"After the last few battles, which has been far too close for comfort, the Shogun has decided to dispatch me to whip you guys into shape!"
Ogami, the grizzled veteran noble who piloted the Questoris Knight Preceptor, Okami, growled sternly as he surveyed the cowering bondsmen from a holo-pict fizzling in their respective Helm Mechanicum. He tapped his fingers, clad as they were in haptic gloves, against his console impatiently.
"They have also seen fit to reinforce you with a second Armiger Knight Moirax. Chiba, get into position with the rest."
"Yes, my lord."
The fourth and newest bondsman had his Armiger Knight Moirax amble toward the rest. Tanaka grimaced as he watched the two newcomers, a sinking feeling in his stomach.
"Sir Ogami," he ventured boldly. "What's our mission this time? Command has yet to brief us."
"Our lord Shogun has, in his infinite wisdom, assigned us to protect the Aquilian Shrine." Ogami gestured toward the gigantic temple where five gigantic statues loomed over even his towering Questoris Knight. They represented five of the Loyalist Primarchs who fought as the Holy Emperor's right hand. The Praetorian, Rogal Dorn. The Angel, Sanguinius. The Warhawk, Jaghatai Khan. The Lord of the First, Lion El'Jonson. And last of all, the current Lord Commander of the Imperium and the savior upon whose shoulders the fate of the Imperium rested on, Roboute Guilliman.
Granted, the magnificent statue of the Lord Commander had been sculpted long before he had woken up from his millennia old coma, and Tanaka personally thought it didn't resemble the actual Primarch who was now leading the Indomitus Crusade, but he decided to keep his opinion to himself.
"Um, we're to protect the Aquilian Shrine, sir?"
"That's right. Intelligence has received reports that heretics are planning to raze the sacred statues of the Loyal Primarchs. If they are allowed to freely desecrate these magnificent idols, they would be able to conduct a foul ritual that might call forth nightmarish horrors on par with those our ancestors faced during Old Night and engulf this world in calamity."
Tanaka tried not to scoff at his superior's pretentious tone. Instead, he kept a straight face and nodded.
"Understood, Sir Ogami. We'll do our best to defend this shrine from the heretics."
"Uh...heretics as in traitor Astartes?" Suzuki asked nervously.
Turning around, Tanaka caught sight of Suzuki's Armiger Warglaive, Hebi, tottering in front of the statue of Sanguinius. For some reason, it looked as if Hebi was sparkling under the moonlight, but then Tanaka realized that those minute flashes were malicious volleys of gunfire cascading against Hebi's failing ion shield.
"Yeah...those look like legionnaires of the Thousand Sons to me," Suzuki said, his eyes wide. Inferno bolts were detonating viciously against his flickering ion shield. Silent rows of Rubricae marched, their inferno boltguns leveled and firing hails of ensorcelled rounds. They were joined by the elite Scarab Occult Terminators, their inferno combi-bolters and soulreaper cannons roaring violently, empyrean flames wreathing the streaking shells.
Then Hebi exploded.
"Not again!" Suzuki howled as he was ejected from his Helm Mechanicum. Chiba's Knight Moirax rocked from the resulting inferno, though his ion shield protected him from the worst. On the opposite end, a single Rubric Marine was engulfed by the expanding plasma, its power armor melting from the sheer heat. The Sorcerer leading the squad didn't spare his fallen automata a second glance, leading his Rubric Marines toward the statue of Sanguinius.
"Take out those Traitors!" Ogami bellowed. "Follow my lead!"
His Knight Preceptor, Okami, surged ahead, its multilaser and las-impulsor spitting lethal rays of superheated light at the two squads of Rubric Marines before him. They...missed, and the few lasers that hit only grazed a Rubric Marine. Tanaka buried his face in his palm, only to realize that a third squad of Rubric Marines bearing warpflamers were advancing upon his position. He triggered his meltagun and thermal cannon, but only one of them was vaporized.
I guess I can't fault Sir Ogami when my own aim is so terrible...
Kanda and Chiba wisely hung back, aiming their paired graviton pulsars at the massive squad of Scarab Occult Terminators. Distorted waves of gravity hammered them, crushing the immense tactical dreadnought armor and warping them. Tanaka had an impression of crushed cans before more than half of the squad were wiped out. The Scarab Occult Terminator leading them performed some mantra with his hands, and time appeared to shimmer, collapsing upon itself and rewinding. To Tanaka's astonishment, one of the Scarab Occult Terminators was restored, his heavy armor unfolding itself and returning to its original shape.
"What on Holy Terra...?"
"Charge! Destroy all the Heretics!"
Ogami was yelling zealously, his Knight Preceptor smashing into the ranks of Rubric Marines. Okami swung its reaper Chainsword and stomped on the silent, fearless squad, trampling them under its feet.
However, the Exalted Sorcerer had other plans. Reinforced by the surviving Scarab Occult Terminators, they courageously faced down the towering Knight Preceptor. Glowing energies lanced out of their gauntlets and struck Okami, causing the Knight to stumble backward. Not at all daunted by their losses, the Scarab Occult Terminators proceeded to strike and slash with their curved kopesh swords, their eyelenses glowing eerily in the dark.
Tanaka had troubles of his own. He had followed Ogami's lead and was charging the squad of Rubric Marines. They calmly opened up with their warpflamers, the mutagenic flames washing over his ion shield. Fortunately, Kazan's defenses held strong and he was able to fend off the flames. With a resolved shout, Tanaka had his Armiger Warglaive swing its reaper chain-cleaver and cleaved the formidable automata apart.
Then he heard Ogami's cry of despair. Whirling around, he saw the mighty Knight Preceptor fall, its chassis wracked by shimmering energies of warpcraft. The Exalted Sorcerer held up a clenched fist in triumph, crushing the titanic engine with sheer will alone. As if to rub salt into wounds, the Scarab Occult Terminators began the work of hacking the Knight Preceptor apart, cutting their way to the stricken Ogami's Throne Mechanicum.
"Oh no, you don't!" Chiba growled and unleashed gravitational pulses from his Knight Moirax's arm weapons. The Scarab Occult Terminators were obliterated in a single merciless volley as the new bondsman sought to avenge his mentor.
Whoa...remind me not to piss the new guy off, Tanaka thought to himself as he accelerated his Armiger Warglaive toward the reeling Exalted Sorcerer.
There was a loud crash and all three surviving bondsmen turned to stare as the statue of Sanguinius toppled. The squad of Rubric Marines that had survived Hebi's explosion had managed to reach the holy idol while everyone was distracted by the combat and razed it to the ground. Tanaka watched in dismay as the once magnificent sculpture was demolished to little more than dust.
"Uh oh..."
"Frak this!" Kanda snapped and triggered his graviton pulsars with a vengeance, annihilating the trio of Rubric Marines before they could get clear of the falling debris.
The Exalted Sorcerer appeared to hiss furiously at the loss of his Rubricae, but he wasn't given time to mourn. Kazan struck him like a ramming Retributor-class battleship...or tried to, but the Exalted Sorcerer halted the Armiger Warglaive's charge with a raised hand.
"Bloody warlock," Tanaka grumbled and shook his head. The Exalted Sorcerer appeared to sneer and was about to flex his hand to do the same warp trick he used to wreck Ogami's Okami earlier. But Tanaka had enough and triggered the carapace meltagun. "Eat this, you frakker!"
The incadescent beam lanced through the Exalted Sorcerer, catching him by surprise and punching through his shimmering forcefield. Tanaka's jaw dropped in surprise because he didn't think that would work, though he watched with no small amount of satisfaction as the thermal blast disintegrated the poor heretic into nothing more than ashes.
"Not this time, Cult of Time dude!"
"That should have done it," Chiba remarked.
"Not yet!" Kanda warned, red holo-picts of warning popping all over his Helm Mechanicum when telekinetic bolts slammed into his Armiger Knight Moirax. A Sorcerer in Terminator Armor had snuck into the back, conjuring spells to smite Kanda's machine. The guy seemed desperate after seeing his thrallband fall to the Imperial Knights and he was drawing upon the empyrean far too recklessly - to the point where he imploded from his own warp magicks. He convulsed as his body broke out in uncontrollable mutations, one of his hands turning into tentacles and the chest plate of his formidable Terminator Armor denting as something pressed against it from within.
Not one to waste an opportunity, Kanda swung his damaged Knight Moirax about and wiped the Sorcerer from existence with a direct hit from his graviton pulsar. With the servos damaged, most of his shots went wide, but enough of the gravitational pulse struck the already mortally wounded Sorcerer and squished his mutating flesh into a bloody pulp.
"Phew...now we are done." Kanda sighed in relief.
"For now," Tanaka muttered and leaned against his seat. Swiveling toward the downed wreckage of Okami, he wondered if old Ogami was still alive amidst that pile of scrap. It was only the noble's first mission with them and already he got his Knight totalled.
That did not bode well for the future at all...
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