Editing Exterminatus High (section)

==Chapter Two==
Ten minutes until the big game. The scrumball championships. Zane was more animated now, Grent was shoving everything that moved and punching grav-lockers, Nayren was engaging in some light calisthenics. Zane was giving a pep speech to the nine team members, six of which were Stormtrooper cadets and looked to Zane with a respect that they would give a Commissar cadet:
“Two years in a row we’ve beaten these bitches, who spend all day prayin’ and none trainin’. Are you the guys who are going to let them get one up on us?”
An assortment of too-loud responses greeted him, a few along the lines of “FUCK YEAH”, at least one “the Emperor is on OUR side today!”, all punctuated by the sound of Grent putting his foot through a glass shower screen.
“We all know the Sisters of Battle are tough. They sure think so. But we’re Stormtroopers and Commissars, we do the REAL work of the Imperium, we don’t spend all day praying and hoping, our job will be to fight and die! We do the dirty work, we’re tougher than they are, so get out there and fucking PROVE IT!”
As Nayren continued to stretch, he wondered how Kyandra and her team was preparing for the game.

In the female prep room, the mood was more serene. A few of the sisters simply knelt in silent meditation, preparing themselves for eighty minutes of supreme exertion. Cyrene led some more sisters in a group chant that reminded Kyandra of a repetitive Khornate battlecry they had studied. Kyandra sniffed and began jogging up and down on the spot as Cyrene and her fellows finished the chant, and began engaging in some sort of warm-up themselves. Cyrene spoke to Kyandra:
“Are you ready for this?”
“Never been more ready”
“Remember- they’re stronger than we are, but not by much. We need to be faster, more agile, and most importantly, more ferocious.” Kyandra nodded, and Cyrene raised her voice so everyone in the room could hear it.
“You hear that Sisters? We’re going to hurt them, and we’re going to win!”
The Sister cadets replied with much gusto.

The game was on.

The crowd was huge, and wild. On championship day, the crowds were almost completely split up between male and female, each side furiously competitive against the other. Many years ago it had been decided that male and female competition encourage the strongest competition the Schola had ever seen, and competition was good for the cadets. While there were initial concerns that pitting men vs women in physical combat and sports would be a one-sided fight, the very first scrumball game that year proved it completely wrong. The Sister-Superiors were easily as tough as any Commissar-lecturer or Stormtrooper instructor, and made remarkably tough individuals out of their female cadets.

The stadium inside the Schola was also quite large, one hundred meters long and forty meters wide, and surrounded by grandstands that could easily hold thousands of spectators. Thousands of spectators were there, with almost everybody in the Schola to watch the climactic event of the sporting year. Sister Superiors sat in the front rows across from Commissars and Stormtroopers, but both male and female shared the judging bench. They were, however, arguing with some animation. The Emperor’s chosen were, surprisingly to regular civilians that knew anything of the Schola’s training, passionate about their sports.

When both teams took the field, the screaming and barracking reached fever pitch. The Commissar and Stormtrooper cadets were wearing tight-fitting black bodysuits with shoulder-pads, helmets and knee guards, while the Sister’s were similarly equipped but wearing white. The players took their positions on the flexible-wooden field, with only one player waiting in reserve. This particular variant of scrumball was supremely demanding on the players: 80 minutes with little rest. 

Zane walked forward to the middle of the field, and Cyrene did likewise. It was customary for the captains of each team to grasp hands before the battle between the two teams. The two marched right up to one another so that their faces were almost touching, and glared at each other. Zane squeezed her hand as hard as he could, and Cyrene squeezed back. Neither showed any discomfort, and after a few moments they walked backwards to their place in the team, eying each other the whole time.

The crowd was making a lot of noise, and Nayren looked to his side and caught Grent’s eye. The big man grinned reassuringly, said: “Gonna mess them up!”, and gave a powerful thumbs-up. Nayren couldn’t help but laugh. The Sisters wouldn’t know what hit them.

Kyandra looked to Cyrene, who nodded back at her. The Sisters had been training in secret to negate the disadvantage of their lesser size, and two particular women on their team had a single target: the massive man on the other team. Expert tacklers by this point and fully capable of hurting even a large man, the two would not miss any opportunity to damage the heavy-hitter of their opponent’s team. Kyandra turned her eyes back to her opponents, and Nayren caught her eye. He looked away quickly and she blushed. Mindgames. She’d definitely have to hurt him.

The overseer, one of the Commissar-lecturers, raised his arm, which contained a small horn that could be set to make either a quiet hoot or an ungodly ground-breaking bellow. He pressed the activation stud, and the horn boomed. The game had started.

Zane kicked the ball, about the size of two of Grent's fists, and Cyrene caught. Brilliant, he’d get to crush her early. In scrumball the players on both teams could tackle the opposing players at any time, and it was simply a case of keeping a hold of the ball. If it was dropped or it was intercepted (as happened most often), the other team got it. Zane grinned fiercely as he ran to intercept the Sister’s captain. If he broke her ribs this early in the gam-

Zane was blocked by a large, strong looking woman with short cropped blonde hair, and he charged forward and slammed his helmet into her chest without slowing even for a second. The impact, however jarred his neck and DID slow him down, and at full momentum Cyrene easily sent him sprawling to the flaw with a fist to the side of his helmet as she went by. Cyrene ducked and weaved, having to leap high into the air to avoid a vicious low tackle by a Stormtrooper, and was caught by a massive coat-hanger. Grent grinned and grabbed the ball of the air as Cyrene slammed heavily into the floor, the breath knocked completely out of her. The crowd screamed in excitement.

Grent charged forward, supporting players on either side as he mashed and mangled his way through Sisters attempting to stop the behemoth. Kyandra made a magnificent flying spear tackle that took out one of the two men supporting grent to the admiration of the crowd before being knocked sprawling through the air by Nayren’s shoulder. As Grent slammed aside another defender, the two Sisters whose job it was to nullify him struck. The hit with the force of two thunderbolts, his solar plexus and legs being targeted. Utilizing the energy-dispersal techniques they had been taught in unarmed-combat classes, the two Sisters channelled incredible kinetic force into Grent’s body, sending the man flying into the air on onto his back, the breath being knocked out of him. He was slow getting up, and he lost the ball.

Throwing across the field to Kyandra, one of the fastest players their team had, Zane moved to intercept. Kyandra almost avoided him, but Zane caught her with an outstretched and pulled her back through the air, slamming her to the ground. Cyrene charged into just as he finished putting Kyandra down and knocked him down, taking the ball. Quickly changing direction, Nayren did not have the momentum to stop her and she palmed him off. Before hitting the scoreline, however, a Commissar cadet took her legs out from under her, but she retained the ball. Climbing to her feet and handing over to a team-mate, the game continued.

Remarkably, when half-time came, nobody had scored besides one penalty shot for each side (Cyrene punching Zane in the head and initiating a brawl and Grent subsequently throwing two Sisters into the crowd, injuring a number of people). The crowd was absolutely wild with anticipation, and when the bruised and sweating but unbroken players took to the field once more, they played at least as fiercely as they had before. A brilliant feint by Zane and a last second pass to Grent, however, netted a single touchdown for the Stormtrooper/Commissar team twenty minutes before the end.

And then something remarkable happened. Manging to avoid Nygrum, Kyandra managed to make a run up half of the field unmolested before being tackled heavily by a Stormtrooper. A following Sister managed to stop the man from retrieving the ball and Cyrene picked it up as she sprinted past. She avoided Grent and both nearby defenders, and Zane ran as quickly as he could from his position on the line to take her head on. However, it looked as if Cyrene would be unstoppable.

Then the miracle occurred.

Cyrene’s eyes seemed to glow gold, which was bizarre enough in itself but not enough to give Zane pause. She began to slow down and lost her focus, however, as if she was seeing something nobody else was. A vision! A vision from the Empe-HURGH.

Zane had not missed the opportunity. As it was the dying seconds of the game there was no chance for the Sisters to win if he stopped Cyrene now, and to add insult to injury, he went in foot-first. He hit her in the groin, throwing her backwards over two meters, flying through the air and landing heavily on the ground. Zane roared his victory, ignoring the furious jeering from the female portion of the crowd, and threw the ball up in the air.
The look in Cyrene’s eyes was gone, and replaced by a grimace of pain. But she had seen something, and everybody needed to be alerted.

Death was coming. And she couldn’t get up.