The bells rang. I, Janthrax, and nine other Grey Knights were suited for battle. The suites were a gleaming silver. The sensors in the suites picked up on the movement of the wearer; which made the wearer in the 1,000 pound suite hundreds of times stronger than a normal man. The thickness of the armour was strong enough to stop the strongest of blasts effectively. The problem is however that we are not fighting a force of weapons, but the devastating power of Chaos. Deamons which could ravage the mind of an average man and kill even a Grey Knight with ease. The suites were designed for this type of mission, the Tech-priests blessed the suits with ancient ruins that hailed the machine god. Found in ancient times, the suites were given the inadequate name of Terminator armour. I lifted my nemesis force sword and started my log. We had a delay because our dates had been changed. The last time we went through the warp we had a deamon enter the controls which sent us back in time. The suites had a hard time coping with the change and froze us in motion as the power left the suites. Three Guys died after trying to exit their suite. The Tech-priest vanquished the deamons and brought us home. After resetting our dates to January 5, 40,442 a.d., we headed for the teleporter. On the way Inquisitor Derfan briefed us on the situation. We headed to Icharius II. The situation was grave. The Lord of Change, Tzeetch, had sent his minions through a undocumented psykers mind. This meant that the psyker had to be killed to protect the humanity on the planet. The Greater Deamon of Tzeetch had summoned hundreds of thousands of minions to ravage Icharius II. The Imperial Guard of Icharius II would hold the deamons off while we destroyed the forces that controlled them. Our secondary mission was to destroy any mutants or psykers on the planet to preserve the human genetics. Stepping into the teleporter we were engulfed by a black light as the Tech-priests chanted and hit the button. We experienced a temporary blackout and we were on our way. Blanking my mind from the call of the deamons I recited the oath I had learned in training. An eerie blackness engulfed us. I looked around and I saw only four other Grey Knights. The only thing that came to my mind is that the deamons had taken them over. This was not a rare occurrence with Grey Knights. The weak minded or the ones who barely passed training were usually the first to go. The only others to go were the cocky and self-assured ones. When we landed on the planet, I looked around to see the few Knights that resisted the call of the deamons. I killed two of the deamons as they burst out of my companions’ armour. Five had been taken, the newbies. The poor kids just weren’t ready for the onslaught of the full scale deamon attack. The five of us left ripped and hacked through the oncoming hoard. I gutted one of the deamons as Arhak splattered the blood of one on me. I then, cleaved the skull of one as it drove home into my shoulder. The sharpened claws had found a chink in my armour. As it ripped out muscle and flesh I drove the end of my force sword into it’s chest and watched it dissipate into the darkness. The horizon was dim, but I could make out a horde of deamons picking away at the once gigantic Imperial Guard force. Out of the waves of the deamons, there rose one that was 12 feet tall sitting in a throne of bones and bodies. I knew exactly where I was headed. I drove home killing a deamon in my way and then, rushed three more and ran toward the Greater Deamon of Tzeetch. I called my companions to follow me. Arhak, Relayed my command to the rest of the Grey Knights. We unleashed fire from our bolters to dozens of deamons. With brute force we drove through a mess of bodies and deamons to come to the foot of the gigantic throne. The Greater deamon towered over us on the throne. The bird like appearance was unmistakably that of the Greater Deamon of Tzeetch. We stood with our Nemesis force weapons pointed at, it ready to fire. We stood at the mercy of the Lord of Change. Our bolters had no effect on the greater deamon and he would kill us if we used the warp to destroy him with our psychic powers. I jumped for him and he just flicked me away as a person would a fly. Landing on my shoulder I could only give a cry of pain as I landed. I got up and joined my companions only to here a hideous laugh. Out of rage we all rushed the greater deamon and he pushed us away but, only after I cut is arm. I got up in time only to see the arm healed in a breath of magic. Was there no way to destroy this deamon I prayed to the Emperor and threw my sword as a javelin. The sword sank into the deamons chest. I screamed the order togather warp energy. We called the warp and got a bit of force. As the minion to the Lord of Change healed himself, we dumped the force into Arhak’s force ax. I used the ax to charge the vile beast. As I charged the Greater Deamon of Tzeetch, it retaliated. The deamon hit me across the side and the claws opened up my armour. I heard that hideous laugh and my mind went wild. My blood boiled and I was filled with rage. As I jumped up, my eyes met the deamons. I stood there mesmerized by hate. After I took my eyes off the deamon’s and saw a little section that was weakly covered on is chest. I lunged and the deamon attacked back. The deamon impaled my arm, but I kept going. The force I hit with penetrated his hide. The force from the warp seeped out of the ax and sent out a bright blast. I blacked out seeing the Greater Deamon of Tzeetch dissipate back to the warp. My armour had to be taken off and treated. The local apothecary rubbed the healing sauce of the Emperor on it and the pain went away as I blacked out. When I woke up I was in the medi-center and Arhak came in to tell me that a there were more than one unregistered psykers here and that they were all killed in the battle. The next stop was the colony of mutants that had been reported. As I got there, I had noticed a woman carrying a baby. As I looked at it I noticed that its arm was the shape of a claw. Thoughts buzzed through my mind. My instinct was to save it from the fellow Grey Knights, while my training was to kill the wretched mess of humanity. With out a thought I reached out and sacrificed the baby in the name of Humanity as the woman screamed and attacked. According to my training I shot the lady to the ground and continued on. After the mutants had been destroyed, we returned to the teleporting coordinates. When we got back I found out that I was on my way to earning a medal. No more than three days later I had full recognition and was now on my way to becoming an Inquisitor. I had scruples about this though. I had killed an innocent child to “protect humanity from the fate of evolutionary regression.” Could I be so heartless to not think of what might be accomplished by mutants. It may be that some mutants were better than the average person. The psykers could be considered mutants, yet they are a great asset when registered and trained. How human are we?

By Stephen Woods