=== Sebastian ===
"Aaaahhhh!" Sebastian roared, bringing the Darksaber down in a furious arc. The weapon howled as it cleaved through a lesser daemon, splitting the monstrosity in two. The creature shrieked once before the blade's edge silenced it, its body collapsing into a bubbling pool of black ichor.
"Foul beast!" the Black Templar spat, stomping down on its head. He spun just in time to sidestep a daemonette's clawed swipe, the blow grazing off his pauldron with a screech of metal.
Sebastian struck low, the Darksaber slicing through both of her legs just below the knees. She collapsed, shrieking, only for him to bring his storm shield crashing down, splattering her across the ground.
Raxor stood at his side, his heavy bolter roaring as it spat fire into the hordes ahead. The Salamander's armor was scorched and dented, but his stance was unyielding. Around them, a ragged line of Republic troopers and Imperial soldiers fought shoulder-to-shoulder, blaster fire and bolter rounds painting the battlefield in red and gold flashes.
Sebastian caught another daemon's axe on his shield, shoved it aside, and impaled the creature through the chest, then, with a thrust that tore through to his right, he pivoted, and cleaved a Bloodletter's neck. He then caught a third as it leapt toward him. With a roar, he slammed the creature into the dirt so hard that the stone cracked beneath it, its head bursting like overripe fruit.
"They are never-ending, brother!" he shouted over the vox, his voice ragged but defiant.
"I'm almost out of rounds," Raxor replied, his deep voice vibrating through the comms. "I'll have to resupply soon!"
"Go!" Sebastian barked. "I'll hold them until you get back!"
The Salamander gave a curt nod, igniting his jump pack and rocketing backward toward the rear lines in a burst of smoke and fire.
Then, without warning, a colossal surge of power tore through the field.
The ground buckled beneath Sebastian as an unseen force slammed into him, hurling him off his feet. The shockwave ripped apart daemon and mortal alike, sending bodies and debris tumbling through the air. He hit the ground hard, the impact rattling his armor as dust and rubble engulfed him.
When the storm of debris finally began to settle, he forced himself upright, blinking through the grit clouding his visor. A horned horror of Tzeentch clawed at the ground beside him, dragging its malformed body upright.
Sebastian reacted instantly, rolling toward it and bringing his shield down with all his might. The blow turned the daemon's skull into pulp, its body twitching once before disintegrating into nothing.
He stood, chest heaving, and surveyed the devastation. The sky burned orange and red, and far across the battlefield, a massive mushroom cloud rose into the heavens. It was where Maximus had been fighting.
"Brother?" Sebastian voxed, his tone tight with dread. Static crackled in his ear.
"Brother!" he repeated, louder this time, but still no response.
Around him, the daemons began to stir once more, their twisted bodies reforming from the warp-tainted sludge.
"By the Throne!" Sebastian snarled, reigniting the Darksaber. The blade's black edge flared with its telltale hum as he hurled himself into the enemy once again. He moved like a storm given form, spinning, striking, smashing through the tide of horrors. His shield became a battering ram; his blade, a blur of death.
And then, through the carnage, he saw her.
A lone figure walking slowly from the inferno, haloed by fire and smoke. Her presence twisted the air around her. Each step she took seemed to bend reality, her voice echoing faintly as if she were speaking to herself, or to something unseen.
Abeloth.
Sebastian froze, his instincts screaming. Even the daemons seemed to sense the threat. A Great Unclean One lumbered toward her, paying her no mind, intent only on the battle ahead. But before it could take another step, its titanic body shriveled. Flesh turned to dust. Its form collapsed in on itself, vanishing without a sound. Abeloth hadn't even turned her head.
The surrounding Greater Daemons roared in fury, recognizing a power that eclipsed their own. They converged on her at once, massive forms of corruption and hatred crashing toward the lone woman.
Sebastian watched as Abeloth lifted her arms, almost lazily. Lightning, pure and unnatural, exploded outward in a web of purple, green, and blue. Tendrils of power extended from her body, impaling one daemon through the chest and disintegrating another mid-stride. Each blow from her was an act of unmaking, she didn't merely kill, she erased.
Even through his helm's filters, Sebastian had to squint. The light seared across the field like the birth of a star.
Then, something else moved in the ruin.
A lone Astartes, staggering to his feet amid the smoke. Blue armor, cracked and scorched, yet still standing.
"Maximus…" Sebastian breathed.
He zoomed in, his visor magnifying the scene. Abeloth turned her head toward the Ultramarine, her eyes locking onto him with unnatural focus.
"Brother!" Sebastian shouted, but there was only static in reply. The Ultramarine's vox was dead.
He scanned the field, searching desperately until he found Raxor perched atop a distant ridge, heavy bolter still hot in his hands.
"Brother!" Sebastian called.
The Salamander turned, following his gaze. "I see him, brother! Get to him, I'll provide covering fire!" Raxor shouted, firing his jump pack and leaping higher onto the ridge to get a better angle.
Sebastian gave a grim nod and turned back toward the inferno. Abeloth stood at its heart, her power radiating like a dark sun.
And Maximus, his brother, stood before her.
Sebastian gritted his teeth. "By the Emperor," he growled. "Hold on, brother. I'm coming."
=== Raxor ===
Raxor landed with a thunderous crash beside the smoking wreck of a AT-TE, his ceramite boots carving deep scars in the ashen soil. The ground trembled beneath his weight, dust and flame rising around the massive figure. The remains of the walker still burned, its rear armor melted and twisted from a daemon's infernal blast, but the Republic markings were still visible beneath the soot and ichor.
Clones moved frantically around the wreck, shouting orders and dragging their wounded brothers from the debris. One of them screamed as the metal leg of the walker pinned him to the ground, the servos of his armor whining helplessly as he tried to free himself.
Raxor strode toward them, his towering frame casting an immense shadow over the clones.
One of them turned, his white-and-blue armor smeared with grime and blood. "We've got men trapped! The leg's too heavy!"
The Salamander said nothing, he simply moved towards the leg. His armor whirred as his gauntlets found purchase on the massive hunk of metal. With a deep, rumbling growl of exertion, Raxor lifted. The ground cracked beneath his boots, servos screaming, as he hauled the walker's shattered leg upward. The clones could only stare in awe at the sheer strength of the Astartes.
"Get him out," Raxor rumbled, voice like thunder through his vox.
The clones scrambled, pulling their pinned brother free. When they did, Raxor dropped the leg aside, it slammed into the ground with an ear-splitting crash.
"Evacuate your wounded," he said, turning toward the horizon where Abeloth stood, a writhing silhouette of chaos and beauty among the flames.
The clones nodded and began pulling back, some saluting him in passing. Raxor gave no response, only a curt nod as his optics turned to the half-destroyed walker. Its main cannon was still intact, though much of the body was shattered and half buried. The control seat was too small for him, but that did not matter. There was still fire left in this machine.
He climbed onto the ruined hull, his massive form bending the metal beneath him. His heavy bolter mag-locked to his side, Raxor grasped the edges of the AT-TE's dorsal turret and forced the gun housing to turn. The servos groaned in protest, sparks shooting out, but he was relentless, guiding the cannon toward the storm that was Abeloth.
She moved like a god of madness among the battlefield.
Her hair, if it could be called that, writhed and shifted like living tendrils. Her voice carried on the wind, low and melodic, as she murmured to herself. "So much pain… so much fear. How delicious…"
WHUMPH.
A blinding blue bolt of plasma tore through the air, striking Abeloth squarely in the chest. She was simply pushed back a step before looking to where the bolt had come from.
Raxor adjusted the aim, his massive hands working the firing controls.
The cannon roared again. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Each shot lancing across the battlefield. The clones had long since fled, but their tank's gun still roared defiance under the hand of the Salamander.
Abeloth thrust her hands forward, catching one of the bolts midair with the Force and twisting it into a spiral of energy before hurling it back.
The plasma blast hit the AT-TE dead center.
The entire machine lurched backward, the metal shrieking as flames spewed out of every rent. The gun was still functional, but only barely.
Raxor stood amidst the fire and ruin, his armor glowing with heat, smoke billowing around him. He snarled, gripping the weapon again, and fired another salvo, blinding the world around him in a wash of searing light.
Abeloth staggered, more annoyed than hurt. Her body split into shadowy reflections, tendrils whipping outward to strike at the Salamander. They hit the walker first, tearing it apart, flaying it open in an explosion of metal and flame.
Raxor was thrown through the air, landing hard, gouging a trench in the scorched earth. He rose slowly, steam hissing off his armor, before turning and running towards the another fallen tank, intent on distracting her while his brother made his way towards the monster.
And the Black Templar was so close now.
=== Sebastian ===
Sebastian ignited his jump pack, the engines screaming like thunder as the ground beneath him cracked from the sudden force. The Black Templar became a blur of black and fire, cutting through the ashen battlefield. Each landing sent shockwaves through the dirt, scattering dust and blood in every direction.
At every stop, the enemy awaited him, swarms of cultists, gibbering daemons, droids whose circuitry pulsed with warp-taint. A mad congregation of metal and flesh rose to meet him.
The Darksaber screamed as he cut through the first wave, the black blade leaving trails of shimmering energy in its wake. He cleaved through a daemonette mid-lunge, her body dissolving into dust, before slamming his shield into the face of a cybernetic cultist, crushing both flesh and metal with a sickening crunch.
Another jump, another impact.
Sebastian came down in the middle of a group of warp-mutated droids, their blasters shrieking with unstable plasma. He raised his shield, the bolts sparking harmlessly off its blessed surface. With a roar, he swung wide, the Darksaber cutting through three of them in a single arc. The ground beneath his boots was slick with blood, oil, and molten slag.
He kept moving. Always forward. Always toward Maximus.
Sebastian landed again, and was immediately beset by a horde of Bloodletters, their blades crackling with infernal energy.
"For Dorn! For the Emperor!" he bellowed.
He became a whirlwind of death. His shield shattered a skull, the Darksaber burned through another's chest, and then he kicked a third so hard its spine broke against the stones. Warp ichor painted his armor, running down his pauldrons like oil.
At last, through the carnage, he saw Maximus kneeling, battered, barely standing after the explosion that had vaporized half the battlefield.
Sebastian landed beside his brother with a final thunderous crash, flames roaring from his jump pack. "Brother! We must leave!"
Maximus staggered, armor cracked and venting smoke. "No, we must close the portal!"
The words had barely left his lips when the sky turned white.
A flash of energy erupted across the field as Abeloth turned her gaze upon Raxor. The AT-TE's massive cannon thundered once more, but the shot was simply caught midair, stopped by invisible power. Then, with a casual flick of her wrist, the entire walker imploded.
The explosion sent debris raining for hundreds of meters. The ridge vanished in a storm of fire and shattered metal.
"RAXOR!" Sebastian roared, his voice breaking with fury.
He turned back toward the source of the devastation, and there she was.
Abeloth.
The Mother of Chaos. The one even daemons recoiled from.
She walked among the flames as if gliding over water, her form half-human, half-something else, tendrils of writhing light and shadow curling from her back. Her eyes burned with the madness of eternity itself.
Sebastian's fury drowned all reason. He ignited his jump pack again, the Darksaber glowing like a shard of midnight sun, and charged.
"MONSTER!" he bellowed. "YOU DARE STAND AGAINST THE EMPEROR'S ANGELS?!"
He rocketed forward, shield up, intent on driving her into the ground through sheer force. The impact came, but it was like striking a mountain made of adamantium.
The moment his shield touched her, all momentum died. The air cracked, and then he was thrown backward as if the universe itself had spat him out. He slammed into the ground, carving a trench through the dirt and shattered metal before coming to a stop, gasping.
Abeloth turned her gaze toward him, her lips curling into a smile both motherly and monstrous.
"I have watched you closely, Black Templar," she said, her voice echoing with countless tones, soft, cruel, amused. "You are the one closest to your Corpse-Emperor. The one who worships the hollow husk upon His golden throne."
Sebastian forced himself up, planting his shield into the dirt. "Blasphemy," he growled through his vox. "Your words are heresy, witch!"
Abeloth tilted her head, as if examining a child's defiance. "Heresy? No, child. I speak the truth."
She spread her hands, and the ground around her began to ripple, reality itself bending.
Before Sebastian could respond, she flicked her wrist.
A wave of invisible energy tore through the field like the fist of a god. Maximus, still barely standing, was caught in it and sent spiraling high into the sky, vanishing into the smoke above.
Sebastian's shield cracked under the pressure, his armor screaming in protest, but he stood his ground, teeth bared, eyes blazing with righteous fury.
He raised his sword, pointing it toward the goddess of madness.
He knew this was no battle he could win. But that wouldnt stop him.
"I know no fear, for i am fear itself!" He shouted more to himself than anyone.
Abeloth only smiled.
"Come then Astartes. Play with me."
===
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