Defense of Haysworth

"Those xenos-loving heretic scum have set up their blasphemous idols in Hayden town! We are going to tear them down!"

Ogami was raving as he pointed at the enormous effigies of the cultists' four-armed Emperor. Two of them stood tall in the despoiled cathedral of the world Haysworth. Apparently the Cult of the Twisted Helix had infiltrated the agri-world and were now constructing foul idols to their so-called star-gods.

"You mean desecrate them?" Tanaka asked, earning a glare from Ogami through a pict-screen.

"Whatever! Just destroy those...those foul objects!"

"But we need to protect the Emperor's idols too," Kanda reminded the cranky, old pilot of the Knight Preceptor. He was right. The Knight Lance of House Yato had been stationed in yet nother cathedral opposite the one that the Genestealer Cultists had taken.

"We can do both!"

"We don't have the numbers..."

"Just do it! Don't argue with me!" Ogami was swiveling Okami about to take a shot, but he cursed when he saw two squadron of bikes roaring at them. Dust swirled about them, cloaking them under a fine sheen of cover. Tanaka sighed as he watched the vague silhouettes streak forward underneath the dark cloud. They were going to be hard to hit, even with the targeting auspexes installed in his Helm Mechanicum.

Indeed, they didn't even have any time to fire a single shot when the Blitzkrieg struck. Okami staggered when mining lasers and seismic cannon shots slammed into it, its ion shield flickering under the fierce barrage. Bolstered by the effect the heavy weapons had on the reeling Knight, the acolytes opened fire gleefully, their autogun shots pattering against the diminishing barrier.

"No! No, no, no!!! NOOO!!!!!"

Tanaka's head spun to the side when he heard Suzuki scream. His fellow bondsman was desperately trying to backpedal while being charged by a Patriarch. A Broodlord...whatever that abomination was called. The hissing creature was accompanied by similarly bulky Aberrants, the xeno creatures following their leader's...uh, lead, and charging with power picks and industrial saws.

They needn't had bothered.

The Patriarch ripped into Hebi, tearing the poor Armiger Warglaive apart with its claws.

"WHY ME?!" Suzuki wailed. "Why is it always me!? LEAVE ME ALONE!"

His cries were cut off as Hebi fell. The Patriarch let out a triumphant hiss as it stood atop the fallen Armiger Warglaive, raising a claw to the air.

"UGH! Not me again!"

"Shut it!" Ogami snapped irritably, occupied as he was by the zooming Genestealer bikers. They were slashing and stabbing at him with picks and other makeshift weapons, but dealing little damage. Okami was still damaged heavily from the mining lasers and other powerful weapons, but that didn't stop him from stomping on the bikers to oblivion. Only a single rugged buggy survived, spinning away from the staggering Okami. Ogami swore. "Come back here, you little frakker!"

"Make me!" The Genestealer Cultist driving the buggy sneered and flipped the tottering Knight. The passenger minding the mining laser was about to swivel it about to fire, but Tanaka was already moving forward.

"So long, sucker!"

"What?!"

"When did he...?!"

Relying on stealth skills reminiscent of the late Ursarkar Creed, Tanaka's Armiger Warglaive popped out of a building and fired a meltagun and thermal spear shot at the speeding buggy, vaporizing it. The two occupants screamed as they were engulfed in flames.

"Time to fight back!" Ogami roared. Kanda and Chiba followed suit, their graviton pulsars spitting transparents waves that distorted the air, crushing the Aberrants. The xenos-spliced mutants shrieked as their bodies were caught and pulped into bloody rags by the graviton pulses, strips of flesh fluttering to the ground.

Okami stomped toward the second squadron of bikers, his las-impulsor barking and flaying a couple of them. He then charged into their midst, razing them with Okami's Titanic Feet. and stomping them into oblivion.

Enraged by the loss of its spawn, the Patriarch let out a shrill cry. Flinging itself at Okami, it slashed and sliced into the damaged Knight. Behind, the Genestealer Acolytes let fly with their mining laser and autogun. A single biker also swerved about, the Atalan Jackal Alpha firing her sniper rifle with unrivaled precision. Okami stumbled, its ion shield flickering from the hits. Then a mine blew up under its feet, courtesy of a snickering Reductor Saboteur.

"What's mine is mine!" She shouted, pressing a button on her detonator. More flames enveloped the poor Knight.

While Ogami struggled to right his Knight, the bellowing Patriarch pounced. Its claws cut rents through Okami, severing cabling and exposing the sparking interior. To his astonishment, Ogami actually parried a couple of otherwise lethal strikes, the Reaper chainsword whirring and spitting as its teeth caught the claws of the stunned Patriarch.

"Eat this, xenos scum!" He yelled and cleaved through the Patriarch with his Reaper chainsword. The Brood Lord could only stare dumbly before its head was sliced neatly into two, both halves of its body flopping downward and being obliterated by the power field that wreathed the Reaper chainsword. Ogami let out a laugh and raised the Reaper chainsword to the air triumphantly. "See that!? Hah! You ain't gonna beat the Imperium! Long live the Emperor!"

Those were his last words for the day. A gout of prometium flared from a flamer and struck the Knight before Okami went down, its systems failing.

"...damn." Tanaka shook his head in disbelief. The noble had taken down the terrifying Patriarch, only to be brought low by a...flamer from an Acolyte. To be fair, the Jackal Alpha riding on the bike had exposed a weakpoint with unerring accuracy, her sniper round having widened the chink in Okami's armor so that the flamer could trigger a chain reaction. "It's just us now, huh?"

Though Kazan's melta weapons were deadly against tanks and vehicles, they did frak all against infantry. Tanaka tried to fire upon the Acolytes, but he missed. Kanda fired at the Kelermorph who emerged from the shadows, but his graviton pulses seemed to shimmer and peel away from the xenos. Apparently the guy had some sort of barrier that protected him from the devastating beam.

Chiba had better luck. His graviton pulse caught the biophagus and annihilated him before he could reach the idol of the Emperor. Unfortunately for them, the Kelermorph had withstood whatever they fired at him, and he proceeded to desecrate the idol of the Emperor on his side.

"Ugh! That's it! You'll pay for that!"

Ignoring the infantry, Tanaka had Kazan sprint to the other side of the town, barreling through a wall and into the cathedral. With a swipe of his Reaper chain-cleaver, he brought down the statue of the four-armed Emperor, wrecking it.

"You're not the only one who can desecrate idols! Hah!"

Unfortuantely, that left him open to the Kelermorph's shots. Kazan staggered, despite the ion shield deflecting a few of the hits. Damn. But he was determined to achieve the objective no matter what, so he paid the four-armed gunslinger no attention. For now.

Kanda fired on the Acoltyes and took out a few, but they simply replenished their numbers endlessly. On the other hand, Chiba's salvo took out the Jackal Alpha, crushing her bike like a can and turning the xenos sniper into a pulp of meat and lake of blood.

"Finally," Chiba huffed. "She was getting on my nerves."

Explosions billowed underneath Kazan's feet as the Reductor Saboteur detonated more of her mines. No longer occupied with demolishing a blasphemous idol, Tanaka was free to rush forward. Kanda joined him in a pincer attack, but the Acolytes from before had hidden behind the shadows. Not that it mattered, his objective was the second four-armed idol at the other side of the tainted cathedral.

For what it was worth, they were going to wipe out all unholy presences on Hayworth. That would deliver a huge blow against the Genestealer Cult presence here.

With a melta shot, Tanaka annihilated the shrieking Reductor Saboteur from existence. He brought the barrel of the thermal spear near his Armiger Warglaive's helm, but wasn't able to blow it. Oh, well. The pose still worked.

While he took care of the mine-setter, Kanda's Knight Moirax stumbled upon the idol and began smashing it to the ground.

That was when the Acolytes struck.

They hadn't disappeared into the shadows to run away like cowards...no, they had planned to spring an ambush. Yelling and bellowing, they set upon Kanda's Knight Moirax with autoguns, mining lasers, seismic cannons and picks. Kanda ignored them for now, forcing his Knight Moirax to focus solely on the objective. As long as he could survive, that was all he needed. He just needed to survive to complete the action.

"Damn it!" A xenos cultist snapped. "He's almost dead! We almost got him!"

"Don't worry!" His comrade said with a grin, pulling out a detonater from his pocket. "We have booby trapped this place. That should blow him up."

Kanda's eyes widened. "Oh, God-Emperor of Man, no! No! Holy Omnissiah, please protect me from the foul powers..."

Ignoring his prayers, the acolyte pressed the button.

...

...nothing happened.

"Huh?!"

"What do you mean, huh?! Why didn't the trap go off?!"

"Um...well, you know how these things go..." The Genestealer cultist gulped and avoided his comrade's glare. "There's like, a 16.5% change of these booby traps failing."

"What in the Star-gods' name are we supposed to do now?!"

"For one thing, you could just die," Tanaka said, his Armiger Warglaive charging them and cleaving a couple of them apart with a Reaper chain-cleaver.

Needless to say, the Genestealer Cultist presence was erased from Hayworth shortly after that.