Chapter 9
The Tarasque
The Tarasque, the Boogeyman of the Underground, has been freed and already defeated a Titan. A squad of Ultramarines look above and see it jumping down at them.
"OPEN FIRE!" ordered an Ultramarine sergeant.
The Ultramarines open fire with their bolters and some of the Imperial Guardsmen fire their lasguns at the incoming reptile. They manage to fire holes into the thing before it drops dead. Or rather, pretending to be dead.
"Did we get it?" ask one of the guardsmen.
One Ultramarine approaches with a chainsword and poke at it. After three pokes, the Tarasque started to get up and quickly snatch the blade.
"AGAIN! FIRE!"
Everyone open fire again but this time it has harden its scales to deflect most of the damage. Another Ultramarine then chops its head off with a chainsword to cut the head off.
"That was close!" says one of the guardsmen calming down.
"The fuck was that thing?"
"An ancient horror?"
"Doesn't matter." says the Ultramarine sergeant, "Its dead now."
But they hear a snap and an Ultramarine grunted as it is trapped in the mouth of the Tarasque. He is trying to get out of its mouth as he press his arms against the jaws.
"FLAMERS!" yell one of the guardsmen, "GET THE FLAMERS!"
Two Ultramarines use flamers on the head of the monster. It does cause it some pain, yet its grip is still pressing down on the trapped Space Marine as the armor pieces of the arms start to compress from the imposing forces. The body starts to stand back up and approach its head.
"By the THRONE!" the sergeant is angry, "WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO KILL THIS THING!?"
"BY THE EMPEROR!" one of the guardsman panic, "THAT THING IS IMMORTAL!"
A commissar then fires at the guardsmen for cowardice. "FIGHT, YOU WORTHLESS TARGETS! FIGHT!"
When the Tarasque became whole again, it spit out the Ultramarine and yells, "YOU ALL MAKE ME SICK!"
"Did that thing just talk!?" ask one of the guardsmen.
"Who cares! Just try to kill this thing!"
The soldiers fire everything they have at it. Bolters, flamers, plasma, lasers, grenades, everything. Yet the creature keeps on getting back up again and again as it tore apart the Imperial Guard. But facing against the Space Marines, it finds some difficulty. The blessed ceramite armor is a bit tougher to crack with its jaws yet able to swat the Ultramarines aside with a bit of ease. But the Ultramarine sergeant is standing his ground as he tries to fight the monster with his fists.
He manage to strike the monster in the eye, but Tarasque manage to make five more eyes around the main eye. The Tarasque then snatch his left arm and holds him tight as Tarasque tries to add a lot of pressure on his arm. The sergeant then tries to punch some of his teeth in order to cause enough pain to have it open its mouth. Yet Tarasque holds the Space Marine tight as some of the mechanics start to seize up. Tarasque then flail the Ultramarine around while getting shot at to the point of tearing the arm off.
With his arm free yet removed, the sergeant then picks up another chainsword to saw off Tarasque's jaw. Unfortunately, the jaw of the monster is now turned into a harden substance that the chainsword can't cut through. Then Tarasque uses its tail to fling the now-missing-arm Ultramarine right into a building. Tarasque swallows the arm in his mouth and started to get bigger and his scales become harder than ever before. A squad of Ultramarines then try to take it down with missile launchers and heavy bolters with two equipped with power swords. They fire everything they have with the Imperial Guard having a heavy weapons squads firing their lascannons, mortars and autocannons at the thing. Five Leman Russ Tanks also joined the fray in order to bring down the monster. Even a Warhound Scout Titan showed up with Volkite eradicators to put Tarasque down.
Heavy firing and shelling is done to the beast with the Ultramarine squad somewhere among the smoke as they try to use their power swords to cut it. There is so much damage being fired at it that the ground it is standing on started to collapse into the tunnel systems below. They all just continue firing in order to ensure the monster is dead, even sacrificing the Ultramarine squad in order to do so. Everyone let loose their war cries as they try to ensure the beast's destruction.
After three minutes of firing, a commissar orders, "CEASEFIRE!" Yet no one can hear, "I SAID; CEASEFIRE!"
When three seconds pass, everyone stops firing. All that they see before them is a smoldering crater with smoke and dust pluming from the hole. Some troops carefully take a closer look at the hole to make sure the creature is dead, but are cautious.
One of the guardsmen ask, "Did we...get it?"
The guardsman looking into the hole can't see anything because of the smoke and dust. It slowly settles down as he can see a huge, gaping dark hole. So dark that he had to light a flare and throw it down. But the hole is so deep that the flare started to look more like a star when it hit the bottom of the hole.
"I don't see anything." he says. "Might need a better light source."
Before anyone can do anything, they all started to hear something behind them. They quickly turn around and see the Warhound Titan starting to give off sparks before explosions cause one of the arms to fall off and the 'eyes' to explode from the inside out. The monster then popped its head out from the top and gives off a mighty roar.
"YOU'VE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME! WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING MADE OF!?"
Then Tarasque exited out and started to attack the Ultramarines and guardsmen.
A few miles off, Carolus sees the Black Templars where he is looking for Elma. What he sees is an atrocity as many people that have been rounded up have been killed in execution styles. He eyes at one of the corpses where he sees a child with silver hair lying dead next to a few other children in a pool of blood. Carolus was horrified at first, but his horror turns to pure rage.
"You...AN-I-MAAAAAALLLSS!" He shouts to get the Templars to notice before drawing his sword and charges in with tears going down his face and a look of anger.
The Black Templars open fire yet Carolus dodges all the shots as his sword is now on fire.
"What the-?!" one of the Templars went.
"That sword!"
"THAT CAN'T BE!"
Carolus yells as he slices through the armor of one of the Black Templars and cut him in half. Then he quickly dispatch three more by decapitation before stabbing the head of his fifth Black Templar kill. One of the Black Templars try to radio but has his head sliced diagonally with only a partial message made it through. Carolus then furiously sliced up the remaining five Black Templars to the point where he can feel his hands ache as he used all his might to slice through their armor. Then furiously beats up one of the dead Space Marines with his sword. After a few seconds, he stops and drops to his knees as he cries.
"I'm sorry, Elma." he grieves for a child he failed to save. "Everyone. If only I have arrived sooner." The flame of his sword dies down as he weeps.
Close by, members of both Golden Dragons and Gambol Shrouds are joining the fray until they see Carolus.
"Hold it!" says one of the members of the Gambol Shroud as everyone stops. "Someone is close by!"
They hear Carolus sobs as they notice him.
One of the Golden Dragons say, "Isn't that Hestia's 'Golden Boy'?"
"But look at that!"
They all notice the corpses of both civilians and Black Templars alike. They can tell that the civilians were executed by the men in black power armor and Carolus has defeated them, avenging the deaths of the innocents. But in truth, to the Black Templars and the Imperium as a whole, there are no innocents. Carolus stops crying before he cleans and sheaths his sword. He wipe his eyes and picks up a body of a young girl with dark skin, elf ears and silver hair. Then proceeds to run off while carrying the dead body of Elma.
"That guy did this?" asks one of the other members of the Golden Dragons. "He killed those super-sized freaks? In power armor? Using just a sword?"
The Gambol Shroud member ordered two of her subordinates, "Follow that young man and keep an eye on him."
They both say, "Yes, ma'am! Ninja vanish!" and disappear via smoke bombs.
The Gambol Shroud says, "And don't waste the damn smoke bombs like that!"
That's enough grimdark for a bit, so let's move on to something comedic. After all, this is a parody of Bruva Alfabusa's comedic parody of the WH40K franchise (before Game Worskshop put it on indefinite hiatus). The Fabstodes are raiding a spa building just outside of Carolus' hometown and taking everything they can use.
"OOO!" Wamuudes went as he gaze upon a large collection of body oil. "Such a HUGE selection! Olive body oil with lavender and sage! Sunflower body oil with lilac, citrus and cinnamon! I've died and gone to fab heaven!"
Custodisi states, "There are so many different types that it will be hard to choose."
"I say we take every single one of them!" Karstodes suggests, "We can try them all out when we get home and share them with our brothers."
Yet Wamuudes ask, "Yet we get to keep the best ones, right?"
"Why the fuck not!? We deserve some of this as well."
Then Custodisi says, "Look at these body lotions! Coconut butter with banana extract and sandalwood. Almond butter with apple vinegar and dark chocolate extract. Holy Mundus-Plainus!"
"Would you cut that shit out already?! For the last time, it is Mundus Planus for Emperor sake!"
"SHUT UP!" Karstodes order, "You're ruining the moment!" Then he quickly shift gears, "OOO! Look at that large selection of scented candles!"
"HOLY SHIT! I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO CHOOSE FOR BATHING!"
"And look at the large selection of shampoo, conditioners, soap, bath salts and all these other things!"
"LET'S TAKE THEM ALL!"
In the underground, Magnus and his Blood Ravens have found the old containers where people get free supplies from and started gathering some of the items they found.
Magnus finds a tub of Play-Doh with a red lid, "Why would they put something like this down here? I mean, this is a children's toy."
He turns the container around and reads something that caught his eye. It is in bold letters that states a warning.
It reads, 'WARNING: THIS IS MILITARISTIC PLAY-DOH! THE PLAY-DOH WILL AUTOMATICALLY SHAPE SOLDIERS AND MILITARY VEHICLES IF LID IS LEFT OPEN! DO NOT USE OTHER COLORED PLAY-DOH NEAR THIS OPEN ONE OR YOU WILL HAVE A WAR REENACTMENT THAT COULD CAUSE PROPERTY DAMAGE, BODILY ARM, OR SET THINGS ON FIRE DESPITE BEING MADE OF PLAY-DOH. THEY WILL NOT FOLLOW YOUR ORDERS.'
"Hmm." Magnus' interest is piqued. "I'll keep some of this for testing."
"We're all finished here, my Primarch." says one of the Blood Ravens.
"Excellent. Now to teleport these objects onto one of the ships and then be on our way."
With a snap of his fingers, he teleports the large collection of objects to one of the Blood Raven ships and they all carry on.
"How far are we from the library?" asked one of the Blood Raven Marines. "I would like to know what exactly are we dealing with in this remote part of the galaxy. And all of our brothers of other chapters are getting first hand experiences with whatever foul xenos live on this world."
"The xenos they're facing might be a small collection of them on this world." Magnus states. "And please be patient. The exit to this place is only a few klicks from here and we'll be able to go straight towards it with a Rhino just outside. I wish to use my teleportation, but my powers are a little weak here and the best I can do is teleport to the ship. However, the more I use my power, the more I make 'markers'. These 'markers' are points of Warp power that I can use to teleport us back to. Once we make it to the library, I will have one there so we can try to sneak our way in to collect more information."
"That sounds pretty handy." Captain Godfrey admits something like that is useful.
They later feel a quake that shook the ground and cause a pipe to fall over.
"Assuming we don't get crushed by the battle on top. Which is all the more reason why we have the markers."
"At least someone can appreciate my ingenuity."
"Wait!" one of the Blood Ravens shout out. "There are traps."
Another quake happens and a piece of the ceiling came down and triggered some of the traps. There traps include tripwire grenades and mines that exploded when the ceiling came down and reduce much of the rubble to smaller rubble.
"Huh." Godfrey looks at the situation. "It appears we got lucky."
"That may be true, but stay alert." Magnus caution his marines. "There might be more of them ahead and-"
The ceiling came crashing down again and reveal some sunlight and blue skies. They all look up as they see the opening.
"On second thought, we could just head on up to get our bearings."
"Like I said, lucky."
Magnus looks at Godfrey, "I highly doubt that."
"I'll go." a hidden scout of the Blood Ravens reveals himself and volunteers to check outside.
"Where did you come from?"
A scout of the Blood Ravens takes a peek while cloak.
"See anything!?" ask one of the Blood Raven Marines.
"I can see the battle! It's a bit further than we thought!" The scout keeps an eye out for anything else with a sniper. "I see many ruined buildings covered in vegetation! There's another battle in another direction where the exit might be! It maybe hard to tell, but there appears to be some sort of structure with its outside lights working!"
"Anything else about it!?"
"It says, 'Public Library'! I found it!"
"Hold on!" Magnus says, "I'm coming up!"
Magnus removed the remaining rubble that was in the way with his limited psyker powers and flew up out of the hole.
"Hand me your sniper."
The scout gives Magnus his sniper and focus on the direction where the library is.
"I'll be damn. Good work, scout marine." he hands he sniper rifle back. "I have marked the location and we'll be teleporting there."
"But what about the Rhino transport?" the scout asks.
"Judging from the smoke, the Rhino is destroyed."
"What smoke?"
An explosion is heard from where the exit of the tunnels are suppose to be as a large plume of smoke can be seen.
"That. Okay, let's go."
And now, back to the grimdark we all know and love from WH40k before Games Workshop ruined it. The Tarasque continues to rampage as both Imperial and the local forces are forced to work together to take the monster down.
"I can't believe we're forced to work together!" says an angry human titan-class guardian as he is next to Roboute Guilimans left.
"How do you think I feel?!" says the commissar next to Roboute Guiliman's right. "I rather fight alongside valiant men like our Primarch than to team up with you xeno-loving scum!"
The two factions launch tanks and artillery at the Tarasque as it starts to get bigger and becomes more aggressive than before. It let loose a might roar as it tail swipes the tanks aside and charge right at the front lines.
Cato Sicarius then starts screaming, "I, CATO SICARIUS, HEREBY SAY; TO BE CONTINUED!"