Shadow of the Angel [40k]

There are few things akin to the sensation of a swan dive at a few hundred feet per second with the screeching jets sworn to hold you aloft strained to throttle you ever faster straight down into the dirt. Raisa wondered for a moment which was the more insane, a reckless quarry fleeing for its life at any cost, or the fool who pursued it. She saw the twin starbursts of blue flame down below her flare, the black shape she was following was pulling up. The Seraphim let gravity relish the thought of her plummeting demise for a few moments longer as she chanced a look from the ground to consider their surroundings, only one thing caught her eye.

The wash of potent thrust blazing from her pack fettered and adjusted its push as she rolled aside and arched away from the dive, peeling off to make a shallow approach to the curve of a narrow river valley cut into the rocky ground below. The Raptor was already committed, going in sharp and trying to spare as much of his momentum as possible. It was a worthy gamble but it wouldn’t pay off. As she cut down hard in between the narrow cliffs she saw the black-armored heathen tear in ahead of her, kicking off a shower of rock and debris from the lip of the gulley and having to physically shove himself off the opposite wall of it to avoid an unceremonious end to their game of cat and mouse. Hers had paid off much better, the sweeping approach more than made up in speed what it had sacrificed in distance and she saw the black shape in front of her, trailing bits of soil and scrub from his armor, drawing nearer as she usurped his advantage.

Ahead the Raptor’s jets howled like a pair of enraged daemons, pushed to the limit by their brash host with tongues of lolling azure flame flicking back tauntingly at her. It was hardly just for show either, the chaos fiend moved and darted through the humid air as if he did in fact have the power of a reigned warp beast at his behest. She followed as he settled in low to surface of the tributary which had carved that narrow valley out. The sound of its swift, murky current rose up to compound the near deafening rush of wind already being driven across her ears with its own irregular roar. It wouldn’t be long before the traitor would begin taking a lead on her again, he was playing to his advantages. She might have been able to overtake him on an extended dash but the nimble Raptor was exploiting his agility and quick acceleration to the utmost by forcing her to follow him in every turn and obstacle along the landscape, and now this. The trench quickly narrowed and began adopting a fair amount of jink to its course, leaving the rate of closure to slip quickly from her favor.

How funny, the bastard really thought he was going to get away. Sister Raisa Dovreim was a Seraphim, angelic ward of the heavens by the name of the God Emperor. She’d be damned and dead before she let the heathen elude her. Close-fettered hair of rich earthen tone fluttered restlessly in the wash of thick air. A lightly tanned complexion was marred across one cheek by a burn-scar which began just below her temple and continued on past the concealment of the rebreather mask covering her lower face. Graceful, lithe limbs encased in bronzed ceramite power armor burned as she pulled herself through the turns of the narrow river valley. Not so much for the strain but rather with the simmering rage she was forced to hold in check to maintain her composure and keep herself on the heathen‘s tail. Though she mentally cursed the beast as a coward she knew in the back of her mind that the forces of Chaos never fled from battle, never for fear of their life, he had to have a good reason. She had caught his trail skirting away from the direction of their main battle formations in the area, surely he’d been scouting their position. The fact that he ran when she gave chase rather than stand and fight could do nothing but confirm as much. The Raptor’s duty to his corrupt master overrode his sense of pride and now he was playing like a stubborn game fowl to abscond with whatever knowledge he’d obtained. The uneven lay of the land and the close course they were keeping with it prevented him, making long-range vox difficult. That fact worked against both of them. No reply had ever come back from the rest of her squad when she signaled she was going after the Raptor. Unfortunately for her he wouldn’t need to call in help, he was leading her right to it.

As they pulled around another sloping curve the valley opened back up and the waters flowed still enough for her to see clearly the reflection of storm clouds further darkening the war-dimmed sky above. Out ahead of her the black-armored thing had regained his lead but the course was straight now and Raisa poised herself into the onrushing wind to elevate an empowering wail from her pack. With the added thrust and a backhanded slap across the surface of the water she was rising up and swiftly after the chaos bird. The moment of elation was short-lived as she saw the blue jet-trails in front of her suddenly flare black, why was the Raptor slowing down?

The Seraphim jerked herself over onto her side as the dark shape in front of her was suddenly illuminated by the jagged corona of his bolt pistol’s muzzle flash. A tight burst of fiery, high velocity slugs sung past her underside so close she could feel their heat on her armor. The mask across her mouth and nose spared her from the scent but the acrid contrails of bolts’ hot propellant stung her eyes when she passed through them. By the throne that had been close. The sudden braking had brought them dangerously near and the Sister had reached down to ready her own weapon but the Raptor was away, darting up over the lip of the river valley.

Curse him, she scowled behind her rebreather mask and cut upwards, pursuing through the shower of gravel and dirt dislodged from above by the chaos fiend’s close passage. Arcing high over the ledge she saw the black shape and its fiery blue exhaust plumes disappearing into a tree line. Still at near full throttle she turned in smoothly to intercept his course, an arm raised in protection of her bare face as the high entry sent her tearing through a screen of broad leaves and branches. The Raptor was there, just below her, weaving through the maze of thick trunks. Beneath the pitched scream of her pack she could hear the foreboding undertone of the coming storm rumbling through the misty darkness beneath the canopy. Raisa was growing tired of this game and not only for the fact that she had no idea how long it would be before she ran headlong into a reinforced squad of chaos minions. With graceful aerial strides she swooped down between the trees to settle back on the Raptor’s tail, forcing herself to focus in order to surrender as little as possible to his superior mobility. Thankfully he wasn’t wasting much time with evasive maneuvers, only enough to keep her from gaining too quickly, but even those had her careening uncomfortably close to the unyielding wooden pillars stacked around them.

A brilliant flash of white light shot down through the canopy accompanied by a crack of potent concussive noise. Just ahead of the Raptor a lance of electricity ripped down through the thick trunk of a tree, tearing it like paper and kicking up a cloud of splinters and smoke. The blue jets of the chaos bird dove beneath the falling lumber but the glare from the flash and upheaval of debris stole him from her sight a moment later. She pulled up over the falling tree-half glancing about frantically for her quarry but could seen nothing.

The crashing of brush from below covered the howl of his possessed jetpack as the fiend swooped in to broadside her.

Raisa growled when she felt the armored weight smash into her, shunting her thrusters and carrying her squarely into the trunk of a nearby tree. The blow jolted her nicely but the sight of the Raptor’s menacingly impassive helm before her was enough to keep her mind clear. A ragged wail made her jerk her head to the side just as the traitor’s chainsword swung for it, leaving the angry teeth nothing but a mouthful of bark. He apparently hadn’t been prepared to miss so she stole the opportunity to push herself away, scraping down the rough trunk in a moment of freefall before kicking her jets back in. As she did, the bolt pistol was swung up from her hip to make tangible, in a hail of streaking slugs, the curses she was laying upon the beast’s damned soul. With some satisfaction she saw at least two glancing hits but the Raptor was already on the move again, turning away and retreating skyward, paving a trail of snapped branches and falling leaves up into the forest canopy. Again she cursed and drove power to her jetpack to send herself after him, a broad, sloping ascent to allow her as much speed as possible, following an indirect path after the raven-black shape. Raisa pulled the powersword from her side as she rose towards the upper branches, swinging it in wide arcs in front of her to try and scythe a clear path. None the less she felt at least one of the sharp protrusions gouge a narrow chunk of flesh from her cheek.

The Seraphim’s grace had spared her. When she broke through the canopy she saw the Raptor, turned back towards the forest, beginning to unload his bolt pistol into the fractured limbs he’d just torn through. He’d obviously expected her to come up straight after him. Whether it had been a conscious tactical choice on her behalf or not, the bastard had expected wrong. She was pressing the full power of her thrust pack now, swooping up through the sky in a broad arc that would bring her around and down upon the black beast. He had seen her too late but was bringing his weapon to bear none the less. Raisa pulled her body into a gentle roll as slugs spat from the Raptor’s pistol, one of the rounds glanced off her thigh armor in a cone of molten shrapnel and flame but the rest went wild. There was one tactical decision she’d made quite consciously, and smiled smugly to herself when the creature’s weapon fell abruptly silent in his hands after its brief burst. It would have served as a lesson to never go into a fight with a half-loaded weapon, but he wasn’t going to live long enough to repeat the mistake.

She could hear faint sizzles across the energized blade of her sword as she drew it back to strike, it was starting to rain. The Raptor still clutched his chainsword, but obviously wasn’t ready to use it in battle, its wicked teeth were only just snapping into motion as she brought her blow down with a cry of damnation towards the traitor scum. Lack of solid footing was all that saved him as the blade slashed down squarely across his chest plate, cleaving the chaos-twisted icon of the aquilla upon it in two and driving a deep gash into the tainted flesh beneath. Had they been on the ground, she was sure the blow would have all but cut him in half. A wild chainsword swipe glanced off her armor as the chaos bird was knocked away with the strength of her blow. Apparently he was tired of running now for as soon as he’d regained his aerial footing he launched himself in her direction, otherworldly curses howling from his vox as he raised the chainsword over his head. Holding gently in mid air, Raisa calmly raised her bolt pistol and crushed the trigger. The remainder of her nearly-full clip unloaded at the enraged Raptor, casings arcing out from the pistol’s chamber in a glittering cascade amid the muzzle flash. With an impotent click the fire ceased and she watched through smoky haze as the crippled raven fell in a lazy spiral towards where the tree line broke upon a small, ruined settlement. Smart, he’d taken a good deal of the shots into his pack, but that meant his wings had been clipped, and it was time to end this.

Raisa popped the empty clip from her pistol and slammed a new one home, taking a moment to make a quick check of the vox channels for any response from her squad. There was still nothing and she hoped they wouldn’t be needed at this rate. Racking the pistol’s chamber, the Seraphim pushed off to follow the coils of black smoke left by her wounded quarry towards the ruined settlement. The sky above flashed and rumbled with discontent as a steady precipitation began to fall.

The place appeared to have once been some sort of small farming commune, thankfully long since abandoned by the locals. The recent scourge of their battles here had served to enhance its poor state of repair and many of the buildings had chunks torn from them and walls displaying the scars of heavy weapons fire and energy burns. In some places, where an artillery wound had blown open one of the vacant rockcrete hunks, there were smoldering fires still alive amidst the rubble.

Along one of the main streets the Raptor had settled down, his ruined pack sparking flares of blue and bleeding a steady stream of oily smoke above him. Raisa set down nearby, behind the fallen traitor and approached cautiously. Her bolt pistol was held up at the ready in one hand while the other clutched her powersword, its blade hissing with constant agitation at the patter of raindrops falling upon it. Over the echo of breath within her rebreather mask she could hear the heathen muttering arcane gibberish as she drew near. Something snapped then beneath the heel of her boot and the Raptor spun around to face her, it was immediately obvious that he’d not spared himself from her attack as much as she’d thought.

The thing laughed when it saw her, or tried to. One of her bolt shells had torn through the side of his helmet, and everything beneath it. It was little wonder his words had been unintelligible, he wasn’t speaking the language of chaos but merely trying to speak with only half a jaw. Foul purple-red blood stained the cloven chest plate of his armor and she noted another number of places where shells had punched through it to destroy the tissue within. He’d been making one final attempt at calling home, she was certain. The laughing ceased then and became a mangled howl as the heathen drug himself up to his feet, chainsword brought to life and sparking damaged teeth as he charged at her.

Even on the ground, and in such horrid condition the Raptor was still fast. Raisa blazed a pair of shots from her pistol which battered and then tore open one armored shoulder before he was upon her. She brought her blade up swiftly to knock aside the broad overhead strike but the unexpected force behind it knocked her off balance. Underfoot the rain was already working the dity streets of the old settlement into a layer of mud. The Raptor’s own wicked blade was on the rebound before she had fully regained her stance and it was the best she could manage to deflect the cyclic barbs from a direct blow. A rain of sparks sheered off the shoulder of her armor as the chainsword struck, digging out jagged notches from the bronzed ceramite. The fiend had caught her off guard and was pushing his advantage with everything he had left. The blow from his sword would be followed swiftly by a blunt smash from his armored gauntlet that connected square across her face, sending the already staggered Seraphim sprawling.

Her head swam from the blow and the already dimmed surroundings darkened more so for a brief moment. The crushed remnants of her rebreather mask fell away as she shook her head to offset the daze. She saw the Raptor’s forked boots turning for her and quickly rolled away just in time to miss the chainsword that swung down for her, leaving it to plough the damp earth instead. Remaining on the ground she snapped her bolt pistol up and punched off a burst, yelling out a decree of damnation over the clatter of the weapon. The rounds shredded the armor on one of the chaos bird’s legs and blasted off chunks of pale gore and spats of his tainted blood from the flesh beneath. With a curdling howl the fiend fell upon the destroyed limb, the harsh rasps of his agonized breathing made all the worse by the grievous wound to his face.

Wasting no time Raisa quickly rolled back to her feet, a sneer curling bloodied lips as she spat crimson upon the muddy earth and lunged for the fallen traitor. Her powersword swung in a tight side-arm slash, hissing through the falling rain towards its mark. The Raptor’s head and helmet were split nearly across the brow line with the low splut of a ripe melon being cracked asunder as her energized blade struck home, its savage follow-through lashing the traitor’s purplish blood to spatter across the filthy muck the roadway had become.

Though he was quite surely dead, her blade came down upon him again before the armored hulk had a chance to slump to the ground, laying his armor and flesh open from shoulder to collar. A spray of blood puffed from the Seraphim’s lips as she brought a foot to the Raptor’s shoulder, shoving him over backwards onto the ground and flipping her powersword around underhanded to raise and plunge it down through the gash she’d previously cut across his chest plate. She twisted the embedded blade sharply before retching it clean of the corpse, drops of blood still feathering upon her lower lip against seething breaths as she stepped back from the body, watching its ebbing life disperse into the mud and shallow pools of rainwater in a dark stain,

‘This, the proper fate of the faithless.’ She spat her own blood upon the Raptor’s broken corpse, listening to the righteous hiss of its fowl blood being vaporized upon her blade.

Raisa de-powered her sword and slung it back at her hip, turning from the body and thinking to make a quick check on her vox when she heard the noise. A howl, the otherworldly wail that had become so familiar to her this day. She looked up just in time to see the Raptor slide around from behind the low building in front of her, his weapon immediately opening up in a hail of streaking slugs.

She cried out, cursing as she threw herself wildly away from the salvo, tumbling through the mud as shells erupted plumes of liquid earth all around her. Fire licked from her thrusters as they kicked back to life, helping to pull her towards the nearest safety as her boots slipped upon the muddy ground. It was not a great distance but for the moment it may as well have been miles. She urged more power as shells whistled by in close proximity, and pushed herself off the ground. As she lifted a round smashed across her upper arm, shattering ceramite and driving a spike of hot pain through the limb. It was followed quickly by another that tore into her hip, nearly knocking her sideways as the Seraphim launched herself towards cover, trailing ribbons of dirty water and scarlet.

The second black-armored fiend gave chase along the opposite side of the building as the Seraphim disappeared around its corner. It was some sort of warehouse structure, and didn’t provide as much protection as she’d hoped. Raisa glimpsed the chaos bird through slits in the building’s tarnished alloy siding. She heard muted gunfire and another hail of bolt slugs punched through the thin metal, one winging across her shoulder guard. Even the slight jolt made the pain in her arm throb behind her eyes. The blow to her hip seemed less severe but any strain of movement still made her entire side ache dimly.

Were there more on the way, perhaps already there? She prevented herself from doubting if she would be able to take the second traitor on in her state and settled for a simple, objective analysis of the situation. Whatever she was going to do had to happen now. With a pained grunt she pulled herself up, arcing through the air over the warehouse. The Raptor hadn’t seen her move and the burst she sent at him from her bolt pistol made the heathen jink violently to evade, scraping a cascade of sparks from the opposite building as his shoulder guard grazed it. He surged upward swiftly, returning fire wildly as he made ready his chainsword. Even if she’d had time to switch her pistol over to her now combat-useless hand there was no way she’d be able to keep hold of it. Of course there was little chance she’d be able to reload it either, but now, every shot had to count.

Straining her thrusters she shot upwards as well, aiming down to the rushing heathen and plucking off each remaining shell from her bolt pistol with single trigger pulls. The Raptor turned aside from most of them but at least one found a solid mark on his shoulder, blowing black armor open and shredding pale flesh to a pulp of streaming purplish blood. The fiend’s battle cry rose above the wicked howl of his engines, his flaying sword raised and ready to strike. The red ammo rune on her gun was informing her that her last round was chambered,

‘Emperor guide my aim.’ Her blood-crusted lips spoke softly and the pistol bucked in her hand. The explosive round smashed into the hilt of the Raptor’s sword, ruining the weapon and sending it spiraling from his grasp. It wasn’t quite the answer she had hoped for but at least it might spare her life for another handful of moments. She swung the empty weapon like a club as the armored fiend came upon her, knocking the futile blows away with a heavy gauntlet before clasping it upon the collar of her own armor. His mask, sleek and impassive glowered over her

‘Down you go, little angel.’ The wicked voice of the chaos scum was further maligned by the warped vox set built into his helm. Raisa felt her weight pulled away and she was suddenly being driven downward under the Raptor’s reign. The chaos minion seemed less than concerned with her attempts to fight him off and she could hear him simply laughing to her plight over the angry burn of his jetpack. Her own had flared out and were refusing to even attempt to restart. The alloy sheeting of the warehouse roof buckled and tore away as they crashed through it, slowing the decent just enough so the force of impact didn’t immediately snap her neck as the armored fiend slammed her down into the hard dirt floor.

The Raptor stood up over her, the blank azure slits of his visor glinting cold malice as he punched the clip from his bolt pistol and dug a hand into his ammo pouch for another. The crash landing had blown the breath from her lungs and surely bruised or ruptured internal organs, not to mention the pain in her arm and hip that now seethed into her battered frame from the agitation. A hand reached out across the packed dirt of the warehouse floor, seeking purchase to push herself upright and brushed upon something metal. Without thinking she clutched her gauntlet over it and swung with a cry born both of determination and pain. A piece of support frame, broken from the roof when they fell through it, whistled through the air and smacked across the Raptor’s hand just as he was making to reload his weapon, knocking the clip out of it.

With a distorted growl of rage the chaos fiend threw his empty gun aside and snatched the metal cudgel from her hand,

‘You silly wench! I will beat the life from your worthless bones then!’ She pushed back from him as he swung the bar, trying to deflect the powerful blows with her one good arm. Sparks flashed when the rusted metal struck and she could feel that after only a few hits that her weary arm wasn’t going to be able to fend off much more punishment. Turning onto her side, she hoped her now ruined jetpack would at least cushion the blows. The Raptor continued to curse her, laughing as he battered at her pack with the pole, bending and misshaping it against the sturdy ceramite. She heard the impotent piece of metal tossed aside to clatter against the outside wall of the warehouse and felt the Raptor grab her and pull her up to her feet.

He took hold of her suit pack and twisted it, inhuman strength tearing it from its moorings almost too easily. Electrical surges rippled from the rift as he slung her to the side, her weight tearing her away from the pack and sending her tumbling across the ground. Raisa was helpless to catch herself as the armor suddenly weighed down upon her tired limbs like a lifeless sack of scrap metal. The Raptor tossed her severed pack end over end across the dirt,

‘You’re nothing, girl.’ The ethereal growl of his vox-twisted voice echoed behind her as she tried to push an arm beneath her, painful, shallow coughs spitting blood onto the hard dirt, ‘Beneath your armor there is nothing but weakling flesh waiting to bleed.’ She turned her eyes to watch him, his back was to her, retrieving his discarded bolt pistol. With a grunt of agony she shifted her wounded arm to reach for the hilt of her powersword, drawing it slowly up from its sling on her hip.

With her back to the black-armored heathen she pulled herself up weakly onto one knee, every motion forced against the oppressive weight of her now dead suit. She propped the point of her sword into the dirt, resting her forehead against the wrapped leather grip as she heard the traitor finally loading a fresh clip into his weapon. The Seraphim closed her eyes, her thumb poised upon the ignition trigger of her sword and made a silent bid for strength to her blessed protector. The heavy footsteps of the Raptor came up close behind her and the sharp ratchet of his weapon’s slide being cocked back made her eyes snap back open,

‘You are nothing.’ He breathed a mechanically distorted hiss and was about to lower his bolt pistol to the back of the woman’s head,

‘You… are wrong.’ Raisa spoke grimly and forced herself to her feet, her powersword snapping to life as it tore from the dirt and swung around at the Raptor. The sluggish blow glanced off the forearm of his gun hand but he fired anyway, kicking up a blast of damp earth to the side of her before correcting his aim. A blast of shells slammed across her ribs as she moved upon him, it felt like walking in wet rockcrete. The Seraphim made another swing, cleaving a notch from the chaos bird’s chest plate as he punched off another slug that ripped through the shoulder guard of her already withered arm, ‘I am a servant of the living Emperor!’ Her voice cracked with strain as she lashed out at her enemy again, her weary swipe only managing to tear into his thigh, but deep enough at least to draw of gout of his putrid essence onto the dirt.

She ached, fresh wounds bringing a renewed throb to numbed pain receptors. Every bone and muscle simply wanted to collapse under the weight of her armor but the angel held her ground, leveling her blade at the Raptor’s chest,

‘I would bleed forever if my blood could wash your stain from existence!’ Crying out she lunged forward, lancing her blade for the enemy’s chest. She felt the tingling blade scythe into the black metal before a heavy blow knocked her away, stumbling off balance. The sword slipped from her hand and she was turned around, staring helplessly into the gleaming eye slits of her enemy.

Fire flashed across the Raptor’s black mask as he mashed the trigger of his bolt pistol and she felt the concussive impacts tear into her chest and stomach, ripping armor apart and kicking up a mist of broken ceramite and blood from her torso. A few of the heavy projectiles punched cleanly through her, undetonated at the close range, tearing trails of scarlet and gore out from her back. The Seraphim fell back, crashing down heavily into the cast of dim daylight created by the broken roof sections. Her breath left her in a sputtering exhale of bitter coppery liquid as she stared up into the cloudy sky. Her hands came to rest, with some morbid fascination, upon the front of her ravaged armor, feeling the thick heat of her life’s blood running out freely from her wounds. She blinked, almost dreamily, as the cool rain fell across her features and felt herself relax limply against the rain-soaked dirt.

‘And bleed you will.’ The Raptor mocked in his cruel mechanized tone as he stepped near to stand over her, the smoking muzzle of his pistol poised to finish her off. Her eyes were drooping closed when she saw a shadow in the sky above fall over herself and the chaos fiend. Perhaps simply a hallucination of her dire condition.

Suddenly she saw the muzzle of the gun jerked away, the heathen spitting curses as thunder and fire rained down on him from above. His black armor was pummeled by the onslaught, crushed into the flesh beneath with heavy, moist impacts that squelched out licks of purplish blood from his fractured suit. He fell over heavily, lifeless, onto the dirt floor of the warehouse and she could hear the dulcet chime of spent brass falling down amidst the rain,

‘Raisa! Great throne, are you alive down there?’ Her vox crackled with an urgent voice, distorted and weak. She heard the noise then, the vengeful roar of jetpacks above her and the twitch of a smile came across her bruised, bloodied lips as she stared up at the shadow. The shadow of an angel. A voice, strained and coarse, forced its way to her lips,

‘The Raptor scout is dead, Sisters… the Emperor is served.’ The remainder of her breath escaped gently from open lips as her head lolled to the side, bringing her cheek to rest against the cool, damp earth. The pain that cut every fabric of her being fell away as the world faded before her eyes, the garbled voice in her ear growing more distant with every word.