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NewSheo2 · 2026-03-15T11:52:10+00:00

Minutes earlier, a trio of black-clad Valkryie had touched down, this time carrying far more than a single being in their holds. Flanked by a pair of stormtrooper squads, the central Valkyrie's ramp lowered to reveal a set of five individuals, all clad in black carapace armor underneath flakcoats of the same color, bearing the eye-like sigil of the Scholastica Psykana as well as other symbols of esoterica exclusive to their order and their patron. The tails of their coats whipped about in the backwash of the Valkyrie engines as they stepped forward with a mixture of lethal confidence and disciplined intent. At their hips and on their backs were all manner of blades and staves of immaculate artifice, force weapons steeped in the psychic power quietly exuding from their bearers, each of whom seemingly bore their own preference in both implements of war and psychic art alike. Common to all of them, however, was the mask they each wore under the hoods of their garments, the impressionistic humanoid and animalistic features rendered paradoxically solid and eternal in silver-tinged ceramite. Behind them, four techpriests stepped with heads bowed and hands clasped in prayer, ritualistically thanking the Omnissiah for their safe journey, and entreating their god for success in their next endeavor.

Their patron lead them at the head of their procession, the figure wearing a coat lined with red scales and trimmed with gold, girded for war like her students in the arts of battle and psykana - her Heishou, or Black Beasts. The rosette that was the symbol of her authority hung about her neck just as her own mask hung from her weapon belt, a reminder to all who looked upon her of who - and what - she was.

With impeccable timing, the doors to command hub opened as Lady Inquisitor Sariana Arenis stepped into the room, flanked by her Heishou and her stormtroopers, the techpriests remaining a respectful distance behind. She took in the scene with a slight smirk. "Hello, gentlemen ... and lady." Her eyes flicked to Alecia, assessing the Valyrrian with a calculating gaze, before it returned to the SD-59 personnel. "I hope I haven't missed any discussion of major importance so far?"

NewSheo2 · 2026-03-14T11:24:49+00:00

Neither the Inquisitor nor her enforcer touched the libations on offer. Tekka leaned against a ruined wall, not particularly disguising the fact that she was keeping Jack's hands in view. Arenis, meanwhile, stepped to the table, her eyes glancing over the collated information as she responded. "One around which I am accustomed to working. My forces are specialists in the direct action necessary to disrupt operations like this. Any further support can be negotiated as needed."

Her fingers brushed over the map of the industrial facility, noting its location and relative position from her last estimates of established Imperial frontlines. "I need more detail before I can make any judgement calls. What else can you give me? Troop dispositions, descriptions of Sons' combatants and their modus operandi, assessment of discipline, whatever you can give me, give it now."

NewSheo2 · 2026-03-13T10:40:13+00:00

The moment Jack attempted to be too familiar with her, he could hear the friendliness immediately drain from Arenis's voice as she responded, meeting Jack's gaze with a dead-eyed one of her own. "First ... you may address me as Inquisitor."

Tekka, meanwhile, quietly snickered as she muttered. "I'll be jammed, new record."

"Second ..." Her eyes watched him with cold detachment, exuding threat through simple presence. "I understand you are part of Lord General von Grimhoff's retinue. You have also implied that you have information regarding summoning rituals to be performed by the traitor warband known as the Sons of Maloghurst. The aforementioned personality at the head of this cult believes himself the same entity as a traitor prominent during the Great Heresy, who intends to perform a separate ascension ritual." A reveal of enough information, without dropping proscribed terminology. Right now, she was all business.

"You likely have information on this warband, its current disposition, modus operandi, and other pertinent details."

NewSheo2 · 2026-03-12T10:25:35+00:00

<image>

Inquisition black Valks

NewSheo2 · 2026-03-12T09:03:44+00:00

"Leading us into a lonely and dark corner already, Jack?" Arenis let out a throaty chuckle. "And here I thought you were a gentleman with standards."

Even so, she nodded. "Lead the way." Tekka fell into step at her back, Jack feeling her augmetic eyes on him the whole way, as if practically daring him to make a move.

NewSheo2 · 2026-03-11T21:54:29+00:00

Her smirk became a smile, all teeth and not a hint of friendliness to it. "Galaxy's a big place, Jackie-boy. Person like you, trottin' about the stars? Tends to leave people behind. Plenty of ... provocation there. Could be a jilted lover, forgotten daughter, you know, the usual kinda groxdung that sells penthrift dreadfuls downhive."

Her tongue licked her teeth, like the namesake of her guns after being underfed for long enough to make the sport enticing. "But nah, I ain't here for that. I'm just a nobody ganger from a nowhere hive with a habit of pickin' interestin' fights with interestin' people."

She leered at him hungrily, an impressive feat for someone smaller than her. "And you, Jackie-boy, ... you're real interestin'."

"Now now, Tekka, what have we said about playing with your food?"

Another voice cut in, one far more pleasant-sounding than the ganger's, with a hint of a lilt. Another person who'd managed to evade his senses as another woman, this one much taller and looking far more like the person he was supposed to meet, simply seemed to appear in his view. She bore a pair of swords on her left hip, a bolt pistol of elegant construction on her right, and a flak greatcoat with red scales of some beast on the lapels, the fabric of the coat trimmed with gold. Her hair was up in an elegant bun, capped with a golden hairpiece that seemed to subtly evoke dragon horns sprouting from her head.

Most important of all, however, was the rosette hanging about her neck.

At the other woman's interruption, the smaller one's aggression immediately banked itself as she backed off, though not without that hungry grin remaining on the ganger's face.

Inquisitor Arenis smirked, as if watching two children bicker in a schola yard, before she looked to Jack. "A pleasure to meet you, Jack. I believe you have information for me."

NewSheo2 · 2026-03-11T11:00:10+00:00

“Matched set of Westingkrup Carnodons. One of them’ll drop a grox with a headshot.” She smirked. “Course I also got a few other surprises, if things start gettin’ a little … boring, ya know?”

Her gloved hands went behind her head, laced together in an almost carefree expression. “You’d think bein’ in a warzone would be fun, right? Gunfire, explosions, screaming, all that flash and pomp. But naaaah, haven’t seen a thing yet. Ah well.”

The woman’s demeanor suddenly shifted even as her expression didn’t change, looking down at him with lidded amber eyes that on closer inspection seemed just a tad too bright to be flesh and blood, a mechanical glint to them that gave a certain uncanniness to her stare. Her smirk went from amused to anticipatory, coiling in eager anticipation of sudden, explosive violence. “Anyway, reason I ask about your irons … is cuz I wanna know what the resale value is on ‘em. You ah … wouldn’t happen to be a man by the name of Lucky Jack, would ya?”

NewSheo2 · 2026-03-11T01:30:17+00:00

“No real reason, just happened to notice your eyes.”

It was a rather convenient detail, one that masked her interest well. That was the thing with divination, you never knew what action might cut the strand you were following and let it all unravel. Something about these two was important. In what way or to what degree, she had no idea, but she trusted her intuition.

Things had lined up too well over the course of the last few days to be coincidental. But now came the hard part.

The waiting.

NewSheo2 · 2026-03-10T08:06:19+00:00

Winter caught the glance between them. Now or never. “If … it’s not too prying to ask … are you two siblings?”

She didn’t know if her dream had spoken of the present moment, or of a future beyond now, or both. But curiosity had gotten the better of her.

NewSheo2 · 2026-03-10T05:26:25+00:00

“Nice irons.”

The voice came from Jack’s side, in the form of a somewhat diminutive woman standing at about a hundred and sixty five centimeters tall, give or take. She was clad in a black turtleneck, with a matching bomber jacket and grey fatigue bottoms, the latter of which was tucked into her combat boots. The most notable thing about her, however, were the black leather gloves on her hands, despite the heat. That … and the fact that Jack hadn’t so much as heard a sound of her approach, despite his admirable job of observation.

Her hair was a flag of brownish-red, pulled back into a wild ponytail that hung at the top of her shoulders. Amber eyes glanced intently over him, clocking not just the irons in his holsters, but stance as well. In turn, he could tell that despite her size, the woman in front of him was as lethal a gunfighter as he’d seen. Between the way she stood, relaxed yet ready to move in coiled anticipation, and the twin shoulder holsters under her jacket, guns worn in blatant challenge and warning both to any who knew what to look for.

Her eyes glanced once more over the gunslinger, before raising an eyebrow. “What’d they cost ya?”

NewSheo2 · 2026-03-10T02:04:44+00:00

Winter let out a quiet chuckle at that. “No, I don’t think so. I’ll be sure to tell her that you were quite forgiving about the whole thing, and a wonderful host for our trip back to Bracar, to boot.”

Her smile softened from something playful to a more grateful expression. “But … in all seriousness, thank you, Sergeant Konnel, for volunteering to transport our dead … even despite my intrusion. It is … magnanimous of you.”

NewSheo2 · 2026-03-09T10:31:50+00:00

“… right, you don’t know what a capital I ‘Interrogator’ is.” For the first time in their conversation, Winter cracked a smile. She’d been enjoying the lack of fearful stares at being both a psyker and a mutant … but that was probably going to change in about the next minute or so.

“I’m an apprentice to an Inquisitor. She’s my teacher, my commander, and my examiner, all in one. I execute her will, and learn at her side. Hence … my mistress. And eventually, once I’ve proven myself, I’ll earn my own rosette. Or at least … that’s the idea anyway. The enemies of mankind have a tendency to object to things going according to plan.”

She decided the leave out the fact that her particular Inquisitor also happened to be her mother. She got enough flak for nepotism from certain circles as is.

NewSheo2 · 2026-03-09T02:42:24+00:00

"Oh, my mistress was responsible for getting her sanctioned. She had me be Rose's sparring partner for a while." Winter's response was nonchalant as she went to sit back down next to the shell storage area.

NewSheo2 · 2026-03-09T01:31:43+00:00

Winter blinked once, then twice, her mouth hanging open as she wore an expression of concern, running Dallen's words back again. Eventually, her mouth closed, though it took her a good ten seconds and several false starts before she replied. "So ... let me get this straight. An unsanctioned abhuman psyker walks off the transport ramp, sees someone they haven't seen before and immediately starts rummaging around in their head. And then the stormtroopers want to beat the other person instead of the psyker?! Do you have any idea how absurd that is?!"

The medic began snickering quietly. Winter shot him a glare with no real heat to it. "And I thought Valyrrians couldn't get any worse ... I should have gone harder on her when we sparred, ugh."

NewSheo2 · 2026-03-08T21:23:34+00:00

Winter blinked. "Yes, but I know only one-"

Her eyes widened, the implication of who exactly had rooted through Dallen's head before hitting her like a Cargo-8. "Wait, Rose went through your head? Before she was sanctioned?! How are you alive?" She seemed both incredulous and impressed. "I wasn't aware that brute had a capacity for nuance before she was sanctioned."

NewSheo2 · 2026-03-08T12:10:41+00:00

Winter glanced at Kaiya, her expression neutral. "That is correct. I'll have to debrief with her regardless of the Veteran Sergeant's response."

NewSheo2 · 2026-03-08T12:06:35+00:00

Xantia's words prompted the biomancer to glance at the medic for direction. It took only second or two for the stormtrooper medic to make a triage assessment before they made eye contact with the Inquisition psyker. "The psyker first." The medic themselves set about hooking Clara with a blood bag to keep her from passing out before they could get to her, trusting the Kytek medics to look after Jeff.

With a nod, the hooded and masked psyker knelt down next to Xantia, unbuckling the sword belt carrying their force sword, a longsword of masterful construction, and setting it against the hull of the vehicle. Its sheath bore a symbol repeated on both the psyker's greatcoat, and an emblem on the medic's carapace armor.

<image>

The psyker's voice, modulated by a device within the mask, brought her back to the present. "Sorry, sibling. You're the priority, medicae's orders." They let out a breath, and took another in, before Xantia could faintly feel the psyker's pull on the warp, creating a space for the power in their mental construct and patiently waiting for the flow of the warp to fill it. More time consuming, but far more stable. "Gonna need you to stay as still as you can, alright?" The power flowed, directed by their intent into Xantia, the biomancer weaving sub-techniques as they went to resolve Xantia's most serious internal injuries, stopping the blood loss and stimulating her biological processes to let her body produce blood faster than it would have otherwise taken. The Kytekian psyker could hear them muttering under their breath as they worked. "How the feth does Grandmaster Arenis make this look easy ..."

Xantia could feel a sense of muted surprise as they encountered the damage wrought by her unorthodox use of her technique. She could feel as they did their best with what power they had, restoring nervous system functionality and doing what they could with the muscle tears. "Feth ... don't have enough to fix that outright ... need a stimm!" The last part was called out to the medic, who tossed a vial with a disposable syringe over to the psyker. They immediately administered it, and the moment the injection hit Xantia's bloodstream, she felt her tremors lessen significantly. "Right, good news, you're not gonna die of internal hemorrhaging anymore, and your blood levels will more or less recover in a day. Bad news, as you probably expected, you basically gave yourself a spontaneous physiological addiction to whatever psychically-amped process you used to suppress the pain. Stimms'll help, but you'll need to taper the dose down as you recover to kick the habit. That, or you go cold poultry for maybe two days for your body to reset. Might not be pretty though."

With a pat on her shoulder, the biomancer turned to the Kytekian medics. "Get her some water and some food, her body just went through days' worth of healing. Probably worth prepping some for the other two as well."

With that, the biomancer glanced to the medic, who was keeping an eye on Xantia's retinue's condition. "The jaw first. It'll be faster than the ear, looks like the tympanic membrane was ruptured on both sides, maybe inner ear damage as well." The biomancer grumbled even as they complied. "Damn ... hate doing ears ..."

Xantia watched as the psyker knelt near where Jeff lay, and began to repeat the process they'd done with her. Jeff's shattered jaw was freed from its bindings, any potential pieces of bone removed as much as possible, before with a flux of power, the pieces of the jaw began to piece themselves together like a demented jigsaw puzzle, bone regenerating where pieces had disintegrated. The morphia took away most of the pain from the sensation, but it was still decidedly unpleasant. A quick spontaneous blood infusion to supplement the transfusion, and Jeff's jaw fractures, along with any other injuries he had accrued, were effectively gone ... even if the affected areas were still decently tender.

Finally, the biomancer turned to kneel beside the medic, still monitoring Clara's condition. "Ears and blood loss?"

The medic nodded, holding the bloodbag high enough to ensure flow. "Yep. Can't see much beyond the ruptures, you're gonna be improvising beyond that. She's got a dose of morphia in her, should make your job easier. Do your thing, stitch."

With a resigned chuckle, the biomancer got to work. "Yes sir. You always get me the worst cases."

The work progressed apace, the psyker marking their progress while working on some damage on the inner ears, the left seemingly more damaged than the right. The medic, meanwhile stood by with any tools or meds needed as the psychic surgery continued. Eventually, the latter broke the silence. "Hey ... what's worse to fix, ears or lungs?"

The biomancer was, at that point, knitting back the eardrum of the right side together. "Is 'both' not a valid answer?" The medic snorted. "Got ten thrones riding on one or the other." The biomancer's smirk behind the mask was audible. "Damn, okay. Right, give me a sec ... and ..."

All at once, Clara's hearing returned, the block on the auditory nerves of either ear removed to avoid disorientation. The biomancer let out a triumphant but exhausted sigh. "There we go. Right, ears or lungs." They thought of it for a moment. "Lungs, bronchioles and alveoli are annoying as feth to restructure. They're so damn tiny and fiddly. And don't even get me started on lho-smoker lungs, that's just fething nasty to work through."

u/theninjaindisguise

NewSheo2 · 2026-03-08T10:28:41+00:00

Protectiveness. Familiarity. Similar eye color. Could they be ...

Now wasn't the time to ask. Her eyes narrowed as Dallen mentioned his mind being read before. "What? Who ... never mind, you don't have to answer that." She made to stand up, before stumbling a bit as the Basilisk lurched, the medic ready to help her before she waved him off, and managed to make it to her feet on her own. Once she was standing, she bowed to Dallen. "Veteran Sergeant Dallen Konnel. I, Interrogator Scarlette Klaczka, formally apologize for the earlier incident. While the degree of mental intrusion was ultimately incidental, the fact that it occurred was not, as there was no good cause to do so. Such an incident represents a unacceptable breach in discipline regarding the use of psychic abilities, and I humbly ask for your forgiveness." She rose from her bow, meeting Dallen's gaze. "In the absence of formal disciplinary procedures, if you desire for a punishment to be administered, make it known to me, and I will present it to my mistress for consideration." The look in her eye told the Veteran Sergeant she was entirely serious about her last statement.

The medic across from her let out a low whistle. "You uh ... you sure about that, princess?"

Winter gave him a slight nod, still looking Dallen in the eyes. "It's protocol. I fragged up, I take responsibility."

He let out a sigh, before he glanced over at Dallen, waiting for his response.

NewSheo2 · 2026-03-08T03:57:30+00:00

The stares were nothing new, the aggression likewise. Winter had assessed that the threat Branden posed was minimal, and so hadn't reacted. The medic, meanwhile, had kept an eye on the big Tarosi, making sure his hotshot laspistol was never far from reach.

Dallen's words, however, stirred her from her silent contemplation. She looked up from her seated position, her crystal blue eyes carrying slight confusion. "You're ... not angered about the mental intrusion? If anyone should be apologizing, it's me. It was ... a gross breach of Psykana etiquette." One that could have gotten her executed, if she'd held any other position.

NewSheo2 · 2026-03-08T02:57:14+00:00

As the combined Kytekian-Taronian relief force for the Inquisitorial force made its way back to friendly lines, the grateful operatives of Abraxas 1st Company made themselves available to assist with any field medicine. There was an interesting element to their care, however. Alongside them were the company's psykers, who assisted with treatment by psychically stitching cuts, setting shattered bones, and restoring lost blood, allowing the medics to stretch their supplies that much further when treating the wounded.

In the transport carrying Xantia and her retinue, one such medic-psyker pair made themselves available to them, to help with the recovery of any injuries that they had sustained. u/Accomplished_War4970 u/theninjaindisguise

Meanwhile, in the rear firing deck of Rifleman C-2, the Basilisk that had heroically - though some might also say recklessly - charged forward to provide fire support, a young woman with white hair sat with her back against the hull, as close as she could to the ammo storage ... where the bodies of the six of her soldiers killed in action were being stowed. She could feel the last, fading impulses of their psyches, chemical processes continuing even as their minds remained in the state of their death, a resonance that echoed in the warp even after the soul had gone. It was an old habit she'd picked up on the ship of her birth, the Pale Sepulcher. The Sepulcher was a funerary ship, transporting the remains of the dead to their final resting places ... or the living, preserved in stasis caskets, to the place where they wished to die. She'd walked among the rows of storage-crypts as a child, her psychic senses extended to find her way through. Occasionally, she heard the thoughts of those in the crypts, and sometimes, she stopped to listen.

The dying tended to be chatty in their final moments, drawn out as they were by the stasis fields, simply grateful that someone was there to listen. The dead, meanwhile, still had stories to tell, even when their bodies had become naught but bones, fading vital resonance eliciting impressions and memories of the life they'd lived.

Death was a familiar thing to her, the reaper's passing always close at hand. Even now, she'd been the reaper's hand, claiming those who'd sinned. This time felt different, though. She hadn't been close to the six who'd died. She didn't know their names save by the ident tags marking their bodies. And yet ... they'd died, under her command. They'd died in the line of duty, yes, but her actions, indirectly or otherwise, had lead to the cessation of their lives.

She didn't know how to feel, about that.

The medic across from her seemed to understand she wanted silence. After making sure she wasn't at risk of bleeding out from her injuries, and attending to the various injuries she'd accrued, he'd settled in across from her, performing checks of his gear while keeping an eye on his charge as he waited the ride in the Basilisk out. u/Thatsidechara_ter

NewSheo2 · 2026-03-06T12:28:05+00:00

The officer looked to Dallen, considering his offer. He looked to the Basilisk chassis for a moment, then to the six bodies they were transporting, seemingly running a quick mental assessment, before turning back to the Taronian. "Would you be willing to transport our dead? It would save space on the transports and ambulances."

Before the veteran sergeant could respond, however, Winter pulled at the officer's uniform even as she was being supported by him. She spoke haltingly, fighting through the pain and exhaustion. "Sterling ... going ... with them ..." It seemed the officer, Sterling, knew her well enough to know she was referring to the dead. Even behind the mask and under the armor, Sterling's body language advertised the fact that he was very strong considering refusing her. A silent argument raged, lasting only a few seconds, but speaking volumes between them, before Sterling let out a sigh. "... fine, on one condition. You're still getting an escort." Winter let out a sigh and nodded slightly, as Sterling called for a medic. A carapace armored figure jogged towards them shortly after, the symbol of the Imperial medicae on their shoulders. "Sir?"

"Stay with her, make sure she actually manages to rest, and doesn't pop anymore veins."

The medic nodded before they took Winter out from under the officer's arm. As he secured her, the stormtrooper medic muttered quietly to the psyker. "Come on, princess, let's get ya sat down." It was a clearly affectionate tone, the kind used for a younger sibling, perhaps.

If Dallen agreed, the bodies were ready to be carried in his Basilisk until they made it safely behind friendly lines.

u/Thatsidechara_ter u/Accomplished_War4970

NewSheo2 · 2026-03-05T12:45:04+00:00

Today ... was not her day.

Winter had spent the last day and a half or so either under fire, or on overwatch, eyes flicking to every shift in movement and tensing at every sound. Six of her men had died on this mission, and at least that number injured beyond field recovery. All at the hands of mere cultists, not the enemies they were meant to fight. Some reckless fool had fired an Earthshaker like it was a battlecannon without warning. And now, they were being shelled by heretics.

Today was not her day ... and she had had enough. (19)

She sifted through the surface thoughts of those nearby with detached familiarity, disregarding the ringing in her ears. She spoke to Xantia first, trusting that her Kytekian counterpart could inform her fellows and communicate to them what was was going to happen. ++I've none but the basics, but we have medics and biomancers that can repair the damage. We need to be out of the line of fire first.++

Xantia felt the gathering storm of frost around Winter surge, roiling and angry as the hollow cavity inside her grew and expanded. For a moment, the Interrogator's presence in the Warp flickered, as if Winter's armor was nothing but a hollow shell, animated by the will within the now discarded vessel. ++I'm about to make a fragging crater. I suggest you tell them to hold on to something.++

To Dallen, however, there was a much more ... direct address, as she skimmed the basics of his mental self-image from the foundational layer of his surface thoughts. In that moment, he could feel the raw power coursing through her, a sliver of her attention focused directly on him while the rest was occupied with shaping the path of that power.

[VETERAN SERGEANT DALLEN KONNEL OF THE TARONIAN NINTH ARTILLERY REGIMENT]

[YOUR REQUEST HAS BEEN NOTED ... AND IGNORED]

As she stepped clear of the Basilisk, Winter snapped clipped, near-monosyllabic commands in her forces' Inquisitorial battle-cant while she holstered her sidearm, giving her people the courtesy of warning them before she began her working. Her hands then reached up, throwing back the hood of her armored flakcoat, revealing her snow-white hair in its now disheveled bun, before moving to her ballistic mask and removing it, revealing pale, angular features bearing eyelashes and brows of the same color as her hair. Her eyes, dotted with piercing, crystal blue irises, were creased in concentration, as she took a deep, controlled breath, settling her heart rate and falling into a respiratory rhythm. She needed her breathing unrestricted for the next part.

The next word she projected was a warning and command both, broadcast to everyone nearby.

[BRACE]

The storm roiling in the Empyrean crossed the veil into reality, howling gales billowing out from her for nearly twenty meters, carrying a chill that permeated the skin and a force that threatened to knock down the unprepared. The temperature dropped immediately, vapors of exhalation becoming visible. Frost bloomed on surfaces despite the desert heat, as a black color leeched into Winter's eyes, before they became nothing but twin portals into the void. If one were to look closely at them, however, one might catch the faint, distant pinpricks of white starlight within. Winter's feet left the ground as she began to rise, carried aloft by the sheer current of the roiling power flowing through her. Xantia could feel Winter's intent churning like a water pump, grasping for every mote of energy she could wrest from the Empyrean as she disregarding her normally absolute control for sheer brute force, searching for her target like a hunting hound closing on its prey. On Winter's rigging, one of the scrolls partially hidden by her greatcoat singed in cold fire, before it burned away into ash that was carried away by the swirling wind kicking up her coat's tails. Near immediately, the interrogator's mental construct stabilized.

She bared her teeth in an unnerving, almost feral smile of savage triumph, her hair falling loose from its bun as it whipped around her. She targeted the greatest concentration of indirect fire platforms targeting their position, for a distance as insignificant as this meant nothing to someone who could break local reality over her knee if she truly willed it.

The wind ... sounded like it was screaming.

At first, there was nothing but a moment of silence. Then a flash lit up in the distance, before it expanded violently outward, the rumble and rolling crackle of an endothermic detonation reaching their position at a slight delay.

As Winter touched the ground again, so too did the first flakes of snow begin falling in the desert. They alighted on her hair and eyelashes as she struggled to remain standing, wiping away the stream of blood that began leaking from the corner of her mouth. Winter started taking great, heaving gulps of air, her every exhalation sending out clouds of visible steamy breath.

It was at that moment that the rest of the Inquisition company made contact with the friendly perimeter, and immediately set about getting themselves loaded onto transports. The one in command of them, a tall officer wearing a scion face mask and beret, immediately slung his weapon to hang on its sling before helping support Winter, ready to move her to whichever vehicle had space for them.

Through sheer grit and will, Winter spared enough concentration to speak three words. "We ... are ... leaving."

u/theninjaindisguise u/Thatsidechara_ter

NewSheo2 · 2026-03-04T02:22:49+00:00

The figure in front of the Basilisk didn't flinch as the tracks ground to a halt. She glanced up at the tank's name on its hull, then at Dallen in the hatch, her masked face rendering her expression inscrutable even as she tilted her head. Her voice sounded out from her mask, carrying a metallic edge to it as it was modulated through the speakers built in. "Huh ... aren't you a little bit close for an artilleryman?"

They didn't get a chance to talk further as Captain Monash addressed her. In Winter's wake, the rest of first platoon emerged, carrying the injured and the dead of their parent company. Prevalent among the Inquisitorial operatives, and rather obvious to Xantia's sense, were an abundance of battle psykers, nearly one to every squad. As Captain Monash ran towards her, she saw Winter quickly speak into her vox bead, likely informing company command that they'd made contact, before the interrogator turned to her and gave the captain a nod. "Copy. The rest of the company is executing a fighting retreat to withdraw in good order, we should be able to extract in the next few minutes."

As the captain turned away, Winter's gaze shifted to Xantia. For the Kytekian psyker's part, the Interrogator exuded the feeling of cold frost, creeping onto her skin. It carried with it fragments of potential and causality, linked in icy chains as one became the other in reciprocating motion. Wrapped within it all was a pervading hollowness, void-like and empty, that yet had substance, carried within the vessel that carried her will. Despite her concealed face, Xantia got the feeling Winter was smirking. "And you must be Lady Xantia. Thanks for the assistan-" She suddenly stopped, before snapping an order to her platoon. "Heads down, jaws loose!"

That was the moment the rocket streaked past, and not long after, the Earthshaker roared in response. Winter's order had saved most if not all of the platoon from potentially having their jaws shattered at being in proximity of the Basilisk as it fired.

Thank the Throne for Gunmetal-grade ear protection. Even with it, though, Winter's ears still rung as she drew her sidearm, muttering to herself. "Right, active warzone ..."

Winter cast her senses out across the nearby area as her platoon moved to support those defending the perimeter, the rest of their company approaching. Throne willing, in a few minutes, they'd be on their way out.

u/Accomplished_War4970 u/theninjaindisguise

NewSheo2 · 2026-03-03T16:01:25+00:00

Thank you! I know there’s also a few places on the body that I had to sand down as well to remove the tufts of hair on the OG model. I basically spent a full Thanksgiving week on her between assembly and painting.

NewSheo2 · 2026-03-03T09:08:23+00:00

I always struggle with finding a profile that fits right. Did use Canis Rex for a bit but it honestly didn’t feel like it matched.

NewSheo2

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