I feel their pathetic weapons pierce my flesh, I feel the sickening, hot spasms as my daemonic life-blood spews forth, I hear their helmetless commander scream as the black, gelatinous substance begins to coagulate upon the soft flesh of his face, searing and scorching like acid. One of my grey armoured attackers kneels in silent vigil at his dead commander's side, his weapon hurling molten death at my no doubt awe-inspiring visage. Oh yes, they fear me. They find me terrifying. These brave knights of the noble Imperium, so fastidious in their faith, so damn pedantic in their hunt, and yet I instil in them a fear that gnaws like a cancer at their stoical hearts.

His helm shatters along with his skull as my talons tear through the weak ceramite of his armour, gouging great rifts through his enhanced muscular tissue. Dark flames lap at the corners of my lips, the scent of smoke and burning intermingling with the sharp, sultry scent of ammonia and decaying organic matter that rises from the filth carpeting the entire sewer system. Luring them down here was so very simple, almost hilarious in it's ludicrousness. The Whelps of Russ. I recall a tale told to me once by one of my companions within the eye, it seems centuries ago now. A story of their betrayal, of how they fell upon their brethren in wanton bloodlust and tore asunder an entire legion without grounds or precedent. I conjure an image of the towers of Prospero, their walls bulging with works of incalculable antiquity, the very stone of their composition glowing with the luminescence of the sorcery held within. Then flames, and blood running in the streets as brother slays brother, an ancient fraternity broken, millions slaughtered on the word of a solitary man. And they dare to call themselves just?

I use my indignation to fuel my attack; there have been many more than I anticipated and I am starting to feel....fatigued; drained, as if the energy is being leeched from me along with my black ichor. It matters little if this physical shell of flesh is destroyed; I am constant. I cannot be destroyed, cannot be harmed, but they must not be allowed to retake this pathetic little planet. It belongs to me. It is recompense for the injustice that has been served to me on the word of the False Emperor, and he owes me much.

One of the grey armoured warriors breaks and flees as I break the skull of his comrade against the Ceramite tunnel's wall, frantic wailings and half-discernible pleas for aid echoing in his wake. I allow him to go only a few steps before lashing out with my sorcery; my very sentience itself made manifest in a pure, black bolt of energy which impales the coward on a spear of burning darkness, holding him aloft like a puppet on it's strings, before letting him fall, bloodied and lifeless into the sewage below. A fitting burial for one whom celebrates the wholesale slaughter of his brethren with such malicious glee.

I sense the bulk of their forces moving on the surface, and one in particular shines like a beacon of silver star-light in the darkness of the void. Perhaps some degenerate psyker, or even an over-zealous priest. Either way, his death shall be more exquisitely painful, more artistic in nature than all the rest. Perhaps I'll let him live; devour his mind in a corrosive malaise of lunacy, plague him with the constant visions of the suffering of the Thousand Sons as his brethren reigned fire and brimstone down upon their unsuspecting heads. The irony was certainly pleasing. Grey, half-drowned light filters down from a hatch leading to the surface, the rays blocked and dispersed by some enormous, armoured bulk standing directly on the grate. Fate was certainly in an amusing mood this day.

I utter a sibilant curse under my breath, the words rising in the darkness like writhing entities composed entirely of crimson flame before their energies dissipate into the ether. My daemonic form is wreathed in azure flames, a nimbus of coruscating luminescence that roars from my palms and arms, from my eyes and mouth. Soon, there is nothing but the pyre; the awesome, indefatigable heat of my own puissance and passion. I rise like the phoenix of ancient Terran myth, the marine above incinerated in a matter of seconds as my very essence rises into the waning dusk sky. I laugh at their feeble, slack-jawed glares of shock intermingled with horror, my voice echoing about the derelict, skeletal buildings like the hollow rattle of a death knell. They raise their feeble armaments, screaming fervent curses and spitting false prayers in a hope to quench my flames with the voracity of their faith.

Many are struck down before they even approach by the awesome heat radiating from my pirous form before my physical body reforms. I feel my sentience enclosed and compromised by the limitations of the flesh, the fire itself drawn back into the deepest, blackest recess of my body, hungry to taste the flesh of my enemies once more. I don’t know what thrice-blessed deity of the warp plucked me from the pyre of my death and raised me on high as I am now, but I congratulate them on their grasp of the ironic. As I was burnt in the flames of the unjust, so too shall my enemies fall by fire. I am Justice made manifest.

Their commander screams some hasty orders, emotion fuelled orders baying like a hound for my blood, before leaping into the fray himself, an enormous, double-headed battle-axe raised high above his head. His movements seem ill-co-ordinated, sluggish to my daemonic perceptions. I reach up and grasp the axe haft as it plunges towards my exposed chest and pluck it from his grasp with little effort. He stands bemused, his expression one of incredulous numbness before dropping into well-executed, instinctive roll as I bring down the axe's blade into the ceramite-carpeted earth. He leaps to his feet and in the same movement unholsters a perfectly crafted Plasma-pistol and fires it's corrosive discharge.

A number of painful explosions blossom across my back and against the leathery membrane of my wings causing stars to dance before my vision before the plasma sears into my chest. The pain is intense, but inconsequential to the deeper burning in my gut. What are the fires of bolters or Plasma compared to the inferno of rage and indignation that I bare? I bring the axe round in a wide arc, decapitating a hoary, long bearded wolf and a number of his brethren before bringing the blade down to meet with the newly drawn power-sabre of the commander. His parry becomes slack as whiteness floods his features and his arm slinks down limp at his side, a small, crimson stream trickling from the chinks in his armour.

I scream my pleasure into the sick, laden skies and rejoin the battle, sensing the pleasure of my unknown master, singing his praises in a song of blood and flesh, a symphony of splintered bone and agony. It was most certainly going to be a very good day.