Chapter Sixty-Three (Holy Terra)
Slaanesh had an easy path to picking through the mind of the teen Planeswalker. I didn't come to the conclusion because Holy Terra was a nest of tentacles —it could have been Nurgle, he liked tentacles too— but because those tentacles had tongues, and moaned. Honestly, there was not a single spot of land, or a single place to rest my eyes, that wouldn't demand the movie to be burned and the ashes buried deep into the arctic permafrost. People and demons did things to themselves and to others that even mentioning it slightly would get a random individual in troubles with the forces of the inquisition, the Spanish one who stood in wait, lurking to jump out when it wasn't expected.
While the people were used like clothes in the better cases or as a lot of other things in the worsts, silent Grey Knights stood by not saying a word. They had been brought there to protect the new emperor as he went about his own depraved ways.
I easily slipped past them, quietly walking the mile long passage towards the Eternity Gate, which would lead into the bowels of the Imperial Palace itself, the Throne Room of the Golden Emperor, the Sanctum Imperialis.
The countless banners that lead to the Eternity Gate had been broken and removed, replaced with drawings of flaming swords, triple six signs and countless other forms and shapes that had probably been drawn by an artist who had no concept of perspective. New pitch-black Space Marines stood guard over the gates, turrets with threatening designs of flame and roaring dragons moved with random abrupt bursts right and left, as if pursuing invisible zigzagging enemies.
I watched it all impassively as I felt the presence of Fuuka's Spark and that of an unknown, yet familiar, Planeswalker. He had probably survived the Neurotoxin pumped into his veins through the spikes I had thrown at him. I hadn't been in my war form, so to speak, and thus the poison hadn't been deadly enough to kill a Planeswalker. He hadn't even put a net to prevent Planeswalking, so either Fuuka and him had come to terms and that had ended with the destruction of her world, or he was holding some form of leverage over her.
It didn't take a genius to understand what he had.
Even before slipping past the guards, the turrets and stepping inside the large chambers of the Sanctum Imperialis, I already knew that I would find chained to the golden throne a mixture of Slave Leias, Twileks, Eldars, Elves and various assorted humans. I rolled my eyes as I could see Slaanesh' form merely prancing about faking its enslavement while at the same time corrupting the teen Planeswalker to have him deliver his Spark to its luscious breasts.
My brain shifted my canons of beauty, and she suddenly was no different than a potted plant, or a carrot ready to be chopped.
The raucous laughter that left the young man's throat was accompanied with the giggling of enslaved females, whose slave marks eerily glowed and burned on their skins flushed with sweat and other things best left unmentioned. In a corner, hidden beneath a piece of thick cloth, a certain young man was huddled in fetal position. His mind had been scarred and broken, and he barely clung on to sanity by sleeping for long hours, hoping to one day wake up to real life, and not this nightmare of perversion.
I calmly walked my way towards the rattling nexus of chains that seemed to bind every slave at the very base of the throne, and after easily pulling the main nail out from the ground, I threw it to the side. The bolt jingled as it touched the pavement.
"Who the hell are you!?" the Planeswalker shrieked as he hastily moved to bring his pants up.
I smiled, and then gently waved my left hand in front of me. With an inhuman scream born only of the depths of the Immaterium, Slaanesh' entire form burned and burst in countless bits and pieces of flesh. A wave of magic left my frame, the countless Succubus in the nearby proximity suffering the same fate as their unholy master. Shackles burst from the ground, slamming the Planeswalker on the golden throne he had so greedily decided to claim.
"I am your God," I answered quite gently. "Now, I will break you."
My smile remained on my face for a few more minutes, and once I was done I stepped away and turned towards the figures huddled in a corner, the last traces of the Slave Marks on their faces disappearing as their impulses to serve and protect their master didn't, at least not until gentle soothing waves of Blue Mana nudged their memories back on the right track. The sense of shame was the first thing they recovered, and as I already had clothes materialized in their arms for them to dress up, they did so as quickly as it was possible for their sore bodies.
The cage shattered as the figure of Yuu emerged from beneath the cloth with a tentative feeling of hope, which was soon replaced with the emotion better known as joy.
"I would get the kitchens of this place to cook up something for you, but I wouldn't trust anything cooked in a place of perversion like this for the next months," I said with a drawl, before taking a deep breath and steadying myself for the incoming hug from an overtly emotional Fuuka.
It didn't come.
She was kissing quite greedily her husband Yuu and holding him tightly, whispering the usual trite words of I'm so sorry, it's all my fault, I didn't know Phyrexia would reach your family here, I was too weak to stop them, please don't hate me, I'm so sorry...I glanced away and quickly took stock of the survivors, if they could be considered such. Some were clearly inhabitants of this world, if misplaced on a galaxy-wide scale. Others clearly belonged elsewhere.
"Then the voice of the Maker rang out, the first Word, and his Word became all that might be," a red-haired young woman spoke in awe, clutching with both of her arms her body, her hands gripping on to the sides of her shoulders. She smiled as she looked around, "Is this the heart of the Fade? The Golden city itself? Have you returned to us, oh Maker? Does the Chant of light sing in all of the corners of the world?"
"I don't know what kind of place this is," a blond Elf woman with glowing green eyes said harshly, "But you have my thanks for saving us from that ignominious fool," she clenched her hands as she looked at the broken man strapped to the throne, unable to speak, or even move. "If only I had my bow, I would enjoy driving arrows into his frame slowly, one at the time."
I smiled, and then made a small bow. "The Tyrant is always happy to help others, Lady Leliana, Lady Sylvanas," I grinned. "I'll take care of bringing to justice this man, and then I will bring you back to your worlds." I moved a hand to summon my Pennon blade, and then grimaced. "I don't even want to touch him," I muttered. "Bye, whoever you were," I said in the end, stabbing him cleanly through and ripping his Spark out of his chest.
It pulsed with energies as I neared my left hand's fingers to its edges, quietly siphoning the power off it and into my own.
As the last bits of energy left the Spark, and the Planeswalker died, I grinned. "Murdering Planeswalkers always gets me peckish. Who wants to go grab a bite? My treat," I added.
Surprisingly, only Leliana wanted to.
Everyone else simply wanted to go back to their respective worlds, or Planes.
"Shade...thanks for saving us," Fuuka murmured as she neared with Yuu by her side. She stopped right in front of me, Yuu smiling awkwardly, trying to make sense of everything that was going on and deciding in the end to ask questions at a latter date.
The smile I had on my lips died two seconds later as Fuuka ripped out her husband's spine with ease, the bones melding and changing shape until they merged into a spear, which swiftly impaled me through my guts, drilling a deep hole as it cleanly passed through my entire frame and emerged on the other side slick with blood.
"For the glory of Phyrexia," Fuuka's voice came out as a strangled whisper, tears of black oil falling copiously from her eyes.
"You will ignore us no longer, Tyrant."