He started sending on some of my tactical data that he could reasonably be assumed to have witnessed, and the Warped forces were quick to take advantage of it, although there was no way they could match his speed or progress.

Which was perfectly cool, he was getting more high-Karma combat against truly awesome combatants than you could shake a stick at, and they just kept coming.

That was fine, he just kept pounding. They were all just Nails.

His path took him up, over, under, and around, and he wasn’t worried about being encircled, because he just kept moving. If he stopped, sure, he might be in trouble. But he just kept going through, on and on, and the undead Legionnaires and elite necroborgaii simply couldn’t handle him.

So doing, he ravaged the back lines of the undead Legionnaires, crippling their formations and their reserves, and the Warped capitalized on it, demons and Fallen Legionnaires sweeping forwards in an unceasing flood, hungry for the kill, the glory of reaching the Emperor, and killing Him at long last!

This Lawbreaker who was showing up all the Princes annoyed them all, but they could not help but take advantage of his cunning and incredible power in their drive forwards. He was raging and ravaging across the careful fortifications of the Imperial Throne, bringing down walls, buildings, everything, with unseemly haste and power on the blasphemous minions of the Undead Thing on the throne. They had all come across the mangled remains of droves of Fallen Legionnaires, their armor mangled, the corpses within burnt and crushed, while fixed-guns emplacements had been torn apart, Golems cracked open, vehicles overturned and blown open, and many, many more similar things.

Such terrifying skill, power, and purpose was enough to impress even the Sons of the Emperor, and they all privately came to the agreement that the Lawbreaker would have to die quickly once his purpose was served. With every Golem found broken and crushed, and every brutally mangled Champion and Commander flattened and discarded, their disquiet grew as they wondered who this Lawbreaker truly was, and what could drive him to such extremes of power.

But then there was still a lot of shooting to be done, and they got back to the task of obliterating all between them and the Hall of the Emperor.

-------

Briggs was standing there waiting when they finally arrived at the massive plaza.

Their advanced forces had engaged in frenzied combat with these dead remnants of their ancestral enemies, a weird combination of hate for them not following the Demon Princes and overthrowing the Emperor, and mockery for what their corpse of an Emperor had done to them in return for their loyalty.

Demons and battlemad fanatics cleared the chaff to the flanks as the Demon Princes strode forwards, led by the Prince of the Wyrm, bearing the ancient burning sword that the Emperor had given to him as the Warlord of the Empire of Humanity, clutched in a gauntlet of living steel.

The Lawbreaker was there ahead of them, standing before the golden, carven doors bearing the image and seals of the Emperor of all humanity. Mighty Golems lay wrecked and sparking around him, Sarcophagi breached, necroic fires sputtering and leaking out, hissing upon polished stone that had seen millennia of supplicants to the Emperor, and were now blasted, cratered, and strewn with the remains and unnatural innards of armored carcasses and machinery crushed, cracked, mangled, and hewed by almighty blows that had flung them about like toys.

Despite themselves, the Princes drew up behind the Lawbreaker and his burning Hammer, looking, as he was, at the mighty field of protective energy barring their path from the throne room.

It was solid enough to take direct artillery fire without flinching. They would have to move up multiple cannons or tanks to actually start shaking it, or call in bombardments through the greater dome of the shields of the island that had not fallen yet.

“What are you waiting for, Lawbreaker?” the Prince of the Shark demanded, stepping forward with his great toothed power axe ready for use.

The scorched and blasted arcs of the helmet turned back slightly at the words. “I am waiting for the Thronebreaker.”

His metallic words echoed with grim power, checking even the Princes. They found him unreadable, time burning about him, infinite possibilities in every second, impossible to predict or look deeper into.

It was a disquieting feeling, realizing that the Powers that backed them had other Champions they did not know of...

“Who is the Thronebreaker?” the Tantor Prince demanded immediately. He was the most defensive-minded of the Princes, his armor the bulkiest and strongest. They were all massive Legionnaires, the templates for all others, but the armor they wore were Mek-suits, and the Tantor’s was closer to a Walker or a Golem in mass and power.

“She is the one who opened the gates,” was the grating reply, shocking them all. “She is the one who dismantled the two hundred and fourteen buried fusion bombs on your path of advance. She is the one who destroyed the Interdiction generators that allow the demons to fight and replenish their numbers.

“She is the one who broke the Crystal Throne.”

There were creaks as fists tightened on mighty weapons at the level, blunt words. She... a woman, a female, had destroyed the Crystal Throne?! It was unthinkable!...

“Ah.” The overwrought helm turned back, and the Lawbreaker raised his Hammer, brought the butt of it down on those polished marble steps, driving a new hole into them with an oddly sonorous ring.

The field in front of them warbled, writhed, and crackled. With a rush of wind and snarl of lightnings depleted, the mighty field of energy winked out, as something seemed to tremble far below them.

“Your brothers and father await, Princes,” the grating voice continued, and the Lawbreaker strode forwards, towards the suddenly dimmer façade of the great portals.

The Princes looked at one another, and could only follow him up.

-----

Grimly amused at the situation, Briggs strode forward, and snapped Beat forwards, barely a flick of his wrist, there and back in a flicker of motion. The aurilite-clad doors rang like a bell, and, marvelously balanced, gaped smoothly open at the force of his blow.

Wide as a cathedral, a thousand meters long, the great Hall of the Emperor opened up before them.

Once, it could have held all the nobles of the Empire; its ruling elite, military masters, wealthiest merchants, rows of Mentats and bureaucrats, Coronals and Umbrans, and Commanders of Legion Battalions.

Now, it was empty, save for six figures burning black and green necroic fire ahead of them, and another, its head circled by a floating black halo burning with flames far darker than any born of the Warp, armored in gold, crystal bones glowing with blackness in the marrow.

They waited at the far end, past the flawless red carpet, woven of one long piece and unmarked by the ages, the same carpet that had once greeted them when they strode this place before their Fall. Despite themselves, the Princes looked around, knowing the places where snipers and guards might be hiding... and saw only the same ornamentation, the same statues and carvings, paintings and frescoes, that had adorned this place when last they set foot here.

They even saw themselves, before they had turned upon their father and emperor...

Struck by the power and utter lack of change, they paused behind him, and Briggs strode ahead, ignoring them and their fascination, and instinctive fear of what waited them ahead.

Turned half-demons, former Ex-Lite humans, they were still facing off against their sire and architect of their bloodlines, and they had seen His utter ruthlessness. They had thought themselves wicked and willing to do anything for their desires, only to find that once again the Emperor had schooled them all in what it meant to take and to hold forever.

And then, of course, there were their undead brothers of the Lions, Bulls, Hounds, Panthers, Serpents, and Falcons, clad once again in undead mockeries of their ancient armor, burning with the fires of death in the cracks and seams of the metal, waiting for them.

But not for him. Briggs kept his smile to himself.

The tiniest of movements indicated their surprise at his presence. Clearly they had only expected the Princes to dare to confront the Emperor. At this range, no lesser Legionnaire could possibly resist the Will of the Emperor, nor any cyborg, and demons would be sent screaming with a thought.

For all the golden light and carved marble and polished art, the air was cold and dank and felt of death.

Briggs stopped fifty yards away, smirking to himself as he saw the two-story height of the new Throne, covering over the gaping hole of the last one. It was probably the original seat there on the top, recovered from the rubble of the old, but he could feel the emptiness beneath... while this Throne probably was connected to the systems of the Palace, it was largely empty down below, designed to cover and seal the hole.

The psionic glow of the Throne’s base was just for show. It couldn’t fool him, and it couldn’t fool the Princes striding up behind him, and spreading to either side, unwilling to let him stand before them.

They were about to step in front of him when Beat pulsed, and they stopped despite themselves, turning furious eyes from the object of their hatred to this outsider in their midst.

“She’s coming,” he said, and there was a massive crack as the Throne of the Emperor lurched once again.

The motionless armored skeleton burst into motion with shocking speed as His seat of power once again tilted and fell away, scraping and grinding as dust and stone cracked and crumbled. With a roar, it fell away into the abyss below once again as the figure in golden armor leapt clear, and the great hole in the throne room of the Emperor glowed with burning, harsh unwhite light hostile to undead and Warped alike.

Rockets roared as Briggs flexed his knees and bounced. With speed and grace in the middle of all this, he bounded high into the air, well over top of the crouching, unsteady armored figures below, descending smoothly down onto the far side of that hole.

He hit the ground, and the accessorized disguises to his armor slewed off. The reddish copper of the orichalcum gleamed underneath the white, gold, and blue of his colors, while the outlandish spikes and overdone pauldrons and the like disintegrated. Beat began to thrum in a regular rhythm as vivic fire lit up around it, and truly ominous power congealed around it, making even the eyes of the Demon Princes wince to look upon the holy light there.

“The Corunsun Pretender!” spat out the Wolf Prince, his fanged mace dripping reality-bleeding energies about it. The man who had conquered three-quarters of the Empire had been right in front of them, and even led them here!

At the same time, their hackles rose. The combat prowess he had displayed had been no joke whatsoever. It was safe to say that in this advance into the Palace, there was no single entity that had killed the number of enemies that he had. They had all seen the relayed videos of him in action, and this was no distant king seated on a throne, waving others into battle for him, or moving pieces about on some strategy board...