Isstvan III (Part 2)
"KILL IT! KILL IT!" An Isstvanian army lieutenant screamed at his subordinates. An entire squad was hunkered down in a trench, laying down as much fire as they could on one of the Astartes approaching them across no-mans-land. But this one was different from all the others they have been hearing about on the vox. This one was armored in gold and bigger than other Astartes. And the design of its armor was wholly different from what they knew. This one's armor had a jagged edges design instead of the Astartes armor's more rounded edges design and it had lines of black running through its golden armor. But what was most unsettling were the spheroid objects that hovered in front of this Space Marine that deployed an energy shield that they couldn't break no matter how much they unloaded on it.
"Damn that accursed Emperor! When did he make that monster!" Screamed that Isstvanian lieutenant, lieutenant Meenan, in frustration as he hefted his lasgun to his shoulder and fired on the approaching monster. And with him in the trenches were hundreds of Isstvanian soldiers firing their lasguns, stubbers, shotguns, pistols and even a lascannon and autocannon emplacements were unloading on this one solitary Space Marine.
"Merickx is down! Merickx is down!" Screamed the loader of the autocannon team. As lieutenant Meenan looks to his right at the autocannon, he sees the gunner collapsing in himself as his body disintegrates. That was what scared and infuriated him the most. That… Space Marine's weird angular glowing weapon that shot out bolts of light that disintegrated everyone it touched. Between its impenetrable shield and its disintegrating ammunition, lieutenant Meenan knew that they wouldn't survive this, but he would gladly give up his life if it meant taking down this one giant Space Marine. Screaming to the soldier next to him to go assist the autocannon emplacement, the lascannon emplacement had already been knocked out of the fight at the beginning.
Next, lieutenant Meenan turns to his missile launcher teams and demands a status report on the missiles. When the teams give him a thumbs-up, indicating their readiness to launch at any point, lieutenant Meenan tells them to standby and be ready to launch on his command. For what seemed like an eternity, lieutenant Meenan kept his missile launcher on standby until that giant Space Marine was close enough. And all the while, his men around him kept disintegrating by the bolt of light that Space Marine shot at them until…
"FIRE AWAY!"
Appearing over the lip of the trench, 4 missile launcher loaded with Krak missiles took aim at the giant Space Marine and fired, with all 4 missiles hitting it with an enormous BOOM! And seeing this, every soldier in the trenches that fought this monster cheers with adulation at having finally vanquished this monster, until a voice resounds in their minds that silences them all.
"Good effort, but ultimately pointless."
As the smoke dissipates, they see that not only was that giant Space Marine not dead, he wasn't even harmed. And what's more is that there was now 10 giant Space Marines standing where there previously was just 1 and all of them were holding a weird glowing cannon like weapon in their hands. And it didn't take a genius to realize that they were in even bigger shit than before.
"TAKE COVER!!!" Lieutenant Meenan roars as the ten giant Space Marines open up fire and basically blanket the field of battle with bolts of light, killing everyone around him that weren't fast enough to take cover. Seconds later, what seemed like an eternity to him, lieutenant Meenan carefully tries to look around to see who survived and sees that out of the dozens that were with him in his trench just scant few survived. And considering the fact that there were hundreds of them across multiple trenches, it frightened him to think that most of them were wiped in this one assault. And this fear was a catalyst for an explosion of blistering rage. Grabbing his lasgun, lieutenant Meenan rushed to his feet and let out a roar of pure rage as he wanted to unleash his lasgun's entire into this monster that killed his comrades, his friends. But before he could pull the trigger, a bolt of light hit him in the head and he fell back, his body disintegrating. The last thought that went through his mind before his brain had completely disintegrated was '…what…?'.
After finally having cleared out these trenches, Mesa was frustrated with his progress. Taking out the locater crystal and infusing some Profound Energy into it, the beam of light coming out of it still pointed in the direction of the Choral City and yet he was still clearing out the trenches outside the Choral City. From what he remembered, the Death Guard, with their incredible endurance and their slow and steady assault, were deployed to clear out the trenches. And that durability showed itself quite well since it took quite a few hard light bolts to put one of those bastard down.
The Emperor's Children and the World Eaters were deployed to take out the Governor's Palace and kill the planetary governor. And the Sons of Horus were deployed to take out the Sirenhold, the spiritual center the Choral City. Though he did come across a few World Eaters and Sons of Horus stragglers in the trenches outside the city, most of the Astartes that Mesa had encountered so far were the Death Guard. As he took down his tenth Death Guard Astarte, he had a sudden epiphany. Why not ship a few Astartes of every lineage back to Asora for research purposes, be they alive or dead.
So with that in mind, one of the ten clones that Mesa had with him would capture Astartes and transport them to Asora that the other clones in Asora would prepare facilities for that could contain them. Meanwhile, the other nine clones Mesa had with him had gone off to continue the search for that second crystal.
Landing within a sprawling garden replete with many kinds of flowers at the heart of the city, Mesa clone #3 took out the locater crystal from the inventory and infused it with Profound Energy and got a beam of light pointing at the Governor's Palace. Immediately, original Mesa and the other clones knew where to look further. With the many, many years that he had the Mind Stone, Mesa had developed a rudimentary hive mind between him and his clones. They now had a constant telepathic link to one another's minds and senses with which they constantly shared information amongst each other. So when Mesa clone #3 used the locater crystal, they all immediately knew which direction to go to look for the second crystal. Mesa clone #1 had landed on top the mountain range behind the Choral City that acted like a natural barrier. Taking out the locater crystal and infusing it with Profound Energy, its light beam pointed towards west towards the Choral City. And that was how Mesa and the nine clones he brought with him were determining the location of that second crystal. One clone landed within the industrial sector of the Choral City, while another was in the residential area of the city and other one was located on of its boulevards. With each of them positioned across a wide area and alternately using the locater crystal, they made the search area smaller and smaller as they zeroed on the possible location of the second crystal, until all that was left was the Governor's Palace.
Back in the trenches, west of the Choral City, sergeant Ullian Kadamar of the 12th tactical squad, 3rd Great Company of the 14th Legion Space Marines Death Guard was clearing out sector 12-14 of the trench lines, the one assigned to him and his squadron. At first, it was business as usual, their squad made steady progress against the Isstvanians that were heavily entrenched around the Choral City, but were ultimately no match against the resilience and perseverance of the Death Guard. But for a few hours now he had receiving vox reports about some golden armored giant tearing thought the trench lines and ripping apart Astartes. When he received a description of this golden armored giant, he foolishly thought that Rogal Dorn was somehow here on Isstvan III with them, but quickly dismissed that notion as the Primarch of the Imperial Fists was on Terra with his legion. As the description of this golden armored giant kept flooding in, he was convinced that the treachery of the Isstvanians had run deeper than he had imagined. Not only had the Isstvanians turned from the Emperor's light, they had even stooped so low as to use xenos technology in an effort to create a warrior to fight back against the Emperor's Space Marines. In the end, their hubris had been their undoing as their own warrior had turned against them.
So with that information in mind, Sergeant Ullian Kadamar had ordered his squadron to remain in close proximity to one another in case they came across this xenos filth to support each other and take it down. So with his squad clearing this section of the trenches, he and one other legionary came up to the reinforced plasteel door of reinforced rockcrete bunker that was closed shut to them. Ordering the legionary next to him to use his Meltagun to blast open the door, Sergeant Ullian Kadamar backs up to give the legionary space. When the legionary places the muzzle of the Meltagun against the door of the bunker, he pulls the trigger, releasing a blast of superheated gas that turns the door into molten slag. With the door open, Sergeant Ullian Kadamar and the accompanying legionary burst into bunker and start laying waste to the soldiers manning it. When all was said and done, they exited the bunker and ordering status reports from his squad, Sergeant Ullian Kadamar receives affirmatives that they cleared out this section of the trenches. Ordering his squad to regroup on him, they scale the trench and go on to repeat the process again.
As they advanced on the next trench line and they were being peppered by ineffectual stubber and lasgun fire, a sudden shockwave displaced air sounded behind them. Turning around, they see that very same xenos warrior they heard about on the vox standing behind them. Without hesitation, they all aim their weapons, an assortment of bolters, meltas, lascannons and flamers, at the xenos warrior and open fire. What happened instead was they all stopped moving instead as a sheen of blue light enveloped them. Try as they might, they were unable to break out of this confinement.
"Filthy… xenos… witch!" Sergeant Ullian Kadamar barely managed to stammer out through a jaw that wouldn't obey him. And his battle brothers besides him were also throwing curses at the xenos witch that held them.
"Fourteen huh. How ironic." Said the golden armored xenos witch in perfect high Gothic. "Anyways, time to go now. I have much to research."
What happened next was they were enveloped in a blinding light and disappeared not just from the surface of Isstvan III, but from the Milky Way galaxy itself. In time they would come to realize that they were one of the few lucky ones to escape the treachery of their legion and in time they would be released again and from what they had witnessed, they had vowed vengeance against their treacherous kin.