Scrum looked through the blazing armour, smoke rising beneath his throne as one moderati lay dead at his council. The cockpit was thick with heat and the acrid stench of burnt metal and flesh, the air cycling units struggling to keep pace as warning runes flared across his vision. The throne beneath him shuddered violently, each tremor echoing through his spine as the titan's massive frame fought to remain upright.
The other moderati, barely alive, regulated the Reaver as its plasma engines began working at maximum output. The sound was deafening, a constant, roaring howl that vibrated through the armoured shell of the cockpit. Every surge of power sent painful feedback through the neural links embedded in Scrum's skull. He could feel the titan's suffering as if it were his own, the machine spirit screaming in fury and agony.
Scrum looked at Shalaxi, the foul daemon, with blood coughing through his mouth. Each breath was laboured, tasting of iron and ash as his vision swam with red static. His hands trembled against the throne's controls, slick with sweat and blood.
The remaining arm of the Reaver hung loosely as the daemon danced around the titan with a smile plastered across its face. Its movements were graceful and mocking, as if the destruction around it was nothing more than a performance. Its maw showed the daemon's teeth, which gleamed like polished steel beneath the flickering fires of the battlefield.
The daemon laughed in a high-pitched tone, sharp and piercing, watching as the colossal war machine lurched and nearly fell to its knees. With each step the titan took, shockwaves rippled through the broken earth, yet it was clear that its strength was waning.
"What is wrong, Follower of the Wheel?"
Scrum looked through the red-tinted vision of his titan as Shalaxi bent into herself. Her blades extended and broke apart as the daemon revealed its eyes. The movement was unnatural, bones shifting and splitting with wet, cracking sounds as her form reshaped itself in a grotesque display of pleasure and menace.
Even through the vision of the titan, Scrum could feel the eye's vision directly locked onto him. The eye was massive and singular, a flux of purple and pink, opened wide and revealing teeth and an endless abyss at its centre. It felt as though the eye was not merely seeing him, but reaching into him, peeling back layers of flesh, thought, and memory.
Shalaxi moved with pleasure-filled steps, her waist swaying left to right as if moving towards prey. Each step left scorched marks on the ground; the earth itself recoiled from her presence. The air seemed to thicken around her, heavy with whispers that crawled into the mind.
The Reaver, on one knee, looked at the daemon as it drew closer and closer. Servos screamed in protest as the titan struggled to rise, pistons locking and unlocking in futile cycles. Scrum looked out across the war field surrounding him, his vision panning automatically as data streamed across his display.
Warhounds lay strewn about, their princeps being pulled from their cockpits as the legions of Slaanesh ripped and cut into their flesh. The once-proud engines burned and smouldered, their banners torn and trampled into the mud. Screams echoed across the field, some human, others mechanical, all blending into a single cacophony of death.
The servitors equipped with flamers held little ground as harpies from the sky swooped down, picking them up and throwing them into the lines of battle priests. The resulting explosions of promethium lit the battlefield in brief, violent flashes. The screams, both in binary and raw voice, were so overwhelming that they began to overload the Reaver's sound systems, forcing emergency dampeners to engage.
Scrum turned to face Shalaxi as the mad daemon stood before the Reaver, its blade-like arm scratching the paint from the titan's armour. Sparks flew where metal met unnatural flesh, the sacred markings of the machine spirit defaced with deliberate cruelty.
Shalaxi looked through the lens of the titan directly into Scrum's soul. Her words, fragile and welcoming, beckoned the man, wrapping around his thoughts like silk threads.
"Join us, Scrum, and everything from becoming the leader of Mars to commanding legions of titans will be yours. We are the endless wheel of pleasure. We crave what cannot be given. We are everything, and all you need to do is ask… Join us, Lord Scrum."
Scrum stirred. His soul felt as though it was being torn asunder, pulled in opposing directions. He felt the daemon take pieces of him, tearing them away and feeding them into the warp. Memories flickered and fractured, his training, his oaths, the sacred rites of ignition, all threatened to dissolve beneath the daemon's influence.
The moderati, the last one still alive, looked at Scrum with frantic and inhuman fervour. The bones of the cockpit shell cracked and bent around him, metal warping as the warp's influence seeped inside. His voice was distorted as he shouted at Scrum, pleading and screaming at once, his eyes wild and unfocused.
Scrum looked at the scene and frowned as blood pooled beneath him, dripping slowly across the throne's base. Through his connection, he could feel the machine spirit roaring and thrashing as the claws of the warp reached out, trying to claim it. The Reaver resisted, ancient and proud, its will burning fiercely despite its failing form.
Seeing no other way, in the final seconds, as his mind began to fracture, even the certainty of steel began to falter as the daemon's words soaked into the very soul of Scrum. Time seemed to stretch and slow, every heartbeat echoing like thunder.
He turned the intercom on as his voice carried out across the battlefield, amplified by the titan's dying systems.
"Even in death, the Omnissiah blesses us. PRAISE BE TO THE OMNISSIAH!"
Shalaxi looked strangely at the human before her physical body was violently pulled into the warp. Her form twisted and contorted as unseen forces dragged her away, her laughter cutting off abruptly.
She found herself within the bedroom of the Great Prince, surrounded by wailing walls and the screams of souls caged and hung from the ceiling. The air was thick with sensation, pleasure and agony intertwined in suffocating intensity.
On the great bed, something stirred as a voice, broken and filled with anger, addressed Shalaxi.
"You have failed me…"
Those words were all that emerged from the endless swirl of purple and pink. In an instant, Shalaxi found herself hanging at the gates of the Great Palace, chains biting deep into her flesh.
There, she saw the warp manifest before the gate, forming into a screen that overlooked the battlefield of Khyzai Pass.
What had once been endless mountains was now nothing but an immense pit. The ground churned black, the sky stripped of clouds, and even the last pieces of vegetation were gone, burned to ash. The land itself looked wounded, scarred beyond recognition.
The once-massive legions of the Dark Prince and the Omnissiah were gone, replaced by an unnatural silence broken only by the crackle of fire consuming the remaining oxygen in the atmosphere.
The scene expanded outward, revealing sheer drops where mountains once stood. Black crystal structures rose skyward, jagged and unnatural, before flames cascaded downward once more, bathing everything in fire. The flames flickered black and red, and not even dust remained of Scrum or his legion's titans.
Shalaxi stared at the scene and froze. She had been moments, mere milliseconds, from claiming Scrum for the Dark Prince. Now, she was strung from the gates of the Great Palace of Pleasure. Hooks dug deep into her skin, piercing muscle and bone as her insides were slowly consumed. She roared in agony, her cries echoing endlessly.
The pleasure she once revelled in was gone. Her body began to break as the eyes of fellow daemons watched in ecstasy. The once-great Shalaxi Hellbane had brought the wrath of the Great Prince upon herself, and her suffering became a spectacle, eternal and unending.
(AN: Hi all i know i havent posted in a while but ive been doing other books and got sidetracked. I'll be returning to maybe 2 a week until i finish some of my other novels and fanfics, but I hope you enjoyed this chapter. And again PRAISE BE TO THE OMNISSIASH)