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.
