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Imperial Guard Sergeant Merrick had…seen quite a lot.
Dozens of campaigns, hundreds of worlds, and more monstrous xenos and contemptible traitors and heretics than he could count. When one lives and breathes in the Imperial Guard, warfare is nothing to be that surprised by. Artillery shells become your wake-up call, the scent of cheap amasec, blood, and shit become your cologne, and the groans of the wounded and the broken are the lullabies that let you drift off to sleep.
Having fought during the “Aurelian crusades” had shown him more than he thought possible though. The endless swarms of Tyranids, foul teeth and claws, poison crystals, acidic plasma that crawled and sizzled as if controlled by some malign intelligence, creatures of bone and blade that ripped tank armor apart like it was nothing. Despite the years, Merrick would never forget seeing private Prendergast take a hit from one of the xenos’ weapons, and start to convulse as the bullets started crawling around on his body, burrowing deeper and eating him alive.
Then, once the beasts’ Hive Mind had been broken, they became no more than feral animals. Thankfully, it just became tedious clean-up at this point. The occasional bigger one requiring bigger guns, but few packed bigger guns than the Guard. Until that Hive Lord arrived, it wasn’t a problem.
How he wished that Emperor-damn Hive Lord had been the last of them. Unfortunately, his superior officer, and an inquisitor, had conscripted him into fighting against Traitor Space Marines. the head of an entire chapter, Azariah Kyras, fallen to the Arch Enemy. Exterminating an entire sector to power himself up into the foulest warp-spawn imaginable. Fighting side-by-side with the Blood Ravens on a charred, long-dead world had taught him much about Space Marines. the statements and propaganda of them being ‘Angels of Death’ was not at all an exaggeration. They could kill hundreds, thousands of guardsmen, traitors or xenos without even breathing hard.
The forces of the Adeptus Astartes, Loyalist or Traitor, inspired awe, the way the glided through the battlefield, covered in blood of their foes, never stopping, always moving as the ebb and flow of battle bent to their will. He had come to believe that, angels or not, they were unstoppable.
Which made his current predicament all the more pants-shitting, to pardon his High Gothic.
Staring down a renegade Space Marine, who had broken from their chapter, and gone on a killing spree, scrawling half-understood heretical messages, too poorly worded to be true heresy, armor and weapons covered in blood and hastily modified to increase their killing power, grinning at him with a mad expression, a grin that nearly split his lips ear to ear, a handgun the size of most heavy weapons Merrick had carried, aimed right at him.
Merrick had been doing a sweep of the mines with his men, told to check every area for the renegade, as the local regiment had been press-ganged into looking for the bastard. Merrick had been separated from his team by a collapsing bit of tunnel, and had continued on, wanting to find another way out. Searching the tunnels, Merrick discovered the mad scrawling with his own eyes, and couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Some of them were prayers to the Emperor, words garbled and mangled beyond recognition, several symbols that seemed to just be drawn on pure impulse, what looked like a crude series of smiling, grimacing, or screaming faces, and…a drawing of a flowerbed. While searching, the hastily modified equipment the marine had was revealed to be nothing more than hastily mauled pieces of metal. The bottom of a magazine torn off to make room for more shells, explosives made out of battery packs from digging equipment, and one device that seemed to be an art sculpture made of loose parts and guardsmen corpses. During all this time, Merrick had the terrible misfortune of stumbling upon the beast. The Mad Marine had done nothing more than chuckle, and throw Merrick around as he tried to fight back. He had managed to do some minor damage to the connecting wires to the Marines’ armor, slowing it down, but that was about all he could do.
Now, staring at the barrel of the Marine’s bolt gun, Merrick had the simple realization that had been screamed into his head over and over again
‘by the emperor…this is where I die’
All he had on him was his las-gun, which, against armor meant to withstand all but the heaviest weapons the enemies of the Imperium could muster, was no more useful than farting at it. Aiming for the head of a target that moved faster than his eyes could process was a fool’s game. The Marine still had his Bolter, and a plasma pistol, both of which could kill him with a single hit, even a glancing one.
Beaten, tired, and weary, Merrick refused to lower his las-rifle. If he was going to die, he’d at least die in something approaching dignity. The Marine’s grin widened even further; he could hear its teeth grinding together.
A breath passed…then another…then another…
The Marine suddenly…flinched. One of the Angels of Death, warriors meant to be unstoppable, unflinching killing machines…hesitated and twitched, like the silence had gone from feeling uncomfortable to being uncomfortable. The creature shook its head, as if dogged by an insect, almost seeming to tremble at some phantom or memory. Merrick seized on this in an instant, moving his body without really understanding what he was doing, rolled to the side, aiming his las-gun directly at the creatures’ face. The Marine got his second wind, and fired his bolt gun, a single instant too soon. The bolt grazed Merrick’s left arm…and then exploded.
It took all of his willpower to not scream as the blast tore most of his left arm off, his fore arm ripping off, meat tearing and scorching in the blast, as he was thrown into the wall next to him. a bit of jagged hot metal stabbed him in the cheek, as he collapsed painfully on his side. Mustering all the willpower that he had left in him, Merrick heard the voice of his drill instructor yelling at him to make no noise, lest he disgrace the Emperor’s Guard. The Sergeant managed to keep his agony to groaning and hissing, as opposed to screaming his head off. If ever there was a time when he was thankful that Commissar Daniloff beat him senseless for minor infractions, it was now, and only now.
Managing one of his eyes open to see, he realized he was still dead, as the Marine was…frozen?
Completely immobile, eyes wide, smile gone. It wasn’t until his vision cleared somewhat that he saw why.
It was small, about the diameter of Merrick’s thumb. A black, smoking hole on the Marine’s left cheek. A little trickle of what was either blood or liquid flesh dribbling out of it, as the marine raised a gauntlet to touch it, hissing and pulling back as the cold metal made contact with the damaged meat. Merrick could only watch as the Marine started trembling, hyperventilating and…was that blubbering? The noises continued as the Marine stared directly ahead, not even looking at Merrick… and then fell to the ground
Rolling around and writhing, the Marine made a truly indescribable series of noises. Guttural screaming, howls and wailing, sounds it seemed impossible to believe could ever come from a human being. Rocks skipped and bounced as the marine lashed and kicked the ground around him, until the guttural noises started to have words laced into them, while Merrick tore cloth off his severed limb, and started improvising a tourniquet, working in silence, working on instinct, unable to look away from the broken giant…
“IT HURTS…MOMMY! MOMMY, IT HURTS! IT HUU-HU-HUUUURTS! MAAMMMYYY!” the creature wailed and screamed and cried, writhing on the ground like…like a child.
That realization hit Merrick as bad as the bolt round did. This Space Marine, A noble warrior of the Adeptus Astartes…was crying like a child who had hurt themselves playing. One of the Emperor’s Angels of Death, begging for help from their mother. “IT HURTS! IT HURTS! MAMAAAAA! MAMA IT HUR-UR-UUURRRRRTTTTSSS!” he screamed. Merrick managed to stand, his footing unsteady, as he got a better look. The marine’s face was twisted in the most unusual shape he had ever seen. Snot, tears, blood, and sweat covered his face as he screamed and cried. His pleas for his mother continuously going unheard, as the sergeant had no idea what he was supposed to do in this scenario. The renegade, the monster he had been told had killed countless of the Emperor’s flock…whining and screaming and crying. The child wasn’t even looking at anything, just staring blankly at the dirt and stone above them both, as tears poured around his face. A dull hissing noise caught Merrick’s attention, and it drew his gaze to the plasma pistol at the tantrum-throwing Astartes’ side. his plasma pistol getting hit from his gauntlet over and over again, starting to spark and sizzle. Merrick’s eyes widened and he barely had time to curse before he turned to run. He’d seen plasma pistols break before, and none of them did so with anything less than the force of a bomb. Merrick’s second step had him trip and fall, but his determination to live kept him moving.
“MAAAAAAAMMMMMAAAAA-HA-HAAAAAAA-,” was the last thing either of them heard before the world turned white.
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When Merrick managed to find his way out of the mines, the other soldiers were astonished. Beat to hell, bleeding, missing most of his left arm, but having triumphed over a traitorous Astartes. The men would only tell stories of how he managed to lure and trap one of the Space Marines. one man’s ingenuity brought down a Fallen Angel. When debriefed, Merrick kept to the basics: he got in a lucky shot, and the marine’s plasma gun exploded in the confusion. Like a grenade going off. The chapter’s apothecary was told where the body was, and went to…do whatever it was Marines did with their own dead. Merrick never asked, as a guardsman of his rank was not meant to question.
Merrick would never speak about what he saw that day. None of the guardsmen he knew would believe him, and his superiors would shoot him dead as a heretic for saying anything resembling that. So, he kept it locked up. All Merrick wanted to do was forget it ever happened. Push that image out of his mind and focus on the days that mattered…
Unfortunately for him, his mind had other ideas. for every time he was alone, every time he thought he could sleep soundly, every moment of quiet where it was just him and his thoughts, he heard it over and over again. The voice of a monster, a creature beyond him by miles, shouting and pleading over and over again
“Mommy! Mommy it hurts….”