Darksiders: War in the 40th Millennium

The hive city's edge was a jagged wound of steel and stone, its outskirts a graveyard of rusted gantries and collapsed hab-blocks. War stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the Ultramarines, their blue ceramite streaked with the blood of the greenskins they'd just felled. The air buzzed with the aftershock of violence, the ground littered with twitching corpses and smoking wreckage. Brother-Captain Aelius reloaded his bolt pistol with a practiced snap, his red lenses fixed on the haze beyond. War wiped Chaoseater clean on a fallen brute's hide, its crude armor no match for the blade's hunger. The truce between them hung fragile, forged in the heat of necessity, but neither spoke of it. Words were a luxury neither cared for.

A low rumble shook the earth, growing into a cacophony of roars and clanking metal. War's head snapped toward the sound, his instincts flaring. The haze parted, revealing a tide of green—more of the savage creatures, their numbers swelling like a plague. They spilled from the shadows of the hive's underbelly, a mob of muscle and madness, their eyes glinting with feral glee. Their weapons were a patchwork of scavenged steel—choppas, shootas, and hulking contraptions that belched black smoke. Above them loomed ramshackle vehicles, spiked wheels churning the dirt, their crews howling as they fired wildly into the air.

"Orks," Aelius spat, his voice laced with disgust. "Xenos filth. They breed war like vermin breed rot." He raised his power sword, its blade crackling to life. "Brothers, form the line! For Guilliman and the Emperor!"

The Ultramarines moved with mechanical precision, their boltguns barking as they took position behind a crumbled barricade. War stood apart, Chaoseater gripped in both hands, his crimson cloak billowing in the wind. He'd fought countless foes—demons, angels, abominations born of the abyss—but these orks unnerved him in a way he couldn't name. Their recklessness, their joy in the slaughter, was a chaos he'd never faced. It wasn't the calculated malice of Hell or the righteous fury of Heaven. It was something… primal.

The green tide hit like a storm. Bolt rounds tore through the front ranks, bursting skulls and shredding limbs, but the orks kept coming, laughing through the carnage. War met them head-on, Chaoseater carving a bloody arc through the first wave. An ork's choppa clanged against his blade, its wielder grinning as it pressed forward, yellow tusks gleaming. War roared, driving his shoulder into the brute's chest, then cleaved it from collar to groin. Green blood sprayed, thick and rancid, as another leapt at him, swinging a chain-axe. He ducked, the teeth whining past his helm, and retaliated with a thrust that impaled the creature mid-air.

The Ultramarines held their ground, their disciplined fire cutting swathes through the mob. Aelius fought at their fore, his sword a blur of light as he bisected an ork mid-charge. Yet the greenskins' numbers seemed endless, their ferocity unshaken by loss. A crude rocket spiraled from the horde, slamming into a Marine's chest; the explosion hurled him back, ceramite shattered, his vox crackling with a dying curse. Another fell to a barrage of slugs, his helm pulped by a lucky shot. War saw it all, his senses attuned to the battlefield's rhythm, but he felt no kinship with these warriors. They were allies of circumstance, nothing more.

A shadow loomed over him—a hulking ork, its frame swollen with muscle, clad in plates of scavenged metal. A nob, larger and meaner than the rest, its power klaw snapping with electric fury. It bellowed, "I'z gonna krump ya, big red!" and charged, the ground trembling under its weight. War braced, meeting the klaw with Chaoseater. The impact jarred his arms, a testament to the creature's strength, but he held firm. Sparks flew as the klaw's teeth ground against his blade, the ork's grin widening.

"Strong fer a humie," it grunted, shoving harder. War snarled, twisting Chaoseater to redirect the klaw, then drove his boot into the nob's knee. Bone cracked, and the ork stumbled, giving him an opening. He swung upward, the blade biting deep into its shoulder. Green blood fountained, but the nob roared defiance, slashing wildly with its free hand. A glancing blow caught War's side, denting his armor, and he staggered, pain flaring hot and brief.

Across the field, Aelius faltered. Another nob had broken through, its klaw poised to crush him. The captain parried a blow, but the force sent him skidding back, his sword arm trembling. War saw it—the moment of weakness—and acted. He roared, hurling himself at the second nob. Chaoseater sang as it cleaved through the ork's arm, severing the klaw in a spray of gore. The creature howled, turning on him, but War was relentless. A second strike took its head, the body collapsing in a heap.

Aelius regained his footing, nodding once—a warrior's thanks. "Your strength is undeniable," he voxed, his tone grudging. "But this is no victory yet."

War grunted, wiping his blade. "Victory is survival. I intend to endure."

The orks pressed harder, their vehicles rumbling closer. A trukk swerved toward them, its gunner spraying bullets that pinged off War's armor. He leapt aside, rolling as the machine crashed through the barricade, scattering the Ultramarines. Aelius barked orders, rallying his squad, but the tide was turning. War felt it—the sheer weight of numbers, the unrelenting madness of this enemy. He'd faced legions, but never such reckless abandon. It gnawed at him, this universe's scale, its chaos dwarfing even the apocalypse he'd known.

Above, the sky darkened. A storm brewed, not of rain but of something fouler—swirls of purple and black, streaked with unnatural light. Thunder rumbled, deep and wrong, shaking the air. The orks faltered, some glancing upward, their chants shifting to snarls of confusion. Aelius's helm tilted, his vox crackling. "Warp storm," he muttered. "The ruinous powers stir."

War followed his gaze, the word "Warp" echoing the cultists' dying gasps. That crimson rift flashed in his memory, its pull undeniable. He tightened his grip on Chaoseater, unease coiling in his gut. This storm was no coincidence—it reeked of the same malice that had torn him from Earth. The orks regrouped, their roars drowning the thunder, and War shoved the thought aside. Answers could wait. Survival could not.

The nob's corpse twitched at his feet, its klaw sparking fitfully. War kicked it aside, joining Aelius as the next wave crashed in. Together, they fought—a whirlwind of steel and ceramite against the green tide. War saved Aelius again, deflecting a choppa aimed at his back; the captain returned the favor, a bolt round blasting an ork mid-leap. Their rhythm synced, not out of trust but necessity, two warriors forged in different fires standing against a common foe.

The storm grew, its shadow swallowing the battlefield. Lightning split the sky, purple and jagged, illuminating the carnage in stark relief. The orks' laughter turned to snarls as the tide thinned, their numbers finally waning. War drove Chaoseater through a final brute, its body slumping atop a pile of its kin. Aelius felled another with a precise thrust, his squad finishing the stragglers with disciplined bursts.

Silence fell, heavy and oppressive. The Ultramarines regrouped, their armor scarred but unbroken. Aelius approached War, his sword lowered but his stance wary. "You fight like no mortal I've known," he said. "Yet this world tests even the mightiest. The orks are but one scourge. Worse awaits."

War stared at the storm, its colors swirling like a living thing. "This 'Warp,'" he rumbled. "It brought me here. I feel it."

Aelius's lenses gleamed. "The Warp is the domain of the ruinous powers—Chaos itself. If it claims you, stranger, you're entangled in a war older than stars." He paused, then added, "Come with us. The hive's heart holds answers—if you can survive it."

War nodded, his mind churning. The orks' savagery, the storm's malice, the Ultramarines' zeal—this universe was a crucible of madness, its scale vast beyond reckoning. He'd survived Hell's depths and Heaven's wrath, but this was different. Bigger. And somewhere in its shadows, the rift's purpose waited.

For now, he followed Aelius, Chaoseater resting on his shoulder. The hive loomed ahead, its spires swallowed by the storm. War felt the weight of unseen eyes—not the Council's, but something darker. He welcomed it. Let it watch. He was War, and he would face it all.