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Their speed surprised Horus, who found his attack rebuffed by the defending Techadon. Their bulk belied their swiftness, and they were every bit as strong as their size implied. Horus stepped back after being parried, his footsteps cratering the earth where they fell. The robot that had attacked him was now regenerating, and the scrap that he had sloughed off of it was now reforming into a separate machine. Horus was annoyed with himself for being so careless, and underestimating an unknown enemy.

Then, the two robots reconfigured themselves, each taking on an appearance that mimicked the Serpent’s Scales, and fabricated weapons that resembled the claw blades of his Talon. Regeneration, adaptation, mimicry. These automatons were formidable; Kelbor-Hal would have loved to have taken one of these apart, Horus thought drolly.

All the while he maintained awareness of the battlefield. Their number of combatants seemed to have doubled, again. Others were having limited success combatting the multiplying robots, mostly with flame and acid weaponry. Driscoll shouted for the others to target their heads, and Horus updated his visual tracker and targeting systems to do just that.

His attention on the robots advancing to either side of him was even more tightly focused. He saw the detail to which they had replicated the Talon, down to the length of the blades. He had already seen the robot’s speed defending against him, and knew how much strength it had to bear. Horus reckoned that against the speed to which the robots now moved, and how their posture had changed. He could guess how much heavier they had become, and the likely thickness of their imitation armor, as well as how much their reaction time had been slowed. As they closed to strike, he couldn’t help but smile.

Judging their range and speed, Horus made his move as they closed his range. The power field to Worldbreaker flicked on, and its powerfield generator thrummed with a sound like the world was ending. Horus swung the mace in a circular arc, and it became a directed comet of metal, lightning, and death. He aimed not at the Techadons’ vital systems, but their newly-formed weapons and limbs, hoping to completely obliterate their means of defending themselves.

With their improved defenses being centralized around their chest and central controls, they weren’t prepared to watch their newly formed weapons, along with the whole arm, be turned into flattened metal as they dropped with a slight clunk to the ground. Taking a cautionary step back, the two took a different approach; raising their intact arms up, while the others began to reform, they sent a united blast of energy straight to the helm of Horus.

Their retreat meant their destruction; Horus smelled weakness and devoured cowards. Horus lunged at them with startling speed, barely giving them the chance to take a second step. He batted away its laser-firing arm as the others' fire glanced off of his armor. The majority of their power seemed directed to nanite replication; the power of their laser weaponry wasn’t enough to overcome his shielding systems. Allowing no break in his attack, he thrust his Talon through the break in its armor where the arm had detached, and tore upward, to rend its internal systems and tear off its head. Near-simultaneously, he used the reach of Worldbreaker to strike at the head of the other robot, which lacked a close arm to defend.

It didn’t defend itself; at least, not in the traditional way. By the time Worldbreaker was to come upon it, the second arm had finished reinstating itself just in time. It maneuvered in such a way that the mace slammed full-force into the Techadon’s chest as it skid harshly against the ground…But instead of sailing off, the machine had both arms grasped tightly to the head of the weapon, desperately holding its ground. 

Horus did not relent. Discarding the dead husk of the robot from his claw, it was brought around as the living robot blocked his strike. Both of its arms occupied, Horus plunged the claw into its ocular sensors and unloaded with his storm bolter into its head.

The crushing blow of his Talon caught the Wardrone dead in the newly-armored visor…And if a machine could be thankful, it would be. It held just enough; not without its damages, as it began to crack and creak, but it managed.

Then it got a faceload of bolter shots. 

Shot after shot hammered in, as the armor gave way more and more with each violent explosion staggering it away. At the last moment, as it managed to raise to full height once more….Was the nail in the coffin. This bolt tore right through the thick casing, sending Techadon head shrapnel in force across the grassy knoll, fragments of smoking debris littering the area. 

These Techadons were no more.

Horus scoffed, shoving off the smoking body still gripping his mace. These were unintelligent machines, poorly programmed for battle. Their mistake had been assuming his form; Horus knew his own weaknesses better than anyone. He returned his attention to the battle at hand, and activated his vox-caster, intending to share an inspiring battle-cry with his fellows. “[color=9bc2b1][b]Victory is near! They possess neither honor nor courage! Victory! For the Emperor![/b][/color]” He raised Worldbreaker in salute to rally his allies.