[The two abandoned Reaver jetbikes plummet into the sand some distance away, their impacts sending up geysers of dust and debris that hang in the still air.]
[You holster your plasma pistol with deliberate care, coil the agonizer whip, and approach the nearest Incubi corpse. Time to see what these elite killers were carrying.]
[The Dark Eldar don't have Bonesingers or spirit stones like their Craftworld cousins. No precious soul gems to harvest. But they have their own grotesque treasures.]
[You kneel beside the headless body, ceramite fingers deftly checking compartments and hidden pockets in the black armor. There. Something hard and angular.]
[You pull it free. A mask. Not metal or ceramite, but something organic. Bone and preserved skin, worked into a face that's both beautiful and utterly wrong. The Mask of Anguish.]
[You turn it over in your hands, studying the craftsmanship. This particular variant is designed to distract enemies in close combat, showing them visions of loved ones, idols, anyone who might make them hesitate. A psychological weapon as much as a physical one.]
[Your eyebrow rises slightly beneath your hood. Interesting.]
[You toss the black and white mask casually into the space-time crystal's pocket universe. A souvenir. A tool. Something to study later.]
[You select one of the fallen klaives as your trophy for this fight. The blade is exquisite work, even by Dark Eldar standards. Heavy, perfectly balanced, the disruptor field dormant but ready.]
[You rise, power armor servos humming, and mount the hovering Reaver jetbike again.]
[You sit there for a moment, hand on the throttle, thinking. The Incubi came from somewhere. Elite warriors like that don't just wander the wasteland randomly. There must be a high-ranking Dark Eldar on this planet. An Archon, perhaps. Or worse.]
[Your jaw tightens beneath your helmet.]
[Before you leave this world, you'll do something about that. The local humans have suffered enough.]
[You twist the throttle and turn the jetbike in the direction the Incubi had come from.]
[The sun sets as you fly, painting your white hood and robes crimson and gold. Beautiful, in its way. This planet is hostile and deadly, but the sunset is still magnificent.]
[Then night falls, and the temperature plummets twenty degrees in minutes.]
[In the distance, you hear it. The unmistakable sounds of battle. Explosions. Bolter fire. The high-pitched whine of alien weaponry.]
[You cut the jetbike's engine immediately and set down. No sense announcing your arrival. You dismiss the vehicle into the space-time crystal with a thought, freeing your hands.]
[Both relic pistols come off your waist smoothly. Plasma in your left hand, bolt in your right. You check the ammunition feeds by touch, not sight. Both fully loaded.]
[You move forward on foot, using the terrain for cover, boots silent on the sand despite the armor's weight.]
[Minutes later, you reach the battlefield's edge.]
[You go prone immediately, power armor settling into the sand with minimal noise. You scan the area through your helmet's enhanced optics.]
[The battlefield is centered on a depression in the sand. At its heart, a webway gate hovers about a meter off the ground, its circular mesh crackling with dimensional energy.]
[Approximately fifty Dark Eldar warriors dance around the gate, firing poison crystal rifles while performing impossible acrobatics. They shoot, leap, spin, land, shoot again. Every movement is graceful, deadly, inhuman.]
[Near the gate itself stands something worse. A Haemonculus. Tall, impossibly thin, with six arms sprouting from a pale torso. Female, if such a term applies to something so twisted. Her flesh is alabaster white, stretched too tight over modified bones.]
[Three massive Grotesques guard her like living walls. Four arms each, snake-like lower bodies instead of legs, clad in heavy armor. Each one wields multiple klaives in their many hands.]
[The three Incubi were hers. Obviously. Either they're on another task, or she's waiting for them to return from the mission that got them killed.]
[You shift your attention to the Haemonculus's opponents.]
[Dark Angels. Three full tactical squads with Deathwing iconography on their heavy shoulder armor. A fourth squad reduced to four survivors. Nineteen Astartes total, using Land Speeders as mobile cover, pouring fire into the xenos positions.]
[One figure keeps roaring orders, his voice cracking with barely controlled mania.]
[Asmodai.]
[A cold smile touches your lips beneath your hood.]
[You crawl backward carefully, putting distance between yourself and the battle line. Then you open the space-time crystal's pocket dimension and start searching.]
[The Centurion heavy combat exoskeleton catches your eye first. Salamanders pattern, forest green and black, festooned with heavy weapons. Perfect for this fight.]
[But no. It requires extensive setup time and assistance to don. You have neither.]
[Your gaze moves on. There. Cyclone missile launchers. Two of them.]
[You extract them carefully, assemble the firing mechanisms, plant them in the sand at optimal angles. The targeting systems link to your helmet automatically, displaying firing solutions across your visor.]
[You rummage deeper into the crystal's storage. Find several melta bombs, compact and devastating.]
[You mag-lock them to your armor where you can reach them quickly.]
[Then you crawl to a new position, angling for a better shot at the Haemonculus.]
[Your finger finds the firing stud for the Cyclone launchers.]
[You take a breath. Hold it. Press.]
[WHOOOOOSH.]
[The night sky tears apart.]
[A swarm of missiles erupts from both launchers simultaneously, contrails painting bright lines against the darkness. They arc up, then down, falling on the Dark Eldar position like the Emperor's judgment.]
[The explosions are beautiful. Terrible. Absolute.]
[Dark Eldar warriors, caught in the open with their light armor, simply disintegrate. Bodies torn apart. Armor shredded. The sand turns dark with alien blood.]
[When the smoke clears, maybe twenty warriors remain. Barely a third of their original number.]
[The Haemonculus doesn't flinch. Doesn't even look toward the source of the attack. She just raises two of her six arms, each one gripping a weapon called a Destructor. Liquid death chambers, filled with compounds that make even Astartes scream.]
[She fires both at once.]
[Green toxin projectiles arc through the air like meteors, splashing down in the center of one Dark Angels tactical squad.]
[The screaming starts immediately. Power armor corrodes, ceramite bubbling and melting. The chemicals eat through to flesh beneath. Enhanced Astartes physiology tries to fight it, fails, succumbs.]
[Bodies explode from the inside out. Four Dark Angels reduced to gore in seconds.]
[The survivors don't have time to investigate where the Cyclone missiles came from. They're too busy dying.]
["For the Lion!" The battle cry rises from multiple throats.]
[The Dark Angels abandon their cover, draw power swords, and charge. Asmodai leads them, screaming prayers and curses in equal measure.]
[The three Grotesques respond immediately, their snake-like bodies propelling them forward with terrifying speed. Twelve klaives rise to meet the charging Astartes. Heavy armor absorbs bolter fire with contemptuous ease.]
[The two forces collide in the center of the battlefield. Power swords against klaives. Ceramite against mutated flesh. Angels against abominations.]
[You rise from your prone position smoothly.]
[Both pistols come up as you sprint directly toward the Haemonculus, using the melee combat as cover.]
[She sees you immediately. Six eyes, spread across an elongated face, all focus on you at once. Her Destructors begin to track, toxin chambers pressurizing...]
[You're already firing. Plasma from the left. Bolts from the right. Walking the shots toward her position while closing distance at a dead run.]
[When the range closes to optimal, when you can see her expression shift from contempt to concern, you reach for the space-time crystal.]
[Bullet time. Now.]
[The world stutters. Slows. Stops.]
[Everything within ten meters enters the temporal field. The Haemonculus freezes mid-motion, Destructors rising at glacial speed. The toxin projectiles she's already fired hang in the air like emerald sculptures.]
[But you move normally.]
[You adjust your aim with infinite precision. Left pistol targeting her central mass. Right pistol tracking her head.]
[You pull both triggers.]
[Again.]
[Again.]
[The shots move at normal speed within the temporal bubble, but to outside observers, they'll seem to appear from nowhere when time resumes.]
[You empty both magazines into her.]
[Then you release the temporal field.]
[Time snaps back.]
[BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.]
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