Warning: This is a piece Warhammer 40k fan fiction. If you are one of those people who are really anal about following the proper lore, this is probably not gonna be up your alley.
Sister Ellinore squeezed the trigger of her bolt pistol one, twice, three times, the compact but powerful weapon bucking in her hands as it spat lead rounds with deafening barks. The foul thing that had been bearing down cry out with inhuman shrieks as the bolts tore through it's warped and mottled flesh. With three craters punched through it's chest, the mutated cultist, twisted beyond recognition as a human, pitched back. Ellinore watched it squirm and writhe, perhaps in pain, maybe in anger, if that was still an emotion it could still feel. Over the ringing in her ears, she could only just hear the last gurgles of protest from the beast peter out as, finally, mercifully, it's tentacled limbs went still and the awful, hateful eyes of seething pink became glassy and unfocused. A ragged exhale burst from Ellinore's mouth. Her strength, long stretched beyond its limits, gave out. She let herself fall backwards, allowing the steel wall at her back to catch her. Ellinore's legs buckled and she slid down the wall, slowly, until she was sitting in the floor. Ragged breaths escaped quivering lips. She stared and stared at the ugly thing now dead at her feet, wondering how it could possibly be that it had ever been a human before, and fearing that it may rise again.
The last wisps of smoke drifted from the barrel of her bolt pistol. Her breath stirred the purity seals, stained with blood, plastered against it. The taste of bile pricked the back of her tongue. White hair, wet with the sweat rolling down her face, stuck to her forehead. The air was stagant, bitingly cold, thick with the metallic stench of blood and other, unnameable things even more stomach turning.
Scenes of the nightmare she'd just endured replayed in her mind's eye - an anarchic blur of snapping teeth, grasping claws, the flash of bolterfire and sorcerous energy and purifying flames spit from the muzzle of flamethrowers contained in claustrophobic webwork of tight corridors, sharp turns, and dark hallways painted with gore and littered with viscera.
In her ears, she could hear, she could feel the pounding of her own heart. The abandoned space hulk, only moments ago filled with the clamor and din of battle, the thunder of bolters, the wailing of mutants, and the screams of the dead and dying, was now still and odiously silent, so much so that Ellinore questioned if she was the only living thing left aboard; a suspicion answered by a sound that drove an icy lance of abject terror through her core and stilled the very blood in her veins.
They were footsteps - slow, plodding, deliberate footsteps of heavy metal boots moved by an inhuman force and echoing through the corridors. Ellinore's fingers tightened around the grip of her boltpistol. The tremors coursing through her body grew violent. Mortal peril - that was what she was in. She knew that each of those metallic footfalls was tantamount to the ring of a deathknell. She knew what approached, drawing closer with every echo that rang throughout the empty, bloodsoaked halls of the spacehulk's dark bowels. She'd seen it, only briefly, yet in that brief glimpse she'd bore witness to a display of horror unlike anything she'd ever seen before.
It had appeared in what had been the abandoned spacecraft's mess hall, while the twisted remains of mutated humans and chaos cultist still smoldered with flame and cast flickering orange lights upon the walls. The sounds of battle had masked its approach, leaving Ellinore and her comrades ignorant to its presence until one among them heard the soft yet distinct and unmistakable rhymthic sounds of breathing. Once alerted to the sound, several of the other Adepta Sororitas had turned their bolters and, more importantly, the flashlights mounted to them, towards the source, casting light down a lightless hallway and illuminating the beast lurking within.
Ellinore had never seen one of the Adeptus Astartes before. Not with her own eyes. She'd heard of them in legends and myths and tales relayed by veteran Sisters that had witnessed them in battle before. Still, she knew what she saw the moment she laid eyes on the thing - a towering monster in the shape of a man, clad in ceramite plate of sapphire adorned with glittering golden trim, blasphemous icons, sorcerous runes, and a curved, sickle-shaped blade clutched in one hand. She knew that what she saw was not Adeptus Astartes, but rather a sick and evil mockery of one.
The order to fire came, but before any of the Adepta nearest the thing could pull their triggers, it raised a hand and, with nothing more than a gesture, the sisters’ weapons were pulled from their hands by an unseen force. Bolters, las-guns, and swords arced through the air and, with an agility unbefitting the thing's monstrous size, it was upon them before their weapons clattered to the ground. Ellinore could only watch as the traitor Astarte's curved blade severed one of her sister's heads clean from her neck befofr smoothly and effortlessly cleaving through the armor of another. With another wave of its hand, it sent another sister flying through the air, screaming with shock and surprise for a brief moment before ending with the sickening crunch of her body splattering against a steel wall, all the while slicing through another across the middle, splitting the poor Adeptas in two. Within seconds, the front vanguard laid in pieces, and even as the others began to rain fire upon the traitor marine. Their bullets merely ricocheted off its armor with nothing but sparks to show for it.
Ellinore watched the scene unfold, paralyzed by the awesome horror of it all, until Sister Agnetta shook her free from the stupor. Agnetta - a veteran Adepta - slapped a communicator into Ellinore's hand and told her to run, to flee to safety and call upon the nearby battleship and summon reinforcements, yelling to be heard over the sounds of gunfire and screaming. She shoved Ellinore away, prompting the younger and less experienced Adepta to break into a senseless, panicked run in the nearest direction that would put as much distance between her and the traitor Astarte as possible. She heard Sister Agnetta draw a blade and shout words of praise of the Emperor as she engaged in what both of them knew would be her final battle. Ellinore looked over her shoulder as she fled, just in time to see the traitor Astarte, with one hand and in one swift motion, bat away Sister Agnetta's sword as if it were nothing more than a table knife, take her by the shoulder with the other, and plunge its blade through her chest. As the curved weapon erupted from Sister Agnetta's back, it looked not at its newest victim, but instead, it gazed across the room at Ellinore.
For a fleeting moment, Ellinore could feel a sickening connection between herself and the traitor Astarte as her eyes met those hidden behind the sapphire helmet, hidden behind visors that glowed electric blue with wicked magicks. In that moment, Ellinore knew that she was doomed. She knew that her fate, then and there, had been sealed. Even if she hadn't dropped the communicator in her flight, losing it at some unknown moment as she pumped bolts from her pistol into gibbering, lunatic mutants and cultists that still stalked the hallways of the spacehulk's innards, she knew that she would not leave the abandoned craft alive; the traitor Astarte had seen her. It knew she still drew breath. And it would, she knew, find her.
Still, Ellinore moved away from the open doorway, scurrying on her hands and knees out of the wan light cast by throbbing emergency lights still sputtering in the hall and into the thick darkness congealed in one corner of the room. She recited unspoken prayers in the safety of her mind. She screwed her eyes shut tight and clenched her jaw so hard she thought that her teeth might crack, pressing boltpistol to her face since she could not afford to let it go and clasp her shivering hands together, and offered silent prayers to the Emperor, pleading with him to mask her presence and let the traitorous marine pass by the room in which she now hid. She asked that, if she must die, that he grant her a death that was mercifully swift. Small, whimpering cries escaped her lips. Each time she heard one of the monster's footsteps, they grew more pitiful and more small. She could not discern from which direction it approached, nor how far it was; all she knew is that it drew nearer and nearer with each lumbering step. She listened to it walk, one step after the other. Her innards coiled and squirmed like restless serpents, agitated as time stretched on, measured only by the rhythmic, measured, metrical pound of metal boots against a metal floor.
Ellinore wanted it to end. She either wanted the blasted thing to pass or just kill her already, but the waiting - the agony of waiting… it was horrible beyond words. Uniquely awful in a way that defied all sense, and exacerbated by the resurgence of the traitor’s breathing; the soft sucking of air being drawn into a helmet, and the pneumatic hiss of it as it escaped when the monstrous trans-human behemoth exhaled. As horrid as the waiting was, Ellinore felt the very blood in her veins still when the footsteps stopped… and the sounds of breathing continued.
With every last ounce of courage she still possessed, she forced her eyes open, hoping against hope that she wouldn’t see what she already knew she would see. Her prayers, she saw, were unanswered; the hulking beast of a traitor Astarte loomed in the threshold, visors glowing, pulsing with the churning blue radiance of ruinous forces, and, once again, she felt the sensation of simply being seen and conceived by such an unholy thing dawn upon her - the epiphany of prey aware that it was stuck in the stare of a predator.
The cursed Astarte seemed to have just spotted her. It turned its body and, with long, lumbering steps, stepped into the room, ducking to fit the towering crown adorning it’s sapphire helmet through the doorway.
It stood there for a moment, silent and still as a statue. The atmosphere seemed to shift around it, growing not just taut and firm, but charged, electric, even.
“Iset…”
It took Ellinore a moment to realize that the thing had spoken; the raspy, dusty drawl of a voice, more akin to the creaking of old leather than a speaking human, was warped and altered by the filters in its helmet. The word was fuzzy and low and nearly indistinguishable from any of the other ambient creaks and groans and clatters and clangs of the traitor Astarte’s ancient armor.
It took a step forward. The floor shook beneath its feet.
Ellinore hastily pushed herself off the ground and to her feet. The traitor Astarte was two heads taller than she was, and twice as broad. The rounds of her boltpistol, she knew, would have all the effect of a mosquito biting at the ceramite hull of a spacecraft; not even enough to register as an annoyance. Her mind raced with the question of whether her life should end in some zealous display of devotion to the Emperor, unseen by any save for herself and the traitor Astarte currently lording over her, or if she should simply ensure herself a quick and relatively painless end at her own discretion. Grotesque as it sounded, even in the moment, were she to skew towards the latter, no one would know save the Emperor and herself. She could spare herself a grisly end - save herself from untold suffering.
The Astarte’s hand went limp. The sickle shaped blade clattered on the floor by its feet. It reached out with a hand large enough to take Ellinore’s skull and crush it with all the effort of crumpling a piece of paper. Her body reacted accordingly. She raised the boltpistol and, rather than aim it at the approaching Astarte, jammed the muzzle under her own chin. With one last silent prayer to the Emperor, she squeezed her eyes shut. She pulled the trigger and heard the sound of metal striking the floor. The gun felt lighter in her hands than it had only moments before, and, with horror, she heard another metallic clatter, followed by a rain of disparate bolter parts shower against the floor. She opened her eyes and pulled the weapon away in time to see the last few pieces of the boltpistol fall away, leaving nothing but the grip in her hands while all the constituent pieces that had made it what it was littered the ground at her feet.
She dropped the grip, which landed with a thud amidst the rest of her undone boltpistol, dismantled by the same invisible warp powers the Astarte had used to disarm her sisters and toss them about like ragdolls. The traitor Astarte lowered its hand back to it’s side. Robbed of any recourse, she realized that she was at its mercy now.
It took another step forward. Ellinore tried to take a step away, only to feel the cold metal of the wall at her back.
“No…”
The awful hiss of it’s respirator filled the room.
“No,” it repeated in that raspy voice. “I’ve waited too long for this. Far, far too long. For thousands of years, I’ve searched the stars, waiting for this day. Waiting for you. I won't let you go again. Not that easily.”
It spoke in Imperial Gothic, so heavily accented, so foreign that the words barely made sense to Ellinore. Even though she understood each word, together, they failed to make sense. This thing - she’d never seen it before in her life. How could it be waiting for her? How could it know who she was?
The ruinous powers were as mysterious as they were destructive. Had the eyes of those hideous things that called the Warp home had their eyes upon her all this time? Had something beyond comprehension brought her to this point? Crossed her paths with this traitor for unknown but doubtlessly sinister purposes? Ellinore felt small, infinitesimally so, not just beneath the gaze of the hulking Astarte, but in the eyes of something much greater, and much more wicked.
“I’ve borne witness to horrors beyond description,” the Astarte rumbled in that dark and horrible timbre. “I’ve watched my brothers lose their minds and bodies and souls and spent lifetimes alone, adrift in the void of space. I have lost more than a man can remember and forgotten more than one could ever know… but I would never forget you. For all this time, only the thought of once again seeing your face to keep me sane. I’ve prayed to the Changer of Ways to alter mine so that, one day, my path would cross with yours again.”
Silence.
“I thought it would never come to be.”
The room around Ellinore shuddered as the traitor, as if robbed of all strength, fell to one knee. The tattered cape flowing from it’s back brushed against the floor.
“I’d recognize you anywhere, Iset… you look no different than the day I lost you on Prospero.” The traitor went silent, save for the slow, rhythmic draw of its breath. There was an expectant air to it; a sense that it was waiting for Ellinore to respond. She couldn’t - she didn’t know what to say, even if she could speak.
She’d never heard of a place called Prospero before. She’d never met an Astarte, traitor or otherwise, in all her time. Had this traitor mistaken her for someone else it had known, once? Had age and time and centuries of war broken its mind? Was it really seeing her for who she was? Or what it wanted
“It’s me, Iset.”
It placed a hand against it’s breast plate, covering the golden scarab, scratched and scarred and pitted from an untold myriad of battles, mounted upon it.
“Brother Ahmose. I know you must have lived a thousand lives since our time on Prospero, but… surely, that name - it stirs something in you.”
Brother Ahmose - a name that meant nothing to Ellinore. The traitor - was he being sincere? Was this a game for her mind, meant to sow doubt and uncertainty in her faith? through confusion? Ellinore shifted where she stood. Her adrenaline spiked as her hand brushed her side and felt what she realized was her salvation; strapped to her belt, untouched, unused, forgotten in the heat of the moment - frag grenades. Two of them, hidden just behind the scarlet shroud of her tabard.
She still had an escape. And this monster - it still had to die.
The traitor took another lumbering step forward. Ellinore pressed her hands against the wall and feigned ignorance to the grenades. The astarte, it seemed, was as unaware of them as she had been; it was imperative she kept it that way.
“I understand,” said the traitor. “You may not know, now. But I do. I know who you are. Who you really are. If you've lived a hundred lifetimes since last we met… if you've forgotten me, if you've forgotten Prospero, if you've forgotten… everything…”
Slowly, agonizingly so, Ellinore began to inch her hand back to her side, where her salvation lay in wait, strapped to her side.
“I'll help you remember. Renounce your fealty to the corpse emperor. Reclaim who you were. Reclaim who you are.”
She watched as the traitor extended its hand, palm up. The floor shuddered as it took another step forward.
“Please,” the traitor rasped.
Ellinore snaked her fingers through the metal grenade pins.
"Come with me.”
Silence. Then, a click. Ellinore threw up her arm, fist raised. She opened her hand. The traitor looked down as the metal rings once pinned to the grenades rattled against the metal floor. Once again, Ellinore and the traitor astarte met gazes. This time, she smiled. She closed her eyes. She heard a wordless roar of many things all at once - fury, sorrow, and anguish. She heard a great, deafening burst, and then, nothing at all.
So, I’ve been getting back into Warhammer 40k in a big way after years of not really touching it. I finally bit the bullet and started building an army of the coldest crew in Warpspace, the Thousand Sons, because they are, as some might say, tight as fuck. Back when I played in high school, the Ecclesiarchy didn’t have much of a presence in the table-top, so I was also surprised to see so much love for the Sisters of Battle over the years. Naturally, I had to pick up a box of Adepta as well, so I’ve been amassing a small army of nuns with guns to go alongside the space hoteps. While I was building both Rubric Marines and Adepta Sororitas at the same time, I saw two completed models standing side by side, and I thought… well, isn’t that cute.
This is because I was sitting in my local game stores like -
“Sister Ellinore, you are my reincarnated beloved.”
“No! I can't be!”
“But you are! And you must come with me, and we will rule the galaxy together.”
“I can't… but you're so dreamy…”
I know that, technically, this probably isn’t lore compliant, but, at the same time, it’s a big galaxy. I like to think miracles can happen, and love can bloom on the battlefield. As much as I enjoy the grimdark atmosphere of 40k, I also have to ask…
Also there may be more of this. I dunno. Something will probably occur to me as I continue to accrue plastic crack models.
I'm a Necrons man myself (most editions after Seventh haven't been particularly kind to them). If I were to play Marines, it would be Space Wolves. My oldest plays Black Templars and Adeptus Mechanicus.