Recovering from their, so oddly languid state of being, the two remaining heretics are now ready to exact their bloody revenge upon you all. With a wild-eyed cackle of madness, the smaller of the two, a scruffy-looking man clad only in rags and armoured with nothing more than scraps of iron, takes aim at the sleek form of Jack. He fires off a murderous volley of crude lead from his equally primitive-looking firearm, one of the bullets goes wide, hitting the masonry above the assassin's head, but the other two find their mark. One hits the flak armour protected form of his torso, but the other one finds it's way into Jack's unarmoured leg.

The heretic roars with satisfaction that he is the first to draw blood from the loyalist dogs before him, his morale bolstered by the small gang of four more heretics that are making their way towards the sounds of combat. "You shall die here! Loyalist scum!" His voice carries the unmistakable accent of this world, yet warped and corrupted even further.

The brute of a man was last to act, his bulging musculature and sheer bulk making movement harder for him. He strode forwards like a blighted god of war, his body blistering and simultaneously healing from those wounds. He stood above the prone form of Viber, the brute gave a perverse smile, showing off his array of brutally sharpened teeth. With a crashing blow, he threw a single monstrous punch at the Lord Commissar, piercing the armour and into the flesh below it.

-----------------------------------------------------

Grerrar was impatient. He wasn't ever calm. He fidgeted about with all the poise and grace of someone barely masking an addiction, sending the slew of chaos icons dotting his body into a mad, jingling frenzy such was the number of them. He'd been assigned to simply 'keep watch' as his superiors put it, yet he yearned for the sights and smells of real battle. He got exactly what he wanted when another of the sword-wielding heretics alongside him called out that there was a firefight nearby.

Grerrar smiled, giving a roar of "Onwards! For the Dark Gods!"

Jack cracked his neck and turned around, spotting a band of new enemies approaching. However, as he stared at them, a bullet whizzed by his head. Instinctively, he ducked to the side, dodging one bullet but allowing another to hit his leg. He shouted in fury and charged towards the offender, waving his bloodied swords like a maniac. With his right hand he swung wildly and the heretic ducked out of the way with a snarl. With his left hand he violently slashed with his other blade, and the sword cut deep into the man's shoulder and upper arm. In one fluid movement he tore the sword out of the wound and moved around the heretic a bit, allowing Mikail a clearer shot. He cast a pleading glance back at his shotgun toting ally, eager for assistance against this foe.

Mikail had a wild, savage gleam to his eye now he was in the midst of real combat. He eyed at his bloodied bayonet like a prized war trophy, a talisman that would see him through the very depths of hell and back without a wound to show. He roared his battle cry at the very height of his lungs, filling the small area with an invigorated cry of war. "Join me in battle! Do you WANT TO LIVE FOREVER?!" His maddened cries echoed across the battleground with all the resounding fury and hatred that a lifetime of warfare brings, each wretched little annoyance spewing forth in an unending tide of loathing towards the heretics arrayed before them.

Levelling his shotgun, a manic smile on his face, Mikail watched as the barrage of low-velocity slugs tore the heretic that was threatening Jack into sheer nothingness. No agony, no misery, just a large patch of greasy red paste and a few scattered chunks of gore were all that remained of the man. Mikail was absolutely joyous at this, his smile becoming ever wider until he turned to see the prone form of Viber being assaulted by the Chaos entity. A tremendous laughter went up from the Valhallan, as he cried out yet again. "When you die, give your enemy the same honour!" With this, he levelled the immense shotgun are fired off another shell at the demonic monstrosity.

The hail of buckshot, while not fatal, did as intended as a blow to the leg ripped muscles and damaged tendons with ease, causing the creature to staggered back from the Commissar. No one would harm the Valhallan's comrades. No one.

Upon seeing the slaughter before himself, Grerrar was spurred into immediate action, emboldened by the whooping and hollering of his heretical allies, he surged forth charging straight towards the Valhallan medic - a prime target in the eyes of the Khornate champion. Hefting his huge axe, Grerrar charged the man, screaming battle cries of the Lord of Battle and nigh on frothing at the mouth. His titanic charge connected with thunderous force, as he struck out twice against the two before him - The medic, and some assassin-type. All were loyalist scum in the eyes of Grerrar. His axe tore deep into the flesh of the Medic, cleaving a bloody chunk from the man's arm. The assassin was more fortunate, as a glancing blow was mitigated by armour yet the sheer force of the weapon still cut a nasty gash into his forehead.

---------

Elagon, the favoured soul of the Gurhaz cult of Khorne, the brute that had so gravely wounded Viber, sauntered forth with ease. He was not fearful of these mortal wretches anymore than a real daemon. His arrogance was proven wrong, as a full blast from a shotgun tore deep into his right leg, smashing the limb into near uselessness. He roared a rage-filled cry of war as he took out this rage upon the forms of Cannis and Winstanley. A furious uppercut smashed into the face of Cannis, while a backhanded swing clubbed Winstanley in the back of the head.

Elou brought her rifle up for a second shot, giving herself a few seconds to scan him over and see the best place to shoot, and then lining her a shot perfectly. She took a breath, held it, and then gently squeezed the trigger, the crack of her long-las ringing out as the beam roared towards her target, and hit at the base of his skull. Unarmoured as it was, and pin-point accurate, the laser beam sliced through flesh and bone, decapitating him as effectively as a sword would. Ironic, considering the Khorne god that they worshipped, and the obsession with skulls. After the shot had made contact, she looked up from the scope, and examined the battlefield, still huddled in her Cameoline so as to hopefully avoid notice.

Davcius was utterly broken by the sight of the daemonic entity being crumpled into sheer nothingness. But he saw where the laser had lanced out from, he knew where the sniper was that had slain their unholy champion...and they would pay dearly for this transgression... With all the poise and grace that three sleepless days of constant fighting brings, Davcius managed to make his way to nearby the sniper's position. With a manic grin, he produced a crude frag grenade. The thing was a battered, rusty looking thing that looked like it would explode in his face more so than an enemy's, but it was his best hope.

Reading himself, he tossed the grenade into the sniper's perch and prayed to the Dark Gods that it did some manner of damage. The grenade, by fortune or through the sheer crappy skills of the heretic, landed a good three metres from Elou. Given her stance, most of the shrapnel simply sailed over her, doing minimal damage.

The crunching of bones the grinding of teeth as the fist came down familiar feelings to the old Commissar flashing him back to the days of the last march on Yssurra. He was old, but not brittle and he took the hit from the heretical brute smiling with blood at the tips of his mouth. He laughed and taunted the creature to keep its focus as those around made him proud slaying the enemy and tearing the beast atop him apart. As the creature fell and reinforcements arrived Viber took his injector administering a liberal dose of a powerful pain killer. Soon his comrades were assaulted and as they were he climbed to his feet using the sword to lift himself.

"Face me Heretic! Death is upon you!" Viber cackled with mad laughter as he rushed forward with unnerving speed at the axe wielding heretic.

The blade sparked as it ran across the ground and with a fell swing it cut deep across the abdomen of Grerrar. The blade soon found its home above the bleeding flesh the tip colliding and digging into his jaw. A bloody gurgled howl cried out from Grerrar as the blade wedged itself deeper within. Viber began twisting it while laughing and mocking the cries of the man before retracting it.

"Your end will be sweetly remembered in that you can find solace." Viber spoke with a grim smile and his blade now at rest as if waiting for a strike to be returned.

Cannis for a moment lost sight of all in front of him he had rushed to his commander, but the blow from such a behemoth had knocked him into a place of fog. His mind finally cleared and as it did he heard the unmistakable sound of the rangers gun the bullet flying through the air and hitting its mark. He was close to its target and covered in the creatures blood upon its bloody exit from the world heralded by the trusty fire from above. Viber was up right gripping his sword tightly covered in blood and making a charge for the heretic attacking comrades Jack and Mikail. As he looked about the battlefield he saw someone (Davcius) uncontested rushing away and moved within range for a better shot before crouching down to steady his aim leveling his gun and firing away.

As his finger pressed the trigger his aim was shown true as two rounds tore through the heretic near the man rushing the sniper. The first collided with the mans thigh it artfully passed through tearing away the bounds of the femoral artery. It would have been a kill shot within moments from the profuse bleeding, but the second bullet ended all the fuss of the mans screaming and crying. It flew through the air and smashed his eye socket piercing into his skull and melting the brains encased within. As he fell the now vacant body released a horrendous smelling smoke.

"Smells like victory." Cannis said with a strange satisfaction.

Cannis lifted his finger momentarily from the trigger and yelled to Elou "Take cover! Incoming fire!"

With that his finger returned all pressure and let forth a vicious barrage. His gun spit five furious rounds that found their mark and minced the targets body leaving a charred hole ridden shell of a man behind and nothing more.

Winstanley was appalled by the savagery of their foes, but still, their rage was nothing compared to the Orks that the Praetorian was accustomed to fighting. Taking a knee with precise and parade practised efficiency, Winstanley squeezed the trigger on his hot-shot lasgun spraying forth a fully automatic hail of laser fire. Three incandescent bolts found their marks in the flesh of the hated enemy, toppling one of them as his body was immolated by the sheer energy of the bolts that passed through his charred corpse. A second heretic was also hit by a glancing blow that scorched his armour and flesh with ease, though he simply roared in rage at the guardsmen before him.

"Hold this line! There's not many left now!" He bellowed, trying to convey both courage and information to the soldiers about himself, a natural, ingrained stormtrooper talent.

----------------------

The sole remaining heretic, a dishevelled man with emaciated features and a gaunt look about himself, had a dismayed look plastered across his scarred face. He had just witnessed some of the greatest and most bloodthirsty warriors he knew get mown down by the Emperor's lapdogs. He would have none of this, or rather those above him would not. With all the grace of a drunken Ork, the man began to simply flee with all the speed that his malnourished legs would allow him... An easy target, but perhaps mercy will prevail...

"Comrades! Today the great enemy is slain! It is their blood that covers this land, the blood of the heretic! Find solace in that we have driven the dogs from this area, and avenged a great man! Today! Peace is not within our vocabulary, for we do the work of the Emperor himself!" Mikail was fervently zealous in his shouting, raising his gore-covered shotgun into the air with a defiant roar of victory, the sorts that you'd probably expect the enemy to be making if they stood in your shoes right now. His wickedly bladed bayonet is still in the possession of a rather bloody chunk of chest-flesh from the heretic he so savagely speared. His face said it all really, a man so possessed by the sheer thrill of what had just occurred that his earlier madness seemed drastically less menacing than this.

Glaring at the corpse of the flesh-brute, Mikail simply laughed at the thing with all the humour that he had before, yet his words bore spite far beyond anything else. "You will atone for your sins! You will thank me for allowing you to die!" Every word dripped with a demented fusion of utter venom yet also happiness like he was talking to an old friend. It mattered little to the Valhallan, as he drew forth a tiny bottle - more a shot than anything else - of the potent spirit so famously associated with his homeworld, he chugged the thing like a fish from water before simply...calming down. To surrounding people, he literally just went from bloodthirsty rage to...utter calmness, in a fraction of a second...

With a warming laughter, he bellowed the friendly words of: "Come comrades! To the fortress, yes!"

Epicurus had most conveniently disappeared when the fighting had started and just as a frail and weary straggler ran he appeared to subdue the man. As he stepped forward from a position where it eerily seems he should have been visible moments ago yet was not. The heretic stopped dead in his tracks as Epicurus stood before him smiling blade touching the mans throat and pressing just enough for blood to begin trickling out. He smiled and looked into the heretics eyes he saw the cries for mercy..and callously he cut the mans throat. As blood spilled upon the ground Epicurus stepped to the side and forward as the man fell gurgling blood and crying for aid. He smiled giving a casual greeting to his comrades whom had been battered by battle.

Viber halted his laughter and looked at the carnage about him filled with pride. Walking over to Jack and placed his hand upon his back clasping his shoulder and breathing heavily. He gave him a slight pat and shove and said in the most friendly tone his harsh voice could muster. "You did well today. Jack." With that he moved on to Mikail. He listened to the mad man rave and rant in a way that seemed almost inspirational and joyful. It was strange and while he could not bring himself to say anything he gave him a quiet look and a salute.

As he leaned down to pick up the cross the heretic bore any listening could hear Vibers bones cracking and crunching with each motion. He removed a small syringe from his coat and injected himself once more straightening his posture and the sounds stopped as he resumed moving forward. He looked for Elou her shots had taken out the behemoth heretic which had knocked him to the ground and dealt several vicious blows. He wished to thank her after all had it not been for those shots he may have been worse off than he was now. Yet there was not time to waste so he called out to all of the men.

"We move forward to the fort. Get your shit together men and keep your wits about you the trouble has just begun." Viber motioned his hand and began to move forward his cane acting as an aid to keep him steady.

Cannis moved quickly to rejoin the group and motioned for Elou to follow. He looked making sure everyone was fine and looked at the slew of heretics decimated by his comrades. He felt a surge of pride to serve along such capable fighters regardless of their questionable sanity they were all his brothers in blood now. Forged in battle they would wade through the hardship ahead together. Cannis stood tall and and readied his rifle before approaching acting Sgt. Winstanely. "Sir I'll take point with Viber." Cannis gave a salute and moved to the forward position scanning the buildings in front of him for any more foes. They would make their way to the fort cutting down any in their path.

Surveying the surrounding carnage with some level of disdain, Winstanley simply gave a short, sharp, laugh and proceeded to say, "Well then, this is a total victory if I ever saw it." His voice echoed about the relative stillness of the surrounding area, bouncing from bombed building to cracked masonry. Setting his weapon at ease, the Stormtrooper simply looked to those that survived and shrugged. "Guess we should be on our way..."

The Imperial Guard outpost was, in of itself, not a grand or amazing structure. It was the fortified remnants of several Imperial manufactoriums. It's grey and lifeless form was spattered with golden aquillas and had the huge regimental banner of one of the numerous local garrison forces that had risen up to aid the Imperial efforts on this world. The building was pock-marked with numerous indentations from both bullets and larger weapons. Several sentries stood guard, though you are all dimly aware that the building probably had several dozens hidden gun emplacements in order to mow down the foes of the Emperor. Just outside the main entrance, there are multiple bedraggled soldiers stood around talking, though you can't really define their regiments or accents.

Your group stands at the precipe of entering the bastion.