{note: no pictures; also, this chapter may be subject to heavy changes later,}
In the God Emperor… we seek light…we seek his mercy…. And we seek his duty!... The prisons and their lot…cry out in their blasphemy… but we don't care… For we are the wall… even as the eons pass like suns swap to the night.
WE STAND! Forever watchers of the cold dark… we guard his throne, while some say we guard his corpse…while we watch as dozens of our people die, bathing in his light, while stopping passage to his holy road… many come… and many more die!
The walls of Terra are not quiet… the sounds of whispers are deafening to our ears… and yet… we stand… some for a thousand years without movement! But always ready to answer his call!
And answer… WE DID! THE SONS OF THE TEN THOUSAND! RIDE TO WAR!
→excerpt of one of the Ten Thousand←
"Rare is the battle where the Emperor's Custodians outnumber our foes. We are ever beset, surrounded upon all sides by heresy and foulness just as is Terra itself. Yet like the throneworld we stand resolute, indefatigable, indomitable. Let the enemy come, let them darken the horizon with their numbers. Still we will prevail."
→quote by Harkhas Bastoris, Allarus Custodian ←
Beneath the earth, and lost in the caverns of the undercity's background, there the Nero tyrant smiled as he unleashed his "weapon," a beam of pure pysker energy, but unlike the others he had sent out before, this one… was different; the custodian, the guardian, knew in a moment, in the fraction of a second, the difference with just a passing glance…as he removed the head of a lictor that stood in the way! And in the shadow of the moment, as the lictor's body fell to the side, the beam roared through all the other Tyranids in the way! Killing them down to a cellular level!
Freezing and burning, while pulsing thunder and destruction in the form of green lightning, leaving behind a crater of but flesh and rock! Though precise and deadly, as his attack was, nothing- not even the dust clouds in the area- could hide that…
"That damnable glowing gold!" thought the Tyrant, with annoyance, coupled with an audible "tsk".
But just as quickly as those thoughts disappeared and the dust settled to show the man, standing firm like a wall… tho sparks shone in and out from the man's armour, while parts of it had chips from here to there, while a whole section of a gauntlet crumbled to dust, and with a sword that once showed off it brillant phastasm! Now spider cracks ran through its shaft, while pieces of its rare metal began to crumble from its edges!
But without a weapon and a shield generator fried beyond use, what could this human do before him now? Or so thought the tyrant.
But then… As he watched the human become a blur, he saw the shape of his brethren's weapons appear at his head! Seeing his brethren's appendages fly towards his head, the tyrant quickly sent out a barrier!
And as the light of the barrier touched the flying limbs that came for him, they paused, frozen in the air, or at least at first glance it looked so…but to the eyes of one of the emperor's finest, how could he miss the tiniest of details?
Through his helmet, nothing was a secret… the limbs he threw were not so much as frozen, but slowly moving… while the crumbling rock and metal above him acted the same…
Slowing down time is no easy feat; much less stopping time altogether would require strength beyond what even a tyrant could have, tho some records could debate that course; either way, to the man in gold, it made no difference… killing freaks and monsters is what he was made for… and watching everything through his visors, and seeing the data, the man never blinked… he only gripped his broken sword tighter, down to the hilt!
"Really now… a game of catch… fine… I'll play along…" replied the tyrant with a sinister smile as he turned off his slow barrier to send out more lasers!
And like this, the back and forth continued until the point the tyrant grew tired of the game, as neither of them could hit the other; as one would dodge and throw, while the other would defend, then attack… seeing no end to it and time growing more important as his queen's arrival was nearing, and so, determined to catch this mouse, the tyrant increased the width and length of his barrier! Exhausting a little more of the power that he kept for saving for the time… but what else could he do… games had their fun… but even games have an end… at least he believed so…
And when the time did come, when he finally caught that little golden man… the man stood unfazed, with his broken hilt right in the eyes of his enemy!
"Finally caught you… little golden rat!" said the tyrant through psyker words into the Custodes' head. With a hint of unmasked pleasure… before continuing:
"Now, tell me, little human, what was the point in throwing all those limbs? After the first? You saw my power…yet you continued… so…what was the plan?"
Now, the Custodes didn't reply; why would he, as his plan was already set in motion! For as the tyrant grew closer, and just as he brushed past one of his brenthens limbs…
Boom!
The sudden explosion didn't just shock the tyrant, but it also rippled out it own distortion! The tyrant suddenly felt heavy and sluggish, much like the stuff floating around him! But that distortion also caused him to lose focus! Losing his barrier just enough for the golden man to move ever closer with his broken blade!
But catching him just in time… the tyrant quickly paused for a moment to look around him, as he then noticed the weird objects hidden throughout the field! Curiously increase his vision with psyker energy; the tyrant examined the objects…
"An explosive of some kind, obviously, but why are there two different types? Well, I know what one of them does… increase gravity, was it? Interesting…" thought the tyrant as he examined his body further, accepting the feeling of moving slower, of feeling time…"
"..."
"Time!" screamed the tyrant in his mind as more bombs suddenly appeared before him!
"But how!" he screamed as he looked back at the cold blade that locked eyes with him!
The tyrant felt a sudden chill run through his spinal fluid when Boom! A series of explosions rang in waves, blowing across his cerebral head! As blood rushed out from exploded and burned tentacles, while his huge head had chunks of cerebral matter scattered and raining on the floor, the time he once controlled then failed him… as then sharp limbs thrown from every which direction, some of which before made no sense to the tyrant, now filled him with understanding…
As they entered his body, with their sharp edges, some even coated in poisons… as more blood escaped his mouth, the tyrant grew angry, as he roared out psyker energy in waves, pushing everything around him away! Even the golden man…
But even as he slid back, the Custodes never lost his footing; he only stared at the tyrant as he continued his tantrum!
But while the tyrant threw his tantrum, the Custodes, simply looked at the remaining tanglefoot grenades in his hand… while others exploded all around him in their brilliance! And so, with a smile as grand as his armour, he watched as the gravity and time began to distort uncontrollably in the room!
Meanwhile, on board the Queen's fleet
Slithering in the depths of her bed chambers, surrounded by her children, the darkness was comforting, though her arms bled from her own nails… while her teeth clenched and tore her gums! Tasting her own blood, the queen grew hungry. Yet at the same time didn't want to eat… only staring out into space where the white pillar once was… through the eyes of the whale she called her nest!
Staring out into that black, she only saw her own reflection in the lens of her home, Gorgeous and beautiful… the queen she believed her body to be. Unlike most of her kind, she was born from races unknown in this galaxy, forged through genetic code to be far more appealing than any other… Though as deadly as her exoskeleton and her blades are, nothing can compare to her breathtaking grayish-blue skin, while her armour shines like the snow on the mountains!
With eyes that can pierce your soul like a venomous serpent, she stands more humanoid than the rest… but still carries her heavy crown with honour and authority; with hidden eyes in her crown, she can see all that matters!
The bug queen, tho it is said that the Tyranids as a whole are just a hive mind, that they just share one mind, a mind born in some deep black pit, and this is true! The queen can "feel" another mind with her, born differently than other queens; she was allowed some semblance of autonomy, of course not without some chains…
"Feeling" those chains in her soul… in her body and instincts, she knew what she was born for: her "duty", her long-awaited life, floating through the stars… then she saw, just as she burned another world for her kin, a burning, dazzling light… for the second time she had witnessed it! And words fail to describe how much she longed to consume it!
"I have to have it… I HAVE… TO…HAVE IT!" Words and like-minded words like these just kept screaming in her mind on repeat…
It was then, as she was lost in her delusion of consuming that light, on which child she could bore once she had it, that a hole tore in real space! And from it, came one giant ship!
Looking at it, she thought to herself for but a moment:
"Huh! Another "human ship"... ugh am so tired of them… they all taste the same! And I swear, do these creatures inhabit every planet in this sector! Meh… I will just divert two children; handle it… I don't have time for this!
On board the plague ship:
As the shattered window in space sealed itself back up, and the blue shocks that danced around the plague vessels pulsed out of existence… and the plagues flying outside the vessel regained their life, it was then, in the coldness of space, that warning sirens bled into the ears of everyone on board!
[LORD! Mortarion! It's… it's a hive fleet!!]
{A Tyranid fleet? Here! How many! Which fleet? Did we arrive too late?}
[sir… their fleet… it's… the highest I've ever seen! The highest anyone has seen! It… in the hundreds…]
Hearing his men reply, Mortarion said nothing, but stared at the projected red dots that covered the 3D models in front of him!
[lord?]
{...}
Not hearing a reply, the crew member decided it would be best to continue:
[Well, lord, the data show that this fleet is highly likely to be… the hive fleet… Tiamet!]
{...}
[My lord?] continued the servitor as he looked around at the other crew members and saw the same concerned look…
[Well…, as for arriving too late… I can say for certain that isn't the case… based on the continued data, it looks like this isn't the right planet or the right sector… it looks like… yes… it looks like we jumped out into real space a little too soon; we're still quite far from our intended target!]
{How far.. Exactly?} replied Mortarion in a deep voice
[Hmm… it looks like we are indeed in the Segmentum Obscurus, within the gloom worlds! And within the Eye's reach; however, we are also dangerously close to Ork-controlled space!]
{Orks? Huh… well, it doesn't matter; we should be able to avoid them easily enough! But more importantly, the question I should be asking is… how did bugs from Tiamat make it all the way here already? Their area of control is half a galaxy away!}
Not knowing if his lordship's question was directed to him or if he was simply talking to himself, the tech priest in charge wisely kept his mouth shut for the moment… Just before the red light beamed and the sirens of the assault shields came down!
[My… my.. Lordship! The hive fleet! Is sending an assault group our way! Numbers…huh? Only two? Let's see… records indicate they are Devour class and a… Razorfirend!]
{only two? For a ship our size? Ha! Is the Tiamat queen underestimating us? No.. that not it… I bet… I bet she doesn't even care about us at all!}
[What do you mean, my lordship?]
{What I mean is… is that she came all the way here, from half a galaxy away… she must be in a hurry… the hunger their kind suffers from must be eating away at her very core… then adding their strange way of arriving here so fast must have cost them something… if I'm right about this…}
[MY lordship! The Razorfiend class will be on us in thirty seconds! Along with a few hundred harpies and hive crones! The sensor is also reporting a few hundred boarding worms! As well as a few hundred stalker drones… Oh, thank the plague father, there aren't any wardrones in the mix.]
{Guh, enough of your babbling! Is everything ready?}
[Yes! The main guns are primed and ready to fire on your word!]
[Good, let's give these bugs a little taste of the plague Father's gifts!