The Dark Ages [Dark Data]

[Okor]

The black knight towered above the liberators, the dark powers of Nebula bubbling just beneath the aspiring King’s scarred skin, manifesting in a twisted reverse-light beaming from his unruined eye. Screams of devotion to his accursed master reverberated through the cracked stonework of the coliseum, a mirror of Okor’s own faith. Blackened bones and scorched steel stood opposed to the Conqueror, the contagious crusader’s consciousness stubbornly refusing to abandon his much-abused anatomy. Hate poured through the lump of charcoal that had replaced his hearts, both blackened organs cracking and crumbling as they attempted to give life to his blighted body.

Black tar flowed from within his charred carapace, cocooning his blasted form in an ebon membrane, its sable surface bubbling and twisting as it grew, swelling to thrice the size of the tainted warrior. The Black Knight roared as he stepped forward, his great blade hoisted over his pauldron as he advanced.

”You dare flee from Nebula’s champion?!”

Aldonite descended upon the cyst of corruption, its edge gleaming in stark contrast to the darkness roiling beneath its blade. The hacker cried out, raising his psy-forged shuriken pistol, only to have Samus’ armoured hand press it downwards. “Start flanking! Okor’ll hold his attention.”

Hiro paused for a moment, considering lodging a protest in regards to the Plague Marine’s current incapacitation. Reflecting on the literally supernatural vitality of Nurgle’s Chosen, he gave a simple nod, clutching his blade and pistol as he circled around the two cursed conquerors.

Aldonite kissed the exterior of the black, vile blob of corruption, tearing the exterior membrane. The Knight’s howl of triumph was deafened by a reverberating roar as the cocoon was cracked and torn to pieces. It was a sound from the dawn of humanity, the cry of a predator-god that stalks a thousand worlds in a thousand forms, an ancestral terror bred into the very genome of all things with an ample amount of flesh and a distinct lack of natural toxins or armour plating.

A ferric fist tore through its withering womb, knocking the blade of the black knight aside as the mechanical monster emerged from its cocoon. A series of tainted talons lurched forwards, their twisted tips dripping with bile as they sought out the gut of Nebula’s chosen warrior. Their gentle kiss of carnage was denied as the Black Knight leapt backwards, his sword flying into the air as he caught it by its blade.

The walking edifice of entropy took a shuddering step, its mouldering mass hung with rusted chains from which were displayed grisly trophies and prayers scrawled across steel, flayed skins, and bone. ”Nebula dies this day,” came a snarl from within the ambulatory shrine to decay, the two hydraulic fists clenching as the dreadnought charged, cracking the cobbles beneath its tread, rotating at the hips as its limbs were sent flying towards the Black Knight.

Unfortunately for the liberators, the time-honoured windmill technique was not so effective against an opponent with any degree of dexterity. The Knight nimbly leapt aside, dodging Okor’s flailing fists, bringing the pommel of his blade down on the machinery exposed in the cracks of the dreadnought’s carapace, eliciting a crack as gears and cooling pipes shattered beneath their strength. They had a mere second to look smug at their skilfull sabotage before a solid mass of rusted iron and palpable hatred struck them, sending them staggering backwards as Okor’s advance continued, unabated.

”You may be Nebula’s champion,” Okor snarled in a synthesized voice, knocking Aldonite aside with a corroded fist as the Black Knight danced tantalizingly outside of his grasp. ”But we are killers, hunters, and hacke rs all.” The Black Knight’s blade surged forward, bouncing off the armoured hull of the hulking warmachine. ”Scream your devotion to your absent god.” Two hammer-like hands joined over the verdigris-coated sarcophagus from within which the husk of the marine was imprisoned, plummeting downwards towards the plated armour of the Black Knight.

The bare-headed villain made a move to dodge, only to find a grappling hook wrapped around his ankles. He desperately rose his blade overhead, seeking to parry the blade, only for it to be driven towards his own head as he was unable to withstand the mechanized marauder’s strength. His own sword bit into his flesh, screaming in frustration and pain as a blade bit into the back of his knee, the ronin taking advantage of the distraction to attempt to hobble their foe.

Speakers set into the unholy hull of the Dreadnought hissed and crackled to life as his talons closed around Aldonite, a stub-fingered fist rearing back to drive itself into the Knight’s bloodied face. ”For my God lives within all of us.” He took another step forward, pushing the black knight back even as the dark-skinned warrior ducked beneath his blow. ”He feasts on your strength,” he proclaimed, another wild swing shattering the stone beneath them as the Black Knight broke free of Samus’ grappling hook. The Black Knight’s riposte drove his own blade into the mechanisms of Okor’s arm, oil and broken gears flying free.

The Knight roared as he struck again, ducking beneath another frenzied blow, cracking pistons as he slid past the hulking mass of hatred.

Any machine would have fallen by now, dilapidated and broken mechanisms rendering it immobile.

But as the bulk of the dreadnought turned, a chain adorned with jagged trophies of bone having fallen across the cracked casket set into the assault walker, a single eye filled with hate gazing out from within a prison filled with rotten amniotic fluid, the truth was made clear. This was not a machine of war: It was an Avatar. A lopsided grin forged from a thousand dead creatures was resplendent upon the rotting, rusted excuse for a walking weapon, and as Okor raised his twinned fists, he spoke in the voice of his plague god, he spoke with every ounce of delicacy and subtlety he was known for.

”Die.”

2 Order points used for Dreadnought Transformation. 6 Remaining. 9/11/0/2 stats. 1030 words.