The Longest Short Bus. Chapter 25 (Patreon)

The Chaos Spawn's appearance belied verbal description as it by its very natural was madness via the warp made into material flesh and blood. It had tentacles, its rotting skin and exposed muscles were thick and muscular and it had no eyes yet it could clearly see me.

It had a large lamprey-like mouth with countless larger spike teeth within and... It had a mouth and thus it could scream. And the mad spawn of Chaos screamed it madness to all that could and would listen to its symphony of agony in simply existing.

I had no idea if this Chaos Spawn used to be a person, or was a pure manifestation of the Warp, but in the end I was going to purge this unclean freak of nature with holy fire as enhanced my energy sword with the flames of Sol I got into melee within the monster.

Its thick surprisingly quick and spry tentacles attempted to ensnare me but I danced between the limbs attempting to ensnare me for an easy death with the grace given to me via the Super Soldier Serum. My Energy Sword with its two blades sliced and burned the Chaos Spawns tentacles that did get too close.

And it screamed its pain and agony to the world as the fires of Sol burned away the madness and darkness within its flesh. I stepped forward and when it tried to swing its massive lopsidedly larger right arm thing at me I kicked off it and jumped over the Chaos Spawn with my Energy Sword slicing through its head sideways as the enhanced energy weapon burned away the filth that was in its way.

The Chaos Spawn with a split open head shuddered and its raspy scream turned into a haunting gurgle as it whimpered but that didn't stop it from whirling around on me with that huge lopsided arm swinging at me and I cursed mentally as limb came to high for me to jump over it so easily so I jumped backward to avoid it.

But as I jumped backward the back of my heel got caught on some metal outcropping of the Hive Cities... Phenomenal building practices. So I rolled backward as the Chaos Spawn smashed its limb several times onto the ground as it tried to smash me into a paste for cutting its damned head in half.

'This is bullshit. This is bullshit. This is bullshit.' I repeated in a mental mantra of annoyance at how the fucking Chaos Spawn had its head split in half and yet it was still going on strong after me.

I leaped further backward once I got my legs under myself properly. And then I whipped out my Plasma Defender from my waist holster with my free hand and loud crackles rang out as the superheated green plasma was shot out and into the Chaos Spawn which howled in agony retreating slightly. As the burning plasma burned through it's Chaos fuckery that allowed it to ignore lethal wounds.

I had three weapons on me as my main loadout, my energy sword, my Fallout Plasma Defender, and my Suros Regime so once I shot all twenty shots from my Plasma Defender and left the Chaos Spawn a burnt wreck from the maximum power plasma pistol.

I switched over to my Suros and used its explosive rounds to try to blow off its large main arm as it was burnt into a crisp from attempting to block my Plasma Defender.

The loud rattling of my Suros repeatedly shooting was only cut off as a loud humm rang out before a blinding laser shot from the entrance of the courtyard from a hidden alcove with the fist-sized blinding red Spartan Laser cutting the Chaos Spawn in half with the sniper having reloaded and began taking more shots onto the 'elite' Nurgle units before us.

"Ecris's Spartan lance came off cooldown," I noted to myself as the Spartan Lance being a derivative of the typical Spartan Laser was far more damaging due to its far more condensed laser that would pierce its target instead of exploding like the typical Spartan laser.

Taking in the surroundings now, I saw that Adelieth with her Chainsword had mauled a Plague Ogryn into falling down on its shredded legs so that she could take the sword-shaped chainsaw to its head to turn that into chunky salsa. As even if I hated her chain sword that didn't mean I wouldn't make it the best chain sword I could.

The Custodian... Killed everything around it in a whirl of violence with dozens of cultists, the Plague Sorcerer, and the other Chaos Spawn lying in a messy pile of eviscerated remains. 

While Barghest... I could hear the Plague Ogryn's flesh cooking as she kneeled on the holy shield she had that was placed over the Plague Ogryn's flesh as she thoroughly finished splattering its head into a mess with her gravity hammer.

'Alright, elites are taken care of. The Guard are pushing through the main entryway. Now we need to take the actual Leeman Russ factory... Now comes the annoying part.' I thought as I knew the factory itself was going to be huge. 

And that actually clearing it out and sealing its many, many, many entry points was going to be the major time and manpower sink. With heretics that hide away needing to be purged not to mention any traps, we have to be careful to navigate around.

I walked over to the Custodian and I saw he was busy reloading the storm bolter attached to his Guardian Spear and even then the still rushing Pox Walkers trying to stream into our killing zone were dying off as a few hundred guardsmen in comfortable positions with laser miniguns could quickly deal with even thousands of simple zombies, they were now working with the scouts to pick off the couple hundred traitor guardsmen who were now quickly dropping like flies.

"Well well well." I muttered as I found a Nurgle Grimoire beside the Sorcerer's remains with the chaos book of pure heresy radiating death and decay to my senses and I had a bit of a thought... What if I broke apart this book and used its Nurgle-based power to turn my Plasma Defender into the Thorn from Destiny.

Wouldn't killing Nurgle Demons and cultists with conceptual rot, decay, and death be just perfect irony?

I put the corrupt book of Nurgle away into Barghest's sealed sanctified bomb carrying case so it couldn't touch upon my mind or anyone else's as I took back out my Suros and began the grim duty of helping to exterminate all the remaining Poxwalkers and traitor guardsmen.

-

The slaughter of the thousands of Poxwalkers and traitor guardsmen took hours to complete, out of the two hundred Guardsmen with more than a hundred of them being enhanced with the Super Soldier Serum... Seventy Guardsmen died during this campaign even with Fallout Power Armor and small energy shields to protect their forms.

None of the people who died on our side were Super Soldiers though. And I could see that fact hitting Adelith's mind as we went over the causality reports as reports of the super soldiers ducking under missiles, sniper rounds and swatting grenades away from their forms were clear and above reproach.

The Super Soldier Serum perfected the human form. It didn't give them extreme superhuman abilities like the Astartes had with whole new organs and their entire bodies being basically revamped into being a Space Marine.

Like for example... My Super Soldier's couldn't projectile vomit steel-melting acid, nor could they eat the brains of enemies to download memories of what they ate. These were two things that all Space Marines regardless of the chapter they belonged to could do.

So after reading the reports, Adelieth muttered with a humming noise. "Your procedure with how repeatable and the stability of the process reminds me more of Vat-Cloning like with what the Kriegsman do to send endless soldiers into the Imperial Tithe."

My lips twitched at hearing about Kriegmans or the world of Krieg... As that was a whole mess but regardless I hummed and asked. "Are you wanting to have it done to yourself as well?" 

And without a moment of hesitation, Adelieth said bluntly. "No. My body is pure and I will not allow anything to change it besides having prosthetics added should I lose parts of my purity in the flames of battle."

I shrugged hearing that and after a moment I asked curiously. "If you lost an eye, could I grow you a new one that matches your DNA profile so it would literally just be a copy of your own eye?" 

Looking over at Adelieth she frowned at my question and from there I said frankly. "Because that's what the super soldier project is. It simply makes you more than what you currently are. It is not making you a Space Marine... Though if anything it is more akin to the Custodian method of ascension in humanity in pure genetic manipulation."

The Custodian himself hearing my words gave a grunt through his vox before stating with some amount of amusement but still challenge in their mechanical voice. "Do not equate myself and my brethren to your minorly enhanced Guardsmen. Though you are correct in the manner of the transformation." 

I raised up my hands in surrender before I looked back down to the scrolling reports coming in from the Guardsmen who were sealing off the hundreds of minor entrances to the Leeman-Russ factory to keep out the herects. 

But before the conversation could continue I heard a series of knocking on the door leading into this office I took over to do the after-battle reports and without a word the Custodian opened the door with Ecris the 'catgirl' Guardsman saluting quickly as she looked up at the golden armored giants form before calling out. "Commissar Bariss, I have an important report!" 

I grunted in approval with the Custodian standing to the side to allow the white-haired catgirl into the room and once she saw me she quickly made her way over to stand in front of me.

After saluting and I nodded to say I accepted her salute she began her verbal report. "Sir, we have finished sealing off eighty percent of the entrances to the Factory with the last twenty percent needing to remain open to keep airflow and oxygen levels within acceptable levels!"

Humming in thought I tapped my little computer and I said. "Alright, so we will be holding this facility while the native Guardsmen and Enforcers arrive to reinforce. Then from there after the Inquisitor has this facility secured we will retreat back to Alpha base... With the information we got from the systems here that the traitor Guardsmen kept we will be needing to hit a combat stim and medical facility." I spoke more seriously.

As I really didn't want to leave a bunch of Nurgle cultists alone making drugs and poxes. Plus if we destroyed their bio-labs that would cut down on the exhausting amount of Pox walkers we constantly fucking run into.

So using my tablet I got into the Vox channels that would carry a message to Inquisitor Grendyl and I sent a blunt message. [The Leman-Russ Tank Factory you wanted has been secured. Send Guardsmen and Enforcers to station here so my forces can move onto another priority target.]

After sending the message I looked through the other intelligence we had gathered about the traitor's movements and nothing else stood out as obviously... Traitor Guardsmen who were literally rotting and falling apart via Nurgles love weren't going to be the best source of information.

So with all that said in done, it was just now time for guard duty as we held the factory for reinforcements to come to take over, so I began eating an officer ration as I relaxed for a bit after sending off Ecris with a bar of compressed nutrients for officers that was far better than anything she normally got. 

Though as I was relaxing Adelieth put down her own tablet after noting down all our actions for her order's notes with her speaking with some happiness in her voice. "Jake, Golden One, I have some important news." 

I looked over and she was actually smiling as she announced. "A sizable detachment from my convent the Valorous Heart is en route from Inquisitor Grendyl's orders with a squad of ten of my elite sisters coming to replenish my previous squad... There is even a Canoness coming to lead the other squads of my Sisters to wage this holy war to free this world from Heresy!"

Before I could reply the Custodian asked with some curiosity. "What order does that Canoness follow?"

Adeleith blinked and then smiled and said with a pious purity in her voice. "Ah she is from the Ordos Hospitaller, she is being sent here to wage the war of faith in curing the pox and evils that plague this world!"