Commander Post Alpha, Underground City...

Strange. There was something not quite right about them, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it... When these noble Astartes first arrived, they were but a single squad of veteran tactical marines, all wearing robes with hoods, offering to help the Imperial Guard stationed here. But now that the Governor had agreed to letting them stay, they were everywhere! Squads of similarly robed Space Marines now patrolled the Underground City, and occasionally, someone would stumble into a patrol of Marines wearing Terminator plate power armour. From the colour of the armour, the Captain guessed that they wore Deathwing Terminators from the Dark Angels chapter. The power armour of the robed marines was a green so dark that it was almost black, and this reinforced the idea that they were Dark Angels. However, something didn't quite seem right about them. Captain Westfield couldn't quite place his finger on what it was, but something definitely didn't seem right. He spent several hours scrolling through whatever dataslates they had, looking through them for information on the Dark Angels and the leader of this particular group who called himself Cypher. But regardless of how much time he spent researching, he couldn't find a single record about the man. 'Astartes,' he corrected himself. The Space Marines were beyond mortal men such as himself. Still, he shrugged mentally. He assumed the reason for not finding any information on Cypher was due to the records being incomplete. Much information was lost upon arriving here, in this universe. Or, it could be that he was a member of the Dark Angels who worked from the shadows, but had been forced by recent events to step forward and command from the light. It would make sense. The Dark Angels were notoriously secretive after all. For now, the Captain stood atop the Command Post Alpha, staring across at the city before him. The Space Marines had occupied Sector 5 of the city, but that didn't stop them expanding their patrols to encompass the entire city. He tried to reassure himself that it was simply them further securing the area, ensuring the guardsmen's and their own safety. But he could not deny all of the reports of guardsmen cowering in fear, claiming they could feel the eyes of the Astartes boring into their soul from behind the heartless lenses of their helmets. From what the guardsmen could see, the Space Marine guests never removed their helmets or armour. At least, they never did publicly anyway. He presumed they did so in the secrecy of their own quarters. Emperor knows why they felt like they had to do that. The only one who had ever shown the face behind the helmet was their leader, Cypher. But even he never removed more than his helmet. The robes and armour stayed on at all times, like all the other marines. Strange, the Captain thought. There was something not quite right about them, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.


Sector 5, Underground City...

Cypher stood over a small tin basin with warm inside that rested on a counter in his personal quarters. He cupped the warm water in his hands and splashed it on his face. He could feel the dirt and stress of the day wash away as the water dripped off his face. He would never show it to anyone, but even he got stressed. He had successfully convinced the Governor Militant to allow them to stay, but organising his men had taken some time. Once they were all settled in, he had to organise patrol routes and deployments across the so called 'Underground City.' It was not as easy as it sounds, but he had managed to sort it so the patrols and stationed troops held maximum efficiency in the controlling the area. He could easily crush the guard forces now, if he so wished. The thought cast a wicked grin on his face once more. He liked holding all the cards. He was totally in control. As he splashed more water on his face, he scrubbed it dry again with a nearby cloth. Then, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as he had the sudden paranoia that he was being watched. Centuries on the run from the Dark Angels had taught him much, most apparently the need to trust his highly honed instincts. He slowly reached for his pistols and, upon feeling their reassuring touch, he wheeled around on the spot, raising his plasma and bolt pistol to point at the intruder. The grin returned.

"Sergeant. I was wondering when you would return. What news do you bring?"

A man seemed to emerge from the wall, the abstract patterns of his cloak causing him to appear to merge in to the background when he held still. He had spent many centuries learning to hide effectively, and he was now a master of his craft.

"The rogues are close, sir. And despite the guardsmen dealing with most of their troops and vehicles when they departed, they still have enough to crush the guard if they carried out an all out attack." The sergeant reported, his voice low and gruff.

"I see... and have you located a potential location for reinforcements?"

"Aye, sir. Two such places, in fact. One is close but reinforcements will be minimal and slow. The second is significantly further away, but holds a bigger range of reinforcements and a lot higher numbers too."

"Hmm... very well. Get your squad and landspeeder ready and refueled. We shall depart shortly. I trust no-one saw you?"

The scout sergeant grinned broadly. "No-one ever sees us coming. Slipping past the guard patrols was easy. Your own patrols saw to that. And we've parked the landspeeder out of sight too."

"Excellent work, sergeant." Cypher returned the sergeants grin. He found comfort in his little 'asset' that others had no knowledge about. It opened up a door of a lot of opportunities.


"And for the last time, don't try hiding in my pockets. I'd hate for you guys to get caught." I was lecturing the scouts as I walked up the stairs to my room, back from the meal with my family. It was a damned miracle that they hadn't been caught. They seemed to have learned their lesson though.

When I walked into my room, I was greeted by the familiar military checkpoint at the foot of my door, manned by guardsmen to prevent intrusions from any other factions that may have made it into my house. But when I looked more closely, I saw a man, taller than the others and twice as bulky, wearing Mark VI 'Corvus' Power Armour. Why the hell was their a Space Marine in my room? The Space Wolves that had not gone rogue were currently held captive someone deep in the city under my bed, and none of my Space Wolves wore hooded robes over their power armour. Plus, I severely doubted the Imperial Guard would trust them to arm them once more. After all, their battle brothers were shooting at them a few weeks ago. Something felt off. I walked over to my chest of drawers and found a man with a radio stationed there. I placed the scouts down next to him and politely asked that he summon the Governor to meet me. He nodded and within a few minutes, Governor Anderson was standing on my chest of drawers as well, and he asked why he had been summoned.

"I just wanted to ask you something, Governor. Why is there a Space Marine at the checkpoint in the doorway?"

The Governor smiled at me and happily explained. "I was summoned to the Shrine to the Emperor several days ago by a squad of unknown marines. It turns out they wish to help us and they may have information on the rogue Space Wolves!"

"And you just trusted them?" I asked, skeptical.

"Yes."

"Even after what happened last time we trusted Space Marines?" Again, I was still skeptical.

"Yes..."

"And you didn't think to tell me?!" I was starting to get agitated.

"No...?"

I sighed in frustration. "Well, how long have they been here?"

"Several days."

I thought for several seconds. "Fine. Just... keep an eye on them, yeah?"

"Very well, sir." Anderson saluted.

I heard my mom yell my name from downstairs. "THOMAS!"

"Yeah?" I yelled back down to her.

"Did you shoot the neighbour's cat with your BB gun?"

"No..?" I yelled back, confused. I looked at the Governor for answers, perplexed. His cheeks burned red with embarrassment.

"Cat? So that's what you call it. We, erm... may have called down a strafing run on it..."

I have to remember to order the tech-priests to analyse any 'threats' before they engage it next time. The Governor touched his headset as someone called him on their radio. He nodded several times as the voice spoke. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but judging by the Governor's face, it was not good news. He removed his hand from the headset and whoever was calling him finished their report.

"Tom," he said "Dire news. Our scouts report another horde of Necrons crossing the 'landing' and are headed for the border. They are mostly infantry but they have a few heavy vehicles. No Monoliths spotted yet."

"By the Emperor..." I sighed, "Where do they keep coming from?"

I was so caught up in my thoughts, I failed to notice the landspeeder zooming away outside the open window.


Sector Bravo-Kilo, The Great Jungle...

Outside, in the depths of the grass, a 5-man squad of Cadian scouts were still scouring the area. The walked in a line with each man 10 feet away from each other, so they could quickly help each other if they were to be engaged. Though the grass jungle was so dense, they still couldn't see each other. Their leader's exact orders were: "Try to scream when you die, so we know where to run away from." As you can imagine, that didn't help morale. But today was like any other day. It was no different for them. They were still surrounded by green and shadows moving all around them. It drove a man mad to think of all the things that could be watching them. They tried to push the thoughts from their minds, but every time the wind caused the grass to move, the thoughts came flooding back, unbidden and unwanted. Then all of their fears were realised as a bloodcurdling shriek of agony and fear split the air. The grass surrounding them began to shake violently as the cries of intense pain continued. Then there was a ripping noise like old Velcro, and the screams suddenly stopped. None of the scouts dared to move. They heard the voice of their leader in their headsets ordering them to form up on him, but their limbs refused to respond when they tried to move. They had become completely paralysed by fear. The leader ordered them again, but still they failed to move at all. Then the grass shifted as something moved rapidly through it, circling them. Circling its prey. Suddenly, the fear reversed its effects and it now drove them to move faster. They sprinted over to their leader's position. The stood in a group of 4, standing back to back, watching all of their surroundings. Under the leader's orders, they slowly shifted over to the last known position of the man who had failed to form up, their eyes wary and alert, constantly searching for the threat. As the approached his last known position, they found him lying in an opening in the jungle, red surrounding him. Sunlight shined down on him. Then the smell hit them. They all recoiled from the stench of a man's bowels emptying in his last minutes of life, and one of them vomited heavily, the contents of his last meal discharging onto the ground around them. They edged closer, faces contorted by disgust, and discovered that only half of him was lay on the ground. His guts spilled out from where he had been split at the waist, his blood pooling around him. His bloody hands were positioned in such a way that it appeared that he had spent his last moments desperately trying to hold his guts inside of him. His neck had been slashed so deeply that is was now only held on my a few layers of skin at the back of his neck. His broken neck could be seen jutting outwards, clearly the thing that finished him off. Half of his face bubbled and boiled, as if only recently been corroded by acid. What had done this to him? How much pain had he endured before he was given a mercifully quick end?

They heard a hiss to their left and all wheeled to face the source of the sound, but saw nothing. Behind them, a towering four-armed figure rose from the shadows, dwarfing each man. They slowly turned as it hissed again, and before they could level their guns at it, it was upon them. Within mere seconds, each man was dead. Each had been grotesquely carved up in a different way. The four-armed creature dragged the corpses back into the dense shadows of the grass jungle, ready to be devoured...