Chaos Marines

The air around Vek was thick with the stench of burning oil and blood, suffocating in its weight. The battlefield was a shifting nightmare of smoke, fire, and shadows—each movement a possible death. Engines rumbled like distant thunder, the screams of the dying woven into the mechanical cacophony.

The sergeant's barked orders barely registered. Vek's legs moved on instinct, his lasgun gripped like a lifeline as he stumbled toward the bunker. Yet his mind clung to a single, terrifying thought.

The Slayer.

The name echoed in his skull, ancient and absolute. A force beyond comprehension. He had seen Astartes before—once, when he was a child—but this was something else. Something more.

He should have kept moving. Should have followed the others inside. But curiosity, stronger than fear, anchored his feet to the blood-slicked ground.

Through the haze of smoke and drifting embers, he saw him.

The Slayer moved with eerie purpose, his green armor marred with filth and gore yet untouched by hesitation. Twin lasguns flared in his grasp, beams of red lancing through the swirling fog, cutting down anything that dared to move.

Then came the sound. A grinding, mechanical roar.

A shadow loomed from the smog—a war engine, massive and crude, its hulking form belching black smoke as it thundered forward. Its armor was a patchwork of scavenged steel and rusted plates, defaced with blasphemous sigils, its cannon swiveling with an ugly mechanical whine.

And riding atop the behemoth, clad in blood-red armor, was something worse.

It was too large to be a man, too monstrous to be an Astartes. Its form was a grotesque mockery of the Emperor's chosen—hulking and brutal, its crimson plates twisted with baroque corruption. In one gauntleted hand, it gripped a rusted chainaxe, its engine sputtering to life with a hungry snarl.

Vek felt his breath hitch. His fingers clenched the grip of his lasgun.

The Slayer turned to face them.

His lasguns sang in response, burning crimson streaks across the war machine's hull. Sparks erupted, metal buckled, but the monstrous tank did not stop.

With a screech of tortured servos, the war engine surged forward.

The Slayer held his ground. His weapons flared in defiance, a relentless barrage of fire, but it was not enough.

With a thunderous roar, the war machine slammed into him.

The impact was brutal, metal crashing against armor, the force sending the Slayer hurtling through the air like a broken doll. The smog swallowed him whole, his green-clad form vanishing into the chaos.

Then, the war machine followed.

A sickening crunch echoed through the battlefield as the tank's massive treads ground forward, disappearing into the swirling ash.

Vek's stomach twisted.

"No!" The word ripped from his throat, raw with disbelief.

The sergeant was on him in an instant, grabbing his shoulder, his grip bruising. "Get inside! That's an order!"

Vek stumbled back, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps. His mind screamed for him to resist, to do something, but his body obeyed the order.

The bunker doors slammed shut behind them.

And the battlefield beyond was swallowed by the storm.

The war machine's massive treads churned through the rubble, its corrupted bulk shaking the ground with every grinding movement. But something was wrong.

Its engine howled, struggling, as if caught on something.

Then the battlefield shook.

With a bone-rattling crack, the war engine lurched—not forward, but upward. The ground beneath it heaved, as if reality itself had turned against its advance.

Then, like a thing of mockery, the war machine rose.

From the smoke and ruin, the Slayer stood.

His boots dug deep into the shattered earth, muscles corded beneath armor, gauntleted fingers dug into the hull. The treads fought for purchase, servos screamed in protest—but it was too late.

With a guttural roar of defiance, the Slayer lifted.

The corrupted tank flipped. Hulking steel and desecrated plating twisted through the air like a broken beast, before slamming onto its back in a catastrophic impact. Fuel ignited. Metal split. Smoke and flame vomited from ruptured exhaust vents.

And atop the wreckage, the blood-red giant moved.

The Chaos Astarte dislodged himself with unnatural speed. His chainaxe revved to life, teeth spinning hungrily as he let out a guttural war cry.

The Slayer did not wait.

The first strike came in a brutal arc, meant to cleave his head from his shoulders. The Slayer sidestepped, movement deceptively fast for his size. The traitor pressed forward, axe carving through the air in savage sweeps.

Then, as the heretic overextended on a downward swing, the Slayer moved.

His hand shot forward, snatching the Astarte's own bolt pistol from its holster in one fluid motion. The Chaos Marine roared in fury, swinging again—too slow.

The Slayer ducked.

The bolt pistol slammed beneath the traitor's chin. The trigger pulled.

A deafening boom erupted. The bolt round detonated inside the heretic's skull. His body spasmed, armor cracking, before crumpling to the ground, chainaxe sputtering in a lifeless grip.

Silence fell.

Then came the war horns.

From the smog, the Berserkers came.

The battlefield trembled beneath their charge. Red ceramite, fresh with gore. Chainaxes, glaives, daemonic weapons screaming without sound. The earth itself seemed to recoil from their presence.

And at their head, atop a Juggernaut of molten iron and war-forged muscle, rode their warlord.

His laughter was a guttural, metallic rasp.

"You are too small for an Astarte," he mused. "Yet too strong for a mere Guardsman. And your rage—your rage sings."

The daemon in the chainaxe quivered, slithering into the Slayer's mind.

"Yesss… you are one of us. You are already His."

The warlord raised his axe.

His warriors answered.

"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!"

They beat upon their armor, a ritualistic cacophony of war. The daemon shrieked in delight—until it did not.

Something was wrong.

The Slayer's rage did not feed the daemon. It consumed.

Where it had once gorged itself, the entity recoiled. It tried to retreat within its weapon—but there was no escape.

The Slayer's fury was absolute.

It was not devotion. It was not madness. It was not Khorne.

It was something else.

The daemon screamed.

And then, it was gone.

The Berserkers staggered. Their chants faltered, their warlord's Juggernaut shifting uneasily beneath him.

The Slayer exhaled. The chainaxe—now lifeless—dropped from his grip.

Then, he reached into the void left behind.

His fingers pressed into the exposed chamber—and something new took hold.

A surge of argent fire flooded the weapon. The broken tool of slaughter was no longer Khorne's.

It was his.

And the Berserkers of Khorne, for the first time, felt fear.