Ecstacies of Saint Chrisenya the Mad [Warhammer 40k] [Transgender Sororitas] [NSFW]

[dragonsaffron]

Three-quarters of the mission had survived this far. They were exhausted, ammunition low, nursing bruises and sprains, not to mention facing the psychological degradation of constant exposure to chaos. Before them was the heart of all horror. For but a moment, they were unseen; for but a moment, the Celestians could prepare for what lay ahead.

Canoness Jesmaria tore her gaze away from the panoply of evil and surveyed her troops. "Celestians," she pronounced.

Innogen startled, awoken from a trance. Many of the other Sororitas around her did the same. One by one, all eyes turned to face the Canoness.

"Second squad, flank down the right. Third squad, flank down the left. First squad, I'll take you down the middle. Flamers in the front, bolters at the back. Concentrate your fire on any nexus of sorcerous power you sense, or on those most heavily mutated otherwise, as doing enough damage that way may disrupt the ritual regardless of…" The Canoness's will broke a moment, her voice choking. "…combat outcomes. I know that the Empress will smile upon me for my life of service, and I believe that the same is true for all of you. May She grant us bravery in life and succor in death."

Jesmaria fell silent, and with a nod, dismissed the Sororitas to their fates. Celestian-Superior Innogen led her team off to the left side of the hall, a plan already beginning to form. With the first squad—and Pella with them, though she tried not to think about that—acting as a distraction, it was possible that third squad could punch right through the enemy formation and reach the far side of the plaza.

If Innogen had had the time, she might have asked the other commanders if they had the same intuition as she did, that the two figures flanking the guest of honor were, indeed, the ones in charge. But she did not. If she had guessed wrong, there would be plenty of time for her to prostrate herself and beg for forgiveness when her soul found its way to the Empress's throne room.

The three squads pulled apart, moving as quietly as they could. It was the overhang, Innogen realized, a curving outgrowth of the spire above, that shadowed the door through which they'd entered, shielding them from sight. Every step forward was a step closer to being seen; Innogen raised her combi-flamer to her shoulder, but was unwilling to use it just yet. At her flank, blades and pistols were being drawn as first squad accelerated towards their destruction like blood down a sluice. One of the cultists, a twisted feminine thing with too-long arms and breasts larger than tires, spun around, her dress flaring, and bared her fangs.

"For the Empress!"

Canoness Jesmaria started the cry as she raised her condemnor, firing a burst of bolts into that first cultist. First squad echoed her, seven voices together as one, the group stretching out into a wedge formation while they broke into a run. Innogen had not the time to watch. Silently, she gestured for third squad to follow as she began to circle the edge of the accursed ballroom.

The sound of bolters firing, the hiss of flamers and charring meat, the triumphant roars of the attacking Sororitas, the orgasmic howls of the corrupted, all these sounds and more reverberated against Innogen's helmet. Then the band seemed finally to notice that their ballroom had descended into chaos and, instead of fleeing for their lives, they switched songs. Heavy, thumping bass underscored the thumping of bolters, the strings screamed along with the dying and the dead. Though her will was strong and the blessings of the Empress fresh on her mind, the music was simply too loud, too rhythmically flawless; as third squad struck resistance and Innogen was forced to make use of her power sword, she found herself fighting along to the same tune.

Many of her foes were doing the same. Dancers changed at once from svelte figures into parodies of flesh and fabric, pulling endless quantities of knives from their elaborate outfits or from pockets sewn into skin and hurling them with infinite accuracy. How did they know where to aim, to slip a paper-thin glass blade in between the ceramite plates of Innogen's armor? The only times any of them got the chance to attempt were when she was sidetracked, when the pumping music and swirl of multicolored outfits reached a point of sensory overload so great that she forgot how to fight. The rest burned, chaos mutation and occult power no match against yellow-hot burning prometheum.

That mental overload, the possibility that sheer weight of numbers and mental exhaustion would overwhelm Innogen's sense, was the greatest threat. The trickle of revelers who turned their attention away from the maelstrom that was the first squad was hardly enough to break through the line of fire, but a single slip-up could have meant death. It was only the skill of the Celestians, her soldiers, who carried Innogen forwards. They knew the technique, how to pass through one another as they advanced, granting brief moments of respite to their sisters. Pella was forgotten, Canoness Jesmaria forgotten, all that mattered was the goal, to split the forces of chaos in two. That focus nearly cost Innogen her life.

One of the wait-staff, twice the height of a human and thick with androgynous muscle and fat, veered away from the melee to bring down its might upon third squad. Steel plates gauntleted its hands, which swung faster than speeding jetbikes, strong enough to knock those they struck up into the air. Innogen backed away, heart hardened against the death of her sister, and prepared to fire her flamer. But no flames emerged; she was entirely out of fuel.

Innogen dashed back, a ferocious kick missing her by centimeters as her panic-shaken hands fumbled at the switch from flamer to boltgun. Another sister caught the mutant's attention, hurling a krak grenade into its flank, but with a single fluid moment the creature batted the grenade aside and lunged for her. Innogen's boltgun roared, shells blasting chunks out of the mutant's back, but pain had no meaning for a creature so twisted; it picked up Celestian Ingenia and tore her in half to drink the gore from her severed midsection. It wasn't until a few seconds after the creature finally collapsed under the weight of dozens of bolt wounds that Innogen realized she had been pressing the trigger on an empty chamber; her combi-flamer was completely out.

She dropped the combi-flamer, drawing her pistol and sword in its place. Then, for just a moment, Celestian-Superior Innogen had a moment with which to survey her surroundings. Only three members of her squad survived, and of them, two were down to pistol and sword. First squad was nearly invisible, so heavily surrounded was it by the morass of cultists rushing inward, while second had assaulted the musician's platform and was in the midst of converting it into a firing platform.

There was a simple choice: rush into the fray and save those few who remained, or continue forward and strike at the heart.

"The leaders of this whole ritual are at the head of the table," Innogen said. "I can't back it up for you, but I feel it deep down. I won't order any of you to follow me up that way."

Innogen turned. The tables were long, and there were more cultists yet who still stood between her and the guest of honor at the end. But when she let out a cry of "For the Empress!" and rushed ahead, three other Celestians followed.

…


"This tribunal has no need of a precise account of every combat engagement which took place that day," said Canoness-Preceptor Selina, her eyes shutting for a moment.

Innogen blinked. She'd hardly even realized how long she'd been talking for. "My apologies. A soldier gets caught in such recollections."

"You mentioned two beings who you believed to be the… leaders, of the cult?"

"Or at least the leaders of this particular ritual, yes."

"Describe them in greater detail, if you would."

Innogen nodded, collecting her thoughts. It was strange, having to turn the flashbulb memories of the two figures into coherent descriptions. She did not remember them as beings, as objects in the physical plane, but as mere impressions of terror.

"One was human. The other was not. The human, she was… about my height, stocky build… couldn't see much of her face, everything below the eyes was covered up by a golden mask. Used a staff as her weapon. Her neck was heavy with charms, had all these bottles hanging around her hips, too, bottles and boxes and other such things. Looked almost like a scavenger, though it was all too well-crafted to really be scavenged goods. I don't really remember what she was wearing besides that, I just remember a black shape, all shrouded in cloth. One of the few people in that entire ballroom not showing skin."

Innogen fell silent again.

"The other one, you said it was not human. A mutant?"

Innogen shook her head. "I believe the inquisitor called it a host. I'd never seen something so foul. It looked like… It looked like if a man had something grow inside of him, grow and grow until that thing burst out of him, fused into his flesh. It was naked, with…"

Innogen gestured across her own body, from one knee to the opposite hip, then indicated everything below that with a dismissive wave.

"Part of it was still human. And a bit of one arm, a chunk of stomach. The rest was this horrible color, like rainbow promethium layered over a bruise. It was so soft, deceptively soft for something so strong, with the beauty of temptation even with a frame as bent and twisted. There were… three arms, two on one side one on the other, and horns like dead saplings, lips as beautiful as the Empress's around a slack mouth full of mismatched teeth."

She glared up at Selina, whose expression commingled disgust and intrigue.

"Do I have to describe any further?"

"No, the Tribunal understands your point. Now, after you and the three surviving members of your squad fought your way through to the leaders, tell us what happened next?"

"Two survivors. One didn't make it that far."

…


One of the ritual leaders, the human, wheeled about to face the new arrivals. Her companion was distracted, leaning low over the guest of honor as though engaged in private conversation. The Celestians were not there to talk; but even as their bolt pistols roared, the cultist was unbowed, and every shot went wide.

"How shall we get rid of you," she hissed, flipping her staff from one hand to the other.

Celestian-Superior Innogen aimed the tip of her power sword at the woman and cautiously advanced, the other two guarding her flanks. "I have no words for you. Surrender, accept your death, and the Empress may show you a droplet of mercy."

"How like the Imperium, to receive more mercy in death than one was ever given in life." The high priestess reached for something hanging around her neck, and for a moment her eyes were off Innogen. She took that as an opportunity, rushing forward headlong, readying her blade for a decapitation strike; but it was already too late.

The high priestess found a small, tubular device of brownish bone and placed it to her lips. The note which it produced was like a grasping hand between Innogen's legs, a bolt of physical stimulation delivered through the medium of sound waves. Only a single note sounded, and the reason why became obvious as the high priestess let the whistle go, her movements suddenly drunken and staggering.

But she recovered a moment before Innogen did, and made good use of that moment to retrieve another object from her panoply. This one was obviously mechanical, a strange humming half-shell which she clamped onto her staff. She lowered the weapon into a combat grip, extended like a Sacrosanct's halberd.

Innogen shook off the effects of the whistle, focusing her thoughts half on the pain and exhaustion wracking her flesh and half on the hated Enemy before her; she rushed in, raising her sword high to cut through the high priestess's staff in a single well-aimed blow. It was not to be. Somehow, despite her obvious lack of martial skill, the high priestess could move like steam flickering across the surface of a bath. The staff, in particular, possessed a sort of un-inertia, coiling around the far side of Innogen's blow with contemptuous ease, then thrusting forward to strike her helmet with the tip.

The blow landed, but did nothing against the heavy ceramite plate. That quickly set the tone for their duel. Innogen had always much preferred the bolter to the blade, but she was a dutiful servant of the Order with thousands of hours of practice. But the high priestess, empowered by chaotic energies, was simply swifter. Every attack was swatted aside, and every blow was delivered at a pace the eye could hardly follow. In seconds, Innogen's armor was dented, her flesh bruised, and although she was occasionally able to pierce the high priestess's defenses through the application of feints and complex techniques, the shallow cuts inflicted seemed only to spur her on.

And then Innogen realized: she had rushed forward with the last two members of her squad at her flanks. Where were they? In a moment of weakness, her focus on the duel torn away by concern, Innogen looked to either side. Cultists. Somehow, despite the dozens of fiends they had cut through on the way, the calling of the whistle had summoned yet more knife-wielding fanatics. With the last of their bolter shells and with blood-soaked blades, her sisters were fighting on. And losing.

If Innogen had been even an instant later in returning to her senses, the blow could have broken her neck. The staff, empowered by chaos, tore through the air with a horrible whistle that signaled death. Panicked, the only move Innogen could think to make was to throw up her right arm into the arcing path of the blow. There was a horrific crack and a surge of pain like Innogen had had an autogun bullet tear through her. She screamed and fell.

The high priestess took good advantage. The power which had so accelerated her staff was running low, meaning that when she slammed its heel down on Innogen's chest it did so with only significant force, not extreme. Aching bruises blossomed across her chest, across her legs. The rush of battle fled from her, the adrenaline and energy that had driven her onward through death and blood and damnation; Innogen's body and soul were those of a woman face to face with her own death. And somehow, that brought clarity.

With her still-working left hand, Innogen reached across her hip and drew her bolt pistol. The one shot she fired missed, but the high priestess was forced to back away, giving Innogen just enough space to rise to her feet, clip her bolt pistol back to her hip, and pick up her blade where it had fallen.

The high priestess had become slow, but as Innogen was barely even able to stand, let alone swing her sword, the advantage went to Chaos. But Innogen did not need to be fast. She did not need to guard. She was a soldier of the Empress, and encased in holy ceramite and plasteel that would allow her to weather a thousand blows and yet live. The woman at the other end of her sword was clad only in robes: Innogen only needed one good hit.

She muttered a prayer under her breath, sections from Concorporatio Terra, and with her one functioning arm and all the strength that had not bled from her body she beat her sword against the high priestess's guard. The high priestess's first attempt at a guard was blown aside, her staff bending and nearly breaking as she was forced to stumble out of measure. Innogen followed her, pushing the both of them closer to the guest of honor and her throne, step by painful step. The high priestess attacked twice for Innogen's each cut or thrust, but it did not matter: the crimson armor, though abused beyond any expectation, held firm.

The high priestess panicked, guard suddenly nervous and unsteady. The blue halo of Innogen's power sword came within millimeters of hewing through her flesh, and even through the cloth shrouding her features there was visible just the hint of terror. Finally, she retreated an extra step and turned about.

"Mistress! Help me!"

The daemon-creature, whose attention had been entirely diverted in the direction of the guest of honor, suddenly rose. It sneered, baring horrible fangs in one corner of its mouth, and began to advance. Innogen wasn't going to let it forward.

She had one final tool, one weapon of last resort which she had been saving for the perfect opportunity. Every other weapon had been expended, she was down to enough pistol bolts they could be counted on one hand, even her armor's supply of auto-narcotics had been depleted. But magnetized to her hip was a single fragmentation grenade. She pressed the activation switch, setting it to an impact fuse, then gave it a swift underhanded toss.

The high priestess screamed. Innogen stumbled backwards as quickly as she could. The last thing she saw before her vision was overwhelmed was the face of the daemon. It was glaring right at her, no fear in its heart.

 

[dragonsaffron]

Innogen stood back up. An indicator flashed in her helmet, telling her she'd reached the in-combat analgesic limit. It certainly didn't feel as though she were swimming in narcotics. Her right hand was still immobile, she was bleeding from a few shrapnel wounds, her legs were buried and bludgeoned, the entire front portion of her body felt as though it had been slammed into by a plate of red-hot plasteel. The strength amplification of her armor, still functioning in spite of the unimaginable beating it had gone through, was the only thing that allowed her to stand at all.

And yet, stand she did. The high priestess lay on the ground before her, ripe for finishing off with one final bolt shell to the head. There were a few other cultists around as well, filling in the vacuum left by the grenade blast, and Innogen easily finished them off as well. Her two companions, the last members of her squad, were still fighting, somewhere off in the corner of her vision. Her attention was not on any of these things: Innogen needed to rescue the guest of honor.

It was an absurd quest. They were in the middle of enemy territory, dying and out of ammo, with countless thousands more cultists ready to act as reinforcements. Innogen was already saving innocents merely by disrupting the ritual: to save one more, from the very heart of chaos, was hubris. But it was either that, or lie down and die, and Innogen knew very much which option she preferred.

Up close, the guest of honor looked even more awful than she had from a distance. Her flesh was so bereft of health as to appear almost insubstantial, even though she was well-fed and there were no signs of illness. It was simply that all that was hale and wholesome about her had been leached away, the same as the color in her hair. There were stains all across her skin. Around the mouth and down the chest they were a mixture of food, drink, and upheaved bile; around the limbs they were dried and encrusted blood from where she'd been pierced by the thorns growing from her throne.

The guest looked to be sleeping, though Innogen couldn't imagine it was very restful in a place like this. She went down to her knees—more collapsed onto them—and with the back of her knuckles gently tried to rouse the child.

"Wake up! I'm going to get you out of here."

She had been sure that there would be no response, that the guest of honor was too far gone to hear her. Instead the child opened huge, grey eyes at her; Innogen would have jumped if she weren't too exhausted.

"What's your name?"

The child gave it.

"Thannetch? Where's Lord and Lady Thannetch, are they still alive? When did you see them last?"

Wordlessly, the child gave a sad look over Innogen's shoulder. Innogen briefly followed that gaze, until she remembered the vast banquet feast set up by the cultists. When she looked back at the guest of honor, her gaze couldn't tear itself away from the bile encrusted on the corners of her mouth. Innogen tried not to think too much about the implication as she set to work freeing the Saint's arms.

It seemed like an impossible task. The chair had grown thorns, though up close they spiraled more like the ridged horns of a caprid, piercing all through her flesh. Pulling her off of them would be almost impossible, even if removing the impaling spines wouldn't have caused her to exsanguinate. But the closer Innogen looked, the more she took hold of the Saint's hand, the more the thorns turned into a strange optical illusion. They weren't actually impaling her, merely poking at her with their sharp tips, forming a cage that existed more in the mind than in the flesh.

"What's the point of this?"

Innogen had been asking herself the same question, but she wasn't going to say so out loud. "I'm rescuing you. We're going to get out of here."

"Liar."

Innogen frowned. There was an odd expression on the child's face; almost angry. "Why would I lie?"

"Because you always do," the Saint whispered. "Or have you forgotten that you used this trick already?"

"This isn't a trick," Innogen said as she bent back a few of the thorns encaging the Saint's legs. Agony rattled down her arm. "My name is Celestian-Superior Innogen, of the Order of the Silver Scar, with the Adepta Sororitas…"

"Then pray," said the child. "Speak praise of the Empress. Do it."

Innogen's mouth had never felt so dry, and prayer had never felt so pointless. Why call for the Empress when help was not coming, when strength was lost? No, a pointless endeavor. She grunted, shaking off the hopelessness, and prayed anyway.

"I have served thee well my Empress, so let thou serve me in turn. I have given blood, my Empress, grant me unspilt blood. I have turned over my mind to thee, my Empress, so fill my mind with thy will in turn…"

All at once, the Saint's countenance changed. The anger, the detachment, all fell away, replaced with a grief and fear so profound that it fell upon Innogen like a knife to the breast. Tears streamed down the child's face as Innogen set her free. With her one functioning arm, Innogen picked the Saint up and held her to her chest, then began to stagger forward.

The battle was already winding down. There was movement on the ballroom floor, though whether that was some ragged survivor of first squad or just two of the cultists deciding to turn their violence on each other remained to be seen. Second squad was still holding the musician's stage with bolter and promethium, but it was only a matter of time before they were overwhelmed, from ammo depletion if nothing else. And Innogen was alone, one arm crippled and the other occupied with holding up an eleven-year-old, limping weakly towards an exit that was so very far away.

A voice spoke to her. It was an awful voice, beauty marred by guttural damage and phlegm, a voice that felt like being pricked by the most sensual of needles.

"They gave in so easily, you know."

Innogen ignored the voice. If it was a hallucination, it meant nothing; if it was real, there was nothing she could do about it but continue to march forward.

"Do you want to see them, Celestian-Superior Innogen Gorevacht? I'm sure the curiosity prickles at you."

Of course the daemon knew her name. This did not upset Innogen; there was scarcely anything left of her to be upset.

"Turn around, Anathema's bitch."

As though an arm had grappled her shoulder, Innogen was turned around. The Saint held on even more tightly, shoving her face into the crook of Innogen's shoulder. Innogen had nowhere to hide, and was forced to behold the three figures before her. One, on the ground, was the mutant half-daemon. The other two…

Fat, bloated breasts with erect nipples, encircled by tight bands of swift-flowing air and fluid. Cunts bared, exposed between spread thighs and dripping with many-colored liquids. Mouths open in raw, animal pleasure, moaning and muttering blasphemes against the Empress. Hands, the nails already growing into horrible claws, which writhed across the soft, curvaceous flesh in a frenzy of self-stimulation. The worst part were the faces, though: through expressions twisted with ecstasy, Innogen could still recognize the two Sororitas who had accompanied her to the head of the dining table.

"They're enjoying it even more than it looks," said the daemon. "I'm sure if they weren't otherwise busy they'd be so excited for you to join them."

Innogen could not bring herself to turn around, it was impossible, but even still she had the presence of mind to steadily back away. It wasn't going to be enough. "I have served thee well, my Empress, so let thou serve me in turn. I have given blood, my Empress…"

The daemon rolled her eyes. "Prayer will do you no good. But it seems you're not going to give me any fun, so…"

The daemon outstretched one baleful arm, and Innogen's senses were overwhelmed. She orgasmed immediately, knees giving out and sending her and the Saint crashing to the floor. Visions of infinite pain and eternal pleasure danced across the surface of her mind like electrical discharges, drawing her ever deeper into fantasy. There was no thought of resistance because there was no thought, no existence beyond sensation, no Innogen beyond the endless pleasure served beyond the gates of the Queen, where she would dance and laugh and fuck and

"Get up," said the Saint. "Please get up."

Innogen returned to her senses. The Saint was standing, barely, though she had to use one arm to lean on Innogen's shoulder. Before them was the daemon, arm outstretched and face twisted with concentration. Its flesh withered and bubbled, burning to sustain the might of the psychic assault which dissolved into so many white sparks before them.

Innogen fought to her feet, her faith now more resilient than the ceramite plating of her armor. The Saint moved her arm, wrapping it around Innogen's waist for support, though by the way her legs shook she could only remain standing for so long. Innogen gave the girl a glance, silently thanking the Empress that such innocence and purity still existed in the galaxy.

She still could not turn around, but she could slowly back away.

The daemon redoubled her efforts. Fantasia reappeared at the edges of Innogen's consciousness, but she did not give in, even as at her side the Saint screamed. With each step, the psychic assault grew stronger, the floor turning into clawing mud, wind sucking her closer to the fiend, but she did not stop. And the daemon was withering, the more human parts of its flesh melting and rotting before Innogen's eyes.

"The Empress is strong, Misty," said the Saint. "Your darkness will never blot out her light."

"The Empress does nothing!" Misty screeched, even as her throat collapsed in on itself. "Her power has no meaning! This is you, all you!"

The Saint had no response other than to nearly collapse again. Innogen grabbed her before she fell, lifting the girl back onto her shoulder. Blood was streaming down her face.

"Begone, fiend," Innogen hissed. "Begone, and lay claim over this child no more. In the name of the Empress of Humanity, I tell you to piss off."

Misty advanced, one painful step at a time, but it was obvious that it was not long for the world. One leg gave out, followed by the other, flesh rotting down to the bone and bones dissolving into dust. The psychic assault abated, died as the daemon did. But it still clung to life for a little while longer. The anger, the spite, the beatific arrogance across its features were all gone, replaced by a single note of pleading misery.

"Please don't abandon me, mummy. Please don't go. Mum, please, you'll be happy here."

The daemon faded into ash. Innogen, the Saint's unconscious body still cradled in her arm, turned and ran.

…


"There's little to say about the rest of it," Innogen continued. "I don't really remember the mad dash back to the Thunderhawk, and I can't tell you how we all survived. Luck or a miracle, I suppose. The mutant's defeat shows that Her eyes were upon us, so I suppose it would be possible to attribute our survival to the latter. The collapse of the ritual may have had something to do with it, I think; the cultists were all too busy dealing with the magic coming down around their ears to focus on us.

"Either way, out of the twenty-seven sororitas who entered Thannetch Spire—so not counting the injured girl—six survived. There was myself, four members of second squad, and Sister-Excelsior Palatea. She fought to keep us all alive until we were in better hands, then promptly turned herself in to the Repentia for cowardice."

"And," Canoness-Preceptor Selina said, "Chrisenya Thannetch."

Innogen nodded. "Palatea must've spent more effort on keeping her alive than the rest of us put together. Brain damage, nerve damage, infections, malnutrition, toxin buildup, organ damage. But all that recovery took place over the weeks after. And then the Inquisitor arrived."

"Indeed. The Tribunal is still attempting to gain access to the case files which said Inquisitor left on Gabrielle, but it may take some time. We are deeply interested in what drove her to declare Chrisenya free of corruption."

Selina deactivated the vox, and for the next few minutes she conferred with the other members of the Tribunal. Innogen remained exactly where she was, waiting to be dismissed. It gave her plenty of time to think, and to put her priorities in order.

"You are dismissed, Canoness Innogen. We will need to discuss your testimony, but we will call you in at a later date for further discussion of Sister Thannetch."

"That won't be necessary." Innogen paused, throat tight, heart spasming. What she had realized she must do next, would take strength. "As outlined in the Rule of the Sororitas, Section Four, I invoke the right of Percontorium.

There was a moment of lag. Then, as one member of the Tribunal after another recognized the obscure term, a ripple of disbelief, surprise, and interest passed through the assemblage. Even Selina, stoic as she was, raised one eyebrow sharply before leaning close to the vox.

"Percontorium? It has been centuries since… do you even understand what that right entails?"

"As it happens, Canoness-Preceptor, I do. As Canoness-Recruiter, it was I and I alone who allowed Chrisenya to join the Order; by defending her, I defend myself. By her condemnation, I am condemned."

"And you swear on your armor and by the grace of the Empress, that in your personal investigations as Percontor, that you will not conceal nor manipulate, that you will defend Chrisenya Thannetch's innocence using only that which is discovered truth?"

"I swear that," said Innogen.

There was a brief show of hands; overwhelmingly, the Tribunal voted to extend Innogen the right of Percontorium. Selina spoke aloud a paragraph of formal High Gothic instruction. Then, just like that, she was dismissed.

Innogen's office didn't feel like the same place it had been before the summoning. It certainly wasn't the same place that Sister Chrisenya had come to all those months ago, begging for advice and guidance. It felt more like the keep of a fortress now, a fortress whose walls were made out of information and words rather than plasteel and ferrocrete. And if her office was a fortress, then clearly that meant Innogen was fighting a war for Chrisenya's life. Or, depending on what she found in her investigations, a war to ensure the girl's death. Either way, it was going to be a busy few months.

 

[Some_guy_161]

I don't think Chris will actually end up executed, but it would be a realistic turn of events for 40k.

 

[Glau]

Just caught up, and this has been a RIDE. Looking forward to seeing more, hopefully for good outcomes.

 

[dragonsaffron]

"Alright, girls. This is the day we've all been waiting for. Over the last thirty weeks, you have been trained in the ways of combat with both sword and bolter. You have learned to march, you have learned to coordinate. You have learned the basic, theoretical underpinnings of squad-scale combat strategy, equipment maintenance, and the theory of divine fervor. Now, at long last, it is time to put all of that knowledge to the test in simulated combat."

Sister-Superior Bellara stood before the squad in her full armor, albeit with an additional plate bolted onto the chest. Behind her was the war-game field, a structure which looked somewhat like a cross between a hive city apartment block and a gymnasium.

"This thing I'm wearing," Bellara tapped the bolted-on chest plate, "is a crucial part of that. It is a training armor, and it is designed to simulate death. When it receives an impact that would have killed you in a real fight, it will deliver to you a weak yet painful electrical shock. When that happens, you will fall to the floor until the game is over, or until Serra indicates that you have been healed. But be warned: the weapons which we will be using are still dangerous. A blunt blade is still a club, and even a low-powered bolter shell with its metallic hydrogen explosive replaced by firecrackers can still burn you. Be careful."

The eight members of Bellara's squad stood before her, their nervousness spilling through their postures of attention in varying degrees. This was important. Not merely because it would put to the test if any of them were suitable for becoming a battle-sister; but because reputation was fully at stake here.

"Your goal in this first match will be simple: to eliminate the enemy. Whichever team has the last sisters standing shall be the winner. The enemy team shall consist of eight novitiates: that is the end of the information you will be given beforehand. There is no guarantee that the enemy shall be armed similarly to you; there is no guarantee that they will enter the field at the same time, or that they shall enter directly opposite from you. In war, one is often faced by a scenario of extreme informational scarcity, and the war-games simulate this. Now, for each of the eight of you, your armaments."

As the speech wound down and Bellara went to hand out the implements of battle, Chrisenya sagged with relief. She had been trying to keep up as best as she could, but her best wasn't very well. Chrisenya was in something of a state. This was due to the confluence of three factors.

The first factor was the pain. Obviously it wasn't nearly as agonizingly awful as it had been in the immediate aftermath of the surgery, but the ache between Chrisenya's legs was still a constant companion. Much worse than pain was all the drugs required to dull that pain. Doloria had cheerfully told her all about them in the immediate aftermath, explaining to Chrisenya how even a basic passivation used to take weeks of recovery to account for swelling and wound closure. With the medicines of a hospitaller, it was possible for Chrisenya to return to the field a mere three days after being castrated.

But then, a hospitaller's definition of "able to return to the field" was quite different from that of a sister. A fuzz separated Chrisenya from the rest of reality. The drugs had her sick to her stomach, her tongue was swollen, she was sweating like a heretic in a sacrarium. Everything felt leaden and immobile, and her joints felt strangely loose.

The withdrawal symptoms somehow both counteracted and exacerbated the drugs she was still on.

There was no other way to explain the reason for her sudden, unwilling detox program besides that something had gone wrong. Chrisenya had gone to retrieve the vial from its hiding spot one day and she couldn't. Paranoia overwhelmed her: something was watching. Perhaps it was the flocks of cherubs, or the ravens, omens of death that she still occasionally noticed out of the corner of her eye. Or it could have been something more arcane still, but either way Chrisenya could not shake the feeling. She had foregone stimm that day, but sure enough, the feeling returned when she tried to reach her stash the day after that, and the day after that, until—

"Sister Chrisenya!"

Chrisenya blinked, reality coming back into focus. Sister-Superior Bellara held out a set of arms for her. A boltgun, a bolt pistol, and a dull silver blade. Internally, Chrisenya groaned; though she'd gotten substantially stronger in the course of her training, having to heft around nine kilograms of plasteel remained distinctly unpleasant. Externally, she took the weapons without complaint.

Really, the armaments were just adding to the already-substantial weight. Before the squad had even come out onto the field, they'd had to put on the training armors, sets of plates that strapped on over their uniforms in a way that suggested intentional design. A thin shell of ceramite around Chrisenya's torso gave the impression that she had substantially more of a bust than she did, while pauldrons made it difficult to move her arms properly. The limbs were covered rather more haphazardly with rerembraces and vambraces, gauntlets and sabatons, cuisses and greaves, but little for the joints.

"I think the idea is that if you get hit hard in the joints," Sister Gwynette said, "you won't need an electric shock to tell you to fall down."

"I also have to imagine it's quite expensive, protecting something so complicated," Regina added.

So with all that ceramite hanging all over the place, what was a bit of extra plasteel, really? It wasn't as though Chrisenya was ever going to not feel like she was wading through an ocean of mud, so who cared if her belt was weighed down by half a dozen spare magazines?

Most of the others were armed in similar fashion to Chrisenya, but there were a few exceptions. Thanks to Sister Regina's reinforced spine, she was the designated heavy weapon carrier, slinging around a boltgun only slightly smaller than Sister Gwynette. Serra was, of course, equipped as a Hospitaller, complete with the harness and a modified combat saw for close encounters. The standout, however, had to be Sister Benedicta, who was armed with…

"It's called a crossbow. Arbalest in high gothic. Uses spring tension to launch a dart, I won bronze with something a lot like this back at the Gabriellum. Did you know?"

"Yes, I did," Bellara replied. "And it so happens that the crossbow is one of the accepted weapons for the war-games. If you make good use of it, that may lead you down paths in the future."

From there, it was to the staging ground, a flat expanse of rockcrete at the corner of the field. They weren't allowed to leave the black-painted border until the signal went off, which gave them time to consider orders.

"You're sororitas, remember, not just PDF grunts. My word is final, but you're well within your rights to contribute to the plan."

Said plan was, in the end, the product of an interplay between Sister Benedicta and Sister-Superior Bellara, and relied on a principle which Benedicta referred to as "we're not here to survive". The squad would split up into two groups. One group would consist of Regina, Severn, Benedicta, and Gwynette, and would immediately rush for the three-story tower at the center of the field, hopefully turning it into a sniping position for Benedicta's crossbow. Chrisenya, Fidelitas, and Liniel would stay low and sweep the ground. Serra would remain as far back as possible and only move in when it was safe.

"Don't you think Regina should go with us?" Fidelitas asked. "It's a bit unbalanced, having both of our best weapons in one place."

"It doesn't matter," Bellara replied. "If you can't take the tower, then this entire plan falls apart and you're doomed to failure. Hedging your bets means you're already expecting to lose."

"It isn't as though a heavy bolter like this is a particularly short-range weapon," Regina said, brandishing the enormous gun in a way that coincidentally made her biceps stand out. "Once I'm in place, it'll rain suppressing fire down like the Empress's own javelins."

There was little discussion after that. Bellara ordered the three-sister ground team to prepare themselves on the left side, ready for a clockwise sweep, while the gun team went in the center and did stretches to prepare for rapid advance. It was only a couple more minutes before the signal came in the form of a flare rising up over the battle grounds. The gun team immediately burst into a sprint.

The sweep team, on the other hand, could be much more sedate in their movements; indeed, to move much faster than a steady walk outside of emergencies would be to invite mistakes. It wasn't until all three of them had slipped around a corner and away from Bellara's view that the grox in the room was addressed.

"Who's going to be the point of the lance?" Fidelitas asked.

It was the most dangerous position. Even if this was simulated, nobody wanted it. After several quiet seconds, Sister Liniel volunteered.

"Good. In that case, I'll watch your back. Saint, you can watch mine."

Chrisenya was entirely too busy thinking about the fact that Fidelitas still called her "saint" after all this time to argue. So it was that Liniel prepared herself to be the point of the lance, dropping her boltgun onto the strap around her shoulders so she could carry her pistol and blade. Fidelitas remained close to her as the trio moved forward, always ready to cover her back should Liniel come under fire. Chrisenya, meanwhile, went further afield, searching every angle for signs of possible ambush. A three-person team was always rather awkward like that.

Chrisenya should have been more terrified than she was, and she was already quite scared. It was only simulated combat, the worst injury she could expect would be a bad bruise, but the bodily, animal fear of being surprised and overcome was present nevertheless. And yet it was dulled. Partially that was the fault of her mental state, the fuzziness insulating her from reality; but Chrisenya had a bone-deep familiarity with how it felt to be drugged to high heavens while simultaneously mortally terrified, and this wasn't that.

There was a sense of certainty, the knowledge that victory was imminent, or at the very least that she would be able to give just as well as she got even if her squad-sisters let her down. Even as the barrel of her boltgun wavered drunkenly hither and thither, Chrisenya kept that certainty safe within her.

Then came the rattling of fire. Liniel and Fidelitas both jumped, instantly breaking off from what they were doing to turn and face the direction of the noise. Chrisenya already was. It was coming from the central tower, and likely belonged to the gun team. Indeed, the loudest noise of all was the tell-tale throaty sound of the heavy bolter. These simulation guns didn't sound quite like the real thing, the low power turning the thunderous roar of a real bolter into a stuttering cough.

"Shit," said Fidelitas. "Shit, I knew they were going to have someone in the tower already. Should we go help them?"

Chrisenya shook her head. "It's just as likely they're taking it with ease as they are fighting for their lives. Besides, we don't want to disobey Bellara's orders."

Fidelitas swore some more. The slight terror which nipped at Chrisenya must have been quite severe in her, from the way she was jittering. Chrisenya wished that there was some way to soothe her; but not only would that be inappropriate on the field of battle, but their relationship no longer took that shape.

"We should keep patrolling, shouldn't we? Fidelitas?"

"Yes, yes we should. Let's keep moving."

And so they did. It continued to be the case that there were no enemies in sight. How large was the war field that this was possible? Chrisenya knew immediately: it was large, but not nearly as large as it felt from the middle of it. Rather, it had only been a few brief minutes, and given there were likely no more than sixteen sisters in the field, it was more than possible to miss one another.

The sounds of fire from the central tower ceased just as quickly as they had started. Fidelitas still froze for an instant. Liniel was more focused on rounding the corner in front of her, but Chrisenya knew it could have been a fatal error on Fidelitas's part.

"Empress, I wish we had a vox with us. Just to ask if they're set up or if we're on our own." Fidelitas paused in momentary thought. "I suppose we could yell. Is that a bad idea?"

"That is a bad idea," said Liniel. "Unless we want them to come right to us. Then it'd be a fantastic idea."

"Would mean less waiting," Fidelitas muttered. "We should have come up with a signal or something."

Chrisenya resolved that, next time, she would make sure they came up with a signal. She was going to say that out loud, but the words came out as more of a yawn than anything else. Focusing on their flanks was paramount.

But she couldn't focus on the flanks, because something was coming. It was coming from the next street down, and it was about to come pouring down the very alleyway into which the trio had, without any real discussion, entered. Chrisenya spun about, waving her boltgun down the end of the passageway. She needed to react, but how? Too late. There was only one thing left to do.

"Liniel! Down! Back!"

While Chrisenya's addled body struggled to keep pace with its own fear, the object of that fear stepped around the corner. Another scared nineteen-year-old in armor rushed into view, following the sound of Chrisenya's outburst. She wasn't carrying a bolter, nor even a heavy bolter. As she came to the head of the alleyway and saw three of her opponents all in a row inside it, she reacted with admirable speed, turning around and pressing the trigger on her flamer.