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 immediately, raising his chin to look ahead.
David stood several meters away, blue light pulsing from his optical sensors. The glow illuminated the curved walls of the tunnel, reflecting off moisture and grime.
In David's metal 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 time for explanations. Not now.
He gestured forward sharply, his voice low and commanding. "David. Escort my aunt home. Keep her safe."
"As you command, my lord." David's metal head inclined in something approximating a bow. Then he turned slightly toward the aunt, offering her a smaller nod. "Please come with me, 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 moment.
"I have unfinished business."
Decision crystallized. His expression hardened into something cold and resolute.
David studied him for a long moment. 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 metal 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 menus, scrolling past salvaged equipment until he found what he needed.
Items materialized in the passage around him. Armor. Weapons. The tools he'd need for what came next.
On the streets of Harlem, hell had come 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, flames shooting high into the night sky.
The injured wailed. Those still conscious screamed for help that wouldn't come. Buildings collapsed in slow motion, their structures compromised, sending up clouds of dust and debris.
This corner of the city had become 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 meters tall, humanoid but wrong in every proportion. Its gray-white skin glistened with moisture, sweat running down its massive frame to drip on the pavement.
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 some 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 movement echoed off buildings.
A vicious smile split the creature's face. It remembered having a human name once, in another life. But that didn't matter anymore.
Now, it had a better name.
"Abomination."
It spoke, voice deep and resonant with barely restrained power. The sound carried across the devastated street.
"Come out, Hulk! How long will you hide, coward?"
No answer came. The Hulk, if he was even in the city, didn't respond to the challenge.
Abomination's eyes tracked across the destruction, looking for something, anything, to relieve its boredom.
Movement caught its attention. Beneath an overturned car, a man struggled to free himself from twisted metal. 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 loomed 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 metal blended together. Flesh and machine became one indistinguishable mass.
Abomination lifted its foot, examining the red smear with mild disappointment.
"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 metal 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 movement.
Crack.
The sound was sharp, metallic. Both canisters split open simultaneously.
Brilliant white light exploded outward. Not fire. Something else. Something 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 came up to cover its face, clawing at eyes that wouldn't see.
It staggered backward, each step crushing pavement. 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 hummed 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 aimed 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 became 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 fundamental level. Flesh, bone, muscle, all of it dissolved into vapor that glowed faintly green before dissipating.
Nolan landed, rolled, came up firing again.
The Gauss Blaster screamed with each shot, a sound like tearing reality. Green beams hammered 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, mechanical. No anger. No satisfaction. Just absolute conviction. "Heretic!"
The Gauss Blaster roared like a storm.