Ch.6: Blood & Guts

The Emperors lapdogs reacted quickly when the Daemonic defenders appeared, obliterating the Drones before the Daemon horde moved. Retribution was swift, the two emissaries of Khorne launching forward on wings a death bellowing triumphantly. The walking coffin became an actual one when the great axe of Khorne cleaved it apart, the resulting explosion causing the Bloodthirster to reel.

Despite the loss of a Leviathan Dreadnaught and a full squad of intercessors, the Exorcists stood firm. They are unleashed their fury and caused the winged beasts to be banished back to the hell they came from.

As the battle moved back and forth, the exorcists realised that the Daemons were up to something and in order to stop them they’d have to rush across the battlefield. No easy task with a hulking grinning monstrosity holding the centre.

Pustulence Slopdribble squealed with glee as he felt something slapped him on his rump, he finished rooting through the corpses of the marines he’d just squashed beneath his bulk to see an ornate looking marine with a glowing fist, clearly his intentions were to be sneaky, but they had failed. CLANG, CLANG, CLANG, the summoning bell echoed off the tough Astartes armour, but the mighty captain fell under the immense weight and the searing psychic onslaught.

With the Captain dead at his feet, pustulence aimed to distract his enemies, the ritual had to succeed or all would be lost. His failed lashed round and the banner fluttered to the ground, it’s pole shattered and its bearer crumpled on the floor.

The Exorcists were racing across the battlefield when there was an audible pop, the ritual was complete and they were too late, with many of their brothers and their captain lost, it was time to withdraw. The daemonic legions held the field, but it wasn’t an easy victory. Even so Pustulence grinned and would return to Sarcoma once again victorious.

Ch.6: The Lost & The Damned

Malachai the insane grunted in annoyance as he surveyed the hive infront of him. His vox link crackled into life

“ enemies approach kill on sight" 

On the horizon he could see the hulking silhouettes of kelnar the errant and silas the crusader. Enemues approached and began engaging the other knights. Malachai laughed as he now knew his trap was successful.

Gleaming bikes flew into the battle totally unaware Malachai was waiting. His conflagration cannon roared into life belching an inferno at them. Huge booms from silas rattled the city just as smoking craters were left by kelnar.

A massive concentrated barrage of enemy firepower hit malachai forcing him slightly backwards. The gleaming jetbikes charged at him causing heavy damage before he crushed them into nothing.

“leviathan drradnought approaching from the right destroy as priority"

Silas span round bringing his huge weapo s to bear on this new target. His battlecannon launched a devastating salvo at the leviathan crippling it. Kelnars thermal cannon roared as a ball of supercharged magma finished off the leviathan.

Suddenly a huge explosion lit up the sky and shook the ground with its ferocity. Silas and kelnar turned to see the blazing remains of Malachai. The smoking debris of his valiant had collapsed onto a building totally destroying it.

“enemy totally destroyed mission objectives achieved. Return to base"

Silas and Kelnar took one last glance at the destruction then left the still burning hive.

****

The catastrophic flash continued to echo across the Time Flayer's visor. He had hit the floor hard and his cowl had caught fire nevertheless his rose to his feet abruptedly and unsteadily with only a single focus, "Stefano!" He called out.

The Quentif Gate and the Outer-Hive were laid in ruin. Demolished and destroyed. The triple renegade knights had smashed aside the Crimsons Fists' blockade and now bodies in blue power armour were scattered across the sector.

Worse was the explosion. In an heroic stand, Salbatore and the Timeflayer had stood firm against the enemy warlord.  Heracio had been sent hurling but had witnessed the final blow from his Captain- land against the armoured monster. The energy of the Fist of Vengeance had ignited and ruptured the traitorous engine, and in an eruption of light and fire - that was the last time had he seen Captain Stefano Salbatore.

"Stefano!"

The Timeflayer had seen the moves, every action. He had danced has he should have...but the outcome...the outcome he had never envisioned.

He raced toward the burning rumble and the dead knight. He pulled off his helm that was still haunted with static, and he dug.

Minutes later, a Repulsor pulled up and more Crimson Fists joined the search as they realised their Captain was missing.

****

The Timeflayer stepped forward holding an unconscious body aloft with his psychic might. "This is Malachi... my prisoner."

Ch.6: Bloodbound

The rending of space sent a psychic shockwave across Krillion, most wouldn’t have even noticed, but Sarcoma immediately recognised the warp as it spilled out into the air of Krillion.

The initial battle was short and brutal, both sides taking heavy losses and even the avatar of destruction was battered, but it revelled in the blood and death whilst it pulled the flying machines from the sky.

The Bloodthirster Grn’thrng’gshh had arrived on Krillion, death would come to all and nothing would now stop it’s wrath.

Ch.6: Becoming

With a sigh the young noble began to traverse the hallways of Castle Stehlenheim, distancing herself from the rigmarole of courtly affairs, alarms sounding the call to battle. After navigating the labyrinthine corridors she stopped abruptly at a large gilded door, met by angelic servitors who frantically floated around her in a cacophony of beeps, clicks and whirrs, before the portal slowly slid open with a mechanical groan. Walking down the sacred lodge towards her steed, she shed the layers of her courtly couture, letting them fall to the floor behind her, as flocks of cherubim whisked them away, revealing the pilot’s suit hidden beneath. She ran her tongue along her teeth in anticipation, tracing the blessed sacristan runes carved in adamantium, a constant reminder of her ascension and the mantle she now bore, as well as the nickname the common people gave her; The Princess with the Adamantine Smile. To this day she was astonished at the skill in which the reconstruction had been carried out following that fateful night.

It had been seven years since she undertook the Ritual of Becoming but she could remember it vividly, alone in the darkness of the lodge save for the ghosts of warriors past crying out from the spirit of the machine. She spent hour upon hour within the throne, convulsing wildly as her mind resisted the neural onslaught. Despite this, not once did she cry out, bearing the pain through gritted teeth which, as consequence, had shattered along with her entire lower jaw at the end of the ordeal.

Upon climbing the ladder of the looming forgeshrine she was met by Viveka, her personal Sacristan.

“My Lady, the Rose’s Thorn stands ready and waiting for you.” Viveka reported with a curtsey.

The scion nodded, “Plasma cores fully fuelled?”

“Yes, my Lady.”

“And the Conflagration Cannon?”

“Calibrated and blessed in observance of the rites specified by yourself, my Lady.”

“That will be all, Viveka.”

“Yes, my Lady.”

With that, the scion climbed the rungs to the access hatch, lowering herself into the cockpit. Serpentine interface cords snaked towards her as she sat upon the Throne Mechanicum, seeking out the neural sockets hidden beneath raven hair. She winced as the cold, familiar sting of the neural jacks graced her flesh once again, bonding her with the Rose’s Thorn. The whispers began, voices of previous pilots, dictating tales of glory, honor and duty. The same voices which once plagued her were now a comfort to her in the brief moments she was alone, silent mentors lurking in the recesses of her mind.

Data-feeds flickered into life emitting a soft green glow as the hatchet closed, sealing her within the armour. With a thought she opened a vox channel, “Viveka, are my Bondmaidens ready to engage?”

“Yes my Lady, maidens Amalia and Lena are prepared for battle.” Viveka replied after a brief pause.

With another mental direction she activated slave protocols, linking the Helm Mechanicum of her subordinates to her neural choir. Submitting to her will, the Armiger Helverins of her Bondmaidens lurched forward from adjacent shrines, falling into formation before her as the Rose’s Thorn thundered towards the towering lodge door. After a brief moment of pure white, the pict-feeds adjusted to outside conditions, revealing towering pines covered in snow.

Ch.6: The March of Iron

The docks had held with the support of the Ardent Halo and what remained of the plague was slowly being burned by fireteams dispatched throughout the district. It was the loss of communication with one of these burns teams that first alerted Alexandros to the incoming threat.

Expecting it to be the return of the Daemon forces Alexandros immediately dispatched a large strike force of Exorcists with support of the Ardent Halo to the fireteams last confirmed location. He would have gone himself but the Ardent Halo had requested his presence aboard their ship.

In contrast to the beaches of Paradise Falls the power plant that had sustained the warm atmosphere of the beaches was made of grey and ugly metals, the buildings closed packed together and a thick smog hung in the streets.

“Captain Vitus, scanners pick up movement seven hundred metres ahead.”

Vitus's response was instant “ Take up defensive positions in surrounding buildings and create a kill box, Squad Primas advance up the main street and prepare for first contact!”

As the Exorcists waited the streets started to echo with a deep rumble like the distant thunder of an incoming storm. “Squad Primas report.” Vitus voxed, being the advance squad Vitus knew squad primas would be key to engaging this foe “Enemy sig….  ….oaching Nec... legion” the vox was interrupted by the sound of bolterfire which cut its way through the smog. “Squad Primas say again!” Vitus voxed.

The reply was cracked and distorted by static but Vitus managed to make out one word  before the vox went dead “Necrons.”

10 Hours Later…

Vitus watch as the apothecary recovered the gene-seed from what remained of squad Primas, they had managed to buy enough time for the rest of the Exorcists to reposition and counter the advancing Necron force but at a cost.

It had been easy to identify the Necron Overlord, he had almost paraded himself at the head of  Necron phalanx as if to defy the Exorcists to kill him and Vitus had met that challenge with his full fury and now the Overlord was nothing more the molten slag at his feet.

“Captain, Alexandros requests an update.”

“Inform him that Paradise Falls is secured, it is now in Exorcist’ hands.”