The throne room of the Palace of Slaanesh stood hollow and desolate. The once-magnificent Six Circles of Seduction had been picked clean by the other Dark Gods, their fallen souls either devoured by rival daemons or reduced to mere ripples in the Warp-storms.
The daemons of Slaanesh fled in every direction. Some, believing the Dark Prince had truly perished, decided it was their turn to ascend. They began mobilizing their splintered hosts, seducing new mortals to fill the void and position themselves as the new incarnation of Excess. Chief among these opportunists was N'Kari. The ambitious Greater Daemon, having fled the palace alongside Shalaxi Helbane, led a personal host of Slaaneshi fiends into the void to carve out its own path.
Another faction, however, remained fanatically loyal. Daemons such as Shalaxi Helbane, the Masque, and Syll'Esske the Vengeful Allegiance labored to gather the remnants of Slaanesh's power, desperate to track down their missing master.
Naturally, the Realm of Twilight, hand-crafted by the Great Horned Rat himself, remained beyond the reach of even the most potent Greater Daemons. But Shalaxi Helbane was not deterred. The Hunter was accustomed to the long hunt, to the patience required before delivering the fatal strike.
To reclaim Slaanesh, Shalaxi knew the remnants of the faction had to be unified. And the strongest force remaining to the Dark Prince was, without question, Fulgrim and the Emperor's Children.
Upon Slaanesh's defeat, Fulgrim had wasted no time. He had promptly abandoned his patron, retreating to his personal Daemon World to wallow in hedonism and plot further humiliations for Roboute Guilliman. To the Phoenician, the loss of his god was not a burden; it was a thrilling new sensation, a novel source of stimulation.
"Look~~ Truly, the galaxy is a fickle mistress," the serpentine Fulgrim drawled, reclining upon a luxurious divan. "Even gods are not eternal. All the more reason to indulge while the moment lasts~!"
Now a massive, multi-armed serpent-man, Fulgrim accepted offerings from pale, shapeless slaves who resembled bloated maggots. He tilted his head back as wine-like ichor was poured into his maw from jeweled chalices.
"All hail Fulgrim! All hail the Degenerate Phoenix!"
A cacophony of daemons and mortals, beings of horrific, blended beauty, cheered his "brilliance." Not a single one among them felt the slightest remorse for the fall of their patron deity.
In the midst of this debauchery, a guest of ambiguous gender entered and bowed. "O Degenerate Phoenix, some friends have arrived, wishing to join the revelry."
Fulgrim narrowed his eyes, intoxicated by narcotic agents that would soon lose their edge. He lazily gestured with a clawed hand. "Oh~ I know. Hehehe~ poor wretches. They call themselves heralds of joy, yet they understand nothing of true abandonment. Let them in. Perhaps they can provide a moment's diversion."
Fulgrim had known exactly who was approaching his world.
Before long, Shalaxi Helbane, masked in the guise of a delicate, nimble dancer, stepped into the decadent, rotting splendor of the palace. Nearby, mortals so obese they were barely recognizable as human gorged themselves on decaying delicacies while Slaaneshi daemons toyed with them, eventually flaying their skin to savor the final, agonizing shrieks of pleasure-pain.
"Welcome, guest. If you are here to add luster to this feast, I am honored," Fulgrim said with a dismissive wave toward his old acquaintance. The subtext was clear: if she had come for anything other than his amusement, she could save her breath.
"Fulgrim, Degenerate Phoenix. Without the Prince of Pleasure, your dream will not last. The Empire of Mankind will not let you remain in peace," Shalaxi countered, feigning concern for the serpent-lord.
"Hahaha! Poor Shalaxi~ Have you truly sunk to this? I have never seen you look so... loyal. Had I known it would take a catastrophe to make you faithful, I might have sought this outcome sooner~" Fulgrim laughed, his massive tail coiling to lift his torso high. "Very well. Let me witness this 'loyalty' of yours. Your eventual descent into despair will surely become my favorite plaything!"
Ultimately, Fulgrim agreed to let Shalaxi draw upon his strength. Though the Phoenician refused to take orders, the Warbringers and the other warbands of the Emperor's Children entered into a tenuous alliance with Shalaxi's loyalists, a pact held together by nothing more than the name of the Phoenix.
…
Meanwhile, another individual who had long enjoyed Slaanesh's protection found himself in need of a new patron.
In the halls of Clan Skryre, where he was treated as an honored guest, the "Old Apothecary" Fabius Bile had lost track of the days spent researching Warpstone upon the battle-planets.
As a mad scientist who had "studied" under many races, including the Haemonculi of Commorragh, Bile had bartered his vast genetic knowledge for the right to study the secrets of the Skaven.
"No, it's impossible, completely unscientific! How can one substance produce such wildly contradictory results?!"
Bile roared in frustration, sweeping aside a stack of volatile research data. He clawed at his bald head in a fury. A man who had looked upon the gods and felt nothing, Bile was now pushed to the brink by the sheer, chaotic inconsistency of the reports before him.
"No one, no-thing can crack the secrets of the Great Horned Rat's blessing! Yes-yes!" Ikit Claw watched Bile's breakdown with sadistic glee.
This "man-thing" was a rare specimen. He had volunteered to exchange technology with Clan Skryre, specifically requesting to study the power of Warpstone. Initially, Ikit dismissed him as another arrogant human, but Bile had produced a serum containing the genetic material of a Rat Greater Daemon. The resulting panic and terror it induced in the Skaven population had immediately piqued Ikit's overweening ambition.
Since then, the two had engaged in a secretive, dark trade.
"I simply haven't found the scientific underlying principle yet, Ikit. As a researcher, your worldview is hopelessly muddled. These 'magics' of yours are polluting the data," Bile replied coldly, recovering his composure.
Ikit's mechanical claw snapped shut with a violent metallic clang, discharging a bolt of sickly green lightning toward Bile.
Accustomed to the Skaven's mercurial nature, Bile didn't flinch. A mechanical chirurgeon-arm on his back snapped out, firing a projectile laced with Blank genetic material that neutralized the Warp-lightning instantly.
"So-called 'sorcery' cannot stand against science."
"Science? No-no! Science and magic are mine-mine! All is the power-might of Ikit Claw! Such is the way of the Warlock Engineer!"
As the two lunatics bickered, Bile suddenly felt a bone-chilling dread. The sensation of being "watched," a constant presence since he had first sought Slaanesh's protection, abruptly vanished.
"...How? The Mark of Slaanesh... it's gone!" Bile's first instinct was shock, followed immediately by cold terror.
Once word spread that Slaanesh's protection had failed, the enemies who had been forced to stay their hand would come for him. And he had no illusions about the Skaven. These faithless, treacherous creatures would squeeze every drop of utility from him before discarding his corpse.
In that regard, the Skaven were far more cutthroat than even the Haemonculi.
"Fabius Bile... choose your protector. Choose your master."
A deep, scratching voice echoed in Bile's mind. The image of a horned, skeletal rat-head with a glowing green inverted triangle on its brow seared itself into his consciousness.
Back in the Warp, Lucius, who had been busy experimenting on Aeldari souls, finally turned his full attention to bringing Bile into the fold.
"The 'Old Apothecary' indeed. If I hadn't seized control of his pact with Slaanesh, I never would have found all his clones. This man has actually refined the process until his duplicates are indistinguishable from his prime self."
Without the anchor of that original contract between Slaanesh and Bile, even Lucius would have struggled to track the scientist's every move. Such was the genius of Fabius Bile.
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