The slum was a huge decaying city seething beneath the shadow of a greater metropolis. It was a dark warren of buildings, a cluster of concretes and steels with no reason or symmetry, a growth unplanned and unwanted, a manifestation of mankind desperation for survival and stubbornness in the face of unwinnable geography. There was no beginning, there was no end, only vague borders failing to contain the miserable poverty spilling like leprous sickness to other parts of Hive City Xyvon, the planetary capital. It was a beast, infested with more beasts, an ecosystem of hostility that consumed and take without remorse, a fortress neigh impregnable to all who would seek to destroy it. The place was big, unfriendly, and filled with more than five million angry souls, all of them quite possibly Chaos tainted…and that was pretty much the only thing the slum had going for it.

"This went as I expected," Nikki deadpanned from beside Tangmo, the Russian exarch and the Thai commissar were strolling across a smoldering avenue where rows of mismatched houses once stood, flattened after six hours of heavy bombardment that preludes the battlegroup's general advance.

"It's a slum," Tangmo shrugged and sidestepped what looked like a gnarl, charcoal hand rising out of the ashes at his feet, one of the many bony protrusion dotting the place. It appeared that the tenants didn't take the hint and decided to remain indoors when the barrage rained down on their heads. Then again, they didn't really have a place to flee. "A place like this can't hope to withstand a determined army hellbent on unrestrained destruction."

"And we're fucking pros when it comes to unrestrained destruction," Nikki held out her fist and Tangmo bumped it with a grin, around them Valhallan and Antari troops scoured the remains of the slum's southern reach, lasgun sweeping and flashing at anything that moves.

"You are actually proud of this?!" Tangmo and Nikki rolled their eyes and spared Fio an exaggeratedly bored gaze. The Water Caste diplomat butted herself in between the Thai commissar and the Russian exarch, huffing with sanctimonious indignation as she waved at the smoking grey landscape around them. "This?! The merciless killing of civilians, you are proud of this?!"

"Uh…yeah, we're super proud of this," Tangmo's innocent smile made Fio turned a darker shade of blue, the deepening hue only worsen when Nikki started laughing. "These so call civilians are daemon worshipers, heretics, psychotic zealots whose only expectation in life is to turn everything around them into literal hell, so forgive me for not giving a fuck for removing these fuckers from the Ministorum's census."

"But there were families living here, people that might have nothing to do with the Chaos worshipers," Fio raised her voice in admonition, as if that was supposed to make him give a fuck. "There are better ways to do this, options that would spare innocent lives. You only chose this path because it was easy!"

"Duh, if it means saving the life of my soldiers I'm sure as fuck gonna take the easiest route," Tangmo said and the Imperial Guards within earshot raised their lasguns in salute. "I'm not here to be the good guy Fio, I'm here to win, so the noble path can kiss my ass."

"O'shaserra could have come up with a better strategy," Fio shot back venomously, arms folded smugly across her chest when she saw that the words irked him. And honestly, Tangmo really wanted to strangle the Tau woman.

"Shadowsun doesn't seem to mind one bit though," Nikki masterfully outmaneuvered Fio and delivered a verbal killing blow, the Tau's eyes bulged in outrage but can find no words to counter the Russian. "She helped us planned the assault."

"O'shaserra knows when to make concession, she is no fool," Fio huffed and swept a searching gaze over the wasteland. "Where is O'shaserra by the way? I haven't seen her since the battlegroup commenced the attack."

"At the front," Tangmo pointed northward, where thunders rolled across the burning horizon, "with Raine, Cain, Amberley, and the vanguard of the Valhallan and Antari."

"Are they progressing well?" Fio hovered over Tangmo's shoulder as he and Nikki started off toward the frontline, several company worth of guardsmen spread out around them. "Is O'shaserra fine? Have she been injured?"

"She's fine, sticking close to the two fiercest commissars in the Imperium has it benefit," Tangmo told her and took in his surroundings. The reverberating booms and pounding explosions were no longer limited to the north, the roaring ambience was encompassing. The battlegroup's assault has begun in totality. "Things are ramping up."

"At least Sulla's sticking to the script this goddamn time," Nikki grunted and tapped her earbud. "I'm not picking up any panicky transmission from the vanguard, thank God. Looks like Mavia's lessons really got to her."

"I did saw those two shouting at each other several times, especially after Sulla's many aggro attacks, didn't look much like a lesson but whatever Mavia did, it worked," Tangmo chuckled. "Or maybe Cain just asked her nicely, we all know it doesn't take much to keep Sulla in line."

"I'm happy either way," Nikki said when the ground started to tremble, prompting her, Tangmo, and the guardsmen to hold their weapons up at the ready. Fio on the other hand, fall on her ass with a shrilly squawk. "Okay, maybe I'm not so happy anymore."

Great plumes of dust and smoke and debris shot up around them, faraway enough to not be of immediate concern but still close enough that finer details can be discerned. Gravels danced at their feet, and the buildings that survived the bombardment collapsed, sending grey pluming across the ground. Then came the roar, inhuman and bestial as abominable shapes broke through the churning veil.

"By the Great Good, what is that things?!" Fio shrieked and bumped into Tangmo, trying to hide behind his awesome commissar coat while pointing furiously at the… seriously, what in the fuck was that thing supposed to be? A giant centipede with tentacles decked out across its carapace covered body? Yeah, close enough. "Ah! There are more of them! They're everywhere!"

"Daemons," Tangmo said simply as fires bloomed across the centipede. Anticipating a nasty Chaos surprise, the forces attacking the slum were comprised of infantries and armored units in equal measure, ready to support each other if heavy resistance was met, or if some freaky supernatural shit happened. As it turned out, freaky supernatural shit did happen. "We've correctly guessed that the people living here had not only converted to Chaos but were also practicing dark sacraments on a regular basis. This is the result of tampering with the Warp, creepy motherfucker like this asshole shows up and raise all kinds of hell."

"By all that is great and good in this universe," Fio scooted so damn close that Tangmo had to push her, gently, away. "I'm sorry, it's just, these daemons…they're like a physical nightmare, every evil thought made manifest."

"You're not far off the mark Fio, the Warp is indeed a nightmarish place, and the denizens are even worse," Tangmo allowed himself a ghost of a grin when the centipede, after taking a direct blow from a high explosive shell and a raking volley of searing meltas, was cut to pieces. It howled in agony as gibs and gores, all wreathed in flame, rained to the ground below. "Thank the God Emperor they can be killed, and we humans and Aeldari are very good at killing them."

"Which I am very grateful for," Fio nodded quickly when another hulking daemon, this one sporting a lobster head on a gorilla body, disappeared under a pounding staccato of blue tinged missiles, not a single shot missed. Tangmo don't recall the battlegroup having that kind of arsenal.

"And it looks like humans and eldars aren't the only experts anymore," Nikki flashed a toothy smile as she peered down the scope of her Aeldari sniper rifle. "Those missiles came from the Tau controlled zone."

"Raine, Cain, you there my guy and gal?" Tangmo tapped his earbud, his eyes never leaving the daemon's burning corpse. "Did the Tau just kill a daemon?"

"Indeed Tangmo, we were the ones who directed the Tau to attack the daemons," there was a rare genuine jovial note to Cain's declaration, unlike the usual bluster he put on for an audience. In the background Tangmo can hear Valhallan and Antari cheering. "The vanguard had successfully made it inside the Tau encampment. They are very hospitable and are strictly adhering to the term of our alliance."

"They better, considering how we just deliver their leader to them," Raine added with the usual commissariat grumpiness. "So far, as Ciaphas had stated, no hostility has erupted."

"You guys got Shadowsun inside home free?!" Tangmo flashed his thumb at Fio and the Tau woman squealed in joy. "Top job my dude, the first phase of the attack is done."

"And now comes the crucial part," Raine went on grimly. "From the radio chatter I'm receiving, the heretics and Paxish's soldiers are putting up stiff resistance. Tangmo, I recommend we move out at the first possible opportunity, we need to apply more pressure on Xyvon's garrison and break them."

"Copy that Raine, let me make a quick check on my homies first. I'll get back to you in a few minutes, stand by," Tangmo tapped his earbud and was opening his mouth to speak when rattling bangs of full auto machineguns, the kind used by 21st century Earth, went off around them. Bullets whizzed sharply over their heads, tiny puffs of smokes peppered the ground in scintillating sparks. Guardsmen careened to the ground, crying in pain, red misting the air as blood pooled around unmoving bodies. "Fuck! Get down motherfuckers, get down! Return fire and cut those sons of bitches down!"

"Heretics emerging from the rubbles, they're coming out of the fucking ground!" Nikki crouched down and let loose shurikens after shurikens at the screaming slum dwellers, hundreds, if not thousands, were running full tilt at the guardsmen, uncaring of the scything las. "Goddamn, there are a lot of them! Bastards must've had bunkers underground or something!"

"What the fuck are you – get your fucking ass down you idiot!" Tangmo snatched the screaming Fio by the collar of her shirt and pretty much threw her face first to the ground. Harsh, he admits, but getting a mouthful of dirt was a fuckton better than getting shot, and Fio was making herself into a pretty tempting target by standing still and burying her head in the nook of her arms, all the while screaming like an old timey damsel. Also, Shadowsun made it pretty fucking clear what would happen if Fio died on his watch. "Keep your head down and – oh for the love of the God Emperor woman, stay fucking still! Stop moving!"

"Ah!" Fio's distressed cry turned into a breathless oof when Tangmo placed his foot on her back, holding the squirming diplomat in place as he traded fire with the nearing cultists, switching from burst to full-auto when the targets became so abundant that aiming was no longer necessary. And now he was the only mofos still standing, great, "you brute! Get off me!"

"Shut up, I'm the only thing keeping you alive!" Tangmo held down the trigger, the barrel of his Zetton lasgun glowing white hot as he cut down a mob of frothing cultists pouring over a mound of rubble. Blood painted the air, mingled with thick steaming viscera and twirling mutilated limbs, yet the heretics continued the attack, the wild barrage they laid upon the guardsmen was making the firing line caved noticeably. "Goddamn it all, hold your ground people, beat those fuckers back! And fix bayonets too, because shits about to get close quarter!"

The guardsmen gave a hearty roar and were fixing bayonets when, after a bright flash of light lanced across the smoke shrouded nocturnal sky, a wall of rolling blue fire cut through the biggest mass of heretics, so powerful was the immolating tide that the mob didn't even have the chance to enunciate their death, armors, clothes, fleshes and bones atomized in the blink of an eye.

"Yo, what in the fuck was that?!" Nikki glanced up and let out a joyous bellow, fist threw vigorous high. "Holy shit dude, look at that!"

Tangmo was just wiping soot and grimes from his eyes when the blistering hiss of jet engines, followed by a loud metallic thud, echoed not ten paces from where he stood, sending dust billowing in all direction. Cursing, Tangmo raised his lasgun and saw who has landed beside him, and like Nikki a smile split his face in two. It was commander Shadowsun, resplendent in her glorious Tau battle armor, white streaked with black, every inch decked out with ridiculously awesome, and very big, weapons of the most devastating kind. The helmed head turned to Tangmo and the visor slid up to reveal Shadowsun's face, and goddamn she looked really amazing, and really beautiful.

"Now that's one hell of an entrance," Tangmo grinned as a squad of heavily armed Crisis Battlesuits touchdown around them, sending hails of pulse bullets and plasmas and lasers at the nearing heretics. The one-sided firefight was quick and brutal in efficiency. The blinding salvo tore mercilessly into the Chaos mob, reducing them to charcoal corpses within minutes. Those that survived did the smart thing and fled, but the guardsmen's vengeful volley made sure they didn't get very far. "Thank you for the save, commander Shadowsun. And let me tell you, I'm fucking glad I'm not on the other end of your guns."

"You are most welcome, lord commissar," Shadowsun nodded amiably then glanced downward, one brow quirked. "You are standing on my niece."

"Help me auntie!" From the harrowing octave, one would think Fio was getting gutted, instead of just being pressed flat to the ground. When Fio got a lot more energetic with her squirming Tangmo lifted his foot, the Tau woman sprang back up and dashed to Shadowsun's side, "you brute!"

"Not the most gentlemanly conduct, I admit, but lord commissar Tangmo acted correctly in this regard," Shadowsun went on easily and Fio turned to her with a look of utter betrayal, which was admittedly kinda cute. "By forcing you to go prone he made sure that no stray bullets can hit you, he saved your life."

"Hmm! He could've just asked nicely!" Fio puffed her cheek up in a dainty display of displeasure.

"Kinda hard to do with all the screaming you were belching out, jeez, you sure you're not a Howling Banshee in disguise? Because that shit was loud," Tangmo made a show of sticking his pinkie into his ear, very much enjoying Fio's aggravated face. But there was a war on, so Tangmo cut the crap, put on his stoic commissariat façade, and turned to Shadowsun. "The first phase is done then?"

"It is," Shadowsun nodded and the visor slid seamlessly back over her face, when she spoke again her timbre was futuristic and cool. "Lord commissar Cain and lady commissar Raine are consolidating their troops as we speak, they'll be ready to move soon."

"That's excellent news," Nikki glanced at the Crisis Battlesuits gliding over the battlefield, nothing remained of the mob from before, the Tau war machines and the guardsmen eyed each other warily but thankfully no one got trigger happy. "What will you do now?"

"Is the slum secure?" Shadowsun asked, like Fio she was not at peace with the battlegroup's wholesale slaughter.

"We're getting there," Nikki admitted with a grunt. "But we don't know how many more hidden bunkers are scattered across the place, so to prevent any surprise attack on our collective asses, we're gonna be here awhile."

"I leave these cadets, and Fio, in your capable hands then," Shadowsun raised the revolving rail cannon at her soldiers, prompting them to reciprocate with the same, universal display of martial salute. "They should be more than capable of assisting your guardsmen."

"Cadets?" Even with the Predator helm on her face, Tangmo knew Nikki's brow was quirked. "You mean these lots just got out of school? Really? Because holy shit, they kicked serious asses."

"They are my student, lady exarch, I personally trained them," judging by her tone Shadowsun was grinning, quite smugly too. "I can personally attest to their fighting skill."

"Good enough for me," Tangmo tipped his awesome commissar cap at Shadowsun. "Will you be gloriously leading your troops now?"

"Tempting, but no, my officers are currently in charge," Shadowsun tilted her head to the side, as if eavesdropping on a conversation. "Me and my veteran corps shall head for Celestine's front, things sound rather hectic there."

"Just a warning though, the Sororitas and the Aeldari are not very keen on getting assistance, if you know what I mean," Tangmo told Shadowsun. "They won't shoot you, hell the might even be grateful deep down, but be prepare for a lot of sanctimonious grumbles."

"I shall relish it," Shadowsun snorted and, in a burst of blue jets, shot brilliantly into the night sky, a glittering azure comet dashing toward darkness and fire. "Best of luck, lord commissar, lady exarch, I'll see you after the battle."

"You too!" Tangmo and Nikki and Fio waved vigorously as Shadowsun flew away. Just before she disappeared into the pall of smoke, a cadre of Crisis Battlesuits swiftly got into a pristine formation around her. "Goddamn she's cool, Tau really are the Gundam of Warhammer 40k."

"Gundam?" Nikki turned to him, her timbre confused, "as in Real Robots?"

"Yeah," Tangmo waved at the Battlesuits now working with the Valhallan and Antari guardsmen. "I mean, you can't tell me they don't look like a buncha westernized Gundam and Patlabor."

"I guess, but their firepower clearly veers toward the Super Robot spectrum of the genre," Nikki pointed at the dead heretics Shadowsun just killed. "Seriously dude that shit was totally the sort of super laser beams Getter Robo, Mazinger Z and Voltes V used to take out the bad guys."

"Gundam's arsenals are equally devastating, but I see what you mean, we can't really pinpoint where the Tau falls between Real Robot and Super Robot," Tangmo nodded thoughtfully. "Hey, at least we know they won't go full Evangelion on our asses."

"Thank fucking God for that," Nikki chuckled lightly. "I think that's more our department than the Tau anyway."

"True, very fucking true," Tangmo quickly banished the nightmarish, but fucking cool, image of a Warhammer 40k Evangelion crossover.

"What in the stars are you two blabbering about?!" Fio demanded. "Shouldn't you be directing your soldiers?!"

"We're just waiting for Raine and Cain to contact us, should be any minutes now," Tangmo rolled his eyes at Fio. "Calm the hell down Fio, we'll have plenty of opportunity to be serious later."

"These lots are very stubborn," Brother Sergeant Antalok said conversationally as he emptied his bolter on a three storey townhouse two hundred yards in front of the ragged crater he, Damien, Gallus, Adelhard and Subutai currently occupied, the full auto salvo hitting the building's foundation with such accuracy that the entire structure came crashing down on the Fire Warriors hunkered inside.

"Yet they are yielding all the same," Brother Sergeant Subutai had a grin in his voice as he looped a krak grenade at a column of Tau soldiers running for a reinforced bunker, one of the many interconnected defenses stretched out across the roads leading to Hive Xyvon deeper interior. The powerful explosion sent flaming body parts and debris flying across the air. "But yes Antalok, I agree, they are fighting hard, which make them a much better sport."

"They're still cowards," Brother Sergeant Adelhard growled and sent a vehement burst at a cluster of gun emplacements manned by Tau and human turncoats. The Black Templar's aim was true and roaring inferno, triggered by a detonated ammo cache, consumed the faltering defenders. "Running and fleeing, that's all they're good for, I long for them to taste my blade."

"You'll get your opportunity brother," setting his bolter to semi-auto, Brother Sergeant Gallus took his time aiming before pulling the trigger. When his magazine clicked empty, a good number of Tau officers had been messily decapitated. Slamming a new clip home, Gallus turned his helmed head at Damien, "shall we, Brother Captain?"

"Let's put a squeeze on them!" Damien leapt on to the crater's rim, ignoring the pulse bullets and las peppering his armor, and fired his bolter from the hip as he advanced on the Tau's position, every step loud and poignant. Soon enough the enemy's salvos were reduced to a pathetic splutter, before ending completely when the Astartes sergeants added their firepower to the fray. The Tau were starting to retreat when the rest of the Space Marines, marching in a pristine line, joined in the attack, the combined barrage of the Ultramarines, Salamanders, Black Templars and White Scars easily tore the blue xenos to pieces. "For the Emperor! Leave none alive! Forward!"

It wasn't so much a heroic charge but more of a slow, grinding advance. The Tau's weapons were good, Damien begrudgingly admitted, the railguns and pulse bullets hitting hard enough that he felt the impact, but the Tau never accounted for the Adeptus Astartes resilience and prowess in combat. Proudly wading through the storm of weaponries, the Space Marines returned the Tau's unrelenting fusillade tenfold. None of the xenos even had time to flee as bolts, meltas, rockets and plasmas engulfed them, blood and fire glinted like new born stars, the nocturnal landscape set ablaze by steaming gore. Damien glanced at the digital clock shining at the top right corner of his visor display, and grinned when he saw that only five minutes had passed. In that time two more heavily fortified blocks had been reduced to smoldering rubbles, the surviving Tau and human turncoats now shambling for a walled enclosure a few kilometers away.

"Save your ammo," Damien turned to Keuken of the White Scar, who nodded and lowered his bolter. "Someone need to tell the other defenders how utterly fucked they are."

"I would assume they already know," Manaus of the Ultramarine said with humor as he cycled a new batch of bolts into the heavy bolter's ammo belt. "The fire and scream are hard to miss."

"Yet they persisted, as always," Matuk, the Salamander Tech Marine, slammed a new clip into his plasma incinerator rifle, a new Primaris tech the battlegroup had recently acquired. "Story can frighten you, but in the end you know it is far away, an unreachable shadow on the horizon. No one is ever prepared when the greatest monster of their dream comes to life."

"A fate most deserving for all who turn from the light of the God Emperor," Adelhard stomped down on a dying Gue'vesa, his torso exploding in a splatter of gore. "And now they flee to yet another wall. Pathetic."

"Why wait Brother Captain?" Subutai slipped in beside Damien, eager to continue the fight with speed and ferocity, as befitting his White Scars pedigree. A quick glance told Damien that the other Astartes were of the same mindset. "The enemies falter, I can see them fumbling with their guns, fear had overtaken them, we must strike before their valor is rekindle!"

"Oh, we're definitely attacking bro, just right after…" Damien's sentence trailed off as fiery missiles streaked overhead to land deafeningly along and behind the Tau's wall, mushroom clouds bloomed in multitude, heralding a tidal wave of fire that quickly consumed the defenses. "That. We're attack right after that, which means now gentlemen!" Damien magnetized the bolter to his waist and drew the big ass thunder hammer from his power pack, with a flick the polearm extended to its full awesome length, the head crackling with power. "Let's go! For the Emperor! In His name let none survive!"

"Courage and honor!"

"Into the fire of battle, unto the anvil of war!"

"For the Khan, for the Emperor!"

"No fear, no pity, no remorse!"

War cry of the four chapters resounded across the battlefield, easily overtaking the din of destruction as Damien, taking the lead as always with Gallus, Antalok, Adelhard and Subutai on his left and right, lifted the thunder hammer high and charged the huge steel gate directly in front of him, the surface barely marred by the firefight and the bombardment. Uncaring of the desperate volley peppering him, Damien jumped the last fifty yards and brought the hammer down. It must have been half a meter thick, made of concrete and reinforced with top quality steel, but the moment the thunder hammer connected the entire gate exploded to splinters, the two partitions blown off its hinges to bounce across the courtyard beyond, crushing a good number of Tau and turning them into blue skid marks.

"Here's Damien!" The Canadian Astartes bellowed with glee and dashed for a Devilfish, his thunder hammer decapitating the cockpit in a brilliant explosion. Falling into the momentum of the swing, Damien turned himself into a tornado of steel and thunder and plowed into a line of Fire Warriors. Within moment he was covered in chunks of Tau gibs. Upon the tenth rotation, by his count, Damien planted his feet firmly on the ground, the thunder hammer made a brilliant arch of lightning as the whirlwind of death ended, the Canadian Astartes now facing a fresh batch of rightly horrified Tau and turncoats, shaking guns raised but no bullets flew, fingers locked in rictus fear. Not wasting any time, combined with the fact that Space Marines apparently can't get dizzy, Damien was about to spring forward when Adelhard crashed into the thicket of xenos and traitors, the Black Templar sergeant was a blur of black as crimson fountained skyward, misty red streaked after the silver blue of his power sword, the screech of steel a gleeful contrast to the succor of dying men and women. Bracing his thunder hammer on his pauldron like a badass, Damien laughed lowly as Adelhard flicked a Tau's torso off his longsword like how one would swipe away droplets of blood.

"Feeling better?" Damien gave Adelhard's pauldron a friendly bump with his fist, not far away the other Black Templars, swords in hands, bulled into buildings and bunkers with war cry hot on their lips, the bloodletting that followed was short yet satisfyingly horrific.

"Immensely Brother Captain, yet there is more work to be done," Adelhard tone was very amiable as he waved at a tall cluster of spires rising up at the base of Hive Xyvon like mushrooms growing out of a tree. The spiraling, jagged structures were lit up by blooms of fire, flaming debris rained down to crush the smaller buildings below. "The Great Solarium still stand, we must hasten to it. If commander Shadowsun's intel is correct, then a great bastion of the Ruinous Power resides there."

"Yeah, I can tell from all the eldritch purple light," Damien deadpanned, and indeed the spires appeared to be cover in a glossy, unnatural transparent illumination, reality itself sundering to the invading Immaterium. "And its look like the Imperial Guards are commencing the bombardment too, we're making good progress."

"All the better," sergeant Gallus appeared beside Damien, the immediate area around the breach have fallen silent. "The garrison has retreated to the deeper defenses. We need to press the attack lest they try to rally."

"Let's not keep those bastards waiting," Damien rolled his shoulders until his muscles loosened with a satisfying pop and drew his bolt pistol, dual wielding it along with the thunder hammer like the badass that he was. "Loose formation people, space yourself and pick your targets carefully, don't waste your bullets, we're running and gunning this bitch. Heavy troopers, I want you guys at the rear and flanks, we'll be needing your fire support."

"Fret not Brother Captain, the barrage will be unceasing," Manaus nodded and hefted up his heavy bolter to drive the point home. Around him the other heavy weapon specialists cried heartily and readied their respective death dealing instruments. "We better get moving brother, the guns along the parapet are primed and the soldiers atop the battlement are not cowering."

"No time like the present. In the name of the Emperor let none…!"

"Hi Damien! You need any help?"

More than a bit miffed that his awesome battle cry was interrupted, Damien spun around and found Lita waltzing gracefully up to join him. Behind her was a large contingent of Aeldari, comprised of Wraithguards wielding wraithcannons, D-cannons and pulsar cannons, the ghost powered cyborgs were complemented by Falcons and Fire Prisms and a shitload of Guardians, Fire Dragons, Warp Spiders and Dark Reapers.

"A most timely arrival," Subutai bowed politely at Lita. "I had feared that the heretics were able to bog you down."

"They are putting up a harder fight than expected," Lita concurred with a nod. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to help you guys with the barricades."

"No apologies needed, lady Warseer," Antalok said. "The battle had been most stirring for us."

"Yeah, as much as I enjoy the talk, we're kinda in the middle of something here?" Damien waved his thunder hammer animatedly at the Tau defenses. "As in, we're about to gloriously charge the wall."

"I can see that," Lita nudged her Singing Spear at the Aeldari behind her, "hence the reinforcement."

"Bro, we're Space Marine," Damien huffed petulantly and even though Lita had her lucha libre helm on, he can tell she was rolling her eyes. "We're more than enough to bring those sons of bitches down."

"You are correct, Brother Captain," Gallus spoke up before Lita can part a very choice, and most definitely unkind words his way, "however, the Codex Astartes also states that it would be extremely unwise to turn down assistance from trusted allies. And Warseer Lita and the Aeldari have proven themselves indispensable many times over."

"Did you just seriously take her side over mine?" Damien ignored the giggling Lita and eyeballed Gallus, both shocked and impressed by this startling betrayal.

"Not at all, brother Damien," Gallus said innocently while waving his hand in a placating manner. "If you wish, I shall give the order for the Ultramarines to charge now, just say the word."

"Well, since she's already here, why not let her fight a bit," Damien threw his hands exasperatedly into the air. "Lita, tell the Fire Prisms to provide us with covering fire and have the Falcons strafe the parapets and battlements, I want that fucking wall light up brighter than the sun. Have the Wraithguards and Aspect Warriors deploy at the front, they'll be spearheading the assault on that fucking gate over there, the Guardians and gun platforms will stay behind to provide assistance and attack any breaches in the wall."

"Sir, yes sir!" Lita made a criminally cute salute and tapped her lucha libre helm to swiftly relay Damien's plan. Within minutes the Aeldari got into the correct formation and Lita strolled passed the Astartes sergeants, bobbing her head to all of them in polite greeting as a radiant aura of gleaming silver, laced with starry specks of gold, enveloped her, the Singing Spear tapping a pleasant tune on the ground. When she stopped ten paces from the frontline the Mexican Warseer was a tempest of dancing light as she daintily pointed at the gate. "As for that, sit back and relax gentlemen, I got this."

"It would be very wise to step back people," waving quickly, Damien herded the vanguard back a good fifty paces and spun around when Lita roared to the heaven, her hair fluttering around her head like blazing fire, legs braced wide, the Singing Spear now hovering on its own in front of her. Then the polearm started spinning, faster and faster until it became a translucent buzzing circle as Lita raised both arms to the sky, the hands touching above her head.

"Sutoriumu Kosen!" Despite basically going super saiyan, Lita instead used the Ultraman attack, the Mexican Warseer slammed her left palm and on her raised right fist, sending a kaleidoscopic rainbow beam shooting out of her arms, the already brilliant death ray became blinding when it struck the spinning Singing Spear, enhancing and enlarging the beam into practically a vertical orbital bombardment battery. Even with his awesome Astartes helmet on, Damien had to squint his eyes as Lita swept the fiery beam across the defenses, concentrating on the gate and the surrounding battlements, the ground quaked terribly and the wind shrieked hellishly from the spectacular discharge, some of the Astartes were even turning their pauldrons at the unleashed sorcery. After only ten seconds the Sutoriumu Kosen was over, leaving behind nothing but a smoldering, gaping space where a gate and a wall once stood, the very air shimmered and distorted from the emanating heat. Tau and humans along the still intact parapets were running for their lives when Lita bumbled into Damien and leaned heavily against his leg, all the while laughing victoriously. "There! All done, that was all me! Now you guys can sally forth into the Hive without a care in the world." She glanced up at him, and he didn't need to scan her body to know that she was spent. "Damien, can you, umm, carry me please? The super beam really took a lot out of me."

"I can tell. Here dude, hop on," Damien went to one knee and Lita primly seated herself on his pauldron, her posture queenly as he stood up and flashed a quick sequence of hand signals. The sergeants nodded and the Astartes stomped toward the destroyed defenses, the Wraithguards easily matching pace with them, weapons brandished at the remaining defenders, all of whom having since took the reasonable action and got the fuck out in a hurry. Damien took his place at the front, with Lita dangling from his pauldron. "You know, there are other Ultraman beside Taro, right? The OG, Seven, Ace, Jack, Tiga, Dyna? They have pretty cool finishers too."

"I know, but I like Taro best," Lita told him. "And I don't really like the Heisei series, I don't know, to me it lacks the charm of the Showa series."

"You're right, even if I don't watch that much Ultraman," Damien shrugged, Lita not at all affected by the movement. "I'm more of a Kamen Rider guy, the bikes and the super kicks were cool as fuck."

"The song's catchy, I'll give Kamen Rider that much," Lita tapped his pauldron gently as they walked through the melted remains of the gate, the metallic slush at their feet churned with the consistence of mud. "You can let me down now, I'm feeling a lot better."

"Watch your steps, it's still pretty warm," Damien bend forward and Lita slid off his pauldron to land softly on her feet, showing no indication that she was bothered by the simmering heat. "You sure you don't want any drinks or energy bars? I got some in my power pack."

"Actually, I wouldn't mind a bit of liquid boost," gunfire erupted anew as the battlegroup strolled on to a large courtyard, which looked more like a big ass parking lot to Damien, situated in front of a gargantuan archway that opened up into a corridor comprised of melded buildings, a single massive structure that stretched on for as far as the eyes can see. And from this tunnel poured a few daring souls in jeeps and Tauros, the brave men and women sacrificing themselves to buy their comrades time to flee. Damien hefted his bolt pistol and pulled the trigger, obliterating a charging jeep with one shot as Lita rummaged through his power pack. "Hey, which compartment did you stashed the drinks?"

"The third one on the right, behind the thruster," Damien managed to take down two more Tauros before his magazine run out. When he slammed a new clip home Lita was at his side, Singing Spear in one hand, and a neon pink plastic bottle in the other, cherry had always been her favorite flavor. "Nice pick."

"Thanks. Let me help you out a bit there," Lita took a big gulp then snapped her fingers, causing a cluster of speeding jeeps to implode, the scrunched-up mass of tortured metal grinded painfully across the road in a shower of sparks before coming to a stop, blood and oil leaking from the wreckage. "And that's the last of them."

"Hardly, lady Warseer," Elraleath, exarch of the Dark Reaper Aspect Warrior, strode silently up beside Lita and pointed his smoking Reaper Launcher at the corridor beyond. "The Tau and the human cultists will not be our only obstacle. The buildings and roads will also be opposing us."

"He is correct," Subutai joined them, the White Scars sergeant's red visor was honed on the corridor. "The Immaterium had bled from the Solarium and into the surrounding interior of the Hive. According to my reading, biological matter and metallic constructs are no longer distinguishable from one another. We will have to fight for every inch of ground, in the most literal sense of the word."

"Great, just when we need the Sororitas they're somewhere else," Damien groaned, quite annoyed but this minor problem, and tapped the side of his awesome Space Marine helmet. "Guess we're doing this the old fashion way. This is Brother Captain Damien to all units, form up into a battle column, Guardians and Aspect Warriors in the middle, Astartes and Wraithguards at the front, and vehicles on the flanks. We're about to blast through a Chaos infested Hive people, form up!"

"If I may Brother Captain, me and mine can be of assistance in matters of faith," Adelhard and his Black Templars stepped forward, the Teutonic Astartes had since put away their bolters and were now wielding gigantic power longswords. "No disrespect meant to the Adepta Sororitas, but when it comes to piety and veneration of the God Emperor, we of the Black Templar are more than capable of pushing back the taint of Chaos."

"And make our job that much easier," Lita finished the energy drink and tossed the empty bottle away. "Lead the way brother sergeant. However, I would ask that you allow our Warlocks and Farseers to help, because by the looks of things you'll need all the assist you can get."

"We welcome the Aeldari's assistance lady Warseer," Adelhard and the Black Templar bowed politely at Lita as the battlegroup got into the correct position, all guns primed and ready. "Shall we then?"

"Yes we shall," although she'd just performed a bombastic super saiyan laser beam move, Lita raised her Singing Spear high, the polearm glowing iridescent silver. She turned to Damien, easily saw the worried frown beneath his awesome Astartes helm, and nodded reassuringly. "Don't worry Damien, I won't be pulling any Ultraman move for a while. This here is just a passive ability, a serene power that repulses Chaos corruption, a simple spell that doesn't take anything out of me. It also helps enhance the Warlocks and Farseers' power, creating a network of sorcery that counters the Immaterium."

"As long as you're safe, I'm satisfied," Damien magnetized the bolt pistol and thunder hammer to his belt and power pack respectively, and drew his bolter. "The time is now my brothers! Forward into the maw of damnation! We are its deliverance! For with us comes the fire of purification and this blighted hell will at long last feel the joy of absolution and the majesty that is the Master of Mankind! We are the light of the God Emperor, burn the darkness brothers! In His name let none survive!"

"For light and for life! Send every shrieking daemon back to hell! Mael Danna!" The column surged into the corridor, voices merged into a tempestuous cacophony that rocked the Hive to its very core, nothing but courage and zeal in the resounding reverberation. They couldn't have made it more than a kilometer inside when gunfire erupted down the length of the column. Damien was just done pelting the second floor of a restaurant with his bolter when Lita slipped in beside him, a lot more conservative with her application of bullets as she sent single shots at targets that popped up. She doesn't miss. "That was one hell of a speech dude, miles better than my little pep talk. I seriously got goosebumps!"

"Thanks!" Damien slammed a new magazine home and sent a continuous burst at a ramshackle barricade comprised of civilian cars. It exploded brilliantly, the shrapnel studded corpses cartwheeling through the air were very pretty to behold. "But yeah, I had Tangmo coach me a bit on public speaking. He's very versatile with words you know?"

"That's one way of putting it," Lita snorted affectionately. Damien and the rest of the Eight remembered how close she and Tangmo were when they used to date. "You didn't swear as much though, which is a big plus."

"Oh don't worry, that's gonna come very soon – fuck!" Something hard crashed into Damien's left pauldron with such force that it almost sends him sprawling to the ground. Catching himself and planting his feet firmly, Damien turned and found, to his wide eyed astonishment, a piece of needle sharp bone the size of a drainage pipe, filed to a slender point, jutting out of his pauldron, impaled right in the middle of the Ultramarine U, "what in the ever loving fuck?! Where did this shit came from?!"

"Everywhere! Ahhh!" Lita dashed to the right as another bony javelin landed where she had stood not a second ago. Pained screams rippled across the column and Damien had to admit he was pretty freaked out when the surrounding buildings started blooming and parting like flowers and plants, revealing a grotesque mass of writhing organs, a madden mixture of cements, wires and fleshy parts that had no business being inside a residential townhouse, every twitching stems and vines studded with talons and claws, many of these were whipping down at the battlegroup. The Aeldari reacted promptly and unleashed a barrage of lasers and shurikens at the living buildings, ichor and viscera flew from the fiery impact and holy fucking shit, the phalanx of buildings actually receded from the column. Inhuman howls rushed over the battlegroup with the force of a tidal wave when the Warlocks and Farseers, being conducted by Lita, unleashed their power across the corridor. Metals groaned, plasteel snapped, the sounds uncomfortably organic as the Aeldari forced the Chaos possessed buildings to yield. "Push them back! Keep them off our troops! Mael Danna! I'm not letting some evil houses kill us!"

"Forward! Push forward you fuckers! Don't stop!" Damien, the Astartes, the Dark Reapers and several Falcons formed a loose square and opened fire on the buildings, covering the rest of the column as they get to safety. "Don't let up people! For the Emperor!"

Hearty roars resounded down the column and a thunderous fusillade tore into the living corridor of fangs and talons and tentacles, the latter freaking Lita out pretty bad given her memorable run in with similar tendrils back on Thima-Chantra. Thankfully this time around the appendages and orifices were easily dealt with, bullets and lasers more than enough to deter the Chaos possessed buildings, the task made easier by the Black Templar, whose pious battle hymn made the animated objects recoiled in disarray. Damien personally felt like they were, funnily enough, viruses invading a body, tearing down the capillaries and veins, killing the host from within as they drew closer and closer to the heart. He had always liked Cells At Work, but never would he have imagined himself playing the bad guy and killing the white blood cells.

"Brother Damien," Gallus's voice pulled Damien back from his distracting thoughts, but the thing about Space Marines was that they went into a trance like state during a fight, their bodies becoming automatic killing machine that needed next to no personal input, so he wasn't worry that something bad had happened, because he'll know otherwise. Slamming a new clip home, Damien found that the vanguard, comprised of Astartes and several Falcons bearing the injured, had entered a grand roundabout, with the domed Solarium dominating the skyline directly in front of them. The Aeldari vehicles and the Space Marines were getting into a defensive formation when Gallus pointed at the side of his awesome Astartes helm. "I believe I am hearing music drifting down the road sir, and it's coming from the Solarium."

"Shit, you're right," Damien tilted his head an indeed music permeated the area, an orchestra if the timbre, tempo and volume was anything to go by, an encompassing symphony produced by a hundred instruments performing in perfect synchronicity. He turned to Lita, and he didn't need x-ray vision to see that, like him, the Mexican Warseer was not a fan of the performance. "You're hearing this too right? As in, me and Gallus are not going crazy."

"You're not," Lita grunted in distaste. "I can feel the sickness of the Immaterium within every note, and it's getting worse by the seconds."

"Then let's go crash the fucking show then," Damien made a quick hand signals and the Astartes formed up around him in a loose line, weapons trained unwavering forward, the Angels of Death from four chapters now waiting for the Canadian to give his orders. And after a nod, he did, "follow me brothers and be swift, for the foul corruption of Chaos have spread to encompass the entire Hive. Strike fast and hard, in the name of Emperor, let none survive!"

The Space Marines were very receptive of his pep talk, but they did not charge headlong down the wide roadway, instead the Astartes approached the Solarium at a temperate pace, wary of the surrounding as much as the target itself.

"I for one am glad you have chosen a more cautious route," Lita joined Damien at the front, behind her came two Fire Prisms, a dozen Wraithguards, a company of Ulthwe Black Guardians, and a cadre of Dark Reapers, the Aeldari easily falling into formation to compliment the Astartes.

"Hey, as badass as it would be to charge the full four kilometers at the Solarium, I rather we conserve our energy for the boss inside," Damien shrugged easily. "What's the situation at the back?"

"The battlegroup had successfully rendezvous at the big square, or courtyard, whatever you wanna call it. We manage to beat the buildings back, a lot were injured in the fight but thankfully the actual death toll is, for the moment, in the low margin," Lita glanced up at Damien and pointed at his pauldron. "Umm, you do realize the spike is still there, right?"

"Huh? Oh shit!" How in the ever-loving fuck did he forget about that?! Reaching up, Damien got a firm hold on the spike and, with a very unpleasant screech of bone grating metal, wrenched the offending projectile free. "God fucking damn it the pauldron got all fucked up! Oi! Why didn't anyone told me about the giant bone sticking out of my fucking shoulder?!"

"You didn't seem bothered by it, so I assume it was of no consequence to your fighting ability and refrained from making comment," Gallus shrugged, and Damien didn't know whether to be pleased or infuriated by the Ultramarine's brand of dry humor, which was becoming more frequent in recent days. But he was still an Astartes, and Gallus reminded Damien of this fact by easily switching back to his stoic, no nonsense demeanor. "Are you hurt, brother Damien? Was the projectile able to penetrate the armor? Shall I call for the apothecary?"

"No need Gallus, it didn't penetrate far, the pauldron took most of the damage," Damien swept his gaze across the boulevard they were treading on, and quirked a brow. "How come nothing is attacking us? And is this place wider than the corridor behind us?"

"It is brother Captain," Antalok held his flaming double headed power axe at the ready. The buildings to the left and right retained its daemonic sentiency, but unlike their cousins from earlier, the blooming façades and rippling tendrils didn't attack them, opting instead to heave and sway with strangely tranquil motion, almost like water plants moving to the gentle tide. "The monstrosities are not attacking us, even when we are in range. They seem more than content to let us pass unmolested."

"That is because the heretic orchestrating this damnable music wishes it to be so," Subutai growled and pointed at the Solarium, now towering only thirty yards away. Nothing really surprising with the overall architecture, a big dome supported by pillars of grand size and design, the usual Imperium shtick, although the angelic effigies can no longer be seen, thanks to the cultists mad rendition of their devotion to the Dark Gods, bloods and guts abound. Damien revulsion only increased when it became clear that the grotesque presentations possessed clear symmetries, artistries, and vision to the overall blasphemous design. Great, they were not dealing with a buncha retarded cultists, but fucking artists. "They want us to enter the Solarium whole and unharmed, for us to be the audience of this evil creation, this is nothing short of an invitation. The gall!"

"It would be rude to keep them waiting," Adelhard was not able to hide his eagerness. Flicking his power longsword several times, sending specks of glittering blood flying, Adelhard turned his horned helm at Subutai. "Shall we brother? I believe we have suffered the ignominy of their existence long enough."

"And we shall suffer not a second more," Subutai drew his Astartes size power tulwar from its scabbard, the White Scars sergeant now dual wielding a sword and a bolter. Rolling his neck, Subutai looked at Damien, the burning red slits of his eyes more than a tad demanding, "by your orders, Brother Captain."

"Not really giving me much of a choice, eh?" Damien chuckled, gave Subutai's pauldron a friendly smack, magnetized the bolter to his hip, and once again drew his thunder hammer, this time making sure to give the polearm the necessary flourish as it extended to its full length. The titanic head crackling with blue energy bolts, Damien gave the Solarium one last look, and nodded. "But yes, I do believe the time has come to put these Chaos fuckers out of their misery, and their shitty music too."

"You might want to speed things up a bit," Lita cut in, her fingers pressed to the side of her lucha libre helm. "I'm not really digging the radio chatter at the moment. Shadowsun might have successfully linked up with her troops, but cultists are converging on the forces around the slum. While the main attack force led by the Sororitas is facing a massive and extremely staunch resistance." Lita took her place beside Damien and pointed her Singing Spear at the Solarium. "That place is a massive nexus of energy where hundreds of strands converge, and I'm pretty sure it's supplying Paxish with Chaos power. If we take this place down we might elevate a significant amount of pressure off the other fronts, giving Laura and Tangmo the room they need to breathe."

"Okay then," Damien took off at a stomping jog, thunder hammer reeled back as he charged the Solarium's ornate entrance, Lita easily matching pace with him. "For the Emperor! Kill them all!"

With a mighty roar Damien destroyed the opulent doors of carven iron, the surface lovingly and immaculately rendered into a heavenly vista of angels, seraphim and rapturous devotion, the scene of unbound veneration rising to the marble lintel held up by a pair of great pillars, not even the Chaos desecration can hide its grandeur. The doors flew open in shattered pieces and ricocheting metal as Damien plowed into the Solarium, carried by the momentum of his attack. A resounding ovation greeted him, the applause shaking the very air. Getting his thunder hammer up in a defensive guard, Damien growled lowly as he took in the Solarium gargantuan interior. Immediately in front of him was a wide aisle carpeted by taut skins, of humans, Tau and their allies, blood seeping from the rough stiches, the macabre rug leading straight to the semi-circle stage that took up the entire rear of the Solarium. Flanking the walkway were seats, the normal cushioned kind you find in any average theater, what was not average though was the quantity, every inch was packed so inhumanly tight that the attendees' shoulders were brushing. The stingy use of space was uniform, from the floor all the way up to the walls, the tier of seats were stack higher and higher to maximize the number of occupants.

"The place is pack," Damien nodded at Lita's observation, because the Solarium was filled to the brim. Men, women, Tau, Kroots, Vespids, all of them united in their adoration for the hellish music that had just concluded. The Astartes and Wraithguards were walking inside now, but the crowd paid them no notice. Then Lita scooted closer to him, Sing Spear lowered and humming with energy, her timbre hard and a bit frightened. "I seriously do not like the look of the audience."

Holy fuck, Lita was right. Gripping his thunder hammer tight, and signaling for the Marines and eldars to adopt a loose firing line, Damien walked up to the row nearest to him and stopped himself with herculean effort from recoiling in disgust. He had seen the insane mutilations Chaos cultists inflicted upon themselves many times, but by the God Emperor, they still managed to surprise him. The audiences were smiling, but even that simple expression of joy was defiled and corrupted into an abominable parody that assaulted the soul as much as the sight. They were all wearing metallic devices of crisscrossing iron, caked with rust and blood, the contraption covered the entirety of their heads. Hanging from the steel bars bolted tight to the temples were hooks, the needle sharp tips puncturing the eyelids and pulling them up so that the eyes were completely exposed, unblinking as they gander at the unfolding pandemonium. But the cherry on top of this horror show were the wicked pieces of metal wedged into the side of the audiences' mouths, like a torturous version of the dental cheek retractors, tearing the skin upward into a permanent smile, animalistic gurgles parted the daemonic grins, whether of happiness or pain, Damien did not know.

"Thank you! Oh, thank you all for your most kind reception," Damien was about to tell the Salamanders to set the seats on fire when a cheery announcement boomed across the Solarium. A man…okay, calling the thing walking on to the stage a man was one hell of a stretch, because although it was bipedal in shape the torso, arms, legs and neck were so elongated that even Slenderman would be freaked out. To crackles of snapping bones, coming from the many unnatural joints on the grotesque size limbs, the creature slithered to the center of the stage, coiled upon itself like a snake, and bowed at the clapping audiences, their applause having turned into a standing ovation. "Oh, your love filled the heart of this humble man with gushing joy! Come now, that is quite enough, I am so unworthy!"

"He got that fucking part right," Damien shifted his grip on the thunder hammer, but before he can take a single step the creature spun in his direction, needle sharp teeth flashing in a grin. "Shit."

"At last, our special guests have arrived!" The sickly elongated creature spread his arms wide to a cacophony of dry, snapping bones, his reveling enunciation echoed hauntingly across the Solarium, a sharp hint of madness mixing with the joy. As one, the audiences ceased their ovation and, with terrifying synchronicity, turned their blood soak grin at the Astartes and Aeldari. Damien held up his hand, stopping the battlegroup from opening fire, at the same time flashing quick commands for them to be ready. "I knew my wondrous music would be able to guide you here! Was it not grand?! Was it not stupefying?! Was it not beautiful?!"

"No, no, and no," Damien had always been a harsh critic, and he did not held back with the scathing review. The Chaos abomination did not like that one bit. "Personally, I find the sound of breaking glasses more soothing and artful than this fucking noise you've made."

"Alas, I do not expect a mere soldier to understand such refine art," the creature made his condescending comment. "But for all your crude words, it was my music that had brought you here, was it not? The lure was too much for you and your companions to withstand."

"Kinda hard to miss, the damn thing was so loud you can probably hear it from across the planet, and that's not a good thing," Damien shrugged and held the thunder hammer a little higher, the electrified head angled in a way that facilitate a swooping swing. "Also, there's this aura of evil hovering above the Solarium, which was the main reason why we haul ass here. We kill evil shit for a living you see, and this place is ripe for termination."

"Only a brute will deem music, the purest expression of beauty, as evil," the creature went on, the grin on his face becoming more bestial and hostile, saliva and blood now accompanied his words. "And I, the maestro, will punish all who seek to defile such vaulted purity."

"Oh, the maestro, good, now I have a name for my fucking target," pulling his bolt pistol free, Damien lined the iron sight with the snarling abomination, and it was only now that the Canadian Astartes saw the mismatch approximation of a tuxedo the maestro wore, like an orchestra conductor, only this one was unnaturally long and dripping ichor. "For your information, I really dig music, so let me introduce you to a power metal song called Kill It, by the venerated Helloween. Let it rip boys and girls, don't stop until everything is fucking dead! For the Emperor!"

Okay, so maybe he's a little bias, but holy fucking shit the roaring bangs and hissing whispers of bolts, shurikens, lasers, meltas and plasma can totally be qualified as a new genre of music, a perfect unity of brutal tempo and fiery octave that lifted the spirits of the performers while tearing apart the listeners, a lot better than the bullshit the maestro was puking out. The tempestuous barrage zeroed in on the maestro, many of the smiling audiences got tuned into collateral damage in the process, even a grazing shot from the Immortal Spirit battlegroup's weapons can result in a horrific death. But like all things relating to Chaos, it was never easy. Instead of just simply dying, the maestro swerved away from the Astartes fusillade, his elongated body inhumanely dexterous and fast, the snaps of bones that accompanied his serpentine movement send unwanted shiver rushing across Damien's skin.

"Interlopers! Destroyers! Defilers!" Bellowing shrilly, the maestro magicked a conductor baton into his hand and started swinging at the bolts and lasers, miraculously managing to deflect a good number of the projectiles. He swung his baton upward and the music started up again, and Damien can feel an invisible oppressive sickness bearing down on him, making everything sluggish and difficult. "You shall bask in my glory and that of the Great One! I shall enlighten your feeble mind to the truth, the glory, and the majesty of his words! You will clap! You will cheer! You will be happy! You will be greater!"

"No deal bitch!" Damien roared and saw the smiling audience stirred, the upward tugging of their lips cannot hide the malicious intent. "Fuck! Brace yourselves, they're about to jump us!"

The audience jump, but instead of a tidal wave of bodies the grinning men and women broke off into groups, their movement possessing clear purpose and tactical understanding. The band kicked up again, the crescendo and tempo fast and hard, something like a cross between Beethoven, Dvorak and Vivaldi, and Damien saw that the music was directing the crowd, each individual notes specialized for every cluster of humanity. And with a flick of his baton the maestro weaved a new symphony into existence and the grinning audience surged forward, claws brandished and fangs gleaming, screeching and howling in bloody ecstasy.

"Where's Tangmo and Laura when you need them?!" Lita cut down a wave of audiences by hurling a spinning disc of glittering silver into their path. Blood and viscera fountained brilliantly from the bisected horde, but the top half refused to die and continued to crawl single-mindedly forward, much to the Mexican Warseer's disgust. "Oh my God, can you just die already?!"

"You missed a few," Damien's thunder hammer made a nice resounding boom when it collided with a dozen shrieking audiences, bloody body parts erupted skyward to drizzle across the rows of seats. Not far away Lita conjured up a wall of flame and sent it rolling over the crawling audiences, "and seriously? We don't need Tangmo and Laura, we can sing just as well as those two. You got any rousing tune in mind?"

"I can barely hear myself think with all these goddamn noises!" Lita's Singing Spear was a blur of silver as she cut down the audiences that got a little too close. The mutilated corpses burst into flames before they even hit the ground, the blades of the polearm shimmered with sorcerous heat. "Ugh! It's like someone mixed Allegro con Fuego with the Halls of the Mountain Kings and Vivaldi's Winter, tripled the speed, and put a coked-up producer to mix the song!"

"Okay, so no singing then," Damien swung his thunder hammer left and right, battering down the audiences in droves, turning them into curtain of sizzling blood. "You doing alright?"

"Just peachy thank you," Lita grunted after flattening a wave of frothing mad audiences with a sharp sweep of her hand, the translucent wall of light swiftly turned scarlet after bulldozing the shrieking bastards to pulping pancakes. "But honestly, I wouldn't mind if you watch my back. There are a lot of people in here."

"Copy that," Damien and Lita got into a super cool back to back pose and repelled another wave of audiences with a beautiful flourish of spinning thunder hammer and Singing Spear, an untouchable vortex of flashing polearms. "Holy God, this is amazing. Oh hey, I forgot to ask, where's Dalthorn by the way?"

"Outside the Solarium and encircling the place as we speak," Lita told him after decapitating four audiences with a single sweep of her Singing Spear. "I've just telepathically checked on him, he's okay, and I dearly hope he stay that way and not put himself in unnecessary risk!"

"I'm sure he won't," Damien chuckled nervously, praying silently that the Ulthwe captain has learned not make Lita mad, under any circumstances. Kicking a leaping audience in the chest, the woman crashing into her compatriots like a bowling ball, Damien fixed his shinning red eyes on the maestro, the crooked abomination was going to town with his baton and striking up an even more abominable tune. "We need to kill that fucking bastard, he's the one channeling the Warp energy."

"Time to pull the plug then," Lita slipped in beside him and tapped her lucha libre helm. "Press forward brothers and sisters, the music and its conductor must be stop! Mael Danna!"

The Aeldari roared in responses and immediately the horde of pestering audiences lessened off Damien and Lita as the maestro redirected them to stop the advancing Wraithguards, Black Guardians and Dark Reapers. The precision, speed and totality of the destruction the Aeldari unleashed upon the audiences was terrifying and awe inspiring to behold, and not for the first-time Damien was reminded of the true capability of the eldars. The Wraithguards were harbingers of death, ghostly in their steps, serene in countenance, silent reapers that scythed through the writhing throngs of smiling audiences with meticulous efficiency, embers of atomized ashes drifted in their wake. But the Ruinous forces main advantage had always been number, and they utilized this against the Wraithguards. Arms outstretched and screaming at the top of their lungs, the audiences threw themselves at the Wraithguards with reckless abandonment, a lot were cut down but many more managed to lash onto the lithe limbs of the ghost powered cyborgs. They clawed, bite and pummeled the Wraithguards, but the Aeldari automatons pay them little heed as they marched onward at the same temperate pace, ditching out heavy firepower all the while, the Chaos followers appeared to be causing more damage to themselves than the cyborgs. Then the clinging audiences burst open like ripe fruits when the Black Guardians shot them dead, the accuracy displayed inhuman in grace and deadliness, not one shuriken struck the Wraithguard but every shuriken found a vital organ. The Wraithguards enunciated their thanks with low hums as the audiences slid off to splatter wetly on the ground, leaving behind red smear across the pristine armors.

"Seriously, that's one of the coolest, coldest shit I've ever seen," Damien said as he, Lita and the Space Marines advanced on the maestro and his musicians, the battlegroup's symphony of gunfire was a good remedy against the over pouring acoustic abrasion. "Goddamn, I need to stop reading Black Library books man, they give eldar very bad reps."

"I know! Even with the Ynnari showing up, they're still getting their butts kicked!" Lita agreed and, after another flourish of steel that left a dozen body parts twitching at her feet, flashed a series of hand signals at the Dark Reapers on the flanks, prompting them to unleash a salvo of rockets at the pockets of audiences arrayed in front of them, turning the smiling mob into plumes of viscera. "Now this is how Aeldari win war!"

"We're not there yet, but we're fucking close!" Damien barked a laugh, drew a krak grenade from his hip, flicked the pin with his thumb, and threw it into that depression in front of the stage where the musicians were seated, he totally forgot what it was called. Around him the Astartes were doing the same, and within a heartbeat close to ten krak grenades were looped into the hole, pretty excessive all things considered but when dealing with Chaos there were no such thing as too much explosive. "Well done people, now get the fuck down! Fire in the hole!"

Wall of flames burst upward, destroying a good chunk of the stage and the front row seats, but instead of burning gibs and entrails twirling into the air, several shrieking pillars reared over the roiling fire. The towering obelisks were composed of writhing flesh, turned charcoal and crispy by the merciless immolation, and through the infernal curtain Damien saw outstretched limbs twitching in agony, desperately beating back the fire with what appeared to be musical instruments. The feeble gesture didn't last long, and like a burning tree the arms and hands yielded to the flame, crumbling to pieces before they even hit the ground.

"My muses! My sirens!" The maestro screamed horrifically and wiped at the flame with his baton, sending it rolling in Damien's direction. The Astartes were not fazed by the wash of incendiary because, well, they were Astartes, while Lita simply put up a transparent shield and let the fire cascaded over it. Waving away the smoke and soot dancing across his field of vision, Damien saw an ultra pissed maestro looming over him, frothing saliva hissing through dagger sharp teeth, the Chaos abomination rearing high like a cobra. "You degenerate worms! You have destroyed everything! And he was so pleased with the symphony I have crafted! So be it then, now I shall create my masterpiece using your suffering! And it will be exquisite! My name shall echo across the empyrean and beyond!"

"Concentrate fire on the maestro, all guns let it rip!" Leave it to the egotistical asshole to waste time with a dramatic declaration, unlike Damien who gave a swift tactical order which was immediately followed through by the Space Marines, bolts, plasma and meltas peppered the squealing maestro. "Lita, Gallus, Antalok, Adelhard, Subutai, with me! For the Emperor!"

The concentrated and deadly accurate salvo was more than enough to shut the maestro up and forced his elongated ass back a couple of steps, talon hands swathing at the projectiles now exploding across his body, but being a twisted Chaos spawn that he was the motherfucker got accelerated healing, which greatly mitigated the damage the Space Marines were pouring on him. It nevertheless gave Damien, Lita and the Astartes sergeants enough time to make a dramatic entrance, more specifically they leapt over the burning hole where the musicians used to be, the roiling flames wrapped around them like capes, fluttering fierce and indomitable. They landed with magnificent thunderclaps of pounding irons and cracking woods, Gallus with his revving chainswords, Antalok with his flame wreathed double headed power axe, Adelhard with his Teutonic power sword, and Subutai with his power tulwar and bolter. And as is tradition, Damien and Lita refused to be outdo in the cool department. The Canadian Astartes somersaulted onto the stage with a loud whoop while the Mexican Warseer corkscrewed brilliant across the air to land lithely beside him.

"Spread out!" Damien and Lita took the center and closed in on the shrieking maestro while Gallus and Antalok circled to the right, Adelhard and Subutai mirroring them on the left. The rest of the Astartes had shifted their attention to the remaining audience members inside the Solarium, supporting the Aeldari in stopping the rabid groupies from interfering with the main event. "Normal bullets ain't gonna bring this motherfucker down, looks like we need to get up close and personal! Keep your prayer hot and loud on your lips brothers, and sister, smite down the Chaos spawn!"

"Worms! Foolish worms!" The maestro made a mighty swipe at Damien and Lita, the speed impressive given how deformed his limbs were. The strike would've connected if they had been normal soldiers, but Damien and Lita easily dodged the attack and continued their approach. "I shall never be vanquished by your likes! His words…His hope…His glory flow through me, I am unconquerable!"

"Keep talking asshole!" Damien shouted and signaled Lita with a little nudge of his head, she nodded and prepared to attack. "You ain't got shit on us!"

It was a boss fight in all sense of the word, so why in the hell was the little voice in the back of Damien's brain telling him that things were too freaking easy? The difficulty level wasn't apparent at first, the maestro was a formidable foe, moving with quickness, vitality and accuracy of a cornered snake, his lashing claws and fangs many times coming within an inch of Damien, Lita and the Astartes sergeants, but when the Canadian Marines and his buddies went on the offensive, things went from Elden Ring to Super Mario real quick. Damien was an atheist by nature, but as he prayed to the God Emperor his stance on religion wavered when real, and very tangible, faith energy suffused his body, rushing across veins, wires, cables and armors. His thunder hammer now taking on a golden hue, Damien grinned broadly as he struck the maestro across his elongated body, flesh, bones and muscles exploding in gouts of sizzling viscera. The maestro was no push over though, for after suffering a few more hits the Chaos abomination started sprouting spikey tendrils across the length of his back, the appendages whipped wildly at the Astartes in an attempt to ward off more attacks. This only presented more targets for the Space Marines, and within moments twitching tentacles and hacked off slabs of meat littered the stage. Gallus's chainsword roared with great violence as the adamantium blades rend fleshes down to the bones, Antalok's power axes burned as much as it cleaved, Adelhard's power sword plunged into bubbling skin, and Subutai's power tulwar and bolter was a song of unrelenting storm that gored mercilessly into the shrieking maestro.

"This is going great," Lita's declaration would've been reassuring if it didn't sound almost like a question. "The maestro is losing."

"You don't sound too sure," like Lita, Damien had stopped attacking the maestro, considering how the Astartes sergeants were knocking it out of the park with the butchery. The wails that had sounded so formidable before was now hoarse and wet, every croak growing weaker and weaker, "despite the staggering evidence before us, I mean, look at the fucker, he's already dying."

"There's more to Chaos that meets the eye dude, we fought them enough time to know that," Lita said. "For all we know, the maestro is preparing to reveal his final form."

"Pestilence! Insects! Defilers!" Okay, so, if this truly was the maestro final form, Damien was not at all impressed. Although the vehement octave had found a second wind, the maestro's bodily situation was another matter completely. The merciless attack conducted by Damien, Lita and the Astartes sergeants, backed amply by the God Emperor and Isha faith power, had reduced the maestro to dismember quivering pulps, his serpentine body now scattered messily across the stage. What remained of the maestro, an upper torso comprised of chest, arms and head, was crawling feebly toward Adelhard, thick mush of leaking guts trailing after his mangled body. "Sweet death will come to you! Oh how glorious such a sight would be!"

"One that you will not live to see, daemon," Adelhard easily slid away from the maestro's questing talons, the feeble swipe pathetic to behold, nothing but scorn in the Black Templar's voice. "You have failed, as will all of your accursed kind."

"No, you foolish slave warrior," Damien totally did not like the maestro's very pleased cackle, nor was he blind to the fact that the surviving audiences, most of them occupying the higher tiers of the Solarium, were vocalizing a very eerie tune. The battlegroup were gunning them down, but the volume refused to dissipate. "You have already lost, long before you ever set foot on this planet. We are victorious."

"Yeah, yeah, heard the same bullshit before," Damien and Lita stepped forward, thunder hammer and Singing Spear held at the ready, and yet the maestro doesn't appear perturbed by his imminent demise. If anything he looked content, which made Damien's hair stand on end. "Is it really too much to ask for you Chaos jackoff to actually take a loss with grace for once? Because this shit is getting old."

"It is your failure to accept the truth that is disgraceful, warrior," the maestro coughed up a large wad of bloody phlegm. "Blind as always, the architect of your own end. At least you can take pride in that."

"Should we really kill him?" Damien muted his awesome Astartes helm and spoke directly into Lita's earbud. "I mean, this stink of a trap to high heaven, fucker's probably gonna self-detonate the moment he dies but keeping him alive might be even worse. What do we do?"

"I'm kinda going over the options myself," Lita told him, her timbre strained, also suspecting that the maestro was preparing a last ditch hail Mary as a nasty parting gift for them. Muttering lowly, Lita cast her glance around the Solarium, the situation appeared to be under control, the maestro was at death's door and the audiences' contribution to the fight have been reduced to agonizing, but deviously melodic, moaning articulation. "I mean, what can he do exactly? The Solarium is more or less ours, the crowds are docile, and according to Dalthorn things outside had also calmed down, even the mutated buildings stopped attacking."

"So he dies?" Damien hefted up his thunder hammer, catching the maestro's unblinking attention.

"Give me a sec," her fingers a blur, Lita swiftly drew a series of complex runes across the air, the Aeldari letters glowed bright for a few seconds before fading from corporeality. A minute must've passed before Lita nodded and waved at the Astartes sergeants. "Get behind me guys, I've cast deflecting spells across the Solarium, which should alleviate the worse of any sorcerous explosion that might occur."

"No protection for me?" Damien unmuted his awesome Astartes helm with a smirk as his Space Marine buddies took their places behind Lita.

"You're already protected Damien," Lita huffed crossly. "Honestly, do you honestly think I'm that sloppy?"

"I'm just asking dude, sorry!" Damien gave his thunder hammer a few warm up swings, blue lightning danced brilliantly across the head now that he directed all power to it, and strode up to the maestro. The Chaos abomination has stopped moving, more than at peace with his fate. "Thank you by the way, you're the best Lita!"

"I know I am!" Lita replied smugly and waved her Singing Spear in a wide arch over her head, in the blink of an eye her demeanor turned serious, befitting her Warseer status. "Everyone, take cover and brace for impact! Brother Captain Damien is about to execute the maestro! Make ready!"

Damien lifted his thunder hammer high and, without waiting for the maestro to speak, brought it down with such force that it caused a mini sonic boom. The thunderous crash reverberated powerfully across the Solarium as the maestro's head ruptured in a gory explosion of fire and blood. The now headless body sprung up, ramrod straight, and writhed violent, not dissimilar to a snake after getting decapitated, the rest of the body having yet to realize that it was dead. Then it stopped, and nope, instead of flopping back to the ground the mutilated cadaver became rigid and erected, rictus in stillness, unswaying as blood poured from its many ghastly wound.

"Yeah, you're taking half the blame for this," Damien shot Lita a look the same moment the wind started to pick up, and within seconds the entire Solarium was consumed by a swirling gale, the gust so powerful that the smiling audiences were swept up into the air like plastic bags. "Oh shit! Grab on to something and get the fuck out of the Solarium, don't get drawn into that shit!"

"Brother Damien, look!" Gallus pointed at the maestro's remain and Damien saw the corpse disintegrating. Seated at the eye of the storm, the maestro was shredded to strips and flakes of fleshes and bones, the wind carried the bloody specks up into the vortex, joining the spinning audiences, all of whom were also getting atomized by the sorcerous gale he and Lita had unleashed.

"Stay close to me! Damien, get over here!" Lita stabbed her Singing Spear to the ground and enlarged her bubble of calm, the Astartes sergeants brandishing their weapons at the violent storm that was now taking on a sickly purple tinge, the illumination eldritch, painting the world in a diseased spectrum. Muttering a slew of curses under his breath, Damien spun around and joined Lita behind the transparent barrier. "Are you okay?!"

"I'm fine, thanks!" Damien gazed up at the thickening whirlwind, nothing of the maestro and the audience can be discerned now. "Holy shit bro, what in the fuck is happening?!"

"A trap, duh!" Lita said. "But something's not right! Look! The storm is going away, it's leaking out of the Solarium!"

Lita was right, the size of the Chaos storm was changing from a rumbling cumulonimbus to a narrow tornado, the swirling apex rising higher until it shattered the glass ceiling above. Screeches and laughter echoed loudly from the outworldly maelstrom, the slithering vortex dipped low for a moment, as if bowing to them, before the entire mass rushed out of the Solarium. The emptiness and silence that followed was a thousand times scarier than the raging storm.

"Okay, who's dead?!" Damien shattered the soundless vacuum, his bombastic distorted Space Marine voice made the very air shuddered. "Let me rephrase that. Sound off if you're alive."

"Looks like none of us was killed by the vortex," Lita listened intently to the incoming radio chatter, fingers pressed to the side of her lucha libre helm. After a moment, she nodded. "Yeah, I think everybody's safe."

"I can confirm the lady Warseer testimony, brother Damien," Gallus spoke up. "Furthermore, captain Dalthorn have also reported that the buildings surrounding the Solarium are no longer attacking them. I believe we have exorcised the Chaos poison from this area."

"That's good and all, but now I can help but wonder where those poisons went to…" Damien's musing was interrupted by an urgent alarm blaring loudly inside his awesome Astartes helm. He shot a look at Lita, and judging by her frozen posture she was hearing the same thing too. "Oh crap."

"I guess we're about to find out," Lita squeaked and Damien tapped his awesome Astartes helm.

"WHAT IN THE BLOODY FUCK DID YOU DO?!"