[center][h1][u][b]The Slaughter of Sanctii[/b][/u][/h1]
[b]Descent Into Massacre[/b]
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An inferno of calamitous energy erupted from beneath the great city of Sanctii, rising into the sky like a divine pillar of destruction. A portion of the alabaster wall was vaporized in seconds, disintegrating from the mass reaction of an overheating flue station below. Those that had been nearest to the wall, Sanctiian and Imperial alike, vanished in traces of smoldering ash. Night could no longer be recognized in Terra’s poisonous sky, brightened to the extent of artificial mid-day. Storming clouds that had gathered to rain nature’s wroth had dispersed in a swirling vortex of smoldering fury. The blizzard ceased to exist in grim parallel to one of the great, alabaster bastions. The shimmering shield of Sanctii’s void-barrier buckled and disappeared into nothingness, allowing a fresh wave of cataclysmic ruination upon the hive. Bombs, shells, lasers, and more connected with undefended wall, piercing where they had never penetrated before. A tide of red-garbed auxilia switched paces from tactical withdraw to reinvigorated, suicidal assault towards the breach in Sanctii. Insanity overtook the battlefield once more.

Primarch Aeternus, along with his retreated Thunder Warriors, observed the success of the Penal Legion from afar. A wave of relief crashed over his body. Colonel Stavin had been successful and the death of his brethren had not been in vain. Hope began to filter through his being as Imperials rushed past in urgent sprints. He dared to smile, knowing that Sanctii would now fall into the Emperor’s hands. As he began to turn towards his brethren, a thousand of the newly born Astartes rushed towards the gap in complete ignorance of his existence. Unnervingly, none of their number uttered a single word in their gene-enhanced sprint, nor did their Legion Mistress respond to his query. A competitive fury formed within his mind. He wouldn’t allow them to claim the glory that his God-Slayers had earned.

“Awfully silent aren’t they? At least they’re contributing to the invasion now!” Captain Caligula chortled, running up to his side in a half-gallop. Dozens of Thunder Warriors followed after him, stopping shortly behind the First Cadre commander with reinvigorated breaths. A quick inspection from Aeternus saw the truth of their sorry state. Plating broken in several places, old wounds patched over with synthskin, and degraded weapons from the relentless assaults. Caestus fared no better than they did with dried blood cascading down his helmet and fragmented armor on his left side. They were only a small fraction of the force already in the depths of the assault. 

“Indeed. [b]Our successors[/b].” The Primarch stated, frustration quickly leaving his voice as he turned his attention to Caligula. A part of him desperately wished that they had joined in on the assault, so that he could gauge their martial prowess. Another part of him was glad that they had reserved their numbers for this part of the siege. A wise, tactical decision that ultimately kept their force fresh for the true assault. One of the Thunder Warriors, bearing a white tabard and pauldron, affixed a part of his armor with fresh synthskin and hardening foam. “But we must not wallow in defeat. Unity is before our eyes, God-Slayers, and I would see it fulfilled… or would you rather [b]forfeit such honors[/b] to our newly arisen genecousins?”

Refreshed warriors grit their teeth at the comment, earning a few chuckles and competitive roars. Despite wearing a helmet, Aeternus could tell that Caestus himself was smiling as the ambitious spirits overtook them. His God-Slayers shook the weariness from their limbs, preparing themselves for battle with fresh applications of combat stimulants or racking their weapons with destructive intent. Support personnel, mortals that had taken to the backlines of the siege, quickly arrived to replenish ammunition in short amounts. Magazines were restored, chainweapons retracked, and batteries replaced for further confrontation. A small advantage of their tactical retreat. Even to one such as he, the Primarch felt a toothy smile grow on his lips. Hope was beginning to take hold of the First Legion and with it he would guide them to Unity. 

+’Sanctii has been breached! In the name of Unity, press forward! Pay back every pound of flesh taken during this assault!.’+ Primarch Aeternus roared into the vox as his troupe began to sprint forward. The support personnel disappeared from their sight, skittering back behind the siege lines as the genewarriors sprinted into the snow. The Imperialis Praetorios loomed nearby, idling in support of the siege. A myriad of responses returned to him in short order. Noncommittal replies from his God-Slayers that still lived, swift affirmations from the nearest platoon commanders, and thinly veiled insults from the backline scribes. Only the Colonel of the Forty-Third Excertus Imperialis drew his undivided attention over the vox-reports from others.

+’Primarch Aeternus, General Astaroth of the Forty-Third Excertus, direct your attention to the breach. We’ve maintained a cohesive bulwark, but the Sanctiians are beginning to adapt to our offensive. The God-Slayers are needed to secure our path into Sanctii.’+ General Astaroth, an old and daunting man, broke through the vox with a stern voice. The blistering sound of lasfire, tank shells, and stubberfire reverberated in the background of his communication. Men shrieked, air perforated, and engines roared as the battle continued on nearby. +’We will continue the assault with the aid of the Eighty-Eigth and the Seventy-First, but the internal defenses are showing their teeth. Raptor Imperialis.’+

“Quite haughty of him to make demands at this point of the battle.” Caligula stated as they sprinted across the bloodied snow, unmolested by Sanctii’s stationary turrets or Ursh’s horrendous weather. Their retinue was closing in on the breach, identified by the sheer wave of  red-garbed human flesh pouring into the wall. In sporadic clumps, individual squads with breach equipment and battery charges scaled the alabaster bastion while the main forces sped to the singular breach. Shells from the surviving artillery in the backlines shrieked overhead, blossoming against Sanctii’s beautiful architecture. Heavy ordinance exploded from the barrel of main battle tanks, while three-man crews of heavy weapons pelted the interior of the breach. 

+’It shall be done. Pull back from the breach and resurge once we’ve slaughtered our way in.’+ Aeternus’ response was swift, a plan having long formulated in his mind once the alabaster walls of Sanctii were breached. New faces began to slowly emerge from their foxholes, Destroyers rallying behind them with heavy weapons swaying in tandem with their lumbering sprint. His brow furrowed in disappointment as Nero and the Second Cadre’s Despoilers remained hidden from him. Neither had Tiberius reappeared with the Third Cadre’s Seekers.

The breach unfolded before them as they crested the final batteline into Sanctii. Trenches, dug at the outset of the siege, were clogged with vivisected and dismembered auxilia. Smoldering wreckage of Cataphract battle-tanks, Colossus siege-tanks, and Aurox armored transports formed great shields of cover for the resurging assault. Snow had long melted away in huge rivers of blood, bodies threatening to claim the ground in place of dirt. Craters the size of lakes split the gaps between the corpse-piles, frozen lakes of vitae disgustingly filling the empty areas. Yet, still, the Excertus Imperialis pressed on in waves of red armored soldiers reinforced by hulking Dracosans transports. A temporary fallback line was held aloft by the Forty-Third, who relentlessly unfurled las- and stub-fire into the quickly filling breach. Enormous, humanoid giants in yellow-plated armor stood alongside mortals with bolters hipfiring into the rushing Sanctiians.

Alabaster-plated Sanctiians bitterly fought in vain against the oncoming tide of Imperials, coherent formations breaking in seconds of performing defensive actions. Despite their overwhelming, initial victory against the Imperium, the protectors were beginning to falter in this most crucial scenario. Everything that they could throw was filling the breach from sentinels armed with adrastite stubbers to quadrupedal machines with enclosed cockpits. Unfortunately, they were few in comparison to the numbers raining perpetual hell upon their defences. Even those few Astartes that could worm their way through were beginning to tighten a grip on an exfil corridor. The battle for the breach was starting to reach a stalemate as Aeternus arrived. That singular fact was enough to spell doom for Sanctii.

The God-Slayers sprinted through the entrenched lines of mortal men with power weapons ablaze, Himalazian curses on their tongues, and ranged armaments barking sheer death. At the forefront of the charge, Aeternus withstood the brunt of the counterfire with his refractor field sparking like an overclocked cogitator core. His left hand spat out salvos of azure-flame bullets from the wrist-mounted archeotech, piercing personal shields and melting nanocomposite plating in equal droves. Panic, no matter how minor it was due to their nerve stapling, began to spread throughout the Sanctiian defenders. Precise firing solutions swiftly switched to desperate hipfire as the guardians began a backwards withdrawal from the breach. It wouldn’t save them, nor could it have saved them. The yellow-armoured giants collided with the defenders as a rushing tide of behemoths, hacking and slashing with wild abandon typical for their kind. 

Primarch Aeternus leapt from the front of the God-Slayers, pushing with all of his might into Sanctii’s gaping wound. One of the quadrupedal machines attempted to aim up at his descending form, yet he was swifter than the pilot’s reactions. Apocrypha slammed into the hardened cockpit of the vehicle, piercing through with the greatsword’s brilliant, crimson edge. Something from within cried a muffled scream of pain as Aeternus deactivated the plasmafield, wrenching out the blade with a gout of flying vitae. The sight was enough to break those meager defenders around him, beginning the first of the few to retreat into the depths of Sanctii. The other God-Slayers followed suit, tearing limbs from augmented humans and battering the skulls of other machine-companions with ease. He spied a few yellow-armored corpses mixed in with the Sanctiian dead, saturated with adrastite punctures and pyrite scorches. Rex merely smiled, glad that they had met their end fighting in glorious combat compared to bashing endlessly against a wall. His attention turned away to the long line of Imperials outside of the breach, one hand lifting the mighty Apocrypha high into the air.

“[b]Gloria Raptoris Imperialis! Join me and fight in His name![/b]” The lion roar of Aeternus was heard for miles, echoing throughout the vox and in the nearby area. It drove the Imperials into a frenzy, auxilia abandoning their defensive positions to dive into the breach with weapons in hand. Vehicle commanders willed their machines forward, barking orders in furious litanies to claim their succulent prizes. Thunder warriors that had remained behind ushered forward with endless quantities of primal hollers, screams, and roars to echo their Primarch’s enthusiasm. Astartes ceded away from the surging forces, efficiently sprinting along the peripheries of the tide with singular focus.

The breach had been conquered.
[hr]
[i]Elsewhere, within Sanctii[/i]

The remains of the 31-3’s assault element crouched within the wreckage of what had been a switching substation, or a pump room, Stavin couldn’t be sure. It was something industrial, something vastly complicated that had been shattered by… something. A stray imperial rocket, perhaps, or an outbound shell that had fallen short. They had emerged from their long climb in these ruins, spending a scant few minutes to catch their breath, reload, and eat. 

Stavin glanced around him, taking in his ragged coterie. There, Sergeant Whitaker was helping one of the newer influxes - Stavin thought his name was Caleb, light a lho stick. Caleb, arc rifle slung around his body, coughed as he inhaled the caustic smoke. Whitaker laughed his silent laugh, and thumped Caleb on the back. 

A few feet from them, a woman with a half shaved scalp sullenly sharpened a knife. The man next to her, who sported a crude bionic eye, so blocky and ugly it looked like it had lodged there instead of been surgically implanted, chewed on a ration bar. They looked tired, worn out, and traumatized, but they had performed. Had this been any other outfit, it’d be medals and a rotation out, but cruel fate meant there was still more to do. He turned his gaze once more, and saw Severina looking through a pair of magnoculars. Her peaked cap, with the emblem of the Imperial Army’s discipline corps, had disappeared, revealing her dirty, frazzled red hair. She had it tied into a short ponytail. The rest of her uniform was also torn and ragged, and, aside from the lack of a bomb collar, she looked little different from a common trooper.

Stavin crouch-walked to her, an awkward gait, but one that kept his sight line low. He crept to her side, and, wordlessly, she handed him the mags. 

Stavin put them to his own eyes.

“[i]God above![/i]” He whispered. 

“Do you see it?” Severina asked. 

He sure did. Sanctii militia, in their alabaster white plate. Thankfully, they weren’t alive. But they were quite dead - horrifyingly so. They had been torn to pieces, arms from trunks, legs from pelvises, guts scooped out and thrown every which way. Blood plastered every surface, the snow, the road, the bricks on the buildings, which were similarly destroyed, walls knocked out, some even collapsed. Whatever had happened to the switching station they had climbed into had managed to get these troopers too.

“What the hell killed them?” Severina said. “No Imperials are this deep, besides us. We’d’ve picked them up on ‘spex.”

“Artillery?” Stavin asked. “Maybe a macro shell?”

Severina shook her head. “No. Artillery flattens buildings. Anything just out of the splash zone has its windows knocked out from the overpressure. And John - where’s the craters?”

She was right. John looked again, but couldn’t spot anything that looked like a blast point. Whatever had done this, did it manually. The thought of it chilled Stavin. The only beings he knew capable of unleashing that kind of ruination…

He thought of Aeternus, and of the Black Eagle that had held his life in her claw.

In the view of the magnoculars, a white leg stepped into view. Stavin snapped to the leg, which preceded a trooper of the Sanctii defense force. Another stepped into view, then another. Soon, they were in platoon strength, and that meant the 31-3 had a problem.

“Defensive positions! Stay low, and out of sight!” Stavin hissed, then fired off a series of hand signals. The battered 31-3 snapped from their reverie and moved to take up firing positions on the abattoir outside. They were at street level, and possessed no height advantage over the unwitting patrol, but they had cover and concealment. Their enemy, Stavin hoped, would pass right by them.

One of the troopers stopped. He looked up, and, in a moment that made Stavin start back, looked directly at him. 

Time seemed to slow. Stavin looked from the magnoculars to his right. 

Caleb, [i]god damn him[/i], was looking into the street with a lit lho stick. Stavin understood now - the militiaman had seen the cherry. He pulled his plasma pistol, still slow, so slow, and looked to what his target would be. Thankfully, the trooper who had seen them was even slower, but he had already started to yell.

Stavin aimed, and pulled the trigger. As the plasma bolt spat from the muzzle, time sped up all at once again. The militiaman vaporized, his trunk disappearing as the bolt struck him. The arm he’d raised, and both legs, spread out, toppling like ninepins. The rest of the militia began to fire on the pumping station, their volley vicious and sustained, chipping away at the pitted, damaged rockcrete. It was a deluge, and getting worse, their only saving grace being that it was inaccurate.

Stavin ducked back behind cover as the rest of the 31-3 opened up. Before Caleb swung up his arc rifle to fire, Stavin snatched the lho-stick from his mouth, and slapped the private’s bald head. 

“[b]No fucking smoking in a hot zone! Idiot![/b]” Stavin said, then took a big drag. He exhaled the smoke, then stuck it back in Caleb’s lip, who blinked. 

Whitaker then slapped Caleb’s head. “Focus on the shooting, Troopie!”

Stavin turned to Severina, and, having to shout over the weapons fire, relayed his orders.

“Call for backup!” Stavin shouted, “See if anyone can push up to us!”

Severina nodded. “Any Imperial Unit, this is the 31-3rd! We are in hot contact in grid zone…”

Severina checked her ‘spex, and relayed the map coordinates. “...I repeat, we are in hot contact! Platoon strength of Sanctii militia, minimum! We can hold for…”

Stavin flashed two hand signals. Ten fingers, closed fist, then five fingers.

“...Fifteen minutes at most!”

Stavin nodded, then stood back up to fire. If fifteen minutes was all he had, he’d help along a few more damned souls.
[hr]
War raged around Primarch Aeternus and the God-Slayers as they pressed through the breach with weapons blazing. The air perforated with the harsh crack of lasfire, the empty clatter of smoking cartridges, and the vibrating boom of heavy ordinance. Soaring engines on flaming wings sped overhead, unleashing deadly cargos from fat-bellied hulls onto unsuspecting defenders. Each inhabitant, to his surprise, fought back as bitterly as their most experienced sentinel. Civilians, clad in a distinguished mix of advanced flak and powered armor, protected their homes with drastically less deadly weapons than their military counterparts. The Imperials remained unrelenting, slaughtering their way through militia, defender, and otherwise regardless of their association to Deep Winter. Each street, every junction, and all the corridors of Sanctii’s frontal districts were burning with munitions, choked with dead men, and desperately fighting survivors. A stench of rot had begun to waft through the air with each passing second, rolled in from the five-hundred thousand corpses sticking in front of the alabaster walls.

Aeternus tore the arm off of a sentinel, utilizing his transhuman strength to shatter plate and rip sinew alike. In one fell swoop, he plunged the defender’s arm straight through their helmet in an act of swift carnage. They fell backwards against the previously-polished tiles of Sanctii, sending a ripple of fear through the nearest group of militia. Untested, ill-trained, and devoid of proper augmentation resulted in their immediate fleeing away from the Thunder Warriors. After all the brutality he felt on the walls, Rex couldn’t help but feel disappointed with the ever-evolving siege. To his immediate left, Caligula hipfired a bolter scavenged from a fallen brother. Each shot tore through a multitude of fleeing militia, exploding viscera and vitae against nearby alabaster buildings. To his immediate right, the Destroyers had momentarily hunkered down to rain hell against several hovering machines with plasma turrets. They disappeared as quickly as they had appeared, scythed through by disintegrator cannons and laser destroyers. The rest of the God-Slayers around him were busy butchering their prey, relentlessly hacking at heavily-armed defenders with plasma blades and photon shields. Each died in short order as their genemight overpowered augmentation and advanced gear in close proximity. A war in close-range with the Legio Cataegis was a short, maleficent affair. 

“Do you notice it, Caestus?” Aeternus called out to his old friend, delivering a brutal stomp to a prone Sanctiian. Vitae ejected across the quickly deteriorating tile, coagulating together with the other countless dead that now clogged the street. The First Cadre Captain quickdrew his sidearm, a silver volkite pistol with three barrels, and hammered a trio of shots into the closest defender. As the Primarch approached, he half-turned his attention to Rex.

“Without a doubt! They’re pulling back from the frontlines. It’s only been ten minutes since they’ve lost the breach and started cordoning off the afflicted area. Smart and decisive. Why waste numbers on an enemy that has access to your city? They’re gonna bottleneck us at the next set of districts.” Caligula replied, holstering the sidearm in a refined pouch across his chest. A group of Thunder Warriors rallied around him, finished with their extermination of the nearest militia pocket. He reloaded his bolter, knocking one magazine off to swiftly press another one squarely into the weapon. Racking the bolt back, he turned fully towards the commander of their legion.

“Agreed. Deep Winter has decided to toss away the unmentionables to stall our advance. Do we have a read on Tiberius or Neros yet?” Rex nodded in agreement, beginning to walk forward as his wrist-mounted weapon autoloaded the next salvo with a nerve impulse. Apocrypha was hefted up and against his pauldron, deactivated and hungry for the next defender to slay. The Primarch began to press forward, followed by the rest of the God-Slayers that fought alongside him. Further away from them, Aeternus could hear the wailing and shouting of dying men, ferocious firefights, and buildings crumbling from continuous pummeling.

Caligula gestured from behind for one of the Thunder Warriors with a complex powerpack mounted on their back. An antenna extended into the air as an auspex was drawn into their hand from an unseen pouch. The familiar clicking of scanning technology and the hum of a miniaturized cogitator filled the nearby area with noise. After several seconds of silence, the God-Slayer turned towards Aeternus with a satisfactory nod.

“Captain Tiberius has been located, Primarch, along with the rest of the Seekers. They’ve already engaged the next district’s defenses along with the Eighty-Eighth Excertus Imperialis. Fifty-thousand souls have currently made it to the next segment, along with thirty-five vehicles and five-hundred ordinance batteries. Furthermore, the Forty-Third has set-up a forward relief center at the breach.” The genewarrior spoke with the promptness expected of a signal officer, consuming a tidal wave of data and processing it into a simplified format. Despite the helmet they wore, Aeternus could make out a distinct frown in the next spoken words. “Captain Nero… is well beyond the next segment, Primarch. The Despoilers have scattered all across Sanctii, engaging everything and anything that remotely resembles an enemy formation. I can’t successfully ping their vox. It seems they’ve entered their blood-rage.”

Those words nearly punched the determination out of Aeternus, enough to earn a disappointed sigh from their Primarch. The energy was felt across their immediate retinue. Caligula stepped forward and planted a firm gauntlet on Rex’s left pauldron, a solemn shake of his head was made to affirm the next course of action for Nero. The auspex loudly blipped once more, drawing attention away from the signal officer’s words back to the device in question.

“It seems the Thirty-One-Third is alive. Approximately seven hundred meters to the north-east of our position. They are in need of assistance, but none have reacted to the distress call yet. Your orders, my Primarch?” The genewarrior asked, turning away from the auspex to stare at their commander.

Aeternus never replied to the signal officer, shrugging off Caligula’s hand to begin a dead sprint in the spoken direction. His powered armor groaned against all of the genetic might that the genewarrior’s body could officer. He heard the rest of the God-Slayers follow after him, hooting and hollering with a warcry for Unity on their tongues. Rex couldn’t, wouldn’t, respond to their cries for battle. He wouldn’t let the Heroes of Sanctii die in the midst of this alabaster city. He wouldn’t let them die until they’d seen Unity together.
[hr]
Militant Damir Pantelic shouldered up against the building nearest to him, raising the galvanic plascarbine against his shoulder and unleashing it into the rubble of a wrecked substation. Each shot of the rifle was a burst of plasmic death without an ounce of recoil, perfect for someone such as him. He cursed, however, as the shot sputtered out against the alloys of the station. A slap to his head jostled the half-helmet enough to recalibrate the auto-stabilizers within. Decade-old tech that had been given to militia at the outset of the siege was beginning to show its cobwebs.

Another of his platoon fell, roasted alive by a ball of plasma by one of the savages assaulting their city. He felt nothing for the man that had died. Like him, Militant Veliko Soloviev had been a minor criminal with a pardon of forgiveness granting him a second chance at life through conscription. The harsh crack of an electric rifle forced him to duck out of instinct. It saved his life, yet several of the nearby militia had been electrified to death behind him. Now prone and covered in snow, Damir pulled the plascarbine into a sharpshooter stance and breathed in the crisp air. Time slowed for him, awaiting the next moment that one of the savages popped up from their cover to kill them.

One of them, a younger looking savage with the electric rifle, edged out of cover to unleash another volley of handheld lightning into his platoon. Damir squeezed the trigger, allowing the auto-stabilizer to anticipate the recoil and trajectories through his helmet. A plasbullet pierced through the air, squarely hitting the trooper in the left shoulder and throwing them backwards into the ruins. Militant Pantelic cursed to himself in every single language that he could muster. He had aimed for the head. Why were they destined to die in the name of the Administrator?

That sole bullet was enough to earn a moment's respite from counterattack, allowing the rest of his platoon to viciously batter the ruins with a mixture of lavalas stubber and plascarbine volleys. Each militant inched forward in their half-plated powered armor, flak-trenchcoats jostling with every step. Damir pulled himself back up, turning away from the assault to reload his plascarbine. A small sense of accomplishment grew a smile on his cracked lips. Perhaps, when they managed to push out the invaders, the Administrator would elevate his status?

“[b]Incoming![/b]” One of the militants called out in a cry of sheer terror. Militant Damir turned towards the source of distress, expecting a grenade to have been flung towards their gathered position. In truth, what entered his vision was anything but what he expected. The man that had yelled - Yannick Solvavich, he thought his name was - had burst apart into several pieces of gore. Whatever remained of him was now painting the rest of their platoon in a shower of vitae, organs, and bones. Standing in his place was a being that could only be described as a giant born from the mythos of Urshic culture. Pitch-black armor, a mighty blade like a slab of obsidian, and a cloak of alabaster pelt held the remainder of Yannick in their gauntlet. What remained, however, was a quickly dissolving pile of gore and fragmented bone.

“What are you doing, keep fi-” Their Militant-Commander, Stanek Ristovic, began to yell to affix their attention. Seconds after he began speaking, his head disappeared in a shower of blood. Everything from his shoulders upward was gone. A smoking hole of exploded flesh left the commander standing. A brisk wind forced the corpse to falter, falling forward onto the snowy tiles of their city. Damir turned away from the black-armoured giant to the source of their commander’s destruction. Ten? Twenty? Thirty? He stopped counting after that. A throng of yellow-armored giants with weapons the size of men sprinted in their direction. One of their number held a gruesome boltthrower with a smoking barrel in their hands.

He was the first to react after that. Militant Damir could’ve fired back at the charging behemoths with all the valiant pride of a patriot. Instead, he dropped his plascarbine and began to run. His helmet was thrown away to boost his speed, every inch of his soul burning with the desire to survive. As he ran, Damir could hear the rest of his platoon being butchered alive by ruinous weapons and motorized creations alike. Tears and sweat drenched his face, terrified warmth drenched his fatigues, and his brain burned with the desire to live. Pantelic just had to survive, even for just a moment longer to reach the district cordon!

Then he found his world going sideways. A confused gasp whispered through his lips as the ground met his view. He couldn’t feel his legs, his arms, or anything at all. He tried to scream, cry, or emit any kind of noise that affirmed his survival. He didn’t want to die, he couldn’t! Damir tried to refocus his eyes around the scene, only to shortly realize that he hadn’t been staring at Sanctii’s beautiful tiles. A charnel house was what it could best be described as his fellow militiamen were brutalized in that killzone. Men were brutalized, maimed, and battered to beyond recognition in the ambush. One of the yellow-armored giants, a warrior with a malevolent axe and a brutally blocky sidearm, slowly walked over to him. His last moments were spent watching the warrior lift up his gigantic boot and pressing it against his skull. A sharp, crunchy crack was the last sound he heard.
[hr]
“[b]Cease fire![/b]” Stavin roared as the Thunder Warriors stomped to their aide. “[b]Cease fire![/b]”

“[b]Friendlies in the hot zone![/b]” Whitaker added, “[i]Stop shooting![/i]”

“[b]Medic![/b]” A trooper called, pressing a bandage to Caleb Raum’s shoulder, the arc rifle trooper who had gotten them spotted. The last surviving medic, the sullen looking woman with the half shaved head, ran up and began properly dressing Caleb’s shoulder wound. 

The trooper, the stub of a lho-stick still in his mouth, tried to look at the wound, but the medic kept pushing his view away. 

“Colonel, can ye dump some morphia into him?” She growled, “He’s squirrely.”

Stavin nodded, and kneeled next to Caleb. He bent down, peering at Caleb’s discipline collar, and thumbed a blue rune. A slight hiss, and the wounded trooper relaxed. 

“He gonna make it?” Stavin asked the woman.

She shrugged. “He’ll survive this. The plas-bullet went straight through, didn’t dump any energy into his body. Just a hole, boss. He’ll be able to walk in a few minutes once the drugs settle in.”

Whitaker laughed. Stavin looked relieved. He looked down at Caleb, and pulled on the younger man’s cheek, like an uncle.

“What’d we learn, Raum?” He asked.

“No smoking in a hot zone.” Caleb said, groggy. 

“No more hangin’ around Whitaker, he’s teachin’ you bad habits.” Stavin said, looking to the wiry old sergeant, and winking. Whitaker belted out another laugh as he reloaded his radium carbine. 

Stavin stood up, and beckoned to Severina. When she approached, he started walking. 

“I think that’s Aeternus and his lot who bailed us out.” Stavin said, pointing at the plate of the nearby thunder warriors, “Their armor looks similar to his. I want to find him and turn us over to his command.”

Severina raised an eyebrow. “They’ll be in the thick of it, Colonel, are you sure?”

Stavin nodded. “[i]Everyone’s in the thick of it[/i]. Think about it Sev - we have rapport with Aeternus. He won’t throw us away like some dick head Imperial Army colonel would. Hell, his men wouldn’t be alive if we didn’t blow the wall open.”

Stavin stopped walking after he’d finished his reasoning, looking bewildered.

“Did you just express concern for our well-being?” He asked, floored.

“Not at all, Colonel, merely expressing my wishes that the 31-3 survive long enough to fulfill our objectives.” Severina said smoothly. 

“Right.” Stavin said, and looked for the largest, bloodiest Thunder Warrior to report to. 

And Stavin managed to find him in a matter of seconds once the last of the militia had been pulverized into paste by the associating God-Slayers. He stood in midnight black with Apocrypha nestled against his right pauldron. The gorey mess in his left hand was flung aside, the residue of human filth dying the armor in a dark scarlet. Aeternus turned towards the Colonel as Caligula ambled up to his left side. A similar mess of vitae had painted the Imperial yellow of the Thunder Warrior in varying crimson hues. The barrel of the bolter in the First Cadre Captain’s hands was still smoking from the gnarly ambush. A twitch in his movement spoke volumes of the cocktails filtering throughout his body.

“You’ve survived, Colonel, and many more of the Penal Legion,” The Primarch stated without prompt, a strange tone in his voice conveying a level of neutrality. Thunder Warriors of the First Legion began to move around them with freshly relayed orders, none of which required speaking. Pairs of genewarriors took to the edge of alcoves, causeways, and junctions throughout their immediate area. The heavily armed Destroyers planted down nearby the rest of the Penal Legion with their armaments pointed to the skies. Aeternus lowered the great, obsidian blade with the tip pointed to the ground and relaxed his pose. “You have my utmost respect for accomplishing what was considered impossible. Know that, if we are to survive this siege, then I will herald your Legion as the Heroes of Sanctii. Your crimes forgiven and forgotten, if it is within my power.”

The statement was delivered with a swift change in his tone. One of genuine respect from one warrior to another. Captain Caligula notably turned his head towards Aeternus in muted surprise. Echoing the astonishment, some of the closer God-Slayers half-turned their helmets while maintaining some level of attention towards would-be attackers. To further their astonishment, the Primarch gave a slow and deep salute to the vastly smaller man with his fist pressed against the Raptor on his chestplate.

Stavin stood, astonished at the reception. He’d expected something more utilitarian, a ‘fall in’ and an immediate return to the business of erasing one of the strongest bastions of resistance to Unification, but it appears he had underestimated the humanity of Aeternus. An easy mistake to make. Just months ago, monsters like him had torn apart Stavin’s mercenary company, leaving only him and the few men psychopathic enough to crawl out of hell alive. Now…

Well. War had always made strange bedfellows. He looked to Severina, who just nodded at him, like he would know what to do. Stavin supposed that, if he were a proper officer, he would. 

He snapped to attention, returning Aeternus’s salute the Army way, fingers pointing at the eye, hand turned slightly inwards. It was the smartest salute he’d ever given, and would ever give. History would prove surprisingly kind to Stavin; he would give many more salutes, in many more dignified settings, but none would ever match the solemnity of that gesture given in good faith to the transhuman soldier of the God-Slayers. 

The moment passed, and Stavin’s hand dropped. Still, there was business to conduct.

“Primarch, it’s… I never thought I’d say it, but it’s good to see you.” Stavin said, surprised at himself. “There’s fifty of us, and if you’ll have us, we’ll help you push through the city. We can keep up pretty well, especially if we spike Frenzon, so don’t worry about us slowing you down.”

He swallowed. “We- I’ll be honest, Primarch. You know us. You know what we can do. If we report back to Army command, they’ll put us in another meat grinder. You guys are going into the worst of it, we know, but we can help, I think. We got arc guns, they can kill whatever Winter throws at you, and we’ve killed her best. She’s got power armor guys, like you. They’re lethal, and they’re packing tech as good as yours. We’ve killed them, and we can help you kill them.”

Captain Caligula gave a short bark of laughter typical for his demeanor. It stretched on for only a moment before he bubbled down to a low chuckle. He stepped forward and clapped Colonel Stavin on the shoulder with minimal force. 

“Rex, I’ve only met this man three times but I like his gall! Can you imagine a normal, unaugmented person performing the impossible and then requesting to do even more after that!?” The First Captain cackled aloud once more with a tone that boomed with righteous joy. Caligula’s voice was optimistic, older, and as lively as one could be for a brutal, bloodthirsty genewarrior of the Imperium. Despite the fact he wore a helmet akin to Aeternus, there was no doubt that a wide smile had grown on the elder warrior’s lips. He released Stavin as Aeternus dropped his own salute, returning Apocrypha to it’s natural rest against the Primarch’s left pauldron.

“I can. I would imagine they were either the proudest fools I’d ever met, or the bravest warriors to grace the Emperor’s Unification. Luckily, Colonel Stavin fits into the latter.” Aeternus responded in a playful tone, turning his attention away from Stavin to the rest of the Penal Legion. He had noticed Severina standing behind the Colonel some distance back, encouraging the man to perform as a proper officer of the Excertus Imperialis. Behind her was a throng of the surviving fifty, a ragtag group of soldiers with weapons that defied their stature. After a quick scan of the Thirty-One-Third, his eyes lowered to their commander once more.

“I wouldn’t dare to dishonor you by rejecting your offer to join us.” The Primarch spoke with overwhelming confidence, gesturing to one of his God-Slayers without turning his attention away from Stavin. A Thunder Warrior with a hefty voxpack walked up to the side of Aeternus, kneeling down to deploy a girthy auspex before the two commanders. A wide display of the siege unfolded to reveal their current position, the placements of their enemy, and the rest of the Imperial forces. A circling ping gave brief, seconds-long updates of the evolving siege as they observed the auspex. One of the primarch’s black-armored fingers pointed closest to the central spire. “It goes without saying that our name - the God-Slayers - indicates our objective. We aim to decapitate and maim the enemy.”
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“This was explained well before the siege began, but after your Legion had started their prepwork for the infiltration. Their military headquarters is the single bastion that prevents access into the Spire proper for the wider Imperial forces. Lady Amalasuntha and her Stygian Talons, however, will be bypassing this objective in pursuit of Deep Winter.” Primarch Aeternus momentarily paused to allow the information to sink in with Colonel Stavin. His eyes switched between the Colonel’s expressions and the genewarrior-mounted auspex. He noticed the distinct lack of Astartes on the map, aware that their presence was obscured for a specific reason. “Our targets are nothing short of butchering their entire chain of command. If [b]Prime Minister Yurij Arturovych Yarov[/b] is present in the bastion, then he, too, will die to our hands. Our priority target is [b]Supreme General Aleks Sergeev[/b]. Of all our established targets, the Supreme General must die.”

A handful of the Thunder Warriors at the junction furthest from their position began to shuffle, moving forward with their hefty weapons raised for hipfire. Seconds later, the barking echo of bolter fire lit up the alcove and the mulching squelch of splattered vitae muted the sound of pained screams. Primarch Aeternus continued to speak regardless. “The [b]Eighty-Eighth Excertus Imperialis[/b] - the Cryxian Blades - will support our advance towards the Spire. You’ll have a chance to resupply there before our assault. Any questions?” With the explanation of the assault finished, Aeternus rested his gaze on Colonel Stavin.

Stavin said little, his expression open and vacant as Aeternus spread the map and explained the situation to him. As the giant warrior finished, Stavin blinked a few times, as if coming from a trance. Just as the thunder warriors may’ve thought the Colonel may’ve been struck dumb by combat trauma, Stavin spoke. 

“I know we’re not in the business of taking prisoners, Primarch.” Stavin said, “But the 31-3’s had its fighting strength well obliterated. We’ve got plenty of men left, but they’re mostly fit for manual labor and other menial tasks. The four thousand plus men we lost… well, they were the real soldiers.”

Stavin looked out over the ruins, watching the direction where the chest-thumping reports of the God-Slayer’s bolt casters punched the air. 

“Any prisoners we take - I want them for the Damned.” Stavin looked back. “I’ve made lots of requests from you, but after this, I wanna make sure I still have something to lead. And Sanctii…”

He took a deep breath. “These people don’t deserve this butchery. They’re paying for a bill Deep Winter racked up. Putting them with me is a different hell, but…  just because the - our - emperor has consigned them to the dustbin of history, that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve a chance, however slim, to prove themselves.”

“If I speak offense, I’m sorry. But you, Primarch, you’re more human than most people I know. You must understand where I’m coming from.” Stavin smiled. “If you can’t make that happen for me, forget I said anything. We’ll be with you every step of the way.”

Caligula shared a look with the Primarch. An unspoken word was passed between the two of them. Had Stavin known the two for longer, then perhaps he could’ve deciphered the silent language of the God-Slayers. After several seconds passed, Aeternus began to speak. “If it is within my powers, then I will promise you the surrendered Sanctiians as part of your contributions; however, make no mistake, those Sanctiians that do not surrender will die to our assault. This enemy is strong. We cannot afford to hesitate, even for a second. Is this comparable, Colonel Stavin?” The question was genuinely spoken, though Aeternus wondered if the man would take it as such. In the seconds that passed, he’d attempted to think of a perfect way to grant their wish without hindrance to no avail. Even the God-Slayers would need to replenish after the siege.

“I understand. It's a strange request to make of you, Primarch, for I have survived the work your men do.” Stavin said, “It is not wise to ask a thunder warrior for mercy. But nevertheless, I thank you for your honesty. We won't hesitate either.”

As the two began to wrap up their discussion, one of the God-Slayers that had disappeared into the junction reappeared covered in sticky chunks of vitae. Each step by the genewarrior was taken leisurely without an ounce of urgency. As they closed the distance with Aeternus, Caligula split away to accept what he could only interpret as a report from the squad lead. A brief moment passes as the two speak out of earshot. Shortly after, the God-Slayer leaves back down the junction and the First Cadre Captain returns to the Primarch’s side.

“The Eighty-Eighth is preparing a breakthrough at the next wall, Rex. Squad Salathiel murdered the last wandering militants in the local area. Should give some breathing room for [i]Fortunate Fifty[/i] while we’re making our approach.” Caligula quickly reported, chuckling at the given nickname for the Thirty-One-Third. The auspex supplied by the kneeling genewarrior pinged once more in accurate presentation of what had been reported. A large mass of the Imperial Army had been massing at the rim of the Spire’s outer walls. The next phase of the siege was preparing to begin.

“Then let us waste no more time. [b]Unity awaits us all[/b].” Primarch Aeternus quickly stated, gesturing for the genewarrior with the heavy auspex to stand. Captain Caligula placed his helmet against his skull, swiftly removing it from the protruding spike. The God-Slayers at the edge of the plaza left ahead of the Primarch, while the rest gathered in a protective clump around the Thirty-One-Third. Rex, in particular, waded out in front of Colonel Stavin with the First Cadre Captain at his side. The sounds of reinvigorated fighting welcomed their short journey to the spire walls.
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Credit: Aeternus/God-Slayers [@MarshalSolgriev], Colonel Stavin/Thirty-One-Third Penal Legion [@BornOnBoard]