=== Raxor ===
The Thunderhawk screamed as it tore through Lah'mu's cloud cover, its armored hull shuddering again and again as emerald and scarlet lances of anti-air fire reached up from the surface and clawed at it, the impacts ringing through the troop bay like the tolling of war bells. Raxor stood braced near the ramp with Sebastian and Maximus at his side, mag-boots locked to the deck, the vibration of the engines thrumming through his bones as warning runes flared and died across the interior displays.
Outside, through the narrow vision slits, he caught glimpses of ocean giving way to artificial islands and sprawling Kaminoan structures, domes and spires rising from the surf like pale tumors, all of it already wreathed in smoke and fire as the Imperium's first salvos struck home.
The Thunderhawk slammed into the ground hard enough to rattle his teeth, the impact kicking up sheets of water and debris, and before the echoes had even faded the ramp thundered down. Raxor was moving before it fully settled, boots hitting wet sand as he charged out into a world that had already dissolved into chaos.
Overhead the sky split open as a single, blinding lance of energy fell from the battle barge in orbit. It struck the mountain range to the west with apocalyptic force, vaporizing stone and steel alike as the Kaminoan anti-air batteries simply ceased to exist, the shockwave rolling across the landscape and flattening everything in its path.
"All guns are down." voxed an officer from the battle barge.
The Kaminoans' response was immediate and desperate. Doors irised open along the facility walls, and clone troopers poured out in disciplined waves, white armor stark against the darkened ground as they formed firing lines and opened up, blaster bolts stitching the air in frantic red streams. Raxor watched them die by the dozens before they even understood what they were facing, bolter fire from the advancing Astartes ripping through armor and flesh with obscene ease, bodies exploding into sprays of mist and shattered plastoid. Mandalorians surged alongside them, jetpacks flaring as they flanked and cut down any pockets of resistance.
With a roar of overcharged thrusters, Maximus burst skyward, a massive blue-and-gold figure arcing above the battlefield before crashing back down amid an entire platoon of clones. His thunderhammer struck the ground like the fist of an angry god, the impact releasing a concussive wave that pulverized troopers and shattered the earth beneath them, leaving nothing but a crater filled with drifting gore and smoke. Raxor felt the shock through his boots even from where he stood.
The Ultramarine seized a surviving clone by the throat, lifting him clear off the ground as the trooper's rifle clattered uselessly away. The clone barely had time to gasp before Maximus slammed his helmeted forehead into the man's face, ceramite cracking plastoid in a sickening crunch, the trooper going limp as he was thrown aside like refuse. Without breaking stride, Maximus waded into the next line, his thunderhammer swinging in wide, devastating arcs, each blow reducing bodies to ruin, each step driving the Imperium deeper into the Kaminoan defenses.
An AT-TE walker lumbered into view through the smoke, its cannons swiveling as it tried to bring its firepower to bear, and for a heartbeat it seemed like it might actually slow him. Then Maximus ignited his jump pack again and hurled himself into it, the impact smashing into the walker's flank hard enough to dent and buckle the armored hull. He landed in a crouch, already swinging, and brought his thunderhammer down on one of the massive legs with such force that it simply ceased to function, the joint obliterated in a shower of sparks and twisted metal.
The walker collapsed with a groan of tearing steel, crashing into the ground beside him and crushing several clones beneath its bulk. Maximus strode to its side, slapped a melta charge onto the exposed hull, and turned away without looking back.
"Clear!" he voxed, already boosting out of the blast radius.
The explosion was deafening, a roaring bloom of fire and molten metal that tore the walker apart and incinerated every clone still foolish enough to be near it. When the smoke cleared, nothing remained but wreckage and scorched ground, and the Imperium's advance did not slow for a second.
Sebastian broke formation without a word, instinct and battle-honed awareness pulling him to the right as his autosenses flagged movement along the broken edge of the facility. A platoon of clone commandos was attempting to flank the Imperium's advance, their darker armor and tighter formations marking them as something far more dangerous than the rank-and-file troopers being butchered in the open. They were using smoke and wreckage as cover, weapons already raised as they spotted the lone Astartes angling toward them, the black armor of the Black Templar and the obsidian sheen of the Darksaber impossible to miss even through the haze.
Sebastian did not slow. He lowered his center of gravity and surged forward, boots hammering against the ground as blaster fire snapped past him, some bolts glancing off his armor, others splashing harmlessly against his raised storm shield. The first commando met him head-on, and Sebastian swung the Darksaber in a brutal, descending arc meant to cleave the man in half, but the clone was fast, faster than the others, dropping low and rolling beneath the blade as it hissed through empty air. In the same motion, the commando came up inside Sebastian's guard, vibroblade screaming to life as he drove it toward the exposed gap beneath the Astartes' breastplate.
Sebastian twisted, impossibly fast for something so massive, the vibroblade screeching as it scraped harmlessly along ceramite instead of finding flesh. He pivoted on one heel and brought his storm shield around with crushing force, slamming it into the clone at point-blank range. The impact was obscene. Armor folded, bone shattered, and the commando was reduced to little more than pulp against the shield's face, his body flung aside as a broken ruin that hit the ground and did not move again.
The rest of the squad opened fire in desperation, but Sebastian was already among them.
He carved through the next clone with a savage backhand slash, the Darksaber biting cleanly from shoulder to hip, the commando's body parting almost neatly before collapsing in two ruined halves. Another clone lunged in close, trying to bring his rifle up as a club, only for Sebastian to step forward and drive the hilt of the Darksaber straight into the man's helmet. The reinforced plastoid crumpled like cheap metal, the clone dropping instantly as Sebastian ripped the weapon free and turned toward the last of them.
The final commando tried to retreat, firing wildly as he backed away, but Sebastian simply raised his heavy bolt pistol and pulled the trigger once. The bolt round punched into the clone's chest and detonated, leaving nothing behind but shredded armor and a smoking crater where a man had stood moments before.
Silence fell over the flanking position, broken only by the distant roar of battle and the crackle of fires burning across Lah'mu. Sebastian did not pause to acknowledge the kills. He reoriented instantly, locking onto the main engagement, and then he was moving again, bursting forward in a blur of black armor and righteous fury as he hurled himself back into the fray.
Around him, clone troopers threw themselves into firing lines, desperate and disciplined even in the face of annihilation, doing everything they could to slow the advance of the Astartes. It did not matter. Bolter fire tore them apart, hammers crushed them into the ground, and blades cut through them as if they were nothing more than obstacles to be cleared. Sebastian plunged back into the chaos alongside his brothers, Darksaber blazing, storm shield raised, an unstoppable force carving its way through the doomed defense.
Raxor planted his feet and brought his heavy bolter up, and then opened fire. The bolter roared, a deep, thunderous sound that tore through the din of battle as mass-reactive rounds streaked across the field and detonated among the advancing clone troopers. Bodies were thrown apart in sprays of armor fragments and red mist, firing lines collapsing almost as soon as they formed, and for a brief moment the pressure on the Imperium's advance eased as Raxor's covering fire carved through the enemy ranks.
It did not go unnoticed. A sizable block of clones shifted their attention toward him as they concentrated their fire on the Salamander standing unbowed amid the chaos. Blaster bolts hammered into his armor in rapid succession, splashing against ceramite and drake-scale plating, scorching and cracking the surface as warning runes flickered across his vision. The impacts were steady and relentless, each hit insignificant on its own, yet accumulating into a growing strain that he could feel through his armor and into his bones. It was damage, but negligible, an irritation rather than a threat, and Raxor answered it by continuing to fire, his bolter chewing through the mass of clones with merciless efficiency.
The focused fire ended abruptly. Maximus dropped from above, thunderhammer crashing down among the clones and annihilating their formation in a single, concussive blast, while Sebastian slammed into the flank moments later, shield and Darksaber tearing through what little resistance remained. The slaughter was swift and absolute. Maximus straightened amid the ruin and barked a command, his voice cutting through the noise, and Raxor immediately broke position, moving without hesitation to regroup with his brothers as the Imperium surged forward toward the main citadel.
The towering structure loomed ahead, its massive domed form scarred by earlier bombardment but still defiant, its heavy doors sealed against the oncoming assault. Maximus raised his arm and pointed, a simple, decisive gesture. From orbit, the battle barge answered. A colossal lance of energy speared down from the heavens and slammed into the citadel's entrance, the impact vaporizing the reinforced doors in an instant and blowing molten debris inward in a rolling wave of fire and force.
Raxor was the first through the breach. He charged into the smoke and ruin, heavy bolter roaring again as he cut down the clone troopers foolish or brave enough to try and form a defensive line within the shattered entryway. They died where they stood, torn apart by explosive rounds before they could even raise their weapons properly. Maximus and Sebastian were at his heels, moving with practiced coordination, their presence turning the interior of the citadel into a killing ground as other Imperium squads poured in behind them, fanning out to secure corridors and chambers.
Inside the dome, Maximus slowed just long enough to turn and issue a final command, ordering timers set and objectives carried out. The squads acknowledged instantly and split off, each group peeling away into the sprawling complex to complete their assigned tasks. Raxor, Maximus, and Sebastian drove straight toward the heart of the structure, pushing through resistance that grew more frantic and disorganized the deeper they went, clone troopers dying in droves as the three Astartes carved an unbroken path through the citadel's defenders.
At last, they reached the central hall. The space opened wide beneath the towering curve of the dome, lights flickering and alarms blaring as the final defenders fell back or lay dead across the polished floor. Waiting for them at the center was Lama Su.
The Kaminoan stood tall and eerily calm despite the devastation around him, his long form silhouetted against banks of equipment and glowing containment fields. Beside him lay a massive figure, restrained and unmoving. Vulkan's body bore the marks of experimentation and confinement, a Primarch reduced to a prisoner on a slab. In Lama Su's elongated hand was a small device, a control switch of some sort.
Raxor stopped dead. The world seemed to narrow and dim as the sight of his father struck him like a physical blow, shock and disbelief crashing through him in a way no enemy fire ever could. A sound tore from his throat, half growl and half cry as he started forward, boots pounding against the floor as every instinct screamed at him to reach Vulkan, to tear him free from this place and from the hands that had dared to defile him.
He was stopped by a gauntleted hand on his shoulder.
Maximus' grip was firm, and held Raxor in place before he could take another step.
Lama Su finally broke the tension, his voice was smooth and cutting as it carried across the ruined chamber. His dark eyes moved from one Astartes to the next before settling on Raxor, and when he spoke there was no fear in it, only disdain. "Animals," he said calmly. "That is all you are. You slaughter an entire world, extinguish countless lives, all for one single man. Tell me, was it worth it?"
Raxor's answer came instantly, raw and unfiltered, his voice trembling with barely restrained fury. "That 'man' is my father," he snarled, each word ground out through clenched teeth. "And you're going to return him to me." He stepped forward again, shrugging off Maximus' restraining hand as if it were nothing more than a passing inconvenience, his massive frame rolling with barely contained violence as he closed the distance.
Lama Su reacted at once, lifting the device in his long fingers so it was unmistakably visible, the switch gleaming faintly under the harsh lights of the dome. "Stay where you are," he ordered sharply, his composure tightening into something brittle. "Take another step, and I will detonate the charges beneath this facility. Everything here, your soldiers, your precious Primarch, all of it, will be reduced to ash." His thin mouth curved into a faint, cruel smile. "A far kinder death than the one you would give me, I suspect."
His gaze slid back to Vulkan's still form, reverent in a way that made Raxor's blood boil. "He is an incredible specimen," Lama Su continued, almost fondly. "You cannot even begin to comprehend what we have learned from him. From his resilience. From his biology." He spread his remaining hand slightly, as though presenting a grand achievement. "With this knowledge, we could reshape the galaxy. Perfect soldiers. Perfect beings. Progress on a scale you brutes are incapable of appreciating! We could—"
"Enough," Raxor growled, cutting him off mid-sentence. He took another step forward regardless of what would happen, his voice dropping into something lethal. "You will never use that knowledge. Whatever you think you've gained, it will die with you."
For a heartbeat, the chamber seemed to hold its breath.
Reality tore open beside Lama Su in a flash of blinding light and displaced air, the sudden crack of teleportation ringing like thunder. The squad of Grey Knights materialized at his side, their silver armor inscribed with glowing wards and sigils, psychic power humming around them like a living thing. One of them moved instantly, blade already in motion. There was a sharp, wet sound as the Knight severed Lama Su's arm at the shoulder, the limb tumbling to the floor along with the detonation switch, which skittered uselessly across the stone.
Lama Su screamed, the sound high and shocked, his carefully maintained control finally shattering.
Maximus stepped forward at the same time, a teleport beacon he had planted moments earlier behind him.
Everything happened at once. Raxor broke into a sprint, his heavy footfalls pounding the ground as he raced toward Vulkan's body, every other thought erased by the sight of his father lying there, broken and violated. Maximus and Sebastian turned away from him, closing on the Grey Knights and the wounded Kaminoan as the Knights secured the area.
Sebastian reached Lama Su first. He seized the Kaminoan by his long, slender throat and lifted him from the floor, holding him aloft with contemptuous ease as Lama Su choked and clawed weakly at the massive gauntlet. Even then, defiance flickered in his eyes.
"Do your worst," Lama Su rasped, forcing the words out through compressed air. "Monster."
Sebastian's helm tilted slightly, and a low, humorless sound escaped him. "Coming from a xeno," he said coldly, "I'll take that as a compliment."
There was a series of sickening cracks as Sebastian wrenched upward. Lama Su's body convulsed violently for a moment, his scream cutting off into a wet, gurgling silence as Sebastian tore his spine free through his neck. The Kaminoan went limp almost instantly.
Sebastian released him without ceremony, the corpse collapsing into a lifeless heap at his feet. Around them, the hall fell quiet save for distant explosions and the heavy breathing of warriors who had just ended a nightmare. And across the chamber, Raxor reached his father at last, dropping to one knee beside Vulkan's body as the full weight of what had been taken, and what had finally been reclaimed, crashed down upon him.
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