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I would like some feed back on this draft i am working on for my background on my made up chapter, Grey Legion. I need to pad out some of the encounters and also add some fluff references such as the space marine ability to heal wounds etc, but before i continue i wanted some feed back from veteran writers.
The Battle of a Thousand Nights
Smoke filled the battlefield as the two armies clashed over and over, seemingly without end. Captain Sylith assessed the scene with a practised eye. His space marine enhanced vision made it an easy chore. His battle brother and friend of 87 years grumbled, 'This is a lost cause and we are in dire need of reinforcements.' Captain Sylith knew that Otal Al'thr was not one to give up easily, regardless of his words. He thought back to the time he live was saved by his long time friend. In that battle they were surrounded by orks. Many of his battle brothers had quit the field to his disgust. All but Otal that is. 3 days and nights him, Otal and 3 other brothers fought in bitter hand to hand combat. Both Otal and himself were saved many times by their terminator armor, but at a cost. The armor on both warriors was damaged. Otal's left leg was now healed over thanks to his super human healing abilities but the armor was torn away, exposing it. All it would take was a direct his, and even his awesome healing abilities wouldn't save the leg.
Suddenly, a massive ork charged the group hoping to accomplish a blitz attack and finish the space marines once and for all. Captain Sylith was in directly exposed to the ork's charge, it's massive power klaw snapping at his head. Bearly dodging the ferocious attack, Captain Sylith accidentally tripped over and fell into a mortar ditch. Seeing the advantage, the ork all but dived after the Captain seeking to land the killing blow. It would have succeeded had it not been for faithful Otal. Risking life and limb, Otal threw his chainsword at the ork, hitting it in the head, killing it instantly. However, this act of bravery would not go unpunished, as a cowardly ork attacked him from behind and severed his exposed leg. Both victim and attacker went down in a heap and with quick thinking Otal managed to stab his thumbs into the orks eyes, piercing its brain. By this time the Captain had recovered and called his remaining brothers to the aid of Otal. For the remainder of the day, all four of them stood over Otal's body and slew ork after ork. Eventually after at the end of the day, the four warriors were saved by reinforcements.
Captain Sylith was brought back to the present with a huge explosion to his left. He turned to his second and shouted, 'Send the drone for reinforcements.' The second ran off towards the command center to carry out the order. Otal said, 'It will be a miracle if that drone reaches anyone in time.' 'Then we will fight for the emperor until death and meet our lost brothers in the sky if that is what the emperor wishes. It will be a cold day in hell when i let even one of these cursed traitors live while i still have breath in my body.' Otal only smiled in reply. It was the smile of one that is dammed to death and dares to laugh in its face.
In the command center, the second was finishing off the message and preparing the drone to launch. A thud shook the command center and the drone speed off with a trail of smoke. The second sent a quick prayer to the emperor and ran back to the raging battle.
The Twisted Fate of Chaos
Weather though fortune, fate or the twisted agenda of Chaos, the drone containing the precious message was sucked into a warp storm close to the planet. The storm spat the drone out the other side and straight towards an imperial ship travelling in the sector. Badly damaged, it was still transmitting and so the ship tractor beamed it into it's hold. The techpriest on duty read the message and immediately sent an acolyte to the captain with the drones contents.
Inquisitor Faltho read the message with trepidation after having been briefed by the acolyte as to the drones contents and travel path. 'Either it is a trick from chaos, or it is a heresy that required attention' he thought to himself. He read the message again,
--Reinforcements required in sector 482732953-e planet Orthos V. The forces of chaos have overrun -- UNSALVAGEABLE -- Blue Hawks. Respond with extreme prejudice.
He sat back in his chair and thought, 'If the emperors own warriors have succumbed to heresy, then it is my duty to take care of it, trap or not.
Suddenly decisive, the Inquisitor ordered the Astropath to make a course to the stricken planet.
The Battle of Orthos
Captain Sylith saw the ship in the sky and blessed the emperor's name. Already drop pods were raining down through the atmosphere and the Captain predicted the reinforcements would be here within a few hours. It had been several months since the drone had been sent and even the captain had started to loose hope that any help would be coming. He ordered his new second, the previous one being blasted to bits but a rocket several weeks ago, to spread the word. Not that it was needed. Anyone with eyes could see the drop pods like steal rain dropping to the earth.
Anxious for the reinforcements to arrive so as to avoid any more unnecessary losses to his command, the captain sent a scout to see how far away they were. Soon after, the scout came running back with worrisome news. He had witnessed one of the brothers being shot with a boltgun coming from the direction of the reinforcements. As soon as he had delivered his report, several explosions detonated too close to comfort. The captain could see the reinforcements joining in battle with his forces. Now that they were closer, he could see that they were the fabled Grey Knights of the Inquisition. Theorising that this was a trick of chaos, and that the reinforcements were in fact for the forces of chaos that they had been fighting for months now, Captain sylith sent orders to meet the threat with the little forces he had left cursing himself for stupidity that had already cost many lives.
Inquisitor Faltho smiled to himself. Soon the evil chaos hordes would be dealt with and he could be on his way back to the pleasure planet he was heading to before this unpleasantness. Assessing the battlefield, it seemed that the forces of chaos were in fact fighting each other. Reasoning that these were the Khorne berserkers he had studied he disregarded it. He did not even consider where the drone message had come from nor how the drone had Imperial access codes.
The inquisitor turned to his fellow in arms, Inquisitor Torh. 'It seems that we will soon be finished here.' Inquisitor Faltho said smugly. Inquisitor Torh hated the fool Faltho and with barely disguised contempt replied, 'It would seem so.' But Inquosotir Torh felt something was wrong here. The enemy had not disfigured their armor, not was it in disrepair as was usual for a chaos force. It was also the usual practice of chaos hordes to remove all symbols of what they considered to be the false emperor. This however was not the case with these, these... whoever they were. He continued to ponder this as the battle continued.
Infestation
Plague Lord Ralthros chuckled to himself. The battle was going according to plan and soon this world would be the realm of Nurgle completely. Chaos was eternal and all would be crushed in its might. Ralthros coughed and spluttered, an occurrence not uncommon with the followers of Nurgle, however what happened next was very unusual. He looked down to his bloated stomach where suddenly there was an overwhelming pain. Having these kind of pains before as his body transformed to resemble his god, he only considered in an inconvenience and interruption to watching the battle. Suddenly nad without warning his gut exploded all over his companions, and a creature covered in black bile fell out of the remains as they toppled backward. The monstrosity unfurled itself and soon an alien with sharp claws for hands stretched out and screamed at the sky. All around, guts were exploding as marine after marine fall to the same phenomenon. Those few marines that did not fall were soon consumed by the horde of monsters. The chaos front collapsed to be replaced by a new threat for the blue hawks, that of the dreaded Tyranids. However the blue hawk marines were not so easily swayed by such events and continued fighting the new threat with equal vigour.
Oblivious to the goings on at the front, Inquisitor Faltho continued to watch the battle between his forces and the blue hawks unfold. Under his feet, he could hear a rumbling. Thinking that is was artillery firing he ignored it. Inquisitior Torh however, not quite knowing what was about to happen, but sure the rumbling was not anything natural, dove out the way. If he was wrong, he could face his peers later, but as it happened he was not wrong. The ground erupted upward, right where he had been standing seconds before. Two giant wicked looking things that could only be described as massive bone swords attached to massive arms unfurled and stabbed Inquisitor Faltho right through the back and leg with lightening speed. He screamed at the top of his lungs as deadly toxins were pumped into his body. His screams were cut short however when the claws ripped him apart, leaving a bloody mess of armor and flesh on the ground. Not fazed in the slightest, Inquisitor Torh, who had seen more horrors than he could count, took command and ordered his troops to stop fighting the 'chaos' marines and start fighting the new enemy behind their lines. With a grim expression, he drew his power sword and charged the horror before him that towered several feet over the humans.
A Forging Alliance
Captain Sylith could scarce believe his eyes. Everywhere before him, his enemies were exploding in a bloody mess, consumed by an alien force he thought he would never see again after the campaign of blood and tears. A scout ran up to him and breathlessly reported, 'The enemy forces on our rear have broken off and are fighting the aliens that have appeared in their ranks.' Having overheard the report, Otal said, 'Let us take the change then and fight the new threat with our supposed allies.' Agreeing the Captain ordered the commanders to take defensive positions and attack the aliens.
As the battle continued, the lines between the blue hawks and the grey knights were soon blurred. It wasn't long before both forces were fighting side by side as brothers. With the fighting running hot, both forces were hard pressed to defend against the alien threat, but defend they did and eventually the tide started to turn and the alien horde was repelled. As they would soon find out however, the threat had only just begun.
At the last few aliens were taken care of, Inquisitor Torh took an honour guard and set off towards the command group of the opposing army. Reaching Captain Sylith, he used command code that only a space marine commander of the last few hundred years would know. As Captain Sylith easily gave the correct answers, both commanders were at ease. They spend the next few minutes sorting out the details of what had happened and how the miscommunication had caused brother to fight brother. Both commanders satisfied, they turned to getting their forces in order and sent out scouts to access the damage done. As the mess was cleaned up and dead were stripped of their gene seed a great feast was held in remembrance of the lost and those that had once been enemies created a common bond, loss of their brothers.
A New Beginning, An Old Threat
Throughout the fighting, the warp storm that took the drone to it's destination had spread and now circled the planet, cutting off any escape. Once the forces found this out, they were disheartened, as they knew that the storm could last years, decades or evne centuries. As time went on and years turned into decades, changes started to happen with the trapped space marines. Firstly, they emigrated into one force, instead of two. To commemorate this, they changed their armor color to a mixture of the blue hawks blue and the grey knight grey. Because the blue hawks had a far larger stockpile of spare armor, the force adopted the hawk symbol as the main symbol of the community. All armor was adorned with the hawk and soon the inquisitor's symbol was phased out.
Because the battle of blood and tears was such a epic battle, and as time went on, the feats performed in that battle became more and more heroic, the fighting force created some traditions to commemorate and remember that fateful day. All warriors grew their hair out and plated it in a warriors tail. One strand to represent the blue hawks, one for the inquisitors and one for the emperor himself. In addition, they adopted a new name, the Grey Legion.
To this day, the Grey Legion fight the alien threat on the planet they have called home for seven centuries now. But the aliens are not the only threat that Grey Legion must deal with. There are also frequent incursions from hordes of chaos, drawn to the area by the warp storm. Horrible daemons, aliens and vile traitors of every kind assault the planet and each year Grey Legion's numbers grow fewer. As their numbers dwindle, they grow every more hopeful that the storm will dissipate and they will be able to leave.
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