Destinies collided, fates changed.
Much earlier, when the rebels were about to make their first major push just after Inquisitor Thaberus dropped his urgent warning, something unusual happened at the ritual site.
Fate has it that somewhere in the immaterium, swimming in the eternal and infinite empyrean sea, an ageless consciousness took notice of a faint calling originating from beyond space and time.
Made by an intelligence with an understanding of the Aether, there was a right type of ring to this calling. Several lesser Neverborn were already flocking to it. Like carrion flies they loitered around the source of summoning and were licking at offerings pouring through the veil, gathering strength to pass through spacetime to directly feast in that world.
The arrival of the ageless consciousness startled the lesser Neverborn. Like an apex predator entering into a scene of primal feasting, its lesser kin scattered hurriedly to avoid its wrath, leaving the opening solely to it.
The unknowable thing investigated the source and let a part of its impossible self sample the other side for the briefest of period … and found it lacking.
The calling offered the essence of blood and souls of sentient beings, but the quantity was petty and its initial offering paltry for its appetite. There were many other similar happenings which offered much more substantial rewards.
Unimpressed, the consciousness decided to ignore this calling when a certain aspect of what it sampled caught its attention. There, within the myriad of information it tasted was a faint residue of a very rare type of existence, an existence which would be an anathema to its kind, one that a Neverborn would consider being its bane.
Intrigued, for a moment it thought of further investigating before deciding whatever it had sensed was too weak and not worth the attention. It would hardly recoup its energy and resources. Still, it had really disliked the hint of that existence, so much so the idea of leaving it alone greatly displeased it.
Kill it! Such anathema called upon itself to be erased… but the tediousness of doing it, the energy involved and the insignificance of that existence’s level of strength made it teetered on the very edge of indecisiveness.
Do something about it?
Leave it alone?
Leave it be... No, kill it!
LEAVE IT BE.
KILL IT!
...
……
Why not both?
Finally decided on its course of action, the impossible thing pushed a tiny piece of itself over the edge of space and time. It then poured its rage and displeasure into that portion of itself and then severed it.
‘Go forth,’ with wordless directive it commanded its splintered self and imbued it with just enough power to cross the veil.
‘Seek that which displeases us and erase it from existence, sustain thyself with sentient essence on the other side. Do not return until no sentient being can be found in that world.’ Its splintered self groaned in agonizing acknowledgement and with the granted energy it crossed the threshold of eternal horizons.
Homing to the source of calling, it pushed itself through the veil between dimensions and there it would take the form of screaming tormented rage made flesh.
* * *
‘Throne on Terra saves us all…’ Inquisitor Thaberus watched with unconcealed horror at the trail of carnage left by something truly massive. Along the path of wanton destruction it had left behind were the entrails of its many victims and vague chunks of human remains.
Whatever it was, it had clawed its way out of an underground facility and left a hole on the side of a reinforced building the size of an imperial knight super-heavy walker. All the heavy weapons that guarded the facility were useless against it, the gory remains of their users and the weapons’ trashed state a silent testament to that. There was even an upside-down tank on the roof that was still burning with a raging fire.
‘Well, this is something we don’t see often enough, for once the heretics purged themselves and it looks like whatever they summoned was not under their control, nor was it on their side.’ Interrogator Amael’s unsolicited attempt at dry humour received no response.
‘Track that thing! Have the task force secure the perimeter, nobody gets in or out before this is over!’ Thaberus ordered, not waiting for a response he opened a vox call to his gunship.
‘Tahsya.’
‘Sir.’
‘Have the Flameraven switch its heavy bolter ammunition to psycannon bolts. Relay to the Unrelenting Vigilance to ready the Exterminatus solution for immediate deployment.’
‘Sir!?’
‘You heard me right. We have a breach, threat level Maxima. Pray we do not have to deploy it.’
‘Sir!’
Thaberus closed the vox and could not help himself but muttered a silent prayer for the order he just relayed. The Emperor grants us strength, please don’t let it come to this.
Then the notion that Syrine was on the planet derailed his thought for a moment but tried as he might, the image of her petite frame just could not size up with the level of threat they were facing.
He sighed, shook his head to refocus and turned to his retinue. ‘Now, do any of you have any idea of where it went?’
‘That way,’ Sanctioned Psyker Fulton said as he pointed his staff in a direction, his eyes glowing with psychic power.
‘It is moving fast. I can feel … its red hot anger.’ Added his partner Tsalieh, she was shivering from what she had sensed.
‘Why going that way? What is in that direction?’ Rantor asked as he tried but failed to relax his grip on the hot-shot volley gun which would not be seeing any action in this raid operation.
‘That direction…’ gasped Acolyte Herlindya but it was Thaberus who finished her sentence, ‘...the way to the battlefield.’
* * *
Back on the battlefield, Lord General Luthor von Norden was furious beyond words. From his point of view, his big day of triumph had been totally ruined by a never-ending amount of underhanded tricks and honourless subterfuge.
As the ridiculous events unfolded one after another, cumulating to the present where the symbol of might of the Northern Grand Army was being driven away like a victim of grand theft auto while his entire army was being distracted by a song. This was totally not how the lord general had envisioned his day would turn out to be.
When it became clear if Luthor had stayed on the Baneblade he would end up being kidnapped himself, the lord general opted to climb out of the super-heavy tank and jumped off instead.
The landing was harsh, Luthor survived but sprained his leg. His command squad who had followed him on the jump picked him up and luckily they were soon being picked up by a Taurox transport that was following the Baneblade not so far behind.
Suffice to say, finding their supreme commander limping in the middle of a chaotic battlefield with a singing lady as the backdrop was not how squad Gerhartte had envisioned their day would turn out to be.
After getting the Luthor and his command squad inside, squad Gerhartte’s Taurox turned back towards their combat line, passing through formations of tanks and troops who had stopped moving forward with its inside cramped up with the extra personnel and a grey-faced lord general.
Soon after that the song ended the vox network suddenly went back to normal again and another chaotic hell broke loose as the absurdity of the battle situation became apparent to all.
First, all three Baneblades of the rebel army had been hijacked, obeying an unknown directive the super-heavy tanks went to their designated spot and proceeded to shut down after arriving. Two out of three battle group commanders were still inside their tank when the battle sisters came knocking with melta guns, both the kidnapped commanders surrendered in the following stand off.
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Meanwhile, the news of Syrine fainting sent a shockwave in Khatalina’s camp. Kryptorer took over as the overall commanding figure but without Syrine’s authority ability they no longer held total dominance over the vox network, allowing the rebels to finally utilise their vox communication to some degree again. But what awaited them was a tsunami of bad news; the endless calls for medical aid, weapons and supplies, coupled with urgent reports of being surrounded by all sides flooded their vox as the encircling forces were finally being spotted.
Evidently most troopers in the rebel camp had seen enough, even the most tactically challenged soldier had realised their opposition was showing them a tremendous amount of mercy and restraint. When the holographic image and recordings of their battle group commanders surrendering to the Sororitas appeared in the air, the fighting will of the smaller battlegroups fell apart and their next highest ranking officers soon declared their surrender.
In the biggest battlegroup at the center, cracks were appearing, with troops stationed at the outermost layers silently slipping away to escape or surrender. As this battle was considered to be a civil dispute involving no Astra Militarum regiments, no commissars were present to go around shooting fleeing soldiers and soon there was an exodus of surrendering or fleeing troops.
Some of the fleeing troops escaped to the path they came from, squeezing through the tiny gaps between Khatalina’s forces before they could complete their encirclement, since not incurring casualties was their primary objective at that moment, the governor’s troops let the disorganised fleeing rebels passed through the gaps uncontested.
To Luthor’s credit, a sizable portion of the most elite and die-hard bunch of the rebel army had stayed with him as the encirclement was being completed. Surrounded on all sides with no way of escaping, it was a last stand, and soon a talk between the two sides was being held to discuss terms.
* * *
Premonition: Something had arrived, something huge. An angry twisted thing, a thing that should not have existed in this world. Its existence should not have been possible but a price was paid.
Be warned, it is here to seek you out. You, yes, you with their anathema’s bloodline. Now an equal or greater price must be paid to see it gone or this world of man will die.
Again, you are its target and the key to its banishment…
I regained consciousness, the first thing I heard was Veritta berating someone, she was sounding like a pissed off girlfriend on a messy breakout but that was so contradictory to my mental image of her.
‘Veritta?’ I called out, my voice sounded weak, surprising even myself. I opened my eyes and was immediately blinded by the bright medical lights shining down at me, it made me reflexively raise my hand to block the illuminations.
Someone gasped and grabbed my hand, it was Welminah.
‘Veritta! Lady Syrine has woken up.’
‘Welminah, where am I? Help me up.’
‘No, you need to stay down.’
She popped into my view, her face full of concerns.
‘No, get me up. The war, what happened to the war? … and..’
The thing.
A cold chill went down my spine as the premonition I felt during my delirium state surfaced.
‘Thanks to your song the last I heard from the frontline was that the war is being wrapped up.’
Welminah answered reverently. ‘Song?’ I was confused, oddly enough the level of respect coming from her to me seemed to have gone up a notch. Why is this happening after my shameful performance of fainting on the most critical battle?
‘Lady Syrine!’ Veritta came running to me as Welminah was helping me to sit up.
‘My Lady, is it true? I have tried to verify with the quartermaster of the fortress but … is it true you have not eaten a single meal since your staying at the fortress?’
‘Meal...?’ I was stumped for a moment before remembering I never once felt hungry and was being swamped by the never ending amount of meetings ever since the start of my lodging at the fortress. Now that I think about it, I hardly even drank a sip of water.
‘No, I have not eaten anything at the fortress.’
Veritta choked on her breath upon hearing my answer but before she could say anything more a skull probe that had been silently hovering nearby became active and floated in front of me.
I held my hand up at Veritta and then pointed at the probe, that shut down her impending berating.
I gulped.
An image popped up in my vision, confirming my dread. There amongst the landscape, flying at incredible speed was a gigantic horned humanoid entity with leathery wings, a bloodthirster, probably the angrier type.
But why? Didn’t we cut down the bloodshed to a very low level with the actions we had taken? And why was it in black colour?
A greater daemon in the physical realm. Whatever it entails, I was guessing it was not as simple as shooting it down like in the video game. The very existence of this being was already defying the natural law of the universe.
Another vision popped up in my view, it seemed to be from the point of view of a skull probe. At first, I could not tell what I was seeing, it was as if my brain was refusing to acknowledge the ridiculous sight. After a short while like a switch being turned on, I saw the vision as what it was: a scene of pure carnage, the aftermath of some uber butchery.
It was a field completely stained red and black with blood; chunks of what appeared to be human parts, broken bones and random innards could be seen littering everywhere accompanied by a sea of burning wrecks. The level of violence needed to create this scenery was borderline satirical, something was making a statement.
I was speechless.
This thing was gaining strength by slaughtering people. If left alone it will just continue gathering power from all the killings, as it does so it might even summon more of its kin to escalate the slaughtering… my mind went to the billions of people here, the psychic beacon and the incoming ships, suddenly I saw nothing but a literal sea of blood.
My blood ran cold, I shivered. This thing might be the end of us all. What am I supposed to do?! Runaway? We can still run, right? Leave this planet, leave the beacon, leave the people... then I remembered the combined souls of all the people I saw in that sea of wishes and my pledge to the sisters.
The premonition I experienced earlier came back to me like lightning. You are its target and the key to its banishment.
…
……
Damn it.
THRONE DAMNED IT.
I… I had made up my mind.
It could be a hard sell, but using older toys to trade for shiny new ones should be a tempting prospect even for famous hoarders like them and I was sure the arch dominus was keeping a few cards hidden.
So I waited for the reply.