Angels Fly
When Chaplian Horatius finally managed to come to the top of Da Krumpa he felt his blood run cold. Champion Surt was struggling to stand, a massive dent in the wall indicating that he had been thrown into the wall, the burnt bodies of hundreds of Mega Nobz scattered around, Surtbrander still clutched in his hand as he prepares to face his enemy once again.
That enemy in question is reaching forwards to crush the head of his student Sar.
This fight had been long and bloody in the making, Da Crumpa had fallen from the heavens a mere five days after it had reached orbit, a spiteful move that didn't crush any cities due to luck. Then the true battle had begun.
For those five days the Trust had held against the orks, seemingly endless waves, as mountainous piles of corpses grew and the guns turned red from firing too many times. Dotted around were graveyards of Gargants and Knights, Fellblades and other Titan killers, where those brave souls had launched themselves into combat with each other to stop them from breaching the walls.
He himself had held the gates of DITAEON nearly alone, throwing back assault after assault upon the walls as Governor Hornor served with pride, commanding his forces the Raynor's Raiders inflicting disproportionate casualties upon the orks back lines.
It was not pretty, it was not easy. They had lost so many good men and women. Men and women who had given their lives to stop this menace. He too had lost many. Over one hundred of his students would not be returning home to Byzantium, they would not return to their little siblings or students.
And yet such heroics they had done, both the living and the dead, he still remembered Igantio cutting down a Gargant, the death of his brother still so raw that the high beta telekinetic had brought one down with only his blade.
In the end the end result was assured, though the city walls were wreaking of their former selves they had not broken, the Orkish fleet was burning in orbit, the shanty towns burned as the Trust's fleet turned their fury upon them.
Only the Warboss remained. He and his personal warband of boyz had barricaded themselves in the wreckage of Da Krumpa and had promised he'd take all comers, so come they did.
A strike force of knights led by Marshal Sigurd inserted a force of him, a few squads of Astartes, Surt and his fire Giants into the hulk and they fought their way to the Boss.
If only they had not been separated, he might have been able to save the dead Fire Giants he could see dead on the ground, the Warboss might already be dead if he hadn't been cut off, if he'd only been faster.
It mattered not, he raced forwards his faithful Crozius Arcanum crashing into the massive power claw just before his student was crushed.
"WOT ANOTHER BEAKIE? STOP AHHHHRGH." His arm ringing from the force needed to redirect the claw blow he turned swinging his mace into the brute's face sending it staggering back, before it screamed the Ork's eternal battle cry and joined into combat with him.
This was possibly the most difficult fight he had ever endured, even his fight with Gabriel had not been as hard as this in some ways. At least the archangyel had been inconvenienced by his blows, the ork merely looked elated.
He danced around it, but despite its massive bulk, more suited for a leviathan dreadnaught than an ork, it was incredibly agile, its claw and gun always there to dance with him. Worse still he found that his armour was being damaged the claw able to cut into the Angel Steel.
It was infuriating, as if his experience was actively playing against him. He was getting used to the brute's abilities countering it, even growing faster to compensate, but he simply could not shake off the feeling that its blows should be a few more nanoseconds after they came and in combat that was dangerous.
Then it hit him. His experience was playing against him. He was too used to fighting a normal Overlord and if he kept up like this he would die.
He needed a solution. Bracing himself he activated the Terminator armour's flight systems and charged, ignoring the warning sigiles that appeared as the armour screamed in the strain of pushing the massive ork.
Both of them were flung from the hulk and started to free fall as a back handed blow from the creature sent his head spinning and for a brief instant losing his grip on his Crozius. Then he was back in reality firing away from the creature as they both hurtled down.
It fired the bullets whatever they were pinging off and slowly denting his armour feeling like punches from one of his brothers and in a brief instant formulated a new plan. From the shoulders and knees the micro missiles fired hundreds of detonations ramming into the ork, doing no wounds, but blinding and confusing it as he rammed into it once more.
His wrist mounted plasma foil burned through the smoke as he cut into the vulnerable joint at the shoulder of the ork, the blade that could cut through flesh as easily as air catching on the skin of the ork green energy forming there to protect it from harm.
With a supreme effort of will he pulled severing the arm from the body as the ork's bellow caused stars to dance in front of his eyes leaping backwards he saw up above his faithful Crozius and caught it, the impacts from the orks remaining weapon growing stronger and stronger as came down, bringing his mace down upon the head of the Beast one last time. All the times before it had done next to nothing.
Now his momentum, the power of his determination and a strength that he could not explain pushed him forwards the head deforming under the blow, a second one splitting it and a third reducing it to mush.
He fell downwards the tormented flight systems of his armour doing its best to halt his descent.
When the Trust found him he was standing, his entire rib cage broken, one arm shattered, a leg pulverised and his organs pulped. But, Horatius the Steadfast lived.
A small thing on how I think things might be going at Mar Sara and maybe something to get Horatius that Paragon of Combat
@Durin
