@Pirouette@Absolis@Flamelord@thewizardguy@Wraithblade6It appeared that the last of the leaders had exited the area. Looking around, all Kaldor could see was a couple of strange figures wielding supernatural energy to combat the Tyranid. No doubt loyal troops left behind to cover the retreat of one of the leaders, although Kaldor couldn't recognize what faction they were from, besides that they were not from the Goa'Uld. The display of power from the undead creature known as Tatara had also been impressive, and Kaldor made a mental note to, when the time came, have He'Stan deal with it. Those flames had looked lethal, but there were none more resistant to fire than the Salamanders. He also appeared to have lost track of the diplomat he had been meant to protect, but with the Tyranid attacking, the priority had been for the leaders to exit safely. While in other situations the destruction of an enemy leader would have been a vast advantage, if the Tyranid truly were attacking then every faction present would need to work together to stave them off. A single hive fleet could erase entire sectors from the map, devouring hundreds of worlds before finally being halted.
Kaldor Draigo's thought process was interrupted, as a massive force slammed into the Grey Knight. He staggered backwards, staring into what appeared to be a massive light to him. A pillar of power, an ability beyond the ken of mortal men. The Tyranid who had moments before swarmed the ship were sent flying, the smaller among them simply being disintegrated by the force. And entire army leveled with a single power, and the sky was filled with raining bugs, both alive and dead. Kaldor stared at the ship as it activated it's engines, and once more vanished into nothingness. So that had been the power of the Envisioning One, the mysterious figure that lead the Outliners. There had been rumours and talk, but many had doubted whether the Envisioning One even existed, or if it was merely a puppethead for the Ethereals, who truly masterminded the entire thing. After that display, Kaldor harboured no such doubts. From this distance he had been fine, but if he had been the target of an ability of that magnitude....
Grimacing, Kaldor turned back to the task at hand. Bolts of flame burst from his hand as he burned a path through the Tyranid, back to his ship. It wouldn't do much good he knew. If even one Tyranid survived, the corpses of the fallen would be reborn as new Tyranid. And these tiny creatures were but the first wave, the scouts of an infinite army. A full complement of marines would be needed to deal with this infestation, and the strike, when it came, would have to be swift. Prolonged warfare with the Tyranid was suicide.
On the way to the ship, however, Kaldor was nearly knocked off of his feet as the floor underneath him shifted and cracked. The pods had damaged the foundations, and the anti-grav engines keeping the compound aloft had taken critical damage. He dashed forward but was too late, the ground shattering beneath the weight of his armour as he was sent plummeting down towards the sea below, surrounded by Debris. About half of the Pavilion was following him down, along with a number of unlucky tyranid who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. As the wind whistled past his face Kaldor Draigo forced himself to contemplate his options. He could survive the fall, but an ocean infested with Tyranid? He was damned the moment he hit the water. Most of his powers focused on the destruction of his enemies, but he did possess one power that could be used in this case. It was risky, however. As he fell he was surrounded by the energy of the Warp, leaving a purple and white comet's trail as flying Tyranid known as Gargoyles flocked to his location. Several opened fire, but moments before he would be incinerated he simply vanished. Nothing remained, as if he had been ripped from this reality.
The Goa'Uld forces sailed forth, canons blazing as they tore into the Tyranid threat. Force fields protected the ships themselves, as fighter craft cleared the larger specimen from the sides. Pods were intercepted and destroyed, hundreds of tiny burnt corpses falling back into the ocean that had spawned them. At first things appeared to go well, as the Tyranid were driven back by the superior firepower of the Goa'Uld. The Tyranid, while certainly numerous, were mostly landbased fighters, unable to combat the fast-moving fighter-craft, and lacking the raw firepower required to damage the larger warships. That, however, if when things began to change.
An emergency frequency was broadcast by one of the pilots, screaming about worms under his flesh before the deranged individual slammed his fighter craft into the ocean, his last screaming moments broadcast live across the fleet as his cockpit was swiftly torn open by the underwater Tyranid. A wing of 3 ships in the middle of a strafing roll suddenly breaks off, the pilots spasming as organic sensors show their nervous system going completely haywire. Although the assault of pods seems to have slowed, a trio of strange creatures has emerged from the waves, tall serpentlike creatures with immense heads that seemed to levitate by nothing more than power of will. Laser fire slammed into invisible force fields, seemingly completely useless. By no physical means, these creatures seemed to instil hallucinations, fear and agony, weakening and destroying Goa'Uld forces without moving a finger. A second, and then a third trio of these creatures rose up, each new group forming a new obstacle. Concentrated heavy weapons fire managed to destroy one of these groups, but they were too small to effectively train the ship-based weapons on them. And even the ship's main forcefields seemed inadequate at blocking their mental assault as several of the command personnel began frothing at the mouth.
New creatures began appearing all across the battlefield. A winged beast shot out of the water, propelling itself at speeds previously thought impossible for wing-based movement. Several missiles seemed to detach from the beast, homing in on their targets. Worryingly, these missiles were living creatures with full control of their trajectory, dodging around any attempt to shoot them out of the sky, and homing in on their targets at high speed. On impact the creatures emitted a powerful bioelectrical pulse, equal parts physical and supernatural, knocking out all ship systems. The ship dropped like a rock into the ocean, even as more missiles sought out their targets. The beast itself entered dogfights with the Goa'Uld fighters, with the unorthodox strategy of closing into melee and grabbing onto the enemy ship, large claws tearing it to shreds before allowing the rubble to drop. Many of it's kin soon joined it, and a number of the strange living missiles hit the battleship shields, dealing serious damage to both weaponry, defensive and propulsion systems.
Blasts were detected in the air, a series of powerful explosions rocking the ship itself. Far below, dozens of strange creatures the size of tanks had appeared just above the surface of the water. Large carapace armour protected a massive cannon, launching strange globs that exploded on impact. Any shots that missed simply hovered into the air, small tentacles unfurling from the projectile. The tiny creature then acted as a floating mine, rapidly propelling itself into the engines of any enemy ship that got too close. Living artillery, covering the sky in lethal mines and battering the battleship forcefields with maintained fire. Like a machinegun mortar, each of the strange living bombs like a cruise missile.
It was a horrific force to fight, the strange creatures employing tactics and abilities the Goa'Uld had never faced before. But still, it would have been a winnable fight, had it taken place anywhere else. Concentrated fire took down many of the strange floating psychic creatures, and the biological fighters were met and matched in the skies by skilled pilots and powerful weaponry. The ship weapons ripped through banks of artillery cannons, smaller spread weapons attempting to clear the skies of the pesky floating mines. But soon the Goa'Uld began to notice the enemy force was not decreasing in size. Massive creatures swam beneath the surface, collecting and devouring the dead Tyranid even as they fell. Initially dismissed as a non-threat, the Goa'Uld would soon realise that these creatures were in fact recycling the dead, using their biomass to create more Tyranid. And not only that, they also caught the destroyed Goa'Uld ships. Metals and machines were broken down by powerful bioacid, and from these base materials new organic death machines were forged. For every moment that the fight continued the Tyranid force grew, while the Goa'Uld only suffered casualties. In addition, the newly created Tyranid seemed better adapted to the Goa'Uld weaponry, their armour-plating designed to specifically deflect and disperse the Goa'uld energy weaponry. Acids were modified to eat through Goa'Uld materials more quickly, and the electrical explosions were optimised for maximum devastation. The natural response was useless. Destroying one of these swimming monster factories merely caused it to be drawn downwards by some even larger, yet unseen monstrosity, presumably to be recycled and recreated in identical fashion.
To fight the Tyranid was to know the meaning of futility. A terrifying opponent that could not be stopped, could not be outthought. An infinite army of horrors, each more dangerous to the last. Psychic parasite beasts that devoured entire worlds, each enemy that fell before them merely adding to both their knowledge and numbers, adapting the very best genetic features of their prey even as they designed specific weapons to best abuse their weaknesses. This was the force that had cleansed entire galaxies of life, leaving billions upon billions of worlds barren, crushing intergalactic empires as they moved through the universe. The true Apex predator had arrived, and it was time for every other creature in the universe to realise it's place on the food chain.
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