Legends of the Smoke Jaguars Chapter 66
Extinction rode upon eight gleaming claw points, closing faster than a man could blink. They were followed by elongated talons, wreathed in disruption fields, bound to a pair of Ceramite-clad fists. Weighty arms held them aloft, borne by a Transhuman body and fibre-bundle enhanced armour. Razor-sharp wings spread out, forming a midnight halo behind Takana's helm. The attack was swift and surprising, coming out of nowhere, unleashed with no tedious bleating about honour. Takana deserved the kill, but to Methuselah he may as well have been moving in slow motion.
The Thunder Warrior's armour screamed as servo-motors were forced to move at impossible speed. The Bronze Beast overrode their protests with insanely dense muscle, jerking aside an instant before Takana landed a killing blow. The Dark Fury stumbled past, only to find Methuselah's boot slamming into his rear, sending him flying headlong into a wall. Ferrocrete crated under the impact, sending chips pattering off armour plates. Instantly Takana rallied, rebounding off the wall with lashing roundhouse slashes. If they connected with Mark I plate it would be peeled apart like a ration tin, but Methuselah remained the faster of the pair.
His own lightning claw swept high, deflecting one strike in a shower of energised particles as the two fields clashed. The other arm was snared in a vice, hand catching the wrist a hairsbreadth from contact. Flaring disruption fields scorched the exposed skin on his cheek, but Methuselah grinned as his superior strength was demonstrated. A twist at the hip and a shrug of the arm sent Takana tumbling into a cell door. Plasteel bars folded about his mass as his weight ripped them from their housings. Methuselah wasted not a second to grab the shorn bars and force them into an embrace of metal, cocooning the Dark Fury in his own personal cell.
Five seconds this had taken, but in those moments the others had rallied. Instinct compelled him to jerk his head aside a single second before a bolt round shot past his skull. Shooting a man in the back, Methuselah could respect that, he'd done it himself more times than he could count. He whipped about to find Xavaar swinging for his centre-mass, Transonic staff humming dangerously. Quick as a flash his lightning claw was there, meeting the attack head-on in a blaze of energy and sonic distortion. The shockwave blew both combatants backwards, heels screeching on hard stone, bones shaking from the impact.
"Good!" Methuselah cried, "Push me hard, punish me. I haven't had a decent fight in centuries!"
"Your kind should have stayed dead," Xavaar growled.
"The treacherous Emperor failed to finish the Legiones Cataegis, you won't succeed in his place."
"You are obsolete, a failed experiment: unstable, insane, raving!"
Methuselah snorted, "Astartes, your pride is as brittle as your bodies. Why he replaced us with something so weak as you I will never..."
Xavaar struck midsentence, aiming low to get under Methuselah's guard. The Bronze Beast leapt backwards, allowing the humming ram-skull end to pass without contact. He was impressed, that was a dishonourable blow, Arik Taranis himself. Would have laughed to see it. Xavaar pressed his attack ruthlessly, jabbing and slashing without respite. Inhumanly fast, Transhuman fast, Methuselah hadn't seen such remarkable speed in fifty decades. For a moment he was taken back to the heady days of the Unification Wars, spilling blood amid the ruins of the Panpacific Empire. Narthun Dume had sought to defy the Thunder Warriors and paid for it. The Iron Lords under Ushotan had broken the outer defences but it had been Methuselah's own Brazen Bulls that sacked the cities beyond. They'd stacked skulls higher than hab-blocks and nailed still living bodies to city gates across half a continent. Such grand days, such magnificent companions he'd marched alongside, men worth walking the road to hell.
Xavaar's attack was a masterpiece of misdirection, sweeping flourishes becoming unexpected thrusts and jabs at the flanks. Such a display would have ended another Astartes, an Ork would have been left floundering, but Methuselah matched him step for step. The Red coursed through his bloodstream, heightening his consciousness. Earlier iterations of the formula had left him a raging berserker, frothing at the mouth, barely able to see, but he'd improved on his initial work. The Red elevated his awareness, granting hyper-situational understanding and the ability to react faster than belief. He used it sparingly, obsessive mania was worse than with the Green, but he could read every move Xavaar was about to make in the tensing of his fingers, the spike of his breathing, Xavaar was an open book, so Methuselah was not caught by surprise when the whine of a multi-las arose behind.
Methuselah's free hand flashed, grabbing Xavaar's elbow and twisting hard. The Psyker barely understood what happened as he went flying, crashing headlong into the Smoke Jaguar lining up a shot. The pair went down, arms and legs tangling and the barrel of the Multi-las bent forty-five degrees out of true. Xavaar's head came up, his eyes glowing with power, but blocked at the point of employment. Athaliah was in the next room, her Pariah nature suffocating all Warp-potential.
"You make fine sport!" Methuselah chuckled.
"We'll kill you!" Xavaar swore as he grabbed his fallen staff.
"Hardly, I could have killed you all thrice over by now, but I'm enjoying this too much. Imagine that I actually feel pleasure and I'm not even glanding any Yellow. I should thank you... but first..."
In the corner of his eye he saw the young scout making for the gaol exit. He was supporting Engar, hobbling on the stumps of his legs. The pair were attempting to flee while the others distracted Methuselah, good idea, good teamwork, but no match for a Thunder Warrior's senses. Engar was whispering something into the boy's ear but it hardly mattered. Methuselah raised his arm and let loose a plume of umbral flames from the underslung flamer, ejecting a broiling inferno towards them.
Engar must have sensed death coming, for he threw his weight against the boy's back, sending him stumbling through the open door. The plume struck Engar flat in the back and exploded outwards, spraying the walls with burning torrents. The Lord Headsmen was bathed in umbral fires, burning head to toe, his life consumed in the fires of Hades itself. Engar died screaming, his tale brought to an inglorious ending.
"Engar no!" Xavaar bellowed but Methuselah was already in motion. He dove through the swirling fires, heat lashing at his exposed calves. Servo motors whined as he landed in the bunk room, seeing the piled bodies of the PDF troopers laid out, strewn clothes and dishevelled bunks left as they were. In one corner Athaliah tried very hard to cram herself between two lockers, her mortal frame had no place in a clash of Transhumans, she could hide or die. But Methuselah was more interested in the boy coming at him with a knife.
Transonic growls beat his ears as the stab went for his hearts. Not bad, Methuselah thought in the treacle time of Red as casually buffed it off with his unarmed hand. The boy was not dismayed, hacking low, then high, then for the Femoral artery. The Thunder Warrior could eviscerate him with a shrug, but Methuselah was intrigued. The boy's attack was all offence, no thought of reserve, nothing held back. There was a hint of the XIIth Legion about him, or maybe the wildness of the Vth, but it certainly was not the XIXth's way. Methuselah had studied his replacements intently, he'd been there at their creation after all, but this one baffled him.
Methuselah casually struck at the wrist with his off-hand, shattering the bones. The boy winced as his knife dropped, more hurt by the loss of his weapon than the pain. The Bronze Beast wrapped a meaty hand around his neck and hoisted him aloft without effort, holding the scout at eye-level. He drew the struggling boy near, only to receive a spit in the face. Acidic drool burned, but the youth was immature, his Betchers gland wasn't fully developed yet.
Methuselah mused, "You have the gift of fury, there is savagery in your blood, but you are not of Angron's line. What are you?"
"In Corax's name... I shall... avenge Engar!" the boy spluttered.
"Corax no... not quite," Methuselah sniffed, "There's a hint of Corvus in your pallor... but something else too... almost vicious... Aha! I have it: Konrad Curze! You are half Night Lord!"
Shock, denial, confusion and fear flashed over the boy's face and Methuselah grinned in pleasure, "You didn't know, Xavaar never told you. Oh, that tricky con-artist. I knew he was using his old Legion's stock to bulk your numbers, but I didn't grasp he was hybridising it with Corax's. Oh yes, you Smoke Jaguars are impure, your blood is tainted. The genes of a Traitor mixed with a loyalist, such intriguing possibilities. I must strap you to a med-slab and vivisect you, to learn what side-effects it produced."
"You..." the boy hissed.
"Yes," Methuselah smirked as he coked his head.
"You..."
"Out with it before you die," Methuselah chuckled.
"You... talk too much!"
A howling roar of jet exhaust was all the warning he got before Takana came hurtling out of the gaol door. Methuselah only avoided dying by dropping the boy and twisting hard. Takana's jet intake sucked in air and ejected it as a pillar of heat as he crashed bodily into the Bronze Beast, driving them both to the floor. A bench snapped under their combined weight, a dead body pulped as they rolled over it, all the while smashing at each other with furious ardour. Too close for lightning claws, too savage for elegant strikes. The pair rolled over and over, elbows, knees and headbutts exchanged in a feral brawl fit for Hive gangers wrestling in the gutters.
Methuselah's mirth evaporated, the Smoke Jaguar was actually hurting him, breaking ribs and pummelling his extra organs. Pain unlike any he'd felt in centuries rocked him, but he was not defeated. The onslaught was brutal and unrelenting, but the Thunder Warrior took the pain and made it his own. This was the secret of the Legiones Cataegis: whatever was thrown at them they devoured, whatever weapons the enemy employed they took from their hands and turned on their makers, whatever hurts they suffered they returned tenfold. This was the reason the Emperor feared his own creations, why the Thunder Warriors had to be purged, they feasted upon suffering and grew mightier from it.
Methuselah's fist slammed into Takana's side and lifted him bodily off the Bronze Beast. Ceramite cracked and fused ribs shattered as the Dark Fury tumbled away in a flutter of metallic wings. Instantly the Bronze Beast was on his feet, boot slamming down on a flopping leg. Takana's thigh bone, snapped as did his armour, then another kick shattered his hip, leaving him helpless.
"I've not fought another Transhuman for too long, too used to toying with my prey, time to fix that!" Methuselah snarled. He matched words to actions, spinning on his heel and lashing out at Xavaar, who was trying to sneak up behind him. Disruption-sheathed claws caught the Skinned Man by the pectoral, ripping through armour and ribcage, dicing organs and lungs below. From shoulder to hip Methuselah opened the Space Marine up, red blood gushing in torrents, beyond the ability of Larraman Cells to clot. A single swipe and Xavaar collapsed to his knees, his front a red ruin of gore, strength stolen in a waterfall of vitae that pooled about his shins.
Methuselah drew back his arm, preparing to end this fight in one blow. Xavaar would die, then Takana, then he'd take apart the other two. No more toying, no more games. He'd slaughter all enemies in a storm of bloodshed, as the Brazen Bulls of long ago had done. There had been no other ending possible, the Thunder Warriors were always greater than their inferior replacements. But fate held other opinions.
"Brass Monkey!" A hoarse voice cried. Methuselah's head turned and he spied the boy, holding a struggling Athaliah by the neck. The Pariah had been found lurking in the background and was locked in the embrace of the Smoke Jaguar. Methuselah's opened his mouth to roar a denial, but Aapo struck hard. A gloved fist crashed into the side of her head and her skull rang. Not quite Transhuman strength, Aapo's pubescent blow wasn't enough to pulverise a human head with his bare fist, but it was enough to render her unconscious.
Methuselah took a step but then a billowing cloud of choking black enveloped him. All sight vanished, lost in Takana's Shadow-path. The Bronze Beast lashed out in fury, unable to see his own arm. He heard footsteps, whispered voices and the dragging noises of Ceramite on stone. He swung right, he swung left, but touched nothing. His greaves splintered benches and he cried out in denial, unable to find where they'd gone. Behind, surely they were behind, but when he lashed about he found nothing but air.
Suddenly the blackness vanished and when his eyes cleared the Smoke Jaguars were gone. All of them, hale and injured, leaving only a slick trace of blood leading out of the door. He ran to it but they had vanished, the blood trail fading after only a few steps. They had disappeared like mist in the dawn, fleeing before his wroth. The Bronze Beast was enraged and bellowed into his vox-mike to his Troopers, "They are running! Find them before they get away, find them and kill them all!"