William Wood, Chapter Master of the Twelfth, studied the casualty reports on his tactical display.
After taking the planetary capital, over twenty thousand warriors of his Chapter had pursued the fleeing enemy into the Heldar Mountains.
The battle had raged for over a standard day, yet they were still unable to break through the outer perimeter.
The spearhead, thrusting into the mountains, had been halted at eight point five kilometers.
The Chapter had lost over a hundred and thirty warriors. In the last hour alone, the 41st Company, attacking Sector 38, had lost twenty-seven.
He reviewed the reports from each company, noting the record of Alpha Legion attacks. He realized his main enemy had changed.
'Just as my Lord said, the Alphas are trying to keep us bogged down here.'
He opened the ultra-high-frequency comm channel, based on Nephilim sonic technology, and ordered his ships.
The Alpha Legion's hidden outposts were disrupting the standard comm arrays, reducing the Chapter's range.
"Deploy Asset One."
The "Marionettist" had two most important assets: the Farseer puppet from Magc'Sithraal, and the Khrave Titan puppet, which gave him control over the Khrave.
A white airdrop rune flashed across his visor. He strode from the blood-soaked Governor's Palace, looking up at the drop pod streaking across the sky.
It fell like a shooting star, slamming into the ground three hundred and two meters away.
The drop pod opened like a flower, revealing its cargo: not personnel or supplies, but a crystal-coffered rectangular container, wrapped in crystal chains.
William walked to the container, tapping a series of runes.
With a hiss of cold mist, a panel rose, revealing a crystal statue.
Her legs were fully crystallized, fused to the container's base.
Her skin was covered in crystal, her surface form transparent, merging with the crystal.
The "Marionettist" extended his spirituality, plucking at the Farseer puppet's Spirit-Body Threads.
Crack!
The crystal statue cracked, crystalline fragments drifting.
The Farseer puppet opened her eyes, rising gracefully to stand beside William.
The Shadow-pattern Stormbird touched down. William, with the Farseer puppet, boarded.
As the distance to the guidance rune shrank, he followed his intuition, looking through the narrow viewport.
His gaze focused on an Alpha warrior, his gleaming Cataphractii-pattern Terminator armor wreathed in lightning, his power axe crackling as he hacked at a Shadow of Order.
"Open the hatch."
With a click, the hatch slid open.
He leaped. The Farseer puppet followed.
A hundred meters from the ground, the "Marionettist" vanished, then materialized in an exploded bunker.
The Farseer puppet descended lightly. Her narrow eyes flashed, a beam of light shooting at Sid Rancor, the Lernaean Terminator captain.
Everything around him stretched.
His arm, swinging the power axe, seemed wrapped in thousands of threads, growing sluggish, as if caught in a stasis field.
Bolt rounds, fired by black-armored and indigo-armored warriors, seemed to slow, piercing the air like through water.
Rancor heard the howl of power claws, the crackle of power axes, in stark contrast to his slow heartbeat.
His two hearts slowed. His thoughts grew dark.
Bolt rounds, passing through the Farseer puppet's Time Weave, struck the indigo armor.
Clang!
The sound echoed in Rancor's mind, a spark of light in the darkness.
Points of light flickered around him, then expanded, illuminating small areas.
Each platform of light held an item.
The nearest pillar of light was of obsidian, bearing five rings.
Four rings were set with green gems; the central one was a simple gold ring.
A figure approached, clad in gleaming, scaled armor, a blade gleaming at each end of a staff in his hand.
He took the gold ring from the central platform and placed it on his left little finger.
Rancor looked closely. The engraved pattern was faintly visible, resembling two "I"s.
The difference was that the top and bottom of the two "I"s were connected by concave arcs.
Rancor didn't know when his father had acquired it, but he knew his twin father had an identical ring.
He believed the pair of rings, belonging to the twin brothers, had been acquired at the same time.
How and when was a secret unknown to the Alpha Legion.
He knelt quickly, his sluggish thoughts stirring.
"How may I serve you?"
"Sid, lead the Lernaean Terminators and Alphas to the Gordian system." Alpharius walked to him.
"I need you to delay Nareth and his Legion as long as possible."
"This is a suicide mission. You will not withdraw. There will be no chance to retreat."
"So, I will tell you the meaning of your sacrifice."
The Hydra emblem, its heads striking, flashed in Rancor's eyes.
"Before the Warmaster's conspiracy began, we had been secretly preparing for this war."
"We have sown seeds in secret, paving the way for victory. But Nareth and the Shadows of Order are a major variable."
"His vast army is a great obstacle to our plans. But war is not always decided by head-on confrontation. Our secret war will slow his advance."
He extended his right arm, placing the Pale Spear before Rancor.
"It is the Sarrisanata. The Pale Spear."
"It is the Legion's fang. It is the Legion's soul. It represents our spirit of war."
He spun the spear, raising his left arm, his sharp blade cutting his left little finger.
A drop of blood welled.
Alpharius extended his finger to Rancor.
"I am with you."
"You are Alpharius."
Two Librarians stepped from the shadows, their bald heads adorned with silver cables and blue crystals.
The Emperor forbade psychic powers, but the Alpha Legion had always acted on its own, never following others' rules.
The Librarians' eyes blazed with lightning, coiling around Rancor.
Rancor extended his tongue, licking the blood from Alpharius's left little finger.
"I am Alpharius."
A drop of crystal blood, slowly flowing in his stomach, shattered the psychic barrier.
Rancor's eyes blazed with lightning. His sluggish thoughts blossomed like a flower.
Crack! Crack!
Like a rusted machine, Rancor shuddered.
He lunged forward, stepping from the flow of time.
William watched the Alpha's body swell, his head bursting his helmet.
His body strained the Cataphractii armor, cables snapping.
The "Faceless" watched the Alpha's face twist and swell, transforming into another.
The surrounding Alpha warriors burst into cheers.
"Omegon!"
The Lernaean Terminators' power axes crackled, striking savagely at the Shadows of Order.
Boom, boom, boom...
Power fields tore through black armor.
The "Marionettist" felt the Spirit-Body Threads, which he had begun to control, snap free.
The Alpha's aura had grown stronger, a faint unease stirring in him.
'You can shapeshift too, Omegon?'
The "Marionettist" was about to open the high-frequency channel, to deploy the Khrave Titan puppet, when he stopped.
He stared at "Omegon," his mind working.
....
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