Raid
Wiki would never lower herself to crying – but the gradual re-emergence of a somewhat fragile psyche is unpleasant enough that there is the ever so slight chance of her eyes inadvertently generating too much moisture, naturally enough this cannot be seen. By anyone. Thus why Wiki is crouched – huddled really – in the corner of a deserted building a bit more than a kilometre north of the archeotech horde. If anyone was brave enough to ask she might claim that she was keeping watch, alternatively she might quite literally rip their heads off. Nobody has asked.
She knows she's not really alone anyway, Blocka turned up a few hours ago, set up a snipers perch in the floor above her and promptly fell asleep. Thrope's downstairs ostensibly checking out some weird engravings he noticed on the journey back from the previous excursion. Chiku is almost certainly around somewhere – she tends to gravitate toward either Thrope or Wiki. Taka and Slick are somewhere in a neighbouring building.
Then there are the ripperjacks. Round about two thousand of them. Nestled in to just about every single nook and cranny the ruins have to offer, every one of them emitting a constant low croon, vibrations reverberating through the building with the sheer quantity of sound.
Long brown hair falling around her scarred face, knees clutched to her chest, surrounded by entities she will never ever EVER admit to being more than acquaintances, Wiki sobs herself back into existence, tears of self-acknowledgement slowly driving Al'Grash La'Shan back into the corners of her mind.
She senses everything around her, the crimson glows of her ripperjacks so concentrated that the building itself is outlined in red, Thrope's muted white flame moves beneath her and Blocka's slumbering earthiness reclines above. The dirty green of Slick and the blue spark of Taka just slightly further afield, even Chiku shows up – a small void of nothingness in the cacophony of life.
And two small flickers of gleaming silver. Accompanied by several flecks of grey that can only be Tau.
The Eldar are trying to be sneaky. Again.
Enough.
Wiki hauls herself to her feet, wipes a brown sleeve across her eyes, bathes in the reassuring presence of her family for a few more precious seconds, a private smile momentarily striking her face with a splash of unexpected beauty before she tilts back her head and takes a deep breath.
A sonic current of life sweeps through the ruins, a vicious wave of pure exhilaration that jump charges the brain and rampages through the blood.
Blocka snaps back to full alertness, instantly sweeping the sights of his weapon over the open field of sand.
A brilliant flash of white flame emerges from the lower floors, accompanied by Thrope's raw throaty laughter.
Taka whoops an ecstaticly ululating battle cry to the sky, unslinging his shotgun.
Three swords – one a gleaming Eldar blade - rasp out of three scabbards, their hilts each in the grip of a furiously grinning three-armed man.
Chiku sits on the shoulders of a burning man, a gentle smile on her silent lips.
Thousands of ripperjacks explode into the sky, their previous crooning transformed into terrifying shrieks of adoring welcome.
It is the sound of a falcons triumph at a kill, the howling of a wolfen king, the roar of the greatest champion, the primal scream of a defending mother.
It is a sound the galaxy has had the misfortune to not hear for many years. It is the sound that banished a daemon, the sound that once desecrated and destroyed a significant portion of the lord of pleasures gardens, the sound that first drew her greatest friends to her side.
It is the song of Wiki Draknok, a farm girl who refused to let her body belong to anyone but her, a human who survived the warp itself, a woman who escaped a daemon-hunt and earned the enmity of a god.
And it says that SHE. IS. BACK.
…...
A cloud of ripperjacks sweeps into the sky, the red plume of an Eldar Banshee and the shimmering cloak of a ranger obviously apparent to their multifaceted eyes.
The comm in Thrope's armour buzzes. "Eldar, two, banshee and ranger, looks like they roped the Tau into their own bloody mess as well – think they're after their leader?"
"Aye lass, ah reckon they likely ain't figured on the speed ah Taka's mates. Think yer friends can keep the Tau busy? Thinkin' they ain't exactly got all the details here."
"Probably, there hasn't been this many of them since...well, a long time. You want sword girl left alone?"
"And here ah was thinkin' readin' minds was our little Chiku's trick. Thanks. Yer got a handle on where our suicidal elves be headin'?"
"Oh yes, Banshee's coming down the middle of the buildings – likely coming for me. Ranger's going around to the east, maybe trying to line up a shot on you."
"Good. Everyone else get that?"
"Got it." Slick.
"Acknowledged." Blocka.
"Good hunting to all." Taka.
Chiku nods emphatically.
"Right. An' everyone? Yeh might say ah'm getting' just the littlest bit tired of the arrogant little sods attempting to pry into our business. We break them, right now."
He clicks to a more private band.
"Wiki."
"Yes?"
"Yer back with us there?"
"Suppose I must be."
"Good, I need you keepin' a tight handle on yer friends, just put em between us and the Tau. No killin' unless absolutely necessary, if my plan pays off we'll not be wantin' anymore bad blood."
"I can do that, won't be much good for fighting though."
"Tis alright lass. And Wiki?"
"Hmm?"
"Welcome back lass."
"Don't make me kill you, old man."
She clicks off. Thrope's eyes close as he smiles, a hidden tension flowing out of molten shoulders. He clicks off.
…...
The Eldar ranger presses himself against the eastern wall of a ruin, his cloak blending him almost perfectly into the pale rock. He readies his rifle and sweeps round the corner.
And Taka receives glorious confirmation that he is indeed faster than an Eldar.
A shotgun blast hits the ranger at murderously short range, a bloody wreck collapsing to the ground.
Somehow still breathing, the ranger manages to crack open his one remaining eye. There is a three-armed man standing over him, the man holds three swords, two of which cross over the eldars throat. There is nothing even approaching mercy in his bearded face.
An open-mouthed Eldar head rolls along the ground.
…...
The Banshee seems to know what happened to her compatriot. It appears to have made her quite angry. Blocka shoots her. Twice. The toxins in his darts do not appear to have any effect.
Slick kicks the rangers head around the corner, in front of the banshee. He strides after it, motioning Taka to stay back.
The mask of the banshee hides whatever expressions must be flitting across her face. She screams as she charges – the mask artificially enhancing her battle cry to a level that should make the nervous system of any sentient being cringe in pain.
It's nothing compared to the noises Wiki can make.
Slick doesn't even bother to ready his swords, he's seen the slight distortion Chiku makes in the air when she doesn't want to be noticed. The banshee hasn't.
She makes it about halfway towards Slick before her muscles stop obeying her. Swords fall from nerveless hands – but the banshee doesn't have time to hit the ground.
In an explosion of red-hot masonry a glowing hand bursts through a wall and seizes the eldar around the throat. Stone boils into lava as Thrope emerges from the building, the molten fingers of his other hand tearing off the banshee's mask before he lifts the eldars curiously unburned face to his own, glaring into her eyes.
The burning man looks angry. You can tell – his accent's gone.
"Three times. Three times our paths have crossed. First in alliance, where we kept our word. Second in betrayal, where you broke with us and suffered the consequences. And now Third, where you come again. This time in stupid, blind, utterly nearsighted ARROGANCE. So much so that it does not even occur to you that last we met I LET. YOU. GO."
The eldar chokes back into motion, her fingers scrabbling at an unflinching arm of fire that feels merely warm to the touch. She might as well grasp at a mountain for the good it does. Thrope lowers his voice, such that only the eldar can hear.
"I hold my oaths, I protect my own. In my rage at your actions I nearly cost myself a woman who is my daughter in all but blood. I say to you now, child of the race that spawned the most depraved of evils, creature of those who hold themselves above all others as they drown in the dust of their own legends. No. More."
Thrope's arms glow brightens. The skin of the eldar's neck begins to blister. Still Thrope speaks in a near whisper.
"No more will you pursue me or mine, no more will you attempt to plunder my secrets, no more will you beguile others into doing your own filthy handiwork. You want a secret? Here is one."
He leans in to the bubbling face, the eldar is trying to scream in agony – no sound is coming out.
"The body is not all that I can burn."
And the local warpspace rushes to fill a void where an eldar soul once hung.
Thrope's body cools as he drops the banshee's partially melted corpse. The stink of burning flesh invading everyone's nostrils.
Thrope clicks his comm open, wide-band, he needs to speak to the Tau.