The battle raged through the command deck.
No restraint.
No mercy.
Only.
Pure.
Unadulterated.
Violence.

Castiel had the lead charge in slaying the first guardsmen she came across. They were of little challenge. Even the cultists, which hurled themselves past her, expended more effort clawing over one another to pounce on the enemies ranks than on murdering the few fools brave enough to step in their path.
With all manner of rending blades, they hacked and cleaved, bit and snarled, ripping through their foes without a second thought. Castiel did nothing to organize their number. These brutes seemed to be at their best, when nothing held their rage in check.

Practiced footwork carried her over the carnage littering the floor as she the quickly carved a path through the bloodshed, rounding a corner into a corridor junction where a handful of armsmen huddled in defensive formation around a cogitator. They were already embroiled in conflict with another boarding party from the Unrepetant. More importantly, they were too preoccupied to notice her approach. With a grim determination set in her stride and a few thrusts from her wings, the fallen sister dropped on them with her fell blade, dispatching them with haste as the friendly fire from the boarding party's volley ricocheted off of her power armour.
She pried the weapons away from the armsmen's rigid grip and tossed them at two of her fellow insurgents, once their salvo subsided. With a smug grin, they caught the guns and ran off through a demolished office to regroup with their team who wasted little time in moving to the next skirmish.

"It has to be around here somewhere." She grumbled impatiently.

At last she came to a jagged hallway. Red splotches and black scorch marks marred the walls. Gored bodies lay strewn along her path, resting in pools of still-warm blood. She floated nimbly over the gore, wings aloft, only to be spotted by two armsmen with shotguns. They fired without hesitation, but the shots fell short of Castiel, who stood unperturbed at the end of the corridor. [i]"They must have set up a choke point."[/i]

Behind them, was the entrance to an imperial shrine and a priest delivering an obnoxiously pious oratory. In one hand, he held a scroll of litanies and the other a chain sword. Castiel could feel her old wounds begining to burn as a familiar hatred rose to meet the fiery sensation. The world to fell away as her focus narrowed onto the priest, who should've been glad there was helmet preventing her cold, cruel glare from freezing him in place.

The growing tension set her jaw and gritted her teeth. It would be dangerous to advance on their barricade. Nearly forty meters of corridor, littered with limp corpses and slick with blood, were between Castiel and her prey. A thin haze coalesced around her, warping and twisting the very essence of her being. Her substance melted away and only an eerie astral likeness remained as she willed herself into the veil between the Materium and Immaterium. She rushed headlong towards the barricade. The ghostly visage of a horned flying demon charged at the armsmen full tilt. They fired wildly at the nightmarish spectre. Each spray of pellets from their shotguns bit into the walls and floor, but not into their intended target.

With unnerving silence, Castiel drew close. The fabric of reality wrapped around her, reinstantiated her corporeal form into existence. Her wings spread wide, the hate-filled sororitas fell upon the priest with her blade, all the weight of her diving charge into the power of her swing. Tighmaevril carved into the man's shoulder, ripping through his lightly armored vestments. The holy man groaned in pain, but recovered quickly. He stood firm as a grimace contorted his features. He had finally recognized the iconic power armor and sororitas trappings. 
"For one once held so high, the emperor weeps at how far you've fallen." He seemed to feel genuinely reviled at the thought of a traitor in his presence.

With a iron-set jaw, he dropped his scriptures, gripped his chain sword with both hands, and slash up through Castiel's guard. She took quick notice of the tactic. Although she was able to swat the ripsaw blade away with her shield, the priest's martial prowess was commendable, but nevertheless lacking in comparison. Castiel thrust at his midsection, the tip of her sword aiming for the sweet spot between the ribs where it could skewer the heart, but it caught cloth instead as the priest nimbly leaned aside.
The two exchanged blows one after another dancing back and forth to the rhythm of clashing metal. He was good, but not good enough. With each swing Tighmaevril cut deeper and deeper into the priest's body, bits of blood splattering to the floor and walls, while the priest's own weapon flailed helplessly against Castiel's tough armor. The two armsmen behind the combatants stood at the ready, waiting for an opening to fire a volley into the Sister's back, but they were overrun. The cultists she had inspired with hate finally stumbled onto the scene. At the sight of the mortal struggle, their bloodlust returned and they renewed their assault. The small horde crashed into the armsmen and slew them without hesitation.

Fatigue betrayed finally betrayed the priest's guarded stance. Castiel seized the opportunity. The first cut bit into his shoulder and cleaved through his chest, but the reverse swing sliced clean through his leg just above the knee. A torrent of red poured from the stump and pooled on the ground. The priest helplessly murmured a prayer to protect the passing of his soul as the fear of his own mortality extinguished the lights in his eyes. She stuck the tip of her blade through his ribs, tearing into his heart, then twisted. His bones snapped with a wicked crack. An old feeling of satisfaction swelled in Castiel's chest as drew her sword out of his corpse.

She gathered her calm and turned to the two junior priests, each wielding a mace inscribed with liturgies of hate, and each trembling with fear as they tried hold on to some measure of hope. The cultists, having already finished the wanton slaughter of the scattered ratings and armsmen, overwhelmed the clergymen before she could kill them herself. Pity. The remainder of the shrine's attendants were slain despite their incessant mewlings and screams of agony. Castiel spared no time in running her blade through each and every one of them in turn.

When at last the room was cleared, Castiel approached the massive golden idol of the god-emperor. Pews to either side were strangely clean despite the rampant bloodshed, the various sacrements and relics, too, seemed no worse for wear. At the foot of the decadent statue rested a large bejeweled sword. Intricate litanies wove a beautiful pattern down the length of the blade. She puzzled over the inscriptions.

"Curious item..."