"Confirmed Sister-Superior," Ilana said growled, thumbing the safety on her shotgun undermount and raising it up in a single smooth movement. She could more feel than see the influence of the blessed prosecutor spirit of her armour, her aim locking precisely on the heretic's knee where it would guarantee the opportunity to repent amidst extreme pain. More than this witch deserved, but such was the example set by the one they all strove to emulate. "Blessed be Leanna's mercy."
OOC: Called shot to the leg with non-lethal shotgun round. TN50+20 (half aim)+10 (Good-Quality Holosight)+10 (Purity of Hatred)+30 (Point Blank)-20 (Called Shot)
The heretic meets your gaze, blue eyes staring deep. Through your visor, into your eyes, into your soul.
Your weapon rises, but it is glacial. The weapon feels weighed down by a thousand tons, rising centimeter by centimeter over what feels like minutes. The world around you cracks and splinters, shards of vision amidst a cloud of smoldering blackness. In one shard you see your boltgun fire, ripping through innocent civilians. In others, you see the glazed over eyes of civilians as they rip and tear into everything around them in feral fury. You see Palais bursting apart as an RPG strike hits. You see a thing peeling its way out of the sorcerer's split belly. But most of all, you see innocents on the ground, blood pooling from their burst eyes-like the man directly in front of you. You feel tendrils of shadow curling about you, trying to pierce into the deeper parts of your soul and mind, but they find no purchase. They turn off your faith, off the wards of your armor.
Idiot child. The heretic's voice curls through your thoughts, even as hazy prayers to the God-Emperor rise to drown it out. It is not angry. It sounds more like the voice of a disappointed parent.
You know not what you've done. I speak with stolen tongues and see through thieved eyes. Minds and souls are weak things, easy to cage. Bodies among this crowd, yoked to my will. Waiting for my signal to strike. I would have bargained with their freedom. I would have waited for rescue. What do you think happens to mind-slaves when their master's leg snaps like a twig and electricity courses through his veins?
Your weapon sights lock on his legs, finger moving to tighten on the trigger ever so slowly.
You hear the creature sigh in your mind.
I suppose we find out together. It matters not. Old Night Cometh. It is the first step on the road to reclaim our lost Crown. It looks through our eyes and smiles to see what we have done.
His blue eyes stare into yours. You see things in those eyes. Dying suns and burning worlds-And golden halls and glittering spires. An endless procession of lords and saints, each spilling their blood for a thorned crown. Eyes, you see. Blue eyes, staring down at you from a hundred, a thousand, a million directions, all joyous to see what they behold. The richness of blood. The marching of armies. The joys of lords. The prayers of battle-priests. Corpses piling up, flesh rotting, eyes staring blankly on. Eyes. So many eyes. Like globes in the tumultuous black.
You see your home.
Broken child. Playing at Saint. I will not be humbled by an orphan.
A dark, greasy texture claws across the sky of your home. Unholy night falls. Figures stride through halls of your memory. A hulking horror, a thing of night incarnate that walks through fire and light and quenches all, leaving only broken husks and piles of gore in its wake. Bodies slough apart, limbs stretch to show muscle beneath. You see friends, family-The screaming, the screaming as the night eats them alive and spits out their rotting bones. You see Danial die.
And yet, the horror holds no purchase on you. Figments, flashes that are distant and mere shadows of even the memories in your head. You are not there. This is illusion, falsehood. You can hear the Hexagrammic Wards hiss as the shadows come apart. Your finger begins to pull the trigger, time slowly crawling forward. There are no more eyes. Just the two of the sorcerer. Faintly, you think you hear laughter.
Suddenly, everything whips back into place and you pull the trigger.
"Stop! I have hos-"
The sorcerer jerks back with a scream, trying to dodge away. He is quick on his feet. Very quick. But not quicker than the shotgun slug. A civilian leaps up from the crowd, trying to interpose herself in the way-but is also too slow. The round punches into his kneecap, shattering bone with an audible
crunch. He spasms, screaming violently as electricity arcs through his body-And as he screams, suddenly several members of the crowd begin to spasm and shriek as well. The man who'd asked what was wrong mere moments before scream madly, clawing out his eyes as he crumbles to the ground. You see a woman slam her head repeatedly against the rockcrete of the street, cracking her skull like a melon. Some simply crumble to the ground, weeping or shaking, like the woman who'd tried to take the shot for the sorcerer. Others start shrieking and bellowing, weapons flashing into their hands and foam frothing at their mouths.
"What the warp!" You hear someone cry out.
That's when the shooting starts.
Everything happens at once. Men and women suddenly going into seizures, screaming and clawing at those around. Gunshots ring out. Bodies hit the floor.
"
Eyes on weapons!" You hear Sister-Superior Selveria yell. "
Contact! Fire, fire!"
You hear the distinctive double-booms of boltguns far behind. You hear an explosion, screaming, the rattle of gunfire.
A primitive firebomb flashes out of the crowd, splashing onto Caelia and bathing her in burning promethium. A moment later a member of the crowd empties several rounds from an autopistol point blank into her helm, each glancing off in a spray of sparks. The heretic curses, grabbing a weeping man to use as a shield. Another heretic moves to protect the fallen sorcerer, firing a revolver into Illana. She doesn't even feel the impact.
"Look out!" A ganger in front of Eriko cries out, grasping for his pistol. She turns, a chainsword buzzing toward her head. The robed woman is dressed like anyone among the crowd, but her lips are curled into a feral smile.
"Feed the Chaos Maw!" She yelps, swinging the buzzing blade. The blade turns off the side of the Sister's boltgun, sparks spattering off her armor. She lashes out with a fist at her attacker, the heretic swaying back out of the way. "You cannot slay me! I am immortal!" She laughs.
A bomb goes off somewhere off the bridge, water spraying upwards. More shots fired, more screams. Eriko witnesses a ganger go down, pierced through by a gladius blade, another shot through the face. A ganger atop a car falls backward with a scream, torso pulped by a burst of rounds. Pia sees a ganger drop, side shredded by a shotgun shell. Palais' blade whips into her hand to parry aside a sword strike, her roaring chainsword ripping through the heretic's leg a moment later and sending him toppling to the ground. To the north, you hear gunfire and a detonation, gangers crying out. One on a heavy stubber falls with a shriek as a round rips her left arm clean off at the shoulder.
"
Contact on the buildings to our left!" You hear Sister Greiland bellow, her heavy bolter booming. A moment later something explodes among Derosa's squad, bathing Liandra and several other Sisters in shrapnel. The Sisters stomp from the firestorm unharmed.
"
More moving into position on the right!"
Chaos is unfolding. Gangers and civilians alike crying out in panic, wild gunfire and explosions lighting up the bridge. Screaming, near feral civilians clawing at everyone that comes near. And as everything starts to go to hell...It is answered by the wrath of the Adepta Sororitas.
"
Finally! The heretics come forth to die!" Someone shouts.
"Deliver unto them the Emperor's judgement!"
"
We bring Leanna's Mercy!"
"Acknowledged Sister-superior. Thank Leanna for blessed melta, but I will want Sister Pia or another's flamer to cleanse the cache before application. It seems likely the conditions will be...poor."
Maria stepped closer to the edge of the greenish rockcrete. "Brother Ollanius, you should get back to your men and women on the blockade. I believe we can manage here, and your personal attention would serve better on the road. You," she barked at the heavy intending to do the lifting, "endeavor not to destroy your back. If it's stuck, it is stuck. None will judge you for failures of the flesh here."
Let faith see them through, and the Emperor grant all above clarity and calm. She prayed the psyker's work be undone, and no other would take up his labor in ignorance or confusion.
"Go Ollanius. Now."
The hulking man grunts, tugging at something in the muck. "Skek. This is stuck hard. I don't know if we're going to get to it."
Ollanius grunts. "I'll go get some lads to help pull it out. Davian, with me." He says, starting to make his way back on the flakboard path. That's when you start noticing the movement on the rooftop on the nearby building. Civilians, trying to get a better look?
That's when a voice cries out from the water. "Something's got my leg!" You turn, head wheeling to one of the ganger's in the muck. He's struggling, pulling hard against something unseen in the murk.
"It's just the mud! Tug a little harder!" The female ganger laughs.
"No, it's not-It's biting me, it's biting-!" The ganger screams and then, in an instant, he's disappeared beneath the water. Blood billows to the surface.
"Jaxon!" The female ganger cries out, horrified.
"Get the skek out of the water!" The heavy bellows, hastily wading toward the shore.
Your auspex rings the contact before you see it. You half turn back, leveling your heavy bolter as a man suddenly leaps from the crowd, cutlass in hand.
"Beckon the Fall!" He screams, his blade clanging off your cuirass. You smash to the ground with the back of your gauntlet, cracking the man's skull.
Las-locks crack, and you hear Ollanius grunt. The man curses, steam rising from a black gash across his flak vest. Painfully inaccurate stub gun fire cracks holes in the rockcrete around your feet and tears chunks out of the flakboards but fails to strike anything. A ganger to your left is not so lucky however, a scream of agony ringing out as a cultist steps around the corner of a shack and drives a knife into his belly. As the man's entrails pour out, the cultist kicks the gurgling corpse to the ground and cheers.
"Refuse to be a slave!"
The crowd behind begins to scatter, revealing several rushing cultists brandishing autoguns and shotguns. One cultist with a pistol grabs one of the civilian and forces the screaming woman to her knees, using her as a shield as she fires you.
