The cacophony of sound in the hallway hammered at Flavia as she spun around the corner, golden cybernetic fist coiled back to strike. The two squads of Lay-Sisters, Hope and Grace, were taking cover where they could, firing their bolters down the short hall at the advancing Chaos Marines known as the Emperor's Children. They returned fire steadily as they stepped forward, heedless of the bolts slamming into their armor. Here and there, one would fall, but their ceramite powered armor, warped by the energies of the Eye of Terror, shrugged most of them away. They fired their curious sonic weapons, the hallway throbbing with the low bass chords of the Blastmasters and squealing shrieks of the Sonic Blasters.
"We will hold this corridor!" Flavia shouted over the din. Her very bones seemed to shiver as a bass vibration ripped through the corridor. Next to her, a Lay-Sister exploded as she was struck by Blastmaster's deadly barrage. Blood and viscera splattered across Flavia's face and white, Celestian armor, staggering her in shock. The teenager wiped clinging globs of gore from her eyes as Harodiah stepped into that vacated space. Flavia watched in amazement…and some amount of discomfort, and the psychic shield the former Repentia crafted around herself shimmered and wavered, the attacks of the Chaos Marines veering off. Harodiah's teeth were clenched together so the muscles of her jaws bulged, and her eyes glowed with the hellfires of the Warp. Her tortured scream held equal parts anger, pain, and revulsion as she channeled the energies of the Immaterium through her sinful, psychic mind…honing it into green balefire that swept over several of the Marines.
Lifting herself from the wall, Flavia swept her arm forward, calling to the others, "Celestians and Repentias forward! Engage them close!" While combat doctrine of the Adeptus Sororitas normally called for engaging most enemies at range, in this case, the sonic weapons of the Emperor's Children were superior to their own. They would lose a battle of attrition here without better cover. The Celestians and Repentias had a much better chance in hand to hand.
They raced forward through the crisscross of fire and pounced upon the Marines, blades flashing, bolt pistols firing, and Eviscerators whirring. Blood and gore was sprayed across the hall in gruesome fountains as the Eviscerator teeth chewed through ceramite, flesh, and bone. The Chaos Marines were stronger, tougher, and faster, but even their warp-twisted physiques could not stand before the holy retribution of the Repentias' blessed weapons.
The Celestians of her command squad rallied around her as Flavia descended upon the hulking figures of the Marines, a tiny waif of a girl with a gleaming golden arm. The Emperor's Children laughed at the absurdity of these women led by a mere child facing them…but those guffaws became cries of alarm as the Manus Victoriae crushed armor and skulls with equal ease. An Aspiring Champion met her, withdrawing a wicked-looking flail and whirling it about his head. As the brutal weapon came down, Flavia stepped inside its arc, grasping the Marine's wrist. Placing a boot against his hip, she strained and ripped the arm completely from its socket, eliciting a scream of agony and rage. She ended his pain by bashing in his skull with his own, armored arm.
From the corner of her eye, she caught a flurry of activity, turning to see a Marine in ornate, baroque armor of swirling patterns of flesh and grey color. It seemed as though the armor was made of smoked glass, filled with roiling clouds of smoke, but here and there faces, contorted in agony and terror, pressed against it as though seeking to escape. The Chaos Marine that wore the cursed artificier armor had a head devoid of hair, and crisscrossed in self inflicted scars. His nose was practically two slits in his skull-like face, and his mouth was impossibly wide, ringed in sharp, pointed teeth. "Lucius the Eternal…" She gasped.
He waded into the fray, an elaborately decorated cutlass in one hand, and a whip crafted of daemonic flesh in the other. He swung the blade down with inhuman strength, shearing through Celestian sister Dorothy's blade, armor, and shoulder. The blade plunged completely through the valiant woman, carving her in two obliquely. Sister Edith leapt in, praying to the Emperor as she thrust her blade forward, but it turned aside against his armor. The whip snaked forward, like a thing with a life of its own, ensnaring her. She struggled bravely, but it wrapped around her as might a snake, pining her arms at her sides. Lucius ignored her, decapitating sister Joyce with an ascending backswing of the cutlass. Laughing heartily, he pulled the bound sister Edit to him and lifted her up to his mouth. Her screams with choked off with a hideous gurgle as he wrapped his impossibly-wide mouth around her neck, pointed teeth slicing through her flesh. Blood fountained outward as he tore away the better part of her throat, chewing and swallowing with a look of manic relish.
That expression suddenly morphed into one of incredulity as he saw the waif like Flavia springing into the air with her golden cybernetic arm cocked back. The absurdity of this girl attacking a veteran of thousands of battles was enough to stun him with humor.
The sound of her fist striking his breastplate was like a thunderbolt, shaking the room. Lucius was shocked to find himself staggering backward, his ribs crackling under the crumpled ceramite of his armor. He howled in surprise and wrath, "You little Bitch!" His left arm shot out, wrist snapping to send the daemonic whip after her, black leathery warp forged protoplasm arcing out gracefully. It struck the golden Arm of Saint Victoria, looping around it several times. Flavia spread her legs wide, bracing herself against his strength as he pulled…and to his surprise she did not budge.
They stood, locked together in a contest of strength, as the whip began to tremble and smoke. The touch of the holy, anointed artifact was like white hot metal to the daemon flesh, and it shivered and wailed. Around them, the battle raged on as Corrupted Sisters of Slaanesh joined the fight. However, she could barely take notice, her will locked on that of the ancient Chaos Marine Champion. Despite his daemonic strength, the power of the Arm of Saint Victoria filled Flavia, the stone cracking under her feet. Finally, the whip could take no more and shredded, the daemonic spirit trapped within deafening them with its wailing as it was drawn back into the Immaterium. Both combatants staggered backward at the sudden loss of resistance.
Lucius recovered more quickly, rushing forward and swinging the cutlass for her head. She lifted the arm in defense, and the cutlass rebounded off its golden surface. The force caused her to stumble backward. He compassed the blade around to swing backhanded, and she deflected it away desperately with her palm. Flavia backpedalled under the assault as he hammered at her again and again, forcing her fully on the defensive. "Foolish girl! I've been making war for more than ten millennia! I am invincible!"
She planted her back foot, refusing to give any more ground. "Pride cometh before a fall…" Flavia whispered. Lucius' cutlass speared at her in a thrust that she deflected to her right, ready to reverse her inertia and smash his face in with her fist…but he was too quick. His left fist looped over her shoulder and crashed into the side of her face. Her world spun. Her senses reeled. She didn't feel herself hitting the ground. Flavia was only groggily aware of Lucius grabbing the collar of her armor, and lifting her from the ground.
The world came into quick…agonizing…focus as she felt a piercing pain in her lower abdomen. Flavia looked down to see the ornate saber rammed through her armored cuirass below her belly. She blinked in shock. Lucius pulled her close, slowly twisting the blade deeper, grinning as she screamed. His obscenely long tongue lolled from his mouth, licking her face, tasting her blood, sweat, and pain. "It's okay, little girl…a nun like you didn't need that womb anyway…
The teenager's left hand closed around the wrist of his sword arm, her eyes clear and bright. "You were once a servant of the Emperor…but you betrayed Him…and all mankind. I bring you the Emperor's judgment." The Manus Victoriae whipped up, her hand wrapping around his hideous, scarred face. With a Fwoosh!, brilliant silver flame erupted from the palm of the arm as blessed Holy Prometheum poured all over his face and neck…and down his throat.
He stumbled backward, beating at his face and clutching at his neck as the fire consumed the skin and flesh of his face…searing his throat. The flaming liquid poured down into his stomach where it continued to burn agonizingly. Flavia looked up from where he had dropped her, watching his face burn away to leave a charred, blackened skull. Lucius' knees buckled, and the heavily armored body crashed to the ground. Slowly she gathered her legs under her, pushing herself to a kneeling position. Groggily, she looked down at the blade impaling her. She grasped it with her cybernetic hand and slowly pulled it free, her face frozen as though silently screaming.
Flavia rose to her feet and shuffled slowly over the body of Lucius the Eternal, smoke drifting up from his neck as the holt fires consumed him from within. Harodia stood nearby, her eyes wide and face ashen, "Flavia…do you know what you've done?"
"Yes, I am very aware of what I've done," She replied with finality. Flavia knew the lore. Lucius was nicknamed "the Eternal" for a very good reason…he couldn't be permanently killed. Ten thousand years ago, the Lord Slaanesh had gifted him with the Armor of Shrieking Souls a daemonic artifact that granted a form of immortality. Whoever killed Lucius…becomes Lucius.
Flavia was now cursed…slowly, she would transform…her mind slipping away to be replaced by his…her body morphing into the twisted, hateful Marine. Then her soul would forever be locked in that eldritch armor with all the others that had beaten him…through skill or luck…over the last ten thousand years.
She looked up from the smoldering corpse, "Bring me all the flamethrowers and Prometheum bottles…hurry." Flavia wobbled slightly as her blood continued to run down the white legs of her armor. She took the cylindrical canisters of liquid Prometheum and crushed them in her golden hand, pouring the contents all over Lucius' body. Then she held one over her head, and split it open, letting the oily substance to drench her.
"What are you doing, Flavia?" Harodiah asked.
"What I must," She replied as she crushed another canister and drizzled the fuel over herself. "The curse of the Armor of Souls has doomed me. But…I have one choice left to me."
Harodiah nodded, understanding, "Of course. He takes over the body of the one who kills him…but if she then takes her own life…"
"He has nowhere to go," Flavia finished the thought. She gave Harodiah a wan, pale smile. "Tell Katherine…it was the greatest honor of my life to serve her." Flavia pointed the golden arm at her feet, fingers splayed outward. "You know what to do. I'm going home. Ave Imperator."
The silver flame erupted from the palm of the cybernetic arm, igniting the Prometheum that covered both herself and the corpse at her feet. The other sisters that had survived the battle watched in awe as she was surrounded by a pillar of silver-white fire. Tears streamed down Harodiah's face as she felt the hand of the Emperor, reaching out from the Golden Throne thousands of light years away. The conflagration burned with a pure brilliance that pained the eye to look upon, fueled not only by blessed Prometheum, but Flavia's faith…and the power of the Emperor.