This is the bonus chapter for reaching 200 Powerstones.
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Tear of the Diasporex, Drop Pod Bay D.
Leon kicked the cabin door open, the muzzle of his lasgun sweeping both ends of the corridor.
Faint shadows played across the surface of his silver-grey makeshift power armor.
"Clear," he muttered over the local comms channel.
Behind him, over three hundred Loyalist players clad in identical gear poured in.
The hallway was a total wreck.
Bodies of the Diasporex crew members lay sprawled in pools of blood—some human, others blind, four-legged xenos.
Scorched craters from bolt rounds peppered the walls. The air reeked of copper and cordite.
Muffled bolter fire and alien shrieks echoed from deeper within. The entire flagship had devolved into an absolute meat grinder.
"Jesus!"
[I am the Living Dragon] sucked in a sharp breath as he took in the hellscape. "Did Fulgrim seriously do all this by himself?"
"No shit."
[Two-Faced Turtle] crouched down to inspect the wound on a dead alien.
The gash ran diagonally from shoulder to waist, clean as a laser cut. "Who else but a Primarch could hack through something like this?"
Leon scanned the area, quickly piecing together a mental blueprint of the massive dreadnought.
From the outside alone, the Tear of the Diasporex stretched over twenty-two kilometers. He figured it housed hundreds of compartments, a few massive hangars, and thirty-two boarding bays.
Over on the Iron Hands' side, Gabriel and Karon Santos had already hauled ass toward Fulgrim with the First and Fourth Companies.
They were there to back him up, so naturally, they stuck to the Primarch like glue.
As for them? The Solar Auxilia...
Basically, they were just janitors.
Brought along to mop up the trash mobs and carry the loot.
[Metal Garurumon Beast Girl]: "Damn it, we dropped in a full fifteen minutes behind Fulgrim."
Leon immediately hopped onto the comms.
His voice held a sense of urgency. "He's probably already breaching the core sector by now."
[I am the Living Dragon] sidled up to him.
"So what's the play?"
"You call the shots! Whatever you say, we do."
Over three hundred pairs of eyes locked onto Leon at once.
The military vet stood in the hallway of an alien flagship, facing a crowd of kids who had put their absolute faith in him.
His brain went into overdrive, crunching the tactical data.
"Securing the First Blood achievement means bagging the ship's commander," Leon said, his tone low and decisive.
"No matter what, we're pushing for the bridge."
He glanced deeper into the corridor, toward the muffled explosions.
"First things first, we need to catch up to Gabriel and his boys."
"I don't know why, but the lore timeline has shifted."
"Ferrus Manus actually sent two of his own to board the flagship. He's gotta have his reasons."
He paused, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"Besides, we're rocking makeshift power armor right now. Nobody's gonna recognize our old tags."
"Worst case scenario, we scrounge up some heavy ordnance and claim the bridge achievement ourselves."
The comms channel instantly blew up with responses:
"Copy that!"
"Move out! Let's go!"
"Let's fuck 'em up!"
Three hundred silver-grey figures moved in unison, pushing stealthily down the corridor toward the core sector.
--
Habitation Sector D, Corridor 3 Intersection.
[Konnichiwa Slaanesh-chan] popped a random Diasporex human that had sprung out of nowhere with a bolter shot.
The body, clad in a ragged uniform, exploded into meat chunks under the impact of the mass-reactive round.
"That's six," he called out in the channel, swinging his muzzle toward the other end of the hall.
In the dim emergency lighting, hundreds of purple-clad figures could be seen scattered around the area.
These were Chaos faction players geared up in light power armor. Some were busy looting crates, while others hunted for any straggling Diasporex humans or xenos hiding in the woodwork.
A bunch were just hanging around shooting the shit. The Emperor's Children had already scrubbed the zone clean, so there wasn't much danger left.
[Konnichiwa Slaanesh-chan] glanced over at [Blue Pigeon Knows Nothing], whose disguised face looked particularly sinister in the shadows.
"Are we actually gonna catch those Loyalist players slipping here?"
[Blue Pigeon Knows Nothing] chuckled, completely confident.
"Didn't you see those Iron Hands just march past?"
"Since the System dropped a faction versus faction quest, you bet your ass those Loyalist scumbags tagging along with the Iron Hands are gonna show up."
He pointed deeper down the hall, where muffled bolter fire echoed.
"[All According to Plan] already took three hundred guys up to Fulgrim's advance route."
"They're going all-in to help Fulgrim execute the captain and tweak the lore, pushing him even deeper into his obsession with perfection."
He brought his gaze back to the five hundred fully armed Chaos players standing before him.
"The five hundred of us are holding the line right here. It's a choke point. If those Loyalists want to hit the bridge, they've gotta go through us."
A cold sneer crept onto his face.
"Five hundred mini-Astartes. That's gonna be a rude awakening for them."
"We wipe them clean, remove the resistance, and rewriting history will be a walk in the park!"
[Konnichiwa Slaanesh-chan] nodded. He opened his mouth to reply, but suddenly, three figures dropped out of an overhead air vent.
The Diasporex troopers.
Two humans and a xeno, decked out in crystalline armor. Their energy weapons were already glowing with a full charge.
"Fuck! Again?!"
[Konnichiwa Slaanesh-chan] squeezed the trigger on reflex, the roar of his bolter deafening in the tight space.
But the ambushers were faster. Green plasma beams lanced out instantly.
Thwip-thwip-thwip!
Two dull thuds.
Beside him, [No Cilantro Plz] and [911 Quick Contact] collapsed simultaneously.
Searing energy bolts had punched clean through their chests, melting fist-sized holes straight through their makeshift power armor. The stench of burnt flesh and ozone filled the air.
"Son of a bitch!"
[Konnichiwa Slaanesh-chan] gritted his teeth and clamped down on the trigger, his bolter spitting fully automatic fire.
The rest of the Chaos players instantly opened up as well.
Caught out in the open, the three Diasporex troopers were shredded into literal confetti by a tidal wave of mass-reactive rounds.
He glanced down at the two dead scrubs on the floor. Their IDs had already grayed out in the zone chat. Gotta wait for a respawn...
"So fucking annoying," he bitched into the comms.
"These Diasporex humans and xenos are a pain in the ass!"
"We're just trying to hold the damn hab-sector gate, and they keep ghosting out of the walls to gank us!"
[Blue Pigeon Knows Nothing] leaned against cover, not even bothering to look up.
"Just hold the line. Keep cool."
"A few drops in the bucket don't matter."
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