"The Rathalos has entered its rage state — watch for the roar and get clear!" Lin shouted over the comm.
He had already briefed the Astartes on how to handle a raging Rathalos before the hunt began. But theory doesn't always survive contact with reality.
The enraged Rathalos reared its neck back and let out a roar that shook the heavens. Sergeant Arlo and his two brothers immediately cut off their powered suits' auditory systems, trying to wall out the sound.
But the Rathalos's bellow was no mere noise. That roar — capable of carrying for dozens of kilometres — had whipped up a concussive pressure wave with the force of something almost solid. The enormous energy riding those sound waves hammered into the powered suits, physically driving back warriors who, armoured as they were, each weighed nearly half a tonne. They staggered, retreating step by step under the onslaught.
The sound also conducted through the metal of the powered suits as a solid medium, reaching ears that had already been sealed off. Even the Lyman's Ear implant — engineered to filter specific frequencies — could not stand against pressure of this magnitude. All three Astartes close to the beast grunted in pain. Blood ran from their ears, and their sense of balance deserted them entirely for a brief, terrifying moment.
The CMC squad providing fire support from further back fared somewhat better. They were shaken and uncomfortable, but at least they hadn't lost their footing and could keep shooting.
But the Rathalos, now fully in the grip of its rage, ignored their harassment as though it were nothing. It surged forward and set itself into another charging run — its target unmistakably Sergeant Arlo, still rooted to the spot, stunned by the roar.
Even with all his mental preparation, Lin had never imagined the Rathalos's roar could be this devastating.
He watched Sergeant Arlo, frozen and unable to move, with a deep frown. The powered suit's stability systems would keep a disoriented Astartes upright, planted firmly on the ground — but that was all. If he couldn't move, his fate would be no better than a tin can being cracked open by Saint Celestine herself.
Lin had no choice. He yanked out his plasma pistol and fired without even taking the time to charge it up — a desperate snap-shot. Fortunately, the Rathalos had a vivid memory of plasma fire. The last time that weapon had hurt it had left a lasting impression, and even in the heart of its rage, the beast instinctively jerked its head aside to dodge the incoming plasma bolt. That reflex threw the charge fractionally off-course and bled some of the momentum from the Rathalos's sprint.
Sergeant Arlo finally shook himself back to his senses. He threw himself sideways with everything he had and narrowly — barely — rolled clear of the charge. But before he could draw a single breath of relief, he saw what the cunning beast had done: using that stolen moment of deflection, the Rathalos had somehow wrenched itself through a drifting turn mid-charge, converting the redirected momentum into a course change. Its new target was no longer Sergeant Arlo — it was another Astartes who had only just recovered, power sword still in hand.
"No!"
Sergeant Arlo's eyes went wide with horror, but there was no stopping the charge. The Rathalos slammed into the Astartes at full speed, launching him clean off the ground. The impact sent him carving a long parabolic arc through the air before he disappeared into the treeline. Nothing followed — no movement, no sound — only the cloud of dust kicked up by the collision.
Sergeant Arlo and the remaining Astartes tried to press in and stop the Rathalos while it was still bleeding off speed from the charge. They never got the chance. The moment the Rathalos halted, it whipped around without warning and hurled a massive boulder — dislodged from the cliff face by the earlier collision — directly at the leading Astartes.
He had no time to dodge. The boulder connected dead-on. He was still breathing — they could hear it through the comm — but he was down, and down hard. Grievously wounded.
In barely half a minute, the three-man close-combat team had been reduced to Sergeant Arlo alone. The Rathalos had seized the momentum entirely and was now demonstrating the full, crushing weight of its power. Its relentless, overwhelming assault had driven the entire hunting party to the edge of collapse in a single terrible exchange.
Watching his brothers fall, Sergeant Arlo saw red. He raised his power sword and moved to close with the Rathalos — but Lin's voice cut through before he could.
"Stay sharp, Sergeant Arlo!" Lin called out. "This Rathalos is burning its last reserves. This is a death rattle, nothing more. If you go hand-to-hand now, you're doing its work for it — giving it a chance to conserve energy. Fall back. Force it to use the charge sprint to close the distance!"
Sergeant Arlo was furious, but his head was still in the fight. He obeyed, pulling away from the Rathalos without hesitation. At the same moment, Lieutenant Vigan rolled clear of his firing position and hurled another Flashbomb. It didn't stop the Rathalos — the beast had built up some resistance to the blinding light by now — but in the brief window while it squeezed its eyes shut against the flare, Lieutenant Vigan dragged the critically wounded Astartes clear of the battlefield.
Now only Sergeant Arlo remained on the field, keeping his distance from the Rathalos. The beast was hungry for a kill, but Sergeant Arlo refused to give it one.
He circled the Rathalos with measured patience. Without the roar to stun his prey first, the beast launched charge after charge — and every single one came up empty. Gradually, the burning rage began to ebb, replaced by laboured, heaving breaths, and beneath that, the survival instinct that had been drowned out by fury slowly clawing its way back to the surface of its mind.
The gunfire it had shrugged off in its rage state had not been without cost. The moment that pain-ignoring frenzy lifted, every bit of exhaustion and damage it had accumulated crashed down on it all at once.
The Rathalos let out a low whine and stopped charging. Badly wounded now, it understood it could not finish off this last opponent quickly. The only thought left in its head was escape.
It opened its jaws wide and let out one last threatening roar — a final bluff — then gathered its limbs and bolted on all fours, sprinting away from the battlefield. It ignored Sergeant Arlo's shouted curses and the rounds still punching into its body. It had one goal: flee, as fast as it could, as far as it could go.
Lieutenant Vigan threw another Flashbomb in a last-ditch attempt to stop it, but the Rathalos — expecting exactly this — swatted it away with one claw. The Flashbomb detonated off to the side and ended up blocking Sergeant Arlo's own pursuit instead.
Turning aside to shield his eyes from the Flashbomb, Sergeant Arlo accepted the truth: they could no longer stop the Rathalos from escaping on their own. He could only put his hope in the one person who had been waiting ahead, prepared for exactly this moment.
"Lin!" He tore off his helmet, revealing a face smeared with blood. "Stop it!"
Lin said nothing. He simply stood in the Rathalos's path of retreat, solar axe in hand.
The Rathalos had long since spotted him. But in its current state it had no strength left for revenge. The wounds Lin had carved into it earlier made it wary; it hunched low, pressing itself close to the ground, and prepared to make its final charge.
It was staking its life on this last run — fighting back in the only way it had ever known.
But Lin felt no pity. He would simply crush whatever hope this Rathalos had left.
Author's Note: The primary damage output of plasma weapons is heat and explosive shockwave, but plasma is also an excellent electrical conductor. What I was going for is that the conventional damage modes of plasma — the heat and blast — have been heavily suppressed in this context, but its conductive properties make it a particularly effective targeted weapon against certain dragon-type creatures.
I didn't convey that well enough and it caused some confusion, so I'm adding this note to clarify separately.
There will be an explanation later in the story for why heat weapons are weakened here — there's still a bit more to that particular thread.