Rosetta - A Warhammer 40,000 Story

Part I

Rosetta was stirred into consciousness by the agonised moans of her sisters. Dazed and confused she looked around and found herself staring at the feet of a giant. She tried to move but her body was too broken to obey her commands. She laid there bleeding and broken.

All around her were battered and bloodied corpses of more than a dozen Adepta Sororitas. All scattered about the interior of the bunker. The Emperor's blessed Sisters of Battle, murdered, mutilated and desecrated by Chaos filth. Her soul burned with fury and despair at the sight.

Yet, she was helpless in her immobilised body. She grew thankful that the giant had its bulky back to her as it revelled in its captive's suffering. It lifted the captive battle sister high up into the air.

She was being consumed whole. The more she suffered, the more of her soul was lost. She cried and screamed as the masses of tendrils wrapped around her body slithered and flexed. Tearing open plate and cloth, it shattered her armour from the inside out.

It all fell onto the floor in a mass of torn cloth and metal shards. Unable to scream, she heaved and gasped in horror and pain as the monster gripped her naked body. Rosetta knew her, to her outrage the captive was her friend. Sister Aura was her name and they both cursed their fate that day.

Then it growled in delight as the tendrils felt their way into every crevice of Aura's body. Then it manipulated it, stretching, flexing and pulling, it pushed every bone muscle of Aura's body to the breaking point.

Rosetta began to weep as she watched the crying Aura suffer. Aura looked at her and pushed a weak smile before every bone of her body broke simultaneously. Dropping her the ground in a bloody heap it began to giggle, even laugh as it rejoiced in the pain it inflicted.

This thing, this monster was once a proud warrior. Now it could barely be called a creature. Once a proud Legionnaire of the Emperor's Children, a legion of inhuman warriors who betrayed the Emperor in their search of riches and pleasure. They one of many who can call themselves Astartes has devolved into a foul being, driven by his boundless desires.

His purple battle plate shone in the light of the room and glistened with blood as he turned on the crippled Rosetta. He licked his humanoid lips with his grotesque elongated tongue. He gazed at her with those revolting, hungry eyes.

He reached out with his mass of tendrils and began to giggle with excitement. Rosetta closed her eyes shut as she prayed and begged the Emperor to save her, to galvanise her soul against the oncoming hell that sought to consume her.

She wept as she gave into despair and hated her inability to do anything about it. She, like Aura, was a fresh youth, barely a week into her service to the Emperor. She looked forward to a hundred years of just servitude but now she knew she would now see not even one.

She shut her eyes tighter and prayed as the creature's tendrils probed her battle plate. Silently, she begged for mercy as they found their way to her bare skin. She shrivelled in fear as their slimy flesh slithered across her smooth skin.

Like an answered prayer a bright light blazed before her eyes followed by a sudden blast of intense heat. The hulking purple giant froze with a massive hole in his scorched torso. He toppled aside as Rosetta opened her eyes.

She smiled as tears of joy flowed from her graceful blue eyes. She stared at the doorway as a melta armed sister of battle approached her with a bright light shining behind her. She rejoiced as she beheld her Saviour's blessed, motherly voice.

"The Emperor protects."

White light filled her vision. Then she awoke. Shaken from her dream by the sharp pain of a gauntleted hand smacking the back of her head, she became alerted to the situation at hand. They were in the passenger compartment of an Aquila flyer.