School's Out Forever
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- madison
School's Out Forever
Alarm lights slowly strobed, as a vox message commanding all students to seek safety repeated on loop. Something was afoot in the magical Scrofashroom, one of the three great Academies of Zirdium Prime, and Harald Potstorm was going to get to the bottom of it.
"Shouldn't we be heading to the shelters, Harald?" Harmony was as ever nervously clinging to petty rules, annoying but fitting for one of such low birth.
"Ah, don't be a wet blanket, Har, when has Harald ever steered us wrong?" Rinald of House Weselton as always put his faith in Harald, and had ever since the pair of them had slain his treacherous older brother. The arrogant son of Weselton had dared question Harald's claim to the Potstorm authority, simply because he had been raised in hiding among the slaves in the wake of his family's death.
"The whole place has gone on lockdown! It wasn't this bad even when that serpent was hunting in the halls." Harmony rather impudently pointed out.
"And we were able to slay that abomination as mere second years!" Harald smiled. "We've grown so much in the years since." He let the twisted mark on his forehead glow, the trapped soul fragment of the Chaos sorcerer within straining to break free.
Harmony said nothing, her mouth drawing into a tight line. She may have been brilliant enough to earn her way into Scrofashroom with only a Zeta's power and chattel for parents, but she still had the heart of a slave.
"If you're worried about running into the hall monitors, don't be, they don't even know about these passages," Rinald reassured her. Before they could get into yet another argument whether the staff was truly ignorant or merely pretending, the debate was cut off as sound itself seemed to be dampened. The three of them exchanged looks, before Harald pulled out his vanishing cloak, enshrouding them all in holy shadow.
The three of them crept forward, gazing through the inset one way mirror in the secret passage's door. The room beyond was bathed in an unholy green light, the result of some blasphemous ritual being carried out by a single heretic witch. Around them, four power armoured heretics had taken up defensive positions.
"What are they doing?"
"I think I've heard of this," Harmony whispered, reluctant to reveal the depths of her forbidden knowledge. "Some kind of perverse ritual that can be done by a single heretic, yet strikes with the force of a full choir. We need to tell someone."
"No," Harald spoke with conviction. He had looked at the souls of his foes, and found them wanting. These fools were barely wizards, the strongest of them was an Epsilon at most. "They are weak, and their backs are to us. We can deal with them ourselves."
"Damn right." Rinald sounded eager for combat and glory.
"Are you mad?" Harmony of course was not. "Those heretics are in power armour, enchanted power armour," she urgently whispered. "They don't give that out to any but their veterans!"
"You can help or not, but I'm going in and I doubt you'll get far without my cloak." It was improper to argue like this with a subordinate, but her skill had earned her some small measure of leeway.
The matter settled, they stole into the room, the hidden passage flicking from a solid wall to the illusion of one over a door for a moment as they strode forth. Each preparing for battle in their own way. Harald charged his force staff, Rinald silently drew his golden blades, and Harmony pulled a small obsidian symbol from her robes. Against an unaware caster they would be more than enough, and the chaos of a misfiring ritual would serve them well in dealing with the foul witch's foolish guards.
The heretics were vigilant, but facing the wrong way, and Harald's cloak of shadows was near perfect. Harald smiled; his victory was going to be almost too easy. Then, it all went wrong. Rinald whirled blades glowing with sacred power, barely stopping a blow one of the power armored invaders had launched at what must have been empty air. The cloak of shadows unwove around them and the trio now stood exposed.
Power surged as Rinald became a whirlwind of golden blades, each strike met with the crackling plasma blade of his foe, Harmony dashed her symbol upon the ground, flooding the room with shadow, and Harald sprinted towards the casting sorcerer.
An act of unholy will saw the shadows pushed back, revealing a heretic in his path. Harald's power surged, drawing deeply upon the enslaved soul fragment bound to his scar as he fell back upon his signature technique. His foe was fast, but his will was faster still.
"Exarmare!"
His foe jerked as weapons erupted away from them, knives, grenades, strange heretical artifacts, but the weapon they'd dare raise against their better flew into his outstretched hand. He'd barely felt its reassuring weight in his hand when the power armored heretic exploded into motion, shooting towards him like a bullet. With a grin he poured his power into the unfamiliar weapon, commanding it to fire.
NO
The sheer strength of the rejection threw his powers out of his control, sending them running wild. Power raw and unrefined exploded out in five perfect columns of crackling gold lightning that passed harmlessly over Harald. The gun went totally dead, and the charging intruder stumbled mere steps from him. With a righteous cry he brought his crackling force staff up in a desperate blow, striking the blank fishbowl helm of his foe, his psychic might shattering it like glass. His heart soared in triumph, until he saw his foe's face. She was oddly plain, with a few scars and short blond hair, but she looked at him with an expression that was somehow both intensely focused and barely interested. His instant of hesitation had been too long. With a bizarre wrenching motion, a shower of parts fell from her now dead armor, and she was moving again.
Harald's will became a pane of golden force, only for her to somehow juke to the left, moving with a dancer's grace despite the weight of her armor. He swung a textbook perfect skull split towards her exposed face, but she tilted like a stumbling drunk and his blow sheared through her pauldron. And now she was inside his reach and her fist filled his world.
Harald was on the ground, pain radiating from his face. Rinald's advice came to him in a flash; if you don't remember how you got there, move. He hurled himself to the side just as something heavy came down, shattering the tiles where his head had been. He scrambled forward on his hands and knees, desperately trying to stand as he heard heavy footsteps behind him. With a desperate act of will he filled his hands with holy molten gold, before commanding himself to face the foe.
Power forced him up, and brutally twisted him around, the might of the Emperor demanding his servants face the enemy standing and head on. The brutal force of it strained his bones, and lent his desperate throw far more power than he could have otherwise managed. The Emperor guided his aim, and the burning gold flew toward the heretic's face. It was only the blind luck of her already having her arm up that let her block his holy barrage, the gold washing over her armored gauntlet, but the sizzle of cooking fat and smell of burnt flesh indicated that some of his attack had struck true. More importantly, for an instant her own gauntlet had obscured her view. Harald reached out with his hand and will for the force staff he'd dropped, the staff that was now directly behind his attacker.
His staff flew true, burning with holy light, Scrofashroom itself empowering him to strike down the heretic within its hollowed halls. With an explosion of crimson and gold the head of his staff burst through her gut, with only yet another impossible last minute shift sparing her spine. No matter, he would have to but touch it to cook her from the inside out!
He shot forward, the Emperor speeding his steps, his hand reaching for the golden aquila to claim victory, only for it to suddenly vanish from sight. Receding into the bloody darkness with a squelch and a scream of effort, as the invader pulled it out of her back, once more dragging it through her own guts. Harald glanced up at his foe's face. Her once placid face was now marred by specks of gold, and a weeping bloody mess where her right eye once was. In her remaining eye he saw a flash of utter hate. Her free hand, the one covered in now solidified gold, swung at his face. He willed the gold to be still, and her fist froze mid blow, before becoming leverage for her to throw herself towards him, head first. Her face filled his vision and he saw a faint smile before she slammed into his forehead, directly on the single binding of the soul fragment empowering him. The warding glyph flared and exploded into life, erupting into a wave of force.
Yet again, Harald was sent tumbling backwards, though this time he was at least facing his foe. She seemed to have gotten the worst of it, slumped in her armor with her neck at an awkward angle. For a moment he dared hope she was dead, before her neck slowly strained, as the blood pouring from her gut slowed to a wet trickle. She stared at him intensely with her remaining eye, but her breath was labored and her gaze ever so slightly wavered. In her left hand, Harald saw that she was clutching his staff.
"How dare you! That's mine!"
She smiled. "Then come and get it."
"No, you're going to give it back."
The fool had given him a few seconds, more than long enough to complete his working, casting his faith and soul against her feeble mind.
He was not in the familiar halls of Scrofashroom, and he was no longer Harald Potstorm student of sorcery. He was as he truly was, a radiant golden soul leading the charge against a heretic fortress. Before him was the mind of his foe, an ancient fortress wrought of wood. With a yell he charged forth, conjuring an army of ideas behind him. Holy axes met heretical wood and bit deep, revealing the faint green of young and untested timber beneath a veneer of strength. His foe was so unused to mental combat she could not even strike back! Merely endure as he ground her defenses to nothing. Gold met wood and the assault pressed on.
Golden copies of his friends appeared, acting as lieutenants for the final assault on the gate. Harmony erecting a barrier against trickery and traps, while Rinald became a whirling golden buzzsaw. With a final eruption of splinters the gates collapsed, and Harald strode through triumphantly, and then he was alone. He could hear the distant crash of timber and panicked cries of his legion, but he was alone. Trees so tall their peaks vanished into mists stretched away in every direction, while strange cries filled the darkness. He called for his constructs, his legion, his comrades, and nothing. They were not here, for in this place He Was Alone.
This was not a true forest, merely a mental trap. The way out was the one he picked, and so Harald strode forth, refusing to let fear shake him. Roots tore at his footing, the feel of mocking jests and doubt, cries forged from surprise and shock deafened his ears, and the fog of creeping dread coated him, asking with his own voice what such defenses meant. The forest was strengthened with memory, and just how much memory did his foe have?
A beast summoned by his own fear pounced. He struck at it but its flesh was wood hardened by tribulation. It reached him and sunk fangs made of revelation into his flesh, a memory.
The Warp shook as something happened, something wrong and galaxy shaking. She clung tight to her mother's legs as the shelter shook without moving. Her mother reassured her even as she failed to hide her own fear. There was a flash of Gold, so unlike the kind saint she'd known, and then a new voice, a new monster. It called her a witch and demanded she kneel to the master of mankind.
Harald gasped as he came out of the memory. The feeling of violation shuddering through him as he recovered from being forced into such wrong ways of thinking. But he could not turn away from the truth. This insect, this heretic, had seen the rebirth of the Emperor with her own witchsight. She was a minor psyker, barely better than a blunt! And yet, and yet she was in a sense older than his god. The implications that she was that old, that she had survived for so long, did not bear thinking about.
He forced his fear down, but it was too late. The forest around him smelled blood, and it was hungry. He ran back the way he'd come, back to reality where he might have a chance. At his heels slavering beasts rose from the ground, things of roots and old pain, above him flew mocking birds feathered in shame, swooping at him with talons of inadequacy and cowardice. Fear and doubt flowed into him like poison from a serpent's bite, and the path ahead stretched into infinity even as a sea of roots rose to drown him in despair. He heard a faint chuckle as something massive and unseen moved in for the kill and then-
Pain, honest concrete physical pain exploded in his gut. For a moment he thought it was yet another layer of mental deception, for he stood once more in a forest. But this one was new, not even yet born. Trees and vines were still growing, still impossibly forcing their way towards a familiar ceiling, cracking open the floor of Scrofashroom. Then the branch that had struck him wound up and drove itself into his gut again. He staggered back, reaching with his will for his staff and the foe that held it, only to see it torn from her grasp by a lashing vine as she retreated into the shadows, warding away the murderous greenery from her breached armor.
Once more his staff flew to his hand at his Command, just in time to sever a thick branch as it swung at his head. He could not muster his will for a shield, instead using his force staff like a machete to cut away the murderous plants around him. This proved to be a mistake, as with a wooden creak a massive willow reared up, apparently affronted by his damage to its roots. Whatever it had been focused on, now it was focused solely on him.
Branches came in from every angle as the enraged tree launched its assault. Harald fled, swinging his crackling staff with wild abandon at branches from its trunk. A vine snaked around his foot, sending him to the ground, the branches trailing a passing trunk scraping him as a blow flew overhead. The creaking of wood drew his attention, showing the vast trunk of the twisted willow bunching up for a strike. With a cry he forced his will once more into a shield, the heretical tree shattering itself against it.
"Harald! Over here!" Harmony was but a few feet away! A swirling portal of shadow was behind her, and Rinald laid at her feet, his eyes glassy and his torso soaked in blood. "It won't stay open long!"
He rose to his feet, just as he turned to go, he felt something. Psykers, dozens, maybe hundreds, and they were getting closer, emerging from the mad forest like mutants from the underhive. Among them was one so much stronger than the rest, one emerging mere strides from him, one who he could just barely tell was facing the wrong way.
No, NO! He would not flee in disgrace like a coward! Not when the Emperor had given him a chance at redemption. He turned his back on safety and towards the enemies of mankind, striving forward, knowing beyond doubt that the Emperor was with him. Providence guided his steps. A shadow pulled itself from the tree before him, becoming more real as he broke into a charge. He poured all he had into his staff and more, the very soul fragment that had empowered him burned, consumed in an instant for this holy task. His ancient force staff burst into holy flames so intense they bleached out all other color with their cleansing golden light. A power armored figure appeared, its back to him and his staff dove towards its head, before stopping dead inches from it.
The new foe stepped out of the shadows and off of the ground. Almost lazily, they floated to face him, a rapier in one hand and a crackling purple nimbus in the other. Her gaze fell upon him, crushing him in place. The flames on his staff blew out like a candle in a hurricane, taking the molten ruin of his weapon with them. Her helm was intact yet he could feel her gaze, her inhuman eyes studying him, Her gaze was purple and as heavy as worlds. Harald tried to speak, to pray to rally, to do anyth
@Durin an omake for last turn, thanks to @Shard and @StormySky for helping edit it.
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