Rosetta - A Warhammer 40,000 Story

Part VIII

The blazing flames of boltgun fire expanded ever so slowly as fat bolts hung in the air. The Astartes stood still like vile statues of blasphemous heresy. There she lashed out. Nails growing long and sharp pierced ceramite plate and post-human flesh.

Rejoicing in the fulfilment of purpose, the bloody joy of slaughter, the welcomed release from stasis Aura radiated with joy and happiness. This flooded into Rosetta's mind driving her into an addictive fury.

They surged throughout the Astartes ranks, butchering the traitors relentlessly as she went. Until time began to speed up again and an armoured fist struck her in the head, shattering her lower jaw and launching her back through the window behind Mimir.

-//-

While Mimir fought on Rosetta found herself floating in an ocean of sparkling light. She looked around, she had to get back to the battle, back into the fight. She recalled the events of the fight. Then she panicked, thinking herself dead.

Then she found Aura, all curled up and worried. She approached the daemon. She now knew first-hand Aura's true intentions and felt no more adversity towards her. She reached out to her and touched the entity on the shoulder.

'Our body is dead It'll take time to restore it. We reside in my heart for now.'

Rosetta had learned so much she feared she could no longer return to the Order of Divine Light. She sought to get closer when the whole world shook. Aura looked up and around, then she tore open a window, a way to watch the outside world from here.

It showed the hooded figure of Mimir picking up Rosetta's body and speeding through the forest. All the while bolt rounds blast overhead. Some blew away the greenery around him, others detonated on his barrier.

'Mimir has picked us up and fled. If I know him, he'll lead us to our sisters.'

Before Rosetta could respond she shivered feeling a surging of energy permeate throughout the body. The loud crunch of bones snapping themselves back into shape and the restoration of the body echoed throughout the jewel.

'It is done.'

-//-

Awaking from her slumber she found herself in Mimir's hands as he leapt from tree branch to tree branch. The forest around him was bombarded with a constant barrage of munitions. Suddenly a plasma shot blew apart the tree ahead of him and he lost his footing.

Falling to the ground he let Rosetta go and the two of them landed on their feet and faced the oncoming horde. The world shook as the hulking mass of giants ploughed through the forest after them.

All manner of munitions hit his barrier and exploded in a great firestorm of detonations. He fought back by hurling anything he could at the enemy. Embewed with unnatural energies these objects detonated with mighty force, disrupting the enemy advance like an artillery barrage.

Sensing the opportunity Rosetta bolted forth into enemy ranks. In leaps and bounds, she ran circles around the bulky marines. Swinging off of arms and sliding around torsos and launching herself from Astartes to Astartes.

Razor sharp nails rending armour and flesh, She slaughtered mercilessly as she went. These traitors, these chaos space marines were skilled opponents. Fast, precise and unrelenting they were a formidable foe.

Yet with Aura at her side, she could beat them. She could bring this power to the front lines and win wars the day they started. She could bring peace to these lands without risking the lives of more blessed sisters.

Rosetta grew content if she could serve the God-Emperor so much better in this state then so be it. She felt Aura glow with happiness as she vowed to do whatever it took to restore her, grow in power and destroy the Emperor's Children Legion in the name of righteous vengeance and imperial justice.

-//-

Unsatisfied with merely disrupting the enemy formation Mimir summoned up his mighty reserves of raw power and reached out to the world. One by one Astartes began to howl and wail as their very organs were torn apart and liquefied inside their own armours.

Their bodies spilt out through the seams of their armours in a crimson ooze. Legionaries' voice degenerated into garbled noise as they died. Soon silence fell as they all dropped dead. The purple and gold of their armours turning crimson with the flesh of their wearers.

All the while Rosetta hurled herself from Astartes to Astartes, biting, clawing and tearing pieces away from every superhuman she passed. Illuminated in the night by the fire and the flicker of bolter fire she became another breed of creature entirely.

She landed on one Legionnaire and with a single strike smashed the helm off of his head. In frenzy, she chewed her way through his thick neck and beheaded the traitor. Then leapt onto another and dug into his belly.

With every brutal kill, she bathed in the blood and toxins of Astartes anatomy. With every kill, she delved deeper into her frenzy. Her lust for traitor's blood drove her on. They were evil incarnate, they took everything from and now they pay in blood and pathetic lives.

Rosetta did not count how many she had killed at this point. A dozen? Two dozen? Thirty? It did not matter. The life of just one traitor was an offence to her own existence. The black mark of their existence must be wiped from reality.

Soon, as Rosetta tore her way into yet another traitor Aura used the sororitas' fervour to fuel the fire in her heart. Rosetta shuddered and quaked with overwhelming emotion. The pleasure, the hatred, the joy, all of it. The emotions of two souls flooded Rosetta's mind and plunged it into a blood-crazed euphoria.

She relished the intoxicating excitement and the sheer pleasure of scrambling the archenemy's very flesh with her own bare hands. She charged with reckless abandon. Not caring for petty tactics or mundane safety she surged on in search of the blood-soaked heaven of the slaughter.

Then a jet of flame forced her back. She landed on her feet, hissing and growling. As a tree trunk was obliterated by the might of a massive monster. Standing thrice the size of an Astartes it loomed over them all like a horrific humanoid beast in the night.

Gigantic robotic limbs displayed a might far beyond the typical Astartes. This was a figure who knew victory. It had sensed it so many times throughout the millennia and now it craved that sweetness once more.

It was the imposing threat of a contemptor dreadnought that charged Rosetta. She leapt up into the air as it swung at her. Landing on its back she lashed at its armour but screamed in pain as she broke her nails on its thick hide.

It swung about, hurling her off of its back. Rosetta gasped in pain as her back slammed into a tree. She slumped to the ground and coughed up blood. She growled in anger and frustration yet there was no more time as the dreadnought charged her way.

She managed to leap aside just before the overwhelming mass of the titanic beast pulverised the tree. The beast did not relent as it aimed one of its fists at her and the stormbolter built into its palm opened fire.

A hurricane of bolts forced her back as Astartes from all sides added their firepower from all angles. This had been a trap she realised as she jumped and leapt about in the field of fire. Then a plasma burst forced her to leap right and a jet of flame was thrown into her way.

She slammed her feet into the earth and used them to ground herself to a halt just short of falling into the firewall. This worked, the fire was not going to take her. They weren't going to kill her. This power, it was too incredible, it goes far beyond this rabble.

Then a mass-reactive bolt round detonated in her side. Blowing away flesh and bone and she was hurled sideways into the forested earth. Then another one plunged into her chest, blowing away her rib cage.

The force thrust her back into her death. Gathering around her corpse they forced Mimir back while they studied her corpse. After confirming her destruction one legionnaire stepped up and aimed his bolter at her dead face and fired. Blowing it away.

They left Rosetta as a headless corpse in a forest that burned down around it.

-//-