Chapter Text
Chapter 12
-Angron-
Everything is going to plan, soon that bastard shall pay.
Just had to hold enough, just a little longer.
“Soon” I said to myself as my finger nails digged deep into my flesh to distract from the carving knives in my brain to claim me, I shan't submit till my vengeance is done but I’ll also accept a death given by him, I just had to hold a little longer, just a little more.
-Emperor-
Nuceria is quite an ugly planet, it mostly consists of lifeless browns and dull yellows with the occasional patch of blue courtesy from some long forgotten sea left to rot or green in the south and north pole where humans in this planet have not fully capitalised in it.
As I descended towards the main city Da’esha, I concluded that the trend was also applicable to the city with the only thing of note being the great coliseum in the middle of the arena that rose through the surrounding slums like a tumor.
I walked through the streets, corpse littered the streets in various states of dismemberment and rot, in only 36 hours Angron and some of his sons ended most of the human life in the planet before stopping into the main coliseum and doing something with it, the only humans left were some diminute tribes in the most wild parts of the world that without exogenous interference would regress into feral populations.
But that was not the crux of my presence here, no it was Angron, my son, he was dying.
He had been dying since I first met him all those years ago, a ghost from what once was a noble man, reduced to a walking corpse of pain and regret.
But his body was finally at its limit, and no matter how, he was going to die by the end of the day, whatever that may be through the nails or by my hand was to be seen.
And so I was here, from a purely practical way to collect his soul and recycle it after his biological death, but from a personal perspective also to give him what he most desired, an honourable death against a worthy foe.
It was a similar concept to the reason I used the custodes to purge the thunder warriors rather than just drowning them under artillery and rad weapons or create a specific virus to kill them, by the point the unification wars were over they were already too far gone and only death awaited them, and what better death for a warrior true of heart than to die a sword in their hand?
I would say dying a peaceful death surrounded by family and loved ones after receiving proper therapeutic aid to help them reintegrate into society would be a better death given my knowledge and experience of all of human history, but given the conditions of the thunder warriors and the brutality of this era, such a death wasn't that bad either.
And so I stepped, alone, unarmed and unarmored into the red sand of the arena where my broken weapon awaited, body trembling and scars both old, new and in the process of making were visible as he scratched himself to distract him from the searing pain in his head.
“Angron Tha’khy, champion of the red sands, I Revelation, Anathema, Dragon Slayer, Neoth, Lord of sanity and Master of Mankind by my will alone defy you to a death duel!” I said, or rather the body I was using said, loud enough for all of the empty stadium to hear us using not any psychic trick, but my voice, now greater than the average human through some biomancy that would put me on par with a Custodes body, yet still human in its weakness and strengths.
With a stare reminiscent of an ancient bear of Terra he jumped towards me and our last dance began.
-Khorne/Fragment of Khorne/Demon of Khorne-
The two warriors jumped at each other, literally and not figuratively as they both rose ten meters from the red sands before their respective fists met each other's faces and fell back down.
Immediately afterwards they rose again and run towards each other hoping to be the first to score a hit, it was Angron who again struck first with a low kick.
The anathema parried it with his arm and leg and proceeded to grab the now exposed and try to trip Angron into the ground.
It failed as using his own body weight he put the Anathema into a lock and threw him into the ground trying to choke him drawing some of his blood in the harsh fall towards the ground.
It also failed as the Anathema bit the arm of Angron reaching deep into the tendons causing the arm to mainly become useless and in the process freeing him from the position.
Both warriors disengaged from the other leaving one another some space whilst measuring each other and what just transpired.
The anathema was clearly using some bastardization of the ancient martial art known as krav maga mixed, whilst Angron used a more brutal style of capoeira and Jui-Jistu.
Before of course running again, but learning from his mistakes Angron rather than rushing stayed in his place spaying sand onto his wounds waiting for the Anathema to commit.
And commit he did as he tried a high kick towards his left side where the damage was done, only to be blindsided as sand was thrown towards his eyes at transhuman speeds.
It was only a fraction of a second opening as that was enough for Angron to kick him in the testicles, thus lengthening the opening from a fraction of a second to a full second, and with that kick the battle was lost as Angron immediately tackled again the Annathema to the ground and bit deep into his jugular wetting his mouth with blood and gore as a good warrior should.
Making sure the Anathema, or better to say the meat puppet he was using to entertain his dying son stayed dead by repeatedly biting its neck till the head and the rest of the body were severed from one another.
With shaky steps resulting both from the fight and the damage from the nails he stood proudly in front of the empty coliseum and shouted one last time.
“I Win!” He said before collapsing and finally dying from a nail induced aneurysm, silenced followed suit for a few instants as the world itself seemed to reel from this last battle, but it didn't last long as four distinct virus bombs ignited right beneath the arena purging all biomass immediately and destroying the world definitely.
It was a beautiful battle, some like my Rival/Sibling/Coworker… Slannesh may think it was too short, too brutal but this was how real fights went, not like her silly arena parodies, utterly-
“Ah, I see so that was your true plan, die by my hand and then the bombs would activate after your death killing me, smart” The anathema said interrupting my previous line of thoughts in all of his insufferable brilliance as he gently picked the soul of the twelfth and teletransported towards the bridge of the Buccephaleus ready to go towards Terra.
Part of me wanted to attack me right here and now, my part that was just a bloodthirsty angry berserker wanted that, but I was more, I was also disciplined and strategic and I knew that such a move would be unwise.
As much as I hated it to admit my Sibling/Rival/Coworker… Tzeentch was right, our initial window of opportunity was gone, the primarchs could no longer be corrupted except the bearer of the word, the plan had to be modified.
But it didn't matter that much, as long as the blood flows I would proper, and in this galaxy, there is only war.