=== Raxor ===
The heat of Mustafar rolled across the platform in violent waves as Anakin stepped forward, intent on passing the towering figure before him as if he were nothing more than an obstacle of steel and flesh. He shifted slightly to the right, meaning to stride around the Salamander and ascend the ramp toward the departing ship, but Raxor moved with him, massive armored form striding into his path. No threat was spoken. No weapon yet raised. He simply stood there, immovable.
Anakin's eyes burned brighter, yellow bleeding back into the blue as he fixed them on the warrior blocking his way. "Step aside," he said, his voice low and edged with something far darker than anger. "Or I will kill you."
The Salamander did not flinch beneath the Sith's gaze. The brazier-like Iron Halo mounted above his pack flickered faintly, embers dancing within its caged flame as if stirred by an unseen wind. "I will not step aside," Raxor replied, his voice calm, resonant through the vox grille of his helm. "If you wish to reach that ship, you will go through me first."
For a heartbeat, the two simply stared at one another while the transport behind Raxor began to lift higher, its engines screaming against the ash-filled sky. Then Vader's blue blade snapped to life with a violent hiss, its glow cutting through the smoke as he drew upon the Force in a sudden, crushing surge meant to obliterate the Astartes.
The air itself seemed to implode around Raxor as Vader unleashed the wave, invisible pressure slamming forward like the fist of a god. The Iron Halo erupted in response, the brazier's inner flame flaring brilliant gold as a translucent barrier snapped into existence around the Astartes. The shockwave struck it with a thunderclap that rattled the platform and sent molten sparks spraying from the catwalks around. Raxor felt the Force crash against him like an ocean, the weight of it pressing into his limbs, turning every motion into something thick and resistant, as though he were advancing through deep water rather than air.
Still, he stepped forward.
Vader's eyes narrowed. Few beings could have remained standing beneath such power. Fewer still would advance through it.
The Salamander's heavy bolter roared to life.
The massive weapon barked thunder as explosive rounds streaked toward the Sith in a storm of detonations. Vader's blade became a blur of cerulean light, carving arcs through the air as he deflected the first volley, but these were not simple blaster bolts; each shell detonated on contact, shockwaves hammering the platform and forcing Vader to shift, leap, twist aside as explosions ripped craters into the metal around him. Shrapnel shrieked through the air. Lava below spat upward in angry fountains.
With a sharp gesture, Vader extended his free hand and seized the bolter in the Force. The weapon groaned in Raxor's grip as invisible pressure crushed inward. The firing mechanism ruptured. In the span of a breath, the sacred weapon imploded in a violent burst of shrapnel and smoke, fragments clattering across the platform.
Raxor discarded the ruined frame without hesitation.
In one fluid motion, he drew the combat knife from his belt, a broad-edged blade of Beskantium, its surface dark and matte, forged to withstand energies that would vaporize lesser metals. It caught the light of Vader's saber without flinching.
Then they collided.
Vader surged forward first, blade descending in a savage overhead arc meant to cleave through armor and bone alike, but Raxor raised the knife in both hands and caught the strike with a shriek of grinding energy. Sparks exploded outward in a cascade of white-hot fragments as lightsaber met Beskantium, the two weapons locking for a split second before Raxor twisted and shoved the blade aside, driving a ceramite-plated shoulder into Vader's chest.
The impact would have shattered an ordinary man. Vader skidded backward across the platform, boots carving furrows through ash, yet he remained upright, eyes blazing as he answered with a furious flurry of strikes. The blue blade became a relentless storm, horizontal sweeping thrusts aimed at joints, sudden reversals meant to catch the Astartes off guard, but Raxor moved with the disciplined efficiency born of a thousand battles. The Beskantium edge screamed each time it met the saber, but it did not yield.
Vader shifted tactics.
With a violent pull of the Force, he tore a slab of broken platform from the ground and hurled it toward Raxor. The Salamander braced, Iron Halo flaring again as the debris shattered against his shield in a burst of stone and dust. Through the cloud, Vader lunged, blade aimed low for the gap behind the knee joint, but Raxor pivoted with surprising speed for one so massive, the knife flashing down to intercept while his armored fist hammered forward in a piston-driven strike.
The blow connected with Vader's guard, sending him vaulting backward through the air in a controlled flip that carried him several meters away. He landed lightly, cloak snapping behind him, and his expression twisted into frustration.
He pressed forward again, faster now, channeling the Force not merely as a weapon but as an extension of his own body. His movements blurred, strikes accelerating beyond his limits as he hammered against the Salamander's guard. Each impact drove Raxor back a step, the resistance he felt earlier intensifying as Vader poured more of the dark side into the assault. The platform trembled beneath them as they advanced and retreated in equal measure, sparks and embers swirling around their duel like a storm of fireflies.
When Vader overextended in a vicious diagonal slash, the Salamander stepped inside the arc, absorbing the glancing burn along his pauldron as he drove his armored elbow down toward Vader's shoulder. Vader twisted aside at the last second, but the impact clipped him hard enough to send him rolling across the deck.
He rose instantly.
For a moment, they circled one another, lava reflecting off ceramite and blade alike, the departing ship now about to take off completely.
"You cannot win," Vader said, voice echoing beneath the roar of the wind.
"I do not need to win," Raxor replied evenly. "I only need to hold you here."
The Iron Halo burned brighter above him as he stepped forward again, knife poised.
Vader's focus shifted to the ship climbing into the ash-choked sky. He felt it through the Force like a wound pulling at him, the presence of Padmé within it flaring like a beacon. Desperation surged through him, and with a snarl he tore his attention away from Raxor and thrust both hands outward. The departing vessel shuddered mid-ascent as though seized by an invisible titan's grip, its engines screaming in protest as its forward momentum abruptly halted. The entire craft lurched backward, dragged toward the platform by sheer telekinetic force, the nose dipping as Vader clenched his fists and began hauling it down from the sky.
Inside the cockpit, alarms wailed as the pilot fought the controls, shoving power into the thrusters to counter the unnatural pull. The ship trembled violently, caught between propulsion and the crushing gravity of Vader's will. Through the viewport, Nira staggered as the deck pitched, Sienn clinging to a bulkhead with wide, terrified eyes. The hull shrieked under the strain.
With a roar that tore from deep within Raxor's gene-forged lungs, the Salamander abandoned caution and hurled himself at Vader like a living battering ram. His armored bulk slammed into the Sith Lord with catastrophic force, ceramite crashing into flesh and bone, and the impact shattered Vader's concentration just long enough for the ship to slip free of his grasp. The sudden release sent the vessel surging forward uncontrolled; the pilot, still overcompensating against the pull, jerked the throttle too far. The craft shot ahead violently, then dipped as one engine sputtered in protest. It clipped the platform's edge with a deafening metallic scream and slammed down hard, skidding across ferrocrete in a shower of sparks.
Both warriors turned toward it at once.
For a suspended heartbeat, the battle ceased.
Then one of the ship's engines coughed and died entirely, flame guttering out as smoke poured from its housing. The vessel teetered at the platform's rim, its rear half hanging over open air while lava churned hungrily below. The metal groaned as gravity began to claim it, the entire craft sliding inch by terrible inch toward the abyss.
Raxor moved first.
He pivoted and backhanded Vader with such brutal force that the strike echoed like a cannon blast. The armored gauntlet connected with the side of Vader's skull and sent him hurtling sideways, blue blade spinning out of alignment as he crashed through a railing and disappeared from the main platform, slamming onto a lower catwalk in a cascade of sparks and twisted metal.
The Salamander did not watch him fall as he turned and sprinted towards the ship.
Each step thundered against the platform as he closed the distance to the failing ship, molten wind whipping around him. The vessel's nose dipped further, its rear lifting as gravity tightened its grip. With a final surge, Raxor leapt and seized a jagged section of exposed hull plating just as the ship tipped fully past the point of balance. The sudden weight dragged him forward violently, boots screeching across the platform as the craft slid toward the lava below.
The heat rose in blistering waves. Below, molten rock churned and spat like a living sea of fire.
Raxor planted his boots hard, but the platform offered no purchase. He was dragged forward, armored fingers digging into the hull as sparks flew from his greaves. The lip of the platform rushed toward him, and for a terrifying instant he felt the full, unstoppable mass of the ship pulling him into the abyss with it.
Then his boots struck the raised edge.
He slammed his heels down against the lip, and roared as he locked every servomotor in his armor to maximum output. The weight hit him like a falling mountain. The Iron Halo flared above his back, flame erupting skyward as if responding to the strain placed upon its bearer. Muscles reinforced by gene-seed bulged beneath layered plating as he leaned back with everything he possessed.
The ship stopped.
Not by much, but it stopped.
The strain was titanic. The vessel's mass pressed downward relentlessly, threatening to rip it from his grasp. His boots cracked the platform's edge under the force, fissures spiderwebbing outward as he fought to hold position. Warning runes flickered across his helm display as internal servos screamed at critical thresholds.
Through one of the ship's fractured windows, he saw them.
Nira braced herself against a bulkhead, blood streaking her temple from where she had no doubt fallen, her hands glowing faintly as she tried to stabilize the interior with what little strength remained. Sienn clung to a seat harness, tears streaking down her cheeks, her lips moving soundlessly in panic. Her eyes met his through the viewport.
He saw the fear, the hope and the trust in her eyes.
Something ancient and unbreakable ignited inside Raxor's chest.
With a roar that drowned out even the lava below, he pushed past his limits. The Salamander's boots dug deeper, carving trenches into the ferrocrete as he shifted his stance and began to pull. Every centimeter gained felt like dragging a world from the void. His arms trembled under the strain; actuators whined in protest; cracks spread across the platform beneath him as if it too might give way.
But the ship began to move agonizingly slowly backwards.
The nose rose by inches as he hauled against gravity itself, leveraging the lip beneath his boots to create a fulcrum. The Iron Halo burned like a miniature sun above him, its flame lashing in the volcanic wind as though lending him strength. Molten spray splashed upward from below, droplets hissing against his armor, yet he did not falter.
The ship inched higher.
Raxor shifted his grip, one gauntlet climbing to a stronger hold along the hull's fractured seam. With a guttural cry, he heaved again, forcing the vessel's center of mass back toward the platform. The rear edge scraped against ferrocrete, sending sparks cascading downward into the lava. The weight lessened fractionally as more of the hull cleared the abyss.
Darth Vader rose from the lower catwalk, cloak snapping behind him as he vaulted upward in a single Force-assisted leap, landing back upon the platform. His boots struck ferrocrete with crushing force, and his molten eyes immediately fixed on the scene before him: the Salamander standing between the ship and the abyss, armor smoking, the vessel barely stabilized upon the edge. Rage flared within him. He extended his hand without hesitation, fingers curling as he reached out through the Force, seeking the ship's remaining engine. The metal responded instantly, groaning as invisible pressure clamped down upon it. The engine housing began to crumple inward with tortured shrieks of collapsing alloy.
Raxor heard it.
He did not need the Force to understand what was happening; the scream of twisting metal was enough. The Salamander turned his helm slightly and saw Vader's outstretched hand, saw the tremor in the ship's frame as the engine casing buckled. There was no time to charge him, no time to close the distance before the damage was done. Instead, one massive gauntlet dropped to his thigh where his heavy bolt pistol rested in its mag-lock. The weapon was forged for war against psykers and witches alike, its chamber loaded with the witch bolt the Grey Knights had designed to disrupt the immaterium itself. In one smooth motion, he drew and fired.
The shot cracked like thunder.
Vader sensed the incoming projectile at the last instant and snapped his other hand up instinctively, reaching to deflect it with the Force as he would any blaster bolt or slug. But this was not a normal round. The bolt detonated prematurely in midair the moment his telekinetic grip brushed it, exploding in a violent burst of shimmering blue energy. The blast struck his left shoulder directly, the concussive force staggering him back a step as the air around him filled with a swirling mist of cerulean vapor that clung to his armor and skin like living smoke. He gasped as the Force vanished.
The molten intensity in his eyes flickered wildly as he tried to reach for it again and found only silence. His outstretched hand trembled uselessly as the pressure on the engine ceased instantly, the crushed metal groaning one final time before settling.
But in that heartbeat, Raxor had made a fatal compromise.
When he released one hand from the hull to fire, even for that fraction of a second, the delicate balance was lost. The ship lurched violently backward as its weight shifted beyond the Salamander's center of gravity. Caught off guard by the sudden movement, Raxor's grip slipped just enough for gravity to reclaim its prize. The vessel surged toward the abyss once more. His armored form was dragged across the platform, boots carving trenches through ferrocrete as he fought to regain purchase, but the mass was too great and the shift too sudden.
With a deafening shriek of metal against stone, the ship slid over the lip and plunged.
Raxor roared in fury as the vessel tore free of his grasp, the weight yanking him forward until he barely managed to release his hold before being dragged over with it. He slammed to the ground at the platform's edge as the ship disappeared into the molten sea below, vanishing in a towering plume of lava and flame. The impact sent waves of incandescent rock surging outward in violent ripples, splashing high against the surrounding structures.
"No!"
He surged to his feet and rushed to the brink, peering down into the churning inferno. The ship had not vanished entirely. It had struck at an angle, half-submerged in a region where the lava pooled shallower against a jagged outcropping of black volcanic stone. Flames licked along its hull, but the Imperium-forged plating held. The metal glowed a dull, angry red where it met the molten surface, yet it had not ruptured.
Behind him, Vader collapsed to one knee, coughing violently as the blue mist clung to him like frostfire. He clawed at the air instinctively, trying to draw upon the Force and finding only emptiness. Panic flickered across his features before fury replaced it, his breathing harsh and uneven as he struggled to rise.
Raxor turned his helm slightly.
The Sith Lord was temporarily crippled, stripped of the power that made him truly terrifying. The witch bolt's effect would not last forever, but it had done its work. Blue vapor curled around Vader's shoulders as he coughed again, trying and failing to summon lightning or telekinesis. For the first time since their battle began, he looked… mortal.
The Salamander's gaze shifted back to the lava below. The ship was sinking incrementally, molten rock creeping higher along its hull. Through the blistered viewport he could still see movement, shadows scrambling within the interior, flashes of Nira's faint light as she tried to stabilize the wounded and shield them from the heat.
Raxor straightened to his full, towering height, molten wind whipping around him as he calculated the angle and distance. The lava was shallower where the ship had fallen, but it was still death to anything unprotected. His armor would hold, for a time. Long enough, perhaps.
Behind him, Vader forced himself upright to one knee, staggering but furious, wiping blue residue from his shoulder as he glared at the Salamander's back. He tried once more to reach into the void where the Force should have been and found nothing but a maddening silence.
Raxor raised the heavy bolt pistol with murder in his eyes, and for a heartbeat the barrel aligned perfectly with the dark figure sprawled across the platform.
Click.
For half a second he did not understand. Then the weapon shifted slightly in his grip and he felt the warped housing along the side, the bent casing where he had crashed down upon it during the struggle with the ship. The firing mechanism had shattered. The magazine well was cracked. The sacred machine-spirit was dead.
Raxor did not curse. He simply hurled the ruined pistol towards the Sith, watched it miss and skid across the obsidian deck toward the edge, and in that instant he made his choice.
Raxor vaulted from the platform.
He struck the sloping bank of volcanic rock below with enough force to crack stone, his armor shrieking in protest, and then he stepped forward without pause into the lava itself. The molten rock surged around his greaves, bright orange and white-hot at its core, the first contact sent a shock through him so violent that his vision flared. Salamanders were forged for flame, their gene-seed carrying resilience beyond mortal comprehension, and his ceramite was sanctified against inferno, but even so, this was not mere fire. This was a world's blood.
The lava climbed to his knees.
Warning runes flared crimson across his helmet display as heat penetrated the outer plating, cooking servos, blistering seals. The joints, always the weakest points, began to smoke. He felt it through the black carapace, through the neural linkages, a deep, invasive agony as the temperature overwhelmed the safeguards. He staggered, nearly falling, but forced himself onward, each step an act of will that bordered on madness.
He roared in defiance and waded deeper.
The ship loomed ahead, its belly only partially submerged, magma lapping against it. He reached the hull and without slowing plunged beneath the surface.
The world became fire.
Molten rock closed over his helm. The external vox shrieked and died. His armor's temperature gauges spiked into critical. He could not see. He could not hear. There was only pressure, heat and the sensation of his outer layers beginning to fail. He forced his eyes shut behind the lenses and drove downward until his boots found the uneven stone beneath the lava, and then he surged upward, rising directly under the vessel's armored belly.
He planted his feet and lifted. The first attempt did nothing.
He adjusted his stance, anchoring his feet against a jut of rock, ignoring the scream of torn servos and the sharp, internal crack that told him something in his lower leg had just given way. He pressed his left arm, the pure Beskantium, forged to endure what lesser metals could not, flat against the hull, and brought his right gauntlet up beside it.
The lava gnawed at him. He could feel ceramite beginning to soften along his thighs, the outer plating bubbling, sloughing away in molten fragments. His right gauntlet hissed violently as heat ate through the smaller plates. Warning sigils cascaded across his vision, one after another blinking into catastrophic failure.
He bellowed through clenched teeth as he drove upward with everything his gene-wrought frame possessed, muscles swelling beneath armor, hydraulics screaming, spine bending under a weight that would have crushed either of his brothers. The vessel rose inches at a time, lava cascading from its flanks in blazing sheets.
Pain became absolute. His back spasmed. His helm fed him the data. "Spinal integrity compromised, multiple fractures detected, left ankle stability lost." but the information was meaningless against the singular truth in his mind.
'They are inside.'
He felt something give in his lower spine, a sickening internal rupture that would have dropped a lesser being instantly. He did not fall. He locked his knees and roared again, a sound swallowed by magma but carried in spirit across the burning world.
The ship rose higher.
Above the surface, both engines sputtered. Once. Twice. Then with a thunderous ignition they flared to life, blasting superheated exhaust into the volcanic air. The vessel shuddered violently as thrust engaged.
But Raxor did not release it.
He kept pushing.
He forced it upward as if his strength alone were what held it aloft, as if the engines were merely assisting his will rather than the other way around. The magma around him churned, displaced by the ascending hull, and in that movement his right hand, already melting, already fused by softened ceramite, became caught against the vessel's underside.
He felt the armor tear.
He felt flesh follow.
There was no time to process it.
The ship cleared the lava entirely, engines roaring at full power as it climbed into the ashen sky, dripping molten stone from its armored belly. Raxor remained standing for a fraction of a second more, his left arm still raised, as if he were holding up the heavens themselves.
Then the support was gone.
He collapsed backward into the shallows, magma rushing around him once more as his ruined legs finally failed. He dragged himself through the burning tide with one functioning arm, each movement tearing at broken bone and scorched muscle, until he reached the volcanic bank and hauled himself onto blackened rock.
Steam rose from him in thick clouds.
His right hand was gone, taken cleanly where it had fused to the hull. His gauntlet had melted into slag. His legs were half-ruined, ceramite warped and peeled back to reveal charred undersuit. Internal damage reports flickered wildly across his visor, then dimmed as systems began to fail one by one.
Above him, the ship hovered shakily before banking away from the lava basin, alive.
Raxor lay there amidst the fire and smoke, armor cracked, spine fractured, one ankle broken, one hand destroyed, and let the pain consume him without protest. He had given everything. Every ounce of strength. Every shard of endurance bred into his gene-line. He had stood against a world's fury and forced it back through sheer will.
The gunship's engines roared brighter and brighter as it clawed its way skyward, trailing molten fire in its wake, until at last it tore free of the choking heat shimmer and vanished into the darkened sky beyond the foundry spires.
For a brief moment the platform was still, broken machinery hissing, rivers of magma surging below, and in that terrible silence Raxor forced what remained of his body to obey him. Every movement was agony. Ceramite hung from him in warped, dripping sheets, his right gauntlet reduced to slag, half his hand gone, the armor along his legs cracked open to reveal blackened flesh beneath.
With trembling fingers and tore the ruined helmet from his head. He dragged himself forward anyway, hauling his broken form back onto the platform inch by inch, leaving scorched streaks behind him, until he finally collapsed to his knees amid the ash and sparks.
Across from him, Darth Vader rose.
The blue mist had thinned to nothing. The witch-bolt's disruption had passed, and with it the last advantage Raxor had held. Vader stood slowly, his left shoulder still smoking from the detonated round. The glow of molten rivers reflected in his eyes as he turned his head toward the Salamander. Raxor looked up at him through one ruined eye, blood running down his temple, and then, astonishingly… he began to laugh.
It was not the laugh of madness but of triumph, hoarse and ragged, forced through lungs that had inhaled too much heat and smoke, yet filled with a fierce and defiant satisfaction. He let his ruined helmet fall from his grasp, the cracked ceramite clattering across the deck.
"I won," he said, voice hoarse yet steady despite the blood at his lips. "They're gone! Your prey escapes you." His grin widened, teeth red with his own blood. "Whatever happens now… I die knowing I succeeded."
Vader said nothing at first. He only stared at him, black robes stirring in the hot wind, and then with a snap-hiss that split the air apart, blue light erupting between them once more. Vader stepped forward, voice low and trembling with restrained hatred.
"You will die here," he said, each word deliberate. "Alone, and forgotten."
Vader moved first, lunging with lethal precision despite the damage he had suffered, and the blue blade drove forward like a spear of judgment. It punched through Raxor's chest plate with a shriek of burning ceramite and plunged into him, the heat cauterizing even as it destroyed, light spilling from the wound in a blinding flare.
Raxor did not fall. Instead, he brought his ruined right arm up, and smashed it down upon Vader's already compromised left limb.
Without the reinforcement of the Force to brace him, without the invisible strength that had so often turned killing blows aside, Vader's arm could not withstand the impact. The strike crushed through damaged plating, shearing the limb free in a spray of blood. Vader's scream ripped from him, echoing across the platform in agony.
Before he could recoil, Raxor's left hand, now glowing white-hot from the lava's embrace, shot upward and clamped onto Vader's face. Vader thrashed, the blue blade still buried in Raxor's torso, but the Salamander held fast, his artificial fingers biting deep, molten alloy searing through Vader's skin. Smoke poured upward as the heat fused metal to skin, and though Raxor tried to tighten his grip, to crush the Sith Lord's skull outright, but his damaged systems betrayed him; the servos in the Beskantium arm screamed and stuttered, unable to generate their full power.
Instead of shattering the head entirely, the crushing force broke bone with a sickening crack, splintering Vader's jaw. His screams became muffled, strangled behind the burning gauntlet, his words reduced to incoherent fury and pain.
Raxor leaned closer, dragging Vader downward until their faces were inches apart, the smell of burning flesh thick in the air between them. Blood bubbled at the Salamander's lips as he spoke, each word costing him more than the last. "The Legions of the Imperium have a saying," he murmured, voice rough but unyielding. "Duty… only ends in death." His grip tightened slightly, enough to draw another strangled cry from the maimed Sith. "But I do not believe mine ends here. No… I think it is only the beginning. You see… though I die on this world of fire, I suspect the Emperor still has use for me yet."
With the last of his strength, Raxor shoved Vader backward. The motion tore the Sith Lord free from his grasp, and with it came skin and charred tissue ripped from the lower half of Vader's face, left fused to the Salamander's burning hand. Vader staggered back, howling, his features now grotesquely disfigured. Smoke rose from him in twisting spirals as he stumbled backwards, falling to the ground in a heap.
Raxor swayed where he knelt, the lightsaber still impaled through his chest, systems failing one by one. The world dimmed at the edges of his vision, the roar of the lava below fading into a distant murmur. For a heartbeat longer he remained upright, as if held there by sheer will alone, and then at last his strength deserted him. He fell backward onto the scorched platform, his massive frame striking the metal with a final, echoing clang. His ruined armor smoked gently in the heat, and though his body lay broken beyond recovery, his face remained set in a faint, unyielding smile.
Above him, the sky was empty, the ship carrying his hopes and dreams long gone among the stars.
===
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