[member="Tegaea Alcori"]
While [member="HK-36"] the eternal eunuch was getting the chance to live out his fantasy of filling Siobhan with his gel, the Ever-Colonel was continuing her trip down the memory lane. One wondered how many memories she would have to relive before she ended up in something metafictional like an eternal waiting room, which this writer considers a far more efficient form of torment than simply being bomarded with disturbing visions or being put on the rack and cut open. In any case, she might have escaped the white room and crushed the malevolent anti-Siobhan, but the Fade was not done with her yet. It could only be speculated whether there might be some sort of lesson involved in all this, or whether her writer just felt like writing long conversations with themselves.
There had been a flash of light that enveloped her as she left the white room and when she could finally see again she was beneath the hellish surface of Gehenna. Never would she forget the planet that had been the site of what some called her greatest victory, though it was closer to the truth to say it had been a Pyhrric one. The tunnel were long and dark, everywhere the detritus of battle could be seen. Dried and fresh blood stained the walls and the ground, littered with mauled, charred and scorched corpses and burnt-out armoured vehicles. Carcasses of arachnids, dead bodies of Omega soldiers and Reavers, often mutilated and burnt by searing flames, the ground coated in blood. The stench of death and decay was strong here, such that it was almost choking.
The altars where the Bando Gora made their sacrifices had been thrown over, but the bodies of those who had been presented to the Dark Gods, represented by perverse statues and idols, could still be seen. In one case the heart and innards of what had apparently been an Omegan soldier were splattered across the ground, the poisoned dagger still embedded in a chest that had been ripped open. Animalistic screeches, those of Reavers could be heard, amidst the sound of gunfire, explosions and the rumbling of tanks across the ground.
She soon reached what seemed to be the positions of the Omegan soldiers who had established something like a forward command post. She moved over skeletons as she advanced, each footstep cracking under the hard floor, soon enough she realised that the entire floor was made of bones as she came under the shadow of towering spires of the Bando Gora's temples. Fire and bolts, both physical and made of energy, flew everywhere, flew through the skies as armour-wielding Bando Gora, the Chaos Knights, faced the Angelii and the heavily armoured elite troopers of Omega Pyre. Bodies and shrapnel flew through the air as traps sprang to life and ripped soldiers to pieces. Heavy guns on both sides roared as artillery strikes thundered and hit home. Thick clouds of smoke and dark arcanic fire rose up into the air as the Bando Gora priests chanted and performed sacrifices of human flesh.
Rounds flew everywhere but none could harm her. Those that hit her just went right through, for she was just an apparation. Those soldiers with her had no such luck, and so they dug in and used the rubble as cover. Hoplite tanks and heavy assault walkers advanced and opened up a deafening roar of fire, the ground shaking under them, but many of them had been blasted by anti-armour fire. The Bando Gora had brought giant arachnids and daemons of rock, given form by Sith alchemy, to the field.
"Comm says the 7th ODF is bogged down and our artillery has taken heavy losses to kamikaze attacks. How can we break through the Bando Gora lines without support? The path is filled with traps and the place is crawling with enemies. Ammunition is starting to run low. I know we have orders to press forward, but our armour is at quarter strength, casualties are mounting. We can't, Exarch. It's impossible. For every Reaver we kill, there's ten to take his place. Every Omegan who gets captured is transformed into a Reaver and turned against us. We need to pull back," a female ODF officer clad in scorched duraplast battle armour and with the rank insignia of a colonel spoke up as Siobhan reached her, having to shout to make herself heard over the cacophony of sound.
Not far away from them the ground shook and a crater was blown into it, corpses flying everywhere, when a mortar round impacted. "Reavers, left flank! Roast them!" a sergeant cried out when suddenly out of the shadows a horde of Reavers charged, to be met with volleys of heat that leapt out of the nozzles of flamethrower, encasing them in fire. Everywhere there was fierce combat at the periphery. The firepower of the Omegans was great, but so was the viciousness of the Bando Gora and many a soldier was ripped apart by them before finally the beasts retreated under intense bombardment from the few tanks this brigade still had left.
"This is Gehenna...the final battle. We had to charge. It was our singular opportunity to wipe out the scum and win the war. Waiting for reinforcements would give them time to strengthen their forces and strike at the forces we had committed elsewhere in the caves. We were stretched thin across the tunnels as it was. The losses were terrible, but that's war," Siobhan spoke, more to herself than to anyone else as she recalled the memory. It was all just in her mind. "We took stormed the position, then linked up with the Iron Knights and took down the Machine Cult."
"This is madness! We won't help by throwing our lives away on a death charge. Too many Bando Gora, too few of us. We already lost thousands just getting into the tunnels. They keep mauling the rest of the division with their beasts and suicide attacks. The fleet can't give us reinforcements while the space battle is going on and they've taken severe losses. You can't possibly ask the troops to go forward." Reavers pounced and grabbed an Omegan soldier who had gone to far ahead. Before his comrades could react he was being dragged into the shadows. An explosion and screams were heard as she pulled the pin of a grenade and blew himself up, taking them with him. Limbs and innards flew everywhere.
"If you ask us to charge, will it make any difference? Will our sacrifice mean something?"
"It'll help win the war and that's all that matters. Many will live because of that. You came here knowing many would not make it back. There will be no retreat, no defeatism."
"Or is not just for your personal glory? Hundreds will perish, almost twenty thousand by the end of the day when you tear down the mountain and kill Abaddon. Almost the same number will be MIA. Many will never be found and left to this hell. You will survive, of course...as you always do. Broken and close to death, but you will get to live. Was it worth it?"
"Yes. I understand now," Siobhan said thoughtfully. "This is all a...test. Perhaps meant to keep me trapped in the void, or to make me face the choices I made. Spent a lot of time with self-doubts, wasting time with moping. Treated the Butcher as...something separate from me. I'm done with it. The answer's yes. War's hell. I made mistakes at Roche...and Gehenna, but you don't win battles, never mind wars, without sacrificing lives. I feel no guilt about that anymore."
"So if you could fight the battle again you would do the same? And you will do the same when pursuing Shadow? He is far more powerful than they are, more cunning and his agents are numerous."
"You know the answer. I'm the Butcher of Roche."
"Very well, we will attack." Apparently now the vision had shifted and they were back to facing the actual situation. "The Bando Gora are using slaves and captives as human shields to cover their forces. Many are loaded with explosives. What are your orders, Exarch?" Now that she mentioned it hundreds upon hundreds of slaves could be made out forming lines in the rubble the temples were being turned into, serving as cover for the Bando Gora Reavers, some of them still children. Many had glazed eyes that made it look like they had been drugged. Fear and terror were written over the features of those who were still lucid.
"Kill them. It's a mercy," Siobhan responded coldly. If you tried to save everyone, you wound up getting everyon killed. This was not a mission of mercy, but a campaign of total annihilation. "Bombard their positions with artillery fire and gas. I will telekinetically punch a hole through their defences. Two assault companies move in a flanking manoeuvre. You're the anvil. Flamer tanks break up concentrations of Reavers. Attack and don't yield. Suffer not the Reaver to live."
"Yes...Exarch," the officer saluted stiffly.
Battle was joined and then there was slaughter amidst the cackling laughter of dark gods, who would soon have ample souls to feast upon. Death's Scythe reaped a bitter harvest. In the end the Bando Gora would be annihilated. Many would not live to tell the tale, but such is war. In her battle with the Dark God she would tear down the entire mountain and rip its ground open, exposing rivers of lava into which Bando Gora and Omegan soldiers alike would be cast down into the fiery pits of hell. In the end the apparations vanished into thin air and she was left alone again. Undeterred by this and splattered with blood she walked on through the twilight realm of the void. Somehow she had the absurd feeling that she could use a cigarette right about now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H25iM7eRiIQ
