Story of a 'Badguy'
Brother Asmodean, champion of the Alpha legion, traitor to the Imperium, fired his Plasma pistol as he sprinted forward. The sky was black with clouds and torrential rain turned the ground to mud, but still the Chaos marine kept perfect balance as he sprinted full tilt across the open ground. Brother Asmodean watched dispassionately as his shot vaporised one of the guardsman sentries. He went down without a cry. The dry hiss of the weapon drowned out by the thunderous downpour. His brothers were behind him, a full squad of chosen, debatably the most deadly group of individuals in the galaxy. Behind them lay two more squads of Alpha legionnaires. One hundred metres to the trenches, guardsmen were just starting to poke their heads above the parapet, sensing something wrong. Their panicked cries raised the alarm. Seventy five metres, lasfire began to dart out towards him. Brother Asmodean snarled, as one particularly lucky shot hit him in the chest, marring the midnight blue surface of his power armour with an ugly black scorch mark, but otherwise doing nothing. His brothers were firing their own weapons now; pin point accurate bolt pistol fire ensuring the enemy kept their heads down or have it blown off. Fifty metres to the enemy trench and the guardsmen fire was beginning to have an effect. Despite the suppressing fire of his bodyguard one lucky shot punched through the armour of Brother Samuel's knee, sending him crashing to the ground. Asmodean knew he would be fine, but for now he was out of the fight. In desperation to halt the charge the guardsmen were throwing dozens of grenades towards the onrushing enemy. The chaos Marines sprinted forward un-deterred. Explosions sending even Asmodean staggering, slowing, but not stopping the marines.
Any second now, Asmodean thought with a savage grin, those Imperial fools are in for a surprise. Even as he thought it, the screaming noise of his Raptor's jetpacks became audible. Dropping from the sky like a gruesome parody of angels Brother Ishmael and his squad landed amongst the imperials. The screams and the sounds of chainswords ripping through flesh filled the trenches.
Asmodean sprinted the last few metres to the trench unopposed, the sounds of combat urging him on. Leaping into the trench Asmodean could see immediately that Ishmael and his squad were doing their job well. Almost a dozen guardsmen lay hacked and dismembered in the mud at the bottom of the trench. Asmodean slashed his blade through the nearest guardsman. The totally black blade sliced through his flak armour as if it weren't there. Asmodean felt a momentary rush of power as the daemon bound in the blade awoke. He immediately focused his will on the blade, fully prepared for any tricks the daemon might have planned. As predicted the daemon howled its rage at him, trying to overpower his mind and dominate his will. On another man it might have worked, but Asmodean had ten thousand years of experience and the superhuman abilities of a space marine. Crushing the swords attempts to seize power ruthlessly, Asmodean quickly spun and sliced through the arm off another guardsman attempting to stab him with his bayonet. His bodyguard came piling in to the trench at that moment, quickly crushing all resistance in the immediate area.
Looking around him Asmodean saw the shredded and dismembered remains of almost one hundred men littering the trench. All of them were wearing the green fatigues of the imperial guard. He heard the choking sound of a voice at his feet. A guardsmen, with most of his guts hanging out was muttering something in a broken whisper
"May the emperor receive my soul . . . and watch over it in his loving embrace. He watches over us . . . and delivers us from evil . . ." The rest was in-audible as the soldier lost the energy to speak. Asmodean looked down at the face of this man, and he hated him. He hated him for his ridiculous blind faith in a corpse hundreds of light-years away. For pathetically allowing himself to be manipulated by the lies of the Imperium's missionaries. Most of all however he hated him for being weak, for not having the strength to defeat his enemies. That was what made him truly pathetic, weakness. Turning away in disgust Asmodean activated the command vox in his helmet, tuning in to the command channel.
"Status report" Asmodean growled into the vox bead.
"Commander, squads report no significant resistance, the first line of trenches has been taken and we are bringing up armour support to punch through to the enemy command post.
Asmodean grinned savagely, a two kilometre stretch of the enemy trenches taken in less than ten minutes. Of course the Imperium would pour thousands of guardsmen into the area to retake it. Unfortunately for them, the mechanised infantry that were supposed to reinforce this section of the line in the event of a breakthrough were experiencing some vehicle problems.
Cultist squads employed by the alpha legion were not the usual chaos worshippers. As opposed to raving zealots, charging into battle in a crazed mob, these were more akin to a special operations group. Trained by the Alpha legion in acts of sabotage, assassination and espionage, given top notch weapons, these cultists were extremely effective at operating behind enemy lines, as in this case when they had been ordered to prevent the enemy reinforcements arriving too quickly.
With the enemies chimera's disabled, it would take at least thirty minutes for reinforcements to arrive. Plenty of time, Asmodean thought. As he checked through the squad vox bands to see who was injured he felt the faint tremble of a number of armoured vehicles moving up behind him. The final tally was two severely wounded, and a number of las burns. As the six imperial pattern chimeras rolled up behind him Asmodean clambered out of the trench and gave them a quick signal to show them where he was. The chimeras roared to a halt and out of the rear doors poured a hoard of chaos 'irregulars'. Mutants and traitorous guardsmen for the most part, the dregs of humanity that the forces of chaos used to create the vast bulk of their armies.
This was the second phase of Asmodean's plan. His brothers quickly climbed out of the trench, letting the traitors and mutants occupy the trenches. The Alpha legionnaires quickly divided into smaller parties, embarking onto the chimaeras. Asmodean's twenty bodyguards, including Brother Samuel who seemed to be back on his feet, split in two moving to occupy the last chimaeras. Although not designed for a space marine's height, the transports were a necessary evil. Asmodean barked an order into his vox for the decoys to make sure they were visible. Out of the top hatches of each chimera popped seemingly an imperial guardsman, the uniforms had been authentic so no worries there and traitors with no obvious mutations or tattoos had been selected. Unless examined closely, it would be impossible to tell them as servants of the ruinous powers. Their purpose was to make the ruse believable to the second line of trenches. Stepping in to the last transport, with his chosen, Asmodean closed the hatches.
"Okay, lets go" growled Asmodean, and on a separate channel to the traitor squad leaders outside. "Remember, small arms fire only, I want this believable but if you disable one of my transports I'll rip you apart!" With that the chimaeras rumbled into motion, driving over the trench with their great tracks and heading towards the second line of Imperial trenches.
---I wanted to write a story about the badguys of 40k as they always seem to be portrayed as insane madmen or they are evil for no aparant reason. I think it is far more scary if the badguys arent insane, and know exactly why they do the things they do. Anyway, tell me what u think.
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