Legends of the Smoke Jaguars Chapter 79
Methuselah felt the Red pumping through his veins, heightening his awareness, sharpening reflexes and bloodlust. The new organs pulsed in time with his twin heartbeats, each surge firing his muscles with unearthly vitality. Time slowed in his perception, each exhalation hanging in the cold air like morning fog waiting for the sun to rise. Methuselah was keenly aware of everything in the cavern, every last mote of dust falling at glacial place. It was entrancing, but none of it brought him as much satisfaction as the sight of the Smoke Jaguars.
The pair stood frozen in his elongated sense of time, outrage and horror writ plain in every line of their being. Methuselah knew well the sense of sorrow that came when friends died, the cold hand of dread gripping tight enough to steal the courage of the sternest man, but Transhumans are not mortals. Fear, outrage, horror, all of it was channelled into raw fury, Methuselah approved, despite their inferior build the Astartes remained warriors first and foremost, their rage was a pale echo of the Thunder Warrior's aggression, but it was good to see somethings remained constant.
Dust motes formed a vortex as Takana's jet intake sucked in air; his wings spreading wide, pinions forming a fan about his shoulders. Twin sets of lightning claws crackled as he braced, then with a drawn-out roar he shot into the fight. Methuselah twisted aside as the Dark Fury caromed into him, narrowly avoiding one set of talons skewering him through. The other scraped over his backpack, shredding surface armour but failing to penetrate. The impact though threw them both off their feet and sent them skidding into a cryo-tube.
The hand of a god smacked Methuselah, making his head ring. His back arched and his legs struck cold metal, wrenched out of true. The pain was considerable, but Methuselah was not stunned, he was equal to the blow and rose above it. The Cryo-tube toppled over, cracking open to spill blue fluids everywhere. The replicae within flat-lined, but Methuselah ignored his creation's termination. He could always grow more.
Takana reared back, levelling his right arm with the intent to plunge his claws into the eyes of the Bronze Beast. Methuselah's fist put paid to that, slamming into the snout of the Dark Fury's helm so hard Ceramite shattered and eye lens sprayed everywhere as microscopic shards. Takana fell to the ground, head ringing but Methuselah wasn't done. The Bronze Beast stooped and grabbed Takana's shin, then swung high. The Dark Fury was hoisted aloft by the ankle, swung like a rag doll in a child's grip, helpless to free himself. Methuselah let slip a roar as he bodily smashed Takana into a cryo-tube, and another, whirling like a dervish as he toppled the heavy chambers and battered the Smoke Jaguar most cruelly.
He would have continued till nothing was left but bloody bones but Takana ignited his jet pack again. A tremendous force struck Methuselah's breastplate, searing the raptor head emblem from its surface. He was forced to let go and Takana spun away, no hint of control in his flight, only away, that was all that mattered. Methuselah snarled in frustration as he made to pursue, but then a bolt round slammed into his shoulder.
The youth in Scout plate, charging at Methuselah, face alive with rabid fury. His bolt pistol flared as he fired on full auto, emptying the magazine in a torrent of hammer blows. Methuselah took them all on his frontage, ancient armour cratering with every impact. He took a step back under the barrage, impressive that the boy had achieved even that, he was stronger than he looked. Methuselah stood firm in the torrent of blows, his armour falling to pieces but his frame bolstered by genecraft beyond this lesser echoes' understanding. When the clip ran dry Methuselah was still standing and in no way diminished.
Aapo screamed a primal howl as he threw himself at Methuselah, knife already stabbing for the jugular. Methuselah's fist snatched him from the air before it touched skin, rebuffing the attack with ease. The Bronze Beast shrugged and Aapo's skull rammed into a cryo-tube, denting the metal and making the fluid within slosh about. Methuselah was growing impatient and decided to end the boy swiftly. He slammed the scout's head into the metal again, causing blood to flow down his head like a waterfall. One more impact to finish the irritant for good, then Methuselah dropped the limp sack of meat and looked for his final enemy. All he found was darkness.
A black mist was spreading among the Cryo-tubes, a fog of midnight hue obscuring all. Methuselah had seen this before, the mutant ability of Takana to shroud all eyes. Without a living Pariah Methuselah had no counter and braced himself for an attack, holding his claw ready for a rush of violence at any moment. It didn't come, only swirling gloom, growing so thick he couldn't see the energy field of his own claw.
"I don't need my eyes to kill you!" Methuselah growled.
"The shadows are my kingdom," Takana's echoing voice rang from all quarters.
"Cheap tricks do not impress me."
"The deaths of my Kinsmen are on your hands, and blood demands blood."
"I shall dine on your hearts and make a feast of your innards," Methuselah sneered.
"The Sun-Emperor was right to end your breed. You cannot master yourself, how did you ever think to master a galaxy?"
"If you plan to bore me to death…"
A sense of motion to the right, not seen but sensed by the stirring of air on the cheek. Takana coming straight at him, already committed to a death strike. Methuselah met his charge with a plume of umbral flame, swinging wide to engulf a whole row of cryo-tubes in dancing wisps. Precious fluids boiled but more importantly Takana was forced to throw himself aside, barely missing being incinerated utterly. Unexpectedly Methuselah could see him, the corrosive flames were burning away the murk, allowing him to track his quarry.
Takana retreated amongst the Cryo-tubes, trying to evade contact. Methuselah gave him no respite, pounding after, footsteps shaking chambers in his passage. Again he loosed his flamer, setting alight his own creations, it didn't matter, nothing mattered. The Red coursing through his veins filled his mind with mad mania: there was only the chase and the kill, the raw rush of violence. It consumed his soul, the need to rend and slay, so close to the furious rage of Chaos, yet utterly cool and detached too. He would find Takana and kill the wretch; these were simple facts, as sure as the setting of the sun.
Methuselah extended his arm and sent another stream of black fire down a row, but Takana appeared from nowhere. A hint of motion from the right, and then he was there, both claws coming down on Methuselah's arm. Disruption fields met Ceramite bands and parted them with ease, cutting through skin, tendon and bone a moment after. One strike and Methuselah's right arm was shorn from his body, causing his twitching claw to fall to the ground. It was a shocking reversal, surely spelling the end of the fight but the Bronze Beast's response was to redouble his assault
Methuselah roared in outrage at the marring of his form and his remaining arm punched Takana straight in the face. All the might of his gene-wrought body, augmented beyond sanity, married to the chemical rush of his drugs and the awesome power of his ire saw him strike like a falling meteor, mashing Takana's face. The Dark Fury had lost his helm and suffered for it, his nose reduced to a smear of blood and all his front teeth were torn from their gums as the jaw shattered like porcelain. Takana reeled, never having been struck so hard and then Methuselah was on him.
The Bronze Beast grabbed the gorget and heaved, lowering his head to greet Takana's face with the top of his helmet. The crack of ceramic-laced bone rang loud and Methuselah knew he'd fractured the Dark Fury's skull. Still he wasn't done, he hoisted Takana overhead with one hand, then sent the weakling crashing to the ground flat on his back. Blood flowed freely from the Astartes' pulped face but that stirred no mercy. Methuselah's boot slammed into the side of the chest, flinging Takana several metres to crash into yet another Cryo-tube.
Takana flopped helplessly to the ground, broken in body and plate. His wings were deformed, his jet intake crushed and the claws sparking randomly. Still Methuselah did not relent, falling upon Takana with fist and boot, the embodiment of mercilessness. His kicks shattered arms and legs, his fist tore out power couplings, ending the threat of the claws and his knees shattered reinforced ribs like kindling. The Bronze Beast was too great a force for any Astartes to match and Methuselah explained this to Takana in a vehement assault of unbridled ferocity. The Thunder Warriors were conceived to fight a war unlike any the galaxy had seen since, one far less restrained and precise than a Space Marine would ever know, they were an inelegant weapon for a less civilised age.
At last Takana lay broken on the ground, hearts beating only weakly. Methuselah knelt amid the ruins of his creations and hissed, "You thought you could beat me?! You are pathetic, all your kind are! Inferior, weak, compliant. The Astartes were a mistake; you should never have been born."
Takana must be floating on a sea of agony and yet his lips slurred, "Smok…. Avenge…"
"Hardly," Methuselah sneered, "Your mongrel breed can come by the hundred and they will meet the same fate. I shall tear down the Smoke Jaguars and all humanity, then replace it with something better!"
"Sun-Emp… forgive… I have failed…"
Methuselah's patience snapped. His remained hand plunged into the mangled shamble of blood that passed for a head, fingers penetrating shattered bone. His middle and fourth fingers stabbed into the eyesockets, bursting the jelly-filled orbs to coat his hand in gore. His thumb went under the roof of the mouth, as his other fingers gripped the side of the head. His lone arm pulled inexorably and the front half of Takana's head came away, spraying brain matter over Methuselah's frontage, leaving him gripping a dissected face in the palm of his hand. Methuselah relished the feeling as he squeezed, letting viscera ooze between his fingers, savouring every last second of the Dark Fury's death. The Legiones Cataegis had once more proven their superiority, Methuselah had slaughtered all his foes and claimed the field of victory… or so he thought.
"You die for that!" a pained voice declaimed. Methuselah frowned as his head came about slowly to discover one Smoke Jaguar yet lived. The youth in the scout plate, his head coated in blood but not so dead as previously believed. Aapo was all that remained of the Smoke Jaguars on Xilbalba, a mere Doan armed with nothing but a knife, set against a fiend that had bested the Lord Headsman, Skinned Man, Magpyr and Dark Fury. A contest so unbalanced it seemed a dramaturge's comic farce.
Aapo gripped his Obsidian Knife in a white-knuckled grip and hissed, "Vengeance shall be ours."
Methuselah for his part merely frowned in consternation, "Are you still here?!"