Geratomran Reconquest - The Gate Opens: The road they had been following led to a crossing with Founder's Avenue, the great processional way leading directly to the city's palace and the plaza before it. Brother Bastoigne confirmed that their final destination was directly ahead and Sword Brother Adelhard bid Honoured Lieutenant Parrigar to remain and guard their backs. From this point on, only Lux Imperator and the Black Templars would face the madness that awaited them in Founder's Plaza.Gunning their Assault Bikes to full speed, the six Space Marines roared into Founder's Plaza, immune to the dreadful scene playing out before them. In years past, the Geratomrans had erected great marble pillars, each topped by a statue of Magor and one of his thirteen companions. The statues now emerged from a pile of corpses, some of them still wearing the gaudy party dresses of Geratomro's nobility.At the centre of the plaza, a sizeable party of Chaos Space Marines had gathered around their leaders, a serpentine beast spotting four arms and a handsome swordsman standing on both sides of an archway of human flesh, the remains of the body of a horribly stretched and split female, her arms and legs hanging limply from her while at the arch's apex her head drunkenly rolled from one side to the other. Not far away from the once-human archway, a lone Emperor's Children Heretic Astartes restrained a fat man in ripped and soiled finery. It was none other than the Planetary Governor Dostain Huratal, whose face wore a mask of horror.Many of the Emperor's Children in the plaza carried strange devices, terrifying weapons that looked more like musical instruments designed by a madman than actual weapons. These Sonic Weapons marked them as the dreaded Noise Marines. The Noise Marines filled the plaza with a great cacophony, the kaleidoscopically energy of the archway now throbbing and bulging outwards in time with the Emperor's Children war-instruments.Twin-linked Bolters mounted on the Space Marines' bikes roared, and several of the macabre musicians went down. In response, the Noise Marines pointed their Sonic Blasters and Blastmasters at the onrushing Black Templars, unleashing sonic pulses that split the plaza's flagstone's apart and tore at the mounted corpses. One of the Black Templars was unseated, his bike transformed into a pile of scrap-metal by the sonic waves.The Space Marine skidded across the plaza, sparks flying from his Power Armour before the Black Templar rolled on his shoulders. He pushed himself to his feet, drew his sword and bellowed his warcry: "For Dorn! For the Emperor!" before being shot down by Bolter fire.The other Black Templars charged then, the mass of their Assault Bikes enough to knock fully-armoured Chaos Space Marines out of their way. As they reached the centre of the square, they jumped off their mounts and allowed their bikes to crash headlong into yet more Emperor's Children as they charged other warriors. Surprised by the ferocity and speed of this attack, several Heretic Astartes were cut down before the Black Templars' advance could be stalled.Sword Brother Adelhard cleaved a Heretic in two with a brutal blow of his Power Axe, his Bolt Pistol roaring defiantly at the enemy who swarmed him. The handsome swordsman in heavily decorated Power Armour closed with him, likely the Chaos Lord who led this warband of Emperor's Children. Chanting one of his Chapter's battlehymns, Adelhard cut a bloody path through the enemy, felling five Chaos Space Marines in quick succession before the Chaos Lord reached him.The Chaos Lord decapitated a Black Templar attacking him before heading towards Adelhardm who ritually challenged him. "I am Sword Brother Adelhard of the Black Templars! I challenge you! May your death be as clean as your life has not!" The enemy warrior saluted, holding his elegant Power Sword before his face. "I am Damien Trastoon, and I have been killing the sons of Dorn since Horus declared war on the falsehood of the Emperor. It is I who shall be your death, knight," the Chaos Lord replied. "Let it be seen" muttered Adelhard as he charged his enemy.A few metres away, the Emperor's Champion was fighting his way through Trastoon's warriors. Each blow from the Black Sword took an enemy's life before Brother Bastoigne finally stood before the purple abomination guarding the developing Warp Rift."Fiend!" he called out "In my dreams I have seen you. The Emperor has sent me to bring about your end. Stand forward and fight!" The Herald of Slaanesh stretched its four arms away from its serpentine body, a golden-handled sword instantly manifesting in each of its hands, their blades fashioned in exotic alloys and dripping with a variety of deadly poisons. With the speed of a serpent, the creature struck at the Emperor's Champion, who parried all of the daemon's attacks.The Black Templars' charge had considerably thinned the enemy's number, but with their two best warriors locked in their respective duels, the two remaining Black Templars now faced a dozen remaining Heretic Astartes on their own. One quickly went down, beset on all sides, but not before one precision shot took the life of the Chaos Space Marine restraining Dostain Huratal. The disgraced Planetary Governor fell to the ground, instantly forgotten by those around him. Fuelled by the bloodshed unfolding around it, the Warp gate began to pulse with unholy light. Shadowy figures, both magnificent and terrifying to behold, danced on the other side of the membrane of shimmering energy.Having witnessed the might of the Emperor's Angels of Death and the divine aura radiating from the Emperor's Champion, Dostain Huratal repented all his sins. He scanned the ground for a weapon, anything to allow him to aid the Black Templars in saving Geratomro from the horrible fate promised by the Herald of Slaanesh, the creature that had lured him by offering everything he ever wanted.Dostain's eyes fell on his guard's Bolt Pistol, still in its holster at the dead Chaos Space Marine's side. Gritting his teeth because of his broken collarbone, the Planetary Governor took the cumbersome Bolt Pistol in his right hand. Far too heavy to lift it off the ground, Dostain pulled it upright, using his knee to hold the pistol up, and aimed the weapon's barrel at Trastoon's back.Trastoon landed a decisive blow against Adelhard, the Chaos Lord's shimmering blade cutting a deep furrow in Adelhard's armour. The blow bisected the power feeds of Adelhard's armour, its dead weight now dragging the Black Templar down. Triumphant, Trastoon raised his sword, ready for the killing blow, when Dostain finally fired.The bolt flew true, and exploded on contact with Trastoon's wrist, destroying his swordhand. Furious, the Chaos Lord turned but started to laugh once he identified the shooter as the fat and wounded form of Dostain. Panicked, Dostain fired a second shot which hit Trastoon in the side. With a roar of effort, Adelhard suddenly rammed the spike of his Power Axe straight into Trastoon's jaw, killing him on the spot.At almost the exact same time, the second duel reached its climax. The Herald of Slaanesh lunged forward, all four swords striking at once, trapping the Space Marine in an obscene and deadly embrace. As the Herald's sword pierced the Emperor's Champion's primary heart, the membrane separating the Immaterium from reality pushed outwards, a thousand pairs of hungry eyes appearing like voracious fish pressing at an underwater porthole.The Herald of Slaanesh screeched triumphantly before its shout was abruptly cut short as the Black Sword burst from its spine. Thick blue ichor began to gush as Brother Bastoigne used the last beats of his secondary heart to turn the blade around and cut the wound open, almost cleaving the daemon's serpentine body in two.Choking on its own blood, the demonic herald fell to the ground as Brother Bastoigne staggered back. The Space Marine plunged his sword into the ground and knelt, surrendering his own spirit to the Emperor in a ritual position of prayer.Laughter resonated along the square as Brother Adelhard, the sole survivor of his squad, gave voice to his relief and joy. "You lose, daemon! There shall be no horror upon Geratomro this day," said the Black Templar as he advanced upon the dying creature. "There is but...one more death needed here, Templar..." the Herald of Slaanesh replied, "...and I have found it. The last of the house of Magor!"With the final vestiges of its strength, the Herald of Slaanesh plucked a dagger from its belt and sent it flying towards a still-transfixed Dostain Huratal, the slender blade embedding itself straight between the governor's eyes. "It...is...you...who...loses," hissed the daemon as its physical body began to decompose into the aether.With an anticlimactic PLOP, the veil between realities was lifted. A hideous laughter filled the square as Slaanesh's numberless brides, the Daemonettes, set foot on Geratomro, ready to consume the world and claim it in the name of the Dark Prince. Clicking their pincers in anticipation of the slaughter to come, the Daemonettes stepped into the Materium, tasting the sweet air of reality with forked tongues before fixing their gaze on Adelhard, the sole living being inside Founder's Plaza.But hope remained.Several hundred metres from the Warp Rift, on Founder's Avenue, Lux Imperator had used the time bought by the Black Templars to charge its Volcano Cannon and get a fix on the Warp Rift. Still retreating from the Lesser Daemons now pursuing him, Adelhard gave the signal to fire.Lux Imperator fired at the open Warp Rift, the terrawatts of energy unleashed incinerating daemonic flesh before slamming into the unholy gateway. The gate exploded in violet unlight and for the briefest of moments the crewmembers of Lux Imperator gained a glimps of what awaited them on the other side of the gate, staring into the Realm of Chaos before the gate collapsed.The whole plaza shuddered as if deciding whether it would stay in this realm or move into the next before a wash of energy blasted outwards, felling the statues of Founder's Plaza as the Daemonettes were all sucked back into the Immaterium.As silence fell at last, Geratomro had been saved from a fate too horrible to contemplate.