You Died

The explosions started seconds later; Tarphus himself was caught in one of the blasts, mere moments after hearing that message. Going through the motions time after time again, he managed to take step after step away from the explosions that were all around him.

He died over and over, taking a wrong step; he had thoughts of abandoning his squad over and over again. Tarphus would not lie, it was a tempting offer, but he promised himself since he could not save the others in the trenches, he would not allow himself to abandon his squad. Tarphus chuckled. Yes, they were a part of his squad.

Tarphus was responsible for them, and he would not allow them to die on him. Tarphus learned that it was eighty meters, the explosions stopped eighty meters ahead of their position.

Since it was time-sensitive, as soon as they killed the 'nob' he got his squad to start sprinting, it was hellish. He died many times, but that was not the worst part. The worst part was when he saw other squads rush into the grinder, getting chewed up and spat out like ground beef.

Tarphus knew that the sight would haunt him for the rest of his life. The zealot got shrapnel in her leg; he slowed to help her along. Tarphus genuinely feared the worse as they limped toward safety.

They got through, but she was losing a lot of blood. The medic immediately started helping her out after they got into the safety of the trenches, of course. Tarphus kneeled beside her, looking on as the medic did his magic. Unfortunately, it was magic that the medic performed as the blood almost instantly stopped flowing. The entire squad sighed in relief as the medic said it was not life-threatening. However, it was still a severe injury.

Tarphus looked for some spare troops to replace her; however, the maniac stopped him with that frantic look in her eyes. Tarphus saw how she gripped her autogun, and Tarphus knew he would die if he sent her away.

Tarphus nodded at the medic in thanks and asked to learn from him, to which the man simply smiled, beckoning his squad captain towards the injured. It was almost like the medic could sense who could live or needed help.

Several times the medic stopped and applied some simple bandages to someone who needed them. Seeing the medic work was strange. He was young no doubt his youthful features were still present. How he skillfully put a tourniquet on the area, disinfecting the wound and retrieving the object lodged in the wound, amazed Tarphus. He was saddened that a familiar person interrupted his learning experience; Tarphus then turned toward the figure, his face blank.

Two commissars stepped up to him, the young and old ones that he remembered. Tarphus was relieved that the more senior commissar was still kicking, but he was less enthused about the other. Finally, the young one looked at him dismissively, "Congratulations, squad captain. Your squad seems to have made it out of the artillery strike alive, though it is a pity the others were not as lucky. We do need meat for the grinder." The condescending smirk grated at Tarphus's nerves, but he said nothing as he could say nothing. However, he noticed the other commissar wince.

"Boy, get your squad ready, the ships are inbound, and the hive city is secure. We only need to hold for…." The old and wrinkled commissar took out an emblazoned pocket watch and looked at the thing with a slight dismayed look. "Two more hours is the fastest ETA. However, the word from high is that reinforcements are coming in one. That means we have to hold out for an hour for these mystery reinforcements from the stars."

The youngster snorted derisively, obviously not impressed by the overview, expressing himself with. "As long as the guard dies in its duty, all is well." This earned a frown from the old commissar. Tarphus bowed and said, "I shall get my squad ready, sir." Turned and left as quickly as he could.

The squad had already gathered as many supplies as possible in his absence. Two ran off and managed to grab a bloody heavy stubber and set it up. Meanwhile, the predator got a scope attached to his autogun. The twitchy one had a stockpile of rockets and grenades. He was even fiddling around with some claymores.

The zealot even got another knife; however, it looked more like a sword than a mere knife. Finally, the rest of the squad got mountains of ammunition for the upcoming event. He had no idea where they got these things, but Tarphus was not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. This would help them survive, and they needed everything that they could get.

It was strange as there was a silence disturbed by the artillery bombardment over the trenches in which the enemy took position. Tarphus felt such tension, pain, stress, and anger. He raged at the green skin menace, and he remembered that bored look, the sheer joy that they had while tearing his squad limb from limb Tarphus would never forget, nor would he forgive.

However, as he looked at the field, he must admit there was a beauty to this; the explosions that flared to life then disappeared in seconds. This was the only thing the great enemy deserved; they needed total destruction, nothing less than a complete purge of these horrible Xenos scum. It was then that the trucks appeared out of the smoke, all of them screaming, "WAAAAAH!"

The user has unlocked a hidden bonus, the user is now at a checkpoint, you will respawn at the start of the fifth and final wave.

User unlocked the final wave one hour until rescue by?????

Tarphus smiled, hope returning to his eyes as he read the first message; he could return home. It has been so long, and yet, the second message scared him. What was with the question marks he had a bad feeling? It felt like when he was about to get hit by artillery, that sinking feeling invaded his thought process. Causing him to become too distracted that he did not duck when his position was fired upon.

You Died.

Tarphus shook himself out of his stupor, thinking about victories that can only come after the successes have been earned. He might not know what would come, but that is alright as long as he could keep his squad alive, for that was all that mattered to him now, his team.

The orcs came in those walking cans of theirs; this time, they were painted black, he believed it was to make them camouflaged, it did nothing of the sort, five rockets later and one was destroyed. There were twenty of the bastards. However, there were still many guardsmen left standing, some having those rocket launchers.

Tarphus was glad he could kill even a few of those blasted things. The trucks that came were not heavily armored but were very fast. His silent squadmate would chuckle softly to himself as he fired his autogun.

Tarphus was impressed by him as that man killed orc tracks by sniping their drivers. It was almost hilarious. However, everyone knew that they were dancing with death because the orcs would destroy most of the squad in melee. This does not mean that the rest of his team was doing nothing; Twitch was setting up explosives, three were covering Twitch, and the rest were firing into the horde of orcs. They were calling their shots and coordinating.

Tarphus was filled with pride at seeing how well his squad was doing, and surprisingly no curve balls were being thrown. This was because the battle was halfway over, with only thirty minutes to go. No sudden airdrops by the orcs, no 'nobz' charging his squad, no-

Greenlight flared behind him, and he felt pain erupt from behind him. Turning his head, he saw a large orc holding a (now) bloody blade, its face in a wide grin as if to mock him. Its eyes were with both battle frenzy and mirth. "We-ll Fu-" The orc swung its crude weapon into Tarphus's brain, killing him almost instantly.

You Died.

Tarphus then started to prepare for that; he had explosives thanks to Twitch, no he had to find out where they teleported to. Tarphus was ashamed that it took him so long, but he finally marked their spots after dying repeatedly.

The frenzied orcs made a shocked face as they came out of the light into explosives; that face ingrained itself into Tarphus's memory. Why do they not show fear? The orcs leave nothing but death in their charges, heedless of the danger. It is frightening to fight them. It just looked sad or annoyed instead of fear, like he had when he came here like he still has. These things annoy him to no end.

Dealing with the orcs that teleported in the middle of their formation took more time than Tarphus could spare. Twenty-five minutes, it took twenty-five minutes to shore up the defenses. Flammers and explosions ripped the trenches apart. Yet, the orcs did not stop their charge while the guardsmen were engaged. As a result, they were met with less fire from the trenches allowing more orcs to reach and breach them.

The young commissar looked over his beleaguered forces and, with a sneer, yelled. "Charge!" The guard looked at each other, wondering why they should, then at the boy who stood there. The guardsmen started to get a murderous look in their eyes. Then, as if he was surprised, the older one shook his head and yelled, "Hold your ground! I said, hold your ground. Three minutes are left; our salvation is nigh guardsmen!"

As he said that, a gargantuan… thing started coming out of the smoke. It was massive, it towered over the entire battlefield, and every inch was covered in guns. It looked like one of the can things, but with tracks instead of legs, the thing was a mass of scrap. Then it lowered the angle of the guns on that horrible monstrosity. Still, then something happened, an orc far larger and more armored than the 'nob' that killed him so many times before teleported in front of the trenches. More specifically, in front of Tarphus's squad, as they were in the middle of the trenches.

"Oh, come on!" Tarphus screamed, fear and hate in his eyes; they were so close tears flooded his face as he looked up at the beast. Then red started to hinder his vision as pure unadulterated rage flowed through him. Why won't these creatures just die? He could do nothing; his squad opened fire into the beast, who laughed. It just laughed in that guttural tone, like a demon. Tarphus knew he needed to hold for his squad to retreat, so harnessing his rage, he threw a grenade at it, insulting it as an overgrown shroom. How his boyz insult him as stupid behind the creature's back.

It worked. The creature roared at Tarphus and charged; he led it on a chase, each second a blessing. He dodged many mines while it simply walked over them unfazed. Bloodlust in its eyes, good, Tarphus needed that, "Chase me mongrel, I bet you will never catch me." This incensed the orc, who started to run faster; this made Tarphus's eyes widen. In his mind, he was screaming as the creature steadily gained on him, then Tarphus slipped, the ground thick with blood and dirt turned into the slippery mud. He was turned around by the orc, who started talking with that guttural tone, screaming in that broken common. "Oi, hummie! Ya dare insult me, da boss?! I'll gut ya, take ya eyeballs and scrabble ya innards with ya bones!!!"

The orc then saw that the human was looking past him with a condescending smirk, this enraged the Warboss, and it used one of its claws to dig out the left eye of the pink one. "Oi, I be talkn!" The human winced but then pointed up, to which the warboss turned to, and saw the sky aflame.

Then a large ship goes into orbit. The giant orc can be obliterated. Several rounds from this ship hit the thing and destroyed it with a large explosion. The orc war boss starts laughing Tarphus wants to believe it was because of how easily the can was destroyed, but he knew better. The ship launched several meteors into the trenches; the warboss now ignores the human and goes to where these "meteors" will land.

His squad finds him as he limps to their old position; they grab him and help him to a safe place for him to sit down. He is grateful for them. His squad is surprisingly light-hearted about his eye. They laugh at and with him, but there is some tension, they probably want to know why he did not trust them, but he did. Tarphus trusted them with his life.

The meteors turned out to be pods, from which tall humanoids with black armor and silver highlights ran out of the pods with so much speed. In seconds dozens of orcs are lying dead wherever these things go. One of his squad smiles and whispers reverently, almost in prayer, "Space Marines." That must be the title of their saviors; it was one that they deserved, as these space marines moved so fast that his eyes could not keep up.

Tarphus smiled as he had his team go around and deliver aid to the other guardsmen, medical supplies, and helping set bones or otherwise. It was truly saddening to see these people with such horrible wounds; all he could do was provide them with an extra set of hands. Then the squad captains were called by the remaining sergeants to arrange the squad's information to get a good look at their savior.

Tarphus was tired. He was bloody and bruised. Though he had patched it, he was missing an eye that would not come back his eye. He looked around; the troops were all standing at attention, waiting; they did not know what was going on until they saw the shuttle; it looked like a brick that someone wielded wings to and a tail. The guardsmen were confused until the shuttle landed in front of them. They all saluted as the ramp fell. Then, space marines like the ones nearby from the pods came out of the shuttle.

A younger-looking man walks out of the shuttle on him. His armor crackles with power, emblazoned on his chest piece is a large red I symbol with a skull in the center and three bars on either side of the Skull. The man looked at everyone here and spoke calmly and certainly, "I am Inquisitor Hubert Mathias of the Ordo Hereticus. You, all of you, have died in this battle; I am here to pick up some strays; luckily, I have found some. You are now under my command; congratulations for making it."