He wanted to see darkness. For what he saw was beyond explanation. Noises and senses rippled through the space of the area his mind was encased in. Naked and hot, the sweat on his skin glowed in a million colours that shouldn’t be able to be seen by mortal eyes. No ground existed in that place. No air and no sky. No sense of place or time, only palpable senses of hate, love, woe, glee and lust. Lust for ecstasy, lust for wealth, lust for beauty and lust for sex.
A pair of crimson lips came into his view, porcelain skin, breath scented of sugar and spice. The warrior had an urge to devour those lips, rather than meet it with his own. But he resisted...and in that defiance from that desire...light burned into his eyes and Lucius strode forth, tongue frolicking with his own scarred face as his angelic body swaggered through the unseen space, with two hissing whips in his wide palms. One cleared the distance between them, coiling around Whisky’s neck and asphyxiated him with elation. Discordant noises rang into his ears, everywhere, chaotic beats forming into a melody as the other whip dived down his throat and made him gag. Vomit pulsed up his fluid throat, vivid as a rainbow as it spiralled out of his thick lips.
The whips writhed around his flesh, slicing open his skin and embedding pores of joy. They entered his blood and internal organs, the two hearts of the marine fluttering erratically as the seeds of Slaanesh steamed with vapour of drawn blood. He managed to disgorge the writhing instrument that had dived down his oesophagus, spluttering out half of his teeth with a wash of blood and sick that took flight and coloured the atmosphere. From those unimaginable sights, Lucius, draped in the scents rushed forwards and shoved the warrior over, who fell head over heels into a perpendicular fall. This descent swiftly descended into a vertical dive, as fangs the size of tanks protruded from the walls that Whisky tumbled down.
“Don’t think. Just let it go.”
The words shook the very foundations of this sick playground.
Yet still he plummeted. Purple flesh slammed into his sides as he crashed off the yellow tusks, blood whipping around in circles around his head and over the space. Wind pushed him further and further down, as thousands of bodies now composed of the walls, luring and singing to him as he dived down. All of them were female, naked and pale, with long purple manes that coiled and spat as viciously as fires. At times they nearly managed to snag him from his descent, tongues darting over his cut flesh, deep into his ears and into the very consciousness that made him who he was.
“Don’t think. Just let it go.”
But he pushed against them, pushed against their hourglass bodies that were poised for his seed. So he descended even faster, as lightning crashed and slammed against the two walls, the faces that now rose and fell with a million bodies of Slaanesh. Their colours riveted from vermillion, to amaranthine, to cerise, to burgundy, to maroon, to claret...all in time with the endless song. Demonettes disobeyed gravity and danced and writhed in the music, bodies flashing with colours, bodies forming to their will, bodies that never remained permanent.
Water. Water. Water.
No.
Water is wine. Wine, sweet, spiced and mulled wine. He tries to reach the surface. But he is diving deeper, bubbles of gore spiralling up and frothing to the music. The music that has no era, no time, no origin, no master...a constant cacophony of emotions and souls that dream a thousand desires, all reaching their own ends in one, infinite and inconceivable masterpiece. Here, in the wine, it was whisky and wine and cider and beer, all the liquids a mortal would wish for. Whisky swam through a million dreams, dinking in fluid emotions and life, drinking in the own beverage his call-sign had been named upon. But it was far more than that; it was memories and dreams which had broken barriers. Memories became dreams; dreams became desires, which desires moulded into memories. Lies swept into truth, fires healed and power was attainable by all. His will was slowly being devoured by scents and allures, the fire within; the fire to remain himself was leisurely being destroyed by images of intercourse, dancing, drugs. The Imperium, real life, ceased to exist, but became the place he now relied on for these dreams to exists.
Then the flow of intoxication rolled through a tube of glowing flesh, dancing and vibrant with life, then narrower and narrower it enclosed upon him, until the marine could barely fit through the space. Everything intensified as he failed to wriggle through the meat that wriggled and leeched upon his abdomen, gripping his groin and legs until it sent a shock of mindless and raw power through his psyche. Then he pushed his hands upon the flesh and was sent hurtling out, bouncing into a ball of limbs off the floor of faces and canines.
A great beast rose up from the flesh, a gurgling thing with no skin and tentacles that protruded from every inch of its skull, save its startling face. Bones protruded in all manner of places, bits of sinew hanging up ends and hissing with bits of sizzling juices that steamed upon its drop upon the floor of faces. Its eyes were pure as black, with thick crimson lips that he seen before. The Dragoon couldn’t decide what gender it belonged to, with its high-breasts but muscular body. But he knew what sort of creature it was, with its massive vermillion claws that called for the marine. The faces rolled in place and frothed at the lips, only to shoot out forked tongues that latched onto all ends of the warrior. Subdued, he could only wait for the beast to dance to him, where it then looked down with great fascination and desire in those deep, black eyes that could swallow a man’s soul alone.
With one fluid motion it seized him by the neck with one of its oversized claws and threw him up above it, where the creature inspected the Space Marine akin to a child would investigate an ant. Whisky spat and kicked with his legs, until the creature grabbed him between the legs. Fear of embarrassment had died centuries before he entered this place, yet now, the experience of hatred and humiliation rose as a smoking kindling into a giant fire. His right foot slammed into the temple of the egg-shaped skull of the daemon, which snarled at the insult and chewed into the foot that had slammed into its head. In that instant of embellishment of eating a part of the marine, it allowed the human to swipe its other leg round its skull. Something snapped and Whisky managed to break free of the claw, despite the heinous injuries that were caused by the snag of the serrated teeth. He then booted the beast down with his right knee, gouging holes into the eyes of the creature. It roared, the faces below contorting into rage, yet Whisky had already set in motion his plan of attack.
With one devastating hook, he plunged a hole through the daemon’s abdomen, purple ink spraying into his face. Despite its towering size, the injury had caused a tremor throughout its body, eyes blaring with light as unrefined power rippled through its frame. Anger clutching him in an iron-vice, Whisky threw the daemon against the floor of faces, stamping on its skull with his bloody foot. The creature retaliated, its left crab-claw snipping off his left hand.
The Space Marine reeled back, seizing his arm in agony.
Only the hand grew back. It bled. It kept on bleeding.
He snarled and resumed the attack, grappling the face of the daemon as it tried to stand back up. Whisky’s bloody hand became the weapon of choice, for the blood burned into the flesh of the creature. He noticed this just as the daemon tore a chunk of muscle from his right shoulder. Whisky bellowed, but used that pain to shove his hand into the healing wound of the daemon. It cackled maliciously, believing that the attack was ineffective. To its repulsion and disgust, it started to spew out smoke from its maw, as red light blossomed from its eyes, fire coughing out of its mouth.
Then it exploded.
Gore flew everywhere, all into the maws of the leering faces, which suddenly froze in awe.
“ZARAKYNEL”
The thought broke through every wall and thought of this hell. Lucius flew from the endless sky and slammed into the floor of faces, turning it into a sea of ecstasy. Whisky had grown hardy against such strange, intoxicating liquids, much to the disapproval of Lucius who cocked his head to highlight this. The chosen of Slaanesh launched one of his feared whips; only the Dragoon caught it in his bloodied hand and threw himself against the length of the lash, catching onto Lucius’ face with the nails upon his fingers. They dug in deep into the scarred tissue, but Whisky then saw his own face and suddenly shifted consciousness with the foul abomination. Their bodies instantly changed and it was Lucius’ nails that bore into his face, steaming with the vivid vapour of blood. The chosen forced him down through the ground, until they entered freefall, lights and music deafening the Dragoon once more. Daemonettes screamed from the skies, cackling and calling his name as he fought the chosen of Slaanesh in the air. As Whisky attempted to tear out one of Lucius’ eyes, a great big claw fastened around his throat. The Dragoon simply kicked the female abomination off his back and lobbed her against a protruding tusk, impaling her through the bosoms and out again. This enraged the other two daemonettes, who unfortunately for them, were caught by the throat instantaneously and slaughtered as their spines were relocated by the Dragoon’s raw strength.
As the bodies were tossed aside in freefall, Lucius wrapped his arms around the loyalist and drove his voice into his mind, “I shall enjoy corrupting you. You stand no chance.”
“TERRIBLE LIE!”
Instantly the two of hit something solid and Whisky’s bloodied hand smashed into Lucius’ already ruined face. Again and again, again and again, again and again, until nothing remained by a bloody stump. Lucius’ body transformed into the flesh of the floor, wrapped around and sucked down to a level far beyond the Dragoon’s comprehension.
Then something forced him down.
Down to his hands and knees.
His head filled up with malady.
Someone was begging for him to please.
The voice of a god spoke to him.
“You are all alone. In a world that I despise,
But I can give you everything. You don’t know who you are-”
“TERRIBLE LIE!” he roared, unconsciously, “TERRIBLE LIE!”
He rose and drove up against the indescribable being.
Slaanesh screamed, but could not halt him. It, the god, could only push him to the side. Whisky, whose hatred became all the more extreme - all the lures and pleasures had turned to nothing against this mindless anger. He swore and bellowed, his mind forming the music into something more orderly in his rage, changing the entire infrastructure of this place as he smashed into the very foundations of the hell that She Who Thirsts had created.
Daemonettes came to fight against him, skipping their dance, but he struck them all down. He danced with them all, using his bleeding fist to crush their lithe and frail bodies. His agility here reached new extremes, leaping and bounding past their strikes as elegant as the Harlequin that had saved him reality...perhaps even bypassed her grace. Someone was guiding him, someone far away from this place. A smiling face...pointing to him where to place his foot, where to attack and where to evade, creating this grand dance in which he bested the universe’s greatest at the deathly art of dancing – but who was this? As hordes of Slaanesh’s slaves dived down upon the killing floor, realising the threat could not be seduced, only defeated by martial means. Even so, that would seem impossible, as he was tearing them limb from limb, decapitating bodies and separating bodies from their skulls with the attacks he delivered. Space Marines were not renowned for their agility, but not, in this place, he was highlighting that he had such gifts.
“There is no need-” the voices cried.
“TERRIBLE LIE!” He bellowed in response.
“Salvation we can offer-”
“TERRIBLE LIE!” The Dragoon killed the pleading beast.
“We promise to spare you-”
“YOUR PROMISES ARE A LIE!”
Then, Slaanesh, master of diseasing the mind, howled and crashed to the floor damp with the blood of her servants. In her wrath, she sent him flying, up against a wall and breathed toxicity into his mind, desperately attempting to burn out his mind with rapture. Some of the anger vanished, enough for the barriers to be broken...enough for the flood of pleasure to wash down all the blockades of honour, all the gates of redemption, all the truths of experience re-written under Slaanesh’s laws.
Lies transformed into dreams, dreams distorted into memories, memories malformed into truths. Everything that Whisky had done was under the protection of Slaanesh. Yes. Of course it was true. She had always been there, from the very start of his life. Protecting and caressing his every need. As a man, she had been the one to grant him all his desires. He could devour her all he wanted; she was his alcohol, alcohol that he had drunk as a neophyte so much to earn his name. But that whisky had been contaminated with the essence of Slaanesh and allowed their correlation to be brought stronger, hence why he was named after that drink. Yes. Yes. Yes. It made sense, it all made perfect sense. The Emperor never offered him such brilliant joys, only to weep for him to take even a fractional slice of joy at killing his foe. He wasn’t even his true father. He had never had a father or a mother that much was clear from that devious Eldar:
“You and Half are blood brothers. You both were not born between the thighs of a human woman.”
...Wait...that meant he had been born...but not from a human...yet an Eldar?
All the barriers rose up. The blockades reassembled. The truths burned back.
Truths burned into their memories, memories separated from the dreams, dreams illuminated the lies – the lies that came from Slaanesh, the foul creature, nothing more, which pinned him against his will in this foul place. A new honour burned, one that did not return, but had been granted unto him in that moment. It was a duty to the dead, all those Dragoons and all those sentient life forms that had been destroyed by this evil creation. Billions had been extinguished by this grand whore, a whore that would be killed by his hands.
Music that Whisky knew of, one of righteous hate, of deep and terrifying beats drowned out Slaanesh’s melody. He roared and the whole fabric of the Warp shuddered and paled at his endless roar.
“TERRIBLE LIE!”
A blast of white sent the god flying back. Reality started to seep in and separate him from this place.
“TERRIBLE LIE!”
A fire shot up from his bloody hand, one that formed as a spear that cut through the space.
“TERRIBLE LIE!”
A scream resounded as the blade sliced deep into Slaanesh’s bosom.
Everything that made the Warp changed from that instant onwards.
For a god, had been made to bleed...by a mortal’s hand.
The knowledge that the gods of the Warp were immortal, had now transformed into a terrible lie.
