Chp 15: Enigmatic Endings

We're dead, thought Adam counting down the seconds to their shredding like a Swiss cheese.

5

4

3

The moment closed as they passed a shadow reminiscent of a reaper's blade cast from a great curved spiked turret reminiscent of an oxen's horn.

Fury at the warp, fury at his life ripped across the veins in his face.

Adam drew on the warp significantly for the first time in days, channelling the concept of lightning, his veins burned as liquid fire burst through his nervous system, lighting up like a Christmas tree inside his void armour.

'RAAAaaaarrrgghh'

Flattening, a pathetic attempt on his mind, he felt his reflexes and dynamic vision speed up tenfold, the bullets whizzing across the cabin now clear as day passing through the air like molasse.

----

'I need speed Calcifer, I needed it yesterday, we need to go faster' Adam released a silent plea.

----

Deep in the engine room, a singular eye suddenly opened.

Contract engaged

~ Through the Fire and the Flames plays, Dragon Force ~

Time seemed to stutter for a moment.

A billowing black smoke cloud formed in the blink of an eye billowing out.

Out of the smoke came the train, a transformed burning demon engine beneath the warp-lit night sky. A great screaming skull, formed at the front of the train, trailing twin lines of fire trailing behind it.

The train leapt forward completing its drift, like it had been hit by a mallet from the hand of God. In the engine room, the very air was on fire, chains of damnation holding the very walls together.

300 mph

400mph

500 mph

The speed dial cracked, shattering to pieces.

Their sudden acceleration barrelled the train past the heavy weapons ahead of them, the streams of heavy ordinance only striking the very end of the train too fast to track.

'I..m hit' whispered Skalfi unheard over the vox, drowned out by the all-encompassing sound.

----

Adam straightened up the land train aiming for the bridge, its tail end whipping out with a crack breaking the sound barrier.

His head burned, feeling like it was going to explode as he struggled to maintain control over the torrent of warp energy enhancing his nervous system, but failing to enhance is nervous system would be a death sentence at the extreme speed the train was blitzing across the desiccated ground.

In less than a second he turned the train.

Right

Left

Under the whizzing circular saw of a warlord titan towering over the battlefield.

'Thwack'

A massive red axe, some three meters in length smashed through the left side of the front carriage spiralling past the back of Adam's head before embedding itself hard in the locker at the back of the room with a crunch.

The distraction caused Adam to look back for a second, the train hitting a rocky outcropping at the wrong angle sending it spiralling into the air'.

'AAAAAAaaahh' screamed Adam.

'Anti- gr...' he heard Kôrv start.

Adam panicked, pulling the lever down without a second thought.

The train fell like a brick towards the ground upside down.

The land train glanced the ground, the antigrav holding them aloft at the last possible second.

Adam turned the wheel as far as it went to the right in an attempting to right it. The train plunged into the ork lines carving a crescent into their mass as the friction from thousands of crushed orcs inadvertantly righted the train.

Completing the turn having come full circle, Adam caught sight of a flying greater demon on great red bat-like wings a great axe like the one embedded in the locker, held clasped in its clawed hand, moving rapidly toward them.

BOOOOM

'Round Away'

The dread hammer cannon fired scoring a direct hit on the greater demon who was sent careening across the sky.

'Direct hit ahaahaha' laughed Kôrv manically down.

Only for his mouth to open wide in shock as...

'Rrroooooaaarrr'

The greater demon exploded out the airborne fireball charging towards them.

'cccrrr Don't bloody stop' said Ymme down the vox, 'Votann records have got an ID, that's fucken Skarbrand.

Adam completed the turn rocketing back towards the bridge now five meters above the ground flying and teasing the battlefield at just under the speed of sound.

But even at this ridiculous speed, Skarbrand was rapidly gaining distance now the greater concern over and above the bullet storm they were driving though, so thick that it sounded like they were rushing through one continuous monsoon of explosive ordinance.

Schreeeeeeeeccchhh

They hit the bridge and launched high into the air straight over the khornite legions deploying below.

Seconds later they land now less than a hundred meters from Khorne's brass citadel that had doors tall enough the admit an emperor titan.

The door was almost closed only a thin sliver of light visible through the crack ahead.

BOOOM

'Away'

BBOOOOOOOOOOOMMMM!!!

The closing mechanism shuddered for a second, then they hit the door.

Adam blacked out for a second.

The train squeezed through, its pitted armoured side walls coming off like a giant can opener had gone to town on the structure of the train.

The roof collapsed as the walls holding it up disappeared.

The defence emplacements of the inner citadel activated in an instant, opening up in a barrage of fire, striking every millimeter of the front of the train

One unlucky round even went straight down the barrel. Adam could only watch in slow motion as the breach seemed to swell like a water balloon, before bursting, sending Kôrv careening to the carriage floor, his exo armour pincushioned with shrapnel.

The sheer mass of the gunfire acted like the train had hit an immovable object whilst moving at just over 500 mph.

The front carriage seemed to stop in the air for a second, before it was struck by the rear two carriages which then tumbled over the first as the whole train violently tumbled end over end hundreds of meters toward the front door of Khorne's central tower.

Adam watched in slow motion as Kôrv repetitively seemed to almost fly out of the carriage before being sucked in as the angle of gravity changed by the millisecond.

Ymmê couldn't hold on flying out the side of the central carriage as it whipped over first at 500 mph.

'AA-aa' SPLAT.

Flying hundreds of meters in seconds. She slammed into a nearby bunker, her scream cut off as her body was pulvirised in a red mist against the side.

If Adam had more time to think and had been paying attention to the right side of the train he would have been horrified, but even with his enhanced perception, he barely had time to gather a single thought before the train slammed into the ground with finality, rocked one last time before coming to a final heavy rest. The train was now unreognisable as a train, having more in common with a car after a trash compacting.

Dangling down Adam unfixed himself from the cot, falling onto the hard ground below, just missing the gantry which had functioned as an improvised roll cage.

Crawling out from under the wreckage, he pushed himself to one knee before using one hand on his knee to haul himself to his feet.

Wreckage behind him, he looked up drawing the dagger Kaldor had given him in a reverse grip.

Thousands of blood thirsters screamed down on him in a wide circle which contracted by the second, their flashing blades flickering flames in Adam's vision a dark tunnel from the extreme g's his body had just been put through, despite Kaldor's enhancements, his liberal application of the warp and the inertia dampening effects of the cot.

Steeling himself he stood to fight.

----

(Chapter 16: 'Not One Step Back' Is out on Patreon and 'Dios Mio' is it a chapter)

patreon.com/DescentofPotential