"The air smells like shit."

The words are given frankly, while the tremors of the Chimera beside them make the words almost tremble to the ear.

The purple eyed corporal looks at the brown eyed man behind, and, quirking a brow, she asks:

"And how is it different from the usual odour from your planet, Awadil?"

"Usually it smells like smog. And it's Awadiil, ya kalbing cadian, with two iis!" The man smiles, the white circle on his armour still clear, while a bit of his sickly green hair shows just over his forehead.

The corporal shakes her head at that, and laughs merrily.

They might become good Cadians yet, even coming from a planet with such a shitty governor.

"Oi Awadil;" she had gotten the name wrong again, damn it: "How far is the… Malak's forge? We have been in this Qanun for ages!"

"Ask the sarge, Lymsane" her face twitches at how he butchers her own name. It's Lymsanne Sterngard, damn you! "But, if I remember correctly…ten parasangs? Around that?"

"That's good and all, but how long is "ten parasangs" in Emperor blessed kilometres?"

"It's…fifty kilometres? Around that?"

Lymsanne exhales loudly at that, already feeling the warm and spiced rice they gave in this planet for the guard, and the well groomed grox in sauce…

Damn, now she is hungry.

While marching, she took out a "sweet" bar, given from the person behind her in exchange for cancer sticks.

It tasted like paper, but it is sweet paper.

Meaning good paper. Better than the primer paper.

*sweep* *BOOOM* *BOOOM!*

The shockwave of the Chimera on her right side makes her fall to the ground, and uncomfortable heat washes over her, the smell of burnt flesh coming back like an unwanted guest.

"Ambush! Ambush!"

"From whe-*Gurk*!"

"Building on the right, go away from the Chimeras!"

"Knife ears!"

"Someone gets the corporal away from there!"

The las are going out, and the vox is going off like crazy with no answer from the artillery or the air reinforcement, while the muffled shouts goes over the ringing of her ears and the sounds of the wind impacting around her.

She felt two hands under her armpits and she feels being dragged on the ground, while she sees her mates, both from Cadia and from this emperor forsaken world of Zuhur, firing at the Xenos above them.

And being cut down.

She looks up, and sees the green hair of Awadiil while he drags her away, free and without an helmet to cover them.

Before she can say anything, wind brushes in front of her face, and suddenly the soldier has a thin wound on his forehead, and his eyes become unfocused.

Blood falls on her face and she tastes iron and she smells cinders and the body falls on her and she screams, screams, screams.

For the pain, for the surprise or for her coming death she doesn't know. But she won't go out like this.

She moves her hand beside her and finally sees the Xeno who killed her comrade, while clasping her hand on the pistol's grip.

She is tall, lithe clad in white armour, an helmet that could cow a lesser soldier, and tuft of red hair coming from the top of that helmet.

Then the Xeno cried .

It's like hearing the very daemons coming out from the warp to eat us all, like the warm breath of a greenskin's barrel in front of your face, like the blade in the hand of that Eldar, coming to cut down the young Cadian's life.

'Holy Emperor, please forgive my weakness and accept me as a soldier at the end of times.'

She is able to whip out her pistol, but when she presses the trigger, her eyes cloudy by the smoke and the sound made by the xeno witch, there is a wrong "crack". Then many of that same crack, repeated quickly, while air itself stills, and the fires quiet, and the smog clears.

And there is only the sound of boots walking, and a body falling on the ground.

Several bodies falling on the ground.

The soldier's vision clears, and she looks around, her heart beating with the same tempo of the marching, and the pain keeping her senses sharp.

The bodies of the xenos are on the streets, and the Banshee, if she remembers the reports right, Is on the ground, the right lense of her helmet broken and blackened.

And she is dead.

Then the corporal turns to the direction of the boots, and sees him.

He is tall, tall for this planet definitely; his hair are white, and his skin tan, equally strange for this smoggy hell. And he has a strange red coat, and an equally strange black and steely body armour, while in his hands there is a common lasgun, without even a scope, and with the barrel slightly reddened by heat, held in a resting position, while two sheated swords are at his side.

But there is no one else.

A whole platoon of armoured fists, with four Chimeras, had been crushed, maybe destroyed, and here comes a stranger without any of the imperial guard symbols, nay, of the imperium symbols, arrives and kills everyone?

The hand with the pistol is out, and is aiming at him, the whine coming from the battery.

The whines, several.

At least six, coming from where her feet are pointing from.

His grey, steel like eyes, look at her then. After that, they point to where the others are, while keeping the lasgun pointing down.

Then he speaks, his voice deep and rich, while rising a white brow at them:

"Is this how you "Imperial guards" say thank you? Really touching, it wasn't necessary."

There aren't laughs, there aren't breaths, just minimal shuffling.

The man rolls his eyes and just continues walking down the road.

"Stop right there and rise your arms!"

The sarge. He is alive!

Good!

"And risk cramps to my shoulders? Better to avoid that, sergeant Merrick."

Her blood freezes in her veins.

His tone is almost jovial, his smile is there, but his eyes are worse than the xenos.

She had seen an holy inquisitor, from afar, but this man looked far more terrible.

Enough to almost make her lower her pistol, and enough to make her tremble her aim.

"Now, I will search for civilians, and I hear soldiers injured. If you can take care of the soldiers, I will try to find any, capisce? Then we will speak about the after."

"…Yes sir."

The smiling human-like being started walking again, and, when he is beside her, he asks:
"Oi, can you get up? If not, rise your hand like a good little girl, they will come."

She growls at the cunt, but starts to move nonetheless, despite the pain in her legs, and the body above her.

After many curses about xenos, about heretics and about cunts, she gets up, the sound of the corpse of her comrade thumping on the cracked pavement.

For now, though, the important thing is finding the injured, and the moans are helping for that.

With the injured there are ten more killed Xenos. All with an hole in their right eye.

Taking out the first aids at her side, she starts looking around, trying to find the survivors of the platoon.

It's not many.

It's six out of thirty-two who can still take up the lasgun, and maybe ten who will live to fight again.

The others are either dead, or quickly given the emperor's mercy, among them the lieutenant and the techpriests, Sergeant Merrick now being the only fighting able superior, so he took command.

"Sergeant, we are fucked aren't we?" It's the word she gives to the green patched sergeant, who just shakes his head and close the eyes of the last of their men who didn't make it.

"Not now. Corporal, go help him, keep an eye out. If he didn't kill us now, then he will not do so for a long time. Also, do not anger him for any reason, he could as well be someone so above our paygrade that even the governor doesn't know anything."

The silence is telling, but she doesn't want to think how bad the situation would become and dares to hope:

"Roger that, Sarge. Will you try to start the Chimeras?" She asks hopeful: fifty kilometres aren't that much for a normal treck, but with wounded?

Might as well be a thousand.

"We will try, that's all we can do in an hour. After that…I hope the Emperor is merciful."

"…Yes sarge."

There are sounds of exertion from the healthy men, who are taking off the panels in front of the Chimeras to show the engines ,with the blackened walls and smell of burn men inside it, while the injured ones are keeping watch, biting a curse at each small movement they make while taking off anything that could be used for the march.

Shaking her head, the corporal moves inside the ran down building where the "man" had moved in just before, her battered lasgun at the ready for any noise.

The house isn't far better inside than the outside: she can see on the kitchen of this floor, all of the mobilia having been trashed and something resembling soup having been thrown on the ground, a carpet the only thing resembling a luxury in the room, while two elderly are still sitting in front of a table attached to the kitchenette, their eyes closed forever while now blackened blood had dried on their forehead down their chin.

On her right, instead, there is a small room, with an equally small window and green coloured walls, badly damaged if the big cracks on them are of any information, with several small bed and cribs inside. The merciful Emperor had made sure that they were empty, with dirty diapers in a closed bin giving the room a distasteful odour.

Maybe the children at least are safe.

She enters that small room and she immediately aims for the shadow in the corner.

Only to find a dead Xeno, who was using the window as a point to attach us, its face a rictus of surprise while through its left eye there is a lasgun wound.

Damn.

"This isn't exactly a good place to day dream, you know."

The lasgun is already moving towards the voice, only for it to be stopped by an hand.

Human hand.

A stupid human hand.

"Now now, where is the great training Cadians are said to pass through? A little scare and you already shoot?"

The woman doesn't answer, keeping her training in mind, but she is tempted to shoot him.

"So, what made you try to find little old me? My sunny personality? My superior skill at using firearms? Your feeling of inadequacy?"

Very much tempted.

But, knowing and remembering the words of her sergeant, and being perfectly aware that the man in front of her had laid waste to a platoon of knife-ears, she reports drily:

"Sir, we have taken care of the injured as much as possible, while the others are trying to restart the Chimeras. We don't have any techpriest surviving the attack, so we could have to go on foot, leaving behind the injured to keep us-"

"Shh!"

The man stops her report, an index in front of his lips.

She didn't hear anything, and her eyebrows wrinkle while her frown deepens, before the man goes towards the kitchen.

She follows him, biting any curse she is feeling and almost ramming him when he suddenly stops and tells calmly, gripping the side of the table:

"Help me move this, I think there is something under."

The Corporal stares at him, then shakes her head and asks a simple yet important question:

"Why, sir?"

Turning towards her, his face unreadeable, he explains like he is talking to a child:

"The table is too attached to the stoves, there are dirty diapers in the other room, still stinking, and there is a carpet that shouldn't be here. Give me an hand."

'This is stupid'

But the man in front of her wouldn't budge, and would just do it himself probably. So, after moving the two corpses out of the way, they move the table and the carpet, revealing a normal steel floor.

Practically unble-wait.

It's…slightly off. Like a false pavement. The welding is not right, there isn't one in three fourth of the square.

The man knocks on it, and there is an echoing sound coming from the little knocks.

Then those knocks are answered from the other side.

From under them.

Then they are stopped and fearful, childish, voices can be heard from the under floor, and baby cries, and a strange smell.

Before she can say anything, or even think about this miracle, she hears the sound of metal against leather, and turning towards the man she sees the most beautiful sword she had ever seen.

The blade is so peerless that it almost made light itself, while the black line where the fuller is made it even more luminous, and the symbol where the guard is, a circle divided by a curvaceous line between white and dark, makes it stranger to her, but still understandable and beautiful.

Whoever techboy had forged it in these centuries must have been a master in the craft.

Then the stupid, stupid man just stabbed through the hollow between the two tiles, and used that splendid sword as a lever to pull up the tile, making her want to shout at him.

But the serious face makes her desist, and then, the fearful shouts of the children almost makes her forget the line of thought.

The relieved smile on his face, almost blinding, makes her forget it completely.

Sometimes in the long past, or in the near present

"What are you doing here? My reality marble isn't a resort, if the land of sword doesn't show it."

"I apologise for my intrusion, Red guardian, but my Father's soul has asked me to accompany you."

"Father? I doubt he has that much sway over the litteral God and protector of Mankind, and I don't know how you could help. Alaya does give me information before each job."

"You would be surprised, but I swear that I will not be in any way, or shape, or form an obstacle for your duty, Counter Guardian EMIYA."

"…Damn. Well, at least I won't be alone in this misery."

AN

Thanks to Neuron for his comments and editing.