Nolan dropped through the open manhole, his body cutting through the air. He landed hard, boots splashing down into the filthy water that flowed through the sewer tunnel.
He straightened imdiately, raising his chin to look ahead.
David stood several ters away, blue light pulsing from his optical sensors. The glow illuminated the curved walls of the tunnel, reflecting off moisture and gri.
In David's tal arms, Nolan's aunt sat curled into herself. Her face had gone pale, drained of color. Her eyes stared at nothing in particular, wide with shock. She hadn't spoken since entering the sewer.
Nolan didn't have ti for explanations. Not now.
He gestured forward sharply, his voice low and commanding. "David. Escort my aunt ho. Keep her safe."
"As you command, my lord." David's tal head inclined in sothing approximating a bow. Then he turned slightly toward the aunt, offering her a smaller nod. "Please co with , madam."
The automaton pivoted smoothly and began walking deeper into the tunnel, toward a connecting passage Nolan knew led eventually to the base.
Nolan waded after them through the sewage, his expression grim and set.
Thirty seconds later, David found the passage entrance. This section had been deliberately modified, a lip of concrete preventing the flowing sewage from entering. Clean space beyond, relatively speaking.
Nolan pulled one foot from the filth and stepped onto dry ground.
A dull explosion rumbled through the earth above them. The sound was muffled by layers of stone and soil, but powerful enough to send vibrations through the tunnel structure. Thunder underground.
Nolan's neck tilted slowly. His eyes moved upward, tracking the source of the sound despite seeing only rough concrete and embedded gravel.
In his mind's eye, he could see through those barriers. Could imagine that monster up there, rampaging through the streets. Killing. Destroying. Enjoying it.
David, several steps ahead, paused. His head swiveled back, sensors focusing on Nolan.
"My lord?" The question was implicit. Are you coming?
Nolan's gaze dropped slowly back to ground level. His hands, hanging at his sides, clenched into fists. His fingertips trembled slightly with suppressed tension.
"Take my aunt away," he said quietly. Each word was deliberate, final.
He drew a breath. The stench of sewage filled his lungs, sharp and foul. It cut through his focus, grounded him in the mont.
"I have unfinished business."
Decision crystallized. His expression hardened into sothing cold and resolute.
David studied him for a long mont. Then the automaton inclined his head once more.
"May the Emperor guide your hand in battle, my lord."
Without further hesitation, David continued forward into the darkness, blue light fading with distance.
Nolan's aunt, still cradled in tal arms, looked back over David's shoulder. Her lips pressed into a thin line. Her fists clenched. But she said nothing, trusting her nephew despite not understanding what was happening.
The blue glow vanished entirely.
Alone in the tunnel, Nolan stood motionless for several seconds. Then he opened the simulator interface with a thought.
His fingers moved through nus, scrolling past salvaged equipnt until he found what he needed.
Items materialized in the passage around him. Armor. Weapons. The tools he'd need for what ca next.
On the streets of Harlem, hell had co to earth.
Thick smoke rose from burning buildings in columns of black and gray. Vehicles burned where they'd crashed or been thrown, their fuel tanks ruptured, flas shooting high into the night sky.
The injured wailed. Those still conscious scread for help that wouldn't co. Buildings collapsed in slow motion, their structures compromised, sending up clouds of dust and debris.
This corner of the city had beco a war zone. An urban battlefield where only one side had weapons.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Heavy footsteps echoed through the smoke.
A figure walked down the center of the street. Three ters tall, humanoid but wrong in every proportion. Its gray-white skin glistened with moisture, sweat running down its massive fra to drip on the pavent.
Thick bone plates covered its chest, rising and falling with each breath. The ridges along its spine caught firelight, glowing dull red. They shifted as it moved, rising and falling like the spines of so prehistoric beast.
The creature raised one arm. The limb was as thick as an adult human's torso, corded with muscle that bunched and flexed.
It swung.
Air cracked like thunder. The sonic boom of that casual movent echoed off buildings.
A vicious smile split the creature's face. It rembered having a human na once, in another life. But that didn't matter anymore.
Now, it had a better na.
"Abomination."
It spoke, voice deep and resonant with barely restrained power. The sound carried across the devastated street.
"Co out, Hulk! How long will you hide, coward?"
No answer ca. The Hulk, if he was even in the city, didn't respond to the challenge.
Abomination's eyes tracked across the destruction, looking for sothing, anything, to relieve its boredom.
Movent caught its attention. Beneath an overturned car, a man struggled to free himself from twisted tal. His leg was trapped, bent at a wrong angle. Blood soaked his clothes.
Abomination swayed its massive body in that direction, each step shaking the ground. It lood over the trapped man, huge and implacable.
The man looked up. Recognition and terror warred in his eyes.
"Please," he gasped. "Please, I have kids, I—"
Abomination's expression didn't change. It simply raised one enormous foot and brought it down.
The crunch of breaking bone and crumpling tal blended together. Flesh and machine beca one indistinguishable mass.
Abomination lifted its foot, examining the red sar with mild disappointnt.
"You are not Hulk," it said quietly. "Not fun."
It turned to continue its rampage, searching for worthier prey.
Two objects arced out from the ruins of a nearby building, tumbling end over end through the air. Red tal canisters, each about a foot long, reflecting firelight as they spun.
Abomination's eyes tracked them automatically. Curiosity, perhaps. Or just predatory instinct focusing on movent.
Crack.
The sound was sharp, tallic. Both canisters split open simultaneously.
Brilliant white light exploded outward. Not fire. Sothing else. Sothing that burned without heat, that stabbed into the eyes like needles.
Photon flash grenades, Blood Ravens chapter variant. Modified for boarding and close-quarters breach operations.
Abomination's eyes, adapted to see in dim light, to track prey in darkness, had no defense against that assault. It had been staring directly at the detonation.
The creature's pupils seared. Everything went black, then filled with afterimages that burned and danced.
"AAARRGHH!"
Abomination's howl of pain and rage shook the street. Both massive hands ca up to cover its face, clawing at eyes that wouldn't see.
It staggered backward, each step crushing pavent. Three steps. Four. Its balance wavered.
From the ruins where the grenades had originated, a figure rose.
Nolan wore the Kasrkin carapace armor, dark camouflage pattern designed for urban combat. The armor plates were scorched and dented from previous battles, but the machine spirits within still sang strong.
In his hands, he carried a weapon that shouldn't exist. Necron technology, ancient and terrible. The Gauss Blaster humd with barely restrained power, green light flowing through transparent conduits like captured lightning.
Nolan didn't think. Didn't hesitate. Didn't waste the opening.
He launched himself forward in a sprint, then leaped. His enhanced muscles propelled him high, higher than any normal human could manage. He rose above the blind, staggering Abomination.
At the apex of his jump, he aid down.
And fired.
The Gauss Blaster shrieked.
A beam of terrifying green light lanced out from the barrel, brighter than the fires burning around them. It struck Abomination center mass, just below the bone plates protecting its chest.
Gray-white skin, tough enough to turn aside heavy caliber sniper rounds, simply ceased to exist. The molecular bonds holding it together broke apart. Flesh beca atoms, then less than atoms, evaporating into nothing.
Abomination's incredible healing factor tried to respond. Cells attempted to regenerate, to close the wound.
The green light didn't care. It continued its work, disassembling matter at the fundantal level. Flesh, bone, muscle, all of it dissolved into vapor that glowed faintly green before dissipating.
Nolan landed, rolled, ca up firing again.
The Gauss Blaster scread with each shot, a sound like tearing reality. Green beams hamred into Abomination from multiple angles as Nolan kept moving, kept shooting, denying the creature any chance to recover.
Chunks of Abomination's torso simply disappeared. Its left arm from elbow to wrist vanished in a burst of green fire. A section of its spine dissolved, and the creature's posture twisted, unable to support itself properly.
"Die!" Nolan's voice was cold, chanical. No anger. No satisfaction. Just absolute conviction. "Heretic!"
The Gauss Blaster roared like a storm.
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