"It's totally fine, Tanaka," Lord Takeda growled. "No matter how many times the heretics come back here, we'll crush them again and again. As many times as we need them to. Even the fearsome Astartes are no match for the formidable power of our armored steeds."
I honestly thought he shouldn't underestimate the foe, but when you were riding a 9-meter suit made of adamantine out into the battlefield, impervious to all but the strongest anti-tank weaponry, I suppose you could be forgiven for getting complacent. Especially in this new age of the Indomitus Crusade and the resurgence of a legend - the Lord Commander Roboute Guilliman, and Primarch of the vaunted Ultramarines Chapter. Under his charge, most felt that there was nothing in this galaxy that could stop the dominion of Mankind.
However, watching the forces of Chaos arrayed before us, I wasn't sure.
"More importantly," Kanda said, urging his Errant patterned Questoris suit, Engetsu, to the front. "We're going to need those supplies from the Munitorum. Those traitors have landed near the supplies, probably to grab them from us."
"Then we'll pulverize them and snatch the supplies back," Takeda ordered. Already, his Cerastus Knight Lancer, Naginata, was loping toward the enemy. Its shock lance crackled with esoteric energies that discharged in forks of lightning that strobed toward an unfortunate band of cultists and fried half of them. "Knights of House Yato, charge!"
Being an Unyielding Paragon, Kanda bellowed orders upon his two retainers, Sato and Watanabe. While Engetsu barreled forward, its titanic form was escorted by Kaen and Tsurugi, their thermal spears sputting out bright lances of superheated rays that punched through the Rhino that was swerving behind a hab block for cover. The transport went up in flames, the Chosen within evacuating from the stricken vehicle. Kanda followed up with a volley of Stormspear missiles that detonated in the ranks of bounding Possessed, reducing two of them to bags of meat. His thermal spear struck a Helbrute, but it teetered and remained standing somehow.
I followed up from behind, guiding Kazan's volcano lance toward the Predator Annihilator rumbling from behind to provide fire-ranged support. An incandescent beam vaporized the battle tank, flipping it into its side and turning it into slag. The siegebreaker cannons on Kazan's shoulders bellowed, hurling rounds into mobs of Cultists and pulping them into blood and fragments of bone. Rotating the Dominus Knight Castellan at the torso, I triggered its plasma decimator with my haptic gloves and hosed the Chosen that had spilled out from the plague Rhino with superheated matter, disintegrating at least two of them.
The edgy warband, far from discouraged at the vicious losses they had suffered, continued screaming forward. The Chosen, led by a Master of Execution, hurled themselves at Tsurugi, their accursed weapons and axes hammering against the buckling form of the desperately retreating Armiger Warglaive. Watanabe fought his way out, but their daemonic weapons had bitten chunks of adamantium out of his stumbling steed.
Meanwhile, Cultists led by a Dark Commune and bloated with power from their dark gods slammed into Suzuki's Hebi. Unfortunately, something seemed to be happening there. While the Dark Commune, uh, communed with their twisted gods, the fell powers appeared to curse them instead. Something went horribly wrong, and a few of their Cultists screamed as they were dragged into some warp portal that opened up in one of their bodies. Suzuki didn't hesitate to cut the survivors down with his reaper chain-cleaver, scattering them.
Though the mortal followers were decimated, their Heretic Astartes masters continued undaunted. A Forgefiend clambered from behind the wrecked Predator Annihator and fired its triple ectoplasma cannons, dealing devastating damage to my Kazan from range. The ion shields winked out in lethal effect and I was thrown about in my Throne Mechanicum as the ensorcelled blasts ate away at the venerable armor of my suit, burning away blessed runes and adamantium alike. The Helbrutes rushed forward, one of them scorching Naginata with flames, but the promethium did little more than blacken the paint. The Chosen tried to clear the slopes as they fired their plasma pistols at Takeda's Knight Lancer, but despite melting off parts, they were unable to bring down the towering walker. Their charge was also slowed by the steep terrain, and they weren't able to descend all the way down.
The other Helbrute fired at Kazan, its lascannon and missiles hammering at the Dominus Knight Castellan and failing to deal any considerable amount of damage. The Cultists continued to hound Hebi, but Suzuki deftly slashed them apart, while the Possessed continued striding forward with snarls that sent chills down my spine.
Those hideous noises weren't something humans or even transhumans could make. I didn't know what the Marines of the Edgelord Warband had done or what pacts they had made with the fell powers, but they had succumbed to Chaos far more than any fanatic I had witnessed before.
We rallied and fought back as best as we could. Watanabe retreated from the Chosen and Master of Executions, and I stepped in, bathing the entire hab block in plasma and vaporizing them. The siegebreaker cannons roared again, finishing off the last of the Cultist mob in front of me, while my volcano lance was deflected from whatever daemonic shield that the Forgefiend had. I bit back a curse, frustrated at my failure to destroy it.
Kanda stepped up to the job, though, his Stormspear missiles sizzling forward to crash into the Possessed and reducing their number further. His thermal cannon thundered, and the Forgefiend finally vaporized in a searing blast of melta. The hull-mounted meltagun also managed to take out a Possessed. Sato followed up by damaging the Helbrutes with bursts of melta before he charged into the Possessed and engaged them in melee.
Meanwhile, Takeda charged in and rammed into the Chosen and the Chaos Lord they were escorting, stomping on two of them and killing them outright. He wielded his shock lance with superlative skill, scoring another few kills while the other Chosen scattered. Ingrained with millennia or at least centuries of experience, the Chosen weren't going down without a fight, even before a vaunted Knight armor. They hacked away at exposed joints and servos, getting under the ion gauntlet shield that Takeda deftly raised to defend Naginata, and slowly but surely bringing the titanic walker down. The Daimyo refused to go down without a fight and lashed out with his shock lance, pulverizing another Chosen.
By then, Suzuki had finally finished off the last remnants of the Cultists. The surviving Dark Commune had attempted to draw upon the power of the warp further, but tentacles burst out of a vortex and dragged a couple of screaming attendants into nothingness. Not at all sympathetic, Hebi cleaved the remaining Dark Commune apart with the revving chain-cleaver.
"That's what you deserve after trucking with foul powers!" He gloated triumphantly, only to curse when a new entourage of Possessed pounced on his flailing Armiger Warglaive. "What on Holy Terra?! Where did you come from!?"
"From around the hab block," I told him through the vox.
"Why didn't you warn me earlier!?"
"Because I'm busily deflecting shots from the Helbrutes?" I replied. Only to realize my error when the lascannon blast seared past Kazan and instead slammed into Tsurugi, which was falling back. Watanabe tried to rotate his ion shield, but failed to raise them in time, and Tsurugi fell, crumpling as a wreck. Watanabe swore as he scrambled out of his Helm Mechanicum, but it appeared that Tsurugi had passed its out of action test and wouldn't be getting a battle scar.
"Phew. The damage isn't too severe." Watanabe breathed a sigh of relief. "The sacristans should be able to repair Tsurugi back to full without too much difficulty."
The Possessed had all but fallen to Kaen's reaper chain-cleaver, and only the Master of Possession was left, dancing about. The Chosen and Chaos Lord continued to harass Naginata from the sides and unexpected angles, but the Cerastus Knight Lancer refused to fall.
"Get off me, you vermin!" Takeda yelled as he swung the cerastus shock lance about, cracking it against another few Chosen. They unrelentingly harried at him despite their losses, their accursed weapons glowing with emypric energies that widened the cracks in his armor and worsened his suit's movements. Runes flared as they resisted the encroaching warp energies, but it was clear that Naginata was weakening.
We had to help him.
Kanda already had the bright idea, moving Engetsu up to assist. His thermal cannon spat another incandescent lance that sliced off the Helbrute's lascannon, but it didn't fall and instead continued hurling missiles at us despite half of its body being reduced to a charred, molten husk. Sato fell back from the Master of Possession after suffering a grievous blow, but despite leaving a massive gouge across Kaen's front, the damage had come at a cost. The Master of Possession had bargained with dark gods beyond his comprehension and paying the price for it. He was screaming as his flesh rippled and rebelled, his figure transmutating, but with an incredible force of will, he clamped down on the warp energies and maintained his human form for now. Even so, that moment of agony had bought Sato a reprieve, allowing him to escape.
I shifted my aim and took out the other Helbrute with a volcano lance, only for it to detonate forcefully, the shrapnel burying deep into the first Helbrute's sacrophagus and slaying it. A massive shard of metal stabbed the unfortunate Master of Possession while he was still recovering from the agonizing, transmutative energies of the warp, and he toppled unmovingly, his body bisected messily. Another Chosen staggered, buffeted by the shockwave, and Takeda seized the chance to stomp on him.
With a rallying cry, Naginata swept its shock lance across the reeling Chosen and annihilated them. Even the Chaos Lord was unable to avoid getting run through by the shock lance, his power armor crumpling as the titanic weapon pierced through his body and reduced him to a bloody ruin.
"This is utter bullshit!" The Chaos Lord screamed as he writhed on the tip of the crackling spear. He gripped the length with his scorched gauntlets. "I'm never going to challenge a lance of Knights again! At least not for another two months!"
Then, with a crack, he vanished back into the warp, saved by whatever twisted patrons he had pledged his fealty to.
That left the Possessed that was still harrying Hebi. Somehow, Suzuki had managed to slay the second Master of Possession and forced the Possessed to a retreat. I fired shells and plasma at them, erasing them from existence, and...suddenly, the battlefield was eerily silent.
"Well, that...went better than expected." I swallowed, looking around and half-expecting more frenzied Cultists to spill out from nowhere.
"Hah! We are Honored now!" Takeda raised the shock lance of Naginata wearily. "We have achieved the goal of slaying the enemy leader and exterminated the heretics! In the Emperor's name!"
Now that he mentioned it, I could feel Kazan being invigorated, the belicose machine spirit purring from the reactor and slowly healing the damage it had sustained from the Forgefiend, as well as the hazardous blowback from me overusing the plasma decimator.
"Yes, it seems we've defended Inari successfully," Kanda agreed, exhausted, as Engetsu lumbered toward the limping Naginata. "But my lord, I just received dire news from Kajira above."
Oh, right. The Emperor-class battleship and its escorts had remained in orbit above Inari while we began the colonization process.
"Right. I've received it too." Takeda sounded grim. "We might have beaten off the archenemy, but it appears that the Imperial Navy has registered an approaching Waaagh! on their augurs. The greenskins have arrived in this system in force, and they're heading directly for this world."
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