=== Maximus ===
Maximus thundered across the scorched battlefield, each step a quake that rattled the cracked ground beneath him. Dust and fire swirled around his towering form.
The first wave of Necron Warriors met him like a tide of metal death.
He smashed into them without slowing, the shield folding them into broken heaps with a single, explosive impact. His momentum carried him forward as he brought the Warhammer down in a colossal overhead strike. The ground cracked open like dry bone, shockwaves radiating outward as Necron bodies were hurled skyward, shattered into fragments of dull metal and crumbling necrodermis.
Maximus roared, the sound amplified through the suit's vox amplifiers into a primal bellow that shook the wreckage around him.
They came at him from every side—Immortals firing gauss blasts, Scarabs skittering across the sand, heavy constructs like the Triarch Stalkers thundering forward with heavy particle lances glowing green.
Maximus answered with fire.
With a flex of his right gauntlet, A storm bolter snapped into position and spat death into the oncoming swarms from his forearm. High-caliber rounds tore through Scarabs and Warriors alike, leaving molten holes in their armor. Green lightning arced toward him in retaliation, but the Centurion's shield absorbed the brunt of it, the energy dispersing in a crackling halo across its surface.
A Triarch Stalker loomed ahead, targeting him with a tracking beam.
The Ultramarine didn't give it the chance.
He activated the thruster unit on the Judicator with a deep, mechanical whine—and launched himself forward in a controlled rocket charge. The hammer struck the Stalker square in the center mass with the force of an orbital strike, pulverizing its torso and sending its legs flying in opposite directions. The shattered remnants tumbled away, twitching feebly in the dust.
The Centurion battle suit shifted seamlessly to adapt to the battlefield chaos. Targeting runes blinked across his HUD—dozens of enemies closing in.
He toggled the auxiliary loadout.
A missile rack slid from his back with a mechanical clack, and Maximus launched a salvo without breaking stride. Explosive warheads shrieked outward, detonating among clusters of Necron constructs, sending limbs and torsos spiraling through the air in incandescent fireballs.
Still they came.
A Lychguard phalanx formed up ahead—towering Necron elite clad in heavy armor, brandishing shimmering warscythes. They advanced in perfect synchronization, utterly silent, utterly remorseless.
Maximus grinned beneath his helmet.
He surged forward, hammer spinning into a wide arc that slammed into the first line, snapping shields and sending bodies hurtling backward. He caught a warscythe swing with his shield, deflecting the blow, then retaliated with a brutal shield bash that crushed his enemy into the dirt with a wet crunch of crumpling metal.
One of the Lychguard leapt for him, faster than expected.
Maximus released Judicator for a split second—let it spin free on its mag-lock tether as it hit the ground and caught the Necron mid-air with both hands. He wrenched the machine apart with raw, augmented strength, tearing it limb from limb like a beast dismantling prey. Tossing the ruined halves aside, he reclaimed his hammer with a pull and pressed onward.
The battlefield around him had become a hellscape.
Drop pods rained down like steel meteors, their impact blasts flattening the sands. The Azure Talons had arrived—squadrons of sleek, modified Mandalorian jetpacks flaring as they swept into the fray. Bo-Katan's voice barked orders over the shared vox-net, her warriors moving in disciplined formations to support the hundreds of Ultramarines' in their brutal advance.
Maximus ducked under a gauss blast that would have vaporized a lesser soldier, then hurled his hammer with devastating precision. It spun through the air like a comet, slamming into a Canoptek Spider and severing its legs before returning to his hand with a satisfying thunk.
Flashes of green and blue lit the ruined world around him.
Each hammer strike shook the earth.
Each shield blow shattered ranks.
But even as he carved through the enemy, Maximus caught movement on the edge of the battlefield—a brutal clash amidst the ruins of one of the Battle Barges.
Through the swirling dust and fire, two figures locked in desperate combat.
One was Captain Agemman of the Ultramarines, his once-pristine armor scorched and torn by the crash. His right pauldron hung by a thread, his helmet was gone, and blood streamed from a gash across his forehead. He fought with grim tenacity, his power sword flickering with dying energy, but his strikes were labored—sluggish, as if his arm was broken.
Facing him was Anrakyr the Traveller, the infamous Necron Overlord, his skeletal frame cracked and sparking, one arm dragging uselessly at his side. His warscythe, however, still gleamed deadly, and each sweeping strike forced Agemman to retreat another step as his arm was slowly repaired.
Maximus could see it clearly, even from a distance.
Agemman was losing.
The captain parried another vicious blow, barely deflecting it off the battered remains of his sword. Anrakyr responded with a brutal pommel strike, smashing Agemman across the face with enough force to send him sprawling into the dirt.
The Ultramarine struggled to rise.
Anrakyr advanced, slow and methodical, the ancient warrior savoring the kill. His warscythe raised high for the final strike, blue lightning crackling along its length.
Maximus burst forward.
He triggered a full burn from his thrusters, the Centurion suit roaring like an unleashed storm as he hurtled across the battlefield toward them. Debris and wreckage whipped past him, Necron warriors diving for cover too late to stop the incoming juggernaut.
Agemman looked up, dazed, his mouth a grimace as he tried to rise.
Maximus's Warhammer blazed with power as he swung it in a two-handed arc, intercepting Anrakyr's killing blow in mid-air. The impact sent shockwaves through the ground, blasting dust and debris outward in a furious halo.
Anrakyr staggered back, momentarily stunned by the force of the blow.
Maximus planted himself between the Overlord and his wounded brother, shield raised, hammer poised, a wall of adamantium, Beskar, and fury.
For a heartbeat, the battlefield froze around them—only the crackle of damaged circuits and the distant rumble of orbital bombardments punctuated the silence.
Anrakyr tilted his head, studying this new opponent with cold, mechanical curiosity. Sparks hissed from a split across his ribcage, but already thin tendrils of blue energy began knitting the damage back together, fleshless bones realigning with unnatural clicks.
Maximus surged forward first, hammer raised high. Judicator descended like a falling star—raw kinetic might behind the swing.
Anrakyr shifted subtly, inhumanly fast, the warscythe coming up at an impossible angle. The two weapons collided in a burst of light and force, the shockwave blasting nearby wreckage into the air. Maximus recoiled a half-step, feeling the raw power behind the Necron's counter.
Before he could reengage, Agemman was at his side, roaring a battle cry and plunging his sword toward Anrakyr's midsection. The Necron Overlord pivoted, letting the blade scrape harmlessly across his carapace. With almost lazy precision, Anrakyr lashed out, the butt of his warscythe smashing into Agemman's side.
The Ultramarine Captain crumpled, coughing blood, but Maximus seized the moment.
With a howl of fury, he hammered his shield into Anrakyr's chest, driving him back step after grinding step. The Overlord dug his clawed feet into the soil, servos shrieking as he resisted the assault, before abruptly sidestepping with blinding speed.
Maximus stumbled past—only a fraction, but it was enough.
The Traveller struck like a serpent. His warscythe sliced across Maximus' left pauldron, shearing through the layered armor and scoring deep into the ceramite beneath. Alarms howled in his HUD. He gritted his teeth and spun back, hammer leading.
For a moment, it was a true clash of gods.
Hammer met scythe. Shield met claw.
Blow after blow rained down, each impact sending shockwaves that shook the ruined earth around them. Maximus fought like a man possessed, every move driven by centuries of war, but Anrakyr was not a creature of flesh and fatigue.
He adapted.
He healed.
Wounds that Maximus inflicted closed before his eyes—broken armor plates reforming, shattered limbs realigning with hideous efficiency. The Necron Overlord's systems sang with regenerative protocols beyond anything humanity could mimic.
And then, the tide turned.
Anrakyr feinted high—and Maximus raised his shield to block—only for the warscythe to whip low, slicing clean through one of the Centurion suit's auxiliary thruster arrays. The explosion hurled Maximus backward, slamming him into a cratered rock face with bone-jarring force.
Before the Ultramarine could recover, Anrakyr pivoted and descended upon Agemman.
The Captain struggled to rise, his sword barely lifting to parry, but the Necron was merciless.
A savage backhand shattered Agemman's forearm guard, sending his sword clattering to the ground. Another blow drove him to his knees, and a third—delivered with surgical brutality—sent Agemman sprawling onto his back, gasping for breath.
Maximus roared and launched himself from the crater, slamming shoulder-first into Anrakyr. Both titans crashed into the ground in a tangled mass of metal and fury.
They wrestled, brutal and raw, no finesse left. Maximus hammered his fists against the Necron's head, denting the ornate helm, but Anrakyr retaliated with vicious precision, driving his armored knee into Maximus' side, fracturing reinforced rib plating.
They separated, each rising slowly—Maximus with ragged breath and grinding servos, Anrakyr with eerie, mechanical calm.
Agemman crawled toward his fallen sword, dragging himself through the dirt, but Anrakyr moved first.
With pitiless efficiency, he stamped down on Agemman's hand, shattering bones beneath his foot. The Captain cried out, but Anrakyr only pressed harder, grinding the shattered remains into the blood-soaked soil.
Maximus burst forward, Judicator roaring in his grip.
Anrakyr met him, faster than a machine had any right to be.
The warscythe flashed again—and this time Maximus wasn't fast enough.
The blade bit deep into his side, through armor, through flesh. Pain unlike any he had felt in centuries lanced through him, almost severing his lower torso. Maximus stumbled, blood flooding the interior of his suit.
Anrakyr followed, relentless.
A downward strike shattered Maximus' shield, the force of it wrenching the massive bulwark from his arm and sending it tumbling into the dirt. Another slash sheared away his left vambrace, exposing blackened ceramite and sparking cables.
Maximus reeled.
Agemman, half-conscious, tried to rise again—only to be kicked brutally aside, his armor caving in with a sickening crunch.
Maximus forced himself upright, gripping Judicator two-handed now.
He met Anrakyr's burning blue gaze with pure defiance.
"You… Will… Die…" Maximus growled, blood dripping from his cracked lips.
The Traveller said nothing. He only raised his warscythe again, a silent executioner.
Maximus roared and charged.
The hammer swung—but too slow, too heavy. Anrakyr sidestepped and drove the butt of his scythe into Maximus' knee joint. With a screech of metal and a burst of sparks, the leg gave way, and Maximus collapsed to one knee.
Another strike—this time across the head—sent Maximus sprawling, vision blurring, alarms screaming warnings he no longer had time to heed.
Through the haze, he saw Agemman still moving—still trying to rise.
Still defying death.
Maximus gritted his teeth and slammed his fist into the broken earth, forcing himself upright. One last time.
Judicator dragged behind him now, too heavy for even his augmented strength to wield properly. His armor leaked coolant and blood in equal measure. His HUD flickered, failing.
But he stood.
Anrakyr approached, slow and terrible.
Maximus took a single, limping step forward—and raised Judicator in defiance.
"Come on then." he rasped.
The Overlord advanced, his tread a slow and terrible drumbeat of inevitability.
Maximus stumbled forward, dragging Judicator up in a final act of defiance.
But the Necron was too fast.
With a shriek of tortured servos, Anrakyr swung his scythe in a blurring arc—not to kill, but to hook. The warscythe's shaft caught under Maximus' right pauldron, and with a wrenching heave, Anrakyr ripped him from the wreckage of his Centurion suit.
The world inverted.
Maximus slammed into the ground like a meteor, the impact so violent that his already battered armor cracked open along the spine and shoulders. Something in his chest gave way with a wet, tearing sound—he tasted blood, hot and metallic, flooding his throat.
He had no time to recover.
Anrakyr loomed over him, blue warscythe raised high.
The blade came down, aimed directly for his head.
Instinct alone saved him.
At the last possible moment, Maximus twisted—barely.
The warscythe's blade sliced clean through his left cheek, parting flesh, muscle, and bone with horrifying ease. His helmet split apart along the seam, the HUD shattering into useless fragments. Blood sprayed across the ground as Maximus cried out—a raw, animal sound of agony.
But he lived.
For now.
Anrakyr wrenched the blade free, pausing for only a moment as the battlefield shook with new forces entering the fray.
The Ultramarines descended like a storm, armored warriors crashing into the lines of Necrons who had formed a perimeter around the battle. Azure Talons rallied behind them, shouting oaths of vengeance.
It didn't matter.
Anrakyr's gaze never left Maximus.
He lifted one massive foot and stomped down, driving his heel into Maximus' chest. The sound of ribs shattering echoed over the battlefield—wet, sharp, final. Maximus gasped, his vision fracturing into shards of pain as his body convulsed beneath the crushing weight.
He was finished.
Incapacitated. Barely conscious. Pinned beneath the uncaring heel of an ancient, unstoppable monster.
Only then did Anrakyr turn away, his warscythe dripping with Maximus' blood.
The mixed forces charged, howling for blood.
And they died screaming.
Anrakyr moved through them like a living scythe, every sweep of his weapon a clean, perfect execution. Marines fell by the dozen, their armor no match for the phase-fielded edge of the warscythe. Heads rolled. Limbs were severed. Blood and oil rained onto the battered earth as the Necrons tore them apart.
A pair of Talons tried to flank Anrakyr—one firing plasma, the other charging with a vibro blade.
Anrakyr bisected them both in a single, fluid movement.
Ultramarines pushed forward, determined to overwhelm him with sheer numbers, but Anrakyr's systems sang with ancient hatred, predicting every shot, every blow. He danced through bolter fire and blaster fire alike, retaliating with mechanical grace and overwhelming power.
One of the Terminators lunged at the Traveller, a crackling power fist aimed for the Overlord's skull.
He never reached him.
Anrakyr impaled him mid-leap, lifting the thrashing Space Marine into the air like a broken puppet before discarding him without a second glance.
The battlefield became a butcher's yard.
Blood soaked into the churned earth. Ceramite, Beskar, and flesh were torn apart. The sons of Guilliman and the fierce Mandalorians fell alike, their valor meaningless before the ancient might of the Traveler.
Through it all, Maximus could only watch, trapped beneath his own ruined body, helpless as his brothers died around him.
His vision blurred, fading in and out with each ragged breath.
Above him, Anrakyr stopped, the warscythe dripping crimson, and surveyed the battlefield before looking back at the two dying Ultramarines.
Maximus coughed wetly, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the shattered ground as Anrakyr turned away from him.
Each heartbeat was a drumbeat of agony in his ears.
He tried—Emperor, he tried—to move, to lift Judicator from where it had fallen just beyond his reach.
His fingers scraped weakly against the broken earth, armor servos grinding uselessly.
Around him, the world descended into a symphony of death.
The Azure Talons hit the Necron Overlord in waves, their formation a textbook maneuver—converging angles of fire, thunderous shock charges aimed to stagger even a Tomb Lord.
It didn't matter.
Anrakyr moved through them like a storm given form, each sweep of his warscythe a blur of blue-lit death.
An Ultramarine Sergeant led another charge, screaming a prayer to the Emperor as he unleashed a full magazine of bolter shells point-blank.
Anrakyr barely turned.
He caught the Ultramarine's hand, crushed the gauntlet and wrist into bloody ruin, and with a twist of inhuman strength, ripped the Marine's arm clean off at the shoulder.
The Sargent fell backward, spraying blood, his scream choked off as Anrakyr impaled him through the chest with a lazy thrust.
Maximus watched, vision blurring.
More Talons tried to press the attack, desperate.
One hurled a melta bomb, praying the searing fire would do what bolters could not.
Anrakyr simply sweeped it aside with his scythe and emerged untouched.
He retaliated with a single swing, cutting down four warriors in one horrifying, effortless motion.
Their broken bodies crashed to the ground in pieces, smoking and twitching.
A knot of Ultramarines flanked the Traveller and formed a shield wall around Captain Agemman, dragging the wounded officer back, shields interlocked, firing in tight volleys.
Maximus' heart surged weakly with hope.
Anrakyr strode toward them without pause.
The first shield bearer braced, absorbing three staggering blows against his storm shield—each hit making him stumble a step backward.
The fourth blow cut through shield, arm, and chest with such force that it split the Marine from shoulder to hip, the bisected halves collapsing in opposite directions.
The Traveller swept into them like a reaper in a field of wheat as he killed them all save for Agemman, letting him watch as he killed his men.
Blaster bolts ricocheted uselessly off his living metal hide.
A Mandalorian with a jetpack fired straight down at the Overlord from above—Anrakyr caught him mid-flight, crushed his chest inward, and hurled the broken corpse through a squad of Ultramarines with the casual indifference of a god discarding a mortal toy.
The air stank of ozone, blood, and burning flesh.
Maximus writhed, trying to rise.
His left arm hung limp, shattered at the shoulder.
His legs refused to respond, nerve damage severing his mind's commands before they could be obeyed.
Judicator lay only meters away, impossibly far.
Maximus dragged himself an inch closer, every movement tearing fresh wounds open along his back and ribs.
The world narrowed into a tunnel—blood pounding in his ears, vision darkening at the edges.
Through that narrow world, he watched Anrakyr butcher his brothers. His men.
He watched hope die, one soul at a time.
He felt something inside him break.
Not just bone—but something deeper.
Hope.
Strength.
Faith.
The battlefield was silent now, save for the crackle of burning corpses and the guttering moans of the dying.
Anrakyr stood alone amidst a sea of bodies—Talons and Ultramarines, all torn apart by the relentless will of the Traveler.
The Necron turned slowly, surveying the ruin he had wrought.
His optics burned like blue balefire.
His gaze fell once more on Maximus.
The Ultramarine, shattered, bleeding, half-buried in rubble.
Anrakyr took a single, deliberate step toward him.
Judicator lay just beyond Maximus' reach—glinting in the weak, blood-soaked light.
Maximus' fingers clawed at the earth, dragging himself another inch.
The Necron raised his warscythe high.
And Maximus, broken, beaten and bleeding out into the dirt of a ruined world, did the only thing he could. Pray.
"My Emperor. Please, give me strength." He drifted on the edge of unconsciousness.
Pain blurred the world, a numbing haze where sound and light flickered without meaning.
But somewhere, deep beneath the agony, he felt it. A faint, flickering pulse from the ruined Centurion suit, like a dying heartbeat still linked to his own.
Weapons system: marginally operational.
It was enough.
It had to be enough.
With a snarl that was more instinct than thought, Maximus forced his mind into the crippled machine's interface.
The feedback was instant—a spike of white-hot pain across his neural lace—but he rode it, channeling his wrath into command.
The Centurion's right arm, crushed and sagging, shuddered violently. Servos screamed as ruined actuators spasmed to life.
The movement caught Anrakyr's attention.
He raised the scythe to deliver the final blow.
Maximus fired.
The hidden weapon—an experimental, forbidden melta device—roared to life in a gout of blue-white annihilation.
At this range, there was no missing.
The blast struck Anrakyr center mass, the force and heat folding his torso inward like paper. The Necron's chest and head detonated, liquidized in an instant under the concentrated fury of the melta.
Molten metal and shards of living necrodermis sprayed outward, hissing and cooling in mid-air.
Anrakyr stumbled.
For the first time in millennia of war, the Traveler faltered.
He reeled backward, staggering in a half-circle, still functioning by some impossible tenacity—
Straight into the awaiting blade of Captain Agemman.
Agemman, bleeding and dying from a dozen wounds, armor rent and scorched, drew deep from his own bottomless well of hatred.
With a roar that shook the battered field, he drove his power sword up and across in a desperate, brutal arc.
The blade bit deep.
The blade crackled and shrieked against Anrakyr's semi-molten necrodermis, cutting through weakened alloy.
With a terrible grinding sound, the Necron's left leg sheared away at the knee, severed entirely.
Anrakyr fell.
The impact shook the ground around him, the warscythe spinning from his grasp to land meters away, hissing as its power field guttered and died.
Maximus saw none of it.
He had collapsed, the melta discharge frying what was left of the Centurion's systems—and with them, most of the motor support keeping him conscious.
He was bleeding out.
Dying.
But some spark—a hatred for failure, for surrender, for death itself—ignited inside him.
No.
He would not die here.
Not with Anrakyr still moving.
Not with his brothers' bodies cooling around him.
With a ragged gasp, Maximus ripped the last few cables from his armor.
The broken Centurion suit fell away from him like the carcass of a dead beast, leaving only the battered ruin of his power armor and the shredded remains of his own body.
He rolled onto his side, groaning, the world spinning madly.
Judicator lay nearby, half-buried in the blood mud and gore of the battlefield.
It might as well have been a mile away.
Move, he told himself.
His body screamed defiance.
Bones grated against shattered bones.
Torn muscles bunched and snapped.
His left leg dragged uselessly behind him.
He clawed his way forward with his gauntleted fists, each pull tearing open new wounds, each breath a wet, rattling gasp.
Every inch forward was a victory.
Every heartbeat, a miracle.
It took an eternity—or perhaps only a few seconds—but at last his hands closed around the haft of Judicator.
He tried to lift it.
Failed.
He tried again, blood pouring from his lips, agony racking his body.
Failed.
Once more.
With a howl of primal fury, Maximus heaved.
There was a sickening crack from somewhere deep in his right arm as his bicep tore free from its tendons, but he did not stop.
Through the pain he forced his left hand onto the shaft, and lifted.
Judicator rose.
Sparks sprayed from the ancient hammer's damaged thrusters, but they still answered his call.
The weapon's core engine whined, building to a deafening crescendo.
Anrakyr dragged himself forward across the battlefield, clawing at the dirt with broken fingers, his torso a smoking ruin, a flicker of hateful blue light still burning in the cracked jewel of his chest as his repaireing skull looked towards Agemman.
He lifted his right arm, and fired his Tachyon Arrow straight through the captain's chest.
Maximus staggered upright, Judicator trembling in his blood-slick hands.
"By Guilliman," he whispered, voice thick with blood. "By the Emperor!"
Every nerve ending screamed protest.
His heart felt like it might burst from sheer exertion.
But he advanced.
He raised Judicator high, thrusters flaring with renewed fury, the hammer wreathed in searing golden fire.
Anrakyr turned his shattered head toward him, one remaining optic lens flaring balefully.
Maximus roared.
And brought Judicator down with all the hate, pain, and defiance left in his broken soul.
The hammer struck the Overlord's skull and chest with a cataclysmic boom, the thrusters detonating on impact, turning the ground into a crater of pulverized earth and molten metal.
Anrakyr's body seized, convulsed—
And then fell still, utterly destroyed.
Silence fell.
Maximus stood for a moment, swaying over the corpse, every fiber of his being trembling.
Then, at last, the strength left him.
He dropped to one knee, then collapsed fully, Judicator slipping from his fingers to lie beside him.
===
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