Moritat. Gunslinger. The One Man Hurricane Bolter. Calto Banus had been called a lot of things. He still took being called 'traitor' personal.
These many years on, there weren't many moritats left. Most died in the scouring, or in the Legion wars in the eye. Banus had killed many.
He slowly sipped the cool water, savoring it, remembering all the days where he struggled to find potable water and food.
"Hard fight ahead." His patron remarked. Banus nodded,
"Yep."
Some Astartes have an easier time of not remembering the 'Old Days', some actively do so to help aid their fury and fuel their passions in battle. Banus wished he could forget Skallathrax. He had seen two legions shatter against one another. It was a hell of a thing.
And as much as he would tell others 'it was all a blur' he remembered with perfect, unmarred clarity what happened.
There was a loud Sonic boom, followed by several others overlapping, Banus turned his blue eyes skyward. Drop pods were dropping in hard and fast as they are designed. A textbook deployment.
These would be the new ones. The 'primaris'.
He looked around at the dead imperial defenders in the artillery shattered building, and downed the rest of the water, savoring every last drop, before locking his helmet in place and pulling the hood from his cloak up.
He had several bolt pistols and a few plasma pistols maglocked or tied, or holstered to his person. He didn't find attachment to his weapons-he used what worked and would discard them when done.
"Yeah," he spoke at last, allowing a slight flourish of spinning a bolt pistol in each of his normal hands, and his two augmetic arms as well checking the magazines. He breathed slowly, filling his three lungs with air, and then exhaled.
It was going to be another nasty scrap. But that's what Calto Banus got paid for,
"Enemy contacts in the western part of the city, heavy Astartes contact" came over the vox.
"This is Banus, have your sections pull back and hold."
He started to hear back talk but he already cut the channel. They would do as he said or not. Banus was going to shoot everything in the zone.
There was doubt, always a little bit at first. The wind pulled at his hood and cloak as his armor thrummed slightly.
'Am I too old for this
:cuss?', and 'is this the fight where I die?' he breathed again, the thoughts disappearing as quickly as they came. Contrary to popular myth, moritats didn't stand in the open and duel their enemies. That's for Phoneix Guard or axe crazy, honor bound type. He'd known some moritats like that.
Banus was still alive and they weren't.
He moved quickly to a building, hiding behind a ruined brick stairwell. His enhanced sense picked up the tramp of ceremite clamping down the street in fast order. He imagined the enemy now, sweeping and covering each place for potential ambush.
Banus reached out, grabbing the extended bolt gun-like weapon and shoving it back into the chest of its owner, simultaneously shoving a pistol against his neck seal and embracing the Astartes with two arms and reaching around him with his fourth with a plasma pistol.
He fired, separating the Primaris's head, and fired his plasma pistol taking out the lieutenant, leaving a pair of smoking legs to topple over.
The return fire hesitated for a moment-only a moment, and Banus allowed himself a slight smile-somethings never change.
He flipped the Bolter like weapon out of it's previous owners hands with his lower arms, dropping the charging plasma pistol to the ground rolling under the dead Primaris as he brought the weapon to bear and fired at their legs. The armor deflected the first shots, shearing off chunks of ceremite. Banus rolled, his cloak soaking in blood and dirty water as he fired in controlled shots. The return fire was a maelstrom of boltrounds that pulped their dead comrade's body but Banus was moving, grabbing another by his leg-there were eight of them.
His augmetic arms split into two extra sets, the rifle abandoned as he rolled, drawing his opponent's own pistol with one and drawing four of his own.
Sargent by a blown out vehicle, fifteen meters, Astartes he borrowed the pistol from less than a meter, the rest standard dispersion and defensive/reaction posture-the Sargent had broken them into combat squads-wise precaution.
He fired twice with his borrowed pistol at the Sargent, seeing him duck behind the vehicle while shooting it's owner in the power pack and underarm, not killing blows, his other shots were luckier-their hesitation was one brought on by comradeship and brotherhood, no fault of their own.
For a moment, Banus envied them.
In a flurry of movement he had put shots into the group, spinning around to kick the nearest Astartes and shove the barrel of his own pistol into his face plate before detonating it. He charged towards the sargent, and then feinted away as the Sargent kicked the vehicle towards him-a good move.
Banus was running low on his current pistols so he dropped them, drawing fresh ones his augmetic limbs quickly cycling the mechanisms as he continued his barrage.
The next four where a blur, shots to the chest-which normally crippled a normal Astartes putting them into a armor locked state to allow them to be recovered by an apothecary.
These new ones surged forwards almost like World Eaters or Blood Angels. Banus rolled into their legs longways sending them tumbling, pistols finding soft joins to touch and fire off, dropping them at last.
The final three were bellowing-something unimportant. They usually did. "For the Emperor", "Blood for the Blood God", "I like big butts and cannot lie", Banus didn't pay it any mind, he was in the dance now, dropping two pistols to redirect the weapon bash down and to his left, the Astartes recovered stepping towards him to drive a knee into Banus's chest, to get him away and off of him-wrestling someone in power armor is a hell of a thing, especially an augmetically enhanced super soldier who can utilize the full capacity of power armor at will and automatically. Their feet will grab onto the ground to try and compensate for any loss of footing, and they are built like bulls thick at the neck.
Having extra arms helps a lot. Can't be undersold the utility of having more than two arms. And they aren't invincible. The instinct from all forms of instructed and instinctive combat would be to head crank up and back-but that would only get you to rip the helmet off.
No with Astartes you crank the head forward towards their own chest and their gorget, and try to stab them in their weak armor in their cervical spine.
He felt hammerblows at his back, glacing hits his armor pinged in alarm as yellow runes flashed across his vision as the other two were dog piling him, combat blades coming out, but they had to push their dead friend aside to get at Banus.
He fumbled for two plasma pistols putting them blindly into his foes pulled the triggers and their bodies flopped back off of him leaving smoking ruins. His augmetics snapped back together forming the primary set and snatched up one of their rifles as he pushed on the remaining Primaris, flinging a retrieved combat blade at the Sargents head. Banus didn't believe it would do anything relevant, but to his surprise it slammed into it above the ridge and he heard a shout of pain as the Sargent ducked behind cover behind a brick wall.
Then he heard his enemy clearly for the first time,
"Traitor scum!" The Sargent shouted.
Banus sighed, more annoyed in himself by being bothered by it. But now it was crawling over him.
He ran up and kicked the wall as hard as he could, toppling the weakened structure over and knocking the Sargents rifle aside.
Banus had him dead to rights. He hefted the rifle up, target sync with his autosenses playing over the enemy's chest, but then he dropped the rifle, motioning for the Primaris to stand.
Banus removed his helmet, clamping it on his belt, short shorn white-blond hair was starting to grow back on his scalp, patterned by old scars healed over.
Banus gestured for the Primaris to do the same. He did, the knife hadn't penetrated far, but it had probably knocked his autosenses for a tick.
"Skallathrax rules," Banus said, holding up a chunk of brick, "when this hits the ground, draw"
The Primaris spat, glowering at him. Banus tossed the brick into the air and a fluid motion drew and shot the Primaris in the face.
He noted with some satisfaction that the Primaris had moved to draw preemptively too. He nodded approvingly, and replaced his helmet as he looked to collect his pistols and add some of the newer ones. A light rain started to drizzle down, this fight wasn't over, these were the first of many squads, and he couldn't keep this up, it was time to regroup.
It had been challenging at least, and he had learned a lot. Definitely improved Astartes, good blending of design philosophy on the armor, a few more curves deflected what would have been killing blows on other marks.
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I know what I want to do, I just can't put down words to make it work >.>
