The Battle of Point alpha 

So… this was the place. Barren… empty… promising… Lord Bluth saw ragged ridges and dunes make the landscape, surrounding the abandoned and ruined city, look like an unmade bed of reddish gravel, sand and stone. This had once… not long ago… been an Imperial garrison. Bluth felt the hate fill his head when he thought about the false leader and his damned minions. To blindly follow one leader… a leader in a life-supporting machine even… a practically dead man… how could they do that? Why? And they called Nurgle the chaotic powers?! Bah!

He pushed his thoughts of The False Emperor aside and glanced at the auspex, which kept feeding him with information about the surroundings. The screen was filled with red dots, which moved towards his position. He sighed and reached deep inside himself looking for that strengthening thought of doing Father’s work. He was instantly filled with a calm determination and cocked his twin-linked Plaguespewer. So… Let’s do this!

-Hagrar… acknowledge! This is the place? This is where the golden boy told you we’ll find it?

-Indeed, my Lord. The Astartes brain was like peeling a Kholian fruit. This is the place…

-Right! Admiral Urkher… any signs of resistance ahead?

-My Lord… there are several blips indicating heavy resistance. The tin men are massing up in front of you. There will be heavy casualties… Expect visual soon…

Right. Lord Bluth steeled himself. Necrons were tricky bastards and hard to kill. But so were his warriors. This had to be quick, though… The Custodes couldn’t be far away, and he needed to retrieve those data-slates as soon as possible. He ordered the advance with a firm determination…

*** 

Lord Bluth sent half his warband to the right, up the street that apparantly had been named "Avenue of Liberty", to engage the oncoming Necrons which swarmed the ragged and empty street before them. He heard the constant humming that always seemed to emanate from the leaders of the tin-men. Probably their way of giving orders, he thought as he headed for the crates that lay in the street before him. While advancing with two Marine Squads and a group of Poxwalkers up the "Terra Street", Lord Bluth ordered the mindless Poxwalkers to start desecrating the Imperial ground and spread the seeds of the Father. While the spores took hold on the ground and the structures and began to grow, he would gather those scattered crates of data. His auspex went crazy when he became close to them. Then the bullets started flying…

***

Vulgor Stinkbutt urged his minions forward with a howl. The Daemon Prince had his sights set on the Necrons  a couple of blocks away, but their firing suppressed and halted the Marines and the Poxwalkers that were just about to claim some of the data-slates that lay on the ground. In the distance he could see a C’tan emerge from behind the Necron lines of warriors, closing in on Bluth's position. The C’tan was ancient and powerful and it would give that fool Bluth something to think about. Vulgor sent a thought to Harrus and his Terminators, who waited in the Teleportarium, to ease the pressure on this flank and promptly land behind the Necrons and start harassing them with force. A few seconds later, Lord Bluth entered his mind…

-What do you think you’re doing, Vulgor?! I give the orders here and Harrus might be needed elsewhe..

-He’s needed here!!  Vulgor snapped back with a snarl

The answer from Bluth never came and Vulgor assumed that there would be a reckoning later… if Lord Bluth still was with them…Then he saw Harrus materialize behind the Necron line and starting to mow down tin-men. And to Vulgor’s joy, the Necrons retreated to intercept Harrus attack. It was time to press on!

***

Lord Bluth swore as he saw the Necron line slowly advance towards him and his Plague Marines, followed by a strange flying figure, who had to be a C’tan. Flashes, red-white and bright, erupted from it and suddenly the air was filled with antimatter which hit among a squad of Plague Marines, killing three of them instantly! “That thing has to die!”, Bluth thought to himself.

***

While the bombardment from a Plaguecrawler hit the Necron lines in the leftside streets, Harrus’ Blightlord Terminators ran into trouble in the rightside streets. The Necron line turned back towards the newly arrived Terminators and repositioned a lot of troops and a large, spider-like, Necron leader joined the fray. But men of Nurgle don’t go down easily and the Necron line became bogged down some distance from some crates of data-slates. Vulgor saw his chance and flew forward, urging his troops to follow him. And they did. Street by street they advanced and then claimed a crate of data-slates. Suddenly a Necron unit of Immortals appeared in front of Vulgor’s advance. The enraged Daemon Prince instantly attacked the newcomers, which inevitably fell to the last machine. As Vulgor howled “Who’s next!?”, things were becoming bleak for Lord Bluth and his Marines.

***

The C’tan, approached Lord Bluth and his soldiers with contempt in his eyes. Another hit of Anti-Matter fell among Lord Bluth’s position and more Plague Marines were killed. Lord Bluth stared at the ancient Shard of the Void Dragon and steeled himself for what was to come. He lifted his twin-linked spewer and a large stream of pure Nurgle-filth engulfed the Shard, which actually took some hits. The two Marine squads then added to this and managed to scar the C’tan. Not bothered and without a sound, the Shard pointed at Lord Bluth and charged. Bluth had only seconds to fire his Spewer again, but was then brutally cut down by the Shard. In a pure astonished reaction the nearby Marines fired all they had at the Shard, aided by the Plaguecrawler, and finally brought it down!

***

Vulgor Stinkbutt set his sights on the spider-like Necron and defiantly yelled:

-Who are you, tin-man on three legs? Who’s name shall I carve onto my sword?

-Illuminor Szeras, vile creature of Chaos! And your sword will be mine to keep…

Unbothered, almost casually, Vulgor swept his massive sword in a wide arc and cut the Illuminor in two halves. The two metallic pieces fell with thumping sound to the ground and Vulgor nodded to himself…

-Illuminor Szeras it is, then…  

He turned to see how the battle was going and it was not going to plan. That idiot, Bluth, had fallen and a lot of the crates were in Necron hands. It was time to retreat… Time to collect what they had and to resurrect that damned fool Bluth. At least the spores grew and spread. Vulgor smiled when he thought of Bluth's demise. He had a thing coming when facing Father Nurgle next time…

Tony (2021)