Steel Tart shouted at the top of her lungs as the Leman Russ fired its cannon into the ork horde charging their line. Unlike the others who were so content to sit pretty and wait for the enemy to come to them, so she joined with Crius’s PDF to fight in the chemical wastes at her first chance. She lifted the lasgun she’d lifted from a fallen trooper and sprayed into the green tide, stepping forward with each lasbolt as the soldiers around her matched her battlecry. As soon as the first ork was within thirty meters, she threw her gun down and ran at it, slashing out with her powerswords as closed into melee range. This was how she wanted to spend this turbulent time without a leader, this was how she’d make her mark on this universe, this was her revenge against Chaos, punishment she sadly could not mete out to the disgusting freaks who deserved it.
She hacked an ork’s head off with one swing, pirouetting into her next step as she followed through, catching a second greenskin in its gut. For her, battle was a sport, the simplest expression of true competition; she joined the Inquisition to fight minotaurs, and now she fought monsters from beyond the stars themselves. For that, she owed the Burned Man greatly, and for that, each drop of ork blood she spilled alongside Crius’ PDF was spilled in the hopes he would find himself and join her in this glorious bout.
_-_-_-_
Solemn Dirge hefted his rocket launcher with practiced ease, staring down its optics at the ramshackle vehicles that chugged over the chemical wastes. From behind his mask, he was immune to the caustic dust that ate away at softer tissues like the eyes and nose; as he locked onto a wagon, he smiled as he pulled his trigger. The missile was his own design, a mass-reactive warhead with it’s payload inside a reinforced glass cylinder. Upon impact, the charge exploded, spraying shrapnel and and a rather nasty biological agent in a small radius, but when used against vehicles, it most certainly pulled its own weight. Dirge’s smile widened as he saw his creation zip into the enclosed cab; sadly, he did not see the blast.
A trio of orks stumbled out, shouting in their crude language as they batted burning water from their skin. The shouts turned almost fearful as the agent took effect, turning their hides and muscle into sludge; death for such a large, durable creature took minutes, but even the toughest of targets were unable to fight after thirty or so seconds of direct exposure. Solemn Dirge turned his gaze onto another ork vehicle and loaded his next shot. It was a good day.
-_-_-_-_-
Radiant Velvet grinded her teeth as the cat-o-nine-tails slammed across her back. She was the only one back in her true form, aboard the Skyward Valkyrie where inquisitive eyes would not find her, and each strike of the whip landed against her wings or already-sensitized back. Even as her skin split and blood ran dark trails down her fur to the floor, the punishment was not meant to injure her permanently, for she did not mourn like her comrades. Each strike was asked for, her way of taking some of the blame onto herself, not for her slain master, but for a failed mission. The entire operation had not resembled the flawless planning the Inquisition was known for, feared for, and yet their execution had been nothing but one flaw after another.
She subjected herself to the masterful work of an interrogator, uncaring for the lasting scars she would surely have if it meant teaching her mind and body a lesson. Her frogs had been slit, her wing membranes perforated, her ear pinned back, and her mind probed and prodded until she could barely form a rational thought, all as she was whipped and beaten for her failings.
-Taylor’s POV-
I was dead. I let that sink in for a minute while I sipped on the cider, not quite sure if I really was dead, or if this was all some spawn of the warp and an attempt to corrupt me. If Chaos wore Trixie’s face, that was a low blow, but not entirely out of the question. I blinked back a few tears as I pondered the full ramifications of death, that Chrysalis was now a widow and Scipia would be without a father. My mind, for all the augmentation the Deceiver’s armor had granted me, was returned to normal, and seemed sluggish in comparison; it took me a while to realize it was the weight of emotion in my thoughts instead of them being separated by a machine. I did not care for it, honestly.
“I’d say to take a deep breath, but…” Trixie said, smiling at her macabre joke. She was like in life, and now in death it seemed to remain that she would lighten the mood. “Listen to me, seeing my old friend for the first time in who knows how long, and I’m cracking gallows humor.”
“It’s really been too long, Trix, way too long,” I replied, managing a small, sad smile. “Hell, you should see Scipia these days, running around with her friends and getting into trouble.”
“I’ll bet,” she mumbled, her mouth occupied by a mug of some beverage; I didn't question where it came from. I myself had nothing to drink, for I was not thirsty; I did not like this place very much for it did not fit what I had thought of the afterlife. I expected more, I dunno, gold or something, not a rustic town full of nonhumans. “You seem occupied.”
“I’m trying to figure out if this is all real or some warp-spawned illusion,” I confessed. It all seemed too perfect, too nice, for it to be an afterlife I deserved.
“You’ve always been paranoid,” Trixie conceded, sitting her mug down as she gave me a quizzical look. There were a lot of things most people did not know about the unicorn and I, one of them being that we trusted each other a bit more than was probably wise. If there was deception, this as the way to go about it. “You’re planning something, aren’t you?”
“Of course,” I replied, letting my mind flow freely. I had been imprisoned in the warp before, and even if I was dead, this place was still somewhere beyond the veil; I lacked my powers because I believed I had no powers. Like flipping a switch, everything changed and I could see how the fabric of what I had previously believed to be the reality rippled under my gaze. The entities that inhabited it, Trixie included, remained unchanged even as I melted away the scenery until I saw the swirling, impossible geometry that was the immaterium. “If I’m right, there’s a lot of heresy going on on Crius, so I’m needed in reality.”
“You’re going to resurrect yourself? That sounds insane.”
“Of course it’s insane, who the hell do you think I am?” I asked, stepping onto a magenta swirl that slowly whisked me away. Trixie scrambled up to follow me, quick on my heels as we traveled further and further from the point I assumed to be our last location. It was hard to tell with the warp, as everything was an idea rather than concrete fact that we assumed our world to be.
“So, uh, where is this gonna take us?” she asked, looking over the edge at our perception of down. Like me, she was new to warp-travel, but unlike me, she didn’t know that souls that expressed emotion were ringing a dinner bell for everything around. Luckily, Now that I had my powers back, only certain monsters would make meal of us.
“Well, Trix, if we’re both here in the warp, unharmed by daemons, someone or something has arranged it.” I looked forward to the looming shadow in the distance and felt a chill run down my spine. It was not a chaos god, otherwise we wouldn’t be anywhere near it, so it was still something powerful. “So, we’re going to march right up there and make him put me back in my body.”
“And he’ll probably kill us?”
“Oh, fuck yeah, but it’ll be fun.”