With a swirl of axiomatic crystals, a Pentahedral was suddenly promoted to Hexagonal, a Natalar to Pentahedral, and a Cube to Natal Star... all in perfect shape, of course.

“Enjoy the fun, bitch!” I laughed as the Axiomatics kept right on fighting, but there was one less wounded Cube to guard.

The mid-range demons were now trying to get to the Cubes and Natal Stars, instantly understanding how to stop this process, but the only one of them who could stop the Octohedral was the Vile Dancer, who immediately surged to the attack.

The demons swapped off duties, swarms of weaker demons trying to occupy the two Hexes and four Pentas, aiming for the eight Natals and the scattered Cubes with their stronger demons and stop the whole replacement shindig.

Unfortunately for them, all we had to do was delay them as the Hexes and Octo wreaked havoc, and the Vile Dancer either had to give it her all or the Octo moved immediately to kill her subordinates!

The shining figure of chrome and crystal swirled around the many-armed veiled serpent-woman, limbs ringing on blades, lights flashing against warpfire, corrosive fumes, and the maddening power of her voice. More ripping wounds slashed through her, her veils were peppered with holes, and the mixed horror and appeal of her beauty was only becoming more visible, further enraging her.

She shattered its head with two impossibly arcing, curving blades, the chime and mocking laugh of it crossing the battlefield.

Crystalline lights flared and burned. Where a Hexagonal was standing, yet another Octo rose up, and proceeded to obliterate dozens of lesser demons in front of it, levitating with precise speed towards a knot of Spirals and Studs trying to reach the Natals and Cubes. Six of the former had died, were instantly replaced by promoted Cubes. Only four Cubes remained alive right now, but they were guarded by some of the nastiest gladiators... and the girls, kindly ripping the demons new ones with complete calm and deadly precision.

Demons came apart around the girls, burned in shadowfire, walls of shadows around them and claiming an unholy toll of capering sex-demons and their brutal paramours. Banefire mixed readily with shadowfire, and demons danced and died in first glee, then horror as they realized there would be no encores to this performance.

The wounded Vile Dancer crashed against the third Octo, screaming and writhing, plainly knowing that killing this one would not be survivable. Coiled around it, burning it in warpfire and acidic means, her scream seemed to be draining her life as she hacked at it and its limbs, crashing over and rolling across the field, crushing many a demon and Warped creature beneath them.

We watched a Natal and a Penta die, then a Hex fall under a swarm of Spirals and Studs.

The last Cubes evolved into Natals, and became whirling stars of death, spinning into the ranks of the demons, as the Octo’s head shattered one more time.

The gladiators pulled back even as the Vile Dancer started to rise from the remains of the last Octo. It was quite an accomplishment, killing it... but she wasn’t going to get the chance to brag, as Jensa came right into her face, and Bane of Legends and all, split her skull open and Fed her to Gloom.

Her scream of denial and disbelief that she was not going to reap the benefits of her bloody victory rang out over the battlefield. Hundreds of lesser demons’ ears popped, and they staggered and fell, as did some of the weaker gladiators.

Her head burning with shadowfires that were raging down into her to consume her spirit, she toppled over, even as a new Octohedral rose over the battlefield.

There were other forces fighting in other corners against the demons, but the great majority of the remaining forces were here, still trying to deal with these Axiomatics... and finding it real hard now that the Vile Dancer was dead and another wasn’t being sent to replace it.

All the remaining Casters and special powers that could apply from a distance were being sent at the Natals... but as they were, the Octo was reaping, speaking Words that shattered demons like glass, rays of light making dazzling patterns that shredded acres of ground, and advancing into the densest crowds of demons without hesitation or fear.

-Imperial Legionnaires!- Jensa /reported suddenly, and our heads turned, piercing through the muck and fumes and fogs of battle to see great armored forms laying about themselves with yard-long Legion knives, bull axes, and similar well-regarded tools of the Empire.

There was less than a company left, hardly unexpected given what they were facing.

-Get Decontamination! I want a Bull Minister ON SITE THERE NOW! Portal opening in thirty seconds!- and I blew through two Studs and was shooting across the battlefield towards the Warp Sorcerers cooking up some nasty shit to bury the Marines over there.

It was two hundred yards to those Warp Sorcerers doing the chanting and dancing in a circle. I was on them before ten seconds passed, a trail of death behind me, and done with them before twelve seconds were gone, lighting into the back of the demon horde, coming up on the Spiral Dancers, and making myself a murderously obvious distraction smashing into them from the flank.

Demons were burning, gathering, dancing, warpfire and shadowfire were converging, and if someone Cut a Portal back to the mortal plane in the cracked space as I withdrew my Interdiction, who could say it wasn’t a reaction to all the unnatural shit going on, while I kept right on going not ten yards from the startled Legionnaires in their blue and white power armor.

“SONS OF THE EMPEROR! COME!” bellowed a voice that could only come from a Legionnaire, as a massive armored form was visible within that shattering in space. A great hand in gold and green was held out, and the coms and computers of the Legionnaires lit up with all sorts of confirmations.

They reacted like bioengineered soldiers should, and hurtled for that Portal in a rushing stream, bounding and powering through all the demons close by... who were a bit shocked to see them leaping away so quickly, or distracted by the swirling shadow-wraith slicing its way past and through them. Like water flooding out a breach in a dam, they poured into the shattered rip in space, and as the last one cleared and I confirmed, Hard Reality on the far side cut through the breach before the demons could make use of it, and it sealed with a sucking sound of severing atmospheres.

HAH!

I was sure there were human forces in the Arena, but most of them were going to be fodder units if not equipped with proper weapons, feasted upon by the swarms and various rampaging arena-fighters. Capturing a company of Legionnaires was quite an accomplishment, and they’d actually managed to survive at least two skirmishes, judging by the gore I’d seen on their armor.

The gladiators behind me didn’t want to fight them, even if they couldn’t use ranged attacks. Legionnaires had a certain rep, and being afraid of aliens and cyborgs was about as far from the heart of it as was imaginable.

Still, in the middle of utter slaughter and carnage, disputes between Law and Chaos... we’d managed to save someone!

-Someone please tell me we didn’t save a bunch of reactionary arseholes. If we have I want them off Janus sooner rather than later.- Character before free munchies. There were Legionnaires with some very grim reputations, we’d met some fighting in the other cities, and if these guys were like that, well... we’d ship them off to a Legion that had the ability to support them and similar ethics.

If they were the more heroic, noble sort, well, we might be able to work with them if they weren’t too hardcoded for stupidity by the Empire’s bureaucracy...

----

“Brothers, emergency ejections from your armor!” Captain Donnal roared out with the voice of a man with power, and very used to command. He was also functionally a lay Minister, as he had driven his Psi-Warrior and Mindblade Classes all the way to functional Ten, and had the aura and power to go with it. “The drow routinely infect your armor and yourselves while you are captured! We need to do emergency decontamination NOW! Procedure Hermes Asclepius Caduceus!”

The Thunder Bull’s voice got the results it needed, and the incoming Choral Lions began the process of ejecting from their suits, shutting down power, locks flipping open, and the huge marines within stumbling out as they came forth.

They looked around the large, gymnasium-sized room, all in white, with many white-clad normal-sized humans around, the red cross of medicae on their shoulders.

The air was also fairly swimming with psionic energies they could all sense.

“Full psychic scans on every trooper, as fast as we can get them!” More psions were teleporting in urgently, not all of them in medicae outfit, but the simple fact they could teleport was indication of their power. Captain Donnal was watching everything, getting the wary yet focused new Legionnaires moving towards the starsilver pools which would aid any decontamination process.

Two of the psions were wearing Coronal cloaks, too, which was greatly reassuring to the troopers, despite themselves.

---

“Kneel down. I will need your help,” the woman in white said before him. There was a decagon on her head, and a quiet pride filled her eyes as she met him.

The chocolate-skinned trooper hurriedly knelt down, still as tall as her as the silvered waters ran about them. Currents of stars were circling through it, and more and more psions were coming into the place, sitting down in the shallow waters at the edges, and adopting meditative poses. Behind them, other, more martial characters were doing the same, placing their hands on the backs of the psions. Stars began to sparkle in the waters, and flow away from them.

“Place your hand upon mine. You will accompany me in this effort,” she told him, placing her small hand upon his closely-shaven, scarred head. His big hand slowly came over hers as his dark eyes studied her carefully. “We will be scanning for the pathogens, poisons, and lethal surprises the drow have left inside you. I will need you to be directing the defenses of your body against them, as if we ply psionic energy directly upon them, we will probably trigger them all, and you, and possibly many others of us, will die right here.” Her calm brown eyes stayed with his. “You are going to battle inside your body. We will give you the power to win this fight. Are you ready?”

He nodded grimly. She closed her eyes, and the quicksilver waters around him flared with starlight, and he felt the power upon her hand, streaming down into his head, and his vision plunged down after her.

The first spike of nano-poison in his cortex was found almost instantly. The neurons in his own brain were charged up with psychic lightning as his own suborned nanite disinfectors were purged, rebooted, and supercharged to the attack at his command...

---

Captain Donnal watched the eighty-three surviving Legionnaires all lighting up with starfire, and the many psions guiding the efforts within them as five hundred more psions and their Nulls provided immense amounts of raw power to the Pool. He saw a long, slender worm-like thing get forced out of one trooper’s ear, fall writhing into the Pool, and instantly get burned away in starlight...