The meteor which birthed the Blood Bull, and the Bull's subsequent campaign of slaughter, went relatively unnoticed through the wider world. Eyes would not drift to the new Chaos Champion and the growing warband of Khornate mamono (and even a human hero or two) that joined as the Blood Bull's campaign of slaughter progressed. Not until the Bull had been rampaging for weeks.
Because the Khornate escape pod which freed Taurica from the Demon Lord's chains of corruption was the second such pod to land on the world that was once part of a popular Aeldari tourism chain of resort planets.
And the first had already made quite the splash.
---
DOOM. DOOM. DOOM, rang the bells attached to the two Plague Doctors' carapaces.
"It's been quite a while we've been walking, hasn't it, brother?" Brother Bubonitrox said cheerfully, as the very sound of his armor's bells ringing made the plantlife around him wither and die.
"Why, yes it has, brother," Brother Arsenicus agreed merrily, his bloated, rotting innards letting out a burst of toxic gas through his rectum so potently vile that it broke through his armor's decayed seals to kill everything behind him, reducing already brown and rotting greenery to dust.
"Do you think this planet is uninhabited?" Bubonitrox asked. "Since we've had so little luck finding people?"
"Have faith, brother, have faith!" Arsenicus said with a merry chuckle. "Grandfather provides!"
As he spoke, another bird made the mistake of coming too close, and some of the chuckling Plague Doctor's foul-smelling, molasses-like saliva droplets landed in the poor bird's eye. It began to desperately fly away as fast as possible, unknowingly carrying the diseases of Nurgle along with it to the wider world, as so many birds had before it.
"I suppose that that's true enough, brother," Bubonitrox agreed. "Nurgle provides." Then, he stopped. "Why, brother, do you hear what I hear?"
Arsenicus stopped, straining his ears. Then he heard it. A distant burbling. "Water source?"
"Water source," Bubonitrox confirmed.
"Water source!" both Plague Marines chorused in joyous unison.
"First one there gets to befoul it with their bodily fluids!" Arsenicus cheered, charging towards the sound of water.
"Oh, no fair, brother!" Bubonitrox complained, also taking off at a run. "You got a head start!"
"All's fair in plague and war, brother!" Arsenicus called behind him, as he pushed through the trees and branches ahead of him to find.
A voluptuous woman comprised of slime. Which was making the burbling sound.
"Ugh, false alarm!" Arsenicus called back. "Just some sort of weird xeno!"
"Really?" Bubonitrox asked, bursting through the trees to check that his brother wasn't just trying to trick him. "So it is. Ugh. Disappointing. I was rather hoping to contribute to another big infection vector."
"We'll get 'em next time, brother, don't worry," Arsenicus said, patting his brother on the shoulder. "Remember, Grandfather provides."
Meanwhile, the slime mamono had been trying to figure out how to have sex with the two giants before it. Metaphorically shrugging, it leapt up onto Arsenicus and began trying to commence semen extraction, as was its' species' wont.
"Aw, look!" Bubonitrox said cheerfully, pointing to the liquid lifeform attempting to hump his brother's filth-encrusted, heavily radioactive codpiece. "It's trying to get Grandfather's gifts for itself! Don't worry, little xeno, Grandfather tells us that it's always nice to share, even with disgusting subhuman filth like you! Because Grandpa Nurgle loves everyone equally!"
"Why, I'm happy to help you!" Arsenicus agreed, unlatching and pulling off his helmet to peer down at the liquid lifeform trying to worm its way under his armor. "Here little guy, open wide!"
And then he opened his own jaws wide and retched out a stream of faintly glowing vomit onto the slime.
"I'm pretty sure that one's female, actually," Bubonitrox said contemplatively, hand on his helmet's chin.
"Really?" Arsenicus asked, refastening his helmet.
Pain, pain, pain! The slime was in pain! The filth on the man's armor had first made her feel sick, but the vomit made her feel pain!
"It's quite obvious," Bubonitrox said. "You really mean to tell me that you couldn't tell?"
"Eh, mortals mostly look the same to me, and the same goes for xenos," Arsenicus admitted. "Like, I have no idea how they can tell each other's genders apart reliably enough to regularly reproduce. Part of me thinks that they have no idea either and they're just flipping a coin every time they try to talk another member of the species into reproducing with them."
Unclean, defiled, it was spreading, diffusing, corrupting her! PAIN!
"It's the chest, brother," Bubonitrox said, hand on his face. "The chest. Females tend to have very pronounced chests."
"Are you sure?" Arsenicus said doubtfully. "She could just be Slaaneshi. Slaaneshis tend to have a lot of pectoral fat, too."
PAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN!
"The Slaaneshis have those mutations because it's a common sexually dimorphic trait," Bubonitrox said, annoyance actually starting to overcome his typical Nurglish cheer. "They're all about experiencing all kinds of sensation, so Slaanesh frequently gifts them the ability to experience both male and female sexual pleasure."
"Oh, so that's where they get it from," Arsenicus said thoughtfully. "I thought it was just them being weird, as usual. Huh. I guess you learn something new every century, huh?"
Let the agony stop! Let it stop, let it stop, let it stop, please!
"You really didn't know?" Bubonitrox asked incredulously. "You're not just pulling my leg, here?"
"Really, I didn't know!" Arsenicus said defensively. "Bear in mind, it's been quite some time since I saw humans that weren't plagued into unrecognizability or running away from me as fast as their legs could carry them."
And Nurgle gave her peace.
"The last platoon of Guardsmen we killed was from an all-female regiment," Bubonitrox said. "And you seriously didn't notice?"
"Oh, really?" Arsenicus said. "I did notice that they were pretty out-of-shape. I suppose that'd explain it."
She loved the Fly Lord. She would serve Grandfather with all her being.
"The- The hell do you mean they were out of shape!" Bubonitrox said incredulously. "They didn't seem all that out-of-shape to me when they were sprinting towards us through a hail of bolter fire and air that was literally melting their skin to stab us with those bayonets of theirs.
"But their chests were all fat," Arsenicus noted.
She slithered away, her body congealed by Grandfather's blessings into a slow-flowing puddle of filth and disease, to share the Fly Lord's blessings with all.
"Their chests were supposed to be fat! They were female!" Bubonitrox said. "That didn't make them out of shape!"
"Really?" Arsenicus said. "Wow. What strange and marvelous creatures. We should vivisect the next one we find, to better understand them!"
"Well, I don't see why not," Bubonitrox said congenially. "Oh, we lost your little slimy friend."
"What? No! I was hoping to keep it as a pet!" Arsenicus said, sobbing out tar-like tears so riddled with toxins and diseases that they could probably instantaneously kill a Guardsman on contact.
"Chin up, brother," Bubonitrox said, patting Arsenicus on the shoulder. "We'll keep the next one we run into instead."
"Okay," Arsenicus said. "I just hope the little guy is okay out there."
---
"Don't underestimate the slimes, rookie!" Chuck the Paladin warned his underling. "They may just be starter mob trash, but once they jump onto you, they won't rest until they've defiled your chastity by ruthlessly extracting your vital fluids!"
"Yessir!" Rory the Thief (his class title, he'd never actually stolen a thing in his life) said. "Um, what do they look like?"
"Like glowing blue transparent women of ridiculously jiggly proportions!" Chuck the Paladin said. "And always remember, rookie, that even if they seem like attractive women, they are abominations unto the Chief Goddess, eternal enemies of all humankind! No matter how much you may want to just… just throw them down and have your way with the infernal trollops, you must stay strong and RESIST! Such thoughts are the Demon Lord's vile, heretical corruption that creeps through your mind and you can't stop thinking about it, even if you know that they're wrong, and- Goddammit, where did I put my whip, I need to get the bad thoughts out again!"
"So, they don't look like congealed puddles of filth and disease, then," Rory the thief said.
"No, don't be ridiculous, rookie," Chuck the Paladin said. "All monsters are attractive, female, diabolical strumpets from hell, whose supple, ample forms taunt you late into the night, no matter how hard you whip yourself to try and get them out of your brain, but you have to keep whipping yourself, because you're a hero, you need to be strong, and kill them, kill them all so they'll stop tormenting your sleepless fantasies, and-"
"Um, so if all monsters are sexy women, why is there a puddle of congealed filth and disease sneaking up on you?" Rory the Thief asked.
"Why is there a wh-" Chuck the Paladin started as he turned around, only for the world's first Chaos Slime of Nurgle to leap at his helmetless head. "AGGGGHHH! IT'S MELTING MY FACE! IT'S MELTING MY FACE! HELP ME, ROOKIE! HELP MEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
---
"I'm sure she'll be fine," Bubonitrox reassured his anxious brother. "After all, she's got Grandfather on her side, doesn't she?"