Excidium Slaanesh

Chapter One - Memories 1

The Daemonettes dragged their limp captive through the twilight to the gigantic throne in the centre of the room. From the dais, looked down a god, in all its dark glory.
The captive grunted as she was thrown to the foot of the throne. The god laughed.
"Twenty thousand years since the Fall. The 41st millenium seems a long time ago, doesn't it, Lady Malys?" Slaanesh sneered, taunting his helpless captive.
"Yet the 51st brings new hope," the ancient Dark Eldar archon whispered, just loud enough so that her captors could hear. She was in no way broken. Everything was going to plan.
"Hope?!" roared the Chaos god. "There is none! The galaxy burns as we speak, and soon it shall be mine!"
Looking down, Malys remembered how it had gotten to this.

The warriors of Ultramar stormed over Commorragh, destroying everything in their path. The Dark Eldar fled from the might of the Space Marines and their leader - the new Chapter Master.
But one stayed.
"Aurelia Malys," the Chapter Master said, omitting her title as a slight. It didn't bother her.
"Chapter Master," she replied.
"I am here to avenge past insults!" he yelled, so the whole city could hear. "The soul of Calgar cries for vengeance, which I will only be too happy to provide!"
Malys laughed. "You'll die just like him. What makes you think I can't kill you... like I killed him?"
The Chapter Master visibly turned red. Malys smiled darkly - the last four thousand years had led to this moment. She must not fail.
Chanting, she raised her hands. The power from her crystal heart flowed through her body, ready to be released.
The Chapter Master backed away. "Pysker!" he yelled. "Get out of -"
A vast wave of psychic energy washed over Commorragh, slaying anyone and anything caught in its path. The few Dark Eldar still alive perished, albeit quickly and relatively painlessly.
And as the entire Ultramarines chapter was present too, every single one of them perished as well.
Lady Malys, newly revealed psyker, stood by as Slaanesh's minions dropped in, bearing her away to their dark master.

Memories 2

"I am speaking to you, cur," Slaanesh announced, breaking Malys out of her memory. "Will you not grace your god with a reply?"
Malys growled. "You are no god of mine..."
"Pfft," the god/goddess snorted. "All the members of your race answer to me in the end, even after twenty thousand years. Even Asdrubael Vect didn't escape death..."
The captive bit back a cry of anger.
"Oh," Slaanesh smiled, showing off her sharp teeth. "...soft subject?"
Once more, Malys' memory kicked in, this time taking her back six thousand years...

"I want answers," she hissed, grabbing Vect by the throat and thrusting him up against a wall. "Four and a half thousand years ago, you abandoned me, expelled me from your court. Now, just months ago, you took me back. Why?"
"All will be answered within the hour," the lord of Commorragh said cryptically.
Malys released him. "It had better be," she warned.
He opened the door to his quarters and walked in. Just as Malys was about to follow, Vect whirled on her, throwing an oject she had never seen before at her.
When it hit Malys, a weakness overtook her as she faded from view - becoming invisible. Soon, she was paralysed as well, but with a full view of the room... and its occupants.
"Ah, yet another rival archon?" Vect sighed, souding bored. The Dark Eldar opposite him chuckled.
"Didn't expect this one, did you?" the assassin said.
Now it was Vect's turn to chuckle. "I have been expecting this for many, many ages now. Almost hoping for it..."
"Then hope the poison kills you quickly!" the unknown Archon yelled, drawing and firing a splinter pistol as he did so.
Vect stood still, and let it hit him.
If she could have, Malys would have chased after the assassin and murdered him in an unimaginably painful way, but she was still paralysed. As it was, she had to watch helplessly as he leapt out the nearest window, laughing triumphantly.
The paralysis faded seconds after he had left. Cursing bad timing, she knelt down beside Vect. He was still alive... still breathing...
"Don't try and stop this death!" Vect murmured. "It is as planned!"
"How?!" Malys cried. "What damned game are you playing at now!"
"Let me tell you..." Vect said, then sat up to whisper into her ear.
The whole plan, and all it's intricacies, lain out to her in less than two minutes, along with further instructions. To meet the Harlequins.
"Take my place," he said to her, falling back. "Rule Commorragh... until it is time. Whatever personal vengeance you require, do it quickly. This is the reason."
Malys gripped his hand.
"You are what we were waiting for... you will be the death.. of She Who Thirsts."
Asdrubael Vect, master of Commorragh, died in the arms of the one person he had cared for.

Malys stood up. It had all led to this... she had never realised just how tired of life she was. A single tear dripped down her cheek, a tear for all the lives lost, for the heroes she had vanquished in this game of gods.
Slaanesh raised her hand. All the strength left Malys' limbs. She fell backwards, landing on the floor.
As the Lady's vision darkened, she saw what had to be the afterlife. Slaanesh would not take her.
And with a smile on her face, thus did Lady Malys die, harbinger of her killer's doom.





There is more. And yes, that plan will be explained.

You're taking it a little fast, but it's good. It's really actually interesting. I look forward to reading more.

Chapter Two

Slaanesh shook her head at the still corpse of Aurelia Malys. Did the fool really think she could stand up to a god?
Gesturing for her Daemonettes to remove the body from her presence, Slaanesh rose from her throne, taking on a new and terrible aspect as she did so.
Standing nearly seven metres tall, she was clad in intricate midnight-blue robing with murals of torture, pain and other forms of excess sewn in with black thread. The robe had been woven from the souls of hundreds of Eldar psykers from the time of the Fall. Long pure white hair hung from the god's head, pooling around her shoulders as she rose. An image of beauty, terror and everything in between, Slaanesh watched as her minions dragged the corpse of her elusive enemy away.
She frowned. Malys' soul had not come to her clutches. Something was wrong...
A burst of light erupted from the corpse, throwing the screeching Daemonettes back. Slowly, the light took form, until with another flare, it became... something.
Cegorach laughed. "Just... as... planned..." he smiled.
Slaanesh roared her fury at this insolent fool. How dare he enter her realm? What could he possibly hope to accomplish? Her fingernails grew to talons in anticipation of the bloodshed sure to follow.
Cegorach turned to Malys' corpse.
"Now is the time," he said.
The flash of light this time was bloodred. The howls of dying creatures filled the room.
"IMPOSSIBLE!!" Slaanesh cried as Khaine the Bloody-Handed took shape, whole once more.
"I. AM. REBORN!!" the god of war yelled, the psychic shockwave of the triumphant howl echoing across the skein. All over the galaxy, Eldar felt their war-masks tremble behind their minds.
Slaanesh attacked, slashing with her razor-sharp talons at the Bloody-Handed one. Cegorach retaliated before Khaine did, grabbing Slaanesh's hand and trapping it against the wall, as one by one the Eldar pantheon was reborn.
"How?" Slaanesh rasped, and it was Asuryan that answered.
"You were used as a pawn - outwitted by the Laughing God," he said. "Lady Malys was the last piece to fall into the puzzle."
"Explain," she snapped.
Cegorach smiled. "Oh, it all started ten thousand years ago. In the 41st millennium. You are familiar with the tales of Lady Malys' crystal heart?"
"Of course," Slaanesh growled.
"That heart was mine. It was a sort of gift..." the Laughing God chuckled. "Three thousand years later, I contacted Asdrubael Vect and... recruited him. He, of course, was unsure of what to do, so I explained."
Cegorach paused. "Just under a thousand years later, he found Malys and returned her to his court. A few months later, he arranged his own death so she could take his place as ruler of Commorragh and set into motion the next stage of the plan - the Harvesting of Souls, as I called it."
Slaanesh struggled to break free, but the Laughing God was too powerful. "Very well - I'll play along," intoned She Who Thirsts. "Explain the power spike."
He nodded. "Malys travelled all over the galaxy, taking the souls of heroes from everywhere around. I drew them into her heart, ready to be released. Marneus Calgar and Bjorn the Fell-Handed were but two she took in her crusade."
"When she had finished this task, it was time for the final stage of my grand plan. Tricking you into capturing her and bringing her here. When you foolishly killed her, believing it to be of your own design, the souls contained in the crystal heart were released, and acted as a magnet for the other souls you keep around here."
Slaanesh visibly paled. "And they joined together - and rebirthed -"
"The Eldar pantheon. Exactly."
The Chaos god struggled again, but was unable to break Cegorach's hold on her. She threw all her powers at him, but it still wasn't enough.
"I tire of this," Asuryan calmly intoned. "She knows what happened. Let us not keep this foul creature alive any longer. Khaine?"
The god of war nodded, raised the Wailing Doom, and struck.
This time, it would be Slaanesh who screamed for all eternity.