Xepherial felt his body lifted and placed onto a table, an altar, or maybe it was a grave. The pain of his wracked and burned insides no longer seemed as intense, as if it no longer mattered and meant nothing. Despite the disorientation, he knew, or he was vaguely aware, that he was surrounded by enemies who would assure his demise. He could hear them but couldn't make out their words. All Xepherial knew was that hope had run out. It was over, and he was shutting down.

It was then that his wound was opened and the surgeon began his work. Pain flickered alive briefly once more, but again, it didn't matter and garnered no reaction. Xepherial was a defenseless corpse teetering on the brink of salvage, daring the dark apothecary to ply his skill. Azazel worked quickly with razor sharp focus and heretical alacrity, like any fresh warrior taking to the battlefield. Bleeding was stopped, shrapnel removed, seared flesh cut away. Stimulants and stabilizing drugs seized hold of Xepherial's vitals, refusing them permission to drop any further. Vessels were stitched closed and organs reconnected to their blood supplies, and soon... the god-emperor forsaken marine was forced back to consciousness. Death had been denied. 

Xeph's eyes cracked open to see the form of Azazel, his red-clad students at his side, withdrawing a blood-covered narthecium as he took note of Xepherial's awakening. He was like a giant, red, demonic bird crossed with an apothecary. The look on the space marine's face was interesting as he began to lift his head. Shock, denial, pain, and perhaps gratitude? The conflict was amusing. 

"No.." Xepherial irked out, yet he could not deny that every cell in his body was greatful. He hated Azazel, and yet at the same time, didn't want him to stop. The 'benevolent' emissary of chaos had restored his life, painfully and mercilessly, but now that debt could not be denied. Innate human instinct cried out for survival like it would for any base animal, fighting Xepherial's moral directive to kill this heretic!

Before he could protest any further, emotionally or physically, the decision was made for him, and Xepherial was silenced by a needle to the neck. His muscles almost instantly went slack, a better restraint than any physical force. Resisting the chemicals in his blood was utterly impossible, yet the space marine keep trying. This, he found, was where the real pain began. Xepherial's mental scream would have deafened an astropath, music to a neverborn's ears. He felt everything Azazel did to him, bones fracturing, muscle being torn off its attachments and relocated, the grinding, the fusion of cold, cruel implants to his unwilling flesh. Rage traded back and forth with agony and blurring denial in his mind, and for the first time in the space marine's life since his long forgotten childhood, Xepherial felt fear. He felt terror, and to have been forced to know that one emotion as a space marine was to be broken. 

The look on the paralyzed once-Dark Angel's face was a horror to behold, spurring his barest allies into action. Another needle finally ended Xepherial's suffering, allowing him to fall into neutral blackness and quasi-oblivion.