Editing Battle of Rai (section)

===Mind Breakers vs. Scale Bearers===

The Void Angels and the Entombed were not alone on Rai: a third Loyalist Legion was present. A small force of [[Scale Bearers]] led by Captain Parris Rolfis followed the two Legions in their pursuit of the Life Bringers, lending their help wherever they could. While Rolfis was somewhat dissatisfied with the role of an errand boy for the two Legions, he never complained to anyone, for he took his duty very seriously. Besides, the Scale Bearers empathised with the Entombed, as both Legions knew the pain of losing their Primarch during the onset of the Heresy. Their force included no battleships, so they couldn't take part in the naval clash over Rai; instead, at the request of Gaspard Lumey, they were sent to the surface ahead of the main forces to scout out the landing sites and dispatch any enemy forces that may be preparing an ambush. With a heavy heart, Rolfis ordered his men and their Sors to board the transports that would take them to the plague jungles of Rai.

The Scale Bearers were not randomly chosen for the scouting role. They needed to quickly comb a large area of thick jungle where no vehicle could pass, especially not the bikes typically used for such purposes. However, the sons of [[Tiran Osoros|Tiran]] possessed an alternative to bikes that worked perfectly in jungle conditions: their Sor mounts. Nimble and fleet of foot, these reptiles felt at home in the feverish thickets planted by [[Nikephoros Galen]]. The Sors hadn't been in regular use before the Heresy broke out, and remained rare even afterwards. This made the decision to deploy them in sufficient numbers for this scouting operation extremely difficult for Rolfis, but the Entombed insisted on the importance of this mission. After holding a brief council with the other commanders under his leadership, he made the difficult decision to meet the demands of their allies and dedicated a lot of the surviving reptilian mounts to the operation.

Although the Scale Bearers encountered no enemies at all during their first hours scouting the jungle, they had the uncomfortable feeling of being watched throughout, like if the trees themselves had eyes. Ironically, this was absolutely correct, as the mutated trees created by Galen's twisted genius did indeed have sensory organs and closely monitored every step of the intruders, sending all the data they gathered to the commanding officers of the Life Bringers via the neural network of their roots. Galen and Sachs watched the movement of their foes with interest, waiting for a perfect moment to strike. Finally, the Scale Bearers all congregated in one large clearing, allowing to finish them all off in a single decisive strike that would dampen the morals of the rest of the Loyalists. Much to his contentment, Captain Ewen Jolyon was dispatched to destroy the intruders.

Captain Jolly, as Jolyon was habitually known amongst his battle brothers, was a genius psychologist who honed the art of psychological conditioning and hypnosis to perfection. So skilful was he at his craft that he could put entire enemy units to sleep during combat engagements, but he had something far more sinister in mind for the Scale Bearers than a couple of nightmares. When his forces suddenly came upon Rolfis's men from the thick of the jungle, the Scale Bearers initially didn't know what to expect from their strange weapons. Instead of the usual bolters or heavy weapons they were armed with hypnoprojectors - diabolical apparatuses of Jolyon's design that combined infrasound emitters and stroboscopic lights to directly control and alter the subconscious of their targets. The first barrage of the hypnoprojectors seemingly had no effect, and Rolfis ordered his men to charge, only to notice that the Sors no longer obeyed them. Only when the reptiles started throwing their riders off and trampling them did the Scale Bearers realise what the Life Bringers actually did. Instead of the Space Marines, Jolyon targeted their loyal mounts, who were far more susceptible to hypnosis due to their primitive brains.

A lot of the Scale Bearers perished on the spot, not expecting a betrayal from their reptilian friends. Many of those who survived hesitated raising the chainsword against their mounts and died to their dripping fangs. Rolfis's voice trembled when he ordered his men to slay their Sors, as these beasts were as close as family to them. Pushing through pain, the Scale Bearers reluctantly turned their weapons against their best friends. Jolyon and his clique were watching with wicked glee from afar, preferring to let the Sors finish their masters. But they underestimated the combat prowess of the sons of Tiran - after a heated battle, all of the reptiles lay on the ground dying, finally free from the mad psychologist's spell. With their mounts dead, the Scale Bearers finally turned their attention to the Life Bringers. But Jolyon was a spineless coward, and, instead of accepting a fair fight, he preferred to retreat with his men back into the jungle, thinking frantically of another way to deal with the Loyalists.

The loss of the Sors was the last straw for Rolfis. He was fed up with being ordered around by the crazed Entombed and heartless Void Angels, while his heart was with the rest of his Legion. He longed to fight the Iron Rangers and avenge the murder of his Primarch, but instead he was stuck on this world, doomed to die in a war that was not his. After consulting with his lieutenants, who apparently shared his sentiment, Rolfis ordered his troops to withdraw and leave the Rai system. Their allies didn't take kindly to this decision. While Lumey was disgusted by it and called Rolfis a coward, Cardinal Merik was truly enraged even by his personal standards. In a bout of uncontrollable fury, he accused Rolfis of siding with the traitors and ordered his ships to shoot down the Scale Bearer transports before they reached the orbit, but thankfully a lag in his chain of command prevented this from happening.