The recently promoted Black Templar lieutenant had taken a batch of raw recruits and seasoned Astartes to conduct exercise drills on Bellus IV, one of the many hazardous planets their Crusade Fleet passed by during their flight towards new key targets. Suddenly their Auspex Scanners picked up strange readings and the squads proceeded carefully to investigate. They sighted the vibrant colors of their fallen brothers, the Thousand Sons, performing strange rituals.

Believing offense to be the best defense, the lieutenant ordered his battle brothers to charge and without question they heeded the order and stormed towards the heretics. However, it wasn’t until now the lieutenant realized that the famed sorcerer Ahriman was leading this thrallband. Like mindless ghosts, the Rubric marines formed lines awaiting the oncoming Astartes without a sound.

When the brave Templars got closer, the air was filled with a green inferno that rose like a wall in front of the Rubric marines to roast the disciples of the False Emperor in horrifying warp flame. Many Astartes fell, their armor unable to resist the warp infused flames, mostly the neophyte recruits. The veterans however managed to run through literal hell and engage the heretics. They turned out to be a most tenacious foe and no matter how hard the blow or precise the cut, the dust filled suits refused to give an inch. The templars uncomfortably close to the sorcerers’ tastes and they weaved spell after spell to slay their foe. But the templars mental fortitude was unlike anything the sorcerers had encountered before and they felt constant distractions in the warp.

Even Ahriman himself struggled to summon even the most basic of harmful warp energy. Through the thick of the fighting, the lieutenant saw his opportunity to end the engagement quickly by cutting off the head of the opposition and leapt towards Ahriman himself who tried to observe the battlefield from a higher vantage point. The lieutenant fought ferociously, like the Emperors’ strength flowed through him and managed to wound Ahriman to the point that he decided to flee. Whatever he was doing here, wasn’t probably for the interest of the Imperium and one could say a victory had already been won.

Bolstered by their leaders’ brave display, the Templars fought even harder, their mental training forcing the Aspiring Sorcerers to overexert their abilities and push their limits in navigating the warp. They couldn’t control the awesome power of the Warp within themselves and succumbed in a violent fashion to its’ energies. Despite denying the Thousand Sons their most potent weapon, the Templars started tiring, as the Rubrics seemed impossible to slay. Suddenly, a spawn of Chaos appeared from nowhere and leapt at the lieutenant and killed him with ferocious, unstoppable attacks. It as Ahrimans’ final gift to the fools who disrupted his search for secrets. The spawn wasted not a second after slaying the Templars leader and continued his rampage until every Templar soldier was dead. The Rubrics left the area silently, surely being called by other nearby Sorcerers to bolster their own thrallbands ranks.