It was getting dark as Prazak pushed through the streets, although the crowds had begun to thin out from the market earlier that day the courtyard still felt crowded. He cursed his bad decision to cross the courtyard, he had thought he may have shaved enough time off of his journey to be able to smoke a tabac stick before the meeting, but that didn’t look like it would happen now. These people would make him late and he didn’t like it, he knew that he would be singled out by the leader and chastised like a child in front of everyone, again, this was becoming a bad habit. The more he tried to push past the throng of people the more densely packed they seemed, he could feel their weight against him, he could smell the sweat of the workers around him and it made him feel claustrophobic and sick. The frustration was growing inside of him as he heard the bell of the clock tower start to ring, it had seemed like he had been stuck in this crowd forever. They had done this to him, they had made him late again and he hated them all, he would make them pay. He could feel the rage welling up inside of him in his mind he pictured himself killing all of them a thousand times over, a thought that brought a smile to face…………….. HIS time would come. Prazak had been so caught up in his thoughts of bloody massacre that he hadn’t noticed that he had reached the edge of the courtyard and was almost at the meeting place, he ducked down a side alley that ran behind the edge of the courtyard.

It was much darker away from the courtyard, the buildings were tall and the alleys were narrow and Prazak was navigating as much by memory as from any visual cues, thankfully this was a route he had travelled many times since joining the brotherhood and he was sure he could probably have travelled it with his eyes completely closed. Luckily the alleys had been empty of people so even in the near darkness he had been able to break into a run and make up some of the time he had lost crossing the courtyard. He was starting to breathe heavily by the time he got to the door, but rather than catch his breath he just knocked loudly, almost as quickly as he had knocked the viewport on the door slammed open and a pair of eyes glared at him. The whole event happened so quickly he had jumped and was now staring slack-jawed and panting. “Prazak, is that you?” the heavy door muffled the sound of the gruff voice but he instantly recognised as Shardim, he was the leaders bodyguard and a general enforcer for the brotherhood. Even before Prazak had chance to answer properly the door and been opened and he had pretty much been dragged inside. He had quickly been ushered into the corner of the meeting hall next the door where Shardim had been standing, Shardim was a bear of a man and he almost filled the doorframe almost as well as the door he was guarding he motioned for Prazak to stand next to him and for him keep quiet as the leader was already giving his speech.

“Brothers, we stand on the brink of a monumental event, we must prove that we have the strength of conviction to see this through to the end, to show the ultimate love for our master. The lord Slaanesh demands a sacrifice from us to show our loyalty, yet well shall not stop at one person, or one family, or one city we shall give him a planet, billions of souls so that he may feast upon, we will guarantee our ascendancy to immortality……. WE SHALL BE GODS!...........” A cheer went up from the group that assembled at the meeting place, this group of misfits and outsiders that had rallied around the mysterious leader. As the voices started to die down a shout echoed around the room “Blasphemer!!”, the leader looked shocked and the group before him were stunned into silence and they looked around trying to figure out who amongst them had said such a thing, “Heretic!!” came the voice again. “You think by hiding in shadow you can avoid the light of the Emporer heretic? You think that spreading your lies in hushed tones he won’t hear you? do you Heretic?!” . The voice was echoing all around the room and was hard to pin point, what wasn’t hard to pin point that the crowd although visibly scared were preparing themselves to deal with this intruder. Weapons were being drawn and Shardim was hurrying from his position at the door to be at the leaders side. The voice came again but this time was quieter, “Do you think that by hiding from everyone else that the Emporer could not find you heretic?”, with that a figure appeared from behind the leader seeming appearing from nowhere “The shadows belong to us now heretic!”. With that the front of the leader skull appeared to explode, his lifelessly body slumping to the ground, it was then that the figure could be fully seen, It was a space marine scout, dressed in dark grey and armour of black which seemed to fade in and out of the shadow, a silenced bolt pistol where the leader head had been moments before. The scout touched the comm. Bead in his ear and gave a single word command “Execute” and within a split second all hell broke loose.

The door beside Prazak exploded in a shower of splinters as a Space Marine crashed through it, not a scout like the one stood over the leader’s lifeless body, who was now firing directly into the crowd but a battle brother in full power armour armed with a pair of vicious lightning claws that flickered with raw energy. The door hadn’t even slowed him down as he charged directly into the crowd who were firing wildly in all directions. As Prazak struggled to his feet an explosion ripped though the wall at the other end of the hall sending him sprawling to the floor again and smacking his skull against the stone floor. His vision blurred and a wave of nausea followed the last thing he saw prior to passing out were two more marines entering the hall from the hole that had been created by the explosion, their silenced bolters drowned out by the screams of the dying.

Prazak was shook violently into consciousness, the scout who had killed the leader had dragged him to his feet and was now shoving him against the wall, waves of pain raced through his body and his vision was still blurry, “YOU!, you will tell them, you will tell everyone that seeks to turn from the Emporers light that the shadows belong to us now, they will never be safe! And from now on, we will be watching you”. Prazak lost consciousness, again, that was the last time he saw a space marine.