Logan limped onto the final evacuation shuttle, the Veteran's corpse over his shoulder, with Emerson and Commander Larkin following right behind him. The old man's granddaughter held onto Logan's free hand tightly.
He stopped and turned to Emerson. "Wait... Where are Jeremy and Sarah?" Logan inquired, raising an eyebrow.
"They're helping the medical team load up any remaining wounded. Why?"
He didn't respond. Instead, he continued into the shuttle and gently placed the body into a black bag.
BANG!
Logan jumped up and sprinted out the door onto the shuttle's ramp just in time to witness his best friend aiming a Bolt Pistol at the small girl. To his right, his wife laying in a pool of her own blood.
BANG!
The little girl fell to the ground. Logan sprinted over to her, tears springing in his eyes. He looked at her broken and bleeding body: her right arm from the shoulder was missing.
"M-Mister?" she meakly croaked out. "M-Mister, please... Please make the hurting stop," she begged. She was losing a massive amount of blood, and hardly had the energy to cry out in pain.
Logan nodded slowly. He unsheathed his claws right into the girl's chest, ending her suffering quickly.
"Logan... Back on Axia, you said that the Emperor works in mysterious ways. I have since learned that this is incorrect. The Emperor doesn't work in any way, shape or form because he is dead. Tzeentch is the one who weaves the web of fate."
The Trader looked up from the little girl's corpse. His eyes widened in disbelief, tears still fresh. "Heretic... HERETIC!" Logan shouted, as he rose to his feet.
"Logan, just submit. It's so much easier." Jeremy tempted.
"Never," came the snarled reply.
"Very well then." Jeremy opened his palm.
With a sickening screech, Sarah's ornate power sword began lifting and dragging across the floor on its own, sliding to the man who was once his best friend as if by an invisible ha-
On instinct, Logan started forward and hurled himself into Jeremy's chest, his superior bulk slamming the wind out of the latter and landing them both on the ground. A blue-white shard of light exploded forth in reply, blowing him off; Jeremy's arm was sizzling with arcane energy, as mad and chaotic as the grin on his face.
"WITCH!"
The sword finally left the ground and settled in a glowing hand.
"Loyalist Dog!"
They threw themselves at each other.
Throughout the zone, the final sounds of battle rumbled from the city over clanging and crashing of former brothers. Logan choked with grief and rage, Jeremy with glee and satisfaction, and they traded blow for blow with their weapons howling with bursts of energy fields colliding.
A nick here, a cut there. Humming energy misses the Trader's face by inches. Claws nearly remove a limb.
One hundred and fourty seconds later, Jeremy Hess had begun to tire. His wounds bled copiously, several of them cauterised; in desperation, he parried another furious swipe and leapt out of Logan's range, raising an arm in anticipation. Crates began to creak and shudder.
Logan tried to rush him, but the numerous cargo-carriers lying about the evacuation zone began flying at him like meteors - he sliced a few apart before one slammed into him from behind, knocking him flat over the floor.
There was no sign of the heretic-sorcerer. Crates rocketed at him as if buoyed by a terrible windstorm only they could feel, forcing him to duck and roll away from the huge whistling loads that seemed to choose his blind spots.
He'd had enough of this. Bracing himself, he leapt onto a passing crate and yanked himself onto it. It was like riding a grox, if the grox was hard, flat and vibrating with terrible energy.
There he was: the traitor himself, trying to spot Logan through the howling storm of metal he'd created. Howlett kicked off his mount and twisted in the air, soaring directly at the man who he'd trusted with his life until just now. Too late, Jeremy looked up; his face changed from concentration to absolute shock at the sight of the huge man barreling towards him -
Claws met flesh and bit deeply, spraying the ground with viscera and bits of bone. The gale of crates stopped as abruptly as it had started, only to crash loudly to earth, their unnatural grasp of flight ended with a mist of blood peppering Logan's tear-streaked face.
Hess collapsed down to the ground, now laying pool in his own blood. Logan retracted his claws and wiped the blood from his face.
Jeremy coughed, "J-Just... Finish it."
Blood steadily poured from the three claw wounds on the traitor's chest. Upon closer inspection, Logan's attack should've been an instant kill. The traitor's heart had been slashed open.
"You're begging me to end your suffering? After everything you've done... a quick death is the least you deserve." Howlett growled through gritted teeth.
"Please! Logan... I'm bleeding out here. It hurts so much," The Heretic pleaded, "Just fucking kill me! You and I both know that you're thinking about it."
"Make sure to give Tzeentch my regards." Logan responded. With that, he turned around and walked to collect the bodies of the woman he loved and a small, innocent girl who barely had the chance to experience life.
