The Chronicles Of Kaurava: Part 5

Calamity From The Sky

Just when you thought things couldn't get any worse for the world of Avatar, now a full-blown alien invasion has shown up out of nowhere, hellbent on raining down devastation upon the elemental nations.

The last hope for peace and unity appears to have been snuffed out... but if there's anything we know about humans, it's that we have the capacity to persevere through the hardest of times, and the willpower to stand firm in the face of overwhelming odds.

Keep that last detail in mind... the raw might and determination of Mankind, according to some, is a force that can shake the universe itself to its core.

But while the civilizations of this peculiar world were in the process of being swallowed up by the apocalypse, another outside party was interfering in the events that were currently transpiring, and they were on the brink of getting fully involved themselves, too.

This was a choice that was guaranteed to change the course of history, the outcomes depending on if this rookie empire of spacefarers could triumph over the alien hegemony, by beating them in their own field of expertise.

A storm was brewing, and an inevitable titanic battle drew closer by the minute...

Current Location: The Kali Cloud, enormous comet and asteroid belt surrounding the Kaurava System, up to a distance of 200,000 AU

Aboard the Imperial Armada Battleship, the "Riftwarrior"

"Commander Mithrarin! We bring word of an urgent status quo update regarding the planet of the Benders!"

Two Solar Auxilia troopers, Pravat and Shen Kim, veterans of the Imperial Guard and some of the best mortal soldiers that the Imperium of Man had, were passing some key intel onto their overlord, 2nd Shogun Mithrarin of the Spirit Wardens Legion.

To further elaborate in a nutshell, Mithrarin was an exemplary leader, warrior and diplomat even amongst his Space Marine peers in the other Legions, which is why he had been chosen to lead an expedition to the Kaurava system, and take the fight to the most deeply evil, insidious, and menacing enemy Mankind has ever encountered in the depths of the cosmos- the Combine Empire.

"Spit it out, then!," the Astartes samurai lord said, not wanting to waste any time. "We cannot afford to lose another valuable human civilization to the whims of those disgusting parasitic insects!"

Mithrarin was referring to the Veeru, the tyrannical arthropod race that ruled the hierarchy of the Combine with a venomous iron fist, and purposely used other sapient beings as living larders for their young, in addition to brainwashing those same victims with zombie fungus to produce cheap cannon fodder for the battlefield. Of course, both procedures resulted in horrific, slow, and excruciatingly painful deaths for any unfortunate individuals forced to take part in them.

The two Solar Auxilia Guardsmen didn't speak for about a minute, anxious that their commander would blow his top off if he heard any bad news. But then the pair remembered that Mithrarin was openly praised by his brother and sister warriors for keeping a cool head, remaining calm and composed in even the bleakest situations.

So the Guardsmen told the whole truth, of what they saw during a seemingly calm space probe flyby...

Pravat's scrutiny:

"We were examining the star system and its planets with our Faustus long-range patrol craft, keeping an eye out for any signs of Combine activity. Passing by the innermost ringed gas giant, Vishnu, our Astropath caught sight of some unusual asteroids, which appeared to be glowing with a strange, ethereal light that made his brain hurt."

"But when we flew closer to get a better look at the objects, they just flat-out VANISHED. As if the dark matter holding the universe together obscured them from all forms of vision."

Shen Kim's conclusion:

"Our crew members all ended up ignoring the pulsing, flashing asteroids as a natural celestial phenomenon. Everybody else who saw the oddity also decided to ignore it. That turned out to be the biggest mistake we've made so far in our tour of duty."

"By the time we arrived at the Riftwarrior's hangar bays for refueling and resupply, literally every Guardsman aboard the vessel was talking about how the Combine managed to bypass our sensors and slip through our defensive positions."

"They've disguised their biomechanical ships as asteroids, using some kind of extremely advanced magical cloaking device, and have managed to make planetfall on Kaurava, ravaging many major settlements. Additionally, those same ships are of classes that we know by now are typically associated with the vanguard of a true battle fleet. Which means that the rest of the Combine Navy is on its way here."

Mithrarin was possibly the last remaining person aboard the Riftwarrior to be unaware of the breach in the Imperial Armada's battle line that had just occurred. But now that he finally knew, it was time to make a plan of action, a counterattack that could both save Kaurava from enslavement and destroy a good chunk of the Combine Navy.

"We still have access to our interstellar communications and reliable navigation methods, using the Astronomicon device. If we can stall the Combine's main naval forces long enough for us to get rid of their scout fleet, using secondary splinter units, and then collaborate with the natives on Kaurava to mount the mother of all planetary defense campaigns, we might actually have a chance at winning."

"Granted, we've been losing this war so far... but I haven't given up my faith in mankind yet. Capitulation is not an option, and taking advantage of a minuscule possibility for victory is better than accepting defeat at the hands of slavers and tyrants!"

"Follow me to the command bridge, Shen and Pravat. We must begin composing the rhythm of war as soon as possible."

Although they perfectly understood the sagacious metaphor Mithrarin was making, the two Guardsmen did have one other concern on their minds- they wanted to ask the Space Marine commander why he thought a backwater world like Kaurava was so important to the Imperium at large.

"Pardon me for questioning your judgment, but why do you believe this place will end up benefiting the Imperium in a noteworthy way?"

"And yes, the bending arts would be a helpful tool for our military forces, but overall, Kaurava's current technological capabilities are extremely primitive, even compared to 22nd Century Terra, which was a very long way from developing effective interstellar travel. Will this really be worth it?"

Mithrarin then reminded his underlings about what he and his fellow Spirit Wardens had been experiencing during the most recent years of the war with the Combine:

"When us Astartes of the Second Legion began approaching the Kaurava planetary system's outer limits, while skirmishing with our hated foe, we began to endure vivid, iridescent hallucinations and visions, urging us to find our lost Primarch, and telling us to look for someone called the Avatar, as well."

"We soon found out who the Avatar in our dreams was, thanks to a civilization survey by the Rogue Trader, Tally Youngblood. They are an immensely powerful Warp entity, or spirit, who has bonded with a human host, and passed down their powers from generation to generation, being reincarnated again and again to keep balance in the world order."

"I believe that the Avatar will be a great potential ally, who could help us put an end to the Combine's reign once and for all. And there's a good chance that a missing Primarch came to Kaurava long ago as an infant, and is now in the process of fulfilling his destiny. Gaining the mutual respect and assistance of two very powerful people, who likely have similar goals to our own. That's our ultimate prize."

The Guardsmen nodded with interest, needing no further elaboration on the subject of saving Kaurava. They were ready to leave... but were rudely interrupted by the blaring noise of an abrupt emergency alarm which resonated through the entire ship.

"We knew this was sure to happen!," Mithrarin shouted, his voice becoming louder and faster. "Go! Do your duty! I shall do mine as well! And if you find yourself outnumbered and outgunned... do not throw your life away like a fool. Make a tactical retreat, and live to fight another day! After all, life is the Emperor's currency, so spend it well, and do not waste it!"

Pravat and Shen hurried out of the room, lasguns in hand, making a beeline for the battleship's aerospace hangars along with more than a million other Guardsmen, and Mithrarin sprinted in a mad dash to the command bridge, where an interplanetary dropship awaited him.

The battle for the Avatar's World was just beginning...

Near the outermost ice giant planet of the system, Varuna, a half dozen Imperial Armada heavy cruisers emerged from Warpspace, each one 6 kilometers long and bristling with enough firepower to gradually shatter entire moons and boil away the deepest water oceans. They were all commanded by Space Marine officers of the Spirit Wardens Legion, just like the larger capital ship much further out, the almighty Riftwarrior.

Diligently patrolling Varuna's orbit, these cruisers would make sure that no additional Combine ships would be able to reach Kaurava and provide reinforcements for the scout invasion contingent.

However, the duty of the Riftwarrior's crew in this titanic naval engagement was difficult and dangerous on an entirely separate level- for obvious reasons, since they had to bear the brunt of the enemy attack, while a much smaller Imperial force would take advantage of the colossal distraction and slip through the carnage, arriving in Kaurava's orbit and offering aid to the native humans who were still being assailed from all sides, their cities and towns burning.

Once the Combine's spearhead forces had been successfully vanquished through a cooperative effort, the Imperium's heroes needed to focus all their firepower on the remaining enemy vessels comprising the main battle group, in order to finish things once and for all.

With luck, Mithrarin and the Spirit Wardens could find what they were looking for on the besieged world, a fascinating place where the elements were harnessed... deserving much better than ignorant isolation or cruel oppression. Kaurava could very well become something much greater in the future- but first, it had to be liberated from the enemies of Mankind, which was no small task.

The liberation would commence... right about NOW.

Phase I: Storm Over Varuna

As the star sailors, shock troops and marines aboard the Riftwarrior scrambled into their designated positions, amidst the horrid screeching of the alarm system, the worst news yet arrived from intelligence reports, bringing a revelation that sapped the morale of even the most stalwart, stoic individuals.

A Combine Starfortress the size of Pluto had appeared at the very edge of the Kaurava System, and was slowly but steadily approaching the Imperial naval line of battle- this was essentially the enslaving alien empire's equivalent of the Death Star. Instead of sending a large fleet of smaller ships, they had consolidated all their naval strength into one colossal mobile base.

If the Star Fort got close enough to target even the biggest Imperial vessels, it would be able to annihilate them with a single shot from its primary weapon, the nova ram, releasing the same level of energy as a hypergiant star in its dying throes, but concentrated into a relatively small area of the void of space.

As Commander Mithrarin climbed into the pilot's seat of a Stormbird dropship, destined for a desperate flight to Kaurava's Fire Nation region, he couldn't help but wonder why the Combine was pulling out all the stops in order to destroy a mere mortal human civilization, whose technology had yet to produce even basic jet engine aircraft... then again, their motives could very well be connected to the same thing causing his battle-brothers and battle-sisters to hallucinate, meaning the xenos most likely knew everything that he did, down to the presence of the mysterious Avatar and the game-changing possibility of locating a lost Primarch.

All the more reason why winning this specific space battle would prove to be a decisive factor for victory in the Imperium's struggle for survival against a hostile and unpredictable galaxy.

As the Combine's armored space station flagship lumbered forwards, more than a thousand strategic bombers with interstellar range took off from a plethora of launch facilities, including the most significant of the Imperial vessels, as well as outposts built on the large moons of the Kaurava system's giant planets and the icy dwarf planets in its outskirts.

To further delay the seemingly unstoppable enemy advance, deep-space plasma mines were planted in various segments of the four circumstellar debris disks that surrounded Kaurava's sun, which were asteroid belts that were very thick and difficult for the majority of spacecraft to navigate through (save for the shapeshifting, illusionary assault transports which the Combine used to bypass the Imperial patrols and make planetfall on Kaurava itself.)

The bombers, which were of three different models- the XM-05 Thanatos, XF-01 Artemis, and XF-02 Apollo, made up the primary force that was to engage the Combine supership.

To compare these colossal space planes to any heavy military bomber aircraft flying in the distant past of the 21st century would be an understatement of the highest order- there is a good reason why strategic bombers in the Imperium of Man's armies were named after Olympian Greek Gods, who all have some kind of incarnation in humanity's far future.

The XM-05 in particular stood out with its delta wing design and widely spaced void shields, being designed for attacks on fortified worlds and xenos capital fleets full of cruisers, carriers and planetary assault ships.

"Thanatos," an ancient Terran term for the Grim Reaper, wasn't just a clever name for the XM-05 bomber, as mentioned above. This behemoth was a ten-thousand ton armored tank with wings and plasma thrusters, measuring at least 180 meters long, equipped with enough close-in weapons systems, countermeasure turrets and point-defense cannons to carve Olympus Mons into an enormous piece of rocky, stony Swiss cheese. It had a crew numbering in the hundreds- a pilot, commanding officer, co-pilots, navigators, flight engineers, bombardiers, gunners, and communications operators all worked together to bring the starship into position and release its payload of star fusion reaction explosives.

Since they were armed with this basic wisdom, facts that every sailor and soldier in the naval battle group had memorized, morale was still at a good level, in spite of the overwhelming odds the Imperium's defenders faced.

With that said, the bomber formations rapidly accelerated towards their main target, and all simultaneously attempted to give the Combine Navy one hell of an explosive headache.

The mission objective here? Cripple the Star Fort's engines, so it would never have a chance to open fire with its surprisingly short-ranged focused supernova gun.

The foremost flight group was escorted by squads of Lotus space superiority fighters, piloted by Astartes from the Second Legion as well as Skitarii from the Adeptus Mechanicus and veteran Astra Militarum members, giving it a greater chance to survive while releasing its payload.

It's also worth considering that these beautifully designed planes looked very much like a certain X-shaped model of starfighter from a galaxy far, far away, and their vaguely flower-shaped boosters were what earned them their signature name.

Plasma bombs and ballistic missiles carrying MIRV cluster warheads punched broad holes in the space station's hull, with each iridescent, chromatic explosion bearing more destructive energy than 1,000 Tsar Bombas from the distant 20th Century.

Still, these blasts were just a drop in the ocean compared to the total force that was required to completely vaporize the Combine capital ship, shields and all.

As the thunderous detonations continued, the first wave of enemy fighter spacecraft swarmed out from every available orifice, a horde of biomechanical and robotic locusts that could strip entire planets bare of life. The Imperial fighter and gunship escort pilots did their best to chase away the drone attackers, or alates, as they were commonly known, while defensive gunners mounted on turrets, sponsons and towers unleashed a hurricane of flak.

Since things were now getting extremely chaotic, and casualties were piling up in the midst of all the carnage, the bombers peeled away from their current flight path and immediately began heading for the juicy engine sections of the star fortress, a ripe target for star fusion ordnance.

Unfortunately for them, the Combine Navy's computerized command center was one step ahead, and as soon as a barrage of cruise missiles and a handful of anti-battleship torpedoes were launched, the Star Fort's thrusters began to glow with unholy power, and mere seconds later, they emitted a blue-white wave of withering Warp energy that devoured every single projectile threatening the vulnerable areas of the station.

"By the Throne... what just happened?," exclaimed the Imperial admiral, Hiro Yasuke, who had been hand-picked by Commander Mithrarin to lead the recent assault on the Combine. "All our torpedoes and ballistic missiles in flight just disappeared! Could it really be?"

"There's no denying it any longer," a high-ranking Tech-Priest by the name of Yu Yangtze said in a growling robotic tone of voice. "Our enemy has been learning to use the powers of the Immaterium all along!"

"Does that mean we're all going to die?," Yasuke asked Yu the Engineer.

His response was grim indeed.

"Well, according to my studies, the only way to fight magic and spiritual power is with stronger magic. But we don't have a single Battle Psyker present in this entire army of ours! Just a bunch of useless Astropaths! We never should have outlawed psychic powers!"

Then, Mithrarin joined the panicked conversation, clearly aware of what was going on.

"There has to be something you can do! Try to buy us some more time, the patrol cruisers are beginning to get overwhelmed by swarms of alate drone fighters!"

"Besides, my strike force is about to ambush the invaders in Kaurava's orbit. Once we're done liberating this planet and helping the natives regain control, we'll be on the hunt for the two people who are the whole reason why the Combine sent a Star Fort into action. Just find a way to hold them off as long as you can!"

Mithrarin's voice on the comlink ended abruptly.

This convinced the admiral and the mechanical priest to have their forces take a different approach, one that would be better suited to hindering the immense lumbering alien threat.

"Change of plans, everyone!," Yu Yangtze spoke, his text-to-speech voice echoing in the mind of every servant of the Cult Mechanicus who had contributed to helping the Imperium endure its darkest hour so far. "The engines are too heavily defended by sorcery for us to cause any reasonable amount of damage. We shall target the Star Fort's heavy artillery batteries instead, and stuff them full of volatile munitions."

"Moreover," Admiral Yasuke added, "I'm calling for any courageous pilots available to direct the problematic swarms of alates away from our naval line of battle, and lure them towards our mammoth minefield in the asteroid belts and comet disk. The most skilled of you will lead this wild goose chase, but the rest of you must stay to protect the remaining bombers!"

"Affirmative!," Master Sergeant Teba of the Peacock Ace Squadron reported. "Time to do some pest control, and entice these slippery cockroaches into our spider's web!"

The grim reapers of Thanatos redirected themselves once again, and unloaded scores of armor-piercing guided bombs upon heavily defended turbolaser turrets, which posed a definite hazard to any small to medium naval spaceship that came too close, firing teraton-scale unstable particle beams that could rip through the thickest adamantium exterior walls.

This time, most of the munitions hit their targets, and better yet, some of them landed on turbolasers which were preparing to fire upon nearby Imperial cruisers, destroyers, frigates and corvettes.

That wasn't even the end of the fresh good news, though- as it turns out, destroying a gargantuan directed-energy weapon while it was still charging itself up caused a catastrophic overload that rushed back into the vast vessel's superstructure, causing a crippling explosive backlash.

Meanwhile, Sergeant Teba's fighter jet squads were weaving in between thousands of asteroids in a hectic pursuit, as Combine swarm drones gave chase as best as they could. These ace pilots knew exactly where the deep-space minefields were located, and within hours, millions upon millions of skirmishing enemies had been utterly eviscerated.

The combination of these two pivotal operations brought the Combine's steady advance through nearspace to a complete halt, as the damage done to the Star Fort's artillery batteries had apparently fried the whole vessel's vital systems and propulsion mechanisms, with the exception of its shields.

Furious dogfights and exchanges of naval artillery fire still continued throughout the outskirts of the Kaurava System, but the single mothership that encompassed roughly 99.5 percent of the Combine Navy's assets in this campaign had been knocked out of action (though it still remained entirely intact.)

The battle appeared to be at a stalemate, for now... but of course, that statement didn't account for the daunting challenge assigned to Commander Mithrarin's 101st Liberation Army, a planetary combined-arms assault which also included the quest to find the elusive missing Primarch and his legendary rival, the Avatar.

Phase II: The Second Legion's Landing

"You are here today for three reasons!"

"First, and foremost, to defend your homes and loved ones."

"Second, for self-respect, because you did not want to be anywhere else during these turbulent times."

"Third, you are real men, and all real men like to fight, as much as any green-skinned Ork would!"

-Mithrarin, Shogun Lord of the Legiones Astartes, Spirit Wardens Praetor

On the final approach to Kaurava, yet another world being battered by the Combine's frenzied blitzkrieg tactics, the Space Marines of the Second Legion got themselves locked and loaded, and braced themselves for an unavoidable tornado of naval gunfire. The elite Guardsmen under the Spirit Wardens' command immediately followed suit with their own preparations, inspecting their newly recharged lasguns and firmly strapping on segments of armor, all while hoping that this desperate gamble would be worth it.

Packed into what was essentially a gigantic rocket-propelled, vacuum-sealed tin can covered in tank armor, the Imperial veterans were nonetheless struggling to hold their collective fears back, knowing that if the attack failed, they could possibly be taken captive by the Combine, which almost guaranteed death by torture.

More than 100 men sped through the void of space on that long ranged drop pod (a model known as the Kharybdis Assault Claw,) the likes of which was often shook by explosive impacts that drove it briefly off course, giving everyone that same feeling you get on a roller coaster. Some men were praying, some were hurling, and others were just trying to assure themselves that they'd die relatively quickly and bravely.

A sharp whistling from the transport's sensory alarms was followed by an explosion like a small sun, which could be seen off in the distance through the passenger cabin's sole window.

On top of that, the pilots of the craft monitored faint holographic images of space warships chucking skyscraper-sized railgun shells and interplanetary ballistic torpedoes at each other, their computers continually scanning for any signs of stray Combine vessels that might have made it past the patrol groups circling Varuna and the other giant planets.

Then, the navigator at the drop pod's helm screamed in everybody's ears, once again breaking the void's silence of premonition:

"FIVE MINUTES UNTIL PLANETFALL!"

More alarms rang aboard nearby landing craft in the flotilla. This time, however, the sound was accompanied by a Combine Vermelith-class destroyer suddenly turning around in a 360 degree circle and releasing swarms of droid starfighters and cobra missiles from its entirely automated interior.

Lascannon fire from an unseen, practically invisible enemy right next to the destroyer bounced off the shields of an Imperial corvette and ricocheted into a patch of asteroids, scattering dangerous debris across a portion of the battlefield, while a Thunderhawk troopship belonging to a unit of Imperial Fists took a direct hit from a Combine orbital artillery turret, ripping it apart in a ball of sunfire that sent dead Astartes flying in every direction, their power armor still intact while their insides were turned to mush.

Another lander struck a translucent spore mine hidden within the fabric of the spacetime continuum, a mere 90 seconds after the Imperial Fists Thunderhawk was eliminated. The blast blew out the bottom half of the ship, dumping its occupants into the vacuum of space, where they froze and shattered into a million pieces.

"THIRTY SECONDS!," the robotic sirens on every surviving Imperial troop transport roared.

Now the liberators would have to get past the densest part of the xenos' invasion contingent, and set foot on Kaurava, or die trying.

Normally, this would have been a suicidal endeavor, especially for an Imperial Navy formation this comparatively small.

There were three more Vermeliths in low orbit waiting to unload their drones, missiles and construct fighters, as well as a total of ten Merkyre-class destroyer escorts packing homing shadow bolt launchers, and three pairs of Crusilisk defense monitors lugging around mighty spinal-mounted turbolaser cannons.

Truly, the Combine's firepower was something not to be trifled with.

However, an unforeseen arrival of reinforcements from the Red Planet leveled the playing field, allowing the Imperials to fight the alien menace on equal terms... the Adeptus Mechanicus had joined the fight in full force!

Using precious secret relics from the Dark Age of Technology, the crusaders of knowledge had bypassed traveling through the outer regions of the Kaurava planetary system, and unleashed havoc upon the Combine splinter fleet ships that had proved so difficult to deal with, clearing the way for the liberation to take place in earnest.

One Vermelith remained, though- and it was putting up quite the dramatic last stand.

The vessel's AI had changed tactics, and it was purposefully staying out of range, devoting its plasma reactor's surplus energy reserves to generate hyper-durable force fields, which protected a small squadron of droid starfighters that were too small and fast for the big guns to target, even the ones supposedly from Mankind's technological zenith. The twelve unmanned fighters' weapons and engines were also supercharged by the influx of reactor power, allowing them to severely damage any Imperial craft that was unlucky enough to be in their crosshairs.

When the Spirit Wardens' landing craft began their final descent in Kaurava's lower atmosphere, three of the automated enemy starfighters from the conflict up above pursued the Space Marines, doing everything they could to make sure the super-soldiers would fail in their mission of providing aid for the beleaguered native settlements of the Fire Nation.

Several dropships, gunships and armed freighters were blown out of the sky, all while the people of the Four Nations and the Hidden Valley immediately took notice that another, presumably more benevolent faction from the stars was apparently trying to save them from the apocalypse brought forth by the initial invaders.

As its defensive gunners fired in every direction, a leading Stormbird painted in red and purple was struck with a beetle-shaped high-explosive incendiary shell, which burst through the front window and exploded in the cockpit. Everything went black.

Mithrarin snapped awake mere seconds later, his ears ringing as if he'd been inside an old Terran church bell when it was pulled. Alarms were going off all across his console, which was now decorated with smears of blood and shards of shrapnel. Through hazy vision, the Shogun Commander saw his copilot, Arataki, slumped over dead, his lifeless body leaning on the control stick, pushing it forward.

The spacecraft was in a steep dive, made all the worse by the fact that it was loaded with panicking troops and war zone cargo. The pilot-side window was smashed, and broken glass had wedged itself into Mithrarin's forehead. The remaining window segments were so splattered with blood and oil that he could barely see out of it. And worst of all, two of the Stormbird's four engines were damaged by enemy fire.

Things looked bleak, and the men on board were seemingly doomed...

But in an act of selfless courage, Shogun Mithrarin pushed onwards. He did his job.

Determined to keep his crew alive and his ship in one piece, the veteran Astartes flight leader reached out with his right arm, grabbed his dead copilot, and pulled him off the control panel without breaking a sweat. Then, with just his left hand, Mithrarin used his superhuman strength to manually pull a 550-ton combat transport spacecraft out of a ninety-degree nosedive, then shut off its two damaged engines.

Looking up, he saw the Combine Navy's starfighters circling around for another pass, so the stubborn and tenacious warrior made an evasive turn, dove the plane down into the cloud cover over a coastline, and accelerated out of trouble as fast as he could.

Dodging anti-aircraft fire from the Combine ground forces, who were already wreaking absolute havoc on the Four Nations of Kaurava, Mithrarin realized that his only option for survival, and continuing the mission with his comrades fit to fight, was to attempt a relatively soft crash-landing.

With his battle-brothers and battle-sisters moving to their gun turrets to spray bolter cannon and lascannon fire, the Shogun hammered the steering stick of his crippled dropship, piloting and evading with one arm while doing his best to ensure that the enemy fighters wouldn't spot him again.

Finally, the Stormbird began to slow down, as it dropped lower and lower in altitude, and an ideal place for a protracted rough landing came into view... a very large unscathed rice field, which the Combine's soldiers had entirely ignored in favor of slaughtering soldiers and civilians alike- something that would prove to be a poor course of action, as more than a thousand Space Marines would use it as a temporary rendezvous point, having shot down the trio of ultra-lethal interceptors which had given them so much grief just minutes ago.

"Thank the Emperor, everybody, the landing gear is still operational! We aren't dying yet!"

In spite of his considerable injuries, damage to his power armor, and having two broken engines to contend with, Mithrarin succeeded in the task of saving all but one of his crew members from certain death, and he and his Spirit Wardens resumed their quest to fulfill the duty given to them by their visions... locating their leader and genetic founder, and convincing the local master of all four elements to join the Imperium's cause.

Phase III: Strength In Unity, The Decree Of The Second Lord

After landing in the rice patch and mobilizing all their forces and assets, then quickly eviscerating any isolated alien soldiers that tried to alert their main army groups, the Spirit Wardens marched towards the battered ruins of a coastal city, and the remains of what looked to be a major base for nautical warships.

Mithrarin told everyone to trust his instincts, to trust in the colorful mirage that had led them so far without failure, and most crucially, to look for any telltale signs of a person with the power of a demigod, who was most likely engaged in a battle to defend his homeland as of now.

The Astartes didn't have to search very far... before they even made it to the devastated fringes of what the locals called Port Orochi, a tremendous blast of flame shot into the sky, visible for more than 10 miles in every direction, the likes of which was promptly followed up by a shockingly violent tidal wave that carried Combine droid tanks and bio-speeders into the crushing depths of the ocean.

"Is that what I think it is?!," exclaimed Gunnery Sergeant Dingane, a heavy weapons specialist wearing a helmet made to resemble a wolf's head, complete with a pointy snout, ears, and glowing red target-seeking eyeholes. "Only a paragon Psyker, the Emperor himself, or one of his direct descendants could exhibit that level of sheer sorcerous power!"

"There's only one way to find out if our lucid dreams have become a legitimate, impactful part of reality," Mithrarin replied to his subordinate. "Onwards, we go, boldly, where no man has gone before!"

"FOR THE IMPERIUM! FOR THE EMPEROR! FOR FREEDOM, JUSTICE, AND THE FUTURE OF MANKIND!"

Tanks, walkers and anti-gravity hovercraft formed an unstoppable armored phalanx, followed by several companies of power armored infantry and Imperial Guard personnel, all marching to answer the desperate call for help which had echoed from this backwater, yet impressively unique world.

These veterans all knew the Combine's merciless legion of myriad horrors was waiting for them in the war-torn city, but judging by the recent unexplained appearance of the sunlike pillar of flame and the subsequent behemoth tidal wave, the aliens were undoubtedly stuck in the fight of their lives.

So much so, in fact, that the raw kinetic energy being generated by the extreme weather manipulation would inevitably draw the attention of every single vile xenos on the planet that was fit for battle.

There was no time to lose. Without a doubt, the key to turning the odds in the Imperium's favor lay just ahead, in the blasted city...

In the fractured streets and dilapidated buildings that were once part of a flourishing coastal urban area, a uniquely brutal form of combat had taken precedence, one that the Fire Nation's former colonial army had widely embraced during the Hundred-Year War.

The Space Marines and their comrades pushed through with unforgiving attrition warfare, fighting unusually small pockets of Combine forces by systematically destroying or clearing out wrecked buildings one by one. So far, there were no indigenous human survivors in sight, leading Mithrarin to believe that the showcase of elemental power was part of a trap, one which he had foolishly led his followers into.

"...There's nobody here. How could I have been so blind??? They've already harvested the population of this area, to replenish their supply of troops, and now we're next on the chopping block."

Then, without warning, a ferocious gust of wind hurled the Shogun and 30 other Marines into the sky, causing the strike force to once again brace for an attack.

...But no swarm of enemies accompanied the furious tempest.

Mithrarin was half-buried in the sand on a beach littered with debris, bloody alien body parts and burnt wreckage, after falling from a ludicrous height, when a very large, muscular hand dug him out of his awkward position, freeing him.

"Just telling you, I could've gotten out of there myself, you know," the battle-brother blindly said to his rescuer, before he looked up and opened his eyes, and came face-to-face with the largest human he had ever seen- one dressed in a mixture of samurai gear and medieval Chinese armor, who radiated confidence and enthusiasm, in an ineffable, quite literally supernatural way.

"Quit yapping, foreigner," the Second Son of the Emperor told Mithrarin, who he didn't know a thing about, just like the rest of the Imperium of Man. "I saw you and your little army with all those convoluted fancy gadgets take on a whole horde of those monsters without using Bending arts of any kind. So if you're here to help us out, you better get ready, because I have a feeling that we haven't even scratched the surface of the problem yet."

After coming to terms with the fact that he was finally speaking to his long-lost gene-father, who was evidently raised here from childhood, Mithrarin quickly realized why there were relatively few enemy soldiers left standing. The Primarch and his band of indomitable warriors had mowed down the zombified humans, cybernetic killing machines, poisonous fungal abominations and man-eating plants that made up the bulk of the first wave to claim the area.

Unfortunately, the entirety of the Combine's ground contingent was closing in on Port Orochi, with the creeps being relocated and redirected from theaters of war all over the world.

The sky blackened with swarms of biomechanical drones, the waters once again ran red with blood, and walls of kaleidoscopic fire ignited in the distance, signifying that the calamity had just begun.

"Call me Krishna," the towering immortal said to the futuristic, world-hopping soldiers of the Imperium of Man, who instinctively recognized him for the kind of godlike being that he was, a son of the Master of Mankind. "Your people and my people clearly share a common enemy, and we must work together to come out on top. United, we stand, divided, we fall."

A stoic monk with an arrow-shaped tattoo on his bald head, who the Spirit Wardens presciently acknowledged as the valiant Avatar from their dreams and hallucinations, added further clarity to Krishna's speech:

"We will leave whatever grievances we may have towards each other for when this war ends. Right now, the survival of all of humanity is our priority, and as we all know now, it is not limited to just this world."

Then, of course, Katara broke her silence and concluded rallying the troops with some passionate words of her very own:

"This is the end of an era for the Four Nations and the Hidden Valley. We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish, without a fight! We're going to live on, we're going to survive."

"Against all odds, we shall prevail!"

TO BE CONTINUED

Chapter And Author Notes:

Holy crap, this is the second longest chapter I've ever written for fanfiction on this website, and it's been over 2 years since I've started writing and worldbuilding as a creative outlet, with other projects (specifically combining lots of ideas from other books and media into a relatively coherent original storyline or world,) taking up a good deal of time that I would otherwise use for fanfics.

I'm still trying to figure out how I can write more, because procrastination has always been a real problem from time to time, but the good news is, once the story arc of Hammer Of The Elements is complete, I'll be turning the story's format and style into an encyclopedia full of awesome data on the Avatar-themed Space Marine Legion, instead of having it be a more traditional novel or anthology.

Writing wiki pages and contributing pages to Internet archives is something I often end up doing when I don't feel like writing anything else, after all. With artificial intelligence making up at least half of the Internet's traffic, and content farms getting worse on YouTube, I do admittedly feel like I have an obligation to preserve stuff on the web for other people to see before it's gone forever.

Apart from all that, I'll be making sure to keep uploading on this website, and I am now finally considering using Archive Of Our Own to post fanfiction, because I want to be flexible as possible and know how to use multiple platforms for telling people my ideas and crossover concepts.

I have my priorities, too- finishing the first arc of Hammer of the Elements will give me freedom to work on other projects, just like what happened when I completed the plot of my very first upload, Starhammer 50k.

Stick around if you can, I'll inevitably be back with more stuff.

-Spuddies

ALSO: The next chapter will have some interesting twists, now that the worlds of Avatar and Warhammer are finally colliding. What those twists might be, you'll have to guess based on details you'll notice in this chapter.

Feel free to call me out for any plot holes or errors, I do admit that I have been pushing myself to write more, at the possible cost of quality.