As the Astorum titans closed in on the traitors they sounded their warhorns. The sound boomed across the ruined surface of the planet, echoing off of the unseen enemy machines in the toxic fog.
At the sound Legio Mordaxis responded. The sound of their warhorns resonated differently, it was not threatening, it was more of a keening, sorrowful sound. The pain of the tortured souls inside the lost and damned engines coming through the bellowing of the Titan.
The five Warp Runner titans converged on where the enemy seemed to be. They had tracked the Death Dealers to the outskirts of the deserted city and now they closed. The radiation and other, more malign, energies was causing havoc with the auspex and the signatures coming back showed at least a dozen enemy titans, but each of their own titans seemed to be casting about three ghost images on the instruments, so the five Reaver titans pressed on.
With their time on Vivard the Warp Runners felt that they had made some headway in interpreting the information coming in and their detection capabilities had increased with experience. The enemy had just landed and they would still be befuddled by the distortion.
It was difficult to know exactly what they were facing. The ghosts were approximately similarly sized.
Approaching from five different headings one of the Warp Runners moved through the ruins of the buildings making their way towards the two traitor engines near the city, while two others moved towards one signature that was near the railhead.
The other two Reavers were coming in more from the North and were going to try to contain the larger group of engines while their comrades cleared the force to the south.
The plan started falling apart immediately. Emerging from the swirling toxic miasma, a Warlord titan in purple and black stalked towards one of the Warp Runner Reavers, its macrogatling cannon throwing shells the size of a terminator in massive volumes against the loyalist engine.
Then a reaver, armed almost identically to the Warp Runner engine, came forward to.
Against the two opponents, one equal, the other far more deadly, the Astorum engine stood little chance.
To the South the multiple signatures resolved into a single engine as a Mordaxis reaver titan came into view. The speed of the titan belied it's jerky motions and the god engine was upon the loyalist swinging a power fist that smashed open the carapace. It followed through with targeted laser fire and the Astorum engine was reeling away to come crashing down in the dust, sending great plumes into the air.
It was not long before a second loyalist engine fell as the Mordaxis Warlord and Reaver closed upon their foe in the northern part of the battlefield, the massive power claw rending the Reaver while the point blank fire from the gatling cannon ripped through vital structures sending it crashing to the ground.
What had gone from a five-on-four fight in the loyalists favour was now a four-on-three fight in favour of the traitors.
The other Reaver in the North was engaged with a Warbringer and had managed to strip the shields from the larger engine but the swirling fog made targeting the machine's vital parts difficult and soon the Warbringer back up to near full strength.
In the South one of the remaining Reavers charged into the victorious enemy engine doing the same thing to it that it had done to his companion. The Mordaxis titan did not fall as easily. The Death Dealer turned and smashed its fist into the loyalist damaging the titans torso armour. It fired the lasers again melting away significant portions of the warmachine, but it was not enough. The loyalist fired point blank into its damaged enemy killing its reactor.
The towering engine staggered backwards before falling towards its assailant and smashing into the area of the warmachine that had been weakened.
The damage was catastrophic and the Astorum engine's plasma reactor exploded, clearing a space on the battlefield of the toxic fog for a brief moment. The two fallen titans were further damaged by the explosion, but of the dying engine there was barely a trace.
The duel between the Astorum Reaver and the Mordaxis Warbringer continued, but the Reaver was starting to lose the unequal contest. While the Death Dealer Reaver paired with the Warlord split off to intercept the last of the Southern group of enemy, the Warlord itself moved inexorably towards the last of the Northern group of loyalists.
Facing an impossible choice, the loyalist continued to fire at the Warbringer while attempting to get out of the way of the approaching Warlord. It proved impossible and the larger engine crushed the Astorum machine in its grasping claw.
The resultant explosion did little to harm the two warmachines and then turned in the direction of the only enemy titan remaining.
The attempts to stop the progress of that warmachine by the last Mordaxis Reaver had failed and the traitor titan lay upon the earth, sprawled in the new wreckage of buildings. Its conqueror knew that against two battle titans it stood no chance and backed away.
Mordaxis had achieved their bridgehead.
04 March 2010, 11:18:06 AM