Chapter 2: Unknown hope

Passed thrice the holy incense on the injured machine, to make the spirit breath. Filled the machine with holy oil, blood for the motive force's action. And change the candles to illuminate the way for the spirit of the machine.

At least, that's what the techpriests would say.

"Try now!"

The engine sputters. Hope rises. Bluish smoke comes out of the big exhausts at the top side of the Chimera.

Then it dies again.

"Shit!"

The young Zuhurian has to be mindful to not hit, the internal wall of the Chimera, his own frustration mounting and mounting, while Caleb shakes his head at the fifteenth failure.

The roars of artillery exploding in the distance, the moans of the injured that needs this shit to work so they could be moved in a fast enough way to not all die, the long voxes are all fried, and the very near tech-heresy of doing this without an adeptus mechanicus controlling isn't helping the young Omar keeping control of his nerves.

"Kalbing engine! Kalbing machine spirit! Why won't you start?!"

As can be heard.

"Oi Omar, Nahal! Other than swears, anything to say 'bout the old cunts?" The sergeant had already finished organizing the injured, while him and the other "failed techboy" are trying to make at least one of the two not burnt Chimera start.

But both were somehow faulty since some time, and now only a direct action from the God Emperor would maybe make them work.

Or a good hit with a wrench, taken from the body of the adeptus.

Hopefully the other Zuhurian is luckier:

"Oi Nahal! Is the spirit of yours-"

"Kalb! The machine spirit of this Chimera is a dog! That's what it is, and that's what it will always be!"

She isn't luckier than him.

If only he was still in the family, maybe…

No. Do not think about it.

Not now.

Bluish vapour…oil. But it should at least start without suffocating. Meaning there are other problems.

But what could they be?

"Sarge! We found survivors! Children!" the corporal's voice thunders from the building the xenos had used in their failed ambush, and from where His agent of providence had entered.

And it makes young Omar smile for the first time in some time.

After all, it's His plan, no wonder the engine won't…

Between the Agent and the corporal come out fifteen children. One Chimera worth.

Damn it. If there are children, then…

Omar's smile fades and with renovated spirit he starts again with the repairs, now with much more vigour.

They had willingly decided to give their life for the Imperium, and now he has the duty in front of him.

Maybe, changing the protecting valves and the holy candles…

Steps on the asphalt make him rise, and he can feel the man who saved them behind him, looking over his shoulder and at the engine he was working at, silent and judging.

The trembling of his hands isn't enough to make him stop, not while the Sergeant is now taken and occupied with crying children, the bigger ones around the smaller.

Making silly faces at those children, and boasting about the xenos he totally killed.

And giving them his rations, so they would have something to eat before they would be put on the "Cool, unstoppable Chimeras" and brought to the nearest base, and then they would be secure.

"Hmmm…Give me some space, will you? If we wait for you, it will take ages."

Omar looks now at the man, who is frowning at him like he is a dog, and probably wanting to set him aside without a hint of courtesy.

"Sir," He tries, after all he is used to superiors being idiots and trying to butt in everywhere. He comes from the PDF, and his own family, after all: "I understand that your time is-"

"Just move. It will take thirty seconds."

He is curt. Rude. And he is not looking at him.

Omar's heartbeat rises, and he can his teeth grinding together behind his lips, but, after a shrug from Caleb, he just lets the superior gunslinger at his position, and lets him waste precious time at trying to assuage the machine spirit, while the Corporal Lymsanne walks behind him, confused and inquisitive at his behaviour, but otherwise not doing anything at this mockery.

The gunslinger kneels at his position, then sneezes and coughs and asks: "Who used incense here? You want to suffocate the engine more than it already has?"

Heretek.

He is letting an Heretek touch a holy engine.

His hand inches closer to his handlas, but a sharp look from the corporal, who had followed the man, makes him bite his lip and simply observe as the stranger touches the holy engine.

Then, the maybe-tecno heretic mutters something, and the corporal sharply turns around, her lasgun powering up, which make the remaining guardsman power up their own weapons, and be afraid and angry and ready to stand.

The children scream, and get themselves in a ball, the bigger ones on the outside, and tremble.

Then a ruff voice asks, without a care and without even looking up: "Could you please pipe it down and start this tractor? It should work now. Even with that strange glitch…"

While a louder one, coming from the sergeant, thunders: "Lay down! Lay down! No hostiles here!"

He hadn't even opened it! Nor changed anything!

Caleb, who had his own laspistol at the ready, narrows his eyes at the man, and doesn't move, nor act.

The man rolls his eyes, then explains flatly, his steel eyes boring through the man: "If you don't do it from there, I will do it from here. I can do that, unlike what your techno-barbarians do."

How dares this man insult the work of the tech-priests!?

Omar wants to delay the heretical request, wants to shout, want to rave, but Caleb gulps, and presses the button to start the holy, and now probably deturped, machine.

Which, after one, two and three choked gasps, roars to life, black smoke making place to whitish, and then almost transparent, the sound coming from it healthier than it ever was.

Then the red coated man gets up, dusts himself, and walks towards Nahal, who is looking at him with wide brown eyes and a slight tremble, leaving Omar staring at the now purring Chimera, and Caleb scratching his head.

Omar turns towards the Corporal, who is now glaring at the strange, borderline heretical, man, then she shakes her head, mutters many curses born out of Cadia, and starts to follow the man, who is already stalking towards the other Chimera, but the meaty man of the Sergeant Marrick stops him, shaking his head slightly.

Omar growls and glares at Caleb, who shrugs, but with a snarl he watches on, while poor Nahal becomes smaller and smaller, her brown eyes wide and her clenched shut, while the wrench she is holding trembling in her hand.

Then, without any fanfare, the man got on his knees and repeats the action he did with Omar's vehicle: the touch, the mutter, the corporal suddenly turning towards him, her finger trembling on the trigger, the crisp order to start the engine.

And for the second time, the roar of the Chimera greets them.

Omar doesn't stop glaring, but behind him the Sergeant speaks up, his voice calm and grim: "If the Mechanicus asks, say that you did it following all the rites. He may have saved both the injured and the children."

Omar's glare doesn't subside, but he is not an idiot, and knows that a small sin isn't a big sin.

And he isn't a Techpriest, as much as many close to him wanted, but a guardsman.

His first, second and last oaths are for humanity, not the holy technology left behind.

Shaking his head, he started counting the breath of the machine, while writing down on the floor with a chalk the numbers given.

Completely unreal numbers, not even seen at the Masnaa.

Caleb shrugs when Omar starts incoherently shout at the heavens, due to not understanding, and frankly, not caring about the poor Zahurian meltdown over the techheresy/blessing.

Better to have them than not, after all, above all in the free for all hell that this planet is showing up to be. And lying to a techboy? Easy.

"Children! Help move your injured siblings and the little ones on the Chimeras! We start moving for the nearest outpost in five minutes!"

After all, who would believe that just by touching the engines started again?

How would he have done it? With witchery?

Hilarious.

Marching towards the outskirts of Malak's forge.

The sound of blades against one another, sliding and clashing.

It had been loud. It had been sudden.

And Corporal Lymsanne is sure it had come from the mysterious man now listening to her sergeant, who is pointing at some point on an outdated map, with the driver of the chimera, one Omar, adding shortcuts and broken parts of the hive every time one could come up, while the vehicles were moving on a marching speed, with the uninjured guardsmen flanking the street, watching on the buildings, and the turrets being unused due to lack of men being able to man them effectively.

And she is instead glancing at the man every ten steps, to then return to the buildings.

Not fit for a guardsman, and above all a Cadian, but it wasn't a normal situation then, and it isn't now.

She is sure that he did something strange with the engines.

Something that felt heretical.

But she doesn't have anything more than "sound of blades". And even then, she cannot care about it, not for now, not here, and not with the man using those abilities being their only hope of surviving this hell.

And the long voxes still aren't working, other than some staticky sounds of prayers, propaganda, and instructions to civvies blasted on all frequencies, while the sound of artillery shells exploding is coming from afar and close.

There are also the roars of the valkeries above head, and of the strange greenskin contraptions, and the sinous eldar flyers.

Everytime they fly, the soldiers walking cringe, and hug closer to the walls.

Everytime the sounds of shells come close, the injured moan in pain inside the first chimera, with the back open so to in case be able to crawl out.

Everytime a craft flies, be it imperial or enemy, the children huddle closer and closer, silent and praying and crying, the bigger ones in the front, the smaller ones closer to the door.

Then, when new sounds of rockets are coming in the distance, the red clad man stops, making the sergeant almost stumble, looks to the left, and…sniffs the air?

Then he prepares his own las rifle and turns it on and, with his peeled in direction East-North-East, and above the buildings.

Then the deep voice, which she had heard snarking and annoyed only, shouts: "Move the injured and the children in the alleys! We have big movers coming and shouting all the way!"

The Sergeant startles, then he immediately follows the order by moving the Chimeras in the alleys, as such they would be as protected as possible, while giving a bit of firepower, while taking position at the back, having taken a binocular from inside the chimeras.

The soldiers, the ones able to move and fire by themselves, take position around the almost destroyed apartment building, which seemed very close to collapsing, using rubbles as cover and nervously controlling the charge of their lasguns, and laspistols.

The grenades had been laid down, and the doors and window of the apartment itself had been broken open, in case they had a retreat position.

The children were put further behind the Chimeras, crying, inside dumpsters and under rubble, quivering, a more secure position than the vehicles themselves, the alley open on the other side, with the injured soldiers forming a last line to cover them, along with a map and a letter written by the sergeant if the worst comes by.

This all takes a minute.

Lymsanne isn't lesser than the others in that, but she can also feel her heartbeats, her trembling hands, her sweaty palms, and feel that subtle sound of metal against metal beside her, that she had heard before and had already put her on edge.

She almost prays that the man could finally be wrong.

Then she hears them.

She hears the shrill screams of rockets above and in front of her.

She hears the ground quake from afar, coming closer and closer with uneven rhythm.

She hears the explosions, and the pained shouts.

She hears the "bangs" and the "whooshs", the "kraks" and the "Ahahs".

And, above all, she hears "WAAAAAGH!".

Before she can even shout out, the red clad man besides her takes up the lasgun and fires in the direction of the screams, and the roars, aiming only for a fraction of a second, the far too bright shot traveling far.

An orange explosion lights up the sky, and it's around one and a half kilometre away.

There is a moment of confusion and elation, but the sergeant relays the most important information, having been able to see the attackers with the shitty binoculars:

"Stormboys! Get inside the building and fix bayonets!"

Not the best situation, to get inside an almost destroyed building, but it's better than having a two and a half meter ork with rockets falling on your head.

Even if the bayonets against such a being isn't exactly what you call "ideal".

The soldiers follow the order without delay, some jumping through broken windows and taking position, the others using the remaining broken furnitures as cover.

The red clad man, instead, aims in another fraction and took another shot, the red beam traveling to another small black point smoking around.

Another explosion thunders from afar, around a kilometre from the soldiers.

"Oi moron!" The corporal shouts, in between setting up killzones for the greenskins are coming at them: "Get inside! Good shot or not they will mash you into jam!"

The man just tsks and aims another shot, disregarding her words and pressing the trigger a third time.

And, for the third time, an explosion greets the shot, and many other roars, both orkish and object made, greets that.

"Com'n boyz, get me tat snipah!"

Then, without looking, the stranger jumps back, avoiding narrowly the crash of a ton of Ork and garbage and shouts and rockets, at the same time taking the shot against the green xeno, recovering from the fall with a crude knife in his hand.

The laser beam hits and melts the armoured shoulder of the two meters and a half Ork, having the xeno crouched with the impact, maybe due to luck, maybe due to its instincts, maybe due to a mistake from the red clad warrior.

"WAAAAAGH!"

All the while, other five roars are heard, and five Orks with rockets strapped behind the crashed in front of the humans, shaking them with the shockwave.

The guardsmen have just enough ties to retake their bearings and take cover when the hellish "ratatatata" is heard.

Lymsanne does that as well, all the while cursing the strange warrior who is probably dead.

"Hummie, yer good! Ye'z mine!"

"WAAAAGH!"

The Orks continue to suppress their position, so she, alongside with soldiers Plorr and Barlynda and a frag grenade, crawl towards the stairs, the building shaking off dust, and splinters, and sparks under the ork assault.

"Yer fast! Yer eyes's gud!"

The sounds of lasgun discharging in between the Orks reloading, the moans of the newly injured, and the sound of metal against metal.

The moment they are…not protected, but at least not in the line of fire, they bolt.

"Ya got ta gits wit da most dakka! Ye'z betta than those Spez Marinez!"

The roars of rockets goes and on, but only temporary, and with no longer shakes for the building.

That's enough for the three guardsmen to reach the second floor, without paying attention to the holes and the cracks of the floor, and rush to the open gash that was the face of the building, to rain fire on the supressing Orks.

What Lymsanne sees, and what makes her stop for that moment, is the warrior in single combat with the hulking alien, the latter laughing and shooting off with its rockets from one part of the street to the other, the man almost dancing out the way, each time the knife seeming inevitable on him.

The right side seems open? The warrior is immediately able to avoid the cruel knife.

The Ork rises its crude pistol to fire? The warrior is already moving, almost too fast to see, and the Xeno could only use the rockets to avoid being skewered.

And all the while the sounds of blade against blade is in her head.

After that moment, she remembers her duty and aims down alongside her two comrades:

"Fire at will, for the Imperium!"

And they start raining their own fire at the five Orks still firing at their comrades, now finding themselves in the open position any kind of infantry didn't want to be in.

The Xenos instinctively take cover behind the same rubbles the Guardsmen had used just before; and that's when Lymsanne takes out the frag grenade, and her shout is casted above the cacophony of the firefight:
"Take cover!"

The red clad warrior jumps afar, the head Ork does the same with its rockets.

Three Orks aren't so lucky and are blasted by the grenade, leaving them dead on the spot.

But the last Ork, the moment it hears the warning, uses its loud rockets to jump high, and higher, and higher, until the three guardsmen cannot see it anymore.

Then they are a crash above them, and fear seeps into them, but not fast enough for them to move when the Ork crashes, landing on Barlynda's leg which makes a sick snapping sound, making the Guardswoman shout and scream in pain.

Before Lymsanne and Plorr can try to rise their own guns but, before they can try to fight back, another crack is heard.

And another one.

Then many more, and the floor the four are on breaks and makes them fall along with it.

The impact makes Lymsanne head ring and swim, and the air fires off her lungs, but it also makes the Xeno stumble as well.

Lymsanne still has her lasgun in her hand, with the bayonet fixed on it.

And so she jumps up, the pain kept at bay, and thrusts it through the Xeno's neck, training and experience kicking in, while blood far too dark to be human gushes out the wound.

The Xeno moves its enormous right hand to take out the weapon, but the woman pushes forward with all her might, the Xeno still dazed, but she knows that if the Xeno retakes mind she will die.

Then Barlynda's knife hits the back of the left knee, while Plorr's bayonet pierces under the right armpit, and helps her make the Xeno fall, away from the downed Guardsman.

The Xeno tries then to aim his pistol, in its left hand, but Lymsanne and Plorr press the trigger far before it could.

They continue to fire until they could smell burnt terrain, and even then they fire more than a couple more shots to be sure.

After the corpse had even stopped twitching at the shots, and with the sound of rockets and laughter outside, the feeble voice of the downed Cadian, now under the leg of the dead Xeno, attracted the two cumplanetoids: "Oi, can one of you fraking assholes get me up?"

The Plorr immediately got to it, while Lymsanne returns to see the duel.

The human isn't winded. There are no wounds on him, there is no sweat, the only blood is on his blades, black of colour, his steel eyes trained on the foe in front of him while his face is stone, and emotionless.

Around him there are pieces of rockets, and sprays of black ichor, and small craters from the enormous gun in the Ork's hand.

The Ork instead is full of wounds, shallow and deep, but standing straight, leaning heavily on its left leg, but is smiling widely, each breath laboured but full of life, while the only rocket remaining is the one on his back.

Then he speaks again, each mangled word clear in its want:

"Youzza sad hummie. Tis iz glorious kombat! Smile more! The toothy onez ain't as fun as me!"

The man in red, without speaking a word, only takes a wide stance, his black and white blades, splendid, still shining in black ichor, ready to strike.

One was higher than the other, the right one, the black one, while his right leg is behind the left.

The Ork laughs, and shouts to the world, and to the human in front of him:

"I'z Sparkz Rocka hummie! Rememba tat! No' letz finish tis wit da las'exploshoun!"

The rocket behind Sparkz lights to life, and he flies forward.

"WAAAAAGH!"

The warcry is loud, and makes Lymsanne teeth clench and tremble, and grasp her lasgun tighter.

"WAAAAGH!"

The blood in her veins is cold, while the man starts twisting his body, and rising the black blade in his right even more.

"WAAAAGH!"

The two warriors, one Human and one Xeno, are now but a few paces from each other, the Ork's last charge encountering the unwounded warrior, the rocket roar encountering the whistle of blade against blade.

"WAAAA-"

Then the right blade descended, the warrior having sidestepped the nob Stormboy completely, and cutting the through the Ork's neck, his last word being the warcry itself, his last expression a wide smile.

The body continues to fly towards the end of the street, ending as an enormous ball of green light and sparks against a far off building.

The warrior swipes the blades aside, two half moons of blood forming, then, without a sound, he sheaths the two blades.

He didn't speak a word during the duel, and Lymsanne knows that they still don't know his name.

But maybe, with him, they will be able to reach the regiment camp and, after that, survive this planet.

Sometimes in the long past, or in the near present

"This is strange. I should have been already given information for my next assignment."

"Speak more of your "assignments", Counter Guardian. With that information I could help you."

"Your very presence is against that. Counter Guardians, when they work together, aren't one present in the head of the other."

"My Father may have changed how you work."

"Alaya ain't anyone's fat-wait, what is this feeling?"

"It's like we are being pulled. Interesting."

"Interesting?! We lack any kind of intel for the assignment! It's against how Alaya works!"

"Well, isn't this the heart of discovery, to find something new?"

"I already despise you!"

"Don't worry, I will help you-"

And they disappeared, or disappear, or will disappear, from the world of blades.

AN

It was first a month of exam (June), then a really bad month (July).

Hopefully this will be a better month.

Thanks to Roxas for the look on the chapter.