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Farsight had gone ahead of the rest of the army. She’d already signaled to her Fireknives that she’d be going ahead so they had time to reevaluate their positions. She’d somehow not seen any sort of enemy force on her descent from the sky. That was until she saw a Space Marine riding on some boarish creature barreling down the warp rift that had spawned on the battlefield.
Immediately Farsight took Dawn Blade and started to descend like a meteor on the adversary. SHUNK Wires and copper plating split as she plunged her sword deep into the enemy. “Impressive.” A harsh and coarse voice called from outside the smoke the attack kicked up. “I take it you’re Farsight?”
Farsight could see the beast still writhing. She removed her blade from the middle of it and plunged it into the beast's head. “You’d be correct.”
The guttural noise of two chain axes spinning up heralded that beginning of the battle. “THEN YOU WILL MAKE A FINE ADDITION TO MY TROPHY RACK AND THE SKULL THRONE!!!!” The marine started to charge her. “BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!” They were fast. Farsight could barely get her blade up before the axes probably split her mech in two. The more concerning part to her though was that she was being pushed back by two axes from a single Space Marine. She mustered all the auxiliary power in her suit and shot it into her sword arm knocking back her opponent and hopefully landing a blow. “If you know my name then I’d like to know yours.” Farsight called to her adversary.
“Maleus.” They started to walk in a circle waiting for the next attack. “Maleus Skulltoucher.” She couldn’t see under the marines helmet but under the three slit vox grill she could feel them smiling. The marine charged Farsight retaliated with a backstep and a volley from her plasma rifle. Missed. Recalibrating she went for blocks instead of blows mostly because the deranged psychopath she was brawling didn’t let up on offensive. There was one silver lining to this defensive style, it was allowing a scan to be done by her suit. Now this wouldn’t be all that helpful. She already knew the things name, blood type would be useless and weapons were usually very visible on the attacker. But if she could hold out just… a little… bit… longer…
Ping!
Perfect. Now let’s just do a quick review- Female? They have women in their ranks? I thought they were only men? That must be wrong… Farsight decided to look closer at the enemy. Pretty standard affair for this type of Space Marine. Blood red armour trimmed with copper or brass, crested helm, the pauldrons were interesting. At least one was a fairly normal one but the corners had rounded half arches while the other one was much smaller and barely covered her(?) shoulder. There was a purple cloth draped between her(?) legs that had a spider's web of chains and skulls hanging from it. The most eye-catching part was the set of brass spikes in the shape of wings that sat on her powerpack, they were adorned with trophies, weapons and chains most likely from past opponents. Still not explicitly female parts we- The chest was bigger. Her breastplate was notably bigger. Farsight noted down that the Imperium was nearly as sexist as she thought it was. Several thoughts were now flowing through Farsight's head now but all of those would have to wait until after she was done fighting for her life.
Farsight went for another parry. If she could blast her back then she could start an offensive. 3… 2… 1… 3… 2… 1… 3… 2… CLANG! Now she could go on the offensive. The horrid sound of chains starting and stopping every few seconds was only ended by Farsight leaping back and firing a volley at Maleus. To her horror she watched as two of the plasma balls were batted out of the way and then Maleus proceeded to tank the third one head on. “That’s what you call an attack!? I’ll show you proper use of plasma!” Maleus hooked the black chain axe onto her belt and drew a righteously fucked looking plasma pistol. Before Farsight could react there was a volley of shots coming her way she dodged it well enough, until a truly massive shot hurdled towards her. She had to block it but she’d normally block/parry with Dawn Blade but that shot would surely destroy it. She couldn’t risk the one thing that gave her an advantage and sacrifice her zero-grav system and she wouldn’t have time to readjust to dodge the shot… Her rifle. She had to sacrifice her rifle. She moved her suit's body to be sideways in the air to minimize any extra damage that would come for the blast as she held her plasma rifle arm straight out. BLAM! Farsight was knocked back down to the ground. Luckily not all of her suit’s right arm was destroyed, just the entire forearm and most of the joint connecting it to the arm which she used to try and stop her sliding. Suddenly from the dust emerged her adversary who duct under her swipe from Dawn Blade and with a sickening noise of metal being ground into fine flecks of sand as her knee buckled. Several damage warnings came up immediately over her inner-hud. Yes, yes, I KNOW! Major damage to the right arm and left knee now shut up! Her grav-pack would have to pull even more weight now.
“I’ll give you this Missies Skulltoucher, this has been one of the more intense matches I’ve had in my years.” Maleus got up and turned to face her opponent.
“I give you the same courtesy.” She holstered the pistol and grabbed the black chain axe again. “Your kind knows not of the glory of blade to blade combat.” The infernal weapons spun up again. “So come! Earn your place in the Brazen Citadel and die!” The two lunged at each other once more.
Their blades clashed for many more minutes. Farsight’s antigrav system was the only thing truly keeping her up and the fact that her opponent never seemed to tire didn’t help. This time though the brawl was more even less of both sides staying on the defensive and more traditional blow to blow combat. They’d both gotten small blows on each other but now they stood there, tired and battle weary. “You have truly been a great opponent.” Farsight looked down on the marine. “If I could ask a simple favor of you, could I see the face of the one who shall strike me down?” She asked.
“You don’t intend to have a sniper take me out if I do this?” Maleus seemed to instinctually get ready for combat.
“No. You’ve proven that would be unsatisfactory for either of us.” Farsight sunk the tip of Dawn Blade into the soft dirt. Maleus gripped the crested horns of her helmet and pulled it off. What was revealed was a surprise to Farsight for it was not a simple scarred face but rather the charred remains of one. The only things that could be sorted from was her eyes and mouth. “This is what you wanted.” Farsight couldn’t argue with that, so instead she made her mech kneel and with a hiss of the chest opening and a wave of amniotic fluid wash over the dirt as Farsight leaped to the now wet ground. “If you’d show me yours I’d show you mine.” She saw as Maleus looked to the side. “Is something wrong? Are you disappointed?”
“You uhh… look rather cute is all…” Was she blushing? Can a charred corpse blush?
“What? Feeling worked up?” Farsight looked up at her. “We could go have some fun off the battlefield.”
“Is- Is that a challenge?” Maleus glared at her.
“What? Scared of what a T’au can do in bed?”
“Could you spin up your axe love?” Maleus silently grabbed Equalizer and spun it up and Farsight stuck a cigarette that she’d taken from the water caste that Shadowsun had brought with her to light it. She took a quick drag from it. “So, first time with a xeno?”
“Nah, got with a drukhari wych once.” She grumbled through her vox grills.
“I’ve met a few of them before, not the nicest but I can see what you saw in them… Shadowsun will not be happy with this…” Farsight took another drag of her cigarette.
“Fuck her.” Maleus responded quickly.
“Oh believe me I have.” She let out a small plume of smoke which also prompted a cackle from Maleus that rang off the wet walls of the cave. “If we do this again could you not go as rough?”
“You were the one asking for it.” Maleus scooted up on Farsight's clothes that they’ve been using as an impromptu bed.
“Yes but blood loss isn’t very fun in bed.” She would’ve continued that sentence but was cut off by a very audible crackle from Maleus’s helmet.
“Yes… I’m in a cave… No I will not tell you… Fuck off…” Maleus then proceeded to punch her left crest-horn and the buzzing stopped.
“Who was that?”
“Commander that I know. He doesn't need to know what we’ve done.” Almost as if fate was fucking them both more than they’d fucked each other Farsight’s earpiece started to buzz.
She grabbed it and put it on. “What do you want, Shadowsun?”
“Farsight! In the name of the Ethereals, where are you!?”
“I’m in a cave.”
“Why!?”
“I’m hiding from a crazed killer.”
“AND YOU LEFT YOUR BATTLESUIT TO DO THAT!?”
“Please keep your voice down, I need to hide. You’re all about stealth, you should know this.” As Shadowsun continued to rant and rave at Farsight she removed the earpiece and handed it to Maleus. “Crush this for me would you?” Maleus took the small device and between her fingers crushed it. “Thank you.”
“So… Want to wash up then go again?” Farsight looked over at the huge girl that’s just topped her for the past few hours.
“Hmm… Wash up, get some new toys and then let’s go again.” The two girls both got up and stretched. They were met with the satisfying crunch of their bones. “Do you know any clean bodies of water around here?”
“We could probably go deeper in the cave and find a lake.”
“You know what we just did is quite similar to a pretty famous T’au film…” Farsight was wrapped in her ceremonial ropes to dry herself off.
“I’m fucking sorry, what?”
“It’s not between a T’au and a Human but between a Kroot who’s eaten so many water based creatures that it’s bound to the water and a rescued Human scientist. It’s a pretty interesting watch if I’m being honest.” She splayed her robes back over her other clothes.
“That’s… intriguing.” Maleus steamed as the water on her body literally evaporated off her burning skin.
“How do you do that?”
“Partially blessings from Khorne, partially being a Space Marine.” She shrugged nonchalantly.
“So do you think you have energy in you for a couple more rounds or..?”
“I thought you said you wanted extra things before we went again?”
“Look, we just had sex while swimming, I think we can cut out the middle man.” Maleus looked down at the small blue girl.
“If you want to, you can top this time.”