The Great Declaration: Another Reaction
Amberley screamed wordlessly as her fingers closed around a table, swinging it around and slamming it into the wall. It didn't break; she grabbed and threw it again. And again. And again. Distantly, some faint, barely-conscious part of her recognized that she was utterly out of control right now, but she just couldn't bring herself to stop.
First the missive declaring the entire damn Ultima Segmentum Excommunique Traitoris. Then she'd been forced to flee from her own Ordos, hijacked by an army of Inquisitors suffering from Karamazov's madness. Then she'd woken up in a hospital on Slawkenberg, the realm of the Black Commissar… and then came the realization that being in his clutches was quite possibly the safest place to possibly be right now.
Honestly, it was a minor miracle she was only having a complete and total meltdown now.
"YOU!" A cabinet flew open. "FUCKING!" Emperor-only-knows how many vials of Panacea flew to the floor, shattering on impact. "IDIOOOOOOTS!"
And with that final cry, she fell to her knees, her hands flying to her face as she promptly burst into sobs.
Hector let loose a grunt as he lifted the gurney propped up against the door. Honestly, he really couldn't blame the hospital staff for barricading the room off when the screaming started. Inquisitors could already be terrifying enough, and that was before one of them took their inner World Eater for a stroll.
With the door clear, he strode towards it, gently pushing it open.
The room beyond was a disaster zone. Shattered Panacea vials were scattered all over the floor, the white substance contained within pooling on the tiled flooring. Smashed gurneys and overturned tables were pushed up against the edges of the dented walls. And kneeling in the center of it was a blonde-haired woman clad in a hospital gown.
"Are you well?" Hektor asked.
Amberley Vail shook her head. "Not that you give a fuck about a bunch of servants of the corpse-emperor who just got stabbed in the back by their own empire for the high crime of sharing a Segmentum with Slawkenberg…"
The Khronate snorted derisively as he stepped into the room, the glass and metal crunching beneath her boots. "Makes one wonder why, when I received a copy of the declaration, my personal quarters were in as bad a shape as this room."
Amberley's head turned, surprise and suspicion warring for dominance in her eyes. "You do care?"
"Khrone is more than just rage." Hektor declared, flipping a table back over and brushing the debris off of it. "He is also a deity of honor and righteous fury. And one cannot feel either of those things if one cannot bring themselves to care about others. Even others who wish me nothing but a brutal, painful death."
With the table mostly clean, Hektor laid the bundle of clothes he'd come to deliver down on the table. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the former Inquisitor's own go wide as she recognized her own Inquisitor's garb, retrieved from the wreckage of her vessel and restored at the Zerayah's request.
"But caring is pointless if you're too caught up in your own fury to act."
I stared down (from the relative safety of the Warp, of course) at the gleaming white throne placed in the High Lords' council chamber, at the High Lords themselves still scattered around the chamber, splayed in pools of now dry blood, and at the winged, vaguely angelic figure sitting on that throne.
Honestly, I really shouldn't have been surprised that this nutcase managed to ascend to godhood. The whole 'Madness of Karamazov' warp plague spreading like wildfire through the crazier parts of the Inquisition really should've been a tip-off to the fact that I hadn't seen the last of this bastard.
From the vague quasi-direction of the golden throne (not the throne of judgement, aka the white throne in the Council Chamber), I heard the God-Emperor's voice.
"Not this idiot again…"
AN: Had this brewing since the original fic quoted above was posted. On a related note, I imagine the High Lords wouldn't be that stupid; it would make much more sense for Stephan to somehow slaughter them all as heretics for tolerating the evils in the Ultima Segmentum, and then replace them with like-minded individuals who happen to also be afflicted by the Madness of Karamazov, or maybe even just claim he is the High Lords of Terra (well, Lord, to be more accurate) and execute anyone who disagrees.