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The gunfight was intense and brutal. The long barrelled lases of the Golden Dawn were clumsy in the tight spaces of the doorways and corridors and their armour couldn't withstand hellgun hits. The grenades created further casualties and stopped their advance. The heretics gave back a few steps, while firing the occasional shot to prevent and advance on their own position.

It wouldn't last, of course. The Golden Dawn seemed to be generously equiped with flamers, melta guns, and plasma weapons. When those were brought up, the situation would change dramatically.

"Move faster," he barked as he backpedalled.

He would've made his stand here, but he couldn't trust these PDF troopers to keep Nathan alive.

The PDF troopers didn't have any problems when they hit the building on the way back. Why would they? The troops had all moved up towards the other end where the fighting was taking place. The soldiers who should have been here were busily engaged in a firefight with Ristani's rear guard.

Be damned if they didn't keep coming, no matter how many were killed.

In Imperial Guard, that would be a sign of excellent indoctrination and zeal, a sign of strict discipline being maintained by the officers and commissars.

In the enemy, it was of course their craven fear of greater consequences at the hands of their malignant overseers that drove them forward.

Regardless, it meant leapfrogging backward as the damned heretics relentlessly pressed them, waiting for the heavier weapons to arrive and finally settle the matter once and for all.

Nathan growled a bit ,and ran an enemy soldier through with his blade.He began falling back with the others when he felt it a nothingness nearby he had only felt it once before but he knew Sister Lillith was nowhere nearby.....in fact ....no it couldn`t be



"Stand FIRM Warriors Something comes that is antithema to our foes...."

< Prius fall back....the Harlequins are headed this way let the xenos and traitors slay each other>

The lady charged the golden dawn troops rivve blades on either arm. The sudden disconnection from the warp, caused a disturbance amidst the servants of Tzeench as the Solitaire was suddenly amoung them. As Prais and Nathan watched a helmetted head rolled to their feet....

The Solitaire carved through the chaos troops so quickly he or she didn't need a holofield to be a blur. The carnage would have appalled any witness, had their one capable of feelling revulsion for slaughter. But the only witnesses laughed. And killed.

Two eldar summersalted forward, brilliant swirls of colour shards. A shuriken pistol tore open one of Ristani's men. A line of monofillament reduced another to a bag of stew. The harlequins attacked new targets before their victims had finished falling.

"Fall back!" Prius yelled. "Move!"

If they could pull back quickly enough, the continuing surge of Golden Dawn heretics would slam right into the xenos.

Whatever their foul complicity had been before, there was no honor nor permanent alliances between such wretched beasts. Let them devour each other for the moment.

He moved quickly, sidestepping as another PDF trooper was cut down. He would get his revenge for that later, vowing to dip his hands in alien blood before the day was done.

The harlequins sprayed the corridor with shuriken pistol fire and tossed grenades in after. The exploded in puffs of brightly coloured smoke that expanded rapidly. It penetrated cloth and was absorbed swiftly through the skin, quickly inducing a hallucigenic stupor in the victim as well as obscuring vision.

As they moved back, another man was cut down by the near-silent spinning discs of metal death. Then the gas grenades began exploding. Prius clamped his mouth shut, but he knew that it was a futile effort- the weapons of the xenos were equally effective at being absorbed by the skin.

"Nathan, run."

It was his last thought before the gas began acting upon his mind, turning his world insane...

The harlequin's were within striking distance of their prize. The mon-keigh were unimportant. Nathan was who they were after. As Prius's world turned into a slow motion, multi-coloured distortion, one of his men was decapitated, spraying neon yellow blood up in the air like a fountain. Another man was pistol whipped out of the way. A harlequin batted Prius's sword out of the way as he rushed forward.

Bad luck betrayed superlative skill. To be lucky is even better than being good. A stray las bolt from one of the surviving Imperial's struck the harlequin in the neck. He fell gasping beside Ristani, his face flickering through the images of a hundred grotesque images.

Danger surrounded him. His senses screamed, warning him of a million threats at once, which he lashed out at with no rhyme or reason. His mind was unhinged, his mind projecting a babble of voices. His telepathy wasn't particularly strong, but it could be quite annoying when unleashed in such a fashion.

The harlequin ignored Prius's telepathic babble and danced forward. He switched weapons in mid spin, changing a stun wand in place of his deadly shuriken pistol. Talstem was just ahead.

Nathan's force weapon was too big to make it a good choice for corridor fighting against a foe like the harlequin. He moved around the blade in an explosion of colour and swung around ready to strike. But Nathan was not confined to merely using his blade.

The power of the warp lifted up the slender xenos and smashed him into the wall hard enough to drive the air from his lungs. Talstrem raised his blade and ran the harlequin through the chest. The blade past through armour cloth, flesh, and through the ferrocrete behind him. The harlequin shuddered and sagged as Talstrem withdrew the blade.

Malekus spoke into the voxcaster his troops had set up. "My lord, I am pleased to report we are making progress. The vault should be ours within the hour. We will then be in a position to flank their other positions and force them to retreat to the tunnels. After we drive them out, we can begin a direct assault on the spire."

Gathor's reply was simple. "I am pleased. Continue."

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Nathan grabbed Prius's shoulder. "Come on Commissar. We've got to leave while we can!"

"Nathan?"

The image appeared before him in triplicate, wavering, a halo of golden light suffusing Nathan's form. Slowly they resolved into one.

"Yes... yes, let's move," he agreed, checking briefly to make sure his chainsword was still there.

Nathan let loose a blast of telekinetic force. The artificial wind whipped up the gas clouds and pushed them back towards the Golden Dawn. The inquisitor pulled Ristani up the stairs, plasma pistol in hand. They reached the top of the stairs and Talstem kicked open the door, ready for anything. Nothing but corpses greated him up top.

"Okay, let's go." He dragged Ristani towards the improvised bridge. The commissar was coming around, fortunately. It was going to hell down there. The enemy was pressing hard and now had armour or gun emplacements commanding all the major streets. Heretic troops were swarming. It wouldn't be long now.

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Knives cut into the straps of Varian's armour as the surgeon's assistants cut his clothing free. "Nasty," said the masked medicae as he observed the inquisitor's ravanged flesh.

"Vitals are good," one of the nurses called.

"He's a tough one," the surgeon commented. "If the heretics don't kill us all, he has a good chance. Okay, we're not interested in cosmetic work here. Just in getting him through this alive. He can go back under the knife if he wants some of his looks back in the future."

"I can handle myself, Nathan," he said, his voice wobbily.

"I can handle myself or you can leave me behind," he accidentally mentally transmitted.

<No Kommisar is is not yet time for you to serve the Emperor >


He looked down onto the street below and sighed .Well this may be a good enough spot.He set Prius down and concentrated on the main doorway.Using TK to collapse it he then touched Prius`s vox.



"Requesting emergency pickup this location Situation is critic send the Emperor damned flyers now or else I will have you flayed"


Nathan turned it off and checked the Commisar.

"Do not panic Kommisar the toxins will work there way out of your system"

There was no answer to Nathan's calls. The whole sector was falling and a fighting withdraw was the order of the day. It didn't matter anyway. There weren't any units to deploy which could have plucked his away to safety. Still, it was entirely hopeless. On the roof top the enemy wasn't paying any attention to them and they were close to friendly lines. If they pressed hard after making their way across the improvised bridge.

"No retrieval, Nathan," Prius said. His system was fighting back now, purging the drugs. "We've got to get back to the lines."

For what safety they offered, temporary at best.

But surrender was not an option against the enemies of mankind, anyway.

"We've got to move."

He didn't look back. Another unit shot out from under him, something of a trend in that.

"Right...well lets go Kommisar if yuou are up to crossing that bridge"


Nathan chuckled lightly he would not say it ,no he would most definitely not say it because the powers of order may just decide to show him for there own amusenment.

"I'm alive," he snarled. "Let's go."

With that, he began staggering toward the bridge.

The pair crossed the improvised bridge as shots were exchanged below them. The enemy has worked its way inch by blood inch across the vault and now stood ready for the final push to take the last hold outs. The tunnel entrances beckoned to the defenders as a last line of retreat. Guns blared from flanking fortifications, chewing up the chaos troops with assault cannon and multilaser fire. The last line held. For now.

As they closed in on their line, he reached out to sense the presences around him. When they were close enough to their own people, he started calling out.

"Loyal followers of the Emperor coming in!"

Wouldn't do to get gunned down by their own people a few meters short of temporary safety.

They joined the crowd of retreating Imperials. The cover fire was intense, but not enough. Men and women fell around them. They hustled towards teh tunnels as rockets impacted on one of the mini forts, blowing up a weapon mount. Plasma bolts followed up, blasting the wall and the gunners apart. The Imperials kept firing back.

Nathan and Prius had just gotten to the dubious safety of the tunnels when a massive explosion wracked the floor under their feet. They turned to see the command center collapse in on itself, taking an unknown number of heretic troopers with it. A massive cloud of dust arose from the spot. Las beams and tracers flickered throught the cloud in both directions.