##[Chalcedon](http://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/75113/posts/char?page=2#post-2322931) of the Lamenters ####Planet Guisrac, Sector Tancred, Segmentum Ultima, Milky Way --- There was a sickening crunch as multiple powerful servos clenched at once to crush a Hormagaunt's skull and flatten its brain, sending foul-smelling green ichor around in an elegant circle. The thick blood splattered against Chalcedon's breastplate, dirtying the golden Imperial Aquila so proudly embossed upon it. And, as if the meted out punishment wasn't enough, the space marine, in his hatred, raised his armored leg to deliver an earth-shattering kick of many tons of force straight against the foul alien's thorax, utterly detonating it and the organ systems within into a gratuitous explosion of gore. Droplets of the death-stuff further pepper Chalcedon's power armor as they collect into a temporary mist, the foul green cloud shortly dispelled by the resuming muzzle-blasts of Chalcedon's bolter, each round fired like a lightning strike in both impact and sound. Where the bolts are going? There, on every slope of the hill where he and his company are surrounded, hundreds upon hundreds and thousands of them, an undulating mass of twitching chitin: the Tyranid swarm. "For the Emperor and Sanguinius!" Chalcedon bellowed, his voice high and mighty, overpowering even the ugly wail of total war. "Death! **DEATH!**" This was met by a chorus of hurrahs by his squad and other members of the 5th Company. There they were, valiant paladins, heroes and giants fending off the monsters of this unforgiving, forsaken Universe. One hundred of them, Space Marines of which there are only one per planet under the unwavering rule of the Imperium. One hundred super-soldiers, one hundred noble knights, one hundred Angels of Death. Young demigods in power armor, unmatched in war and deadly with bolter and chainsword. But not enough. Not against a foe that fears nothing, not against a foe that is numberless. Not against the Great Devourer, whose hunger makes even the stars quake. Poets and artists glorify war and aggrandize and romanticize the deeds of armed forces of the Imperium. Odes and ballads and paintings and sculptures, all great, all together so innumerable and make up a great part of human culture. Ah, were it that halos crown the heads of Astartes always, were it that a diegetic but untouchable and invisible orchestra were there to give music and order to the churning carnage of battle. Were it that the angels of beyond were truly watching these earthly angels of death as witnesses to their glorious end. Were it that dying here wasn't so horrible and _lonely_, maybe Chalcedon would feel better about all of this. Because no-one outside of the 5th Company, knows at all what is happening to the 5th Company. The red lights and clicks of protests of Squad Julius' heavy bolters mean that they have run out of ammunition. Their bolters and bolt pistols simply do not have the firepower of their larger siblings to cover their area of jurisdiction. They are overwhelmed without mercy, alien talons, after much struggle, breaching their power armor and goring them. "Glory!" yelled Urzhk, the company chaplain, his face unreadable through the ghastly visage of his skull mask. "Glory! We all die in **GLORY!**" If only that were true. "For those we cherish!" the company yelled in unison. Were it that they were truly dying in glory. One by one do they die. Angels of Death ironically falling into death's embrace, souls leaving their powerful earthly vessels to enter an afterlife where they are actually weak. The venerable dreadnought Damocles finally met his end against a combined and concentrated barrage of Warrior-brood cannon fire. Too wounded to live, yet too precious to die, it was today when his walking tomb, the only thing keeping him alive, was breached, and he, as a consequence, died alongside its power systems. His grey meat, though of low quality, was biomass all the same, and the Tyranids would consume it like they did everything else. "For those I cherish," Chalcedon repeated the battle-cry, as the horde swelled up towards him from below. The death-wails of an entire company of Astartes are loud and obviously noticeable. But it matters little when nobody is there to hear it. "I die in glory!" Struck by the explosive psychic bolt of a Tyranid Zoanthrope, Chalcedon died forgettably. Or did he really perish? --- ####Client World 576143290-B --- At the crest of a random, sandy dune, there lay Chalcedon seemingly staring against the sun. One could not tell through the thick armourcrys lenses of his helm, but his eyes shot out open, bright and active, almost immediately after he had regained his consciousness. Standing up with speed not befitting his bulkiness and beholding the greenery of the savage jungle gone in place of a desert landscape, he took a few moments to heft his bolter up and, working with his autosenses, scanned his environment for potential threats. His autosenses tagged the four figures in the shadow of a rather misplaced towering structure in the distance about a millisecond before his eyes did. Hundreds of meters away, Chalcedon wondered what or who they were: one question amongst a hundred – where was he? What is this place? If he was not being led to the Emperor's Palace, or joining the paladins of the Legion of the Damned, those glorious Astartes who fight even beyond death, then what was this place? Purgatory? Was he even dead? He was struck down not even a minute ago and he knew it; if he had yet to die but was still conscious, then by now, he would be staring at Apothecary Capet's grim visage as he worked on his wounds. But Capet wasn't there, and neither was the rest of 5th Company. He was certain he was alive; hell, his HUD says he still was, and also that his blood-splattered armor hadn't been breached. Was he suddenly transported somewhere else, however reeking of fantasy that situation may be? Since the Zoanthrope used the Warp as its energy source for its blows, then did he suffer at this point the bad luck his chapter was infamous for, being teleported across space and time to some backwater desert world? So many questions, but he had no answers to any of them. But perhaps those figures in the distance might lend him some clues. Two women, one man, one unknown. Five hundred meters away. Tagged, and possibly hostile. Bringing his bolter up to his cheek, he began to walk towards them, his massive weight sending ripples through the sand and throwing it up in little clouds dispersed continually into nothingness by a concurrent light breeze. When the distance was small enough that he could identify their being human, Chalcedon lowered the muzzle of his weapon in a relaxed stance. The thousand-kilogram, eight-foot-five-inch goliath cast out his voice as his footfalls were thuds that vibrated the very air: **"Hail,"** a curt greeting that belied little emotion through the mechanical modulation of his helm's vox-caster.