Tanaka lounged in his Throne Mechanicum, feeling contented. After the destruction of his Armiger Warglaive during the battle against the Thousand Sons, he was promoted to a full-blown Bushi and was now bestowed a Dominus-class Knight armor. In honor of his former Armiger armor, he decided to name the Knight Castellan Kazan as well. Which sort of fits, seeing that the new Kazan had a volcano lance (Kazan is Japanese for volcano).
"Ugh...I can't believe we're heeding the word of those perfidous xenos." Ogami sounded displeased as he looked out at the other end of the battlefield. An Aeldari Farseer had shown up moments earlier, requesting that the Imperium lend their aid to their Craftworld in ridding the world of Chaos. Apparently the Thousand Sons were conducting a ritual to summon Daemons into realspace or something.
The Lord Commander Roboute Guilliman, in his infinite wisdom, had agreed to dispatch a small Imperial force to destroy the heretics. And thus a Lance of House Yato lumbered forward, their guns trained on the Cult of Magic forces who had taken shelter in the temple they had constructed.
Unfortunately...
"WAAAGH!"
"Holy Emperor, nobody told us there would be Orks here as well!" Suzuki complained.
"That can't be good," Kanda muttered.
Within moments, the Speedwaagh of the Orks ran over the Knights' lines. Thankfully, the brutes had decided to travel uphill, which allowed the Knights free reign to shoot. A gunwagon went up in smoke, and several bikers crashed and burned. The large Bonebreaka or whatever massiive truck it was charged at Kazan, but Tanaka squeezed the triggers of his two twin meltaguns and the volcano lance, blowing the damned thing up.
Unfortunately, the bikers and Nobs on bikers swarmed the Armigers, hacking them down. The greenskins laughed raucously, enjoying their vicious swings as they slashed with their choppas. Suzuki shrieked when his Armiger Warglaive went up in smoke.
"Not again!"
"Frak this!" Ogami shouted. Okami swung its reaper chainsword, as if in response to his rage, but the warboss on a bike simply tanked it like...well, a boss.
"Ha ha! Iz dat the best yer can do, humie?"
With a throaty chuckle, the warboss eviscerated the Knight Preceptor with its power klaw.
"Bring it down, boyz!"
Meanwhile, the Howling Banshees charged into the Scarab Occult Terminators, sending them realing. The Avatar of Khaine howled, its molten form barreling into Aku and slicing him slightly. Aku merely laughed as his form rippled and he reformed elsewhere, completely unscathed. Unfortunately for the Exalted Sorcerer by his side, he was...cleaved in half by the Avatar of Khaine's fury. Nearby, a Mutalith Vortex Beast lay low, having been felled by the Wailing Doom.
The Wraithguard and Dark Reapers continued their inexorable advance, firing into both Rubricae and Ork buggies alike, but one heroic Ork biker dashed through the explosions and fire, bellowing gleefully as he courageously charged the Wraith constructs by itself.
"I'm gonna hack yer pointy heads off!"
"And I'm gonna show you the Thousand Sons are better than the Eldar in the psychic phase!" Aku sneered, gathering empheral energies in his hands and blasting the Avatar of Khaine. The Rubric Marines and Scarab Occult Terminators joined in, their psionic blasts joining with the Daemon Prince and engulfing the Avatar of Khaine, turning the shard of an ancient god into dust.
The Avatar of Khaine wasn't going out with a fight, however. With a defiant roar, he exploded, taking Aku by surprise and obliterating his stick body. Aku yelled in dismay before he found his physical form torn from reality and his essence banished into the warp once more.
"...what the hell?! I'm the only survivor left!?"
Tanaka's jaw dropped after he saw how his forces were completely overrun. He gritted his teeth and fired several more volleys. Good thing his Knight Castellan came loaded for bear...Orks. His siegebreaker cannons boomed, breaking the back of bikers, while his meltaguns melted a buggy into slag. The other twin meltaguns disintegrated the triumphantly celebrating warboss, who was holding Okami's helm in its power klaw. The poor guy didn't know what hit him.
Then sorcery slammed into him. Tanaka blinked and consulted his auspex.
"You've got to be kidding me..."
The Eldar had been massacred. Only the Wraithguard were left, and they were busily tied up in combat with Scarab Occult Terminators. An Exalted Sorcerer and his Rubric Marines were marching toward Kazan, determined to blow him up once and for all. Empyrean energies swirled around them as they battered the poor Knight, dealing massive amounts of mortal wounds.
"Ouch."
Tanaka fought to right his Knight Castellan. Kazan's machine spirit bellowed defiantly and the plasma decimator howled, obliterating an entire column of Rubricae. The shieldbreaker missiles spiraled forward and detonated against the Exalted Sorcerer. It didn't matter what unworldly barrier the traitor conjured, the shieldbreaker missile punched through the telekine shield and engulfed the warlock in flames.
The surviving Wraithguard, having taken care of the heroic Ork biker - who had lasted at least two rounds of combat with them, retreated from the Scarab Occult Terminators, allowing Tanaka to blow them up. And then...
...there was silence.
"Oh, hey, we won!"
Tanaka couldn't believe it. Despite taking tremendous casualties, the human-Eldar alliance had somehow annihilated both the Thousand Sons and the Orks. Breathing a sigh of relief, he then proceeded to the task of fouling the idols that the Thousand Sons had constructed, kicking them over spitefully to ruin the Ritual.
He had only managed to topple three when...
"...ha ha ha! I'm back!"
"What the...?!"
Tanaka looked up, and watched in horror as a portal opened. Aku strolled out, spreading his skinny arms to the skies and crowing.
"You weren't able to stop the ritual in time, suckers! Too bad!"
"...hey, but we tabled you."
"You still lost."
"At least we got a moral victory. You know what, I'll let you win this one." He then showed Aku the finger, though he didn't know if the Daemon Prince could see him when he was inside his Throne Mechanicum. Then again, the Thousand Sons had all sorts of warp powers, so he probably could. In any case, he decided to yell like the sore loser he was. "I'll be back!"
Seeing that there were Daemons and fresh reinforcements pouring out of the warp, Tanaka thought he had best beat it while he still could. Live and fight another day, or so they said. Coaxing the fiery spirit of Kazan, he led his battered Knight armor to a dignified retreat. Even though Aku had succeeded, it still didn't feel like a loss. Actually, it felt more like a technicality, but Tanaka was never one to dwell in the details.
Plus there was always another chance for revenge.
Aku laughed as he watched the Imperium and Aeldari attackers retreat. He turned back to his Daemons gleefully, but...they were vanishing back to the warp.
"Hey! What are you doing!?"
"Going home. There's nothing to kill." One of the Daemons shrugged. "But hey, at least you get a free battle honor."
"What?! But we already get to choose our battle honors! This victory doesn't do anything for us!"
"You got the bragging rights, though."
"Ugh...!" Aku stomped on the ground and folded his arms. Then he nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, I guess you can say that. I survived against an Avatar of Khaine and blew him up with magic. I wonder how many people can say that."
And so, with a laugh, he retreated back to the warp, planning another insidious scheme to sow the poor Imperium into Chaos once more.
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