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The original was posted on /r/40klore by /u/Woodstovia on 2023-10-06 02:10:56.
Afilai serves in Lucius' warband. A Chemosi born veteran of the Great Crusade he wanted nothing more than to become a terminator and then a member of Fulgrim's Phoenix Guard but wasn't deemed good enough for it. So during the Scouring he hung back during battles and murdered the brothers that lagged behind or got injured and took their armour, crafting an abomination of terminator armour with a machine spirit that hates him for murdering it's former owners.
He serves as the personal bodyguard of Lucius' sorcerer/navigator The Composer and instead of serving in battle with Lucius he just hangs around the ship not doing much. But when Lucius is kidnapped and the Dark Eldar board the ship he goes to face the boarding party alone. When he sees a bunch of Daemonettes have killed them he wipes out a whole room of Daemonettes and checks that the command room is okay he sees it's full of Daemons.
Complicated story cut short - the commander of Lucius' ship is a Daemon wearing the skin of a human child who refuses to go back to Slaanesh's realm. It's able to do this because Lucius protects it and it has sworn an oath to serve Lucius, but with Lucius now off the ship a bunch of Daemons have come to take her back, led by a Keeper of Secrets who has pledged to take her back to Slaanesh.
So Afilai enters the command bridge, sees a fucking Keeper of Secrets and with 0 hesitation lights it up with his bolter:
‘I am known by a great many names,’ the daemon whispered with six voices. ‘And as a great many things.’
Luminous raised its tentacles like a cluster of snakes, their barbed tips drawing close to caressing Clarion’s face but holding just shy of touching. ‘I am the promise of rain to one who dies of thirst. I am ambition, the hunger that moulds tyrants. I am the joyful secrets, and the one who holds the keys to unlock them.’
Luminous leaned down, drawing eyes like black diamonds level with the sharp gold of Clarion’s. ‘Here and now, in this place, I am a collector of things. A collector of you.
’‘I do not accept,’ Clarion answered flatly, choosing now to speak as the daemon spoke.
The daemon reared back, standing to its full towering height. ‘It is you, and not your acceptance that I seek, Lost One. The Scion of Chemos is flown from this place, and his protection with him. Promises have been made. You are to return with us to the Shining Palace. This I have promised, and this I will do.’
‘And you believe he will stand idle and allow your doing this?’ Clarion’s eyes narrowed. ‘He and the Ones he serves?’
‘You overestimate his favour,’ replied the daemon. ‘His pact with you is to be endured when it must, but the Soulthief’s protection does not extend across the blood- and- bone place of mortals, nor even all of the Realm of Birth. It is far from inviolate.’
Iron screamed as Luminous ripped its sword free, the silver blade throbbing with squirming multicoloured runes. It levelled the blade at Clarion, resting its tip at the centre of the child’s forehead. A thin trickle of black blood slipped down to drip onto the throne from the end of her nose.
‘Strip yourself of the flesh you hide within, or I shall take the great pleasure of stripping it from you.’
The doors to the bridge ground open. A warrior in rent Terminator armour stomped onto the command deck, draped in the smouldering gore of butchered daemonkind. The ectoplasm fizzed and popped as it burned away from the pulsing warding runes that covered the armour’s plates.
Without a word, Afilai raised the massive cannon in his fist, and opened fire.
Luminous writhed in pleasure- pain as bolts stitched and exploded over its body. The shells blew fist- sized craters in its pale silken flesh, spraying gouts of sickly- sweet foulness over the bridge. The daemon brayed in a hircine bellow that rattled the walls, and stalked around Clarion’s throne towards Afilai. The Terminator spread his stance wide as he fired upon the advancing daemon. A rune flashed insistently on his visor, the Chemosian character meaning starved. A moment later the crash of his combi- bolter ceased as the last shells in his magazine screamed from its twin barrels.
Afilai dropped the underslung box magazine from the boltgun. He reached down to crunch another home but a snarl of tentacles snapped taut around the weapon, tearing it from his grip.
‘Now, now, little flesh- thing,’ Luminous drawled. ‘That was a pleasing diversion, but this is not the time for play.’
The daemon swung its sword down in a blistering overhand strike. Afilai caught the blade within his talons in a thunderclap of duelling energies that crackled and snapped as the weapons squealed against each other.
Luminous wrapped its tentacles around Afilai’s waist, jerking him forwards into the air and impaling him upon its talon- like claw. Afilai bellowed in pain and anger. He reached out with his free hand, seizing hold of the daemon’s lower jaw. He roared and pulled down with all his might, tearing it from the monster’s face.
An orchestral howl tore from Luminous’savaged maw. The daemon’s grip upon Afilai relaxed a fraction, enough for him to shove himself off the talon and stagger back a step. Only the armour’s comprehensive stabilisers kept him from sinking to his knees, as blood and poison spilled out from the gaping wound in his side.
Afilai scrambled forwards, ignoring the lashing tentacles that tore into his helm as he charged. He smashed into Luminous and buried his electrified talons into the daemon’s flank. The wards on his war- plate blazed, and coils of burnt perfume rolled from the Neverborn’s hide.
A backhanded strike sent Afilai reeling back, his armour scraping and sparking. Luminous snapped down with its pincer claw, seeking to crush the Terminator from collar to hip. Armour integrity warnings wailed across Afilai’s retinas as blood flecked the inside of his helm.
Starbursts of cold agony ripped across Afilai as both he and the daemon were engulfed in a gale of silver lightning. The combatants were forced apart, wilting under the etheric barrage. Afilai screamed, and through the incredible pain he felt the presence of the one casting the attack. Expressions of psychic power were as unique to each psyker as a fingerprint, and the Terminator smiled with broken teeth as he recognised the essence of his master wracking his body with torment.
‘Away, servant of the True God,’ bellowed the Composer as he advanced onto the bridge, lightning coruscating from his splayed fingers. ‘These lives are not yours to take.’
The composer shoos the Daemons away but I found it impressive how brave Afilai was considering he's just this random side character who has done nothing but stand beside The Composer throughout the book.