Chaos Ensues!

"Oh boy...so much for collecting noctilith deposits..." Sir Kanda murmured as he watched the drop pods and dread talons screaming from orbit. Already, spiky Thunderhawks had swooped down to unload their cargo - a Land Raider and a Rhino, along with a trio of bikers. Apparently, a Renegade Space Marine Chapter had descended upon Kuroishi for a raid, the red (?) corsairs having launched their typical lightning-fast assaults. Kanda recognized the heraldry of the once noble Chapter, which was now desecrated with insane symbols that made him ill just to set his eyes upon.

+We have to defend the extraction site at all costs,+ Skitarii Marshal Rho 29-Tataki blurted, and Kanda nodded.

"Understood."

+I will take Unit Gamma-1 out to intercept them,+ 29-Tataki continued. Skitarii Vanguard squad Gamma-1 was already leaping into their Skorpius Dunerider, Gamma-1A, and riding the hovercraft as it sped toward the central junction. After the Skitarii Hunter Cohort 428-Sigma had received the latest, most recently updated Munitorum Field Manual, there had been...some adjustments to their roster. Skitarii Marshal Sigma 44-Kariya had stepped back for Rho 29-Tataki to take charge, for he had swapped the Onager Dunecrawler Alpha-1 for a more mobile Skorpius Dunerider and more infantry.

Skitarii Ranger squads Alpha-1 and Beta-2 remained as support, though, scouting forward to secure supply drops up ahead. The Departo Munitorum had dropped power cells and plasma fuel flasks in the field, using their Valkyries to launch near suicidal runs earlier, while the Chaos Space Marines bombed the excavation site. Their roles were to secure the supplies while Sir Kanda and his Cerastus Knight Lancer eliminated the bulk of the enemy forces.

While Kanda guided his armor into a loping stride, heading straight for the speeding Land Raider, a trio of Sydonian Dragoons galloped at his flank. Delta Yari led them, the three of them heading straight for the bikers. Even so, between the lightning discharge from Kanda's Cerastus shock lance and the phosphor shots from Delta Yari and his comrades' serpentas, they managed to incinerate two of the bikers, leaving just one. On the other side, Ranger squad Alpha-1 fired upon a mob of Cultists that were sprinting toward the steadily aiming cyborgs, screaming and raving madly.

Ranger Beta-2 secured the center, behind the cover of the Skorpius Dunerider.

+Wait,+ 29-Tataki instructed his Skitarii Vanguard before they could disembarked from Gamma-1A. +No sign of enemy infantry in the vicinity yet, so stay onboard until they emerge, for optimal firing solutions.+

+I'm guessing it's because we get to re-roll wound rolls if we hop out of the Skorpius Dunerider, and you want to save that for enemy infantry,+ the Skitarii Alpha of Vanguard squad Gamma-1 said. 29-Tataki tried not to roll his bionic eyes, which had been replaced by occulars.

The Land Raider, despite facing down a charge from the Cerastus Knight Lancer, fired stalwartly with its lascannons, winging the lumbering Knight and shearing off a shoulder pauldron. Still, the armored walker kept coming, undeterred.

"I'm gonna raid the Land Raider and show up these Renegade Raiders!" Kanda yelled, thrusting his Cerastus shock lance forward and punching through the thick, armored hull of the heavily armored transport. Volatile, exotic energies erupted from the ancient weapon and fried the interior of the Land Raider, reducing it to a smoking hulk. The Renegades and Chosen riding within scrambled out, but one of them had been blown apart by the violent lightning sparking within, while another was half-dead, all but crawling out. One of them aimed his lascannon at the Knight Lancer, the ruby beam searing off the ion gauntlet shield.

"You!" The Chaos Lord growled, swinging his thunder hammer as he strode forward to meet the Knight suit in combat. "You'll regret this, mortal!"

"You're the one who reneged on your oaths to the Emperor first, renegade!" Kanda retorted through the speaker.

"And you'll say good night soon, Imperial Knight!" A Sorcerer accompanying the Legionnaires spat, his staff glowing with eldritch light as he drew upon the empyrean to form a hex.

While they continued to banter, the Rhino sped forward to intercept the Sydonian Dragoons. Delta Yari's squadron had failed to reach the final biker, who simply zoomed forward to hit them with his hammer of wrath...whoops, wrong edition. Apparently, they had forgotten how to do hammer of wrath since the Horus Heresy. He was joined by a shambling entourage of Plague Marines, who had disembarked from the speeding Rhino to steal the supplies meant for the Imperial Guard.

Meanwhile, the surviving Cultists, having been reduced to just three men and women, reached Skitarii Ranger squad Alpha-1, swinging their machetes, pipes and other weapons to hack down the cyborg warriors. Their gleaming augmetics deflecting a couple of the blows, the Skitarii stoically retaliated, smashing two of them with the strength of steel bionics, but the leader laughed manically as he retreated, swaying just out of reach.

"I have the Dark Gods' protection!" He gloated. "You cannot hurt me!"

The Havocs, having alighted from the Rhino along with the Plague Marines, were coughing and waving their hands in front of their helms, cursing at the stench of their fellow passengers. Despite their discomfort at being in close proximity to such virulent dudes, they climbed a building to take potshots at Kanda's Knight, their lascannons punching holes in the armor and sending it staggering. Meanwhile, the biker fired his meltagun...and missed, but the Plague Marines had more success with their blight launchers and other weapons, causing one of the Sydonian Dragoons to stumble as damage piled upon his steed.

"Uh...need some help here?" He moaned. Delta Yari poked him with his taser lance.

+Stop whining and be a man!+

"I'm no longer a man, I'm one with the Machine God!"

Before Delta Yari could reprimand him, the Plague Marines and biker crashed into them. The latter, as mentioned earlier, had forgotten how to execute a hammer of wrath after ten millennia, so Delta Yari promptly ignored him, and with his other squadron mates, launched a counteroffensive and stabbed the Plague Marines with their taser lances before the diseased Astartes could reach them. The crackling energies from their taser weapons ripped even the disgustingly resilient transhuman physiology apart, showering the air with viscera, guts and pus.

"Yuck." The wounded Sydonian Dragoon grimaced. "What the hell are these things made of? They lack the purity of the Machine."

+Speaking of which, a sequel to Mechanicus is in the works. I wonder if we'll be fielded in the game.+

Despite Delta Yari's musings, the Chaos Lord's head just wasn't in the game. He had courageously charged Kanda's Knight and swung his thunder hammer, but at the last moment, his nerve failed him and he missed his devastating strikes. To Kanda's bemusment, the thunder hammer barreled through empty space, coughing and sputtering empyric energies in a futile gesture.

"That was...embarrassing."

"My dice rolls aren't so hot today," the Chaos Lord complained, glaring at the heavens. "The Dark Gods have abandoned me!"

"Well, I won't," Kanda vowed and proceeded to squish the Chosen that hurled their power armored bodies forward to save their leaders' lives. The bodyguard unit was all but decimated, with only a couple of them left.

The Rhino, having emptied itself of passengers, rammed into the Skorpius Dunerider in the center, where the supplies were. The hovercraft shuddered and jerked, then the Skitarius driver floored the pedal and slammed the armored hull back against the Rhino. Within seconds, both transports were grinding against each other, suspensor fields versus growing engines, and neither yielded any ground.

+Out, out!+ 29-Tataki ordered, and Vanguard squad Gamma-1 disembarked. They fired radium rounds at the legionnaire, but despite the devastating salvo of radioactive bullets, the power armor protected the Renegades from the worst of their ill effects. Only one went down and another limped, his servos cut by a lucky stray shot. The Sorcerer snarled.

"You'll regret being in the Vanguard!"

+Uh, but we are Skitarii Vanguard,+ the Alpha of Gamma-1 protested, only for 29-Tataki to smack his head.

This time, the Chaos Lord was finally able to do something, having beseeched the Chaos Gods for strength, and his thunder hammer connected, dealing devastating damage to the reeling Cerastus Knight Lancer. The Cultist leader didn't share his fortune, though, and while he dodged the Skitarii's melee attacks between guffaws, the Alpha of Ranger squad Alpha-1 finally bludgeoned him with his arc maul and fried his skull with artificial lightning.

+Where are your so-called Dark Gods now?+ He sneered.

The biker reversed, only for the Heretic Astarte to be enveloped in phosphor rounds by the Sydonian Dragoons, who were dual wielding their taser lances and serpentas. His blazing body fell from his steed, the biker toppling over and crashing into a nearby wall of a hab block before detonating. Free from combat, the trio of Sydonian Dragoons turned and charged the Havocs, who were blasting apart Kanda's Knight Lancer with more lascannon shots. The Havocs took down the damaged rider's steed with a few well-placed punches, but the surviving duo stabbed the sergeant and one of the Havocs to death.

With a determined swing of his shock lance, Kanda crushed the Chaos Lord and the remaining Chosen, but his Knight was now staggering, having suffered catastrophic damage. Its frame was smoldering and shuddering, on the verge of shutting down. However, Kanda coaxed his Knight for one last charge.

"C'mon," he whispered. "Just a bit more, buddy."

The Havocs managed to disengage from combat and jumped into the Rhino, which was still grinding against the Skorpius Dunerider. Without any other targets in sight, Kanda turned on the surviving Chaos Space Marines before they could bear down on the Skitarii infantry, and swatted the Renegades aside with a sweep of his shock lance. Even the Heretic Astartes couldn't withstand such a powerful blow.

Determined to finish off the Havocs who escaped their wrath, Delta Yari directed his remaining comrade to charge the Rhino, but the durable transport withstood their lances, taking minimal damage as their weapons chipped off armor and adamantium from its battered hide.

However, the Havocs weren't done. Piling out of the Rhino, they turned around and obliterated Kanda's Knight with a vengeful volley of las before Delta Yari could hit them.

"Yeah! We finally wreaked the havoc we were seeking!" One of them shouted. Unfortunately, their triumph was short-lived. Between the Sydonian Dragoons that were slowly dismantling the poor Rhino, and having 2 squads of Skitarii infantry converging upon them, their radium carbines, plasma calivers, arc rifle, transuranic arquebus, arc pistols aimed solely at them in cold calculation, they were doomed.

"Um...can we concede?" One of them asked, dropping his lascannon and holding his hands up in surrender.

The Skitarii didn't take prisoners.

A Week Later...

"Just when I thought we finally caught a break," Kanda grumbled, ensconced in the Throne Mechanicum of his newly repaired Knight. It was a good thing that his Cerastus Knight Lancer didn't blow up in the last battle, or he would have perished along with his suit. The Mechanicus had salvaged his armor and restored it in short order. Such was the necessity of war.

+The Renegades have assault Kuroishi again,+ Rho 29-Tataki remarked grimly in binharic. +There is a 89.2% probability that they are here to excavate the noctilith deposits, and in all likelihood seek to attentuate empyric energies to their devices to increase their efficiency by...+

"In other words, we have to stop them again, otherwise it'll be really bad for us," Kanda interrupted.

+That is a succint surmization, but yes.+

This time, the Renegade Raiders struck fast and hard, seizing the initiative and diving upon the stunned Skitarii before they could brace themselves. Stung from the destruction of his knight suit during the last encounter, Kanda had pulled his Cerastus Knight Lancer back to seek cover behind a hab block, shielding him from the view of the Land Raider whose lascannons were deadly. The Havocs, however, were having none of it, climbing to a building to draw line of sight on him and firing their heavy weapons at him. Fortunately, this time, only one of them found their mark, with Kanda making good use of the surrounding hab blocks to cover his retreat. Rubble rained down in his wake, blackened from the discharge of high-powered las.

The Land Raider, on the other hand, did a number on the Skorpius Dunerider even before it could move, gouging chunks out of Gamma-1A before it could hover to cover. Another lascannon shot and witchfire from the Rhino's firing deck had dealt more damage beforehand, the Sorcerer weaving mysterious magicks to drive the Skorpius Dunerider's systems haywire. The smoking hovercraft listed, but its passengers hung on grimly, believing in its stalwart machine spirit. The Cultists ran forward, sowing chaos in their wake as they reveled in the power of their Dark Gods. The Plague Marines shambled out of the Land Raider, their blight weapons launching rounds that decimated Ranger squad Beta-2.

Meanwhile, the Chaos bikers zoomed forward, training their weapons on Ranger squad Alpha-1 and taking out a few cyborgs with precisely aimed salvos of bolt rounds. The meltagun glanced off the shimmering refractor field that their bionics emanated, though, dissipating harmlessly.

Then Delta Yari and his Sydonian Dragoons came crashing into the Chaos Bikers' flank, ripping them apart in a single devastating charge.

The Skitarii retaliated with all the efficiency and calculating ruthlessness they were famed for, Rho 29-Tataki directing his Vanguard squad Gamma-1 out to unleash a lethal hail of radium and plasma rounds that reduced the Havoc squad into just one guy, who was then finished off by Ranger squad Beta-2. Kanda strode his Titanic Knight suit over the Plague Marines, walking over them, but he did pivot his armor about to unleash a cascading eruption of lightning that incinerated them.

"What the?! Are you serious, Grandfather Nurgle? Did you seriously roll 3 1s and 2 2s?!" One of the Plague Marines shrieked in frustration before he was turned into a smoldering, bloated husk.

The Skorpius Dunerider, despite the damage it sustained, unleashed a sustained hail of heavy stubber rounds on the Cultists. Caught in the open, without any cover, the entire mob was wiped out. With the Cultists gone, the Vanguard swarmed the Rhino, but despite bashing and hammering at its hull, they failed to deal any significant damage to it...only to get decimated when it opened fire pointblank into them with its combi-bolters.

The Land Raider fired futilely at Kanda's Knight, but this time, he weaved through the hab blocks, dodging the shots and enduring grazes with his ion gauntlet shield. Unlike Kanda, though, the Skitarii found themselves embroiled in a desperate melee when the Chosen and Legionnaires poured out of the Land Raider and Rhino. The Land Raider too charged right into the Skitarii Vanguard, mowing a few of them down. Between the Land Raider, Rhino and the Chosen, they were able to annihilate the Vanguard, along with Skitarii Marshal Rho 29-Tataki.

+Avenge us!+ 29-Tataki pleaded with Kanda before his broken body was flung aside by a power fist. To be honest, the Chaos Lord had set upon the Skitarii Vanguard with a vengeance, but his power hammer only killed a couple, leaving survivors. His Chosen finished the job, though, their sheer strength and brutality destroying the cyborgs and leaving bionic parts twitching in the soil.

"Er...I'll try," Kanda murmured, still evading the Land Raider's lascannons. He finally managed to complete the charge, thrusting his Cerastus shock lance forward and spearing the annoying vehicle. With a few deft strokes, he left the armored transport a burning wreck on the battlefield.

The Renegades had tried to charge Ranger squad Beta-1...and failed, the crater behind which the Skitarii were hiding serving as a natural barricade. As they fell short, both Alpha-1 and Beta-1 hammered them with galvanic, plasma, transuranic and arc rounds, slaying all but the Sorcerer. The arc rifleman in Alpha-1 turned his weapon on the Rhino instead, frying several of its circuits, but he didn't do enough damage to stall the vehicle.

The Chosen and the Sorcerer continued forward, firing into Beta-1 and decimating the squad further - though the Chosen's demise was...amusing. Their plasma pistols barked...only to miss the cowering Skitarii Rangers. Worse, both plasma pistols blew up, engulfing their wielders in superheated gas and turning their power armored forms into raging infernos. The Chaos Lord howled in fury when he saw that his squad was two men down simply from shooting at the enemy.

"My Dark Gods, my Dark Gods, why have you forsaken me?!" He shrieked into the heavens, flailing wiht his thunder hammer in frustration. "What's with these dice rolls?! How the f did you roll 2 2s for hit rolls, and then 2 1s for Hazardous?! Are you f-ing with us?!"

+What is he on about?+ One of the beleaguered Skitarii Ranger survivors blurted to his comrade. His companion shrugged.

They didn't have time to contemplate, however. The Sorcerer and the Chosen were in their midst, slaughtering them completely. However...the Sorcerer appeared to have drawn too much from the empyrean...and he blew himself up, turning into a Chaos spawn when the Four turned upon him. The remaining Chosen spun and blew him apart with bolter rounds before his new feral, crazed form could lunge at them.

"Good Gods, this have to be one of the worst set of dice rolls I've seen in a while," the Chaos Lord moaned with a shake of his head.

Kanda, instead of pursuing the pissed Chaos Lord, moved into the backfield to disable a device the Cultist had left there, kicking it to oblivion to prevent any mishaps from occurring in future. Meanwhile, the Rhino trundled forward, its combi-bolters firing and reducing Ranger squad Alpha-1 to just two men. They cowered in shock from the carnage, even their surgically neutered minds unable to process the blitzkrieg.

The Sydonian Dragoons, however, refused to stand down. Delta Yari led his squadron mates in a charge that lanced right into the Chosen and their Chaos Lord. Though they speared two of the Chosen to death, the sole surviving bodyguard and his lord fought back with power fist and thunder hammer. Thanks to their Bionic Resilience, however, they were able to withstand the first few blows.

+You'll not bring us down!+ Delta Yari vowed. +We'll taser you to death first!+

"You will try," the Chaos Lord sneered. If Delta Yari still had a mouth underneath his rebreather, he would have smiled.

+Challenge accepted!+

The Rhino, however, charged and mowed down the two Skitarii Rangers in Alpha-1, claiming their objective. Unfortunately for the driver, he found Sir Kanda's Knight Lancer bearing down on his vehicle.

"Oh, sh..."

He never completed his sentence. The lance pierced through the relatively fragile hulk and burst both the driver within and the transport apart.

The Chaos Lord and the Sydonian Dragoons continued their duel, with the former smashing apart one of the riders' steeds and laying him low despite their Bionic Resilience. However, Delta Yari and his surviving comrade retaliated with lightning fury, their lances spearing the Chaos Lord in the chest from two different directions and cooking the convulsing warlord in his fuming power armor. The Chaos Lord flailed helplessly for a moment before going limp.

"Well, that's that, I suppose." Kanda looked around, after having his Knight step over the remains of the wrecked Rhino. He grimaced. "That's quite the casuality list compared to the last battle. I can't believe we're the only survivors."

+Hey, at least you survived this time...relatively intact,+ Delta Yari pointed out wearily, but he realized that the Noble was right. There were literally only the three of them left on the battlefield - two Sydonian Dragoons and a Cerastus Knight Lancer. +That was quite the rough battle. I didn't think we were going to win that. Praise the Omnissiah for His holy insight and delivering unto us the cold calculus of victory.+

"Uh...right. I guess you could say we lanced those renegades good." Kanda breathed a sigh of relief and glanced up. "Xenos or Traitors, I do hope they won't be bothering Kuroishi for a while. I certainly could use a break for now..."