Blood and Fury - introduction

“Oh please, no...”  The man shakily lifted his wife’s hand to his face. Caressing the hand and stroking it, as if searching for some spark of warmth, some hints of *life*. The man sobbed quietly to himself, oblivious to the carnage that continued outside his home, surrounded by his dead family, each one torn to shreds by the monsters from the other side. His head shot up at the thought of the creatures, he had been too devastated to check his home for their presence. Yet as the man listened he received no response, his home was as silent as the grave. Dimly lit, the husband surveyed the remains of his life; everything was destroyed, furniture upturned and smashed as the monsters tore through with single minded purpose, his belongings where equally rendered useless or scattered unlikely to be found again. Blood, the dark substance was everywhere, and splattered on everything; flecks stuck to the walls as pools congealed on the floors. Worst of all it appeared the monsters began to find entertainment in his families spilt essence, smudging obscene images and bizarre patterns onto various surfaces throughout his home. The man struggled to check the state of his family, the mess their bodies had become almost too much for him to bear despite his love for them. He couldn’t believe he was too late.

The man had dropped everything and rushed to his family's side once news of the nightmares reached his facility, he was too late. He arrived here and now this is the welcome he received. He blamed himself for their death, if he had been there... The man sobbed some more. Numb and distraught the man continued shaking over the body of his wife until a glimmer caught his eye.  A pendant, fashioned after the symbol of the Auric Legion hanging around her neck, the pendant had the names of their children carved into the back. Though covered in blood now it still seemed to shine with the stereotypical golden sheen of the XIIIth Legion, his wife had always believed it would help protect their family and bring them good fortune. *Lies*. Still; it was all he had to remember his family by now. Clutching the bloodied trinket in his hand he gently removed the chain from his spouses neck and placed it around his own. Though he had no love for the legion in the light of these new horrors, he would still carry his family with him. With one last glance over the shattered remains of his home and the rent carcasses of his family, the man left. Never to set foot in this tomb again.

Outside, the surface of Prospero rebelled at this invasion; it’s atmosphere thick with humming energies and the skies shifting from fleshy pink, to navy blue, before becoming a gory red. The wind around him blew dust and ash in billowing clouds that reduced visibility in the streets to mere feet. Though the whipping wind and choking clouds still couldn’t cover the horrific sounds of the populace being slaughtered like livestock. For every monstrous shriek or roar, there were twice as many bloodcurdling screams to fill the man’s veins with ice. The end of his planet had come and he had nothing to protect or even go to now. He was waiting for his own death, to the talons of whatever nightmarish horror whose path he had the fortune of crossing.

He wandered the corpse strewn streets of Prospero for an hour, splashing through puddles  of effluent, and absentmindedly tripping over debris and bodies.  It wasn’t until he stood eclipsed by the shadow of a vast imperial depot that he was stirred from his grief induced stupor. Either by luck or possibly the will of something greater, the man safely traversed the hellish surface of Prospero in it's most trying times and found himself outside a repair depot for one of the Titan Machines, righteous constructs of war capable of levelling cities and immolating armies. Where were these precious warriors now? Where was the Auric Legion? Where was help? People dying in their billions and alone; here in the heart of Astartes controlled space, his family was slaughtered in their home and all of Prospero collapsing, burning, yet still they were utterly and hopelessly alone.

The man picked up a discarded tool and threw it violently at the nearest screen, endlessly scrolling information on Titan components and complex repair schematics. It’s dim glow faded as sparks drifted to the cold floor.

“None of us deserved this! Not one of us did anything to welcome this in our home!”

The man continued to throw things, smashing everything that reminded him of the Imperium that failed him.

“Is this how the Imperium of *Man* treats it’s subjects? Leaving them to die and rot alone at the first sign of trouble?”

Rage was all he could feel now, no more grief, no more sorrow, just pure blinding fury. The man grabbed the largest and heaviest tool he could find and began to attack the Titan repair scaffolding itself. His vision clouded and felt red as each swing of his weapon, made with all the force he could muster, rang out in the vacant depot like the toll of a bell sounding out in mourning for the lives lost on the surface. Despite his best efforts the man was incapable of damaging the scaffolding, built to withstand far greater force than he could manage; instead he slumped to the floor and wept. Through his sobbing the husband began to run his wife's pendant through his fingers with an absent mind.

The man’s grief would not last, through his sobs he began to hear scratching, clawing and screeching somewhere nearby. As the survivor calmed himself down and listened he realized he had called them here. His destructive anger a clarion call to the hordes, encouraging a fresh hunt. The anger returned and the man realized he had been clutching the pendant so tightly it had broken the skin of his palm and he spilt fresh blood over its surface. Disgusted again by the Auric Legion and the symbol his wife had replied upon so dearly the husband stood and with a roar threw the pendant into the shadows of the darkened depot.

“Come and feast beasts! You can’t take anything else from me! It’s already all gone! My wife, my children, my home, this world! All gone because of YOU!”

At the mention of his life the man realized what he had done when he cast the last vestiges of his family into the darkness. ‘*They shouldn’t be alone. Not now.’* Horrified at his own actions the survivor ran to the shadows where he had heard the pendant clatter to the ground and began to frantically search despite the growing volume of his soon to be guests in this empty and desolate pit. Crying again through his rage, this time at himself, the man caught a glimmer of the pendant in the darkness. On his hands and knees he scrabbled to the small sparkle of light and clutched it to his chest, holding his family one last time before he would meet them in the finality of the grave. The inhuman shrieks and roars were ringing throughout the facility now, the monsters had made it inside and it was only a matter of time before they pinpointed their prey.

Sitting on the cold floor the man rocked back and forth still clutching his family and sobbing.

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t there, I’m sorry I wasn’t good enough to protect you, I’m sorry that you died alone. Nothing these creatures can do will compare to what I did to you.”

Looking down at the pendant the man’s tears began to wash away the dried blood and he smiled to himself one last time at the sight of his children’s names. Laying back on the cool floor the father and husband was finally ready to accept his punishment for allowing his family to be slaughtered in such a horrific manner. The ground was hard and unyielding, yet the man felt nothing as his anger at himself, at the situation, at the creatures that he could now hear scraping and clawing the walls around him searching for the way into this final room. Here he would meet his doom and the man wouldn’t have had it any other way after his failures.

Gazing into the shadows as he awaited his grave the man saw a single blinking light high above the floor in one of the corners of the vast open depot space required to house a Titan Machine. Despite his grief and anger the man couldn’t help but drag himself from the floor to identify this new curiosity. As he approached he was able to make out the source of the light more clearly and was shocked at his discovery. In the corner, left alone in the final hours of Prospero's life was an ancient Knight unlike anything the man had seen, he knew that the Auric Legion was capable of repairing and maintaining their own households of knights but he had never heard of them doing so here on Prospero. Knights only walked the surface of Prospero when the Auric Legion returned from campaign and paraded their victories publicly; even then all those knights were regal beings with banners and laurels of victory adorning nearly every free surface and deeds of heroic glory inscribed upon their greaves as a testament to the nobility housed within.  In contrast this knight was free of all banners and most adornment, strange symbols were painted on its surface and to stand near it left the man feeling almost afraid. It’s weapons were unlike anything he had seen, brutal and complicated, exposed wires and tubes all over their surface all connected to a unique engine on its back in place of the typical one he had seen on the parading victors.

Hesitantly the man approached the Knight, why hadn’t anyone come to activate it? Why was it here alone? The husband wondered if maybe it was defective or inactive. Brought to Prospero to be broken down into parts for the Titan Machines possibly. It seemed sad that such a machine would meet its end here unpowered and without a fight, an ignoble end for a construct usually created from the ground up with nobility in mind. The man reached his hand out to touch the greave of the machine in sympathy though he doubted it would recognize such a thing. As soon as his hand laid against the metal of the greave the husband was overwhelmed; hatred, rage, fury, his blood boiled and his sight clouded again. The metal was hot to the touch and seemed to pulse beneath his bloodied palm. The man screamed, not in fear or surprise, instead the incoherent scream of a berserker lusting for blood and murder. As his outcry drowned out the clawing and roars of the monsters just outside the door the survivor heard billions of voices respond in kind, filling his mind with equally furious screams; however these voices were not incoherent, quite the opposite, as the man burned with the anger inside him he could hear the voices scar within his mind two words.

“USE US!”