Editing Toyhammer (section)

=Chapter 18=

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: "Harnessing the Warp is like pulling the pin out of an Ork Stikk Bomb that is glued to your hand; club away at your enemies all you like while the fuse is burning, but pray that you are not embracing your comrades when it goes off."

- Inquisitor Danilov, Ordo Malleus

"Dragged screaming from their homes, then bound like so." The writhing form of Ishabeth fell quieter as the deep, booming voice of the Sorcerer filled the small cell.

"Hurled through a living nightmare of whispering daemons, their souls will be sacrificed to the uncaring and unfamiliar corpse upon his 'golden throne'. Those that aren't 'worthy' of that 'honor' are turned into 'controlled' psykers, their existence sanctioned. Fast or slow, they will die. Then they are all but forgotten, honored only as the fuel and fumes for the rusted engine that is the 'Empyrean'."

There was a brief 'hah' of disgust.

"Only a few will be spared this fate; those that completely whore themselves to their so called Emperor, or those that embrace the greatness that is the Immaterium, and its masters, the GODS. OF. KAY-OOS! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!" The Sorcerer threw his head back and laughed to his content, before looking back to me. "Especially Tzeentch."

Turning around, the two of us met face-to-chest. I noted that the Sorcerer had removed his helmet since our last meeting, his pale, almost corpse-like (but not corpse-like enough) face now visible; sneering with his jagged teeth, the grey-brown skin was covered in scars and tattoos, and one eye was gone in favor of a blank blue orb. The ancient warrior-psychic was easily two heads taller than I was. Steeling myself, I sighed. "Why can't you just leave me alone?"

"Because you refuse to embrace Chaos." He deadpanned, somehow managing to shrug with those massive bullet-shaped pauldrons on his shoulders. "The Gods of the Warp desire to feast upon your flesh and drink from your soul, mortal."

"You know I don't believe in those guys, right? Doesn't that... ruin the taste?"

There was a non-committal grunt from the armored psychic giant. "I find your lack of faith... disturbing, for someone who has seen the power of Chaos. You've seen what it can do..."

"Well, I just gotta say: screw that, baldy."

Blinking, the Sorcerer slowly knotted his eyebrows together. "I am not familiar with that... expression. What does it mean?" He asked.

I gave him the middle finger. A shake of the head. I tried the two fingers, palm back gesture. Another shake.

Sighing, I beckoned him to come closer. Curious, the Sorcerer leaned forward. I punched him in the nose.

There was another blink, and the Chaos Marine nodded in understanding.

"YOU DARE STRIKE ME! WHAT ARE YOU TO DO? WHAT WEAPON SHALL YOU FACE ME WITH!"

"Uh, buddy, you just ended a sentence with a preposition."

The Sorcerer paused, recollecting his words, before flying off into another rage. One of his veins began to throb, its outline pulsing as he howled and threatened.

"I HAVE KILLED MILLIONS! SET WHOLE WORLDS TO THE TORCH! BILLIONS HAVE COWERED BEFORE ME AS I DESTROYED THEIR CHAMPIONS! YET, YOU MOCK ME!"

The vein/artery whatever was throbbing pretty quickly now. I wondered if I could get him to have an aneurysm, and maybe end the fight quickly. But alas, that was not to be. The Sorcerer raised his hand, Warp energy gathering at his palm as his face contorted into a scowl, his voice now a deadly whisper.

"Prepare, mortal, for you have sealed your fate. You have denied the Dark Gods! NOW YOU SHALL FEEL THEIR POWER!" He boomed.

And then he stopped.

He rubbed his chin with his free hand, the one that wasn't crackling with lightning, suddenly thoughtful.

"That makes things a little more difficult for me, certainly, but I can still see that your soul is put to good use... Your screams may become quite the commodity amongst the soulmongers of Lasvegasi. Or maybe I can hand what's left of you over to the spectramenteers of the Scaien Kabal out on Kruisah. Hrehehhehehhahahahhh... Either way, you will be BEGGING for the embrace of the Dark Gods by the time I am finished with you, obstinate IN-SECT!""

He pointed a finger at me, the warp-lightning gathering at its tip.

A lot of people have stared down death in its many faces and forms, and didn't blink first. Others have simply flipped it the middle finger. More have chosen to close their eyes and hope that it would go away.

I was one of the latter people.

There was a fizzle, and an anticlimactically faint scent of smoke – burnt electrical wiring flavor – and sudden cursing from the Sorcerer.

What the? I opened my eyes.

The Sorcerer was looking rather confused, and was inspecting at his left palm. It was tattooed with something resembling a burning urn, and I knew it was the hand he shot lightning with, but...

Oh. Right.

I almost facepalmed. How had we both missed an obvious...

We were on a ship used to transport several hundreds of thousands of potentially dangerous psykers of varying ability that could also just as easy become a gateway to a whole mess of daemons. Null-wards like the ones the Grey Knights used to suppress Warp-based abilities would have been as essential as airlocks and engines.

The deck plates bent towards the Chaos Marine as he shifted his weight. The Sorcerer lunged, his arms outstretched.

I let my knees give way, and kicked off the floor to throw myself to the side. The sweeping blow from the Sorcerer passed over my head as he whirled around to face me, snarling in frustration.

There would then be a kick. It was the only attack which made sense.

Rolling back, I looked at the Sorcerer in his purple power armor; sure enough the armored boot was coming up. It missed me, and arced through thin air as I crashed into the wall of the prison, just beside Ishabeth.

I quickly pushed myself off the wall, and curled away from the irritated kick that followed.

"WHY. WON'T. YOU. STAND. STILL!"

"Fuck off!"

Jumping, I avoided the thrust of the Sorcerer's straight-fingered jab, which thudded harmlessly against the psychic wards. He was sluggish and slow in his ancient armor, while I was getting puffed. Turning around, I looked at her. Ishabeth.

She was still slumped over. Tears were still running freely from her wide-open eyes.

"Ishabeth!" I ducked under another blow. "Hey, ca-" A sweep of his hand separated us. "-you hear-" A frustrated charge forced me to run to the left. "-me!"

There was a blink. A shudder of realization. My hopes soared; she could hear me clearly now.

"Yh-y-yoo..." The soon-to-be sanctionite was stuttering, even though her mouth was firmly sealed shut.

"THIS ISN'T REAL!" I shouted. "THESE ARE JUST MEMORIES!"

A sudden ripple shook the entire room. The Sorcerer hesitated for a moment. "What in the Gods' name!"

Darkness swallowed us. Complete silence filled my ears. My entire body felt like it was being pressed on, from all sides – like being too far underwater.

All went black.

When it was light again, Ishabeth was different. Her hair was all gone, shaved off. A black collar of heavy metal was wrapped around her neck. She was kneeling, in thick white robes decorated only by a black 'I' shape, with a large eye just above the midpoint. I recognized it as the symbol of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, the organization that dealt with the gathering and training of psykers to serve the Imperium as best they could. Unfortunately, the majority could only serve as glorified fuel for the astral lighthouse that was the Empyrean. A thousand other figures, identically dressed and shaved, also knelt with her and prayed to an altar larger than my house. Megalomaniacs would never have dreamed up such a large scale. The cathedral they were in... no, we were in...

Holy Terra. Mother of Humanity.

I swear, I could not see the roof of the cathedral. Mechanical birds – aquilae – screeched overhead. Around us were pillars, each decorated with line after line of prayer, written out in gold letters. Taking two quick steps forward, I reached out to touch a purity seal dangling from one of those prayers, its bright red wax glistening.

Peering into the waxy skull, I glimpsed a bright orange light. Reflected.

Oh.

Pushing myself away from the pillar, I threw myself to the ground.

A hissing fireball shot past my head and into a series of people. They didn't scream, they didn't even move nor flinch. I gawked. Oh. Right. Memories. They wouldn't act outside what Ishabeth remembered.

The clanking sounds of an advancing Space Marine filled the room.

"Ish-"

Too late.

Another blow hit me, low and from the left. My shout was cut short. The Sorcerer's left fist caught me in the chest as I was screaming at the soon-to-be sanctioned Psyker, and threw me across the room. Crashing into a row of white-robed psykers, I skidded across the too-smooth floor. The ones I sent flying remained there, inert, still muttering prayers to the Emperor. The Sorcerer was toying with me. Like a cat playing with its prey.

Goddammit.

"ISHAB~"

Another blow kicked me nearer to the edge of the room. A third slammed me into the wall. I slumped to the ground as the two massive feet shifted around, the Chaos Sorcerer laughing darkly as he flexed his arms.

I was coughing up... something. Bile and blood. A green-red vomit. The Sorcerer let out a short, sinister chuckle as he advanced, crackling his ceramite knuckles.

"You think yourself a match for a champion of the Dark Gods!" He roared. "Even without the Warp, I shall crush you, mortal!"

His armored fist closed around my neck, lifting me up with ease. I was holding on with my hands, stopping him from strangling me there and then, but when I thought about it, the Sorcerer had a grip that could probably crush my skull with a simple flex. Whatever he was doing, he was doing out of spite.

"You delay the inevitable, insect." The Sorcerer chuckled.

Bringing me in close, he snarled, face inches away from mine. The Sorcerer wanted to terrify me. Well, he did it. His grinning face would forever haunt my dreams. If I made it out of this one alive, anyway.

"All. Too. Easy."

There was a pulse of energy – pure, unrestrained warp energy – that dropped the temperature of the room by about twenty degrees.

A hurled body – similarly armored to that of a slimmer-shaped Space Marine, but much more decorated – crashed into the Sorcerer's back. He dropped me, spinning around to face the new foe with a snarl.

The second thrown body slapped his face, twisting his head around.

I landed on my feet, but stumbled to the mirror-like polished floor. Scrabbling on the ground for purchase, I lifted myself up onto my feet.

The Sorcerer turned away from his opponent, ignoring the telekinetically thrown memory-mannequins, to see me getting away. He drew back his leg, and gave me another kick. I was hurled aside. My head rolled to its side as I writhed from the pain of the new blow.

Somehow, I was sure that this wasn't hurting as much as it should.

I struggled up, and managed to stand. The Sorcerer was a good twelve feet away... how did I get here? He was running at me, now, backhanding anything that got in his way. A few bodies streaked past, thrown by an unseen force. Turning around to the source of the limp bodies, I saw Ishabeth, staring back at me. An idle pair of armored priests were orbiting around her, and more were gravitating towards the Sanctionite.

Around us, the memory was beginning to falter, lines of light appearing in the cracks. Details were fading, and I found myself feeling like I was playing in an old PlayStation game. The prayers and litanies had now become a dull drone in the background, and the light of the lamps were brightening.

"Oh dear Emperor..." I mumbled, wide-eyed with shock as I steadied myself.

The Sorcerer shot her a look, then hastened his charge. He was only a few feet away when I leaped.

Jumping up, I managed to plant a foot onto his knee, then his shoulder. Scrambling up the armored giant as he snarled in frustrated surprise, hands empty. He caught a hold of my pants leg, but that ripped right off.

Leaping off behind him, I ran away as he again clawed at me with armored fingers.

Elbowing aside a line of white-robed monks, I screamed out at the top of my lungs, the purple behemoth crushing man and marble flooring alike as he ran to catch up.

"ISHABETH! THINK OF SOMEONE! ANYONE!"

Throwing myself to the right, the exquisite ceramic tiles between us crumbled as the Sorcerer pounded his ceramite-shod boots across them.

"T-t... T..." Stuttering, she looked confused, looking left and right as both the Sorcerer and I descended upon her.

Another dark pit swallowed the three of us.

"Cadian One-One-Seven callsign Spartan, gri- *DEATH TO THE FALSE EMPE-* -ur-four by eight-seven-nine-three is under heavy bombardment. Repeat, grid three-zero-f- *SLICE DICE KILL CR* t-seven-n- *MY SPLEE~* -is under hea- *Kkkrkrkkrkkzzttzztzz* adian One-One-Seven callsign Cor *RAARGH!* -uesting counter-battery operations, over."

I could smell burnt electrical wiring. The wailing, half-working vox set crackled to life again as guardsmen groaned, passing through random 'comm-bands', as the vox-jockies liked to call them – occasionally overlapping with the Chaos-filled frequencies – while the vox-caster's operator frantically dialed through the various frequencies.

A guardsman shouted for the medic. "Doc! DOC! I need help over here!"

The space we were in was coming into focus now; row upon row of seats, back-to back, filled the whole space. The room was wide and long, but not tall, it was like a massive bus and just as cramped.

"Just sit still, Dilanis! You'll make it, just sit still until the Doc can fix up your leg, okay?"

Someone stumbled over the vox-jockey, ruining the last minute's worth of careful adjustment and eliciting a series of curses as the vox set tumbled to the ground.

"Cadian Nine-One-Eight callsign Clipb- *KrsssshKRRR* -s, sending reinforcements vector Zero-Eight-Nine. D-Company Platoon One, go check ou- *ANCE! NO REGRETS, NO REMOR* -urviviors."

Around us, with Ishabeth's memories returning into focus, the silhouettes of stumbling Guardsmen and crying wounded were starting to come into focus. Voices called out for their brothers, their sergeants and leaders.

"Valhallan Five-Nine-Seven callsign Valkyria, we have ma- *KILL!MAIM!BURN!KILL!MA-* -id three-zero-four-eight by eight-sev- *KZz-ZZZRRTHH-HHRRHR* -ve lost contact with callsign 'Chain-Blade'... again. If anyone spots him, please tell him the colonel wishes to s- *BLOOD! BLOOD! BLOOD! BLOOD!* -na tea."

By now, the confusion was beginning to fade away, with squad leaders shouting for their men to rally towards them, or to instruct troopers to begin policing ammunition and equipment from the dead and wounded.

"D-1 reporting, Commissar! We've got some of those heretic scum crawling all over the lander, moving to engage them!"

Thumps and muffled explosions shook the dark box we were sat inside, and I blinked my eyes as I caught sight of the distressed Sanctionite.

"Ishabeth? Can you hear me?"

A nod. She struggled in her bindings, however, unable to get free. I moved to help her, and as we both struggled with the fused crash harness, a voice – I recognized its owner as one of the Captains subordinate to General Faust - bellowed over the din of battle.

"Stand clear, and stay down!"

There was a click of a switch being pressed, and a shout. It was muffled by the sudden series of pop-bang explosions. The creak of something heavy and flat falling over preceded the whoo-thump of its contact with the flat ground.

"Restraining bolts blown! Everyone OUT! GO, GO, GO!"

Blazing in with the smell of cordite was the harsh yellow light of outside. Immediately, the world outside was a lightshow of multi-colored strobes of lasers, crisscrossing beams of deadly focused energy that chewed up the ground, turning the grass into ashes and the bare patches of dirt into glass and steam.

"The thrice-damned traitors are firing upon us, so get out fast and seek cover! Keep moving or die! For the Emperor! GLORY FOR THE FIRST TO KILL!"

There was a scrabbling of boots on shattered deckplates, and then the sounds of lasguns firing and people dying. Screams echoing out from the distance belonged to the Chaos troopers were all too clear from the inside of the crashed lander.

Our shining portal of light darkened as another figure was outlined by the combination of door and backlighting.

I wish I had a camera.

The black longcoat was the first thing she remembered about him, and the first thing that came into view. Then her attention was drawn to his badges of office; bright red sash, peaked hat with a winged skull embellishing the front. His weapons came into focus next; a power fist wrapped around one hand and a las-pistol held tightly in the other. Golden decorations to all of them, they were bright and visible.

The Commissar was looking far too comfortable as he stepped inside, scanning the innards of the crashed vehicle, with las-fire crackling out to heat up the lander around him.

"Guardsmen, move outside! You are here to fight, not cower inside a crashed lander!"

The camouflage-uniformed Guardsmen rushed to comply, hauling themselves to their feet as the formidable figure wrenched up those too slow for his tastes. One was simply frozen inside of his refuge, a corner of the deck, and refused to move.

"Up, trooper!" The Commissar hissed, picking the man up by his power-fist assisted arm.

"We'll die! They'll frakking kill us, sir! Oh Throne, I saw them on the way down! There's millions of them! All rushing here!"

Suddenly, the trooper's laspistol was gone from his holster, and reappeared in the Commissar's hand, pressed against the man's chin.

"Do you think I care about such trivial matters!" He hissed, nose inches away from the trooper's face.

Crack.

The pungent odor of ionized air preceded the scream of absolute agony. The Guardsman was on the ground, kneeling, clutching at his ear, eyes shut from the pain. Eerily, there was no blood that dripped from the wound, and the laspistol was dropped onto the floor in front of him.

"Either you go out there and fight, trooper, or you shall be summarily executed for cowardice." Warned the Commissar, picking up the wounded man again, and setting him onto his feet. I blinked once, and then saw the terrified trooper being pushed towards the nearest Sergeant.

"There are other Guardsmen dug in by the wreckage in front of you, Chaos wretches to your left, armored support coming from your right, and myself behind you! Now go!"

Steel-gray eyes flickered up and down the line of empty crash-seats, before returning to transfix the young Sanctionite. I could feel the leaden pulse of terror that skipped through her mind, and she began to panic. Hands desperately wrenching at her restraints as the stoic figure of the Commissar approached, her quick-release button broken and unwilling to release as she struggled with it.

He held up his power-fist, the armored fingers hovering just in front of her face. She sat still, too terrified to move as the temperature about them plummeted, and then the Commissar lowered it to the broken release catch to flex his fingers around the twisted metal.

The metal hub of the crash harness folded, and then snapped under the pressure of the powerful servos. Ishabeth sagged into her seat, relief washing over her face.

Commissar Tomas Sturm sighed, and reached out with his free hand. He hauled the psyker up onto her feet, by the front of her robes.

Instantly, there was a squeal and then a stinging slap was delivered to the man's face. Ishabeth had backed up a few paces, arms wrapped protectively around herself. Tomas goggled at her, his cheek bright red from where she had struck him.

"Ah..." The Sanctionite gasped, and bowed her head. "I-I'm sorry! I... I didn't mean to... you just... grabbed me... and... pleasedon'texecuteme!"

Her face flushed red, and both the Psyker's and the Commissar's cheeks brightened as they both went over what had just happened. It took a few seconds, but then the Commissar clicked to why the strange young psyker had slapped him.

"You're a woman!" Tomas inquired. To be fair, under the voluminous, parchment-brown robes of the slimly built Sanctioned Psyker, she could have easily passed for a young man.

"Yes." Ishabeth replied, if a little hotly.

"Oh... uh..." The two were awkwardly searching the room now for any witnesses, but only the dead were still inside.

"Lets forget that, shall we?" Tomas ventured, and the furious nodding from Ishabeth confirmed her agreement. The Commissar nodded again. "Good... ah... well..."

He straightened himself up as Ishabeth picked up her staff and laspistol.

"You're fighting too, Psyker." He told her, his voice still a little shaky and definitely played up, and then pushed her towards the open door.

I realized I was being left behind; the memory of this room was already fading.

"H-hey! Wait for me!"

The sounds of war increased exponentially as the three of us leaped out into the battlefield below us. It was centered around the scar of the lander's impact, which started about four hundred meters 'in front' of us, widening out until it got to the crashed lander proper. The density of the lander's debris also increased steadily, starting with chunks of landing gear, a wheel, several plates of armor and an entire engine (one of four vector-thrust types).

For a vehicle that was supposed to have been able to transport an entire battalion's worth of troops, it certainly made a big hole when it had touched the ground.

Sure enough, there were Guardsmen taking cover in the middle of the debris strip, with Chaos forces bracketing them in from the left with various flavors of firepower. To their right was a wall of armored vehicles, mostly Chimeras escorted by Leman Russ battle-tanks, bringing whatever guns they could muster to bear on the advancing tide of cultists, supporting the Guardsmen below.

The Dark Gods' many followers were clad in a swirling mix of various colors – although each squad had its own distinct 'theme' - and decorated in impossible sigils that pained the eye to behold, and I swore that I could smell and taste an odd miasma in the air. Thundering cannon and crackling lasguns as the swarm of black-robed cultists rushed at the Imperial Guardsmen. They were dug in around the wreckage already, protecting themselves with the shattered hull of the lander and its broken engines.

All this was taken in as Ishabeth was dropping out of the lander's troop cabin.

Apparently, the lander had crashed onto the side of a cliff, and it was a good ten-foot slide down to the bottom.

Drawing his hell-pistol, Tomas calmly snapped off a few rounds as he slid along the side of the destroyed ramp, twisting as the return fire scorched the deck-plating he had been on.

Ishabeth was also making her own way down, although it was an action that looked more like a rough tumble and roll down the slope than anything else, landing in a battered heap at the bottom, behind a disabled Chimera APC.

Me? I simply hit the ground. Splat-roll-owowow kind of landing.

A las-bolt melted a hole in a twisted chunk of airframe, and I kept my head down. No telling if these memories would hurt or not.

Picking myself up, I found myself staring into bright green eyes.

"Ishabeth!"

The memory slowed as Ishabeth turned to me, and suddenly her cheeks flared red.

"Uh... Michael? Did you just get here or... you saw, didn't you?" She asked. The confused Sanctionite was on all fours, splayed out like a spider as she inched her way across the ground to join me under the cover of a thick piece of lander.

Freshly stored inside of my head, the Commissar and the Sanctionite's first meeting flashed through my vision. It took me a brief heartbeat to realize that Ishabeth was the one accessing those memories.

Her cheeks burned brighter, before she turned away to check over the lander piece, at her younger self.

Commissar Tomas had dragged the Sanctionite along to group together with Jeremiah, the ever-cheerful Confessor, as he swung a chainsword that was nearly as large as he was around to cut down a wayward cultist.

"Well, I guess you know how we met, then." She shrugged, holding out her hand. A las-pistol appeared, sitting on the palm. There was a flickering of fingers, and the boxy green weapon twisted about until it was held firmly in her left hand, with the staff cradled in her right.

Turning to me, Ishabeth frowned.

"Aren't you going to create a weapon?" She asked.

I blinked, then understood. "Uh... I can?"

"Wait... you aren't trained, are you?" Ishabeth frowned, and nodded at me. "Outside of your own mindscape, you can still create objects. Its harder, and takes more concentration, but its possible. Try it."

Closing my eyes, I focused on the outline of a lasgun. At the very least, I'd need a weapon that was effective around here. A fire extinguisher probably wouldn't be enough this time around.

A shake of the head, her eyes flickered away, into the distance. "You'll need a real weapon, Michael."

The lasgun was wrenched out of my hands, and pointed into the distance. Ishabeth depressed the firing stud. Noting happened.

"Not working. You don't know the insides enough." She explained to me, tossing the weapon away.

"Y-yeah..."

"How lucky..." She sighed, relief and sadness mixing in her voice. The memories of her stay inside of a Black Ship again flickered by, and I jumped as – for a heartbeat – a massive black-grey vessel appeared in the sky, then disappeared again.

Ishabeth closed her eyes, briefly, and then tossed a rod at me.

Cold metal pressed against my palms. This thing was heavy.

"Gah!"

Fumbling the massive club, I looked at it as someone opened up with a heavy bolter. It looked like a bizarre fusion between baseball bat, medieval mace, and lightsaber handle. Staring at the odd weapon, I hefted it and experimentally swung it around.

Striking against the hull, there was a crackle of yellow-gold lightning across its 'hitting' end and suddenly a chunk of orbital descent shielding was gone.

"Power maul." Was the Sanctionite's explanation. "It should be functionally similar to a club. Not very hard to operate. Use it well, Michael."

Reaching out, she tapped the little flipper-trigger that I had been pressing down on.

"Activation switch." Ishabeth instructed, "This is the power adjuster." Continuing, the psyker showed me the various buttons and dials to adjust the power and intensity of the power field that would envelop the top two-thirds of the weapon at the flick of a switch.

Nodding, we both flinched as a las-bolt splashed off our little corner of protection.

A shout distracted us from my shiny new weapon.

"Incoming! Cultists are charging down the slope, Commissar!"

Tomas grunted, and rose, snapping off a few shots with his heavy hell-pistol, the lances of bright red light accompanied by the clunking cycling of the heat exchangers reminding me of an old steam engine, and then ducked back down behind the makeshift redoubt of lander parts and recently filled sandbags. Cultists briefly weathered the strobing hell-pistol, and then stood up to return the fire.

But as they rose, the air crackled with lasfire from the main body of guardsmen twenty meters down the line, who picked off the cultists as they popped up to snipe at the Commissar. One man rose, his lasgun fitting snugly in his hands, as he pumped shot after shot at rock'n'roll speeds, a wild grin on his face.

"Haha! DIE YOU HERETICAL SC-"

A bolt-round landed on his neck, and the subsequent explosion removed the zealous Guardsman's head.

Jeremiah brought his chain-claymore ('sword' did not do the massive weapon justice) up in a rising slash, bisecting a charging cultist. As the two halves separated in a shower of hot blood, Jeremiah shouted advice to the surviving Guardsmen.

"Stagger your fire! Do not stay up for too long! Move around a little bit, you lot are not some Emperor-forsaken target dummies for recruits to shoot at! If they get close, do not try to fix bayonets! They taught you how to use your lasgun, didn't they! Oh, by the Golden Throne, boy, are you seriously stupid or something? Stop standing around like an idiot, because people who sit still tend to be very dead if they don't hurry up and mo~"

There was a brief spwock sound, like a wooden rod slapping against a slab of meat, a few cries of alarm and calls for medical attention, and a sigh from Jeremiah as he countermanded the attention of the medic elsewhere.

"Too late. Anyone else want to stand around like they have plascrete shoes on?"

Everyone began shuffling about, firing from different places as Jeremiah used his chain-claymore to stab firing ports into the wreckage around him.

"TAAAANK! Two Predator Annihilator pattern tanks, coming over the ridge!"

There were a total of eight shots, each one the thick blue lances of fire and light that was a lascannon's staple, and each of those shots connected with a vehicle. Some splashed off the thick frontal armor, but in all there were few survivors indeed.

Leman Russes exploded, Chimeras were wrecked and Guardsmen who were unfortunate enough to be in the way were evaporated by the intense heat of the lascannon's firepower.

Behind their barricade, the younger Ishabeth and her companions crouched down low beside a heat-shielded section of hull.

"Well, looks like tank-hunting time." Jeremiah chuckled, checking the power supply for his Eviscrator.

Tomas nodded to the affirmative, and turned over his shoulder.

"Sergeant! Pass me some krak grenades. The ones on your left... no, your other left! Up two grenades, and your other left one. Yes, those."

Two of the heavy grenades were passed along to the impatient Commissar. Turning to Ishabeth, he talked to her as he slipped the krak grenades into his heavy longcoat.

"Alright, so Jeremiah and I are going to do some tank-hunting. You stay put and watch how its done. Take a few shots with that las-pistol of yours, see if you can hit anyone around it while you're waiting."

He turned back to the Confessor. "Jeremiah. Ready?"

The answer was a nod, and the enthusiastic revving of an Eviscerator.

A pair of surviving battle-tanks fired at the Predator, and the last shot managed to burst the side of the tank open, exposing the crew inside.

Pivoting on the spot with surprising speed, the Predator Annihilator turned and fired back with its remaining two weapon mounts, destroying one Imperial tank.

The memory of Ishabeth screamed as the real one clutched at her ears, trying not to listen to the echoes of death and destruction as men burned and died. She was crouched on the ground now, cradling herself as I looked around. We couldn't get hurt in this space, right? These were just memories... bad memories, sure, but...

Rushing the low wall that had been built up over the last few seconds, a Predator was steadily shooting off its lascannon as the lasguns and bolters brought to bear on it simply bounced off or exploded harmlessly on the scab-red armor.

"Fire at its vision slits! Single shots, and don't forget about the infantry! COMMISSAR, SERGEANT! WITH ME!"

Grinning fiercely, the Confessor leaped up with his Eviscerator (I had learned that it had been nicknamed 'Open Says Me' by several Guardsmen from the Catachan regiments) in his hands, the power-fist equipped Tomas covering him as the Sergeant primed a large grenade – a Krak grenade, if memory served – and passed spares to the men that had followed them over the top of their position.

The half-dozen throats started the battlecry that soon rose up the lines.

"FOR THE EMPEROR! CHAA-AARGE!"

Already, two troopers were down as the lascannon lanced through the small group, passing between them and incinerating both from the heat left behind. Tomas danced off to the left as a lascannon shot passed by a meter or so, his power fist shielding his face from the heat of the passing laser weapon.

The Sergeant hurled a krak grenade at the open gash on the side of the first Predator, followed by a trio lobbed by the Guardsmen that followed behind him. There was a deafening crack as the grenades detonated, spraying metal parts and pieces of crew around.

It was then that I saw why they called them krak grenades. The Imperials have an excellent grasp at the obvious, don't they?

Whooping in triumph, the Sergeant and the remains of his squad never saw the second Predator taking aim and vaporize their bodies with a pair of shots.

The sponson mounted lascannon swiveled around to track Tomas, locking on to the black-coated Commissar. Charging up, I could see the shot that would lance through his chest.

A grinding crunch struck the side of the tank before the lascannon could fire, and its source was obvious; Jeremiah, with his sword plunging down from above, having driven his Eviscerator into whatever bits helped the functioning of the lascannon. With a sluggish whine, the weapon fell silent.

Shifting his grip, thumbing the safety-catch and re-activating the weapon, Jeremiah gave the weapon a tug. It pulled itself out, and leaped into the air from its own momentum. Grinning, the Confessor brought the weapon down on the turret's top hatch as lasfire heated up the air around him. He looked up and shouted for counter-fire to be directed in the towards the attackers as he danced back and forth, still trying to bash through the heavy hatch that separated him from the destruction of the Predator.

Tomas, having caught up with the Confessor, danced toe-to-toe with its tracks as he pounded its sensor arrays to dust with the power fist. In a movement reminiscent of plucking a delicate flower from its roots, the Commissar snapped the antennae from the back, and then in a completely unrelated movement punched a hole in a vision slit, ripping a hole large enough to fit a volleyball through, and then shot the shocked driver in the face. Repeatedlly. Then punched the crewman that was sitting beside him with the power-fist.

"OPEN SAYS A ME!" Jeremiah roared, again plunging his anti-tank chainsaw weapon into the Predator, this time into the back of the turret. Oil and coolant burst out like a monster's bloody wound, and splashed across the wizened man's robes.

Cackling, he twisted and pushed, and soon enough the turret gunner's blood joined the cocktail of liquids coming out as the Eviscerator's many teeth continued to spin and dig out the insides of the Chaos minion.

A lasbolt skipped off the Confessor's pauldron, and he swore as more joined it.

Ducking down, he pulled out the massive weapon, and turned to Tomas.

"You got krak!"

The requested grenade was thrown up to him.

Ripping the pin out with his spare hand, Jeremiah posted it into the hole he had made, and then jumped off join Tomas.

Confessor and Commissar evacuated at a gentle trot, back to their lines with Tomas firing over his shoulder along the way, managing to kneecap a crazed cultist as she threw herself at them. A swift kick from the passing Confessor broke her neck and finished the job.

Skidding down, even from here, I could hear the words he spoke to the young Sanctionite:

"Well, that's how tank-hunting works."

With a smile and a chuckle, the krak grenades detonated in a spectacular fashion.

Ishabeth and I stared in awe as the Predator's turret cartwheeled through the air, a mass of twisted metal and a curiously smiley-face-shaped series of holes on the top of the

That's when the stray las-bolt struck the plating inches away from my face.

Splashing off the ceramic-based heat shielding, the las-bolt of course had no way of penetrating the heavy barricade, but instead I was treated to a bright starburst in my eye, as well as the feeling of my face being sunburned while my feet were still rather cold.

"Argh! Fucking hell..." Clutching at my face, I fell backwards, confused as Ishabeth swore.

It wasn't like you could get hurt by a memory, right?

There was another sound, out there somewhere, and Ishabeth yelped.

"Oooooh, but you can! And hurt you will, insect."

Why do you people like turning up behind me, huh!

Quickly tightening my grip on the power maul, I swung around clockwise with it blazing at full-charge.

Something flickered to my right, and suddenly a jarring sensation went up my arm. The Sorcerer's staff had intercepted my strike.

"Oh, has the insect found a proper weapon at last?" The Sorcerer chucked.

"Indeed, Lord Michael has." Ishabeth coughed, twisting about in his grip. She was being held by the forearm, dangling as he lifted her up high, and though the position was no doubt painful, she wasn't showing anything but grim determination.

A ball of Warp-energy sprang up from her hand, and she slapped it onto the Chaos Sorcerer's face.

Bright lights flickered inside the orb of warp-energy, effectively blinding him as she began wrenching at his hand.

Rising, I came up from his right, and the power maul swung across in a top left to bottom right slash.

This time, the maul struck the Sorcerer in the back of the hand. Thumbing a control stud, I set off the stored discharge of the power field, its energies crackling across the ancient armor's 'vambraces'.

A mask of pain was seen just before he hurled Ishabeth into me with a growl of anger. I braced for impact.

She hit me low in the ribs, as if tackling me, and we both fell to the ground. Panicking and unwilling to hurt her with the power maul, I flipped the switch to deactivate the power maul, and pushed the psyker off me.

"Weak! So Warp-damned weak!" The Sorcerer spat, hurling a spear of warp-lightning. "But you had a chance, an opportunity to become strong! All you had to do was simply bow before CHAOS! But NO! You had to blaspheme against the Dark Gods! NOW BEHOLD! The power that could have been yours, insect!"

Gathering power in his hands, the Chaos Sorcerer lashed out with another lightning strike.

We both hurled ourselves out of the way, in time to see the wet dirt on the ground turn to ash and steam from the power of the bolt.

Ishabeth was next, his bolt pistol rising up to pepper the ground around her as the young psyker sprinted for cover. I rushed up, only to receive an elbow in my gut as the Sorcerer preempted my attack.

"FOOLS!" He roared, whirling around to press the corrupted barrel of the bolt-pistol to my forehead. "You think to defeat me with such cheap attacks! I have been around for far too long to fall for such tricks!"

I smiled.

A Leman Russ battle-tank swept by, floating two feet off the ground. The Sorcerer took the brunt of the blow, gargling incoherently as he was thrown to the side, bouncing off a nearby heat shield and up into the air.

"DROP MORE ON HIM!" I roared, and sure enough Ishabeth dropped the heavy battle tank onto the Sorcerer.

Rising up, my voice continued to encourage her. "Don't stop!"

More memory-shaped vehicles rose up and crashed back down onto the first, thundering impacts that shook the ground.

I realized it then: Holy shit. Ishabeth was... strong. I never imagined her capable of this level of destruction...

Five minutes, ten Chimeras, three Leman Russes, the two destroyed Predators and countless pieces of debris later, we both stood side by side and stared at the massive pile that Ishabeth had created.

"Are you usually this powerful?" I asked her, edging away from the Sanctioned Psyker. She was slightly out of breath, but seemed otherwise okay. Looking up at me, the Sanctionite shook her head.

"Not usually... I have less control when Outside. Less powerful, too." She admitted, cracking her knuckles. "But this is what I strive for." Knuckles resting on her hips, Ishabeth allowed herself a genuine smile as she looked upon the destruction she had wrought.

Someone started clapping. "Impressive, most impressive, young witch. The Warp must be strong with this one."

We both whirled around, and I did an inwards groan. Ishabeth's breath caught in her throat. The Sorcerer was standing there, not a(n additional) scratch on his ancient power armor, all his decorations and spiky bits still in place as he clapped to Ishabeth's confusion.

I pointed a finger at him.

"What the fuck! Are you some kind of giant armored ninja now or something!"

The Sorcerer paused, and cocked his head to one side.

"Ninja? What is a ninja?"

I sighed, and beckoned him over.

"Come here, I'll explain it to you."

Quickly, the distance between us was crossed.

Again I used the 'come hither' gesture of crooking my finger, and the Sorcerer bent down to meet eye-to-eye, his face level with mine.

I brought the Power Maul down on his head, which gave out a satisfying 'crack' as heavy metal met ancient skull. I stepped back and then lunged for a second blow that slapped his face around.

The Sorcerer glowered at me. I smiled grimly as the power maul whipped around a third time.

Seriously, though, I hadn't expected it to hit. The Chaos Marine's surprisingly nimble feet allowed him to leap back a good six feet, and as he landed, balls of dark warp-energy had already begun forming around him. He snarled at me, not for the injuries I no doubt had inflicted onto his face, but the fact that a servant of Tzeentch had been tricked twice.

I threw myself to the ground before him, and then Ishabeth re-started her tank assault with a Chimera passing just inches above me.

There was a roar of defiance, and the APC was cut in two by the bladed end of the Sorcerer's staff.

He stretched out his hand, face set in a grimace of anger, and shouted out to his Dark Gods as he sent the dark energy balls at us in a six-part barrage of manifested malevolence. I scrambled up to my feet, and leapt up as a flat panel hurtled towards me, passing underneath me and tumbling through the air, intercepting a pair of the balls. I hit the ground and rolled as another panel passed overhead, absorbing three more of the attacks.

The last one struck my left arm.

O-

My hand instantly went from slightly cold and fine to burning hot and wrapped in pain. I screamed, with my hand feeling like it was wrapped in hot coals as my mind also began to throb from its own wounds. The pain was spreading now, and I was dimly aware of Ishabeth's fight against the Sorcerer; she had been forced into the defensive, slapping away what strikes that she could and avoiding almost everything else. I closed my eyes.

Dammit. Not now. Not yet. Can't die without...

What? Without... saying goodbye.

Yeah. That's right. Have to say goodbye.

To who? To who indeed... to... Zara. Yes, a good objective. Zara.

I still need to punch her Farseer aspect in the face for this.

There was a faint chuckle, and the feeling of someone kissing my shoulder. The fires that wreathed my arm began to abate, as if fleeing the gentle warmth that was starting to reclaim my mind.

The Sorcerer had Ishabeth by the neck now. The fight between the Chaos sorcerer with millennial of experience and the (at most) thirty year old Sanctioned Psyker Ishabeth had lasted about as long as one would expect.

"Now, little witch, I shall offer this only once more. Bow down before Chaos, or I'll feed your soul to Slaneesh's slavemasters. They'll enjoy their new... what was that word the traitor used? Ah... yes, that was it: plaything. Bow down or die, witch."

I ramped myself off a discarded Chimera, and tapped him on the shoulder with my feet, the power maul in my hand and already crackling with energy as I thumbed the control dial from 'Max' to 'Overcharge'.

With the advantage firmly on my side, I couldn't resist: "I pick 'die'. But I won't rush. You first, because its age before beauty, right?"

Then I brought the power maul around, caving in his nose with it, and then the electrical discharge scorched the pale skin black. Now for Ishabeth. Flicking off the discharge setting in favor of a constant stream, I jumped off the Sorcerer's shoulder – even as he fell backwards – and brought the maul down on his wrist.

This time, the maul simply passed through, vaporizing the thin armor around the wrist.

It also turns out the guy had a bionic hand.

Ishabeth landed on the ground hard, and instantly was back into the fight; I expected nothing less of the Cadian 918th's top psyker.

Debris seemed to become magnetized, all rushing towards the only opposite pole; the Sorcerer. His limbs became trapped as small slivers of metal lodged themselves inside of joints. The Sorcerer was thrown about as Ishabeth slapped more and more scrap onto him, before pressing all of them in, compressing the entire ball of scrap into an ever-shrinking sphere.

It was still about the size of an oversized van when Ishabeth punched the air in front of her, a blast of power throwing debris everywhere as I clung to the dirt.

Holy shiiiiiiiiit!

The van-sized ball of junk and Chaos Marine was hurled into the sky, and Ishabeth fell to the dirt, breathing heavily.

"Okay... Litany of Exorcism." The Sanctionite whispered, gathering even more power than before.

"For He is my shield, He is my sword,

He keeps me from the unending horde

Demons and monsters, great and small.

Before His holy might, begone, you all!"

Golden light formed into an all-too familiar shield as Ishabeth pulled back, ready to throw it.

"BY THE EMPEROR'S NAME!"

"Ow... dammit."

It was dark again.

Oh bloody hell. I was turning into an Imperial Artillery Observer.

Standing 'up', my eyes slowly adjusting to the sudden absence of light, I stumbled forward.

Questions ran through my head. Where was I? Another 'in-between' space? Where was everyone else? Ishabeth? The Sorcerer?

Weapon… I needed a weapon. Where was that power maul?

Making my way forward, I stepped on something cylindrical and lost my balance. Staggering about on the spot, I fell down to my knees and crouched down low. Hands searching, I felt the now familiar outline of the power maul.

Excellent. Now all I needed was some light.

A quick thought flashed through my head, squelching the desire for light. No. That would be dangerous. In this darkness, having a light would mark me out instantly to anything else that might have been around.

Straining my ears, I closed my eyes and let my senses reach out.

"Emperor-forsaken Daemon!"

A bright flare of white-blue light wrapped around the pointy end of a Nemesis Force Weapon.

Strong, deep and full of righteous fury, a voice boomed out across the void.

"WE ARE THE HAMMER!

WE ARE THE HATE!
WE ARE THE EMPEROR'S LIGHT!"

The three Grey Knights were surrounded. Daemons of every flavor and color were snapping at their bright grey armor. But for every snarl, for every slash of clawed hands or every whip of tentacled limbs there was a returning strike; a cough of a bolt-gun, a flash of a brightly lit Force Weapon, an armor-enhanced punt that would send another Daemon howling into the darkness.

"HAMMER OF THE ORDO MALLEUS

ADEPTUS ASTARTES PSYKANA!
GREY KNIGHTS OF THE EMPEROR!"

I recognized the three figures: Grey Knights that I had been passingly introduced to when I visited Justicar Amadeus. They were three of the five members of the 'spearhead' group. Brother Porthos, Brother Aramis and Brother Athos were usually the third, fourth and fifth into battle at the heels of Justicar Amadeus and Silverite (Actually, Silverite wasn't art of the spearhead group, but usually got to battle first anyway, with Justicar Amadeus close behind).

"WE ARE THE HAMMER!
WE ARE THE HATE!
WE ARE THE END OF DAEMONKIND!"

That was about when I realized that one of the Grey Knights was pointing his Psycannon at my face.