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Post by Rolling Thunder on Jan 10, 2010 10:55:04 GMT -5
"I want that chapel taken!" howled Von Luckner, screaming into the vox. "I want it taken, and I want it now!"
"I can hear you Siegfried" snarled Drang, a vox-man trailing in his wake as he lead a wedge of men into the building. "Looks like they've retreated into the inner structure. Sweeping and purging."
"Understood, Kamenev" responded Von Luckner, the barest tremor of surprise rippling through his stoic, marble-faced manner, a barest quiver of shock, and pleasure. "Take care of yourself."
"And you, old man" the monster said. "I'll avenge her, don't worry."
"What? Drang, E-" Drang cut the connection. Don't want to hear how she wouldn't want this. Don't care much. This pain....it's too great. Too much of me has been taken, too deep a wound has been cut in my soul for words to staunch. Even yours, Siegfried. I've lost two hundred men - two hundred men who've been with me since this started....and I've lost my love. My hearts' been torn out, and all I've left...all I've left is this anger.
"Onward, then" he said, a rasped, harsh whisper ringing off the stonework like a bell, his voice clotting, strangled by the cold fingers, harsh fingers of pain. Like drowning in misery, my throat filled with chill, black acid, he thought, as he took another step forward.
"Rise up, boss" said Hrax, standing at the right hand of his master. Like Drang, he too mourned Emirs' death - as did the entire First Company. Unlike the rest of the Mercenaries, this old...hardened, vicious nucleus of men, this corps of brilliant, psychotic killers, many of them having served under Drang since the first days of the Palatine Auxillary, and the crusade of Warmaster Asemoi...they had known her as she was. They had been her guards, her men-at-arms when the Crusade ended, and Asemoi rewarded them with a quiet, easy posting as the elite troops of the small, modest planet of Vfereng.
"Rise up" he said. "We'll avenge her."
"Aye" snarled Drang, throwing back his massive shoulders, the melancholy burning off his features as the old, banked fires of wrath ignited once again, and carved that wolverines' snarl across his face, the wedge still advancing onwards. "That we will, Lucius, an-"
From behind them, came a scream. Part terror, part fury, it was ragged, desperate and chilling to even the horror-innured senses of Kamenev Drang.
"NIGHTFLAME!"
Hell broke loose from it's chains. Massive, burning gouts of fire lit up the chapel, inferno vomiting out of the annexures as the Sisters of the Nightflame counterattacked. Fires spilled across the pews, lighting up the tapestries and scorching the icons and symbols, bolterfire blasting men off their feet, or else tearing them limb from limb, smashing open armour plate, shattering bone, shrapnel tearing into the ranks. Vast, billowing walls of fire tore into the wedge, vapourising men where they stood, or else leaving them screaming in agony.
"Pull back and counterfire!" screamed Hrax, bringing up his autogun and blazing indiscriminately into the shadows. Panicked, sporadic fire returned from the collapsing wedge, the survivors pulling back, dropping away from the searing flames in a confused, frightened mob of soldiers, wrong-footed and scared of this dragon that had lunged from the darkness. "Pull back, you dogs!" he cried, ducking and rolling behind a pew even as a salvo of heavy bolter rounds disintergrated his vox-man, the poor fool bursting open in a cloud of gore, blood and filth, chips of shattered bone whinging off Hrax's armour like organic shrapnel.
"Hellion" he cursed. This wasn't an ambush. It was a counterattack. Retributors on the balcony, three hundred yards away and blazing into his men, the portal from the chapel's annexure thrown open and....and....
"Of all the blasted lovers of Slaneesh" he snarled. "It had to be the bloody Sisters Repentia!"
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Post by Rolling Thunder on Jan 12, 2010 20:07:30 GMT -5
Hellion, thought Drang. Going to die going to die going to frakking die, Sisters Repentia bearing down on me and my men behind me, terror's thrust a knife through my spine and I can see those bloodshot-brown eyes gleaming in a mask of terror and the soft, shadow-murked gleam on the edge of her Eviscerator and I can't do anything, can't do anything even though she's right-
Sheer survival instinct saved him, the old, animal instincts throwing him aside and away from the screaming, vengeful chainblade as the first Repentia leapt at him, her ragged, screaming body hurling itself into air and descending on the stop where Drang had stood and would have been cut in half, had it not been for his chem-fired reflexes, muscles bunching of their own accord to throw him out of harm's way, looking up at a second, ragged Sororitas as she tried to cut him in half, his arm half-raised in defensive reflex. A chasing burst of fire caught her, ripping open her chest as Hrax fired over his commander's prone form, six massive, heavy rounds smashing into her with a force designed to tear open power armour, literally lifting ragged, bloody mess of a corpse and throwing it across the room, a third ducking under her mangled sistren and crumpling, a .55 calibre round from Drang's bolt pistol tearing open most of her thigh, ripping up the bone into mangled fragments and sending her sprawling across the floor. Two shots finished her, cutting off the screams, Lucius Hrax stepping over her corpse, finished adjusting the fresh, drum magazine, and took aim.
The firestorm lasted an eternity. Massive, long, heavy-bodied slugs, designed with the simple, brute-force solution to the most advanced personal armour outside of a Tactical Dreadnaught suit whipped through the air. Whistling, howling, screaming death, shredding the oncoming fanatics as Hrax cooly spread evenhanded destruction across their ranks in long, even bursts, neatly culling off sections of the mob into piles of corpses, even as Drang staggered to his feet, barely parrying a backswing blow from yet another frenzied warrior with the shock field of his mace, desperately swinging it to knock her blow aside, clumsily staggering back even as Hrax coldly adjusted his sights, and tore her into pieces.
"Damn" he said, stumbling back over the corpses as yet more Repentia bore down on him, fear playing an idle fiddle as his mind burned in panic, limbs cold and numb, sweat freezing on his skin. His body, much-abused and slowly rotting, dying as exhaustion, terror and other, worse poisons assailed him, the burning, acid-etch of a drug hangover carving it's hymn of pain across his skull as he watched a bolter round catch Hrax clean on the chest, blasting the stocky lieutenant out of his line of sight.
"Nowhere to hide now, Kamenev" he muttered to himself, as the surviving Repentia bore down on him, screaming a wordless, vengeful cry as they bore down on the shaking, broken giant. "Too proud to run, too strong to hide, and too bloody fool to simply-retire!" he snarled, raising up his bolt pistol in a shaking hand, and, in a gesture of spiteful, almost-pathetic defeat, killing a last Sister, the mass-reactive round punching through the rags that clad her, the skin that shielded her, burrowing it's way into her abdominal cavity, throwing her back as it erupted, her flesh warping outwards as the high-explosive round neatly hollowed out her body, pulping the organs and arteries to so much bloody, fleshy mess, punching a neat, plate sized hole just below her ribcage as she hit the ground, blood spewing in a gory trail as she skittered over the flagstones.
The last Repentia reached him, the rest dissappearing behind her as his vision blacked away, the sick, burning-cloth sensation of a psionic burn reaching up inside his skull, flooding over his tongue like molten lead, his vision greying into nothing as he fell back to his knees, looking up at the lunatic, bezerker snarl of his excecutioner.
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Post by Ymmot (M.I.A) on Jan 12, 2010 21:54:34 GMT -5
I gotta say, those last two posts were pretty exciting.
Oh no, the suspense!
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Post by Rolling Thunder on Jan 13, 2010 22:12:53 GMT -5
"So, this is death" were his last words, as the blade fell downwards, gleaming in the dull, flickering torchlight of promethium fires, like the dog-toothed edge itself was a whirring, screeching fire, the micro-vox in his ear chattering senselessly as Diego shouted some kind of warning on the general frequency.
"She's coming in through the bloody belltower! Damnit Lucius, look out above you, she's coming in and sh-." Great. Another lamb to join this sea-clogging slaughter, adventurous little Viconica clambering down the fretwork of the belltower, ensconcing herself amongst the gargoyles and gold-winged seraphim to strike amongst the advancing Sisters. Until the Heavy Bolters turned on her, and those massive, limb-sized explosives smashed her like a canary from her roost, ripping her slender form limb from limb, breaking her wings and leaving her a gory mess on the cold stone floor. Another damn corpse-sacrifice to a Corpse-God, thought Drang. Stimms finally kicked in, the world grey and callous and the arc of the Repentia's chainblade, perversely late enough to let him raise up a hand in futile attempt to shield himself from the screaming iron teeth, and nothing else, save prolong the agony of that last, desperate moment of helplessness. Caught between the living and the dead.
Well, Corpse-Emperor, you won. Enjoy your victory, his last thoughts rang.
Or rather, they would have, had a white-winged angel not fell from the darkness and fury above. Falling from the heavens, her slender form arcing down like a feather as wings, broad and light, spread to slow her descent. Her image...was ablaze, a white-hot flame of purity burning like the core of a newborn star, an incandescent magnesium flare hotter and brighter than the lightning that still tore open the heavens, casting a brilliant, clear light across the darkened chapel, outshining the flame and flare of the weapons fire, outshining the lightning and stars above, outshining all things like a long-winged saint of the Imperium.
A flicker of light, and the Repentia died, crumbling inwards into ash as clean, scorching fire engulfed her in a single moment, her face contorted into what could only be rapture, or else the highest form of pain known to man, her very soul consumed in fire, and left as ash. The angel's feet touched the ground, landing without even a whisper, even a hint of sound that betrayed her as anything but pure, white light. She turned, wings mantling inwards as she faced the vast mass of Sororitas, staring onwards in either horror, or else adoration. Like Celestine she must have seemed, wreathed in holy fire and chill, blazing fury that illuminated all the dark places she stepped.
"Step....away" she rasped, levelling a finger at the Sisters.
The moment lasted, shock, awe and utter, abject terror mingling in the chapel, lit by the lantern-fires of promethium burns, and the chill, inhuman light of this incandescent seraphim, burning like a lantern-fire of purity and yet, somehow, standing between them, and the vilest, most irredemable heresy that man had produced - the very shaded, poisonous heart of evil lay bare to the Emperor's servants, save this figure of purity, standing before him.
Hrax. It had to be bloody Hrax, staggering to his feet, and, finding his autogun shattered and a mangled, ruin, clutching his shattered ribs in their armoured shell. A curse on his lips, and hate gleaming dark in his eyes, as he carefully leant, kneeling with an ever-audible wince as the rest of his men finished off the Nightflame, and lifted up a Godywn-Deaz pattern bolter from the gauntleted hands of it's previous owner, took aim, and, quite carefully, fired.
The massive, heavy-pattern bolt arced cleanly through the air, bypassing the white figure and all his fellow Mercenaries, arcing over their heads to strike the power-armoured form of a Sisters Retributor in her open helm. The explosion liquidised her brain, turning her skull and fine-crafted features to so much bloody, gory mist, pulping tissue into wet, miniscule fragments of bone and flesh. Jaw, skull, mind, face, spine - the elemental, defining features of life and what had made her 'human' - atomised. Blown into a reddish, unidentifiable morass of gore, bone, blood and soft tissue flying out from the point of detonation to stain her armour, and that of her Battle Sisters who had stood by her shoulder. Naturally, the Sisters returned the fire.
That great, roaring dragon of bolter fire, a vast, living mass of warrior-women, kneeling or else standing proud as they levelled their weapons, and poured forth a torrent of shattering, fiery destruction. Sheer, raw power, force on an elemental level spilled forth from that armoured phalanx, a deafening, city-levelling caphocany of muzzle-flashes and the booming, deep-voiced cry of bolter fire, shaking the walls with the sheer, inhuman force it unleashed. Bolt after bolt, an undending stream of massive, blazing projectiles arced through the air, filling the chapel with tidal wave of burning metal-
That broke, like any wave must, upon the shore of an invisible wall. Like the denial of the very creator himself, the Angel simply raised up her hand - and so the fire stopped there. Round after round, exploding in a tempo of thunderbolt-detonations too fast for the ears to comprehend - a monstrous, unstoppable, unthinkable force - denied. Willed into nonexistance. Blocked, held at bay by the idle gesture of this burning avatar, until the storm of fire abated, and the last, hollow 'crump' of a bolt detonating upon this mental bastion echoed off the high roof of the chapel.
The Angel stepped forward, and, with a sigh that sounded almost as if it were a sob, snapped her fingers. Fire vomited forth. Burning, incandescent, unthinkable fire, twisting from her fingertips and expanding, curving outwards around itself like the tail of a wyvern into a colossal, all-consuming wall that swept down the chapel floor, a bright, white-hot flash of tormented wrath burning hotter than a star, gleaming white, red, and then all the colours of creation, as the power of the warp danced at her fingertips. The Sisters closed ranks, singing their war-psalms and crying out in righteous fury to the Emperor to save them upon his hallowed ground. It was quite, quite useless. Their faith, their strength, their purity and fearsome, all-consuming devotion, was worth naught, before the unconstrained might of an Alpha-class psyker.
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Post by Julian Sharps on Jan 14, 2010 0:03:32 GMT -5
Why is it that whenever I read an epic, exciting fight scene on this forum "FIGHT" from the 00 OST comes on from my music library?
Your descriptions of nigh-unimaginable brutality and violence never cease to amaze me, RT. What amazes me more is how concisely you pull it off just about every time. The only things this story is lacking in are significant character development and a defined plot.
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Post by Rolling Thunder on Jan 25, 2010 19:34:01 GMT -5
A butterfly flaps it's wings....and a hurricane forms. It lashes out, smashing all in it's path. Cities die, the hab-blocks smashed to pieces, crushing one another as the elements batter them into submission, a hellion-vortex of broken glass and howling, vengeful wind scouring a the streets clean of life. A metropolis burns, until the untamed wind's lament drowns even fire in it's mournful scream, flattening the hottest flames into nothing but burning ash.
Such is love, thought Hrax. It's a butterfly, a little, fragile, yellow-winged butterfly fluttering in the human chest, as frail and, so oft, fleeting as life itself. And yet here, those tiny, fluttering wings have flashed, once, twice, and torn open the skies. Humans burn, their corpses stinking out this holy place with the disgusting aroma of scorched meat, a sick-sweet infusion of filth and the human body, cooked in it's own blood and fluids. Buildings burn, the pillars of flame reaching up into the skies where chemical fire rages, where napalm and white phosphorous have done their work like white-orange crusaders, cutting down all that stood before them with their monstrous, agonising purity, where we have destroyed the work of man in inhuman fire, and made a cremation-grave for our own kind. A city burns, ten thousand such firepits gutting this place, tearing the heart from the body of this place in a moment - thousand of years of history, thousand of years of sweat and toil and industry, ablaze and rotting in a corpse-white flame, it's eviscerated body staked to the ground and burning as a display of our power.
The skies burn. Lightning flashes, a force so unspeakable and ancient it defies all thoughts save terror, shattering the world with each monstrous, ringing strike of it's god-fists, the veil of skies torn open and the wrath of Zeus upon us, thunder roaring it's deep-throated cry of rage, fury so old and primal that I can feel myself shake at each howling, booming scream. And yet, it is this little, watercolour-hued butterfly that interests me, as Emir D'Clemencau kneels beside her fallen love, gathering his head in her arms and holds him to her.
"Love" whispered Emir, holding Drang close to her, his massive, brutish frame propped against her slender, kneeling frame, and, as she held him, Hrax could have sworn he saw that mute-coloured butterflys' wings ,fluttering again in a murmur of yellow and blue that ran across Drang's flesh. Flesh bound, slowly pulling together under the psychic influence, bones clinging to one another, nerves gently coiling back around one another like caressing fingers, the poisons that sucked at his blood gently breaking away, seperating into their constituant parts with the gentlest touch, Emir's benign mental grasp catalysising the breakdown of that-which-was-rage, those chemicals that had so glutted his system in their unreasoning, animalistic frenzy of gleeful, malevolent fury.
After a few more moments, her touch reached him, a soft, delicate press of her forehead to his, gently laying their minds together and awakening him, lifting him up from his slumber with a tender brush of her mind, as caring and soft as the long, slow kiss that drew him up from sleep, leading him on through the darkened vales and gully's of his mind and out, out into the open.
Another moment, and Drang's eyes opened. And as Emir looked into them, for the first time in a long, long time, she saw those eyes. For while they were bloodshot, while reddish and pained and still swollen from the fatigue and poison of wrath, and now, slow, gleaming tears shining in the firelight, they were no longer the eyes of the monster. No longer were they the inky blackness of the beast, the gaze of the most hideous kraken staring out from her lover's face. Those were the cloud-grey eyes she had fallen in love with.
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Post by Makarova (M.I.A) on Jan 25, 2010 22:10:37 GMT -5
That's damn beautiful, love. Makes me miss you a lot, but it's stunning.
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Post by Rolling Thunder on Feb 6, 2010 16:55:15 GMT -5
"I...." Drang spoke. The pain was gone. The fear was gone. Wrath, gone, the rage of but a few moments gone. Am I dead? I....I'm not dead. But...but she's here. She's right here. I can see her. I can touch her. I can see the slight, rough edge where she chews her lips when she's fretful, the soft curve of her chin and that high, beautiful forehead smeared with mud and smoke. I can see...those eyes. Oh God-Emperor those eyes. I can smell her, that gentle, natural scent of her homeland, low wood fire and red wine and a comfortable, long night. I can feel her, her arms around me. Around me, her fingers pressing gently into my back, clasping at me. Her mind...softly brushing over mine, that soft, tender caress of her thoughts.....
"You're...alive" they said, in unison. Whether it was a statement or a question, neither knew, sitting together for that quiet, disbelieving moment. We cheated fate, dear. Yes, my darling, my darling dear Kamenev, we've....you're alive. Alive. We're alive. Never do that again, never again, my beautiful love....their thoughts trailed together, twisting around each other like two dragons soaring into the heavens, up, up into air, where all was silent, as even the flames of their passage died away, wrapping around and clinging to each other in desperate want for the other. Together, they held each other, squeezing together with sheer, impassionaed need - to feel that old, familar closeness of another's body, the close, physical comfort of another human being who cherishes, and cares for you.
Overhead, the thunder growled again, a deep, contented snarl booming over the heavens, and died. Lightning, ablaze and brilliant in the heavens...stopped. For a moment, the world was silent, and calm as the lovers souls, suffused with the psychic glut of their emotions. The clouds hung in the slow-moving skies, the grey kiss of dawn appearing on the horizon as the Mercenaries disposed of the last bastions of resistance, men throwing down their arms in sheer, irrational desire to have it all end. To have peace, and call and end to the slaughter.
And then, the heavens wept. With a silent, ragged sob, the skies opened, and rain fell. A great, plunging torrent, curtains of water plummeting earthward from the clouds, running across the battlefields, soaking the Malengrad plains under a mourning veil of water, washing clean the dead of their cold, ragged tears, cleansing the filth and corruption from their bodies, or else burying them beneath the mangled, wounded earth, sinking them into a slow, peaceful grave from which none would disturb them.
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Post by Makarova (M.I.A) on Feb 7, 2010 12:49:24 GMT -5
Pure poetry. It's so beautiful, really touched me.
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Post by Julian Sharps on Feb 7, 2010 14:39:34 GMT -5
Awesome. Drang has expanded his emotional range of anger and fury to include affection, sympathy and kindness.
Of course, all this just makes him that much more frightening...
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Post by seed on Feb 7, 2010 19:13:49 GMT -5
Good work. Was fun to read.
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Post by ElegaicRequiem on Feb 9, 2010 0:45:04 GMT -5
I'm so proud of you, RT. In a matter of two months, you've demonstrated a ten-fold improvement in your ability in convey the humanity of your characters. Reading the last few updates was thoroughly enjoyable.
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Post by Jackal-0311 on Feb 9, 2010 20:22:15 GMT -5
I don't like love stories, I don't like to see evil beat good, I don't to see SM be destroyed so easily....................But I like your story! Been reading it for the past two days, and I have really enjoyed it.
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Post by Rolling Thunder on Mar 1, 2010 20:07:43 GMT -5
Chapter One.
And God said, 'Let there be light'.
The battle was over. On the outside, it seemed much the same. Overhead, Valkyries swooped and blazed through darkling skies, tracing graceful figures-of-eight through the greying skies as they spotted for the Malengradian artillery, the occasional cough of thunder resounding in the heaven's empty chamber as high-explosive shells blew man, metal and rock into an indistinguishable slurry. Here and there, firefights raged as the men of the Malengradian 37th, 39th and 45th Infantry winkled their loyalist counterparts out from the buildings, shepherding them onwards and streaming, out of the city, or else throwing up their arms in sheer despair. Here and there, the Mercenaries and Battle Sisters continued their long feud, spreading forth wrack and ruin as they fought, tearing buildings apart in their vengeful fury as they dueled.
Outside the ruined city, the armoured behemoth's of the Gaian First Armoured stood sentinel, armoured watchdogs arrayed in a row across a low ridge that commanded the Maln plains for miles around, silently watching the loyalists stream across the plains with eyes of cold, unyielding iron. Still, the rain fell, still caressing the aching, bleeding, raw skin of every man and woman who stood under those clouds, cleansing them of the blood of friend and foe, washing away the pain, the fear, the rage and hate and helpless, desperate grief, cleaning filth from still-bleeding wounds.
Now, there was only longing, thought Hrax. Longing to sleep, to lay your head down and close your eyes, and let this chemical-fueled nightmare fade into oblivion. Longing to stop, to drop the heavy, bull-nosed brute of an autogun from his hands to the cold stone floor, to cast away the knives, the armour, the accoutrements of war from his hands and stand, naked and pure under the wild rain.
Longing....longing for you to be here, my love, he said to himself as he leaned over, and closed Riana's cold, blank eyes, and sat back, tearing his eyes from features he knew, he just knew were going to move any moment now, shifting just that little, imperceptible much as she moved in her sleep as she had so many times, that beautiful, scar-stripped body shifting just a fraction. Any moment now. Any moment...now, she's just going to move, and those beautiful, soft-brown eyes will open up....and....and she'll look at me and....and....
"Please come back" he whimpered. "Please" he said, his own voice closing up and strangling his words in horror. Why wasn't she moving? Why? She....she couldn't....she had to get.....get up. She can't leave me. How....how am I supposed to...what's the purpose....why...
Now, the empty, shattered halls of the Emperor's chapel, where those-high vaulted arches had once rung with the praise and glory of a thousand voices raised in song, in triumphant, exultant worship of a living god, rang with the sound of Lucius Hrax's desperate, mad grief, as he screamed over the body of his beloved.
Boots rang, and Drang staggered over to his Lieutenant, half-collapsing to a knee behind his friend and grabbing him, wrapping his massive, long arms around Hrax's body and clutching him, holding his friend and comrade close to him as Hrax retched, wailing and howling in a torment so deep and horrible it defied comprehension. Emir swallowed, desperately trying to hold in the quiet little sobs that she found bubbling up inside her chest, even as Hrax's screams subsided, and the chapel was silence once more, save for the slow, dragging noise of his grief as he sobbed, and cringed into his friend's embrace, curling himself up in terror, head shaking in denial of the inescapable nightmare that lay before him, and the slow, steady tempo of the rain.
An eternity passed, the First Company filing their way out of the chapel, eyes downcast and shaking, trembling in fear of what other horrors and loss awaited them beyond those ruined gateways, stepping from the desecrated chapel and out, into the cleansing rain's lament. After some moments, Emir lifted her head, her graceful, recurving features angling upwards to the blasted gateway, looking out over the ruined plaza and the smouldering, broken city, and to the skies.
"Sunrise" she said.
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Post by ElegaicRequiem on Mar 1, 2010 21:49:26 GMT -5
Chapter one?
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Post by Julian Sharps on Mar 1, 2010 22:12:28 GMT -5
...So everything preceding this latest installment was mere prologue!?
I am intrigued. Also more than a little confused.
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Post by Makarova (M.I.A) on Mar 2, 2010 2:59:18 GMT -5
chemical-fueled nightmare Wait a minute, are you on Cherno's forgeworld? Beautiful update, I've really enjoyed these last ones, you're so much better at this than me. Even if it was sad.
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Post by Srgt. Master on Mar 11, 2010 20:24:43 GMT -5
Getting better RT!!! Noticed [very minor] a few spelling mistakes/ typos in some of the updates, and I believe I've found something to read whenever I have spare time {95% of the day...} oh and one more thing... [glow=red,2,300] 300th POSTER!!![/glow] couldn't resist...continue as soon as whatever goes for sanity in you mind disolves again!
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Post by Adam Selene on Apr 7, 2010 16:34:26 GMT -5
A sane stretch perhaps?
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Post by Rolling Thunder on Apr 9, 2010 10:55:17 GMT -5
Besides the burnt-out husk of a First Company Valkyrie, surrounded by the shattered, silent emptiness of what they had learnt was Emperor's Square, the Second Company stood to ease. One hundred bloodied, battered warriors, swaddled the black of their armour, and shrouded in the dark, storm grey of their trench coats, drenched in gore and spattered in filth, standing beneath the warm rain that whispered sibilantly across the empty space. One hundred impassive, nightmarish skull masks, bone white gleaming against the morning's darkness, brighter than the worn gunmetal shine of their weapons as they stood, scattered around the now-captured Square, rivulets of warm, clean water washing the stains from their sealed uniforms. Their black, ruined standard stood, planted before the still-imposing form of the gutted chapel.
After some time, the last of their number descended from the chapel. Seven men, clad in the same charcoal and night as the rest of them, a skull gleaming across their gas-masked faces. Their armour was scarred, blasted and scorched, their uniforms torn by gunfire and blades, the rough, ceramic-woven fibre soaked through in the life blood of dozens, if not hundreds of their fellow humans, blood dripping from gauntlet-clad fists, sword-bayonets and breaching mauls swinging loosely from their waists.
Out, from under the shadow of the Emperor they stepped, not breaking the implacable, world-treading stride of a soldier walking from a battlefield, and into the softly-demarcated, watercolour daylight, and the torrent of warm rain whispering peace to men of a planet named War.
Without speaking first, Quartermaster-Sergeant Dirk Kasson reached up, armoured hands gripping the armoured helm he wore, fingers reaching out with an instinctual, weary elegance to pry open clasps, flicking open the locking mechanism between helmet and gasmask, before gently pulling the iron dome from him head. The helm slipped, and fell from his fingers, bouncing off the rockcrete floor with a dull, unnoticed 'thunk', rain soaking his close-cropped, bared head even as he pulled the dread mask from his features.
Kasson looked up at his men. Barely a hundred remained - a hundred, when there had once been double that - brave, fearless warriors who had been with him from Vraks, to the Penal Legions to the very ends of the Halo stars, through every damn nightmare and horror the universe had thrown at them...halved. Men who would have conquered heaven and hell, just to hurl one into the other in defiance. Men who had stood against Titans, against the nightmarish wrath of the Chaos Legions, against the endless swarm of the Great Devourer, answering each with each and every weapon they held.
What the hell could he say? What could he tell them? What....what words could make up for that loss? What bandage could his tongue make to stem the horrific wound his company had suffered?
"Gentlemen" he finally whispered, bowing his head beneath the rain's insistent caress, as if it were washing all the blood and horror from his brow. "This battle is over. There is nothing left here to fight against. Stand down."
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Post by Jackal-0311 on Apr 11, 2010 0:39:11 GMT -5
Nice work RT, I truly enjoy your work.
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Post by Colonel-Commissar, (M.I.A) on Apr 12, 2010 16:15:47 GMT -5
They stood down. A nice ending by the way. Good job RT, always pleasing your crowd,lol.
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Post by Rolling Thunder on Apr 17, 2010 19:43:27 GMT -5
After a few more moments, the man himself appeared. The conductor, as it were, of this overture to destruction. Captain Kamenev Alexis Drang, all seven foot of him. Seven foot of weary, battered mercenary, bleeding from a dozen scratches, pallid skin scattered with dust and coated in a mixture of bloods, his own and so many others drenching parts of his clothes, the crumpled form of Lucius Hrax cradled in his arms like a child, as he slowly, implacably made his way down the steps of the Imperial Chapel, and on to the ruined paving of Emperor's Square. The Korpsmen simply gawked, surprise evident on their bare, sweat-stained faces. A vague note of surprise rang through Drang's brain, a hollow, dull bell-chime ringing somewhere in the distance at seeing so many Second Company without their gasmasks. It seemed almost indecent, in some vague, strange fashion, to see them clad in the accoutrements of blood and slaughter, and yet so vulnerable and human, as if it was not a mere half a millimetre of ceramite plating that they had removed, but that grim, nightmarish visage that they wore between them and the bloody horror they acted out.
Whatever, his weary, exhaustion-wracked brain thought, as he staggered through their ranks, dark-clad Mercenaries parting like a sea in his wake, as he carried his friend through them. Behind him, padded Emir, her cheeks already wet in empathic grief, Hrax's second hand pain stabbing into her like a cold, ragged-edged blade, slowly driving it's way through her ribcage. They could both feel it - that pain of loss that tore at the heart, ripping and mangling and crushing in an iron-fisted grasp, before the it's fire receded temporarily behind the curtain of misty, cold numbness. It was a sensation all too familiar to them both, a sensation that sent Drang's neck twisting around every few seconds to check that Emir was still there despite her cool, calm touch on his back. Never again, never again was the unspoken compact.
Drang walked through his men, and on, the rain and mist bringing a screen around him and Emir, wrapping them in a shroud of silence, and muted, watered colours, the world tinted calm and neutral. In his arms, oblivious to the rain, Hrax still sobbed. Occasionally, he would utter something....something about bringing her back. Quietly begging the universe to bring his love back to him.
A Valkyrie swept overhead, it's hellion, victorious scream discordant and jarring, Kamenev flinching away from the thundering wrath, hunching over his friend as he knelt, back to the burnt-out sepulchre of Imperial Glory ruined. All the gilt, pride and power of the Imperium, hollow and cold against the soft, mangled sobs of a friend's grief. With a sigh, he laid Hrax to the ground, still clutching him against his shoulder, Lucius's cheek pressed to his sodden, water-drenched shoulder, arms wrapped like a fortress wall around his friend's body. A moment, and Emir knelt behind him, a hand placed softly between his massive shoulders, their souls clinging to each other as Kamenev tried to calm his friend's bleeding sorrow.
Fifty feet, and an eternity away, Kasson's men watched respectfully. Hands clasped, eyes down, a grim, dire vigil of soldiers standing guard over the pain of a fallen comrade. Though exhausted, their backs were strait, their poise upright and proud as befitted the moment, though they to carried the pain and sorrow, the dull, bone-crumbling exhaustion that sat in the very marrow, the guilt of such fierce joy that was their trade, and now...Now they paid for it. Now the soul took all it came for, returning all those bloody, savage delights as horrors and nightmares, nightmares where the monster chasing you lurked a mere few inches behind your eyes.
Only Kasson sat, simply too exhausted, too shattered and deadened with his wounds and bathed in hollow melancholy that even Hrax's clawing, tearing misery could not make him weep any more than he did now, the rain kindly brushing away tears he could only shed now. He even spared Asp Griegsson his usual, biting remark as the youthful flight-engineer dashed out of the chapel, bounding down the chapel steps with a reckless, desperate grace, blonde hair already slick and disheveled, the thick powder residue from a heavy bolter washing away from his scorched fatigues, exposing hands slim and delicate as a girl's, if were not for the latticework of burns and blisters spread across his hands, fingers, palms and forearms.
"Grador!?" he yelled, crying out to the dark mass of Korpsmen, indistinct in the mist and glare. "Grador!" he cried again, almost screaming in fear before a dark, burly shape loomed out of the shadows, heavy gauntlets seizing his body and chest and yanking him around, pulling him to him and....
"Asp" whispered Grador, his scarred, familiar features hanging in front of his vision, a long ragged welt tracing it's way across the side of his face in a vicious, scimitar-shaped crescent. Griegsson simple froze for a moment, relief so great and profound flooding his heart like a singular, cool caress across his entire soul. "You're shaking, Asp" said Grador, his face creasing up into a smile, still holding the Griegsson tightly to him, brown eyes crinkling inwards in an acknowledgement, saying to his lover: Yes. I know you were scared. I was to. So scared, and I'm so happy your still alive. So happy no word could express it. So delighted to still have you, that we can still soar together.
Griegsson shook a little, hands still quivering as he reached up, and gently traced down the outside of the bloody weal, his soft, delicate finger running over the inflamed, damaged skin outside the wound with a tender precision that made the man opposite him smile just a little deeper.
"You got a new scar" he whispered, shakily, as if not quite ready to accept the fact that this was true. That Grador was here, and nothing, nothing would take us apart now....so strange. So incredible, the world slow and indistinct beyond his lover's face, beyond the gentle blue eyes and parched, battered skin, as they came together...
Even Kasson didn't look bother to look away as the two men kissed. Now, disconcerting as it was, even this act seemed necessary. Seemed needed, and justified, to somehow reaffirm each and every one of their's humanity. Something to reassure the soul that were delights other than chaos and destruction, that there was still reason to be proud of who we were and are. Something....
Something for eternity, he thought.
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Post by Makarova (M.I.A) on Apr 18, 2010 9:44:49 GMT -5
This is beautiful... Poetic. Incredibly touching. Especially the part at the end, it leaves you with a strong feeling of hope after all the sadness in the first parts. You pull this off so much better than me.
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Post by ElegaicRequiem on Apr 19, 2010 9:53:18 GMT -5
One or two slightly clunky sentences, but they flow well enough that it doesn't really detract from the feel of the update. You continue to lay out quite the descriptions, and fill the world you've created with more than just events. I approve.
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