Name: Aura James Kalstov
Appearance:
Skills: Proficient in hand-to-hand combat, also highly skilled with Lasgun/Helllguns and Long Las rifles. Skilled in Small-unit tactics and is partially capable of driving mechanized vehicles
Background: Aura was born on the world of Noracles V, an Imperial World that prided itself on it's fairness in selection for tithing to the Imperial Guard. Aura was the daughter of a merchant, his father, and a career soldier mother, who had survived 3 tours with the Guard. From a young age, the Guard fascinated her as her mother told tales of comrades, of battles and of shenanigans when out of battle. When Aura turned 16, having officially came of age by planetary customs, she surprised her entire family by being one of the few to volunteer for the Imperial Guard, bearing only a romanticized vision of them from her mother's stories.
Aura's regiment, a standard infantry regiment, was newly raised, and Aura was selected to be a squad sergeant due to her position as a volunteer. Basic training was one of the best times of Aura's life, growing stronger in body and bonding with the others of her regiment. This planet prided itself on sending only the best it could, so training was three grueling months. Then, they were shipped off to a warzone, singing hymns and marching chants and joking about how their mere presence would scare away the Archenemy they'd been sent to fight.
This wasn't the case, however, when the regiment actually arrived to combat. Like all quality regiments, they were promptly thrown into the most desperate siege defense on the planet and told to do what the guard did best, hold the line. Hold the line they did, standing their ground for 5 long months while the rest of the planet was secured and the enemy killed many. Some died to Chaos Marines, some to the foul powers of the warp, some to cultists, and some eventually fell prey to starvation when the enemy AAA become too thick to slip in supplies and soldiers. When the siege was finally lifted, Aura was left standing with a squad that didn't consist of even one of her original squad mates, and a regiment of 50 men and women as opposed to the original 5,000.
What was left of Aura's regiment was folded into a fresh regiment from her planet as a Veteran Platoon, a regiment filled with the same youthful idealism Aura used to have. They were sent to fight the Archenemy once more, but this time in an offensive. There Aura drew the attention of the Inquisitor, as she distinguished herself by leading her squad straight into the heart of the enemy command center, after being dropped in via high-flying Valkyrie. With Carapace Armor, liberal application of their Hellguns and no small amount of tactical thinking, the entire enemy command staff was accounted for, including 4 Chaos Marines. The enemy was found in the midst of summoning their true liege, a greater Daemon of Slannesh.
Indeed, the Chaos Marines had even known of the squad's coming, and planned to exploit it. A barrier was thrown up, separating Aura from her fellow soldiers. All that had to be done to summon this demon, was to finish a chant and make a grand sacrifice, and Aura fit the bill. Aura didn't plan to go down easy however, and when a chaos-corrupted Marine barreled at her, intent on taking her life with a ritual blade, she kept her cool. Concentrated Hellgun fire popped the Marine's head like a balloon, however this was functionally the same as if Aura herself had died.
The Greater Daemon, having been spurred into appearing by the death of the Marine, would soon be able to appear as a warp portal began to open. However, the ritual hadn't been performed entirely up to spec, and the daemon was unable to instantaneously appear as it normally could. It slowly began to manifest, having to fight it's way through a warp portal. Guardswoman Kalstov was faced with impossible odds, no squad, another Chaos Marine with bolter ready, and the enemy command squad very nearly finished with the chant, with ten corrupted Guardsmen as backup, readying lasguns and a greater daemon manifesting. So, she did what any self respecting member of a Noracles regiment would do, she readied herself to die for the Emperor.
She vaulted her cover, Hellgun barking, and immediately gunned for the enemy Marine. Mass-reactive shells missed her by mere centimeters, tearing off chunks of her armor with near misses. Only the marine's ancient equipment, and the sheer power of the ritual, threw off the aim of the hyper-lethal super soldier. Aura, however, had a modern suit and the sheer force of will to ignore the daemon's power. The Marine fell, a large burst of Hellgun fire piercing through it's neck and beheading the soldier. Even as the body fell to the ground, the other chaos soldiers fired on Aura.
Her Carapace Armor saved her that day, blocking more than a few lasbolts entirely and diluting the others enough so that, instead of her blood cells expanding and exploding, Aura was merely burned. She knew she had to break the circle, and kill those guardsmen, and she had seconds to get it done. So, she cut the straps holding her hellgun's backpack mounted power-supply to her and overloaded the pack, hurling it at the enemy commander and his chanting subordinates. She tore a frag-grenade from the webbing on her chestplate, pulled the pin and threw it right after. A grand explosion accounted for the Archenemy's twisted choir and the enemy commander, tearing the head from the enemy command structure and preventing the summoning of a greater daemon. Soon after, the barrier separating her squad from her was removed, revealing their shattered sergeant to the squad and two more dead Marines to Aura, who lay on the ground, badly burned, armor shattered and shrapnel sticking from her body in multiple places. She and her team were evacuated to a vessel, for rest and recovery.
However, in the end the great battle that Aura and her team fought mattered little, the Archenemy rallied and drove the Guard from the world, leaving Aura and her squad as the only survivors of this new regiment. They were all to be sent to serve as the Veteran Squad of yet another regiment, but instead Aura was recruited by an Inquisitor.