Kharn the Betrayer stood atop the battlements of an ancient Space Marine stronghold with a leer and wide, manic grin beneath his corrupted Khornate-styled helmet. His entire body pulsed with flares of anger and hatred and pure malice to dominate anything that might writhe beneath his heel in an effort to preserve itself before him. His genetically-enhanced eyes scanned the interior of the stronghold, finding nobody worth slaying at the moment. For the past few years, bloodshed had been his at every twist and turn, every day another adventurous slaughter. He had drawn every color of red blood possible, and some blue blood from a few aliens. His grin widened at the thought. Blood was just one of those things that got his hearts racing and his bloodlust fueled once again.
In his armored fist, his axe Gorechild revved with anticipation, the daemon snarling within its adamantium and mica-dragon-teeth form. Its presence filled him with such emotion as to simply run into a battle and roar that he was going to slay everything in sight, and then do so indiscriminately. The thought made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle and he grew even more excited. He searched eagerly around the battlefield once again, hungrily searching the fighting masses of Space Marines and his own eight detachments of berserkers. He found a worthy-looking captain with a heavy weapons squad surrounding him. Kharn found this to be pleasing, that he would be able to kill such men of worth!
The crazed berserker let out a roar filled with terrible mirth and leapt from the battlements, his entourage of seven Chaos Marines at his heels, all with revved chain axes and bolt pistols ready. Kharn raised his plasma pistol and aimed for the PDF troopers standing between him and his chosen foe's skull. The Guardsmen stood for not a single second as another squad of berserkers overtook them in a furious and frenzied charge. Kharn used the heads of one of his berserkers as a springboard and leapt up above the mass of his warriors in the middle of their battle lust. His heels pounded against the bloody soil beneath him and he continued toward the captain without losing step.
Inside this low-walled fortress there was a bunker atop the central hill, and three support platforms surrounding it. The bunker itself was situated in a tiny crater of sorts, where the captain was hiding from Kharn like a coward, directing fore support to the battle from a safe distance. Kharn would soon put an end to that, just as soon as he could get through this support platform and head up the rest of the hill to the bunker. He ducked a stray rocket and felt Gorechild shiver in his grasp, the anticipation building within the mighty weapon. Kharn cursed the nearest living thing as he leapt up the last few feet to the platform's plascrete surface. His ceramite boots thudded against the platform and a dozen surprised Guardsmen stared at him like he was the god Khorne himself! Kharn put a searing plasma ball into the auto cannon's handler and the man slumped to the floor with half his torso gone.
The rest of Kharne's squad arrived and they tore into the Guardsmen without question, even beating the heavy weapon into a pile of machine parts. Kharn was proud to call them his warriors, and he let out a howl in satisfaction. More of his fellow Khornate worshipers let out a similar series of howls and roars as another platform was taken. Kharn sprinted up the last leg of his journey to the captain, taking a few hapless PDF troopers with the butt of his pistol. He leapt upon the lip of the shallow crater and bellowed his challenge.
'Weak Emperor-worshipers! I come for the head of your greatest warrior! Provide me one, or you shall all be slain at once!" he roared. Within the second, a purple stream of laser fire streamed just past his helmet, searing the ancient armor set upon his body. He growled, knowing that these were not the type to let him attack their leader so easily. With a curse to their god, he jumped to the bunker's side and hacked down a Space Marine holding a heavy bolter. Ceramite ripped to ribbons as Gorechild shrieked with pleasure and satisfaction, blood gouting out of the Space Marine's newly-bisected body. The Emperor's servant hadn't the time to even scream as Kharn dug Gorechild deeper into his body, a gleam returning to his eyes when the marine tried to grab the axe as to prevent it from tearing all the way through him. His attempt was in vain.
Kharn cut clear through the marine's torso and his daemon weapon left the Space Marine's body with a whirring hiss. The disheveled corpse sank to the ground in two pieces, organs and all manner of genetic augmentation spilling out onto the ground. Kharn whipped his head around to find the captain aiming at him a twin-linked storm bolter. The Khornate Champion leapt to the side as a flurry of white-hot death sprayed forth from the powerful weapon's muzzle, tearing to shreds a berserker just entering the crater's mouth. Kharn swept his axe across the marine;s ankles, but his adversary was quick enough to dodge with only minor scrapes.
'Chaos-worshiping filth! Betrayer!' the captain hissed, drawing a chainsword from his belt. Kharn grinned and began to laugh uncontrollably.
'Good to see that you've heard of me! I knew your weak man-Emperor, and Khorne is a god nothing like your fool-Emperor ever was!" Kharn bellowed with rage and fury renewed. He leapt forward, discarding his pistol to take his favored chain axe in both hands. The captian raised his blade to parry and the two weapons met with a blinding shower of white and red sparks. Unfortunately fot eh Space Marine, his sacred weapon was no match for the daemon axe, and soon the toll of facing down such a fearsome weapon showed. The chainsword's teeth wore down and the weapon bellowed smoke. Kharn saw the Space Marine's right arm swing to put the storm bolter's muzzle against his gut.
Twisting in almost a boneless motion, Kharn managed to dodge the gun's flash of death and heard the frenzied death-cy of another of his fellow berserkers. Further fueled by the terrible noise, Kharn put his knee against the marine's chest with blinding speed and daemonic power, cracking the ceramite armor with relative ease. Blood sprayed out from the wound and the marine's strength failed for the tiniest of seconds. Kharn pressed down again with Gorechild, and this tie was rewarded when the weapon's nigh-indestructible teeth spilled his adversary's brains all across the floor beneath their feet.
Gorechild finished its rampage in the center of the Space Marine's chest, where Kharn removed it with a spiteful kick to the standing corpse holding fast to the weapon. Kharn swung back with one arm and caught another marine in the back of the neck, severing his head almost instantly. Kharn laughed with the favor of his god filling his corrupted soul and the blood of fallen foes began to pool around his feet. He looke dup at the greenish sky and laughed even harder, so that maybe his god could hear the laughter and join him on this glorious battlefield to rejoin the slaughter he had promised and given for so many thousands of years on end.
And as he looked back to the ground, he noticed that he was standing atop an elevator, directly on a lift that seemed to go to the interior of the bunker. With a grin, he found the controls and smashed them with the butt of his pistol, dangling from a thick set of cables hooked up to his power armor's exhaust and power pack. The three others with him were silent, but trembling with the thrill of battle, as the lift began its descent into the bunker. All around were wires and flashing lights and intercom systems of all kinds. Kharn paid no attention to them as the sky disappeared above them and the lift stopped to reveal that they were not alone in this place.
Before them was what looked to be a large hanger, housing several transport ships that were still running, servitors carrying various boxes and other supply items into them with an order that made Kharn's blood boil. This was not how it was to be! He needed disorder, Chaos! He needed the thrill of battle, the uncontrolled lust for blood! And he strode forward, axe and pistol held ready to do the work he wished for them. It was his duty…no, his privilege, his right even! To be able to draw blood and sacrifice blood to the Blood God! He raised Gorechild and charged forth, eyes gleaming with little more than blind fury. These weaklings would learn that their folly was not worth the price in blood they would pay!
Kharn smashed into one of the busy servitors, his heavily armored shoulder crushing bone and metal alike. The servitor was thrown aside and the contents of his crate spilled out onto the ground. Kharn watched as dozens of grenades rolled across the floor, and he laughed again, this time out of real humor. Khorne had provided him a means of spreading blood all across this place! He picked one up and pulled the pin, tossing it into the back of a transport ship. The mindless servitor drones didn't even realized that they were being killed until an explosion rocked the transport, blood and oil spraying in all directions.
Kharn glared around, finding that more of his fellow berserkers had managed to break into this hanger from different entrances and were overwhelming the PDF troopers and Space Marine task force left to defend this place. Kharn searched for more worthy foes, and found a very interesting one in the middle of the room. He looked to be an Adeptus Mechanicus Enginseer, a crimson cowl over his head and the rest of his cloak flowing down to his midsection. Upon his back was a pack that seemed implanted to his very body, with two limbs rising from it. There were other smaller limbs as well, and several bodily augmentations.
This engineseer was fighting alongside three space marines armed with a chainsword and bolt pistol each, doing battle with more than their fair share of foes. Berserkers came at them from in front and behind, crying out curses and baying for blood like hounds awaiting a kill. Kharn raced ahead of his squad members and witnessed a truly surprising sight. The enginseer lashed out with both mechanical limbs and pierced the armor of two oncoming berserkers. Each limb raised the marines off the ground and tossed them away, whirling around to snap another warrior's head into three pieces not a second later. The enginseer roared orders, and Kharn found the voice to be too feminine, less baritone than he'd previously thought.
Grabbing the plasma pistol dangling from the wire hooked into his arm, Kharn managed to get a bead on one of the space marines and fired. The Adeptus Astartes blocked with his own pistol, the thing turning into a melting, useless, heap of slag. Kharn was close enough now to find out that the enginseer was not at all what he had thought, but had no time to think about it as the pistol-less marine met his charge, chainsword in both hands.
Kharn swung up with Gorechild and the marine managed to parry his blow, though at the cost of half the teeth on his blade. Kharn struck again with practiced ease and caught the marine in the shoulder with his axe, teeth whirring and ripping ceramite from the marine's paudron. This time, however, Kharn used his pistol to finish the job with a ball of plasma to the Astertes' head. Blood sprayed forth as the marine's thick skull was melted away and his brain exposed. Kharn rammed his fist into the exposed cavern and found that squishy brains awaited his fist, and no genetic implants. He roared again and kicked away the standing corpse, thumbing the Chaos rune so that Gorechild's many teeth whirred again with fury.
Another marine was overwhelmed by Khornate worshipers and Kharn leapt into the fray once more, swinging his axe cruelly into the warrior's side through his arm. Mica-dragon teeth bit home and severed the marine's arm, and then sliced the warrior in half in another moment. With the marines dead, Kharn turned to the enginseer for a fight. But the Adeptus Mechanicus lying unconscious on the ground was not as he had been a few moments ago. In fact, he was not male at all, but a woman.
She had a Gothic number eight electoo just above her robust left breast. The mechanical thing on her back had two large, gangly arms ending in a clawed metal hand with five fingers and another one with a grappling claw with three curved and sharp prongs. Six other small limbs wrapped around her body and acted as artificial ribs, piercing her flesh so that the augmentations grafted to her back had a firmer hold on her torso. On each thigh were four Adeptus Mechanicus symbols: a gear surrounding a half human, half machine skull. Her right hand was mechanical, made of a black metal and with clawed fingers, dripping with blood and gore. Eight wires entered her skin from the hand, all of them red and gold. On her left hand was a fingerless black glove, and she wore eight blinking rings on her fingers. Her legs were incased in what seemed to be mechanical boots that ran up to her thighs, each of them bearing four small, blinking bulbs of light. Around her were eight slain berserkers, all of them put down by her strength.
Kharn squatted down at got a closer look at her before one of his fellow berserkers raised his axe to strike.
'Blood for the Blood God!' he roared. Kharn flipped his pistol against the berserker's head and fired, turning the warrior's helm and head into slag. Kharn stood back up and searched the immediate circle of warriors for any who might defy him in a similar manner. They all stared silently at him, trembling as they awaited new orders of slaughter and bloodletting. Kharn turned his gaze back to the woman, not sure of what to do.
'Bloodmaster,' spoke Veridun, one of Kharn's favored companions. 'What of the mechanicus cult woman?' he questioned.
'She bears eight artificial limbs, eight wires in her hand, the symbol of eight, eight tattoos, eight artificial fingers, eight rings, eight red bulbs on her legs, and eight slain warriors about her. Eight of sacred eight. Khorne's favor is with her, and she shall be a fine warrior for me to slay,' he stated, watching the woman. He realized now why she had been knocked unconscious. The chains wrapped around his left forearm had beaten her unconscious, a side effect from the attack against the final marine with Gorechild. The woman's organic eye opened and she stared directly into Kharn's soul, or so it felt to the Chaos Marine.
'Data retrieval, file three five four four one seven, Adeptus Astartes Chaotica, version Exemplar Cultus of Khorne. Data retrieval successful, uncorrupted data, proceed in backing up process,' came the emotionless, mindless chant from her lips. Kharn had it in his mind to kill her now, but the fact that she had eight sacred numbers of eight stayed his hand. Tiny Gothic script flashed over the green lens of her mechanical right eye and then vanished. The woman sat up, putting the crimson robe back to cover most of her breasts. She looked up at Kharn and tilted her head to the side curiously.
'Prepare yourself, machine-worshiper,' Kharn threatened, raising Gorechild.
'You are a Chaos Space Marine serving Khorne, god of blood, are you not?' she questioned. Kharn was frozen. What was this? She did not fear him? She did not plan to strike out at him, nor defend herself in any way? Did she plan to die here?! No, this was some sort of trap, meant to lure him into a false sense of security. If he touched, her, electricity might burn his flesh, or shut down his brain and kill him. She could have some form of hidden weapon waiting to blast him back into the Warp, which was an unpleasant thought at the very least.
'Yes, now prep-'
'You must be from the World Eaters Chapter, correct?'
'Yes! Now bloody fi-'
'Which means that you must be a champion due to the age of your armor,' she stated with a tiny smile on her face. Kharn fumed. He no longer cared what manner of hidden weapon she might have! She would be silenced one way or another: be it by his words or his axe!
'Silenc-'
'You are Kharn of the World Eaters, Eight Assault Company Commander,' she stated, flipping open the Deus ex Machina book in her left hand and reading a passage out of it to herself, as if completely oblivious to the raging champion of Khorne before her. Kharn would have mistaken her for the bravest being in all the galaxy had he not known any better. She knew exactly who he was, and yet did not cower of run, but simply stared at her book and its words rather than at her seeming-iminent doom. This woman, whatever had happened to her while she was unconscious, had lost her allegiance to the Emperor and her hatred towards those who would kill her false god-Emperor. Kharn felt a malicious grin spread across his face.
'Tell me, woman, what you know of Khorne and your false-Emperor,' Kharn said, lowering his axe for the moment. The woman closed her book.
'Retrieving data files, one through three eight one, The Emperor of Mankind, the Dark Gods of Chaos. The Emperor is the savior of mankind, the Great Unifier who rests upon the Golden Throne and will on day reclaim his Imperium and save mankind from the brink of destruction. Khorne, one of the four Chaos Gods, the god of blood. Primary worship is bloodletting and the drawing of blood in battle. Skulls are taken to gain favor. Champions of Khorne are bloodthirsty and murderous,' she said robotically, a gleam in her organic teal eye. After the was through, she smiled up at Kharn faintly, as if awaiting another question.
'Which do you serve?' the champion of Khrone asked, gripping the adamantium haft of Gorechild tightly. He wanted her to say her own god, but…it was almost a feeling of wanting her to say Khorne that stayed his hand. He didn't have to wait long.
'I am surrounded by the worshipers of Khorne. My hands are covered with blood: by practical deduction, I am a warrior of Khorne.' She reopened her book and continued her reading silently this time. Kharn was both pleased and enraged at her statement and found that no matter how much he wanted to slay her here and now and take her skull as another trophy, the fact that she had eight eights and had stated that she followed Khorne made him relent and simply bellow a roar in fury and confusion.
He turned to the nearest warrior he could find, which was Durinak, and cleaved his head in twain with Gorechild, splattering blood all over the woman in front of him. She closed her book just before the shower of blood rained down upon her and covered her entire form. Kharn laughed maniacally once again and his warriors did so with him at a moment's notice. Gorechild completely severed Durinak's head, left shoulder, and much of his torso from the rest of his red-armored body and the tow pieces fell to the floor in a pool of crimson blood and swirling Chaos energies. Kharn's eyes glowed red with the bloodlust Khorne had naturally set upon him. He glared at the woman.
'Your name, so that I may call you a proper fool when you die,' Kharn barked. The woman stared at him for a moment before licking the blood from her teeth. She smoothed out her blood-drenched black hair as she spoke.
'I am Kuria.'
'You are Khoria! You are a dog of Khorne, nothing more!' Kharn shouted back at her. She nodded.
'I am Khoria,' she corrected herself. Kharn fumed with ill-tempered anger and turned on heel and stomped away, his warriors and new convert to Khorne in tow. Back on his ship, he was going to slay something a thousand times for this! Not only was the thought of a woman following him infuriating, but one who was apparently favored of Khorne was even more so! Kharne had seen no visions, had no pictures in blood spread out for him to tell him of this! His god had not even told him of what planet to wreak havoc upon! He roared again in rage and kicked a corpse so hard that it split in half. His entire body trembled as he made his was back to the elevator that would take him back to the surface.