The End of Grábakr
It was quite a bad situation. The biotitans had smashed through the wall of Hvelgelmir Prime. Most of the soldiers were dead. A hero of Averneus lay strewn down dead at the breach, his Saurian shield and Neo-Arcaeotech armour no match for a blade of perfected chitin, muscle and psychic psynapses the length of a fighter. His apprentices fled. The few remaining guardsmen fled. Even the Eldar rangers began to retreat.
Giant Xeno beasts were siloutted against the blue of the false dawn, the flashes of their own weapons tearing into the retreating regulars illuminating them in awful sickly green, as artillery exploding uselessly against their hides lit the horizon with pinpricks of orange.
The breach was, for now, lost. Frederick knew this couldn't last. The fortress would be flooded in hours. Coming forward himself, bringing his adjudicator into range of the onrushing Tyrannids he came forth to meet them in battle, guns blazing. The governor wasn't alone in this. For the first time in his life Frederick had command of a serious numbers of titans.
Sure, he'd used a couple of battered old titans in the past, decisively in the battle of Midgard. Sanctus Feroum had battled on the walls of Dis, it's blades of fire clashing with fell Angyls swords. Generally though, Titans were Frederick's problem.
Great Gargants and Warhounds, Biotitans and Warlords billions of good soldiers had been ordered, at his command, to die under the feet and claws of the gigantic enemy.
Now, nearing the end of the battle, the enemy fleet being slaughtered by the hour, Frederick used his last ace. First ten, then twenty, and then a hundred slender aeldari titans stormed past his adjudicator, barely crushing any of his men as they thundered forward. They met the oncoming monsters of chitin and bone, flesh and poison with blades of energised wraithbone so swift that they let off great thunderclaps as they were swung, adding another note to the Orchestra of war. Frederick watched as Xeno met Xeno in a horrific splatter of Viscera, Tyranid parts flying in all directions.
Frederick had a second line, too. The ranged specialized titans of the warhost, and the remains of his army. He wished he could say the core of it had survived, but in reality his human soldiers numbered barely a handful. Even the Helguard were complaining that the holiday wasn't all they'd hoped for. Still- Frederick had Astartes and he had Superheavies, and the breach must be retaken.
Lights flare as the Eldar open up with their cannon, the war in heaven writ large upon the walls of Hvelgelmir and the devourers beasts are burnt and blasted back. Horns blare, and shouts go up as ten thousand Battle Brothers of the Adeptus Astartes charge towards the breach, fighting for once en mass, harking back to the days of the great crusade.
This was the best infantry regiment he'd ever commanded too.
Reports were crackling in from the void. All ghostships lost! If the fleet were beaten this was all for nothing. Frederick waited for the Tyrannids casualties in trepidation.
Suddenly, a noise caused the governor to turn around, startled. He had given the order for the adjudicator to be on battle lockdown. No doors opened without a direct order. None the less one had opened directly onto the bridge, and a unfamiliar figure dressed in an Avernite uniform stepped through. Frederick didn't need his crown to tell this infiltrator was not what he was trying to be.
He drew the blade of black crystal, and gave orders to attack, but the governors own, weapons raised, faltered. The will of the infiltrator had pushed and overwhelmed them, it's true psychic power crushing through even their warded armour. Frederick had fought Alphas before. He knew it was now or never.
He stepped, slowly at first but quickly moving to a lighting pace towards his assailant as it began to grow and morph, revealing it's grotesque true form to the mesmerized bridge, four arms raising bioforged blades.
Frederick raised his Grenade launcher- vortex rounds... Useless against such a powerful psyker. Damn. He fired it anyway as he ran, instinct overpowering common sense as the expensive ammo plopped out of existence. Denying this for an alpha this barely took up power, though had provided an opportunity for Fred to leapt into his attack.
Claws of psychic energy grabbed at him as he fell from his running jump at the Broodlord Alpha, trying to slow his fall, but the crown, rings and breastplate kept the governor of helhiem falling straight and true.
The four blades came up, raised in a guard against the black crystal sword. It had sufused them with a level of biomantic power beyond anything Frederick had ever seen. It needn't have bothered, and they were cut through like everything else as the human bisects the infiltrator, landing his spinning blow.
Normally, a Broodlord Alpha wouldn't even be slowed down by such a minor thing as being cut in half. Normally, they weren't cut in half by death itself.
The governor's own sprang to life, leaping towards the governor and the now vanquished threat. Apologies formed in their mouths but were waved off. Frederick would have been useless too if it weren't for the crown, he reassures them. He's not too sure how true that is.
Returning to his position overlooking the strat map he sees his Astartes had retaken the wall. The fixed heavy weapons were wrecked but the devastators could fill their role for now, holding the crumbling edifice as the last of the Avernite siege infantry came up behind them, millions to support the ten thousand who now desperately fought the smaller Tyrannids as the Eldar cut a bloody swathe through the Titanic enemy.
Frederick receives a second transmission from orbit. Tyrannids defeated. Losses severe.
Victory.
The pressure lifts as the shadow in the warp, waning as the fleet was torn to shreds is finally vanquished.
The sun peaks above the horizon, Giant White figures stained with Viscera stand tall in front of the high pile of rubble that was once Fredericks wall. Tyrannids, ever oncoming, never showing any sign of fear, start to slow, then stop, and then run.
The wall would be held. The planet would be held. The Trust would endure. It had cost seventy billion lives. Hundreds of billions would receive messages, telling them their children or siblings had been killed fighting the devourer. Trillions of tears would be shed.
Frederick realising he'd kept his sword in his hand since the attack, returned it to its scabbard, his knuckles white under his armour from the tension in his hand. He put the thoughts of those who'd fallen at his orders from his mind, knowing the emperor would forgive him for spending his coin. He called down the alert level, and stepped into his cabin below the bridge.
With the endless pressure of the shadow in the warp gone from his mind he was asleep within five seconds of his head hitting the pillow. He slept for 22 hours, and by the time he awoke the cleanup operations were well underway.
@Durin
