KOVEX VERIN's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

The thing burst from the trees and stopped in the open. Kovex faced it, ready for battle. It was no clean machine and no honest beast. Gray metal fused with pale, stitched flesh. Cables hung from its skull like torn veins. Its jaw split wide, lined with steel teeth. It moved on four limbs, low and patient, tracking a scent. "Abomination," Kovex said. Behind him, the strange girl-child spoke in a matter of fact tone that grew manic and unhinging as she seemed to grow excited about the looming violence. Patient Nine had warned him a scaled woman hunted her, a servant of a world-ending thing. This creature was her hound. "That's mine," she said, flat and calm. "They built it from a dead man. It never sleeps. It never stops." Then her voice tilted, sudden and bright, "You'll die pretty, big man. Try not to." She yelled the last words in a shriek while cackling madly. Kovex did not answer, “This child is not normal” He thought then he raised his bolt gun, and aimed faster than an unaugmented eye could perceive. He fired three rounds precisely into calculated points on the Abomination. The shells cracked into the creature's shoulders and the third in its chest and exploded. Metal peeled. Flesh smoked. The thing did not scream. It charged even in its damaged state. “Impressive, this may take slight effort”. He thought, anticipating the Abomination’s imminent actions. It crossed the ground faster than he expected. Kovex holstered the Boltgun and gripped his power sword with both hands. The blade roared, blue light spitting along its edge. The creature leapt. Its claws reaching out for his chest plate of his black Power Armor. He held his stance unmoved by the Abomination’s proximity. He drove the sword up into its unguarded underbelly in a way that he had done many times before, a killing blow. The blade bit through metal and meat. Sparks sprayed. The creature twisted, Kovex held the Power Sword firmly in his grip. The Abomination’s jaws snapped at his throat, somehow still holding onto whatever passed for life for this creature. Kovex jammed his forearm into its mouth. Steel teeth ground on his armor. He roared and shoved the blade deeper, up toward the thing's spine. Something inside it burst. The cables jerked. Its four limbs kicked, then locked. Kovex ripped the sword free and swung once more, clean through the neck. The metal skull gripped around his arm, the body dropped and lay steaming. He stood over it, breathing calm and even. His chest plate was scored to the bone-white ceramite beneath, the result of the foul fluid that spilled from his enemies neck. The skulls at his waist knocked together as he gathered himself. "By the Emperor's Judgment," he said. "So dies His enemy." Korvex threw the Abominations metal skull from his forearm and into the dirt. Patient Nine walked to the ruined head. She crouched and studied the dead eyes without fear. "She'll know now," she said quietly. "The moment it stopped moving, she felt it. This thing was her eyes." She looked up at Kovex, gray gaze steady. "You didn't kill the hunter. You made her angry. Now she comes herself." Kovex lifted the severed skull and hung it from a fresh link on his chain. A trophy, and a promise. He had faced the servant and won. The master remained. He had not had to go in search of a new battle, battle had came to him. This new place was not so different than any other planet or any other War. He was prepared for the enemies that lay ahead, he was eager for the slaughter to come. "Then let her come," he said. "I will meet her too, whatever she is." Korvex look down at the small girl- child, “You will come with me, I have questions for you strange girl.” He turned and walked slowly towards the tree line in the darkness. Korvex shortened his stride allowing the small girl-child to more or less keep up him if she was going to follow of her own will and not him having to capture her. Far off, past the trees, something felt the silence where its hound had been. It turned toward them, and it began to move.