Title: Victory or Death.
Author: Knife Hand
Feedback: Constructive feedback appreciated, flames unappreciated
Spoilers: General for 40K and SAO
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I do not own Warhammer 40K or Sword Art Online.
Summary: Four Hundred Thousand players log into the much anticipated Warhammer 40K Apocalypse Online, only to find themselves trapped inside with no way out. 40K SAO crossover.
Siglynd smiled inside her helmet as she blocked the Autarch's blade with the lower shaft of her Chain Halberd, twisting as she did to avoid fire from the pistol in the Autarch's other hand. She wanted this fight to be one on one, for the pleasure of the contest and the glory of Slaanesh. She had already taken out the Autarch's bodyguard with her Sniper Rifle, without the assistance of her Cultists, and left them to form a perimeter around the challenge. During her hunt for the Autarch, Siglynd had avoided most of the battle, walking through the hacked-up corpses left by the raging Skull Taker and Blood Spiller Warbands, and the occasional bloated corpse left in the wake of the Plague Mother Warband. She had idly noticed that there were no dead from the Plague Mother Warband but numerous from the two Khorne worshiping Warbands.
The Autarch tried to attack in a flurry of blows and pistol shots, so Siglynd spun her Halberd like a quarterstaff in a tight figure eight motion that seemed to form an impregnable barrier, causing the Autarch to back off slightly, presuming he was out of range. With a quick shift of her grip and a sweep of her arms, the Halberd went from a tight and close in barrier to reaching out to the Autarch almost two metres away with its chain head biting into his breastplate and completely removing his left arm at the wrist in a spray of blood, taking the pistol with it. A half step forward and a reverse swing with the Halberd and the Autarch's head was cleanly removed from his shoulders.
Sighing in disappointment that the glorious pleasure of combat was over so soon, Siglynd turned to see a grinning Kilith, covered in blood and holding the green helmeted head of the Stinging Scorpion Exarch in one hand and gesturing to the datachip that had fallen from the Autarch with the other.
Siglynd simply shrugged and walked away, probing at the few slices from the Autarch's sword and grazes from his pistol that she had acquired during the fight. The pain was a different kind of ecstasy to the fight itself but Slaanesh exalted all kinds of pleasure.
Marthris hunkered down behind the small wall, ready to lead the final assault. In normal fights the three Skittarii squads of the Crimson Warriors, Kreel, Questor and Marthris' own, were either an impenetrable barrier or an unstoppable battering ram, allowing the rest of the Guild to exploit any weaknesses in the enemy.
There were now thirty Skittarii squads surrounding Marthris, with him in command, and another two equally sized formations of exclusively Skittarii at the head of the two other thrusts of the assault. More Skittarii squads were in the main body of the three assault forces, forming the core of the force alongside the Storm Troopers.
"Unleash Hell!" Remnos ordered.
Marthris paused for a moment before leading the force forward, the force sticking to the edge of the access way. Ahead was the large open space where the target force was hunkered down behind barricades. It looked like a nightmare where the infantry would be instantly cut down, but Remnos and Sealth had planned for that. At the same moment the lead Skittarii reached the edge of the access way the associated column of Devil Dogs and Hellhounds reached it to, spreading out to provide both cover for the infantry but with corridors to allow the infantry to fire back.
The Skittarii Vanguard and the vehicles were pushing forward, with their primary objective being the capture of the barricades, both to deny them to the enemy and to allow the following infantry to use them for cover.
One of the Hellhounds ten metres to Marthris' left took a hit to the tread and rolled to a stop as the rest of the line advanced. Marthris saw a Tech Adept, who looked like Nox but it was hard to tell with the hooded robes from that distance, run out from cover to begin Combat Repairs on the Hellhound. The Devil Dogs were firing up over the immediate defences at the more distant ones, while the Hellhounds were flaming the barricade.
Marthris was the first over the barricade, into a small network of barricades and slit trenches. Moving through the trenches, a rebel stepped out in front of Marthris, his two-handed sword already coming down. Marthris reached up with one augmented hand and stopped the slash cold as his hand wrapped around both of the rebel's hand, which he crushed with a single flex of his hand. The rebel screamed until Marthris put the barrel of his weapon under the rebel's chin and blew off his head.
"Stage one complete." Marthris said as he kept moving forward.
"Begin stage two." Remnos ordered.
Lina took the lead of the assault force moving through the corridors of the Command Centre of the Rebel forces in Sector Twenty. Ripley and Marias were with her assault force as were Tona and Hawk. All told there were about twenty Squads in the force, not a huge force, considering, but an elite one. Wilkies was leading a similar sized elite force from the other end of the Command Centre, which had Serrin, Cam and Ryker in its ranks. This was an assassination sweep, to take out the command element of the Rebels, including their leader, who could arguably be called the 'Planet Boss'
The majority of the rest of the Squads in the Sectors were still pacifying the surrounding area, something that would become easier once the 'Planet Boss' was killed but still a vital part of the mission as the co-ordinates would not unlock until the final Sector was fully cleared. A number of prominent squads were at the hastily erected medical centre, either as protection detail or for treatment, as the Player or more than half the squad were injured.
Lina and Wilkies were more than eager to finish this, partly as the battle had been ongoing for about three weeks now, no one knew exactly because it was all starting to blur together, but mostly to get revenge for Jen. Jen had been badly injured, along with Zenith and a number of NPCs from both their squads, in two separate ambushes, as had over a hundred Players, seventeen of whom had died in the ambushes. Over a thousand Allied NPC's had been severely injured or killed during the battle, but fortunately the casualties were mostly spread out across the force rather than being concentrated into specific squads as they had been in the Macros' Garden Boss Fight.
Lina kept he force together as they pursued a group that was retreating in front of them, making sure they did not rush into an ambush. As they approached an intersection, Lina spread her force out into cover along the corridor. A Vox burst from Wilkies showed up on her HUD that his force was approaching from the cross corridor on their left flank. As the last of her squads settled into cover, there was movement ahead.
A single figure emerged, a tall and handsome man dressed in the trappings of an Imperial Lord General, though the creases indicated that he was wearing armour, most likely Carapace, under his uniform. This was the man who had convinced so many to turn against the Imperium.
"Friends…" He began in a deep, rich voice before he was cut off by a Las round kissing a deep furrow along his cheek and destroying his left ear.
Tona's shot not only interrupted what was no doubt going to be a rousing and convincing monologue but also acted as a signal for the two assault teams. In a matter of seconds, the Rebel Leader was absolutely shredded by an almost continuous stream of Bolter Rounds, Las Rounds, Hot Shot Las Rounds, Grenades and Melta Bolts. The rebel troopers in his Command Squad rushed out in a futile attempt to save their Leader and were cut down in turn without getting a shot off.
Lina and Wilkies both approached the small chunks of scorched meat that had been the Planet Boss. The small Dataslate was lying unharmed amongst the carnage.
"Go ahead." Wilkies said. "I got the last one."
Lina leaned down to pick up the Dataslate.
"All this for such a small thing." She mused.
"Hey Boss." Tona said as she sat in the chair next to Jen's bed in the building that had been converted to the medical facility.
Jen had been hit in the side with a Las round and had pushed through the pain and engaged the attackers in close combat, earning her the deep slash in her right leg that barely missed a major artery and a broken left forearm where she had tried to block a strike with her Armour. Sister Sabatine was standing guard at the foot of Jen's bed and had not moved from the spot since Jen had been admitted.
Sister Cassandra was similarly standing guard over the injured Sister Rose a few doors down, while Sister Magritte and Sister Joyce were part of the force defending the facility.
"Tona, how did the mission go?" Jen asked, her voice strained from the pain and the drugs.
Jen had been the one to plan and organise the Assault on the Rebel Leader.
"We shredded the bastard." Tona replied. "Sister Lina has the Dataslate. Wilkies estimates we'll finish clearing the Sector in the next six to nine hours."
"Good." Jen said, finally letting sleep claim her, after fighting it for the last three days to command the final stages of the Sector Clearance from her bed.
TBC…