"Fear me! For I am Aku, the Master of Masters, the Deliverer of Darkness, Shogun of Sorrow, Heterodox, Unmaker of Hierophants, Lightbreaker, Recombinant Sin, Blessed of the Grandfather, and Witch King! Once I was War Warrior, but I have ascended to Daemon Princehood and now I exist as Aku!"
The weird, stick-like Daemon Prince spread his non-existent wings and raised his malefic talons to the air, cackling wildly.
"You're telling me we got called back to Carthage for...this?" Tanaka asked incredulously as he watched the warband of Edgelords march toward the shrines that his Knight had been dispatched to protect. Unfortunately for the Knights of House Yato, the Edgelords had all sorts of warp magick swirling around them, and they charged forward, seizing the initiative and striking first.
"He who strikes first wins!" Aku crowed. "Go, my blessed Possessed!"
The Possessed charged forward, hitting like a truck. As they sprinted, bounding over the difficult terrain that covered most of Carthage, the priests and sorcerers of the warband unleashed empyreanic energies at Kazan. The venerable Knight Errant shuddered as telekinetic forces rammed against its adamantine hull, shearing off parts and severing cables.
For Aku was not alone. The Sorcereress, Vanessa Nightingale, accompanied him, along with Riot the Master of Possession and Darkmakyr Bloodmartyr the Dark Apostle. Chanting hymns, they loped across the dense terrain and shrubs, the power armored Traitor Astartes smashing aside vegetation to charge at the various shrines. Behind them, cultists tried to be sneaky, making use of cover to loop around and reach the shrines, while their dark masters drew the attention of the Knights.
"Ugh..."
Tanaka reeled as Kazan was pummeled by more warp shennanigans from Aku and Vanessa. Not only that, the Obliterators had joined the bombardment, but their fleshmetal guns didn't seem to do much, the esoteric energies deflected by his deftly rotated ion shield. The Possessed were on him before he knew it, and boosted by Riot's dark rituals, they tore his Knight suit apart. He sighed as Kazan went down without firing even a single shot. Well, he did fire overwatch and perhaps took down maybe a single Possessed, but he didn't do much other than...well, succumb to the enemy's claws, tentacles and fangs.
"At least give me one round of shooting," he complained. "I wanted to try out the Calculated Targeting Stratagem!"
In any event, he couldn't do much. Instead, his fellow Knights stepped forward to help. Suzuki piloted Hebi, moving into position to shoot the Possessed with loads of melta, but most of the damage was done by Watanabe. Piloting his Knight Paladin, Tsurugi, he opened fire with his rapid-fire battle cannon and vaporized a good chunk of them. They fell as the shells fell and detonated in their midst, tearing the once noble Space Marines apart in showers of blood and flesh.
The Ironstorm missile pod roared as it fired projectiles that arced over the ruins and fell upon the halpless Cultists, erasing a good deal of them. More melta shots devastated the Traitor Legionaries, with Kanda, Chiba and Sato piloting their respective Armiger Warglaives to the fight. Almost an entire squad of 10 were annihilated to a man, especially when Kanda charged in and hacked them down. Only one survived, the Sergeant holding onto his daemon blade and retaliating fiercely.
Chiba kept his distance, while Sato took out a couple of Legionaries in a 5-men squad, but he failed to take down the guy with the lascannon.
"Damn!" He cursed, only for the legionary to heft the heavy weapon up and return fire with a ruby beam. The las-beam, thankfully, deflected off his angled ion shield and dissipated harmlessly. The Obliterators turned their attention toward him, and their fleshmetal guns heavily damaged his suit, shredding debris off the reeling Armiger Warglaive.
"Just die already!" Suzuki shrieked as he charged Hebi into the Possessed, slashing and hacking them with his reaper chain-cleaver. The Possessed fought like Astartes...uh, possessed, and instead ripped his Armiger Warglaive apart. Poor Hebi ended up becoming the prey instead of the hunter, and Suzuki yelled as his suit was brought down messily.
"You cannot defeat us!" Aku snarled as he flew over with his almost incorporeal body. "Vanessa! Do it!"
"Yes, sir!" The Sorcereress saluted and burned down the shrine in the center, laughing manically as she set it on fire. The Possessed, free from close combat after taking down poor Suzuki, demolished the shrine that he had been protecting, defacing the statues of Saints and smashing the holy place in wicked delight. Even though they advanced, Riot and Darkmakyr Bloodmartyr wielded psychic spells or hymns to continue damaging Kanda's Armiger Warglaive, only for Riot to screw up.
"What in the unholy Eye of Terror?!" He screamed when his body swelled from the excessive amount of warp energy. His body began mutating uncontrollably, and instead of being a Master of Possession, he became a victim of Possession. Daemons tore their way out of the weakening fabric of space-time, infesting his imploding body before he burst apart as a chaos spawn.
But even this brief mutation didn't last long, for his body couldn't handle the excessive empyreanic energies and blew up, leaving naught but a bloody smear in the ground.
"Useless moron!" Aku growled, shaking his great horned head. "I knew I couldn't count on him! I will have to do everything myself!"
The recently ascended Daemon Prince charged Kanda and cleaved the Armiger Warglaive apart with his hellforged sword, sending the staggering Knight suit down.
"Oh no, you don't! Screw you and all you frakking Traitors!" Kanda yelled and slammed his palm on the big red button next to his console. Enacting a noble sacrifice, he blew his Knight suit up and dealt a bunch of mortal wounds to the surrounding enemies. The Sergeant of the Legionnaries barely survived, crouching as flames licked his armor. Aku wasn't so fortunate, and he lost a third of his body from the vengeful explosion. Vanessa appeared to be fine for now, but Darkmakyr Bloodmartyr lost his two acolytes from the blast, the twins throwing themselves forward courageously to shield their master from harm.
"Thanks," he muttered. "I shall remember you two as martyrs!"
"You...!" Watanabe growled, urging Tsurugi to a hasty pace and proceeding toward the Possessed. His rapid-fire battle cannon barked once more, killing another good chunk of them and leaving only three remaining. The heavy stubbers clattered, as did the Ironstorm missile pod, and the last of the Cultists in the first squad were wiped out. Without hesitation, he charged straight into the wounded Aku and stabbed him with the Reaper chainsword.
"Hah! I have the mark of Tzeentch! Your first wound will not do anything to me!" Aku crowed. "And I have Hexammagramic Wards too! You can't hurt me at all!"
Unfortunately, he failed all his saves and...the last stab was enough to obliterate his existence. Aku's eyes bulged in disbelief as his physical body was obliterated and he was banished to the warp. It wasn't just him. Vanessa Nightingale vanished when three melta beams pierced her, wiping her from existence. Darkmakyr Bloodmartyr raised his accursed crozius and waved defiantly, but he was unable to do much to Chiba's Armiger Warglaive, though he survived the retaliation. Meanwhile, Sato missed with his melta shots and only killed another legionary. Fortunately, he made his charge and killed another with his reaper chain-cleaver, but the rest survived.
The legionary sergeant continued to hack away at Tsurugi with his daemon weapon, but failed to do anything. Sensing that they would be no match for the Titanic Knight, the three surviving Possessed ran away and instead decided to work on demolishing a third shrine and achieving victory for the Chaos Warband.
"Ha ha ha ha! We won!" Darkmakyr Bloodmartyr crowed triumphantly. "We have erased more than half of the shrines in this area! We've achieved our objective and obtained a strategic victory!"
"So what?" Watanabe snarled, and with a swing of his reaper chainsword, he killed the legionary sergeant almost contemptuously. On the other hand, Chiba crushed Darkmakyr Bloodmartyr, allowing the Dark Apostle to live up to his name.
Unfortunately, Sato was in trouble. He had just been charged by the Obliterators, and his Knight Suit was damaged further. The Armiger Warglaive responded, almost as if in vengeance, and finished off the ragged legionary squad, allowing him to finally be able to focus on the Obliterators.
"I'm coming!" Chiba yelled. Though the Obliterators survived the melta shots, they were hacked apart by the combined fury of both Sato and Chiba's reaper chain-cleavers, their Armiger Warglaives cutting the two Obliterators into pieces. Meanwhile, Tsurugi fired, exterminating the Possessed while they frolicked in the ruins of the third shrine, and his Ironstorm missile pod and heavy stubbers reaped a toll on the cultists. The cultists, driven to a frenzy by the loss of their masters, charged Sato's Armiger Warglaive, only to be shredded into bloody messes by his whirring reaper chain-cleaver.
With that, even though the Edgelords technically won, they were wiped out by the vengeful Knights. Still, it didn't seem like the battle was over.
"What's that?" Chiba asked, noting something on the auspex. The three remaining Bushi spotted the Noctlith Crown that the Edgelords had constructed on the edge of the battlefield.
"I don't know, but whatever it is, it can't be good," Watanabe remarked. "Let's destroy it."
The three Knights turned and strode toward the Noctlith Crown, superheated lances spitting from their melta weapons. The Noctlith Crown's barrier shimmered as it attempted to withstand the devastating melta weapons, but a few inevitably got through. Chiba then charged his Armiger Warglaive into the slowly crumbling structure and chopped it down with his reaper chain-cleaver. With one last growl of his rapidly spinning weapon, he sent the accursed structure toppling.
"That should do it," he muttered.
"Yeah," Watanabe agreed with a sigh. "We might have lost the war, but we took revenge by annihilating the entire traitor warband. Let's hope it'll be enough to save Carthage."
Unbeknownst to them, the Edgelords had reappeared in the planet shortly after the Knights withdrew to recuperate and repair their damaged suits and for the pilots to heal...but the Ultramarines had shown up to stop them. And though, like the Knights of House Yato, the Ultramarines once again annihilated the Edgelords, this time they achieved complete victory and fulfilled their agendas.
Not that it mattered to the beleaguered Knights, but at least they could take comfort in the fact that the system was safe from the Traitors.
...for now, anyway.
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