Leman and Admu trudged through the rain-choked mud, the light drizzle creating a thin sheen on the surface of their ceramite armor. The landscape was dull and grey; Leman's instincts told him they were on the edge of a battlefield, and the carrion birds flying overhead further validated his intuition.
"Was… was that an ork?" she said.
"No." he said, continuing forward in silence.
The battlefield was littered with fallen warriors in armor that Admu recognized as being similar to the kind Leman was wearing when they had first met. Some looked like the strange horned one, while others looked like Leman's current black and white armor. Admu remembered what Leman had told her in the deserts of Khorne's realm, about his brothers and the strange gods that shared their names with her family. She hadn't pried too much into the subject because whenever he brought them up, she could sense an immense pain welling up within him. However, this time she could see that he was struggling to carry his burden alone. She wanted to help him, but he was acting even more cold and distant than usual. Admu pouted.
Mister Russ, you're so frustrating sometimes! she thought. How can I help if you refuse to tell me what troubles you? Do you not trust me to let me ease your burden?
"Their armor is similar to the kind you wore when we first met." she said.
Leman was silent, and Admu furrowed her brow in response.
"Mister Russ, how can I help you fight if I don't know who we are fighting?" she said.
Leman was silent for a moment before speaking.
"They are the enemy. That is all you need to know." he said. "I do not need your help. Simply stay out of danger and I will handle this."
Admu was slightly taken aback by his blunt admonishment. His voice was harsh and brooding, more like when they had first met than it was only a few moments ago. She had wanted nothing but to help him, but now it seemed as if he still saw her as nothing more than a burden.
Leman's mind was a tempest of thoughts and emotions, haunted by memories of his seemingly endless toils in the corrupted realms of Chaos. He had thought that he left the visions of madness behind him, at least for a little while, but now they had returned. Yet, somehow, it felt different now. He had managed to survive millennia in the endless hellscape of the chaos wastes, his wargear and tortured mind as his only companions. Why, then, did he feel so… vulnerable? He briefly recalled the night in the desert when he had accidentally let slip the existence of the ruinous powers to Admu, and briars of discomfort formed in his stomach.
He did not understand these feelings. He had seen countless men and women die at his side and by his hand. He had seen the horrors of a cruel and uncaring universe laid bare, and how easily one's naivete would lead to one's doom. Kindness, innocence, and compassion could not survive in this world, and he knew that better than anyone. Why then, was he so afraid? Afraid of never seeing the hopeful glimmer in her eyes, never hearing her cloyingly infectious laugh, or experiencing her warm smile ever again? Why could he not bring himself to tell her?
I'm too distracted to fight… I will find a safe place for her to hide so I can focus on completing my mission, like I always have. Leman thought to himself. I just… I need to keep her safe to maintain cordial relations with the gods of this realm. Yes, that's it. Once I am done with these arduous labors, I can return her to the green one and continue on my journey. I… I just have to keep her safe for now.
A short distance away, in the desecrated wreckage of the planetary governor's palace where a chaos warband had established themselves, a hulking, horned figure covered in black armor with gold trimmings and adorned with a cloak of blood-stained fur sat upon a throne of scorched bones fashioned from the palace's former residents. Captain Salazar, leader of the Forsaken Knights chapter of the Black Legion, found himself completely and utterly bored. The world he had conquered had barely even put up a fight, with most of the planetary defense forces having been killed by cultists before his arrival. Even the detachment of Black Templars and Adepta Sororitas sent to defeat him had been mostly destroyed upon landing in a surprise ambush. It was much too easy, a champion of Chaos Undivided such as he deserved a greater challenge. Unfortunately, he would just have to be content with having snatched another Imperial world from the clutches of the corpse emperor.
"Captain, our scouts have reported survivors from the Imperial offensive." A traitor marine reported. "We spotted two of them traveling east along the northern perimeter, what are your orders?"
"Perhaps my bonecrusher will taste blood after all… gather the warriors!" Salazar shouted, gripping his mace with anticipation. "I will lead this hunt and finish off those worthless corpse-worshippers!" he said, grinning beneath his warped respirator.
"You had no issue with me fighting the orks. Why is this any different?" Admu protested.
"Because this time is different. I do not need your help." Leman said with a strained voice.
"You were fine relying on my help a few hours ago, I don't understand why now of all times is any different. Why will you not tell me?" She said.
"Because you do not need to know. When I require your help, I will ask for it." he said, flashes of morbid and disturbing memories assailing his mind. As his thoughts grew more hectic, it became even more difficult for him to focus. "Just… I will find you somewhere safe to hide and I will-" Leman grabbed his head as more of the buried memories tore through his skull.
"I volunteered to accompany you on your journey, Mister Russ. You yourself said that it was not your responsibility to protect me. I'm not a child, I can take care of myself you know!" she said.
Leman didn't respond.
"Mister Russ?" she said. "Mister Russ, please!"
Leman remained silent.
"Leman!" she shouted, reaching for his arm.
His hand shot at her, grabbing her wrist on instinct before Leman could realize what he was doing. He saw on her face a look of shock and betrayal, and he immediately let her go. She pulled her hand away as if wrenching it from the maw of a rabid dog.
"I..." Leman said
"No." Admu said, her expression turning cold and stony. "I understand. You will not tell me, and I will not press you. I will simply follow."
Leman sighed. "I just… need to focus. Once the… the enemy is defeated, I can return you to your father." he said. Admu did not respond.
The two continued walking until they reached the outskirts of the nearby city, mud fields slowly giving way to paved roads. Most of the scant buildings in the area were destroyed, however one structure remained relatively intact. It was a stark, plascrete hab-block that was marred with burn marks and ballistic indentations, but otherwise structurally sound. Leman kicked the door open, sweeping the room for enemies and lowering his bolt pistol when he found it was clear. He slowly and methodically checked all the rooms in a similar manner and returned to Admu when he had determined the building was uninhabited.
"You can bunker down here for the time being, luckily the hab-block's security systems are still functioning on backup power so you should be able to route the security feed to your voxcaster. That way you can monitor the outside and contact me if you see or hear anything." Leman said. Admu held up a small device which buzzed to life, projecting a live broadcast of the barren streets and alleys outside of the building. "I'm going to scout ahead, see if I can find where the enemy is based out of and devise a plan of attack. I'll return as soon as I'm finished, just stay here and contact me if anything happens." he said. Admu remained silent, watching the security feed with a detached expression. Leman looked as though he was about to speak but, either out of choice or simply not knowing what to say, held his tongue and closed the door as he left.
Admu moped on a rectangular metal-framed couch with rough burlap-like cushions. She had no idea why Leman had lashed out at her, but she was sure now that he saw her as nothing but an unruly ward that he was charged with taking care of. She fumed internally, feeling like everything they had gone through together up until now had meant nothing to him, that he was still the same gruff and detached stranger that she had met in the fields of her father's garden.
Is it too much to ask that he show me a little bit of respect? All I wanted to do was help… Admu thought with a pouting expression. She recalled their time in Khorne's domain, and how Leman treated the various warriors he had fought. Maybe the reason he doesn't respect me is because he doesn't see me as a warrior… he just sees me as someone who needs to be protected and sheltered, just like papa…
She stood up with a loud huff, a look of determination on her face.
"If strength is what Mister Russ respects, I'll show him how strong I really am!" she said, flexing her bicep in an exaggerated manner. "... but I have no idea how to do that." she said, falling back onto the couch with a depressed sigh. She languished in her angst for a few moments before being alerted to a sound on her voxcaster. She heard what sounded like two distant voices and could make out two figures on the display. They wore the same armor as the corpses strewn across the battlefield they had walked through to get here, putting her on high alert and also piquing her interest. She gripped her bolter tightly and listened closely to see if she could hear what they were saying.
"What are we looking for again?" one said.
"You daft grox-brain, we're looking for the Templar and Sororitas that survived the ambush." the other said.
"Oh, right, right. Didn't Salazar say it was like a 'game of cat and mouse'? whatever those are. Sounds like a load of rubbish, all we're doing is wandering around some ruins. Some 'game' that is." he said. "Can't we just go raid a colony or two and flay some corpse-worshippers? Why's Salazar making us all just sit here on this dead planet anyways? He seems just as eager to leave as the rest of us." he said.
"I think he's trying to summon a daemon in the old cathedral at the center of the city. Got all the cultists gathered there, along with the remaining captives." he said. Admu's eyes widened as an idea formed in her mind.
That sounds pretty important… I'll bet the goal of this simulation is to stop them from summoning that… 'daemon' thing. If I go stop those cultists and rescue those captives, Mister Russ will finally see I'm more than just dead weight! She thought. As quietly as she could, she snuck out the back of the hab-block, avoiding the two traitor marines as they passed by on the street. Unbeknownst to her, she had left her voxcaster within the shelter in her haste.
"...Hey, you think we should check out that hab-block there? It's the only one standing in this whole neighborhood, they could be hiding in there." one of the marines said.
"Bah, we'll check it on the way back. Not like it or us are going anywhere." the second marine said. The other nodded in agreement, and they continued their patrol.
Admu crept through damp, dilapidated city streets, with the ruined buildings looming ever taller as she entered the heart of the desolate metropolis. She vaguely recalled stumbling upon ancient ruins in the deeper parts of her forest home when she was a young child but was never able to find them again. Unlike those ruins, which were lush with overgrown vines and moss, these ruins were fresh; like an open wound that had yet to heal. Amid the crumbling stone and scorched metal, traces of the city's former inhabitants were strewn about. A tattered raincoat lying in the muddy puddle of an artillery crater, a flickering view-screen advertising the opening of a new corner store. Admu climbed through a broken wall to find the remnants of a dining room, shards of broken porcelain plates crunching underneath her boots as she walked. The dining table was still adorned with a tablecloth, though its color had long since been extinguished by ash and dust.
As she approached the city center, dead bodies littering the streets became more common. Men and women, some in combat armor and others in civilian clothing lay haphazardly among the wreckage. Admu noticed some of the fallen bearing some kind of ritual scarification, with strange runes and symbols etched painfully into their skin. Admu wondered what kind of war this was, what the combatants were fighting over. She had never seen conflict on a wide scale before, having been raised in the perpetually peaceful realm of her father, but she had heard stories. Slaanesh would regale her with romantic tales of dashing knights and damsels, while Khorne would occasionally offer her a glimpse into a more realistic vision of war. Papa Nurgle usually wasn't very happy with him, but Admu relished any chance to learn about the world beyond her forest.
And now here I am, experiencing those things firsthand. Admu thought. She would be lying if she said that she felt no fear or trepidation, but she resolved to show her bravery in spite of it. I'll show Mister Russ I'm not just a burden.
She was alerted to a distant noise, what sounded like a voice. She cupped a hand to ear and tried to listen. It sounded like a female voice, but the cramped streets and buildings distorted and muffled the sound making it unintelligible. Carefully, Admu climbed the stairs of one of the buildings for a better vantage point. On the fifth floor of a ruined apartment, she looked out from a broken window, which gave her a decent view of the surrounding area. She could clearly hear now that the woman was calling for help, and it was quite obvious to Admu where she was calling from. Looming over the cityscape was a towering cathedral, adorned with baroque stone and metal ornamentation bearing a two-headed eagle. Admu gripped her bolter tightly and proceeded forth to her chosen destination.
Leman returned from his short patrol, his mind still plagued by noxious thoughts like harpies or biting flies inside of his skull. He raised his voxcaster and pressed the activation rune to tell Admu that he would be returning shortly but was rendered silent by the sound of two muffled voices he did not recognize.
"...they got one of the Sororitas locked up in the cathedral. Zagriel says they needed a 'pure soul' for the ritual." Leman released the button of the voxcaster and broke into a full sprint. He reached the hab-block in a matter of minutes, his breathing intense and his instincts on high alert for any threat he might encounter. He peered into the building through a small crack, and sure enough he could spot two traitor marines searching the interior. For the time being, all the frenetic thoughts and anxiety were completely drowned out by an animalistic, all-encompassing fury. He smashed through the window, shooting one of the marines directly in the eye socket of his helmet's visor. A muffled bang and a quick flash erupted from within his skull and collapsed as a lifeless corpse The second marine raised his bolter towards Leman, who swatted it away with his chainsword. Leman plunged the blade up into the marine's chest cavity and pulled the trigger. The traitor marine fell to the ground dead, his intestines spilling out of the large gash in his armor. Leman looked to the couch and saw Admu's voxcaster, immediately fearing the worst. He called her name in the slight chance she could have still been within earshot. The deafening silence confirmed his dreadful suspicion. Leman kicked open the front door and hurried down the wreckage-strewn road towards the city and the towering cathedral at its center.
Admu approached the dilapidated cathedral, drawn in by the calls for help. Luckily the exterior seemed unguarded, but that was no guarantee that the interior would be as well. She circled around the building and found a side entrance, which she tried to push open as quietly as possible. Dim rays of light shone through the gray, dusty interior, illuminating desecrated shrines and effigies to a mysterious figure atop a golden throne. She wondered whether the people who used to inhabit this place were Leman's kin, and if he would know who the man on the throne was.
Something tells me he would not be in the mood to explain. She thought.
As she crept through the dim halls, signs of a different kind of worship became apparent. Manic etchings, grotesque figures crudely carved or painted on the walls with unknown substances, and a pervasive feeling of wrongness was everywhere. She turned down one end of the sprawling maze of corridors and opened the door at the end of it. As she peered into the pitch-black room, her feet clattered against something on the ground, and she quickly activated the torch within her suit. She was shocked to find the room full of rot-blackened bones, their flesh long since picked clean. Her eyes slowly swept across the room, taking in the grotesque scene. The walls were stained with dried blood, and at the far end of the room appeared to be some kind of sacrificial altar. Her stomach dropped as she looked above the altar, and her eyes were drawn to a terrifyingly familiar symbol. Painted in dried blood was the trio of circles and arrows that represented her father - her family, along with the symbols of her aunt and uncles all arranged in a circle around an eight-pointed star. Her breathing quickened as she slowly stumbled backwards out of the room and fell on the floor of the hallway. Before she could fully take in the situation, Admu heard the voice of the woman from before coming from the opposite end of the hallway. She took a deep breath and rose to her feet, resolved to ensure that whatever crimes were being committed in this place were put to an end. She hurried down the carved stone hall and the voice grew louder and louder until she reached an ornate, carved wooden door at the end of it. She pressed up against it with her shoulder, making sure her weapon was pointing towards whatever unknown situation lied on the other side. The door opened to a cavernous nave at the heart of the cathedral, what was once an opulent and sanctified place of worship twisted into a horrific torture chamber. Rusted chains hung from the ceiling, holding the twisted and mangled corpses of civilians, sisters of battle, and black templars alike. The great hall was full of byzantine torture devices designed for no other purpose than to inflict the greatest amount of suffering imaginable, all stained with blood from repeated use. The floor resembled that of a slaughterhouse, with gore and viscera both old and fresh staining the very stone she stood on. A congregation of hooded figures gathered at the central altar, surrounding a towering man in black armor. In his right hand he held a staff inlaid with crystalline eyes and golden runes, while his left was engulfed by a blue-violet flame. Before him, chained to a pillar, was the half-butchered corpse of a sororitas, her body animated like a puppet by the sorcerer's arcane energies to imitate a cry for help. The body fell limp and the sorcerer slowly turned to face her.
"I am grateful that you could make it, sister. I was fearful you would not hear my… or rather, her distress calls. How considerate of you to come alone as well, without that templar following you around. I needed a pure soul for my ritual, but unfortunately this one passed on prematurely… luckily, I have a fresh one standing before me." he said.
He waved his hand, and the door behind Admu slammed shut. The hooded figures around Zagriel rose to their feet, revealing a myriad of spiked, gore-soaked weapons in their hands and grotesque looks of twisted anticipation on their scarred and mutilated faces.
Leman pulled his chainsword out of the back of a fallen traitor marine, the black legionnaire joining the other three members of his cadre that Leman had slain. Leman had torn his way through dozens of marines on his warpath to the cathedral, and he could sense that more were on the way. He sprinted down a ruined causeway leading through the city before a volley of bolter rounds flew past him. He rolled behind a nearby chunk of plascrete debris, the hail of projectiles kicking up dust as they exploded upon impact with Leman's cover. He peaked around the corner to assess the situation before another volley forced him back into cover. His assailant was an oversized, mutant astartes wielding a massive autocannon, belt-fed by a canister of ammunition on his back. Without a second thought, Leman armed a frag grenade and tossed it overhead directly towards the traitor marine. He shot up from his cover and, in an instant, fired a round from his bolt pistol that struck the grenade right as it fell in front of his assailant. The explosion shredded the traitor's armor but was not enough to disable him, only temporarily stunning the marine. Not wasting a moment, Leman vaulted over the debris and charged. He leapt into the air, bringing the tip of his chainsword down and plunging it into the traitor's exposed chest. The rotating teeth dug into the exposed flesh and made quick work of the enemy's internal organs as his overgrown body fell to the ground with a loud thud. Leman quickly reached a pavilion which was overlooked by the grand cathedral and could hear indistinct shouting coming from within as well as flashing lights bursting from the painted glass windows. He pushed aside whatever fears were swelling up in his mind and ran as fast his legs could carry him, the servos in his power armor humming from the exertion. He sprinted up a vast stairway of chiseled stone leading up to the ornately engraved wooden entrance, lowering his shoulder and throwing himself at the door with all of his might. The locks on the door exploded into wooden splinters as it swung open with a loud crack and a resounding crash.
The central chamber of the cathedral was littered with the bodies of dead chaos cultists, their bodies perforated and blasted apart by bolter rounds. The walls were covered in holes and burn marks, with small blue-green fires that dotted the interior of the room. The chaos sorcerer Zagriel lay in the center of the room, his legs and abdomen torn to shreds by explosives and his staff embedded in the skull of a nearby cultist. He was attempting to crawl with only one arm intact as his left had been blown clean off by a bolter round, before the heel of a heavy metal boot stepped on his back and pinned him to the ground. Admu pointed her bolter at the back of the sorcerer's head.
"Y… you damnable… ignorant… corpse-slave…" he said, with a pained and wheezing breath. "My gods will-"
"You know nothing of the gods, disgusting wretch." Admu said, blasting the traitor's skull open with a bolter round. She lowered her gun and wiped a splattering of blood from her face as she took a deep breath.
"Uh, Admu, are you… alright?" Leman asked, his face bearing a hint of surprise.
"Oh, hello Leman. What are you doing here, come to send me back to my room?" she said.
"Well, I was… coming to… rescue you? I thought you had been captured and-"
"What? I wasn't captured, I came here on my own. I overheard two of those armored men talking about some insidious ritual at this cathedral, so I came to stop it. That's what we're meant to do in these simulations, right?" she said, a hint of indignation creeping into her voice.
"I told you to stay in the hab-block, do you have any idea what could have happened to you?" Leman said, his voice growing louder.
"When I first joined you, you said that it wasn't your job to protect me. I've helped you ever since we met and I fought alongside you against the orks, and yet you still think I'm too weak!" she said.
"No, that's not what I- I didn't mean- I just, I didn't want you to find out about it like… this." he said.
"What do you mean 'it'? What's going on here?" she said.
Before Leman could respond, a hail of bolter rounds flew through the open door. "Damn it, the traitors followed me!"
"You led them here!?" Admu said. Leman and Admu pushed the doors shut as bolter rounds perforated the wood, and Admu toppled a metal torture rack to keep them shut.
"I was trying to-" an explosion rocked the building, blowing open a hole in the wall and causing dust and debris to fall from the ceiling. Two marines armed with chain axes charged in through the opening. Leman locked blades with one of them, quickly deflecting his axe blow and slashing a weak point in the marine's armor with his chainsword. The traitor fell to the ground incapacitated, so Leman turned to the other marine who raised his axe before getting shot square in the head by Admu.
"Who are these men? Why do they bear my family's crests?" Admu shouted amidst the chaos.
"Is this really the time for that conversation?" Leman shouted in kind, before another explosion shook the cathedral. Admu fired a volley of shots into a group of marines through another section of the wall, killing two of them as the rest scrambled for cover behind the rubble.
"No, the time for this conversation was when we got here!" She said, reloading her bolter. Leman leapt over a piece of the broken wall and embedded his chainsword into the chest of one of the traitor marines, shooting the other two with his pistol.
"We are not having this discussion now!" Leman said, pulling his chainsword out and cutting the hand off of one of the black legionnaires he had just shot as he was reaching for his chain axe. Leman then finished him off with a shot to the head.
"You just think I'm too immature for you to tell me, don't you?" She said, smacking a charging traitor marine across the face with the butt of her gun. "After everything we've been through you still treat me like nothing but a hindrance!" She shot the fallen marine several times, killing him.
"Damn it, that's not true!" He said, locking chainswords with an attacking black legionnaire. He pushed the marine away with a rain of sparks, and then cut a nasty gash up across his opponent's chestplate. "I was… afraid of what would happen if you found out!"
"Afraid that I would be too scared to fight?" she said, tossing a grenade into one of the side rooms. The explosion rocked the cathedral, kicking up dust. Leman was beginning to have doubts about the structural integrity of this building.
"I never said that, I just-" he said.
"You what?" she said.
"I was afraid you would never smile again!" Leman shouted.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Admu said.
"I-" Leman was interrupted by the sound of splintering wood as the great doors of the cathedral were smashed open. Leman and Admu turned to see a colossal marine in terminator armor and cloaked in blood-soaked furs. The glowing red eyes of his helmet pierced through the dust-choked air and highlighted the bony horns which protruded from his head. His rebreather steamed with boiling-hot breath and blood dripped from the immense, black-iron mace in his grip.
"It has been so long since the gods have sent me a worthy challenge…" his voice boomed, as the ground shook with his slow, deliberate steps. "My daemon-mace hungers for worthy souls, every moment it remains unsaturated its handle seeps with the blood of the innocent." Admu scowled at him with venomous eyes. She readied her bolter to unload on the hulking traitor, but in a flash, Salazar raised his left arm and fired the storm bolter attached to his wrist. Admu and Leman dove for cover as the explosive bolter rounds peppered the inside of the cathedral. The ground shook with each of the behemoth's strides, causing more dust to fall from the deteriorating ceiling. "You killed my sorcerer before he could complete the ritual, throne-zealots. To think that all those innocent lives we tortured and put to death truly died for nothing!" Salazar said, erupting with laughter that was distorted by his rebreather into a ghastly wheezing sound. He hefted his mace into the air and brought it down on the fallen pillar Leman was behind. He rolled out of the way, firing rounds that were absorbed by the chaos warlord's heavy armor. Admu fired several rounds into the enemy's back before he spun around and fired his stormbolter at her. She ducked behind a pillar to reload and noticed cracks beginning to form on the large marble supports. Leman held up his chainsword to block Salazar's mace and was pushed back by the armored warrior's enhanced strength. Salazar swung at him, but Leman leapt backwards and just missed the brutish swipe. Their weapons clashed once again, as sparks flew from the chainsword's grinding teeth.
"Leman!" Admu shouted.
"I'm a bit-" Leman said, deftly parrying a mace strike, "busy!" Admu pointed upwards repeatedly, and Leman looked up for a split second before having to block the next strike. He looked at her and nodded, wordlessly agreeing with her. She pulled out the last of her grenades and got to work. Leman raised his bolt pistol, but it was knocked out of his hand by a strike from Salazar's mace. The tractor marine kicked Leman in the chest, knocking him into a wall with prodigious force. He ducked and tumbled onto the floor as Salazar's mace crashed into the wall where Leman's head was only a second ago. Admu picked up a large hook and chain attached to one of the torture devices, swinging it to gather momentum. Salazar raised his left hand to aim the stormbolter at Leman but was interrupted by the metal hook wrapping around his arm and becoming stuck. Before he had a chance to struggle against it, Admu flipped a large level which caused the chain to begin retracting, dragging the surprised Salazar with it. His arm was trapped by metal restraints, which Salazar struggled against savagely.
"Come on!" Admu shouted, helping to pull Leman off the floor. The two ran towards the exit, making it just outside the shattered door frame as the grenades began going off. One by one, the support pillars shattered, and the entire cathedral began to crumble underneath its own weight. Salazar howled, pulling against the restraints and causing them to bend and buckle. Huge chunks of rubble and stone plummeted from the ceiling as the building collapsed in on itself. Leman and Admu stumbled into the courtyard as it was engulfed by a cloud of dust from the improvised demolition. Admu coughed as she tried to catch her breath.
"Is… is he dead?" she said through labored breathing.
"That lumbering troll was wearing terminator armor. It's gonna take more than dropping a hab-block on that fiend to finish him off." Leman said.
Sure enough, the huge chunks of rubble began to shift and slide as the battered but unbroken form of Captain Salazar emerged from the wreckage. His stormbolter was destroyed, and the faceplate of his helmet was shattered.
"I… would have been satisfied… just crushing your skulls in…" Salazar said, struggling to speak without his rebreather. "But now… I'm going to make… your deaths… as slow… and painful… as possible!" The traitor marine launched into a berserker rage, pushing his terminator armor to the limit as he swung his mace furiously. Admu raised her bolter to fire at him, but in a flash his mace swiped her bolter away and sent her flying backwards.
"Admu!" Leman shouted, charging at the traitor marine in a mad fury. He clashed weapons with Salazar, striking him such that the traitor was pushed back by the force of the blow. Leman launched a flurry of strikes which overwhelmed his enemy, the traitor's enhanced strength beguiled by Leman's expert swordsmanship honed over ten millennia. He attempted to retaliate with his mace, but Leman deflected the strike and the weapon slipped from Salazar's grasp. Enraged, Salazar simply grabbed Leman with his other hand and lifted him off the ground, his enhanced strength quickly testing the durability of Leman's armor. Leman thrust his chainsword into his opponent, but the teeth simply ground away futilely against the thick terminator armor. He swatted away Leman's sword and attempted to grab his neck, but Leman struggled against the towering behemoth, howling in pain as his muscles strained against the terminator's prodigious strength. Salazar cackled like a wounded hyena and twisted his face into a perverse grin, as he prepared to finish off the hated nuisance which had ruined his entire campaign.
"Look here you bastard!" Admu shouted. Salazar turned to her and was promptly struck in the face by his own mace. He dropped Leman onto the ground, who began coughing and struggling to his feet. Salazar stumbled backwards, his bloody and bruised face contorted into a mixture of surprise and anger. Before he could react, Admu struck him again, and again, swinging the heavy mace with all of her might. The terminator fell against a wall, blood streaming from his shattered nose and swollen lips, and Admu swung the blunt weapon down on the traitor's skull. Leman staggered to one knee before he was finally able to stand on both feet again, watching Admu slam the mace at his head one final time. She heaved his mace and tossed it away, wiping the blood which seemed to seep from its handle on her power armor's tabard with a slight grimace.
"Maybe if his weapon didn't constantly leak blood, he could've held onto it better." Admu said with contempt on her face.
A Leman sighed, and removed his helmet to reveal a face that, coincidentally, happened to look a bit like a less weathered and scarred version of his own. Albeit with curly black hair and a strangely blunt nose, Admu noted. She preferred Leman's usual face. He looked at Admu, who had her arms crossed and her mouth twisted into a kind of annoyed pout.
"Fine, I'll tell you." he said, rubbing his temple. He sat down on a toppled pillar, and told her everything, or at least the best summary he could manage from what he knew.
He told her of the primarchs, how they were scattered across the galaxy and how his father set out to find them, he told her about their sons, the astartes, and he told her about the Heresy. How the dark gods seduced, tricked, and twisted half of his brothers into traitors. How they plunged the galaxy into darkness and turmoil, killing or incapacitating most of his brothers and fatally wounding his father. He touched briefly on his time in the warp, though he felt that it was not worth the time to fully describe ten thousand years of non-stop torment.
"...When I set out on my quest into the Immaterium, all of my brothers were either dead, missing, or worse - daemons. I spent millennia in the realm of those debaucherous 'gods', so long that I had forgotten what it felt like to ever be at peace. That is, until I met you. I feared losing you, the you that I met on that sunlit meadow after an eternity of madness, in the same way that I lost my brothers and my father - to Chaos, to the madness of war, to the meaningless suffering of a cold and indifferent galaxy. I don't know how you and your family are connected to the ruinous powers, but after spending so much time in their company I can say without a doubt that they are nothing like their namesakes in the Immaterium, the vile beings that these madmen worship. I'm… sorry for letting my concerns blind me to the reality of our mission… and underestimate your strength." he said, looking down at the floor. He looked up at Admu, whose face bore an indiscernible mix of contemplation and disquiet. She took a deep breath, looked Leman in the eyes, and smiled.
"You're… smiling?" Leman said.
"Leman, I knew you were upset about something… I was just frustrated because you wouldn't tell me - and wouldn't let me help you." She said. "I knew how much it hurt you to talk about those things back in the desert, that's why I stopped you. But this time, it was different. I could see how much it hurt you to keep it locked up inside with no one to share it with."
"Really…" Leman said, slightly impressed. "You could tell all that?"
"Mister Russ, you're easier to read than an open book." she said, laughing gently.
"You know… you handled that bolter rather adeptly. Where did you learn to shoot like that?" he said.
"I told you, papa used to take me hunting all the time. It just so happens that some of those times uncle Khorne would come with us… and bring some of his equipment." She said, making finger guns with her hands. Leman sighed.
"Admu, are you truly… alright? With knowing about… Chaos?" he said.
Admu's expression darkened, and for a split-second Leman perceived an intense anger shooting across her face before returning to normal.
"My papa- my family taught me right from wrong. To defend the innocent and punish evil. What I saw in there…" she trailed off. "I don't care what those so-called 'chaos gods' call themselves, evil like that can't be allowed to exist. I know who my family is, and it has nothing to do with them or their despicable followers." She said with a determined expression. Leman nodded.
"I agree." He said, and a momentary quiet passed between the two. Leman sat back and breathed deeply, feeling as though the immense burden he had carried for ten thousand years had been ever so slightly lightened.
"By the way… did you really say that you didn't want me to 'never smile again'?" Admu said, giggling. "That might be the corniest thing I've ever heard."
"Well forgive me for being sincere." Leman said.
Captain Salazar, having regained consciousness well over 15 minutes ago, couldn't believe what he was hearing.
Leman Russ? Daughter of Nurgle? Did these corpse-worshippers damage their brains during planetfall? How in the nine hells did these idiots beat us!? He thought.
"Say, I wonder why the simulation hasn't ended yet." Leman mused. To their surprise, Salazar coughed and wheezed, attempting to regain use of his lungs.
"What… in the hell… are you two… loyalist lapdogs… talking ab-" Salazar was cut off by a bolter round splattering the contents of his skull on the wall behind him. Leman turned to see Admu with her bolter up before he could even reach for his chainsword, and a look of pure hatred on her face. She took a deep breath, and her expression softened before she smiled again.
"Looks like he wasn't dead yet. Fixed it." She said.
Leman and Admu rematerialized the cavernous VR chamber, and a familiar shrill voice rang out from the loudspeakers above.
"Good news! I believe that I've finally managed to interrupt the simulation protocols, I should have complete control over the system. I just need to flip this switch to disconnect the soul matrix from the temporal displacement amplifier…" Tzeentch said, followed by the sound of a heavy switch being flipped and loud electrical surges. The air around Leman crackled with the arcane energy and temporal fluctuations, and he once again felt his consciousness jerk and splice into a new, unfamiliar form. He opened his eyes and saw his hands flexing as he adjusted to his next form. He was wearing a skintight suit of black, leathery material which seemed almost to blend into what was behind it. He was wearing a visor which provided constant analysis of whatever was in sight, even beyond that provided by the typical astartes helmet.
A Vindicare Assassin… Leman noted. At least I'm still human.
He looked up and saw that he was in some kind of immense scrapyard, with the rotting and broken hulls of battleships, space cruisers, and other unrecognizable machinery littering the lifeless landscape for as far as he could see.
That's strange, I don't believe the Mechanicum would ever let technology like this go to waste… it must be some kind of xenos world, or the site of a great void battle. He thought.
He looked over to where Admu was standing a moment ago, and to his surprise he saw a tall and lithe figure wearing wraithbone armor wrapped in green cloth. Raven locks of black hair cascaded across the sharp features of her otherworldly visage, her face bearing an unmistakable and ghostly elegance.
An Aeldari seer… and a Vindicare assassin… in a ship graveyard? Where the hell are we? Leman thought.
"Ooh, I like this!" Admu said, admiring her elegant attire. "Although, it feels sort of… familiar for some reason."
Suddenly they heard a piercing noise inside of their heads causing both of them to grab their heads in discomfort.
"Ah, apologies… uh, that was supposed to turn the machine off…" Tzeentch's voice rang out telepathically. "...but it appears that an unexpected memory leak caused the simulation to revert to an earlier data shard that was being held in the system's memory. That's strange… I don't remember programming this simulation into the queue…" Tzeentch said. They could hear the sound of clacking keys as Tzeentch muttered to himself. "Vindicare assassin… Aeldari farseer… Eversor… Grey Knights… what? They do WHAT!?" Tzeentch slammed his hands on the console. "By the spheres of the heavens, Slaanesh, if I catch you breaking into my computer one more time, I will TURN YOU INTO A SLANN!" he shouted. Leman looked at Admu who simply shrugged. Tzeentch took a deep breath. "Okay, I'm going to try to manually reset the simulation, which will hopefully allow me to completely disconnect both of you. You may experience some… brief cognitive discoherence, but simply avoid depersonalizing thoughts and you should be fine. Alright, here we… go!" Rather than dematerializing, the world around them seemed to phase and shift erratically like a damaged holovid. Their surroundings changed rapidly, going from an icy tundra in one moment to a barren desert the next. Reality seemed to be shifting in a patchwork, until finally it settled on a single location.
The rolling rust-dunes of Mars extended out in all directions, like waves in a sea of rust. The ruins of some long-forgotten civilization were scattered like fragments of a sunken ship, near-completely subsumed by the ruddy sea. Harsh winds carried thick clouds of metallic dust along the horizon, darkening the sun's rays into a kind of burgundy twilight. It was Mars, but not the Mars that Leman knew. It was still wild, untamed. The towering, gleaming spires of the Adeptus Mechanicus were nowhere to be seen, nor were their great excavated chasms which held innumerable treasures from Humanity's golden age; what little evidence of human habitation there was, was in the process of being reclaimed by the Martian landscape. As he turned to glimpse the entirety of his surroundings, his eyes fell upon two figures. Barely 500 feet away a man in golden armor with a sword of fire stood, his obsidian hair swaying in the Martian wind. Before him stood a humanoid being of living metal, winged and serpentine in nature. Its form was nigh-indescribable, like a dragon in the form of a star in the form of a man. Its eyes crackled with a nauseating green power which extended in arcs all across its body. It hovered just above the ground, with only one of its feet resting upon the rusted sand.
"Father…?" Leman said, outstretching his hand. He noticed that his entire arm was translucent, like a hologram. Immediately the world around him froze, down to the last particle of dust and gust of wind.
"They can't see you. In fact, you can't interact with them at all, this isn't a simulation. Merely a projected recording of junk memory, uncompiled data floating around in the system's data banks playing back while it flushes the rest of its working memory." Tzeentch said.
"Uncle Tzeentch?" Admu said.
"Yes dear?" he said.
"If this isn't a simulation, why is that… metal lizard-man thing looking at us?" she said.
Leman's hearts froze. Green eyes stared into his, and even at such a distance it felt as though he was in immediate danger. Its metallic wings shuddered, as if struggling against some kind of viscous fluid. It took one step - then another.
"The recording is paused, nothing should be-" Tzeentch said.
I am impressed.
Leman and Admu stepped back, alarmed by a new voice which echoed all throughout their minds.
I was not aware anyone possessed technology which could duplicate even a fraction of my essence - not even the Empyreans.
"That should… not be possible…" Tzeentch said, accompanied by the furious sound of clacking keys.
Quantum crystalline circuitry combined with the endemic non-linear temporality of the Immaterium - fascinating.
I could make good use of this technology - very good use.
The metallic being glitched out of existence.
"Tzeentch… what was that?" Leman said.
"Remain calm, but… it appears that 'metal lizard-man' just converted itself into a self-replicating polymorphic algorithm which is currently attempting to take control of my computer systems." Tzeentch said. "Worry not, I still have everything under control!"
Leman grumbled.
"Admu, if we ever get out of here, I'm going to kill him."