Editing Story:Love Can Bloom (section)

===Chapter Eleven===
The daemon, still gloating inwardly at Taldeer, walked seductively towards LIIVI, his injured body lying, half sitting up, against a pile of rotted wood and crumbling, rusty pipes.

“You will not be given that which you seek, you festering beast!” Taldeer cried out, her heart hammering in her chest. “You shall-”

“Be quiet, girly. When I am done with him, he will quite happily… submit to me in a most special way. The way you wish that he would submit to you.”

“You think me a, a perverted, a disgusting ''thing'' like you? Living for pleasure, for pain, lusting for anything you see?” Taldeer stammered out.

The daemonette turned back towards her. “I will break his mind, I will break his heart, and I will break his soul. The ''delicious'' suffering that you will be given by Slaanesh will be nothing to the torture I will grant him.” With a victorious smile, the daemon turned back to LIIVI.

While the monster’s back was turned, he had tried to reach the helmet beside him, but the belt restrained him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his pistol lying only a few meters away. He closed his eyes, recalling his training. It was, ironically, easier, if not less painful, with the daemonette’s violation of his memories. His head pounded, but he could see, dimly, his past, hear distorted voices. His mind clicked. Slowly, he exhaled, and dislocated his thumb bone with a quiet crack. Opening his eyes, dilated with pain, he noticed that it was turning back towards him, slipping his hand out of the belt and closing his eyes. Lost in its perverse thoughts, the daemon did not seem to notice as his eyes flitted closed.
 
	“Hello, sweetie.” said the daemon in a sickeningly sweet voice.

Smiling to itself - rather, hideously grinning - the vile thing bent down towards him.

	“Are you awake, vindy? There is so much I have planned for you.”

Taldeer, the room spinning dizzily around her, helplessly watched as the daemon approached LIIVI’s helpless form, across the house. She closed her eyes, feeling the ocean existence surrounding her. With all the grace a wounded Eldar could muster, she hooked the Vindicare’s discarded Exitus rifle with her foot. The disgusting thing, in its arrogance, failed to notice her. When a flash of sudden motion came from Taldeer’s direction, the Slaaneshi creature spun around, its features contorting with rage.

“So you have chosen-” the daemonette began to say, only for the bottom half of its head to be split apart. Taldeer raised the Exitus rifle again, and a raspy gasp left the daemon.

“How naughty, Farseer. Imagine the ''fun'' we could have...”

The rifle kicked back again, a hastily aimed shot sailing through the creature’s abdomen. As the vile interior daemon’s interior was pulverized with a loud crack, LIIVI fixed his hand with a painful twinge. Releasing his breath, he slipped his other arm out of the belt. Filled with rage, the daemon lurched towards Taldeer. Pulling back the trigger again, the tiny snap of her finger contracting onto the trigger was overwhelmed by a click from the firing chamber of the rifle, exclaiming its lack of ammo.

“Ohhhhh,” spit out the daemon, “Has the little Eldar no weapons?”

The room around the creature contracted, metal piping and wooden boards from the ceiling collapsing onto the floor in a great cacophony. The whispers of the Great Enemy grew louder in her mind as it approached. The rifle fell from Taldeer’s hands, and she felt weighed down as if by the weight of all Ulthwe. It felt as though the warp itself was trying to rip through her mind, to shatter her skull just as the head of the daemon was shattered. Behind the daemon, LIIVI shifted, but with all its attention on Taldeer now, consumed with rage, it failed to see anything but the helpless Farseer.

“Let me show you the joys of the Prince of Exc-” it began rasping, as the cracked head began to fuse back together, only for a jagged piece of metal piping to be roughly forced into the crack, eliciting a screech from the ruined face. 

LIIVI staggered out from behind it, grabbing a thick wooden board. He hefted it above his shoulder, falling to one knee with the exertion, as the daemon turned back to him. With all his remaining strength, he drove the board into the shattered head, crushing it with a bloody spray. As LIIVI fell to the floor, unconscious, the presence of Slaanesh flickered in the house, and the voices in Taldeer’s head faltered. Her arm twitched, and extended towards her enemy. Lightning played around her fingers, and a bolt of psychic energy tore into the daemonette. Its body was shredded, dissolving into warp fire as the daemon was banished once more into the warp. The power of Slaanesh finally gave out, the illusion upon the house faded, and its true form, mold covered walls and crumbling roof, became visible. Taldeer’s vision swam before her, and the threat gone, she joined LIIVI in blackness.


----


	Taldeer was the first to regain consciousness, with every joint feeling as if it had been frozen. Her neck, owing to the inopportune position in which she had fallen asleep, felt like the roof had collapsed on it, and the manipulation of the daemonette had left her with a throbbing headache. Her eyes, half open, took in her surroundings. The building looked as though it could collapse at any moment, with a roof rent by war and walls charred by flames spewed mindlessly by constantly battling factions. There was a form lying among the rubble. Taldeer’s eyes snapped open.

	“LIIVI! Can you hear me?” she called.

Struggling to move, she crawled over to where he lay. A gust of freezing air brushed through his hair. While he wore still his suit, it had been torn by the vicious spear of the Grey Knight, and his helmet, visor cracked near the edge, lay amongst the rubble of the house. Despite the freezing air, his skin was still reddened and blistered by the incendiary bombing. His pulse was weak, his skin cold to the touch, but he was still alive. The early morning sun shone with pale light through the building’s hole-ridden roof. Putting her hand under his head, and grabbing him about the waist with her other arm, she pulled him to a largely intact wall opposite the shattered door.

	“Wake up,” Taldeer murmured to him. He remained silent and still. 

“Wake up!” Taldeer shouted in desperation. LIIVI’s eyes, blinking at the light outside, slowly opened.

His voice, quiet and hoarse though it was, came through clear. “Are you okay?”

“Am I okay?” Taldeer replied, with a hint of a wry smile on her face, “Are you okay? Can you even walk?”

“Primary objective: protect you,” he replied, with more strength.

Taldeer sighed. “I am… unhurt. But you are not.”

LIIVI staggered to his feet, nearly falling onto Taldeer. Clearly in great pain, he retrieved his Exitus rifle.

“I must protect you.”

Taldeer walked to him as he began to stand. Grunting with the strain on his injured body, he lost balance, and was caught by Taldeer, who gently lowered him to the ground. Looking into his eyes, she gently told him,

“Wait here, mon-keigh, I shall find something to help you.”

In a cupboard nearby, mostly clean sheets and a half-looted medical kit lay unharmed. What little salve was left she spread over LIIVI’s face, bandaging him with torn sheets. LIIVI sat up.

“We must leave immediately. The danger in staying in one place is too great.”

“I have been thinking on how to handle that problem. If we are to ever escape, we need some kind of aerial vehicle. We can reach my Wraithship and…”
And what? Her heart sank as she considered the enormity of her failure. She had not stopped the Necrons. Most of her army had been slaughtered, and if their soulstones had not been recovered…

“If Ronahn were here...” she trailed off.

“Who is Ronahn?” LIIVI inquired.

“He is my… he is a ranger from the craftworld. He is working with another Farseer, Idranel. They have little contact with Ulthwe, and I… he will not return for many years.”

Using his Exitus rifle as a prop, LIIVI stood up again, and picked up his pistol. The note of sadness in her voice had touched him in a way he could not understand. He put on his helmet, and holding his improvised walking stick in one hand, gently put his hand on her arm. Straightening up, Taldeer turned to her companion, who looked as imposing as any of the mon-keigh.

“We must go to Pavonis. That may be our only hope to escape.”

Under the mask, LIIVI frowned. “I participated in the battle for the city, if for a short period. Pavonis is heavily fortified. It would likely take an army to get in.”

Smiling slightly, Taldeer replied, “Not for an Eldar. And, perhaps, not for a mon-keigh assassin.”


----


Lukas Alexander mused over the Vindicare situation. It should have been impossible for him to betray the Imperium like this. Whatever training given to such a legendary being should have erased any sense of rebellion, any sense of self. They weren’t people, he reasoned, but weapons, powerful weapons.

How can a weapon think for itself?

That Inquisitor, too… he was hiding something. If he knew something about the assassin, and was hiding it from the Imperial Guard, the blood of any men who died to the Vindicare would be on those hands. Hiding behind his position, behind his organization as he might, he would have the Inquisitor’s head if he betrayed them. In frustration, he slammed his fist on the command chair. Startled, the vox operator turned to the Governor-Militant.

“Sir?” 

“Don’t mind it,” Alexander replied, hiding his embarrassment, “What is the status of our forces at the spaceport?”

“None of the Blood Ravens’ significant forces have arrived yet, but our scouts reported armored columns, complete with artillery vehicles, en route to Pavonis.” With a worried look on his face, the guardsman added, “We should arrive before they do.”

Two hours later, the Baneblade rolled into Pavonis to the cheering of guardsmen. The Enginseers had done their best to repair the damage done to the city by the Tau, and the battle to claim it from them. However, a lattice of cracks filled the spaceport. Alexander’s vox operator relayed orders to fortify the walls, but the Governor-Militant’s air of brooding thought was almost palpable.

“The battle ahead will be bloody indeed,” spoke Lukas Alexander, as the Space Marines began to pound his fortifications.