The Angels sat, huddled around a small campfire. Roasting was a large animal akin to a boar. The Angels were silent, exchanging glances, before one of them opened his communicator. The armor he wore was a scattered mix of Mark IV, II, and Primaris X cut down for a Firstborn's size. Back when that was an issue.
On the other side of the communicator, he received a message. "Athalos reporting. They are not here, I have checked many times. If the hunters be here, they must be far away." The man with the communicator was still, silent, but it was as if words were spoken anyway. "I am sure of it." The Angels gave a sigh of relief, but the Astartes with a communicator did not take it too lightly. "It is the seventh day. They come every six to eight days. They will be here tomorrow."
"And we'll escape again," another Astartes declared, his autocannon resting beside him. "Then we'll live for another six to eight days, and we'll figure it out from there."
"Sachain, I wouldn't be too sure of it. Our time is limited, and the starport is close...we must move quickly and deliberately tomorrow, we must gain every inch we can. Before the Angels arrive..." Sachain catches a glimpse of the man underneath the hood. He is old, tired, and scarred, just like his armor.
"Brother, we will make it out of here. We've bled too much to die here," Sachain declared. "Fate demands we survive."
"Fate?" The senior Astartes began. "Fate isn't on anyone's side...if there's still a fate to have. The galaxy owes you nothing, we are not promised salvation. There is no gods standing between us and death, there isn't and hasn't been since the Emperor killed them so long ago. The only thing standing between you and those who hunt you is you yourself. It is up to you, and the rest of us, for us to see the next sunrise. Do you hear me, Sachain?"
Sachain nodded, but the senior Astartes got to his feet. "Do you hear that?" Eventually, Sachain and another Space Marine beside them, Vassan, stood as well. The sun was rising, its light peaking past the ruins of a long-abandoned city, and bathing in that light, a speck. Then a black dot. Finally, the outline of four Valkyrie Gunships was noticable, and the Astartes began to run.
Sachain was slowest, lugging his autocannon, but he knew better than to leave it behind. The rest simply had bolters, a few dating back to the Great Crusade, others manufactured after the fall of the Imperium. The Astartes fled, their torn robes gliding in the air. The Valkyries grew closer, the colors of the Dark Angels and the mark of the Chapter replacing where that of a regiment's would've likely been. Sachain turned to face the gunship and he fired, the ammunition denting and scarring the green hull. The senior Astartes turned his boltgun behind him and he took but one shot, the bolt burning towards his enemy, and it collided. The bolt struck one of its krak missiles, and the entire wing went up in anti-tank munition fire. The vehicle crashed to the ground, with Sachain proving just fast enough to evade death.
"Hurry, Sachain! We must move faster!" The senior Astartes barked, and the younger Space Marine did his best to speed up, but a Chimera was right behind him. The heavy bolter fire was inaccurate, but a single well-placed shot would be enough to kill him. So, Vassan pushed Sachain ahead and took the shot himself. The bolt exploded against his right arm, removing everything up to the shoulder cauldron, but the Angel would not die on an enemy's terms. Arming all of his remaining grenades, he leaped at the Chimera and then there was neither a Chimera or a Space Marine.
The remaining three Astartes ran for their lives, but the strangled sound of wind trying to comply with an Astartes Drop Pod was unmistakable. The pods landed in front of them on the highway across from them. Before the ceramite-adamantium doors could burst open, the trio of Astartes leaped off into the darkness underneath. The sunlight dimly illuminated the seedy underneath of the highway above, but the Astartes did not care. They tried to run, but the Dark Angels had followed them down, crunching the rockcrete with their boots. They drew their chainswords and pushed forth, slicing into Athalos's ramshackle plate. The senior Astartes drew his own chainblade, its length laced with old purity seals and crumpled pages of the Codex Astartes. Though the three Astartes were veterans of ages long passed, the younger Astartes had a number advantage and thus Athalos was cut down by four chainswords.
The senior Astartes gutted one of the Dark Angels, lifting him high and letting the blood and gore spew over all before kicking the corpse off his weapon. Another Dark Angel charged him, but fared little better, losing his hand and sword in a swift stroke before his head followed suite. The senior Astartes rolled across the floor, snatching the fallen sword and he dug both into another Dark Angel's chest. The senior Astartes looked up, and he saw Sachain do his best to fend off three Dark Angels. His autocannon fired until it had run out, and a round from a bolt pistol had found his head. The already fractured helm gave way, and Sachain fell to the ground, dead.
"Dark Angels..." The senior Astartes muttered, and the Space Marines in question turned to face him. Two dozen Guardsmen ran towards him and the Dark Angels, and another two dozen set up defenses along the long silent vehicles dotting the streets shadowed by the highway above. "...Dark Angels...you deserve not the title."
The Space Marines lifted their boltpistols to execute him. "Under the command of the Lion and the decree of the God-Emperor, you shall die for your Fallen status. May the God-Emperor have mercy upon your soul."
"You knew not the Lion!" The senior Astartes bellowed as he charged forth, rage and energy bursting around him. The ripping roar of twin chainswords were met by the grinding whine of its teeth against their ceramite armor, and the blood poured from their cut-up corpses. The Astartes darted forth, his hood whipping back to reveal an Imperial Aquila stamped onto his pale scarred skin.
"You knew not Azrael!" Another shout, and the guardsmen in front of him fired their lasguns. On their shoulders, the symbol of the Dark Angels, and the ignorant 'Squires' were turned into a blur of crimson as the Astartes spun with his sword, stunning the rest of the guardsmen. They fared little better once the senior Astartes got in range with his chainswords. "I am Sapphon, of the Dark Angels true!"
All that remained was ten Astartes, each with boltgun and chainsword in hand. They fired at the raging Sapphon, veteran of near 10,000 years of war, but they could not hope to kill the ancient warrior. Sapphon dodged their bolt rounds, and closed the gap between then. Between the bolters, the chainswords, and the incoherent screaming of a long repressed warrior, the Tactical Squad was dead at Sapphon's feet, but one final challenge awaited him.
A Primaris Captain in Gravis Armour stepped forth, his sword raised in one arm and his power fist raised in another. "Fallen Brother Sapphon. under the command of the Lion and the decree of the God-Emperor, you shall die for your Fallen status. May the God-Emperor have mercy upon your soul."
"You're a Primaris Space Marine," Sapphon remarked, ignoring the Captain's declaration. "They haven't any of you since the Fall. I thought it was poor record keeping and cataclysms that blinded the Angels to the truth, but now I see it is ignorance, known and purposeful ignorance. You were alive during the Angel Diaspora, you remember how bloody and terrible that was, the Templars and the Sisters chasing us to the safety of Ultramar. Yet you choose to do this, turning on brothers instead of helping the remnants of the Imperium?"
The Captain remained silent, before charging forth and swinging his sword. Sapphon avoided the blade, stepping back before the sword's energy field would wound him. Sapphon delivered a punch to the Gravis Captain's head, stunning the Captain so Sapphon could try and pierce the heavy armour with his swords. The Captain recovered before he could, however, and Sapphon retreated before the Captain could kill him with his power fist.
"I left the Angels to help the worlds in peril around us, that the Chapter could not bear to help after Azrael's mortal wounding. When I saw that the Chapter decided not to help the Imperium begging for assistance, but rather chased down the same few traitors to cover their tracks for an Imperium who no longer cares. You don't even remember why you fight, do you?"
The Captain leaped forward through the air and tried to strike Sapphon, but the Firstborn Veteran easily outpaced the slow Gravis Captain. "Azrael would be disgusted in your actions. You are no longer Dark Angels, any of you. You are no better than the zealous crusaders who persued us into the arms of Roboute Guilliman!" Sapphon bellowed as he drove his chainswords straight through the chestplate of the Gravis Armour, and even through the Space Marine into the power pack of the armour set, detonating it and melting the pair of swords. Sapphon kicked the dead Captain over, the corpse laying sprawled on the dirty rockcrete. The old warrior picked up the Captain's power sword, and gazed off into the stained and dead city skyline. The outline of a starship sat in the horizon, and Sapphon gripped his new sword as he walked forward, pulling his hood back onto his head.