You push further into the city after a night of furtive rest and exhausting sentry duty.

Belial has organized scouts, a vanguard platoon, rearguard, firebase and outriders to catch flankers.

A few hours into the city, moving slowly and using cover, staying out of the streets to avoid killing fields and ambushes you start finding bodies. You don't recognize the uniforms, but they are scattered here and there, missing heads and limbs, stabbed, cut, shot, burned.

None of them have any weapons or gear.

------------------[197]---------------------

One of your scouts returns, alone. His arm is bleeding from what appears to be shrapnel. He breathlessly reports contact with an unknown force. Dark-skinned men in white uniforms opened fire from a building top and a rocket exploded nearby, killing his scouting team.

He estimates they're about 300 meters directly to your van.

[Private to Apollyon: (Tactics to come up with a good strategy, Leadership to get them to follow it well)]

Apollyon had never led men before. He had not been trained to do so; many men spent their entire lives trying to discover how to lead... But despite the challenge he knew fate demanded it, and one could not argue with fate.

The medic dictated his course of action:

The mortar was to provide indirect fire on the building, along with a support base consisting of one platoon. Meanwhile another would prepare and then conduct an assault on these strangers. They would drive the foe before them and smash this unknown enemy in Jehovah's name. Apollyon did not think on what defeat might mean... Because they could not afford to fail, so they would not.

Apollyon wordlessly indicated his intent. His hands danced to a tune only he and his comrades understood, each flicking of his fingers and waving of his palm a quiet command.

Then he looked to Belial, most beloved of all his brothers, and he nodded in readiness.

20:50, Today: Secret Roll: Apollyon rolled 7 using 2d6. Leadership.
20:48, Today: Secret Roll: Apollyon rolled 9 using 2d6+1. Tactics. 
This message was last edited by the player at 04:01, Tue 05 Mar 2013.

The men trust you and have great respect for you, you now realize. These boys are now men, you've spent what seems like years training with them, living with them, fighting by their side. Now they look on you with admiration and respect as they file off into the shadows of the ruined city filled with grim determination for the battle to come.

You want to go forward and join them, but Belial stops you and shakes his head. He knows what you're thinking almost before you do and he seems to feel the same way, but you know that if you're to lead this battle it will not be from the front. Not this time.

He leads you up crumbling stairs to a high vantage point over looking the whole square below and the buildings beyond. Belial hands you a comm unit and sets up under some hanging rubble with his rifle and peers down the scope towards the enemy, just observing along with you.

You watch your sharp shooters sneak into place and your mortar team sets up in a window to your left across the shattered fountain.

A light flashes twice from the mortar position and Belial sets up his own light, the headlights of the ground car wired to a power cell and flashes back thrice at the mortar position and the sniper nest.

A series of shots ring out and the distant -ka-thum- of a mortar launch followed shortly by a flash of fire and smoke and the delayed sound of the blast reaching your ears.

You can see as the forward enemy line collapses under dedicated overwatch fire and your ground platoon pushes through to take their position and establish a firebase.

To the left flank Agathion leads your assault platoon with handguns and grenades and catches the regrouping enemy forces off guard. The mortar team picks up speed as they become more and more comfortable with the weapon and their rounds on target increases. You realize at this rate they'll exhaust their ammunition before the fight is over, but it seems to be giving you a massive advantage.

The defenders respond with a few clumsy rockets and you can see you've taken some losses but you have the battle.

"Agathion to Apollyon, we have the field. God is with us. Orders?" your assault leader comes through the comms.

Apollyon was reluctant to allow Belial to hold him back from the front. His fingers itched, but not for a trigger - they inched their way subconciously towards the rudimentary aid bag he'd slung over his shoulder. Apollyon knew things. Knew how to heal men, or at the least how to mend them... But it was for the best, he realized. If he died the attack would descend into chaos as organization broke down. Without a clear leader they would meet defeat, and Elias was sure: there were no second chances in this city of death.

The attack carried through. The mortars roared gouts of bright fire. Men stormed the enemy position. He saw smoke, cracking rifle barrels, and then it was over.

"Apollyon to Agathion. Then we cannot fail," Apollyon responded as his thumb depressed the radio's transmitting activator "For God is indomnitable. Break." The stated pause in communications lasted a few moments. It gave Apollyon time to think, while simultaneously clearing the channel should any other chatter need to come through.

His next statement came slowly. Each word was stated slowly, to ensure clarity over the background noise of the radio. "Gather the wounded and form a perimiter in the enemy's firebase. Salvage what ammunition you can from the fallen."

"We press on soon. We would be ARKANGELOS, and angels do not tire, brother." He'd request an ACE (ammunition, casualties, and equipment) report when security was established over their new fighting position.

It didn't take long before the "All Clear" came back across the comm, indicated they had captured the structure and set up a perimeter. You and Belial met up with your command platoon and moved to survey the results of your attack.

"Sir, we have some wounded. Seven of them. We've gathered them up on the ground floor with your medical equipment. What can we do to help?" A squad leader saluted you after presenting you with the aftermath of the battle.

"I'll round up everyone else and get you the ACE report, captain." Belial was already issuiing silent orders to several of his personal retinue.

"Give me a hand with these men," Apollyon instructed "We must dress and clean their wounds, brother, before the devil's rot begins to fester." He knelt down with them and went to his work. At the back of his mind, as he stained his hands red with blood, he could not help but feel like Moses... With two great walls of seawater at his sides, each threatening to crush him with their tremendous weight.

What was one to do? Press on. Did Jonah die in the belly of a whale? Did Joshua surrender the Holy Land to the Phillistines? Apollyon grabbed hold of another pressure bandage and applied it to a torn arm. He kept working, keeping his mind busy while his mind raced with possibilities in the absence of Belial's report.

Perhaps the injuries were too great, or the Lord of Lords wanted to take these men to the Kingdom and it was their time. Only one in seven survived the night. The rest died of blood loss, shock or slipped into a fevered coma and did not awake. Belial begged you on the third morning to teach him what you knew of the healing arts so that he could assist you and train others to form a medical corp among your forces.

--- 184 ---

The enemy casualties far outnumbered your losses. By the next morning you received the count of thirty-nine enemy dead. Not all had died quickly, but some had gone in the night of untreated wounds. At least a handful of enemy soldiers had escaped deeper into the city and evaded pursuit following the initial assault.

Some rations and ammunition were found. They had weapons too, similar to yours but different enough they likely did not come from the same world. They had not been ANGELOS recruites but some other force, though they had no identification, just as your men did not. The night revealed more of the larger battle. Tracer rounds in the distance, explosions, the glowing detonation of mortars and shells far away and the ever present fires that raged in the city.

Slow and careful advances met with minor skirmishes with roving patrols. When your patrols could not drive them off, you and Belial rallied your forces and drove through, routing them pushing deeper and deeper in.

--- 180 ---

You finally noticed something different after almost a week in the city.
One morning, the sky was filled with the screech of supersonic flyers. You saw them yourself from your command post and they flew in, dozens of them, disappeared into the city and several hours later rose again and flew back out the way they had come in. What's more, they were almost certainly transport flyers of some unknown kind.

Apollyon promised to share what secrets he had with Belial. It did him no good to horde them. What he knew, he hoped, might save lives. Especially when more learned hands were available.

This mystery of the enemy they faced was one that irked Apollyon. Who were these people? What right, what role, had they in this holy city? Had they been brought here to die like lambs for the slaughter? ANGELOS training had been difficult - but, at the least, Apollyon had thought he understand its nature and purpose. Now things seemed clouded. However, only survival would bring answers...

If he wanted to know what had happened here. To him. To his men. He must first survive.

Apollyon rallied his men in the cold predawn and prepared them. His objective was the heart of the city where those transports had disappeared. He readied his rifle just as every other man did. He checked the weapon's action, ensuring it was free of debris. He pulled out its firing pin and replaced it handily. Then, satisfied that there was no carbon build up to send his shots awry... He chambered a single brass-cased round, letting it rock home with a satisfying metallic click. "If one survives this test, they must take you elsewhere when you are finished, da?"

"So: I am thinking, those flyers. Perhaps they are our wings, if we survive to become ANGELOS."

He took to it well. As much as he was your friend and right hand man, Belial also looked up to you and whatever training you offered he took to quickly, doubly so if he could make him more like you. He admired you and seemed to want to be like you. You realized that perhaps he was a little younger than you and saw you as an older brother or father figure. Whatever the truth, he was a gifted man with war, strategy, rifle or surgery.

"I think this is so." He offered a weary grin. "For I am also thinking it as well. The test maybe, is to take the place that the flyers land? Then we take the flyers." He grinned more widely and slid the greased barrel back into the battered old receiver.

"But how to be doing it? I am saying that we travel at night, avoid contact. Stealth. Take and hold and leave. All while they are sleeping or shitting."

"You are right brother, we will come in the dark of night like Jehovah's angel of death for Egypt's firstborn." Apollyon agreed, a satisfied smile creeping up the corner of his lip. It was the best option that he saw too. If that was so, and it was the finest course of action, then there was only one thing left to do: do it. "And when the red night is done, we will leave this place. Warriors of the ANGELOS."

He set about preparing his men for the operation as best he could. Redistributing ammunition if there any to be passed about. Setting bones and bandaging open wounds. Apollyon kept himself busy, til finally he admitted to himself that he needed rest to. When night came he would have to be fresh.

The day dawned in fire.

Master of the Perimeter, Sergent Davosi, reported that during the night no less than three separate contingents of troops engaged each other a mere 1.5 km from your current position. Scouts estimate the total casualties in the hundreds.

The city is burning. Incendiary shells were used in the final hours of the battle and scores of young men burned alive, friend and foe alike in the hail of fire.

Your men praise the Yehovah, Three-in-One, for dashing their enemies upon each other and leaving a clear path.

The Scout Master approaches and informs you that you are merely a days march from the center of the city, a mere day from what must be the spaceport as you predicted.

Belial looks at you wordlessly for instructions.

"Then our march begins." Apollyon instructed, pulling the sling of his rifle across his arm to rest on his shoulder. "Have our brothers make ready, Belial. Now we are seeing His plan in fullness: Yehovah Almighty has delivered our enemies into our hands, we cut through what remains and claim our salvation." He stood the perimeter, seeing with Apollyon's eyes City 04's desolation. It burned with brimstone and fire; everywhere the horizon was touched by hellfire.

"Scout Master - your outriders must be prepared, this final advance cannot stall. If we are slowing, or stop, the enemy numbers may overwhelm us. You are our eyes, steer us through this hell, brother." Apollyon cautioned, hand clasping the other recruit's shoulder as he spoke. Then he moved on... Organizing his brothers for the advance on the spaceport.

Behind the scouts Apollyon placed a vanguard, meant to react to contact and fire for effect. While this vanguard took cover and returned fire, the remainder of the company's recruits would flank the enemy as they had before. A simple strategy, but Apollyon had not been raised a tactician... And it seemed to him that simpler was better - confusing and intricate plans lost purpose when confronted by enemy contact. They broke down, men died.

When all were ready: Apollyon signaled their advance, into the city's burning dawn. Amidst the purifying flames of Megiddo he and his brothers would be reborn; reborn with wings, to escape this hell of eternal war they had been damned to.

Surely, Heaven must be testing you on this, your final day. Before the cruel red sun even crested the horizon, City 04 was beset by a sandstorm. Visibility dropped below 10 meters. Sand fouled equipment, scourged flesh and steel alike.

The light of the sun was blotted out by the storm and only chemlamps pierced the darkness.

Yet, in dark, Apollyon was a man forged of iron. He rallied his men with a swift surety unknown to lesser mortals and lead them through the darkness and the sand with the skill of an Archangel.

A cohesive force, rolled like a lightning bolt through the storm, falling upon disorganized and scattered enemy contingents, swiftly conquering and moving on. Casualties were light, progress was slow but certain. For two days and two nights he lead them like this.

Belial too was a capable leader, he himself lead the vanguard and held together the assault almost single-handedly, possessed with a tactical brilliance comparable to Apollyon.

Tired, hunger, injured they emerged from the storm as it finally passed, leaving worn instacrete and huge drifts of sand.

Belial approached, one eye bandaged with a dirty-looking rag. A half-dozen other less serious injuries on his body and although he looked tired he still held himself with a conscious military dignity. A warrior's pride.

"Brother, we have found it." From the top of a shattered skyscraper, you could see it was true. A spaceport stretched out for miles below, filling the center of City 04 with hundreds of square miles of landing grids and fields. The burned out hulks of many various vehicles and craft littered the fields, but far and away there glittered the artificial luminescence of aerocraft running lights.

"The ticket waits from us there." He smiled widely, lips cracked but gleeful.

--- 169 ---

One more detail before you launch your final assault. A handful of your men were lost in the storm, having disappeared into the darkness and were unable to be found. Now that the storm has cleared, the opportunity has presented itself to search for them. However, in doing so you will have to split your forces or wait to assault the spaceport...

Apollyon came through the storm empowered with terrible purpose. He fell on his enemies with the wrath that only a man fighting for his life can known; his unnaturally blue eyes possessed of singular focus, protected from the harsh winds and sand only by a thin wrapping of torn rags. His brothers fought like beasts, as they must in a place where men were made into beasts. Towards the spaceport, towards salvation. Their advance was inexorable, even when it slowed - what resistance was found Belial soon turned aside, the fury of his vanguard undeniable.

In the face of their righteous assault, the enemy fell back: former students and mysterious infidels alike.

Rations ran low, and hung clawd at Apollyon's stomach - but he would not let up. He asked his brothers to move forward. Ever forward. A step backwards was a sentence to death here at City 04 - their Megiddo.

Finally they came to the spaceport's outskirts, a place of hollowed steel skeletons. Like the remnants of enormous birds of prey, stripped bare by time and the desert's furious storms. In the distance: heavenly lights, illuminating the dusk, guiding them in. To where, Apollyon did not know.

But wherever it was, it was not here.

Apollyon pulled back his makeshift mask as Belial approached, grinning ear to ear as he clasped his dearest brother's shoulders and pulled him into an embrace - military decorum forgotten in the near-triumph of this moment. Stepping, back he nodded in the spaceport's direction. "And we are here, come from the desert."

"From the jungle. The snows. To go to the stars." He looked heavenward, his Kpyo-cursed eyes bright as the lights that waited for them across that debris-strewn field.... And then a thought occurred to him, as his smile faltered for only a moment... But will the stars recognize us? We have been baptized in blood. Again, that lingering doubt, that feeling that this was not all right. That what had been done here was not only brutal, but unnecessary....

Though necessity chased it away, pulling at the coattails of that rogue reverie. "We lose brothers. To the storm, Belial." He knew this to be true - his brothers had conducted a headcount, and the numbers missing were not accounted for by the dead alone... But, they could not wait. Many more would die if they hung here, on the cusp of action: as bitter a draught as it was, Apollyon knew that the most would be saved by acting now, resolutely.

"I will ask for volunteers. Ten," he suggested "No more. Less, and it is too few to try. They will search, and the rest will fight." Ten men - those few would return to the ruins and search out their lost brothers. They would avoid contact, returning if the danger grew too great... To link up with the rest of their number again.

The rest, Apollyon directed, would assault the spaceport immediately. Before the defenders, if there were any who opposed them, could act to prepare.

Apollyon's plan was simple: divide the men into three platoons. The first two would advance, providing supporting fire for one another, while a reserve waiting behind to swing into action... Tipping the crisis point of any fight they might encounter. Any and all ammunition was permitted to be expended: here at the end, there was no waste - and a well-placed round might well save a man's life.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:48, Fri 06 Dec 2013.

Raphael and nine others did not hesitate to volunteer. Armed with only their standard rifles and a few magazines of ammunition between them they marched off into the shadow of the city, away from the spaceport...

--159--

Ahead of you lay miles of unbroken landing fields, punctuated by occasional metallic husks of destroyed vehicles of all types.

As the sun rose into the sky, you pushed ahead across the dotted landscape, taking cover behind wings, fuselages, burned out trucks and personnel carriers.

The journey felt like it took days in the sweltering heat of City-04 and reports reached your ears of dehydration and exhaustion.

As the sun reached it's zenith, you came into range of an elevated platform, the origin of those promising lights. Escape awaited.

As your forward units moved into position under the guidance of Belial, the air was filled with the roaring of machine-gun fire. From strategically placed pieces of wreckage, half a dozen machine-gun nests peppered your men with a withering hail of fire.

The engagement lasted less than 10 minutes.

Tired, dehydrated, hungry and in the face of mounting casualties your men broke and fell back out of range from the machine nests. You watched as your men fled like dogs towards your position. Only the urging of Belial kept your men from dropping their weapons and routing completely.

The characteristic thump of StarShell mortars preceded a light blind barrage on the position of your men, doing little other than pin your men for the moment.

--130--
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:15, Fri 06 Dec 2013.

Apollyon roared in defiance as his brothers fled. To come so close and be denied: it was terribly cruel. Was this Jehovah's punishment? Had they grown too arrogant these past hours? Apollyon could not help but wonder, as he took up a kneeling position, and helped offer counterfire to the staccato rhythm of those terrible machine-gun blooms. He could only hope their thin response would elicit some brief respite: perhaps buy a few of his brothers the chance to escape to cover.

Watching helplessly from the rear had made their breaking all the more bitter.

For every one of their lives were as precious to Apollyon as all the gifts that had been heaped before the savior at his birth. He had bound their wounds and led them through this city - they were his blood, and every drop those guns spilt were taken from his own veins.

As Belial passed by, still urging their fellows to rally, Apollyon grasped him on the shoulder and pulled him into cover at his side. The sound of gunfire was too loud in Apollyon's ears for words, so he mimed the hand signal for smoke and grenade. The desperate focus of his unnaturally blue eyes conveyed his resolve and urgency, driven by the realization that this moment must either be turned to triumph or doom them entirely.

Apollyon repeated his signals to those falling back now, indicating that they ought to throw him their smoke canisters and grenades. Then, when he was satisfied that he had enough in hand - at least a half dozen of each, Apollyon pointed out five men and motioned for them to fall in on him in a wedge. Through the wailing gunfire, oppressive heat, and dust he rallied his fire team in cover and tossed the first of his smoke canisters.... spitting out smoke as it clattered across the no-man's land between them and the nearest nest. He would toss another, further along his intended path to the pits, if the unobscured distance was too great.

Then, with a nod to Belial, Apollyon plunged headfirst into that smoke - intending to use it as concealment as he approached the machine guns. When he closed, the trainee would find cover and lob a grenade into the pit. Silencing the nest, before either seizing the gun itself or moving onto the next position.

Great towers of smoke rose up between the shattered remnants of vehicles on the flat expanse. Just like Yehovah guiding the Israelites to the promise land, a pillar of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night.

The machine gun fire became less accurate, groping tentacles blindly flailing for something to grasp at. It was enough.

Your lines began to rally. Here a squad leader lifted a wounded man up and dragged him into cover, there a fire team took up positions and returned a steady fusillade of fire in return towards the emplacements.

The smokey air was filled with shouts and screams, studded with the ever present "chakka-chakka-chakka-chakka" of belt-feed automatic high calibre weapons and the "KRAK-KRAK" of the infantry rifles you had been issued.

The moment came. One of the weapons stopped momentarily, now doubt having to reload and Belial launched his counter attack under the smoke. Armed with the last of the grenades and pistols you could hear the explosions and orders being shouted in the distance through the fog of war.

Tense minutes passed and still the battle raged on.

A runner returned and hastily saluted you.

"Sir, Belial reports successful assault of the right-most weapons emplacement. Light casualties and the enemy is in disarray. He requests you personally lead the final charge while he flanks the rest of the machine guns. He awaits your flare."

The battle had turned... And with every machinegun that fell to their advance, another was added to their righteous arsenal. And ahead: their Promised Land. Redemption. Escape from Megiddo. Forward, once again, to freedom.

For once, the symphony of gunfire held no venom for him. Apollyon reached to the red cross-emblazoned patch on his shoulder, touching it with two reverent fingers as he stared ahead. Silently, Apollyon watched with his unnaturally blue eyes as his brothers bounded across the blasted landscape.

A runner arrived not long after. Apollyon returned the other trainee's hasty salute, dropping his hand from his shoulder and bringing it automatically to his brow. "Then it is nearly done." Apollyon responded, dismissing the runner with a nod. His fingers gripped the sling of his rifle, wrapping around its worn cloth length, pulling it over his head and resting the rifle's butt in the crook of his shoulder.

To those men about him in the main force he motioned for them to fall into formation and prepare to advance. Those machine guns they'd secured from the enemy, if they were still operational, he desired to use to cover their advance. To return the remaining nests' winnowing fire, and perhaps keep their heads down.

When they were assembled, Apollyon stepped to the fore, amidst the clanging of rifle fire and the rat-tat-tat of distant machineguns. "Brothers. We have march through jungle - snow, deep as waist. Through this hell, you have being follow me." He began, shouting to be heard over the din of combat. "Follow me one time more... and I promise you, we will return to heavens." Apollyon raised his rifle over his head, signaling the end of his brief words and the beginning of the end.

Then, Apollyon turned towards the spaceport, stepping forth quietly as he pulled a flare gun from his pocket and aiming it heavenward. He pulled the trigger, releasing a gout of sparks and a trailing comet of red fire across the horizon.... And he started to run. Forward. Forward towards the guns. Towards the spaceport. Towards the end.

No loud cheer or symbolic brandishing of their weapons, your men look upon you and steel their resolve, gathering up their gear and forming into squads yet again.

The flare went up and the final push began.

The main force, led by Apollyon, crashed into the wavering enemy line. Trench knives, sharpened pieces of steel, bullet, rifle butt and fist took lives. The captured machine guns were turned on their owners and shattered the defensive perimeter.

Smoke and fire rose into darkening sky. The sun was beginning to set. For the first time, there was hope. Sure enough, upon a central elevated dias there were landing ships. Engines idling in the cooling air and ragged bands of defenders here and there held out as pockets of resistance.

In the final hour of the assault, Raphael appears from the flanks with seven of the men you sent to find the missing recruits. His attack collapses the left flank of the enemy and it rolls up, dissolving as your forces take the landing platform and secure the transport craft.

--125--

Belial approaches you as your men begin to load into the ships.

"My brother, there no driver aboard the ship. Automaton guiding system seems in order. It launch at sundown."

Apollyon found time to speak with Raphael. Only seven? I sent ten. Ten. Then they had been unsuccessful, and lost brothers in the process it seemed - a bitter realization, amidst what ought to have been an uplifting victory. Still: Apollyon wished to hear it from Raphael's own mouth, so he approached his brother.

"Brother? I had hoped there would be more being returned with you." His words carried no note of disappointment, just a genuine desire to know how the venture had gone. Perhaps he had been mistaken, and more had returned with him unbeknownst to Apollyon?

Regardless of his answer, Apollyon clasped the other man on the shoulder in congratulations. "Your righteous strength brought attack home. That was impressive, brother." It had been. Quick thinking and the strength of character to take initiative - he had been right to make Raphael a leader among their brothers.


That their shuttles were automatically launched made sense - it would mean, unfortunately, that they must hold this place until that time. Apollyon worried that their fellow trainees might seek to take advantage of their victory, to supplant them and seize the ships. He would not allow that to happen. It had been their victory. They would leave. Apollyon would not allow anyone else to take that from them.

"We keep guards posted around entrance." Apollyon suggested to Belial, nodding towards the ships. "With machinegun. Til just before sun's sleep - then we load all and seal the doors. The enemy will want to take our wings from us, it cannot be so."
This message was last edited by the player at 18:21, Sun 29 Dec 2013.

Raphael relayed to you that there were beasts in the sands, stunted wolf creatures by the scores who picked them off one by one. No sign of the lost men was found but piles of picked bones and fresh blood. He looked haunted by this and deeply ashamed of his failure to bring all his men back alive.

"Reports come in. It is being done."

Belial looked grizzled and bloody, barely recognizable but for his posture and stern eyes. In some ways, he looked much like Apollyon and perhaps this was because he idolized you. He sought to emulate you, took on your mannerisms when commanding his men and like all of the ARKANGELOS trainees he looked up to you.

"These are being a different brigade from the ones before now." He pointed to a twisted corpse, face split in half by a rifle round. They did not wear the bland grey of your company nor did they wear the dirty black of those you fought on the way here. They were dressed in desert fatigues, actual camouflage with combat netting and heavy but outdated ballistic helmets.

"Here, looking at the blood-paint." Belial pulled back the sleeve of the corpse and revealed a red pattern up the arm, subcutaneous ink.

"Having seen this before, brother. Prison-soldiers. Exiles."

A runner brought a report from platoon leader Michael that the dead had been gathered, the remaining supplies and weapons loaded along with all the wounded and several squads. The outer doors were sealed and booby trapped. Agathion had been found amongst the dead, pierced by a dozen bayonets, out of ammunition and his hands wrapped around the throat of one of the enemy.

A second runner arrived moments later reporting seeing movement to the northeast. At least a full platoon-strength contingent was advancing through the wreckage in the same direction your forces had come.

Apollyon retrieved Agathion's bandana - they could not take a corpse with them, but something of Agathion would leave with them. He had died a hero. Apollyon owed his brother that much at the least.

It still shocked Apollyon that others sought to emulate him. He was a Kyp - the outcasts of The Brotherhood. Exiles. Scum... But here he stood, with a Company of would-be ARKANGELOS at his command. Belial especially. His brother was the sort of man he would have idolized himself, not but a few months prior... To have their situation so reversed was, strange. Apollyon knew better than to let as much on, however. There was danger in a leader who wore his heart on his sleeve. He needed his brothers' trust. Not their sympathy. He was stern and unreadable as stone, as he had always been - as his brothers needed him to be.

Apollyon stood over the desert-camouflaged soldier's sundered body, watching with eyes of cold blue steel as Belial pulled up the dead man's sleeve. Subdued patterns of scarlet ran up the corpse's arm, hidden just below the surface of his skin. The medic's arms crossed thoughtfully, his lips going thin in concentration. "Penal legion?" He muttered, though he already knew the answer. The powers that be had thrown them in against the Brotherhood's most violent criminals. Had it not been enough that they were forced to fight their own?

These sort of men had nothing to lose. They were dangerous, like rabid beasts.

"No one leaves shuttle," Apollyon ordered, voice flat "No one enter. We defend to the last... too much we have bleed, too much to fail now." The trainee's hand fell to the oaken handle of his long straight-edged knife, fingers wrapping around it as it rested seated in a makeshift sheath of wire-wrapped leather.

"This is zero hour - we are leaving, brother." Apollyon promised, moving to assist in the defensive preparations at one of the ship's sealed doorways. He would stay here and die with his brothers if he had to. If they failed, it would not matter where he was - bloodthirsty convicts storming into the ship would mean their likely end, or at the least the end of many of his brothers. They had to hold them. They had to leave. He felt a fit of coughing rise in his battered lungs, withered from years on Kypos, but he pushed it down with a resolved swallow.

They were so close to the heavens, so close.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:56, Mon 30 Dec 2013.

Shouts and a rising crescendo of ceaseless gunfire announced the final attack. These new contenders for the stars dressed in the same drab jumpsuits as your ANGELOS and wore yellow headbands, not unlike your red ones.

Their assault was careless, perhaps driven by the urgency of losing their ticket to escape. Waves of young men attacked with carbines and machine pistols whilst barrages of unguided rockets arched clumsily to explode with no real accuracy. Most of your men were already aboard the transports, but a precious few remained to hold the line against the attackers. Armed with the remaining machine guns, a handful stood against many and yet they knew, everyone of the 125 of your company knew that those who remained to hold against the onslaught would not survive.

Belial held the twelve headbands, Argus, Adem, Petros, Mammon, Gressil were but some of the names of those who stood behind to hold them back. Each had volunteered and it was they who burnt the bodies of the dead ANGELOS to send their souls to paradise above.

The sun sank behind the buildings when the assaulting force broke into the landing facility. Improvised explosives culled their number but in the final moments before the dropships lifted off, dozens of hostile soldiers burst onto the elevated landing platform, firing at ships themselves and their passengers.

OOC: make some attack rolls!

Apollyon stood with his men against the final assault. Those who had stayed below with the captured machineguns had valiantly given of themselves to hold the line. Now, in the final hour, his brothers had to make good on that sacrifice... And in the meantime, Apollyon resolved that he would kill as many of the yellow-bands as he could. He remembered vaguely... that there had been a time when he pitied their counterparts.

... But that had been before Agathion. Before Argus. Before Adem. Before Petros. Before Mammon. Before Gressil.

Apollyon shouldered his rifle now, pumping rounds into the oncoming horde. Each recoil against his shoulder was almost therapeutic - an alm against his own guilt. His regret that so many were dead... and that he was still alive. CLANK... CLANK... CLANK, like the pounding of a piston against his shoulder, insistent as it thumped into his body. He had become an engine of death, mechanized and repurposed by Byzanthine from a miner's son to a warrior. The last bits of Elias that railed against the injustice of this place had melted away... He was ferocious in his survivor's guilt, yet ironically desperate in his desire to live.

Philosophy was for old men and whitebeards. Apollyon was not either - and he never would be. The bluelung would still his beating heart long before he ever grew old. Even if he survived this day.

He stood exposed to the gunfire, irreverent of the risk. If he was meant to live, and all those who had followed him and died were not... Then he would survive here and now too, sheltering his brothers with his life. If it had all been luck: the Trinity would reach down and snuff his unworthy shell out, equalizing his debt to his brothers.

"Back to your hell, demons!" Apollyon shouted, unleashing another volley - pulling back his rifle's trigger automatically as his left hand squeezed its grip like a vice. When they fell he didn't see trainees die. He didn't see men. He saw devils, their hands soaked black in his brothers' blood. He saw an enemy. One he knew would bleed him dry, given the chance. They needed to die so that he and his own could live. There was no room for pity. Not if Agathion's death was to mean anything at all.

Apollyon blinked as he lined up one last shot, the round veering off-course as burning pain lanced through the flesh of his brow. Shrapnel tore its way through his skin, affecting a wide bloodied slash of exposed and bloodied muscle. The ANGELOS trainee felt warmth flood across his eyelid, curving to pool in the canthus of his left eye as his vision swam with red. Still though, he fired, even as his sight began to fail him: shutting the bloodied eye tight and aiming with only the other.

Then again, and again, he felt the weight of bullets slam into his chest... Threatening to throw him from his feet. Blood ran down his side and along his legs - but still Apollyon stood, immovable against the tide rising up against them.

"Don't giving these dogs an inch!" Apollyon shouted, voice as stolid as iron. He could taste the iron of blood in his mouth, flooding his throat. "We are leaving!"

[Private to The Void: I used the assumption that our enemies here used the base AC of 9 when rolling... Let me know if I made any mistakes, but I think this adds up!

1d20 + 1 (attack bonus) + 1 (dex) + 1 (Combat: projectile weapon) + 9 (Enemy AC) = 1d20+12

21:55, Today: Secret Roll: Apollyon rolled 18 using 1d20+12. Attack 3.

21:54, Today: Secret Roll: Apollyon rolled 27 using 1d20+12. Attack 2.

21:52, Today: Secret Roll: Apollyon rolled 27 using 1d20+12. Attack 1.
]
This message was last edited by the player at 07:59, Fri 03 Jan 2014.

They charged with abandon, some of them armed with little more than shards of metal. Your men cut them down as they came, positioned within the holds of the transport ships, standing and kneeling in ranks they faced out the rear access ramp as it began to rise up and seal the ship for flight. This arrangement forced the enemy yellow-bands to charge into the killzone to get a shot at your men. It was a good defense and many of the enemy died.

The idling whir of the engines became a deafening roar as the boosters kicked in, lifting the ships from the landing dias. Apollyon stood shoulder to shoulder with Belial as they fired, eating through their remaining ammunition in moments, simply trying to suppress the onslaught. With his last rifle clip, Apollyon placed a handful of careful shots, making them count. Here a bullet ripped through a man's jaw, another one went clean through the sternum, collapsing a lung but the final shot hit only junk steel as pain tore through his body and blood dripped down his face.

The doors sealed with a trembling clang, not so much audible above the roar of the engine but physically present as the ship shook.

That was it. There was nothing more they could do but watch the earth fall away beneath them. Through a porthole he could see City 04 stretching out below them in the evening light. Fires, distant explosions, lights all so small beneath them as they ascended away from the sun into the night sky.



As they rose further, he could glimpse now and again the other handfuls of ships loaded with his men. Above the smoke and the dust the planet began to take shape, a smoothly curved delicate ball adrift in the firmament of space. And then you saw it: the stars. So many stars, brightly glittering in the heavens, constellations you couldn't name.




Weariness took you. That fatigue of pushing yourself too hard, too long. Held up by fear, determination and sheer adrenaline. It seemed to you as you began to shut your eye that in the face of the heavens, in the vast sea of stars without number, that you could see the faces of everyone who died with you. Your father, long taken by the bluelung. Your oldest brother, lost to the coldness of space years ago. Agathion. Argus. Adem. Petros. Mammon. Gressil. The others who died in the snow and the jungle.

You succeeded. You led your men through hell and into the heavens. Over 100 men owed you their lives. You closed your eye on the stars, the last vision of your fallen brothers in heaven with Yehovah and you never woke again.

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The man known once as Strov, now as Belial, held the body of his heroic friend in his arms. His own face mirrored that of Apollyon's, cut and bloody, badly burned from unprotected heat pipes on the starship.

No one would recognize him now, even his own men would not see resemblance in his mutilated visage.

Silently, he slipped the red band off his fallen comrade's head and placed it on his own, setting the band inscribed "Belial" in his friend's hands.

"You will live on, brother. I will use what you have teaching me and I will living for you."

He smiled sadly as he looked out into the stars and saw for a moment, the face of Elias smiling back at him from paradise.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:30, Sat 11 July 2015.