It was a squalid day, even by the standards of weather on Akami. Rain poured down like bullets, pattering uselessly against the ground. While useless, they set the stage for the drama about to occur.

It was a city block, broken windows and overturned cars, smashed buildings and skeletons still stood, frozen, morbid memorials of what the denizens of Akami had been doing at the Overlap, the beginning of the Planar War. The most important building, however, was a huge, broken skyscraper, its windows borded up and its doors barricaded. As lifeless as the structure seemed, it teemed with human life. After all, it was the Omega Base, the main nerve center for the human Military, the specialised Blood Angel forces, and of course, the enigmatic Black Sun Acolytes. From here, the humans defended Haven, one of the last human cities from the Outsiders.

The building was pockmarked, of course, from repeated attempts by the Spherelords, the lords of the Outsiders, and their armies, trying to get past it to destroy Haven. Scorch marks were left from the violent attempts of Barbarus and his Orx. Long, jagged cracks were the remains of Alleria, and her Fae. The building was a testament to human ingenuity and survival.

All this was observed by a new quartet of inhuman eyes. The watcher observed the buildings and felt the human life-signs within with cold, dispassionate interest. This creature was fairly new to the Spherelords, but by far, one of the most cunning, his youth and ingenuity benefiting the new lord, while his brothers fell into set patterns, enforced by old age.

The new Spherelord's name was Legion, or as his servants called him, Father Legion. He was tall, gaunt and huamnoid, but wreathed in black, insectoid carapace. His human resemblance, however, ended waist-down. A huge spider abdomen stretched behind him, balancing the unsettling synthesis of man and arachnid on eight, long razor sharp legs. From his stomach area, there was a huge, gaping hole, which spewed out constant streams of cancer maggots, small, black, squirming entities that looked like squirming, disembodied spinal collums. These were the smallest, and most numerous of his children.

father Legion watched the building. His first duty, given to him by the current leader of the Akami Spherelords, Maelstrom, was to destroy this human base. It had been a thorn in the side of the invading Outsiders for too long, and many of the powers of the Outside wanted this building gone. Legion was happy to oblige them, proving his power.

Legion stood among his minions on a hill, towering over one of the smaller human towns. The town was now empty of human life-forms. His sweet children, the Cancer Maggots buried into the flesh of lesser beings from this plane, and transformed their bodies, consuming their souls, and making them sweet, beautiful warriors of Legion. Even now, Legion smiled with love as his children surrounded him. They chittered, great, tall gaunt figures of chitin and malice, all former villagers. They had good bodies, and had made fine Legionnaires, but they had too many children, which served mainly as food for the main swarm. Legion smiled. The Legionnaires swarmed around him, their black, chitinous mouthparts permanently oozing trails of drool. As he looked, he wondered, 'How can humans be so close minded that they would not want to become this. Become perfect and complete. Why do they still resist us, even though they know it is futile?' Legion dwelt on this thought awhile, and put it aside to irrationality. Humans were remarkably irrational in all matters, slaves to their volatile emotions, and unable to move beyond. Even the warriors of the Black Sun merely touched on the perfection of Outsiderhood, but none truly appratiated the perfection of Legion's state.

Legion saw no reason to wait any longer. He gathered his horde and sent them charging down the hill. They sluiced around him, exoskeletal feet thudding against the ground, surrounded by a crushing wave of Cancer Maggots, forming an unyielding wave of chitin and flesh the crashed topward the human base. The Legionnaires had no illusions about their vulnerability. Each one could not match a well-armed human in combat. Their power came from their unyielding numbers. each one knew that there were millions more waiting, and that each one of them was completely expendable. The only Legionnaire that was not expendable was the Father himself, and they threw themselves forth out of sheer love for him. That, and the crushing psychic domination he held over their minds.

Legion monitered the thoughts of his children and felt an instant of appreciation. They did this all for him. he looked once more at the building. Humans had begun to swarm out, their hateful weapons tearing into his children with pulse fire. Thousands fell before them, but millions followed. Eventually, one of the humans had to reload, and at that moment, the Legionnaires fell on his, dissassembling his ennefiecient organic parts with pincers made of chiting, and poison sacs filled with acid. The remaining soldiers had a moment of weakness, watching their comrade fall beneath the wave of claws and fangs. At that moment, the Cancer Maggots struck, forcing themselves into the human's screaming mouths, blood flowing like water from their orifices, before each was consumed in demoniac fire, transforming them into Legionnaires.

legion felt elated as he strode forward through his minions. He laughed at the paltry human resistance, that actually thought they were doing wel just because they massacred thousands of his children. Legion smiled. He had millions to spare, and an infinity waiting in his home sphere, The Black. Their lives were expendable. He felt beautiful as he felt the souls of his enemies obliterated, sucked down into oblivion, replaced by dutifull, loving children.

His army had flowed into the building, and legion strode in at his leisure. The front entrance's glass doors were thrown open, and were littered with easily twenty human soldier corpses. Of course millions of legionnaires had died as well, but their corpses evaporated back into the Black when they died. He stalked up the stairs, already tasting the favour of Maelstrom as he felt the humans die in scores. Though they were better fighters, the Legion overwhelmed tham with sheer numbers. Legion himself was almost livid, as he selected a body at random. His hard, exoskeletal claws ripped their skulls open, and, without shame or disgust, he plunged his jaws into the brains, and began ripping, tearing and eating. Knowledge that the men knew in life flowed intop Legion's brain, and in turn, into the brains of his children. 'Quickly, my dear ones,' Legion thought. 'Cut off their escape. We shal feast well here tonight!' A chorus of telepathic roars and howls of pleasure filtered through from all his spawn, and the massive Outsider slowly ambled into the lobby as the massacre continued.

***

Three hours later, the battle was won. The remaining humans had retreated to Haven, and set up their defences there for the inevitable invasion by the earthbound Outsiders. Still, it mattered not. The building was covered in black protoplasm, resembling a huge spider web. Legionnaires crawled about the new hive that ran millions of feet in the ground. Millions of Legionnaires had replaced the ones that had fallen, raised from the infested bodies of the soldiers. In the very center of the hive, a vat of reality acid had purposely spilled its contents and pooled, eating through the ether of Akami into the Black, a shimmering, oily black portal that hundreds of Legionnaires, called from Legion's home sphere marched through. Soon, Maelstrom would reward Legion and his spawn for this success, and, for succeding where the other, elder Spherelords had failed, would probably be awarded the honour of leading the charge into battle.

Deep in the Black, sitting in a mighty throne of black protoplasmic webbing, father Legion smiled, His minions marched through the new portal and all things were going as planned. He entertained himself with some private thoughts as he watched his army pouring through to Akami

'Ultimately, one thing humans must learn is, nothing is quite as important as having a loving family at your back.'

His laughter echoed into the great, dark void of the Black and Akami's sphere seemed, just slightly, to shudder