The Legend Of The Emperor Of Mankind[OC X Multiverse] current arc:Rwby

On the other side of the battle field Ruby looked back to see the rising mushroom cloud of dirt and dust before turning back to her counterpart and locked scythes with her Loyalist version.

"I face you at last, my disgusting counterpart." said Loyalist Ruby.

Ruby chuckled. "You make it sound as if you have brought me to heel, and will beat me in combat! Look at you. I have you. I have won."

"You have not won yet."

"If this is not a victory." said Ruby, "then I should probably consult one of your best friend's tedious little manuals to better acquaint myself with the meaning of the term." She uttered, referring to Weiss' codex Astartes.

"It's not over." Loyalist Ruby continued her efforts to free her arm while she spoke.

Ruby glanced down at the Emperor's scythe, 'Harvester'. "Looks like our Husband gave you his own version of a scythe, I see. Or did you take it off His dead knee? I suppose it does not matter. Regardless, you will not wield it against me."

"Fight me, you coward!" growled Loyalist Ruby. The electricity of the power module on Harvester flared. Ruby laughed. "Do you think I would stoop so low as to fight you, myself? Look at me!"

She spread the shrouds of her insectoid like wings wide, fanning her counterpart with plague winds. "You are so far beneath me. I am mightier than you could ever be. Why would I waste my strength on crushing an insect like you?"

"Says the one with insect wing and instead you save your wickedness for our own sons, who you so righteously betrayed," said Loyalist Ruby. "How noble of you." Dallas had told her about the Isstvan Dropsite massacre, one of the worst tragedies in the Imperium's history. Where her and the other traitor legions decimated the loyalist forces with the use of virus bombs. Alongside the purging of the loyalist elements in the traitor Legions.

"Wickedness?" said Ruby. "Is that what you see? I bring them salvation from the hell our Husband has created. I bring them the joy of endless rebirth. I bring them life."

"You cast yourself as a warlord-prophet. But you are a slave. No greater than Salem, I pity you, you have deceived yourself."

"It is you who is the slave!" hissed Ruby. "The slave of our uncaring Husband, who made us do His bidding! You who trod the path He laid out for you without question, sure that the lies He told were the truth, too stupid and trusting to question them for yourself. You saw what He did to me, to us! The last time I met Him, He stole my life's struggle, the thing I had worked so hard for. Like it was nothing to Him! Just a bump in His smooth road to godhood! He took what we had worked and suffered for and He did not even care! He called Himself The Emperor! What kind of being has the presumption to claim such a title? Who takes and takes the affections of His family and gives so little in return?! He would not even deign to tell us His real name! And yet, you swallowed it all, poisoned milk from our machine mother, machines He created, things like we are." Ruby sighed.

"We tried His way. We should never have compromised our own principles. But we did. We were a champion of common people. We abandoned them for a galactic despot. Now I serve the people again."

Ruby glared into the clean silver eyes of herself, with her own milky eyes, defying her to challenge her pronouncements.

"If I am a puppet of an uncaring master, then what are you?" said Loyalist Ruby. "A being who wallows in warp power while crying hatred for the witch? A plaything for corruption and disease? You blustered long and hard against psychic power, and claimed total fearlessness and indomitability none could match, yet when faced with death, the ultimate challenge, you failed."

Ruby flinched and rose up in the air, her insect wings beating quickly.

"You do not know what you speak of! You do not know what it was like! I was shown the depths of suffering of a kind you could never understand, and as death beckoned I was given the power to withstand it."

"Are you stupid?! Do you know who you're talking to? I know no suffering?!" Loyalist Ruby laughed bleakly. "I saw my sisters, many of whom I loved, all of whom I respected, turn their backs upon our Husband, the man we swore permanent allegiance to, and plunge the galaxy into war. I saw humanity reach for one golden moment of peace, brush it with its fingers, and then I saw you and the others spit upon it and tear it away... I died at the hands of my kin. I awoke to a galaxy so far from the glorious enlightenment of the Emperor it resembles the Catheric hell. You turned your back on all you claimed to stand for, cravenly, without a second thought. Where is the huntress who could weather any storm, whose body shrugged off poison, who would never, ever give in? What happened to her? The Ruby Rose of old would never have allowed this. She would have died with honor. You must have seen, as your own sons were transformed into these hulking monsters, what awaited you should you say yes to salvation. You who called yourself the strongest of us, the redoubtable, the master of any pain or sorrow! How hollow those words seem to me now. I at least know what I am. I look at myself, and though I perceive many failures I know with unshakeable certainty that I perform the duty I was created for. That I fight for the preservation of mankind."

"Then you do not fight for the Emperor?" asked Ruby, her voice an insinuating rattle.

"I fight for what He believed in."

"An advocate's quibbling. You fight for yourself."

"I remain a champion of humanity, whereas you are the lackey of evil."

"Am I?" said Ruby. Her wings beat softly. "Then tell me, myself, if our Husband were so good, look me in the eye and tell me that He loved us all as any Husband should love his wife?"

Loyalist Ruby stared at her, her jaw clenched in anger. Doubt grew in her mind, did He love them? Or was it another lie for him to keep them from wandering off?

Ruby laughed. It began as a wheezing in her lungs, thick with phlegm, rattled up her dry throat, and clarked her teeth together behind her breathing mask before hissing out in puffs of yellow gas. "You know, don't you? You've seen it." She wagged one long, skeletal finger at herself. "I knew something was different about you." She leaned close. "You spoke with Him for a whole day in this Mansion. Tell me, what did He say? Did He plead to be helped? Did He beg you to be set free?"

Loyalist Ruby said nothing. They really didn't interact did they?

"Oh, oh myself, it cannot be." Ruby said in mock horror. "Did-did He say nothing?! What is he? Dead?" She stood back and shook her cadaver's head. "Of course He isn't, is He? Not in any real sense. Beings like Him are beyond mortality. As we can see over there." She pointed a rotten finger towards the chaotic explosions and clashes happening in the distance. "You are so misguided. He sought godhood, and in a way He has what He wanted. He is a Corpse-God, a lord of death more terrible and vile than my adopted grandfather, who offers those who follow him the gift of endless renewal!" Ruby gestured with Silence.

"You look at this land and see only ruination. It is a shame for you that Nurgle's potential is invisible. Where you see destruction, I see but one phase in a cycle of death, rebirth, fecundity and decay. It is glorious, colorful, and vital! So much more than our Husband's pale lies. All secrets might be known within the warp." said Ruby.

"It is timeless and eternal. Everything that happens here is reflected there endlessly. Every moment can be accessed, every lie heard, every broken promise relieved. I have been deep within, far from Nurgle's garden, into realms where secrets flock like corpse flies. I found many interesting things there. Do you know why He made us?" She drew back Crescent Rose.

"Do you think it was for affection? I think, once I've crippled you, and you lie blind and useless in an iron cage, begging to die, I might tell you, and then your fine words here will burn in your mouth." Ruby made a wet, clotted sound behind her mask. Her white-eyed gaze moved over Loyalist Ruby's limbs.

"But that is yet to come. Legs first, I think." she said. "You will not be needing those at all. Do not worry, my Loyalist self, my scythe is sharp, and it will hurt only a little teeny tiny bit."

And thus began the battle, Loyalist Ruby fought well but her counterpart was simply too powerful, the gifts of Nurgle wore her even with her protective suit.

At first she felt nauseous then a severe headache, nothing too bad but as the fight continued it got worse so much worse.

Her skin started to get itchy then her pale white skin became a cherry red with it beginning to slough. By the end of the fight her eyes were crying bloody tears, her throat felt dry and burned as clumps of her hair were starting to fall off her head. Eventually she could take it no longer.

Loyalist Ruby's body slammed into the wet soil. She was dying again. Her soul clung on, but that too was being eaten alive by Ruby's plague.

Footsteps halted by her head. There was a poke on the breastplate. Loyalist Ruby heard her counterpart speak, but she could not see, and she could sense nothing else but pain.

"Do you see, you follow the wrong master," said Ruby. "He is a cyst, a pus filled canker surrounding a dead thing lodged in the fabric of reality, like a thorn, or a piece of shrapnel. It must be drawn out for things to heal. Do you understand now, that this is what you follow?" Ruby grunted in amusement. "Of course, you can't answer. I doubt you understand, anyway."

There was the sound of Ruby shifting her stance. A wistful tone entered her voice.

"We will soon be in the Garden of Nurgle, my Loyalist self. The veils are parting. I can see it already. Once you are dead, this world will fall within it, and become a jewel of decay. You have damaged my network, but not by enough, and at the coming of your death, one by one each of your worlds will pass from this place of cold void and uncaring stars into the Grand­father's embrace."

"I wish you could see it. It is beautiful, full of life and potential. There are trees here, and plants of amazing variety. It is not barren. It is not like that cold light you showed me. Not like Him. It is not like the materium at all, with its pointless struggle against inevitability. Here nothing everything truly ends, but is reborn and dies and is reborn and dies, over and over again. Everything here is given many gifts. Nothing, no matter how small, is overlooked, and all share in Grandfather's bounties. There is no pain, and because there is no pain suffering is borne gladly. Now tell me, compared to the hell our Husband has inflicted upon the galaxy, does that sound so terrible?" She took a deep breath, like someone sampling country air on a fine day. "I wish you could see it." She said again.

The pain still raged through Loyalist Ruby, but it was diminishing.

"If only you would turn. You are nearly dead. Soon the pain will be over." Ruby knelt beside her counterpart, and rested her hand on her chest. "Don't you want that, for it to be done?" She began to stroke, like she was soothing a feverish child. "Hush now, little Rose. Hush. Go to the Grandfather, and you will see, he will make it all all right. He will take the pain away forever."

Grabbing her counterpart she dragged her into a black void like portal and away from the current battle field.

Dallas, who foresaw Ruby's struggle, gave her as much of his essence as he could before she passed through the portal, weakening him.

But it was more than enough. The Warp shook with an earthquake. The strange Daemon creatures that dwelled there set up a cacophony of cries and moans. On the areas of Iax that it overlaid, reality trembled and reasserted itself, and the garden began to fade.

"Impossible." Ruby whispered.

The corpse of her counterpart twitched. Rose's Thorns, her armor was a corroded shell, but somehow its power pack restarted, and lights blinked on systems all over it.

Loyalist Ruby's blackened face turned up to look at her. Ruby felt something huge and dangerous moving through the warp. Something she had not felt for a long time.

Loyalist Ruby's back arched. The armor was humming now, giving off a psychic signature as arcane mechanisms within it powered on throughout.

The earth shook again. A second toll of the unseen bell sent the denizens of the warp into panic. Trees cracked as they dragged up roots and attempted to lumber away. A million kinds of Daemon-fly buzzed up from the corpse-grounds and flew off in gathering swarms. Nurglings shrieked and waddled as fast as their little legs would carry them.

Ruby stood hurriedly, raised Crescent Rose and brought it down, to destroy her counterpart finally, take her soul as a sacrifice to the great god Nurgle even if she could not take her world.

But she could not move.

Loyalist Ruby's eyes were glowing with pure, white power. The last slimes of her decayed flesh burned away, and a network of feathery capillaries spread in their place, bearing new blood unsullied by the Godblight. The metal of Rose's Thorns shimmered, impossibly remaking itself. Bright decorations appeared as tarnish cracked and fell away. Wires grew and reconnected as surely as Loyalist Ruby's skin was growing back.

The neverground of the garden shook hard. Daemons large and small were screaming, emerging from their hiding places and fleeing in riotous stampede. Away in the distance, ever visible wherever you went in the garden, Nurgle's Black Manse shivered, and Ruby felt another presence, as powerful as the first, looking at her from behind its ever-shuttered windows.

The ground cracked and broke. Glaring whiteness blazed from the crevasses. Loyalist Ruby's corpse rose up, and hung in the air, supported by a pillar of radiance, and slowly turned so she was upright. She reached out, and the Emperor's Scythe appeared in her hand, and burned with the fires of a thousand suns.

"He speaks to me, Traitor." said Loyalist Ruby Rose. "Did He not speak to you?"

The unbearable radiance enfolded Loyalist Ruby, so glaring that Ruby threw up her hands to cover her own eyes.

"Dallas?!" Ruby said, and her voice quailed like a little girl discovered in the course of some small but unforgivable crime.

"I am His right hand," said Loyalist Ruby. "I am His general, His champion. I am His Guardian. And by His might am I preserved."

The landscape flickered between the blasted battlefield of the current War for the Mansion and the Garden of Nurgle. The ground of the garden was rolling.

"This is impossible! You should be dead!" Quailed Ruby

There was the creak of a door, faint but portentous, coming from the manse. The doors never opened to Nurgle's house.

Ruby turned very, very slowly, and looked to the great house. A single, tiny shutter on an insignificant gable was open, a square of deeper blackness in the black wood.

"Forgive me, Grandfather." She squeaked.

Then music? The sound of beating War drums, then an armored fist punched through the ground and an armored space marine bearing the symbol of a rose, burst out the rotten soil. Then another marine popped out, then another, and another. Soon enough a small army worth of Marines stood around her in a circle formation. She knew every single one of them

"Isstvan..." she whispered, these were all the Loyalist members from her legion, those sent to die on the planet's surface as her ships rained hell-fire from above. And leading them was Redmond Rose, first born of Ruby Rose, a Loyalist to the very end.

"Kiddies!" She cried with false enthusiasm. "How are you all, have you all been eating well? You guys look thin."

Loyalist Ruby looked past her, and something looked through her, seeing all worlds at once. Eyes as bright as the centers of galaxies stared at the black, forbidding house.

"You are a traitor." Redmond said, in a voice that was not quite his own. "You have brought down all that could have been, but you are as much a victim as a monster, mother. Perhaps one day you might be saved. Until then, you must go back to the master you chose."

"No!" Ruby cried, as her sons begin to sing

'Bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum.'

'ARE YOU READY???'

The last words she had told them before sending them to die.

"No! I'm not ready at all."

'ARE YOU READY???'

"Hold on! Just hold on, just a moment! I can make it worth you guys while, weapons, armaments, real estate. So much too much, I'm practically giving it away! What about eternal life?! The greatness of Life and death! The cycle of rebirth?! I know I have wrong you all in the past, but come one that ten thousand years ago. So let's just forgive and forget, wouldn't that be sweet?" She bargained.

But it was too late. Some force reached for her, and yanked hard. She flew back, over and over through the garden, towards the black house of the Plague God.

"No! No please! I promise I can make it up to you all! I PROMISE!!!"

She felt a moment of perfect terror before she flew in through the open portal, and it slammed shut behind her, trapping her with an altogether more awful god.

Nurgle had been displeased.

The True Ruby looked over the Garden of Nurgle. She was between two worlds. The warp was a shifting thing, never constant. The garden was a collection of ideas. It had no true form, and through it she could see a million other worlds that underpinned it, the dreams of souls living and dead, and past that, as if glimpsed through banks of glittering sea mist that evaporated before the morning sun, the battlefield of Iax.

"Hear me!" Ruby's voice boomed through eternities. The Scythe blazed higher, until the fire of it threatened to burn out time. "I am Ruby Supremo, Loyal Lover of the Emperor of Terra, and Guardian of Humanity. It is your destiny to end today, God of Plague, so you know that I am coming for you, and I will find you, and you will burn."

She gripped the Scythe of the Emperor two-handed and reared it back. And waves of fire ripped into the garden. From the great manse a cry of rage sounded, as a wall of flame hotter than a million suns devoured everything in its path, finally breaking and receding within yards of the black walls of Nurgle's house. Its infinite halls shook. Mossy tiles fell from the roof. Sodden timbers steamed.

"The warp and the materium were once in balance. For too long, you have tipped the scales. Understand that it is not only the warp that is capable of pushing back. This realm is not real. Only will is real. And none may outmatch my will. Be assured, Lord of Plagues, and convey this message to your brothers, that I do not speak for myself."

"I speak for the Emperor of Mankind."

Then she was falling, falling, falling forever until her knee hit the ground, and she was into the battlefield once more.

Ruby opened her eyes. She was kneeling on the grounds of Mansion, she was back and the Rosary Guard was helping The Atlesian Guard to push back the ever advancing Atlesian Tyrants. The Scythe of the Emperor was buried point down in the cracked earth. Its fires had turned everything around her to glass. Burnt-out suits of armor lay around her. Only she was untouched.

And her counterpart was nowhere to be seen.

She stood. Whatever presence had inhabited her was gone. The air was clean. There was no sign of taint at least not too nearby, chaos influence had diminished and she knew that the Emperor's Scythe had burned the Godblight away. His psychic shield still lined the dueling ground, but through it she could see the warp begin to clear. A ferocious bombardment was laying waste to the Death Guard, which retreated, leaderless and outmatched, under the cover of poisoned fogs.

The air crackled. All around her, golden giants appeared. Further out, other spikes of energy announced the arrival of more Custodians into the rear of the Death Guard's lines. There would be a great slaughter of the traitors before the day was done.

J stepped forward.

"It is done then?"

"It is done. My Traitor counterpart is gone. Her network is broken" The True Ruby Rose said. "The Plague Wars are over."

And she sheathed the Scythe of the Emperor.

"Very well. You should assist your Friend's legion, did you know she has fallen?" Asked J.

"Wait... are you talking about Weiss? Weiss is dead? Oh Weiss..." she was devastated, Weiss was her best friend, returned to her and once again she was gone. She was not aware she was so invested in her own battle that she did not notice.

"I'm afraid so, the Atlesian Tyrants are pushing in from the west, take your sons and hold them back."

"Understood. What about you?" She asked.

"I have my own Mission, now go." Ruby gave her a stare before joining up with her sons.

'Neptune, Venus. On me' J hailed over the Vox.

'Copy that'

'On my way'

Soon enough the Trio was reunited and Jupiter began to debrief them:

"Our Mission is to delay the archenemy until reinforcements arrive to protect the Flak Guns located on the Mansion's rooftops, that battery will keep enemy air units out of the sky."

They traveled through a large cave until suddenly the cave wall exploded and out came a Helbrute. It raised its Heavy Thunder Hammer and charged at its assailant, said assailant was a Custodian Telemon Super Heavy Dreadnought. It smacked the weapon away and during its slap the front armor panel of the Helbrute was knocked loose and the pilot was exposed.

The Telemon Shoved its storm cannon in the exposed cockpit and ripped and tore the Traitor a new one.

The Dreadnought ripped its cannon out and turned to face its brother and sisters.

"WHERE ARE THE TRAITORS?" It spoke in a deep mechanical voice.

"All around." Voiced V.

"Honored brother, join us and you may sate your rage and aid our cause." Said J

"LEAD ME TO THE SLAUGHTER!" Was its reply.

"Onward." Commanded J.

The now four man squad ventured deep into the cave until they popped out the other side seeing the battle being raged around, even worse Chaos reinforcements had arrived. The Order of the Phoenix, the 15th Legion had arrived, coming to replace the fleeing Death Guard.

"VILE SONS OF RAVEL." Hissed the Dreadnought. "IS SHE HERE?"

"Thankfully, she is not." Said N.

"PITY. THEN MY HATRED MUST BE DIRECTED AT HER MINIONS." The Dreadnought roared as its Storm cannon began to completely annihilate the Rubric Marines, who turned to face their new opponent.

As they fought, a loud draconic roar nearly shattered J, N, and V's audio receptors. It was a HelDrake, a terrifying Daemon engine. It flew around before posting itself atop a large pillar, where it gave a triumphant war cry.

"THAT ABOMINATION IS MINE!" Screamed the Dreadnought as he grabbed the wreck of an Imperial Guard Armored vehicle and tossed it at the Daemon like a Frisbee.

"IN THE NAME OF THE EMPEROR, I CAST YOU DOWN."

BOOOOOOOM

The resulting explosion brought the beast down in a flaming pile of slag.

"Holy Emperor..." mutters V at the site of the explosion.

"Let's move out, team." Commands J as they Strike deeper into enemy lines.

Nearby, Blake has been dueling with her counterpart this whole time. Neither warrior was able to best the other.

They faced one another, circling warily. Traitor Blake's anger was palpable, spilling out of her like heat from a fire, her breath coming in throaty hisses. The Lioness was colder and more remote, but now equally furious, her dignity dented in front of her sons. This was not the formal dueling she excelled at. This was a brawl, kicked off by a barbarian, a hothead no better than the big cats the Emperor had kept.

"You do not have to play to this reputation." the Lioness said. "You can drop the pretense any time you choose."

"My warriors fight on all around" spat Blake. "If you had aided them, I would have called you friend for it."

"Then go to them yourself," said the Lioness. "Do not blame me for doing what you would not."

Blake swept back into contact, this time swinging her Chainsword across at her counterpart. A swap from her original, which was taken by Adam and the rest of the Loyalist White Fang in her timeline. The Lioness met the strike two-handed, driving the blow back with her katana in a blaze of sparks. For a moment they tried their strength, pressing the two blades hard, and metal screamed against metal. Krakenmaw's churning teeth ground against the immaculate edge of the Gambol Shroud, neither finding the advantage.

At the sight of fighting breaking out, the Black Fang warriors roared encouragement, slamming their blades, generating a wall of noise in support of their liege. The White Fang initially made no move; but finally responded, seeing what was unfurling. Led by Katherine, soon they were calling out in turn, vying with the Fangs to shout louder, cheering for their liege as if on the tourney field of old Menagerie.

"We've always held ourselves above the rest." spat Blake, driving more power into her locked arms. "Where does it come from? Were you damaged as a child?"

The Lioness pushed back, giving no ground. "I never saw the point of us, that is true. No one could explain it to me, either."

Then she broke away, falling back. Blake went after her, and they traded heavy swings, their blades clanging together with bone-breaking force. If the Primarchs heard the roars of their sons, they did not show it. Huge blows landed, propelled with utter commitment, fast and accurate fuelled by the mutual antipathy that had always been there, gestating beneath the veneer of the Great Crusade and now erupting into open combat.

"No, our purpose is evident." said Blake, pressing furiously, driving her counterpart beyond the battlefield and into the foyer. "You see it before you now, and you long to be its equal."

"All I see is delusion. So much energy, so poorly directed." Traitor Blake was the stronger of them by a factor of two, thanks to the power boost from the Chaos Gods. Powering Krakenmaw with the greater heft and momentum, but the Lioness had the superior dexterity, angling her parries and thrust to catch Blake off balance. They hacked and drew at one another, circling, feinting, slicing through cloak and pelt, smashing the trophies from their armor. The impact of every strike echoed out through the Foyer, fast and hard, gaining in speed and commitment.

The cries of encouragement reached a crescendo, resounding from outside into the foyer, swelling into every alcove. All legionaries present were seasoned fighters, used to the continual test of the practice cage and dueling-pit, and yet none had ever witnessed their Mothers stretched to the fullest. Both had been created by the Emperor, schooled in every stratagem known to the Imperium, made as strong and as fast and as guileful as physics and biology would allow. When they moved to strike, it was godlike blurred by speed, locked into perfect precision, weighted to cause apocalyptic levels of damage.

Finally, they broke apart, both breathing heavily, both carrying deep dents on their armor. Blake started to laugh, though it was a dark, odd sound.

"Too much for you yet, Princess?" She taunted. "You can count the worlds you conquer, but you've never fought like this."

"No, it was never a game to me."

"Nor I."

The Lioness snorted. "You treat it all as a game. That is why he sends me, Dallas could never trust you. No one can trust you. Your Legion is a rabble that would brawl among themselves if you were not there to smack their heads together."

"If only they were more like yours," said Blake, mockingly.

"Yes." replied the Lioness, exasperated. "Yes. Is that so hard to imagine?"

Blake loosened her arms, letting Krakenmaw lower. "I know why you do this. I know why you conquer, world after world, driving your sons after every campaign Dallas finds for you. But our Husband won't do it. He won't choose a favorite. And if He did, it wouldn't be you, it would be Irina, or Koneko, or most likely Rias, well not anymore at least. But you know what I mean, so you're just wasting yourself, trying to be noticed. You and I know it doesn't work like that."

The Lioness let slip a scornful laugh. "Not all of us are so without friends in the Palace, and you have no idea who our Husband favors."

"Maybe so." said Blake, advancing again, her chainsword revving. "But He's not here now, is He? Just you, me, and the kraken's teeth."

The Lioness clicked her tongue. "An ugly blade" said the Lioness, glancing at it warily before scoffing. "Much like its Mistress."

Blake piled in again, sweeping the chainblade low and aiming for her adversary's legs, but Gambol Shroud slammed down to block, propelled two-handed and held fast. Blake heaved upwards, aiming to overbalance the Lioness, and they both staggered down the left hall breaking its Titanium door off its hinges and traveling down the hall, pursued by their cheering entourages.

Then the Lioness struck, hauling her blade around crossways, only to drive it up at the last minute. Blake's counter strike came in too high, and Krakenmaw was wrenched, spitting, from her grasp. She reached out to pull it back, but the Lioness had already sent it clattering away, and it tumbled, end over end, forcing her sons to leap clear.

Perhaps the Lioness thought that this might have been an end to it, for she never followed up with the strike that would surely have driven deep into her counterpart's exposed chest, but the Queen of Menagerie had other ideas. Snarling with rage, Blake barged headlong into her Counterpart, turning her entire body into a weapon, smashing the Lioness back.

The two of them careened into the next door leading into the south hall. The Lioness thudded into it, causing the titanium to moan and creak. Rushing out, Blake punched her again, then again, her fists furious and speed-blurred, breaking her counterpart's fine helm. The Lioness reeling, swung her sword clumsily, but the blow was weak and did not bite. Blake grabbed her by the shoulders, and with a cry of rage and exertion, threw her bodily through the door and into the South east Hall.

The Lioness hit the wall hard, toppling onto her back and cracking and splitting the Texan stone. Blake turned to pursue her, still weaponless. Krakenmaw had been thrown a long way, and as she made to retrieve it, a White Fang legionary moved to bar her way.

For a moment the Primarch hesitated, stunned by the defiance. Then she gave up on her chainsword and ripped an axe from the Legionary's grasp, before sending him sprawling with a back-handed blow that might easily have ripped his head off.

"This'll do." She snarled, racing back to her recovering counterpart.

As the Lioness leapt back up, the two of them collided again, axe versus sword, now two weapons of the First Legion set against one another. The blows came in quicker, more frenzied, tearing away at ravaged armor and biting into flesh for the first time. Blood as thick as engine oil flecked across the stone walls, marking their progress along the full length of the hall. The watching legionaries could only follow, captivated by the sustained violence of it.

They fought. They fought with the conviction of sisters wronged, and of demigods roused to anger.

"There is no place for you, Traitor." cried the Lioness breathlessly, working to counter a new flurry of blows. "You will always be shunned, and you made this fate yourself. When this battle is over, you will have nothing, nothing but your empty Island to brawl in. Is that what you wanted?"

"I asked for nothing," said Blake. "Nothing but what I am. We were all made for a reason, and we at least know what mine is."

"Ha! Some purposes were flawed. That you know. Legions can be sanctioned, their lords held to account. Perhaps yours will be one of those. Do you think so? If the day ever comes, I will not be astonished at it."

"Speak not of things you don't understand!" growled Blake. "And here I thought I was the arrogant one."

The two Primarchs bludgeoned their way through a set of heavy doors, fighting all the while, leaving their pursuing warriors behind, barely conscious of their surroundings. Beyond the doorway was the open air, the center courtyard where Yang was moments ago built right at the pinnacle of the fortress for surveying the Tyrant's realm. As they burst into the open, the skies above greeted them with a low grind of thunder. Tortured by the heavy munitions loosed across the landscape below, the very air had become electric, thick with incipient rain and overborne by flame-lit cloud-banks.

They pulled apart again, panting heavily now, their shoulders lower.

"I fear for you, my other self." spat Blake. "I see a time when your conquests are over, and then you will have to look at one another and see what you have become. I can see behind your mask, even if none on Terra can. We carry our curse in the daylight, free for all to see. Your poison is hidden, but it will come to light, sooner or later."

"We do not all carry curses," said the Lioness.

"We were all made the same way," said Blake. "How could we not?"

Far around them, the wide plains were streaked with lanes of fire, poked by smears of soot-black smoke, testament to the volume of punishment meted out by the two combined sides. The walls to the north were crumbling, reduced level by level by the Black Fang. The industrial sprawl to the north was rocked by an endless chain-reaction of detonations, immolating whole fields of manufactoria in a raging inferno of neon fulguration. Around them, the Supreme Mansion itself was being purged with fire and fury, the Faunus visiting dire retribution for their earlier trials.

The wind shrieked around them, snagged by tendrils of flame. Lightning lanced down along the southern horizon, ushering in the deluge that nature seemed to have summoned to cool the furnace ignited across the Immaterium.

"We are the First of the Imperium." snarled the Lioness, whirling into action again, powering across the platform's width and slamming her blade into the axe's block. "We have nothing to hide."

So they fought again, on and on, neither relenting, nor holding back. The Lioness' skin ran with mingled sweat and blood under her armor, her arms growing heavier with every sweep of her blade. Blake was suffering too, limping from a deep cut to her right leg, the engine of her fury guttering as even her superhuman body felt the pain of cumulative damage. The blows became wilder, more vicious, flying in with abandon. Their energy reserves bled away but hyper-adrenaline kicked in, flooding their secondary hearts, staining every muscle and wrenching just a little more power, a little more effort.

Blake swung a heavy punch, missing the Lioness' helm by a finger's breadth and driving deep into the wall beyond. The masonry shattered, the block imploding under the pile-driver impact. The Lioness went to seize her enemy, to swing her round into the wall. The two of them, locked close now, crashed into the rockcrete, sending whole sections sliding over the edge.

Thunder cracked again overhead, and the rain came at last, seething through the fervid atmosphere and bouncing from every surface. The two Primarchs battled on, demolishing more of the beautiful stonework. Heedless of the danger, they were now utterly consumed, fighting like creatures possessed, driven no longer by any half-remembered grievance but by the purity of the struggle, the need to prevail, the warrior instinct in its most complete and prideful form. They drove at one another blindly, grappling on the grass, their weapons locked together.

The Lioness tried to pull back, trying to force her opponent down onto the floor. She grappled with the blackened panther-pelt, seizing it and ripping it clear from her counterpart's back. The rune-totems scattered, cut from their twine, and bounced over the stonework. Blake shrugged off the attempted hold, crouched down, spread her arms and pushed forwards, catching the Lioness in the midriff and propelling them both out, into the Dinning room.

The two of them teetered on the edge for a heartbeat, still lashing out at one another. Sword and axe dashed again, steel grinding against steel, the Lioness fighting to hold position, Blake fighting to break it With a final shove of locked arms, their combined center of gravity and force, their footing gave out in a shower of broken stone.

They plummeted, hurdling down into the depths of the Mansion. Floor after floor The basement walls of the Mansion redoubt sloped fractionally outwards as they dropped, and the Primarchs slammed into it 164ft(50m) down, gouging a long wound in the outer plating and driving deeper in. Gambol Shroud was lost, then the axe, both thrown clear by the impact and sent sailing out into the abyss.

With a sickening smack, both Primarchs landed on a floor set further down. The stonework exploded as their combined weight rammed into it, and they plowed on through, only coming to a stop when they finally hit the lowest floor.

Surrounded by a cataract of tumbling rubble, each Primarch got shakily back to her feet, weaponless but still compelled by blind fury. They charged at one another, their gauntlets clenched, punching out in a flurry of fresh blows. As the crumbling stone sleeted down around them, sending blood-thickened rivulets coursing over their dented battleplate.

Blake swung the blow wild with exhaustion, catching the Lioness on the temple and driving the curve of her helm in. The Lioness staggered, pulling back to evade the follow-up, before launching a bludgeoning strike of her own. They closed in again, tearing at one another, slipping in the blood pools and the filth that swilled around them. Every impact was still incredible, propelled by the servos in their power armor, by their enhanced muscles, by their mutual and implacable anger.

Blake finally gained purchase and struck out, sending a crack snaking down the length of the Lioness already damaged helm. That seemed to trigger some fresh surge of rage in the Queen of Menagerie, and she hurled Blake aside, flinging her across the basement's length. Blake snarled and powered back close, swatting away the Lioness enervated punch and reaching out to smash her fist into the fissure she had opened.

She missed by a fist's width, and overbalanced, crashing into the floor and rolling over onto her back. The Lioness reeled away, panting hard.

For a moment, all Blake saw was the opportunity. That last impact had nearly taken her counterpart's helm clean off - she could leap to her feet, shove her back to the basement's wall, press the advantage and beat her down to her knees.

Every part of her body was hot with agony. Bones had been fractured, many of them. Her armor was mined, her blade lost. The Lioness looked no better, her cloak hung about her in greasy tatters, and her shoulders were slumped.

Blake heard the laughter begin as if from far away, and took a while to realize it was she herself that was making it. Her chest started to shake, and the mirth rose up in her gorge, burgeoning fast as the absurdity of the situation became truly apparent. They had commenced the duel as warrior Queens, superb and terrible, and had ended it as gutter brawlers, their finery smashed and their fury exhausted.

"Why do you laugh?" slurred the Lioness, staggering towards her counterpart, her fists still balled.

Blake struggled to right herself, wincing through her laughter as the pain spread across her ribs. "Emperor's teeth." She spat, blood speckling her vox-grille. "What are we doing here?"

The Lioness marched over to her.

"You yield?" She asked.

"I... do I what?"

"Do. You. Yield?"

By then it was impossible to stop. She tried to speak, to blurt out something that would end the whole ludicrous episode, but nothing came.

The Lioness thought that this was still some kind of honor-duel. They had pummeled one another to the edge of consciousness, demolished half of the Emperor's palace in their fury, and still the Queen of Menagerie was demanding satisfaction.

It was madness.

Blake roared her laughter out, throwing her head back against the streaming walls. She forgot all about the hunt, the battle, the sickness in her Legion's soul, the politics of the sorority of Primarchs, the destiny of the species, and rocked in uncontrollable, puerile glee.

So she never saw the blow that finally ended it all.

She never tensed for it, never put up a warding arm, and never even watched for the Lioness limping across to her, pulling her bloodied fist back and launching the punch that would crack open her skull and knock her out as cold as the tombs of Menagerie.

High above her an echoing boom rang out.

Dallas was thrown into his Grandmaster Bedroom from the sky. As Rias landed inside as well.

Rias looked around. "Hmph, nice place." She mocked, as she gazed around.

Looking toward the defeated Emperor she no longer saw a mighty man ready to challenge her; instead she saw a weak, pathetic, dying child who barely clung to life.

Dallas gave a weak laugh. Rias marched forward grabbing him by the throat. Dallas could only weakly rake his fingers across her armor in an attempt of defiance. Rias responded by giving him a brutal headbutt, completely shattering his nose and sending him to the ground. She then grabbed him by the back of his neck and began to repeatedly smash his teeth in before slamming him in the ground once again, Dallas hurled up blood, and spat out some teeth. He turned to look at her through bloodied eyes as she reached down and grabbed him one handed by the neck once more. Dallas weakly tried punching her in the face but Rias simply batted his hand away. She reared her head back and gave him another devastating headbutt.

Then another.

And another.

And another.

And another.

Until finally she got bored of that and began to slam his head against the bedframe of his own bed.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Before turning around and throwing him out the window of his bedroom. Landing heavily on his right arm it snapped under his weight, he cradled his wounded arm and cried out in pain before reaching out to summon a weapon at this point it didn't matter what he got, he just need something to defend-

CRUNCH

Rias had leapt off his window to land directly on his left arm, crushing it under a ceramite boot.

Rias gave a dark, growl-like laugh before grabbing him by the back of his head and taking him up into the air with her. She forced him to look at Yang who by now was completely exhausted and was grabbed by her arms and brutally sawed in half by a Daemon engine. Ruby had done her hardest to help but was overwhelmed by the seemly never ending hoard and was put to rest when a Rubric Marine ran up and managed to cut her arm off before a Blood Thirster, a Greater Daemon Khorne ran up and ripped her head clean off, sub-zero style, neck bones attached. Blake meanwhile was stuck in a hole with her sons resuming the fight above her.

"Look anathema! Look at how your followers die!" Rias launched her head back and let out another wretched laugh. "YES ! As ultimately ever, the timeline begins and ends in my favor, I WILL ALWAYS BE THE VICTOR!"

Dallas himself started to begin laughing, stunning Rias, causing her to become silent. Dallas then spoke, "In the Grim darkness of the far future, there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars. Only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and there can be no victor." he slurred the words as his missing teeth make it difficult to speak.

As Dallas spoke he began to glow brighter and brighter. Until finally he detonated with the force of a thousand suns killing everything and everyone, this was the end. And there would be no victors, but as his physical form disintegrated, his soul would go on to shatter like glass and rain down all across the multiverse.

As his soul shattered and his own body was consumed by the light, he felt a presence, a familiar one.

Dallas turned to her and knelt, before beginning to openly weep his mother, someone he had not seen in eons. Marika lowered herself and scooped her son's chin in her hand before planting a kiss on his forehead. As she let him go the light began to consume them more and more.

'Appreciate your final moments, remember that your friends and family have, and will always love you. Grief is love enduring after all.'

And as the light creeps in, and he begins to fade away, and in his absolute final moments as Dallas Supremo he realizes something.

The pain is finally gone.