I was sat here, not knowing what to write about when this happened. Many of my other ideas had become stale so my hands started writing about Emperor's Children. I got this far when I was curious about other people's opinions.
Should I carry on with this? Cheers.
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When one has set alight to a thousand worlds and stood laughing at the cries of the helpless as their limbs reach up against his greaves to plead for mercy, nothing much can shake him.
When one has set his own blade at the throats of those who were once his brothers and allowed their dumbstruck looks of confusion to be burnt into his consciousness forever, no oath mattered.
When one has pledged his very soul to an evil that lurked behind the veil and demanded pain for pleasure lest one face an eternity of damnation, all that ever mattered was surviving.
To survive was to hold onto one’s soul. To have one’s soul was to have power. To die was to forfeit one’s soul. To forfeit one’s soul was to face eternal evil and unimaginable abominations. To take the souls of other was to consign one’s own fate upon another. This, then, was what had stunned him. When he watched those who he had served with to satisfy the same Dark Prince fall into the icy maw of eternity he knew what fear was. Fear was his patron. Fear was knowing that those who would only seek to please their god would eventually suffer at his hand.
Fear was the thought of meeting Slaanesh as a soul without a body.
His helm thrashed back against the barren rocky plain, great black talons cutting grooves in his chest. He had felt his arm snap within its socket and lose grip of his Bolt Pistol. He had felt the cracking of his interlocking ribs as the beast smashed into him. He had struck the ground as Brother Gaunth’s blood decorated the air with thick black ribbons.
In this moment of hopelessness he met the gaze of who he believed would be his deliverer: horrific red eyes set within a shroud of midnight and bronze. Lightning arced across the Raptor’s armour seemingly louder to the Aspiring Champion’s acute senses than the sporadic revving of Chainblades and unholy cacophonies of bolter fire that beset them on all sides.
In what felt like his final moments the Raptor smashed his left foot down upon the Aspiring Champion’s wrist, cracking the armour along with the earth.
“You were warned, heretic! You were warned to leave the dark behind!” He screeched through his vox. If any cultists had survived the outbreak of fighting then they would have been deafened, but whether they found agony or ecstasy in it was a whole other question.
“The warp will take you!” His response was short and uncaring. Too much had been lost. He wanted to survive of course, but what was their for him if he did? The true warband had been depleted and nobody would know of his great victories.
The Raptor’s head twitched closer as he rose one great foot from the Champion’s chest and gripped around his head.
“Ave Dominus Nox-”
“Children of the Emperor!” He spat at the same time.
“Death to his foes.” The Raptor collapsed, blood and brain scattered across the ground. What filled the Aspiring Champion with dread was the voice that had finished the war-cry. That voice made him want to recoil into hell itself.
It was a voice that he had not heard for at least two hundred years.
“Lord Kulgran?”
“Vernoth Manaard.” The Terminator looked down upon his floored brother. Malice and hatred stood between them and, for a moment, Vernoth believed that the Chaos Lord was going to execute him personally.
He had no such luck.