"Isaiah see to your brother.... Davian see if Denatus still lives. Bring them back to our position." Caphen said in a monotone voice, seeing all the wounded astartes and thinking of those they had lost. Turning to the Iron Hand Caphen extended his arm in greeting. "Thank you for the assistance brother. How fares your part of the deployment?"
"GET BACK HERE YOU COWARDS!" Davian plants himself at a stone edging with kraken shells forming a streak of crimson that chased fruitlessly after their enemies grav-vehicles. Maintaining a solid six second burst before realizing there was no hope of bringing down another of their flimsy vehicles he turns his head toward Caphen and nods. "Affirmative. " Davian grunted and set down his heavy bolter, unclipping it's ammo feed momentarily so loyal companion wouldn't be drug along with him as he went up to fetch Denatus. Dragging their Destroyer back he says nothing of what happened.
"There is no reason to walk into this deadly cloud for neither me nor the idiot, i choose the path of the destroyer and carry its weight." Denatus said over the general location vox channel for all to hear, no one needed to carry him out of his own mess, instead he opted to own it. He was still breathing, and still on his knees from the wound received, he reached up and unclampted his helmet. The pain was instant, phosphex left no respite for anyone in its wake, but alas, Denatus was already damaged by acid, he would never be handsome again. With one arm he clinging over the Eldar cut that had opened his stomach no need to expose too much of yourself to the deadly toxin. And with the reseeding phosphex mist burning away at his armour and eating at his flesh, Denatus left the toxic cloud, "I regret nothing i did this day, my kill tally carries honor" he said with lungs burning from the savage toxin, before he fell forwards as he activated his Sus-an membrane, and entered suspended animation for his body to recover and receive proper medical treatment
As much as it pained him, Arnock could not show it. He carried the banner of Fulgrim's chosen, and to feel pain was to be weak. Weak was something he could not be and so he moved back over to his squad. Though bleeding and injuried fairly badly he did not stumble.
"Rylanor will survive. He is currently in suspended animation and has been stabilized but we need to get him with our wounded to our ships in orbit ASAP for immediate care to see if we have bionics to replace his limbs and organs that have been lost. We will make sure he survives." Theo said As he looked over now to the two brothers now stuck within the cloud of Toxins, Theo knew needed to work on Elijah and Denatus to clean there systems of toxins already Denatus fell into suspended animation. But that would have to wait, "There are more xenos inside the tower, I do not know what they planned or if they can continue to fire upon us within it maybe a good idea to bring it down from the outside." Theo suggested as he looked to his Hud, "Caphen come here for a moment so I can Fix your arm." Theo said to Caphen as he kept a eye monitoring Rylanor's Vitals. The apothecary more concerned at the moment with keeping Rylanor alive and his brother health up as well.
"You." Elijah coughed from the pain within his helmet, his body numbing up while just feeling even more pain. "You fool and bastard.... Denatus.... The path of destroyer is to destroy the enemy.... Not yourself! Nor endanger your brethren! .... Your kill tally carries nothing if you are careless like that.... If kills is all that matters to you, then why not kill all of us since your prior attempt failed?!" The Devastator at this point cared little what the others would think. He knew he did what he could to protect the others, taking most of the blast radius. He knows he attempted to save the suicidal Denatus. And he very well knew that the entire decision of the fool was wrong. If an Astartes would turn to even only try to kill one of his own - that would make him a traitor in Elijah's book. And while before it was a stab into his heart to hear that the squad shall be split. Right now? Perhaps it would be to the better of all of them, another squad shall die at the stupidity of this 'Honorable Destroyer'. The Devastator simply continued to cough, not even attempting to move.
"Calm your heart, brother among brothers", Isaiah said to his brother quietly, kneeling at his side. "Right now, what is more important than accusations of incompetence is to ensure your safety." Putting away his bolter, Isaiah caressed his brother's bare face as softly as was possible with his armour, and then hoisted him up, not afraid of the remaining horror-weapon's taint upon him. He was furious at Denatus, but right now, Elijah was his very first priority, doubly so since the Sergeant ordered it. The man wished that his brother would have been cut down by a xenos. Because it would have meant he could have sword bloody revenge for this. But as it was, he could only carry pointless resentment towards a fellow, if lesser, brother in his heart. Slowly, carefully, he moved his brother away from the furiously blazing tower, and towards his fellow Astartes, hoping that the Apothecarius could treat the worst of the man's wounds, even if his beloved brother was certainly out of commission for the remainder of this mission. Quietly, Isaiah wept tears at the continued affronts to Elijah's honour, affronts that the man himself had no hand in.
Caphen looked at the destroyer as he entered suspension. A look of boiling anger under his serene helmet. Without taking his eyes off the marine he spoke. "6th squad, hear me. I want what just happened to be a lesson to us all. If brother Denatus had followed orders and waited for the command to strike, then Brother Rylanor's life may not be hanging in the balance. Brother Job would not have to risk his life to protect us from greater harm." His choler rose as he became flustered by his own anger. He took a moment to regain his composure before speaking once more. "We are not Iron Warriors who throw life away needlessly. We are sons of Fulgrim! We are the Emperor's chosen, the only Legion who has the HONOR and the PRIVELEGE of bearing the aquila into battle!" Caphen turned to his brothers capturing their attention now as he banged his fist on his chest where the aquila lay. "We strive for perfection! To achieve such a thing means we MUST have unity! By not being united we are imperfect and impure in the eyes of The Illuminator and his father." The sergeant took time to look in each of their eyes to send the message he bore home. Raising his sword and pointing it at the banner held aloft by Arnock, Caphen delivered his final message. "For Fulgrim and The Emperor. Death to their foes." Caphen waited for reply from his battle brothers as he once more looked at them. Battered and bloody, but still standing tall as images of death incarnate. OOC: HUGE edit, but seems more appropriate for my character's established personality. Also Denatus is in suspension and so yelling at him isnt too cool.
<Ruins - aftermath> @DeranVendar @Uriel1339 @Avenging-Angel @Vulpas @Grall_Stonefist @EvicusDasan1 @Casavay @matt23 "It turned out this bloody jungle was infested with eldar and their lackeys," Iron Father replied to Caphen, "We came across their hidden camp and made short work of them, but then they summoned some sort of lizardmen aliens and the following battle was fierce, but we sent them running like the scum they are. And then we spotted those darker eldar closing in from the orbit so we tried to make haste towards the ruins, hoping to find you here and my only regret is that I couldn't have reached you faster, maybe I'd be able to protect Rylanor..." he trailed off, the wounding of his old comrade obviously made Korda quite bitter. He then turned towards the center of the top floor and ran some scans. "Alright, the toxin has dispersed at the moment. Brother Sergeant, me and my men will guard your wounded and set up a perimeter in case more of the aliens show up. I have also sent word and our Stormbirds are incoming, ETA 15 minutes. Plenty of time for you to check the interior of that tower. I detect faint movement inside, not more than couple of living forms so I take it you won't have trouble dealing with it no?" <Ruins - Tower> OOC ok I guess only Elijah and Denatus can't go and check the tower due to their wounds. Theo can go and check it as well, we can assume Iron Hands can guard the wounded. Also, Caphen's arm has been fixed. For others, no worries about the state of your characters, there won't be really any battle to be had inside of it. While the wounded were left outside and taken care of by the Iron Hands, the remaining part of the 6th squad made their way inside the tower to check on what the really was happening there. They walked down a narrow corridor, seeing bodies of Dire Avengers and Wyches everywhere. The battle was obvious fierce and the blood sprayed the stone walls and various murals. Eventually they reached a circular chamber where a curved structure, obviously of eldar origin, stood and light around it flickered as if damaged somehow, but any obvious signs of ruin were well-beyond their sight. Like before, the floor was riddled with alien corpses but they saw one of them actually being alive. Farseer Analea knelt, using her staff to hold herself, her face drained and her form looking quite battered. "Step away mon'keigh, this is no place for your kind. You have done nothing but bring death to us and now you came to take everything! Leave us be!" she shouted but there was no power behind her voice. At the same time, they saw another form hiding behind one part of the circular structure and much to their surprise, it was some kind of a young alien. It looked at them with wide black eyes, mixed with fear and curiosity, an eldar child no older than 5 terran years. Seeing this, Analea slowly rose up and stood guard in front of the little one, as if to protect it with her body. "Leave us! There is nothing for you to find here!"
Treading over scene of familiar violence with an expression wrought in steel Davian held heavy bolter aloft tracking back and forth across the shadows in the event of enemy ambush, none too keen on just expecting the Farseer and- was that a child? "What in the Emperor's name was that doing here alone?" It certainly put a damper on his thoughts the sight as a whole. Helmet having been removed Devastator looks to Caphen out of the corner of his eye, head tipped just far enough over to make it clear he was speaking to him. "Little honor in executing a beaten foe, and xenos or not last I checked slaughtering the helpless is more World Eater's madness and Space Wolf barbarism. " It wasn't toned as a means of saying they shouldn't do it, in all honestly Davian certainly felt a degree of hesitation on this markedly different than his attitude when weapons were first lowered. His own was still ready and trained in on adult xeno willing to take the low-risk guess that even like this she would probably be more dangerous than the child at this stage.
