DC, EARTH
THE BATTLEFIELD
The skies rumbled.
Lightning screamed across the firmament in veins of white fire, splitting the clouds as if tearing open the heavens themselves. The air was alive with static, the taste of metal and ozone stinging the tongue. Beneath that wrathful storm, Atrius stood upon scorched soil.
In the distance stretched the fevered army—mortals clad in steel shouting into the thunder. Their ranks trembled with fervor, banners whipping in the wind, eyes alight with the madness of devotion.
Atrius observed in silence, crimson lenses locking on their figures.
"They believe this to be the work of their gods,"
he mused within his helm, his voice cold and metallic.
He turned his gaze skyward once more. The lightning raged with such scale and fury that even his transhuman sight could not pierce its end. A sea of white fire rolled across the clouds, consuming the heavens in ceaseless arcs of brilliance. He wondered—not in reverence, but in intrigue—what manner of being could summon such might.
"Such power…"
he pondered
from the maelstrom above, parademons started falling to the earth
their flaming shapes plummeted from the clouds—burning comets of flesh and steel. Wings charred, armor melted, and limbs twisted as they fell screaming. The ground shuddered beneath the weight of their descent.
BAM!
BAM.!!
BAM. !!!!!..BAM.!!
They struck the earth like divine punishment, scattering rock and mud and blood. Shockwaves rippled through the battlefield, toppling men and shattering formations.
The mortals, fevered and emboldened, roared as one.
"AEEEEEERHHHHHH!"
With savage unity, they surged forward, taking the fall of their foes as an omen of divine favor. Spears lowered, swords raised, their cries rose above the thunder.
Atrius watched, head tilting slightly.
Something in their frenzy felt... familiar.
"Do these mortals throw their lives away for gods unseen?" he thought.
"Or is it the madness of survival that drives them?"
THUD
A deafening sound
beside him drew his gaze.
A parademon crashed into the ground, its armored bulk smoking, a trail of embers marking its descent. Ash and dust swirled as Atrius approached.
He studied the creature. Its body was malformed—fused metal and sinew, the stench of burnt oil and rotting meat rising from it. Its eyes, red and insectile, flickered weakly with dying hate. The wings that had borne it through the storm now lay tattered and useless.
It looked nothing like the daemons of the Warp.
Its corruption was not of the soul—but of the flesh.
BAM.
Another fell nearby, writhing on the ground, dragging itself through the ash.
Atrius turned toward it, his heavy steps shaking the dirt.
THUNG. THUNG. THUNG.
He came to stand above the creature.
It clawed at the earth, black ichor seeping from the cracks in its armor. Its movements were frantic, bestial. Yet there was... no malice in its eyes—only a mechanical, instinctual drive.
Atrius knelt.
"Different," he muttered. "This one is not the same strain."
His gaze rose again, crimson lenses reflecting the tempest. The lightning was fading now, but in its place came a new terror.
From afar, the heavens descended. clouds twisting into a spiral of black, a storm so dense that it met the ground in a writhing cyclone. His helm's sensors strained to analyze it, but the readings warped and flickered. It was there one moment—and gone the next.
He returned his attention to the parademon crawling before him.
Its claws screeched against the invisible barrier that shimmered around his form.
WHIRR.
The gears of his armor shifted, lenses focusing.
"Let us see what manner of corruption festers within you."
Atrius reached out—not with hand, but with will. His consciousness pierced the veil of the creature's mind like a blade.
And instantly recoiled.
He staggered back a half step, disgust searing through his synapses.
"Abomination."
The thing shrieked—a guttural, mechanical screech—before Atrius's boot silenced it forever.
CRACK.
Bone, blood, and brain matter splattered across the scorched ground as his heel ground the creature's head into paste.
He rose.
The battle raged on in the distance. Mortals screamed, parademons shrieked, and the land was swallowed by chaos.
Amidst the carnage, Atrius saw banners of gold and crimson—the Amazons, their armor glinting as they clashed with the flying horrors of Apokolips. Blades carved wings from bodies. Arrows burned through the storm. Yet for every monster they felled, two more descended.
Atrius's hands clenched.
"Such filth."
He turned from the corpse, his steps heavy. The creature's mind had revealed little—only madness and hunger. Its memories were a blur of cruelty and creation. He had seen its birth in a chamber of glass and steel, surrounded by tools he could not name—heretical instruments that pulsed with alien energy. It had no childhood, no thought—only orders.
To kill.
To terrify.
To conquer.
They were weapons. Living tools of destruction forged by a will unseen.
He set his jaw.
"Instruments of annihilation."
And with that, he moved—each step a quake.
THUNG. THUNG. THUNG. THUNG.
These abominations were of little consequence. Their origin mattered not.
Only that they existed, and that their threatened the imperium if they existed within the galaxy. deep within, Atrius fell into a cold spark of calculation.
"If such entities are mass-produced... then there exists a power in the galaxy capable of creation on an godly scale."
"The Imperium must be warned. Valdor must know."
"But first—I must depart this world."
He refocused, narrowing his objectives.
BAM.
Another corpse fell beside him, smoke trailing.
BANG.
Atrius's gauntlet lashed out, swatting a parademon from the sky. Its body crumpled like tin upon impact.
He broke into a run.
WHIRR—WHOOM—THUNG.
He became a blur of silver and black.
With a thunderous leap, Atrius soared through the battlefield, his massive frame cutting through the rain and ash like a living projectile.
WHOOSH.
He descended amidst the ranks of soldiers—
BOOOOM!
The ground cratered as he landed, debris and gore erupting around him.
Men stumbled, ducking behind shattered vehicles, eyes wide beneath mud-streaked helms. Before they could comprehend the being among them, he was gone—charging straight into the storm of wings and claws.
Each step shook the field.
Each motion was like the reckoning of death.
SKREEEEEEEEEE!
The parademons saw him.
Their screeches merged into a single, maddened roar as they dove—a tidal swarm of teeth, talons, and iron.
Atrius met them head-on.
His fist struck.
WHIRRRRR—BOOOOOOM.
The shockwave shredded the first wave instantly, splattering entrails across the blackened mud. Wings were torn from bodies, blood vaporized by the sheer force.
A parademon lunged from above—he seized it midair, crushed its throat with one hand, and hurled the corpse into another. Both vanished in a bloom of gore.
Around him, mortals fought with desperate valor.
A woman screamed as claws raked across her shield. Another soldier impaled a parademon through the chest, only to be torn in half by its dying thrash. Horses bolted forward charging towards death while Fires spread unchecked. The scent of blood and ozone mixed into a choking fog.
Atrius did not slow.
A cart lay toppled ahead, its wooden frame shattered, the beast that once pulled it lying dead beside it.
He seized the wreckage, hefting it like a spear.
WHOOOOM.
With inhuman strength, he hurled it into the sky. The cart smashed through a cluster of flying parademons, its sheer velocity splintering bodies and scattering limbs across the battlefield.
Behind him, the mortals rallied, emboldened by his presence.
"Push forward!"
"By the gods—advance!"
They surged behind the Armored giant, cutting down whatever dared slip past him.
To them, he was not man, nor machine—he was divine. A wrathful angel descended in their hour of need. They did not question his origin; they simply followed.
Atrius moved like a tempest of living steel.
Fists, elbows, and sheer kinetic power replaced his lost spear.
Every motion was one of deadly precision. Every strike carved a massacre.
He ducked beneath a swipe; he seized a wing and tore it free with a wet rip.
Trrrrr!!!!
Squelch !!
Blood sprayed in sheets, hot and black. with a swift turn,
he smashed another into the ground with a backhand, the impact caving in the earth as it bounced up before lying in the crater unmoving as blood drooled from the crevices of its broken skin and armor.
with a cruel stomp
its skull cracked beneath his boot.
The storm above mirrored the storm within—lightning flashed, illuminating his armor, now painted in blood and ash.
underneath his helm his eyes shone brightly.
The battle raged on.
The field was no longer earth but a churning sea of corpses, smoke, and the ever-present battle fury.
And through it, Atrius advanced—
Relentless, silent and unstoppable.