I Am Dante, Lord of the Cursed.

[teblin]

I have lived far longer than I should have. My soul should have

departed from my ancient body and joined the Great Angel in oblivion,

but the future holds events that even the greatest psykers, my brother

Mephiston among them, cannot foretell.

 

 

 

It is said that a figure in gleaming gold shall stand before the

Emperor in the Imperium's darkest hour, and fight to defend the Golden

Throne and the Lord of Men who sits upon it.

 

 

 

If it were not for this, I would be prepared to sacrifice myself

on the field of battle as my time has lasted longer than it should have.

But this approaching final fight keeps the flame burning in my spirit. I

have stared death in the face a thousand times, but it seems I am not

to die until my destiny has been fulfilled.

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

Across the galaxy the Blood Angels fight with all their strength, day

after day, year after year. They cry their Primarch's name and dedicate

each victory to him, even though he was slain ten thousand years ago.

Before their battle even begins, their armour is already a stark blood

red, the Blood Angels embody the resource that keeps the Imperium alive:

blood. It is spilled every waking second in the galaxy, and without

bloodshed the Age of Man would quickly fade into history. The Angels of

Death are prepared to lay down their lives for their Primarch and

Emperor on the field of battle, so long as they die in the knowledge

that they have fought hard, and not been found wanting, death is never

something to be feared.

 

 

 

But slowly, the Blood Angels are dying from their innate flaws, both

gifts and curses, the Black Rage and the Red Thirst. While they grant a

Blood Angel unmatched stamina, zeal and combat prowess, this comes at

the cost of sanity and reason. The Death of the Great Angel still haunts

his gene-sons to this day, and every Battle-brother that succumbs to

the Rage becomes one with him, and when the Axe of the Executioner or

the bullet or sword of the enemy brings this Angel's fall, both son and

father are joined in death while the living fight for what's left to

fight for. Unless a cure can be found for the gene-curses, the Blood

Angels will one day be utterly and wholly consumed by rage.

 

 

 

It is through their flaws and suffering that the Blood Angels share a

level of empathy with the common man of the Imperium that no other

Chapter can hope to match. The humble man has to fight for survival, for

the right to live, while the Sons of Sanguinius must fight to keep hold

of their sanity. They suffer together, for their Emperor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once again, after ten thousand years of war, the Blood Angels fight

again. A world which meant very little to the Blood Angels until

recently, Solaris Prime, is said to contain a secret laboratory once

used by Sanguinius himself, and his chief Apothecaries, to perfect the

gene-seed of his sons and protect them against future corruption and

mutation. The world fell to the temptations of Chaos many millenia ago

when worlds burned and fell before the Arch-Traitor Horus, and is now

infested with daemons and hellspawn. There can be no guarantee that the

underground vaults are even accessible, let alone intact, but Dante is

more than willing to try when an opportunity to save his brothers from

damnation presents itself.

 

"Are you certain the benefits of this course of action outweigh the risks,

my lord?" A circle of Captains surround the majestic Dante. "Brothers,

fellow sons of Sanguinius, what lies beneath that planet's rotten crust

is something so valuable its uncovering could mark the single most

important moment in our Chapter's history. Make haste, and plot a

course immediately. There is no time to be lost, we have waited too long

for this opportunity." His will exacted without question, the Blood Angels

fleet plotted its course through the warp and carved its way towards what

Dante hoped was a proud and unimaginably glorious future for his Chapter.

 

 

Within minutes of reaching the planet's airspace, the Strike Cruisers

begin to launch their Drop Pods. Like tears of blood, the pods rain from

the sky to exact hateful retribution upon the foes of the Imperium, and

to begin a quest that may end the cursed flaws that inhabit the soul of

every Blood Angel.

 

 

 

 

 

As the first sons of Sanguinius make planetfall the planet's cursed

inhabitants can do little but await their own demise. Captain Karlaen,

Shield of Baal, steps firmly and proudly into another battle that may be

his last. But Space Marines are fear incarnate, and such thoughts

rarely, if ever, enter their minds. An ex-Astartes of the Death Guard,

waiting in a trench, raises his arm to throw a grenade, but before it

leaves his grip Karlaen calmly levels his plasma pistol and

fires, vaporising the Plague Marine's elbow, cutting his arm in half.

The confused Plague Marine looks down to where his arm was a second

before. He looks up again to see the glowing muzzle of a plasma pistol

aimed squarely at his head. Before he can move, a blob of super-heated

plasma reduces his head to molten waste.

 

 

 

The Drop Pod has been emptied of its occupants, and a squad of

Sternguard Veterans follow Karlaen into the maelstorm Karlaen briefly

glances up, the sight of dozens of drop pods heralding the arrival of

his Battle-brothers. The majority of the 1st Company and all four Battle

Companies had been assigned to Solaris Prime, the potential value of

the planet convincing Dante it was worth the deployment of fully half of

his Chapter.

 

 

 

The Sternguard load Kraken Bolts, which make short work of even the

ultra-resilient Plague Marines. Great gouges are carved from their

putrified flesh, limbs are blown off, but the majority aren't killed.

The wounded are finished off before they can return fire, the Sternguard

moving in close to deliver head shots. The Plague Marines that remained

in the trench now leap out, wielding great and foul axes, swords and

mauls, dripping with foul contagion and disease. Around 20 Death Guard

are relentlessly stepping through the hail of fire, ignoring injuries

that would make even a Space Marine fall, stomachs torn open and

entrails hanging out, parts of their brains exposed through shattered

skull. Karlaen's plasma pistol proves potent enough to stop a number in

their tracks, but the majority crash into the Sternguard's firing

position and begin a brutal melee. Empowered by Father Nurgle, the

Plague Marines' disgusting weaponry bludgeons some of the Sternguard

into submission, horrific infections, boils and pus, appearing in

patches across their skin. Brother Arinam, a member of the Sternguard

for almost 4 decades, was brought coughing and wheezing to his knees

after his skin was flayed by a plague sword, unspeakably foul bacteria

entering his bloodstream and dismantling him from the inside. With one

final wheeze his skin turns deathly pale and he vomits blood through his

white lips, his dead body lying crumpled in the dirt.

 

 

 

"TO ME, BROTHERS!" bellows Karlaen over his built-in helmet vox

system. A deep rumbling signals the descent of Angels, the Assault

Marines scream from the sky, their jump packs glowing blue-white as they

fly with unbound fury toward the foe. The Sergeant, wielding a mighty

and ancient Thunder Hammer, holds it above his head and swings it into

the ground with his impact. A wave of pure energy shatters the bodies of

the group of Plague Marines he landed amongst, their corrupted, rusting

armour disintegrating and their bare, vile flesh peeling away, as if

reeling from the Hammer, the Emperor's wrath incarnate. The Sergeant

lifts the Hammer's bulk, servos in his arms wheezing, and he makes a

one-handed swinging arc, the Hammer smashing into a Plague Marine

approaching him from behind. The Hammer's disruptive energy field knocks

the heretic aside as if he were a rag doll, knocked over a nearby cliff

as he tumbles to his death.

 

 

 

Behind the Sergeant, the roars of Chainswords rise above the din of

battle, the scream of adamantine teeth against corrupted plate and

flesh. An Assault Marine wielding a Bolt Pistol in each hand looses a

volley into a Plague Champion at point blank range, each bolt's

detonation knocking him back a step. The Marine empties both magazines,

and after a flurry of explosions and displaced gore, most of the

Champion's torso has been blown away. Before the Champion could stand up

again (the injuries were horrific, but he could feel no pain), the

Sergeant turned his Thunder Hammer round and gripped it with both hands

at the top of the grip, the Hammer's head hovering vertically above the

Champion. "Die, traitor! Your day of judgement is upon you!" The

Champion managed a gurgling roar from his steaming helmet grille before

the Sergeant rammed the Hammer down into his stomach, severing his body

and leaving him in half. The Sergeant lifted up the remaining half of

the Plague Champion, carrying him in front of himself. He marched over

to the cliff a Plague Marine had recently been cast down, and lifted the

Champion up, holding him by his arms. "Damnation be upon you, heretic."

The Sergeant forced his armoured boot into the Champion's chest,

severing it from his rotting arms. The armless torso tumbled down into

the mist, leaving the Sergeant with a dismembered arm in each hand.