The sun rose early in Bellolla's world, and she almost always struggled to beat it in rising; it was one of her few failings. She always tended to stay up later when praying and years ago was prone to being one of the last sisters in her convent to wake. Even if the difference was a matter of minutes, it was always something she needed to compensate for. So she had always taken each day with the same energy she placed into her prayers.
Long ago, when she had been a Novitiate militant wielding her first official blade and autogun, Bellolla had been so dour. The world was only one of condemnation and failures to be punished, but then that horrific day occurred. Traitor Astartes had fallen from the skies, their speed too fast for any mortal, the Daemons at their side too unnatural, and their accused witches too powerful. But as her squad died, in their failure, the Emperor sent hope, a reward for faith. She had seen his angels. Not simple Marines, but ones filled with holy fire inside their armor and the strength to overcome the most inhumane mutations of the enemy and to turn the foulest of magics back. While the Emperor's most devoted angels blazed, the enemy was powerless. Within hours their attack was stymied, and despite taking until Bellolla was a full Battle Sister, the arch enemy's army was broken and destroyed, all thanks to the hour where the Emperor rewarded faith and loyalty rather than condemning failure in the face of the impossible.
Now, as the Seraphim Superior of the Jade Rose's Commandery under Canoness Vylerine, it was her place to shine for the sisters beneath her, to let them see the true hope of the Emperor's divine will. And to remind them to always keep their faith and to serve as a light to those who would dare leave their minds open and hearts in the darkness of the warp. So she made early rounds, checking for any sisters who were later than herself in waking, though most were woken by their sisters; a few needed extra encouragement from the Seraphim Superior, either to stave away sloth or to fend away their unspoken fears and doubts. Fear and doubt were human things, but they were also tools for hardening and sharpening one's faith, turning a simple woman into the Emperor's most devout tools, weapons that can never be turned against him.
Of course hardship and trials were times for faith; the Emperor's vision of humanity ascended, of a galaxy purged of the false gods that brought such darkness to all, only leaving his divine light to guide humanity to the destiny that only he as the one God knew. Faith in the Emperor sustained the faithful and brought about miracles that not even a witch could hope to emulate with their dark powers; of course, the trials also battered and broke the body. As it was with one of the sisters under Bellolla today, as it would be for many of the sisters here, and for many of them the trials upon their faith would do more than batter their body but would break their minds or their flesh entirely, leaving them dead.
So for now, Bellolla would see to bringing the joy of the Emperor's light to them, to know that judgment was met equally with reward, strength, unity, purpose, and the peace of spirit that allowed Sororitas time and time again to look upon Daemons, denounce them, and leave with their souls intact, where so many others would have their souls broken and lost to damnation. So she went to the infirmary, the realm of the Hospitaller, though their Commandery only had the one. She was well stocked, a veteran healer, and had a full staff of ecclesiastical healers and servitors. However, while Bellolla had intended to barge in to surprise the wounded sister and give her encouragement and life in a place so dismal as a Medicae station, she was stalled by the sight of Canoness Vylerine.
The Canoness slept while sitting on a small stool next to the cot that the wounded Adala rested in. Silently, Bellolla snuck into the infirmary while noting the missing presence of Zoie. Bellolla silently entered, slipping closer to observe the unique scene before her. The canoness hadn't even removed her armor from the other night, nor washed the would-be sister superior's blood off of her gauntlets.
With a groan, Adala began to wake, and Vylerine seemed to startle in her seat, prompting Bellolla to hide out of sudden compulsion. The Canoness seemed to fret over the recovering Sororitas, her movements uncertain, lacking the gentle hand of a Hospitaller, yet somehow just as if not more caring. But after a second the older of the two women seemed to snap back as if regaining her senses, the stern face of a canoness replacing the unusual look of concern and a hint of disgust filling her eyes, if only for a second, only enough that Bellolla, who had now spent an admittedly short year by her side, could even recognize it.
"C-canoness... H-have you come to make me take the oath of repentance? I have failed to obey and instead allowed my ... I am sorry for failing to meet your expectations, Canoness." The younger woman stated.
"No. No, I—" Vylerine's voice was weak, and Bellolla had to strain to even hear. "It was my failure as Canoness. You are fresh, new to my Commandery, and I knew little of the practices of the Schola; it has been twenty years since I stepped foot in their halls, if we ever even attended the same Schola. Sister Adala, speak nothing of this, nor what I tell you now, nor your punishment or your assumption just now."
"Yes, yes, my Canoness." The wounded sister weakly submitted, allowing her canoness to continue.
"The oath of repentance is not something to be taken lightly. For a sister to so eagerly seek it is... something that diminishes its purpose and value. We honor the Repentia even as we turn away from them, seeing them as one sees a ghost. They are honored because they face their own sins and even their own heresies, willingly seeking out penance in the Repentia while under the watch of the Mistress of Repentance, knowing that only through martyrdom or the Emperor's guidance will they achieve atonement.
I once sought to take the oath, only for my own canoness to beat me unconscious, lock me away in secret, and speak to me. I had failed in a way that is hard to forgive, one that I still have yet to forgive myself for even if the Emperor found no fault. My first squad, they all died without me there. Three months before, I lowered my guard, allowing myself to become entangled pointlessly with the creed Temporal in a way even The Order of the Veiled Mantle would not engage in. I... I was too sick to partake in missions, and my squad was combined with our sister squad." The Canoness sighed, and Bellolla listened on intently. She knew much about her canoness; she was allowed to read Vylerine's files and knew the tales on each of the beads of her canoness's Chaplet Ecclesiasticus. The threads of Vylerine's chaplet were numerous, and the beads even more so. Despite her youth, the canoness had more than earned her rank and held an extremely storied history; some among the order had even considered her a prodigy among the Sororitas at such a youthful age, matching feats that would be expected of the Emperor's angels of death. Yet Bellolla couldn't recall anything of this story.
Vylerine looked away from Adala, and Bellolla could almost feel shame coming from her Canoness as she did. "While on a mission with an Inquisitor I had worked with in the past. The squads were ambushed. The Inquisitor made a mistake, one he commonly made, one... one only I was aware that he would make because I had been secretly accounting for it, covering it up so as to spare his pride. So I wouldn't have to see him..." The Canoness trailed off; the look on her face was bright, like she was lost in a happy memory but one that was long past. Bellolla had never heard of any Inquisitor that Vylerine had served more than once with; she and Chrana had been given special permissions to read everything about Vylerine that wasn't sealed by the Inquisition, and even among those records that were sealed, the Sororitas often kept their own alternative records that at least told the partial tale.
"Wait. You served with the Inquisition as well? How often? Was it just heretics or Xenos? Did you kill daemons?" The youthful Sororitas asked, the whole sixteen years of her life becoming evident, and swiftly distracting from the Canoness' tale. Bellolla could swear she even heard Vylerine stifling her own laughter for a second.
But then Vylerine snapped back to her serious aspect, a hint of rage on her face. "They all died, all of them because of the Inquisitor's mistake, the one I allowed him to make time and time again without chastisement. Because I wasn't there, because I allowed myself to be weak of spirit. And my Canoness didn't allow me to take the oath of repentance. Because my failing was unworthy of it, one that any mortal woman could make, from the most devout, from those who have touched the Emperor himself, and of course down to the most worthless whore selling herself for corpse rations in an underhive. The Inquisitor marched them into an ambush of hundreds of heretics, and they were so outgunned that even if it had been fifty traitor scum, they would have still died.
Sure, any analysis claimed the mission was impossible. That the ambush has been specifically crafted for Cal... for the Inquisitor and his entire retinue. That if I had been there, we... I... we all would have still died regardless."
"Ummm, Canoness. I don't think I understand." Bellolla wanted to smack Adala; the point should have been obvious, but there was something else, something more, and it pulled at the Seraphim.
"What I'm saying is that the Repentia is not a path you should walk. Not for another's mistake, and not for anything more than a truly grievous failure. If your mind or faith should be broken, should you flee leaving your sister's, then I will drag you to the mistress of Repentance myself and throw you to her feet myself." Vylerine grabbed Adala by the cheek, forcibly threatening the girl at the end while standing above her bed.
"U-understood, Canoness. What are your orders?" The Sororitas asked.
"Recover. Heal. I will call upon you when we have need of you. But until then, maintain your faith and hone your skills." The Canoness of the Keyan I Commandery of the Jade Rose order of the Adepta Sororitas ordered.
"Yes, Canoness... Um, ma'am. If it's alright by you. Could I, to prepare myself? Could I hear more about when you served alongside the Inquisition? Hunting heretics and all that?" Even from her hiding spot, Bellolla could see the eager excitement of the younger Sororitas and smiled as her Canoness nodded happily before returning to her seat.
"Since this is to ensure your performance is the best you can do when you return. Let's start with a couple of combat tales, then switch to the more mundane situations, times where understanding local rituals, differences in interpretation of doctrine, and, of course, just basic research exposed cults we were hunting, allowing us to destroy them without allowing them a chance to arm and prepare to resist the Emperor's judgement." The Canoness happily began while Bellolla slowly snuck out of the room. She had other duties to perform, and she had no desire to abandon her duties for something as foolish as spying on her canoness, though she had to admit the idea did sound fun.
First she would go to tend to her garden, each plant prayed over and tended to with devotion and care. Then she would call each of the Sororitas she had chosen for their mission this Emperor's Day. She had her sister superiors chosen: Mireal and Katira would lead two Dominion squads totaling ten in number; she would have a squad of five Retributors and thirty Sororitas.
It was then, hours later, that Bellolla was riding in the transport convoy with her selection of Sororitas. Three would drive the Rhinos, carrying herself and the squads of Sororitas along with any of the Retributors they had space for; meanwhile, the Dominions rode with the convoy's two immolators, and two Sororitas manned each of those vehicles, also with one of the Retributors in each one's spare seat.
"Seraphim. We're near the coordinates." The driver of the rhino announced.
"Lower the ramp; I shall scout ahead." Bellolla announced, and seconds after the ramp began to drop as Bellolla leapt from the transport. Her jump pack sparked, her wings igniting and carrying her across the ground in the rhino's wake, but soon launched her into the sky and eventually ahead of the convoy. Hills broke the path between the Sororitas and their target. But from atop the hills, Bellolla had a full view of the heretical mutant settlement. Already her Sabbot pattern helm's targeting system was marking out targets across the town, a small portion of her display showing the estimated count from her helmet cogitator. Standing outside in full view were nearly nine hundred targets. There were perhaps more, perhaps double, inside the settlement.
The whole settlement was a blight upon Imperial land, made of mud, dust, reeds, and wood, along with any spare metals and scrap the mutants and their apostate comrades had managed to scrounge. The town may have lain in an open, barren land, exposed and easy to find when one knew where to look, but the primitive nature made the place hard to conventionally find, and their location likely made sense to parasites like these mutants; some sort of value must have been had being located between major trade routes between the local hive cities.
But now the Sororitas had found them. No longer could these mutants hide away pretending that they could live without paying their penance for how they allowed their bodies and souls to pervert the Emperor's most holy of human forms. If they were unwilling to sacrifice for the Emperor's mercy, then clearly they were lost and only worthy of death, same as each of the traitors willing to live alongside and defend them as if they were equals. Humanity was the vision; its perfection, while yet to be achieved, could not be allowed to be smeared by the foul nature of the unrepentant mutant.
Bellolla tapped her collar comm bead. "Sisters, target found. Spread and sweep, fleur-de-lis pattern approach. Immolators first will push through; the heavy flamer Immolator will burn the far side of the settlement, creating a wall of fire between our prey and escape. The second Immolator will break any hardened resistance with its multi-meltas. We're to maximize damage, burn every structure, and focus on maximizing kills. We are outnumbered at least twenty to one, but our foes are mutants, untrained, barely armed, and inferior. Keep them at a distance, and they shall break. Rhinos, support the advance with your storm bolters and armor."
"Yes, Seraphim Superior!" The voices of fifty young Battle Sisters chorused back over the helmet vox speakers.
In seconds, Bellolla could see the dust of the Sororitas convoy as they skirted the hills and gunned their engines at full speed for the settlement. Before any alarm could sound, the Rhinos and Immolators were in among their targets. The Immolators dropped their ramps while still moving, and the Battle Sisters within leapt out, stumbling or rolling out before attacking the nearest mutants. Heavy flamers, flamers, and the Immolator's heavy flamers set buildings alight.
The sound of bolters and heavy bolters warned the rest of the mutant scum well before the alarm bells of the settlement's central tower and keep could sound the signal warning of the incoming attack. As the superiors Mireal and Katira were allowed to choose their own weapons from the armory and to choose their squad's armament. Mireal had grabbed a power sword and a plasma pistol but apparently played little part in her squad's member selection or choosing their weapons. Instead she chose the fiercest and most zealous of the Sororitas about her, as such three of them carried flamers and the fourth a melta. As such, Mireal's squad was setting every hut ablaze, their one melta collapsing the structures or creating breaches, while Mireal cut down any mutant or apostate who dared to run out of the burning building.
Katira instead has strictly selected her squad members and her squad's armaments. Katira chose based on devotion, skill, and memory, interviewing each battle sister in her squad before selecting them. While allowing herself only a combi-melta and claiming an ammo cherub, she had also selected her squad's weapons; one sister was given a flamer and three storm bolters. Where Mireal's squad burned the huts, allowing their superior to cut down anything foolish enough to flee the flames of judgment, Katira's squad methodically breached each hut, clearing them of anything alive one after another and then burning the remains.
In the streets, the Retributors spread out; two heavy bolters and two heavy flamers fired constantly, scything down crowds and torching buildings casually as they passed. Singing squads of Battle Sisters followed after the Dominions and Retributors. While Bellolla couldn't criticize the sisters for their aim, each almost entirely unerring in their shots, Bellolla's expert eyes noted their failures, the mistakes of youth and inexperience. They saved too many shots rather than expending the extra ammunition to guarantee a kill; their fingers pulled off or lingered too long on their triggers.
However, the attack did as intended. Panic and mayhem overtook the mutants. Confused mobs trampled themselves or fled towards the waiting flame and bolters of the Sororitas. Sixty seconds passed, and already nearly three hundred of the dirty mutants were dead. Only now did the mutants from Bellolla's elevated and experienced gaze begin to reorganize. As crude and ineffectual as it was.
Mobs armed with crude blades or clubs, or unarmed and relying on mutant claws or tentacles, rushed for the lines of the Sororitas. However, eight bolters, a heavy bolter, and a heavy flamer, along with a rhino with a storm bolter, were more than enough to break the onrushing horde. But now Bellolla could see the signs. Muzzle flashes from some of the buildings and an armory swiftly handing out crude stub rifles and autoguns and autopistols to the mobs of mutants passing it by.
"Sororitas. I have located an armory; the enemy is arming there. Armor, Superiors, I'm marking the location for your maps via auspex. I'm moving to intervene." And before any of the Sisters under her command could respond, Bellolla was already taken to the air, her thrusters on full burn, carrying her deep into the settlement before allowing her to slow her descent. However, she knew her combat situation; she was a veteran Seraphim and knew both her limits and the needs of the battlefield. She allowed herself to drop rather than wasting energy floating to the ground and allowing her enemies a chance to counter her attack or escape; her thrusters only activated at the end, turning her fall into a controlled landing that placed her right before a mutant, who she immediately pistol-whipped, breaking its neck.
She was a seraphim; movement and positioning were as important to her as power armor and a bolter were to any other Sororitas. She stayed at the end of the street away from the gathered mobs of mutants all rushing to gather weapons, both primitive swords and guns. Swiftly she snapped up her bolt pistols, unloading a number of shots that flew into the mob, which was so dense that not only did some of the rounds over-penetrate, but some of the exploding rounds would wound more than the mutant that it had struck. Six rounds from each pistol were loosed, and twenty mutants dropped to the ground wounded or dead.
It was then that Bellolla triggered her Seraphim jump pack again, rocketing up onto one of the nearby guys, where it had a patio built into its roof, which fortunately supported Bellolla's weight. As she flew, she both fired the last four rounds from both her pistols into the crowds and began to receive reports from her Sororitas.
"Seraphim Superior, the central tower has autocannons; our squads can't advance." The first squad's selected superior reported.
"They're starting to coordinate; they're using the houses for concealment and are trying to ambush us with improvised explosives." Katira then added to the report.
While she reloaded and listened to the enraged shouts of the traitors and mutants below her, Bellolla began giving orders to her Sisters. "Ashtley, take your Retributors to lay fire on the central tower. Bring the Immolator's multi-meltas to the Tower; we need to collapse the foundation. Mireal, take your squad to assault the tower. Sisters, raise your voices; let these traitors know of their failure to uphold the Emperor's will."
Bellolla punctuated her instructions by jetting over the mob of disgusting mutants beneath her while firing her reloaded bolt pistols down into them, each shot claiming one or two more mutant souls to send screaming into the warp where their dark gods reside. With a powerful jet, she skipped several of the small streets, landing where she could see the central tower and the small keep the mutants tried to build around it.
Masses of mutants with stub rifles and autoguns fought the sisters, but only a few of those at the front of the mobs fired their guns while the sisters were better equipped, more disciplined, and spread out, allowing for all of them to fire on the mutant mobs. While dozens of guns fired at each sister, between the light cover and the Sororitas power armor the only weapons that seemed to pose a genuine threat to the sisters were the autocannons mounted at the top of the tower.
But by this point, Flames and the power sword of Mireal's squad drew close to the base of the building, burning and cutting through the mutant mobs. The autocannons tried to compensate for the sudden rush of the five Dominions of Mireal's squad, but even as autocannon shells began to trace towards the running Dominions, the fate of the tower and all within was sealed. The Immolator had been closing with the tower, trying to use the buildings of the town as cover, but now that all the autocannons were focused on Mireal, the Immolator had its chance.
The vehicle turned a corner and raced forward drawing close to the Tower before firing both multi-meltas carving a wide pair of holes into the structure which shook the structure. The building listed, and some mutants fell out of windows before slamming down into the ground below and dying upon impact. Meanwhile, Mireal's squad began to pump fire into the holes of the building while the squad's one melta fired and cut yet another hole into the tower.
Between the damage and the fire eating away at the building interior, the tower collapsed as Bellolla then jumped in to join the battle. All about the battle, the mutants were beginning to panic. And how could they not? Their weapons were nearly ineffectual, only able to strike at some of the sisters' unhelmeted heads, and with the mutant's terrible aim, that was surely going to be a feat of pure chance rather than skill.
The mutants continued to rush the Sororitas line, their press of numbers eventually allowing them to reach the line of Sororitas; however, the flamers of the Retributors and Dominions as well as Mireal's power sword, the mutants were swiftly broken. But not before they could wrap their claws and slam their tentacles into the sisters. A bullet caught one of the Sororitas in the cheek; another had their arm snapped into an unnatural direction, all in the seconds before the mob of mutants realized they were burning and being carved apart by the small, passionate Sororitas.
Then the vox in Bellolla's helmet clicked. "Immolator one here, we have successfully set the mutant armory on fire. They are beginning to flee." The flamer-equipped Immolator reported.
"Katira reporting. The mutants are attempting to break from the settlement. With permission, I want our battle sisters to spread out with the Rhinos to form a perimeter." The cool-headed Sororitas reported over the box next.
"Seraphim Superior, the force has four wounded thus far; only one is severe, and all are currently stable, with no life-threatening injuries." The Retributor's acting superior reported for the entirety of the deployment under Bellolla.
"I'm breaching the keep; the mutants flee me in there!" Mireal then added, and before anyone could stop her, the sister entered into song, her voice carrying such force that Bellolla could hear her without the vox. And then the small sister was inside the partially collapsed building.
"Damn it." Bellolla cursed before activating her vox bead. "Katira, proceed to form a perimeter with our battle sisters and sweep the settlement with your Dominions, no individual sisters though; we can't let any mutants ambush or overwhelm any of us at this stage. Immolators continue until only the keep remains. Ashtley, form your Retributors into a defensive position; we will allow our wounded to rest under your care. Dominions, on me, we are going after Mireal."
Immediately Bellolla was inside the keep. However only body parts and gore met her as she followed Mireal's path. The building was relatively small and partially collapsed; every so often it would groan, threatening to collapse entirely. Yet a single sound drove that concern from Bellolla's mind.
"Hurry up and die, bitch! Quickly, get the chosen son's blessing out of here!" An old, raspy voice screamed from a room ahead, which Bellolla raced to. Inside a massive mutant, the size of an ogryn, was using its oversized claws to batter Mireal down, the Sororitas struggling to raise her sword arm up to fend off the monster as a tentacle from its stomach pinned her arm down.
In the back a old hag was shouting at the beast and Battle Sister while two others pushed a stone piller collapsing it onto a open hole in the floor just as Bellolla entered the room. The hag looked up hate in her eyes as she locked onto Bellolla. "Another whore!" The mutant hag shouted as clear psychic power began to mass around her.
Bellolla, however, was the swifter of the two, and a bolt detonated in the hag's skull well before her heretic magic could manifest. As the gore of the mutant witch hag rained across the room, Bellolla opened fire on the Ogryn-like mutant, unloading mass reactive bolt rounds into the creature. Chunks of flesh were thrown off it in an instant, but it still continued until one of Bellolla's rounds severed its stomach tentacles, allowing Mireal to use her power sword to carve the beast in half. It was less than a second after that when mass reactive bolts ended the final two mutants.
"That's why you don't go alone. Always bring your sisters in these situations. Understood?" Bellolla stated firmly as she paced around the room, allowing Mireal to pick herself up from under the massive mutant.
"Yes, Seraphim Superior." Mireal replied as Bellolla stalked the room. A side table eventually caught her eye. Here two sheets of paper lay, one was covered in runes and out-of-place letters clearly meant to be a code. Some of the runes, though Bellolla recognized, while she didn't have the same Inquisitorial experience as her Canoness, Bellolla had killed more than her fair share of heretics, and while having never learned to name which of their twisted gods went with which rune, she could still recognize the runes for what they were, and these runes were popular among the witch cults.
Next to the heretical paper was the second, and Bellolla wanted to scoff at her enemy's incompetence. They had left the cipher for their code on the table, all the important details written out for Bellolla to easily read.
This village was clearly marked, noting a population of three thousand but few 'warriors'; also marked out were two more villages of a thousand each and a final village of five thousand. The main village seemed to be contacting all the others not only in this region but also across the planet, while the paper only listed the regions and continents for the rest of the mutants. According to the document, they were gathering an army that would number in the millions.
In response, Bellolla activated her Vox-bead yet again. "Sisters, ready yourselves. Our mission is not yet complete. We will replace the wounded and message back to the Canoness. Heresy has been allowed to fester on Keyan I, and by divine decree we must be the ones to stamp it out!"
Too much of this disturbed Bellolla; the mutants here were very well armed, with autocannons that seemed to be PDF standard issue, stub rifles, and autoguns in unacceptable quantities. And now a whole network of coordination and a witch leading them. Not to mention that the paper claimed this village had few 'warriors.'. Did the mutants have more heinously mutated monsters among them? Or did they have some sort of factory or armory they had taken somewhere, allowing them to try and form their own makeshift army?
She would need to inform Vylerine; the Sororitas would need to lead this world in cleansing its long-ignored mutant issue. And they would need to act now.