Patrol vs. 'Nids

 

The Jade Emperor had enough. He was going to supervise his battles personally via spycams. It's not that he didn't have faith in his Archon, but no one in the Liquid Sword was more brilliantly strategic than himself. Shaka needed to focus on the battle itself moreso than leading it. With spycams attached to every soldier and commlinks attached to every group leader (with a separate one universally reaching out to troops themselves), He could direct the flow of his army upon zigging when they should be zagging. He had a screen for each group leader so he could monitor things better for himself. Word was that the Tyranids had just took over Divroloth and were still consuming everything. He needed more informatin on these 'nids and what resources they were consuming, so he wanted to patrol the area and see if it were true.

First he tuned in the the Obsidian cam. He'd noticed that the deathgaunts appeared to be confused. This was good to note: they were out of synapse because there was no one to lead them. How pathetic, the Emperor thought. He could not understand how this race was thriving in his galaxy. Anyway, the deathgaunts appeared to regain their mental coherency with difficulty so it was time to act. The Leopard Squad showed up on time and on target for once. The Jade Emperor knew that they were not about to slack off with him watching everything directly. They descended upon the unit of T-warriors and riddled them with splinter crystals, killing one of them. Then the rest of the T-warriors showed up with a Carnifex that looked hungry. More deathgaunts were in the horizon. Suddenly, the tyranids didn't look so pathetic after all. And his Leopards looked like food. The Emperor made personal note to stop them from landing so close. No wonder he went through Scourges like toilet paper. Surprisingly, as he tuned in to the Leopard cam, they were fighting valiantly, and only 2 of them had fallen. He saw claws and teeth everywhere; the cam shots almost made him flinch [27 attacks, Leopards made 5 saves!]. In fact, the way that the 'gaunts paused you could tell they wanted to retreat. Apparently, the synapse kept them in line and kept them from retreating. He had to respect these Tyranids after all. They kept their lessers in line.

Nebula came dancing on the field out of nowhere. She literally heralded the coming of the Liquid Sword en masse. She heralded the coming of doom. Osiris left without the Zulu Knights because he had to meet with his Great Harlequin. He hopefully, he would utilize the warp well enough to get to the battle on time, just not with the Zulu Knights. The Emperor gave the Obsidian Knights the order to move East and shoot at the T-warriors, who had begun to spread out. One of the Warriors fell. Meanwhile, the Scourges couldn't take the onslaught and tried to retreat. The Tyranids flanked them and tore them to shreds. It was unbelievable. How could Eldar get outflanked like that? Then it hit him. These things were assimilationists. Word all over the galaxy was that these things were changing. They were adapting to our galaxy for the worst and beating races at their own games. Apparently they did a lot more than consume a planet and move on...

Shaka, eager to go toe to toe with the Hive Tyrant, sped on a jetbike toward the enemy. The 'nids that eliminated the Leopard Squad fell upon the Archon, who was alone. The Jade Emperor felt a little uncomfortable with allowing his Archon to go to battle without an entourage, but Shaka was bold like that. He cursed out loud because the Hive Tyrant was apparently MIA. As such, Marilith would head the Zulu Knights. She was dying for some action off of Commoragh. Upon shifting cams, He saw what turned out to be a shot from a barbed strangler at the Obsidian Squad. He told Edea to hold steady, and she told her squad to do the same. The Tyranid army was moving with lightning speed towards them, but the Obsidian Squad was the first order of troops because they tend to not give a f*ck. To the north, the forest became alive, and the Obsidian squad knew: There was a lictor present to do some damage. J.E. looked at the Archon screen and saw that Shaka was taking waaaaay too much combat drugs. Granted, he was totally surrounded by fiends, but Shaka was going to kill himself before they did. Even though he hurt himself, he still managed to take down 2 gaunts and shrugged off a massacre of blows [36 attacks, 17 hits, 7 wounds] before his shadowfield finally failed and he took another wound. Sighing, J.E. shifted to the Obsidian screen. Apparently, Edea and her crew were doing great, but synapse was keeping these monsters in fighting trim. This synapse thing was getting annoying. "Where the f*ck is Osiris?", J.E. said aloud as his guards flinched. Just as he said that, he received a message saying that Osiris had to return some books to the Black Library and he was on his way.

J.E. shifted to the reaver screen. The Horns flew into flank position. On the Zulu screen, the Zulu Knights, on a raider, finally made it to the far east and dismounted. J.E. gave the command to help out Shaka, and Marilith and crew were on it. So was Nebula. He didn't give orders to the Dark Sun (and he didn't want his Kabal to know this other than Shaka), but they were so very reliable. For one without a soul, Nebula could read his very well. She was already on her way to close combat, but first she fired upon them with her plasma gun which overheated. She took a wound but kept on rolling. J.E. realized that her weapon had to have been sabotaged, Harlequin weapons just don't overheat. He was sure that Shaka had it arranged. He was still pissed about the arena fight. Not that J.E. cared about Nebula getting hurt, but Shaka knew better than to cost him a mission. But Nebula wasn't dead, so he would let it slide so long as Nebula could still do her job. The Zulu screen showed another T-warrior get cut down with splinter cannon fire. The screen also showed Nebula stumble but not fall and then dance into the 'nids and light them the f*ck up (12 attacks were made!). Marilith tried to attack and was doing a piss poor job. J.E. said into her comm unit, "You clumsy b*tch! And you wanted to be Archon? Get your sh*t together!" Shaka was maintaining and took blow after blow. The Obsidian screen showed a couple troops go down but the Obsidian squad maintained. J.E. checked his timer. He now had his army on the clock: no battle would last long as far as he was concerned unless absolutely necessary.

Finally, the Hive Tyrant showed up. So did Osiris, his timing was...intriguingly unique. With crackerjack timing, the Tyrant shot his barbed strangler and destroyed a jetbike. It continued to blast, in the distance towards the west. Towards the south, things were really heating up. Bodies were everywhere and more were joining the mayhem. Shaka continued to maintain, but Marilith was getting beat down and Nebula was killed. The Obsidian screen showed the deathgaunts and the Lictor take more wounds but the synapse eventually proved too much and began to retreat [an eye popping 3 inches] and was run over by the 'nids. "Dammit!", yelled J.E. and shifted to the Emerald screen. The Emerald Knights did a good job of staying out of the battle while the lancers took long distance shots. They wounded the Carnifex but the behemoth would not fall. Now the 'nids were speeding toward them and they were trying to prepare. The Horn's screen showed nothing more than the curse of the lance manifesting. J.E. was getting pissed, he had lost his grip on the battle. Just then, Osiris "appeared" (damn his veil of tears mechanism was thorough) and he fried 3 deathgaunts with the neural shredder. The Emerald Knights, on cue fired upon the 'nids and shot them all down [36 shots, 27 hits, 12 wounds]. Just then, J.E.'s timer went off and he gave the cue to retreat. Not bad, he thought to himself. At least he got a truckload of Tyranids to play with (16 deathgaunts and 1 Warrior).