@LmpkioThe dino piranha gripped the Centurion's arm, immense fangs closing around the armoured metal. It's body was immense, certainly five times the size of even the immense Centurions. And with it's full strength, it attempted to crush the creature in it's jaws. And yet, the Centurion was undaunted. The creature found itself suddenly lifted into the air, as the centurion flung it over it's head, and into the ground. The dino piranha smashed face first into the floor, the ground shattered under it's weight. The centurion raised it's 2-ton boot, and crushed it's head, having dealt with far more dangerous creatures on a daily basis. The other Piranha Dino was sent flying across the battlefield, as one of the Centurions blasted it away with the Heavy Grav-cannon. Of course, it was dead long before it impacted the ground.
The Space Marines were devastated, but they gave as good as they got. Even as Gidorah annihilated a dozen with a series of explosions, ripping through them with high-powered explosive thunder attacks, a hail of bolter fire slammed into her. A short range shot from a lass-cannon ripped through her, even as a rain of plasma seared her skin. Her wings were torn from her back as she exposed herself to hundreds of guns by flying above them, an arsenal that outdid all of Earth's weaponry combined. Forced to the ground she was assaulted in melee, Space Marines tearing into her from every side, Chainswords swinging at her face, scraping at her skin where they hit. It was only through her immense toughness that she was able to survive, as even tanks would have been crushed by a couple of Bolter Rounds.
Ultron flung enemies across the battlefield, shutting down their suits from a distance and surviving their attacks through sheer persistence. Bolter rounds rung against his armour, plasma reduced the ground around his feet to lava, and a lass cannon shot nearly took off his arm. He used his concussive blasts to redirect a flurry of missiles, even as a Space Marine ran up to punch him in the face. Too late did Ultron realize that this Marine held a Krak Grenade in hand, the explosive force causing severe damage to his armour from close range. A melta beam struck him from the side, the immense heat beginning to melt him. Each blow like a punch from the Hulk himself, the heat like the plasma forges in which he himself had been created. Even the mighty Ultron found himself forced back, facing the overwhelming power of the Space Marine legions, each soldier a one man army that could defeat a million lesser opponents.
Satsuki fared best, as she ripped her way through dozens of Space Marines. She cut through their armour almost with ease, her blade passing where a strike missile would have been stopped. She dodged around bullets, slicing Autocannon rounds out of the air. Merely being in the vicinity of the Heavy Flamers being used would have killed a normal human, and yet the Life Fiber that filled her rejuvenated her, enhancing her body beyond comparison. And yet, even she was not without weakness. She was suddenly flung back, telekinetic forces attempting to throw her around. Eldritch forces pressed in on her mind, attempting to crush her consciousness under a host of mental attacks. The Librarians of the Dark Angels threw everything they had at this unstoppable warrior, ripping into her mind and body with equal measure, attacking where the life fibers could not heal. Flames that burned from within, attacks that would rip her very soul out of her body. And even as she pushed through these attacks, they took their toll on mind and body, and it would not be long before she was worn down to a crisp.
And yet, the damage was taking their toll. Even by the standards of the Angels of Death, the Astartes, the perfect soldiers of the Imperium crafted by the God Emperor of Man, the Conquerors were impossibly powerful enemies. Entire squads were decimated in moments, and what had been hundreds was reduced to dozens. Only 50 of the original 200 remained, a fatality rate of 75%. The ground was littered with corpses, and more rained down from the sky. Even several of the mighty Terminators lay dead upon the ground, their armour chipped away and eventually pierced by the continuous attacks. A Brother Captain stands his ground, parrying several blows from Satsuki before being cut in half. And yet the Space Marines press on, uncaring, unwilling to fail. Perhaps it was their sheer perseverance, their zealous determination to emerge victorious even at the cost of a thousand lives, that allowed them to form such a terrifying fighting force. For here a mere three companies had nearly managed to topple an army of tens of thousands. Blood and machine oil ran side by side, and this city block would be forever transformed into a hellscape soaked in blood and gore. But it was not their fate to emerge victorious.
Even as the mighty Sentinels marched forth, their immense weapons of mass destruction spelling certain doom for entire squads with every shot, a single one of them was torn down by sheer masses. Hundreds of bombs were launched, missiles striking their heavy armour again and again. Slowly, the first of the mechanical war-titans was toppled, proving that even the mightiest of death machines could be defeated. Staring at the entire fight from above, the Emperor knew that they would not win this war, that his forces would be decimated. For even as they stood on the crest of victory, he sensed another army joining the fray, the forces of the Empire moving in on his position. Were they to join the battle, his forces would be caught in a pincer attack they could not survive. The Commanders would be granted the time to recover from their injuries, and to unleash their full might to eliminate what remained of his children.
He could feel it, in the back of his mind. The offer that had been made nearly a hundred thousand years ago, an offer of power unlimited. To pull back his power, and to draw in more. To allow the Warp into his mind, and join with the Chaos Gods. To become more than just an Emperor, to become the one, undisputed God of this universe, and any other. He would collapse the very fabric of reality around his enemies, to annihilate them with the immense force of the warp. He would wipe them off the face of this world with but a gesture, and annihilate all life from their worlds. To crush entire universes, to burn all evil he found. He would be the blazing sword of justice, which would eliminate all darkness, to tear it from reality and wipe it from time and space itself, with the unlimited power of a God. He could feel the power building within him, enough energy to eliminate this pathetic mass of an army, to rip a hole in this world and unleash the power of a thousand suns. The power to rebuild this entire universe in his own image.
Sighing in pain, he released it. For he would be a zealous God, and a cruel one. Once more, he watched his children suffer, and he did nothing. Once more he rejected the offer, and suffered the pain of his mortal form. He stood, bloodied, amidst the Warp Storm, as he rejected the Gods of Chaos, and accepted his fate. He would not summon his forces in time, not before it was too late. The power of the Warp receded from him, the swirling purple pillar of light fading away, as he was left alone.
For a moment, the Emperor stood silently. Behind him he could sense the armies of his enemy preparing to rush him. In front of him he could see the armies of his children dying by the scores. Perhaps this was his fate. To be reborn again and again, and to once more suffer the fate of the fool, who rejected the power to change the world. Perhaps this was the cruel game the Gods played with him. But he would not simply go down without a fight. For even bloodied and wounded, he was the God Emperor of Mankind. And when the day was done, he would do honour not to himself, but to the trust that his children had placed in him, to the faith that had driven them forward until their last breaths.
As the forces of the 501st emerged onto the top of the Imperial Palace, they faced a man who had accepted his death. Severing himself completely from the power he had cast into the Warp, he had ensured that in his death he would not fail. The Dark Gods would break his other self, the mind he had cast into the Warp. It was inevitable, without a physical form to anchor it to such a psionic being would inevitably fall to the corruption of Chaos. But he would buy mankind time, buy them space. Maybe, just maybe, it would be enough. Maybe, in a hundred years, or a thousand years, they would be ready to face the horror that was to come. Smiling, he faced the row of blasters aimed at his face, the tie fighters that flew overhead, the bombs that were dropped onto his body.
And as the last vestige of the Imperium of Man fell on this world, the Emperor died with a smile on his face.
