The Lost(Part I)

[Scrap-miester]

Malachi waited anxiously in his crater with four of his battle brothers surrounding him. Their assault had been momentarily halted while an artillery barrage was pounding out the nearby buildings turning the streets into hailstorm of shrapnel and debris. During this uneventful wait his mind brought him back to a time in the distant past; He was standing at attention, marines clad in bright green armor were barking orders at the young Malachi, and he instantly obeyed and fell to the ground to do 200 push-ups as ordered. Upon completion he stood at attention once more… Malachi had had this memory hundreds of times before; it always came back to him in uneventful times, most often in-between his horrifically twisted dreams that broke him from his sleep in a deep sweat. It was nothing new for him, and he had long ago stopped searching for his distant past, for he was one of The Lost, and he was not alone in his state of amnesia.

Just then an explosion ripped through the building next to Malachi and his assault squad sending chunks of concrete raining into the muddy crater below. An especially large piece bounced off of Malachi’s bright yellow shoulder pad and splashed into the thick brown water below. After a few more minutes of wait, it was clear that the barrage was over and his auto senses picked up the footsteps of over fifty of the “Emperor’s” Imperial Guardsmen advancing on their position. Malachi’s comm-link buzzed as squad alpha gave the order to advance, without fear Malachi and his assault squad climbed over the top of his dirty crater into a hail of lasgun fire that would have silenced a whole platoon of normal foot soldiers. Hundreds of lasgun beams bounced harmlessly off of his power armor doing little more then burning off the black and yellow paint from the surface off the respective plasteel and ceremite plates. Malachi could see the rest off his warband emerging from the battered imperial buildings to his sides. Fortunatly for Malachi, the guardsmen also saw this and realized what little effect their powerful eartshakers had on the traitor marines and the imperials began taking cover wherever and behind whatever they could. As Malachi and his squad got within firing range they brought their weapons to bear on the closest guard squad in front of them and opened fire sending salvo after salvo of boltgun fire into the ranks of the guardsmen. Malachi’s plasma pistol had an especially demoralizing effect on the guardsmen as it melted its targets body parts down to nothing more than red vapors and horrifically burnt the surrounding areas. Piece by piece the guardsmen forces were being systematically ripped apart by the deadly accurate bolter fire of the traitor marines. A few squads were so horrified that they fled from the bloodshed that surrounded them; fortunately most of them were gunned down in the process, either by traitorous bolter fire, of by the few commissars within the given platoon.

As Malachi’s squad closed in the shots directed at them became more and more accurate and concentrated towards the weak points in the flawless power armor. One well placed group of lasgun shots tore through Akkad’s ancient helmet, vaporizing his face and felling the huge warrior. Without feelings Malachi ordered his squad to charge the cowering guardsmen that lay just two meters ahead of them. By instinct the marines pulled fragmentation grenades from their ammo belts and threw them behind the ranks of the firing imperials. Loud thuds shook the ground as the grenades detonated, sending molten slag in all directions, pinning down the guardsmen as they hit the ground in an attempt to evade the deadly shrapnel. Malachi threw himself over the wreckage that the imperials lay behind and thrust his glowing sword into the gut of one of the recovering guardsmen, spilling his intestines over the wet imperial street. The guardsmen sergeant swung his sword at Malachi’s head, Malachi reacted by ducking under the blow and firing his plasma pistol at point blank in the sergeants face, disintegrating his head and cauterizing his neck altogether. Malachi’s squad broke through the remaining line of guardsmen causing a nearby squad to drop their weapons and flee, Malachi’s squad saved them from their shame and opened fire on the deserters, blowing fist sized holes through their bodies and spraying bodily fluids into the air. Before their bodies hit the floor a group of ogryns charged the marines, automatic shotguns firing wildly about. Cornelius shot his antiqued melta-gun at the nearest ogryn, blasting his upper body into ribbons of molten flesh and bone. One of the ogryns was enraged by the death of his friend and shoved the oversized bayonet on the front of his “ripper” gun into Cornelius’s gut, firing a three round burst that sent chunks of flesh and plasteel blasting out of his back into what remained Malachi’s squad. Fortunatly, the marines had a much faster reaction time and countered attacked the ogryns before they could do any more damage. Malachi was the first to act as he fired two plasma shots into the murderous ogryn that killed Cornelius; he followed through with an upward slash of his power sword that sprayed bloody gristle into the air around him. The remaining ogryn were gunned down at point blank, covering the street with their blood.

Malachi breathed heavily as he noticed a few guardsmen fleeing into the distance, he then heard the distinguished crackle of boltgun fire followed by the sound of the imperials lifeless bodies hitting the wet pavement with soft thuds. As he stood there, he looked down at the blood-soaked ground; there laid his brother in arms Cornelius, a man whom he had fought with since before he could remember, but it meant little to him, for he was of The Lost, and he had all but forgotten the emotions he had once felt before.

LMK what you think

-Eric