The gentle hum of atmospheric entry awoke him, he rubbed the sleep out of his bald head and looked up, the hold of the pilfered Valkyrie was dark, the only light coming from pale lamps scattered across the dull steel flooring. Inside of the hold was six or so chaos cultists, their scavenged and jury-rigged armor varying incredibly between style and function. Some wore robes, some crude metal plates fixed to their bodies by gnarled leather, and some wore the armor of an Imperial guardsman, albeit repainted and damaged heavily. Then he looked at their faces, their horrible, horrible faces. All of them were horribly mutilated and mutated, their heads sliced, burnt, or eroded, their eyes gouged out, clouded in pure-white, or dripping out of their sockets, hanging by the nerves and veins. They all had wicked smiles upon their faces, despite their mutations and wounds.

I shouldn't belong with these people. He thought, when suddenly, his gaze drifted onto his hands. Twelve fingers, six on each hand, then he remember the rest of himself. His eye's colors did not match, one was a blue orb surrounded by a pale red, and the other was a dull brown egg in a yellow sea of aqueous humor. He traced a finger absentmindedly over the scar running along his neck, it had not yet fully healed. He had been decapitated a week prior, his head placed onto another body of a cultist unwilling to fully embrace the true gifts of chaos. As he explored his own mutations and mutilations, the memories of his childhood rushed back in full force yet again.

When he was born, he thought his parents gasped at the sight of him and his twin sister, he was mutated, while she was pure human. The medicae servitor quickly separated the two newborns, and he was carried out of the room in the cold, metallic arms of the lobotomized man. He had not remembered much after that, he was admitted to a foster home, he later found out his parents committed suicide in the face of the fact that they had conceived an abomination. Although he and his sister did not go to the same foster home, she visited him regularly. She was incredibly kind, not caring about his mutations. Right before being released from the custody of his foster home, she was forcibly enlisted into the Sisters of Battle and shipped away, leaving him alone in the world. Several months later, the inquisition arrived on the colony, everyone was excited and eager to see the protectors of the Imperium, it put everyone off-guard for what would happen next. The entire planet was sacked by a warband of Chaos space marines, nearly all of the populace was murdered or enslaved. Hiding under the bed in his poorly-constructed shack on the outskirts of the colony, a sorcerer stepped inside. From under the bed he could not see much, only the more obvious details of the armor. The psyker chaos space marine stood next to the bed, and lifted it, setting it down a few feet away.

"Do not fear child, for any chance of pain has long vanished with the destruction of this colony." The sorcerer said, his Persian accent dripping with kindness, and for the first time in his life, the cultist was happy.

His thoughts were interrupted as the red warning lights suddenly snapped to life, alerting him and the rest of the cultists of imminent landing. With a loud thump, the Valkyrie landed onto the ground, and the bay-doors exploded outwards. The cultist's charged out, their guns and swords raised high.

"CHAAAAARRRGGGEEE!!!"

"FOR THE DARK GOOODSS!"

"CAPPPTTUUURRRREEE IT FOR CHAAAAAAOOOOSSS"! They all yelled as they stormed out, firing volleys of lasers, bullets, and grenades from lasrifles, autoguns, and grenade-launchers into the deep, dark forest, at-first, nothing happened, but then suddenly from the shadows themselves emerged twelve Dark Eldar warriors, clad in pale black armor, they charged the cultists, disregarding the tactical advantage they would have using their splinter carbines.

"Do not let them engage you in melee!" He shouted, raising his own gun, a bolt-shotgun repainted from it's original dark grey to a burnished gold. He fired into the scattering mob, downing one of the warriors.

Eleven left.

Their armour was built to be agile and light, earning it a strength comparable to an imperial guardsman's flak-jacket, but what they made up in for armor they made in strength.

One of them had flanked the group, and tackled one of the cultists, slicing a long knife into his neck. When the warrior withdrew, the head came clean off. Before the warrior could react, a grenade slammed into it's back, knocking it onto the ground before it detonated.

Ten left.

Two of them charged the group, only for one of them to be rocked back by a shower of autogun bullets, rising from it's groin all the way to it's head, the armor splintered off from the dozens of bullets.

Nine left.

As the cultist was about to fire at the charging warrior quickly closing in, the autogun released a soft tick, the clip was empty. before the warrior could kill the cultist however, it was rocked back by a lasrifle blast, and killed by another autogun volley as the cultist reloaded.

Eight left.

Before any of the cultists knew it, they were engaged in melee, as quickly as it started, most of them were dead. Only three warriors and two cultists remained, the three warriors descended quickly on the second cultist, driving their long, wicked blades into him. He fired at them with his shotgun, downing two of them, but the other cultist was ripped to shreds in the blast.

One left.

The last warrior did a back-flip and charged the remaining distance, slicing at him, he swerved away at the last moment, and shot the xeno dead. He clipped his shotgun onto his back and suddenly felt light-headed. He reached up to catch his head, but his wrist came into contact with his decapitation scar, the warrior had cut it. Before he knew it, he was on the ground, unconscious.