“Ok, Commissar.” Barrymon assured him. “We won't play cards.”
“That damned Cain owes me.” Grimden growled enigmatically, “Took over that lousy regiment, babysat Sulla for seventy goddawful years...”
“What's he talking about?” Winch asked lazily, rubbing the ammo counter on his grenade launcher thoughtfully.
“Something about Sally.” A trooper answered.
“No, it was Sulla.” another interjected.
“I heard him say Cain owes him...Jebediah Cain?” A third said from his prone position, without opening his eyes.
“No, Ciaphas.”
“It was Sally, dammit!”
“Hero of the Empire?”
“Imperium, tool. The Empire is the Bluies. You wanna go sit in their trench, eat weird food?”
“Sulla...that Valhallan Saint of The Imperium? Canonized and Beatified for her actions during the Crusade?”
“The Tau don't have feet. Why would I eat their feet?”
“I said Imperium, didn't I?”
“I said food, not foot.”
“They have clawed toes.”
“I heard hooves.”
“Did nobody ever check the corpses?”
Barrymon sat back against the wall of the trench next to Winch. “Tell Holden he's up on watch in five minutes.” He said, before grabbing the vox headset and ramming it over his ears. The sound cancelling headphones blocked out the idiotic chatter of the platoon as he started hunting through the radio channels.

Finally he found it. “Elysian Three-Seven, Elysian Three-Seven, this is Cadian Twenty-Kappa Actual. You reading me, Bub?” he called, closing his eyes and settling back.
“Loud and clear.” came the voice of Flight Captain Ricket Bub, an Elysian Valkyrie pilot with whom Barrymon had struck up a friendship during transit. “You still sitting in a trench?”
“Line hasn't moved for six days.” Barrymon replied. “Bluies keep testing us then withdrawing. How are the skies?”
“Empty for now.” Bub said happily. “Navy Lightning patrols have the whole sector tied up beautifully. Tau have probably drawn back because damn if we aren't just dropping our stormtroopers every where they don't want them.”
“Nice one. Heard any decent stories?” he asked.
“Just one. Ever heard the Tale of the Wayward Scout-Astartes?”
Barrymon frowned and laughed a little. “Can't say I have. Sounds...weird?”
“You better believe it is; scary as fuck, too. Listen up;”

“The legend goes that centuries ago, just after the Great Heresy, this mighty Space Marine Legion was forced to split up into smaller formations. They sub-divided, becoming the Chapters we have today.
Anyway this one Legion creates a bunch of Chapters, and one of them is the Astartes Pavidus; or, in Low Gothic, The Scary Marines.
Now these guys are weird; specialising in terror tactics, messing with their enemies heads, getting behind enemy lines and slaughtering every man at his post without disturbing anything. Stories started getting around; they'd find a position the Scary Marines had been tasked with taking completely devoid of life. No sign of battle, just empty enemy uniforms and abandoned weapons all in neat, folded little piles.
Or a xenos-contingent that disappeared, one xenos a night, from an impenetrable fortress for five straight years until the fort was empty and the Guard who moved in found a single insane Xeno gibbering in the corner.
Real weird stuff.”

“So, a few hundred years after this chapter is founded, something happens. They were terrorising the Emperor's enemies for so long that the forces of Chaos took an interest...didn't like it, apparently.
In particular the traitor Marines known as the Alpha Legion didn't like it. They had similar deal to the Scary Marines; terror tactics and covert tactics to defeat the enemy.
They take the Scary Marines on in a clandestine war that lasts nine thousand years; long story short, the Scary Marines lose. Nobody knows how; both forces dropped completely off the radar for a lot of the time, and were scarcely heard of for the rest of the intervening period. Then, in M40, the Scary Marines turn up; all dead, all over the galaxy. Dead Astartes just cropping up in odd places; staked to the door of an Imperial Cathedral, floating in the middle of space, in an ammunition locker in lots of small pieces...someone said they even found one in Ursarkar Creed's linen closet and scared the hell out of him.
So an entire Chapter of Space Marines was wiped out, somehow...all the officers, healers, chaplains, initiates and scouts...except one.

“Iratus Metus, a Veteran Space Marine Scout. Skilled in hunting and tracking, he was allegedly serving the Inquisition in some matter when the mysterious final battle took place and found himself the last of the Scary Marines.
With the Chapter dead, he swore an oath; to track down and destroy the Alpha Legion. It is known that this particular brand of heretical traitor Marine is elusive and scattered, though; appearing in small groups whilst manipulating armies of lesser beings and corrupting the Imperium's populations from within.
So it has been a long process. Metus has spent the last one thousand years – far beyond the life span of a single Marine – following up on every single scrap of information; travelling from world to world, from battlefield to battlefield to find even a single Alpha Legionnaire.
Here the rumours get darker. It is said that his vengeance has opened him to Chaos; twisted and corrupted him.”

“People who have reported seeing Metus describe him as masked by ragged dark cloth, hunched, with a single blade that trails down below the hem of the cloak he wears over the ancient and stained carapace armour.
He acknowledges no ally; his duty now is to revenge, not to the Imperium or the Emperor. He kills whoever is in his way; interrogates men of high rank to get the information he needs. And, worst of all...
He eats people. Slaughters men who were involved in combat actions where Alpha Legionnaires, or any Traitor Marine, were spotted, and guts them before devouring their brains to acquire their memories. In doing so he pieces it all together and slowly hauls in his prey...
It is said that in the thousand years he has hunted, he has killed over a thousand Alpha Legionnaires. But there are many more left, and so he hunts still...stalking his way through Imperial lines and eating the brains of any who have had contact with his quarry...”

Sergeant Barrymon sat for a moment as Bub finished speaking. Then he said, “What the hell kind of story was that? You trying to scare me or something, man?”
He opened his eyes. Then he yelled in terror, jumping to his feet with the vox set still coverng his ears.
The platoon was gone. There were star-burts of blood on the trench walls here and there, over the piles of neatly folded clothing. Each Mk-VII helmet had a neat hole punched through it, rimmed with blood. The forty five lasguns and five grenade launchers were leaned against the trench wall in a single line.
A shadowy figure stood a metre away from Barrymon. It loomed over him, somehow drawing the shadows from the trench walls over itself to meld with the dark cloak covering it's carapace armour; a pair of glowing red eyes burned from within the hood. A single blade, of ancient, pitted steel, hung from a twisted hand.
“Your unit engaged the forces of Chaos three years ago,” Bub's voice said in his ear, slowly changing from the light-hearted Elysian's twang to a rasping, guttural tone, “The Mordian Iron Guard weren't in a position to see the Astartes leading the foul heretics. But they could see your unit, and your unit...could see the Astartes.”
Barrymon screamed. Briefly.

I shat my pants, OP.

rolled 5, 2, 3 = 10

Wait why the fuck would he eat their brains?

>>7014587
Spaz Morons can apparently get memories from people if they eat them

holy shit that was awesome OP

can someone archive this?

Just have to say, Awesome as fuck. Hats off to you OP.

needs more gay

>>7015147
Screencap it or put it on 1d4chan.org

The archive is down at the moment and even if it weren't, this should be handled with one of the above means instead.

Kickass, OP. My commendations to your muse.

I shat bricks. Now I can't go to sleep; a Scary Marine is going to eat my brain to find out where the Alpha Legion are :(

But this is officially a cool story bro.

HAHAHA EPIC WIN OP

Archive achieved.

>>7019060
Archive? Where? Which tags?

The Scary Marine being inside the base, that was expected. The Scary Marine being INSIDE DAH HOWSE, not so much.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/7014112

writefag, writefaggotry, 40k, Scary Marines, awesome