Swift Swooping Hawk
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Having followed this thread from start to finish, I'm pretty sure this hasn't been posted on Dakka, on this thread, however it's too funny not to include.
Contrary to popular belief, Kharn the Betrayer was a pretty fun guy to be around during a blood-letting campaign. Sure, he'd get so wrapped up in the blood-lust that he'd butcher friend and foe alike but it's not like you didn't get a fair warning from his name or anything.
I served in the traitor guardsman legions known as the Red Rivers, because we got sent in first to soften up the positions and you could see our progress by the red river of our blood. I kept running into Kharn during one of the bigger scourging campaigns, and he wasn't dickish about the whole him being a space marine and me being killed by laser-lights or angry glances at all.
The first time I saw him, I was on perimeter patrol at one of our forward outposts, we'd just overrun a Sororitas non-militant chapel, and the Slaanesh boys were shirking their duty to go rape the sisters in a clearing near the chapel. I was watching from afar when Kharn strides up, cool as you like holding the largest stone pillar I've ever seen. I turned back and the whole ****ing chapel was falling down. He'd just ripped the goddamn thing right out and was carrying it on his shoulders!
Then, if that wasn't insane enough he went and hefted this whole pillar through the air, and crushed the entire congregation of rape in the name of Slaanesh, defilers and victims all in one go.
I was just standing there dumbfounded when Kharn looked at me, as though noticing me for the first time and yet not surprised by my presence at all. He held his palm out, and I obliged him a high five. He'd earned it.
Damn well shattered every bone in my arm doing it though.
Nice guy that Kharn.
he second time I crossed paths with Kharn was in a later stage in the campaign. We were besieging one of the major hives of the planet, and I tell you what that place was locked up tighter than a Dark Eldar's pants. My commander, Oxlor the Vilest was stuck in an argument with some idiot leader of some group of Death Guard. You could see the smell it was so bad. I could tell Oxlor wasn't happy, since everyone knows the Death Guard's answer to everything is to just walk at it and watch your bits fly off. Not so good for us soft and squishy guys.
Out of nowhere, this big hand grabs our commander by the shoulder and just hefts him aside, three whole trenches back where he rebounds off a basilisk. The crew was so shocked they fired off a round on a horrible trajectory, and the shell streaked high into the sky.
Kharn the Betrayer just himself dusts himself down, and then picks back up what he had been holding. Now, I'm no techpriest and I never will be, but I know a nuclear warhead when I see it. I don't know where he got it.
No one says anything, so The Betrayer just punches the Plague marine in the face, and stuffs the warhead into the leaking mess of his stomach while he was still reeling.
No run up, no preparation. He just ****ing throws the other marine into the air at the hive. For a moment it actually looks like he's thrown the warp-damned fool OVER the hive, but as he flies over the top the basilisk shell comes down and spears him through the whole hive! There's a low boom noise, the ground shakes, and then the whole hive IMPLODES!
Everything clears, and Kharn looks at me, and I feel about one foot tall. I don't know if he recognised me, but he leans down and whispers. Kharn WHISPERS to me.
"I was trying to hit the Emperor's Children on the other side" he confides in me, and then nudges me as though it's supposed to be our little secret.
I was in traction for a MONTH
As I always say, Kharn the Betrayer was pretty fun to be around, and contrary to popular belief he actually had a sense of humour as well. Probably the best example was in the middle of the campaign during a sweeping of an Imperial Guard command post, with Khorne Berserkers and our Red Rivers company marching directly into the defensive fire. The closer we got, the more apparent it became that the only thing holding the Guardsmen together was a grizzled looking Commissar in full uniform, one gun turned on us and another firing on any of his men who looked like running.
Kharn was at the tip of the assault, and so he got to the Commissar first, plucking the screaming officer up by the neck and holding him over his head.
Then, out of nowhere one of the other berserkers grabs the Commissar's legs and roars "MAKE A WISH!". Well, as you can imagine everyone on both sides forgets about the fight, and watches Kharn and this other Khorne worshipping marine just start pulling on this Commissar at both ends, the old man screaming out oaths and curses like you wouldn't believe! You could almost hear the sound of flesh tearing and bone snapping over the cheering.
Then, Kharn just let go. Totally not expecting it and pulling with all his might, the Khorne Berserker just falls backwards and starts tumbling with the near dead Commissar into a damaged hellhound, his armour grating off it and sparking!
Well, after the explosion we all turned back to Kharn, who had managed to keep a hold of the Commissar's fancy hat. Ol' Kharn put it on, and damned if it wasn't the funniest thing any of us had ever seen... till he turned to us and bellowed "I'M THE NEW COMMISSAR" at us.
They tell me five thousand traitor guardsmen died that day before someone could take that hat off him.
What a kidder!
I've been fairly insistent to you readers out there that Kharn the Betrayer was a pretty fun guy to be around. I know he gets a bad rap for the whole 'slaughtering his own allies' thing, but unless you've been there after a battle with him you don't really appreciate how much he strives to please his chaos god.
It was after one of our many conflicts that the Red Rivers Infantry were preparing to march on to our next destination. Nevermind that it was half the planet away, we as traitor guard didn't get transport vehicles. So as you can imagine when someone declared they'd found an Imperial Drop-ship in working condition everyone clamoured and fought to get a free ride to our next engagement.
Knowing full well I was too far away to get on the ship, I stayed with some of my fellow traitors at the battlefield. I'd seen Kharn after the battle, and as soon as we'd gotten our marching orders he was picking up corpses and putting them down elsewhere. This took an hour before he was satisfied, and seeing an audience he happily led us up onto a hill as the drop-ship flew a pass over the top of us, probably to gloat. Proudly, Kharn gestured to the battlefield, and then waved up at the drop-ship with his other hand. I peered down the hill, and realized he'd arranged the bodies to make out words, so many killed to form:
On your drop ship hull
I planted a melta bomb
Blood for the Blood God
It was at that point the drop-ship erupted in a violent plume, and crashed down on top of the haiku. Roaring in a cheer, we lifted Kharn up together and made to carry him to the next battlefield as a sign of our appreciation and devotion to his art.
We got about five paces before our spines liquefied but Kharn didn't hold it against us for trying.
Seriously, what a guy!
Or
So, Eldrad Ulthran is a dick. It seems shocking to hear and I know he is the guiding light of our people, but in all honestly, he's a total dick.
I know this because I served with him. You see, I am a Warlock. You can imagine my excitement when I was first assigned to his retinue. I took no heed to the fact his last set of Warlocks supposedly died in "a most ironic manner". I was young back then, only 19 000, and naive.
As soon as I met Eldrad in person he gave me my first order: "find a howling banshee exarch, and a witch blade for yourself, we are going to Setrus Prime (as the monkeigh called it)." He actually said the parenthesis by leaning forward and placing a hand beside his mouth to direct his voice to me alone. He is kind of a douche that way, we were in the room alone.
Anyway, Eldrad, the banshee exarch and I sortie to the planet's surface. I project some illusionary cover to shield our hiding spot and the exarch and I await more orders. Before us a great battle is being waged between a force of the monkeigh Space Marines and our fallen brethren, the Dark Eldar. About 20 minutes into the battle Eldrad points to a pebble by his foot and says "Move this small stone to where I am pointing now." He points to an innocuous patch of ground. Dumbfounded but trusting, I do as he says.
No sooner had I reached cover did a Space Marine bike roar past me, straight over the pebble. The mighty treads of the bike's wheels fling the pebble up into an empty stretch of air. It hangs there for a moment, then a Dark Eldar reaver rushes into it, the pebble sucked into its jet intake. The reaver sputters then bursts into flames, accelerating rapidly, right into a Talos. The Talos was not of regular design, not that any ever are. This one was a mass of spinning blades with a screaming humanoid in its center, the body of which was too mutilated to even identify its race.
I might mention at this point that Eldrad has not turned to look at the ensuing chaos, instead he is staring in the direction of myself and our howling banshee companion.
When the reaver hit the talos, all hell broke loose as the twirling saws of the unsavory machine broke free like angry daemons being exorcised. I saw one blade, bouncing and racing directly towards us at ludicrous speeds. And I am an Eldar, I know speed. I brace my witch blade for the impact readying myself to take the blow, to save the farseer in my protection. The blades hit and both the saw and the witch blade veer off directly towards the banshee exarch. Both blades merely graze her, just deep enough to cut the restraints that hold her costume on. As her armour falls away exposing her breasts, I realize why Eldrad was staring at her. He giggles, then orders a full retreat.
What a dick.
So Eldrad is a huge dick, but I think I have proven that by now. What I haven't told you is that he is, without a doubt, the greatest psyker in the universe.
I never saw this more exemplified than when we went to deal with a splinter fleet of Hive Fleet Leviathan. The first thing Eldrad did was use his massive reservoir of power to redirect the entire hive fleet 0.3 degrees off course. At first we had no idea why, but he assured us there was a reason. 134 years later we encountered the swarm again, and now we saw his plan, the fleet was heading straight into a desolate backwater planet. Using yet more of his might, Eldrad hid the entire planet from the fleet's sight. This caused the entire hive fleet to crash square into the planet's surface. He then called for me and the rest of his retinue to sortie down to the planet, we had a mission.
Once on the surface the bleeding husks of charred hive ships loomed over us like cold organic volcanoes. And then in a clearing, we found our quarry, a mighty hive tyrant, its psychic eminence clouding my own mind like a thick whispering fog. Eldrad was not taken aback in the slightest, he stepped forward, unarmed, right into the clutches of the hive tyrant. He then began to emulate the hive tyrant's psychic powers, only at a much higher magnitude. He had made himself into a synapse creature of immense power. So much so he brow beat the mighty tyranid into submission. He then turned to us, tyranid leader in tow, and said, we are returning, we have what we came for.
Although impressed by Eldrad's mastery of the mind, we all could not stop pondering his master plan. Why would he need such a mighty beast? It was not till the next morning that I knew. Pasted throughout the ENTIRE CRAFTWORLD were pictures of the titanic monstrosity and its ..... titanic monstrosity resting on my face as I slept. I never even knew tyranids had genitalia.
What a dick.
You know, Eldrad Ulthran really is a dick. I've said it before, and I have absolutely no doubt that I will say it again. He has skill and power of heights that are only reachable, even for most Eldar, in their dreams, and how does he use them? He uses them like this:
Years ago, a minor Ork Waaagh sprung up and launched itself against the Mon Keigh world they call Lentak II. It's an insigificant planet by any definition except, apparently, Eldrad's. He summoned me and told me we were going to Lentak, and that it was of the utmost importance to see that a certain battle took a particular course. He also told me to bring along the best sniper I could find, adding that "He might come in handy," with a wink like he was passing on some kind of secret message. Typical Eldrad behavior, that.
So, we get down to the surface of Lentak and locate the "important" battle, in a rocky pass high up in a mountain range. Eldrad isn't wearing his helmet, the better to display the horribly annoying half-smile that's on his face the whole time, the one he puts on when he knows something you don't and is about to use that information. I'm busy projecting an illusion to keep Mon Keigh and the Orks from noticing us, Eldrad and the sniper are just watching the battle from the rock outcrop where we're standing. Finally, Eldrad points at a particular Ork nob riding in the back of one of their wartrukks.
"That one. Take off his ear. His *left* ear. Right...now."
The sniper fires, cleanly severing the Ork's ear. The thing roars like the beast it is, looks around, and smacks the Ork beside it right off the back of the bouncing vehicle. The fallen Ork doesn't even have time to stop rolling before it gets run over by another Ork on a warbike; the bike nearly crashes, and one of the bombs sitting in a rack near the back bounces loose and falls to the ground. Eldrad looks at it, nods in satisfaction, and motions for us to leave.
Five of the Mon Keigh years pass. Five blessed, beloved years, in which I do not hear nor see Eldrad a single time. I don't know where he was, or what he does when he's not busy being a dick; probably off seducing Tau or members of whatever other young race has caught his fancy recently. Anyway, those five years pass all too quickly, and then Eldrad comes back, contacts me, and tells me we're going back to Lentak II, just the two of us. This, of course, sets my teeth on edge, because I know he's going to do something unbearably dickish, but I can't exactly refuse the most important Farseer of my Craftworld.
Sure enough, we wind up back in that same mountain pass, watching a column of Imperial Guard troops march past. This time, we're down at roughly the same level as the guardsmen, but since there are only two of us, it's easy for me to project sufficient camouflage. Good thing, because Eldrad sure wasn't helping. I notice that the wreckage from the battle years ago hasn't been completely cleaned; some has been pushed up against the walls of the pass, some hasn't.
I belatedly remember the fallen bomb and start to look for it, but before I can spot it, a Chimera with a commissar riding in its open hatch finds it on its own. The explosion bounces the vehicle into the air, and the unsecured commissar goes flying. Shrapnel flies towards us and I dodge, rolling across the ground to avoid the splintered metal.
When I look up, I see Eldrad, standing with the sunrise behind him, posed like a statue with his head high and his fists on his hips. An instant later, the commissar's hat lands right on his head. And Eldrad, the dick, holds the pose and smirks at me. I almost dropped the illusion and let the Mon Keigh kill us both, but then I realized Eldrad would probably have some way of escaping even that.
Never in my nearly twenty thousand years of life have I met a bigger dick than Eldrad Ulthran.
So, I've already told you about how Eldrad Ulthran is a dick. You've heard it all, all the sad stories...except, of course, you haven't, because Eldrad constantly generates more indignities to pile upon me. I thought he'd give me a break after the incident Tissalk Secunda; he really went too far on that one, and after they finally stopped laughing, the rest of the expeditionary force were giving him some funny looks. I thought he wouldn't anything else so soon. I was wrong.
With the Grey Ones rising again to wage war against all life, many of our priorities have been shifted to meet this resurgent threat. Thus, when Eldrad said he was working on a project and needed the body of a Necron warrior, everyone assumed he meant it was for research into some kind of weapon to use against them. Under any other circumstances, getting the order from Eldrad to gather a raiding group together would have filled me with fear that I was going to be the butt of another joke, but even Eldrad has to be serious where the ancient enemy is concerned...right?
Besides, to be honest, I was too busy being afraid of the Grey Ones to worry about whatever dickish maneuver Eldrad must be planning. I've faced the Mon Keigh, the Orks, our fallen brethren, and the horrors of the Warp, and such foes do not frighten me, but the soulless enemy does. They're so...cold. Nevertheless, let it not be said that I did not do my duty when called upon.
We flew almost to the edge of the galaxy; myself, my handpicked force, and Eldrad, who actually acted professionally during the long transit. I kept glancing over my shoulder, literally and metaphorically, expecting his true nature to assert itself, but we reached the tomb world without incident. We landed on that ancient soil, and all my senses were screaming at me to get back in the ship and get away, back to Ulthwe and (relative) safety. But we went further. We went down into a tomb, Eldrad opening the way for us.
Down in that darkness, I was more scared than I ever had been in my whole life, all 19,872 years of it; this was one of the most nerve-wracking (if not THE most nerve-wracking) tasks I'd ever been given as a member of Eldrad's retinue. Eldrad had a device with him, a band of wraithbone he claimed had taken him nearly a year to create; he told us that it would keep a Necron in stasis, regardless of what transpired. He also said that our presence wouldn't wake the tomb world; I just had to cling tight to my staff and pray that he was right. Naturally, Eldrad being Eldrad, we couldn't just grab the warrior closest to the entrance and run for it; we had to find the "right" one, which meant walking for nearly an hour into the tomb's depths before he finally selected one identical to every other warrior and locked the band around its head.
By the time we get back to the surface, which took even longer than going in because we dropped that heavy Necron no less than four times on the way back, I'm a bundle of nerves, and it only gets worse during the flight. I can't sleep inside our little ship, knowing that soulless killing machine is onboard with us, knowing about the wars that they fought against our ancestors, and what kind of deaths the Eldar in those days met. It keeps running through my head that it's almost my birthday, that I'll soon be turning 19,873, and that I don't want to get snuffed out before I hit the twenty-thousand-year mark. That's no way for an Eldar to go.
The ship arrives back at Ulthwe the day before my birthday. Eldrad, grinning enigmatically, heads off to his workshop with the Necron, and I stumble up to my cozy dwelling bubble and fall straight into bed, still wearing the same warlock robes I've been wearing since the tomb world. Yes, it was nasty, like something a Mon Keigh would do. I was so tired I didn't care. If that Necron wanted to get me, it'd have to fight through half of Ulthwe to reach me, coming from Eldrad's bubble complex. I slept at last.
Not that it helped much. In my dreams, I'm back in the tomb, with Grey Ones rising to life around me. I run, but I'm trapped; I try to fight, and I get torn into bleeding shreds. I wake up, feeling barely better than when I got off the mission ship, and realize that it's my birthday. Congratulations, self. Outside my bubble, I can sense the collected presence of family and friends, come to wish me success in my new year. Well, you only turn 19,873 once, so I drag myself out of bed, toss my grimy robes aside, and head for the shower; I figure a little session there should revive me enough to at least face my well-wishers graciously. I step through the bathroom door, pull back the shower curtain, and the Necron is in my shower cubicle.
THE NECRON IS IN MY SHOWER CUBICLE. Poised as if to strike, hands raised and clawed metal fingers spread - that memory is one I shall carry to the end of time.
I do the worst thing I possibly could. I panic. I scream at the top of my lungs and run headlong...out of the bathroom...out of my dwelling bubble...and come face-to-face with my birthday crowd. While wearing my "birthday suit," just like a scene from an embarrassing nightmare. There's a moment in which everyone goes silent - everyone except Eldrad, standing off to one side, his snickering audible to all.
I suspect that they'll still be talking about this when I turn 20,000. Thanks, Eldrad. Way to ruin my birthday.
What a dick.
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time ten times ten!=100!
@* up with my mind!
1500 (Work In Progress) 
~2100 pts
~2400 pts (Paladins, not imperial fist or gryphons!)
~2000 pts
Waaagh! 