Prologue

Humanity is an enigma.

For thousands of years it has attempted to snuff itself out, society as a whole enraptured by media and pop culture throwing this fact in the face of the millions by means of cinema and literature; relishing at the fictional eradication of their race time and time again. Never has a species been so infatuated with its own death. So why, when another higher power attempts to remove humanity from actual existence, does humanity suddenly feel the need to live? Using any means necessary it struggles and claws at life, like a desperate animal gasping air, fervent in ensuring that no breath shall be its last. Only when there is a common evil, a greater cause can humanity unite as one to strike down whatever destructive force or oppressive being is attempting to stamp the fickle race into the ground. But even then humanity is fragile.

I am an attempt to remove that fragility, to eliminate the blemishes of mankind. I am a super soldier. Astartes born, bred, raised, and trained to kill. I cannot feel fear. Not from some mental deficiency or unstable emotional state mind you but through the removal of the emotion using some means I cannot fathom. Once I was not alone. I had comrades, brothers, one hundred brave and courageous souls of indomitable strength and will. Now I am all that remains of humanity's latest effort to preserve itself.

Am I the strongest for surviving the longest, or weakest; simply standing on their shoulders to let them sink into the mud beneath me before having my own turn at fighting against the inevitable drowning? Many have told me the latter is not the case. They say I am the best of the best, though I know I learned from their deaths and benefited from their wisdom and guidance.

Ah, I'm certain you have had enough of this exhibition. I'm surely boring you.

This is not a story or tale but a report, a recounting of true events that I do not exaggerate. I was younger then, ignorant of many truths I have discovered today about both myself and my convoluted existence. But I digress, and apologize. Let me begin to explain, of how I am the Last Astartes.

The muted hum of power armor, hot breeze tickling my cheeks and flecks of unknown material dancing through the air. My boots rested among crumbling concrete and smoldering bodies, the weapons I carried silent for the moment but warm with use. A thin line of smoke ghosted from the barrel of my standard boltgun just before the soft winds annihilated it. My chainsword coughed and grunted, ready to feed but knowing it had not been called. It waited patiently but with underlying excitement, hoping its master would find use for it soon. My equipment idled, instruments whirred, bolter smoking and chainsword hungering quietly. Clad in machines of war and stood in a barren battlefield my mind wandered between shelves of idealism and philosophy in its infinite expanse. I wondered and considered, giving life to thought than ran, boundless and free.

I looked east.

Sky dyed red and orange, cotton-ball clouds stained crimson by bloody rays from the setting sun drifted lazily across the horizon. Columns of black smoke billowed from behind broken buildings and punched through the clouds, reaching miles into the atmosphere. Eyes swinging to the west I could see the beginning of night. Inky, soft darkness slowly crept up over the horizon intending to cover the land with its soothing blanket. Shrouded by twilight and the haze of battle I inhaled through my nose.

The air stank of war. Blood, burning flesh, oil, gunpowder, all assaulted me as one horrid stench along with a strange underlying chemical odor that burned the nose and lungs. All scents were dulled from the heat, yet the addition of temperature gave them a battering ram sensation, bursting through my nostrils and hammering through my lungs like an angry herd of bulls. The only smell stronger was that of my own glistening sweat, ticklish and heavy on my bare head and tanned skin. I wiped my forehead with the back of a silver gauntlet and looked over the demolished street.

Once peaceful, home to simple farmers and harmless civilians, the aerid desert town lay in ruins. Corpses rotted on the street next to burned out wreckages of tanks and cars. In the distance jet engines rumbled overtop muted explosions, sporadic pops of small arms fire echoing faintly. The small center of life and prosperity built painstakingly over the course of many decades and generations had been reduced to nothing more than many different piles of rubble filled with the dead and dying.

Weapons emplacements poked out partially in some places, buried beneath the rubble along with their unfortunate crews. Abandoned stalls and shops, most destroyed, ran along either side of the street, goods strewn about the ground unwanted even by looters. Odds were, any able bodied citizens were too busy fleeing or too terrified to bother looting.

Inside the toppled building to my right someone cried for help. The voice was weak. Stepping over to the rubble I pulled several slabs of concrete up and found a dead woman, her skull crushed. The voice called out again from beneath her. Dragging the woman out I found a small girl, covered in her mother's blood. She looked up at me, wide-eyed, from within a small crevice might have been fashioned by her mother. A hot wind blew with the heat of a burning flame.

Helmet under my arm I studied the girl, spotting more half-buried corpses some clutching weapons. None wore armor or fatigues but robes, shirts, pants, whatever it was these civilians called their clothing. Militia? Each had likely lived here at some point. I turned, scanning the corpse-covered street. Faces contorted by ugly fear, all lay motionless, some with faces burnt or entirely headless. The majority were missing limbs or entire sections of their bodies, either hewn by chainswords or blown apart by explosive bolts. Regardless of their means of passing or expression I knew what they felt when they died. I knew that none of them had died willingly. I looked back at the girl hunkered low, watching me fearfully from her small foxhole.

We'd been deployed, my brothers and I, to sanctify this region. It was a hold-out for enemy forces and the townspeople upheld the radical beliefs of their armed guests gladly. "Terrorists" command had called them. Bloodthirsty individuals who wanted nothing but to topple governments and destroy everything mankind had built up, even that which the Novas had not already annihilated. They weren't human, just mad dogs whose only dream was to kill, rape, and destroy. A cancer corrupting the world that needed to be exterminated. Yet, looking down upon this girl and her slain family, I questioned.

These "Terrorists" screamed like people, died like people, fought like people, looked like people. I had watched them defend their own to the death. These "Terrorists" died with their front to the enemy protecting those too weak to fight.

Not too long ago I myself had buried a 50. Calibre heavy machine gun beneath a collapsing building with a well-placed grenade several blocks down the street. I understood Arabic, at least the standard Arabic taught in boot camp, and comprehended bits and pieces shouted by these "Terrorists." The crew of the gun had been shouting something to others inside the house, those who were not directly manning the gun waving at the interior, almost as if asking someone to flee. The overall gist had been, "run while you can." From my understanding of human beings, they were sacrificing themselves so others may escape. In my military studies soldiers were granted posthumous medals for such actions. But they were still not people? They were "Terrorists?" Religious fanatics who fought blindly against giant ten foot tall metal men to protect a town they had forcibly occupied. The Power armor my bothers and I wore was nigh impenetrable by most firearms and there had been hardly any risk or challenge killing these… "Terrorists." Only a rocket propelled grenade or some other manner of high explosive or armor penetrating weapon might stand a chance at incapacitating myself or a brother. Yet they fought stubbornly, throwing themselves at us. I recalled how I'd torn a soldier asunder with my chainsword. How he'd screamed, bled, how red his blood was, how his comrades cried out in anguish and horror, firing vainly at me screaming for vengeance. Yet they were not human? What did it mean to be human?

I blinked, focusing on the girl. In her muddy brown eyes I could only see fear, innocent and sincere, ignorant to the reason her small world had been crushed and burned, like an insignificant paper fort. She trembled visibly, unable to look away or move. What right did I have to blame her? Giant invincible men of steel destroyed her home, killed her family and friends, all simply because they were told. I had mercilessly crushed beneath my boots the only happiness she knew for no other reason than I had been ordered to. Tears began to trickle down her cheeks but the girl did not make a single sound.

Yet, decreed by a circle of faceless men in military uniforms and gray hair, she was not human.

I myself felt distinct sadness from each Astartes brother I had watched fall in the last sixteen years. Each lost Astartes added to a swelling black hole in my chest that suffocated my hearts and lungs with stifling, black emotions. I loved my brothers and they I. We were family. It was agony to lose them. I saw the very same look in her eyes. At that moment I met the girl's eyes and felt a communion between us, a similarity no spoken word or logical explanation could label. Despite my superior training and biological enhancement, rendering her an inferior being not worth a single drop of my own blood, I knew we two were one and the same. How then were we not human?

What exception was there between this girl and I that separated us from our own kind other than that which we were told by those who called themselves human? How could she and I be so radically different yet feel such similar things? What made us monsters in body and mind? We were human.

I crouched down and gingerly reached out to touch her. How was she a guilty soul, capable of destroying all humanity stood for? Why did she and her kind have to die? If I was not human why did I think this way? Why did I hope for something other than death? Why-

"Marine 4," I jumped up, snapping to attention with a quick salute. Helmet falling out from under my arm it bounced across the ground, rolling a short distance away to knock against the gigantic silver boot of an Astartes,

"Commander!" I barked, staring deliberately at the cold and stoic faceplate of the Commander's helmet, his angry red visors fixed on me. Not daring to risk a glance in the girl's direction I stood at attention as he crossed over, picking up my helm on the way, "Just checking the bodies." I added, hoping to keep his focus on me. The Commander stopped, standing a full head or two taller than I, his overall physique several times my own. His body's reaction to the augmentations was perfect according to the researchers. The massive Astartes regarded me a moment before the speakers of his helm boomed,

"Do not lie brother." His voice shook the very air and would have done the same even without his helmet's speakers, "This is the second engagement you have participated in, but most certainly not the last in which you will be ordered to exterminate those judged guilty by our superiors." He shook his head in disappointment, "You are the youngest of your brothers, barely sixteen. You've proven yourself to be the most adept in melee combat and stand far above your brothers in terms of battle tactics. Through either skill or clever trickery you best them. You are a fine weapon, one I am glad to have in war." He raised a gauntlet extending an armored finger, "But you possess one glaring problem." He paused, studying me, "Care to guess?"

"Ranged combat is my current flaw sir!" I barked and earned a heavy flicked to the head with his armored, pointing finger,

"No, you're gunplay is acceptable." He sighed, "Your mind is the problem. You think, you feel, you question, you allow your emotions and thoughts to play havoc with you," He rapped a knuckle across my forehead knocking me off-balance, "We are weapons, does your bolter think? Does your bolter feel? Does your bolter question? Do you believe yourself different from your bolter?"

"No sir!" I yelped, steadying myself and holding the salute,

"You follow my orders and I follow my orders. We are Astartes, weapons, we defend mankind against the Nova and cannot afford to question or feel." Slinging a massive two-handed Thunder Hammer that crackled with lightning over his shoulder the Commander pushed my helmet against my chest, "Am I understood Marine 4?" He growled, furious faceplate inches from my nose,

"Yes sir." I answered, taking silver helm from him and donning it. The Commander turned away as my helmet's holo display came online. Waypoints flicked on, dull radio chatter whispering, air recycling through filtration systems and growing fresh, suit purging any outside substances.

"Then we press on." The Commander turned on his heel, marching onto the street where I spotted a number of my brothers waiting for him. One of them waved to me, an indicator appearing on my visor notifying me of a private channel request,

"On the Commander's bad side again Four? You work fast." The radio typically dehumanized any emotion or feeling, but even it could not hide the overwhelming mockery in Seven's voice. I ignored him, severing the link, and turning to where the girl was. She still huddled motionless, shaking and eyes wide. Despite myself I could not help a quiet sigh of relief. Had the Commander missed her? Either way I didn't care, at least she lived,

"Marine 4." The Commander's summon cracked like a whip and I hurried into formation with the squad. As we marched up the street in a loose "V" I looked over one of my large pauldrons back at the building. She stood on the rubble, watching us go. With no way to speak to her I gestured for her to hide, hoping she would understand, and turned my back.

The world continued to turn and four years passed. Four long, grim years of war and death before the Astartes were called upon to fight the very enemy they had been bred to combat:

Nova.

I tracked one of the four gigantic Type-S Novas before us, unloading with my bolter. Each shot ricocheted or exploded harmlessly on its white carapace dealing no noticeable damage. Plasma cannon fire and rockets pummeled the rightmost Nova, causing it to lean heavily to one side from the concentrated heavy weapons fire,

"Everything, fire everything!"

"Today we go in a blaze of glory brothers!"

"Let them taste our fury!"

Ten Astartes strong we stood alone against these harbingers of death to prove to our commanders we could. This was a test of our real combat strength. We'd easily crushed the man-made Novas in simulations but these were entirely different beasts. A solid beam of red shot from the crimson gem embedded in the chest of the foremost Type-S, sweeping over us and throwing mounds of earth into the air, it tore a deep trench into the ground just a few feet ahead of me. Two of vitals on the squad status screen flat-lined and furious roars of pain assaulted my eardrums through the interior speakers in my helm. Teeth gritting from the knowledge I was hearing my brothers' death cries I jumped the trench. Suddenly, invigorating and vibrant, the Commander's thunderous voice boomed across the battlefield,

"53, and 72 vitals flat-lined, visuals?!"

"Negative!" I cried in unison with six other voices,

"Presumed dead, push forward squad, do not let their deaths be in vain!" Jets fired behind me and a blazing streak of flame arched over my head. I glimpsed a single armored figure hoisting a massive Thunder Hammer, jump pack firing at full burn. The Commander roared as he slammed into the Nova and brought down the hammer with a thunderous bang, generating a shock wave of compressed air. An explosion of red shards and white chunks proclaimed his success and the Nova crashed to the ground. "Forward brothers, advance!" The Commander shouted as he jumped to the next Nova. The roars of my brothers and their weapons rang through the speakers in my helm.

The harbor docks we fought upon burned bright enough to chase back the night, cranes and loading equipment laying about in twisted metal webs. Beams of light cut down gigantic men of silver, screams, status reports, orders, blood, all jammed into mere seconds. We died battling the Nova, even as they rose from the ground beneath our feet. We died protecting humanity against impossible odds. We died because we were expendable, nothing more than an experiment, an expensive attempt at a replacement.

We had been volunteered without our knowledge or our consent, the military asked and our parents gave. Our families had forsaken us, sold the rights to our own lives, our very humanity, for themselves. We had been forced to sacrifice everything to become weapons. We were the unfortunate scapegoats mankind deemed necessary. That was what we had been told.

Decades of training and preparation had come before this moment, to prepare several hundred male souls for war with Nova, an unknown number and type. We had steel bones, rock-hard skin, two hearts, four livers, acid spit, eyesight an eagle would envy, and more. We were monsters called Astartes. When faced with uncertain odds and potential suicide we threw ourselves into oblivion willingly. Untested in combat against true Nova we still knew we were ready. We feared nothing as brothers who had lived together since the beginning, comrades who had fought in wars and trained together since boyhood. We had killed together and died together since we could walk. None stood before our brotherhood, strength of our bonds unbreakable, and selfless bravery unshakable.

We were invincible.

We were wrong.

I stood at attention in my dress uniform, hands behind my back, within a large courtroom before a long half-moon table occupied by old men seated in large leather chairs. Half wore military uniforms covered with medals they supposedly earned, and half wore suits that had never been touched by dirt or grime. One of them was reading lines aloud from a sizeable packet of papers that I only partially heard,

"...Astartes Project sustained 90% mortality rate in the 8th Nova clash." He sounded bored listing the statistics of my darkest hour. He reminded me of the military instructors that taught my brothers and I, waving their books and chalk, tapping on a board etched with paragraphs of white and words possessing a meaning I rarely cared for, "All four Type-S Novas and their adjoining Type-Rs are now located in the Alaskan Pandra Research Facility after being defeated by Legendary Pandora Kazuha Aoi." Some of the men shook their heads in disappointment, others eyeing like parents do to a problem child, or investors witnessing the result of a failed investment. I should have felt rage, the urge to tear them apart, but nothing rose in my hearts. No inspiring hatred or vengeful surge to defend the name and honor of my dead brothers.

"Wren, Callsign Marine 4, as the final surviving member of the Astartes Project you are to be relocated to the Pandra Alaskan Research Facility for training to become a Limiter in the Japanese Branch of Pandra with the hope you are at least able to partner with a," He cleared his throat, "willing Pandora." I was numb, empty, "You will remain in Alaska until you are believed fit for combat and social involvement. Effective immediately."

"Yes sir." I answered and saluted. The response was automatic, soulless, a trained reflex. My brothers, the Commander, all of them had died destroying nearly every Nova but one. In spite of this Kazuha gained posthumous titles and glory for appearing to save my worthless life from the only remaining Nova? A badly damaged Type-S? It was an atrocity, one Kazuha Aoi was not at fault for. Those that believed themselves the judges of my brothers and I, the arrogant bastards I had sworn to protect, to serve, they were to blame. Despite such injustice I still felt nothing. The men who once offered encouragement and support now looked down upon me on their high chairs as the failure they called me. Now they wanted to pair me with a woman, hoping I might find some usefulness? I did not bother to find the words.

Before sending me off though they jokingly gave me the nickname, in their infinite wisdom and creativity, "The Last Astartes."

It was the first time I had been in public.

Command had instructed me to find my way to a facility called West Genetics, a Pandora Academy, and talk to the Headmistress there whom was already informed of my situation. Already I was encountering problems.

I could speak several different dialects of Japanese, as well as a number of other languages due to the diversity of Pandra's students and staff. My instructors in Alaska had drilled many languages into me until I could speak the majority fluently as well as understand proper social norms and be able to carry out what was expected of a civilian. I could not help feeling uncomfortable during it all, training to become a civilian that is. They pressed just as hard for the advancement of my combat skills but it still felt wrong to learn how to live in leisure.

When I stepped into the general public it was a bit of a shock. All my life I'd been around my brothers and military officials or enemies out to kill me. I had thought humans were vicious, desperate creatures that cared only for themselves and those precious to them, killing any who thought to break this. As I stood on a train to Pandra Academy I'd never realized that people were, on the whole, so domesticated. I stood a full head or two above the other occupants of the train car, shaved head bumping the ceiling occasionally. I could feel eyes on me when I looked away, occasionally catching them gawking at my over-sized proportions. I stared straight ahead ignoring most of them. Both of my train rides consisted of this as well as my time spent standing at stations.

Walking through the streets was worse. Cars and trucks would slow down so the drivers could blatantly stare while passerbys on the street turned wide-eyed and small children pointed, crying out in wonder. I was undaunted, of course. I could easily kill the lot of them. It was just mildly uncomfortable to be the center of so much attention. It would be a relief to back among members of a military climate. None of them looked like warriors. I walked the sidewalk with cowards, fools, politics, and drones of businesses they served. All were worthless, a rare few showing minor potential here and there, but on the whole a laughable bunch. Fat, complacent, useless ants. A tick worked into the back of my mind, wondering what they might do if I pressured one of them? I shook my head, not wanting to attract unwanted attention, and hurried to Pandora Academy.

Reaching the academy at midday, somewhat behind schedule thanks to a group of idiot children trying to distract me and use me for their pointless goals, I observed the facility as I walked to the entrance. It was large, surrounded by a sizeable wall and guarded by several uniformed Pandoras who stared just as much as those I left in the city. Within, the buildings and paths had a surprisingly heavy western European touch. The windows were tall, ending in thin arches at their tops, paths tiled with colorful stones trees lined the pathways and dotted the campus grounds in a manmade forest. I marched towards the main building the guards at the gate had pointed out to me when I heard the sounds of combat.

Interested in seeing the capabilities of my comrades I stepped off the tiled path and walked towards the clash of metal. I found a small clutch of young men and women dressed in odd clothing playing spectator to two armored women clashing in older Pandora armor models.

One had a multi-chain weapon with spikes on the end of each chain. The other wielded a large...sword? Four or five feet in length, the cutting end ran the whole length of one side that the wielder held pointed inwards to herself while offering the other blunt side to her enemy. A handle installed at the weapon's center it was a very odd and ridiculous sword. I'd appeared at the end of the fight apparently as the blade-wielder blurred passed the chain user, knocked her to the ground, and shattered her weapons and armor. Weapons broken and armor in tatters, the defeated chain Pandora started screaming obscenities. I could not help but grin, it had been years since I last saw such pure combat and honest bloodletting.

Two women in casual clothing appeared seemingly out of thin air with weapons of their own drawn and pointed at the victorious sword user,

"That's as far as this goes, Bridget L. Satellizer. We can't sit back and watch this any longer." Said one of the two women,

"The Pandora mode suits you are using are an old model, the academy doesn't have any backups, so we have legitimate fear of the students going overboard," Continued the other pressing a knife to this "Satellizer's" neck, "Release Pandora mode," She demanded, "Right now." Satellizer's armor disintegrated replaced by a frillier variation of the uniform other females in the crowd were wearing. Strange, I'd not seen soldiers like this before. In fact, as I looked around I noticed that the number of females badly outnumbered the males and that every single one of the women worse a girlish, somewhat revealing, dress while the men wore casual suits. If I hadn't seen the earlier clash I would've thought this was a civilian school, not a military academy.

The crowd dispersed, whispering nervously to themselves, when I noticed a boy sprawled on the ground, a woman helping him up and offering support. Face warped with anxiety and fear he looked familiar, as if I'd met him before. I was on-duty however and had already diverted from my main objective to witness this scuffle. I turned on my heel and resumed marching to the main building in search of the Headmistress.