Arco-Flagellant

An Arco-Flagellant is a specialized form of Servitor, created from an Imperial citizen condemned to the capital punishment of Arco-Flagellation. In battle, Arco-Flagellants are pumped full of a cocktail of stimms who transform them into frenzied whirlwinds of destruction utterly impervious to wounds, and unleashed on the enemy in a sucidal charge that causes a maximal amount of damage. They are used individually or in packs by Inquisitors of the Ordo Hereticus and the Sisters of Battle as sacrifiable terror shock troopers.

History
Arco-Flagellants are human beings condemned by the Imperial Justice to death, but whose crimes are not that severe that they are behind all hope of redemption. Such criminals will be put to a merciful death after a lengthy and extremely excruciating ritual of torture destined to purify their souls, so that they still may find peace alongside the Emperor in the afterlife. the sentence of Arco-Flagellation is such a procedure, altough it is only used on technologically advanced worlds of the Imperium due to the ressources it involves.

A penitent condemned to arco-flagellation will be handed over to the Adeptus Mechanicus, who will lobotomize him, replace both his arms with mighty weapons, most often a pair of heavy industrial shears or a pair of electroflails. They will then graft a whole battery of chemical injectors directly onto his spine, and install a helmet which contains a crude Mind Impulse Unit to control the cyborg.

As long as the helmet is active, the Arco-Flagellant remains dormant, what remains of his mind filled with hymns and holy icons of the Ecclesiarchy. He will only be able to shuffle around if ordered to, but will otherwhise remain immobile in a deadened bliss. Once dragged into battle, the helmet will be deactivated, and the injectors in the Arco-Flagellant's spine will start injecting their cocktail of drugs (often a volatile mix of Barrage, Frenzon, Slaught and Spur) into his body. This cocktail will decuple the flagellant strength, speed and stamina, and will plunge him in a uncontrollazble killing frenzy fuelled by the drugs and the terrible pain of his crude bionic grafts. the helmet will then only allow him to see any being not tagged by its master as friendly, and the flagellant will rush toward the nearest one and rend it to pieces, utterly uncaring of his own wounds or survival. He will continue doing so until he is either completely cut to pieces himself, or his body finally succumbs to the deadly mix of chemicals constantly injected into it to maintain his frenzy.

Arco-Flagellants are either detached individually to an Inquisitor who needs an unsubtle tool for a vital task (like the eradication of a heretic nest), or gathered in groups and unleashed upon the enemy in an orgy of slaughter that would put a Khornate Berzerker to shame. Althoug the Sisters of Battle readily use Arco-Flagellants, and rejoice in seeing criminals finding their redemption in death, they keep a wary distance from the creatures, and only use them when they are past considerations of collateral damage. To the Arco-Flagellants, any living being they can see is an enemy, and will kill it accordingly, be it a true opponent or an innocent bystander.