Disclaimer: I don't own Warhammer 40k or any of its characters (although, I wish I did).
He clutched the stock of his trusty sniper rifle close to his body, the barrel balanced up against the burnt out window of the ruin he and his squad had perched in. The air was full of the constant blasting of bolter fire and the stench of fresh blood. The Black Legion had advanced to the entrance of the ruined city, bent on taking the holy relic held within. This was the Ultramarines' last holding point from the treacherous forces of Chaos.
"Targets located!" shouted one of the scout snipers as he surveyed the black landscape.
"Fire!" called Sergeant Telion through the communicators, signalling the snipers to take down the spotted heretics. Four shots were fired seemingly simultaneously. Time seemed to stop as the rifles were fired; only the piercing sound of the bullets was heard. The Black Legion marines were taken out with the most accurate of precision. Brother Elijah of the Ultramarines 10th loaded a fresh clip into his rifle, ignoring the ringing in his ears of the last assassination, and positioned his rifle back onto the burnt out window.
He was part of a defence team, assigned to cover the flanks of the city to prevent any Chaos from infiltrating into the once prosperous city. Elijah was part of the northern team, a squad of Scout snipers sent to the northern half of the city. There were four men at the front, defending from a burn out building, five other men scattered situated at the base of the building, preventing anyone who escaped the snipers' grasp from going any further and the Sergeant, Brother Sergeant Telion himself, surveying the battlefield from the bell tower of a nearby shrine.
"All marines fall back to sector 2, we have lost the gate. I repeat; we have lost the gate."
The call came as a shock to the Scouts, not seeing much action in the duration of their defence.
"This is bad." said Telion, if anyone knows when something was wrong, it'd be him. The rest of the Scouts packed up their rifles and spat on their spent shells, melting them, a tradition in the team*. The snipers started the decent down the ruined building, a good five minutes climb. Elijah noticed some static on the communicator, a lot more than usual regardless of how old it was. His finger twitched. He sensed something.
When the Scouts had reached the second floor, a call came through the communicators.
"Uh, Sir," said one of the brothers on the ground,
"We're not alone."
Elijah looked out of a window towards the open ground. Indeed, they weren't alone. Chaos drop pods were falling from the sky like leaves from an autumn tree. Suddenly, without warning, the whole ruin shook as a large object smashed through taking several brothers with it. Elijah and the remaining scouts were thrown in several directions. Although a normal Space Marine would be able to take a hit as they did, the Scouts didn't have the same equipment, let alone strength to take it. Elijah was stunned for a while, as the dust slowly started to clear. He slowly stood up, leaning against an intact piece of the wall and tried to hold his composure. His rifle, which was once on his back, was now under a piece of rubble; the barrel damaged. Elijah cursed under his breath. There was a large hole in the center of the floor about 3 meters wide. He looked around to his comrades, if it wasn't the impact that killed them; it was a piece of reinforcement that had pierced their armour. He looked outside to see that the sky, that was originally a muddy grey colour, was now blood red.
"Hello, can anyone read me?"
Elijah was startled by this voice but soon realized that his communicator was still functioning and attached to his ear.
"Th- this is Brother Elijah from the 10th Company, re- requesting medical assistance immediately." said Elijah, not fully realizing that his comrades could not be saved.
"Oh thank god, I thought I had lost all of you." It was Telion, Elijah could tell from the sternness in his voice.
"Wh- what hit us?" asked Elijah, still stuttering from his pain.
"A chaos drop pod, the Black Legion is sending reinforcements. They obviously weren't too concerned with the safety of these things as all the passengers were killed on impact." Replied Telion,
"Nevertheless, we still need to fall back to sector 2, we are more useful there at this moment. Can you walk?" asked Telion.
"Yeah. I can. I'll meet you out the front."
Elijah limped his way to the stair case, clumsily falling down to the bottom. He groaned and got back up and continued limping out the door to where he saw Telion standing up against a wall looking out into the distance.
"This is going to be a long walk, are you up to it?" asked Telion.
"I will walk forever in the name of the Emperor." Replied Elijah. Telion smiled, it was the first time Elijah had seen him smile. He smiled back, trying to push back the fear and anguish inside him.
This will be a long walk indeed.
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Authors note: Stay tuned for the second chapter, remember to review. The more reviews I get, the more motivated I will be to write the second chapter (heck, even 1 review will help). This is my first FanFiction, so try not to be harsh ;)
*If you don't already know, Space Marines are genetically modified to make them super soldiers of the Emperor; one of these implants allows them to spit acid