance of madness, the Undivided were greeted by Zim who came into the ballroom, quickly bowing at their presence. The Queen of Daemon approached the Marquis of Locusts and wordlessly gave him permission to stand and speak.

"My lords, I bear urgent news." He spoke with as much respect as his breathless voice could muster, his pants suggesting that he had sprinted here.

"Let me guess, Dorn didn't give anything up?" Mandy mocked Zim, causing amusement in Phobos, Hawkmoth, and Necrafa.

"Besides that." Zim hissed under his breath before he announced, "Another shard of the Anathema has found its vessel."

That certainly got their attention, Mandy and Black Hat looked surprised, Necrafa and Phobos looked scared, Gramorr kept a stony expression, but his eyes betrayed the fear he was feeling, C didn't react, but his posture tensed slightly, and Hawkmoth gasped and asked, "Which one?"

"The Emperor's Valor." Zim answered, "The shard possessed a man of immense valor and nearly killed Huron Blackheart before flinging him into the Warp. His most loyal Corsairs have managed to get him out of the seas, but he is out of commission until his Warpsmiths and put him back together."

That caused immense shock for the Undivided, if the Anathema's shards were gaining hosts that quickly then they may need to prepare their own superweapons.

Mandy asked Zim in a stern and serious tone, crossed her arms, "What of the other shards? What is their status?"

"Most of the major shards are either scattered throughout the Warp or have been contained. Still, we have no luck in corrupting or destroying any of the shards, minor or major." Zim reported, "Aside from that, the universes we have conquered are bearing fruit. Now, we have a steady influx of soldiers and technology of all kinds at our disposal. The Imperium and the multitudes of other empires against us will be met with equal force."

This pleased the Undivided, but Zim revealed something that truly surprised them. It was a parchment of an old and depredated kind, possessing a message of eldritch warning, birthed from the Well of Eternity.

"Nor is it to be thought," The Marquis of Locusts recited the contents of the parchment in a gentle yet discorded voice, "that man is either the oldest or the last of earth's masters, or that the common bulk of life and substance walks alone. The Great Ones were, the Great Ones are, and the Great Ones shall be. Not in the spaces we know, but between them, They walk serene and primal, undimensioned and to us unseen. Chaos knows the gate. Chaos is the gate. Chaos is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Chaos agaisnt their golden nemesis.

"He knows where the Great Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again. He knows where They have trod earth's fields, and where They still tread them, and why no one can behold Them as They tread. By Their smell can men sometimes know Them near, but of Their semblance can no man know, saving only in the features of those They have begotten on mankind; and of those are there many sorts, differing in likeness from man's truest eidolon to that shape without sight or substance which is Them."

They walk unseen and foul in lonely places where the Words have been spoken and the Rites howled through at their Seasons. The wind gibbers with Their voices, and the earth mutters with Their consciousness. They bend the forest and crush the city, yet may not forest or city behold the hand that smites. Kadath in the cold waste hath known Them, and what man knows Kadath? The ice desert of the South and the sunken isles of Ocean hold stones whereon Their seal is engraven, but who hath seen the deep frozen city or the sealed tower long garlanded with seaweed and barnacles? Great Cthulhu is Their cousin, yet can he spy Them only dimly. Iä! Nara-Kuragoth! As a foulness shall ye know Them. Their hand is at your throats, yet ye see Them not; and Their habitation is even one with your guarded threshold."

"GOLB is the key to the gate, whereby the spheres meet. Man rules now where They ruled once; They shall soon rule where man rules now. After summer is winter, and after winter summer. They wait patient and potent, for here shall They reign again."

Most of them were puzzled greatly by the contents of the parchment before they excused Zim of their presence. With him gone, they decided that the startling revelations must be responded with a creation of their own. They summoned their servitor Daemons and exited her castle, boarding the Crown of Ruin with Grim Junior greeting them like the good general he was before they headed to a place that was a blasphemous polymerization of tyranny and nightmares.

XXX

After a trip through the Warp that should have taken millennia was done in a moment, they arrived at the place of their interest; A place that burned in the warp like a blazing star.

It was a peculiar Daemon World, composed of black seas of liquid slag and forge cities of fire, gold, crafting, corrupted people living for the dark masters that breathed the darkness into crafts of metal and fire, lionising greed and corruption, void of morals. A blasphemy of power where statues of daemonic dragons that flowed out waterfalls of molten slag. The skies black as the swallowing void, its only gasping source of light being the oceans of molten slag that gave them a fleeting semblance of heat and comfort, the ground a cold black metal, jagged and erratic, shifting and tensing like the will of something blasphemous and terrible.

Ramshackle houses composed of shards that broke during the plates shifting were haphazardly formed to hold the slave labor that lived miserably on the horrid and smog filled forges that constructed the daemonic, soul grinding machines of war used by the masters slaving them and reaping their soul. A tumulus of metal coated bones decorated a pathway that led to the tumultuous screaming graves of whom the most diligent of souls where placed, grinding the ethereal material to a stream of dark grey that fed the dark machinations. Factory immaculateness ran rampant in the mortal that drew the excuse that could be called breath on this blasted place, queer adaptations had overtaken them; able to go months without sustenance, breathing the toxic and smog filled atmosphere with little effects, eyes red like an inferno, and void of follicles or pores. And yet amid that tense, godless calm the high bare boughs of all the metal pillars in the forest of iron and glass on the plains were moving liquescently. They were twitching morbidly and spasmodically, clawing in convulsive and epileptic madness.

Other sights tell of foul odors near the hill-crowning circles of stone pillars, and of rushing airy presences to be heard faintly at certain hours from stated points at the bottom of the great ravines; while still other sights try to explain a bleak, blasted hillside where no tree, shrub, or grass-blade will grow. Then too, the natives are mortally afraid of the numerous silver whippoorwills which grow vocal on this cold and fear filled night. It is vowed that the gargoyles are psychopomps lying in wait for the souls of the dying, and that they time their eerie cries in unison with the sufferer's struggling breath. If they can catch the fleeing soul when it leaves the body, they instantly flutter away chittering in daemoniac laughter; but if they fail, they subside gradually into a disappointed silence.

The Undivided arrived at the awe of the natives, who queerly prostrated themselves and cut themselves open to offer their blood and flesh in exchange for exit of this hellscape, only to die ignored and forgotten as they walked in their daemonic forms to the palace where this planet's master slept in his chamber of gold and terror in vastness immeasurable. The riders of the Undivided lashing their Formless mounts to the palace whilst from the vacant Abyss below them came a disquieting suggestion of rhythmical surging or lapping like the waves on some level beach of place beyond immortal comprehension.

They arrived at the palace of the dread master of this world, dismounting and entering the structure shaped in the vestige of a roaring dragon as a seemingly limitless legion of exhales of soul-made flame from titan sized exhaust pipes that cried in repetitions timed diabolically to the breaths of the thing sleeping below. The noises above faded imperceptibly to silence while the daemonic machines rumbled faintly in the heavy layered walls, descending ever downwards into a heated and haunted furnace where gold and death reigned.

The Lords of the Undivided arrived at a precipice that overlooked a molten river of gold where a massive island held a beast of the most dread presences ever created by the Dark Gods' blaspehmous will. Its breath expelled a million damned souls that petered and died while severed from the beast that devoured them, a hide of ebony scales forged from the blackest parts of the screaming abyss and fueled by the flames of its gluttonous greed, wings whose motion that could eclipse a space hulk sat on the spine of the beast, while its fanged steaming maw muttered things of whom the most frightful tales of tyranny and power had been whispered in time long past. The Lords of the Undivided seemed to sense the close presence of some terrible of the intruding horror and to glimpse a hellish advance in the black dominion of the ancient and once passive nightmare.

Mandy broke from the group of Undivided, standing on the river of molten gold as if it was rock, strutting to the end of the sleeping beast's nest, speaking in a voice both cold yet burning with respect and near reverence, sweet and terrible like a madman's lullaby, "Hear me, Vulkan, Dragon of Blackest Night, will you grace us with your unholy presence?"

The beast awoke at her words; orange blazing eyes opened and the gust of wind that came when the beast flared its wings threw countless Salamanders off their feet but dared not move lest they incur the Dragon's wrath, limbs cracking meticulously as the head turned to the stoic woman standing before him. The monster was a writhing mass of void born blackness in the fear inducing shape of a massive dragon from old Terran myth, streaks of red like burning forges lined each joint, wings that would eclipse Space Hulks or Hive Cities flared and creased at his will, the head a dragon shaped furnace that blazed and simmered like the core of a planet.

The Black Dragon leaned its head down at the Queen, infernal eyes narrowing in annoyance, speaking in a dark and reverberating voice so terrible that it could not be translated to mortal words, "Mandy, Queen of Daemons, you come to me for a reason. No Undivided has come to me, nary to gaze upon the visage of I."

"Vulkan, I come for your smithing prowess." The Queen spoke, ensuring that no matter the thoughts of the Black Dragon, he would have no choice, "The anathema has grown stronger, his shards guarding universes untouched by the Gods as he leads them to our destruction. He must be kept at bay before our plan for his ascension is fulfilled."

"And if I disagree?" The Black Dragon sneered at the Queen, narrowing the black iron eyelids and the white heat from his mouth intensifying in wrath at thinking this thing born from a mortal whore would dare bring him to heel. Not since the monstrous prologue of his ascension into the beast they saw now would he heel or slave.

A hateful crimson light poured from the Star of Chaos in her hand before clenching her hand tightly. Suddenly, the Dragon began seizing, flailing, and wailing as it felt an agony incomprehensible flow through its essence, akin to nine hundred vigintillion nanoscopic needles piercing every neuron in his brain. It cried and bellowed incoherently before it finally wailed, "I YIELD! I YIELD! MERCY!"

The Queen unfurled her hand and the agony instantaneously ceased, causing the Dragon to lope in relief. It straightened itself as it prepared its ears for the request to come from the Queen of Daemon, listening in rapt attention as her words came from her soft lips.

"Vulkan, Dragon of Blackest Night, I request a Knight. One powerful enough to bring any shard of the Anathema to his knees and forged from the abyss below." Her words were short and stern, lapping in her presence and emphasizing her taciturnity, queering noting the silence that had befallen the black beast as it stared unblinking.

The Dragon then threw its head back and bellowed out a cacophonous and hardy laugh, echoing through the hell planet and dark section of the Warp, gaining the fleeting attention of the Gods themselves for the briefest of moments. Its head then lowered to the Queen's level, grinning in interest and greed unimaginable, "My Queen, all you had to do was ask."

It then flailed its dreaded wings and lifted itself from its golden den on great winds born from nightmares, flying out of sight and through the forge tunnels where the millions of mortals toiled for his great world of strife. Soon, the Black Dragon arrived at the Soul Forge, where hundreds of his Salamanders awaited with their hammers ready to forge the nightmare creation.

The Dragon bequiffed them of the Queen's request before he breathed his dread inferno into the furnace before him, the burning souls crying as they flowed rapidly down the forge trails and collected in hastily formed molds. White light blazed through the cracks in the molds and furnaces as they poured the radiant white molten liquid into the molds, before they were torn open to reveal the steaming white hot segments around the dragon glass before the Salamanders hands burned as they meticulously removed them and began working meticulously as the molten radiance was forged into the radiant white armour and the dread blade made from nightmares.

For millennia accelerated, they forged; drawing out streams of eldritch power from the churning abyss, rending the spirits of the dead into soul material, smelting the warp infested armour of the dead, carving daemonic runes with hammer and chisel, performing complex rituals and ceremonies to bless each piece with the power of the Gods and the Abyss, and shaping each piece with the cursed hammers wielded by their Primarch before his dark ascension. Each piece imbued with the power of a thousand daemons, each decoration an icon of the Gods, each symbol the name of an unfathomably powerful daemon, all fusing together into an artifact that not even Champions can wield.

In the instant it was completed, the armour was raised to the living platform, gleaming like a star that had been born from dust. It was impossibly elongated and thin, a dread polymerization of scales, segments, spikes, and claws, twin segmented tails ending in needle-like stingers, jagged diaphonous wings, twin sets of arms, and the head a skull-like helm with twin black voids as eyes and twin forward facing horns akin to Doomrider's. In its hands was the Nightmare Blade, a sword composed of radiant white crystal with the guard being the Star of Chaos with each point ending in dagger-like fangs, slick and thirsting for flesh and the pommel being the screaming face of a dragon.

The empty ghost armor was then moved to the section of the forge where they grinded the souls of their slaves into rending fuel, kept in place by black root-ish tendrils, and placed under the Soul Harvester. The machine pulsing like the heart of a blasphemous thing that breathed hate in all things, and with but the throwing of a switch by the Dragon's rending claws, the dreadful machine was activated.

A deep churning grind rang from the deep parts of the machine's inner workings, a stream of dark blue and grey flowed into the armour like a vigintillion lost souls grinded down into a distilled thing that could never be called a daemon nor a geist. The armour was then filled to overflowing by the dark soul liquid, hardening and shaping into a body for the armour to wear.

Umbral energy arced, the armour seizing and twitching spasmodically, the muted sound of a vigintillion crying souls echoing silently and fused into one, green blood flowing into the wings as they flared out, the hands twitching and then clenching in this horrid parody of life. The armour then became animate, grey and azure mist flowed in the empty spaces in the plates as runoff that could barely contain the power it itself was composed of. Its hand grasped the Nightmare Blade and hoisted it up as it shined like the stars of the material world before it roared, an unholy sound that echoed in the deepest nightmares of every being on every planet near the forge. Suddenly, the Undivided appeared before them in a gateway of shadow, quietly impressed by the creation of the Black Dragon before them.

The specter filled Knight bowed to the Undivided in unparalleled reverence. The Queen of Daemons then spoke as she and Black Hat carved the polymerized sigil of the Daemon Queen and the Dark Master onto the head of the Knight.

"No cost too great.

No mind to think.

No will to break.

No voice to cry suffering.

Born of God and Void.

You shall destroy the blinding light that plagues our dreams.

You are the Vessel of the Void and our Will.

You are the Hollow Knight.

And you will know no fear."

The Hollow Knight rose to his feet, the Nightmare Blade pointed to the floor and ready to be used at any moment, before it spoke in a millions disquieting voices made of the madness and nightmares of the souls grinded down in its creation, "WhAt Is ThY bIdDiNg, My MaStErS?"

Mandy gave a menacing grin, her eyes gleaming red as crimson energy arced and living blackness flared before she threw her head back and let out a maniacal and dark cackle. One that echoed throughout the Warp... and the things that called themselves transhuman or ascended beyond mortality... feel a very human chill crawl up their spines.

---

And that's a wrap!

Most of these are stories of mine that I've been looking forward to writing while weaving them together into one.

There's one of my favorite original characters, Asmodeus, who's based on Beelzebub from Eric Neo Matrix's Sonic X Dark Chaos and his design is based on Azuma from Deadman Wonderland. The Walker is an OC of mine as well as his sister. The section with Darth Vader fighting Alastor from Hasbin Hotel, the Batter from OFF fighting an original character from me, Roland from the Dark Tower facing off against the Changeling, and Grim Junior from Grim Tales was an original idea.

The section with the samurai known as Zero is from one of my favorite games of all time Katana Zero; Tragedy's outfit is the Silver Shroud from Fallout 4 and Comedy's outfit is from the Flash villain Overload. These guys were really fun to write and after replaying Katana Zero, I just had to add them. The section where Priscilla was taken to Phobos was obviously inspired by Claymore.

The section where TTS Dorn is held captive by the New Forces of Chaos is based on Pages 541 to 547 of the Order of the Stick. The section where Cassandra Cain is turned into a Callidus was borrowed from the Weaver Option with permission by Antony444. The section where Belicara and Whammudes wading through the Palace's sewers was based on Alfabusa's The Emperor's Undesired from If The Emperor had a Text to Speech Device. The Pity the Guardsman section is from the piece of writing of the same name.

And to those who wonder why I focus on Slaanesh so much, there are three reasons:

1; Slaanesh is my favorite Chaos God.

2: I just can't help it, sometimes. It's just too easy sometimes. There are so many factions, characters, and concepts that just would align with Slaanesh so easily.

3: I'm a huge rock n roll/heavy metal fan, so I'm inclined to love Slaanesh's sex, drugs, and rock n roll aesthetic.

Alastor's design comes from littleFernanda; littlefernanda/art/Chaos-Undivided-Alastor-863324486

As for Grim Junior's design: . /revision/latest?cb=20111228101026

The Hollow Knight is Atraxa, Praetors' Voice with Vasto Lorde Ichigo's head minus the black markings.

Anyway, this anthology chapter was mostly inspired by the movie Heavy Metal, but I couldn't really get that feel that movie had. So, I decided screw it and made something that I liked doing. I was gonna add two segments on Sin City and Lisa the Painful respectively, but those grew so much that I decided that they will be their own stand alone chapters.

So, yes. This is the offical start of season 2 of Abandon All Hope, Embrace All Chaos. And with that, I can't help but to think about how this whole thing started.

It all started one day in May of 2019 when I was on a Warhammer 40K crossover binge when I came across Chosen of the Gods by Akatsuki Leader 13; an Avatar the Last Airbender and Warhammer Fantasy crossover involving Azula becoming the Everchosen. I really liked it and kept reading it. I then created a fic where Azula fell to Slaanesh. Don't read that, it's just some smut I made when I was in a bad state of mind.

Also, I had been reading PPGD and then I got to the end of chapter 11, and that's when it clicked. The idea went through several phases and drafts until I got to the version I made now. Like, the story was suppose to be the first 30 chapters showing various characters falling to Chaos before the story would then start. I scrapped that for obvious reasons but changes still came; chapter two was originally supposed to be a time skip to ten years in the future, Mandy was suppose to become this giant winged daemon that was nearly the size of a skyscraper and could breath beams of warp energy when her pride overrode her wisdom, the Emperor was suppose to be constantly called out on his lack of trust, and the Daemon Primarchs were supposed to be slain by the Justice League.

Of course, a lot of that changed when I saw TTS, the Roboutian Heresy, Imperium Ascendent, and Love Can Bloom, so suffice to say drafts got changed again until we got the version I came with today.

Feel free to make a reaction fic or a TV Tropes page!