Last Man Standing

[mega_marines]

He raged. His lips curled in a snarl. He was the last one alive. The beasts had killed everyone else, and now it was just him. One against thousands. He screamed angrily in their alien faces as he decapitated and tore at them. “Feel my wrath! Know His fury!” His power sword carved a Genestealer in two, hot ichor spraying into the Sergeants face. The Tyranids pressed forward, and he pressed back. His Assault Cannon roared to life, tearing apart swathes of the ghastly nightmares in a single unrelenting salvo. “Know the name of Khartos! Know your fears made manifest!” His face was red with rage. He had survived where his comrades and friends had died. This damned hulk had cost him his closest allies. He was alone. He was outnumbered. He was angry. A Genestealer tore through the ceiling to leap upon him and he slammed into the wall beside him to avoid the flash of razor sharp talons. Khartos slammed the alien into the wall with a swing of his right arm, the body of his Assault Cannon crushing the beast into a fleshy pulp. It died with a shriek. The Sergeant pressed forward, his steps heavy and loud. The roar of his cannon filled the hallway, echoing and reverberating throughout the starship. Where he fired, Tyranids died. His path carried him to a perpendicular fork in the hall, and he chose the left. Without even paying heed to the blaring klaxons, he fired his Assault Cannon down the hall and heard the ghastly screams of the beasts that killed his allies. The panels above him pounded and ripped, and without breaking his firing stance, his stream of bullets flew upward. More screams, more dead. Khartos was running out of time. Just one more hallway and he’d be at the cooling chamber. His heavy boots slammed on the grilled floor as he pressed home, crushing alien skulls and bodies beneath. As he walked, purple blood seeped from the ceiling panels and dripped upon him, some of it burning his royal blue armor with wafts of smoke trailing where it sizzled.

 

 

The Ultramarine moved on, shrieks and guttural alien snarls filling passages all around him. He wasn’t safe. Nowhere in this entire Emperor forsaken place was it safe. “Come and meet a foe better than yourself!” blared the Terminator Sergeant. His teeth still clenched tightly in a rage that had boiled over long ago. In the moment of an unsettling calm, Khartos ejected the almost empty ammo box from the monstrous cannon with a twitch of his thumb and clacked the next one in from his belt. Besides that, the hallway was silent, the aliens unwilling to fight him for the moment. The click of the magnetic box to the Assault Cannon assured the ammo was ready to be fed through at a moment’s notice, perhaps sooner. With a satisfied nod, the Sergeant was off again, praising his fallen brother Norix for his valued weapon. His own Storm Bolter had emptied long ago and he was forced to pry the gun from the severed arm of his close friend in order to survive. The unsettling silence of the hall bothered Khartos deeply. The Tyranids were waiting now, he could feel it. He mused lightly that he had scared them off in his rage, but he knew it to be false. He only knew one thing at that moment. Revenge…

 

 

Cautious steps and sweeps of his Assault Cannon down the next hall indicated the aliens were all around him, their presence pinging off the Sergeant’s Auspex. The device was becoming an irritant and Khartos turned it off, preferring to actually be able to hear his foe. The last image he caught before he turned the device off was a solid wave of red on either side of the hallway. He advanced, hisses and shrieks clawing at the back of his skull as if they were blows all in their own. His teeth still clenched, his mind racing, the Sergeant fired.

 

 

The still warm barrels of the Assault Cannon spun to life and roared its fury. In the arc of a semi-circle, Khartos permeated the corridor with rounds, tearing great chunks out of the walls. Pieces of machinery exploded and sparked, but the effort was not futile. Screeches of pain and rage were returned, louder than the gun itself. The Ultramarine roared as he held down the trigger. His rage becoming one with the rounds he fired. More screams. More pain and more death. But still they did not come for the lone marine. He let go of the trigger and took a deep breath and calmed himself. The weary Terminator Sergeant closed his eyes for a split second and took stock of his situation. At the end of this hall lied the cooling panels of this ship. He simply needed to blow them apart and his mission would be complete. The monstrous hulk would be unable to cool its core-drives any longer and they would detonate, taking the ship; and everything inside; with it. His eyes flickered open in the dimly lit hall and the Sergeant strode forward. Now it was silent, and the walls dripped purple blood.

 

 

Khartos stood at the door and ripped his hissing power sword down the locking mechanism in one fell stroke. Lightning sparked and the door snapped open with a hiss of stale air. The vast chamber was bright, almost blinding, and the Ultramarine squinted for a moment before his eyes adjusted. Standing in a block of four pillars, were the cooling panels, their low hum shaking the walls. No enemies in sight. He paced forward, the only leg motion he almost knew how to do anymore. The corridor behind him still unearthly quiet. The Sergeant stopped a good ten yards from the cooling panels and tapped the trigger of his Assault Cannon. It spun to life, but hadn’t even had the chance to dispense any rounds before the ceiling came apart in a shriek of twisted metal. From the cascading sparks and sheets of falling debris came a purple and black monstrosity. Khartos didn’t even bother to let go of the trigger and he sprayed the gigantic monster with rounds. Every single shot found its mark, but failed to a damned thing. It hit the floor, its mass shaking the ground. The Sergeant continued to spray, his teeth gritted. It ignored him, its body simply forcing the shots to ricochet off and away from the cooling panels. The Broodlord raised its head and what could only be called a glare was being set upon Khartos.

 

 

The Sergeant continued to fire, the barrels of the Assault Cannon whining and becoming a bright red. The Broodlord stood up, and walked forward. Its steps were massive, and within moments it was within arm’s reach of the Ultramarine. The gun clicked empty. The Broodlord raised it’s right claw for a swipe. Khartos dropped the empty cannon and dove to the side. His armored frame slammed into the grilled floor, bending and straining it. The Broodlord tilted its head in the Sergeants direction and growled. The Ultramarine was surprisingly quick to his feet and lashed forward at the alien leader. It swung its massive body to the side and kicked forward, its diamond talons sinking into the Sergeants armor. He screamed in pain and slashed his crackling power sword again. It sank into the hip of the Broodlord and the beast howled, throwing the Terminator aside. The Ultramarine flew through the air and landed heavily on a set of cooling panels, crushing them beneath his massive weight. Khartos rose to his feet again from one knee and spit the blood from his mouth. He looked to where the Tyranid had been, and blinked. It wasn’t there anymore. His eyes flicked back to in front of his body and caught only the faintest glimpse of a pair of massive arms grabbing him. The Ultramarine was lifted into the air, his body seemingly that of a small child in the hands of the massive alien. He tried to pull himself free, but to no avail. The massive genestealer reared its pair of lower-torso talons up and slammed them into the body of the Ultramarine, piercing his armor and digging into his chest. He howled in pain and his power sword fell from his grip, clattering to the floor. He raged in defiance, struggling with all his might, yelling curses and promises of death into the aliens face. The Broodlord tilted its disgustingly alien head in curiosity and began to pull the sergeant in opposite directions. Khartos cried out as he felt his armor began to crack. He had one option left. He spit in the Broodlord’s face.

 

 

The alien screamed horribly and let go of the Ultramarine, clutching at its hideous face. Khartos had spit almost pure acid into his enemies face, and quickly blessed his Betcher’s gland as he scrambled for his blade. His reached out and grabbed a hold of the hilt and jumped back. His jump was accelerated into a push as the Broodlord lashed out, slamming him backward through the air, and he came down upon the next set of cooling panels. The monstrous genestealer paced towards Khartos angrily, its face now revealing bone and an empty eye socket. The Sergeant couldn’t move, the torn metal holding him in place. He fought for freedom, and in his rage, slammed down on the next cooling panel, destroying it utterly in a shower of sparks. With that, the ships alarmed wailed and blinked as nothing was left to cool the quickly rising temperature of the engine coils. Khartos turned to look at the Broodlord, its form standing above him, pulling the Ultramarine from the twisted metal with its claws. He did not go easily and plates of steel pierced his sternum, embedding themselves as the Sergeant snarled in rage. The wounds clotted instantly, but the alien simply pulled him up to eye level and opened its maw. Row upon row of fangs glistened wetly and it brought Khartos closer. In defiance, the Sergeant pressed himself forward, the wailing alarms telling him to evacuate immediately. He head-butted the beast and it shook its head in pain and howled. Now it was sick of playing with him and it stabbed again and again with its pair of scything talons, cutting swathes of flesh and armor from already pained Terminator. Khartos screamed in pure agony but clenched his teeth and bellowed into the Broodlords face. “Kill me knowing this! You’re dead, and the rest of your species is next!” As he screamed his defiant words with froths of blood spraying out, the background alarms noted the degrees of instability. More chunks of flesh were torn from him. “Ninety-nine percent. Only a few more seconds until we die.” said the sergeant, his head hung in pained agony. The Broodlord stopped ripping into the Ultramarine, its claws pulled back, covered in blood. The dying marine dragged his head up once more, blood bubbling from his nose and mouth as he pressed his face to the face of the Broodlord. “D-E-A-D.”

 

 

Its eyes widened as the Ultramarine pointed to his own blood staining the floor. It now knew what he meant. It dropped the Sergeant and he clattered to the floor in a heap of his own blood. Khartos smiled and laughed as he lay there, watching the Broodlord scrambling up the wall. It was trying to get back to safety, but nowhere was safe. The room shook as the plasma detonation of the engine coils was set off. In moments everything was going to be annihilated. The Broodlord lost its purchase on the wall and fell to the floor, many of its bones breaking in its landing. Yet it kept trying to climb. Khartos continued to laugh in his last moments at the alien, his voice carrying throughout the chamber. He suddenly stopped and the beast peered back at his silence. All it saw was his stern look, and his lips moving. It understood what he said. With that last moment of understanding, the ship was consumed by the blast, disintegrating everything. The Broodlord’s last recognition of words was “For The Emperor”.

[Sgt Rafen]

Awesome work man! Very detailed and exciting.

 

Hope to see more! :P

[mega_marines]

Heh, thanks. Was a sort of a "random" moment where I decided to write something.