Sterbelicht - One Sacrifice At A Time Against The Galaxy (40K)

They promised him a short deployment and a longer life. Ten years here, train the Coalition on the ships provided, then go back and get fifty years on the Federation to enjoy as he saw fit.

He had heard about the ships being sold being...sub-par due to the Coalition's less-than-stellar technological base, but he had thought, foolishly, that they would still be able to at least have something approaching modernity within the vessels.

Alec was not entirely convinced the ships he was supposed to train the Coalition on weren't being powered by coal and steam if the...everything surrounding them was any indication.

The worst part was that the ships being sent along were trash, even for his untrained eyes. Almost every single one could be improved in a dozen ways...if only they could implement the knowledge that had been gained in the last millennium of warfare to the ships instead of being stuck operating these machines with mud and sticks shaped like levers.

Alec took another shot of the cheapest rotgut he had smuggled into his room, trying to burn out the memory of figuring out how to operate the Maul-Class Battleship, the massive slab of metal's only redeeming quality being the enormous bay of contagion bombs that he had enforced extreme levels of biohazard prevention measures, with even the servitors put into biohazard protection suits to drive the point home for the gunnery section on how important it was to not fuck around with them.

A hand shot out beside him, grabbed the bottle from his hands, and began to drink it on ex, desperation driving the need to burn her synapses out. Thule Gyllia had, if that was even possible, it even worse than he did. Where he was trying to tell people to not be idiots with the Stilleto and Caltrop Destroyers, that they were raiders and area-denial ships, or that the Javelin was meant to stick around while the Catapult shot its shot and fucked off (though they readily got the purposes of the Venom, Longship, and Brick Light Cruiser and Heavy Cruisers,) she had the unenviable task of training strike craft pilots for the Coalition on the Arrow-Class Carrier.

He had known that the Federation was blessed with the Thules and their primacy in all things piloting-related, but he had never thought that they may as well be miracles given flesh if the crop of the pilots sent to crew these carriers was any indication.

...

Okay, but she didn't have it worse enough to drink all his damn booze!

---

Stagelight burned, drumming with the pounding of the fans, screaming with the joy of the groupies; it was a stage of a trillion colors as Titans walked and boomed their songs into the flesh and bones of the enemy, receiving their chance for duets and battles of the bands with the Golems of the Temples and their Titan Brethren from the Federation, even twins of biological majesty racing against the world and its strings playing melodies of perfect ecstasy.

Here! See the Biotitans of the Grove was their glacial advance, hear the pumping of hearts thousand tons heavy and the swell and roar of throats and veins flooded with ichor-like plasma and blood of plants guiding them by melded minds in dances unified beyond melding!

There! See the Golems march, see their weaponry spark, see the flesh of silicon underneath the rock and metal, know their thumps synchronized and their thunderclaps underpin the retorts of their foes!

Yonder! Find the Legio Gladius and the minor Orders of the Federation, see their charges of the Blades against the Fortresses and the Titans, see Brother and Sister Armiger's cross blade and gun, know the snarls and the howling yipping yapping yowling screams of the Machine Spirits shout across the battlefield as they clash and fight, denying the Grand Singer their souls to her and him and them! Find the earth shacking and cracking under thunder and fire; find it torn apart and made one with flesh and bone and blood and brain as mortals are crushed beneath the feet of Titans!

See the Hope Ascendant march through the continent, followed by machines as tall as mountains in its wake like children; behold its radiant halo hum behind it, burning with the faith of billions fighting in its shadow, knowing that the God-Machine marches for their cause. See its spirit roused and angry, directing itself more than its pilots direct its ire; see its weapons fire beyond the glow of white and beyond the point of melting, thundering away as miracles manifest by its will, by its faith, by its march into the maws of the Warp itself.

Know the enemies it faces, and faces gladly, for what is a battle of bands without an enemy? What glory is to be had in a foe easily conquered? They have come, they have heard, they have tasted the superiority of the Great Mistress and his Gifts, let his poisons run through veins and stiffened spines shattering under the thrum and jump of millions in arenas roaring their approval of the songs, throats bloody and skins flayed in the workings of the Gods.

Feel the shiver of skin upon the blade, the beat in your lungs, let the galaxy entire hear your dedication and burn through all your eyes and limbs to pursue the perfection of the final symphony that shall be heard in this place.

The Machine God may rest a finger on the scales here, in this place, at this time, for its Avatar to roar and its Halo of Grinding Gear to tick onward, but Slaanesh rewards its followers well and grins at the burning passions flickering in gyrating hedonisms beyond counting, cities of skinned instruments denying all Song and Melody of Choir, their dreaming avarice shattering silent tenderness soft and glistening hearts splayed for the feasts to come, an erotic work of art for He Who Dances Eternal to gaze and defile upon.

Oh, if only it weren't for the Lamenting Ones, for their songs of souls is one so dreary and one-toned, minuscule strings plucked one after the other with no variation, only sacrifice for others, never to take glory upon themselves, with all who rise unto the truth given nothing but a single note to start their journey only to end it all.

Oh, if only they did not ride with the Seducers of the Thule, the howling giggle of swooning Daemonettes, and the Keeper Thu'nar-Viru for their perfect forms and soft fur to display upon their bodies after skinning and turning their minds to soup with flawless song!

Oh, if only they shattered beneath the attention of the Keeper, Her Sacred Daemon forced to fight with scores of its lessers as the Great Heroes denied their coming for days and weeks and months, only to step up in triumvirate beats to dance in circles for six days!

Blood was spilled to the strings of flesh and sinew being plucked by the bands!

Armors shattered by hands and whip, chainsword and spear!

Bones were broken, organs ruptured, and skin turned purple in the tapestry of tender love!

Oh, if only it was not for the Silver Tear Sword, grasped in undying hand and iron mind, given by one Hero who died for the love of His Brothers that made the Daemonettes scream in adoration to another, the sword trading hands once more, a scared oath unto reality sworn, a sacred battle delivered, and a holy number invoked, cutting a head from the lovely neck in precious tenderness, a slice so clean it left no blood to splatter upon the unworthy, only upon the one that died by the claw of Thu'nar-Viru in return, the lovers taken to the grave as one.

And the groupies screamed and cheered, the Brothers yelled and charged, the skies burned with a thousand more Lamenting Ones and a billion plaything descending alike, as the ground shook under the steps of Titans and the seas boiled by the joy of the planet.

This was what it was about, this spilling of gut and love, emotion and passions, driven to insanity and beyond to return sane and hale into the grasp of slicing breaths upon the skein of bone and soul.

Stagelight was a stage for war.

And then the Star Child gazed upon the planet...and wrapped a Five-Fold Wing around its tortured form.

---

Stagelight was a stage for desolation.

It would take millennia to purge the location where the planet once stood.

All forces that could be evacuated had been, and all others had been given the mercy of a swift death as the Temple Ships had finally been able to rip the world out of the Warp into full Realspace.

It would remain a wound in reality.

But it was over.

Finally.

The Age of the Cult Wars had come to a close.

The Age of Tears was upon the Sector.



There were Heroes to mourn.
(6-Hour Moratorium)
[] (Write-In 10 Lamenter Heroes)
[] (Write-In 5 Relics)

AN: With that, I'll see you all in the new year on the 7th!