[hider=Skyrax the Undying, Vanguard Veteran Company Captain]
[b]Name[/b]: 
Skyrax, The Undying

[b]Rank[/b]: 
Vanguard Company Captain

[b]Personality[/b]:
Upon meeting Skyrax, most people are immediately put in mind of a snake wearing the face of a man. Despite leading the Vanguard Company, famously made up of the Chapter’s most bellicose and battle hungry veterans, he has a calm and controlled manner. He smiles often, is complementary of both his superiors and underlings, rarely raises his voice and is generally respectful to those around him. And yet few of his comrades like him or even trust him. There is something fundamentally slimy about him, a sensation that, no matter what he is saying, he is contemplating how best to use you for his own advancement. More than once, he withheld crucial information from other Captains or officers, to make sure that he can swoop in to save the day after their apparent blunders. Privately, he justifies these actions with the rationale that he is better suited to a position of command, from whence he can serve the God- Emperor and the Imperium better. Whatever methods he uses to secure himself one are therefore simply means to a glorious end.

[b]Appearance[/b]:
Skyrax’s most prized possession is his armour; a complete set of Mk6 ‘Corvus’ Plate, complete with flare greaves and the distinctive, beak-like helmet, gifted to him by a grateful Planetary-Governor after Skyrax saved his life in battle. One pauldron bears the chapter insignia and the other the Crux Terminatus, a symbol of great skill and long standing service, one he earned upon a Dark Eldar ship by fighting side by side with the Chapter Master himself. His blue plate is kept spotless, regularly wiped clean of the gore of battle and serviced whenever possible. In fact, he personally takes care to service all of his gear with near religious dedication, only occasionally letting the Chapter serfs touch them. More than one Chapter serf has disappeared after scratching or scuffing his armour.

Conversely, his face shows the marks of his centuries of warfare, both in the two service studs above his right eye and the multitude of scars that paint an intricate pattern across his face. His head is shaved clean of all hair, in case the enemy should attempt to snatch at it, and one of his left eye has been replaced with a cybernetic augmentation. More often than not, his face is carved into a smile. Whether it’s a feral grin of satisfaction at a perfectly executed kill or sycophantic grimace directed at a superior officer depends entirely on the situation.

[b]Mutation(s)[/b]:
Since the inception of the Chapter, Skyrax has held himself aloof from those Astartes who sprouted wings or grew fangs. He considered himself better than that and trusted that the Emperor would preserve the sanctity of his flesh. Although he has managed to keep it secret so far, Skyrax has recently developed a distressing mutation of his own; his throat has twisted and changed as his Betcher's gland grew, becoming swollen and mutated. In times of intense stress or extreme danger, Skyrax loses control and vomits out a torrent of volatile acid, more than twice as much as normal Betcher's gland and several times as potent, that melts metal and rock into slag. At the moment, he is able to conceal it by simply continuing to keep a tight hold on his temper but he is sure that his remaining pupil has started to slit and lizard-like and that some patches of his skin are fusing into scales…

[b]Bio[/b]:
Born on a simple feudal world, Skyrax was raised in a harsh environment. When he was no older than eleven, he was trained to help corral the vicious lizard-like predators of his homeworld. The sale of the domesticated beasts was the only business around and the only reason there was an Imperial outpost on the planet at all. He learned to dodge their strikes, leap onto their backs and lash a rope through their maws. He was fast, smart and had reflexes fast enough to avoid losing limbs, unlike many of his peers. And the more he corralled, the more often he was asked to descend into the pit and lash up another. He realised that, to use an old Terran saying, the reward for digging a hole is a bigger shovel. It was then that he realised that a man needs to be more than just more skilled than his compatriots if he wants to advance in life; he needs to be more cunning, more calculating and more ruthless as well. He would likely have eventually slipped up and lost a limb to their snapping jaws eventually, had not the ships of the Warp Skulls arrived and claimed him as their own.

The trials were brutal and many boys that Skyrax had known his whole life fell before his eyes. He prevailed though and was one of the lucky few to be bestowed the greatest honour an Imperial citizen can receive; the geneseed of a Space Marine. When he was a full marine, he fell in with the Chapter scouts, ready to do his part to defend the Imperium of man. His squad sergeant reported that he was eager, full of zeal but perhaps a little too keen to advance. He suggested that Skyrax be kept at the level of scout until the sergeant deemed him ready for a higher rank. This might have helped cool Skyrax’s heels a bit but some weeks afterwards, fate proved to have other plans. During a routine reconnaissance operation into the ruins of a city, the squad was ambushed by a Kroot patrol. The sergeant was overwhelmed by the Xenos numbers, taking a score with him as went. One by one, Skyrax’s fellow scouts went down until it was just him, holding his ground at the top of heathen temple. His sniper rifle was almost empty, his bolt pistol lost and the blade of his combat knife lodged in the skull of a foe some hours before. 

But even armed only with what ammunition he could scrounge from the dead and a few grenades, he held off several waves of the alien brutes, eventually repositioning with his squadmate’s rocket launcher. Using a Krak missile to collapse one of the crumbling buildings onto the enemy, Skyrax drastically changed the odds. A week later, when the Chapter’s Thunderbirds came to reinforce the squad or recover their geneseed, they found him sitting atop a pile of Xenos corpses with the sergeant’s chainsword in his hands. From the look of it, the blade had seen recent use. Given that the marine who had advised against his advancement was now dead, there was no one to object to Skyrax being immediately promoted to Tactical marine.

He served for a score or so of years as a tactical marine in good standing, making a name for himself as skilled melee fighter. Within the due course of time, he was promoted to the rank of sergeant, leading squads into the thickest parts of the action. After almost a century of action, another opportunity for greatness presented itself, though this one was a little less heroic. When his squad had secured their dropsite, clearing out the chaos worshipping scum surrounding it, he voxxed to command that Squad Vulpine, his Squad, had completed their objectives. Instead of the reply he expected, he received a communication addressed to Squad Rhylinore, another of the Squad’s deployed in the area. They were warned that more enemies were coming in from the north and that they would need to reposition. It transpired that the atmosphere of the planet had interfered with the voxx equipment badly enough that command could not tell which Squad had received the message. In a moment of what he perceived to be divine clarity, Skyrax signalled that the message had been received but neglected to pass it on to Squad Rhylinore. It was an opportunity handed to him by the Emperor, he was sure, an opportunity to once again be the hero. He had his squad regroup and ready themselves to move out. The Astartes quickly made their way to Squad Rhylinore’s dropsite. Moving ahead, Skyrax had his men halt as he surveyed the battle below.

The reinforcements of the renegade troops had hit the other Squad unaware, throwing the entire battle into confusion. The centre of the ground was a melee, Astartes and humans hacking away at each other as the enemy blazed away with heavy stabbers directly into the conflict. Making a quick decision, Skyrax had his Squad circle round to take the enemy reinforcements by surprise. He judged that the most heroic way to save Squad Rhylinore would be to decimate the enemy firing down upon them and then descend into the melee to wipe out the survivors. A more tactical approach would have been to immediately engage the reinforcements at long range and advance at all speed, drawing fire from the other Squad and therefore saving Astartes. However, glory was Skyrax’s goal, not victory. The plan went off without a hitch, Squad Vulpine massacring the enemy before helping to extract their fellow marines. It would not be the last time Skyrax put his own advancement before the lives of his battle brothers.

After several such incidents (two of which he returned the only one alive from an engagement) he was promoted to the Vanguard Veterans and nicknamed “the undying”. Easily the youngest member of the Vanguards, Skyrax did not receive half the respect and deference he had as a Squad sergeant, which was perhaps just as well. He had hardly settled into his new role when another momentous change came; his allegiance was changed from the Raven Guard to a newly formed fleet chapter, the Warp Skulls. Those in command considered this new position to be a fit rewards for his previous exploits and, given what would happen to both Skyrax and the chapter in the future, might have been right. Skyrax was thrilled, eager to make use of his new position to ascend as far as he could as fast as he could. In a newly formed Chapter, he reasoned, it would be far easier to advance than in an order as old and established as the Raven Guard.

For three decades, he accumulated kills and glory in the Vanguard. In this time, he added many spectacular deeds to his honour roll, such as cutting a mysterious Xenos beast in half with his power sword or gutting a colossal greenskin monster. He gained quite a reputation among his comrades, though it greatly differed depending not he rank of the marine in question. Among the tactical and scout squads, he was often held up as an example. That one so you could ascend so quickly was a great inspiration. But among the Veterans, the Sternguards and some of the other, more senior companies, he was often referred to with caution or even outright contempt. Some have noticed that glory almost always goes to Skyrax, whether it is deserving or not. While undoubtedly a greatly skilled warrior, for who else could survive while serving in the vanguard Veterans, it seemed to them that Skyrax had gained far more commendations than could possibly be his due.

It was not until some ten years ago that he finally attained enough glory and renown to advance. During an intense boarding action against a Dark Eldar flagship, the Vanguard Veterans arrived at the bridge of the ship at the same time as the honour guard of Chapter Master and Rokurou Caras himself. The Xenos leader had already fallen to the honour guard but his bodyguards, warriors known as Incubi and each wielding two handed Klaives, were still very much alive. Their terrible onslaught was slowly but surely driving the warriors of the honour guard and the Vanguard Veterans back, dropping more marines every second. Eventually, there were but two marines on the bridge, standing back to back and surrounded by foes; Chapter Master Caras and Skyrax the Undying. The Chapter Master moved with surprising grace and speed for one in tactical Dreadnaught armour, bringing his chainfists swinging around to shatter Eldar skulls or parry their colossal blades sublime skill. At his side, Skyrax sought to guard his leader’s back, batting away what attacks he could and intercepting those he couldn’t upon his Storm Shield. The two warriors flashed from stance to stance, guard to strike in a desperate attempt to keep one step ahead of their inhumanly agile adversaries. Although the fight lasted for not more than three minutes, it ended with the bridge strewn with the corpses of Xenos and Astartes alike and Chapter Master Caras standing over Skyrax’s bleeding form. In the last few seconds of the battle, the final Incubi had slipped an attack through his guard and hacked a rent in his helmet with the tip of his foul weapon. Skyrax’s left eye was ruined. For one bleeding on the deck of an alien ship, however, he was in high spirits. The Chapter Master commended him for his skill at arms and, after seeing the Vanguard Captain lying dead on the ground, promoted him immediately to the rank of Vanguard Captain and granted him the right to bear the Crux Terminatus. Such glory was clearly worth the cost of an eye. After all, he had another. 

For the last decade, he has served as the Vanguard Captain, spearheading every assault he can, butchering every opponent he comes across and bathing himself in glory for Emperor and Chapter. While many mutations burst out in the Chapter around him, Skyrax thought himself safe, favoured perhaps. This illusion was shattered by the mutation of his throat to produce a strange and burning fire, something he has carefully concealed from his fellow marines. Eventually, he decided that having such a powerful and secret weapon ready at all times was most useful. For the moment, in fact, he is content in his position as Vanguard Veteran Captain. But soon perhaps, this will not be enough. Soon, he may hunger for still more…

[b]Deeds[/b]:
Lone Survivor of a Kroot massacre of his scout Squad, brought down a building on them before finishing of the remainders with his sergeant’s chainsword. Bisected a Xenos beast of unknown designation with a single swing of his power sword, cutting it down the middle into two pieces. Gutted a Squiggoth that was rampaging through an Ork Kruzer, slashing open its belly with his blade and quickly ending its rampage. Held the breach at the fortress of Dantioch for six hours without reinforcements. Fought side to side with Chapter Master Caras aboard a Dark Eldar vessel against a score of Incubi.

[b]Weapons[/b]: 
When ranged engagements are the only possibility, Skyrax prefers a bolt pistol loaded with Inferno rounds. More usually, he prefers to use a circular Storm Shield in his left hand and a Power Sword in his right. He fights like a knight of Old Terra, hacking down foes with his blades, parrying some attacks and absorbing others upon his shield. As Vanguard Captain, he is occasionally dispatched to destroy enemy objectives and carries a set of Melta Bombs for that purpose.


[b]Gear[/b]:
Skyrax uses the standard Frag and Krak grenades to flush opponents out onto his waiting blade. His left eye has been replaced with a cybernetic one, which grants him some enhanced viewing options similar to the function of an auspex. Finally, he has a voxx com link built into his helmet.
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