"Oh, hey! It's the IXth legion!" I waved at our brothers, who were also clad in crimson. Then I frowned when I noticed something weird. They were approaching us...somewhat aggressively. "Um, why do they look like they want to kill us?"
"Because they do?" The brother-sergeant of my Cataphractii Terminator retinue snorted. Hathor Mathias was rolling his eyes and sighing. He wasn't one of the Sekhmet, but like them, he carried a kopesh sword. Cataphractii Terminator was still durable, whether donned by the Sekhmet or regular legionnaires. And Hathor was a veteran. "Look, Ignatius, I hate to break it to you, but as much as you preach about being loyal to the Emperor, the rest of the Imperium regards us as Traitors."
"Ugh..." I grimaced. I hated that. The XVth had always been loyal, but ever since our gene-father broke the Edict of Nikaea and the Wolves razed our homeworld of Prospero, we were cast out as traitors. Damn it. And I was Terran born too, so it wasn't as if the burning of Prospero hurt me that deeply.
Anyway, the Blood Angels were coming in force. Using my mind's eye, I could see their forces arrayed against us. There were two Contemptor Dreadnoughts, a couple of squads of tactical marines in Rhinos, two squads of plasma tactical support squads, a Kratos tank, a Predator, a lumbering Leviathan Dreadnought, and two huge squads of Terminators - one Cataphractii armed with lightning claws, and the other bearing the heraldry of the revered Crimson Paladins with their esoteric gravity shields or something.
Yeah, they could have whatever fancy tech they liked. Those shields weren't going to stand up to our mind bullets.
"All right then." I exhaled wearily. "If it's a fight they want, then it's a fight they'll get. For the Emperor!"
The irony wasn't lost on me even as my Achaean Configuration advanced to meet them. The Predators, blessed by the mind-sight of the Numerologist Cabal, the Order of Ruin calculating numbers to perfection and laying down trajectories for the plasma executioner destroyer and lascannons to take out the enemy Predator with incredible precision. That was all we could do for now, unfortunately, as most of our guns remained out of range.
The Blood Angels surged to meet us, also not able to shoot much because they were also out of range. The Contemptor Dreadnought with lascannons fired, scoring a couple of hits against our Predators, though it survived somehow, despite the Librarian's attempts to erect a kine shield backfiring and him eating a couple of wounds from perils. The Numerologist immediately set work to repairing the Predator, soothing its injured machine spirit. The Kratos bellowed, its battle cannon erupting in fury as it fired upon me and my Terminator retinue, but even as the explosions caved a crater around us, we...survived the blow. The heavy bolters fared little better, the detonating shells glancing off our heavy ceramite. The volkite culverins, on the other hand, almost incinerated the hand of one of my brothers, probably because the Terminator armor had been weathered down by the explosions.
Nonetheless, relying on the arts of the Pavoni, we were able to continue advancing without slowing down. Firing our volkite chargers and aetherfire blasters at the Crimson Paladins, we charged at them even as two of their number fell. They returned fire, the assault cannon choking, but otherwise not doing much, and the injured brother fell. Meanwhile, pondering Castellax-Achea automata bombarded the plasma tactical support squad from afar with aetherfire, reducing them to just one or two men. The Terminators with lightning claws also suffered bombardment from a second unit of Castellax-Achea, losing maybe a couple. A Contemptor Dreadnought staggered, hit by plasma and lascannons from the Predators, but didn't fall.
While we managed to cut down two more Crimson Paladins with our kopesh swords and achaean force or Pavoni arts, my Biomancy discipline allowing me to crush one of them with a single blow by more than doubling my strength, they hit back and took down one of my brothers in return. At the back, the Contemptor Dreadnoughts traded more fire, but one of its lascannon shots was blocked by the Librarian's kine shield, his psychic attempts more successful this time. One tactical squad was laid low by a combination of the Kratos's shells and defensive weapons, as well as a Blood Angels tactical squad's fire, but their return fire cut down one IXth legionnaire in return. Though a few of the Aetherfire blaster guys were also put down by volkite culverins. A Rhino was crippled by the grav-flux bombards of the Leviathan Dreadnought, but the Castellax-Achea remained unperturbed, their armor and atomantic deflectors shielding them from the gravitic waves. A second Contemptor Dreadnought continued to rinse the already beleageuered squad of Aetherfire blaster dudes with Kheres assault cannon rounds, though a couple of them managed to endure the high caliber rounds despite their brother cut down beside them.
"From the skies we descend! With fury we shall reap!"
Zephon came screaming from the skies above, his retinue of destroyers accompanying him with their chainswords revving. They chose to swoop upon my Terminator retinue, their chainswords revving and bitting against the reinforced ceramite. I smacked one of the Crimson Paladins aside to confront Zephon, who was bellowing a challenge to me.
"I, the Bringer of Sorrows, shall cut you down, Traitors!"
"That's why I keep telling you, we aren't Traitors!" I complained as I met his challenge, raising my kopesh sword to parry his strikes. His skillful riposte cut open my Cataphractii armor and left a wound across my chest, causing me to stagger. The guy's furious charge was filled with rage and strength that left me reeling. However, I drew upon my Pavoni arts to brace myself, strengthening and toughening myself to endure more blows, and swung my glowing kopesh sword in return.
Strength 10 AP4 (Rending 4+). All Zephon needed was to fail a single save...and he did. A single 1 saw him splattered across the ground as I Instant Death-ed him with my Pavoni powered kopesh sword.
"Hear me!" I yelled as the Blood Angels went still at the death of their Warlord. "We are not Traitors! Can we call a truce? You can retreat, we'll continue fighting for the Emperor against the real Traitors! Okay?"
The surviving Blood Angels looked at each other, and they quietly withdrew. I sighed in relief, glad that no more blood had to be spilled unnecessarily this day. They probably saw no reason to trust me, but time was up, and apparently, greater forces than Zephon had demanded their retreat (mostly because the local gaming store closed at 8pm sharp, and we had to stop the game, but let's just pretend it was the Emperor's will). I bade them farewell and turned back to my guys.
"Okay, let's continue gathering intelligence on the Arch-traitor's movements and report to Lord Dorn, shall we?"
With a weary chorus of assent, my guys followed me back toward the box...ahem, basilica where the data-caches were stored. More work had to be done before we could find a way to stop the Traitors' advance toward Holy Terra.
Little did we know, our little skirmish would have ripple effects on the future 10,000 years from now...
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