Whipped up a bit of a follow-up to this that I call "Cain and Slawkenberg meets Abaddon the Despoiler: Aftermath". Basically, it's a rewrite and expansion of the last paragraph of the side-story it's a sequel to, with a slightly more silly last few sentences.

Cain and Slawkenberg meets Abaddon the Despoiler: Aftermath

With the Despoiler seen off and a bottle of amasec retrieved from my private store, I settle down in my quarters and ask myself the burning question at the forefront of my mind:

What. The frak. Was THAT?!

Honestly, when Abaddon himself came knocking on my door, I freaked out, big time. I'm not even entirely sure how I managed to hold it together for my audience with him; at the start, I was pretty much just spitballing, blundering my way through the whole conversation.

Surely you can imagine my surprise when my bumbling, on-the-fly speeches kept utterly curb-stomping Abaddon on the debate stage. So much so that he eventually tried to put me to the sword. The next thing I knew, I'd somehow bested the Despoiler himself in swordplay, disarmed him, and had my chain sword at his throat.

And yet, that wasn't the freakiest thing about that whole ordeal. No, that dubious honor went to the look of pure, mortal terror Abaddon was giving me. He was shaking in his armor so hard his armor was shaking right along with him. Abaddon, the mastermind behind the Black Crusades, Warmaster of Chaos, and member of a group of transhuman supersoldiers that were biologically incapable of feeling fear, had been afraid. Of ME!

Oh, and need I mention that according to the rest of the council, I still have the favor of the Emperor? And I also have the favor of three out of the four gods of chaos? AT THE SAME TIME?!

Again, what the ever-living, warp-damned FRAK?! How am I still alive? What the frak is happening to me? Am I becoming a nascent warp deity of cooperation, common sense, and stupidly improbable luck or something?!

I'm snapped out of my spiraling thoughts by the voice of Mahlone in my ear. "Sir… well, you've just basically told Abaddon the Despoiler to get bent, and something tells me he's not going to be happy about that. Needless to say, we don't have anywhere near the guns, men, and ships we need if we want to fend off a Black Crusade. When would be a good time to discuss how to rectify that?"

"...anytime but now," I respond after chugging the last of the amasec in my bottle, before allowing myself to topple backward onto the bed and fall into a dead faint.

AN: Wow, threadmarked the day after it was posted! And already well on its way to 100 likes. I think I'm starting to understand what Cain was feeling as he rewatched the vid-capture of his debate with Abaddon…