Saint Summer the Huntress

by Korykr

To most death is the end. To some death is a doorway. To Summer death is a beginning. Separated from her home and family, she must carve her way across a galaxy in flames in order to return to them. Nothing would get in her way. Not aliens, monsters, daemons, or evil gods. She would return to Remnant and leave her mark on the galaxy.

11. Chapter 11

Warhammer 40k belongs to Games Workshop.

RWBY belongs to Rooster Teeth.

---

Chapter 11: Clash of Champions-Kings of Skulls and Gold

Silence. A never-ending continuum of silence accompanied by a ceaseless void that felt like it went on forever. This was existence, this was reality.

Except it wasn't, not really. This was simply an illusion he had found himself in. The darkness did not stretch out into a vast abyss that would engulf whole worlds in its shade, nor did the silence prove this theory either.

The champion knew this to be true for he was under no illusion of where he was and what state he was in. If he were able to move, had he arms to move, all he would need to do was stretch out a hand and he would find the end of the darkness.

The dark was one small comfort he had been gifted since his failure all those years ago. The silence was also a comfort, but it doubled as a punishment. It allowed his thoughts to run free. A luxury that many of his order are too preoccupied to use to their benefit.

For him, he never lacked time to think. However, as the ancient maxim went, too much of a good thing quickly becomes a bad thing.

So, in his solitude, cut off from his kin and forbidden from interacting with the world, he allowed his mind to wander.

At times, he thought of his brothers. Those that were with him at the beginning. The earliest times when their king could only manage to create a few dozen of them. The champion recalled the number before the great expansion.

Thirty. There were only thirty at the beginning. There were ten thousand of them afterwards and while that did not diminish them nor their quality in the slightest, he found that it did not feel the same.

He hated to admit that he struggled to recall most of them after all his time here. Their faces, their names, but not their deeds for that would be the greatest insult to them. In all fairness, sometimes even his advanced mind forgot his own name.

He did recall Valdor though, he could never forget how the two of them debated on how best to tackle a challenge given to them by their king.

Valdor, always calm and stoic, ever calculating his next move with perfect precision. Then there was the champion, who in many regards was his opposite. Wild and choleric, with an energetic demeanor that set him apart from his brothers.

Their king would often calmly chide him in front of the rest of them, but he never took offense.

"Everything I do, I do in your name, my King," he would always say with pride.

His king never smiled, but a small part of the champion knew that his king liked how he stood apart from his kin. Besides, the remarks against his boisterousness were never orders to stop, else his king would not bother to entertain such things.

That was how things were done back then. Their king would not tolerate anything that was felt to be a detriment. Anything that was against their mission was stamped out without remorse.

At times, he thought that perhaps he did go too far back then, placing himself at risk in place of his brothers. He never regretted it, even if those actions eventually landed him in this tomb.

He often thought back to his wounding. How things could have been different had he not been placed in this sarcophagus. Would he have been able to save their king from an infinitely worse fate than what he was experiencing? Would he have been able to make a greater contribution during their secret war? Would he have been able to save Ra?

Such was his reality since his entombment. An eternity with his own mind, constantly reviewing and revising what he had seen and experienced. As if he would stumble upon the hidden formula that could erase all that had happened.

At times, he would wonder what it was like to dream as the mortals did. Sleep did not come to his kind. At best they would be rendered catatonic after suffering crippling trauma. This was the same for those lesser creations. Those meant to be massed army of the burgeoning Imperium.

The Astartes.

At times, he entertained thoughts of leading an extermination of their kind. Many times, he found himself simulating how best to slay them with his armored form as all his kind did. Though, he doubted many of them did it with the same fervor as him. Over and over again, he would run scenarios of the siege in his mind. A never-ending cycle of revision to find faults with his tactics and executions.

Of all those who claimed to know his existence, few could truly match what he had gone through. He would never nod his head to those who claimed to be ancient among the Astartes. Those who were bound in armor and forced to witness existence from behind steel frames.

While he could respect their endurance, it could never compare to him, not even among his own kin.

For he was something they could never be. He was the first.

"Awake," came a hushed whisper that somehow sounded clear.

The champion jerked in his prison, rocked from thoughts, he gave his full attention to the voice as he could do nothing else. He felt frozen as he awaited further commands, as this was a voice he had yearned to hear for an eternity.

"Sagittarus, my champion."

He blinked as he registered the name. It was his name. He must have forgotten it again while trapped within his own mind.

He was Sagittarus Malacque, one of his king's personal Honor Guard during the earliest days of unification.

Sagittarus jerked in his coffin, the liquid he was submerged in, and the many cables and tubes connected to his broken form made themselves known as he strained against them. In his mind, he gave a stance of praise, rather than the obedience that his brothers offered. He stood tall and his back straight, his weapon arm raised as if his old spear were present to give his personal salute. He gave this to show his joy at being acknowledged by his lord. Something his master never discouraged.

"My King," he tried to say, but he knew it came out as a strangled rasp due to the damage to his vocals and for a moment he lamented at not being able to give his lord the praise that was due.

"Listen, Sagittarus, my time is short."

"I hear you, my King," Sagittarus rasped, "What is your decree?"

"Damnation comes."

Images flashed before him, a rift in the sky, bloody thoughtforms flooding the streets of Terra. Death, so much death, the likes of which he had not seen since before the beginning of his great slumber.

The red daemons gragged themselves free from pools of blood, ready to spread their carnage like a virus. The small ones flooding the streets, accompanied by the hounds with frilled necks and their mechanical bullish mounts.

Then came the larger ones, the winged behemoths swooping down from the sky like wrathful angels ready to deliver judgement on a world that once defied them.

Then came one after the others had landed. This one did not soar on wings of fire, this one fell like a meteor promising extension to the world it landed on. The meteor slammed into earth, destroying friend and foe alike with its arrival.

The beast that emerged roared as twin axes began their bloody work.

Then came Sagittarus' brothers, charging out of the palace walls to create a bulwark of solid gold to meet the coming onslaught. And they were not alone, gunships and drop pods filled the skies as the Imperium deployed everything it had to protect the Palace.

There were Space Marines in black, mortal men and women in army uniform standing together at the walls awaiting their doom.

Then there was a giant among giants rushing into the fray. Clad in blue and gold, wielding a sword that did not belong to him.

Guilliman, the Primarch of the Ultramarines had returned.

Then came a sight that honestly perplexed even his advanced mind. He saw a woman, a mortal human woman. She wore no armor and bore no standard or heraldry he knew of, but he felt a sense of grace emanating from her as her cloak of pure white fluttered in the foul winds. Wielding a spear that reminded him of his own, she twirled and danced among the daemons, carving and cutting with a unique beauty that was somehow beyond material.

The vision focused on her as she cut deeper and deeper into the ranks of monsters.

A shadow fell on her and then the vision came to a stop, replaced by a shining star in the darkness.

Sagittarus knew that light. It was faint and distant but there was no mistaking it. That was the light of his king.

"You must walk again."

Sagittarus did not know for sure, he could never know while in the state he is in, but he thought he felt tears welling up in his eyes. He was being called to war once again after uncounted millennia. His king was ordering him to rise, and he would not be found wanting.

"What is your command, my King? What is my role in this war?"

Sagittarus never let his excitement get the better of him, that much he had in common with his kin. If his master was simply calling him to war, he would not grant him this much detail. His master never expended his Custodes like bolt shells. They were Exitus rounds, used for a specific purpose and always produced results.

The whisper came and his role became clear. His purpose was redefined, and his resolve reforged. His king commanded him to rise and so he shall.

He felt a jolt run through his body as the systems that governed his chassis awakened with fresh power. He both felt and not felt his mechanical arms sway as their servos hummed to life. His legs bent slightly as their joints loosened in preparation for movement.

Voices were transmitted to him through his armor's reactivated audio systems. They were all filled with surprise and shock as he expected. They had tried to wake him before, but he always refused their calls. Now he was rising of his own accord.

Finally, the visual feed of his helmet activated, granting him full vision of the dim chamber he and his kin were left to rest. Others slept in their tombs around him, yet to be cajoled from their slumber.

A pair of tech-adepts stood before Sagittarus, both studying him as if he were malfunctioning.

He put an end to their wondering with the hailer built into his chassis.

"Cease your inspection!" He did not mean to bellow but the hailer was made to be loud.

Both tech-adepts flinched in response to the sudden noise. Sagittarus did not give them a chance to question him.

"Prepare my armaments!" He ordered, noting that other tech-adepts that were tending to their own charges were staring at him. Their augmented faces showing what little surprise they were capable of expressing.

"I shall join my brothers in war!"

---

On route to the surface of Terra, Summer Rose sat in the surprisingly spacious passenger bay of the Custodes troop transport, an Orion Transport if she recalled correctly. The interior was designed for the giants she found herself surrounded by which justified how large the troop compartment was to her.

Other than that, she noticed how smoothly it soared through the sky in comparison to the other vehicles the Imperium had for such things. The rest were all shaky and rough, but this was quite the opposite. The only thing she could hear from the ship was the low hum of its mechanisms, mechanisms that she was secretly drooling to have a look at.

With her in the troop bay was Celestine, her bodyguards, Lothar and Guiren, Osiris and the white Custodian that was introduced to be Sett.

Then there were the four women in copper armor that slightly resembled the Custodes in design. After removing their helmets, Summer blinked in surprise to see that their mouths were sealed shut by their breath masks.

Guilliman took a separate transport so he could talk with the Chancellor of the Council of the High Lords, Tieron. He seemed like a nice man, and he looked beyond happy to see the Primarch, which was a relief. Guilliman had told her that there might be some problems with the High Lords once they arrived.

Summer shoved any nervousness away, Guilliman could handle whatever tricks some old codgers tried to throw is way.

Instead, she decided to pass the time by talking with one of the most stubborn beings in the galaxy. After the incident on Luna, Osiris straight up refused to leave her alone again. He had conceded when she was being transferred to His All-Encompassing Will, and he did not plan on allowing another incident to render him incapable of offering assistance.

Celestine had joined in because she felt that her presence would make things harder for the Primarch as he discussed his plans with Tieron. As for the Templars, they were doing what they promised, keeping her safe, much to her annoyance.

"So, you're twins?" Summer asked.

Osiris nodded from inside his helmet, that quick and respectful not he always did, whereas the other one, Sett, did his in a more casual fashion.

"That is correct," Osiris answered, "we were given over to the Emperor in our youth to ascend to the ranks of our brotherhood together."

"It was common belief that only one of us would survive at best." Sett added, turning to his blood-brother. "Many thought it would be you who would fail."

Osiris looked at his kin for a moment before turning away. "As I recall, I always achieved greater results during the trials. You were always slow."

Summer blinked as if she did not understand what just happened, did the ever stoic and serious Osiris just tell something adjacent to a joke?

Sett grunted in amusement. "I was only behind you by a fraction of a second. Do not shame me so, brother. It brings me grief that after ten thousand years we can still never stop fighting."

"That is because you can't resist trying to gain the upper hand," Osiris countered with no shift in his tone.

Summer felt a smile press her lips, for some odd reason, it felt so endearing to see someone who acted so distant from humans display something that only a true human could show.

Then a thought entered her mind. "Can I see your faces?"

Both Custodes looked at her for a moment and then at one another. In unison, as if they were mirror images of each other, they both reached up and undid their neck seals. When their helmets came off, Summer was greeted by one man in two different stages of his life.

Osiris still looked young and fresh, ready to tackle the universe. His brown hair neatly cut and his green eyes shining bright. Sett on the other hand, looked very old. Older than Nicholas when he was sporting greyish white hair before his rejuvenate treatment. His hair was still white, but it had more gray in it before he was de-aged.

Sett's hair had completely lost its color and his skin looked ragged and wrinkled. Another notable difference between the two was the number of scars. Osiris only had one, but Sett's face had at least four big ones. One indicated that he nearly lost an eye.

He caught Summer staring at them and gave a weary smile, one that bore the weight of ages come and gone. This was a man who had seen too much of the universe and was forced to keep on going. The closest thing she had to compare was Ozpin, but that somehow felt hollow in comparison. Ozpin was old, but he never experienced war on the scale that Summer had just gone through, much less someone who has been fighting for ten thousand years.

"Are you curious about my scars?" Sett asked politely.

Summer nodded and pointed to her eye to show which she wanted to hear about.

Sett was not smiling anymore but he did not give the impression of someone who was upset. It was the face of someone recalling a trying time.

"I got this scar during a Genestealer Cult uprising on a distant world in a neighboring system. I found myself surrounded and one of their pure-strains managed to breach my guard and land a strike that nearly took my eye."

Summer had read about these aliens. Greyfax was in a generous mood when Summer asked her what aliens to be on the lookout for. Her answer was basically all of them, but she did outline some that would be more likely to cause trouble than not. When she heard about the aliens called Genestealers she felt her teeth clench in suppressed disgust and anger. Hijacking the DNA of others to propagate your own species while also taking over their minds. If Summer ever encountered such beasts, she would be the first in line to lead a kill-team.

Lothar, who was listening in on the conversation decided to give praise where it was owed. "Impressive. To be surrounded by the filth and live is no small feat. Many are those of my brothers who have fallen to such a trap."

"Are they really that dangerous outside of their infection capabilities?" Summer asked, her huntress instincts prompting her to gather as much information on dangerous beasts as she could.

Guiren, who was oddly silent throughout their departure from Luna gave an amused chuckle. "Are they dangerous? My lady, that is a ludicrous question. Those bloody things are quick enough to keep up with and outpace all but the best Astartes. Then there's their claws, our armor protects us from most threats, but not from that menace. Even Terminator plate does not hold up."

Summer took in every word that was being said, cataloguing the Genestealers as some sort of apex predator that should be treated with caution.

"You are forgetting their tendency for colonizing, Templar," Sett added in. "They rarely if ever wander off alone. If you find one, then there are likely at least two dozen more close by and hundreds in their primary nesting grounds."

"So, you were outnumbered when you found them?" Summer asked, hoping to hear both a good story and gain some more insight.

Sett obliged without a second thought, "Oh yes. They had several dozen times our number in pure-strains alone, and I dare not describe to you just how many hybrids there were, most likely a full hive of the fiends crashed down on us that day."

"Surely you jest, lord." One of the Geminae Superia asked, Eleanor if she guessed right. The two of them looked so much alike that Summer suspected that they were also twins.

"Do I appear to be jesting, Sister?" Sett responded, "I tell you this to be true. It was not a battle that was fought that day, it was an extermination. There were so many of the filth that I did not bother to count how many I cut down."

"You must have felt so lazy," Osiris said in a neutral tone, but Summer recognized it as a jab between siblings. It was likely something they only ever did with each other. Raven and Qrow did it all the time, constantly throwing subtle insults at one another as a form of rivalry and affection. Even if Raven would never admit it.

Summer sighed as the sight of these giants of war behaving like her old teammates brought up memories of better days. Then her thoughts drifted to more recent losses.

"I hope they got out of there alive."

"Who are you speaking of, my friend?" Celestine asked.

"Oh, umm, just some people who survived the crash on the moon. I locked them in a storage crate when those sorcerers came for me. I hope they're okay, Gessel is with them, and I don't want to lose her so soon."

"You need not worry," Sett assured, "there are teams combing the wreck as we speak. Any survivors that can be moved will find salvation."

Summer gave him a smile to show her appreciation, her gaze then drifted to the silent women who have simply been watching them the entire time. Summer could not help but find them interesting. She recalled images of them upon seeing their armor but had trouble piecing it together.

When one among them realized that Summer was staring at her, she narrowed her eyes scrunching the Aquila tattoo on her forehead and for a moment, the huntress thought this was some kind of staring contest. The armored woman looked at Summer as if expecting the huntress to look away.

When Summer didn't, the woman looked angry and made an elaborate series of gestures with her hands. It was some advanced form of sign language that she did not understand in the slightest.

The same could not be said for the rest of them. The senior of their number slapped the woman across the back of her head and made her own signs and Summer noted hint of anger in the way her gestures were made.

"There is no need to be so harsh," Sett said abruptly, "I know what she signed was rude, but she could not have known better, Sister."

The senior warrior maiden responded with a quick series of gestures which looked like a counter argument.

"Do as you please," Sett conceded.

"What did she say?" Summer asked in curiosity.

"A direct translation would be, 'What are you staring at you albino grox. Do you want me to use the spark of my flamer on your eyes?'"

Summer tilted her head, "Okay. Umm, what's a grox?"

The silent maiden that insulted her slapped the palm of her hand against the tattoo on her head and all Summer could do was give a sheepish smile in apology for her ignorance.

The senior maiden gave an aggressive sign and the one with the tattoo appeared to deflate. The scolded women then looked to Summer and made a slow array of gestures that almost made her look younger than the scars would indicate.

Summer looked to the Custodes for translation.

"She says that she apologizes for her rudeness. She thought you were antagonizing her with your staring," Osiris explained.

"Oh." Summer, realizing her part in this, decided to explain herself. "If you got upset with me, I'm sorry. Your armor is unique, and I was just interested in how it works."

Osiris then made his own hand gestures in the same style as the silent women. Had the huntress been able to understand him, she would know that he said something along the lines of, "She has an obsession with instruments of war. She cannot help herself."

Most of the women nodded in understanding. The tattooed women gestured again, to which Osiris translated once more. "Then the fault still lies with me. When most people look at us, it is always with a measure of distain."

Summer's eyes widened. "Why do they do that?"

Her question elicited confused expressions on the faces of the women and a bemused chuckle from Celestine. Summer found it odd that her question caused more confusion, as if they expected her to know the answer already.

The tattooed woman looked to her senior and signed what Summer guessed was a question. The senior maiden gave a nod.

The tattooed woman then signed to Summer and Sett decided to translate this time. "Do you not feel repulsed by us?"

Now it was Summer's turn to be confused.

"No," she replied, "Should I be?"

Summer looked at them up and down but didn't feel anything wrong with them. Yes, she did feel something strange coming from them, but it did not go to the extent that made her feel disgusted with them. They gave off a sensation that made her think of Cadia. Of black pillars that reached into the sky. Having no patience for drawing out a conversation with a middleman, Summer just turned to her golden bodyguard and went for the direct route.

"Is there a reason why I should feel contempt for them?"

Osiris glanced at his brother who returned his stoic expression.

"The reason why they are treated with distain by most mortals is because they are blanks," Osiris answered plainly.

"Blanks?" Summer asked.

"Psychic blanks to be specific, think of them as the reverse of a psyker," Sett explained, "They project null field around them that weakens and cancels psychic phenomena."

Summer tiled her head. "I don't get it. That sounds like a good thing. Why does that get them such poor treatment?"

Summer was not looking at them, but the silent maidens were paying rapt attention to the conversation. Not to the words being spoken but the sheer alien experience of a non-blank genuinely questioning why they are damned to such a cursed existence.

Sett continued. "That is because the field they let off applies pressure to the minds and spirits of those around them that do not share this trait. This brings out an instinctual unease towards them that often results in unrecognized resentment."

The Custodian scrunched his face as he searched for a better way to describe it. "Imagine someone constantly stepping on the back of your feet as you walk in a preordained line. They do not mean to do it, they just do because of the limited space, and yet you will inevitably harbor resentment towards them for the discomfort they bring to you so long as said discomfort lasts."

Summer thought on it, then nodded. "I get it now. Its effects on people on people is not something they can just shut off. So, they have to live with being shunned."

"That is the fate of most bearing the Pariah-Gene," Osiris commented. "Being deemed soulless is not a something anyone would wish upon themselves."

When she heard the word soulless Summer looked at the Null Maidens and activated her Soul-Sight. She nearly gasped at what she saw. All of them were black holes in her eyes, instead of aura coalescing within their forms, it looked like miniature abysses of nothingness. But she knew there was something there. Those were souls, just not normal souls.

Returning to her normal sight, she saw the maidens for who they really were and couldn't help but feel bad for them. "I'm sorry you have to go through that."

The tattooed one signed, "Thank you for your kind words. It is not often we ever hear such things from those outside out Order."

Summer chuckled. "The Imperium wasn't exactly well receiving of me when I first showed up."

"I can attest to that," Lothar cut in. "The first time I saw you, you were being held at gunpoint by the Commissar and a squad of Kasrkin."

Summer gave a pout. "And I just wanted to help."

Summer smiled and felt that she wanted to know more about them. "Who are you? I'm sorry I never asked."

Some of the Null-Maidens snickered in relatable amusement while the tattooed one signed her name. "I am Katris, an Anathema Psykana."

"Nice to meet you, but what's an Anathema Psykana?"

"That is the name of their Order," Osiris answered. "Most refer to them as the Sisters of Silence."

He then paused and turned to the Sisters. "Forgive my indiscretion. I am aware that some among your numbers find that name to be demeaning. If I have offended you, I apologize."

Katris and her senior Sister just shook their heads while the other two just shrugged. Then the rest introduced themselves.

The senior among them was Seleana, an Oblivion Knight. The other two were Nuuma and Vietra.

Summer was happy to make new acquaintances and get past the silent tension that had been present before this whole discussion. The pressure of Guilliman meeting the Emperor was getting to her. It was a meeting that had to go well if she ever wanted to save her home.

"Sisters of Silence huh?" Summer found herself asking and then pointing to her mouth. "Is that because you never talk? Is that why you wear those mouth pieces?"

Katris nodded.

"And that's why you use this sign language?"

Another nod.

Summer turned to Osiris. "Are there other versions of this or is it just the one?"

"There are three different variants made for different situations. Thoughtmark, Battlemark, and Orskode, thoughtmark through knocking sounds on metal or stone."

Summer eyes lit up as the myriad of scenarios played in her mind. All the possibilities that such methods of communication offered were all too tempting to just ignore.

"Can you teach me?" She asked with the enthusiasm she had as a little girl.

"Of course," he said, "I am already teaching you High Gothic. I see no reason not to expand this further."

Sett looked at his sibling. "You are a teacher now, brother? Why do you do this and for a mortal?"

Osiris answered without altering his voice in the slightest to give away his intentions. "I am acting on a hunch. One that I shall only discuss in private."

Sett nodded, fully accepting Osiris' decision. "I understand."

The Sisters of Silence just watched the scene play out before them. This was a new experience for them. None of them detected the usual signs of revulsion from the huntress. No subtle twitch that had to be suppressed. No aversion of the eyes that required them to force their gaze on the Null-Maidens. No quiet tensing of the muscles and careful attempts to stay relaxed.

This woman was genuine and honest when she said that she felt no form of aversion towards them. But that made no sense, she was no pariah and some of the Sisters were even aware that she was a psyker so the effect should be even worse.

While it made no sense to them, they were happier than when they first boarded. She expressed remorse for them and had said words that none had ever said to any of them. I'm sorry. An admittance that what they were experiencing was not their fault. All their lives they hungered for one thing.

Acceptance. Today they felt like they finally got a taste of it.

---

Guilliman stood in silence as the Aquila Lander broke atmosphere. Chancellor Tieron and his aid, Jeck, had just finished appraising him of the situation on Terra. He wanted to just sit down and sigh.

As it turns out, the Astronomican had gone out before he arrived, and it was ongoing for about a month at this point. That was when Guilliman realized just how fortunate he was to get here with his forces still in one piece. Throne, he dared not imagine how the absence of that Warp beacon must have affected the wider Imperium.

He also decided not to ponder how Summer had managed to coax his father enough for him to guide them there. That was for later when he was in a proper position to investigate the bond she shared with the Emperor.

All he knew was that his father wanted him here and given the magnitude of the psychic event that was attributed to the Master of Mankind, it was highly probable that it cost the Emperor dearly. That alone was enough of a reason to press forward with his plan.

As for the local situation, the problem at hand was, much to Guilliman's chagrin, that Magnus was not the only foul presence in the system.

Daemons. There were daemons on Terra itself. Many minor manifestations have been sighted and any major incursion attempts spurred on by local cults have been squashed by Custodes and Inquisitorial agents. The problem was that the number of sightings did not slow or stagnate, instead they were increasing.

Guilliman shook his head. "You said that the Grey Knights were deployed?"

"Yes, my Lord," Tieron said, still slightly shocked by the Primarch's presence.

"Hmm, good," Guilliman turned to address the rest of his entourage.

With him was Greyfax, Cawl, Sicarius, Voldus and two squads of Grey Knights along with six Victrix Guard. Amalrich has returned to his Strike Cruiser. Celestine and her bodyguards had chosen to stay with Summer along with Osiris, whom Guilliman had found to be a reliable critique of the current state of the Imperium. There were others, Astartes Captains, officials of the Imperial Guard forces accompanying them, even the Ecclesiarchy's attachments to their fleet that he was forced to indulge for the sake of morale.

They were all inbound on their own transports and should arrive only one Terran standard hour after he landed, except for Summer and the Saint. They were in an Orion transport that flew alongside the golden Custodes Lander.

Of those he had not taken from Ultramar consisted of a squad of Custodes led by a Shield-Captain by the name of Andronatas. The rest were a small task force of Dark Angel Space Marines who Guilliman found difficult to trust, mainly because of the sheer evasiveness of their leader.

The hooded marine known as Cypher had offered a very poor explanation for his being here and him being in the perfect position to save the huntress from the sons of Magnus.

While Guilliman was grateful that his friend had been saved, he could not hide his irritation. They reminded him so much of their father. All the negative traits the Lion displayed were fully represented before him.

Then there was the sword strapped to Cypher's back. Guilliman could never forget that sword, the memory of the day he had snapped that blade on his knee was still fresh in his mind.

But it was the Dark Angel's possible intentions that troubled him even more. Cypher wanted an audience with the Emperor. Alone.

Guilliman obliged out of a sense of gratitude but held in reserve the intention to have the man interrogated. That sword was not going anywhere near the Emperor so long as he breathed.

Swatting such thoughts away, he focused his attention on the leader of the Knights of Titan.

"Grandmaster, did you know about this?"

Voldus tapped the bud of his daemon hammer against the deck plates as they rattled. "I was made aware of the situation after the battle on Luna, but I have yet to be informed on how my brothers are responding to the threat."

To this Tieron decided to make his voice heard again. "I have been made aware of their response. The Inquisitorial Representative informed me less than two days ago."

Guilliman gestured with his gauntlet for the man to continue.

"According to what I have been told, the Grey Knights have divided their response into three task forces. Two of equal strength patrolling the middle and outer edges of the Sol System."

"And the third?" Guilliman asked, already disliking where this was going.

"The third is on Terra itself, stationed outside the Imperial Palace to lend their expertise to the Custodian Guard and liaison with the Captain-General."

"And just how large is this deployment relative to the others?" Guilliman asked, hoping his hunch was wrong.

Tieron deflated slightly, knowing his answer would displease the Lord Commander. "I am afraid it is the smallest of the three. Less than half of one of their Brotherhoods. Even if I do not know how large that is."

Voldus shook his head in disappointment while Greyfax's scowl just deepened. As for Guilliman, he turned away from Tieron and his aid to spare them from witnessing his ire flare. The Hand of Dominion tightened in a vice grip as he suddenly wanted to punch something.

Were they brainless? Terra was vulnerable. Of all the forces that could slip by their defenses the most obvious was that of daemons. They were on the planet's surface right now and the one force best suited to handle the situation had placed themselves in the worst possible position to handle it in any capacity. If it were him, he would focus the attention of the Grey Knights solely on Terra and branch outward to the rest of the system once the Throneworld was secure.

"Please, my Lord," Tieron said with a slight tremor to his voice. "Understand that this is an unforeseen situation and we-."

"Calm yourself, Chancellor." Guilliman said keeping his face calm as if his moment of anger at the ineptitude of those handling the situation were nothing more than a fly that had passed his face. Annoying one moment, irrelevant the next.

"While I find the response from Imperial forces to be lacking, it is not beyond repair. Once we land, Voldus can convene with his fellow Grandmasters to redeploy to Terra. Inquisitor Greyfax can call on whatever contacts she has present in the Ordos and Cawl can aid the Fabricator-General in repairs to the Golden Throne."

Cawl let out a scoff to himself. "Let's hope Raskian didn't make things worse. By the Motive Force I swear that if he damaged anything since the last time I helped him work on it, I'll infect him with a meme virus that will force him to talk in song."

"That is the most welcome of tidings," the Chancellor said with relief. "We have been stretched to our wits end trying to contain the situation. We've lost several sectors of the outer city due to massed riots and organized terror cults whipping more people into panicked frenzy. The Custodes have proven essential to the Palace's defense, but as we are all aware, their numbers are too limited to halt the tumult alone."

"We were never an army," Andronatas stated, "Our purpose is not to end the Imperium's wars. It has ever and always been to ensure His safety. Valoris made this clear to you when you petitioned for him to take his seat on the Council."

The Chancellor nodded in self-deprecation. "Yes, I realize that now."

Guilliman gave the old man a calming smile. "Do not be so hard on yourself, Chancellor. You sought to offer aid to a dire battlefront. But now the battleground and rules of engagement have changed. Linger not on past failures and let us focus on restoring order to Terra together."

That appeared to shake the weary man from his stupor. "Yes. I shall do my part, Lord."

Guilliman nodded in approval, he needed this man on his side if he planned on mending this broken system.

Turning to Andronatas, he asked, "Where are we making landfall?"

"The Eternity Wall Spaceport," answered the Shield-Captain. "From there, a grand march to the Eternity Gate is being organized for you, curtesy of the High Lords."

Guilliman slowly turned his head to Tieron and raised an eyebrow. "Was this your doing?"

"No, I had no hand in this, I have not made contact with them since I landed on Luna."

The Primarch thought about it for moment, and then he gave a casual shrug as he had seen Sanguinius do when he was trying to be friendly. Guilliman would have preferred to skip the parade, the only one of his brothers that ever enjoyed that sort of thing was Fulgrim. Still, it was better than having to force his way into the Palace.

Going through the Custodes was not a prospect he took any comfort in. If there was ever a force in the galaxy that he did not want to confront, it was them. His father did not breed paper tigers.

"Once we have reached Eternity Gate, the Captain-General will personally escort you to the throne room." Andronatas finished, and Guilliman thought he heard a slight tone of apprehension.

It was likely nothing, the Custodes were difficult to read, even for him, but he would not be surprised if they resented him for brazenly stating that he shall see the Emperor.

"My thanks, Shield-Captain. I apologize if my actions make me appear to be arrogant. I do not believe I am above your sacred charge of protecting He who Sits on the Throne. Just as you do what you must, so shall I."

The Custodes nodded his head. "I understand, Lord Guilliman. You need not worry about us. If we wished to bar you from Him, you would not have made it this far."

Guilliman felt a grin threaten to break his stoic calm demeanor. For all their appearances as nothing more than organic automata, the Custodians always had a way of letting their inner humanity show at the best of moments. That was something he always respected about them.

---

Summer stood up as the troop bay depressurized and the ramp dropped. Tapping her Ivory, she filed out along with the rest and found herself surrounded by a world of towers and spikes.

The huntress' eyes widened at the sheer scale of the buildings around her. There must have been hundreds of buildings that stretched all the way into the clouds and thousands more below them.

Lights and sounds played out all around her in a constant discordant pattern. This was a city that never sleeps. Scratch that, this was a world that never sleeps.

Looking up, she saw constant cress crossing streams of transports. There were so many different variants in the air that she felt like if she took a picture, she could turn it into one of those see if you can spot it puzzles that she used to play with Yang.

She couldn't even tell if it was day or night, the constant light from the buildings surrounding her combined with the toxic clouds above gave the impression of eternal midday.

That was when the toxins in the air made themselves known to her and she let out a cough. The air smelled foul with the waste of industry. Oil, rust, sewage, smoke, chemical vapors, burning metal, and incense all commingled into some sort of combined assault on her senses.

Her corporeal body quickly adjusted to it and while she had to endure the smell, the risk of side effects from this noxious environment were nonexistent. Being some sort of daemon did have its benefits.

For a moment, she wondered if the fading spike in her chest was how Nicholas must have felt. Should she spare a moment to warn him to bring a gas mask or something?

Summer glanced at the amount of people rushing towards them from the landing pad's edges and decided not to. Using her telepathy might get her in trouble and Guilliman did not need her causing trouble again right now.

The huntress took note of the material they were standing on. It was marble. They made an entire landing platform out of marble. She would have laughed at how silly that was if she had not seen the statues surrounding them that had what looked to be working guns on them. Said guns were pointed at both the lander and the Orion.

The realization that they could have been shot down made a lump form in her throat.

The crowd fell upon them, and they were rabid with questions. Most were directed at Guilliman, but the rest of their not so little party were not spared. Celestine was swarmed by white robed clerics eager to glean some sort of divine wisdom from her. Cawl talked in binaric with a pair of red robed Tech-Priests. Greyfax moved away from the crowd and began speaking to a much older woman who was clad in a dark overcoat. As for the Custodes, they stood tall and waited.

In the end the only people that were left at Summer's side were the Silent Sisters, the Geminae Superia and the Black Templars.

The scene before her looked more like the onrush of paparazzi rather than delegated officials of the planet's government.

It brought out a giggle as she recalled that both Guilliman and Celestine were celebrities. No matter whether it was religiously based or not. Fame was fame.

"This is why we Templars do not meddle with the ongoings of Imperial government."

Summer turned to Lothar and waited for him to say more.

"The bureaucrats always make things more difficult than they'd need be. Always trying to subtly nudge us in a direction that benefits them in some manner at our expense. It is a waste of our time trying to work with them."

Summer huffed in agreement. She recalled just how annoyoing it was when the Council of Vale tried to regulate the comings and goings of huntsmen for a full year. Carry ID for every mission. Wear a tracker at all times even when off duty. Follow the procedure or else you will not be compensated. I do not care if some worthless village burns, this is how things are done.

They gave up after that year as too many huntsmen decided to just leave for other kingdoms.

Summer never had to go that far. They couldn't chain her in place with money or even the threat of taking away her license. She didn't need the license to be a huntress. Only her skills and the knowledge she got from Beacon really mattered to her. Compared to that, the license was just a piece of paper.

"Too bad that can't be avoided with what we have to do here," lamented the huntress.

"Still," Guiren stated, "It would be better without the peons swarming the Holy Primarch."

Summer chuckled. "Sadly, this is the price you pay when everyone knows your name."

Her mood took a drop when she caught a glimpse of Guilliman's face. He looked stoic and calm as ever. The energetic prince returned home, but she could see the pain he was hiding. He predicted Terra would change, but he probably did not expect this and Summer could not help but wonder what the world looked like in its prime.

The Primarch's gaze fell on her, and he beckoned for them to follow as he walked towards the maglev that would lead them to the one of the highways built between these colossal spires.

When he did this, some among the throng noticed her and began to swarm her and her compatriots too. The Templars and Custodes gave no response to some of the probing questions, while the Sisters staved them off with their Null-Aura's as Summer would call them from then on, it sounded more alive to her than Null-Field.

"You!" Shouted a tall but slender man from the crowd, he wore white robes, but Summer was not sure if he was a priest. His arm extended as he pointed a finger at her, singling the huntress out. "Just what are you? The rest we can identify, even the Inquisitor, but not you. What organization do you hail from and why are you in the company of the Primarch?"

It sounded more like an accusation than a question. Like she was unworthy to be here and with the company she found herself in. She wanted to scold the man for she never asked to be here, she came because she was told to.

"I'm a battle psyker," she answered truthfully, stating her 'official' rank as it was the only one she was given. "A member of the Cadian 21st Infantry Regiment."

At her words some among the crowd backed away from her in fear, leaving a slight twinge in her heart. Not fear, anything was preferable to fear.

The man let out a shout, calling for the guards stationed at the platforms edge. A quartet of men and women dressed in black body-armor, flak jackets and full visored helmets marched towards them. Guns trained on the huntress.

Summer restrained herself from drawing her Ivory.

"Since the darkening of the Astronomican, the High Lords have decreed that all psykers are to be left under lock and key." The man yelled out to the guards once again. "Detain her!"

Both Black Templars activated the power fields on their weapons as the guards approached. When the guards stood beside the man, Osiris stepped into their path.

"You shall do no such thing," he said with an icy calm.

His intervention caused the guards to halt their march, but their guns were still raised. As for the man, he looked stunned.

"Lord Custodian, surely you see her for the risk she is. Foul witchery is afoot, and we cannot allow any of the warptouched to roam free while we are in this state of crisis."

"She is not a threat to us," answered Osiris as if he were stating a fact of reality.

"She is a psyker!" Called out a voice from the crowd. "They are always a threat!"

Summer looked past them at Guilliman. He watched on with patience acceptance, believing that he was not required to solve this issue. Celestine intended to intervene, but the Primarch stopped her with an outstretched hand. She did not blame him; it was better to make their friendship a secret thing. Summer would just be a source of scrutiny for him on the political front and she dared not be a disadvantage in any regard.

"You may believe that," Osiris said back, "but I still will not allow you to take her."

He lowered the tip of his Guardian Spear at the presumed priest, and he flinched when he caught sight of the bolter barrel at the end of it. "Call off your Lucifer Blacks before you force me to spill loyal blood."

The man regained his composure quicker than Summer expected, straightening out his back, he made his plea. "Please, my Lord. Do not force this conflict upon us on this most glorious of days. Let us not spill blood on the day a Son of the Emperor returns to Terra."

"It is you who are forcing a conflict," Osiris countered, "I simply perform my duty."

"And that duty is to protect some strange psyker woman?"

"It is," shouted a new voice.

Greyfax stomped through the crowd and took her place at Osiris' side.

"I am Inquisitor Katarinya Greyfax and this woman, Summer Rose, is a member of my retinue. Taken from the fallen world of Cadia as it fell to pieces, I had her fully tested by the finest daemonhunters. After she was confirmed to be safe and free of taint, I recruited her as one my personal followers."

Summer recalled those days on Macragge when the Grey Knights tested on her to prove her 'purity'. It was far from a pleasant experience.

"Play along," she heard Greyfax's voice in her head.

"Is that not right?" The Inquisitor asked, turning to the huntress.

"It's right," Summer said quickly. "When asked where I come from, you instructed me to name my old regiment. Just following your directions, Inquisitor."

Greyfax nodded and turned to the man and his Lucifer Blacks. "There you see, she acted under my instruction because she is a member of my retinue."

The Inquisitor then stomped right up to the man and despite him being taller, Greyfax somehow loomed over him like a titan. "And as a member of an Inquisitor's retinue, she is exempt from this psyker detainment act or whatever the High Lords are calling it. Now move aside, can you not see that your hubris has forced the Primarch to slow his course to the Throne."

The man turned around along with the crowd to see Guilliman watching them with a manufactured scowl of irritation. That alone caused all of them to make a path for Summer's group to pass through.

Greyfax led the march, making a point to put her Inquisitorial Rosette on full display.

"Thanks," Summer said through telepathy.

"Think before you go answering questions like that," the Inquisitor scolded. "Be glad that there are no psykers present to sniff out what you really are. The last thing we need is the High Lords accusing the Primarch of bringing a daemon with him."

"Sorry."

"It's fine for the moment. Until Lord Guilliman speaks with the Emperor and wrests control away from the High Lords, it is for the best that your true nature stays hidden. Do not even mention anything remotely related to your abilities. Understand?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"They should be punished for such impudence," Lothar growled beneath his death mask.

"Do not rage at the fool, or you shall simmer all day," Guiren said to calm his brother. "He has been chastised and is likely to be ridiculed for displeasing the Primarch. Is that not enough?"

"For now," Lothar spat. "Let his shame serve as just penance for his hubris."

Summer smiled at the small debate she heard from her bodyguards. At least she knew they had self-restraint as the last thing she wanted was two superhuman war machines killing anyone who decided to insult her.

When they reached the maglev, Celestine smiled, while Guilliman only gave a slight nod to signal the lift to begin its descent.

---

Around an hour had passed since their landing and she had to admit, the Imperium did not hold back when it came to the scale of their celebrations. The parade line was so long that she could not see the end of it without her enhanced vision.

It was an organized march of soldiers, vehicles and even Space Marines in bright yellow armor. Imperial Fists, if she remembered correctly.

Summer, Celestine and Greyfax rode together on a mechanized parade platform that gave them a clear view of the crowd that was eagerly gathering around them, and the crowd got a good look at them in turn.

Osiris and the Black Templars stayed close to the back of the platform. They did not find any appeal in the revelry. They were here as guards, not conquering heroes.

Guilliman stood alone on his own platform. His was double the height of theirs and ten times more ornamented to show just how important he was. The crowd screamed as he came into view. Elated to see the return of a Primarch during these dark days. Their savior had come in their bleakest hour.

The Primarch kept the Sword of the Emperor sheathed at his side. Predicting that his presence alone to inspire them was enough. They did not need to see the weapon of their god brandished before them. It might trigger a religious frenzy and that was something Summer believed was entirely possible.

Many of those in the gathering throng of people being held back by the thin line of guards were attempting to force their way through while they chanted the Primarch's name.

"Guilliman! Guilliman! Guilliman!"

Summer was aware that the big man was not interested in this, but she knew that it did benefit him. During their talks, he often told her some of the lessons his adoptive father King Konor had blessed him with. One was the importance of the people. Their hearts and minds were the soul of the kingdom, cherish and nurture it and you shall find the love you show them will be returned to you a thousand-fold.

Summer liked such things. It made her wish she could have met Konor. He sounded like a much better king than a certain headmaster she knew.

Then something entered her mind. Some kind of alarm rang out in her head, but she could not find a reason for it.

Summer began to look around, trying to find anything with her enhanced vision and even her Soul-Sight. There was nothing. No tainted individuals in the crowd, no snipers, no malcontents planning to rush the guards and take a crack at Guilliman.

"Summer?" Celestine asked, placing a hand on her friend's shoulder. "You look troubled?"

"I ummm…" Summer shook her head, but the sense of dread just continued to build. "I don't know. Something doesn't feel right."

The feeling intensified until she could feel something on the wind. Not the natural wind, but those gentle winds of the aether that nourished her back to life on Cadia. Something was befouling the tides of the Other Side here.

"There's something in the air."

Summer turned to Greyfax and Celestine, hoping that it was not just her. "Tell me you feel it too?"

Greyfax nodded before tapping her ocular augment. "The psyocculum is acting up. I assumed it was merely the psychic emissions from the Throne, but now I'm not so sure."

Summer looked out to the crowd, it wasn't just the sense of wrong, this scene felt wrong. Incorrect. She recalled her vision in the mist. How they marched up to the Palace gates in a tight procession. She recalled the sky; it was a shining gold, not this dreary fog of pollutants.

Something entered her mouth, and she rolled her tongue to check if it was just her mind tricking her; it wasn't. Strange, she had not tasted anything since her rebirth.

"Umm… does anyone else taste copper all of a sudden?"

Just as she finished that sentence, a deafening bestial roar echoed across the industrial landscape of Terra. It was of such a titanic magnitude that Summer could feel the vibrations in her bones as the platform and highway shook. It was a declaration of hatred and anger on a primeval level. An eternal anger that would never burn out or fade away to rest.

The ungodly bellow forced the parade to an abrupt halt as many of the guards clutched their heads and clenched their weapons in a sudden onrush of aggression. All Astartes and Custodes elements were put on guard as they scanned the area for the source of that foul noise.

The crowd when silent from shock. Their revelry dying as if that mighty shout had demolished any reason for them to cheer.

The roar stretched out for a full minute, and once it ended, everyone felt a drastic change in the world around them.

Looking to the sky, they saw the greyish brown of the polluted clouds darkening into a deep crimson, like the wool of a wounded lamb.

Summer felt something hit her cheek, and she flinched at its warm touch. It ran down her face before she brought up her hand to wipe it off.

Staring at the hand, she found that she could only utter one word.

"Blood?"

It was blood staining her hand. Blood that somehow fell from the sky. In the silence, the soft tap, tap, tap of liquid falling on metal made her look down. More blood came falling down on the platform. Only a few scattered drops at first, but then it swelled into a steady downpour.

Summer couldn't believe what she was seeing, it was literally raining blood.

It did not take long for the crowd to break into a panic. Summer understood why because she knew the legends. Even on Remnant there were stories that a rain of blood was seen as a terrible omen. She just never gave it credit because she thought it was a metaphor for war and due to it being an impossible phenomenon.

Her eyes widened as the realization struck. Impossible was a word she had left to die when she returned to the land of the living. Impossible had no meaning anymore.

Screams and shouts exploded across the giant highway as the people began to flee like a herd of prey animals in the presence of a predator. Those that tried to make their way to the Primarch in hopes of gaining some form of divine protection were gunned down, their foolishness coming at the expense of salvation.

Summer saw Guilliman draw the Emperor's Sword, its golden flames keeping the blade clean as the red filth fell, a look of grim recognition on his face as if he had seen this exact thing before.

"Word from my brothers," Osiris said, his voice reaching the vox bead Greyfax had given the huntress.

"Speak," Guilliman barked. "What is happening? What warpcraft besieges us? What nightmares are we up against?"

"A report came in around ten minutes ago from Shield-Captain Valarian. He reports to have located a large cabal of cultists worshipping the Lord of Blood. The cult has been slaughtered by him and a squad of Grey Knights, but they failed to stop the completion of their foul arts."

Summer felt the air grow hot, like someone had turned the ground into a furnace and the heat just kept building.

"Any daemonic sightings?" Voldus' voice cracked over the vox.

"Multiple reports of mass daemonic emergences. Creatures with red skin crawling out of pools of blood."

"Spawn of the Blood God," the Grandmaster cursed. "How many?"

"Numbers cannot be estimated, it sounds like a full daemonic host has been summoned. An army of daemons is coming."

Summer felt her blood run cold, the complete opposite of what now soaked her clothes.

An army was right on their doorstep, and it was an army made entirely of daemons.

She snarled in outrage; they had just barely managed to survive the battle on the moon and most of their forces were still there trying to rearm. Now they had to deal with probably thousands of hell monsters rushing at them.

She stopped herself from giving into her anger. That would not help her now. With controlled breaths, she entered her preparatory mindset, taking in the situation and determining her best course of action. She did this before every mission and it often kept her head clear while her team argued. She didn't have the luxury of being distracted when people's lives were on the line and the stakes were too high here. There were billions of people here and they were likely going to be food for these monsters. This had to be stopped before it could spread to engulf the entire planet.

"Where are they gathering?" Asked Guilliman, jumping down from the platform and cracking the highway's ferrocrete on impact.

Osiris listened in, Sett was the only one Osiris had access to and was getting all this info through him.

"The Lion's Gate."

---

Let it never be said that I did not play my part, however small it was.

I broke protocol and left for Luna to be the first to greet the now Lord Commander upon his return.

It was a glorious day, even with the sudden arrival of the enemy in a last-ditch attempt to stop the Avenging Son form reuniting with Lord of Man.

I never joined them for the procession to Eternity Gate, nor did I accompany them off the landing pad. After we landed, I chose to retire to my residence.

I am old, both the excitement and strain of the day's events had left me drained.

I am not so proud to as to lie about my reaction to the coming of the Great Enemy. When they arrived, I wanted nothing more than to hide. To shunt myself away in fear of the horrors that made their march on the Palace walls.

Yet somehow, I found the strength not just to stay standing, but to walk out to my balcony along with Jeck and bear witness to the horror of war.

You must understand, I am an official of state, I am used to wars and massacres being far away. This was Terra, none had ever managed to lay siege to it since the days of Goge Vandire.

Despite my wishes to deny reality, it still happened.

The rain of blood fell and from their coalescing pools came the spawn of hell. Even from a distance I could somehow fully understand what I was seeing. They crawled like half born babes from the red liquid, their bodies forming into completion as they dragged themselves free.

The lesser ones were terrifying enough, and often I had to tear my gaze away from them. Then came the greater beasts, creatures of such unquantifiable malevolence that I dared not look closer for fear I might lose my sanity entirely.

They formed into an organized force and marched on the Lion's Gate where the Custodes sallied forth to meet them.

Unwavering and heedless of the fact that many of them were to perish. They performed the duty that we all knew they were made for, but never expected to see performed before our very eyes.

I caught sight of a few of them. They were blurs of golden destruction. The few glimpses I got of their movements were as graceful as dancers.

Then came the Lord Commander and his cohort.

Though limited in number, they charged through the lines of daemons and cut a path towards the larger of the foul fiends.

Then came the landers and gunships from the fleet he had brought with him. Those were deployed to the outer edges of the battle to help contain the monsters. I have no idea if they made any meaningful contribution to the battle at all, but I like to hold out hope.

While those of the Guard are generally undervalued by those of us in these high towers, I personally see them for the heroes they truly are.

I shall even admit that I am slightly envious of them. Not for the wars they must endure, but for the strength of character they most surely possess to even stand it at all.

But even the sight of the blessed Saint Celestine fighting at the Primarch's side, a sight so glorious that many have already put it into verses for the numberless chapels on Terra, did not compare to what I saw at the battle's conclusion.

I shall admit that when I think back on that moment, I still feel tears welling up in my eyes.

I dare not describe what I saw. No doubt all the Ecclesiarchy's retelling will give you a far better description than my paltry attempts.

All I can say is that what I saw that day was a sight I shall never forget for as long as I live.

Penned by Lev Tieron, Former Chancellor of the Council of the High Lords of Terra, on order of remembrance by Lord Commander Roboute Guilliman; recently retired.

---

Nicholas shifted in place as the Valkyrie Gunship jostled in response to a sudden storm that had suddenly cropped up in the planet's atmosphere. He was uncomfortable due to the uniform he was being forced to wear now.

The standard khaki and flak armor of the Cadians was not too bad after he became accustomed to it, but he disliked the fact that he had only partial armor. During his early days in establishing dust mines, he was well aware that he was not t the best fighter, so he compensated for the lack of defense his fighting style offered with added armor plate. That descision saved his neck from the Grimm more times that he dared to count.

Now it felt like he was missing something since only his chest, arms and head had anything protective over them. Finlay constantly mocked him for how the uniform made him look.

"It don't suit ya in the slightest."

While Nicolas agreed, it wasn't like he could do anything about it. Since he had fought alongside the Cadians he was essentially conscripted into their ranks. While they didn't see him as an ordinary trooper during the war in Ultramar, they insisted that he look the part.

He obliged so long as they let him keep the Astartes Power Sword as his weapon. He would not alter his style of combat for them.

With him was Finlay as the two had become a pair during previous battles, and the squad that had their auras unlocked by Summer. Sadly, the squad had been reduced to six members during the war. An enemy Space Marine with some sort of sonic weapon had pulverized the other seven before anyone could stop him.

He had seen the fury of a Dorn before, but the punishment Summer dished out on that marine topped anything he'd seen her grandmother do. You'd never understand the true capabilities of the Crimson Cloud until you see it with your own eyes. That marine was left in so many pieces he found it hard to decern the organic parts from the remnants of his armor and weapons.

The Colonel-Commissar was here too along with his student and two of those Kasrkin fellows. Nicholas did not dislike the man, even though he took things to the extreme. The Schnee patriarch understood what it took in order to lead and it was far from easy.

This was meant to be an attempt to liaison with the local guard on the order of the Primarch to help maintain stability. That meant stamping out cults, something their regiment had become accustomed to during the fight for Talassar.

But now he felt that their chief officer being here was a mistake. As they broke atmosphere, the Colonel was given new instructions to prepare for intense fighting. Given that they were now dropped to an active combat zone, it would have been better if Strang had stayed behind. If he died during the battle, there was no selected successor. That would divide them during the battle and Nic had seen the results of when a force that is supposed to work together sudden decided it would be better for each of them to suddenly do their own thing.

Finlay, who was smoking a cigarette or a Lho-Stick as the Impirium called it, sat next to Nicholas. The Tanithborn admitted to liking Nicholas' name for it better. And has referred to them as cigarettes ever since. Sometimes just to confuse the Cadians for some laughs.

The Tanithborn raised a hand from his safety harness, the vibrations of the shuttle made it look like he was shaking.

"Permission to speak, sir?"

Strang looked at the man, his old and scared face set in a constant frown. He never liked Nicholas and Finlay, but he didn't toss them out because they had proven to be valuable combat assets. That and Nicholas suspected that he no longer had the nerve to face off against Summer again should he try. Even more now since she had gotten so close to the Primarch.

"Granted," Strang said in a low voice.

"Ah, sorry," Finlay added, "Permission to speak candidly, sir?"

Strang nodded.

"What kind of shite are we expecting to face this time? I think I speak for all of us when I say that we like to know who we're fighting before we start pointing our guns."

Strang blinked in surprise but did not lose his calm attitude. Finlay had made a habit of being the most unfiltered member of his new regiment. His old one was of the same temperament and applied more comradery bonds than strict hierarchical loyalty.

At first, the Commissar had wanted to shoot the man for this kind of disrespect, but he found that he could not, since Finlay always asked permission and never spoke up unless he felt it was important.

Strang folded his arms and took a deep breath as if he wanted to strangle the words before he was forced to speak. He gave the rest of the troops another glance before deciding that it was best that they knew.

"Roughly twenty minutes ago, a report came in that a number of cults were conducting a joint ritual of some kind. The Custodes and local defense forces rushed in to stop them; they failed."

Strang sighed and pulled out his own Lho-Stick to take a long drag for himself. After Nicholas' lung surgery he found he could not stand being near such things. When Finlay did it, he kept it in short puffs that made sure his friend could not smell it.

"Now the sky is raining blood, and an army of daemons is rushing the Imperial Palace."

Nicholas saw everyone in the troop bay freeze up. They all looked to be in shock. Even Finlay dropped his Lho-Stick.

"Feth," was all Finlay could muster to say.

Nicholas, being less affected by this news, decided to press for more details. "And what is our role in this, sir."

Strang looked at him and saw a determination in his eye. "We have been ordered to link up with one of the local Regiment's bastions that stand near the primary battle zone and hold it until the rest of our forces can get their frakking arses down there."

"That's not good," said the trooper named Tarn Katar. "Most of the Astartes are still cleaning up after that mess on the moon. And while we have five Valkyries in the air that's only sixty of us. Going up against a daemon horde with those numbers is insane."

Elaine Blackwell, the Colonel's understudy snapped at the man. "Watch the words that come out of your mouth! You sound like a Whiteshield. Have you lost your nerve Trooper Katar?"

Tarn shook his head. "No, ma'am. You can order me to fight an Ambull with just my bayonet and I'd do it. I'm just saying that the situation sounds bleak."

Strang tossed his Lho-Stick aside and gripped his safety harness. "You're right, trooper. This is bleak. No force has ever tried to siege the Palace for thousands of years. Now here we are, being sent to confront an army of daemons to keep them from the walls at the very likely cost of our lives."

Tarn then gave some gallows laugher. "At the very least it will be on Terra, the holiest world in the entire Imperium. Karking hell. This is the Throneworld. HE is here inside that palace. I can't think of a better place to give my life."

The rest of the squad nodded their accent. Alexa exclaimed, "If He protected us this long so we could die here then I say we die protecting Him as He protected us."

Strang nodded. "Well said, trooper."

Finlay laughed. "Well, I don't plan on dying, even on this most hallowed of worlds. Not until I find out what happened to my regiment."

Nicholas remembered their discussion on that. It was shortly after the war on Talassar, Finlay had come to the decision that he would survive long enough to find someone who knew about how the Sabbat War had ended.

"Whether you die or not is up to the Emperor now, Ghost," Strang said, using the title that Finlay had insisted that everyone use for him.

Ghost. Part of a nickname his old regiment had become known for. It used to mean that the loss of his home had left him a shell of who he used to be, that and the fact that their regiment were exceptional at stealth, jungle fighting and guerilla warfare. Now he was the ghost of his regiment. As far as he knew, he was the last piece of Tanith left in the galaxy.

Finlay grinned at the Commissar as if he knew something that the older man didn't. "Then I guess I'm not dying, because I know He's got my back."

Nicholas did not question his friend about his confidence. Finlay was a serious chap and did not bluster unless he had some sort of surprise in order. Maybe he pilfered the regiment's armory again.

Elaine scoffed, having never liked Finlay, she often butted heads with him. "Don't confuse His favor with luck, Ghost."

"I'm not."

The conversation came to a halt when they all experienced a sudden pressure of inertia pushing against them. The gunship had come to a hover.

Strang was the first to remove his safety harness and get to his feet. "Boots on the ground! Let's go! Show the locals how Cadians get it done!"

Within minutes the squad marched out of the lowering boarding ramp and as promised, it was raining blood. The ground was so slick with the stuff of gore that Nicholas had to place his feet flat in order to keep himself from slipping.

They were on top of a large octagonal platform that had heavy bolter and lascannon turrets mounted at each cardinal direction. The shape of the walls at the edges of the platform gave the impression that they were meant to be used for cover. The other gunships landed and disgorged their passengers before leaving to provide aerial support. There would be no retreating from here should things go badly.

They all closed ranks and stood in formation while Strang assessed them all. Marching slowly down the line.

"Alright troops, as you can see, we are in a literal blood bath! And so long as none of it is ours, I can live with it," he said as he quickly took his cap off and whipped it to the side, ringing the blood off before slapping it back on.

"What about you? You sixty of the Cadian 21st, what say you to this warm drizzle?"

"Cadian blood is not warm!" Shouted one of the Shock Troopers.

"It's ice!" Shouted another.

"That's right!" Strang exclaimed, turning to his pupil. "What makes Cadian blood different, Blackwell?"

"It's ice in our veins!" Elaine declared then she turned to the crowd. "Say it you cowards! Say it with us! Cadian blood! Ice in the veins!"

"Cadian blood! Ice in the veins!"

Nicholas wiped some of the sanguine liquid from his face, after he did so he saw a trio of black clad soldiers march up through a flight of stairs at the far end of the landing pad. Two of them wore some form of gas mask that he did not recognize while the leader went bare headed.

Strang walked up to him and made the sign of the Aquila. "Colonel-Commissar Fraeden Strang reporting as ordered. The Cadian 21st is here to do its duty to the Emperor."

The leader of the trio, a bald-headed man who was younger than the Commissar by a decade at the least and had fewer scars gave a curt nod.

He spoke with a heavily accented voice that made his speech a lower tone than normal. "Greetings. I am Colonel Agraken of the Lucifer Blacks 5th Regiment."

Agraken leaned passed Strang and took a short look at the Cadian's lined up behind him.

"Is this all you bring with you? I count around fifty, is this all that remains of your regiment?"

"Not at all," Strang answered, "We were the only ones in the air when the orders came down, the rest are gearing up in orbit."

Agraken sniffed and cleaned his face. "Well, let's hope we last long enough to give them a position to reinforce. May I address your troops?"

Strang stepped to the side and allowed the Lucifer Blacks to walk up to the Cadian line.

"A good day to you all. We do not have much time; the enemy comes and there are things you must know before I let you engage them."

Nicholas saw the moments of aggression on the man's face come and go. Something was aggravating his fight or flight instincts and it appeared to be targeted towards the fight response. Nicholas felt it too as did the rest of their platoon. Something about this rain was trying to stoke their anger.

Nicholas ignored it, he had decades of experience when it came to keeping his anger in check and he would not be triggered by a little rain, even if it was blood.

"Now I am going to assume you know what kind of foe we face, and if not, your Colonel can fill in the blanks for you. We have already come out of a few skirmishes with the monsters and while we were mauled, we managed to acquire information that may prove critical to our defensive strategy.

Our primary objective is to hold this garrison and prevent the enemy from ambushing the main counter offensive. This is one of three main transit ways to the Lion's Gate where the honorable Custodes hold the main force of the enemy at bay. The foe plans to catch the Guardians of the Throne in a pincer trap should their main force be pushed back. Our job is to prevent that.

Our advantages are that we hold a superior position and have far greater range than our foes. Unfortunately, while our enemies appear to have an obsessive preference for close quarters combat, they are faster than us and outnumber us by at least twenty to one."

Nicholas furrowed his brow; those were pretty bad odds. The only possible solution would be to prevent the enemy from reaching them at all and given the numbers difference that might not be possible.

"And I know what most of you are thinking other than soiling your already soiled uniforms further. Our main goal is to keep them at a distance for as long as possible, your bayonets will be of no use to you against these sons of bitches."

He raised his hand and raised three fingers.

"Three, there will be three lines of defense to create overlapping fields of fire. The first will be on the outer wall of the compound. Those of you unlucky enough to go there will have the pleasure of seeing our enemies up close. Each of you will be given a grenade satchel. You are not to use them. Let me repeat myself. You are NOT to use them until you get the signal to pull back. Those grenades are meant to give you time to sprint the distance across our courtyard."

He lowered one finger.

"The second is our inner walls and the main building. Those are higher than the first so those of you from the first line will pass the inner wall and into the main building where you will take up firing positions and give em hell."

He lowered another finger.

"Our final line in the ferrocrete you are standing on. If they get past the inner wall and enter this building, then we are all pretty much dead. If you try to flee, they will run you down in moments, as such there will be no retreat. That is our battle plan, now there are some crucial details that I need to spell out for you starch brains."

Agraken turned to the side, seeing a pool of blood beginning to form. He pointed at it and one of the Lucifer Blacks charged towards it and stomped on it with both feet, scattering it across the landing pad.

"Just so you all know, just because the enemy has a penchant for a straight up fight, that does not mean they plan to play fair if they can catch us with our pants down. This rain is their way into the physical world. When it gathers into pools like that one, you can bet your arse that some of the blighters will crawl out of it and kill you with you back turned. So, watch out for those blood pools.

In response to this, I am ordering that all heavy weapons teams have at least two people guarding them at any given time. If our heavy guns go down, then we won't last five minutes."

He gave the Cadians a sharp salute.

"For the Throne!" He bellowed.

"For the Emperor!" The Cadians cheered back.

"Now let's get you lot properly armed. Everyone report to the armory right the hell now. If you're all we're getting, then there's no reason to be conservative with our guns. Let's go, let's go!"

---

It did not take long for the Cadians to get into positions. Nicholas took a place on the outer wall and the only thing he took from the armory was a Plasma Pistol. These things had decent range and packed a wallop.

He was not the best marksmen, that prize would have to go to Finlay, who stood beside him with a larger version of his pistol, a plasma gun. Of course, he kept his trusty lasrifle strapped across his back. That weapon had seen him through dozens of war zones, and he was not going to discard it.

Nicholas looked back across the courtyard behind him. It was at least a one-hundred-meter sprint to reach the gate for the second wall. That explained why they needed to conserve their grenades.

The troops on their second line had longer ranged weapons than the first, but they also had secondary arms at their feet to trade out when the first line falls.

Everyone on both lines, excluding Nicholas, Finlay and those who carried similar weapons to the Tanithborn, wore powerpacks. These were to power their Hellguns, lasguns with greater stopping power and damage output. Finlay didn't want them because the backpack would slow him down.

From a head count it was determined that there were at least two Lucifer Blacks for every Cadian, which told Nicholas everything he needed to know. This compound had enough resources to effectively supply double their combined numbers. When Agraken said they were mauled, he was not joking.

"You ready for this?" Finlay asked.

"Were you ever ready for something like this?"

The Tanithborn chuckled sardonically. "Not once in my fething life."

Both men just smirked at one another, they were kindred in this universe. Two souls ripped away from where they belong and that has allowed them to form a form of comradery that has let them become a dynamic duo.

"If you two are quite finished," Elaine said as she took her place at Nicholas' side. "Then you should get ready."

A cacophony of noise echoed down the main highway that led to the compound. In the distance, the mixture of red blurred together. Then they came as tide, and it was a sight straight of a nightmare. Red skinned, black horned, snake tongued monsters came on mass, charging down the highway at a frightening pace. All of them bearing burning black swords that glowed as if they were fresh from the forge fires.

At their sides were galloping hounds with leathery skin and frilled necks. These canine abominations charged ahead of the mob as they caught sight of the humans manning the wall.

"Here they come!" Elaine shouted to the first line. "Steady!"

As the mass of pure hatred closed the distance, Nicholas could not help but notice that his palms had become sweaty over his sword grip. His hold had instinctually tightened in response to these things. The last time he had seen these kinds of monsters was on Cadia and back them he had close to fifty armored giants to keep most of them at bay and Summer with her silver eyes to burn them away. Now he had to make do without those advantages.

The thunderous boom of the mortar teams echoed down form the platform above. Their volatile payloads crashing down on the daemons, blowing holes in their numbers that seemed to fill instantly. The onrush did not slow, in fact it might have invigorated the remaining beasts to know that their prey was willing to fight back.

"Fire!" Elaine cried and the soldiers on all three lines unleashed their combined firepower.

"Now would be a good time to set up that insurance, Nic," Finlay said before firing a ball of burning plasma that tore one of the monsters apart.

Nicholas slapped the tip of his Power Sword into the stone wall and began to focus his aura. Outside the walls a line of over a dozen snowflake glyphs formed. Some of the Lucifer Blacks halted their fire, but the Cadians, having grown accustomed to this phenomenon, slapped their comrades back into focusing on the tide of red death barreling towards them.

The snowflake glyphs began to slowly spin, and large simian shapes rose up from them. A line of snow white Beringels stood with their backs to the wall. They acted as a normal Grimm would, they pounded their chests with their oversized fists and let out their bestial grunts in challenge to the red horde.

"Ignore the white daemons! Focus on the red ones!" Elaine ordered her Power Saber raised.

Nicholas prepared himself as he sent his summons into the meatgrinder. He would be summoning a lot more than this if he planned to survive.

---

Summer steadied her breathing as she focused her thoughts on the coming conflict. It would be a long fight and intense to the extreme. The Orion she and Celestine rode in soared over the industrial cityscape, charging into the storm of blood.

As she meditated, she had found a place between the real world and the other place beyond. A sort of limbo or pocket in the beyond that belonged to her alone. It was like the misted place that Celestine had taken her, but it was darker, more shaded like the canopy of a dense forest. Vague, misted impressions of everyone around her could be seen, even those battling below. Their speed and movements created a writhing mass of red and gold vapors competing for space.

Celestine's impression was a glowing mist that somehow shone by itself, her bodyguards were lesser reflections on her.

Guilliman and the rest of their little company rode in other Orion's along with the Custodes that escorted them from the moon. They followed close behind, ready to land after an area inside the battle zone was cleared.

That was Summer's and Celestine's role. Normally, Guilliman would order some sort of bombardment, arial strike or a shock assault with his Space Marines in Jump Packs or Terminator armor, but they would not be able to respond in an acceptable timeframe. As for bombardment, that would be nuts considering that the two armies were already digging their claws into each other. Guilliman would not kill his allies to gain a temporary advantage.

That was why Summer and Celestine were the first to go in. They were the most mobile of their force. Celestine had her wings, her Geminae had their Jump Packs, that somehow worked beyond their fuel capacity or thrust limit, and Summer had proven several times that long falls were not so much a threat to her.

She still recalled the time she scared the Primarch by jumping headfirst out of an open Thunderhawk. He almost jumped out after her, and after landing he went on a blitzkrieg to reach her. The look on his face was both frightening and hilarious.

Now that he no longer had to worry about Summer's ability for rapid insertion, he made full use of her skillset. Part of that skillset being that she was especially suited to killing daemons rather quickly with her eyes. The previous limits on them were still there but she could tell she was improving dramatically.

That was the plan. She and Celestine would drop straingth into the middle of the enemy force to create a landing zone and hold it long enough for the others to join the battle. Then they would form a spear-tip and cut their way to the big baddies.

Those were their targets. According to Voldus, since this army was made entirely of daemons with no mortal worshippers, it was the larger daemons that held the army together. If they were killed, then the smaller ones would get weaker and slower until they disappeared.

Easy peasy. Or at least she hoped so.

Summer felt a presence gloss over her, and she turned her perceptions upwards to where the storm should be. There was the misty impression of a burning mountain of black rock and bones looking down on them all. It had the shape of a throne and on it sat a winged figure that was cast in shadow by a roaring fire behind it. She felt a chill run up her spine at the sight of the thing. She recalled the last time she caught a glimpse of it on Cadia. Pure rage, hatred, war, and slaughter personified and given sentience. It watched the battle below with savage amusement.

The thought of ruining its day almost made the huntress want to jump out the Orion right now.

"We are close now," Guilliman's voice chirped in her vox bead. It had an echoing effect on her perceptions while she was in her mediative state.

Summer took a breath and felt the mist fold in on her. It closed in until she was in utter blackness, and then she opened her eyes.

The interior of the Orion greeted her with its golden plates and smooth sheen.

Celestine and the Geminae stood at the closed ramp, waiting for the huntress to join them. Summer got to her feet and tapped her Ivory before giving the angel a nod.

"Prepare for drop."

The hatch opened exposing them to the violent fury of the unnatural storm raging in the sky, red bolts of lightning streaked to earth, crashing into buildings and leaving burn marks that are more in line with flames than a thunderbolt.

Summer's cloak flapped wildly, the flecks of blood that remained on it scattered like a dog drying its fur, wetting the passenger bay in the process.

Their signal to go came in the form of one word from the Primarch.

"Begin."

The trio of Battle Sisters leapt from the boarding ramp, taking flight in preparation to dive.

Summer took a running start before taking a nosedive out of the Orion. She fell like a warhead racing towards its intended target. Below her was a sea of red figures that charged like a swarm of angry fire ants. All racing to get in on the carnage that was being played out further along the path.

Summer's eyes glowed as she drew her Ivory Dorn in spear mode. She fired five Air-Shock rounds into the horde below, successfully grabbing the attention of some, causing a slight congestion in their advance.

Firing more Air-Shocks to slow her decent further, she shifted her body into a white swarm of petals that crashed straight into the crowd of Bloodletters. The white swarm turned into a whirlwind of blades, slaughtering the tightly packed daemons where they stood. The petals spun together and quickly rebuilt her body as more of the monsters took notice of her and closed in. Summer caught one of their burning blades on Ivory's shaft, the foul weapon slowly shipping away at the aura she was using to guard her weapon from damage.

Pushing the sword away she leapt up as another of the red fiends tried to bisect her from behind. After landing, she repaid the attempt with a thrust to the back of its horned head, its foul blood sizzling against the field of Ivory's Force Blade. Another came at her, this one moved with such speed that a normal human would only see it as a blur, but Summer was not a normal human anymore. With a twirl of her spear, she parried the blow with the flat of her blade and cracked the fiend in the jaw with her follow through. Her next movement parried a surprise strike from yet another daemon that transitioned into a killing uppercut for the first.

As Summer fought to hold her ground, Celestine fell to earth like a shooting star, here mere presence causing pain for the servants of ruin. Following her were Genevieve and Eleanor, who darted across the ferrocrete with sudden bursts from their Jump Packs, allowing them to outpace the daemons trying to drag them down with weight of numbers.

When the quartet closed ranks, the Sisters formed a circle around the huntress, guarding her from the horde of warpspawn that grew thicker with each passing second. Their growls and snarls created a constant hum across the battlefield.

Summer took a moment to gather her focus. This was going to be a big one and those required time to prepare. Her body shimmered with silvery-white light and the daemons almost crashed bodily into the Sisters as they felt her gathering power. Then an explosion of light engulfed them all and the daemons cries died half-formed as they were sent howling back into the abyss. The burst of light expanded outwards destroying the daemons who were caught in its radiance.

When it faded, the four women stood alone amidst a scene of destruction. Summer shook her head clear and took a look around for herself. The shorter bursts did not require a prep period and while the larger ones could be forced, the side effects often left her more exposed than if she took a moment to prepare herself.

"Think that's enough room for them?" Summer asked as they surveyed the area, there was not a daemon in sight, but she was not so foolish as to believe she was powerful enough to get them all at once.

"Let us hope so," Celestine said as she took her sword in both hands and faced down where the onslaught would continue.

The ferrocrete beneath their boots shook with the promise of violence as a line of mechanical four-legged monsters charged towards their position like a herd of angry rhinos. On their backs were more of the red, horned daemons, waving their swords around in eagerness.

Summer changed Ivory to rifle mode and took aim on one knee. Quickly switching out her Air-Shock magazine, she replaced it with something that was promised to be more effective against their ethereal foes.

Ivory let out a spiteful bark as it sent a bullet into the head of one of the riders. Then another and another. She continued to down the riders and some of their mounts turned on the daemons around them, but not all. The rest continued the charge.

"I see you have their full attention now," chuckled Celestine.

Summer glanced at the angel beside her, Celestine had not moved an inch as the line of destruction closed in on them.

"This always happens whenever I use it in a crowd. Every single time," groaned the huntress as she downed another rider. "By the way, thanks for blessing my bullets. They're working better than I hoped they would."

Celestine gave a happy laugh, "Anytime you need sanctification, I shall oblige. You should learn some of the benedictions and perhaps you can do it yourself."

"Pass," declined the huntress as she planted another bullet in one of the daemon's heads, earning another hearty laugh from the angel.

The line of metal beasts continued their charge until a hail of bolter shells and laser blasts tore them apart. The Orion that Summer and Celestine had left in the air performed a wide arched strafing run, its heavy bolters and Arachnus Heavy Blaze cannons making short work of the metal brutes.

A gust of wind flowed from behind the quartet and Summer turned to see the other two Orion's had landed. Guilliman strode out with his helmet on, and sword raised. Sicarius and the Victrix Guard followed close behind their lord. Osiris and Sett marched out of the second Orion together, fully prepared to fight along with the Sisters of Silence.

The huntress could not help but be impressed by the great blades that the Null-Maidens carried. Those things were meant for monsters like these.

Following after the Primarch was Voldus and his squad of Knights. Greyfax with her Condemnor ready to deliver her judgement stood prepared. Cawl had stayed behind to act as a coordinator.

Lothar and Guiren walked out, muttering audible prayers and oaths of moment. Then came the Dark Angels, with Cypher at the head as they stood in formation.

Guilliman gave no speech this time as he watched the oncoming tide of madness approaching them. He raised his father's sword, pointing it at the horde.

Summer felt the presence of something large and immense watching her again, and she figured that the master of these things was watching their little stand against his minions.

Glancing up at the storm, Summer saw in the behemoth staring down at them through the sudden flashes of red. With a short sigh, she lamented the annoying drawbacks of her eyes. It got the attention of everything for miles when it was used, now she could add getting the attention of a god to that list.

"Destroy them!" Guilliman roared as he broke into a sudden sprint.

The rest followed after, with only the Custodes and Celestine managing to keep pace with the Primarch as he crashed headlong into the army of monsters.

Summer leapt into the fray soon after, landing a decisive shot with her Ivory before cleaving another with a downward chop.

If that thing above them wanted a show, then they would give it one.

---

"Keep firing! Keep firing!"

Nicholas clenched his teeth as Elaine continued to shout out commands. He had to keep his focus or else those things would reach the wall.

Over the course of the following half-hour, Nicholas has been forced to summon more Grimm simulacra than ever before in his long life. These demons were a force to be reckoned with. They cut through his Beringels within moments, granted, they had overwhelming numbers, but it quickly became obvious that these things were not afraid to get their heads caved in.

Whenever one of his Summons managed to get a kill, the remaining monsters would begin hacking it to pieces. At best his Summons would last for about twenty seconds before he had to call in a replacement.

The constant reuse of arguably the most taxing part of his family semblance was taking its toll on his aura. The Schnee family were known for not having the most durable auras, but when it came to utilizing it for their semblances, they could outlast pretty much anyone. He just never had to take it this far before.

"Hang in there, Nic! And don't worry about the blighters behind us! I've got yer back!" Finlay said as he fired into the courtyard.

As the battle began to drag on, the rain intensified, forming large pools of blood behind the first line and on the landing pad. Just as they were warned, hideous shapes started to emerge from the red substance.

Some of the first line had to turn to deal with them, weaking the overall firepower directed at the mass of slaughter pushing their way.

Finlay opted for a different solution than to shoot the half-formed shapes. He used his plasma gun to blast the pools themselves, reducing them to stains on stone. In theory this should have been quick, but the rain constantly formed new pools that needed to be vaporized, leaving the Tanithborn standing behind Nicholas to guard him should some of the monsters fully form.

They were putting up an formitable front, any sane force would retreat under the casualties they were inflicting, but these things were the embodiment of bloodthirsty insanity.

Slowly, the demons ground down everything the Schnee patriarch threw at them and weathered the guns brought against them. Every moment felt stretched out, like these measly thirty minutes were in actuality hours.

And still they drew closer. While his eyes were closed in concentration, he could hear them coming. Their snarls became clearer over the pop of Hellguns and the boom of the heavy weaponry behind him with every minute that passed.

"Damn it!" Elaine swore, "Our volleys aren't stopping them!"

Nicholas knew she was right; these demons were difficult to bring down. Early in the battle, he noticed that some of them just shrugged off Finlay's plasma bolts or heavy lasfire. These things defied reality.

"They're gonna reach us!" Came a voice to Nicholas' right, one of the Cadet-Commissar's squad. "When do we use our grenades?"

"When you get the order to! Now keep firing!" The woman shouted back.

On the battle went, the army of Khornate daemons slowly and inexorably closed in on the bastion that stood in their way. Meter by meter, they drew closer, heedless of the losses they took. It did not matter to them whether the blood spilled was theirs or that of their foes, the only thing that mattered was that it was spilled for their dark master.

This slow crawl towards their foe carried on until they were close enough that the soldiers didn't have to waste their time aiming.

Finlay took a glance over his and Nicholas' shoulder and bit down a curse. "I think it's time for a change in tactics!"

Nicholas agreed with a nod none noticed in the head of the moment. Tapping his sword on the ground, he drove his summons to inflict as much damage as they could manage before they were torn down. Then he gave another tap, and the stone of the first was covered with black glyphs.

When the daemons reached the wall and began to scale it, they were pushed back the moment they made contact with the swirling pictograms. This kept the monsters at the bottom of the wall, trapped with no means to climb.

The mob howled in frustration as they continued to try and force their way up the wall. As if their sheer desire to rend their foes to pieces would allow them to bypass the wards Nicholas had put up. On the surface, this looked like a done deal, the monsters were stuck. But the problem lay with the amount of time Nicholas could keep this up, and he was not sure about the answer. Repulsion glyphs were not very taxing on their own, but he never called out so many at once. Worse, with each attempt the demons made to push through their effects, the more aura Nicholas had to utilized to keep the glyphs from breaking.

A scream forced Nicholas to open his eyes, and he saw a canine beast leap up a growing pile of the demons to then jump into the soldiers' lines. Its spittle flecked jaw enclosing around a Cadian as it fell into the courtyard, knocking two more soldiers down with it.

The beast began to maul the man, his agonized screams signaling that their defense was on the verge of being broken.

"Feth!" Finlay swore as he charged the plasma gun and unleashed a bolt that annihilated the beast and freed its victim from pain.

"Hey, Commissar Lass!" Finlay called to Elaine.

"I told you to stop calling me that!" She snarled as the let loose a charged shot on one of the hounds making an attempt to copy the first.

"Don't matter!" Finlay argued back. "We should really be falling back by now! Those grenades won't do us any good if these fethers have their faces buried in our arses when we start running!"

The Cadet-Commissar stayed silent for a moment as she took in the scene before her. The daemons were on the verge of reaching them and she had yet to receive an order. The enemy were using each other as ramps in order to jump up to the parapet.

If enough of them got up, then they would be forced to take friendly fire from the second line. Given how fast these things were, that was bound to end in disaster.

She spat on the ground and made the call. "Schnee! Can you give us some space?"

Nicholas looked to her and gave a brief nod, before taking a deep breath and tapping his sword against the stone for the third time.

The glyphs shifted, turning from black to white, their purpose changed from that of repulsion to that of summoning. As the demons charged in, perceiving this sudden change to be a weakness, their bloodlust blinded them to the trap he had set.

Flocks of small white Nevermores flew out of the glyphs at such speeds that it could match the fire rate of the heavy bolter mounts on the landing platform above. Caught completely off guard, the demons could only cry in outrage as their bodies were torn apart by the sudden onrush of deadly avians piercing their unnatural hides.

The horde buckled under the sudden short-range assault; its momentum being stalled for the first time since the start of this short siege.

Elaine took this chance to start barking orders. "Pack it up soldiers! Deploy grenades for a staggered retreat to the main compound!"

Nicholas barely heard her, the sheer strain in which he was putting himself was worse than the time he nearly got trampled by a Goliath, luckily a kindly man named Port was there to keep him from being crushed.

"Nic! NIC!" Finlay shouted in his friend's ear.

Nicholas' concentration broke and the wall of summoning glyphs shattered. When they did, the horde wasted no time in continuing its assault, crawling up the walls with a vengeance.

"Time to move!" Finlay cried as his plasma gun's coils glowed ominously bright.

The Tanithborn tossed it over the edge of the parapet where Nicholas then heard an explosion. So, it was true, those things could explode if you pushed them too far.

The two ran with all the fervor of desperate men trying to survive. Nicholas' breath was haggard, but his muscles were not finished yet. All he did was expend the vast majority of his aura in that last little stunt. That did not mean his muscles would shut down. That would only happen if he lost all of it.

Explosions went off behind them as the rest of the first line threw their grenades back at the wall as they ran. It got a good chunk of the monsters as they scaled the wall; some got through, but those were easy pickings for the second line who had switched to their own Hellguns.

As the troops of the first line filed into the gate of the second wall more of the daemons scaled the first wall and began flooding the courtyard.

When Nicholas, Finlay and Elaine reached the threshold the cacophony of munitions, lasfire, even the snarling of the daemons suddenly stopped. The only sound remaining was the steady hissing of the blood rain. Confused, the trio stopped at the gate and turned to see what might have happened. To their shock, the army of daemons just stood there, all neatly lined and regimented, lacking any of the savage lack of discipline they had display up until now.

"What the feth is this?" Finlay cursed as he unslung his lasrifle.

Elaine was equally disquieted by this sudden change in attitude from beings that should not have the sense to be able to change their attitude in the first place. "I don't know but be ready for anything."

She held her Power Saber at the ready. Preparing for some diabolical trick that the fiends were conjuring. Nicholas held his Power Sword in a high ready position incase some of the monsters suddenly used their blinding speed to rush him.

As one, the daemons all raised their burning swords and brought them down on the ferrocrete below.

Clang!

The flats of their blades created a noise that sounded like a bell. For a moment Nicholas felt like they had just declared something. Like a formal challenge which sounded absurd when you got a look at the things issuing it. The throng brought their blades up and repeated the action.

Clang!

They repeated it again, and again, and again.

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!

Eight times they did this. Eight times and then they stopped.

No one made a move, even the daemons' ragged breathing was somehow calmer than what it appeared to be before.

"Look," Finlay said in a hushed voice.

From the shattered gate of the first wall, the daemons parted, creating a path for one to tread. What came striding down that foul corridor made Nicholas suck in a breath.

It was one of the daemons, it had the same red skin, same features as the others, but only in superficial terms that would allow it to be recognized as one of them.

The daemon that walked out of the crowd was vastly different to the rest of its kin who, Nicholas could tell, even through their savage and unnatural faces, that they looked at it with reverence and respect.

It stood slightly taller than his kindred and while all of them sported impressive muscles, this one looked particularly fearsome. Its horns were bent forward at their peaks, both tips nestling human skulls in them. Between the two curved horns was a third, this one was covered with skulls, each neatly and carefully stacked on top of one another. There were two lower horns that would have been mistaken for tusks had they not shown to be connected to the larger set above. Unlike the others, it wore some armor, a pauldron for each shoulder and a bracer for each wrist. A cuisse on its left thigh and a greave on its right shin. All red capped with brass trim and skulls. Across its chest was another brass skull symbol with some sort of cross above it. Some sort of status marking like ancient tribes were known to on Remnant. The sword it wielded also looked more menacing than the rest, it looked sharper and more tempered. Its cutting edge looking ready for a killing strike. However, what truly set this fiend apart from its lesser kin was the cloak it wore. As the creature stepped forward from the crowd and gave the citadel a once over, Nicholas saw to his horror a mass of skulls hooked along the back of the fabric. They clattered with each movement the thing made.

This thing was some sort of leader. It had to be, but that did not explain why it had stopped.

Then its gaze fell on the trio at the gate, Nicholas' breath hitched under those burning eyes. No Grimm could give a stare like that. This thing had a mind, a malign intellect that was geared towards murder and death.

It watched Nicholas for a moment, studying him as if he were some sort of rare animal.

Then it raised that horrific sword, pointing it right at him and speaking in words that somehow had the crackle of flame accompanying each syllable.

"You! Face me!"

Nichola furrowed his brow in confusion. What was happening?

"I don't fething believe what I'm seeing. This daemon is challenging ye to a bloody duel," Finlay said in bewilderment.

At that moment, the company wide vox sounded. "Shoot it! Shoot it now!"

The voice of Agraken intoned with a resolve to see them take the advantage presented before them.

Elaine heard the click and hum of weapons being readied and the daemons suddenly became far more savage. Changing from this strange and displaced audience back into their natural states, only they did not charge.

In a split second, Elaine realized that the beasts wanted to engage in a form of ritual combat. In her studies Summer had spilled some information on how daemons operated; were bound to their rituals by nature and could not break them unless broken by an outside force. Meaning they would not charge until either the duel was declined or concluded, and a shot from one of their troops would count as a declination.

Before she knew it, her finger was pressing on her vox bead. "Stop! Stop! All troops hold fire! Hold fire!"

A second passed and none followed through with Agraken's order. He did not take this lying down.

"Who is this? Who dares contradict my direct order?"

"This is Cadet-Commissar Elaine Blackwell, commanding officer of the first line. Do not order the troops to fire, or they will charge us."

Strang's voice joined the conversation. "Elaine, what are you doing? This is our chance to deal serious damage to their numbers."

"Sir, please. I know this may sound like nonsense, but the leader creature wishes to duel with Schnee. I believe that so long as we accept the challenge the rest will not advance."

The vox turned to static for a moment as the two Colonels debated whether or not to follow this strange course of action. Then it buzzed back to life.

Agraken spoke first. "Alright, explain why you believe playing by these daemons rules is a good plan? I shall ignore the implications this will have on all our souls."

"Our goal is not to destroy them outright, you yourself have stated that we lack the numbers to do that. We have to stall them until reinforcements arrive. If we accept the duel, it could buy us precious time."

"Assuming this Schnee can hold his own against that thing up close," Agraken countered.

Elaine turned to Nicholas who was staring the monster down.

"Do you think you can beat it?" She asked, knowing Summer would kill her if she found out about this.

"I don't know," he said with complete honesty. "I've seen my fair share of duelist in my time, but I've never seen anything like that thing out there."

The Schnee patriarch was not one to bluster or underestimate himself. After years of sparring with some of the greatest huntsmen on Remnant, he had gotten a solid grasp on his abilities with a sword. Most of the time, he could tell if he had the advantage over someone else by how they held their weapon and how they moved.

This thing gave nothing away, its movements only showed pure aggression and a killer instinct that surpassed even the ancient Grimm. There was nothing human in this beast for him to gauge himself against. The only thing they had in common was that they could both hold weapons that most would deem two handed with just one hand.

"Well, cadet?" Strang asked. "Is he up for it?"

Elaine was about to answer, but the daemon let out a frustrated shout.

"FACE ME!"

Nicholas closed his eyes and took a deep breath and turned to Elaine. "Tell them I'm going. This will buy us a few minutes at least."

Nicholas was already marching as Elaine was giving her response to her mentor.

As he walked over the pools of blood and across the courtyard, he noticed the crowd of demons becoming more animated. They shifted in place and growled in what almost sounded to him like excitement. The one exception was the leader. It watched him with a killer's intent and Nicholas suddenly knew what he was in for. This was going to be the toughest fight of his life.

When he was about eight meters aways from it, the burning sword raised itself and he stopped.

It snarled and spoke with its lashing tongue. "I am Skulltaker. I am your executioner."

Nicholas raised his own blade and activated the disruptor field, the surge of power cooking the bloody raindrops falling on it. Skulltaker saw this and hissed as if he had just been insulted.

He ignored it and recalled his promise. The one he made to the woman who gave him a chance to return home to his family. They promised one another that they would not die. They would return home together. Even if it was naïve, they still held onto that dream.

"I am Nicholas Schnee, and I don't plan on dying today."

Skulltaker tilted its head and let out a roar before becoming a blur of motion. Nicolas barely caught the downward strike. The serrated blade sparked against the Power Swords deadly field.

He felt his legs nearly buckle under the raw strength behind the blow. Dragging his blade to the side, he managed to direct the momentum of the strike away. The daemon did not let up though. Nicholas just barely managed to catch his breath before the daemon came in for another strike.

Its speed was frightening, and its blows were like sledgehammers. Nicholas had to pour all of his focus just to avoid falling victim to that blade's wicked edge. There was no time for him to counterattack.

If he had the time to think, Nicholas would acknowledge this beast as the finest duelist he had ever seen. Never in all his long life had he been so outmatched so early in a duel. Even against expert huntsmen he was able to put up some sort of contest. Skulltaker was not like them. He fought to kill even in a battle like this. Each blow, every swing was meant to main and rend, but it was done with a kind of martial skill that Nicholas thought only existed in fanciful stories.

The beast locked swords with him and used its superior strength to push him back. Nicholas was ready for another swing, so focused on the blade was he that the kick caught him completely off guard. Skulltaker delivered a powerful kick to Nicholas' stomach with its right goat's foot. Sending him skidding across the courtyard, sliding through blood pools as he came to a stop.

The blow to his stomach had forced him to one knee. Looking up, Nicholas saw that instead of charging further, Skulltaker was waiting for him to stand.

It growled in disappointment. "You fall to my blade. Not my feet."

Nicholas smiles at this. How accommodating.

"Very well," he said standing up. "Have it your way."

Before Skulltaker could resume his assault, Nicholas summoned one of his rarest glyphs.

The Temporal Glyph.

A large symbol of a ticking clock with X's, V's and I's in place of numbers. Nicholas never understood why this was the case instead of regular numbers, but he stopped questioning the mysteries of his semblance a long time ago. When the glyph faded, Nicholas raised his sword and charged the demon; his speed magnitudes greater than what it was before.

Skulltaker brought his sword up into a guard and caught Nicholas' slash on one of the jagged hooks. The fiend looked surprised for a moment, but then its lip curled into a terrifying grin.

"Now you fight!"

---

At the main battle site, Guiren fought with a sense of purpose truer than any he had ever felt before. The thrill of holy slaughter, the rush of knowing that in that very moment he was performing his greatest duty for the God-Emperor.

He was on Holy Terra itself, outside the Imperial Palace fighting besides their lords own bodyguards to hurl back the heretical servants of a false god back to the hell they spawned from. This was a moment he had dreamed of when he was but a Neophyte being introduced to the Imperial Creed. After he had become a fully-fledged battle brother, he did not think his dedication to the Holy Emperor would grant him such a glorious reward.

Yet here they were in a battle for the ages. The purest servants of deities clashing in the name of their divine masters.

Yet there was something more that drove him on.

Before the final battle on Cadia, he was blessed with a vision. He saw the great Sigismund standing before him, at the sight of this champion of legend, Guiren could not help but kneel in reverence. He felt the taps of the first of the black swords on his pauldrons knighting him as a champion of the God-Emperor.

Then the vison changed. He saw hordes of fiery fiends clashing with warriors of gold. At first, he believed them to be the Imperial Fists, but after Cadia fell, he was cast adrift. Was the vison a trick? A way for the enemy to attack his faith? Then in his hours of prayer on board the Iron Revenant, he was blessed with another. He saw the Primarch rise, he saw the Archmagos' strange device behind him, releasing him from its confines like a rejuvenated body rising from its tomb to walk again. Then he saw the Anointed at the Primarch's side.

The vision changed once again to a battlefield similar to the one he stood on now. The Anointed danced and swirled and cut with lethal grace. Then the beast fell on her, a towering behemoth of pure rage.

It was then that he knew his purpose. Just as the Chaplain had taken a vow before the Living Saint to protect the Anointed, so Guiren took a vow before the Emperor to guard His chosen until his dying breath. And so here he was, hacking and slashing through the hordes of the damned with a stone calm that belied the burning zeal he held inside him. Each thrust, a kill; each slash, another banishment. Every movement, every strike was a prayer to the Lord of Man.

Lothar fought beside him with all the brutal discipline all in their brotherhood had come to expect of him. The crozius battering the daemons away, each of his blows was a thunderclap, an explosion of destruction that slew with each boom.

They carved into the horde together and they slew the monsters as they came. But the enemy was many, and their numbers were few.

Further ahead were the Custodes and the blank warrior women. Osiris and Sett fought with a synchronicity he had never seen before. It was as if they knew exactly what the other was going to do before they did. Where one went high, the other came in low to bar any form of defense. Where a daemon slipped past the guard on one, the other was there to catch the break.

Guiren also noticed that where it was allowed, they dispatched their enemies within a certain number of strikes. Three at the very most. But only when an enemy attacked from a new avenue. After that, it always ended in one.

The Silent Sisters followed in the wake of their destruction. Their Null-Field reducing the daemons into things that were purely physical, making them all the easier to slay without their foul warpcraft empowering them.

The Sisters and the Custodes fought as a union. While not so perfectly in sync as the brothers in gold, there was an almost instinctual union between them. As if they were designed to fight together.

Guiren had never thought such a thing to be possible. When he and his brothers fought alongside lesser warriors in close combat it always resulted in the overall battle being slowed down.

The Sisters somehow complemented the calculating combat prowess of the Custodes with their merciless assault. The Silent Sisters were far more aggressive than the Sisters of Battle when they were at the sides of their golden brothers. Total offense against the unholy.

As a counterbalance to this, Custodes protected them whenever possible as they fought.

This ran completely counter to what Osiris had done until now. In previous battles, he fought as a lone warrior, his presence on the battlefield only comparable to that of the Living Saint and the second only to the Primarch.

He was a lion fighting amongst the wolves. Only Lothar had managed to break this habit of the Custodes, but that was paltry in comparison to what the golden warrior displayed now.

The Primarch had taken the Saint, Inquisitor and the Grey Knights to the center of the battlefield. The eight Greater Daemons had gone in different directions in order to attain their own glories.

The Captain-General had responded to Guilliman's strategy and had deployed to the north to prevent the Bloodthirsters from spreading their carnage to the point of no return.

Then there was Guiren and his strike force. The Anointed stood with them here, being somehow unbothered by the Null-Field, the fought on with her usual grace. The Emperor's Champion did not question this strange occurrence. It was not his place to question, only to serve.

Behind them came the Dark Angels, or at least that was what the Primarch and the Anointed called them. Guiren had met the Dark Angel Chapter before and they were not like these Astartes. They fought in a similar fashion, but that was it.

Then there was that hooded figure, there was something off about him. At first, he would suspect some sort of witchery, but he blocked that out of his mind. If he were a heretic, then the Grey Knights would have sniffed him out on sight.

The plan appeared to be working for the moment. They were pushing deep into the enemy's ranks and despite being under near constant assault, they pushed on.

"There is the daemon!" Sett called out over their vox.

Guiren looked in the distance and true to his word, the towering form of a winged behemoth roared as it stomped towards them.

"Let's bring it down!" The Anointed yelled as she beheaded one of the Bloodletters.

"Mors immundis!" Lothar bellowed in the holy tongue of High Gothic. Death to the unclean.

Guiren felt his blood run hot as they ran to meet the giant of hate marching down the highway to meet them. The Emperor's Champion would show this beast that their hatred outstripped its own.

---

As the war raged below, the great deity above watched with great amusement. It had waited so long for this opportunity. A chance to strike directly at the gates of the wretched Anathema. It would do so first before any of its kin.

None would claim this glory before it did. Not the putrid one, not the trickster and most certainly not the hedonist.

But something was happening that caused it to ponder. Often it did not care if its forces won or lost, if they failed, that meant that they were too weak to serve and would be severely punished as was right.

The Golden were putting up a worthy struggle, and it almost felt a hint of envy that the Anathema could breed such fine warriors, which made it hate its nemesis all the more.

The godling was in the midst of challenging one of its chosen champions, while another was being bogged down by those wretched silver knights. Then there was the Corpse Bride, she was holding another at bay.

To the north, another of his champions had just fallen to one of the Golden along a small group of the silver knights and those cursed Daughters of the Anathema.

In the south, a pair of Golden had just engaged with another champion, there was something with them, something it had not seen before. It shone with the wretched light of the Anathema like the Corpse Bride, but the deity knew there was something that set it apart from the rest of those the Anathema had empowered over the eternities.

The deity could see the small motes of unbridled rage that burned in its heart. How it sought an eternal vengeance for wounds that could never be mended. Normally, it would enflame such feelings to encourage sacred slaughter, but it shone with that wretched light. Just seeing the thing annoyed the great god to no end.

Then it discarded the thought, the only thing such a being was good for was spilling blood or being another trophy for its throne or citadel.

Still, it was becoming clear that the momentum of the war was shifting, and it was not ready for this battle to end so soon.

There had to be more blood. More skulls. More carnage.

So, there was one thing left that could be done to prolong the slaughter. It would deploy one of its greatest servants. Ka'Bandha was already sent off to have his revenge on the sons of the Angel. The greatest of its champions had fought and won the right to choose his battle. It would not deny its general that honor.

But there was another who was famed to be a match for its general. One who once stood atop the Brass Citadel at its side.

It did not believe in redemption for failure or betrayal. Today, however, it would deliver a onetime offer of clemency but only if its servant succeeded in reaping the skulls it desired. The godling, the Corpse Bride, the silver knights, and that annoying light.

The great god slammed the head of its mighty axe into the obsidian of its throne to summon its old general.

---

From the heart of the storm, a ball of fire descended. A screaming meteor of hatred and fury. Its fall to earth trailing a contrail of smoke.

When it crashed down, it let out a wave of fire that burned away all near it and the shockwave created from the impact crushed those who were lucky enough to survive the fire.

From a deep crater in the highway leading up to the Lion's Gate, tattered wings ascended. Those daemons that were close enough to see the being that climbed out of the crater.

With unrestrained fury, the daemon roared as it charged out of the hole and sprinted down the highway to find the nearest of its prey. Two daemonic axes that contained the essence of two greater daemons cleaved apart fellow daemon and golden warrior alike as it began its unstoppable rampage.

With a face of wild fury, half of it torn away to reveal white bone and a glowing blue eye in lace of the red on its still flesh face, it shouted incoherently as it slaughtered its way across the city.

All daemons that heard this cry gave the behemoth a wide berth, for none dared to challenge it or be caught barring its way. Not even the greater among them.

The world trembled, for Skarbrand the Exiled One had come.

---

Nicholas blocked another strike from Skulltaker. Its blade pushed uncomfortably close to his face before he could call on enough strength to push the sword to the side.

The two had been fighting face to face since Nicholas had used his Temporal Glyph. The speed boost allowed him to keep up with the daemon in front of him, yet somehow, he still felt that Skulltaker was somehow faster. The beast was not taken by surprise when Nicholas charged and in fact looked overjoyed to see his chosen foe put up a real fight. This had the reverse effect to what the Schnee patriarch wanted, the idea of facing a proper opponent had invigorated the fiend to fight even harder, prompting it to show its true skill with the blade.

It performed intricate maneuvers that he could barely read, leaping strikes when Nicholas tried to make some distance. Feints and misdirections were deployed when Nicholas tried to counter. It knew every single guard stance, counter form and angle of attack that Nicholas studied in combat school and dozens more he had never seen.

Skulltaker was a master of the art of the kill, and Nicholas knew he was outmatched. The speed boost was a temporary thing and once it faded the disorientation of time returning to normal for him would hit hard, leaving him wide open for the monster to finish him off.

He didn't know how long the duel had gone on for, he didn't have the mental capacity to measure time and the glyph he had just used on himself would only further confuse him, he only hoped that it would be enough for help to arrive before everyone in the garrison was impaled by the daemons' burning blades.

As he went in for another attempt to strike the beast, his world sudden became a lot faster than had been and the ice shard of fear planted itself in his stomach. His glyph had worn off.

Skulltaker saw this sudden lethargy and took full advantage. With blinding speed, it rushed up to its opponent and struck.

Nicholas was saved from being severed in two by using his oversized sword as a shield. Just barely managing to intercept the incoming hellbalde. It struck the flat of Nicholas' blade and the blow contained enough force to shatter it and send the Remnite flying.

He landed on his back several meters away from the daemon, in one of the pools of blood. Sitting up, his vision blurred, he saw his shattered weapon and knew the battle was over.

Before he could even get a word in, the daemon was on him. Its large hoof crashing into his chest and forcing down into the blood and ferrocrete. It glared down at him in triumph, the crowd of its kin struck the ground with their swords in celebration of their champion's victory.

"You fought well, mortal," it snarled. "Khorne will be most pleased when I bring him your skull."

Instead of bringing the sword down to finish him off, the daemon raised a hand and began to chant in some strange language that somehow hurt his ears. As the chant continued, it slowly lowered the hand that was now alight with molten fire.

The crowd became even more excited, their ritual was almost complete and sacred slaughter could continue.

Loud splashes could be heard, and Nicholas saw something running behind the daemon. It was some sort of shape that looked to be a man, but what made it odd was that the only reason Nicholas could see it at all was because of the blood constantly rolling off its body.

Other than that, it was completely invisible.

The figure ran behind Skulltaker and leapt at the monster, plunging what he assumed was a knife into the daemon's back.

The horde of daemons went quiet as their champion roared in pain and staggered over Nicholas. The Schnee patriarch watched in amassment as a cloud of green smoke engulfed the figure and faded to reveal his friend.

"Finlay!" Nicholas laughed in surprise.

Finlay Innes stood over his comrade offering him a hand. "I was planning on saving the big reveal fer something else but savin yer arse seemed worth it to me."

Nicholas could not believe it. Finlay just turned invisible on his own. He had a semblance!

He was about to ask how long his friend had been keeping this secret, but Skulltaker's outrage demanded his attention. Now back on his feet, Nicholas raised his broken blade and faced the daemon.

Finlay stood next to him with his lasgun, and his Tanith knife clipped under the barrel.

The crowd of daemons surged forward, with their ritual broken, there was nothing to hold them back anymore.

As for Skulltaker, he roared at the pair and charged. Nicholas managed to catch the monster with his broken but still usable blade. Finlay took the opportunity to try and stab at the bastard but was stopped by a quick parry that dragged Nicholas down as the beast moved his sword away.

The tide of daemons ran around the trio, acknowledging that these lambs were meant only for their leader. The soldiers' guns lit up once again as the battle resumed.

As Skulltaker took a swing at Finlay, he disappeared into a puff of green smoke and the hellbalde only struck cold stone. The daemon looked around in confusion before swinging in a wide arch in hopes that it would hit its target before it gained any distance.

The next thing the daemon knew, it received a shot to the face from Finlay's lasrifle.

As he reappeared, he decided to taunt the thing. "Ya ain't killing this ghost."

Skulltaker fixed him with a hateful glare that spoke of the promise of death. Something rose up behind the champion of daemons. It turned to see a white Beringel beating its chest in challenge.

Nicholas stood behind it with the broken edge of his sword planted on the stone floor.

As Finlay peppered the fiend with full power shots from his rifle, Skulltaker marched on the Grimm copy. The Berignal leapt at the daemon, bringing both hands down together in an attempt to crush it. Skulltaker sidestepped the attack and began to dismember the Grimm with a flurry of strikes. Within seconds, the Beringel was nothing but an armless and legless lump. As it faded away, Skulltaker looked at Nicholas with a glare that explained to him that he was never going to win a contest between them. Raising his sword again, he prepared to fight one more time.

This was bad, his aura was nearly gone, and his sword was broken, giving the daemon the advantage of reach.

Then a loud shrieking noise echoed form above, and in the next instant, something fell from the sky, landing amongst the daemon horde.

It was a Drop Pod, a black Drop Pod with a white cross on it. Its doors hissed open and out stomped a black Astartes dreadnought. Its body was adorned with ritual script and purity seals that spoke of its promises of glory and victory.

It waded into the daemons, two giant Power Claws hacking and crushing its ethereal foes as its torso spun.

The engine of war's horn boomed across the battle zone, letting its allies know that salvation had come.

"CADIANS!" It boomed in a low monotone, "Stand firm! The Black Templars fight at your side once more! So, says Thuran!"

More Drop Pods came down among the daemons, black clad Astartes stormed out with chainswords, powerfists, stormshields and craclking swords.

"Purgare daemonium!" They chanted in what Nicholas knew to be High Gothic.

One pod crashed close to the sight of the duel and out stepped Kadan along with Meller, Lyron and Mercer, still holding that banner high.

Kadan led the charge for his squad, drawing two scimitars from his sides and carving a swath through the daemons.

The Initiate spotted the Schnee patriarch locked in a desperate struggle with what he quickly identified as a daemon champion. Kadan was not one to interrupt an honor duel, but he saw that the Ultramarine power blade Nicholas had carried since Cadia had been shattered.

After a swirling flourish, he parried a pair of the fiends before taking their heads and reversing his grip for the scimitar in his weak arm.

He quickly raised it and yelled out. "Sir Nicholas!"

Nicholas backed away from Skulltaker as Finlay managed to stab it in the torso, the distraction only lasted a moment due to the Tanithborn having to pull back before the beast grabbed at him.

Nicholas heard someone shout his name and the next moment he saw a large scimitar impale the ground in front of him. Discarding the broken sword, he wrenched the saber from the stone and brought it up into a long guard stance.

Skulltaker took a similar pose and the two charged at each other. The daemon expected Nicholas to go high, but he had a strategy in mind that the daemon had never born witness to.

The instant their blades touches, Nicholas slid underneath the beast, using the blood pools as for extra mobility, he then scored a deep cut on one of Skulltaker's goatlike legs.

When Nicholas returned to his feet, he saw that he still had his plasma gun clipped to his belt.

Nicholas turned to Finlay who kept running interference. He made a gun shape with his free hand and slapped the pistol.

Finaly nodded and continued to lay in on the daemon champion with lasfire. Nicholas took hold of the plasma gun and primed the trigger, letting the charge build.

He waited for Skulltaker to make the first move, and he did not need to wait long. The daemon came barreling at him, outraged that he had been struck not once but twice in a single battle by mere mortals.

Nicholas put up a feeble guard to block the incoming strike; it was his right hand, his weak hand. Skulltaker twisted the blade around and in one clean downswing broke Nicholas' aura and took his upper arm off.

Nicholas let out a wail of pain but did not let himself fall. Skulltaker was reveling in this moment and that was exactly what he was waiting for. Nicholas tossed the overcharged Plasma Pistol at the daemon and jumped away, landing on his belly.

Finlay lined up the shot and hit the glowing weapon right in its blue coils. When he pulled the trigger, the pistol exploded in a flash of white light. The shock from the blast threw Skulltaker down and left it writhing.

Finlay marched up to it, taking the fallen sword of his friend with both hands after pulling the severed arm off and stood of there the ruined form of the daemon. It looked up at him in what could be surmised as disbelief. That Skulltaker, the Executioner of Khorne was bested by a pair of mortals.

Finlay raised the blade point down. "When ye get back to the hell ye came from, tell em it was Finlay Innes and Nicholas Schnee that sent ye there."

Before the blade fell, Skulltaker hissed the name of its chosen opponent as a curse and a promise of revenge.

"Schnee…"

Then the scimitar fell, the tip of the sword impaling the daemon between its burning eyes.

Nicholas felt a burning sensation across the stump of his arm where the burning blade had cut him, this was the worst pain he had ever experienced in his life. His sickness had nothing on this, and his years of training felt like soft sparring sessions in comparison.

He grunted as he tried to rise, but his body was exhausted from the duel combined with his aura giving out.

A cloven hoof stopped before his eyes, looking up, he saw another daemon glowering down at him. This one raised its sword with no pretense of an honorable kill.

A bolt shell slammed into it and a white figure crashed into the beast, throwing it to the ground before revving its red chainsword to cut the thing in two.

The white figure was a Space Marine. The Apothecary, Lyron.

"Well done, Sir Nicholas," said Lyron as he stepped to the fallen man's right.

Lyron mag locked his bolt pistol and his chainsword to his armor and knelt. The Astartes hoisted the man up under his arm and began to run towards the second wall.

Nicholas felt his vison blur for a moment, and Lyron shook him to keep sleep from claiming him. "Hold on, Sir Nicholas. It would not do for us to displease Lady Summer by allowing you to die."

Nicholas cocked a smile at the joke. He could only imagine how she would scold him for this. Oh, the look on her face would be priceless.

---

Summer cut a huge gash across the Bloodthirster's chest before she burst into a cloud of petals to escape the flaming stream it spat at her in retaliation. Reforming further down the steps of the chapel the beast had barreled into during their struggle.

These things did not go down easily, especially when they were being drugged up by their patron in the sky. Even with all of them working together they still struggled to bring it down.

The end began when Sett managed to get inside its guard and impale its stomach, causing a torrent of fire to burst out of the wound, scorching his armor black. The monster keeled over and that was when Lothar grapped one of its horns and pulled himself up to the top of its head.

Raising his crozius high, he beat the behemoth's head like a drum. It thrashed and flailed as it tried to shake him off, but the Chaplain was far too stubborn for that.

"NO PITY! NO REMORSE! NO FEAR!"

With a final deafening boom, he shattered the Bloodthirster's head, and it slumped over. Its limp body vibrating the stone steps it fell on.

Summer cheered as the beast went down, turning to Katris, she offered a high five. The Silent Sister looked at the huntress as if she had grown a second head out of the blue.

Summer sighed as she realized the idea of a high-five must not exist in the Imperium.

"It's called a high-five," she explained, "It's what people on my planet to celebrate actions or acknowledge the efforts of the one being offered."

Summer put her hands to the side of her head and demonstrated the action in slow motion.

"See? I offer you a high-five and you slap my open hand with your own."

She presented her hand to Katris again. "Come on. It won't kill you."

The Silent Sister looked at the hand in confusion, surprised anyone would willingly want to touch her for something as needless as a mid-battle celebratory act. Slowly, Katris raised her hand and gave a sharp slap to the waiting palm of the huntress.

Summer's aura flared at the force behind the slap and gave a slight flinch due to being unprepared. Katris looked slightly ashamed, but Summer did not begrudge the Null-Maiden anything.

"It's okay," she said, "Just hard enough to hear it. We're not trying to bruise each other here."

She offered the hand again, and Katris repeated the action being careful not to inflict unintentional harm. All that was achieved was the clap of skin hitting the undersuit of the Sister's palm.

Summer smiled and Katris mood looked to have brightened as she returned to her sisters on the highway. Osiris walked to her side as they made their way down to the street.

"Do not celebrate yet," Osiris said as the next wave of daemons began their march.

Summer suppressed a groan as she readied her spear. "Here they come again."

The mass of red was on them within moments galloping with their goatlike legs with the eagerness of the killers that they were. Yet the party of twenty-two did not break nor buckled under the pressure of their assault.

The Custodes, Black Templars and Sisters of Silence faced the enemy head on, along with the Dark Angels' swordsman. The rest of the Dark Angels stayed back to provide covering fire and the Librarian needed to get some distance from the Sisters in order to utilize his abilities.

Summer played a supporting role in the engagement. She would switch from a ranged killer to a swift executioner when the situation demanded it. Cutting the daemons who got past the frontline fighters down and moving in to engage with them in close quarters should too many slip through, which happened often. There were just so damn many.

Sett, his formerly white armor now scorched black, had promised that the rest of the Adeptus Custodes were coming to help them, but as of a few moments ago, Sett had gotten a report that they had become bogged down by another horde, just one block away.

As the huntress lined up a shot from atop the wreckage of a chimera, she felt the ground shake within a semi regular pattern. The subtle boom, boom, boom, boom, letting her know that something big was coming.

She gasped as she felt a spike of pure aggression try to force its way into her thoughts. Thanks to her training under the Grey Knight's and Tigurius, she was able to keep it out. But as the rhythm increased in volume and intensity, so did the concentration of anger.

"Prepare yourselves," came the ever-calm voice of Cypher over their shared vox as he fired into the crowd. "Something is coming."

"Summer, you have the greatest vantage point. What do you see?" Osiris questioned as he cleaved one of the hellspawn in half.

Summer looked down the highway and with her enhanced vison, bore witness to a monster out of her deepest nightmares. It was a Bloodthirster, but it was different from the rest. It looked mangled and scarred. Its wings were in tatters and half its face looked to be flensed of all flesh, revealing the pure white bone beneath.

It carried two menacing axes and Summer could see with her Soul-Sight that those axes contained similar essences to the Bloodthirster that they just brought down. That thing had put the souls of two of its kin into its weapons.

"It's one of the big ones!" She yelled as she took aim at the juggernaut running their way.

"The prepare for a true battle," Lothar cried out as he cracked the jaw of a Bloodletter with an uppercut. "That beast will die like the others."

Summer was not sure if she should tell them that this one felt different. It acted differently from the others. It was behaving like a wild animal, with less intelligence than even the small ones.

The huntress took her shoot and fired a blessed bullet at the towering monster. The mountain of red muscles paused, and Summer saw it looking right at her.

The next moment, it let out a raging bellow that sent ripples through the very air around it. Summer felt the sensation of rage slamming against her thoughts as the juggernaut ran at them with all the implied violence of a cannonball.

The smaller daemons wailed as the giant closed in of the fight, they scattered like insects before its furious advance. The beast leapt high into the air and raised both of its axes.

Everyone ran in a different direction as the axes fell. The force of the blow was enough to completely shatter the ferrocrete road and send those at the front flying in all directions.

Summer saw felt a cold pit form in her stomach as she watched those she called companions get tossed aside like garbage. All of them had been scattered and hurled into the surrounding terrain. Their bodies covered in crumbling rocks and masonry. Worst of all, she couldn't tell if any of them were alive or dead.

She stood there in stunned silence as the monster looked around like a panicked animal that was desperate to find a lifesaving meal. When its heterochromatic gaze fell on her, the panic faded, and its rage peaked. It roared and before Summer knew what had happened the axe was in the air and falling towards her.

It moved with a speed that shocked her; she was still in mid jump when the axe came down on the chimera. For a creature of such size to be this fast was terrifying.

The second her feet toughed the ground, she had to move again as the second axe came down, creating a deep groove in the road.

The beast was unrelenting in its fury to see the huntress dead. Each axe fall was immediately followed up by another and Summer found that she could barely react intime to them.

With another desperate leap to avoid another strike, she failed to see the side swipe coming at her. The axe blade slammed into her with the force of a freight train going into overdrive, sending her crashing through the stone and debris littered across the warzone.

---

The impact that halted her flight was so intense that she felt her skeleton vibrating when she stopped. Opening her eyes with a distorted vision, she saw that she had been knocked a full mile away from the Bloodthrister.

Summer didn't know if she hit a building, or a vehicle and she was in too much pain to care. Falling to her knees, she grabbed her stomach and vomited out blood.

"Damn…" she gasped in a shaky voice. "That thing hits hard."

She forced herself to stand on shaking legs; this side of the battle had been cleared out by the Custodes. Ruined buildings, wrecked vehicles and of course the ever-present rain painting everything a dark crimson.

Yet despite all this her cloak had remained pure white through the entire ordeal. Looking around, she saw her Ivory beside a destroyed transport. Its resplendent form unmarked by the strike or fall. Summer made a note to thank Cawl for using those strange black metals for the interior.

The Archmagos said it was for enhanced psychic channeling to the blade, but he also hinted that it was also for added durability. Summer suspected that her aura was now more effective when being used in her weapon because of it. That and the metals were illegal according to Imperial Law, but they decided to keep that detail between them.

She trudged over to her precious creation, each step steadier than the last. Her body glowing with a silvery white light, her aura was going into overdrive to repair the internal damage to her corporeal body.

That and she felt something new. There was a faint sense that something was trying to reach her, but she couldn't see what it was through the constant haze of violence around her.

When she reached Ivory, a brief flash entered her mind. An image of days long passed. A field of carefully cut grass, a child at her mercy, his face a ruined and bruised mess, and her hands curled into fists. The child's face was bloody from the beating she gave him, and her knuckles were stained red.

Red, just like this world, just like these monsters.

Gritting her teeth, she shook away the memory.

Taking Ivory, she did a quick inspection to confirm that it functioned properly and let out a sigh of relief.

Then the booms returned, and Summer's senses were put on high alert. The daemon was coming to finish her off.

---

Guiren pushed himself free of the rubble the beast had entombed him in, he found himself in a desperate struggle against the army of hellspawn with the Dark Angels taking the lead. They laid down calculated volleys of fire that kept most of the daemons at bay.

Cypher stood by the Black Templar as earned a kill shot with each pull of the trigger, somehow knowing which daemons were vulnerable to a ranged strike and which were not.

"Now is your time, champion," Cypher said without looking at Guiren.

Guiren looked ahead to see that the Dark Angels' blademaster was still standing along with Lothar.

"Chaplain," he voxed, hoping to hear that they had somehow slain that monstrosity.

"Brother," Lother voxed back as he caved in a horned skull. "The daemon has gone after the Anointed!"

Guiren looked down the road behind them to see massive hoofed shaped craters in the rock paving and for a moment he was stuck. He could not abandon his allies to this battle, but he was bound to his oath to the Emperor.

For a moment, he believed that if he joined the fray, they could clear out this mob and go after the Bloodthirster together.

"There is no time to conclude this battle and save her as well," Cypher said, somehow knowing his thoughts.

The hooded Astertes looked directly at Guiren and the champion understood what the Dark Angel was implying.

"Go," Cypher said in his ever-stoic manner. "Leave this to us, she needs you."

Guiren understood what was being asked of him. It was the fate he knew he was destined to meet. As it was the fate of every Champion of the Emperor since the first.

"Chaplain!" Guiren called out. "I must leave you."

Lother did not countermand that statement, instead he gave an understanding word of encouragement. "Ave Imperator, Brother."

"Ave Imperator, Chaplain."

Then the Emperor's Champion ran after the beast to meet his fate.

---

Summer was soaring through the air at full speed with her semblance. The swirling metals were going so fast that she was beginning to think that she was reaching the speed of her bullets.

Yet the Bloodthirster was still on her. The second the beast caught sight of her it charged, and Summer did not plan on letting it get close enough to use those demolition instruments it called axes on her again.

She had faced all sorts of Grimm during her time on Remnant. Their team had even killed three ancient Grimm before Raven decided to go and fight Salem on her own. Those were true beasts, but even that was small pickings in comparison to the daemon on her heels. This thing was more akin to a force of nature rather than some sort of ancient beast, violent, dangerous and unstoppable like a storm.

Her three-dimensional perception of the world around her displayed the monster behind her closing in and it showed no signs of slowing down at all. In fact, it appeared to get even faster the more frustrated it became.

The longer she drew this out the more dangerous the beast became.

Summer had to keep running, this one was too much for her to tackle alone.

At the edge of her senses, she saw the main highway where the clash between the blood daemons and the Custodes were fighting. It made her feel vile to have to put others in danger in order to win a fight, but she didn't see any other way to kill this thing.

Soaring into the melee, she felt the small chinks of the Custodes' lightning coated spear tips as they tried to cut her out of the sky. They managed to cut one or two petals at a time, but her form was composed of hundreds, so she was not worried about that.

The daemons, recognizing her as a rival being to themselves, tried to take swipes at her too, but they lacked the precision of the golden opponents.

The Bloodthirster barreled its way into the confrontation, its axes swung wildly from left to right carving both Custodes and daemons apart in its rush to get at her.

A quartet of the golden warriors managed to pin the brute for a moment and Summer finally took he opportunity to fight back. Her scattered form swirled upwards, reforming her body in mid-air before she landed safely on her feet.

The Lion's Gate was in sight behind her, its colossal walls a testament to how far humanity will go to achieve their dreams.

She clutched at her stomach as her form solidified. The blow she suffered still left her reeling, but she could still fight if she had to.

The Bloodthirster's focus was still on her, but it had to change its approach. The Custodes were trying to cripple its legs and the pain from the wounds they inflicted drove the beast even further into impossible depths of rage.

With a cry of bloodcurdling savagery, it began to swat them away, some of them managed to avoid the strikes, others were thrown aside, the unlucky ones were crushed entirely.

Summer's body glowed as she built up a charge for the only thing she knew could stop this monster. Her silver eyes.

She would need to make it a big one, the last time she used it on one of these things at its standard, all it did was slow it down. This beast was beyond the one she faced in that hell as such she would need to give it her all.

The beast looked at her, suffering a potentially harmful strike from one of the Custodes and ignoring it.

Summer knew it saw what she was doing, and its outcry let her know it would not allow her finish.

The Bloodthirster closed the distance between them in seconds and brought its axe down. Summer leapt to the side and began a series of carefully timed dodges. This thing acted like a wild animal, but it was obvious to anyone that it knew to exploit a weakness when it saw one.

She kept Ivory in spear mode and fired an Air-Shock round to avoid another killing strike. Luckily, she had switched magazines before the thing caught up to her before. Now she could not reload, and one magazine was not nearly enough to keep her out of this thing's reach for long.

While she dodged, she was still building up her aura. Ordinarily, she would have to stay still as she did before. But that was not entirely true, it was just the quickest way to focus her aura.

Before her final mission, she had experimented with trying to build up power in mid-battle. Her theory was correct, but it was too slow to make any real difference back then. After being sent here and having Tigurius and Voldus as teachers, she managed to refine it into something workable.

It still took longer than the standard method and she would be unable to use her semblance in the process, but right now it was her best chance.

One of the axes crushed the earth next to her, throwing her back. Seeing no time to dodge the next strike, she panicked and unleashed her stored up power.

The explosion of light forced the daemon back, staggering in confusion at the force that slammed into it, burning its already red raw flesh.

Summer fell to a knee; this was the other downside of this trick. If she didn't properly control the burst, it would leave her feeling drained for a brief moment.

The Bloodthirster recovered much faster than she did. Running on pure unending rage it marched up to her with an executioner's stroke. Summer felt like time had frozen in that brief instant. Like everything was being dragged out for posterity.

In that instant, an image of her family entered her mind. Her girls and Tai together wishing her well as she left for another mission. The smiles on their faces brought a tear to her eye. She wondered in that short little eternity. If they knew what she had done after she failed them, would they be proud? Would Ruby and Yang be proud to call her their mother?

She hoped so.

The moment of still time ended when a massive golden juggernaut shoulder tackled the daemon, knocking it away.

Summer blinked when she realized that she wasn't dead. Again.

Shaking her head, she looked at her savior. It was a golden dreadnaught, a Contemptor Pattern Dreadnought if she was correct. Guilliman had been generous enough to let her see one of the few the Ultramarines had left on Macragge.

This was smoother than the standard models the Astartes used. Thuran had given her plenty of opportunity to examine the chassis of his own after he was entombed in it.

The one before her was definitely the superior model. It lacked the janky movements dreadnoughts tended to have and also displayed a level of flexibility that you would not expect from a mech like this.

The chassis of this one looked ornate, even when compared to the others of its kind dotting the field. It contained all the iconic imagery of the Custodes and was shaped to look like one of them. It had actual hands rather than the four fingered circular claws that appeared to be common.

In its right hand was an enormous sword with a twin headed eagle pommel and flamethrower exhausts on the top of the handguard. In its left hand was a giant bright crimson shield.

The dreadnought held the shield up in a guard stance and kept the sword raised, prepared for any move the monster before him made.

The daemon stared this new challenger, mouth frothing and teeth bared with tightly restrained anger. In that moment Summer could see it, the echo of a mind that kept this creature from charging in mindlessly.

Slowly, deliberately, it raised its twin axes and excitedly slammed them together in acknowledgement. Its head turned from side to side, seeing the ranks of Custodes closing in on it. They marched closer with their spears, axes, swords and shields prepared for the lethal work they were meant for.

In response, the Bloodthirster let out a raging bellow that echoed up into the sky, and to Summer's surprise, the bloody downpour tripled in intensity. Blood pools formed at an alarming pace and from them came new daemons eager to join the carnage.

Within moments, the newly arrived daemons were embroiled in conflict with the Custodes, as the demigods of war slew, new arrivals continued to replace those brought low.

None of the blood pools around the Bloodthirster moved. The lesser thoughtforms refusing to manifest near this titan of slaughter.

Summer knew what this meant. The lesser daemons were a distraction to keep the Adeptus Custodes from interrupting the confrontation between these two.

Champions of gods facing off in the name of their masters.

"I have been waiting for you, daemon," the mechanized voice of the dreadnought pilot blared. "I am Sagittarus, the First to Fall, and you shall not strike at her again."

The daemon let out a series of grunts and growls, each one slightly less aggressive than before. It took Summer a moment to realize that it was trying to speak.

"Sk-sk-sk!" The beast let out a low animalistic growl before screaming its name.

"SKARBRAND!"

Then it charged, all restraint it held in those short moments was relinquished to all consuming rage.

Skarbrand repeated the same opening move it used on her companions. A leap with both axes raised high.

Summer leapt back on reflex to avoid the incoming shockwave, as for Sagittarus, he responded with two large steps the right and braced himself against the upheaval of the ground beneath him.

When Skarbrand's axes dug into the earth, the dreadnought responded by cracking the shield against the daemon's face. Summer flinched at the sight of it, that blow had the power to pulverize bone, but it was not enough. The Bloodthirster staggered back a step and the dreadnought advanced, plunging its sword into the meaty bicep of the monster and letting loose a gout of flame.

The fires ate at the daemon's flesh, making it jolt up in retaliation, causing more damage as the blade was torn free. The next axe strike came in low, and while it was caught by the shield, the force behind it threw the dreadnought back a step.

Summer blinked as she suddenly remembered that she was a part of this battle as well. Letting out a quick burst of light, she managed to interrupt Skarbrand's follow up long for Sagittarus to deliver a winding slash to its thigh.

The huntress ran into the fray, seeing a new avenue to victory now that she had a partner that could stand up to the towering behemoth.

She ran beneath the beast and planted the blade of her spear right where the cartilage of its hoof connected with the meat of its shin. Skarbrand let out a cry and received a shield bash to the kneecap, bringing it down to a kneeling position.

Summer shot away using her semblance and reformed behind her golden guardian. A torrent of red-hot fire streamed out of the daemons gaping maw as it tried to roast them.

Sagittarus fended them off with his shield, but Summer saw this for what it was.

"Look out!" She yelled as she placed an open palm on one of the mech's oversized feet.

Both of them disappeared in a swirl of gold and white as the axes swiped the air in a scissoring motion. Skarbrand grunted in confusion as he sought his opponents.

Summer and Sagittarus reformed further back towards the Lion's Gate. The huntress huffed and wheezed from the sudden exertion, she rarely ever had to drag something of this tonnage with her. This guy made Space Marines feel light.

Skarbrand went on the attack the moment he saw them, Sagittarus counter charged with his shield forward and when the two met, the ground cracked in a spiderweb pattern that continued spread, becoming more intricate with each second.

They stayed locked in that position, while Summer ran up the remains of a nearby statue of some armored figure and launched herself high into the air to bring herself down onto the daemons back.

Standing on the left side of the burning mane between it ruined wings, she began to carve at its thick hide. Her aura enhanced blade causing the red flesh to sizzle and darken.

Skarbrand broke the lock and began to flail. Summer grabbed onto the left wing and kept Ivory's blade pressed into the monster's back. After failing to remove the woman with force, the daemons skin began to light up with unholy fire. Its entire body erupted into flames and Summer was forced to abandon her attempts at crippling it.

Leaping off the behemoth's back, she saw those twin axes knock Sagittarus' shield out of his metal hand with a heavy double swipe.

The dreadnought staggered and the daemon did not waste that opening to deliver a sundering blow to the machine's eagle chest plate. Once more, the daemon proved its strength with that blow by sending Sagittarus careening back by close to thirty meters.

Summer hit the daemon with another burst of light, stunning it before she rushed over to Sagittarus' side. His mech still looked functional. The damage was mostly around the chest where the winged eagle was completely ruined, however given his bulk he would not be able to get back up before the daemon closed in to finish them off.

Summer felt a buzzing in the back of her head. It wasn't the aura of pure rage Skarbrand was giving off, this was something that felt familiar. It was reaching out to her, imploring her to reach back.

There was no time to follow the thought as Skarbrand came in for another charge and Summer prepared to unleash a large explosion at the risk of debilitation.

Then out of the miasma of war came Guiren, sprinting straight towards them. Running up the remains of a rhino, the Champion of the Emperor leapt at the daemon who was caught unawares.

The black sword plunged deep into the exposed area of Skarbrand's chest armor, and as gravity began to apply to the weight of the Space Marine, the blade was dragged down, opening a huge gash in Skarbrand's torso.

The daemon shrieked as a gout of flames spilled out from the wound, but it did not go down. Reversing one of its axes, it swatted Guiren to the ground, the links on his devotional chains snapped leaving the black sword embedded on the monster's body.

Summer watched in horror as the axe came down the moment the Templar rose to his feet. A final prayer dying on his lips as the his body was crushed.

Time froze again as the shock of what had happened set in. Guiren was dead. Dead.

A storm of grief welled up inside her as she vented her sorrow.

"NOO!"

Her cry of anguish was accompanied by another brilliant explosion. The largest one yet. Blood pools evaporated in the face of its purifying light, and the lesser daemons wailed as they were banished.

When it faded, Skarbrand still stood. Just like the first Bloodthirster Summer had ever met, Skarbrand's body was blackened and scorched to the point where his armor and skin were somehow equal shades of black.

Unlike the last time this happened, Skarbrand did not look defeated. Wounded though he was, he still looked ready to fight.

Summer fell to the floor, the exhaustion and shock of the moment putting her out of the fight. She didn't have the strength to move, she had overloaded and now she was stuck. As Skarbrand turned his focus back to the pair he had been dueling with, Sagittarus had managed to get back on his feet and stood between Summer and the daemon.

"I know a great warrior when I see one," Sagittarus said, pointing his blade as Skarbrand. His joints and gears sparked with strain, and the huntress knew the dreadnought would not survive another clash.

"You will pay for his death, beast."

Summer felt the buzzing come again; this time it was clearer, more focused. With her body unable to move, she found that her mind was able to focus on it. It was a familiar presence. A powerful presence, one that was calling to her. Reaching out to her like an outstretched hand.

She gasped as she saw who it was and reached back to join hands.

Then she pulled.

---

Sagittarus braced himself for the daemon's next charge, his blade was raised, and his free hand was in a guard position in order to deliver powerful blows in exchange for whatever damage was inflicted upon him.

He would not fail in his duty again.

Skarbrand halted mid-stride and stared in apprehension. Something Sagittarus had not seen the beast display before. A golden haze rose up from behind him, his optical input sensors detecting the abnormal change in the environment.

Normally he would never turn his back on an enemy, least of all one as great as this, but he felt something. A presence that demanded his attention. A presence that by his very design, he could not ignore.

Turning, he saw the woman he was tasked to guard, her body enveloped in a golden light.

Rising to her feet, she looked at Sagittarus and he knew it was not the woman looking back at him with those eyes. Those glowing golden orbs that shone like newborn stars.

Sagittarus heard the daemon roar in defiance of this new development, and he turned to face it. The daemon was right on top of the dreadnought. Until it wasn't.

The daemon's form was ripped to pieces, shredded by a wave of golden illumination, leaving only the black sword behind with its broken chain to clatter to the ground, its duty done. The light spread out to cleanse the city. The dome of gold expanded outward, reaching out for hundreds of miles, dispelling the haze of dread that had fallen over all caught beneath the storm.

The daemons were all cast back, their bodies torn apart by the brilliant aura of psychic power. The blood pools fizzled out and the dreadful rain evaporated on contact with the dome of light. The sound of fighting across the city had slowly ceased, leaving only a tranquil silence.

Sagittarus saw his brothers approaching, even with their helmets on, he could tell they were even more surprised than he was. Turning to the woman, he raised his sword and declared with so much joy that even his inbuilt hailer could not help but express it.

"My King!"

---

Guilliman walked through the lines of kneeling Custodes, he had come sprinting down the main thoroughfare when he got word from Osiris that one of the greater daemons had set its sights on Summer.

When the Custodes had given a description of the beast, Voldus had marked it as alpha-prioris. Calling the daemon out by name and elucidating the Primarch on how much of a threat it posed. That daemon could sustain this entire invasion by itself if allowed to continue its rampage.

And so, they had turned to reach the steps of the Lion's Gate with all haste. Now, here he was with no battle to fight and no apex manifestation of ruin to combat.

Instead, he found a collection of at least two thousand Custodians, all of them kneeling in silence.

He marched forward towards the source of the light that had banished the daemonic forces. That was when he saw her, the huntress was standing at the steps of the gate, a golden halo of light engulfing her body.

Besides her was a battered Contemptor-Galatus Pattern Dreanought that only carried a sword. The combat walker was standing sentinel at the woman's side.

Guilliman reached up to remove his helmet as he neared the front of the crowd. Those who followed him here stopped in their tracks. The sight before them was too much for them not to take a moment to truly understand what they were seeing.

Celestine and her Geminae Superia felt tears welling up in their eyes as they fell to their knees in reverent prayer.

Voldus and the Grey Knights that had rallied to him during the battle, all took a knee, their posture mirroring their golden brothers.

Greyfax just stood in surprise, all her years in the Inquisition had barely braced her for the return of Guilliman, she found that she did not know what to do here, and she felt slightly embarrassed.

Guilliman dropped his helm as he stepped past the front row of Custodians and stopped. There stood Summer, calm and undamaged. Her aura having either protected her from harm or fully healing her.

That was not what had silenced the Primarch. It was the figure that stood behind the huntress. Behind the huntress was a golden avatar of light, it stood taller than even Guilliman and it watched him with an unquestionable authority and power.

The armor was unmistakable, and the face, that image of physical perfection so unattainable that Guilliman often wondered if it was ever real at all.

Guilliman had to take a breath before he could finally get the word out, but he said it.

"Father…"

---

Lothar ripped the rubble aside, his devotion to the chapter demanding that he find the location of his fallen brother. As he dug in the crater near where the sacred black sword fell, the rest of their hunting party bore witness to the sight of a miracle.

Osiris and Sett both knelt together. The latter setting down the prone form of Silent Sister Katris, the sole survivor of the Anathema Psykana.

The Dark Angels all stood at attention, Cypher watching the golden figure with a conflicted expression. One of indecision and contemplation.

Lothar tore away a large chunk of stone, revealing a greave from the Armor of Faith, the garb of the Emperor's Champion. It was undamaged, despite the monstrous amount of punishment layed down upon it.

The Chaplain continued to dig, slowly freeing his brother from the stone tomb. Lowering himself to the champion's side, he inspected the body. As always, the armor bore next to no damage.

"Brother?" Lothar asked, "Do you yet live?"

The body shook slightly, giving Lothar the first signs of life that he needed.

"He-he-hemlet…" Came the gasping voice of Guiren.

Lothar undid the neck seals and removed the sacred helm, revealing the face of a man on the edge of death.

"Did-did we prevail, brother?" Guiren asked through gasps of breath, flecks of blood spittle coming from his quivering lips.

Lothar did not answer, instead, he took his fallen kin and began to drag him up the lip of the crater.

"Ch-chaplain," the champion protested, "leave me. Go and fulfil our oath."

"Be silent, brother," commanded Lothar.

After reaching the top, Lothar repositioned Guiren so he sat prone against a large stone.

"See what your valor has brought us, Guiren."

Lothar sat on one knee by his brother and pointed with his crozius. Guiren's swollen eyes widened in wonder at the sight before him. Rank upon rank of Custodes, all kneeling to an unmistakable golden figure.

Guiren wished to speak, but his words were caught in his throat.

"Look, brother," Lothar said in hushed awe. "He sees you. Our Emperor sees you!"

Guiren squinted his aching eyes, and he found the Chaplain's words to be true. The golden form of their Emperor was looking right at him.

"My…" He forced the words out despite his failing lungs. "My Emperor. Have I served your will? Have I completed my duty?"

Guiren felt his failing heart skip a beat when he thought he saw a slight nod from the golden avatar.

"Rest, my champion," said a voice that he could only interpret as the Lord of Man. "Fall now and let me catch you."

Guiren felt a tear run down his cheek as his organs gave out and his remaining heart ceased to beat, through it all, he managed to utter one last phrase of devotion.

"Ave Imperator Aeternus."

---

Guilliman looked for the words he wanted to say, the questions he had spent months mulling over in preparation for this moment, only for him to draw a blank.

The avatar of his father looked at him with the patience of ages.

Guilliman felt a sense of shame under that gaze. Like he had somehow been the one who was the root cause for all of the decay that had beset the Imperium. Had he chosen to go with Sanguinius to Terra, would he have made it in time to make a difference? Would he have made a difference if he were there?

Had he not split the legions would his loyal brothers still be with him to this day? Would Rogal still have butchered his legion in a suicide attack had Guilliman not pushed him? If he had not been so foolish as to face Fulgrim alone, would he have been able to prevent the slow decay of everything they had built together?

He wanted to apologize. To admit his failings and have his father pass judgement. But that was just the human part of him thinking that he might have changed what had happened. The wounded part of his ego refusing to admit that there was nothing he could have done to prevent the worst parts of their history from happening.

Guilliman opened his mouth to speak, but an earthshattering roar echoed down from above. All presents sprang to attention and directed their gaze to the sky. Only Summer and the golden avatar at her back remained still.

Slowly, she too looked to the sky, the avatar mimicking her.

The storm still raged on, but now the violence coalesced into a single swirling cloud and within that cloud, an image formed. It looked like portal to hell, and in that hell sat a figure on a throne of obsidian and skulls.

The avatar of the Emperor stared at the Lord of Blood with indifference. The Blood God glared at the Anathema with pure hatred.

Two kings, staring each other down.

The Blood God slammed a fist into the armrest of his throne and gave another echoing bellow. The mere sight of the Master of Mankind sending it into a frothing rage.

To this, one word came from the huntress' mouth, but it not in her voice. It was a voice that boomed with the fury of thunder.

"Begone."

Behind the great gate, a pillar of light shot into the sky, at its apex, it unleashed a blast wave that dispersed the clouds, banishing the fiery figure and returning the skies of Terra to their natural polluted greys and browns.

Guilliman heard cheers come from the distant walls and in the city all around. The people were cheering for the return of the light. The Primarch understood all too well.

The Astronomican had been relit and to the people, that was their sign that their lord was still with them. He had not abandoned them to the perditions of the daemons or worse, an existence without His guidance.

Guilliman turned to the apparition of his father only to catch it fade.

Summer's body went limp, and she fell. The Primarch lunged forward and caught her in his gauntlet, careful not to harm her.

The huntress' eyes opened, and she looked tired, almost as tired as he felt.

"Is it over?" She asked.

"It is."

She smiled and let out a short laugh. "Your dad sure knows how to deliver when it counts."

Guilliman smiled back at her. "So, I've been told."

---

Summer walked down the path cleared for them through the thick crowd. It was all happening as her vison promised this time. Guilliman was at the lead, Cawl scuttled on his many legs behind him with Osiris in tow. Greyfax and Celestine walked together in front of Summer as the crowd cheered for them all.

She looked around at the gathered pilgrims. All of them having waited here for… Well, she had no idea how long they waited in this line to end all lines. While she respected religion, there were always times when you could take it too far. This was one of those times.

They cheered for the triumphant heroes and the coming of the prodigal son. What she took umbrage with were those that tried to force their way past the wall of guards and try to touch her or the others.

If she had to guess, it was likely because they thought just touching one of the would-be good luck or a blessing. That did not make the idea any less uncomfortable.

One of the pilgrims got past the wall and he was immediately gunned down. Just like in her vison, she felt bad for the poor man, but there was nothing she could do about that.

A hearty laugh came from behind her.

"Been awhile since I got a reception like this. But even that feels small now," Laughed the jovial voice behind her.

Summer set her face into a stern frown and looked back at Nicholas Schnee, who was walking with a heavy bandage dressing where the upper portion of his right arm should be. Behind him was Finlay, Elaine and Strang along with a man she did not recognize wearing the same armor as the guards keeping the crowd back.

At the back of their little parade was Lothar, Sett, Voldus, Sicarius, what was left of the Victrix Guard, the Dark Angels and Sagittarus. The dreadnought refused repairs until he had fulfilled his duty which he had yet to fully disclose yet. The sight of the Chaplain brought grief to the huntress. Guiren was dead, but the Chaplain promised that he saw to the final moments of the champion. He promised that those final breaths were good ones.

Small comforts in a cruel universe.

When she was told that all of the Silent Sister bar Katris were slain, she felt even worse. A life lived being scorned by all those around you because of something beyond your control was beyond sad.

At the very least Katris survived.

"And I bet you didn't have to pay such a heavy price for it," she made no effort to hide her disapproval.

"Oh, what? This?" The Schnee raised the stump of his right hand. "I would have done this on any of those expeditions if I had to. But I didn't need to, thanks to your grandmother."

Summer's frown became neutral. "Maybe I'll ask about her someday."

"And I'd be happy to share." Nicholas looked at the architecture of the Palace and let out a long whistle. "This place sure does make Atlas look small. Even if the entire city rolled up to my heroic return home it will never compare to this."

"I think that will make it better," offered the huntress. "I don't really care for all this. I just want to see my family."

"Amen to that," Nicholas laughed.

As the assemblage of warriors, soldiers and demigods climbed the steps, Summer took in the sight of Eternity Gate. It was a gigantic golden pair of double doors, combining to create a picture of the Emperor plunging a spear into a serpent-like creature. As first she assumed it was a dragon, but she had never seen any depictions of a dragon with such an elongated body before.

At the sides of the gate were two giant walkers. They were not Imperial Knights, if she was judging by size correctly, these were the smallest form of Imperial Titans. Warhound Titians. The fact that they had these things on guard all the time here showed just how seriously they took the defense of the Palace. Just looking at the guns those things carried, it was obvious they were ready to turn them on the crowd should the people turn on the guards.

At the threshold of the gate stood a group of twenty Custodes. When Guilliman reached the top, they stopped, and the crowd went silent. Summer couldn't hear what was being said between Guilliiman and the lead Custodian, but she could see it was a tense face off.

Osiris was at the Primarch's side, explaining everything. Or that was what Summer thought he would say. He was always so honest and straightforward.

Guilliman made a gesture and the Dark Angels stepped up to the top of the stairs. Then the Custodes all lowered their spears and quickly surrounded the Astartes. Summer was stunned by this.

Cypher looked ready to fight. He even looked angry, the first time his calm demeanor had broken for anything. But it soon returned, and he dropped to his knees in surrender along with the other Dark Angels.

"What was that about?" Finlay asked.

"I don't know," Summer said, "If I find out I'll tell you."

Elaine groaned in annoyance. "Please, no more telling us classified information because you believe it to be trivial."

Summer smirked at the Cadet-Commissar. "You're just upset that it was my advice that saved your life from the daemons."

When the Dark Angels were led away in some kind of electric hand cuffs the lead Custodian spoke out loud.

"The Lord Guilliman has been granted access into the Sanctum Imperialis and the Throne Room, but he is to proceed from this point on alone."

Finlay scoffed, "He's not telling us anything we don't already know. Of course, we ain't goin into the Throne Room. I ain't facing Him yet."

"I agree," Summer said with a nod. "The thought of meeting a god is scary enough without all the golden death machines ready to dice you to pieces."

"No," boomed the voice of Sagittarus, who began to march up the stairs.

The lead Custodian had a flicker of surprise on his face when the dreadnought took a place at Guilliman's side.

"Ancient Sagittarus, you are awake." It was a statement, but it was still clear that Sagittarus was not expected to be there.

"I walk again, and I am here to perform my duty as charged to me by the Emperor of Mankind, Beloved by All. That duty being to escort the Primarch and one other to the Throne."

The dreadnought pointed a finger into the group he had followed here, landing directly on Summer.

"Her."

Summer pointed a finger at herself and looked around as the gazes of everyone present fell on her.

The lead Custodian looked at Summer quizzically, assessing her for threat and reason why such an order would be given. When he found none of the latter, he turned back to his ancient kin.

"Are you certain, brother? That it was He who roused you?"

The dreadnought let out a keening sound that took Summer a moment to interpret as laugher. The shocking part was that she didn't think the Custodes could laugh at all.

"Who else could have done it?" Sagittarus argued back with no bitterness in his words. "You all have tried to awaken me before. Every few hundred years for those Blood Games that Valdor made up. I have refused you every time. For I walk only when our master calls."

The Custodian looked at Summer one last time before giving a small shake of the head. "Very well. She may pass beyond the gate."

He then pointed his Guardian Spear at her. "But only her. That weapon she carries stays here."

Summer could not help but frown at the thought of being separated from her precious Ivory Dorn again. With a heavy sigh, she unclipped it from her belt and handed it to Nicholas.

"Here," she said, her voice slightly glum.

When he took it, she gave him a short glare, "If I find so much as a scratch on her paintjob, you'll be missing more than an arm when I'm done with you."

The Schnee patriarch laughed while Finlay looked nervous, remembering the last time he heard her deliver such a threat.

"I know better than to tamper with a Dorn's weapon. She'll be safe with me."

Summer nodded in acceptance before walking up the steps. When past by Celestine, the angel gave an encouraging nod, while Greyfax gave a less stern glare than usual. When she passed Cawl, she saw one of his mechanical hands discretely giving her a thumbs up.

That brightened her mood.

When she reached Guilliman, she noticed that he looked slightly happier now that she was going with him.

The Custodian voxed for the gates to be opened and Summer bore witness to those titanic doors yawning open with the slowness of tectonic plates moving.

When they were opened, the trio stepped past the guards and into the darkness beyond. On they went, Guilliman, Sagittarus and Summer.

Together, they went to meet their maker.

---

I'm back BBOOYYZZ!

I am sorry I took so long again.

I had to get an important license and could not spare the time to bring you all a proper story.

But I know my excuses mean nothing in the face of such a heinous crime. The crime of forcing my readers to wait for so long.

Now that I am free of what was restraining me, I shall endeavor to improve my upload schedule.

Ps. As for why Summer isn't bothered by blanks. I'll let you lot figure that out. All I will say is that there are certain psykers in the setting that are not affected by blanks. One even went and possessed a blank. Said psyker became a Grey Knight. The other example is the Big-E himself who could use his powers on blanks. In one of the Dark Imperium books, he grabbed a Sister of Silence and threw her across a room, breaking her legs.

So please, do not rip me a new one for this.

I hope you all enjoy,