To be fair, Primal Earth's cape culture has an issue with not really taking the idea of risk very seriously. There's been two whole generations of capes who've grown up not knowing what it was ever like to actually have your life be in danger outside of extremely unusual circumstances. This is one of their sharpest disconnects with Earth Bet capes. The other being that Primal Earth powers can come from basically any comic book origin source whereas Earth Bet powers always come from some sort of Trauma and you tend to just get the one power and any secondaries that would be needed to make it work while Primal Earth capes often don't even have all their powers corresponding to a singular theme let alone a single power type. Thus durability powers are rare and precious on Earth Bet in exchange for an abundance of tricksy conceptual powers and strange and hard to counter gimmick abilities while super-durability of some sort is perhaps the single most common ability on Primal Earth.
To be fair, Primal Earth's cape culture has an issue with not really taking the idea of risk very seriously. There's been two whole generations of capes who've grown up not knowing what it was ever like to actually have your life be in danger outside of extremely unusual circumstances. This is one of their sharpest disconnects with Earth Bet capes. The other being that Primal Earth powers can come from basically any comic book origin source whereas Earth Bet powers always come from some sort of Trauma and you tend to just get the one power and any secondaries that would be needed to make it work while Primal Earth capes often don't even have all their powers corresponding to a singular theme let alone a single power type. Thus durability powers are rare and precious on Earth Bet in exchange for an abundance of tricksy conceptual powers and strange and hard to counter gimmick abilities while super-durability of some sort is perhaps the single most common ability on Primal Earth.
well hopefully they realize soon the dangers that are coming, cause this whole thing in LA is a whole other ball game then what they probably have to deal with.
well hopefully they realize soon the dangers that are coming, cause this whole thing in LA is a whole other ball game then what they probably have to deal with.
They've had multiple major transdimensional invasions, once by Rularuu in the 60s, once by Reich-Earth in the 90s, the Rikti war that started in the early 2000s, a number of incursions from various hells, an invasion from Praetorian Earth in 2010 that was ended in 2012, another invasion from Rularuu, an attack by the Carthaginian god of sterility known as Mot in 2012, and while things have been quieter since 2012, they're not exactly unused to the idea of attack from beyond. Granted they have less experience with outright alien invasions, their primary ET experience coming from Extraterrestrial Capes, the Nictus who operate extensively through human proxies, and the Battalion's Shivans whose gooey forms emerge from meteors that periodically impact Primal earth and grow around rubble and corpses to form gelatinous (and highly radioactive) bodies to cause random acts of violence.
Still, the idea of being invaded from beyond is at least; not entirely foreign to them.
This would be where the world would either live or die at the summit of the madness roiling through what had once been Orange County, Los Angeles. The Rikti, the Destroyer, and the Protectorate would no longer be a factor at play, and instead all there would be was the Space Pirates and the Khornates, the hardest foes yet.
The Space Pirates deployed in force, appearing with flashes of teleportation and the shape of transport vessels dropping out of Ultra-N-Space, slipping between the cracks separating metaverses and manifesting in the fury of promised violence, almost seeming to rubberband into their proper shape. The commander had to be cashing in his chips so to speak, to use a phrase you'd learn while on this planet relating to gambling. But the sinister shape of Space Pirate warships crawling out of hiding to engage the alliance-of-convenience fleets hanging in orbit in a battle that while small by your standards, was something Earth Bet had never seen before.
You had to push it out of your mind though. As much as you hated it, the void battle was something out of your hands for the moment. The Confederacy of Dismor simply wanted a free hand to operate to grab ahold of their objective, you and the other inheritors. Anything to get their hands on you, to understand what about you let you work with the tools of the gods that their finest scientists couldn't understand. You just had to keep out of their hands long enough for reinforcements to arrive and dissuade the space pirates while Autobot defences kept Earth Bet safe from the Confederacy deciding to launch a Total Extinction Operation out of spite.
Difficult when the space pirates, finishing off the last of the Rikti, Protectorate, and Destroyer forces in their way; wheeled towards your group with eyes full of blazing intent, the burning helm lenses of insectoid Xaktik troopers turning towards you in a clean motion.
"Arne. Get ready." You said, stepping next to your bondsmate as he shifted his feet; Agafya and Sevrin following suit.
"You sure about taking them head-on when it's you they want?" Agafya asked, a bit of concern in her voice.
"Absolutely." You growled.
"So uh...any tips? These guys are kind of hardcore." Clockblocker gulped.
"Follow my lead." You said simply as you let your visor go opaque and gleam.
The Xaktik are some of the most common and vicious warriors among the Confederacy of Dismor's armies, well known for their incredible agility and titanic strength as well as their ability to completely shut off sensations of pain. With even an unarmoured Xaktik standing four metres tall, the Xaktik have an enormous advantage in strength, speed, and durability over most augmented humans, with standard Xaktik troopers being more than an order of magnitude stronger than Rikti Headmasters. With their shielded power armour, they are durable combatants and will rarely be felled in single hits with anything but extreme munitions, assuming that they are hit in the first place.
Making use of Galvanic Assault Cannons mounted in their pincer-cannons as well as photonic disruptor power scythe blades, dash jets, mass-driver side-arms, and multi-warhead grenade launchers, Xaktik Space Pirate Troopers are incredibly versatile and greatly overmatch most local combatants. With most of the Space Pirates being vat grown and given a combination of conditioning at the genetic level as well as foetal hypnosis and the abuses and violence of a system and culture designed to weed out compassion and mercy; Troopers will generally fight until mediported out regardless of injury.
"Get the hybrids!" One of them ordered, their helmet and armour plating heavier, more reinforced, highly resilient to energy-based weapons; the greenish-black armoursuit shifting silently as the Space Pirate let a Herald of Khorne crumble to dust around his pincers and then pointed towards you, roaring before jumping into motion.
They moved with great speed and vicious lethality, the crack of the sound barrier's protests accompanying their every twitch as you weaved around its blade; slowing time's flow to get around the Armoured Pirate sergeant and then charge off and release the ice beam; letting the multi-shot, reflection, and bounce effect go between multiple other pirates that were teleporting into action; turning their shields into prisons of ice around them that you broke with a fist to the ground and the release of a shockwave.
But they had devised counters to this favoured tactic of yours, splitting their shielding into multiple separated layers, sacrificing the first layer and accepting temporary immobility as they were surrounded but not frozen by ice. Some simply shattered the incredibly dense glaciers of frozen H2O packed as tightly as they could without collapsing into atomic soup, others teleported out or simply pretended to be dead. And with the Chrono-troopers firing off their packs, you could see them move at normal speed relative to you, red pulses of energy lashing towards you.
Though these shots would have been essentially "hitscan" to even most augmented humans, they were moving towards you about as fast as you could run at a decent but not all out clip; letting you weave around. But each impact shredded the atoms of the buildings behind you, quark soup streaming from blast craters from disciplined volleys of fire. They were trying to bracket you, close you in with overlapping fields of fire, and others; turned towards the civilians.
"+The Chozo Hybrid is compassionate. Force her to engage.+" A command came over their vox communications, and rippling pulses of energy-bolt fire tore through crowds who had just enough time to scream as their atoms were rendered into nothingness.
You could feel your throat close with outrage as they sent forth their mass produced Carcerian cannon fodder to be let loose among the civilians, crab clawed and slightly avian headed human-sized disposable troops moving with drones and letting out their bursts of arm-length energy cylinders in spread shots as they jumped and flipped amidst the masses of the people, others opening up their helms to bite down on those too slow to flee while Pyrocaust troopers started up intense nucleonic fires to herd civilians into killboxes where they released their engineered attack beasts.
"Samus you must rise above their taunts." Sevrin said as you ground your teeth until you could feel your incisors sanding down ever so slightly before the enamel regrow around them, a seething, boiling like noise squeezing through your teeth and lips.
The blood they shed for the sheer joy of it, for the cold calculation that murder would serve their ends. The bodies they broke while you vaulted around their fire; striking down their fodder and their warriors when they sought to challenge you directly; the sight of them popping in to ambush you and your friends, aiming towards those without your danger sense while they pulled you around.
Leading you towards sites of gore and slaughter, where their handiwork was seen in all of its red ruin.
The fires blazed at the edges of your vision as your chest felt like it was going to explode.
An explosion to your left briefly drew your eyes as the Space Pirates who had sought to strike you like wolfpacks, cycling in and out of range to never let you get to grips with the whole of their strength and to constantly move you from one direction to the next, all stopped and pivoted around to the sight of one of their planetary assault ships going down. The flashes of parahuman power your visor picked up telling you that Flechette had been the one responsible, working with Eudaimonica to get dimensional or spacewarping barriers out of the way so her stingers could punch through the armour and shielding; Cerebro's deductions letting her pick out where the vital components of the craft were.
The wounded craft plowed into the ground and the pirates blinkered briefly as you rushed forward with a scream; outpacing the rest of your own group.
You weren't keeping count of how many you killed, not all that closely, but when you attacked it was not merely to take them out of the fight but to make sure they were as dead as possible, you always made sure the final blow was as grandiose as possible, to give their restore stations as little to work with as possible. Nothing less than seeing their bodies reduced to vsicera would calm the storm in your chest.
"WHY CAN'T YOU LEAVE THESE PEOPLE ALONE?" You could hear yourself shout as you were caught in blade duels with Pirate Strikers whose scissor blade canons flickered with energy as they shuffled around; your suit phasing into intagibility as you closed into their guard and then met one of the large mandibled insectoids with a super missile fed charged power missile to the face to ensure that whatever was left would be something of supreme interest to particle physicists.
"WHY DO THESE PEOPLE HAVE TO DIE?! WHY COME HERE?! WHAT HAVE THESE PEOPLE EVER DONE TO YOU!?" Your voice was on the verge of cracking from how loud you were shouting, a heart was in your hand, torn out bloody and raw from a body you diced to pieces.
A sizzling warp blade struck you in the back, the quench fields biting into your multi-shielding and taking your shield power counter down a notch, you were half way through tearing them apart when a shockwave fist impacted you in the side and pushed you off your feet; the frequency blast of your frequency suit releasing a pulse of purple energy, arm shields thrown up to absorb the impact while Arne flew in via screw attack to cut through some of their aerotroopers, Agafya's Grapple beam yanking a Pirate Armoured Gunship's beetle like form from the sky and slamming it into a fighter craft while Sevrin directed Section 13 Special Activities Division troopers to let rip with their tachyon weapons, striking down the snipers who had been peppering you for the past minute.
"Hey, Dawnchild, I've been trying to get in touch with you for the past five minutes! Are you crazy or are you deaf?!" Taylor shouted at you, teleporting in front of you and moving her mask up high enough to show you that a scowl was written on it.
You almost punched her face off then and there, but stopped your fist just a centimetre from your nose before you realised you were about to hit an ally in your berserk fury.
You pulled your hand back and then let out a scream of frustration, smashing it into the ground hard enough to make the ground rumble in a way that could be heard and felt from far away; your suit absorbing a large chunk of the energy to prevent possible collateral damage.
"Crazy it is. We have our way into that facility. We can't just pick every fight we can here. Let these big buff space marine guys take care of that for god's sake!" She said, gesturing to the Astartes who were coordinating another push through the area, their weapons fire streaking down the streets while their aircraft roared overhead. You briefly caught a glimpse of flight pack equipped space marines landing nearby, weapons in hand as they assailed a Khornate havoc position while dreadnoughts worked to keep the Space pirates' head down, but Arne seemed to wince every time he could focus on the noise of their bolters.
Agafya heard them ramble on about their Gods with a scowl, and Sevrin seemed to just withdraw himself into his heroic duties, speaking ever more thoroughly in platitudes.
"Okay, look I'm not one to talk and I'm not sure how much of me is still me and not squid monster...but you people are broken. Are you sure you can handle this? Because the skeleton bot says you need to take care of this and if you're....this...how is that going to happen?" She said as you started to seethe. Who was she to criticise you like this? What did she know about what these things have done to you?
"Are you this hero of legend or are you just an angry little girl looking for punching bags?!" She shouted, pointing her finger at your face and it was all you could to not try to break it for violating your personal space before Thule slammed his power claw into the ground with enough force that ordinary humans would have exploded into giblets from the sheer noise of it at a quite decent distance, the ground beneath you lurching in a way to make you bounce and then snap you out of your seething state to see things with a bit more clarity.
"ENOUGH!"
"You are all of you, allowing the influence of Khorne to speak for you. Though physically protected from his corruption, that matters not if you do not channel your anger towards better ends. Be angry not merely for yourself, but for those who are imperilled by the scourge of war. And be disappointed in yourselves for squabbling like this when the most dire hour this Earth has faced has come." The Dreadnought admonished, shame filling you as you looked away and towards the ground.
"I have spoken to your xenos machinemen to inquire about your personal history, Aira." The usage of your Chozo name snapped your gaze towards him.
"I understand your pain, and you have my sympathies. But this pointless butchery does nothing to get you justice. Your caretakers would have told you that." He said.
"YOU HAVE THE NERVE TO BRI-" You shouted, shaking at him bringing them up before Agafya looked at you and laid a hand on your shoulder.
"Are you honouring the memory of your family by covering yourself in gore, Aira?" He said before he looked to Arne.
"And you, Skjoldr. Would your clan be proud of you drifting in and out of a battle fugue, killing like a machine rather than a warrior? Would their hearts be gladdened to see their son becoming a machine of death whenever he feels he cannot handle the situation under his normal state of mind?" He pointed the claw at Arne, tapping his helm as he .
"And Elena. Your parents were soldiers, yet your battles are for selfish pleasure to fill a hole in your chest with adrenaline fuelled hedonism. Is that how you seek to pay your respects to them? To kill for the joy of it? Battle is a means to an end, but there must always be an end." He said to Sokolova who grunted and looked about ready to pick a fight with him that she'd definitely win in body, but perhaps not in spirit.
"And finally, Edgar. You simply stand by and allow others to wallow in their minds when you are the rock of stability all others depend on. Is this fear of inadequacy, or fear of others depending on you?" He concluded while there was still a moment of quiet.
"Do not think for a moment that any of you are above judgement. But know that if we are to delve into this lair of evil, it will have to be with clear minds." He said as he looked down to a skull helmed giant who graciously nodded at the acknowledgement from the praefect.
Apollo Diomedes is the longest serving Grand Master of the Blood Ravens at over six thousand years of holding the position thanks to the Primaris enhancement process negating the slow aging of Space Marines altogether and his tremendous personal combat skill, as well as no small amount of luck. Once the first Praefect and de facto second in command of the Chapter under Azariah Kyras, Diomedes was eventually made to see the corruption of the man he had devoted his life to serving and would be the tip of the spear in the crusades to purge the home region of the blood ravens of his presence and his attempt to sacrifice all lives contained within to Khorne. However, out of a feeling of atonement, Apollo would resign his command and take up Chaplain duties to ensure that never again would the Blood Ravens be blind to the menace within.
Powerful even by space marine standards, Apollo is a beacon of Starchild faith that can be depended on to keep malefic influences at bay and is capable of channeling that faith into supernatural displays of ability, grace, and power; and despite making use of Tactical Dreadnought Armour, he is surprisingly swift and agile, as well as supremely well protected by the standards of the Adeptus Astartes. He also retains the command skill that he had in his former role as supreme commander of the honour guard and first praefect of the chapter, and has also become known as a stirring and fiery orator who has accepted the changes to the roles of the Space Marines brought about by the Primarch Revolution that birthed the Novem Imperium.
Agafya almost choked at the sight of him as soon as her scan was complete.
"A priest?!" She snarled, her urge to immediately leap into action rising to a boiling point before Vista grabbed onto her hand, knowing full well she could not hope to stop Agatha if she wanted to move.
"What purpose would this gods-bothering book thumper serve in a place like this? Is he going to sermon them to death?" She sneered. She did not scream like you did when mad, instead her passive-aggression became cold and frosty, the way she looked at the astartes judgemental and contemptuous.
"Faith is what will be needed in the fight to come, night warrior. You face not merely aliens but the ruinous wrath of the empyrean. I shall provide anchor for our force as we delve in. Please, know that you have my sympathies for the circumstances of your orphaning. But not all believers are like those who sl-"
"I should never have opened my mouth to Jetfire's damn psychologists if I knew they were going to run their lips like this." She scoffed. And you couldn't help but agree. Why were the Space Marines so able to access what you thought were confidential psychological assessments? Was Jetfire really that worried about you?
"If you're going in, I volunteer to assist." Windblade said, transforming out of her jet mode alongside Jetfire himself, the latter offering a small bow of acknowledgement.
"'Ello troopers. Spick an' spam I hope?" He said with a salute while Agatha glared daggers at him.
Numina in all of her purple finery would be the next to appear, her astral form fading into existence; transluscent and ghostly as always while runes of magic danced around her, her gloved hands folding together as she offered a gracious nod.
Tammy Arcanus, daughter to the prior Magic wielding metahuman Tommy Arcanus, a member of the Midnight Squad that serves as Primal earth's most prominent magic-wielding society. Raised in the magic arts as soon as she could read and coming to surpass her father, she would meet her end in a battle with the Soviet origin supervillain known as Red Threat in the 1960s; who had sought to take over the United States as his own fiefdom through usage of instabilities in the Earth, finally deciding that if he could not have Paragon nobody could; attempting to engage his nuclear scale self-destruct through suicide. This forced Tammy to possess his body and keep it comatose but alive. When Red Threat died in custody in 2002 during the Rikti invasion of Primal Earth, her spirit was freed to act without having to astral project through his dreaming brain, though her own body had died; forcing her to make sole usage of her astral form to manifest in the material world, though she is not a true ghost or undead. Despite this however, her skill in magic is potent to the point that this is of no inconvenience to her, and has actually been a major boon as containing or slaying her is virtually impossible, and freed of her material body she is far more in tune with magic and the power incarnate.
She has tapped into the incarnate legend of Hekate through the slow path, seeking to retain control over her actions without succumbing to the Well of Furies' promise of easy power, and mixes this in with her tremendous magical abilities and ghostly nature. Her abilities are primarily oriented towards support in the form of restoration, hexing, or augmenting, ranged attacks, and control over the battlefield and the actions of others. Her mastery over healing and repair arts in particular is legendary, and even death or destruction is able to be reversed by her with some investment of time and energy, though these spells take some time to ready again after being used. She is also able to greatly enhance the combat abilities of allies and debilitate enemies physically, mentally, and spiritually. Furthermore, her immaterial nature gives her a particularly great awareness of the nature of other non-material or heavily supernatural beings, such as daemons, deities, or the undead.
She gave a small, demure genuflection towards you and offered a hand for you to shake as she took a moment to study you and then let out a little gasp of surprise before murmuring to herself about how you were quite a lot more than she initially expected.
"Positron dispatched me to offer you what assistance I could given the nature of the threat we face. Please, allow me to make your acquaintance and offer you what assistance I can. Though I am not of the Warp, I think I can understand it enough to help ensure the rift is closed. But I must caution you that I am not able to operate in the null fields created by Trazyn." She said, looking towards the Phaeron who offered a small chuckle as he stepped out of a glyph of teleportation.
"The null fields unless concentrated into an annihilation strike would only put a bandage over the wound created by the formless horror. It would hardly be a permanent solution anyway. Which is why I require the likes of you. And of course, the Null Fields would do nothing about these Ruffians anyway." He said, gesturing to the Space Pirates idly.
"We will require mystics and psykers to do this cleanly. The Eldar, the inheritors, and the fully human spellcasters and psykers will be needed to get to the heart of the matter and mend the worldwound. Only then will the tides of unreality cease. As for the Space Pirates, we need only stop them from kidnapping the inheritors until reinforcements arrive and they leave." Trazyn said, Alyrsero holding his tongue as soon as he noticed the Necron.
"Oh come now, if you respond to seeing me like this every time I think our meetings are going to get quite grating." Trazyn scoffed before Alyrsero snarled and Arne placed a hand on his shoulder to pull him back.
You had been quiet for long enough though and you had to speak up. "If it's me they want, then we can use that. We can have the pirates come to my position while I go in the temple site. That way, they'll focus all their forces there." You said, clearing your throat and trying to maintain your calm, the screeches of monstrous things in the distance still threatening to tease some fury out of you. But you had to stay on top of it. Not shut it away but...find a place for it to go. A cause, a purpose for the anger to be used, rather than simply aimlessly coiling around anything that offended you to try and smash it. The wings of the phoenix of rage had to be made to beat in harmony, not flap in aimless flailing.
"We'll go in, with everything we can, and split into our teams. Keep the fighting contained around us. And then we bring everyone who needs to be there to the centre. Then whatever's there well..." You said looking to the maelstrom of energy curling out of the ground and the waves of Space Pirates engaged with the savages of the blood god in furious battle.
"...We'll destroy it." You said, nodding.
"I'm ready for it..." Arne said, nodding, looking to you and meeting your eyes with his own.
"Arne, I need you to hold the rear guard, make sure we have an exit plan. When I need you, you can port over to me." You said, chewing your lower lip briefly as you had a moment to think about the intensity of the action ahead of you.
"If you're going there, I'm going with you. Please don't try to ask me to stay behind." He said, looking at you as you thought briefly, about the possibility of him getting hurt. He was...delicate you thought. You were always afraid to think of him taking injury or his mind being pressed past what he could handle. It was silly, he was strong but...you hated to see him hurt or cry. You'd rather take the scrapes for him. He had enough pain, hadn't he?
"Arne, we're going into some of the heaviest fighting we've been in yet. It's going to be hell there...are you sure?" You said.
"You don't...you don't relish your task the way I do. It's not fair for me to ask you to get hurt in this." You said, holding his hand gently.
"I...I know you don't like to watch me get hit but I need this. I need to know that I'm as much of a hero as you. Or at least, enough of one to be in your presence." He smiled faintly beneath his helmet.
"You're everything I wish I could be, Samus. Brave, honourable, passionate...I'm just, I'm just the boy who cries a lot. But maybe...maybe I can be more like you but still, well, be the parts of me you love?" He said faintly.
"Maybe it'll be what pushes me off the road to...you know what?" He breathed out gently, mentally girding himself.
"Arne...I...alright, stick with me." You said, not wanting to let him out of your sight if he was going in with you.
"Then it is settled. The Blood Ravens, the Freedom Phalanx, the Autobots, and my troops will launch our assault with the PRT, Section Thirteen, and whomever else would like to lend a hand. Your teams will be assisted by us where possible, but the goal of getting through is up to you to succeed. Good luck, godseeds. You will see this through, I'm sure. But try not to disappoint me." Trazyn said as you looked towards the final set of battlements before the twisted fortress of brass the cult compound had become under the malefic influence of the warp. A feast of bones and rage, an abattoir of slaughter and war, where the Pirates were pressing in closer and seemed to know you'd be coming through; waiting for you to come to claim their prize.
Situation
The Space Pirates are deploying in greater and greater force, with the objective of capturing the inheritors (Samus, Arne, Agatha, and Sevrin) to understand how it is that they can access progenitor technology and how to create space pirate inheritors.
The Khornates are responding to the containment of the Blood God's energies into a smaller space by concentrating the amount of it flowing out of the warp portal to turn the area they control into a localised warp rift, creating daemon world like conditions within an area of about a kilometre outwards from their cult compound.
Reinforcements from the Omdyn, the Autobots, the Necrons, the Imperium, and potentially the Eldar are on their way.
The Freedom Phalanx, Protectorate, Autobots, Necrons, and Imperials will concentrate on making as much of a mess as possible to give you the straightest shot to where you need to be.
Diomedes (Tank/Support Blood Ravens Chaplain, can use faith to manipulate the Warp, also hits like a truck in CQC), Jetfire (All purpose blaster scrapper who hits hard and goes really fast as well as being a good tactician), Windblade (Scrappy autobot psychic and expert at melee and stealth, also a flier), and Numina (Support oriented mage with secondary control and damage dealing abilities) have directly joined the party and can be given orders. Diomedes and Jetfire also can command NPC allies; Space Marines and Autobots, who can provide further assistance.
Trazyn will be helping where he can but will not follow orders.
Options
Team Strategy: Pick five priorities and set from greatest to least.
[]: Civilian Defence (Defend civilians at the line of battle)
[]: Search and Rescue (Find civilians trapped in enemy territory and save them)
[]: Reconnaissance (find out where the foe is and what they're doing)
[]: Force annihilation (destroy as much of the foe as possible)
[]: Ally assistance (try to shore up the efforts of friendly military forces and pick up more team members to get eight people)
[]: Objective capping (Use your foresight to determine points of strategic interest and deal with them)
[]: HQ elimination (look for and kill important enemy characters, units, and structures to weaken their overall efforts)
[]: Fire Break (Contain any enemy advances and eliminate these pockets of advance to keep frontlines stable
[]: Lockdown (Stop the enemy from enjoying freedom of movement by eliminating their infrastructure to support it and choking the avenues they're using to move)
[]: DISTRACTION CARNIFEX!!! (Make the most noise possible to pull as much attention to yourselves as you can, drawing forces away from allies and civilians at obvious risk to yourself.)
Write in Team Tactics and Character Actions:
Write in specific tactics for the team to try such as ordering gunship bombing runs, attempting tandem warp attacks, certain patterns of attack the team should try out like the duodecimarchs clearing out organics to let Vista wreck mechanical foes or vista stretching space to let Alyrsero's casting reach farther than it should.
Then write in one specific action for each of the six characters such as say: Arne should comfort Samus' anxieties, Vista should keep close to Arne so he can meatshield for her, Sevrin should try to rein in Agafya's combat high, Alyrsero should try to scry enemy intentions or show Samus some tricks in the warp to learn how to divine foes better, Samus should try to slice into Rikti comm channels, or Agafya should go kill some big units. You could also try to use their smarts to set up some sort of device or cunning trick.
Other Team Priorities: (Same as last post's)
(Order priorities for the team on a per-team basis. 1 will be pursued unless impossible, 2 will be pursued unless it contradicts 1, 3 will only be pursued when there is nothing else to do or if it would not distract from 1 and 2. If applicable, such as with Annihilation, state enemies in order of preference to focus on.)
Enemy factions:
Blades of Khorne
Space Pirate Confederacy
[]: Containment (Contain spread of enemy forces, favours tankier teams.)
[]: Denial (Prevent the enemy from seizing certain points or items of interest)
[]: Mop Up (Go through areas where the enemy may have left stragglers or placed sneaky units to clean them out to prevent flanking or encircling)
[]: Civilian defence & rescue (Ensure that civilians and others who don't want to be there are able to get out safely and don't come under threat)
[]: Commando Ops (Seize important locations or take out important enemy strongpoints such as leaders or vital infrastructure, favours sneakier teams)
[]: Annihilation (Destroy the enemy outright wherever possible. Favours high damage teams.)
[1]: HQ elimination (look for and kill important enemy characters, units, and structures to weaken their overall efforts)
[2]: Lockdown (Stop the enemy from enjoying freedom of movement by eliminating their infrastructure to support it and choking the avenues they're using to move)
[3]: Objective capping (Use your foresight to determine points of strategic interest and deal with them)
[4]: Search and Rescue (Find civilians trapped in enemy territory and save them)
[5]: Force annihilation (destroy as much of the foe as possible)
Team Tactics
- Taylor and Samus will act as vanguards, finding enemies on the path and dealing damage to them before they can even reach the rest of the group
- Sevrin, Diomedes and Numina will combine their talents to give the team the best support that is possible for the journey
- Agafya, Doom Slayer and Arne will act as the guards for the approach, keeping the group safe from the more physical threats that will approach
- Windblade will utilize stealth and attack enemies while they are held up by other members to deal significant damage
- Jetfire will command some Autobot fliers to distract the Space Pirate forces as the group makes their way to the Brass Fortress
- Alyrsero and Vista shall utilize the method of using her powers to extend the reach of his spells
Character Actions
- Taylor will use her bugs to do recon on the Space Pirates
- Samus will check in with Arne to make sure he is fine for the battle ahead
- Arne will check in with Samus to make sure she is fine for the battle ahead
- Agafya will try to calm herself by going over her weapons
- Sevrin will check in with Agafya and see if there is issues
- Doom Slayer Will make sure the Earth Bet natives are kept safe
- Vista will try to calm herself and center her control of her powers, knowing she will be taxing them soon.
- Alyrsero should try to find a way to use the warp to disorient the Space Pirate forces, goading them to attacking the Khornite forces
- Numina will try to enhance the Doom Slayer's abilities before they go into combat
- Diomedes Will instruct Vista on the best ways to avoid the taint of Chaos
- Jetfire will go over the plan of attack with Diomedes and Doom Slayer
- Windblade will try to keep watch for any enemy ambushes
Other Team Priorites:
Team 2:
-[1]: Annihilation (Destroy the enemy outright wherever possible. Favours high damage teams.)
-[2]: Mop Up (Go through areas where the enemy may have left stragglers or placed sneaky units to clean them out to prevent flanking or encircling)
-[3]: Containment (Contain spread of enemy forces, favours tankier teams.)
Enemy factions:
[1] Blades of Khorne
[2] Space Pirate Confederacy
Team 3
-[1]: Commando Ops (Seize important locations or take out important enemy strongpoints such as leaders or vital infrastructure, favours sneakier teams)
-[2]: Mop Up (Go through areas where the enemy may have left stragglers or placed sneaky units to clean them out to prevent flanking or encircling)
-[3]: Civilian defence & rescue (Ensure that civilians and others who don't want to be there are able to get out safely and don't come under threat)
[1] Space Pirates
[2] Blades of Khorne
Team 4
-[1]: Containment (Contain spread of enemy forces, favours tankier teams.)
-[2]: Annihilation (Destroy the enemy outright wherever possible. Favours high damage teams.)
-[3]: Mop Up (Go through areas where the enemy may have left stragglers or placed sneaky units to clean them out to prevent flanking or encircling)
Well, Sevrin is the most normal and okay of the four but that also makes him feel like he's a bad friend since he has issues relating. He mostly spent the time the krikens attacked his homeworld hiding in a panic room and didn't see too much of the gory details. So he's mentally the most...neurotypical I'd say? On the other hand it makes him feel like he doesn't really have what it takes to support everyone else. Especially since his adoptive family was also very supportive and caring.
Samus had the worst time of it, knee deep in the dead, almost killed by Ridley, watching her mother die in front of her and seeing Ridley's ship explode knowing her dad was aboard and wandering in the ashes of her home for hours until the Chozo returned and picked her up. She was raised by a wonderful, loving family but she doesn't understand social cues all that well and has only been reacclimating to other humans who aren't Arne for a year.
Arne was much more passive during the attack on Cylosis, mostly just clinging to his mother as they tried to run for safety and then being separated from them when they decided to stay back and give Spire enough time to take off with him by taking on Viper. But the real damage comes from the fact that many of the alimbics raising him; Zurvduat in particular; were neglectful to outright abusive with Zurv in particular tearing apart his self-esteem.
Agatha dealt with her trauma by just trying to ignore it and bury it in thrillseeking only to be frustrated by the rather spartiate living conditions her caretakers proscribed to her where she lived a life of trying to find calm, peace and not overwhelming herself with distractions to truly understand the night and the darkness of the void. Which made her crave stimulation more and also gave her a chip on her shoulder about always wanting to be the best but feeling like she's doomed to be a third wheel.
They've all visited psychologists repeatedly throughout the year they've had living back in their home countries but Sevrin has issues with just telling the Psychologist what they want to hear to make them feel like they're doing a good job since he doesn't want to upset them, Samus' temper actively scares many psychologists who've seen her make a mess of their offices when they poke in the wrong direction went trying to treat her trauma, Arne is a major work in progress and is at risk of developing DID due to his bad disassociation coping mechanisms, and Agatha has issues with being criticised whenever its a criticism that she'd actually care for.
The sort of damage they've suffered will take time to heal. Though luckily they're going to be recommended to start sitting with actual psychologists again rather than simple monthly psych evals by autobot personnel handlers who go through way too many people to develop a more individual rapport due to being military psychologists attached to formalised military units.
The Blood Ravens of course, have a lot of the job of psychologist passed onto the Librarius and the Chaplainry, but as funny as Apollo "EET IS THE BEHNBUHLAYDE" Diomedes giving therapy would be, he works almost entirely with Astartes who are deeply versed in the culture of the Space Marines. Though given that involves working with a lot of kids with abnormal childhoods (like the process of becoming a space marine) he might actually be not half bad at the job.
Yamada of course, would like to work with them because alien hybrids raised mostly apart from their own species who are all somewhere on the autistic spectrum and have a laundry list of conditions would be interesting for her to work with and she'd like to think she can help them reconnect to their birth species in particular.
As you'd expect; Freedom Phalanx's organisational psychologists also tend to moonlight as capes themselves.
Section 13 doesn't make a habit of working with kids but does have Arne and Agatha's native universe psychologists' contact deets.
[1]: HQ elimination (look for and kill important enemy characters, units, and structures to weaken their overall efforts)
[2]: Lockdown (Stop the enemy from enjoying freedom of movement by eliminating their infrastructure to support it and choking the avenues they're using to move)
[3]: Objective capping (Use your foresight to determine points of strategic interest and deal with them)
[4]: Search and Rescue (Find civilians trapped in enemy territory and save them)
[5]: Force annihilation (destroy as much of the foe as possible)
Team Tactics
- Taylor and Samus will act as vanguards, finding enemies on the path and dealing damage to them before they can even reach the rest of the group
- Sevrin, Diomedes and Numina will combine their talents to give the team the best support that is possible for the journey
- Agafya, Doom Slayer and Arne will act as the guards for the approach, keeping the group safe from the more physical threats that will approach
- Windblade will utilize stealth and attack enemies while they are held up by other members to deal significant damage
- Jetfire will command some Autobot fliers to distract the Space Pirate forces as the group makes their way to the Brass Fortress
- Alyrsero and Vista shall utilize the method of using her powers to extend the reach of his spells
Character Actions
- Taylor will use her bugs to do recon on the Space Pirates
- Samus will check in with Arne to make sure he is fine for the battle ahead
- Arne will check in with Samus to make sure she is fine for the battle ahead
- Agafya will try to calm herself by going over her weapons
- Sevrin will check in with Agafya and see if there is issues
- Doom Slayer Will make sure the Earth Bet natives are kept safe
- Vista will try to calm herself and center her control of her powers, knowing she will be taxing them soon.
- Alyrsero should try to find a way to use the warp to disorient the Space Pirate forces, goading them to attacking the Khornite forces
- Numina will try to enhance the Doom Slayer's abilities before they go into combat
- Diomedes Will instruct Vista on the best ways to avoid the taint of Chaos
- Jetfire will go over the plan of attack with Diomedes and Doom Slayer
- Windblade will try to keep watch for any enemy ambushes
Other Team Priorites:
Team 2:
-[1]: Annihilation (Destroy the enemy outright wherever possible. Favours high damage teams.)
-[2]: Mop Up (Go through areas where the enemy may have left stragglers or placed sneaky units to clean them out to prevent flanking or encircling)
-[3]: Containment (Contain spread of enemy forces, favours tankier teams.)
Enemy factions:
[1] Blades of Khorne
[2] Space Pirate Confederacy
Team 3
-[1]: Commando Ops (Seize important locations or take out important enemy strongpoints such as leaders or vital infrastructure, favours sneakier teams)
-[2]: Mop Up (Go through areas where the enemy may have left stragglers or placed sneaky units to clean them out to prevent flanking or encircling)
-[3]: Civilian defence & rescue (Ensure that civilians and others who don't want to be there are able to get out safely and don't come under threat)
[1] Space Pirates
[2] Blades of Khorne
Team 4
-[1]: Containment (Contain spread of enemy forces, favours tankier teams.)
-[2]: Annihilation (Destroy the enemy outright wherever possible. Favours high damage teams.)
-[3]: Mop Up (Go through areas where the enemy may have left stragglers or placed sneaky units to clean them out to prevent flanking or encircling)
Probably because they don't fall under blind and overwhelming rage with what they do. If it was one of the other Gods that might make some of them fall.
Also the Confederacy's doctrine is that there is nothing worth worshipping in existence and even if there was, the proper thing would be to subjugate it or destroy it. Faith is a shield against Chaos and the Space Pirates have a sort of unflinching certainty in their Miskratotheism (nothing is actually strong enough to be worthy of worship) that forms a strong shield because it's held with religious certainty and indoctrination from the vat to adulthood.
Also the Confederacy's doctrine is that there is nothing worth worshipping in existence and even if there was, the proper thing would be to subjugate it or destroy it. Faith is a shield against Chaos and the Space Pirates have a sort of unflinching certainty in their Miskratotheism (nothing is actually strong enough to be worthy of worship) that forms a strong shield because it's held with religious certainty and indoctrination from the vat to adulthood.
I get the feeling Bile would get along with the Space Pirates, something i wish to never happen given what they can do on their own. Mixing their methods will be a bad thing for everyone.
Arc 1: Fourfold Endeavour: Act 1: Crisis Mission (3): Battle of Los Angeles (Part 13)
[1]: HQ elimination (look for and kill important enemy characters, units, and structures to weaken their overall efforts)
[2]: Lockdown (Stop the enemy from enjoying freedom of movement by eliminating their infrastructure to support it and choking the avenues they're using to move)
[3]: Objective capping (Use your foresight to determine points of strategic interest and deal with them)
[4]: Search and Rescue (Find civilians trapped in enemy territory and save them)
[5]: Force annihilation (destroy as much of the foe as possible)
Team Tactics
- Taylor and Samus will act as vanguards, finding enemies on the path and dealing damage to them before they can even reach the rest of the group
- Sevrin, Diomedes and Numina will combine their talents to give the team the best support that is possible for the journey
- Agafya, Doom Slayer and Arne will act as the guards for the approach, keeping the group safe from the more physical threats that will approach
- Windblade will utilize stealth and attack enemies while they are held up by other members to deal significant damage
- Jetfire will command some Autobot fliers to distract the Space Pirate forces as the group makes their way to the Brass Fortress
- Alyrsero and Vista shall utilize the method of using her powers to extend the reach of his spells
Character Actions
- Taylor will use her bugs to do recon on the Space Pirates
- Samus will check in with Arne to make sure he is fine for the battle ahead
- Arne will check in with Samus to make sure she is fine for the battle ahead
- Agafya will try to calm herself by going over her weapons
- Sevrin will check in with Agafya and see if there is issues
- Doom Slayer Will make sure the Earth Bet natives are kept safe
- Vista will try to calm herself and center her control of her powers, knowing she will be taxing them soon.
- Alyrsero should try to find a way to use the warp to disorient the Space Pirate forces, goading them to attacking the Khornite forces
- Numina will try to enhance the Doom Slayer's abilities before they go into combat
- Diomedes Will instruct Vista on the best ways to avoid the taint of Chaos
- Jetfire will go over the plan of attack with Diomedes and Doom Slayer
- Windblade will try to keep watch for any enemy ambushes
Other Team Priorites:
Team 2:
-[1]: Annihilation (Destroy the enemy outright wherever possible. Favours high damage teams.)
-[2]: Mop Up (Go through areas where the enemy may have left stragglers or placed sneaky units to clean them out to prevent flanking or encircling)
-[3]: Containment (Contain spread of enemy forces, favours tankier teams.)
Enemy factions:
[1] Blades of Khorne
[2] Space Pirate Confederacy
Team 3
-[1]: Commando Ops (Seize important locations or take out important enemy strongpoints such as leaders or vital infrastructure, favours sneakier teams)
-[2]: Mop Up (Go through areas where the enemy may have left stragglers or placed sneaky units to clean them out to prevent flanking or encircling)
-[3]: Civilian defence & rescue (Ensure that civilians and others who don't want to be there are able to get out safely and don't come under threat)
[1] Space Pirates
[2] Blades of Khorne
Team 4
-[1]: Containment (Contain spread of enemy forces, favours tankier teams.)
-[2]: Annihilation (Destroy the enemy outright wherever possible. Favours high damage teams.)
-[3]: Mop Up (Go through areas where the enemy may have left stragglers or placed sneaky units to clean them out to prevent flanking or encircling)
Monstrosity was something you were rather used to. You'd seen all sorts of beastly, horrible things in your short life. From when you were very young, there were things you had come to associate with violence and terror. And since you were a boy, you were trained and shaped to fight such things. Such is the responsibility of an Armiger of the Tetrarch Order. To shoulder the heavy burden of battle with things that would feast on those who are not designed to battle with reddened tooth and claw.
You were still a boy though, and the foe was more than a mere predator or a hostile army. It was wrath, it was ruin. It was the boot on the throat and the downward pressure on those who did not kneel to the strong. It was the sword of violence and the fires of war. It was the goose step of tyranny and the cutting sickle of Darwinism upon those deemed unworthy. And into all this would be you, a teenaged boy woven from human and Alimbic tissue, one who dreads his own destiny and the name of Sylux that haunts his dreams.
And it would have to be enough.
Samus asked you to accompany her and Taylor, moving with Agatha and the Slayer, to search for the foes who would seek to drag down the pace of the advance. Her exact words weren't important, not when you lapsed into your battle trance to let your war-mind take the joystick of your body, to fight to survive and do battle to triumph. You just needed to hear the crux of her plan, and the paths of the future would lay themselves out to you.
A muscular brute of a Chaos Space Marine with arms so swollen by musculature that their armour around their biceps had to be melted into a metallic second skin to avoid bursting came forth snarling hate and fury. He was moving to the left, trying to outflank you as Samus rushed to the weak point of the fortress' entrance; her cannon clicking and firing a warhead meant to break open the hellsteel and infernal obsidian walls that scintillated with unnatural energies; a barrier that had resisted the fire of titans and autobots alike. A barrier that would stand to her for only three shots.
You wheeled in, movements graceful, fluidic, faster than the Exalted Chaos Champion had expected, having misread Samus not deeming him an immediate threat as him having gained the element of surprise.
Höfuðkúpubrot manifested, shifting from your wrist to your left hand; the hammer's blunt head sparking with positrons, neutrinos, and more exotic particles and thrumming with the energies and force-manipulations of many augmentation beams. You swung and struck and the impact was enough to throw your foe's whole aim off, the ground rumbling from the discharged energy before you reversed momentum and felt the pick smash into the head of your foe; charged energy leaving nothing but ruin as the berserker pack and the powers of the warp rolled through you.
More foes fell, your body on automatic. You almost were in a daze, simply going from one threat to the other. Shifting between close combat and ranged attacks as the situation demand. Every weapon finding its use, every technique put into beautiful motion and every strike aimed with deadly precision as energy passed to you by Numina, Sevrin, and Diomedes swirled around inside of you. You were a hunter and you needed monsters to slay, not for the fun of it as Agafya desired, or for the urge to kill as the Slayer felt, but because they needed to be defeated to make for a better world.
You concluded with another bolt of ionic judgement, the surge of godly energy building inside of you, mingling with your growing mystic talents and your shock coil and roaring out like the thunderbolts of Thor and Zeus and leaving devastation in their wake. The power was intoxicating, the might to change the world with a flick of your fingers or the barest thought dancing inside of you. You could finally be more than the scared boy, you could be the knight the stars needed to change to something better. Was this pride? You weren't sure, but it was nice to feel like you could make things change for once.
The surge was still going strong through you, incarnate energy roiling through you as you moved in time and space swifter than lightning; blinking, time shifting, weaving, reacting. You were thunder and lightning, strength and might. You were the storm unleashed and the hammer of the gods, and soon you were surrounded by the dead or dying, a Space Pirate roaring at you, trying to claw at you before you crushed its head to pulp beneath your fingers after embedding the pick of your hammer into its heart.
"Duskguard, are you still reading?" Someone said as you found your eyes seeming to clear, shaking your head as you looked back at whomever was speaking to you. Vista waved to you, Alyrsero folding his cloak around himself as you took stock of where you were for once. It was strange, you recognised the brass walls, the obsidian floors, the rows of skulls and weapons and the countless slain foes you had left behind and yet...it didn't feel like you had done all this. Someone else did, and you spoke for the first time in a while.
"...Yeah." You said, looking back at her, trying to smile beneath your helm as you offered a hand to her, the torch light of hellfire blazing with eerie crimson radiance that cast you in sinister light. Vista looked at your hand and backed away, and you looked at your appendage and noticed that it was covered in blood and brain matter.
"Oh..." You said, letting your shielding burn off the viscera clinging to your gauntlet.
You had the hands of a killer. That rarely bothered you. You were not given the grip strength to crush adamantium in your fingers to pick flowers. Then why did her backing away from you make you feel like you had done something wrong?
You couldn't focus on that for too long though, there was more work to be done. Your eyes flicked around, you took stock of where everyone was. Taylor's swarm had spread as far as she could, using insects implanted with shards of her nictus to spread her "radius" out further. You tapped into that network and took a moment to have a look around.
The corridor to the left had the Slayer, darting through the masses of muscle bloated mortals and daemons trying to press their way through, letting Numina's magic weave through the area where she was not scraping daemons away with psychic magic and neuromantic incarnate power; reinforcing and empowering the Slayer.
Vista turned away from you, gulping slightly before she bent space and Alyrsero's searing burst of hysh erupted forth from the gates he had opened through to the warp, to allow for swirling white orbs of banishment tear into the masses of daemonkind, making sure they'd not be able to get to grips with Windblade and Jetfire as the autobots turned to fire upon the Space pirate assault teams pouring in; physical projectiles glancing off their armour and forcing Samus to step in to rip through them with her anti-energy beam fire.
Sevrin let the light pool outwards, twisting it around himself and suffusing his allies with its energies, blows glancing off of Diomedes that would have tested even his heavy tactical dreadnought armour while he urged you forwards.
"Come young one, we have foes to slay." He shouted, boltguns erupting on the wrists of his gauntlets and initiating heliothermic reactions in the bodies of the bloody ogryns they struck.
Actinic flashes beset your eyes, Agatha slipping out of a shadow with a move you didn't know she had and then releasing an umbral burst of dark power to ensnare the field In crushing darkness; worming tendrils of night leaving only withered husks while you moved to guard Taylor's flank.
In her nova form; the orbs of umbral power she slipped from her tendrils struck like meteors, tossing space pirate drones out of the way and tearing into them with gravitic torsion. Her swarm let out its own lances of ebony from its eyes, cutting beams stabbing into armoured troopers who reeled from the fire she could output. But she hadn't noticed a cloaked trooper that had caught the attention of your x-ray visor, quench field power scythe extending from their hand and ready to stab into her form.
A move they never got to finish as you engulfed them in the cold of anti-energy and them broke them into pieces with a mortar shot, your form crackling with the speedbooster and slide tackling into a mass of other shadow troopers. One had the sense to sidestep, wait for your field to drop and then jabbed his blade into you, your shielding flaring and feedback making you grunt before your hammer had formed and you swung.
To your shock, the pirate was able to dodge out of the way. More came, tachyon sniper-bolts flung themselves backwards in time to strike out at you, teleporting in pirates moving to close off angles of escape. Some struck you, space pirates charged with incarnate power flickering out of shadows and stabbing into you in a way that made you feel something akin to pain as it resonated with your own incarnate signature.
You took many of them down, but enhanced space pirates charged with something...darker than the power incarnate shimmered into being, power sources you identified as shard and nictus based combined with something akin to energon as one managed to grab you in your weavings. The hand clenching with the force of a constellation of neutron stars as it shifted into dwarf form and making you grunt.
Behind the pirates, a howling Bloodthirster had pulled its way into being, a bloody axe hewing through some of them while a Daemon Prince beside it extended eight gory claws that stabbed into one of the aliens and pulled it into bloody halves, your blackstone suit pulsing out enforced normalcy that made the lesser daemons crawling around them roil in pain while the bloodthirster's form began to distort. With your captor distracted, you slammed your fist into the elbow of the black dwarf form until you heard something break and worked on the assumption that it wasn't your hand and then headbutted the black dwarf hard enough to splinter its face.
Pulled free; your shock coil snaked through your foes, replenishing your shielding while you let lightning crackle around your cannon, azyr and fulminative energy building around it until the shock coil's bolts grew an order of magnitude in size and two in brilliance, thunder ripping through your foes and their particles being shredded in the stream of anti-particles and neutrinos.
The bloodthirster brought forth its axe and drank of the blows with warp power, but your wrist gun treated it to a burst of neural beam that made the thing's whole body shimmer; rocket pods and multi-missiles staccato bursting to get yourself a wider degree of comfort. You pinged a distress signal to Samus, spinning to grab at the heavy swing of a hulking daemonic brute and then breaking the daemon's arms to impale it with its own elbows before you teleported out of the way of a herald's swing and onto the head of some blood hewed elephant of fire and brass.
The Goriphant trumpeted in hatred, but you quickly redirected it away from its attempted charge at Vista, Numina scourging it with her mind-magic while your beam fire hacked through its body and allies.
A series of pinprick sensations and flashes of vision informed you that you had to move again though, and you just missed the tachyon bolts thrown at you by pirate snipers, your senses filling you with the sensation of alien frustration while you landed on the ground and dropped a power bomb to clear some space. You were however, almost immediately forced to get dodging, your body vaulting out of the path of a super pirate enhanced with Primal Earth metahuman abilities.
Your blink pack fired, you danced around the radioactive might of the pirate brute, you phased through the ground and its fist, and then checked its shoulder with a step, turning its size against it and slamming it into the ground; enough time for you to move out of the way of a sueprfast space pirate melee-psion; sizzling thought blades swerving over your head and stabbing into a daemonic herald who let out an agonised cry before crumbling.
A concept blade was swung, shard giving it the ability to cut through just about anything, even perfectly durable materials and most shielding, but the pirate found itself surprised to find you catching the blade in hand; your own armour's conceptual durability allowing you to touch the blade even at some shield energy loss before you turned and shoved pirate and his sword into the chest of the speedster.
The rad-pirate's fist clocked you after it teleported in front of you, the blow pushing you back and your own retaliation shot absorbing into its radioactive defences as the brute; more than twice as tall as you, sidestepped your next hammer blow to your surprise, a radiation augmented power fist preparing to throw itself into your face.
But fast as he was, he was not out of the path of Samus' morph ball crashing into them with the boost ball, letting Taylor shift into her Black Dwarf form and grab the pirate, crushing them in quark matter hands.
"Arne, you're getting distracted...we've been trying to call you for the past two minutes." Taylor said to you, her usage of your actual name making you blink and shake your head.
You were knee deep in the dead again, the pirates shouting at one another and teleporting out while the Khornates wheeled around to deal with the Blood Ravens pushing through another section of the fortress, giving you a moment to rest as you looked down at the death you had surrounded yourself with.
You didn't exactly...well...you did remember killing these lesser combatants, but they seemed to hardly register to your mind. Not the way the more significant foes did.
"I'm...sorry I just..." Words were hard and you didn't have any coming to your mind right now.
"Sorry." You murmured.
"You fight well young one, but not as yourself. Is it courage that you hold, or simply stepping aside for something else to fight?" Diomedes said, stomping on the neck of a Chaos Android that was trying to crawl away and grinding his boot slightly.
"I...what?" You stammered.
"You go dead silent in fights save for when communication is requested. You seem often surprised by the carnage you wreak, and even now you seem...distant." He said, his skull helm focused on you.
"It's....it's not relevant right now, we need to shut this operation down." You said, looking away. You didn't like being confronted.
"Ey soldier, chin up, gotta know 'ow the troopahs are doin'." Jetfire said, that accent once again giving you brief pause before you pieced his words together and shook your head.
"Please, stop. Let me...let me think." You said, starting to pace as you tried to focus on the mission, where to go, what to do.
"Ahead is where we've got some weird juju going on. Tenth degree hocus pocus and abracadabra mumbo jumbo I don't know the first thing about." Taylor said, shifting back into her human form and pointing down a certain direction.
"That "mumbo jumbo" is ritual daemonomancy. It's...painful for me to focus on but the other teams are doing well and should be near their destinations. Once we're there, we can seal it." Alyrsero said, speaking slightly louder to be heard over the ripping sounds generated by Necron gauss weapons in the background.
"It's difficult to maintain my form as I get closer to it. A realm of souls that wishes to claim me keeps on tugging at my projection." Numina said, Tammy's form occasionally flickering before she chanted a spell to stabilise it.
"You are a spirit, you lack the clothing of flesh to guard you from the empyrean. Maintain your faith in the righteousness of our cause, and you will endure. Trust in your comrades, and believe that you will survive, and you will get through this." Apollo said while Sevrin pulled his axe free of another foe.
"The fighting so far is...easier than expected no?" He said.
"D-don't say that...that's very bad luck." You grumbled at him, the Engenoid boy looking at you and shrugging.
"Chance is something we make, Arne. Don't be so afraid of the dice."
"He's going to be there." Samus said, looking behind at the group as you let the blackstone suits create bubbles of normalcy in the soup of madness, Tammy sighing as her form was no longer under constant siege by the entropy of the warp.
"Who is?" Windblade asked.
"The pirate commander. He's going to let the ritual proceed until the right moment. Then he'll strike." She said, not a prediction. A certain statement of fact.
"You sure about that?" Taylor asked.
"It will happen. It has to happen." She said, any mirth gone from her voice as she looked back, her eyes cold and lacking in the usual warmth, the intensity almost making you flinch and definitely getting a bit of a startle out of you.
"I don't suppose you have a plan with your foresight, Sam?" Agatha asked, Aran shaking her head in response.
"Ah figures, when do we go into death's jaws with a single fucking clue anyway?" She scoffed.
The Slayer though, caught your attention as he already started simply walking off from the group, picking up into a sprint and then letting his guns do the talking, switching between them in a strange dance while he jinked and evaded around what fire came his way; waves of energy exploding out of his fists when he swung them rather than his mighty hammer or blazing sword or roaring chainsaw.
"H...Hey! We didn't figure out what to do! Get back here!" Vista shouted before shaking her head and looking briefly to you, then back at Samus and folded her arms.
"He will do what he wants." Agatha shrugged and smirked. "Man of my own heart." She said.
"Then do not waste the opportunity he provides. Let us advanc-" Diomedes started before Samus started sprinting down after and then ahead of the Slayer, a comet of power following her while Taylor blinked briefly and then sighed.
"Can't get a second to get in a plan can I?" She groaned before the Eldar passed her by.
"Patience is not a human trait you'll find." He said, speaking at her but not...to her...probably to Shadow...definitely to shadow.
But you weren't going to let Samus pass you by, and you sprinted off after her with the group in tow; the booming sounds of warfare going all around you as you considered the words of Diomedes and Alyrsero. You fight as a passenger in your own body at times, but you've done this so often it just seems second nature....was it the best way to do things? You weren't sure. But this was not a time to get overly philosophical.
"Hey, wait a second! St-...God you people." Taylor cursed under her breath, but you refused her efforts to teleport you back to position, and she relented after the second attempt to tug you back, figuring there was nothing she could do to get the more impetuous among you to head back. Still, she was adaptable, and worked with it.
Taylor's call-outs mingled with Alyrsero's guidance and Samus' foresight, guiding you into a precise strike on a Pirate Crab-Tank; first breaking its shields with a massive volley, then overwhelming its armour carapace and then finally plunging your hand into its central computer through the phase system and then pulling it out, crushing the system in your hand once you made it solid.
As expected, this let Vista step into line of sight to let Numina's magic get to work; magic wards swirling around the group as the astral projection chanted and mingled with the incantations of Alyrsero and the benedictions of Sevrin and Diomedes; sending incoming projectiles into the abyss of unguessable pockets of space while any on your own side that missed were shifted by Vista into landing perfectly; not that you really needed it with your marksmanship, but for the less trained, it made a million killshots out of panicked misaimed fire.
Indeed, with the augmentative energies swirling through the group and the teams who were breaching ever deeper into the facility it seemed to be almost a steamroll as the teams began to converge after completing their objectives; having picked up other helpers as well as the forces working their way through the citadel, layering on the benefits of superpowers, mysticism, incarnate energies, warp energies, and the awakening power building within the four inheritors at the site.
As long as you stayed together, this would be seen through. You hacked through foes left and right, trying to focus on the monsters that met your eyes. Beasts of nightmares and the demented imaginations of scientists who cared nothing for ethics or limitations so long as the results satisfied their superiors. Wretches you had to put out of their misery. A platoon of four squads of eight bloodthirsters tried to break through, Vanguard troops getting in their way quickly hacked down by the snarling daemons with lashing blades, whips, mauls and other weapons.
With Samus busied by the appearance of super space pirates who dropped in via mass teleport to flank the group, you threw yourself into the morass of daemons, jumping atop a swung axe and getting in a shot into the bloodthirster that had cut its way to Clockblocker, splitting a Protectorate cape in twain while she was trying to toss a series of bombs into the midst of the khornates. Taylor teleported Dennis out of the way while your foe rolled back from your radiance beam shot to its face, beams splitting out into the greater mass of enemies and scalding many of the daemons apart.
Pulling it down by its horns, the Daemon roared curses while Agatha smashed into it with the screw attack, sawing it apart in a spray of burning gore.
A flurry of blows flung themselves towards you, fate trying to pulse in the direction of blood and death. Time, fate, space, and motion all warring to decide who was getting hit and when. You took some blows, some of them harsh indeed, a massive axe blow from a bloodthirster that took on the form of a burning, bleeding skeletal parody of its normal kind wrapped in obsidian and brass with transparent flesh made of fire and curling blood-smoke issuing from its body having you coughing up a bit of blood from an impact that would have been best described as godlike. The unique bloodthirster grabbed you in its jaws and worried you, teeth grinding into your defences before you got off a wrist-gun and shoulder-cannon shot into its face to force it to let go, hellfire engulfing you afterwards as the Khornates each swung at you; brass chains erupting from the floor to restrain you.
You coughed up more blood, urged forth by the malice of the blood god, but your blackstone suit amplified its warp nullifying effects at your command, letting a bubble of normalcy erupt around you before you could sink into the molten blood the floor was turning into as the ground made war upon itself. The bloodthirsters reeled back, bodies bubbling and fizzling, a Daemon prince that had joined their ranks pulling apart and a Greater possessed space marine tearing in half as his daemon was banished. You expanded the field, and half the bloodthirsters disappeared as their tethers to the materium were broken, and then you contracted it and reversed it, letting thunder build around you and then erupt in lightning that struck another half of the remaining greater daemons.
One who had brought Aronim to his knees and had severed his leg roared in agony as the lightning danced through him, Glory Girl managing to clock the Daemon back into the main body of your electricity. You briefly looked at the Yurye boy while Numina rushed to repair his injury and nodded, shaking off lingering pain before doubling the lightning and surging it through the battlefield, most lesser combatants vaporising immediately from the combination of abilities and the Bloodthirster who had nearly slain Aronim breaking apart into nothingness.
The burning one had broken through the field though, cutting the lightning with axe blows and then smashing into your head with the blade, blood leaking from your eyes and a gash in your forehead forcibly opened by the narrative of the axe, your immunities made it impossible for the blow to split you in two like its narrative wished to, but while it couldn't outright kill you, you could feel pain from it all the same. The Burning One's eyes gazed into you with hate, and it swung an axe that had clashed with the swords of primarchs at you once again, fate bending to ensure a hit as you teleported, another laceration opening on your side.
The Burning One jabbed its axe into the skein of reality and dragged it down to open up a hole into the warp directly, the burning fields of brass and battle gazing into you with malice while the daemons of the warp stepped forth in a stampede, piling out at tremendous speed and widening the tear in reality while the Grand Bloodthirster landed nearby you once more, whip in motion and ensnaring you, giving you the sensation of being on fire before it flung you to the side and engulfed you in pyroclast.
The pyroclast filled you with the pain you had inflicted in battle back upon you, nerves on fire as you tried to push through. You were a killer and your hands were covered in blood, the death agony of so many lives ended by your hand shrieking in your head as you gritted your teeth and whimpered to make it stop. You didn't want to be remembered as a butcher, a killer, but what else could you be besides a living weapon? What were you but a golem forged for war from the clay of a small boy from Cylosis?
The Burning One was the punishment for those who lived lives devoted to nothing but bloodshed. The destruction and terror of battle made manifest. A Great General amongst Bloodthirsters whose birth cries came in an era of cataclysm you couldn't really grasp, based on the visions you were able to discern. The greater the warrior, the greater the Burning One would punish them for their destruction and death. For war will always one day come back home to those who wage it.
It had punished the ones that the space marines called genefathers in the past and held its own, and now that it had tasted your blood it craved more. Good, you thought, looking at the devastation the bloodthirster left behind, having nearly cut windblade in half to get to you.
Its axe was close, you could just about taste the blood it wanted from you. You wouldn't let it hit you again. You curled into your psychosphere and let loose a radiant powerbomb that engulfed the bloodthirster in a burning sphere of light.
"Samus!" You shouted, getting her attention briefly as she turned her charge shot towards the daemon's back; engulfing it from behind with another sphere of light to force it back into the power bomb blast, its body scalding with energy.
"The daemon will seek to challenge the greatest amongst us in battle. Fire on it while its attentions are elsewhere!" Diomedes shouted over the din of battle as he pushed a chaos space marine off of his crozus.
"Stare into the face of this monster with defiant courage and let it know that you fear not its hate nor its fury! Stare into it with certainty that you will triumph and it will buckle! Let it know that it is not your tormentor or punisher!" Diomedes shouted, Eldar warp energies coiling around you to bring you back up to full fighting status while the Bloodthirster let out a growl and regurgitated a volley of flame. Smashing your fist into the ground and firing up your arm shield, you met the blast head on and deflected it to the side, cutting through a column of foes who were pressing Taylor's flank and letting her shift her swarm's focus to the beast, surrounding it with bolts of shadow.
Projectiles tore into it from all sides, its body shaking from the constant outpouring of fire directed into it and the blackstone lance let out by Sevrin, shaped into a cone of negation that engulfed its body and snuffed out much of its flames, cracks forming on its bones and armour and letting Clockblocker clothesline it with wire that gouged into its wrist, the daemon stumbling further before Agatha's beam fire tore into its chest, the Unmakyr of the Slayer tearing its body apart further and Samus' missile fire being utterly unrelenting.
You moved in closer, ducking beneath its axe swing and rebuffing its attempted punch, smashing its hand back with your own fist, Winterpyre emerging from behind and grabbing the Khornate Daemon by the shoulder to stab it through the back with his own fiery sword while Dinomax's saurian allies teleported in from the side and clamped on its axe hand.
With Diomedes shouting hymnals of courage, the heat from the bloodthirster felt continually less intense; Kaeliyae's azyric power constantly scourging more and more of its body while you approached Samus once she had disposed of the last of the super pirate squad. She let out a burst of charge shots, three in total that made much of the great bloodthirster's body vaporise before you spoke.
"What's the plan?" You asked.
"You know the thing we're not supposed to do with the speedbooster?" She said with a slight michevous tone to her voice.
"We're too far away for a tandem spark." You muttered.
"No the other one."
"W-...Oh...Ooohhh...are you sure?" You asked as the Bloodthirster broke winterpyre and the dinosaurs' grip on him, smashing Bulkhead into the ground and calling forth more of its daemonic guards, Chaos warriors snarling hatred and piling into Taylor as she tried to hold them back.
"His chest is exposed. It'll work...ninety per cent sure." She said, looking back at the scene of violence.
"...That's a terrible margin of error." You complained, scowling immediately.
"With the sort of reality distorts going around right now who knows what would happen if we tried that?" You said, tension rife in your voice.
"A ten percent chance of things going wrong if we try that would..." You started.
"Be a risk, but if we phase out fast enough we could mitigate it. We need to try something." She said, voice surprisingly soft and mellow, lacking the usual angry battle fury you expected.
"We don't have the time to argue." She said, her words heard over the sounds of a Chaos Space Marine grabbing at Idaliryn as he tried to crawl away, legs severed from the eldar's body while the bloodthirsty novem astartes approached for the kill, Agafya moving in to distract the Chaos Lord while his terminator armoured guard wheeled around and barraged her with everything they had. Her blackstone field bought time, but Pirate Commandos had little concern for it and swept in, mobbing her and barraging her with advanced weapons that forced her to blink out.
"Samus...are you sure? This is...honestly insane." You said, voice shaking as you took stock of how enemies were pouring in from all sides, the Bloodthirster's position already reinforced, Jetfire trying his best to hold the line, Diomedes and Glory GIrl doing what they could to hold the daemon tide back with the other Eldar; but the barrage of bolts from the Chaos Space Marines brought Ormothin down with a hole in his gut, forcing Numina's attentions to round towards him. The centre couldn't hold.
"Arne, trust me." She said, getting into a sprint readiness position while the Bloodthirster Commander focused his attentions on the Slayer, clashing blades with him repeatedly. Its wounds were already healing, and Sevrin had to shift his focus to the space pirate attack on the flanks cutting through the lesser soldiers like a scythe through wheat, guarding a concerningly injured Elerya as she clutched at the exposed side of her face, her helm cut in two by a quench scythe and still trying to regenerate; blood leaking out of her exposed eye in a concerning way.
"Okay...as long as you're ready." You said.
"Do it." You said, letting go of apprehension as the two of you started to sprint together. Your thrusters boosted as her speedbooster kicked in at the same time as yours. You extended your arm and then both of you fired off the time dilater and then pulled each other into a centrifugal circle, spinning around each other at constantly accelerating speeds further bolstered by the phase shifter to eliminate the problem of friction altogether. The energies of the two of you mingled, her red Speed Booster field and your own blue one mingling into a rather threatening shade of purple that caused the daemons and chrono-troopers who were still able to act in the stopped time field to look on with concern.
Of course, none of their concern could match yours.
"Kind of...not ideal to do this without telling everyone else about what it even is." You said.
"Not now Arne." She scolded as you hit the desired velocity, the Bloodthirster Commander seeming to realise something was wrong and shouting commands to the Daemons.
"Should I?" You said, the two of you having your weapons at full charge.
"NOW!" She shouted, your hand reluctantly letting go of her arm as you were flung towards the bloodthirster, Samus using the blink pack to appear from behind him as you released the charge of your melee and cannon weapon into the wounds of the commander just at the moment of impact with Samus. The impact, charged with the energy of the rest of the support elements of the team annihilated the bloodthirster and just at the right moment, you released the timestop and the phase-out, returning to normal time and solidity as the blast spread out through that pocket of halted time.
Ragnarok in less than an instance. The apocalypse bottled in no time at all. Bahamut tipping into the cosmic sea and Tiamat's corpse hitting the primordial ocean. It was a flash of colours beyond description that quickly shifted to beyond imagination, a noise like an unfathomable ringing, a rumbling that was simultaneously the best and worst feeling in your entire life. A rattle in your virtually unbreakable bones that gave you the feeling of a hard kick in the ass and a distinct desire to not have to do that any time soon.
Hitting the ground with a brief roll and having to be caught by Samus, the enemy forces in the chamber before the centre of the ritual were annihilated in an instant as time resumed; the eruption of energy not even visible to most people as it took place not even in a single instance of time. The cosmos rippled for a moment, shaking and shuddering under the strain before normlacy resumed, the warp rift screaming shut and the daemons in the area banished immediately. The Space Pirates were torched away, while the field recognised and ignored allies, propagating out to the set limit of its area of effect and ceasing as it phased out of normal spacetime altogether.
You lay back on the ground and breathed out for a moment before Samus pulled you onto your feet.
"Well...that went...a lot better than expected." You groaned as you felt a faint lingering soreness, your eyes taking a moment to adjust to seeing things that eyes were supposed to.
"Yeah...is everyone alright?" Samus asked, looking onto the battlefield as the wounded were patched up and the dead were taken care of.
"I...what was that even?" Taylor asked.
"It'd be, a bit hard to explain honestly." Samus said, helping you straighten yourself.
"It's something Samus and I came up with when we were designing some mobility equipment." You said, letting your spine crack as you adjusted your stance.
"Man I'd like to be a fly on that wall...hah..." Kid Win grunted as he looked at Jetfire landing nearby, leaking energon from his shoulder, a quick glance confirming he'd lost his left arm.
"Uh...boss dude...you've lost an Arm." He said concern on his face before the Autobot shrugged and pointed in the direction of his missing limb, laying on the ground.
"No I 'aven't. Look, s'over there is all." He said with good humour to get a laugh out of everyone to release some strain on everyone's nerves.
...
The fight to the centre of the citadel was considerably quieter than it had been before, you'd done a lot of bloody work in cutting the number of opponents down to size, and the halls of the bloody fortress grew increasingly more normal as you made your way through them. The drumbeat of war seeming to slowly fade into the distance and give you more of a peace of mind while you kept to Samus' side, the rest of the group moving around in its squads for efficiency's sake.
What had once been racks of skulls and weapons melted back into filing cabinets, the floor returned from blood crusted obsidian to linoleum and tiling, the ceiling's arches were once again made of plaster and drywall instead of bone and brass. Little daemonlings of Khorne had broiled away, disappearing and leaving you with a far quieter place to explore.
But they hadn't left behind everything. You were able to grab some of the lore they had scrawled with the purpose of recording their mission with your scan visor, piecing together a bit more of what had transpired to let this unfold.
The Eightfold Master of Slaughter delivers us unto this pale mockery of Terra to carry out his vision before this reality succumbs to the manifestations crawling through it. Devoid of foes who can offer prolonged worthy battle, but Khorne cares not from whence the blood flows. As ever, heathens, infidels, and pagans seek to stop our work, but in doing so they offer our cult a chance to bloody itself with righteously claimed skullfeasts. Truly, Khorne is generous in giving our devotees a chance to slake their rage in the wine of war.
Though this world is noxiously peaceful, there is great anger to be utilised here. Rage, nihilistic and sweet, that can be turned towards higher ends. Rage and fury that we need only free from the shackles of purpose and direction so that they may open their eyes and see the truth of blind violence. Many already understand that battle and death are the only constants, and that amongst all that exists the only ironclad law is that nothing that you are not willing to kill for is truly yours. They are incomplete, ingots of steel not yet forged into swords, but they will become blades all the same.
Yet I think our lord has eyes on these hybrids, the one the daemons speak of as pantheoseed. Perhaps that is why we are here on this miserable rock so blind to the truth of the warp and the glories of the Blood God? Are we to repeat the corruption of the Primarchs? It would make sense, it has been too long since the Gods of Chaos have claimed any of those who would seek to deny humanity to their entropic touch. But do they even know what they are yet? It hardly matters, if the lord of the Skull Throne has made his wishes clear, we shall fulfill them in blood and slaughter. Regardless of whether these "Space pirates" believe themselves more worthy of our prize.
- Blood Apostle Karthax the Goremaker
This "City of Angels" is but a loathsome hamlet of scarcely ten million souls. A wretched maze of ill-conceived transport networks and vacuous delusional who believe themselves wealthy on a foundation of credit and pittance-comforts. Its "capes" partake in a celebrity culture as vacuous as the entertainment media these retrograde indulge in and they continually dishonour Khorne with their meaningless play fights. Battles waged without real bloodshed or true consequence in mockery of real conflict.
No matter, once the Space Pirates deliver us the war they hope to root us out with, we will have the seeds necessary to beget the claiming of our prize. If we can trap these inheritors on a daemon world and twist their comrades to our service, they may deliver themselves unto Khorne so long as we prevent their escape. And much besides, the entities that power these shards may succumb to the glory of the blood god and embrace the truth of our lord in brass. We should rejoice then, for we shall free these shackled souls from the lies they have surrounded themselves with and open their eyes to the revelation that shall give them liberty from empty collective morality.
The deaths to come are not a tragedy but a cause for celebration. For the life of a sheep who wastes away in slavish devotion to community, purpose, or camaraderie is a life without value save for death. Better that they die and their blood be harvested by those who can make use of it than they waste the essence of life on meaningless existences. Let those who are not worthy of the glory to come drown in their viscera so that they who can see the truth may climb atop their corpses to ascension and enjoy blessed immortality from the primordial revelation. Let there be Blood for the Blood God and Skulls for the Skull Throne.
- Gore Deacon Ystrakh the Reaver
"This cult was expecting us...wanting us to come here." You said as you went through the logs, making sure Samus, Agatha and Sevrin were close by.
"Ah, to be thought of as a prize? That is...disconcerting to say the least. Why are so many out to grab us for their purposes?" Sevrin said, stroking the back of his helmet briefly.
"Their Daemons call us...Pantheoseed." You responded quietly, looking at the others and making sure that your conversation was just held in your private comm channel, echoing in helmets to not be overheard by the others.
"All-God Seed? Peh, probably nonsense from these mindless projections." Agafya snorted, shaking her head as she took a look through some of the computers in the area once reality reasserted itself and the machine returned to normal, the flesh-metal that had grown around it shrinking back inside.
"They are empty narratives given form by emotional turbulence, there is no value to their words." She continued while she pulled the information from the computer's hard drives and shook her head and made a "blech" sound before shooting the computer.
"Gore archives." She muttered.
"Agatha, maybe there's something to it? They can see things from a different perspective than we can. I don't think we should just discard it as meaningless." Samus cut in, stepping in front of Agafya who took a moment to look down at her ever so slightly before backing up.
"Daemons are liars, why should we trust them?" Sevrin said.
"Well...why else would we be developing abilities like this so quickly?" You said.
"We are inheritors. The progenitors are masters of the esoteric arts and their blood flows through us. Don't be so quick to believe daemon babble, Arne." Sevrin said with a friendly tone, patting you on the shoulder as you sighed and then looked to Samus.
"You believe me right?" You asked.
"More than that, I think you're right." She said, keeping close to you as the clank of your boots resounded on the floor before you willfully silenced it, moving to look at a mural that still crackled with malevolence, rippling like a living thing. A sight that gave you a vague sense of unpleasant warmth, and was recognised by your armour as a cognitohazard, though such things were of virtually no impact on you. Still, the way it undulated made you feel ill at ease, especially since it bled as well.
"We're protected from so much...like this...awful, horrible, ugly thing." She said, disgust apparent in her voice as she charged her arm cannon and then fired once to annihilate the scene of slaughter, burning it away with a flash of light that got some stares in her direction, the sounds of distant battle occasionally interrupted by the beam passing through a wall and then some unfortunate enemies who were incinerated by the radiant energy.
"It has to be for a purpose, right?" She said, her eyes visible to you through her visor as you gave her a gentle nod.
"Yeah...I'm just wondering if there's more to us that we haven't been told yet..." You sighed, folding your arms and shaking your head.
"If there is, I'm sure mine at least, have a reason for it." She responded, chipper as ever.
"Naive." Agafya said before laughing when Samus showed her a one-finger gesture she had been taught by the people here. Something that admittedly got a giggle out of you before a space marine rounded the corner and poked his head into the rather spacious entrance to the office room. Hrm, given how abnormally tall this building is for construction standards of this time, you do wonder why nobody picked up on it before. It just seems kind of...unusual to make every floor and door two and a half times taller than normal.
"Lord Skjoldr, Lady Aran, Lord Agar, Lady Sokolova: We have located the entrance to the Chaos cultist primary ritual site and await your presence to begin the final process of breaching." The Red helmed Blood Raven said, artificer armour carefully moulded around his body while still retaining the added bulk needed for auxiliary systems wherever necessary.
"Lady?" Samus said with a frown. Not very many people were allowed to call her that and she hadn't given this Consul the honour of it.
"My apologies for the overly formal address, but Praefect Thule has requested your direct presence. Countersigned by General Jetfire and Phalanx Captain Keyes. It would be unwise to keep them waiting." He said, offering a small bow with his rather clunky looking power armour. Advanced for the Novem Imperium, but...inelegant even by non-progenitor standards to your eyes, the fibro-muscle bundles bulky, the plating made of overly conventional materials, the power supply system overly concentrated. Yet it did give him an imposing air, especially with his special capped helm with an angled mouthguard and ear wings and a rather snazzy looking cape behind him, your armour's rarely used wings still in cloak mode yourself.
Taylor reached to you through space and pulled the lot of you towards the gathering site where everyone had gathered for a fight.
The facility was already under siege by the hastily allied together forces, who were making a better than even account of themselves with regards to casualties, support powers pooling together to allow for every soldier to count for ten and for even the ordinary to pull off extraordinary feats. You briefly caught sight of Serp and Molotok who offered you a wave upon recognising you before they returned to their duties, the Astartes Consul offering a salute and bow to Thule and Diomedes next to you.
"So...welcome to the eye of the storm." Taylor said as the room swirled with a crackling maelstrom of energy kept at bay by Necron and Space Pirate devices. Things on the other side that wanted to press through were shrieeking with frustration at their every delay, while blood-red curls of energy shimmered in the shapes of scenes of bloody war as they emanated from eight pillars spread in a manner that when one connected the dots between them, made for the symbol of Khorne.
"I don't understand, we have a straight shot to them, why not just snipe them?" Aegis said, the boy looking like he'd been through hell to get here.
"It would not be that simple, the energies here would resist such "foul play" to disrupt them." Numina said, shaking her head as she tensed at the feeling of the warp around her.
"Really? Because this place just...ugh...I feel like I'm seeing the colour of migraines." Vista said, clutching her head and trying to avoid looking at the entropy of madness directly.
"Humans are not meant to handle looking so directly into such fonts of emotion and pleromic force. Hold strong in your faith in your friends and ensure the wards we place remains steady and you should survive." Tammy said, placing a hand on Vista's shoulder.
"Why not just teleport in and smash and grab?" Blackmoth asked.
Before the answer could be delivered however; the back of the room exploded in a bright flash of multidimensional and neuralyzer light; puncturing a hole through the warp rift to let a series of monsters and giants through the breach they had created, the angry and hateful language that you had grown all to accustomed to sounding in the area as teams of Super Pirates, Augmented Troopers, and Commandos swarmed in, protected drones vanguarding their assault while Carcerian and Ki-Hunter forces followed suit; getting entangled with cultists, beastmen, mutants, and lesser aliens; accepting death at the hands of the Chaos Space Marines and Warriors with seeming relish while the true troopers shunted to flanking positions after letting the emaciated militia suppress them.
Commander Vorgus stepped forward, clad in a much heavier suit of armour than when you last saw him, a combat suit that straddled the line between heavy power armour and mech while his Ebony Armoured Black Talons special circumstances troopers moved in unison around him; all of them super pirates themselves with the ability to change out the abilities they had following a specific process to allow them to quickly alter the superpowers they were manifesting to better counter any given situation.
Near them was something rather more dangerous looking though, one of the dread enforcers of the mysterious High Command, a thing of quark-machinery and an unsettling spindlyness of its limbs, emerald coloured optics staring out in a pentagram pattern of a head like a tear-drop that reminded you uncomfortably of your adoptive father, body charged with incarnate energy and walking along clawed taloned legs, mantis like scythe limbs emerging from the shoulders above clawed grabber limbs, and ornithopter like wings folded against its back while a barbed tail jittered in tune with its motions; the thing's seven metre-tall body moving with deceptive swiftness as they zeroed in on their targets.
Commander Vorgus is a Commander in the Confederacy of Urtraghus' army and a recipient of the metapirate augmentation process to grant him abilities derived from study of Primal Earth metahumans to allow him to display greatly enhanced combat capabilities. A Xaktik, Vorgus is regarded as duty-driven and prone to holding a grudge over a long period of time over slights no matter how seemingly unimportant and has committed multiple instances of sector-grade genocide in response to even relatively minor setbacks given to his soldiers. Vorgus has a particular lack of fondness for humans, regarding them as a species that has done nothing to earn the right to exist but has earned plenty of reasons for their extermination from their lack of physical strength to tendency to organise based on sentimental reasons as well as coming to increasingly loathe the species after centuries of campaigns waged against human-inhabited territory. But it is generally believed to be his encounter with Samus Aran that hardened him towards outright anthropocidal viewpoints.
Vorgus has a metashifter implantation that will allow his body to combine an array of metahuman powers as he deems desireable or wanted to augment his physiology and his power suit to vary his abilities. Impervium is also detected within the composition of his armour as well as absorbium to greatly increase the durability of the armour. The scan visor will update the user on thee ideal way to counter his current power set as he shifts between them. However be warned that his squadron will shift their abilities to cover his weaknesses and continually augment him to prevent him from being overmatched, and that his personal guards are extremely trained in collaborative combat tactics. Vorgus has defeated a large number of chaos space marines and daemons to reach this point, and will not be dissuaded from his goal by any means short of defeat.
Kortak is a lower ranking enforcer of Space Pirate High Command, separate from but generally superior to the military chain of command and entrusted with directly enforcing the mandates and dictates of High Command or dealing with problematic personal adversaries. Kortak Is a machine of unknown make that was likely discovered and put into High Command's service rather than manufactured by the Space Pirates, and is essentially a mass of intelligent quark machines that can restructure their every property of matter and most of their energy signature at will, allowing for both great adaptation and tremendous changes in abilities and resistances; and with the Incarnate systems fused into their power systems, Kortak has a wide and deadly array of abilities.
Kortak will typically use a combination of stealth, rapid transit, brutal melee, and suppressive ranged fire to deal damage, seeking to push more vulnerable team members away from their protectors to allow them to quickly assassinate anyone they identify as poorly or undefended but vital to their enemy's strategy. They will also prioritise the targeting of anyone deemed to be a particularly high threat to themselves, seeking to disallow enemies from getting an opportunity to focus them down with those who can counter their ability set or deal damage that it would struggle to adapt to. This will mean that Vista will be their highest priority target due to her ability to ignore much of its adaptation.
The Khornates were not laggard in their response either, with the storm at the centre shifting and then convulsing before spitting out something of blood red beast of flesh and hate that shook his head as he took his steps with a body formed of gore and rage, teeth leaking blood and spittle as the Daemon let out a bloodcurdling roar of "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!"
Shortly afterwards, another beast emerged into the fray that demanded all your focus, the sight of a great winged thing with more than one head bringing you back to the worst day of your life, making you feel small and afraid. And behold, a two headed Chaos Dragon that towered some twenty one meters in height at the shoulders, vast leathery wings carrying them into the battlefield as they landed on the ground with a heavyset impact, a snarling roar emerging from the left of their pair of multi-eyed heads while a self-echoing cackle emerged from the other. You could hear the screams of Cylosis once again, and feel the heat of a city burning amidst the frost of its bitterly cold winters. You saw three heads and two tails on it for a moment, mind deleting the forelimbs as you were met with your demon, the viper of your nightmares, the shaggy furred beast of winter.
You yelped, Samus turning to see the Dragon and shaking somewhat herself, brought to a dark moment in her own life as she saw the shape of the wings and the dragonish shape looming overhead as it crawled forward like a serpent, powerful limbs briefly pushing it into a bipedal stance while she choked. You whimpered, wanting to hide, the sight of Samus starting to breathe hard, uncontrollably so, making you lose your own nerve as the thing roared again and you for a moment saw the golden terror just as she saw the purple beast; but the roar wasn't right...the smell wasn't right...and you felt your heart start to resume normal beating, the shaking in your bones starting to fade.
You were fine, this wasn't the monster...this was just...just a dragon. You'd be fine. You exhaled, you focused ahead, Samus straightening herself and gulping slightly as she expressed some fear for the first time in a long while. Yet the two of you would be fine, you told yourselves. You were strong, you could handle the beast. But you would have a hard time not focusing on the creature, whose form so viscerally recalled horrors of your past, just as Samus found herself, dragged out of a confrontation with Ridley, refocusing on the Space Pirates who had already given her the appelation of "the Huntress of our kind", barking commands at each other and preparing capture equipment.
"SAMUS IS HERE!" The Daemon Prince of the Ruinstorm howled, prompting Vorgus to turn his head towards him.
"Yes, she is." He said, eyes focusing on Aran as she adjusted her position and then felt the daemon prince turn his eyes towards her.
"You! Usurper of my name!" The daemon howled as its escort stepped forwards, all bloody, fury and hate.
"It was her name first!" You said, shouting indignantly as the daemon turned his attentions towards you and let out a howling roar like a million bulls.
"I am eternal daemonflesh! I am without time or space. Without beginning or end! Mine shall be the only head to bear the name! You are naught but a mortal girl and thief!" He roared as Vorgus spoke to his troops, quick orders to get ready to flank and kill while Samus, the real Samus in your eyes, laid her hand on her cannon.
"If you want to fight about the name, here I am." She said, cracking here neck.
Originally a member of an unknown species, the being that would become known as Samus' origins are a mystery beyond that he has always been as male as he presents himself as. Heavily associated with the powerful Ruinstorm, an irregularly appearing warp rift that was able to sever much of the Warphammer realm of Ultramar from the wider Imperium, Samus is also known for being able to force the Primarch Rogal Dorn to flee in battle and contest the primarchs in direct combat multiple times before finally being overwhelmed and banished during the first Imperial Civil war known as the Horus Heresy. In combat, Samus will make use of a large number of daemons of eeitheer undivided or Khornate form; though occasionally calling on other deity's servants to swamp his enemies while making use of power tied to ambient levels of anger and pointless violence as well as the separation of groups and the severing of bonds.
Samus seeks to surround and isolate his foes due to it being a core part of his narrative, and will also seek to dismantle friendships and romantic bonds due to his narrative of dying alone. And he also greatly relies on inspiring fear and doubt into his enemies to make them question their ability to stand and fight against him. However against confident enemies whose bonds survive his tests, he can be simply overpowered, and he lacks means of engaging foes at a distance beyond attempting to warp step closer to them or usage of brute force warp energy attacks. He typically lacks subtlety when actually engaged in battle, and due to a lack of flight capabilities, can find airborne opponents to be vexing for him to deal with. Prideful and arrogant, Samus is currently focused on User Samus Eabha Aran, seeing her as stealing and feminising his name and affecting his legend in the warp by means of having a greater and more significant effect on the skeins of fate than himself.
Ormagla is a Chaos Dragon fused together from two other dragons by the mutagenic powers of Chaos, resulting in a monstrosity of tremendous raw physical power and mystical capabilities. Ormagla is constantly mutating and regenerating its body, transforming nonstop to deal with injuries dealt to the Dragon and adapting to blows as they are inflicted more and more on the Dragon's unstable body. The Dragon can only store so many adaptations at a time however, and will have to discard adaptations if they are contradictory. Though as the dragon continues to mutate the number of mutations and the degree its body can contradict itself will only increase.
Ormagla's two heads; Ormog and Aglathak; are separate entities with distinct personalities and separate identities and are capable of fully independent action mediated by the third brain located in the dragon's central body. Killing Ormagla will require killing the entire creature, even the smallest particle that the dragon can still identify with its body can be used as the basis of regeneration. Usage of Holeum weapons to ensure complete quark level destruction is highly recommended; mixing in with radiance and neuralyzer weapons to affect the creature's chaotic energies.
Situation
All teams are gathered for the final boss fight of the crisis mission.
The Daemon prince Samus of the Ruinstorm is the Daemon ultimately behind the warp rift which will be a rebirth of the rainstorm if allowed to manifest.
The Chaos Dragon Ormagla will target anything that presents itself as a target. Arne will focus on Ormagla unless encouraged strongly to focus on something else.
Samus Aran will focus on the space pirates unless strongly encouraged to focus on something else.
Sevrin is free to act, but will try to focus on Samus of the Ruinstorm as he sees the Daemon as an affront to Samus Aran's honour.
Agafya will focus on Kortak, seeing it as the best fight, unless urged otherwise.
Samus of the Ruinstorm is personally bitter towards Samus Aran for being the more famous and influential Samus to bear the name which is affecting his own narrative.
Samus of the Ruinstorm will continually pull in Daemons as long as he is active, as well as mortal servants of Khorne and other Chaos Gods.
Commander Vorgus has arrived and as overall commander of the Space Piratee attack force, his continued presence will mean that the space pirates will be able to threaten pulling off their plan until dealt with; drawing in reinforcements teleported to his position via incarnate power.
Vorgus will focus on the inheritors as his primary objective is to capture them for High Command's study.
The Space Pirates are the more individually dangerous combatants and have been reverse-engineering Sourcewell metaverse metahuman powers for their own usage, allowing them to deploy super-pirates.
Defeating Samus of the Ruinstorm will dismiss the Nascent rainstorm.
Defeating Vorgus will prompt the Space Pirates to retreat.
There are a very large number of random chaff enemies going around.
Options
Team Strategy: Pick five priorities and set from greatest to least.
[]: Civilian Defence (Defend civilians at the line of battle)
[]: Search and Rescue (Find civilians trapped in enemy territory and save them)
[]: Reconnaissance (find out where the foe is and what they're doing)
[]: Force annihilation (destroy as much of the foe as possible)
[]: Ally assistance (try to shore up the efforts of friendly military forces and pick up more team members to get eight people)
[]: Objective capping (Use your foresight to determine points of strategic interest and deal with them)
[]: HQ elimination (look for and kill important enemy characters, units, and structures to weaken their overall efforts)
[]: Fire Break (Contain any enemy advances and eliminate these pockets of advance to keep frontlines stable
[]: Lockdown (Stop the enemy from enjoying freedom of movement by eliminating their infrastructure to support it and choking the avenues they're using to move)
[]: DISTRACTION CARNIFEX!!! (Make the most noise possible to pull as much attention to yourselves as you can, drawing forces away from allies and civilians at obvious risk to yourself.)
Write in Team Tactics and Character Actions:
Write in specific tactics for the team to try such as ordering gunship bombing runs, attempting tandem warp attacks, certain patterns of attack the team should try out like the duodecimarchs clearing out organics to let Vista wreck mechanical foes or vista stretching space to let Alyrsero's casting reach farther than it should.
Then write in one specific action for each of the six characters such as say: Arne should comfort Samus' anxieties, Vista should keep close to Arne so he can meatshield for her, Sevrin should try to rein in Agafya's combat high, Alyrsero should try to scry enemy intentions or show Samus some tricks in the warp to learn how to divine foes better, Samus should try to slice into Rikti comm channels, or Agafya should go kill some big units. You could also try to use their smarts to set up some sort of device or cunning trick.
Other Team Priorities: (Same as last post's)
(Order priorities for the team on a per-team basis. 1 will be pursued unless impossible, 2 will be pursued unless it contradicts 1, 3 will only be pursued when there is nothing else to do or if it would not distract from 1 and 2. If applicable, such as with Annihilation, state enemies in order of preference to focus on.)
Enemy factions:
Blades of Khorne
Space Pirate Confederacy
[]: Containment (Contain spread of enemy forces, favours tankier teams.)
[]: Denial (Prevent the enemy from seizing certain points or items of interest)
[]: Mop Up (Go through areas where the enemy may have left stragglers or placed sneaky units to clean them out to prevent flanking or encircling)
[]: Civilian defence & rescue (Ensure that civilians and others who don't want to be there are able to get out safely and don't come under threat)
[]: Commando Ops (Seize important locations or take out important enemy strongpoints such as leaders or vital infrastructure, favours sneakier teams)
[]: Annihilation (Destroy the enemy outright wherever possible. Favours high damage teams.)
Nice chapter. It's too late here for a plan for me. I'm in favour of fighting the demons first to get rid of the ruin storm. Teams not at the boss fight could focus on destroying the pirates first using lots of fire power.
[1]: HQ elimination (look for and kill important enemy characters, units, and structures to weaken their overall efforts)
[2]: Lockdown (Stop the enemy from enjoying freedom of movement by eliminating their infrastructure to support it and choking the avenues they're using to move)
[3]: Force annihilation (destroy as much of the foe as possible)
[4]: Fire Break (Contain any enemy advances and eliminate these pockets of advance to keep frontlines stable
[5]: Ally assistance (try to shore up the efforts of friendly military forces and pick up more team members to get eight people)
Team Tactics
- Vista and Agafya will fight together against the Space Pirates, with Agafya acting as a guard to Vista while she uses her powers to rip and tear at the inorganic parts of the Space Pirates
- Sevrin and Numina will work together, with Numina buffing Sevrin as he fights the Deamons of Khorne as any holy warrior should. Fighting his way to the Deamon Samus
- Diomedes and Alyrsero will use their powers of faith and the warp to push back the effects of the Warp Tear, weaking it's connection to this world and hopfully weakening the Deamons as reality asserts itself
- Jetfire and Windblade will take to the skies, fighting enemy flyers and striking at foes who cannot fly/reach them (Most notably the Deamon Samus and it's guards)
- Samus and Taylor will work together in fighting the chaff of the Space Pirates, Samus drawing them towards the traps of Taylor and raining down fire as she does so
- Doom Slayer and Arne will focus on fighting the Chaos Dragon, targeting it with a barrage of attacks to tear and destroy it faster then it can regenerate
Character Actions
- Taylor will create pockets of her empowered bugs to act as traps for enemy forces, who will swarm into the foes and do all they can to damage them
- Samus will will try to keep a cool and detached thought process as she fights the Space Pirates, being this close to the source of the Chaos invasion, it would not do well to lose herself
- Arne will will try to target weak point on the Dragon, hoping to do as much damage as he can with as little spending of ammo and his own health as he can
- Agafya seeing that her preferred target is trying to kill Vista, she will keep close to the girl and protect her
- Sevrin will try to keep a calm mind as he fights, with a mantra of his adopted people keeping his thoughts clear as he fights
- Doom Slayer Will ensure that Arne does not do something reckless
- Vista will try to push her powers like she did against the Protectorate and pull at as many vital parts of the enemy as she can
- Alyrsero will offer a prayer to the Eldar Gods as he fights the forcesof the Warp
- Numina will try to keep behind Sevrin as he fights Khorne's warriors, unsure if they could truly kill her
- Diomedes will call upon his faith to bolster the teams as they fight the foul forces of Chaos
- Jetfire will keep to the skies, relaying combat information from his height while he fights
- Windblade Will keep to the skies fighting enemy forces that also can fly and keeping them from his allies
Other Team Priorites:
Team 2 (Will try to fight the Chaos Dragon)
-[1]: Annihilation (Destroy the enemy outright wherever possible. Favours high damage teams.)
-[2]: Containment (Contain spread of enemy forces, favours tankier teams.)
-[3]: Denial (Prevent the enemy from seizing certain points or items of interest)
Enemy factions:
[1] Blades of Khorne
[2] Space Pirate Confederacy
Team 3 ( Going after Vorgus's squad/him, removing his adds)
-[1]: Commando Ops (Seize important locations or take out important enemy strongpoints such as leaders or vital infrastructure, favours sneakier teams)
-[2]: Annihilation (Destroy the enemy outright wherever possible. Favours high damage teams.)
-[3]: Mop Up (Go through areas where the enemy may have left stragglers or placed sneaky units to clean them out to prevent flanking or encircling)
[1] Space Pirates
[2] Blades of Khorne
Team 4 ( Fighting the Hordes of Khorne/ Chaff clearing)
-[1]: Annihilation (Destroy the enemy outright wherever possible. Favours high damage teams.)
-[2]: Mop Up (Go through areas where the enemy may have left stragglers or placed sneaky units to clean them out to prevent flanking or encircling)
-[3]: Containment (Contain spread of enemy forces, favours tankier teams.)
[1] Blades of Khorne
[2] space Pirates
i think this is good, time to fight the end boss of this little arc
so long as we go for stuff that looks like it will explode if we don't do stuff to it, it should be better. it was our fault going for stuff that would take a while to make/do in our upgrade stage.
if we had not done some of those things we could have probably attacked one of the original groups before they became a problem in the battle
The Nazis are pushovers thankfully, especially when compared to the foes we're fighting now. I like that liberating Reich Earth is next, since Nazis are gross and uncomfortable to witness.
