By some stroke of what could only be described as "protagonist's luck," Titus led his Ultramarines into a blistering melee against Lucius's Emperor's Children. Lucius, a duelist of peerless virtuosity among the scions of the Third Legion, brought his blade down in a lethal arc, only for Titus to parry the strike with a backhanded swing.
In the same breath, Titus's left hand brought his bolter up; a single roar of muzzle flare blasted a gaping hole through Lucius's torso. Lucius's eyes widened in sheer, indignant disbelief.
Titus offered no monologue. He leaped into the air, putting the full weight of his transhuman frame into a crushing overhead blow that forced Lucius's single-handed blade down. The diamond-toothed chainsword whirred with predatory hunger, biting into Lucius's shoulder like a slow-motion execution, spraying shards of ceramite and ribbons of gore.
Titus's face was a mask of cold, unadulterated hatred. He drove a heavy, armored boot into Lucius's face, sending the Champion of Slaanesh reeling, before unleashing a continuous torrent of bolter fire that bloomed across Lucius's body.
In an instant, Lucius was reduced to a mangled heap of meat and metal.
Titus did not know Lucius, nor did he care for his pedigree. Seeing the foe neutralized, he immediately turned to aid his battle-brothers. However, the remaining Emperor's Children, seeing their champion slain, didn't hesitate as they turned tail and fled, utterly indifferent to Lucius's fate.
The spectacle drew raucous laughter from the Dark Gods. Khorne's laughter was particularly deafening and arrogant. Having always held the "effeminate" Slaanesh in the lowest contempt, the Blood God sneered, "A sissy god for a sissy champion, a perfect match. Soon, I shall set him against my own servants, so your worthless slave might truly remember the power of the Blood God!"
Slaanesh's face turned a livid shade of bruised purple as the Prince of Pleasure watched the Emperor's Children flee in disgrace. Yet, in a twisted sense, they were merely upholding the tenets of their god: pursuit of whim, even if that whim was cowardice.
Slaanesh smirked at the Emperor. "Heh... a small welcoming gift for your efforts. But it is far from over."
The Emperor remained expressionless, as if the victory were a mere grain of sand in the desert of time.
"Victory is ours, Lord! Under the Emperor's light, these traitors shatter!" Gadriel laughed, approaching Titus while drenched in gore.
Titus's mentor, Metaurus, remained as grim as his pupil. "I fear it is not so simple."
Titus nodded silently. The duty given to them by the Emperor was to press forward until death became their final duty.
"Refit and move out. We find a way out of here!" Titus barked, slamming a fresh magazine into his bolter. As he glanced back toward Lucius's remains, he saw the traitor's body had vanished, leaving nothing but a puddle of putrid, rotting sludge.
Slaanesh had cheated again. The blessing, or curse, placed upon Lucius dictated that if his killer felt even a flicker of pride or satisfaction, Lucius would be reborn within them.
However, two factors intervened: first, Titus felt no pleasure, only cold duty; second, Titus was under the direct gaze of the Emperor, and Slaanesh dared not attempt a possession under that golden scrutiny.
Instead, the Eternal was reborn hundreds of light-years away. He manifested within a factory worker on a world that had manufactured the very bolt-shell Titus used to kill him. The sudden mutation sparked a riot in the tireless manufactorum. When the Enforcers arrived to suppress the disturbance, Lucius slaughtered them all and vanished into the shadows.
"What happened?" Lucius muttered, genuinely bewildered. He had no memory of how he had been brought before that Ultramarine, how he had been slain, or why he had respawned in the body of a commoner he'd never met.
It mattered not. The Chaos Gods never require their pawns to understand. As the Ultramar Auxilia moved to surround the area, Slaanesh's hand reached out across the veil and snatched him away once more.
…
The Arena of Ironward VIII.
The World Eaters, famed for their bloodlust, and the Death Guard, renowned for their stolid endurance, had ground each other into a stalemate.
Khârn led the charge. His twin-headed chainaxe, Gorechild, roared with a terrifying mechanical scream, feeling as light as a toy in his hands as he carved into the "stinky tin cans" of the Fourteenth Legion.
Typhus, wielding his Manreaper, struggled to repel Khârn's onslaught. His bloated, fly-blown form labored against the frenetic violence of the Blood God's greatest mortal champion. Khârn's martial prowess was a whirlwind that forced the Herald of Nurgle back step by bloody step.
"Come, Typhus! Today we settle this!!" Khârn bellowed in a blind rage. He held no mercy for this old acquaintance from the Great Crusade.
On the contrary, he utterly despised Typhus for the treacherous way he had doomed his own battle-brothers to the Warp. Khârn might be a butcher, but even he found Typhus's brand of betrayal distasteful.
Khârn's strength surged, his blood-red axes blurring into a crimson haze. Finally, Typhus's guard slipped. An axe-blade bit deep, cleaving through the thick, diseased layers of Cataphractii plate.
But no blood sprayed forth. Instead, a deluge of daemonic plague-flies, thick, foul-smelling bile, and the excrement of parasitic worms erupted from the wound.
Khârn was caught in the blast, the flies instantly beginning to gnaw at his flesh. But Khârn's fury was a literal flame; the rage in his heart burned so hot it incinerated the filth before it could take hold. Typhus seized the opening, ordering the Death Guard to retreat.
Typhus's arrogance toward Mortarion stemmed from his immense "contributions" and Grandfather Nurgle's personal favor. He would not suffer a humiliating defeat in the eyes of his patron.
The Death Guard occupied a defensible chokepoint, utilizing their unnatural resilience to repel wave after wave of World Eaters, much to Khârn's mounting frustration.
As the two legions faced off, a third force arrived. Khârn turned to see a host of warriors as tall as Astartes, but hunched and spindly, clad in crimson power armor that mimicked the plate of the Legiones Astartes.
High above, Typhus blinked. What? Do the World Eaters have reinforcements?
But Khârn knew better. The red armor was all wrong. It lacked the "cute" bunny-ear crests favored by the XII Legion. Instead, the helmets were elongated, and the backpacks were adorned with sharp spikes festooned with desiccated, mangled trophies.
Khorne might have recognized the color, but that didn't mean Khârn wouldn't swing his axe at them, especially after seeing the black-furred rat-faces beneath those helmets.
"Xenos! Feel the wrath of the Blood God!!!"
Khârn abandoned the Death Guard, charging headlong toward Queek and his Red Guard. His World Eaters followed, howling in a frenzy to slaughter these verminous impersonators.
Queek Headtaker was equally enraged. He had been having a perfectly good time killing things on Eight Peaks when he was suddenly dragged away; he needed someone to vent his fury upon.
The Warlord of Eight Peaks charged forward, a Warp-energy power sword in one hand and a Votann-tech power pick in the other. His loyal second-in-command, the four-meter-tall Ska Bloodtail, followed silently with his massive Warp-Lightning Glaive.
"Oh, look at them go~ Darling, don't disappoint me~" Slaanesh giggled, seeing Lucius's Skaven clashing with Khorne's favorite toys. The Dark Prince draped themselves over Lucius's back, whispering in a voice like a thousand succubi.
"Hmph. Interesting enough... but there is a gap in strength!" Khorne grunted. He did not believe Khârn could lose.
Queek and Khârn slammed into one another. Khârn swung Gorechild with mountain-crushing force, intending to end the xenos in a single blow.
But Queek, augmented with the gene-seed of the Emperor's Children, moved with preternatural, perfect speed. The Skaven warlord crossed his weapons, miraculously parrying Khârn's axe.
Khârn paused for a fraction of a second in surprise before pivoting with even greater force, aiming for Queek's waist. Queek's tail lashed out, wrapping around Khârn's thigh to provide leverage as he leaped over the Berzerker's shoulder. In mid-air, he slammed his Votann power pick into Khârn's pauldron.
The impact left a web of crystalline fractures on the ancient power armor.
"YES-YES! Golden-hair man-thing, good trick, Queek likes it! Stumpy-one, you... you SHUT UP!" Queek shrieked with manic laughter, addressing the withered head of an Emperor's Children Marine mounted on his trophy rack, before snapping at the head of a Squat beside it.
Queek Headtaker was truly in his element: fighting, killing, and arguing strategy with the severed heads of his collection.