I'm back! I have been working on this story for a while, and I hope it will make up for my botched attempt at replicating the genius of CDC. Note: there is violence in this first chapter, and it might be a bit short, but the story is not all violence, and this is more of a sort of teaser.
Rain. Rain falling on his head. This Veteran-brother Tullius knew. That prompted an urgent question: where was his helmet? He turned his throbbing head to the left, then to the right. His helmet did not appear to be in view. This was strange. He could remember very little other than a fight, a fall, a landing. The rest of his armour appeared to be intact, except for a dent on his pauldron and some shallow scores on his breastplate, but his helmet was without a doubt gone. He pushed himself to his feet, and walked up and down for a few minutes until feeling returned to his legs. He looked around for a weapon, but his Bolter and Combat Blade had clearly been lost in the fall. He began, slowly, methodically, to walk to the end of the street.
Raquel Menzanez was slammed back into the wall. She felt bruised all over, and she was terrified. The three men attacking her at the moment were armed, one with a knife, one with a Laspistol, and one with an Autogun. The Autogun man was tall, thin, and unpleasant, with a curled-up lip and an unpleasant Marseilles Wave in his hair. The knife man was short, fat, and mean, and took a sick pleasure in the pain of others. She knew them both intimately. They met on Fridays, when she couldn't pay her rent on the small ferrocrete hut she lived in. The Laspistol man was the boss of the Messengers, the fifty-man gang that controlled their section of the Underhive with an iron fist. He was tall, well-built, and tried to be handsome despite a trio of large, disfiguring scars across his face. He was currently looming over her as she cowered on the floor. "Now listen!" He shouted in her face, "we have been PATIENT! We let you live, and what do we ask in return? Thanks! Gratitude! But most of all, WE WANT OUR MONEY!" He paused. The charge on his Laspistol whined up. "So we are going to take from your DEAD BODY!" she prepared herself for the end. She had studied martial arts and weapons for so long, she would have thought herself well-equipped for a fight, but she never had been-never would be strong enough or fast enough. She closed her eyes.
"Stop." The voice was deep, and grating, and mechanical. It reverberated deep within her lungs and chest, setting her ribs vibrating like the keys on a Xylophone. The boss swung round, and saw the speaker. It was a massive figure, clad in something that looked like…
"Holy Emperor…" she breathed. A Space Marine. The Guardian Angels of Humanity, the shining elite decked in ancient battle-plate and tasked with defending the Imperium against the myriad threats among the stars. The three men, all hopped up on Lho-sticks, did not notice the armour. They barely noticed the size. The leader levelled his pistol.
"Get lost, freak. This ain't your turf." The Space Marine spoke back.
"I find your harassment of others distressing." The leader gave what was probably meant to be a smart quip.
"Screw you." And he pulled the trigger on his pistol. The beam struck the Space Marine square on the breastplate, and disappeared.
"That was ineffective." And with that brusque appraisal, the Space Marine moved forward. The leader squeezed off two more shots before the Space Marine was upon him, lashing out with a backhand. The fist connected, and the leader fell back, skull crushed, jawbone powdered, cheekbone shattered, blood pumping freely. The knife man stepped forward, holding his blade right-handed.
"Come on you piece of crap, I will cut you up. Fire!" The Autogun man fired wildly, and the Marine threw up an arm to protect his head. Bullets pinged off his armour, and he launched a deadly right hook that propelled the knife man into a wall. He struck and landed with sickening crunches. The Autogun man took one look at his compatriots' corpses, and ran. He made it four metres before the Space Marine was on him, breaking his back. Raquel heard the snap from where she was curled up. She was stunned. These men had terrorised her life for so long, but to see them killed so quickly, so brutally, so callously, was still a terrifying thing to watch. A hand was extended down to her. It was the Space Marine. She accepted the hand, trying to keep her fingers away from the splatters of blood and grey matter on the back of the gauntlet. She looked up at her saviour, and saw him properly for the first time. His armour was dented, and the helm was missing altogether, revealing a deeply scarred face, in some places held together by Adamantium staples. A cyborg eye whirred slightly as it focused on her. An upraised fist was tattooed on his forehead, and was bisected by one of the scars. Several fresher wounds lay around his face, and she recognised them as knife marks. She knew knife marks far too well. His armour was black with white detailing, the colour of the Iron Hands. Carlos had told her about them. Believing the flesh to be innately flawed, they cybernetically augmented themselves beyond being organic, to the point of being more machine than man. She had seen propaganda vids on the one large pict-screen in the building, the one in the basement. Space Marines were shown on the vids, but they were always wearing helmets and working alongside Guardsmen. They did not look like the pitted, scarred, beaten, bruised creature she saw before her. He spoke.
"I am injured. Do you have shelter?"
If you liked this, for crying out loud, just comment. If you didn't like it, comment. Just comment. It gets annoying seeing how few people want to share any sort of opinion about my stories.