Jax-05 immediately began replaying the drone surveillance footage, but even after fast-skipping through all motion-detection logs, he still found no sign of any third-party forces. He even wondered if the captain was being overly suspicious, but years of working together had taught him that the captain's judgment was almost never wrong.
"Sorry. No trace of a third party in the drone logs," Jax-05 reported honestly. "Please reconfirm the tracks."
"Either he slipped past the eyes you deployed, or your eyes were compromised." Jaxcalibur-01's reply was accompanied by a few faint gunshots. "Check the drone systems. See if they were breached."
He had already run a diagnostic, but the captain had given an order. Jax-05 immediately began reviewing the drone logs again. However, aside from several recorded counterattack attempts from the enemy, there were no unauthorized accesses at all. That meant the drone swarm had not been infiltrated.
Could someone have detected my drone placements… and even calculated the surveillance gaps, then moved through the blind spots?
The realization made Jax-05 break into a cold sweat. This was far more terrifying than the enemy outright hacking his network. The other party could not only infiltrate without a trace and obtain intel, but move with precision and agility through the blind zones. Such body control… only a monster with impossible physical mastery could manage that.
Unconsciously drenched in sweat, Jax-05 immediately began re-scanning the surveillance records. He had to find an explanation, or he would not be able to justify this even to himself.
"Jax-05?" the captain's voice called through the comm channel. "Any results?"
"Still investigating. Please give me another moment."
"Oh? So you do get stuck sometimes," Jax-03 suddenly chimed in. "Check the drones covering the west side of the warehouse. I saw movement in the bushes earlier. When Jax-04 and I looked again, it was just a cat."
"Understood." Jax-05 immediately pulled up the drones in that area.
"Good. Next time show me some respect and stop cutting off my comm permissions at will." Jax-03 had barely finished when Jax-04's voice burst in, "Senior! Give me back my headset!"
While the members of Jaxcalibur Squad busied themselves with their tasks, Ignis smashed open Warehouse 6's wall with a single blow from his power-assisted fist. He hadn't even stepped inside yet when the Mark X Gravis Power Armor's automated systems detected toxic compounds in the warehouse air. A Space Marine could neutralize part of it with his third lung and even breathe underwater if needed, but this place was tied to Slaanesh. No one could predict what kind of toxins filled the air. Fortunately, the power armor was airtight, and its helmet filters blocked most contaminants.
Passing through the breach, Ignis immediately spotted Jaxcalibur-01 and Jax-06. Both wore night-vision goggles as they advanced along the second-floor walkway. The noise from Ignis breaking the wall had been too loud, and enemy guards rushed out to investigate. Tactical flashlights shone against Ignis's armor—then gunfire erupted.
Small-caliber rounds had zero effect on the giant. Ignis lifted his hand, ready to incinerate them with his flamestorm gauntlet, but Jaxcalibur-01 stopped him at once.
"Don't. The terminal is in the room right behind them. Do not torch the entire place again," Jaxcalibur-01 said as he and Jax-06 quickly flanked the enemy. "Leave this to us."
He switched his pistol's fire selector to full auto, pulled an extended magazine from his chest rig, and swapped it in. Ignis's massive size and his casual, almost leisurely entrance as enemy soldiers gawked at him like he was some zoo exhibit made for a humiliating sight. They cursed and unloaded their rifles into him—but, of course, it meant nothing.
Jaxcalibur-01 tapped Jax-06's shoulder, signaling readiness. As all enemy attention focused on Ignis, the two men charged out—one forward, one behind. Their full-auto machine-pistols shredded the enemy infantry in a tight, lethal storm of bullets.
Ignis watched them: one providing overwatch, the other putting finishing shots into the fallen to ensure confirmed kills. It was his first time seeing these two in full combat mode—they were exceptionally competent.
After clearing the platform, the two members of Jaxcalibur moved to the locked door. The rushed construction was obvious. Despite the valuable terminal inside, the room still used a basic office-style door typical of warehouses. Its defensive value was almost nonexistent; they only needed to worry about enemies behind it.
"Want me to breach it?" Ignis volunteered, knocking his armored fists together with a heavy clang.
"No need. I have a method." Jaxcalibur-01 retrieved a cylindrical object resembling an injector from his chest rig.
He pressed one end of the cylinder to the door and twisted the other end, revealing a small spherical device. Ignis instantly recognized it—a W-Engine. Meaning that cylinder was an ether-based weapon.
Jaxcalibur-01 adjusted a few parameters, then planted the W-Engine and held up three fingers toward Jax-06.
When the last finger folded down, Jaxcalibur-01 pressed a button on the cylinder's side.
Ignis saw a ripple of energy, while his armor detected a pulse of infrasound. So it was a directional sonic weapon. Seeing sonic tech in a place tainted by Slaanesh felt ominous, even if it was wielded by an ally.
When the infrasound took effect, Jaxcalibur-01 kicked the door open and rushed in, sweeping down the disoriented, stunned enemies.
"Target area secured," Jaxcalibur-01 reported. "I need time to locate the drive and transfer the data. Jax-05, send in a drone."
"Understood!" Jax-05 deployed a drone equipped with data storage and transfer capabilities into the office.
"Jax-06, maintain overwatch. Jax-05, crack their encryption quickly," Jaxcalibur-01 said as he connected the drone's data cable to the terminal. "See if we can remove the hard drive directly."
"No. Can't. They wired the drive with a failsafe charge that detonates if power is cut. Luckily it's connected to an independent micro-generator, or we'd have lost everything." Jax-05 was simultaneously decrypting the password and monitoring for the third-party infiltrator.
With Jaxcalibur handling data extraction, Ignis had little to do except wait for extraction. But he soon noticed something else.
From their earlier intercepted conversations, the workers here were forced labor. Normally, with their overseers dead, the work would have stopped. But they continued hauling materials and dumping them into the large vat at the warehouse's center. Through Fire-Sight, Ignis saw that their body temperatures were dangerously high—pushing the limits of human survival.
Ignis stepped forward, but the workers treated the towering giant as if he didn't exist. Silently, they lifted sacks of strange white powder and emptied them into the vat, ignoring him entirely.
Ignis grabbed one of them. The man was trembling violently from the strain, and Ignis thought he might collapse any moment. But he merely lifted his head and stared blankly, pupils glowing an unnatural purplish-pink.
The markings on Ignis's face burned immediately—these people were under Slaanesh's influence. They perceived the production process as pleasure itself. Even as their bodies approached collapse, they were lost in twisted ecstasy. Yet earlier, someone clearly had been slacking…
Ignis soon found the reason: piles of laborer corpses in a corner. Some were tortured, limbs broken or severed. But the strangest part—every corpse was empty. No viscera. No brain. Not a drop of blood. Completely drained.
A terrible premonition rose in him.
He turned toward the vat being stirred by six laborers. Someone rolled a sealed drum to the edge, opened it, and poured in a dark liquid.
The stench of blood triggered alarms in Ignis's mind. At the bottom of the drum were human endocrine glands and brains—biological components capable of producing potent hormones.
The drug known as Fantasy relied entirely on Slaanesh's vile rituals. They were using unspeakable sorcery to craft a mind-enslaving substance.
This could not be allowed to exist.
Silently apologizing to the enthralled laborers, Ignis ignited his Flamestorm Hauntlet. Purging fire was the only solution. He had seen the devastation Fantasy caused in the Flowerbed; now that he knew it was a pure Chaos construct, he could not allow even a trace of it to survive. This place would burn once Jaxcalibur retrieved the data.
"I found a scrap of cloth in one drone's view. Someone else really did infiltrate," Jax-05 said as he froze the frame and sent it to the team. "Data transfer started. Password is complex—thirty seconds needed."
"Be ready for an attack when we withdraw. Jax-03, Jax-04, prepare suppressive fire." Jaxcalibur-01 glanced outside. In the darkness, Ignis's burning gauntlets were painfully bright.
But on the second-floor corridor behind him, a tiny spark flashed. Had it jumped from Ignis's flames?
Ignis heard something—a faint metallic scrape. His Lyman-enhanced hearing and his armor both caught it. An enemy survivor?
He turned immediately—only to see a ball of flame hurtling toward him.
Through the darkness, Fire-Sight showed him the attacker clearly.
A white-haired girl with a yellow-lens goggle visor. Her hair tied in a high side ponytail. An orange-and-black combat suit.
The bright flame came from her blade—an edge-less sword wreathed in fire.
Two gang enforcer corpses lay where she had leapt from. The wounds matched her weapon—apparently, they had a common enemy.
Ignis withdrew his fist. The girl was fast—but a fully armored Adeptus Astartes was faster. If he had thrown that punch, she would have exploded into mist.
Her blade scraped across his gauntlet's armor. She landed, shocked. She had made no sound—how did he detect her? And how had this giant changed his strike mid-motion, switching from an attack to a guard?
"What are you?" Ignis demanded, maintaining readiness. The girl had combat experience—her first strike targeted the joints of his armor. She hadn't expected him to catch it, let alone counter.
"What are you people?" she shot back. "What are you doing here, making all this racket?"
"Simple. Destroying this place." Ignis gave no embellishment—he incinerated a group of laborers carrying materials.
They didn't stop even as flames consumed them. Only when their bodies failed did they collapse.
"You—!" The girl froze. "These people were forced!"
Her blade scraped the ground, igniting again. She charged at Ignis, aiming for his knee joint.
While armor joints were commonly weaker, the Mark X Tactical Power Armor reinforced them—and the Mark X Gravis Power Armor was even more heavily plated.
Her blade struck with a sharp crack—and snapped clean in half, pieces scattering across the floor.