Editor's note
For the record my character is wearing the standard default skin, same with the cyber-mastiff as that's the style I like most with my character. The other skins are good but I like the default skins just fine. Also the cyber mastiff is in his level 1 form because that's the best design but his states are that of the maxed out cyber mastiff.
Chapter 1
It had been a week since that bounty went up, an entire week since I saw my face on that damned bounty board of wanted outlaws.
If you hadn't guessed yet, I am Matthias Grendel, Matt for short, former member of one of house Orlocks many gangs in hive primus and now a ruthless bounty hunter and unfortunately an outlaw.
I was a broad shouldered man at the age of 23, I had slick silvery gray hair that always curled to the right side of my face no matter what I or anyone else did, I had replaced both my eyes with bionics. My right eye was replaced with a simple black lens, though it was less so a replacement and more of a way to aid it since it got damaged so many years ago.
The entire left side of my face was all bionics and wires. Rendering a small bald patch just around the left side of my head. The frame of the eye was cylindrical and large enough to take up the entire socket and expanded to where the left eyebrow would have been. The green lens glowed a dim green color.
The bridge of my nose and the area around my chin and underneath the cheeks was a rim of metal plating screwed in, it made a clicking sound whenever I moved my mouth and my nose often itched.
I wore a dark brown trench coat over a layer of flak armor which was over a simple fabric shirt and baggy pants with leather boots, the belt I wore had a skull emblem on the front. A skull to match the molded metal one that was strapped to my left shoulder as a bit of added armor. Finally, both my arms were bionic and looked very skeletal, though the left one was covered by a wrist mounted grapnel launcher I had procured.
leather gloves covered my hands to give them a bit of...well to make them a bit thicker than the very skinny metal ones beneath.
I was sitting at my favorite table, a rounded furniture piece in the corner right next to the cogitator. Curled up next to the table was Brutus.
My ever loyal cyber mastiff was covered in yellow metal plating that covered his chest and back, his mouth had an underbite metal jaw with sharp blade teeth protruding from them, much of his dark gray furred flesh had rotten away around those areas. His left eye was replaced with a glowing blue lens. All four of his legs had been replaced with hydraulic powered claws and his tail was replaced with a knife sharp blade.
He was chewing a remarkable durable toy rat in his mouth, squeaking each time he applied pressure to it.
If you're wondering what I was doing sitting at my favorite table with a bottle of WildSnake in my bionic hands and twirling my knife in the other.
Well nothing really, I had spent a lot of money trying to pay at least half the bounty on that damned board, I had to sell nearly all my weapons. The only weapons I didn't give away to get money were my knife, Ironside stub gun and Striker autogun.
My knife and Ironside, had both been my fathers, he had been a bounty hunter himself, and a former member of house Orlock, he gave his two weapons to me when he joined up in the Indomitus crusade.
The knife was a thin curved blade and the handle's pommel had an eagle head carved onto it. The ironside was an unmodified, stub-gun with a bone charm dangling from a small chain underneath the handle. It also had a power-field which was an especially useful feature.
My Striker was an autogun I had picked up in Goliath territory on a job, at the very start of that whole fiasco that got my face on a wanted poster. I had kept it through all of that and had admittedly grown surprisingly attached to it. I don't know if I could have parted with it if I wanted to and I didn't want to.
I stabbed the blade into the table, and took another swig of the WildSnake.
But my thoughts always returned to the board.
Damn Kal Jerico for getting me into this mess,
Damn the Silver Talon for killing that Guilder, Damn the Shadow for doing the killing! Damn the Stimm dogs! Damn the scrapjacks! Damn those Escher! Damn itÃ.damn ità Rust-Damn it All!
I stood up, having had enough of sitting down and went over to the cogitator. The servitor that controlled it turned its head towards me briefly before continuing to stare straight ahead with his featureless metal dome face.
Brutus stayed slouched in his corner as I looked at all the jobs on the many screens attached by cables to the spreadeagled wretch.
I looked through all the jobs on display, the first one I already disliked, a job from the Slave guild, I didn't bother having a proper look at it. Nor the one posted by house Goliath. I hated both with a passion.
The next couple looked more promising; one was from the water guild and asked for a hired hand in the extraction of a water pocket found in the Ashe Wastes. The fourth one was from the Ironhead Prospector's themselves.
But it was the fifth one I decided to take, it was posted by the Psi-Syndicate.
The Psi-Syndicate was technically an illegal organization and should not have been officially allowed to be, but they were given leeway due to how effective they were at collecting Wyrd's or Psykers as they were more widely known outside Necromunda. It was well known that they selled wyrd's to the other gangs for their unique powers, especially to members of house Delaque. Or made into Mind-locked soldiers for their own.
There were also rumors that they gave some of their psykers to the fabled blackships .
But I myself was rather good at killing Wyrd's, I had killed many in service to the black talon, they died just as easily as any normal human to a spray of bullets, or a knife to the throat or a cyber-mastiff jaws to the face.
What was more, the reward was over 200,000.
The job was the capture or elimination of a group of Theta Grade Wyrd(for some reason the most common type of wyrd on Necromunda) escapees who were last seen in...my blood froze, they were last seen in the Cold Black, the last time i had been down there, i had encountered horrific creatures who I now knew were the horrific xeno's breed known as Genestealers.
The last time I was down there the genestealers had swarmed and nearly torn me apart.
However it appeared that they were actually in a temple in a different area of the Cold Black, which gave me some relief, perhaps there wouldn't be any monsters in that part of the haunted place, I could go in, kill all the Wyrd's, maybe even capture one if I could, deliver the girl to the guild and present proof of the other's death and get enough money to pay off the rest of my bounty.
With that idea firmly in mind I accepted the job, a physical copy of it was printed out from underneath the main screen of the cogitator and took it, "good luck" called the Wildsnake Priestess, the owner of the blessed fountain within Martyr's end, as Brutus got up and followed me.
We came to the big door at the outpost entrance and waited as with a grinding of gears, it opened with a high pitched squeal of mechanics.
"Let the hunt begin" I declared.
The cold black. No P.O.V
As the name suggested, the Cold black was dark, cold, dreary and uncited unease in everyone that ever entered it, even those who had been to it before, if anything the unease was greater from knowing what was around the corner than not knowing at all.
The Temple was one made to venerate none other than the Primarch, Rogal Dorn, son of the Emperor and progenitor of the Imperial fist chapter of Space Marine.
Matt couldn't help but stop and stare at the statue which showed the Primarch standing with both hands on his chain sword which was resting on the ground by its tip. Everyone on Necromunda(who wasn't a heretic)would venerate Dorn as other worlds would venerate Sanguinius as the Martyred Angel or Guilliman as the returned son.
Matt himself was not very religious, but even he would often look up to Rogal Dorn, the Primarch who held the walls of Terra against the nine devils from the warp and then braved the dangers to find and rescue his father and save him from the mortal wound the arch traitor had dealt the master of mankind by placing him on the Golden Throne.
Rogal Dorn, unbreakable, unyielding in all things.
There were even small cults of house Cawdor who declared that Dorn would take his rightful place from Guilliman as the heir to the Emperor's golden throne on Terra.
Matt refocused himself, he had a job to do and he couldn't get distracted, so he hefted Striker into both hands and entered the building. Finding the Wyrd's was actually easier than predicted as they had all gathered in the main prayer chamber. There were 20 of them all sat in a circle cross legged in front of a much larger statue of the praetorian of terra.
This one showed him hooded with a power sword held up high to the ceiling and a rectangular shield in the other, they were all chanting in some debased tongue Matt didn't know the meaning of, they had their hands held together and held up high.
Their eyes were rolled back in their heads as their mouths moved in sync with each other. Each one was pale and underfed, their clothes were little more than tattered cloth, made only for the most based concept of decency.
Matt saw all this as he quietly moved towards them, they became clearer as he got closer. On the other side Brutus was slinking ready to pounce at his master's order. Then Kilo saw that in the middle of the circle, there was a small child, like its fellow Wyrds, it(whether it was boy or girl Matt couldn't say) it had ash gray skin and its long hair was all tangled and messy.
It seemed to be the leader of the group, acting as a conductor to an opera, in one hand she held a jagged and poorly maintained dagger which she waved slowly up and down with the rhythm of the chant. But the oddest thing about it was that it had an open book in front of her with its pages glowing brighter and brighter.
That might not sound odd but when Matt got closer he saw that the book had a pair of studyblue legs and a curled tail with a sharp barb at the end.
"What the hell?"
Matt couldn't find any reasonable reason for that thing. Other than it being some sort of daemon the wyrd's had summoned from hell.
That just made Matt want to kill them more, these Wyrd's were performing some ritual in a holy place and knowing the many stories it was undoubtedly bad for everyone involved or not.
Matt could already feel the vague tingling of electricity, the same electricity I felt around those Psykers hired by the many gangs of hive primus.
There was also a strong breeze inside going around in a swirling vortex around the circle of Wyrd's, not strong enough to affect anyone other than making their way flap and flow.
It was now or never, at the opposite side, Matt saw Brutus low to the ground ready to pounce, they were both just right across from the circle of Wyrd's.
Matt brought out a grenade, armed it and lobbed it, it landed right next to the nearest Wyrd whose concentration broke and he looked down at it, his concentration breaking.
Time seemed to slow, the first second saw the man's eyes widening in shock in a most gratifying way, the next second hand the man opening his mouth and shouting "GRENADE"
The third and final second, the grenade exploded taking him and the four next to him in a blaze of expanding force, it was over in a tick.
Matt then sprang into action, he aimed his autogun, targeting sigils locking by onto his targets(another gift from his cerebral implant) and fired at the nearest Wyrd killing him with a short burst of fire.
By this point the others were on their feet, 3 had surrounded the girl who was now chanting faster and waving her arms more frantically in a desperate attempt to complete the ritual.
They were all so focused on Matt that they only saw Brutus when he knocked another of them, this one a woman, to the ground, pinned her and ripped out her jugular.
Now some picked up what little weapons they could, mostly broken pipes or long knives only three had guns, these were the ones surrounding the girl as she desperately tried to finish the ritual.
They were clearly inexperienced as they didn't try to shoot in fear of hitting one of their friends. One had a pump shotgun with a round magazine, the other two had autopistols.
One came at Matt with a mad dash and some desperate warcry or another, Matt shot another burst at him, the shots didn't hit as he had summoned his psychic shield, manifesting as a spherical electric field around his person which blocked the bullets.
But it made him hesitate just long enough for the bounty hunter to close the distance and stab him up under his chin and out through the top of his head with the hired gun's power knife. The knife had a limited amount of power in it so Matt tended to spare it and only used the field in certain circumstances. This wasn't one of them.
"Bastard!" Shouted a short haired woman as she conjured a fireball in hand and lobbed it at Grendel.
Matt however had his refractor field so the fireball did little damage to the bounty hunter himself but the field wouldn't last forever. After a few more hits it would disintegrate and need recharging.
Brutus pounced on the woman biting into her shoulder and digging into her back with his metal claws, in a short amount of time he reached her spine and killed her with a slash of his front claw.
Matt meanwhile had holstered his autogun and now drew out his iron fist stun gun and as he was beset upon by three more Wyrd's 2 young men and one woman.
The woman came at me first, he easily blocked her pipe and then stabbed her in the eye. She cried out and staggered back curling up and clutching her damaged iris.
Enraged the first young man, lunged at him with his own pipe, this one however had a sharp knife strapped to it.
Matt ducked under the swing, got his gun inside the field and fired a shot at the man's bare leg blowing it off at the knee before finishing him off with another shot to the back of his head.
The third and final Wyrd teleported away in a shimmer of fire, Matt heard the brief crackle of flames behind him and sent his metal elbow out backwards. Cracking the Wyrd's nose, before stabbing him in his raised hand.
"Why!?" He cried, "Why can't you leave us alone!?" Matt didn't answer but instead stabbed the knife, still with the hand impaled on it into the teens neck. He gurgled as he died.
Matt P.O.V
"Why can't you leave us alone!?"
A brief pang struck me at those words but I squashed them down as I finished him up with a stab to his neck. He gurgled as he died.
The answer was simple, I had a job to do, and besides this ritual had to be stopped.
Brutus had killed the rest, only about 5 remained, the child, the three guarding her and one which was scrabbling away from Brutus as he finished off his friend.
I brought out Brutus' favorite toy and threw it at him. He caught it automatically and it squeaked. Brutus turned and lunged at him, tearing his nose and most of his face off with his powerful teeth. He then picked up the toy and moved to my side as I put away my knife and Ironfist and drew Striker back out.
"Which one of you gets to come with me?" I asked rhetorically, we stared down at each other.
All three weirds had their weapons pointed at me, I didn't bother, my refractor shield was still going strong, my Cerebral implant showed me its strength with a blue bar at the bottom left corner of my vision. My luminem capacitor was also fully charged.
I stretched my left hand out in a fist and with a thought charged it and fired three blasts of arcing red electrical energy at them, each moving like a guided missile, all three hitting the Wyrd's directly in their heads.
Disintegrating blood, bone and brain matter briefly splattered around the room as their bodies slumped to the floor dead.
The child had stopped chanting now, the book on legs had its pages glowing extremely brightly now, the wind was now really strong, pushing me like a baby was trying to shove me to the side. The child, a girl I could see now that I was close enough, looked frantically between me and her book.
"Come on kid" I told her gently but sternly, I wanted to give her a chance, not that I thought she would take it, I had killed her friends, maybe even her family. Sure enough the girl stood up and shot her hands forwards.
Blue electricity lept from her fingers towards me, it hit my shield just as I moved, breaking it just as me and Brutus hid behind one of the pillars. The stone sizzled as the lightning hit it.
But then it stopped, looking around the corner I saw the girl raise the dagger and stab it down into the center of the book.
The book let out a tiny pained squeal, "the hell are you doing?" I demanded.
As I raised my gun to aim at her and Brutus came out from behind me growling, the girl rounded on me.
she glared with utter hatred looking at me in such a way it made me freeze, with a shiver running up my spine.
I saw the book's pages start to flick rapidly from one side to the other, but it didn't come to any sort of end or ran out of pages to turn. As it did, the book was lifted into the air, its legs dangling and it began to circle in the air.
It circled, faster and faster, the sound of paper pages being flicked at a rapid pace filled the room as it began to glow a bright blue color. Then the wind that had been swirling, was now being sucked in, in such a short matter of time, the room now became a massive vacuum.
The girl was the first to go, arms opened wide, as if wanting a hug, she was gently lifted up and consumed by the blue sphere of light.
Me and Brutus were not so lucky, me and Brutus were being sucked in with no escape, Helmawrrs teeth were this what it was like to be sucked into space, I was struggling to breath. Brutus had clamped his claws into the ground but he was being dragged back and so was I.
I fired my Grapnel gun trying to get some purchase with that, but then the rope was turned around by the sun, the end banged me in the head and I was knocked off my feet and sent flailing towards the light.
Brutus tried to jump and grab my leg with his jaws, but he missed and he too was sucked in with me. In that moment as the portal neared, a calm came over me. As if nothing mattered anymore now that I knew we were dead.
"Shame I never got to settle our debt Kal Jerico" was my last thought as bright blue, almost white light became my whole world.
Note
As I said the Imperial fists are my favorite legion/chapter and Rogal Dorn my favorite Primarch with Sanguinius and the blood angels and Sanguinius being in 2nd place and Jaghatai Khan and his white scars being put at 3rd place(I play a lot of ghost of Tsushima, beautiful game by the way which really had me invested in Mongolian culture hence my love for the white scars)
(Also these three primarchs were at the forefront of the siege of terra, which I'm currently listening to on audiobook, so I have an interest in them. I tried getting into the rest of the Horus heresy and I did read quite a few books including Horus rising, Know no fear. And Betrayer but there's just so many books to get through that it's a little overwhelming. There are also other books I want to get into and series I want to continue and I don't want the Horus Heresy to fill up my library. I'm sorry so I opted for the siege of Terra series I already finished the first two books and waiting to get the first wall)
But anyway since the imperial fists have a fortress monastery on Necromunda I wouldn't be surprised if they emulated Rogal Dorn. Just a bit of headcanon I wanted to put in.
I tried to incorporate how I usually play the game, for starters I move around alot but when I can I usually focus on one target at a time and when it's just the one person charging me I usually stand still and allow my shield to absorb damage. Secondly I like to get close up to perform one of those cool executions with my knife. Thirdly, I like to use the Blast ability with the Luminum capacitor a lot when it's charged and my Mastiff whenever he is available.
also in terms of swear words I am going to relegate it to Scav? Helmawrrs teeth? Or Rust Damn it because honestly those are the ones my character will say the most but I will sprinkle in others for a bit of extra spice