Faction Ork Hunt- Baal, Hivus Primarus

Lucius

Member
Lucius
📜Character Bio📜
Baal, Hivus Primarus
Staging Bay 45
8th Shock Troop Regiment, 1st Assault Element


A cacophony of man, machine, and howling wind filled the huge empty spaces of staging bay as the main Assault Element of the 8th Shock Troop Regiment gathered for an expedition into the badlands to the North of the Hive City. About fifty klicks out to an old ruin above a cave system. Typical of the greenskins. Waste scouts had sent back reports of the tribe there growing too large for comfort and were to be met with an immediate response from the Imperial Guard or PDF. The force was deemed dangerous enough that the 8th had pulled the short straw for this particular ork band. Lucius stood among the nine other Guardsmen in his squad as they laid their gear out in front of him for inspection. As usual, Kolson, Karsk, Vesker, Mattias, Reeve, Pavlo, and Kyser were squared away. As they had been since they'd been placed in his care. Some for months, some for years. The three replacements did not meet his standard. Redmond frowned as he flicked at the rust on the sling swivel of one of the new privates laz rifles. He'd lost three good soldiers the week prior to a ganger issue in the underhive. He threw the laz rifle back to the private, a young conscript with a spider tattoo on his face.

"You three. You're lucky we've got work to do, when we get back your on half rations for a week. Do it again after that and we'll have real problems. Corporal Reeve will see to your physical discipline for this infraction. Until we're back from this trip, you three shall be known as privates, troopers, or guardsmen. There is no need to learn your names yet." He said, gesturing towards the mountain of a man that served as the unit's light machine gunner, with a modified laz rifle with a longer barrel and extra power packs, who only smiled at the now terrified looking privates. All wore similar scars and tattoos, man and woman alike. The unspoken implication understood.

Survival was far from guaranteed.

"This isn't the gangs little ones." Lucius said, matching the Corporal's smile, "You're about to find out why we need all this." He said, gesturing to both the Hive itself and the mass of machines and men moving about in their black and red armor. The equipment check continued for the rest of the element as they gathered, squad by squad, platoon by platoon, for the entirety of the assembled companies of infantry and armor.

A group of Leman Russ MBTs did final checks on their systems along with the smaller Rogal Dorn contingent, filling the already polluted air with further fumes and noise as their engines briefly drowned out any possible conversation. In the far corner the artillery batteries prepared themselves for transport, loading shell after shell and huge pieces into waiting transports.

Lucius and his squad were to load into modified Cargo 8 Ridgehaulers, the fortified behemoths of the wastes. The tactics were the same from their time on Necromunda before the Age of Silence, but always effective, and had served the 8th well.

They'd be moving soon, but were on standby until their officers gave the go ahead. Lucius and the other NCOs had heard rumors of others joining the expedition besides the Assault Element, and this lapse in movement seemes to confirm that.
 

In the center of the group, a tall feminine black armored figure stood, directing traffic amongst her peons silently. A nod there, hand signals, unheard squad-vox from within the featureless helm she donned. All around, elements of the Imperial Guard moved about, readying themselves for an expedition. Greenskins had pierced Baal's systems defenses, reportedly a group of pirates that reverted to realspace so close to the planet several of their crudely built warships had been torn to pieces by the gravitational flux, crashing down into the badlands still scarred in the wake of Leviathan.

The stormtroopers that surrounded her were wearing old Vardan colors, dark grey dabbled with black, light grey, and browns in a digital camouflage pattern. Carapace armor, lasguns, meltacarbines. One trooper carried a flamethrower, and the last carried the vox transmitter to message command. A single Ogryn accompanied the group, carrying his ripper, a slab shield, and a brutish looking combat knife that could have passed for a sword in the hands of anyone else. Finally, in the shadow of the Explicator came a blackened smear, silky smooth and graceful movements of a Death Cult Assassin dressed in his black bodysuit and a set of dark colored Imperial robes and hood.

The Inquisition had not seen fit to take command of the operation, Aurellia tended not to enjoy commanding large armies, strategy was not her strong suit anyway. That she left to others.

"The Aeon's Anvil awaits ma'am." One of the troopers said, motioning her towards a sealed vehicle bay. The great cathedral doors opened as she approached, boots ringing upon the metal foottreads. As light from the mustering area cast into the bay, it revealed a Land Raider, painted in the colors of the Death Watch emblazoned with the Inquisitorial =I= on its hull. None of the fearsome Xenos hunting Astartes stood at the ready as the Stormtroopers of the Vardan 181st saddled up.

The klaxons on the Land Raider flashed, bathing the darkened troop compartment in red light. "Tell command I want a platoon ready for my command. We may need extra hands when we arrive." She breathed, the vocoder in her helmet giving her otherwise soft, melodic voice a metallic ring her subordinates claimed made her sound sinister. Her vox-operator nodded and relayed the message back through his communication device. She sat, flanked by the Ogryn Bone'Ead and the Death Cult Assassin before the assault ramp closed with a hiss as the pressure equalized.

 


Tags: Aurellia Roth Redmond

There was something about the smell of a Russ pattern engine that brought the battlefield to life for the masked figure as she gently slid along into the tank column, they had a smell that was lost in the cleaner advanced astartes engines. She was clad entirely in the cameleoline suit and riding her jetbike. A modified imperial jet bike with low reflection paint and a whisper quiet motor. She looked at the captain and touched her comm bead.

::Vindicaire assignment has been authorised, I shall perform advanced roles, prepare to receive my telemetry. Callsign is Sin:: she gunned her jetbike and accelerated off. The comm was open if the captain or the nearby inquisitor wished to add anything, but she had her mission parameters. She advanced well ahead of the tank column, jinking between rust coloured rocks until she was near ten klicks ahead of them. Her first objective was an ork advanced warning tower, ready to stop and warn the main horse of the imperial movements. She was just one bike, they had not spotted her so she would prevent them from detailing the oncoming mechanised force.

She instructed the machine spirit of her bike to carry her forward in a stable manner and pulled out her Exitus rifle.

::Engaging sentry tower:: she informed the imperials.

Range to target three kilometres. EMP round selected. Her gun discharged and six seconds later a shower of sparks exploded from the makeshift communication array on top of the tower, disabling it. Muscle memory caused her to work the shot selector without though and a standard round went through the skull of one of the orks, then another. Their friends looked confused through her scope, still unsure of where their assailant was attacking from. Two of them were trying the comm in vain to summon help. Through the window they died next. Her thumb flipped effortlessly on the shot selector as an turbopenetrator round tore right through the thick steel wall and a shower of ork blood was her reward.

Range to target two kilometres.

She scanned the tower with her mask for movement and for life signs, she was about to remove her finger from the trigger when her thumb flipped the selector again and the last bullet put down an ork that was running for his own bike.

::Sentry tower neutralised. Sin taking position to assess further forward enemy position. Await telemetry.:: she communicated to the imperials before finally elevating her bike to the level of the tower and pulling in to the roof position. From here Daes'yn would be able to see for miles around and begin sending details of suspected enemy ambush points.

OOC NOTE
Feel free to make up and act on any information you want to Sin to send back to you.​
 
The Thunderhawk's engines keened woefully as it descended towards the bloodied sands of Baal. Shaking and rattling, beaten by unforgiving winds, it carried the Lamenters to their destination, like a great eagle of yore. Wings spread, armaments slung and primed. Ready to sore. Eager to slake its thirst on unsuspecting prey. Today, the prey took the form of Xenos. Greenskins. Monstrous, malignant creatures. Brother-Sergeant Varro hated them with every fibre of his being.

But Baal... Blessed Baal...

Oh, to set foot upon hallowed ground once more. Staring at the bulkhead opposite him, the Lamenter smiled sadly behind his helmet as the memories came flooding back to him. Nigh on a century ago, he had been part of a delegation dispatched by his Chapter Master. As Successors of the Blood, their presence had been expected. Closing his eyes, Varro pictured the moment he and his battle-brothers had touched down on the planet for the first time. It had been Sanguinala, he recalled vaguely, though the details of the celebrations eluded him. Still, to be so honoured by his Chapter Master, and, indeed, by the Lord Regent Himself...

'Brother-Sergeant Varro,' a voice spoke in his ear, 'I am detecting a spike in your heartrate. Is something amiss?'

Opening his eyes, Varro gazed about the hold at his fellow Lamenters. 'No, Apothecary,' he answered, 'I am fine.' Atmospherics caused the venerable Thunderhawk to tilt slightly before the pilots righted it. Apothecary Amaric remained unmoved, though he did nod. Acceptance.

'Two minutes out, Brother-Sergeant,' came the co-pilot's voice over the vox. 'Local forces are en route to the target area. Massed infantry and light armour support. Picking up talk of an Inquisitorial presence over the vox-frequencies as well.'

Great, thought Varro.

'Prepare to deploy,' he told his squad, hitting the release button located in the center of his flight cage. Around him, the brothers of Arcas Squad did the same, pressing to their feet as lights came on above the forward assault ramp. Varro watched as Amaric made his way closer. 'How are your humours, brother?' He asked as the others recovered their weapons.

'Sanguine,' replied Varro, turning as the ramp began to swing down. Klaxons blared. Magazines clicked into place. The Thunderhawk raised its beak as the ground grew near. Slowing, slowing. Slowed.

Above the roaring turbofans and screaming winds filled with particulate, the Sergeant heard the co-pilot announcing their arrival. Red bled into green.

Beyond, the sands of Baal stretched on for all eternity. Welcoming them home.
 
The Thunderhawk gunship screamed through the upper atmosphere of Baal Hivus, its armored hull glowing cherry-red as friction and heat waged war against ceramite and void-shield alike. Inside the troop bay, the air was a thick, toxic cocktail of ozone, hot promethium, and the sharp tang of machine oil. Every surface vibrated with a restrained violence, a deep, bone-rattling hum that spoke of the immense power straining at the gunship's frame as it plunged toward a world already carved open by war.

Lieutenant Ludotius Tarisius stood near the forward bulkhead, his mag-locked boots fused to the deck plating. His armor was a living extension of his will, its servo-muscles whining softly as they compensated for the violent turbulence, while his auto-senses projected a torrent of telemetry and threat data across the inside of his visor. Crimson tactical glyphs flickered and updated over a skeletal wireframe map of the hive outskirts below, impact zones shimmered in warning red, enemy concentrations pulsed like infected wounds, and the thin blue lines of allied positions looked perilously few and far between.

Around him, a full squad of Scythes of the Emperor occupied the troop bay, a monolithic presence of ceramite and purpose. Some were seated along the restraint benches, their forms rigid and still; others stood with weapons held close to their chests, their fingers tracing the familiar contours of their gear. Bolt rifles were mag-checked for the third or fourth time, the solid clack of the magazine seating a comforting, repetitive prayer. Chainswords purred with a low, guttural growl as their teeth spun in idle cycles, a promise of the carnage to come. A flamer unit ran a final pressure diagnostic on his promethium feed, the hiss of escaping gas a sharp, clean sound in the din. Ritual motions, each one practiced across hundreds of deployments, a sacred liturgy of war.

Some of the brothers bore the quiet stillness of veterans who had learned to conserve their energy, to turn their bodies into calm reservoirs of potential violence before the killing began.
Others were less restrained.

Brother Varus broke the tension first, slamming a gauntlet against his chestplate with a resonant boom that echoed through the bay. He let out a low, eager laugh, a sound like grinding rocks. "Orks," he growled, the word thick with contempt and anticipation. "Been too long since I've felt a good choppa break against my shield."
A few others echoed him, fists thumping against armor in a growing, percussive rhythm. A ripple of raw eagerness spread through the bay. There was a primal hunger in it, old instincts stirring in their gene-seed. The promise of a worthy foe, of a battle that would test their mettle, was a potent drug.

Ludotius turned slowly, the motion fluid and deliberate. He did not raise his voice. He did not need to.
"Silence."
The single word cut through the compartment with the calm, absolute authority of a guillotine. The cheering died instantly, replaced by disciplined stillness. Every helm turned toward him, the red eye-lenses of their visors fixing on his form.

Ludotius stepped forward, his boots ringing against the steel deck, each sound a hammer blow of command.

"Brothers," he began, his tone level and deliberate, a stark contrast to the chaos awaiting them, "we are going on an ork hunt."
A subtle tightening of grips followed. The word alone carried immense weight, a legacy of brutal, close-quarters warfare against a relentless foe.
"These xenos have infested the lower hive sectors and established forward camps across the ash plains. They are disorganized, aggressive, and numerous." His visor scrolled through fresh auspex returns as he spoke, the data a cold, hard confirmation of their task. "They believe this world is theirs. They believe its people are their cattle."

He let the silence stretch, allowing the insult to settle in the air.
Then he continued. "We will prove them wrong."
A few Marines inclined their heads in sharp, acknowledgment.

Ludotius's gaze moved across each of them, lingering just long enough to be personal, to make each warrior feel seen. "This is not a parade. This is not a purge for glory. This is a coordinated strike against a dug-in enemy. Some of you may not return."
The words landed with the weight of a fallen statue. There was no bravado, only truth.
"No hesitation. No heroics. Watch your firing lanes. Maintain squad integrity. Trust your brothers, because they will be the difference between extraction and martyrdom."
He tapped the side of his helm, opening the squad vox. "All Scythes elements, prepare for immediate hot drop. Target coordinates locked. Weapons live. Visual confirmation in thirty seconds."

Acknowledgments chimed back in clipped, disciplined bursts.
He switched channels. "Allied elements operating in the Baal Hivus perimeter, this is Lieutenant Ludotius Tarisius of the Scythes of the Emperor. My squad is inbound for coordinated assault. Hold your lines and mark priority targets. We strike together."

A burst of static answered, then a wave of confirmations from Guardsmen and auxiliary forces scattered across the sector. Good. They weren't alone.
The Thunderhawk shuddered violently as it punched deeper into the atmosphere. Gravity pulled harder now, a crushing weight that pressed them into the deck. Warning runes flickered across Ludotius's display before stabilizers compensated with a groan of stressed metal. Heat rolled across the hull in waves, and sparks danced along conduit seams as the machine-spirit strained against the planet's embrace.

Ludotius felt it all through his armor, the gunship an extension of his own body. This was the moment between worlds. Between preparation and violence. Between the void and the maelstrom.

He moved toward the assault ramp as the deck pitched beneath him, one gauntleted hand steadying against a support strut. His brothers rose in unison, a wave of black ceramite, forming up behind him, weapons held ready. The squad became a single organism, breathing together, waiting together.

The ramp began to lower.
Hot wind and ash blasted into the troop bay immediately, carrying with it the distant crackle of gunfire and the faint, ugly echoes of ork engines. Below, Baal Hivus sprawled in brutal clarity, blackened craters pockmarked the landscape like a pox, jagged rock formations clawed at the sky, and ruined manufactorum spires stood as broken tombstones. Fires burned in the distance, sending pillars of dark smoke twisting upward like funeral banners for a dying world.

He stepped onto the edge of the ramp, looking out across the battlefield. The wind tore at his tabard, but his armor absorbed the heat without complaint.
Behind him, his squad waited, a wall of silent death.
He raised one hand. "Brothers," he said, his voice cutting clean through the roar of engines and storm winds alike, "look upon this field and remember who you are."

They leaned forward slightly, drawn by his words, their attention absolute.
"We are not merely soldiers. We are the Emperor's Scythes, reapers in His name. Where we walk, xenos fall. Where we stand, humanity endures."
His gaze remained fixed on the burning horizon.
"Today, we fight not for glory, but for those who cannot. For every Guardsman holding a broken line with a trembling hand. For every civilian sheltering in the dark, praying for a salvation they do not believe will come. We are their shield."

He turned just enough to look back at them, one by one.
"Stand fast. Strike true. Watch your brothers' backs. Let the orks learn what it means to face the Scythes of the Emperor."
A ripple of pure resolve moved through the squad. postures tightened, grips firmed, weapons lifted. They were no longer just Marines; they were an instrument of divine wrath.
Ludotius turned back toward the open ramp.
"Scythes of the Emperor," he said quietly, a final invocation.

Then louder:
"Advance."
He stepped forward into the rushing wind, leading his brothers down into fire, smoke, and war.
The hunt had begun.
 
The guardsmen and armor buttoned up and rolled out as their officers and ncos gave the all clear on there equipment checks and headcounts. Lucius smiled as both his squad and the rest of the platoon loaded into their Ridgehauler, a few of the junior guardsmen taking up positions on the vehicle's mounted weapons, hanging out in the radioactive sand as the back hatch latched and the driver followed the Ridgehauler in front of them. Silence filled the mix between a cargo hauler and APC as they filled out the staging bay, occassionaly interrupted by a comment or joke between the vets of the platoon as they sat cramped together. The less experienced guardsmen were largely trying to contain their mixtures of excitement and fear. About half of the 8th's leadership had been in the Battle of Sector 28 years back, a very similarly planned assault to the one they were participating in now. None had exited the fray without trauma, physical or otherwise. Many, like Lucius, sported at least one or two augmented limbs or other bodily piece taken by the greenskins. They hated the ork, in a very personal way. Lucius lit up a Lho and settled in for the ride ahead. Not terribly far, long enough for the assault force to set with their thoughts.

Lt. Solar, 3rd platoon's newly minted CO, stood after a while, giving a stoical look to those under his command, taking in the emotional state of each as he gazed on them. His right arm, purely mechanical, reflected no light from it's dull, steel colored recesses as his left eye shone with a red light from the artificial eye. He allowed the silence to hang as he stood for a moment.

"Those of you that have been here for awhile, know the seriousness of what we're about to do. Ten years ago, the 8th assaulted a similarly entrenched greenskin position. None of the survivors made it out whole."

He silence hang again.

"As we all understand, that is our place. Our duty. We shall again, keep the Emperor's peace on this world as we have on this rock and others for millenia. You may die. But through your death humanity shall continue. We do this for every man woman and child you know. Remember that, for the trials ahead. Be thankful you have assault vehicles and support for this objective. The Emperor Protects." Solar finished, alternating eye contact among the platoon as he did. Before the Platoon responded a chorus of multilasers and autofire echoed from beyond the thick walls of the Ridgehauler as the first vehicles began to hit the inital line of contact as they zoomed past empty watchtowers, cleared by someone before the guard had arrived. Over the dim of gunfire the more veteran Guardsmen picked up on something besides the loud engines of the Leman Russ's loud engines and those of the Ridgehaulers. A dim hum.

The veterans wore smiles as they returned Solar's call in enthusiastic whoops and shouts. "THE EMPEROR PROTECTS" Lucius shouted with the others as they recognized the distinct hum of gunships. Rarely had they been blessed enough to have the litany of support available on this mission.

The vehicle rocked as incoming ork fire peppered it's outsides, from above it looked like a stream of angry ants pouring towards the ork trench lines outside the ramshackle fortress they'd managed to cobel together.

As their tires passed over the first set of trenches a well aimed Grotzooka spread blasted through the front of the transport, killing the driver instantly in a hail of rusted steel, the secondary attempted to take over but the first had fallen squarely on the drivers wheel, spinning them left and sending the whole thing onto it's side in the second layer of trenches, covering them from the majority of new incoming fire as they tumbled about inside. This was why bayonets remained unfixed until exit. Lucius hit the rear hatch of the crawler door as blood poured out of the corner of his mouth, a tooth set loose from where the Lt's prosthetic had smashed into it during the tumble. "OUTTTT" The man screamed as he and those not rocked by the flip poured out of the sideways open hatch, lazguns firing into orks rushing from either side of the trench to meet the new threat behind their lines. The veterans of the platoon held and pulled out the living from the crawler as they set up a defensive posture around their downed vehicle. Solar wasn't among them.

Lucius cursed, spat out some more blood and rallied the survivors, ordering them to fix bayonets as he eyed the eastern section of the trench.

They would do a quick count and continue the assault, leaving some to guard the wounded and dead in the crawler and prevent the orks from attacking their rear flank.

Lucky, again. The ork that had manufactures the Grotzooka hadn't designed it in a way where it could turn without a four ork crank, now inoperable under sustained fire.

Lucius motioned those who were to go ahead as they began to advance into the now properly counterattacking orks. Screams, dakka fire, and lazguns dominated the soundspace around them as they painfully pulled forward.
 
From the Thunderhawk's open ramp, Ludotius looked down across the maelstrom. Smoke and ash churned with the dust kicked up by the grinding treads of Ridgehaulers and Leman Russ tanks. Below, the Guardsmen were already drowning in the trenches, their lasguns spitting impotent light into the dim haze. The occasional explosion threw a fountain of dirt and scorched rock into the air, a brief, violent blossom in the gloom.

He allowed himself a brief, clinical assessment. "Late to the party," he muttered under his breath, his voice caught between amusement and irritation. The veteran Marines behind him chuckled lowly, a deep, resonant sound, but none moved yet, they waited for his lead.

Before the command could even form on his lips, Brother Varus broke. With a roar that was half-battle cry, half-pure exhilaration, he vaulted from the ramp, his armor a black comet plunging into the wind. A laugh, raw and unrestrained, ripped from his vox-grille as he disappeared into the churning dust.

"VARUS!" Ludotius's voice wasn't a shout; it was a crack of thunder, a lash of pure authority that cut through the gunship's roar. He didn't just gesture for restraint; he took a single, deliberate step forward, his entire frame radiating a fury so cold it was almost tangible. "You will hold your position, brother! Or by the Emperor's wrath, I will have you scrubbing the filth from every track on this planet with your tongue! Is that understood?!"

The reprimand landed like a physical blow. The remaining Marines stood rigid, their amusement instantly extinguished, replaced by the sharp-edged focus of warriors who had just been reminded of the unbreakable chain of command. Ludotius held his stance for a heartbeat longer, then turned his attention to the rest of his squad.

"Support the Guardsmen!" Ludotius commanded, his vox crackling with ice-cold precision. "Suppressive fire first. Then, we move in for the kill. Execute!"

A chorus of bolt rifles answered, the roar a unified voice of death. Marine squads spread out, their jump packs flaring as they hovered momentarily in the gusting wind, before landing with near-superhuman precision along the trench lines. Bolts the size of a man's fist slammed into ork bodies, detonating with wet, percussive thumps. Green-skinned monsters simply exploded into showers of gore and bone fragments, scattering the survivors and buying the Guardsmen precious seconds to reorganize.

Those among the squad who preferred the intimate art of close combat unsheathed their chainswords. The weapons screamed to life, their teeth spinning with a hungry, high-pitched whine. Combat knives, the size of shortswords, were drawn. War cries erupted from the Thunderhawk ramp as the Assault Marines charged forward, leaping into the trench system with devastating efficiency. The sound of ceramite boots hitting sand, bolters booming, and chainswords tearing into ork flesh was deafening.

Ludotius himself landed with a controlled roll, his shoulder brushing against the dirt as he brought his bolt rifle up in one fluid motion. His eyes scanned for targets, his auto-senses marking threats and priority points for his squad. A group of Gretchin, chittering and cowardly, darted across the smoke-choked ground; a precise burst from Brother Kaelen's bolter turned them into a red mist of viscera and shattered bone. Another ork, a massive Nob bristling with crude armor and a choppa the size of a man, charged a thin, wavering line of Guardsmen. Ludotius raised a hand, and the squad opened fire, the bolter rounds stitching into the ork's chest with surgical precision, punching through its tough hide before the hand-to-hand Marines finished the kill.

The melee was a butcher's trade. Brother Vorlag, a storm shield strapped to his arm, waded into the thickest of the fighting. An ork swung a rusted cleaver at him; Vorlag caught the blow on his shield, the impact ringing like a cracked bell, and answered by ramming the sharpened edge of the shield into the ork's face. The creature's head split like an overripe fruit, its jawbone torn away and its brains painting the trench wall in a gruesome splash. Another Marine, his chainsword roaring, carved a wide, horizontal arc through a group of orks. The weapon didn't just cut; it obliterated. One ork was severed at the waist, its top half flopping into the mud while its legs took two more stumbling steps. A second was disemboweled, its intestines spilling out in a steaming, tangled heap.

"Cover the flanks! Protect the wounded!" Ludotius ordered, moving forward with deliberate steps, his presence a stabilizing force in the chaos. Each Marine followed, disciplined, lethal, coordinating with the Guardsmen who struggled to maintain formation amidst the gore.

Amid the chaos, Ludotius allowed a small, grim smile. Even in the dust, the fire, and the screams, his squad moved like a single organism. Precise shots, brutal charges, and unwavering support for humanity's thin line, Redmond, this was why the Scythes fought alongside the Guard. Not for glory. Not for vengeance. But for survival. For order. For the Emperor.

The fight was just beginning, and Baal Hivus would burn with the reckoning of the Scythes' wrath.
 

The hull of the Aeon's Anvil rang with the impact of hostile munitions upon the Adamantine plates, its machine spirit grumbling in annoyance as the twin heavy bolters began returning fire, spent shells drumming through the machine as they were cast out from the weapons. They kept a near constant stream of fire as the engagement began, staccato fire from the stormbolter affixed to the observer's pintel turret. "Forward Observer Sin is in overwatch, Madam."

"Good. Tell them I will paint the target, stay on overwatch." Aurellia responded cooly. With the sniper in position, all they had to do was lure the Warboss out and then it was over. She had the laser designator on her auto-rifle ready. Didn't hurt to know she had an angel on her shoulder should things get hairy. All she had to do was paint a target and let the God-Emperor's reaper dispatch any foe that dared exist within the crosshairs.

"Madam, command has confirmed Astartes support. Squad Arcas, Lamenters; Scytheguard Squad, Scythes of the Emperor." the vox-operator said over the din of the guns firing. Most of the 181st had seen Astartes before, members of the Death-Watch, a few Grey Knights here and there, in passing, but had not participated in battle alongside the Emperor's Angels of Death. To them, it was a harrowing sign. It usually indicated the upcoming battle was far more deadly than the Guard could handle alone, and any fight requiring squads of demigods was essentially an unwinnable battle for survival to them.

They looked to the Explicator for assurance. This was overkill being assembled because it was sacred Baal, the capital of the Imperium Nihilus? Right? She could not reassure them in that. Only that in her years of war and conflict, she had seen her fair number of heretic Astartes felled by mortal servants of the Emperor. A few of them had died by her hands. She had seen whole squads sliced down by a single berserker with a chain-axe as well, and despite all the horrors she had faced, mundane and daemonic, none came closer to killing her than Astartes.

"Good. Keep me appraised as to their progress. Grom, stay close to me." She issued the commands, standing from the transport chairs and moving in front of the assault ramp, hanging onto the handle above. The roar of the lascannon capacitors rumbled through the troop transport, discharging at enemy fortifications. "When we get out there, stay together. Get to cover immediately." The vehicle rocked, its machine spirit pulling against the wishes of the driver, begging to get closer to the orks and their ramshackle fort, to grind them beneath its gears, to stamp the symbol of the God-Emperor into their flesh. The transmission squealed in protest as the driver attempted to down-shift before finally the machine-spirit let go of its lust for blood in favor of the strategy of its commander. The ramp rang with enemy projectiles, an explosion rocking the vehicle as it shook off rocket blast. "Three, two," Aurellia went silent and the ramp dropped in front of her.

A mob of orks roared as the ramp opened off the black armored Land Raider, brandishing axes as they charged from their own cover towards the vehicle. Aurellia surged from the compartment, legs pumping long strides as she exploded outwards, her autorifle barking as she exited the vehicle, dropping to a crouch. Quick, accurate three-round bursts aimed for the heads and shoulders of the greenskins. One dropped from a round through the mouth, then another from three to the throat. Then the lasgun fire from the Stormtroopers well ordered fire erupted from behind her, burning holes through their flesh from two or three angles at a time as fire-teams concentrated the orks down one at a time. The sudden whoosh, followed by the roar of flames followed, liquid fire spat upon the knoll of the small hilltop, leaving grey ash and flames licking upon screaming greenskin bodies that panicked and rolled about, finding no respite from the holy dust and ash of Baal's earth. Grom's ripper barked out shells, spraying the scattered pellets into the mob as the squad advanced from the protection of Aeon's Anvil.

A large lumbering Ork nob sprang down, taking five lasgun bolts to the chest without notice, his armor scored and pocked by the heat from the las-blasts. He began closing the distance, a large flanged mace carried in one hand the full height of a man, his dark green skin criss-crossed by the scars of many battles. One baleful red eye burned in its socket, the other missing. A beak-shaped Astartes helm dangled from his trophies, along with the skulls and teeth and claws of wild beasts he had slain. He smashed one of the stormtroopers aside with a single swing from the mace, crunching carapace armor and bone, leaving the poor soldier gasping and dying from a gaping wound.

Aurellia pushed forward, pouring it on with bursts from her auto-rifle as she stood and advanced, aiming for his head. Bullets glanced off his helm, went wide, but finally one found purchase in his tusk-filled maw. He roared and twisted at the hips, sweeping the great mace at the defiant Inquisitor.

She dropped her rifle, letting the sling catch it, and ducked down. Pressing up into a run, she speared her shoulder into his waist, his momentum and sheer mass barely noticing the Inquisitor. She dug her heels in to keep from being bowled over and slammed her right hand into the outside of his knee just before the big monster brought the pommel of his mace into her back.

The beast howled as bones crunched and flesh pulped, the stench of burnt ork meat filling Aurellia's nostrils. She turned and spun out from him as he fell over, still grasping his leg at the knee where her power-fist had severed it, stepping up onto the small of his back and delivering another strike to his back between the shoulder blades. "Up the hill." the Explicator grunted, slamming her knuckles into the back of the beast's head as the stormtroopers rushed past her to take the first hill top and start work on the next.

Ludotius Tarisius Redmond Marcus Varro Daes'yn
 


Tags: Redmond Aurellia Roth Marcus Varro Ludotius Tarisius


The rest of the imperial forces caught up and passed Daes'yn's position as expected and continued onwards to the orks, she could now hear the gunfire and through her visor see the developing combat. She squeezed her trigger again and a bullet sailed across the terrain and eliminated an anti-tank position that had begun to engage the imperials. The vehicles were tearing up the ground and filling the air with dirt so Sin switched her visor settings.

The comm came from inquisitor Aurellia Roth

:: Overwatch established, please be advised my time to target is 3.2 seconds ::

Another shot rang out punching straight through the chest of a trukk boy and sending him careening out of control into a wall and catching fire. Other orks staggered out of the back of the burning trukk but their momentum was broken.

She sent a comm out herself to Marcus Varro

:: Detecting signs of armour to your due east three hundred metres, indication of heavy walkers. No LoS to contact ::

She suspected dreadnaughts but they were behind too many layers of wall for her visor to make put full details.

The assassin continued to scan for targets.

OOC NOTE

Feel free to call the odd shot incoming from her if it works for your narrative.

​
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The battlefield was a symphony of slaughter, the air thick with the roar of explosions, the guttural war cries of orks, and the percussive thunder of gunfire. Ludotius pressed forward, a black specter of death at the head of his Scytheguard. His squad surged in unison, chainswords and combat knives humming with a deadly promise, flamers gurgling as they primed to purge the trenches. Dust and smoke swirled around them, a choking haze through which bolters and lasguns stitched lines of violent light.

"Forward! Cut through them!" Ludotius barked over the vox, and the squad obeyed like a single, multi-limbed predator. Flames spat from their weapons, not just clearing barricades but immolating the greenskins behind them. Orks, their tough hides bubbling and blackening, staggered from the inferno, their shrieks of agony swallowed by the din. Blades swept in disciplined arcs, not merely cutting but dismembering. A chainsword bit deep into an ork's shoulder, tearing through muscle and bone to sever its entire arm in a shower of dark, viscous blood. Another Marine drove his combat knife up under a xenos's jaw, the blade punching through the soft palate and into its brain with a wet, final crunch.

Vox chatter crackled in his helmet, a stream of brutal efficiency.
"Target neutralized, Brother Kaelen!"
"Two ork bodies down, approaching east trench!"

Then came the first cost. Brother Vorlag, who had been a wall of ceramite and fury, roared as he met a charging Nob head-on. He parried the Ork's massive choppa with his storm shield, the impact ringing like a struck bell, but the creature's raw, brute force was staggering. A second ork, a cunning Grot armed with a rivet gun, darted in low. Vorlag, focused on the Nob, never saw the threat. A hail of super-heated rivets punched into the seals of his groin joint, where the armor was thinnest. The ceramite buckled, and Vorlag staggered, a cry of pain and surprise escaping his vox. The Nob seized the moment, its rusted axe swinging down and cleaving deep into Vorlag's exposed neck. The Marine's head was lopped clean from his shoulders, his body collapsing in a heap of black armor, a torrent of blood and spinal fluid pumping from the severed stump.

Simultaneously, Brother Kaelen, providing covering fire from a slight rise, was caught in a crossfire. A trio of ork sluggas, firing wildly, scored a lucky hit. A massive, crude bullet slammed into the ammo feed of his bolter. The weapon detonated in his hands, a catastrophic failure that ripped his arm from its socket and sent shards of metal and ceramite tearing into his chest. He was thrown backward, his torso a ruin of shattered bone and mangled organs, his life extinguished in an instant.

A cold, righteous fury thrummed in Ludotius's chest. He seized a flamer from the nearest smoldering ork corpse, the metal still hot, and combined it with his chainsword, swinging and advancing with lethal precision. A shot from a distant gun passed so close it hissed past his helm, striking a charging ork that had nearly made contact with his armor. The round didn't just hit; it detonated. The ork's head vanished in a grotesque explosion of bone, brains, and green flesh, its body, propelled by the last spasm of its nervous system, stumbling forward for two steps before collapsing in a heap. Sparks flew. The ork toppled, momentum broken, clearing a path for his squad.

"Covering fire from overwatch! Thank you!" Ludotius barked into the all-allied vox channel, his voice a raw snarl of gratitude and command. Bolter fire and laser designations from distant support hit targets with deadly accuracy, thinning the orks' numbers with clinical precision.

He advanced again, boots thudding against scorched earth, flames licking the barricades, his chainsword spinning. Every strike, every shot was precise, coordinated with his squad and the Guardsmen, each movement a tribute to training, discipline, and the Emperor's will. He carved a path through the xenos, his chainsword eviscerating one, a burst from his bolt pistol blowing the leg off another.

"Hold the line, brothers! Advance!" he shouted, leading the squad deeper into the fray, the combined firepower of allies and Scythes cutting a bloody swathe through the ork defenses. The ground was slick with xenos blood, the air thick with the smell of cooked meat and cordite. This was their purpose. This was their art. And they were its masters.

Tag: Daes'yn, Aurellia Roth, Redmond, Marcus Varro,
 
Gun and lasfire lit the slopes as the Lamenters advanced alongside their mortal brethren. Guardsmen and PDF troopers in drab combat fatigues made up the bulk of the assault force. The air reeked of ozone and fyceline, sweat and spilt viscera. Coppery. A stark reminder that life went slow, and death came fast. For the troopers jumping from the back of rumbling Cargo 8's. For the Orks charging forth to meet them. At least the latter had been taken by surprise. Somewhere, a guardian angel peered through a sniper's scope.

The Angels of Death did not hesitate to enter the fray.

Leading from the front, Varro ordered his squad into battle formation as they swept over the first trench. Bolters roared. Chainblades revved. The Orks manning those forward defenses died as they had lived - brutally, as was only right for a race that coveted little more than to see his own rendered extinct.

'Brother Gilead, front and centre!'

Pushing to the fore, the Lamenter lowered the barrel of his heavy bolter to greet the oncoming wave of orks rushing towards them. Swarming like rats, the Xenos appeared from their downed vessel in a mad rush. Boyz and Gretchin, warbikes, and even a score of Nobs. The biggest and baddest of their ilk. Thirsty for the fight. A handful caught sight of Varro's red helmet amidst the carnage. The sergeant's vox-link chirped as a voice warned him of a threat moving to take his flank. A heavy walker. Bigger than the orks hurtling towards him.

'Acknowledged!' He responded. 'Ekron, Mal, Harren! Turn and address!'

'So spoken, so it will be done,' replied Brother Ekron, crushing a skull beneath his boot as he turned his weapon towards the shadows lumbering out of the smoke towards them. Varro didn't have time to see what happened next.

Leaping the second trenchline, the surviving Nobs went for the Brother-Sergeant with all the glee their tusked mouths could manage.

Locking his depleted bolt rifle behind his back, Varro drew his chainsword just in time to parry an ork choppa. Sparks flew as the monomonecular teeth whirred. Bringing the sword up and about, Varro struck at the ork's neck, only for the blades to meet once more. Impact jarred the Space Marine's arm. A heartbeat later, a loud explosion shook the ground beneath his feet. Percussive force shunted both opponents sideways. Varro kept his balance. The ork did not.

'Enemy mobile... neutralised,' he heard Mal report, as his chainsword parted the ork's head from its shoulders.

'Good work.' Varro cycled his blade to free it of gore. 'Now, onwards. For those we cherish...'

'Kill them all?' He could hear the smile in Gilead's voice. 'Gladly!'

Further above, the Xenos ship lay shattered across the landscape, dominating the horizon with its corpse.

How many foes do you hide? The Brother-Sergeant wondered, reloading his heavy bolt rifle. Not enough.
 

The storm didn't herald their coming. The staging area roared with its usual violence, engines bellowing, tank tracks grinding ash into powder, shouted orders swallowed by the wind. War assembled itself in the disciplined chaos of the Imperium.

Then the air thickened. A deep, resonant thunder rolled across the mustering lanes, not from artillery, but from descending mass. Atmospheric pressure displaced in vast waves as a gunship of immense profile broke through the choking red skies above the staging grounds. Its engines howled like chained beasts, retros blasting gouts of fire and vapor that sent ash spiraling outward in a widening storm.

A Thunderhawk gunship of unmistakable lineage. Its hull bore the battered gold of the Imperial Fists. The assault ramp crashed down with the finality of a fortress gate. Steam billowed outward. From the white-hot haze emerged giants. Cataphractii-pattern Terminators advanced in implacable formation, their armor layered and ancient, thick as bunker plating and etched with the heraldry of the First Company. Each step struck the ground with seismic weight, ceramite boots cracking ash-hardened stone beneath them. Storm bolters hung ready. Power fists flexed with grinding mechanical force. Their presence was not merely martial, it was architectural.

They were walking bastions of the Imperium, and at their head strode a figure greater still. Veteran Sergeant Talos Krane. His masterful wrought Terminator plate bore the colors of the Imperial Fists, though centuries of war had worn its once-pristine surface with gouges, heat scoring, and the marks of weapons that had failed to bring him low. A massive siege shield rested upon one arm like the wall of a citadel, its surface a history of impacts endured and enemies broken. In his gauntlet, a master-crafted storm bolter tracked with cold precision, its machine spirit restless for war. His helm remained sealed, a featureless bastion of black and iron. Twin eye lenses burned with a steady glow. He didn't speak. He didn't need to. The Terminator squad behind him moved with absolute cohesion, forming a moving bulwark around their commander. To mortal eyes, it resembled the advance of a fortress line, an unbreakable wall of ceramite and adamantium pushing into reality by sheer force of will. Conversation among the Guard faltered. Servitors paused mid-task. Even veteran soldiers felt the instinctive urge to straighten their posture.

The Imperial Fists had arrived.

Talos halted at the edge of the mustering lines, his armored form utterly still as tactical telemetry streamed across his autosenses. The battlefield unfolded before him in vectors and kill-zones, siege mathematics resolving with cold inevitability. Armor columns. Infantry density. Wind velocity. Structural weaknesses. Lines of advance.

Greenskin infestation. Extermination parameters calculated. His vox transmitted at last, a voice like grinding stone amplified. "Veteran Sergeant Talos Krane. Imperial Fists First Company." A pause both heavy and final. "Designate primary engagement zone. My squad will secure the breach." No flourish. No declaration of glory. Only the certainty of execution. Behind him, the Terminators advanced one step forward in perfect unison. A wall of the Emperor's wrath made manifest.

War would now proceed.



 
The battlefield trembled.
Ludotius felt it first through the soles of his boots, a deep, rhythmic concussion that did not belong to the clumsy thunder of ork artillery or the guttural roar of their ramshackle engines. It was a purposeful, deliberate vibration, the footfall of a god of war. His visor auto-adjusted, polarizing against a sudden, fierce glare as retros flared against the red haze of Baal's sky. Ash and dust spiraled upward in violent eddies as a massive silhouette descended, its shape blocking out the diseased sun.

He turned.
Even through the choking smoke and dust, the heraldry was unmistakable.
Imperial Fists.

The Thunderhawk didn't land; it crushed the earth beneath it. Its ramp crashed down with the sound of a fortress gate slamming shut, and from the billowing steam and heat emerged figures that redefined the word immovable. Cataphractii armor. layered, ancient, and brutally deliberate. Each step they took was a seismic event, fracturing the ash-hardened ground beneath their immense weight. They were not soldiers; they were living bulwarks, a walking testament to the Imperium's unyielding will.

But before they could fully disembark, the orks launched their counter-offensive.
A tide of green flesh and rusty metal surged from a previously hidden sally port, a wave of screaming, slavering monsters intent on overrunning the Imperial line. Ludotius's Scytheguard met them head-on.

Brother Vorlag became a whirlwind of destruction. His storm shield deflected a choppa that would have split a lesser man in two, the impact ringing like a cracked bell. He responded by ramming the sharpened edge of his shield into the ork's face, splitting its skull like an overripe fruit. Before the body could fall, he reversed his grip, driving the top spike of the shield through the chest of another xenos, the creature's hot blood spraying across his already-slick armor.

Nearby, a flamer Marine bathed a group of Gretchin in liquid fire. Their high-pitched shrieks were cut short as their tiny bodies blackened and popped, their greasy fat fueling the inferno. An ork Nob, a mountain of muscle and scar tissue, charged through the flames, its skin bubbling but its rage undiminished. It swung a power klaw that crackled with stolen energy, catching a Marine mid-torso. There was no clang, no parry. The klaw simply closed, and the Marine's armored chestplate, along with the organs within, was crushed into a mangled, bloody ruin. The Marine didn't even have time to scream; he just… collapsed.

Ludotius watched only a moment, his mind cataloging the losses and the shifting front. Then he moved.
"Brother-Sergeant Arionus!" Ludotius voxed sharply, his voice a blade of command amidst the chaos. "Maintain forward pressure! Secure the trench and support the Guardsmen's eastern push! Do not let them gain an inch!"

"Understood, Lieutenant! For the Emperor!" Arionus's reply was strained but steady, followed by the roar of his bolter.
"Varus, Kaelen! with me!"

Three Scythes disengaged with disciplined precision, their movements a stark contrast to the frenzy around them. They fell back through the shifting lines, bolters barking to cover their retreat. Behind them, the squad held, a thin black line of ceramite against the green tide, their sacrifice buying Ludotius the moments he needed.

He approached the Terminators without hesitation, his chainsword resting at his side, its teeth still humming faintly. His armor was scored with fresh impact marks, one shoulder pad gouged deep by a lucky shot. Smoke curled around him as he crossed into the looming shadow of the Imperial Fists, the very air seeming to grow heavier, denser in their presence.

He removed his helm seal with a sharp hiss of depressurization, revealing a face streaked with ash, dried blood, and the grit of a hundred worlds. His eyes were hard, the only part of him that betrayed the cost of the day.

"Veteran Sergeant," he called, his voice steady despite the thunder of war behind him. "It is good to see the First Company on site."
Talos Krane stood like a fortress given life, the tactical dreadnought armor making Ludotius feel like a mortal in the presence of a demigod. The tactical optics set into the Terminator's helm flickered faintly behind black lenses, unreadable and ancient.

Ludotius continued without delay, his tone that of one professional officer to another. There was no time for pleasantries.
"Primary engagement remains concentrated along the trench network two hundred meters north-northeast. The Lamenters are pushing hard on the second line, but they're taking heavy casualties. My Scytheguard squad is split, one element reinforcing the Guard's left flank, the other is attempting to secure a breach through the inner earthworks, but they're being pinned by heavy stubber fire."

A distant explosion rolled across the plain, close enough to make the ground shudder. Ludotius did not turn.
"We have identified heavy walkers to the east, Gorkanauts or possibly a Stompa, though we have no confirmed visual yet. Auspex suggests they're emerging from behind the wrecked xenos vessel dominating the horizon. We have Assassin overwatch active, and Inquisitorial forces are engaged on the southern hilltop, but their progress is slow."

He paused only long enough to measure the Terminator's unwavering attention.
"I have suffered two losses thus far. The squad remains combat-effective, but the margin is thin." His jaw tightened slightly at the admission, a flicker of pain quickly suppressed. "The Guardsmen are under sustained pressure along the lower trench line. I have dispatched support, but a dedicated reinforcement there would stabilize their advance and prevent a potential encirclement."

He stepped forward one pace, not challenging, not posturing. Simply present, grounding himself in the shadow of the giant.
"Lieutenant Ludotius Tarisius. Scythes of the Emperor."
Behind him, Varus and Kaelen stood silent, disciplined, their presence a quiet statement of loyalty and strength.
"The field is yours to designate, Veteran Sergeant. My men will integrate with your breach as required. We are your scalpel to your hammer."

Around them, the war continued without pause, bolters roaring, lascannons discharging with the crack of thunder, ork war cries rising and falling beneath the disciplined fury of the Imperium.

Ludotius replaced his helm with a sealed click, the hiss of re-pressurization a final, definitive sound.
"Where do you require us?"
The ash swirled between them like smoke from a forge.
War would proceed, now with siege masters present.

Tag: Talos Krane Redmond Marcus Varro Daes'yn Aurellia Roth
 

The charnel house of combat continued all around the Explicator, her back placed against a rusted metal plate the orks used as a defensive barricade she and her squad had pushed them from. Pings resounded through the metal barrier as a group of orks with crude looted weapons poured fire down upon the squad.

Using her hand, she gave the signal for their Volleygun to return fire, sputtering out red hot lasbolts through the air, filling Aurellia's nostrils with the scent of ozone. The crack of lasguns firing in sequence echoed down the line as the squad attempted to pick off the orks from a distance under the otherwise overwhelming firepower. If the greenskins had been even as accurate as white-shields the Inquisitorial team would have already been obliterated, but even as wild as their shooting was, several of the stormtroopers already lay dead with several massive bullet wounds punched through their armor.

The ground shook beneath her boots and the air grew heavy, and suddenly, there was something else. Imperial Fists. A full squad bedecked in Cataphractii-pattern Tactical Dreadnought Armor, shields crackling from their energy fields, approached like legends out of myth reminiscent of great knights who planted themselves against the tides of foes to break upon them like waves. Even as the orks surged back and the Astartes squads pressed their advantages, the soldiers of the Imperial Guard lay dead at her feet. Such was the nature of war. Any battle that required the Astartes was one that would bathe the Regency-World in blood.

"Grenades." She called, twisting and charging the auxiliary grenade launcher on her autogun. "Frag out!" The call went up across the squad as they unleashed a volley of frag grenades into the entrenched ork heavy support, the resounding explosions sending scattered debris and the cries of wounded greenskin up. "Charge!" With the orks recovering from the salvo of grenades, the guardsman closed the distance, spraying away with their lasguns as they ran forward. Short bursts from the remaining fire-teams downed a few of the green menaces before the rest were engaged in a short, bloody, melee.

Even wounded and not equipped for close quarters battle, orks were still muscle-bound brutes almost as broad-shouldered as they were tall with arms as thick around as a man's leg. Aurellia watched Sergeant Kole carve through one with his chainsword before he was bludgeoned to a bloody pulp by a second using the butt of its gun. She watched Corporal Mikolai get booted to the ground and have the triple-barreled atrocity the ork loota used for a firearm unleash a spray of bullets into the unfortunate stormtrooper before anyone could come to his rescue. The Explicator threw a hard right hook into the chest of the closest ork, meat burning against her knuckles as his back popped open like a balloon filled with day-old ground beef. The squad dragged two others down and finished them with bayonets.

Unfortunately for the remaining ork, Grom, the ogryn bodyguard Aurellia had procured arrived. Grom grabbed the ork by its ankle and swung it wildly against any surface that looked sturdy enough to survive it until the orks bones were mulched. "Take up positions and cover the guard. Third Platoon is moving up now." The vox-operator called out to the survivors. In short order the group caught their breath and took firing positions, slapping fresh powercells into their rifles and pouring it on to the greenskins to provide cover fire for the advancing lines of the Imperial Guard.

Redmond @Daes'yn Ludotius Tarisius Marcus Varro Talos Krane
 


Tags: Aurellia Roth Redmond Ludotius Tarisius Marcus Varro Talos Krane

The assassin breathed slowly and calmly as she methodically took put high risk targets on the distant battlefield, watching it develop as more astartes joined the fray from above. She had previously sent out two recon skulls to scout further vantage points as the battlefield changed and the battlelines were pushed out of sight. She put a round into the head of a power claw welding nob and then made the decision to move.

::Overwatch protocol suspended. Sin relocating to advanced position:: she communicated before climbing on to her jetbike and moving. There was a cliff that would be perfect, it was previously within range of the enemy forward defences, but now it just had a beautiful vista view of the enemy positions. It would take her less than a minute to relocate, flying quickly and quietly to her new position, then another thirty seconds to appraise the situation and begin assessing targets.

As she was about to announce her readiness again her scope flashed with the official symbol of the Ordo Sicarus to indicate an alpha priority message. She pulled out her data slab and took a look.

1771407508644.png

She had bit seen evidence of this yet but barely had time to question it before it happened. Every psyker on the battlefield would feel it coming before it happened, a manifestation of... something. The air suddenly felt as if it had been belched into by the greenskin's blasphemous gods themselves and the air above one of the marine sections (I wont call a hit but feel free to victimise your troops) swirled and coalesced into the shape of a disgusting snarled green foot twice the size of a land raider that slammed into the ground, utterly crushing a small structure and any warriors unlucky enough to be caught beneath its path.

As the smoke dissipated, at least a dozen weird boyz remained, some of them using telekinesis to shield themselves from attack, other lashing with green energy that cut through plasteel and ceramite as if was butter. The orks were entirely naked save for their green paint and amongst their center was a much larger weirdboy that vanished in a cloud of green smoke before manifesting elsewhere with a repeat of the Foot of Gork clearing his path to work his magic. The terrifying raw power of this creature was evident.

Daes'yn reached into her pack and pulled out a small highly engraved ceramic box and. These were anti-psy rounds, they were utterly irreplaceable, containing dust from the now unreachable golden throne itself. She had three, and a drop her blood was what it took to open the sanctified casing. She made a prayer and slid the round into her shot selection mechanism before readying herself to hunt for her true prey.

::Overwatch protocol has been superseded, HVT engagement initiated::


 
The second trenchline was thick with Greenskins. Boyz and gretchin contested with each other, vying to be the first to reach the Lamenters, and the Guardsmen piling into the trench in their wake. The barrel of Brother Gilead's heavy bolter practically sizzled as the Astartes went down on one knee, providing a clear line of fire for the brothers behind him whilst he reloaded the bulky weapon. Swiftly and clinically. Bolters barked. Xenos died. Progress.

It was then their luck ran out.

Varro felt it before he saw it. An imbalance in the world around them. Unnatural, and... disturbing. 'Sorcerers!' Brother Mal warned a moment before the world uprighted itself. Torn upwards, cast aside, Varro grunted as he was slammed into the nearest wall by unseen hands. Purple smoke encased his gore-streaked gauntlets, restraining him, pinning his arms as the Xenos swarmed him. The sergeant's auto-senses swam with threat warnings and damage alarms as gretchin leapt onto his chest and arms, vicious blades striking his armour, seeking weaknesses. A knife found the fibre bundles at the back of his right knee. Another, his armpit.

Warp magic held him down. For all his Astartes strength, he could not break the binds restraining him.

Heavy steps shook the ground. Detonations. Screams and curses. A weirdboy appeared on the lip of the trench above Varro, smiling, eyes full of malice as it gazed down upon him like a judgemental God. Tendrils of smoke drifted about the naked Ork, collecting about its arms, just as they did the Space Marine's. A gretchin chittered gleefully as it poked at the tinted lense covering his left eye.

The weirdboyz's head came apart like a burst waterskin. With no-one to channel it, the magic dissipated, but not before claiming the lives of half a dozen gretchin, two boyz, and a lone guardsman they had been tormenting.

Launching to his feet, the Brother-Sergeant laid about with his fists, foregoing the bolt pistol locked to his hip.

The squad's Apothecary, Amaric, led the battered survivors to his aid. Another weirdboy carrying a staff with a grox skull atop it hobbled into view. A bolt exploded its midsection before it could utter another spell. Varro nodded, pleased.

'Thank you,' he said, as Brother Ekron handed him back his bolt rifle. 'Damnable Xenos! I could not move, could not fight back.'

Astartes did not know fear nor did they fear death; only in death did duty end. But to fail, here, upon a world once blessed by their Primarch?

Varro tasted blood in his mouth. A good omen, perhaps?

'And now you can.' Amaric waved the squad on. 'How're your humours, brother?' He asked again. Varro pondered a moment.

'Choleric,' he answered, feeling anger well up inside him. He placed a hand atop the aquila spanning his chestplate. The anger subsided. 'No. No, not anymore.'

'Good.' It was the answer Amaric had saught. 'A clear mind makes for steady hands, and we need you to point the way to victory.'

Varro regarded the Apothecary closely.

'Did we-'

'No.' The skulls at the bottom corner of his visor still retained their lustre. Each skull resembled a squadmate. 'Brother Mal's arm was broken in the chaos,' Amaric explained, 'and Brother Lucaeus suffered minor head trauma. Both are managable.'

The Brother-Sergeant nodded.

'Acknowledged.' He hefted his bolter. 'We push on.'
 
Soon after they began their push, the air around Lucius and the Ridgehauler survivors turned into an almost unprocessable amount of information. Within the span of thirty of so seconds their senses were assaulted with a litany of new inputs. The overwhelming smell of iron, from the now blood stained radioactive sands swirling about and above the trenches as the 8th, Astartes, Inquisitors, and other servants of the Emperor killed and were killed by the ork scurge. Quakes sent vibrations through the earth as the Astartes landed and engaged, filling the air with bolter fire and flames, the smell of burning flesh, some human, some not. Ahead the ramshackle ork defensive lines buckled from fire above and they instincually pushed, a grim ever firing line thrusting bayonets into any orks that lay in the trench floor as they passed them. Their ear drums nearly burst as the battle rattle reached a fever pitch. Everything was instinct. Too fast for long thoughts. Fire, push, fire push. Ahead only angry eyes and green shape, the occasional return fire from the routing, stumbling greenskins ahead. More than a few of the 8th had fallen pushing.

The Guardsmen swelled with vigor as the Astartes secured the wounded and rear line with the guardsmen left there. The Emperor did indeed protect. There was a sense of wonder to seeing the Astartes fight as they did. They didn't share many of the same mortal concerns as the guards, with hulking figures and advanced weapons.

Lucius's bayonet plunged into a crippled orks eye as they had tried to crawl away, narrowly dodging a swing from the creatures ax as he did. The other eye lit up as the brain was turned into a liquified stew with a few pulls of the Lazgun's trigger.

Only a hundred or so meters of trench or so and they'd be at it's end and into the combined structures that made up the former Imperial Fort.

They'd burn them all.

Almost in unison the guard's line vomited, howled, or otherwise negatively reacted to warp fluctuations, not quite knowing where the problem was coming from in their narrow sightlines within the trenches.

They pushed thru the discomfort, not allowing their momentum to be lost in spite of the cells in their bodies screaming at the unnatural pull of the warp. As for millenia before and across the vast gulf of the void. The 8th held. The 8th pushed.

Fifty meters to go.
 

The Warp beyond Aurellia's influence stirred, the air became charged and heavy around the guardsman. The Explicator felt a little tickle in the back of her mind as the presence of hostile psykers became apparent. She tensed, as though she was flexing all of her muscles at once. The Warp around her quieted and became steady, softening.

Green lightning pulsed towards the fire-support group from a wierdboy channeling the fury of the greenskin race into raw psychic power. The lightning crackled, turning the air to ozone and leaving black scorches behind as it arced through the air. At five meters from their position the lightning suddenly began to fizzle, dissipating much of the energy until it reached Aurellia's outstretched fingers, buzzing and crackling along her armor, leaving behind burn marks on her skin beneath the obsidian scales.

Astartes reacted quickly to the sudden threat, pouncing on the enemy forces as quickly as they had revealed themselves. Aurellia's team remained in place, providing fire-support to the advancing guardsman with their volleygun and lasrifles, letting the 8th fight their way through the trench line meter by bloody meter. "Squad, report." She commanded, sitting in cover and recuperating from the psychic attack she brunted, pulling her helm off, blonde hair matted down with cold sweat. The left side of her face was charred, small burn marks having worked up from the warp-fueled lightning she had caught with her left hand. Her features were somewhat pallid, but recovering quickly.

"Five dead, three wounded. Ammunition is about half depleted." Her vox-operator relayed from the squad members that remained. His two superiors had both fallen in the taking of the hilltop, and now he found himself as the squad leader. It was an unfortunate situation to find himself receiving the promotion in the field, but not wholly unexpected. Soldiers died in war, such was the nature of survival.

"Distance to objective?" Aurellia asked, jamming a stimmneedle into the port on her thigh and injecting the fluid. She could feel her heart beat level out and the aches and fatigue drain from her body as it entered her bloodstream. It did little to heal her injuries, but it would numb them and keep them from slowing her down until the battle was over.

"Seventy six meters down, thirteen meters north." The stormtrooper said, tapping on his auspex array. "Hasn't moved yet."

"Good, that means none of the greenskins are carrying it. Time to move."

Redmond Daes'yn Ludotius Tarisius Marcus Varro Talos Krane
 

The battlefield raged.

Bolters didn't merely thunder, they tore the air apart in concussive shockwaves that slammed against armor and ruptured the dust-choked wind. The stink of promethium exhaust and burnt flesh clung to the trenches like a living thing. Men screamed through broken vox channels. Greenskins howled in animal fury, their voices rising above the roar of engines and artillery like the bellowing of some vast, hungry beast. The ground trembled beneath it all. Deep within that violence, Veteran Sergeant Talos Krane stood unmoving. Ash-laden winds screamed across his armor, breaking against the slab angles of Tactical Dreadnought plate and spiraling away in turbulent eddies. Shrapnel and debris struck his pauldrons and shattered into powder. Beneath his mag-locked boots the rockcrete groaned under the colossal weight of ceramite and adamantium, spiderweb fractures spreading outward with each subtle shift of balance. Inside the sealed sanctum of his helm, Ludotius' report streamed across layered autosense displays, threat densities rendered in pulsing crimson, heat signatures blooming across the battlefield, terrain weaknesses mapped in cold geometric precision. Every word became calculation. Every movement translated into siege mathematics.

Lines of advance resolved. Pressure points revealed themselves. Structural failure nodes formed across the war zone like fractures in glass awaiting the hammer. The Imperial Fist didn't answer. For nearly three seconds he simply watched the war unfold. To mortal perception, a pause. To a transhuman mind, an eternity of analysis. When Talos spoke, his voice emerged through external vox amplification like the closing of a fortress gate, a sound that resonated in the bones more than the ear. "Assessment acknowledged, Lieutenant Ludotius Tarisius." His helm turned with a low mechanical growl of servos. His vision magnified the north-northeast horizon, trenchworks collapsing under sustained pressure, Lamenters locked in brutal attritional slaughter, Guardsmen reduced to scattered pockets of resistance as greenskin heavy emplacements vomited fire from reinforced earthworks.

Weakness identified. Decision rendered.

"The trench network remains the primary structural anchor of enemy resistance." Talos declared, voice steady and absolute. "Its collapse will induce cascading failure across the greenskin advance." A moment passed, not hesitation, but confirmation. "The psyker manifestation represents unacceptable operational disruption. It will be neutralized." His gaze shifted toward the eastern horizon, where immense silhouettes stirred behind the shattered carcass of a xenos vessel. Through magnification he observed crude engines of war grinding into motion, their mass displacing dust in rolling shockwaves. "Heavy walkers are secondary objectives. Their advance will be interdicted once the enemy command nexus is broken." The giant Terminator stepped forward. The motion alone displaced the air. Each step struck the ground with the force of a piledriver, cracking stone and driving ash outward in concentric bursts. Even among Astartes, the sheer mass of Tactical Dreadnought armor made the movement feel tectonic, a living engine of siege warfare advancing under its own impossible gravity.

"You will act as the scalpel." Talos continued. "Your squad will mark and designate psyker concentrations and heavy weapon nests within the trench line. Precision elimination of command elements is required." His gauntlet rose slightly, vast fingers of armored ceramite flexing with the weight of hydraulic power. "My team will form the hammer." The order transmitted instantly through encrypted vox. Behind him, the Imperial Fists shifted formation with thunderous unity. Storm shields slammed together with seismic finality, locking into an unbroken wall of ceramite and crackling energy fields. Weapon systems cycled to readiness with mechanical roars. Power readings spiked. A living fortress assembled itself in moments. Talos issued final designation. "Stabilize the Guardsmen's lower trench advance. Prevent encirclement. Maintain pressure upon identified breach vectors." A beat of silence followed. Then: "Advance under my command." There was no doubt. No question. Only inevitability. The Imperial Fist turned from Ludotius and walked toward the war.

The ork countercharge met them within seconds.

A green tide erupted from shattered earthworks, massive bodies crashing through smoke and dust, crude engines screaming, rusted armor clattering, choppas raised in frothing rage. Shootas blasting ceaselessly their barrels glowing orange. Their charge shook the ground, a living avalanche of muscle and iron intended to drown the Imperial line beneath sheer weight of bodies. They struck the Imperial Fists like a wave against bedrock. The Terminator shield wall absorbed the impact without yielding a single step, without any motion at all. Power fields flared in blinding bursts as choppas shattered and heavy rounds detonated against impenetrable ceramite and interlocked shields. The sound of impact rang like artillery striking fortress gates. Shockwaves rippled outward from the collision, hurling nearby debris through the air. No step back.

Talos raised his storm bolter. The weapon discharged with a thunderous report, recoil pistons slamming as mass-reactive shells screamed across the short distance. The leading ork's torso ceased to exist, detonating outward in a violent bloom of bone fragments, liquefied organs, and vaporized flesh. The weapon fired again, again, and again.

Each shot was a measured execution, death delivered in the Emperor's name. measured execution. A towering Nob crashed into the shield line, power klaw crackling with stolen energy. The impact sent a shockwave through the formation, dust erupting around their boots. The creature roared triumphantly. A chainfist erupted through its chest from behind the wall of shields. The roaring teeth chewed through flesh, bone, and metal in a shower of arterial spray and shredded armor. The ork died still screaming, body torn apart as the Terminator withdrew the weapon in a cascade of gore. The Imperial Fists advanced over its remains a measured step forward, a relentless line breaking the tides. To their rear, an assault cannon ignited with a rising mechanical scream. The weapon unleashed a hurricane of hypersonic shells, the air itself vibrating beneath the torrent. Charging greenskins vanished beneath the barrage, bodies reduced to ruptured matter, limbs cartwheeling through the ash. Trench parapets collapsed as sustained fire pulverized their foundations.

The earth trembled beneath the Terminators' march. A mobile, ceaseless earthquake rocking the lines where they walked. They advanced like a moving fault line.

Then the Weirdboyz struck. Warp-lightning screamed across the battlefield, viridian energy tearing through air and matter alike. Guardsmen were reduced to burning silhouettes. Earth erupted into molten craters. Reality twisted as foul psychic force pressed against the boundaries of the material world. The air tasted of copper and ozone.

Even their power didn't slow Talos down. No step back. His storm shield rose as a lance of unnatural power struck its surface. The impact detonated in a blinding corona, energy cascading across its field generators in shrieking arcs that bled harmlessly into the ground. He advanced through the storm. A Weirdboy attempted to manifest before him, green vapor coalescing into snarling form, reality buckling around its emergence. Talos' power sword ignited with a blinding flare. A single precise strike. The energized blade passed cleanly through the creature's torso. For an instant the psyker remained upright, then its body detonated into unstable matter, warp energy collapsing inward with a shriek that dissolved into static. Talos voxed calmly. "Continue advance."

Behind him, the Terminators executed breach doctrine with machine precision. Shield bearers absorbed incoming fire while heavy weapons annihilated resistance in disciplined cadence. Step by unstoppable step, they pressed closer and closer to the trench line. In their wake Greenskin fortifications shattered, snapping beneath the might of Astartes wrath. Resistance fragmented as the greenskin giants threw themselves with reckless abandon at them.

The hammer had fallen, and it wouldn't stop until the field itself was broken.
 
Talos did not simply advance.
He displaced the battlefield.

Each step of his Terminator plate was a seismic declaration, ceramite grinding against broken stone, the deep growl of servos a bass note beneath the layered thunder of artillery. The very earth trembled in a slow, deliberate rhythm as he and the Imperial Fists carved forward like a moving bastion wall, their storm bolters coughing disciplined bursts of death.
Ludotius watched for only a heartbeat longer, the contrast between the hammer and the scalpel stark in his mind.
Then he turned away from the crushing advance.

"Scytheguard," he voxed, his voice iron-calm beneath the storm. "We are the scalpel. Execute designation protocol. Precision over fury."
Green confirmation sigils flickered across his helm display.
He signaled the two brothers nearest him. "With me."
They broke from the shadow of the Terminator advance and plunged into the trench network below.

The descent was abrupt, boots striking packed mud and fractured rockcrete with bone-rattling force. The trench interior was a hellscape confined: smoke hung low and oily, thick with the stench of cooked meat and cordite. Tracer fire stitched the dim corridor with brief, violent lines of light, and the walls shuddered with the impact of distant detonations, raining dirt and gore upon the heads of the combatants.

An ork heavy stubber, its massive barrels still glowing red, rotated toward them with a mechanical shriek of tortured metal.
Ludotius moved before it could fully lock on.

His bolt rifle rose with machine-practiced efficiency. Two sharp detonations cracked through the trench, each round striking the ork crew center mass. The xenos didn't just fall; they exploded, their chests bursting open in showers of dark blood and shattered ribcage. The weapon sagged, its dead crew slumping in a heap of steaming viscera.

"Gun nest, sector 3-Delta," he transmitted, flicking his auspex designator across the position. A thin red beam lanced out for a fraction of a second. then vanished. "Marked for clearance."

A wave of controlled flame surged past his right shoulder as one of his brothers brought a flamer to bear. Fire rolled down a side junction, and the screams of the trapped greenskins were horribly brief before being choked off. Their bodies blackened and popped, their greasy fat fueling the inferno. The second Scythe vaulted a barricade, his chainsword igniting with a rising metallic snarl as he drove forward into a group of stunned orks. The weapon didn't cut; it eviscerated. One ork was severed at the waist, its top half flopping into the mud while its legs took two more stumbling steps before collapsing. Another was disemboweled, its intestines spilling out in a steaming, tangled heap.

Ludotius did not linger to watch the butcher's work.
He advanced.

To his left, an earthwork wall burst outward under explosive force. Soil and shattered plasteel rained down. Through the settling dust, he saw them, the Imperial Fists, their shields locked, storm bolters cycling in a disciplined, relentless cadence. They were inexorable, grinding forward with the patience of siegecraft incarnate.

Then...
A sound cut through the noise.
Varus.

Not a scream.
Not fear.
Laughter.
Full-throated. Defiant. Alive.

Ludotius' helm auto-prioritized the feed. His visor filled with fractured imagery, Varus charging into a knot of massive, hulking silhouettes, his chainsword a blur of shrieking teeth. He was a whirlwind of black ceramite, a force of nature. The blade bit deep into one ork's chest, tearing through its heart and lungs before bursting from its back in a shower of gore. He kicked the corpse aside, parried a swinging choppa with his armored vambrace, and drove his chainsword up under another ork's jaw. The weapon's teeth screamed as they shredded through bone and brain matter, and the ork's head was ripped apart from the inside out.

"Come then!" Varus barked over the squad vox, pure, unadulterated exhilaration in his voice. "I have waited for a proper fight!"

But he had drawn the attention of the largest of them all, a Nob in a ramshackle power klaw that crackled with stolen energy. Varus met the charge head-on. His chainsword, still buried in the corpse of his last victim, was too slow to parry. The klaw descended. It didn't just strike; it crushed. Varus's breastplate, designed to withstand anti-tank rounds, buckled inward with a sickening screech of tortured metal. The ceramite shattered, and the force of the blow ripped him in half at the torso. His lower half remained standing for a grotesque second before collapsing, while his upper half was thrown backward, his laugh cut short in a wet, final gasp. The light in his helm flickered and died.

Static.

A spike of interference flared across Ludotius' display.
The feed went dark.
Varus's tactical icon blinked once.
Then dimmed.
The trench seemed to narrow, the walls pressing in.

For a single suspended second, Ludotius' stride faltered. His body began to pivot toward the source marker, instinct older than doctrine urging him to break formation, to charge, to avenge.

A gauntleted hand seized his pauldron, the grip firm, anchoring him to the present.
"Lieutenant."

The voice was steady. A rock in the storm.
"He chose the charge," the brother said. "He knew the price."
Another explosion rippled the trench wall, showering them in dirt and splintered bone.
"The way to honor him," the second brother added, his voice level beneath his helm, "is to finish the line."

The red icon faded fully from Ludotius' display.
He inhaled once, a sharp, controlled breath.
Held it.
Released.

When he spoke, there was no fracture in his tone, only the cold, hard steel of command.
"All Scytheguard elements. Brother Varus has fallen."
A pause, not of uncertainty, but of solemn acknowledgment.
"Maintain vectors. No deviation. Continue designation."

Affirmations returned, clipped, disciplined, devoid of emotion.
Ludotius turned forward.
And advanced.
They pressed deeper.

The trench network forked into layered kill corridors. overlapping barricades, heavy weapon mounts recessed into alcoves, elevated firing steps carved into the earth. Crude but effective.

An ork cannon crew, their faces masks of idiotic glee, scrambled to realign their weapon toward the Terminator advance.
Ludotius broke into a sprint.

He vaulted the trench lip into the emplacement, boots cracking through loose planking. His chainsword flashed downward in a precise arc, not at the crew, but at the weapon's massive ammo feed. The teeth tore through the belt of shells, and the cannon jammed with a deafening clang. He pivoted seamlessly, his bolt pistol firing in controlled bursts that silenced the remaining resistance, each round turning an ork into a spray of red and green.

"Emplacement neutralized. 4-Alpha marked."
High above, a lance of Imperial artillery answered his designator rune, obliterating the next barricade section in a thunderous cascade of debris and dismembered body parts.
They were carving the artery open.
Then the air changed.
Pressure.

A distortion like heat shimmer rippled across the trench junction ahead. Green lightning crawled along rusted metal struts, and the air tasted of ozone and madness. A Weirdboy stood at the center of it, its eyes glowing with malevolent green light, crude staff raised, warp energy gathering in unstable coils around it.

Nearby Guardsmen faltered, clutching their heads and screaming as the psychic onslaught shattered their minds.
"Psyker confirmed," Ludotius transmitted. "Primary threat. Designation live."
He advanced toward it without hesitation, his brothers flanking him in perfect spacing.

The Weirdboy unleashed a surge of crackling energy that tore through the trench wall beside them, blasting earth and metal outward in a concussive wave. Ludotius staggered half a step, then corrected, his boots finding purchase in the churned mud.

He began reciting the Catechism of Hate under his breath.
Low.
Measured.

"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of the warp, I shall not falter.
Though the daemon howls, I shall not yield."

The psyker's energy flared brighter, a vortex of pure corruption.
Ludotius's targeting rune locked.
"Cleanse."

Bolter fire erupted in synchronized precision. The mass-reactive rounds struck the Weirdboy, and the creature didn't just die; it detonated in a fountain of raw warp energy. A final surge of unstable green light burst outward. then collapsed inward as the abomination was purged from existence. The psychic pressure vanished like a storm abruptly broken.
The Guardsmen exhaled shakily, their sanity returning.
The Scythes did not pause.

Above them, the Imperial Fists continued their relentless push, Talos at the forefront, a walking fortress driving through resistance with catastrophic inevitability.
Below, Ludotius and his Scytheguard carved the connective tissue of the enemy defense apart.
Trench by trench.
Gun nest by gun nest.

Each marked position became a hammer blow from above.
Each precise incision made the advance cleaner.
Faster.
Deadlier.
Varus's absence burned like a brand in the back of Ludotius's thoughts, a cold fire that fueled his focus. He did not allow it to

Tags: Talos Krane Redmond Daes'yn Marcus Varro Aurellia Roth
 
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