# Piercing Shadows



## VulkansNodosaurus (Dec 3, 2010)

_I wrote this short story several months ago to edit & submit to BL. I ended up not-satisfied-enough with how it turned out to do that, though, so here it is (in full)._

*Piercing Shadows*​
Even now, thirty-seven years later, Jedjin a’Hin felt unworthy.

The Space Marine- for he was that, a massive superhuman created with bionic and mechanical technologies whose recreation, if lost, would be impossible- rose up the stairs to the Last Sanctum warily. His mentor in the Chapter’s Librarium, Omreat o’Bel, an Epistolary and master of the psychic arts, walked ahead. Below, the incomprehensible Umbras emitted a shriek in unison, a single sound that would have hurt Jedjin’s ears had he been human. As it was, it was merely annoying.

But his dislike of alien sounds had nothing to do with the feeling of uncertainty he was surrounded with. The Precipice- the Fortress-Monastery that Jedjin, Omreat, and the rest of the Angels Vermillion Chapter lived and trained in- would never fall, and the Umbras were contained. It was his memories that haunted Jedjin- memories of almost failing his final tests, memories of using his psychic gift to survive the trials to enter the Angels Vermillion.

The memories were as dark as his mistakes had been deep. Though he entered the Angels Vermillion, directed to the Librarium for training in Warpcraft, he had come the closest to failing of any Angel in a hundred years. Those who had been any worse, and some who were better, had failed.

He should not be here.

But he was, a Codicier, soon to be an Epistolary. He was even now ascending to the Last Sanctum, the Chapter’s highest chamber of council, to meet with Romot e’Eskel himself- and it was far from the first time. The mistakes of the past were gone.

“Codicier a’Hin?”

“I am coming.”

“Do not dwell on the past, Codicier; we have plenty of problems in the present.”

a’Hin did his best to oblige. Indeed, that was not even difficult after he came into the Last Sanctum proper. Where the rest of the Precipice was almost undecorated, the Sanctums were covered in tapestries and letters. Everything that the Angels Vermillion created, or found worthy, found rest there. The beauty of the Last Sanctum was in its layered nature: from afar, the images resolved into a mosaic of the Emperor, whereas from close by each picture or poem was a work of art in itself.

Moreover, the room’s occupants were quite impressive as well. Captain Karem a’Alat sat in the principal chair. He had led the Seventh Company for only a few years, but since the promotion had greatly increased their prestige and success. Another seat was filled by Laq o’Resit, the diplomatic Veteran Sergeant that many prophesied as a potential successor to a’Alat. Still, most of the chairs were empty, including the largest.

“The Keeper of the Self has not yet come,” a’Alat announced.

Jedjin and Omreat took their seats. There was a minute of awkward pause, broken only by the pounding of heavy feet approaching the back doors.

“Do not worry,” o’Bel muttered, “the Ancient is coming.”

Indeed, the Ancient, the Keeper of the Self, Romot e’Eskel of the Angels Vermillion- that being (for he could hardly be called a man) slammed the door open a second later. He could have seemed to be a mere box on legs to a removed observer; but his crimson armor concealed a sarcophagus in which the remnants of his original body floated. They were preserved, and with it e’Eskel’s mind, now integrated with the armor’s machine spirit.

The Ancient was among the oldest of his kind. He had seen nine thousand Terran years pass, all spent in continuous activity. His mind would have long exploded with the sheer quantity of information he held if his symbiosis with the machine spirit had not been so perfect. He rarely went into battle, instead spending his time managing all matters of the Angels Vermillion and the rest of the planet.

He was seen as a demigod to the Angels Vermillion, almost as much as Sanguinius himself.

“Let us begin,” a’Alat said, “without formalities. I propose that the Umbra infestation should be dealt with by overwhelming force.”

“What force?” e’Eskel asked. It was a normal voice for the Ancient, but to the rest of the room it was deafening.

“Don’t we have a last-resort force for such emergencies in the dungeons?”

Jedjin stirred, suddenly uncomfortable. What the Captain was proposing was certainly a measure of last resort. The Death Company, composed of those brothers that had succumbed to the weakness inside their gene-seed, would be a powerful force on the battlefield. They were a juggernaut, unstoppable, crushing everything in their path; they were also uncontrollable, little more than beasts in power armor.

Perhaps a deeper reason for the Death Company’s disuse was its symbolism. It served as a potent reminder that under the armor and the grafts, Space Marines were far from flawless.

“I would support this plan.” Omreat’s voice was plain and measured, concealing no hidden meaning. “As Brother-Captain a’Alat has reminded us time and time again, we do not have enough men to defeat the Umbras conventionally.”

“The destruction the Death Company would wreak shall be directed at the foul shadows, and our walls will stand unhurt,” e’Eskel rumbled.

“Then let us begin. I will release them.”

“Wait.”

The new voice was Jedjin’s own, and he was slightly surprised by its certainty- born from experience.

“The Umbras should be weak against an attack of the mind. If we destroy them psychically, like they themselves are psychic…”

“The Librarians will assist the Death Company,” Romot e’Eskel continued, “but it will be my duty, not the Brother-Captain’s, to unleash them. Their madness is not dangerous to us, but only to our foes and themselves; yet dealing with them is not simple. I am more experienced than the Captain by far; I will release the Death upon our foes.”

As the Ancient came to a close, an Umbra shriek that had been drowned out by his mighty voice became audible once more, before fading to nothing.

“Will there be any more suggestions?” the Captain asked, close to snapping. For all his brilliance and strength, Karem a’Alat was proud, and he did not listen to others easily. The Keeper was far above him, of course, but the Librarians were not.

“No,” Jedjin concluded, “Brother-Captain. Let us begin, then, at last.”

* * *​ 
There was much about their current situation that Omreat regretted; but the Epistolary’s greatest dissatisfaction did not come from the bitterness that lay under Karem a’Alat’s passive visage, nor did it stem from the wave of fury the Death Company were about to trigger on the battlefield. It was crafted from the black spheres that hovered in a wide circle, surrounding the Pinnacle.

When the first Angels Vermillion had landed at the Precipice, ten thousand years ago, the Pinnacle was said to have always existed. It was legendary for its texture and size; if not for those two factors, it could have been natural, or at least technological in origin. But a kilometer-tall spire that was only a meter in diameter could not rise out of the ground from tectonic processes. The technological possibility was much harder to dismiss, and in a certain sense it was probably true; but the spire was solid, and the material from which it was built felt silky and threaded, and in some places was intangible altogether. From the outside, the Pinnacle looked metallic, and instruments disagreed on what was inside.

The precise nature of the Pinnacle was still unknown, though it was certainly a Warp artifact of some sort; but it was certified to be untainted by the monstrous energies of Chaos, and had survived thirty-seven desperate attempts at destruction, so the Space Marines had decided to let it be.

Now, it seemed that the Pinnacle was the center of the Umbra infestation. Perhaps it had to do with the tower’s psychic activity. It would be ideal to destroy the Pinnacle completely; but without that option, the Librarians would simply kill every xeno.

“Can we begin this final stage?”

“Patience,” o’Bel said to the Codicier, “patience. Soon we’ll have the support we need.”

In unison with the words, a cry of fury echoed to the left of the Librarians. The Death Company was coming.

They emerged into the plaza a moment later, running from one of the arches that surrounded the central arena. These arches stood in a semicircle around the Pinnacle; to the tower’s back a short wall was erected, and to the wall’s other side a cliff fell down kilometers. In one of them, Omreat was even now observing the gathering, but currently the Umbras were too many to be safely combated.

The Death Company knew no such concept as safety, of course. They rushed into the battle in their ancient power armor, painted black but often spotted with grey. Their existence was a horrible one; those that still had patches of sanity often let themselves be killed rather than face an eternity of imprisonment. But as repellent as it was, the Death Company of the Angels Vermillion was a powerful force.

Other Chapters dealt with the Flaw differently. Some, the Blood Angels among them, 
allowed the Death Company to be a relatively normal front line. Others revered the fallen as incarnations of the Emperor. The vast majority of the Imperium’s thousand Chapters did not suffer from the Flaw at all, for their Primarch-progenitor was not Sanguinius.

But the Angels Vermillion were not those Chapters, and at this moment, watching disorganized but proud ranks charge into battle, Omreat was almost glad of it.

“Hit them!”

There was no time to see what Jedjin was doing. All of Omreat’s energy was focused on containing and channeling his psychic gifts. Many considered them witchery, but the Angels Vermillion knew well that psykers, though more susceptible than “normals” to being corrupted, possessed too much power to be ignored.

Omreat shot a beam of light into one of the xenos. A hole appeared, and the alien collapsed. A second shot was less lucky, for Omreat’s concentration had been damaged by the first’s success; it whistled into one of the Death Company brothers’ legs. The man grunted, and Omreat recognized with a start that he knew this one. His blond hair and twisted nose identified him as Xarb o’Sel, once Omreat’s best friend.

Xarb had fallen to the Black Rage in battle against the warriors of Chaos. The corrupted Black Legion, once the Sons of Horus- Horus the Arch-Traitor, Horus the killer of Sanguinius- was besieging the Ice World of Kewiren IV for some dark relic hidden beneath. When fighting the very foe that had slain one’s father, anger was inevitable; and Xarb’s had been too strong.

Xarb stuck a sword into another of the xenos, not noticing the injury or even Omreat.

He was the lucky one.

Jedjin was trying to clear away the shadows with light as well, but Omreat saw that the Codicier was taking a more direct approach, slicing the shadow-weapons of the Umbra to dust. It was easy to get lost in the interplay of reflection and refraction, but aiming for the shadows alleviated the symptom, not the cause. The xenos had to be killed personally- every one of them.

“Die, traitor!” Xarb screamed.

The Death Company assented, either with battle-cries of their own or with howls.

The whirlwind of battle sped up, and Jedjin was separated from Omreat. The Umbras rushed onto the Epistolary, cloaking him in their filth; he kept them away with jabs of fire and heat. The shadows were all around now, and though now and then a blast from Jedjin would light up the darkness, overall the midday arena seemed to be in twilight.

The bleak sun, far above, seemed to show itself through a haze, and its light- reddened by the encounter- streamed onto the xenos. Xarb charged at one of the biggest spheres, his chainsword trying to bisect it; but a quick bite from a shadow swallowed the sword, which fell out of the Marine’s hand. Nevertheless, the Angels Vermillion were winning. Not a single Astarte had been killed so far, and the enemy was greatly depleted.

“Victory will be ours!” Jedjin screamed, clearly coming to the same realization. The Codicier was by now swirling with his staff in the center of the arena, wielding levels of power that were in all honesty unsafe; in the midst of war, though, his pushing his limits had gone unnoticed.

“Raise your psychic shields! Do not let the power overwhelm you!”

Jedjin obeyed, though he barely had to anymore. A ring of shadow tightened around him, but it was still being kept back. Pointing towards one of the offending Umbras, Omreat emitted a single, brief pulse of light from his index finger; the lance struck one of the Umbras precisely. Sensing their destruction, the aliens pulled back towards the Pinnacle. It would not save them; but it would succeed in prolonging their suffering.

“Do not let even one escape!” Omreat screamed, and ran after the Umbras.

* * *​
Xarb gazed at the face of Horus- of the traitor, of the one who had been his brother.

The Arch-Heretic was still chewing Xarb’s chainsword, and the irritating sounds that his colliding lips created annoyed Xarb even further.

“I will not join you!” he screamed.

Horus grinned.

“You have no choice.”

He swung his mace forwards, a spear of void that struck Xarb’s heart. A sinking feeling enveloped him, one not unlike the sensation of falling; but there would be no bottom, and his heart was accelerating faster and faster.

“So this is it, then? My father will come.”

“And I will kill him. But you, Sanguinius... you can yet redeem yourself. Have you not seen the change in our father? Have you not seen-”

“I have not!”

Roaring his defiance, Xarb stood up once more, barely clambering to his feet. With his gauntlets, he grabbed the traitor and began to choke. Horus only laughed and struck once more with the mace. This would be the end.

And then, it was not. A Custode received the traitor’s blow, collapsing in Xarb’s place. He had leapt forward in the last moment to save his life, even if briefly.

Xarb would repay the favor.

* * *​ 
Jedjin watched Omreat charge towards the Pinnacle, sweeping aside the opposing Umbras with blue and white flame. The incandescent aura that surrounded him oppressed with its sheer heat, even to Jedjin, who was standing far from the Epistolary.

There was no Chaplain here to guide them on, no Apothecary to nurse their wounds, no Tactical Squads to provide normal backup. The Librarians were alone, and even with the near-limitless, if dangerous, power of the Warp the going was difficult.

Now, though, the battle was almost over. The Umbras had formed a protective ring around the precipice, and into that ring Epistolary o’Bel was smashing, along with most of the Death Company. Fierce skirmishes were continuing at the plaza’s edges, but the Space Marines were the foremost warriors of the Imperium of Man. They knew no fear, and if not undefeatable, Jedjin and his kind were close.

Except, of course, Jedjin did not truly deserve to be among this kind.

Pushing the depression and self-hatred down, a’Hin unleashed a wave of white light onto the shadowed claws and heads that surrounded the Pinnacle. The haze that surrounded the tower dispersed, leaving a clear view of the other Space Marines’ struggle.

Jedjin could have followed into the breach; he did not. He could offer support as well from the back as from the front, and moreover, he had just seen a perfect opportunity to exorcise his doubt. A massive Umbra, possibly one of the xenos’ leaders, was holding off two of the Death Company. It was almost as tall as the Space Marines, and its spherical shape gave it a weight advantage; but rather than try to crush the Astartes, it had chosen to assault them with darkness.

It had chosen poorly.

Jedjin concentrated on the black claws, imagining them being erased; his eyes barely noticed the changes occurring in reality. The Death Company Astartes got up, then threw themselves onto the dark ball together.

It took a long time to kill. Jedjin took notice of that, but focused on defeating its shadow constructions. The abomination had no concept of true combat. Its battles were all fought in the mind, not with the blade.

Well, Jedjin had that ability as well. And he would use it.

"For the Emperor!” one of the insane Marines screamed as the black thing rolled back.

“No,” the other responded, “for the Imperium!”

“For you!”

The ramblings of the insane were sometimes humorous and sometimes quite incomprehensible.

Jedjin knew that each member of the Death Company believed themselves to be Sanguinius, replaying the final confrontation with Horus each time they went into battle. But Sanguinius, the progenitor of the Angels Vermillion gene-seed that allowed them to be uplifted into Space Marines, had been anything but a savage. There were rumors that the psychic imprint on the Blood Angels’ gene-seed had to do with a fragment of the Primarch’s soul, yet with the knowledge a’Hin had of their legendary gene-father, he was more inclined to believe the reason was that soul’s absence.


Such philosophical digressions, however, had little to do with the battle. a’Hin’s concentration was wavering, and to prevent a disastrous release of Warp energies, he stopped the onslaught of light. The effects were not immediate, but quite quick- the Umbra, though gravely injured, conjured the energy to sweep one of the Death Company warriors down.

But the other could handle it. Jedjin’s eyes, ablaze with power once more, turned towards the Pinnacle.

* * *​ 
Omreat was past the cordon of Umbras now, and adjacent to the Pinnacle itself. The xenos seemed oblivious to their slow destruction. Rather than resist their dooms, they spun, revolving around the Pinnacle as if it was a temple of some sort.

A pair of bolts from the two ends of the Epistolary’s staff found their targets; but the xenos didn’t collapse or even fall to the ground. Rather, they continued spinning at a dizzying pace, frustrating Omreat’s desire for precision. Any shot now had only a random chance of hitting one of the spheres.

The chainswords of the Death Company had no such problems. The Umbras’ surfaces were quite hard, but a chainsword’s teeth were sharp, and from every impact a wound gaped on the xenos’ glossy surface. There were many such impacts- if one could surmount the winds that surrounded the Umbras, and comprehend the strange lighting, any blade placed in the circle was guaranteed to hit something soon.

In other words, the aliens were being whittled down, though the matter would have been settled much sooner with normal Angels Vermillion.

Omreat continued attempting to aim, but it was clear that by now it was hopeless. Jedjin was still shooting the Umbras’ shadows, allowing the Death Company to have a clearer view of their foe. For a moment, Omreat decided to join the Codicier, but a pinging at the back of his mind told him otherwise.

It was something within the Pinnacle, something psychic. It was-

It was coming from the Pinnacle, though it had not before.

The xenos were doing something.

Omreat threw his full investigative might at the Pinnacle. Layer by layer, he tried to decipher the signal. It had the form of a line inside a circle normal to it and located at its base- the shape of the Pinnacle, combined with the Umbras around it. Code within code masked the truth, but Omreat tossed out line after line and unveiled the secret within. It was wrapped in shadowed folds, and with each one thrown back the remaining paper scrunched up again.

He tried once more, this time punching through the wrap with brute force. Holes appeared within, and with mental arms Omreat o’Bel’s brain crushed the black folds surrounding the truth within. His imagined arms glowed a nuclear shade of blue with sheer excitement- here was a chance to discover the true nature of the Pinnacle,a chance to finish the task begun by the Chapter millennia ago.

Then the veil fell away, and the Epistolary beheld the Pinnacle. It was the same tower, built of dark metal; but now the metal was transparent, and the interior could be seen. The blanket tried to cover the image up again, but o’Bel pushed it away, gazing at the array inside the Pinnacle. It was a set of balls- balls of various sizes, some spherical, some slightly elliptical, but each one glaring at him despite its lack of eyes. Omreat knew these spheres.

Umbras. A kilometer of Umbras.

The xenos’ audacity shocked him. With almost two centuries of experience, he was well-acquainted with rituals of Chaos, and though these xenos might not have belonged to the Dark Gods their intentions were perfectly clear. They would awake an army, a million of their kind…

And in a war of a million against a thousand, no matter how strong Astartes were, the winner was clear enough.

“Retreat!” he screamed, but his thoughts were still not reality. Rising past the Umbras, smashing their mental forms aside, he was returning to his real body; but there was a moment left before arrival, a moment that could not be wasted. He concentrated his mind, sending out a lance of information to the Captain.

“Bomb the Pinnacle. Bomb the Pinnacle. We have no time.”

The stakes were too high for a’Alat to ignore him. Omreat hoped the Captain would understand.

The Death Company wouldn’t. In his own body once more, the Epistolary flexed his arms, then broke off in a run towards the arches.

“Retreat!” he screamed to the Space Marines. They were on the brink of victory, but victory would not be won like this.

“Why?” Jedjin yelled back.

“I cannot tell,” Omreat communicated mentally, “but we must be fast.”

Then, he ran even faster. The Death Company had to be recalled.

Romot e’Eskel had to be found.

He knew where the Ancient’s sanctum was- fortuitously, the Dreadnought’s base of operations was not far from the battlefield. With his enhanced speed, increased even further by the power armor, the Epistolary shot through the memorized arches and channels of the fortress-monastery. When he arrived, he was almost tired; but e’Eskel could not be warned mentally, for his significance was too great.

Some things had to be done in person.

“Get the Death Company out of the battle plaza,” he loudly stumbled, “and as fast as you can. It was necessary to bomb the entire place.”

“I will not demand the secret; that is not our way. But I would tell you, Epistolary, that this retreat’s cause had best be wise.”

And the Dreadnought marched. Omreat focused on him, begging his legs’ machine-spirit to speed up; and it did, though not because of the mechanisms. e’Eskel’s massive feet were being accelerated by Omreat’s psychic abilities.

Then, the Epistolary sat down. His body was not yet truly exhausted; it took a lot to tire a Space Marine.

But his mind was another matter. He had probably over-exerted himself, he knew. There was still the option to remind a’Alat to wait before releasing the bombardment, to remind him the Death Company was still in place and that the ritual was not yet quite complete.

The dangers of overusing the Warp’s power were too great, though. And if his body could be healed, for the eternal damnation of his soul there was no cure. Even now, o’Bel felt a prickling sensation at the back of his skull. It roared, trying to burst through, trying to unleash daemonic hell on the Precipice.

It wouldn’t have the chance. Omreat pushed it back, slammed it inwards, exerting his mental barriers to prevent its cancer of taint spreading. Then he struggled further, using his willpower to crush the daemonic presence. It fell back, eagerly, almost too eagerly; but then the Epistolary squashed the link altogether, and it screamed, as if it had deep-laid plans for his corruption that had now been defeated. That was not the case- the Warp would never go away. There were tales that once Librarians had been able to seal themselves off from it entirely; but now, the threat of attack or possession would hang above a psyker forever.

Calm once more, Omreat o’Bel descended into meditation.

* * *​ 
Xarb swung at the Arch-Traitor, who was running away, knocking up a great trail of dust behind him.

“So you flee?” he screamed after Horus’ receding form, which only grunted. It was running, but the sorceries of the Chaos Gods had trapped it, turning on their servant as they always did.

“Face me!”

Horus did, although he did not stop running and did not start moving.

“Are you ashamed, now?”

“I did the right thing, Angel. I did the right thing, and history will judge me as such, after your puny Imperium falls into dust once more. It has been dust all along, in truth.”

Xarb swung at Horus again and again. Slowly, the traitor weakened. His pace was still an incredibly fast one, but nothing else could be expected of a Primarch. His eyes, however, showed clearly the toll that Xarb was inflicting on the monster. They looked down, tired, unwilling to accept defeat yet forced to confront it.

“Those who come after me will understand,” Horus whined, but Xarb did not listen. He felt another presence next to him. It was a powerful one, perhaps the Emperor himself, but Xarb could not see clearly.

“Gather! Walk with me.”

It was the Emperor. Xarb’s father stood before him, magnificent, beckoning.

“But what of Horus?”

“Forget it. For now, you have to go.”

Xarb wanted to ask why, but he could not. The voice was too powerful, and too correct, to lie over such a matter. He followed his father through the winding corridors of the Vengeful Spirit, looking at defiled paintings and sigils of evil.

He followed his father, even as he heard the sound of explosions behind.

* * *​ 
Jedjin had stayed.

There was, in a way, no choice. The Umbras had to be defeated, and quickly. He had to prove he could do it- to prove he was able to do it, himself. There was no o’Bel here, none who would lead to doubt whether he was truly responsible for the victory.

Perhaps it was a battle-haze; perhaps, he recognized with some horror, it was the beginning of the Black Rage. But the defeat of the Umbras was the key for now. They were being whittled down, even now, by Jedjin’s beams and arcs of focused light.

Returning the energy in those lasers to himself, the Codicier returned to calmness for a moment. He had to be careful not to draw too much power, even if that helped the primary mission. But his anger did not give him time to consider the full consequences of what he was doing. Only Omreat’s consistent reminders, brought back to the fore of his mind, that overdrawing power was dangerous allowed him to reason at all.

He crushed Umbras with metal and shattered them with wood. He had to be judicious in his might’s allocation, now, and only the most powerful weaponry could be used. He didn’t notice the initial, soft glowing that the Pinnacle’s top was now exuding, a warm black light that spread downwards. He did not think of why Omreat would evacuate a battle he was winning. He was better than that!

Then, too late, a psychic message pierced his veil of delusion.

“Codicier a’Hin, are you safe?”

In an instant, he remembered that something was coming. He thought of sending back a reply, or running from the battlefield again, but above all was the recognition that his display, for all of its beauty, had lessened the Umbra ranks by half- but had not stopped their activity. The Precipice was glowing, a very dark violet light that was nevertheless recognizable as such. There was heat, too, too much of it. He needed to stop this- was it a ritual?

Then, the bombardment commenced.

* * *​ 
Captain Karem a’Alat glared at the information display.

It wasn’t the display he was angry at, not even the images shown inside that display. His fury was directed firmly past the display, at the Last Sanctum, where the Chapter leadership would normally convene.

Out of that leadership, only Romot e’Eskel was here now. The rest were on campaign, winning glory that had been denied to a’Alat- stuck, here, only a Captain after five hundred years of war.

The display showed the Death Company, with the revered Romot e’Eskel, leaving the plaza and heading through steps and overlooks to the dungeons, where the unfortunates who had succumbed to the Black Rage would remain. a’Alat knew that, in a way, they had deserved their fate- their willpower had been too weak to resist the Flaw- but, at the same time, his compassion was greater than his scorn. It was shared by everyone in the Chapter, he supposed.

The runes of the Ancient and the Death Company left the danger zone.

Karem a’Alat released the bombardment.

Missiles impacted the sanctified floors of the Precipice. They were directed inside, intended not to destroy the structure of the fortress; some damage was inevitable, but hopefully the targeting systems’ accuracy could prevent the worst.

The explosions bloomed across the surface, and suddenly the Captain noticed another rune on its surface. It was that of Jedjin a’Hin, one of the Librarians who had been fighting the incursion alongside the Death Company. a’Alat wondered, first, why he had not departed; but some secrets were not meant to be revealed. For a moment his gauntleted hand hung over the emergency arrest button.

Then it left. The risk was too great- Omreat o’Bel wouldn’t have told him to demolish such an important site without need. One Angel Vermillion was a great loss, a Codicier more so; but a’Hin, despite his promise, was not worth whatever risk o’Bel had warned about. Besides, the young Angel was probably dead already.

The secret would be kept, whatever it was. And the xenos would be destroyed- all of them.

* * *​ 
Jedjin a’Hin struggled to maintain his kine-shield.

He did not know why the firestorm was going on, but for whatever reason, the Pinnacle’s surroundings were filled with explosions. Jedjin stood on the edge of a crater, trying to use his psychic powers- at full intensity, now- to stay alive.

There was no anger in him, not anymore. This disaster was his fault. He had ignored Omreat’s commands, in direct insubordination, and this foolishness would probably destroy him.

Jedjin’s shield was buckling, and thus he forged an additional icy covering over his defense. It melted in an instant, but the Codicier fought to extend it. The prickling that was starting to build within his skull went unnoticed; the fight to stay alive was too severe.

Then the prickling extended, by now a building migraine covering his brain. Jedjin didn’t fight it- he had his mind focused entirely on the flames. Another missile impacted against the front of his shield. The power came easier, now, flowing like a stream, allowing Jedjin to reflect the missile down into the Pinnacle.

“Purge it,” Jedjin whispered, hoping that the xenos’ destruction would be accelerated by his actions.

He channeled even more power, grabbing some sort of slimy patch, pulling it through, expelling it onto the storm. He was greater than before, now. His abilities seemed limitless. He swung down, crafting a blazing path of open space through the storm. He noted his legs were transforming, gaining additional claws, but he ignored it. He was too caught up in the passion of battle.

And a moment later, as he finally understood what was going on, his will was gone.

He still saw, but more than that, he felt. He felt his body become something more than Astarte, yet less as well. He felt his armor twist under the pressure of his mutating flesh. He felt, finally, his control over his actions disappearing. It was no longer a stream of power that was linking his consciousness with the Warp.

His own consciousness had been… replaced… by one of the Warp’s.

He had been possessed by a daemon of Chaos.

It was a horrifying fate, one he had been warned about many times in training; and now it seemed that it had come true. He had failed in the worst imaginable way, allowing his body to be used as a conduit for something of truly monstrous power. All of his training had, it seemed, been for nothing.

It was over. But, he decided, he would at least try to fight it, even if there was no hope of success. There was nothing else he could do, after all, but watch.

He bit into the monster’s slimy essence, but it fell out of his imagined teeth, instead flowing inside his throat. It filled him, repulsive, horrid- and as he felt its freezing touch, he recognized there was no time. Desperately, he struck at the creature’s connection to the Warp.

It weakened for one instant- not failing, but fading for a second. Then, it was reestablished, but by then it was too late for the monster. A fount of fire crossed the place where the kine-shield had momentarily been lost, and now it enveloped Jedjin. The daemon fought, its abominable spikes and slime struggling against the engulfing heat; but soon concentration was lost and the shield fell again, this time completely.

Jedjin a’Hin, Codicier of the Angels Vermillion, was knocked back, then crushed against the floor. His bones and neck snapped, even protected as they were by Astarte physiology and battle-plate. He fell into oblivion quickly, violently, and proudly.

He had done it. For all of his errors, his weakness would not destroy the Chapter.

* * *​ 
Omreat o’Bel walked across the barren surface surrounding the Pinnacle.

Romot e’Eskel would mastermind the rebuilding effort, and doubtlessly he would do it well. The Precipice would be rebuilt, the Chapter’s glory recreated after the incursion- an attack which would likely live in infamy. The Pinnacle still stood, defiant, despite all of Omreat’s efforts. It was over.

In his hands, Omreat carried a mutated corpse- a corpse of a Codicier which had failed to become an Epistolary.

That, he now supposed, had been for the best.


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## Dave T Hobbit (Dec 3, 2009)

Set to Forum standard FONT to increase ease of reading

An enjoyable read.


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