Chapter 5 Part 3

Chapter 5: The Battle of Victory Bay

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Part 3

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Victory Bay

Kronus

This could have gone better, the Necron Lord decided. He was stuck in the epicenter of a small, localized and unpleasantly potent psychic storm. He had to brace himself, even slam his staff into the ground for a better purchase and channel as much energy as he could into stabilizing reality around him. The psychic phenomena tore apart the human command center behind him, which was emptied of anything but a bare-bones staff meant to help sell the illusion it was still a prime strategic target. Those humans were now either dead or running for their lives. The two machines that hid along with him in anticipation for the Aeldari assault weren't fast and agile enough to flee, they were too close to the epicenter to make it anyway. The so called dreadnought on the left took the brunt of the storm, it broke through its heavy plating with ease and tore the soul of its crippled pilot to shreds. The second machine was more fortunate. While it lost its left arm and the flamer attached to it, it managed to stumble into the reality enforced zone near the Necron before the storm turned it into a pile of useless scarp.

"That was a foolish thing to do..." The machine rumbled humbly. Smoke rose from its chassis even as rivulets of molten metal slid down deep gorges blasted into the armour.

At that moment, the Necron Lord really wished he could have voiced his agreement. The standard Necron units lacked working voice-casters, those in storage were little more than scrap and the data on building them was either gone or it would take days if not weeks to be recovered if at all possible. He lacked the know-how to put to good use a human vox-caster, though if things went well enough, he might get something working on that front in the future. Relying on that transformed human as a voice was less than ideal if the reactions of the other humans during the brief meetings between the two sides were anything to go by.

The Necron Lord checked the feedback from his deployed forces, and lamented the fact that he was still largely crippled, otherwise he wouldn't have been stuck tanking the Eldar attack. It was almost a frustrating things to experience.

At least the other parts of the battle were going better.

A pair of destroyers with infantry hanging off their backs emerged from the ground right behind an Aeldari raiding party. The Guardians and Aspect Warriors were too busy enjoying themselves slaughtering the human infantry support of an artillery position to pay attention and by the time they sensed the danger, half of them died due to overlapping Gauss blasts. The rest scattered and found themselves fighting for their lives as the humans rallied and charged them as well.

A Ranger squad perched on the top floor of a building took aim at their targets, yet before they could decapitate the leadership of a dug in infantry company, a pair of Wraiths detached from a transport flying above, crashed through the building and engaged them in close quarters combat.

Two units of line infantry whose reliability the Lord doubted found themselves engaging a large group of Fire Dragons advancing towards the human armoured reserve. That blocking force wasn't enough to stop the Aeldari by themselves, however the time it took the enemy to turn them all into molten slag was more than enough for human artillery to zero in on the Fire Dragoons and erase the whole grid with a massive sustained barrage.

Finally the psychic storm subdued and the Necron Lord wasted no time in teleporting away, relishing in the fact that the power transmission between the working reactors in his base and his form was one of the few things still working. He materialized behind the Farseer, who was already ducking and rolling to avoid his attack. The Necron merely sent a blast of Gauss energy her way to keep her honest, if that was at all possible, and slung his staff around, while channeling and discharging as much energy as he could through it. One of the screeching Banshees acting as honour guards managed to get away just in time, merely having her armour scorched. The second one, who was closer, was much less fortunate. She managed an impossible twist and turn, avoiding a proper strike from the staff, which merely grazed her foot. That and the corona of power surrounding it was more than enough to vaporize her armour, burn her whole leg to a charred ruin before the Gauss energy got to work flaying the rest of her.

One of the Aeldari phasing specialists popped up nearby and opened fire with his shuriken pistols. Those things were lethal to lightly armoured targets, like most of the Necron's new allies. Against the heavy plating protecting their Lord? Most shots glanced harmlessly away thanks to the energies running through and just above the necrodermis which greatly increased its already substantial durability. The Necron Lord waved a hand at the offending Warp Spider, the motion releasing a crescent of emerald energy. The Aeldari phased out only to appear behind the Necron. He managed a single burst before a human sniper hit him in the side, sending him spilling on the ground. The Warp Spider teleported away by reflex and his luck ran out. It appeared right in the path of the damaged dreadnought, who didn't even slow down and stomped on his chest, crushing it underfoot.

"For the Emperor!" The crippled human cackled like a maniac as he ran straight at the Farseer.

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Taldeer drew her own sword and in one smooth motion pointed it at the charging machine channeling sorcerous energies through it. The moment its needle-sharp point came to a level with the small vision-slit on the machine, she would unleash the energy and properly scrap it this time. She was a heartbeat from doing it, when a group of freshly awoken Immortals appeared between her and her target. Taldeer unleashed her attack anyway, even as she dove away to avoid the onslaught she knew it was coming. Her attack struck one of the Yungir soldiers in the shoulder, the Warp energies proving just potent enough to sever the joint before a burst of emerald cracked over the machine and dissipated the rest.

That Immortal let go of his heavy weapon and retrieved a carbine from an attachment on his back. The five others wasted no time in blasting at the Farseer with their Tesla Cannons. Taldeer threw a psychic shield between her lithe form and the attackers, created a few illusions to help her better evade their attention and dashed towards the closest building. She was confident that she could take on the Necron Lord by herself, or could dispatch those walking horrors. Fighting them all together? She would need to cull down some of the humans around, rally her warriors and then decisively end this nonsense!

The damned Necron had other ideas. He brute forced his way through her illusions and jumped to engage her in close combat, while his reinforcements marched their way. Taldeer danced around the monster, pitted her mastery over the Great Ocean against the Yungir terrible technology, yet she simply couldn't get the upper hand. Every time she saw an opening and was about to take advantage of it utilizing her superior mobility, the Immortals fired at her, forcing her to evade.

Sadly, the engagement wasn't going much better for her warriors. Oh, they were spilling rivers of Mon-Keigh blood, Taldeer could both see it and sense it, dozens of the parasites died all around her with each passing second, yet more and more of the monkeys poured in from the surrounding areas. Worse, good Eldar warriors were falling as well, brought low by the crude implements wielded by the Mon-Keigh.

As if that wasn't bad enough, there was something wrong nearby that made her skin crawl worse than the few unfortunate encounters she had with the Neverborn!