NationStates Jolt Archive

[Can't get my original Jolt account to work, so this one will have to suffice.]


Ah, A'kada. The blazing orange sun lit its eponymous system, which to its eternal astronomical embarrassment, was something of a dud.

What was supposed to happen was that the primordial materials coalesced into a nice clean series of planets, preferably some nice number like nine or ten or so.

What had happened in A'kada was that all that promising primordial material coalesced into truly gargantuan asteroid fields, a number of moons (around 50 or so), and a total of only one smallish planet, a lush world its inhabitants called Pahu'ka, the home of the Osage Empire, where mage-lords ruled over billions of nigh-on enslaved peasants with a rather affluent fist. On either side of the system were the great Generators, massive sources of soul energy that powered thousands of civilian merchant craft called thaumsails crisscrossing the arteries of trade between the major moons, ensorcelled asteroids, and the great planet itself.

In the thicker asteroid belts (and when you had planetary levels of matter to deal with, asteroids got very thick) pirate fleets operated with abandon, striking the treasure fleets of the Empire as they shipped payment across the system and then withdrawing as a police fleet (yes, the Empire had so much crime it now had police fleets) sifted through the Osage bureaucracy in time to pursue.

This was the scene then. Two pirate captains who had finished a joint raid but disagreed on exactly who got how much and got into a bit of a tussel ending in plasma strikes on the surface of the atmospheric asteroid.

What it had uncovered was the striking thing. An odd amber cube protruded from the surface, vaguely sinister in origin to the victorious pirate lord, whose crew moved down to investigate, wherein the wakongi's consciousness began to be molded subtly and a gigantic, resonating voice sounded across the interminable depths of space, emanating from the great amber cube and ripping holes in the thin fabric of material spacetime around the insignificant asteroid.

It began to speak in a harsh, guttural, evil language, and in their insignificant power the foolish corsairs could not possibly resist the spells as they welled up like an infernal miasma out of that cursed cube, enslaving them, molding the wakongi's mind, bending their consciousness to its will. He could see its mighty soul, winged and flapping, a caged avian in the walls of that amber prison.

When he spoke, it was not his voice any longer.

"We must crash the ship. Crash it now. Change is coming."

---

There were two things you noticed right off the bat about Master Kalashi. The first was that he was a short, elderly man who had the habit of grinning. The second was that he always seemed to know what you were going to say or do before you said or did it.

He was the first fleet-general, commander of the two Tsi'zhu groups known as the Core Fleets, responsible for the protection of Pahu'ka itself.

Perhaps worried wasn't the word to use, but he was certainly...perturbed. There were reports of a strange cult or faction of some kind operating among the pirates in one of the greatest concentrations of piratical and rogue wakongi activity in the system, and sinister activity was suspected.

The pirates and mad wizards in the area had never before showed such...solidarity. Two police fleets sent to the area had encountered a rather well-coordinated ambush by several pirate fleets. Admittedly they had escaped almost intact, but these reports of organization were troubling. What they needed was intelligence.

Ah well. It wasn't his concern. He sent a message to the 4th fleet-general, whose domain it did fall under, and then moved to a different contact...

---

"I need you to investigate this thing, Asat."

Asat turned. He was always a little unnerving, clad in black silk clothes that shifted with the light, making it always seem as if you were swaying when you looked at him. At his side was a long, wicked curved blade, on the other was the silver projectile-weapon of the Shadow Wolves. The man just looked sinister, but then, everyone knew he'd been very, very narrowly thwarted by first Kasaros and then Monhin in concerted bids for power. Kalashi picked up on the dizzying array of knives, throwing and otherwise, tucked into various folds in the odd black outfit.

He was, perhaps, one of the most powerful men in the Empire. But even Asat knew Rule Number One.

"It will be done, Kalashi. What do you know?"

"Nothing, wolf. Only that the pirates and wizards in that area are integrating under some higher authority."

The head of the Shadow Wolves nodded. "I'll send someone in, fleet-general."

Kalashi looked meaningfully at the man. "It's in the fourth fleet-general's sphere, Asat."

Asat's next utterance consisted of four letters.

It wasn't that Aias Orphai was a bad man. It was just that he reminded people a bit too much of Kasaros, who he had been apprenticed too and who he'd recently been making statements about such as "In the good old days when Kasaros was fleet-general..."

This unsettled people who remembered that Irul Kasaros had been a warmongering wakondagi who's ambition sacrificed anything in its path. That was part of the reason Orphai had not been promoted lately: he was a brilliant strategist, perhaps a bit too willing to sacrifice lives, a bit ruthless, but brilliant. Certainly a more capable fleet-general than everyone up the line except possibly Mon'hin himself.

And he had friends. Atleast three, maybe four of the nine intrasystem fleet-generals were 'Kasarists', as they rather unpithily were calling themselves now, and Orphai represented the pinnacle of the neo-Kasaros movement.

Aias himself had never lost a duel in his life. His muscled frame bulged in all the right places, he carried a thick curved sword in addition to his wakongi's blackstaff, and could go spell to spell against the most wizened in the Nonhonzhinga. In short, he was the kind of man who could generate a lot of bloodshed if left to his own devices, and Kalashi was helpless there. He only hoped Asat could get there first.

---

The fourth fleet-general nodded to one of his wakongi. "Has the local police fleet-general caught up yet?" The tone was clearly annoyed.

"Yes, general. They're trailing us through the Between Spaces."

"Excellent. Has the local Wolf guild reported back?"

"Coordinates already fed into the new U-cu-ga-xe, lord."

Aias spat. "The ke'xtha'tse. I told you, we will call them what we have always called them."

"Sir, Nonhonzhinga policy dictates that -"

The fourth fleet-general's eyes blazed a deep crimson. "Excuse me?"

The wakongi quieted down.

"Now. Let us find out what the degenerates have cooked up in their holes."


---

The horror that had emerged from the cracked amber cube had somehow failed to shock the enslaved Osage criminals from their reverie, even as its emergence into the realm of the material coincided with the first rips in the fabric of materiality on that insignificant world.

The avian terror spread its talons across the neighboring pirate strongholds, its influence and whispers of arcane power and blessings from living gods that acted in the here and now outweighing its undoubtedly sinister appearance. In places where its message was denied, its own brand of magic, more powerful than anything the fledgling wakongi of the outlaws could master, enforced its creed.

And what an appearance. The odd, colorful anthropoid, almost reptilian birdlike creature with its staff of power and, gradually, as it enforced its cult, odd, mutated minions spawned from its God knew where had slowly, slowly taken over a sector of space with force and seduction and awe, spreading its dominion through cultists in the asteroid-ships of the Empire.

Once it had amassed a considerable force...well. It was time for more militant expansion. And by then there were far more gruesome horrors on its birthplace, which no longer bore any resemblance to an asteroid. Its cultists swarmed and changed, DNA crumpling into endless mutation under the strain of the Warp, wherein the strange herald of the Changer brought forth all manner of despicable Warpspawn from its bizarre homeland as its terrible claws continued to rip small holes to let the Warp trickle in.

Already it had begun to train sorcerors in its ways, teaching them the art of daemonic summoning, handing down the Word of the Changer to Dark Apostles that spread the word, gradually bringing the surrounding field, one of many in the Empire, under the sway of a single elusive force who taught them new magicks to replace and augment the old Osage ones.

This was the status of the network of pirate strongholds in the asteroid field when the fleet of Aias Orphai, backed by the two police fleets, appeared in a violent violet explosion. The police fleets began the normal Osage procedure of explosive plasma volleys, but the 4th fleet-general was dispensing with that and had moved on to the wakon'do powered kinetic strikes that shattered the asteroids after cleansing their surface.


---

"Where is the Changer of Ways, Lord? Cry out to him for aid!" The increasingly ood-looking Osage cultist kneeled at the feat of the strange force they were worshipping.

The creature hissed, its staff glowed. A wakongi nearby spoke in the resonating tone of the gods.

"He will not cleanse the asteroid. He will come down. His pride and curiosity demands it. Leave him to me."

The wakongi bowed low to the grim form of Aias Orphai, his black sword shining with an obsidian gleam even in the darkness, his jet-black robe swaying and billowing gently like coal clouds.

"They are fleeing, lord, to the place you predicted was their heart."

Orphai turned his back on his servant, not letting his troubled face be seen. Something was at work here that had nothing to do with a short-lived pirate coalition. The pirates they had engaged in hand-to-hand combat had been..changed somehow, and they had encountered packs of unknown creatures the color of wakon-violet that showed disturbing powers of pyrogenesis and pyrokinesis that had scorched the unprotected legions of Osage warriors before falling to the innumerable spears of the Imperial Army. Worse yet, the further Orphai's legions penetrated into the heart of the strangely twisted reality of this 'pirate coalition', the more their consciousnesses as well began to slowly twist, taking on daemonic forms even as the slightest tingles of the failings of meiotic mechanisms began to take place in their Osage bodies.

And yet still they marched. Aias' fleets's newly developed kinetic weaponry made short work of the pirate vessels, and though an odd army of pirates, wakongi (sporting a few spells from a type of magic that had no place in the Empire), and the strange fire-manipulating daemons had momentarily checked the imperial advance, a renewed push by ke'xtha'tse and a cleansing of their diabolic forms by the terrible Imperial dragons ensured victory, for now.

On the surface of the twisted remnants of what had formerly been an asteroid in material space, the gigantic avio-reptilian form of the being of godlike power sat in silent meditation, waves of Warp energy pulsing out from its covering, unextended wings as it surfed down the threads of fate, seeing them out to their conclusion even as it silently willed concentrations of Warp energy into packs of lesser daemons that surrounded it and pulsed with the waves of its thought.

On the fringes of the asteroid it had claimed as its own Osage warriors marched forth in disciplined hedgehogs of pikes as fire, lightning, and the clash of arms resounded even as the imperial fleet engaged the last, elite elements of the pirate fleets above the surface, though they could not be seen under the cloaking garment of the blood red sky.

In the midst of it all stood Aias himself, closing in on six and three fourths feet tall, terrible violet-glowing curved blade slicing through packs of flame-spouting lesser daemons, roaring spells that coalesced into shields of wakon around him as his free hand sent devastating salvoes of red plasma deep into the heart of the enemy, black robes swaying frantically in the hectic slugfest.

The Empire was gaining ground, he knew. Over head dragons wheeled and sent columns of burning plasma-fire into those conjured horrors that possessed the power of flight, cheap mockeries of the Ivory Legions of the Sky falling in droves to the pillars of dragonfire.

On the ground ke'xtha'tse faced off against their piratical brethren, less numerous and not available to anchor the failing Chaos pirate ranks.

Breaks opened, disciplined formations of Osage ji-warriors marched on, exploiting and expanding the cracks until they were gaping chasms.

Still their opponents fought on, crazed into a terrible bloodlust, motivated by the driving force that the terrible avian horror willed them on with.

And then suddenly they began to give ground much quicker around the blazing star of power that Orphai represented in the imperial lines. The Chaos pirates withdrew before him, and the Warpfires of the lesser daemon packs receded as they shaped themselves around him, giving ever more ground as Aias and his bodyguard of Bloodpikes tore through them, the spearhead of a widening victory.

As he pushed onwards he noticed, through the haze of battle and constant spellwork, that he felt alternately as if he had been fighting for an eternity and then only a second, as time flucuated, coagulated, distilled itself before being impregnated again with the distorting powers of the naked essence of the Warp. The dimensions and laws of the material universe struggled to enforce themselves against the overriding power of pure Chaos, succeeding only in nominal control with considerable fluctuations in their degree of strength.

And in the middle, a silver throne upon which the Lord of Change sat folded in meditation as the daemonic hordes and elite soldiers around it fought the Bloodpike guards of Aias Orphai himself.

His sword cleaved through several more demons as the dark mage forced his way every closer through the twisted, Warped dimensions his soldiers fought with the daemons and mutant pirates in the shifting matter, in the air, wherever the ground decided to materialize.

And then Orphai stood alone in front of the silver throne, swaying inadvertently to the Warp pulses of the thing's thoughts as more god-essence poured into the material universe.

He wasn't afraid, only unsure of how to go about attacking the thing and confused by the twisted, distorted world that shifted and swirled like concrete rock had no business doing even as amorphous shapes of Warp energy coalesced into daemons that flooded his vanguard even as his blade kept up a torrential flow of casualties.

He felt its pulse inside every atom of his being, felt its corrupting influence, and watched as it slowly began to unfold from its meditating position into a ten foot tall avio-reptilian horror, two wings unfolding on a raptor-like body, humanoid hands gripping a giant staff of power crowned with the Crescent symbol it marked its sorcerous followers with.

Around it robed sorcerors, converted from Wakonda's will to whatever God this abomination served, formed a ring around its quietly meditating form.

He stayed his blade, concentrated his thoughts in the reservoir of his consciousness where that daemonic influence had not yet fully pervaded him, and spoke out a word of power even as his black staff outstretched, discharging a blast of lightning.

And yet...the lightning twisted and danced around the Lord of Change, dissipating in the Warp eddies, the universal laws binding and directing its electromagnetic energies falling useless under the power of the Changer of Ways.

The greater Daemon continued to unfold, even as the elements of the imperial army that penetrated this far into the tattered remnants of the material universe were struck by mighty expellings of Warp energy, torn apart by the lesser daemons, or fell into its hypnotic rhythms.

And yet Aias Orphai was one of the most powerful wakongi in the Empire, and he did not fall under its spell, but drew his sword and struck a thunderous blow in hatred for the immense power of the being.

Its crescent-staff moved before Aias had even started singing, effortlessly repelling the ebony scimitar. And yet the fleet-general accelerated his speed and a fury of nigh-on unblockable blows reached into the depths of his personal power...

And yet the Lord of Change seemed to know where they would fall, and with each ringing collision between the ensoulled staff of power and the merely enchanted blacksword of the fleet-general, the latter's weapon began to crack and groan under the strain.

Still the endless hordes of daemons pressed upon him, still he fought them off both mentally and physically, and yet he could feel the immense psionic power of the being in front of him fighting with him for control. And it wasn't even really fighting.

He spoke too soon. It stretched out its crescent-staff, uttered a vile mantra, and a blast of Warp energy sent him sprawling. He got up, dodged the next blow, and once again tried to seek a hole in its defenses. Yet again it knew his moves and parried before the attack began, and here, in the heart of Chaos, the projectile spells he hurled harmlessly dissipated in the currents of the Warp.

All around him his guard was falling. Whispers of telepathic communication between his subordinates said that all forces inside a certain border where the Warp had spilled too much into Realspace had been killed or possessed and that they were blockading the Warpspace area with ships until a solution could be found.

His black robes flurried as he tried one last strike. This time the massive counter-block shattered the blacksword into a million pieces, the soul of the daemon trapped in the staff cackling in its triumph over the comparatively weak enchanting of unshaped wakon. Aias tried one last spell, a bolt of pure wakon shaped into a spear, but the greater daemon shattered it with a spell of its own. Again he fired, but his concentration was slipping into hopelessness, and this time the abomination rebounded it back at him.

He grasped his blackstaff, infusing it with hastily-gathered soul energy, and hurled it at the speed of a bullet at the now-grinning hulk of the Lord of Change. A millisecond before it left his hand the bird-serpent had evaded it lazily, its beak hanging open in hunger.

An inferno of pink fire swelled up, testing Orphai's wakon buffers to the max, burning him before tossing him helplessly to the side, where he diverted his remaining energy to resisting daemonic possession and mutation. His staff the daemon took one look at and then shattered.

It then turned its attention to his broken form, probing his consciousness.

This is not right. I should not be humiliated like this.

His sable robes in tatters, he claimed to his feet again only to notice the rings of purple demons surrounding him and grinning. His ripped, muscled frame oozed blood, and he turned to the haunting winged apparation behind him.

"I will end myself rather than go slowly, Bahi'xtsi."

The greater daemon stretched out a taloned forearm, and he readied himself for the flames. Instead, he found his wounds closing and his strength and energy returning to him. The infernal energies of the Warp coursed through his steadily renewing body. He repaired his robes with a wave of his hands, and his green eyes took in the Servant of a God he knew nothing about. And when the energies of the Warp left him rejuvenated, he found himself left with a burning inside.

A craving. "What power do you serve, being?" It was a question, humble and supplicant.

It turned its feathered reptilian head, and a resonating voice sounded in his mind.

Tzeentch.

Unrest plagued the rough defensive line in place around the most Warped areas of reality where the Bloodpikes and Aias Orphai had disappeared. Most feared him dead.

Daemon swarms swelled and the imperial line strained, then receded into the ocean, formulating and replacing their numbers before the next tsunami, greater than the last, broke on the rocks of the Osage banners. Strikes against the imperial line sought out weaknesses, and where they were found a massive horde of violet-colored, pink-flame spewing daemons began their assault.

And there was something wrong with the Sky Legions. The ivory dragons who launched their assaults into the swirling vortex of the spilling Warp, into the heart where the greater daemon resided, were not coming back, and their fate was unknown.

One final, gigantic push occured as swirling tornadoes of pink flame charred the flesh of thousands of bannermen, concentric rings of daemonic fire forcing their retreat.

They maintained their disciplined for only a short while before a group of elite Chaos pirates (likely the former pirate lord and his bodyguard) created a breach that was expanded into a gaping hole as the Horrors and Flamers seared the power of Tzeentch into the Osage lines. They routed, fleeing, despite not suffering a crippling loss of life, the Green banners moved, fled pointlessly away from the encircling Warp entities.

And then it happened. The eye of the storm. The daemons stopped in perfect rows, gibbering, the flamers' shapes twisting and mutating, the Chaos pirates and wakongi straining at the front, completely surrounding the still mostly intact but surrounded Osage army.

Whispers in their mind promised them everything they could ever dream as the ranks of Tzeentch's followers parted, and out marched a dark shape around which swirled the eddies of the Warp as the shape sliced the barriers keeping it from the material world to ribbons, molding the energy as he saw fit into sinister shapes that fell into line behind him.

The shape, looking for all the army like coalesced darkness, spoke in a menacing, dark, Chaos-tainted, yet familiar tone.

"I have found Truth, warriors of the Empire. Our best were cut down with ease by the Power that lurks beyond this crude material universe, who sees the Fate of all that lives, has lived, and will live. There is a day of reckoning coming for the False God called Wakonda, the manipulative, bent warlocks of the Nonhonzhinga, and the aspiring ambitions of the fleet-generals. Victory means our wildest dreams become truth. The power of the Changer of Ways is boundless. Do you know not my face? I am Aias Orphai, your general, and shall I not lead you to dominion?"

This was supported by a rousing cheer from the already seduced warriors. A word from their general, who had led them to countless victories, sealed the day.

The general broke into a laugh tinged with the Warp energies flowing through his mortal form, his voice changed, his countenance darkened, his body already changed to reflect the unbridled power of the Warp and his patron the lord of evolution, growing stronger. Already the greater daemon had instructed him in various sorceries and techniques, methods by which he could forge an army capable of challenging the established order.

There were weapons to forge, armies to reorganize, concepts to reinvent, and fleet-generals to contact.

It had hit the Osage Empire like a thunderbolt. A dark fleet had issued from the rapidly increasing Warp storm around the area, sutbly changed, spikes protruding from the asteroid-ships' now-ebony surfaces.

The other fleet-generals knew it was Orphai's fleet, but it did not send any communcations back. Quietly it placed itself astride the arteries of trade before three police fleets showed up and challenged it.

All hell had broken loose. A kinetic salvo from the two police fleets and military fleet of Orphai's task force had annihilated the inquirers, and across the Empire three other fleet-generals went rogue, turning their guns on those captains who had refused the whispers of Chaos and incorporating the vast pirate fleets of the Empire into their own.

The Nonhonzhinga had been left stunned, trying to coordinate the remaining police fleets and loyal fleet-generals into a coherent defense. Kalashi's Core Fleets won several minor battles with Chaos pirates but had been forced to retreat under overwhelming attacks from the combined fleets of Aias Orphai and a dizzying array of pirate vessels to boot.

All across the Empire the Chaos fleets sent legions of daemons, pirates, and sorcerors using the new kind of magic down on the atmospheric asteroids and moons of the Osage Empire where sections of the populace converted through Chaos cults rose in rebellion against the holy supporters of Wakonda.

Pink infernos enveloped the Osage warriors involved against the hordes of daemons, and the Chaos Osage unleashed a startling new weapon: they had imprisoned daemons into the golems they had, creating a fearsome force of black golems that rampaged in insane berserk charges, striking down their methodical, industrial steel brethren with reckless abandon.

Wherever a force of wakongi reared its head there was Chaos sorcery corrupting or defeating them, sending the loyal Osage reeling under the might of Tzeentch.

Everywhere they faced defeat, the loyal fleet-generals being driven from the vacuum of space as more invasions and takeovers of Nonhonzhinga moons continued.

And in all of this the Solar Osage had made no move. Monhin Dapa's fleets and banners remained on Mars, unable or unwilling to intervene, though Monhin himself was reportedly advising and commanding some of the more succesful loyalist operations in the torn battlegrounds of A'kada in his spare time.

Kalashi's Core Fleets were a bastion of strength in a falling order...

---

Kalashi sat in a bubble of time, meditating in a silent vigil, piecing apart his enemy, focusing the essence of Wakonda in himself, aligning it so that resonated within his being, which became Being itself.

Suddenly his eyes snapped open, startling an acolyte nearby. "Master?"

"The dark one is coming. Ready the fleet-captains and tell them this may be it."

---

The battle had raged for some time. The black ships and armies of Orphai's fleets had stayed neck and neck with the chosen of Wakonda. The daemon-golems and their counterparts warring bitterly on each other as the daemons, mutants, and rank and file of the Chaos Osage faced the warriors and wakongi of the Nonhonzhinga.

And the flagships of the opposing fleets, kilometer-in-diameter asteroids, had dueled and boarded for an explosive melee that grinded both sides into the ground with enormous casualties.

Kalashi himself walked harmlessly through the Chaos ranks, almost casually slaying Chaos forces with graceful, sharp swings of his ivory staff, almost accidentally avoiding attacks, never meeting them but only effortlessly sticking to them until they lost momentum at which he ended the opponent's life.

Daemon-golems fell, deactivated, as he uttered words of power before them. Blasts of pink fire could not find him. Soldiers swore he moved lethargically slow and yet lightning-fast at the same time, that he had been simultaneously at one point an hour ago and right now.

---

A huge sword came slicing down.

Yang. Kalashi let it harmlessly flow past him.

The man began to retract it...

Yin. Kalashi's white staff struck the man at exactly the right point. He fell, lifeless, to the ground.

He turned leisurely to the right as a fireball inched towards him at snailpace. He walked it around it and struck the daemon and a nearby counterpart down, walking around the fireballs as well.

A black golem moved forward and powered down as he coolly walked on to a great door marked with the sigils, runes, and inscriptions of Chaos magic. He muttered a few words and it shook, trembled, but did not give way. Muttering again, he reared back and then struck it violently with his staff. It shuddered and began to glow violet, rusted and gave way within seconds.

And there, seated on a throne of lapis lazuli, sat Aias Orphai.

Chaos had treated him well. He was stronger than ever. At his side he held a black longaxe out of which emanated blood-red light and the psychic screams of the daemon imprisoned inside it. He was clothed in black armor lined with lapis lazuli and gold, but wore no helmet. He had abandoned the use of an Osage staff. Kalashi even thought he noticed a reddish tint in the man's dark brown skin.

He stood up quietly and got off his throne, and it was only at this time that the wizened old man realized that they were in the realm of Chaos, that Orphai had let the Warp through to spill into this chamber, loosening the hold the laws of the universe had on it.

Kalashi grimaced as Aias grinned as pink flames leaped up around him.

"Tell me one thing, before we fight, Kalashi. Why, after all of this, do you follow that corpse of a god? What power has he brought you that you take him above all others?"

The old man's etched face remained stern. "This generation has lost sight of Wakonda, Aias. The Taegi still gives unimagined power, but you all have grown impatient, concerned with ambition and conquest, and have called down something you have no idea of."

The dark general took on a mocking face and tone. "Give me an idea, Kalashi. What have I missed?"

Kalashi closed his eyes and began to speak in an almost trance-inducing way. "Before time and space and dimensions was Wakonda and his realm, and Wakonda dreamt, and in his dream he was the Taegi and its realm of wakon, god's essence, and the Taegi dreamt, and its dream was the material universe."

Aias waved a hand. "I have heard all of this thousands of times. Quoting scripture will make no impression on me."

Kalashi ignored this. "This has been the Osage religion for millenia. But there was always more, known to the select mystai it was imparted too."

Aias hid his interest.

"Something happened. There is little way to explain it, none know, not even I. All that is known is that something went wrong. Wakonda, higher than the Taegi, twice-higher than the material universe, dreamt again, this time a nightmare, and in his nightmare he was three Bahi'txtsi and their realm."

Aias grinned. "The Chaos Gods and the Warp."

Kalashi nodded, a tone of pleading in their voice. "The three Bahi'xtsi dreamt into the Taegi's dream, the material universe. Whereas to be in accordance with the Taegi one must eliminate desire and emotion and the self, the Bahi'xtsi took as their domain the opposite. Blood, decay, the will to change. Wherever accordance with the Taegi was disobeyed, the Bahi'xtsi grew in power. One civilization distanced themselves so much from God that they created another Bahi'txi, so great was their debauchery. These are the necromancers we do battle with in Mi."

Aias grinned. "You have told me nothing of importance, Kalashi. Nothing. Only that if I wish to be an automata I should follow you. Sorry. I choose emotion and Power over humility and a feeble state. Ready yourself, and let us test our doctrines."

Kalashi sighed, and took a stance with his short fighting staff against the might of Chaos' champion. Aias moved lightning-quick, faster than any ordinary man could, the power of Tzeentch's foresight giving him knowledge of his opponent's moves...

That was wrong. The axe struck out knowingly, Orphai fully expecting to cleave through soft flesh, and yet it went through thin air. He retracted and the staff was suddenly moving, as if destined, towards his skull...

He rolled, rebounding immediately and sending a pillar of pure Warp energy towards his opponents even as pink flames leapt up around his elderly opponent.

Kalashi smiled benevolently. Fields of various forces sent the flames distorting in a different direction even as a shield of pure wakon sprang up, struggling, fusing, and exploding again as it came into contact with the Warp, in some ways its malevolent twin.

Different strains of time swirled around Kalashi, and this was the mechanism by which he avoided Tzeentch's chosen, misdirecting his foresight into the wrong parallel universe even as he sped up his own personal chronological bubble, moving like a blur to counter the incredibe strength, speed, and skill of the black general.

Eventually Aias learned he was being played somehow, and relied only on what he saw. He widened the hole in the material universe as the Warp began to fully overlap, rendering Kalashi's field manipulation useless as the universe's laws were put on hiatus.

Aias used this to his advantage, striking here but in reality being somewhere else, visually doing one thing and then doing another. In Kalashi's mind he could feel the thrumming pulse of Chaos and the spells of Aias as they brought out his deepest primal fears and displayed them, seeking to make him cower, though he did not.

Always he met Aias' strikes with fluid evasion, always Aias' evasion with hard blows.

All this went on with neither gaining a single blow.

Kalashi worked furiously, the white staff weaving around the unyoked power of the daemon inside his opponent's axe, infuriating it and driving its power higher. He wove time together, split it again, sped it up, slowed it down, and finally he had an opening. Forming what wakon he could into a spearhead of plasma atop his spear, he broke his soul into pieces, took a fragment, sharpened it, and placed the energy of a thousand suns into his attack.

He should have been dead. Any normal man, hell, any wakondagi, should have fallen to the strike. Kalashi had shattered his own soul, a technique unknown, and yet...

The blow struck the armor and met the recalcitrant soul of an imprisoned daemon inside that struggled against the soul-fragment, weakening it, blunting the edge before the daemon was vanquished and the armor penetrated. Ah, flesh. Plasma penetrated it in the material world, but the material world had ceased to be of any importance here, where the Warp flooded in undammed.

And so the sharpened soul fragment pierced Orphai's own, still human soul, wounding it, though the daemon armor he wore meant it was not killed. Kalashi and Aias both fell to the ground immediately, the mighty black axe and ivory staff clanging on the ground.

A wakongi opened a vortex in the midst of the Warp overlay, took his master, and left.

And yet, in the Warp overlay, daemons began to form around the still form of Aias Orphai...

The still Chaos Lord's wounded soul writhed in pain, having been almost fully destroyed by Kalashi's desperate assault on his soul. His soul tried to repair the damage to its structure but found it unfixable. The pieces of Aias Orphai began to look for outside aid..

And the legions of Tzeentch, perhaps moved by his command, answered. Hordes of daemons tried to possess him, to conquer his soul, and yet the Chaos Lord's soul was stronger, and it assimilated them, using their daemonic essence to repair his own soul, every infused daemon sending his own soul further away from humanity and into daemonhood. Legions of daemons fused with his soul until it became, in a manner of speaking, whole again, part Warp and part real.

The lapis and gold encrusted ebony armor of Tzeentch's champion began to quiver as Aias Orphai, no longer fully human, arose from the ground. His skin was now a deep shade of purplish brown, an odd color for the eye to look upon, and he roared a not-quite human roar. He picked up his long-axe, infused with a daemonic soul, and roared again.

This instrument will not do for one such as me.

He ripped more daemons from their cosseted preexistence in the Warp and forced them to co-exist with the one already in the axe. They screamed and fought with each other but his will forced them into silence as he did the same with his armor, exponentially increasing its power with each new daemon he enslaved into it.

In his chambers he roared again, shaking the black rock of his flagship with the sonic force. He swung his newly empowered axe, and a wave of focused Warp energy devastated the doors to his chamber.

The black fleet-general screamed, for Kalashi was gone. He was enraged..but no. That path lie to a different patron. He calmed himself, and peered through the twisting path of fate, and with daemonic speed began to sprint towards the hand to hand battle raging between his ship.

He knew, from the array of new senses added to his old five, that Kalashi's fleet had broken off combat once the duel had ended, and yet Kalashi's driving presence and power meant that aboard Orphai's own ship his forces teetered on the brink of destruction.

He emerged into a scene of carnage as the few daemon-golems left were struggling to hold the front line as the remaining daemons, pirates, sorcerors, and mutants were being herded into a last stand by the golems, warriors, and wakongi of Kalashi's strike force.

He came onto the loyalist forces like a hurricane. Tornadoes of pink fire swept through their ranks as the gleaming black, lapis, and gold armor of the resurrected fleet-general shined like a blazing star in the midst of their army. Sweeps of his six-foot axe sent waves of Warp energy flooding over his enemies. Unnatural terror gripped them as this new engine of destruction decapitated several men at once, effortlessly, and annihilated others with magnified sorcery. None stood before this terror, driven to heights of power by the unified clamorings of the daemon packs imprisoned in his weapon and armor. He did not roar, or revel in the blood, but methodically and fiercely went about the careful dissection of the yet-cool bodies of his enemies.

He was faster, stronger, more powerful than ever he had been before, even during the heights of his heresy during the duel with Kalashi. His now partly daemonic soul clamored for the dominance of Chaos.

---

The increasingly changed abomination eyed its work. The being forged from the ruins of Aias Orphai and the manifested power of the Warp breathed heavily. Blood flowed like an incoming tide. The strewn remnants of the Imperial strike force and the dead Chaos guard lay around him. He heaved and summoned a massive cleansing inferno of pink fire. Blood boiled, bodies charred and vaporised, and at the end his black ship was immaculate once again.

"Where are my fleets?"

"Hunting down the remnants of the Core Fleets, my lord." A sorceror answered him.

He grinded his teeth. "Does Kalashi live?"

"He has not been seen and his Core Fleets are in disarray."

"What realms yet defy the Changer of Ways?"

"Pahuka only remains uncleansed, Lord."

"Ready my armies."

---

The frozen form of the being known as Kalashi was watched over by his most trusted acolytes aboard the fleeing ships of the Core Fleets. Their master had entered some form of trance, and all their efforts to awaken him had proven in vain. There was some hint of the ripping and shattering his soul had gone through in the battle with the Chaos Lord, but they had no idea of how to repair it.

The best that they could tell, the powerful wakondagi had laid chronostatic spells upon himself after the shattering of his soul to keep his body undecayed until they could discover the method for healing him.

Now that he was gone, however, the only wakongi of his caliber, Monhin Dapa, was refraining from direct intervention. Even if Monhin had decided to interfere, reports suggested that Aias Orphai had been resurrected to be more powerful than ever before.

There was no one left to challenge him except perhaps the combined might of the Nonhonzhinga itself. And now they were saying the legions of Chaos had begun the final battle for Pahuka.

All across the vast and varied terrains of Pahuka, tens of millions of Osage soldiers of the Colored and Green Standard banners warred on even larger hordes of daemons, mutants, black golems, and the warriors and armored sorceror-champions of Orphai's dark army. In the smoke-filled skies black and red dragons sent pillars of plasma-fire at their brilliantly white counterparts among the forces of the Little Old Men, as in higher levels of the atmosphere a titanic battle between the two factions' warfleets, ship numbers rising easily into the thousands as devastating salvoes extending into multi-teraton levels were exchanged back and forth between the respective fleet-generals.

On every plane, level, and dimension the titanic Battle of Pahuka raged. And the worst thing was that the Nonhonzhinga and their fleet-generals were losing. The Black General had them beat.

The assembled ranks of ancient wakondagi waited in their lavish, massive subterranean chambers, debating various unsatisfactory courses of action. A small minority advocated surrender. Others, hiding, dispersal, and guerilla war. Still others a bold strike on Aias himself, before their armies could collapse completely.

All became silent when the great doors, shut with every spell the collected might of the wakondagi could muster, were flung open as if they were the work of children. The figure that shone from the doorway had a grim look and seemed like an angry deity.

Clad in the purest, unadorned white robes, carrying now a pure white staff, the prodigal fleet-general made an imposing presence. Monhin Dapa had returned to Akada. Burning like white fire the Osage tsizhushinga or fleet-general stepped in the chamber, a burning grin on his face.

The chief wakondagi of the Nonhonzhinga, a certain Munipuski, spoke up. "So you have chosen to grace us with your presence, tenth fleet-general? Have you come to spit in our faces? Or perhaps you lead your fleets and armies to our aid, to break the back of the advancing Chaos armies?"

The white fleet-general, looking very much imperial, gave the speaker a serene look. "No," he said simply.

Munipuski, possibly one of the oldest men in the Empire, was use to this game. He maintained his calm. "Then why, faithful servant, have you left your post?" Every word dripped ancient nobility and sarcasm.

"My fleets and armies are engaged, my lord. I could not bring anything other than my self."

"Forgive my impetuous. What use may we make of only you?"

Monhin receded into the kneeling position reserved for fleet-generals, and addressed the chamber as a whole. "Honored Little Old Men, I have no armies or fleets to offer up to you. Alone I would not be able to defeat the black one in his domain. And yet, I have come in desperation. There is only one way to save the Empire from the grasping humiliation of Aias Orphai and his neo-Kasarist doctrines."

Munipuski let out an almost inaudible growl. "Speak, fleet-general."

"I have discovered, in my delvings amongst archaic texts, how to summon the ancestors themselves to war for us." Monhin waited, bowing his head lower.

Munipuski's calm broke, and his voice was now a yell. "You wish that we use necromancy?! You wish us to lower ourselves to the deepest depths of depravity, to place shadows where Wakonda once placed souls, to corrupt the very nature of Wakonda's plan? Did you not study the histories, Monhin? Do not suggest such a thing!"

Monhin kept his eyes lowered. "There is no other way to save the Empire, illustrious speaker. The Chaos hordes number in the dozens and dozens of millions. Against such might the Osage of every time, not just our own, must stand."

Munipuski spat. "You advocate the worst of sins to stop a sinner."

"Against the depravity of Orphai it is, in the circumstances, our only course of action."

A shaky voice from another ancient wakondagi cried out. "Not necromancy, pray! How can we justify our hatred of the Mi heretics if we practise it ourselves?"

"Only to save civilization itself, honored elder."

"It is blasphemy! Wakonda will tear us down!"

Monhin let a tone of emotion enter his hereto stoic voice. "Wakonda will realize the Nonhonzhinga must be saved from total material and spiritual cannibalism from hellspawn! Do you wish to die, your body eaten alive, your soul torn apart to feed them? They will commit worse acts of depravity before they finish the meal, speaker!"

Munipuski's eyes flashed. "You will hold a tone of respect for the Nonhonzhinga, Monhin. While your tramplings of tradition are expected, here at least they are not welcome."

The blindingly white fleet-general grinned fiercely. "Yes, honored elder. My will is yours."

"Sometimes I wonder, Monhin. We will take a vote. All in favor of utilizing that...practise." Munipuski waited as Osage numerals, and then grimaced.

Every tone dripping with disdain, he spoke. "It appears there has been, for the first time in a century, a fifty-fifty split."

Monhin's eyes gleamed in triumph. "And in such an occasion, the vote is decided by the extant fleet-generals. And since half are traitors, and half are gone...there remains...me."

Munipuski looked as if he had just been forced to swallow copros covered in draino. "Fine. We will begin the tenth fleet-general's ritual. Lead on.

---

Part of the reason the Osage liked to salvage golem wreckage rather than create new ones was that where soul machinery had once been infused, it was much easier to emplace a new one. The difference between repairing old tunnels and digging new ones.

As the waves of the Great Spell of the Nonhonzhinga radiated out over the Akada System, previously emptied souls were infused with just enough wakon to make them, effectively, human golems.

The accretion of death in the Osage Empire since its dawn was enormous, and as one it rose from its subterranean sleep to do battle with the daemons in every nook and cranny of the Akada System. Millions of bodies in various states of decay, from a few rotting old bones, to gleaming skeletal forms, to rotting flesh zombies, to still cooling warriors with only a single wound and no rot, rose from their tombs, impromptu or otherwise, mausoleums, graves, and slumber to aid their descendants and comrades.

The Empire's vaults of time had been opened, and the treasure was great indeed. They issued from necropolises and tomb-cities in great columns, rose up the ground under the feet of warring daemons, and launched themselves from every angle upon the Warpspawn, killing with the ruthless efficiency honed over the ages. They fell and were renewed with fresh blood, each army overseen by a single warm necromancer-lord chosen by Monhin from amongst his loyal ranks.

And, far away, Aias Orphai began to scream.

As soon as the Awakening Spell was cast, the Chaos invasion was doomed. From necropoli, tombs, catacombs, crypts, led by the chosen Necromancer-Lords, the 'ancestral legions', as the Nonhonzhinga was euphemistically referring to them, issued from below and behind the front lines of the pirate, mutant, and daemonic armies of Orphai, becoming the giant skeletal hammer to the anvil of the imperial banners. No mercy was shown to the Chaos Osage. Chaos Sorcerers did battle with the Necromancer-Lords (clad in white with white staves in imitation of the great fleet-general) and their darker wakon-derived magic, equal if not conducted in Warpspace, and great pockets of Chaos resistance were encircled by the now truly massive Osage forces.

In the middle atmosphere the bodies of every killed loyal Osage dragon did battle with their corrupted brethren, changing the tide, and in the titanic space battles boarding actions were decided in favor of the loyalists.

Across the Akada System, the sites of countless battles long forgotten became the scenes of vast necromantic armies rising to do battle with the paltry garrison forces of Chaos, overcoming them to form an empire of the dead gradually conducted by arriving necromancer-lords but also occasionally assaulted by Chaos fleets, who became less and less extant as they were poured into the fleet battle over Pahuka.

Aias Orphai had suffered a setback but not a total defeat. His armies were defeated, but his mighty armada still had the loyalist Osage fleets outnumbered, and if they could win this battle then it wouldn't matter how many ancestral legions the Nonhonzhinga had, they'd be destroyed by the orbital weaponry of Tzeentch.

And, deep under the ground somewhere, Monhin Dapa rejoiced.

On the grim battlefield the orange sun called Akada blazed bright. Screams, yells, roars all echoed, as pink flames and black hands tried to hold back the gleaming white faces of the ancestral legions. The necromancer Ancestral Lords, clad in their snow-white robes, did battle with the dying Chaos Sorcerors, massive prominences of wakon and Warp energy exploding as the staves of wakondagi and sorceror clashed with each other. The pocket of Chaos resistance was on the verge of collapsing...

And then he was there. Standing at seven feet tall, the black-armored shape of the now less-than-human Black General was suddenly in the midst of this particular ancestral legion, his great ebony axe held in both hands, a miasma of Warp energy drifting out from him and his bodyguard of chaos lords, all similarly armed and armored. Lapis lazuli and gold were interwined in the jet-black shape, and he let out a feral roar spawned from the multitude of daemons that made his weapon, his armor, and now his soul their abodes.

He and his spearhead drove into their ranks, killing left and right, a great vortex of pink flame whipping up around them and charring the white bone of their enemies. The Ancestral Lords retreated before them, giving way as more of their number fell before the spell and axeblade of the sudden counterattack, the tide of battle changed as the dead began to fall back under the renewed Chaos assault, breaking under the strain, a victory turned into defeat...

And then it happened. A great, sonorous laugh boomed out with the voice of a thousand men, and a shining man atop a great dragon patriarch began to speak from a position atop that of Aias Orphai's attack, with no effort and yet loud enough for both armies to hear, telling them of their defeat. The Chaos Lords dodged and weaved as the dragonfire speared their ranks, killing many as the necromantic army halted the daemonic charge.

A terrible half-daemonic scream echoed from Tzeentch's champion. A cloud of dark light exploded from him, and when it faded he was as tall as a golem and his skin was deep red, and he roared in anguish and rage and hatred, and a great disk appeared and lifted him from the ground as the gigantic axe he now wielded came for the dragon patriarch.

And Monhin Dapa laughed, quieter than the first, and his dragon let out a terrible pillar of fire that the Daemon Prince cast aside with the might of the Warp, and continued his assault, bringing the terrible axe down on the patriarch's still-spewing mouth, killing it instantly.

And Monhin laughed, effortlessly leaping off of the corpse and becoming encased in a blinding violet light as he drifted like a leaf to the ground, and the infuriated Orphai screamed again and went after him on the disk, and yet Monhin could only grin as his ivory staff shot out and cracked the disk into pieces.

The daemon-general went plummeting to the ground, creating a huge crater and yet rising from it unharmed, gripping the axe. He waved it and a wave of Warp energy went flying at Monhin, who stood there as it slowly melted his violet carapace away, eventually leaping into the air. White light blazed downwards from him, and the daemon prince yelled and yet reacted faster than the tenth fleet-general, bringing the axe up to parry the downward thrust of the staff.

The clash between the two weapons sent a shockwave through the battlefield as a terrible duel fought at speeds no normal man could keep up with occured, always Monhin compensating and trying to keep up. It was clear that Chaos' gifts were not to be taken lightly.

Each exchange of their respective forces found wakon lacking, the sheer amount and power of the Warp being put forth by Orphai's daemonic soul overcoming the mere humanity Monhin could put forth.

Gradually Aias began to become more and more confident. Soon Monhin must give out.

"You are human, Monhin. For all your ambition, all your intelligence, all your power, you are still just human. And will always be human. There is no way out. Mankind is being superceded in this age, Monhin. Here, and in Sol."

Around their titanic clash, ancestral lords and chaos sorcerors did battle. Monhin parried another light blow with great effort, and panting, began to grin.

"See you soon." And with that, he disappeared.

----

Unnatural lightning blazed over the pitch-black sky, looking down like an angry parent on the massive Mesoamerican-like pyramid on the surface of Pahuka. All around, for miles, grass gently whispered in the false night, devoid of life.

On the pyramid itself, a heavy cloud of surrealism had descended onto the scene, as reality had gradually thinned so that all present were infected with mild hysteria. Hearts beat faster, emotions became more animalistic, and after it was all over it would seem to be just a dream.

Devoid of life, but in concentric circles, the legions of the dead guarded it for miles and miles against all intrusion. On the top of the pyramid a square-formed choir of white-garbed necromancer-lords chanted out a complex polyphonic song, interwoven themes of death, rebirth, the transmigration of souls, and, perhaps most sinister of all, the death of Wakonda.

In the center of the square stood a herded group of people, weeping and gnashing their teeth, crying. They were subdued by wisps that coalesced into hands, holding them down, but any attempt to escape was futile by the rings of the dead around them. There were around fifty of the wretches.

A man in gleaming white armor that looked similar in texture to a flak jacket looked at them and began to speak in a soft voice. "There is no need to weep, gentlemen. Afterall, you are only men."

And as one, they were killed.

"He's up to something. I know it. He hasn't been seen since the forsaken spell, said he had 'business' to attend to, but he hasn't returned to Mi, yet, either." The speaker was an unnamed informant, the listener was none other than the Chief Speaker of the Nonhonzhinga, Munipuski.

"Interesting. Has he been spotted?"

"Nowhere, milord. An informant wanted to meet with me about strange happenings near his town, but I never spoke to him again. The village people swore he had been killed alongside ancestral legionaries in a battle against local Chaos holdouts."

Alongside...or by?

"Not enough information yet. Continue your hunt. The Empire is at stake."

---

The almost divine figure rose with a sublime smile to greet the messenger. Strange white lines now wove odd patterns into the snow-white robes of the tenth fleet-general. They had a vague Mesoamerican feel to the line placement, curves, and styles. It was now hard to tell, but the servant could swear the fleet-general's normally light tan skin had a black undertone to it, as if it had suffered mild charring or heavy tanning.

The servant knelt in front of the faintly shining form, dispelling such speculations to deliver his report.

"All major Chaos armies, except for that led by the black general himself, are totally routed. New ancestral legions discovered marching through the night from forgotten tomb-valleys in several locations, convering on Orphai's position in addition to the third fleet-general's army."

"Progress of the fleets?" The servant paused. The voice was...somehow stronger, more real, greater than before. It commanded obedience. And it was darker, colder, and crueler as well.

"Holding steady against Orphai's armada."

"Mm...." The tenth fleet-general appeared to contemplate this, and murmured something about not being quite ready yet. "Carry on. Divert every force we have towards the remaining Chaos army. This will not last much longer."

With that, he swept out of the room and disappeared. And, far away, cadres of Chaos POWs were lost from the records...

---

Millions of skeletal and living warriors lead by ranks of golems were crashing in great waves into the coiled Chaos army. The Daemon Prince himself fought at the head of his army, gangs of ten-foot golems engaging him as he fought a losing fight on the ground, the last concentrated Chaos army left not trod underfoot by the Imperial Army and the manifold Ancestral Legions.

In the sky the few Chaos dragons left were being mobbed by an equal number of living dragons and a veritable horde of skeletal counterparts, powered by the sheer strength of the Spell itself.

The black daemon general roared his defiance as two Chaos ships plummeted out of orbit and landed rockily on the ground. His personal entourage piled in, followed by the massive Daemon Prince himself and the elite portion of his Chaos Sorcerors.

And, within a matter of hours, the last major Chaos foothold on Pahuka was eliminated.

In the skies, the war raged on.

All around the still form of Kalashi, a titanic battle was raging. Lightning and fire swirled through the air, golems engaged in Goliathlike battles, soldiers spearfought, placing their personal favorite styles against those of their opponent.

There was only one problem. They were fighting loyalists. It was odd, really. Three huge garrison-ships had requested docking, and then...it had begun. They had spilt thousands of dead and living soldiers onto Kalashi's personal barge, and Kalashi's order of chronomagi were currently killing them in their dozens around the final chamber.

And suddenly the mysterious enemy's lines receded, and strange white lightning blasted the barricades open. Surrounded by armored ancestral soldiers, the formation of necromancer-lords advanced in their snowy robes, and engaged Kalashi's acolytes in a running battle. Every chronomagi that fell became another corpse in their enemies' armies, and it seemed that every passing moment the power and volume of the Ancetral Lords' attack became stronger.

Vast wells of energy struck each other, various tactical spells ground against each other, prepared weaponry exploded into battle. Eventually a massive smoke bomb exploded in the midst of the battle, and when a chronomagi had the wit to clear it, rank upon rank of Osage soldiers stood there, flanked by necromancers, holding strange instruments.

The volley of lead from the assault rifles took the chronomagi completely by surprise as zigzagging beams of white lightning chained among their members. The retaliation saw the lightly armored gunshoka ("[Those of the] Gun Clan") dodging, rolling, or leaning to the side as a counter-volley came back.

The chronomagi leaped into close quarters, shockwaves reverberating around the chamber as their staves engaged in battles of skill, speed, and strength with those of the ancestral lords.

It was over, really. Behind Kalashi's followers their dead rose up to assault them from behind, and the expert fire of the gunshoka took them one by one until nothing was left but a series of new soldiers for the necromancer-lords to command.

They fell apart in rank as a shining figure walked forward to the resting place of the one they knew as Master Kalashi. He reached forward and withdrew in a split second as a dancing bead of plasma from the stasis and protective spells sought for his hand.

He grinned, spoke something in an unknown tongue, and struck the invisible barrier with his pearly staff. Blinding light erupted, and the necromancers turned their eyes but could hear the panting and breathing and sensed the signs of a great wakon struggle.

When it was all over, their leader tossed the empty shell that once held the most powerful wakondagi in the Empire to the ground. They thought they saw a brief glimpse of a shining violet sphere disappearing into his blackened skin, and when it was over they knelt as a series of smaller violet spheres from the fallen places of the chronomagi also flew to him as he called.

And then he smiled, a smile far too benevolent for the being that now stood in front of them. The being once known as Monhin Dapa turned to one his followers, and in a strange voice began to speak to them, every word resonating with itself in strange harmonics that combined to make one voice sound like many unified.

"Prepare the strike force. We are going to see an old friend." Fear made them trembled, but nothing they could would let them disobey that voice and the achromatic brilliance of the tenth fleet-general.

---

Meditating in a Warpspace overlap, the champion of Chaos hardly heard when one of his sorcerers spoke to him. Awakening slightly from his astral sojourn into dark realms, he asked the sorcerer to repeat what he had just said, and then he defined 'evil grin'. The Daemon Prince barked out commands, and far off in the distance, he heard explosions and the screams of the dying at the hands of the dead.

Raising again his man-sized axe as it screamt for blood, the black general rose , but before he could, he shielded his eyes as unfiltered white light blazed through his chambers in the heart of the Warp.

Gathering his full strength, he forced the light to retreat from his Warp domain, and gazed upon the form of the being who had once held the name Monhin Dapa.

"You return to me, Monhin? I am no fool. There has been a change in you, a great one."

The great voice spoke, flooding the room. "I do not think Monhin will suit me anymore, Orphai." The white figure gave that peaceful, benevolent-yet-not half-smile.

The Daemon Prince raised a black eyebrow. "It matters not. Tzeentch still blesses me, and you are still human. Your efforts, whatever you call yourself, are still -"

"Humans."

The general paused. "What?"

"I am still humans." The half-smile appeared again, and Aias Orphai's soul, the scraps of human still left in it, trembled as they saw what was in front of them.

"How many?"

The tenth fleet-general took a step forward. "Hundreds, really. Mostly mundane, but your previous opponent's was particularly noteworthy."

The Daemon Prince gnashed its elongated canines. "So it has come down to this, has it, Monhin? Do you still think you have any sort of moral high ground? Would the Taegi, or Wakonda himself, approve?"

"I am still of humanity. Come forth and let me test myself."

"Where did you get such ideas?"

The figure mulled this over. "Mi." The voice's myriad tones suggested that he was not going to elaborate.

Aias Orphai broke into a grin. "You know that Kalashi challenged me here, do you not? He failed, fleet-general. This is the Warp itself. The Taegi holds no power here."

Monhin spoke a single word of command, and then something happened. The Warp energies spilling through subtly shifted in character, were somehow skewed, translated, dilated, something, and when Aias looked and felt with his senses, it was no longer the Warp at all, but wakon that permeated the chamber.

The Black General roared, and for the first time felt fear. The being gave him only the half-smile and silence. And for the first time the daemon prince realized that the fleet-general no longer held a staff, but a long, slightly curved-at-the-top sword, the hilt of pearl, sheathed for now.

His simple white robe draped over his body, the Empire's champion strode forward, drawing it smoothly. It blazed with white fire, and the tenth fleet-general grinned as the massive axe came down with blinding speed and he withdrew, neither parrying, only dodging.

He struck once, and it pierced the heavy armor the massive Daemon Prince was wearing, wounding him slightly. The axe whirled down again, this time the white blade allowed itself a minor deflection. A wave of pink flames eruped from the black axe, the sword weaved a strange pattern that hung in the air, and they dissipated around it. Another missed strike with the axe left the daemon overextended yet again, and the cruel, blazing sword punished this failure with a devastating blow to the arm, which gushed deep purple blood.

Aias Orphai's mind could not focus, Tzeentch's foresight would not come, and heavy clouds obscured his every thought. He turned to the primal instinct of rage, but this only resulted in more wounds.

Monhin smiled once more as the daemon prince collapsed, raised an outstretched arm, and began to speak in sonorous tones while threads of wakon wrapped themselves around the black general's body, shrinking it, getting rid of the mutations, until all that was left was the bland human form. Still refusing to show any emotion, he quietly dispatched the suffering general with a blow to the head, and watched as the corrupted, daemonic soul lifted out of its body.

Sniffing slightly, he took his blade and made surgical cuts through the fleeing soul, parting the human essence from the daemonic, letting the daemonic flee as the manifested violet human form quietly twisted itself into his form.

Completely silent, he left the forsaken ship, returning to his own task force even as he transmitted an image of the fallen Orphai to the entire Chaos fleet.

"They just lost their will, Ga. Completely lost their will. From there on out it was just a matter of boarding actions to retake their ships. Some of the Chaos pirate fleets who were in it more for opportunity than for the whole devotion to Chaos thing attempted to flee and, according to last count, were somewhere deep in the dense asteroid fields being pursued futilely by a police fleet."

"Things back to normal, in otherwords, Zhin?"

The soldier looked grave. "I don't think so, Ga. There are still Chaos holdouts hiding in the asteroid fields. The Nonhonzhinga never did find out what triggered the damn thing. And then, of course, there are the damned 'ancestral legions' and Monhin's cronies the 'ancestral lords' leading them."

"They say he's looking for a new name."

"I heard he's looking to take over the Empire and he just wants a great triumph in Mi before he tries it, the bastard."

The younger man looked reproachful. "He saved the Empire, Zhin."

"And he's also pushing through new reforms giving the tenth fleet-general extensive new powers over the entire military too, now ain't he? To 'prevent this from ever happening again', right? Funny how he does it with the 'ancestral legions' parked outside the Nonhonzhinga and his personal ship parked right above it, isn't it?"

"Come now. The fleet-building initiative wasn't his idea."

"Whoever told you it wasn't is lying. But admittedly, I'm all for it. My nephew is serving in the Red Banner and he says the fleets over there are insane. We need as many ships we can."

"So he's going back to Mi, is he?"

"And taking a few hundred thousand animated bones with him. And good riddens. You ask me, that man's more powerful than Kasaros ever was, and we all know what Kasaros was gunning for."

"Perhaps its a sign that he hasn't taken power, yet?"

"Wait and see."