[center][h2] The 18th Legion [/h2]
[h3]Staging Point Throat - Southern Ursh [/h3][/center]

"Commander Red should be back soon hold your sword Grunbah." The Astartes said as he stared up at the towering brute, then immediately receiving a backhand that tossed the young Astartes aside like a ragdoll.

"I am your elder welp, you may be Sergent but I am your superior." Captain Grunbah growled before kicking the Astartes, staring at the rest of the new squad that had entered the camp just the day prior, "He said he would be back four days ago, and that I should be arriving reinforcements, a new batch of warriors, instead I get stunted runts with no will to fight."

There seemed to be a stand off, twenty thunder warriors against seven astartes. Both sides knew who would win, but the younger warriors did drag their sergeant back into their ranks. As both lines began to set up, swords, axes, and mauls all in hand and raising. At that moment, another stepped between the lines, "Grunbah, call your wolves back, for we need not shed blood outside of a sparring pit or the battlefield. An I would not think Theadon or the Emperor would wish to see these young soldiers destroyed before their first battle." Bombda stared at them and held out several canisters of explosives that wrapped around his chest, it was a crude deterrent, but it was one that worked; there was no fun in dying in an exploding. 

With that, the group of thunder warriors turned and grumbled back into their barracks and tents, Bombda turned back towards the men behind him, "You will be under me... he is anxious for bloodshed, so tread lightly around him. Lock your barracks, and have explosives nearby he sees them as weak yet charges head first into artillery barrages." 

"Thank you Lieutenant, he does realize that we are not thunder warriors but Astartes right?" the younger warrior asked, "No... The commander has tried to explain to him, but he is... idiotic and wild, he is also unhinged, and becoming worse. The more he thinks the worse he gets, and blood lust takes him." 

[hr]

"He is gone." a thunder warrior muttered out after closing the cover of a tent.

Theadon Red stood behind the man sighing, "He took his bike, and sword, not even his armor. He is headed to the North East from the tracks, but why?"

"I don't know... what is to the North East, snow?" asked the Warrior, turning back towards his commander, "And at this hour as well, doesn't he know he's more likely to freeze than find anything out there?" 

"Check the maps and see, we can see if we can sideline the route to find him before we continue to our first objective." Theadon said before remembering something, "There is a village there, Seargent Lathurani and his men scouted it on their way here... I think... Do we continue without our objectives without him is the question. We let him rampage through the countryside alone, or we take him with us. The man can probably draw anything away from us alone with his bloodlust."

"Commander, do you think it wise to let him go, his men might follow suit?" The warrior asked, a bit of worry on his face.

"That might be for the best; we send his fifty men with a few trucks and their bikes to chase him... knowing them, it will spread more chaos through the countryside. They are all full of bloodlust, let them get it out. While... I would like to have their bodies in the end; I would rather not kill them like... the last three that have fallen to bloodlust. Send a scouting party behind them by a few days, maybe the Astartes... they may be at odds, but the young blood still have honor in their hearts and can collect those who have fallen. Bombda can lead them while I lead the rest of the eighteenth north."

He thought this out, it was their job to cause fear and terror in the realms out of the imperiums light, through darkness there is a light that comes from the fires of ruins, and rebuilding from the smoldering ashes. He thought about his on his way to see Bombda, but he also though of his conversation with his friend when he received the new warriors of the Imperium, he figured they would be replaced eventually with old age, if they died of old age, but at that moment he sighed as he took a deep breath, looking up at the sky trying to see a moon, but it was not there. The legions symbol was that of the moon cracked by blades of the imperium, he was a night terror, and tonight was a full moon. Blood flowed thick through their bloods as they all desired war once again, sitting in these stations resupplying is something most hate. He enjoyed it, it kept his mind off fighting. He knew he could do many things, but numbers did help. But he felt himself letting loose once again, he felt his body aching for destruction, it was almost apart of his nature, of the legions nature to desire destruction. 

"Let them run free... we will not be able to contain them should they find out, so let them know. Find their commander and to continue to stage two of the objectives."

[hr]
[h3]Central Ursh - 3 weeks later[/h3]
[hr]

"Lieutenant Mehnan, artillery fire at designated zone six. Six shots full salvo followed up by two shots of smoke." Rex said into a small vox caster unit as he held his pistol and sword in both hands, he was hidden behind a mound of stone, it hid him and six others. "If Grunbah made it this far, we have two hundred yards, and four buildings until we get to the outpost."

A minute or so later, shells landed in front of him; the human contingent of his force did better without the most bloodthirsty of his legion screaming at them and trying to flay them at night. But with that he stood and listened to two more pops down towards the grouping of buildings. He raised his pistol up and started to fire at a hole in building two. He saw a muzzle flash a moment before, and since then saw nothing. Twenty yards he had not realized he had gone so fast, but he was twenty yards from the breach in the wall as he jumped in to fight some form of the beast that came from behind him. He looked at the breach, and there was nowhere for this thing to hide. He slashed in through and let its body bisect itself after several moments before firing more shots into what he assumed was its head. 

He jumped backed several feet after receiving a blow to his side, and he lowered his blade to see that this thing was reforming in front of him, dark ooze coming from it as he charged once again, and his blade fell several times against this monster he fought, and finally he cleaved it in two once again, and kept going until it was a pile at the floor. 

He turned back, and continued down the hall, "By the emperor, what abominations live in this place?" In front of him, a door burst down with a large and bloody figure full of madness; he knew that madness and had seen it before it was Grunbah. Covered in blood, and sheets of skin the hulking figure stood with a sword and an axe in both hands. 

"You caught up to me old man." Grumbled Grunbah, "I've fought many things and learned many things... I've sent you back the bodies of those you sent for me, and now... I get to kill a welp who should have fallen at my heels long ago." 

Grunbah turned towards his superior and let out a roar as his arms went wide, with his arms before the charge. Blood and skins flapping against the speed of this monster. Commander Red lifted his pistol and shot the man several times in the face, watching the man drop to the floor feet from him. Surprised, with a bit of dew on his face, he slowly placed his sword to the back of Grunbah's neck and pressed down upon the spine, cutting it. It was a loss, but, a needed one, both in the reminder of this is how all of his warriors would end up, but also how he would end up one day. 

The other, is that this became a butcher, instead of a warrior of honor, he sowed destruction of many kinds upon the lands far beyond that of which he would have taken. He saw the scars in the land left by this lone warrior, the scars in his own soldiers left hanging mutilated in effigies on the country side almost as if they were warnings from the enemy, but it came from within. He knew it to be from within but told all others differently. 

Grunbah was brutal and sadistic, and in his last moments it showed, he had become almost an animal, but one of sport. One which desired only to become a sport, or allow its prey to. Death was only a final desire, and here it was given, likely not in the manner desired, but it was given and given swiftly. How long had he been moving, how long since he rested, not in some time. The building he was in shook, as the floor came down in front of him, and he climbed through the breech reloading his autopistol. He was thankful it brought Grunbah down, and surprised it did as well. 

"Commander are you alright, the back half of your building came down?" someone asked through the vox channel.

"I am fine, this building is clear, finish your building and then let us proceed to the communications center. We don't have much time before the jamming is lifted." 

Grunbah looked at the building, it looked like the one he was in, but with metal poles and dishes sticking from it, he saw a few using them as climbing aids in scaling the side to get to the roof, but he decided the door or one of the shell holes would be a better entry way for himself. 

"Seargent, are your astartes ready?" Commander Red asked, "through the lower quarters with Bombda, take both of your squads, and meet me in the central room. Weizer and Wenttiv follow me. Yuidilon Standard to the roof, give the backlines a sight, and let honor be bound to our names."

To that several responses came through the vox network, all confirming their orders. He saw brutes charge to catch up behind him, but they were slow and he made it through the first breech as he came upon a group of three men, none of which stood a chance as his sword cleaved two in half, and his autopistols hilt caved the thirds skull in. He put a shot into the thirds head to put him out of his suffering before he kicked a door off it's hinges. Firing into any warm body in the room, he stepped on the door with a crack as the individual below the door started to break, he shot through the door to finish this poor soul as well. Two more shots, his magazine was empty, and he dropped with his thumb before letting his other hand release the sword impaling another and letting his fists pulp the last man into the wall. 

Reloading once again, he retrieved his sword moments later smashing a panel in the room, and staring at the carnage that maybe took twelve seconds in total, if he was younger, he could have done it in eight. This, was slaughter, it was butchery, it was not terror, in terror you leave several alive, but so far all he came across was death. The astartes he heard below him, and he saw his own warriors follow past the room he was in. He saw them as butchers in that moment, not as the warriors he knew. He saw what other legions were, butchers, they had an artistic view, a morbid one, but it was methodical. It was logical, and full of terror. He sighed, Bombda and the Astartes he felt would be the last of those who could complete their goals, their ways. Their old ways, like in Gyptus, or when starting this crusade across the world. Slow, steady, methodical. Leaving the enemy pissing in their pants and surrendering rather than killing them wholesale. Instead of having bodies to work in workshops, or constructing roads and logistics, there was only bodies cut apart with viciousness and hate. He knew there was hate, he saw hate in himself too, he saw some the abominations within this place. This outpost, a chapel of some kind, some form of prayer, they butchered as well, but in a different way. He felt it, something was wrong, both with this place, but he felt like with some of those around him. He felt Grunbah was different as well.

He knew that something was wrong, "All units, set explosives for five hours, leave the central spire in tact, and leave our calling cards, but blow up the other buildings. Let nothing but this last building stand, then let us head out, we have three days to make it to where we need to be. So let us be quick, gather our dead, and let us go."

Theadon Red stared, and opened up a smaller communications channel, "Bombda, in my building, Grunbah is there, get his body and his things. We need it... to figure out the problems that are starting to arise. Make sure no one see him but those you trust to keep quiet... And please, be quick about it. He is in the lower level I only checked that spot, but search the rest, see if there are any survivors and keep them hidden away as well. I want to know what they faced before we arrived, this was far too easy of a fight."