Operation: Pacifica, The Demon Awakens
by DarkSide (darkside@seanet.com)

 Seven members of the Second Company of the Chosen of Khorne, lead
  by Captain DarkSide, trudged through the forest surrounding the spongin
  city.  Something just didn't feel right to DS at this point.  The mass of
  attacking spongin that was once thick had grown suddenly sparse, and it
  wasn't their doing.  They just seemed to... vanish.  Under normal
  circumstances he could have cared less that the spongin had just... run
  away, but this was different.  He just had a gut feeling.  And he often
  trusted his gut over common sense.

 He raised a fist into the air and Second Company all came to a
  simultaneous halt.  Watchful eyes suddenly settled on him as he let his
  FireBomb Rifle[tm] loose to dangle at his side, next to his Autochunker.
  Sister Sergeant Hawkins crept up next to him as he unlatched the head
  assembly on his Wrath of Arioch armor and flipped it back.  She opened her
  mouth to ask what he was doing, but a brief sign from her CO ensured her
  silence.

 He scanned the surrounding foliage, looking for any sign of what it
  might be that was making him so uneasy.  Each member of Second Company
  followed suit, forming up a loose circle, with their backs to each other.
  DS closed his eyes and listened, thinking maybe he heard a brief rustling in
  the underbrush.

   Nothing.  He sucked in a deep breath through his nostrils,
  exercising his near-animalistic senses to their fullest.  He thought maybe
  he caught a brief twinge of... something... on the breeze, but it was gone
  as suddenly as it came.  Perhaps losing two of his men to the WyrmBots took
  a harder toll on him than he thought... maybe he was just getting too jumpy.

 As he turned to issue the move out orders to his company, he was
  hit in the face with a splash of something warm, wet, and sticky,
  accompanied by a low gurgling sound, blinding him momentarily.  He didn't
  need to see to know exactly what hit him.  It was an aroma and a taste that
  he was all too familiar with.  A taste of life... and death.

 At that moment, something snapped inside Gregor Lamont.

 There was a part of DarkSide that he preferred to keep locked deep
  inside his psyche, hidden away from everyone.  For fear of what it might do.
  Even very few of his closest friends knew of this side of him, let alone had
  ever seen it.  The beast.  His dark side.

 Even now, he could feel the rage beginning to build in him, the
  fire of his hatred consuming his consciousness.  He knew the risks of
  letting that part of him out while he was in this kind of mental state.
  Once it got out, there was no turning back.  The beast would be in control.

 But he didn't care.  He was tired.  Tired of the senseless deaths.
  Tired of the endless battles.  Tired of the mass destruction.  Tired of
  everything.  Only one thing was on his mind now.  Anger.  Pure,
  unadulterated, hyperconcentrated, blind rage.  He wanted to break something.
  And he wanted to do it now.  He wasn't going to be picky.

 His eyes flashed open, revealing twin orbs of pure fire.  He was
  greeted with the sight of Sister Sergeant Hawkins, looking lovely as always,
  only with a long, black stinger protruding through the back of her head out
  the center of her face.  All eyes and weapons focused upward, to the source
  of the long nagenta tail.  Concealed in the canopy was an armor-plated,
  winged worm-thing, of the same unearthly color as the HellWyrm itself.  In
  each of its four tentacles it held rather archaic, yet no less deadly,
  bladed weapons.

 As the world vanished into a red haze, DarkSide quickly grasped the
  Saethrian's tail in his Arioch's gauntlet, yarding hard downwards with an
  unearthly hiss.  The worm dropped to the ground, landing solidly and
  steadily, taking up a defensive position, as if coiling for a strike.
  Second Company watched as their leader began to change, his facial features
  growing sharper, his skin turning a leathery brown, the texture of a
  crocodile's hide.  Flames began to lick their way out of the joints of the
  BattleArmor as the Saethrian lunged at DS, meeting head-on with an armored
  fist to the "snout."  The Saethrian slammed to the ground, mildly stunned by
  the impact.

 Finally the BattleArmor gave in to onslaught of the heat, melting
  from the inside out, the molten seals popping open from the pressure of the
  heatedair inside, resulting in a small fireblast.  Out from the smouldering
  armor hopped a creature that no longer resembled anything like the man it
  once was.  Seven and a half feet tall, brown reptile-like skin with a back
  bristling with a garden of razor-sharp spines of bone.  It stared down at
  the Saethrian with its burning red eyes, its lips curled back in a grimace
  of hatred.  Fingers of supernatural fire crawled up from its tri-fingered
  claws, dancing around its forearms as it stalked toward the worm.  This was
  the dark side.  The Dark Imp.  The demon had awakened.

 Both creatures lunged at each other with blinding speed, the roar
  of each trying to drown out the other.  As the imp latched on to the
  creature, it was met with a slash to the stomache with a scythe.  The imp
  bled profusely from the wound, but payed no attention as it held tight to
  the "underbelly" of the worm, sinking its talons into the vulnerable tissue
  of the joints between body and "head" segments.  Unfortunately, this put it
  danger of being engulfed by the quad-sectioned maw of the creature's mouth.
  The Saethrian roared and snapped, forcing the demon to swing around
  alongside the beast's head to avoid the tooth-lined cavern while still
  clinging to the beast.

 With a snarl of defiance, the demon braced its feet against the
  worm's "chest," pulling with all of its supernatural strength at the armored
  head segments.  The worm roared in pain as the soft flesh and tendons began
  to tear, letting magenta blood bubble up through the wounds.  The Saethrian
  suddenly dropped its weapons, snaking its tentacles around to sink its claws
  into the pest that was hurting it.  The imp howled in pain as they it into
  his hide, blood oozing around the talons of the same color.  The worm tore
  the demon away from its body, sending it hurtling into a tree.

 The imp slammed bodily into the trunk, wincing in agony at the
  crackling of bone in his shoulder.  It grabbed its arm by the bicep, yanking
  hard to realign the joint. It staggered to its feet, eyes closed as it
  focused on reconstructing the injury, mumbling something unintelligible.

 The Saethrian turned to the remainder of Second Company, who were
  still stunned by the turn of events.  They snapped out of it, bringing their
  bolters to bear on the worm.  The Saethrian pulled a tactic they hadn't
  expected... it brought its weapon up, but instead of bearing scythe and
  sword, it bore DarkSide's FireBomb Rifle[tm], which had been thrown clear of
  the Arioch when it blew.  The Chosen scattered as the rifle reported with a
  loud *FWOOMP*, the shell barely missing a Brother and impacting about 30
  yards away, erupting in a series of incindiary blasts, chewing up foliage,
  thick black smoke filling the air as shells blew, the surrounding plantlife
  erupting into brilliant flame.

 The worm reared back and spread its magenta wings, readying for
  takeoff, when it discovered a peculiar searing pain in what would be its
  midsection.  It looked down, partly uncomprehending, at the business end of
  an ebon blade protruding from one of its segments.  It turned slowly to see
  the imp withdrawing the magenta blood-stained blade of the Claidheamohmor de
  a' Dorche from its body.  It raised the rifle again, but the blade of
  Darkness swiftly severed the tentacles, loosing the weapon from the
  Saethrian's grasp as lavendar blood sprayed freely.  The sword came around
  again as the Saethrian once more prepared for lift-off, clipping its left
  wing neatly from its body.

 The worm howled with rage, coiling back in a snake-like posture and
  lunging forward at the demon, its maw opened wide.  The imp raised the sword
  high, the blade glowing a deep blue as he swiftly sidestepped, swinging the
  blade laterally into the maw of the Saethrian, slicing through the chitinous
  armor of the head segments live the proverbial hot knife through butter,
  sending the upper half of the head and magenta goo flying. The corpse
  collapsed forward onto the ground as the imp tossed its sword aside, tearing
  into the body with tooth and claw in a red haze of rage.

 When the rage cleared, the imp found itself covered in gore,
  sitting amid the pile of the Saethrian's remains, Second Company surrounding
  him.  DarkSide stood, still in his demon form, regaining his composure.  He
  strode over to the tree Darkness had embedded itself in, pulling the sword
  free and sheathing the massive blade in the scabbard which materialized in
  his hand.  He slung the harness over his shoulder as he picked up his
  FireBomb Rifle[tm], shortly thereafter recovering his Autochunker and
  slinging its ammo back over his other shoulder.  He turned slowly to his
  company, a grim expression over his rough leathery face.  Without saying a
  word, he sighed heavily, and started off in the direction of camp.

Copyright (c) 1997 DarkSide Studios